diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 20356-8.txt | 3197 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 20356-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 56985 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 20356.txt | 3197 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 20356.zip | bin | 0 -> 56947 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
7 files changed, 6410 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20356-8.txt b/20356-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ff07eb --- /dev/null +++ b/20356-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3197 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hero and Leander and Other Poems, by +Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hero and Leander and Other Poems + +Author: Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + +Editor: Ernest Rhys + +Release Date: January 14, 2007 [EBook #20356] + +Language: English - Latin + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERO AND LEANDER AND OTHER POEMS *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + HERO AND LEANDER + + AND OTHER POEMS + + BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Hero and Leander, by Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + +Minor poems by Christopher Marlowe + +- The Passionate Shepherd To His Love + +- Fragment, first printed in "England's Parnassus," 1600 + +- In obitum honoratissimi viri, Rogeri Manwood, militis, + Quæstorii Reginalis Capitalis Baronis + +- Dialogue in Verse + + + + + + + + + HERO AND LEANDER + + By Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + + TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL SIR THOMAS + WALSINGHAM, KNIGHT. + + Sir, we think not ourselves discharged of the duty we owe +to our friend when we have brought the breathless body to +the earth; for, albeit the eye there taketh his ever-farewell +of that beloved object, yet the impression of the man that +hath been dear unto us, living an after-life in our memory, +there putteth us in mind of farther obsequies due unto the +deceased; and namely of the performance of whatsoever we +may judge shall make to his living credit and to the effecting +of his determinations prevented by the stroke of death. +By these meditations (as by an intellectual will) I suppose +myself executor to the unhappily deceased author of this +poem; upon whom knowing that in his lifetime you bestowed +many kind favours, entertaining the parts of reckoning and +worth which you found in him with good countenance and +liberal affection, I cannot but see so far into the will of him +dead, that whatsoever issue of his brain should chance to +come abroad, that the first breath it should take might be +the gentle air of your liking; for, since his self had been +accustomed thereunto, it would prove more agreeable and +thriving to his right children than any other foster counten- +ance whatsoever. At this time seeing that this unfinished +tragedy happens under my hands to be imprinted, of a +double duty, the one to yourself, the other to the deceased, +I present the same to your most favourable allowance, +offering my utmost self now and ever to be ready at your +worship's disposing. + EDWARD BLUNT. + + +Note: The first two Sestiads were written by Marlowe; the last four by +Chapman, who supplied also the Arguments for the six Sestiads. + +THE FIRST SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST SESTIAD + + Hero's description and her love's; + The fane of Venus where he moves + His worthy love-suit, and attains; + Whose bliss the wrath of Fates restrains + For Cupid's grace to Mercury: + Which tale the author doth imply. + + +On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood, +In view and opposite two cities stood, +Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might; +The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight. +At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair, +Whom young Apollo courted for her hair, +And offer'd as a dower his burning throne, +Where she should sit, for men to gaze upon. +The outside of her garments were of lawn, +The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; +Her wide sleeves green, and border'd with a grove, +Where Venus in her naked glory strove +To please the careless and disdainful eyes +Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; +Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, +Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain. +Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath, +From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath: +Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves, +Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives: +Many would praise the sweet smell as she past, +When 'twas the odour which her breath forth cast; +And there for honey bees have sought in vain, +And, beat from thence, have lighted there again. +About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone, +Which, lighten'd by her neck, like diamonds shone. +She ware no gloves; for neither sun nor wind +Would burn or parch her hands, but, to her mind, +Or warm or cool them, for they took delight +To play upon those hands, they were so white. +Buskins of shell, all silver'd, used she, +And branch'd with blushing coral to the knee; +Where sparrows perch'd, of hollow pearl and gold, +Such as the world would wonder to behold: +Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills, +Which, as she went, would cherup through the bills. +Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin'd, +And, looking in her face, was strooken blind. +But this is true; so like was one the other, +As he imagin'd Hero was his mother; +And oftentimes into her bosom flew, +About her naked neck his bare arms threw, +And laid his childish head upon her breast, +And, with still panting rock, there took his rest. +So lovely-fair was Hero, Venus' nun, +As Nature wept, thinking she was undone, +Because she took more from her than she left, +And of such wondrous beauty her bereft: +Therefore, in sign her treasure suffer'd wrack, +Since Hero's time hath half the world been black. + Amorous Leander, beautiful and young, +(Whose tragedy divine Musæus sung,) +Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none +For whom succeeding times make greater moan. +His dangling tresses, that were never shorn, +Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne, +Would have allur'd the venturous youth of Greece +To hazard more than for the golden fleece. +Fair Cynthia wish'd his arms might be her sphere; +Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there. +His body was as straight as Circe's wand; +Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand. +Even as delicious meat is to the tast, +So was his neck in touching, and surpast +The white of Pelops' shoulder: I could tell ye, +How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly; +And whose immortal fingers did imprint +That heavenly path with many a curious dint +That runs along his back; but my rude pen +Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men, +Much less of powerful gods: let it suffice +That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes; +Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his +That leapt into the water for a kiss +Of his own shadow, and, despising many, +Died ere he could enjoy the love of any. +Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen, +Enamour'd of his beauty had he been: +His presence made the rudest peasant melt, +That in the vast uplandish country dwelt; +The barbarous Thracian soldier, mov'd with nought, +Was mov'd with him, and for his favour sought. +Some swore he was a maid in man's attire, +For in his looks were all that men desire,-- +A pleasant-smiling cheek, a speaking eye, +A brow for love to banquet royally; +And such as knew he was a man, would say, +"Leander, thou art made for amorous play: +Why art thou not in love, and lov'd of all? +Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall." + The men of wealthy Sestos every year, +For his sake whom their goddess held so dear, +Rose-cheek'd Adonis, kept a solemn feast: +Thither resorted many a wandering guest +To meet their loves: such as had none at all, +Came lovers home from this great festival; +For every street, like to a firmament, +Glister'd with breathing stars, who, where they went, +Frighted the melancholy earth, which deem'd +Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem'd, +As if another Phaëton had got +The guidance of the sun's rich chariot. +But, far above the loveliest, Hero shin'd, +And stole away th' enchanted gazer's mind; +For like sea nymphs' inveigling harmony, +So was her beauty to the standers by; +Nor that night-wandering, pale, and watery star +(When yawning dragons draw her thirling car +From Latmus' mount up to the gloomy sky, +Where, crown'd with blazing light and majesty, +She proudly sits) more over-rules the flood +Than she the hearts of those that near her stood. +Even as when gaudy nymphs pursue the chase, +Wretched Ixion's shaggy-footed race, +Incens'd with savage heat, gallop amain +From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain, +So ran the people forth to gaze upon her, +And all that view'd her were enamour'd on her: +And as in fury of a dreadful fight, +Their fellows being slain or put to flight, +Poor soldiers stand with fear of death dead-strooken, +So at her presence all surpris'd and tooken, +Await the sentence of her scornful eyes; +He whom she favours lives; the other dies: +There might you see one sigh; another rage; +And some, their violent passions to assuage +Compile sharp satires; but, alas, too late! +For faithful love will never turn to hate; +And many, seeing great princes were denied, +Pin'd as they went, and thinking on her died. +On this feast-day,--O cursed day and hour!-- +Went Hero thorough Sestos, from her tower +To Venus' temple, where unhappily, +As after chanc'd, they did each other spy. +So fair a church as this had Venus none: +The walls were of discolour'd jasper-stone, +Wherein was Proteus carv'd; and over-head +A lively vine of green sea-agate spread, +Where by one hand light-headed Bacchus hung, +And with the other wine from grapes out-wrung. +Of crystal shining fair the pavement was; +The town of Sestos call'd it Venus' glass: +There might you see the gods, in sundry shapes, +Committing heady riots, incest, rapes; +For know, that underneath this radiant flour +Was Danäe's statue in a brazen tower; +Jove slily stealing from his sister's bed, +To dally with Idalian Ganymed, +And for his love Europa bellowing loud, +And tumbling with the Rainbow in a cloud; +Blood-quaffing Mars heaving the iron net +Which limping Vulcan and his Cyclops set; +Love kindling fire, to burn such towns as Troy; +Silvanus weeping for the lovely boy +That now is turn'd into a cypress-tree, +Under whose shade the wood-gods love to be. +And in the midst a silver altar stood: +There Hero, sacrificing turtle's blood, +Vail'd to the ground, veiling her eyelids close; +And modestly they open'd as she rose: +Thence flew Love's arrow with the golden head; +And thus Leander was enamoured. +Stone-still he stood, and evermore he gaz'd, +Till with the fire, that from his countenance blaz'd, +Relenting Hero's gentle heart was strook: +Such force and virtue hath an amorous look. + It lies not in our power to love or hate, +For will in us is over-rul'd by fate. +When two are stript long ere the course begin, +We wish that one should lose, the other win; +And one especially do we affect +Of two gold ingots, like in each respect: +The reason no man knows; let it suffice, +What we behold is censur'd by our eyes. +Where both deliberate, the love is slight: +Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight? + He kneel'd; but unto her devoutly pray'd: +Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said, +"Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him;" +And, as she spake those words, came somewhat near him. +He started up; she blush'd as one asham'd; +Wherewith Leander much more was inflam'd. +He touch'd her hand; in touching it she trembled: +Love deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled. +These lovers parled by the touch of hands: +True love is mute, and oft amazed stands. +Thus while dumb signs their yielding hearts entangled, +The air with sparks of living fire was spangled; +And Night, deep-drench'd in misty Acheron, +Heav'd up her head, and half the world upon +Breath'd darkness forth (dark night is Cupid's day): +And now begins Leander to display +Love's holy fire, with words, with sighs, and tears; +Which, like sweet music, enter'd Hero's ears; +And yet at every word she turn'd aside, +And always cut him off, as he replied. +At last, like to a bold sharp sophister, +With cheerful hope thus he accosted her. +"Fair creature, let me speak without offence: +I would my rude words had the influence +To lead thy thoughts as thy fair looks do mine! +Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine. +Be not unkind and fair; mis-shapen stuff +Are of behaviour boisterous and rough. +O, shun me not, but hear me ere you go! +God knows, I cannot force love as you do: +My words shall be as spotless as my youth, +Full of simplicity and naked truth. +This sacrifice, whose sweet perfume descending +From Venus' altar, to your footsteps bending, +Doth testify that you exceed her far, +To whom you offer, and whose nun you are. +Why should you worship her? her you surpass +As much as sparkling diamons flaring glass. +A diamond set in lead his worth retains; +A heavenly nymph, belov'd of human swains, +Receives no blemish, but oftimes more grace; +Which makes me hope, although I am but base, +Base in respect of thee divine and pure, +Dutiful service may thy love procure; +And I in duty will excel all other, +As thou in beauty dost exceed Love's mother. +Nor heaven nor thou were made to gaze upon: +As heaven preserves all things, so save thou one. +A stately builded ship, well rigg'd and tall, +The ocean maketh more majestical: +Why vow'st thou, then, to live in Sestos here, +Who on Love's seas more glorious wouldst appear? +Like untun'd golden strings all women are, +Which long time lie untouch'd, will harshly jar. +Vessels of brass, oft handed, brightly shine: +What difference betwixt the richest mine +And basest mould, but use? for both, not us'd, +Are of like worth. Then treasure is abus'd, +When misers keep it: being put to loan, +In time it will return us two for one. +Rich robes themselves and others do adorn; +Neither themselves nor others, if not worn. +Who builds a palace, and rams up the gate, +Shall see it ruinous and desolate: +Ah, simple Hero, learn thyself to cherish! +Lone women, like to empty houses, perish. +Less sins the poor rich man, that starves himself +In heaping up a mass of drossy pelf, +Than such as you: his golden earth remains, +Which, after his decease, some other gains; +But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone, +When you fleet hence, can be bequeath'd to none; +Or, if it could, down from th' enamell'd sky +All heaven would come to claim this legacy, +And with intestine broils the world destroy, +And quite confound Nature's sweet harmony. +Well therefore by the gods decreed it is, +We human creatures should enjoy that bliss. +One is no number; maids are nothing, then, +Without the sweet society of men. +Wilt thou live single still? one shalt thou be, +Though never singling Hymen couple thee. +Wild savages, that drink of running springs, +Think water far excels all earthly things; +But they, that daily taste neat wine, despise it: +Virginity, albeit some highly prize it, +Compar'd with marriage, had you tried them both, +Differs as much as wine and water doth. +Base bullion for the stamp's sake we allow: +Even so for men's impression do we you; +By which alone, our reverend fathers say, +Women receive perfection every way. +This idol, which you term virginity, +Is neither essence subject to the eye, +No, nor to any one exterior sense, +Nor hath it any place of residence, +Nor is't of earth or mould celestial, +Or capable of any form at all. +Of that which hath no being, do not boast: +Things that are not at all, are never lost. +Men foolishly do call it virtuous: +What virtue is it, that is born with us? +Much less can honour be ascrib'd thereto: +Honour is purchas'd by the deeds we do +Believe me, Hero, honour is not won, +Until some honourable deed be done. +Seek you, for chastity, immortal fame, +And know that some have wrong'd Diana's name? +Whose name is it, if she be false or not, +So she be fair, but some vile tongues will blot? +But you are fair, ay me! so wondrous fair, +So young, so gentle, and so debonair, +As Greece will think, if thus you live alone, +Some one or other keeps you as his own. +Then, Hero, hate me not, nor from me fly, +To follow swiftly blasting imfamy. +Perhaps thy sacred priesthood makes thee loath: +Tell me, to whom mad'st thou that heedless oath?" +"To Venus," answer'd she; and, as she spake, +Forth from those two tralucent cisterns brake +A stream of liquid pearl, which down her face +Made milk-white paths, whereon the gods might trace +To Jove's high court. He thus replied: "The rites +In which love's beauteous empress most delights, +Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel, +Plays, masks, and all that stern age counteth evil. +Thee as a holy idiot doth she scorn; +For thou, in vowing chastity, hast sworn +To rob her name and honour, and thereby +Committ'st a sin far worse than perjury, +Even sacrilege against her deity, +Through regular and formal purity. +To expiate which sin, kiss and shake hands: +Such sacrifice as this Venus demands." +Thereat she smil'd, and did deny him so, +As put thereby, yet might he hope for mo; +Which makes him quickly reinforce his speech, +And her in humble manner thus beseech: +"Though neither gods nor men may thee deserve, +Yet for her sake, whom you have vow'd to serve, +Abandon fruitless cold virginity. +The gentle queen of love's sole enemy. +Then shall you most resemble Venus' nun, +When Venus' sweet rites are perform'd and done. +Flint breasted Pallas joys in single life; +But Pallas and your mistress are at strife. +Love, Hero, then, and be not tyrannous; +But heal the heart that thou hast wounded thus; +Nor stain thy youthful years with avarice: +Fair fools delight to be accounted nice. +The richest corn dies, if it be not reapt; +Beauty alone is lost, too warily kept." +These arguments he us'd, and many more; +Wherewith she yielded, that was won before. +Hero's looks yielded, but her words made war: +Women are won when they begin to jar. +Thus, having swallow'd Cupid's golden hook, +The more she striv'd, the deeper was she strook: +Yet, evilly feigning anger, strove she still, +And would be thought to grant against her will. +So having paus'd a while, at last she said, +"Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid? +Ay me! such words as these should I abhor, +And yet I like them for the orator." +With that, Leander stoop'd to have embrac'd her, +But from his spreading arms away she cast her, +And thus bespake him: "Gentle youth, forbear +To touch the sacred garments which I wear. +Upon a rock, and underneath a hill, +Far from the town, (where all is whist and still, +Save that the sea, playing on yellow sand, +Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land, +Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus +In silence of the night to visit us,) +My turret stands; and there, God knows, I play +With Venus' swans and sparrows all the day. +A dwarfish beldam bears me company, +That hops about the chamber where I lie, +And spends the night, that might be better spent, +In vain discourse and apish merriment:-- +Come thither." As she spake this, her tongue tripp'd, +For unawares, "Come thither," from her slipp'd; +And suddenly her former colour chang'd, +And here and there her eyes through anger rang'd; +And, like a planet moving several ways +At one self instant, she, poor soul, assays, +Loving, not to love at all, and every part +Strove to resist the motions of her heart: +And hands so pure, so innocent, nay, such +As might have made Heaven stoop to have a touch, +Did she uphold to Venus, and again +Vow'd spotless chastity; but all in vain; +Cupid beats down her prayers with his wings; +Her vows about the empty air he flings: +All deep enrag'd, his sinewy bow he bent, +And shot a shaft that burning from him went; +Wherewith she strooken, look'd so dolefully, +As made Love sigh to see his tyranny; +And, as she wept, her tears to pearl he turn'd, +And wound them on his arm, and for her mourn'd. +Then towards the palace of the Destinies, +Laden with languishment and grief, he flies, +And to those stern nymphs humbly made request, +Both might enjoy each other, and be blest. +But with a ghastly dreadful countenance, +Threatening a thousand deaths at every glance, +They answer'd Love, nor would vouchsafe so much +As one poor word, their hate to him was such: +Hearken a while, and I will tell you why. + Heaven's winged herald, Jove-born Mercury, +The self-same day that he asleep had laid +Enchanted Argus, spied a country maid, +Whose careless hair, instead of pearl t'adorn it, +Glister'd with dew, as one that seem'd to scorn it; +Her breath as fragrant as the morning rose; +Her mind pure, and her tongue untaught to glose: +Yet proud she was (for lofty Pride that dwells +In towered courts, is oft in shepherds' cells), +And too-too well the fair vermilion knew +And silver tincture of her cheeks, that drew +The love of every swain. On her this god +Enamour'd was, and with his snaky rod +Did charm her nimble feet, and made her stay, +The while upon a hillock down he lay, +And sweetly on his pipe began to play, +And with smooth speech her fancy to assay, +Till in his twining arms her lock'd her fast, +And then he woo'd with kisses; and at last, +As shepherds do, her on the ground he laid, +And, tumbling in the grass, he often stray'd +Beyond the bounds of shame, in being bold +To eye those parts which no eye should behold; +And, like an insolent commanding lover, +Boasting his parentage, would needs discover +The way to new Elysium. But she, +Whose only dower was her chastity, +Having striven in vain, was now about to cry, +And crave the help of shepherds that were nigh. +Herewith he stay'd his fury, and began +To give her leave to rise: away she ran; +After went Mercury, who us'd such cunning, +As she, to hear his tale, left off her running; +(Maids are not won by brutish force and might +But speeches full of pleasure, and delight;) +And, knowing Hermes courted her, was glad +That she such loveliness and beauty had +As could provoke his liking; yet was mute, +And neither would deny nor grant his suit. +Still vow'd he love: she, wanting no excuse +To feed him with delays, as women use, +Or thirsting after immortality, +(All women are ambitious naturally,) +Impos'd upon her lover such a task, +As he ought not perform, nor yet she ask; +A draught of flowing nectar she requested, +Wherewith the king of gods and men is feasted. +He, ready to accomplish what she will'd, +Stole some from Hebe (Hebe Jove's cup fill'd), +And gave it to his simple rustic love: +Which being known,--as what is hid from Jove?-- +He inly storm'd, and wax'd more furious +Than for the fire filch'd by Prometheus; +And thrusts him down from heaven. He, wandering here, +In mournful terms, with sad and heavy cheer, +Complain'd to Cupid: Cupid, for his sake, +To be reveng'd on Jove did undertake; +And those on whom heaven, earth, and hell relies, +I mean the adamantine Destinies, +He wounds with love, and forc'd them equally +To dote upon deceitful Mercury. +They offer'd him the deadly fatal knife +That shears the slender threads of human life; +At his fair feather'd feet the engines laid, +Which th' earth from ugly Chaos' den upweigh'd. +These he regarded not; but did entreat +That Jove, usurper of his father's seat, +Might presently be banish'd into hell, +And aged Saturn in Olympus dwell. +They granted what he crav'd; and once again +Saturn and Ops began their golden reign: +Murder, rape, war, and lust, and treachery, +Were with Jove clos'd in Stygian empery. +But long this blessed time continu'd not: +As soon as he his wished purpose got, +He, reckless of his promise, did despise +The love of th' everlasting Destinies. +They, seeing it, both Love and him abhorr'd, +And Jupiter unto his place restor'd: +And, but that learning, in despite of Fate, +Will amount aloft, and enter heaven-gate, +And to the seat of Jove itself advance, +Hermes had slept in hell with Ignorance. +Yet, as a punishment, they added this, +That he and Poverty should always kiss +And to this day is every scholar poor: +Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor. +Likewise the angry Sisters, thus deluded, +To venge themselves on Hermes, have concluded +That Midas' brood shall sit in Honour's chair, +To which the Muses' sons are only heir; +And fruitful wits, that inaspiring are, +Shall discontent run into regions far; +And few great lords in virtuous deeds shall joy +But be surpris'd with every garish toy, +And still enrich the lofty servile clown, +Who with encroaching guile keeps learning down. +Then muse not Cupid's suit no better sped, +Seeing in their loves the Fates were injured. + + +THE SECOND SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND SESTIAD + + Hero of love takes deeper sense, + And doth her love more recompense: + Their first night's meeting, where sweet kisses + Are th' only crowns of both their blisses. + He swims t' Abydos, and returns: + Cold Neptune with his beauty burns; + Whose suit he shuns, and doth aspire + Hero's fair tower and his desire. + + +By this, sad Hero, with love unacquainted, +Viewing Leander's face, fell down and fainted. +He kiss'd her, and breath'd life into her lips; +Wherewith, as one displeas'd, away she trips; +Yet, as she went, full often look'd behind, +And many poor excuses did she find +To linger by the way, and once she stay'd, +And would have turn'd again, but was afraid, +In offering parley, to be counted light: +So on she goes, and, in her idle flight, +Her painted fan of curled plumes let fall, +Thinking to train Leander therewithal. +He, being a novice, knew not what she meant, +But stay'd, and after her a letter sent; +Which joyful Hero answer'd in such sort, +As he had hoped to scale the beauteous fort +Wherein the liberal Graces lock'd their wealth; +And therefore to her tower he got by stealth. +Wide-open stood the door; he need not climb; +And she herself, before the pointed time, +Had spread the board, with roses strew'd the room, +And oft look'd out, and mus'd he did not come. +At last he came: O, who can tell the greeting +These greedy lovers had at their first meeting? +He ask'd; she gave; and nothing was denied; +Both to each other quickly were affied: +Look how their hands, so were their hearts united, +And what he did, she willingly requited. +(Sweet are the kisses, the embracements sweet, +When like desires and like affections meet; +For from the earth to heaven is Cupid rais'd, +Where fancy is in equal balance pais'd.) +Yet she this rashness suddenly repented, +And turn'd aside, and to herself lamented, +As if her name and honour had been wrong'd, +By being possess'd of him for whom she long'd; +Ay, and she wish'd, albeit not from her heart, +That he would leave her turret and depart. +The mirthful god of amorous pleasure smil'd +To see how he this captive nymph beguil'd; +For hitherto he did but fan the fire, +And kept it down, that it might mount the higher. +Now wax'd she jealous lest his love abated, +Fearing her own thoughts made her to be hated. +Therefore unto him hastily she goes, +And, like light Salmacis, her body throws +Upon his bosom, where with yielding eyes +She offers up herself a sacrifice +To slake his anger, if he were displeas'd: +O, what god would not therewith be appeas'd? +Like Æsop's cock, this jewel he enjoy'd, +And as a brother with his sister toy'd, +Supposing nothing else was to be done, +Now he her favour and goodwill had won. +But know you not that creatures wanting sense, +By nature have a mutual appetence, +And, wanting organs to advance a step, +Mov'd by love's force, unto each other lep? +Much more in subjects having intellect +Some hidden influence breeds like effect. +Albeit Leander, rude in love and raw, +Long dallying with Hero, nothing saw +That might delight him more, yet he suspected +Some amorous rites or other were neglected. +Therefore unto his body hers he clung: +She, fearing on the rushes to be flung, +Striv'd with redoubled strength; the more she striv'd, +The more a gentle pleasing heat reviv'd, +Which taught him all that elder lovers know; +And now the same gan so to scorch and glow, +As in plain terms, yet cunningly, he crave it: +Love always makes those eloquent that have it. +She, with a kind of granting, put him by it, +And ever, as he thought himself most nigh it, +Like to the tree of Tantalus, she fled, +And, seeming lavish, sav'd her maidenhead. +Ne'er king more sought to keep his diadem, +Than Hero this inestimable gem: +Above our life we love a steadfast friend; +Yet when a token of great worth we send, +We often kiss it, often look thereon, +And stay the messenger that would be gone; +No marvel, then, though Hero would not yield +So soon to part from that she dearly held: +Jewels being lost are found again; this never; +'Tis lost but once, and once lost, lost for ever. + Now had the Morn espied her lover's steeds; +Whereat she starts, puts on her purple weeds, +And, red for anger that he stay'd so long, +All headlong throws herself the clouds among. +And now Leander, fearing to be miss'd, +Embrac'd her suddenly, took leave, and kiss'd: +Long was he taking leave, and loathe to go, +And kiss'd again, as lovers use to do. +Sad Hero wrung him by the hand, and wept, +Saying, "Let your vows and promises be kept": +Then standing at the door, she turn'd about, +As loathe to see Leander going out. +And now the sun, that through th' horizon peeps, +As pitying these lovers, downward creeps; +So that in silence of the cloudy night, +Though it was morning, did he take his flight. +But what the secret trusty night conceal'd, +Leander's amorous habit soon reveal'd: +With Cupid's myrtle was his bonnet crown'd, +About his arms the purple riband wound, +Wherewith she wreath'd her largely-spreading hair; +Nor could the youth abstain, but he must wear +The sacred ring wherewith she was endow'd, +When first religious chastity she vow'd; +Which made his love through Sestos to be known, +And thence unto Abydos sooner blown +Than he could sail; for incorporeal Fame, +Whose weight consists in nothing but her name, +Is swifter than the wind, whose tardy plumes +Are reeking water and dull earthly fumes. + Home when he came, he seem'd not to be there, +But, like exiled air thrust from his sphere, +Set in a foreign place; and straight from thence, +Alcides-like, by mighty violence, +He would have chas'd away the swelling main, +That him from her unjustly did detain. +Like as the sun in a diameter +Fires and inflames objects removed far, +And heateth kindly, shining laterally; +So beauty sweetly quickens when 'tis nigh, +But being separated and remov'd, +Burns where it cherish'd, murders where it lov'd. +Therefore even as an index to a book, +So to his mind was young Leander's look. +O, none but gods have power their love to hide! +Affection by the countenance is descried; +The light of hidden fire itself discovers, +And love that is conceal'd betrays poor lovers. +His secret flame apparently was seen: +Leander's father knew where he had been, +And for the same mildly rebuk'd his son, +Thinking to quench the sparkles new-begun. +But love resisted once, grows passionate, +And nothing more than counsel lovers hate; +For as a hot proud horse highly disdains +To have his head controll'd, but breaks the reins, +Spits forth the ringled bit, and with his hoves +Checks the submissive ground; so he that loves, +The more he is restrain'd, the worse he fares: +What is it now but mad Leander dares? +"O Hero, Hero!" thus he cried full oft; +And then he got him to a rock aloft, +Where having spied her tower, long star'd he on't, +And pray'd the narrow toiling Hellespont +To part in twain, that he might come and go; +But still the rising billows answer'd, "No." +With that, he stripp'd him to the ivory skin, +And, crying, "Love, I come," leap'd lively in: +Whereat the sapphire-visag'd god grew proud, +And made his capering Triton sound aloud, +Imagining that Ganymede, displeas'd, +Had left the heavens; therefore on him he seiz'd. +Leander striv'd; the waves about him wound, +And pull'd him to the bottom, where the ground +Was strew'd with pearl, and in low coral groves +Sweet-singing mermaids sported with their loves +On heaps of heavy gold, and took great pleasure +To spurn in careless sort the shipwreck treasure; +For here the stately azure palace stood, +Where kingly Neptune and his train abode. +The lusty god embrac'd him, call'd him "love," +And swore he never should return to Jove: +But when he knew it was not Ganymed, +For under water he was almost dead, +He heav'd him up, and, looking on his face, +Beat down the bold waves with his triple mace, +Which mounted up, intending to have kiss'd him. +And fell in drops like tears because they miss'd him. +Leander, being up, began to swim, +And, looking back, saw Neptune follow him: +Whereat aghast, the poor soul gan to cry, +"O, let me visit Hero ere I die!" +The god put Helle's bracelet on his arm, +And swore the sea should never do him harm. +He clapp'd his plump cheeks, with his tresses play'd, +And, smiling wantonly, his love bewray'd; +He watch'd his arms, and, as they open'd wide +At every stroke, betwixt them would he slide, +And steal a kiss, and then run out and dance, +And, as he turn'd, cast many a lustful glance, +And throw him gaudy toys to please his eye, +And dive into the water, and there pry +Upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb, +And up again, and close beside him swim, +And talk of love. Leander made reply, +"You are deceiv'd; I am no woman, I." +Thereat smil'd Neptune, and then told a tale, +How that a shepherd, sitting in a vale, +Play'd with a boy so lovely-fair and kind, +As for his love both earth and heaven pin'd; +That of the cooling river durst not drink, +Lest water-nymphs should pull him from the brink; +And when he sported in the fragrant lawns, +Goat-footed Satyrs and up-staring Fauns +Would steal him thence. Ere half this tale was done, +"Ay me," Leander cried, "th' enamour'd sun, +That now should shine on Thetis' glassy bower, +Descends upon my radiant Hero's tower: +O, that these tardy arms of mine were wings!" +And, as he spake, upon the waves he springs. +Neptune was angry that he gave no ear, +And in his heart revenging malice bare: +He flung at him his mace; but, as it went, +He call'd it in, for love made him repent: +The mace, returning back, his own hand hit, +As meaning to be veng'd for darting it. +When this fresh-bleeding wound Leander view'd, +His colour went and came, as if he ru'd +The grief which Neptune felt: in gentle breasts +Relenting thoughts, remorse, and pity rests; +And who have hard hearts and obdurate minds, +But vicious, hare-brain'd, and illiterate hinds? +The god, seeing him with pity to be mov'd, +Thereon concluded that he was belov'd; +(Love is too full of faith, too credulous, +With folly and false hope deluding us;) +Wherefore, Leander's fancy to surprise, +To the rich ocean for gifts he flies; +'Tis wisdom to give much; a gilt prevails +When deep-persuading oratory fails. + By this, Leander, being near the land, +Cast down his weary feet, and felt the sand. +Breathless albeit he were, he rested not +Till to the solitary tower he got; +And knock'd, and call'd: at which celestial noise +The longing heart of Hero much more joys, +Than nymphs and shepherds when the timbrel rings, +Or crooked dolphin when the sailor sings. +She stay'd not for her robes, but straight arose, +And, drunk with gladness, to the door she goes; +Where seeing a naked man, she screech'd for fear, +(Such sights as this to tender maids are rare,) +And ran into the dark herself to hide +(Rich jewels in the dark are soonest spied). +Unto her was he led, or rather drawn +By those white limbs which sparkled through the lawn. +The nearer that he came, the more she fled, +And, seeking refuge, slipt into her bed; +Whereon Leander sitting, thus began, +Through numbing cold, all feeble, faint, and wan. +"If not for love, yet, love, for pity-sake, +Me in thy bed and maiden bosom take; +At least vouchsafe these arms some little room, +Who, hoping to embrace thee, cheerly swoom: +This head was beat with many a churlish billow, +And therefore let it rest upon thy pillow." +Herewith affrighted, Hero shrunk away, +And in her lukewarm place Leander lay; +Whose lively heat, like fire from heaven fet, +Would animate gross clay, and higher set +The drooping thoughts of base-declining souls, +Than dreary-Mars-carousing nectar bowls. +His hands he cast upon her like a snare: +She, overcome with shame and sallow fear, +Like chaste Diana when Actæon spied her, +Being suddenly betray'd, div'd down to hide her; +And, as her silver body downward went, +With both her hands she made the bed a tent, +And in her own mind thought herself secure, +O'ercast with dim and darksome coverture. +And now she lets him whisper in her ear, +Flatter, entreat, promise, protest, and swear: +Yet ever, as he greedily assay'd +To touch those dainties, she the harpy play'd, +And every limb did, as a soldier stout, +Defend the fort, and keep the foeman out; +For though the rising ivory mount he scal'd, +Which is with azure circling lines empal'd. +Much like a globe (a globe may I term this, +By which Love sails to regions full of bliss,) +Yet there with Sisyphus he toil'd in vain, +Till gentle parley did the truce obtain. +Even as a bird, which in our hands we wring, +Forth plungeth, and oft flutters with her wing, +She trembling strove: this strife of hers, like that +Which made the world, another world begat +Of unknown joy. Treason was in her thought, +And cunningly to yield herself she sought. +Seeming not won, yet won she was at length: +In such wars women use but half their strength. +Leander now, like Theban Hercules, +Enter'd the orchard of th' Hesperides; +Whose fruit none rightly can describe, but he +That pulls or shakes it from the golden tree. +Wherein Leander, on her quivering breast, +Breathless spoke something, and sigh'd out the rest; +Which so prevail'd, as he, with small ado, +Enclos'd her in his arms, and kiss'd her too: +And every kiss to her was as a charm, +And to Leander as a fresh alarm: +So that the truce was broke, and she, alas, +Poor silly maiden, at his mercy was. +Love is not full of pity, as men say, +But deaf and cruel where he means to prey. + And now she wish'd this night were never done, +And sigh'd to think upon th' approaching sun; +For much it griev'd her that the bright day-light +Should know the pleasure of this blessed night, +And them, like Mars and Erycine, display +Both in each other's arms chain'd as they lay. +Again, she knew not how to frame her look, +Or speak to him, who in a moment took +That which so long, so charily she kept; +And fain by stealth away she would have crept, +And to some corner secretly have gone, +Leaving Leander in the bed alone. +But as her naked feet were whipping out, +He on the sudden cling'd her so about, +That, mermaid-like, unto the floor she slid; +One half appear'd the other half was hid. +Thus near the bed she blushing stood upright, +And from her countenance behold ye might +A kind of twilight break, which through the air, +As from an orient cloud, glimps'd here and there; +And round about the chamber this false morn +Brought forth the day before the day was born. +So Hero's ruddy cheek Hero betray'd, +And her all naked to his sight display'd: +Whence his admiring eyes more pleasure took +Than Dis, on heaps of gold fixing his look. +By this, Apollo's golden harp began +To sound forth music to the ocean; +Which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard, +But he the bright Day-bearing car prepar'd, +And ran before, as harbinger of light, +And with his flaring beams mock'd ugly Night +Till she, o'ercome with anguish, shame, and rage, +Dang'd down to hell her loathsome carriage. + + + Here Marlowe's work ends. The rest of the poem is by Chapman. + + +THE THIRD SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD SESTIAD + + Leander to the envious light + Resigns his night-sports with the night, + And swims the Hellespont again. + Thesme, the deity sovereign + Of customs and religious rites, + Appears, reproving his delights, + Since nuptial honours he neglected; + Which straight he vows shall be effected. + Fair Hero, left devirginate, + Weighs, and with fury wails her state: + But with her love and woman's wit + She argues and approveth it. + + +New light gives new directions, fortunes new +To fashion our endeavours that ensue. +More harsh, at least more hard, more grave and high +Our subject runs, and our stern Muse must fly. +Love's edge is taken off, and that light flame, +Those thoughts, joys, longings, that before became +High unexperienc'd blood, and maids' sharp plights, +Must now grow staid, and censure the delights, +That, being enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise, +As having parted: evenings crown the days. + And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires, +Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires, +Ye lisping Flatteries, and obsequious Glances, +Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances, +And you detested Charms constraining love! +Shun love's stoln sports by that these lovers prove. + By this, the sovereign of heaven's golden fires, +And young Leander, lord of his desires, +Together from their lover's arms arose: +Leander into Hellespontus throws +His Hero-handled body, whose delight +Made him disdain each other epithite. +And so amidst th' enamour'd waves he swims, +The god of gold of purpose gilt his limbs, +That, this word _gilt_ including double sense, +The double guilt of his incontinence +Might be express'd, that had no stay t' employ +The tresure which the love-god let him joy +In his dear Hero, with such sacred thrift +As had beseem'd so sanctified a gift; +But, like a greedy vulgar prodigal, +Would on the stock dispend, and rudely fall, +Before his time, to that unblessed blessing +Which, for lust's plague, doth perish with possessing: +Joy graven in sense, like snow in water, wasts; +Without preserve of virtue, nothing lasts. +What man is he, that with a wealthy eye +Enjoys a beauty richer than the sky, +Through whose white skin, softer than soundest sleep, +With damask eyes the ruby blood doth peep, +And runs in branches through her azure veins, +Whose mixture and first fire his love attains; +Whose both hands limit both love's deities, +And sweeten human thoughts like paradise; +Whose disposition silken and is kind, +Directed with an earth-exempted mind;-- +Who thinks not heaven with such a love is given? +And who, like earth, would spend that dower of heaven, +With rank desire to joy it all at first? +What simply kills our hunger, quencheth thirst, +Clothes but our nakedness, and makes us live, +Praise doth not any of her favours give: +But what doth plentifully minister +Beauteous apparel and delicious cheer, +So order'd that it still excites desire, +And still gives pleasure freeness to aspire, +The palm of Bounty ever moist preserving; +To Love's sweet life this is the courtly carving. +Thus Time and all-states-ordering Ceremony +Had banish'd all offence: Time's golden thigh +Upholds the flowery body of the earth +In sacred harmony, and every birth +Of men and actions makes legitimate; +Being us'd aright, the use of time is fate. + Yet did the gentle flood transfer once more +This prize of love home to his father's shore, +Where he unlades himself of that false wealth +That makes few rich,--treasures compos'd by stealth; +And to his sister, kind Hermione, +(Who on the shore kneel'd, praying to the sea +For his return,) he all love's goods did show, +In Hero seis'd for him, in him for Hero. + His most kind sister all his secrets knew, +And to her, singing, like a shower, he flew, +Sprinkling the earth, that to their tombs took in +Streams dead for love, to leave his ivory skin, +Which yet a snowy foam did leave above, +As soul to the dead water that did love; +And from thence did the first white roses spring +(For love is sweet and fair in every thing), +And all the sweeten'd shore, as he did go, +Was crown'd with odorous roses, white as snow. +Love-blest Leander was with love so fill'd, +That love to all that touch'd him he instill'd; +And as the colours of all things we see, +To our sight's powers communicated be, +So to all objects that in compass came +Of any sense he had, his senses' flame +Flow'd from his parts with force so virtual, +It fir'd with sense things mere insensual. + Now, with warm baths and odours comforted, +When he lay down, he kindly kiss'd his bed, +As consecrating it to Hero's right, +And vow'd thererafter, that whatever sight +Put him in mind of Hero or her bliss, +Should be her altar to prefer a kiss. + Then laid he forth his late-enriched arms, +In whose white circle Love writ all his charms, +And made his characters sweet Hero's limbs, +When on his breast's warm sea she sideling swims; +And as those arms, held up in circle, met, +He said, "See, sister, Hero's carquenet! +Which she had rather wear about her neck, +Than all the jewels that do Juno deck." + But, as he shook with passionate desire +To put in flame his other secret fire, +A music so divine did pierce his ear, +As never yet his ravish'd sense did hear; +When suddenly a light of twenty hues +Brake through the roof, and, like the rainbow, views +Amaz'd Leander: in whose beams came down +The goddess Ceremony, with a crown +Of all the stars; and Heaven with her descended: +Her flaming hair to her bright feet extended, +By which hung all the bench of deities; +And in a chain, compact of ears and eyes, +She led Religion: all her body was +Clear and transparent as the purest glass, +For she was all presented to the sense: +Devotion, Order, State, and Reverence, +Her shadows were; Society, Memory; +All which her sight made live, her absence die. +A rich disparent pentacle she wears, +Drawn full of circles and strange characters. +Her face was changeable to every eye; +One way look'd ill, another graciously; +Which while men view'd, they cheerful were and holy, +But looking off, vicious and melancholy. +The snaky paths to each observed law +Did Policy in her broad bosom draw. +One hand a mathematic crystal sways, +Which, gathering in one line a thousand rays +From her bright eyes, Confusion burns to death, +And all estates of men distinguisheth: +By it Morality and Comeliness +Themselves in all their sightly figures dress. +Her other hand a laurel rod applies, +To beat back Barbarism and Avarice, +That follow'd, eating earth and excrement +And human limbs; and would make proud ascent +To seats of gods, were Ceremony slain. +The Hours and Graces bore her glorious train; +And all the sweets of our society +Were spher'd and treasur'd in her bounteous eye. +Thus she appear'd, and sharply did reprove +Leander's bluntness in his violent love; +Told him how poor was substance without rites, +Like bills unsign'd; desires without delights; +Like meats unseason'd; like rank corn that grows +On cottages, that none or reaps or sows; +Not being with civil forms confirm'd and bounded, +For human dignities and comforts founded; +But loose and secret all their glories hide; +Fear fills the chamber, Darkness decks the bride. + She vanish'd, leaving pierc'd Leander's heart +With sense of his unceremonious part, +In which, with plain neglect of nuptial rites, +He close and flatly fell to his delights: +And instantly he vow'd to celebrate +All rites pertaining to his married state. +So up he gets, and to his father goes, +To whose glad ears he doth his vows disclose. +The nuptials are resolv'd with utmost power; +And he at night would swim to Hero's tower, +From whence he meant to Sestos' forked bay +To bring her covertly, where ships must stay, +Sent by his father, throughly rigg'd and mann'd, +To waft her safely to Abydos' strand. +There leave we him; and with fresh wing pursue +Astonish'd Hero, whose most wished view +I thus long have forborne, because I left her +So out of countenance, and her spirits bereft her: +To look of one abashed is impudence, +When of slight faults he hath too deep a sense. +Her blushing het her chamber: she look'd out, +And all the air she purpled round about; +And after it a foul black day befell, +Which ever since a red morn doth foretell, +And still renews our woes for Hero's woe; +And foul it prov'd, because it figur'd so +The next night's horror; which prepare to hear; +I fail, if it profane your daintiest ear. + Then, ho, most strangely-intellectual fire, +That, proper to my soul, hast power t'inspire +Her burning faculties, and with the wings +Of thy unsphered flame visit'st the springs +Of spirits immortal! Now (as swift as Time +Doth follow Motion) find th' eternal clime +Of his free soul, whose living subject stood +Up to the chin in the Pierian flood, +And drunk to me half this Musæan story, +Inscribing it to deathless memory: +Confer with it, and make my pledge as deep, +That neither's draught be consecrate to sleep; +Tell it how much his late desires I tender +(If yet it know not), and to light surrender +My soul's dark offspring, willing it should die +To loves, to passions, and society. + Sweet Hero, left upon her bed alone, +Her maidenhead, her vows, Leander gone, +And nothing with her but a violent crew +Of new-come thoughts, that yet she never knew, +Even to herself a stranger, was much like +Th' Iberian city that War's hand did strike +By English force in princely Essex' guide, +When Peace assur'd her towers had fortified, +And golden-finger'd India had bestow'd +Such wealth on her, that strength and empire flow'd +Into her turrets, and her virgin waist +The wealthy girdle of the sea embrac'd; +Till our Leander, that made Mars his Cupid, +For soft love suits with iron thunders chid; +Swum to her town, dissolv'd her virgin zone; +Led in his power, and made Confusion +Run through her streets amaz'd, that she suppos'd +She had not been in her own walls enclosed, +But rapt by wonder to some foreign state, +Seeing all her issue so disconsolate, +And all her peaceful mansions possess'd +With war's just spoil, and many a foreign guest +From every corner driving an enjoyer, +Supplying it with power of a destroyer. +So far'd fair Hero in th' expugned fort +Of her chaste bosom; and of every sort +Strange thoughts possess'd her, ransacking her breast +For that that was not there, her wonted rest. +She was a mother straight, and bore with pain +Thoughts that spake straight, and wish'd their mother slain; +She hates their lives, and they their own and hers: +Such strife still grows where sin the race prefers: +Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams, +That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes. +She mus'd how she could look upon her sire, +And not show that without, that was intire; +For as a glass is an inanimate eye, +And outward forms embraceth inwardly, +So is the eye an animate glass, that shows +In forms without us; and as Phbus throws +His beams abroad, though he in clouds be clos'd, +Still glancing by them till he find oppos'd +A loose and rorid vapour that is fit +T' event his searching beams, and useth it +To form a tender twenty-colour'd eye, +Cast in a circle round about the sky; +So when our fiery soul, our body's star, +(That ever is in motion circular,) +Conceives a form, in seeking to display it +Through all our cloudy parts, it doth convey it +Forth at the eye, as the most pregnant place, +And that reflects it round about the face. +And this event, uncourtly Hero thought, +Her inward guilt would in her looks have wrought; +For yet the world's stale cunning she resisted, +To bear foul thoughts, yet forge what looks she listed, +And held it for a very silly sleight, +To make a perfect metal counterfeit. +Glad to disclaim herself, proud of an art +That makes the face a pandar to the heart. +Those be the painted moons, whose lights profane +Beauty's true heaven, at full still in their wane; +Those be the lapwing faces that still cry, +"Here 'tis!" when that they vow is nothing nigh: +Base fools! when every moorish fool can teach +That which men think the height of human reach. +But custom, that the apoplexy is +Of bed-rid nature and lives led amiss, +And takes away all feeling of offence, +Yet braz'd not Hero's brow with impudence; +And this she thought most hard to bring to pass, +To seem in countenance other than she was, +As if she had two souls, one for the face, +One for the heart, and that they shifted place +As either list to utter or conceal +What they conceiv'd, or as one soul did deal +With both affairs at once, keeps and ejects +Both at an instant contrary effects; +Retention and ejection in her powers +Being acts alike; for this one vice of ours, +That forms the thought, and sways the countenance, +Rules both our motion and our utterance. + These and more grave conceits toil'd Hero's spirits; +For, though the light of her discoursive wits +Perhaps might find some little hole to pass +Through all these worldly cinctures, yet, alas! +There was a heavenly flame encompass'd her,-- +Her goddess, in whose fane she did prefer +Her virgin vows, from whose impulsive sight +She knew the black shield of the darkest night +Could not defend her, nor wit's subtlest art: +This was the point pierc'd Hero to the heart; +Who, heavy to the death, with a deep sigh, +And hand that languish'd, took a robe was nigh, +Exceeding large, and of black cypress made, +In which she sate, hid from the day in shade, +Even over head and face, down to her feet; +Her left hand made it at her bosom meet, +Her right hand lean'd on her heart-bowing knee, +Wrapp'd in unshapeful folds, 'twas death to see; +Her knee stay'd that, and that her falling face; +Each limb help'd other to put on disgrace: +No form was seen, where form held all her sight; +But, like an embryon that saw never light, +Or like a scorched statue made a coal +With three-wing'd lightning, or a wretched soul +Muffled with endless darkness, she did sit: +The night had never such a heavy spirit. +Yet might a penetrating eye well see +How fast her clear tears melted on her knee +Through her black veil, and turn'd as black as it, +Mourning to be her tears. Then wrought her wit +With her broke vow, her goddess' wrath, her fame,-- +All tools that enginous despair could frame: +Which made her strew the floor with her torn hair, +And spread her mantle piece-meal in the air. +Like Jove's son's club, strong passion struck her down +And with a piteous shriek enforc'd her swoun: +Her shriek made with another shriek ascend +The frighted matron that on her did tend; +And as with her own cry her sense was slain, +So with the other it was call'd again. +She rose, and to her bed made forced way, +And laid her down even where Leander lay; +And all this while the red sea of her blood +Ebb'd with Leander: but now turn'd the flood, +And all her fleet of spirits came swelling in, +With child of sail, and did hot fight begin +With those severe conceits she too much mark'd: +And here Leander's beauties were embark'd. +He came in swimming, painted all with joys, +Such as might sweeten hell: his thought destroys + All her destroying thoughts; she thought she felt +His heart in hers, with her contentions melt, +And chide her soul that it could so much err, +To check the true joys he deserv'd in her. +Her fresh heat-blood cast figures in her eyes, +And she suppos'd she saw in Neptune's skies +How her star wander'd, wash'd in smarting brine, +For her love's sake, that with immortal wine +Should be embath'd, and swim in more heart's-ease +Than there was water in the Sestian seas. +Then said her Cupid-prompted spirit: "Shall I +Sing moans to such delightsome harmony? +Shall slick-tongu'd Fame, patch'd up with voices rude, +The drunken bastard of the multitude, +(Begot when father Judgment is away, +And, gossip-like, says because others say, +Takes news as if it were too hot to eat, +And spits it slavering forth for dog-fees meat,) +Make me, for forging a fantastic vow, +Presume to bear what makes grave matrons bow? +Good vows are never broken with good deeds, +For then good deeds were bad: vows are but seeds, +And good deeds fruits; even those good deeds that grow +From other stocks than from th' observed vow. +That is a good deed that prevents a bad; +Had I not yielded, slain myself I had. +Hero Leander is, Leander Hero; +Such virtue love hath to make one of two. +If, then, Leander did my maidenhead git, +Leander being myself, I still retain it: +We break chaste vows when we live loosely ever, +But bound as we are, we live loosely never: +Two constant lovers being join'd in one, +Yielding to one another, yield to none. +We know not how to vow till love unblind us, +And vows made ignorantly nerver bind us. +Too true it is, that, when 'tis gone, men hate +The joys as vain they took in love's estate: +But that's since they have lost the heavenly light +Should show them way to judge of all things right. +When life is gone, death must implant his terror: +As death is foe to life, so love to error. +Before we love, how range we through this sphere, +Searching the sundry fancies hunted here! +Now with desire of wealth transported quite +Beyond our free humanity's delight; +Now with ambition climbing falling towers, +Whose hope to scale, our fear to fall devours; +Now rapt with pastimes, pomp, all joys impure: +In things without us no delight is sure. +But love, with all joys crown'd, within doth sit: +O goddess, pity love, and pardon it!" +Thus spake she weeping: but her goddess' ear +Burn'd with too stern a heat, and would not hear. +Ay me! hath heaven's strait fingers no more graces +For such as Hero than for homeliest faces? +Yet she hop'd well, and in her sweet conceit +Weighing her arguments, she thought them weight, +And that the logic of Leander's beauty, +And them together, would bring proofs of duty; +And if her soul, that was a skillful glance +Of heaven's great essence, found such imperance +In her love's beauties, she had confidence +Jove lov'd him too, and pardon'd her offence: +Beauty in heaven and earth this grace doth win, +It supples rigour, and it lessens sin. +Thus, her sharp wit, her love, her secrecy, +Trooping together, made her wonder why +She should not leave her bed, and to the temple; +Her health said she must live; her sex, dissemble. +She view'd Leander's place, and wish'd he were +Turn'd to his place, so his place were Leander. +"Ay me," said she, "that love's sweet life and sense +Should do it harm! my love had not gone hence, +Had he been like his place: O blessed place, +Image of constancy! Thus my love's grace +Parts nowhere, but it leaves something behind +Worth observation: he renowns his kind: +His motion is, like heaven's, orbicular, +For where he once is, he is ever there. +This place was mine; Leander, now 'tis thine, +Thou being myself, then it is double mine, +Mine, and Leander's mine, Leander's mine. +O, see what wealth it yields me, nay, yields him! +For I am in it, he for me doth swim. +Rich, fruitful love, that, doubling self estates, +Elixir-like contracts, though separates! +Dear place, I kiss thee, and do welcome thee, +As from Leander ever sent to me." + + +THE FOURTH SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH SESTIAD + + Hero, in sacred habit deckt, + Doth private sacrifice effect. + Her scarf's description, wrought by Fate; + Ostents that threaten her estate; + The strange, yet physical, events, + Leander's counterfeit presents. + In thunder Cyprides descends, + Presaging both the lovers' ends: + Ecte, the goddess of remorse, + With vocal and articulate force + Inspires Leucote, Venus' swan, + T' excuse the beauteous Sestian. + Venus, to wreak her rites' abuses, + Creates the monster Eronusis, + Inflaming Hero's sacrifice + With lightning darted from her eyes; + And thereof springs the painted beast + That ever since taints every breast. + + +Now from Leander's place she rose, and found +Her hair and rent robe scatter'd on the ground; +Which taking up, she every piece did lay +Upon an altar, where in youth of day +She us'd t' exhibit private sacrifice: +Those would she offer to the deities +Of her fair goddess and her powerful son, +As relics of her late-felt passion; +And in that holy sort she vow'd to end them, +In hope her violent fancies, that did rend them, +Would as quite fade in her love's holy fire, +As they should in the flames she meant t' inspire. +Then she put on all her religious weeds, +That deck'd her in her secret sacred deeds; +A crown of icicles, that sun nor fire +Could ever melt, and figur'd chaste desire; +A golden star shin'd in her naked breast, +In honour of the queen-light of the east. +In her right hand she held a silver wand, +On whose bright top Peristera did stand, +Who was a nymph, but now transform'd a dove, +And in her life was dear in Venus' love; +And for her sake she ever since that time +Choos'd doves to draw her coach through heaven's blue clime. +Her plenteous hair in curled billows swims +On her bright shoulder: her harmonious limbs +Sustain'd no more but a most subtile veil, +That hung on them, as it durst not assail +Their different concord; for the weakest air +Could raise it swelling from her beauties fair; +Nor did it cover, but adumbrate only +Her most heart-piercing parts, that a blest eye +Might see, as it did shadow, fearfully, +All that all-love-deserving paradise: +It was as blue as the most freezing skies; +Near the sea's hue, for thence her goddess came: +On it a scarf she wore of wondrous frame; +In midst whereof she wrought a virgin's face, +From whose each cheek a fiery blush did chase +Two crimson flames, that did two ways extend, +Spreading the ample scarf to either end; +Which figur'd the division of her mind, +Whiles yet she rested bashfully inclined, +And stood not resolute to wed Leander; +This serv'd her white neck for a purple sphere, +And cast itself at full breadth down her back: +There, since the first breath that begun the wrack +Of her free quiet from Leander's lips, +She wrought a sea, in one flame, full of ships; +But that one ship where all her wealth did pass, +Like simple merchants' goods, Leander was; +For in that sea she naked figur'd him; +Her diving needle taught him how to swim, +And to each thread did such resemblance give, +For joy to be so like him it did live: +Things senseless live by art, and rational die +By rude contempt of art and industry. +Scarce could she work, but, in her strength of thought, +She fear'd she prick'd Leander as she wrought, +And oft would shriek so, that her guardian, frighted, +Would staring haste, as with some mischief cited: +They double life that dead things' grief sustain; +They kill that feel not their friends' living pain. +Sometimes she fear'd he sought her infamy; +And then, as she was working of his eye, +She thought to prick it out to quench her ill; +But, as she prick'd, it grew more perfect still: +Trifling attempts no serious acts advance; +The fire of love is blown by dalliance. +In working his fair neck she did so grace it, +She still was working her own arms t' embrace it. +That, and his shoulders, and his hands were seen +Above the stream; and with a pure sea-green +She did so quaintly shadow every limb, +All might be seen beneath the waves to swim. + In this conceited scarf she wrought beside +A moon in change, and shooting stars did glide +In number after her with bloody beams; +Which figur'd her affects in their extremes, +Pursuing nature in her Cynthian body, +And did her thoughts running on change imply; +For maids take more delight, when they prepare, +And think of wives' states, than when wives they are. +Beneath all these she wrought a fisherman, +Drawing his nets from forth the ocean; +Who drew so hard, ye might discover well +The toughen'd sinews in his neck did swell: +His inward strains drave out his blood-shot eyes +And springs of sweat did in his forehead rise; +Yet was of naught but of a serpent sped, +That in his bosom flew and stung him dead: +And this by Fate into her mind was sent, +Not wrought by mere instinct of her intent. +At the scarf's other end her hand did frame, +Near the fork'd point of the divided flame, +A country virgin keeping of a vine, +Who did of hollow bulrushes combine +Snares for the stubble-loving grasshopper, +And by her lay her scrip that nourish'd her. +Within a myrtle shade she sate and sung; +And tufts of waving reeds about her sprung +Where lurk'd two foxes, that, while she applied +Her trifling snares, their thieveries did divide, +One to the vine, another to her scrip, +That she did negligently overslip; +By which her fruitful vine and wholesome fare +She suffer'd spoil'd, to make a childish snare. +These ominous fancies did her soul express, +And every finger made a prophetess, +To show what death was hid in love's disguise, +And make her judgment conquer Destinies. +O, what sweet forms fair ladies' souls do shroud, +Were they made seen and forced through their blood; +If through their beauties, like rich work through lawn, +They would set forth their minds with virtues drawn, +In letting graces from their fingers fly, +To still their eyas thoughts with industry: +That their plied wits in number'd silks might sing +Passion's huge conquest, and their needles leading +Affection prisoner through their own-built cities, +Pinion'd with stories and Arachnean ditties. + Proceed we now with Hero's sacrifice: +She odours burn'd, and from their smoke did rise +Unsavoury fumes, that air with plagues inspir'd; +And then the consecrated sticks she fir'd, +On whose pale frame an angry spirit flew, +And beat it down still as it upward grew; +The virgin tapers that on th' altar stood, +When she inflam'd them, burn'd as red as blood: +All sad ostents of that too near success, +That made such moving beauties motionless. +Then Hero wept; but her affrighted eyes +She quickly wrested from the sacrifice, +Shut them, and inwards for Leander look'd. +Search'd her soft bosom, and from thence she pluck'd +His lovely picture: which when she had view'd, +Her beauties were with all love's joys renew'd; +The odours sweeten'd, and the fires burn'd clear, +Leander's form left no ill object there: +Such was his beauty, that the force of light, +Whose knowledge teacheth wonders infinite, +The strength of number and proportion, +Nature had plac'd in it to make it known, +Art was her daughter, and what human wits +For study lost, entomb'd in drossy spirits. +After this accident, (which for her glory +Hero could not but make a history,) +Th' inhabitants of Sestos and Abydos +Did every year, with feasts propitious, +To fair Leander's picture sacrifice: +And they were persons of special price +That were allow'd it, as an ornament +T' enrich their houses, for the continent +Of the strange virtues all approv'd it held; +For even the very look of it repell'd +All blastings, witchcrafts, and the strifes of nature +In those diseases that no herbs could cure: +The wolfy sting of avarice it would pull, +And make the rankest miser bountiful; +It kill'd the fear of thunder and of death; +The discords that conceit engendereth +'Twixt man and wife, it for the time would cease; +The flames of love it quench'd, and would increase; +Held in a prince's hand, it would put out +The dreadful'st comet; it would ease all doubt +Of threatened mischiefs; it would bring asleep +Such as were mad; it would enforce to weep +Most barbarous eyes; and many more effects +This picture wrought, and sprung Leandrian sects; +Of which was Hero first; for he whose form, +Held in her hand, clear'd such a fatal storm, +From hell she thought his person would defend her, +Which night and Hellespont would quickly send her. +With this confirm'd, she vow'd to banish quite +All thought of any check to her delight; +And, in contempt of silly bashfulness, +She would the faith of her desires profess, +Where her religion should be policy, +To follow love with zeal her piety; +Her chamber her cathedral-church should be, +And her Leander her chief diety; +For in her love these did the gods forego; +And though her knowledge did not teach her so, +Yet did it teach her this, that what her heart +Did greatest hold in her self-greatest part, +That she did make her god; and 'twas less naught +To leave gods in profession and in thought, +Than in her love and life; for therein lies +Most of her duties and their dignities; +And, rail the brain-bald world at what it will, +That's the grand atheism that reigns in it still. +Yet singularity she would use no more, +For she was singular too much before; +But she would please the world with fair pretext; +Love would not leave her conscience perplext: +Great men that will have less do for them, still +Must bear them out, though th' acts be ne'er so ill; +Meanness must pander be to Excellence; +Pleasure atones Falsehood and Conscience: +Dissembling was the worst, thought Hero then, +And that was best, now she must live with men. +O virtuous love, that taught her to do best +When she did worst, and when she thought it least! +Thus would she still proceed in works divine, +And in her sacred state of priesthood shine, +Handling the holy rites with hands as bold, +As if therein she did Jove's thunder hold, +And need not fear those menaces of error, +Which she at others threw with greatest terror. +O lovely Hero, nothing is thy sin, +Weigh'd with those foul faults other priests are in! +That having neither faiths, nor works, nor beauties, +T' engender any 'scuse for slubber'd duties, +With as much countenance fill their holy chairs, +And sweat denouncements 'gainst profane affairs, +As if their lives were cut out by their places, +And they the only fathers of the graces. + Now, as with settled mind she did repair +Her thoughts to sacrifice her ravish'd hair +And her torn robe, which on the altar lay, +And only for religion's fire did stay, +She heard a thunder by the Cyclops beaten, +In such a volley as the world did threaten, +Given Venus as she parted th' airy sphere, +Descending now to chide with Hero here: +When suddenly the goddess' waggoners, +The swans and turtles that, in coupled pheres, +Through all worlds' bosoms draw her influence, +Lighted in Hero's window, and from thence +To her fair shoulders flew the gentle doves,-- +Graceful Ædone that sweet pleasure loves, +And ruff-foot Chreste with the tufted crown; +Both which did kiss her, though their goddess frown. +The swans did in the solid flood, her glass, +Proin their fair plumes; of which the fairest was +Jove-lov'd Leucote, that pure brightness is; +The other bounty-loving Dapsilis, +All were in heaven, now they with Hero were: +But Venus' looks brought wrath, and urged fear. +Her robe was scarlet; black her head's attire; +And through her naked breast shin'd streams of fire, +As when the rarified air is driven +In flashing streams, and opes the darken'd heaven. +In her white hand a wreath of yew she bore; +And, breaking th' icy wreath sweet Hero wore, +She forc'd about her brows her wreath of yew, +And said, "Now, minion, to thy fate be true, +Though not to me; endure what this portends: +Begin where lightness will, in shame it ends. +Love makes thee cunning; thou art current now, +By being counterfeit: thy broken vow +Deceit with her pied garters must rejoin, +And with her stamp thou countenances must coin; +Coyness, and pure deceits, for purities, +And still a maid wilt seem in cozen'd eyes, +And have an antic face to laugh within, +While thy smooth looks make men digest thy sin, +But since thy lips (least thought forsworn) forswore, +Be never virgin's vow worth trusting more!" + When Beauty's dearest did her goddess hear +Breathe such rebukes 'gainst that she could not clear, +Dumb sorrow spake aloud in tears and blood, +That from her grief-burst veins, in piteous flood, +From the sweet conduits of her favour fell. +The gentle turtles did with moans make swell +Their shining gorges; the white black-ey'd swans +Did sing as woful epicedians. +As they would straightways die: when Pity's queen, +The goddess Ecte, that had ever been +Hid in a watery cloud near Hero's cries, +Since the first instant of her broken eyes, +Gave bright Leucote voice, and made her speak, +To ease her anguish, whose swoln breast did break +With anger at her goddess, that did touch +Hero so near for that she us'd so much; +And, thrusting her white neck at Venus, said: +"Why may not amorous Hero seem a maid, +Though she be none, as well as you suppress +In modest cheeks your inward wantonness? +How often have we drawn you from above, +T' exchange with mortals rites for rites in love! +Why in your priest, then, call you that offence, +That shines in you, and is your influence?" +With this, the Furies stopp'd Leucote's lips, +Enjoin'd by Venus; who with rosy whips +Beat the kind bird. Fierce lightning from her eyes +Did set on fire fair Hero's sacrifice, +Which was her torn robe and enforced hair; +And the bright flame became a maid most fair +For her aspect: her tresses were of wire, +Knit like a net, where hearts, set all on fire, +Struggled in pants, and could not get releast; +Her arms were all with golden pincers drest, +And twenty-fashion'd knots, pulleys, and brakes, +And all her body girt with painted snakes; +Her down-parts in a scorpion's tail combin'd, +Freckled with twenty colours; pied wings shin'd +Out of her shoulders; cloth had never dye, +Nor sweeter colours never viewed eye, +In scorching Turkey, Cares, Tartary, +Than shin'd about this spirit notorious; +Nor was Arachne's web so glorious. +Of lightning, and of shreds she was begot; +More hold in base dissemblers is there not. +Her name was Eronusis. Venus flew +From Hero's sight, and at her chariot drew +This wondrous creature to so steep a height, +That all the world she might command with sleight +Of her gay wings; and then she bade her haste,-- +Since Hero had dissembled, and disgrac'd +Her rites so much,--and every breast infect +With her deceits: she made her architect +Of all dissimulation; and since then +Never was any trust in maids or men. + O, it spited +Fair Venus' heart to see her most delighted, +And one she choos'd, for temper of her mind, +To be the only ruler of her kind, +So soon to let her virgin race be ended! +Not simply for the fault a whit offended, +But that in strife for chasteness with the Moon, +Spiteful Diana bade her show but one +That was her servant vow'd, and liv'd a maid; +And, now she thought to answer that upbraid, +Hero had lost her answer: who knows not +Venus would seem as far from any spot +Of light demeanour, as the very skin +'Twixt Cynthia's brows? sin is asham'd of sin. +Up Venus flew, and scarce durst up for fear +Of Phbe's laughter, when she pass'd her sphere: +And so most ugly-clouded was the light, +That day was hid in day; night came ere night; +And Venus could not through the thick air pierce, +Till the day's king, god of undaunted verse, +Because she was so plentiful a theme +To such as wore his laurel anademe, +Like to a fiery bullet made descent, +And from her passage those fat vapours rent, +That, being not thoroughly rarified to rain, +Melted like pitch, as blue as any vein; +And scalding tempests made the earth to shrink +Under their fervour, and the world did think +In every drop a torturing spirit flew, +It pierc'd so deeply, and it burn'd so blue. + Betwixt all this and Hero, Hero held +Leander's picture, as a Persian shield; +And she was free from fear of worst success: +The more ill threats us, we suspect the less: +As we grow hapless, violence subtle grows, +Dumb, deaf, and blind, and comes when no man knows. + + +THE FIFTH SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIFTH SESTIAD + + Day doubles her accustomed date, + As loath the Night, incens'd by Fate, + Should wreck our lovers. Hero's plight; + Longs for Leander and the night: + Which ere her thirsty wish recovers, + She sends for two betrothed lovers, + And marries tham, that, with their crew, + Their sports, and ceremonies due, + She covertly might celebrate, + With secret joy, her own estate. + She makes a feast, at which appears + The wild nymph Teras, that still bears + An ivory lute, tells ominous tales, + And sings at solemn festivals. + + +Now was bright Hero weary of the day, +Thought an Olympiad in Leander's stay. +Sol and the soft-foot Hours hung on his arms, +And would not let him swim, forseeing his harms: +That day Aurora double grace obtain'd, +Of her love Phbus; she his horses reign'd, +Set on his golden knee, and, as she list, +She pull'd him back; and, as she pull'd, she kiss'd, +To have him turn to bed: he lov'd her more, +To see the love Leander Hero bore: +Examples profit much; ten times in one, +In persons full of note, good deeds are done. + Day was so long, men walking fell asleep; +The heavy humours that their eyes did steep +Made them fear mischiefs. The hard streets were beds +For covetous churls and for ambitious heads, +That, spite of Nature, would their business ply: +All thought they had the falling epilepsy, +Men grovell'd so upon the smother'd ground; +And pity did the heart of Heaven confound. +The Gods, the Graces, and the Muses came +Down to the Destinies, to stay the frame +Of the true lovers' deaths, and all world's tears: +But Death before had stopp'd their cruel ears. +All the celestials parted mourning then, +Pierc'd with our human miseries more than men: +Ah, nothing doth the world with mischief fill, +But want of feeling one another's ill! + With their descent the day grew something fair, +And cast a brighter robe upon the air. +Hero, to shorten time with merriment, +For young Alcmane and bright Mya sent, +Two lovers that had long crav'd marriage-dues +At Hero's hands: but she did still refuse; +For lovely Mya was her consort vow'd +In her maid state, and therefore not allow'd +To amorous nuptials: yet fair Hero now +Intended to dispense with her cold vow, +Since hers was broken, and to marry her: +The rites would pleasing matter minister +To her conceits, and shorten tedious day. +They came; sweet Music usher'd th' odorous way, +And wanton Air in twenty sweet forms danc'd +After her fingers; Beauty and Love advanc'd +Their ensigns in the downless rosy faces +Of youths and maids, led after by the Graces. +For all these Hero made a friendly feast, +Welcom'd them kindly, did much love protest, +Winning their hearts with all the means she might, +That, when her fault should chance t' abide the light, +Their loves might cover or extenuate it, +And high in her worst fate make pity sit. + She married them; and in the banquet came, +Borne by the virgins. Hero striv'd to frame +Her thoughts to mirth: ay me! but hard it is +To imitate a false and forced bliss; +Ill may a sad mind forge a merry face, +Nor hath constrained laughter any grace. +Then laid she wines on cares to make them sink: +Who fears the threats of Fortune, let him drink. + To these quick nuptials enter'd suddenly +Admired Teras with the ebon thigh; +A nymph that haunted the green Sestian groves, +And would consort soft virgins in their loves, +At gaysome triumphs and on solemn days, +Singing prophetic elegies and lays, +And fingering of a silver lute she tied +With black and purple scarfs by her left side. +Apollo gave it, and her skill withal, +And she was term'd his dwarf, she was so small: +Yet great in virtue, for his beams enclos'd +His virtues in her; never was propos'd +Riddle to her, or augury, strange or new, +But she resolv'd it; never slight tale flew +From her charm'd lips without important sense, +Shown in some grave succeeding consequence. + This little sylvan, with her songs and tales, +Gave such estate to feasts and nuptials, +That though ofttimes she forewent tragedies, +Yet for her strangeness still she pleas'd their eyes; +And for her smallness they admir'd her so, +They thought her perfect born, and could not grow. + All eyes were on her. Hero did command +An altar deck'd with sacred state should stand +At the feast's upper end, close by the bride, +On which the pretty nymph might sit espied. +Then all were silent; every one so hears, +As all their senses climb'd into their ears: +And first this amorous tale, that fitted well +Fair Hero and the nuptials, she did tell. + + + _The Tale of Teras_ + +Hymen, that now is god of nuptial rites, +And crowns with honour Love and his delights, +Of Athens was a youth, so sweet a face, +That many thought him of the female race; +Such quickening brightness did his clear eyes dart, +Warm went their beams to his beholder's heart, +In such pure leagues his beauties were combin'd, +That there your nuptial contracts first were sign'd; +For as proportion, white and crimson, meet +In beauty's mixture, all right clear and sweet, +The eye responsible, the golden hair, +And none is held, without the other, fair; +All spring together, all together fade; +Such intermix'd affections should invade +Two perfect lovers; which being yet unseen, +Their virtues and their comforts copied been +In beauty's concord, subject to the eye; +And that, in Hymen, pleas'd so matchlessly, +That lovers were esteem'd in their full grace, +Like form and colour mix'd in Hymen's face; +And such sweet concord was thought worthy then +Of torches, music, feasts, and greatest men: +So Hymen look'd, that even the chastest mind +He mov'd to join in joys of sacred kind; +For only now his chin's first down consorted +His head's rich fleece, in golden curls contorted; +And as he was so lov'd, he lov'd so too: +So should best beauties, bound by nuptials, do. + Bright Eucharis, who was by all men said +The noblest, fairest, and the richest maid +Of all th' Athenian damsels, Hymen lov'd +With such transmission, that his heart remov'd +From his white breast to hers: but her estate, +In passing his, was so interminate +For wealth and honour, that his love durst feed +On naught but sight and hearing, nor could breed +Hope of requital, the grand prize of love; +Nor could he hear or see, but he must prove +How his rare beauty's music would agree +With maids in consort; therefore robbed he +His chin of those same few first fruits it bore, +And, clad in such attire as virgins wore, +He kept them company; and might right well, +For he did all but Eucharis excel +In all the fair of beauty: yet he wanted +Virtue to make his own desires implanted +In his dear Eucharis; for women never +Love beauty in their sex, but envy ever. +His judgment yet, that durst not suit address, +Nor, past due means, presume of due success, +Reason gat Fortune in the end to speed +To his best prayers: but strange it seem'd, indeed, +That Fortune should a chaste affection bless: +Preferment seldom graceth bashfulness. +Nor grac'd it Hymen yet; but many a dart, +And many an amorous thought, enthrill'd his heart, +Ere he obtain'd her; and he sick became, +Forc'd to abstain her sight; and then the flame +Rag'd in his bosom. O, what grief did fill him! +Sight made him sick, and want of sight did kill him. +The virgins wonder'd where Diætia stay'd, +For so did Hymen term himself, a maid. +At length with sickly looks he greeted them: +'Tis strange to see 'gainst what an extreme stream +A lover strives; poor Hymen look'd so ill, +That as in merit he increased still +By suffering much, so he in grace decreas'd: +Women are most won, when men merit least: +If Merit look not well, Love bids stand by; +Love's special lesson is to please the eye. +And Hymen soon recovering all he lost, +Deceiving still these maids, but himself most, +His love and he with many virgin dames, +Noble by birth, noble by beauty's flames, +Leaving the town with songs and hallow'd lights, +To do great Ceres Eleusina rites +Of zealous sacrifice, were made a prey +To barbarous rovers, that in ambush lay, +And with rude hands enforc'd their shining spoil, +Far from the darken'd city, tir'd with toil: +And when the yellow issue of the sky +Came trooping forth, jealous of cruelty +To their bright fellows of this under-heaven, +Into a double night they saw them driven,-- +A horrid cave, the thieves' black mansion; +Where, weary of the journey they had gone, +Their last night's watch, and drunk with their sweet gains, +Dull Morpheus enter'd, laden with silken chains, +Stronger than iron, and bound the swelling veins +And tired senses of these lawless swains. +But when the virgin lights thus dimly burn'd, +O, what a hell was heaven in! how they mourn'd, +And wrung their hands, and wound their gentle forms +Into the shapes of sorrow! golden storms +Fell from their eyes; as when the sun appears, +And yet it rains, so show'd their eyes their tears: +And, as when funeral dames watch a dead corse, +Weeping about it, telling with remorse +What pains he felt, how long in pain he lay, +How little food he eat, what he would say, +And then mix mournful tales of others' deaths, +Smothering themselves in clouds of their own breaths; +At length, one cheering other, call for wine; +The golden bowl drinks tears out of their eyne, +As they drink wine from it; and round it goes, +Each helping other to relieve their woes; +So cast these virgins' beauties mutual rays, +One lights another, face the face displays; +Lips by reflection kiss'd, and hands hands shook, +Even by the whiteness each of other took. + But Hymen now us'd friendly Morpheus' aid, +Slew every thief, and rescu'd every maid: +And now did his enamour'd passion take +Heart from his hearty deed, whose worth did make +His hope of bounteous Eucharis more strong; +And now came Love with Proteus, who had long +Juggled the little god with prayers and gifts, +Ran through all shapes, and varied all his shifts, +To win Love's stay with him, and make him love him; +And when he saw no strength of sleight could move him +To make him love or stay, he nimbly turn'd +Into Love's self, he so extremely burn'd. +And thus came Love, with Proteus and his power, +T' encounter Eucharis: first, like the flower +That Juno's milk did spring, the silver lily, +He fell on Hymen's hand, who straight did spy +The bounteous godhead, and with wondrous joy +Offer'd it Eucharis. She, wondrous coy, +Drew back her hand: the subtle flower did woo it, +And, drawing it near, mix'd so you could not know it: +As two clear tapers mix in one their light, +So did the lily and the hand their white. +She view'd it; and her view the form bestows +Amongst her spirits: for, as colour flows +From superficies of each thing we see, +Even so with colours forms emitted be; +And where Love's form is, Love is; Love is form: +He enter'd at the eye; his sacred storm +Rose from the hand, Love's sweetest instrument: +It stirr'd her blood's sea so, that high it went, +And beat in bashful waves 'gainst the white shore +Of her divided cheeks; it rag'd the more, +Because the tide went 'gainst the haughty wind +Of her estate and birth: and, as we find, +In fainting ebbs, the flowery Zephyr hurls +The green-hair'd Hellespont, broke in silver curls, +'Gainst Hero's tower; but in his blast's retreat, +The waves obeying him, they after beat, +Leaving the chalky shore a great way pale, +Then moist it freshly with another gale; +So ebb'd and flow'd in Eucharis's face, +Coyness and Love striv'd which had greatest grace; +Virginity did fight on Coyness' side, +Fear of her parents' frowns, and female pride +Loathing the lower place, more than it loves +The high contents desert and virtue moves. +With Love fought Hymen's beauty and his valure, +Which scarce could so much favour yet allure +To come to strike, but fameless idle stood: +Action is fiery valour's sovereign good. +But Love, once enter'd, wish'd no greater aid +Than he could find within; thought thought betray'd; +The brib'd, but incorrupted, garrison +Sung "Io Hymen"; there those songs begun, +And Love was grown so rich with such a gain, +And wanton with the ease of his free reign, +That he would turn into her roughest frowns +To turn them out; and thus he Hymen crowns +King of his thoughts, man's greatest empery: +This was his first brave step to deity. + Home to the mourning city they repair, +With news as wholesome as the morning air, +To the sad parents of each saved maid: +But Hymen and his Eucharis had laid +This plat, to make the flame of their delight +Round as the moon at full, and full as bright. + Because the parents of chaste Eucharis +Exceeding Hymen's so, might cross their bliss; +And as the world rewards deserts, that law +Cannot assist with force; so when they saw +Their daughter safe, take vantage of their own, +Praise Hymen's valour much, nothing bestown; +Hymen must leave the virgins in a grove +Far off from Athens, and go first to prove, +If to restore them all with fame and life, +He should enjoy his dearest as his wife. +This told to all the maids, the most agree: +The riper sort, knowing what 'tis to be +The first month of a news so far deriv'd, +And that to hear and bear news brave folks liv'd, +As being a carriage special hard to bear +Occurrents, these occurrents being so dear, +They did with grace protest, they were content +T' accost their friends with all their compliment, +For Hymen's good; but to incur their harm, +There he must pardon them. This wit went warm +To Adolesche's brain, a nymph born high, +Made all of voice and fire, that upwards fly: +Her heart and all her forces' nether train +Climb'd to her tongue, and thither fell her brain, +Since it could go no higher; and it must go; +All power she had, even her tongue, did so: +In spirit and quickness she much joy did take, +And lov'd her tongue, only for quickness' sake; +And she would haste and tell. The rest all stay: +Hymen goes one, the nymph another way; +And what became of her I'll tell at last: +Yet take her visage now;--moist-lipp'd, long-fac'd, +Thin like an iron wedge, so sharp and tart, +As 'twere of purpose made to cleave Love's heart: +Well were this lovely beauty rid of her. +And Hymen did at Athens now prefer +His welcome suit, which he with joy aspir'd: +A hundred princely youths with him retir'd +To fetch the nymphs; chariots and music went +And home they came: heaven with applauses rent. +The nuptials straight proceed, whiles all the town, +Fresh in their joys, might do them most renown. +First, gold-lock'd Hymen did to church repair, +Like a quick offering burn'd in flames of hair; +And after, with a virgin firmament +The godhead-proving bride attended went +Before them all: she look'd in her command, +As if form-giving Cypria's silver hand +Gripp'd all their beauties, and crushed out one flame; +She blush'd to see how beauty overcame +The thoughts of all men. Next, before her went +Five lovely children, deck'd with ornament +Of her sweet colours, bearing torches by; +For light was held a happy augury +Of generation, whose efficient right +Is nothing else but to produce to light. +The odd disparent number they did choose, +To show the union married loves should use, +Since in two equal parts it will not sever, +But the midst holds one to rejoin it ever, +As common to both parts: men therefore deem +That equal number gods do not esteem, +Being authors of sweet peace and unity, +But pleasing to th' infernal empery, +Under whose ensigns Wars and Discords fight, +Since an even number you may disunite +In two parts equal, naught in middle left +To reunite each part from other reft; +And five they hold in most especial prize, +Since 'tis the first odd number that doth rise +From the two foremost numbers' unity, +That odd and even are; which are two and three; +For one no number is; but thence doth flow +The powerful race of number. Next, did go +A noble matron, that did spinning bear +A huswife's rock and spindle, and did wear +A wether's skin, with all the snowy fleece, +To intimate that even the daintiest piece +And noblest-born dame should industrious be: +That which does good disgraceth no degree. + And now to Juno's temple they are come, +Where her grave priest stood in the marriage-room: +On his right arm did hang a scarlet veil, +And from his shoulders to the ground did trail, +On either side, ribands of white and blue: +With the red veil he hid the bashful hue +Of the chaste bride, to show the modest shame, +In coupling with a man, should grace a dame. +Then took he the disparent silks, and tied +The lovers by the waists, and side by side, +In token that hereafter they must bind +In one self-sacred knot each other's mind. +Before them on an altar he presented +Both fire and water, which was first invented, +Since to ingenerate every human creature +And every other birth produc'd by Nature, +Moisture and heat must mix; so man and wife +For human race must join in nuptial life. +Then one of Juno's birds, the painted jay, +He sacrific'd, and took the gall away; +All which he did behind the altar throw, +In sign no bitterness of hate should grow, +'Twixt married loves, nor any least disdain. +Nothing they spake, for 'twas esteem'd too plain +For the most silken mildness of a maid, +To let a public audience hear it said, +She boldly took the man; and so respected +Was bashfulness in Athens, it erected +To chaste Agneia, which is Shamefacedness, +A sacred temple, holding her a goddess. +And now to feasts, masks, and triumphant shows, +The shining troops return'd, even till earth-throes +Brought forth with joy the thickest part of night, +When the sweet nuptial song, that us'd to cite +All to their rest, was by Phemonöe sung, +First Delphian prophetess, whose graces sprung +Out of the Muses' well: she sung before +The bride into her chamber; at which door +A matron and a torch-bearer did stand: +A painted box of confits in her hand +The matron held, and so did other some +That compass'd round the honour'd nuptial room. +The custom was that every maid did wear, +During her maidenhead, a silken sphere +About her waist, above her inmost weed, +Knit with Minerva's knot, and that was freed +By the fair bridegroom on the marriage-night, +With many ceremonies of delight: +And yet eternis'd Hymen's tender bride, +To suffer it dissolv'd so, sweetly cried. +The maids that heard, so lov'd and did adore her, +They wish'd with all their hearts to suffer for her. +So had the matrons, that with confits stood +About the chamber, such affectionate blood, +And so true feeling of her harmless pains, +That every one a shower of confits rains; +For which the bride-youths scrambling on the ground, +In noise of that sweet hail her cries were drown'd. +And thus blest Hymen joy'd his gracious bride, +And for his joy was after deified. +The saffron mirror by which Phbus' love, +Green Tellus, decks her, now he held above +The cloudy mountains: and the noble maid, +Sharp-visag'd Adolesche, that was stray'd +Out of her way, in hasting with her news, +Not till this hour th' Athenian turrets views; +And now brought home by guides, she heard by all, +That her long kept occurrents would be stale, +And how fair Hymen's honours did excel +For those rare news which she came short to tell. +To hear her dear tongue robb'd of such a joy, +Made the well-spoken nymph take such a toy, +That down she sunk: when lightning from above +Shrunk her lean body, and, for mere free love, +Turn'd her into the pied-plum'd Psittacus, +That now the Parrot is surnam'd by us, +Who still with counterfeit confusion prates +Naught but news common to the common'st mates.-- +This told, strange Teras touch'd her lute, and sung +This ditty, that the torchy evening sprung. + + + _Epithalamion Teratos._ + +Come, come, dear Night! Love's mart of kisses, + Sweet close of his ambitious line, +The fruitful summer of his blisses! + Love's glory doth in darkness shine. +O, come, soft rest of cares! come, Night! + Come, naked Virtue's only tire, +The reaped harvest of the light, + Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire! + Love calls to war; + Sighs his alarms, + Lips his swords are, + The field his arms. + +Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand + On glorious Day's outfacing face; +And all thy crowned flames command, + For torches to our nuptial grace! + Love calls to war; + Sighs his alarms, + Lips his swords are, + The field his arms. + +No need have we of factious Day, + To cast, in envy of thy peace, +Her balls of discord in thy way: + Here Beauty's day doth never cease; +Day is abstracted here, +And varied in a triple sphere. +Hero, Alcmane, Mya, so outshine thee, +Ere thou come here, let Thetis thrice refine thee. + Love calls to war; + Sighs his alarms, + Lips his swords are, + The field his arms. + + The evening star I see: + Rise, youths! the evening star + Helps Love to summon war; + Both now embracing be. +Rise, youths! Love's rite claims more than banquets; rise! +Now the bright marigolds, that deck the skies, +Phbus' celestial flowers, that, contrary +To his flowers here, ope when he shuts his eye, +And shut when he doth open, crown your sports: +Now Love in Night, and Night in Love exhorts +Courtship and dances: all your parts employ, +And suit Night's rich expansure with your joy. +Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes: +Rise, youths! Love's rite claims more than banquets; rise! + Rise, virgins! let fair nuptial loves enfold +Your fruitless breasts: the maidenheads ye hold +Are not your own alone, but parted are; +Part in disposing them your parents share, +And that a third part is; so must ye save +Your loves a third, and you your thirds must have. +Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes: +Rise, youths! Love's rites claim more than banquets; rise! + + Herewith the amorous spirit, that was so kind +To Teras' hair, and comb'd it down with wind. +Still as it, comet-like, brake from her brain, +Would needs have Teras gone, and did refrain +To blow it down: which, staring up, dismay'd +The timorous feast; and she no longer stay'd; +But, bowing to the bridegroom and the bride, +Did, like a shooting exhalation, glide +Out of their sights: the turning of her back +Made them all shriek, it look'd so ghastly black. +O hapless Hero! that most hapless cloud +Thy soon-succeeding tragedy foreshow'd. +Thus all the nuptial crew to joys depart; +But much-wrung Hero stood Hell's blackest dart: +Whose wound because I grieve so to display, +I use digressions thus t'increase the day. + + +THE SIXTH SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE SIXTH SESTIAD + + Leucote flies to all the Winds, + And from the Fates their outrage blinds, + That Hero and her love may meet. + Leander, with Love's complete fleet + Mann'd in himself, puts forth to seas; + When straight the ruthless Destinies, + With Até, stirs the winds to war + Upon the Hellespont: their jar + Drowns poor Leander. Hero's eyes, + Wet witnesses of his surprise, + Her torch blown out, grief casts her down + Upon her love, and both doth drown: + In whose just ruth the god of seas + Transforms them to th' Acanthides. + + +No longer could the Day nor Destinies +Delay the Night, who now did frowning rise +Into her throne; and at her humorous breasts +Visions and Dreams lay sucking: all men's rests +Fell like the mists of death upon their eyes, +Day's too-long darts so kill'd their faculties. +The Winds yet, like the flowers, to cease began; +For bright Leucote, Venus' whitest swan, +That held sweet Hero dear, spread her fair wings, +Like to a field of snow, and message brings +From Venus to the Fates, t'entreat them lay +Their charge upon the Winds their rage to stay, +That the stern battle of the seas might cease, +And guard Leander to his love in peace. +The Fates consent;--ay me, dissembling Fates! +They show'd their favours to conceal their hates, +And draw Leander on, lest seas too high +Should stay his too obsequious destiny: +Who like a fleering slavish parasite, +In warping profit or a traitorous sleight, +Hoops round his rotten body with devotes, +And pricks his descant face full of false notes; +Praising with open throat, and oaths as foul +As his false heart, the beauty of an owl; +Kissing his skipping hand with charmed skips, +That cannot leave, but leaps upon his lips +Like a cock-sparrow, or shameless quean +Sharp at a red-lipp'd youth, and naught doth mean +Of all his antic shows, but doth repair +More tender fawns, and takes a scatter'd hair +From his tame subject's shoulder; whips and calls +For everything he lacks; creeps 'gainst the walls +With backward humbless, to give needless way: +Thus his false fate did with Leander play. + First to black Eurus flies the white Leucote. +(Born 'mongst the negroes in the Levant sea, +On whose curl'd head[s] the glowing sun doth rise,) +And shows the sovereign will of Destinies, +To have him cease his blasts; and down he lies. +Next, to the fenny Notus course she holds, +And found him leaning, with his arms in folds, +Upon a rock, his white hair full of showers; +And him she chargeth by the fatal powers, +To hold in his wet cheeks his cloudy voice. +To Zephyr then that doth in flowers rejoice: +To snake-foot Boreas next she did remove, +And found him tossing of his ravish'd love, +To heat his frosty bosom hid in snow; +Who with Leucote's sight did cease to blow. +Thus all were still to Hero's heart's desire; +Who with all speed did consecrate a fire +Of flaming gums and comfortable spice, +To light her torch, which in such curious price +She held, being object to Leander's sight, +That naught but fires perfum'd must give it light. +She lov'd it so, she griev'd to see it burn, +Since it would waste, and soon to ashes turn: +Yet, if it burn'd not, 'twere not worth her eyes; +What made it nothing, gave it all the prize. +Sweet torch, true glass of our society! +What man does good, but he consumes thereby? +But thou wert lov'd for good, held high, given show; +Poor virtue loath'd for good, obscur'd, held low: +Do good, be pin'd,--be deedless good, disgrac'd; +Unless we feed on men, we let them fast. +Yet Hero with these thoughts her torch did spend: +When bees make wax, Nature doth not intend +It should be made a torch; but we, that know +The proper virtue of it, make it so, +And, when 'tis made, we light it: nor did Nature +Propose one life to maids; but each such creature +Makes by her soul the best of her true state, +Which without love is rude, disconsolate, +And wants love's fire to make it mild and bright, +Till when, maids are but torches wanting light. +Thus 'gainst our grief, not cause of grief, we fight: +The right of naught is glean'd, but the delight. +Up went she: but to tell how she descended, +Would God she were not dead, or my verse ended! +She was the rule of wishes, sum, and end, +For all the parts that did on love depend: +Yet cast the torch his brightness further forth; +But what shines nearest best, holds truest worth. +Leander did not through such tempests swim +To kiss the torch, although it lighted him: +But all his powers in her desires awaked, +Her love and virtues cloth'd him richly naked. +Men kiss but fire that only shows pursue; +Her torch and Hero, figure show and virtue. + Now at oppos'd Abydos naught was heard +But bleating flocks, and many a bellowing herd, +Slain for the nuptials; cracks of falling woods; +Blows of broad axes; pourings out of floods. +The guilty Hellespont was mix'd and stain'd +With bloody torrent that the shambles rain'd; +Not arguments of feast, but shows that bled, +Foretelling that red night that followed. +More blood was spilt, more honours were addrest, +Than could have graced any happy feast; +Rich banquets, triumphs, every pomp employs +His sumptuous hand; no miser's nuptial joys. +Air felt continual thunder with the noise +Made in the general marriage-violence; +And no man knew the cause of this expense, +But the two hapless lords, Leander's sire, +And poor Leander, poorest where the fire +Of credulous love made him most rich surmis'd: +As short was he of that himself so priz'd, +As is an empty gallant full of form, +That thinks each look an act, each drop a storm, +That falls from his brave breathings; most brought up +In our metropolis, and hath his cup +Brought after him to feasts; and much palm bears +For his rare judgment in th' attire he wears; +Hath seen the hot Low-Countries, not their heat, +Observe their rampires and their buildings yet; +And, for your sweet discourse with mouths, is heard +Giving instructions with his very beard; +Hath gone with an ambassador, and been +A great man's mate in travelling, even to Rhene; +And then puts all his worth in such a face +As he saw brave men make, and strives for grace +To get his news forth: as when you descry +A ship, with all her sail contends to fly +Out of the narrow Thames with winds unapt, +Now crosseth here, then there, then his way rapt, +And then hath one point reach'd, then alters all, +And to another crooked reach doth fall +Of half a bird-bolt's shoot, keeping more coil +Than if she danc'd upon the ocean's toil; +So serious is his trifling company, +In all his swelling ship of vacantry, +And so short of himself in his high thought +Was our Leander in his fortunes brought, +And in his fort of love that he thought won; +But otherwise he scorns comparison. + O sweet Leander, thy large worth I hide +In a short grave! ill-favour'd storms must chide +Thy sacred favour; I in floods of ink +Must drown thy graces, which white papers drink, +Even as thy beauties did the foul black seas; +I must describe the hell of thy decease, +That heaven did merit: yet I needs must see +Our painted fools and cockhorse peasantry +Still, still usurp, with long lives, loves, and lust, +The seats of Virtue, cutting short as dust +Her dear-bought issue: ill to worse converts, +And tramples in the blood of all deserts. + Night close and silent now goes fast before +The captains and the soldiers to the shore, +On whom attended the appointed fleet +At Sestos' bay, that should Leander meet, +Who feign'd he in another ship would pass: +Which must not be, for no one mean there was +To get his love home, but the course he took. +Forth did his beauty for his beauty look, +And saw her through her torch, as you behold +Sometimes within the sun a face of gold, +Form'd in strong thoughts, by that tradition's force +That says a god sits there and guides his course. +His sister was with him; to whom he show'd +His guide by sea, and said, "Oft have you view'd +In one heaven many stars, but never yet +In one star many heavens till now were met. +See, lovely sister! see, now Hero shines, +No heaven but her appears; each star repines, +And all are clad in clouds, as if they mourn'd +To be by influence of earth out-burn'd. +Yet doth she shine, and teacheth Virtue's train +Still to be constant in hell's blackest reign, +Though even the gods themselves do so entreat them +As they did hate, and earth as she would eat them." + Off went his silken robe, and in he leapt, +Whom the kind waves so licorously cleapt, +Thickening for haste, one in another, so, +To kiss his skin, that he might almost go +To Hero's tower, had that kind minute lasted. +But now the cruel Fates with Até hasted +To all the Winds, and made them battle fight +Upon the Hellespont, for either's right +Pretended to the windy monarchy; +And forth they brake, the seas mix'd with the sky, +And toss'd distress'd Leander, being in hell, +As high as heaven: bliss not in height doth dwell. +The Destinies sate dancing on the waves, +To see the glorious Winds with mutual braves +Consume each other: O, true glass, to see +How ruinous ambitious statists be +To their own glories! Poor Leander cried +For help to sea-born Venus she denied; +To Boreas, that, for his Atthæa's sake, +He would some pity on his Hero take, +And for his own love's sake, on his desires; +But Glory never blows cold Pity's fires. +Then call'd he Neptune, who, through all the noise, +Knew with affright his wreck'd Leander's voice, +And up he rose; for haste his forehead hit +'Gainst heaven's hard crystal; his proud waves he smit +With his fork'd sceptre, that could not obey; +Much greater powers than Neptune's gave them sway. +They lov'd Leander so, in groans they brake +When they came near him; and such space did take +'Twixt one another, loath to issue on, +That in their shallow furrows earth was shown, +And the poor lover took a little breath: +But the curst Fates sate spinning of his death +On every wave, and with the servile Winds +Tumbled them on him. And now Hero finds, +By that she felt, her dear Leander's state: +She wept, and pray'd for him to every Fate; +And every Wind that whipp'd her with her hair +About the face, she kiss'd and spake it fair, +Kneel'd to it, gave it drink out of her eyes +To quench his thirst: but still their cruelties +Even her poor torch envi'd, and rudely beat +The baiting flame from that dear food it eat; +Dear, for it nourish'd her Leander's life; +Which with her robe she rescu'd from their strife: +But silk too soft was such hard hearts to break; +And, she, dear soul, even as her silk, faint, weak, +Could not preserve it; out, O, out it went! +Leander still call'd Neptune, that now rent +His brackish curls, and tore his wrinkled face, +Where tears in billows did each other chase; +And, burst with ruth, he hurl'd his marble mace +At the stern Fates; it wounded Lachesis +That drew Leander's thread, and could not miss +The thread itself, as it her hand did hit, +But smote it full, and quite did sunder it. +The more kind Neptune rag'd, the more he raz'd +His love's life fort, and kill'd as he embrac'd: +Anger doth still his own mishap increase; +If any comfort live, it is in peace. +O thievish Fates, to let blood, flesh, and sense, +Build two fair temples for their excellence, +To rob it with a poison'd influence! +Though souls' gifts starve, the bodies are held dear +In ugliest things; sense-sport preserves a bear: +But here naught serves our turns: O heaven and earth, +How most-most wretched is our human birth! +And now did all the tyrannous crew depart, +Knowing there was a storm in Hero's heart, +Greater than they could make, and scorn'd their smart. +She bow'd herself so low out of her tower, +That wonder 'twas she fell not ere her hour, +With searching the lamenting waves for him: +Like a poor snail, her gentle supple limb +Hung on her turret's top, so most downright, +As she would dive beneath the darkness quite, +To find her jewel;--jewel!--her Leander, +A name of all earth's jewels pleas'd not her +Like his dear name: "Leander, still my choice, +Come naught but my Leander! O my voice, +Turn to Leander! henceforth be all sounds, +Accents, and phrases, that show all griefs' wounds, +Analys'd in Leander! O black change! +Trumpets, do you, with thunder of your clange, +Drive out this change's horror! My voice faints: +Where all joy was, now shriek out all complaints!" +Thus cried she; for her mixed soul could tell +Her love was dead: and when the Morning fell +Prostrate upon the weeping earth for woe, +Blushes, that bled out of her cheeks, did show +Leander brought by Neptune, bruis'd and torn +With cities' ruins he to rocks had worn, +To filthy usuring rocks, that would have blood, +Though they could get of him no other good. +She saw him, and the sight was much-much more +Than might have serv'd to kill her: should her store +Of giant sorrows speak?--Burst,--die,--bleed, +And leave poor plaints to us that shall succeed. +She fell on her love's bosom, hugg'd it fast, +And with Leander's name she breath'd her last. + Neptune for pity in his arms did take them, +Flung them into the air, and did awake them +Like two sweet birds, surnam'd th' Acanthides, +Which we call Thistle-warps, that near no seas +Dare ever come, but still in couples fly, +And feed on thistle-tops, to testify +The hardness of their first life in their last; +The first, in thorns of love, that sorrows past: +And so most beautiful their colours show +As none (so little) like them; her sad brow +A sable velvet feather covers quite, +Even like the forehead-cloth that, in the night, +Or when they sorrow, ladies use to wear: +Their wings, blue, red, and yellow, mix'd appear; +Colours that, as we construe colours, paint +Their states to life;--the yellow shows their saint, +The dainty Venus, left them; blue, their truth; +The red and black, ensigns of death and ruth. +And this true honour from their love-death sprung,-- +They were the first that ever poet sung. + + + + + +MINOR POEMS BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE + + + +THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE + + +COME live with me, and be my love; +And we will all the pleasures prove +That hills and valleys, dales and fields, +Woods or steepy mountain yields. + +And we will sit upon the rocks, +Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks +By shallow rivers, to whose falls +Melodious birds sing madrigals. + +And I will make thee beds of roses, +And a thousand fragrant posies; +A cap of flowers, and a kirtle +Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle + +A gown made of the finest wool +Which from our pretty lambs we pull; +Fair-lined slippers for the cold, +With buckles of the purest gold; + +A belt of straw and ivy-buds, +With coral clasps and amber studs: +An if these pleasures may thee move, +Come live with me, and be my love. + +The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing +For thy delight each May morning: +If these delights thy mind may move, +Then live with me, and be my love. + + + +FRAGMENT + +_First printed in "England's Parnassus,"_ 1600 + +I WALK'D along a stream, for pureness rare, + Brighter than sun-shine; for it did acquaint +The dullest sight with all the glorious prey +That in the pebble-paved channel lay. + +No molten crystal, but a richer mine, + Even Nature's rarest alchymy ran there,-- +Diamonds resolv'd, and substance more divine, + Through whose bright-gliding current might appear +A thousand naked nymphs, whose ivory shine, + Enamelling the banks, made them more dear +Than ever was that glorious palace' gate +Where the day-shining Sun in triumph sate. + +Upon this brim the eglantine and rose, + The tamarisk, olive, and the almond tree, +As kind companions, in one union grows, + Folding their twining arms, as oft we see +Turtle-taught lovers either other close, + Lending to dulness feeling sympathy; +And as a costly valance o'er a bed, +So did their garland-tops the brook o'erspread. + +Their leaves, that differ'd both in shape and show, + Though all were green, yet difference such in green, +Like to the checker'd bent of Iris' bow, + Prided the running main, as it had been-- + + + +IN OBITUM HONORATISSIMI VIRI, ROGERI + MANWOOD, MILITIS, QUÆSTORII REGI- + NALIS CAPITALIS BARONIS + + First printed by Payne Collier (_History of the English Stage,_ etc. +p. xliv.--prefixed to the first vol. of his _Shakespeare_) from a MS. on the +back of the title-page of a copy of _Hero and Leander_, ed. 1629, where +it is subscribed with Marlowe's name. + + +NOCTIVAGI terror, ganeonis triste flagellum, +Et Jovis Alcides, rigido vulturque latroni, +Urnâ subtegitur. Scelerum, gaudete, nepotes! +Insons, luctificâ sparsis cervice capillis, +Plange! fori lumen, venerandæ gloria legis, +Occidit: heu, secum efftas Acherontis ad oras +Multa abiit virtus. Pro tot virtutibus uni, +Livor, parce viro; non audacissimus esto +Illius in cineres, cujus tot millia vultus +Mortalium attonuit: sic cum te nuntia Ditis +Vulneret exsanguis, feliciter ossa quiescant, +Famaque marmorei superet monumenta sepulcri. + + + +DIALOGUE IN VERSE + + First printed in _The Alleyn Papers_ (for the Shakespeare Society), +p. 8, by Payne Collier, who prefaced it with the following remarks: +"In the original MS. this dramatic dialogue in verse is written as +prose, on one side of a sheet of paper, at the back of which, in a more +modern hand, is the name 'Kitt Marlowe.' What connection, if any, +he may have had with it, it is impossible to determine." This Dialogue +may be a fragment of _The Maiden's Holiday,_ a lost comedy, which is +said to have been written partly by Marlowe.--DYCE + +_Jack._ Seest thou not yon farmer's son? + He hath stoln my love from me, alas! + What shall I do? I am undone; + My heart will ne'er be as it was. + O, but he gives her gay gold rings, + And tufted gloves [for] holiday, + And many other goodly things, + That hath stoln my love away. + +_Friend._ Let him give her gay gold rings + Or tufted gloves, were they ne'er so [gay]; + [F]or were her lovers lords or kings, + They should not carry the wench away. + +_Jack._ But 'a dances wonders well, + And with his dances stole her love from me: + Yet she wont to say, I bore the bell + For dancing and for courtesy. + +_Dick._ Fie, lusty younker, what do you here, + Not dancing on the green to-day? + For Pierce, the farmer's son, I fear, + Is like to carry your wench away. + +_Jack._ Good Dick, bid them all come hither, + And tell Pierce from me beside, + That, if he thinks to have the wench, + Here he stands shall lie with the bride. + +_Dick._ Fie, Nan, why use thy old lover so, + For any other new-come guest? + Thou long time his love did know; + Why shouldst thou not use him best? + +_Nan._ Bonny Dick, I will not forsake + My bonny Rowland for any gold: + If he can dance as well as Pierce, + He shall have my heart in hold. + +_Pierce._ Why, then, my hearts, let's to this gear; + And by dancing I may won + My Nan, whose love I hold so dear + As any realm under the sun. + +_Gentleman._ Then, gentles, ere I speed from hence, + I will be so bold to dance + A turn or two without offence; + For, as I was walking along by chance, + I was told you did agree. + +_Friend._ 'Tis true, good sir; and this is she + Hopes your worship comes not to crave her; + For she hath lovers two or three, + And he that dances best must have her. + +_Gentleman._ How say you, sweet, will you dance with me? + And you [shall] have both land and [hill]; + My love shall want nor gold nor fee. + +_Nan._ I thank you, sir, for your good will; + But one of these my love must be: + I'm but a homely country maid, + And far unfit for your degree; + [To dance with you I am afraid.] + +_Friend._ Take her, good sir, by the hand, + As she is fairest: were she fairer, + By this dance, you shall understand, + He that can win her is like to wear her. + +_Fool._ And saw you not [my] Nan to-day, + My mother's maid have you not seen? + My pretty Nan is gone away + To seek her love upon the green. + [I cannot see her 'mong so many:] + She shall have me, if she have any. + +_Nan._ Welcome, sweetheart, and welcome here, + Welcome, my [true] love, now to me. + This is my love [and my darling dear], + And that my husband [soon] must be. + And, boy, when thou com'st home, thou'lt see + Thou art as welcome home as he. + +_Gentleman._ Why, how now, sweet Nan! I hope you jest. + +_Nan._ No, by my troth, I love the fool the best: + And, if you be jealous, God give you good-night! + I fear you're a gelding, you caper so light. + +_Gentleman._ I thought she had jested and meant but a fable, + But now do I see she hath play['d] with his bable. + I wish all my friends by me to take heed, + That a fool come not near you when you mean to speed. + + + + + + THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hero and Leander and Other Poems, by +Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERO AND LEANDER AND OTHER POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 20356-8.txt or 20356-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/5/20356/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/20356-8.zip b/20356-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..405fad4 --- /dev/null +++ b/20356-8.zip diff --git a/20356.txt b/20356.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..911dbf6 --- /dev/null +++ b/20356.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3197 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hero and Leander and Other Poems, by +Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hero and Leander and Other Poems + +Author: Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + +Editor: Ernest Rhys + +Release Date: January 14, 2007 [EBook #20356] + +Language: English - Latin + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERO AND LEANDER AND OTHER POEMS *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + HERO AND LEANDER + + AND OTHER POEMS + + BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Hero and Leander, by Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + +Minor poems by Christopher Marlowe + +- The Passionate Shepherd To His Love + +- Fragment, first printed in "England's Parnassus," 1600 + +- In obitum honoratissimi viri, Rogeri Manwood, militis, + Quaestorii Reginalis Capitalis Baronis + +- Dialogue in Verse + + + + + + + + + HERO AND LEANDER + + By Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + + TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL SIR THOMAS + WALSINGHAM, KNIGHT. + + Sir, we think not ourselves discharged of the duty we owe +to our friend when we have brought the breathless body to +the earth; for, albeit the eye there taketh his ever-farewell +of that beloved object, yet the impression of the man that +hath been dear unto us, living an after-life in our memory, +there putteth us in mind of farther obsequies due unto the +deceased; and namely of the performance of whatsoever we +may judge shall make to his living credit and to the effecting +of his determinations prevented by the stroke of death. +By these meditations (as by an intellectual will) I suppose +myself executor to the unhappily deceased author of this +poem; upon whom knowing that in his lifetime you bestowed +many kind favours, entertaining the parts of reckoning and +worth which you found in him with good countenance and +liberal affection, I cannot but see so far into the will of him +dead, that whatsoever issue of his brain should chance to +come abroad, that the first breath it should take might be +the gentle air of your liking; for, since his self had been +accustomed thereunto, it would prove more agreeable and +thriving to his right children than any other foster counten- +ance whatsoever. At this time seeing that this unfinished +tragedy happens under my hands to be imprinted, of a +double duty, the one to yourself, the other to the deceased, +I present the same to your most favourable allowance, +offering my utmost self now and ever to be ready at your +worship's disposing. + EDWARD BLUNT. + + +Note: The first two Sestiads were written by Marlowe; the last four by +Chapman, who supplied also the Arguments for the six Sestiads. + +THE FIRST SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST SESTIAD + + Hero's description and her love's; + The fane of Venus where he moves + His worthy love-suit, and attains; + Whose bliss the wrath of Fates restrains + For Cupid's grace to Mercury: + Which tale the author doth imply. + + +On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood, +In view and opposite two cities stood, +Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might; +The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight. +At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair, +Whom young Apollo courted for her hair, +And offer'd as a dower his burning throne, +Where she should sit, for men to gaze upon. +The outside of her garments were of lawn, +The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; +Her wide sleeves green, and border'd with a grove, +Where Venus in her naked glory strove +To please the careless and disdainful eyes +Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; +Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, +Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain. +Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath, +From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath: +Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves, +Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives: +Many would praise the sweet smell as she past, +When 'twas the odour which her breath forth cast; +And there for honey bees have sought in vain, +And, beat from thence, have lighted there again. +About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone, +Which, lighten'd by her neck, like diamonds shone. +She ware no gloves; for neither sun nor wind +Would burn or parch her hands, but, to her mind, +Or warm or cool them, for they took delight +To play upon those hands, they were so white. +Buskins of shell, all silver'd, used she, +And branch'd with blushing coral to the knee; +Where sparrows perch'd, of hollow pearl and gold, +Such as the world would wonder to behold: +Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills, +Which, as she went, would cherup through the bills. +Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin'd, +And, looking in her face, was strooken blind. +But this is true; so like was one the other, +As he imagin'd Hero was his mother; +And oftentimes into her bosom flew, +About her naked neck his bare arms threw, +And laid his childish head upon her breast, +And, with still panting rock, there took his rest. +So lovely-fair was Hero, Venus' nun, +As Nature wept, thinking she was undone, +Because she took more from her than she left, +And of such wondrous beauty her bereft: +Therefore, in sign her treasure suffer'd wrack, +Since Hero's time hath half the world been black. + Amorous Leander, beautiful and young, +(Whose tragedy divine Musaeus sung,) +Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none +For whom succeeding times make greater moan. +His dangling tresses, that were never shorn, +Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne, +Would have allur'd the venturous youth of Greece +To hazard more than for the golden fleece. +Fair Cynthia wish'd his arms might be her sphere; +Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there. +His body was as straight as Circe's wand; +Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand. +Even as delicious meat is to the tast, +So was his neck in touching, and surpast +The white of Pelops' shoulder: I could tell ye, +How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly; +And whose immortal fingers did imprint +That heavenly path with many a curious dint +That runs along his back; but my rude pen +Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men, +Much less of powerful gods: let it suffice +That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes; +Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his +That leapt into the water for a kiss +Of his own shadow, and, despising many, +Died ere he could enjoy the love of any. +Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen, +Enamour'd of his beauty had he been: +His presence made the rudest peasant melt, +That in the vast uplandish country dwelt; +The barbarous Thracian soldier, mov'd with nought, +Was mov'd with him, and for his favour sought. +Some swore he was a maid in man's attire, +For in his looks were all that men desire,-- +A pleasant-smiling cheek, a speaking eye, +A brow for love to banquet royally; +And such as knew he was a man, would say, +"Leander, thou art made for amorous play: +Why art thou not in love, and lov'd of all? +Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall." + The men of wealthy Sestos every year, +For his sake whom their goddess held so dear, +Rose-cheek'd Adonis, kept a solemn feast: +Thither resorted many a wandering guest +To meet their loves: such as had none at all, +Came lovers home from this great festival; +For every street, like to a firmament, +Glister'd with breathing stars, who, where they went, +Frighted the melancholy earth, which deem'd +Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem'd, +As if another Phaeton had got +The guidance of the sun's rich chariot. +But, far above the loveliest, Hero shin'd, +And stole away th' enchanted gazer's mind; +For like sea nymphs' inveigling harmony, +So was her beauty to the standers by; +Nor that night-wandering, pale, and watery star +(When yawning dragons draw her thirling car +From Latmus' mount up to the gloomy sky, +Where, crown'd with blazing light and majesty, +She proudly sits) more over-rules the flood +Than she the hearts of those that near her stood. +Even as when gaudy nymphs pursue the chase, +Wretched Ixion's shaggy-footed race, +Incens'd with savage heat, gallop amain +From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain, +So ran the people forth to gaze upon her, +And all that view'd her were enamour'd on her: +And as in fury of a dreadful fight, +Their fellows being slain or put to flight, +Poor soldiers stand with fear of death dead-strooken, +So at her presence all surpris'd and tooken, +Await the sentence of her scornful eyes; +He whom she favours lives; the other dies: +There might you see one sigh; another rage; +And some, their violent passions to assuage +Compile sharp satires; but, alas, too late! +For faithful love will never turn to hate; +And many, seeing great princes were denied, +Pin'd as they went, and thinking on her died. +On this feast-day,--O cursed day and hour!-- +Went Hero thorough Sestos, from her tower +To Venus' temple, where unhappily, +As after chanc'd, they did each other spy. +So fair a church as this had Venus none: +The walls were of discolour'd jasper-stone, +Wherein was Proteus carv'd; and over-head +A lively vine of green sea-agate spread, +Where by one hand light-headed Bacchus hung, +And with the other wine from grapes out-wrung. +Of crystal shining fair the pavement was; +The town of Sestos call'd it Venus' glass: +There might you see the gods, in sundry shapes, +Committing heady riots, incest, rapes; +For know, that underneath this radiant flour +Was Danaee's statue in a brazen tower; +Jove slily stealing from his sister's bed, +To dally with Idalian Ganymed, +And for his love Europa bellowing loud, +And tumbling with the Rainbow in a cloud; +Blood-quaffing Mars heaving the iron net +Which limping Vulcan and his Cyclops set; +Love kindling fire, to burn such towns as Troy; +Silvanus weeping for the lovely boy +That now is turn'd into a cypress-tree, +Under whose shade the wood-gods love to be. +And in the midst a silver altar stood: +There Hero, sacrificing turtle's blood, +Vail'd to the ground, veiling her eyelids close; +And modestly they open'd as she rose: +Thence flew Love's arrow with the golden head; +And thus Leander was enamoured. +Stone-still he stood, and evermore he gaz'd, +Till with the fire, that from his countenance blaz'd, +Relenting Hero's gentle heart was strook: +Such force and virtue hath an amorous look. + It lies not in our power to love or hate, +For will in us is over-rul'd by fate. +When two are stript long ere the course begin, +We wish that one should lose, the other win; +And one especially do we affect +Of two gold ingots, like in each respect: +The reason no man knows; let it suffice, +What we behold is censur'd by our eyes. +Where both deliberate, the love is slight: +Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight? + He kneel'd; but unto her devoutly pray'd: +Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said, +"Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him;" +And, as she spake those words, came somewhat near him. +He started up; she blush'd as one asham'd; +Wherewith Leander much more was inflam'd. +He touch'd her hand; in touching it she trembled: +Love deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled. +These lovers parled by the touch of hands: +True love is mute, and oft amazed stands. +Thus while dumb signs their yielding hearts entangled, +The air with sparks of living fire was spangled; +And Night, deep-drench'd in misty Acheron, +Heav'd up her head, and half the world upon +Breath'd darkness forth (dark night is Cupid's day): +And now begins Leander to display +Love's holy fire, with words, with sighs, and tears; +Which, like sweet music, enter'd Hero's ears; +And yet at every word she turn'd aside, +And always cut him off, as he replied. +At last, like to a bold sharp sophister, +With cheerful hope thus he accosted her. +"Fair creature, let me speak without offence: +I would my rude words had the influence +To lead thy thoughts as thy fair looks do mine! +Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine. +Be not unkind and fair; mis-shapen stuff +Are of behaviour boisterous and rough. +O, shun me not, but hear me ere you go! +God knows, I cannot force love as you do: +My words shall be as spotless as my youth, +Full of simplicity and naked truth. +This sacrifice, whose sweet perfume descending +From Venus' altar, to your footsteps bending, +Doth testify that you exceed her far, +To whom you offer, and whose nun you are. +Why should you worship her? her you surpass +As much as sparkling diamons flaring glass. +A diamond set in lead his worth retains; +A heavenly nymph, belov'd of human swains, +Receives no blemish, but oftimes more grace; +Which makes me hope, although I am but base, +Base in respect of thee divine and pure, +Dutiful service may thy love procure; +And I in duty will excel all other, +As thou in beauty dost exceed Love's mother. +Nor heaven nor thou were made to gaze upon: +As heaven preserves all things, so save thou one. +A stately builded ship, well rigg'd and tall, +The ocean maketh more majestical: +Why vow'st thou, then, to live in Sestos here, +Who on Love's seas more glorious wouldst appear? +Like untun'd golden strings all women are, +Which long time lie untouch'd, will harshly jar. +Vessels of brass, oft handed, brightly shine: +What difference betwixt the richest mine +And basest mould, but use? for both, not us'd, +Are of like worth. Then treasure is abus'd, +When misers keep it: being put to loan, +In time it will return us two for one. +Rich robes themselves and others do adorn; +Neither themselves nor others, if not worn. +Who builds a palace, and rams up the gate, +Shall see it ruinous and desolate: +Ah, simple Hero, learn thyself to cherish! +Lone women, like to empty houses, perish. +Less sins the poor rich man, that starves himself +In heaping up a mass of drossy pelf, +Than such as you: his golden earth remains, +Which, after his decease, some other gains; +But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone, +When you fleet hence, can be bequeath'd to none; +Or, if it could, down from th' enamell'd sky +All heaven would come to claim this legacy, +And with intestine broils the world destroy, +And quite confound Nature's sweet harmony. +Well therefore by the gods decreed it is, +We human creatures should enjoy that bliss. +One is no number; maids are nothing, then, +Without the sweet society of men. +Wilt thou live single still? one shalt thou be, +Though never singling Hymen couple thee. +Wild savages, that drink of running springs, +Think water far excels all earthly things; +But they, that daily taste neat wine, despise it: +Virginity, albeit some highly prize it, +Compar'd with marriage, had you tried them both, +Differs as much as wine and water doth. +Base bullion for the stamp's sake we allow: +Even so for men's impression do we you; +By which alone, our reverend fathers say, +Women receive perfection every way. +This idol, which you term virginity, +Is neither essence subject to the eye, +No, nor to any one exterior sense, +Nor hath it any place of residence, +Nor is't of earth or mould celestial, +Or capable of any form at all. +Of that which hath no being, do not boast: +Things that are not at all, are never lost. +Men foolishly do call it virtuous: +What virtue is it, that is born with us? +Much less can honour be ascrib'd thereto: +Honour is purchas'd by the deeds we do +Believe me, Hero, honour is not won, +Until some honourable deed be done. +Seek you, for chastity, immortal fame, +And know that some have wrong'd Diana's name? +Whose name is it, if she be false or not, +So she be fair, but some vile tongues will blot? +But you are fair, ay me! so wondrous fair, +So young, so gentle, and so debonair, +As Greece will think, if thus you live alone, +Some one or other keeps you as his own. +Then, Hero, hate me not, nor from me fly, +To follow swiftly blasting imfamy. +Perhaps thy sacred priesthood makes thee loath: +Tell me, to whom mad'st thou that heedless oath?" +"To Venus," answer'd she; and, as she spake, +Forth from those two tralucent cisterns brake +A stream of liquid pearl, which down her face +Made milk-white paths, whereon the gods might trace +To Jove's high court. He thus replied: "The rites +In which love's beauteous empress most delights, +Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel, +Plays, masks, and all that stern age counteth evil. +Thee as a holy idiot doth she scorn; +For thou, in vowing chastity, hast sworn +To rob her name and honour, and thereby +Committ'st a sin far worse than perjury, +Even sacrilege against her deity, +Through regular and formal purity. +To expiate which sin, kiss and shake hands: +Such sacrifice as this Venus demands." +Thereat she smil'd, and did deny him so, +As put thereby, yet might he hope for mo; +Which makes him quickly reinforce his speech, +And her in humble manner thus beseech: +"Though neither gods nor men may thee deserve, +Yet for her sake, whom you have vow'd to serve, +Abandon fruitless cold virginity. +The gentle queen of love's sole enemy. +Then shall you most resemble Venus' nun, +When Venus' sweet rites are perform'd and done. +Flint breasted Pallas joys in single life; +But Pallas and your mistress are at strife. +Love, Hero, then, and be not tyrannous; +But heal the heart that thou hast wounded thus; +Nor stain thy youthful years with avarice: +Fair fools delight to be accounted nice. +The richest corn dies, if it be not reapt; +Beauty alone is lost, too warily kept." +These arguments he us'd, and many more; +Wherewith she yielded, that was won before. +Hero's looks yielded, but her words made war: +Women are won when they begin to jar. +Thus, having swallow'd Cupid's golden hook, +The more she striv'd, the deeper was she strook: +Yet, evilly feigning anger, strove she still, +And would be thought to grant against her will. +So having paus'd a while, at last she said, +"Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid? +Ay me! such words as these should I abhor, +And yet I like them for the orator." +With that, Leander stoop'd to have embrac'd her, +But from his spreading arms away she cast her, +And thus bespake him: "Gentle youth, forbear +To touch the sacred garments which I wear. +Upon a rock, and underneath a hill, +Far from the town, (where all is whist and still, +Save that the sea, playing on yellow sand, +Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land, +Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus +In silence of the night to visit us,) +My turret stands; and there, God knows, I play +With Venus' swans and sparrows all the day. +A dwarfish beldam bears me company, +That hops about the chamber where I lie, +And spends the night, that might be better spent, +In vain discourse and apish merriment:-- +Come thither." As she spake this, her tongue tripp'd, +For unawares, "Come thither," from her slipp'd; +And suddenly her former colour chang'd, +And here and there her eyes through anger rang'd; +And, like a planet moving several ways +At one self instant, she, poor soul, assays, +Loving, not to love at all, and every part +Strove to resist the motions of her heart: +And hands so pure, so innocent, nay, such +As might have made Heaven stoop to have a touch, +Did she uphold to Venus, and again +Vow'd spotless chastity; but all in vain; +Cupid beats down her prayers with his wings; +Her vows about the empty air he flings: +All deep enrag'd, his sinewy bow he bent, +And shot a shaft that burning from him went; +Wherewith she strooken, look'd so dolefully, +As made Love sigh to see his tyranny; +And, as she wept, her tears to pearl he turn'd, +And wound them on his arm, and for her mourn'd. +Then towards the palace of the Destinies, +Laden with languishment and grief, he flies, +And to those stern nymphs humbly made request, +Both might enjoy each other, and be blest. +But with a ghastly dreadful countenance, +Threatening a thousand deaths at every glance, +They answer'd Love, nor would vouchsafe so much +As one poor word, their hate to him was such: +Hearken a while, and I will tell you why. + Heaven's winged herald, Jove-born Mercury, +The self-same day that he asleep had laid +Enchanted Argus, spied a country maid, +Whose careless hair, instead of pearl t'adorn it, +Glister'd with dew, as one that seem'd to scorn it; +Her breath as fragrant as the morning rose; +Her mind pure, and her tongue untaught to glose: +Yet proud she was (for lofty Pride that dwells +In towered courts, is oft in shepherds' cells), +And too-too well the fair vermilion knew +And silver tincture of her cheeks, that drew +The love of every swain. On her this god +Enamour'd was, and with his snaky rod +Did charm her nimble feet, and made her stay, +The while upon a hillock down he lay, +And sweetly on his pipe began to play, +And with smooth speech her fancy to assay, +Till in his twining arms her lock'd her fast, +And then he woo'd with kisses; and at last, +As shepherds do, her on the ground he laid, +And, tumbling in the grass, he often stray'd +Beyond the bounds of shame, in being bold +To eye those parts which no eye should behold; +And, like an insolent commanding lover, +Boasting his parentage, would needs discover +The way to new Elysium. But she, +Whose only dower was her chastity, +Having striven in vain, was now about to cry, +And crave the help of shepherds that were nigh. +Herewith he stay'd his fury, and began +To give her leave to rise: away she ran; +After went Mercury, who us'd such cunning, +As she, to hear his tale, left off her running; +(Maids are not won by brutish force and might +But speeches full of pleasure, and delight;) +And, knowing Hermes courted her, was glad +That she such loveliness and beauty had +As could provoke his liking; yet was mute, +And neither would deny nor grant his suit. +Still vow'd he love: she, wanting no excuse +To feed him with delays, as women use, +Or thirsting after immortality, +(All women are ambitious naturally,) +Impos'd upon her lover such a task, +As he ought not perform, nor yet she ask; +A draught of flowing nectar she requested, +Wherewith the king of gods and men is feasted. +He, ready to accomplish what she will'd, +Stole some from Hebe (Hebe Jove's cup fill'd), +And gave it to his simple rustic love: +Which being known,--as what is hid from Jove?-- +He inly storm'd, and wax'd more furious +Than for the fire filch'd by Prometheus; +And thrusts him down from heaven. He, wandering here, +In mournful terms, with sad and heavy cheer, +Complain'd to Cupid: Cupid, for his sake, +To be reveng'd on Jove did undertake; +And those on whom heaven, earth, and hell relies, +I mean the adamantine Destinies, +He wounds with love, and forc'd them equally +To dote upon deceitful Mercury. +They offer'd him the deadly fatal knife +That shears the slender threads of human life; +At his fair feather'd feet the engines laid, +Which th' earth from ugly Chaos' den upweigh'd. +These he regarded not; but did entreat +That Jove, usurper of his father's seat, +Might presently be banish'd into hell, +And aged Saturn in Olympus dwell. +They granted what he crav'd; and once again +Saturn and Ops began their golden reign: +Murder, rape, war, and lust, and treachery, +Were with Jove clos'd in Stygian empery. +But long this blessed time continu'd not: +As soon as he his wished purpose got, +He, reckless of his promise, did despise +The love of th' everlasting Destinies. +They, seeing it, both Love and him abhorr'd, +And Jupiter unto his place restor'd: +And, but that learning, in despite of Fate, +Will amount aloft, and enter heaven-gate, +And to the seat of Jove itself advance, +Hermes had slept in hell with Ignorance. +Yet, as a punishment, they added this, +That he and Poverty should always kiss +And to this day is every scholar poor: +Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor. +Likewise the angry Sisters, thus deluded, +To venge themselves on Hermes, have concluded +That Midas' brood shall sit in Honour's chair, +To which the Muses' sons are only heir; +And fruitful wits, that inaspiring are, +Shall discontent run into regions far; +And few great lords in virtuous deeds shall joy +But be surpris'd with every garish toy, +And still enrich the lofty servile clown, +Who with encroaching guile keeps learning down. +Then muse not Cupid's suit no better sped, +Seeing in their loves the Fates were injured. + + +THE SECOND SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND SESTIAD + + Hero of love takes deeper sense, + And doth her love more recompense: + Their first night's meeting, where sweet kisses + Are th' only crowns of both their blisses. + He swims t' Abydos, and returns: + Cold Neptune with his beauty burns; + Whose suit he shuns, and doth aspire + Hero's fair tower and his desire. + + +By this, sad Hero, with love unacquainted, +Viewing Leander's face, fell down and fainted. +He kiss'd her, and breath'd life into her lips; +Wherewith, as one displeas'd, away she trips; +Yet, as she went, full often look'd behind, +And many poor excuses did she find +To linger by the way, and once she stay'd, +And would have turn'd again, but was afraid, +In offering parley, to be counted light: +So on she goes, and, in her idle flight, +Her painted fan of curled plumes let fall, +Thinking to train Leander therewithal. +He, being a novice, knew not what she meant, +But stay'd, and after her a letter sent; +Which joyful Hero answer'd in such sort, +As he had hoped to scale the beauteous fort +Wherein the liberal Graces lock'd their wealth; +And therefore to her tower he got by stealth. +Wide-open stood the door; he need not climb; +And she herself, before the pointed time, +Had spread the board, with roses strew'd the room, +And oft look'd out, and mus'd he did not come. +At last he came: O, who can tell the greeting +These greedy lovers had at their first meeting? +He ask'd; she gave; and nothing was denied; +Both to each other quickly were affied: +Look how their hands, so were their hearts united, +And what he did, she willingly requited. +(Sweet are the kisses, the embracements sweet, +When like desires and like affections meet; +For from the earth to heaven is Cupid rais'd, +Where fancy is in equal balance pais'd.) +Yet she this rashness suddenly repented, +And turn'd aside, and to herself lamented, +As if her name and honour had been wrong'd, +By being possess'd of him for whom she long'd; +Ay, and she wish'd, albeit not from her heart, +That he would leave her turret and depart. +The mirthful god of amorous pleasure smil'd +To see how he this captive nymph beguil'd; +For hitherto he did but fan the fire, +And kept it down, that it might mount the higher. +Now wax'd she jealous lest his love abated, +Fearing her own thoughts made her to be hated. +Therefore unto him hastily she goes, +And, like light Salmacis, her body throws +Upon his bosom, where with yielding eyes +She offers up herself a sacrifice +To slake his anger, if he were displeas'd: +O, what god would not therewith be appeas'd? +Like AEsop's cock, this jewel he enjoy'd, +And as a brother with his sister toy'd, +Supposing nothing else was to be done, +Now he her favour and goodwill had won. +But know you not that creatures wanting sense, +By nature have a mutual appetence, +And, wanting organs to advance a step, +Mov'd by love's force, unto each other lep? +Much more in subjects having intellect +Some hidden influence breeds like effect. +Albeit Leander, rude in love and raw, +Long dallying with Hero, nothing saw +That might delight him more, yet he suspected +Some amorous rites or other were neglected. +Therefore unto his body hers he clung: +She, fearing on the rushes to be flung, +Striv'd with redoubled strength; the more she striv'd, +The more a gentle pleasing heat reviv'd, +Which taught him all that elder lovers know; +And now the same gan so to scorch and glow, +As in plain terms, yet cunningly, he crave it: +Love always makes those eloquent that have it. +She, with a kind of granting, put him by it, +And ever, as he thought himself most nigh it, +Like to the tree of Tantalus, she fled, +And, seeming lavish, sav'd her maidenhead. +Ne'er king more sought to keep his diadem, +Than Hero this inestimable gem: +Above our life we love a steadfast friend; +Yet when a token of great worth we send, +We often kiss it, often look thereon, +And stay the messenger that would be gone; +No marvel, then, though Hero would not yield +So soon to part from that she dearly held: +Jewels being lost are found again; this never; +'Tis lost but once, and once lost, lost for ever. + Now had the Morn espied her lover's steeds; +Whereat she starts, puts on her purple weeds, +And, red for anger that he stay'd so long, +All headlong throws herself the clouds among. +And now Leander, fearing to be miss'd, +Embrac'd her suddenly, took leave, and kiss'd: +Long was he taking leave, and loathe to go, +And kiss'd again, as lovers use to do. +Sad Hero wrung him by the hand, and wept, +Saying, "Let your vows and promises be kept": +Then standing at the door, she turn'd about, +As loathe to see Leander going out. +And now the sun, that through th' horizon peeps, +As pitying these lovers, downward creeps; +So that in silence of the cloudy night, +Though it was morning, did he take his flight. +But what the secret trusty night conceal'd, +Leander's amorous habit soon reveal'd: +With Cupid's myrtle was his bonnet crown'd, +About his arms the purple riband wound, +Wherewith she wreath'd her largely-spreading hair; +Nor could the youth abstain, but he must wear +The sacred ring wherewith she was endow'd, +When first religious chastity she vow'd; +Which made his love through Sestos to be known, +And thence unto Abydos sooner blown +Than he could sail; for incorporeal Fame, +Whose weight consists in nothing but her name, +Is swifter than the wind, whose tardy plumes +Are reeking water and dull earthly fumes. + Home when he came, he seem'd not to be there, +But, like exiled air thrust from his sphere, +Set in a foreign place; and straight from thence, +Alcides-like, by mighty violence, +He would have chas'd away the swelling main, +That him from her unjustly did detain. +Like as the sun in a diameter +Fires and inflames objects removed far, +And heateth kindly, shining laterally; +So beauty sweetly quickens when 'tis nigh, +But being separated and remov'd, +Burns where it cherish'd, murders where it lov'd. +Therefore even as an index to a book, +So to his mind was young Leander's look. +O, none but gods have power their love to hide! +Affection by the countenance is descried; +The light of hidden fire itself discovers, +And love that is conceal'd betrays poor lovers. +His secret flame apparently was seen: +Leander's father knew where he had been, +And for the same mildly rebuk'd his son, +Thinking to quench the sparkles new-begun. +But love resisted once, grows passionate, +And nothing more than counsel lovers hate; +For as a hot proud horse highly disdains +To have his head controll'd, but breaks the reins, +Spits forth the ringled bit, and with his hoves +Checks the submissive ground; so he that loves, +The more he is restrain'd, the worse he fares: +What is it now but mad Leander dares? +"O Hero, Hero!" thus he cried full oft; +And then he got him to a rock aloft, +Where having spied her tower, long star'd he on't, +And pray'd the narrow toiling Hellespont +To part in twain, that he might come and go; +But still the rising billows answer'd, "No." +With that, he stripp'd him to the ivory skin, +And, crying, "Love, I come," leap'd lively in: +Whereat the sapphire-visag'd god grew proud, +And made his capering Triton sound aloud, +Imagining that Ganymede, displeas'd, +Had left the heavens; therefore on him he seiz'd. +Leander striv'd; the waves about him wound, +And pull'd him to the bottom, where the ground +Was strew'd with pearl, and in low coral groves +Sweet-singing mermaids sported with their loves +On heaps of heavy gold, and took great pleasure +To spurn in careless sort the shipwreck treasure; +For here the stately azure palace stood, +Where kingly Neptune and his train abode. +The lusty god embrac'd him, call'd him "love," +And swore he never should return to Jove: +But when he knew it was not Ganymed, +For under water he was almost dead, +He heav'd him up, and, looking on his face, +Beat down the bold waves with his triple mace, +Which mounted up, intending to have kiss'd him. +And fell in drops like tears because they miss'd him. +Leander, being up, began to swim, +And, looking back, saw Neptune follow him: +Whereat aghast, the poor soul gan to cry, +"O, let me visit Hero ere I die!" +The god put Helle's bracelet on his arm, +And swore the sea should never do him harm. +He clapp'd his plump cheeks, with his tresses play'd, +And, smiling wantonly, his love bewray'd; +He watch'd his arms, and, as they open'd wide +At every stroke, betwixt them would he slide, +And steal a kiss, and then run out and dance, +And, as he turn'd, cast many a lustful glance, +And throw him gaudy toys to please his eye, +And dive into the water, and there pry +Upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb, +And up again, and close beside him swim, +And talk of love. Leander made reply, +"You are deceiv'd; I am no woman, I." +Thereat smil'd Neptune, and then told a tale, +How that a shepherd, sitting in a vale, +Play'd with a boy so lovely-fair and kind, +As for his love both earth and heaven pin'd; +That of the cooling river durst not drink, +Lest water-nymphs should pull him from the brink; +And when he sported in the fragrant lawns, +Goat-footed Satyrs and up-staring Fauns +Would steal him thence. Ere half this tale was done, +"Ay me," Leander cried, "th' enamour'd sun, +That now should shine on Thetis' glassy bower, +Descends upon my radiant Hero's tower: +O, that these tardy arms of mine were wings!" +And, as he spake, upon the waves he springs. +Neptune was angry that he gave no ear, +And in his heart revenging malice bare: +He flung at him his mace; but, as it went, +He call'd it in, for love made him repent: +The mace, returning back, his own hand hit, +As meaning to be veng'd for darting it. +When this fresh-bleeding wound Leander view'd, +His colour went and came, as if he ru'd +The grief which Neptune felt: in gentle breasts +Relenting thoughts, remorse, and pity rests; +And who have hard hearts and obdurate minds, +But vicious, hare-brain'd, and illiterate hinds? +The god, seeing him with pity to be mov'd, +Thereon concluded that he was belov'd; +(Love is too full of faith, too credulous, +With folly and false hope deluding us;) +Wherefore, Leander's fancy to surprise, +To the rich ocean for gifts he flies; +'Tis wisdom to give much; a gilt prevails +When deep-persuading oratory fails. + By this, Leander, being near the land, +Cast down his weary feet, and felt the sand. +Breathless albeit he were, he rested not +Till to the solitary tower he got; +And knock'd, and call'd: at which celestial noise +The longing heart of Hero much more joys, +Than nymphs and shepherds when the timbrel rings, +Or crooked dolphin when the sailor sings. +She stay'd not for her robes, but straight arose, +And, drunk with gladness, to the door she goes; +Where seeing a naked man, she screech'd for fear, +(Such sights as this to tender maids are rare,) +And ran into the dark herself to hide +(Rich jewels in the dark are soonest spied). +Unto her was he led, or rather drawn +By those white limbs which sparkled through the lawn. +The nearer that he came, the more she fled, +And, seeking refuge, slipt into her bed; +Whereon Leander sitting, thus began, +Through numbing cold, all feeble, faint, and wan. +"If not for love, yet, love, for pity-sake, +Me in thy bed and maiden bosom take; +At least vouchsafe these arms some little room, +Who, hoping to embrace thee, cheerly swoom: +This head was beat with many a churlish billow, +And therefore let it rest upon thy pillow." +Herewith affrighted, Hero shrunk away, +And in her lukewarm place Leander lay; +Whose lively heat, like fire from heaven fet, +Would animate gross clay, and higher set +The drooping thoughts of base-declining souls, +Than dreary-Mars-carousing nectar bowls. +His hands he cast upon her like a snare: +She, overcome with shame and sallow fear, +Like chaste Diana when Actaeon spied her, +Being suddenly betray'd, div'd down to hide her; +And, as her silver body downward went, +With both her hands she made the bed a tent, +And in her own mind thought herself secure, +O'ercast with dim and darksome coverture. +And now she lets him whisper in her ear, +Flatter, entreat, promise, protest, and swear: +Yet ever, as he greedily assay'd +To touch those dainties, she the harpy play'd, +And every limb did, as a soldier stout, +Defend the fort, and keep the foeman out; +For though the rising ivory mount he scal'd, +Which is with azure circling lines empal'd. +Much like a globe (a globe may I term this, +By which Love sails to regions full of bliss,) +Yet there with Sisyphus he toil'd in vain, +Till gentle parley did the truce obtain. +Even as a bird, which in our hands we wring, +Forth plungeth, and oft flutters with her wing, +She trembling strove: this strife of hers, like that +Which made the world, another world begat +Of unknown joy. Treason was in her thought, +And cunningly to yield herself she sought. +Seeming not won, yet won she was at length: +In such wars women use but half their strength. +Leander now, like Theban Hercules, +Enter'd the orchard of th' Hesperides; +Whose fruit none rightly can describe, but he +That pulls or shakes it from the golden tree. +Wherein Leander, on her quivering breast, +Breathless spoke something, and sigh'd out the rest; +Which so prevail'd, as he, with small ado, +Enclos'd her in his arms, and kiss'd her too: +And every kiss to her was as a charm, +And to Leander as a fresh alarm: +So that the truce was broke, and she, alas, +Poor silly maiden, at his mercy was. +Love is not full of pity, as men say, +But deaf and cruel where he means to prey. + And now she wish'd this night were never done, +And sigh'd to think upon th' approaching sun; +For much it griev'd her that the bright day-light +Should know the pleasure of this blessed night, +And them, like Mars and Erycine, display +Both in each other's arms chain'd as they lay. +Again, she knew not how to frame her look, +Or speak to him, who in a moment took +That which so long, so charily she kept; +And fain by stealth away she would have crept, +And to some corner secretly have gone, +Leaving Leander in the bed alone. +But as her naked feet were whipping out, +He on the sudden cling'd her so about, +That, mermaid-like, unto the floor she slid; +One half appear'd the other half was hid. +Thus near the bed she blushing stood upright, +And from her countenance behold ye might +A kind of twilight break, which through the air, +As from an orient cloud, glimps'd here and there; +And round about the chamber this false morn +Brought forth the day before the day was born. +So Hero's ruddy cheek Hero betray'd, +And her all naked to his sight display'd: +Whence his admiring eyes more pleasure took +Than Dis, on heaps of gold fixing his look. +By this, Apollo's golden harp began +To sound forth music to the ocean; +Which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard, +But he the bright Day-bearing car prepar'd, +And ran before, as harbinger of light, +And with his flaring beams mock'd ugly Night +Till she, o'ercome with anguish, shame, and rage, +Dang'd down to hell her loathsome carriage. + + + Here Marlowe's work ends. The rest of the poem is by Chapman. + + +THE THIRD SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD SESTIAD + + Leander to the envious light + Resigns his night-sports with the night, + And swims the Hellespont again. + Thesme, the deity sovereign + Of customs and religious rites, + Appears, reproving his delights, + Since nuptial honours he neglected; + Which straight he vows shall be effected. + Fair Hero, left devirginate, + Weighs, and with fury wails her state: + But with her love and woman's wit + She argues and approveth it. + + +New light gives new directions, fortunes new +To fashion our endeavours that ensue. +More harsh, at least more hard, more grave and high +Our subject runs, and our stern Muse must fly. +Love's edge is taken off, and that light flame, +Those thoughts, joys, longings, that before became +High unexperienc'd blood, and maids' sharp plights, +Must now grow staid, and censure the delights, +That, being enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise, +As having parted: evenings crown the days. + And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires, +Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires, +Ye lisping Flatteries, and obsequious Glances, +Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances, +And you detested Charms constraining love! +Shun love's stoln sports by that these lovers prove. + By this, the sovereign of heaven's golden fires, +And young Leander, lord of his desires, +Together from their lover's arms arose: +Leander into Hellespontus throws +His Hero-handled body, whose delight +Made him disdain each other epithite. +And so amidst th' enamour'd waves he swims, +The god of gold of purpose gilt his limbs, +That, this word _gilt_ including double sense, +The double guilt of his incontinence +Might be express'd, that had no stay t' employ +The tresure which the love-god let him joy +In his dear Hero, with such sacred thrift +As had beseem'd so sanctified a gift; +But, like a greedy vulgar prodigal, +Would on the stock dispend, and rudely fall, +Before his time, to that unblessed blessing +Which, for lust's plague, doth perish with possessing: +Joy graven in sense, like snow in water, wasts; +Without preserve of virtue, nothing lasts. +What man is he, that with a wealthy eye +Enjoys a beauty richer than the sky, +Through whose white skin, softer than soundest sleep, +With damask eyes the ruby blood doth peep, +And runs in branches through her azure veins, +Whose mixture and first fire his love attains; +Whose both hands limit both love's deities, +And sweeten human thoughts like paradise; +Whose disposition silken and is kind, +Directed with an earth-exempted mind;-- +Who thinks not heaven with such a love is given? +And who, like earth, would spend that dower of heaven, +With rank desire to joy it all at first? +What simply kills our hunger, quencheth thirst, +Clothes but our nakedness, and makes us live, +Praise doth not any of her favours give: +But what doth plentifully minister +Beauteous apparel and delicious cheer, +So order'd that it still excites desire, +And still gives pleasure freeness to aspire, +The palm of Bounty ever moist preserving; +To Love's sweet life this is the courtly carving. +Thus Time and all-states-ordering Ceremony +Had banish'd all offence: Time's golden thigh +Upholds the flowery body of the earth +In sacred harmony, and every birth +Of men and actions makes legitimate; +Being us'd aright, the use of time is fate. + Yet did the gentle flood transfer once more +This prize of love home to his father's shore, +Where he unlades himself of that false wealth +That makes few rich,--treasures compos'd by stealth; +And to his sister, kind Hermione, +(Who on the shore kneel'd, praying to the sea +For his return,) he all love's goods did show, +In Hero seis'd for him, in him for Hero. + His most kind sister all his secrets knew, +And to her, singing, like a shower, he flew, +Sprinkling the earth, that to their tombs took in +Streams dead for love, to leave his ivory skin, +Which yet a snowy foam did leave above, +As soul to the dead water that did love; +And from thence did the first white roses spring +(For love is sweet and fair in every thing), +And all the sweeten'd shore, as he did go, +Was crown'd with odorous roses, white as snow. +Love-blest Leander was with love so fill'd, +That love to all that touch'd him he instill'd; +And as the colours of all things we see, +To our sight's powers communicated be, +So to all objects that in compass came +Of any sense he had, his senses' flame +Flow'd from his parts with force so virtual, +It fir'd with sense things mere insensual. + Now, with warm baths and odours comforted, +When he lay down, he kindly kiss'd his bed, +As consecrating it to Hero's right, +And vow'd thererafter, that whatever sight +Put him in mind of Hero or her bliss, +Should be her altar to prefer a kiss. + Then laid he forth his late-enriched arms, +In whose white circle Love writ all his charms, +And made his characters sweet Hero's limbs, +When on his breast's warm sea she sideling swims; +And as those arms, held up in circle, met, +He said, "See, sister, Hero's carquenet! +Which she had rather wear about her neck, +Than all the jewels that do Juno deck." + But, as he shook with passionate desire +To put in flame his other secret fire, +A music so divine did pierce his ear, +As never yet his ravish'd sense did hear; +When suddenly a light of twenty hues +Brake through the roof, and, like the rainbow, views +Amaz'd Leander: in whose beams came down +The goddess Ceremony, with a crown +Of all the stars; and Heaven with her descended: +Her flaming hair to her bright feet extended, +By which hung all the bench of deities; +And in a chain, compact of ears and eyes, +She led Religion: all her body was +Clear and transparent as the purest glass, +For she was all presented to the sense: +Devotion, Order, State, and Reverence, +Her shadows were; Society, Memory; +All which her sight made live, her absence die. +A rich disparent pentacle she wears, +Drawn full of circles and strange characters. +Her face was changeable to every eye; +One way look'd ill, another graciously; +Which while men view'd, they cheerful were and holy, +But looking off, vicious and melancholy. +The snaky paths to each observed law +Did Policy in her broad bosom draw. +One hand a mathematic crystal sways, +Which, gathering in one line a thousand rays +From her bright eyes, Confusion burns to death, +And all estates of men distinguisheth: +By it Morality and Comeliness +Themselves in all their sightly figures dress. +Her other hand a laurel rod applies, +To beat back Barbarism and Avarice, +That follow'd, eating earth and excrement +And human limbs; and would make proud ascent +To seats of gods, were Ceremony slain. +The Hours and Graces bore her glorious train; +And all the sweets of our society +Were spher'd and treasur'd in her bounteous eye. +Thus she appear'd, and sharply did reprove +Leander's bluntness in his violent love; +Told him how poor was substance without rites, +Like bills unsign'd; desires without delights; +Like meats unseason'd; like rank corn that grows +On cottages, that none or reaps or sows; +Not being with civil forms confirm'd and bounded, +For human dignities and comforts founded; +But loose and secret all their glories hide; +Fear fills the chamber, Darkness decks the bride. + She vanish'd, leaving pierc'd Leander's heart +With sense of his unceremonious part, +In which, with plain neglect of nuptial rites, +He close and flatly fell to his delights: +And instantly he vow'd to celebrate +All rites pertaining to his married state. +So up he gets, and to his father goes, +To whose glad ears he doth his vows disclose. +The nuptials are resolv'd with utmost power; +And he at night would swim to Hero's tower, +From whence he meant to Sestos' forked bay +To bring her covertly, where ships must stay, +Sent by his father, throughly rigg'd and mann'd, +To waft her safely to Abydos' strand. +There leave we him; and with fresh wing pursue +Astonish'd Hero, whose most wished view +I thus long have forborne, because I left her +So out of countenance, and her spirits bereft her: +To look of one abashed is impudence, +When of slight faults he hath too deep a sense. +Her blushing het her chamber: she look'd out, +And all the air she purpled round about; +And after it a foul black day befell, +Which ever since a red morn doth foretell, +And still renews our woes for Hero's woe; +And foul it prov'd, because it figur'd so +The next night's horror; which prepare to hear; +I fail, if it profane your daintiest ear. + Then, ho, most strangely-intellectual fire, +That, proper to my soul, hast power t'inspire +Her burning faculties, and with the wings +Of thy unsphered flame visit'st the springs +Of spirits immortal! Now (as swift as Time +Doth follow Motion) find th' eternal clime +Of his free soul, whose living subject stood +Up to the chin in the Pierian flood, +And drunk to me half this Musaean story, +Inscribing it to deathless memory: +Confer with it, and make my pledge as deep, +That neither's draught be consecrate to sleep; +Tell it how much his late desires I tender +(If yet it know not), and to light surrender +My soul's dark offspring, willing it should die +To loves, to passions, and society. + Sweet Hero, left upon her bed alone, +Her maidenhead, her vows, Leander gone, +And nothing with her but a violent crew +Of new-come thoughts, that yet she never knew, +Even to herself a stranger, was much like +Th' Iberian city that War's hand did strike +By English force in princely Essex' guide, +When Peace assur'd her towers had fortified, +And golden-finger'd India had bestow'd +Such wealth on her, that strength and empire flow'd +Into her turrets, and her virgin waist +The wealthy girdle of the sea embrac'd; +Till our Leander, that made Mars his Cupid, +For soft love suits with iron thunders chid; +Swum to her town, dissolv'd her virgin zone; +Led in his power, and made Confusion +Run through her streets amaz'd, that she suppos'd +She had not been in her own walls enclosed, +But rapt by wonder to some foreign state, +Seeing all her issue so disconsolate, +And all her peaceful mansions possess'd +With war's just spoil, and many a foreign guest +From every corner driving an enjoyer, +Supplying it with power of a destroyer. +So far'd fair Hero in th' expugned fort +Of her chaste bosom; and of every sort +Strange thoughts possess'd her, ransacking her breast +For that that was not there, her wonted rest. +She was a mother straight, and bore with pain +Thoughts that spake straight, and wish'd their mother slain; +She hates their lives, and they their own and hers: +Such strife still grows where sin the race prefers: +Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams, +That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes. +She mus'd how she could look upon her sire, +And not show that without, that was intire; +For as a glass is an inanimate eye, +And outward forms embraceth inwardly, +So is the eye an animate glass, that shows +In forms without us; and as Phoebus throws +His beams abroad, though he in clouds be clos'd, +Still glancing by them till he find oppos'd +A loose and rorid vapour that is fit +T' event his searching beams, and useth it +To form a tender twenty-colour'd eye, +Cast in a circle round about the sky; +So when our fiery soul, our body's star, +(That ever is in motion circular,) +Conceives a form, in seeking to display it +Through all our cloudy parts, it doth convey it +Forth at the eye, as the most pregnant place, +And that reflects it round about the face. +And this event, uncourtly Hero thought, +Her inward guilt would in her looks have wrought; +For yet the world's stale cunning she resisted, +To bear foul thoughts, yet forge what looks she listed, +And held it for a very silly sleight, +To make a perfect metal counterfeit. +Glad to disclaim herself, proud of an art +That makes the face a pandar to the heart. +Those be the painted moons, whose lights profane +Beauty's true heaven, at full still in their wane; +Those be the lapwing faces that still cry, +"Here 'tis!" when that they vow is nothing nigh: +Base fools! when every moorish fool can teach +That which men think the height of human reach. +But custom, that the apoplexy is +Of bed-rid nature and lives led amiss, +And takes away all feeling of offence, +Yet braz'd not Hero's brow with impudence; +And this she thought most hard to bring to pass, +To seem in countenance other than she was, +As if she had two souls, one for the face, +One for the heart, and that they shifted place +As either list to utter or conceal +What they conceiv'd, or as one soul did deal +With both affairs at once, keeps and ejects +Both at an instant contrary effects; +Retention and ejection in her powers +Being acts alike; for this one vice of ours, +That forms the thought, and sways the countenance, +Rules both our motion and our utterance. + These and more grave conceits toil'd Hero's spirits; +For, though the light of her discoursive wits +Perhaps might find some little hole to pass +Through all these worldly cinctures, yet, alas! +There was a heavenly flame encompass'd her,-- +Her goddess, in whose fane she did prefer +Her virgin vows, from whose impulsive sight +She knew the black shield of the darkest night +Could not defend her, nor wit's subtlest art: +This was the point pierc'd Hero to the heart; +Who, heavy to the death, with a deep sigh, +And hand that languish'd, took a robe was nigh, +Exceeding large, and of black cypress made, +In which she sate, hid from the day in shade, +Even over head and face, down to her feet; +Her left hand made it at her bosom meet, +Her right hand lean'd on her heart-bowing knee, +Wrapp'd in unshapeful folds, 'twas death to see; +Her knee stay'd that, and that her falling face; +Each limb help'd other to put on disgrace: +No form was seen, where form held all her sight; +But, like an embryon that saw never light, +Or like a scorched statue made a coal +With three-wing'd lightning, or a wretched soul +Muffled with endless darkness, she did sit: +The night had never such a heavy spirit. +Yet might a penetrating eye well see +How fast her clear tears melted on her knee +Through her black veil, and turn'd as black as it, +Mourning to be her tears. Then wrought her wit +With her broke vow, her goddess' wrath, her fame,-- +All tools that enginous despair could frame: +Which made her strew the floor with her torn hair, +And spread her mantle piece-meal in the air. +Like Jove's son's club, strong passion struck her down +And with a piteous shriek enforc'd her swoun: +Her shriek made with another shriek ascend +The frighted matron that on her did tend; +And as with her own cry her sense was slain, +So with the other it was call'd again. +She rose, and to her bed made forced way, +And laid her down even where Leander lay; +And all this while the red sea of her blood +Ebb'd with Leander: but now turn'd the flood, +And all her fleet of spirits came swelling in, +With child of sail, and did hot fight begin +With those severe conceits she too much mark'd: +And here Leander's beauties were embark'd. +He came in swimming, painted all with joys, +Such as might sweeten hell: his thought destroys + All her destroying thoughts; she thought she felt +His heart in hers, with her contentions melt, +And chide her soul that it could so much err, +To check the true joys he deserv'd in her. +Her fresh heat-blood cast figures in her eyes, +And she suppos'd she saw in Neptune's skies +How her star wander'd, wash'd in smarting brine, +For her love's sake, that with immortal wine +Should be embath'd, and swim in more heart's-ease +Than there was water in the Sestian seas. +Then said her Cupid-prompted spirit: "Shall I +Sing moans to such delightsome harmony? +Shall slick-tongu'd Fame, patch'd up with voices rude, +The drunken bastard of the multitude, +(Begot when father Judgment is away, +And, gossip-like, says because others say, +Takes news as if it were too hot to eat, +And spits it slavering forth for dog-fees meat,) +Make me, for forging a fantastic vow, +Presume to bear what makes grave matrons bow? +Good vows are never broken with good deeds, +For then good deeds were bad: vows are but seeds, +And good deeds fruits; even those good deeds that grow +From other stocks than from th' observed vow. +That is a good deed that prevents a bad; +Had I not yielded, slain myself I had. +Hero Leander is, Leander Hero; +Such virtue love hath to make one of two. +If, then, Leander did my maidenhead git, +Leander being myself, I still retain it: +We break chaste vows when we live loosely ever, +But bound as we are, we live loosely never: +Two constant lovers being join'd in one, +Yielding to one another, yield to none. +We know not how to vow till love unblind us, +And vows made ignorantly nerver bind us. +Too true it is, that, when 'tis gone, men hate +The joys as vain they took in love's estate: +But that's since they have lost the heavenly light +Should show them way to judge of all things right. +When life is gone, death must implant his terror: +As death is foe to life, so love to error. +Before we love, how range we through this sphere, +Searching the sundry fancies hunted here! +Now with desire of wealth transported quite +Beyond our free humanity's delight; +Now with ambition climbing falling towers, +Whose hope to scale, our fear to fall devours; +Now rapt with pastimes, pomp, all joys impure: +In things without us no delight is sure. +But love, with all joys crown'd, within doth sit: +O goddess, pity love, and pardon it!" +Thus spake she weeping: but her goddess' ear +Burn'd with too stern a heat, and would not hear. +Ay me! hath heaven's strait fingers no more graces +For such as Hero than for homeliest faces? +Yet she hop'd well, and in her sweet conceit +Weighing her arguments, she thought them weight, +And that the logic of Leander's beauty, +And them together, would bring proofs of duty; +And if her soul, that was a skillful glance +Of heaven's great essence, found such imperance +In her love's beauties, she had confidence +Jove lov'd him too, and pardon'd her offence: +Beauty in heaven and earth this grace doth win, +It supples rigour, and it lessens sin. +Thus, her sharp wit, her love, her secrecy, +Trooping together, made her wonder why +She should not leave her bed, and to the temple; +Her health said she must live; her sex, dissemble. +She view'd Leander's place, and wish'd he were +Turn'd to his place, so his place were Leander. +"Ay me," said she, "that love's sweet life and sense +Should do it harm! my love had not gone hence, +Had he been like his place: O blessed place, +Image of constancy! Thus my love's grace +Parts nowhere, but it leaves something behind +Worth observation: he renowns his kind: +His motion is, like heaven's, orbicular, +For where he once is, he is ever there. +This place was mine; Leander, now 'tis thine, +Thou being myself, then it is double mine, +Mine, and Leander's mine, Leander's mine. +O, see what wealth it yields me, nay, yields him! +For I am in it, he for me doth swim. +Rich, fruitful love, that, doubling self estates, +Elixir-like contracts, though separates! +Dear place, I kiss thee, and do welcome thee, +As from Leander ever sent to me." + + +THE FOURTH SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH SESTIAD + + Hero, in sacred habit deckt, + Doth private sacrifice effect. + Her scarf's description, wrought by Fate; + Ostents that threaten her estate; + The strange, yet physical, events, + Leander's counterfeit presents. + In thunder Cyprides descends, + Presaging both the lovers' ends: + Ecte, the goddess of remorse, + With vocal and articulate force + Inspires Leucote, Venus' swan, + T' excuse the beauteous Sestian. + Venus, to wreak her rites' abuses, + Creates the monster Eronusis, + Inflaming Hero's sacrifice + With lightning darted from her eyes; + And thereof springs the painted beast + That ever since taints every breast. + + +Now from Leander's place she rose, and found +Her hair and rent robe scatter'd on the ground; +Which taking up, she every piece did lay +Upon an altar, where in youth of day +She us'd t' exhibit private sacrifice: +Those would she offer to the deities +Of her fair goddess and her powerful son, +As relics of her late-felt passion; +And in that holy sort she vow'd to end them, +In hope her violent fancies, that did rend them, +Would as quite fade in her love's holy fire, +As they should in the flames she meant t' inspire. +Then she put on all her religious weeds, +That deck'd her in her secret sacred deeds; +A crown of icicles, that sun nor fire +Could ever melt, and figur'd chaste desire; +A golden star shin'd in her naked breast, +In honour of the queen-light of the east. +In her right hand she held a silver wand, +On whose bright top Peristera did stand, +Who was a nymph, but now transform'd a dove, +And in her life was dear in Venus' love; +And for her sake she ever since that time +Choos'd doves to draw her coach through heaven's blue clime. +Her plenteous hair in curled billows swims +On her bright shoulder: her harmonious limbs +Sustain'd no more but a most subtile veil, +That hung on them, as it durst not assail +Their different concord; for the weakest air +Could raise it swelling from her beauties fair; +Nor did it cover, but adumbrate only +Her most heart-piercing parts, that a blest eye +Might see, as it did shadow, fearfully, +All that all-love-deserving paradise: +It was as blue as the most freezing skies; +Near the sea's hue, for thence her goddess came: +On it a scarf she wore of wondrous frame; +In midst whereof she wrought a virgin's face, +From whose each cheek a fiery blush did chase +Two crimson flames, that did two ways extend, +Spreading the ample scarf to either end; +Which figur'd the division of her mind, +Whiles yet she rested bashfully inclined, +And stood not resolute to wed Leander; +This serv'd her white neck for a purple sphere, +And cast itself at full breadth down her back: +There, since the first breath that begun the wrack +Of her free quiet from Leander's lips, +She wrought a sea, in one flame, full of ships; +But that one ship where all her wealth did pass, +Like simple merchants' goods, Leander was; +For in that sea she naked figur'd him; +Her diving needle taught him how to swim, +And to each thread did such resemblance give, +For joy to be so like him it did live: +Things senseless live by art, and rational die +By rude contempt of art and industry. +Scarce could she work, but, in her strength of thought, +She fear'd she prick'd Leander as she wrought, +And oft would shriek so, that her guardian, frighted, +Would staring haste, as with some mischief cited: +They double life that dead things' grief sustain; +They kill that feel not their friends' living pain. +Sometimes she fear'd he sought her infamy; +And then, as she was working of his eye, +She thought to prick it out to quench her ill; +But, as she prick'd, it grew more perfect still: +Trifling attempts no serious acts advance; +The fire of love is blown by dalliance. +In working his fair neck she did so grace it, +She still was working her own arms t' embrace it. +That, and his shoulders, and his hands were seen +Above the stream; and with a pure sea-green +She did so quaintly shadow every limb, +All might be seen beneath the waves to swim. + In this conceited scarf she wrought beside +A moon in change, and shooting stars did glide +In number after her with bloody beams; +Which figur'd her affects in their extremes, +Pursuing nature in her Cynthian body, +And did her thoughts running on change imply; +For maids take more delight, when they prepare, +And think of wives' states, than when wives they are. +Beneath all these she wrought a fisherman, +Drawing his nets from forth the ocean; +Who drew so hard, ye might discover well +The toughen'd sinews in his neck did swell: +His inward strains drave out his blood-shot eyes +And springs of sweat did in his forehead rise; +Yet was of naught but of a serpent sped, +That in his bosom flew and stung him dead: +And this by Fate into her mind was sent, +Not wrought by mere instinct of her intent. +At the scarf's other end her hand did frame, +Near the fork'd point of the divided flame, +A country virgin keeping of a vine, +Who did of hollow bulrushes combine +Snares for the stubble-loving grasshopper, +And by her lay her scrip that nourish'd her. +Within a myrtle shade she sate and sung; +And tufts of waving reeds about her sprung +Where lurk'd two foxes, that, while she applied +Her trifling snares, their thieveries did divide, +One to the vine, another to her scrip, +That she did negligently overslip; +By which her fruitful vine and wholesome fare +She suffer'd spoil'd, to make a childish snare. +These ominous fancies did her soul express, +And every finger made a prophetess, +To show what death was hid in love's disguise, +And make her judgment conquer Destinies. +O, what sweet forms fair ladies' souls do shroud, +Were they made seen and forced through their blood; +If through their beauties, like rich work through lawn, +They would set forth their minds with virtues drawn, +In letting graces from their fingers fly, +To still their eyas thoughts with industry: +That their plied wits in number'd silks might sing +Passion's huge conquest, and their needles leading +Affection prisoner through their own-built cities, +Pinion'd with stories and Arachnean ditties. + Proceed we now with Hero's sacrifice: +She odours burn'd, and from their smoke did rise +Unsavoury fumes, that air with plagues inspir'd; +And then the consecrated sticks she fir'd, +On whose pale frame an angry spirit flew, +And beat it down still as it upward grew; +The virgin tapers that on th' altar stood, +When she inflam'd them, burn'd as red as blood: +All sad ostents of that too near success, +That made such moving beauties motionless. +Then Hero wept; but her affrighted eyes +She quickly wrested from the sacrifice, +Shut them, and inwards for Leander look'd. +Search'd her soft bosom, and from thence she pluck'd +His lovely picture: which when she had view'd, +Her beauties were with all love's joys renew'd; +The odours sweeten'd, and the fires burn'd clear, +Leander's form left no ill object there: +Such was his beauty, that the force of light, +Whose knowledge teacheth wonders infinite, +The strength of number and proportion, +Nature had plac'd in it to make it known, +Art was her daughter, and what human wits +For study lost, entomb'd in drossy spirits. +After this accident, (which for her glory +Hero could not but make a history,) +Th' inhabitants of Sestos and Abydos +Did every year, with feasts propitious, +To fair Leander's picture sacrifice: +And they were persons of special price +That were allow'd it, as an ornament +T' enrich their houses, for the continent +Of the strange virtues all approv'd it held; +For even the very look of it repell'd +All blastings, witchcrafts, and the strifes of nature +In those diseases that no herbs could cure: +The wolfy sting of avarice it would pull, +And make the rankest miser bountiful; +It kill'd the fear of thunder and of death; +The discords that conceit engendereth +'Twixt man and wife, it for the time would cease; +The flames of love it quench'd, and would increase; +Held in a prince's hand, it would put out +The dreadful'st comet; it would ease all doubt +Of threatened mischiefs; it would bring asleep +Such as were mad; it would enforce to weep +Most barbarous eyes; and many more effects +This picture wrought, and sprung Leandrian sects; +Of which was Hero first; for he whose form, +Held in her hand, clear'd such a fatal storm, +From hell she thought his person would defend her, +Which night and Hellespont would quickly send her. +With this confirm'd, she vow'd to banish quite +All thought of any check to her delight; +And, in contempt of silly bashfulness, +She would the faith of her desires profess, +Where her religion should be policy, +To follow love with zeal her piety; +Her chamber her cathedral-church should be, +And her Leander her chief diety; +For in her love these did the gods forego; +And though her knowledge did not teach her so, +Yet did it teach her this, that what her heart +Did greatest hold in her self-greatest part, +That she did make her god; and 'twas less naught +To leave gods in profession and in thought, +Than in her love and life; for therein lies +Most of her duties and their dignities; +And, rail the brain-bald world at what it will, +That's the grand atheism that reigns in it still. +Yet singularity she would use no more, +For she was singular too much before; +But she would please the world with fair pretext; +Love would not leave her conscience perplext: +Great men that will have less do for them, still +Must bear them out, though th' acts be ne'er so ill; +Meanness must pander be to Excellence; +Pleasure atones Falsehood and Conscience: +Dissembling was the worst, thought Hero then, +And that was best, now she must live with men. +O virtuous love, that taught her to do best +When she did worst, and when she thought it least! +Thus would she still proceed in works divine, +And in her sacred state of priesthood shine, +Handling the holy rites with hands as bold, +As if therein she did Jove's thunder hold, +And need not fear those menaces of error, +Which she at others threw with greatest terror. +O lovely Hero, nothing is thy sin, +Weigh'd with those foul faults other priests are in! +That having neither faiths, nor works, nor beauties, +T' engender any 'scuse for slubber'd duties, +With as much countenance fill their holy chairs, +And sweat denouncements 'gainst profane affairs, +As if their lives were cut out by their places, +And they the only fathers of the graces. + Now, as with settled mind she did repair +Her thoughts to sacrifice her ravish'd hair +And her torn robe, which on the altar lay, +And only for religion's fire did stay, +She heard a thunder by the Cyclops beaten, +In such a volley as the world did threaten, +Given Venus as she parted th' airy sphere, +Descending now to chide with Hero here: +When suddenly the goddess' waggoners, +The swans and turtles that, in coupled pheres, +Through all worlds' bosoms draw her influence, +Lighted in Hero's window, and from thence +To her fair shoulders flew the gentle doves,-- +Graceful AEdone that sweet pleasure loves, +And ruff-foot Chreste with the tufted crown; +Both which did kiss her, though their goddess frown. +The swans did in the solid flood, her glass, +Proin their fair plumes; of which the fairest was +Jove-lov'd Leucote, that pure brightness is; +The other bounty-loving Dapsilis, +All were in heaven, now they with Hero were: +But Venus' looks brought wrath, and urged fear. +Her robe was scarlet; black her head's attire; +And through her naked breast shin'd streams of fire, +As when the rarified air is driven +In flashing streams, and opes the darken'd heaven. +In her white hand a wreath of yew she bore; +And, breaking th' icy wreath sweet Hero wore, +She forc'd about her brows her wreath of yew, +And said, "Now, minion, to thy fate be true, +Though not to me; endure what this portends: +Begin where lightness will, in shame it ends. +Love makes thee cunning; thou art current now, +By being counterfeit: thy broken vow +Deceit with her pied garters must rejoin, +And with her stamp thou countenances must coin; +Coyness, and pure deceits, for purities, +And still a maid wilt seem in cozen'd eyes, +And have an antic face to laugh within, +While thy smooth looks make men digest thy sin, +But since thy lips (least thought forsworn) forswore, +Be never virgin's vow worth trusting more!" + When Beauty's dearest did her goddess hear +Breathe such rebukes 'gainst that she could not clear, +Dumb sorrow spake aloud in tears and blood, +That from her grief-burst veins, in piteous flood, +From the sweet conduits of her favour fell. +The gentle turtles did with moans make swell +Their shining gorges; the white black-ey'd swans +Did sing as woful epicedians. +As they would straightways die: when Pity's queen, +The goddess Ecte, that had ever been +Hid in a watery cloud near Hero's cries, +Since the first instant of her broken eyes, +Gave bright Leucote voice, and made her speak, +To ease her anguish, whose swoln breast did break +With anger at her goddess, that did touch +Hero so near for that she us'd so much; +And, thrusting her white neck at Venus, said: +"Why may not amorous Hero seem a maid, +Though she be none, as well as you suppress +In modest cheeks your inward wantonness? +How often have we drawn you from above, +T' exchange with mortals rites for rites in love! +Why in your priest, then, call you that offence, +That shines in you, and is your influence?" +With this, the Furies stopp'd Leucote's lips, +Enjoin'd by Venus; who with rosy whips +Beat the kind bird. Fierce lightning from her eyes +Did set on fire fair Hero's sacrifice, +Which was her torn robe and enforced hair; +And the bright flame became a maid most fair +For her aspect: her tresses were of wire, +Knit like a net, where hearts, set all on fire, +Struggled in pants, and could not get releast; +Her arms were all with golden pincers drest, +And twenty-fashion'd knots, pulleys, and brakes, +And all her body girt with painted snakes; +Her down-parts in a scorpion's tail combin'd, +Freckled with twenty colours; pied wings shin'd +Out of her shoulders; cloth had never dye, +Nor sweeter colours never viewed eye, +In scorching Turkey, Cares, Tartary, +Than shin'd about this spirit notorious; +Nor was Arachne's web so glorious. +Of lightning, and of shreds she was begot; +More hold in base dissemblers is there not. +Her name was Eronusis. Venus flew +From Hero's sight, and at her chariot drew +This wondrous creature to so steep a height, +That all the world she might command with sleight +Of her gay wings; and then she bade her haste,-- +Since Hero had dissembled, and disgrac'd +Her rites so much,--and every breast infect +With her deceits: she made her architect +Of all dissimulation; and since then +Never was any trust in maids or men. + O, it spited +Fair Venus' heart to see her most delighted, +And one she choos'd, for temper of her mind, +To be the only ruler of her kind, +So soon to let her virgin race be ended! +Not simply for the fault a whit offended, +But that in strife for chasteness with the Moon, +Spiteful Diana bade her show but one +That was her servant vow'd, and liv'd a maid; +And, now she thought to answer that upbraid, +Hero had lost her answer: who knows not +Venus would seem as far from any spot +Of light demeanour, as the very skin +'Twixt Cynthia's brows? sin is asham'd of sin. +Up Venus flew, and scarce durst up for fear +Of Phoebe's laughter, when she pass'd her sphere: +And so most ugly-clouded was the light, +That day was hid in day; night came ere night; +And Venus could not through the thick air pierce, +Till the day's king, god of undaunted verse, +Because she was so plentiful a theme +To such as wore his laurel anademe, +Like to a fiery bullet made descent, +And from her passage those fat vapours rent, +That, being not thoroughly rarified to rain, +Melted like pitch, as blue as any vein; +And scalding tempests made the earth to shrink +Under their fervour, and the world did think +In every drop a torturing spirit flew, +It pierc'd so deeply, and it burn'd so blue. + Betwixt all this and Hero, Hero held +Leander's picture, as a Persian shield; +And she was free from fear of worst success: +The more ill threats us, we suspect the less: +As we grow hapless, violence subtle grows, +Dumb, deaf, and blind, and comes when no man knows. + + +THE FIFTH SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIFTH SESTIAD + + Day doubles her accustomed date, + As loath the Night, incens'd by Fate, + Should wreck our lovers. Hero's plight; + Longs for Leander and the night: + Which ere her thirsty wish recovers, + She sends for two betrothed lovers, + And marries tham, that, with their crew, + Their sports, and ceremonies due, + She covertly might celebrate, + With secret joy, her own estate. + She makes a feast, at which appears + The wild nymph Teras, that still bears + An ivory lute, tells ominous tales, + And sings at solemn festivals. + + +Now was bright Hero weary of the day, +Thought an Olympiad in Leander's stay. +Sol and the soft-foot Hours hung on his arms, +And would not let him swim, forseeing his harms: +That day Aurora double grace obtain'd, +Of her love Phoebus; she his horses reign'd, +Set on his golden knee, and, as she list, +She pull'd him back; and, as she pull'd, she kiss'd, +To have him turn to bed: he lov'd her more, +To see the love Leander Hero bore: +Examples profit much; ten times in one, +In persons full of note, good deeds are done. + Day was so long, men walking fell asleep; +The heavy humours that their eyes did steep +Made them fear mischiefs. The hard streets were beds +For covetous churls and for ambitious heads, +That, spite of Nature, would their business ply: +All thought they had the falling epilepsy, +Men grovell'd so upon the smother'd ground; +And pity did the heart of Heaven confound. +The Gods, the Graces, and the Muses came +Down to the Destinies, to stay the frame +Of the true lovers' deaths, and all world's tears: +But Death before had stopp'd their cruel ears. +All the celestials parted mourning then, +Pierc'd with our human miseries more than men: +Ah, nothing doth the world with mischief fill, +But want of feeling one another's ill! + With their descent the day grew something fair, +And cast a brighter robe upon the air. +Hero, to shorten time with merriment, +For young Alcmane and bright Mya sent, +Two lovers that had long crav'd marriage-dues +At Hero's hands: but she did still refuse; +For lovely Mya was her consort vow'd +In her maid state, and therefore not allow'd +To amorous nuptials: yet fair Hero now +Intended to dispense with her cold vow, +Since hers was broken, and to marry her: +The rites would pleasing matter minister +To her conceits, and shorten tedious day. +They came; sweet Music usher'd th' odorous way, +And wanton Air in twenty sweet forms danc'd +After her fingers; Beauty and Love advanc'd +Their ensigns in the downless rosy faces +Of youths and maids, led after by the Graces. +For all these Hero made a friendly feast, +Welcom'd them kindly, did much love protest, +Winning their hearts with all the means she might, +That, when her fault should chance t' abide the light, +Their loves might cover or extenuate it, +And high in her worst fate make pity sit. + She married them; and in the banquet came, +Borne by the virgins. Hero striv'd to frame +Her thoughts to mirth: ay me! but hard it is +To imitate a false and forced bliss; +Ill may a sad mind forge a merry face, +Nor hath constrained laughter any grace. +Then laid she wines on cares to make them sink: +Who fears the threats of Fortune, let him drink. + To these quick nuptials enter'd suddenly +Admired Teras with the ebon thigh; +A nymph that haunted the green Sestian groves, +And would consort soft virgins in their loves, +At gaysome triumphs and on solemn days, +Singing prophetic elegies and lays, +And fingering of a silver lute she tied +With black and purple scarfs by her left side. +Apollo gave it, and her skill withal, +And she was term'd his dwarf, she was so small: +Yet great in virtue, for his beams enclos'd +His virtues in her; never was propos'd +Riddle to her, or augury, strange or new, +But she resolv'd it; never slight tale flew +From her charm'd lips without important sense, +Shown in some grave succeeding consequence. + This little sylvan, with her songs and tales, +Gave such estate to feasts and nuptials, +That though ofttimes she forewent tragedies, +Yet for her strangeness still she pleas'd their eyes; +And for her smallness they admir'd her so, +They thought her perfect born, and could not grow. + All eyes were on her. Hero did command +An altar deck'd with sacred state should stand +At the feast's upper end, close by the bride, +On which the pretty nymph might sit espied. +Then all were silent; every one so hears, +As all their senses climb'd into their ears: +And first this amorous tale, that fitted well +Fair Hero and the nuptials, she did tell. + + + _The Tale of Teras_ + +Hymen, that now is god of nuptial rites, +And crowns with honour Love and his delights, +Of Athens was a youth, so sweet a face, +That many thought him of the female race; +Such quickening brightness did his clear eyes dart, +Warm went their beams to his beholder's heart, +In such pure leagues his beauties were combin'd, +That there your nuptial contracts first were sign'd; +For as proportion, white and crimson, meet +In beauty's mixture, all right clear and sweet, +The eye responsible, the golden hair, +And none is held, without the other, fair; +All spring together, all together fade; +Such intermix'd affections should invade +Two perfect lovers; which being yet unseen, +Their virtues and their comforts copied been +In beauty's concord, subject to the eye; +And that, in Hymen, pleas'd so matchlessly, +That lovers were esteem'd in their full grace, +Like form and colour mix'd in Hymen's face; +And such sweet concord was thought worthy then +Of torches, music, feasts, and greatest men: +So Hymen look'd, that even the chastest mind +He mov'd to join in joys of sacred kind; +For only now his chin's first down consorted +His head's rich fleece, in golden curls contorted; +And as he was so lov'd, he lov'd so too: +So should best beauties, bound by nuptials, do. + Bright Eucharis, who was by all men said +The noblest, fairest, and the richest maid +Of all th' Athenian damsels, Hymen lov'd +With such transmission, that his heart remov'd +From his white breast to hers: but her estate, +In passing his, was so interminate +For wealth and honour, that his love durst feed +On naught but sight and hearing, nor could breed +Hope of requital, the grand prize of love; +Nor could he hear or see, but he must prove +How his rare beauty's music would agree +With maids in consort; therefore robbed he +His chin of those same few first fruits it bore, +And, clad in such attire as virgins wore, +He kept them company; and might right well, +For he did all but Eucharis excel +In all the fair of beauty: yet he wanted +Virtue to make his own desires implanted +In his dear Eucharis; for women never +Love beauty in their sex, but envy ever. +His judgment yet, that durst not suit address, +Nor, past due means, presume of due success, +Reason gat Fortune in the end to speed +To his best prayers: but strange it seem'd, indeed, +That Fortune should a chaste affection bless: +Preferment seldom graceth bashfulness. +Nor grac'd it Hymen yet; but many a dart, +And many an amorous thought, enthrill'd his heart, +Ere he obtain'd her; and he sick became, +Forc'd to abstain her sight; and then the flame +Rag'd in his bosom. O, what grief did fill him! +Sight made him sick, and want of sight did kill him. +The virgins wonder'd where Diaetia stay'd, +For so did Hymen term himself, a maid. +At length with sickly looks he greeted them: +'Tis strange to see 'gainst what an extreme stream +A lover strives; poor Hymen look'd so ill, +That as in merit he increased still +By suffering much, so he in grace decreas'd: +Women are most won, when men merit least: +If Merit look not well, Love bids stand by; +Love's special lesson is to please the eye. +And Hymen soon recovering all he lost, +Deceiving still these maids, but himself most, +His love and he with many virgin dames, +Noble by birth, noble by beauty's flames, +Leaving the town with songs and hallow'd lights, +To do great Ceres Eleusina rites +Of zealous sacrifice, were made a prey +To barbarous rovers, that in ambush lay, +And with rude hands enforc'd their shining spoil, +Far from the darken'd city, tir'd with toil: +And when the yellow issue of the sky +Came trooping forth, jealous of cruelty +To their bright fellows of this under-heaven, +Into a double night they saw them driven,-- +A horrid cave, the thieves' black mansion; +Where, weary of the journey they had gone, +Their last night's watch, and drunk with their sweet gains, +Dull Morpheus enter'd, laden with silken chains, +Stronger than iron, and bound the swelling veins +And tired senses of these lawless swains. +But when the virgin lights thus dimly burn'd, +O, what a hell was heaven in! how they mourn'd, +And wrung their hands, and wound their gentle forms +Into the shapes of sorrow! golden storms +Fell from their eyes; as when the sun appears, +And yet it rains, so show'd their eyes their tears: +And, as when funeral dames watch a dead corse, +Weeping about it, telling with remorse +What pains he felt, how long in pain he lay, +How little food he eat, what he would say, +And then mix mournful tales of others' deaths, +Smothering themselves in clouds of their own breaths; +At length, one cheering other, call for wine; +The golden bowl drinks tears out of their eyne, +As they drink wine from it; and round it goes, +Each helping other to relieve their woes; +So cast these virgins' beauties mutual rays, +One lights another, face the face displays; +Lips by reflection kiss'd, and hands hands shook, +Even by the whiteness each of other took. + But Hymen now us'd friendly Morpheus' aid, +Slew every thief, and rescu'd every maid: +And now did his enamour'd passion take +Heart from his hearty deed, whose worth did make +His hope of bounteous Eucharis more strong; +And now came Love with Proteus, who had long +Juggled the little god with prayers and gifts, +Ran through all shapes, and varied all his shifts, +To win Love's stay with him, and make him love him; +And when he saw no strength of sleight could move him +To make him love or stay, he nimbly turn'd +Into Love's self, he so extremely burn'd. +And thus came Love, with Proteus and his power, +T' encounter Eucharis: first, like the flower +That Juno's milk did spring, the silver lily, +He fell on Hymen's hand, who straight did spy +The bounteous godhead, and with wondrous joy +Offer'd it Eucharis. She, wondrous coy, +Drew back her hand: the subtle flower did woo it, +And, drawing it near, mix'd so you could not know it: +As two clear tapers mix in one their light, +So did the lily and the hand their white. +She view'd it; and her view the form bestows +Amongst her spirits: for, as colour flows +From superficies of each thing we see, +Even so with colours forms emitted be; +And where Love's form is, Love is; Love is form: +He enter'd at the eye; his sacred storm +Rose from the hand, Love's sweetest instrument: +It stirr'd her blood's sea so, that high it went, +And beat in bashful waves 'gainst the white shore +Of her divided cheeks; it rag'd the more, +Because the tide went 'gainst the haughty wind +Of her estate and birth: and, as we find, +In fainting ebbs, the flowery Zephyr hurls +The green-hair'd Hellespont, broke in silver curls, +'Gainst Hero's tower; but in his blast's retreat, +The waves obeying him, they after beat, +Leaving the chalky shore a great way pale, +Then moist it freshly with another gale; +So ebb'd and flow'd in Eucharis's face, +Coyness and Love striv'd which had greatest grace; +Virginity did fight on Coyness' side, +Fear of her parents' frowns, and female pride +Loathing the lower place, more than it loves +The high contents desert and virtue moves. +With Love fought Hymen's beauty and his valure, +Which scarce could so much favour yet allure +To come to strike, but fameless idle stood: +Action is fiery valour's sovereign good. +But Love, once enter'd, wish'd no greater aid +Than he could find within; thought thought betray'd; +The brib'd, but incorrupted, garrison +Sung "Io Hymen"; there those songs begun, +And Love was grown so rich with such a gain, +And wanton with the ease of his free reign, +That he would turn into her roughest frowns +To turn them out; and thus he Hymen crowns +King of his thoughts, man's greatest empery: +This was his first brave step to deity. + Home to the mourning city they repair, +With news as wholesome as the morning air, +To the sad parents of each saved maid: +But Hymen and his Eucharis had laid +This plat, to make the flame of their delight +Round as the moon at full, and full as bright. + Because the parents of chaste Eucharis +Exceeding Hymen's so, might cross their bliss; +And as the world rewards deserts, that law +Cannot assist with force; so when they saw +Their daughter safe, take vantage of their own, +Praise Hymen's valour much, nothing bestown; +Hymen must leave the virgins in a grove +Far off from Athens, and go first to prove, +If to restore them all with fame and life, +He should enjoy his dearest as his wife. +This told to all the maids, the most agree: +The riper sort, knowing what 'tis to be +The first month of a news so far deriv'd, +And that to hear and bear news brave folks liv'd, +As being a carriage special hard to bear +Occurrents, these occurrents being so dear, +They did with grace protest, they were content +T' accost their friends with all their compliment, +For Hymen's good; but to incur their harm, +There he must pardon them. This wit went warm +To Adolesche's brain, a nymph born high, +Made all of voice and fire, that upwards fly: +Her heart and all her forces' nether train +Climb'd to her tongue, and thither fell her brain, +Since it could go no higher; and it must go; +All power she had, even her tongue, did so: +In spirit and quickness she much joy did take, +And lov'd her tongue, only for quickness' sake; +And she would haste and tell. The rest all stay: +Hymen goes one, the nymph another way; +And what became of her I'll tell at last: +Yet take her visage now;--moist-lipp'd, long-fac'd, +Thin like an iron wedge, so sharp and tart, +As 'twere of purpose made to cleave Love's heart: +Well were this lovely beauty rid of her. +And Hymen did at Athens now prefer +His welcome suit, which he with joy aspir'd: +A hundred princely youths with him retir'd +To fetch the nymphs; chariots and music went +And home they came: heaven with applauses rent. +The nuptials straight proceed, whiles all the town, +Fresh in their joys, might do them most renown. +First, gold-lock'd Hymen did to church repair, +Like a quick offering burn'd in flames of hair; +And after, with a virgin firmament +The godhead-proving bride attended went +Before them all: she look'd in her command, +As if form-giving Cypria's silver hand +Gripp'd all their beauties, and crushed out one flame; +She blush'd to see how beauty overcame +The thoughts of all men. Next, before her went +Five lovely children, deck'd with ornament +Of her sweet colours, bearing torches by; +For light was held a happy augury +Of generation, whose efficient right +Is nothing else but to produce to light. +The odd disparent number they did choose, +To show the union married loves should use, +Since in two equal parts it will not sever, +But the midst holds one to rejoin it ever, +As common to both parts: men therefore deem +That equal number gods do not esteem, +Being authors of sweet peace and unity, +But pleasing to th' infernal empery, +Under whose ensigns Wars and Discords fight, +Since an even number you may disunite +In two parts equal, naught in middle left +To reunite each part from other reft; +And five they hold in most especial prize, +Since 'tis the first odd number that doth rise +From the two foremost numbers' unity, +That odd and even are; which are two and three; +For one no number is; but thence doth flow +The powerful race of number. Next, did go +A noble matron, that did spinning bear +A huswife's rock and spindle, and did wear +A wether's skin, with all the snowy fleece, +To intimate that even the daintiest piece +And noblest-born dame should industrious be: +That which does good disgraceth no degree. + And now to Juno's temple they are come, +Where her grave priest stood in the marriage-room: +On his right arm did hang a scarlet veil, +And from his shoulders to the ground did trail, +On either side, ribands of white and blue: +With the red veil he hid the bashful hue +Of the chaste bride, to show the modest shame, +In coupling with a man, should grace a dame. +Then took he the disparent silks, and tied +The lovers by the waists, and side by side, +In token that hereafter they must bind +In one self-sacred knot each other's mind. +Before them on an altar he presented +Both fire and water, which was first invented, +Since to ingenerate every human creature +And every other birth produc'd by Nature, +Moisture and heat must mix; so man and wife +For human race must join in nuptial life. +Then one of Juno's birds, the painted jay, +He sacrific'd, and took the gall away; +All which he did behind the altar throw, +In sign no bitterness of hate should grow, +'Twixt married loves, nor any least disdain. +Nothing they spake, for 'twas esteem'd too plain +For the most silken mildness of a maid, +To let a public audience hear it said, +She boldly took the man; and so respected +Was bashfulness in Athens, it erected +To chaste Agneia, which is Shamefacedness, +A sacred temple, holding her a goddess. +And now to feasts, masks, and triumphant shows, +The shining troops return'd, even till earth-throes +Brought forth with joy the thickest part of night, +When the sweet nuptial song, that us'd to cite +All to their rest, was by Phemonoee sung, +First Delphian prophetess, whose graces sprung +Out of the Muses' well: she sung before +The bride into her chamber; at which door +A matron and a torch-bearer did stand: +A painted box of confits in her hand +The matron held, and so did other some +That compass'd round the honour'd nuptial room. +The custom was that every maid did wear, +During her maidenhead, a silken sphere +About her waist, above her inmost weed, +Knit with Minerva's knot, and that was freed +By the fair bridegroom on the marriage-night, +With many ceremonies of delight: +And yet eternis'd Hymen's tender bride, +To suffer it dissolv'd so, sweetly cried. +The maids that heard, so lov'd and did adore her, +They wish'd with all their hearts to suffer for her. +So had the matrons, that with confits stood +About the chamber, such affectionate blood, +And so true feeling of her harmless pains, +That every one a shower of confits rains; +For which the bride-youths scrambling on the ground, +In noise of that sweet hail her cries were drown'd. +And thus blest Hymen joy'd his gracious bride, +And for his joy was after deified. +The saffron mirror by which Phoebus' love, +Green Tellus, decks her, now he held above +The cloudy mountains: and the noble maid, +Sharp-visag'd Adolesche, that was stray'd +Out of her way, in hasting with her news, +Not till this hour th' Athenian turrets views; +And now brought home by guides, she heard by all, +That her long kept occurrents would be stale, +And how fair Hymen's honours did excel +For those rare news which she came short to tell. +To hear her dear tongue robb'd of such a joy, +Made the well-spoken nymph take such a toy, +That down she sunk: when lightning from above +Shrunk her lean body, and, for mere free love, +Turn'd her into the pied-plum'd Psittacus, +That now the Parrot is surnam'd by us, +Who still with counterfeit confusion prates +Naught but news common to the common'st mates.-- +This told, strange Teras touch'd her lute, and sung +This ditty, that the torchy evening sprung. + + + _Epithalamion Teratos._ + +Come, come, dear Night! Love's mart of kisses, + Sweet close of his ambitious line, +The fruitful summer of his blisses! + Love's glory doth in darkness shine. +O, come, soft rest of cares! come, Night! + Come, naked Virtue's only tire, +The reaped harvest of the light, + Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire! + Love calls to war; + Sighs his alarms, + Lips his swords are, + The field his arms. + +Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand + On glorious Day's outfacing face; +And all thy crowned flames command, + For torches to our nuptial grace! + Love calls to war; + Sighs his alarms, + Lips his swords are, + The field his arms. + +No need have we of factious Day, + To cast, in envy of thy peace, +Her balls of discord in thy way: + Here Beauty's day doth never cease; +Day is abstracted here, +And varied in a triple sphere. +Hero, Alcmane, Mya, so outshine thee, +Ere thou come here, let Thetis thrice refine thee. + Love calls to war; + Sighs his alarms, + Lips his swords are, + The field his arms. + + The evening star I see: + Rise, youths! the evening star + Helps Love to summon war; + Both now embracing be. +Rise, youths! Love's rite claims more than banquets; rise! +Now the bright marigolds, that deck the skies, +Phoebus' celestial flowers, that, contrary +To his flowers here, ope when he shuts his eye, +And shut when he doth open, crown your sports: +Now Love in Night, and Night in Love exhorts +Courtship and dances: all your parts employ, +And suit Night's rich expansure with your joy. +Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes: +Rise, youths! Love's rite claims more than banquets; rise! + Rise, virgins! let fair nuptial loves enfold +Your fruitless breasts: the maidenheads ye hold +Are not your own alone, but parted are; +Part in disposing them your parents share, +And that a third part is; so must ye save +Your loves a third, and you your thirds must have. +Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes: +Rise, youths! Love's rites claim more than banquets; rise! + + Herewith the amorous spirit, that was so kind +To Teras' hair, and comb'd it down with wind. +Still as it, comet-like, brake from her brain, +Would needs have Teras gone, and did refrain +To blow it down: which, staring up, dismay'd +The timorous feast; and she no longer stay'd; +But, bowing to the bridegroom and the bride, +Did, like a shooting exhalation, glide +Out of their sights: the turning of her back +Made them all shriek, it look'd so ghastly black. +O hapless Hero! that most hapless cloud +Thy soon-succeeding tragedy foreshow'd. +Thus all the nuptial crew to joys depart; +But much-wrung Hero stood Hell's blackest dart: +Whose wound because I grieve so to display, +I use digressions thus t'increase the day. + + +THE SIXTH SESTIAD + +THE ARGUMENT OF THE SIXTH SESTIAD + + Leucote flies to all the Winds, + And from the Fates their outrage blinds, + That Hero and her love may meet. + Leander, with Love's complete fleet + Mann'd in himself, puts forth to seas; + When straight the ruthless Destinies, + With Ate, stirs the winds to war + Upon the Hellespont: their jar + Drowns poor Leander. Hero's eyes, + Wet witnesses of his surprise, + Her torch blown out, grief casts her down + Upon her love, and both doth drown: + In whose just ruth the god of seas + Transforms them to th' Acanthides. + + +No longer could the Day nor Destinies +Delay the Night, who now did frowning rise +Into her throne; and at her humorous breasts +Visions and Dreams lay sucking: all men's rests +Fell like the mists of death upon their eyes, +Day's too-long darts so kill'd their faculties. +The Winds yet, like the flowers, to cease began; +For bright Leucote, Venus' whitest swan, +That held sweet Hero dear, spread her fair wings, +Like to a field of snow, and message brings +From Venus to the Fates, t'entreat them lay +Their charge upon the Winds their rage to stay, +That the stern battle of the seas might cease, +And guard Leander to his love in peace. +The Fates consent;--ay me, dissembling Fates! +They show'd their favours to conceal their hates, +And draw Leander on, lest seas too high +Should stay his too obsequious destiny: +Who like a fleering slavish parasite, +In warping profit or a traitorous sleight, +Hoops round his rotten body with devotes, +And pricks his descant face full of false notes; +Praising with open throat, and oaths as foul +As his false heart, the beauty of an owl; +Kissing his skipping hand with charmed skips, +That cannot leave, but leaps upon his lips +Like a cock-sparrow, or shameless quean +Sharp at a red-lipp'd youth, and naught doth mean +Of all his antic shows, but doth repair +More tender fawns, and takes a scatter'd hair +From his tame subject's shoulder; whips and calls +For everything he lacks; creeps 'gainst the walls +With backward humbless, to give needless way: +Thus his false fate did with Leander play. + First to black Eurus flies the white Leucote. +(Born 'mongst the negroes in the Levant sea, +On whose curl'd head[s] the glowing sun doth rise,) +And shows the sovereign will of Destinies, +To have him cease his blasts; and down he lies. +Next, to the fenny Notus course she holds, +And found him leaning, with his arms in folds, +Upon a rock, his white hair full of showers; +And him she chargeth by the fatal powers, +To hold in his wet cheeks his cloudy voice. +To Zephyr then that doth in flowers rejoice: +To snake-foot Boreas next she did remove, +And found him tossing of his ravish'd love, +To heat his frosty bosom hid in snow; +Who with Leucote's sight did cease to blow. +Thus all were still to Hero's heart's desire; +Who with all speed did consecrate a fire +Of flaming gums and comfortable spice, +To light her torch, which in such curious price +She held, being object to Leander's sight, +That naught but fires perfum'd must give it light. +She lov'd it so, she griev'd to see it burn, +Since it would waste, and soon to ashes turn: +Yet, if it burn'd not, 'twere not worth her eyes; +What made it nothing, gave it all the prize. +Sweet torch, true glass of our society! +What man does good, but he consumes thereby? +But thou wert lov'd for good, held high, given show; +Poor virtue loath'd for good, obscur'd, held low: +Do good, be pin'd,--be deedless good, disgrac'd; +Unless we feed on men, we let them fast. +Yet Hero with these thoughts her torch did spend: +When bees make wax, Nature doth not intend +It should be made a torch; but we, that know +The proper virtue of it, make it so, +And, when 'tis made, we light it: nor did Nature +Propose one life to maids; but each such creature +Makes by her soul the best of her true state, +Which without love is rude, disconsolate, +And wants love's fire to make it mild and bright, +Till when, maids are but torches wanting light. +Thus 'gainst our grief, not cause of grief, we fight: +The right of naught is glean'd, but the delight. +Up went she: but to tell how she descended, +Would God she were not dead, or my verse ended! +She was the rule of wishes, sum, and end, +For all the parts that did on love depend: +Yet cast the torch his brightness further forth; +But what shines nearest best, holds truest worth. +Leander did not through such tempests swim +To kiss the torch, although it lighted him: +But all his powers in her desires awaked, +Her love and virtues cloth'd him richly naked. +Men kiss but fire that only shows pursue; +Her torch and Hero, figure show and virtue. + Now at oppos'd Abydos naught was heard +But bleating flocks, and many a bellowing herd, +Slain for the nuptials; cracks of falling woods; +Blows of broad axes; pourings out of floods. +The guilty Hellespont was mix'd and stain'd +With bloody torrent that the shambles rain'd; +Not arguments of feast, but shows that bled, +Foretelling that red night that followed. +More blood was spilt, more honours were addrest, +Than could have graced any happy feast; +Rich banquets, triumphs, every pomp employs +His sumptuous hand; no miser's nuptial joys. +Air felt continual thunder with the noise +Made in the general marriage-violence; +And no man knew the cause of this expense, +But the two hapless lords, Leander's sire, +And poor Leander, poorest where the fire +Of credulous love made him most rich surmis'd: +As short was he of that himself so priz'd, +As is an empty gallant full of form, +That thinks each look an act, each drop a storm, +That falls from his brave breathings; most brought up +In our metropolis, and hath his cup +Brought after him to feasts; and much palm bears +For his rare judgment in th' attire he wears; +Hath seen the hot Low-Countries, not their heat, +Observe their rampires and their buildings yet; +And, for your sweet discourse with mouths, is heard +Giving instructions with his very beard; +Hath gone with an ambassador, and been +A great man's mate in travelling, even to Rhene; +And then puts all his worth in such a face +As he saw brave men make, and strives for grace +To get his news forth: as when you descry +A ship, with all her sail contends to fly +Out of the narrow Thames with winds unapt, +Now crosseth here, then there, then his way rapt, +And then hath one point reach'd, then alters all, +And to another crooked reach doth fall +Of half a bird-bolt's shoot, keeping more coil +Than if she danc'd upon the ocean's toil; +So serious is his trifling company, +In all his swelling ship of vacantry, +And so short of himself in his high thought +Was our Leander in his fortunes brought, +And in his fort of love that he thought won; +But otherwise he scorns comparison. + O sweet Leander, thy large worth I hide +In a short grave! ill-favour'd storms must chide +Thy sacred favour; I in floods of ink +Must drown thy graces, which white papers drink, +Even as thy beauties did the foul black seas; +I must describe the hell of thy decease, +That heaven did merit: yet I needs must see +Our painted fools and cockhorse peasantry +Still, still usurp, with long lives, loves, and lust, +The seats of Virtue, cutting short as dust +Her dear-bought issue: ill to worse converts, +And tramples in the blood of all deserts. + Night close and silent now goes fast before +The captains and the soldiers to the shore, +On whom attended the appointed fleet +At Sestos' bay, that should Leander meet, +Who feign'd he in another ship would pass: +Which must not be, for no one mean there was +To get his love home, but the course he took. +Forth did his beauty for his beauty look, +And saw her through her torch, as you behold +Sometimes within the sun a face of gold, +Form'd in strong thoughts, by that tradition's force +That says a god sits there and guides his course. +His sister was with him; to whom he show'd +His guide by sea, and said, "Oft have you view'd +In one heaven many stars, but never yet +In one star many heavens till now were met. +See, lovely sister! see, now Hero shines, +No heaven but her appears; each star repines, +And all are clad in clouds, as if they mourn'd +To be by influence of earth out-burn'd. +Yet doth she shine, and teacheth Virtue's train +Still to be constant in hell's blackest reign, +Though even the gods themselves do so entreat them +As they did hate, and earth as she would eat them." + Off went his silken robe, and in he leapt, +Whom the kind waves so licorously cleapt, +Thickening for haste, one in another, so, +To kiss his skin, that he might almost go +To Hero's tower, had that kind minute lasted. +But now the cruel Fates with Ate hasted +To all the Winds, and made them battle fight +Upon the Hellespont, for either's right +Pretended to the windy monarchy; +And forth they brake, the seas mix'd with the sky, +And toss'd distress'd Leander, being in hell, +As high as heaven: bliss not in height doth dwell. +The Destinies sate dancing on the waves, +To see the glorious Winds with mutual braves +Consume each other: O, true glass, to see +How ruinous ambitious statists be +To their own glories! Poor Leander cried +For help to sea-born Venus she denied; +To Boreas, that, for his Atthaea's sake, +He would some pity on his Hero take, +And for his own love's sake, on his desires; +But Glory never blows cold Pity's fires. +Then call'd he Neptune, who, through all the noise, +Knew with affright his wreck'd Leander's voice, +And up he rose; for haste his forehead hit +'Gainst heaven's hard crystal; his proud waves he smit +With his fork'd sceptre, that could not obey; +Much greater powers than Neptune's gave them sway. +They lov'd Leander so, in groans they brake +When they came near him; and such space did take +'Twixt one another, loath to issue on, +That in their shallow furrows earth was shown, +And the poor lover took a little breath: +But the curst Fates sate spinning of his death +On every wave, and with the servile Winds +Tumbled them on him. And now Hero finds, +By that she felt, her dear Leander's state: +She wept, and pray'd for him to every Fate; +And every Wind that whipp'd her with her hair +About the face, she kiss'd and spake it fair, +Kneel'd to it, gave it drink out of her eyes +To quench his thirst: but still their cruelties +Even her poor torch envi'd, and rudely beat +The baiting flame from that dear food it eat; +Dear, for it nourish'd her Leander's life; +Which with her robe she rescu'd from their strife: +But silk too soft was such hard hearts to break; +And, she, dear soul, even as her silk, faint, weak, +Could not preserve it; out, O, out it went! +Leander still call'd Neptune, that now rent +His brackish curls, and tore his wrinkled face, +Where tears in billows did each other chase; +And, burst with ruth, he hurl'd his marble mace +At the stern Fates; it wounded Lachesis +That drew Leander's thread, and could not miss +The thread itself, as it her hand did hit, +But smote it full, and quite did sunder it. +The more kind Neptune rag'd, the more he raz'd +His love's life fort, and kill'd as he embrac'd: +Anger doth still his own mishap increase; +If any comfort live, it is in peace. +O thievish Fates, to let blood, flesh, and sense, +Build two fair temples for their excellence, +To rob it with a poison'd influence! +Though souls' gifts starve, the bodies are held dear +In ugliest things; sense-sport preserves a bear: +But here naught serves our turns: O heaven and earth, +How most-most wretched is our human birth! +And now did all the tyrannous crew depart, +Knowing there was a storm in Hero's heart, +Greater than they could make, and scorn'd their smart. +She bow'd herself so low out of her tower, +That wonder 'twas she fell not ere her hour, +With searching the lamenting waves for him: +Like a poor snail, her gentle supple limb +Hung on her turret's top, so most downright, +As she would dive beneath the darkness quite, +To find her jewel;--jewel!--her Leander, +A name of all earth's jewels pleas'd not her +Like his dear name: "Leander, still my choice, +Come naught but my Leander! O my voice, +Turn to Leander! henceforth be all sounds, +Accents, and phrases, that show all griefs' wounds, +Analys'd in Leander! O black change! +Trumpets, do you, with thunder of your clange, +Drive out this change's horror! My voice faints: +Where all joy was, now shriek out all complaints!" +Thus cried she; for her mixed soul could tell +Her love was dead: and when the Morning fell +Prostrate upon the weeping earth for woe, +Blushes, that bled out of her cheeks, did show +Leander brought by Neptune, bruis'd and torn +With cities' ruins he to rocks had worn, +To filthy usuring rocks, that would have blood, +Though they could get of him no other good. +She saw him, and the sight was much-much more +Than might have serv'd to kill her: should her store +Of giant sorrows speak?--Burst,--die,--bleed, +And leave poor plaints to us that shall succeed. +She fell on her love's bosom, hugg'd it fast, +And with Leander's name she breath'd her last. + Neptune for pity in his arms did take them, +Flung them into the air, and did awake them +Like two sweet birds, surnam'd th' Acanthides, +Which we call Thistle-warps, that near no seas +Dare ever come, but still in couples fly, +And feed on thistle-tops, to testify +The hardness of their first life in their last; +The first, in thorns of love, that sorrows past: +And so most beautiful their colours show +As none (so little) like them; her sad brow +A sable velvet feather covers quite, +Even like the forehead-cloth that, in the night, +Or when they sorrow, ladies use to wear: +Their wings, blue, red, and yellow, mix'd appear; +Colours that, as we construe colours, paint +Their states to life;--the yellow shows their saint, +The dainty Venus, left them; blue, their truth; +The red and black, ensigns of death and ruth. +And this true honour from their love-death sprung,-- +They were the first that ever poet sung. + + + + + +MINOR POEMS BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE + + + +THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE + + +COME live with me, and be my love; +And we will all the pleasures prove +That hills and valleys, dales and fields, +Woods or steepy mountain yields. + +And we will sit upon the rocks, +Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks +By shallow rivers, to whose falls +Melodious birds sing madrigals. + +And I will make thee beds of roses, +And a thousand fragrant posies; +A cap of flowers, and a kirtle +Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle + +A gown made of the finest wool +Which from our pretty lambs we pull; +Fair-lined slippers for the cold, +With buckles of the purest gold; + +A belt of straw and ivy-buds, +With coral clasps and amber studs: +An if these pleasures may thee move, +Come live with me, and be my love. + +The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing +For thy delight each May morning: +If these delights thy mind may move, +Then live with me, and be my love. + + + +FRAGMENT + +_First printed in "England's Parnassus,"_ 1600 + +I WALK'D along a stream, for pureness rare, + Brighter than sun-shine; for it did acquaint +The dullest sight with all the glorious prey +That in the pebble-paved channel lay. + +No molten crystal, but a richer mine, + Even Nature's rarest alchymy ran there,-- +Diamonds resolv'd, and substance more divine, + Through whose bright-gliding current might appear +A thousand naked nymphs, whose ivory shine, + Enamelling the banks, made them more dear +Than ever was that glorious palace' gate +Where the day-shining Sun in triumph sate. + +Upon this brim the eglantine and rose, + The tamarisk, olive, and the almond tree, +As kind companions, in one union grows, + Folding their twining arms, as oft we see +Turtle-taught lovers either other close, + Lending to dulness feeling sympathy; +And as a costly valance o'er a bed, +So did their garland-tops the brook o'erspread. + +Their leaves, that differ'd both in shape and show, + Though all were green, yet difference such in green, +Like to the checker'd bent of Iris' bow, + Prided the running main, as it had been-- + + + +IN OBITUM HONORATISSIMI VIRI, ROGERI + MANWOOD, MILITIS, QUAESTORII REGI- + NALIS CAPITALIS BARONIS + + First printed by Payne Collier (_History of the English Stage,_ etc. +p. xliv.--prefixed to the first vol. of his _Shakespeare_) from a MS. on the +back of the title-page of a copy of _Hero and Leander_, ed. 1629, where +it is subscribed with Marlowe's name. + + +NOCTIVAGI terror, ganeonis triste flagellum, +Et Jovis Alcides, rigido vulturque latroni, +Urna subtegitur. Scelerum, gaudete, nepotes! +Insons, luctifica sparsis cervice capillis, +Plange! fori lumen, venerandae gloria legis, +Occidit: heu, secum effoetas Acherontis ad oras +Multa abiit virtus. Pro tot virtutibus uni, +Livor, parce viro; non audacissimus esto +Illius in cineres, cujus tot millia vultus +Mortalium attonuit: sic cum te nuntia Ditis +Vulneret exsanguis, feliciter ossa quiescant, +Famaque marmorei superet monumenta sepulcri. + + + +DIALOGUE IN VERSE + + First printed in _The Alleyn Papers_ (for the Shakespeare Society), +p. 8, by Payne Collier, who prefaced it with the following remarks: +"In the original MS. this dramatic dialogue in verse is written as +prose, on one side of a sheet of paper, at the back of which, in a more +modern hand, is the name 'Kitt Marlowe.' What connection, if any, +he may have had with it, it is impossible to determine." This Dialogue +may be a fragment of _The Maiden's Holiday,_ a lost comedy, which is +said to have been written partly by Marlowe.--DYCE + +_Jack._ Seest thou not yon farmer's son? + He hath stoln my love from me, alas! + What shall I do? I am undone; + My heart will ne'er be as it was. + O, but he gives her gay gold rings, + And tufted gloves [for] holiday, + And many other goodly things, + That hath stoln my love away. + +_Friend._ Let him give her gay gold rings + Or tufted gloves, were they ne'er so [gay]; + [F]or were her lovers lords or kings, + They should not carry the wench away. + +_Jack._ But 'a dances wonders well, + And with his dances stole her love from me: + Yet she wont to say, I bore the bell + For dancing and for courtesy. + +_Dick._ Fie, lusty younker, what do you here, + Not dancing on the green to-day? + For Pierce, the farmer's son, I fear, + Is like to carry your wench away. + +_Jack._ Good Dick, bid them all come hither, + And tell Pierce from me beside, + That, if he thinks to have the wench, + Here he stands shall lie with the bride. + +_Dick._ Fie, Nan, why use thy old lover so, + For any other new-come guest? + Thou long time his love did know; + Why shouldst thou not use him best? + +_Nan._ Bonny Dick, I will not forsake + My bonny Rowland for any gold: + If he can dance as well as Pierce, + He shall have my heart in hold. + +_Pierce._ Why, then, my hearts, let's to this gear; + And by dancing I may won + My Nan, whose love I hold so dear + As any realm under the sun. + +_Gentleman._ Then, gentles, ere I speed from hence, + I will be so bold to dance + A turn or two without offence; + For, as I was walking along by chance, + I was told you did agree. + +_Friend._ 'Tis true, good sir; and this is she + Hopes your worship comes not to crave her; + For she hath lovers two or three, + And he that dances best must have her. + +_Gentleman._ How say you, sweet, will you dance with me? + And you [shall] have both land and [hill]; + My love shall want nor gold nor fee. + +_Nan._ I thank you, sir, for your good will; + But one of these my love must be: + I'm but a homely country maid, + And far unfit for your degree; + [To dance with you I am afraid.] + +_Friend._ Take her, good sir, by the hand, + As she is fairest: were she fairer, + By this dance, you shall understand, + He that can win her is like to wear her. + +_Fool._ And saw you not [my] Nan to-day, + My mother's maid have you not seen? + My pretty Nan is gone away + To seek her love upon the green. + [I cannot see her 'mong so many:] + She shall have me, if she have any. + +_Nan._ Welcome, sweetheart, and welcome here, + Welcome, my [true] love, now to me. + This is my love [and my darling dear], + And that my husband [soon] must be. + And, boy, when thou com'st home, thou'lt see + Thou art as welcome home as he. + +_Gentleman._ Why, how now, sweet Nan! I hope you jest. + +_Nan._ No, by my troth, I love the fool the best: + And, if you be jealous, God give you good-night! + I fear you're a gelding, you caper so light. + +_Gentleman._ I thought she had jested and meant but a fable, + But now do I see she hath play['d] with his bable. + I wish all my friends by me to take heed, + That a fool come not near you when you mean to speed. + + + + + + THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hero and Leander and Other Poems, by +Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERO AND LEANDER AND OTHER POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 20356.txt or 20356.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/5/20356/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/20356.zip b/20356.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0969244 --- /dev/null +++ b/20356.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0e477a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #20356 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20356) |