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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf 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..6660c49 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #54361 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54361) diff --git a/old/54361-0.txt b/old/54361-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0e7a623..0000000 --- a/old/54361-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16679 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of John Dryden, Now First -Collected in Eighteen Volumes; Vol., by John Dryden - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes; Vol. 12 (of 18) - -Author: John Dryden - -Editor: Walter Scott - -Release Date: March 14, 2017 [EBook #54361] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF JOHN DRYDEN *** - - - - -Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Matthias Grammel and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - THE - WORKS - OF - JOHN DRYDEN. - - - - - THE - WORKS - OF - JOHN DRYDEN, - - NOW FIRST COLLECTED - IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES. - - ILLUSTRATED - WITH NOTES, - HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY, - AND - A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, - BY - WALTER SCOTT, ESQ. - - VOL. XII. - - - LONDON: - PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET, - BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH. - - 1808. - - - - - CONTENTS - OF - VOLUME TWELFTH. - - - PAGE. - - Appendix to the Fables, i - - The Knightes Tale, by Chaucer, iii - - The Nonnes Preestes Tale, liii - - The Floure and the Leafe, lxviii - - The Wif of Bathes Tale, lxxxii - - - TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID'S EPISTLES. - - Preface, 3 - - Canace to Macareus, 21 - - Helen to Paris, 26 - - Dido to Æneas, 35 - - - TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - Dedication to Lord Radcliffe, 47 - - The First Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, 63 - - Meleager and Atalanta, 97 - - Baucis and Philemon, 109 - - Iphis and Ianthe, 116 - - Pygmalion and the Statue, 123 - - Cinyras and Myrrha, 127 - - Ceyx and Alcyone, 139 - - Æsacus transformed into a Cormorant, 154 - - The Twelfth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, 156 - - The Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, 181 - - Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea, 199 - - Of the Pythagorean Philosophy, 207 - - - TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID'S ART OF LOVE. - - Preface on Translation, prefixed to Dryden's Second - Miscellany, 263 - - - TRANSLATIONS FROM THEOCRITUS. - - Amaryllis, 287 - - The Epithalamium of Helen and Menelaus, 292 - - The Despairing Lover, 296 - - Daphnis and Chloris, 300 - - - TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS. - - Book I. 311 - - II. 314 - - III. 317 - - IV. 327 - - V. 337 - - - TRANSLATIONS FROM HORACE. - - The Third Ode of the First Book of Horace, 341 - - The Ninth Ode of the First Book, 344 - - The Twenty-ninth Ode of the First Book, 346 - - The Second Epode of Horace, 351 - - - TRANSLATIONS FROM HOMER. - - The First Book of Homer's Iliad, 357 - - The last Parting of Hector and Andromache, 382 - - - - - APPENDIX - TO - THE FABLES. - -_This Appendix contains the Original Tales of Chaucer, which Dryden -has modernized. The Novels of Boccacio are subjoined to the several -Poetical English Versions._ - - - - -THE KNIGHTES TALE, - -BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER. - - - Whilom, as old stories tellen us, - There was a duk that highte Theseus; - Of Athenes he was lord and governour, - And in his time swiche a conquerour, - That greter was ther non under the sonne; - Ful many a riche contree had he wonne. - What with his wisdom and his chevalrie, - He conquerd all the regne of Feminie, - That whilom was ycleped Scythia, - And wedded the fresshe Quene Ipolita, - And brought hire home with him to his contree - With mochel glorie and solempnitee, - And eke hire yonge suster Emelie. - And thus with victorie and with melodie - Let I this worthy duk to Athenes ride, - And all his host in armes him beside. - And certes, if it n'ere to long to here, - I wolde have told you fully the manere - How wonnen was the regne of Feminie - By Theseus, and by his chevalrie: - And of the grete bataille for the nones - Betwix Athenes and Amasones: - And how asseged was Ipolita, - The faire hardie quene of Scythia; - And of the feste, that was at hire wedding, - And of the temple at hire home coming: - But all this thing I moste as now forbere; - I have, God wot, a large feld to ere, - And weke ben the oxen in my plowe: - The remenent of my tale is long ynow. - I wil not letten eke non of this route; - Let every felaw telle his tale aboute, - And let se now who shal the souper winne, - There as I left, I will agen beginne. - This duk, of whom I made mentioun, - Whan he was comen almost to the toun, - In all his wele and his moste pride, - He was ware, as he cast his eye aside, - Wher that ther kneled in the highe wey - A compagnie of ladies, twey and twey, - Eche after other, clad in clothes blake; - But swiche a crie and swiche a wo they make, - That in this world n'is creature living - That ever heard swiche another waimenting; - And of this crie ne wolde never stenten, - Till they the reines of his bridel henten. - What folk be ye that at min home coming - Perturben so my feste with crying? - Quod Theseus; have ye so grete envie - Of min honour, that thus complaine and crie? - Or who hath you misboden, or offended? - Do telle me, if that it may be amended, - And why ye be thus clothed all in blake? - The oldest lady of hem all than spake, - Whan she had swouned with a dedly chere, - That it was reuthe for to seen and here. - She sayde, Lord, to whom Fortune hath yeven - Victorie, and as a conqueror to liven, - Nought greveth us your glorie and your honour, - But we beseke you of mercie and socour: - Have mercie on our wo and our distresse: - Some drope of pitee thrugh thy gentillesse - Upon us wretched wimmen let now fall; - For certes, lord, there n'is non of us alle - That she n'hath ben a duchesse or a quene; - Now be we caitives, as it is wel sene: - Thanked be Fortune, and hire false whele, - That non estat ensureth to be wele. - And certes, lord, to abiden your presence, - Here in this temple of the goddesse Clemence, - We han ben waiting all this fourtenight: - Now help us, lord, sin it lieth in thy might. - I wretched wight, that wepe and waile thus, - Was whilom wif to King Capaneus, - That starfe at Thebes, cursed be that day, - And alle we that ben in this aray, - And maken all this lamentation, - We losten all our husbondes at that toun, - While that the siege therabouten lay: - And yet now the old Creon, wala wa! - That lord is now of Thebes the citee, - Fulfilled of ire and of iniquittee, - He for despit, and for his tyrannie, - To don the ded bodies a vilanie, - Of alle our lordes, which that ben yslawe, - Hath alle the bodies on an hepe ydrawe, - And will not suffren hem by non assent - Neyther to ben yberied, ne ybrent, - But maketh houndes ete hem in despite. - And with that word, withouten more respite, - They fallen groff, and crien pitously, - Have on us wretched wimmen som mercy, - And let our sorwe sinken in thin herte. - This gentil duk doun from his courser sterte, - With herte piteous, whan he herd hem speke. - Him thoughte that his herte wold all to-breke - When he saw hem so pitous and so mate - That whilom weren of so gret estate, - And in his armes, he hem all up hente, - And hem comforted in ful good entente, - And swore his oth, as he was trewe knight, - He wolde don so ferforthly his might - Upon the tyrant Creon hem to wreke, - That all the peple of Grece shulde speke - How Creon was of Theseus yserved; - As he that hath his deth ful wel deserved. - And right anon, withouten more abode, - His banner he displaide, and forth he rode - To Thebes ward, and all his host beside: - No ner Athenes n'olde he go ne ride, - Ne take his ese fully half a day, - But onward on his way that night he lay, - And sent anon Ipolita the quene - And Emeli hire yonge sister shene, - Unto the toun of Athenes for to dwell; - And forth he rit; ther n'is no more to tell. - The red statue of Mars, with spere and targe, - So shineth in his white banner large, - That all the feldes gliteren up and doun; - And by his banner borne is his penoun, - Of golde ful riche, in which ther was ybete - The Minotaure, which that he slew in Crete. - Thus rit this duk, thus rit this conquerour, - And in his host of chevalrie the flour, - Til that he came to Thebes, and alight - Fayre in a felde, ther as he thought to fight: - But shortly for to speken of this thing, - With Creon, which that was of Thebes king, - He fought and slew him manly as a knight - In plaine bataille, and put his folk to flight; - And by assaut he wan the citee after, - And rent adoun bothe wall, and sparre, and rafter; - And to the ladies he restored again - The bodies of hir housbondes that were slain, - To don the obsequies, as was tho the gise. - But it were all to long for to devise - The grete clamour and the waimenting - Whiche that the ladies made at the brenning - Of the bodies, and the gret honour - That Theseus, the noble conquerour, - Doth to the ladies whan they from him wente; - But shortly for to telle is min entente. - Whan that this worthy duk, this Theseus, - Hath Creon slain, and wonnen Thebes thus, - Still in the feld he toke all night his reste, - And did with all the countree as hem leste; - To ransake in the tas of bodies dede, - Hem for to stripe of harneis and of wede, - The pillours dide hir businesse and cure, - After the bataille and discomfiture; - And so befell, that, in the tas, they found, - Thurgh girt with many a grevous blody wound, - Two yonge knightes ligging by and by, - Bothe in on armes, wrought ful richely; - Of whiche two, Arcite highte that on. - And he that other highte Palamon. - Not fully quik, ne fully ded they were, - But by hir cote armure, and by hir gere, - The heraudes knew hem wel in special, - As tho that weren of the blod real - Of Thebes, and of sustren two yborne: - Out of the tas the pillours han hem torne, - And han hem carried soft unto the tente - Of Theseus, and he ful sone hem sente - To Athenes, for to dwellen in prison - Perpetuel, he n'olde no raunson. - And whan this worthy duk had thus ydon, - He toke his host, and home he rit anon, - With laurel crouned as a conquerour; - And ther he liveth in joye and in honour, - Terme of his lif; what nedeth wordes mo? - And in a tour, in anguish and in wo, - Dwellen this Palamon, and eke Arcite, - For evermo, ther may no gold hem quite. - Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day, - Till it fell ones, in a morwe of May, - That Emilie, that fayrer was to sene - Than is the lilie upon the stalke grene, - And fressher than the May with floures new, - (For with the rose colour strof hire hewe, - I n'ot which was the finer of hem two,) - Er it was day, as she was wont to do, - She was arisen, and all redy dight; - For May wol have no slogardie a-night: - The season priketh every gentil herte, - And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte, - And sayth, Arise, and do thin observance. - This maketh Emelie han remembraunce - To don honour to May, and for to rise; - Yclothed was she fresshe for to devise; - Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse - Behind hire back, a yerde long I gesse; - And in the gardin at sonne uprist, - She walketh up and doun wher as hire list; - She gathereth floures, partie white and red, - To make a sotel garland for hire hed; - And as an angel hevenlich she song: - The grete tour that was so thikke and strong, - Which, of the castel, was the chef dongeon - (Wher as these knightes weren in prison, - Of which I tolde you, and tellen shal,) - Was even joinant to the gardin wall, - Ther as this Emelie had hire playing. - Bright was the sonne, and clere that morwening, - And Palamon, this woful prisoner, - As was his wone, by leve of his gayler, - Was risen, and romed in a chambre on high, - In which he all the noble citee seigh, - And eke the gardin ful of brandies grene, - Ther as this fresshe Emelie the shene - Was in hire walk, and romed up and doun. - This sorweful prisoner, this Palamon, - Goth in his chambre roming to and fro, - And to himselfe complaining of his wo: - That he was borne, ful oft he sayd, Alas! - And so befel, by aventure, or cas, - That thrugh a window thikke of many a barre - Of yren gret, and square as any sparre, - He cast his eyen upon Emilia, - And therwithal he blent, and cried, A! - As though he stongen were unto the herte. - And with that crie Arcite anon up sterte, - And saide, Cosin min, what eyleth thee, - That art so pale and dedly for to see? - Why cridest thou? who hath thee don offence? - For Goddes love, take all in patience - Our prison, for it may non other be, - Fortune hath yeven us this adversite: - Som wikke aspect or disposition - Of Saturne, by som constellation, - Hath yeven us this, although we had it sworn: - So stood the heven, when that we were born; - We moste endure; this is the short and plain. - This Palamon answerde, and sayde again, - Cosin, forsoth of this opinion - Thou hast a vaine imagination; - This prison caused me not to crie, - But I was hurt right now thurghout min eye - Into min herte, that wol my bane be. - The fayrenesse of a lady that I se - Yond in the gardin, roming to and fro, - Is cause of all my crying and wo: - I n'ot whe'r she be woman or goddesse, - But Venus is it, sothly, as I gesse. - And therwithall on knees adoun he fill, - And sayde, Venus, if it be your will - You in this gardin thus to transfigure, - Beforn me sorweful wretched creature, - Out of this prison helpe that we may scape, - And if so be our destine be shape - By eterne word, to dien in prison, - Of our lignage have som compassion, - That is so low ybrought by tyrannie. - And with that word Arcita gan espie - Wher as this lady romed to and fro, - And with that sight hire beaute hurt him so, - That if that Palamon was wounded sore, - Arcite is hurt as moche as he, or more: - And with a sigh he sayde pitously, - The fresshe bentee sleth me sodenly, - Of hire that rometh in yonder place. - And but I have hire mercie and hire grace, - That I may seen hire at the leste way, - I n'am but ded, there n'is no more to say. - This Palamon, whan he these wordes herd, - Dispitously he loked, and answerd, - Whether sayest thou this in ernest or in play? - Nay, quod Arcite, in ernest be my fay; - God helpe me so, me lust full yvel play. - This Palamon gan knit his browes twey: - It were, quod he, to thee no gret honour - For to be false, ne for to be traytour - To me, that am thy cosin and thy brother: - Ysworne ful depe, and eche of us to other, - That neuer for to dien in the peine, - Till that the deth departen shal us tweine, - Neyther of us in love to hindre other, - Ne in non other cas, my leve brother; - But that thou shuldest trewely forther me - In evry cas, as I shuld forther thee. - This was thin oth, and min also certain, - I wot it wel thou darst it not withsain: - Thus art thou of my conseil out of doute, - And now thou woldest falsly ben aboute - To love my lady, whom I love and serve, - And ever shal, til that min herte sterve. - Now certes, false Arcite, thou shalt not so; - I loved hire firste, and tolde thee my wo, - As to my conseil, and to my brother sworne - To forther me, as I have tolde beforne, - For which thou art ybounden as a knight - To helpen me, if it lie in thy might; - Or elles art thou false, I dare wel sain. - This Arcita full proudly spake again: - Thou shalt, quod he, be rather false than I, - And thou art false, I tell thee utterly. - For _par amour_ I loved hire first, or thou. - What wolt thou sayn, thou wistest nat right now - Whether she were a woman or a goddesse: - Thin is affection of holinesse, - And min is love as to a creature, - For which I tolde thee min aventure, - As to my cosin, and my brother sworne. - I pose, that thou lovedst hire beforne: - Wost thou not wel the olde clerkes sawe, - That who shall give a lover any lawe? - Love is a greter lawe, by my pan, - Than may be yeven of any erthly man; - And therfore positif lawe, and swiche decree - Is broken all day for love in eche degree. - A man moste nedes love, maugre his hed; - He may nat fleen it though he shuld be ded, - All be she maid, or widewe, or elles wif. - And eke it is not likely all thy lif - To stonden in hire grace, no more shal I; - For well thou wost thyselven veraily, - That thou and I be damned to prison - Perpetuel, us gaineth no raunson. - We strive, as did the houndes for the bone, - They fought all day, and yet hir part was none: - Ther came a kyte, while that they were so wrothe, - And bare away the bone betwix hem bothe: - And, therfore, at kinges court, my brother, - Eche man for himself, ther is non other. - Love if thee lust, for I love, and ay shal; - And sothly, leve brother, this is al. - Here in this prison mosten we endure, - And everich of us take his aventure. - Great was the strif, and long, betwix hem twey, - If that I hadde leiser for to sey; - But to the effect. It happed on a day, - (To tell it you as shortly as I may,) - A worthy duk that highte Perithous, - That felaw was to this duk Theseus - Sin thilke day that they were children lite, - Was come to Athenes, his felaw to visite, - And for to play, as he was wont to do, - For in this world he loved no man so; - And he loved him as tenderly again: - So well they loved, as old bokes sain, - That whan that on was ded, sothly to tell, - His felaw wente and sought him doun in hell; - But of that storie list me not to write. - Duk Perithous loved wel Arcite, - And had him knowe at Thebes yere by yere, - And finally, at request and praiere - Of Perithous, withouten any raunson, - Duk Theseus let him out of prison, - Frely to gon wher that him list over all, - In swiche a gise as I you tellen shall. - This was the forword, plainly for to endite, - Betwixen Theseus and him Arcite: - That if so were, that Arcite were yfound - Ever in his lif, by day or night, o stound - In any countree of this Theseus, - And he were caught, it was accorded thus, - That with a swerd he shulde lese his hed; - Ther was non other remedie, ne rede. - But taketh his leve, and homeward he him speede: - Let him beware, his nekke lieth to wedde. - How great a sorwe suffereth now Arcite? - The deth he feleth thurgh his herte smite: - He wepeth, waileth, crieth pitously, - To sleen himself he waiteth prively. - He said, Alas the day that I was borne! - Now is my prison werse than beforne; - Now is me shape eternally to dwelle - Not only in purgatorie, but in helle. - Alas! that ever I knew Perithous, - For elles had I dwelt with Theseus, - Yfetered in his prison evermo, - Than had I ben in blisse, and not in wo: - Only the sight of hire, whom that I serve, - Though that I never hire grace may deserve, - Wold have sufficed right ynough for me. - O dere cosin Palamon, quod he, - Thin is the victorie of this aventure; - Ful blisful in prison maiest thou endure: - In prison! certes nay, but in paradise. - Wel hath Fortune yturned thee the dise, - That hast the sight of hire, and I the absence. - For possible is, sin thou hast hire presence, - And art a knight, a worthy and an able, - That by some cas, sin Fortune is changeable, - Thou maiest to thy desir somtime atteine: - But I that am exiled, and barreine - Of alle grace, and in so gret despaire, - That ther n'is erthe, water, fire, ne aire, - Ne creature, that of hem maked is, - That may me hele or don comfort in this, - Wel ought I sterve in wanhope and distresse. - Farewel my lif, my lust, and my gladnesse. - Alas! why plainen men so in commune - Of purveiance of God, or of Fortune, - That yeveth hem ful oft in many a gise, - Wel better than they can hemself devise; - Som man desireth for to have richesse, - That cause is of his murdre or gret siknesse; - And som man wold out of his prison fayne, - That in his house is of his meinie slain. - Infinite harmes ben in this matere, - We wote not what thing that we praien here. - We saren as he that dronke is as a mous: - A dronken man wot wel he hath an hous, - But he ne wot which the right way thider, - And to a dronken man the way is slider. - And certes in this world so faren we; - We seken fast after felicite, - But we go wrong ful often trewely. - Thus we may sayen alle, and namely I, - That wende, and had a gret opinion, - That if I might escapen fro prison, - Than I had ben in joye and parfite hele, - Ther now I am exiled fro my wele. - Sin that I may not seen you, Emelie, - I n'am but ded; there n'is no remedie. - Upon that other side Palamon, - Whan that he wist Arcita was agon, - Swiche sorwe he maketh, that the grete tour - Resouned of his yelling and clamour. - The pure fetters on his shinnes grete - Were of his bitter salte teres wete. - Alas! quod he, Arcita, cosin min, - Of all our strif, God wot, the frute is thin. - Thou walkest now in Thebes at thy large, - And of my wo, thou yevest litel charge. - Thou maist, sith thou hast wisdom and manhede, - Assemblen all the folk of our kinrede, - And make werre so sharpe in this contree, - That by som aventure, or som tretee, - Thou maist have hire to lady and to wif, - For whom that I must nedes lese my lif. - For, as by way of possibilitee, - Sith thou art at thy large of prison free, - And art a lord, gret is thine avantage, - More than is min, that sterve her in a cage; - For I may wepe and waile, while that I live, - With all the wo that prison may me yeve, - And eke with peine that love me yeveth also, - That doubleth all my tourment and my wo. - Therwith the fire of jalousie up sterte - Within his brest, and hent him by the herte - So woodly, that he like was to behold - The boxe-tree, or the ashen, ded and cold. - Than said he: O cruel goddes, that governe - This world with binding of your word eterne, - And writen in the table of athamant, - Your parlement, and your eterne grant, - What is mankind more unto yhold - Than is the shepe, that rouketh in the fold? - For slain is man, right as another beest, - And dwelleth eke in prison, and arrest, - And hath siknesse, and gret adversite, - And often times gilteles parde. - What governance is in this prescience, - That gilteless turmenteth innocence? - And yet encreseth this all my penance, - That man is bounden to his observance, - For Goddes sake to leten of his will, - Ther as a beest may all his lust fulfill: - And when a beest is ded, he hath no peine; - But man, after his deth, mote wepe and pleine, - Though in this world he have care and wo, - Withouten doute it maye stonden so. - The answer of this lete I to divines, - But wel I wote, that in this world gret pine is. - Alas! I see a serpent or a thefe, - That many a trewe man hath do meschefe, - Gon at his large, and wher him lust may turn. - But I moste ben in prison thurgh Saturn, - And eke thurgh Juno, jalous and eke wood, - That hath wel neye destruied all the blood - Of Thebes, with his waste walles wide; - And Venus sleeth me on that other side, - For jalousie, and fere of him, Arcite. - Now wol I stent of Palamon a lite, - And leten him in his prison still dwelle, - And of Arcita forth I wol you telle. - The sommer passeth, and the nightes long, - Encresen double wise the peines strong - Both of the lover and of the prisoner; - I n'ot which hath the wofuller mistere: - For, shortly for to say, this Palamon - Perpetuelly is damned to prison, - In chaines and in fetters to ben ded; - And Arcite is exiled on his hed - For evermore, as out of that contree, - Ne never more he shal his lady see. - You lovers, axe I now this question, - Who hath the werse, Arcite, or Palamon? - That on may se his lady day by day, - But in prison moste he dwellen alway: - That other wher him lust may ride or go, - But sen his lady shal he never mo. - Now demeth as you liste, ye that can, - For I wil tell you forth, as I began. - When that Arcite to Thebes comen was, - Ful oft a day he swelt, and said, Alas! - For sen his lady shal he neuer mo. - And, shortly, to concluden all his wo, - So mochel sorwe hadde never creature - That is or shal be while the world may dure. - His slepe, his mete, his drinke, is him byraft, - That lene he wex, and drie as is a shaft. - His eyen holwe, and grisly to behold, - His hewe salowe, and pale as ashen cold; - And solitary he was, and ever alone, - And wailing all the night, making mone; - And if he herde song or instrument, - Than would he wepe, he mighte not be stent: - So feble were his spirites, and so low, - And changed so, that no man coude know - His speche ne his vois, though men it herd. - And in his gere, for all the world he ferd, - Nought only like the lovers maladie, - Of Ereos, but rather ylike manie, - Engendred of humours melancolike, - Beforne his hed in his celle fantastike. - And shortly turned was all up so doun - Both habit and eke dispositioun - Of him, this woful lover Dan Arcite. - What shuld I all day of his wo endite? - Whan he endured had a yere or two - This cruel torment, and this peine and wo, - At Thebes, in his contree, as I said, - Upon a night in slepe as he him laid, - Him thought how that the winged god Mercury - Beforne him stood, and bad him be mery. - His slepy yerde in hond he bare upright; - An hat he wered upon his heres bright: - Arraied was this god, (as he toke kepe,) - As he was whan that Argus toke his slepe, - And said him thus: To Athenes shall thou wende, - Ther is thee shapen of thy wo an ende. - And with that word Arcite awoke and stert. - Now trewely how sore that ever me smert, - Quod he, to Athenes right now wol I fare; - Ne for no drede of deth shall I not spare - To se my lady, that I love and serve; - In hire presence I rekke not to sterve. - And with that word he caught a gret mirrour, - And saw that changed was all his colour, - And saw his visage all in another kind; - And right anon it ran him in his mind, - That sith his face was so disfigured - Of maladie, the which he had endured, - He might wel, if that he bare him lowe, - Live in Athenes evermore unknowe, - And sen his lady wel nigh day by day. - And right anon he changed his aray, - And clad him as a poure labourer; - And all alone (save only a squier, - That knew his privitie and all his cas, - Which was disguised pourely as he was,) - To Athenes is he gone the nexte way. - And to the court he went upon a day, - And at the gate he proffered his service, - To drugge and draw what so men wold devise. - And shortly of this matere for to sayn, - He fell in office with a chamberlain, - The which that dwelling was with Emelie; - For he was wise, and coude sone espie - Of every servent which that served hire: - Wel coud he hewen wood, and water bere, - For he was yonge and mighty for the nones, - And thereto he was strong and big of bones - To done that any wight can him devise. - A yere or two he was in this service, - Page of the chambre of Emelie the bright, - And Philostrate he sayde that he hight. - But half so wel beloved man as he - Ne was ther never in court of his degre. - He was so gentil of conditioun, - That thurghout all the court was his renoun. - They sayden that it were a charite - That Theseus wold enhaunse his degre, - And putten him in a worshipful service, - Ther as he might his vertues exercise. - And thus, within a while, his name is spronge, - Both of his dedes, and of his good tonge, - That Theseus had taken him so ner, - That of his chambre he made him squier, - And gave him gold to mainteine his degre; - And eke men brought him out of his contre - Fro yere to yere ful prively his rent; - But honestly and sleighly he it spent, - That no man wondred how that he it hadde. - And thre yere in this wise his lif he ladde, - And bare him so in pees and eke in werre, - Ther n'as no man that Theseus hath derre. - And in this blisse let I now Arcite, - And speke I wol of Palamon a lite. - In derkenesse and horrible and strong prison - This seven yere hath sitten Palamon, - Forpined, what for love and for distresse. - Who feleth double sorwe and hevinesse - But Palamon? that love distraineth so, - That wood out of his wit he goth for wo, - And eke therto he is a prisonere - Perpetuell, not only for a yere. - Who coude rime in English proprely - His martirdom? forsoth it am not I; - Therfore I passe as lightly as I may. - It fel that in the seventh yere, in May, - The thridde night, (as olde bokes sayn, - That all this storie tellen more plain,) - Were it by aventure or destinee, - (As when a thing is shapen, it shal be) - That sone after the midnight Palamon, - By helping of a frend, brake his prison, - And fleeth the cite faste as he may go, - For he had yeven drinke his gayler so, - Of a clarre, made of a certain wine, - With narcotikes and opie of Thebes fine, - That all the night, though that men wold him shake, - The gailer slept, he mighte not awake; - And thus he fleeth as faste as ever he may. - The night was short, and faste by the day, - That nedes cost he moste himselven hide, - And to a grove faste ther beside, - With dredful foot then stalketh Palamon, - For shortly this was his opinion, - That in that grove he wold him hide all day, - And in the night than wold he take his way - To Thebes ward, his frendes for to preie - On Theseus to helpen him werreie: - And shortly, eyther he wold lese his lif, - Or winnen Emelie unto his wif. - This is the effect, and his entente plein. - Now wol I turnen to Arcite agein, - That litel wist how neighe was his care, - Till that Fortune had brought him in the snare. - The besy larke, the messager of day, - Salewith in hire song the morwe gray, - And firy Phebus riseth up so bright, - That all the orient laugheth of the sight; - And with his stremes drieth in the greves - The silver dropes hanging in the leves. - And Arcite, that is in the court real - With Theseus the squier principal, - Is risen, and loketh on the mery day; - And for to don his observance to May, - Remembring on the point of his desire, - He on his courser, sterting as the fire, - Is ridden to the feldes him to pley, - Out of the court, were it a mile or twey, - And to the grove, of which that I you told, - By aventure, his way he gan to hold, - To maken him a gerlond of the greves, - Were it of woodbind or of hauthorn leves, - And loud he song agen the sonne shene. - O Maye, with all thy floures and thy grene, - Right welcome be thou, faire fresshe May, - I hope that I some grene here getten may. - And from his courser, with a lusty herte, - Into the grove ful hastily he sterte, - And in a path he romed up and doun. - Ther, as by aventure this Palamon - Was in a bush, that no man might him se, - For sore afered of his deth was he: - Nothing ne knew he that it was Arcite, - God wot he wold have trowed it ful lite. - But soth is said, gon sithen are many yeres, - That feld hath eyen, and wood hath eres, - It is ful faire a man to bere him even, - For al day meten men at unset steven. - Ful litel wote Arcite of his felaw, - That was so neigh to herken of his saw; - For in the bush he sitteth now ful still. - Whan that Arcite had romed all his fill, - And songen all the roundel lustily, - Into a studie he fell sodenly, - As don these lovers in hir queinte geres, - Now in the crop, and now down in the breres; - Now up, now doun, as boket in a well. - Right as the Friday, sothly for to tell, - Now shineth it, and now it raineth fast; - Right so can gery Venus overcast - The hertes of hire folk, right as hire day - Is gerfull, right so changeth she aray; - Selde is the Friday all the weke ylike. - Whan Arcite hadde ysonge, he gan to sike, - And set him doun withouten any more: - Alas! quod he, the day that I was bore! - How longe, Juno, thurgh thy crueltee, - Wilt thou werreien Thebes the citee? - Alas! ybrought is to confusion - The blood real of Cadme and Amphion: - Of Cadmus, which that was the firste man - That Thebes built, or firste the toun began. - And of the citee firste was crouned king. - Of his linage am I, and his ofspring - By veray line, as of the stok real: - And now I am so caitif and so thral, - That he that is my mortal enemy - I serve him as his squier pourely. - And yet doth Juno me wel more shame; - For I dare not beknowe min owen name, - But ther, as I was wont to highte Arcite, - Now highte I Philostrat not worth a mite: - Alas! thou fell Mars; alas! thou Juno, - Thus hath your ire our linage all fordo, - Save only me, and wretched Palamon, - That Theseus martireth in prison; - And over all this, to slen me utterly, - Love hath his firy dart so brenningly - Ysticked thurgh my trewe careful hert, - That shapen was my deth erst than my shert. - Ye slen me with your eyen, Emelie; - Ye ben the cause wherfore that I die. - Of all the remenant of min other care - Ne set I not the mountance of a tare, - So that I coud don ought to your plesance. - And with that word he fell doun in a trance - A longe time, and afterward up sterte. - This Palamon that thought thurghout his herte - He felt a colde swerd sodenly glide, - For ire he quoke, no lenger wolde he hide: - And whan that he had herd Arcites tale, - As he were wood, with face ded and pale, - He sterte him up out of the bushes thikke, - And sayde, False Arcite, false traitour wicke, - Now art thou hent, that lovest my lady so; - For whom that I have all this peine and wo, - And art my blood, and to my conseil sworn, - As I ful oft have told thee herebeforn: - And hast bejaped here Duk Theseus, - And falsely changed hast thy name thus; - I wol be ded, or elles thou shalt die: - Thou shalt not love my lady Emelie, - But I wol love hire only and no mo, - For I am Palamon, thy mortal fo. - And though that I no wepen have in this place, - But out of prison am astert by grace, - I drede nought that eyther thou shalt die, - Or thou ne shalt nat loven Emelie: - Chese which thou wilt, for thou shalt not asterte. - This Arcite tho, with ful dispitous herte, - Whan he him knew, and had his tale herd, - As fers as a leon, pulled out a swerd, - And sayde thus; By God, that sitteth above, - N'ere it that thou art sicke, and wood for love, - And eke that thou no wepen hast in this place, - Thou shuldest never out this grove pace, - That thou ne shuldest dien of min hond; - For I defie the suretee and the bond - Which that thou saist that I have made to thee. - What! veray fool, thinke wel that love is free - And I wol love her maugre all thy might: - But for thou art a worthy gentil knight, - And wilnest to darraine hire by bataille, - Have here my trouth, to morwe I will not faille, - Withouten weting of any other wight, - That here I wol be founden as a knight, - And bringen harneis right ynough for thee, - And chese the beste, and leve the werste for me: - And mete and drinke this night wol I bring - Ynough for thee, and cloathes for thy bedding; - And if so be that thou my lady win, - And sle me in this wode ther I am in, - Thou maist well have thy lady as for me. - This Palamon answered, I grant it thee. - And thus they ben departed till a morwe, - When eche of hem hath laid his faith to borwe. - O Cupide, out of alle charitee! - O regne, that wolt no felaw have with thee! - Ful soth is sayde, that love ne lordship - Wol nat, his thankes, have no felawship. - Wel finden that Arcite and Palamon. - Arcite is ridden anone unto the toun, - And on the morwe or it were day light, - Ful prively two harneis hath he dight, - Both suffisant and mete to darreine - The bataille in the field betwix hem tweine; - And on his hors, alone as he was borne, - He carieth all this harneis him beforne; - And the grove, at time and place ysette, - That Arcite and this Palamon ben mette. - Tho changen gan the colour in hir face, - Right as the hunter in the regne of Trace, - That stondeth at a gappe, with a spere, - Whan hunted is the lion or the bere, - And hereth him come rushing in the greves, - And breking bothe the boughes and the leves, - And thinketh, here cometh my mortal enemy, - Withouten faile he must be ded or I: - For eyther I mote slain him at the gappe, - Or he mote slen me, if that me mishappe. - So ferden they, in changing of hir hewe, - As fer as eyther of hem other knewe. - Ther n'as no good day, ne no saluing - But streit withouten wordes rehersing - Everich of hem halpe to armen other - As frendly as he were his owen brother; - And, after that, with sharpe speres strong - They foineden eche at other wonder long. - Thou mightest wenen, that this Palamon - In his fighting were a wood leon, - And as a cruel tigre was Arcite: - As wild bores gan they togeder smite, - That frothen white as fome for ire wood; - Up to the ancle fought they in hir blood; - And in this wise I let hem fighting dwelle, - As forth I wol of Theseus you telle. - The Destinee, ministre general, - That executeth in the world over al - The purveiance that God hath sen beforne, - So strong it is, that though the world hath sworne - The contrary of thing by ya or nay, - Yet sometime it shall fallen on a day - That falleth nat efte in a thousand yere: - For certainly our appetites here, - Be it of werre, or pees, or hate, or love, - All is this ruled by the sight above. - This mene I now by mighty Theseus, - That for to hunten is so desirous, - And namely at the gret hart in May, - That in his bed ther daweth him no day, - That he n'is clad, and redy for to ride - With hunte and horne, and houndes him beside: - For in his hunting hath he swiche delite, - That it is all his joye and appetite, - To ben himself the grete harts bane; - For after Mars he serveth now Diane. - Clere was the day, as I have told or this, - And Theseus, with alle joye and blis, - With his Ipolitia, the fayre quene, - And Emelie, yclothed all in grene, - On hunting ben thy ridden really, - And to the grove, that stood ther faste by, - In which ther was an hart, as men him told, - Duk Theseus the streite way hath hold, - And to the launde he rideth him ful right, - Ther was the hart ywont to have his flight, - And over a brooke, and so forth on his wey. - This duk wol have a cours at him or twey, - With houndes, swiche as him lust to commaunde. - And when this duk was comen to the launde, - Under the sonne he loked, and anon - He was ware of Arcite and Palamon, - That foughten breme, as it were bolles two; - The brighte swerdes wenten to and fro - So hidously, that with the leste stroke - It semed that it wold felle an oke: - But what they weren nothing he ne wote. - This duk his courser with his sporres smote, - And at a stert he was betwix hem two, - And pulled out a swerde, and cried, Ho! - No more, up peine of lesing of your hed; - By mighty Mars, he shall anon be ded - That smiteth any stroke that I may sen! - But telleth me what mistere men ye ben, - That ben so hardy for to fighten here - Withouten any juge or other officere, - As though it were in listes really? - This Palamon answered hastily, - And saide; Sire, what nedeth wordes mo? - We have the death deserved bothe two; - Two woful wretches ben we, two caitives, - That ben accombred of our owen lives; - And, as thou art a rightful lord and juge, - Ne yeve us neyther mercie ne refuge; - But sle me first for seinte charitee, - But sle my felaw eke as wel as me: - Or sle him first, for though thou know it lite, - This is thy mortal fo, this is Arcite, - That fro thy lond is banished on his hed, - For which he hath deserved to be ded; - For this is he that came unto thy gate, - And sayde that he highte Philostrate. - Thus hath he japed thee full many a yere, - And thou hast maked him thy chief squiere: - And this is he that loveth Emelie. - For sith the day is come that I shal die, - I make plainly my confession; - That I am thilke woful Palamon, - That hath thy prison broken wilfully; - I am thy mortal fo, and it am I - That loveth so hot Emelie the bright, - That I wold dien present in hire sight; - Therfore I axe deth and my jewise, - But sle my felaw in the same wise, - For both we have deserved to be slain. - This worthy duk answred anon again, - And sayd, This is a short conclusion, - Your owen mouth, by your confession, - Hath damned you, and I wol it recorde. - It nedeth not to pine you with the corde: - Ye shul be ded, by mighty Mars the rede. - The quene anon for veray womanhede - Gan for to wepe, and so did Emelie, - And all the ladies in the compagnie. - Gret pite was, it, as it thought hem alle, - That ever swiche a chance shulde befalle, - For gentil men they were of gret estat, - And nothing but for love was this debat; - And sawe hir blody woundes wide and sore, - And alle criden bothe lesse and more, - Have mercie, lord, upon us wimmen alle, - And on hir bare knees adoun they falle, - And wold have kist his feet ther as he stood, - Till at the last, aslaked was his mood, - (For pitee renneth sone in gentil herte,) - And though he first for ire quoke and sterte, - He hath considered shortly in a clause, - The trespas of hem both, and eke the cause; - And although that his ire hir gilt accused, - Yet in his reson he hem both excused: - As thus; he thought wel that every man - Wol helpe himself in love, if that he can, - And eke deliver himself out of prison; - And eke his herte had compassion - Of wimmen, for they wepten ever in on, - And in his gentil herte he thoughte anon, - And soft unto himself he sayed, Fie - Upon a lord that wol have no mercie, - But be a leon both in word and dede, - To hem that ben in repentance and drede, - As wel as to a proud dispitous man, - That wol mainteinen that he first began. - That lord hath litel of discretion, - That in swiche cas can no division, - But weigheth pride and humblesse after on. - And shortly, when his ire is thus agon, - He gan to loken up with eyen light, - And spake these same wordes all on hight: - The god of Love, a _benedicite_! - How mighty, and how gret a lord is he! - Again his might ther gainen non obstacles, - He may be cleped a god for his miracles: - For he can maken at his owen gise - Of everich herte, as that him list devise. - Lo! here this Arcite, and this Palamon, - That quitely weren out of my prison, - And might have lived in Thebes really, - And weten I am hir mortal enemy, - And that hir deth lith in my might also, - And yet hath love maugre hir eyen two, - Ybrought hem hither bothe for to die. - Now loketh, is not this an heigh folie? - Who may ben a fool, but if he love? - Behold, for Goddes sake, that sitteth above, - Se how they blede! be they not wel araied? - Thus hath hir lord, the god of Love, hem paied - Hir wages and hir fees for hir service, - And yet they wenen for to be ful wise - That serven Love, for ought that may befalle. - And yet is this the beste game of alle, - That she, for whom they have this jolite, - Con hem therfore as mochel thank as me. - She wot no more of alle this hote fare, - By God, than wot a cuckow or an hare. - But alle mote ben assaied hote or cold; - A man mot ben a fool, other yonge or old; - I wot it by myself ful yore agon; - For in my time a servant was I on: - And therefore sith I know of loves peine, - And wote how sore it can a man destreine; - As he that oft hath been caught in his las, - I you foryeve all holly this trespas, - At request of the quene, that kneleth here, - And eke of Emelie, my suster dere, - And ye shul both anon unto me swere - That never mo ye shul my contree dere, - Ne maken werre upon me night ne day, - But ben my frendes in alle that ye may. - I you foryeve this trespas every del. - And they him sware his axing fayr and wel; - And him of lordship and of mercie praid, - And he hem granted grace, and thus he said: - To speke of real linage and richesse, - Though that she were a quene or a princesse, - Eche of you bothe is worthy, douteles, - To wedden whan time is, but natheles - I speke as for my suster Emelie, - For whom ye have this strif and jalousie, - Ye wot yourself, she may not wedden two - At ones, though ye fighten evermo; - But on of you, al be him loth or lefe, - He mot gon pipen in an ivy lefe; - This is to say, she may not have you bothe, - Al be ye never so jalous, ne so wrothe: - And forthy I you put in this degree, - That eche of you shall have his destinee - As him is shape, and herkneth in what wise; - Lo here your ende, of that I shal devise. - My will is this, for plat conclusion, - Withouten any replication: - If that you liketh, take it for the beste, - That everich of you shal gon wher him lest, - Freely, withouten raunson or dangere; - And this day fifty wekes, ferre ne nere, - Everich of you shal bring an hundred knightes, - Armed for the listes up at all rightes, - Alle redy to darrein hire by bataille. - And this behete I you withouten faille, - Upon my trouth, and as I am a knight, - That whether of you bothe hath that might, - This is to sayn, that whether he or thou - May with his hundred, as I spake of now, - Sle his contrary, or out of listes drive, - Him shall I yeven Emelie to wive, - To whom that fortune yeveth so fayr a grace. - The listes shal I maken in this place; - And God so wisly on my soule rewe, - As I shal even juge ben, and trewe. - Ye shal non other ende with me maken, - That on of you ne shall be ded or taken; - And if you thinketh this is wel ysaid, - Saith your avis, and holdeth you apaid. - This is your ende, and your conclusion. - Who loketh lightly now but Palamon? - Who springeth up for joye but Arcite? - Who coud it tell, or who coud it endite, - The joye that is maked in the place, - Whan Theseus hath don so fayre a grace? - But doun on knees went every manere wight, - And thanked him with all hir hertes might, - And namely these Thebanes often sith. - And thus with good hope and with herte blith - They taken hir leve, and homeward gan they ride - To Thebes with his olde walles wide. - I trowe men wolde deme it negligence - If I foryete to tellen the dispence - Of Theseus, that goth so besily - To maken up the listes really, - That swiche a noble theatre as it was - I dare wel sayn in alle this world ther n'as. - The circuite a mile was aboute, - Walled of stone, and diched all withoute; - Round was the shape, in manere of a compas, - Ful of degrees, the hight of sixty pas, - That, whan a man was set on o degree, - He letted not his felaw for to see. - Estward ther stood a gate of marbel white, - Westward right swiche another in the opposite; - And shortly to concluden, swiche a place - Was never in erth, in so litel a space: - For in the lond ther n'as no craftes man - That geometrie or arsemetrike can, - Ne portreiour, ne kerver of images, - That Theseus ne yaf him mete and wages, - The theatre for to maken and devise. - And for to don his rite and sacrifice, - He estward hath upon the gate above, - In worship of Venus, goddesse of Love, - Don make an auter, and an oratorie; - And westward, in the minde and in memorie - Of Mars, he maked hath right swich another, - That coste largely of gold a fother: - And northward, in a touret on the wall, - Of alabastre white, and red corall, - An oratorie, riche for to see, - In worship of Diane of chastitee, - Hath Theseus don wrought in noble wise. - But yet had I foryetten to devise - The noble kerving, and the portreitures, - The shape, the contenance, of the figures - That weren in these oratories three. - First, in the temple of Venus, maist thou see, - Wrought on the wall, ful pitous to beholde, - The broken slepes, and the sikes cold, - The sacred teres, and the waimentinges, - The firy strokes of the desiringes, - That Loves servantes in this lif enduren, - The othes that hir covenants assuren. - Plesance and Hope, Desire, Foolhardinesse, - Beaute and Youth, Baudrie and Richesse, - Charmes and Force, Lesinges and Flaterie, - Dispence, Besinesse, and Jalousie, - That wered of yelwe goldes a gerlond, - And hadde a cuckow sitting on hire hond; - Festes, instruments, and caroles, and dances, - Lust and array, and all the circumstances - Of Love, which that I reken, and reken shall, - By ordre weren peinted on the wall, - And mo than I can make of mention: - For sothly all the mount of Citheron, - Ther Venus hath hire principal dwelling, - Was shewed on the wall in purtreying, - With all the gardin, and the lustinesse: - Nought was foryetten the porter Idlenesse, - Ne Narcissus the fayrr, of yore agone, - Ne yet the folie of King Salomon, - Ne yet the grete strengthe of Hercules. - The enchantment of Medea and Circes, - Ne of Turnus the hardy fiers corage, - The riche Cresus, caitif in servage. - Thus may ye seen, that wisdom ne richesse, - Beaute ne sleighte, strengthe ne hardinesse, - Ne may with Venus holden champartie; - For as hire liste, the world may she gie. - Lo, all these folk so caught were in hire las, - Til they for wo ful often said, Alas! - Sufficeth here ensamples on or two, - And yet I coud reken a thousand mo. - The statue of Venus, glorious for to see, - Was naked fleting in the large see, - And, fro the navel doun, all covered was - With wawes grene, and bright as any glas: - A citole in hire right hand hadde she, - And on hire hed, ful semely for to see, - A rose gerlond fresh, and wel smelling; - Above hire hed, hire doves fleckering; - Before hire stood hire sone Cupido; - Upon his shoulders winges had he two, - And blind he was, as it is often sene; - A bow he bare, and arwes bright and kene. - Why shuld I not as wel eke tell you all - The purtreiture that was upon the wall, - Within the temple of mighty Mars the rede? - All peinted was the wall in length and brede, - Like to the estres of the grisly place - That highte the gret temple of Mars in Trace: - In thilke colde and frosty region, - Ther as Mars hath his sovereine mansion. - First, on the wall was peinted a forest, - In which ther wonneth nyther man ne best, - With knotty knarry barrien trees old, - Of stubbes sharpe, and hidous to behold. - In which ther ran a romble and a swough, - As though a storme shuld bresten every bough; - And dounward from an hill, under a bent, - Ther stood the temple of Mars armipotent, - Wrought all of burned stele, of which the entree - Was longe and streite, and ghastly for to see; - And thereout came a rage and swiche a vise, - That it made all the gates for to rise. - The northern light in at the dore shone, - For window on the wall ne was ther none, - Thurgh which men mighten any light discerne. - The dore was all of athamant eterne, - Yclenched overthwart and endelong, - With yren tough, and for to make it strong, - Every piler, the temple to sustene, - Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene. - Ther saw I first the derk imagining - Of Felonie, and alle the compassing; - The cruel Ire, red as any glede; - The Pikepurse, and eke the pale Drede; - The Smiler, with the knife under the cloke; - The shepen brenning with the blake smoke; - The Treson of the mordring in the bedde; - The open Werre, with woundes all bebledde, - Conteke with blody knife Sharp menace; - All of chirking was that sorry place. - The sleer of himself yet saw I there, - His herte blood hath bathed all his here: - The naile ydriven in the shode on hight; - The cold Deth, with mouth gaping upright. - Amiddes of the temple sate Mischance, - With discomfort and sory countenaunce; - Yet saw I Woodnesse laughing in his rage, - Armed Complaint, Outhees, and fiers Outrage; - The carraine in the bush, with throte ycorven; - A thousand slain, and not of qualme ystorven; - The tirant with the prey by force yraft; - The toun destroied, ther was nothing laft; - Yet saw I brent the shippes hoppesteres; - The hunte ystrangled with the wilde beres; - The sow freting the child right in the cradel; - The coke yscalded for all his long ladel: - Nought was foryete by the infortune of Marte, - The carter overridden with his carte, - Under the wheel ful low he lay a doun. - Ther were also of Martes division, - The armerer, and the bowyer, and the smith, - That forgeth sharp swerdes on the stith; - And all above, depeinted in a tour, - Saw I a Conquest, sitting in great honour, - With thilke sharp swerd over his hed - Yhanging by a subtil twined thred. - Depeinted was the slaughter of Julius, - Of gret Nero, and of Antonius: - All be that thilke time they were unborne, - Yet was hir deth depeinted ther beforne; - By menacing of Mars, right by figure, - So was it shewed in that portreiture, - As is depeinted in the cercles above, - Who shal be slaine, or elles ded for love. - Sufficeth on ensample in stories olde; - I may not reken hem alle though I wolde. - The statue of Mars upon a carte stood, - Armed, and loked grim, as he were wood; - And over his hed ther shinen two figures - Of sterres that ben cleped in scriptures, - That on Puella, that other Rubeus. - This god of Armes was araied thus: - A wolf ther stood beforne him at his fete, - With eyen red, and of a man he ete. - With subtil pensill peinted was this storie, - In redouting of Mars and of his glorie. - Now to the temple of Diane the chaste, - As shortly as I can, I wol me haste, - To tellen you of the descriptioun, - Depeinted by the walles up and doun, - Of hunting and of shamefast chastitee. - Ther saw I how woful Calistope, - Whan that Diane agreved was with here, - Was turned from a woman til a bere, - And after was she made the lodesterre. - Thus was it peinted, I can say no ferre; - Hire sone is eke a sterre, as men may see. - There saw I Danè yturned til a tree; - I mene not hire the goddesse Diane, - But Peneus daughter, which that highte Danè. - Ther saw I Atteon, an hart ymaked, - For vengeance that he saw Diane all naked: - I saw how that his houndes have him caught, - And freten him, for that they knew him naught. - Yet peinted was a litel forthermore, - How Athalante hunted the wilde bore; - And Meleagre, and many another mo, - For which Diane wrought hem care and wo. - Ther saw I many another wonder storie, - The which me liste not drawen to memorie. - This goddesse on an hart ful heye sete, - With smale houndes all about hire fete, - And undernethe hire fete she hadde a mone, - Wexing it was, and shuld wanen sone. - In gaudy grene hire statue clothed was, - With bow in hond, and arwes in a cas; - Hire eyen cast she ful low adoun, - Ther Pluto hath his derke regioun. - A woman travailling was hire beforne, - But for hire child so longe was unborne, - Full pitously Lucina gan she call, - And sayed; Helpe, for thou mayest beste of all. - Wel coude he peinten lifly that it wrought, - With many a florein he the hewes bought. - Now ben these listes made, and Theseus, - That at his gret cost arraied thus - The temples, and the theatre everidel, - Whan it was don, him liked wonder wel. - But stint I wol of Theseus a lite, - And speke of Palamon and of Arcite. - The day approcheth of hir returning, - That everich shuld an hundred knightes bring - The bataille to darreine, as I you told; - And til Athenes hir covenant for to hold, - Hath everich of hem brought an hundred knightes - Wel armed for the werre at alle rightes; - And sikerly ther trowed many a man - That never sithen that the world began, - As for to speke of knighthood of hir hond, - As fer as God hath maked see and lond; - N'as of so fewe so noble a compagnie. - For every wight that loved chivalrie, - And wold his thankes han a passant name, - Hath praied that he might ben of that game, - And wel was him that therto chosen was, - For if ther fell to morwe such a cas, - Ye knowen wel that every lusty knight - That loveth _par amour_, and hath his might, - Were it in Englelond or elleswher, - They wold hir thankes willen to be ther. - To fight for a lady, a _benedicite_, - It were a lusty sight for to se. - And right so ferden they with Palamon, - With him there wenten knightes many on; - Som wol ben armed in an habergeon, - And in a brest-plate, and in a gipon; - And som wol have a pair of plates large, - And som wol have a Pruce sheld or a targe; - Som wol ben armed on his legges wele, - And have an axe, and some a mace of stele: - Ther n'is no newe guise, that it n'as old; - Armed they weren, as I have you told, - Everich after his opinion. - Ther maist thou se coming with Palamon, - Licurge himself, the gret King of Trace; - Black was his berd, and manly was his face; - The cercles of his eyen in his hed - They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red; - And like a griffon loked he about, - With kemped heres on his browes stout; - His limmes gret, his braunes hard and stronge, - His shouldres brode, his armes round and longe: - And as the guise was in his contree, - Ful highe upon a char of gold stood he, - With foure white bolles in the trais. - Instede of a cote armure, on his harneis, - With nayles yelwe, and bright as any gold, - He hadde a bere's skin, cole-blake for old. - His longe here was kempt behind his bak, - As any ravnes fether it shone for blake. - A wreth of gold arm-gret, of huge weight, - Upon his hed, sate full of stones bright, - Of fine rubins and of diamans. - About his char ther wenten white alauns, - Twenty and mo, as gret as any stere - To hunten at the leon, or the dere, - And folwed him, with mosel fast ybound - Colered of gold, and torettes filed round: - An hundred lordes had he in his route, - Armed full wel, with hertes sterne and stoute. - With Arcita, in stories as men finde, - The gret Emetrius, the King of Inde, - Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele, - Covered with cloth of gold, diapred wele, - Came riding like the god of armes, Mars: - His cote armure was of a cloth of Tars, - Couched with perles white, round, and gret; - His sadel was of brent golde new ybete; - A mantelet, upon his shoulders hanging, - Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling, - His crispe here like ringes was yronne, - And that was yelwe, and glitered as the sonne; - His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin, - His lippes round, his colour was sanguin, - A fewe fraknes in his face yspreint, - Betwixen yelwe and blake somdel ymeint; - And as a leon he his loking caste, - Of five-and-twenty yere his age I caste; - His berd was wel begonnen for to spring, - His vois was as a trompe thondering; - Upon his hed he wered, of laurer grene, - A gerlonde fresshe, and lusty for to sene; - Upon his honde he bare, for his deduit, - An egle tame, as any lily whit; - An hundred lordes had he with him there, - All armed save hir hedes in all hir gere, - Ful richely in alle manere thinges; - For trusteth wel, that erles, dukes, kinges, - Were gathered in this noble compagnie, - For love, and for encrese of chevalrie. - About this king ther ran, on every part, - Ful many a tame leon and leopart. - And in this wise, these lords all and some, - Ben on the Sonday to the citee come - Abouten prime, and in the toun alight. - This Theseus, this duk, this worthy knight, - Whan he had brought hem into his citee, - And inned hem, everich at his degree, - He festeth hem, and doth so gret labour - To easen hem, and don hem all honour, - That yet men wenen that no mannes wit - Of non estat ne coud amenden it. - The minstralcie, the service at the feste - The grete yeftes to the most and leste, - The riche array of Theseus paleis, - Ne who sate first, ne last, upon the deis, - What ladies fayrest ben, or best dauncing, - Or which of hem can carole best or sing, - Ne who most felingly speketh of love, - What haukes sitten on perche above, - What houndes liggen on the floor adoun, - Of all this now I make no mentioun. - But of the effect, that thinketh me the beste, - Now cometh the point, and herkeneth if you lest. - The Sonday nighte, or day began to spring, - Whan Palamon the larke herde sing, - Although it n'ere not day by houres two, - Yet sang the larke, and Palamon right tho - With holy herte, and with an high corage, - He rose, to wenden on his pilgrimage - Unto the blissful Citherea benigne, - I mene Venus, honourable and digne. - And in hire houre he walketh forth a pas - Unto the listes, ther hire temple was, - And doun he kneleth, and with humble chere - And herte sore he sayde, as ye shul here: - Fayrest of fayre! O lady min Venus, - Daughter of Jove, and spouse to Vulcanus, - Thou glader of the mount of Citheron! - For thilke love thou haddest to Adon, - Have pitee on my bitter teres smerte, - And take myn humble prair at thin herte. - Alas! I ne have no langage to tell - The effecte, ne the torment of min hell; - Min herte may min harmes not bewrey; - I am so confuse that I cannot say: - But mercy, lady bright! that knowest wele - My thought, and seest what harmes that I fele: - Consider all this, and rue upon my sore, - As wisly as I shal for evermore - Emforth my might thy trewe servant be, - And holden werre alway with chastite; - That make I min avow, so ye me helpe, - I kepe nought of armes for to yelpe, - Ne axe I nat to-morwe to have victorie, - Ne renoun in this cas, ne vaine glorie - Of pris of armes, blowen up and doun, - But I wold have fully possessioun - Of Emelie, and die in her servise: - Finde thou the manere how, and in what wise. - I rekke not but it may better be - To have victory of hem, or they of me, - So that I have my lady in min armes; - For though so be that Mars is god of armes, - Your vertue is so grete in heven above, - That, if you liste, I shal wel have my love. - Thy temple wol I worship evermo, - And on thin auter, wher I ride or go - I wol don sacrifice, and fires bete. - And if ye wol not so, my lady swete! - Than pray I you to-morwe with a spere, - That Arcita me thurgh the herte bere; - Than rekke I not when I have lost my lif - Though that Arcita win hire to his wif. - This is the effecte and ende of my praiere, - Yeve me my love, thou blissful lady dere! - When the orison was don of Palamon, - His sacrifice he did, and that anon. - Ful pitously, with alle circumstances, - All tell I not as now his observances. - But at the last the statue of Venus shoke, - And made a signe, whereby that he toke, - That his praiere accepted was that day; - For though the signe shewed a delay, - Yet wist he wel, that granted was his bone, - And with glad herte he went him home ful sone. - The thirdde hour inequal that Palamon - Began to Venus temple for to gon, - Up rose the sonne, and up rose Emelie, - And to the temple of Diane gan hie. - Hire maydens, that she thider with hire ladde - Ful redily with hem the fire they hadde, - The encense, the clothes, and the remenant all, - That to the sacrifice longen shall. - The hornes full of mede, as was the gise, - Ther lakked nought to don hire sacrifise. - Smoking the temple, full of clothes fayre, - This Emelie, with herte debonaire - Hire body wesshe with water of a well, - But how she did hire rite I dare not tell; - But it be any thing in generall, - And yet it were a game to heren all; - To him that meneth wel it n'ere no charge, - But it is good a man to ben at large. - Hire bright here kembed was, untressed all; - A coroune of a grene oke ceriall - Upon hire hed was set ful fayre and mete; - Two fires on the auter gan she bete, - And did hire thinges, as men may behold - In Stace of Thebes, and these bokes old. - Whan kendled was the fire, with pitous chere, - Unto Diane she spake, as ye may here: - O chaste goddesse of the wodes grene, - To whom both heven, and erth, and see, is sene, - Quene of the regne of Pluto, derke and lowe, - Goddesse of maidens that myn herte hast knowe - Ful many a yere, and wost what I desire, - As kepe me fro thy vengeance and thin ire, - That Atteon aboughte cruelly! - Chast goddesse! wel wotest thou that I - Desire to ben a mayden all my lif, - Ne never wol I be no love ne wif: - I am (thou wost) yet of thy compagnie, - A mayde, and love hunting and venerie, - And for to walken in the wodes wilde, - And not to ben a wife, and be with childe: - Nought wol I knowen compagnie of man; - Now helpe me, lady, sith you may and can; - For tho three formes that thou hast in thee: - And Palamon, that hath swiche love to me, - And eke Arcite, that loveth me so sore, - This grace I praie thee, withouten more, - As sende love and pees betwix hem two, - And fro me turne away hir hertes so, - That all hir hot love and hir desire, - And all hir besy torment, and hir fire - Be queinte, or torned in another place. - And if so be thou wolt not do me grace, - Or if my destinee be shapen so, - That I shal nedes have on of hem two, - As sende me him that most desireth me. - Beholde, goddesse of clene chastite, - The bitter teres that on my chekes fall, - Sin thou art a mayde, and keper of us all, - My maydenhede thou kepe, and well conserve, - And while I live a mayde I wol thee serve. - The fires brenne upon the auter clere, - While Emelie was thus in hire praiere, - But sodenly she saw a sighte queinte; - For right anon on of the fires queinte - And quiked again, and after that, anon - That other fire was queinte, and all agon; - And as it queinte, it made a whisteling, - As don these brondes wet in hir brenning; - And at the brondes ende outran anon, - As it were blody dropes many on; - For which, so sore agast was Emelie, - That she was well neigh mad, and gan to crie; - For she ne wiste what it signified, - But only for the fere thus she cried, - And wept, that it was pitee for to here. - And therewithall Diane gan appere - With bow in hond, right as an hunteresse, - And sayde, Doughter, stint thin hevinesse. - Among the goddes highe it is affermed, - And by eterne word written and confermed, - Thou shalt be wedded unto on of tho - That han for thee so mochel care and wo, - But unto which of hem I may not tell. - Farewel! for here I may no longer dwell: - The fires, which that on min auter brenne, - Shal thee declaren, er that thou go henne, - Thin aventure of love as in this case. - And, with that word, the arwes in the case - Of the goddesse clatteren fast and ring, - And forth she went, and made a vanishing; - For which this Emelie astonied was, - And sayde, What amounteth this, alas! - I put me in thy protection, - Diane, and under thy disposition. - And home she goth anon the nexte way. - This is the effecte; there n'is no more to say. - The next houre of Mars folwing this, - Arcite unto the temple walked is - Of fierce Mars to don his sacrifise, - With all the rites of his payen wise: - With pitous herte and high devotion, - Right thus to Mars he sayde his orison: - O stronge God, that in the regnes cold - Of Trace honoured art, and lord yhold, - And hast in every regne, and every lond - Of armes, all the bridel in thin hond, - And hem fortunest as thee list devise, - Accept of me my pitous sacrifise! - It so be that my youthe may deserve, - And that my might be worthy for to serve - Thy godhed, that I may ben on of thine; - Than praie I thee to rewe upon my pine; - For thilke peine, and thilke hot fire, - In which thou whilom brendest for desire, - Whanne that thou usedest the beautee - Of fayre yonge Venus fresshe and free, - And haddest hire in armes at thy wille; - Although thee ones on a time misfille, - Whan Vulcanus had caught thee in his las, - And fond thee ligging by his wif, alas! - For thilke sorwe that was tho in thin herte, - Have reuthe as wel upon my peines smerte. - I am yonge and unkonning as thou wost, - And, as I trow, with love offended most, - That ever was ony lives creature; - For she that doth me all this wo endure - Ne recceth never whether I sinke or flete; - And wel I wote, or she me mercy hete, - I moste with strengthe win hire in the place: - And wel I wote, withouten helpe or grace - Of thee, ne may my strengthe not availle: - Than help me, Lord, to-morwe in my bataille, - For thilke fire that whilom brenned thee, - As wel as that this fire now brenneth me, - And do, that I to-morwe may han victorie; - Min be the travaille, and thin be the glorie. - Thy soveraine temple wol I most honouren - Of ony place, and alway most labouren - In thy plesance, and in thy craftes strong, - And in thy temple I wol my baner hong, - And all the armes of my compagnie, - And evermore, until that day I die, - Eterne fire I wol beforne thee find; - And eke to this avow I wol me bind. - My berd, my here, that hangeth long adoun, - That never yet felt non offensioun, - Of rasour ne of shere, I wol thee yeve, - And ben thy trewe servant while I live. - Now, Lord, have reuth upon my sorwes sore, - Yeve me the victorie, I axe thee no more. - The praier stint of Arcita the stronge, - The ringes on the temple dore that honge, - And eke the dores, clattereden ful fast, - Of which Arcita somwhat him agast. - The fires brent upon the auter bright, - That it gan all the temple for to light, - A swete smel anon the ground up yaf, - And Arcita anon his hond up haf, - And more enscense into the fire he cast, - With other rites mo; and, at the last, - The statue of Mars began his hauberke ring, - And with that soun he herd a murmuring - Ful low and dim, that said thus, Victory; - For which he yaf to Mars honour and glorie. - And thus with joye, and hope wel to fare, - Arcite anon unto his inne is fare, - As fayn as foul is of the brighte sonne; - And right anon swiche strif ther is begonne, - For thilke granting in the heven above, - Betwixen Venus, the goddesse of Love, - And Mars, the sterne god armipotent, - That Jupiter was besy it to stent, - Til that the pale Saturnus the Colde, - That knew so many of aventures olde, - Fond in his olde experience and art, - That he ful sone hath plesed every part. - As sooth is sayd, elde hath gret avantage; - In elde is both wisdom and usage: - Men may the old out-renne, but not out-rede. - Saturne anon, to stenten strif and drede, - Albeit that it is again his kind, - Of all this strif he gan a remedy find. - My dere doughter Venus, quod Saturne, - My cours, that hath so wide for to turne, - Hath more power than wot any man. - Min is the drenching in the see so wan, - Min is the prison in the derke cote, - Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte, - The murmure, and the cherles rebelling, - The groyning, and the privy enpoysoning. - I do vengeaunce and pleine correction - While I dwelt in the signe of the Leon. - Min is the ruine of the highe halles, - The falling of the toures and of the walles - Upon the minour, or the carpenter; - I slew Samson in shaking the piler. - Min ben also the maladies colde, - The derke tresons and the castes olde: - My loking is the fader of pestilence. - Now wepe no more; I shal do diligence - That Palamon, that is thin owen knight, - Shal have his lady as thou hast him hight. - Thogh Mars shal help his knight yet natheles, - Betwixen you ther mot sometime be pees: - All be ye not of o complexion, - That causeth all day swiche division. - I am thine ayel, redy at thy will; - Wepe now no more, I shall thy lust fulfill. - Now wol I stenten of the goddes above, - Of Mars and of Venus, goddesse of Love, - And tellen you as plainly as I can - The gret effect for which that I began. - Gret was the feste in Athenes thilke day, - And eke the lusty seson of that May, - Made every wight to ben in swiche plesance, - That all that Monday justen they and dance, - And spenden it in Venus highe servise; - But by the cause that they shulden rise - Erly a-morwe, for to seen the sight, - Unto hir reste wenten they at night. - And on the morwe, whan the day gan spring, - Of hors and harneis, noise and clattering, - Ther was in the hostelries all aboute; - And to the paleis rode ther many a route - Of lordes upon stedes and palfreis. - There mayest thou see devising of harneis, - So uncouth, and so riche, and wrought so wele, - Of goldsmithry, of brouding, and of stele; - The sheldes brighte, testeres and trappures, - Gold-hewen helmes, hauberkes, cote armures, - Lordes in parementes, on hir courseres, - Knightes of retenue, and eke squires, - Nailing the speres, and helmes bokeling, - Guiding of sheldes, with lainers lacing; - Ther, as nede is, they weren nothing idel; - The fomy stedes on the golden bridel - Gnawing, and fast the armurers also - With file and hammer priking to and fro; - Yemen on foot, and communes many on - With shorte staves, thicke as they may gon; - Pipes, trompes, nakeres, and clariounes, - That in the battaille blowen blody sounes; - The paleis full of peple up and doun, - Here three, ther ten, holding hir questioun, - Devining of these Theban knightes two. - Som sayden thus, som sayde it shall be so; - Som helden with him with the blacke berd, - Som with the balled, som with the thick herd; - Some saide he loked grim, and wolde fighte, - He hath a sparth of twenty pound of wighte. - Thus was the halle full of divining, - Long after that the sonne gan up spring. - The gret Theseus that of his slepe is waked - With minstralcie and noise that was maked, - Held yet the chambre of his paleis riche, - Til that the Theban knightes bothe yliche - Honoured were, and to the paleis fette. - Duk Theseus is at the window sette, - Araied right as he were a god in trone; - The peple preset thiderward ful sone, - Him for to seen, and don high reverence, - And eke to herken his heste and his sentence. - An heraud on a scaffold made an o, - Til that the noise of the peple was ydo, - And whan he saw the peple of noise al still, - Thus shewed he the mighty dukes will. - The lord hath of his high discretion - Considered that it were destruction - To gentil blood to fighten in the gise - Of mortal bataille now in this emprise; - Wherefore to shapen that they shul not die, - He wol his firste purpos modifie. - No man therefore, up peine of losse of lif, - No maner shot, ne pollax, ne short knif, - Into the listes send, or thider bring, - Ne short swerd to stike with point biting, - No man ne draw, ne bere it by his side, - Ne no man shal unto his felaw ride - But o cours, with a sharpe ygrounden spere; - Foin if him list on foot, himself to were; - And he that is at meschief shal be take, - And not slaine, but be brought unto the stake - That shal ben ordeined on eyther side; - Thider he shal by force, and ther abide; - And if so fall the chevetain be take - On eyther side, or elles sleth his make, - No longer shal the tourneying ylast. - God spede you; goth forth and lay on fast: - With longe swerd and with mase fighteth your fill. - Goth now your way; this is the lordes will. - The vois of the peple touched to the heven, - So loude crieden they with mery steven, - God save swiche a lorde that is so good, - He wilneth no destruction of blood. - Up gon the trompes and the melodie, - And to the listes rit the compagnie - By ordinance, thurghout the cite large, - Hanged with cloth of gold, and not with sarge. - Ful like a lord this noble duk gan ride, - And these two Thebans upon eyther side, - And after rode the Quene and Emelie, - And after that another compagnie, - Of on and other after hir degree; - And thus they passen thurghout the citee, - And to the listes comen they be time; - It n'as not of the day yet fully prime. - Whan set was Theseus ful riche and hie, - Ipolita the quene, and Emelie, - And other ladies in degrees aboute, - Unto the setes preseth all the route. - And westward, thurgh the gates under Mart, - Arcite, and eke the hundred of his part, - With baner red, is entred right anon; - And in the selve moment Palamon - Is, under Venus, estward in the place, - With baner white, and hardy chere and face: - And in al the world, to seken up and doun, - So even without variation - Ther n'ere swiche compagnies never twey; - For ther was non so wise that coude sey, - That any hadde of other avantage - Of worthinesse, ne of estat, ne age; - So even were they chosen for to gesse: - And in two renges fayre they hem dresse. - Whan that hir names red were everich on, - That in her nombre gile were ther non, - Tho were the gates shette, and cried was loude, - Do now your devoir, yonge knightes proude. - The heraudes left hir priking up and doun. - Now ringin trompes loude, and clarioun. - Ther is no more to say, but este and west - In goth the speres sadly in the rest; - In goth the sharpe spore into the side; - Ther see men who can juste and who can ride - Ther shiveren shaftes upon sheldes thicke; - He feleth thurgh the herte-spone the pricke: - Up springen speres, twenty foot on highte; - Out gon the swerdes as the silver brighte: - The helmes they to-hewen and to-shrede; - Out brest the blod with sterne stremes rede: - With mighty maces, the bones they to-breste; - He thurgh the thickest of the throng gan threste: - There stomblen stedes strong, and doun goth all; - He rolleth under foot as doth a ball: - He foineth on his foo with a tronchoun, - And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun: - He thurgh the body is hurt, and sith ytake - Maugre his hed, and brought unto the stake, - As forword was, right ther he must abide; - Another lad is on that other side: - And somtime doth hem Theseus to reste, - Hem to refresh, and drinken if hem lest. - Ful oft a day han thilke Thebanes two - Togeder met and wrought eche other wo: - Unhorsed hath eche other of hem twey. - Ther n'as no tigre in the vale of Galaphey, - Whan that hire whelpe is stole whan it is lite, - So cruel on the hunt as is Arcite - For jalous herte upon this Palamon: - Ne in Belmarie ther n'is so fell leon - That hunted is, or for his hunger wood, - Ne of his prey desireth so the blood, - As Palamon to sleen his foo Arcite: - The jalous strokes on hir helmes bite; - Out renneth blood on both hir sides rede. - Somtime an end there is of every dede; - For, er the sonne unto the reste went, - The strong King Emetrius gan hent - This Palamon, as he fought with Arcite, - And made his swerd depe in his flesh to bite; - And by the force of twenty is he take - Unyolden, and ydrawen to the stake: - And in the rescous of this Palamon - The stronge King Licurge is borne adoun; - And King Emetrius, for all his strengthe, - Is borne out of his sadel a swerdes lengthe, - So hitte him Palamon or he were take: - But all for nought, he was brought to the stake: - His hardy herte might him helpen naught; - He moste abiden whan that he was caught, - By force, and eke by composition. - Who sorweth now but woful Palamon, - That moste no more gon again to fight? - And whan that Theseus had seen that sight, - Unto the folk that foughten thus ech on, - He cried, Ho![1] no more, for it is don. - I wol be true juge, and not partie. - Arcite of Thebes shal have Emelie, - That by his fortune hath hire fayre ywonne. - Anon ther is a noise of peple begonne - For joye of this, so loud and high withall - It seemed that the listes shulden fall. - What can now fayre Venus don above? - What saith she now? What doth this quene of Love? - But wepeth so, for wanting of hire will, - Til that hire teres in the listes fill: - She sayde, I am ashamed doutelees. - Saturnus sayde, Daughter, hold thy pees: - Mars hath his will, his knight hath all his bone, - And, by min hed, thou shall ben esed sone. - The trompoures, with the loud minstralcie, - The heraudes, that so loude yell and crie, - Ben in hir joye for wele of Dan Arcite. - But herkeneth me, and stenteth noise a lite, - Whiche a miracle ther befell anon. - This fierce Arcite hath of his helme ydon, - And on a courser for to shew his face - He priketh endlong the large place, - Loking upward upon this Emelie, - And she again him cast a frendlich eye, - (For women, as to speken in commune, - They folwen all the favour of Fortune,) - And was all his in chere as his in herte. - Out of the ground a fury infernal sterte, - From Pluto sent, at requeste of Saturne, - For which his hors for fere gan to turne, - And lepte aside, and foundred as he lepe; - And er that Arcite may take any kepe, - He pight him on the pomel of his hed, - That in the place he lay as he were ded, - His breste to-brosten with his sadel bow; - As blake he lay as any cole or crow, - So was the blood yronnen in his face. - Anon he was yborne out of the place, - With herte sore, to Theseus paleis: - Tho was he corven out of his harneis, - And in a bed ybrought ful fayre and blive, - For he was yet in memorie and live, - And alway crying after Emelie. - Duk Theseus, with all his compagnie, - Is comen hom to Athens, his citee, - With alle blisse and gret solempnite. - Al be it that this aventure was falle - He n'olde not discomforten hem alle. - Men sayden eke that Arcite shal not die, - He shal ben heled of his maladie. - And of another thing they were as fayn, - That of hem alle was ther non yslain, - Al were they sore yhurt, and namely on, - That with a spere was thirled his brest bone. - To other woundes, and to broken armes, - Som hadden salves, and some hadden charmes; - And fermacies of herbes, and eke save - They dronken, for they wold hir lives have: - For which this noble duk, as he wel can, - Comforteth and honoureth every man, - And made revel all the longe night - Unto the strange lordes, as was right. - Ne ther n'as holden no discomforting - But as at justes, or a tourneying; - For sothly ther n'as no discomfiture, - For falling n'is not but an aventure: - Ne to be lad by force unto a stake - Unyolden, and with twenty knightes take, - O person all alone, withouten mo, - And haried forth by armes, foot, and too, - And eke his stede driven forth with staves, - With footmen, bothe yemen and eke knaves, - It was aretted him no villanie; - Ther may no man clepen it cowardie. - For which anon Duk Theseus let crie, - To stenten alle rancour and envie, - The gree as wel of o side as of other, - And eyther side ylike, as others brother; - And yave hem giftes after hir degree, - And helde a feste fully dayes three; - And conveyed the kinges worthily - Out of his toun a journee largely; - And home went every man the righte way; - Ther n'as no more but farewel, have good day. - Of this bataille I wol no more endite, - But speke of Palamon and of Arcite. - Swelleth the brest of Arcite, and the sore - Encreseth at his herte more and more. - The clotered blood for any leche-craft - Corrumpeth, and is in his bouke ylaft, - That neyther vine-blood ne ventousing, - Ne drinke of herbes, may ben his helping. - The vertue expulsif, or animal, - Forthilke vertue cleped natural, - Ne may the venime voiden ne expell; - The pipes of his longes gan to swell, - And every lacerte in his brest adoun - Is shent with venime and corruptioun. - Him gaineth neyther for to get his lif - Vomit upward ne dounward laxatif: - All is to brosten thilke region; - Nature hath now no domination: - And certainly ther nature wol not werche. - Farewel physike; go bere the man to cherche. - This is all and som, that Arcite moste die; - For which he sendeth after Emelie, - And Palamon, that was his cosin dere; - Than sayd he thus, as ye shuln after here: - Nought may the woful spirit in myn herte - Declare o point of all my sorwes smerte - To you, my lady, that I love most; - But I bequethe the service of my gost - To you aboven every creature, - Sin that my lif ne may no lenger dure. - Alas! the wo, alas! the peines strong, - That I for you have suffered, and so long; - Alas! the deth; alas! mine Emelie; - Alas! departing of our compagnie; - Alas! min hertes quene; alas! my wif; - Min hertes ladie! ender of my lif! - What is this world? what axen men to have? - Now with his love, now in his colde grave - Alone withouten any compagnie. - Farewel, my swete! farewel, min Emelie! - And softe take me in your armes twey, - For love of God, and herkeneth what I sey. - I have here with my cosin Palamon - Had strif and rancour many a day agon - For love of you, and for my jalousie; - And Jupiter so wis my soule gie, - To speken of a servant properly, - With alle circumstances trewely, - That is to sayn, trouth, honour, and knighthede, - Wisdom, humblesse, estat, and high kinrede, - Freedom, and all that longeth to that art, - So Jupiter have of my soule part, - As in this world right now ne know I non - So worthy to be loved as Palamon, - That serveth you, and wol don all his lif; - And if that ever ye shal ben a wif, - Foryete not Palamon, the gentil man. - And with that word his speche faille began; - For from his feet up to his brest wos come - The cold of deth, that had him overnome; - And yet moreover in his armes two - The vital strength is lost and all ago; - Only the intellect, withouten more, - That dwelled in his herte sike and sore, - Gan faillen whan the herte felt deth; - Dusked his eyen two, and failled his breth: - But on his ladie yet cast he his eye; - His laste word was, Mercy, Emelie! - His spirit changed hous, and wente ther - As I cam never I cannot tellen wher; - Therefore I stent, I am no divinistre; - Of soules find I not in this registre: - Ne me lust not the opinions to telle - Of hem, though that they written wher they dwelle. - Arcite is cold, ther Mars his soule gie. - Now wol I speken forth of Emelie. - Shright Emelie, and houleth Palamon, - And Theseus his sister toke anon - Swouning, and bare her from the corps away. - What helpeth it to tarien forth the day, - To tellen how she wepe both even and morwe? - For in swiche cas wimmen have swiche sorwe, - Whan that hir hosbonds ben fro hem ago, - That for the more part they sorwen so, - Or elles fallen in swiche maladie, - That atte last certainly they die. - Infinite ben the sorwes and the teres - Of olde folk, and folk of tendre yeres, - In all the toun, for deth of this Theban; - For him ther wepeth bothe child and man: - So gret weping was ther non certain, - Whan Hector was ybrought, all fresh yslain, - To Troie: Alas! the pitee that was there; - Cratching of chekes, rending eke of here. - Why woldest thou be ded, thise women crie, - And haddest gold ynough, and Emelie? - No man might gladen this Duk Theseus, - Saving his olde fader Egeus, - That knew this worldes transmutation, - As he had seen it chaungen up and doun, - Joye after wo, and wo after gladnesse, - And shewed him ensample and likenesse. - Right as ther died never man, (quod he,) - That he ne lived in erth in som degree, - Right so ther lived never man, (he seyd,) - In all this world, that somtime he ne deyd: - This world n'is but a thurghfare, ful of wo, - And we ben pilgrimes, passing to and fro: - Deth is an end of every worldes sore - And over all this yet said he mochel more, - To this effect, ful wisely to enhort - The peple, that they shuld hem recomfort. - Duk Theseus, with all his besy cure, - He casteth now, wher that the sepulture - Of good Arcite may best ymaked be, - And eke most honourable in his degree; - And at the last he toke conclusion, - That ther as first Arcite and Palamon - Hadden for love the bataille hem betwene, - That in that selve grove, sote and grene, - Ther as he hadde his amorous desires, - His complaint, and for love his hote fires; - He wold make a fire, in which the office - Of funeral he might all accomplise; - And let anon commande to hack and hewe - The okes old, and lay hem on a rew - In culpons, wel arraied for to brenne. - His officers with swifte feet they renne - And ride anon at his commandement. - And after this, this Theseus hath sent - After a bere, and it all overspradde - With cloth of gold, the richest that he hadde; - And of the same suit he cladde Arcite. - Upon his hondes were his gloves white, - Eke on his hed a croune of laurer grene, - And in his hond a swerd ful bright and kene. - He laid him bare the visage on the bere, - Therwith he wept that pitee was to here; - And for the peple shulde seen him alle, - Whan it was day, he brought him to the halle, - That roreth of the crying, and the soun. - Tho came this woful Theban, Palamon, - With flotery berd, and ruggy ashy heres, - In clothes blake, ydropped all with teres, - And (passing over of weping Emelie) - The reufullest of all the compagnie. - And in as much as the service shuld be - The more noble, and riche in his degree, - Duk Theseus let forth three stedes bring, - That trapped were in stele all glittering, - And covered with the armes of Dan Arcite; - And eke upon these stedes, gret and white, - Ther saten folk, of which on bare his sheld, - Another his spere up in his hondes held; - The thridde bare with him his bow Turkeis, - Of brent gold was the cas and the harneis; - And riden forth a pas with sorweful chere - Toward the groue, as ye shal after here. - The noblest of the Grekes that ther were - Upon hir shuldres carrieden the bere, - With slacke pas, and eyen red and wete, - Thurghout the citee, by the maister strete, - That sprad was al with black, and wonder hie, - Right of the same is all the strete ywrie. - Upon the right hand went olde Egeus, - And on the other side, Duk Theseus, - With vessels in hir hond of gold ful fine, - All ful of hony, milk, and blood, and wine; - Eke Palamon, with ful gret compagnie, - And after that came woful Emelie, - With fire in hond, as was that time the gise, - To don the office of funeral service. - High labour and ful gret apparailling - Was at the service of that fire making, - That with his grene top the heaven raught, - And twenty fadom of bred the armes straught; - This is to sain, the boughes were so brode, - Of stre first ther was laied many a lode. - But how the fire was maked up on highte, - And eke the names how the trees highte, - As oke, fir, birch, aspe, alder, holm, poplere, - Wilow, elm, plane, ash, box, chestein, lind, laurere, - Maple, thorn, beche, hasel, ew, whipultre, - How they were feld, shal not be told for me; - Ne how the goddes rannen up and doun, - Disherited of hir habitatioun; - In which they woneden in rest and pees, - Nimphes, Faunes, and Amidriades; - Ne how the bestes, and the birddes alle - Fledden for fere whan the wood gan falle; - Ne how the ground agast was of the light, - That was not wont to see the sonne bright; - Ne how the fire was couched first with stre, - And than with drie stickes cloven a-thre, - And than with grene wood and spicerie, - And than with cloth of gold and with perrie, - And garlonds hanging with ful many a flour, - The mirre, the encense also, with swete odour; - Ne how Arcita lay among all this, - Ne what richesse about his body is; - Ne how that Emelie, as was the gise, - Put in the fire of funeral service; - Ne how she swouned, whan she made the fire, - Ne what she spake, ne what was hire desire; - Ne what jewelles men in the fire caste, - Whan that the fire was gret, and brente fast; - Ne how som cast hir sheld, and som hir spere, - And of hir vestimentes, which they were, - And cuppes full of wine, and milk, and blood, - Into the fire, that brent as it were wood; - Ne how the Grekes, with a huge route, - Three times riden all the fire aboute - Upon the left hond, with a loud shouting, - And thries with hir speres clatering; - And thries how the ladies gan to crie; - Ne how that led was homeward Emelie; - Ne how Arcite is brent to ashen cold; - Ne how the liche-wake was yhold - All thilke night; ne how the Grekes play; - The wake-plaies ne kepe I not to say; - Who wrestled best naked, with oile enoint, - Ne who that bare him best in no disjoint: - I woll not tellen eke how they all gon - Home till Athenes, whan the play is don. - But shortly to the point now wol I wende, - And maken of my longe tale an ende. - By processe, and by lengths of certain yeres, - All stenten is the mourning and the teres - Of Grekes, by on general assent: - Than semeth me ther was a parlement - At Athenes, upon certain points and cas; - Amonges the which points yspoken was - To have with certain contrees alliance, - And have of Thebanes fully obeisance; - For which this noble Theseus anon - Let senden after gentil Palamon. - Unwist of him what was the cause, and why: - But in his blacke clothes sorwefully - He came at his commandment on hie; - Tho sente Theseus for Emelie. - Whan they were set, and husht was al the place, - And Theseus abiden hath a space, - Or any word came from his wise brest, - His eyen set he ther as was his lest, - And with a sad visage he siked still, - And after that right thus he sayd his will. - The firste Mover of the cause above, - Whan he firste made the fayre chaine of love, - Gret was the effect, and high was his entent; - Well wist he why, and what therof he ment: - For with that fayre chaine of love he bond - The fire, the air, the watre, and the lond, - In certain bondes, that they may not flee: - That same prince and mover eke, quod he, - Hath stablisht, in this wretched world adoun, - Certain of dayes and duration, - To all that are engendred in this place, - Over the which day they ne mow not pace, - Al mow they yet the dayes well abrege. - Ther nedeth non autoritee allege, - For it is preved by experience, - But that me lust declaren my sentence. - Than may men by this ordre well discerne, - That thilke Mover stable is and eterne; - Wel may men knowen, but it be a fool, - That every part deriveth from his hool; - For Nature hath not taken his beginning - Of no partie ne cantel of a thing, - But of a thing that parfit is and stable, - Descending so til it be corrumpable; - And therefore of his wise purveyance - He hath so wel beset his ordinance, - That speces of thinges and progressions - Shullen enduren by successions, - And not eterne, withouten any lie; - This maist thou understand, and seen at eye. - Lo the oke, that hath so long a norishing - Fro the time that it ginneth first to spring, - And hath so long a lif, as ye may see, - Yet at the laste wasted is the tree. - Considereth eke how that the harde stone - Under our feet, on which we trede and gone, - It wasteth, as it lieth by the wey; - The brode river sometime wexeth drey; - The grete tounes see we wane and wende; - Than may ye see that all thing hathe an ende. - Of man and woman see we wel also, - That nedes in on of the termes two, - That is to sayn, in youthe, or elles age, - He mote be ded, the king as shall a page; - Som in his bed, som in the depe see, - Som in the large feld, as ye may see: - Ther helpeth nought, all goth that ilke wey; - Than may I sayn, that alle thing mote dey. - What maketh this but Jupiter the King, - The which is prince and cause of alle thing, - Converting alle unto his propre wille, - From which it is derived, soth to telle? - And here-againes no creature on live - Of no degree availleth for to strive. - Than is it wisdom, as it thinketh me, - To maken vertue of necessite, - And take it wel that we may not eschewe, - And namely that to us all is dewe; - And whoso, grutcheth ought he doth folie, - And rebel is to him that all may gie. - And certainly a man hath most honour - To dien in his excellence and flour, - Whan he is siker of his goode name; - Than hath he don his frend ne him no shame; - And glader ought his frend ben of his deth, - Whan with honour is yolden up his breth, - Than whan his name appalled is for age, - For all foryetten is his vassalage: - Than is it best as for a worthy fame, - To dein whan a man is best of name. - The contrary of all this is wilfulnesse. - Why grutchen we? why have we hevinesse, - That good Arcite, of chivalry the flour, - Departed is, with dutee and honour, - Out of this foule prison of this lif? - Why grutchen here his cosin and his wif - Of his welfare, that loven him so wel? - Can he hem thank? nay, God wot, never a del, - That both his soule and eke himself offend, - And yet they mow her lustres not amend. - What may I conclude of this longe serie, - But after sorwe I rede us to be merie, - And thanken Jupiter of all his grace; - And er that we departen from this place, - I rede that we make of sorwes two - O parfit joye lasting evermo: - And loketh now wher most sorwe is herein, - Ther wol I firste amenden and begin. - Sister, (quod he) this is my full assent, - With all the avis here of my parlement, - That gentil Palamon, your owen knight, - That serveth you with will, and herte, and might, - And ever hath don sin you first him knew, - That ye shall of your grace upon him rew, - And taken him for husbond and for lord: - Lene me your hand, for this is oure accord. - Let see now of your womanly pitee: - He is a kinges brothers sone pardee; - And though he were a poure bachelere, - Sin he hath served you so many a yere, - And had for you so gret adversite, - It moste ben considered, leveth me, - For gentil mercy oweth to passen right. - Than sayed he thus to Palamon the knight; - I trow their nedeth litel sermoning - To maken you assenten to this thing. - Cometh ner, and take your lady by the hond. - Betwixen hem was maked anon the bond - That highte matrimoine or mariage, - By all the conseil of the baronage; - And thus with alle blisse and melodie - Hath Palamon ywedded Emelie; - And God, that all this wide world hath wrought, - Send him his love that hath it dere ybought. - For now is Palamon in alle wele, - Living in blisse, in richesse, and in hele, - And Emilie him loveth so tendrely, - And he hire serveth all so gentilly, - That never was ther no word hem betwene - Of jalousie, ne of non other tene. - Thus endeth Palamon and Emelie; - And God save all this fayre compagnie. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] "If the King's Majesty say but Ho! or give any other -signal, then they who are within the lists, with the constable and -marshal, throwing their lances between the appellant and defendant, so -part them."--_The Ancient Method of Duels before the King._ - - - - -THE NONNES PREESTES TALE. - - - A poure widewe, somdel stoupen in age, - Was whilom dwelling in a narwe cotage - Beside a grove stonding in a dale. - This widewe, which I tell you of my tale, - Sin thilke day that she was last a wif - In patience led a ful simple lif, - For litel was hire catel and hire rente; - By husbondry of swiche as God hire sente - She found hireself and eke hire doughtren two. - Three large sowes had she, and no mo, - Three kine, and eke a sheep that highte Malle; - Ful sooty was hire boure and eke hire halle, - In which she ete many a slender mele; - Of poinant sauce ne knew she never a dele: - No deintee morsel passed thurgh hire throte; - Hire diete was accordant to hire cote: - Repletion ne made hire never sike; - Attempre diete was all hire physike, - And exercise, and hertes suffisance; - The goute let hire nothing for to dance, - Ne apoplexie shente not hire hed: - No win ne dranke she nyther white ne red: - Hire bord was served most with white and black, - Milk and broun bred, in which she fond no lack, - Seinde bacon, and somtime an eye or twey, - For she was as it were a manner dey. - A yerd she had enclosed all about - With stickes, and a drie diche without, - In which she had a cok highte Chaunteclere, - In all the land of crowing n'as his pere: - His vois was merier than the mery orgon - On masse daies that in the chirches gon: - Wel sikerer was his crowing in his loge - Than is a clok or any abbey orloge: - By nature he knewe eche ascentioun - Of the equinoctial in thilke toun, - For whan degrees fiftene were ascended - Than crew he that it might not ben amended. - His combe was redder than the fin corall, - Enbattelled as it were a castel wall; - His bill was black, and as the jet it shone, - Like asure were his legges and his tone, - His nailes whiter than the lily flour, - And like the burned gold was his colour. - This gentil cok had in his governance - Seven hennes for to don all his plesance, - Which were his susters and his paramoures, - And wonder like to him as of coloures, - Of which the fairest, hewed in the throte, - Was cleped faire Damoselle Pertelote. - Curteis she was, descrete and debonaire, - And compenable, and bare hireself so faire, - Sithen the day that she was sevennight old, - That trewelich she hath the herte in hold - Of Chaunteclere, loken in every lith; - He loved hire so, that wel was him therwith: - But swiche a joye it was to here hem sing, - Whan that the brighte sonne gan to spring, - In swete accord: my lefe is fare in lond. - For thilke time, as I have understond, - Bestes and briddes couden speke and sing. - And so befell that in a dawening - As Chaunteclere among his wives alle - Sate on his perche that was in the halle, - And next him sate his faire Pertelote, - This Chaunteclere gan gronnen in his throte - As man that in his dreme is dretched sore; - And whan that Pertelote thus herd him rore - She was agast, and saide, herte dere, - What aileth you to grone in this manner? - Ye ben a veray sleper, fy for shame. - And he answered and sayde thus; Madame, - I pray you that ye take it not agrefe; - By God me mette I was in swiche mischiefe - Right now, that yet min herte is sore afright. - Now God (quod he) my sweven recche aright, - And kepe my body out of foule prisoun. - My mette how that I romed up and doun - Within our yerde, wher as I saw a beste - Was like an hound, and wold han made areste - Upon my body, and han had me ded: - His colour was betwix yelwe and red, - And tipped was his tail and both his eres - With black, unlike the remenant of his heres: - His snout was smal, with glowing eyen twey; - Yet for his loke almost for fere I dey: - This caused me my groning douteles. - Avoy, quod she; fy on you herteles. - Alas! quod she, for by that God above - Now han ye lost myn herte and all my love, - I cannot love a coward by my faith; - For certes, what so any woman saith, - We al desiren, if it mighte be, - To have an husbond hardy, wise, and free, - And secree, and non niggard ne no fool, - Ne him that is agast of every tool, - Ne non avantour by that God above. - How dorsten ye for shame say to your love - That any thing might maken you aferde? - Han ye no mannes herte and han a berde? - Alas! and con ye ben agast of swevenis? - Nothing but vanitee, God wote, in sweven is. - Swevenes engendren of repletions, - And oft of fume, and of complexions, - Whan humours ben to habundant in a wight. - Certes this dreme which ye han met to-night - Cometh of the gret superfluitee - Of youre rede _colera_ parde, - Which causeth folk to dreden in her dremes - Of arwes, and of fire with rede lemes, - Of rede bestes that they wol hem bite, - Of conteke, and of waspes gret and lite, - Right as the humour of melancolie - Causeth ful many a man in slepe to crie - For fere of bolles and of beres blake, - Or elles that blake devils wol hem take. - Of other humours coud I telle also, - That werken many a man in slepe moch wo; - But I wol passe as lightly as I can. - Lo Caton, which that was so wise a man, - Said he not thus? Ne do no force of dremes. - Now, Sire, quod she, whan we flee fro the bemes - For Goddes love as take som laxatif: - Up peril of my soule, and of my lif - I counseil you the best, I wol not lie, - That both of coler and of melancolie - Ye purge you; and for ye shul not tarie, - Though in this toun be non apotecarie, - I shal myself two herbes techen you - That shal be for your hele and for your prow, - And in our yerde the herbes shall I finde, - The which han of hir propretee by kinde - To purgen you benethe and eke above. - Sire, forgete not this for Goddes love; - Ye ben ful colerike of complexion; - Ware that the sonne in his ascention - Ne finde you not replete of humours hote; - And if it do, I dare wel lay a grote - That ye shul han a fever tertiane, - Or elles an ague, that may be your bane. - A day or two ye shul han digestives - Of wormes or ye take your laxatives, - Of laureole, centaurie, and fumetere, - Or elles of ellebor that groweth there, - Of catapuce or of gaitre beries, - Or herbe ive growing in our yerd that mery is; - Picke hem right as they grow, and ete hem in. - Beth mery, husbond; for your fader kin - Dredeth no dreme: I can say you no more. - Madame, quod he, _grand mercy_ of your lore; - But natheles as touching Dan Caton, - That hath of wisdome swiche a gret renoun, - Though that he bade no dremes for to drede, - By God, men moun in olde bookes rede - Of many a man more of auctoritee - Than ever Caton was, so mote I the, - That all the revers sayn of his sentence, - And han wel founden by experience, - That dremes ben significations - As wel of joye as tribulations - That folk enduren in this lif present: - Ther nedeth make of this non argument; - The veray preve sheweth it indede. - On of the gretest auctours that men rede - Saith thus, that whilom twey felawes wente - On pilgrimage in a ful good entente, - And happed so they came into a toun - Wher ther was swiche a congregatioun - Of peple, and eke so streit of herbergage, - That they ne founde as moche as a cotage - In which they bothe might ylogged be, - Wherfore they musten of necessitee; - As for that night, departen compagnie; - And eche of hem goth to his hostelrie, - And toke his logging as it wolde falle. - That on of hem was logged in a stalle, - Fer in a yard, with oxen of the plough, - That other man was logged wel ynough, - As was his aventure or his fortune, - That us governeth all, as in commune. - And so befell that long or it were day - This man met in his bed, ther as he lay, - How that his felaw gan upon him calle, - And said, Alas! for in an oxen stalle - This night shal I be mordred ther I lie; - Now help me, dere brother! or I die: - In alle haste come to me, he saide. - This man out of his slepe for fere abraide; - But whan that he was waken of his slepe - He turned him, and toke of this no kepe; - Him thought his dreme was but a vanitee. - Thus twies in his sleping dremed he. - And at the thridde time yet his felaw - Came, as him thought, and said, I now am slaw; - Behold my blody woundes depe and wide: - Arise up erly in the morwe tide, - And at the west gate of the toun (quod he) - A carte ful of donge ther shalt thou see, - In which my body is hid prively; - Do thilke carte arresten boldely. - My gold caused my mordre, soth to sain; - And told him every point how he was slain - With a ful pitous face, pale of hewe. - And trusteth wel his dreme he found ful trewe. - For on the morwe sone as it was day - To his felawes inne he toke his way, - And whan that he came to this oxes stalle - After his felaw he began to calle. - The hosteler answered him anon, - And saide, Sire, your felaw is agon; - As sone as day he went out of the toun. - This man gan fallen in suspecioun, - Remembring on his dremes that he mette, - And forth he goth, no lenger wold he lette, - Unto the west gate of the toun, and fond - A dong carte as it went for to dong lond, - That was arraied in the same wise - As ye han herde the dede man devise; - And with an hardy herte he gan to crie - Vengeance and justice of this felonie; - My felaw mordred is this same night, - And in this carte he lith gaping upright. - I crie out on the ministres, quod he, - That shulden kepe and reulen this citee: - Harow! alas! here lith my felaw slain. - What shuld I more unto this tale sain? - The peple out stert, and cast the cart to ground, - And in the middle of the dong they found - The dede man that mordred was all newe. - O blisful God! that art so good and trewe, - Lo, how that thou bewreyest mordre alway! - Mordre wol out, that see we day by day: - Mordre is so wlatsom and abhominable - To God, that is so just and resonable, - That he ne wol not suffre it hylled be: - Though it abide a yere, or two or three, - Mordre wol out; this is my conclusioun. - And right anon the ministres of the toun - Han hent the carter, and so sore him pined, - And eke the hosteler so sore engined, - That they beknewe hir wickednesse anon, - And were anhanged by the necke bon. - Here moun ye see that dremes ben to drede. - And certes in the same book I rede, - Right in the next chapitre after this, - (I gabbe not, so have I joye and blis) - Two men that wold han passed over the see, - For certain cause, in to a fer contree, - If that the winde ne hadde ben contrarie, - That made hem in a citee for to tarie - That stood ful mery upon a haven side: - But on a day, agein the even tide, - The wind gan change, and blew right as hem lest: - Jolif and glad they wenten to hir rest, - And casten hem ful erly for to saile; - But to that o man fel a gret mervaile. - That on of hem in sleping as he lay - He mette a wondre dreme again the day: - Him thought a man stood by his beddes side, - And him commanded that he shuld abide, - And said him thus; If thou to-morwe wende - Thou shalt be dreint; my tale is at an ende. - He woke, and told his felaw what he met, - And praied him his viage for to let; - As for that day he prayd him for to abide. - His felaw, that lay by his beddes side, - Gan for to laugh, and scorned him ful faste: - No dreme, quod he, may so my herte agaste - That I wol leten for to do my thinges: - I sette not a straw by thy dreminges, - For swevens ben but vanitees and japes: - Men dreme al day of oules and of apes, - And eke of many a mase therwithal; - Men dreme of thing that never was ne shal. - But sith I see that thou wol there abide, - And thus forslouthen wilfully thy tide, - God wot it reweth me; and have good day: - And thus he took his leve, and went his way. - But or that he had half his cours ysailed, - N'ot I not why, ne what mischance it ailed, - But casuelly the shippes bottom rente, - And ship and man under the water wente - In sight of other shippes ther beside - That with him sailed at the same tide. - And therefore, faire Pertelote so dere, - By swiche ensamples olde maist thou lere - That no man shulde be to reccheles - Of dremes, for I say thee douteles - That many a dreme ful sore is for to drede. - Lo, in the lif of Seint Kenelme I rede, - That was Kenulphus sone, the noble King - Of Mercenrike, how Kenelm mette a thing. - A litel or he were mordered on a day - His mordre in his avision he say; - His norice him expouned every del - His sweven, and bade him for to kepe him wel - Fro treson; but he n'as but seven yere old, - And therefore litel tale hath he told - Of any dreme, so holy was his herte. - By God I hadde lever than my sherte - That ye had red his legend as have I. - Dame Pertelote, I say you trewely, - Macrobius, that writ the avision - In Affrike of the worthy Scipion, - Affirmeth dremes, and sayth that they ben - Warning of thinges that men after seen. - And forthermore, I pray you loketh wel - In The Olde Testament of Daniel, - If he held dremes any vanitee. - Rede eke of Joseph, and ther shuln ye see - Wher dremes ben somtime (I say not alle) - Warning of thinges that shuln after falle. - Loke of Egipt the king, Dan Pharao, - His baker and his boteler also, - Wheder they ne felten non effect in dremes. - Who so wol seken actes of sondry remes - May rede of dremes many a wonder thing. - Lo Cresus, which that was of Lydie king, - Mette he not that he sat upon a tree? - Which signified he shuld anhanged be. - Lo hire Adromacha, Hectores wif, - That day that Hector shulde lese his lif, - She dremed on the same nighte beforne - How that the lif of Hector shuld be lorne - If thilke day he went into bataille; - She warned him, but it might not availle; - He went forth for to fighten natheles, - And was yslain anon of Achilles. - But thilke tale is al to long to telle, - And eke it is nigh day, I may not dwelle. - Shortly I say, as for conclusion, - That I shal han of this avision - Adversitee; and I say forthermore, - That I ne tell of laxatives no store, - For they ben venimous, I wot it wel: - I hem deffie; I love hem never a del. - But let us speke of mirthe, and stinte all this. - Madame Pertelote, so have I blis, - Of o thing God hath sent me large grace, - For whan I see the beautee of your face, - Ye ben so scarlet red about your eyen, - It maketh all my drede for to dien; - For al so siker as _In principio - Mulier est hominis confusio_. - (Madame, the sentence of this Latine is, - Woman is mannes joye and mannes blis;) - For whan I fele a-night your softe side, - Al be it that I may not on you ride - For that our perche is made so narwe, alas! - I am so ful of joye and of solas - That I deffie bothe sweven and dreme. - And with that word he flew doun fro the beme, - For it was day, and eke his hennes alle, - And with a chuk he gan hem for to calle, - For he had found a corn lay in the yerd. - Real he was, he was no more aferd; - He fethered Pertelote twenty time, - And trade hire eke as oft, er it was prime: - He loketh as it were a grim leoun, - And on his toos he rometh up and doun; - Him deigned not to set his feet to ground: - He chukketh, whan he hath a corn yfound, - And to him rennen than his wives alle. - Thus real, as a prince is in his halle, - Leve I this Chaunteclere in his pasture; - And after wol I till his aventure. - Whan that the month in which the world began, - That highte March, whan God first maked man, - Was complete, and ypassed were also, - Sithen March ended thritty dayes and two, - Befell that Chaunteclere in all his pride, - His seven wives walking him beside, - Cast up his eyen to the brighte sonne, - That in the signe of Taurus hadde yronne - Twenty degrees and on, and somwhat more: - He knew by kind, and by non other lore, - That it was prime, and crew with blisful steven. - The sonne, he said, is clomben up on heven - Twenty degrees and on, and more ywis; - Madame Pertelote, my worldes blis, - Herkeneth thise blisful briddes how they sing, - And see the freshe floures how they spring; - Ful is min herte of revel, and solas. - But sodenly him fell a sorweful cas, - For ever the latter ende of joye is wo; - God wote that worldly joye is sone ago; - And if a rethor coude faire endite - He in a chronicle might it saufly write - As for a soveraine notabilitee. - Now every wise man let him herken me: - This story is also trewe, I undertake, - As is the book of Launcelot du Lake, - That women holde in ful gret reverence. - Now wol I turne agen to my sentence. - A col fox, ful of sleigh iniquitee, - That in the grove had wonned yeres three, - By high imagination forecast, - The same night thurghout the hegges brast - Into the yerd ther Chaunteclere the faire - Was wont, and eke his wives, to repaire, - And in a bedde of wortes stille he lay - Till it was passed undern of the day, - Waiting his time on Chaunteclere to falle, - As gladly don thise homicides alle - That in await liggen to mordre men. - O false morderour! rucking in thy den, - O newe Scariot, newe Genelon! - O false dissimulour, o Greek Sinon! - That broughtest Troye al utterly to sorwe, - O Chaunteclere! accursed be the morwe, - That thou into thy yerd flew fro the bemes; - Thou were ful wel ywarned by thy dremes - That thilke day was perilous to thee: - But what that God forewote most nedes be, - After the opinion of certain clerkes, - Witnesse on him that any parfit clerk is, - That in scole is gret altercation - In this matere and gret disputison, - And hath ben of an hundred thousand men: - But I ne cannot boult it to the bren, - As can the holy Doctour Augustin, - Or Boece, or the bishop Bradwardin, - Whether that Goddes worthy foreweting - Streineth me nedely for to don a thing, - (Nedely clepe I simple necessitee) - Or elles if free chois be granted me - To do that same thing, or do it nought, - Though God forewot it, or that it was wrought; - Or if his weting streineth never a del - But by necessitee condicionel. - I wol not han to don of swiche matere; - My Tale is of a cok, as ye may here, - That took his conseil of his wif and sorwe - To walken in the yerd upon the morwe - That he had met the dreme, as I you told. - Womennes conseiles ben ful often cold; - Womennes conseil brought us first to wo, - And made Adam fro Paradis to go, - Ther as he was ful mery and wel at ese: - But for I n'ot to whom I might displese - If I conseil of women wolde blame, - Passe over, for I said it in my game. - Rede auctours where they trete of swiche matere, - And what they sayn of women ye mown here. - Thise ben the Cokkes wordes and not mine; - I can non harme of no woman devine. - Faire in the sond, to bath hire merily, - Lith Pertelote, and all hire susters by, - Agein the sonne, and Chaunteclere so free - Sang merrier than the mermaid in the see, - For Phisiologus sayth sikerly - How that they singen wel and merily. - And so befell that as he cast his eye - Among the wortes on a boterflie - He was ware of this fox that lay ful low: - Nothing ne list him thaune for to crow, - But cried anon Cok, cok, and up he sterte - As man that was affraied in his herte; - For naturally a beest desireth flee - Fro his contrarie if he may it see, - Though he never erst had seen it with his eye. - This Chaunteclere, whan he gan him espie, - He wold han fled, but that the fox anon - Said, Gentil Sire, alas! what wol ye don? - Be ye affraid of me that am your frend? - Now certes I were werse than any fend - If I to you wold harme or vilanie. - I n'am not come your conseil to espie, - But trewely the cause of my coming - Was only for to herken how ye sing. - For trewely ye han as mery a steven - As any angel hath that is in heven, - Therwith ye han of musike more feling - Than had Boece, or any that can sing. - My Lord, your fader (God his soule blesse) - And eke your moder of hire gentillesse - Han in myn hous yben, to my gret ese, - And certes, Sire, ful fain wold I you plese. - But for men speke of singen, I wol sey, - So mote I brouken wel min eyen twey, - Save you, ne herd I never man so sing - As did your fader in the morwening: - Certes it was of herte all that he song. - And for to make his vois the more strong - He wold so peine him, that with both his eyen - He muste winke, so loude he walde crien, - And stonden on his tiptoon therwithal, - And stretchen forth his necke long and smal. - And eke he was of swiche discretion, - That ther n'as no man in no region - That him in song or wisdom mighte passe. - I have wel red in Dan Burnel the asse - Among his vers, how that ther was a cok - That for a preestes sone yave him a knok - Upon his leg, while he was yonge and nice, - He made him for to lese his benefice; - But certain ther is no comparison - Betwixt the wisdom and discretion - Of your fader and his subtilitee. - Now singeth, Sire, for Seint Charitee: - Let see, can ye your fader countrefete? - This Chaunteclere his winges gan to bete, - As man that coud not his treson espie, - So was he ravished with his flaterie. - Alas! ye lordes, many a false flatour - Is in your court, and many a losengeour, - That pleseth you wel more, by my faith, - Than he that sothfastnesse unto you saith, - Redeth Ecclesiast of flaterie: - Beth ware, ye lordes, of hire trecherie. - This Chaunteclere stood high upon his toos - Streching his necke, and held his eyen cloos - And gan to crowen loude for the nones; - And Dan Russel the fox stert up at ones, - And by the gargat hente Chaunteclere, - And on his back toward the wood him bere, - For yet ne was ther no man that him sued. - O destinee! that maist not ben eschued, - Alas that Chaunteclere flew fro the bemes! - Alas, his wif ne raughte not of dremes! - And on a Friday fell all this meschance. - O Venus! that art goddesse of Plesance, - Sin that thy servant was this Chaunteclere, - And in thy service did all his powere, - More for delit, than world to multiplie, - Why wolt thou suffre him on thy day to die? - O Gaufride, dere maister soverain! - That whan thy worthy King Richard was slain - With shot, complainedst his deth so sore, - Why ne had I now thy science and thy lore, - The Friday for to chiden as did ye? - (For on a Friday sothly slain was he) - Then wold I shew you how that I coud plaine - For Chauntecleres drede and for his paine. - Certes swiche cry ne lamentation - N'as never of ladies made whan Ilion - Was wonne, and Pirrus with his streite swerd, - When he had hent King Priam by the berd, - And slain him, (as saith us _Eneidus_) - As maden all the hennes in the cloos - Whan they had seen of Chaunteclere the sight; - But soverainly Dame Pertelote shright - Ful louder than did Hasdruballes wif, - Whan that hire husbond hadde ylost his lif, - And that the Romaines hadden brent Cartage; - She was so ful of turment and of rage - That wilfully into the fire she sterte, - And brent hire selven with a stedfast herte. - O woful hennes! right so criden ye, - As whan that Nero brente the citee - Of Rome, cried the Senatoures wives, - For that hir husbonds losten alle hir lives. - Withouten gilt this Nero hath hem slain. - Now wol I turne unto my tale again. - The sely widewe and hire doughtren two, - Harden these hennes crie and maken wo, - And out at the dores sterten they anon, - And saw the fox toward the wode is gon, - And bare upon his back the cok away: - They crieden out, Harow! and wala wa! - A ha the fox! and after him they ran, - And eke with staves many an other man; - Ran Colle our dogge, and Talbot and Gerlond, - And Malkin, with hire distaf in hire hond; - Ran cow and calf; and eke the veray hogges - So fered were for barking of the dogges, - And shouting of the men and women eke, - They ronnen so, hem thought hir hertes breke; - They yelleden as fendes don in helle; - The dokes crieden as men wold hem quelle: - The gees for fere flewen over the trees, - Out of the hive came the swarme of bees, - So hidous was the noise, a _benedicite_! - Certes he Jakke Straw and his meinie, - Ne maden never shoutes half so shrille, - Whan that they wolden any Fleming kille, - As thilke day was made upon the fox. - Of bras they broughten beemes and of box, - Of horn and bone, in which they blew and pouped, - And therwithal they shriked and they houped; - It semed as that the heven shulde falle. - Now, goode men, I pray you herkeneth alle: - Lo how Fortune turneth sodenly - The hope and pride eke of hire enemy. - This cok that lay upon the foxes bake, - In all his drede unto the fox he spake, - And sayde; Sire, if that I were as ye - Yet wold I sayn, (as wisly God helpe me) - Turneth agein, ye proude cherles alle, - A veray pestilence upon you falle: - Now I am come unto the wodes side, - Maugre your hed, the cok shal here abide; - I wol him ete in faith, and that anon. - The fox answered, in faith it shal be don; - And as he spake the word, al sodenly - The cok brake from his mouth deliverly, - And high upon a tree he flew anon. - And whan the fox saw that the cok was gon, - Alas! quod he, o Chaunteclere, alas! - I have (quod he) ydon to you trespas, - In as moche as I maked you aferd, - Whan I you hente and brought out of your yerd; - But, Sire, I did it in no wikke entente: - Come doun, and I shal tell you what I mente: - I shall say sothe to you, God help me so. - Nay than, quod he, I shrewe us bothe two; - And first I shrewe myself bothe blood and bones - If thou begile me oftener than ones: - Thou shalt no more thurgh thy flaterie - Do me to sing and winken with myn eye, - For he that winketh whan he shulde see, - Al wilfully, God let him never the. - Nay, quod the fox, but God yeve him meschance, - That is so indiscrete of governance, - That jangleth whan that he shuld hold his pees. - Lo, which it is for to be reccheles - And negligent, and trust on flaterie. - But ye that holden this Tale a folie, - As of a fox, or of a cok or hen, - Taketh the moralitee therof, good men; - For Seint Poule sayth, that all that writen is, - To our doctrine it is ywriten ywis. - Taketh the fruit, and let the chaf be stille. - Now, goode God, if that it be thy wille, - As sayth my Lord, so make us all good men, - And bring us to thy high blisse. _Amen._ - Sire Nonnes Preest, our Hoste sayd anon, - Yblessed be thy breche and every ston; - This was a mery tale of Chaunteclere: - But by my trouthe if thou were seculere, - Thou woldest ben a tredefoule a right: - For if thou have courage as thou hast might - Thee were nede of hennes, as I wene, - Ye mo than seven times seventene. - Se whiche braunes hath this gentil Preest, - So gret a necke and swiche a large breest! - He loketh as a sparhauk with his eyen: - Him nedeth not his colour for to dien - With Brasil, ne with grain of Portingale. - But, Sire, faire falle you for your tale. - And after that he with ful mery chere - Sayd to another, as ye shulen here. - - - - -THE FLOUR AND THE LEFE. - -THE ARGUMENT. - - _A gentlewoman out of an arbour in a grove seeth a great company of - knights and ladies in a dance upon the green grass; the which being - ended, they all kneel down and do honour to the daisie, some to the - Flower, and some to the Leaf. Afterward this gentlewoman learneth, by - one of these ladies, the meaning hereof, which is this: They which - honour the Flower, a thing fading with every blast, are such as look - after beauty and worldly pleasure; but they that honour the Leaf, - which abideth with the root, notwithstanding the frosts and winter - storms, are they which follow virtue and during qualities, without - regard of worldly respects._ - - - When that Phœbus his chair of gold so hie - Had whirlid up the sterrie sky aloft, - And in the Bole was entrid certainly, - When shouris sote of rain descendid soft, - Causing the ground felè timis and oft - Up for to give many an wholesome air, - And every plain was yclothid faire: - With newè grene, and makith smalè flours - To springin here and there in field and mede, - So very gode and wholesome be the shours, - That they renewn that was old and dede - In winter time, and out of every sede - Springith the herbè, so that every wight - Of this seson wexith richt glade and licht. - And I so gladè of the seson swete, - Was happid thus; upon a certain night - As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete - Was unto me, but why that I ne might - Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight - [As I suppose] had more of hertis ese - Than I, for I n'ad sicknesse nor disese: - Wherefore I mervaile gretly of my self - That I so long withoutin slepè lay, - And up I rose thre houris aftir twelfe, - About the springing of the gladsome day, - And on I put my gear and mine aray, - And to a plesaunt grove I gan to pas - Long or the bright sonne uprisin was; - In which were okis grete, streight as a line, - Undir the which the grass so freshe of hewe - Was newly sprong, and an eight fote or nine - Every tre well fro his fellow grew, - With braunchis brode laden with levis new, - That sprongin out agen the sonne shene: - Some very rede, and some a glad light grene: - Which [as me thought] was a right plesaunt sight; - And eke the birdis songis for to here - Would have rejoisid any erthly wight, - And I, that couth not yet in no manere - Herein the nightingale of all the yere, - Full busily herk'nid with hert and ere - If I her voice perceve could any where: - And at the last a path of litil brede - I found, that gretly had not usid be, - For it forgrowin was with grass and wede, - That well unnethis a wight might it se; - Thought I, this path some whider doth parde; - And so I followid till it me brought - To a right plesant herbir wel ywrought, - Which that benchid was, and with turfis new - Freshly turvid, whereof the grene grass - So small, so thick, so short, so fresh of hewe, - That most like to grene woll wot I it was; - The hegge also, that yedin in compas, - And closid in allè the grene herbere, - With sycamor was set and eglatere. - Within, in fere so well and cunningly, - That every braunch and lefe grew by mesure - Plain as a bord, of an height by and by, - I se nevir a thing [I you ensure] - So well ydone, for he that toke the cure - It for to make [I trowe] did all his peine - To mak it pas al tho that men have seine. - And shapin was this herber rofe and al - As is a pretty parlour, and also - The hegge as thick as is a castil wall, - That who that list without to stond or go, - Thogh he wold al day prayin to and fro, - He should not se if there were any wight - Within or no, but one within well might-- - Perceve all tho that ydin there without - Into the field, that was on every side - Coverd with corn and grass, that out of doubt - Tho one would sekin all the worlde wide - So rich a felde could not be espyde - Upon no cost, as of the quantity, - For of allè gode thing there was plenty. - And I, that al these plesaunt sightis se, - Thought suddainly I felt so swete an air - Of the eglaterè, that certainly - There is no hert [I deme] in such dispair, - Ne yet with thoughtis froward and contraire - So overlaid, but it should sone have bote - If it had onis felt this savour sote. - And as I stode and cast aside mine eye - I was ware of the fairist medler tre - That evir yet in all my life I se, - As full of blossomis as it might be, - Therein a goldfinch leping pretily - From bough to bough, and as him list he ete - Here and there of buddis and flouris swete. - And to the herbir side was adjoyning - This fairist tre of which I have you told, - And at the last the bird began to sing - [Whan he had etin what he etin would] - So passing swetely that by many fold - It was more plesaunt than I couth devise; - And whan his song was endid in this wise, - The nightingale with so mery a note - Answerid him, that alle the wode yrong - So sodainly, that as it were a sote - I stode astonied, and was with the song - Thorow ravishid, that till late and long - I ne wist in what place I was ne where, - Ayen methought she song e'en by mine ere: - Wherefore I waited about busily - On every side if I her might se, - And at the last I gan full well espie - Where she sate in a fresh grene laury tre, - On the further side evin right by me, - That gave so passing a delicious smell, - According to the eglantere full well; - Whereof I had so inly grete plesure, - As methought I surely ravished was - Into Paradise, wherein my desire - Was for to be, and no ferthir to pas - As for that day, and on the sotè grass - I sat me down, for as for mine entent - The birdis song was more convenient, - And more plesaunt to me by many fold - Than mete or drink, or any othir thing, - Thereto the herbir was so fresh and cold, - The wholsome savours eke so comforting, - That [as I demid] sith the beginning - Of the worldè was nevir seen er than - So plesaunt a ground of none erthly man. - And as I sat the birdis herkening thus, - Methought that I herd voicis suddainly, - The most swetist and most delicious - That evir any wight I trow trewly - Herdin in hir life, for the armony - And swete accord was in so gode musike - That the voicis to angels most were like. - At the last out of a grove evin by - [That was right godely and plesaunt to sight] - I se where there came singing lustily - A world of ladies, but to tell aright - Ther beauty grete lyith not in my might, - Ne ther array; nevirthèless I shall - Tell you a pert, tho' I speke not of all: - The surcots white of velvet well fitting - They werin clad, and the semis eche one, - As it werin a mannir garnishing, - Was set with emeraudis one and one - By and by, but many a richè stone - Was set on the purfilis out of dout - Of collours, sleves, and trainis, round about; - As of grete perlis round and orient, - And diamondis fine and rubys red, - And many othir stone of which I went - The namis now; and everich on her hede - A rich fret of gold, which withoutin drede - Was full of statèly rich stonys set, - And evrey lady had a chapelet, - On ther hedis of braunchis fresh and grene, - So wele ywrought, and so marvelously, - That it was a right noble sight to sene, - Some of laurir, and some full plesauntly - Had chapèlets of wodebind, and sadly - Some of agnus castus werin also, - Chaplets fresh; but there were many of tho, - That dauncid and eke song full sobirly, - But all they yede in maner of compace; - But one there yede in mid the company - Sole by herself; but all follow'd the pace - That she keept, whose hevinly figured face - So pleasaunt was, and her wele shape person, - That of beauty she past them everichone, - And more richly beseen by manyfold - She was also in every manir thing; - Upon her hede full plesaunt to behold - A coron of gold rich for any king, - A braunch of agnus castus eke bering - In her hand, and to my sight trewily - She lady was of all the compagnie; - And she began a roundell lustily - That _Sus le foyle de vert moy_ men call - _Sine & mon joly cœur est endormy_, - And than the company answerid all, - With voicis swete entunid and so small, - That methought it the swetest melody - That evir I herd in my lyf sothly. - And thus they all came dauncing and singing - Into the middis of the mede echone, - Before the herbir where I was sitting, - And God wot I thought I was well bigone, - For than I might avise them one by one - Who fairist was, who best could dance or sing, - Or who most womanly was in all thing. - They had not dauncid but a little throw - When that I herd not fer of sodainly - So grete a noise of thundering trumpis blow - As though it should have departid the skie, - And aftir that within a while I sie - From the same grove where the ladies came out - Of men of armis coming such a rout, - As all men on erth had ben assemblid, - On that place well horsid for the nonis, - Stering so fast that all the erth tremblid; - But for to speke of richis and stonis, - And men and horse, I trow the large wonis - Of Pretir John, ne all his tresory, - Might not unneth have bought the tenth party. - Of their array whoso list to here more, - I shall reherse so as I can a lite, - Out of the grove that I speke of before - I se come first, all in their clokis white, - A company that wore for ther delite - Chapèlets fresh of okis serial - But newly sprong, and trumpets were they all; - On every trump hanging a brode bannere - Of fine tartarium, full richly bete, - Every trumpet his lord'is armis bere - About ther nekkis, with grete perlis sete, - Collaris brode, for cost they wou'd not lete, - As it would seem, for ther scochons echone - Were set about with many a precious stone; - Ther horsis harneis was all white also; - And aftir them next in one company - Camin kingis at armis and no mo, - In clokis of white cloth with gold richly, - Chaplets of grene on ther heds on hye, - The crownis that they on ther scotchons bere - Were set with perl, and ruby, and saphere, - And eke grete diamondis many one; - But all ther horsis harneis and other gere - Was in a sute according everichone, - As ye have herd the foresaid trumpets were, - And by seming they were nothing to lere, - And ther guiding they did so manirly; - And aftir them came a gret company - Of heraudeis and pursevauntis eke, - Arrayid in clothis of white velvet, - And hardily they were nothing to seke - How they on them shouldin the harneis set, - And every man had on a chapèlet, - Scotchonis and eke horse harneis in dede - They had in sute of them that 'fore them yede. - Next after these appere in armour bright, - All save ther hedis, semely knightis nine, - And every clasp and nail, as to my sight, - Of ther harneis were of red gold so fine, - With cloth of gold, and furrid with ermine, - Were the tappouris of their stedis strong, - Both wide and large, that to the ground did hong; - And every boss of bridle and paitrel - That they had on was worth, as I would wene, - A thousand pound; and on ther hedis well - Dressid were crounis of the laurir grene, - The best ymade that evir I had sene; - And every knight had aftir him riding - Thre henchmen, still upon him awaiting; - Of which every (first) on a short trunchon - His lord'is helmet bore so richly dight - That the worst of them was worth the ransoume - Of any king; the second a shield bright - Bare at his back; the thred barin upright - A mighty spere, full sharp yground and kene, - And every child ware of levis grene - A fresh chap'let upon his hairis bright; - And clokis white of fine velvet they were; - Ther stedis trappid and arayid right, - Without difference as ther lordis were; - And aftir them on many a fresh coursere - There came of armid knightis such a rout - That they besprad the large field about; - And all they werin, aftir ther degrees, - Chappèlets new, or made of laurir grene, - Or some of oke, or some of othir trees, - Some in ther hondis barin boughis shene, - Some of laurir, and some of okis bene, - Some of hawthorne, and some of the wodebind, - And many mo which I have not in mind. - And so they came ther horse freshly stirring - With bloudy sownis of ther trompis loud; - There se I many an uncouth disguising - In the array of thilkè knightis proud; - And at the last as evenly as they coud - They toke ther place in middis of the mede, - And every knight turnid his horsis hede - To his felow, and lightly laid a spere - Into the rest, and so justis began - On every part aboutin here and there; - Some brake his spere, some threw down horse and man, - About the felde astray the stedis ran; - And to behold their rule and govirnance - I you ensure it was a grete plesaunce. - And so the justis last an hour and more - But tho that crownid were in laurir grene - Did win the prise; their dintis were so sore - That there was none agenst them might sustene, - And the justing allè was left off clene; - And fro ther horse the nine alight anon, - And so did all the remnaunt everichone; - And forth they yede togidir twain and twain, - That to behold it was a worthy sight, - Toward the ladies on the grenè plain, - That song and dauncid, as I said now right; - The ladies as sone as they godely might - They brakin off both the song and the dance - And yede to mete them with full glad semblaunce: - And every lady toke full womanly - By the hond a knight, and so forth they yede - Unto a faire laurir that stode fast by, - With levis laid, the boughis of grete brede, - And to my dome ther nevir was indede - A man that had sene half so faire a tre, - For undirneth it there might well have be - An hundrid persons at ther own plesaunce - Shadowid fro the hete of Phœbus bright, - So that they shouldin have felt no grevance - Neithir for rain, ne haile, that them hurt might; - The savour eke rejoice would any wight - That hed be sick or melancholious, - It was so very gode and vertuous. - And with grete rev'rence they enclinid low - Unto the tre so sote and fair of hew, - And aftir that within a litil throw - They all began to sing and daunce of new; - Some song of love, some plaining of untrew, - Environing the tre that stode upright, - And evir yede a lady and a knight. - And at the last I cast mine eie aside, - And was ware of a lusty company - That came roming out of the feldè wide, - And hond in hond a knight and a lady, - The ladies all in surcotes, that richly - Purfilid were with many a rich stone, - And every knight of grene ware mantlis on, - Embroulid wele, so as the surcots were, - And everich had a chapelet on her hed, - [Which did right wele upon the shining here] - Makid of godely flouris white and red, - The knightis eke that they in hondè led - In sute of them ware chaplets everichone, - And before them went minstrels many one; - As harpis, pipis, lutis, and sautry, - Allè in grene, and on ther hedis bare - Of diverse flouris made ful craftily, - Al in a sute, godely chaplets they ware, - And so dauncing into the mede they fare, - In mid the which they found a tuft that was - Al ovirsprad with flouris in compas: - Whereto they enclined evèrichone - With grete revèrence, and that full humbly; - And at the last there tho began anon - A lady for to sing right womanly - A bargaret in praising the daisie, - For (as methought) among her notis swete - She said _Si douce est la Margarete_! - Then they allè answerid her in fere - So passingly well and so plesauntly, - That it was a most blisfull noise to here; - But I 'not how it happid, sodainly - As about none the sonne so fervently - Waxe hotè that the pretty tendir floures - Had lost the beauty of their fresh collours. - For shronke with hete the ladies eke to brent, - That they ne wist where they them might bestow, - The knightis swelt, for lack of shade nie shent, - And aftir that within a litil throw - The wind began so sturdily to blow - That down goth all the flowris everichone, - So that in all the mede there laft not one, - Save such as succoured were among the leves - Fro every storme that mightè them assaile, - Growing undir the heggis and thick greves; - And aftir that there came a storme of haile - And rain in fere, so that withoutin faile - The ladies ne the knightis n'ade o' thred - Dry on them, so drooping wet was ther wede. - And when the storme was clene passid away - Tho in the white, that stode undir the tre, - They felt nothing of all the grete affray - That they in grene without had in ybe; - To them they yede for routh and for pite, - Them to comfort aftir their grete disese, - So fain they were the helplesse for to ese. - Than I was ware how one of them in grene - Had on a coron rich and well-fitting, - Wherefore I demid well she was a quene, - And tho in grene on her were awaiting; - The ladies then in white that were coming - Towardis them, and the knightis in fere, - Began to comfort them and make them chere. - The quene in white, that was of grete beauty, - Toke by the honde the quene that was in grene, - And seidè, Sustir, I have grete pity - Of your annoy and of your troublous tene - Wherein ye and your company have bene - So long, alas! and if that if you plese - To go with me I shall do you the ese - In al the plesure that I can or may; - Whereof that othir, humbly as she might, - Thankid her, for in right evil array - She was with storme and hete I you behight; - And evèry lady then anon right - That were in white one of them toke in grene - By the hond, which when the knightis had sene - In like manir eche of them toke a knight - Clad in the grene, and forth with them they fare - To an heggè, where that they anon right - To makin these justis they would not spare - Boughis to hew down, and eke trees to square, - Wherewith they made them stately firis grete - To dry ther clothis, that were wringing wete: - And aftir that of herbis that there grew - They made for blistirs of the sonne brenning - Ointmentis very gode, wholsome and new, - Where that they yede the sick fast anointing; - And after that they yede about gadring - Plesant saladis, which they made them ete - For to refreshe ther grete unkindly hete. - The lady of the Lefè then gan to pray - Her of the Floare [for so to my seming - They should be callid as by ther array] - To soupe with her, and eke for any thing - That she should with her all her pepill bringe, - And she ayen in right godely manere - Thankith her fast of her most frendly chere, - Saying plainèly that she would obay - With all her hert all her commandèment; - And then anon without lengir delay - The lady of the Lefe hath one ysent - To bring a palfray aftir her intent, - Arrayid wele in fair harneis of gold, - For nothing lackid that to him long shold. - And aftir that to all her company - She made to purvey horse and every thing - That they nedid, and then full hastily - Even by the herbir where I was sitting - They passid all, so merrily singing - That it would have comfortid any wight: - But then I se a passing wondir sight, - For then the nightingale, that all the day - Had in the laurir sete, and did her might - The whole service to sing longing to May, - All sodainly began to take her flight, - And to the lady of the Lefe forthright - She flew, and set her on her hand softly, - Which was a thing I mervailed at gretly. - The goldfinch eke, that fro the medlar tre - Was fled for hete unto the bushis cold, - Unto the lady of the Flowre gan fle, - And on her hond he set him as he wold, - And plesauntly his wingis gan to fold, - And for to sing they peine them both as sore - As they had do of all the day before. - And so these ladies rode forth a grete pace, - And all the rout of knightis eke in fere; - And I that had sene all this wondir case - Thought that I would assay in some manere - To know fully the trouth of this mattere, - And what they were that rode so plesauntly: - And when they were the herbir passid by - I drest me forth, and happid mete anon - A right fair lady, I do you ensure, - And she came riding by her self alone, - Allè in white, with semblaunce full demure; - I her salued, bad her gode avinture - Mote her befall, as I coud most humbly, - And she answered, My doughtir, gramercy! - Madame, quod I, if that I durst enquere - Of you, I wold fain of that company - Wit what they be that passed by this herbere. - And she ayen answerid right frendly, - My doughtir, all tho that passid hereby - In white clothing be servants everichone - Unto the Lefe, and I my self am one. - See ye not her that crownid is (quod she) - Allè in white? Madame, then quod I, Yes. - That is Dian, goddess of Chastity, - And for bicause that she a maidin is - Into her hond the brance she berith this - That agnus castus men call propirly; - And all the ladies in her company - Which ye se of that herbè chaplets were - Be such as han alwey kept maidinhede, - And all they that of laurir chaplets bere, - Be such as hardy were in manly dede - Victorious, name which nevir may be dede, - And all they were so worthy of their honde - In their time that no one might them withstonde; - And tho that were chapèlets on ther hede - Of fresh wodebind be such as nevir were - To Love untrue in word, in thought, ne dede, - But ay stedfast, ne for plesance ne fere, - Tho that they shulde ther hertis all to tere, - Woud never flit, but evir were stedfast - Till that ther livis there assundir brast. - Now, fair Madame! quod I, yet would I pray - Your ladiship [if that it mightin be] - That I might knowe by some manir of wey, - Sithin that it hath likid your beaute - The trouth of these ladies for to tell me, - What that these knightis be in rich armour, - And what tho be in grene and were the Flour, - And why that some did rev'rence to the tre, - And some unto the plot of flouris fair? - With right gode wil, my doughtir fair! quod she, - Sith your desire is gode and debonaire: - Tho nine crounid be very exemplaire - Of all honour longing to chivalry, - And those certain be clept, The Nine Worthy, - Which that ye may se riding all before, - That in ther time did many a noble dede, - And for ther worthiness full oft have bore - The crown of laurir levis on ther hede, - As ye may in your oldè bokis rede, - And how that he that was a conqueror - Had by laurir alwey his most honour: - And tho that barin bowes in ther hond - Of the precious laurir so notable, - Be such as were [I woll ye undirstend] - Most noble Knightis of The Round Table, - And eke the Douseperis honourable, - Which they bere in the sign of victory, - As witness of ther dedis mightily: - Eke ther be Knightis old of the Gartir, - That in ther timis did right worthily, - And the honour they did to the laurir - Is for by it they have ther laud wholly, - Ther triumph eke and martial glory, - Which unto them is more perfite riches - Than any wight imagin can or gesse; - For one Lefe givin of that noble tre - To any wight that hath done worthily - [An it be done so as it ought to be] - Is more honour than any thing erthly, - Witness of Rome, that foundir was truly - Of all knighthode and dedis marvelous, - Record I take of Titus Livius. - And as for her that crounid is in grene, - It is Flora, of these flouris goddesse, - And all that here on her awaiting bene - It are such folk that lovid idlenesse, - And not delite in no kind besinesse - But for to hunt, and hawke, and pley in medes, - And many othir such like idle dedes. - And for the grete delite and the plesaunce - They have to the Flour, and so reverently - They unto it doin such obeisaunce, - As ye may se. Now, fair Madame! quod I, - [If I durst ask] what is the cause and why - That knightis have the ensign of honour - Rathir by the Lefè than by the Flour? - Sothly, doughtir, quod she, this is the truth, - For knightes evir should be persevering - To seke honour without feintise or slouth, - Fro wele to bettir in all manir thing, - In sign of which with levis ay lasting - They be rewardid aftir ther degre. - Whose lusty grene may not appairid be, - But ay keping ther beauty fresh and grene, - For ther n'is no storme that may them deface, - Ne hail nor snowe, ne wind nor frostis kene, - Wherefore they have this propirty and grace; - And for the Flour within a litil space - Wollin be lost, so simple of nature - They be, that they no grevaunce may endure: - And every storme woll blowe them sone away, - Ne they lastè not but for a seson, - That is the cause [the very trouth to say] - That they may not by no way of reson - Be put to no such occupacion. - Madame, quod I, with all mine whole servise - I thank you now in my most humble wise; - For now I am ascertain'd thoroughly - Of every thing I desirid to knowe. - I am right glad that I have said, sothly, - Ought to your plesure, (if ye will me trow.) - Quod she ayen. But to whom do ye owe - Your service, and which wollin ye honour - [Pray tell me] this year, the Lefe or the Flour? - Madam, quod I, although I lest worthy, - Unto the Lefe I ow mine observaunce. - That is, quod she, right wel done certainly, - And I pray God to honour you advaunce, - And kepe you fro the wickid remembraunce - Of Melèbouch and all his cruiltie, - And all that gode and well-condition'd be; - For here I may no lengir now abide, - But I must follow the grete company - That ye may se yondir before you ride. - And forthwith, as I couth most humily - I toke my leve of her, and she gan hie - Aftir them as fast as evir she might, - And I drow homeward, for it was nigh night. - And put all that I had sene in writing, - Undir support of them that lust it rede. - O little boke! thou art so unconning, - How darst thou put thy self in prees for drede? - It is wondir that thou wexist not rede, - Sith that thou wost full lite who shall behold - Thy rude langage full boystously unfold. - - - - -THE WIF OF BATHES TALE. - - - In olde days of the King Artour, - Of which that Bretons speken gret honour, - All was this lond fulfilled of Faerie; - The Elf quene with hire joly compagnie - Danced ful oft in many a grene mede, - This was the old opinion as I rede; - I speke of many hundred yeres ago, - But now can no man see non elves mo; - For now the grete charitee and prayeres - Of limitoures and other holy freres, - That serchen every land and every streme, - As thikke as motes in the sonne-beme, - Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, - Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures, - Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies, - This maketh that ther ben no Faeries: - For ther as wont to walken was an elf, - Ther walketh now the limatour himself - In undermeles and in morweninges, - And sayth his matines and his holy thinges - As he goth in his limitatioun. - Women may now go safely up and doun, - In every bush, and under every tree, - Ther is non other Incubus but he, - And he ne will don hem no dishonour. - And so befell it that this King Artour - Had in his hous a lusty bacheler, - That on a day came riding fro river: - And happed that, alone as she was borne, - He saw a maiden walking him beforne, - Of which maid he anon, maugre hire hed, - By veray force beraft hire maidenhed: - For which oppression was swiche clamour, - And swiche pursuite unto the King Artour, - That damned was this knight for to be ded, - By cours of lawe, and shuld have lost his hed, - (Paraventure swiche was the statute tho) - But that the quene and other ladies mo - So longe praieden the king of grace, - Til he his lif him granted in the place, - And yaf him to the quene, all at hire will - To chese whether she wold him save or spill. - The quene thanketh the king with all hire might; - And after this thus spake she to the knight, - Whan that she saw hire time upon a day. - Thou standest yet (quod she) in swiche array, - That of thy lif yet hast thou not seuretee; - I grant thee lif if thou canst tellen me - What thing is it that women most desiren: - Beware, and kepe thy nekke bone from yren. - And if thou canst not tell it me anon, - Yet wol I yeve thee leve for to gon - A twelvemonth and a day to seke and lere - An answer suffisant in this matere; - And seuretee wol I have, or that thou pace, - The body for to yelden in this place. - Wo was the knight, and sorwefully he siketh: - But what? he may not don all as him liketh. - And at the last he chese him for to wende, - And come agen right at the yeres ende - With swiche answer as God wold him purvay, - And taketh his leve, and wendeth forth his way. - He seketh every hous and every place, - Wher as he hopeth for to finden grace, - To lernen what thing women loven moste; - But he ne coude ariven in no coste, - Wher as he mighte find in this matere - Two creatures according in fere. - Som saiden women loven best richesse, - Som saiden honour, som saiden jolinesse, - Som riche array, some saiden lust a-bedde, - And oft time to be widewe and to be wedde. - Some saiden that we ben in herte most esed - Whan that we ben yflatered and ypreised. - He goth ful nigh the sothe, I wol not lie; - A man shal winne us best with flaterie; - And with attendance and with besinesse - Ben we ylimed bothe more and lesse. - And som men saiden, that we loven best - For to be free, and do right as us lest, - And that no man repreve us of our vice, - But say that we ben wise and nothing nice: - For trewely ther n'is non of us all, - If any wight wol claw us on the gall, - That we n'ill kike for that he saith us soth; - Assay, and he shal find it that so doth: - For be we never so vicious withinne - We wol be holden wise and clene of sinne. - And som saiden, that gret delit han we - For to be holden stable and eke secre, - And in o purpos stedfastly to dwell, - And not bewreyen thing that men us tell; - But that tale is not worth a rake-stele. - Parde we women connen nothing hele, - Witnesse on Mida; wol ye here the Tale? - Ovide, amonges other thinges smale, - Said Mida had under his longe heres - Growing upon his hed two asses eres, - The whiche vice he hid, as he beste might, - Ful subtilly from every mannes sight, - That, save his wif, ther wist of it no mo; - He loved hire most, and trusted hire also; - He praied hire that to no creature - She n'olde tellen of his disfigure. - She swore him nay, for all the world to winne - She n'olde do that vilanie ne sinne, - To make hire husbond han so foule a name: - She n'olde not tell it for hire owen shame. - But natheles hire thoughte that she dide - That she so longe shulde a conseil hide; - Hire thought it swal so sore about hire herte, - That nedely som word hire must asterte; - And sith she dorst nat telle it to no man, - Doun to a mareis faste by she ran; - Til she came ther hire herte was a-fire: - And as a bitore bumbleth in the mire, - She laid hire mouth unto the water doun. - Bewrey me not, thou water, with thy soun, - Quod she; to thee I tell it, and no mo, - Min husbond hath long asses eres two. - Now is min herte all hole, now is it out, - I might no lenger kepe it out of dout. - Here may ye see, though we a time abide, - Yet out it moste; we can no conseil hide. - The remenant of the Tale, if ye wol here, - Redeth Ovide, and ther ye may it lere. - This knight, of which my Tale is specially, - Whan that he saw he might not come therby, - (This is to sayn, what women loven most) - Within his brest ful sorweful was his gost. - But home he goth, he mighte not sojourne; - The day was come that homward must he turne. - And in his way it happed him to ride, - In all his care, under a forest side, - Wheras he saw upon a dance go - Of ladies foure and twenty, and yet mo. - Toward this ilke dance he drow ful yerne, - In hope that he som wisdom shulde lerne; - But certainly er he came fully there - Yvanished was this dance he n'iste not wher; - No creature saw he that bare lif, - Save on the grene he saw sitting a wif, - A fouler wight ther may no man devise. - Againe this knight this olde wif gan arise, - And saide Sire Knight, here forth ne lith no way. - Tell me what that ye seken by your fay, - Paraventure it may the better be: - Thise olde folk con mochel thing, quod she. - My leve mother, quod this knight, certain - I n'am but ded but if that I can fain - What thing it is that women most desire: - Coude ye me wisse I wold quite wel your hire. - Plight me thy trothe here in myn hond, quod she, - The nexte thing that I requere of thee - Thou shalt it do, if it be in thy might, - And I wol tell it you or it be night. - Have here my trouthe, quod the knight, I graunte. - Thanne, quod she, I dare me wel avaunte - Thy lif is sauf, for I wol stond therby, - Upon my lif the quene wol say as I. - Let see which is the proudest of hem alle, - That wereth on a kerchef or a calle, - That dare sayn nay of that I shal you teche. - Let us go forth withouten lenger speche. - Tho rowned she a pistel in his ere, - And bad him to be glad, and have no fere. - Whan they ben comen to the court, this knight - Said he had hold his day as he had hight, - And redy was his answere, as he saide. - Ful many a noble wif, and many a maide, - And many a widewe, for that they ben wise, - (The quene hireself sitting as a justice) - Assembled ben his answer for to here, - And afterward this knight was bode appere. - To every wight commanded was silence, - And that the knight shuld tell in audience - What thing that worldly women loven best. - This knight ne stood not still as doth a best, - But to this question anon answerd - With manly vois, that all the court it herd. - My liege Lady, generally, quod he, - Women desiren to han soverainetee, - As well over hir husbond as hir love, - And for to ben in maistrie him above. - This is your most desire, though ye me kille; - Doth as you list, I am here at your wille. - In all the court ne was ther wif ne maide, - Ne widewe, that contraried that he saide, - But said he was worthy to han his lif. - And with that word up stert this olde wif - Which that the knight saw sitting on the grene. - Mercy, quod she, my soveraine lady Quene, - Er that your court depart, as doth me right. - I taughte this answer unto this knight, - For which he plighte me his trouthe there, - The firste thing I wold of him requere, - He wold it do, if it lay in his might. - Before this court than pray I thee, Sire, Knight, - Quod she, that thou me take unto thy wif, - For wel thou wost that I have kept thy lif: - If I say false, say nay upon thy fay. - This knight answered, Alas and wala wa! - I wot right wel that swiche was my behest. - For Goddes love as chese a new request: - Take all my good, and let my body go. - Nay than, quod she, I shrewe us bothe two: - For though that I be olde, foule, and pore, - I n'olde for all the metal ne the ore - That under erthe is grave, or lith above, - But if thy wif I were and eke thy love. - My love? quod he; nay, my dampnation. - Alas! that any of my nation - Shuld ever so foule disparaged be. - But all for nought; the end is this, that he - Constrained was, he nedes must hire wed, - And taketh this olde wif, and goth to bed. - Now wolden som men sayn paraventure, - That for my negligence I do no cure - To tellen you the joye and all the array - That at the feste was that ilke day. - To which thing shortly answeren I shal: - I say ther was no joye ne feste at al; - Ther n'as but hevinesse and mochel sorwe; - For prively he wedded hire on the morwe, - And all day after hid him as an oule, - So wo was him his wif loked so foule. - Gret was the wo the knight had in his thought - Whan he was with his wif a-bed ybrought; - He walweth, and he turneth to and fro. - This olde wif lay smiling evermo, - And said, O dere husbond, _benedicite_! - Fareth ever knight thus with wif as ye? - Is this the lawe of King Artoures hous? - Is every knight of his thus dangerous? - I am your owen love, and eke your wif, - I am she which that saved hath your lif, - And certes yet did I you never unright; - Why fare ye thus with me this firste night? - Ye faren like a man had lost his wit. - What is my gilt? for Goddess love tell it, - And it shal ben amended if I may. - Amended? quod this knight, alas! nay, nay, - It wol not ben amended never mo; - Thou art so lothly, and so olde also, - And therto comen of so low a kind, - That little wonder is though I walwe and wind; - So wolde God min herte wolde brest. - Is this, quod she, the cause of your unrest? - Ye certainly, quod he, no wonder is. - Now Sire, quod she, I coude amend all this, - If that me list, er it were dayes three, - So wel ye mighten bere you unto me. - But for ye speken of swiche gentillesse - As is descended out of old richesse; - That therefore shullen ye be gentilmen; - Swiche arrogance n'is not worth an hen. - Loke who that is most vertuous alway, - Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay - To do the gentil dedes that he can, - And take him for the gretest gentilman. - Crist wol we claime of him our gentillesse, - Not of our elders for hir old richesse; - For though they yeve us all hir heritage, - For which we claime to ben of high parage, - Yet may they not bequethen for no thing - To non of us hir vertuous living, - That made hem gentilmen called to be, - And bade us folwen hem in swiche degree. - Wel can the wise poet of Florence, - That highte Dant, speken of this sentence: - Lo in swiche maner rime is Dantes tale. - Ful selde up riseth by his branches smale - Prowesse of man, for God of his goodnesse - Wol that we claime of him our gentillesse; - For of our elders may we nothing claime - But temporel thing, that man may hurt and maime. - Eke every wight wot this as wel as I, - If gentillesse were planted naturelly - Unto a certain linage doun the line, - Prive and apert, than wold they never fine - To don of gentillesse the faire office; - They mighten do no vilanie or vice. - Take fire, and bere it into the derkest hous - Betwix this and the Mount of Caucasus, - And let men shette the dores, and go thenne, - Yet wol the fire as faire lie and brenne - As twenty thousand men might it behold; - His office naturel ay wol it hold, - Up peril of my lif, til that it die. - Here may ye see wel how that genterie - Is not annexed to possession, - Sith folk ne don hir operation - Alway, as doth the fire, lo, in his kind: - For God it wot men moun ful often find - A lordes sone do shame and vilanie. - And he that wol han pris of his genterie, - For he was boren of a gentil hous, - And had his elders noble and vertuous, - And n'ill himselven do no gentil dedes, - Ne folwe his gentil auncestrie that ded is, - He n'is not gentil, be he duk or erl, - For vilains sinful dedes make a cherl: - For gentillesse n'is but the renomee - Of thin auncestres for hir high bountee, - Which is a strange thing to thy persone: - Thy gentillesse cometh fro God alone; - Than cometh our veray gentillesse of grace; - It was no thing bequethed us with our place. - Thinketh how noble, as saith Valerius, - Was thilke Tullius Hostilius, - That out of poverte rose to high noblesse. - Redeth Senek, and redeth eke Boece, - Ther shull ye seen expresse that it no dred is - That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis: - And therefore, leve husbond, I thus conclude, - Al be it that min auncestres weren rude, - Yet may the highe God, and so hope I, - Granten me grace to liven vertuously; - Than am I gentil whan that I beginne - To liven vertuously and weiven sinne. - And ther as ye of poverte me repreve, - The highe God, on whom that we beleve, - In wilful poverte chese to lede his lif; - And certes every man, maiden, or wif, - May understond that Jesus heven king - Ne wold not chese a vicious living. - Glad poverte is an honest thing certain, - This wol Senek and other clerkes sain. - Who so that halt him paid of his poverte, - I hold him rich, al had he not a sherte. - He that coveiteth is a poure wight, - For he wold han that is not in his might; - But he that nought hath, ne coveiteth to have, - Is riche, although ye hold him but a knave. - Veray poverte is sinne proprely. - Juvenal saith of poverte merily, - The poure man whan he goth by the way, - Beforn the theves he may sing and play. - Poverte is hateful good; and, as I gesse, - A ful gret bringer out of besinesse; - A gret amender eke of sapience - To him that taketh it in patience. - Poverte is this, although it some elenge, - Possession that no wight wol challenge. - Poverte ful often, whan a man is low, - Maketh his God and eke himself to know. - Poverte a spectakel is, as thinketh me, - Thurgh which he may his veray frendes see. - And therefore, Sire, sin that I you not greve, - Of my poverte no more me repreve. - Now, Sire, of elde that ye repreven me: - And certes, Sire, though non auctoritee - Were in no book, ye gentiles of honour - Sain that men shuld an olde wight honour, - And clepe him Fader, for your gentillesse; - And auctours shal I finden, as I gesse. - Now ther ye sain that I am foule and old, - Than drede ye not to ben a cokewold; - For filthe, and elde also, so mote I the, - Ben grete wardeins upon chastitee. - But natheles, sin I know your delit, - I shal fulfill your worldly appetit. - Chese now (quod she) on of thise thinges twey, - To han me foule and old til that I dey, - And be to you a trewe humble wif, - And never you displese in all my lif; - Or elles wol ye han me yonge and faire, - And take your aventure of the repaire - That shal be to your hous because of me, - Or in some other place it may wel be? - Now chese yourselven whether that you liketh. - This knight aviseth him, and sore siketh, - But at the last he said in this manere: - My lady and my love, and wif so dere, - I put me in your wise governance, - Cheseth yourself which may be most plesance - And most honour to you and me also, - I do no force the whether of the two, - For as you liketh, it sufficeth me. - Than have I got the maisterie, quod she, - Sin I may chese and governe as me lest. - Ye certes, wif, quod he, I hold it best. - Kisse me, quod she, we be no lenger wrothe, - For by my trouth I wol be to you bothe, - This to sayn, ye bothe faire and good. - I pray to God that I mote sterven wood - But I to you be al so good and trewe - As ever was wif sin that the world was newe, - And but I be to-morwe as faire to seen - As any lady, emperice, or quene, - That is betwix the est and eke the west, - Doth with my lif and deth right as you lest. - Cast up the curtein, loke how that it is. - And whan the knight saw veraily all this, - That she so faire was, and so yonge therto, - For joye he hent hire in his armes two: - His herte bathed in a bath of blisse, - A thousand time a-row he gan hire kisse: - And she obeyed him in every thing - That mighte don him plesance or liking. - And thus they live unto hir lives ende - In parfit joye; and Jesu Crist us sende - Husbondes meke and yonge, and fresh a-bed, - And grace to overlive hem that we wed. - And eke I pray Jesus to short hir lives - That wol not be governed by hir wives; - And old and angry nigards of dispence - God send hem sone a veray pestilence. - - - - -TRANSLATIONS - -FROM - -OVID'S EPISTLES. - - - - -PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF OVID'S EPISTLES.[2] - - -The Life of Ovid being already written in our language, before the -translation of his Metamorphoses, I will not presume so far upon -myself, to think I can add any thing to Mr Sandys his undertaking.[3] - -The English reader may there be satisfied, that he flourished in the -reign of Augustus Cæsar; that he was extracted from an ancient family -of Roman knights; that he was born to the inheritance of a splendid -fortune;[4] that he was designed to the study of the law, and had made -considerable progress in it, before he quitted that profession, for -this of poetry, to which he was more naturally formed. The cause of -his banishment is unknown; because he was himself unwilling further to -provoke the emperor, by ascribing it to any other reason than what was -pretended by Augustus, which was, the lasciviousness of his Elegies, -and his Art of Love.[5] It is true, they are not to be excused in the -severity of manners, as being able to corrupt a larger empire, if -there were any, than that of Rome; yet this may be said in behalf of -Ovid, that no man has ever treated the passion of love with so much -delicacy of thought, and of expression, or searched into the nature of -it more philosophically than he. And the emperor, who condemned him, -had as little reason as another man to punish that fault with so much -severity, if at least he were the author of a certain epigram, which is -ascribed to him, relating to the cause of the first civil war betwixt -himself and Mark Antony the triumvir, which is more fulsome than any -passage I have met with in our poet.[6] - -To pass by the naked familiarity of his expressions to Horace, which -are cited in that author's life, I need only mention one notorious act -of his, in taking Livia to his bed, when she was not only married, -but with child by her husband then living. But deeds, it seems, may -be justified by arbitrary power, when words are questioned in a poet. -There is another guess of the grammarians, as far from truth as the -first from reason; they will have him banished for some favours, which -they say he received from Julia, the daughter of Augustus, whom they -think he celebrates under the name of Corinna in his Elegies; but he, -who will observe the verses which are made to that mistress, may gather -from the whole contexture of them, that Corinna was not a woman of the -highest quality. If Julia were then married to Agrippa, why should our -poet make his petition to Isis for her safe delivery, and afterwards -condole her miscarriage; which, for aught he knew, might be by her -own husband? Or, indeed, how durst he be so bold to make the least -discovery of such a crime, which was no less than capital, especially -committed against a person of Agrippa's rank? Or, if it were before -her marriage, he would surely have been more discreet, than to have -published an accident which must have been fatal to them both. But -what most confirms me against this opinion, is, that Ovid himself -complains, that the true person of Corinna was found out by the fame of -his verses to her; which if it had been Julia, he durst not have owned; -and, beside, an immediate punishment must have followed. He seems -himself more truly to have touched at the cause of his exile in those -obscure verses: - - _Cur aliquid vidi? cur noxia lumina feci? - Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est? - Inscius Actæon vidit sine veste Dianam, - Præda fuit canibus non minus ille suis._ - -Namely, that he had either seen, or was conscious to somewhat, which -had procured him his disgrace. But neither am I satisfied, that this -was the incest of the emperor with his own daughter: for Augustus was -of a nature too vindicative to have contented himself with so small a -revenge, or so unsafe to himself, as that of simple banishment; but -would certainly have secured his crimes from public notice, by the -death of him who was witness to them. Neither have historians given -us any sight into such an action of this emperor: nor would he, (the -greatest politician of his time,) in all probability, have managed his -crimes with so little secrecy, as not to shun the observation of any -man. It seems more probable, that Ovid was either the confident of some -other passion, or that he had stumbled, by some inadvertency, upon the -privacies of Livia, and seen her in a bath: for the words - - _Sine veste Dianam_, - -agree better with Livia, who had the fame of chastity, than with either -of the Julias, who were both noted of incontinency. The first verses, -which were made by him in his youth, and recited publicly, according to -the custom, were, as he himself assures us, to Corinna: his banishment -happened not until the age of fifty; from which it may be deduced, -with probability enough, that the love of Corinna did not occasion it: -nay, he tells us plainly, that his offence was that of error only, -not of wickedness; and in the same paper of verses also, that the -cause was notoriously known at Rome, though it be left so obscure to -after-ages.[7] - -But to leave conjectures on a subject so uncertain,[8] and to write -somewhat more authentic of this poet. That he frequented the court of -Augustus, and was well received in it, is most undoubted: all his poems -bear the character of a court, and appear to be written, as the French -call it, _cavalierement_: add to this, that the titles of many of his -elegies, and more of his letters in his banishment, are addressed -to persons well known to us, even at this distance, to have been -considerable in that court. - -Nor was his acquaintance less with the famous poets of his age, than -with the noblemen and ladies. He tells you himself, in a particular -account of his own life, that Macer, Horace, Tibullus,[9] Propertius, -and many others of them, were his familiar friends, and that some of -them communicated their writings to him; but that he had only seen -Virgil. - -If the imitation of nature be the business of a poet, I know no -author, who can justly be compared with ours, especially in the -description of the passions. And, to prove this, I shall need no other -judges than the generality of his readers: for, all passions being -inborn with us, we are almost equally judges, when we are concerned -in the representation of them. Now I will appeal to any man, who has -read this poet, whether he finds not the natural emotion of the same -passion in himself, which the poet describes in his feigned persons. -His thoughts, which are the pictures and results of those passions, -are generally such as naturally arise from those disorderly motions -of our spirits. Yet, not to speak too partially in his behalf, I will -confess, that the copiousness of his wit was such, that he often -writ too pointedly for his subject, and made his persons speak more -eloquently than the violence of their passion would admit: so that he -is frequently witty out of season; leaving the imitation of nature, -and the cooler dictates of his judgment, for the false applause of -fancy. Yet he seems to have found out this imperfection in his riper -age; for why else should he complain, that his Metamorphoses was left -unfinished? Nothing sure can be added to the wit of that poem, or of -the rest; but many things ought to have been retrenched, which I -suppose would have been the business of his age, if his misfortunes -had not come too fast upon him. But take him uncorrected, as he is -transmitted to us, and it must be acknowledged, in spite of his Dutch -friends, the commentators, even of Julius Scaliger himself, that -Seneca's censure will stand good against him; - - _Nescivit quod bene cessit relinquere_: - -he never knew how to give over, when he had done well, but continually -varying the same sense an hundred ways, and taking up in another place -what he had more than enough inculcated before, he sometimes cloys -his readers, instead of satisfying them; and gives occasion to his -translators, who dare not cover him, to blush at the nakedness of -their father. This, then, is the allay of Ovid's writings, which is -sufficiently recompensed by his other excellencies: nay, this very -fault is not without its beauties; for the most severe censor cannot -but be pleased with the prodigality of his wit, though at the same time -he could have wished that the master of it had been a better manager. -Every thing which he does becomes him; and if sometimes he appears too -gay, yet there is a secret gracefulness of youth, which accompanies his -writings, though the staidness and sobriety of age be wanting. In the -most material part, which is the conduct, it is certain, that he seldom -has miscarried: for if his Elegies be compared with those of Tibullus -and Propertius, his contemporaries, it will be found, that those poets -seldom designed before they writ; and though the language of Tibullus -be more polished, and the learning of Propertius, especially in his -fourth book, more set out to ostentation; yet their common practice -was to look no further before them than the next line; whence it will -inevitably follow, that they can drive to no certain point, but ramble -from one subject to another, and conclude with somewhat, which is not -of a piece with their beginning: - - _Purpureus latè qui splendeat, unus et alter - Assuitur pannus_,---- - -as Horace says; though the verses are golden, they are but patched into -the garment. But our poet has always the goal in his eye, which directs -him in his race; some beautiful design, which he first establishes, and -then contrives the means, which will naturally conduct him to his end. -This will be evident to judicious readers in his Epistles, of which -somewhat, at least in general, will be expected. - -The title of them in our late editions is _Epistolæ Heroidum_, the -Letters of the Heroines. But Heinsius has judged more truly, that the -inscription of our author was barely, Epistles; which he concludes from -his cited verses, where Ovid asserts this work as his own invention, -and not borrowed from the Greeks, whom (as the masters of their -learning) the Romans usually did imitate. But it appears not from their -writings, that any of the Grecians ever touched upon this way, which -our poet therefore justly has vindicated to himself. I quarrel not at -the word _Heroidum_, because it is used by Ovid in his Art of Love: - - _Jupiter ad veteres supplex_ Heroidas _ibat._ - -But, sure, he could not be guilty of such an oversight, to call his -work by the name of _Heroines_, when there are divers men, or heroes, -as, namely, Paris, Leander, and Acontius, joined in it. Except Sabinus, -who writ some answers to Ovid's Letters, - - (_Quam celer è toto rediit meus orbe Sabinus_,) - -I remember not any of the Romans, who have treated on this subject, -save only Propertius, and that but once, in his Epistle of Arethusa to -Lycotas, which is written so near the style of Ovid, that it seems to -be but an imitation; and therefore ought not to defraud our poet of the -glory of his invention. - -Concerning the Epistles, I shall content myself to observe these -few particulars: first, that they are generally granted to be the -most perfect pieces of Ovid, and that the style of them is tenderly -passionate and courtly; two properties well agreeing with the persons, -which were heroines, and lovers. Yet, where the characters were lower, -as in Œnone and Hero, he has kept close to nature, in drawing his -images after a country life, though perhaps he has romanized his -Grecian dames too much, and made them speak, sometimes, as if they -had been born in the city of Rome, and under the empire of Augustus. -There seems to be no great variety in the particular subjects which -he has chosen; most of the Epistles being written from ladies, who -were forsaken by their lovers: which is the reason that many of the -same thoughts come back upon us in divers letters: but of the general -character of women, which is modesty, he has taken a most becoming -care; for his amorous expressions go no further than virtue may allow, -and therefore may be read, as he intended them, by matrons without a -blush. - -Thus much concerning the poet: it remains that I should say somewhat of -poetical translations in general, and give my opinion, (with submission -to better judgments,) which way of version seems to be the most proper. - -All translation, I suppose, may be reduced to these three heads. - -First, that of metaphrase, or turning an author word by word, and -line by line, from one language into another. Thus, or near this -manner, was Horace his Art of Poetry translated by Ben Jonson. The -second way is that of paraphrase, or translation with latitude, where -the author is kept in view by the translator, so as never to be -lost, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense; and -that too is admitted to be amplified, but not altered. Such is Mr -Waller's translation of Virgil's fourth Æneid. The third way is that -of imitation, where the translator (if now he has not lost that name) -assumes the liberty, not only to vary from the words and sense, but to -forsake them both as he sees occasion; and, taking only some general -hints from the original, to run divisions on the ground-work, as he -pleases. Such is Mr Cowley's practice in turning two Odes of Pindar, -and one of Horace, into English. - -Concerning the first of these methods, our master Horace has given us -this caution: - - _Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus - Interpres_---- - - Nor word for word too faithfully translate; - -as the Earl of Roscommon has excellently rendered it. Too faithfully -is, indeed, pedantically: it is a faith like that which proceeds from -superstition, blind and zealous. Take it in the expression of Sir John -Denham to Sir Richard Fanshaw, on his version of the Pastor Fido: - - That servile path thou nobly dost decline, - Of tracing word by word, and line by line: - A new and nobler way thou dost pursue, - To make translations and translators too: - They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame, - True to his sense, but truer to his fame. - -It is almost impossible to translate verbally, and well, at the -same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) -often expresses that in one word, which either the barbarity, or the -narrowness, of modern tongues cannot supply in more. It is frequent, -also, that the conceit is couched in some expression, which will be -lost in English: - - _Atque iidem venti vela fidemque ferent_. - -What poet of our nation is so happy as to express this thought -literally in English, and to strike wit, or almost sense, out of it? - -In short, the verbal copier is encumbered with so many difficulties -at once, that he can never disentangle himself from all. He is to -consider, at the same time, the thought of his author, and his words, -and to find out the counterpart to each in another language; and, -besides this, he is to confine himself to the compass of numbers, and -the slavery of rhyme. It is much like dancing on ropes with fettered -legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; but the gracefulness of -motion is not to be expected: and when we have said the best of it, it -is but a foolish task; for no sober man would put himself into a danger -for the applause of escaping without breaking his neck. We see Ben -Jonson could not avoid obscurity in his literal translation of Horace, -attempted in the same compass of lines: nay, Horace himself could -scarce have done it to a Greek poet: - - _Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio_: - -either perspicuity or gracefulness will frequently be wanting. Horace -has indeed avoided both these rocks in his translation of the three -first lines of Homer's Odyssey, which he has contracted into two: - - _Dic mihi, musa virum, captæ post tempora Trojæ, - Que mores hominum multorum vidit, et urbes_. - - Muse, speak the man, who, since the siege of Troy, - So many towns, such change of manners saw. - - ROSCOMMON. - -But then the sufferings of Ulysses, which are a considerable part of -that sentence, are omitted: - - Ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλὰγχθη. - -The consideration of these difficulties, in a servile, literal -translation, not long since made two of our famous wits, Sir John -Denham,[10] and Mr Cowley, to contrive another way of turning authors -into our tongue, called, by the latter of them, imitation. As they were -friends, I suppose they communicated their thoughts on this subject to -each other; and therefore their reasons for it are little different, -though the practice of one is much more moderate. I take imitation of -an author, in their sense, to be an endeavour of a later poet to write -like one, who has written before him, on the same subject; that is, not -to translate his words, or to be confined to his sense, but only to -set him as a pattern, and to write, as he supposes that author would -have done, had he lived in our age, and in our country. Yet I dare not -say, that either of them have carried this libertine way of rendering -authors (as Mr Cowley calls it) so far as my definition reaches; for, -in the Pindaric odes, the customs and ceremonies of ancient Greece are -still preserved. But I know not what mischief may arise hereafter from -the example of such an innovation, when writers of unequal parts to -him shall imitate so bold an undertaking. To add and to diminish what -we please, which is the way avowed by him, ought only to be granted to -Mr Cowley, and that too only in his translation of Pindar; because he -alone was able to make him amends, by giving him better of his own, -whenever he refused his author's thoughts. Pindar is generally known to -be a dark writer, to want connection, (I mean as to our understanding,) -to soar out of sight, and leave his reader at a gaze. So wild and -ungovernable a poet cannot be translated literally; his genius is too -strong to bear a chain, and, Samson-like, he shakes it off. A genius -so elevated and unconfined as Mr Cowley's, was but necessary to make -Pindar speak English, and that was to be performed by no other way than -imitation.[11] But if Virgil, or Ovid, or any regular intelligible -authors, be thus used, it is no longer to be called their work, when -neither the thoughts nor words are drawn from the original; but instead -of them there is something new produced, which is almost the creation -of another hand. By this way, it is true, somewhat that is excellent -may be invented, perhaps more excellent than the first design; though -Virgil must be still excepted, when that perhaps takes place. Yet he -who is inquisitive to know an author's thoughts, will be disappointed -in his expectation; and it is not always that a man will be contented -to have a present made him, when he expects the payment of a debt. To -state it fairly; imitation of an author is the most advantageous way -for a translator to shew himself, but the greatest wrong which can be -done to the memory and reputation of the dead. Sir John Denham (who -advised more liberty than he took himself) gives his reason for his -innovation, in his admirable preface before the translation of the -second Æneid. "Poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that, in pouring out -of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and, if a new -spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a -_caput mortuum_." I confess this argument holds good against a literal -translation; but who defends it? Imitation and verbal version are, in -my opinion, the two extremes which ought to be avoided; and therefore, -when I have proposed the mean betwixt them, it will be seen how far his -argument will reach. - -No man is capable of translating poetry, who, besides a genius to -that art, is not a master both of his author's language, and of his -own; nor must we understand the language only of the poet, but his -particular turn of thoughts and expression, which are the characters -that distinguish, and as it were individuate him from all other -writers. When we are come thus far, it is time to look into ourselves, -to conform our genius to his, to give his thought either the same turn, -if our tongue will bear it, or, if not, to vary but the dress, not to -alter or destroy the substance. The like care must be taken of the more -outward ornaments, the words. When they appear (which is but seldom) -literally graceful, it were an injury to the author that they should be -changed. But, since every language is so full of its own proprieties, -that what is beautiful in one, is often barbarous, nay sometimes -nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator -to the narrow compass of his author's words: it is enough if he choose -out some expression which does not vitiate the sense. I suppose he may -stretch his chain to such a latitude; but, by innovation of thoughts, -methinks, he breaks it. By this means the spirit of an author may be -transfused, and yet not lost: and thus it is plain, that the reason -alledged by Sir John Denham has no farther force than to expression; -for thought, if it be translated truly, cannot be lost in another -language; but the words that convey it to our apprehension (which are -the image and ornament of that thought,) may be so ill chosen, as to -make it appear in an unhandsome dress, and rob it of its native lustre. -There is, therefore, a liberty to be allowed for the expression; -neither is it necessary that words and lines should be confined to the -measure of their original. The sense of an author, generally speaking, -is to be sacred and inviolable. If the fancy of Ovid be luxuriant, -it is his character to be so; and if I retrench it, he is no longer -Ovid. It will be replied, that he receives advantage by this lopping -of his superfluous branches; but I rejoin, that a translator has no -such right. When a painter copies from the life, I suppose he has no -privilege to alter features, and lineaments, under pretence that his -picture will look better: perhaps the face, which he has drawn, would -be more exact, if the eyes or nose were altered; but it is his business -to make it resemble the original. In two cases only there may a seeming -difficulty arise; that is, if the thought be notoriously trivial, or -dishonest; but the same answer will serve for both, that then they -ought not to be translated: - - ----_Et quæ - Desperes tractata nitescere posse, relinquas._ - -Thus I have ventured to give my opinion on this subject against the -authority of two great men, but I hope without offence to either of -their memories; for I both loved them living, and reverence them now -they are dead. But if, after what I have urged, it be thought by -better judges, that the praise of a translation consists in adding new -beauties to the piece, thereby to recompense the loss which it sustains -by change of language, I shall be willing to be taught better, and to -recant. In the mean time, it seems to me, that the true reason why we -have so few versions which are tolerable, is not from the too close -pursuing of the author's sense, but because there are so few, who have -all the talents which are requisite for translation, and that there is -so little praise, and so small encouragement, for so considerable a -part of learning. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[2] Published in 8vo, in 1680. This version was made by -several hands. See introductory remarks on Dryden's Translations. -Johnson gives the following account of the purpose of Dryden's preface: - -"In 1680, the epistles of Ovid being translated by the poets of the -time, it was necessary (says Dr Johnson) to introduce them by a -preface; and Dryden, who on such occasions was regularly summoned, -prefixed a discourse upon translation, which was then struggling -for the liberty it now enjoys. Why it should find any difficulty in -breaking the shackles of verbal interpretation, which must for ever -debar it from elegance, it would be difficult to conjecture, were not -the power of prejudice every day observed. The authority of Jonson, -Sandys, and Holiday, had fixed the judgement of the nation; and it was -not easily believed that a better way could be found than they had -taken, though Fanshaw, Denham, Waller, and Cowley, had tried to give -examples of a different practice." - -[3] George Sandys' Translation of Ovid was published in folio, -in 1626. - -[4] Ovid was born in the year of Rome 711, and died in 771 of -the same æra. - -[5] The poet himself plainly intimates as much in an epistle -to Fabius Maximus, where he represents himself as accusing Love of -being the cause of his exile: - - _O puer! exilii, decepto causa magistro._ - -The deity replies to this charge, by alluding to the secret cause of -his banishment, for which the loosness of his verses furnished only an -ostensible reason: - - _Juro - - Nil nisi concessum nos te didicisse magistro, - Artibus et nullum crimen inesse tuis, - Utque hoc, sic utinam cetera defendere possis, - Scis aliud quod te læserit esse magis._ - -[6] Martial, lib. XI. epig. 21. - -[7] - _Causa meæ cunctis nimium quoque nota ruinæ, - Indicio non est testificanda meo._ - - -[8] This curious and obscure subject is minutely investigated -by Bayle, who quotes and confutes the various opinions of the learned -concerning this point of secret history; and concludes, like Dryden, by -leaving it very much where he found it. Were I to hazard a conjecture, -I should rather think, with our poet, Ovid had made some imprudent, and -perhaps fortuitous discovery relating to Livia. - -[9] Dryden speaks inaccurately, from a general recollection -of the passage; for Ovid says distinctly, that the Fates did not give -him time to cultivate the acquaintance of Tibullus, any more than of -Virgil. The entire passage runs thus: - - _Temporis illius colui, fovique poetas: - Quotque aderant vates, rebar adesse deos. - Sæpe suas volucres legit mihi grandior ævo, - Quæque nocet serpens, quæ juvat herba, Macer. - Sæpe suos solitus recitare Propertius ignes, - Jure sodalitii qui mihi junctus erat. - Ponticus Heroo, Battus quoque clarus Iambo, - Dulcia convictus membra fuere mei. - Et tenuit nostras numerosus Horatius aures - Dum ferit Ausonia carmina culta lyra - Virgilium vidi tantum; nec avara Tibullo - Tempus amicitiæ fata dedere meæ._ - - Trist. Lib. IV. Eleg. 9. - -[10] Sir John Denham gives his opinion on this subject in the -preface to "The Destruction of Troy;" which he does not venture to call -a translation, but "an Essay on the second book of Virgil's Æneis."--"I -conceive it is a vulgar error, in translating poets, to affect being -_fidus interpres_; let that care be with them who deal in matters of -fact, or matters of faith; but whosoever aims at it in poetry, as -he attempts what is not required, so he shall never perform what he -attempts: for it is not his business alone to translate language into -language, but poesy into poesy; and poesy is of so subtile a spirit, -that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all -evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there -will remain nothing but a _caput mortuum_, there being certain graces -and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy -to the words; and whosoever offers at verbal translation, shall have -the misfortune of that young traveller, who lost his own language -abroad, and brought home no other instead of it; for the grace of the -Latin will be lost by being turned into English words, and the grace of -the English by being turned into the Latin phrase." - -[11] Cowley is now so undeservedly forgotten, that it is not -superfluous to insert his own excellent account of the free mode of -translation, prefixed to his translations from Pindar. "If a man -should undertake to translate Pindar, word for word, it would be -thought that one madman had translated another; as may appear, when -he that understands not the original, reads the verbal traduction -of him into Latin prose, than which nothing seems more raving. And -sure rhyme, without the addition of wit, and the spirit of poetry, -(_quod nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum_,) would but make it ten -times more distracted than it is in prose. We must consider, in -Pindar, the great difference of time betwixt his age and ours, which -changes, as in pictures, at least the colours of poetry; the no less -difference betwixt the religions and customs of our countries, and a -thousand particularities of places, persons, and manners, which do but -confusedly appear to our eyes at so great a distance; and, lastly, -(which were enough, alone, for my purpose,) we must consider, that -our ears are strangers to the music of his numbers, which sometimes, -(especially in songs and odes,) almost without any thing else, makes an -excellent poet. For though the grammarians and critics have laboured -to reduce his verses into regular feet and measures, (as they have -also those of the Greek and Latin comedies,) yet, in effect, they are -little better than prose to our ears: and I would gladly know what -applause our best pieces of English poesy could expect from a Frenchman -or Italian, if converted faithfully, and word for word, into French -or Italian prose. And when we have considered all this, we must needs -confess, that after all these losses sustained by Pindar, all we can -add to him by our wit and invention, (not deserting still his subject,) -is not like to make him a richer man than he was in his own country. -This is, in some measure, to be applied to all translations; and the -not observing of it is the cause, that all which ever I yet saw are so -much inferior to their originals. The like happens, too, in pictures, -from the same root of exact imitation; which being a vile and unworthy -kind of servitude, is incapable of producing any thing good or noble. -I have seen originals, both in painting and poesy, much more beautiful -than their natural objects; but I never saw a copy better than the -original: which indeed cannot be otherwise; for men resolving in no -case to shoot beyond the mark, it is a thousand to one if they shoot -not short of it. It does not at all trouble me, that the grammarians, -perhaps, will not suffer this libertine way of rendering foreign -authors to be called translation; for I am not so much enamoured of the -name translator, as not to wish rather to be something better, though -it wants yet a name. I speak not so much all this in defence of my -manner of translating or imitating, (or what other title they please,) -the two ensuing odes of Pindar; for that would not deserve half these -words, as by this occasion to rectify the opinion of divers men upon -this matter." - - - - -CANACE TO MACAREUS. - -EPIST. XI. - - -THE ARGUMENT. - - _Macareus and Canace, son and daughter to Æolus, God of the Winds, - loved each other incestuously: Canace was delivered of a son, and - committed him to her nurse, to be secretly conveyed away. The infant - crying out, by that means was discovered to Æolus, who, enraged at the - wickedness of his children, commanded the babe to be exposed to wild - beasts on the mountains; and withal, sent a sword to Canace, with this - message, That her crimes would instruct her how to use it. With this - sword she slew herself; but before she died, she writ the following - letter to her brother Macareus, who had taken sanctuary in the temple - of Apollo._ - - If streaming blood my fatal letter stain, - Imagine, ere you read, the writer slain; - One hand the sword, and one the pen employs, - And in my lap the ready paper lies. - Think in this posture thou behold'st me write; - In this my cruel father would delight. - O! were he present, that his eyes and hands - Might see, and urge the death which he commands! - Than all the raging winds more dreadful, he, - Unmoved, without a tear, my wounds would see. - Jove justly placed him on a stormy throne, - His people's temper is so like his own. - The north and south, and each contending blast, - Are underneath his wide dominion cast: - Those he can rule; but his tempestuous mind - Is, like his airy kingdom, unconfined. - Ah! what avail my kindred Gods above, - That in their number I can reckon Jove! - What help will all my heavenly friends afford, - When to my breast I lift the pointed sword? - That hour, which joined us, came before its time; - In death we had been one without a crime. - Why did thy flames beyond a brother's move? - Why loved I thee with more than sister's love? - For I loved too; and, knowing not my wound, - A secret pleasure in thy kisses found; - My cheeks no longer did their colour boast, - My food grew loathsome, and my strength I lost: - Still ere I spoke, a sigh would stop my tongue; - Short were my slumbers, and my nights were long. - I knew not from my love these griefs did grow, - Yet was, alas! the thing I did not know. - My wily nurse, by long experience, found, - And first discovered to my soul its wound. - 'Tis love, said she; and then my downcast eyes, - And guilty dumbness, witnessed my surprise. - Forced at the last my shameful pain I tell; - And oh, what followed, we both know too well! - "When half denying, more than half content, - Embraces warmed me to a full consent, - Then with tumultuous joys my heart did beat, - And guilt, that made them anxious, made them great."[12] - But now my swelling womb heaved up my breast, - And rising weight my sinking limbs opprest. - What herbs, what plants, did not my nurse produce, - To make abortion by their powerful juice! - What medicines tried we not, to thee unknown! - Our first crime common; this was mine alone. - But the strong child, secure in his dark cell, - With nature's vigour did our arts repel, - And now the pale faced empress of the night - Nine times had filled her orb with borrowed light; - Not knowing 'twas my labour, I complain - Of sudden shootings, and of grinding pain; - My throes came thicker, and my cries increased, - Which with her hand the conscious nurse suppressed. - To that unhappy fortune was I come, - Pain urged my clamours, but fear kept me dumb. - With inward struggling I restrained my cries, - And drunk the tears that trickled from my eyes. - Death was in sight, Lucina gave no aid, - And even my dying had my guilt betrayed. - Thou cam'st, and in thy countenance sat despair; - Rent were thy garments all, and torn thy hair; - Yet feigning comfort, which thou couldst not give, - Prest in thy arms, and whispering me to live; - For both our sakes, saidst thou, preserve thy life; - Live, my dear sister, and my dearer wife. - Raised by that name, with my last pangs I strove; - Such power have words, when spoke by those we love. - The babe, as if he heard what thou hadst sworn, - With hasty joy sprung forward to be born. - What helps it to have weathered out one storm! - Fear of our father does another form. - High in his hall, rocked in a chair of state, - The king with his tempestuous council sate; - Through this large room our only passage lay, - By which we could the new-born babe convey. - Swathed in her lap, the bold nurse bore him out, - With olive branches covered round about; - And, muttering prayers, as holy rites she meant, - Through the divided crowd unquestioned went. - Just at the door the unhappy infant cried; - The grandsire heard him, and the theft he spied. - Swift as a whirlwind to the nurse he flies, - And deafs his stormy subjects with his cries. - With one fierce puff he blows the leaves away; - Exposed the self-discovered infant lay. - The noise reached me, and my presaging mind - Too soon its own approaching woes divined. - Not ships at sea with winds are shaken more, - Nor seas themselves, when angry tempests roar, - Than I, when my loud father's voice I hear; - The bed beneath me trembled with my fear. - He rushed upon me, and divulged my stain; - Scarce from my murder could his hands refrain. - I only answered him with silent tears; - They flowed; my tongue was frozen up with fears. - His little grandchild he commands away, - To mountain wolves and every bird of prey. - The babe cried out, as if he understood, - And begged his pardon with what voice he could. - By what expressions can my grief be shown? - Yet you may guess my anguish by your own, - To see my bowels, and, what yet was worse, - Your bowels too, condemned to such a curse! - Out went the king; my voice its freedom found, - My breasts I beat, my blubbered cheeks I wound. - And now appeared the messenger of death; - Sad were his looks, and scarce he drew his breath, - To say, "Your father sends you"--(with that word - His trembling hands presented me a sword;) - "Your father sends you this; and lets you know, - That your own crimes the use of it will show." - Too well I know the sense those words impart; - His present shall be treasured in my heart. - Are these the nuptial gifts a bride receives? - And this the fatal dower a father gives? - Thou God of marriage, shun thy own disgrace, - And take thy torch from this detested place! - Instead of that, let furies light their brands, - And fire my pile with their infernal hands! - With happier fortune may my sisters wed, - Warned by the dire example of the dead. - For thee, poor babe, what crime could they pretend? - How could thy infant innocence offend? - A guilt there was; but, oh, that guilt was mine! - Thou suffer'st for a sin that was not thine. - Thy mother's grief and crime! but just enjoyed, - Shewn to my sight, and born to be destroyed! - Unhappy offspring of my teeming womb! - Dragged headlong from thy cradle to thy tomb! - Thy unoffending life I could not save, - Nor weeping could I follow to thy grave; - Nor on thy tomb could offer my shorn hair, - Nor shew the grief which tender mothers bear. - Yet long thou shalt not from my arms be lost; - For soon I will overtake thy infant ghost. - But thou, my love, and now my love's despair, - Perform his funerals with paternal care; - His scattered limbs with my dead body burn, - And once more join us in the pious urn. - If on my wounded breast thou droppest a tear, - Think for whose sake my breast that wound did bear; - And faithfully my last desires fulfil, - As I perform my cruel father's will. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[12] These lines are original. - - - - -HELEN TO PARIS. - -EPIST. XVII.[13] - - -THE ARGUMENT. - - _Helen, having received an epistle from Paris, returns the following - answer; wherein she seems at first to chide him for his presumption in - writing as he had done, which could only proceed from his low opinion - of her virtue; then owns herself to be sensible of the passion which - he had expressed for her, though she much suspected his constancy; and - at last discovers her inclination to be favourable to him; the whole - letter shewing the extreme artifice of womankind._ - - When loose epistles violate chaste eyes, - She half consents, who silently denies. - How dares a stranger, with designs so vain, - Marriage and hospitable rights prophane? - Was it for this, your fleet did shelter find - From swelling seas, and every faithless wind? - For though a distant country brought you forth, - Your usage here was equal to your worth. - Does this deserve to be rewarded so? - Did you come here a stranger, or a foe? - Your partial judgment may perhaps complain, - And think me barbarous for my just disdain; - Ill-bred then let me be, but not unchaste, - Nor my clear fame with any spot defaced. - Though in my face there's no affected frown, - Nor in my carriage a feigned niceness shown, - I keep my honour still without a stain, - Nor has my love made any coxcomb vain. - Your boldness I with admiration see; - What hope had you to gain a queen like me? - Because a hero forced me once away, - Am I thought fit to be a second prey? - Had I been won, I had deserved your blame, - But sure my part was nothing but the shame. - Yet the base theft to him no fruit did bear, - I 'scaped unhurt by any thing but fear. - Rude force might some unwilling kisses gain; - But that was all he ever could obtain. - You on such terms would ne'er have let me go; - Were he like you, we had not parted so. - Untouched the youth restored me to my friends, - And modest usage made me some amends. - 'Tis virtue to repent a vicious deed; - Did he repent, that Paris might succeed? - Sure 'tis some fate that sets me above wrongs, - Yet still exposes me to busy tongues. - I'll not complain; for who's displeased with love, - If it sincere, discreet, and constant prove? - But that I fear; not that I think you base, - Or doubt the blooming beauties of my face; - But all your sex is subject to deceive, - And ours, alas! too willing to believe. - Yet others yield; and love o'ercomes the best; - But why should I not shine above the rest? - Fair Leda's story seems at first to be - A fit example, ready formed for me. - But she was cozened by a borrowed shape, - And under harmless feathers felt a rape. - If I should yield, what reason could I use? - By what mistake the loving crime excuse? - Her fault was in her powerful lover lost; - But of what Jupiter have I to boast? - Though you to heroes and to kings succeed, - Our famous race does no addition need; - And great alliances but useless prove, - To one that comes herself from mighty Jove. - Go then, and boast, in some less haughty place, - Your Phrygian blood, and Priam's ancient race; - Which I would shew I valued, if I durst; - You are the fifth from Jove, but I the first. - The crown of Troy is powerful, I confess; - But I have reason to think ours no less. - Your letter, filled with promises of all - That men can good, and women pleasant call, - Gives expectation such an ample field, - As would move goddesses themselves to yield. - But if I e'er offend great Juno's laws, - Yourself shall be the dear, the only cause; - Either my honour I'll to death maintain, - Or follow you, without mean thoughts of gain. - Not that so fair a present I despise; - We like the gift, when we the giver prize: - But 'tis your love moves me, which made you take - Such pains, and run such hazards for my sake. - I have perceived, though I dissembled too, - A thousand things that love has made you do. - Your eager eyes would almost dazzle mine, - In which, wild man, your wanton thoughts would shine. - Sometimes you'd sigh, sometimes disordered stand, - And with unusual ardour press my hand; - Contrive just after me to take the glass, - Nor would you let the least occasion pass; - When oft I feared, I did not mind alone, - And blushing sate for things which you have done; - Then murmured to myself,--he'll for my sake - Do any thing;--I hope 'twas no mistake. - Oft have I read within this pleasing grove, - Under my name, those charming words,--I love. - I, frowning, seemed not to believe your flame; - But now, alas! am come to write the same. - If I were capable to do amiss, - I could not but be sensible of this. - For oh! your face has such peculiar charms, - That who can hold from flying to your arms! - But what I ne'er can have without offence, - May some blest maid possess with innocence. - Pleasure may tempt, but virtue more should move; - O learn of me to want the thing you love. - What you desire is sought by all mankind; - As you have eyes, so others are not blind. - Like you they see, like you my charms adore; - They wish not less, but you dare venture more. - Oh! had you then upon our coasts been brought, - My virgin-love when thousand rivals sought, - You had I seen, you should have had my voice, - Nor could my husband justly blame my choice. - For both our hopes, alas! you come too late; - Another now is master of my fate. - More to my wish I could have lived with you, - And yet my present lot can undergo. - Cease to solicit a weak woman's will, - And urge not her you love to so much ill; - But let me live contented as I may, - And make not my unspotted fame your prey. - Some right you claim, since naked to your eyes - Three goddesses disputed beauty's prize; - One offered valour, t'other crowns; but she - Obtained her cause, who, smiling, promised me. - But first I am not of belief so light, - To think such nymphs would shew you such a sight; - Yet granting this, the other part is feigned; - A bribe so mean your sentence had not gained. - With partial eyes I should myself regard, - To think that Venus made me her reward. - I humbly am content with human praise; - A Goddess's applause would envy raise. - But be it as you say; for, 'tis confest, - The men, who flatter highest, please us best. - That I suspect it, ought not to displease; - For miracles are not believed with ease. - One joy I have, that I had Venus' voice; - A greater yet, that you confirmed her choice; - That proffered laurels, promised sovereignty, - Juno and Pallas, you contemned for me. - Am I your empire, then, and your renown? - What heart of rock, but must by this be won? - And yet bear witness, O you Powers above, - How rude I am in all the arts of love! - My hand is yet untaught to write to men; - This is the essay of my unpractised pen. - Happy those nymphs, whom use has perfect made! - I think all crime, and tremble at a shade. - E'en while I write, my fearful conscious eyes - Look often back, misdoubting a surprise. - For now the rumour spreads among the crowd, - At court in whispers, but in town aloud. - Dissemble you, whate'er you hear them say; } - To leave off loving were your better way; } - Yet if you will dissemble it, you may. } - Love secretly; the absence of my lord - More freedom gives, but does not all afford; - Long is his journey, long will be his stay, - Called by affairs of consequence away. - To go, or not, when unresolved he stood, - I bid him make what swift return he could; - Then kissing me, he said, I recommend - All to thy care, but most my Trojan friend. - I smiled at what he innocently said, - And only answered, "You shall be obeyed." - Propitious winds have borne him far from hence, - But let not this secure your confidence. - Absent he is, yet absent he commands; - You know the proverb, "Princes have long hands." - My fame's my burden; for the more I'm praised, - A juster ground of jealousy is raised. - Were I less fair, I might have been more blest; - Great beauty through great danger is possest. - To leave me here his venture was not hard, - Because he thought my virtue was my guard. - He feared my face, but trusted to my life; - The beauty doubted, but believed the wife. - You bid me use the occasion while I can, - Put in our hands by the good easy man. - I would, and yet I doubt, 'twixt love and fear; - One draws me from you, and one brings me near. - Our flames are mutual, and my husband's gone; - The nights are long; I fear to lie alone. - One house contains us, and weak walls divide, - And you're too pressing to be long denied. - Let me not live, but every thing conspires - To join our loves, and yet my fear retires. - You court with words, when you should force employ; - A rape is requisite to shame-faced joy. - Indulgent to the wrongs which we receive, - Our sex can suffer what we dare not give.-- - What have I said? for both of us 'twere best, - Our kindling fire if each of us supprest. - The faith of strangers is too prone to change, - And, like themselves, their wandering passions range. - Hypsipile, and the fond Minonian[14] maid, - Were both by trusting of their guests betrayed. - How can I doubt that other men deceive, - When you yourself did fair Œnone[15] leave? - But lest I should upbraid your treachery, - You make a merit of that crime to me. - Yet grant you were to faithful love inclined, - Your weary Trojans wait but for a wind; - Should you prevail, while I assign the night, - Your sails are hoisted, and you take your flight; - Some bawling mariner our love destroys, - And breaks asunder our unfinished joys. - But I with you may leave the Spartan port, - To view the Trojan wealth and Priam's court; - Shown while I see, I shall expose my fame, - And fill a foreign country with my shame. - In Asia what reception shall I find? - And what dishonour leave in Greece behind? - What will your brothers, Priam, Hecuba, - And what will all your modest matrons say? - E'en you, when on this action you reflect, - My future conduct justly may suspect; - And whate'er stranger lands upon your coast, - Conclude me, by your own example, lost. - I from your rage a strumpet's name shall hear, - While you forget what part in it you bear. - You, my crime's author, will my crime upbraid;-- - Deep under ground, oh, let me first be laid! - You boast the pomp and plenty of your land, - And promise all shall be at my command; - Your Trojan wealth, believe me, I despise; - My own poor native land has dearer ties. - Should I be injured on your Phrygian shore, - What help of kindred could I there implore? - Medea was by Jason's flattery won; - I may, like her, believe, and be undone. - Plain honest hearts, like mine, suspect no cheat, - And love contributes to its own deceit; - The ships, about whose sides loud tempests roar, - With gentle winds were wafted from the shore. - Your teeming mother dreamed, a flaming brand, - Sprung from her womb, consumed the Trojan land; - To second this, old prophecies conspire, - That Ilium shall be burnt with Grecian fire: - Both give me fear; nor is it much allayed, - That Venus is obliged our loves to aid. - For they, who lost their cause, revenge will take; - And for one friend two enemies you make. - Nor can I doubt, but, should I follow you, - The sword would soon our fatal crime pursue. - A wrong so great my husband's rage would rouse, - And my relations would his cause espouse. - You boast your strength and courage; but, alas! - Your words receive small credit from your face. - Let heroes in the dusty field delight, - Those limbs were fashioned for another fight. - Bid Hector sally from the walls of Troy; - A sweeter quarrel should your arms employ. - Yet fears like these should not my mind perplex, - Were I as wise as many of my sex; - But time and you may bolder thoughts inspire, - And I, perhaps, may yield to your desire. - You last demand a private conference; - These are your words, but I can guess your sense. - Your unripe hopes their harvest must attend; - Be ruled by me, and time may be your friend. - This is enough to let you understand; - For now my pen has tired my tender hand. - My woman knows the secret of my heart, - And may hereafter better news impart. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[13] This epistle was partly translated by Lord Mulgrave. - -[14] Ariadne. - -[15] A Phrygian nymph, seduced and deserted by Paris before his -Spartan expedition. - - - - -DIDO TO ÆNEAS. - -EPIST. VII. - - -THE ARGUMENT. - - _Æneas, the son of Venus and Anchises, having, at the destruction of - Troy, saved his Gods, his father, and son Ascanius, from the fire, - put to sea with twenty sail of ships; and, having been long tost with - tempests, was at last cast upon the shore of Libya, where queen Dido - (flying from the cruelty of Pygmalion, her brother, who had killed her - husband Sichæus) had lately built Carthage. She entertained Æneas and - his fleet with great civility, fell passionately in love with him, and - in the end denied him not the last favours. But Mercury admonishing - Æneas to go in search of Italy, (a kingdom promised him by the Gods,) - he readily prepared to follow him. Dido soon perceived it, and, having - in vain tried all other means to engage him to stay, at last, in - despair, writes to him as follows._ - - So, on Mæander's banks, when death is nigh, - The mournful swan sings her own elegy. - Not that I hope (for, oh, that hope were vain!) - By words your lost affection to regain; - But, having lost whate'er was worth my care, - Why should I fear to lose a dying prayer? - 'Tis then resolved poor Dido must be left, - Of life, of honour, and of love bereft! - While you, with loosened sails, and vows, prepare - To seek a land that flies the searcher's care; - Nor can my rising towers your flight restrain, - Nor my new empire, offered you in vain. - Built walls you shun, unbuilt you seek; that land - Is yet to conquer, but you this command. - Suppose you landed where your wish designed, - Think what reception foreigners would find. - What people is so void of common sense, - To vote succession from a native prince? - Yet there new sceptres and new loves you seek, - New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break. - When will your towers the height of Carthage know? - Or when your eyes discern such crowds below? - If such a town and subjects you could see, - Still would you want a wife who loved like me. - For, oh, I burn, like fires with incense bright; - Not holy tapers flame with purer light. - Æneas is my thoughts' perpetual theme, - Their daily longing, and their nightly dream. - Yet he's ungrateful and obdurate still; - Fool that I am to place my heart so ill! - Myself I cannot to myself restore; - Still I complain, and still I love him more. - Have pity, Cupid, on my bleeding heart, - And pierce thy brother's with an equal dart. - I rave; nor canst thou Venus' offspring be, - Love's mother could not bear a son like thee. - From hardened oak, or from a rock's cold womb, - At least thou art from some fierce tigress come; - Or on rough seas, from their foundation torn, - Got by the winds, and in a tempest born: - Like that, which now thy trembling sailors fear; - Like that, whose rage should still detain thee here. - Behold how high the foamy billows ride! - The winds and waves are on the juster side. - To winter weather, and a stormy sea, - I'll owe what rather I would owe to thee. - Death thou deserv'st from heaven's avenging laws; - But I'm unwilling to become the cause. - To shun my love, if thou wilt seek thy fate, - 'Tis a dear purchase, and a costly hate. - Stay but a little, till the tempest cease, - And the loud winds are lulled into a peace. - May all thy rage, like theirs, inconstant prove! - And so it will, if there be power in love. - Know'st thou not yet what dangers ships sustain? - So often wrecked, how darest thou tempt the main? - Which were it smooth, were every wave asleep, - Ten thousand forms of death are in the deep. - In that abyss the gods their vengeance store, - For broken vows of those who falsely swore; - There winged storms on sea-born Venus wait, - To vindicate the justice of her state. - Thus I to thee the means of safety show; - And, lost myself, would still preserve my foe. - False as thou art, I not thy death design; - O rather live, to be the cause of mine! - Should some avenging storm thy vessel tear, - (But heaven forbid my words should omen bear!) - Then in thy face thy perjured vows would fly, - And my wronged ghost be present to thy eye; - With threatening looks think thou behold'st me stare, - Gasping my mouth, and clotted all my hair. - Then, should forked lightning and red thunder fall, - What couldst thou say, but, I deserved them all? - Lest this should happen, make not haste away; - To shun the danger will be worth thy stay. - Have pity on thy son, if not on me; - My death alone is guilt enough for thee. - What has his youth, what have thy gods deserved, - To sink in seas, who were from fires preserved? - But neither gods nor parent didst thou bear; - Smooth stories all, to please a woman's ear, - False as the tale of thy romantic life. - Nor yet am I thy first-deluded wife; - Left to pursuing foes Creusa stayed, - By thee, base man, forsaken and betrayed. - This, when thou told'st me, struck my tender heart,[16] - That such requital followed such desert. - Nor doubt I but the gods, for crimes like these, - Seven winters kept thee wandering on the seas. - Thy starved companions, cast ashore, I fed, - Thyself admitted to my crown and bed. - To harbour strangers, succour the distrest, - Was kind enough; but, oh, too kind the rest! - Curst be the cave which first my ruin brought, - Where, from the storm, we common shelter sought! - A dreadful howling echoed round the place; - The mountain nymphs, thought I, my nuptials grace. - I thought so then, but now too late I know - The furies yelled my funerals from below. - O chastity and violated fame, - Exact your dues to my dead husband's name! - By death redeem my reputation lost, - And to his arms restore my guilty ghost! - Close by my palace, in a gloomy grove, - Is raised a chapel to my murdered love; - There, wreathed with boughs and wool, his statue stands, - The pious monument of artful hands. - Last night, methought, he called me from the dome, - And thrice, with hollow voice, cried, Dido, come!-- - She comes; thy wife thy lawful summons hears, - But comes more slowly, clogged with conscious fears. - Forgive the wrong I offered to thy bed; - Strong were his charms, who my weak faith misled. - His goddess mother, and his aged sire - Borne on his back, did to my fall conspire. - Oh! such he was, and is, that, were he true, - Without a blush I might his love pursue; - But cruel stars my birth-day did attend, - And, as my fortune opened, it must end. - My plighted lord was at the altar slain, - Whose wealth was made my bloody brother's gain; - Friendless, and followed by the murderer's hate, - To foreign countries I removed my fate; - And here, a suppliant, from the natives' hands - I bought the ground on which my city stands, - With all the coast that stretches to the sea, - E'en to the friendly port that sheltered thee; - Then raised these walls, which mount into the air, - At once my neighbours' wonder, and their fear. - For now they arm; and round me leagues are made, - My scarce established empire to invade. - To man my new-built walls I must prepare, - An helpless woman, and unskilled in war. - Yet thousand rivals to my love pretend, - And for my person would my crown defend; - Whose jarring votes in one complaint agree, - That each unjustly is disdained for thee. - To proud Hyarbas give me up a prey, - For that must follow, if thou goest away; - Or to my husband's murderer leave my life, - That to the husband he may add the wife. - Go then, since no complaints can move thy mind; - Go, perjured man, but leave thy gods behind. - Touch not those gods, by whom thou art forsworn, - Who will in impious hands no more be borne; - Thy sacrilegious worship they disdain, - And rather would the Grecian fires sustain. - Perhaps my greatest shame is still to come, - And part of thee lies hid within my womb; - The babe unborn must perish by thy hate, - And perish, guiltless, in his mother's fate. - Some god, thou sayest, thy voyage does command; - Would the same god had barred thee from my land! - The same, I doubt not, thy departure steers, - Who kept thee out at sea so many years; - While thy long labours were a price so great, - As thou, to purchase Troy, would'st not repeat. - But Tyber now thou seek'st, to be at best, - When there arrived, a poor precarious guest. - Yet it deludes thy search; perhaps it will - To thy old age lie undiscovered still. - A ready crown and wealth in dower I bring, - And, without conquering, here thou art a king. - Here thou to Carthage may'st transfer thy Troy; - Here young Ascanius may his arms employ; - And, while we live secure in soft repose, - Bring many laurels home from conquered foes. - By Cupid's arrows, I adjure thee stay! - By all the gods, companions of thy way! - So may thy Trojans, who are yet alive, - Live still, and with no future fortune strive; - So may thy youthful son old age attain, - And thy dead father's bones in peace remain; - As thou hast pity on unhappy me, - Who knew no crime, but too much love of thee. - I am not born from fierce Achilles' line, - Nor did my parents against Troy combine. - To be thy wife if I unworthy prove, - By some inferior name admit my love. - To be secured of still possessing thee, - What would I do, and what would I not be! - Our Libyan coasts their certain seasons know, - When, free from tempests, passengers may go; - But now with northern blasts the billows roar, - And drive the floating sea-weed to the shore. - Leave to my care the time to sail away; - When safe, I will not suffer thee to stay. - Thy weary men would be with ease content; - Their sails are tattered, and their masts are spent. - If by no merit I thy mind can move, - What thou deniest my merit, give my love. - Stay, till I learn my loss to undergo, - And give me time to struggle with my woe: - If not, know this, I will not suffer long; - My life's too loathsome, and my love too strong. - Death holds my pen, and dictates what I say, - While cross my lap the Trojan sword I lay. - My tears flow down; the sharp edge cuts their flood, - And drinks my sorrows, that must drink my blood. - How well thy gift does with my fate agree! - My funeral pomp is cheaply made by thee. - To no new wounds my bosom I display; - The sword but enters where love made the way. - But thou, dear sister, and yet dearer friend, - Shalt my cold ashes to their urn attend. - Sichæus' wife let not the marble boast; - I lost that title, when my fame I lost. - This short inscription only let it bear; - "Unhappy Dido lies in quiet here. - "The cause of death, and sword by which she died, - "Æneas gave; the rest her arm supplied." - -FOOTNOTES: - -[16] Dryden here misinterprets his author: - - _Hæc mihi narrâras, nec me movere_---- - -The line would have run more justly thus: - - This struck not, while thou told'st, my tender heart. - - - - -TRANSLATIONS - -FROM - -OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - - - -DEDICATION - -PREFIXED TO THE TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID's METAMORPHOSES. - - -This Dedication contains abundance of literary and political -controversy. The first heat of the Revolution had been long over, and -the losers began to assume the privilege of talking, without fear that -an established government would think their complaints worthy of much -notice. Dryden, whom the evils of degradation and poverty pressed -severely, was not of a temper to remain silent under them, as soon as -he conceived it safe to utter his grievances. In losing his places of -laureat and historiographer, there was not only dishonour, but great -pecuniary loss; nor was it at all a soothing addition, that his old -enemy Shadwell had obtained the one, and his equivocal friend Rymer -the other, of his appointments. He sets out in extremely bad humour -with the government, under which he had suffered this deprivation; -with those who had risen by his fall; and with himself, for having -cultivated the barren field of poetry, instead of aspiring to the -honours of the gown. At length, after having ventured probably as far -as he thought safe, certainly as far as to excite displeasure, in -flourishes of declamation, which, though expressed against ministers -in general, are obviously levelled against those of the day, he turns -short, and falls with great vehemence upon the whole body of critics, -ancient and modern, as the natural enemies of poets and poetry. -Descending to those of his own day, he singles out Rymer, who, in -a piece, called, "A short View of Tragedy," published in 1692, had -depreciated the modern drama in his deep admiration of the ancients. -The controversy concerning the comparative merits of the ancients and -moderns was now raging in the literary world. Perault had written his -"Parallel," and Sir William Temple his "Essay on Ancient and Modern -Learning." Wotton's "Reflections" were published in 1694, and these -led the way to Swift's "Battle of the Books," in which our author is -treated with great severity. - -Rymer had not only espoused the cause of the ancient tragedians in the -general dispute, but, as Dryden complains, had treated him slightly; -and our bard was not famous for patience under such offences. He -therefore retorts in this Dedication, maliciously upbraids Rymer with -the fate of his fallen tragedy "Edgar;" and artfully divides the -comparison between the Grecian and British dramatists, from that which -Perault had instituted between the ancient poets in general and those -of modern France. Our author's good taste, as well as policy, led him -to take a distinction so necessary for the maintenance of his cause. -Having bestowed what he thought an adequate chastisement upon Rymer, -he employs the small remainder of the preface in discussing a few -miscellaneous points of criticism, chiefly relating to translation. - -The tone of this Dedication excited, as Dryden himself informs us, the -resentment of the court, who employed Rymer to attack our author's -dramatic reputation; a task which he never accomplished.[17] - -FOOTNOTES: - -[17] See his letter to Tonson, in which he thus expresses -himself: "About a fortnight ago, I had an intimation from a friend, by -letter, that one of the secretaries, I suppose Trenchard, had informed -the queen, that I had abused her government, (these were his words,) -in my epistle to Lord Radcliffe; and that thereupon she had commanded -her historiographer to fall upon my plays, which he assures me he is -now doing. I doubt not his malice, from a former hint you gave me; and -if he be employed, I am confident 'tis of his own seeking, who, you -know, _has spoken slightly of me in his last critique, and that gave me -occasion to snarl again_." - - - - -DEDICATION OF THE THIRD MISCELLANY, 1693, - -CONTAINING - -TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - - - -TO - -THE RIGHT HONOURABLE - -LORD RADCLIFFE.[18] - - -MY LORD, - -These Miscellany Poems are by many titles yours. The first they claim, -from your acceptance of my promise to present them to you, before -some of them were yet in being. The rest are derived from your own -merit, the exactness of your judgment in poetry, and the candour of -your nature; easy to forgive some trivial faults, when they come -accompanied with countervailing beauties. But, after all, though these -are your equitable claims to a dedication from other poets, yet I must -acknowledge a bribe in the case, which is your particular liking of my -verses. It is a vanity common to all writers, to overvalue their own -productions; and it is better for me to own this failing in myself, -than the world to do it for me. For what other reason have I spent -my life in so unprofitable a study? why am I grown old, in seeking -so barren a reward as fame? The same parts and application, which -have made me a poet, might have raised me to any honours of the gown, -which are often given to men of as little learning and less honesty -than myself. No government has ever been, or ever can be, wherein -timeservers and blockheads will not be uppermost. The persons are -only changed, but the same jugglings in state, the same hypocrisy -in religion, the same self-interest and mismanagement, will remain -for ever. Blood and money will be lavished in all ages, only for the -preferment of new faces, with old consciences. There is too often a -jaundice in the eyes of great men; they see not those whom they raise -in the same colours with other men. All whom they affect look golden to -them, when the gilding is only in their own distempered sight. These -considerations have given me a kind of contempt for those who have -risen by unworthy ways. I am not ashamed to be little, when I see them -so infamously great; neither do I know why the name of poet should be -dishonourable to me, if I am truly one, as I hope I am; for I will -never do any thing that shall dishonour it. The notions of morality are -known to all men; none can pretend ignorance of those ideas which are -inborn in mankind; and if I see one thing, and practise the contrary, -I must be disingenuous not to acknowledge a clear truth, and base to -act against the light of my own conscience. For the reputation of my -honesty, no man can question it, who has any of his own; for that of -my poetry, it shall either stand by its own merit, or fall for want of -it. Ill writers are usually the sharpest censors; for they, as the best -poet and the best patron said, - - When in the full perfection of decay, - Turn vinegar, and come again in play.[19] - -Thus the corruption of a poet is the generation of a critic; I mean -of a critic in the general acceptation of this age; for formerly they -were quite another species of men. They were defenders of poets, -and commentators on their works;--to illustrate obscure beauties; -to place some passages in a better light; to redeem others from -malicious interpretations; to help out an author's modesty, who is -not ostentatious of his wit; and, in short, to shield him from the -ill-nature of those fellows, who were then called Zoili and Momi, and -now take upon themselves the venerable name of censors. But neither -Zoilus, nor he who endeavoured to defame Virgil, were ever adopted into -the name of critics by the ancients. What their reputation was then, -we know; and their successors in this age deserve no better. Are our -auxiliary forces turned our enemies? are they, who at best are but wits -of the second order, and whose only credit amongst readers is what -they obtained by being subservient to the fame of writers, are these -become rebels, of slaves, and usurpers, of subjects? or, to speak in -the most honourable terms of them, are they, from our seconds, become -principals against us? Does the ivy undermine the oak, which supports -its weakness? What labour would it cost them to put in a better line, -than the worst of those which they expunge in a true poet? Petronius, -the greatest wit perhaps of all the Romans, yet when his envy prevailed -upon his judgment to fall on Lucan, he fell himself in his attempt; he -performed worse in his "Essay of the Civil War" than the author of the -"Pharsalia;" and, avoiding his errors, has made greater of his own. -Julius Scaliger would needs turn down Homer, and abdicate him after the -possession of three thousand years: has he succeeded in his attempt? -he has indeed shown us some of those imperfections in him, which are -incident to human kind; but who had not rather be that Homer than this -Scaliger? You see the same hypercritic, when he endeavours to mend -the beginning of Claudian, (a faulty poet, and living in a barbarous -age,) yet how short he comes of him, and substitutes such verses of -his own as deserve the ferula. What a censure has he made of Lucan, -that "he rather seems to bark than sing?" Would any but a dog have made -so snarling a comparison? one would have thought he had learned Latin -as late as they tell us he did Greek. Yet he came off, with a _pace -tuâ_,--by your good leave, Lucan; he called him not by those outrageous -names, of fool, booby, and blockhead: he had somewhat more of good -manners than his successors, as he had much more knowledge. We have two -sorts of those gentlemen in our nation; some of them, proceeding with a -seeming moderation and pretence of respect to the dramatic writers of -the last age, only scorn and vilify the present poets, to set up their -predecessors. But this is only in appearance; for their real design is -nothing less than to do honour to any man, besides themselves. Horace -took notice of such men in his age: - - _Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis, - Nostra sed impugnat; nos nostraque lividus odit._ - -It is not with an ultimate intention to pay reverence to the names -of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, that they commend their -writings, but to throw dirt on the writers of this age: their -declaration is one thing, and their practice is another. By a -seeming veneration to our fathers, they would thrust out us, their -lawful issue, and govern us themselves, under a specious pretence of -reformation. If they could compass their intent, what would wit and -learning get by such a change? If we are bad poets, they are worse; -and when any of their woeful pieces come abroad, the difference is so -great betwixt them and good writers, that there need no criticisms on -our part to decide it. When they describe the writers of this age, -they draw such monstrous figures of them, as resemble none of us; our -pretended pictures are so unlike, that it is evident we never sat to -them: they are all grotesque; the products of their wild imaginations, -things out of nature; so far from being copied from us, that they -resemble nothing that ever was, or ever can be. But there is another -sort of insects, more venomous than the former; those who manifestly -aim at the destruction of our poetical church and state; who allow -nothing to their countrymen, either of this or of the former age. These -attack the living by raking up the ashes of the dead; well knowing that -if they can subvert their original title to the stage, we who claim -under them must fall of course. Peace be to the venerable shades of -Shakespeare and Ben Jonson! none of the living will presume to have any -competition with them; as they were our predecessors, so they were -our masters. We trail our plays under them; but as at the funerals of -a Turkish emperor, our ensigns are furled or dragged upon the ground, -in honour to the dead, so we may lawfully advance our own afterwards, -to show that we succeed; if less in dignity, yet on the same foot and -title, which we think too we can maintain against the insolence of our -own janizaries. If I am the man, as I have reason to believe, who am -seemingly courted, and secretly undermined; I think I shall be able to -defend myself, when I am openly attacked; and to show, besides, that -the Greek writers only gave us the rudiments of a stage which they -never finished; that many of the tragedies in the former age amongst -us were without comparison beyond those of Sophocles and Euripides. -But at present, I have neither the leisure, nor the means, for such an -undertaking. It is ill going to law for an estate, with him who is in -possession of it, and enjoys the present profits, to feed his cause. -But the _quantum mutatus_ may be remembered in due time. In the mean -while, I leave the world to judge, who gave the provocation. - -This, my lord, is, I confess, a long digression, from miscellany poems -to modern tragedies; but I have the ordinary excuse of an injured man, -who will be telling his tale unseasonably to his betters; though, at -the same time, I am certain you are so good a friend, as to take a -concern in all things which belong to one who so truly honours you. And -besides, being yourself a critic of the genuine sort, who have read -the best authors in their own languages, who perfectly distinguish of -their several merits, and, in general, prefer them to the moderns, yet, -I know, you judge for the English tragedies, against the Greek and -Latin, as well as against the French, Italian, and Spanish, of these -latter ages. Indeed, there is a vast difference betwixt arguing like -Perault, in behalf of the French poets, against Homer and Virgil, and -betwixt giving the English poets their undoubted due, of excelling -Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. For if we, or our greater fathers, -have not yet brought the drama to an absolute perfection, yet at -least we have carried it much farther than those ancient Greeks; who, -beginning from a chorus, could never totally exclude it, as we have -done; who find it an unprofitable incumbrance, without any necessity of -entertaining it amongst us, and without the possibility of establishing -it here, unless it were supported by a public charge. Neither can we -accept of those lay-bishops, as some call them, who, under pretence -of reforming the stage, would intrude themselves upon us, as our -superiors; being indeed incompetent judges of what is manners, what -religion, and, least of all, what is poetry and good sense. I can tell -them, in behalf of all my fellows, that when they come to exercise -a jurisdiction over us, they shall have the stage to themselves, as -they have the laurel. As little can I grant, that the French dramatic -writers excel the English. Our authors as far surpass them in genius, -as our soldiers excel theirs in courage. It is true, in conduct they -surpass us either way; yet that proceeds not so much from their greater -knowledge, as from the difference of tastes in the two nations. They -content themselves with a thin design, without episodes, and managed -by few persons; our audience will not be pleased, but with variety of -accidents, an underplot, and many actors. They follow the ancients too -servilely in the mechanic rules, and we assume too much licence to -ourselves, in keeping them only in view, at too great a distance. But -if our audience had their tastes, our poets could more easily comply -with them, than the French writers could come up to the sublimity of -our thoughts, or to the difficult variety of our designs. However it -be, I dare establish it for a rule of practice on the stage, that we -are bound to please those whom we pretend to entertain; and that at -any price, religion and good manners only excepted; and I care not -much, if I give this handle to our bad illiterate poetasters, for the -defence of their _Scriptions_, as they call them. There is a sort of -merit in delighting the spectators, which is a name more proper for -them, than that of auditors; or else Horace is in the wrong, when he -commends Lucilius for it. But these common places I mean to treat at -greater leisure; in the mean time submitting that little I have said -to your lordship's approbation, or your censure, and chusing rather to -entertain you this way, as you are a judge of writing, than to oppress -your modesty with other commendations; which, though they are your due, -yet would not be equally received in this satirical and censorious age. -That which cannot, without injury, be denied to you, is the easiness -of your conversation, far from affectation or pride; not denying even -to enemies their just praises. And this, if I would dwell on any theme -of this nature, is no vulgar commendation to your lordship. Without -flattery, my lord, you have it in your nature, to be a patron and -encourager of good poets; but your fortune has not yet put into your -hands the opportunity of expressing it. What you will be hereafter, -may be more than guessed, by what you are at present. You maintain -the character of a nobleman, without that haughtiness which generally -attends too many of the nobility; and when you converse with gentlemen, -you forget not that you have been of their order. You are married to -the daughter of a king; who, amongst her other high perfections, has -derived from him a charming behaviour, a winning goodness, and a -majestic person. The Muses and the Graces are the ornaments of your -family; while the Muse sings, the Grace accompanies her voice: Even the -servants of the Muses have sometimes had the happiness to hear her, and -to receive their inspirations from her.[20] - -I will not give myself the liberty of going farther; for it is so sweet -to wander in a pleasing way, that I should never arrive at my journey's -end. To keep myself from being belated in my letter, and tiring your -attention, I must return to the place where I was setting out. I humbly -dedicate to your lordship my own labours in this Miscellany; at the -same time, not arrogating to myself the privilege, of inscribing to -you the works of others who are joined with me in this undertaking, -over which I can pretend no right. Your lady and you have done me the -favour to hear me read my translations of Ovid; and you both seemed not -to be displeased with them. Whether it be the partiality of an old man -to his youngest child, I know not; but they appear to me the best of -all my endeavours in this kind. Perhaps this poet is more easy to be -translated than some others whom I have lately attempted; perhaps, too, -he was more according to my genius. He is certainly more palatable to -the reader, than any of the Roman wits; though some of them are more -lofty, some more instructive, and others more correct. He had learning -enough to make him equal to the best; but, as his verse came easily, -he wanted the toil of application to amend it. He is often luxuriant -both in his fancy and expressions, and, as it has lately been observed, -not always natural. If wit be pleasantry, he has it to excess; but if -it be propriety, Lucretius, Horace, and, above all, Virgil, are his -superiors. I have said so much of him already in my preface to his -"Heroical Epistles," that there remains little to be added in this -place: For my own part, I have endeavoured to copy his character, what -I could, in this translation; even, perhaps, farther than I should have -done,--to his very faults. Mr Chapman, in his "Translation of Homer," -professes to have done it somewhat paraphrastically, and that on set -purpose; his opinion being, that a good poet is to be translated in -that manner. I remember not the reason which he gives for it; but I -suppose it is for fear of omitting any of his excellencies. Sure I am, -that if it be a fault, it is much more pardonable than that of those, -who run into the other extreme of a literal and close translation, -where the poet is confined so straitly to his author's words, that he -wants elbow-room to express his elegancies. He leaves him obscure; he -leaves him prose, where he found him verse; and no better than thus has -Ovid been served by the so-much-admired Sandys. This is at least the -idea which I have remaining of his translation; for I never read him -since I was a boy. They who take him upon content, from the praises -which their fathers gave him, may inform their judgment by reading him -again, and see (if they understand the original) what is become of -Ovid's poetry in his version; whether it be not all, or the greatest -part of it, evaporated. But this proceeded from the wrong judgment of -the age in which he lived. They neither knew good verse, nor loved -it; they were scholars, it is true, but they were pedants; and, for a -just reward of their pedantic pains, all their translations want to be -translated into English. - -If I flatter not myself, or if my friends have not flattered me, -I have given my author's sense for the most part truly; for, to -mistake sometimes is incident to all men; and not to follow the Dutch -commentators always, may be forgiven to a man, who thinks them, in the -general, heavy gross-witted fellows, fit only to gloss on their own -dull poets. But I leave a farther satire on their wit, till I have a -better opportunity to show how much I love and honour them. I have -likewise attempted to restore Ovid to his native sweetness, easiness, -and smoothness; and to give my poetry a kind of cadence, and, as we -call it, a run of verse, as like the original, as the English can -come up to the Latin. As he seldom uses any synalephas, so I have -endeavoured to avoid them as often as I could. I have likewise given -him his own turns, both on the words and on the thought; which I cannot -say are inimitable, because I have copied them, and so may others, -if they use the same diligence; but certainly they are wonderfully -graceful in this poet. Since I have named the synalepha, which is -the cutting off one vowel immediately before another, I will give an -example of it from Chapman's "Homer," which lies before me, for the -benefit of those who understand not the _Latin prosodia_. It is in the -first line of the argument to the first Iliad: - - Apollo's priest to th' Argive fleet doth bring, &c. - -There, we see, he makes it not, _the Argive_, but _th' Argive_, to shun -the shock of the two vowels, immediately following each other; but, in -his second argument, in the same page, he gives a bad example of the -quite contrary kind: - - Alpha the prayer of Chryses sings: - The army's plague, the strife of kings. - -In these words, _the army's,--the_ ending with a vowel, and _armies_ -beginning with another vowel, without cutting off the first, which by -it had been _th' armies_, there remains a most horrible ill-sounding -gap betwixt those words. I cannot say that I have every where observed -the rule of the synalepha in my translation; but wheresoever I have -not, it is a fault in sound. The French and the Italians have made -it an inviolable precept in their versification; therein following -the severe example of the Latin poets. Our countrymen have not yet -reformed their poetry so far, but content themselves with following -the licentious practice of the Greeks; who, though they sometimes use -synalephas, yet make no difficulty, very often, to sound one vowel upon -another; as Homer does, in the very first line of Alpha: - - Μήνιν ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληιάδεω Ἀχιλῆος - -It is true, indeed, that, in the second line, in these words, μυρὶ -Ἀχαιοῖς, and ἀλγὲ οὒθηκε, the synalepha, in revenge, is twice observed. -But it becomes us, for the sake of euphony, rather _Musas colere -severiores_, with the Romans, than to give into the looseness of the -Grecians. - -I have tired myself, and have been summoned by the press to send -away this Dedication, otherwise I had exposed some other faults, -which are daily committed by our English poets; which, with care and -observation, might be amended. For, after all, our language is both -copious, significant, and majestical, and might be reduced into a more -harmonious sound. But, for want of public encouragement, in this iron -age, we are so far from making any progress in the improvement of our -tongue, that in few years we shall speak and write as barbarously as -our neighbours. - -Notwithstanding my haste, I cannot forbear to tell your lordship, that -there are two fragments of Homer translated in this Miscellany; one by -Mr Congreve, (whom I cannot mention without the honour which is due to -his excellent parts, and that entire affection which I bear him,) and -the other by myself. Both the subjects are pathetical; and I am sure -my friend has added to the tenderness which he found in the original, -and, without flattery, surpassed his author. Yet I must needs say this -in reference to Homer, that he is much more capable of exciting the -manly passions than those of grief and pity. To cause admiration is, -indeed, the proper and adequate design of an epic poem; and in that -he has excelled even Virgil. Yet, without presuming to arraign our -master, I may venture to affirm, that he is somewhat too talkative, and -more than somewhat too digressive. This is so manifest, that it cannot -be denied in that little parcel which I have translated, perhaps too -literally: there Andromache, in the midst of her concernment and fright -for Hector, runs off her bias, to tell him a story of her pedigree, -and of the lamentable death of her father, her mother, and her seven -brothers. The devil was in Hector if he knew not all this matter, as -well as she who told it him; for she had been his bedfellow for many -years together: and if he knew it, then it must be confessed, that -Homer, in this long digression, has rather given us his own character, -than that of the fair lady whom he paints. His dear friends, the -commentators, who never fail him at a pinch, will needs excuse him, by -making the present sorrow of Andromache to occasion the remembrance -of all the past; but others think, that she had enough to do with -that grief which now oppressed her, without running for assistance to -her family. Virgil, I am confident, would have omitted such a work of -supererogation. But Virgil had the gift of expressing much in little, -and sometimes in silence; for, though he yielded much to Homer in -invention, he more excelled him in his admirable judgment. He drew the -passion of Dido for Æneas, in the most lively and most natural colours -that are imaginable. Homer was ambitious enough of moving pity, for he -has attempted twice on the same subject of Hector's death; first, when -Priam and Hecuba beheld his corpse, which was dragged after the chariot -of Achilles; and then in the lamentation which was made over him, when -his body was redeemed by Priam; and the same persons again bewail his -death, with a chorus of others to help the cry. But if this last excite -compassion in you, as I doubt not but it will, you are more obliged to -the translator than the poet; for Homer, as I observed before, can move -rage better than he can pity. He stirs up the irascible appetite, as -our philosophers call it; he provokes to murder, and the destruction -of God's images; he forms and equips those ungodly man-killers, whom -we poets, when we flatter them, call heroes; a race of men who can -never enjoy quiet in themselves, until they have taken it from all the -world. This is Homer's commendation; and, such as it is, the lovers -of peace, or at least of more moderate heroism, will never envy him. -But let Homer and Virgil contend for the prize of honour betwixt -themselves; I am satisfied they will never have a third concurrent. I -wish Mr Congreve had the leisure to translate him, and the world the -good nature and justice to encourage him in that noble design, of which -he is more capable than any man I know. The Earl of Mulgrave and Mr -Waller, two of the best judges of our age, have assured me, that they -could never read over the translation of Chapman, without incredible -pleasure and extreme transport. This admiration of theirs must needs -proceed from the author himself; for the translator has thrown him -down as low as harsh numbers, improper English, and a monstrous length -of verse could carry him. What then would he appear in the harmonious -version of one of the best writers, living in a much better age than -was the last? I mean for versification, and the art of numbers; for -in the drama we have not arrived to the pitch of Shakespeare and Ben -Jonson. But here, my lord, I am forced to break off abruptly, without -endeavouring at a compliment in the close. This Miscellany is, without -dispute, one of the best of the kind which has hitherto been extant -in our tongue; at least, as Sir Samuel Tuke has said before me, a -modest man may praise what is not his own. My fellows have no need of -any protection; but I humbly recommend my part of it, as much as it -deserves, to your patronage and acceptance, and all the rest to your -forgiveness. I am, - - My _Lord_, - Your Lordship's most obedient servant, - JOHN DRYDEN. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[18] Lord Radcliffe was the eldest son of Francis, Earl of -Derwentwater, by Catherine, daughter of Sir William Fenwick. He married -Mary Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles II., by Mary Davies, an -actress, who had the fortune to attract his majesty's attention, by -singing in D'Avenant's "Rivals," the famous mad song, - - My lodging is on the cold ground. - -Lord Radcliffe succeeded to his father in 1696-7, and died 29th April, -1705. - -[19] These lines are quoted from Lord Dorset's address "to Mr -Edward Howard, on his incomparable, incomprehensible poem, called, The -British Princes:" - - Wit, like tierce claret, when it 'gins to pall, - Neglected lies, and's of no use at all; - But, in its full perfection of decay, - Turns vinegar, and comes again in play. - -[20] The poet apparently speaks of Lady Radcliffe, who probably -inherited those vocal powers, with which her mother, Moll Davies, -charmed Charles II. The Grace might be her daughter. - - - - -THE - -FIRST BOOK - -OF - -OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - - Of bodies changed to various forms I sing:-- - Ye gods, from whence these miracles did spring, - Inspire my numbers with celestial heat, - Till I my long laborious work complete; - And add perpetual tenor to my rhymes, - Deduced from nature's birth to Cæsar's times. - Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball, - And heaven's high canopy, that covers all, - One was the face of nature, if a face; - Rather a rude and indigested mass; - A lifeless lump, unfashioned, and unframed, - Of jarring seeds, and justly chaos named. - No sun was lighted up the world to view; - No moon did yet her blunted horns renew; - Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky, - Nor, poised, did on her own foundations lie; - Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown; - But earth, and air, and water, were in one. - Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable, - And water's dark abyss unnavigable. - No certain form on any was imprest; - All were confused, and each disturbed the rest: - For hot and cold were in one body fixed; - And soft with hard, and light with heavy, mixed. - But God or Nature, while they thus contend, - To these intestine discords put an end. - Then earth from air, and seas from earth, were driven, - And grosser air sunk from ætherial heaven. - Thus disembroiled, they take their proper place; } - The next of kin contiguously embrace; } - And foes are sundered by a larger space. } - The force of fire ascended first on high, - And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky. - Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire, - Whose atoms from unactive earth retire. - Earth sinks beneath, and draws a numerous throng, - Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy seeds along. - About her coasts unruly waters roar, - And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore. - Thus when the God, whatever God was he, - Had formed the whole, and made the parts agree, - That no unequal portions might be found, - He moulded earth into a spacious round; - Then, with a breath, he gave the winds to blow, - And bade the congregated waters flow: - He adds the running springs, and standing lakes, - And bounding banks for winding rivers makes. - Some part in earth are swallowed up, the most - In ample oceans, disembogued, are lost: - He shades the woods, the values he restrains - With rocky mountains, and extends the plains. - And as five zones the ætherial regions bind, - Five, correspondent, are to earth assigned; - The sun, with rays directly darting down, - Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone: - The two beneath the distant poles complain - Of endless winter, and perpetual rain. - Betwixt the extremes, two happier climates hold - The temper that partakes of hot and cold. - The fields of liquid air, inclosing all, - Surround the compass of this earthly ball: - The lighter parts lie next the fires above; - The grosser near the watery surface move: - Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there, } - And thunder's voice, which wretched mortals fear, } - And winds that on their wings cold winter bear. } - Nor were those blustering brethren left at large, - On seas and shores their fury to discharge: - Bound as they are, and circumscribed in place, - They rend the world, resistless, where they pass, - And mighty marks of mischief leave behind; - Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind. - First, Eurus to the rising morn is sent, - (The regions of the balmy continent,) - And eastern realms, where early Persians run, - To greet the blest appearance of the sun. - Westward the wanton Zephyr wings his flight, - Pleased with the remnants of departing light; - Fierce Boreas with his offspring issues forth, - To invade the frozen waggon of the North; - While frowning Auster seeks the southern sphere, - And rots, with endless rain, the unwholesome year. - High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind, - The God a clearer space for heaven designed; - Where fields of light and liquid æther flow, - Purged from the ponderous dregs of earth below. - Scarce had the Power distinguished these, when straight - The stars, no longer overlaid with weight, - Exert their heads from underneath the mass, } - And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass, } - And with diffusive light adorn the heavenly place. } - Then, every void of nature to supply, - With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky: - New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share; } - New colonies of birds, to people air; } - And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair. } - A creature of a more exalted kind - Was wanting yet, and then was Man designed; - Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast, - For empire formed, and fit to rule the rest: - Whether with particles of heavenly fire - The God of nature did his soul inspire; - Or earth, but new divided from the sky, - And pliant still, retained the etherial energy; - Which wise Prometheus tempered into paste, - And, mixed with living streams, the godlike image cast. - Thus, while the mute creation downward bend - Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, - Man looks aloft, and, with erected eyes, - Beholds his own hereditary skies.-- - From such rude principles our form began, - And earth was metamorphosed into man. - - -THE GOLDEN AGE. - - The Golden Age was first; when man, yet new, } - No rule but uncorrupted reason knew; } - And, with a native bent, did good pursue. } - Unforced by punishment, unawed by fear, - His words were simple, and his soul sincere. - Needless was written law, where none opprest; - The law of man was written in his breast. - No suppliant crowds before the judge appeared; } - No court erected yet, nor cause was heard; } - But all was safe, for conscience was their guard. } - The mountain trees in distant prospect please, - Ere yet the pine descended to the seas; - Ere sails were spread, new oceans to explore; } - And happy mortals, unconcerned for more, } - Confined their wishes to their native shore. } - No walls were yet, nor fence, nor moat, nor mound; - Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound; - Nor swords were forged; but, void of care and crime, - The soft creation slept away their time. - The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough, - And unprovoked, did fruitful stores allow: - Content with food, which nature freely bred, - On wildings and on strawberries they fed; - Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest, - And falling acorns furnished out a feast. - The flowers, unsown, in fields and meadows reigned; - And western winds immortal spring maintained. - In following years the bearded corn ensued - From earth unasked, nor was that earth renewed. - From veins of vallies milk and nectar broke, - And honey sweating through the pores of oak. - - -THE SILVER AGE. - - But when good Saturn, banished from above, - Was driven to hell, the world was under Jove. - Succeeding times a silver age behold, - Excelling brass, but more excelled by gold. - Then Summer, Autumn, Winter did appear, - And Spring was but a season of the year. - The sun his annual course obliquely made, - Good days contracted, and enlarged the bad. - Then air with sultry heats began to glow, - The wings of winds were clogged with ice and snow; - And shivering mortals, into houses driven, - Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven. - Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds, - With twining oziers fenced, and moss their beds. - Then ploughs for seed the fruitful furrows broke, - And oxen laboured first beneath the yoke. - - -THE BRAZEN AGE. - - To this next came in course the Brazen Age: - A warlike offspring prompt to bloody rage, - Not impious yet,---- - - -THE IRON AGE. - - ----Hard steel succeeded then; - And stubborn as the metal were the men. - Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook; - Fraud, avarice, and force, their places, took. - Then sails were spread to every wind that blew; - Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new: - Trees, rudely hollowed, did the waves sustain, - Ere ships in triumph ploughed the watery plain. - Then land-marks limited to each his right; - For all before was common as the light. - Nor was the ground alone required to bear - Her annual income to the crooked share; - But greedy mortals, rummaging her store, - Digged from her entrails first the precious ore; - Which next to hell the prudent gods had laid, - And that alluring ill to sight displayed. - Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold, - Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold; - And double death did wretched man invade, - By steel assaulted, and by gold betrayed. - Now (brandished weapons glittering in their hands) - Mankind is broken loose from moral bands: - No rights of hospitality remain, - The guest, by him who harboured him, is slain; - The son-in-law pursues the father's life; - The wife her husband murders, he the wife; - The step-dame poison for the son prepares; - The son inquires into his father's years. - Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns; - And Justice, here oppressed, to heaven returns. - - -THE GIANT'S WAR. - - Nor were the Gods themselves more safe above; - Against beleaguered heaven the Giants move. - Hills piled on hills, on mountains mountains lie, - To make their mad approaches to the sky: - Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time - To avenge with thunder their audacious crime; - Red lightning played along the firmament, - And their demolished works to pieces rent. - Singed with the flames, and with the bolts transfixed, - With native earth their blood the monsters mixed; - The blood, endued with animating heat, - Did in the impregnate earth new sons beget; - They, like the seed from which they sprung, accursed, - Against the gods immortal hatred nursed; - An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood, - Expressing their original from blood. - Which when the King of Gods beheld from high, - (Withal revolving in his memory, - What he himself had found on earth of late, - Lycaon's guilt, and his inhuman treat,) - He sighed, nor longer with his pity strove, - But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove: - Then called a general council of the gods; - Who, summoned, issue from their blest abodes, - And fill the assembly with a shining train. - A way there is in heaven's expanded plain, - Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below, - And mortals by the name of milky know. - The ground-work is of stars; through which the road - Lies open to the Thunderer's abode. - The gods of greater nations dwell around, - And on the right and left the palace bound; - The commons where they can; the nobler sort, - With winding doors wide open, front the court. - This place, as far as earth with heaven may vie, - I dare to call the Louvre of the sky. - When all were placed, in seats distinctly known, - And he, their father, had assumed the throne, - Upon his ivory sceptre first he leant, - Then shook his head, that shook the firmament; - Air, earth, and seas, obeyed the almighty nod, - And with a general fear confessed the God. - At length, with indignation, thus he broke - His awful silence, and the Powers bespoke. - I was not more concerned in that debate - Of empire, when our universal state - Was put to hazard, and the giant race - Our captive skies were ready to embrace: - For, though the foe was fierce, the seeds of all - Rebellion sprung from one original; - Now wheresoever ambient waters glide, - All are corrupt, and all must be destroyed. - Let me this holy protestation make, - By hell, and hell's inviolable lake! - I tried whatever in the Godhead lay; } - But gangrened members must be lopt away, } - Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay. } - There dwells below a race of demi-gods, - Of nymphs in waters, and of fauns in woods; - Who, though not worthy yet in heaven to live, - Let them at least enjoy that earth we give. - Can these be thought securely lodged below, - When I myself, who no superior know, - I, who have heaven and earth at my command, - Have been attempted by Lycaon's hand? - At this a murmur through the synod went, - And with one voice they vote his punishment. - Thus, when conspiring traitors dared to doom - The fall of Cæsar, and in him of Rome, - The nations trembled with a pious fear, - All anxious for their earthly thunderer;-- - Nor was their care, O Cæsar, less esteemed - By thee, than that of heaven for Jove was deemed; - Who with his hand, and voice, did first restrain - Their murmurs, then resumed his speech again. - The Gods to silence were composed, and sat - With reverence due to his superior state. - Cancel your pious cares; already he - Has paid his debt to justice, and to me. - Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments were, - Remains for me thus briefly to declare. - The clamours of this vile degenerate age, - The cries of orphans, and the oppressor's rage, - Had reached the stars; I will descend, said I, - In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie. - Disguised in human shape, I travelled round - The world, and more than what I heard, I found. - O'er Mænalus I took my steepy way, - By caverns infamous for beasts of prey; - Then crossed Cyllene, and the piny shade, - More infamous by curst Lycaon made; - Dark night had covered heaven and earth, before - I entered his inhospitable door. - Just at my entrance, I displayed the sign - That somewhat was approaching of divine. - The prostrate people pray; the tyrant grins; - And, adding profanation to his sins, - I'll try, said he, and if a God appear, - To prove his deity shall cost him dear. - 'Twas late; the graceless wretch my death prepares, - When I should soundly sleep, opprest with cares: - This dire experiment he chose, to prove - If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove. - But first he had resolved to taste my power: - Not long before, but in a luckless hour, - Some legates, sent from the Molossian state, - Were on a peaceful errand come to treat; - Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh, - And lays the mangled morsels in a dish; - Some part he roasts; then serves it up so drest, - And bids me welcome to this human feast. - Moved with disdain, the table I o'erturned, - And with avenging flames the palace burned. - The tyrant, in a fright, for shelter gains - The neighbouring fields, and scours along the plains. - Howling he fled, and fain he would have spoke, - But human voice his brutal tongue forsook. - About his lips the gathered foam he churns, } - And, breathing slaughter, still with rage he burns, } - But on the bleating flock his fury turns. } - His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs - Cleaves to his back; a famished face he bears; - His arms descend, his shoulders sink away, - To multiply his legs for chace of prey. - He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains, - And the same rage in other members reigns. - His eyes still sparkle in a narrower space, - His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face. - This was a single ruin, but not one - Deserves so just a punishment alone. - Mankind's a monster, and the ungodly times, - Confederate into guilt, are sworn to crimes. - All are alike involved in ill, and all - Must by the same relentless fury fall. - Thus ended he; the greater gods assent, } - By clamours urging his severe intent; } - The less fill up the cry for punishment. } - Yet still with pity they remember man, - And mourn as much as heavenly spirits can. - They ask, when those were lost of human birth, - What he would do with all his waste of earth? - If his dispeopled world he would resign - To beasts, a mute, and more ignoble line? - Neglected altars must no longer smoke, - If none were left to worship and invoke. - To whom the Father of the Gods replied: } - Lay that unnecessary fear aside; } - Mine be the care new people to provide. } - I will from wonderous principles ordain - A race unlike the first, and try my skill again. - Already had he tossed the flaming brand, } - And rolled the thunder in his spacious hand, } - Preparing to discharge on seas and land; } - But stop'd, for fear, thus violently driven, - The sparks should catch his axle-tree of heaven; - Rememb'ring, in the Fates, a time, when fire - Should to the battlements of heaven aspire, - And all his blazing worlds above should burn, - And all the inferior globe to cinders turn. - His dire artillery thus dismissed, he bent - His thoughts to some securer punishment; - Concludes to pour a watery deluge down, - And, what he durst not burn, resolves to drown. - The Northern breath, that freezes floods, he binds, - With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds; - The South he loosed, who night and horror brings, - And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings. - From his divided beard two streams he pours; - His head and rheumy eyes, distil in showers; - With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow, - And lazy mists are lowring on his brow. - Still as he swept along, with his clenched fist, - He squeezed the clouds; the imprisoned clouds resist; - The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound, - And showers enlarged come pouring on the ground. - Then clad in colours of a various dye, - Junonian Iris breeds a new supply - To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends; - The bearded corn beneath the burden bends; - Defrauded clowns deplore their perished grain, - And the long labours of the year are vain. - Nor from his patrimonial heaven alone - Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down; - Aid from his brother of the seas he craves, - To help him with auxiliary waves. - The watery tyrant calls his brooks and floods, - Who roll from mossy caves, their moist abodes; - And with perpetual urns his palace fill: - To whom, in brief, he thus imparts his will. - Small exhortation needs; your powers employ, - And this bad world (so Jove requires) destroy. - Let loose the reins to all your watery store; - Bear down the dams, and open every door. - The floods, by nature enemies to land, - And proudly swelling with their new command, - Remove the living stones that stopped their way, - And, gushing from their source, augment the sea.[21] - Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the ground; } - With inward trembling earth received the wound, } - And rising streams a ready passage found. } - The expanded waters gather on the plain, - They float the fields, and overtop the grain; - Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway, - Bear flocks, and folds, and labouring hinds, away. - Nor safe their dwellings were; for, sap'd by floods, - Their houses fell upon their household gods. - The solid piles, too strongly built to fall, - High o'er their heads behold a watery wall. - Now seas and earth were in confusion lost; - A world of waters, and without a coast. - One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne, - And ploughs above, where late he sowed his corn. - Others o'er chimney tops and turrets row, - And drop their anchors on the meads below; - Or, downward driven, they bruise the tender vine, - Or, tossed aloft, are knocked against a pine; - And where of late the kids had cropped the grass, - The monsters of the deep now take their place. - Insulting Nereids on the cities ride, - And wondering dolphins o'er the palace glide; - On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks, they brouze; - And their broad fins entangle in the boughs. - The frighted wolf now swims among the sheep; - The yellow lion wanders in the deep; - His rapid force no longer helps the boar; - The stag swims faster than he ran before.[22] - The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain, - Despair of land, and drop into the main. - Now hills and vales no more distinction know, - And levelled nature lies oppressed below. - The most of mortals perish in the flood, - The small remainder dies for want of food. - A mountain of stupendous height there stands - Betwixt the Athenian and Bæotian lands, - The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they were, - But then a field of waters did appear: - Parnassus is its name, whose forky rise - Mounts through the clouds, and mates the lofty skies. - High on the summit of this dubious cliff, - Deucalion wafting moored his little skiff. - He with his wife were only left behind - Of perished man; they two were human kind. - The mountain-nymphs and Themis they adore, - And from her oracles relief implore. - The most upright of mortal men was he; - The most sincere and holy woman, she. - When Jupiter, surveying earth from high, - Beheld it in a lake of water lie, - That where so many millions lately lived, - But two, the best of either sex, survived, - He loosed the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies - To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies; - Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driven - Discover heaven to earth, and earth to heaven. - The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace - On the rough sea, and smooths its furrowed face. - Already Triton, at his call, appears } - Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears; } - And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears. } - The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire, - And give the waves the signal to retire. - His writhen shell he takes, whose narrow vent - Grows by degrees into a large extent; - Then gives it breath; the blast, with doubling sound, - Runs the wide circuit of the world around. - The sun first heard it, in his early east, - And met the rattling echoes in the west. - The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar, - Obey the summons, and forsake the shore. - A thin circumference of land appears; - And earth, but not at once, her visage rears, - And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds: - The streams, but just contained within their bounds, - By slow degrees into their channels crawl, - And earth increases as the waters fall. - In longer time the tops of trees appear, - Which mud on their dishonoured branches bear. - At length the world was all restored to view, - But desolate, and of a sickly hue: - Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast, - A dismal desert, and a silent waste. - Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look, - Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke: - Oh wife, oh sister, oh of all thy kind } - The best and only creature left behind, } - By kindred, love, and now by dangers joined; } - Of multitudes, who breathed the common air, - We two remain, a species in a pair: - The rest the seas have swallowed; nor have we - E'en of this wretched life a certainty. - The clouds are still above; and, while I speak, - A second deluge o'er our heads may break. - Should I be snatched from hence, and thou remain, } - Without relief, or partner of thy pain, } - How could'st thou such a wretched life sustain? } - Should I be left, and thou be lost, the sea, - That buried her I loved, should bury me. - Oh could our father his old arts inspire, - And make me heir of his informing fire, - That so I might abolished man retrieve, - And perished people in new souls might live! - But heaven is pleased, nor ought we to complain, - That we, the examples of mankind, remain.-- - He said; the careful couple join their tears, - And then invoke the gods, with pious prayers. - Thus in devotion having eased their grief, - From sacred oracles they seek relief, - And to Cephisus' brook their way pursue; - The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew. - With living waters in the fountain bred, } - They sprinkle first their garments, and their head, } - Then took the way which to the temple led. } - The roofs were all defiled with moss and mire, - The desert altars void of solemn fire. - Before the gradual prostrate they adored, - The pavement kissed, and thus the saint implored. - O righteous Themis, if the powers above - By prayers are bent to pity and to love; - If human miseries can move their mind; - If yet they can forgive, and yet be kind; - Tell how we may restore, by second birth, - Mankind, and people desolated earth. - Then thus the gracious goddess, nodding, said; - Depart, and with your vestments veil your head: - And stooping lowly down, with loosened zones, - Throw each behind your backs your mighty mother's bones. - Amazed the pair, and mute with wonder, stand, - Till Pyrrha first refused the dire command. - Forbid it heaven, said she, that I should tear - Those holy relics from the sepulchre. - They pondered the mysterious words again, - For some new sense; and long they sought in vain. - At length Deucalion cleared his cloudy brow, - And said; The dark ænigma will allow - A meaning, which, if well I understand, - From sacrilege will free the god's command: - This earth our mighty mother is, the stones - In her capacious body are her bones; - These we must cast behind. With hope, and fear, - The woman did the new solution hear: - The man diffides in his own augury, - And doubts the gods; yet both resolve to try. - Descending from the mount, they first unbind - Their vests, and, veiled, they cast the stones behind: - The stones (a miracle to mortal view, - But long tradition makes it pass for true,) - Did first the rigour of their kind expel, - And suppled into softness as they fell; - Then swelled, and, swelling, by degrees grew warm, - And took the rudiments of human form; - Imperfect shapes, in marble such are seen, - When the rude chisel does the man begin, - While yet the roughness of the stone remains, - Without the rising muscles, and the veins. - The sappy parts, and next resembling juice, - Were turned to moisture, for the body's use; - Supplying humours, blood, and nourishment: - The rest, too solid to receive a bent, - Converts to bones; and what was once a vein, - Its former name and nature did retain. - By help of power divine, in little space, } - What the man threw, assumed a manly face; } - And what the wife, renewed the female race. } - Hence we derive our nature, born to bear - Laborious life, and hardened into care. - The rest of animals, from teeming earth - Produced, in various forms received their birth. - The native moisture, in its close retreat, - Digested by the sun's etherial heat, - As in a kindly womb, began to breed; - Then swelled, and quickened by the vital seed: - And some in less, and some in longer space, - Were ripened into form, and took a several face. - Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled, - And seeks with ebbing tides his ancient bed, - The fat manure with heavenly fire is warmed, - And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are formed: - These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants find: - Some rude, and yet unfinished in their kind; - Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth; - One half alive, and one of lifeless earth. - For, heat and moisture, when in bodies joined, - The temper that results from either kind, - Conception makes; and fighting, till they mix, - Their mingled atoms in each other fix. - Thus nature's hand the genial bed prepares, - With friendly discord, and with fruitful wars. - From hence the surface of the ground, with mud - And slime besmeared, (the fæces of the flood,) - Received the rays of heaven; and sucking in - The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin. - Some were of several sorts produced before; - But of new monsters earth created more. - Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light } - Thee, Python, too, the wondering world to fright, } - And the new nations with so dire a sight; } - So monstrous was his bulk, so large a space - Did his vast body and long train embrace: - Whom Phœbus basking on a bank espied. - Ere now the god his arrows had not tried, - But on the trembling deer, or mountain-goat; - At this new quarry he prepares to shoot. - Though every shaft took place, he spent the store } - Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before } - The expiring serpent wallowed in his gore. } - Then to preserve the fame of such a deed, - For Python slain, he Pythian games decreed, - Where noble youths for mastership should strive, - To quoit, to run, and steeds and chariots drive. - The prize was fame, in witness of renown, - An oaken garland did the victor crown. - The laurel was not yet for triumphs borne; } - But every green alike, by Phœbus worn, } - Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks adorn. } - - -THE TRANSFORMATION OF DAPHNE INTO A LAUREL. - - The first and fairest of his loves was she, - Whom not blind fortune, but the dire decree - Of angry Cupid, forced him to desire; - Daphne her name, and Peneus was her sire. - Swelled with the pride that new success attends, - He sees the stripling, while his bow he bends, - And thus insults him: Thou lascivious boy, - Are arms like these for children to employ? - Know, such atchievements are my proper claim, - Due to my vigour and unerring aim: - Resistless are my shafts, and Python late, - In such a feathered death, has found his fate. - Take up thy torch, and lay my weapons by; - With that the feeble souls of lovers fry.-- - To whom the son of Venus thus replied: - Phœbus, thy shafts are sure on all beside; - But mine on Phœbus; mine the fame shall be - Of all thy conquests, when I conquer thee. - He said, and soaring swiftly winged his flight; - Nor stop'd but on Parnassus' airy height. - Two different shafts he from his quiver draws; - One to repel desire, and one to cause. - One shaft is pointed with refulgent gold, - To bribe the love, and make the lover bold; - One blunt, and tipt with lead, whose base allay - Provokes disdain, and drives desire away. - The blunted bolt against the nymph he drest; - But with the sharp transfixed Apollo's breast. - The enamoured deity pursues the chace; - The scornful damsel shuns his loathed embrace: - In hunting beasts of prey her youth employs, - And Phœbe rivals in her rural joys. - With naked neck she goes, and shoulders bare, - And with a fillet binds her flowing hair. - By many suitors sought, she mocks their pains, - And still her vowed virginity maintains. - Impatient of a yoke, the name of bride - She shuns, and hates the joys she never tried. - On wilds and woods she fixes her desire; - Nor knows what youth and kindly love inspire. - Her father chides her oft: Thou ow'st, says he, - A husband to thyself, a son to me. - She, like a crime, abhors the nuptial bed; - She glows with blushes, and she hangs her head. - Then, casting round his neck her tender arms, - Sooths him with blandishments, and filial charms: - Give me, my lord, she said, to live and die - A spotless maid, without the marriage-tie. - 'Tis but a small request; I beg no more - Than what Diana's father gave before. - The good old sire was softened to consent; - But said her wish would prove her punishment; - For so much youth, and so much beauty joined, - Opposed the state which her desires designed. - The God of Light, aspiring to her bed, } - Hopes what he seeks, with flattering fancies fed, } - And is by his own oracles misled. } - And as in empty fields the stubble burns, - Or nightly travellers, when day returns, - Their useless torches on dry hedges throw, - That catch the flames, and kindle all the row; - So burns the god, consuming in desire, - And feeding in his breast the fruitless fire: - Her well-turned neck he viewed, (her neck was bare,) - And on her shoulders her dishevelled hair: - Oh were it combed, said he, with what a grace - Would every waving curl become her face! - He viewed her eyes, like heavenly lamps that shone; - He viewed her lips, too sweet to view alone; - Her taper fingers, and her panting breast: } - He praises all he sees; and for the rest, } - Believes the beauties yet unseen are best. } - Swift as the wind, the damsel fled away, - Nor did for these alluring speeches stay. - Stay, nymph, he cried; I follow, not a foe: - Thus from the lion trips the trembling doe; - Thus from the wolf the frightened lamb removes, } - And from pursuing falcons fearful doves; } - Thou shun'st a god, and shun'st a god that loves. } - Ah! lest some thorn should pierce thy tender foot, - Or thou should'st fall in flying my pursuit, - To sharp uneven ways thy steps decline, - Abate thy speed, and I will bate of mine. - Yet think from whom thou dost so rashly fly; - Nor basely born, nor shepherd's swain am I. - Perhaps thou know'st not my superior state, - And from that ignorance proceeds thy hate. - Me Claros, Delphos, Tenedos, obey; - These hands the Patareian sceptre sway. - The king of gods begot me: what shall be, - Or is, or ever was, in fate, I see. - Mine is the invention of the charming lyre; - Sweet notes, and heavenly numbers, I inspire. - Sure is my bow, unerring is my dart; - But ah! more deadly his, who pierced my heart. - Med'cine is mine, what herbs and simples grow } - In fields and forests, all their powers I know, } - And am the great physician called below. } - Alas, that fields and forests can afford - No remedies to heal their love-sick lord! - To cure the pains of love, no plant avails, - And his own physic the physician fails. - She heard not half, so furiously she flies, - And on her ear the imperfect accent dies. - Fear gave her wings; and as she fled, the wind - Increasing spread her flowing hair behind; - And left her legs and thighs exposed to view, - Which made the god more eager to pursue. - The god was young, and was too hotly bent - To lose his time in empty compliment; - But led by love, and fired by such a sight, - Impetuously pursued his near delight. - As when the impatient greyhound, slipt from far, - Bounds o'er the glebe, to course the fearful hare, - She in her speed does all her safety lay, - And he with double speed pursues the prey; - O'er-runs her at the sitting turn, and licks - His chaps in vain, and blows upon the flix;[23] - She 'scapes, and for the neighbouring covert strives, - And gaining shelter doubts if yet she lives. - If little things with great we may compare, - Such was the god, and such the flying fair: - She, urged by fear, her feet did swiftly move, - But he more swiftly, who was urged by love. - He gathers ground upon her in the chace; } - Now breathes upon her hair, with nearer pace, } - And just is fastening on the wished embrace. } - The nymph grew pale, and in a mortal fright, - Spent with the labour of so long a flight, - And now despairing, cast a mournful look - Upon the streams of her paternal brook: - Oh help, she cried, in this extremest need, - If water-gods are deities indeed! - Gape, earth, and this unhappy wretch entomb, - Or change my form, whence all my sorrows come. - Scarce had she finished, when her feet she found - Benumbed with cold, and fastened to the ground; - A filmy rind about her body grows, - Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs; - The nymph is all into a Laurel gone, - The smoothness of her skin remains alone. - Yet Phœbus loves her still, and, casting round - Her bole his arms, some little warmth he found. - The tree still panted in the unfinished part, - Not wholly vegetive, and heaved her heart. - He fixed his lips upon the trembling rind; - It swerved aside, and his embrace declined. - To whom the god: Because thou canst not be - My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree: - Be thou the prize of honour and renown; - The deathless poet, and the poem, crown. - Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn, - And, after poets, be by victors worn; - Thou shalt returning Cæsar's triumph grace, - When pomps shall in a long procession pass; - Wreathed on the post before his palace wait, - And be the sacred guardian of the gate: - Secure from thunder, and unharmed by Jove, - Unfading as the immortal powers above; - And as the locks of Phœbus are unshorn, - So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn.-- - The grateful Tree was pleased with what he said, - And shook the shady honours of her head. - - -THE TRANSFORMATION OF IO INTO AN HEIFER. - - An ancient forest in Thessalia grows, - Which Tempe's pleasant valley does inclose; - Through this the rapid Peneus takes his course, - From Pindus rolling with impetuous force; - Mists from the river's mighty fall arise, - And deadly damps inclose the cloudy skies; - Perpetual fogs are hanging o'er the wood, - And sounds of waters deaf the neighbourhood. - Deep in a rocky cave he makes abode; - A mansion proper for a mourning god. - Here he gives audience; issuing out decrees - To rivers, his dependent deities. - On this occasion hither they resort, - To pay their homage, and to make their court; - All doubtful, whether to congratulate - His daughter's honour, or lament her fate. - Sperchæus, crowned with poplar, first appears; - Then old Apidanus came, crowned with years; - Enipeus turbulent, Amphrysos tame, - And Æas, last, with lagging waters came. - Then of his kindred brooks a numerous throng - Condole his loss, and bring their urns along: - Not one was wanting of the watery train, - That filled his flood, or mingled with the main, - But Inachus, who, in his cave alone, - Wept not another's losses, but his own; - For his dear Io, whether strayed, or dead, - To him uncertain, doubtful tears he shed. - He sought her through the world, but sought in vain; - And no where finding, rather feared her slain. - Her, just returning from her father's brook, - Jove had beheld with a desiring look; - And, oh, fair daughter of the flood, he said, - Worthy alone of Jove's imperial bed, - Happy whoever shall those charms possess! - The king of gods, (nor is thy lover less,) - Invites thee to yon cooler shades, to shun - The scorching rays of the meridian sun. - Nor shalt thou tempt the dangers of the grove - Alone without a guide; thy guide is Jove. - No puny power, but he, whose high command } - Is unconfined, who rules the seas and land, } - And tempers thunder in his awful hand. } - Oh fly not!--for she fled from his embrace - O'er Lerna's pastures; he pursued the chace, - Along the shades of the Lyrcæan plain. - At length the god, who never asks in vain, - Involved with vapours, imitating night, } - Both air and earth; and then suppressed her flight, } - And, mingling force with love, enjoyed the full delight. } - Meantime the jealous Juno, from on high, - Surveyed the fruitful fields of Arcady; - And wondered that the mist should over-run - The face of day-light, and obscure the sun. - No natural cause she found, from brooks or bogs, - Or marshy lowlands, to produce the fogs: - Then round the skies she sought for Jupiter, - Her faithless husband; but no Jove was there. - Suspecting now the worst,--Or I, she said, - Am much mistaken, or am much betrayed. - With fury she precipitates her flight, } - Dispels the shadows of dissembled night, } - And to the day restores his native light. } - The almighty lecher, careful to prevent - The consequence, foreseeing her descent, - Transforms his mistress in a trice; and now, - In Io's place, appears a lovely cow. - So sleek her skin, so faultless was her make, - Even Juno did unwilling pleasure take - To see so fair a rival of her love; - And what she was, and whence, enquired of Jove, - Of what fair herd, and from what pedigree? - The god, half-caught, was forced upon a lie, - And said she sprung from earth. She took the word, - And begged the beauteous heifer of her lord. - What should he do? 'twas equal shame to Jove, - Or to relinquish, or betray his love; - Yet to refuse so slight a gift, would be - But more to increase his consort's jealousy. - Thus fear, and love, by turns his heart assailed; - And stronger love had sure at length prevailed, - But some faint hope remained, his jealous queen - Had not the mistress through the heifer seen. - The cautious goddess, of her gift possest, - Yet harboured anxious thoughts within her breast; - As she, who knew the falsehood of her Jove, - And justly feared some new relapse of love; - Which to prevent, and to secure her care, - To trusty Argus she commits the fair. - The head of Argus (as with stars the skies,) - Was compassed round, and wore an hundred eyes. - But two by turns their lids in slumber steep; } - The rest on duty still their station keep; } - Nor could the total constellation sleep. } - Thus, ever present to his eyes and mind, - His charge was still before him, though behind. - In fields he suffered her to feed by day; - But, when the setting sun to night gave way, - The captive cow he summoned with a call, - And drove her back, and tied her to the stall. - On leaves of trees and bitter herbs she fed, - Heaven was her canopy, bare earth her bed, - So hardly lodged; and, to digest her food, - She drank from troubled streams, defiled with mud. - Her woeful story fain she would have told, - With hands upheld, but had no hands to hold. - Her head to her ungentle keeper bowed, - She strove to speak; she spoke not, but she lowed; - Affrighted with the noise, she looked around, - And seemed to inquire the author of the sound. - Once on the banks where often she had played, - (Her father's banks,) she came, and there surveyed - Her altered visage, and her branching head; - And starting from herself, she would have fled. - Her fellow-nymphs, familiar to her eyes, - Beheld, but knew her not in this disguise. - Even Inachus himself was ignorant; - And in his daughter, did his daughter want. - She followed where her fellows went, as she - Were still a partner of the company: - They stroke her neck; the gentle heifer stands, - And her neck offers to their stroking hands. - Her father gave her grass; the grass she took, } - And licked his palms, and cast a piteous look, } - And in the language of her eyes she spoke. } - She would have told her name, and asked relief, - But, wanting words, in tears she tells her grief; - Which with her foot she makes him understand, - And prints the name of Io in the sand. - Ah wretched me! her mournful father cried; - She, with a sigh, to "wretched me!" replied. - About her milk-white neck his arms he threw, - And wept, and then these tender words ensue. - And art thou she, whom I have sought around - The world, and have at length so sadly found? - So found, is worse than lost: with mutual words - Thou answerest not, no voice thy tongue affords; - But sighs are deeply drawn from out thy breast, - And speech, denied, by lowing is expressed. - Unknowing, I prepared thy bridal bed; - With empty hopes of happy issue fed. - But now the husband of a herd must be - Thy mate, and bellowing sons thy progeny. - Oh, were I mortal, death might bring relief! - But now my godhead but extends my grief; - Prolongs my woes, of which no end I see, - And makes me curse my immortality.-- - More had he said, but fearful of her stay, - The starry guardian drove his charge away, - To some fresh pasture; on a hilly height - He sat himself, and kept her still in sight. - - -THE EYES OF ARGUS TRANSFORMED INTO A PEACOCK'S TRAIN. - - Now Jove no longer could her sufferings bear; - But called in haste his airy messenger, - The son of Maïa, with severe decree - To kill the keeper, and to set her free. - With all his harness soon the god was sped; - His flying hat was fastened on his head; - Wings on his heels were hung, and in his hand - He holds the virtue of the snaky wand. - The liquid air his moving pinions wound, - And, in the moment, shoot him on the ground. - Before he came in sight, the crafty god - His wings dismissed, but still retained his rod: - That sleep-procuring wand wise Hermes took, - But made it seem to sight a shepherd's hook. - With this he did a herd of goats controul; - Which by the way he met, and slyly stole. - Clad like a country swain, he piped and sung; - And, playing, drove his jolly troop along. - With pleasure Argus the musician heeds; - But wonders much at those new vocal reeds. - And,--Whosoe'er thou art, my friend, said he, } - Up hither drive thy goats, and play by me; } - This hill has brouze for them, and shade for thee. } - The god, who was with ease induced to climb, - Began discourse to pass away the time; - And still, betwixt, his tuneful pipe he plies, - And watched his hour, to close the keeper's eyes. - With much ado, he partly kept awake; - Not suffering all his eyes repose to take; - And asked the stranger, who did reeds invent, - And whence began so rare an instrument. - - -THE TRANSFORMATION OF SYRINX INTO REEDS. - - Then Hermes thus;--A nymph of late there was, - Whose heavenly form her fellows did surpass; - The pride and joy of fair Arcadia's plains, - Beloved by deities, adored by swains; - Syrinx her name, by Sylvans oft pursued, - As oft she did the lustful gods delude: - The rural and the woodland powers disdained; - With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintained; - Like Phœbe clad, even Phœbe's self she seems, - So tall, so straight, such well-proportioned limbs: - The nicest eye did no distinction know, } - But that the goddess bore a golden bow; } - Distinguished thus, the sight she cheated too. } - Descending from Lycæus, Pan admires - The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires. - A crown of pine upon his head he wore; - And thus began her pity to implore. - But ere he thus began, she took her flight - So swift, she was already out of sight; - Nor stayed to hear the courtship of the god, - But bent her course to Ladon's gentle flood; - There by the river stopt, and, tired before, - Relief from water-nymphs her prayers implore. - Now while the lustful god, with speedy pace, } - Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace, } - He fills his arms with reeds, new rising on the place. } - And while he sighs his ill success to find, - The tender canes were shaken by the wind; - And breathed a mournful air, unheard before, - That, much surprising Pan, yet pleased him more. - Admiring this new music, thou, he said, - Who canst not be the partner of my bed, - At least shall be the consort of my mind, - And often, often, to my lips be joined. - He formed the reeds, proportioned as they are; } - Unequal in their length, and waxed with care, } - They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair. } - While Hermes piped, and sung, and told his tale, - The keeper's winking eyes began to fail, - And drowsy slumber on the lids to creep, - Till all the watchman was at length asleep. - Then soon the god his voice and song supprest, - And with his powerful rod confirmed his rest; - Without delay his crooked falchion drew, - And at one fatal stroke the keeper slew. - Down from the rock fell the dissevered head, - Opening its eyes in death, and falling bled; - And marked the passage with a crimson trail: - Thus Argus lies in pieces, cold and pale; - And all his hundred eyes, with all their light, - Are closed at once, in one perpetual night. - These Juno takes, that they no more may fail, - And spreads them in her peacock's gaudy tail. - Impatient to revenge her injured bed, - She wreaks her anger on her rival's head; - With furies frights her from her native home, - And drives her gadding round the world to roam: - Nor ceased her madness and her flight, before - She touched the limits of the Pharian shore. - At length, arriving on the banks of Nile, - Wearied with length of ways, and worn with toil, - She laid her down; and leaning on her knees, - Invoked the cause of all her miseries; - And cast her languishing regards above, - For help from heaven, and her ungrateful Jove. - She sighed, she wept, she lowed; 'twas all she could; - And with unkindness seemed to tax the god. - Last, with an humble prayer, she begged repose, - Or death at least to finish all her woes. - Jove heard her vows, and with a flattering look, - In her behalf to jealous Juno spoke. - He cast his arms about her neck, and said; - Dame, rest secure; no more thy nuptial bed - This nymph shall violate; by Styx I swear, - And every oath that binds the Thunderer. - The goddess was appeased; and at the word - Was Io to her former shape restored. - The rugged hair began to fall away; - The sweetness of her eyes did only stay, - Though not so large; her crooked horns decrease; - The wideness of her jaws and nostrils cease; - Her hoofs to hands return, in little space; - The five long taper fingers take their place; - And nothing of the heifer now is seen, - Beside the native whiteness of her skin. - Erected on her feet, she walks again, - And two the duty of the four sustain. - She tries her tongue, her silence softly breaks, - And fears her former lowings when she speaks: - A goddess now through all the Egyptian state, - And served by priests, who in white linen wait. - Her son was Epaphus, at length believed - The son of Jove, and as a god received. - With sacrifice adored, and public prayers, - He common temples with his mother shares. - Equal in years, and rival in renown } - With Epaphus, the youthful Phaeton } - Like honour claims, and boasts his sire the Sun. } - His haughty looks, and his assuming air, - The son of Isis could no longer bear; - Thou tak'st thy mother's word too far, said he, - And hast usurped thy boasted pedigree. - Go, base pretender to a borrowed name! - Thus taxed, he blushed with anger, and with shame; - But shame repressed his rage: the daunted youth - Soon seeks his mother, and enquires the truth. - Mother, said he, this infamy was thrown - By Epaphus on you, and me your son. - He spoke in public, told it to my face, - Nor durst I vindicate the dire disgrace: - Even I, the bold, the sensible of wrong, - Restrained by shame, was forced to hold my tongue; - To hear an open slander, is a curse; - But not to find an answer, is a worse. - If I am heaven-begot, assert your son } - By some sure sign, and make my father known, } - To right my honour, and redeem your own. } - He said, and, saying, cast his arms about - Her neck, and begged her to resolve the doubt. - 'Tis hard to judge if Climené were moved - More by his prayer, whom she so dearly loved, - Or more with fury fired, to find her name - Traduced, and made the sport of common fame. - She stretched her arms to heaven, and fixed her eyes - On that fair planet that adorns the skies; - Now by those beams, said she, whose holy fires - Consume my breast, and kindle my desires; - By him who sees us both, and cheers our sight, - By him, the public minister of light, - I swear that Sun begot thee; if I lie, - Let him his cheerful influence deny; - Let him no more this perjured creature see, - And shine on all the world but only me. - If still you doubt your mother's innocence, - His eastern mansion is not far from hence; - With little pains you to his levee go, - And from himself your parentage may know.-- - With joy the ambitious youth his mother heard, - And, eager for the journey, soon prepared. - He longs the world beneath him to survey, - To guide the chariot, and to give the day. - From Meroe's burning sands he bends his course, - Nor less in India feels his father's force; - His travel urging, till he came in sight, - And saw the palace by the purple light. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[21] In all our earlier poets, the word _sea_ is occasionally -made to rheme, according to the pronunciation of Hibernia, as if -spelled _say_. - -[22] Ovid is not answerable for the speed of the stag's -exertions in the water; he barely says, - - _Crura nec ablato prosunt velocia cervo._ - -[23] See the same image in the "Annus Mirabilis:" - - "With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey, - His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies." - - Vol. IX. p. 128. - - - - -MELEAGER AND ATALANTA, - -OUT OF THE EIGHTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - -CONNECTION TO THE FORMER STORY. - - _Ovid, having told how Theseus had freed Athens from the tribute - of children, which was imposed on them by Minos king of Crete, by - killing the Minotaur, here makes a digression to the story of Meleager - and Atalanta, which is one of the most inartificial connections in - all the Metamorphoses; for he only says, that Theseus obtained such - honour from that combat, that all Greece had recourse to him in their - necessities; and, amongst others, Calydon, though the hero of that - country, prince Meleager, was then living._ - - - From him the Caledonians sought relief; - Though valiant Meleagrus was their chief. - The cause, a boar, who ravaged far and near; - Of Cynthia's wrath, the avenging minister. - For Oenius with autumnal plenty blessed, - By gifts to heaven his gratitude expressed; - Culled sheafs, to Ceres; to Lyæus, wine; } - To Pan and Pales, offered sheep and kine; } - And fat of olives to Minerva's shrine. } - Beginning from the rural gods, his hand - Was liberal to the powers of high command; - Each deity in every kind was blessed, - Till at Diana's fane the invidious honour ceased. - Wrath touches even the gods; the Queen of Night, - Fired with disdain, and jealous of her right, - Unhonoured though I am, at least, said she, - Not unrevenged that impious act shall be. - Swift as the word, she sped the boar away, - With charge on those devoted fields to prey. - No larger bulls the Egyptian pastures feed, - And none so large Sicilian meadows breed: - His eye-balls glare with fire, suffused with blood; - His neck shoots up a thick-set thorny wood; - His bristled back a trench impaled appears, - And stands erected, like a field of spears; - Froth fills his chaps, he sends a grunting sound, - And part he churns, and part befoams the ground; - For tusks with Indian elephants he strove, - And Jove's own thunder from his mouth he drove. - He burns the leaves; the scorching blast invades - The tender corn, and shrivels up the blades; - Or, suffering not their yellow beards to rear, - He tramples down the spikes, and intercepts the year. - In vain the barns expect their promised load, - Nor barns at home, nor ricks are heaped abroad; - In vain the hinds the threshing-floor prepare, - And exercise their flails in empty air. - With olives ever green the ground is strowed, - And grapes ungathered shed their generous blood. - Amid the fold he rages, nor the sheep - Their shepherds, nor the grooms their bulls, can keep. - From fields to walls the frighted rabble run, - Nor think themselves secure within the town; - Till Melegarus, and his chosen crew, - Contemn the danger, and the praise pursue. - Fair Leda's twins, (in time to stars decreed,) - One fought on foot, one curbed the fiery steed; - Then issued forth famed Jason after these, - Who manned the foremost ship that sailed the seas; - Then Theseus, joined with bold Pirithous, came; - A single concord in a double name: - The Thestian sons, Idas, who swiftly ran, - And Ceneus, once a woman, now a man. - Lynceus, with eagle's eyes, and lion's heart; - Leucippus, with his never-erring dart; - Acastus, Phileus, Phœnix, Telamon, } - Echion, Lelex, and Eurytion, } - Achilles' father, and great Phocus' son; } - Dryas the fierce, and Hippasus the strong - With twice-old Iolas, and Nestor then but young; - Laertes active, and Ancæus bold; } - Mopsus the sage, who future things foretold; } - And t'other seer,[24] yet by his wife unsold. } - A thousand others of immortal fame; - Among the rest, fair Atalanta came, - Grace of the woods: a diamond buckle bound - Her vest behind, that else had flow'd upon the ground, - And shew'd her buskin'd legs; her head was bare, - But for her native ornament of hair, - Which in a simple knot was tied above,-- - Sweet negligence, unheeded bait of love! - Her sounding quiver on her shoulder tied, - One hand a dart, and one a bow supplied. - Such was her face, as in a nymph displayed } - A fair fierce boy, or in a boy betrayed } - The blushing beauties of a modest maid. } - The Caledonian chief at once the dame - Beheld, at once his heart received the flame, - With heavens averse. O happy youth, he cried, - For whom thy fates reserve so fair a bribe! - He sighed, and had no leisure more to say; } - His honour called his eyes another way, } - And force him to pursue the now neglected prey. } - There stood a forest on the mountain's brow, - Which overlooked the shaded plains below; - No sounding axe presumed those trees to bite, - Coeval with the world, a venerable sight. - The heroes there arrived, some spread around } - The toils, some search the footsteps on the ground, } - Some from the chains the faithful dogs unbound. } - Of action eager, and intent on thought, - The chiefs their honourable danger sought: - A valley stood below; the common drain - Of waters from above, and falling rain; - The bottom was a moist and marshy ground, - Whose edges were with bending osiers crowned; - The knotty bulrush next in order stood, - And all within, of reeds a trembling wood. - From hence the boar was roused, and sprung amain, - Like lightning sudden on the warrior-train; - Beats down the trees before him, shakes the ground, } - The forest echoes to the crackling sound; } - Shout the fierce youth, and clamours ring around. } - All stood with their protended spears prepared, - With broad steel heads the brandished weapons glared. - The beast impetuous with his tusks aside } - Deals glancing wounds; the fearful dogs divide; } - All spend their mouth aloft, but none abide. } - Echion threw the first, but missed his mark, - And stuck his boar-spear on a maple's bark. - Then Jason; and his javelin seemed to take, - But failed with over-force, and whizzed above his back. - Mopsus was next; but, ere he threw, addressed - To Phœbus thus: O patron, help thy priest! - If I adore, and ever have adored - Thy power divine, thy present aid afford, - That I may reach the beast!--The god allowed - His prayer, and, smiling, gave him what he could: - He reached the savage, but no blood he drew; - Dian unarmed the javelin as it flew. - This chafed the boar, his nostrils flames expire, - And his red eye-balls roll with living fire. - Whirled from a sling, or from an engine thrown, - Amidst the foes so flies a mighty stone, - As flew the beast: the left wing put to flight, - The chiefs o'erborne, he rushes on the right. - Empalamos and Pelagon he laid - In dust, and next to death, but for their fellows' aid. - Onesimus fared worse, prepared to fly; - The fatal fang drove deep within his thigh, - And cut the nerves; the nerves no more sustain - The bulk; the bulk unprop'd, falls headlong on the plain. - Nestor had failed the fall of Troy to see, - But, leaning on his lance, he vaulted on a tree; - Then, gathering up his feet, looked down with fear, - And thought his monstrous foe was still too near. - Against a stump his tusk the monster grinds, - And in the sharpened edge new vigour finds; - Then, trusting to his arms, young Othrys found, - And ranched his hips with one continued wound. - Now Leda's twins, the future stars, appear; - White were their habits, white their horses were; - Conspicuous both, and both in act to throw, - Their trembling lances brandished at the foe: - Nor had they missed; but he to thickets fled, - Concealed from aiming spears, not pervious to the steed. - But Telamon rushed in, and happed to meet - A rising root, that held his fastened feet; - So down he fell, whom, sprawling on the ground, - His brother from the wooden gyves unbound. - Meantime the virgin-huntress was not slow - To expel the shaft from her contracted bow. - Beneath his ear the fastened arrow stood, - And from the wound appeared the trickling blood. - She blushed for joy: But Meleagrus raised - His voice with loud applause, and the fair archer praised. - He was the first to see, and first to show - His friends the marks of the successful blow. - Nor shall thy valour want the praises due, - He said;--a virtuous envy seized the crew. - They shout; the shouting animates their hearts, - And all at once employ their thronging darts; - But out of order thrown, in air they join, - And multitude makes frustrate the design. - With both his hands the proud Ancæus takes, - And flourishes his double biting axe: - Then forward to his fate, he took a stride - Before the rest, and to his fellows cried,-- - Give place, and mark the difference, if you can, - Between a woman-warrior and a man; - The boar is doomed; nor, though Diana lend - Her aid, Diana can her beast defend.-- - Thus boasted he; then stretched, on tiptoe stood, - Secure to make his empty promise good; - But the more wary beast prevents the blow, - And upward rips the groin of his audacious foe. - Ancæus falls; his bowels from the wound - Rush out, and clotted blood distains the ground. - Pirithous, no small portion of the war, - Pressed on, and shook his lance; to whom from far, - Thus Theseus cried: O stay, my better part, - My more than mistress; of my heart, the heart! - The strong may fight aloof: Ancæus tried - His force too near, and by presuming died.-- - He said, and, while he spake, his javelin threw; - Hissing in air, the unerring weapon flew; - But on an arm of oak, that stood betwixt - The marksman and the mark, his lance he fixt. - Once more bold Jason threw, but failed to wound } - The boar, and slew an undeserving hound; } - And through the dog the dart was nailed to ground. } - Two spears from Meleager's hand were sent, - With equal force, but various in the event; - The first was fixed in earth, the second stood - On the boar's bristled back, and deeply drank his blood. - Now, while the tortured savage turns around, - And flings about his foam, impatient of the wound, - The wound's great author, close at hand, provokes - His rage, and plies him with redoubled strokes; - Wheels as he wheels, and with his pointed dart - Explores the nearest passage to his heart. - Quick, and more quick, he spins in giddy gyres, - Then falls, and in much foam his soul expires. - This act with shouts heaven high the friendly band - Applaud, and strain in theirs the victor's hand. - Then all approach the slain with vast surprise, - Admire on what a breadth of earth he lies; - And, scarce secure, reach out their spears afar, - And blood their points, to prove their partnership of war. - But he, the conquering chief, his foot impressed - On the strong neck of that destructive beast; - And gazing on the nymph with ardent eyes, - Accept, said he, fair Nonacrine, my prize; - And, though inferior, suffer me to join - My labours, and my part of praise, with thine.-- - At this presents her with the tusky head - And chine, with rising bristles roughly spread. - Glad, she received the gift; and seemed to take - With double pleasure, for the giver's sake. - The rest were seized with sullen discontent, - And a deaf murmur through the squadron went: - All envied; but the Thestyan brethren showed - The least respect, and thus they vent their spleen aloud: - Lay down those honoured spoils, nor think to share, - Weak woman as thou art, the prize of war; - Ours is the title, thine a foreign claim, - Since Meleagrus from our lineage came. - Trust not thy beauty; but restore the prize, - Which he, besotted on that face and eyes, - Would rend from us.--At this, inflamed with spite, - From her they snatch the gift, from him the giver's right. - But soon the impatient prince his faulchion drew, - And cried,--Ye robbers of another's due, - Now learn the difference, at your proper cost, - Betwixt true valour, and an empty boast.-- - At this advanced, and, sudden as the word, - In proud Plexippus' bosom plunged the sword: - Toxeus amazed, and with amazement slow, - Or to revenge, or ward the coming blow, - Stood doubting; and, while doubting thus he stood, - Received the steel bathed in his brother's blood. - Pleased with the first, unknown the second news, - Althæa to the temples pays their dues - For her son's conquest; when at length appear } - Her grisly brethren stretched upon the bier: } - Pale, at the sudden sight, she changed her cheer, } - And with her cheer her robes; but hearing tell - The cause, the manner, and by whom they fell, - 'Twas grief no more, or grief and rage were one - Within her soul; at last 'twas rage alone; - Which burning upwards, in succession dries - The tears that stood considering in her eyes. - There lay a log unlighted on the earth: - When she was labouring in the throes of birth - For the unborn chief, the Fatal Sisters came, - And raised it up, and tossed it on the flame; - Then on the rock a scanty measure place - Of vital flax, and turned the wheel apace; - And turning sung,--To this red brand and thee, - O new-born babe, we give an equal destiny; - So vanished out of view. The frighted dame - Sprung hasty from her bed, and quenched the flame; - The log, in secret locked, she kept with care, - And that, while thus preserved, preserved her heir. - This brand she now produced; and first she strows - The hearth with heaps of chips, and after blows; - Thrice heaved her hand, and heaved, she thrice repressed; } - The sister and the mother long contest, } - Two doubtful titles in one tender breast; } - And now her eyes and cheeks with fury glow, - Now pale her cheeks, her eyes with pity flow; - Now lowring looks presage approaching storms, - And now prevailing love her face reforms: - Resolved, she doubts again; the tears, she dried - With blushing rage, are by new tears supplied; - And, as a ship, which winds and waves assail, } - Now with the current drives, now with the gale, } - Both opposite, and neither long prevail, } - She feels a double force; by turns obeys - The imperious tempest, and the impetuous seas: - So fares Althæa's mind; first she relents - With pity, of that pity then repents: - Sister and mother long the scales divide, - But the beam nodded on the sister's side. - Sometimes she softly sighed, then roared aloud; - But sighs were stifled in the cries of blood. - The pious impious wretch at length decreed, - To please her brothers' ghosts, her son should bleed; - And when the funeral flames began to rise, - Receive, she said, a sister's sacrifice; - A mother's bowels burn:--high in her hand, - Thus while she spoke, she held the fatal brand; - Then thrice before the kindled pile she bowed, - And the three Furies thrice invoked aloud:-- - Come, come, revenging sisters, come and view - A sister paying her dead brothers' due; - A crime I punish, and a crime commit; - But blood for blood, and death for death, is fit: - Great crimes must be with greater crimes repaid, - And second funerals on the former laid. - Let the whole household in one ruin fall, - And may Diana's curse o'ertake us all. - Shall fate to happy Œneus still allow } - One son, while Thestius stands deprived of two? } - Better three lost, than one unpunished go. } - Take then, dear ghosts, (while yet, admitted new - In hell, you wait my duty,) take your due; - A costly offering on your tomb is laid, - When with my blood the price of yours is paid. - Ah! whither am I hurried? Ah! forgive, - Ye shades, and let your sister's issue live: - A mother cannot give him death; though he - Deserves it, he deserves it not from me. - Then shall the unpunished wretch insult the slain, - Triumphant live? not only live, but reign? - While you, thin shades, the sport of winds, are tost - O'er dreary plains, or tread the burning coast! - I cannot, cannot bear; 'tis past, 'tis done; - Perish this impious, this detested son; - Perish his sire, and perish I withal; - And let the houses heir, and the hoped kingdom fall. - Where is the mother fled, her pious love, - And where the pains with which ten months I strove! - Ah! hadst thou died, my son, in infant years, - Thy little hearse hadst been bedewed with tears. - Thou livest by me; to me thy breath resign; - Mine is the merit, the demerit thine. - Thy life by double title I require; - Once given at birth, and once preserved from fire: - One murder pay, or add one murder more, - And me to them who fell by thee restore. - I would, but cannot: my son's image stands - Before my sight;--and now their angry hands - My brothers hold, and vengeance these exact; - This pleads compassion, and repents the fact. - He pleads in vain, and I pronounce his doom: - My brothers, though unjustly, shall o'ercome; - But having paid their injured ghosts their due, - My son requires my death, and mine shall his pursue. - At this, for the last time, she lifts her hand, - Averts her eyes, and half-unwilling drops the brand. - The brand, amid the flaming fuel thrown, - Or drew, or seemed to draw, a dying groan; - The fires themselves but faintly licked their prey, - Then loathed their impious food, and would have shrunk away. - Just then the hero cast a doleful cry, - And in those absent flames began to fry; - The blind contagion raged within his veins; - But he, with manly patience, bore his pains; - He feared not fate, but only grieved to die - Without an honest wound, and by a death so dry. - Happy Ancæus, thrice aloud he cried, - With what becoming fate in arms he died! - Then called his brothers, sisters, sire, around, - And her to whom his nuptial vows were bound; - Perhaps his mother; a long sigh he drew, - And, his voice failing, took his last adieu; - For, as the flames augment, and as they stay - At their full height, then languish to decay, - They rise, and sink by fits; at last they soar - In one bright blaze, and then descend no more: - Just so his inward heats, at height, impair, - Till the last burning breath shoots out the soul in air. - Now lofty Calydon in ruins lies; } - All ages, all degrees, unsluice their eyes; } - And heaven and earth resound with murmurs, groans, and cries.} - Matrons and maidens beat their breasts, and tear - Their habits, and root up their scattered hair. - The wretched father, father now no more, - With sorrow sunk, lies prostrate on the floor; - Deforms his hoary locks with dust obscene, - And curses age, and loathes a life prolonged with pain. - By steel her stubborn soul his mother freed, - And punished on herself her impious deed. - Had I an hundred tongues, a wit so large - As could their hundred offices discharge; - Had Phœbus all his Helicon bestowed, - In all the streams inspiring all the god; - Those tongues, that wit, those streams, that god in vain - Would offer to describe his sisters' pain; - They beat their breasts with many a bruising blow, - Till they turn livid, and corrupt the snow. - The corps they cherish, while the corps remains, - And exercise and rub with fruitless pains; - And when to funeral flames 'tis borne away, - They kiss the bed on which the body lay; - And when those funeral flames no longer burn, - The dust composed within a pious urn, - Even in that urn their brother they confess, - And hug it in their arms, and to their bosoms press. - His tomb is raised; then, stretched along the ground, - Those living monuments his tomb surround; - Even to his name, inscribed, their tears they pay, - Till tears and kisses wear his name away. - But Cynthia now had all her fury spent, - Not with less ruin, than a race, content; - Excepting Gorge, perished all the seed, - And her whom heaven for Hercules decreed. - Satiate at last, no longer she pursued - The weeping sisters; but with wings endued, - And horny beaks, and sent to flit in air, - Who yearly round the tomb in feathered flocks repair. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[24] Amphialus. - - - - -BAUCIS AND PHILEMON. - -OUT OF THE EIGHTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - _The author, pursuing the deeds of Theseus, relates how he, with his - friend Pirithous, were invited by Achelous, the River-God, to stay - with him, till his waters were abated. Achelous entertains them with a - relation of his own love to Perimele, who was changed into an island - by Neptune, at his request. Pirithous, being an Atheist, derides - the legend, and denies the power of the Gods to work that miracle. - Lelex, another companion of Theseus, to confirm the story of Achelous, - relates another metamorphosis, of Baucis and Philemon into trees; of - which he was partly an eyewitness._ - - - Thus Achelous ends; his audience hear - With admiration, and, admiring, fear - The powers of heaven; except Ixion's son, - Who laughed at all the gods, believed in none; - He shook his impious head, and thus replies,-- - These legends are no more than pious lies; - You attribute too much to heavenly sway, - To think they give us forms, and take away.-- - The rest, of better minds, their sense declared - Against this doctrine, and with horror heard. - Then Lelex rose, an old experienced man, - And thus with sober gravity began;-- - Heaven's power is infinite; earth, air, and sea, - The manufacture mass, the making power obey. - By proof to clear your doubt;--In Phrygian ground - Two neighbouring trees, with walls encompassed round, - Stand on a moderate rise, with wonder shown, - One a hard oak, a softer linden one; - I saw the place and them, by Pittheus sent - To Phrygian realms, my grandsire's government. - Not far from thence is seen a lake, the haunt - Of coots, and of the fishing cormorant. - Here Jove with Hermes came; but in disguise - Of mortal men concealed their deities; - One laid aside his thunder, one his rod, - And many toilsome steps together trod; - For harbour at a thousand doors they knocked, - Not one of all the thousand but was locked; - At last an hospitable house they found, } - A homely shed; the roof, not far from ground, } - Was thatched with reeds and straw together bound. } - There Baucis and Philemon lived, and there - Had lived long married, and a happy pair; - Now old in love; though little was their store, } - Inured to want, their poverty they bore, } - Nor aimed at wealth, professing to be poor. } - For master or for servant here to call, - Was all alike, where only two were all. - Command was none, where equal love was paid, - Or rather both commanded, both obeyed. - From lofty roofs the gods repulsed before, - Now stooping, entered through the little door; - The man their hearty welcome first expressed, } - A common settle[25] drew for either guest, } - Inviting each his weary limbs to rest. } - But, ere they sat, officious Baucis lays - Two cushions stuffed with straw, the seat to raise; - Coarse, but the best she had; then takes the load - Of ashes from the hearth, and spreads abroad - The living coals, and, lest they should expire, - With leaves and barks she feeds her infant-fire; - It smokes, and then with trembling breath she blows, - Till in a cheerful blaze the flames arose. - With brushwood and with chips she strengthens these, - And adds at last the boughs of rotten trees. - The fire thus formed, she sets the kettle on, - Like burnished gold the little seether shone; - Next took the coleworts which her husband got - From his own ground, a small well-watered spot; - She stripped the stalks of all their leaves; the best - She culled, and then with handy care she dressed. - High o'er the hearth a chine of bacon hung; - Good old Philemon seized it with a prong, - And from the sooty rafter drew it down, - Then cut a slice, but scarce enough for one; - Yet a large portion of a little store, - Which, for their sake alone, he wished were more. - This in the pot he plunged without delay, - To tame the flesh, and drain the salt away. - The time between, before the fire they sat, - And shortened the delay by pleasing chat. - A beam there was, on which a beechen pail - Hung by the handle, on a driven nail; - This filled with water, gently warmed, they set } - Before their guests; in this they bathed their feet, } - And after with clean towels dried their sweat: } - This done, the host produced the genial bed, } - Sallow the foot, the borders, and the sted, } - Which with no costly coverlet they spread, } - But coarse old garments; yet such robes as these - They laid alone, at feasts, on holidays. - The good old housewife, tucking up her gown, - The table sets; the invited gods lie down. - The trivet-table of a foot was lame, - A blot which prudent Baucis overcame, - Who thrust beneath the limping leg a sherd, - So was the mended board exactly reared; - Then rubbed it o'er with newly gathered mint, - A wholesome herb, that breathed a grateful scent. - Pallas[26] began the feast, where first was seen - The party-coloured olive, black and green; - Autumnal cornels next in order served, - In lees of wine well pickled and preserved; - A garden-sallad was the third supply, - Of endive, radishes, and succory; - Then curds and cream, the flower of country fare, } - And new-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care } - Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare. } - All these in earthen-ware were served to board; } - And, next in place, an earthen pitcher, stored } - With liquor of the best the cottage could afford. } - This was the table's ornament and pride, - With figures wrought; like pages at his side - Stood beechen bowls; and these were shining clean, - Varnished with wax without, and lined within. - By this the boiling kettle had prepared, - And to the table sent the smoking lard; - On which, with eager appetite, they dine, - A savoury bit, that served to relish wine; - The wine itself was suiting to the rest, - Still working in the must, and lately pressed. - The second course succeeds like that before, - Plumbs, apples, nuts, and, of their wintry-store, - Dry figs and grapes, and wrinkled dates were set - In canisters, to enlarge the little treat; - All these a milk-white honey-comb surround, - Which in the midst the country-banquet crowned. - But the kind hosts their entertainment grace - With hearty welcome, and an open face; - In all they did, you might discern with ease - A willing mind, and a desire to please. - Mean time the beechen bowls went round, and still, - Though often emptied, were observed to fill; - Filled without hands, and of their own accord - Ran without feet, and danced about the board. - Devotion seized the pair, to see the feast - With wine, and of no common grape, increased; - And up they held their hands, and fell to prayer, - Excusing, as they could, their country fare. - One goose they had, 'twas all they could allow, } - A wakeful sentry, and on duty now, } - Whom to the gods for sacrifice they vow: } - Her, with malicious zeal, the couple viewed; - She ran for life, and, limping, they pursued; - Full well the fowl perceived their bad intent, - And would not make her master's compliment; - But, persecuted, to the powers she flies, - And close between the legs of Jove she lies. - He, with a gracious ear, the suppliant heard, - And saved her life; then what he was declared, - And owned the god. The neighbourhood, said he, - Shall justly perish for impiety; - You stand alone exempted; but obey - With speed, and follow where we lead the way; - Leave these accursed, and to the mountain's height - Ascend, nor once look backward in your flight.-- - They haste, and what their tardy feet denied, - The trusty staff (their better leg) supplied. - An arrow's flight they wanted to the top, - And there secure, but spent with travel, stop; - Then turn their now no more forbidden eyes:-- - Lost in a lake, the floated level lies; - A watery desert covers all the plains, - Their cot alone, as in an isle, remains: - Wondering, with peeping eyes, while they deplore - Their neighbours' fate, and country now no more, - Their little shed, scarce large enough for two, - Seems, from the ground increased, in height and bulk to grow. - A stately temple shoots within the skies; - The crotchets of their cot in columns rise; - The pavement polished marble they behold, - The gates with sculpture graced, the spires and tiles of gold. - Then thus the sire of gods, with looks serene, - Speak thy desire, thou only just of men; - And thou, O woman, only worthy found - To be with such a man in marriage bound.-- - Awhile they whisper; then, to Jove addressed, - Philemon thus prefers their joint request:-- - We crave to serve before your sacred shrine, - And offer at your altars rites divine, - And since not any action of our life - Has been polluted with domestic strife, - We beg one hour of death; that neither she, - With widow's tears, may live to bury me, - Nor weeping I, with withered arms, may bear - My breathless Baucis to the sepulchre. - The godheads sign their suit. They run their race - In the same tenour all the appointed space; - Then, when their hour was come, while they relate - These past adventures at the temple-gate, - Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen - Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green; - Old Baucis looked where old Philemon stood, - And saw his lengthened arms a sprouting wood; - New roots their fastened feet begin to bind, - Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind; - Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew, - They give and take at once their last adieu; - At once, farewell, O faithful spouse, they said; - At once the encroaching rinds their closing lips invade. - Even yet, an ancient Tyanæan shows - A spreading oak, that near a linden grows; - The neighbourhood confirm the prodigy, - Grave men, not vain of tongue, or like to lie. - I saw myself the garlands on their boughs, - And tablets hung for gifts of granted vows; - And offering fresher up, with pious prayer, } - The good, said I, are God's peculiar care, } - And such as honour heaven, shall heavenly honour share. } - -FOOTNOTES: - -[25] Called in more modern times a _settee_. The old word, -_settle_, occurs in the first part of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress;" -where Christian, at the bottom of the Hill of Difficulty, finds an -arbour with a _settle_. - -[26] To whom the olive was sacred. - - - - -THE FABLE OF IPHIS AND IANTHE. - -FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - - The fame of this, perhaps, through Crete had flown; - But Crete had newer wonders of her own, - In Iphis changed; for near the Gnossian bounds, - As loud report the miracle resounds, - At Phæstus dwelt a man of honest blood, } - But meanly born, and not so rich as good, } - Esteemed and loved by all the neighbourhood; } - Who to his wife, before the time assigned - For child-birth came, thus bluntly spoke his mind:-- - If heaven, said Lygdus, will vouchsafe to hear, } - I have but two petitions to prefer; } - Short pains for thee, for me a son and heir. } - Girls cost as many throes in bringing forth; - Beside, when born, the tits are little worth; - Weak puling things, unable to sustain - Their share of labour, and their bread to gain. - If, therefore, thou a creature shalt produce, - Of so great charges, and so little use, - Bear witness, heaven, with what reluctancy, - Her hapless innocence I doom to die.-- - He said, and tears the common grief display, - Of him who bade, and her who must obey. - Yet Telethusa still persists, to find - Fit arguments to move a father's mind; - To extend his wishes to a larger scope, - And in one vessel not confine his hope. - Lygdus continues hard; her time drew near, - And she her heavy load could scarcely bear; - When slumbering, in the latter shades of night, - Before the approaches of returning light, - She saw, or thought she saw, before her bed, - A glorious train, and Isis at their head; - Her moony horns were on her forehead placed, - And yellow sheaves her shining temples graced; - A mitre, for a crown, she wore on high; - The dog, and dappled bull, were waiting by; - Osiris, sought along the banks of Nile; - The silent god; the sacred Crocodile; - And, last, a long procession moving on, - With timbrels, that assist the labouring moon. - Her slumbers seemed dispelled, and, broad awake, - She heard a voice, that thus distinctly spake:-- - My votary, thy babe from death defend, - Nor fear to save whate'er the gods will send; - Delude with art thy husband's dire decree; } - When danger calls, repose thy trust on me; } - And know, thou hast not served a thankless deity.-- } - This promise made, with night the goddess fled; - With joy the woman wakes, and leaves her bed; - Devoutly lifts her spotless hands on high, - And prays the powers their gift to ratify. - Now grinding pains proceed to bearing throes, - Till its own weight the burden did disclose. - 'Twas of the beauteous kind, and brought to light - With secrecy, to shun the father's sight. - The indulgent mother did her care employ, - And passed it on her husband for a boy. - The nurse was conscious of the fact alone; - The father paid his vows as for a son; - And called him Iphis, by a common name, - Which either sex with equal right may claim. - Iphis his grandsire was; the wife was pleased, - Of half the fraud by fortune's favour eased; - The doubtful name was used without deceit, - And truth was covered with a pious cheat. - The habit showed a boy, the beauteous face - With manly fierceness mingled female grace. - Now thirteen years of age were swiftly run, } - When the fond father thought the time drew on } - Of settling in the world his only son. } - Ianthe was his choice; so wondrous fair, - Her form alone with Iphis could compare; - A neighbour's daughter of his own degree, - And not more blessed with Fortune's goods than he. - They soon espoused; for they with ease were joined, - Who were before contracted in the mind. - Their age the same, their inclinations too, - And bred together in one school, they grew. - Thus, fatally disposed to mutual fires, - They felt, before they knew, the same desires. - Equal their flame, unequal was their care; - One loved with hope, one languished in despair. - The maid accused the lingering days alone; - For whom she thought a man, she thought her own, - But Iphis bends beneath a greater grief; - As fiercely burns, but hopes for no relief. - E'en her despair adds fuel to her fire; - A maid with madness does a maid desire. - And, scarce refraining tears, Alas, said she, - What issue of my love remains for me! - How wild a passion works within my breast! - With what prodigious flames am I possest! - Could I the care of Providence deserve, - Heaven must destroy me, if it would preserve. - And that's my fate, or sure it would have sent - Some usual evil for my punishment; - Not this unkindly curse; to rage and burn, - Where nature shews no prospect of return. - Nor cows for cows consume with fruitless fire; - Nor mares, when hot, their fellow-mares desire; - The father of the fold supplies his ewes; } - The stag through secret woods his hind pursues; } - And birds for mates the males of their own species choose.} - Her females nature guards from female flame, } - And joins two sexes to preserve the game; } - Would I were nothing, or not what I am! } - Crete, famed for monsters, wanted of her store, - Till my new love produced one monster more. - The daughter of the Sun a bull desired;[27] - And yet e'en then a male a female fired: - Her passion was extravagantly new; - But mine is much the madder of the two. - To things impossible she was not bent, - But found the means to compass her intent. - To cheat his eyes she took a different shape; - Yet still she gained a lover, and a leap. - Should all the wit of all the world conspire, - Should Dædalus assist my wild desire, - What art can make me able to enjoy, - Or what can change Ianthe to a boy? - Extinguish then thy passion, hopeless maid, - And recollect thy reason for thy aid. - Know what thou art, and love as maidens ought, - And drive these golden wishes from thy thought. - Thou canst not hope thy fond desires to gain; - Where hope is wanting, wishes are in vain. - And yet no guards against our joys conspire; - No jealous husband hinders our desire; - My parents are propitious to my wish, - And she herself consenting to the bliss. - All things concur to prosper our design; - All things to prosper any love but mine. - And yet I never can enjoy the fair; - 'Tis past the power of heaven to grant my prayer. - Heaven has been kind, as far as heaven can be; - Our parents with our own desires agree; - But nature, stronger, than the gods above, - Refuses her assistance to my love: - She sets the bar that causes all my pain; - One gift refused makes all their bounty vain. - And now the happy day is just at hand, - To bind our hearts in Hymen's holy band; - Our hearts, but not our bodies; thus accursed, - In midst of water I complain of thirst. - Why comest thou, Juno, to these barren rites, - To bless a bed defrauded of delights? - And why should Hymen lift his torch on high, - To see two brides in cold embraces lie?-- - Thus love-sick Iphis her vain passion mourns; - With equal ardour fair Ianthe burns; - Invoking Hymen's name, and Juno's power, - To speed the work, and haste the happy hour. - She hopes, while Telethusa fears the day, - And strives to interpose some new delay; - Now feigns a sickness, now is in a fright - For this bad omen, or that boding sight. - But having done whate'er she could devise, - And emptied all her magazine of lies, - The time approached; the next ensuing day - The fatal secret must to light betray. - Then Telethusa had recourse to prayer, - She and her daughter with dishevelled hair; - Trembling with fear, great Isis they adored, - Embraced her altar, and her aid implored. - Fair queen, who dost on fruitful Egypt smile, } - Who sway'st the sceptre of the Pharian isle, } - And sevenfold falls of disemboguing Nile; } - Relieve, in this our last distress, she said, - A suppliant mother, and a mournful maid. - Thou, goddess, thou wert present to my sight; - Revealed I saw thee by thy own fair light; - I saw thee in my dream, as now I see, - With all thy marks of awful majesty; - The glorious train that compassed thee around; - And heard the hollow timbrel's holy sound. - Thy words I noted, which I still retain; - Let not thy sacred oracles be vain. - That Iphis lives, that I myself am free - From shame and punishment, I owe to thee. - On thy protection all our hopes depend; - Thy counsel saved us, let thy power defend. - Her tears pursued her words, and, while she spoke, - The goddess nodded, and her altar shook; - The temple doors, as with a blast of wind, - Were heard to clap; the lunar horns, that bind - The brows of Isis, cast a blaze around; - The trembling timbrel made a murmuring sound. - Some hopes these happy omens did impart; - Forth went the mother with a beating heart, - Not much in fear, nor fully satisfied; - But Iphis followed with a larger stride: - The whiteness of her skin forsook her face; - Her looks emboldened with an awful grace; - Her features and her strength together grew, - And her long hair to curling locks withdrew. - Her sparkling eyes with manly vigour shone; - Big was her voice, audacious was her tone. - The latent parts, at length revealed, began - To shoot, and spread, and burnish into man. - The maid becomes a youth;--no more delay - Your vows, but look, and confidently pay.-- - Their gifts the parents to the temple bear; - The votive tables this inscription wear;-- - Iphis, the man, has to the goddess paid - The vows, that Iphis offered when a maid. - Now when the star of day had shown his face, - Venus and Juno with their presence grace - The nuptial rites, and Hymen from above - Descended to complete their happy love; - The gods of marriage lend their mutual aid, - And the warm youth enjoys the lovely maid. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[27] Pasiphae. - - - - -PYGMALION AND THE STATUE. - -FROM THE TENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - _The Propætides, for their impudent behaviour, being turned into stone - by Venus, Pygmalion, Prince of Cyprus, detested all women for their - sake, and resolved never to marry. He falls in love with a statue of - his own making, which is changed into a maid, whom he marries. One - of his descendants is Cinyras, the father of Myrrha; the daughter - incestuously loves her own father, for which she is changed into a - tree, which bears her name. These two stories immediately follow each - other, and are admirably well connected._ - - - Pygmalion, loathing their lascivious life, - Abhorred all womankind, but most a wife; - So single chose to live, and shunned to wed, - Well pleased to want a consort of his bed. - Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill, - In sculpture exercised his happy skill; - And carved in ivory such a maid, so fair, - As nature could not with his art compare, - Were she to work; but in her own defence, - Must take her pattern here, and copy hence. - Pleased with his idol, he commends, admires, - Adores; and last, the thing adored desires. - A very virgin in her face was seen, - And, had she moved, a living maid had been: - One would have thought she could have stirred, but strove - With modesty, and was ashamed to move. - Art, hid with art, so well performed the cheat, - It caught the carver with his own deceit. - He knows 'tis madness, yet he must adore, - And still the more he knows it, loves the more; - The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft, - Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft. - Fired with this thought, at once he strained the breast, - And on the lips a burning kiss impressed. - 'Tis true, the hardened breast resists the gripe, - And the cold lips return a kiss unripe; - But when, retiring back, he looked again, - To think it ivory was a thought too mean; - So would believe she kissed, and courting more, - Again embraced her naked body o'er; - And, straining hard the statue, was afraid - His hands had made a dint, and hurt the maid; - Explored her, limb by limb, and feared to find - So rude a gripe had left a livid mark behind. - With flattery now he seeks her mind to move, - And now with gifts, the powerful bribes of love: - He furnishes her closet first; and fills - The crowded shelves with rarities of shells; - Adds orient pearls, which from the conchs he drew, - And all the sparkling stones of various hue; - And parrots, imitating human tongue,[28] - And singing-birds in silver cages hung; - And every fragrant flower, and odorous green, - Were sorted well, with lumps of amber laid between; - Rich fashionable robes her person deck; - Pendents her ears, and pearls adorn her neck; - Her tapered fingers too with rings are graced, - And an embroidered zone surrounds her slender waste. - Thus like a queen arrayed, so richly dressed, - Beauteous she showed, but naked showed the best. - Then from the floor he raised a royal bed, - With coverings of Sidonian purple spread; - The solemn rites performed, he calls her bride, - With blandishments invites her to his side, - And as she were with vital sense possessed, - Her head did on a plumy pillow rest. - The feast of Venus came, a solemn day, - To which the Cypriots due devotion pay; - With gilded horns the milk-white heifers led, - Slaughtered before the sacred altars, bled; - Pygmalion, offering, first approached the shrine, - And then with prayers implored the powers divine;-- - Almighty Gods, if all we mortals want, - If all we can require, be yours to grant, - Make this fair statue mine,--he would have said, } - But changed his words for shame, and only prayed, } - Give me the likeness of my ivory maid!-- } - The golden Goddess, present at the prayer, - Well knew he meant the inanimated fair, - And gave the sign of granting his desire; - For thrice in cheerful flames ascends the fire. - The youth, returning to his mistress, hies, } - And impudent in hope, with ardent eyes, } - And beating breast, by the dear statue lies. } - He kisses her white lips, renews the bliss, - And looks and thinks they redden at the kiss; - He thought them warm before: nor longer stays, - But next his hand on her hard bosom lays; - Hard as it was, beginning to relent, - It seemed the breast beneath his fingers bent; - He felt again, his fingers made a print, - 'Twas flesh, but flesh so firm, it rose against the dint. - The pleasing task he fails not to renew; - Soft, and more soft at every touch it grew; - Like pliant wax, when chafing hands reduce - The former mass to form, and frame to use. - He would believe, but yet is still in pain, } - And tries his argument of sense again, } - Presses the pulse, and feels the leaping vein. } - Convinced, o'erjoyed, his studied thanks and praise, - To her who made the miracle, he pays; - Then lips to lips he joined; now freed from fear, - He found the savour of the kiss sincere. - At this the wakened image oped her eyes, - And viewed at once the light and lover with surprise. - The goddess, present at the match she made, - So blessed the bed, such fruitfulness conveyed, - That ere ten moons had sharpened either horn, - To crown their bliss, a lovely boy was born; - Paphos his name, who, grown to manhood, walled - The city Paphos, from the founder called. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[28] The parrots are of Dryden's introduction. - - - - -CINYRAS AND MYRRHA. - -OUT OF THE TENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - _There needs no connection of this story with the former; for the - beginning of this immediately follows the end of the last: The reader - is only to take notice, that Orpheus, who relates both, was by birth - a Thracian; and his country far distant from Cyprus, where Myrrha was - born, and from Arabia, whither she fled. You will see the reason of - this note, soon after the first lines of this fable._ - - - Nor him alone produced the fruitful queen; - But Cinyras, who like his sire had been - A happy prince, had he not been a sire. - Daughters and fathers, from my song retire! - I sing of horror; and, could I prevail, - You should not hear, or not believe my tale. - Yet if the pleasure of my song be such, - That you will hear, and credit me too much, - Attentive listen to the last event, - And with the sin believe the punishment: - Since nature could behold so dire a crime, - I gratulate at least my native clime, - That such a land, which such a monster bore, - So far is distant from our Thracian shore. - Let Araby extol her happy coast, - Her cinnamon and sweet amomum boast; - Her fragrant flowers, her trees with precious tears, } - Her second harvests, and her double years; } - How can the land be called so blessed, that Myrrha bears?} - Not all her odorous tears can cleanse her crime, - Her plant alone deforms the happy clime; - Cupid denies to have inflamed thy heart, - Disowns thy love, and vindicates his dart; - Some fury gave thee those infernal pains, - And shot her venomed vipers in thy veins. - To hate thy sire, had merited a curse; - But such an impious love deserved a worse. - The neighbouring monarchs, by thy beauty led, - Contend in crowds, ambitious of thy bed; - The world is at thy choice, except but one, - Except but him thou canst not choose alone. - She knew it too, the miserable maid, } - Ere impious love her better thoughts betrayed, } - And thus within her secret soul she said:-- } - Ah, Myrrha! whither would thy wishes tend? - Ye Gods, ye sacred laws, my soul defend - From such a crime as all mankind detest, - And never lodged before in human breast! - But is it sin? Or makes my mind alone - The imagined sin? For nature makes it none. - What tyrant then these envious laws began, - Made not for any other beast but man! - The father-bull his daughter may bestride, - The horse may make his mother-mare a bride; - What piety forbids the lusty ram, - Or more salacious goat, to rut their dam? - The hen is free to wed her chick she bore, - And make a husband, whom she hatched before. - All creatures else are of a happier kind, } - Whom nor ill-natured laws from pleasure bind, } - Nor thoughts of sin disturb their peace of mind. } - But man a slave of his own making lives; - The fool denies himself what nature gives; - Too busy senates, with an over-care - To make us better than our kind can bear, - Have dashed a spice of envy in the laws, - And, straining up too high, have spoiled the cause. - Yet some wise nations break their cruel chains, - And own no laws, but those which love ordains; - Where happy daughters with their sires are joined, - And piety is doubly paid in kind. - O that I had been born in such a clime, - Not here, where 'tis the country makes the crime!... - But whither would my impious fancy stray? - Hence hopes, and ye forbidden thoughts, away! - His worth deserves to kindle my desires, - But with the love that daughters bear to sires. - Then had not Cinyras my father been, - What hindered Myrrha's hopes to be his queen? - But the perverseness of my fate is such, - That he's not mine, because he's mine too much: - Our kindred-blood debars a better tie; - He might be nearer, were he not so nigh. - Eyes and their objects never must unite, - Some distance is required to help the sight. - Fain would I travel to some foreign shore, } - Never to see my native country more, } - So might I to myself myself restore; } - So might my mind these impious thoughts remove, - And, ceasing to behold, might cease to love. - But stay I must, to feed my famished sight, - To talk, to kiss; and more, if more I might:... - More, impious maid! What more canst thou design? } - To make a monstrous mixture in thy line, } - And break all statutes human and divine? } - Canst thou be called (to save thy wretched life) - Thy mother's rival, and thy father's wife? - Confound so many sacred names in one, - Thy brother's mother! sister to thy son! - And fear'st thou not to see the infernal bands, - Their heads with snakes, with torches armed their hands, - Full at thy face the avenging brands to bear, - And shake the serpents from their hissing hair? - But thou in time the increasing ill controul, - Nor first debauch the body by the soul; - Secure the sacred quiet of thy mind, - And keep the sanctions nature has designed. - Suppose I should attempt, the attempt were vain; - No thoughts like mine his sinless soul profane, - Observant of the right; and O, that he - Could cure my madness, or be mad like me!-- - Thus she; but Cinyras, who daily sees - A crowd of noble suitors at his knees, - Among so many, knew not whom to choose, - Irresolute to grant, or to refuse; - But, having told their names, inquired of her, - Who pleased her best, and whom she would prefer? - The blushing maid stood silent with surprise, - And on her father fixed her ardent eyes, - And, looking, sighed; and, as she sighed, began - Round tears to shed, that scalded as they ran. - The tender sire, who saw her blush, and cry, - Ascribed it all to maiden-modesty; - And dried the falling drops, and, yet more kind, - He stroked her cheeks, and holy kisses joined: - She felt a secret venom fire her blood, - And found more pleasure than a daughter should; - And, asked again, what lover of the crew - She liked the best? she answered, one like you. - Mistaking what she meant, her pious will - He praised, and bade her so continue still: - The word of "pious" heard, she blushed with shame - Of secret guilt, and could not bear the name. - 'Twas now the mid of night, when slumbers close - Our eyes, and sooth our cares with soft repose; - But no repose could wretched Myrrha find, - Her body rolling, as she rolled her mind: - Mad with desire, she ruminates her sin, - And wishes all her wishes o'er again: - Now she despairs, and now resolves to try; - Would not, and would again, she knows not why; - Stops and returns, makes and retracts the vow; - Fain would begin, but understands not how: - As when a pine is hewn upon the plains, - And the last mortal stroke alone remains, - Labouring in pangs of death, and threatening all, - This way and that she nods, considering where to fall; - So Myrrha's mind, impelled on either side, - Takes every bent, but cannot long abide: - Irresolute on which she should rely, - At last, unfixed in all, is only fixed to die. - On that sad thought she rests; resolved on death, - She rises, and prepares to choke her breath: - Then while about the beam her zone she ties, - Dear Cinyras, farewell, she softly cries; - For thee I die, and only wish to be - Not hated, when thou know'st I die for thee: - Pardon the crime, in pity to the cause.-- - This said, about her neck the noose she draws. - The nurse, who lay without, her faithful guard, - Though not the words, the murmurs overheard, - And sighs and hollow sounds; surprised with fright, - She starts, and leaves her bed, and springs a light; - Unlocks the door, and, entering out of breath, - The dying saw, and instruments of death. - She shrieks, she cuts the zone with trembling haste, - And in her arms her fainting charge embraced; - Next (for she now had leisure for her tears) - She weeping asked, in these her blooming years, - What unforeseen misfortune caused her care, - To loathe her life, and languish in despair - The maid, with downcast eyes, and mute with grief, - For death unfinished, and ill-timed relief, - Stood sullen to her suit: the beldame pressed - The more to know, and bared her withered breast; - Adjured her, by the kindly food she drew - From those dry founts, her secret ill to shew. - Sad Myrrha sighed, and turned her eyes aside; - The nurse still urged, and would not be denied; - Nor only promised secrecy, but prayed - She might have leave to give her offered aid. - Good will, she said, my want of strength supplies, - And diligence shall give what age denies. - If strong desires thy mind to fury move, - With charms and medicines I can cure thy love; - If envious eyes their hurtful rays have cast, - More powerful verse shall free thee from the blast; - If heaven, offended, sends thee this disease, - Offended heaven with prayers we can appease. - What then remains, that can these cares procure? - Thy house is flourishing; thy fortune sure; - Thy careful mother yet in health survives, - And, to thy comfort, thy kind father lives.-- - The virgin started at her father's name, - And sighed profoundly, conscious of the shame; - Nor yet the nurse her impious love divined, - But yet surmised, that love disturbed her mind. - Thus thinking, she pursued her point, and laid - And lull'd within her lap the mourning maid; - Then softly soothed her thus,--I guess your grief; - You love, my child; your love shall find relief. - My long experienced age shall be your guide; - Rely on that, and lay distrust aside; - No breath of air shall on the secret blow, - Nor shall (what most you fear) your father know. - Struck once again, as with a thunder-clap, - The guilty virgin bounded from her lap, - And threw her body prostrate on the bed, - And, to conceal her blushes, hid her head: - There silent lay, and warned her with her hand - To go; but she received not the command; - Remaining still importunate to know. - Then Myrrha thus; Or ask no more, or go; - I pr'ythee go, or, staying, spare my shame; - What thou wouldst hear, is impious even to name.-- - At this, on high the beldame holds her hands, - And trembling, both with age and terrour, stands; - Adjures, and, falling at her feet, intreats, - Sooths her with blandishments, and frights with threats, - To tell the crime intended, or disclose - What part of it she knew, if she no farther knows; - And last, if conscious to her counsel made, - Confirms anew the promise of her aid. - Now Myrrha raised her head; but soon, oppressed } - With shame, reclined it on her nurse's breast; } - Bathed it with tears, and strove to have confessed: } - Twice she began, and stopped; again she tried; - The faultering tongue its office still denied; - At last her veil before her face she spread, } - And drew a long preluding sigh, and said, } - O happy mother, in thy marriage bed!... } - Then groaned, and ceased.--The good old woman shook, - Stiff were her eyes, and ghastly was her look; - Her hoary hair upright with horror stood, - Made (to her grief) more knowing than she would; - Much she reproached, and many things she said, - To cure the madness of the unhappy maid: - In vain; for Myrrha stood convict of ill; - Her reason vanquished, but unchanged her will; - Perverse of mind, unable to reply, - She stood resolved or to possess, or die. - At length the fondness of a nurse prevailed - Against her better sense, and virtue failed: - Enjoy, my child, since such is thy desire, - Thy love, she said; she durst not say, thy sire. - Live, though unhappy, live on any terms; - Then with a second oath her faith confirms. - The solemn feast of Ceres now was near, - When long white linen stoles the matrons wear; - Ranked in procession walk the pious train, - Offering first-fruits, and spikes of yellow grain; - For nine long nights the nuptial bed they shun, - And, sanctifying harvest, lie alone. - Mixed with the crowd, the queen forsook her lord, - And Ceres' power with secret rites adored. - The royal couch now vacant for a time, - The crafty crone, officious in her crime, - The curst occasion took; the king she found - Easy with wine, and deep in pleasure drowned, - Prepared for love; the beldame blew the flame, - Confessed the passion, but concealed the name. - Her form she praised; the monarch asked her years, - And she replied, the same that Myrrha bears. - Wine and commended beauty fired his thought; - Impatient, he commands her to be brought. - Pleased with her charge performed, she hies her home, - And gratulates the nymph, the task was overcome. - Myrrha was joyed the welcome news to hear; - But, clogged with guilt, the joy was insincere - So various, so discordant is the mind, - That in our will, a different will we find. - Ill she presaged, and yet pursued her lust; - For guilty pleasures give a double gust. - 'Twas depth of night; Arctophylax had driven - His lazy wain half round the northern heaven, - When Myrrha hastened to the crime desired. - The moon beheld her first, and first retired; - The stars, amazed, ran backward from the sight, - And, shrunk within their sockets, lost their light. - Icarius first withdraws his holy flame; - The Virgin sign, in heaven the second name, - Slides down the belt, and from her station flies, - And night with sable clouds involves the skies. - Bold Myrrha still pursues her black intent; } - She stumbled thrice, (an omen of the event;) } - Thrice shrieked the funeral owl, yet on she went, } - Secure of shame, because secure of sight; - Even bashful sins are impudent by night. - Linked hand in hand, the accomplice and the dame, - Their way exploring, to the chamber came; - The door was ope, they blindly grope their way, - Where dark in bed the expecting monarch lay: - Thus far her courage held, but here forsakes; - Her faint knees knock at every step she makes. - The nearer to her crime, the more within - She feels remorse, and horror of her sin; - Repents too late her criminal desire, - And wishes, that unknown she could retire. - Her, lingering thus, the nurse, who feared delay - The fatal secret might at length betray, - Pulled forward, to complete the work begun, - And said to Cinyras,--Receive thy own!... - Thus saying, she delivered kind to kind, - Accursed, and their devoted bodies joined. - The sire, unknowing of the crime, admits - His bowels, and profanes the hallowed sheets. - He found she trembled, but believed she strove, } - With maiden modesty, against her love; } - And sought, with flattering words, vain fancies to remove.} - Perhaps he said, My daughter, cease thy fears,-- - Because the title suited with her years; - And, Father,--she might whisper him again, - That names might not be wanting to the sin. - Full of her sire, she left the incestuous bed, - And carried in her womb the crime she bred. - Another, and another night she came; - For frequent sin had left no sense of shame; - Till Cinyras desired to see her face, - Whose body he had held in close embrace, - And brought a taper; the revealer, light, - Exposed both crime, and criminal, to sight. - Grief, rage, amazement, could no speech afford, - But from the sheath he drew the avenging sword; - The guilty fled; the benefit of night, - That favoured first the sin, secured the flight. - Long wandering through the spacious fields, she bent - Her voyage to the Arabian continent; - Then passed the region which Panchæa joined, - And flying left the palmy plains behind. - Nine times the moon had mewed her horns; at length - With travel weary, unsupplied with strength, - And with the burden of her womb oppressed, - Sabæan fields afford her needful rest; - There, loathing life, and yet of death afraid, - In anguish of her spirit, thus she prayed:-- - Ye powers, if any so propitious are - To accept my penitence, and hear my prayer, - Your judgments, I confess, are justly sent; - Great sins deserve as great a punishment: - Yet, since my life the living will profane, - And since my death the happy dead will stain, - A middle state your mercy may bestow, - Betwixt the realms above, and those below; - Some other form to wretched Myrrha give, - Nor let her wholly die, nor wholly live.-- - The prayers of penitents are never vain; - At least, she did her last request obtain; - For, while she spoke, the ground began to rise, - And gathered round her feet, her legs, and thighs; - Her toes in roots descend, and, spreading wide, - A firm foundation for the trunk provide; - Her solid bones convert to solid wood, - To pith her marrow, and to sap her blood; - Her arms are boughs, her fingers change their kind, - Her tender skin is hardened into rind. - And now the rising tree her womb invests, - Now, shooting upwards still, invades her breasts, - And shades the neck; and, weary with delay, - She sunk her head within, and met it half the way. - And though with outward shape she lost her sense, - With bitter tears she wept her last offence; - And still she weeps, nor sheds her tears in vain; - For still the precious drops her name retain. - Mean time the misbegotten infant grows, - And, ripe for birth, distends with deadly throes - The swelling rind, with unavailing strife, - To leave the wooden womb, and pushes into life. - The mother-tree, as if oppressed with pain, - Writhes here and there, to break the bark, in vain; - And, like a labouring woman, would have prayed, - But wants a voice to call Lucina's aid; - The bending bole sends out a hollow sound, - And trickling tears fall thicker on the ground. - The mild Lucina came uncalled, and stood - Beside the struggling boughs, and heard the groaning wood; - Then reached her midwife-hand, to speed the throes, - And spoke the powerful spells that babes to birth disclose. - The bark divides, the living load to free, - And safe delivers the convulsive tree. - The ready nymphs receive the crying child, - And wash him in the tears the parent plant distilled. - They swathed him with their scarfs; beneath him spread - The ground with herbs; with roses raised his head. - The lovely babe was born with every grace; - Even envy must have praised so fair a face: - Such was his form, as painters, when they show - Their utmost art, on naked loves bestow; - And that their arms no difference might betray, - Give him a bow, or his from Cupid take away. - Time glides along, with undiscovered haste, - The future but a length behind the past, - So swift are years; the babe, whom just before - His grandsire got, and whom his sister bore; - The drop, the thing which late the tree inclosed; - And late the yawning bark to life exposed; - A babe, a boy, a beauteous youth appears;[29] - And lovelier than himself at riper years. - Now to the queen of love he gave desires, - And, with her pains, revenged his mother's fires. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[29] Adonis. - - - - -CEYX AND ALCYONE. - -OUT OF THE TENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - -CONNECTION OF THIS FABLE WITH THE FORMER. - - _Ceyx, the son of Lucifer, (the morning star,) and king of Trachin, - in Thessaly, was married to Alcyone, daughter to Æolus, god of the - winds. Both the husband and the wife loved each other with an entire - affection. Dædalion, the elder brother of Ceyx, whom he succeeded, - having been turned into a falcon by Apollo, and Chione, Dædalion's - daughter, slain by Diana. Ceyx prepares a ship to sail to Claros, - there to consult the oracle of Apollo, and (as Ovid seems to intimate) - to enquire how the anger of the Gods might be atoned._ - - - These prodigies affect the pious prince; - But, more perplexed with those that happened since, - He purposes to seek the Clarian God, } - Avoiding Delphos, his more famed abode; } - Since Phlegian robbers made unsafe the road. } - Yet could not he from her he loved so well, - The fatal voyage, he resolved, conceal; - But when she saw her lord prepared to part, - A deadly cold ran shivering to her heart; - Her faded cheeks are changed to boxen hue, - And in her eyes the tears are ever new; - She thrice essayed to speak; her accents hung, - And, faultering, died unfinished on her tongue, - Or vanished into sighs; with long delay - Her voice returned; and found the wonted way. - Tell me, my lord, she said, what fault unknown } - Thy once beloved Alcyone has done? } - Whither, ah whither is thy kindness gone! } - Can Ceyx then sustain to leave his wife, - And unconcerned forsake the sweets of life? - What can thy mind to this long journey move, - Or need'st thou absence to renew thy love? - Yet, if thou goest by land, though grief possess - My soul even then, my fears will be the less. - But ah! be warned to shun the watery way, - The face is frightful of the stormy sea. - For late I saw a drift disjointed planks, - And empty tombs erected on the banks. - Nor let false hopes to trust betray thy mind, - Because my sire in caves constrains the wind, - Can with a breath a clamorous rage appease, - They fear his whistle, and forsake the seas: - Not so; for, once indulged, they sweep the main, - Deaf to the call, or, hearing, hear in vain; - But bent on mischief, bear the waves before, - And, not content with seas, insult the shore; - When ocean, air, and earth, at once engage, - And rooted forests fly before their rage; - At once the clashing clouds to battle move, - And lightnings run across the fields above: - I know them well, and marked their rude comport, - While yet a child, within my father's court; - In times of tempest they command alone, - And he but sits precarious on the throne; - The more I know, the more my fears augment, - And fears are oft prophetic of the event. - But if not fears, or reasons will prevail, - If fate has fixed thee obstinate to sail, - Go not without thy wife, but let me bear } - My part of danger with an equal share, } - And present suffer what I only fear; } - Then o'er the bounding billows shall we fly, - Secure to live together, or to die.-- - These reasons moved her starlike husband's heart, - But still he held his purpose to depart; - For as he loved her equal to his life, - He would not to the seas expose his wife; - Nor could be wrought his voyage to refrain, - But sought by arguments to sooth her pain: - Nor these availed; at length he lights on one, - With which so difficult a cause he won:-- - My love, so short an absence cease to fear, - For, by my father's holy flame I swear, - Before two moons their orb with light adorn, - If heaven allow me life, I will return.-- - This promise of so short a stay prevails; - He soon equips the ship, supplies the sails, - And gives the word to launch; she trembling views - This pomp of death, and parting tears renews; - Last, with a kiss, she took a long farewell, - Sighed, with a sad presage, and swooning fell. - While Ceyx seeks delays, the lusty crew, } - Raised on their banks, their oars in order drew } - To their broad breasts,--the ship with fury flew. } - The queen, recovered, rears her humid eyes, - And first her husband on the poop espies, - Shaking his hand at distance on the main; - She took the sign, and shook her hand again. - Still as the ground recedes, retracts her view - With sharpened sight, till she no longer knew - The much-loved face; that comfort lost, supplies - With less, and with the galley feeds her eyes; - The galley borne from view by rising gales, - She followed with her sight the flying sails; - When even the flying sails were seen no more, - Forsaken of all sight, she left the shore. - Then on her bridal bed her body throws, - And sought in sleep her wearied eyes to close; - Her husband's pillow, and the widowed part - Which once he pressed, renewed the former smart. - And now a breeze from shore began to blow; - The sailors ship their oars, and cease to row; - Then hoist their yards atrip, and all their sails - Let fall, to court the wind, and catch the gales. - By this the vessel half her course had run, - And as much rested till the rising sun; - Both shores were lost to sight, when at the close - Of day, a stiffer gale at east arose; - The sea grew white, the rolling waves from far, - Like heralds, first denounce the watery war. - This seen, the master soon began to cry, - Strike, strike the top-sail; let the main sheet fly, - And furl your sails.--The winds repel the sound, - And in the speaker's mouth the speech is drowned. - Yet of their own accord, as danger taught, - Each in his way, officiously they wrought; - Some stow their oars, or stop the leaky sides; - Another, bolder yet, the yard bestrides, - And folds the sails; a fourth, with labour, laves - The intruding seas, and waves ejects on waves. - In this confusion while their work they ply, - The winds augment the winter of the sky, - And wage intestine wars; the suffering seas - Are tossed, and mingled as their tyrants please. - The master would command, but, in despair - Of safety, stands amazed with stupid care, - Nor what to bid, or what forbid, he knows, - The ungoverned tempest to such fury grows; - Vain is his force, and vainer is his skill, - With such a concourse comes the flood of ill; - The cries of men are mixed with rattling shrouds; - Seas dash on seas, and clouds encounter clouds; - At once from east to west, from pole to pole, - The forky lightnings flash, the roaring thunders roll. - Now waves on waves ascending scale the skies, - And, in the fires above, the water fries; - When yellow sands are sifted from below, - The glittering billows give a golden show; - And when the fouler bottom spews the black, - The Stygian dye the tainted waters take; - Then frothy white appear the flatted seas, - And change their colour, changing their disease. - Like various fits the Trachin vessel finds, - And now sublime she rides upon the winds; - As from a lofty summit looks from high, - And from the clouds beholds the nether sky; - Now from the depth of hell they lift their sight, - And at a distance see superior light; - The lashing billows make a loud report, - And beat her sides, as battering rams a fort; - Or as a lion, bounding in his way, - With force augmented bears against his prey, - Sidelong to seize; or, unappalled with fear, - Springs on the toils, and rushes on the spear; - So seas impelled by winds, with added power, - Assault the sides, and o'er the hatches tower. - The planks, their pitchy coverings washed away, - Now yield; and now a yawning breach display; - The roaring waters with a hostile tide - Rush through the ruins of her gaping side. - Meantime, in sheets of rain the sky descends, - And ocean, swelled with waters, upwards tends, - One rising, falling one; the heavens and sea - Meet at their confines, in the middle way; - The sails are drunk with showers, and drop with rain; - Sweet waters mingle with the briny main. - No star appears to lend his friendly light; - Darkness and tempest make a double night; - But flashing fires disclose the deep by turns, - And, while the lightnings blaze, the water burns. - Now all the waves their scattered force unite; - And, as a soldier, foremost in the fight, - Makes way for others, and, an host alone, - Still presses on, and, urging, gains the town; - So while the invading billows come a-breast, - The hero tenth advanced before the rest, - Sweeps all before him with impetuous sway, - And from the walls descends upon the prey; - Part following enter, part remain without, - With envy hear their fellows' conquering shout, - And mount on others' backs, in hope to share - The city, thus become the seat of war. - An universal cry resounds aloud, - The sailors run in heaps, a helpless crowd; - Art fails, and courage falls, no succour near; - As many waves, as many deaths appear. - One weeps, and yet despairs of late relief; - One cannot weep, his fears congeal his grief; - But, stupid, with dry eyes expects his fate. } - One with loud shrieks laments his lost estate, } - And calls those happy whom their funerals wait. } - This wretch with prayers and vows the gods implores, - And even the skies he cannot see, adores. - That other on his friends his thoughts bestows, - His careful father, and his faithful spouse. - The covetous worldling in his anxious mind - Thinks only on the wealth he left behind. - All Ceyx his Alcyone employs, - For her he grieves, yet in her absence joys; - His wife he wishes, and would still be near, - Not her with him, but wishes him with her: - Now with last looks he seeks his native shore, - Which fate has destined him to see no more; - He sought, but in the dark tempestuous night - He knew not whither to direct his sight. - So whirl the seas, such darkness blinds the sky, - That the black night receives a deeper dye. - The giddy ship ran round; the tempest tore - Her mast, and over-board the rudder bore. - One billow mounts; and with a scornful brow, - Proud of her conquest gained, insults the waves below; - Nor lighter falls, than if some giant tore - Pindus and Athos, with the freight they bore, - And tossed on seas; pressed with the ponderous blow, - Down sinks the ship within the abyss below; - Down with the vessel sink into the main - The many, never more to rise again. - Some few on scattered planks, with fruitless care - Lay hold, and swim; but, while they swim, despair. - Even he, who late a sceptre did command, - Now grasps a floating fragment in his hand; - And while he struggles on the stormy main, - Invokes his father, and his wife, in vain: - But yet his consort is his greater care; - Alcyone he names amidst his prayer; - Names as a charm against the waves and wind, - Most in his mouth, and ever in his mind. - Tired with his toil, all hopes of safety past, - From prayers to wishes he descends at last,-- - That his dead body, wafted to the sands, - Might have its burial from her friendly hands. - As oft as he can catch a gulph of air, - And peep above the seas, he names the fair; - And, even when plunged beneath, on her he raves, - Murmuring Alcyone below the waves: - At last a falling billow stops his breath, - Breaks o'er his head, and whelms him underneath. - Bright Lucifer[30] unlike himself appears - That night, his heavenly form obscured with tears; - And since he was forbid to leave the skies, - He muffled with a cloud his mournful eyes. - Mean time Alcyone (his fate unknown) - Computes how many nights he had been gone; - Observes the waning moon with hourly view, - Numbers her age, and wishes for a new; - Against the promised time provides with care, - And hastens in the woof the robes he was to wear; - And for herself employs another loom, } - New-dressed to meet her lord returning home, } - Flattering her heart with joys that never were to come } - She fumed the temples with an odorous flame, } - And oft before the sacred altars came, } - To pray for him, who was an empty name; } - All powers implored, but far above the rest, - To Juno she her pious vows addressed, - Her much-loved lord from perils to protect, - And safe o'er seas his voyage to direct; - Then prayed that she might still possess his heart, - And no pretending rival share a part. - This last petition heard, of all her prayer; - The rest, dispersed by winds, were lost in air. - But she, the goddess of the nuptial bed, - Tired with her vain devotions for the dead, - Resolved the tainted hand should be repelled, - Which incense offered, and her altar held: - Then Iris thus bespoke,--Thou faithful maid, - By whom the queen's commands are well conveyed, - Haste to the house of Sleep, and bid the god, - Who rules the night by visions with a nod, - Prepare a dream, in figure and in form - Resembling him who perished in the storm: - This form before Alcyone present, - To make her certain of the sad event.-- - Endued with robes of various hue she flies, - And flying draws an arch, a segment of the skies; - Then leaves her bending bow, and from the steep - Descends to search the silent house of Sleep. - Near the Cimmerians, in his dark abode, - Deep in a cavern, dwells the drowsy god; - Whose gloomy mansion nor the rising sun, - Nor setting, visits, nor the lightsome noon; - But lazy vapours round the region fly, - Perpetual twilight, and a doubtful sky; - No crowing cock does there his wings display, - Nor with his horny bill provoke the day; - Nor watchful dogs, nor the more wakeful geese, - Disturb with nightly noise the sacred peace; - Nor beast of nature, nor the tame, are nigh, - Nor trees with tempests rocked, nor human cry; - But safe repose, without an air of breath, - Dwells here, and a dumb quiet next to death. - An arm of Lethe, with a gentle flow, - Arising upwards from the rock below, - The palace moats, and o'er the pebbles creeps, - And with soft murmurs calls the coming sleeps; - Around its entry nodding poppies grow, - And all cool simples that sweet rest bestow; - Night from the plants their sleepy virtue drains, - And passing sheds it on the silent plains: - No door there was the unguarded house to keep, - On creaking hinges turned, to break his sleep. - But in the gloomy court was raised a bed, - Stuffed with black plumes, and on an ebon sted; - Black was the covering too, where lay the god, - And slept supine, his limbs displayed abroad; - About his head fantastic visions fly, - Which various images of things supply, - And mock their forms; the leaves on trees not more, - Nor bearded ears in fields, nor sands upon the shore. - The virgin, entering bright, indulged the day - To the brown cave, and brushed the dreams away; - The god, disturbed with this new glare of light - Cast sudden on his face, unsealed his sight, - And raised his tardy head, which sunk again, - And, sinking on his bosom, knocked his chin; - At length shook off himself, and asked the dame - (And asking yawned,) for what intent she came? - To whom the goddess thus:--O sacred Rest, - Sweet pleasing Sleep, of all the powers the best! - O peace of mind, repairer of decay, } - Whose balms renew the limbs to labours of the day, } - Care shuns thy soft approach, and sullen flies away! } - Adorn a dream, expressing human form, - The shape of him who suffered in the storm, - And send it flitting to the Trachin court, - The wreck of wretched Ceyx to report: - Before his queen bid the pale spectre stand, - Who begs a vain relief at Juno's hand.-- - She said, and scarce awake her eyes could keep, - Unable to support the fumes of sleep; - But fled, returning by the way she went, - And swerved along her bow with swift ascent. - The god, uneasy till he slept again, - Resolved at once to rid himself of pain; - And, though against his custom, called aloud, - Exciting Morpheus from the sleepy crowd; - Morpheus, of all his numerous train, expressed - The shape of man, and imitated best; - The walk, the words, the gesture could supply, - The habit mimic, and the mien bely; - Plays well, but all his action is confined; - Extending not beyond our human kind. - Another birds, and beasts, and dragons, apes, - And dreadful images, and monster shapes: - This dæmon, Icelos, in heaven's high hall - The gods have named; but men Phobeter call: - A third is Phantasus, whose actions roll - On meaner thoughts, and things devoid of soul; - Earth, fruits, and flowers, he represents in dreams, - And solid rocks unmoved, and running streams. - These three to kings and chiefs their scenes display, - The rest before the ignoble commons play: - Of these the chosen Morpheus is dispatched; - Which done, the lazy monarch overwatched, - Down from his propping elbow drops his head, - Dissolved in sleep, and shrinks within his bed. - Darkling the dæmon glides, for flight prepared, - So soft that scarce his fanning wings are heard. - To Trachin, swift as thought, the flitting shade - Through air his momentary journey made: - Then lays aside the steerage of his wings, - Forsakes his proper form, assumes the king's; - And pale as death, despoiled of his array, } - Into the queen's apartment takes his way, } - And stands before the bed at dawn of day: } - Unmoved his eyes, and wet his beard appears, } - And shedding vain, but seeming real tears; } - The briny water dropping from his hairs; } - Then staring on her, with a ghastly look - And hollow voice, he thus the Queen bespoke. - Knowest thou not me? Not yet, unhappy wife? - Or are my features perished with my life? - Look once again, and for thy husband lost, - Lo! all that's left of him, thy husband's ghost! - Thy vows for my return were all in vain; } - Thy stormy south o'ertook us in the main; } - And never shalt thou see thy loving lord again. } - Bear witness, heaven, I called on thee in death, - And, while I called, a billow stopped my breath. - Think not that flying fame reports my fate; - I, present I, appear, and my own wreck relate. - Rise, wretched widow, rise, nor undeplored } - Permit my ghost to pass the Stygian ford; } - But rise, prepared in black to mourn thy perished lord. } - Thus said the player-god; and, adding art - Of voice and gesture, so performed his part, - She thought (so like her love the shade appears) - That Ceyx spake the words, and Ceyx shed the tears. - She groaned, her inward soul with grief opprest, - She sighed, she wept, and sleeping beat her breast: - Then stretched her arms to embrace his body bare, - Her clasping arms inclose but empty air: - At this, not yet awake, she cried,--Oh stay, - One is our fate, and common is our way!-- - So dreadful was the dream, so loud - she spoke, That, starting sudden up, the slumber broke; - Then cast her eyes around, in hope to view - Her vanished lord, and find the vision true; - For now the maids, who waited her commands, - Ran in with lighted tapers in their hands. - Tired with the search, not finding what she seeks, - With cruel blows she pounds her blubbered cheeks; - Then from her beaten breast the linen tare, - And cut the golden caul that bound her hair. - Her nurse demands the cause; with louder cries - She prosecutes her griefs, and thus replies. - No more Alcyone, she suffered death - With her loved lord, when Ceyx lost his breath: - No flattery, no false comfort, give me none, - My shipwrecked Ceyx is for ever gone; - I saw, I saw him manifest in view, - His voice, his figure, and his gestures knew: - His lustre lost, and every living grace, - Yet I retained the features of his face: - Though with pale cheeks, wet beard, and dropping hair, - None but my Ceyx could appear so fair; - I would have strained him with a strict embrace, - But through my arms he slipt, and vanished from the place; - There, even just there he stood;--and as she spoke, - Where last the spectre was, she cast her look; - Fain would she hope, and gazed upon the ground, - If any printed footsteps might be found; - Then sighed, and said;--This I too well foreknew, - And my prophetic fear presaged too true; - 'Twas what I begged, when with a bleeding heart - I took my leave, and suffered thee to part, - Or I to go along, or thou to stay, - Never, ah never to divide our way! - Happier for me, that, all our hours assigned, - Together we had lived, even not in death disjoined! - So had my Ceyx still been living here, - Or with my Ceyx I had perished there; - Now I die absent, in the vast profound, - And me without myself the seas have drowned: - The storms were not so cruel; should I strive - To lengthen life, and such a grief survive! - But neither will I strive, nor wretched thee - In death forsake, but keep thee company. - If not one common sepulchre contains - Our bodies, or one urn our last remains, - Yet Ceyx and Alcyone shall join, - Their names remembered in one common line.-- - No farther voice her mighty grief affords, - For sighs come rushing in betwixt her words, - And stopt her tongue; but what her tongue denied, - Soft tears, and groans, and dumb complaints supplied. - 'Twas morning; to the port she takes her way, - And stands upon the margin of the sea; - That place, that very spot of ground she sought, - Or thither by her destiny was brought, - Where last he stood; and while she sadly said, } - 'Twas here he left me, lingering here, delayed } - His parting kiss, and there his anchors weighed. } - Thus speaking, while her thoughts past actions trace, - And call to mind, admonished by the place, - Sharp at her utmost ken she cast her eyes, - And somewhat floating from afar descries; - It seemed a corpse adrift, to distant sight, - But at a distance who could judge aright? - It wafted nearer yet, and then she knew, - That what before she but surmised was true; - A corpse it was, but whose it was, unknown, - Yet moved, howe'er, she made the case her own; - Took the bad omen of a shipwrecked man, - As for a stranger wept, and thus began: - Poor wretch, on stormy seas to lose thy life, - Unhappy thou, but more thy widowed wife!-- - At this she paused; for now the flowing tide - Had brought the body nearer to the side: - The more she looks, the more her fears increase - At nearer sight, and she's herself the less: - Now driven ashore, and at her feet it lies; - She knows too much, in knowing whom she sees,-- - Her husband's corpse; at this she loudly shrieks, - 'Tis he, 'tis he, she cries, and tears her cheeks, - Her hair, her vest; and, stooping to the sands, - About his neck she casts her trembling hands. - And is it thus, O dearer than my life, - Thus, thus return'st thou to thy longing wife!-- - She said, and to the neighbouring mole she strode, - Raised there to break the incursions of the flood; - Headlong from hence to plunge herself she springs, - But shoots along supported on her wings; - A bird new-made about the banks she plies, - Not far from shore, and short excursions tries; - Nor seeks in air her humble flight to raise, - Content to skim the surface of the seas; - Her bill, though slender, sends a creaking noise, - And imitates a lamentable voice; - Now lighting where the bloodless body lies, - She with a funeral note renews her cries. - At all her stretch her little wings she spread, - And with her feathered arms embraced the dead; - Then flickering to his pallid lips, she strove - To print a kiss, the last essay of love; - Whether the vital touch revived the dead, - Or that the moving waters raised his head - To meet the kiss, the vulgar doubt alone, - For sure a present miracle was shown. - The gods their shapes to winter-birds translate, - But both obnoxious to their former fate. - Their conjugal affection still is tied, - And still the mournful race is multiplied; - They bill, they tread; Alcyone compressed, - Seven days sits brooding on her floating nest, - A wintery queen: her sire at length is kind, - Calms every storm, and hushes every wind; - Prepares his empire for his daughter's ease, - And for his hatching nephews smooths the seas. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[30] Ceyx was the son of the Morning Star. - - - - -ÆSACUS - -TRANSFORMED INTO A CORMORANT. - -FROM THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - - These some old man sees wanton in the air, - And praises the unhappy constant pair; - Then to his friend the long-necked Cormorant shows, - The former tale reviving other woes: - That sable bird, he cries, which cuts the flood - With slender legs, was once of royal blood; - His ancestors from mighty Tros proceed, - The brave Laomedon and Ganymede, - Whose beauty tempted Jove to steal the boy, - And Priam, hapless prince! who fell with Troy; - Himself was Hector's brother, and, had fate - But given this hopeful youth a longer date, - Perhaps had rivalled warlike Hector's worth, - Though on the mother's side of meaner birth; - Fair Alyxothoé, a country maid, - Bare Æsacus by stealth in Ida's shade. - He fled the noisy town, and pompous court, } - Loved the lone hills, and simple rural sport, } - And seldom to the city would resort. } - Yet he no rustic clownishness profest, - Nor was soft love a stranger to his breast; - The youth had long the nymph Hesperio wooed, - Oft through the thicket, or the mead, pursued. - Her haply on her father's bank he spied, - While fearless she her silver tresses dried; - Away she fled; not stags with half such speed, - Before the prowling wolf, scud o'er the mead; - Not ducks, when they the safer flood forsake, - Pursued by hawks, so swift regain the lake, - As fast he followed in the hot career; - Desire the lover winged, the virgin fear. - A snake unseen now pierced her heedless foot, } - Quick through the veins the venomed juices shoot; } - She fell, and 'scaped by death his fierce pursuit. } - Her lifeless body, frighted, he embraced, - And cried,--Not this I dreaded, but thy haste; - O had my love been less, or less thy fear! - The victory thus bought is far too dear. - Accursed snake! yet I more cursed than he! - He gave the wound; the cause was given by me. - Yet none shall say, that unrevenged you died.-- } - He spoke; then climbed a cliff's o'er-hanging side, } - And, resolute, leaped on the foaming tide. } - Tethys received him gently on the wave; - The death he sought denied, and feathers gave. - Debarred the surest remedy of grief, - And forced to live, he curst the unasked relief; - Then on his airy pinions upward flies, } - And at a second fall successless tries, } - The downy plume a quick descent denies. } - Enraged, he often dives beneath the wave, - And there in vain expects to find a grave. - His ceaseless sorrow for the unhappy maid - Meager'd his look, and on his spirits preyed. - Still near the sounding deep he lives; his name - From frequent diving and emerging came. - - - - -THE - -TWELFTH BOOK - -OF - -OVID'S METAMORPHOSES, - -WHOLLY TRANSLATED. - - -CONNECTION TO THE END OF THE ELEVENTH BOOK. - - _Æsacus, the son of Priam, loving a country life, forsakes the - court; living obscurely, he falls in love with a nymph, who, flying - from him, was killed by a serpent; for grief of this, he would have - drowned himself; but, by the pity of the gods, is turned into a - Cormorant. Priam, not hearing of Æsacus, believes him to be dead, - and raises a tomb to preserve his memory. By this transition, which - is one of the finest in all Ovid, the poet naturally falls into the - story of the Trojan war, which is summed up in the present book; - but so very briefly in many places, that Ovid seems more short than - Virgil, contrary to his usual style. Yet the House of Fame, which - is here described, is one of the most beautiful pieces in the whole - Metamorphoses. The fight of Achilles and Cygnus, and the fray betwixt - the Lapithæ and Centaurs, yield to no other part of this poet; and - particularly the loves and death of Cyllarus and Hylonome, the male - and female Centaur, are wonderfully moving._ - - - Priam, to whom the story was unknown, - As dead, deplored his metamorphosed son; - A Cenotaph his name and title kept, - And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers, wept. - This pious office Paris did not share; - Absent alone, and author of the war, - Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew - To avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue. - A thousand ships were manned, to sail the sea; } - Nor had their just resentments found delay, } - Had not the winds and waves opposed their way. } - At Aulis, with united powers, they meet, - But there, cross winds or calms detained the fleet. - Now, while they raise an altar on the shore, - And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore, - A boding sign the priests and people see: - A snake of size immense ascends a tree, - And in the leafy summit spied a nest, - Which, o'er her callow young, a sparrow pressed. - Eight were the birds unfledged; their mother flew, - And hovered round her care, but still in view; - Till the fierce reptile first devoured the brood, - Then seized the fluttering dam, and drank her blood. - This dire ostent the fearful people view; - Calchas alone, by Phœbus taught, foreknew - What heaven decreed; and, with a smiling glance, - Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance. - O Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours, - But long delays shall first afflict our powers; - Nine years of labour the nine birds portend, - The tenth shall in the town's destruction end. - The serpent, who his maw obscene had filled, - The branches in his curled embraces held; - But as in spires he stood, he turned to stone; - The stony snake retained the figure still his own. - Yet not for this the wind-bound navy weighed; - Slack were their sails, and Neptune disobeyed. - Some thought him loth the town should be destroyed, - Whose building had his hands divine employed; - Not so the seer, who knew, and known foreshowed, - The virgin Phœbe, with a virgin's blood, - Must first be reconciled; the common cause - Prevailed; and pity yielding to the laws, - Fair Iphigenia, the devoted maid, - Was, by the weeping priests, in linen robes arrayed. - All mourn her fate, but no relief appeared; - The royal victim bound, the knife already reared; - When that offended Power, who caused their woe, - Relenting ceased her wrath, and stopped the coming blow. - A mist before the ministers she cast, - And in the virgin's room a hind she placed. - The oblation slain, and Phœbe reconciled, - The storm was hushed, and dimpled ocean smiled; - A favourable gale arose from shore, - Which to the port desired the Grecian gallies bore. - Full in the midst of this created space, - Betwixt heaven, earth, and skies, there stands a place - Confining on all three, with triple bound; } - Whence all things, though remote, are viewed around, } - And thither bring their undulating sound; } - The palace of loud fame; her seat of power, - Placed on the summit of a lofty tower. - A thousand winding entries, long and wide, - Receive of fresh reports a flowing tide; - A thousand crannies in the walls are made; - Nor gate nor bars exclude the busy trade. - 'Tis built of brass, the better to diffuse - The spreading sounds, and multiply the news; - Where echoes in repeated echoes play: - A mart for ever full, and open night and day. - Nor silence is within, nor voice express, - But a deaf noise of sounds that never cease; - Confused, and chiding, like the hollow roar - Of tides, receding from the insulted shore; - Or like the broken thunder, heard from far, - When Jove to distance drives the rolling war. - The courts are filled with a tumultuous din - Of crowds, or issuing forth, or entering in; - A thorough-fare of news; where some devise - Things never heard; some mingle truth with lies; - The troubled air with empty sounds they beat; - Intent to hear, and eager to repeat. - Error sits brooding there, with added train - Of vain credulity, and joys as vain; - Suspicion, with sedition joined, are near; - And rumours raised, and murmurs mixed, and panic fear. - Fame sits aloft, and sees the subject ground, - And seas about, and skies above, enquiring all around. - The goddess gives the alarm; and soon is known - The Grecian fleet, descending on the town. - Fixed on defence, the Trojans are not slow - To guard their shore from an expected foe. - They meet in fight; by Hector's fatal hand - Protesilaus falls, and bites the strand; - Which with expence of blood the Grecians won, - And proved the strength unknown of Priam's son; - And to their cost the Trojan leaders felt - The Grecian heroes, and what deaths they dealt. - From these first onsets, the Sigæan shore - Was strewed with carcases, and stained with gore. - Neptunian Cygnus troops of Greeks had slain; - Achilles in his car had scoured the plain, - And cleared the Trojan ranks; where'er he fought, - Cygnus, or Hector, through the fields he sought: - Cygnus he found; on him his force essayed; - For Hector was to the tenth year delayed. - His white-maned steeds, that bowed beneath the yoke, - He cheered to courage, with a gentle stroke; - Then urged his fiery chariot on the foe, - And rising shook his lance, in act to throw. - But first he cried,--O youth, be proud to bear - Thy death, ennobled by Pelides' spear.-- - The lance pursued the voice without delay; - Nor did the whizzing weapon miss the way, - But pierced his cuirass, with such fury sent, - And signed his bosom with a purple dint. - At this the seed of Neptune;--Goddess-born, - For ornament, not use, these arms are worn; - This helm, and heavy buckler, I can spare, - As only decorations of the war; - So Mars is armed, for glory, not for need. - 'Tis somewhat more from Neptune to proceed, - Than from a daughter of the sea to spring; - Thy sire is mortal; mine is Ocean's king. - Secure of death, I should contemn thy dart, - Though naked, and impassible depart.-- - He said, and threw; the trembling weapon passed } - Through nine bull-hides, each under other placed, } - On his broad shield, and stuck within the last. } - Achilles wrenched it out; and sent again - The hostile gift; the hostile gift was vain. - He tried a third, a tough well-chosen spear; - The inviolable body stood sincere, - Though Cygnus then did no defence provide, - But scornful offered his unshielded side. - Not otherwise the impatient hero fared, - Than as a bull, encompassed with a guard, - Amid the circus roars; provoked from far - By sight of scarlet, and a sanguine war. - They quit their ground, his bended horns elude, - In vain pursuing, and in vain pursued. - Before to farther fight he would advance, - He stood considering, and surveyed his lance. - Doubts if he wielded not a wooden spear - Without a point; he looked, the point was there. - This is my hand, and this my lance, he said, } - By which so many thousand foes are dead. } - O whither is their usual virtue fled! } - I had it once; and the Lyrnessian wall, - And Tenedos, confessed it in their fall. - Thy streams, Caicus, rolled a crimson flood; - And Thebes ran red with her own natives' blood. - Twice Telephus employed their piercing steel, - To wound him first, and afterward to heal. - The vigour of this arm was never vain; } - And that my wonted prowess I retain, } - Witness these heaps of slaughter on the plain.-- } - He said, and, doubtful of his former deeds, - To some new trial of his force proceeds. - He chose Menætes from among the rest; - At him he lanced his spear, and pierced his breast; - On the hard earth the Lycian knocked his head, - And lay supine; and forth the spirit fled. - Then thus the hero: Neither can I blame - The hand, or javelin; both are still the same. - The same I will employ against this foe, - And wish but with the same success to throw.-- - So spoke the chief, and while he spoke he threw; - The weapon with unerring fury flew, - At his left shoulder aimed; nor entrance found; - But back, as from a rock, with swift rebound - Harmless returned; a bloody mark appeared, - Which with false joy the flattered hero cheered. - Wound there was none; the blood that was in view, - The lance before from slain Menætes drew. - Headlong he leaps from off his lofty car, - And in close fight on foot renews the war; - Raging with high disdain, repeats his blows; - Nor shield nor armour can their force oppose; - Huge cantlets of his buckler strew the ground, - And no defence in his bored arms is found. - But on his flesh no wound or blood is seen; - The sword itself is blunted on the skin. - This vain attempt the chief no longer bears; - But round his hollow temples and his ears, - His buckler beats: the son of Neptune, stunned - With these repeated buffets, quits his ground; - A sickly sweat succeeds, and shades of night; - Inverted nature swims before his sight: - The insulting victor presses on the more, - And treads the steps the vanquished trod before, - Nor rest, nor respite gives. A stone there lay - Behind his trembling foe, and stopped his way; - Achilles took the advantage which he found, - O'er-turned, and pushed him backward on the ground. - His buckler held him under, while he pressed, - With both his knees above, his panting breast; - Unlaced his helm; about his chin the twist - He tied, and soon the strangled soul dismissed. - With eager haste he went to strip the dead; - The vanquished body from his arms was fled. - His sea-god sire, t'immortalize his fame, - Had turned it to the bird that bears his name.[31] - A truce succeeds the labours of this day, - And arms suspended with a long delay. - While Trojan walls are kept with watch and ward, - The Greeks before their trenches mount the guard. - The feast approached; when to the blue-eyed Maid, } - His vows for Cygnus slain the victor paid, } - And a white heifer on her altar laid. } - The reeking entrails on the fire they threw, - And to the gods the grateful odour flew; - Heaven had its part in sacrifice; the rest - Was broiled and roasted for the future feast. - The chief invited guests were set around; } - And, hunger first assuaged, the bowls were crowned, } - Which in deep draughts their cares and labours drowned. } - The mellow harp did not their ears employ, - And mute was all the warlike symphony; - Discourse, the food of souls, was their delight, - And pleasing chat prolonged the summer's night. - The subject, deeds of arms; and valour shown, - Or on the Trojan side, or on their own. - Of dangers undertaken, fame atchieved, - They talked by turns, the talk by turns relieved. - What things but these could fierce Achilles tell, - Or what could fierce Achilles hear so well? - The last great act performed, of Cygnus slain, - Did most the martial audience entertain; - Wondering to find a body, free by fate - From steel, and which could even that steel rebate. - Amazed, their admiration they renew; - And scarce Pelides could believe it true. - Then Nestor, thus;--What once this age has known, - In fated Cygnus, and in him alone, - These eyes have seen in Cæneus long before, - Whose body not a thousand swords could bore. - Cæneus in courage and in strength excelled, - And still his Othrys with his fame is filled; - But what did most his martial deeds adorn, - (Though, since, he changed his sex,) a woman born.-- - A novelty so strange, and full of fate, - His listening audience asked him to relate. - Achilles thus commends their common suit:-- - O father, first for prudence in repute, - Tell, with that eloquence so much thy own, - What thou hast heard, or what of Cæneus known; - What was he, whence his change of sex begun, - What trophies, joined in wars with thee, he won? - Who conquered him, and in what fatal strife - The youth, without a wound, could lose his life?-- - Neleides then:--Though tardy age, and time, - Have shrunk my sinews, and decayed my prime; - Though much I have forgotten of my store, - Yet, not exhausted, I remember more. - Of all that arms atchieved, or peace designed, - That action still is fresher in my mind - Than aught beside. If reverend age can give - To faith a sanction, in my third I live. - 'Twas in my second century, I surveyed - Young Cænis, then a fair Thessalian maid. - Cænis the bright was born to high command; - A princess, and a native of thy land, - Divine Achilles; every tongue proclaimed - Her beauty, and her eyes all hearts inflamed. - Peleus, thy sire, perhaps had sought her bed, - Among the rest; but he had either led - Thy mother then, or was by promise tied; - But she to him, and all, alike her love denied. - It was her fortune once, to take her way - Along the sandy margin of the sea; - The Power of Ocean viewed her as she passed, - And, loved as soon as seen, by force embraced. - So fame reports. Her virgin treasure seized, - And his new joys the ravisher so pleased, - That thus, transported, to the nymph he cried; - Ask what thou wilt, no prayer shall be denied. - This also fame relates; the haughty fair, - Who not the rape even of a god could bear, - This answer, proud, returned;--To mighty wrongs, - A mighty recompence, of right, belongs. - Give me no more to suffer such a shame; - But change the woman for a better name; - One gift for all.--She said, and, while she spoke, - A stern, majestic, manly tone she took. - A man she was; and, as the Godhead swore, - To Cæneus turned, who Cænis was before. - To this the lover adds, without request, - No force of steel should violate his breast. - Glad of the gift, the new-made warrior goes, - And arms among the Greeks, and longs for equal foes. - Now brave Pirithous, bold Ixion's son, - The love of fair Hippodame had won. - The cloud-begotten race,[32] half men, half beast, - Invited, came to grace the nuptial feast. - In a cool cave's recess the treat was made, - Whose entrance trees with spreading boughs o'er-shade. - They sat; and, summoned by the bridegroom, came, - To mix with those, the Lapithæan name: - Nor wanted I; the roofs with joy resound; - And Hymen, Iö Hymen, rung around. - Raised altars shone with holy fires; the bride, - Lovely herself (and lovely by her side - A bevy of bright nymphs, with sober grace,) - Came glittering like a star, and took her place; - Her heavenly form beheld, all wished her joy, - And little wanted, but in vain their wishes all employ.[33] - For one, most brutal of the brutal blood, - Or whether wine or beauty fired his blood, - Or both at once, beheld with lustful eyes - The bride; at once resolved to make his prize. - Down went the board, and, fastening on her hair, - He seized with sudden force the frighted fair. - 'Twas Eurytus began; his bestial kind - His crime pursued; and each as pleased his mind, - Or her, whom chance presented, took; the feast - An image of a taken town expressed. - The cave resounds with female shrieks: we rise, - Mad with revenge, to make a swift reprise: - And Theseus first:--What frenzy has possessed, - O Eurytus, he cried, thy brutal breast, - To wrong Pirithous, and not him alone, - But, while I live, two friends conjoined in one? - To justify his threat, he thrusts aside - The crowd of Centaurs, and redeems the bride. - The monster nought replied; for words were vain, - And deeds could only deeds unjust maintain; - But answers with his hand, and forward pressed, - With blows redoubled, on his face and breast. - An ample goblet stood, of antique mould, - And rough with figures of the rising gold; - The hero snatched it up, and tossed in air - Full at the front of the foul ravisher: - He falls, and falling vomits forth a flood - Of wine, and foam, and brains, and mingled blood. - Half roaring, and half neighing through the hall, - Arms, arms! the double-formed with fury call, - To wreak their brother's death. A medley flight - Of bowls and jars, at first, supply the fight, - Once instruments of feasts, but now of fate; - Wine animates their rage, and arms their hate. - Bold Amycus from the robbed vestry brings - The chalices of heaven, and holy things - Of precious weight; a sconce, that hung on high, - With tapers filled, to light the sacristy, - Torn from the cord, with his unhallowed hand - He threw amid the Lapithæan band. - On Celadon the ruin fell, and left - His face of feature and of form bereft; - So, when some brawny sacrificer knocks, - Before an altar led, an offered ox, - His eye balls, rooted out, are thrown to ground, } - His nose dismantled in his mouth is found, } - His jaws, cheeks, front, one undistinguished wound. } - This, Belates, the avenger, could not brook; - But, by the foot, a maple-board he took, - And hurled at Amycus; his chin is bent - Against his chest, and down the Centaur sent - Whom, sputtering bloody teeth, the second blow - Of his drawn sword dispatched to shades below. - Grineus was near; and cast a furious look - On the side-altar, censed with sacred smoke, - And bright with flaming fires; The gods, he cried, - Have with their holy trade our hands supplied: - Why use we not their gifts?--Then from the floor - An altar-stone he heaved, with all the load it bore; - Altar and altar's freight together flew, } - Where thickest thronged the Lapithæan crew, } - And, at once, Broteas and Oryus slew. } - Oryus' mother, Mycale, was known - Down from her sphere to draw the labouring moon. - Exadius cried,--Unpunished shall not go - This fact, if arms are found against the foe.-- - He looked about, where on a pine were spread - The votive horns of a stag's branching head: - At Grineus these he throws; so just they fly, - That the sharp antlers stuck in either eye. - Breathless and blind he fell; with blood besmeared, - His eye-balls beaten out hung dangling on his beard. - Fierce Rhætus from the hearth a burning brand - Selects, and whirling waves, till from his hand - The fire took flame; then dashed it from the right, - On fair Charaxus' temples, near the sight: - The whistling pest came on, and pierced the bone, - And caught the yellow hair, that shrivelled while it shone; - Caught, like dry stubble fired, or like seerwood; } - Yet from the wound ensued no purple flood } - But looked a bubbling mass of frying blood. } - His blazing locks sent forth a crackling sound, - And hissed, like red-hot iron within the smithy drowned. - The wounded warrior shook his flaming hair, - Then (what a team of horse could hardly rear,) - He heaves the threshold-stone, but could not throw; - The weight itself forbad the threatened blow; - Which, dropping from his lifted arms, came down - Full on Cometes' head, and crushed his crown. - Nor Rhætus then retained his joy; but said, } - So by their fellows may our foes be sped.-- } - Then with redoubled strokes he plies his head: } - The burning lever not deludes his pains, - But drives the battered skull within the brains. - Thus flushed, the conqueror, with force renewed, - Evagrus, Dryas, Corythus, pursued. - First, Corythus, with downy cheeks, he slew; - Whose fall when fierce Evagrus had in view, - He cried,--What palm is from a beardless prey? - Rhætus prevents what more he had to say; - And drove within his mouth the fiery death, - Which entered hissing in, and choked his breath. - At Dryas next he flew; but weary chance - No longer would the same success advance; - But, while he whirled in fiery circles round } - The brand, a sharpened stake strong Dryas found, } - And in the shoulder's joint inflicts the wound. } - The weapon struck; which, roaring out with pain, } - He drew; nor longer durst the fight maintain, } - But turned his back for fear, and fled amain. } - With him fled Orneus, with like dread possessed; - Thaumas and Medon, wounded in the breast, - And Mermeros, in the late race renowned, - Now limping ran, and tardy with his wound. - Pholus and Melaneus from fight withdrew, - And Abas maimed, who boars encountering slew; - And augur Astylos, whose art in vain } - From fight dissuaded the four-footed train, } - Now beat the hoof with Nessus on the plain; } - But to his fellow cried, Be safely slow; - Thy death deferred is due to great Alcides' bow.-- - Meantime, strong Dryas urged his chance so well, - That Lycidas, Areos, Imbreus fell; - All, one by one, and fighting face to face: - Crenæus fled, to fall with more disgrace; - For, fearful while he looked behind, he bore, - Betwixt his nose and front, the blow before. - Amid the noise and tumult of the fray, - Snoring and drunk with wine, Aphidas lay. - Even then the bowl within his hand he kept, - And on a bear's rough hide securely slept. - Him Phorbas with his flying dart transfixed; - Take thy next draught with Stygian waters mixed, - And sleep thy fill, the insulting victor cried; - Surprised with death unfelt, the Centaur died: - The ruddy vomit, as he breathed his soul, - Repassed his throat, and filled his empty bowl. - I saw Petræus' arms employed around - A well-grown oak, to root it from the ground. - This way, and that, he wrenched the fibrous bands; - The trunk was like a sapling in his hands, - And still obeyed the bent; while thus he stood, - Perithous' dart drove on, and nailed him to the wood. - Lycus and Chromys fell, by him oppressed: - Helops and Dictys added to the rest - A nobler palm: Helops, through either ear - Transfixed, received the penetrating spear. - This Dictys saw; and, seized with sudden fright, } - Leapt headlong from the hill of steepy height, } - And crushed an ash beneath, that could not bear his weight. } - The shattered tree receives his fall, and strikes, - Within his full-blown paunch, the sharpened spikes. - Strong Aphareus had heaved a mighty stone, - The fragment of a rock, and would have thrown; - But Theseus, with a club of hardened oak, } - The cubit-bone of the bold Centaur broke, } - And left him maimed, nor seconded the stroke; } - Then leapt on tall Bianor's back; (who bore - No mortal burden but his own, before,) - Pressed with his knees his sides; the double man, - His speed with spurs increased, unwilling ran. - One hand the hero fastened on his locks; - His other plyed him with repeated strokes. - The club hung round his ears, and battered brows; - He falls; and, lashing up his heels, his rider throws. - The same Herculean arms Nedymnus wound, - And lay by him Lycotas on the ground; - And Hippasus, whose beard his breast invades; - And Ripheus, haunter of the woodland shades; - And Tereus, used with mountain-bears to strive; - And from their dens to draw the indignant beasts alive. - Demoleon could not bear this hateful sight, - Or the long fortune of the Athenian knight; - But pulled with all his force, to disengage - From earth a pine, the product of an age: - The root stuck fast: the broken trunk he sent - At Theseus: Theseus frustrates his intent, - And leaps aside, by Pallas warned, the blow - To shun: (for so he said; and we believed it so.) - Yet not in vain the enormous weight was cast, - Which Crantor's body sundered at the waist: - Thy father's squire, Achilles, and his care; - Whom, conquered in the Dolopeian war, - Their king, his present ruin to prevent, - A pledge of peace implored, to Peleus sent. - Thy sire, with grieving eyes, beheld his fate; - And cried, Not long, loved Crantor, shalt thou wait - Thy vowed revenge.--At once he said, and threw - His ashen-spear, which quivered as it flew, - With all his force and all his soul applied; - The sharp point entered in the Centaur's side: - Both hands, to wrench it out, the monster joined, - And wrenched it out, but left the steel behind. - Stuck in his lungs it stood; enraged he rears - His hoofs, and down to ground thy father bears. - Thus trampled under foot, his shield defends - His head; his other hand the lance portends. - Even while he lay extended on the dust, - He sped the Centaur, with one single thrust. - Two more his lance before transfixed from far, - And two his sword had slain in closer war. - To these was added Dorylas; who spread - A bull's two goring horns around his head. - With these he pushed; in blood already dyed, - Him, fearless, I approached, and thus defied;-- - Now, monster, now, by proof it shall appear, - Whether thy horns are sharper, or my spear.-- - At this, I threw; for want of other ward, - He lifted up his hand, his front to guard. - His hand it passed, and fixed it to his brow. - Loud shouts of ours attend the lucky blow: - Him Peleus finished, with a second wound, } - Which through the navel pierced; he reeled around, } - And dragged his dangling bowels on the ground; } - Trod what he dragged, and what he trod he crushed; - And to his mother-earth, with empty belly, rushed. - Nor could thy form, O Cyllarus, foreshow - Thy fate, if form to monsters men allow: - Just bloomed thy beard, thy beard of golden hue; - Thy locks, in golden waves, about thy shoulders flew, - Sprightly thy look; thy shapes in every part - So clean, as might instruct the sculptor's art, - As far as man extended; where began - The beast, the beast was equal to the man. - Add but a horse's head and neck, and he, - O Castor, was a courser worthy thee. - So was his back proportioned for the seat; - So rose his brawny chest; so swiftly moved his feet, - Coal-black his colour, but like jet it shone; - His legs and flowing tail were white alone. - Beloved by many maidens of his kind, - But fair Hylonome possessed his mind; - Hylonome, for features, and for face, - Excelling all the nymphs of double race. - Nor less her blandishments, than beauty, move; - At once both loving, and confessing love. - For him she dressed; for him with female care - She combed, and set in curls, her auburn hair. - Of roses, violets, and lilies mixed, - And sprigs of flowing rosemary betwixt, - She formed the chaplet, that adorned her front; - In waters of the Pegasæan fount, - And in the streams that from the fountain play, - She washed her face, and bathed her twice a day. - The scarf of furs, that hung below her side, - Was ermine, or the panther's spotted pride; - Spoils of no common beast. With equal flame - They loved; their sylvan pleasures were the same: - All day they hunted; and, when day expired, - Together to some shady cave retired. - Invited, to the nuptials both repair; - And, side by side, they both engage in war. - Uncertain from what hand, a flying dart - At Cyllarus was sent, which pierced his heart. - The javelin drawn from out the mortal wound, - He faints with staggering steps, and seeks the ground: - The fair within her arms received his fall, - And strove his wandering spirits to recal; - And while her hand the streaming blood opposed, - Joined face to face, his lips with hers she closed. - Stifled with kisses, a sweet death he dies; - She fills the fields with undistinguished cries; - At least her words were in her clamour drowned; - For my stunned ears received no vocal sound. - In madness of her grief, she seized the dart - New-drawn, and reeking from her lover's heart; - To her bare bosom the sharp point applied, } - And wounded fell; and, falling by his side } - Embraced him in her arms, and thus embracing died. } - Even still, methinks, I see Phæocomes; - Strange was his habit, and as odd his dress.[34] - Six lions hides, with thongs together fast, - His upper part defended to his waist; - And where man ended, the continued vest, - Spread on his back, the houss and trappings of a beast. - A stump too heavy for a team to draw, - (It seems a fable, though the fact I saw,) - He threw at Pholon; the descending blow - Divides the skull, and cleaves his head in two. - The brains, from nose and mouth, and either ear, - Came issuing out, as through a colendar - The curdled milk; or from the press the whey, - Driven down by weights above, is drained away. - But him, while stooping down to spoil the slain, - Pierced through the paunch, I tumbled on the plain. - Then Chthonius and Teleboas I slew; - A fork the former armed; a dart his fellow threw: - The javelin wounded me; behold the scar. - Then was my time to seek the Trojan war; - Then I was Hector's match in open field; - But he was then unborn, at least a child; - Now, I am nothing. I forbear to tell - By Periphantes how Pyretus fell, - The Centaur by the Knight; nor will I stay - On Amphix, or what deaths he dealt that day; - What honour, with a pointless lance, he won, - Stuck in the front of a four-footed man; - What fame young Macareus obtained in fight, - Or dwell on Nessus, now returned from flight; - How prophet Mopsus not alone divined, - Whose valour equalled his foreseeing mind. - Already Cæneus, with his conquering hand, - Had slaughtered five, the boldest of their band; - Pyrachmus, Helymus, Antimachus, - Bromus the brave, and stronger Stiphelus; - Their names I numbered, and remember well, - No trace remaining, by what wounds they fell. - Latreus, the bulkiest of the double race, - Whom the spoiled arms of slain Halesus grace, - In years retaining still his youthful might, - Though his black hairs were interspersed with white, - Betwixt the embattled ranks began to prance, - Proud of his helm, and Macedonian lance; - And rode the ring around, that either host - Might hear him, while he made this empty boast. - And from a strumpet shall we suffer shame? - For Cænis still, not Cæneus, is thy name; - And still the native softness of thy kind - Prevails, and leaves the woman in thy mind. - Remember what thou wert; what price was paid - To change thy sex, to make thee not a maid; - And but a man in show; go card and spin, - And leave the business of the war to men.-- - While thus the boaster exercised his pride, - The fatal spear of Cæneus reached his side; - Just in the mixture of the kinds it ran, - Betwixt the nether breast and upper man. - The monster, mad with rage, and stung with smart, - His lance directed at the hero's heart: - It strook; but bounded from his hardened breast, - Like hail from tiles, which the safe house invest; - Nor seemed the stroke with more effect to come, - Than a small pebble falling on a drum. - He next his faulchion tried, in closer fight; - But the keen faulchion had no power to bite. - He thrust; the blunted point returned again:-- - Since downright blows, he cried, and thrusts are vain, - I'll prove his side;--in strong embraces held, - He proved his side; his side the sword repelled; - His hollow belly echoed to the stroke: } - Untouched his body, as a solid rock; } - Aimed at his neck at last, the blade in shivers broke. } - The impassive knight stood idle, to deride } - His rage, and offered oft his naked side; } - At length, Now, monster, in thy turn, he cried, } - Try thou the strength of Cæneus:--at the word - He thrust; and in his shoulder plunged the sword. - Then writhed his hand; and, as he drove it down - Deep in his breast, made many wounds in one. - The Centaurs saw, enraged, the unhoped[35] success, - And, rushing on in crowds, together press. - At him, and him alone, their darts they threw; - Repulsed they from his fated body flew. - Amazed they stood; till Monychus began,-- - O shame, a nation conquered by a man! - A woman-man; yet more a man is he, - Than all our race; and what he was, are we. - Now, what avail our nerves? the united force - Of two the strongest creatures, man and horse? - Nor goddess-born, nor of Ixion's seed - We seem, (a lover built for Juno's bed,) - Mastered by this half man. Whole mountains throw - With woods at once, and bury him below. - This only way remains. Nor need we doubt - To choke the soul within, though not to force it out. - Heap weights, instead of wounds:--he chanced to see - Where southern storms had rooted up a tree; - This, raised from earth, against the foe he threw; - The example shewn, his fellow-brutes pursue. - With forest-loads the warrior they invade; } - Othrys and Pelion soon were void of shade, } - And spreading groves were naked mountains made. } - Pressed with the burden, Cæneus pants for breath, - And on his shoulders bears the wooden death. - To heave the intolerable weight he tries; - At length it rose above his mouth and eyes. - Yet still he heaves; and, struggling with despair, - Shakes all aside, and gains a gulp of air; - A short relief, which but prolongs his pain: - He faints by fits, and then respires again. - At last, the burden only nods above, - As when an earthquake stirs the Idæan grove. - Doubtful his death; he suffocated seemed - To most; but otherwise our Mopsus deemed, - Who said he saw a yellow bird arise - From out the pile, and cleave the liquid skies. - I saw it too, with golden feathers bright, - Nor e'er before beheld so strange a sight; - Whom Mopsus viewing, as it soared around - Our troop, and heard the pinions' rattling sound, - All hail, he cried, thy country's grace and love; - Once first of men below, now first of birds above!-- - Its author to the story gave belief; - For us, our courage was increased by grief: - Ashamed to see a single man, pursued - With odds, to sink beneath a multitude, - We pushed the foe, and forced to shameful flight: - Part fell, and part escaped by favour of the night. - This tale, by Nestor told, did much displease - Tlepolemus, the seed of Hercules; - For often he had heard his father say, } - That he himself was present at the fray, } - And more than shared the glories of the day. } - Old Chronicle, he said, among the rest, - You might have named Alcides at the least; - Is he not worth your praise?--The Pylian prince - Sighed ere he spoke, then made this proud defence: - My former woes, in long oblivion drowned, - I would have lost, but you renew the wound; - Better to pass him o'er, than to relate - The cause I have your mighty sire to hate. - His fame has filled the world, and reached the sky; - Which, oh, I wish with truth I could deny! - We praise not Hector, though his name we know - Is great in arms; 'tis hard to praise a foe. - He, your great father, levelled to the ground - Messenia's towers; nor better fortune found - Elis, and Pylas; that, a neighbouring state, - And this, my own; both guiltless of their fate. - To pass the rest, twelve, wanting one, he slew, - My brethren, who their birth from Neleus drew; - All youths of early promise, had they lived; - By him they perished; I alone survived. - The rest were easy conquest; but the fate - Of Periclymenos is wonderous to relate. - To him our common grandsire of the main - Had given to change his form, and, changed, resume again. - Varied at pleasure, every shape he tried, - And in all beasts Alcides still defied; - Vanquished on earth, at length he soared above, - Changed to the bird, that bears the bolt of Jove. - The new dissembled eagle, now endued - With peak and pounces, Hercules pursued, - And cuffed his manly cheeks, and tore his face, - Then, safe retired, and towered in empty space. - Alcides bore not long his flying foe, - But, bending his inevitable bow, - Reached him in air, suspended as he stood, - And in his pinion fixed the feathered wood. - Light was the wound; but in the sinew hung - The point, and his disabled wing unstrung. - He wheeled in air, and stretched his vans in vain; - His vans no longer could his flight sustain; - For, while one gathered wind, one unsupplied - Hung drooping down, nor poised his other side. - He fell; the shaft, that slightly was impressed, - Now from his heavy fall with weight increased, - Drove through his neck aslant; he spurns the ground, - And the soul issues through the weazon's wound. - Now, brave commander of the Rhodian seas, - What praise is due from me to Hercules? - Silence is all the vengeance I decree - For my slain brothers; but 'tis peace with thee.-- - Thus with a flowing tongue old Nestor spoke; - Then, to full bowls each other they provoke; - At length, with weariness and wine oppressed, - They rise from table, and withdraw to rest. - The sire of Cygnus, monarch of the main, } - Meantime laments his son in battle slain; } - And vows the victor's death, nor vows in vain. } - For nine long years the smothered pain he bore; - Achilles was not ripe for fate before; - Then when he saw the promised hour was near, - He thus bespoke the god, that guides the year:-- - Immortal offspring of my brother Jove, - My brightest nephew, and whom best I love, - Whose hands were joined with mine, to raise the wall - Of tottering Troy, now nodding to her fall; - Dost thou not mourn our power employed in vain, - And the defenders of our city slain? - To pass the rest, could noble Hector lie - Unpitied, dragged around his native Troy? - And yet the murderer lives; himself by far - A greater plague, than all the wasteful war: - He lives; the proud Pelides lives, to boast - Our town destroyed, our common labour lost. - O could I meet him! But I wish too late, - To prove my trident is not in his fate. - But let him try (for that's allowed) thy dart, - And pierce his only penetrable part.-- - Apollo bows to the superior throne, - And to his uncle's anger adds his own; - Then, in a cloud involved, he takes his flight, - Where Greeks and Trojans mixed in mortal fight; - And found out Paris, lurking where he stood, - And stained his arrows with plebeian blood. - Phœbus to him alone the god confessed, - Then to the recreant knight he thus addressed:-- - Dost thou not blush, to spend thy shafts in vain - On a degenerate and ignoble train? - If fame, or better vengeance, be thy care, - There aim, and with one arrow end the war.-- - He said; and shewed from far the blazing shield } - And sword, which but Achilles none could wield; } - And how he moved a god, and mowed the standing field. } - The deity himself directs aright - The envenomed shaft, and wings the fatal flight. - Thus fell the foremost of the Grecian name, - And he, the base adulterer, boasts the fame; - A spectacle to glad the Trojan train, - And please old Priam, after Hector slain. - If by a female hand he had foreseen } - He was to die, his wish had rather been } - The lance and double axe of the fair warrior queen. } - And now, the terror of the Trojan field, - The Grecian honour, ornament, and shield, - High on a pile, the unconquered chief is placed; - The god,[36] that armed him first, consumed at last. - Of all the mighty man, the small remains - A little urn, and scarcely filled, contains; - Yet, great in Homer, still Achilles lives, - And, equal to himself, himself survives. - His buckler owns its former lord, and brings - New cause of strife betwixt contending kings; - Who worthiest, after him, his sword to wield, - Or wear his armour, or sustain his shield. - Even Diomede sat mute, with downcast eyes, - Conscious of wanted worth to win the prize; - Nor Menelaus presumed these arms to claim, - Nor he the king of men, a greater name. - Two rivals only rose; Laertes' son, - And the vast bulk of Ajax Telamon. - The king, who cherished each with equal love, - And from himself all envy would remove, - Left both to be determined by the laws, - And to the Grecian chiefs transferred the cause. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[31] The swan. - -[32] The Centaurs, a people of Thessaly, said to be begotten -by Ixion, on the cloud which he took for Juno. - -[33] - - ----_Felicem diximus illa - Conjuge Pirithoum: quod pæne fefellimus omen._ - -The translation is somewhat obscure; it means, "All wished her joy, and -it had nearly happened that all had wished it in vain." - -[34] The _dress_ seems to apply to the clothing of the -Centaur's human part, the _habit_ to the furniture of the horse; -perhaps, however, _habit_ means his mode of life. - -[35] _Unhoped_ for _unexpected_. See note on "death unhoped," -in the fable of the Cock and the Fox, Vol. XI. - -[36] Vulcan, the god of fire. - - - - -THE SPEECHES OF AJAX AND ULYSSES: - -FROM THE THIRTEENTH BOOK Of OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - - The chiefs were set, the soldiers crowned the field; - To these the master of the sevenfold shield - Upstarted fierce; and, kindled with disdain, - Eager to speak, unable to contain - His boiling rage, he rolled his eyes around - The shore, and Grecian gallies hauled a-ground. - Then stretching out his hands, O Jove, he cried, - Must then our cause before the fleet be tried? - And dares Ulysses for the prize contend, - In sight of what he durst not once defend; - But basely fled, that memorable day, - When I from Hector's hands redeemed the flaming prey? - So much 'tis safer at the noisy bar - With words to flourish, than engage in war. - By different methods we maintained our right, - Nor am I made to talk, nor he to fight. - In bloody fields I labour to be great; - His arms are a smooth tongue, and soft deceit. - Nor need I speak my deeds, for those you see; - The sun and day are witnesses for me. - Let him, who fights unseen, relate his own, - And vouch the silent stars, and conscious moon. - Great is the prize demanded, I confess, - But such an abject rival makes it less. - That gift, those honours, he but hoped to gain, - Can leave no room for Ajax to be vain; - Losing he wins, because his name will be - Ennobled by defeat, who durst contend with me. - Were mine own valour questioned, yet my blood - Without that plea would make my title good; - My sire was Telamon, whose arms, employed - With Hercules, these Trojan walls destroyed; - And who before, with Jason, sent from Greece, - In the first ship brought home the golden fleece: - Great Telamon from Æacus derives - His birth: (the inquisitor of guilty lives - In shades below; where Sisyphus, whose son - This thief is thought, rolls up the restless heavy stone.) - Just Æacus the king of gods above - Begot; thus Ajax is the third from Jove. - Nor should I seek advantage from my line, - Unless, Achilles, it were mixed with thine: - As next of kin Achilles' arms I claim; - This fellow would ingraft a foreign name - Upon our stock, and the Sisyphian seed - By fraud and theft asserts his father's breed. - Then must I lose these arms, because I came - To fight uncalled, a voluntary name? - Nor shunned the cause, but offered you my aid, - While he, long lurking, was to war betrayed: - Forced to the field he came, but in the rear, - And feigned distraction, to conceal his fear; - Till one more cunning caught him in the snare, - Ill for himself, and dragged him into war. - Now let a hero's arms a coward vest, - And he, who shunned all honours, gain the best; - And let me stand excluded from my right, - Robbed of my kinsman's arms, who first appeared in fight. - Better for us at home he had remained, - Had it been true the madness which he feigned, - Or so believed; the less had been our shame, - The less his counselled crime, which brands the Grecian name; - Nor Philoctetes had been left inclosed - In a bare isle, to wants and pains exposed; - Where to the rocks, with solitary groans, - His sufferings and our baseness he bemoans, - And wishes (so may heaven his wish fulfil!) - The due reward to him who caused his ill. - Now he, with us to Troy's destruction sworn, - Our brother of the war, by whom are borne - Alcides' arrows, pent in narrow bounds, - With cold and hunger pinched, and pained with wounds, - To find him food and clothing, must employ - Against the birds the shafts due to the fate of Troy. - Yet still he lives, and lives from treason free, - Because he left Ulysses' company; - Poor Palamede might wish, so void of aid, - Rather to have been left, than so to death betrayed. - The coward bore the man immortal spite, - Who shamed him out of madness into fight; - Nor daring otherwise to vent his hate, - Accused him first of treason to the state; - And then, for proof, produced the golden store - Himself had hidden in his tent before. - Thus of two champions he deprived our host, - By exile one, and one by treason lost. - Thus fights Ulysses, thus his fame extends, - A formidable man, but to his friends; - Great, for what greatness is in words and sound; - Even faithful Nestor less in both is found; - But, that he might without a rival reign, - He left his faithful Nestor on the plain; - Forsook his friend even at his utmost need, - Who, tired, and tardy with his wounded steed, - Cried out for aid, and called him by his name; - But cowardice has neither ears nor shame. - Thus fled the good old man, bereft of aid, - And, for as much as lay in him, betrayed. - That this is not a fable forged by me, - Like one of his, an Ulyssean lie, - I vouch even Diomede, who, though his friend, - Cannot that act excuse, much less defend: - He called him back aloud, and taxed his fear; - And sure enough he heard, but durst not hear. - The gods with equal eyes on mortals look; - He justly was forsaken, who forsook; - Wanted that succour he refused to lend, - Found every fellow such another friend. - No wonder if he roared, that all might hear - His elocution was increased by fear; - I heard, I ran, I found him out of breath, - Pale, trembling, and half-dead with fear of death. - Though he had judged himself by his own laws, - And stood condemned, I helped the common cause: - With my broad buckler hid him from the foe, - (Even the shield trembled as he lay below,) - And from impending fate the coward freed; - Good heaven forgive me for so bad a deed! - If still he will persist, and urge the strife, - First let him give me back his forfeit life; - Let him return to that opprobrious field, - Again creep under my protecting shield; - Let him lie wounded, let the foe be near, - And let his quivering heart confess his fear; - There put him in the very jaws of fate, - And let him plead his cause in that estate; - And yet, when snatched from death, when from below - My lifted shield I loosed, and let him go, - Good heavens, how light he rose! with what a bound - He sprung from earth, forgetful of his wound! - How fresh, how eager then his feet to ply! - Who had not strength to stand, had speed to fly! - Hector came on, and brought the gods along; - Fear seized alike the feeble and the strong; - Each Greek was an Ulysses; such a dread - The approach, and even the sound, of Hector bred; - Him, fleshed with slaughter, and with conquest crowned, - I met, and overturned him to the ground. - When after, matchless as he deemed in might, - He challenged all our host to single fight, - All eyes were fixed on me; the lots were thrown, - But for your champion I was wished alone. - Your vows were heard; we fought, and neither yield; - Yet I returned unvanquished from the field. - With Jove to friend, the insulting Trojan came, - And menaced us with force, our fleet with flame; - Was it the strength of this tongue-valiant lord, - In that black hour, that saved you from the sword? - Or was my breast exposed alone, to brave - A thousand swords, a thousand ships to save, - The hopes of your return? and can you yield, - For a saved fleet, less than a single shield? - Think it no boast, O Grecians, if I deem - These arms want Ajax, more than Ajax them; - Or, I with them an equal honour share; - They, honoured to be worn, and I, to wear. - Will he compare my courage with his slight? - As well he may compare the day with night. - Night is indeed the province of his reign; } - Yet all his dark exploits no more contain } - Than a spy taken, and a sleeper slain; } - A priest made prisoner, Pallas made a prey; } - But none of all these actions done by day; } - Nor aught of these was done, and Diomede away. } - If on such petty merits you confer - So vast a prize, let each his portion share; - Make a just dividend; and, if not all, - The greater part to Diomede will fall. - But why for Ithacus such arms as those, - Who naked, and by night, invades his foes? - The glittering helm by moonlight will proclaim - The latent robber, and prevent his game; - Nor could he hold his tottering head upright - Beneath that motion, or sustain the weight; - Nor that right arm could toss the beamy lance, - Much less the left that ampler shield advance; - Ponderous with precious weight, and rough with cost - Of the round world in rising gold embossed. - That orb would ill become his hand to wield, - And look, as for the gold he stole the shield; - Which should your error on the wretch bestow, - It would not frighten, but allure the foe. - Why asks he what avails him not in fight, - And would but cumber and retard his flight, - In which his only excellence is placed? - You give him death, that intercept his haste. - Add, that his own is yet a maiden-shield, - Nor the least dint has suffered in the field, - Guiltless of fight; mine, battered, hewed, and bored, - Worn out of service, must forsake his lord. - What farther need of words our right to scan? - My arguments are deeds, let action speak the man. - Since from a champion's arms the strife arose, - So cast the glorious prize amid the foes; - Then send us to redeem both arms and shield, - And let him wear, who wins them in the field.-- - He said:--A murmur from the multitude, - Or somewhat like a stifled shout, ensued; - Till from his seat arose Laertes' son, - Looked down a while, and paused ere he begun; - Then to the expecting audience raised his look, - And not without prepared attention spoke; - Soft was his tone, and sober was his face, - Action his words, and words his action grace. - If heaven, my lords, had heard our common prayer, - These arms had caused no quarrel for an heir; - Still great Achilles had his own possessed, - And we with great Achilles had been blessed: - But since hard fate, and heaven's severe decree, - Have ravished him away from you and me, - (At this he sighed, and wiped his eyes, and drew, - Or seemed to draw, some drops of kindly dew,) - Who better can succeed Achilles lost, - Than he who gave Achilles to your host? - This only I request, that neither he - May gain, by being what he seems to be, - A stupid thing, nor I may lose the prize, - By having sense, which heaven to him denies; - Since, great or small, the talent I enjoyed - Was ever in the common cause employed: - Nor let my wit, and wonted eloquence, - Which often has been used in your defence - And in my own, this only time be brought - To bear against myself, and deemed a fault. - Make not a crime, where nature made it none; - For every man may freely use his own. - The deeds of long descended ancestors - Are but by grace of imputation ours, - Theirs in effect; but since he draws his line - From Jove, and seems to plead a right divine, - From Jove, like him, I claim my pedigree, - And am descended in the same degree. - My sire Laertes, was Arcesius' heir, - Arcesius was the son of Jupiter; - No parricide, no banished man, is known - In all my line; let him excuse his own. - Hermes ennobles too my mother's side, - By both my parents to the gods allied. - But not because that on the female part - My blood is better, dare I claim desert, - Or that my sire from parricide is free; - But judge by merit betwixt him and me. - The prize be to the best; provided yet, - That Ajax for a while his kin forget, - And his great sire, and greater uncle's name, - To fortify by them his feeble claim. - Be kindred and relation laid aside, - And honour's cause by laws of honour tried; - For, if he plead proximity of blood, - That empty title is with ease withstood. - Peleus, the hero's sire, more nigh than he, - And Pyrrhus, his undoubted progeny, - Inherit first these trophies of the field; - To Scyros, or to Phthia, send the shield: - And Teucer has an uncle's right, yet he - Waves his pretensions, nor contends with me. - Then, since the cause on pure desert is placed, - Whence shall I take my rise, what reckon last? - I not presume on every act to dwell, - But take these few, in order as they fell. - Thetis, who knew the fates, applied her care - To keep Achilles in disguise from war; - And, till the threatening influence were past, - A woman's habit on the hero cast: - All eyes were cozened by the borrowed vest, - And Ajax (never wiser than the rest) - Found no Pelides there: At length I came - With proffered wares to this pretended dame; - She, not discovered by her mien or voice, - Betrayed her manhood by her manly choice; - And, while on female toys her fellows look, } - Grasped in her warlike hand, a javelin shook; } - Whom, by this act revealed, I thus bespoke:-- } - O goddess-born! resist not heaven's decree, - The fall of Ilium is reserved for thee;-- - Then seized him, and, produced in open light, - Sent blushing to the field the fatal knight. - Mine then are all his actions of the war; - Great Telephus was conquered by my spear, - And after cured; to me the Thebans owe, - Lesbos and Tenedos, their overthrow; - Scyros and Cylla; not on all to dwell, - By me Lyrnessus and strong Chrysa fell; - And, since I sent the man who Hector slew, - To me the noble Hector's death is due. - Those arms I put into his living hand; - Those arms, Pelides dead, I now demand. - When Greece was injured in the Spartan prince, - And met at Aulis to revenge the offence, - 'Twas a dead calm, or adverse blasts, that reigned, - And in the port the wind-bound fleet detained: - Bad signs were seen, and oracles severe - Were daily thundered in our general's ear, - That by his daughter's blood we must appease - Diana's kindled wrath, and free the seas. - Affection, interest, fame, his heart assailed, - But soon the father o'er the king prevailed; - Bold, on himself he took the pious crime, - As angry with the gods as they with him. - No subject could sustain their sovereign's look, - Till this hard enterprize I undertook; - I only durst the imperial power controul, - And undermined the parent in his soul; - Forced him to exert the king for common good, - And pay our ransom with his daughter's blood. - Never was cause more difficult to plead, - Than where the judge against himself decreed; - Yet this I won by dint of argument. } - The wrongs his injured brother underwent, } - And his own office, shamed him to consent. } - 'Twas harder yet to move the mother's mind, - And to this heavy task was I designed: - Reasons against her love I knew were vain; - I circumvented whom I could not gain. - Had Ajax been employed, our slackened sails - Had still at Aulis waited happy gales. - Arrived at Troy, your choice was fixed on me, - A fearless envoy, fit for a bold embassy. - Secure, I entered through the hostile court, - Glittering with steel, and crowded with resort: - There, in the midst of arms, I plead our cause, - Urge the foul rape, and violated laws; - Accuse the foes as authors of the strife, - Reproach the ravisher, demand the wife. - Priam, Antenor, and the wiser few, - I moved; but Paris and his lawless crew - Scarce held their hands, and lifted swords; but stood - In act to quench their impious thirst of blood. - This Menelaus knows; exposed to share - With me the rough preludium of the war. - Endless it were to tell what I have done, - In arms, or counsel, since the siege begun. - The first encounters past, the foe repelled, - They skulked within the town, we kept the field. - War seemed asleep for nine long years; at length, - Both sides resolved to push, we tried our strength. - Now what did Ajax while our arms took breath, - Versed only in the gross mechanic trade of death? - If you require my deeds, with ambushed arms - I trapped the foe, or tired with false alarms; - Secured the ships, drew lines along the plain, - The fainting cheered, chastised the rebel-train, - Provided forage, our spent arms renewed; - Employed at home, or sent abroad, the common cause pursued. - The king, deluded in a dream by Jove, - Despaired to take the town, and ordered to remove. - What subject durst arraign the power supreme, - Producing Jove to justify his dream? - Ajax might wish the soldiers to retain - From shameful flight, but wishes were in vain; - As wanting of effect had been his words, - Such as of course his thundering tongue affords. - But did this boaster threaten, did he pray, } - Or by his own example urge their stay? } - None, none of these, but ran himself away. } - I saw him run, and was ashamed to see; - Who plied his feet so fast to get aboard as he? - Then speeding through the place, I made a stand, } - And loudly cried,--O base degenerate band, } - To leave a town already in your hand! } - After so long expence of blood, for fame, - To bring home nothing but perpetual shame!-- - These words, or what I have forgotten since, - For grief inspired me then with eloquence, - Reduced their minds; they leave the crowded port, - And to their late forsaken camp resort. - Dismayed the council met; this man was there, - But mute, and not recovered of his fear: - Thersites taxed the king, and loudly railed, - But his wide opening mouth with blows I sealed. - Then, rising, I excite their souls to fame, - And kindle sleeping virtue into flame. - From thence, whatever he performed in fight - Is justly mine, who drew him back from flight. - Which of the Grecian chiefs consorts with thee? } - But Diomede desires my company, } - And still communicates his praise with me. } - As guided by a god, secure he goes, - Armed with my fellowship, amid the foes; - And sure no little merit I may boast, - Whom such a man selects from such an host. - Unforced by lots, I went without affright, - To dare with him the dangers of the night; - On the same errand sent, we met the spy - Of Hector, double-tongued, and used to lie; - Him I dispatched, but not till, undermined, - I drew him first to tell what treacherous Troy designed. - My task performed, with praise I had retired, - But, not content with this, to greater praise aspired; - Invaded Rhœsus, and his Thracian crew, - And him, and his, in their own strength, I slew: - Returned a victor, all my vows complete, - With the king's chariot, in his royal seat. - Refuse me now his arms, whose fiery steeds - Were promised to the spy for his nocturnal deeds;[37] - And let dull Ajax bear away my right, - When all his days outbalance this one night. - Nor fought I darkling still; the sun beheld - With slaughtered Lycians when I strewed the field: - You saw, and counted as I passed along, - Alastor, Cromius, Ceranos the strong, - Alcander, Prytanis, and Halius, - Noemon, Charopes, and Ennomus, - Choon, Chersidamas, and five beside, - Men of obscure descent, but courage tried; - All these this hand laid breathless on the ground. - Nor want I proofs of many a manly wound; - All honest, all before; believe not me, - Words may deceive, but credit what you see. - At this he bared his breast, and showed his scars, - As of a furrowed field, well ploughed with wars; - Nor is this part unexercised, said he; - That giant bulk of his from wounds is free; - Safe in his shield he fears no foe to try, - And better manages his blood than I. - But this avails me not; our boaster strove - Not with our foes alone, but partial Jove, - To save the fleet. This I confess is true, } - Nor will I take from any man his due; } - But, thus assuming all, he robs from you. } - Some part of honour to your share will fall; - He did the best indeed, but did not all. - Patroclus in Achilles' arms, and thought - The chief he seemed, with equal ardour fought; - Preserved the fleet, repelled the raging fire, - And forced the fearful Trojans to retire. - But Ajax boasts, that he was only thought - A match for Hector, who the combat sought: - Sure he forgets the king, the chiefs, and me, - All were as eager for the fight as he; - He but the ninth, and, not by public voice, - Or ours preferred, was only fortune's choice: - They fought; nor can our hero boast the event, - For Hector from the field unwounded went. - Why am I forced to name that fatal day, - That snatched the prop and pride of Greece away? - I saw Pelides sink, with pious grief, - And ran in vain, alas! to his relief, - For the brave soul was fled; full of my friend, - I rushed amid the war, his relics to defend; - Nor ceased my toil till I redeemed the prey, - And, loaded with Achilles, marched away. - Those arms, which on these shoulders then I bore, - 'Tis just you to these shoulders should restore. - You see I want not nerves, who could sustain - The ponderous ruins of so great a man; - Or if in others equal force you find, - None is endued with a more grateful mind. - Did Thetis then, ambitious in her care, } - These arms, thus laboured, for her son prepare, } - That Ajax after him the heavenly gift should wear? } - For that dull soul to stare, with stupid eyes, - On the learned unintelligible prize? - What are to him the sculptures of the shield, - Heaven's planets, earth, and ocean's watery field? - The Pleiads, Hyads; Less, and Greater Bear, - Undipped in seas; Orion's angry star; - Two differing cities, graved on either hand? - Would he wear arms he cannot understand? - Beside, what wise objections he prepares - Against my late accession to the wars! - Does not the fool perceive his argument - Is with more force against Achilles bent? - For, if dissembling be so great a crime, - The fault is common, and the same in him; - And if he taxes both of long delay, - My guilt is less, who sooner came away. - His pious mother, anxious for his life, - Detained her son; and me, my pious wife. - To them the blossoms of our youth were due; - Our riper manhood we reserved for you. - But grant me guilty, 'tis not much my care, - When with so great a man my guilt I share; - My wit to war the matchless hero brought, - But by this fool he never had been caught. - Nor need I wonder, that on me he threw - Such foul aspersions, when he spares not you: - If Palamede unjustly fell by me, - Your honour suffered in the unjust decree. - I but accused, you doomed; and yet he died, - Convinced of treason, and was fairly tried. - You heard not he was false; your eyes beheld - The traitor manifest, the bribe revealed. - That Philoctetes is on Lemnos left, - Wounded, forlorn, of human aid bereft, - Is not my crime, or not my crime alone; - Defend your justice, for the fact's your own. - 'Tis true, the advice was mine; that, staying there, } - He might his weary limbs with rest repair, } - From a long voyage free, and from a longer war. } - He took the counsel, and he lives at least; - The event declares I counselled for the best; - Though faith is all in ministers of state, - For who can promise to be fortunate? - Now since his arrows are the fate of Troy, - Do not my wit, or weak address, employ; - Send Ajax there, with his persuasive sense, - To mollify the man, and draw him thence: - But Xanthus shall run backward; Ida stand - A leafless mountain; and the Grecian band - Shall fight for Troy; if, when my counsels fail, - The wit of heavy Ajax can prevail. - Hard Philoctetes, exercise thy spleen - Against thy fellows, and the king of men; - Curse my devoted head, above the rest, - And wish in arms to meet me, breast to breast; - Yet I the dangerous task will undertake, - And either die myself, or bring thee back. - Nor doubt the same success, as when, before, - The Phrygian prophet to these tents I bore, - Surprised by night, and forced him to declare - In what was placed the fortune of the war; - Heaven's dark decrees and answers to display, - And how to take the town, and where the secret lay. - Yet this I compassed, and from Troy conveyed - The fatal image of their guardian Maid. - That work was mine; for Pallas, though our friend, - Yet while she was in Troy, did Troy defend. - Now what has Ajax done, or what designed? - A noisy nothing, and an empty wind. - If he be what he promises in show, - Why was I sent, and why feared he to go? - Our boasting champion thought the task not light - To pass the guards, commit himself to night; - Not only through a hostile town to pass, - But scale, with deep ascent, the sacred place; - With wandering steps to search the citadel, - And from the priests their patroness to steal; - Then through surrounding foes to force my way, - And bear in triumph home the heavenly prey; - Which had I not, Ajax in vain had held - Before that monstrous bulk his sevenfold shield. - That night to conquer Troy I might be said, - When Troy was liable to conquest made. - Why point'st thou to my partner of the war? - Tydides had indeed a worthy share - In all my toil, and praise; but when thy might - Our ships protected, didst thou singly fight? - All joined, and thou of many wert but one; - I asked no friend, nor had, but him alone; - Who, had he not been well assured, that art - And conduct were of war the better part, - And more availed than strength, my valiant friend - Had urged a better right, than Ajax can pretend; - As good, at least, Eurypylus may claim, - And the more moderate Ajax of the name; - The Cretan king, and his brave charioteer, - And Menelaus, bold with sword and spear: - All these had been my rivals in the shield, - And yet all these to my pretensions yield. - Thy boisterous hands are then of use, when I - With this directing head those hands apply. - Brawn without brain is thine; my prudent care - Foresees, provides, administers the war: - Thy province is to fight; but when shall be - The time to fight, the king consults with me. - No drachm of judgment with thy force is joined; - Thy body is of profit, and my mind. - But, how much more the ship her safety owes - To him who steers, than him that only rows; - By how much more the captain merits praise - Than he who fights, and, fighting, but obeys; - By so much greater is my worth than thine, - Who canst but execute what I design. - What gain'st thou, brutal man, if I confess - Thy strength superior, when thy wit is less? - Mind is the man; I claim my whole desert - From the mind's vigour, and the immortal part. - But you, O Grecian chiefs, reward my care, - Be grateful to your watchman of the war; - For all my labours in so long a space, - Sure I may plead a title to your grace. - Enter the town; I then unbarred the gates, - When I removed their tutelary fates. - By all our common hopes, if hopes they be, - Which I have now reduced to certainty; - By falling Troy, by yonder tottering towers, - And by their taken gods, which now are ours; - Or, if there yet a farther task remains, - To be performed by prudence or by pains; - If yet some desperate action rests behind, - That asks high conduct, and a dauntless mind; - If aught be wanting to the Trojan doom, - Which none but I can manage and o'ercome; - Award those arms I ask, by your decree; - Or give to this what you refuse to me. - He ceased, and, ceasing, with respect he bowed, - And with his hand at once the fatal statue shewed. - Heaven, air, and ocean rung, with loud applause, - And by the general vote he gained his cause. - Thus conduct won the prize, when courage failed, - And eloquence o'er brutal force prevailed. - - -THE DEATH OF AJAX. - - He who could often, and alone, withstand - The foe, the fire, and Jove's own partial hand, - Now cannot his unmastered grief sustain, - But yields to rage, to madness, and disdain; - Then snatching out his faulchion,--Thou, said he, - Art mine; Ulysses lays no claim to thee. - O often tried, and ever trusty sword, - Now do thy last kind office to thy lord! - 'Tis Ajax who requests thy aid, to show - None but himself, himself could overthrow.-- - He said, and with so good a will to die, - Did to his breast the fatal point apply, - It found his heart, a way till then unknown, - Where never weapon entered but his own; - No hands could force it thence, so fixt it stood, - 'Till out it rushed, expelled by streams of spouting blood. - The fruitful blood produced a flower[38], which grew } - On a green stem, and of a purple hue; } - Like his, whom unaware Apollo slew. } - Inscribed in both, the letters are the same, - But those express the grief, and these the name. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[37] Dolon demanded the horses of Achilles, as his reward for -exploring the Grecian camp, but was intercepted and slain by Ulysses. - -[38] The Hyacinth. - - - - -THE STORY OF ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA, - -FROM THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - - Acis, the lovely youth, whose loss I mourn, - From Faunus and the nymph Symethis born, - Was both his parents' pleasure; but to me - Was all that love could make a lover be. - The gods our minds in mutual bands did join; - I was his only joy, and he was mine. - Now sixteen summers the sweet youth had seen, - And doubtful down began to shade his chin; - When Polyphemus first disturbed our joy, - And loved me fiercely, as I loved the boy. - Ask not which passion in my soul was higher, - My last aversion, or my first desire; - Nor this the greater was, nor that the less, - Both were alike, for both were in excess. - Thee, Venus, thee both heaven and earth obey; - Immense thy power, and boundless is thy sway. - The Cyclops, who defied the ætherial throne, - And thought no thunder louder than his own, - The terror of the woods, and wilder far - Than wolves in plains, or bears in forests are; - The inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts - On mangled members of his butchered guests, - Yet felt the force of love, and fierce desire, - And burnt for me, with unrelenting fire; - Forgot his caverns, and his woolly care, } - Assumed the softness of a lover's air, } - And combed, with teeth of rakes, his rugged hair. } - Now with a crooked scythe his beard he sleeks, - And mows the stubborn stubble of his cheeks; - Now in the crystal stream he looks, to try - His simagres,[39] and rolls his glaring eye. - His cruelty and thirst of blood are lost; - And ships securely sail along the coast. - The prophet Telemus (arrived by chance - Where Ætna's summits to the seas advance, - Who marked the tracks of every bird that flew, - And sure presages from their flying drew,) - Foretold the Cyclops, that Ulysses' hand - In his broad eye should thrust a flaming brand. - The giant, with a scornful grin, replied, - Vain augur, thou hast falsely prophesied: - Already Love his flaming brand has tost; - Looking on two fair eyes, my sight I lost.-- - Thus, warned in vain, with stalking pace he strode, - And stamped the margin of the briny flood - With heavy steps, and, weary, sought agen - The cool retirement of his gloomy den. - A promontory, sharpening by degrees, - Ends in a wedge, and overlooks the seas; - On either side, below, the water flows: - This airy walk the giant-lover chose; - Here on the midst he sate; his flocks, unled, - Their shepherd followed, and securely fed. - A pine so burly, and of length so vast, - That sailing ships required it for a mast, - He wielded for a staff, his steps to guide; - But laid it by, his whistle while he tried. - A hundred reeds, of a prodigious growth, - Scarce made a pipe proportioned to his mouth; - Which when he gave it wind, the rocks around, - And watery plains, the dreadful hiss resound. - I heard the ruffian shepherd rudely blow, - Where, in a hollow cave, I sat below. - On Acis' bosom I my head reclined; - And still preserve the poem in my mind. - O lovely Galatea, whiter far - Than falling snows, and rising lilies are; - More flowery than the meads, as crystal bright, - Erect as alders, and of equal height; - More wanton than a kid; more sleek thy skin, - Than orient shells, that on the shores are seen; - Than apples fairer, when the boughs they lade; - Pleasing, as winter suns, or summer shade; - More grateful to the sight than goodly plains, - And softer to the touch than down of swans, - Or curds new turned; and sweeter to the taste, - Than swelling grapes, that to the vintage haste; - More clear than ice, or running streams, that stray - Through garden plots, but ah! more swift than they. - Yet, Galatea, harder to be broke } - Than bullocks, unreclaimed to bear the yoke, } - And far more stubborn than the knotted oak; } - Like sliding streams, impossible to hold, - Like them fallacious, like their fountains cold; - More warping than the willow, to decline - My warm embrace; more brittle than the vine; - Immoveable, and fixt in thy disdain; - Rough, as these rocks, and of a harder grain; - More violent than is the rising flood; - And the praised peacock is not half so proud; - Fierce as the fire, and sharp as thistles are, - And more outrageous than a mother bear; - Deaf as the billows to the vows I make, - And more revengeful than a trodden snake; - In swiftness fleeter than the flying hind, - Or driven tempests, or the driving wind. - All other faults with patience I can bear; - But swiftness is the vice I only fear. - Yet, if you knew me well, you would not shun - My love, but to my wished embraces run; - Would languish in your turn, and court my stay, - And much repent of your unwise delay. - My palace, in the living rock, is made } - By nature's hand; a spacious pleasing shade, } - Which neither heat can pierce, nor cold invade. } - My garden filled with fruits you may behold, - And grapes in clusters, imitating gold; - Some blushing bunches of a purple hue; - And these, and those, are all reserved for you. - Red strawberries in shades expecting stand, - Proud to be gathered by so white a hand. - Autumnal cornels latter fruit provide, - And plumbs, to tempt you, turn their glossy side; - Not those of common kinds, but such alone, - As in Phæacian orchards might have grown. - Nor chesnuts shall be wanting to your food, - Nor garden-fruits, nor wildings of the wood. - The laden boughs for you alone shall bear, - And yours shall be the product of the year. - The flocks you see are all my own, beside } - The rest that woods and winding vallies hide, } - And those that folded in the caves abide. } - Ask not the numbers of my growing store; - Who knows how many, knows he has no more. - Nor will I praise my cattle; trust not me, - But judge yourself, and pass your own decree. - Behold their swelling dugs; the sweepy weight - Of ewes, that sink beneath the milky freight; - In the warm folds their tender lambkins lie; - Apart from kids, that call with human cry. - New milk in nut-brown bowls is duly served - For daily drink, the rest for cheese reserved. - Nor are these household dainties all my store; } - The fields and forests will afford us more; } - The deer, the hare, the goat, the savage boar. } - All sorts of venison, and of birds the best; - A pair of turtles taken from the nest. - I walked the mountains, and two cubs[40] I found, - Whose dam had left them on the naked ground; - So like, that no distinction could be seen; - So pretty, they were presents for a queen; - And so they shall; I took them both away, - And keep, to be companions of your play. - Oh raise, fair nymph, your beauteous face above - The waves; nor scorn my presents, and my love. - Come, Galatea, come, and view my face; } - I late beheld it in the watery glass, } - And found it lovelier than I feared it was. } - Survey my towering stature, and my size: - Not Jove, the Jove you dream, that rules the skies, - Bears such a bulk, or is so largely spread. - My locks (the plenteous harvest of my head,) - Hang o'er my manly face, and dangling down, - As with a shady grove, my shoulders crown. - Nor think, because my limbs and body bear - A thick-set underwood of bristling hair, - My shape deformed; what fouler sight can be, - Than the bald branches of a leafless tree? - Foul is the steed without a flowing mane; - And birds, without their feathers, and their train: - Wool decks the sheep; and man receives a grace - From bushy limbs, and from a bearded face. - My forehead with a single eye is filled, - Round as a ball, and ample as a shield. - The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun, - Is Nature's eye; and she's content with one. - Add, that my father sways your seas, and I, - Like you, am of the watry family. - I make you his, in making you my own; - You I adore, and kneel to you alone; - Jove, with his fabled thunder, I despise, - And only fear the lightning of your eyes. - Frown not, fair nymph! yet I could bear to be - Disdained, if others were disdained with me. - But to repulse the Cyclops, and prefer - The love of Acis,--heavens! I cannot bear. - But let the stripling please himself; nay more, - Please you, though that's the thing I most abhor; - The boy shall find, if e'er we cope in fight, - These giant limbs endued with giant might. - His living bowels from his belly torn, - And scattered limbs, shall on the flood be borne, - Thy flood, ungrateful nymph; and fate shall find - That way for thee and Acis to be joined. - For oh! I burn with love, and thy disdain - Augments at once my passion, and my pain. - Translated Ætna flames within my heart, - And thou, inhuman, wilt not ease my smart.-- - Lamenting thus in vain, he rose, and strode - With furious paces to the neigbouring wood; - Restless his feet, distracted was his walk, - Mad were his motions, and confused his talk; - Mad as the vanquished bull, when forced to yield - His lovely mistress, and forsake the field. - Thus far unseen I saw; when, fatal chance - His looks directing, with a sudden glance, - Acis and I were to his sight betrayed; - Where, nought suspecting, we securely played. - From his wide mouth a bellowing cry he cast,-- - I see, I see, but this shall be your last.-- - A roar so loud made Ætna to rebound, - And all the Cyclops laboured in the sound. - Affrighted with his monstrous voice, I fled, } - And in the neighbouring ocean plunged my head. } - Poor Acis turned his back, and, Help, he cried, } - Help, Galatea! help, my parent Gods, - And take me, dying, to your deep abodes!-- - The Cyclops followed; but he sent before - A rib, which from the living rock he tore; - Though but an angle reached him of the stone, - The mighty fragment was enough alone, - To crush all Acis; 'twas too late to save, - But what the fates allowed to give, I gave; - That Acis to his lineage should return, - And roll among the river Gods his urn. - Straight issued from the stone a stream of blood, - Which lost the purple, mingling with the flood; - Then like a troubled torrent it appeared; - The torrent too, in little space, was cleared; - The stone was cleft, and through the yawning chink - New reeds arose, on the new river's brink. - The rock, from out its hollow womb, disclosed - A sound like water in its course opposed: - When (wonderous to behold!) full in the flood, - Up starts a youth, and navel-high he stood. - Horns from his temples rise; and either horn - Thick wreaths of reeds (his native growth) adorn. - Were not his stature taller than before, - His bulk augmented, and his beauty more, - His colour blue, for Acis he might pass; - And Acis, changed into a stream, he was. - But, mine no more, he rolls along the plains - With rapid motion, and his name retains. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[39] _Simagres_, one of our author's Gallicisms, for affected -contortions of the face. - -[40] The word _bear-cubs_ is wanting, to complete the sense of -Ovid: - - "_Villosæ catulos ursæ_." - - - - -OF THE PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY. - -FROM THE FIFTEENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. - - _The fourteenth book concludes with the death and deification of - Romulus; the fifteenth begins with the election of Numa to the crown - of Rome. On this occasion, Ovid, following the opinion of some - authors, makes Numa the scholar of Pythagoras, and to have begun his - acquaintance with that philosopher at Crotona, a town in Italy; from - thence he makes a digression to the moral and natural philosophy of - Pythagoras; on both which our author enlarges; and which are the most - learned and beautiful parts of the Metamorphoses._ - - - A king is sought to guide the growing state, } - One able to support the public weight, } - And fill the throne where Romulus had sate. } - Renown, which oft bespeaks the public voice, - Had recommended Numa to their choice; - A peaceful, pious prince; who, not content - To know the Sabine rites, his study bent - To cultivate his mind; to learn the laws - Of nature, and explore their hidden cause. - Urged by this care, his country he forsook, - And to Crotona thence his journey took. - Arrived, he first enquired the founder's name - Of this new colony; and whence he came. - Then thus a senior of the place replies, - Well read, and curious of antiquities.-- - 'Tis said, Alcides hither took his way - From Spain, and drove along his conquered prey; - Then, leaving in the fields his grazing cows, - He sought himself some hospitable house. - Good Croton entertained his godlike guest; - While he repaired his weary limbs with rest. - The hero, thence departing, blessed the place; - And here, he said, in time's revolving race, - A rising town shall take its name from thee.-- - Revolving time fulfilled the prophecy; - For Myscelos, the justest man on earth, - Alemon's son, at Argos had his birth; - Him Hercules, armed with his club of oak, - O'ershadowed in a dream, and thus bespoke; - Go, leave thy native soil, and make abode } - Where Æsaris rolls down his rapid flood;-- } - He said; and sleep forsook him, and the God. } - Trembling he waked, and rose with anxious heart; - His country laws forbad him to depart, - What should he do? 'Twas death to go away, - And the God menaced if he dared to stay. - All day he doubted, and, when night came on, - Sleep, and the same forewarning dream, begun; - Once more the God stood threatening o'er his head, - With added curses if he disobeyed. - Twice warned, he studied flight; but would convey, - At once, his person and his wealth away. - Thus while he lingered, his design was heard; - A speedy process formed, and death declared. - Witness there needed none of his offence, - Against himself the wretch was evidence; - Condemned, and destitute of human aid, - To him, for whom he suffered, thus he prayed. - O Power, who hast deserved in heaven a throne, - Not given, but by thy labours made thy own, - Pity thy suppliant, and protect his cause, - Whom thou hast made obnoxious to the laws!-- - A custom was of old, and still remains, - Which life or death by suffrages ordains; - White stones and black within an urn are cast, - The first absolve, but fate is in the last. - The judges to the common urn bequeath - Their votes, and drop the sable signs of death: - The box receives all black; but, poured from thence, - The stones came candid forth, the hue of innocence. - Thus Alimonides his safety won, - Preserved from death by Alcumena's son. - Then to his kinsman God his vows he pays, - And cuts with prosperous gales the Ionian seas; - He leaves Tarentum, favoured by the wind, - And Thurine bays, and Temises, behind; - Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand - Along the shore, he makes in sight of land; - Still doubling, and still coasting, till he found - The mouth of Æsaris, and promised ground; - Then saw where, on the margin of the flood, - The tomb that held the bones of Croton stood; - Here, by the God's command, he built and walled - The place predicted, and Crotona called. - Thus fame, from time to time, delivers down - The sure tradition of the Italian town. - Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore, - But now self-banished from his native shore, - Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear - The chains which none but servile souls will wear. - He, though from heaven remote, to heaven could move, - With strength of mind, and tread the abyss above; - And penetrate, with his interior light, - Those upper depths, which Nature hid from sight; - And what he had observed, and learnt from thence, - Loved in familiar language to dispense. - The crowd with silent admiration stand, - And heard him, as they heard their god's command; - While he discoursed of heaven's mysterious laws, - The world's original, and nature's cause; - And what was God, and why the fleecy snows - In silence fell, and rattling winds arose; - What shook the stedfast earth, and whence begun - The dance of planets round the radiant sun; - If thunder was the voice of angry Jove, - Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above; - Of these, and things beyond the common reach, - He spoke, and charmed his audience with his speech. - He first the taste of flesh from tables drove, - And argued well, if arguments could move.-- - O mortals! from your fellows' blood abstain, - Nor taint your bodies with a food profane; - While corn and pulse by nature are bestowed, - And planted orchards bend their willing load; - While laboured gardens wholsome herbs produce, - And teeming vines afford their generous juice; - Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost, - But tamed with fire, or mellowed by the frost; - While kine to pails distended udders bring, - And bees their honey, redolent of spring; - While earth not only can your needs supply, - But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury; - A guiltless feast administers with ease, - And without blood is prodigal to please. - Wild beasts their maws with their slain brethren fill, - And yet not all, for some refuse to kill; - Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed, - On browz, and corn, the flowery meadows feed. - Bears, tigers, wolves, the lion's angry brood, - Whom heaven endued with principles of blood, - He wisely sundered from the rest, to yell - In forests, and in lonely caves to dwell, - Where stronger beasts oppress the weak by might, - And all in prey and purple feasts delight. - O impious use! to Nature's laws opposed, - Where bowels are in other bowels closed; - Where, fattened by their fellows' fat, they thrive; - Maintained by murder, and by death they live. - 'Tis then for nought that mother earth provides - The stores of all she shows, and all she hides, - If men with fleshly morsels must be fed, - And chew with bloody teeth the breathing bread. - What else is this but to devour our guests, - And barbarously renew Cyclopean feasts! - We, by destroying life, our life sustain, - And gorge the ungodly maw with meats obscene. - Not so the golden age, who fed on fruit, - Nor durst with bloody meals their mouths pollute. - Then birds in airy space might safely move, - And timorous hares on heaths securely rove; - Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear, - For all was peaceful, and that peace sincere. - Whoever was the wretch (and cursed be he!) - That envied first our food's simplicity, - The essay of bloody feasts on brutes began, - And, after, forged the sword to murder man. - Had he the sharpened steel alone employed - On beasts of prey, that other beasts destroyed, - Or men invaded with their fangs and paws, - This had been justified by Nature's laws, - And self-defence; but who did feasts begin - Of flesh, he stretched necessity to sin. - To kill man-killers man has lawful power, - But not the extended licence, to devour. - Ill habits gather by unseen degrees, - As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. - The sow, with her broad snout for rooting up } - The intrusted seed, was judged to spoil the crop, } - And intercept the sweating farmer's hope; } - The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind, - The offender to the bloody priest resigned: - Her hunger was no plea; for that she died. - The goat came next in order, to be tried: - The goat had cropt the tendrils of the vine; } - In vengeance laity and clergy join, } - Where one had lost his profit, one his wine. } - Here was, at least, some shadow of offence; } - The sheep was sacrificed on no pretence, } - But meek and unresisting innocence. } - A patient, useful creature, born to bear - The warm and woolly fleece, that cloathed her murderer, - And daily to give down the milk she bred, - A tribute for the grass on which she fed. - Living, both food and raiment she supplies, - And is of least advantage when she dies. - How did the toiling ox his death deserve, - A downright simple drudge, and born to serve? - O tyrant! with what justice canst thou hope - The promise of the year, a plenteous crop, - When thou destroyest thy labouring steer, who tilled, - And plowed, with pains, thy else ungrateful field? - From his yet reeking neck to draw the yoke, - (That neck with which the surly clods he broke,) - And to the hatchet yield thy husbandman, - Who finished autumn, and the spring began! - Nor this alone; but, heaven itself to bribe, - We to the gods our impious acts ascribe; - First recompense with death their creatures' toil, - Then call the blessed above to share the spoil: - The fairest victim must the powers appease; - So fatal 'tis, sometimes, too much to please! - A purple fillet his broad brows adorns, - With flowery garlands crowned, and gilded horns; - He hears the murderous prayer the priest prefers, - But understands not, 'tis his doom he hears; - Beholds the meal betwixt his temples cast, - The fruit and product of his labours past; - And in the water views, perhaps, the knife - Uplifted, to deprive him of his life; - Then, broken up alive, his entrails sees - Torn out, for priests to inspect the gods' decrees. - From whence, O mortal men, this gust of blood - Have you derived, and interdicted food? - Be taught by me this dire delight to shun, - Warned by my precepts, by my practice won; - And when you eat the well-deserving beast, - Think, on the labourer of your field you feast! - Now since the God inspires me to proceed, - Be that whate'er inspiring Power obeyed. - For I will sing of mighty mysteries, } - Of truths concealed before from human eyes, } - Dark oracles unveil, and open all the skies. } - Pleased as I am to walk along the sphere - Of shining stars, and travel with the year, - To leave the heavy earth, and scale the height - Of Atlas, who supports the heavenly weight; - To look from upper light, and thence survey - Mistaken mortals wandering from the way, - And, wanting wisdom, fearful for the state - Of future things, and trembling at their fate! - Those I would teach; and by right reason bring - To think of death, as but an idle thing. - Why thus affrighted at an empty name, - A dream of darkness, and fictitious flame? - Vain themes of wit, which but in poems pass, - And fables of a world, that never was! - What feels the body when the soul expires, - By time corrupted, or consumed by fires? - Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats - In other forms, and only changes seats. - Even I, who these mysterious truths declare, - Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war; - My name and lineage I remember well, - And how in fight by Sparta's king I fell. - In Argive Juno's fane I late beheld - My buckler hung on high, and owned my former shield. - Then death, so called, is but old matter dressed - In some new figure, and a varied vest; - Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies, - And here and there the unbodied spirit flies, - By time, or force, or sickness dispossest, - And lodges, where it lights, in man or beast; - Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find, - And actuates those according to their kind; - From tenement to tenement is tossed; - The soul is still the same, the figure only lost: - And as the softened wax new seals receives, - This face assumes, and that impression leaves; - Now called by one, now by another name, - The form is only changed, the wax is still the same: - So death, so called, can but the form deface; } - The immortal soul flies out in empty space, } - To seek her fortune in some other place. } - Then let not piety be put to flight, - To please the taste of glutton appetite; - But suffer inmate souls secure to dwell, - Lest from their seats your parents you expel; - With rabid hunger feed upon your kind, - Or from a beast dislodge a brother's mind. - And since, like Tiphys, parting from the shore, - In ample seas I sail, and depths untried before, - This let me further add, that nature knows - No stedfast station, but, or ebbs, or flows; - Ever in motion, she destroys her old, - And casts new figures in another mould. - Even times are in perpetual flux, and run, - Like rivers from their fountain, rolling on. - For time, no more than streams, is at a stay; - The flying hour is ever on her way; - And as the fountain still supplies her store, - The wave behind impels the wave before, - Thus in successive course the minutes run, - And urge their predecessor minutes on, - Still moving, ever new; for former things - Are set aside, like abdicated kings; - And every moment alters what is done, - And innovates some act till then unknown. - Darkness, we see, emerges into light, - And shining suns descend to sable night; - Even heaven itself receives another die, - When wearied animals in slumbers lie - Of midnight ease; another, when the gray - Of morn preludes the splendour of the day. - The disk of Phœbus, when he climbs on high, - Appears at first but as a bloodshot eye; - And when his chariot downward drives to bed, - His ball is with the same suffusion red; - But, mounted high in his meridian race, - All bright he shines, and with a better face; - For there, pure particles of æther flow, - Far from the infection of the world below. - Nor equal light the unequal moon adorns, - Or in her wexing, or her waning horns; - For, every day she wanes, her face is less, - But, gathering into globe, she fattens at increase. - Perceiv'st thou not the process of the year, } - How the four seasons in four forms appear, } - Resembling human life in every shape they wear? } - Spring first, like infancy, shoots out her head, } - With milky juice requiring to be fed; } - Helpless, though fresh, and wanting to be led. } - The green stem grows in stature and in size, - But only feeds with hope the farmer's eyes; - Then laughs the childish year, with flowerets crowned, - And lavishly perfumes the fields around; - But no substantial nourishment receives, - Infirm the stalks, unsolid are the leaves. - Proceeding onward whence the year began, - The Summer grows adult, and ripens into man. - This season, as in men, is most replete - With kindly moisture, and prolific heat. - Autumn succeeds, a sober tepid age, - Not froze with fear, nor boiling into rage; - More than mature, and tending to decay, - When our brown locks repine to mix with odious grey. - Last, Winter creeps along with tardy pace; - Sour is his front, and furrowed is his face. - His scalp if not dishonoured quite of hair, - The ragged fleece is thin, and thin is worse than bare. - Even our own bodies daily change receive; - Some part of what was theirs before they leave, - Nor are to-day what yesterday they were; - Nor the whole same to-morrow will appear. - Time was, when we were sowed, and just began, - From some few fruitful drops, the promise of a man; - Then Nature's hand (fermented as it was) - Moulded to shape the soft, coagulated mass; - And when the little man was fully formed, - The breathless embryo with a spirit warmed; - But when the mother's throes begin to come, - The creature, pent within the narrow room, - Breaks his blind prison, pushing to repair - His stifled breath, and draw the living air; - Cast on the margin of the world he lies, - A helpless babe, but by instinct he cries. - He next essays to walk, but, downward pressed, - On four feet imitates his brother beast: - By slow degrees he gathers from the ground - His legs, and to the rolling chair is bound; - Then walks alone: a horseman now become, - He rides a stick, and travels round the room: - In time he vaunts among his youthful peers, - Strong-boned, and strung with nerves, in pride of years: - He runs with mettle his first merry stage, } - Maintains the next, abated of his rage, } - But manages his strength, and spares his age. } - Heavy the third, and stiff, he sinks apace, - And, though 'tis down-hill all, but creeps along the race. - Now sapless on the verge of death he stands, - Contemplating his former feet, and hands; - And, Milo-like, his slackened sinews sees, } - And withered arms, once fit to cope with Hercules, } - Unable now to shake, much less to tear, the trees. } - So Helen wept, when her too faithful glass - Reflected to her eyes the ruins of her face; - Wondering what charms her ravishers could spy, - To force her twice, or even but once enjoy! - Thy teeth, devouring time, thine, envious age, - On things below still exercise your rage; - With venomed grinders you corrupt your meat, - And then, at lingering meals, the morsels eat. - Nor those, which elements we call, abide, - Nor to this figure, nor to that, are tied; - For this eternal world is said of old - But four prolific principles to hold, - Four different bodies; two to heaven ascend, - And other two down to the centre tend. - Fire, first, with wings expanded mounts on high, - Pure, void of weight, and dwells in upper sky; - Then Air, because unclogged in empty space, - Flies after fire, and claims the second place; - But weighty Water, as her nature guides, - Lies on the lap of Earth; and mother Earth subsides. - All things are mixt with these, which all contain, - And into these are all resolved again. - Earth rarifies to dew; expanded more, - The subtle dew in air begins to soar, - Spreads as she flies, and, weary of her name, - Extenuates still, and changes into flame; - Thus having by degrees perfection won, - Restless, they soon untwist the web they spun; - And fire begins to lose her radiant hue, - Mixed with gross air, and air descends to dew; - And dew, condensing, does her form forego, - And sinks, a heavy lump of earth, below. - Thus are their figures never at a stand, - But changed by Nature's innovating hand; - All things are altered, nothing is destroyed, - The shifted scene for some new show employed. - Then, to be born, is to begin to be - Some other thing we were not formerly; - And what we call to die, is not to appear, - Or be the thing that formerly we were. - Those very elements, which we partake - Alive, when dead, some other bodies make; - Translated grow, have sense, or can discourse; - But death on deathless substance has no force. - That forms are changed I grant, that nothing can - Continue in the figure it began: - The golden age to silver was debased; - To copper that; our metal came at last. - The face of places, and their forms, decay, - And that is solid earth, that once was sea; - Seas, in their turn, retreating from the shore, - Make solid land what ocean was before; - And far from strands are shells of fishes found, - And rusty anchors fixed on mountain ground; - And what were fields before, now washed and worn - By falling floods from high, to valleys turn, - And, crumbling still, descend to level lands; - And lakes, and trembling bogs, are barren sands; - And the parched desert floats in streams unknown, - Wondering to drink of waters not her own. - Here nature living fountains opes; and there - Seals up the wombs where living fountains were; - Or earthquakes stop their ancient course, and bring - Diverted streams to feed a distant spring. - So Lycus, swallowed up, is seen no more, - But, far from thence, knocks out another door. - Thus Erasinus dives; and blind in earth - Runs on, and gropes his way to second birth, - Starts up in Argos meads, and shakes his locks - Around the fields, and fattens all the flocks. - So Mysus by another way is led, - And, grown a river, now disdains his head; - Forgets his humble birth, his name forsakes, - And the proud title of Caicus takes. - Large Amenane, impure with yellow sands, - Runs rapid often, and as often stands; - And here he threats the drunken fields to drown, - And there his dugs deny to give their liquor down. - Anigros once did wholesome draughts afford, - But now his deadly waters are abhorred; - Since, hurt by Hercules, as fame resounds, - The Centaur[41] in his current washed his wounds. - The streams of Hypanis are sweet no more, - But, brackish, lose their taste they had before. - Antissa, Pharos, Tyre, in seas were pent, - Once isles, but now increase the continent; - While the Leucadian coast, main-land before, - By rushing seas is severed from the shore. - So Zancle to the Italian earth was tied, - And men once walked where ships at anchor ride; - Till Neptune overlooked the narrow way, - And in disdain poured in the conquering sea. - Two cities that adorned the Achaian ground, } - Buris and Helice, no more are found, } - But, whelmed beneath a lake, are sunk and drowned; } - And boatmen through the crystal water show, - To wondering passengers, the walls below. - Near Træzen stands a hill, exposed in air - To winter winds, of leafy shadows bare: - This once was level ground; but (strange to tell) - The included vapours, that in caverns dwell - Labouring with cholic pangs, and close confined, - In vain sought issue from the rumbling wind; - Yet still they heaved for vent, and, heaving still, - Enlarged the concave, and shot up the hill; - As breath extends a bladder, or the skins - Of goats are blown to inclose the hoarded wines. - The mountain yet retains a mountain's face, - And gathered rubbish heals the hollow space. - Of many wonders, which I heard or knew, - Retrenching most, I will relate but few. - What, are not springs with qualities opposed - Endued at seasons, and at seasons lost? - Thrice in a day, thine, Ammon, change their form, - Cold at high noon, at morn and evening warm; - Thine, Athaman, will kindle wood, if thrown - On the piled earth, and in the waning moon. - The Thracians have a stream, if any try - The taste, his hardened bowels petrify; - Whate'er it touches it converts to stones, - And makes a marble pavement where it runs. - Grathis, and Sibaris her sister flood, - That slide through our Calabrian neighbour wood, - With gold and amber die the shining hair, - And thither youth resort; for who would not be fair? - But stranger virtues yet in streams we find; - Some change not only bodies, but the mind. - Who has not heard of Salmacis obscene, - Whose waters into women soften men? - Of Æthiopian lakes, which turn the brain - To madness, or in heavy sleep constrain? - Clytorean streams the love of wine expel, - (Such is the virtue of the abstemious well,) - Whether the colder nymph, that rules the flood, - Extinguishes, and baulks the drunken God; - Or that Melampus (so have some assured) - When the mad Prœtides with charms he cured, - And powerful herbs, both charms and simples cast - Into the sober spring, where still their virtues last. - Unlike effects Lyncestis will produce; - Who drinks his waters, though with moderate use, - Reels as with wine, and sees with double sight, - His heels too heavy, and his head too light. - Ladon, once Pheneos, an Arcadian stream, - (Ambiguous in the effects, as in the name,) - By day is wholesome beverage; but is thought - By night infected, and a deadly draught. - Thus running rivers, and the standing lake, - Now of these virtues, now of those partake. - Time was (and all things time and fate obey) - When fast Ortygia floated on the sea; - Such were Cyanean isles, when Typhis steered - Betwixt their straits, and their collision feared; - They swam where now they sit; and, firmly joined, - Secure of rooting up, resist the wind. - Nor Ætna, vomiting sulphureous fire, - Will ever belch; for sulphur will expire, - The veins exhausted of the liquid store; - Time was she cast no flames; in time will cast no more. - For, whether earth's an animal, and air - Imbibes, her lungs with coolness to repair, - And what she sucks remits, she still requires - Inlets for air, and outlets for her fires; - When tortured with convulsive fits she shakes, - That motion chokes the vent, till other vent she makes; - Or when the winds in hollow caves are closed, - And subtile spirits find that way opposed, - They toss up flints in air; the flints that hide - The seeds of fire, thus tossed in air, collide, - Kindling the sulphur, till, the fuel spent, - The cave is cooled, and the fierce winds relent. - Or whether sulphur, catching fire, feeds on - Its unctuous parts, till, all the matter gone, - The flames no more ascend; for earth supplies - The fat that feeds them; and when earth denies - That food, by length of time consumed, the fire, - Famished for want of fuel, must expire. - A race of men there are, as fame has told, - Who, shivering, suffer Hyperborean cold, - Till, nine times bathing in Minerva's lake, - Soft feathers to defend their naked sides they take. - 'Tis said, the Scythian wives (believe who will) - Transform themselves to birds by magic skill; - Smeared over with an oil of wonderous might, - That adds new pinions to their airy flight. - But this by sure experiment we know, - That living creatures from corruption grow: - Hide in a hollow pit a slaughtered steer, - Bees from his putrid bowels will appear; - Who, like their parents, haunt the fields, and bring - Their honey-harvest home, and hope another spring. - The warlike steed is multiplied, we find, - To wasps and hornets of the warrior kind. - Cut from a crab his crooked claws, and hide - The rest in earth, a scorpion thence will glide, - And shoot his sting; his tail, in circles tossed, - Refers[42] the limbs his backward father lost; - And worms, that stretch on leaves their filmy loom, - Crawl from their bags, and butterflies become. - Even slime begets the frogs' loquacious race; - Short of their feet at first, in little space - With arms and legs endued, long leaps they take, - Raised on their hinder part, and swim the lake, - And waves repel: for nature gives their kind, - To that intent, a length of legs behind. - The cubs of bears a living lump appear, - When whelped, and no determined figure wear. - Their mother licks them into shape, and gives - As much of form, as she herself receives. - The grubs from their sexangular abode - Crawl out unfinished, like the maggots' brood, - Trunks without limbs; till time at leisure brings - The thighs they wanted, and their tardy wings. - The bird who draws the car of Juno, vain - Of her crowned head, and of her starry train; - And he that bears the artillery of Jove, - The strong-pounced eagle, and the billing dove, - And all the feathered kind;--who could suppose } - (But that from sight, the surest sense, he knows) } - They from the included yolk, not ambient white, arose? } - There are who think the marrow of a man, - Which in the spine, while he was living, ran; - When dead, the pith corrupted, will become - A snake, and hiss within the hollow tomb. - All these receive their birth from other things, - But from himself the phœnix only springs: - Self-born, begotten by the parent flame - In which he burned, another and the same: - Who not by corn or herbs his life sustains, - But the sweet essence of Amomum drains; - And watches the rich gums Arabia bears, - While yet in tender dew they drop their tears. - He, (his five centuries of life fulfilled) - His nest on oaken boughs begins to build, - Or trembling tops of palm: and first he draws - The plan with his broad bill, and crooked claws, - Nature's artificers; on this the pile - Is formed, and rises round; then with the spoil - Of Casia, Cynamon, and stems of Nard, - (For softness strewed beneath,) his funeral bed is reared, - Funeral and bridal both; and all around - The borders with corruptless myrrh are crowned: - On this incumbent, till ætherial flame - First catches, then consumes, the costly frame; - Consumes him too, as on the pile he lies; - He lived on odours, and in odours dies. - An infant-phœnix from the former springs, - His father's heir, and from his tender wings - Shakes off his parent dust; his method he pursues, - And the same lease of life on the same terms renews. - When, grown to manhood, he begins his reign, - And with stiff pinions can his flight sustain, - He lightens of its load the tree that bore - His father's royal sepulchre before, - And his own cradle; this with pious care - Placed on his back, he cuts the buxom air, - Seeks the sun's city, and his sacred church, - And decently lays down his burden in the porch. - A wonder more amazing would we find? - The Hyæna shews it, of a double kind, - Varying the sexes in alternate years, - In one begets, and in another bears. - The thin cameleon, fed with air, receives - The colour of the thing to which he cleaves. - India, when conquered, on the conquering God - For planted vines the sharp-eyed lynx bestowed, - Whose urine, shed before it touches earth, - Congeals in air, and gives to gems their birth. - So coral, soft and white in ocean's bed, - Comes hardened up in air, and glows with red. - All changing species should my song recite, - Before I ceased, would change the day to night. - Nations and empires flourish and decay, - By turns command, and in their turns obey; - Time softens hardy people, time again - Hardens to war a soft, unwarlike train. - Thus Troy for ten long years her foes withstood, - And daily bleeding bore the expence of blood; - Now for thick streets it shows an empty space, } - Or only filled with tombs of her own perished race; } - Herself becomes the sepulchre of what she was. } - Mycene, Sparta, Thebes of mighty fame, - Are vanished out of substance into name, - And Dardan Rome, that just begins to rise - On Tiber's banks, in time shall mate the skies; - Widening her bounds, and working on her way, - Even now she meditates imperial sway: - Yet this is change, but she by changing thrives, - Like moons new born, and in her cradle strives - To fill her infant-horns; an hour shall come, - When the round world shall be contained in Rome. - For thus old saws foretel, and Helenus - Anchises' drooping son enlivened thus, - When Ilium now was in a sinking state, - And he was doubtful of his future fate. - O goddess born, with thy hard fortune strive, - Troy never can be lost, and thou alive; - Thy passage thou shalt free through fire and sword, - And Troy in foreign lands shall be restored. - In happier fields a rising town I see, } - Greater than what e'er was, or is, or e'er shall be; } - And heaven yet owes the world a race derived from thee. } - Sages and chiefs, of other lineage born, - The city shall extend, extended shall adorn; - But from Iulus he must draw his birth, - By whom thy Rome shall rule the conquered earth; - Whom heaven will lend mankind on earth to reign, - And late require the precious pledge again.-- - This Helenus to great Æneas told, - Which I retain, e'er since in other mould - My soul was clothed; and now rejoice to view - My country walls rebuilt, and Troy revived anew; - Raised by the fall; decreed by loss to gain; - Enslaved but to be free, and conquered but to reign. - 'Tis time my hard-mouthed coursers to controul, - Apt to run riot, and transgress the goal, - And therefore I conclude: whatever lies - In earth, or flits in air, or fills the skies, - All suffer change; and we, that are of soul - And body mixed, are members of the whole. - Then when our sires, or grandsires, shall forsake - The forms of men, and brutal figures take, - Thus housed, securely let their spirits rest, - Nor violate thy father in the beast, - Thy friend, thy brother, any of thy kin; - If none of these, yet there's a man within. - O spare to make a Thyestean meal, - To inclose his body, and his soul expel. - Ill customs by degrees to habits rise, - Ill habits soon become exalted vice: - What more advance can mortals make in sin, - So near perfection, who with blood begin? - Deaf to the calf that lies beneath the knife, - Looks up, and from her butcher begs her life; - Deaf to the harmless kid, that, ere he dies, } - All methods to procure thy mercy tries, } - And imitates in vain thy children's cries. } - Where will he stop, who feeds with household bread, - Then eats the poultry, which before he fed? - Let plough thy steers; that, when they lose their breath, - To nature, not to thee, they may impute their death. - Let goats for food their loaded udders lend, - And sheep from winter-cold thy sides defend; - But neither springes, nets, nor snares employ, - And be no more ingenious to destroy. - Free as in air, let birds on earth remain, - Nor let insidious glue their wings constrain; - Nor opening hounds the trembling stag affright, - Nor purple feathers intercept his flight; - Nor hooks concealed in baits for fish prepare, - Nor lines to heave them twinkling up in air. - Take not away the life you cannot give; - For all things have an equal right to live. - Kill noxious creatures, where 'tis sin to save; - This only just prerogative we have: - But nourish life with vegetable food, - And shun the sacrilegious taste of blood.-- - These precepts by the Samian sage were taught, - Which godlike Numa to the Sabines brought, - And thence transferred to Rome, by gift his own; - A willing people, and an offered throne. - O happy monarch, sent by heaven to bless - A savage nation with soft arts of peace; - To teach religion, rapine to restrain, - Give laws to lust, and sacrifice ordain: - Himself a saint, a goddess was his bride, - And all the muses o'er his acts preside. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[41] Nessus, mortally wounded by Hercules with a poisoned -arrow. - -[42] A latinism, for restores, or presents anew. - - - - -TRANSLATIONS - -FROM - -OVID'S ART OF LOVE. - - - - -THE - -FIRST BOOK - -OF - -OVID'S ART OF LOVE. - - - In Cupid's school whoe'er would take degree, - Must learn his rudiments, by reading me. - Seamen with sailing arts their vessels move; - Art guides the chariot, art instructs to love. - Of ships and chariots others know the rule; - But I am master in Love's mighty school. - Cupid indeed is obstinate and wild, - A stubborn god, but yet the god's a child; - Easy to govern in his tender age, - Like fierce Achilles in his pupillage: - That hero, born for conquest, trembling stood - Before the Centaur, and received the rod. - As Chiron mollified his cruel mind - With art, and taught his warlike hands to wind - The silver strings of his melodious lyre, - So Love's fair goddess does my soul inspire, - To teach her softer arts, to sooth the mind, - And smooth the rugged breasts of human kind. - Yet Cupid and Achilles, each with scorn - And rage were filled, and both were goddess-born. - The bull, reclaimed and yoked, the burden draws; - The horse receives the bitt within his jaws; - And stubborn Love shall bend beneath my sway, - Though struggling oft he strives to disobey. - He shakes his torch, he wounds me with his darts; - But vain his force, and vainer are his arts. - The more he burns my soul, or wounds my sight, - The more he teaches to revenge the spite. - I boast no aid the Delphian god affords, - Nor auspice from the flight of chattering birds; - Nor Clio, nor her sisters, have I seen, - As Hesiod saw them on the shady green: - Experience makes my work; a truth so tried - You may believe, and Venus be my guide. - Far hence, ye vestals, be, who bind your hair; - And wives, who gowns below your ancles wear. - I sing the brothels loose and unconfined, } - The unpunishable pleasures of the kind; } - Which all alike, for love, or money, find. } - You, who in Cupid's rolls inscribe your name, - First seek an object worthy of your flame; - Then strive, with art, your lady's mind to gain; - And, last, provide your love may long remain. - On these three precepts all my works shall move; - These are the rules and principles of love. - Before your youth with marriage is opprest, - Make choice of one who suits your humour best; - And such a damsel drops not from the sky, - She must be sought for with a curious eye. - The wary angler, in the winding brook, - Knows what the fish, and where to bait his hook. - The fowler and the huntsman know by name - The certain haunts and harbour of their game. - So must the lover beat the likeliest grounds; - The assembly where his quarry most abounds. - Nor shall my novice wander far astray; - These rules shall put him in the ready way. - Thou shalt not sail around the continent, - As far as Perseus, or as Paris went; - For Rome alone affords thee such a store, - As all the world can hardly show thee more: - The face of heaven with fewer stars is crowned, - Than beauties in the Roman sphere are found. - Whether thy love is bent on blooming youth, - On dawning sweetness in unartful truth, - Or courts the juicy joys of riper growth; - Here may'st thou find thy full desires in both. - Or if autumnal beauties please thy sight, - (An age that knows to give, and take delight,) - Millions of matrons of the graver sort, - In common prudence, will not baulk the sport. - In summer heats thou need'st but only go - To Pompey's cool and shady portico; - Or Concord's fane; or that proud edifice, - Whose turrets near the bawdy suburb rise; - Or to that other portico, where stands - The cruel father urging his commands, - And fifty daughters wait the time of rest, - To plunge their poniards in the bridegroom's breast; - Or Venus' temple, where, on annual nights, - They mourn Adonis with Assyrian rites. - Nor shun the Jewish walk, where the foul drove, - On Sabbaths, rest from every thing but love: - Nor Isis' temple; for that sacred whore - Makes others what to Jove she was before. - And if the hall itself be not belied, - Even there the cause of love is often tried; - Near it at least, or in the palace-yard, - From whence the noisy combatants are heard. - The crafty counsellors, in formal gown, - There gain another's cause, but lose their own. - There eloquence is nonplust in the suit, - And lawyers, who had words at will, are mute. - Venus, from her adjoining temple, smiles, - To see them caught in their litigious wiles. - Grave senators lead home the youthful dame, - Returning clients, when they patrons came. - But, above all, the play-house is the place; - There's choice of quarry in that narrow chace. - There take thy stand, and, sharply looking out, } - Soon may'st thou find a mistress in the rout, } - For length of time, or for a single bout. } - The theatres are berries for the fair, - Like ants on mole-hills thither they repair; - Like bees to hives, so numerously they throng, - It may be said, they to that place belong. - Thither they swarm, who have the public voice; - There choose, if plenty not distracts thy choice. - To see, and to be seen, in heaps they run; - Some to undo, and some to be undone. - From Romulus the rise of plays began, - To his new subjects a commodious man; - Who, his unmarried soldiers to supply, - Took care the commonwealth should multiply; - Providing Sabine women for his braves, - Like a true king, to get a race of slaves. - His play-house not of Parian marble made, - Nor was it spread with purple sails for shade; - The stage with rushes, or with leaves, they strewed, - No scenes in prospect, no machining god. - On rows of homely turf they sat to see, - Crowned with the wreaths of every common tree. - There, while they sat in rustic majesty, - Each lover had his mistress in his eye; - And whom he saw most suiting to his mind, - For joys of matrimonial rape designed. - Scarce could they wait the plaudit in their haste; - But, ere the dances and the song were past, - The monarch gave the signal from his throne, - And, rising, bade his merry men fall on. - The martial crew, like soldiers ready prest, - Just at the word, (the word too was, "The best,") - With joyful cries each other animate; - Some choose, and some at hazard seize their mate. - As doves from eagles, or from wolves the lambs, - So from their lawless lovers fly the dames. - Their fear was one, but not one face of fear; } - Some rend the lovely tresses of their hair; } - Some shriek, and some are struck with dumb despair. } - Her absent mother one invokes in vain; } - One stands amazed, not daring to complain; } - The nimbler trust their feet, the slow remain. } - But nought availing, all are captives led, - Trembling and blushing, to the genial bed. - She who too long resisted, or denied, } - The lusty lover made by force a bride; } - And, with superior strength, compelled her to his side. } - Then soothed her thus:--My soul's far better part, - Cease weeping, nor afflict thy tender heart; - For what thy father to thy mother was, - That faith to thee, that solemn vow I pass.-- - Thus Romulus became so popular; - This was the way to thrive in peace and war. - To pay his army, and fresh whores to bring,-- - Who would not fight for such a gracious king? - Thus love in theatres did first improve, - And theatres are still the scenes of love. - Nor shun the chariot's, and the courser's race; - The circus is no inconvenient place. - No need is there of talking on the hand; - Nor nods, nor signs, which lovers understand: - But boldly next the fair your seat provide; - Close as you can to hers, and side by side. - Pleased or unpleased, no matter, crowding sit; - For so the laws of public shows permit. - Then find occasion to begin discourse; - Inquire, whose chariot this, and whose that horse? - To whatsoever side she is inclined, - Suit all your inclinations to her mind; - Like what she likes; from thence your court begin; - And whom she favours, wish that he may win. - But when the statues of the deities, } - In chariots rolled, appear before the prize; } - When Venus comes, with deep devotion rise. } - If dust be on her lap, or grains of sand, - Brush both away with your officious hand; - If none be there, yet brush that nothing thence, - And still to touch her lap make some pretence. - Touch any thing of hers; and if her train } - Sweep on the ground, let it not sweep in vain, } - But gently take it up, and wipe it clean; } - And while you wipe it, with observing eyes, - Who knows but you may see her naked thighs! - Observe, who sits behind her; and beware, - Lest his encroaching knee should press the fair. - Light service takes light minds; for some can tell - Of favours won, by laying cushions well: - By fanning faces, some their fortune meet; - And some by laying footstools for their feet. - These overtures of love the circus gives; - Nor at the sword-play less the lover thrives; - For there the son of Venus fights his prize, - And deepest wounds are oft received from eyes. - One, while the crowd their acclamations make, - Or while he bets, and puts his ring to stake, - Is struck from far, and feels the flying dart, - And of the spectacle is made a part. - Cæsar would represent a naval fight, - For his own honour, and for Rome's delight; - From either sea the youths and maidens come, - And all the world was then contained in Rome. - In this vast concourse, in this choice of game, - What Roman heart but felt a foreign flame? - Once more our prince prepares to make us glad; - And the remaining East to Rome will add. - Rejoice, ye Roman soldiers, in your urns; } - Your ensigns from the Parthians shall return, } - And the slain Crassi shall no longer mourn. } - A youth is sent those trophies to demand, - And bears his father's thunder in his hand; - Doubt not the imperial boy in wars unseen, - In childhood all of Cæsar's race are men; - Celestial seeds shoot out before their day, - Prevent their years, and brook no dull delay: - Thus infant Hercules the snakes did press, - And in his cradle did his sire confess; - Bacchus, a boy, yet like a hero fought, - And early spoils from conquered India brought. - Thus you your father's troops shall lead to fight, - And thus shall vanquish in your father's right. - These rudiments you to your lineage owe; - Born to encrease your titles, as you grow. - Brethren you had, revenge your brethren slain; - You have a father, and his rights maintain; - Armed by your country's parent, and your own, - Redeem your country, and restore his throne. - Your enemies assert an impious cause; - You fight both for divine and human laws. - Already in their cause they are o'ercome; - Subject them too, by force of arms, to Rome. - Great father Mars with greater Cæsar join, } - To give a prosperous omen to your line; } - One of you is, and one shall be divine. } - I prophesy you shall, you shall o'ercome; - My verse shall bring you back in triumph home. - Speak in my verse, exhort to loud alarms; - O were my numbers equal to your arms! - Then would I sing the Parthians overthrow; - Their shot averse sent from a flying bow: - The Parthians, who already flying fight, - Already give an omen of their flight. - O when will come the day, by heaven designed, - When thou, the best and fairest of mankind, - Drawn by white horses shalt in triumph ride, - With conquered slaves attending on thy side; - Slaves, that no longer can be safe in flight; } - O glorious object, O surprising sight, } - O day of public joy, too good to end in night! } - On such a day, if thou, and, next to thee, - Some beauty sits, the spectacle to see; - If she inquire the names of conquered kings, - Of mountains, rivers, and their hidden springs, - Answer to all thou knowest; and, if need be, - Of things unknown seem to speak knowingly. - This is Euphrates, crowned with reeds; and there - Flows the swift Tigris with his sea-green hair. - Invent new names of things unknown before; - Call this Armenia, that the Caspian shore; - Call this a Mede, and that a Parthian youth; - Talk probably, no matter for the truth. - In feasts, as at our shows, new means abound; - More pleasure there than that of wine is found. - The Paphian goddess there her ambush lays; - And Love betwixt the horns of Bacchus plays; - Desires increase at every swelling draught; - Brisk vapours add new vigour to the thought. - There Cupid's purple wings no flight afford, - But, wet with wine, he flutters on the board; - He shakes his pinions, but he cannot move; - Fixed he remains, and turns a maudlin love. - Wine warms the blood, and makes the spirits flow; - Care flies, and wrinkles from the forehead go; - Exalts the poor, invigorates the weak; - Gives mirth and laughter, and a rosy cheek. - Bold truths it speaks, and, spoken, dares maintain, - And brings our old simplicity again. - Love sparkles in the cup, and fills it higher; - Wine feeds the flames, and fuel adds to fire. - But choose no mistress in thy drunken fit; - Wine gilds too much their beauties and their wit. - Nor trust thy judgment when the tapers dance; - But sober, and by day, thy suit advance. - By day-light Paris judged the beauteous three, - And for the fairest did the prize decree. - Night is a cheat, and all deformities - Are hid, or lessened, in her dark disguise. - The sun's fair light each error will confess, - In face, in shape, in jewels, and in dress. - Why name I every place where youths abound? - 'Tis loss of time, and a too fruitful ground. - The Baian baths, where ships at anchor ride, - And wholesome streams from sulphur fountains glide; - Where wounded youths are by experience taught, - The waters are less healthful than they thought; - Or Dian's fane, which near the suburb lies, - Where priests, for their promotion, fight a prize. - That maiden goddess is Love's mortal foe, - And much from her his subjects undergo. - Thus far the sportful Muse, with myrtle bound, - Has sung where lovely lasses may be found. - Now let me sing, how she, who wounds your mind, - With art, may be to cure your wounds inclined. - Young nobles, to my laws attention lend; - And all you, vulgar of my school, attend. - First then believe, all women may be won; - Attempt with confidence, the work is done. - The grashopper shall first forbear to sing - In summer season, or the birds in spring, - Than women can resist your flattering skill; - Even she will yield, who swears she never will. - To secret pleasure both the sexes move; - But women most, who most dissemble love. - 'Twere best for us, if they would first declare, - Avow their passion, and submit to prayer. - The cow, by lowing, tells the bull her flame; - The neighing mare invites her stallion to the game. - Man is more temperate in his lust than they, - And more than women can his passion sway. - Biblis, we know, did first her love declare, - And had recourse to death in her despair. - Her brother she, her father Myrrha sought, - And loved, but loved not as a daughter ought. - Now from a tree she stills her odorous tears, - Which yet the name of her who shed them bears. - In Ida's shady vale a bull appeared, - White as the snow, the fairest of the herd; - A beauty-spot of black there only rose, } - Betwixt his equal horns and ample brows; } - The love and wish of all the Cretan cows. } - The queen beheld him as his head he reared, - And envied every leap he gave the herd; - A secret fire she nourished in her breast, - And hated every heifer he caressed. - A story known, and known for true, I tell; - Nor Crete, though lying, can the truth conceal. - She cut him grass; (so much can Love command,) - She stroked, she fed him with her royal hand; - Was pleased in pastures with the herd to roam; - And Minos by the bull was overcome. - Cease, queen, with gems t'adorn thy beauteous brows; - The monarch of thy heart no jewel knows. - Nor in thy glass compose thy looks and eyes; - Secure from all thy charms thy lover lies: - Yet trust thy mirror, when it tells thee true; - Thou art no heifer to allure his view. - Soon would'st thou quit thy royal diadem - To thy fair rivals, to be horned like them. - If Minos please, no lover seek to find; - If not, at least seek one of human kind. - The wretched queen the Cretan court forsakes; - In woods and wilds her habitation makes: - She curses every beauteous cow she sees; - Ah, why dost thou my lord and master please! - And think'st, ungrateful creature as thou art, - With frisking awkwardly, to gain his heart! - She said, and straight commands, with frowning look, - To put her, undeserving, to the yoke; - Or feigns some holy rites of sacrifice, - And sees her rival's death with joyful eyes: - Then, when the bloody priest has done his part, - Pleased, in her hand she holds the beating heart; - Nor from a scornful taunt can scarce refrain; - Go, fool, and strive to please my love again. - Now she would be Europa, Io now; - (One bore a bull, and one was made a cow.) - Yet she at last her brutal bliss obtained, - And in a wooden cow the bull sustained; - Filled with his seed, accomplished her desire, - Till by his form the son betrayed the sire.[43] - If Atreus' wife to incest had not run, - (But, ah, how hard it is to love but one!) - His coursers Phœbus had not driven away, - To shun that sight, and interrupt the day. - Thy daughter, Nisus,[44] pulled thy purple hair, - And barking sea-dogs yet her bowels tear. - At sea and land Atrides saved his life, - Yet fell a prey to his adulterous wife. - Who knows not what revenge Medea sought, - When the slain offspring bore the father's fault? - Thus Phœnix did a woman's love bewail; - And thus Hippolytus by Phædra fell. - These crimes revengeful matrons did commit; - Hotter their lust, and sharper is their wit. - Doubt not from them an easy victory; - Scarce of a thousand dames will one deny. - All women are content that men should woo; - She who complains, and she who will not do. - Rest then secure, whate'er thy luck may prove, - Not to be hated for declaring love. - And yet how canst thou miss, since womankind - Is frail and vain, and still to change inclined? - Old husbands and stale gallants they despise; - And more another's, than their own, they prize. - A larger crop adorns our neighbour's field; - More milk his kine from swelling udders yield. - First gain the maid; by her thou shalt be sure - A free access and easy to procure: - Who knows what to her office does belong, - Is in the secret, and can hold her tongue, - Bribe her with gifts, with promises, and prayers; - For her good word goes far in love-affairs. - The time and fit occasion leave to her, - When she most aptly can thy suit prefer. - The time for maids to fire their lady's blood, - Is, when they find her in a merry mood. - When all things at her wish and pleasure move, - Her heart is open then, and free to love; - Then mirth and wantonness to lust betray, - And smooth the passage to the lover's way. - Troy stood the siege, when filled with anxious care; - One merry fit concluded all the war. - If some fair rival vex her jealous mind, - Offer thy service to revenge in kind. - Instruct the damsel, while she combs her hair, - To raise the choler of that injured fair; - And, sighing, make her mistress understand, - She has the means of vengeance in her hand: - Then, naming thee, thy humble suit prefer, - And swear thou languishest and diest for her. - Then let her lose no time, but push at all; - For women soon are raised, and soon they fall. - Give their first fury leisure to relent, - They melt like ice, and suddenly repent. - To enjoy the maid, will that thy suit advance? - 'Tis a hard question, and a doubtful chance. - One maid, corrupted, bawds the better for't; - Another for herself would keep the sport. - Thy business may be furthered or delayed; - But, by my counsel, let alone the maid; - Even though she should consent to do the feat, - The profit's little, and the danger great. - I will not lead thee through a rugged road, - But, where the way lies open, safe, and broad. - Yet if thou find'st her very much thy friend, - And her good face her diligence commend, - Let the fair mistress have thy first embrace, - And let the maid come after in her place. - But this I will advise, and mark my words; - For 'tis the best advice my skill affords: - If needs thou with the damsel wilt begin, - Before the attempt is made, make sure to win; - For then the secret better will be kept, - And she can tell no tales when once she's dipt. - 'Tis for the fowler's interest to beware, - The bird entangled should not 'scape the snare. - The fish, once pricked, avoids the bearded hook, - And spoils the sport of all the neighbouring brook. - But if the wench be thine, she makes thy way, } - And, for thy sake, her mistress will betray; } - Tell all she knows, and all she hears her say. } - Keep well the counsel of thy faithful spy; - So shalt thou learn whene'er she treads awry. - All things the stations of their seasons keep, - And certain times there are to sow and reap. - Ploughmen and sailors for the season stay, } - One to plough land, and one to plough the sea; } - So should the lover wait the lucky day. } - Then stop thy suit, it hurts not thy design; - But think, another hour she may be thine. - And when she celebrates her birth at home, } - Or when she views the public shows of Rome, } - Know, all thy visits then are troublesome. } - Defer thy work, and put not then to sea, - For that's a boding and a stormy day. - Else take thy time, and, when thou canst, begin; - To break a Jewish Sabbath, think no sin: - Nor even on superstitious days abstain; - Not when the Romans were at Allia slain. - Ill omens in her frowns are understood; - When she's in humour, every day is good. - But than her birth day seldom comes a worse, } - When bribes and presents must be sent of course; } - And that's a bloody day, that costs thy purse. } - Be staunch, yet parsimony will be vain; - The craving sex will still the lover drain. - No skill can shift them off, nor art remove; - They will be begging, when they know we love. - The merchant comes upon the appointed day, - Who shall before thy face his wares display; - To choose for her she craves thy kind advice; - Then begs again, to bargain for the price: - But when she has her purchase in her eye, - She hugs thee close, and kisses thee to buy:-- - 'Tis what I want, and 'tis a pen'orth too; - In many years I will not trouble you.-- - If you complain you have no ready coin; - No matter, 'tis but writing of a line, - A little bill, not to be paid at sight; - Now curse the time when thou wert taught to write! - She keeps her birth-day; you must send the chear; - And she'll be born a hundred times a year. - With daily lies she dribs thee into cost; - That ear-ring dropt a stone, that ring is lost. - They often borrow what they never pay, - Whate'er you lend her, think it thrown away. - Had I ten mouths and tongues to tell each art, - All would be wearied ere I told a part. - By letters, not by words, thy love begin; - And ford the dangerous passage with thy pen. - If to her heart thou aim'st to find the way, - Extremely flatter, and extremely pray. - Priam by prayers did Hector's body gain; - Nor is an angry God invoked in vain. - With promised gifts her easy mind bewitch; - For e'en the poor in promise may be rich. - Vain hopes awhile her appetite will stay, - 'Tis a deceitful, but commodious way. - Who gives is mad; but make her still believe - 'Twill come, and that's the cheapest way to give. - E'en barren lands fair promises afford; - But the lean harvest cheats the starving lord. - Buy not thy first enjoyment, lest it prove - Of bad example to thy future love: - But get it gratis, and she'll give thee more, - For fear of losing what she gave before. - The losing gamester shakes the box in vain, - And bleeds, and loses on, in hopes to gain. - Write then, and in thy letter, as I said, - Let her with mighty promises be fed. - Cydippe by a letter was betrayed, - Writ on an apple to the unwary maid. - She read herself into a marriage-vow; - (And every cheat in love the gods allow.) - Learn eloquence, ye noble youth of Rome; - It will not only at the bar o'ercome: - Sweet words the people and the senate move; - But the chief end of eloquence is love. - But in thy letter hide thy moving arts; - Affect not to be thought a man of parts. - None but vain fools to simple women preach; - A learned letter oft has made a breach. - In a familiar style your thoughts convey, - And write such things as present you would say; - Such words as from the heart may seem to move; - 'Tis wit enough, to make her think you love. - If sealed she sends it back, and will not read, - Yet hope, in time, the business may succeed. - In time the steer will to the yoke submit; - In time the restive horse will bear the bitt; - Even the hard plough-share use will wear away, - And stubborn steel in length of time decay. - Water is soft, and marble hard; and yet - We see soft water through hard marble eat. - Though late, yet Troy at length in flames expired; - And ten years more Penelope had tired. - Perhaps thy lines unanswered she retained; - No matter, there's a point already gained; - For she, who reads, in time will answer too: - Things must be left by just degrees to grow. - Perhaps she writes, but answers with disdain, - And sharply bids you not to write again: - What she requires, she fears you should accord; - The jilt would not be taken at her word. - Mean time, if she be carried in her chair, - Approach, but do not seem to know she's there. - Speak softly, to delude the standers by; - Or, if aloud, then speak ambiguously. - If sauntering in the portico she walk, - Move slowly too, for that's a time for talk; - And sometimes follow, sometimes be her guide, - But, when the crowd permits, go side by side. - Nor in the play-house let her sit alone; - For she's the play-house, and the play, in one. - There thou may'st ogle, or by signs advance - Thy suit, and seem to touch her hand by chance. - Admire the dancer who her liking gains, - And pity in the play the lover's pains: - For her sweet sake the loss of time despise; - Sit while she sits, and when she rises, rise. - But dress not like a fop, nor curl your hair, - Nor with a pumice make your body bare; - Leave those effeminate and useless toys - To eunuchs, who can give no solid joys. - Neglect becomes a man; thus Theseus found; - Uncurled, uncombed, the nymph his wishes crowned. - The rough Hippolytus was Phædra's care; - And Venus thought the rude Adonis fair. - Be not too finical; but yet be clean, - And wear well-fashioned clothes, like other men. - Let not your teeth be yellow, or be foul, - Nor in wide shoes your feet too loosely roll; - Of a black muzzle, and long beard, beware, - And let a skilful barber cut your hair; - Your nails be picked from filth, and even pared, - Nor let your nasty nostrils bud with beard; - Cure your unsavoury breath, gargle your throat, - And free your armpits from the ram and goat: - Dress not, in short, too little or too much; - And be not wholly French, nor wholly Dutch. - Now Bacchus calls me to his jolly rites; - Who would not follow, when a God invites? - He helps the poet, and his pen inspires, - Kind and indulgent to his former fires. - Fair Ariadne wandered on the shore, - Forsaken now, and Theseus loved no more: - Loose was her gown, dishevelled was her hair, - Her bosom naked, and her feet were bare; - Exclaiming, on the water's brink she stood; - Her briny tears augment the briny flood. - She shrieked, and wept, and both became her face; - No posture could that heavenly form disgrace. - She beat her breast: The traitor's gone, said she; - What shall become of poor forsaken me? - What shall become----she had not time for more, - The sounding cymbals rattled on the shore. - She swoons for fear, she falls upon the ground; - No vital heat was in her body found. - The Mimallonian dames about her stood, - And scudding satyrs ran before their God. - Silenus on his ass did next appear, - And held upon the mane; (the God was clear) - The drunken sire pursues, the dames retire; - Sometimes the drunken dames pursue the drunken sire. - At last he topples over on the plain; - The satyrs laugh, and bid him rise again. - And now the God of Wine came driving on, - High on his chariot by swift tygers drawn. - Her colour, voice, and sense, forsook the fair; } - Thrice did her trembling feet for flight prepare, } - And thrice, affrighted, did her flight forbear. } - She shook, like leaves of corn when tempests blow, - Or slender reeds that in the marshes grow. - To whom the God:--Compose thy fearful mind; - In me a truer husband thou shalt find. - With heaven I will endow thee, and thy star } - Shall with propitious light be seen afar, } - And guide on seas the doubtful mariner. } - He said, and from his chariot leaping light, - Lest the grim tygers should the nymph affright, - His brawny arms around her waist he threw; - (For Gods, whate'er they will, with ease can do;) - And swiftly bore her thence: the attending throng - Shout at the sight, and sing the nuptial song. - Now in full bowls her sorrow she may steep; - The bridegroom's liquor lays the bride asleep. - But thou, when flowing cups in triumph ride, - And the loved nymph is seated by thy side, - Invoke the God, and all the mighty Powers, - That wine may not defraud thy genial hours. - Then in ambiguous words thy suit prefer, - Which she may know were all addrest to her. - In liquid purple letters write her name, - Which she may read, and, reading, find the flame. - Then may your eyes confess your mutual fires; - (For eyes have tongues, and glances tell desires;) - Whene'er she drinks, be first to take the cup, - And, where she laid her lips, the blessing sup. - When she to carving does her hand advance, - Put out thy own, and touch it as by chance. - Thy service even her husband must attend: - (A husband is a most convenient friend.) - Seat the fool cuckold in the highest place, - And with thy garland his dull temples grace. - Whether below or equal in degree, } - Let him be lord of all the company, } - And what he says, be seconded by thee. } - 'Tis common to deceive through friendship's name; - But, common though it be, 'tis still to blame: - Thus factors frequently their trust betray, - And to themselves their masters' gains convey. - Drink to a certain pitch, and then give o'er; - Thy tongue and feet may stumble, drinking more. - Of drunken quarrels in her sight beware; - Pot-valour only serves to fright the fair. - Eurytion justly fell, by wine opprest, - For his rude riot at a wedding-feast. - Sing, if you have a voice; and show your parts - In dancing, if endued with dancing arts. - Do any thing within your power to please; - Nay, even affect a seeming drunkenness: - Clip every word; and if by chance you speak - Too home, or if too broad a jest you break, - In your excuse the company will join, - And lay the fault upon the force of wine. - True drunkenness is subject to offend; - But when 'tis feigned, 'tis oft a lover's friend. - Then safely you may praise her beauteous face, - And call him happy, who is in her grace. - Her husband thinks himself the man designed; - But curse the cuckold in your secret mind. - When all are risen, and prepare to go, - Mix with the crowd, and tread upon her toe. - This is the proper time to make thy court; - For now she's in the vein, and fit for sport. - Lay bashfulness, that rustic virtue, by; - To manly confidence thy thoughts apply. - On fortune's foretop timely fix thy hold; - Now speak and speed, for Venus loves the bold. - No rules of rhetoric here I need afford; } - Only begin, and trust the following word; } - It will be witty of its own accord. } - Act well the lover; let thy speech abound - In dying words, that represent thy wound; - Distrust not her belief; she will be moved; - All women think they merit to be loved. - Sometimes a man begins to love in jest, - And, after, feels the torment he profest, - For your own sakes be pitiful, ye fair; - For a feigned passion may a true prepare. - By flatteries we prevail on womankind; - As hollow banks by streams are undermined. - Tell her, her face is fair, her eyes are sweet; - Her taper fingers praise, and little feet. - Such praises even the chaste are pleased to hear; - Both maids and matrons hold their beauty dear. - Once naked Pallas with Jove's queen appeared, - And still they grieve that Venus was preferred. - Praise the proud peacock, and he spreads his train; - Be silent, and he pulls it in again. - Pleased is the courser in his rapid race; - Applaud his running, and he mends his pace. - But largely promise, and devoutly swear; - And, if need be, call every God to hear. - Jove sits above, forgiving with a smile - The perjuries that easy maids beguile. - He swore to Juno by the Stygian lake; } - Forsworn, he dares not an example make, } - Or punish falsehood, for his own dear sake. } - 'Tis for our interest that the gods should be; } - Let us believe them; I believe, they see, } - And both reward, and punish equally. } - Not that they live above like lazy drones, - Or kings below, supine upon their thrones. - Lead then your lives as present in their sight; } - Be just in dealings, and defend the right; } - By fraud betray not, nor oppress by might. } - But 'tis a venial sin to cheat the fair; - All men have liberty of conscience there. - On cheating nymphs a cheat is well designed; - 'Tis a profane and a deceitful kind. - 'Tis said, that Egypt for nine years was dry, - Nor Nile did floods, nor heaven did rain supply. - A foreigner at length informed the king, - That slaughtered guests would kindly moisture bring. - The king replied:--On thee the lot shall fall; - Be thou my guest, the sacrifice for all. - Thus Phaleris Perillus taught to low, - And made him season first the brazen cow.[45] - A rightful doom, the laws of nature cry, - 'Tis, the artificers of death should die: - Thus, justly women suffer by deceit; - Their practice authorizes us to cheat. - Beg her, with tears, thy warm desires to grant; - For tears will pierce a heart of adamant. - If tears will not be squeezed, then rub your eye, - Or 'noint the lids, and seem at least to cry. - Kiss, if you can; resistance if she make, - And will not give you kisses, let her take. - Fie, fie, you naughty man, are words of course; - She struggles but to be subdued by force. - Kiss only soft, I charge you, and beware, - With your hard bristles not to brush the fair. - He who has gained a kiss, and gains no more, - Deserves to lose the bliss he got before. - If once she kiss, her meaning is exprest; - There wants but little pushing for the rest; - Which if thou dost not gain, by strength or art, } - The name of clown then suits with thy desert; } - 'Tis downright dulness, and a shameful part. } - Perhaps, she calls it force; but, if she 'scape, - She will not thank you for the omitted rape. - The sex is cunning to conceal their fires; - They would be forced e'en to their own desires. - They seem to accuse you, with a downcast sight, - But in their souls confess you did them right. - Who might be forced, and yet untouched depart, - Thank with their tongues, but curse you with their heart. - Fair Phœbe and her sister did prefer - To their dull mates the noble ravisher. - What Deidamia did, in days of yore, - The tale is old, but worth the reading o'er. - When Venus had the golden apple gained, - And the just judge fair Helen had - obtained; When she with triumph was at Troy received, - The Trojans joyful, while the Grecians grieved; - They vowed revenge of violated laws, - And Greece was arming in the cuckold's cause: - Achilles, by his mother warned from war, - Disguised his sex, and lurked among the fair. - What means Æacides to spin and sow? } - With spear and sword in field thy valour show; } - And, leaving this, the nobler Pallas know. } - Why dost thou in that hand the distaff wield, - Which is more worthy to sustain the shield? - Or with that other draw the woolly twine, - The same the fates for Hector's thread assign? - Brandish thy faulchion in thy powerful hand, - Which can alone the ponderous lance command. - In the same room by chance the royal maid } - Was lodged, and, by his seeming sex betrayed, } - Close to her side the youthful hero laid. } - I know not how his courtship he began; - But, to her cost, she found it was a man. - 'Tis thought she struggled; but withal 'tis thought, - Her wish was to be conquered when she fought. - For when disclosed, and hastening to the field, - He laid his distaff down, and took the shield; - With tears her humble suit she did prefer, - And thought to stay the grateful[46] ravisher. - She sighs, she sobs, she begs him not to part; - And now 'tis nature, what before was art. - She strives by force her lover to detain, - And wishes to be ravished once again. - This is the sex; they will not first begin, - But, when compelled, are pleased to suffer sin. - Is there, who thinks that women first should woo? - Lay by thy self-conceit, thou foolish beau! - Begin, and save their modesty the shame; - 'Tis well for thee, if they receive thy flame. - 'Tis decent for a man to speak his mind; - They but expect the occasion to be kind. - Ask, that thou may'st enjoy; she waits for this; - And on thy first advance depends thy bliss: - Even Jove himself was forced to sue for love; - None of the nymphs did first solicit Jove. - But if you find your prayers increase her pride, - Strike sail awhile, and wait another tide. - They fly when we pursue; but make delay, - And, when they see you slacken, they will stay. - Sometimes it profits to conceal your end; - Name not yourself her lover, but her friend. - How many skittish girls have thus been caught! - He proved a lover, who a friend was thought. - Sailors by sun and wind are swarthy made; - A tanned complexion best becomes their trade: - 'Tis a disgrace to ploughmen to be fair; - Bluff cheeks they have, and weather-beaten hair: - The ambitious youth, who seeks an olive crown, - Is sun-burnt with his daily toil, and brown; - But if the lover hopes to be in grace, - Wan be his looks, and meagre be his face. - That colour from the fair compassion draws; - She thinks you sick, and thinks herself the cause. - Orion wandered in the woods for love; } - His paleness did the nymphs to pity move; } - His ghastly visage argued hidden love. } - Nor fail a night-cap, in full health, to wear; - Neglect thy dress, and discompose thy hair. - All things are decent, that in love avail; - Read long by night, and study to be pale; - Forsake your food, refuse your needful rest, - Be miserable, that you may be blest. - Shall I complain, or shall I warn you most? } - Faith, truth, and friendship in the world are lost; } - A little and an empty name they boast. } - Trust not thy friend, much less thy mistress praise; - If he believe, thou may'st a rival raise. - 'Tis true, Patroclus, by no lust misled, - Sought not to stain his dear companion's bed; - Nor Pylades Hermione embraced; - Even Phædra to Pirithous still was chaste. - But hope not thou, in this vile age, to find - Those rare examples of a faithful mind; - The sea shall sooner with sweet honey flow, - Or from the furzes pears and apples grow. - We sin with gust, we love by fraud to gain, - And find a pleasure in our fellow's pain. - From rival foes you may the fair defend; - But, would you ward the blow, beware your friend: - Beware your brother, and your next of kin; - But from your bosom-friend your care begin. - Here I had ended, but experience finds, - That sundry women are of sundry minds, - With various crotchets filled, and hard to please; - They therefore must be caught by various ways. - All things are not produced in any soil; - This ground for wine is proper, that for oil. - So 'tis in men, but more in womankind; } - Different in face, in manners, and in mind; } - But wise men shift their sails with every wind. } - As changeful Proteus varied oft his shape, - And did in sundry forms and figures 'scape; - A running stream, a standing tree became, - A roaring lion, or a bleating lamb. - Some fish with harpoons, some with darts are struck, - Some drawn with nets, some hang upon the hook; - So turn thyself; and, imitating them, - Try several tricks, and change thy stratagem. - One rule will not for different ages hold; - The jades grow cunning, as they grow more old. - Then talk not bawdy to the bashful maid; - Broad words will make her innocence afraid: - Nor to an ignorant girl of learning speak; - She thinks you conjure, when you talk in Greek. - And hence 'tis often seen, the simple shun - The learned, and into vile embraces run. - Part of my task is done, and part to do; - But here 'tis time to rest myself and you. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[43] The Minotaur. - -[44] Scylla. - -[45] The famous brazen bull of Phalaris is here, _rythmi -gratia_, converted into a cow. The story of his inclosing Perillus, the -inventor, in the engine which he had contrived, is well-known. - -[46] Grateful is here used for pleasing. - - - - -FROM OVID'S AMOURS. - -BOOK I. ELEG. 1. - - - For mighty wars I thought to tune my lute, - And make my measures to my subject suit. - Six feet for every verse the Muse designed; } - But Cupid, laughing, when he saw my mind, } - From every second verse a foot purloined. } - Who gave thee, boy, this arbitrary sway, } - On subjects, not thy own, commands to lay, } - Who Phœbus only and his laws obey? } - 'Tis more absurd than if the Queen of Love - Should in Minerva's arms to battle move; - Or manly Pallas from that queen should take - Her torch, and o'er the dying lover shake: - In fields as well may Cynthia sow the corn, - Or Ceres wind in woods the bugle-horn: - As well may Phœbus quit the trembling string, - For sword and shield; and Mars may learn to sing. - Already thy dominions are too large; - Be not ambitious of a foreign charge. - If thou wilt reign o'er all, and every where, - The God of Music for his harp may fear. - Thus, when with soaring wings I seek renown, - Thou pluck'st my pinions, and I flutter down. - Could I on such mean thoughts my Muse employ, - I want a mistress, or a blooming boy.-- - Thus I complained; his bow the stripling bent, - And chose an arrow fit for his intent. - The shaft his purpose fatally pursues;-- - Now, poet, there's a subject for thy Muse!-- - He said. Too well, alas, he knows his trade; - For in my breast a mortal wound he made. - Far hence, ye proud hexameters, remove, - My verse is paced and trammelled into love. - With myrtle wreaths my thoughtful brows inclose, - While in unequal verse I sing my woes. - - - - -FROM OVID'S AMOURS. - -BOOK I. ELEG. 4. - - _To his Mistress, whose Husband is invited to a Feast with them. The - Poet instructs her how to behave herself in his company._ - - - Your husband will be with us at the treat; - May that be the last supper he shall eat! - And am poor I a guest invited there, - Only to see, while he may touch the fair? - To see you kiss and hug your nauseous lord, - While his lewd hand descends below the board? - Now wonder not that Hippodamia's charms, - At such a sight, the Centaurs urged to arms; - That in a rage they threw their cups aside, - Assailed the bridegroom, and would force the bride. - I am not half a horse, (I would I were!) - Yet hardly can from you my hands forbear. - Take then my counsel; which, observed, may be - Of some importance both to you and me. - Be sure to come before your man be there; - There's nothing can be done; but come, howe'er. - Sit next him, (that belongs to decency,) - But tread upon my foot in passing by; - Read in my looks what silently they speak, - And slily, with your eyes, your answer make. - My lifted eye-brow shall declare my pain; - My right-hand to his fellow shall complain, - And on the back a letter shall design, - Besides a note that shall be writ in wine. - Whene'er you think upon our last embrace, - With your fore-finger gently touch your face; - If any word of mine offend my dear, - Pull, with your hand, the velvet of your ear; - If you are pleased with what I do or say, - Handle your rings, or with your fingers play; - As suppliants use at altars, hold the board, - Whene'er you wish the devil may take your lord. - When he fills for you, never touch the cup, - But bid the officious cuckold drink it up. - The waiter on those services employ; - Drink you, and I will snatch it from the boy, - Watching the part where your sweet mouth hath been, - And thence with eager lips will suck it in. - If he, with clownish manners, thinks it fit - To taste, and offer you the nasty bit, - Reject his greasy kindness, and restore - The unsavoury morsel he had chewed before. - Nor let his arms embrace your neck, nor rest - Your tender cheek upon his hairy breast; - Let not his hand within your bosom stray, - And rudely with your pretty bubbies play; - But, above all, let him no kiss receive! - That's an offence I never can forgive. - Do not, O do not that sweet mouth resign, - Lest I rise up in arms, and cry, 'tis mine. - I shall thrust in betwixt, and, void of fear, - The manifest adulterer will appear. - These things are plain to sight; but more I doubt - What you conceal beneath your petticoat. - Take not his leg between your tender thighs, - Nor, with your hand, provoke my foe to rise. - How many love-inventions I deplore, - Which I myself have practised all before! - How oft have I been forced the robe to lift - In company; to make a homely shift - For a bare bout, ill huddled o'er in haste, - While o'er my side the fair her mantle cast! - You to your husband shall not be so kind; - But, lest you should, your mantle leave behind. - Encourage him to tope; but kiss him not, - Nor mix one drop of water in his pot. - If he be fuddled well, and snores apace, - Then we may take advice from time and place. - When all depart, when compliments are loud, - Be sure to mix among the thickest crowd; - There I will be, and there we cannot miss, - Perhaps to grubble, or at least to kiss. - Alas! what length of labour I employ, - Just to secure a short and transient joy! - For night must part us; and when night is come, - Tucked underneath his arm he leads you home. - He locks you in; I follow to the door, - His fortune envy, and my own deplore. - He kisses you, he more than kisses too; - The outrageous cuckold thinks it all his due. - But add not to his joy by your consent, - And let it not be given, but only lent. - Return no kiss, nor move in any sort; - Make it a dull and a malignant sport. - Had I my wish, he should no pleasure take, - But slubber o'er your business for my sake; - And whate'er fortune shall this night befal, - Coax me to-morrow, by forswearing all. - - - - -PREFACE ON TRANSLATION, - -PREFIXED TO DRYDEN's SECOND MISCELLANY, - -PUBLISHED IN 1685. - - -For this last half year I have been troubled with the disease (as I may -call it) of translation. The cold prose fits of it, which are always -the most tedious with me, were spent in the History of the League;[47] -the hot, which succeeded them, in this volume of Verse Miscellanies. -The truth is, I fancied to myself a kind of ease in the change of the -paroxysm; never suspecting but that the humour would have wasted itself -in two or three pastorals of Theocritus, and as many odes of Horace. -But finding, or at least thinking I found, something that was more -pleasing in them than my ordinary productions, I encouraged myself to -renew my old acquaintance with Lucretius and Virgil; and immediately -fixed upon some parts of them, which had most affected me in the -reading. These were my natural impulses for the undertaking. But there -was an accidental motive which was full as forcible, and God forgive -him who was the occasion of it. It was my Lord Roscommon's "Essay on -Translated Verse;"[48] which made me uneasy till I tried whether or no -I was capable of following his rules, and of reducing the speculation -into practice. For, many a fair precept in poetry is, like a seeming -demonstration in the mathematics, very specious in the diagram, but -failing in the mechanic operation. I think I have generally observed -his instructions; I am sure my reason is sufficiently convinced both -of their truth and usefulness; which, in other words, is to confess no -less a vanity, than to pretend that I have, at least in some places, -made examples to his rules. Yet, withal, I must acknowledge, that I -have many times exceeded my commission; for I have both added and -omitted, and even sometimes very boldly made such expositions of my -author's, as no Dutch commentator will forgive me. Perhaps, in such -particular passages, I have thought that I discovered some beauty -yet undiscovered by those pedants, which none but a poet could have -found. Where I have taken away some of their expressions, and cut -them shorter, it may possibly be on this consideration, that what was -beautiful in the Greek or Latin, would not appear so shining in the -English: and where I have enlarged them, I desire the false critics -would not always think, that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that -either they are secretly in the poet, or may be fairly deduced from -him; or at least, if both those considerations should fail, that my own -is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman, -they are such as he would probably have written. - -For, after all, a translator is to make his author appear as charming -as possibly he can, provided he maintains his character, and makes him -not unlike himself. Translation is a kind of drawing after the life; -where every one will acknowledge there is a double sort of likeness, -a good one and a bad. It is one thing to draw the outlines true, the -features like, the proportions exact, the colouring itself perhaps -tolerable; and another thing to make all these graceful, by the -posture, the shadowings, and, chiefly, by the spirit which animates -the whole. I cannot, without some indignation, look on an ill copy of -an excellent original; much less can I behold with patience Virgil, -Homer, and some others, whose beauties I have been endeavouring all -my life to imitate, so abused, as I may say, to their faces, by a -botching interpreter. What English readers, unacquainted with Greek -or Latin, will believe me, or any other man, when we commend those -authors, and confess we derive all that is pardonable in us from -their fountains, if they take those to be the same poets, whom our -Oglebies have translated? But I dare assure them, that a good poet -is no more like himself, in a dull translation, than his carcase -would be to his living body. There are many, who understand Greek and -Latin, and yet are ignorant of their mother-tongue. The proprieties -and delicacies of the English are known to few; it is impossible even -for a good wit to understand and practise them, without the help of -a liberal education, long reading, and digesting of those few good -authors we have amongst us, the knowledge of men and manners, the -freedom of habitudes and conversation with the best company of both -sexes; and, in short, without wearing off the rust which he contracted -while he was laying in a stock of learning. Thus difficult it is to -understand the purity of English, and critically to discern not only -good writers from bad, and a proper style from a corrupt, but also to -distinguish that which is pure in a good author, from that which is -vicious and corrupt in him. And for want of all these requisites, or -the greatest part of them, most of our ingenious young men take up some -cried-up English poet for their model, adore him, and imitate him, -as they think, without knowing wherein he is defective, where he is -boyish and trifling, wherein either his thoughts are improper to his -subject, or his expressions unworthy of his thoughts, or the turn of -both is unharmonious. Thus it appears necessary, that a man should be -a nice critic in his mother-tongue, before he attempts to translate -in a foreign language. Neither is it sufficient, that he be able to -judge of words and style; but he must be a master of them too; he -must perfectly understand his author's tongue, and absolutely command -his own. So that, to be a thorough translator, he must be a thorough -poet. Neither is it enough to give his author's sense in good English, -in poetical expressions, and in musical numbers; for, though all -these are exceeding difficult to perform, there yet remains a harder -task; and it is a secret of which few translators have sufficiently -thought. I have already hinted a word or two concerning it; that is, -the maintaining the character of an author, which distinguishes him -from all others, and makes him appear that individual poet whom you -would interpret. For example, not only the thoughts, but the style and -versification, of Virgil and Ovid are very different: Yet I see, even -in our best poets, who have translated some parts of them, that they -have confounded their several talents; and, by endeavouring only at the -sweetness and harmony of numbers, have made them both so much alike, -that, if I did not know the originals, I should never be able to judge -by the copies, which was Virgil, and which was Ovid. It was objected -against a late noble painter,[49] that he drew many graceful pictures, -but few of them were alike. And this happened to him, because he always -studied himself more than those who sat to him. In such translators I -can easily distinguish the hand which performed the work, but I cannot -distinguish their poet from another. Suppose two authors are equally -sweet, yet there is as great distinction to be made in sweetness, -as in that of sugar, and that of honey. I can make the difference -more plain, by giving you (if it be worth knowing) my own method of -proceeding, in my translations out of four several poets in this -volume; Virgil, Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace. In each of these, -before I undertook them, I considered the genius and distinguishing -character of my author. I looked on Virgil as a succinct, and grave -majestic writer; one who weighed, not only every thought, but every -word and syllable; who was still aiming to crowd his sense into as -narrow a compass as possibly he could; for which reason he is so very -figurative, that he requires (I may almost say) a grammar apart to -construe him. His verse is every where sounding the very thing in your -ears, whose sense it bears; yet the numbers are perpetually varied, -to increase the delight of the reader; so that the same sounds are -never repeated twice together. On the contrary, Ovid and Claudian, -though they write in styles differing from each other, yet have each -of them but one sort of music in their verses. All the versification -and little variety of Claudian is included within the compass of four -or five lines, and then he begins again in the same tenor; perpetually -closing his sense at the end of a verse, and that verse commonly -which they call golden, or two substantives and two adjectives, with -a verb betwixt them to keep the peace. Ovid, with all his sweetness, -has as little variety of numbers and sound as he: he is always, as it -were, upon the hand-gallop, and his verse runs upon carpet-ground. -He avoids, like the other, all synalæphas, or cutting off one vowel -when it comes before another in the following word; so that, minding -only smoothness, he wants both variety and majesty.--But to return to -Virgil: though he is smooth where smoothness is required, yet he is so -far from affecting it, that he seems rather to disdain it; frequently -makes use of synalæphas, and concludes his sense in the middle of -his verse. He is every where above conceits of epigrammatic wit, and -gross hyperboles; he maintains majesty in the midst of plainness; he -shines, but glares not; and is stately without ambition, which is the -vice of Lucan. I drew my definition of poetical wit from my particular -consideration of him: for propriety of thoughts and words are only to -be found in him; and, where they are proper, they will be delightful. -Pleasure follows of necessity, as the effect does the cause; and -therefore is not to be put into the definition. This exact propriety -of Virgil I particularly regarded, as a great part of his character; -but must confess, to my shame, that I have not been able to translate -any part of him so well, as to make him appear wholly like himself: -for, where the original is close, no version can reach it in the same -compass. Hannibal Caro's,[50] in the Italian, is the nearest, the most -poetical, and the most sonorous of any translation of the Æneids; yet, -though he takes the advantage of blank verse, he commonly allows two -lines for one of Virgil, and does not always hit his sense. Tasso tells -us, in his letters, that Sperone Speroni, a great Italian wit, who was -his contemporary, observed of Virgil and Tully, that the Latin orator -endeavoured to imitate the copiousness of Homer, the Greek poet; and -that the Latin poet made it his business to reach the conciseness of -Demosthenes, the Greek orator. Virgil therefore, being so very sparing -of his words, and leaving so much to be imagined by the reader, can -never be translated as he ought, in any modern tongue. To make him -copious, is to alter his character; and to translate him line for line, -is impossible; because the Latin is naturally a more succinct language -than either the Italian, Spanish, French, or even than the English, -which, by reason of its monosyllables, is far the most compendious -of them. Virgil is much the closest of any Roman poet, and the Latin -hexameter has more feet than the English heroick. - -Besides all this, an author has the choice of his own thoughts and -words, which a translator has not; he is confined by the sense of the -inventor to those expressions which are the nearest to it: so that -Virgil, studying brevity, and having the command of his own language, -could bring those words into a narrow compass, which a translator -cannot render without circumlocutions. In short, they, who have called -him the torture of grammarians, might also have called him the plague -of translators; for he seems to have studied not to be translated. I -own that, endeavouring to turn his "Nisus and Euryalus" as close as I -was able, I have performed that episode too literally; that, giving -more scope to "Mezentius and Lausus," that version, which has more -of the majesty of Virgil, has less of his conciseness; and all that -I can promise for myself, is only, that I have done both better than -Ogleby, and perhaps as well as Caro; so that, methinks, I come like a -malefactor, to make a speech upon the gallows, and to warn all other -poets, by my sad example, from the sacrilege of translating Virgil. -Yet, by considering him so carefully as I did before my attempt, I have -made some faint resemblance of him; and, had I taken more time, might -possibly have succeeded better; but never so well as to have satisfied -myself. - -He who excels all other poets in his own language, were it possible -to do him right, must appear above them in our tongue, which, as my -Lord Roscommon justly observes, approaches nearest to the Roman in its -majesty; nearest indeed, but with a vast interval betwixt them. There -is an inimitable grace in Virgil's words, and in them principally -consists that beauty, which gives so inexpressible a pleasure to -him who best understands their force. This diction of his (I must -once again say) is never to be copied; and, since it cannot, he will -appear but lame in the best translation. The turns of his verse, his -breakings, his propriety, his numbers, and his gravity, I have as far -imitated, as the poverty of our language, and the hastiness of my -performance, would allow. I may seem sometimes to have varied from -his sense; but I think the greatest variations may be fairly deduced -from him; and where I leave his commentators, it may be I understand -him better: at least I writ without consulting them in many places. -But two particular lines in Mezentius and Lausus, I cannot so easily -excuse. They are indeed remotely allied to Virgil's sense; but they -are too like the trifling tenderness of Ovid, and were printed before -I had considered them enough to alter them. The first of them I have -forgotten, and cannot easily retrieve, because the copy is at the -press. The second is this: - - When Lausus died, I was already slain. - -This appears pretty enough at first sight; but I am convinced, for many -reasons, that the expression is too bold; that Virgil would not have -said it, though Ovid would. The reader may pardon it, if he please, for -the freeness of the confession; and instead of that, and the former, -admit these two lines, which are more according to the author: - - Nor ask I life, nor fought with that design; - As I had used my fortune, use thou thine. - -Having with much ado got clear of Virgil, I have, in the next place, -to consider the genius of Lucretius, whom I have translated more -happily in those parts of him which I undertook. If he was not of -the best age of Roman poetry, he was at least of that which preceded -it;[51] and he himself refined it to that degree of perfection, both -in the language and the thoughts, that he left an easy task to Virgil; -who, as he succeeded him in time, so he copied his excellencies; for -the method of the Georgics is plainly derived from him. Lucretius -had chosen a subject naturally crabbed; he therefore adorned it with -poetical descriptions, and precepts of morality, in the beginning and -ending of his books, which you see Virgil has imitated with great -success in those four books, which, in my opinion, are more perfect in -their kind than even his divine Æneids. The turn of his verses he has -likewise followed in those places which Lucretius has most laboured, -and some of his very lines he has transplanted into his own works, -without much variation. If I am not mistaken, the distinguishing -character of Lucretius (I mean of his soul and genius) is a certain -kind of noble pride, and positive assertion of his opinions. He is -every where confident of his own reason, and assuming an absolute -command, not only over his vulgar reader, but even his patron Memmius. -For he is always bidding him attend, as if he had the rod over him; -and using a magisterial authority, while he instructs him. From his -time to ours, I know none so like him, as our poet and philosopher -of Malmesbury.[52] This is that perpetual dictatorship, which is -exercised by Lucretius; who, though often in the wrong, yet seems -to deal _bonâ fide_ with his reader, and tells him nothing but what -he thinks; in which plain sincerity, I believe, he differs from our -Hobbes, who could not but be convinced, or at least doubt of some -eternal truths, which he has opposed. But for Lucretius, he seems to -disdain all manner of replies, and is so confident of his cause, that -he is beforehand with his antagonists; urging for them whatever he -imagined they could say, and leaving them, as he supposes, without -an objection for the future: all this, too, with so much scorn and -indignation, as if he were assured of the triumph, before he entered -into the lists. From this sublime and daring genius of his, it must of -necessity come to pass, that his thoughts must be masculine, full of -argumentation, and that sufficiently warm. From the same fiery temper -proceeds the loftiness of his expressions, and the perpetual torrent -of his verse, where the barrenness of his subject does not too much -constrain the quickness of his fancy. For there is no doubt to be -made, but that he could have been every where as poetical, as he is in -his descriptions, and in the moral part of his philosophy, if he had -not aimed more to instruct, in his system of nature, than to delight. -But he was bent upon making Memmius a materialist, and teaching him -to defy an invisible power: in short, he was so much an atheist, that -he forgot sometimes to be a poet. These are the considerations, which -I had of that author, before I attempted to translate some parts of -him. And accordingly I laid by my natural diffidence and scepticism -for a while, to take up that dogmatical way of his, which, as I said, -is so much his character, as to make him that individual poet. As -for his opinions concerning the mortality of the soul, they are so -absurd, that I cannot, if I would, believe them. I think a future state -demonstrable even by natural arguments; at least, to take away rewards -and punishments is only a pleasing prospect to a man, who resolves -beforehand not to live morally. But, on the other side, the thought of -being nothing after death is a burthen insupportable to a virtuous man, -even though a heathen. We naturally aim at happiness, and cannot bear -to have it confined to the shortness of our present being; especially -when we consider, that virtue is generally unhappy in this world, and -vice fortunate: so that it is hope of futurity alone, that makes this -life tolerable, in expectation of a better. Who would not commit all -the excesses, to which he is prompted by his natural inclinations, -if he may do them with security while he is alive, and be incapable -of punishment after he is dead? If he be cunning and secret enough -to avoid the laws, there is no band of morality to restrain him: for -fame and reputation are weak ties; many men have not the least sense -of them. Powerful men are only awed by them, as they conduce to their -interest, and that not always, when a passion is predominant; and no -man will be contained within the bounds of duty, when he may safely -transgress them. These are my thoughts abstractedly, and without -entering into the notions of our Christian faith, which is the proper -business of divines. - -But there are other arguments in this poem (which I have turned into -English) not belonging to the mortality of the soul, which are strong -enough to a reasonable man, to make him less in love with life, and -consequently in less apprehensions of death. Such as are the natural -satiety proceeding from a perpetual enjoyment of the same things; -the inconveniences of old age, which make him incapable of corporeal -pleasures; the decay of understanding and memory, which render him -contemptible, and useless to others. These, and many other reasons, -so pathetically urged, so beautifully expressed so adorned with -examples, and so admirably raised by the _prosopopeia_ of Nature, who -is brought in speaking to her children with so much authority and -vigour, deserve the pains I have taken with them, which I hope have not -been unsuccessful, or unworthy of my author: at least I must take the -liberty to own, that I was pleased with my own endeavours, which but -rarely happens to me; and that I am not dissatisfied upon the review of -any thing I have done in this author. - -It is true, there is something, and that of some moment, to be objected -against my englishing the Nature of Love, from the fourth book of -Lucretius; and I can less easily answer why I translated it, than why -I thus translated it. The objection arises from the obscenity of the -subject; which is aggravated by the too lively and alluring delicacy -of the verses. In the first place, without the least formality of an -excuse, I own it pleased me; and let my enemies make the worst they -can of this confession. I am not yet so secure from that passion, but -that I want my author's antidotes against it. He has given the truest -and most philosophical account, both of the disease and remedy, which -I ever found in any author; for which reasons I translated him. But it -will be asked, why I turned him into this luscious English, for I will -not give it a worse word. Instead of an answer, I would ask again of -my supercilious adversaries, whether I am not bound, when I translate -an author, to do him all the right I can, and to translate him to the -best advantage? If, to mince his meaning, which I am satisfied was -honest and instructive, I had either omitted some part of what he said, -or taken from the strength of his expression, I certainly had wronged -him; and that freeness of thought and words being thus cashiered in -my hands, he had no longer been Lucretius. If nothing of this kind -be to be read, physicians must not study nature, anatomies must not -be seen, and somewhat I could say of particular passages in books, -which, to avoid profaneness, I do not name. But the intention qualifies -the act; and both mine and my author's were to instruct, as well as -please. It is most certain, that bare-faced bawdry is the poorest -pretence to wit imaginable. If I should say otherwise, I should have -two great authorities against me: the one is the "Essay on Poetry," -which I publicly valued before I knew the author of it, and with the -commendation of which my Lord Roscommon so happily begins his "Essay -on Translated Verse;" the other is no less than our admired Cowley, who -says the same thing in other words; for, in his "Ode concerning Wit," -he writes thus of it: - - Much less can that have any place, - At which a virgin hides her face; - Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just - The author blush, there, where the reader must. - -Here indeed Mr Cowley goes farther than the Essay; for he asserts -plainly, that obscenity has no place in wit; the other only says, it -is a poor pretence to it, or an ill sort of wit, which has nothing -more to support it than bare-faced ribaldry; which is both unmannerly -in itself, and fulsome to the reader. But neither of these will reach -my case: for, in the first place, I am only the translator, not -the inventor; so that the heaviest part of the censure falls upon -Lucretius, before it reaches me: in the next place, neither he nor I -have used the grossest words, but the cleanliest metaphors we could -find, to palliate the broadness of the meaning; and, to conclude, -have carried the poetical part no farther, than the philosophical -exacted.[53] - -There is one mistake of mine, which I will not lay to the printer's -charge, who has enough to answer for in false pointings; it is in the -word, _viper_: I would have the verse run thus: - - The scorpion, love, must on the wound be bruised.[54] - -There are a sort of blundering, half-witted people, who make a great -deal of noise about a verbal slip; though Horace would instruct them -better in true criticism: - - ----_non ego paucis - Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, - Aut humana parùm cavit natura._ - -True judgment in poetry, like that in painting, takes a view of the -whole together, whether it be good or not; and where the beauties -are more than the faults, concludes for the poet against the little -judge. It is a sign that malice is hard driven, when it is forced to -lay hold on a word or syllable: to arraign a man is one thing, and to -cavil at him is another. In the midst of an ill-natured generation of -scribblers, there is always justice enough left in mankind, to protect -good writers: and they too are obliged, both by humanity and interest, -to espouse each other's cause, against false critics, who are the -common enemies. This last consideration puts me in mind of what I owe -to the ingenious and learned translator of Lucretius.[55] I have not -here designed to rob him of any part of that commendation which he has -so justly acquired by the whole author, whose fragments only fall to -my portion. What I have now performed is no more than I intended above -twenty years ago. The ways of our translation are very different. He -follows him more closely than I have done, which became an interpreter -of the whole poem: I take more liberty, because it best suited with -my design, which was, to make him as pleasing as I could. He had been -too voluminous, had he used my method in so long a work; and I had -certainly taken his, had I made it my business to translate the whole. -The preference, then, is justly his; and I join with Mr Evelyn in the -confession of it, with this additional advantage to him, that his -reputation is already established in this poet, mine is to make its -fortune in the world. If I have been any where obscure, in following -our common author, or if Lucretius himself is to be condemned, I refer -myself to his excellent annotations, which I have often read, and -always with some new pleasure. - -My preface begins already to swell upon me, and looks as if I were -afraid of my reader, by so tedious a bespeaking of him; and yet I have -Horace and Theocritus upon my hands; but the Greek gentleman shall -quickly be dispatched, because I have more business with the Roman. - -That which distinguishes Theocritus from all other poets, both Greek -and Latin, and which raises him even above Virgil in his Eclogues, is -the inimitable tenderness of his passions, and the natural expression -of them in words so becoming of a pastoral. A simplicity shines through -all he writes. He shows his art and learning, by disguising both. His -shepherds never rise above their country education in their complaints -of love. There is the same difference betwixt him and Virgil, as there -is betwixt Tasso's "Aminta" and the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini. Virgil's -shepherds are too well read in the philosophy of Epicurus and of Plato, -and Guarini's seem to have been bred in courts; but Theocritus and -Tasso have taken theirs from cottages and plains. It was said of Tasso, -in relation to his similitudes, _mai esce del bosco_, that he never -departed from the woods; that is all his comparisons were taken from -the country. The same may be said of our Theocritus. He is softer than -Ovid: he touches the passions more delicately, and performs all this -out of his own fund, without diving into the arts and sciences for a -supply. Even his Doric dialect has an incomparable sweetness in its -clownishness, like a fair shepherdess in her country russet, talking in -a Yorkshire tone. This was impossible for Virgil to imitate; because -the severity of the Roman language denied him that advantage. Spenser -has endeavoured it in his "Shepherd's Calendar;" but neither will it -succeed in English; for which reason I forbore to attempt it. For -Theocritus writ to Sicilians, who spoke that dialect; and I direct this -part of my translations to our ladies, who neither understand, nor will -take pleasure in such homely expressions. I proceed to Horace. - -Take him in parts, and he is chiefly to be considered in his three -different talents, as he was a critic, a satirist, and a writer of -odes. His morals are uniform, and run through all of them; for, let his -Dutch commentators say what they will, his philosophy was Epicurean; -and he made use of gods and providence only to serve a turn in poetry. -But since neither his Criticisms, which are the most instructive of any -that are written in this art, nor his Satires, which are incomparably -beyond Juvenal's, (if to laugh and rally is to be preferred to railing -and declaiming,) are no part of my present undertaking, I confine -myself wholly to his Odes. These are also of several sorts: some -of them are panegyrical, others moral, the rest jovial, or (if I -may so call them) Bacchanalian. As difficult as he makes it, and as -indeed it is, to imitate Pindar, yet, in his most elevated flights, -and in the sudden changes of his subject with almost imperceptible -connections, that Theban poet is his master. But Horace is of the more -bounded fancy, and confines himself strictly to one sort of verse, -or stanza, in every Ode. That which will distinguish his style from -all other poets, is the elegance of his words, and the numerousness -of his verse. There is nothing so delicately turned in all the Roman -language. There appears in every part of his diction, or (to speak -English) in all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold purity. His -words are chosen with as much exactness as Virgil's; but there seems to -be a greater spirit in them. There is a secret happiness attends his -choice, which in Petronius is called _curiosa felicitas_, and which I -suppose he had from the _feliciter audere_ of Horace himself. But the -most distinguishing part of all his character seems to me to be his -briskness, his jollity, and his good humour; and those I have chiefly -endeavoured to copy. His other excellencies, I confess, are above my -imitation. One Ode, which infinitely pleased me in the reading, I -have attempted to translate in Pindaric verse: it is that, which is -inscribed to the present Earl of Rochester, to whom I have particular -obligations, which this small testimony of my gratitude can never -pay.[56] It is his darling in the Latin, and I have taken some pains to -make it my master-piece in English; for which reason I took this kind -of verse, which allows more latitude than any other. - -Every one knows it was introduced into our language, in this age, -by the happy genius of Mr Cowley. The seeming easiness of it has -made it spread; but it has not been considered enough, to be so well -cultivated. It languishes in almost every hand but his, and some very -few, whom (to keep the rest in countenance) I do not name. He, indeed, -has brought it as near perfection as was possible in so short a time. -But, if I may be allowed to speak my mind modestly, and without injury -to his sacred ashes, somewhat of the purity of English, somewhat of -more equal thoughts, somewhat of sweetness in the numbers, in one word, -somewhat of a finer turn, and more lyrical verse, is yet wanting. As -for the soul of it, which consists in the warmth and vigour of fancy, -the masterly figures, and the copiousness of imagination, he has -excelled all others in this kind. Yet if the kind itself be capable of -more perfection, though rather in the ornamental parts of it than the -essential, what rules of morality or respect have I broken, in naming -the defects, that they may hereafter be amended? Imitation is a nice -point, and there are few poets who deserve to be models in all they -write. Milton's "Paradise Lost" is admirable; but am I therefore bound -to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when it is -evident he creeps along sometimes for above an hundred lines together? -Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and the strength of his -expression, without defending his antiquated words, and the perpetual -harshness of their sound? It is as much commendation as a man can bear, -to own him excellent; all beyond it is idolatry. Since Pindar was the -prince of lyric poets, let me have leave to say, that, in imitating -him, our numbers should, for the most part, be lyrical: for variety, or -rather where the majesty of thought requires it, they may be stretched -to the English heroick of five feet, and to the French Alexandrine of -six. But the ear must preside, and direct the judgment to the choice -of numbers. Without the nicety of this, the harmony of Pindaric verse -can never be complete; the cadency of one line must be a rule to that -of the next; and the sound of the former must slide gently into that -which follows, without leaping from one extreme into another. It must -be done like the shadowings of a picture, which fall by degrees into -a darker colour. I shall be glad, if I have so explained myself as -to be understood; but if I have not, _quod nequeo dicere, et sentio -tantum_,[57] must be my excuse. - -There remains much more to be said on this subject; but, to avoid envy, -I will be silent. What I have said is the general opinion of the best -judges, and in a manner has been forced from me, by seeing a noble sort -of poetry so happily restored by one man, and so grossly copied by -almost all the rest. A musical ear, and a great genius, if another Mr -Cowley could arise in another age, may bring it to perfection. In the -mean time, - - ----_fungar vice cotis, acutum - Reddere quæ ferrum valet, expers ipsa secandi_. - -I hope it will not be expected from me, that I should say any thing of -my fellow undertakers in this Miscellany. Some of them are too nearly -related to me, to be commended without suspicion of partiality;[58] -others I am sure need it not; and the rest I have not perused. - -To conclude, I am sensible that I have written this too hastily and too -loosely; I fear I have been tedious, and, which is worse, it comes out -from the first draught, and uncorrected. This I grant is no excuse; for -it may be reasonably urged, why did he not write with more leisure, or, -if he had it not, (which was certainly my case,) why did he attempt to -write on so nice a subject? The objection is unanswerable; but, in part -of recompence, let me assure the reader, that, in hasty productions, he -is sure to meet with an author's present sense, which cooler thoughts -would possibly have disguised. There is undoubtedly more of spirit, -though not of judgment, in these uncorrect essays; and consequently, -though my hazard be the greater, yet the reader's pleasure is not the -less. - - JOHN DRYDEN. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[47] Mainburg's "History of the League," translated by our -author, at the command of Charles II. - -[48] First published in 1680. - -[49] Sir Peter Lely, by birth a Dutchman, came to England in -1641, and died in 1680. There is a remarkable similarity between his -female portraits, which seems to have arisen from the circumstance -mentioned by Dryden, of his bringing all his subjects as near as -possible to his own idea of the beautiful. Pope's lines in his praise -are too well known to be quoted. - -[50] Annibale Caro died at Rome, 1566. - -[51] He died in the year of Rome 699, before the commencement -of the Augustan age. - -[52] The celebrated Hobbes, who died in 1679. - -[53] I wish our author had attended to his noble friend -Roscommon's recommendation: - - Immodest words admit of no defence, - For want of decency is want of sense; - What moderate fop would range the Park, or stews, - Who among troops of faultless nymphs might chuse? - -[54] This error, however, went through the subsequent -editions. - -[55] Thomas Creech, a particular friend of our author. He -was born in 1659, and in June 1700 committed suicide; for which rash -action no adequate cause has been assigned. Besides the translation -of Lucretius, which is his principal work, he executed an indifferent -version of Horace, and translated parts of Theocritus, Ovid, Juvenal, -Virgil, &c. In his translation of Lucretius, he omitted the indelicate -part of the Fourth Book; a deficiency which Dryden thought fit to -supply, for which he has above assigned some very inadequate reasons. -Creech's Lucretius first appeared at Oxford, in 8vo, 1682, and was -reprinted in the year following. The annotations, to which our author -alludes a little lower, were originally attached to a Latin edition -of Lucretius, superintended by Creech, and afterwards transferred to -his English version. They display great learning, and an intimate -acquaintance with the Epicurean philosophy. - -[56] Our author, in the Dedication to "Cleomenes," compliments -Lord Rochester on his power of critically understanding the beauties of -Horace, and upon his particular affection for this particular Ode. See -Vol. VIII. p. 193. - -[57] Mr Malone has observed, that this quotation, as well as -that which follows, is inaccurate; the words of Juvenal are, "nequeo -_monstrare_, et sentio tantum." - -[58] Dryden's son was amongst the contributors. - - - - -TRANSLATIONS - -FROM - -THEOCRITUS. - - - - -AMARYLLIS: - -OR, - -THE THIRD IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS, PARAPHRASED.[59] - - - To Amaryllis love compels my way, - My browzing goats upon the mountains stray; - O Tityrus, tend them well, and see them fed } - In pastures fresh, and to their watering led; } - And 'ware the ridgling with his budding head. } - Ah, beauteous nymph! can you forget your love, - The conscious grottos, and the shady grove, - Where stretched at ease your tender limbs were laid, - Your nameless beauties nakedly displayed? - Then I was called your darling, your desire, - With kisses such as set my soul on fire: - But you are changed, yet I am still the same; - My heart maintains for both a double flame, - Grieved, but unmoved, and patient of your scorn; - So faithful I, and you so much forsworn! - I die, and death will finish all my pain; - Yet, ere I die, behold me once again: - Am I so much deformed, so changed of late? - What partial judges are our love and hate! - Ten wildings have I gathered for my dear; - How ruddy, like your lips, their streaks appear! - Far-off you viewed them with a longing eye - Upon the topmost branch (the tree was high); - Yet nimbly up, from bough to bough, I swerved,[60] - And for to-morrow have ten more reserved. - Look on me kindly, and some pity shew, - Or give me leave at least to look on you. - Some god transform me by his heavenly power, - Even to a bee to buzz within your bower, - The winding ivy-chaplet to invade, - And folded fern, that your fair forehead shade. - Now to my cost the force of love I find, - The heavy hand it bears on human kind. - The milk of tygers was his infant food, } - Taught from his tender years the taste of blood; } - His brother whelps and he ran wild about the wood. } - Ah nymph, trained up in his tyrannic court, - To make the sufferings of your slaves your sport! - Unheeded ruin! treacherous delight! - O polished hardness, softened to the sight! - Whose radiant eyes your ebon brows adorn, - Like midnight those, and these like break of morn! - Smile once again, revive me with your charms, - And let me die contented in your arms. - I would not ask to live another day, - Might I but sweetly kiss my soul away. - Ah, why am I from empty joys debarred? - For kisses are but empty when compared. - I rave, and in my raging fit shall tear - The garland, which I wove for you to wear, - Of parsley, with a wreath of ivy bound, - And bordered with a rosy edging round. - What pangs I feel, unpitied and unheard! - Since I must die, why is my fate deferred! - I strip my body of my shepherd's frock; - Behold that dreadful downfal of a rock, - Where yon old fisher views the waves from high! - 'Tis that convenient leap I mean to try. - You would be pleased to see me plunge to shore, - But better pleased if I should rise no more. - I might have read my fortune long ago, - When, seeking my success in love to know, - I tried the infallible prophetic way, - A poppy-leaf upon my palm to lay. - I struck, and yet no lucky crack did follow; - Yet I struck hard, and yet the leaf lay hollow; - And, which was worse, if any worse could prove, - The withering leaf foreshowed your withering love. - Yet farther,--ah, how far a lover dares! - My last recourse I had to sieve and sheers, - And told the witch Agreo my disease: - (Agreo, that in harvest used to lease; - But, harvest done, to chare-work did aspire; - Meat, drink, and two-pence was her daily hire;) - To work she went, her charms she muttered o'er, } - And yet the resty sieve wagged ne'er the more; } - I wept for woe, the testy beldame swore, } - And, foaming with her God, foretold my fate, - That I was doomed to love, and you to hate. - A milk-white goat for you I did provide; - Two milk-white kids run frisking by her side, - For which the nut-brown lass, Erithacis, - Full often offered many a savoury kiss. - Hers they shall be, since you refuse the price; - What madman would o'erstand his market twice! - My right eye itches, some good-luck is near, } - Perhaps my Amaryllis may appear; } - I'll set up such a note as she shall hear. } - What nymph but my melodious voice would move? - She must be flint, if she refuse my love. - Hippomenes, who ran with noble strife } - To win his lady, or to lose his life, } - (What shift some men will make to get a wife?) } - Threw down a golden apple in her way; - For all her haste, she could not choose but stay: - Renown said, Run; the glittering bribe cried, Hold; - The man might have been hanged, but for his gold. - Yet some suppose 'twas love, (some few indeed!) - That stopt the fatal fury of her speed: - She saw, she sighed; her nimble feet refuse - Their wonted speed, and she took pains to lose. - A prophet some, and some a poet cry,[61] - (No matter which, so neither of them lie,) - From steepy Othry's top to Pylus drove - His herd, and for his pains enjoyed his love. - If such another wager should be laid, - I'll find the man, if you can find the maid. - Why name I men, when love extended finds - His power on high, and in celestial minds? - Venus the shepherd's homely habit took, - And managed something else besides the crook; - Nay, when Adonis died, was heard to roar, - And never from her heart forgave the boar. - How blest was fair Endymion with his moon, - Who sleeps on Latmos' top from night to noon! - What Jason from Medea's love possest, - You shall not hear, but know 'tis like the rest. - My aching head can scarce support the pain; - This cursed love will surely turn my brain: - Feel how it shoots, and yet you take no pity; - Nay, then, 'tis time to end my doleful ditty. - A clammy sweat does o'er my temples creep, - My heavy eyes are urged with iron sleep; - I lay me down to gasp my latest breath, - The wolves will get a breakfast by my death; - Yet scarce enough their hunger to supply, - For love has made me carrion ere I die. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[59] This appeared in the First Miscellany. - -[60] To swerve, as the word is here used, means to draw one's -self up a tree by clinging round it with the legs and arms. It occurs -in the old ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, where he sends one of his men -aloft: - - Then Gordon swarved the maine-mast tree, - He swarved it with might and main. - - _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, Vol. II. p. 192 - - -[61] Melampus, the son of Amythaon, was a prophet and -physician. Tibullus cites him in the character of an augur: - - _compertum est veracibus ut mihi signis, - Queis Amythaonius nequeat certare Melampus._ - -As a physician, he discovered the use of hellebore; thence called -Melampodium. - - - - -THE EPITHALAMIUM OF HELEN AND MENELAUS. - -FROM THE EIGHTEENTH IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS.[62] - - - Twelve Spartan virgins, noble, young, and fair, - With violet wreaths adorned their flowing hair; - And to the pompous palace did resort, - Where Menelaus kept his royal court. - There, hand in hand, a comely choir they led, } - To sing a blessing to his nuptial bed, } - With curious needles wrought, and painted flowers bespread. } - Jove's beauteous daughter now his bride must be, - And Jove himself was less a God than he; - For this their artful hands instruct the lute to sound, - Their feet assist their hands, and justly beat the ground. - This was their song:--Why, happy bridegroom, why, - Ere yet the stars are kindled in the sky, - Ere twilight shades, or evening dews are shed, - Why dost thou steal so soon away to bed? - Has Somnus brushed thy eye-lids with his rod, } - Or do thy legs refuse to bear their load, } - With flowing bowls of a more generous god? } - If gentle slumber on thy temples creep, - (But, naughty man, thou dost not mean to sleep,) - Betake thee to thy bed, thou drowzy drone, - Sleep by thyself, and leave thy bride alone: - Go, leave her with her maiden mates to play - At sports more harmless till the break of day; - Give us this evening; thou hast morn and night, - And all the year before thee, for delight. - O happy youth! to thee, among the crowd - Of rival princes, Cupid sneezed aloud; - And every lucky omen sent before, - To meet thee landing on the Spartan shore. - Of all our heroes, thou canst boast alone, - That Jove, whene'er he thunders, calls thee son; - Betwixt two sheets thou shalt enjoy her bare, } - With whom no Grecian virgin can compare; } - So soft, so sweet, so balmy, and so fair. } - A boy, like thee, would make a kingly line; - But oh, a girl like her must be divine. - Her equals we in years, but not in face, - Twelve score viragos of the Spartan race, - While naked to Eurotas' banks we bend, - And there in manly exercise contend, - When she appears, are all eclipsed and lost, - And hide the beauties that we made our boast. - So, when the night and winter disappear, - The purple morning, rising with the year, - Salutes the spring, as her celestial eyes - Adorn the world, and brighten all the skies; - So beauteous Helen shines among the rest, - Tall, slender, straight, with all the Graces blest. - As pines the mountains, or as fields the corn, - Or as Thessalian steeds the race adorn; - So rosy-coloured Helen is the pride - Of Lacedemon, and of Greece beside. - Like her no nymph can willing osiers bend } - In basket-works, which painted streaks commend; } - With Pallas in the loom she may contend. } - But none, ah! none can animate the lyre, - And the mute strings with vocal souls inspire; - Whether the learned Minerva be her theme, - Or chaste Diana bathing in the stream, - None can record their heavenly praise so well - As Helen, in whose eyes ten thousand Cupids dwell. - O fair, O graceful! yet with maids enrolled, - But whom to-morrow's sun a matron shall behold! - Yet ere to-morrow's sun shall show his head, } - The dewy paths of meadows we will tread, } - For crowns and chaplets to adorn thy head. } - Where all shall weep, and wish for thy return, - As bleating lambs their absent mother mourn. - Our noblest maids shall to thy name bequeath - The boughs of Lotos, formed into a wreath. - This monument, thy maiden beauties due, - High on a plane-tree shall be hung to view; - On the smooth rind the passenger shall see - Thy name engraved, and worship Helen's tree; - Balm, from a silver-box distilled around, - Shall all bedew the roots, and scent the sacred ground. - The balm, 'tis true, can aged plants prolong, - But Helen's name will keep it ever young. - Hail bride, hail bridegroom, son-in-law to Jove! - With fruitful joys Latona bless your love! - Let Venus furnish you with full desires, - Add vigour to your wills, and fuel to your fires! - Almighty Jove augment your wealthy store, - Give much to you, and to his grandsons more! - From generous loins a generous race will spring, - Each girl, like her, a queen; each boy, like you, a king. - Now sleep, if sleep you can; but while you rest, - Sleep close, with folded arms, and breast to breast. - Rise in the morn; but oh! before you rise, - Forget not to perform your morning sacrifice. - We will be with you ere the crowing cock - Salutes the light, and struts before his feathered flock. - Hymen, oh Hymen, to thy triumphs run, - And view the mighty spoils thou hast in battle won! - -FOOTNOTES: - -[62] This and the three following Idylliums were first -published in the Second Miscellany. - - - - -THE DESPAIRING LOVER. - -FROM THE TWENTY-THIRD IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS. - - - With inauspicious love, a wretched swain - Pursued the fairest nymph of all the plain; - Fairest indeed, but prouder far than fair, - She plunged him hopeless in a deep despair: - Her heavenly form too haughtily she prized, - His person hated, and his gifts despised; - Nor knew the force of Cupid's cruel darts, - Nor feared his awful power on human hearts; - But either from her hopeless lover fled, - Or with disdainful glances shot him dead. - No kiss, no look, to cheer the drooping boy, - No word she spoke, she scorned even to deny; - But, as a hunted panther casts about - Her glaring eyes, and pricks her listening ears to scout; - So she, to shun his toils, her cares employed, - And fiercely in her savage freedom joyed. - Her mouth she writhed, her forehead taught to frown, - Her eyes to sparkle fires to love unknown; - Her sallow cheeks her envious mind did shew, - And every feature spoke aloud the curstness of a shrew. - Yet could not he his obvious fate escape; - His love still dressed her in a pleasing shape; - And every sullen frown, and bitter scorn, - But fanned the fuel that too fast did burn. - Long time, unequal to his mighty pain, - He strove to curb it, but he strove in vain; - At last his woes broke out, and begged relief - With tears, the dumb petitioners of grief; - With tears so tender, as adorned his love, - And any heart, but only hers, would move. - Trembling before her bolted doors he stood, - And there poured out the unprofitable flood; - Staring his eyes, and hagard was his look; - Then, kissing first the threshold, thus he spoke. - Ah nymph, more cruel than of human race! - Thy tygress heart belies thy angel face; - Too well thou show'st thy pedigree from stone, - Thy grandame's was the first by Pyrrha thrown; - Unworthy thou to be so long desired; - But so my love, and so my fate required. - I beg not now (for 'tis in vain) to live; - But take this gift, the last that I can give. - This friendly cord shall soon decide the strife - Betwixt my lingering love and loathsome life: - This moment puts an end to all my pain; - I shall no more despair, nor thou disdain. - Farewell, ungrateful and unkind! I go - Condemned by thee to those sad shades below. - I go the extremest remedy to prove, - To drink oblivion, and to drench my love: - There happily to lose my long desires; - But ah! what draught so deep to quench my fires? - Farewell, ye never-opening gates, ye stones, - And threshold guilty of my midnight moans! - What I have suffered here ye know too well; - What I shall do, the Gods and I can tell. - The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time; - The violet sweet, but quickly past the prime; - White lilies hang their heads, and soon decay, - And whiter snow in minutes melts away: - Such is your blooming youth, and withering so; - The time will come, it will, when you shall know - The rage of love; your haughty heart shall burn - In flames like mine, and meet a like return. - Obdurate as you are, oh! hear at least - My dying prayers, and grant my last request!-- - When first you ope your doors, and, passing by, - The sad ill-omened object meets your eye, - Think it not lost a moment if you stay; - The breathless wretch, so made by you, survey; - Some cruel pleasure will from thence arise, - To view the mighty ravage of your eyes. - I wish (but oh! my wish is vain, I fear) - The kind oblation of a falling tear. - Then loose the knot, and take me from the place, - And spread your mantle o'er my grisly face; - Upon my livid lips bestow a kiss,-- - O envy not the dead, they feel not bliss! - Nor fear your kisses can restore my breath; - Even you are not more pitiless than death. - Then for my corpse a homely grave provide, - Which love and me from public scorn may hide; - Thrice call upon my name, thrice beat your breast, - And hail me thrice to everlasting rest: - Last, let my tomb this sad inscription bear;-- } - "A wretch, whom love has killed, lies buried here; } - "O passengers, Aminta's eyes beware." } - Thus having said, and furious with his love, - He heaved, with more than human force, to move - A weighty stone, (the labour of a team,) - And, raised from thence, he reached the neighbouring beam; - Around its bulk a sliding knot he throws, - And fitted to his neck the fatal noose; - Then, spurning backward, took a swing, till death - Crept up, and stopt the passage of his breath. - The bounce burst ope the door; the scornful fair - Relentless looked, and saw him beat his quivering feet in air; - Nor wept his fate, nor cast a pitying eye, - Nor took him down, but brushed regardless by; - And, as she past, her chance or fate was such, - Her garments touched the dead, polluted by the touch. - Next to the dance, thence to the bath did move; - The bath was sacred to the God of Love; - Whose injured image, with a wrathful eye, - Stood threatning from a pedestal on high. - Nodding a while, and watchful of his blow, - He fell, and, falling, crushed the ungrateful nymph below: - Her gushing blood the pavement all besmeared; - And this her last expiring voice was heard;-- - "Lovers, farewell, revenge has reached my scorn; - "Thus warned, be wise, and love for love return." - - - - -DAPHNIS AND CHLORIS. - -FROM THE TWENTY SEVENTH IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS. - - - DAPHNIS. - - The shepherd Paris bore the Spartan bride - By force away, and then by force enjoyed; - But I by free consent can boast a bliss, - A fairer Helen, and a sweeter kiss. - - CHLORIS. - - Kisses are empty joys, and soon are o'er. - - DAPHNIS. - - A kiss betwixt the lips is something more. - - CHLORIS. - - I wipe my mouth, and where's your kissing then? - - DAPHNIS. - - I swear you wipe it to be kissed agen. - - CHLORIS. - - Go, tend your herd, and kiss your cows at home; - I am a maid, and in my beauty's bloom. - - DAPHNIS. - - 'Tis well remembered; do not waste your time, - But wisely use it ere you pass your prime. - - CHLORIS. - - Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last, - And raisins keep their luscious native taste. - - DAPHNIS. - - The sun's too hot; those olive shades are near; - I fain would whisper something in your ear. - - CHLORIS. - - 'Tis honest talking where we may be seen; } - God knows what secret mischief you may mean; } - I doubt you'll play the wag, and kiss again. } - - DAPHNIS. - - At least beneath yon elm you need not fear; - My pipe's in tune, if you're disposed to hear. - - CHLORIS. - - Play by yourself, I dare not venture thither; - You, and your naughty pipe, go hang together. - - DAPHNIS. - - Coy nymph, beware, lest Venus you offend. - - CHLORIS. - - I shall have chaste Diana still to friend. - - DAPHNIS. - - You have a soul, and Cupid has a dart. - - CHLORIS. - - Diana will defend, or heal my heart. - Nay, fie, what mean you in this open place? - Unhand me, or I swear I'll scratch your face. - Let go for shame; you make me mad for spite; - My mouth's my own; and, if you kiss, I'll bite. - - DAPHNIS. - - Away with your dissembling female tricks; - What, would you 'scape the fate of all your sex? - - CHLORIS. - - I swear, I'll keep my maidenhead till death, - And die as pure as queen Elizabeth. - - DAPHNIS. - - Nay, mum for that; but let me lay thee down; - Better with me, than with some nauseous clown. - - CHLORIS. - - I'd have you know, if I were so inclined, } - I have been woo'd by many a wealthy hind; } - But never found a husband to my mind. } - - DAPHNIS. - - But they are absent all; and I am here. } - } - CHLORIS. } - } - The matrimonial yoke is hard to bear, } - And marriage is a woeful word to hear. } - - DAPHNIS. - - A scarecrow, set to frighten fools away; - Marriage has joys, and you shall have assay. - - CHLORIS. - - Sour sauce is often mixed with our delight; - You kick by day more than you kiss by night. - - DAPHNIS. - - Sham stories all; but say the worst you can, - A very wife fears neither God nor man. - - CHLORIS. - - But child-birth is, they say, a deadly pain; - It costs at least a month to knit again. - - DAPHNIS. - - Diana cures the wounds Lucina made; - Your goddess is a midwife by her trade. - - CHLORIS. - - But I shall spoil my beauty, if I bear. - - DAPHNIS. - - But Mam and Dad are pretty names to hear. - - CHLORIS. - - But there's a civil question used of late; - Where lies my jointure, where your own estate? - - DAPHNIS. - - My flocks, my fields, my woods, my pastures take, - With settlement as good as law can make. - - CHLORIS. - - Swear then you will not leave me on the common, - But marry me, and make an honest woman. - - DAPHNIS. - - I swear by Pan, though he wears horns you'll say, - Cudgelled and kicked, I'll not be forced away. - - CHLORIS. - - I bargain for a wedding-bed at least, - A house, and handsome lodging for a guest. - - DAPHNIS. - - A house well furnished shall be thine to keep; - And, for a flock-bed, I can sheer my sheep. - - CHLORIS. - - What tale shall I to my old father tell? - - DAPHNIS. - - 'Twill make him chuckle thou'rt bestowed so well. - - CHLORIS. - - But, after all, in troth I am to blame - To be so loving, ere I know your name; - A pleasant sounding name's a pretty thing. - - DAPHNIS. - - Faith, mine's a very pretty name to sing. - They call me Daphnis; Lycidas my sire; - Both sound as well as woman can desire. - Nomæa bore me; farmers in degree; - He a good husband, a good housewife she. - - CHLORIS. - - Your kindred is not much amiss, 'tis true; - Yet I am somewhat better born than you. - - DAPHNIS. - - I know your father, and his family; - And, without boasting, am as good as he, - Menalcas; and no master goes before. - - CHLORIS. - - Hang both our pedigrees! not one word more; - But if you love me, let me see your living, - Your house, and home; for seeing is believing. - - DAPHNIS. - - See first yon cypress grove, a shade from noon. - - CHLORIS. - - Browze on, my goats; for I'll be with you soon. - - DAPHNIS. - - Feed well, my bulls, to whet your appetite, - That each may take a lusty leap at night. - - CHLORIS. - - What do you mean, uncivil as you are, - To touch my breasts, and leave my bosom bare? - - DAPHNIS. - - These pretty bubbies, first, I make my own. - - CHLORIS. - - Pull out your hand, I swear, or I shall swoon. - - DAPHNIS. - - Why does thy ebbing blood forsake thy face? - - CHLORIS. - - Throw me at least upon a cleaner place; - My linen ruffled, and my waistcoat soiling-- - What, do you think new clothes were made for spoiling? - - DAPHNIS. - - I'll lay my lambkins underneath thy back. - - CHLORIS. - - My head-gear's off; what filthy work you make! - - DAPHNIS. - - To Venus, first, I lay these offerings by. - - CHLORIS. - - Nay, first look round, that nobody be nigh: - Methinks I hear a whispering in the grove. - - DAPHNIS. - - The cypress trees are telling tales of love. - - CHLORIS. - - You tear off all behind me, and before me; - And I'm as naked as my mother bore me. - - DAPHNIS. - - I'll buy thee better clothes than these I tear, - And lie so close I'll cover thee from air. - - CHLORIS. - - You're liberal now; but when your turn is sped, - You'll wish me choked with every crust of bread. - - DAPHNIS. - - I'll give thee more, much more than I have told; - Would I could coin my very heart to gold! - - CHLORIS. - - Forgive thy handmaid, huntress of the wood! - I see there's no resisting flesh and blood! - - DAPHNIS. - - The noble deed is done!--my herds I'll cull; - Cupid, be thine a calf; and Venus, thine a bull. - - CHLORIS. - - A maid I came in an unlucky hour, - But hence return without my virgin flower. - - DAPHNIS. - - A maid is but a barren name at best; - If thou canst hold, I bid for twins at least. - Thus did this happy pair their love dispense - With mutual joys, and gratified their sense; - The God of Love was there, a bidden guest, - And present at his own mysterious feast. - His azure mantle underneath he spread, - And scattered roses on the nuptial bed; - While folded in each other's arms they lay, } - He blew the flames, and furnished out the play, } - And from their foreheads wiped the balmy sweat away. } - First rose the maid, and with a glowing face, - Her downcast eyes beheld her print upon the grass; - Thence to her herd she sped herself in haste: } - The bridegroom started from his trance at last, } - And piping homeward jocundly he past. } - - - - -TRANSLATIONS - -FROM - -LUCRETIUS. - - - - -THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST BOOK OF LUCRETIUS. - - - Delight of human kind, and gods above, - Parent of Rome, propitious Queen of Love! - Whose vital power, air, earth, and sea supplies, - And breeds whate'er is born beneath the rolling skies; - For every kind, by thy prolific might, - Springs, and beholds the regions of the light. - Thee, goddess, thee the clouds and tempests fear, - And at thy pleasing presence disappear; - For thee the land in fragrant flowers is drest; } - For thee the ocean smiles, and smooths her wavy breast, } - And heaven itself with more serene and purer light is blest. } - For, when the rising spring adorns the mead, - And a new scene of nature stands displayed, - When teeming buds, and cheerful greens appear, - And western gales unlock the lazy year; - The joyous birds thy welcome first express, - Whose native songs thy genial fire confess; - Then savage beasts bound o'er their slighted food, - Struck with thy darts, and tempt the raging flood. - All nature is thy gift; earth, air, and sea; - Of all that breathes, the various progeny, - Stung with delight, is goaded on by thee. - O'er barren mountains, o'er the flowery plain, - The leafy forest, and the liquid main, - Extends thy uncontrouled and boundless reign; - Through all the living regions dost thou move, - And scatterest, where thou goest, the kindly seeds of love. - Since, then, the race of every living thing - Obeys thy power; since nothing new can spring - Without thy warmth, without thy influence bear, - Or beautiful, or lovesome can appear; - Be thou my aid, my tuneful song inspire, - And kindle with thy own productive fire; - While all thy province, Nature, I survey, } - And sing to Memmius an immortal lay } - Of heaven and earth, and every where thy wondrous power display: } - To Memmius, under thy sweet influence born, - Whom thou with all thy gifts and graces dost adorn. - The rather then assist my Muse and me, - Infusing verses worthy him and thee. - Mean time on land and sea let barbarous discord cease, - And lull the listning world in universal peace. - To thee mankind their soft repose must owe, - For thou alone that blessing canst bestow; - Because the brutal business of the war - Is managed by thy dreadful servant's care; - Who oft retires from fighting fields, to prove - The pleasing pains of thy eternal love; - And, panting on thy breast, supinely lies, - While with thy heavenly form he feeds his famished eyes; - Sucks in with open lips thy balmy breath, - By turns restored to life, and plunged in pleasing death. - There while thy curling limbs about him move, - Involved and fettered in the links of love, - When, wishing all, he nothing can deny, - Thy charms in that auspicious moment try; - With winning eloquence our peace implore, - And quiet to the weary world restore. - - - - -THE BEGINNING OF - -THE SECOND BOOK OF LUCRETIUS. - - - 'Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore - The rolling ship, and hear the tempest roar; - Not that another's pain is our delight, - But pains unfelt produce the pleasing sight. - 'Tis pleasant also to behold from far - The moving legions mingled in the war; - But much more sweet thy labouring steps to guide } - To virtue's heights, with wisdom well supplied, } - And all the magazines of learning fortified; } - From thence to look below on human kind, - Bewildered in the maze of life, and blind; - To see vain fools ambitiously contend - For wit and power; their last endeavours bend - To outshine each other, waste their time and health - In search of honour, and pursuit of wealth. - O wretched man! in what a mist of life, - Inclosed with dangers and with noisy strife, - He spends his little span; and overfeeds - His crammed desires, with more than nature needs! - For nature wisely stints our appetite, - And craves no more than undisturbed delight; - Which minds, unmixed with cares and fears, obtain; - A soul serene, a body void of pain. - So little this corporeal frame requires, - So bounded are our natural desires, - That wanting all, and setting pain aside, - With bare privation sense is satisfied. - If golden sconces hang not on the walls, - To light the costly suppers and the balls; - If the proud palace shines not with the state - Of burnished bowls, and of reflected plate; - If well-tuned harps, nor the more pleasing sound - Of voices, from the vaulted roofs rebound; - Yet on the grass, beneath a poplar shade, - By the cool stream, our careless limbs are laid; - With cheaper pleasures innocently blest, - When the warm spring with gaudy flowers is drest. - Nor will the raging fever's fire abate, - With golden canopies and beds of state; - But the poor patient will as soon be sound - On the hard mattress, or the mother ground. - Then since our bodies are not eased the more - By birth, or power, or fortune's wealthy store, - 'Tis plain, these useless toys of every kind - As little can relieve the labouring mind; - Unless we could suppose the dreadful sight - Of marshalled legions moving to the fight, - Could, with their sound and terrible array, - Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of death away. - But, since the supposition vain appears, - Since clinging cares, and trains of inbred fears, - Are not with sounds to be affrighted thence, - But in the midst of pomp pursue the prince, - Not awed by arms, but in the presence bold, - Without respect to purple, or to gold; - Why should not we these pageantries despise, - Whose worth but in our want of reason lies? - For life is all in wandering errors led; - And just as children are surprised with dread, - And tremble in the dark, so riper years, - Even in broad day-light, are possessed with fears, - And shake at shadows fanciful and vain, - As those which in the breasts of children reign. - These bugbears of the mind, this inward hell, - No rays of outward sunshine can dispel; - But nature and right reason must display - Their beams abroad, and bring the darksome soul to-day. - - - - -THE LATTER PART OF - -THE THIRD BOOK OF LUCRETIUS. - -AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH. - - - What has this bugbear, death, to frighten men, - If souls can die, as well as bodies can? - For, as before our birth we felt no pain, - When Punic arms infested land and main, - When heaven and earth were in confusion hurled, - For the debated empire of the world, - Which awed with dreadful expectation lay, - Sure to be slaves, uncertain who should sway: - So, when our mortal flame shall be disjoined, - The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind, - From sense of grief and pain we shall be free; - We shall not feel, because we shall not be. - Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were lost, - We should not move, we only should be tost. - Nay, even suppose, when we have suffered fate, - The soul could feel in her divided state. - What's that to us? for we are only we, - While souls and bodies in one frame agree. - Nay, though our atoms should revolve by chance, - And matter leap into the former dance; - Though time our life and motion could restore, - And make our bodies what they were before; - What gain to us would all this bustle bring? - The new-made man would be another thing. - When once an interrupting pause is made, - That individual being is decayed. - We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part - In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart, - Which to that other mortal shall accrue, - Whom of our matter time shall mould anew. - For backward if you look on that long space - Of ages past, and view the changing face - Of matter, tost, and variously combined - In sundry shapes, 'tis easy for the mind - From thence to infer, that seeds of things have been - In the same order as they now are seen; - Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace, - Because a pause of life, a gaping space, - Has come betwixt, where memory lies dead, - And all the wandering motions from the sense are fled. - For, whosoe'er shall in misfortunes live, - Must _be_, when those misfortunes shall arrive; - And since the man who _is_ not, feels not woe, - (For death exempts him, and wards off the blow, - Which we, the living, only feel and bear,) - What is there left for us in death to fear? - When once that pause of life has come between, - 'Tis just the same as we had never been. - And, therefore, if a man bemoan his lot, - That after death his mouldering limbs shall rot, - Or flames, or jaws of beasts devour his mass, - Know, he's an unsincere, unthinking ass. - A secret sting remains within his mind; - The fool is to his own cast offals kind. - He boasts no sense can after death remain; } - Yet makes himself a part of life again, } - As if some other _he_ could feel the pain. } - If, while we live, this thought molest his head, - What wolf or vulture shall devour me dead? - He wastes his days in idle grief, nor can - Distinguish 'twixt the body and the man; - But thinks himself can still himself survive, - And, what when dead he feels not, feels alive. - Then he repines that he was born to die, - Nor knows in death there is no other _he_, - No living _he_ remains his grief to vent, - And o'er his senseless carcase to lament. - If, after death, 'tis painful to be torn - By birds, and beasts, then why not so to burn, - Or drenched in floods of honey to be soaked, - Embalmed to be at once preserved and choked; - Or on an airy mountain's top to lie, - Exposed to cold and heaven's inclemency; - Or crowded in a tomb, to be opprest - With monumental marble on thy breast? - But to be snatched from all the household joys, - From thy chaste wife, and thy dear prattling boys, - Whose little arms about thy legs are cast, - And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's haste, - Inspiring secret pleasure through thy breast; - Ah! these shall be no more; thy friends opprest - Thy care and courage now no more shall free; - Ah! wretch, thou criest, ah! miserable me! - One woeful day sweeps children, friends, and wife, - And all the brittle blessings of my life! - Add one thing more, and all thou say'st is true; - Thy want and wish of them is vanished too; - Which, well considered, were a quick relief - To all thy vain imaginary grief: - For thou shalt sleep, and never wake again, - And, quitting life, shall quit thy loving pain. - But we, thy friends, shall all those sorrows find, } - Which in forgetful death thou leav'st behind; } - No time shall dry our tears, nor drive thee from out mind. } - The worst that can befal thee, measured right, - Is a sound slumber, and a long good-night. - Yet thus the fools, that would be thought the wits, - Disturb their mirth with melancholy fits; - When healths go round, and kindly brimmers flow, - Till the fresh garlands on their foreheads glow, - They whine, and cry, let us make haste to live, - Short are the joys that human life can give. - Eternal preachers, that corrupt the draught, - And pall the god, that never thinks, with thought; - Idiots with all that thought, to whom the worst - Of death, is want of drink, and endless thirst, - Or any fond desire as vain as these. - For, even in sleep, the body, wrapt in ease, - Supinely lies, as in the peaceful grave; - And, wanting nothing, nothing can it crave. - Were that sound sleep eternal, it were death; - Yet the first atoms then, the seeds of breath, - Are moving near to sense; we do but shake - And rouse that sense, and straight we are awake. - Then death to us, and death's anxiety, - Is less than nothing, if a less could be; - For then our atoms, which in order lay, - Are scattered from their heap, and puffed away, - And never can return into their place, - When once the pause of life has left an empty space. - And, last, suppose great Nature's voice should call - To thee, or me, or any of us all,-- - What dost thou mean, ungrateful wretch, thou vain, - Thou mortal thing, thus idly to complain, - And sigh and sob, that thou shalt be no more? - For, if thy life were pleasant heretofore, - If all the bounteous blessings I could give } - Thou hast enjoyed, if thou hast known to live, } - And pleasure not leaked through thee like a sieve; } - Why dost thou not give thanks as at a plenteous feast, - Crammed to the throat with life, and rise and take thy rest? - But, if my blessings thou hast thrown away, - If undigested joys passed through, and would not stay, - Why dost thou wish for more to squander still? - If life be grown a load, a real ill, - And I would all thy cares and labours end, - Lay down thy burden, fool, and know thy friend. - To please thee, I have emptied all my store; } - I can invent, and can supply no more, } - But run the round again, the round I ran before. } - Suppose thou art not broken yet with years, - Yet still the self-same scene of things appears, - And would be ever, couldst thou ever live; - For life is still but life, there's nothing new to give. - What can we plead against so just a bill? - We stand convicted, and our cause goes ill. - But if a wretch, a man oppressed by fate, - Should beg of nature to prolong his date, - She speaks aloud to him with more disdain,-- - Be still, thou martyr fool, thou covetous of pain. - But if an old decrepit sot lament,-- - What, thou! she cries, who hast outlived content! - Dost thou complain, who hast enjoyed my store? - But this is still the effect of wishing more. - Unsatisfied with all that nature brings; - Loathing the present, liking absent things; - From hence it comes, thy vain desires, at strife - Within themselves, have tantalized thy life, - And ghastly death appeared before thy sight, - Ere thou hast gorged thy soul and senses with delight. - Now leave those joys, unsuiting to thy age, - To a fresh comer, and resign the stage.-- - Is Nature to be blamed if thus she chide? - No, sure; for 'tis her business to provide - Against this ever-changing frame's decay, - New things to come, and old to pass away. - One being, worn, another being makes; - Changed, but not lost; for nature gives and takes: - New matter must be found for things to come, - And these must waste like those, and follow nature's doom. - All things, like thee, have time to rise and rot, - And from each other's ruin are begot: - For life is not confined to him or thee; - 'Tis given to all for use, to none for property. - Consider former ages past and gone, - Whose circles ended long ere thine begun, - Then tell me, fool, what part in them thou hast? - Thus may'st thou judge the future by the past. - What horror seest thou in that quiet state, - What bugbear dreams to fright thee after fate? - No ghost, no goblins, that still passage keep; - But all is there serene, in that eternal sleep. - For all the dismal tales, that poets tell, - Are verified on earth, and not in hell. - No Tantalus looks up with fearful eye, - Or dreads the impending rock to crush him from on high; - But fear of chance on earth disturbs our easy hours, - Or vain imagined wrath of vain imagined powers. - No Tityus torn by vultures lies in hell; } - Nor could the lobes of his rank liver swell } - To that prodigious mass, for their eternal meal; } - Not though his monstrous bulk had covered o'er } - Nine spreading acres, or nine thousand more; } - Not though the globe of earth had been the giant's floor; } - Nor in eternal torments could he lie, - Nor could his corpse sufficient food supply. - But he's the Tityus, who, by love opprest, } - Or tyrant passion preying on his breast, } - And ever anxious thoughts, is robbed of rest. } - The Sisyphus is he, whom noise and strife - Seduce from all the soft retreats of life, - To vex the government, disturb the laws; - Drunk with the fumes of popular applause, - He courts the giddy crowd to make him great, - And sweats and toils in vain, to mount the sovereign seat. - For, still to aim at power, and still to fail, - Ever to strive, and never to prevail, - What is it, but, in reason's true account, - To heave the stone against the rising mount? - Which urged, and laboured, and forced up with pain, - Recoils, and rolls impetuous down, and smokes along the plain. - Then, still to treat thy ever-craving mind - With every blessing, and of every kind, - Yet never fill thy ravening appetite, - Though years and seasons vary thy delight, - Yet nothing to be seen of all the store, - But still the wolf within thee barks for more; - This is the fable's moral, which they tell - Of fifty foolish virgins damned in hell - To leaky vessels, which the liquor spill; - To vessels of their sex, which none could ever fill. - As for the dog, the furies, and their snakes, - The gloomy caverns, and the burning lakes, - And all the vain infernal trumpery, - They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be. - But here, on earth, the guilty have in view - The mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due; - Racks, prisons, poisons, the Tarpeian rock, - Stripes, hangmen, pitch, and suffocating smoke; - And last, and most, if these were cast behind, - The avenging horror of a conscious mind; - Whose deadly fear anticipates the blow, - And sees no end of punishment and woe, - But looks for more, at the last gasp of breath; - This makes an hell on earth, and life a death. - Meantime, when thoughts of death disturb thy head, - Consider, Ancus, great and good, is dead; - Ancus, thy better far, was born to die, - And thou, dost thou bewail mortality? - So many monarchs with their mighty state, - Who ruled the world, were over-ruled by fate. - That haughty king, who lorded o'er the main, - And whose stupendous bridge did the wild waves restrain, - (In vain they foamed, in vain they threatened wreck, - While his proud legions marched upon their back,) - Him death, a greater monarch, overcame; - Nor spared his guards the more, for their immortal name. - The Roman chief, the Carthaginian dread, } - Scipio, the thunder bolt of war, is dead, } - And, like a common slave, by fate in triumph led. } - The founders of invented arts are lost, - And wits, who made eternity their boast. - Where now is Homer, who possessed the throne? - The immortal work remains, the immortal author's gone. - Democritus, perceiving age invade, - His body weakened, and his mind decayed, - Obeyed the summons with a cheerful face; - Made haste to welcome death, and met him half the race. - That stroke even Epicurus could not bar, } - Though he in wit surpassed mankind, as far } - As does the mid-day sun the midnight star. } - And thou, dost thou disdain to yield thy breath, - Whose very life is little more than death? - More than one half by lazy sleep possest; } - And when awake, thy soul but nods at best, } - Day-dreams and sickly thoughts revolving in thy breast } - Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind, - Whose cause and cure thou never hop'st to find; - But still uncertain, with thyself at strife, - Thou wanderest in the labyrinth of life. - O, if the foolish race of man, who find - A weight of cares still pressing on their mind, - Could find as well the cause of this unrest, - And all this burden lodged within the breast; - Sure they would change their course, nor live as now, - Uncertain what to wish, or what to vow. - Uneasy both in country and in town, - They search a place to lay their burden down. - One, restless in his palace, walks abroad, - And vainly thinks to leave behind the load, - But strait returns; for he's as restless there, - And finds there's no relief in open air. - Another to his villa would retire, - And spurs as hard as if it were on fire; - No sooner entered at his country door, } - But he begins to stretch, and yawn, and snore, } - Or seeks the city, which he left before } - Thus every man o'erworks his weary will, } - To shun himself, and to shake off his ill; } - The shaking fit returns, and hangs upon him still. } - No prospect of repose, nor hope of ease, - The wretch is ignorant of his disease; - Which, known, would all his fruitless trouble spare, - For he would know the world not worth his care: - Then would he search more deeply for the cause, - And study nature well, and nature's laws; - For in this moment lies not the debate, - But on our future, fixed, eternal state; - That never-changing state, which all must keep, - Whom death has doomed to everlasting sleep. - Why are we then so fond of mortal life, - Beset with dangers, and maintained with strife? - A life, which all our care can never save; - One fate attends us, and one common grave. - Besides, we tread but a perpetual round; } - We ne'er strike out, but beat the former ground, } - And the same maukish joys in the same track are found. } - For still we think an absent blessing best, } - Which cloys, and is no blessing when possest; } - A new arising wish expels it from the breast. } - The feverish thirst of life increases still; - We call for more and more, and never have our fill; - Yet know not what to-morrow we shall try, - What dregs of life in the last draught may lie. - Nor, by the longest life we can attain, } - One moment from the length of death we gain; } - For all behind belongs to his eternal reign. } - When once the fates have cut the mortal thread, - The man as much to all intents is dead, - Who dies to-day, and will as long be so, - As he who died a thousand years ago. - - - - -THE LATTER PART OF - -THE FOURTH BOOK OF LUCRETIUS; - -CONCERNING THE NATURE OF LOVE. - -BEGINNING AT THIS LINE: - - _Sic igitur Veneris qui telis accipit ictum, &c._ - - - Thus, therefore, he, who feels the fiery dart - Of strong desire transfix his amorous heart, - Whether some beauteous boy's alluring face, - Or lovelier maid, with unresisting grace, - From her each part the winged arrow sends, - From whence he first was struck he thither tends; - Restless he roams, impatient to be freed, - And eager to inject the sprightly seed; - For fierce desire does all his mind employ, - And ardent love assures approaching joy. - Such is the nature of that pleasing smart, - Whose burning drops distil upon the heart, - The fever of the soul shot from the fair, - And the cold ague of succeeding care. - If absent, her idea still appears, - And her sweet name is chiming in your ears. - But strive those pleasing phantoms to remove, - And shun the aërial images of love, - That feed the flame: when one molests thy mind, - Discharge thy loins on all the leaky kind; - For that's a wiser way, than to restrain - Within thy swelling nerves that hoard of pain. - For every hour some deadlier symptom shews, - And by delay the gathering venom grows, - When kindly applications are not used; - The scorpion, love, must on the wound be bruised. - On that one object 'tis not safe to stay, - But force the tide of thought some other way; - The squandered spirits prodigally throw, - And in the common glebe of nature sow. - Nor wants he all the bliss that lovers feign, - Who takes the pleasure, and avoids the pain; - For purer joys in purer health abound, - And less affect the sickly than the sound. - When love its utmost vigour does employ, - Even then 'tis but a restless wandering joy; - Nor knows the lover in that wild excess, - With hands or eyes, what first he would possess; - But strains at all, and, fastening where he strains, - Too closely presses with his frantic pains; - With biting kisses hurts the twining fair, - Which shews his joys imperfect, insincere: - For, stung with inward rage, he flings around, - And strives to avenge the smart on that which gave the wound. - But love those eager bitings does restrain, - And mingling pleasure mollifies the pain. - For ardent hope still flatters anxious grief, - And sends him to his foe to seek relief: - Which yet the nature of the thing denies; - For love, and love alone of all our joys, - By full possession does but fan the fire; - The more we still enjoy, the more we still desire. - Nature for meat and drink provides a space, - And, when received, they fill their certain place; - Hence thirst and hunger may be satisfied, - But this repletion is to love denied: - Form, feature, colour, whatsoe'er delight - Provokes the lover's endless appetite, - These fill no space, nor can we thence remove - With lips, or hands, or all our instruments of love: - In our deluded grasp we nothing find, - But thin aërial shapes, that fleet before the mind. - As he, who in a dream with drought is curst, - And finds no real drink to quench his thirst, - Runs to imagined lakes his heat to steep, - And vainly swills and labours in his sleep; - So love with phantoms cheats our longing eyes, - Which hourly seeing never satisfies: - Our hands pull nothing from the parts they strain, - But wander o'er the lovely limbs in vain. - Nor when the youthful pair more closely join, - When hands in hands they lock, and thighs in thighs they twine, - Just in the raging foam of full desire, - When both press on, both murmur, both expire, - They gripe, they squeeze, their humid tongues they dart, - As each would force their way to t'other's heart: - In vain; they only cruize about the coast; - For bodies cannot pierce, nor be in bodies lost, - As sure they strive to be, when both engage - In that tumultuous momentary rage; - So tangled in the nets of love they lie, - Till man dissolves in that excess of joy. - Then, when the gathered bag has burst its way, - And ebbing tides the slackened nerves betray, - A pause ensues; and nature nods awhile, - Till with recruited rage new spirits boil; - And then the same vain violence returns, - With flames renewed the erected furnace burns; - Again they in each other would be lost, - But still by adamantine bars are crost. - All ways they try, successless all they prove, - To cure the secret sore of lingering love. - Besides---- - They waste their strength in the venereal strife, - And to a woman's will enslave their life; - The estate runs out, and mortgages are made, } - All offices of friendship are decayed, } - Their fortune ruined, and their fame betrayed. } - Assyrian ointment from their temples flows, - And diamond buckles sparkle in their shoes; - The cheerful emerald twinkles on their hands, - With all the luxury of foreign lands; - And the blue coat, that with embroidery shines, - Is drunk with sweat of their o'er-laboured loins. - Their frugal father's gains they misemploy, - And turn to point, and pearl, and every female toy. - French fashions, costly treats are their delight; - The park by day, and plays and balls by night. - In vain;---- - For in the fountain, where their sweets are sought, - Some bitter bubbles up, and poisons all the draught. - First, guilty conscience does the mirror bring, - Then sharp remorse shoots out her angry sting; - And anxious thoughts, within themselves at strife, - Upbraid the long mispent, luxurious life. - Perhaps, the fickle fair-one proves unkind, } - Or drops a doubtful word, that pains his mind, } - And leaves a rankling jealousy behind. } - Perhaps, he watches close her amorous eyes, - And in the act of ogling does surprise, - And thinks he sees upon her cheeks the while } - The dimpled tracks of some foregoing smile; } - His raging pulse beats thick, and his pent spirits boil. } - This is the product e'en of prosperous love; - Think then what pangs disastrous passions prove; - Innumerable ills; disdain, despair, - With all the meagre family of care. - Thus, as I said, 'tis better to prevent, - Than flatter the disease, and late repent; - Because to shun the allurement is not hard - To minds resolved, forewarned, and well prepared; - But wonderous difficult, when once beset, - To struggle through the straits, and break the involving net. - Yet, thus ensnared, thy freedom thou may'st gain, - If, like a fool, thou dost not hug thy chain; - If not to ruin obstinately blind, } - And wilfully endeavouring not to find } - Her plain defects of body and of mind. } - For thus the Bedlam train of lovers use - To enhance the value, and the faults excuse; - And therefore 'tis no wonder if we see - They doat on dowdies and deformity. - Even what they cannot praise, they will not blame, - But veil with some extenuating name. - The sallow skin is for the swarthy put, - And love can make a slattern of a slut; - If cat-eyed, then a Pallas is their love; - If freckled, she's a party-coloured dove; - If little, then she's life and soul all o'er; - An Amazon, the large two-handed whore. - She stammers; oh what grace in lisping lies! - If she says nothing, to be sure she's wise. - If shrill, and with a voice to drown a quire, - Sharp-witted she must be, and full of fire; - The lean, consumptive wench, with coughs decayed, - Is called a pretty, tight, and slender maid; - The o'er-grown, a goodly Ceres is exprest, - A bedfellow for Bacchus at the least; - Flat-nose the name of Satyr never misses, - And hanging blobber lips but pout for kisses. - The task were endless all the rest to trace; - Yet grant she were a Venus for her face - And shape, yet others equal beauty share, - And time was you could live without the fair; - She does no more, in that for which you woo, - Than homelier women full as well can do. - Besides, she daubs, and stinks so much of paint, - Her own attendants cannot bear the scent, - But laugh behind, and bite their lips to hold. - Meantime, excluded, and exposed to cold, - The whining lover stands before the gates, - And there with humble adoration waits; - Crowning with flowers the threshold and the floor, - And printing kisses on the obdurate door; - Who, if admitted in that nick of time, - If some unsavoury whiff betray the crime, - Invents a quarrel straight, if there be none, - Or makes some faint excuses to be gone; - And calls himself a doating fool to serve, - Ascribing more than woman can deserve. - Which well they understand, like cunning queans, - And hide their nastiness behind the scenes, - From him they have allured, and would retain; - But to a piercing eye 'tis all in vain: - For common sense brings all their cheats to view, - And the false light discovers by the true; - Which a wise harlot owns, and hopes to find - A pardon for defects, that run through all the kind. - Nor always do they feign the sweets of love, - When round the panting youth their pliant limbs they move. - And cling, and heave and moisten every kiss; - They often share, and more than share the bliss: - From every part, even to their inmost soul, - They feel the trickling joys, and run with vigour to the goal. - Stirred with the same impetuous desire, - Birds, beasts, and herds, and mares, their males require; - Because the throbbing nature in their veins - Provokes them to assuage their kindly pains. - The lusty leap the expecting female stands, - By mutual heat compelled to mutual bands. - Thus dogs with lolling tongues by love are tied, - Nor shouting boys nor blows their union can divide; - At either end they strive the link to loose, - In vain, for stronger Venus holds the noose; - Which never would those wretched lovers do, } - But that the common heats of love they know; } - The pleasure therefore must be shared in common too: } - And when the woman's more prevailing juice - Sucks in the man's, the mixture will produce - The mother's likeness; when the man prevails, - His own resemblance in the seed he seals. - But when we see the new-begotten race - Reflect the features of each parent's face, - Then of the father's and the mother's blood - The justly tempered seed is understood; - When both conspire, with equal ardour bent, - From every limb the due proportion sent, - When neither party foils, when neither foiled, - This gives the splendid features of the child. - Sometimes the boy the grandsire's image bears; - Sometimes the more remote progenitor he shares; - Because the genial atoms of the seed - Lie long concealed ere they exert the breed; - And, after sundry ages past, produce - The tardy likeness of the latent juice. - Hence, families such different figures take, - And represent their ancestors in face, and hair, and make; - Because of the same seed, the voice, and hair, } - And shape, and face, and other members are, } - And the same antique mould the likeness does prepare. } - Thus, oft the father's likeness does prevail - In females, and the mother's in the male; - For, since the seed is of a double kind, - From that, where we the most resemblance find, - We may conclude the strongest tincture sent, - And that was in conception prevalent. - Nor can the vain decrees of powers above - Deny production to the act of love, - Or hinder fathers of that happy name, - Or with a barren womb the matron shame; - As many think, who stain with victims blood - The mournful altars, and with incense load, - To bless the showery seed with future life, - And to impregnate the well-laboured wife. - In vain they weary heaven with prayer, or fly - To oracles, or magic numbers try; - For barrenness of sexes will proceed - Either from too condensed, or watery, seed: - The watery juice too soon dissolves away, - And in the parts projected will not stay; - The too condensed, unsouled, unwieldy mass, - Drops short, nor carries to the destined place; - Nor pierces to the parts, nor, though injected home, - Will mingle with the kindly moisture of the womb. - For nuptials are unlike in their success; - Some men with fruitful seed some women bless, - And from some men some women fruitful are, - Just as their constitutions join or jar: - And many seeming barren wives have been, - Who after, matched with more prolific men, - Have filled a family with prattling boys; - And many, not supplied at home with joys, - Have found a friend abroad to ease their smart, - And to perform the sapless husband's part. - So much it does import, that seed with seed - Should of the kindly mixture make the breed; - And thick with thin, and thin with thick should join, - So to produce and propagate the line. - Of such concernment too is drink and food, - To incrassate, or attenuate the blood. - Of like importance is the posture too, - In which the genial feat of love we do; - For, as the females of the four-foot kind - Receive the leapings of their males behind, - So the good wives, with loins uplifted high, - And leaning on their hands, the fruitful stroke may try: - For in that posture will they best conceive; - Not when, supinely laid, they frisk and heave; - For active motions only break the blow, } - And more of strumpets than the wives they show, } - When, answering stroke with stroke, the mingled liquors flow. } - Endearments eager, and too brisk a bound, - Throw off the plow-share from the furrowed ground; - But common harlots in conjunction heave, - Because 'tis less their business to conceive, - Than to delight, and to provoke the deed; - A trick which honest wives but little need. - Nor is it from the gods, or Cupid's dart, - That many a homely woman takes the heart, - But wives well-humoured, dutiful, and chaste, } - And clean, will hold their wandering husbands fast; } - Such are the links of love, and such a love will last. } - For what remains, long habitude, and use, - Will kindness in domestic bands produce; - For custom will a strong impression leave. - Hard bodies, which the lightest stroke receive, - In length of time will moulder and decay, - And stones with drops of rain are washed away. - - - - -FROM THE FIFTH BOOK OF LUCRETIUS. - - _Tum porrò puer, &c._ - - - Thus, like a sailor by a tempest hurled - Ashore, the babe is shipwrecked on the world. - Naked he lies, and ready to expire, - Helpless of all that human wants require; - Exposed upon unhospitable earth, - From the first moment of his hapless birth. - Straight with foreboding cries he fills the room, - Too true presages of his future doom. - But flocks and herds, and every savage beast, - By more indulgent nature are increased: - They want no rattles for their froward mood, - Nor nurse to reconcile them to their food, - With broken words; nor winter blasts they fear, - Nor change their habits with the changing year; - Nor, for their safety, citadels prepare, - Nor forge the wicked instruments of war; - Unlaboured earth her bounteous treasure grants, - And Nature's lavish hand supplies their common wants. - - - - -TRANSLATIONS - -FROM - -HORACE. - - - - -THE THIRD ODE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE. - -INSCRIBED TO - -THE EARL OF ROSCOMMON, - -ON HIS INTENDED VOYAGE TO IRELAND.[63] - - - So may the auspicious queen of love, - And the twin stars, the seed of Jove, - And he who rules the raging wind, - To thee, O sacred ship, be kind; - And gentle breezes fill thy sails, - Supplying soft Etesian gales; - As thou, to whom the Muse commends - The best of poets and of friends, - Dost thy committed pledge restore, - And land him safely on the shore; - And save the better part of me, - From perishing with him at sea. - Sure he, who first the passage tried, } - In hardened oak his heart did hide, } - And ribs of iron armed his side; } - Or his at least, in hollow wood, - Who tempted first the briny flood; - Nor feared the winds' contending roar, - Nor billows beating on the shore, - Nor Hyades portending rain, - Nor all the tyrants of the main. - What form of death could him affright, - Who unconcerned, with stedfast sight, - Could view the surges mounting steep, - And monsters rolling in the deep! - Could through the ranks of ruin go, - With storms above, and rocks below! - In vain did Nature's wise command - Divide the waters from the land, - If daring ships and men prophane - Invade the inviolable main; - The eternal fences over-leap, - And pass at will the boundless deep. - No toil, no hardship, can restrain - Ambitious man, inured to pain; - The more confined, the more he tries, - And at forbidden quarry flies. - Thus bold Prometheus did aspire, - And stole from Heaven the seeds of fire: - A train of ills, a ghastly crew, - The robber's blazing track pursue; - Fierce famine with her meagre face, - And fevers of the fiery race, - In swarms the offending wretch surround, - All brooding on the blasted ground; - And limping death, lashed on by fate, - Comes up to shorten half our date. - This made not Dædalus beware, - With borrowed wings to sail in air; - To hell Alcides forced his way, - Plunged through the lake, and snatched the prey. - Nay, scarce the gods, or heavenly climes, - Are safe from our audacious crimes; - We reach at Jove's imperial crown, - And pull the unwilling thunder down. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[63] Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, an elegant poet and -accomplished nobleman, was created captain of the band of pensioners -after the Restoration, and made a considerable figure at the court -of Charles II. But, having injured his fortune by gaming, and being -engaged in a lawsuit with the Lord Privy Seal concerning a considerable -part of his estate, he found himself obliged to retire to Ireland, -and resigned his post at the English court. After having resided some -years in that kingdom, where he enjoyed the post of captain of the -guards to the Duke of Ormond, he returned to England, where he died in -1684. Besides the ode which follows, there are several traces through -Dryden's works of his intimacy with Roscommon. - - - - -THE NINTH ODE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE. - - - I. - - Behold yon mountain's hoary height, - Made higher with new mounts of snow; - Again behold the winter's weight - Oppress the labouring woods below; - And streams, with icy fetters bound, - Benumbed and crampt to solid ground. - - II. - - With well-heaped logs dissolve the cold, - And feed the genial hearth with fires; - Produce the wine, that makes us bold, - And sprightly wit and love inspires: - For what hereafter shall betide, - God, if 'tis worth his care, provide. - - III. - - Let him alone, with what he made, - To toss and turn the world below; - At his command the storms invade, - The winds by his commission blow; - Till with a nod he bids them cease, - And then the calm returns, and all is peace. - - IV. - - To-morrow and her works defy, - Lay hold upon the present hour, - And snatch the pleasures passing by, - To put them out of fortune's power: - Nor love, nor love's delights, disdain; - Whate'er thou get'st to-day, is gain. - - V. - - Secure those golden early joys, - That youth unsoured with sorrow bears, - Ere withering time the taste destroys, - With sickness and unwieldy years. - For active sports, for pleasing rest, } - This is the time to be possest; } - The best is but in season best. } - - VI. - - The appointed hour of promised bliss, - The pleasing whisper in the dark, - The half unwilling willing kiss, - The laugh that guides thee to the mark; - When the kind nymph would coyness feign, } - And hides but to be found again; } - These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain. } - - - - -THE TWENTY-NINTH ODE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE. - -PARAPHRASED IN PINDARIC VERSE, -AND INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. LAURENCE, -EARL OF ROCHESTER. - - - I. - - Descended of an ancient line, - That long the Tuscan sceptre swayed, - Make haste to meet the generous wine, - Whose piercing is for thee delayed: - The rosy wreath is ready made, - And artful hands prepare - The fragrant Syrian oil, that shall perfume thy hair. - - II. - - When the wine sparkles from afar, - And the well-natured friend cries, "Come away!" - Make haste, and leave thy business and thy care, - No mortal interest can be worth thy stay. - - III. - - Leave for a while thy costly country seat, - And, to be great indeed, forget - The nauseous pleasures of the great: - Make haste and come; - Come, and forsake thy cloying store; - Thy turret, that surveys, from high, - The smoke, and wealth, and noise of Rome, - And all the busy pageantry - That wise men scorn, and fools adore; - Come, give thy soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor. - - IV. - - Sometimes 'tis grateful to the rich to try - A short vicissitude, and fit of poverty: - A savoury dish, a homely treat, - Where all is plain, where all is neat, - Without the stately spacious room, - The Persian carpet, or the Tyrian loom, - Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the great. - - V. - - The sun is in the Lion mounted high; - The Syrian star - Barks from afar, - And with his sultry breath infects the sky; - The ground below is parched, the heavens above us fry: - The shepherd drives his fainting flock - Beneath the covert of a rock, - And seeks refreshing rivulets nigh: - The Sylvans to their shades retire, - Those very shades and streams new shades and streams require, - And want a cooling breeze of wind to fan the raging fire. - - VI. - - Thou, what befits the new Lord Mayor,[64] - And what the city factions dare, - And what the Gallic arms will do, - And what the quiver-bearing foe, - Art anxiously inquisitive to know: - But God has, wisely, hid from human sight - The dark decrees of future fate, - And sown their seeds in depth of night; - He laughs at all the giddy turns of state, - When mortals search too soon, and fear too late. - - VII. - - Enjoy the present smiling hour, - And put it out of fortune's power; - The tide of business, like the running stream, - Is sometimes high, and sometimes low, - A quiet ebb, or a tempestuous flow, - And always in extreme. - Now with a noiseless gentle course - It keeps within the middle bed; - Anon it lifts aloft the head, - And bears down all before it with impetuous force: - And trunks of trees come rolling down, - Sheep and their folds together drown; - Both house and homested into seas are borne, - And rocks are from their old foundations torn, - And woods, made thin with winds, their scattered honours mourn. - - VIII. - - Happy the man, and happy he alone, - He, who can call to-day his own; - He who, secure within, can say, - To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day: - Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, - The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine; - Not heaven itself upon the past has power, - But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. - - IX. - - Fortune, that with malicious joy - Does man, her slave, oppress, - Proud of her office to destroy, - Is seldom pleased to bless: - Still various, and unconstant still, - But with an inclination to be ill, - Promotes, degrades, delights in strife, - And makes a lottery of life. - I can enjoy her while she's kind; - But when she dances in the wind, - And shakes the wings, and will not stay, - I puff the prostitute away: - The little or the much she gave, is quietly resigned; - Content with poverty my soul I arm, - And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm. - - X. - - What is't to me, - Who never sail in her unfaithful sea, - If storms arise, and clouds grow black, - If the mast split, and threaten wreck? - Then let the greedy merchant fear - For his ill-gotten gain; - And pray to gods that will not hear, - While the debating winds and billows bear - His wealth into the main. - For me, secure from fortune's blows, - Secure of what I cannot lose, - In my small pinnace I can sail, - Contemning all the blustering roar; - And running with a merry gale, - With friendly stars my safety seek, - Within some little winding creek, - And see the storm ashore. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[64] The poem seems to have been written during the political -conflicts in the city of London. - - - - -THE SECOND EPODE OF HORACE. - - - How happy in his low degree, - How rich in humble poverty, is he, - Who leads a quiet country life, - Discharged of business, void of strife, - And from the griping scrivener free? - Thus, ere the seeds of vice were sown, - Lived men in better ages born, - Who ploughed, with oxen of their own, - Their small paternal field of corn. - Nor trumpets summon him to war, - Nor drums disturb his morning sleep, - Nor knows he merchants' gainful care, - Nor fears the dangers of the deep. - The clamours of contentious law, - And court and state, he wisely shuns, - Nor bribed with hopes, nor dared with awe, - To servile salutations runs; - But either to the clasping vine - Does the supporting poplar wed, - Or with his pruning-hook disjoin - Unbearing branches from their head, - And grafts more happy in their stead: - Or, climbing to a hilly steep, - He views his herds in vales afar, - Or sheers his overburthened sheep, - Or mead for cooling drink prepares, - Or virgin honey in the jars. - Or in the now declining year, - When bounteous autumn rears his head, - He joys to pull the ripened pear, - And clustering grapes with purple spread. - The fairest of his fruit he serves, - Priapus, thy rewards: - Sylvanus too his part deserves, - Whose care the fences guards. - Sometimes beneath an ancient oak, - Or on the matted grass he lies; - No god of sleep he need invoke; - The stream, that o'er the pebbles flies, - With gentle slumber crowns his eyes. - The wind, that whistles through the sprays, - Maintains the concert of the song; - And hidden birds, with native lays, - The golden sleep prolong. - But when the blast of winter blows, - And hoary frost inverts the year, - Into the naked woods he goes, - And seeks the tusky boar to rear, - With well-mouthed hounds and pointed spear: - Or spreads his subtle nets from sight - With twinkling glasses, to betray - The larks that in the meshes light, - Or makes the fearful hare his prey. - Amidst his harmless easy joys - No anxious care invades his health, - Nor love his peace of mind destroys, - Nor wicked avarice of wealth. - But if a chaste and pleasing wife, - To ease the business of his life, - Divides with him his household care, - Such as the Sabine matrons were, - Such as the swift Apulian's bride, - Sun-burnt and swarthy though she be, - Will fire for winter nights provide, - And without noise will oversee - His children and his family, - And order all things till he come, - Sweaty and overlaboured, home; - If she in pens his flocks will fold, - And then produce her dairy store, - With wine to drive away the cold, - And unbought dainties of the poor; - Not oysters of the Lucrine lake - My sober appetite would wish, - Nor turbot, or the foreign fish - That rolling tempests overtake, - And hither waft the costly dish. - Not heath-pout, or the rarer bird, - Which Phasis or Ionia yields, - More pleasing morsels would afford - Than the fat olives of my fields; - Than shards or mallows for the pot, - That keep the loosened body sound, - Or than the lamb, that falls by lot - To the just guardian of my ground. - Amidst these feasts of happy swains, - The jolly shepherd smiles to see - His flock returning from the plains; - The farmer is as pleased as he, - To view his oxen sweating smoke, - Hear on their necks the loosened yoke; - To look upon his menial crew, - That sit around his cheerful hearth, - And bodies spent in toil renew - With wholesome food and country mirth.-- - - This Morecraft said within himself: - Resolved to leave the wicked town, - And live retired upon his own, - He called his money in: - But the prevailing love of pelf - Soon split him on the former shelf,-- - He put it out again. - - - - -TRANSLATIONS - -FROM - -HOMER. - - - - -THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIAD. - - -THE ARGUMENT. - - _Chryses, priest of Apollo, brings presents to the Grecian princes, - to ransom his daughter Chryseis, who was prisoner in the fleet. - Agamemnon, the general, whose captive and mistress the young lady was, - refuses to deliver her, threatens the venerable old man, and dismisses - him with contumely. The priest craves vengeance of his God, who sends - a plague among the Greeks; which occasions Achilles, their great - champion, to summon a council of the chief officers: he encourages - Calchas, the high priest and prophet, to tell the reason, why the Gods - were so much incensed against them. Calchas is fearful of provoking - Agamemnon, till Achilles engages to protect him: then, emboldened by - the hero, he accuses the general as the cause of all, by detaining the - fair captive, and refusing the presents offered for her ransom. By - this proceeding, Agamemnon is obliged, against his will, to restore - Chryseis, with gifts, that he might appease the wrath of Phœbus; - but, at the same time, to revenge himself on Achilles, sends to seize - his slave Briseis. Achilles, thus affronted, complains to his mother - Thetis; and begs her to revenge his injury, not only on the general, - but on all the army, by giving victory to the Trojans, till the - ungrateful king became sensible of his injustice. At the same time, he - retires from the camp into his ships, and withdraws his aid from his - countrymen. Thetis prefers her son's petition to Jupiter, who grants - her suit. Juno suspects her errand, and quarrels with her husband for - his grant; till Vulcan reconciles his parents with a bowl of nectar, - and sends them peaceably to bed._ - - The wrath of Peleus' son, O muse, resound, - Whose dire effects the Grecian army found, - And many a hero, king, and hardy knight, - Were sent, in early youth, to shades of night: - Their limbs a prey to dogs and vultures made; - So was the sovereign will of Jove obeyed: - From that ill-omened hour when strife begun, - Betwixt Atrides great, and Thetis' godlike son. - What power provoked, and for what cause, relate, - Sowed in their breasts the seeds of stern debate: - Jove's and Latona's son his wrath expressed, - In vengeance of his violated priest, - Against the king of men; who, swoln with pride, - Refused his presents, and his prayers denied. - For this the God a swift contagion spread - Amid the camp, where heaps on heaps lay dead. - For venerable Chryses came to buy, - With gold and gifts of price, his daughter's liberty. - Suppliant before the Grecian chiefs he stood, - Awful, and armed with ensigns of his God: - Bare was his hoary head; one holy hand - Held forth his laurel crown, and one his sceptre of command. - His suit was common; but above the rest, - To both the brother-princes thus addressed:-- - Ye sons of Atreus, and ye Grecian powers, - So may the Gods, who dwell in heavenly bowers, - Succeed your siege, accord the vows you make, - And give you Troy's imperial town to take; - So, by their happy conduct, may you come - With conquest back to your sweet native home; - As you receive the ransom which I bring, - Respecting Jove, and the far-shooting king, - And break my daughter's bonds, at my desire, - And glad with her return her grieving sire.-- - With shouts of loud acclaim the Greeks decree - To take the gifts, to set the damsel free. - The king of men alone with fury burned, - And haughty, these opprobrious words returned:-- - Hence, holy dotard! and avoid my sight, - Ere evil intercept thy tardy flight; - Nor dare to tread this interdicted strand, } - Lest not that idle sceptre in thy hand, } - Nor thy god's crown, my vowed revenge withstand. } - Hence, on thy life! the captive maid is mine, - Whom not for price or prayers I will resign; - Mine she shall be, till creeping age and time - Her bloom have withered, and consumed her prime. - Till then my royal bed she shall attend, - And, having first adorned it, late ascend; - This, for the night; by day, the web and loom, } - And homely household-task, shall be her doom, } - Far from thy loved embrace, and her sweet native home.-- } - He said: the helpless priest replied no more, - But sped his steps along the hoarse-resounding shore. - Silent he fled; secure at length he stood, - Devoutly cursed his foes, and thus invoked his God:-- - O source of sacred light, attend my prayer, - God with the silver bow, and golden hair, - Whom Chrysa, Cilla, Tenedos obeys, - And whose broad eye their happy soil surveys! - If, Smintheus, I have poured before thy shrine - The blood of oxen, goats, and ruddy wine, - And larded thighs on loaded altars laid, - Hear, and my just revenge propitious aid! - Pierce the proud Greeks, and with thy shafts attest - How much thy power is injured in thy priest.-- - He prayed; and Phœbus, hearing, urged his flight, - With fury kindled, from Olympus' height; - His quiver o'er his ample shoulders threw, - His bow twanged, and his arrows rattled as they flew. - Black as a stormy night, he ranged around - The tents, and compassed the devoted ground; - Then with full force his deadly bow he bent, - And feathered fates among the mules and sumpters sent, - The essay of rage; on faithful dogs the next; - And last, in human hearts his arrows fixed. - The God nine days the Greeks at rovers killed, - Nine days the camp with funeral fires was filled; - The tenth, Achilles, by the queen's command, - Who bears heaven's awful sceptre in her hand, - A council summoned; for the goddess grieved - Her favoured host should perish unrelieved. - The kings, assembled, soon their chief inclose; - Then from his seat the goddess-born arose, - And thus undaunted spoke:--What now remains, - But that once more we tempt the watery plains, - And, wandering homeward, seek our safety hence, - In flight at least, if we can find defence? - Such woes at once encompass us about, - The plague within the camp, the sword without. - Consult, O king, the prophets of the event; } - And whence these ills, and what the God's intent, } - Let them by dreams explore, for dreams from Jove are sent. } - What want of offered victims, what offence - In fact committed could the Sun incense, - To deal his deadly shafts? What may remove - His settled hate, and reconcile his love? - That he may look propitious on our toils, - And hungry graves no more be glutted with our spoils. - Thus to the king of men the hero spoke, - Then Calchas the desired occasion took; - Calchas, the sacred seer, who had in view - Things present and the past, and things to come foreknew; - Supreme of augurs, who, by Phœbus taught, - The Grecian powers to Troy's destruction brought. - Skilled in the secret causes of their woes, - The reverend priest in graceful act arose, - And thus bespoke Pelides:--Care of Jove, - Favoured of all the immortal powers above, - Wouldst thou the seeds deep sown of mischief know, - And why, provoked, Apollo bends his bow, - Plight first thy faith, inviolably true, - To save me from those ills that may ensue. - For I shall tell ungrateful truths to those, - Whose boundless powers of life and death dispose; - And sovereigns, ever jealous of their state, - Forgive not those whom once they mark for hate: - Even though the offence they seemingly digest, - Revenge, like embers raked within their breast, - Bursts forth in flames, whose unresisted power - Will seize the unwary wretch, and soon devour. - Such, and no less, is he, on whom depends - The sum of things, and whom my tongue of force offends. - Secure me then from his foreseen intent, - That what his wrath may doom, thy valour may prevent.-- - To this the stern Achilles made reply:-- - Be bold, (and on my plighted faith rely,) - To speak what Phœbus has inspired thy soul - For common good, and speak without controul. - His godhead I invoke; by him I swear, - That while my nostrils draw this vital air, - None shall presume to violate those bands, } - Or touch thy person with unhallowed hands; } - Even not the king of men, that all commands. } - At this, resuming heart, the prophet said:-- - Nor hecatomb unslain, nor vows unpaid, - On Greeks accursed this dire contagion bring; - Or call for vengeance from the bowyer king; - But he the tyrant, whom none dares resist, - Affronts the godhead in his injured priest; - He keeps the damsel captive in his chain, - And presents are refused, and prayers preferred in vain. - For this the avenging power employs his darts, - And empties all his quiver in our hearts; - Thus will persist, relentless in his ire, - Till the fair slave be rendered to her sire, - And ransom-free restored to his abode, - With sacrifice to reconcile the God; - Then he, perhaps, atoned by prayer, may cease - His vengeance justly vowed, and give the peace.-- - Thus having said, he sate:--Thus answered then, - Upstarting from his throne, the king of men, - His breast with fury filled, his eyes with fire, - Which rolling round, he shot in sparkles on the sire: - Augur of ill, whose tongue was never found - Without a priestly curse, or boding sound! - For not one blessed event foretold to me - Passed through that mouth, or passed unwillingly; - And now thou dost with lies the throne invade, - By practice hardened in thy slandering trade; - Obtending heaven, for whate'er ills befall, - And sputtering under specious names thy gall. - Now Phœbus is provoked, his rites and laws - Are in his priest profaned, and I the cause; - Since I detain a slave, my sovereign prize, - And sacred gold, your idol-god, despise. - I love her well; and well her merits claim, - To stand preferred before my Grecian dame: - Not Clytemnestra's self in beauty's bloom - More charmed, or better plied the various loom: - Mine is the maid, and brought in happy hour, - With every household-grace adorned, to bless my nuptial bower. - Yet shall she be restored, since public good } - For private interest ought not to be withstood, } - To save the effusion of my people's blood. } - But right requires, if I resign my own, - I should not suffer for your sakes alone; - Alone excluded from the prize I gained, - And by your common suffrage have obtained. - The slave without a ransom shall be sent, - It rests for you to make the equivalent. - To this the fierce Thessalian prince replied:-- - O first in power, but passing all in pride, - Griping, and still tenacious of thy hold, - Would'st thou the Grecian chiefs, though largely souled, - Should give the prizes they had gained before, - And with their loss thy sacrilege restore? - Whate'er by force of arms the soldier got, - Is each his own, by dividend of lot; - Which to resume were both unjust and base, - Not to be borne but by a servile race. - But this we can; if Saturn's son bestows - The sack of Troy, which he by promise owes, - Then shall the conquering Greeks thy loss restore, - And with large interest make the advantage more. - To this Atrides answered:--Though thy boast - Assumes the foremost name of all our host, - Pretend not, mighty man, that what is mine, - Controuled by thee, I tamely should resign. - Shall I release the prize I gained by right, - In taken towns, and many a bloody fight, - While thou detain'st Briseis in thy bands, - By priestly glossing on the God's commands? - Resolve on this, (a short alternative,) - Quit mine, or, in exchange, another give; - Else I, assure thy soul, by sovereign right - Will seize thy captive in thy own despite; - Or from stout Ajax, or Ulysses, bear - What other prize my fancy shall prefer: - Then softly murmur, or aloud complain, - Rage as you please, you shall resist in vain. - But more of this, in proper time and place; - To things of greater moment let us pass. - A ship to sail the sacred seas prepare, } - Proud in her trim, and put on board the fair, } - With sacrifice and gifts, and all the pomp of prayer. } - The crew well chosen, the command shall be } - In Ajax; or if other I decree, } - In Creta's king, or Ithacus, or, if I please, in thee: } - Most fit thyself to see performed the intent, } - For which my prisoner from my sight is sent, } - (Thanks to thy pious care,) that Phœbus may relent. } - At this Achilles rolled his furious eyes, - Fixed on the king askant, and thus replies:-- - O, impudent, regardful of thy own, - Whose thoughts are centered on thyself alone, - Advanced to sovereign sway for better ends - Than thus like abject slaves to treat thy friends! - What Greek is he, that, urged by thy command, - Against the Trojan troops will lift his hand? - Not I; nor such enforced respect I owe, - Nor Pergamus I hate, nor Priam is my foe. - What wrong from Troy remote could I sustain, } - To leave my fruitful soil and happy reign, } - And plough the surges of the stormy main? } - Thee, frontless man, we followed from afar, - Thy instruments of death, and tools of war. - Thine is the triumph; ours the toil alone; - We bear thee on our backs, and mount thee on the throne. - For thee we fall in fight; for thee redress - Thy baffled[65] brother,--not the wrongs of Greece. - And now thou threaten'st, with unjust decree, - To punish thy affronting heaven on me; - To seize the prize which I so dearly bought, - By common suffrage given, confirmed by lot. - Mean match to thine; for, still above the rest, - Thy hooked rapacious hands usurp the best; - Though mine are first in fight, to force the prey, - And last sustain the labours of the day. - Nor grudge I thee the much the Grecians give, - Nor murmuring take the little I receive; - Yet even this little, thou, who wouldst ingross - The whole, insatiate, enviest as thy loss. - Know, then, for Phthia fixed is my return; } - Better at home my ill-paid pains to mourn, } - Than from an equal here sustain the public scorn. } - The king, whose brows with shining gold were bound, - Who saw his throne with sceptered slaves encompassed round, - Thus answered stern:--Go, at thy pleasure, go; - We need not such a friend, nor fear we such a foe. - There will not want to follow me in fight; - Jove will assist, and Jove assert my right: - But thou of all the kings (his care below) - Art least at my command, and most my foe. - Debates, dissensions, uproars are thy joy; - Provoked without offence, and practised to destroy. - Strength is of brutes, and not thy boast alone; - At least 'tis lent from heaven, and not thy own. - Fly then, ill-mannered, to thy native land, - And there thy ant-born Myrmidons command. - - But mark this menace; since I must resign - My black-eyed maid, to please the Powers divine; - A well-rigged vessel in the port attends, - Manned at my charge, commanded by my friends; - The ship shall waft her to her wished abode, - Full fraught with holy bribes to the far-shooting God. - This thus dispatched, I owe myself the care, - My fame and injured honour to repair; - From thy own tent, proud man, in thy despite, - This hand shall ravish thy pretended right. - Briseis shall be mine, and thou shalt see } - What odds of awful power I have on thee, } - That others at thy cost may learn the difference of degree.-- } - At this the impatient hero sourly smiled; - His heart impetuous in his bosom boiled, - And, jostled by two tides of equal sway, - Stood for a while suspended in his way. - Betwixt his reason and his rage untamed, - One whispered soft, and one aloud reclaimed; - That only counselled to the safer side, - This to the sword his ready hand applied. - Unpunished to support the affront was hard, - Nor easy was the attempt to force the guard; - But soon the thirst of vengeance fired his blood, - Half shone his faulchion, and half sheathed it stood. - In that nice moment, Pallas, from above, - Commissioned by the imperial wife of Jove, - Descended swift; (the white-armed Queen was loath - The fight should follow, for she favoured both;) - Just as in act he stood, in clouds enshrined, - Her hand she fastened on his hair behind; - Then backward by his yellow curls she drew; - To him, and him alone, confessed in view. - Tamed by superior force, he turned his eyes, - Aghast at first, and stupid with surprise; - But by her sparkling eyes, and ardent look, - The virgin-warrior known, he thus bespoke. - Com'st thou, Celestial, to behold my wrongs? - To view the vengeance which to crimes belongs? - Thus he.--The blue-eyed Goddess thus rejoined: - I come to calm thy turbulence of mind, - If reason will resume her sovereign sway, - And, sent by Juno, her commands obey. - Equal she loves you both, and I protect; - Then give thy guardian Gods their due respect, - And cease contention; be thy words severe, - Sharp as he merits; but the sword forbear. - An hour unhoped already wings her way, - When he his dire affront shall dearly pay; - When the proud king shall sue, with treble gain, - To quit thy loss, and conquer thy disdain. - But thou, secure of my unfailing word, - Compose thy swelling soul, and sheath the sword.-- - The youth thus answered mild:--Auspicious maid, - Heaven's will be mine, and your commands obeyed. - The Gods are just, and when, subduing sense, - We serve their Powers, provide the recompence.-- - He said; with surly faith believed her word, - And in the sheath, reluctant, plunged the sword. - Her message done, she mounts the blessed abodes, - And mixed among the senate of the Gods. - At her departure his disdain returned; - The fire she fanned with greater fury burned, - Rumbling within till thus it found a vent:-- - Dastard and drunkard, mean and insolent! - Tongue-valiant hero, vaunter of thy might, - In threats the foremost, but the lag in fight! - When didst thou thrust amid the mingled preace, - Content to bide the war aloof in peace? - Arms are the trade of each plebeian soul; - 'Tis death to fight, but kingly to controul; - Lord-like at ease, with arbitrary power, - To peel the chiefs, the people to devour. - These, traitor, are thy talents; safer far - Than to contend in fields, and toils of war. - Nor couldst thou thus have dared the common hate, - Were not their souls as abject as their state. - But, by this sceptre solemnly I swear, - (Which never more green leaf or growing branch shall bear; - Torn from the tree, and given by Jove to those - Who laws dispense, and mighty wrongs oppose,) - That when the Grecians want my wonted aid, - No gift shall bribe it, and no prayer persuade. - When Hector comes, the homicide, to wield - His conquering arms, with corpse to strew the field, - Then shalt thou mourn thy pride, and late confess - My wrong, repented when 'tis past redress.-- - He said; and with disdain, in open view, - Against the ground his golden sceptre threw, - Then sate; with boiling rage Atrides burned, - And foam betwixt his gnashing grinders churned. - But from his seat the Pylian prince arose, - With reasoning mild, their madness to compose; - Words, sweet as honey, from his mouth distilled; - Two centuries already he fulfilled, - And now began the third; unbroken yet, - Once famed for courage, still in council great. - What worse, he said, can Argos undergo, - What can more gratify the Phrygian foe, - Than these distempered heats, if both the lights - Of Greece their private interest disunites? - Believe a friend, with thrice your years increased, - And let these youthful passions be repressed. - I flourished long before your birth; and then } - Lived equal with a race of braver men, } - Than these dim eyes shall e'er behold again. } - Ceneus and Dryas, and, excelling them, - Great Theseus, and the force of greater Polypheme. - With these I went, a brother of the war, - Their dangers to divide, their fame to share; - Nor idle stood with unassisting hands, - When savage beasts, and men's more savage bands, - Their virtuous toil subdued: yet those I swayed, - With powerful speech; I spoke, and they obeyed. - If such as those my counsels could reclaim, - Think not, young warriors, your diminished name - Shall lose of lustre, by subjecting rage - To the cool dictates of experienced age. - Thou, king of men, stretch not thy sovereign sway - Beyond the bounds free subjects can obey; - But let Pelides in his prize rejoice, - Atchieved in arms, allowed by public voice. - Nor thou, brave champion, with his power contend, - Before whose throne even kings their lowered sceptres bend; - The head of action he, and thou the hand, - Matchless thy force, but mightier his command. - Thou first, O king, release the rights of sway; - Power, self-restrained, the people best obey. - Sanctions of law from thee derive their source; - Command thyself, whom no commands can force. - The son of Thetis, rampire of our host, - Is worth our care to keep, nor shall my prayers be lost. - Thus Nestor said, and ceased.--Atrides broke - His silence next, but pondered ere he spoke:-- - Wise are thy words, and glad I would obey, - But this proud man affects imperial sway, - Controuling kings, and trampling on our state; - His will is law, and what he wills is fate. - The Gods have given him strength; but whence the style - Of lawless power assumed, or licence to revile? - Achilles cut him short, and thus replied:-- - My worth, allowed in words, is, in effect, denied; - For who but a poltroon, possessed with fear, - Such haughty insolence can tamely bear? - Command thy slaves; my freeborn soul disdains - A tyrant's curb, and, restiff, breaks the reins. - Take this along, that no dispute shall rise - (Though mine the woman) for my ravished prize; - But, she excepted, as unworthy strife, - Dare not, I charge thee dare not, on thy life, - Touch aught of mine beside, by lot my due, - But stand aloof, and think profane to view; - This faulchion else, not hitherto withstood, - These hostile fields shall fatten with thy blood.-- - He said, and rose the first; the council broke, - And all their grave consults dissolved in smoke. - The royal youth retired, on vengeance bent; - Patroclus followed silent to his tent. - Meantime, the king with gifts a vessel stores, - Supplies the banks with twenty chosen oars; - And next, to reconcile the shooter God, - Within her hollow sides the sacrifice he stowed; - Chryseis last was set on board, whose hand } - Ulysses took, entrusted with command; } - They plow the liquid seas, and leave the lessening land. } - Atrides then, his outward zeal to boast, - Bade purify the sin-polluted host. - With perfect hecatombs the God they graced, - Whose offered entrails in the main were cast; - Black bulls and bearded goats on altars lie, - And clouds of savoury stench involve the sky. - These pomps the royal hypocrite designed - For show, but harboured vengeance in his mind; - Till holy malice, longing for a vent, - At length discovered his concealed intent, - Talthybius, and Eurybates the just, - Heralds of arms, and ministers of trust, - He called, and thus bespoke:--Haste hence your way, - And from the Goddess-born demand his prey. - If yielded, bring the captive; if denied, - The king (so tell him) shall chastise his pride; - And with armed multitudes in person come - To vindicate his power, and justify his doom.-- - This hard command unwilling they obey, } - And o'er the barren shore pursue their way, } - Where quartered in their camp the fierce Thessalians lay.} - Their sovereign seated on his chair they find, } - His pensive cheek upon his hand reclined, } - And anxious thoughts revolving in his mind. } - With gloomy looks he saw them entering in } - Without salute; nor durst they first begin, } - Fearful of rash offence and death foreseen. } - He soon, the cause divining, cleared his brow, - And thus did liberty of speech allow: - Interpreters of Gods and men, be bold; - Awful your character, and uncontrouled: - Howe'er unpleasing be the news you bring, - I blame not you, but your imperious king. - You come, I know, my captive to demand; - Patroclus, give her to the herald's hand. - But you authentic witnesses I bring - Before the Gods, and your ungrateful king, - Of this my manifest, that never more - This hand shall combat on the crooked shore: - No; let the Grecian powers, oppressed in fight, - Unpitied perish in their tyrant's sight. - Blind of the future, and by rage misled, - He pulls his crimes upon his people's head; - Forced from the field in trenches to contend, - And his insulted camp from foes defend.-- - He said, and soon, obeying his intent, - Patroclus brought Briseis from her tent, - Then to the entrusted messengers resigned: - She wept, and often cast her eyes behind. - Forced from the man she loved, they led her thence, - Along the shore, a prisoner to their prince. - Sole on the barren sands the suffering chief - Roared out for anguish, and indulged his grief; - Cast on his kindred seas a stormy look, - And his upbraided mother thus bespoke: - Unhappy parent of a short-lived son,-- - Since Jove in pity by thy prayers was won - To grace my small remains of breath with fame, - Why loads he this embittered life with shame, - Suffering his king of men to force my slave, - Whom, well deserved in war, the Grecians gave?-- - Set by old Ocean's side the Goddess heard, - Then from the sacred deep her head she reared; - Rose like a morning mist, and thus begun - To sooth the sorrows of her plaintive son:-- - Why cries my care, and why conceals his smart? - Let thy afflicted parent share her part.-- - Then, sighing from the bottom of his breast, - To the Sea-Goddess thus the Goddess-born addressed: - Thou know'st my pain, which telling but recals; - By force of arms we razed the Theban walls; - The ransacked city, taken by our toils, - We left, and hither brought the golden spoils: - Equal we shared them; but before the rest, - The proud prerogative had seized the best. - Chryseis was the greedy tyrant's prize, - Chryseis, rosy-cheeked, with charming eyes. - Her sire, Apollo's priest, arrived to buy, - With proffered gifts of price, his daughter's liberty. - Suppliant before the Grecian chiefs he stood, - Awful, and armed with ensigns of his God; - Bare was his hoary head; one holy hand - Held forth his laurel-crown, and one his sceptre of command. - His suit was common, but, above the rest, - To both the brother-princes was addressed. - With shouts of loud acclaim the Greeks agree - To take the gifts, to set the prisoner free. - Not so the tyrant, who with scorn the priest - Received, and with opprobrious words dismissed. - The good old man, forlorn of human aid, - For vengeance to his heavenly patron prayed: - The Godhead gave a favourable ear, - And granted all to him he held so dear; - In an ill hour his piercing shafts he sped, - And heaps on heaps of slaughtered Greeks lay dead, - While round the camp he ranged: at length arose - A seer, who well divined, and durst disclose - The source of all our ills: I took the word; - And urged the sacred slave to be restored, - The God appeased: the swelling monarch stormed, - And then the vengeance vowed he since performed. - The Greeks, 'tis true, their ruin, to prevent, - Have to the royal priest his daughter sent; - But from their haughty king his heralds came, - And seized, by his command, my captive dame, - By common suffrage given;--but thou be won, - If in thy power, to avenge thy injured son! - Ascend the skies, and supplicating move - Thy just complaint to cloud-compelling Jove. - If thou by either word or deed hast wrought - A kind remembrance in his grateful thought, - Urge him by that; for often hast thou said - Thy power was once not useless in his aid, - When he, who high above the highest reigns, - Surprised by traitor Gods, was bound in chains; - When Juno, Pallas, with ambition fired, - And his blue brother of the seas conspired, - Thou freed'st the sovereign from unworthy bands, - Thou brought'st Briareus with his hundred hands, - (So called in heaven, but mortal men below - By his terrestrial name, Ægeon, know; - Twice stronger than his sire, who sate above - Assessor to the throne of thundering Jove.) - The Gods, dismayed at his approach, withdrew, - Nor durst their unaccomplished crime pursue. - That action to his grateful mind recal, - Embrace his knees, and at his footstool fall; - That now, if ever, he will aid our foes; - Let Troy's triumphant troops the camp inclose; - Ours, beaten to the shore, the siege forsake, - And what their king deserves, with him partake; - That the proud tyrant, at his proper cost, - May learn the value of the man he lost.-- - To whom the Mother-goddess thus replied, - Sighed ere she spoke, and while she spoke she cried,-- - Ah wretched me! by fates averse decreed - To bring thee forth with pain, with care to breed! - Did envious heaven not otherwise ordain, } - Safe in thy hollow ships thou should'st remain, } - Nor ever tempt the fatal field again; } - But now thy planet sheds his poisonous rays, - And short and full of sorrow are thy days. - For what remains, to heaven I will ascend, - And at the Thunderer's throne thy suit commend. - Till then, secure in ships, abstain from fight; - Indulge thy grief in tears, and vent thy spite. - For yesterday the court of heaven with Jove - Removed; 'tis dead vacation now above. - Twelve days the Gods their solemn revels keep, - And quaff with blameless Ethiops in the deep. - Returned from thence, to heaven my flight I take, - Knock at the brazen gates, and Providence awake; - Embrace his knees, and suppliant to the sire, - Doubt not I will obtain the grant of thy desire.-- - She said, and, parting, left him on the place, - Swoln with disdain, resenting his disgrace: - Revengeful thoughts revolving in his mind, - He wept for anger, and for love he pined. - Meantime, with prosperous gales Ulysses brought - The slave, and ship, with sacrifices fraught, - To Chrysa's port; where, entering with the tide, - He dropped his anchors, and his oars he plyed, - Furled every sail, and, drawing down the mast, - His vessel moored, and made with haulsers fast. - Descending on the plain, ashore they bring - The hecatomb to please the shooter king. - The dame before an altar's holy fire - Ulysses led, and thus bespoke her sire: - Reverenced be thou, and be thy God adored! - The king of men thy daughter has restored, - And sent by me with presents and with prayer. - He recommends him to thy pious care, - That Phœbus at thy suit his wrath may cease, - And give the penitent offenders peace.-- - He said; and gave her to her father's hands, - Who glad received her, free from servile bands. - This done, in order they, with sober grace, - Their gifts around the well-built altar place. - Then washed, and took the cakes, while Chryses stood - With hands upheld, and thus invoked his God. - God of the silver bow, whose eyes survey } - The sacred Cilla! thou, whose awful sway } - Chrysa the blessed, and Tenedos obey! } - Now hear, as thou before my prayer hast heard, - Against the Grecians, and their prince, preferred. - Once thou hast honoured, honour once again - Thy priest, nor let his second vows be vain; - But from the afflicted host and humbled prince - Avert thy wrath, and cease thy pestilence!-- - Apollo heard, and, conquering his disdain, - Unbent his bow, and Greece respired again. - Now when the solemn rites of prayer were past, - Their salted cakes on crackling flames they cast; - Then, turning back, the sacrifice they sped, - The fatted oxen slew, and flayed the dead; - Chopped off their nervous thighs, and next prepared - To involve the lean in cauls, and mend with lard. - Sweet-breads and collops were with skewers pricked - About the sides, imbibing what they decked. - The priest with holy hands was seen to tine - The cloven wood, and pour the ruddy wine. - The youth approached the fire, and, as it burned, - On five sharp broachers ranked, the roast they turned; - These morsels stayed their stomachs, then the rest - They cut in legs and fillets for the feast; - Which drawn and served, their hunger they appease - With savoury meat, and set their minds at ease. - Now when the rage of eating was repelled, - The boys with generous wine the goblets filled: - The first libations to the gods they pour, - And then with songs indulge the genial hour. - Holy debauch! Till day to night they bring, - With hymns and pæans to the bowyer king. - At sun-set to their ship they make return, - And snore secure on decks till rosy morn. - The skies with dawning day were purpled o'er; - Awaked, with labouring oars they leave the shore; - The Power appeased, with wind sufficed the sail, - The bellying canvas strutted with the gale; - The waves indignant roar with surly pride, - And press against the sides, and, beaten off, divide. - They cut the foamy way, with force impelled - Superior, till the Trojan port they held; - Then, hauling on the strand, their galley moor, - And pitch their tents along the crooked shore. - Meantime the goddess-born in secret pined, - Nor visited the camp, nor in the council joined; - But, keeping close, his gnawing heart he fed - With hopes of vengeance on the tyrant's head; - And wished for bloody wars and mortal wounds, - And of the Greeks oppressed in fight to hear the dying sounds. - Now when twelve days complete had run their race, - The gods bethought them of the cares belonging to their place. - Jove at their head ascending from the sea, - A shoal of puny Powers attend his way. - Then Thetis, not unmindful of her son, - Emerging from the deep to beg her boon, - Pursued their track, and wakened from his rest, - Before the sovereign stood, a morning guest. - Him in the circle, but apart, she found; - The rest at awful distance stood around. - She bowed, and, ere she durst her suit begin, - One hand embraced his knees, one prop'd his chin; - Then thus.--If I, celestial sire, in aught - Have served thy will, or gratified thy thought, - One glimpse of glory to my issue give, - Graced for the little time he has to live! - Dishonoured by the king of men he stands; - His rightful prize is ravished from his hands. - But thou, O father, in my son's defence, - Assume thy power, assert thy providence. - Let Troy prevail, till Greece the affront has paid - With doubled honours, and redeemed his aid.-- - She ceased; but the considering God was mute, - Till she, resolved to win, renewed her suit, - Nor loosed her hold, but forced him to reply:-- - Or grant me my petition, or deny; - Jove cannot fear; then tell me to my face - That I, of all the gods, am least in grace. - This I can bear.--The cloud-compeller mourned, - And, sighing first, this answer he returned. - Know'st thou what clamours will disturb my reign, - What my stunned ears from Juno must sustain? - In council she gives licence to her tongue, - Loquacious, brawling, ever in the wrong; - And now she will my partial power upbraid, - If, alienate from Greece, I give the Trojans aid. - But thou depart, and shun her jealous sight, - The care be mine to do Pelides right. - Go then, and on the faith of Jove rely, - When, nodding to thy suit, he bows the sky. - This ratifies the irrevocable doom; - The sign ordained, that what I will shall come; - The stamp of heaven, and seal of fate.--He said, - And shook the sacred honours of his head: - With terror trembled heaven's subsiding hill, - And from his shaken curls ambrosial dews distil. - The Goddess goes exulting from his sight, - And seeks the seas profound, and leaves the realms of light. - He moves into his hall; the Powers resort, - Each from his house, to fill the sovereign's court; - Nor waiting summons, nor expecting stood, - But met with reverence, and received the God. - He mounts the throne; and Juno took her place, - But sullen discontent sate lowering on her face. - With jealous eyes, at distance she had seen, - Whispering with Jove, the silver-footed queen; - Then, impotent of tongue, her silence broke, - Thus turbulent, in rattling tone, she spoke. - Author of ills, and close contriver Jove, - Which of thy dames, what prostitute of love, - Has held thy ear so long, and begged so hard, - For some old service done, some new reward? - Apart you talked, for that's your special care; - The consort never must the council share. - One gracious word is for a wife too much; - Such is a marriage vow, and Jove's own faith is such. - Then thus the sire of Gods, and men below:-- - What I have hidden, hope not thou to know. - Even goddesses are women; and no wife - Has power to regulate her husband's life. - Counsel she may; and I will give thy ear - The knowledge first of what is fit to hear. - What I transact with others, or alone, - Beware to learn, nor press too near the throne. - To whom the Goddess, with the charming eyes:-- - What hast thou said, O tyrant of the skies! - When did I search the secrets of thy reign, - Though privileged to know, but privileged in vain? - But well thou dost, to hide from common sight - Thy close intrigues, too bad to bear the light. - Nor doubt I, but the silver-footed dame, - Tripping from sea, on such an errand came, - To grace her issue at the Grecians' cost, - And, for one peevish man, destroy an host.-- - To whom the Thunderer made this stern reply:-- } - My household curse! my lawful plague! the spy } - Of Jove's designs! his other squinting eye! } - Why this vain prying, and for what avail? - Jove will be master still, and Juno fail. - Should thy suspicious thoughts divine aright, - Thou but becom'st more odious to my sight - For this attempt; uneasy life to me, - Still watched and importuned, but worse for thee. - Curb that impetuous tongue, before too late - The Gods behold, and tremble at thy fate; - Pitying, but daring not, in thy defence, - To lift a hand against Omnipotence.-- - This heard, the imperious queen sate mute with fear, - Nor further durst incense the gloomy Thunderer: - Silence was in the court at this rebuke; - Nor could the Gods abashed sustain their sovereign's look. - The limping Smith observed the saddened feast, - And, hopping here and there, himself a jest, - Put in his word, that neither might offend, - To Jove obsequious, yet his mother's friend.-- - What end in heaven will be of civil war, - If Gods of pleasure will for mortals jar? - Such discord but disturbs our jovial feast; - One grain of bad embitters all the best. - Mother, though wise yourself, my counsel weigh; - 'Tis much unsafe my sire to disobey; - Not only you provoke him to your cost, - But mirth is marred, and the good chear is lost. - Tempt not his heavy hand, for he has power - To throw you headlong from his heavenly tower; - But one submissive word, which you let fall, - Will make him in good humour with us all.-- - He said no more, but crowned a bowl unbid, - The laughing nectar overlooked the lid; - Then put it to her hand, and thus pursued: - This cursed quarrel be no more renewed: - Be, as becomes a wife, obedient still; - Though grieved, yet subject to her husband's will. - I would not see you beaten; yet afraid - Of Jove's superior force, I dare not aid. - Too well I know him, since that hapless hour - When I, and all the Gods, employed our power - To break your bonds; me by the heel he drew, - And o'er heaven's battlements with fury threw. - All day I fell; my flight at morn begun, - And ended not but with the setting sun. - Pitched on my head, at length the Lemnian ground - Received my battered skull, the Sinthians healed my wound.-- - At Vulcan's homely mirth his mother smiled, - And, smiling, took the cup the clown had filled. - The reconciler-bowl went round the board, - Which, emptied, the rude skinker still restored. - Loud fits of laughter seized the guests, to see - The limping God so deft[66] at his new ministry. - The feast continued till declining light; - They drank, they laughed, they loved, and then 'twas night. - Nor wanted tuneful harp, nor vocal quire, - The Muses sung, Apollo touched the lyre. - Drunken at last, and drowsy, they depart - Each to his house, adorned with laboured art - Of the lame architect. The thundering God, - Even he, withdrew to rest, and had his load; - His swimming head to needful sleep applied, - And Juno lay unheeded by his side. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[65] Baffled is here used for insulted. - -[66] Deft for dexterous. - - - - -THE LAST PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. - -FROM THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE ILIAD. - - -THE ARGUMENT. - - _Hector returning from the field of battle, to visit Helen, his - sister-in-law, and his brother Paris, who had fought unsuccessfully, - hand to hand with Menelaus, from thence goes to his own palace to see - his wife Andromache, and his infant son Astyanax. The description of - that interview is the subject of this translation._ - - - Thus having said, brave Hector went to see - His virtuous wife, the fair Andromache. - He found her not at home; for she was gone, } - Attended by her maid and infant son, } - To climb the steepy tower of Ilion; } - From whence, with heavy heart, she might survey - The bloody business of the dreadful day. - Her mournful eyes she cast around the plain, - And sought the lord of her desires in vain. - But he, who thought his peopled palace bare, - When she, his only comfort, was not there, - Stood in the gate, and asked of every one, - Which way she took, and whither she was gone; - If to the court, or with his mother's train, - In long procession to Minerva's fane? - The servants answered,--Neither to the court, - Where Priam's sons and daughters did resort; - Nor to the temple was she gone, to move - With prayers the blue-eyed progeny of Jove; - But more solicitous for him alone, - Than all their safety, to the tower was gone, - There to survey the labours of the field, - Where the Greeks conquer, and the Trojans yield; - Swiftly she passed, with fear and fury wild; - The nurse went lagging after with the child. - This heard, the noble Hector made no stay, - The admiring throng divide to give him way; - He passed through every street, by which he came, - And at the gate he met the mournful dame. - His wife beheld him; and, with eager pace, - Flew to his arms, to meet a dear embrace. - His wife, who brought in dower Cilicia's crown, - And in herself a greater dower alone; - Aetion's heir, who, on the woody plain - Of Hippoplacus, did in Thebé reign. - Breathless she flew, with joy and passion wild; - The nurse came lagging after with the child. - The royal babe upon her breast was laid, - Who, like the morning star, his beams displayed. - Scamandrius was his name, which Hector gave, - From that fair flood which Ilion's wall did lave; - But him Astyanax the Trojans call, - From his great father who defends the wall. - Hector beheld him with a silent smile, - His tender wife stood weeping by the while; - Pressed in her own, his warlike hand she took, - Then sighed, and thus prophetically spoke:-- - Thy dauntless heart, which I foresee too late, - Too daring man, will urge thee to thy fate. - Nor dost thou pity, with a parent's mind, - This helpless orphan, whom thou leav'st behind; - Nor me, the unhappy partner of thy bed, - Who must in triumph by the Greeks be led. - They seek thy life; and, in unequal fight - With many, will oppress thy single might. - Better it were for miserable me - To die, before the fate which I foresee; - For, ah! what comfort can the world bequeath - To Hector's widow, after Hector's death! - Eternal sorrow and perpetual tears - Began my youth, and will conclude my years; - I have no parents, friends, nor brothers left, - By stern Achilles all of life bereft. - Then, when the walls of Thebes he overthrew, - His fatal hand my royal father slew; - He slew Aetion, but despoiled him not, - Nor in his hate the funeral rites forgot; - Armed as he was he sent him whole below, - And reverenced thus the manes of his foe. - A tomb he raised; the mountain-nymphs around - Enclosed, with planted elms, the holy ground. - My seven brave brothers, in one fatal day, - To death's dark mansions took the mournful way; - Slain by the same Achilles, while they keep - The bellowing oxen, and the bleating sheep. - My mother, who the royal sceptre swayed, - Was captive to the cruel victor made, - And hither led; but, hence redeemed with gold, - Her native country did again behold, - And but beheld; for soon Diana's dart, - In an unhappy chace, transfixed her heart. - But thou, my Hector, art thyself alone - My parents, brothers, and my lord, in one. - O, kill not all my kindred o'er again, } - Nor tempt the dangers of the dusty plain } - But in this tower, for our defence, remain. } - Thy wife and son are in thy ruin lost; - This is a husband's and a father's post. - The Scæan gate commands the plains below; } - Here marshal all thy soldiers as they go; } - And hence, with other hands, repel the foe. } - By yon wild fig-tree lies their chief ascent, - And thither all their powers are daily bent. - The two Ajaces have I often seen, - And the wronged husband of the Spartan queen; - With him his greater brother; and, with these, - Fierce Diomede, and bold Meriones; - Uncertain if by augury, or chance, - But by this easy rise they all advance; - Guard well that pass, secure of all beside.-- - To whom the noble Hector thus replied: - That and the rest are in my daily care; - But, should I shun the dangers of the war, - With scorn the Trojans would reward my pains, - And their proud ladies, with their sweeping trains; - The Grecian swords and lances I can bear, - But loss of honour is my only fear. - Shall Hector, born to war, his birth-right yield, - Belie his courage, and forsake the field? - Early in rugged arms I took delight, - And still have been the foremost in the fight; - With dangers dearly have I bought renown, - And am the champion of my father's crown. - And yet my mind forebodes, with sure presage, - That Troy shall perish by the Grecian rage: - The fatal day draws on, when I must fall, - And universal ruin cover all. - Not Troy itself, though built by hands divine, - Nor Priam, nor his people, nor his line, - My mother, nor my brothers of renown, - Whose valour yet defends the unhappy town,-- - Not these, nor all their fates which I foresee, - Are half of that concern I have for thee. - I see, I see thee, in that fatal hour, - Subjected to the victor's cruel power; - Led hence a slave to some insulting sword, - Forlorn, and trembling at a foreign lord; - A spectacle in Argos, at the loom, - Gracing with Trojan fights, a Grecian room; - Or from deep wells the living stream to take, - And on thy weary shoulders bring it back. - While, groaning under this laborious life, - They insolently call thee Hector's wife; - Upbraid thy bondage with thy husband's name, - And from my glory propagate thy shame. - This when they say, thy sorrows will increase } - With anxious thoughts of former happiness; } - That he is dead who could thy wrongs redress. } - But I, oppressed with iron sleep before, - Shall hear thy unavailing cries no more.-- - He said; - Then, holding forth his arms, he took his boy, - The pledge of love and other hope of Troy. - The fearful infant turned his head away, - And on his nurse's neck reclining lay, - His unknown father shunning with affright, - And looking back on so uncouth a sight; - Daunted to see a face with steel o'erspread, - And his high plume that nodded o'er his head. - His sire and mother smiled with silent joy, - And Hector hastened to relieve his boy; - Dismissed his burnished helm, that shone afar, - The pride of warriors, and the pomp of war; - The illustrious babe, thus reconciled, he took, - Hugged in his arms, and kissed, and thus he spoke:-- - Parent of Gods and men, propitious Jove! - And you, bright synod of the powers above! - On this my son your gracious gifts bestow; - Grant him to live, and great in arms to grow, - To reign in Troy, to govern with renown, - To shield the people, and assert the crown; - That, when hereafter he from war shall come, - And bring his Trojans peace and triumph home, - Some aged man, who lives this act to see, - And who, in former times, remembered me, - May say, the son, in fortitude and fame, - Outgoes the mark, and drowns his father's name: - That, at these words, his mother may rejoice, - And add her suffrage to the public voice.-- - Thus having said; - He first, with suppliant hands, the Gods adored; - Then to the mother's arms the child restored. - With tears and smiles she took her son, and pressed - The illustrious infant to her fragrant breast. - He, wiping her fair eyes, indulged her grief, - And eased her sorrows with this last relief:-- - My wife and mistress, drive thy fears away, - Nor give so bad an omen to the day; - Think not it lies in any Grecian's power - To take my life, before the fatal hour. - When that arrives, nor good nor bad can fly - The irrevocable doom of destiny. - Return; and, to divert thy thoughts at home, } - There task thy maids, and exercise the loom, } - Employed in works that womankind become. } - The toils of war, and feats of chivalry - Belong to men; and, most of all, to me.-- - At this, for new replies he did not stay, - But laced his crested helm, and strode away. - His lovely consort to her house returned, - And, looking often back, in silence mourned. - Home when she came, her secret woe she vents, - And fills the palace with her loud laments; - Those loud laments her echoing maids restore, - And Hector, yet alive, as dead deplore. - - - END OF THE TWELFTH VOLUME. - - - EDINBURGH: - Printed by James Ballantyne & Co. - - - - -Transcriber's notes: - -Italic text marked as _ ... _ - -Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected, but other -variations in spelling and punctuation remain unchanged. - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of John Dryden, Now First -Collected in Eighteen Volumes; Vol., by John Dryden - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF JOHN DRYDEN *** - -***** This file should be named 54361-0.txt or 54361-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/3/6/54361/ - -Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Matthias Grammel and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. 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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes; Vol. 12 (of 18) - -Author: John Dryden - -Editor: Walter Scott - -Release Date: March 14, 2017 [EBook #54361] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF JOHN DRYDEN *** - - - - -Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Matthias Grammel and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_00a"></a></span></p> - -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_00b">[Pg b]</a></span></p> -<p class="pmb3" /> - -<h1> -THE<br /> -WORKS<br /> -OF<br /> -JOHN DRYDEN.</h1> - -<p class="pmb3" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_00c"></a></span></p> - -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_00d">[Pg d]</a></span></p> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="center font06 pmb1">THE</p> -<p class="center font18"><b>WORKS</b></p> -<p class="center font06 pmb1">OF</p> -<p class="center font14 pmb1">JOHN DRYDEN,</p> -<p class="center font06 pmb1">NOW FIRST COLLECTED</p> -<p class="center pmb1">IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES.</p> - -<hr class="r20" /> - -<p class="p1 center font06">ILLUSTRATED</p> -<p class="center font11 pmb1">WITH NOTES,</p> -<p class="center font075 pmb1">HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,</p> -<p class="center font06 pmb1">AND</p> -<p class="center font11 pmb1">A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,</p> -<p class="center font06 pmb1">BY</p> -<p class="center font12 pmb1">WALTER SCOTT, <span class="smcap">Esq.</span></p> - -<hr class="r20" /> - -<p class="p2 center font12 pmb2">VOL. XII.</p> - -<p class="center">LONDON:</p> -<p class="center font075">PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,</p> -<p class="center font06 pmb1">BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center font075 pmb3">1808.</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_00e">[Pg e]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2 class="no-break">CONTENTS<br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /> - -VOLUME TWELFTH.</h2> - - -<table border="0" class="tdl" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="table of contents"> - - <tr> <td colspan="3" align="right"><span class="font07">PAGE.</span></td> </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Appendix to the Fables,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_i">i</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Knightes Tale, by Chaucer,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_iii">iii</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Nonnes Preestes Tale,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_liii">liii</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Floure and the Leafe,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_lxviii">lxviii</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Wif of Bathes Tale,<br /><br /></td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_lxxxii">lxxxii</a><br /><br /></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td align="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Translations From Ovid's Epistles.</span></td> - <td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Preface,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Canace to Macareus,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Helen to Paris,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Dido to Æneas,<br /><br /></td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_35">35</a><br /><br /></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td align="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses.</span></td> - <td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Dedication to Lord Radcliffe,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The First Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Meleager and Atalanta,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Baucis and Philemon,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Iphis and Ianthe,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Pygmalion and the Statue,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Cinyras and Myrrha,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Ceyx and Alcyone,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Æsacus transformed into a Cormorant,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span> - The Twelfth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Of the Pythagorean Philosophy,<br /><br /></td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_207">207</a><br /><br /></td> - </tr> - - - <tr> - <td align="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Translations from Ovid's Art of Love.</span></td> - <td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Preface on Translation, prefixed to Dryden's Second - Miscellany,<br /><br /></td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_263">263</a><br /><br /></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td align="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Translations from Theocritus.</span></td> - <td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Amaryllis,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Epithalamium of Helen and Menelaus,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_292">292</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Despairing Lover,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_296">296</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">Daphnis and Chloris,<br /><br /></td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_300">300</a><br /><br /></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td align="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Translations from Lucretius.</span></td> - <td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td align="right">Book I.</td> - <td> </td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td align="right">II.</td> - <td> </td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td align="right">III.</td> - <td> </td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td align="right">IV.</td> - <td> </td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_327">327</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td align="right">V.<br /><br /></td> - <td> </td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_337">337</a><br /><br /></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td align="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Translations from Horace.</span></td> - <td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Third Ode of the First Book of Horace,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Ninth Ode of the First Book,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Twenty-ninth Ode of the First Book,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The Second Epode of Horace,<br /><br /></td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_351">351</a><br /><br /></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td align="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Translations from Homer.</span></td> - <td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The First Book of Homer's Iliad,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_357">357</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">The last Parting of Hector and Andromache,</td> - <td align="right"><a href="#Page_382">382</a></td> - </tr> -</table> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<h2 class="no-break">APPENDIX<br /><br /> -<span class="font06">TO</span><br /><br /> -<span class="font09">THE FABLES.</span></h2> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<p class="pmb3" /> -<hr class="r20" /> -<div class="block3"> -<p class="p2 ii1 pmb2"><i>This Appendix contains the Original Tales of Chaucer, which Dryden -has modernized. The Novels of Boccacio are subjoined to -the several Poetical English Versions.</i></p> -</div> -<hr class="r20" /> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /> - -KNIGHTES TALE,<br /> - -<span class="font06">BY</span><br /> - -<span class="font08">GEOFFREY CHAUCER.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Whilom, as old stories tellen us,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There was a duk that highte Theseus;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Athenes he was lord and governour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his time swiche a conquerour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That greter was ther non under the sonne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful many a riche contree had he wonne.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What with his wisdom and his chevalrie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He conquerd all the regne of Feminie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That whilom was ycleped Scythia,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wedded the fresshe Quene Ipolita,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And brought hire home with him to his contree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With mochel glorie and solempnitee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke hire yonge suster Emelie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus with victorie and with melodie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let I this worthy duk to Athenes ride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all his host in armes him beside.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And certes, if it n'ere to long to here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wolde have told you fully the manere<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">How wonnen was the regne of Feminie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By Theseus, and by his chevalrie:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of the grete bataille for the nones<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwix Athenes and Amasones:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And how asseged was Ipolita,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The faire hardie quene of Scythia;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of the feste, that was at hire wedding,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of the temple at hire home coming:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But all this thing I moste as now forbere;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I have, God wot, a large feld to ere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And weke ben the oxen in my plowe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The remenent of my tale is long ynow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wil not letten eke non of this route;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let every felaw telle his tale aboute,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let se now who shal the souper winne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There as I left, I will agen beginne.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This duk, of whom I made mentioun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan he was comen almost to the toun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all his wele and his moste pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was ware, as he cast his eye aside,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wher that ther kneled in the highe wey<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A compagnie of ladies, twey and twey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eche after other, clad in clothes blake;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But swiche a crie and swiche a wo they make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in this world n'is creature living<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ever heard swiche another waimenting;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of this crie ne wolde never stenten,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till they the reines of his bridel henten.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What folk be ye that at min home coming<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perturben so my feste with crying?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quod Theseus; have ye so grete envie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of min honour, that thus complaine and crie?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or who hath you misboden, or offended?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do telle me, if that it may be amended,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And why ye be thus clothed all in blake?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The oldest lady of hem all than spake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan she had swouned with a dedly chere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it was reuthe for to seen and here.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She sayde, Lord, to whom Fortune hath yeven<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Victorie, and as a conqueror to liven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nought greveth us your glorie and your honour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But we beseke you of mercie and socour:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have mercie on our wo and our distresse:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some drope of pitee thrugh thy gentillesse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon us wretched wimmen let now fall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For certes, lord, there n'is non of us alle<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That she n'hath ben a duchesse or a quene;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now be we caitives, as it is wel sene:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thanked be Fortune, and hire false whele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That non estat ensureth to be wele.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certes, lord, to abiden your presence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here in this temple of the goddesse Clemence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We han ben waiting all this fourtenight:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now help us, lord, sin it lieth in thy might.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I wretched wight, that wepe and waile thus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was whilom wif to King Capaneus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That starfe at Thebes, cursed be that day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And alle we that ben in this aray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And maken all this lamentation,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We losten all our husbondes at that toun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While that the siege therabouten lay:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet now the old Creon, wala wa!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That lord is now of Thebes the citee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fulfilled of ire and of iniquittee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He for despit, and for his tyrannie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To don the ded bodies a vilanie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of alle our lordes, which that ben yslawe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath alle the bodies on an hepe ydrawe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And will not suffren hem by non assent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neyther to ben yberied, ne ybrent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But maketh houndes ete hem in despite.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with that word, withouten more respite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They fallen groff, and crien pitously,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have on us wretched wimmen som mercy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let our sorwe sinken in thin herte.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This gentil duk doun from his courser sterte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With herte piteous, whan he herd hem speke.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him thoughte that his herte wold all to-breke<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When he saw hem so pitous and so mate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That whilom weren of so gret estate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his armes, he hem all up hente,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hem comforted in ful good entente,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And swore his oth, as he was trewe knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wolde don so ferforthly his might<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the tyrant Creon hem to wreke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all the peple of Grece shulde speke<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How Creon was of Theseus yserved;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he that hath his deth ful wel deserved.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And right anon, withouten more abode,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His banner he displaide, and forth he rode<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Thebes ward, and all his host beside:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No ner Athenes n'olde he go ne ride,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ne take his ese fully half a day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But onward on his way that night he lay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sent anon Ipolita the quene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Emeli hire yonge sister shene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the toun of Athenes for to dwell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And forth he rit; ther n'is no more to tell.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The red statue of Mars, with spere and targe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So shineth in his white banner large,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all the feldes gliteren up and doun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by his banner borne is his penoun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of golde ful riche, in which ther was ybete<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Minotaure, which that he slew in Crete.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus rit this duk, thus rit this conquerour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his host of chevalrie the flour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Til that he came to Thebes, and alight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fayre in a felde, ther as he thought to fight:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But shortly for to speken of this thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With Creon, which that was of Thebes king,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He fought and slew him manly as a knight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In plaine bataille, and put his folk to flight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by assaut he wan the citee after,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rent adoun bothe wall, and sparre, and rafter;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the ladies he restored again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bodies of hir housbondes that were slain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To don the obsequies, as was tho the gise.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But it were all to long for to devise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The grete clamour and the waimenting<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whiche that the ladies made at the brenning<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the bodies, and the gret honour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Theseus, the noble conquerour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doth to the ladies whan they from him wente;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But shortly for to telle is min entente.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan that this worthy duk, this Theseus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath Creon slain, and wonnen Thebes thus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still in the feld he toke all night his reste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And did with all the countree as hem leste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To ransake in the tas of bodies dede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hem for to stripe of harneis and of wede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pillours dide hir businesse and cure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">After the bataille and discomfiture;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so befell, that, in the tas, they found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thurgh girt with many a grevous blody wound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two yonge knightes ligging by and by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bothe in on armes, wrought ful richely;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of whiche two, Arcite highte that on.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he that other highte Palamon.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Not fully quik, ne fully ded they were,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But by hir cote armure, and by hir gere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The heraudes knew hem wel in special,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As tho that weren of the blod real<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Thebes, and of sustren two yborne:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of the tas the pillours han hem torne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And han hem carried soft unto the tente<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Theseus, and he ful sone hem sente<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Athenes, for to dwellen in prison<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perpetuel, he n'olde no raunson.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whan this worthy duk had thus ydon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He toke his host, and home he rit anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With laurel crouned as a conquerour;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ther he liveth in joye and in honour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Terme of his lif; what nedeth wordes mo?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in a tour, in anguish and in wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dwellen this Palamon, and eke Arcite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For evermo, ther may no gold hem quite.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till it fell ones, in a morwe of May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Emilie, that fayrer was to sene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than is the lilie upon the stalke grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fressher than the May with floures new,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For with the rose colour strof hire hewe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I n'ot which was the finer of hem two,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Er it was day, as she was wont to do,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She was arisen, and all redy dight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For May wol have no slogardie a-night:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The season priketh every gentil herte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayth, Arise, and do thin observance.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This maketh Emelie han remembraunce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To don honour to May, and for to rise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yclothed was she fresshe for to devise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behind hire back, a yerde long I gesse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the gardin at sonne uprist,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She walketh up and doun wher as hire list;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She gathereth floures, partie white and red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make a sotel garland for hire hed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as an angel hevenlich she song:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The grete tour that was so thikke and strong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, of the castel, was the chef dongeon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Wher as these knightes weren in prison,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of which I tolde you, and tellen shal,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was even joinant to the gardin wall,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ther as this Emelie had hire playing.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Bright was the sonne, and clere that morwening,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Palamon, this woful prisoner,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As was his wone, by leve of his gayler,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was risen, and romed in a chambre on high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which he all the noble citee seigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke the gardin ful of brandies grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther as this fresshe Emelie the shene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was in hire walk, and romed up and doun.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This sorweful prisoner, this Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Goth in his chambre roming to and fro,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to himselfe complaining of his wo:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he was borne, ful oft he sayd, Alas!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And so befel, by aventure, or cas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That thrugh a window thikke of many a barre<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of yren gret, and square as any sparre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He cast his eyen upon Emilia,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therwithal he blent, and cried, A!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As though he stongen were unto the herte.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with that crie Arcite anon up sterte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saide, Cosin min, what eyleth thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That art so pale and dedly for to see?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why cridest thou? who hath thee don offence?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Goddes love, take all in patience<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our prison, for it may non other be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fortune hath yeven us this adversite:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som wikke aspect or disposition<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Saturne, by som constellation,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath yeven us this, although we had it sworn:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So stood the heven, when that we were born;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We moste endure; this is the short and plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Palamon answerde, and sayde again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cosin, forsoth of this opinion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou hast a vaine imagination;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This prison caused me not to crie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I was hurt right now thurghout min eye<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into min herte, that wol my bane be.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fayrenesse of a lady that I se<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yond in the gardin, roming to and fro,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is cause of all my crying and wo:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I n'ot whe'r she be woman or goddesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Venus is it, sothly, as I gesse.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And therwithall on knees adoun he fill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayde, Venus, if it be your will<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You in this gardin thus to transfigure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beforn me sorweful wretched creature,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Out of this prison helpe that we may scape,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if so be our destine be shape<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By eterne word, to dien in prison,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of our lignage have som compassion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is so low ybrought by tyrannie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with that word Arcita gan espie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wher as this lady romed to and fro,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with that sight hire beaute hurt him so,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That if that Palamon was wounded sore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arcite is hurt as moche as he, or more:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with a sigh he sayde pitously,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fresshe bentee sleth me sodenly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of hire that rometh in yonder place.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And but I have hire mercie and hire grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I may seen hire at the leste way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I n'am but ded, there n'is no more to say.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Palamon, whan he these wordes herd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dispitously he loked, and answerd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether sayest thou this in ernest or in play?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nay, quod Arcite, in ernest be my fay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God helpe me so, me lust full yvel play.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Palamon gan knit his browes twey:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It were, quod he, to thee no gret honour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For to be false, ne for to be traytour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To me, that am thy cosin and thy brother:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ysworne ful depe, and eche of us to other,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That neuer for to dien in the peine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till that the deth departen shal us tweine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neyther of us in love to hindre other,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne in non other cas, my leve brother;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But that thou shuldest trewely forther me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In evry cas, as I shuld forther thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This was thin oth, and min also certain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wot it wel thou darst it not withsain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus art thou of my conseil out of doute,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now thou woldest falsly ben aboute<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To love my lady, whom I love and serve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ever shal, til that min herte sterve.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now certes, false Arcite, thou shalt not so;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I loved hire firste, and tolde thee my wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As to my conseil, and to my brother sworne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To forther me, as I have tolde beforne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which thou art ybounden as a knight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To helpen me, if it lie in thy might;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or elles art thou false, I dare wel sain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Arcita full proudly spake again:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt, quod he, be rather false than I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thou art false, I tell thee utterly.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For <i>par amour</i> I loved hire first, or thou.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What wolt thou sayn, thou wistest nat right now<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether she were a woman or a goddesse:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thin is affection of holinesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And min is love as to a creature,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which I tolde thee min aventure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As to my cosin, and my brother sworne.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I pose, that thou lovedst hire beforne:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wost thou not wel the olde clerkes sawe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That who shall give a lover any lawe?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love is a greter lawe, by my pan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than may be yeven of any erthly man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therfore positif lawe, and swiche decree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is broken all day for love in eche degree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A man moste nedes love, maugre his hed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He may nat fleen it though he shuld be ded,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All be she maid, or widewe, or elles wif.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And eke it is not likely all thy lif<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To stonden in hire grace, no more shal I;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For well thou wost thyselven veraily,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That thou and I be damned to prison<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perpetuel, us gaineth no raunson.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We strive, as did the houndes for the bone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They fought all day, and yet hir part was none:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther came a kyte, while that they were so wrothe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bare away the bone betwix hem bothe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, therfore, at kinges court, my brother,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eche man for himself, ther is non other.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love if thee lust, for I love, and ay shal;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sothly, leve brother, this is al.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here in this prison mosten we endure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And everich of us take his aventure.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Great was the strif, and long, betwix hem twey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If that I hadde leiser for to sey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But to the effect. It happed on a day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(To tell it you as shortly as I may,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A worthy duk that highte Perithous,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That felaw was to this duk Theseus<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sin thilke day that they were children lite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was come to Athenes, his felaw to visite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for to play, as he was wont to do,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in this world he loved no man so;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he loved him as tenderly again:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So well they loved, as old bokes sain,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That whan that on was ded, sothly to tell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His felaw wente and sought him doun in hell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But of that storie list me not to write.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Duk Perithous loved wel Arcite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And had him knowe at Thebes yere by yere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And finally, at request and praiere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Perithous, withouten any raunson,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Duk Theseus let him out of prison,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Frely to gon wher that him list over all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In swiche a gise as I you tellen shall.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This was the forword, plainly for to endite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixen Theseus and him Arcite:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That if so were, that Arcite were yfound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ever in his lif, by day or night, o stound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In any countree of this Theseus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he were caught, it was accorded thus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That with a swerd he shulde lese his hed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther was non other remedie, ne rede.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But taketh his leve, and homeward he him speede:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let him beware, his nekke lieth to wedde.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">How great a sorwe suffereth now Arcite?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The deth he feleth thurgh his herte smite:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wepeth, waileth, crieth pitously,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To sleen himself he waiteth prively.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said, Alas the day that I was borne!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now is my prison werse than beforne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now is me shape eternally to dwelle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not only in purgatorie, but in helle.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! that ever I knew Perithous,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For elles had I dwelt with Theseus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yfetered in his prison evermo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than had I ben in blisse, and not in wo:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only the sight of hire, whom that I serve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though that I never hire grace may deserve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wold have sufficed right ynough for me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O dere cosin Palamon, quod he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thin is the victorie of this aventure;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful blisful in prison maiest thou endure:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In prison! certes nay, but in paradise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel hath Fortune yturned thee the dise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hast the sight of hire, and I the absence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For possible is, sin thou hast hire presence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And art a knight, a worthy and an able,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That by some cas, sin Fortune is changeable,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou maiest to thy desir somtime atteine:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I that am exiled, and barreine<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of alle grace, and in so gret despaire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ther n'is erthe, water, fire, ne aire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne creature, that of hem maked is,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That may me hele or don comfort in this,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel ought I sterve in wanhope and distresse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Farewel my lif, my lust, and my gladnesse.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Alas! why plainen men so in commune<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of purveiance of God, or of Fortune,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That yeveth hem ful oft in many a gise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel better than they can hemself devise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som man desireth for to have richesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That cause is of his murdre or gret siknesse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And som man wold out of his prison fayne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in his house is of his meinie slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Infinite harmes ben in this matere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We wote not what thing that we praien here.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saren as he that dronke is as a mous:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A dronken man wot wel he hath an hous,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he ne wot which the right way thider,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to a dronken man the way is slider.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certes in this world so faren we;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We seken fast after felicite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But we go wrong ful often trewely.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus we may sayen alle, and namely I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wende, and had a gret opinion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That if I might escapen fro prison,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than I had ben in joye and parfite hele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther now I am exiled fro my wele.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sin that I may not seen you, Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I n'am but ded; there n'is no remedie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Upon that other side Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that he wist Arcita was agon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swiche sorwe he maketh, that the grete tour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resouned of his yelling and clamour.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pure fetters on his shinnes grete<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were of his bitter salte teres wete.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Alas! quod he, Arcita, cosin min,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all our strif, God wot, the frute is thin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou walkest now in Thebes at thy large,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of my wo, thou yevest litel charge.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou maist, sith thou hast wisdom and manhede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assemblen all the folk of our kinrede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And make werre so sharpe in this contree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That by som aventure, or som tretee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou maist have hire to lady and to wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For whom that I must nedes lese my lif.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For, as by way of possibilitee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sith thou art at thy large of prison free,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And art a lord, gret is thine avantage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More than is min, that sterve her in a cage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I may wepe and waile, while that I live,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all the wo that prison may me yeve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke with peine that love me yeveth also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That doubleth all my tourment and my wo.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Therwith the fire of jalousie up sterte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within his brest, and hent him by the herte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So woodly, that he like was to behold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The boxe-tree, or the ashen, ded and cold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than said he: O cruel goddes, that governe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This world with binding of your word eterne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And writen in the table of athamant,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your parlement, and your eterne grant,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What is mankind more unto yhold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than is the shepe, that rouketh in the fold?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For slain is man, right as another beest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And dwelleth eke in prison, and arrest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hath siknesse, and gret adversite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And often times gilteles parde.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What governance is in this prescience,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That gilteless turmenteth innocence?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet encreseth this all my penance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That man is bounden to his observance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Goddes sake to leten of his will,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther as a beest may all his lust fulfill:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when a beest is ded, he hath no peine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But man, after his deth, mote wepe and pleine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though in this world he have care and wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Withouten doute it maye stonden so.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The answer of this lete I to divines,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wel I wote, that in this world gret pine is.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! I see a serpent or a thefe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That many a trewe man hath do meschefe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gon at his large, and wher him lust may turn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I moste ben in prison thurgh Saturn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke thurgh Juno, jalous and eke wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hath wel neye destruied all the blood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Thebes, with his waste walles wide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Venus sleeth me on that other side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For jalousie, and fere of him, Arcite.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now wol I stent of Palamon a lite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And leten him in his prison still dwelle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of Arcita forth I wol you telle.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span> -<span class="i2">The sommer passeth, and the nightes long,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Encresen double wise the peines strong<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both of the lover and of the prisoner;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I n'ot which hath the wofuller mistere:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, shortly for to say, this Palamon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perpetuelly is damned to prison,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In chaines and in fetters to ben ded;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Arcite is exiled on his hed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For evermore, as out of that contree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne never more he shal his lady see.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You lovers, axe I now this question,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who hath the werse, Arcite, or Palamon?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That on may se his lady day by day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But in prison moste he dwellen alway:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That other wher him lust may ride or go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sen his lady shal he never mo.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now demeth as you liste, ye that can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I wil tell you forth, as I began.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When that Arcite to Thebes comen was,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful oft a day he swelt, and said, Alas!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For sen his lady shal he neuer mo.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, shortly, to concluden all his wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So mochel sorwe hadde never creature<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is or shal be while the world may dure.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His slepe, his mete, his drinke, is him byraft,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That lene he wex, and drie as is a shaft.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eyen holwe, and grisly to behold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His hewe salowe, and pale as ashen cold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And solitary he was, and ever alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wailing all the night, making mone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if he herde song or instrument,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than would he wepe, he mighte not be stent:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So feble were his spirites, and so low,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And changed so, that no man coude know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His speche ne his vois, though men it herd.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his gere, for all the world he ferd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nought only like the lovers maladie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Ereos, but rather ylike manie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Engendred of humours melancolike,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beforne his hed in his celle fantastike.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shortly turned was all up so doun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both habit and eke dispositioun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of him, this woful lover Dan Arcite.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What shuld I all day of his wo endite?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan he endured had a yere or two<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This cruel torment, and this peine and wo,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">At Thebes, in his contree, as I said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon a night in slepe as he him laid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him thought how that the winged god Mercury<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beforne him stood, and bad him be mery.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His slepy yerde in hond he bare upright;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An hat he wered upon his heres bright:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arraied was this god, (as he toke kepe,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he was whan that Argus toke his slepe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And said him thus: To Athenes shall thou wende,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther is thee shapen of thy wo an ende.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with that word Arcite awoke and stert.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now trewely how sore that ever me smert,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quod he, to Athenes right now wol I fare;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne for no drede of deth shall I not spare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To se my lady, that I love and serve;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In hire presence I rekke not to sterve.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with that word he caught a gret mirrour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saw that changed was all his colour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saw his visage all in another kind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And right anon it ran him in his mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That sith his face was so disfigured<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of maladie, the which he had endured,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He might wel, if that he bare him lowe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Live in Athenes evermore unknowe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sen his lady wel nigh day by day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And right anon he changed his aray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And clad him as a poure labourer;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all alone (save only a squier,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That knew his privitie and all his cas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which was disguised pourely as he was,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Athenes is he gone the nexte way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the court he went upon a day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the gate he proffered his service,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To drugge and draw what so men wold devise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shortly of this matere for to sayn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He fell in office with a chamberlain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The which that dwelling was with Emelie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he was wise, and coude sone espie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of every servent which that served hire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel coud he hewen wood, and water bere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he was yonge and mighty for the nones,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thereto he was strong and big of bones<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To done that any wight can him devise.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A yere or two he was in this service,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Page of the chambre of Emelie the bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Philostrate he sayde that he hight.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But half so wel beloved man as he<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne was ther never in court of his degre.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was so gentil of conditioun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That thurghout all the court was his renoun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They sayden that it were a charite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Theseus wold enhaunse his degre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And putten him in a worshipful service,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther as he might his vertues exercise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus, within a while, his name is spronge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both of his dedes, and of his good tonge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Theseus had taken him so ner,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That of his chambre he made him squier,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gave him gold to mainteine his degre;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke men brought him out of his contre<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fro yere to yere ful prively his rent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But honestly and sleighly he it spent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That no man wondred how that he it hadde.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thre yere in this wise his lif he ladde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bare him so in pees and eke in werre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther n'as no man that Theseus hath derre.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in this blisse let I now Arcite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And speke I wol of Palamon a lite.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In derkenesse and horrible and strong prison<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This seven yere hath sitten Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forpined, what for love and for distresse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who feleth double sorwe and hevinesse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Palamon? that love distraineth so,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wood out of his wit he goth for wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke therto he is a prisonere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perpetuell, not only for a yere.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Who coude rime in English proprely<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His martirdom? forsoth it am not I;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Therfore I passe as lightly as I may.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It fel that in the seventh yere, in May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thridde night, (as olde bokes sayn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all this storie tellen more plain,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were it by aventure or destinee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(As when a thing is shapen, it shal be)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That sone after the midnight Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By helping of a frend, brake his prison,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fleeth the cite faste as he may go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he had yeven drinke his gayler so,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a clarre, made of a certain wine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With narcotikes and opie of Thebes fine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all the night, though that men wold him shake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gailer slept, he mighte not awake;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And thus he fleeth as faste as ever he may.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The night was short, and faste by the day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That nedes cost he moste himselven hide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to a grove faste ther beside,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With dredful foot then stalketh Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For shortly this was his opinion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in that grove he wold him hide all day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the night than wold he take his way<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Thebes ward, his frendes for to preie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On Theseus to helpen him werreie:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shortly, eyther he wold lese his lif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or winnen Emelie unto his wif.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is the effect, and his entente plein.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now wol I turnen to Arcite agein,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That litel wist how neighe was his care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till that Fortune had brought him in the snare.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The besy larke, the messager of day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Salewith in hire song the morwe gray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And firy Phebus riseth up so bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all the orient laugheth of the sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with his stremes drieth in the greves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The silver dropes hanging in the leves.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Arcite, that is in the court real<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With Theseus the squier principal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is risen, and loketh on the mery day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for to don his observance to May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Remembring on the point of his desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He on his courser, sterting as the fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is ridden to the feldes him to pley,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of the court, were it a mile or twey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the grove, of which that I you told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By aventure, his way he gan to hold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To maken him a gerlond of the greves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were it of woodbind or of hauthorn leves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And loud he song agen the sonne shene.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O Maye, with all thy floures and thy grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right welcome be thou, faire fresshe May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I hope that I some grene here getten may.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from his courser, with a lusty herte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the grove ful hastily he sterte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in a path he romed up and doun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther, as by aventure this Palamon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was in a bush, that no man might him se,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For sore afered of his deth was he:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nothing ne knew he that it was Arcite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God wot he wold have trowed it ful lite.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But soth is said, gon sithen are many yeres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That feld hath eyen, and wood hath eres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is ful faire a man to bere him even,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For al day meten men at unset steven.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful litel wote Arcite of his felaw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That was so neigh to herken of his saw;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in the bush he sitteth now ful still.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan that Arcite had romed all his fill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And songen all the roundel lustily,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into a studie he fell sodenly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As don these lovers in hir queinte geres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now in the crop, and now down in the breres;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now up, now doun, as boket in a well.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right as the Friday, sothly for to tell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now shineth it, and now it raineth fast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right so can gery Venus overcast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hertes of hire folk, right as hire day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is gerfull, right so changeth she aray;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Selde is the Friday all the weke ylike.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan Arcite hadde ysonge, he gan to sike,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And set him doun withouten any more:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! quod he, the day that I was bore!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How longe, Juno, thurgh thy crueltee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wilt thou werreien Thebes the citee?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! ybrought is to confusion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The blood real of Cadme and Amphion:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Cadmus, which that was the firste man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Thebes built, or firste the toun began.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of the citee firste was crouned king.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of his linage am I, and his ofspring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By veray line, as of the stok real:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now I am so caitif and so thral,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he that is my mortal enemy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I serve him as his squier pourely.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet doth Juno me wel more shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I dare not beknowe min owen name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ther, as I was wont to highte Arcite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now highte I Philostrat not worth a mite:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! thou fell Mars; alas! thou Juno,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus hath your ire our linage all fordo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save only me, and wretched Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Theseus martireth in prison;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And over all this, to slen me utterly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love hath his firy dart so brenningly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ysticked thurgh my trewe careful hert,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That shapen was my deth erst than my shert.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ye slen me with your eyen, Emelie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye ben the cause wherfore that I die.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all the remenant of min other care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne set I not the mountance of a tare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So that I coud don ought to your plesance.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with that word he fell doun in a trance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A longe time, and afterward up sterte.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This Palamon that thought thurghout his herte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He felt a colde swerd sodenly glide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For ire he quoke, no lenger wolde he hide:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whan that he had herd Arcites tale,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he were wood, with face ded and pale,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sterte him up out of the bushes thikke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayde, False Arcite, false traitour wicke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now art thou hent, that lovest my lady so;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For whom that I have all this peine and wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And art my blood, and to my conseil sworn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As I ful oft have told thee herebeforn:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hast bejaped here Duk Theseus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And falsely changed hast thy name thus;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wol be ded, or elles thou shalt die:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt not love my lady Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I wol love hire only and no mo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I am Palamon, thy mortal fo.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And though that I no wepen have in this place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But out of prison am astert by grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I drede nought that eyther thou shalt die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or thou ne shalt nat loven Emelie:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chese which thou wilt, for thou shalt not asterte.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Arcite tho, with ful dispitous herte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan he him knew, and had his tale herd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As fers as a leon, pulled out a swerd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayde thus; By God, that sitteth above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">N'ere it that thou art sicke, and wood for love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke that thou no wepen hast in this place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shuldest never out this grove pace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That thou ne shuldest dien of min hond;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I defie the suretee and the bond<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which that thou saist that I have made to thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What! veray fool, thinke wel that love is free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I wol love her maugre all thy might:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But for thou art a worthy gentil knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wilnest to darraine hire by bataille,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have here my trouth, to morwe I will not faille,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Withouten weting of any other wight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That here I wol be founden as a knight,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And bringen harneis right ynough for thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And chese the beste, and leve the werste for me:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mete and drinke this night wol I bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ynough for thee, and cloathes for thy bedding;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if so be that thou my lady win,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sle me in this wode ther I am in,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou maist well have thy lady as for me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Palamon answered, I grant it thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus they ben departed till a morwe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When eche of hem hath laid his faith to borwe.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O Cupide, out of alle charitee!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O regne, that wolt no felaw have with thee!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful soth is sayde, that love ne lordship<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wol nat, his thankes, have no felawship.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel finden that Arcite and Palamon.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Arcite is ridden anone unto the toun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the morwe or it were day light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful prively two harneis hath he dight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both suffisant and mete to darreine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bataille in the field betwix hem tweine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on his hors, alone as he was borne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He carieth all this harneis him beforne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the grove, at time and place ysette,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Arcite and this Palamon ben mette.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho changen gan the colour in hir face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right as the hunter in the regne of Trace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That stondeth at a gappe, with a spere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan hunted is the lion or the bere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hereth him come rushing in the greves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And breking bothe the boughes and the leves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thinketh, here cometh my mortal enemy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Withouten faile he must be ded or I:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For eyther I mote slain him at the gappe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or he mote slen me, if that me mishappe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So ferden they, in changing of hir hewe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As fer as eyther of hem other knewe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther n'as no good day, ne no saluing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But streit withouten wordes rehersing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Everich of hem halpe to armen other<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As frendly as he were his owen brother;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, after that, with sharpe speres strong<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They foineden eche at other wonder long.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou mightest wenen, that this Palamon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In his fighting were a wood leon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as a cruel tigre was Arcite:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As wild bores gan they togeder smite,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxi">[Pg xxi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That frothen white as fome for ire wood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up to the ancle fought they in hir blood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in this wise I let hem fighting dwelle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As forth I wol of Theseus you telle.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Destinee, ministre general,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That executeth in the world over al<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The purveiance that God hath sen beforne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So strong it is, that though the world hath sworne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The contrary of thing by ya or nay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet sometime it shall fallen on a day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That falleth nat efte in a thousand yere:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For certainly our appetites here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be it of werre, or pees, or hate, or love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All is this ruled by the sight above.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This mene I now by mighty Theseus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That for to hunten is so desirous,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And namely at the gret hart in May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in his bed ther daweth him no day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he n'is clad, and redy for to ride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hunte and horne, and houndes him beside:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in his hunting hath he swiche delite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it is all his joye and appetite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To ben himself the grete harts bane;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For after Mars he serveth now Diane.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Clere was the day, as I have told or this,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Theseus, with alle joye and blis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With his Ipolitia, the fayre quene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Emelie, yclothed all in grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On hunting ben thy ridden really,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the grove, that stood ther faste by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which ther was an hart, as men him told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Duk Theseus the streite way hath hold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the launde he rideth him ful right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther was the hart ywont to have his flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And over a brooke, and so forth on his wey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This duk wol have a cours at him or twey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With houndes, swiche as him lust to commaunde.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when this duk was comen to the launde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under the sonne he loked, and anon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was ware of Arcite and Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That foughten breme, as it were bolles two;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The brighte swerdes wenten to and fro<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So hidously, that with the leste stroke<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It semed that it wold felle an oke:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But what they weren nothing he ne wote.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This duk his courser with his sporres smote,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxii">[Pg xxii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And at a stert he was betwix hem two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pulled out a swerde, and cried, Ho!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No more, up peine of lesing of your hed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By mighty Mars, he shall anon be ded<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That smiteth any stroke that I may sen!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But telleth me what mistere men ye ben,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ben so hardy for to fighten here<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Withouten any juge or other officere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As though it were in listes really?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Palamon answered hastily,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saide; Sire, what nedeth wordes mo?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We have the death deserved bothe two;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two woful wretches ben we, two caitives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ben accombred of our owen lives;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as thou art a rightful lord and juge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne yeve us neyther mercie ne refuge;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sle me first for seinte charitee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sle my felaw eke as wel as me:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or sle him first, for though thou know it lite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is thy mortal fo, this is Arcite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That fro thy lond is banished on his hed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which he hath deserved to be ded;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For this is he that came unto thy gate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayde that he highte Philostrate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus hath he japed thee full many a yere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thou hast maked him thy chief squiere:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this is he that loveth Emelie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For sith the day is come that I shal die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I make plainly my confession;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I am thilke woful Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hath thy prison broken wilfully;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am thy mortal fo, and it am I<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That loveth so hot Emelie the bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I wold dien present in hire sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Therfore I axe deth and my jewise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sle my felaw in the same wise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For both we have deserved to be slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This worthy duk answred anon again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayd, This is a short conclusion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your owen mouth, by your confession,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath damned you, and I wol it recorde.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It nedeth not to pine you with the corde:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye shul be ded, by mighty Mars the rede.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The quene anon for veray womanhede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gan for to wepe, and so did Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the ladies in the compagnie.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxiii">[Pg xxiii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Gret pite was, it, as it thought hem alle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ever swiche a chance shulde befalle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For gentil men they were of gret estat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And nothing but for love was this debat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sawe hir blody woundes wide and sore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And alle criden bothe lesse and more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have mercie, lord, upon us wimmen alle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on hir bare knees adoun they falle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wold have kist his feet ther as he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till at the last, aslaked was his mood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For pitee renneth sone in gentil herte,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And though he first for ire quoke and sterte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He hath considered shortly in a clause,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trespas of hem both, and eke the cause;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And although that his ire hir gilt accused,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet in his reson he hem both excused:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As thus; he thought wel that every man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wol helpe himself in love, if that he can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke deliver himself out of prison;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke his herte had compassion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of wimmen, for they wepten ever in on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his gentil herte he thoughte anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And soft unto himself he sayed, Fie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon a lord that wol have no mercie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But be a leon both in word and dede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To hem that ben in repentance and drede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As wel as to a proud dispitous man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wol mainteinen that he first began.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That lord hath litel of discretion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in swiche cas can no division,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But weigheth pride and humblesse after on.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shortly, when his ire is thus agon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He gan to loken up with eyen light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And spake these same wordes all on hight:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The god of Love, a <i>benedicite</i>!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How mighty, and how gret a lord is he!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Again his might ther gainen non obstacles,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He may be cleped a god for his miracles:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he can maken at his owen gise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of everich herte, as that him list devise.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lo! here this Arcite, and this Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That quitely weren out of my prison,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And might have lived in Thebes really,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And weten I am hir mortal enemy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that hir deth lith in my might also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet hath love maugre hir eyen two,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxiv">[Pg xxiv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ybrought hem hither bothe for to die.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now loketh, is not this an heigh folie?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who may ben a fool, but if he love?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behold, for Goddes sake, that sitteth above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Se how they blede! be they not wel araied?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus hath hir lord, the god of Love, hem paied<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hir wages and hir fees for hir service,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet they wenen for to be ful wise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That serven Love, for ought that may befalle.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet is this the beste game of alle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That she, for whom they have this jolite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Con hem therfore as mochel thank as me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She wot no more of alle this hote fare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By God, than wot a cuckow or an hare.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But alle mote ben assaied hote or cold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A man mot ben a fool, other yonge or old;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wot it by myself ful yore agon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in my time a servant was I on:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therefore sith I know of loves peine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wote how sore it can a man destreine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he that oft hath been caught in his las,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I you foryeve all holly this trespas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At request of the quene, that kneleth here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke of Emelie, my suster dere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ye shul both anon unto me swere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That never mo ye shul my contree dere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne maken werre upon me night ne day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ben my frendes in alle that ye may.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I you foryeve this trespas every del.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And they him sware his axing fayr and wel;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And him of lordship and of mercie praid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he hem granted grace, and thus he said:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To speke of real linage and richesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though that she were a quene or a princesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eche of you bothe is worthy, douteles,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To wedden whan time is, but natheles<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I speke as for my suster Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For whom ye have this strif and jalousie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye wot yourself, she may not wedden two<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At ones, though ye fighten evermo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But on of you, al be him loth or lefe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He mot gon pipen in an ivy lefe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is to say, she may not have you bothe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al be ye never so jalous, ne so wrothe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And forthy I you put in this degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That eche of you shall have his destinee<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxv">[Pg xxv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">As him is shape, and herkneth in what wise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo here your ende, of that I shal devise.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My will is this, for plat conclusion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Withouten any replication:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If that you liketh, take it for the beste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That everich of you shal gon wher him lest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Freely, withouten raunson or dangere;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this day fifty wekes, ferre ne nere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Everich of you shal bring an hundred knightes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Armed for the listes up at all rightes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alle redy to darrein hire by bataille.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this behete I you withouten faille,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon my trouth, and as I am a knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That whether of you bothe hath that might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is to sayn, that whether he or thou<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May with his hundred, as I spake of now,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sle his contrary, or out of listes drive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him shall I yeven Emelie to wive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whom that fortune yeveth so fayr a grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The listes shal I maken in this place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And God so wisly on my soule rewe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As I shal even juge ben, and trewe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye shal non other ende with me maken,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That on of you ne shall be ded or taken;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if you thinketh this is wel ysaid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Saith your avis, and holdeth you apaid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is your ende, and your conclusion.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Who loketh lightly now but Palamon?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who springeth up for joye but Arcite?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who coud it tell, or who coud it endite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The joye that is maked in the place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan Theseus hath don so fayre a grace?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But doun on knees went every manere wight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thanked him with all hir hertes might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And namely these Thebanes often sith.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And thus with good hope and with herte blith<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They taken hir leve, and homeward gan they ride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Thebes with his olde walles wide.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I trowe men wolde deme it negligence<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I foryete to tellen the dispence<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Theseus, that goth so besily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To maken up the listes really,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That swiche a noble theatre as it was<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I dare wel sayn in alle this world ther n'as.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The circuite a mile was aboute,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Walled of stone, and diched all withoute;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxvi">[Pg xxvi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Round was the shape, in manere of a compas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful of degrees, the hight of sixty pas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, whan a man was set on o degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He letted not his felaw for to see.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Estward ther stood a gate of marbel white,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Westward right swiche another in the opposite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shortly to concluden, swiche a place<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was never in erth, in so litel a space:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in the lond ther n'as no craftes man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That geometrie or arsemetrike can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne portreiour, ne kerver of images,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Theseus ne yaf him mete and wages,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The theatre for to maken and devise.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And for to don his rite and sacrifice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He estward hath upon the gate above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In worship of Venus, goddesse of Love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Don make an auter, and an oratorie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And westward, in the minde and in memorie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Mars, he maked hath right swich another,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That coste largely of gold a fother:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And northward, in a touret on the wall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of alabastre white, and red corall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An oratorie, riche for to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In worship of Diane of chastitee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath Theseus don wrought in noble wise.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But yet had I foryetten to devise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The noble kerving, and the portreitures,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shape, the contenance, of the figures<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That weren in these oratories three.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">First, in the temple of Venus, maist thou see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wrought on the wall, ful pitous to beholde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The broken slepes, and the sikes cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sacred teres, and the waimentinges,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The firy strokes of the desiringes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Loves servantes in this lif enduren,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The othes that hir covenants assuren.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plesance and Hope, Desire, Foolhardinesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beaute and Youth, Baudrie and Richesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Charmes and Force, Lesinges and Flaterie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dispence, Besinesse, and Jalousie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wered of yelwe goldes a gerlond,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hadde a cuckow sitting on hire hond;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Festes, instruments, and caroles, and dances,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lust and array, and all the circumstances<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Love, which that I reken, and reken shall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By ordre weren peinted on the wall,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxvii">[Pg xxvii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And mo than I can make of mention:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For sothly all the mount of Citheron,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther Venus hath hire principal dwelling,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was shewed on the wall in purtreying,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all the gardin, and the lustinesse:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nought was foryetten the porter Idlenesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne Narcissus the fayrr, of yore agone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne yet the folie of King Salomon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne yet the grete strengthe of Hercules.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The enchantment of Medea and Circes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne of Turnus the hardy fiers corage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The riche Cresus, caitif in servage.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus may ye seen, that wisdom ne richesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beaute ne sleighte, strengthe ne hardinesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne may with Venus holden champartie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For as hire liste, the world may she gie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo, all these folk so caught were in hire las,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Til they for wo ful often said, Alas!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sufficeth here ensamples on or two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet I coud reken a thousand mo.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The statue of Venus, glorious for to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was naked fleting in the large see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, fro the navel doun, all covered was<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With wawes grene, and bright as any glas:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A citole in hire right hand hadde she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on hire hed, ful semely for to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A rose gerlond fresh, and wel smelling;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Above hire hed, hire doves fleckering;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before hire stood hire sone Cupido;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon his shoulders winges had he two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And blind he was, as it is often sene;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bow he bare, and arwes bright and kene.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Why shuld I not as wel eke tell you all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The purtreiture that was upon the wall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within the temple of mighty Mars the rede?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All peinted was the wall in length and brede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like to the estres of the grisly place<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That highte the gret temple of Mars in Trace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In thilke colde and frosty region,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther as Mars hath his sovereine mansion.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">First, on the wall was peinted a forest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which ther wonneth nyther man ne best,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With knotty knarry barrien trees old,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of stubbes sharpe, and hidous to behold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which ther ran a romble and a swough,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As though a storme shuld bresten every bough;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxviii"></a></span> -<span class="i0">And dounward from an hill, under a bent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther stood the temple of Mars armipotent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wrought all of burned stele, of which the entree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was longe and streite, and ghastly for to see;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thereout came a rage and swiche a vise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it made all the gates for to rise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The northern light in at the dore shone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For window on the wall ne was ther none,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thurgh which men mighten any light discerne.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dore was all of athamant eterne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yclenched overthwart and endelong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With yren tough, and for to make it strong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Every piler, the temple to sustene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ther saw I first the derk imagining<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Felonie, and alle the compassing;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cruel Ire, red as any glede;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Pikepurse, and eke the pale Drede;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Smiler, with the knife under the cloke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shepen brenning with the blake smoke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Treson of the mordring in the bedde;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The open Werre, with woundes all bebledde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Conteke with blody knife Sharp menace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All of chirking was that sorry place.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sleer of himself yet saw I there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His herte blood hath bathed all his here:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The naile ydriven in the shode on hight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cold Deth, with mouth gaping upright.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amiddes of the temple sate Mischance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With discomfort and sory countenaunce;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet saw I Woodnesse laughing in his rage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Armed Complaint, Outhees, and fiers Outrage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The carraine in the bush, with throte ycorven;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thousand slain, and not of qualme ystorven;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tirant with the prey by force yraft;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The toun destroied, ther was nothing laft;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet saw I brent the shippes hoppesteres;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hunte ystrangled with the wilde beres;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sow freting the child right in the cradel;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The coke yscalded for all his long ladel:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nought was foryete by the infortune of Marte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The carter overridden with his carte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under the wheel ful low he lay a doun.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ther were also of Martes division,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The armerer, and the bowyer, and the smith,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That forgeth sharp swerdes on the stith;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxix">[Pg xxix]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And all above, depeinted in a tour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Saw I a Conquest, sitting in great honour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With thilke sharp swerd over his hed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yhanging by a subtil twined thred.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Depeinted was the slaughter of Julius,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of gret Nero, and of Antonius:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All be that thilke time they were unborne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet was hir deth depeinted ther beforne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By menacing of Mars, right by figure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So was it shewed in that portreiture,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As is depeinted in the cercles above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who shal be slaine, or elles ded for love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sufficeth on ensample in stories olde;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I may not reken hem alle though I wolde.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The statue of Mars upon a carte stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Armed, and loked grim, as he were wood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And over his hed ther shinen two figures<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of sterres that ben cleped in scriptures,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That on Puella, that other Rubeus.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This god of Armes was araied thus:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A wolf ther stood beforne him at his fete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With eyen red, and of a man he ete.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With subtil pensill peinted was this storie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In redouting of Mars and of his glorie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now to the temple of Diane the chaste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As shortly as I can, I wol me haste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To tellen you of the descriptioun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Depeinted by the walles up and doun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of hunting and of shamefast chastitee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther saw I how woful Calistope,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that Diane agreved was with here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was turned from a woman til a bere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after was she made the lodesterre.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus was it peinted, I can say no ferre;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire sone is eke a sterre, as men may see.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There saw I Danè yturned til a tree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I mene not hire the goddesse Diane,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Peneus daughter, which that highte Danè.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther saw I Atteon, an hart ymaked,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For vengeance that he saw Diane all naked:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw how that his houndes have him caught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And freten him, for that they knew him naught.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet peinted was a litel forthermore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How Athalante hunted the wilde bore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Meleagre, and many another mo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which Diane wrought hem care and wo.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxx">[Pg xxx]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ther saw I many another wonder storie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The which me liste not drawen to memorie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This goddesse on an hart ful heye sete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With smale houndes all about hire fete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And undernethe hire fete she hadde a mone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wexing it was, and shuld wanen sone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In gaudy grene hire statue clothed was,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With bow in hond, and arwes in a cas;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire eyen cast she ful low adoun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther Pluto hath his derke regioun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A woman travailling was hire beforne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But for hire child so longe was unborne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full pitously Lucina gan she call,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayed; Helpe, for thou mayest beste of all.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel coude he peinten lifly that it wrought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With many a florein he the hewes bought.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now ben these listes made, and Theseus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That at his gret cost arraied thus<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The temples, and the theatre everidel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan it was don, him liked wonder wel.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But stint I wol of Theseus a lite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And speke of Palamon and of Arcite.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The day approcheth of hir returning,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That everich shuld an hundred knightes bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bataille to darreine, as I you told;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And til Athenes hir covenant for to hold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath everich of hem brought an hundred knightes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel armed for the werre at alle rightes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sikerly ther trowed many a man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That never sithen that the world began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As for to speke of knighthood of hir hond,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As fer as God hath maked see and lond;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">N'as of so fewe so noble a compagnie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For every wight that loved chivalrie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wold his thankes han a passant name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath praied that he might ben of that game,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wel was him that therto chosen was,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For if ther fell to morwe such a cas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye knowen wel that every lusty knight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That loveth <i>par amour</i>, and hath his might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were it in Englelond or elleswher,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They wold hir thankes willen to be ther.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To fight for a lady, a <i>benedicite</i>,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It were a lusty sight for to se.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And right so ferden they with Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With him there wenten knightes many on;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxi">[Pg xxxi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Som wol ben armed in an habergeon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in a brest-plate, and in a gipon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And som wol have a pair of plates large,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And som wol have a Pruce sheld or a targe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som wol ben armed on his legges wele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And have an axe, and some a mace of stele:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther n'is no newe guise, that it n'as old;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Armed they weren, as I have you told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Everich after his opinion.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ther maist thou se coming with Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Licurge himself, the gret King of Trace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Black was his berd, and manly was his face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cercles of his eyen in his hed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And like a griffon loked he about,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With kemped heres on his browes stout;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His limmes gret, his braunes hard and stronge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His shouldres brode, his armes round and longe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as the guise was in his contree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful highe upon a char of gold stood he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With foure white bolles in the trais.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Instede of a cote armure, on his harneis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With nayles yelwe, and bright as any gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He hadde a bere's skin, cole-blake for old.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His longe here was kempt behind his bak,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As any ravnes fether it shone for blake.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A wreth of gold arm-gret, of huge weight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon his hed, sate full of stones bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fine rubins and of diamans.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About his char ther wenten white alauns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twenty and mo, as gret as any stere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To hunten at the leon, or the dere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And folwed him, with mosel fast ybound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Colered of gold, and torettes filed round:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An hundred lordes had he in his route,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Armed full wel, with hertes sterne and stoute.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With Arcita, in stories as men finde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gret Emetrius, the King of Inde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Covered with cloth of gold, diapred wele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Came riding like the god of armes, Mars:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His cote armure was of a cloth of Tars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Couched with perles white, round, and gret;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His sadel was of brent golde new ybete;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mantelet, upon his shoulders hanging,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxii">[Pg xxxii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">His crispe here like ringes was yronne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that was yelwe, and glitered as the sonne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His lippes round, his colour was sanguin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A fewe fraknes in his face yspreint,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixen yelwe and blake somdel ymeint;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as a leon he his loking caste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of five-and-twenty yere his age I caste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His berd was wel begonnen for to spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His vois was as a trompe thondering;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon his hed he wered, of laurer grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A gerlonde fresshe, and lusty for to sene;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon his honde he bare, for his deduit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An egle tame, as any lily whit;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An hundred lordes had he with him there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All armed save hir hedes in all hir gere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful richely in alle manere thinges;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For trusteth wel, that erles, dukes, kinges,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were gathered in this noble compagnie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For love, and for encrese of chevalrie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About this king ther ran, on every part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful many a tame leon and leopart.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And in this wise, these lords all and some,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ben on the Sonday to the citee come<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Abouten prime, and in the toun alight.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Theseus, this duk, this worthy knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan he had brought hem into his citee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And inned hem, everich at his degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He festeth hem, and doth so gret labour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To easen hem, and don hem all honour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That yet men wenen that no mannes wit<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of non estat ne coud amenden it.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The minstralcie, the service at the feste<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The grete yeftes to the most and leste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The riche array of Theseus paleis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne who sate first, ne last, upon the deis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What ladies fayrest ben, or best dauncing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or which of hem can carole best or sing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne who most felingly speketh of love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What haukes sitten on perche above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What houndes liggen on the floor adoun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all this now I make no mentioun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But of the effect, that thinketh me the beste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now cometh the point, and herkeneth if you lest.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Sonday nighte, or day began to spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan Palamon the larke herde sing,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxiii">[Pg xxxiii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Although it n'ere not day by houres two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet sang the larke, and Palamon right tho<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With holy herte, and with an high corage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He rose, to wenden on his pilgrimage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the blissful Citherea benigne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I mene Venus, honourable and digne.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in hire houre he walketh forth a pas<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the listes, ther hire temple was,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And doun he kneleth, and with humble chere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And herte sore he sayde, as ye shul here:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fayrest of fayre! O lady min Venus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Daughter of Jove, and spouse to Vulcanus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou glader of the mount of Citheron!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thilke love thou haddest to Adon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have pitee on my bitter teres smerte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And take myn humble prair at thin herte.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Alas! I ne have no langage to tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The effecte, ne the torment of min hell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min herte may min harmes not bewrey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am so confuse that I cannot say:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But mercy, lady bright! that knowest wele<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My thought, and seest what harmes that I fele:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Consider all this, and rue upon my sore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As wisly as I shal for evermore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Emforth my might thy trewe servant be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And holden werre alway with chastite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That make I min avow, so ye me helpe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I kepe nought of armes for to yelpe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne axe I nat to-morwe to have victorie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne renoun in this cas, ne vaine glorie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of pris of armes, blowen up and doun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I wold have fully possessioun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Emelie, and die in her servise:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Finde thou the manere how, and in what wise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I rekke not but it may better be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To have victory of hem, or they of me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So that I have my lady in min armes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For though so be that Mars is god of armes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your vertue is so grete in heven above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, if you liste, I shal wel have my love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy temple wol I worship evermo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on thin auter, wher I ride or go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wol don sacrifice, and fires bete.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if ye wol not so, my lady swete!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than pray I you to-morwe with a spere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Arcita me thurgh the herte bere;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxiv">[Pg xxxiv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Than rekke I not when I have lost my lif<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though that Arcita win hire to his wif.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is the effecte and ende of my praiere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yeve me my love, thou blissful lady dere!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When the orison was don of Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His sacrifice he did, and that anon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful pitously, with alle circumstances,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All tell I not as now his observances.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But at the last the statue of Venus shoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And made a signe, whereby that he toke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That his praiere accepted was that day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For though the signe shewed a delay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet wist he wel, that granted was his bone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with glad herte he went him home ful sone.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The thirdde hour inequal that Palamon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Began to Venus temple for to gon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up rose the sonne, and up rose Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the temple of Diane gan hie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire maydens, that she thider with hire ladde<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful redily with hem the fire they hadde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The encense, the clothes, and the remenant all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That to the sacrifice longen shall.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hornes full of mede, as was the gise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther lakked nought to don hire sacrifise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smoking the temple, full of clothes fayre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This Emelie, with herte debonaire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire body wesshe with water of a well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But how she did hire rite I dare not tell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But it be any thing in generall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet it were a game to heren all;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To him that meneth wel it n'ere no charge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But it is good a man to ben at large.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire bright here kembed was, untressed all;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A coroune of a grene oke ceriall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon hire hed was set ful fayre and mete;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two fires on the auter gan she bete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And did hire thinges, as men may behold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Stace of Thebes, and these bokes old.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan kendled was the fire, with pitous chere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto Diane she spake, as ye may here:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O chaste goddesse of the wodes grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whom both heven, and erth, and see, is sene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quene of the regne of Pluto, derke and lowe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Goddesse of maidens that myn herte hast knowe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful many a yere, and wost what I desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As kepe me fro thy vengeance and thin ire,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxv">[Pg xxxv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That Atteon aboughte cruelly!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chast goddesse! wel wotest thou that I<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Desire to ben a mayden all my lif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne never wol I be no love ne wif:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am (thou wost) yet of thy compagnie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mayde, and love hunting and venerie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for to walken in the wodes wilde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And not to ben a wife, and be with childe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nought wol I knowen compagnie of man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now helpe me, lady, sith you may and can;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For tho three formes that thou hast in thee:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Palamon, that hath swiche love to me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke Arcite, that loveth me so sore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This grace I praie thee, withouten more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As sende love and pees betwix hem two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fro me turne away hir hertes so,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all hir hot love and hir desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all hir besy torment, and hir fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be queinte, or torned in another place.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if so be thou wolt not do me grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or if my destinee be shapen so,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I shal nedes have on of hem two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As sende me him that most desireth me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beholde, goddesse of clene chastite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bitter teres that on my chekes fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sin thou art a mayde, and keper of us all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My maydenhede thou kepe, and well conserve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And while I live a mayde I wol thee serve.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The fires brenne upon the auter clere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While Emelie was thus in hire praiere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sodenly she saw a sighte queinte;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For right anon on of the fires queinte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And quiked again, and after that, anon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That other fire was queinte, and all agon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as it queinte, it made a whisteling,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As don these brondes wet in hir brenning;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the brondes ende outran anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As it were blody dropes many on;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which, so sore agast was Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That she was well neigh mad, and gan to crie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For she ne wiste what it signified,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But only for the fere thus she cried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wept, that it was pitee for to here.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And therewithall Diane gan appere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With bow in hond, right as an hunteresse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayde, Doughter, stint thin hevinesse.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxvi">[Pg xxxvi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Among the goddes highe it is affermed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by eterne word written and confermed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt be wedded unto on of tho<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That han for thee so mochel care and wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But unto which of hem I may not tell.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Farewel! for here I may no longer dwell:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fires, which that on min auter brenne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shal thee declaren, er that thou go henne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thin aventure of love as in this case.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And, with that word, the arwes in the case<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the goddesse clatteren fast and ring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And forth she went, and made a vanishing;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which this Emelie astonied was,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayde, What amounteth this, alas!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I put me in thy protection,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Diane, and under thy disposition.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And home she goth anon the nexte way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is the effecte; there n'is no more to say.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The next houre of Mars folwing this,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arcite unto the temple walked is<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fierce Mars to don his sacrifise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all the rites of his payen wise:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With pitous herte and high devotion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right thus to Mars he sayde his orison:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O stronge God, that in the regnes cold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Trace honoured art, and lord yhold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hast in every regne, and every lond<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of armes, all the bridel in thin hond,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hem fortunest as thee list devise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Accept of me my pitous sacrifise!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It so be that my youthe may deserve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that my might be worthy for to serve<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy godhed, that I may ben on of thine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than praie I thee to rewe upon my pine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thilke peine, and thilke hot fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which thou whilom brendest for desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whanne that thou usedest the beautee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fayre yonge Venus fresshe and free,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And haddest hire in armes at thy wille;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Although thee ones on a time misfille,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan Vulcanus had caught thee in his las,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fond thee ligging by his wif, alas!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thilke sorwe that was tho in thin herte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have reuthe as wel upon my peines smerte.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I am yonge and unkonning as thou wost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as I trow, with love offended most,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxvii">[Pg xxxvii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That ever was ony lives creature;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For she that doth me all this wo endure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne recceth never whether I sinke or flete;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wel I wote, or she me mercy hete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I moste with strengthe win hire in the place:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wel I wote, withouten helpe or grace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of thee, ne may my strengthe not availle:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than help me, Lord, to-morwe in my bataille,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thilke fire that whilom brenned thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As wel as that this fire now brenneth me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And do, that I to-morwe may han victorie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min be the travaille, and thin be the glorie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy soveraine temple wol I most honouren<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of ony place, and alway most labouren<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In thy plesance, and in thy craftes strong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in thy temple I wol my baner hong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the armes of my compagnie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And evermore, until that day I die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eterne fire I wol beforne thee find;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke to this avow I wol me bind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My berd, my here, that hangeth long adoun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That never yet felt non offensioun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of rasour ne of shere, I wol thee yeve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ben thy trewe servant while I live.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, Lord, have reuth upon my sorwes sore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yeve me the victorie, I axe thee no more.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The praier stint of Arcita the stronge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ringes on the temple dore that honge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke the dores, clattereden ful fast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of which Arcita somwhat him agast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fires brent upon the auter bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it gan all the temple for to light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A swete smel anon the ground up yaf,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Arcita anon his hond up haf,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And more enscense into the fire he cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With other rites mo; and, at the last,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The statue of Mars began his hauberke ring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with that soun he herd a murmuring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful low and dim, that said thus, Victory;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which he yaf to Mars honour and glorie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And thus with joye, and hope wel to fare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arcite anon unto his inne is fare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As fayn as foul is of the brighte sonne;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And right anon swiche strif ther is begonne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thilke granting in the heven above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixen Venus, the goddesse of Love,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxviii">[Pg xxxviii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And Mars, the sterne god armipotent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Jupiter was besy it to stent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Til that the pale Saturnus the Colde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That knew so many of aventures olde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fond in his olde experience and art,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he ful sone hath plesed every part.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As sooth is sayd, elde hath gret avantage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In elde is both wisdom and usage:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Men may the old out-renne, but not out-rede.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Saturne anon, to stenten strif and drede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Albeit that it is again his kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all this strif he gan a remedy find.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My dere doughter Venus, quod Saturne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My cours, that hath so wide for to turne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath more power than wot any man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min is the drenching in the see so wan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min is the prison in the derke cote,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The murmure, and the cherles rebelling,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The groyning, and the privy enpoysoning.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I do vengeaunce and pleine correction<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While I dwelt in the signe of the Leon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min is the ruine of the highe halles,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The falling of the toures and of the walles<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the minour, or the carpenter;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I slew Samson in shaking the piler.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min ben also the maladies colde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The derke tresons and the castes olde:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My loking is the fader of pestilence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now wepe no more; I shal do diligence<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Palamon, that is thin owen knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shal have his lady as thou hast him hight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thogh Mars shal help his knight yet natheles,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixen you ther mot sometime be pees:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All be ye not of o complexion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That causeth all day swiche division.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am thine ayel, redy at thy will;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wepe now no more, I shall thy lust fulfill.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now wol I stenten of the goddes above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Mars and of Venus, goddesse of Love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tellen you as plainly as I can<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gret effect for which that I began.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Gret was the feste in Athenes thilke day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke the lusty seson of that May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Made every wight to ben in swiche plesance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all that Monday justen they and dance,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxix">[Pg xxxix]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And spenden it in Venus highe servise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But by the cause that they shulden rise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Erly a-morwe, for to seen the sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto hir reste wenten they at night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the morwe, whan the day gan spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of hors and harneis, noise and clattering,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther was in the hostelries all aboute;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the paleis rode ther many a route<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of lordes upon stedes and palfreis.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">There mayest thou see devising of harneis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So uncouth, and so riche, and wrought so wele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of goldsmithry, of brouding, and of stele;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sheldes brighte, testeres and trappures,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gold-hewen helmes, hauberkes, cote armures,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lordes in parementes, on hir courseres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Knightes of retenue, and eke squires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nailing the speres, and helmes bokeling,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Guiding of sheldes, with lainers lacing;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther, as nede is, they weren nothing idel;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fomy stedes on the golden bridel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gnawing, and fast the armurers also<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With file and hammer priking to and fro;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yemen on foot, and communes many on<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With shorte staves, thicke as they may gon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pipes, trompes, nakeres, and clariounes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in the battaille blowen blody sounes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The paleis full of peple up and doun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here three, ther ten, holding hir questioun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Devining of these Theban knightes two.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som sayden thus, som sayde it shall be so;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som helden with him with the blacke berd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som with the balled, som with the thick herd;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some saide he loked grim, and wolde fighte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He hath a sparth of twenty pound of wighte.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus was the halle full of divining,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long after that the sonne gan up spring.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gret Theseus that of his slepe is waked<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With minstralcie and noise that was maked,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Held yet the chambre of his paleis riche,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Til that the Theban knightes bothe yliche<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Honoured were, and to the paleis fette.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Duk Theseus is at the window sette,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Araied right as he were a god in trone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The peple preset thiderward ful sone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him for to seen, and don high reverence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke to herken his heste and his sentence.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xl">[Pg xl]</a></span> -<span class="i2">An heraud on a scaffold made an o,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Til that the noise of the peple was ydo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whan he saw the peple of noise al still,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus shewed he the mighty dukes will.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The lord hath of his high discretion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Considered that it were destruction<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To gentil blood to fighten in the gise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of mortal bataille now in this emprise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherefore to shapen that they shul not die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wol his firste purpos modifie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No man therefore, up peine of losse of lif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No maner shot, ne pollax, ne short knif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the listes send, or thider bring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne short swerd to stike with point biting,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No man ne draw, ne bere it by his side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne no man shal unto his felaw ride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But o cours, with a sharpe ygrounden spere;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Foin if him list on foot, himself to were;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he that is at meschief shal be take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And not slaine, but be brought unto the stake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That shal ben ordeined on eyther side;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thider he shal by force, and ther abide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if so fall the chevetain be take<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On eyther side, or elles sleth his make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No longer shal the tourneying ylast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God spede you; goth forth and lay on fast:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With longe swerd and with mase fighteth your fill.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Goth now your way; this is the lordes will.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The vois of the peple touched to the heven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So loude crieden they with mery steven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God save swiche a lorde that is so good,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wilneth no destruction of blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Up gon the trompes and the melodie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the listes rit the compagnie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By ordinance, thurghout the cite large,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hanged with cloth of gold, and not with sarge.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful like a lord this noble duk gan ride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And these two Thebans upon eyther side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after rode the Quene and Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after that another compagnie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of on and other after hir degree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus they passen thurghout the citee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the listes comen they be time;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It n'as not of the day yet fully prime.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan set was Theseus ful riche and hie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ipolita the quene, and Emelie,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xli">[Pg xli]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And other ladies in degrees aboute,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the setes preseth all the route.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And westward, thurgh the gates under Mart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arcite, and eke the hundred of his part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With baner red, is entred right anon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the selve moment Palamon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is, under Venus, estward in the place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With baner white, and hardy chere and face:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in al the world, to seken up and doun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So even without variation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther n'ere swiche compagnies never twey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For ther was non so wise that coude sey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That any hadde of other avantage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of worthinesse, ne of estat, ne age;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So even were they chosen for to gesse:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in two renges fayre they hem dresse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that hir names red were everich on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in her nombre gile were ther non,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho were the gates shette, and cried was loude,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do now your devoir, yonge knightes proude.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The heraudes left hir priking up and doun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now ringin trompes loude, and clarioun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther is no more to say, but este and west<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In goth the speres sadly in the rest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In goth the sharpe spore into the side;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther see men who can juste and who can ride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther shiveren shaftes upon sheldes thicke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He feleth thurgh the herte-spone the pricke:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up springen speres, twenty foot on highte;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out gon the swerdes as the silver brighte:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The helmes they to-hewen and to-shrede;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out brest the blod with sterne stremes rede:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With mighty maces, the bones they to-breste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He thurgh the thickest of the throng gan threste:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There stomblen stedes strong, and doun goth all;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He rolleth under foot as doth a ball:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He foineth on his foo with a tronchoun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He thurgh the body is hurt, and sith ytake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Maugre his hed, and brought unto the stake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As forword was, right ther he must abide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another lad is on that other side:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And somtime doth hem Theseus to reste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hem to refresh, and drinken if hem lest.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ful oft a day han thilke Thebanes two<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Togeder met and wrought eche other wo:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unhorsed hath eche other of hem twey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther n'as no tigre in the vale of Galaphey,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlii">[Pg xlii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that hire whelpe is stole whan it is lite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So cruel on the hunt as is Arcite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For jalous herte upon this Palamon:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne in Belmarie ther n'is so fell leon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hunted is, or for his hunger wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne of his prey desireth so the blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Palamon to sleen his foo Arcite:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The jalous strokes on hir helmes bite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out renneth blood on both hir sides rede.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Somtime an end there is of every dede;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, er the sonne unto the reste went,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The strong King Emetrius gan hent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This Palamon, as he fought with Arcite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And made his swerd depe in his flesh to bite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by the force of twenty is he take<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unyolden, and ydrawen to the stake:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the rescous of this Palamon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stronge King Licurge is borne adoun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And King Emetrius, for all his strengthe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is borne out of his sadel a swerdes lengthe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So hitte him Palamon or he were take:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But all for nought, he was brought to the stake:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His hardy herte might him helpen naught;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He moste abiden whan that he was caught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By force, and eke by composition.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Who sorweth now but woful Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That moste no more gon again to fight?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whan that Theseus had seen that sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the folk that foughten thus ech on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He cried, Ho!<a id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> no more, for it is don.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wol be true juge, and not partie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arcite of Thebes shal have Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That by his fortune hath hire fayre ywonne.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Anon ther is a noise of peple begonne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For joye of this, so loud and high withall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It seemed that the listes shulden fall.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What can now fayre Venus don above?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What saith she now? What doth this quene of Love?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wepeth so, for wanting of hire will,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Til that hire teres in the listes fill:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She sayde, I am ashamed doutelees.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Saturnus sayde, Daughter, hold thy pees:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mars hath his will, his knight hath all his bone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, by min hed, thou shall ben esed sone.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xliii">[Pg xliii]</a></span> -<span class="i2">The trompoures, with the loud minstralcie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The heraudes, that so loude yell and crie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ben in hir joye for wele of Dan Arcite.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But herkeneth me, and stenteth noise a lite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whiche a miracle ther befell anon.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This fierce Arcite hath of his helme ydon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on a courser for to shew his face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He priketh endlong the large place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loking upward upon this Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she again him cast a frendlich eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For women, as to speken in commune,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They folwen all the favour of Fortune,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And was all his in chere as his in herte.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of the ground a fury infernal sterte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Pluto sent, at requeste of Saturne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which his hors for fere gan to turne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lepte aside, and foundred as he lepe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And er that Arcite may take any kepe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He pight him on the pomel of his hed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in the place he lay as he were ded,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His breste to-brosten with his sadel bow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As blake he lay as any cole or crow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So was the blood yronnen in his face.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Anon he was yborne out of the place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With herte sore, to Theseus paleis:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho was he corven out of his harneis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in a bed ybrought ful fayre and blive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he was yet in memorie and live,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And alway crying after Emelie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Duk Theseus, with all his compagnie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is comen hom to Athens, his citee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With alle blisse and gret solempnite.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al be it that this aventure was falle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He n'olde not discomforten hem alle.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Men sayden eke that Arcite shal not die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He shal ben heled of his maladie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of another thing they were as fayn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That of hem alle was ther non yslain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al were they sore yhurt, and namely on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That with a spere was thirled his brest bone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To other woundes, and to broken armes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som hadden salves, and some hadden charmes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fermacies of herbes, and eke save<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They dronken, for they wold hir lives have:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which this noble duk, as he wel can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Comforteth and honoureth every man,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xliv">[Pg xliv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And made revel all the longe night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the strange lordes, as was right.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne ther n'as holden no discomforting<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But as at justes, or a tourneying;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For sothly ther n'as no discomfiture,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For falling n'is not but an aventure:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne to be lad by force unto a stake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unyolden, and with twenty knightes take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O person all alone, withouten mo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And haried forth by armes, foot, and too,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke his stede driven forth with staves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With footmen, bothe yemen and eke knaves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It was aretted him no villanie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther may no man clepen it cowardie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which anon Duk Theseus let crie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To stenten alle rancour and envie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gree as wel of o side as of other,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eyther side ylike, as others brother;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yave hem giftes after hir degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And helde a feste fully dayes three;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And conveyed the kinges worthily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of his toun a journee largely;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And home went every man the righte way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther n'as no more but farewel, have good day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of this bataille I wol no more endite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But speke of Palamon and of Arcite.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Swelleth the brest of Arcite, and the sore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Encreseth at his herte more and more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The clotered blood for any leche-craft<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Corrumpeth, and is in his bouke ylaft,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That neyther vine-blood ne ventousing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne drinke of herbes, may ben his helping.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The vertue expulsif, or animal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forthilke vertue cleped natural,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne may the venime voiden ne expell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pipes of his longes gan to swell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every lacerte in his brest adoun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is shent with venime and corruptioun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him gaineth neyther for to get his lif<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vomit upward ne dounward laxatif:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All is to brosten thilke region;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nature hath now no domination:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certainly ther nature wol not werche.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Farewel physike; go bere the man to cherche.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is all and som, that Arcite moste die;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which he sendeth after Emelie,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlv">[Pg xlv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And Palamon, that was his cosin dere;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than sayd he thus, as ye shuln after here:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nought may the woful spirit in myn herte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Declare o point of all my sorwes smerte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To you, my lady, that I love most;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I bequethe the service of my gost<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To you aboven every creature,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sin that my lif ne may no lenger dure.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Alas! the wo, alas! the peines strong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I for you have suffered, and so long;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! the deth; alas! mine Emelie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! departing of our compagnie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! min hertes quene; alas! my wif;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min hertes ladie! ender of my lif!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What is this world? what axen men to have?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now with his love, now in his colde grave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alone withouten any compagnie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Farewel, my swete! farewel, min Emelie!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And softe take me in your armes twey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For love of God, and herkeneth what I sey.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I have here with my cosin Palamon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had strif and rancour many a day agon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For love of you, and for my jalousie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Jupiter so wis my soule gie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To speken of a servant properly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With alle circumstances trewely,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is to sayn, trouth, honour, and knighthede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wisdom, humblesse, estat, and high kinrede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Freedom, and all that longeth to that art,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So Jupiter have of my soule part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As in this world right now ne know I non<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So worthy to be loved as Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That serveth you, and wol don all his lif;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if that ever ye shal ben a wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Foryete not Palamon, the gentil man.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with that word his speche faille began;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For from his feet up to his brest wos come<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cold of deth, that had him overnome;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet moreover in his armes two<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The vital strength is lost and all ago;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only the intellect, withouten more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That dwelled in his herte sike and sore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gan faillen whan the herte felt deth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dusked his eyen two, and failled his breth:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But on his ladie yet cast he his eye;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His laste word was, Mercy, Emelie!<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlvi">[Pg xlvi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">His spirit changed hous, and wente ther<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As I cam never I cannot tellen wher;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Therefore I stent, I am no divinistre;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of soules find I not in this registre:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne me lust not the opinions to telle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of hem, though that they written wher they dwelle.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arcite is cold, ther Mars his soule gie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now wol I speken forth of Emelie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shright Emelie, and houleth Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Theseus his sister toke anon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swouning, and bare her from the corps away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What helpeth it to tarien forth the day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To tellen how she wepe both even and morwe?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in swiche cas wimmen have swiche sorwe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that hir hosbonds ben fro hem ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That for the more part they sorwen so,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or elles fallen in swiche maladie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That atte last certainly they die.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Infinite ben the sorwes and the teres<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of olde folk, and folk of tendre yeres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all the toun, for deth of this Theban;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For him ther wepeth bothe child and man:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So gret weping was ther non certain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan Hector was ybrought, all fresh yslain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Troie: Alas! the pitee that was there;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cratching of chekes, rending eke of here.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why woldest thou be ded, thise women crie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And haddest gold ynough, and Emelie?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No man might gladen this Duk Theseus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Saving his olde fader Egeus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That knew this worldes transmutation,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he had seen it chaungen up and doun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Joye after wo, and wo after gladnesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shewed him ensample and likenesse.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Right as ther died never man, (quod he,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he ne lived in erth in som degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right so ther lived never man, (he seyd,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all this world, that somtime he ne deyd:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This world n'is but a thurghfare, ful of wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we ben pilgrimes, passing to and fro:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deth is an end of every worldes sore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And over all this yet said he mochel more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To this effect, ful wisely to enhort<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The peple, that they shuld hem recomfort.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Duk Theseus, with all his besy cure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He casteth now, wher that the sepulture<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlvii">[Pg xlvii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of good Arcite may best ymaked be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke most honourable in his degree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the last he toke conclusion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ther as first Arcite and Palamon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hadden for love the bataille hem betwene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in that selve grove, sote and grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther as he hadde his amorous desires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His complaint, and for love his hote fires;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wold make a fire, in which the office<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of funeral he might all accomplise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let anon commande to hack and hewe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The okes old, and lay hem on a rew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In culpons, wel arraied for to brenne.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His officers with swifte feet they renne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ride anon at his commandement.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after this, this Theseus hath sent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">After a bere, and it all overspradde<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With cloth of gold, the richest that he hadde;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of the same suit he cladde Arcite.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon his hondes were his gloves white,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eke on his hed a croune of laurer grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his hond a swerd ful bright and kene.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He laid him bare the visage on the bere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Therwith he wept that pitee was to here;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for the peple shulde seen him alle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan it was day, he brought him to the halle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That roreth of the crying, and the soun.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Tho came this woful Theban, Palamon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With flotery berd, and ruggy ashy heres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In clothes blake, ydropped all with teres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And (passing over of weping Emelie)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The reufullest of all the compagnie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And in as much as the service shuld be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more noble, and riche in his degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Duk Theseus let forth three stedes bring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That trapped were in stele all glittering,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And covered with the armes of Dan Arcite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke upon these stedes, gret and white,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther saten folk, of which on bare his sheld,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another his spere up in his hondes held;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thridde bare with him his bow Turkeis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of brent gold was the cas and the harneis;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And riden forth a pas with sorweful chere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toward the groue, as ye shal after here.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The noblest of the Grekes that ther were<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon hir shuldres carrieden the bere,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlviii">[Pg xlviii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">With slacke pas, and eyen red and wete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thurghout the citee, by the maister strete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That sprad was al with black, and wonder hie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right of the same is all the strete ywrie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the right hand went olde Egeus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the other side, Duk Theseus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With vessels in hir hond of gold ful fine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All ful of hony, milk, and blood, and wine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eke Palamon, with ful gret compagnie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after that came woful Emelie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With fire in hond, as was that time the gise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To don the office of funeral service.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">High labour and ful gret apparailling<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was at the service of that fire making,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That with his grene top the heaven raught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And twenty fadom of bred the armes straught;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is to sain, the boughes were so brode,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of stre first ther was laied many a lode.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But how the fire was maked up on highte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke the names how the trees highte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As oke, fir, birch, aspe, alder, holm, poplere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wilow, elm, plane, ash, box, chestein, lind, laurere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Maple, thorn, beche, hasel, ew, whipultre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How they were feld, shal not be told for me;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how the goddes rannen up and doun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Disherited of hir habitatioun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which they woneden in rest and pees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nimphes, Faunes, and Amidriades;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how the bestes, and the birddes alle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fledden for fere whan the wood gan falle;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how the ground agast was of the light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That was not wont to see the sonne bright;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how the fire was couched first with stre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And than with drie stickes cloven a-thre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And than with grene wood and spicerie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And than with cloth of gold and with perrie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And garlonds hanging with ful many a flour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mirre, the encense also, with swete odour;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how Arcita lay among all this,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne what richesse about his body is;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how that Emelie, as was the gise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Put in the fire of funeral service;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how she swouned, whan she made the fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne what she spake, ne what was hire desire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne what jewelles men in the fire caste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that the fire was gret, and brente fast;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlix">[Pg xlix]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how som cast hir sheld, and som hir spere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of hir vestimentes, which they were,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cuppes full of wine, and milk, and blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the fire, that brent as it were wood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how the Grekes, with a huge route,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Three times riden all the fire aboute<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the left hond, with a loud shouting,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thries with hir speres clatering;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thries how the ladies gan to crie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how that led was homeward Emelie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how Arcite is brent to ashen cold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne how the liche-wake was yhold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All thilke night; ne how the Grekes play;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wake-plaies ne kepe I not to say;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who wrestled best naked, with oile enoint,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne who that bare him best in no disjoint:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I woll not tellen eke how they all gon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Home till Athenes, whan the play is don.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But shortly to the point now wol I wende,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And maken of my longe tale an ende.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">By processe, and by lengths of certain yeres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All stenten is the mourning and the teres<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Grekes, by on general assent:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than semeth me ther was a parlement<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At Athenes, upon certain points and cas;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amonges the which points yspoken was<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To have with certain contrees alliance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And have of Thebanes fully obeisance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which this noble Theseus anon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let senden after gentil Palamon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unwist of him what was the cause, and why:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But in his blacke clothes sorwefully<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He came at his commandment on hie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho sente Theseus for Emelie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan they were set, and husht was al the place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Theseus abiden hath a space,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or any word came from his wise brest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eyen set he ther as was his lest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with a sad visage he siked still,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after that right thus he sayd his will.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The firste Mover of the cause above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan he firste made the fayre chaine of love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gret was the effect, and high was his entent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Well wist he why, and what therof he ment:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For with that fayre chaine of love he bond<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fire, the air, the watre, and the lond,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_l">[Pg l]</a></span> -<span class="i0">In certain bondes, that they may not flee:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That same prince and mover eke, quod he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath stablisht, in this wretched world adoun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Certain of dayes and duration,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To all that are engendred in this place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over the which day they ne mow not pace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al mow they yet the dayes well abrege.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther nedeth non autoritee allege,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For it is preved by experience,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But that me lust declaren my sentence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than may men by this ordre well discerne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That thilke Mover stable is and eterne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel may men knowen, but it be a fool,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That every part deriveth from his hool;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Nature hath not taken his beginning<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of no partie ne cantel of a thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But of a thing that parfit is and stable,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Descending so til it be corrumpable;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therefore of his wise purveyance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He hath so wel beset his ordinance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That speces of thinges and progressions<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shullen enduren by successions,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And not eterne, withouten any lie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This maist thou understand, and seen at eye.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo the oke, that hath so long a norishing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fro the time that it ginneth first to spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hath so long a lif, as ye may see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet at the laste wasted is the tree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Considereth eke how that the harde stone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under our feet, on which we trede and gone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It wasteth, as it lieth by the wey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The brode river sometime wexeth drey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The grete tounes see we wane and wende;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than may ye see that all thing hathe an ende.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of man and woman see we wel also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That nedes in on of the termes two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is to sayn, in youthe, or elles age,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He mote be ded, the king as shall a page;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som in his bed, som in the depe see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som in the large feld, as ye may see:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther helpeth nought, all goth that ilke wey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than may I sayn, that alle thing mote dey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What maketh this but Jupiter the King,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The which is prince and cause of alle thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Converting alle unto his propre wille,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From which it is derived, soth to telle?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_li">[Pg li]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And here-againes no creature on live<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of no degree availleth for to strive.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than is it wisdom, as it thinketh me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To maken vertue of necessite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And take it wel that we may not eschewe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And namely that to us all is dewe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whoso, grutcheth ought he doth folie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rebel is to him that all may gie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certainly a man hath most honour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To dien in his excellence and flour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan he is siker of his goode name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than hath he don his frend ne him no shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And glader ought his frend ben of his deth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan with honour is yolden up his breth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than whan his name appalled is for age,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all foryetten is his vassalage:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than is it best as for a worthy fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To dein whan a man is best of name.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The contrary of all this is wilfulnesse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why grutchen we? why have we hevinesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That good Arcite, of chivalry the flour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Departed is, with dutee and honour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of this foule prison of this lif?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why grutchen here his cosin and his wif<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of his welfare, that loven him so wel?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can he hem thank? nay, God wot, never a del,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That both his soule and eke himself offend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet they mow her lustres not amend.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What may I conclude of this longe serie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But after sorwe I rede us to be merie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thanken Jupiter of all his grace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And er that we departen from this place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I rede that we make of sorwes two<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O parfit joye lasting evermo:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And loketh now wher most sorwe is herein,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther wol I firste amenden and begin.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sister, (quod he) this is my full assent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all the avis here of my parlement,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That gentil Palamon, your owen knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That serveth you with will, and herte, and might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ever hath don sin you first him knew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ye shall of your grace upon him rew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And taken him for husbond and for lord:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lene me your hand, for this is oure accord.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Let see now of your womanly pitee:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He is a kinges brothers sone pardee;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lii">[Pg lii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And though he were a poure bachelere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sin he hath served you so many a yere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And had for you so gret adversite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It moste ben considered, leveth me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For gentil mercy oweth to passen right.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Than sayed he thus to Palamon the knight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I trow their nedeth litel sermoning<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To maken you assenten to this thing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cometh ner, and take your lady by the hond.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Betwixen hem was maked anon the bond<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That highte matrimoine or mariage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By all the conseil of the baronage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus with alle blisse and melodie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath Palamon ywedded Emelie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And God, that all this wide world hath wrought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Send him his love that hath it dere ybought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For now is Palamon in alle wele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Living in blisse, in richesse, and in hele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Emilie him loveth so tendrely,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he hire serveth all so gentilly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That never was ther no word hem betwene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of jalousie, ne of non other tene.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus endeth Palamon and Emelie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And God save all this fayre compagnie.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "If the King's Majesty say but Ho! or give any other signal, then they -who are within the lists, with the constable and marshal, throwing their lances -between the appellant and defendant, so part them."—<i>The Ancient Method of -Duels before the King.</i></p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_liii">[Pg liii]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -NONNES PREESTES TALE.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A poure widewe, somdel stoupen in age,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was whilom dwelling in a narwe cotage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beside a grove stonding in a dale.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This widewe, which I tell you of my tale,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sin thilke day that she was last a wif<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In patience led a ful simple lif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For litel was hire catel and hire rente;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By husbondry of swiche as God hire sente<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She found hireself and eke hire doughtren two.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Three large sowes had she, and no mo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Three kine, and eke a sheep that highte Malle;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful sooty was hire boure and eke hire halle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which she ete many a slender mele;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of poinant sauce ne knew she never a dele:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No deintee morsel passed thurgh hire throte;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire diete was accordant to hire cote:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Repletion ne made hire never sike;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Attempre diete was all hire physike,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And exercise, and hertes suffisance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The goute let hire nothing for to dance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne apoplexie shente not hire hed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No win ne dranke she nyther white ne red:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire bord was served most with white and black,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Milk and broun bred, in which she fond no lack,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_liv">[Pg liv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Seinde bacon, and somtime an eye or twey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For she was as it were a manner dey.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A yerd she had enclosed all about<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With stickes, and a drie diche without,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which she had a cok highte Chaunteclere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all the land of crowing n'as his pere:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His vois was merier than the mery orgon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On masse daies that in the chirches gon:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wel sikerer was his crowing in his loge<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than is a clok or any abbey orloge:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By nature he knewe eche ascentioun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the equinoctial in thilke toun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For whan degrees fiftene were ascended<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than crew he that it might not ben amended.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His combe was redder than the fin corall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enbattelled as it were a castel wall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His bill was black, and as the jet it shone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like asure were his legges and his tone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His nailes whiter than the lily flour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And like the burned gold was his colour.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This gentil cok had in his governance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seven hennes for to don all his plesance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which were his susters and his paramoures,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wonder like to him as of coloures,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of which the fairest, hewed in the throte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was cleped faire Damoselle Pertelote.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curteis she was, descrete and debonaire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And compenable, and bare hireself so faire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sithen the day that she was sevennight old,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That trewelich she hath the herte in hold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Chaunteclere, loken in every lith;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He loved hire so, that wel was him therwith:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But swiche a joye it was to here hem sing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that the brighte sonne gan to spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In swete accord: my lefe is fare in lond.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For thilke time, as I have understond,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bestes and briddes couden speke and sing.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And so befell that in a dawening<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Chaunteclere among his wives alle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sate on his perche that was in the halle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And next him sate his faire Pertelote,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This Chaunteclere gan gronnen in his throte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As man that in his dreme is dretched sore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whan that Pertelote thus herd him rore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She was agast, and saide, herte dere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What aileth you to grone in this manner?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lv">[Pg lv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ye ben a veray sleper, fy for shame.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And he answered and sayde thus; Madame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I pray you that ye take it not agrefe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By God me mette I was in swiche mischiefe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right now, that yet min herte is sore afright.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now God (quod he) my sweven recche aright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And kepe my body out of foule prisoun.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My mette how that I romed up and doun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within our yerde, wher as I saw a beste<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was like an hound, and wold han made areste<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon my body, and han had me ded:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His colour was betwix yelwe and red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tipped was his tail and both his eres<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With black, unlike the remenant of his heres:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His snout was smal, with glowing eyen twey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet for his loke almost for fere I dey:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This caused me my groning douteles.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Avoy, quod she; fy on you herteles.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! quod she, for by that God above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now han ye lost myn herte and all my love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I cannot love a coward by my faith;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For certes, what so any woman saith,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We al desiren, if it mighte be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To have an husbond hardy, wise, and free,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And secree, and non niggard ne no fool,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne him that is agast of every tool,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne non avantour by that God above.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How dorsten ye for shame say to your love<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That any thing might maken you aferde?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Han ye no mannes herte and han a berde?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! and con ye ben agast of swevenis?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nothing but vanitee, God wote, in sweven is.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Swevenes engendren of repletions,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And oft of fume, and of complexions,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan humours ben to habundant in a wight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Certes this dreme which ye han met to-night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cometh of the gret superfluitee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of youre rede <i>colera</i> parde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which causeth folk to dreden in her dremes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of arwes, and of fire with rede lemes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of rede bestes that they wol hem bite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of conteke, and of waspes gret and lite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right as the humour of melancolie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Causeth ful many a man in slepe to crie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For fere of bolles and of beres blake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or elles that blake devils wol hem take.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lvi">[Pg lvi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of other humours coud I telle also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That werken many a man in slepe moch wo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I wol passe as lightly as I can.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lo Caton, which that was so wise a man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Said he not thus? Ne do no force of dremes.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now, Sire, quod she, whan we flee fro the bemes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Goddes love as take som laxatif:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up peril of my soule, and of my lif<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I counseil you the best, I wol not lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That both of coler and of melancolie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye purge you; and for ye shul not tarie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though in this toun be non apotecarie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I shal myself two herbes techen you<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That shal be for your hele and for your prow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in our yerde the herbes shall I finde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The which han of hir propretee by kinde<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To purgen you benethe and eke above.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sire, forgete not this for Goddes love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye ben ful colerike of complexion;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ware that the sonne in his ascention<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne finde you not replete of humours hote;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if it do, I dare wel lay a grote<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ye shul han a fever tertiane,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or elles an ague, that may be your bane.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A day or two ye shul han digestives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of wormes or ye take your laxatives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of laureole, centaurie, and fumetere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or elles of ellebor that groweth there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of catapuce or of gaitre beries,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or herbe ive growing in our yerd that mery is;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Picke hem right as they grow, and ete hem in.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beth mery, husbond; for your fader kin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dredeth no dreme: I can say you no more.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Madame, quod he, <i>grand mercy</i> of your lore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But natheles as touching Dan Caton,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hath of wisdome swiche a gret renoun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though that he bade no dremes for to drede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By God, men moun in olde bookes rede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of many a man more of auctoritee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than ever Caton was, so mote I the,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all the revers sayn of his sentence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And han wel founden by experience,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That dremes ben significations<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As wel of joye as tribulations<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That folk enduren in this lif present:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther nedeth make of this non argument;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lvii">[Pg lvii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The veray preve sheweth it indede.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On of the gretest auctours that men rede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Saith thus, that whilom twey felawes wente<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On pilgrimage in a ful good entente,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And happed so they came into a toun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wher ther was swiche a congregatioun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of peple, and eke so streit of herbergage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they ne founde as moche as a cotage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which they bothe might ylogged be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherfore they musten of necessitee;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As for that night, departen compagnie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eche of hem goth to his hostelrie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And toke his logging as it wolde falle.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That on of hem was logged in a stalle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fer in a yard, with oxen of the plough,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That other man was logged wel ynough,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As was his aventure or his fortune,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That us governeth all, as in commune.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And so befell that long or it were day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This man met in his bed, ther as he lay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How that his felaw gan upon him calle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And said, Alas! for in an oxen stalle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This night shal I be mordred ther I lie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now help me, dere brother! or I die:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In alle haste come to me, he saide.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This man out of his slepe for fere abraide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But whan that he was waken of his slepe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He turned him, and toke of this no kepe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him thought his dreme was but a vanitee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus twies in his sleping dremed he.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And at the thridde time yet his felaw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Came, as him thought, and said, I now am slaw;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behold my blody woundes depe and wide:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arise up erly in the morwe tide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the west gate of the toun (quod he)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A carte ful of donge ther shalt thou see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which my body is hid prively;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do thilke carte arresten boldely.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My gold caused my mordre, soth to sain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And told him every point how he was slain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a ful pitous face, pale of hewe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And trusteth wel his dreme he found ful trewe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For on the morwe sone as it was day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To his felawes inne he toke his way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whan that he came to this oxes stalle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">After his felaw he began to calle.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lviii">[Pg lviii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The hosteler answered him anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saide, Sire, your felaw is agon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As sone as day he went out of the toun.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This man gan fallen in suspecioun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Remembring on his dremes that he mette,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And forth he goth, no lenger wold he lette,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the west gate of the toun, and fond<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A dong carte as it went for to dong lond,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That was arraied in the same wise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As ye han herde the dede man devise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with an hardy herte he gan to crie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vengeance and justice of this felonie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My felaw mordred is this same night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in this carte he lith gaping upright.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I crie out on the ministres, quod he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That shulden kepe and reulen this citee:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Harow! alas! here lith my felaw slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What shuld I more unto this tale sain?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The peple out stert, and cast the cart to ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the middle of the dong they found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dede man that mordred was all newe.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O blisful God! that art so good and trewe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo, how that thou bewreyest mordre alway!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mordre wol out, that see we day by day:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mordre is so wlatsom and abhominable<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To God, that is so just and resonable,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he ne wol not suffre it hylled be:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though it abide a yere, or two or three,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mordre wol out; this is my conclusioun.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And right anon the ministres of the toun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Han hent the carter, and so sore him pined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke the hosteler so sore engined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they beknewe hir wickednesse anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And were anhanged by the necke bon.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Here moun ye see that dremes ben to drede.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certes in the same book I rede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right in the next chapitre after this,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(I gabbe not, so have I joye and blis)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two men that wold han passed over the see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For certain cause, in to a fer contree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If that the winde ne hadde ben contrarie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That made hem in a citee for to tarie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That stood ful mery upon a haven side:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But on a day, agein the even tide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wind gan change, and blew right as hem lest:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jolif and glad they wenten to hir rest,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lix">[Pg lix]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And casten hem ful erly for to saile;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But to that o man fel a gret mervaile.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That on of hem in sleping as he lay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He mette a wondre dreme again the day:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him thought a man stood by his beddes side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And him commanded that he shuld abide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And said him thus; If thou to-morwe wende<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt be dreint; my tale is at an ende.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He woke, and told his felaw what he met,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And praied him his viage for to let;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As for that day he prayd him for to abide.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His felaw, that lay by his beddes side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gan for to laugh, and scorned him ful faste:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No dreme, quod he, may so my herte agaste<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I wol leten for to do my thinges:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I sette not a straw by thy dreminges,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For swevens ben but vanitees and japes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Men dreme al day of oules and of apes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke of many a mase therwithal;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Men dreme of thing that never was ne shal.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sith I see that thou wol there abide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus forslouthen wilfully thy tide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God wot it reweth me; and have good day:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus he took his leve, and went his way.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But or that he had half his cours ysailed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">N'ot I not why, ne what mischance it ailed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But casuelly the shippes bottom rente,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ship and man under the water wente<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sight of other shippes ther beside<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That with him sailed at the same tide.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And therefore, faire Pertelote so dere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By swiche ensamples olde maist thou lere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That no man shulde be to reccheles<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of dremes, for I say thee douteles<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That many a dreme ful sore is for to drede.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lo, in the lif of Seint Kenelme I rede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That was Kenulphus sone, the noble King<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Mercenrike, how Kenelm mette a thing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A litel or he were mordered on a day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His mordre in his avision he say;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His norice him expouned every del<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His sweven, and bade him for to kepe him wel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fro treson; but he n'as but seven yere old,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therefore litel tale hath he told<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of any dreme, so holy was his herte.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By God I hadde lever than my sherte<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lx">[Pg lx]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That ye had red his legend as have I.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dame Pertelote, I say you trewely,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Macrobius, that writ the avision<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Affrike of the worthy Scipion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Affirmeth dremes, and sayth that they ben<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Warning of thinges that men after seen.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And forthermore, I pray you loketh wel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In The Olde Testament of Daniel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If he held dremes any vanitee.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Rede eke of Joseph, and ther shuln ye see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wher dremes ben somtime (I say not alle)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Warning of thinges that shuln after falle.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Loke of Egipt the king, Dan Pharao,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His baker and his boteler also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wheder they ne felten non effect in dremes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who so wol seken actes of sondry remes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May rede of dremes many a wonder thing.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lo Cresus, which that was of Lydie king,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mette he not that he sat upon a tree?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which signified he shuld anhanged be.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lo hire Adromacha, Hectores wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That day that Hector shulde lese his lif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She dremed on the same nighte beforne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How that the lif of Hector shuld be lorne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If thilke day he went into bataille;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She warned him, but it might not availle;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He went forth for to fighten natheles,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And was yslain anon of Achilles.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But thilke tale is al to long to telle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke it is nigh day, I may not dwelle.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shortly I say, as for conclusion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I shal han of this avision<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Adversitee; and I say forthermore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I ne tell of laxatives no store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For they ben venimous, I wot it wel:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I hem deffie; I love hem never a del.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But let us speke of mirthe, and stinte all this.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Madame Pertelote, so have I blis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of o thing God hath sent me large grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For whan I see the beautee of your face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye ben so scarlet red about your eyen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It maketh all my drede for to dien;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For al so siker as <i>In principio</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Mulier est hominis confusio</i>.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Madame, the sentence of this Latine is,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Woman is mannes joye and mannes blis;)<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxi">[Pg lxi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For whan I fele a-night your softe side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al be it that I may not on you ride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For that our perche is made so narwe, alas!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am so ful of joye and of solas<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I deffie bothe sweven and dreme.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with that word he flew doun fro the beme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For it was day, and eke his hennes alle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with a chuk he gan hem for to calle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he had found a corn lay in the yerd.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Real he was, he was no more aferd;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He fethered Pertelote twenty time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And trade hire eke as oft, er it was prime:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He loketh as it were a grim leoun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on his toos he rometh up and doun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him deigned not to set his feet to ground:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He chukketh, whan he hath a corn yfound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to him rennen than his wives alle.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus real, as a prince is in his halle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leve I this Chaunteclere in his pasture;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after wol I till his aventure.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan that the month in which the world began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That highte March, whan God first maked man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was complete, and ypassed were also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sithen March ended thritty dayes and two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Befell that Chaunteclere in all his pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His seven wives walking him beside,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cast up his eyen to the brighte sonne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in the signe of Taurus hadde yronne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twenty degrees and on, and somwhat more:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He knew by kind, and by non other lore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it was prime, and crew with blisful steven.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sonne, he said, is clomben up on heven<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twenty degrees and on, and more ywis;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Madame Pertelote, my worldes blis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Herkeneth thise blisful briddes how they sing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And see the freshe floures how they spring;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful is min herte of revel, and solas.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But sodenly him fell a sorweful cas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For ever the latter ende of joye is wo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God wote that worldly joye is sone ago;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if a rethor coude faire endite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He in a chronicle might it saufly write<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As for a soveraine notabilitee.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now every wise man let him herken me:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This story is also trewe, I undertake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As is the book of Launcelot du Lake,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxii">[Pg lxii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That women holde in ful gret reverence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now wol I turne agen to my sentence.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A col fox, ful of sleigh iniquitee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in the grove had wonned yeres three,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By high imagination forecast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The same night thurghout the hegges brast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the yerd ther Chaunteclere the faire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was wont, and eke his wives, to repaire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in a bedde of wortes stille he lay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till it was passed undern of the day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Waiting his time on Chaunteclere to falle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As gladly don thise homicides alle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in await liggen to mordre men.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O false morderour! rucking in thy den,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O newe Scariot, newe Genelon!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O false dissimulour, o Greek Sinon!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That broughtest Troye al utterly to sorwe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Chaunteclere! accursed be the morwe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That thou into thy yerd flew fro the bemes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou were ful wel ywarned by thy dremes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That thilke day was perilous to thee:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But what that God forewote most nedes be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">After the opinion of certain clerkes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Witnesse on him that any parfit clerk is,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in scole is gret altercation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In this matere and gret disputison,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hath ben of an hundred thousand men:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I ne cannot boult it to the bren,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As can the holy Doctour Augustin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or Boece, or the bishop Bradwardin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether that Goddes worthy foreweting<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Streineth me nedely for to don a thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Nedely clepe I simple necessitee)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or elles if free chois be granted me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To do that same thing, or do it nought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though God forewot it, or that it was wrought;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or if his weting streineth never a del<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But by necessitee condicionel.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wol not han to don of swiche matere;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My Tale is of a cok, as ye may here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That took his conseil of his wif and sorwe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To walken in the yerd upon the morwe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he had met the dreme, as I you told.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Womennes conseiles ben ful often cold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Womennes conseil brought us first to wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And made Adam fro Paradis to go,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxiii">[Pg lxiii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ther as he was ful mery and wel at ese:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But for I n'ot to whom I might displese<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I conseil of women wolde blame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Passe over, for I said it in my game.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rede auctours where they trete of swiche matere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what they sayn of women ye mown here.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thise ben the Cokkes wordes and not mine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I can non harme of no woman devine.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Faire in the sond, to bath hire merily,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lith Pertelote, and all hire susters by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Agein the sonne, and Chaunteclere so free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sang merrier than the mermaid in the see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Phisiologus sayth sikerly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How that they singen wel and merily.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And so befell that as he cast his eye<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among the wortes on a boterflie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was ware of this fox that lay ful low:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nothing ne list him thaune for to crow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But cried anon Cok, cok, and up he sterte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As man that was affraied in his herte;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For naturally a beest desireth flee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fro his contrarie if he may it see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though he never erst had seen it with his eye.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Chaunteclere, whan he gan him espie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wold han fled, but that the fox anon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Said, Gentil Sire, alas! what wol ye don?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be ye affraid of me that am your frend?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now certes I were werse than any fend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I to you wold harme or vilanie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I n'am not come your conseil to espie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But trewely the cause of my coming<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was only for to herken how ye sing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For trewely ye han as mery a steven<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As any angel hath that is in heven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Therwith ye han of musike more feling<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than had Boece, or any that can sing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My Lord, your fader (God his soule blesse)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke your moder of hire gentillesse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Han in myn hous yben, to my gret ese,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certes, Sire, ful fain wold I you plese.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But for men speke of singen, I wol sey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So mote I brouken wel min eyen twey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save you, ne herd I never man so sing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As did your fader in the morwening:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Certes it was of herte all that he song.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for to make his vois the more strong<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxiv">[Pg lxiv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He wold so peine him, that with both his eyen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He muste winke, so loude he walde crien,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stonden on his tiptoon therwithal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stretchen forth his necke long and smal.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke he was of swiche discretion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ther n'as no man in no region<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That him in song or wisdom mighte passe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I have wel red in Dan Burnel the asse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among his vers, how that ther was a cok<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That for a preestes sone yave him a knok<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon his leg, while he was yonge and nice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He made him for to lese his benefice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But certain ther is no comparison<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt the wisdom and discretion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of your fader and his subtilitee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now singeth, Sire, for Seint Charitee:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let see, can ye your fader countrefete?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Chaunteclere his winges gan to bete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As man that coud not his treson espie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So was he ravished with his flaterie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Alas! ye lordes, many a false flatour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is in your court, and many a losengeour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That pleseth you wel more, by my faith,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than he that sothfastnesse unto you saith,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Redeth Ecclesiast of flaterie:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beth ware, ye lordes, of hire trecherie.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This Chaunteclere stood high upon his toos<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Streching his necke, and held his eyen cloos<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gan to crowen loude for the nones;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Dan Russel the fox stert up at ones,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by the gargat hente Chaunteclere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on his back toward the wood him bere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For yet ne was ther no man that him sued.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O destinee! that maist not ben eschued,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas that Chaunteclere flew fro the bemes!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas, his wif ne raughte not of dremes!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on a Friday fell all this meschance.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O Venus! that art goddesse of Plesance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sin that thy servant was this Chaunteclere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in thy service did all his powere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More for delit, than world to multiplie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why wolt thou suffre him on thy day to die?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O Gaufride, dere maister soverain!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That whan thy worthy King Richard was slain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With shot, complainedst his deth so sore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why ne had I now thy science and thy lore,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxv">[Pg lxv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The Friday for to chiden as did ye?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For on a Friday sothly slain was he)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then wold I shew you how that I coud plaine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Chauntecleres drede and for his paine.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Certes swiche cry ne lamentation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">N'as never of ladies made whan Ilion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was wonne, and Pirrus with his streite swerd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When he had hent King Priam by the berd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And slain him, (as saith us <i>Eneidus</i>)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As maden all the hennes in the cloos<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan they had seen of Chaunteclere the sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But soverainly Dame Pertelote shright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful louder than did Hasdruballes wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that hire husbond hadde ylost his lif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that the Romaines hadden brent Cartage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She was so ful of turment and of rage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wilfully into the fire she sterte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And brent hire selven with a stedfast herte.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O woful hennes! right so criden ye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As whan that Nero brente the citee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Rome, cried the Senatoures wives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For that hir husbonds losten alle hir lives.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Withouten gilt this Nero hath hem slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now wol I turne unto my tale again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sely widewe and hire doughtren two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Harden these hennes crie and maken wo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And out at the dores sterten they anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saw the fox toward the wode is gon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bare upon his back the cok away:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They crieden out, Harow! and wala wa!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A ha the fox! and after him they ran,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke with staves many an other man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ran Colle our dogge, and Talbot and Gerlond,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Malkin, with hire distaf in hire hond;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ran cow and calf; and eke the veray hogges<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So fered were for barking of the dogges,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shouting of the men and women eke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They ronnen so, hem thought hir hertes breke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They yelleden as fendes don in helle;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dokes crieden as men wold hem quelle:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gees for fere flewen over the trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of the hive came the swarme of bees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So hidous was the noise, a <i>benedicite</i>!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Certes he Jakke Straw and his meinie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne maden never shoutes half so shrille,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that they wolden any Fleming kille,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxvi">[Pg lxvi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">As thilke day was made upon the fox.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of bras they broughten beemes and of box,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of horn and bone, in which they blew and pouped,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therwithal they shriked and they houped;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It semed as that the heven shulde falle.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now, goode men, I pray you herkeneth alle:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo how Fortune turneth sodenly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hope and pride eke of hire enemy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This cok that lay upon the foxes bake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all his drede unto the fox he spake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayde; Sire, if that I were as ye<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet wold I sayn, (as wisly God helpe me)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turneth agein, ye proude cherles alle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A veray pestilence upon you falle:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now I am come unto the wodes side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Maugre your hed, the cok shal here abide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wol him ete in faith, and that anon.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The fox answered, in faith it shal be don;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as he spake the word, al sodenly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cok brake from his mouth deliverly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And high upon a tree he flew anon.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And whan the fox saw that the cok was gon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! quod he, o Chaunteclere, alas!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I have (quod he) ydon to you trespas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In as moche as I maked you aferd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan I you hente and brought out of your yerd;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, Sire, I did it in no wikke entente:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come doun, and I shal tell you what I mente:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I shall say sothe to you, God help me so.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nay than, quod he, I shrewe us bothe two;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And first I shrewe myself bothe blood and bones<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If thou begile me oftener than ones:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt no more thurgh thy flaterie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do me to sing and winken with myn eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he that winketh whan he shulde see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al wilfully, God let him never the.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nay, quod the fox, but God yeve him meschance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is so indiscrete of governance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That jangleth whan that he shuld hold his pees.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lo, which it is for to be reccheles<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And negligent, and trust on flaterie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ye that holden this Tale a folie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As of a fox, or of a cok or hen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Taketh the moralitee therof, good men;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Seint Poule sayth, that all that writen is,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To our doctrine it is ywriten ywis.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxvii">[Pg lxvii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Taketh the fruit, and let the chaf be stille.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now, goode God, if that it be thy wille,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As sayth my Lord, so make us all good men,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bring us to thy high blisse. <i>Amen.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sire Nonnes Preest, our Hoste sayd anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yblessed be thy breche and every ston;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This was a mery tale of Chaunteclere:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But by my trouthe if thou were seculere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou woldest ben a tredefoule a right:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For if thou have courage as thou hast might<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thee were nede of hennes, as I wene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye mo than seven times seventene.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Se whiche braunes hath this gentil Preest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So gret a necke and swiche a large breest!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He loketh as a sparhauk with his eyen:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him nedeth not his colour for to dien<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With Brasil, ne with grain of Portingale.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But, Sire, faire falle you for your tale.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after that he with ful mery chere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sayd to another, as ye shulen here.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxviii">[Pg lxviii]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -FLOUR AND THE LEFE.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - - -<p class="center">THE ARGUMENT.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>A gentlewoman out of an arbour in a grove seeth a great company of -knights and ladies in a dance upon the green grass; the which being -ended, they all kneel down and do honour to the daisie, some to the -Flower, and some to the Leaf. Afterward this gentlewoman learneth, -by one of these ladies, the meaning hereof, which is this: They which -honour the Flower, a thing fading with every blast, are such as look -after beauty and worldly pleasure; but they that honour the Leaf, -which abideth with the root, notwithstanding the frosts and winter -storms, are they which follow virtue and during qualities, without regard -of worldly respects.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When that Phœbus his chair of gold so hie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had whirlid up the sterrie sky aloft,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the Bole was entrid certainly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When shouris sote of rain descendid soft,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Causing the ground felè timis and oft<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up for to give many an wholesome air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every plain was yclothid faire:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With newè grene, and makith smalè flours<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To springin here and there in field and mede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So very gode and wholesome be the shours,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they renewn that was old and dede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In winter time, and out of every sede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Springith the herbè, so that every wight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of this seson wexith richt glade and licht.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxix">[Pg lxix]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And I so gladè of the seson swete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was happid thus; upon a certain night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was unto me, but why that I ne might<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">[As I suppose] had more of hertis ese<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than I, for I n'ad sicknesse nor disese:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Wherefore I mervaile gretly of my self<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I so long withoutin slepè lay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And up I rose thre houris aftir twelfe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About the springing of the gladsome day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on I put my gear and mine aray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to a plesaunt grove I gan to pas<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long or the bright sonne uprisin was;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In which were okis grete, streight as a line,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Undir the which the grass so freshe of hewe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was newly sprong, and an eight fote or nine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Every tre well fro his fellow grew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With braunchis brode laden with levis new,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That sprongin out agen the sonne shene:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some very rede, and some a glad light grene:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which [as me thought] was a right plesaunt sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke the birdis songis for to here<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would have rejoisid any erthly wight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I, that couth not yet in no manere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Herein the nightingale of all the yere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full busily herk'nid with hert and ere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I her voice perceve could any where:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the last a path of litil brede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I found, that gretly had not usid be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For it forgrowin was with grass and wede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That well unnethis a wight might it se;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thought I, this path some whider doth parde;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so I followid till it me brought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a right plesant herbir wel ywrought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which that benchid was, and with turfis new<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Freshly turvid, whereof the grene grass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So small, so thick, so short, so fresh of hewe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That most like to grene woll wot I it was;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hegge also, that yedin in compas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And closid in allè the grene herbere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With sycamor was set and eglatere.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Within, in fere so well and cunningly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That every braunch and lefe grew by mesure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plain as a bord, of an height by and by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I se nevir a thing [I you ensure]<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxx">[Pg lxx]</a></span> -<span class="i0">So well ydone, for he that toke the cure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It for to make [I trowe] did all his peine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To mak it pas al tho that men have seine.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And shapin was this herber rofe and al<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As is a pretty parlour, and also<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hegge as thick as is a castil wall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That who that list without to stond or go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thogh he wold al day prayin to and fro,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He should not se if there were any wight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within or no, but one within well might—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Perceve all tho that ydin there without<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the field, that was on every side<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coverd with corn and grass, that out of doubt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho one would sekin all the worlde wide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So rich a felde could not be espyde<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon no cost, as of the quantity,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For of allè gode thing there was plenty.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And I, that al these plesaunt sightis se,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thought suddainly I felt so swete an air<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the eglaterè, that certainly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There is no hert [I deme] in such dispair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne yet with thoughtis froward and contraire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So overlaid, but it should sone have bote<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If it had onis felt this savour sote.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And as I stode and cast aside mine eye<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I was ware of the fairist medler tre<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That evir yet in all my life I se,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As full of blossomis as it might be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Therein a goldfinch leping pretily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From bough to bough, and as him list he ete<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here and there of buddis and flouris swete.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And to the herbir side was adjoyning<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This fairist tre of which I have you told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the last the bird began to sing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">[Whan he had etin what he etin would]<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So passing swetely that by many fold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It was more plesaunt than I couth devise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whan his song was endid in this wise,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The nightingale with so mery a note<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Answerid him, that alle the wode yrong<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So sodainly, that as it were a sote<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I stode astonied, and was with the song<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thorow ravishid, that till late and long<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I ne wist in what place I was ne where,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ayen methought she song e'en by mine ere:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxi">[Pg lxxi]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Wherefore I waited about busily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On every side if I her might se,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the last I gan full well espie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where she sate in a fresh grene laury tre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the further side evin right by me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That gave so passing a delicious smell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">According to the eglantere full well;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whereof I had so inly grete plesure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As methought I surely ravished was<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into Paradise, wherein my desire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was for to be, and no ferthir to pas<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As for that day, and on the sotè grass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I sat me down, for as for mine entent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The birdis song was more convenient,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And more plesaunt to me by many fold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than mete or drink, or any othir thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thereto the herbir was so fresh and cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wholsome savours eke so comforting,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That [as I demid] sith the beginning<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the worldè was nevir seen er than<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So plesaunt a ground of none erthly man.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And as I sat the birdis herkening thus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Methought that I herd voicis suddainly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The most swetist and most delicious<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That evir any wight I trow trewly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Herdin in hir life, for the armony<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And swete accord was in so gode musike<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the voicis to angels most were like.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At the last out of a grove evin by<br /></span> -<span class="i0">[That was right godely and plesaunt to sight]<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I se where there came singing lustily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A world of ladies, but to tell aright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther beauty grete lyith not in my might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne ther array; nevirthèless I shall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tell you a pert, tho' I speke not of all:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The surcots white of velvet well fitting<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They werin clad, and the semis eche one,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As it werin a mannir garnishing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was set with emeraudis one and one<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By and by, but many a richè stone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was set on the purfilis out of dout<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of collours, sleves, and trainis, round about;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As of grete perlis round and orient,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And diamondis fine and rubys red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And many othir stone of which I went<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxii">[Pg lxxii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The namis now; and everich on her hede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A rich fret of gold, which withoutin drede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was full of statèly rich stonys set,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And evrey lady had a chapelet,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On ther hedis of braunchis fresh and grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So wele ywrought, and so marvelously,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it was a right noble sight to sene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some of laurir, and some full plesauntly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had chapèlets of wodebind, and sadly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some of agnus castus werin also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chaplets fresh; but there were many of tho,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That dauncid and eke song full sobirly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But all they yede in maner of compace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But one there yede in mid the company<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sole by herself; but all follow'd the pace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That she keept, whose hevinly figured face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So pleasaunt was, and her wele shape person,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That of beauty she past them everichone,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And more richly beseen by manyfold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She was also in every manir thing;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon her hede full plesaunt to behold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A coron of gold rich for any king,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A braunch of agnus castus eke bering<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In her hand, and to my sight trewily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She lady was of all the compagnie;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And she began a roundell lustily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That <i>Sus le foyle de vert moy</i> men call<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Sine & mon joly cœur est endormy</i>,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And than the company answerid all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With voicis swete entunid and so small,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That methought it the swetest melody<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That evir I herd in my lyf sothly.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And thus they all came dauncing and singing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the middis of the mede echone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the herbir where I was sitting,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And God wot I thought I was well bigone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For than I might avise them one by one<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who fairist was, who best could dance or sing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or who most womanly was in all thing.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They had not dauncid but a little throw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When that I herd not fer of sodainly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So grete a noise of thundering trumpis blow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As though it should have departid the skie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And aftir that within a while I sie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the same grove where the ladies came out<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of men of armis coming such a rout,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxiii">[Pg lxxiii]</a></span> -<span class="i2">As all men on erth had ben assemblid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On that place well horsid for the nonis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stering so fast that all the erth tremblid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But for to speke of richis and stonis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And men and horse, I trow the large wonis<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Pretir John, ne all his tresory,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might not unneth have bought the tenth party.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of their array whoso list to here more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I shall reherse so as I can a lite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of the grove that I speke of before<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I se come first, all in their clokis white,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A company that wore for ther delite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chapèlets fresh of okis serial<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But newly sprong, and trumpets were they all;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On every trump hanging a brode bannere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fine tartarium, full richly bete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Every trumpet his lord'is armis bere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About ther nekkis, with grete perlis sete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Collaris brode, for cost they wou'd not lete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As it would seem, for ther scochons echone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were set about with many a precious stone;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ther horsis harneis was all white also;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And aftir them next in one company<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Camin kingis at armis and no mo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In clokis of white cloth with gold richly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chaplets of grene on ther heds on hye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The crownis that they on ther scotchons bere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were set with perl, and ruby, and saphere,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And eke grete diamondis many one;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But all ther horsis harneis and other gere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was in a sute according everichone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As ye have herd the foresaid trumpets were,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by seming they were nothing to lere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ther guiding they did so manirly;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And aftir them came a gret company<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of heraudeis and pursevauntis eke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arrayid in clothis of white velvet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hardily they were nothing to seke<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How they on them shouldin the harneis set,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every man had on a chapèlet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scotchonis and eke horse harneis in dede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They had in sute of them that 'fore them yede.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Next after these appere in armour bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All save ther hedis, semely knightis nine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every clasp and nail, as to my sight,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxiv">[Pg lxxiv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of ther harneis were of red gold so fine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With cloth of gold, and furrid with ermine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were the tappouris of their stedis strong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both wide and large, that to the ground did hong;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And every boss of bridle and paitrel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they had on was worth, as I would wene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thousand pound; and on ther hedis well<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dressid were crounis of the laurir grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The best ymade that evir I had sene;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every knight had aftir him riding<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thre henchmen, still upon him awaiting;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of which every (first) on a short trunchon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His lord'is helmet bore so richly dight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the worst of them was worth the ransoume<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of any king; the second a shield bright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bare at his back; the thred barin upright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mighty spere, full sharp yground and kene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every child ware of levis grene<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A fresh chap'let upon his hairis bright;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And clokis white of fine velvet they were;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther stedis trappid and arayid right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without difference as ther lordis were;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And aftir them on many a fresh coursere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There came of armid knightis such a rout<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they besprad the large field about;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And all they werin, aftir ther degrees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chappèlets new, or made of laurir grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or some of oke, or some of othir trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some in ther hondis barin boughis shene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some of laurir, and some of okis bene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some of hawthorne, and some of the wodebind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And many mo which I have not in mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And so they came ther horse freshly stirring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With bloudy sownis of ther trompis loud;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There se I many an uncouth disguising<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the array of thilkè knightis proud;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the last as evenly as they coud<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They toke ther place in middis of the mede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every knight turnid his horsis hede<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To his felow, and lightly laid a spere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the rest, and so justis began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On every part aboutin here and there;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some brake his spere, some threw down horse and man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About the felde astray the stedis ran;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to behold their rule and govirnance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I you ensure it was a grete plesaunce.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxv">[Pg lxxv]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And so the justis last an hour and more<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But tho that crownid were in laurir grene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did win the prise; their dintis were so sore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That there was none agenst them might sustene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the justing allè was left off clene;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fro ther horse the nine alight anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so did all the remnaunt everichone;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And forth they yede togidir twain and twain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That to behold it was a worthy sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toward the ladies on the grenè plain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That song and dauncid, as I said now right;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ladies as sone as they godely might<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They brakin off both the song and the dance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yede to mete them with full glad semblaunce:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And every lady toke full womanly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the hond a knight, and so forth they yede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto a faire laurir that stode fast by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With levis laid, the boughis of grete brede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to my dome ther nevir was indede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A man that had sene half so faire a tre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For undirneth it there might well have be<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An hundrid persons at ther own plesaunce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shadowid fro the hete of Phœbus bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So that they shouldin have felt no grevance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neithir for rain, ne haile, that them hurt might;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The savour eke rejoice would any wight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hed be sick or melancholious,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It was so very gode and vertuous.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with grete rev'rence they enclinid low<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the tre so sote and fair of hew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And aftir that within a litil throw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They all began to sing and daunce of new;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some song of love, some plaining of untrew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Environing the tre that stode upright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And evir yede a lady and a knight.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And at the last I cast mine eie aside,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And was ware of a lusty company<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That came roming out of the feldè wide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hond in hond a knight and a lady,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ladies all in surcotes, that richly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Purfilid were with many a rich stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every knight of grene ware mantlis on,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Embroulid wele, so as the surcots were,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And everich had a chapelet on her hed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">[Which did right wele upon the shining here]<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxvi">[Pg lxxvi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Makid of godely flouris white and red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The knightis eke that they in hondè led<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sute of them ware chaplets everichone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And before them went minstrels many one;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As harpis, pipis, lutis, and sautry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Allè in grene, and on ther hedis bare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of diverse flouris made ful craftily,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al in a sute, godely chaplets they ware,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so dauncing into the mede they fare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In mid the which they found a tuft that was<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al ovirsprad with flouris in compas:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whereto they enclined evèrichone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With grete revèrence, and that full humbly;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the last there tho began anon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lady for to sing right womanly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bargaret in praising the daisie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For (as methought) among her notis swete<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She said <i>Si douce est la Margarete</i>!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then they allè answerid her in fere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So passingly well and so plesauntly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it was a most blisfull noise to here;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I 'not how it happid, sodainly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As about none the sonne so fervently<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Waxe hotè that the pretty tendir floures<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had lost the beauty of their fresh collours.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For shronke with hete the ladies eke to brent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they ne wist where they them might bestow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The knightis swelt, for lack of shade nie shent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And aftir that within a litil throw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wind began so sturdily to blow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That down goth all the flowris everichone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So that in all the mede there laft not one,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Save such as succoured were among the leves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fro every storme that mightè them assaile,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Growing undir the heggis and thick greves;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And aftir that there came a storme of haile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rain in fere, so that withoutin faile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ladies ne the knightis n'ade o' thred<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dry on them, so drooping wet was ther wede.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And when the storme was clene passid away<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho in the white, that stode undir the tre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They felt nothing of all the grete affray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they in grene without had in ybe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To them they yede for routh and for pite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Them to comfort aftir their grete disese,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So fain they were the helplesse for to ese.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxvii">[Pg lxxvii]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Than I was ware how one of them in grene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had on a coron rich and well-fitting,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherefore I demid well she was a quene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tho in grene on her were awaiting;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ladies then in white that were coming<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Towardis them, and the knightis in fere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Began to comfort them and make them chere.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The quene in white, that was of grete beauty,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toke by the honde the quene that was in grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And seidè, Sustir, I have grete pity<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of your annoy and of your troublous tene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherein ye and your company have bene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So long, alas! and if that if you plese<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To go with me I shall do you the ese<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In al the plesure that I can or may;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whereof that othir, humbly as she might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thankid her, for in right evil array<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She was with storme and hete I you behight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And evèry lady then anon right<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That were in white one of them toke in grene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the hond, which when the knightis had sene<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In like manir eche of them toke a knight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clad in the grene, and forth with them they fare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To an heggè, where that they anon right<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To makin these justis they would not spare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Boughis to hew down, and eke trees to square,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherewith they made them stately firis grete<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To dry ther clothis, that were wringing wete:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And aftir that of herbis that there grew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They made for blistirs of the sonne brenning<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ointmentis very gode, wholsome and new,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where that they yede the sick fast anointing;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after that they yede about gadring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plesant saladis, which they made them ete<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For to refreshe ther grete unkindly hete.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The lady of the Lefè then gan to pray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her of the Floare [for so to my seming<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They should be callid as by ther array]<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To soupe with her, and eke for any thing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That she should with her all her pepill bringe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she ayen in right godely manere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thankith her fast of her most frendly chere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Saying plainèly that she would obay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all her hert all her commandèment;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then anon without lengir delay<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxviii">[Pg lxxviii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The lady of the Lefe hath one ysent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To bring a palfray aftir her intent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arrayid wele in fair harneis of gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For nothing lackid that to him long shold.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And aftir that to all her company<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She made to purvey horse and every thing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they nedid, and then full hastily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even by the herbir where I was sitting<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They passid all, so merrily singing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it would have comfortid any wight:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But then I se a passing wondir sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For then the nightingale, that all the day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had in the laurir sete, and did her might<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whole service to sing longing to May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All sodainly began to take her flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the lady of the Lefe forthright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She flew, and set her on her hand softly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which was a thing I mervailed at gretly.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The goldfinch eke, that fro the medlar tre<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was fled for hete unto the bushis cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the lady of the Flowre gan fle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on her hond he set him as he wold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And plesauntly his wingis gan to fold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for to sing they peine them both as sore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As they had do of all the day before.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And so these ladies rode forth a grete pace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the rout of knightis eke in fere;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I that had sene all this wondir case<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thought that I would assay in some manere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To know fully the trouth of this mattere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what they were that rode so plesauntly:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when they were the herbir passid by<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I drest me forth, and happid mete anon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A right fair lady, I do you ensure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she came riding by her self alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Allè in white, with semblaunce full demure;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I her salued, bad her gode avinture<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mote her befall, as I coud most humbly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she answered, My doughtir, gramercy!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Madame, quod I, if that I durst enquere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of you, I wold fain of that company<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wit what they be that passed by this herbere.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she ayen answerid right frendly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My doughtir, all tho that passid hereby<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In white clothing be servants everichone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the Lefe, and I my self am one.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxix">[Pg lxxix]</a></span> -<span class="i2">See ye not her that crownid is (quod she)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Allè in white? Madame, then quod I, Yes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is Dian, goddess of Chastity,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for bicause that she a maidin is<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into her hond the brance she berith this<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That agnus castus men call propirly;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the ladies in her company<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which ye se of that herbè chaplets were<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be such as han alwey kept maidinhede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all they that of laurir chaplets bere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be such as hardy were in manly dede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Victorious, name which nevir may be dede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all they were so worthy of their honde<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In their time that no one might them withstonde;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And tho that were chapèlets on ther hede<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fresh wodebind be such as nevir were<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Love untrue in word, in thought, ne dede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ay stedfast, ne for plesance ne fere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho that they shulde ther hertis all to tere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Woud never flit, but evir were stedfast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till that ther livis there assundir brast.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now, fair Madame! quod I, yet would I pray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your ladiship [if that it mightin be]<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I might knowe by some manir of wey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sithin that it hath likid your beaute<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trouth of these ladies for to tell me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What that these knightis be in rich armour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what tho be in grene and were the Flour,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And why that some did rev'rence to the tre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And some unto the plot of flouris fair?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With right gode wil, my doughtir fair! quod she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sith your desire is gode and debonaire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho nine crounid be very exemplaire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all honour longing to chivalry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And those certain be clept, The Nine Worthy,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which that ye may se riding all before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in ther time did many a noble dede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for ther worthiness full oft have bore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The crown of laurir levis on ther hede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As ye may in your oldè bokis rede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And how that he that was a conqueror<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had by laurir alwey his most honour:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And tho that barin bowes in ther hond<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the precious laurir so notable,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be such as were [I woll ye undirstend]<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxx">[Pg lxxx]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Most noble Knightis of The Round Table,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eke the Douseperis honourable,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which they bere in the sign of victory,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As witness of ther dedis mightily:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Eke ther be Knightis old of the Gartir,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in ther timis did right worthily,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the honour they did to the laurir<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is for by it they have ther laud wholly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther triumph eke and martial glory,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which unto them is more perfite riches<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than any wight imagin can or gesse;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For one Lefe givin of that noble tre<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To any wight that hath done worthily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">[An it be done so as it ought to be]<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is more honour than any thing erthly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Witness of Rome, that foundir was truly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all knighthode and dedis marvelous,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Record I take of Titus Livius.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And as for her that crounid is in grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is Flora, of these flouris goddesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all that here on her awaiting bene<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It are such folk that lovid idlenesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And not delite in no kind besinesse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But for to hunt, and hawke, and pley in medes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And many othir such like idle dedes.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And for the grete delite and the plesaunce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They have to the Flour, and so reverently<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They unto it doin such obeisaunce,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As ye may se. Now, fair Madame! quod I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">[If I durst ask] what is the cause and why<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That knightis have the ensign of honour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rathir by the Lefè than by the Flour?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sothly, doughtir, quod she, this is the truth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For knightes evir should be persevering<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To seke honour without feintise or slouth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fro wele to bettir in all manir thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sign of which with levis ay lasting<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They be rewardid aftir ther degre.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose lusty grene may not appairid be,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But ay keping ther beauty fresh and grene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For ther n'is no storme that may them deface,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne hail nor snowe, ne wind nor frostis kene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherefore they have this propirty and grace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for the Flour within a litil space<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wollin be lost, so simple of nature<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They be, that they no grevaunce may endure:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxi">[Pg lxxxi]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And every storme woll blowe them sone away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne they lastè not but for a seson,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is the cause [the very trouth to say]<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they may not by no way of reson<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be put to no such occupacion.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Madame, quod I, with all mine whole servise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I thank you now in my most humble wise;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For now I am ascertain'd thoroughly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of every thing I desirid to knowe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am right glad that I have said, sothly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ought to your plesure, (if ye will me trow.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quod she ayen. But to whom do ye owe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your service, and which wollin ye honour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">[Pray tell me] this year, the Lefe or the Flour?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Madam, quod I, although I lest worthy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the Lefe I ow mine observaunce.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is, quod she, right wel done certainly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I pray God to honour you advaunce,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And kepe you fro the wickid remembraunce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Melèbouch and all his cruiltie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all that gode and well-condition'd be;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For here I may no lengir now abide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I must follow the grete company<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ye may se yondir before you ride.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And forthwith, as I couth most humily<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I toke my leve of her, and she gan hie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Aftir them as fast as evir she might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I drow homeward, for it was nigh night.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And put all that I had sene in writing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Undir support of them that lust it rede.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O little boke! thou art so unconning,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How darst thou put thy self in prees for drede?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is wondir that thou wexist not rede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sith that thou wost full lite who shall behold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy rude langage full boystously unfold.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxii">[Pg lxxxii]</a></span></p> - - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -WIF OF BATHES TALE.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In olde days of the King Artour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of which that Bretons speken gret honour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All was this lond fulfilled of Faerie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Elf quene with hire joly compagnie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Danced ful oft in many a grene mede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This was the old opinion as I rede;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I speke of many hundred yeres ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now can no man see non elves mo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For now the grete charitee and prayeres<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of limitoures and other holy freres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That serchen every land and every streme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As thikke as motes in the sonne-beme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This maketh that ther ben no Faeries:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For ther as wont to walken was an elf,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther walketh now the limatour himself<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In undermeles and in morweninges,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sayth his matines and his holy thinges<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he goth in his limitatioun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Women may now go safely up and doun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In every bush, and under every tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther is non other Incubus but he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he ne will don hem no dishonour.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxiii">[Pg lxxxiii]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And so befell it that this King Artour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had in his hous a lusty bacheler,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That on a day came riding fro river:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And happed that, alone as she was borne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He saw a maiden walking him beforne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of which maid he anon, maugre hire hed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By veray force beraft hire maidenhed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which oppression was swiche clamour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And swiche pursuite unto the King Artour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That damned was this knight for to be ded,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By cours of lawe, and shuld have lost his hed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Paraventure swiche was the statute tho)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But that the quene and other ladies mo<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So longe praieden the king of grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Til he his lif him granted in the place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yaf him to the quene, all at hire will<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To chese whether she wold him save or spill.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The quene thanketh the king with all hire might;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after this thus spake she to the knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that she saw hire time upon a day.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thou standest yet (quod she) in swiche array,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That of thy lif yet hast thou not seuretee;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I grant thee lif if thou canst tellen me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What thing is it that women most desiren:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beware, and kepe thy nekke bone from yren.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if thou canst not tell it me anon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet wol I yeve thee leve for to gon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A twelvemonth and a day to seke and lere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An answer suffisant in this matere;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And seuretee wol I have, or that thou pace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The body for to yelden in this place.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Wo was the knight, and sorwefully he siketh:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But what? he may not don all as him liketh.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the last he chese him for to wende,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And come agen right at the yeres ende<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With swiche answer as God wold him purvay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And taketh his leve, and wendeth forth his way.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He seketh every hous and every place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wher as he hopeth for to finden grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To lernen what thing women loven moste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he ne coude ariven in no coste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wher as he mighte find in this matere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two creatures according in fere.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som saiden women loven best richesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Som saiden honour, som saiden jolinesse,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxiv">[Pg lxxxiv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Som riche array, some saiden lust a-bedde,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And oft time to be widewe and to be wedde.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some saiden that we ben in herte most esed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that we ben yflatered and ypreised.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He goth ful nigh the sothe, I wol not lie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A man shal winne us best with flaterie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with attendance and with besinesse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ben we ylimed bothe more and lesse.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And som men saiden, that we loven best<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For to be free, and do right as us lest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that no man repreve us of our vice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But say that we ben wise and nothing nice:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For trewely ther n'is non of us all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If any wight wol claw us on the gall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That we n'ill kike for that he saith us soth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assay, and he shal find it that so doth:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For be we never so vicious withinne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We wol be holden wise and clene of sinne.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And som saiden, that gret delit han we<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For to be holden stable and eke secre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in o purpos stedfastly to dwell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And not bewreyen thing that men us tell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But that tale is not worth a rake-stele.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Parde we women connen nothing hele,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Witnesse on Mida; wol ye here the Tale?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ovide, amonges other thinges smale,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Said Mida had under his longe heres<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Growing upon his hed two asses eres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whiche vice he hid, as he beste might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful subtilly from every mannes sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, save his wif, ther wist of it no mo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He loved hire most, and trusted hire also;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He praied hire that to no creature<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She n'olde tellen of his disfigure.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">She swore him nay, for all the world to winne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She n'olde do that vilanie ne sinne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make hire husbond han so foule a name:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She n'olde not tell it for hire owen shame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But natheles hire thoughte that she dide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That she so longe shulde a conseil hide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hire thought it swal so sore about hire herte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That nedely som word hire must asterte;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sith she dorst nat telle it to no man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doun to a mareis faste by she ran;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Til she came ther hire herte was a-fire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as a bitore bumbleth in the mire,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxv">[Pg lxxxv]</a></span> -<span class="i0">She laid hire mouth unto the water doun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bewrey me not, thou water, with thy soun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quod she; to thee I tell it, and no mo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Min husbond hath long asses eres two.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now is min herte all hole, now is it out,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I might no lenger kepe it out of dout.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here may ye see, though we a time abide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet out it moste; we can no conseil hide.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The remenant of the Tale, if ye wol here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Redeth Ovide, and ther ye may it lere.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This knight, of which my Tale is specially,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan that he saw he might not come therby,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(This is to sayn, what women loven most)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within his brest ful sorweful was his gost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But home he goth, he mighte not sojourne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The day was come that homward must he turne.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his way it happed him to ride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all his care, under a forest side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wheras he saw upon a dance go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of ladies foure and twenty, and yet mo.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toward this ilke dance he drow ful yerne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In hope that he som wisdom shulde lerne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But certainly er he came fully there<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yvanished was this dance he n'iste not wher;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No creature saw he that bare lif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save on the grene he saw sitting a wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A fouler wight ther may no man devise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Againe this knight this olde wif gan arise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saide Sire Knight, here forth ne lith no way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tell me what that ye seken by your fay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Paraventure it may the better be:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thise olde folk con mochel thing, quod she.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My leve mother, quod this knight, certain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I n'am but ded but if that I can fain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What thing it is that women most desire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coude ye me wisse I wold quite wel your hire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plight me thy trothe here in myn hond, quod she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nexte thing that I requere of thee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt it do, if it be in thy might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I wol tell it you or it be night.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Have here my trouthe, quod the knight, I graunte.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thanne, quod she, I dare me wel avaunte<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy lif is sauf, for I wol stond therby,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon my lif the quene wol say as I.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let see which is the proudest of hem alle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wereth on a kerchef or a calle,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxvi">[Pg lxxxvi]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That dare sayn nay of that I shal you teche.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let us go forth withouten lenger speche.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Tho rowned she a pistel in his ere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bad him to be glad, and have no fere.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whan they ben comen to the court, this knight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Said he had hold his day as he had hight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And redy was his answere, as he saide.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ful many a noble wif, and many a maide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And many a widewe, for that they ben wise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(The quene hireself sitting as a justice)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assembled ben his answer for to here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And afterward this knight was bode appere.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To every wight commanded was silence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that the knight shuld tell in audience<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What thing that worldly women loven best.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This knight ne stood not still as doth a best,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But to this question anon answerd<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With manly vois, that all the court it herd.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My liege Lady, generally, quod he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Women desiren to han soverainetee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As well over hir husbond as hir love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for to ben in maistrie him above.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is your most desire, though ye me kille;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doth as you list, I am here at your wille.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In all the court ne was ther wif ne maide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne widewe, that contraried that he saide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But said he was worthy to han his lif.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with that word up stert this olde wif<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which that the knight saw sitting on the grene.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mercy, quod she, my soveraine lady Quene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Er that your court depart, as doth me right.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I taughte this answer unto this knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which he plighte me his trouthe there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The firste thing I wold of him requere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wold it do, if it lay in his might.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before this court than pray I thee, Sire, Knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quod she, that thou me take unto thy wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For wel thou wost that I have kept thy lif:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I say false, say nay upon thy fay.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This knight answered, Alas and wala wa!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wot right wel that swiche was my behest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Goddes love as chese a new request:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take all my good, and let my body go.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nay than, quod she, I shrewe us bothe two:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For though that I be olde, foule, and pore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I n'olde for all the metal ne the ore<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxvii">[Pg lxxxvii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That under erthe is grave, or lith above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if thy wif I were and eke thy love.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My love? quod he; nay, my dampnation.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! that any of my nation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shuld ever so foule disparaged be.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But all for nought; the end is this, that he<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Constrained was, he nedes must hire wed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And taketh this olde wif, and goth to bed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now wolden som men sayn paraventure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That for my negligence I do no cure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To tellen you the joye and all the array<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That at the feste was that ilke day.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To which thing shortly answeren I shal:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I say ther was no joye ne feste at al;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther n'as but hevinesse and mochel sorwe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For prively he wedded hire on the morwe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all day after hid him as an oule,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So wo was him his wif loked so foule.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Gret was the wo the knight had in his thought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whan he was with his wif a-bed ybrought;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He walweth, and he turneth to and fro.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This olde wif lay smiling evermo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And said, O dere husbond, <i>benedicite</i>!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fareth ever knight thus with wif as ye?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is this the lawe of King Artoures hous?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is every knight of his thus dangerous?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am your owen love, and eke your wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am she which that saved hath your lif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certes yet did I you never unright;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why fare ye thus with me this firste night?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye faren like a man had lost his wit.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What is my gilt? for Goddess love tell it,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it shal ben amended if I may.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Amended? quod this knight, alas! nay, nay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It wol not ben amended never mo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou art so lothly, and so olde also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therto comen of so low a kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That little wonder is though I walwe and wind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So wolde God min herte wolde brest.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is this, quod she, the cause of your unrest?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ye certainly, quod he, no wonder is.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now Sire, quod she, I coude amend all this,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If that me list, er it were dayes three,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So wel ye mighten bere you unto me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But for ye speken of swiche gentillesse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As is descended out of old richesse;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxviii">[Pg lxxxviii]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That therefore shullen ye be gentilmen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swiche arrogance n'is not worth an hen.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Loke who that is most vertuous alway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To do the gentil dedes that he can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And take him for the gretest gentilman.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crist wol we claime of him our gentillesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not of our elders for hir old richesse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For though they yeve us all hir heritage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For which we claime to ben of high parage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet may they not bequethen for no thing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To non of us hir vertuous living,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That made hem gentilmen called to be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bade us folwen hem in swiche degree.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Wel can the wise poet of Florence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That highte Dant, speken of this sentence:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo in swiche maner rime is Dantes tale.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ful selde up riseth by his branches smale<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prowesse of man, for God of his goodnesse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wol that we claime of him our gentillesse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For of our elders may we nothing claime<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But temporel thing, that man may hurt and maime.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Eke every wight wot this as wel as I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If gentillesse were planted naturelly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto a certain linage doun the line,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prive and apert, than wold they never fine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To don of gentillesse the faire office;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They mighten do no vilanie or vice.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Take fire, and bere it into the derkest hous<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwix this and the Mount of Caucasus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let men shette the dores, and go thenne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet wol the fire as faire lie and brenne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As twenty thousand men might it behold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His office naturel ay wol it hold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up peril of my lif, til that it die.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Here may ye see wel how that genterie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is not annexed to possession,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sith folk ne don hir operation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alway, as doth the fire, lo, in his kind:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For God it wot men moun ful often find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lordes sone do shame and vilanie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he that wol han pris of his genterie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he was boren of a gentil hous,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And had his elders noble and vertuous,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And n'ill himselven do no gentil dedes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne folwe his gentil auncestrie that ded is,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxix">[Pg lxxxix]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He n'is not gentil, be he duk or erl,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For vilains sinful dedes make a cherl:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For gentillesse n'is but the renomee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of thin auncestres for hir high bountee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which is a strange thing to thy persone:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy gentillesse cometh fro God alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than cometh our veray gentillesse of grace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It was no thing bequethed us with our place.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thinketh how noble, as saith Valerius,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was thilke Tullius Hostilius,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That out of poverte rose to high noblesse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Redeth Senek, and redeth eke Boece,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ther shull ye seen expresse that it no dred is<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therefore, leve husbond, I thus conclude,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Al be it that min auncestres weren rude,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet may the highe God, and so hope I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Granten me grace to liven vertuously;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than am I gentil whan that I beginne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To liven vertuously and weiven sinne.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And ther as ye of poverte me repreve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The highe God, on whom that we beleve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In wilful poverte chese to lede his lif;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certes every man, maiden, or wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May understond that Jesus heven king<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ne wold not chese a vicious living.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Glad poverte is an honest thing certain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This wol Senek and other clerkes sain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who so that halt him paid of his poverte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I hold him rich, al had he not a sherte.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He that coveiteth is a poure wight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he wold han that is not in his might;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he that nought hath, ne coveiteth to have,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is riche, although ye hold him but a knave.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Veray poverte is sinne proprely.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Juvenal saith of poverte merily,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The poure man whan he goth by the way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beforn the theves he may sing and play.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Poverte is hateful good; and, as I gesse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A ful gret bringer out of besinesse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A gret amender eke of sapience<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To him that taketh it in patience.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Poverte is this, although it some elenge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Possession that no wight wol challenge.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Poverte ful often, whan a man is low,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Maketh his God and eke himself to know.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xc">[Pg xc]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Poverte a spectakel is, as thinketh me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thurgh which he may his veray frendes see.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therefore, Sire, sin that I you not greve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of my poverte no more me repreve.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now, Sire, of elde that ye repreven me:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certes, Sire, though non auctoritee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were in no book, ye gentiles of honour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sain that men shuld an olde wight honour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And clepe him Fader, for your gentillesse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And auctours shal I finden, as I gesse.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now ther ye sain that I am foule and old,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than drede ye not to ben a cokewold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For filthe, and elde also, so mote I the,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ben grete wardeins upon chastitee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But natheles, sin I know your delit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I shal fulfill your worldly appetit.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Chese now (quod she) on of thise thinges twey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To han me foule and old til that I dey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And be to you a trewe humble wif,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And never you displese in all my lif;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or elles wol ye han me yonge and faire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And take your aventure of the repaire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That shal be to your hous because of me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or in some other place it may wel be?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now chese yourselven whether that you liketh.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This knight aviseth him, and sore siketh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But at the last he said in this manere:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My lady and my love, and wif so dere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I put me in your wise governance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cheseth yourself which may be most plesance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And most honour to you and me also,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I do no force the whether of the two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For as you liketh, it sufficeth me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Than have I got the maisterie, quod she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sin I may chese and governe as me lest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye certes, wif, quod he, I hold it best.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Kisse me, quod she, we be no lenger wrothe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For by my trouth I wol be to you bothe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This to sayn, ye bothe faire and good.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I pray to God that I mote sterven wood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I to you be al so good and trewe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As ever was wif sin that the world was newe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And but I be to-morwe as faire to seen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As any lady, emperice, or quene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That is betwix the est and eke the west,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doth with my lif and deth right as you lest.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xci">[Pg xci]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Cast up the curtein, loke how that it is.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And whan the knight saw veraily all this,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That she so faire was, and so yonge therto,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For joye he hent hire in his armes two:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His herte bathed in a bath of blisse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thousand time a-row he gan hire kisse:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she obeyed him in every thing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That mighte don him plesance or liking.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus they live unto hir lives ende<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In parfit joye; and Jesu Crist us sende<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Husbondes meke and yonge, and fresh a-bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And grace to overlive hem that we wed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And eke I pray Jesus to short hir lives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wol not be governed by hir wives;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And old and angry nigards of dispence<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God send hem sone a veray pestilence.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> -<p class="pmb1" /> - - -<h2 class="no-break">TRANSLATIONS<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font12">OVID'S EPISTLES.</span></h2> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a></span></p> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">PREFACE<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">TO</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">THE TRANSLATION</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S EPISTLES.<span class="font06"><a id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<p>The Life of Ovid being already written in our language, -before the translation of his Metamorphoses, -I will not presume so far upon myself, to think I -can add any thing to Mr Sandys his undertaking.<a id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> - -<p>The English reader may there be satisfied, that he -flourished in the reign of Augustus Cæsar; that he -was extracted from an ancient family of Roman -knights; that he was born to the inheritance of a -splendid fortune;<a id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> that he was designed to the -study of the law, and had made considerable progress -in it, before he quitted that profession, for this -of poetry, to which he was more naturally formed. -The cause of his banishment is unknown; because -he was himself unwilling further to provoke the -emperor, by ascribing it to any other reason than -what was pretended by Augustus, which was, the -lasciviousness of his Elegies, and his Art of Love.<a id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> -It is true, they are not to be excused in the severity -of manners, as being able to corrupt a larger empire, -if there were any, than that of Rome; yet -this may be said in behalf of Ovid, that no man has -ever treated the passion of love with so much delicacy -of thought, and of expression, or searched into -the nature of it more philosophically than he. And -the emperor, who condemned him, had as little reason -as another man to punish that fault with so -much severity, if at least he were the author of a -certain epigram, which is ascribed to him, relating -to the cause of the first civil war betwixt himself -and Mark Antony the triumvir, which is more fulsome -than any passage I have met with in our poet.<a id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> - -<p>To pass by the naked familiarity of his expressions -to Horace, which are cited in that author's life, I -need only mention one notorious act of his, in -taking Livia to his bed, when she was not only -married, but with child by her husband then living. -But deeds, it seems, may be justified by arbitrary -power, when words are questioned in a poet. There -is another guess of the grammarians, as far from -truth as the first from reason; they will have him -banished for some favours, which they say he received -from Julia, the daughter of Augustus, whom -they think he celebrates under the name of Corinna -in his Elegies; but he, who will observe the verses -which are made to that mistress, may gather from -the whole contexture of them, that Corinna was not -a woman of the highest quality. If Julia were then -married to Agrippa, why should our poet make his -petition to Isis for her safe delivery, and afterwards -condole her miscarriage; which, for aught he knew, -might be by her own husband? Or, indeed, how -durst he be so bold to make the least discovery of -such a crime, which was no less than capital, especially -committed against a person of Agrippa's rank? -Or, if it were before her marriage, he would surely -have been more discreet, than to have published an -accident which must have been fatal to them both. -But what most confirms me against this opinion, is, - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> -that Ovid himself complains, that the true person -of Corinna was found out by the fame of his verses -to her; which if it had been Julia, he durst not -have owned; and, beside, an immediate punishment -must have followed. He seems himself more -truly to have touched at the cause of his exile in -those obscure verses:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Cur aliquid vidi? cur noxia lumina feci?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Inscius Actæon vidit sine veste Dianam,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Præda fuit canibus non minus ille suis.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Namely, that he had either seen, or was conscious -to somewhat, which had procured him his disgrace. -But neither am I satisfied, that this was the incest -of the emperor with his own daughter: for Augustus -was of a nature too vindicative to have contented -himself with so small a revenge, or so unsafe -to himself, as that of simple banishment; but would -certainly have secured his crimes from public notice, -by the death of him who was witness to them. -Neither have historians given us any sight into such -an action of this emperor: nor would he, (the greatest -politician of his time,) in all probability, have -managed his crimes with so little secrecy, as not to -shun the observation of any man. It seems more -probable, that Ovid was either the confident of -some other passion, or that he had stumbled, by -some inadvertency, upon the privacies of Livia, and -seen her in a bath: for the words</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Sine veste Dianam</i>,<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>agree better with Livia, who had the fame of chastity, -than with either of the Julias, who were both -noted of incontinency. The first verses, which were -made by him in his youth, and recited publicly, according -to the custom, were, as he himself assures -us, to Corinna: his banishment happened not until - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> -the age of fifty; from which it may be deduced, -with probability enough, that the love of Corinna -did not occasion it: nay, he tells us plainly, that -his offence was that of error only, not of wickedness; -and in the same paper of verses also, that the -cause was notoriously known at Rome, though it -be left so obscure to after-ages.<a id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> - -<p>But to leave conjectures on a subject so uncertain,<a id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> -and to write somewhat more authentic of -this poet. That he frequented the court of Augustus, -and was well received in it, is most undoubted: -all his poems bear the character of a court, and appear -to be written, as the French call it, <i>cavalierement</i>: -add to this, that the titles of many of his -elegies, and more of his letters in his banishment, -are addressed to persons well known to us, even at -this distance, to have been considerable in that -court.</p> - -<p>Nor was his acquaintance less with the famous -poets of his age, than with the noblemen and ladies. -He tells you himself, in a particular account of his -own life, that Macer, Horace, Tibullus,<a id="FNanchor_I_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Propertius, -and many others of them, were his familiar friends, -and that some of them communicated their writings -to him; but that he had only seen Virgil.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> - -<p>If the imitation of nature be the business of a -poet, I know no author, who can justly be compared -with ours, especially in the description of the -passions. And, to prove this, I shall need no other -judges than the generality of his readers: for, all -passions being inborn with us, we are almost equally -judges, when we are concerned in the representation -of them. Now I will appeal to any man, who -has read this poet, whether he finds not the natural -emotion of the same passion in himself, which the -poet describes in his feigned persons. His thoughts, -which are the pictures and results of those passions, -are generally such as naturally arise from those disorderly -motions of our spirits. Yet, not to speak -too partially in his behalf, I will confess, that the -copiousness of his wit was such, that he often writ -too pointedly for his subject, and made his persons -speak more eloquently than the violence of their -passion would admit: so that he is frequently witty -out of season; leaving the imitation of nature, and -the cooler dictates of his judgment, for the false applause -of fancy. Yet he seems to have found out -this imperfection in his riper age; for why else -should he complain, that his Metamorphoses was -left unfinished? Nothing sure can be added to the -wit of that poem, or of the rest; but many things - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> -ought to have been retrenched, which I suppose -would have been the business of his age, if his misfortunes -had not come too fast upon him. But -take him uncorrected, as he is transmitted to us, -and it must be acknowledged, in spite of his Dutch -friends, the commentators, even of Julius Scaliger -himself, that Seneca's censure will stand good against -him;</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Nescivit quod bene cessit relinquere</i>:<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>he never knew how to give over, when he had done -well, but continually varying the same sense an -hundred ways, and taking up in another place what -he had more than enough inculcated before, he -sometimes cloys his readers, instead of satisfying -them; and gives occasion to his translators, who -dare not cover him, to blush at the nakedness of -their father. This, then, is the allay of Ovid's writings, -which is sufficiently recompensed by his other -excellencies: nay, this very fault is not without its -beauties; for the most severe censor cannot but be -pleased with the prodigality of his wit, though at -the same time he could have wished that the master -of it had been a better manager. Every thing -which he does becomes him; and if sometimes he -appears too gay, yet there is a secret gracefulness -of youth, which accompanies his writings, though -the staidness and sobriety of age be wanting. In -the most material part, which is the conduct, it is -certain, that he seldom has miscarried: for if his -Elegies be compared with those of Tibullus and -Propertius, his contemporaries, it will be found, that -those poets seldom designed before they writ; and -though the language of Tibullus be more polished, -and the learning of Propertius, especially in his fourth -book, more set out to ostentation; yet their common -practice was to look no further before them than the -next line; whence it will inevitably follow, that they - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> -can drive to no certain point, but ramble from one subject -to another, and conclude with somewhat, which -is not of a piece with their beginning:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Purpureus latè qui splendeat, unus et alter<br /> -Assuitur pannus</i>,——<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>as Horace says; though the verses are golden, they -are but patched into the garment. But our poet -has always the goal in his eye, which directs him in -his race; some beautiful design, which he first establishes, -and then contrives the means, which will -naturally conduct him to his end. This will be evident -to judicious readers in his Epistles, of which -somewhat, at least in general, will be expected.</p> - -<p>The title of them in our late editions is <i>Epistolæ -Heroidum</i>, the Letters of the Heroines. But Heinsius -has judged more truly, that the inscription of -our author was barely, Epistles; which he concludes -from his cited verses, where Ovid asserts this -work as his own invention, and not borrowed from -the Greeks, whom (as the masters of their learning) -the Romans usually did imitate. But it appears -not from their writings, that any of the Grecians -ever touched upon this way, which our poet therefore -justly has vindicated to himself. I quarrel not -at the word <i>Heroidum</i>, because it is used by Ovid -in his Art of Love:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Jupiter ad veteres supplex</i> Heroidas <i>ibat.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>But, sure, he could not be guilty of such an oversight, -to call his work by the name of <i>Heroines</i>, -when there are divers men, or heroes, as, namely, -Paris, Leander, and Acontius, joined in it. Except -Sabinus, who writ some answers to Ovid's Letters,</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">(<i>Quam celer è toto rediit meus orbe Sabinus</i>,)<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>I remember not any of the Romans, who have treated - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> -on this subject, save only Propertius, and that -but once, in his Epistle of Arethusa to Lycotas, -which is written so near the style of Ovid, that it -seems to be but an imitation; and therefore ought -not to defraud our poet of the glory of his invention.</p> - -<p>Concerning the Epistles, I shall content myself -to observe these few particulars: first, that they are -generally granted to be the most perfect pieces of -Ovid, and that the style of them is tenderly passionate -and courtly; two properties well agreeing -with the persons, which were heroines, and lovers. -Yet, where the characters were lower, as in Œnone -and Hero, he has kept close to nature, in drawing -his images after a country life, though perhaps he -has romanized his Grecian dames too much, and -made them speak, sometimes, as if they had been -born in the city of Rome, and under the empire of -Augustus. There seems to be no great variety in -the particular subjects which he has chosen; most -of the Epistles being written from ladies, who were -forsaken by their lovers: which is the reason that -many of the same thoughts come back upon us in -divers letters: but of the general character of women, -which is modesty, he has taken a most becoming -care; for his amorous expressions go no -further than virtue may allow, and therefore may -be read, as he intended them, by matrons without -a blush.</p> - -<p>Thus much concerning the poet: it remains that -I should say somewhat of poetical translations in -general, and give my opinion, (with submission to -better judgments,) which way of version seems to -be the most proper.</p> - -<p>All translation, I suppose, may be reduced to -these three heads.</p> - -<p>First, that of metaphrase, or turning an author -word by word, and line by line, from one language - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> -into another. Thus, or near this manner, was Horace -his Art of Poetry translated by Ben Jonson. The -second way is that of paraphrase, or translation -with latitude, where the author is kept in view by -the translator, so as never to be lost, but his words -are not so strictly followed as his sense; and that -too is admitted to be amplified, but not altered. -Such is Mr Waller's translation of Virgil's fourth -Æneid. The third way is that of imitation, where -the translator (if now he has not lost that name) -assumes the liberty, not only to vary from the words -and sense, but to forsake them both as he sees occasion; -and, taking only some general hints from -the original, to run divisions on the ground-work, as -he pleases. Such is Mr Cowley's practice in turning -two Odes of Pindar, and one of Horace, into -English.</p> - -<p>Concerning the first of these methods, our master -Horace has given us this caution:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Interpres</i>——<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Nor word for word too faithfully translate;<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>as the Earl of Roscommon has excellently rendered -it. Too faithfully is, indeed, pedantically: it is -a faith like that which proceeds from superstition, -blind and zealous. Take it in the expression of Sir -John Denham to Sir Richard Fanshaw, on his version -of the Pastor Fido:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">That servile path thou nobly dost decline,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of tracing word by word, and line by line:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make translations and translators too:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">True to his sense, but truer to his fame.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>It is almost impossible to translate verbally, and - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> -well, at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe -and compendious language) often expresses that in -one word, which either the barbarity, or the narrowness, -of modern tongues cannot supply in more. -It is frequent, also, that the conceit is couched in -some expression, which will be lost in English:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Atque iidem venti vela fidemque ferent</i>.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>What poet of our nation is so happy as to express -this thought literally in English, and to strike wit, -or almost sense, out of it?</p> - -<p>In short, the verbal copier is encumbered with so -many difficulties at once, that he can never disentangle -himself from all. He is to consider, at the -same time, the thought of his author, and his words, -and to find out the counterpart to each in another -language; and, besides this, he is to confine himself -to the compass of numbers, and the slavery of -rhyme. It is much like dancing on ropes with fettered -legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; -but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected: -and when we have said the best of it, it is but -a foolish task; for no sober man would put himself -into a danger for the applause of escaping without -breaking his neck. We see Ben Jonson could not -avoid obscurity in his literal translation of Horace, -attempted in the same compass of lines: nay, Horace -himself could scarce have done it to a Greek -poet:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio</i>:<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>either perspicuity or gracefulness will frequently be -wanting. Horace has indeed avoided both these -rocks in his translation of the three first lines of Homer's -Odyssey, which he has contracted into two:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Dic mihi, musa virum, captæ post tempora Trojæ,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Que mores hominum multorum vidit, et urbes</i>.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Muse speak the man, who, since the siege of Troy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So many towns, such change of manners saw.<br /></span> -<span class="i14"><span class="smcap">Roscommon.</span><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>But then the sufferings of Ulysses, which are a -considerable part of that sentence, are omitted:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλὰγχθη.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - - -<p>The consideration of these difficulties, in a servile, -literal translation, not long since made two of -our famous wits, Sir John Denham,<a id="FNanchor_J_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and Mr Cowley, -to contrive another way of turning authors into -our tongue, called, by the latter of them, imitation. -As they were friends, I suppose they communicated -their thoughts on this subject to each other; -and therefore their reasons for it are little different, -though the practice of one is much more -moderate. I take imitation of an author, in their -sense, to be an endeavour of a later poet to write -like one, who has written before him, on the same -subject; that is, not to translate his words, or to -be confined to his sense, but only to set him as a -pattern, and to write, as he supposes that author -would have done, had he lived in our age, and in -our country.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> - -<p>Yet I dare not say, that either of -them have carried this libertine way of rendering -authors (as Mr Cowley calls it) so far as my definition -reaches; for, in the Pindaric odes, the customs -and ceremonies of ancient Greece are still preserved. -But I know not what mischief may arise -hereafter from the example of such an innovation, -when writers of unequal parts to him shall imitate -so bold an undertaking. To add and to diminish -what we please, which is the way avowed by him, -ought only to be granted to Mr Cowley, and that -too only in his translation of Pindar; because he -alone was able to make him amends, by giving him -better of his own, whenever he refused his author's -thoughts. Pindar is generally known to be a dark -writer, to want connection, (I mean as to our understanding,) -to soar out of sight, and leave his reader -at a gaze. So wild and ungovernable a poet -cannot be translated literally; his genius is too -strong to bear a chain, and, Samson-like, he shakes -it off. A genius so elevated and unconfined as Mr -Cowley's, was but necessary to make Pindar speak -English, and that was to be performed by no other -way than imitation.<a id="FNanchor_K_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> - -<p>But if Virgil, or Ovid, or -any regular intelligible authors, be thus used, it is -no longer to be called their work, when neither the -thoughts nor words are drawn from the original; - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> -but instead of them there is something new produced, -which is almost the creation of another hand. -By this way, it is true, somewhat that is excellent -may be invented, perhaps more excellent than the -first design; though Virgil must be still excepted, -when that perhaps takes place. Yet he who is inquisitive -to know an author's thoughts, will be disappointed -in his expectation; and it is not always -that a man will be contented to have a present -made him, when he expects the payment of a debt. -To state it fairly; imitation of an author is the -most advantageous way for a translator to shew himself, -but the greatest wrong which can be done to -the memory and reputation of the dead. Sir John -Denham (who advised more liberty than he took -himself) gives his reason for his innovation, in his -admirable preface before the translation of the second -Æneid. "Poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that, -in pouring out of one language into another, it will -all evaporate; and, if a new spirit be not added in -the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a <i>caput -mortuum</i>." I confess this argument holds good -against a literal translation; but who defends it? -Imitation and verbal version are, in my opinion, the -two extremes which ought to be avoided; and -therefore, when I have proposed the mean betwixt -them, it will be seen how far his argument will -reach.</p> - -<p>No man is capable of translating poetry, who, -besides a genius to that art, is not a master both of -his author's language, and of his own; nor must -we understand the language only of the poet, but -his particular turn of thoughts and expression, which -are the characters that distinguish, and as it were -individuate him from all other writers. When we -are come thus far, it is time to look into ourselves, - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> -to conform our genius to his, to give his thought -either the same turn, if our tongue will bear it, or, -if not, to vary but the dress, not to alter or destroy -the substance. The like care must be taken of the -more outward ornaments, the words. When they -appear (which is but seldom) literally graceful, it -were an injury to the author that they should be -changed. But, since every language is so full of its -own proprieties, that what is beautiful in one, is -often barbarous, nay sometimes nonsense, in another, -it would be unreasonable to limit a translator -to the narrow compass of his author's words: it is -enough if he choose out some expression which does -not vitiate the sense. I suppose he may stretch -his chain to such a latitude; but, by innovation of -thoughts, methinks, he breaks it. By this means -the spirit of an author may be transfused, and yet -not lost: and thus it is plain, that the reason alledged -by Sir John Denham has no farther force -than to expression; for thought, if it be translated -truly, cannot be lost in another language; but the -words that convey it to our apprehension (which -are the image and ornament of that thought,) may -be so ill chosen, as to make it appear in an unhandsome -dress, and rob it of its native lustre. There -is, therefore, a liberty to be allowed for the expression; -neither is it necessary that words and lines -should be confined to the measure of their original. -The sense of an author, generally speaking, is to be -sacred and inviolable. If the fancy of Ovid be -luxuriant, it is his character to be so; and if I retrench -it, he is no longer Ovid. It will be replied, -that he receives advantage by this lopping of his -superfluous branches; but I rejoin, that a translator -has no such right. When a painter copies from the -life, I suppose he has no privilege to alter features, -and lineaments, under pretence that his picture will - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> -look better: perhaps the face, which he has drawn, -would be more exact, if the eyes or nose were altered; -but it is his business to make it resemble the original. -In two cases only there may a seeming difficulty -arise; that is, if the thought be notoriously trivial, -or dishonest; but the same answer will serve for -both, that then they ought not to be translated:</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">——<i>Et quæ</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Desperes tractata nitescere posse, relinquas.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="pmb3">Thus I have ventured to give my opinion on this -subject against the authority of two great men, but -I hope without offence to either of their memories; -for I both loved them living, and reverence them -now they are dead. But if, after what I have -urged, it be thought by better judges, that the -praise of a translation consists in adding new beauties -to the piece, thereby to recompense the loss -which it sustains by change of language, I shall be -willing to be taught better, and to recant. In the -mean time, it seems to me, that the true reason -why we have so few versions which are tolerable, -is not from the too close pursuing of the author's -sense, but because there are so few, who have all -the talents which are requisite for translation, and -that there is so little praise, and so small encouragement, -for so considerable a part of learning.</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a></span></p> - - -<p class="break" /> - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Published in 8vo, in 1680. This version was made by several -hands. See introductory remarks on Dryden's Translations. Johnson -gives the following account of the purpose of Dryden's preface: -</p> -<p> -"In 1680, the epistles of Ovid being translated by the poets -of the time, it was necessary (says Dr Johnson) to introduce them -by a preface; and Dryden, who on such occasions was regularly -summoned, prefixed a discourse upon translation, which was then -struggling for the liberty it now enjoys. Why it should find any -difficulty in breaking the shackles of verbal interpretation, which -must for ever debar it from elegance, it would be difficult to conjecture, -were not the power of prejudice every day observed. The -authority of Jonson, Sandys, and Holiday, had fixed the judgement -of the nation; and it was not easily believed that a better -way could be found than they had taken, though Fanshaw, Denham, -Waller, and Cowley, had tried to give examples of a different -practice."</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> George Sandys' Translation of Ovid was published in folio, in -1626.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Ovid was born in the year of Rome 711, and died in 771 of -the same æra.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The poet himself plainly intimates as much in an epistle to -Fabius Maximus, where he represents himself as accusing Love of -being the cause of his exile:</p> -<p><i>O puer! exilii, decepto causa magistro.</i><br /> -</p> -<p>The deity replies to this charge, by alluding to the secret cause -of his banishment, for which the loosness of his verses furnished -only an ostensible reason:</p> -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Juro</i></span><br /></p> -<p><i>Nil nisi concessum nos te didicisse magistro,</i><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Artibus et nullum crimen inesse tuis,</i></span><br /> -<i>Utque hoc, sic utinam cetera defendere possis,</i><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Scis aliud quod te læserit esse magis.</i></span></p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Martial, lib. XI. epig. 21.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a></p> -<p><i>Causa meæ cunctis nimium quoque nota ruinæ,<br /> -Indicio non est testificanda meo.</i><br /> -</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> This curious and obscure subject is minutely investigated by -Bayle, who quotes and confutes the various opinions of the learned -concerning this point of secret history; and concludes, like -Dryden, by leaving it very much where he found it. Were I to -hazard a conjecture, I should rather think, with our poet, Ovid had -made some imprudent, and perhaps fortuitous discovery relating -to Livia.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_I_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Dryden speaks inaccurately, from a general recollection of the -passage; for Ovid says distinctly, that the Fates did not give him -time to cultivate the acquaintance of Tibullus, any more than of -Virgil. The entire passage runs thus:</p> -<p> -<i>Temporis illius colui, fovique poetas:</i><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Quotque aderant vates, rebar adesse deos.</i></span><br /> -<i>Sæpe suas volucres legit mihi grandior ævo,</i><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Quæque nocet serpens, quæ juvat herba, Macer.</i></span><br /> -<i>Sæpe suos solitus recitare Propertius ignes,</i><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Jure sodalitii qui mihi junctus erat.</i></span><br /> -<i>Ponticus Heroo, Battus quoque clarus Iambo,</i><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Dulcia convictus membra fuere mei.</i></span><br /> -<i>Et tenuit nostras numerosus Horatius aures</i><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Dum ferit Ausonia carmina culta lyra</i></span><br /> -<i>Virgilium vidi tantum; nec avara Tibullo</i><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Tempus amicitiæ fata dedere meæ.</i></span><br /></p> -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Trist. Lib. IV. Eleg. 9.</span><br /> -</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_J_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Sir John Denham gives his opinion on this subject in the preface -to "The Destruction of Troy;" which he does not venture -to call a translation, but "an Essay on the second book of Virgil's -Æneis."—"I conceive it is a vulgar error, in translating -poets, to affect being <i>fidus interpres</i>; let that care be with them -who deal in matters of fact, or matters of faith; but whosoever -aims at it in poetry, as he attempts what is not required, so he -shall never perform what he attempts: for it is not his business -alone to translate language into language, but poesy into poesy; -and poesy is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one -language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit -be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a -<i>caput mortuum</i>, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar -to every language, which give life and energy to the words; -and whosoever offers at verbal translation, shall have the misfortune -of that young traveller, who lost his own language abroad, -and brought home no other instead of it; for the grace of the Latin -will be lost by being turned into English words, and the grace -of the English by being turned into the Latin phrase."</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_K_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Cowley is now so undeservedly forgotten, that it is not superfluous -to insert his own excellent account of the free mode of -translation, prefixed to his translations from Pindar. "If a man -should undertake to translate Pindar, word for word, it would be -thought that one madman had translated another; as may appear, -when he that understands not the original, reads the verbal traduction -of him into Latin prose, than which nothing seems more -raving. And sure rhyme, without the addition of wit, and the -spirit of poetry, (<i>quod nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum</i>,) would -but make it ten times more distracted than it is in prose. We -must consider, in Pindar, the great difference of time betwixt his -age and ours, which changes, as in pictures, at least the colours of -poetry; the no less difference betwixt the religions and customs of -our countries, and a thousand particularities of places, persons, -and manners, which do but confusedly appear to our eyes at so -great a distance; and, lastly, (which were enough, alone, for my -purpose,) we must consider, that our ears are strangers to the music -of his numbers, which sometimes, (especially in songs and odes,) -almost without any thing else, makes an excellent poet. For though -the grammarians and critics have laboured to reduce his verses -into regular feet and measures, (as they have also those of the -Greek and Latin comedies,) yet, in effect, they are little better -than prose to our ears: and I would gladly know what applause -our best pieces of English poesy could expect from a Frenchman -or Italian, if converted faithfully, and word for word, into French -or Italian prose. And when we have considered all this, we must -needs confess, that after all these losses sustained by Pindar, all we -can add to him by our wit and invention, (not deserting still his -subject,) is not like to make him a richer man than he was in his -own country. This is, in some measure, to be applied to all translations; -and the not observing of it is the cause, that all which -ever I yet saw are so much inferior to their originals. The like -happens, too, in pictures, from the same root of exact imitation; -which being a vile and unworthy kind of servitude, is incapable -of producing any thing good or noble. I have seen originals, both -in painting and poesy, much more beautiful than their natural objects; -but I never saw a copy better than the original: which indeed -cannot be otherwise; for men resolving in no case to shoot -beyond the mark, it is a thousand to one if they shoot not short of -it. It does not at all trouble me, that the grammarians, perhaps, -will not suffer this libertine way of rendering foreign authors to be -called translation; for I am not so much enamoured of the name -translator, as not to wish rather to be something better, though it -wants yet a name. I speak not so much all this in defence of my -manner of translating or imitating, (or what other title they please,) -the two ensuing odes of Pindar; for that would not deserve half -these words, as by this occasion to rectify the opinion of divers -men upon this matter."</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">CANACE TO MACAREUS.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">EPIST. XI.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<p class="center font09 pmb1">THE ARGUMENT.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>Macareus and Canace, son and daughter to Æolus, God of the -Winds, loved each other incestuously: Canace was delivered of a -son, and committed him to her nurse, to be secretly conveyed away. -The infant crying out, by that means was discovered to Æolus, -who, enraged at the wickedness of his children, commanded the -babe to be exposed to wild beasts on the mountains; and withal, -sent a sword to Canace, with this message, That her crimes would -instruct her how to use it. With this sword she slew herself; -but before she died, she writ the following letter to her brother -Macareus, who had taken sanctuary in the temple of Apollo.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">If streaming blood my fatal letter stain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Imagine, ere you read, the writer slain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One hand the sword, and one the pen employs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in my lap the ready paper lies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think in this posture thou behold'st me write;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In this my cruel father would delight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O! were he present, that his eyes and hands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might see, and urge the death which he commands!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than all the raging winds more dreadful, he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unmoved, without a tear, my wounds would see.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Jove justly placed him on a stormy throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His people's temper is so like his own.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The north and south, and each contending blast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are underneath his wide dominion cast:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those he can rule; but his tempestuous mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is, like his airy kingdom, unconfined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah! what avail my kindred Gods above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in their number I can reckon Jove!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What help will all my heavenly friends afford,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When to my breast I lift the pointed sword?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hour, which joined us, came before its time;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In death we had been one without a crime.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why did thy flames beyond a brother's move?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why loved I thee with more than sister's love?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I loved too; and, knowing not my wound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A secret pleasure in thy kisses found;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My cheeks no longer did their colour boast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My food grew loathsome, and my strength I lost:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still ere I spoke, a sigh would stop my tongue;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Short were my slumbers, and my nights were long.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I knew not from my love these griefs did grow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet was, alas! the thing I did not know.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My wily nurse, by long experience, found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And first discovered to my soul its wound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis love, said she; and then my downcast eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And guilty dumbness, witnessed my surprise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forced at the last my shameful pain I tell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And oh, what followed, we both know too well!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">"When half denying, more than half content,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Embraces warmed me to a full consent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then with tumultuous joys my heart did beat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And guilt, that made them anxious, made them great."<a id="FNanchor_L_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_L_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now my swelling womb heaved up my breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rising weight my sinking limbs opprest.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> -<span class="i0">What herbs, what plants, did not my nurse produce,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make abortion by their powerful juice!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What medicines tried we not, to thee unknown!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our first crime common; this was mine alone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the strong child, secure in his dark cell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With nature's vigour did our arts repel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now the pale faced empress of the night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nine times had filled her orb with borrowed light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not knowing 'twas my labour, I complain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of sudden shootings, and of grinding pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My throes came thicker, and my cries increased,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which with her hand the conscious nurse suppressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To that unhappy fortune was I come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pain urged my clamours, but fear kept me dumb.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With inward struggling I restrained my cries,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drunk the tears that trickled from my eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death was in sight, Lucina gave no aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And even my dying had my guilt betrayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou cam'st, and in thy countenance sat despair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rent were thy garments all, and torn thy hair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet feigning comfort, which thou couldst not give,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prest in thy arms, and whispering me to live;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For both our sakes, saidst thou, preserve thy life;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Live, my dear sister, and my dearer wife.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raised by that name, with my last pangs I strove;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such power have words, when spoke by those we love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The babe, as if he heard what thou hadst sworn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hasty joy sprung forward to be born.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What helps it to have weathered out one storm!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fear of our father does another form.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">High in his hall, rocked in a chair of state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The king with his tempestuous council sate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through this large room our only passage lay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By which we could the new-born babe convey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swathed in her lap, the bold nurse bore him out,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With olive branches covered round about;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And, muttering prayers, as holy rites she meant,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through the divided crowd unquestioned went.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just at the door the unhappy infant cried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The grandsire heard him, and the theft he spied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swift as a whirlwind to the nurse he flies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And deafs his stormy subjects with his cries.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With one fierce puff he blows the leaves away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exposed the self-discovered infant lay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The noise reached me, and my presaging mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too soon its own approaching woes divined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not ships at sea with winds are shaken more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor seas themselves, when angry tempests roar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than I, when my loud father's voice I hear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bed beneath me trembled with my fear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He rushed upon me, and divulged my stain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scarce from my murder could his hands refrain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I only answered him with silent tears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They flowed; my tongue was frozen up with fears.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His little grandchild he commands away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To mountain wolves and every bird of prey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The babe cried out, as if he understood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And begged his pardon with what voice he could.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By what expressions can my grief be shown?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet you may guess my anguish by your own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see my bowels, and, what yet was worse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your bowels too, condemned to such a curse!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out went the king; my voice its freedom found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My breasts I beat, my blubbered cheeks I wound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now appeared the messenger of death;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sad were his looks, and scarce he drew his breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To say, "Your father sends you"—(with that word<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His trembling hands presented me a sword;)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">"Your father sends you this; and lets you know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That your own crimes the use of it will show."<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too well I know the sense those words impart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His present shall be treasured in my heart.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Are these the nuptial gifts a bride receives?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this the fatal dower a father gives?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou God of marriage, shun thy own disgrace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And take thy torch from this detested place!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Instead of that, let furies light their brands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fire my pile with their infernal hands!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With happier fortune may my sisters wed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Warned by the dire example of the dead.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thee, poor babe, what crime could they pretend?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How could thy infant innocence offend?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A guilt there was; but, oh, that guilt was mine!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou suffer'st for a sin that was not thine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy mother's grief and crime! but just enjoyed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shewn to my sight, and born to be destroyed!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unhappy offspring of my teeming womb!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dragged headlong from thy cradle to thy tomb!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy unoffending life I could not save,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor weeping could I follow to thy grave;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor on thy tomb could offer my shorn hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shew the grief which tender mothers bear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet long thou shalt not from my arms be lost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For soon I will overtake thy infant ghost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thou, my love, and now my love's despair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perform his funerals with paternal care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His scattered limbs with my dead body burn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And once more join us in the pious urn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If on my wounded breast thou droppest a tear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think for whose sake my breast that wound did bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And faithfully my last desires fulfil,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As I perform my cruel father's will.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_L_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> These lines are original.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">HELEN TO PARIS.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">EPIST. XVII.<a id="FNanchor_M_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<p class="center font09 pmb1">THE ARGUMENT.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>Helen, having received an epistle from Paris, returns the following -answer; wherein she seems at first to chide him for his presumption -in writing as he had done, which could only proceed from -his low opinion of her virtue; then owns herself to be sensible of -the passion which he had expressed for her, though she much suspected -his constancy; and at last discovers her inclination to be -favourable to him; the whole letter shewing the extreme artifice -of womankind.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When loose epistles violate chaste eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She half consents, who silently denies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How dares a stranger, with designs so vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Marriage and hospitable rights prophane?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was it for this, your fleet did shelter find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From swelling seas, and every faithless wind?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For though a distant country brought you forth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your usage here was equal to your worth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Does this deserve to be rewarded so?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did you come here a stranger, or a foe?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Your partial judgment may perhaps complain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And think me barbarous for my just disdain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ill-bred then let me be, but not unchaste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor my clear fame with any spot defaced.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though in my face there's no affected frown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor in my carriage a feigned niceness shown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I keep my honour still without a stain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor has my love made any coxcomb vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your boldness I with admiration see;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What hope had you to gain a queen like me?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because a hero forced me once away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Am I thought fit to be a second prey?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had I been won, I had deserved your blame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sure my part was nothing but the shame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet the base theft to him no fruit did bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I 'scaped unhurt by any thing but fear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rude force might some unwilling kisses gain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But that was all he ever could obtain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You on such terms would ne'er have let me go;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were he like you, we had not parted so.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Untouched the youth restored me to my friends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And modest usage made me some amends.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis virtue to repent a vicious deed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did he repent, that Paris might succeed?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sure 'tis some fate that sets me above wrongs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet still exposes me to busy tongues.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I'll not complain; for who's displeased with love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If it sincere, discreet, and constant prove?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But that I fear; not that I think you base,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or doubt the blooming beauties of my face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But all your sex is subject to deceive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ours, alas! too willing to believe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet others yield; and love o'ercomes the best;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But why should I not shine above the rest?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fair Leda's story seems at first to be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A fit example, ready formed for me.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But she was cozened by a borrowed shape,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And under harmless feathers felt a rape.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I should yield, what reason could I use?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By what mistake the loving crime excuse?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her fault was in her powerful lover lost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But of what Jupiter have I to boast?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though you to heroes and to kings succeed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our famous race does no addition need;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And great alliances but useless prove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To one that comes herself from mighty Jove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go then, and boast, in some less haughty place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your Phrygian blood, and Priam's ancient race;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which I would shew I valued, if I durst;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You are the fifth from Jove, but I the first.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The crown of Troy is powerful, I confess;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I have reason to think ours no less.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your letter, filled with promises of all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That men can good, and women pleasant call,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gives expectation such an ample field,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As would move goddesses themselves to yield.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if I e'er offend great Juno's laws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yourself shall be the dear, the only cause;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Either my honour I'll to death maintain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or follow you, without mean thoughts of gain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not that so fair a present I despise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We like the gift, when we the giver prize:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But 'tis your love moves me, which made you take<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such pains, and run such hazards for my sake.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I have perceived, though I dissembled too,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thousand things that love has made you do.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your eager eyes would almost dazzle mine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which, wild man, your wanton thoughts would shine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes you'd sigh, sometimes disordered stand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with unusual ardour press my hand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Contrive just after me to take the glass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor would you let the least occasion pass;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> -<span class="i0">When oft I feared, I did not mind alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And blushing sate for things which you have done;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then murmured to myself,—he'll for my sake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do any thing;—I hope 'twas no mistake.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oft have I read within this pleasing grove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under my name, those charming words,—I love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I, frowning, seemed not to believe your flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now, alas! am come to write the same.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I were capable to do amiss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I could not but be sensible of this.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For oh! your face has such peculiar charms,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That who can hold from flying to your arms!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But what I ne'er can have without offence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May some blest maid possess with innocence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pleasure may tempt, but virtue more should move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O learn of me to want the thing you love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What you desire is sought by all mankind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As you have eyes, so others are not blind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like you they see, like you my charms adore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They wish not less, but you dare venture more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh! had you then upon our coasts been brought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My virgin-love when thousand rivals sought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You had I seen, you should have had my voice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor could my husband justly blame my choice.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For both our hopes, alas! you come too late;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another now is master of my fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More to my wish I could have lived with you,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet my present lot can undergo.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cease to solicit a weak woman's will,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And urge not her you love to so much ill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But let me live contented as I may,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And make not my unspotted fame your prey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some right you claim, since naked to your eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Three goddesses disputed beauty's prize;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One offered valour, t'other crowns; but she<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obtained her cause, who, smiling, promised me.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But first I am not of belief so light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To think such nymphs would shew you such a sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet granting this, the other part is feigned;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bribe so mean your sentence had not gained.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With partial eyes I should myself regard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To think that Venus made me her reward.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I humbly am content with human praise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A Goddess's applause would envy raise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But be it as you say; for, 'tis confest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The men, who flatter highest, please us best.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I suspect it, ought not to displease;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For miracles are not believed with ease.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One joy I have, that I had Venus' voice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A greater yet, that you confirmed her choice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That proffered laurels, promised sovereignty,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Juno and Pallas, you contemned for me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Am I your empire, then, and your renown?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What heart of rock, but must by this be won?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet bear witness, O you Powers above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How rude I am in all the arts of love!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My hand is yet untaught to write to men;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is the essay of my unpractised pen.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Happy those nymphs, whom use has perfect made!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I think all crime, and tremble at a shade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">E'en while I write, my fearful conscious eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Look often back, misdoubting a surprise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For now the rumour spreads among the crowd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At court in whispers, but in town aloud.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dissemble you, whate'er you hear them say; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To leave off loving were your better way; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Yet if you will dissemble it, you may. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Love secretly; the absence of my lord<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More freedom gives, but does not all afford;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long is his journey, long will be his stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Called by affairs of consequence away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To go, or not, when unresolved he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I bid him make what swift return he could;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then kissing me, he said, I recommend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All to thy care, but most my Trojan friend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I smiled at what he innocently said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And only answered, "You shall be obeyed."<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Propitious winds have borne him far from hence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But let not this secure your confidence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Absent he is, yet absent he commands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You know the proverb, "Princes have long hands."<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My fame's my burden; for the more I'm praised,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A juster ground of jealousy is raised.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were I less fair, I might have been more blest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great beauty through great danger is possest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To leave me here his venture was not hard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because he thought my virtue was my guard.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He feared my face, but trusted to my life;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The beauty doubted, but believed the wife.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You bid me use the occasion while I can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Put in our hands by the good easy man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I would, and yet I doubt, 'twixt love and fear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One draws me from you, and one brings me near.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our flames are mutual, and my husband's gone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nights are long; I fear to lie alone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One house contains us, and weak walls divide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And you're too pressing to be long denied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let me not live, but every thing conspires<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To join our loves, and yet my fear retires.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You court with words, when you should force employ;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A rape is requisite to shame-faced joy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Indulgent to the wrongs which we receive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our sex can suffer what we dare not give.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What have I said? for both of us 'twere best,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our kindling fire if each of us supprest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The faith of strangers is too prone to change,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, like themselves, their wandering passions range.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Hypsipile, and the fond Minonian<a id="FNanchor_N_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> maid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were both by trusting of their guests betrayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How can I doubt that other men deceive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When you yourself did fair Œnone<a id="FNanchor_O_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_O_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> leave?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But lest I should upbraid your treachery,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You make a merit of that crime to me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet grant you were to faithful love inclined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your weary Trojans wait but for a wind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should you prevail, while I assign the night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your sails are hoisted, and you take your flight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some bawling mariner our love destroys,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And breaks asunder our unfinished joys.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I with you may leave the Spartan port,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To view the Trojan wealth and Priam's court;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shown while I see, I shall expose my fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fill a foreign country with my shame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Asia what reception shall I find?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what dishonour leave in Greece behind?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What will your brothers, Priam, Hecuba,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what will all your modest matrons say?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">E'en you, when on this action you reflect,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My future conduct justly may suspect;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whate'er stranger lands upon your coast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Conclude me, by your own example, lost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I from your rage a strumpet's name shall hear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While you forget what part in it you bear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You, my crime's author, will my crime upbraid;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep under ground, oh, let me first be laid!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You boast the pomp and plenty of your land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And promise all shall be at my command;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your Trojan wealth, believe me, I despise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My own poor native land has dearer ties.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Should I be injured on your Phrygian shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What help of kindred could I there implore?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Medea was by Jason's flattery won;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I may, like her, believe, and be undone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plain honest hearts, like mine, suspect no cheat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And love contributes to its own deceit;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ships, about whose sides loud tempests roar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gentle winds were wafted from the shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your teeming mother dreamed, a flaming brand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sprung from her womb, consumed the Trojan land;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To second this, old prophecies conspire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Ilium shall be burnt with Grecian fire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both give me fear; nor is it much allayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Venus is obliged our loves to aid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For they, who lost their cause, revenge will take;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for one friend two enemies you make.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor can I doubt, but, should I follow you,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sword would soon our fatal crime pursue.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A wrong so great my husband's rage would rouse,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And my relations would his cause espouse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You boast your strength and courage; but, alas!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your words receive small credit from your face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let heroes in the dusty field delight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those limbs were fashioned for another fight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bid Hector sally from the walls of Troy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sweeter quarrel should your arms employ.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet fears like these should not my mind perplex,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were I as wise as many of my sex;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But time and you may bolder thoughts inspire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I, perhaps, may yield to your desire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You last demand a private conference;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These are your words, but I can guess your sense.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your unripe hopes their harvest must attend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be ruled by me, and time may be your friend.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> -<span class="i0">This is enough to let you understand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For now my pen has tired my tender hand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My woman knows the secret of my heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And may hereafter better news impart.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_M_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> This epistle was partly translated by Lord Mulgrave.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_N_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Ariadne.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_O_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_O_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> A Phrygian nymph, seduced and deserted by Paris before his -Spartan expedition.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">DIDO TO ÆNEAS.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font07a">EPIST. VII.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<p class="center font09 pmb1">THE ARGUMENT.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>Æneas, the son of Venus and Anchises, having, at the destruction -of Troy, saved his Gods, his father, and son Ascanius, from the -fire, put to sea with twenty sail of ships; and, having been long -tost with tempests, was at last cast upon the shore of Libya, -where queen Dido (flying from the cruelty of Pygmalion, her -brother, who had killed her husband Sichæus) had lately built -Carthage. She entertained Æneas and his fleet with great civility, -fell passionately in love with him, and in the end denied him -not the last favours. But Mercury admonishing Æneas to go in -search of Italy, (a kingdom promised him by the Gods,) he readily -prepared to follow him. Dido soon perceived it, and, having -in vain tried all other means to engage him to stay, at last, in -despair, writes to him as follows.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So, on Mæander's banks, when death is nigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mournful swan sings her own elegy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not that I hope (for, oh, that hope were vain!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By words your lost affection to regain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, having lost whate'er was worth my care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why should I fear to lose a dying prayer?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis then resolved poor Dido must be left,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of life, of honour, and of love bereft!<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> -<span class="i0">While you, with loosened sails, and vows, prepare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To seek a land that flies the searcher's care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor can my rising towers your flight restrain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor my new empire, offered you in vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Built walls you shun, unbuilt you seek; that land<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is yet to conquer, but you this command.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suppose you landed where your wish designed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think what reception foreigners would find.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What people is so void of common sense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To vote succession from a native prince?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet there new sceptres and new loves you seek,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When will your towers the height of Carthage know?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or when your eyes discern such crowds below?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If such a town and subjects you could see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still would you want a wife who loved like me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, oh, I burn, like fires with incense bright;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not holy tapers flame with purer light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Æneas is my thoughts' perpetual theme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their daily longing, and their nightly dream.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet he's ungrateful and obdurate still;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fool that I am to place my heart so ill!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Myself I cannot to myself restore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still I complain, and still I love him more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have pity, Cupid, on my bleeding heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pierce thy brother's with an equal dart.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I rave; nor canst thou Venus' offspring be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love's mother could not bear a son like thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From hardened oak, or from a rock's cold womb,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At least thou art from some fierce tigress come;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or on rough seas, from their foundation torn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Got by the winds, and in a tempest born:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like that, which now thy trembling sailors fear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like that, whose rage should still detain thee here.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behold how high the foamy billows ride!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The winds and waves are on the juster side.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> -<span class="i0">To winter weather, and a stormy sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I'll owe what rather I would owe to thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death thou deserv'st from heaven's avenging laws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I'm unwilling to become the cause.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To shun my love, if thou wilt seek thy fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis a dear purchase, and a costly hate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stay but a little, till the tempest cease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the loud winds are lulled into a peace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May all thy rage, like theirs, inconstant prove!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so it will, if there be power in love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Know'st thou not yet what dangers ships sustain?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So often wrecked, how darest thou tempt the main?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which were it smooth, were every wave asleep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ten thousand forms of death are in the deep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In that abyss the gods their vengeance store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For broken vows of those who falsely swore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There winged storms on sea-born Venus wait,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To vindicate the justice of her state.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus I to thee the means of safety show;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, lost myself, would still preserve my foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">False as thou art, I not thy death design;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O rather live, to be the cause of mine!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should some avenging storm thy vessel tear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(But heaven forbid my words should omen bear!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then in thy face thy perjured vows would fly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And my wronged ghost be present to thy eye;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With threatening looks think thou behold'st me stare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gasping my mouth, and clotted all my hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, should forked lightning and red thunder fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What couldst thou say, but, I deserved them all?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lest this should happen, make not haste away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To shun the danger will be worth thy stay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have pity on thy son, if not on me;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My death alone is guilt enough for thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What has his youth, what have thy gods deserved,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To sink in seas, who were from fires preserved?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But neither gods nor parent didst thou bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smooth stories all, to please a woman's ear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">False as the tale of thy romantic life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor yet am I thy first-deluded wife;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Left to pursuing foes Creusa stayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By thee, base man, forsaken and betrayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This, when thou told'st me, struck my tender heart,<a id="FNanchor_P_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_P_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">That such requital followed such desert.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor doubt I but the gods, for crimes like these,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seven winters kept thee wandering on the seas.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy starved companions, cast ashore, I fed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thyself admitted to my crown and bed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To harbour strangers, succour the distrest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was kind enough; but, oh, too kind the rest!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curst be the cave which first my ruin brought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where, from the storm, we common shelter sought!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A dreadful howling echoed round the place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mountain nymphs, thought I, my nuptials grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I thought so then, but now too late I know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The furies yelled my funerals from below.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O chastity and violated fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exact your dues to my dead husband's name!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By death redeem my reputation lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to his arms restore my guilty ghost!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Close by my palace, in a gloomy grove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is raised a chapel to my murdered love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There, wreathed with boughs and wool, his statue stands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pious monument of artful hands.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Last night, methought, he called me from the dome,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thrice, with hollow voice, cried, Dido, come!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She comes; thy wife thy lawful summons hears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But comes more slowly, clogged with conscious fears.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forgive the wrong I offered to thy bed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strong were his charms, who my weak faith misled.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His goddess mother, and his aged sire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Borne on his back, did to my fall conspire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh! such he was, and is, that, were he true,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without a blush I might his love pursue;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But cruel stars my birth-day did attend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as my fortune opened, it must end.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My plighted lord was at the altar slain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose wealth was made my bloody brother's gain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Friendless, and followed by the murderer's hate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To foreign countries I removed my fate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And here, a suppliant, from the natives' hands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I bought the ground on which my city stands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all the coast that stretches to the sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">E'en to the friendly port that sheltered thee;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then raised these walls, which mount into the air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At once my neighbours' wonder, and their fear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For now they arm; and round me leagues are made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My scarce established empire to invade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To man my new-built walls I must prepare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An helpless woman, and unskilled in war.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet thousand rivals to my love pretend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for my person would my crown defend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose jarring votes in one complaint agree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That each unjustly is disdained for thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To proud Hyarbas give me up a prey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For that must follow, if thou goest away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or to my husband's murderer leave my life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That to the husband he may add the wife.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go then, since no complaints can move thy mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go, perjured man, but leave thy gods behind.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Touch not those gods, by whom thou art forsworn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who will in impious hands no more be borne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy sacrilegious worship they disdain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rather would the Grecian fires sustain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps my greatest shame is still to come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And part of thee lies hid within my womb;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The babe unborn must perish by thy hate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And perish, guiltless, in his mother's fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some god, thou sayest, thy voyage does command;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would the same god had barred thee from my land!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The same, I doubt not, thy departure steers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who kept thee out at sea so many years;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While thy long labours were a price so great,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As thou, to purchase Troy, would'st not repeat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Tyber now thou seek'st, to be at best,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When there arrived, a poor precarious guest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet it deludes thy search; perhaps it will<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To thy old age lie undiscovered still.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A ready crown and wealth in dower I bring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, without conquering, here thou art a king.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here thou to Carthage may'st transfer thy Troy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here young Ascanius may his arms employ;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, while we live secure in soft repose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bring many laurels home from conquered foes.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">By Cupid's arrows, I adjure thee stay!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By all the gods, companions of thy way!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So may thy Trojans, who are yet alive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Live still, and with no future fortune strive;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So may thy youthful son old age attain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thy dead father's bones in peace remain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As thou hast pity on unhappy me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who knew no crime, but too much love of thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am not born from fierce Achilles' line,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor did my parents against Troy combine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To be thy wife if I unworthy prove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By some inferior name admit my love.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> -<span class="i0">To be secured of still possessing thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What would I do, and what would I not be!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our Libyan coasts their certain seasons know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When, free from tempests, passengers may go;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now with northern blasts the billows roar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drive the floating sea-weed to the shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leave to my care the time to sail away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When safe, I will not suffer thee to stay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy weary men would be with ease content;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their sails are tattered, and their masts are spent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If by no merit I thy mind can move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What thou deniest my merit, give my love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stay, till I learn my loss to undergo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And give me time to struggle with my woe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If not, know this, I will not suffer long;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My life's too loathsome, and my love too strong.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death holds my pen, and dictates what I say,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While cross my lap the Trojan sword I lay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My tears flow down; the sharp edge cuts their flood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drinks my sorrows, that must drink my blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How well thy gift does with my fate agree!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My funeral pomp is cheaply made by thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To no new wounds my bosom I display;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sword but enters where love made the way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thou, dear sister, and yet dearer friend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shalt my cold ashes to their urn attend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sichæus' wife let not the marble boast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I lost that title, when my fame I lost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This short inscription only let it bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">"Unhappy Dido lies in quiet here.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">"The cause of death, and sword by which she died,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">"Æneas gave; the rest her arm supplied."<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a></span></p> - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_P_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_P_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Dryden here misinterprets his author: -</p> -<p><i>Hæc mihi narrȃras, nec me movere</i>——<br /> -</p> -<p>The line would have run more justly thus:</p> -<p><br /> -This struck not, while thou told'st, my tender heart.<br /> -</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="no-break">TRANSLATIONS<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font12">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a></span></p> - -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">DEDICATION<br /> - -<span class="font06">PREFIXED TO THE</span><br /> - -<span class="font075">TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID's METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - - -<p>This Dedication contains abundance of literary and political -controversy. The first heat of the Revolution had been long over, -and the losers began to assume the privilege of talking, without -fear that an established government would think their complaints -worthy of much notice. Dryden, whom the evils of degradation -and poverty pressed severely, was not of a temper to remain silent -under them, as soon as he conceived it safe to utter his grievances. -In losing his places of laureat and historiographer, there -was not only dishonour, but great pecuniary loss; nor was it at -all a soothing addition, that his old enemy Shadwell had obtained -the one, and his equivocal friend Rymer the other, of his appointments. -He sets out in extremely bad humour with the government, -under which he had suffered this deprivation; with those -who had risen by his fall; and with himself, for having cultivated -the barren field of poetry, instead of aspiring to the honours of -the gown. At length, after having ventured probably as far as he -thought safe, certainly as far as to excite displeasure, in flourishes -of declamation, which, though expressed against ministers in general, -are obviously levelled against those of the day, he turns -short, and falls with great vehemence upon the whole body of -critics, ancient and modern, as the natural enemies of poets and -poetry. Descending to those of his own day, he singles out Rymer, -who, in a piece, called, "A short View of Tragedy," published -in 1692, had depreciated the modern drama in his deep admiration -of the ancients. The controversy concerning the comparative -merits of the ancients and moderns was now raging in the -literary world. Perault had written his "Parallel," and Sir William -Temple his "Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning." Wotton's -"Reflections" were published in 1694, and these led the way to -Swift's "Battle of the Books," in which our author is treated with -great severity.</p> - -<p>Rymer had not only espoused the cause of the ancient tragedians -in the general dispute, but, as Dryden complains, had treated - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> -him slightly; and our bard was not famous for patience under -such offences. He therefore retorts in this Dedication, maliciously -upbraids Rymer with the fate of his fallen tragedy "Edgar;" -and artfully divides the comparison between the Grecian -and British dramatists, from that which Perault had instituted -between the ancient poets in general and those of modern France. -Our author's good taste, as well as policy, led him to take a distinction -so necessary for the maintenance of his cause. Having -bestowed what he thought an adequate chastisement upon Rymer, -he employs the small remainder of the preface in discussing a few -miscellaneous points of criticism, chiefly relating to translation.</p> - -<p class="pmb3">The tone of this Dedication excited, as Dryden himself informs -us, the resentment of the court, who employed Rymer to attack -our author's dramatic reputation; a task which he never accomplished.<a id="FNanchor_Q_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_Q_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_Q_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Q_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See his letter to Tonson, in which he thus expresses himself: "About a -fortnight ago, I had an intimation from a friend, by letter, that one of the secretaries, -I suppose Trenchard, had informed the queen, that I had abused -her government, (these were his words,) in my epistle to Lord Radcliffe; -and that thereupon she had commanded her historiographer to fall upon my -plays, which he assures me he is now doing. I doubt not his malice, from a -former hint you gave me; and if he be employed, I am confident 'tis of his -own seeking, who, you know, <i>has spoken slightly of me in his last critique, and -that gave me occasion to snarl again</i>."</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">DEDICATION<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">THE THIRD MISCELLANY, 1693,</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">CONTAINING</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - - -<hr class="r20b" /> - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">TO</span><br /> - -<span class="font06">THE RIGHT HONOURABLE</span><br /> - -LORD RADCLIFFE.<a id="FNanchor_R_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_R_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></h2> - - -<p class="ia4">MY LORD,</p> - -<p>These Miscellany Poems are by many titles yours. -The first they claim, from your acceptance of my -promise to present them to you, before some of -them were yet in being. The rest are derived from -your own merit, the exactness of your judgment in -poetry, and the candour of your nature; easy to -forgive some trivial faults, when they come accompanied -with countervailing beauties. But, after all, -though these are your equitable claims to a dedication -from other poets, yet I must acknowledge a -bribe in the case, which is your particular liking of -my verses.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> - -<p>It is a vanity common to all writers, -to overvalue their own productions; and it is better -for me to own this failing in myself, than the world -to do it for me. For what other reason have I -spent my life in so unprofitable a study? why am I -grown old, in seeking so barren a reward as fame? -The same parts and application, which have made -me a poet, might have raised me to any honours of -the gown, which are often given to men of as little -learning and less honesty than myself. No government -has ever been, or ever can be, wherein timeservers -and blockheads will not be uppermost. The -persons are only changed, but the same jugglings in -state, the same hypocrisy in religion, the same -self-interest and mismanagement, will remain for -ever. Blood and money will be lavished in all ages, -only for the preferment of new faces, with old -consciences. There is too often a jaundice in the -eyes of great men; they see not those whom they -raise in the same colours with other men. All -whom they affect look golden to them, when the -gilding is only in their own distempered sight. -These considerations have given me a kind of contempt -for those who have risen by unworthy ways. -I am not ashamed to be little, when I see them so -infamously great; neither do I know why the name -of poet should be dishonourable to me, if I am truly -one, as I hope I am; for I will never do any thing -that shall dishonour it. The notions of morality -are known to all men; none can pretend ignorance -of those ideas which are inborn in mankind; and -if I see one thing, and practise the contrary, I must -be disingenuous not to acknowledge a clear truth, -and base to act against the light of my own conscience. -For the reputation of my honesty, no - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> -man can question it, who has any of his own; for -that of my poetry, it shall either stand by its own -merit, or fall for want of it. Ill writers are usually -the sharpest censors; for they, as the best poet and -the best patron said,</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When in the full perfection of decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turn vinegar, and come again in play.<a id="FNanchor_S_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_S_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Thus the corruption of a poet is the generation of a -critic; I mean of a critic in the general acceptation -of this age; for formerly they were quite another -species of men. They were defenders of poets, -and commentators on their works;—to illustrate -obscure beauties; to place some passages in a better -light; to redeem others from malicious interpretations; -to help out an author's modesty, who is not -ostentatious of his wit; and, in short, to shield him -from the ill-nature of those fellows, who were then -called Zoili and Momi, and now take upon themselves -the venerable name of censors. But neither Zoilus, -nor he who endeavoured to defame Virgil, were -ever adopted into the name of critics by the ancients. -What their reputation was then, we know; -and their successors in this age deserve no better. -Are our auxiliary forces turned our enemies? are -they, who at best are but wits of the second order, -and whose only credit amongst readers is what they -obtained by being subservient to the fame of writers, -are these become rebels, of slaves, and usurpers, of -subjects? or, to speak in the most honourable terms -of them, are they, from our seconds, become principals -against us? Does the ivy undermine the oak, -which supports its weakness?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> - -<p>What labour would it -cost them to put in a better line, than the worst of -those which they expunge in a true poet? Petronius, -the greatest wit perhaps of all the Romans, yet -when his envy prevailed upon his judgment to fall -on Lucan, he fell himself in his attempt; he performed -worse in his "Essay of the Civil War" than -the author of the "Pharsalia;" and, avoiding his errors, -has made greater of his own. Julius Scaliger -would needs turn down Homer, and abdicate him -after the possession of three thousand years: has -he succeeded in his attempt? he has indeed shown -us some of those imperfections in him, which are -incident to human kind; but who had not rather -be that Homer than this Scaliger? You see the -same hypercritic, when he endeavours to mend the -beginning of Claudian, (a faulty poet, and living in -a barbarous age,) yet how short he comes of him, -and substitutes such verses of his own as deserve -the ferula. What a censure has he made of Lucan, -that "he rather seems to bark than sing?" Would any -but a dog have made so snarling a comparison? one -would have thought he had learned Latin as late as -they tell us he did Greek. Yet he came off, with a -<i>pace tuȃ</i>,—by your good leave, Lucan; he called him -not by those outrageous names, of fool, booby, and -blockhead: he had somewhat more of good manners -than his successors, as he had much more -knowledge. We have two sorts of those gentlemen -in our nation; some of them, proceeding with -a seeming moderation and pretence of respect to -the dramatic writers of the last age, only scorn -and vilify the present poets, to set up their predecessors. -But this is only in appearance; for their -real design is nothing less than to do honour to any - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> -man, besides themselves. Horace took notice of -such men in his age:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Nostra sed impugnat; nos nostraque lividus odit.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>It is not with an ultimate intention to pay reverence -to the names of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Ben -Jonson, that they commend their writings, but to -throw dirt on the writers of this age: their declaration -is one thing, and their practice is another. -By a seeming veneration to our fathers, they would -thrust out us, their lawful issue, and govern us themselves, -under a specious pretence of reformation. -If they could compass their intent, what would wit -and learning get by such a change? If we are bad -poets, they are worse; and when any of their woeful -pieces come abroad, the difference is so great -betwixt them and good writers, that there need no -criticisms on our part to decide it. When they describe -the writers of this age, they draw such monstrous -figures of them, as resemble none of us; our -pretended pictures are so unlike, that it is evident -we never sat to them: they are all grotesque; the -products of their wild imaginations, things out of -nature; so far from being copied from us, that they -resemble nothing that ever was, or ever can be. -But there is another sort of insects, more venomous -than the former; those who manifestly aim at the -destruction of our poetical church and state; who -allow nothing to their countrymen, either of this -or of the former age. These attack the living by -raking up the ashes of the dead; well knowing that -if they can subvert their original title to the stage, -we who claim under them must fall of course. -Peace be to the venerable shades of Shakespeare -and Ben Jonson! none of the living will presume to -have any competition with them; as they were our - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> -predecessors, so they were our masters. We trail -our plays under them; but as at the funerals of a -Turkish emperor, our ensigns are furled or dragged -upon the ground, in honour to the dead, so we may -lawfully advance our own afterwards, to show that -we succeed; if less in dignity, yet on the same foot -and title, which we think too we can maintain -against the insolence of our own janizaries. If I -am the man, as I have reason to believe, who am -seemingly courted, and secretly undermined; I -think I shall be able to defend myself, when I am -openly attacked; and to show, besides, that the -Greek writers only gave us the rudiments of a stage -which they never finished; that many of the tragedies -in the former age amongst us were without -comparison beyond those of Sophocles and Euripides. -But at present, I have neither the leisure, -nor the means, for such an undertaking. It is ill -going to law for an estate, with him who is in possession -of it, and enjoys the present profits, to feed -his cause. But the <i>quantum mutatus</i> may be remembered -in due time. In the mean while, I leave the -world to judge, who gave the provocation.</p> - -<p>This, my lord, is, I confess, a long digression, -from miscellany poems to modern tragedies; but I -have the ordinary excuse of an injured man, who -will be telling his tale unseasonably to his betters; -though, at the same time, I am certain you are so -good a friend, as to take a concern in all things -which belong to one who so truly honours you. -And besides, being yourself a critic of the genuine -sort, who have read the best authors in their own -languages, who perfectly distinguish of their several -merits, and, in general, prefer them to the moderns, -yet, I know, you judge for the English tragedies, -against the Greek and Latin, as well as -against the French, Italian, and Spanish, of these -latter ages. Indeed, there is a vast difference betwixt - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> -arguing like Perault, in behalf of the French -poets, against Homer and Virgil, and betwixt giving -the English poets their undoubted due, of excelling -Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. For if we, or -our greater fathers, have not yet brought the drama -to an absolute perfection, yet at least we have carried -it much farther than those ancient Greeks; -who, beginning from a chorus, could never totally -exclude it, as we have done; who find it an unprofitable -incumbrance, without any necessity of entertaining -it amongst us, and without the possibility -of establishing it here, unless it were supported -by a public charge. Neither can we accept of those -lay-bishops, as some call them, who, under pretence -of reforming the stage, would intrude themselves -upon us, as our superiors; being indeed incompetent -judges of what is manners, what religion, and, -least of all, what is poetry and good sense. I can -tell them, in behalf of all my fellows, that when -they come to exercise a jurisdiction over us, they -shall have the stage to themselves, as they have the -laurel. As little can I grant, that the French dramatic -writers excel the English. Our authors as far -surpass them in genius, as our soldiers excel theirs -in courage. It is true, in conduct they surpass us -either way; yet that proceeds not so much from -their greater knowledge, as from the difference of -tastes in the two nations. They content themselves -with a thin design, without episodes, and managed -by few persons; our audience will not be pleased, -but with variety of accidents, an underplot, and -many actors. They follow the ancients too servilely -in the mechanic rules, and we assume too much -licence to ourselves, in keeping them only in view, -at too great a distance. But if our audience had -their tastes, our poets could more easily comply -with them, than the French writers could come up - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> -to the sublimity of our thoughts, or to the difficult -variety of our designs. However it be, I dare establish -it for a rule of practice on the stage, that we -are bound to please those whom we pretend to entertain; -and that at any price, religion and good -manners only excepted; and I care not much, if I -give this handle to our bad illiterate poetasters, for -the defence of their <i>Scriptions</i>, as they call them. -There is a sort of merit in delighting the spectators, -which is a name more proper for them, than that -of auditors; or else Horace is in the wrong, when -he commends Lucilius for it. But these common -places I mean to treat at greater leisure; in the -mean time submitting that little I have said to your -lordship's approbation, or your censure, and chusing -rather to entertain you this way, as you are a -judge of writing, than to oppress your modesty with -other commendations; which, though they are your -due, yet would not be equally received in this satirical -and censorious age. That which cannot, without -injury, be denied to you, is the easiness of your -conversation, far from affectation or pride; not denying -even to enemies their just praises. And this, -if I would dwell on any theme of this nature, is no -vulgar commendation to your lordship. Without -flattery, my lord, you have it in your nature, to be -a patron and encourager of good poets; but your -fortune has not yet put into your hands the opportunity -of expressing it. What you will be hereafter, -may be more than guessed, by what you are at -present. You maintain the character of a nobleman, -without that haughtiness which generally attends -too many of the nobility; and when you converse -with gentlemen, you forget not that you have -been of their order. You are married to the daughter -of a king; who, amongst her other high perfections, -has derived from him a charming behaviour, - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> -a winning goodness, and a majestic person. The -Muses and the Graces are the ornaments of your -family; while the Muse sings, the Grace accompanies -her voice: Even the servants of the Muses -have sometimes had the happiness to hear her, and -to receive their inspirations from her.<a id="FNanchor_T_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_T_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> - -<p>I will not give myself the liberty of going farther; -for it is so sweet to wander in a pleasing way, -that I should never arrive at my journey's end. To -keep myself from being belated in my letter, and -tiring your attention, I must return to the place -where I was setting out. I humbly dedicate to -your lordship my own labours in this Miscellany; -at the same time, not arrogating to myself the privilege, -of inscribing to you the works of others who -are joined with me in this undertaking, over which -I can pretend no right. Your lady and you have -done me the favour to hear me read my translations -of Ovid; and you both seemed not to be displeased -with them. Whether it be the partiality of an old -man to his youngest child, I know not; but they -appear to me the best of all my endeavours in this -kind. Perhaps this poet is more easy to be translated -than some others whom I have lately attempted; -perhaps, too, he was more according to my genius. -He is certainly more palatable to the reader, -than any of the Roman wits; though some of them -are more lofty, some more instructive, and others -more correct. He had learning enough to make -him equal to the best; but, as his verse came easily, -he wanted the toil of application to amend it. He -is often luxuriant both in his fancy and expressions, -and, as it has lately been observed, not always natural.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> - -<p>If wit be pleasantry, he has it to excess; -but if it be propriety, Lucretius, Horace, and, above -all, Virgil, are his superiors. I have said so much -of him already in my preface to his "Heroical -Epistles," that there remains little to be added in -this place: For my own part, I have endeavoured -to copy his character, what I could, in this translation; -even, perhaps, farther than I should have -done,—to his very faults. Mr Chapman, in his -"Translation of Homer," professes to have done it -somewhat paraphrastically, and that on set purpose; -his opinion being, that a good poet is to be translated -in that manner. I remember not the reason -which he gives for it; but I suppose it is for fear of -omitting any of his excellencies. Sure I am, that if -it be a fault, it is much more pardonable than that -of those, who run into the other extreme of a literal -and close translation, where the poet is confined so -straitly to his author's words, that he wants elbow-room -to express his elegancies. He leaves -him obscure; he leaves him prose, where he found -him verse; and no better than thus has Ovid been -served by the so-much-admired Sandys. This is -at least the idea which I have remaining of his -translation; for I never read him since I was a boy. -They who take him upon content, from the praises -which their fathers gave him, may inform their -judgment by reading him again, and see (if they -understand the original) what is become of Ovid's -poetry in his version; whether it be not all, or the -greatest part of it, evaporated. But this proceeded -from the wrong judgment of the age in which he -lived. They neither knew good verse, nor loved it; -they were scholars, it is true, but they were pedants; - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> -and, for a just reward of their pedantic pains, all -their translations want to be translated into English.</p> - -<p>If I flatter not myself, or if my friends have not -flattered me, I have given my author's sense for the -most part truly; for, to mistake sometimes is incident -to all men; and not to follow the Dutch commentators -always, may be forgiven to a man, who -thinks them, in the general, heavy gross-witted fellows, -fit only to gloss on their own dull poets. But -I leave a farther satire on their wit, till I have a -better opportunity to show how much I love and -honour them. I have likewise attempted to restore -Ovid to his native sweetness, easiness, and smoothness; -and to give my poetry a kind of cadence, -and, as we call it, a run of verse, as like the original, -as the English can come up to the Latin. As -he seldom uses any synalephas, so I have endeavoured -to avoid them as often as I could. I have -likewise given him his own turns, both on the -words and on the thought; which I cannot say are -inimitable, because I have copied them, and so may -others, if they use the same diligence; but certainly -they are wonderfully graceful in this poet. Since -I have named the synalepha, which is the cutting -off one vowel immediately before another, I will -give an example of it from Chapman's "Homer," -which lies before me, for the benefit of those who -understand not the <i>Latin prosodia</i>. It is in the first -line of the argument to the first Iliad:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Apollo's priest to th' Argive fleet doth bring, &c.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>There, we see, he makes it not, <i>the Argive</i>, but <i>th' Argive</i>, -to shun the shock of the two vowels, immediately -following each other; but, in his second argument, - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> -in the same page, he gives a bad example -of the quite contrary kind:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Alpha the prayer of Chryses sings:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The army's plague, the strife of kings.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>In these words, <i>the army's,—the</i> ending with a vowel, -and <i>armies</i> beginning with another vowel, without -cutting off the first, which by it had been <i>th' armies</i>, -there remains a most horrible ill-sounding gap betwixt -those words. I cannot say that I have every -where observed the rule of the synalepha in my translation; -but wheresoever I have not, it is a fault in -sound. The French and the Italians have made it -an inviolable precept in their versification; therein -following the severe example of the Latin poets. Our -countrymen have not yet reformed their poetry so -far, but content themselves with following the licentious -practice of the Greeks; who, though they -sometimes use synalephas, yet make no difficulty, -very often, to sound one vowel upon another; as -Homer does, in the very first line of Alpha:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Μήνιν ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληιάδεω Ἀχιλῆος<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>It is true, indeed, that, in the second line, in these -words, μυρὶ Ἀχαιοῖς, and ἀλγὲ οὒθηκε, the synalepha, in -revenge, is twice observed. But it becomes us, for -the sake of euphony, rather <i>Musas colere severiores</i>, -with the Romans, than to give into the looseness of -the Grecians.</p> - -<p>I have tired myself, and have been summoned by -the press to send away this Dedication, otherwise I -had exposed some other faults, which are daily -committed by our English poets; which, with care -and observation, might be amended. For, after all, -our language is both copious, significant, and majestical, -and might be reduced into a more harmonious -sound. But, for want of public encouragement, - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> -in this iron age, we are so far from making -any progress in the improvement of our tongue, -that in few years we shall speak and write as barbarously -as our neighbours.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding my haste, I cannot forbear to -tell your lordship, that there are two fragments of -Homer translated in this Miscellany; one by Mr -Congreve, (whom I cannot mention without the -honour which is due to his excellent parts, and that -entire affection which I bear him,) and the other by -myself. Both the subjects are pathetical; and I am -sure my friend has added to the tenderness which -he found in the original, and, without flattery, surpassed -his author. Yet I must needs say this in reference -to Homer, that he is much more capable of -exciting the manly passions than those of grief and -pity. To cause admiration is, indeed, the proper -and adequate design of an epic poem; and in that -he has excelled even Virgil. Yet, without presuming -to arraign our master, I may venture to affirm, -that he is somewhat too talkative, and more than -somewhat too digressive. This is so manifest, that -it cannot be denied in that little parcel which I -have translated, perhaps too literally: there Andromache, -in the midst of her concernment and fright -for Hector, runs off her bias, to tell him a story of -her pedigree, and of the lamentable death of her father, -her mother, and her seven brothers. The devil -was in Hector if he knew not all this matter, as -well as she who told it him; for she had been his -bedfellow for many years together: and if he knew -it, then it must be confessed, that Homer, in this -long digression, has rather given us his own character, -than that of the fair lady whom he paints. -His dear friends, the commentators, who never fail -him at a pinch, will needs excuse him, by making -the present sorrow of Andromache to occasion the - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> -remembrance of all the past; but others think, that -she had enough to do with that grief which now -oppressed her, without running for assistance to her -family. Virgil, I am confident, would have omitted -such a work of supererogation. But Virgil had -the gift of expressing much in little, and sometimes -in silence; for, though he yielded much to Homer -in invention, he more excelled him in his admirable -judgment. He drew the passion of Dido for Æneas, -in the most lively and most natural colours that are -imaginable. Homer was ambitious enough of moving -pity, for he has attempted twice on the same -subject of Hector's death; first, when Priam and Hecuba -beheld his corpse, which was dragged after the -chariot of Achilles; and then in the lamentation -which was made over him, when his body was redeemed -by Priam; and the same persons again bewail -his death, with a chorus of others to help -the cry. But if this last excite compassion in you, -as I doubt not but it will, you are more obliged to -the translator than the poet; for Homer, as I observed -before, can move rage better than he can -pity. He stirs up the irascible appetite, as our philosophers -call it; he provokes to murder, and the -destruction of God's images; he forms and equips -those ungodly man-killers, whom we poets, when -we flatter them, call heroes; a race of men who can -never enjoy quiet in themselves, until they have -taken it from all the world. This is Homer's commendation; -and, such as it is, the lovers of peace, -or at least of more moderate heroism, will never envy -him. But let Homer and Virgil contend for the -prize of honour betwixt themselves; I am satisfied -they will never have a third concurrent. I wish -Mr Congreve had the leisure to translate him, and -the world the good nature and justice to encourage -him in that noble design, of which he is more capable - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> -than any man I know. The Earl of Mulgrave -and Mr Waller, two of the best judges of our age, -have assured me, that they could never read over -the translation of Chapman, without incredible -pleasure and extreme transport. This admiration -of theirs must needs proceed from the author himself; -for the translator has thrown him down as -low as harsh numbers, improper English, and a monstrous -length of verse could carry him. What then -would he appear in the harmonious version of one -of the best writers, living in a much better age -than was the last? I mean for versification, and -the art of numbers; for in the drama we have not -arrived to the pitch of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. -But here, my lord, I am forced to break off abruptly, -without endeavouring at a compliment in the -close. This Miscellany is, without dispute, one of -the best of the kind which has hitherto been extant -in our tongue; at least, as Sir Samuel Tuke -has said before me, a modest man may praise what -is not his own. My fellows have no need of any -protection; but I humbly recommend my part of -it, as much as it deserves, to your patronage and -acceptance, and all the rest to your forgiveness. I -am,</p> - -<p> -My <i>Lord</i>,<br /> -Your Lordship's most obedient servant,<br /> -<span class="smcap">John Dryden</span>.<br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_R_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_R_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Lord Radcliffe was the eldest son of Francis, Earl of Derwentwater, -by Catherine, daughter of Sir William Fenwick. He married -Mary Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles II., by Mary -Davies, an actress, who had the fortune to attract his majesty's attention, -by singing in D'Avenant's "Rivals," the famous mad -song,</p> -<p><br />My lodging is on the cold ground.<br /></p> -<p>Lord Radcliffe succeeded to his father in 1696-7, and died 29th -April, 1705.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_S_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_S_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> These lines are quoted from Lord Dorset's address "to Mr -Edward Howard, on his incomparable, incomprehensible poem, -called, The British Princes:"</p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Wit, like tierce claret, when it 'gins to pall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neglected lies, and's of no use at all;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, in its full perfection of decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turns vinegar, and comes again in play.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_T_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_T_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The poet apparently speaks of Lady Radcliffe, who probably -inherited those vocal powers, with which her mother, Moll Davies, -charmed Charles II. The Grace might be her daughter.</p> -</div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">FIRST BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</h2> - -<hr class="r20" /> - -<div class="block2a"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Of bodies changed to various forms I sing:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye gods, from whence these miracles did spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Inspire my numbers with celestial heat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till I my long laborious work complete;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And add perpetual tenor to my rhymes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deduced from nature's birth to Cæsar's times.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And heaven's high canopy, that covers all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One was the face of nature, if a face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rather a rude and indigested mass;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lifeless lump, unfashioned, and unframed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of jarring seeds, and justly chaos named.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No sun was lighted up the world to view;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No moon did yet her blunted horns renew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor, poised, did on her own foundations lie;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But earth, and air, and water, were in one.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And water's dark abyss unnavigable.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No certain form on any was imprest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All were confused, and each disturbed the rest:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For hot and cold were in one body fixed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And soft with hard, and light with heavy, mixed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But God or Nature, while they thus contend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To these intestine discords put an end.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then earth from air, and seas from earth, were driven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And grosser air sunk from ætherial heaven.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus disembroiled, they take their proper place;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The next of kin contiguously embrace; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And foes are sundered by a larger space. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The force of fire ascended first on high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Earth sinks beneath, and draws a numerous throng,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About her coasts unruly waters roar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus when the God, whatever God was he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had formed the whole, and made the parts agree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That no unequal portions might be found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He moulded earth into a spacious round;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, with a breath, he gave the winds to blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bade the congregated waters flow:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He adds the running springs, and standing lakes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some part in earth are swallowed up, the most<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In ample oceans, disembogued, are lost:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He shades the woods, the values he restrains<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And as five zones the ætherial regions bind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Five, correspondent, are to earth assigned;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The sun, with rays directly darting down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The two beneath the distant poles complain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt the extremes, two happier climates hold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The temper that partakes of hot and cold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fields of liquid air, inclosing all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Surround the compass of this earthly ball:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lighter parts lie next the fires above;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The grosser near the watery surface move:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And thunder's voice, which wretched mortals fear, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And winds that on their wings cold winter bear. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor were those blustering brethren left at large,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On seas and shores their fury to discharge:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bound as they are, and circumscribed in place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They rend the world, resistless, where they pass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">First, Eurus to the rising morn is sent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(The regions of the balmy continent,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eastern realms, where early Persians run,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To greet the blest appearance of the sun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Westward the wanton Zephyr wings his flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pleased with the remnants of departing light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fierce Boreas with his offspring issues forth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To invade the frozen waggon of the North;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While frowning Auster seeks the southern sphere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rots, with endless rain, the unwholesome year.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The God a clearer space for heaven designed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where fields of light and liquid æther flow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Purged from the ponderous dregs of earth below.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Scarce had the Power distinguished these, when straight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Exert their heads from underneath the mass, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And with diffusive light adorn the heavenly place.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then, every void of nature to supply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">New colonies of birds, to people air; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A creature of a more exalted kind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was wanting yet, and then was Man designed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For empire formed, and fit to rule the rest:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether with particles of heavenly fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The God of nature did his soul inspire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or earth, but new divided from the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pliant still, retained the etherial energy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which wise Prometheus tempered into paste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, mixed with living streams, the godlike image cast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, while the mute creation downward bend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Man looks aloft, and, with erected eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beholds his own hereditary skies.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From such rude principles our form began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And earth was metamorphosed into man.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Golden Age.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The Golden Age was first; when man, yet new, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">No rule but uncorrupted reason knew; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, with a native bent, did good pursue. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Unforced by punishment, unawed by fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His words were simple, and his soul sincere.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Needless was written law, where none opprest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The law of man was written in his breast.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> -<span class="i0">No suppliant crowds before the judge appeared; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">No court erected yet, nor cause was heard; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The mountain trees in distant prospect please,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere yet the pine descended to the seas;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere sails were spread, new oceans to explore;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And happy mortals, unconcerned for more, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Confined their wishes to their native shore. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">No walls were yet, nor fence, nor moat, nor mound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor swords were forged; but, void of care and crime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The soft creation slept away their time.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And unprovoked, did fruitful stores allow:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Content with food, which nature freely bred,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On wildings and on strawberries they fed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And falling acorns furnished out a feast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The flowers, unsown, in fields and meadows reigned;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And western winds immortal spring maintained.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In following years the bearded corn ensued<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From earth unasked, nor was that earth renewed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From veins of vallies milk and nectar broke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And honey sweating through the pores of oak.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Silver Age.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But when good Saturn, banished from above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was driven to hell, the world was under Jove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Succeeding times a silver age behold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Excelling brass, but more excelled by gold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Summer, Autumn, Winter did appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Spring was but a season of the year.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sun his annual course obliquely made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Good days contracted, and enlarged the bad.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then air with sultry heats began to glow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wings of winds were clogged with ice and snow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shivering mortals, into houses driven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With twining oziers fenced, and moss their beds.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then ploughs for seed the fruitful furrows broke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And oxen laboured first beneath the yoke.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Brazen Age.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">To this next came in course the Brazen Age:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A warlike offspring prompt to bloody rage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not impious yet,——<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Iron Age.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">——Hard steel succeeded then;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stubborn as the metal were the men.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fraud, avarice, and force, their places, took.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then sails were spread to every wind that blew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trees, rudely hollowed, did the waves sustain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere ships in triumph ploughed the watery plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then land-marks limited to each his right;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all before was common as the light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor was the ground alone required to bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her annual income to the crooked share;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Digged from her entrails first the precious ore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which next to hell the prudent gods had laid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that alluring ill to sight displayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And double death did wretched man invade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By steel assaulted, and by gold betrayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now (brandished weapons glittering in their hands)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mankind is broken loose from moral bands:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No rights of hospitality remain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The guest, by him who harboured him, is slain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The son-in-law pursues the father's life;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wife her husband murders, he the wife;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The step-dame poison for the son prepares;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The son inquires into his father's years.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Justice, here oppressed, to heaven returns.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Giant's War.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Nor were the Gods themselves more safe above;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against beleaguered heaven the Giants move.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hills piled on hills, on mountains mountains lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make their mad approaches to the sky:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To avenge with thunder their audacious crime;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Red lightning played along the firmament,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And their demolished works to pieces rent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Singed with the flames, and with the bolts transfixed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With native earth their blood the monsters mixed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The blood, endued with animating heat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did in the impregnate earth new sons beget;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They, like the seed from which they sprung, accursed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the gods immortal hatred nursed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Expressing their original from blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which when the King of Gods beheld from high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Withal revolving in his memory,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What he himself had found on earth of late,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lycaon's guilt, and his inhuman treat,)<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He sighed, nor longer with his pity strove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then called a general council of the gods;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, summoned, issue from their blest abodes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fill the assembly with a shining train.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A way there is in heaven's expanded plain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mortals by the name of milky know.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ground-work is of stars; through which the road<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lies open to the Thunderer's abode.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gods of greater nations dwell around,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the right and left the palace bound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The commons where they can; the nobler sort,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With winding doors wide open, front the court.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This place, as far as earth with heaven may vie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I dare to call the Louvre of the sky.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When all were placed, in seats distinctly known,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he, their father, had assumed the throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon his ivory sceptre first he leant,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then shook his head, that shook the firmament;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Air, earth, and seas, obeyed the almighty nod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with a general fear confessed the God.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length, with indignation, thus he broke<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His awful silence, and the Powers bespoke.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I was not more concerned in that debate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of empire, when our universal state<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was put to hazard, and the giant race<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our captive skies were ready to embrace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, though the foe was fierce, the seeds of all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rebellion sprung from one original;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now wheresoever ambient waters glide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All are corrupt, and all must be destroyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let me this holy protestation make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By hell, and hell's inviolable lake!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I tried whatever in the Godhead lay; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But gangrened members must be lopt away, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> -<span class="i0">There dwells below a race of demi-gods,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of nymphs in waters, and of fauns in woods;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, though not worthy yet in heaven to live,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let them at least enjoy that earth we give.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can these be thought securely lodged below,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When I myself, who no superior know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I, who have heaven and earth at my command,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have been attempted by Lycaon's hand?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At this a murmur through the synod went,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with one voice they vote his punishment.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, when conspiring traitors dared to doom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fall of Cæsar, and in him of Rome,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nations trembled with a pious fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All anxious for their earthly thunderer;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor was their care, O Cæsar, less esteemed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By thee, than that of heaven for Jove was deemed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who with his hand, and voice, did first restrain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their murmurs, then resumed his speech again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Gods to silence were composed, and sat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With reverence due to his superior state.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Cancel your pious cares; already he<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has paid his debt to justice, and to me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments were,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Remains for me thus briefly to declare.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The clamours of this vile degenerate age,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cries of orphans, and the oppressor's rage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had reached the stars; I will descend, said I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Disguised in human shape, I travelled round<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The world, and more than what I heard, I found.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O'er Mænalus I took my steepy way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By caverns infamous for beasts of prey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then crossed Cyllene, and the piny shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More infamous by curst Lycaon made;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dark night had covered heaven and earth, before<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I entered his inhospitable door.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Just at my entrance, I displayed the sign<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That somewhat was approaching of divine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The prostrate people pray; the tyrant grins;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, adding profanation to his sins,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I'll try, said he, and if a God appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To prove his deity shall cost him dear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas late; the graceless wretch my death prepares,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When I should soundly sleep, opprest with cares:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This dire experiment he chose, to prove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But first he had resolved to taste my power:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not long before, but in a luckless hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some legates, sent from the Molossian state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were on a peaceful errand come to treat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lays the mangled morsels in a dish;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some part he roasts; then serves it up so drest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bids me welcome to this human feast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moved with disdain, the table I o'erturned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with avenging flames the palace burned.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tyrant, in a fright, for shelter gains<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The neighbouring fields, and scours along the plains.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Howling he fled, and fain he would have spoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But human voice his brutal tongue forsook.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About his lips the gathered foam he churns, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, breathing slaughter, still with rage he burns,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But on the bleating flock his fury turns. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cleaves to his back; a famished face he bears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His arms descend, his shoulders sink away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To multiply his legs for chace of prey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the same rage in other members reigns.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eyes still sparkle in a narrower space,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This was a single ruin, but not one<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deserves so just a punishment alone.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Mankind's a monster, and the ungodly times,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Confederate into guilt, are sworn to crimes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All are alike involved in ill, and all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must by the same relentless fury fall.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus ended he; the greater gods assent, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">By clamours urging his severe intent; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The less fill up the cry for punishment. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Yet still with pity they remember man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mourn as much as heavenly spirits can.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They ask, when those were lost of human birth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What he would do with all his waste of earth?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If his dispeopled world he would resign<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To beasts, a mute, and more ignoble line?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neglected altars must no longer smoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If none were left to worship and invoke.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whom the Father of the Gods replied:<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Lay that unnecessary fear aside; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Mine be the care new people to provide.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I will from wonderous principles ordain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A race unlike the first, and try my skill again.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Already had he tossed the flaming brand, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And rolled the thunder in his spacious hand,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Preparing to discharge on seas and land; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But stop'd, for fear, thus violently driven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sparks should catch his axle-tree of heaven;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rememb'ring, in the Fates, a time, when fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should to the battlements of heaven aspire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all his blazing worlds above should burn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the inferior globe to cinders turn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His dire artillery thus dismissed, he bent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His thoughts to some securer punishment;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Concludes to pour a watery deluge down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Northern breath, that freezes floods, he binds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The South he loosed, who night and horror brings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> -<span class="i0">From his divided beard two streams he pours;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His head and rheumy eyes, distil in showers;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lazy mists are lowring on his brow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still as he swept along, with his clenched fist,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He squeezed the clouds; the imprisoned clouds resist;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And showers enlarged come pouring on the ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then clad in colours of a various dye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Junonian Iris breeds a new supply<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bearded corn beneath the burden bends;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Defrauded clowns deplore their perished grain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the long labours of the year are vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor from his patrimonial heaven alone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To help him with auxiliary waves.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The watery tyrant calls his brooks and floods,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who roll from mossy caves, their moist abodes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with perpetual urns his palace fill:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whom, in brief, he thus imparts his will.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Small exhortation needs; your powers employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this bad world (so Jove requires) destroy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let loose the reins to all your watery store;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bear down the dams, and open every door.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The floods, by nature enemies to land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And proudly swelling with their new command,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Remove the living stones that stopped their way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, gushing from their source, augment the sea.<a id="FNanchor_U_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_U_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a><br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the ground;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With inward trembling earth received the wound, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And rising streams a ready passage found. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The expanded waters gather on the plain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They float the fields, and overtop the grain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bear flocks, and folds, and labouring hinds, away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor safe their dwellings were; for, sap'd by floods,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their houses fell upon their household gods.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">High o'er their heads behold a watery wall.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now seas and earth were in confusion lost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A world of waters, and without a coast.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ploughs above, where late he sowed his corn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Others o'er chimney tops and turrets row,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drop their anchors on the meads below;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or, downward driven, they bruise the tender vine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or, tossed aloft, are knocked against a pine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And where of late the kids had cropped the grass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The monsters of the deep now take their place.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Insulting Nereids on the cities ride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wondering dolphins o'er the palace glide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks, they brouze;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The frighted wolf now swims among the sheep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The yellow lion wanders in the deep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His rapid force no longer helps the boar;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stag swims faster than he ran before.<a id="FNanchor_V_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_V_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Despair of land, and drop into the main.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Now hills and vales no more distinction know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And levelled nature lies oppressed below.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The most of mortals perish in the flood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The small remainder dies for want of food.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A mountain of stupendous height there stands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt the Athenian and Bæotian lands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they were,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But then a field of waters did appear:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Parnassus is its name, whose forky rise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mounts through the clouds, and mates the lofty skies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">High on the summit of this dubious cliff,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deucalion wafting moored his little skiff.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He with his wife were only left behind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of perished man; they two were human kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mountain-nymphs and Themis they adore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from her oracles relief implore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The most upright of mortal men was he;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The most sincere and holy woman, she.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When Jupiter, surveying earth from high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beheld it in a lake of water lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That where so many millions lately lived,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But two, the best of either sex, survived,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He loosed the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driven<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Discover heaven to earth, and earth to heaven.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the rough sea, and smooths its furrowed face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Already Triton, at his call, appears <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And give the waves the signal to retire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His writhen shell he takes, whose narrow vent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grows by degrees into a large extent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then gives it breath; the blast, with doubling sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Runs the wide circuit of the world around.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The sun first heard it, in his early east,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And met the rattling echoes in the west.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A thin circumference of land appears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And earth, but not at once, her visage rears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The streams, but just contained within their bounds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By slow degrees into their channels crawl,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And earth increases as the waters fall.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In longer time the tops of trees appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which mud on their dishonoured branches bear.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At length the world was all restored to view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But desolate, and of a sickly hue:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A dismal desert, and a silent waste.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh wife, oh sister, oh of all thy kind <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The best and only creature left behind, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">By kindred, love, and now by dangers joined;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Of multitudes, who breathed the common air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We two remain, a species in a pair:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rest the seas have swallowed; nor have we<br /></span> -<span class="i0">E'en of this wretched life a certainty.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The clouds are still above; and, while I speak,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A second deluge o'er our heads may break.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should I be snatched from hence, and thou remain,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Without relief, or partner of thy pain, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">How could'st thou such a wretched life sustain? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Should I be left, and thou be lost, the sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That buried her I loved, should bury me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh could our father his old arts inspire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And make me heir of his informing fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That so I might abolished man retrieve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And perished people in new souls might live!<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But heaven is pleased, nor ought we to complain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That we, the examples of mankind, remain.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He said; the careful couple join their tears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then invoke the gods, with pious prayers.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus in devotion having eased their grief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From sacred oracles they seek relief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to Cephisus' brook their way pursue;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With living waters in the fountain bred, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">They sprinkle first their garments, and their head,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then took the way which to the temple led. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The roofs were all defiled with moss and mire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The desert altars void of solemn fire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the gradual prostrate they adored,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pavement kissed, and thus the saint implored.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O righteous Themis, if the powers above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By prayers are bent to pity and to love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If human miseries can move their mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If yet they can forgive, and yet be kind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tell how we may restore, by second birth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mankind, and people desolated earth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then thus the gracious goddess, nodding, said;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Depart, and with your vestments veil your head:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stooping lowly down, with loosened zones,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Throw each behind your backs your mighty mother's bones.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amazed the pair, and mute with wonder, stand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till Pyrrha first refused the dire command.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forbid it heaven, said she, that I should tear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those holy relics from the sepulchre.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They pondered the mysterious words again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For some new sense; and long they sought in vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length Deucalion cleared his cloudy brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And said; The dark ænigma will allow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A meaning, which, if well I understand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From sacrilege will free the god's command:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> -<span class="i0">This earth our mighty mother is, the stones<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In her capacious body are her bones;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These we must cast behind. With hope, and fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The woman did the new solution hear:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The man diffides in his own augury,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And doubts the gods; yet both resolve to try.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Descending from the mount, they first unbind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their vests, and, veiled, they cast the stones behind:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stones (a miracle to mortal view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But long tradition makes it pass for true,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did first the rigour of their kind expel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And suppled into softness as they fell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then swelled, and, swelling, by degrees grew warm,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And took the rudiments of human form;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Imperfect shapes, in marble such are seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the rude chisel does the man begin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While yet the roughness of the stone remains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without the rising muscles, and the veins.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sappy parts, and next resembling juice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were turned to moisture, for the body's use;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Supplying humours, blood, and nourishment:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rest, too solid to receive a bent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Converts to bones; and what was once a vein,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its former name and nature did retain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By help of power divine, in little space, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">What the man threw, assumed a manly face; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And what the wife, renewed the female race.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Hence we derive our nature, born to bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Laborious life, and hardened into care.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The rest of animals, from teeming earth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Produced, in various forms received their birth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The native moisture, in its close retreat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Digested by the sun's etherial heat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As in a kindly womb, began to breed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then swelled, and quickened by the vital seed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And some in less, and some in longer space,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were ripened into form, and took a several face.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And seeks with ebbing tides his ancient bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fat manure with heavenly fire is warmed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are formed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants find:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some rude, and yet unfinished in their kind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One half alive, and one of lifeless earth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, heat and moisture, when in bodies joined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The temper that results from either kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Conception makes; and fighting, till they mix,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their mingled atoms in each other fix.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus nature's hand the genial bed prepares,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With friendly discord, and with fruitful wars.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From hence the surface of the ground, with mud<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And slime besmeared, (the fæces of the flood,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Received the rays of heaven; and sucking in<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some were of several sorts produced before;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But of new monsters earth created more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thee, Python, too, the wondering world to fright,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And the new nations with so dire a sight; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">So monstrous was his bulk, so large a space<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did his vast body and long train embrace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom Phœbus basking on a bank espied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere now the god his arrows had not tried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But on the trembling deer, or mountain-goat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though every shaft took place, he spent the store<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The expiring serpent wallowed in his gore. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then to preserve the fame of such a deed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Python slain, he Pythian games decreed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where noble youths for mastership should strive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To quoit, to run, and steeds and chariots drive.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The prize was fame, in witness of renown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An oaken garland did the victor crown.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The laurel was not yet for triumphs borne; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But every green alike, by Phœbus worn, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks adorn.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Transformation of Daphne into a<br /> -Laurel.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The first and fairest of his loves was she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom not blind fortune, but the dire decree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of angry Cupid, forced him to desire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Daphne her name, and Peneus was her sire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swelled with the pride that new success attends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sees the stripling, while his bow he bends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus insults him: Thou lascivious boy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are arms like these for children to employ?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Know, such atchievements are my proper claim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Due to my vigour and unerring aim:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resistless are my shafts, and Python late,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In such a feathered death, has found his fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take up thy torch, and lay my weapons by;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With that the feeble souls of lovers fry.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whom the son of Venus thus replied:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Phœbus, thy shafts are sure on all beside;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But mine on Phœbus; mine the fame shall be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all thy conquests, when I conquer thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He said, and soaring swiftly winged his flight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor stop'd but on Parnassus' airy height.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two different shafts he from his quiver draws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One to repel desire, and one to cause.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One shaft is pointed with refulgent gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To bribe the love, and make the lover bold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One blunt, and tipt with lead, whose base allay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Provokes disdain, and drives desire away.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The blunted bolt against the nymph he drest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But with the sharp transfixed Apollo's breast.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The enamoured deity pursues the chace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The scornful damsel shuns his loathed embrace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In hunting beasts of prey her youth employs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Phœbe rivals in her rural joys.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With naked neck she goes, and shoulders bare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with a fillet binds her flowing hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By many suitors sought, she mocks their pains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still her vowed virginity maintains.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Impatient of a yoke, the name of bride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She shuns, and hates the joys she never tried.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On wilds and woods she fixes her desire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor knows what youth and kindly love inspire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her father chides her oft: Thou ow'st, says he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A husband to thyself, a son to me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She, like a crime, abhors the nuptial bed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She glows with blushes, and she hangs her head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, casting round his neck her tender arms,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sooths him with blandishments, and filial charms:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give me, my lord, she said, to live and die<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A spotless maid, without the marriage-tie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis but a small request; I beg no more<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than what Diana's father gave before.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The good old sire was softened to consent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But said her wish would prove her punishment;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For so much youth, and so much beauty joined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Opposed the state which her desires designed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The God of Light, aspiring to her bed, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Hopes what he seeks, with flattering fancies fed,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And is by his own oracles misled. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And as in empty fields the stubble burns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or nightly travellers, when day returns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their useless torches on dry hedges throw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That catch the flames, and kindle all the row;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So burns the god, consuming in desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And feeding in his breast the fruitless fire:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Her well-turned neck he viewed, (her neck was bare,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on her shoulders her dishevelled hair:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh were it combed, said he, with what a grace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would every waving curl become her face!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He viewed her eyes, like heavenly lamps that shone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He viewed her lips, too sweet to view alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her taper fingers, and her panting breast:}<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He praises all he sees; and for the rest, }<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Believes the beauties yet unseen are best.}<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swift as the wind, the damsel fled away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor did for these alluring speeches stay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stay, nymph, he cried; I follow, not a foe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus from the lion trips the trembling doe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus from the wolf the frightened lamb removes, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And from pursuing falcons fearful doves; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shun'st a god, and shun'st a god that loves.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Ah! lest some thorn should pierce thy tender foot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or thou should'st fall in flying my pursuit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To sharp uneven ways thy steps decline,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Abate thy speed, and I will bate of mine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet think from whom thou dost so rashly fly;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor basely born, nor shepherd's swain am I.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps thou know'st not my superior state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from that ignorance proceeds thy hate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Me Claros, Delphos, Tenedos, obey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These hands the Patareian sceptre sway.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The king of gods begot me: what shall be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or is, or ever was, in fate, I see.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mine is the invention of the charming lyre;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet notes, and heavenly numbers, I inspire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sure is my bow, unerring is my dart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ah! more deadly his, who pierced my heart.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Med'cine is mine, what herbs and simples grow <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">In fields and forests, all their powers I know,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And am the great physician called below. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Alas, that fields and forests can afford<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No remedies to heal their love-sick lord!<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> -<span class="i0">To cure the pains of love, no plant avails,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his own physic the physician fails.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">She heard not half, so furiously she flies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on her ear the imperfect accent dies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fear gave her wings; and as she fled, the wind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Increasing spread her flowing hair behind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And left her legs and thighs exposed to view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which made the god more eager to pursue.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The god was young, and was too hotly bent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To lose his time in empty compliment;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But led by love, and fired by such a sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Impetuously pursued his near delight.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As when the impatient greyhound, slipt from far,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bounds o'er the glebe, to course the fearful hare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She in her speed does all her safety lay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he with double speed pursues the prey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O'er-runs her at the sitting turn, and licks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His chaps in vain, and blows upon the flix;<a id="FNanchor_W_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_W_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">She 'scapes, and for the neighbouring covert strives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gaining shelter doubts if yet she lives.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If little things with great we may compare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such was the god, and such the flying fair:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She, urged by fear, her feet did swiftly move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he more swiftly, who was urged by love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He gathers ground upon her in the chace; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Now breathes upon her hair, with nearer pace,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And just is fastening on the wished embrace. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The nymph grew pale, and in a mortal fright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spent with the labour of so long a flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now despairing, cast a mournful look<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the streams of her paternal brook:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Oh help, she cried, in this extremest need,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If water-gods are deities indeed!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gape, earth, and this unhappy wretch entomb,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or change my form, whence all my sorrows come.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scarce had she finished, when her feet she found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Benumbed with cold, and fastened to the ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A filmy rind about her body grows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nymph is all into a Laurel gone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The smoothness of her skin remains alone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet Phœbus loves her still, and, casting round<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her bole his arms, some little warmth he found.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tree still panted in the unfinished part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not wholly vegetive, and heaved her heart.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He fixed his lips upon the trembling rind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It swerved aside, and his embrace declined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whom the god: Because thou canst not be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be thou the prize of honour and renown;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The deathless poet, and the poem, crown.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, after poets, be by victors worn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt returning Cæsar's triumph grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When pomps shall in a long procession pass;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wreathed on the post before his palace wait,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And be the sacred guardian of the gate:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure from thunder, and unharmed by Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unfading as the immortal powers above;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as the locks of Phœbus are unshorn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The grateful Tree was pleased with what he said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shook the shady honours of her head.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Transformation of Io into an Heifer.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">An ancient forest in Thessalia grows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which Tempe's pleasant valley does inclose;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Through this the rapid Peneus takes his course,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Pindus rolling with impetuous force;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mists from the river's mighty fall arise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And deadly damps inclose the cloudy skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perpetual fogs are hanging o'er the wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sounds of waters deaf the neighbourhood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep in a rocky cave he makes abode;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mansion proper for a mourning god.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here he gives audience; issuing out decrees<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To rivers, his dependent deities.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On this occasion hither they resort,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pay their homage, and to make their court;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All doubtful, whether to congratulate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His daughter's honour, or lament her fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sperchæus, crowned with poplar, first appears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then old Apidanus came, crowned with years;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enipeus turbulent, Amphrysos tame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Æas, last, with lagging waters came.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then of his kindred brooks a numerous throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Condole his loss, and bring their urns along:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not one was wanting of the watery train,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That filled his flood, or mingled with the main,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Inachus, who, in his cave alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wept not another's losses, but his own;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For his dear Io, whether strayed, or dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To him uncertain, doubtful tears he shed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sought her through the world, but sought in vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And no where finding, rather feared her slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Her, just returning from her father's brook,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove had beheld with a desiring look;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, oh, fair daughter of the flood, he said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Worthy alone of Jove's imperial bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Happy whoever shall those charms possess!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The king of gods, (nor is thy lover less,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invites thee to yon cooler shades, to shun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The scorching rays of the meridian sun.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shalt thou tempt the dangers of the grove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alone without a guide; thy guide is Jove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No puny power, but he, whose high command <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Is unconfined, who rules the seas and land,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And tempers thunder in his awful hand. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Oh fly not!—for she fled from his embrace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O'er Lerna's pastures; he pursued the chace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Along the shades of the Lyrcæan plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length the god, who never asks in vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Involved with vapours, imitating night, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Both air and earth; and then suppressed her flight, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, mingling force with love, enjoyed the full delight.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Meantime the jealous Juno, from on high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Surveyed the fruitful fields of Arcady;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wondered that the mist should over-run<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The face of day-light, and obscure the sun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No natural cause she found, from brooks or bogs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or marshy lowlands, to produce the fogs:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then round the skies she sought for Jupiter,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her faithless husband; but no Jove was there.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suspecting now the worst,—Or I, she said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Am much mistaken, or am much betrayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With fury she precipitates her flight, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Dispels the shadows of dissembled night, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And to the day restores his native light.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The almighty lecher, careful to prevent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The consequence, foreseeing her descent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Transforms his mistress in a trice; and now,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Io's place, appears a lovely cow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So sleek her skin, so faultless was her make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even Juno did unwilling pleasure take<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see so fair a rival of her love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what she was, and whence, enquired of Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of what fair herd, and from what pedigree?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The god, half-caught, was forced upon a lie,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And said she sprung from earth. She took the word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And begged the beauteous heifer of her lord.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What should he do? 'twas equal shame to Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or to relinquish, or betray his love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet to refuse so slight a gift, would be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But more to increase his consort's jealousy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus fear, and love, by turns his heart assailed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stronger love had sure at length prevailed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But some faint hope remained, his jealous queen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had not the mistress through the heifer seen.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cautious goddess, of her gift possest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet harboured anxious thoughts within her breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As she, who knew the falsehood of her Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And justly feared some new relapse of love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which to prevent, and to secure her care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To trusty Argus she commits the fair.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The head of Argus (as with stars the skies,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was compassed round, and wore an hundred eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But two by turns their lids in slumber steep;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The rest on duty still their station keep; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor could the total constellation sleep. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, ever present to his eyes and mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His charge was still before him, though behind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In fields he suffered her to feed by day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, when the setting sun to night gave way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The captive cow he summoned with a call,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drove her back, and tied her to the stall.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On leaves of trees and bitter herbs she fed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven was her canopy, bare earth her bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So hardly lodged; and, to digest her food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She drank from troubled streams, defiled with mud.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her woeful story fain she would have told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hands upheld, but had no hands to hold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her head to her ungentle keeper bowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She strove to speak; she spoke not, but she lowed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Affrighted with the noise, she looked around,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And seemed to inquire the author of the sound.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Once on the banks where often she had played,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Her father's banks,) she came, and there surveyed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her altered visage, and her branching head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And starting from herself, she would have fled.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her fellow-nymphs, familiar to her eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beheld, but knew her not in this disguise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even Inachus himself was ignorant;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his daughter, did his daughter want.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She followed where her fellows went, as she<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were still a partner of the company:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They stroke her neck; the gentle heifer stands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And her neck offers to their stroking hands.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her father gave her grass; the grass she took,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And licked his palms, and cast a piteous look,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And in the language of her eyes she spoke. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">She would have told her name, and asked relief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, wanting words, in tears she tells her grief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which with her foot she makes him understand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And prints the name of Io in the sand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah wretched me! her mournful father cried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She, with a sigh, to "wretched me!" replied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About her milk-white neck his arms he threw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wept, and then these tender words ensue.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And art thou she, whom I have sought around<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The world, and have at length so sadly found?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So found, is worse than lost: with mutual words<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou answerest not, no voice thy tongue affords;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sighs are deeply drawn from out thy breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And speech, denied, by lowing is expressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unknowing, I prepared thy bridal bed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With empty hopes of happy issue fed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now the husband of a herd must be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy mate, and bellowing sons thy progeny.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, were I mortal, death might bring relief!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now my godhead but extends my grief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prolongs my woes, of which no end I see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And makes me curse my immortality.—<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> -<span class="i0">More had he said, but fearful of her stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The starry guardian drove his charge away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To some fresh pasture; on a hilly height<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sat himself, and kept her still in sight.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Eyes of Argus transformed into a<br /> -Peacock's Train.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Now Jove no longer could her sufferings bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But called in haste his airy messenger,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The son of Maïa, with severe decree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To kill the keeper, and to set her free.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all his harness soon the god was sped;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His flying hat was fastened on his head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wings on his heels were hung, and in his hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He holds the virtue of the snaky wand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The liquid air his moving pinions wound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, in the moment, shoot him on the ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before he came in sight, the crafty god<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His wings dismissed, but still retained his rod:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That sleep-procuring wand wise Hermes took,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But made it seem to sight a shepherd's hook.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With this he did a herd of goats controul;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which by the way he met, and slyly stole.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clad like a country swain, he piped and sung;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, playing, drove his jolly troop along.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With pleasure Argus the musician heeds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wonders much at those new vocal reeds.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And,—Whosoe'er thou art, my friend, said he, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Up hither drive thy goats, and play by me; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">This hill has brouze for them, and shade for thee. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The god, who was with ease induced to climb,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Began discourse to pass away the time;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still, betwixt, his tuneful pipe he plies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And watched his hour, to close the keeper's eyes.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> -<span class="i0">With much ado, he partly kept awake;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not suffering all his eyes repose to take;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And asked the stranger, who did reeds invent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whence began so rare an instrument.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="ia1"><span class="smcap">The Transformation of Syrinx into Reeds.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Then Hermes thus;—A nymph of late there was,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose heavenly form her fellows did surpass;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pride and joy of fair Arcadia's plains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beloved by deities, adored by swains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Syrinx her name, by Sylvans oft pursued,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As oft she did the lustful gods delude:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rural and the woodland powers disdained;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintained;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like Phœbe clad, even Phœbe's self she seems,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So tall, so straight, such well-proportioned limbs:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nicest eye did no distinction know, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But that the goddess bore a golden bow; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Distinguished thus, the sight she cheated too.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Descending from Lycæus, Pan admires<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A crown of pine upon his head he wore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus began her pity to implore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ere he thus began, she took her flight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So swift, she was already out of sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor stayed to hear the courtship of the god,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But bent her course to Ladon's gentle flood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There by the river stopt, and, tired before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Relief from water-nymphs her prayers implore.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now while the lustful god, with speedy pace, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He fills his arms with reeds, new rising on the place.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And while he sighs his ill success to find,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tender canes were shaken by the wind;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And breathed a mournful air, unheard before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, much surprising Pan, yet pleased him more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Admiring this new music, thou, he said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who canst not be the partner of my bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At least shall be the consort of my mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And often, often, to my lips be joined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He formed the reeds, proportioned as they are; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Unequal in their length, and waxed with care, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">While Hermes piped, and sung, and told his tale,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The keeper's winking eyes began to fail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drowsy slumber on the lids to creep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till all the watchman was at length asleep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then soon the god his voice and song supprest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with his powerful rod confirmed his rest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without delay his crooked falchion drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at one fatal stroke the keeper slew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down from the rock fell the dissevered head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Opening its eyes in death, and falling bled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And marked the passage with a crimson trail:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Argus lies in pieces, cold and pale;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all his hundred eyes, with all their light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are closed at once, in one perpetual night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These Juno takes, that they no more may fail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And spreads them in her peacock's gaudy tail.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Impatient to revenge her injured bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She wreaks her anger on her rival's head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With furies frights her from her native home,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drives her gadding round the world to roam:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor ceased her madness and her flight, before<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She touched the limits of the Pharian shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length, arriving on the banks of Nile,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wearied with length of ways, and worn with toil,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She laid her down; and leaning on her knees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invoked the cause of all her miseries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cast her languishing regards above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For help from heaven, and her ungrateful Jove.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> -<span class="i0">She sighed, she wept, she lowed; 'twas all she could;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with unkindness seemed to tax the god.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Last, with an humble prayer, she begged repose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or death at least to finish all her woes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove heard her vows, and with a flattering look,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In her behalf to jealous Juno spoke.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He cast his arms about her neck, and said;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dame, rest secure; no more thy nuptial bed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This nymph shall violate; by Styx I swear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every oath that binds the Thunderer.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The goddess was appeased; and at the word<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was Io to her former shape restored.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rugged hair began to fall away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sweetness of her eyes did only stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though not so large; her crooked horns decrease;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wideness of her jaws and nostrils cease;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her hoofs to hands return, in little space;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The five long taper fingers take their place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And nothing of the heifer now is seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beside the native whiteness of her skin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Erected on her feet, she walks again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And two the duty of the four sustain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She tries her tongue, her silence softly breaks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fears her former lowings when she speaks:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A goddess now through all the Egyptian state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And served by priests, who in white linen wait.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Her son was Epaphus, at length believed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The son of Jove, and as a god received.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With sacrifice adored, and public prayers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He common temples with his mother shares.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Equal in years, and rival in renown <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With Epaphus, the youthful Phaeton <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Like honour claims, and boasts his sire the Sun. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His haughty looks, and his assuming air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The son of Isis could no longer bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou tak'st thy mother's word too far, said he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hast usurped thy boasted pedigree.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Go, base pretender to a borrowed name!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus taxed, he blushed with anger, and with shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But shame repressed his rage: the daunted youth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Soon seeks his mother, and enquires the truth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mother, said he, this infamy was thrown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By Epaphus on you, and me your son.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He spoke in public, told it to my face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor durst I vindicate the dire disgrace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even I, the bold, the sensible of wrong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Restrained by shame, was forced to hold my tongue;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To hear an open slander, is a curse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But not to find an answer, is a worse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I am heaven-begot, assert your son <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">By some sure sign, and make my father known, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To right my honour, and redeem your own. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and, saying, cast his arms about<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her neck, and begged her to resolve the doubt.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">'Tis hard to judge if Climené were moved<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More by his prayer, whom she so dearly loved,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or more with fury fired, to find her name<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Traduced, and made the sport of common fame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She stretched her arms to heaven, and fixed her eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On that fair planet that adorns the skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now by those beams, said she, whose holy fires<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Consume my breast, and kindle my desires;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By him who sees us both, and cheers our sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By him, the public minister of light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I swear that Sun begot thee; if I lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let him his cheerful influence deny;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let him no more this perjured creature see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shine on all the world but only me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If still you doubt your mother's innocence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eastern mansion is not far from hence;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With little pains you to his levee go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from himself your parentage may know.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With joy the ambitious youth his mother heard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, eager for the journey, soon prepared.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He longs the world beneath him to survey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To guide the chariot, and to give the day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Meroe's burning sands he bends his course,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor less in India feels his father's force;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His travel urging, till he came in sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saw the palace by the purple light.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_U_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_U_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> In all our earlier poets, the word <i>sea</i> is occasionally made -to rheme, according to the pronunciation of Hibernia, as if spelled -<i>say</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_V_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_V_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Ovid is not answerable for the speed of the stag's exertions in -the water; he barely says, -</p> -<p><br /><i>Crura nec ablato prosunt velocia cervo.</i><br /></p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_W_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_W_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> See the same image in the "Annus Mirabilis:" -</p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies."<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p class="ia5">Vol. IX. p. 128.<br /></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">MELEAGER AND ATALANTA,<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OUT OF THE EIGHTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<p class="center">CONNECTION TO THE FORMER STORY.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>Ovid, having told how Theseus had freed Athens from the tribute -of children, which was imposed on them by Minos king of Crete, -by killing the Minotaur, here makes a digression to the story of -Meleager and Atalanta, which is one of the most inartificial connections -in all the Metamorphoses; for he only says, that Theseus -obtained such honour from that combat, that all Greece had recourse -to him in their necessities; and, amongst others, Calydon, -though the hero of that country, prince Meleager, was then living.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">From him the Caledonians sought relief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though valiant Meleagrus was their chief.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cause, a boar, who ravaged far and near;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Cynthia's wrath, the avenging minister.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Oenius with autumnal plenty blessed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By gifts to heaven his gratitude expressed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Culled sheafs, to Ceres; to Lyæus, wine; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To Pan and Pales, offered sheep and kine;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And fat of olives to Minerva's shrine. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Beginning from the rural gods, his hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was liberal to the powers of high command;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each deity in every kind was blessed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till at Diana's fane the invidious honour ceased.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wrath touches even the gods; the Queen of Night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fired with disdain, and jealous of her right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unhonoured though I am, at least, said she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not unrevenged that impious act shall be.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swift as the word, she sped the boar away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With charge on those devoted fields to prey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No larger bulls the Egyptian pastures feed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And none so large Sicilian meadows breed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eye-balls glare with fire, suffused with blood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His neck shoots up a thick-set thorny wood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His bristled back a trench impaled appears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stands erected, like a field of spears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Froth fills his chaps, he sends a grunting sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And part he churns, and part befoams the ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For tusks with Indian elephants he strove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Jove's own thunder from his mouth he drove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He burns the leaves; the scorching blast invades<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tender corn, and shrivels up the blades;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or, suffering not their yellow beards to rear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He tramples down the spikes, and intercepts the year.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain the barns expect their promised load,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor barns at home, nor ricks are heaped abroad;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain the hinds the threshing-floor prepare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And exercise their flails in empty air.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With olives ever green the ground is strowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And grapes ungathered shed their generous blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amid the fold he rages, nor the sheep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their shepherds, nor the grooms their bulls, can keep.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From fields to walls the frighted rabble run,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor think themselves secure within the town;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till Melegarus, and his chosen crew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Contemn the danger, and the praise pursue.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Fair Leda's twins, (in time to stars decreed,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One fought on foot, one curbed the fiery steed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then issued forth famed Jason after these,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who manned the foremost ship that sailed the seas;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Theseus, joined with bold Pirithous, came;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A single concord in a double name:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Thestian sons, Idas, who swiftly ran,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Ceneus, once a woman, now a man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lynceus, with eagle's eyes, and lion's heart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leucippus, with his never-erring dart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Acastus, Phileus, Phœnix, Telamon, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Echion, Lelex, and Eurytion, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Achilles' father, and great Phocus' son;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Dryas the fierce, and Hippasus the strong<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With twice-old Iolas, and Nestor then but young;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Laertes active, and Ancæus bold; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Mopsus the sage, who future things foretold;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And t'other seer,<a id="FNanchor_X_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_X_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> yet by his wife unsold.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A thousand others of immortal fame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among the rest, fair Atalanta came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grace of the woods: a diamond buckle bound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her vest behind, that else had flow'd upon the ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shew'd her buskin'd legs; her head was bare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But for her native ornament of hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which in a simple knot was tied above,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet negligence, unheeded bait of love!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her sounding quiver on her shoulder tied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One hand a dart, and one a bow supplied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such was her face, as in a nymph displayed<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A fair fierce boy, or in a boy betrayed <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The blushing beauties of a modest maid. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The Caledonian chief at once the dame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beheld, at once his heart received the flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With heavens averse. O happy youth, he cried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For whom thy fates reserve so fair a bribe!<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He sighed, and had no leisure more to say; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His honour called his eyes another way, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And force him to pursue the now neglected prey.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">There stood a forest on the mountain's brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which overlooked the shaded plains below;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No sounding axe presumed those trees to bite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coeval with the world, a venerable sight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The heroes there arrived, some spread around <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The toils, some search the footsteps on the ground,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Some from the chains the faithful dogs unbound. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Of action eager, and intent on thought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The chiefs their honourable danger sought:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A valley stood below; the common drain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of waters from above, and falling rain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bottom was a moist and marshy ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose edges were with bending osiers crowned;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The knotty bulrush next in order stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all within, of reeds a trembling wood.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From hence the boar was roused, and sprung amain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like lightning sudden on the warrior-train;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beats down the trees before him, shakes the ground,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The forest echoes to the crackling sound; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Shout the fierce youth, and clamours ring around. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">All stood with their protended spears prepared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With broad steel heads the brandished weapons glared.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The beast impetuous with his tusks aside <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Deals glancing wounds; the fearful dogs divide;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">All spend their mouth aloft, but none abide. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Echion threw the first, but missed his mark,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stuck his boar-spear on a maple's bark.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Jason; and his javelin seemed to take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But failed with over-force, and whizzed above his back.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mopsus was next; but, ere he threw, addressed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Phœbus thus: O patron, help thy priest!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If I adore, and ever have adored<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy power divine, thy present aid afford,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That I may reach the beast!—The god allowed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His prayer, and, smiling, gave him what he could:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He reached the savage, but no blood he drew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dian unarmed the javelin as it flew.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This chafed the boar, his nostrils flames expire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his red eye-balls roll with living fire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whirled from a sling, or from an engine thrown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amidst the foes so flies a mighty stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As flew the beast: the left wing put to flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The chiefs o'erborne, he rushes on the right.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Empalamos and Pelagon he laid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In dust, and next to death, but for their fellows' aid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Onesimus fared worse, prepared to fly;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fatal fang drove deep within his thigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cut the nerves; the nerves no more sustain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bulk; the bulk unprop'd, falls headlong on the plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nestor had failed the fall of Troy to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, leaning on his lance, he vaulted on a tree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, gathering up his feet, looked down with fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thought his monstrous foe was still too near.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against a stump his tusk the monster grinds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the sharpened edge new vigour finds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, trusting to his arms, young Othrys found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ranched his hips with one continued wound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now Leda's twins, the future stars, appear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">White were their habits, white their horses were;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Conspicuous both, and both in act to throw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their trembling lances brandished at the foe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor had they missed; but he to thickets fled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Concealed from aiming spears, not pervious to the steed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Telamon rushed in, and happed to meet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A rising root, that held his fastened feet;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So down he fell, whom, sprawling on the ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His brother from the wooden gyves unbound.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Meantime the virgin-huntress was not slow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To expel the shaft from her contracted bow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath his ear the fastened arrow stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the wound appeared the trickling blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She blushed for joy: But Meleagrus raised<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His voice with loud applause, and the fair archer praised.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was the first to see, and first to show<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His friends the marks of the successful blow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shall thy valour want the praises due,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said;—a virtuous envy seized the crew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They shout; the shouting animates their hearts,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all at once employ their thronging darts;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But out of order thrown, in air they join,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And multitude makes frustrate the design.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With both his hands the proud Ancæus takes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And flourishes his double biting axe:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then forward to his fate, he took a stride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the rest, and to his fellows cried,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give place, and mark the difference, if you can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between a woman-warrior and a man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The boar is doomed; nor, though Diana lend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her aid, Diana can her beast defend.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus boasted he; then stretched, on tiptoe stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure to make his empty promise good;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the more wary beast prevents the blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And upward rips the groin of his audacious foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ancæus falls; his bowels from the wound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rush out, and clotted blood distains the ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Pirithous, no small portion of the war,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pressed on, and shook his lance; to whom from far,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Theseus cried: O stay, my better part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My more than mistress; of my heart, the heart!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The strong may fight aloof: Ancæus tried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His force too near, and by presuming died.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and, while he spake, his javelin threw;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hissing in air, the unerring weapon flew;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But on an arm of oak, that stood betwixt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The marksman and the mark, his lance he fixt.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Once more bold Jason threw, but failed to wound <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The boar, and slew an undeserving hound; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And through the dog the dart was nailed to ground.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Two spears from Meleager's hand were sent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With equal force, but various in the event;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The first was fixed in earth, the second stood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the boar's bristled back, and deeply drank his blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, while the tortured savage turns around,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And flings about his foam, impatient of the wound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wound's great author, close at hand, provokes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His rage, and plies him with redoubled strokes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wheels as he wheels, and with his pointed dart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Explores the nearest passage to his heart.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quick, and more quick, he spins in giddy gyres,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then falls, and in much foam his soul expires.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This act with shouts heaven high the friendly band<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Applaud, and strain in theirs the victor's hand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then all approach the slain with vast surprise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Admire on what a breadth of earth he lies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, scarce secure, reach out their spears afar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And blood their points, to prove their partnership of war.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But he, the conquering chief, his foot impressed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the strong neck of that destructive beast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gazing on the nymph with ardent eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Accept, said he, fair Nonacrine, my prize;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, though inferior, suffer me to join<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My labours, and my part of praise, with thine.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this presents her with the tusky head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And chine, with rising bristles roughly spread.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glad, she received the gift; and seemed to take<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With double pleasure, for the giver's sake.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rest were seized with sullen discontent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a deaf murmur through the squadron went:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> -<span class="i0">All envied; but the Thestyan brethren showed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The least respect, and thus they vent their spleen aloud:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lay down those honoured spoils, nor think to share,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Weak woman as thou art, the prize of war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ours is the title, thine a foreign claim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since Meleagrus from our lineage came.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trust not thy beauty; but restore the prize,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which he, besotted on that face and eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would rend from us.—At this, inflamed with spite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From her they snatch the gift, from him the giver's right.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But soon the impatient prince his faulchion drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cried,—Ye robbers of another's due,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now learn the difference, at your proper cost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt true valour, and an empty boast.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this advanced, and, sudden as the word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In proud Plexippus' bosom plunged the sword:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toxeus amazed, and with amazement slow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or to revenge, or ward the coming blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stood doubting; and, while doubting thus he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Received the steel bathed in his brother's blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Pleased with the first, unknown the second news,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Althæa to the temples pays their dues<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For her son's conquest; when at length appear <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Her grisly brethren stretched upon the bier: <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Pale, at the sudden sight, she changed her cheer,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And with her cheer her robes; but hearing tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cause, the manner, and by whom they fell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas grief no more, or grief and rage were one<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within her soul; at last 'twas rage alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which burning upwards, in succession dries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tears that stood considering in her eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">There lay a log unlighted on the earth:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When she was labouring in the throes of birth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the unborn chief, the Fatal Sisters came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And raised it up, and tossed it on the flame;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then on the rock a scanty measure place<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of vital flax, and turned the wheel apace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And turning sung,—To this red brand and thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O new-born babe, we give an equal destiny;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So vanished out of view. The frighted dame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sprung hasty from her bed, and quenched the flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The log, in secret locked, she kept with care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that, while thus preserved, preserved her heir.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This brand she now produced; and first she strows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hearth with heaps of chips, and after blows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thrice heaved her hand, and heaved, she thrice repressed;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The sister and the mother long contest, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Two doubtful titles in one tender breast; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And now her eyes and cheeks with fury glow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now pale her cheeks, her eyes with pity flow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now lowring looks presage approaching storms,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now prevailing love her face reforms:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resolved, she doubts again; the tears, she dried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With blushing rage, are by new tears supplied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as a ship, which winds and waves assail, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Now with the current drives, now with the gale,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Both opposite, and neither long prevail, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">She feels a double force; by turns obeys<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The imperious tempest, and the impetuous seas:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So fares Althæa's mind; first she relents<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With pity, of that pity then repents:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sister and mother long the scales divide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the beam nodded on the sister's side.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes she softly sighed, then roared aloud;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sighs were stifled in the cries of blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The pious impious wretch at length decreed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To please her brothers' ghosts, her son should bleed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when the funeral flames began to rise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Receive, she said, a sister's sacrifice;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A mother's bowels burn:—high in her hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus while she spoke, she held the fatal brand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then thrice before the kindled pile she bowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the three Furies thrice invoked aloud:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come, come, revenging sisters, come and view<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sister paying her dead brothers' due;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A crime I punish, and a crime commit;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But blood for blood, and death for death, is fit:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great crimes must be with greater crimes repaid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And second funerals on the former laid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let the whole household in one ruin fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And may Diana's curse o'ertake us all.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall fate to happy Œneus still allow <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">One son, while Thestius stands deprived of two?<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Better three lost, than one unpunished go. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Take then, dear ghosts, (while yet, admitted new<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In hell, you wait my duty,) take your due;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A costly offering on your tomb is laid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When with my blood the price of yours is paid.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ah! whither am I hurried? Ah! forgive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye shades, and let your sister's issue live:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mother cannot give him death; though he<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deserves it, he deserves it not from me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then shall the unpunished wretch insult the slain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Triumphant live? not only live, but reign?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While you, thin shades, the sport of winds, are tost<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O'er dreary plains, or tread the burning coast!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I cannot, cannot bear; 'tis past, 'tis done;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perish this impious, this detested son;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perish his sire, and perish I withal;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let the houses heir, and the hoped kingdom fall.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where is the mother fled, her pious love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And where the pains with which ten months I strove!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah! hadst thou died, my son, in infant years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy little hearse hadst been bedewed with tears.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thou livest by me; to me thy breath resign;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mine is the merit, the demerit thine.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thy life by double title I require;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once given at birth, and once preserved from fire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One murder pay, or add one murder more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And me to them who fell by thee restore.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I would, but cannot: my son's image stands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before my sight;—and now their angry hands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My brothers hold, and vengeance these exact;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This pleads compassion, and repents the fact.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He pleads in vain, and I pronounce his doom:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My brothers, though unjustly, shall o'ercome;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But having paid their injured ghosts their due,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My son requires my death, and mine shall his pursue.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At this, for the last time, she lifts her hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Averts her eyes, and half-unwilling drops the brand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The brand, amid the flaming fuel thrown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or drew, or seemed to draw, a dying groan;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fires themselves but faintly licked their prey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then loathed their impious food, and would have shrunk away.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Just then the hero cast a doleful cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in those absent flames began to fry;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The blind contagion raged within his veins;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he, with manly patience, bore his pains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He feared not fate, but only grieved to die<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without an honest wound, and by a death so dry.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Happy Ancæus, thrice aloud he cried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With what becoming fate in arms he died!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then called his brothers, sisters, sire, around,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And her to whom his nuptial vows were bound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps his mother; a long sigh he drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, his voice failing, took his last adieu;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, as the flames augment, and as they stay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At their full height, then languish to decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They rise, and sink by fits; at last they soar<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In one bright blaze, and then descend no more:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just so his inward heats, at height, impair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the last burning breath shoots out the soul in air.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Now lofty Calydon in ruins lies; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">All ages, all degrees, unsluice their eyes; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And heaven and earth resound with murmurs, groans, and cries.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Matrons and maidens beat their breasts, and tear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their habits, and root up their scattered hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wretched father, father now no more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With sorrow sunk, lies prostrate on the floor;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deforms his hoary locks with dust obscene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And curses age, and loathes a life prolonged with pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By steel her stubborn soul his mother freed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And punished on herself her impious deed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had I an hundred tongues, a wit so large<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As could their hundred offices discharge;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had Phœbus all his Helicon bestowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all the streams inspiring all the god;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those tongues, that wit, those streams, that god in vain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would offer to describe his sisters' pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They beat their breasts with many a bruising blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till they turn livid, and corrupt the snow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The corps they cherish, while the corps remains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And exercise and rub with fruitless pains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when to funeral flames 'tis borne away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They kiss the bed on which the body lay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when those funeral flames no longer burn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dust composed within a pious urn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even in that urn their brother they confess,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hug it in their arms, and to their bosoms press.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His tomb is raised; then, stretched along the ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those living monuments his tomb surround;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even to his name, inscribed, their tears they pay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till tears and kisses wear his name away.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But Cynthia now had all her fury spent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not with less ruin, than a race, content;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Excepting Gorge, perished all the seed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And her whom heaven for Hercules decreed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Satiate at last, no longer she pursued<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The weeping sisters; but with wings endued,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And horny beaks, and sent to flit in air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who yearly round the tomb in feathered flocks repair.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_X_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_X_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Amphialus.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">BAUCIS AND PHILEMON.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OUT OF THE EIGHTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>The author, pursuing the deeds of Theseus, relates how he, with his -friend Pirithous, were invited by Achelous, the River-God, to -stay with him, till his waters were abated. Achelous entertains -them with a relation of his own love to Perimele, who was changed -into an island by Neptune, at his request. Pirithous, being -an Atheist, derides the legend, and denies the power of the Gods -to work that miracle. Lelex, another companion of Theseus, to -confirm the story of Achelous, relates another metamorphosis, of -Baucis and Philemon into trees; of which he was partly an eyewitness.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thus Achelous ends; his audience hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With admiration, and, admiring, fear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The powers of heaven; except Ixion's son,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who laughed at all the gods, believed in none;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He shook his impious head, and thus replies,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These legends are no more than pious lies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You attribute too much to heavenly sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To think they give us forms, and take away.—<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The rest, of better minds, their sense declared<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against this doctrine, and with horror heard.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then Lelex rose, an old experienced man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus with sober gravity began;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven's power is infinite; earth, air, and sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The manufacture mass, the making power obey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By proof to clear your doubt;—In Phrygian ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two neighbouring trees, with walls encompassed round,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stand on a moderate rise, with wonder shown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One a hard oak, a softer linden one;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw the place and them, by Pittheus sent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Phrygian realms, my grandsire's government.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not far from thence is seen a lake, the haunt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of coots, and of the fishing cormorant.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here Jove with Hermes came; but in disguise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of mortal men concealed their deities;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One laid aside his thunder, one his rod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And many toilsome steps together trod;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For harbour at a thousand doors they knocked,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not one of all the thousand but was locked;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last an hospitable house they found, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A homely shed; the roof, not far from ground, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Was thatched with reeds and straw together bound.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">There Baucis and Philemon lived, and there<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had lived long married, and a happy pair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now old in love; though little was their store,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Inured to want, their poverty they bore, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor aimed at wealth, professing to be poor. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For master or for servant here to call,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was all alike, where only two were all.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Command was none, where equal love was paid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or rather both commanded, both obeyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From lofty roofs the gods repulsed before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now stooping, entered through the little door;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The man their hearty welcome first expressed,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A common settle<a id="FNanchor_Y_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_Y_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> drew for either guest, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Inviting each his weary limbs to rest. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But, ere they sat, officious Baucis lays<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two cushions stuffed with straw, the seat to raise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coarse, but the best she had; then takes the load<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of ashes from the hearth, and spreads abroad<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The living coals, and, lest they should expire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With leaves and barks she feeds her infant-fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It smokes, and then with trembling breath she blows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till in a cheerful blaze the flames arose.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With brushwood and with chips she strengthens these,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And adds at last the boughs of rotten trees.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fire thus formed, she sets the kettle on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like burnished gold the little seether shone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Next took the coleworts which her husband got<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From his own ground, a small well-watered spot;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She stripped the stalks of all their leaves; the best<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She culled, and then with handy care she dressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">High o'er the hearth a chine of bacon hung;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Good old Philemon seized it with a prong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the sooty rafter drew it down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then cut a slice, but scarce enough for one;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet a large portion of a little store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, for their sake alone, he wished were more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This in the pot he plunged without delay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To tame the flesh, and drain the salt away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The time between, before the fire they sat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shortened the delay by pleasing chat.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> -<span class="i2">A beam there was, on which a beechen pail<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hung by the handle, on a driven nail;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This filled with water, gently warmed, they set <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Before their guests; in this they bathed their feet,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And after with clean towels dried their sweat: <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">This done, the host produced the genial bed,<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Sallow the foot, the borders, and the sted, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Which with no costly coverlet they spread, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But coarse old garments; yet such robes as these<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They laid alone, at feasts, on holidays.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The good old housewife, tucking up her gown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The table sets; the invited gods lie down.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trivet-table of a foot was lame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A blot which prudent Baucis overcame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who thrust beneath the limping leg a sherd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So was the mended board exactly reared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then rubbed it o'er with newly gathered mint,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A wholesome herb, that breathed a grateful scent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pallas<a id="FNanchor_Z_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_Z_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> began the feast, where first was seen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The party-coloured olive, black and green;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Autumnal cornels next in order served,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In lees of wine well pickled and preserved;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A garden-sallad was the third supply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of endive, radishes, and succory;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then curds and cream, the flower of country fare,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And new-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">All these in earthen-ware were served to board; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, next in place, an earthen pitcher, stored <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With liquor of the best the cottage could afford.<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">This was the table's ornament and pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With figures wrought; like pages at his side<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stood beechen bowls; and these were shining clean,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Varnished with wax without, and lined within.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> -<span class="i0">By this the boiling kettle had prepared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the table sent the smoking lard;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On which, with eager appetite, they dine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A savoury bit, that served to relish wine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wine itself was suiting to the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still working in the must, and lately pressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The second course succeeds like that before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plumbs, apples, nuts, and, of their wintry-store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dry figs and grapes, and wrinkled dates were set<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In canisters, to enlarge the little treat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All these a milk-white honey-comb surround,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which in the midst the country-banquet crowned.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the kind hosts their entertainment grace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hearty welcome, and an open face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all they did, you might discern with ease<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A willing mind, and a desire to please.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Mean time the beechen bowls went round, and still,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though often emptied, were observed to fill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Filled without hands, and of their own accord<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ran without feet, and danced about the board.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Devotion seized the pair, to see the feast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With wine, and of no common grape, increased;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And up they held their hands, and fell to prayer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Excusing, as they could, their country fare.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One goose they had, 'twas all they could allow,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A wakeful sentry, and on duty now, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Whom to the gods for sacrifice they vow: <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Her, with malicious zeal, the couple viewed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She ran for life, and, limping, they pursued;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full well the fowl perceived their bad intent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And would not make her master's compliment;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, persecuted, to the powers she flies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And close between the legs of Jove she lies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He, with a gracious ear, the suppliant heard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saved her life; then what he was declared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And owned the god. The neighbourhood, said he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall justly perish for impiety;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You stand alone exempted; but obey<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With speed, and follow where we lead the way;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Leave these accursed, and to the mountain's height<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ascend, nor once look backward in your flight.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They haste, and what their tardy feet denied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trusty staff (their better leg) supplied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An arrow's flight they wanted to the top,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there secure, but spent with travel, stop;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then turn their now no more forbidden eyes:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lost in a lake, the floated level lies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A watery desert covers all the plains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their cot alone, as in an isle, remains:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wondering, with peeping eyes, while they deplore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their neighbours' fate, and country now no more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their little shed, scarce large enough for two,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seems, from the ground increased, in height and bulk to grow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A stately temple shoots within the skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The crotchets of their cot in columns rise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pavement polished marble they behold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gates with sculpture graced, the spires and tiles of gold.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then thus the sire of gods, with looks serene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Speak thy desire, thou only just of men;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thou, O woman, only worthy found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To be with such a man in marriage bound.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Awhile they whisper; then, to Jove addressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Philemon thus prefers their joint request:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We crave to serve before your sacred shrine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And offer at your altars rites divine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And since not any action of our life<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has been polluted with domestic strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We beg one hour of death; that neither she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With widow's tears, may live to bury me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor weeping I, with withered arms, may bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My breathless Baucis to the sepulchre.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The godheads sign their suit. They run their race<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the same tenour all the appointed space;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then, when their hour was come, while they relate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These past adventures at the temple-gate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Old Baucis looked where old Philemon stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saw his lengthened arms a sprouting wood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New roots their fastened feet begin to bind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They give and take at once their last adieu;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At once, farewell, O faithful spouse, they said;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At once the encroaching rinds their closing lips invade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even yet, an ancient Tyanæan shows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A spreading oak, that near a linden grows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The neighbourhood confirm the prodigy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grave men, not vain of tongue, or like to lie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw myself the garlands on their boughs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tablets hung for gifts of granted vows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And offering fresher up, with pious prayer, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The good, said I, are God's peculiar care, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And such as honour heaven, shall heavenly honour share.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_Y_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Y_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Called in more modern times a <i>settee</i>. The old word, <i>settle</i>, -occurs in the first part of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress;" where -Christian, at the bottom of the Hill of Difficulty, finds an arbour -with a <i>settle</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_Z_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Z_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> To whom the olive was sacred.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE FABLE OF</span><br /><br /> - -IPHIS AND IANTHE.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The fame of this, perhaps, through Crete had flown;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Crete had newer wonders of her own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Iphis changed; for near the Gnossian bounds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As loud report the miracle resounds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At Phæstus dwelt a man of honest blood, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But meanly born, and not so rich as good, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Esteemed and loved by all the neighbourhood; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Who to his wife, before the time assigned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For child-birth came, thus bluntly spoke his mind:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If heaven, said Lygdus, will vouchsafe to hear, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I have but two petitions to prefer; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Short pains for thee, for me a son and heir. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Girls cost as many throes in bringing forth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beside, when born, the tits are little worth;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Weak puling things, unable to sustain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their share of labour, and their bread to gain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If, therefore, thou a creature shalt produce,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of so great charges, and so little use,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bear witness, heaven, with what reluctancy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her hapless innocence I doom to die.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and tears the common grief display,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of him who bade, and her who must obey.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet Telethusa still persists, to find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fit arguments to move a father's mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To extend his wishes to a larger scope,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in one vessel not confine his hope.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lygdus continues hard; her time drew near,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she her heavy load could scarcely bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When slumbering, in the latter shades of night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the approaches of returning light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She saw, or thought she saw, before her bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A glorious train, and Isis at their head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her moony horns were on her forehead placed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yellow sheaves her shining temples graced;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mitre, for a crown, she wore on high;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dog, and dappled bull, were waiting by;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Osiris, sought along the banks of Nile;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The silent god; the sacred Crocodile;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, last, a long procession moving on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With timbrels, that assist the labouring moon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her slumbers seemed dispelled, and, broad awake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She heard a voice, that thus distinctly spake:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My votary, thy babe from death defend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor fear to save whate'er the gods will send;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Delude with art thy husband's dire decree; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">When danger calls, repose thy trust on me; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And know, thou hast not served a thankless deity.— <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">This promise made, with night the goddess fled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With joy the woman wakes, and leaves her bed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Devoutly lifts her spotless hands on high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And prays the powers their gift to ratify.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Now grinding pains proceed to bearing throes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till its own weight the burden did disclose.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas of the beauteous kind, and brought to light<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With secrecy, to shun the father's sight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The indulgent mother did her care employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And passed it on her husband for a boy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nurse was conscious of the fact alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The father paid his vows as for a son;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And called him Iphis, by a common name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which either sex with equal right may claim.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Iphis his grandsire was; the wife was pleased,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of half the fraud by fortune's favour eased;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The doubtful name was used without deceit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And truth was covered with a pious cheat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The habit showed a boy, the beauteous face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With manly fierceness mingled female grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now thirteen years of age were swiftly run, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">When the fond father thought the time drew on <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Of settling in the world his only son. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Ianthe was his choice; so wondrous fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her form alone with Iphis could compare;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A neighbour's daughter of his own degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And not more blessed with Fortune's goods than he.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They soon espoused; for they with ease were joined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who were before contracted in the mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their age the same, their inclinations too,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bred together in one school, they grew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, fatally disposed to mutual fires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They felt, before they knew, the same desires.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Equal their flame, unequal was their care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One loved with hope, one languished in despair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The maid accused the lingering days alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For whom she thought a man, she thought her own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Iphis bends beneath a greater grief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As fiercely burns, but hopes for no relief.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">E'en her despair adds fuel to her fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A maid with madness does a maid desire.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And, scarce refraining tears, Alas, said she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What issue of my love remains for me!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How wild a passion works within my breast!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With what prodigious flames am I possest!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Could I the care of Providence deserve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven must destroy me, if it would preserve.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that's my fate, or sure it would have sent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some usual evil for my punishment;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not this unkindly curse; to rage and burn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where nature shews no prospect of return.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor cows for cows consume with fruitless fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor mares, when hot, their fellow-mares desire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The father of the fold supplies his ewes; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The stag through secret woods his hind pursues; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And birds for mates the males of their own species choose.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Her females nature guards from female flame,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And joins two sexes to preserve the game; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Would I were nothing, or not what I am! <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Crete, famed for monsters, wanted of her store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till my new love produced one monster more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The daughter of the Sun a bull desired;<a id="FNanchor_AA_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_AA_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet e'en then a male a female fired:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her passion was extravagantly new;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But mine is much the madder of the two.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To things impossible she was not bent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But found the means to compass her intent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To cheat his eyes she took a different shape;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet still she gained a lover, and a leap.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should all the wit of all the world conspire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should Dædalus assist my wild desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What art can make me able to enjoy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or what can change Ianthe to a boy?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Extinguish then thy passion, hopeless maid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And recollect thy reason for thy aid.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Know what thou art, and love as maidens ought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drive these golden wishes from thy thought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou canst not hope thy fond desires to gain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where hope is wanting, wishes are in vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet no guards against our joys conspire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No jealous husband hinders our desire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My parents are propitious to my wish,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she herself consenting to the bliss.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All things concur to prosper our design;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All things to prosper any love but mine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet I never can enjoy the fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis past the power of heaven to grant my prayer.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven has been kind, as far as heaven can be;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our parents with our own desires agree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But nature, stronger than the gods above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Refuses her assistance to my love:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She sets the bar that causes all my pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One gift refused makes all their bounty vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now the happy day is just at hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To bind our hearts in Hymen's holy band;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our hearts, but not our bodies; thus accursed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In midst of water I complain of thirst.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why comest thou, Juno, to these barren rites,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To bless a bed defrauded of delights?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And why should Hymen lift his torch on high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see two brides in cold embraces lie?—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus love-sick Iphis her vain passion mourns;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With equal ardour fair Ianthe burns;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invoking Hymen's name, and Juno's power,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To speed the work, and haste the happy hour.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">She hopes, while Telethusa fears the day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And strives to interpose some new delay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now feigns a sickness, now is in a fright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For this bad omen, or that boding sight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But having done whate'er she could devise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And emptied all her magazine of lies,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The time approached; the next ensuing day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fatal secret must to light betray.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Telethusa had recourse to prayer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She and her daughter with dishevelled hair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trembling with fear, great Isis they adored,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Embraced her altar, and her aid implored.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fair queen, who dost on fruitful Egypt smile, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Who sway'st the sceptre of the Pharian isle, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And sevenfold falls of disemboguing Nile; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Relieve, in this our last distress, she said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A suppliant mother, and a mournful maid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou, goddess, thou wert present to my sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Revealed I saw thee by thy own fair light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw thee in my dream, as now I see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all thy marks of awful majesty;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The glorious train that compassed thee around;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And heard the hollow timbrel's holy sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy words I noted, which I still retain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let not thy sacred oracles be vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Iphis lives, that I myself am free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From shame and punishment, I owe to thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On thy protection all our hopes depend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy counsel saved us, let thy power defend.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Her tears pursued her words, and, while she spoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The goddess nodded, and her altar shook;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The temple doors, as with a blast of wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were heard to clap; the lunar horns, that bind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The brows of Isis, cast a blaze around;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trembling timbrel made a murmuring sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some hopes these happy omens did impart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forth went the mother with a beating heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not much in fear, nor fully satisfied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Iphis followed with a larger stride:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whiteness of her skin forsook her face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her looks emboldened with an awful grace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her features and her strength together grew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And her long hair to curling locks withdrew.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Her sparkling eyes with manly vigour shone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Big was her voice, audacious was her tone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The latent parts, at length revealed, began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To shoot, and spread, and burnish into man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The maid becomes a youth;—no more delay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your vows, but look, and confidently pay.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their gifts the parents to the temple bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The votive tables this inscription wear;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Iphis, the man, has to the goddess paid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The vows, that Iphis offered when a maid.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now when the star of day had shown his face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Venus and Juno with their presence grace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nuptial rites, and Hymen from above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Descended to complete their happy love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gods of marriage lend their mutual aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the warm youth enjoys the lovely maid.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AA_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AA_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Pasiphae.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">PYGMALION AND THE STATUE.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM THE TENTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>The Propætides, for their impudent behaviour, being turned into -stone by Venus, Pygmalion, Prince of Cyprus, detested all women -for their sake, and resolved never to marry. He falls in love -with a statue of his own making, which is changed into a maid, -whom he marries. One of his descendants is Cinyras, the father -of Myrrha; the daughter incestuously loves her own father, for -which she is changed into a tree, which bears her name. These -two stories immediately follow each other, and are admirably well -connected.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Pygmalion, loathing their lascivious life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Abhorred all womankind, but most a wife;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So single chose to live, and shunned to wed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Well pleased to want a consort of his bed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sculpture exercised his happy skill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And carved in ivory such a maid, so fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As nature could not with his art compare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were she to work; but in her own defence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must take her pattern here, and copy hence.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Pleased with his idol, he commends, admires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Adores; and last, the thing adored desires.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A very virgin in her face was seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, had she moved, a living maid had been:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One would have thought she could have stirred, but strove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With modesty, and was ashamed to move.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Art, hid with art, so well performed the cheat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It caught the carver with his own deceit.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He knows 'tis madness, yet he must adore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still the more he knows it, loves the more;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fired with this thought, at once he strained the breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the lips a burning kiss impressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis true, the hardened breast resists the gripe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the cold lips return a kiss unripe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when, retiring back, he looked again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To think it ivory was a thought too mean;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So would believe she kissed, and courting more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Again embraced her naked body o'er;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, straining hard the statue, was afraid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His hands had made a dint, and hurt the maid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Explored her, limb by limb, and feared to find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So rude a gripe had left a livid mark behind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With flattery now he seeks her mind to move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now with gifts, the powerful bribes of love:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He furnishes her closet first; and fills<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The crowded shelves with rarities of shells;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Adds orient pearls, which from the conchs he drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the sparkling stones of various hue;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And parrots, imitating human tongue,<a id="FNanchor_AB_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_AB_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And singing-birds in silver cages hung;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every fragrant flower, and odorous green,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were sorted well, with lumps of amber laid between;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rich fashionable robes her person deck;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pendents her ears, and pearls adorn her neck;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her tapered fingers too with rings are graced,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And an embroidered zone surrounds her slender waste.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thus like a queen arrayed, so richly dressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beauteous she showed, but naked showed the best.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then from the floor he raised a royal bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With coverings of Sidonian purple spread;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The solemn rites performed, he calls her bride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With blandishments invites her to his side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as she were with vital sense possessed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her head did on a plumy pillow rest.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The feast of Venus came, a solemn day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To which the Cypriots due devotion pay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gilded horns the milk-white heifers led,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slaughtered before the sacred altars, bled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pygmalion, offering, first approached the shrine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then with prayers implored the powers divine;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Almighty Gods, if all we mortals want,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If all we can require, be yours to grant,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make this fair statue mine,—he would have said, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But changed his words for shame, and only prayed, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Give me the likeness of my ivory maid!— <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">The golden Goddess, present at the prayer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Well knew he meant the inanimated fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gave the sign of granting his desire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thrice in cheerful flames ascends the fire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The youth, returning to his mistress, hies, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And impudent in hope, with ardent eyes, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And beating breast, by the dear statue lies.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He kisses her white lips, renews the bliss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And looks and thinks they redden at the kiss;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He thought them warm before: nor longer stays,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But next his hand on her hard bosom lays;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Hard as it was, beginning to relent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It seemed the breast beneath his fingers bent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He felt again, his fingers made a print,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas flesh, but flesh so firm, it rose against the dint.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pleasing task he fails not to renew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Soft, and more soft at every touch it grew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like pliant wax, when chafing hands reduce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The former mass to form, and frame to use.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He would believe, but yet is still in pain, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And tries his argument of sense again, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Presses the pulse, and feels the leaping vein.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Convinced, o'erjoyed, his studied thanks and praise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To her who made the miracle, he pays;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then lips to lips he joined; now freed from fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He found the savour of the kiss sincere.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this the wakened image oped her eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And viewed at once the light and lover with surprise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The goddess, present at the match she made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So blessed the bed, such fruitfulness conveyed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ere ten moons had sharpened either horn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To crown their bliss, a lovely boy was born;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Paphos his name, who, grown to manhood, walled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The city Paphos, from the founder called.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AB_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AB_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> The parrots are of Dryden's introduction.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">CINYRAS AND MYRRHA.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OUT OF THE TENTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>There needs no connection of this story with the former; for the -beginning of this immediately follows the end of the last: The -reader is only to take notice, that Orpheus, who relates both, was -by birth a Thracian; and his country far distant from Cyprus, -where Myrrha was born, and from Arabia, whither she fled. You -will see the reason of this note, soon after the first lines of this -fable.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Nor him alone produced the fruitful queen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Cinyras, who like his sire had been<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A happy prince, had he not been a sire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Daughters and fathers, from my song retire!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I sing of horror; and, could I prevail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You should not hear, or not believe my tale.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet if the pleasure of my song be such,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That you will hear, and credit me too much,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Attentive listen to the last event,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with the sin believe the punishment:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Since nature could behold so dire a crime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I gratulate at least my native clime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That such a land, which such a monster bore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So far is distant from our Thracian shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let Araby extol her happy coast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her cinnamon and sweet amomum boast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her fragrant flowers, her trees with precious tears, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Her second harvests, and her double years; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">How can the land be called so blessed, that Myrrha bears?<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Not all her odorous tears can cleanse her crime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her plant alone deforms the happy clime;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cupid denies to have inflamed thy heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Disowns thy love, and vindicates his dart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some fury gave thee those infernal pains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shot her venomed vipers in thy veins.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To hate thy sire, had merited a curse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But such an impious love deserved a worse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The neighbouring monarchs, by thy beauty led,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Contend in crowds, ambitious of thy bed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The world is at thy choice, except but one,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Except but him thou canst not choose alone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She knew it too, the miserable maid, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Ere impious love her better thoughts betrayed, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And thus within her secret soul she said:— <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Ah, Myrrha! whither would thy wishes tend?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye Gods, ye sacred laws, my soul defend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From such a crime as all mankind detest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And never lodged before in human breast!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But is it sin? Or makes my mind alone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The imagined sin? For nature makes it none.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What tyrant then these envious laws began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Made not for any other beast but man!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The father-bull his daughter may bestride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The horse may make his mother-mare a bride;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What piety forbids the lusty ram,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or more salacious goat, to rut their dam?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The hen is free to wed her chick she bore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And make a husband, whom she hatched before.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All creatures else are of a happier kind, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Whom nor ill-natured laws from pleasure bind, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor thoughts of sin disturb their peace of mind.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But man a slave of his own making lives;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fool denies himself what nature gives;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too busy senates, with an over-care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make us better than our kind can bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have dashed a spice of envy in the laws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, straining up too high, have spoiled the cause.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet some wise nations break their cruel chains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And own no laws, but those which love ordains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where happy daughters with their sires are joined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And piety is doubly paid in kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O that I had been born in such a clime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not here, where 'tis the country makes the crime!...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But whither would my impious fancy stray?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hence hopes, and ye forbidden thoughts, away!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His worth deserves to kindle my desires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But with the love that daughters bear to sires.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then had not Cinyras my father been,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What hindered Myrrha's hopes to be his queen?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the perverseness of my fate is such,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he's not mine, because he's mine too much:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our kindred-blood debars a better tie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He might be nearer, were he not so nigh.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eyes and their objects never must unite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some distance is required to help the sight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fain would I travel to some foreign shore,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Never to see my native country more, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">So might I to myself myself restore; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">So might my mind these impious thoughts remove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, ceasing to behold, might cease to love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But stay I must, to feed my famished sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To talk, to kiss; and more, if more I might:...<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> -<span class="i0">More, impious maid! What more canst thou design?<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To make a monstrous mixture in thy line, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And break all statutes human and divine? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Canst thou be called (to save thy wretched life)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy mother's rival, and thy father's wife?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Confound so many sacred names in one,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy brother's mother! sister to thy son!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fear'st thou not to see the infernal bands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their heads with snakes, with torches armed their hands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full at thy face the avenging brands to bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shake the serpents from their hissing hair?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thou in time the increasing ill controul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor first debauch the body by the soul;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure the sacred quiet of thy mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And keep the sanctions nature has designed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suppose I should attempt, the attempt were vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No thoughts like mine his sinless soul profane,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Observant of the right; and O, that he<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Could cure my madness, or be mad like me!—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus she; but Cinyras, who daily sees<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A crowd of noble suitors at his knees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among so many, knew not whom to choose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Irresolute to grant, or to refuse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, having told their names, inquired of her,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who pleased her best, and whom she would prefer?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The blushing maid stood silent with surprise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on her father fixed her ardent eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, looking, sighed; and, as she sighed, began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round tears to shed, that scalded as they ran.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tender sire, who saw her blush, and cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ascribed it all to maiden-modesty;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And dried the falling drops, and, yet more kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He stroked her cheeks, and holy kisses joined:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She felt a secret venom fire her blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And found more pleasure than a daughter should;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And, asked again, what lover of the crew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She liked the best? she answered, one like you.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mistaking what she meant, her pious will<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He praised, and bade her so continue still:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The word of "pious" heard, she blushed with shame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of secret guilt, and could not bear the name.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">'Twas now the mid of night, when slumbers close<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our eyes, and sooth our cares with soft repose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But no repose could wretched Myrrha find,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her body rolling, as she rolled her mind:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mad with desire, she ruminates her sin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wishes all her wishes o'er again:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now she despairs, and now resolves to try;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would not, and would again, she knows not why;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stops and returns, makes and retracts the vow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fain would begin, but understands not how:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As when a pine is hewn upon the plains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the last mortal stroke alone remains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Labouring in pangs of death, and threatening all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This way and that she nods, considering where to fall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So Myrrha's mind, impelled on either side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Takes every bent, but cannot long abide:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Irresolute on which she should rely,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last, unfixed in all, is only fixed to die.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On that sad thought she rests; resolved on death,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She rises, and prepares to choke her breath:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then while about the beam her zone she ties,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dear Cinyras, farewell, she softly cries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thee I die, and only wish to be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not hated, when thou know'st I die for thee:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pardon the crime, in pity to the cause.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This said, about her neck the noose she draws.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nurse, who lay without, her faithful guard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though not the words, the murmurs overheard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sighs and hollow sounds; surprised with fright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She starts, and leaves her bed, and springs a light;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Unlocks the door, and, entering out of breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dying saw, and instruments of death.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She shrieks, she cuts the zone with trembling haste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in her arms her fainting charge embraced;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Next (for she now had leisure for her tears)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She weeping asked, in these her blooming years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What unforeseen misfortune caused her care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To loathe her life, and languish in despair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The maid, with downcast eyes, and mute with grief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For death unfinished, and ill-timed relief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stood sullen to her suit: the beldame pressed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more to know, and bared her withered breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Adjured her, by the kindly food she drew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From those dry founts, her secret ill to shew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sad Myrrha sighed, and turned her eyes aside;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nurse still urged, and would not be denied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor only promised secrecy, but prayed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She might have leave to give her offered aid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Good will, she said, my want of strength supplies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And diligence shall give what age denies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If strong desires thy mind to fury move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With charms and medicines I can cure thy love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If envious eyes their hurtful rays have cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More powerful verse shall free thee from the blast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If heaven, offended, sends thee this disease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Offended heaven with prayers we can appease.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What then remains, that can these cares procure?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy house is flourishing; thy fortune sure;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy careful mother yet in health survives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, to thy comfort, thy kind father lives.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The virgin started at her father's name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sighed profoundly, conscious of the shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor yet the nurse her impious love divined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But yet surmised, that love disturbed her mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus thinking, she pursued her point, and laid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lull'd within her lap the mourning maid;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then softly soothed her thus,—I guess your grief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You love, my child; your love shall find relief.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My long experienced age shall be your guide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rely on that, and lay distrust aside;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No breath of air shall on the secret blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shall (what most you fear) your father know.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Struck once again, as with a thunder-clap,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The guilty virgin bounded from her lap,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And threw her body prostrate on the bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, to conceal her blushes, hid her head:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There silent lay, and warned her with her hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To go; but she received not the command;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Remaining still importunate to know.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Myrrha thus; Or ask no more, or go;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I pr'ythee go, or, staying, spare my shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What thou wouldst hear, is impious even to name.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this, on high the beldame holds her hands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And trembling, both with age and terrour, stands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Adjures, and, falling at her feet, intreats,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sooths her with blandishments, and frights with threats,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To tell the crime intended, or disclose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What part of it she knew, if she no farther knows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And last, if conscious to her counsel made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Confirms anew the promise of her aid.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now Myrrha raised her head; but soon, oppressed <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With shame, reclined it on her nurse's breast; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Bathed it with tears, and strove to have confessed:<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Twice she began, and stopped; again she tried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The faultering tongue its office still denied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last her veil before her face she spread,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And drew a long preluding sigh, and said, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">O happy mother, in thy marriage bed!... <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then groaned, and ceased.—The good old woman shook,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stiff were her eyes, and ghastly was her look;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Her hoary hair upright with horror stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Made (to her grief) more knowing than she would;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Much she reproached, and many things she said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To cure the madness of the unhappy maid:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain; for Myrrha stood convict of ill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her reason vanquished, but unchanged her will;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perverse of mind, unable to reply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She stood resolved or to possess, or die.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length the fondness of a nurse prevailed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against her better sense, and virtue failed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enjoy, my child, since such is thy desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy love, she said; she durst not say, thy sire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Live, though unhappy, live on any terms;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then with a second oath her faith confirms.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The solemn feast of Ceres now was near,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When long white linen stoles the matrons wear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ranked in procession walk the pious train,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Offering first-fruits, and spikes of yellow grain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For nine long nights the nuptial bed they shun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, sanctifying harvest, lie alone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mixed with the crowd, the queen forsook her lord,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Ceres' power with secret rites adored.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The royal couch now vacant for a time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The crafty crone, officious in her crime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The curst occasion took; the king she found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Easy with wine, and deep in pleasure drowned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prepared for love; the beldame blew the flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Confessed the passion, but concealed the name.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her form she praised; the monarch asked her years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she replied, the same that Myrrha bears.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wine and commended beauty fired his thought;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Impatient, he commands her to be brought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pleased with her charge performed, she hies her home,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gratulates the nymph, the task was overcome.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Myrrha was joyed the welcome news to hear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, clogged with guilt, the joy was insincere<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> -<span class="i0">So various, so discordant is the mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in our will, a different will we find.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ill she presaged, and yet pursued her lust;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For guilty pleasures give a double gust.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas depth of night; Arctophylax had driven<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His lazy wain half round the northern heaven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Myrrha hastened to the crime desired.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The moon beheld her first, and first retired;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stars, amazed, ran backward from the sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, shrunk within their sockets, lost their light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Icarius first withdraws his holy flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Virgin sign, in heaven the second name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slides down the belt, and from her station flies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And night with sable clouds involves the skies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bold Myrrha still pursues her black intent; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">She stumbled thrice, (an omen of the event;) <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thrice shrieked the funeral owl, yet on she went,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Secure of shame, because secure of sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even bashful sins are impudent by night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Linked hand in hand, the accomplice and the dame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their way exploring, to the chamber came;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The door was ope, they blindly grope their way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where dark in bed the expecting monarch lay:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus far her courage held, but here forsakes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her faint knees knock at every step she makes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nearer to her crime, the more within<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She feels remorse, and horror of her sin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Repents too late her criminal desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wishes, that unknown she could retire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her, lingering thus, the nurse, who feared delay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fatal secret might at length betray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pulled forward, to complete the work begun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And said to Cinyras,—Receive thy own!...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus saying, she delivered kind to kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Accursed, and their devoted bodies joined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sire, unknowing of the crime, admits<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His bowels, and profanes the hallowed sheets.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He found she trembled, but believed she strove, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With maiden modesty, against her love; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And sought, with flattering words, vain fancies to remove.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps he said, My daughter, cease thy fears,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because the title suited with her years;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, Father,—she might whisper him again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That names might not be wanting to the sin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full of her sire, she left the incestuous bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And carried in her womb the crime she bred.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another, and another night she came;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For frequent sin had left no sense of shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till Cinyras desired to see her face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose body he had held in close embrace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And brought a taper; the revealer, light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exposed both crime, and criminal, to sight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grief, rage, amazement, could no speech afford,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But from the sheath he drew the avenging sword;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The guilty fled; the benefit of night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That favoured first the sin, secured the flight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long wandering through the spacious fields, she bent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her voyage to the Arabian continent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then passed the region which Panchæa joined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And flying left the palmy plains behind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nine times the moon had mewed her horns; at length<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With travel weary, unsupplied with strength,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with the burden of her womb oppressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sabæan fields afford her needful rest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There, loathing life, and yet of death afraid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In anguish of her spirit, thus she prayed:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye powers, if any so propitious are<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To accept my penitence, and hear my prayer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your judgments, I confess, are justly sent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great sins deserve as great a punishment:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet, since my life the living will profane,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And since my death the happy dead will stain,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A middle state your mercy may bestow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt the realms above, and those below;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some other form to wretched Myrrha give,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor let her wholly die, nor wholly live.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The prayers of penitents are never vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At least, she did her last request obtain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, while she spoke, the ground began to rise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gathered round her feet, her legs, and thighs;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her toes in roots descend, and, spreading wide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A firm foundation for the trunk provide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her solid bones convert to solid wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pith her marrow, and to sap her blood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her arms are boughs, her fingers change their kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her tender skin is hardened into rind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now the rising tree her womb invests,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, shooting upwards still, invades her breasts,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shades the neck; and, weary with delay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She sunk her head within, and met it half the way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And though with outward shape she lost her sense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With bitter tears she wept her last offence;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still she weeps, nor sheds her tears in vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For still the precious drops her name retain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mean time the misbegotten infant grows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, ripe for birth, distends with deadly throes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The swelling rind, with unavailing strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To leave the wooden womb, and pushes into life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mother-tree, as if oppressed with pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Writhes here and there, to break the bark, in vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, like a labouring woman, would have prayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wants a voice to call Lucina's aid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bending bole sends out a hollow sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And trickling tears fall thicker on the ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mild Lucina came uncalled, and stood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beside the struggling boughs, and heard the groaning wood;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then reached her midwife-hand, to speed the throes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And spoke the powerful spells that babes to birth disclose.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bark divides, the living load to free,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And safe delivers the convulsive tree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ready nymphs receive the crying child,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wash him in the tears the parent plant distilled.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They swathed him with their scarfs; beneath him spread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ground with herbs; with roses raised his head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lovely babe was born with every grace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even envy must have praised so fair a face:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such was his form, as painters, when they show<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their utmost art, on naked loves bestow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that their arms no difference might betray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give him a bow, or his from Cupid take away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Time glides along, with undiscovered haste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The future but a length behind the past,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So swift are years; the babe, whom just before<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His grandsire got, and whom his sister bore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The drop, the thing which late the tree inclosed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And late the yawning bark to life exposed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A babe, a boy, a beauteous youth appears;<a id="FNanchor_AC_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_AC_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lovelier than himself at riper years.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now to the queen of love he gave desires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, with her pains, revenged his mother's fires.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AC_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AC_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Adonis.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">CEYX AND ALCYONE.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OUT OF THE TENTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - - -<p class="center">CONNECTION OF THIS FABLE WITH THE FORMER.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>Ceyx, the son of Lucifer, (the morning star,) and king of Trachin, -in Thessaly, was married to Alcyone, daughter to Æolus, god of -the winds. Both the husband and the wife loved each other with -an entire affection. Dædalion, the elder brother of Ceyx, whom -he succeeded, having been turned into a falcon by Apollo, and -Chione, Dædalion's daughter, slain by Diana. Ceyx prepares a -ship to sail to Claros, there to consult the oracle of Apollo, and -(as Ovid seems to intimate) to enquire how the anger of the Gods -might be atoned.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">These prodigies affect the pious prince;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, more perplexed with those that happened since,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He purposes to seek the Clarian God, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Avoiding Delphos, his more famed abode; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Since Phlegian robbers made unsafe the road.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Yet could not he from her he loved so well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fatal voyage, he resolved, conceal;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when she saw her lord prepared to part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A deadly cold ran shivering to her heart;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Her faded cheeks are changed to boxen hue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in her eyes the tears are ever new;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She thrice essayed to speak; her accents hung,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, faultering, died unfinished on her tongue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or vanished into sighs; with long delay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her voice returned; and found the wonted way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tell me, my lord, she said, what fault unknown<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thy once beloved Alcyone has done? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Whither, ah whither is thy kindness gone! <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Can Ceyx then sustain to leave his wife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And unconcerned forsake the sweets of life?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What can thy mind to this long journey move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or need'st thou absence to renew thy love?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet, if thou goest by land, though grief possess<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My soul even then, my fears will be the less.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ah! be warned to shun the watery way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The face is frightful of the stormy sea.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For late I saw a drift disjointed planks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And empty tombs erected on the banks.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor let false hopes to trust betray thy mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because my sire in caves constrains the wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can with a breath a clamorous rage appease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They fear his whistle, and forsake the seas:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not so; for, once indulged, they sweep the main,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deaf to the call, or, hearing, hear in vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But bent on mischief, bear the waves before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, not content with seas, insult the shore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When ocean, air, and earth, at once engage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rooted forests fly before their rage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At once the clashing clouds to battle move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lightnings run across the fields above:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I know them well, and marked their rude comport,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While yet a child, within my father's court;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In times of tempest they command alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he but sits precarious on the throne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more I know, the more my fears augment,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fears are oft prophetic of the event.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But if not fears, or reasons will prevail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If fate has fixed thee obstinate to sail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go not without thy wife, but let me bear<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">My part of danger with an equal share, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And present suffer what I only fear; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then o'er the bounding billows shall we fly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure to live together, or to die.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">These reasons moved her starlike husband's heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But still he held his purpose to depart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For as he loved her equal to his life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He would not to the seas expose his wife;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor could be wrought his voyage to refrain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sought by arguments to sooth her pain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor these availed; at length he lights on one,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With which so difficult a cause he won:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My love, so short an absence cease to fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, by my father's holy flame I swear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before two moons their orb with light adorn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If heaven allow me life, I will return.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This promise of so short a stay prevails;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He soon equips the ship, supplies the sails,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gives the word to launch; she trembling views<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This pomp of death, and parting tears renews;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Last, with a kiss, she took a long farewell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sighed, with a sad presage, and swooning fell.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While Ceyx seeks delays, the lusty crew, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Raised on their banks, their oars in order drew <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To their broad breasts,—the ship with fury flew.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">The queen, recovered, rears her humid eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And first her husband on the poop espies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shaking his hand at distance on the main;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She took the sign, and shook her hand again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still as the ground recedes, retracts her view<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With sharpened sight, till she no longer knew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The much-loved face; that comfort lost, supplies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With less, and with the galley feeds her eyes;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The galley borne from view by rising gales,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She followed with her sight the flying sails;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When even the flying sails were seen no more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forsaken of all sight, she left the shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then on her bridal bed her body throws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sought in sleep her wearied eyes to close;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her husband's pillow, and the widowed part<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which once he pressed, renewed the former smart.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And now a breeze from shore began to blow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sailors ship their oars, and cease to row;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then hoist their yards atrip, and all their sails<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let fall, to court the wind, and catch the gales.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By this the vessel half her course had run,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as much rested till the rising sun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both shores were lost to sight, when at the close<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of day, a stiffer gale at east arose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sea grew white, the rolling waves from far,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like heralds, first denounce the watery war.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This seen, the master soon began to cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strike, strike the top-sail; let the main sheet fly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And furl your sails.—The winds repel the sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the speaker's mouth the speech is drowned.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet of their own accord, as danger taught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each in his way, officiously they wrought;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some stow their oars, or stop the leaky sides;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another, bolder yet, the yard bestrides,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And folds the sails; a fourth, with labour, laves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The intruding seas, and waves ejects on waves.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In this confusion while their work they ply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The winds augment the winter of the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wage intestine wars; the suffering seas<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are tossed, and mingled as their tyrants please.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The master would command, but, in despair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of safety, stands amazed with stupid care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor what to bid, or what forbid, he knows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ungoverned tempest to such fury grows;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Vain is his force, and vainer is his skill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With such a concourse comes the flood of ill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cries of men are mixed with rattling shrouds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seas dash on seas, and clouds encounter clouds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At once from east to west, from pole to pole,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The forky lightnings flash, the roaring thunders roll.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now waves on waves ascending scale the skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, in the fires above, the water fries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When yellow sands are sifted from below,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The glittering billows give a golden show;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when the fouler bottom spews the black,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Stygian dye the tainted waters take;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then frothy white appear the flatted seas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And change their colour, changing their disease.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like various fits the Trachin vessel finds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now sublime she rides upon the winds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As from a lofty summit looks from high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the clouds beholds the nether sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now from the depth of hell they lift their sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at a distance see superior light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lashing billows make a loud report,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And beat her sides, as battering rams a fort;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or as a lion, bounding in his way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With force augmented bears against his prey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sidelong to seize; or, unappalled with fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Springs on the toils, and rushes on the spear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So seas impelled by winds, with added power,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assault the sides, and o'er the hatches tower.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The planks, their pitchy coverings washed away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now yield; and now a yawning breach display;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The roaring waters with a hostile tide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rush through the ruins of her gaping side.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Meantime, in sheets of rain the sky descends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ocean, swelled with waters, upwards tends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One rising, falling one; the heavens and sea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Meet at their confines, in the middle way;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The sails are drunk with showers, and drop with rain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet waters mingle with the briny main.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No star appears to lend his friendly light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Darkness and tempest make a double night;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But flashing fires disclose the deep by turns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, while the lightnings blaze, the water burns.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now all the waves their scattered force unite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as a soldier, foremost in the fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Makes way for others, and, an host alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still presses on, and, urging, gains the town;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So while the invading billows come a-breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hero tenth advanced before the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweeps all before him with impetuous sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the walls descends upon the prey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Part following enter, part remain without,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With envy hear their fellows' conquering shout,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mount on others' backs, in hope to share<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The city, thus become the seat of war.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An universal cry resounds aloud,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sailors run in heaps, a helpless crowd;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Art fails, and courage falls, no succour near;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As many waves, as many deaths appear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One weeps, and yet despairs of late relief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One cannot weep, his fears congeal his grief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, stupid, with dry eyes expects his fate. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">One with loud shrieks laments his lost estate, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And calls those happy whom their funerals wait.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">This wretch with prayers and vows the gods implores,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And even the skies he cannot see, adores.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That other on his friends his thoughts bestows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His careful father, and his faithful spouse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The covetous worldling in his anxious mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thinks only on the wealth he left behind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All Ceyx his Alcyone employs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For her he grieves, yet in her absence joys;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His wife he wishes, and would still be near,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not her with him, but wishes him with her:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Now with last looks he seeks his native shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which fate has destined him to see no more;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sought, but in the dark tempestuous night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He knew not whither to direct his sight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So whirl the seas, such darkness blinds the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the black night receives a deeper dye.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The giddy ship ran round; the tempest tore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her mast, and over-board the rudder bore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One billow mounts; and with a scornful brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Proud of her conquest gained, insults the waves below;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor lighter falls, than if some giant tore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pindus and Athos, with the freight they bore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tossed on seas; pressed with the ponderous blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down sinks the ship within the abyss below;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down with the vessel sink into the main<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The many, never more to rise again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some few on scattered planks, with fruitless care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lay hold, and swim; but, while they swim, despair.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Even he, who late a sceptre did command,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now grasps a floating fragment in his hand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And while he struggles on the stormy main,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invokes his father, and his wife, in vain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But yet his consort is his greater care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alcyone he names amidst his prayer;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Names as a charm against the waves and wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Most in his mouth, and ever in his mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tired with his toil, all hopes of safety past,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From prayers to wishes he descends at last,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That his dead body, wafted to the sands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might have its burial from her friendly hands.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As oft as he can catch a gulph of air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And peep above the seas, he names the fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, even when plunged beneath, on her he raves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Murmuring Alcyone below the waves:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> -<span class="i0">At last a falling billow stops his breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Breaks o'er his head, and whelms him underneath.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bright Lucifer<a id="FNanchor_AD_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_AD_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> unlike himself appears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That night, his heavenly form obscured with tears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And since he was forbid to leave the skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He muffled with a cloud his mournful eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Mean time Alcyone (his fate unknown)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Computes how many nights he had been gone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Observes the waning moon with hourly view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Numbers her age, and wishes for a new;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the promised time provides with care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hastens in the woof the robes he was to wear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for herself employs another loom, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">New-dressed to meet her lord returning home, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Flattering her heart with joys that never were to come<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">She fumed the temples with an odorous flame,<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And oft before the sacred altars came, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To pray for him, who was an empty name; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">All powers implored, but far above the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Juno she her pious vows addressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her much-loved lord from perils to protect,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And safe o'er seas his voyage to direct;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then prayed that she might still possess his heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And no pretending rival share a part.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This last petition heard, of all her prayer;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rest, dispersed by winds, were lost in air.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But she, the goddess of the nuptial bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tired with her vain devotions for the dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resolved the tainted hand should be repelled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which incense offered, and her altar held:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Iris thus bespoke,—Thou faithful maid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By whom the queen's commands are well conveyed,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Haste to the house of Sleep, and bid the god,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who rules the night by visions with a nod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prepare a dream, in figure and in form<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resembling him who perished in the storm:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This form before Alcyone present,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make her certain of the sad event.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Endued with robes of various hue she flies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And flying draws an arch, a segment of the skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then leaves her bending bow, and from the steep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Descends to search the silent house of Sleep.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Near the Cimmerians, in his dark abode,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep in a cavern, dwells the drowsy god;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose gloomy mansion nor the rising sun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor setting, visits, nor the lightsome noon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But lazy vapours round the region fly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perpetual twilight, and a doubtful sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No crowing cock does there his wings display,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor with his horny bill provoke the day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor watchful dogs, nor the more wakeful geese,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Disturb with nightly noise the sacred peace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor beast of nature, nor the tame, are nigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor trees with tempests rocked, nor human cry;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But safe repose, without an air of breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dwells here, and a dumb quiet next to death.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An arm of Lethe, with a gentle flow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arising upwards from the rock below,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The palace moats, and o'er the pebbles creeps,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with soft murmurs calls the coming sleeps;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Around its entry nodding poppies grow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all cool simples that sweet rest bestow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Night from the plants their sleepy virtue drains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And passing sheds it on the silent plains:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No door there was the unguarded house to keep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On creaking hinges turned, to break his sleep.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But in the gloomy court was raised a bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stuffed with black plumes, and on an ebon sted;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Black was the covering too, where lay the god,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And slept supine, his limbs displayed abroad;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About his head fantastic visions fly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which various images of things supply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mock their forms; the leaves on trees not more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor bearded ears in fields, nor sands upon the shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The virgin, entering bright, indulged the day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the brown cave, and brushed the dreams away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The god, disturbed with this new glare of light<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cast sudden on his face, unsealed his sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And raised his tardy head, which sunk again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, sinking on his bosom, knocked his chin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length shook off himself, and asked the dame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(And asking yawned,) for what intent she came?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To whom the goddess thus:—O sacred Rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet pleasing Sleep, of all the powers the best!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O peace of mind, repairer of decay, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Whose balms renew the limbs to labours of the day, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Care shuns thy soft approach, and sullen flies away!<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Adorn a dream, expressing human form,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shape of him who suffered in the storm,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And send it flitting to the Trachin court,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wreck of wretched Ceyx to report:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before his queen bid the pale spectre stand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who begs a vain relief at Juno's hand.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She said, and scarce awake her eyes could keep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unable to support the fumes of sleep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But fled, returning by the way she went,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And swerved along her bow with swift ascent.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The god, uneasy till he slept again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resolved at once to rid himself of pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, though against his custom, called aloud,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exciting Morpheus from the sleepy crowd;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Morpheus, of all his numerous train, expressed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shape of man, and imitated best;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The walk, the words, the gesture could supply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The habit mimic, and the mien bely;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Plays well, but all his action is confined;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Extending not beyond our human kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another birds, and beasts, and dragons, apes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And dreadful images, and monster shapes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This dæmon, Icelos, in heaven's high hall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gods have named; but men Phobeter call:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A third is Phantasus, whose actions roll<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On meaner thoughts, and things devoid of soul;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Earth, fruits, and flowers, he represents in dreams,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And solid rocks unmoved, and running streams.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These three to kings and chiefs their scenes display,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rest before the ignoble commons play:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of these the chosen Morpheus is dispatched;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which done, the lazy monarch overwatched,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down from his propping elbow drops his head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dissolved in sleep, and shrinks within his bed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Darkling the dæmon glides, for flight prepared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So soft that scarce his fanning wings are heard.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Trachin, swift as thought, the flitting shade<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through air his momentary journey made:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then lays aside the steerage of his wings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forsakes his proper form, assumes the king's;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pale as death, despoiled of his array,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Into the queen's apartment takes his way, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And stands before the bed at dawn of day: <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Unmoved his eyes, and wet his beard appears,<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And shedding vain, but seeming real tears; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The briny water dropping from his hairs; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then staring on her, with a ghastly look<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hollow voice, he thus the Queen bespoke.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Knowest thou not me? Not yet, unhappy wife?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or are my features perished with my life?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Look once again, and for thy husband lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo! all that's left of him, thy husband's ghost!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy vows for my return were all in vain; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thy stormy south o'ertook us in the main; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And never shalt thou see thy loving lord again.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Bear witness, heaven, I called on thee in death,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, while I called, a billow stopped my breath.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think not that flying fame reports my fate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I, present I, appear, and my own wreck relate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rise, wretched widow, rise, nor undeplored <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Permit my ghost to pass the Stygian ford; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But rise, prepared in black to mourn thy perished lord.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Thus said the player-god; and, adding art<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of voice and gesture, so performed his part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She thought (so like her love the shade appears)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Ceyx spake the words, and Ceyx shed the tears.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She groaned, her inward soul with grief opprest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She sighed, she wept, and sleeping beat her breast:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then stretched her arms to embrace his body bare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her clasping arms inclose but empty air:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this, not yet awake, she cried,—Oh stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One is our fate, and common is our way!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So dreadful was the dream, so loud she spoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, starting sudden up, the slumber broke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then cast her eyes around, in hope to view<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her vanished lord, and find the vision true;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For now the maids, who waited her commands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ran in with lighted tapers in their hands.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tired with the search, not finding what she seeks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With cruel blows she pounds her blubbered cheeks;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then from her beaten breast the linen tare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cut the golden caul that bound her hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her nurse demands the cause; with louder cries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She prosecutes her griefs, and thus replies.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No more Alcyone, she suffered death<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With her loved lord, when Ceyx lost his breath:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No flattery, no false comfort, give me none,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My shipwrecked Ceyx is for ever gone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw, I saw him manifest in view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His voice, his figure, and his gestures knew:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> -<span class="i0">His lustre lost, and every living grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet I retained the features of his face:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though with pale cheeks, wet beard, and dropping hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">None but my Ceyx could appear so fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I would have strained him with a strict embrace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But through my arms he slipt, and vanished from the place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There, even just there he stood;—and as she spoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where last the spectre was, she cast her look;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fain would she hope, and gazed upon the ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If any printed footsteps might be found;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then sighed, and said;—This I too well foreknew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And my prophetic fear presaged too true;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas what I begged, when with a bleeding heart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I took my leave, and suffered thee to part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or I to go along, or thou to stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Never, ah never to divide our way!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Happier for me, that, all our hours assigned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Together we had lived, even not in death disjoined!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So had my Ceyx still been living here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or with my Ceyx I had perished there;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now I die absent, in the vast profound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And me without myself the seas have drowned:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The storms were not so cruel; should I strive<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To lengthen life, and such a grief survive!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But neither will I strive, nor wretched thee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In death forsake, but keep thee company.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If not one common sepulchre contains<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our bodies, or one urn our last remains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet Ceyx and Alcyone shall join,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their names remembered in one common line.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No farther voice her mighty grief affords,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For sighs come rushing in betwixt her words,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stopt her tongue; but what her tongue denied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Soft tears, and groans, and dumb complaints supplied.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">'Twas morning; to the port she takes her way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stands upon the margin of the sea;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That place, that very spot of ground she sought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or thither by her destiny was brought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where last he stood; and while she sadly said, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas here he left me, lingering here, delayed <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His parting kiss, and there his anchors weighed.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thus speaking, while her thoughts past actions trace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And call to mind, admonished by the place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sharp at her utmost ken she cast her eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And somewhat floating from afar descries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It seemed a corpse adrift, to distant sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But at a distance who could judge aright?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It wafted nearer yet, and then she knew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That what before she but surmised was true;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A corpse it was, but whose it was, unknown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet moved, howe'er, she made the case her own;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Took the bad omen of a shipwrecked man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As for a stranger wept, and thus began:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Poor wretch, on stormy seas to lose thy life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unhappy thou, but more thy widowed wife!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this she paused; for now the flowing tide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had brought the body nearer to the side:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more she looks, the more her fears increase<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At nearer sight, and she's herself the less:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now driven ashore, and at her feet it lies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She knows too much, in knowing whom she sees,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her husband's corpse; at this she loudly shrieks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis he, 'tis he, she cries, and tears her cheeks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her hair, her vest; and, stooping to the sands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About his neck she casts her trembling hands.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And is it thus, O dearer than my life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, thus return'st thou to thy longing wife!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She said, and to the neighbouring mole she strode,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raised there to break the incursions of the flood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Headlong from hence to plunge herself she springs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But shoots along supported on her wings;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bird new-made about the banks she plies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not far from shore, and short excursions tries;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor seeks in air her humble flight to raise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Content to skim the surface of the seas;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her bill, though slender, sends a creaking noise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And imitates a lamentable voice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now lighting where the bloodless body lies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She with a funeral note renews her cries.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At all her stretch her little wings she spread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with her feathered arms embraced the dead;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then flickering to his pallid lips, she strove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To print a kiss, the last essay of love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether the vital touch revived the dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or that the moving waters raised his head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To meet the kiss, the vulgar doubt alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For sure a present miracle was shown.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gods their shapes to winter-birds translate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But both obnoxious to their former fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their conjugal affection still is tied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still the mournful race is multiplied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They bill, they tread; Alcyone compressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seven days sits brooding on her floating nest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A wintery queen: her sire at length is kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Calms every storm, and hushes every wind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prepares his empire for his daughter's ease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for his hatching nephews smooths the seas.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AD_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AD_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Ceyx was the son of the Morning Star.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">ÆSACUS<br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">TRANSFORMED INTO A CORMORANT.</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">These some old man sees wanton in the air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And praises the unhappy constant pair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then to his friend the long-necked Cormorant shows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The former tale reviving other woes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That sable bird, he cries, which cuts the flood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With slender legs, was once of royal blood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His ancestors from mighty Tros proceed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The brave Laomedon and Ganymede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose beauty tempted Jove to steal the boy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Priam, hapless prince! who fell with Troy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Himself was Hector's brother, and, had fate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But given this hopeful youth a longer date,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps had rivalled warlike Hector's worth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though on the mother's side of meaner birth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fair Alyxothoé, a country maid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bare Æsacus by stealth in Ida's shade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He fled the noisy town, and pompous court, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Loved the lone hills, and simple rural sport,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And seldom to the city would resort. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Yet he no rustic clownishness profest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor was soft love a stranger to his breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The youth had long the nymph Hesperio wooed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oft through the thicket, or the mead, pursued.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her haply on her father's bank he spied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While fearless she her silver tresses dried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Away she fled; not stags with half such speed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the prowling wolf, scud o'er the mead;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not ducks, when they the safer flood forsake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pursued by hawks, so swift regain the lake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As fast he followed in the hot career;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Desire the lover winged, the virgin fear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A snake unseen now pierced her heedless foot, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Quick through the veins the venomed juices shoot; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">She fell, and 'scaped by death his fierce pursuit.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Her lifeless body, frighted, he embraced,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cried,—Not this I dreaded, but thy haste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O had my love been less, or less thy fear!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The victory thus bought is far too dear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Accursed snake! yet I more cursed than he!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He gave the wound; the cause was given by me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet none shall say, that unrevenged you died.— <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He spoke; then climbed a cliff's o'er-hanging side, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, resolute, leaped on the foaming tide. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Tethys received him gently on the wave;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The death he sought denied, and feathers gave.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Debarred the surest remedy of grief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And forced to live, he curst the unasked relief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then on his airy pinions upward flies, }<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at a second fall successless tries,}<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The downy plume a quick descent denies.}<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enraged, he often dives beneath the wave,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there in vain expects to find a grave.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His ceaseless sorrow for the unhappy maid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Meager'd his look, and on his spirits preyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still near the sounding deep he lives; his name<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From frequent diving and emerging came.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> - - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">TWELFTH BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S METAMORPHOSES,<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">WHOLLY TRANSLATED.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - - -<p class="center">CONNECTION TO THE END OF THE ELEVENTH BOOK.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>Æsacus, the son of Priam, loving a country life, forsakes the court; -living obscurely, he falls in love with a nymph, who, flying from -him, was killed by a serpent; for grief of this, he would have -drowned himself; but, by the pity of the gods, is turned into a -Cormorant. Priam, not hearing of Æsacus, believes him to be -dead, and raises a tomb to preserve his memory. By this transition, -which is one of the finest in all Ovid, the poet naturally -falls into the story of the Trojan war, which is summed up in the -present book; but so very briefly in many places, that Ovid seems -more short than Virgil, contrary to his usual style. Yet the -House of Fame, which is here described, is one of the most beautiful -pieces in the whole Metamorphoses. The fight of Achilles -and Cygnus, and the fray betwixt the Lapithæ and Centaurs, -yield to no other part of this poet; and particularly the loves and -death of Cyllarus and Hylonome, the male and female Centaur, -are wonderfully moving.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Priam, to whom the story was unknown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As dead, deplored his metamorphosed son;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A Cenotaph his name and title kept,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers, wept.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> -<span class="i0">This pious office Paris did not share;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Absent alone, and author of the war,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A thousand ships were manned, to sail the sea; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor had their just resentments found delay, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Had not the winds and waves opposed their way. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">At Aulis, with united powers, they meet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But there, cross winds or calms detained the fleet.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, while they raise an altar on the shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A boding sign the priests and people see:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A snake of size immense ascends a tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the leafy summit spied a nest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, o'er her callow young, a sparrow pressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eight were the birds unfledged; their mother flew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hovered round her care, but still in view;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the fierce reptile first devoured the brood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then seized the fluttering dam, and drank her blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This dire ostent the fearful people view;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Calchas alone, by Phœbus taught, foreknew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What heaven decreed; and, with a smiling glance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But long delays shall first afflict our powers;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nine years of labour the nine birds portend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tenth shall in the town's destruction end.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The serpent, who his maw obscene had filled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The branches in his curled embraces held;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But as in spires he stood, he turned to stone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stony snake retained the figure still his own.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet not for this the wind-bound navy weighed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slack were their sails, and Neptune disobeyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some thought him loth the town should be destroyed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose building had his hands divine employed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not so the seer, who knew, and known foreshowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The virgin Phœbe, with a virgin's blood,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Must first be reconciled; the common cause<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prevailed; and pity yielding to the laws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fair Iphigenia, the devoted maid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was, by the weeping priests, in linen robes arrayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All mourn her fate, but no relief appeared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The royal victim bound, the knife already reared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When that offended Power, who caused their woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Relenting ceased her wrath, and stopped the coming blow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mist before the ministers she cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the virgin's room a hind she placed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The oblation slain, and Phœbe reconciled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The storm was hushed, and dimpled ocean smiled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A favourable gale arose from shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which to the port desired the Grecian gallies bore.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Full in the midst of this created space,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt heaven, earth, and skies, there stands a place<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Confining on all three, with triple bound; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Whence all things, though remote, are viewed around, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And thither bring their undulating sound; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The palace of loud fame; her seat of power,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Placed on the summit of a lofty tower.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thousand winding entries, long and wide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Receive of fresh reports a flowing tide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thousand crannies in the walls are made;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor gate nor bars exclude the busy trade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis built of brass, the better to diffuse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The spreading sounds, and multiply the news;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where echoes in repeated echoes play:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mart for ever full, and open night and day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor silence is within, nor voice express,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But a deaf noise of sounds that never cease;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Confused, and chiding, like the hollow roar<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of tides, receding from the insulted shore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or like the broken thunder, heard from far,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Jove to distance drives the rolling war.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The courts are filled with a tumultuous din<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of crowds, or issuing forth, or entering in;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thorough-fare of news; where some devise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Things never heard; some mingle truth with lies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The troubled air with empty sounds they beat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Intent to hear, and eager to repeat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Error sits brooding there, with added train<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of vain credulity, and joys as vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suspicion, with sedition joined, are near;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rumours raised, and murmurs mixed, and panic fear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fame sits aloft, and sees the subject ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And seas about, and skies above, enquiring all around.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The goddess gives the alarm; and soon is known<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Grecian fleet, descending on the town.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fixed on defence, the Trojans are not slow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To guard their shore from an expected foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They meet in fight; by Hector's fatal hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Protesilaus falls, and bites the strand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which with expence of blood the Grecians won,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And proved the strength unknown of Priam's son;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to their cost the Trojan leaders felt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Grecian heroes, and what deaths they dealt.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From these first onsets, the Sigæan shore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was strewed with carcases, and stained with gore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neptunian Cygnus troops of Greeks had slain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Achilles in his car had scoured the plain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cleared the Trojan ranks; where'er he fought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cygnus, or Hector, through the fields he sought:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cygnus he found; on him his force essayed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Hector was to the tenth year delayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His white-maned steeds, that bowed beneath the yoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He cheered to courage, with a gentle stroke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then urged his fiery chariot on the foe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rising shook his lance, in act to throw.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But first he cried,—O youth, be proud to bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy death, ennobled by Pelides' spear.—<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The lance pursued the voice without delay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor did the whizzing weapon miss the way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But pierced his cuirass, with such fury sent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And signed his bosom with a purple dint.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this the seed of Neptune;—Goddess-born,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For ornament, not use, these arms are worn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This helm, and heavy buckler, I can spare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As only decorations of the war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So Mars is armed, for glory, not for need.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis somewhat more from Neptune to proceed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than from a daughter of the sea to spring;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy sire is mortal; mine is Ocean's king.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure of death, I should contemn thy dart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though naked, and impassible depart.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and threw; the trembling weapon passed <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Through nine bull-hides, each under other placed, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">On his broad shield, and stuck within the last. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Achilles wrenched it out; and sent again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hostile gift; the hostile gift was vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He tried a third, a tough well-chosen spear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The inviolable body stood sincere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though Cygnus then did no defence provide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But scornful offered his unshielded side.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Not otherwise the impatient hero fared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than as a bull, encompassed with a guard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amid the circus roars; provoked from far<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By sight of scarlet, and a sanguine war.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They quit their ground, his bended horns elude,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain pursuing, and in vain pursued.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Before to farther fight he would advance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He stood considering, and surveyed his lance.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doubts if he wielded not a wooden spear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without a point; he looked, the point was there.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is my hand, and this my lance, he said, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">By which so many thousand foes are dead. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">O whither is their usual virtue fled! <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> -<span class="i0">I had it once; and the Lyrnessian wall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Tenedos, confessed it in their fall.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy streams, Caicus, rolled a crimson flood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Thebes ran red with her own natives' blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twice Telephus employed their piercing steel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To wound him first, and afterward to heal.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The vigour of this arm was never vain; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And that my wonted prowess I retain, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Witness these heaps of slaughter on the plain.— <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and, doubtful of his former deeds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To some new trial of his force proceeds.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He chose Menætes from among the rest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At him he lanced his spear, and pierced his breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the hard earth the Lycian knocked his head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lay supine; and forth the spirit fled.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then thus the hero: Neither can I blame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hand, or javelin; both are still the same.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The same I will employ against this foe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wish but with the same success to throw.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So spoke the chief, and while he spoke he threw;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The weapon with unerring fury flew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At his left shoulder aimed; nor entrance found;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But back, as from a rock, with swift rebound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Harmless returned; a bloody mark appeared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which with false joy the flattered hero cheered.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wound there was none; the blood that was in view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lance before from slain Menætes drew.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Headlong he leaps from off his lofty car,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in close fight on foot renews the war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raging with high disdain, repeats his blows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shield nor armour can their force oppose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Huge cantlets of his buckler strew the ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And no defence in his bored arms is found.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But on his flesh no wound or blood is seen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sword itself is blunted on the skin.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> -<span class="i2">This vain attempt the chief no longer bears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But round his hollow temples and his ears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His buckler beats: the son of Neptune, stunned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With these repeated buffets, quits his ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sickly sweat succeeds, and shades of night;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Inverted nature swims before his sight:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The insulting victor presses on the more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And treads the steps the vanquished trod before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor rest, nor respite gives. A stone there lay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behind his trembling foe, and stopped his way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Achilles took the advantage which he found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O'er-turned, and pushed him backward on the ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His buckler held him under, while he pressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With both his knees above, his panting breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unlaced his helm; about his chin the twist<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He tied, and soon the strangled soul dismissed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With eager haste he went to strip the dead;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The vanquished body from his arms was fled.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His sea-god sire, t'immortalize his fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had turned it to the bird that bears his name.<a id="FNanchor_AE_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_AE_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i2">A truce succeeds the labours of this day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And arms suspended with a long delay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While Trojan walls are kept with watch and ward,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Greeks before their trenches mount the guard.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The feast approached; when to the blue-eyed Maid, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His vows for Cygnus slain the victor paid, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And a white heifer on her altar laid. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The reeking entrails on the fire they threw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the gods the grateful odour flew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven had its part in sacrifice; the rest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was broiled and roasted for the future feast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The chief invited guests were set around; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, hunger first assuaged, the bowls were crowned, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Which in deep draughts their cares and labours drowned. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The mellow harp did not their ears employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mute was all the warlike symphony;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Discourse, the food of souls, was their delight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pleasing chat prolonged the summer's night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The subject, deeds of arms; and valour shown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or on the Trojan side, or on their own.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of dangers undertaken, fame atchieved,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They talked by turns, the talk by turns relieved.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What things but these could fierce Achilles tell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or what could fierce Achilles hear so well?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The last great act performed, of Cygnus slain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did most the martial audience entertain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wondering to find a body, free by fate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From steel, and which could even that steel rebate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amazed, their admiration they renew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And scarce Pelides could believe it true.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then Nestor, thus;—What once this age has known,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In fated Cygnus, and in him alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These eyes have seen in Cæneus long before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose body not a thousand swords could bore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cæneus in courage and in strength excelled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still his Othrys with his fame is filled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But what did most his martial deeds adorn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Though, since, he changed his sex,) a woman born.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A novelty so strange, and full of fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His listening audience asked him to relate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Achilles thus commends their common suit:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O father, first for prudence in repute,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tell, with that eloquence so much thy own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What thou hast heard, or what of Cæneus known;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What was he, whence his change of sex begun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What trophies, joined in wars with thee, he won?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who conquered him, and in what fatal strife<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The youth, without a wound, could lose his life?—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Neleides then:—Though tardy age, and time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have shrunk my sinews, and decayed my prime;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though much I have forgotten of my store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet, not exhausted, I remember more.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of all that arms atchieved, or peace designed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That action still is fresher in my mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than aught beside. If reverend age can give<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To faith a sanction, in my third I live.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">'Twas in my second century, I surveyed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Young Cænis, then a fair Thessalian maid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cænis the bright was born to high command;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A princess, and a native of thy land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Divine Achilles; every tongue proclaimed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her beauty, and her eyes all hearts inflamed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Peleus, thy sire, perhaps had sought her bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among the rest; but he had either led<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy mother then, or was by promise tied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But she to him, and all, alike her love denied.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">It was her fortune once, to take her way<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Along the sandy margin of the sea;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Power of Ocean viewed her as she passed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, loved as soon as seen, by force embraced.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So fame reports. Her virgin treasure seized,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his new joys the ravisher so pleased,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That thus, transported, to the nymph he cried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ask what thou wilt, no prayer shall be denied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This also fame relates; the haughty fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who not the rape even of a god could bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This answer, proud, returned;—To mighty wrongs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mighty recompence, of right, belongs.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give me no more to suffer such a shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But change the woman for a better name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One gift for all.—She said, and, while she spoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A stern, majestic, manly tone she took.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A man she was; and, as the Godhead swore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Cæneus turned, who Cænis was before.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To this the lover adds, without request,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No force of steel should violate his breast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glad of the gift, the new-made warrior goes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And arms among the Greeks, and longs for equal foes.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now brave Pirithous, bold Ixion's son,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The love of fair Hippodame had won.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The cloud-begotten race,<a id="FNanchor_AF_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_AF_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> half men, half beast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invited, came to grace the nuptial feast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a cool cave's recess the treat was made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose entrance trees with spreading boughs o'er-shade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They sat; and, summoned by the bridegroom, came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To mix with those, the Lapithæan name:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor wanted I; the roofs with joy resound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Hymen, Iö Hymen, rung around.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raised altars shone with holy fires; the bride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lovely herself (and lovely by her side<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bevy of bright nymphs, with sober grace,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Came glittering like a star, and took her place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her heavenly form beheld, all wished her joy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And little wanted, but in vain their wishes all employ.<a id="FNanchor_AG_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_AG_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i2">For one, most brutal of the brutal blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or whether wine or beauty fired his blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or both at once, beheld with lustful eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bride; at once resolved to make his prize.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down went the board, and, fastening on her hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He seized with sudden force the frighted fair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas Eurytus began; his bestial kind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His crime pursued; and each as pleased his mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or her, whom chance presented, took; the feast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An image of a taken town expressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The cave resounds with female shrieks: we rise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mad with revenge, to make a swift reprise:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Theseus first:—What frenzy has possessed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Eurytus, he cried, thy brutal breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To wrong Pirithous, and not him alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, while I live, two friends conjoined in one?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> -<span class="i2">To justify his threat, he thrusts aside<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The crowd of Centaurs, and redeems the bride.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The monster nought replied; for words were vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And deeds could only deeds unjust maintain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But answers with his hand, and forward pressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With blows redoubled, on his face and breast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An ample goblet stood, of antique mould,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rough with figures of the rising gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hero snatched it up, and tossed in air<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full at the front of the foul ravisher:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He falls, and falling vomits forth a flood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of wine, and foam, and brains, and mingled blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Half roaring, and half neighing through the hall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arms, arms! the double-formed with fury call,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To wreak their brother's death. A medley flight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of bowls and jars, at first, supply the fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once instruments of feasts, but now of fate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wine animates their rage, and arms their hate.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Bold Amycus from the robbed vestry brings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The chalices of heaven, and holy things<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of precious weight; a sconce, that hung on high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With tapers filled, to light the sacristy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Torn from the cord, with his unhallowed hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He threw amid the Lapithæan band.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On Celadon the ruin fell, and left<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His face of feature and of form bereft;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So, when some brawny sacrificer knocks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before an altar led, an offered ox,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eye balls, rooted out, are thrown to ground, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His nose dismantled in his mouth is found, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His jaws, cheeks, front, one undistinguished wound. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">This, Belates, the avenger, could not brook;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, by the foot, a maple-board he took,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hurled at Amycus; his chin is bent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against his chest, and down the Centaur sent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom, sputtering bloody teeth, the second blow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of his drawn sword dispatched to shades below.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Grineus was near; and cast a furious look<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the side-altar, censed with sacred smoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bright with flaming fires; The gods, he cried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have with their holy trade our hands supplied:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why use we not their gifts?—Then from the floor<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An altar-stone he heaved, with all the load it bore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Altar and altar's freight together flew, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Where thickest thronged the Lapithæan crew, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, at once, Broteas and Oryus slew. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Oryus' mother, Mycale, was known<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down from her sphere to draw the labouring moon.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Exadius cried,—Unpunished shall not go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This fact, if arms are found against the foe.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He looked about, where on a pine were spread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The votive horns of a stag's branching head:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At Grineus these he throws; so just they fly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the sharp antlers stuck in either eye.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Breathless and blind he fell; with blood besmeared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eye-balls beaten out hung dangling on his beard.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fierce Rhætus from the hearth a burning brand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Selects, and whirling waves, till from his hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fire took flame; then dashed it from the right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On fair Charaxus' temples, near the sight:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whistling pest came on, and pierced the bone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And caught the yellow hair, that shrivelled while it shone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Caught, like dry stubble fired, or like seerwood; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Yet from the wound ensued no purple flood <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But looked a bubbling mass of frying blood. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His blazing locks sent forth a crackling sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hissed, like red-hot iron within the smithy drowned.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wounded warrior shook his flaming hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then (what a team of horse could hardly rear,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He heaves the threshold-stone, but could not throw;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The weight itself forbad the threatened blow;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Which, dropping from his lifted arms, came down<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full on Cometes' head, and crushed his crown.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Rhætus then retained his joy; but said, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">So by their fellows may our foes be sped.— <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then with redoubled strokes he plies his head: <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The burning lever not deludes his pains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But drives the battered skull within the brains.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus flushed, the conqueror, with force renewed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Evagrus, Dryas, Corythus, pursued.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">First, Corythus, with downy cheeks, he slew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose fall when fierce Evagrus had in view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He cried,—What palm is from a beardless prey?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rhætus prevents what more he had to say;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And drove within his mouth the fiery death,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which entered hissing in, and choked his breath.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At Dryas next he flew; but weary chance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No longer would the same success advance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, while he whirled in fiery circles round <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The brand, a sharpened stake strong Dryas found, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And in the shoulder's joint inflicts the wound. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The weapon struck; which, roaring out with pain, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He drew; nor longer durst the fight maintain, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But turned his back for fear, and fled amain. <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With him fled Orneus, with like dread possessed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thaumas and Medon, wounded in the breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Mermeros, in the late race renowned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now limping ran, and tardy with his wound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pholus and Melaneus from fight withdrew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Abas maimed, who boars encountering slew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And augur Astylos, whose art in vain <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">From fight dissuaded the four-footed train, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Now beat the hoof with Nessus on the plain; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But to his fellow cried, Be safely slow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy death deferred is due to great Alcides' bow.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Meantime, strong Dryas urged his chance so well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Lycidas, Areos, Imbreus fell;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> -<span class="i0">All, one by one, and fighting face to face:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crenæus fled, to fall with more disgrace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, fearful while he looked behind, he bore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt his nose and front, the blow before.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amid the noise and tumult of the fray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Snoring and drunk with wine, Aphidas lay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even then the bowl within his hand he kept,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on a bear's rough hide securely slept.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him Phorbas with his flying dart transfixed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take thy next draught with Stygian waters mixed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sleep thy fill, the insulting victor cried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Surprised with death unfelt, the Centaur died:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ruddy vomit, as he breathed his soul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Repassed his throat, and filled his empty bowl.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I saw Petræus' arms employed around<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A well-grown oak, to root it from the ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This way, and that, he wrenched the fibrous bands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trunk was like a sapling in his hands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still obeyed the bent; while thus he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perithous' dart drove on, and nailed him to the wood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lycus and Chromys fell, by him oppressed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Helops and Dictys added to the rest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A nobler palm: Helops, through either ear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Transfixed, received the penetrating spear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This Dictys saw; and, seized with sudden fright, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Leapt headlong from the hill of steepy height, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And crushed an ash beneath, that could not bear his weight. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The shattered tree receives his fall, and strikes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within his full-blown paunch, the sharpened spikes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strong Aphareus had heaved a mighty stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fragment of a rock, and would have thrown;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Theseus, with a club of hardened oak, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The cubit-bone of the bold Centaur broke, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And left him maimed, nor seconded the stroke; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then leapt on tall Bianor's back; (who bore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No mortal burden but his own, before,)<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Pressed with his knees his sides; the double man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His speed with spurs increased, unwilling ran.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One hand the hero fastened on his locks;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His other plyed him with repeated strokes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The club hung round his ears, and battered brows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He falls; and, lashing up his heels, his rider throws.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The same Herculean arms Nedymnus wound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lay by him Lycotas on the ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Hippasus, whose beard his breast invades;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Ripheus, haunter of the woodland shades;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Tereus, used with mountain-bears to strive;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from their dens to draw the indignant beasts alive.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Demoleon could not bear this hateful sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or the long fortune of the Athenian knight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But pulled with all his force, to disengage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From earth a pine, the product of an age:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The root stuck fast: the broken trunk he sent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At Theseus: Theseus frustrates his intent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And leaps aside, by Pallas warned, the blow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To shun: (for so he said; and we believed it so.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet not in vain the enormous weight was cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which Crantor's body sundered at the waist:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy father's squire, Achilles, and his care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom, conquered in the Dolopeian war,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their king, his present ruin to prevent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A pledge of peace implored, to Peleus sent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy sire, with grieving eyes, beheld his fate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cried, Not long, loved Crantor, shalt thou wait<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy vowed revenge.—At once he said, and threw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His ashen-spear, which quivered as it flew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all his force and all his soul applied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sharp point entered in the Centaur's side:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both hands, to wrench it out, the monster joined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wrenched it out, but left the steel behind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stuck in his lungs it stood; enraged he rears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His hoofs, and down to ground thy father bears.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thus trampled under foot, his shield defends<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His head; his other hand the lance portends.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even while he lay extended on the dust,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sped the Centaur, with one single thrust.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two more his lance before transfixed from far,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And two his sword had slain in closer war.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To these was added Dorylas; who spread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bull's two goring horns around his head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With these he pushed; in blood already dyed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him, fearless, I approached, and thus defied;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, monster, now, by proof it shall appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether thy horns are sharper, or my spear.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At this, I threw; for want of other ward,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He lifted up his hand, his front to guard.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His hand it passed, and fixed it to his brow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loud shouts of ours attend the lucky blow:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him Peleus finished, with a second wound, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Which through the navel pierced; he reeled around, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And dragged his dangling bowels on the ground; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Trod what he dragged, and what he trod he crushed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to his mother-earth, with empty belly, rushed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor could thy form, O Cyllarus, foreshow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy fate, if form to monsters men allow:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just bloomed thy beard, thy beard of golden hue;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy locks, in golden waves, about thy shoulders flew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sprightly thy look; thy shapes in every part<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So clean, as might instruct the sculptor's art,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As far as man extended; where began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The beast, the beast was equal to the man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Add but a horse's head and neck, and he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Castor, was a courser worthy thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So was his back proportioned for the seat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So rose his brawny chest; so swiftly moved his feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coal-black his colour, but like jet it shone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His legs and flowing tail were white alone.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Beloved by many maidens of his kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But fair Hylonome possessed his mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hylonome, for features, and for face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Excelling all the nymphs of double race.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor less her blandishments, than beauty, move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At once both loving, and confessing love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For him she dressed; for him with female care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She combed, and set in curls, her auburn hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of roses, violets, and lilies mixed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sprigs of flowing rosemary betwixt,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She formed the chaplet, that adorned her front;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In waters of the Pegasæan fount,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the streams that from the fountain play,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She washed her face, and bathed her twice a day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The scarf of furs, that hung below her side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was ermine, or the panther's spotted pride;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spoils of no common beast. With equal flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They loved; their sylvan pleasures were the same:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All day they hunted; and, when day expired,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Together to some shady cave retired.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invited, to the nuptials both repair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, side by side, they both engage in war.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Uncertain from what hand, a flying dart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At Cyllarus was sent, which pierced his heart.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The javelin drawn from out the mortal wound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He faints with staggering steps, and seeks the ground:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fair within her arms received his fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And strove his wandering spirits to recal;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And while her hand the streaming blood opposed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Joined face to face, his lips with hers she closed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stifled with kisses, a sweet death he dies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She fills the fields with undistinguished cries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At least her words were in her clamour drowned;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For my stunned ears received no vocal sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In madness of her grief, she seized the dart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New-drawn, and reeking from her lover's heart;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> -<span class="i0">To her bare bosom the sharp point applied, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And wounded fell; and, falling by his side <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Embraced him in her arms, and thus embracing died. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Even still, methinks, I see Phæocomes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strange was his habit, and as odd his dress.<a id="FNanchor_AH_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_AH_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Six lions hides, with thongs together fast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His upper part defended to his waist;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And where man ended, the continued vest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spread on his back, the houss and trappings of a beast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A stump too heavy for a team to draw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(It seems a fable, though the fact I saw,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He threw at Pholon; the descending blow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Divides the skull, and cleaves his head in two.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The brains, from nose and mouth, and either ear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Came issuing out, as through a colendar<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The curdled milk; or from the press the whey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Driven down by weights above, is drained away.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But him, while stooping down to spoil the slain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pierced through the paunch, I tumbled on the plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Chthonius and Teleboas I slew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A fork the former armed; a dart his fellow threw:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The javelin wounded me; behold the scar.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then was my time to seek the Trojan war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then I was Hector's match in open field;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he was then unborn, at least a child;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, I am nothing. I forbear to tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By Periphantes how Pyretus fell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Centaur by the Knight; nor will I stay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On Amphix, or what deaths he dealt that day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What honour, with a pointless lance, he won,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stuck in the front of a four-footed man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What fame young Macareus obtained in fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or dwell on Nessus, now returned from flight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How prophet Mopsus not alone divined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose valour equalled his foreseeing mind.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Already Cæneus, with his conquering hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had slaughtered five, the boldest of their band;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pyrachmus, Helymus, Antimachus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bromus the brave, and stronger Stiphelus;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their names I numbered, and remember well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No trace remaining, by what wounds they fell.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Latreus, the bulkiest of the double race,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom the spoiled arms of slain Halesus grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In years retaining still his youthful might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though his black hairs were interspersed with white,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt the embattled ranks began to prance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Proud of his helm, and Macedonian lance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rode the ring around, that either host<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might hear him, while he made this empty boast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from a strumpet shall we suffer shame?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Cænis still, not Cæneus, is thy name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still the native softness of thy kind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prevails, and leaves the woman in thy mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Remember what thou wert; what price was paid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To change thy sex, to make thee not a maid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And but a man in show; go card and spin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And leave the business of the war to men.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">While thus the boaster exercised his pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fatal spear of Cæneus reached his side;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just in the mixture of the kinds it ran,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt the nether breast and upper man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The monster, mad with rage, and stung with smart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His lance directed at the hero's heart:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It strook; but bounded from his hardened breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like hail from tiles, which the safe house invest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor seemed the stroke with more effect to come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than a small pebble falling on a drum.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He next his faulchion tried, in closer fight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the keen faulchion had no power to bite.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He thrust; the blunted point returned again:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since downright blows, he cried, and thrusts are vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I'll prove his side;—in strong embraces held,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He proved his side; his side the sword repelled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His hollow belly echoed to the stroke: <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Untouched his body, as a solid rock; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Aimed at his neck at last, the blade in shivers broke. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">The impassive knight stood idle, to deride <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His rage, and offered oft his naked side; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">At length, Now, monster, in thy turn, he cried, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Try thou the strength of Cæneus:—at the word<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He thrust; and in his shoulder plunged the sword.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then writhed his hand; and, as he drove it down<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep in his breast, made many wounds in one.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Centaurs saw, enraged, the unhoped<a id="FNanchor_AI_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_AI_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> success,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, rushing on in crowds, together press.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At him, and him alone, their darts they threw;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Repulsed they from his fated body flew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amazed they stood; till Monychus began,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O shame, a nation conquered by a man!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A woman-man; yet more a man is he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than all our race; and what he was, are we.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, what avail our nerves? the united force<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of two the strongest creatures, man and horse?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor goddess-born, nor of Ixion's seed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We seem, (a lover built for Juno's bed,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mastered by this half man. Whole mountains throw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With woods at once, and bury him below.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This only way remains. Nor need we doubt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To choke the soul within, though not to force it out.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Heap weights, instead of wounds:—he chanced to see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where southern storms had rooted up a tree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This, raised from earth, against the foe he threw;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The example shewn, his fellow-brutes pursue.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With forest-loads the warrior they invade; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Othrys and Pelion soon were void of shade, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And spreading groves were naked mountains made. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Pressed with the burden, Cæneus pants for breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on his shoulders bears the wooden death.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To heave the intolerable weight he tries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length it rose above his mouth and eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet still he heaves; and, struggling with despair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shakes all aside, and gains a gulp of air;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A short relief, which but prolongs his pain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He faints by fits, and then respires again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last, the burden only nods above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As when an earthquake stirs the Idæan grove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doubtful his death; he suffocated seemed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To most; but otherwise our Mopsus deemed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who said he saw a yellow bird arise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From out the pile, and cleave the liquid skies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw it too, with golden feathers bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor e'er before beheld so strange a sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom Mopsus viewing, as it soared around<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our troop, and heard the pinions' rattling sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All hail, he cried, thy country's grace and love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once first of men below, now first of birds above!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its author to the story gave belief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For us, our courage was increased by grief:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ashamed to see a single man, pursued<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With odds, to sink beneath a multitude,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We pushed the foe, and forced to shameful flight:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Part fell, and part escaped by favour of the night.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This tale, by Nestor told, did much displease<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tlepolemus, the seed of Hercules;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For often he had heard his father say, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">That he himself was present at the fray, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And more than shared the glories of the day. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Old Chronicle, he said, among the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You might have named Alcides at the least;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is he not worth your praise?—The Pylian prince<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sighed ere he spoke, then made this proud defence:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My former woes, in long oblivion drowned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I would have lost, but you renew the wound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Better to pass him o'er, than to relate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cause I have your mighty sire to hate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His fame has filled the world, and reached the sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, oh, I wish with truth I could deny!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We praise not Hector, though his name we know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is great in arms; 'tis hard to praise a foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He, your great father, levelled to the ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Messenia's towers; nor better fortune found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Elis, and Pylas; that, a neighbouring state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this, my own; both guiltless of their fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pass the rest, twelve, wanting one, he slew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My brethren, who their birth from Neleus drew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All youths of early promise, had they lived;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By him they perished; I alone survived.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rest were easy conquest; but the fate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Periclymenos is wonderous to relate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To him our common grandsire of the main<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had given to change his form, and, changed, resume again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Varied at pleasure, every shape he tried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in all beasts Alcides still defied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vanquished on earth, at length he soared above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Changed to the bird, that bears the bolt of Jove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The new dissembled eagle, now endued<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With peak and pounces, Hercules pursued,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cuffed his manly cheeks, and tore his face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, safe retired, and towered in empty space.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Alcides bore not long his flying foe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, bending his inevitable bow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reached him in air, suspended as he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his pinion fixed the feathered wood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Light was the wound; but in the sinew hung<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The point, and his disabled wing unstrung.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wheeled in air, and stretched his vans in vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His vans no longer could his flight sustain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, while one gathered wind, one unsupplied<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hung drooping down, nor poised his other side.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He fell; the shaft, that slightly was impressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now from his heavy fall with weight increased,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drove through his neck aslant; he spurns the ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the soul issues through the weazon's wound.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now, brave commander of the Rhodian seas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What praise is due from me to Hercules?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Silence is all the vengeance I decree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For my slain brothers; but 'tis peace with thee.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus with a flowing tongue old Nestor spoke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, to full bowls each other they provoke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length, with weariness and wine oppressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They rise from table, and withdraw to rest.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The sire of Cygnus, monarch of the main, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Meantime laments his son in battle slain; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And vows the victor's death, nor vows in vain. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For nine long years the smothered pain he bore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Achilles was not ripe for fate before;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then when he saw the promised hour was near,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He thus bespoke the god, that guides the year:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Immortal offspring of my brother Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My brightest nephew, and whom best I love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose hands were joined with mine, to raise the wall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of tottering Troy, now nodding to her fall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dost thou not mourn our power employed in vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the defenders of our city slain?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pass the rest, could noble Hector lie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unpitied, dragged around his native Troy?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And yet the murderer lives; himself by far<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A greater plague, than all the wasteful war:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He lives; the proud Pelides lives, to boast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our town destroyed, our common labour lost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O could I meet him! But I wish too late,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To prove my trident is not in his fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But let him try (for that's allowed) thy dart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pierce his only penetrable part.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Apollo bows to the superior throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to his uncle's anger adds his own;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, in a cloud involved, he takes his flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where Greeks and Trojans mixed in mortal fight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And found out Paris, lurking where he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stained his arrows with plebeian blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Phœbus to him alone the god confessed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then to the recreant knight he thus addressed:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dost thou not blush, to spend thy shafts in vain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On a degenerate and ignoble train?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If fame, or better vengeance, be thy care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There aim, and with one arrow end the war.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He said; and shewed from far the blazing shield <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And sword, which but Achilles none could wield; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And how he moved a god, and mowed the standing field. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The deity himself directs aright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The envenomed shaft, and wings the fatal flight.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus fell the foremost of the Grecian name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he, the base adulterer, boasts the fame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A spectacle to glad the Trojan train,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And please old Priam, after Hector slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If by a female hand he had foreseen <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He was to die, his wish had rather been <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The lance and double axe of the fair warrior queen. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And now, the terror of the Trojan field,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Grecian honour, ornament, and shield,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> -<span class="i0">High on a pile, the unconquered chief is placed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The god,<a id="FNanchor_AJ_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_AJ_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> that armed him first, consumed at last.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all the mighty man, the small remains<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A little urn, and scarcely filled, contains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet, great in Homer, still Achilles lives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, equal to himself, himself survives.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His buckler owns its former lord, and brings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New cause of strife betwixt contending kings;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who worthiest, after him, his sword to wield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or wear his armour, or sustain his shield.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even Diomede sat mute, with downcast eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Conscious of wanted worth to win the prize;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Menelaus presumed these arms to claim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor he the king of men, a greater name.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two rivals only rose; Laertes' son,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the vast bulk of Ajax Telamon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The king, who cherished each with equal love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from himself all envy would remove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Left both to be determined by the laws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the Grecian chiefs transferred the cause.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AE_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AE_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The swan.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AF_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AF_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The Centaurs, a people of Thessaly, said to be begotten by -Ixion, on the cloud which he took for Juno.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AG_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AG_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> -</p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">——<i>Felicem diximus illa</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Conjuge Pirithoum: quod pæne fefellimus omen.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -<p> -The translation is somewhat obscure; it means, "All wished -her joy, and it had nearly happened that all had wished it in vain."</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AH_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AH_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> The <i>dress</i> seems to apply to the clothing of the Centaur's -human part, the <i>habit</i> to the furniture of the horse; perhaps, however, -<i>habit</i> means his mode of life.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AI_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AI_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>Unhoped</i> for <i>unexpected</i>. See note on "death unhoped," in -the fable of the Cock and the Fox, Vol. XI.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AJ_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AJ_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Vulcan, the god of fire.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -SPEECHES<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">AJAX AND ULYSSES:</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM THE THIRTEENTH BOOK Of</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The chiefs were set, the soldiers crowned the field;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To these the master of the sevenfold shield<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upstarted fierce; and, kindled with disdain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eager to speak, unable to contain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His boiling rage, he rolled his eyes around<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shore, and Grecian gallies hauled a-ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then stretching out his hands, O Jove, he cried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must then our cause before the fleet be tried?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And dares Ulysses for the prize contend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sight of what he durst not once defend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But basely fled, that memorable day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When I from Hector's hands redeemed the flaming prey?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So much 'tis safer at the noisy bar<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With words to flourish, than engage in war.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> -<span class="i0">By different methods we maintained our right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor am I made to talk, nor he to fight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In bloody fields I labour to be great;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His arms are a smooth tongue, and soft deceit.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor need I speak my deeds, for those you see;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sun and day are witnesses for me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let him, who fights unseen, relate his own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And vouch the silent stars, and conscious moon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great is the prize demanded, I confess,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But such an abject rival makes it less.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That gift, those honours, he but hoped to gain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can leave no room for Ajax to be vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Losing he wins, because his name will be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ennobled by defeat, who durst contend with me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were mine own valour questioned, yet my blood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without that plea would make my title good;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My sire was Telamon, whose arms, employed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With Hercules, these Trojan walls destroyed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And who before, with Jason, sent from Greece,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the first ship brought home the golden fleece:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great Telamon from Æacus derives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His birth: (the inquisitor of guilty lives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In shades below; where Sisyphus, whose son<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This thief is thought, rolls up the restless heavy stone.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just Æacus the king of gods above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Begot; thus Ajax is the third from Jove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor should I seek advantage from my line,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless, Achilles, it were mixed with thine:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As next of kin Achilles' arms I claim;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This fellow would ingraft a foreign name<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon our stock, and the Sisyphian seed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By fraud and theft asserts his father's breed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then must I lose these arms, because I came<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To fight uncalled, a voluntary name?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shunned the cause, but offered you my aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While he, long lurking, was to war betrayed:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Forced to the field he came, but in the rear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And feigned distraction, to conceal his fear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till one more cunning caught him in the snare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ill for himself, and dragged him into war.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now let a hero's arms a coward vest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he, who shunned all honours, gain the best;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let me stand excluded from my right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Robbed of my kinsman's arms, who first appeared in fight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Better for us at home he had remained,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had it been true the madness which he feigned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or so believed; the less had been our shame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The less his counselled crime, which brands the Grecian name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Philoctetes had been left inclosed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a bare isle, to wants and pains exposed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where to the rocks, with solitary groans,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His sufferings and our baseness he bemoans,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wishes (so may heaven his wish fulfil!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The due reward to him who caused his ill.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now he, with us to Troy's destruction sworn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our brother of the war, by whom are borne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alcides' arrows, pent in narrow bounds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With cold and hunger pinched, and pained with wounds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To find him food and clothing, must employ<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the birds the shafts due to the fate of Troy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet still he lives, and lives from treason free,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because he left Ulysses' company;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Poor Palamede might wish, so void of aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rather to have been left, than so to death betrayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The coward bore the man immortal spite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who shamed him out of madness into fight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor daring otherwise to vent his hate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Accused him first of treason to the state;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then, for proof, produced the golden store<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Himself had hidden in his tent before.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thus of two champions he deprived our host,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By exile one, and one by treason lost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus fights Ulysses, thus his fame extends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A formidable man, but to his friends;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great, for what greatness is in words and sound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even faithful Nestor less in both is found;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, that he might without a rival reign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He left his faithful Nestor on the plain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forsook his friend even at his utmost need,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, tired, and tardy with his wounded steed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cried out for aid, and called him by his name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But cowardice has neither ears nor shame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus fled the good old man, bereft of aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, for as much as lay in him, betrayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That this is not a fable forged by me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like one of his, an Ulyssean lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I vouch even Diomede, who, though his friend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cannot that act excuse, much less defend:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He called him back aloud, and taxed his fear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sure enough he heard, but durst not hear.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The gods with equal eyes on mortals look;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He justly was forsaken, who forsook;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wanted that succour he refused to lend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Found every fellow such another friend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No wonder if he roared, that all might hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His elocution was increased by fear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I heard, I ran, I found him out of breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pale, trembling, and half-dead with fear of death.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though he had judged himself by his own laws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stood condemned, I helped the common cause:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With my broad buckler hid him from the foe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Even the shield trembled as he lay below,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from impending fate the coward freed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Good heaven forgive me for so bad a deed!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If still he will persist, and urge the strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">First let him give me back his forfeit life;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Let him return to that opprobrious field,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Again creep under my protecting shield;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let him lie wounded, let the foe be near,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let his quivering heart confess his fear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There put him in the very jaws of fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let him plead his cause in that estate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet, when snatched from death, when from below<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My lifted shield I loosed, and let him go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Good heavens, how light he rose! with what a bound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sprung from earth, forgetful of his wound!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How fresh, how eager then his feet to ply!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who had not strength to stand, had speed to fly!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hector came on, and brought the gods along;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fear seized alike the feeble and the strong;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each Greek was an Ulysses; such a dread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The approach, and even the sound, of Hector bred;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him, fleshed with slaughter, and with conquest crowned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I met, and overturned him to the ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When after, matchless as he deemed in might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He challenged all our host to single fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All eyes were fixed on me; the lots were thrown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But for your champion I was wished alone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your vows were heard; we fought, and neither yield;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet I returned unvanquished from the field.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With Jove to friend, the insulting Trojan came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And menaced us with force, our fleet with flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was it the strength of this tongue-valiant lord,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In that black hour, that saved you from the sword?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or was my breast exposed alone, to brave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thousand swords, a thousand ships to save,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hopes of your return? and can you yield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For a saved fleet, less than a single shield?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think it no boast, O Grecians, if I deem<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These arms want Ajax, more than Ajax them;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Or, I with them an equal honour share;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They, honoured to be worn, and I, to wear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will he compare my courage with his slight?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As well he may compare the day with night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Night is indeed the province of his reign;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Yet all his dark exploits no more contain <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Than a spy taken, and a sleeper slain; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A priest made prisoner, Pallas made a prey; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But none of all these actions done by day; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor aught of these was done, and Diomede away.<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">If on such petty merits you confer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So vast a prize, let each his portion share;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make a just dividend; and, if not all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The greater part to Diomede will fall.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But why for Ithacus such arms as those,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who naked, and by night, invades his foes?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The glittering helm by moonlight will proclaim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The latent robber, and prevent his game;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor could he hold his tottering head upright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath that motion, or sustain the weight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor that right arm could toss the beamy lance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Much less the left that ampler shield advance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ponderous with precious weight, and rough with cost<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the round world in rising gold embossed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That orb would ill become his hand to wield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And look, as for the gold he stole the shield;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which should your error on the wretch bestow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It would not frighten, but allure the foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why asks he what avails him not in fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And would but cumber and retard his flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which his only excellence is placed?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You give him death, that intercept his haste.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Add, that his own is yet a maiden-shield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor the least dint has suffered in the field,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Guiltless of fight; mine, battered, hewed, and bored,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Worn out of service, must forsake his lord.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> -<span class="i0">What farther need of words our right to scan?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My arguments are deeds, let action speak the man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since from a champion's arms the strife arose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So cast the glorious prize amid the foes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then send us to redeem both arms and shield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let him wear, who wins them in the field.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He said:—A murmur from the multitude,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or somewhat like a stifled shout, ensued;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till from his seat arose Laertes' son,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Looked down a while, and paused ere he begun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then to the expecting audience raised his look,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And not without prepared attention spoke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Soft was his tone, and sober was his face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Action his words, and words his action grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">If heaven, my lords, had heard our common prayer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These arms had caused no quarrel for an heir;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still great Achilles had his own possessed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we with great Achilles had been blessed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But since hard fate, and heaven's severe decree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have ravished him away from you and me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(At this he sighed, and wiped his eyes, and drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or seemed to draw, some drops of kindly dew,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who better can succeed Achilles lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than he who gave Achilles to your host?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This only I request, that neither he<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May gain, by being what he seems to be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A stupid thing, nor I may lose the prize,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By having sense, which heaven to him denies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since, great or small, the talent I enjoyed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was ever in the common cause employed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor let my wit, and wonted eloquence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which often has been used in your defence<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in my own, this only time be brought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To bear against myself, and deemed a fault.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make not a crime, where nature made it none;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For every man may freely use his own.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The deeds of long descended ancestors<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are but by grace of imputation ours,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Theirs in effect; but since he draws his line<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Jove, and seems to plead a right divine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Jove, like him, I claim my pedigree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And am descended in the same degree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My sire Laertes, was Arcesius' heir,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arcesius was the son of Jupiter;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No parricide, no banished man, is known<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all my line; let him excuse his own.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hermes ennobles too my mother's side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By both my parents to the gods allied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But not because that on the female part<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My blood is better, dare I claim desert,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or that my sire from parricide is free;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But judge by merit betwixt him and me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The prize be to the best; provided yet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Ajax for a while his kin forget,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his great sire, and greater uncle's name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To fortify by them his feeble claim.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be kindred and relation laid aside,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And honour's cause by laws of honour tried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, if he plead proximity of blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That empty title is with ease withstood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Peleus, the hero's sire, more nigh than he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Pyrrhus, his undoubted progeny,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Inherit first these trophies of the field;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Scyros, or to Phthia, send the shield:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Teucer has an uncle's right, yet he<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Waves his pretensions, nor contends with me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then, since the cause on pure desert is placed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whence shall I take my rise, what reckon last?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I not presume on every act to dwell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But take these few, in order as they fell.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thetis, who knew the fates, applied her care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To keep Achilles in disguise from war;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And, till the threatening influence were past,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A woman's habit on the hero cast:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All eyes were cozened by the borrowed vest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Ajax (never wiser than the rest)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Found no Pelides there: At length I came<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With proffered wares to this pretended dame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She, not discovered by her mien or voice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betrayed her manhood by her manly choice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, while on female toys her fellows look, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Grasped in her warlike hand, a javelin shook; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Whom, by this act revealed, I thus bespoke:—<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">O goddess-born! resist not heaven's decree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fall of Ilium is reserved for thee;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then seized him, and, produced in open light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sent blushing to the field the fatal knight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mine then are all his actions of the war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great Telephus was conquered by my spear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And after cured; to me the Thebans owe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lesbos and Tenedos, their overthrow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scyros and Cylla; not on all to dwell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By me Lyrnessus and strong Chrysa fell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, since I sent the man who Hector slew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To me the noble Hector's death is due.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those arms I put into his living hand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those arms, Pelides dead, I now demand.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When Greece was injured in the Spartan prince,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And met at Aulis to revenge the offence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twas a dead calm, or adverse blasts, that reigned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the port the wind-bound fleet detained:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bad signs were seen, and oracles severe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were daily thundered in our general's ear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That by his daughter's blood we must appease<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Diana's kindled wrath, and free the seas.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Affection, interest, fame, his heart assailed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But soon the father o'er the king prevailed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bold, on himself he took the pious crime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As angry with the gods as they with him.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> -<span class="i0">No subject could sustain their sovereign's look,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till this hard enterprize I undertook;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I only durst the imperial power controul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And undermined the parent in his soul;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forced him to exert the king for common good,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pay our ransom with his daughter's blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Never was cause more difficult to plead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than where the judge against himself decreed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet this I won by dint of argument. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The wrongs his injured brother underwent, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And his own office, shamed him to consent.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">'Twas harder yet to move the mother's mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to this heavy task was I designed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reasons against her love I knew were vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I circumvented whom I could not gain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had Ajax been employed, our slackened sails<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had still at Aulis waited happy gales.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Arrived at Troy, your choice was fixed on me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A fearless envoy, fit for a bold embassy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure, I entered through the hostile court,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glittering with steel, and crowded with resort:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There, in the midst of arms, I plead our cause,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Urge the foul rape, and violated laws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Accuse the foes as authors of the strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reproach the ravisher, demand the wife.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Priam, Antenor, and the wiser few,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I moved; but Paris and his lawless crew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scarce held their hands, and lifted swords; but stood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In act to quench their impious thirst of blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This Menelaus knows; exposed to share<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With me the rough preludium of the war.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Endless it were to tell what I have done,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In arms, or counsel, since the siege begun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The first encounters past, the foe repelled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They skulked within the town, we kept the field.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">War seemed asleep for nine long years; at length,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both sides resolved to push, we tried our strength.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Now what did Ajax while our arms took breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Versed only in the gross mechanic trade of death?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If you require my deeds, with ambushed arms<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I trapped the foe, or tired with false alarms;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secured the ships, drew lines along the plain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fainting cheered, chastised the rebel-train,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Provided forage, our spent arms renewed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Employed at home, or sent abroad, the common cause pursued.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The king, deluded in a dream by Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Despaired to take the town, and ordered to remove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What subject durst arraign the power supreme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Producing Jove to justify his dream?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ajax might wish the soldiers to retain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From shameful flight, but wishes were in vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As wanting of effect had been his words,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such as of course his thundering tongue affords.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But did this boaster threaten, did he pray,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or by his own example urge their stay? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">None, none of these, but ran himself away. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I saw him run, and was ashamed to see;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who plied his feet so fast to get aboard as he?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then speeding through the place, I made a stand,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And loudly cried,—O base degenerate band, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To leave a town already in your hand! <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">After so long expence of blood, for fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To bring home nothing but perpetual shame!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These words, or what I have forgotten since,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For grief inspired me then with eloquence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reduced their minds; they leave the crowded port,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to their late forsaken camp resort.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dismayed the council met; this man was there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But mute, and not recovered of his fear:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thersites taxed the king, and loudly railed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But his wide opening mouth with blows I sealed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, rising, I excite their souls to fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And kindle sleeping virtue into flame.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> -<span class="i0">From thence, whatever he performed in fight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is justly mine, who drew him back from flight.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which of the Grecian chiefs consorts with thee? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But Diomede desires my company, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And still communicates his praise with me. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">As guided by a god, secure he goes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Armed with my fellowship, amid the foes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sure no little merit I may boast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom such a man selects from such an host.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unforced by lots, I went without affright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To dare with him the dangers of the night;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the same errand sent, we met the spy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Hector, double-tongued, and used to lie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him I dispatched, but not till, undermined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I drew him first to tell what treacherous Troy designed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My task performed, with praise I had retired,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, not content with this, to greater praise aspired;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invaded Rhœsus, and his Thracian crew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And him, and his, in their own strength, I slew:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Returned a victor, all my vows complete,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the king's chariot, in his royal seat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Refuse me now his arms, whose fiery steeds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were promised to the spy for his nocturnal deeds;<a id="FNanchor_AK_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_AK_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let dull Ajax bear away my right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When all his days outbalance this one night.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor fought I darkling still; the sun beheld<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With slaughtered Lycians when I strewed the field:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You saw, and counted as I passed along,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alastor, Cromius, Ceranos the strong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alcander, Prytanis, and Halius,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Noemon, Charopes, and Ennomus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Choon, Chersidamas, and five beside,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Men of obscure descent, but courage tried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All these this hand laid breathless on the ground.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor want I proofs of many a manly wound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All honest, all before; believe not me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Words may deceive, but credit what you see.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At this he bared his breast, and showed his scars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As of a furrowed field, well ploughed with wars;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor is this part unexercised, said he;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That giant bulk of his from wounds is free;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Safe in his shield he fears no foe to try,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And better manages his blood than I.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But this avails me not; our boaster strove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not with our foes alone, but partial Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To save the fleet. This I confess is true,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor will I take from any man his due; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But, thus assuming all, he robs from you. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Some part of honour to your share will fall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He did the best indeed, but did not all.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Patroclus in Achilles' arms, and thought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The chief he seemed, with equal ardour fought;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Preserved the fleet, repelled the raging fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And forced the fearful Trojans to retire.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But Ajax boasts, that he was only thought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A match for Hector, who the combat sought:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sure he forgets the king, the chiefs, and me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All were as eager for the fight as he;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He but the ninth, and, not by public voice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or ours preferred, was only fortune's choice:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They fought; nor can our hero boast the event,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Hector from the field unwounded went.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Why am I forced to name that fatal day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That snatched the prop and pride of Greece away?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw Pelides sink, with pious grief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ran in vain, alas! to his relief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the brave soul was fled; full of my friend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I rushed amid the war, his relics to defend;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor ceased my toil till I redeemed the prey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, loaded with Achilles, marched away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those arms, which on these shoulders then I bore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis just you to these shoulders should restore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You see I want not nerves, who could sustain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ponderous ruins of so great a man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or if in others equal force you find,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">None is endued with a more grateful mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Did Thetis then, ambitious in her care, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">These arms, thus laboured, for her son prepare, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">That Ajax after him the heavenly gift should wear?<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For that dull soul to stare, with stupid eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the learned unintelligible prize?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What are to him the sculptures of the shield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven's planets, earth, and ocean's watery field?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Pleiads, Hyads; Less, and Greater Bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Undipped in seas; Orion's angry star;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two differing cities, graved on either hand?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would he wear arms he cannot understand?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beside, what wise objections he prepares<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against my late accession to the wars!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Does not the fool perceive his argument<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is with more force against Achilles bent?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, if dissembling be so great a crime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fault is common, and the same in him;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if he taxes both of long delay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My guilt is less, who sooner came away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His pious mother, anxious for his life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Detained her son; and me, my pious wife.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To them the blossoms of our youth were due;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our riper manhood we reserved for you.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But grant me guilty, 'tis not much my care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When with so great a man my guilt I share;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My wit to war the matchless hero brought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But by this fool he never had been caught.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Nor need I wonder, that on me he threw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such foul aspersions, when he spares not you:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If Palamede unjustly fell by me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your honour suffered in the unjust decree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I but accused, you doomed; and yet he died,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Convinced of treason, and was fairly tried.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You heard not he was false; your eyes beheld<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The traitor manifest, the bribe revealed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That Philoctetes is on Lemnos left,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wounded, forlorn, of human aid bereft,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is not my crime, or not my crime alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Defend your justice, for the fact's your own.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis true, the advice was mine; that, staying there,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He might his weary limbs with rest repair, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">From a long voyage free, and from a longer war. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He took the counsel, and he lives at least;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The event declares I counselled for the best;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though faith is all in ministers of state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For who can promise to be fortunate?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now since his arrows are the fate of Troy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do not my wit, or weak address, employ;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Send Ajax there, with his persuasive sense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To mollify the man, and draw him thence:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Xanthus shall run backward; Ida stand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A leafless mountain; and the Grecian band<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall fight for Troy; if, when my counsels fail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wit of heavy Ajax can prevail.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hard Philoctetes, exercise thy spleen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against thy fellows, and the king of men;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curse my devoted head, above the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wish in arms to meet me, breast to breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet I the dangerous task will undertake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And either die myself, or bring thee back.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor doubt the same success, as when, before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Phrygian prophet to these tents I bore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Surprised by night, and forced him to declare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In what was placed the fortune of the war;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven's dark decrees and answers to display,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And how to take the town, and where the secret lay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet this I compassed, and from Troy conveyed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fatal image of their guardian Maid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That work was mine; for Pallas, though our friend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet while she was in Troy, did Troy defend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now what has Ajax done, or what designed?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A noisy nothing, and an empty wind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If he be what he promises in show,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why was I sent, and why feared he to go?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our boasting champion thought the task not light<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pass the guards, commit himself to night;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not only through a hostile town to pass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But scale, with deep ascent, the sacred place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With wandering steps to search the citadel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the priests their patroness to steal;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then through surrounding foes to force my way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bear in triumph home the heavenly prey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which had I not, Ajax in vain had held<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before that monstrous bulk his sevenfold shield.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That night to conquer Troy I might be said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Troy was liable to conquest made.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Why point'st thou to my partner of the war?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tydides had indeed a worthy share<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all my toil, and praise; but when thy might<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our ships protected, didst thou singly fight?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All joined, and thou of many wert but one;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I asked no friend, nor had, but him alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, had he not been well assured, that art<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And conduct were of war the better part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And more availed than strength, my valiant friend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had urged a better right, than Ajax can pretend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As good, at least, Eurypylus may claim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the more moderate Ajax of the name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Cretan king, and his brave charioteer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Menelaus, bold with sword and spear:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> -<span class="i0">All these had been my rivals in the shield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet all these to my pretensions yield.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy boisterous hands are then of use, when I<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With this directing head those hands apply.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brawn without brain is thine; my prudent care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Foresees, provides, administers the war:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy province is to fight; but when shall be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The time to fight, the king consults with me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No drachm of judgment with thy force is joined;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy body is of profit, and my mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, how much more the ship her safety owes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To him who steers, than him that only rows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By how much more the captain merits praise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than he who fights, and, fighting, but obeys;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By so much greater is my worth than thine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who canst but execute what I design.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What gain'st thou, brutal man, if I confess<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy strength superior, when thy wit is less?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mind is the man; I claim my whole desert<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the mind's vigour, and the immortal part.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But you, O Grecian chiefs, reward my care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be grateful to your watchman of the war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all my labours in so long a space,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sure I may plead a title to your grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enter the town; I then unbarred the gates,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When I removed their tutelary fates.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By all our common hopes, if hopes they be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which I have now reduced to certainty;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By falling Troy, by yonder tottering towers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by their taken gods, which now are ours;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or, if there yet a farther task remains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To be performed by prudence or by pains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If yet some desperate action rests behind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That asks high conduct, and a dauntless mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If aught be wanting to the Trojan doom,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which none but I can manage and o'ercome;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Award those arms I ask, by your decree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or give to this what you refuse to me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He ceased, and, ceasing, with respect he bowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with his hand at once the fatal statue shewed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven, air, and ocean rung, with loud applause,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by the general vote he gained his cause.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus conduct won the prize, when courage failed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eloquence o'er brutal force prevailed.<br /></span> -</div></div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The Death Of Ajax.</span></p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He who could often, and alone, withstand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The foe, the fire, and Jove's own partial hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now cannot his unmastered grief sustain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But yields to rage, to madness, and disdain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then snatching out his faulchion,—Thou, said he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Art mine; Ulysses lays no claim to thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O often tried, and ever trusty sword,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now do thy last kind office to thy lord!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis Ajax who requests thy aid, to show<br /></span> -<span class="i0">None but himself, himself could overthrow.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and with so good a will to die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did to his breast the fatal point apply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It found his heart, a way till then unknown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where never weapon entered but his own;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No hands could force it thence, so fixt it stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Till out it rushed, expelled by streams of spouting blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fruitful blood produced a flower<a id="FNanchor_AL_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_AL_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>, which grew<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">On a green stem, and of a purple hue; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Like his, whom unaware Apollo slew. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Inscribed in both, the letters are the same,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But those express the grief, and these the name.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AK_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AK_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Dolon demanded the horses of Achilles, as his reward for exploring -the Grecian camp, but was intercepted and slain by Ulysses.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AL_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AL_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> The Hyacinth.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE STORY OF</span><br /><br /> - -ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA,<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Acis, the lovely youth, whose loss I mourn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Faunus and the nymph Symethis born,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was both his parents' pleasure; but to me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was all that love could make a lover be.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gods our minds in mutual bands did join;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I was his only joy, and he was mine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now sixteen summers the sweet youth had seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And doubtful down began to shade his chin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Polyphemus first disturbed our joy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And loved me fiercely, as I loved the boy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ask not which passion in my soul was higher,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My last aversion, or my first desire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor this the greater was, nor that the less,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both were alike, for both were in excess.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thee, Venus, thee both heaven and earth obey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Immense thy power, and boundless is thy sway.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Cyclops, who defied the ætherial throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thought no thunder louder than his own,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The terror of the woods, and wilder far<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than wolves in plains, or bears in forests are;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On mangled members of his butchered guests,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet felt the force of love, and fierce desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And burnt for me, with unrelenting fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forgot his caverns, and his woolly care, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Assumed the softness of a lover's air, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And combed, with teeth of rakes, his rugged hair.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Now with a crooked scythe his beard he sleeks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mows the stubborn stubble of his cheeks;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now in the crystal stream he looks, to try<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His simagres,<a id="FNanchor_AM_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_AM_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> and rolls his glaring eye.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His cruelty and thirst of blood are lost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ships securely sail along the coast.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The prophet Telemus (arrived by chance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where Ætna's summits to the seas advance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who marked the tracks of every bird that flew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sure presages from their flying drew,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Foretold the Cyclops, that Ulysses' hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In his broad eye should thrust a flaming brand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The giant, with a scornful grin, replied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vain augur, thou hast falsely prophesied:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Already Love his flaming brand has tost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Looking on two fair eyes, my sight I lost.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, warned in vain, with stalking pace he strode,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stamped the margin of the briny flood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With heavy steps, and, weary, sought agen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cool retirement of his gloomy den.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A promontory, sharpening by degrees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ends in a wedge, and overlooks the seas;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On either side, below, the water flows:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This airy walk the giant-lover chose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here on the midst he sate; his flocks, unled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their shepherd followed, and securely fed.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A pine so burly, and of length so vast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That sailing ships required it for a mast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wielded for a staff, his steps to guide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But laid it by, his whistle while he tried.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A hundred reeds, of a prodigious growth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scarce made a pipe proportioned to his mouth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which when he gave it wind, the rocks around,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And watery plains, the dreadful hiss resound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I heard the ruffian shepherd rudely blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where, in a hollow cave, I sat below.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On Acis' bosom I my head reclined;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still preserve the poem in my mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O lovely Galatea, whiter far<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than falling snows, and rising lilies are;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More flowery than the meads, as crystal bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Erect as alders, and of equal height;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More wanton than a kid; more sleek thy skin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than orient shells, that on the shores are seen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than apples fairer, when the boughs they lade;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pleasing, as winter suns, or summer shade;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More grateful to the sight than goodly plains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And softer to the touch than down of swans,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or curds new turned; and sweeter to the taste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than swelling grapes, that to the vintage haste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More clear than ice, or running streams, that stray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through garden plots, but ah! more swift than they.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet, Galatea, harder to be broke <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Than bullocks, unreclaimed to bear the yoke,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And far more stubborn than the knotted oak; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Like sliding streams, impossible to hold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like them fallacious, like their fountains cold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More warping than the willow, to decline<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My warm embrace; more brittle than the vine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Immoveable, and fixt in thy disdain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rough, as these rocks, and of a harder grain;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> -<span class="i0">More violent than is the rising flood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the praised peacock is not half so proud;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fierce as the fire, and sharp as thistles are,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And more outrageous than a mother bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deaf as the billows to the vows I make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And more revengeful than a trodden snake;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In swiftness fleeter than the flying hind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or driven tempests, or the driving wind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All other faults with patience I can bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But swiftness is the vice I only fear.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet, if you knew me well, you would not shun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My love, but to my wished embraces run;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would languish in your turn, and court my stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And much repent of your unwise delay.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My palace, in the living rock, is made <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">By nature's hand; a spacious pleasing shade, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Which neither heat can pierce, nor cold invade.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">My garden filled with fruits you may behold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And grapes in clusters, imitating gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some blushing bunches of a purple hue;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And these, and those, are all reserved for you.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Red strawberries in shades expecting stand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Proud to be gathered by so white a hand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Autumnal cornels latter fruit provide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And plumbs, to tempt you, turn their glossy side;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not those of common kinds, but such alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As in Phæacian orchards might have grown.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor chesnuts shall be wanting to your food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor garden-fruits, nor wildings of the wood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The laden boughs for you alone shall bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yours shall be the product of the year.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The flocks you see are all my own, beside <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The rest that woods and winding vallies hide,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And those that folded in the caves abide. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Ask not the numbers of my growing store;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who knows how many, knows he has no more.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor will I praise my cattle; trust not me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But judge yourself, and pass your own decree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behold their swelling dugs; the sweepy weight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of ewes, that sink beneath the milky freight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the warm folds their tender lambkins lie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Apart from kids, that call with human cry.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New milk in nut-brown bowls is duly served<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For daily drink, the rest for cheese reserved.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor are these household dainties all my store;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The fields and forests will afford us more; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The deer, the hare, the goat, the savage boar.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">All sorts of venison, and of birds the best;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A pair of turtles taken from the nest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I walked the mountains, and two cubs<a id="FNanchor_AN_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_AN_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> I found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose dam had left them on the naked ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So like, that no distinction could be seen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So pretty, they were presents for a queen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so they shall; I took them both away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And keep, to be companions of your play.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Oh raise, fair nymph, your beauteous face above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The waves; nor scorn my presents, and my love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come, Galatea, come, and view my face; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I late beheld it in the watery glass, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And found it lovelier than I feared it was.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Survey my towering stature, and my size:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not Jove, the Jove you dream, that rules the skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bears such a bulk, or is so largely spread.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My locks (the plenteous harvest of my head,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hang o'er my manly face, and dangling down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As with a shady grove, my shoulders crown.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor think, because my limbs and body bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thick-set underwood of bristling hair,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> -<span class="i0">My shape deformed; what fouler sight can be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than the bald branches of a leafless tree?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Foul is the steed without a flowing mane;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And birds, without their feathers, and their train:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wool decks the sheep; and man receives a grace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From bushy limbs, and from a bearded face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My forehead with a single eye is filled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round as a ball, and ample as a shield.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is Nature's eye; and she's content with one.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Add, that my father sways your seas, and I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like you, am of the watry family.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I make you his, in making you my own;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You I adore, and kneel to you alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove, with his fabled thunder, I despise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And only fear the lightning of your eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Frown not, fair nymph! yet I could bear to be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Disdained, if others were disdained with me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But to repulse the Cyclops, and prefer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The love of Acis,—heavens! I cannot bear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But let the stripling please himself; nay more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Please you, though that's the thing I most abhor;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The boy shall find, if e'er we cope in fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These giant limbs endued with giant might.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His living bowels from his belly torn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And scattered limbs, shall on the flood be borne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy flood, ungrateful nymph; and fate shall find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That way for thee and Acis to be joined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For oh! I burn with love, and thy disdain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Augments at once my passion, and my pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Translated Ætna flames within my heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thou, inhuman, wilt not ease my smart.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lamenting thus in vain, he rose, and strode<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With furious paces to the neigbouring wood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Restless his feet, distracted was his walk,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mad were his motions, and confused his talk;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Mad as the vanquished bull, when forced to yield<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His lovely mistress, and forsake the field.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus far unseen I saw; when, fatal chance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His looks directing, with a sudden glance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Acis and I were to his sight betrayed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where, nought suspecting, we securely played.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From his wide mouth a bellowing cry he cast,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I see, I see, but this shall be your last.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A roar so loud made Ætna to rebound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the Cyclops laboured in the sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Affrighted with his monstrous voice, I fled, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And in the neighbouring ocean plunged my head. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Poor Acis turned his back, and, Help, he cried,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Help, Galatea! help, my parent Gods,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And take me, dying, to your deep abodes!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Cyclops followed; but he sent before<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A rib, which from the living rock he tore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though but an angle reached him of the stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mighty fragment was enough alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To crush all Acis; 'twas too late to save,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But what the fates allowed to give, I gave;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Acis to his lineage should return,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And roll among the river Gods his urn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Straight issued from the stone a stream of blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which lost the purple, mingling with the flood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then like a troubled torrent it appeared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The torrent too, in little space, was cleared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stone was cleft, and through the yawning chink<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New reeds arose, on the new river's brink.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rock, from out its hollow womb, disclosed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sound like water in its course opposed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When (wonderous to behold!) full in the flood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up starts a youth, and navel-high he stood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Horns from his temples rise; and either horn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thick wreaths of reeds (his native growth) adorn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were not his stature taller than before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His bulk augmented, and his beauty more,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> -<span class="i0">His colour blue, for Acis he might pass;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Acis, changed into a stream, he was.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, mine no more, he rolls along the plains<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With rapid motion, and his name retains.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AM_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AM_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <i>Simagres</i>, one of our author's Gallicisms, for affected contortions -of the face.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AN_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AN_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The word <i>bear-cubs</i> is wanting, to complete the sense of Ovid: -</p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"<i>Villosæ catulos ursæ</i>."<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">OF THE</span><br /><br /> - -PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM THE FIFTEENTH BOOK OF</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>The fourteenth book concludes with the death and deification of Romulus; -the fifteenth begins with the election of Numa to the -crown of Rome. On this occasion, Ovid, following the opinion -of some authors, makes Numa the scholar of Pythagoras, and -to have begun his acquaintance with that philosopher at Crotona, -a town in Italy; from thence he makes a digression to the -moral and natural philosophy of Pythagoras; on both which our -author enlarges; and which are the most learned and beautiful -parts of the Metamorphoses.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A king is sought to guide the growing state,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">One able to support the public weight, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And fill the throne where Romulus had sate. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Renown, which oft bespeaks the public voice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had recommended Numa to their choice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A peaceful, pious prince; who, not content<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To know the Sabine rites, his study bent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To cultivate his mind; to learn the laws<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of nature, and explore their hidden cause.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Urged by this care, his country he forsook,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to Crotona thence his journey took.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arrived, he first enquired the founder's name<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of this new colony; and whence he came.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then thus a senior of the place replies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Well read, and curious of antiquities.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis said, Alcides hither took his way<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Spain, and drove along his conquered prey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, leaving in the fields his grazing cows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sought himself some hospitable house.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Good Croton entertained his godlike guest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While he repaired his weary limbs with rest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hero, thence departing, blessed the place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And here, he said, in time's revolving race,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A rising town shall take its name from thee.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Revolving time fulfilled the prophecy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Myscelos, the justest man on earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alemon's son, at Argos had his birth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him Hercules, armed with his club of oak,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O'ershadowed in a dream, and thus bespoke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go, leave thy native soil, and make abode <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Where Æsaris rolls down his rapid flood;— <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He said; and sleep forsook him, and the God. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Trembling he waked, and rose with anxious heart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His country laws forbad him to depart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What should he do? 'Twas death to go away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the God menaced if he dared to stay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All day he doubted, and, when night came on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sleep, and the same forewarning dream, begun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once more the God stood threatening o'er his head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With added curses if he disobeyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twice warned, he studied flight; but would convey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At once, his person and his wealth away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus while he lingered, his design was heard;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A speedy process formed, and death declared.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Witness there needed none of his offence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against himself the wretch was evidence;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Condemned, and destitute of human aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To him, for whom he suffered, thus he prayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O Power, who hast deserved in heaven a throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not given, but by thy labours made thy own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pity thy suppliant, and protect his cause,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom thou hast made obnoxious to the laws!—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A custom was of old, and still remains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which life or death by suffrages ordains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">White stones and black within an urn are cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The first absolve, but fate is in the last.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The judges to the common urn bequeath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their votes, and drop the sable signs of death:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The box receives all black; but, poured from thence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stones came candid forth, the hue of innocence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Alimonides his safety won,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Preserved from death by Alcumena's son.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then to his kinsman God his vows he pays,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cuts with prosperous gales the Ionian seas;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He leaves Tarentum, favoured by the wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Thurine bays, and Temises, behind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Along the shore, he makes in sight of land;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still doubling, and still coasting, till he found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mouth of Æsaris, and promised ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then saw where, on the margin of the flood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tomb that held the bones of Croton stood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here, by the God's command, he built and walled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The place predicted, and Crotona called.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus fame, from time to time, delivers down<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sure tradition of the Italian town.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now self-banished from his native shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The chains which none but servile souls will wear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He, though from heaven remote, to heaven could move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With strength of mind, and tread the abyss above;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And penetrate, with his interior light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those upper depths, which Nature hid from sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what he had observed, and learnt from thence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loved in familiar language to dispense.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The crowd with silent admiration stand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And heard him, as they heard their god's command;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While he discoursed of heaven's mysterious laws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The world's original, and nature's cause;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what was God, and why the fleecy snows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In silence fell, and rattling winds arose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What shook the stedfast earth, and whence begun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dance of planets round the radiant sun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If thunder was the voice of angry Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of these, and things beyond the common reach,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He spoke, and charmed his audience with his speech.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He first the taste of flesh from tables drove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And argued well, if arguments could move.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O mortals! from your fellows' blood abstain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor taint your bodies with a food profane;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While corn and pulse by nature are bestowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And planted orchards bend their willing load;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While laboured gardens wholsome herbs produce,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And teeming vines afford their generous juice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But tamed with fire, or mellowed by the frost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While kine to pails distended udders bring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bees their honey, redolent of spring;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While earth not only can your needs supply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A guiltless feast administers with ease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And without blood is prodigal to please.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wild beasts their maws with their slain brethren fill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet not all, for some refuse to kill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On browz, and corn, the flowery meadows feed.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Bears, tigers, wolves, the lion's angry brood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom heaven endued with principles of blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wisely sundered from the rest, to yell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In forests, and in lonely caves to dwell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where stronger beasts oppress the weak by might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all in prey and purple feasts delight.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O impious use! to Nature's laws opposed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where bowels are in other bowels closed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where, fattened by their fellows' fat, they thrive;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Maintained by murder, and by death they live.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis then for nought that mother earth provides<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If men with fleshly morsels must be fed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And chew with bloody teeth the breathing bread.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What else is this but to devour our guests,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And barbarously renew Cyclopean feasts!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We, by destroying life, our life sustain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gorge the ungodly maw with meats obscene.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Not so the golden age, who fed on fruit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor durst with bloody meals their mouths pollute.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then birds in airy space might safely move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And timorous hares on heaths securely rove;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all was peaceful, and that peace sincere.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whoever was the wretch (and cursed be he!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That envied first our food's simplicity,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The essay of bloody feasts on brutes began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, after, forged the sword to murder man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had he the sharpened steel alone employed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On beasts of prey, that other beasts destroyed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or men invaded with their fangs and paws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This had been justified by Nature's laws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And self-defence; but who did feasts begin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of flesh, he stretched necessity to sin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To kill man-killers man has lawful power,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But not the extended licence, to devour.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sow, with her broad snout for rooting up <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The intrusted seed, was judged to spoil the crop,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And intercept the sweating farmer's hope; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The offender to the bloody priest resigned:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her hunger was no plea; for that she died.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The goat came next in order, to be tried:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The goat had cropt the tendrils of the vine;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">In vengeance laity and clergy join, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Where one had lost his profit, one his wine.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Here was, at least, some shadow of offence;<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The sheep was sacrificed on no pretence, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But meek and unresisting innocence. <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A patient, useful creature, born to bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The warm and woolly fleece, that cloathed her murderer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And daily to give down the milk she bred,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A tribute for the grass on which she fed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Living, both food and raiment she supplies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And is of least advantage when she dies.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">How did the toiling ox his death deserve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A downright simple drudge, and born to serve?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O tyrant! with what justice canst thou hope<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The promise of the year, a plenteous crop,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When thou destroyest thy labouring steer, who tilled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And plowed, with pains, thy else ungrateful field?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From his yet reeking neck to draw the yoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(That neck with which the surly clods he broke,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the hatchet yield thy husbandman,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who finished autumn, and the spring began!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor this alone; but, heaven itself to bribe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We to the gods our impious acts ascribe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">First recompense with death their creatures' toil,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then call the blessed above to share the spoil:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The fairest victim must the powers appease;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So fatal 'tis, sometimes, too much to please!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A purple fillet his broad brows adorns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With flowery garlands crowned, and gilded horns;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He hears the murderous prayer the priest prefers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But understands not, 'tis his doom he hears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beholds the meal betwixt his temples cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fruit and product of his labours past;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the water views, perhaps, the knife<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Uplifted, to deprive him of his life;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, broken up alive, his entrails sees<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Torn out, for priests to inspect the gods' decrees.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From whence, O mortal men, this gust of blood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have you derived, and interdicted food?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be taught by me this dire delight to shun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Warned by my precepts, by my practice won;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when you eat the well-deserving beast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think, on the labourer of your field you feast!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now since the God inspires me to proceed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be that whate'er inspiring Power obeyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I will sing of mighty mysteries, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Of truths concealed before from human eyes, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Dark oracles unveil, and open all the skies.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Pleased as I am to walk along the sphere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of shining stars, and travel with the year,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To leave the heavy earth, and scale the height<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Atlas, who supports the heavenly weight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To look from upper light, and thence survey<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mistaken mortals wandering from the way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, wanting wisdom, fearful for the state<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of future things, and trembling at their fate!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Those I would teach; and by right reason bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To think of death, as but an idle thing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why thus affrighted at an empty name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A dream of darkness, and fictitious flame?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vain themes of wit, which but in poems pass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fables of a world, that never was!<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> -<span class="i0">What feels the body when the soul expires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By time corrupted, or consumed by fires?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In other forms, and only changes seats.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Even I, who these mysterious truths declare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My name and lineage I remember well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And how in fight by Sparta's king I fell.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Argive Juno's fane I late beheld<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My buckler hung on high, and owned my former shield.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then death, so called, is but old matter dressed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In some new figure, and a varied vest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And here and there the unbodied spirit flies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By time, or force, or sickness dispossest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lodges, where it lights, in man or beast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And actuates those according to their kind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From tenement to tenement is tossed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The soul is still the same, the figure only lost:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as the softened wax new seals receives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This face assumes, and that impression leaves;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now called by one, now by another name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The form is only changed, the wax is still the same:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So death, so called, can but the form deface;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The immortal soul flies out in empty space, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To seek her fortune in some other place. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Then let not piety be put to flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To please the taste of glutton appetite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But suffer inmate souls secure to dwell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lest from their seats your parents you expel;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With rabid hunger feed upon your kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or from a beast dislodge a brother's mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And since, like Tiphys, parting from the shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In ample seas I sail, and depths untried before,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> -<span class="i0">This let me further add, that nature knows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No stedfast station, but, or ebbs, or flows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ever in motion, she destroys her old,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And casts new figures in another mould.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even times are in perpetual flux, and run,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like rivers from their fountain, rolling on.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For time, no more than streams, is at a stay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The flying hour is ever on her way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as the fountain still supplies her store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wave behind impels the wave before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus in successive course the minutes run,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And urge their predecessor minutes on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still moving, ever new; for former things<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are set aside, like abdicated kings;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every moment alters what is done,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And innovates some act till then unknown.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Darkness, we see, emerges into light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shining suns descend to sable night;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even heaven itself receives another die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When wearied animals in slumbers lie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of midnight ease; another, when the gray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of morn preludes the splendour of the day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The disk of Phœbus, when he climbs on high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Appears at first but as a bloodshot eye;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when his chariot downward drives to bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His ball is with the same suffusion red;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, mounted high in his meridian race,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All bright he shines, and with a better face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For there, pure particles of æther flow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far from the infection of the world below.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor equal light the unequal moon adorns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or in her wexing, or her waning horns;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, every day she wanes, her face is less,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, gathering into globe, she fattens at increase.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Perceiv'st thou not the process of the year, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">How the four seasons in four forms appear, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Resembling human life in every shape they wear?<span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Spring first, like infancy, shoots out her head,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With milky juice requiring to be fed; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Helpless, though fresh, and wanting to be led. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The green stem grows in stature and in size,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But only feeds with hope the farmer's eyes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then laughs the childish year, with flowerets crowned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lavishly perfumes the fields around;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But no substantial nourishment receives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Infirm the stalks, unsolid are the leaves.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Proceeding onward whence the year began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Summer grows adult, and ripens into man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This season, as in men, is most replete<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With kindly moisture, and prolific heat.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Autumn succeeds, a sober tepid age,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not froze with fear, nor boiling into rage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More than mature, and tending to decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When our brown locks repine to mix with odious grey.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Last, Winter creeps along with tardy pace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sour is his front, and furrowed is his face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His scalp if not dishonoured quite of hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ragged fleece is thin, and thin is worse than bare.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Even our own bodies daily change receive;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some part of what was theirs before they leave,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor are to-day what yesterday they were;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor the whole same to-morrow will appear.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Time was, when we were sowed, and just began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From some few fruitful drops, the promise of a man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Nature's hand (fermented as it was)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moulded to shape the soft, coagulated mass;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when the little man was fully formed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The breathless embryo with a spirit warmed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when the mother's throes begin to come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The creature, pent within the narrow room,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Breaks his blind prison, pushing to repair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His stifled breath, and draw the living air;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cast on the margin of the world he lies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A helpless babe, but by instinct he cries.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He next essays to walk, but, downward pressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On four feet imitates his brother beast:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By slow degrees he gathers from the ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His legs, and to the rolling chair is bound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then walks alone: a horseman now become,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He rides a stick, and travels round the room:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In time he vaunts among his youthful peers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strong-boned, and strung with nerves, in pride of years:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He runs with mettle his first merry stage, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Maintains the next, abated of his rage, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But manages his strength, and spares his age.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Heavy the third, and stiff, he sinks apace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, though 'tis down-hill all, but creeps along the race.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now sapless on the verge of death he stands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Contemplating his former feet, and hands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, Milo-like, his slackened sinews sees, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And withered arms, once fit to cope with Hercules,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Unable now to shake, much less to tear, the trees.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">So Helen wept, when her too faithful glass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reflected to her eyes the ruins of her face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wondering what charms her ravishers could spy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To force her twice, or even but once enjoy!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thy teeth, devouring time, thine, envious age,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On things below still exercise your rage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With venomed grinders you corrupt your meat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then, at lingering meals, the morsels eat.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor those, which elements we call, abide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor to this figure, nor to that, are tied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For this eternal world is said of old<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But four prolific principles to hold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Four different bodies; two to heaven ascend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And other two down to the centre tend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fire, first, with wings expanded mounts on high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pure, void of weight, and dwells in upper sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Air, because unclogged in empty space,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flies after fire, and claims the second place;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But weighty Water, as her nature guides,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lies on the lap of Earth; and mother Earth subsides.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All things are mixt with these, which all contain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And into these are all resolved again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Earth rarifies to dew; expanded more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The subtle dew in air begins to soar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spreads as she flies, and, weary of her name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Extenuates still, and changes into flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus having by degrees perfection won,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Restless, they soon untwist the web they spun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fire begins to lose her radiant hue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mixed with gross air, and air descends to dew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And dew, condensing, does her form forego,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sinks, a heavy lump of earth, below.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus are their figures never at a stand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But changed by Nature's innovating hand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All things are altered, nothing is destroyed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shifted scene for some new show employed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then, to be born, is to begin to be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some other thing we were not formerly;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what we call to die, is not to appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or be the thing that formerly we were.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those very elements, which we partake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alive, when dead, some other bodies make;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Translated grow, have sense, or can discourse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But death on deathless substance has no force.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That forms are changed I grant, that nothing can<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Continue in the figure it began:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The golden age to silver was debased;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To copper that; our metal came at last.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The face of places, and their forms, decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that is solid earth, that once was sea;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seas, in their turn, retreating from the shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make solid land what ocean was before;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And far from strands are shells of fishes found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rusty anchors fixed on mountain ground;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And what were fields before, now washed and worn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By falling floods from high, to valleys turn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, crumbling still, descend to level lands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lakes, and trembling bogs, are barren sands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the parched desert floats in streams unknown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wondering to drink of waters not her own.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Here nature living fountains opes; and there<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seals up the wombs where living fountains were;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or earthquakes stop their ancient course, and bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Diverted streams to feed a distant spring.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So Lycus, swallowed up, is seen no more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, far from thence, knocks out another door.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Erasinus dives; and blind in earth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Runs on, and gropes his way to second birth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Starts up in Argos meads, and shakes his locks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Around the fields, and fattens all the flocks.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So Mysus by another way is led,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, grown a river, now disdains his head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forgets his humble birth, his name forsakes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the proud title of Caicus takes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Large Amenane, impure with yellow sands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Runs rapid often, and as often stands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And here he threats the drunken fields to drown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there his dugs deny to give their liquor down.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Anigros once did wholesome draughts afford,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now his deadly waters are abhorred;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since, hurt by Hercules, as fame resounds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Centaur<a id="FNanchor_AO_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_AO_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> in his current washed his wounds.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The streams of Hypanis are sweet no more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, brackish, lose their taste they had before.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Antissa, Pharos, Tyre, in seas were pent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once isles, but now increase the continent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While the Leucadian coast, main-land before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By rushing seas is severed from the shore.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> -<span class="i0">So Zancle to the Italian earth was tied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And men once walked where ships at anchor ride;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till Neptune overlooked the narrow way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in disdain poured in the conquering sea.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Two cities that adorned the Achaian ground, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Buris and Helice, no more are found, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But, whelmed beneath a lake, are sunk and drowned;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And boatmen through the crystal water show,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To wondering passengers, the walls below.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Near Træzen stands a hill, exposed in air<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To winter winds, of leafy shadows bare:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This once was level ground; but (strange to tell)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The included vapours, that in caverns dwell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Labouring with cholic pangs, and close confined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain sought issue from the rumbling wind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet still they heaved for vent, and, heaving still,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enlarged the concave, and shot up the hill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As breath extends a bladder, or the skins<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of goats are blown to inclose the hoarded wines.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mountain yet retains a mountain's face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gathered rubbish heals the hollow space.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of many wonders, which I heard or knew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Retrenching most, I will relate but few.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What, are not springs with qualities opposed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Endued at seasons, and at seasons lost?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thrice in a day, thine, Ammon, change their form,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cold at high noon, at morn and evening warm;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thine, Athaman, will kindle wood, if thrown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the piled earth, and in the waning moon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Thracians have a stream, if any try<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The taste, his hardened bowels petrify;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whate'er it touches it converts to stones,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And makes a marble pavement where it runs.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Grathis, and Sibaris her sister flood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That slide through our Calabrian neighbour wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gold and amber die the shining hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thither youth resort; for who would not be fair?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> -<span class="i2">But stranger virtues yet in streams we find;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some change not only bodies, but the mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who has not heard of Salmacis obscene,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose waters into women soften men?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Æthiopian lakes, which turn the brain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To madness, or in heavy sleep constrain?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clytorean streams the love of wine expel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Such is the virtue of the abstemious well,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether the colder nymph, that rules the flood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Extinguishes, and baulks the drunken God;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or that Melampus (so have some assured)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the mad Prœtides with charms he cured,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And powerful herbs, both charms and simples cast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the sober spring, where still their virtues last.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unlike effects Lyncestis will produce;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who drinks his waters, though with moderate use,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reels as with wine, and sees with double sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His heels too heavy, and his head too light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ladon, once Pheneos, an Arcadian stream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Ambiguous in the effects, as in the name,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By day is wholesome beverage; but is thought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By night infected, and a deadly draught.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus running rivers, and the standing lake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now of these virtues, now of those partake.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Time was (and all things time and fate obey)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When fast Ortygia floated on the sea;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such were Cyanean isles, when Typhis steered<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt their straits, and their collision feared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They swam where now they sit; and, firmly joined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure of rooting up, resist the wind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Ætna, vomiting sulphureous fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will ever belch; for sulphur will expire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The veins exhausted of the liquid store;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Time was she cast no flames; in time will cast no more.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For, whether earth's an animal, and air<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Imbibes, her lungs with coolness to repair,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And what she sucks remits, she still requires<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Inlets for air, and outlets for her fires;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When tortured with convulsive fits she shakes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That motion chokes the vent, till other vent she makes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or when the winds in hollow caves are closed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And subtile spirits find that way opposed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They toss up flints in air; the flints that hide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The seeds of fire, thus tossed in air, collide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Kindling the sulphur, till, the fuel spent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cave is cooled, and the fierce winds relent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or whether sulphur, catching fire, feeds on<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its unctuous parts, till, all the matter gone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The flames no more ascend; for earth supplies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fat that feeds them; and when earth denies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That food, by length of time consumed, the fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Famished for want of fuel, must expire.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A race of men there are, as fame has told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, shivering, suffer Hyperborean cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till, nine times bathing in Minerva's lake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Soft feathers to defend their naked sides they take.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis said, the Scythian wives (believe who will)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Transform themselves to birds by magic skill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smeared over with an oil of wonderous might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That adds new pinions to their airy flight.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But this by sure experiment we know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That living creatures from corruption grow:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hide in a hollow pit a slaughtered steer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bees from his putrid bowels will appear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, like their parents, haunt the fields, and bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their honey-harvest home, and hope another spring.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The warlike steed is multiplied, we find,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To wasps and hornets of the warrior kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cut from a crab his crooked claws, and hide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rest in earth, a scorpion thence will glide,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And shoot his sting; his tail, in circles tossed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Refers<a id="FNanchor_AP_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_AP_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> the limbs his backward father lost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And worms, that stretch on leaves their filmy loom,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crawl from their bags, and butterflies become.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even slime begets the frogs' loquacious race;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Short of their feet at first, in little space<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With arms and legs endued, long leaps they take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raised on their hinder part, and swim the lake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And waves repel: for nature gives their kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To that intent, a length of legs behind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The cubs of bears a living lump appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When whelped, and no determined figure wear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their mother licks them into shape, and gives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As much of form, as she herself receives.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The grubs from their sexangular abode<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crawl out unfinished, like the maggots' brood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trunks without limbs; till time at leisure brings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thighs they wanted, and their tardy wings.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The bird who draws the car of Juno, vain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of her crowned head, and of her starry train;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he that bears the artillery of Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The strong-pounced eagle, and the billing dove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the feathered kind;—who could suppose <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">(But that from sight, the surest sense, he knows) <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">They from the included yolk, not ambient white, arose?<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">There are who think the marrow of a man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which in the spine, while he was living, ran;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When dead, the pith corrupted, will become<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A snake, and hiss within the hollow tomb.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All these receive their birth from other things,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But from himself the phœnix only springs:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Self-born, begotten by the parent flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which he burned, another and the same:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who not by corn or herbs his life sustains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the sweet essence of Amomum drains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And watches the rich gums Arabia bears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While yet in tender dew they drop their tears.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He, (his five centuries of life fulfilled)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His nest on oaken boughs begins to build,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or trembling tops of palm: and first he draws<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The plan with his broad bill, and crooked claws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nature's artificers; on this the pile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is formed, and rises round; then with the spoil<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Casia, Cynamon, and stems of Nard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For softness strewed beneath,) his funeral bed is reared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Funeral and bridal both; and all around<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The borders with corruptless myrrh are crowned:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On this incumbent, till ætherial flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">First catches, then consumes, the costly frame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Consumes him too, as on the pile he lies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He lived on odours, and in odours dies.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An infant-phœnix from the former springs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His father's heir, and from his tender wings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shakes off his parent dust; his method he pursues,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the same lease of life on the same terms renews.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When, grown to manhood, he begins his reign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with stiff pinions can his flight sustain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He lightens of its load the tree that bore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His father's royal sepulchre before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his own cradle; this with pious care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Placed on his back, he cuts the buxom air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seeks the sun's city, and his sacred church,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And decently lays down his burden in the porch.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A wonder more amazing would we find?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Hyæna shews it, of a double kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Varying the sexes in alternate years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In one begets, and in another bears.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thin cameleon, fed with air, receives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The colour of the thing to which he cleaves.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> -<span class="i2">India, when conquered, on the conquering God<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For planted vines the sharp-eyed lynx bestowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose urine, shed before it touches earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Congeals in air, and gives to gems their birth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So coral, soft and white in ocean's bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Comes hardened up in air, and glows with red.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All changing species should my song recite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before I ceased, would change the day to night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nations and empires flourish and decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By turns command, and in their turns obey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Time softens hardy people, time again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hardens to war a soft, unwarlike train.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Troy for ten long years her foes withstood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And daily bleeding bore the expence of blood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now for thick streets it shows an empty space, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or only filled with tombs of her own perished race;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Herself becomes the sepulchre of what she was. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Mycene, Sparta, Thebes of mighty fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are vanished out of substance into name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Dardan Rome, that just begins to rise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On Tiber's banks, in time shall mate the skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Widening her bounds, and working on her way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even now she meditates imperial sway:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet this is change, but she by changing thrives,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like moons new born, and in her cradle strives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To fill her infant-horns; an hour shall come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the round world shall be contained in Rome.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For thus old saws foretel, and Helenus<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Anchises' drooping son enlivened thus,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Ilium now was in a sinking state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he was doubtful of his future fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O goddess born, with thy hard fortune strive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Troy never can be lost, and thou alive;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy passage thou shalt free through fire and sword,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Troy in foreign lands shall be restored.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> -<span class="i0">In happier fields a rising town I see, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Greater than what e'er was, or is, or e'er shall be; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And heaven yet owes the world a race derived from thee.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Sages and chiefs, of other lineage born,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The city shall extend, extended shall adorn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But from Iulus he must draw his birth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By whom thy Rome shall rule the conquered earth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom heaven will lend mankind on earth to reign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And late require the precious pledge again.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This Helenus to great Æneas told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which I retain, e'er since in other mould<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My soul was clothed; and now rejoice to view<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My country walls rebuilt, and Troy revived anew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raised by the fall; decreed by loss to gain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enslaved but to be free, and conquered but to reign.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">'Tis time my hard-mouthed coursers to controul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Apt to run riot, and transgress the goal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therefore I conclude: whatever lies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In earth, or flits in air, or fills the skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All suffer change; and we, that are of soul<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And body mixed, are members of the whole.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then when our sires, or grandsires, shall forsake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The forms of men, and brutal figures take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus housed, securely let their spirits rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor violate thy father in the beast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy friend, thy brother, any of thy kin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If none of these, yet there's a man within.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O spare to make a Thyestean meal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To inclose his body, and his soul expel.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ill customs by degrees to habits rise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ill habits soon become exalted vice:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What more advance can mortals make in sin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So near perfection, who with blood begin?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deaf to the calf that lies beneath the knife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Looks up, and from her butcher begs her life;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Deaf to the harmless kid, that, ere he dies,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">All methods to procure thy mercy tries, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And imitates in vain thy children's cries. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Where will he stop, who feeds with household bread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then eats the poultry, which before he fed?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let plough thy steers; that, when they lose their breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To nature, not to thee, they may impute their death.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let goats for food their loaded udders lend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sheep from winter-cold thy sides defend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But neither springes, nets, nor snares employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And be no more ingenious to destroy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Free as in air, let birds on earth remain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor let insidious glue their wings constrain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor opening hounds the trembling stag affright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor purple feathers intercept his flight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor hooks concealed in baits for fish prepare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor lines to heave them twinkling up in air.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Take not away the life you cannot give;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all things have an equal right to live.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Kill noxious creatures, where 'tis sin to save;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This only just prerogative we have:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But nourish life with vegetable food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shun the sacrilegious taste of blood.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">These precepts by the Samian sage were taught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which godlike Numa to the Sabines brought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thence transferred to Rome, by gift his own;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A willing people, and an offered throne.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O happy monarch, sent by heaven to bless<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A savage nation with soft arts of peace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To teach religion, rapine to restrain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give laws to lust, and sacrifice ordain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Himself a saint, a goddess was his bride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the muses o'er his acts preside.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a></span></p> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AO_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AO_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Nessus, mortally wounded by Hercules with a poisoned arrow.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AP_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AP_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> A latinism, for restores, or presents anew.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font075">TRANSLATIONS</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S ART OF LOVE.</h2> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a></span></p> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">FIRST BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S ART OF LOVE.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In Cupid's school whoe'er would take degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must learn his rudiments, by reading me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seamen with sailing arts their vessels move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Art guides the chariot, art instructs to love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of ships and chariots others know the rule;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I am master in Love's mighty school.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cupid indeed is obstinate and wild,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A stubborn god, but yet the god's a child;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Easy to govern in his tender age,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like fierce Achilles in his pupillage:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hero, born for conquest, trembling stood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the Centaur, and received the rod.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Chiron mollified his cruel mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With art, and taught his warlike hands to wind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The silver strings of his melodious lyre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So Love's fair goddess does my soul inspire,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> -<span class="i0">To teach her softer arts, to sooth the mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smooth the rugged breasts of human kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet Cupid and Achilles, each with scorn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rage were filled, and both were goddess-born.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bull, reclaimed and yoked, the burden draws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The horse receives the bitt within his jaws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stubborn Love shall bend beneath my sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though struggling oft he strives to disobey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He shakes his torch, he wounds me with his darts;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But vain his force, and vainer are his arts.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more he burns my soul, or wounds my sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more he teaches to revenge the spite.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I boast no aid the Delphian god affords,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor auspice from the flight of chattering birds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Clio, nor her sisters, have I seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Hesiod saw them on the shady green:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Experience makes my work; a truth so tried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You may believe, and Venus be my guide.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Far hence, ye vestals, be, who bind your hair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wives, who gowns below your ancles wear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I sing the brothels loose and unconfined, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The unpunishable pleasures of the kind; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Which all alike, for love, or money, find.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">You, who in Cupid's rolls inscribe your name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">First seek an object worthy of your flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then strive, with art, your lady's mind to gain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, last, provide your love may long remain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On these three precepts all my works shall move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These are the rules and principles of love.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Before your youth with marriage is opprest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make choice of one who suits your humour best;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And such a damsel drops not from the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She must be sought for with a curious eye.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The wary angler, in the winding brook,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Knows what the fish, and where to bait his hook.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fowler and the huntsman know by name<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The certain haunts and harbour of their game.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> -<span class="i0">So must the lover beat the likeliest grounds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The assembly where his quarry most abounds.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shall my novice wander far astray;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These rules shall put him in the ready way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou shalt not sail around the continent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As far as Perseus, or as Paris went;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Rome alone affords thee such a store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As all the world can hardly show thee more:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The face of heaven with fewer stars is crowned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than beauties in the Roman sphere are found.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whether thy love is bent on blooming youth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On dawning sweetness in unartful truth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or courts the juicy joys of riper growth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here may'st thou find thy full desires in both.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or if autumnal beauties please thy sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(An age that knows to give, and take delight,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Millions of matrons of the graver sort,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In common prudence, will not baulk the sport.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In summer heats thou need'st but only go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Pompey's cool and shady portico;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or Concord's fane; or that proud edifice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose turrets near the bawdy suburb rise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or to that other portico, where stands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cruel father urging his commands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fifty daughters wait the time of rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To plunge their poniards in the bridegroom's breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or Venus' temple, where, on annual nights,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They mourn Adonis with Assyrian rites.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shun the Jewish walk, where the foul drove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On Sabbaths, rest from every thing but love:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Isis' temple; for that sacred whore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Makes others what to Jove she was before.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if the hall itself be not belied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even there the cause of love is often tried;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Near it at least, or in the palace-yard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From whence the noisy combatants are heard.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The crafty counsellors, in formal gown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There gain another's cause, but lose their own.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There eloquence is nonplust in the suit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lawyers, who had words at will, are mute.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Venus, from her adjoining temple, smiles,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see them caught in their litigious wiles.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grave senators lead home the youthful dame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Returning clients, when they patrons came.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, above all, the play-house is the place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There's choice of quarry in that narrow chace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There take thy stand, and, sharply looking out,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Soon may'st thou find a mistress in the rout, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For length of time, or for a single bout. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The theatres are berries for the fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like ants on mole-hills thither they repair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like bees to hives, so numerously they throng,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It may be said, they to that place belong.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thither they swarm, who have the public voice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There choose, if plenty not distracts thy choice.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see, and to be seen, in heaps they run;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some to undo, and some to be undone.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From Romulus the rise of plays began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To his new subjects a commodious man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, his unmarried soldiers to supply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Took care the commonwealth should multiply;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Providing Sabine women for his braves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a true king, to get a race of slaves.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His play-house not of Parian marble made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor was it spread with purple sails for shade;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stage with rushes, or with leaves, they strewed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No scenes in prospect, no machining god.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On rows of homely turf they sat to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crowned with the wreaths of every common tree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There, while they sat in rustic majesty,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each lover had his mistress in his eye;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whom he saw most suiting to his mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For joys of matrimonial rape designed.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Scarce could they wait the plaudit in their haste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, ere the dances and the song were past,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The monarch gave the signal from his throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, rising, bade his merry men fall on.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The martial crew, like soldiers ready prest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just at the word, (the word too was, "The best,")<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With joyful cries each other animate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some choose, and some at hazard seize their mate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As doves from eagles, or from wolves the lambs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So from their lawless lovers fly the dames.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their fear was one, but not one face of fear; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Some rend the lovely tresses of their hair; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Some shriek, and some are struck with dumb despair.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Her absent mother one invokes in vain; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">One stands amazed, not daring to complain; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The nimbler trust their feet, the slow remain.<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But nought availing, all are captives led,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trembling and blushing, to the genial bed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She who too long resisted, or denied, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The lusty lover made by force a bride; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, with superior strength, compelled her to his side.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then soothed her thus:—My soul's far better part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cease weeping, nor afflict thy tender heart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For what thy father to thy mother was,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That faith to thee, that solemn vow I pass.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus Romulus became so popular;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This was the way to thrive in peace and war.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pay his army, and fresh whores to bring,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who would not fight for such a gracious king?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus love in theatres did first improve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And theatres are still the scenes of love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shun the chariot's, and the courser's race;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The circus is no inconvenient place.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No need is there of talking on the hand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor nods, nor signs, which lovers understand:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But boldly next the fair your seat provide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Close as you can to hers, and side by side.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pleased or unpleased, no matter, crowding sit;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For so the laws of public shows permit.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then find occasion to begin discourse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Inquire, whose chariot this, and whose that horse?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whatsoever side she is inclined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suit all your inclinations to her mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like what she likes; from thence your court begin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whom she favours, wish that he may win.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when the statues of the deities, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">In chariots rolled, appear before the prize;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">When Venus comes, with deep devotion rise. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">If dust be on her lap, or grains of sand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brush both away with your officious hand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If none be there, yet brush that nothing thence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still to touch her lap make some pretence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Touch any thing of hers; and if her train <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Sweep on the ground, let it not sweep in vain,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But gently take it up, and wipe it clean; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And while you wipe it, with observing eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who knows but you may see her naked thighs!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Observe, who sits behind her; and beware,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lest his encroaching knee should press the fair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Light service takes light minds; for some can tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of favours won, by laying cushions well:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By fanning faces, some their fortune meet;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And some by laying footstools for their feet.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These overtures of love the circus gives;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor at the sword-play less the lover thrives;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For there the son of Venus fights his prize,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And deepest wounds are oft received from eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One, while the crowd their acclamations make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or while he bets, and puts his ring to stake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is struck from far, and feels the flying dart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of the spectacle is made a part.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Cæsar would represent a naval fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For his own honour, and for Rome's delight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From either sea the youths and maidens come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the world was then contained in Rome.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In this vast concourse, in this choice of game,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What Roman heart but felt a foreign flame?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once more our prince prepares to make us glad;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the remaining East to Rome will add.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rejoice, ye Roman soldiers, in your urns; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Your ensigns from the Parthians shall return,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And the slain Crassi shall no longer mourn. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A youth is sent those trophies to demand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bears his father's thunder in his hand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doubt not the imperial boy in wars unseen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In childhood all of Cæsar's race are men;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Celestial seeds shoot out before their day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prevent their years, and brook no dull delay:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus infant Hercules the snakes did press,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in his cradle did his sire confess;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bacchus, a boy, yet like a hero fought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And early spoils from conquered India brought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus you your father's troops shall lead to fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus shall vanquish in your father's right.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These rudiments you to your lineage owe;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Born to encrease your titles, as you grow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brethren you had, revenge your brethren slain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You have a father, and his rights maintain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Armed by your country's parent, and your own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Redeem your country, and restore his throne.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your enemies assert an impious cause;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You fight both for divine and human laws.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Already in their cause they are o'ercome;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Subject them too, by force of arms, to Rome.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great father Mars with greater Cæsar join,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To give a prosperous omen to your line; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">One of you is, and one shall be divine. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> -<span class="i0">I prophesy you shall, you shall o'ercome;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My verse shall bring you back in triumph home.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Speak in my verse, exhort to loud alarms;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O were my numbers equal to your arms!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then would I sing the Parthians overthrow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their shot averse sent from a flying bow:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Parthians, who already flying fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Already give an omen of their flight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O when will come the day, by heaven designed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When thou, the best and fairest of mankind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drawn by white horses shalt in triumph ride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With conquered slaves attending on thy side;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slaves, that no longer can be safe in flight; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">O glorious object, O surprising sight, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">O day of public joy, too good to end in night!<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">On such a day, if thou, and, next to thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some beauty sits, the spectacle to see;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If she inquire the names of conquered kings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of mountains, rivers, and their hidden springs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Answer to all thou knowest; and, if need be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of things unknown seem to speak knowingly.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is Euphrates, crowned with reeds; and there<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flows the swift Tigris with his sea-green hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invent new names of things unknown before;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Call this Armenia, that the Caspian shore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Call this a Mede, and that a Parthian youth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Talk probably, no matter for the truth.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In feasts, as at our shows, new means abound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More pleasure there than that of wine is found.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Paphian goddess there her ambush lays;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Love betwixt the horns of Bacchus plays;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Desires increase at every swelling draught;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brisk vapours add new vigour to the thought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There Cupid's purple wings no flight afford,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, wet with wine, he flutters on the board;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He shakes his pinions, but he cannot move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fixed he remains, and turns a maudlin love.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Wine warms the blood, and makes the spirits flow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Care flies, and wrinkles from the forehead go;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exalts the poor, invigorates the weak;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gives mirth and laughter, and a rosy cheek.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bold truths it speaks, and, spoken, dares maintain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And brings our old simplicity again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love sparkles in the cup, and fills it higher;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wine feeds the flames, and fuel adds to fire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But choose no mistress in thy drunken fit;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wine gilds too much their beauties and their wit.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor trust thy judgment when the tapers dance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sober, and by day, thy suit advance.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By day-light Paris judged the beauteous three,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for the fairest did the prize decree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Night is a cheat, and all deformities<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are hid, or lessened, in her dark disguise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sun's fair light each error will confess,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In face, in shape, in jewels, and in dress.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Why name I every place where youths abound?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis loss of time, and a too fruitful ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Baian baths, where ships at anchor ride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wholesome streams from sulphur fountains glide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where wounded youths are by experience taught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The waters are less healthful than they thought;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or Dian's fane, which near the suburb lies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where priests, for their promotion, fight a prize.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That maiden goddess is Love's mortal foe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And much from her his subjects undergo.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus far the sportful Muse, with myrtle bound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has sung where lovely lasses may be found.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now let me sing, how she, who wounds your mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With art, may be to cure your wounds inclined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Young nobles, to my laws attention lend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all you, vulgar of my school, attend.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">First then believe, all women may be won;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Attempt with confidence, the work is done.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The grashopper shall first forbear to sing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In summer season, or the birds in spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than women can resist your flattering skill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even she will yield, who swears she never will.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To secret pleasure both the sexes move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But women most, who most dissemble love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twere best for us, if they would first declare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Avow their passion, and submit to prayer.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cow, by lowing, tells the bull her flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The neighing mare invites her stallion to the game.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Man is more temperate in his lust than they,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And more than women can his passion sway.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Biblis, we know, did first her love declare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And had recourse to death in her despair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her brother she, her father Myrrha sought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And loved, but loved not as a daughter ought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now from a tree she stills her odorous tears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which yet the name of her who shed them bears.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In Ida's shady vale a bull appeared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">White as the snow, the fairest of the herd;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A beauty-spot of black there only rose, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt his equal horns and ample brows; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The love and wish of all the Cretan cows.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The queen beheld him as his head he reared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And envied every leap he gave the herd;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A secret fire she nourished in her breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hated every heifer he caressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A story known, and known for true, I tell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Crete, though lying, can the truth conceal.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She cut him grass; (so much can Love command,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She stroked, she fed him with her royal hand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was pleased in pastures with the herd to roam;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Minos by the bull was overcome.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Cease, queen, with gems t'adorn thy beauteous brows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The monarch of thy heart no jewel knows.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor in thy glass compose thy looks and eyes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure from all thy charms thy lover lies:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet trust thy mirror, when it tells thee true;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou art no heifer to allure his view.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Soon would'st thou quit thy royal diadem<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To thy fair rivals, to be horned like them.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If Minos please, no lover seek to find;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If not, at least seek one of human kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The wretched queen the Cretan court forsakes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In woods and wilds her habitation makes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She curses every beauteous cow she sees;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah, why dost thou my lord and master please!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And think'st, ungrateful creature as thou art,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With frisking awkwardly, to gain his heart!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She said, and straight commands, with frowning look,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To put her, undeserving, to the yoke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or feigns some holy rites of sacrifice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sees her rival's death with joyful eyes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, when the bloody priest has done his part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pleased, in her hand she holds the beating heart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor from a scornful taunt can scarce refrain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go, fool, and strive to please my love again.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now she would be Europa, Io now;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(One bore a bull, and one was made a cow.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet she at last her brutal bliss obtained,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in a wooden cow the bull sustained;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Filled with his seed, accomplished her desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till by his form the son betrayed the sire.<a id="FNanchor_AQ_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_AQ_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i2">If Atreus' wife to incest had not run,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(But, ah, how hard it is to love but one!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His coursers Phœbus had not driven away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To shun that sight, and interrupt the day.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thy daughter, Nisus,<a id="FNanchor_AR_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_AR_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> pulled thy purple hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And barking sea-dogs yet her bowels tear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At sea and land Atrides saved his life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet fell a prey to his adulterous wife.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who knows not what revenge Medea sought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the slain offspring bore the father's fault?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Phœnix did a woman's love bewail;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus Hippolytus by Phædra fell.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These crimes revengeful matrons did commit;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hotter their lust, and sharper is their wit.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doubt not from them an easy victory;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scarce of a thousand dames will one deny.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All women are content that men should woo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She who complains, and she who will not do.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rest then secure, whate'er thy luck may prove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not to be hated for declaring love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet how canst thou miss, since womankind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is frail and vain, and still to change inclined?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Old husbands and stale gallants they despise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And more another's, than their own, they prize.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A larger crop adorns our neighbour's field;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More milk his kine from swelling udders yield.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">First gain the maid; by her thou shalt be sure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A free access and easy to procure:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who knows what to her office does belong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is in the secret, and can hold her tongue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bribe her with gifts, with promises, and prayers;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For her good word goes far in love-affairs.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The time and fit occasion leave to her,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When she most aptly can thy suit prefer.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The time for maids to fire their lady's blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is, when they find her in a merry mood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When all things at her wish and pleasure move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her heart is open then, and free to love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then mirth and wantonness to lust betray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smooth the passage to the lover's way.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Troy stood the siege, when filled with anxious care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One merry fit concluded all the war.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">If some fair rival vex her jealous mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Offer thy service to revenge in kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Instruct the damsel, while she combs her hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To raise the choler of that injured fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, sighing, make her mistress understand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She has the means of vengeance in her hand:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, naming thee, thy humble suit prefer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And swear thou languishest and diest for her.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then let her lose no time, but push at all;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For women soon are raised, and soon they fall.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give their first fury leisure to relent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They melt like ice, and suddenly repent.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To enjoy the maid, will that thy suit advance?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis a hard question, and a doubtful chance.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One maid, corrupted, bawds the better for't;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another for herself would keep the sport.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy business may be furthered or delayed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, by my counsel, let alone the maid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even though she should consent to do the feat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The profit's little, and the danger great.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I will not lead thee through a rugged road,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, where the way lies open, safe, and broad.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet if thou find'st her very much thy friend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And her good face her diligence commend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let the fair mistress have thy first embrace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let the maid come after in her place.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But this I will advise, and mark my words;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For 'tis the best advice my skill affords:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If needs thou with the damsel wilt begin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the attempt is made, make sure to win;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For then the secret better will be kept,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she can tell no tales when once she's dipt.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis for the fowler's interest to beware,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bird entangled should not 'scape the snare.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The fish, once pricked, avoids the bearded hook,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And spoils the sport of all the neighbouring brook.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if the wench be thine, she makes thy way, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, for thy sake, her mistress will betray; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Tell all she knows, and all she hears her say.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Keep well the counsel of thy faithful spy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So shalt thou learn whene'er she treads awry.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All things the stations of their seasons keep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And certain times there are to sow and reap.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ploughmen and sailors for the season stay, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">One to plough land, and one to plough the sea;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">So should the lover wait the lucky day. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Then stop thy suit, it hurts not thy design;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But think, another hour she may be thine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when she celebrates her birth at home, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or when she views the public shows of Rome,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Know, all thy visits then are troublesome. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Defer thy work, and put not then to sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For that's a boding and a stormy day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Else take thy time, and, when thou canst, begin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To break a Jewish Sabbath, think no sin:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor even on superstitious days abstain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not when the Romans were at Allia slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ill omens in her frowns are understood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When she's in humour, every day is good.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But than her birth day seldom comes a worse, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">When bribes and presents must be sent of course;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And that's a bloody day, that costs thy purse. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Be staunch, yet parsimony will be vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The craving sex will still the lover drain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No skill can shift them off, nor art remove;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They will be begging, when they know we love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The merchant comes upon the appointed day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who shall before thy face his wares display;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To choose for her she craves thy kind advice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then begs again, to bargain for the price:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But when she has her purchase in her eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She hugs thee close, and kisses thee to buy:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis what I want, and 'tis a pen'orth too;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In many years I will not trouble you.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If you complain you have no ready coin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No matter, 'tis but writing of a line,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A little bill, not to be paid at sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now curse the time when thou wert taught to write!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She keeps her birth-day; you must send the chear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she'll be born a hundred times a year.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With daily lies she dribs thee into cost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ear-ring dropt a stone, that ring is lost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They often borrow what they never pay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whate'er you lend her, think it thrown away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had I ten mouths and tongues to tell each art,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All would be wearied ere I told a part.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">By letters, not by words, thy love begin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ford the dangerous passage with thy pen.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If to her heart thou aim'st to find the way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Extremely flatter, and extremely pray.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Priam by prayers did Hector's body gain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor is an angry God invoked in vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With promised gifts her easy mind bewitch;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For e'en the poor in promise may be rich.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vain hopes awhile her appetite will stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis a deceitful, but commodious way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who gives is mad; but make her still believe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Twill come, and that's the cheapest way to give.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">E'en barren lands fair promises afford;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the lean harvest cheats the starving lord.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Buy not thy first enjoyment, lest it prove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of bad example to thy future love:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But get it gratis, and she'll give thee more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For fear of losing what she gave before.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The losing gamester shakes the box in vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bleeds, and loses on, in hopes to gain.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Write then, and in thy letter, as I said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let her with mighty promises be fed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cydippe by a letter was betrayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Writ on an apple to the unwary maid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She read herself into a marriage-vow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(And every cheat in love the gods allow.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Learn eloquence, ye noble youth of Rome;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It will not only at the bar o'ercome:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet words the people and the senate move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the chief end of eloquence is love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But in thy letter hide thy moving arts;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Affect not to be thought a man of parts.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">None but vain fools to simple women preach;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A learned letter oft has made a breach.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a familiar style your thoughts convey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And write such things as present you would say;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such words as from the heart may seem to move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis wit enough, to make her think you love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If sealed she sends it back, and will not read,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet hope, in time, the business may succeed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In time the steer will to the yoke submit;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In time the restive horse will bear the bitt;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even the hard plough-share use will wear away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stubborn steel in length of time decay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Water is soft, and marble hard; and yet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We see soft water through hard marble eat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though late, yet Troy at length in flames expired;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ten years more Penelope had tired.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps thy lines unanswered she retained;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No matter, there's a point already gained;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For she, who reads, in time will answer too:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Things must be left by just degrees to grow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps she writes, but answers with disdain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sharply bids you not to write again:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What she requires, she fears you should accord;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The jilt would not be taken at her word.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Mean time, if she be carried in her chair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Approach, but do not seem to know she's there.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Speak softly, to delude the standers by;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or, if aloud, then speak ambiguously.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If sauntering in the portico she walk,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Move slowly too, for that's a time for talk;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sometimes follow, sometimes be her guide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, when the crowd permits, go side by side.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor in the play-house let her sit alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For she's the play-house, and the play, in one.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There thou may'st ogle, or by signs advance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy suit, and seem to touch her hand by chance.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Admire the dancer who her liking gains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pity in the play the lover's pains:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For her sweet sake the loss of time despise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sit while she sits, and when she rises, rise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But dress not like a fop, nor curl your hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor with a pumice make your body bare;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leave those effeminate and useless toys<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To eunuchs, who can give no solid joys.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neglect becomes a man; thus Theseus found;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Uncurled, uncombed, the nymph his wishes crowned.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rough Hippolytus was Phædra's care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Venus thought the rude Adonis fair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be not too finical; but yet be clean,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wear well-fashioned clothes, like other men.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let not your teeth be yellow, or be foul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor in wide shoes your feet too loosely roll;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a black muzzle, and long beard, beware,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let a skilful barber cut your hair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your nails be picked from filth, and even pared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor let your nasty nostrils bud with beard;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cure your unsavoury breath, gargle your throat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And free your armpits from the ram and goat:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dress not, in short, too little or too much;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And be not wholly French, nor wholly Dutch.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Now Bacchus calls me to his jolly rites;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who would not follow, when a God invites?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He helps the poet, and his pen inspires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Kind and indulgent to his former fires.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fair Ariadne wandered on the shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forsaken now, and Theseus loved no more:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loose was her gown, dishevelled was her hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her bosom naked, and her feet were bare;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exclaiming, on the water's brink she stood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her briny tears augment the briny flood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She shrieked, and wept, and both became her face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No posture could that heavenly form disgrace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She beat her breast: The traitor's gone, said she;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What shall become of poor forsaken me?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What shall become——she had not time for more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sounding cymbals rattled on the shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She swoons for fear, she falls upon the ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No vital heat was in her body found.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Mimallonian dames about her stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And scudding satyrs ran before their God.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Silenus on his ass did next appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And held upon the mane; (the God was clear)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The drunken sire pursues, the dames retire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes the drunken dames pursue the drunken sire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last he topples over on the plain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The satyrs laugh, and bid him rise again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now the God of Wine came driving on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">High on his chariot by swift tygers drawn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her colour, voice, and sense, forsook the fair; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thrice did her trembling feet for flight prepare,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And thrice, affrighted, did her flight forbear. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">She shook, like leaves of corn when tempests blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or slender reeds that in the marshes grow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whom the God:—Compose thy fearful mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In me a truer husband thou shalt find.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> -<span class="i0">With heaven I will endow thee, and thy star<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Shall with propitious light be seen afar, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And guide on seas the doubtful mariner. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and from his chariot leaping light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lest the grim tygers should the nymph affright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His brawny arms around her waist he threw;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For Gods, whate'er they will, with ease can do;)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And swiftly bore her thence: the attending throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shout at the sight, and sing the nuptial song.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now in full bowls her sorrow she may steep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bridegroom's liquor lays the bride asleep.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But thou, when flowing cups in triumph ride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the loved nymph is seated by thy side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invoke the God, and all the mighty Powers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wine may not defraud thy genial hours.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then in ambiguous words thy suit prefer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which she may know were all addrest to her.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In liquid purple letters write her name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which she may read, and, reading, find the flame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then may your eyes confess your mutual fires;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For eyes have tongues, and glances tell desires;)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whene'er she drinks, be first to take the cup,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, where she laid her lips, the blessing sup.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When she to carving does her hand advance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Put out thy own, and touch it as by chance.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy service even her husband must attend:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(A husband is a most convenient friend.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seat the fool cuckold in the highest place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with thy garland his dull temples grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether below or equal in degree, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Let him be lord of all the company, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And what he says, be seconded by thee.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis common to deceive through friendship's name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, common though it be, 'tis still to blame:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus factors frequently their trust betray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to themselves their masters' gains convey.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Drink to a certain pitch, and then give o'er;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy tongue and feet may stumble, drinking more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of drunken quarrels in her sight beware;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pot-valour only serves to fright the fair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eurytion justly fell, by wine opprest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For his rude riot at a wedding-feast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sing, if you have a voice; and show your parts<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In dancing, if endued with dancing arts.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do any thing within your power to please;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nay, even affect a seeming drunkenness:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clip every word; and if by chance you speak<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too home, or if too broad a jest you break,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In your excuse the company will join,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lay the fault upon the force of wine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">True drunkenness is subject to offend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when 'tis feigned, 'tis oft a lover's friend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then safely you may praise her beauteous face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And call him happy, who is in her grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her husband thinks himself the man designed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But curse the cuckold in your secret mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When all are risen, and prepare to go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mix with the crowd, and tread upon her toe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is the proper time to make thy court;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For now she's in the vein, and fit for sport.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lay bashfulness, that rustic virtue, by;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To manly confidence thy thoughts apply.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On fortune's foretop timely fix thy hold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now speak and speed, for Venus loves the bold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No rules of rhetoric here I need afford; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Only begin, and trust the following word;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">It will be witty of its own accord. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Act well the lover; let thy speech abound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In dying words, that represent thy wound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Distrust not her belief; she will be moved;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All women think they merit to be loved.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sometimes a man begins to love in jest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, after, feels the torment he profest,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For your own sakes be pitiful, ye fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For a feigned passion may a true prepare.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By flatteries we prevail on womankind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As hollow banks by streams are undermined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tell her, her face is fair, her eyes are sweet;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her taper fingers praise, and little feet.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such praises even the chaste are pleased to hear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both maids and matrons hold their beauty dear.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Once naked Pallas with Jove's queen appeared,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still they grieve that Venus was preferred.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Praise the proud peacock, and he spreads his train;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be silent, and he pulls it in again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pleased is the courser in his rapid race;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Applaud his running, and he mends his pace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But largely promise, and devoutly swear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, if need be, call every God to hear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove sits above, forgiving with a smile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The perjuries that easy maids beguile.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He swore to Juno by the Stygian lake; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Forsworn, he dares not an example make, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or punish falsehood, for his own dear sake.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis for our interest that the gods should be;<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Let us believe them; I believe, they see, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And both reward, and punish equally. <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Not that they live above like lazy drones,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or kings below, supine upon their thrones.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lead then your lives as present in their sight;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Be just in dealings, and defend the right; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">By fraud betray not, nor oppress by might. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But 'tis a venial sin to cheat the fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All men have liberty of conscience there.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On cheating nymphs a cheat is well designed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis a profane and a deceitful kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">'Tis said, that Egypt for nine years was dry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Nile did floods, nor heaven did rain supply.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A foreigner at length informed the king,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That slaughtered guests would kindly moisture bring.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The king replied:—On thee the lot shall fall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be thou my guest, the sacrifice for all.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Phaleris Perillus taught to low,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And made him season first the brazen cow.<a id="FNanchor_AS_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_AS_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">A rightful doom, the laws of nature cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis, the artificers of death should die:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, justly women suffer by deceit;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their practice authorizes us to cheat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beg her, with tears, thy warm desires to grant;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For tears will pierce a heart of adamant.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If tears will not be squeezed, then rub your eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or 'noint the lids, and seem at least to cry.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Kiss, if you can; resistance if she make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And will not give you kisses, let her take.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fie, fie, you naughty man, are words of course;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She struggles but to be subdued by force.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Kiss only soft, I charge you, and beware,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With your hard bristles not to brush the fair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He who has gained a kiss, and gains no more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deserves to lose the bliss he got before.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If once she kiss, her meaning is exprest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There wants but little pushing for the rest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which if thou dost not gain, by strength or art,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The name of clown then suits with thy desert; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis downright dulness, and a shameful part. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps, she calls it force; but, if she 'scape,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She will not thank you for the omitted rape.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sex is cunning to conceal their fires;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They would be forced e'en to their own desires.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They seem to accuse you, with a downcast sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But in their souls confess you did them right.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Who might be forced, and yet untouched depart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thank with their tongues, but curse you with their heart.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fair Phœbe and her sister did prefer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To their dull mates the noble ravisher.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What Deidamia did, in days of yore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tale is old, but worth the reading o'er.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Venus had the golden apple gained,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the just judge fair Helen had obtained;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When she with triumph was at Troy received,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Trojans joyful, while the Grecians grieved;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They vowed revenge of violated laws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Greece was arming in the cuckold's cause:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Achilles, by his mother warned from war,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Disguised his sex, and lurked among the fair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What means Æacides to spin and sow? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With spear and sword in field thy valour show;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, leaving this, the nobler Pallas know. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Why dost thou in that hand the distaff wield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which is more worthy to sustain the shield?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or with that other draw the woolly twine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The same the fates for Hector's thread assign?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brandish thy faulchion in thy powerful hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which can alone the ponderous lance command.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the same room by chance the royal maid <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Was lodged, and, by his seeming sex betrayed,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Close to her side the youthful hero laid. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I know not how his courtship he began;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, to her cost, she found it was a man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis thought she struggled; but withal 'tis thought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her wish was to be conquered when she fought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For when disclosed, and hastening to the field,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He laid his distaff down, and took the shield;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With tears her humble suit she did prefer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thought to stay the grateful<a id="FNanchor_AT_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_AT_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> ravisher.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> -<span class="i0">She sighs, she sobs, she begs him not to part;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now 'tis nature, what before was art.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She strives by force her lover to detain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wishes to be ravished once again.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is the sex; they will not first begin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, when compelled, are pleased to suffer sin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is there, who thinks that women first should woo?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lay by thy self-conceit, thou foolish beau!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Begin, and save their modesty the shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis well for thee, if they receive thy flame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis decent for a man to speak his mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They but expect the occasion to be kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ask, that thou may'st enjoy; she waits for this;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on thy first advance depends thy bliss:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even Jove himself was forced to sue for love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">None of the nymphs did first solicit Jove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if you find your prayers increase her pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strike sail awhile, and wait another tide.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They fly when we pursue; but make delay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, when they see you slacken, they will stay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes it profits to conceal your end;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Name not yourself her lover, but her friend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How many skittish girls have thus been caught!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He proved a lover, who a friend was thought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sailors by sun and wind are swarthy made;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A tanned complexion best becomes their trade:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis a disgrace to ploughmen to be fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bluff cheeks they have, and weather-beaten hair:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ambitious youth, who seeks an olive crown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is sun-burnt with his daily toil, and brown;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if the lover hopes to be in grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wan be his looks, and meagre be his face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That colour from the fair compassion draws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She thinks you sick, and thinks herself the cause.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Orion wandered in the woods for love; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His paleness did the nymphs to pity move;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His ghastly visage argued hidden love. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor fail a night-cap, in full health, to wear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neglect thy dress, and discompose thy hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All things are decent, that in love avail;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Read long by night, and study to be pale;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forsake your food, refuse your needful rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be miserable, that you may be blest.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shall I complain, or shall I warn you most? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Faith, truth, and friendship in the world are lost;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A little and an empty name they boast. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Trust not thy friend, much less thy mistress praise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If he believe, thou may'st a rival raise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis true, Patroclus, by no lust misled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sought not to stain his dear companion's bed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Pylades Hermione embraced;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even Phædra to Pirithous still was chaste.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But hope not thou, in this vile age, to find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those rare examples of a faithful mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sea shall sooner with sweet honey flow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or from the furzes pears and apples grow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We sin with gust, we love by fraud to gain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And find a pleasure in our fellow's pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From rival foes you may the fair defend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, would you ward the blow, beware your friend:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beware your brother, and your next of kin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But from your bosom-friend your care begin.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Here I had ended, but experience finds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That sundry women are of sundry minds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With various crotchets filled, and hard to please;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They therefore must be caught by various ways.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All things are not produced in any soil;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This ground for wine is proper, that for oil.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So 'tis in men, but more in womankind; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Different in face, in manners, and in mind; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But wise men shift their sails with every wind.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">As changeful Proteus varied oft his shape,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And did in sundry forms and figures 'scape;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A running stream, a standing tree became,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A roaring lion, or a bleating lamb.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some fish with harpoons, some with darts are struck,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some drawn with nets, some hang upon the hook;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So turn thyself; and, imitating them,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Try several tricks, and change thy stratagem.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One rule will not for different ages hold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The jades grow cunning, as they grow more old.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then talk not bawdy to the bashful maid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Broad words will make her innocence afraid:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor to an ignorant girl of learning speak;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She thinks you conjure, when you talk in Greek.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hence 'tis often seen, the simple shun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The learned, and into vile embraces run.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Part of my task is done, and part to do;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But here 'tis time to rest myself and you.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AQ_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AQ_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> The Minotaur.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AR_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AR_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Scylla.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AS_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AS_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> The famous brazen bull of Phalaris is here, <i>rythmi gratia</i>, -converted into a cow. The story of his inclosing Perillus, the inventor, -in the engine which he had contrived, is well-known.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AT_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AT_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Grateful is here used for pleasing.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S AMOURS.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">BOOK I. ELEG. 1.</span><br /><br /></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For mighty wars I thought to tune my lute,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And make my measures to my subject suit.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Six feet for every verse the Muse designed;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But Cupid, laughing, when he saw my mind, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">From every second verse a foot purloined. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Who gave thee, boy, this arbitrary sway, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">On subjects, not thy own, commands to lay,<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Who Phœbus only and his laws obey? <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis more absurd than if the Queen of Love<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should in Minerva's arms to battle move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or manly Pallas from that queen should take<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her torch, and o'er the dying lover shake:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In fields as well may Cynthia sow the corn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or Ceres wind in woods the bugle-horn:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As well may Phœbus quit the trembling string,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For sword and shield; and Mars may learn to sing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Already thy dominions are too large;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be not ambitious of a foreign charge.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> -<span class="i0">If thou wilt reign o'er all, and every where,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The God of Music for his harp may fear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, when with soaring wings I seek renown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou pluck'st my pinions, and I flutter down.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Could I on such mean thoughts my Muse employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I want a mistress, or a blooming boy.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus I complained; his bow the stripling bent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And chose an arrow fit for his intent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shaft his purpose fatally pursues;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, poet, there's a subject for thy Muse!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said. Too well, alas, he knows his trade;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in my breast a mortal wound he made.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far hence, ye proud hexameters, remove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My verse is paced and trammelled into love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With myrtle wreaths my thoughtful brows inclose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While in unequal verse I sing my woes.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -OVID'S AMOURS.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">BOOK I. ELEG. 4.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>To his Mistress, whose Husband is invited to a Feast with them. The -Poet instructs her how to behave herself in his company.</i></p> -</blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Your husband will be with us at the treat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May that be the last supper he shall eat!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And am poor I a guest invited there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only to see, while he may touch the fair?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see you kiss and hug your nauseous lord,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While his lewd hand descends below the board?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now wonder not that Hippodamia's charms,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At such a sight, the Centaurs urged to arms;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That in a rage they threw their cups aside,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assailed the bridegroom, and would force the bride.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am not half a horse, (I would I were!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet hardly can from you my hands forbear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take then my counsel; which, observed, may be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of some importance both to you and me.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Be sure to come before your man be there;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There's nothing can be done; but come, howe'er.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Sit next him, (that belongs to decency,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But tread upon my foot in passing by;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Read in my looks what silently they speak,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And slily, with your eyes, your answer make.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My lifted eye-brow shall declare my pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My right-hand to his fellow shall complain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the back a letter shall design,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Besides a note that shall be writ in wine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whene'er you think upon our last embrace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With your fore-finger gently touch your face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If any word of mine offend my dear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pull, with your hand, the velvet of your ear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If you are pleased with what I do or say,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Handle your rings, or with your fingers play;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As suppliants use at altars, hold the board,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whene'er you wish the devil may take your lord.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When he fills for you, never touch the cup,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But bid the officious cuckold drink it up.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The waiter on those services employ;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drink you, and I will snatch it from the boy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Watching the part where your sweet mouth hath been,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thence with eager lips will suck it in.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If he, with clownish manners, thinks it fit<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To taste, and offer you the nasty bit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reject his greasy kindness, and restore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The unsavoury morsel he had chewed before.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor let his arms embrace your neck, nor rest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your tender cheek upon his hairy breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let not his hand within your bosom stray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rudely with your pretty bubbies play;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, above all, let him no kiss receive!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That's an offence I never can forgive.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do not, O do not that sweet mouth resign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lest I rise up in arms, and cry, 'tis mine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I shall thrust in betwixt, and, void of fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The manifest adulterer will appear.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> -<span class="i0">These things are plain to sight; but more I doubt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What you conceal beneath your petticoat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take not his leg between your tender thighs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor, with your hand, provoke my foe to rise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How many love-inventions I deplore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which I myself have practised all before!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How oft have I been forced the robe to lift<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In company; to make a homely shift<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For a bare bout, ill huddled o'er in haste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While o'er my side the fair her mantle cast!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You to your husband shall not be so kind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, lest you should, your mantle leave behind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Encourage him to tope; but kiss him not,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor mix one drop of water in his pot.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If he be fuddled well, and snores apace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then we may take advice from time and place.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When all depart, when compliments are loud,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be sure to mix among the thickest crowd;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There I will be, and there we cannot miss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps to grubble, or at least to kiss.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! what length of labour I employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just to secure a short and transient joy!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For night must part us; and when night is come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tucked underneath his arm he leads you home.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He locks you in; I follow to the door,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His fortune envy, and my own deplore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He kisses you, he more than kisses too;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The outrageous cuckold thinks it all his due.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But add not to his joy by your consent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let it not be given, but only lent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Return no kiss, nor move in any sort;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make it a dull and a malignant sport.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had I my wish, he should no pleasure take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But slubber o'er your business for my sake;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whate'er fortune shall this night befal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coax me to-morrow, by forswearing all.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a></span></p> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">PREFACE<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">ON</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">TRANSLATION,</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">PREFIXED TO</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">DRYDEN's SECOND MISCELLANY,</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">PUBLISHED IN 1685.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<p>For this last half year I have been troubled with the -disease (as I may call it) of translation. The cold prose -fits of it, which are always the most tedious with -me, were spent in the History of the League;<a id="FNanchor_AU_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_AU_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> the -hot, which succeeded them, in this volume of Verse -Miscellanies. The truth is, I fancied to myself a -kind of ease in the change of the paroxysm; never -suspecting but that the humour would have wasted -itself in two or three pastorals of Theocritus, and as -many odes of Horace. But finding, or at least thinking -I found, something that was more pleasing in -them than my ordinary productions, I encouraged -myself to renew my old acquaintance with Lucretius -and Virgil; and immediately fixed upon some parts -of them, which had most affected me in the reading.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> - -<p>These were my natural impulses for the undertaking. -But there was an accidental motive which -was full as forcible, and God forgive him who was -the occasion of it. It was my Lord Roscommon's -"Essay on Translated Verse;"<a id="FNanchor_AV_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_AV_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> which made me -uneasy till I tried whether or no I was capable -of following his rules, and of reducing the speculation -into practice. For, many a fair precept in poetry -is, like a seeming demonstration in the mathematics, -very specious in the diagram, but failing in -the mechanic operation. I think I have generally -observed his instructions; I am sure my reason is -sufficiently convinced both of their truth and usefulness; -which, in other words, is to confess no -less a vanity, than to pretend that I have, at least -in some places, made examples to his rules. Yet, -withal, I must acknowledge, that I have many -times exceeded my commission; for I have both -added and omitted, and even sometimes very boldly -made such expositions of my author's, as no -Dutch commentator will forgive me. Perhaps, in -such particular passages, I have thought that I discovered -some beauty yet undiscovered by those pedants, -which none but a poet could have found. -Where I have taken away some of their expressions, -and cut them shorter, it may possibly be on this -consideration, that what was beautiful in the Greek -or Latin, would not appear so shining in the English: -and where I have enlarged them, I desire -the false critics would not always think, that those -thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are -secretly in the poet, or may be fairly deduced from -him; or at least, if both those considerations should -fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if -he were living, and an Englishman, they are such -as he would probably have written.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> - -<p>For, after all, a translator is to make his author -appear as charming as possibly he can, provided he -maintains his character, and makes him not unlike -himself. Translation is a kind of drawing after the -life; where every one will acknowledge there is a -double sort of likeness, a good one and a bad. It -is one thing to draw the outlines true, the features -like, the proportions exact, the colouring itself perhaps -tolerable; and another thing to make all these -graceful, by the posture, the shadowings, and, chiefly, -by the spirit which animates the whole. I cannot, -without some indignation, look on an ill copy -of an excellent original; much less can I behold -with patience Virgil, Homer, and some others, whose -beauties I have been endeavouring all my life to -imitate, so abused, as I may say, to their faces, by a -botching interpreter. What English readers, unacquainted -with Greek or Latin, will believe me, or -any other man, when we commend those authors, -and confess we derive all that is pardonable in us -from their fountains, if they take those to be the -same poets, whom our Oglebies have translated? -But I dare assure them, that a good poet is no more -like himself, in a dull translation, than his carcase -would be to his living body. There are many, who -understand Greek and Latin, and yet are ignorant -of their mother-tongue. The proprieties and delicacies -of the English are known to few; it is impossible -even for a good wit to understand and -practise them, without the help of a liberal education, -long reading, and digesting of those few -good authors we have amongst us, the knowledge -of men and manners, the freedom of habitudes and -conversation with the best company of both sexes; - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> -and, in short, without wearing off the rust which -he contracted while he was laying in a stock of -learning. Thus difficult it is to understand the purity -of English, and critically to discern not only -good writers from bad, and a proper style from a -corrupt, but also to distinguish that which is pure in -a good author, from that which is vicious and corrupt -in him. And for want of all these requisites, -or the greatest part of them, most of our ingenious -young men take up some cried-up English poet for -their model, adore him, and imitate him, as they -think, without knowing wherein he is defective, -where he is boyish and trifling, wherein either his -thoughts are improper to his subject, or his expressions -unworthy of his thoughts, or the turn of both -is unharmonious. Thus it appears necessary, that a -man should be a nice critic in his mother-tongue, -before he attempts to translate in a foreign language. -Neither is it sufficient, that he be able to judge -of words and style; but he must be a master of -them too; he must perfectly understand his author's -tongue, and absolutely command his own. -So that, to be a thorough translator, he must be -a thorough poet. Neither is it enough to give his -author's sense in good English, in poetical expressions, -and in musical numbers; for, though all these -are exceeding difficult to perform, there yet remains -a harder task; and it is a secret of which few -translators have sufficiently thought. I have already -hinted a word or two concerning it; that is, -the maintaining the character of an author, which -distinguishes him from all others, and makes him -appear that individual poet whom you would interpret. -For example, not only the thoughts, but the -style and versification, of Virgil and Ovid are very -different: Yet I see, even in our best poets, who -have translated some parts of them, that they have - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> -confounded their several talents; and, by endeavouring -only at the sweetness and harmony of numbers, -have made them both so much alike, that, -if I did not know the originals, I should never be -able to judge by the copies, which was Virgil, and -which was Ovid. It was objected against a late -noble painter,<a id="FNanchor_AW_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_AW_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> that he drew many graceful pictures, -but few of them were alike. And this happened -to him, because he always studied himself -more than those who sat to him. In such translators -I can easily distinguish the hand which performed -the work, but I cannot distinguish their -poet from another. Suppose two authors are equally -sweet, yet there is as great distinction to be made -in sweetness, as in that of sugar, and that of honey. -I can make the difference more plain, by giving you -(if it be worth knowing) my own method of proceeding, -in my translations out of four several poets -in this volume; Virgil, Theocritus, Lucretius, and -Horace. In each of these, before I undertook them, -I considered the genius and distinguishing character -of my author. I looked on Virgil as a succinct, -and grave majestic writer; one who weighed, not -only every thought, but every word and syllable; -who was still aiming to crowd his sense into as narrow -a compass as possibly he could; for which reason -he is so very figurative, that he requires (I may -almost say) a grammar apart to construe him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> - -<p>His verse is every where sounding the very thing in -your ears, whose sense it bears; yet the numbers -are perpetually varied, to increase the delight of the -reader; so that the same sounds are never repeated -twice together. On the contrary, Ovid and Claudian, -though they write in styles differing from each other, -yet have each of them but one sort of music in their -verses. All the versification and little variety of -Claudian is included within the compass of four or -five lines, and then he begins again in the same tenor; -perpetually closing his sense at the end of a -verse, and that verse commonly which they call golden, -or two substantives and two adjectives, with a -verb betwixt them to keep the peace. Ovid, with -all his sweetness, has as little variety of numbers -and sound as he: he is always, as it were, upon the -hand-gallop, and his verse runs upon carpet-ground. -He avoids, like the other, all synalæphas, or cutting -off one vowel when it comes before another in the -following word; so that, minding only smoothness, -he wants both variety and majesty.—But to return to -Virgil: though he is smooth where smoothness is required, -yet he is so far from affecting it, that he seems -rather to disdain it; frequently makes use of synalæphas, -and concludes his sense in the middle of -his verse. He is every where above conceits of -epigrammatic wit, and gross hyperboles; he maintains -majesty in the midst of plainness; he shines, -but glares not; and is stately without ambition, -which is the vice of Lucan. I drew my definition -of poetical wit from my particular consideration of -him: for propriety of thoughts and words are only -to be found in him; and, where they are proper, -they will be delightful. Pleasure follows of necessity, -as the effect does the cause; and therefore is -not to be put into the definition. This exact propriety -of Virgil I particularly regarded, as a great -part of his character; but must confess, to my -shame, that I have not been able to translate any -part of him so well, as to make him appear wholly - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> -like himself: for, where the original is close, no -version can reach it in the same compass. Hannibal -Caro's,<a id="FNanchor_AX_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_AX_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> in the Italian, is the nearest, the most -poetical, and the most sonorous of any translation -of the Æneids; yet, though he takes the advantage -of blank verse, he commonly allows two lines for -one of Virgil, and does not always hit his sense. -Tasso tells us, in his letters, that Sperone Speroni, -a great Italian wit, who was his contemporary, -observed of Virgil and Tully, that the Latin orator -endeavoured to imitate the copiousness of Homer, -the Greek poet; and that the Latin poet made -it his business to reach the conciseness of Demosthenes, -the Greek orator. Virgil therefore, being -so very sparing of his words, and leaving so much -to be imagined by the reader, can never be translated -as he ought, in any modern tongue. To make -him copious, is to alter his character; and to translate -him line for line, is impossible; because the -Latin is naturally a more succinct language than -either the Italian, Spanish, French, or even than -the English, which, by reason of its monosyllables, -is far the most compendious of them. Virgil is -much the closest of any Roman poet, and the Latin -hexameter has more feet than the English heroick.</p> - -<p>Besides all this, an author has the choice of his -own thoughts and words, which a translator has -not; he is confined by the sense of the inventor to -those expressions which are the nearest to it: so -that Virgil, studying brevity, and having the command -of his own language, could bring those words -into a narrow compass, which a translator cannot -render without circumlocutions. In short, they, -who have called him the torture of grammarians, -might also have called him the plague of translators; -for he seems to have studied not to be translated.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> - -<p>I own that, endeavouring to turn his "Nisus -and Euryalus" as close as I was able, I have performed -that episode too literally; that, giving more -scope to "Mezentius and Lausus," that version, which -has more of the majesty of Virgil, has less of his -conciseness; and all that I can promise for myself, -is only, that I have done both better than Ogleby, -and perhaps as well as Caro; so that, methinks, I -come like a malefactor, to make a speech upon the -gallows, and to warn all other poets, by my sad example, -from the sacrilege of translating Virgil. Yet, -by considering him so carefully as I did before my -attempt, I have made some faint resemblance of -him; and, had I taken more time, might possibly -have succeeded better; but never so well as to have -satisfied myself.</p> - -<p>He who excels all other poets in his own language, -were it possible to do him right, must appear -above them in our tongue, which, as my Lord Roscommon -justly observes, approaches nearest to the -Roman in its majesty; nearest indeed, but with a -vast interval betwixt them. There is an inimitable -grace in Virgil's words, and in them principally -consists that beauty, which gives so inexpressible a -pleasure to him who best understands their force. -This diction of his (I must once again say) is never -to be copied; and, since it cannot, he will appear -but lame in the best translation. The turns of his -verse, his breakings, his propriety, his numbers, and -his gravity, I have as far imitated, as the poverty of -our language, and the hastiness of my performance, -would allow. I may seem sometimes to have varied -from his sense; but I think the greatest variations -may be fairly deduced from him; and where I -leave his commentators, it may be I understand him -better: at least I writ without consulting them in -many places. But two particular lines in Mezentius - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> -and Lausus, I cannot so easily excuse. They are -indeed remotely allied to Virgil's sense; but they -are too like the trifling tenderness of Ovid, and were -printed before I had considered them enough to -alter them. The first of them I have forgotten, and -cannot easily retrieve, because the copy is at the -press. The second is this:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When Lausus died, I was already slain.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>This appears pretty enough at first sight; but I -am convinced, for many reasons, that the expression -is too bold; that Virgil would not have said it, -though Ovid would. The reader may pardon it, if -he please, for the freeness of the confession; and -instead of that, and the former, admit these two -lines, which are more according to the author:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Nor ask I life, nor fought with that design;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As I had used my fortune, use thou thine.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Having with much ado got clear of Virgil, I -have, in the next place, to consider the genius of -Lucretius, whom I have translated more happily in -those parts of him which I undertook. If he was -not of the best age of Roman poetry, he was at -least of that which preceded it;<a id="FNanchor_AY_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_AY_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and he himself -refined it to that degree of perfection, both in the -language and the thoughts, that he left an easy -task to Virgil; who, as he succeeded him in time, so -he copied his excellencies; for the method of the -Georgics is plainly derived from him. Lucretius -had chosen a subject naturally crabbed; he therefore -adorned it with poetical descriptions, and precepts -of morality, in the beginning and ending of -his books, which you see Virgil has imitated with -great success in those four books, which, in my opinion, -are more perfect in their kind than even his - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> -divine Æneids. The turn of his verses he has likewise -followed in those places which Lucretius has -most laboured, and some of his very lines he has -transplanted into his own works, without much variation. -If I am not mistaken, the distinguishing -character of Lucretius (I mean of his soul and -genius) is a certain kind of noble pride, and positive -assertion of his opinions. He is every where confident -of his own reason, and assuming an absolute -command, not only over his vulgar reader, but -even his patron Memmius. For he is always bidding -him attend, as if he had the rod over him; and -using a magisterial authority, while he instructs -him. From his time to ours, I know none so like -him, as our poet and philosopher of Malmesbury.<a id="FNanchor_AZ_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_AZ_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> -This is that perpetual dictatorship, which is exercised -by Lucretius; who, though often in the wrong, -yet seems to deal <i>bonȃ fide</i> with his reader, and tells -him nothing but what he thinks; in which plain -sincerity, I believe, he differs from our Hobbes, who -could not but be convinced, or at least doubt of -some eternal truths, which he has opposed. But -for Lucretius, he seems to disdain all manner of -replies, and is so confident of his cause, that he is -beforehand with his antagonists; urging for them -whatever he imagined they could say, and leaving -them, as he supposes, without an objection for the -future: all this, too, with so much scorn and indignation, -as if he were assured of the triumph, before -he entered into the lists. From this sublime and -daring genius of his, it must of necessity come to -pass, that his thoughts must be masculine, full of argumentation, -and that sufficiently warm. From the - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> -same fiery temper proceeds the loftiness of his expressions, -and the perpetual torrent of his verse, -where the barrenness of his subject does not too -much constrain the quickness of his fancy. For there -is no doubt to be made, but that he could have been -every where as poetical, as he is in his descriptions, -and in the moral part of his philosophy, if he had -not aimed more to instruct, in his system of nature, -than to delight. But he was bent upon making -Memmius a materialist, and teaching him to defy -an invisible power: in short, he was so much an -atheist, that he forgot sometimes to be a poet. -These are the considerations, which I had of that -author, before I attempted to translate some parts -of him. And accordingly I laid by my natural diffidence -and scepticism for a while, to take up that -dogmatical way of his, which, as I said, is so much -his character, as to make him that individual poet. -As for his opinions concerning the mortality of the -soul, they are so absurd, that I cannot, if I would, -believe them. I think a future state demonstrable -even by natural arguments; at least, to take away -rewards and punishments is only a pleasing prospect -to a man, who resolves beforehand not to live morally. -But, on the other side, the thought of being -nothing after death is a burthen insupportable to a -virtuous man, even though a heathen. We naturally -aim at happiness, and cannot bear to have it -confined to the shortness of our present being; especially -when we consider, that virtue is generally -unhappy in this world, and vice fortunate: so that -it is hope of futurity alone, that makes this life tolerable, -in expectation of a better. Who would not -commit all the excesses, to which he is prompted by -his natural inclinations, if he may do them with security -while he is alive, and be incapable of punishment - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> -after he is dead? If he be cunning and secret -enough to avoid the laws, there is no band of -morality to restrain him: for fame and reputation -are weak ties; many men have not the least sense -of them. Powerful men are only awed by them, as -they conduce to their interest, and that not always, -when a passion is predominant; and no man will be -contained within the bounds of duty, when he may -safely transgress them. These are my thoughts abstractedly, -and without entering into the notions of -our Christian faith, which is the proper business of -divines.</p> - -<p>But there are other arguments in this poem -(which I have turned into English) not belonging -to the mortality of the soul, which are strong -enough to a reasonable man, to make him less in -love with life, and consequently in less apprehensions -of death. Such as are the natural satiety proceeding -from a perpetual enjoyment of the same -things; the inconveniences of old age, which make -him incapable of corporeal pleasures; the decay of -understanding and memory, which render him contemptible, -and useless to others. These, and many -other reasons, so pathetically urged, so beautifully -expressed so adorned with examples, and so admirably -raised by the <i>prosopopeia</i> of Nature, who is -brought in speaking to her children with so much -authority and vigour, deserve the pains I have taken -with them, which I hope have not been unsuccessful, -or unworthy of my author: at least I must -take the liberty to own, that I was pleased with my -own endeavours, which but rarely happens to me; -and that I am not dissatisfied upon the review of -any thing I have done in this author.</p> - -<p>It is true, there is something, and that of some -moment, to be objected against my englishing the -Nature of Love, from the fourth book of Lucretius; - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> -and I can less easily answer why I translated it, -than why I thus translated it. The objection arises -from the obscenity of the subject; which is aggravated -by the too lively and alluring delicacy of the -verses. In the first place, without the least formality -of an excuse, I own it pleased me; and let my -enemies make the worst they can of this confession. -I am not yet so secure from that passion, but -that I want my author's antidotes against it. He -has given the truest and most philosophical account, -both of the disease and remedy, which I ever found -in any author; for which reasons I translated him. -But it will be asked, why I turned him into this -luscious English, for I will not give it a worse -word. Instead of an answer, I would ask again -of my supercilious adversaries, whether I am not -bound, when I translate an author, to do him all -the right I can, and to translate him to the best -advantage? If, to mince his meaning, which I am -satisfied was honest and instructive, I had either -omitted some part of what he said, or taken from -the strength of his expression, I certainly had wronged -him; and that freeness of thought and words -being thus cashiered in my hands, he had no longer -been Lucretius. If nothing of this kind be to be -read, physicians must not study nature, anatomies -must not be seen, and somewhat I could say of particular -passages in books, which, to avoid profaneness, -I do not name. But the intention qualifies -the act; and both mine and my author's were to -instruct, as well as please. It is most certain, that -bare-faced bawdry is the poorest pretence to wit -imaginable. If I should say otherwise, I should -have two great authorities against me: the one is -the "Essay on Poetry," which I publicly valued -before I knew the author of it, and with the commendation -of which my Lord Roscommon so happily - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> -begins his "Essay on Translated Verse;" the -other is no less than our admired Cowley, who says -the same thing in other words; for, in his "Ode -concerning Wit," he writes thus of it:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Much less can that have any place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At which a virgin hides her face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The author blush, there, where the reader must.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Here indeed Mr Cowley goes farther than the -Essay; for he asserts plainly, that obscenity has no -place in wit; the other only says, it is a poor pretence -to it, or an ill sort of wit, which has nothing -more to support it than bare-faced ribaldry; which -is both unmannerly in itself, and fulsome to the -reader. But neither of these will reach my case: -for, in the first place, I am only the translator, not -the inventor; so that the heaviest part of the censure -falls upon Lucretius, before it reaches me: in -the next place, neither he nor I have used the grossest -words, but the cleanliest metaphors we could -find, to palliate the broadness of the meaning; and, -to conclude, have carried the poetical part no farther, -than the philosophical exacted.<a id="FNanchor_BA_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_BA_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> - -<p>There is one mistake of mine, which I will not -lay to the printer's charge, who has enough to answer -for in false pointings; it is in the word, <i>viper</i>: -I would have the verse run thus:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The scorpion, love, must on the wound be bruised.<a id="FNanchor_BB_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_BB_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> - -<p>There are a sort of blundering, half-witted people, -who make a great deal of noise about a verbal -slip; though Horace would instruct them better in -true criticism:</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">——<i>non ego paucis</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Aut humana parùm cavit natura.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>True judgment in poetry, like that in painting, -takes a view of the whole together, whether it be -good or not; and where the beauties are more than -the faults, concludes for the poet against the little -judge. It is a sign that malice is hard driven, -when it is forced to lay hold on a word or syllable: -to arraign a man is one thing, and to cavil at him -is another. In the midst of an ill-natured generation -of scribblers, there is always justice enough left -in mankind, to protect good writers: and they too -are obliged, both by humanity and interest, to espouse -each other's cause, against false critics, who -are the common enemies. This last consideration -puts me in mind of what I owe to the ingenious -and learned translator of Lucretius.<a id="FNanchor_BC_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_BC_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> I have not - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> -here designed to rob him of any part of that -commendation which he has so justly acquired by -the whole author, whose fragments only fall to my -portion. What I have now performed is no more -than I intended above twenty years ago. The -ways of our translation are very different. He -follows him more closely than I have done, which -became an interpreter of the whole poem: I take -more liberty, because it best suited with my design, -which was, to make him as pleasing as I could. He -had been too voluminous, had he used my method -in so long a work; and I had certainly taken his, -had I made it my business to translate the whole. -The preference, then, is justly his; and I join with -Mr Evelyn in the confession of it, with this additional -advantage to him, that his reputation is already -established in this poet, mine is to make its -fortune in the world. If I have been any where -obscure, in following our common author, or if Lucretius -himself is to be condemned, I refer myself to -his excellent annotations, which I have often read, -and always with some new pleasure.</p> - -<p>My preface begins already to swell upon me, and -looks as if I were afraid of my reader, by so tedious -a bespeaking of him; and yet I have Horace and -Theocritus upon my hands; but the Greek gentleman -shall quickly be dispatched, because I have -more business with the Roman.</p> - -<p>That which distinguishes Theocritus from all -other poets, both Greek and Latin, and which raises -him even above Virgil in his Eclogues, is the inimitable -tenderness of his passions, and the natural -expression of them in words so becoming of a pastoral. -A simplicity shines through all he writes. -He shows his art and learning, by disguising both. -His shepherds never rise above their country education -in their complaints of love. There is the same - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> -difference betwixt him and Virgil, as there is betwixt -Tasso's "Aminta" and the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini. -Virgil's shepherds are too well read in the philosophy -of Epicurus and of Plato, and Guarini's seem to have -been bred in courts; but Theocritus and Tasso have -taken theirs from cottages and plains. It was said -of Tasso, in relation to his similitudes, <i>mai esce del -bosco</i>, that he never departed from the woods; that -is all his comparisons were taken from the country. -The same may be said of our Theocritus. He is -softer than Ovid: he touches the passions more delicately, -and performs all this out of his own fund, -without diving into the arts and sciences for a supply. -Even his Doric dialect has an incomparable -sweetness in its clownishness, like a fair shepherdess -in her country russet, talking in a Yorkshire -tone. This was impossible for Virgil to imitate; -because the severity of the Roman language denied -him that advantage. Spenser has endeavoured it in -his "Shepherd's Calendar;" but neither will it succeed -in English; for which reason I forbore to attempt -it. For Theocritus writ to Sicilians, who -spoke that dialect; and I direct this part of my -translations to our ladies, who neither understand, -nor will take pleasure in such homely expressions. -I proceed to Horace.</p> - -<p>Take him in parts, and he is chiefly to be considered -in his three different talents, as he was a -critic, a satirist, and a writer of odes. His morals -are uniform, and run through all of them; for, let -his Dutch commentators say what they will, his philosophy -was Epicurean; and he made use of gods -and providence only to serve a turn in poetry. But -since neither his Criticisms, which are the most instructive -of any that are written in this art, nor his -Satires, which are incomparably beyond Juvenal's, (if -to laugh and rally is to be preferred to railing and - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> -declaiming,) are no part of my present undertaking, -I confine myself wholly to his Odes. These are -also of several sorts: some of them are panegyrical, -others moral, the rest jovial, or (if I may so call -them) Bacchanalian. As difficult as he makes it, -and as indeed it is, to imitate Pindar, yet, in his -most elevated flights, and in the sudden changes of -his subject with almost imperceptible connections, -that Theban poet is his master. But Horace is of -the more bounded fancy, and confines himself -strictly to one sort of verse, or stanza, in every Ode. -That which will distinguish his style from all other -poets, is the elegance of his words, and the numerousness -of his verse. There is nothing so delicately -turned in all the Roman language. There appears -in every part of his diction, or (to speak English) in -all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold purity. -His words are chosen with as much exactness as -Virgil's; but there seems to be a greater spirit in -them. There is a secret happiness attends his -choice, which in Petronius is called <i>curiosa felicitas</i>, -and which I suppose he had from the <i>feliciter -audere</i> of Horace himself. But the most distinguishing -part of all his character seems to me to be his -briskness, his jollity, and his good humour; and -those I have chiefly endeavoured to copy. His -other excellencies, I confess, are above my imitation. -One Ode, which infinitely pleased me in the reading, -I have attempted to translate in Pindaric verse: -it is that, which is inscribed to the present Earl of -Rochester, to whom I have particular obligations, -which this small testimony of my gratitude can -never pay.<a id="FNanchor_BD_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_BD_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> It is his darling in the Latin, and I - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> -have taken some pains to make it my master-piece -in English; for which reason I took this kind of -verse, which allows more latitude than any other. -Every one knows it was introduced into our language, -in this age, by the happy genius of Mr -Cowley. The seeming easiness of it has made it -spread; but it has not been considered enough, to -be so well cultivated. It languishes in almost every -hand but his, and some very few, whom (to keep -the rest in countenance) I do not name. He, indeed, -has brought it as near perfection as was possible in -so short a time. But, if I may be allowed to speak -my mind modestly, and without injury to his sacred -ashes, somewhat of the purity of English, somewhat -of more equal thoughts, somewhat of sweetness -in the numbers, in one word, somewhat of a -finer turn, and more lyrical verse, is yet wanting. -As for the soul of it, which consists in the warmth -and vigour of fancy, the masterly figures, and the -copiousness of imagination, he has excelled all -others in this kind. Yet if the kind itself be capable -of more perfection, though rather in the ornamental -parts of it than the essential, what rules of -morality or respect have I broken, in naming the -defects, that they may hereafter be amended? Imitation -is a nice point, and there are few poets who -deserve to be models in all they write. Milton's -"Paradise Lost" is admirable; but am I therefore -bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst -his elevations, when it is evident he creeps along -sometimes for above an hundred lines together? -Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and -the strength of his expression, without defending -his antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness -of their sound? It is as much commendation as a -man can bear, to own him excellent; all beyond it -is idolatry. Since Pindar was the prince of lyric - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> -poets, let me have leave to say, that, in imitating -him, our numbers should, for the most part, be lyrical: -for variety, or rather where the majesty of -thought requires it, they may be stretched to the -English heroick of five feet, and to the French Alexandrine -of six. But the ear must preside, and direct -the judgment to the choice of numbers. Without -the nicety of this, the harmony of Pindaric verse -can never be complete; the cadency of one line -must be a rule to that of the next; and the sound -of the former must slide gently into that which follows, -without leaping from one extreme into another. -It must be done like the shadowings of a -picture, which fall by degrees into a darker colour. -I shall be glad, if I have so explained myself as to be -understood; but if I have not, <i>quod nequeo dicere, et -sentio tantum</i>,<a id="FNanchor_BE_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_BE_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> must be my excuse.</p> - -<p>There remains much more to be said on this subject; -but, to avoid envy, I will be silent. What I -have said is the general opinion of the best judges, -and in a manner has been forced from me, by seeing -a noble sort of poetry so happily restored by -one man, and so grossly copied by almost all the -rest. A musical ear, and a great genius, if another -Mr Cowley could arise in another age, may bring -it to perfection. In the mean time,</p> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">——<i>fungar vice cotis, acutum</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Reddere quæ ferrum valet, expers ipsa secandi</i>.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> - -<p>I hope it will not be expected from me, that I -should say any thing of my fellow undertakers in -this Miscellany. Some of them are too nearly -related to me, to be commended without suspicion -of partiality;<a id="FNanchor_BF_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_BF_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> others I am sure need it not; and -the rest I have not perused.</p> - -<p>To conclude, I am sensible that I have written this -too hastily and too loosely; I fear I have been tedious, -and, which is worse, it comes out from the first -draught, and uncorrected. This I grant is no excuse; -for it may be reasonably urged, why did he -not write with more leisure, or, if he had it not, -(which was certainly my case,) why did he attempt -to write on so nice a subject? The objection -is unanswerable; but, in part of recompence, let me -assure the reader, that, in hasty productions, he is -sure to meet with an author's present sense, which -cooler thoughts would possibly have disguised. -There is undoubtedly more of spirit, though not of -judgment, in these uncorrect essays; and consequently, -though my hazard be the greater, yet the reader's -pleasure is not the less.</p> - -<p class="right pmb3"> -<span class="smcap">John Dryden.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a></span></p> - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AU_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AU_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Mainburg's "History of the League," translated by our author, -at the command of Charles II.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AV_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AV_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> First published in 1680.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AW_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AW_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Sir Peter Lely, by birth a Dutchman, came to England in -1641, and died in 1680. There is a remarkable similarity between -his female portraits, which seems to have arisen from the circumstance -mentioned by Dryden, of his bringing all his subjects as -near as possible to his own idea of the beautiful. Pope's lines in -his praise are too well known to be quoted.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AX_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AX_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Annibale Caro died at Rome, 1566.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AY_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AY_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> He died in the year of Rome 699, before the commencement -of the Augustan age.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_AZ_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AZ_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> The celebrated Hobbes, who died in 1679.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BA_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BA_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> I wish our author had attended to his noble friend Roscommon's -recommendation: -</p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Immodest words admit of no defence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For want of decency is want of sense;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What moderate fop would range the Park, or stews,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who among troops of faultless nymphs might chuse?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BB_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BB_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> This error, however, went through the subsequent editions.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BC_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BC_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Thomas Creech, a particular friend of our author. He was -born in 1659, and in June 1700 committed suicide; for which -rash action no adequate cause has been assigned. Besides the -translation of Lucretius, which is his principal work, he executed -an indifferent version of Horace, and translated parts of -Theocritus, Ovid, Juvenal, Virgil, &c. In his translation of Lucretius, -he omitted the indelicate part of the Fourth Book; a deficiency -which Dryden thought fit to supply, for which he has -above assigned some very inadequate reasons. Creech's Lucretius -first appeared at Oxford, in 8vo, 1682, and was reprinted -in the year following. The annotations, to which our author alludes -a little lower, were originally attached to a Latin edition of -Lucretius, superintended by Creech, and afterwards transferred to -his English version. They display great learning, and an intimate -acquaintance with the Epicurean philosophy.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BD_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BD_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Our author, in the Dedication to "Cleomenes," compliments -Lord Rochester on his power of critically understanding the beauties -of Horace, and upon his particular affection for this particular -Ode. See Vol. VIII. p. 193.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BE_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BE_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Mr Malone has observed, that this quotation, as well as that -which follows, is inaccurate; the words of Juvenal are, "nequeo -<i>monstrare</i>, et sentio tantum."</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BF_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BF_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Dryden's son was amongst the contributors.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font09">TRANSLATIONS</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -THEOCRITUS.</h2> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a></span></p> - - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break">AMARYLLIS:<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OR,</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">THE THIRD IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS,</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">PARAPHRASED.</span><a id="FNanchor_BG_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_BG_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">To Amaryllis love compels my way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My browzing goats upon the mountains stray;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Tityrus, tend them well, and see them fed <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">In pastures fresh, and to their watering led;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And 'ware the ridgling with his budding head.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Ah, beauteous nymph! can you forget your love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The conscious grottos, and the shady grove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where stretched at ease your tender limbs were laid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your nameless beauties nakedly displayed?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then I was called your darling, your desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With kisses such as set my soul on fire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But you are changed, yet I am still the same;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My heart maintains for both a double flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grieved, but unmoved, and patient of your scorn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So faithful I, and you so much forsworn!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I die, and death will finish all my pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet, ere I die, behold me once again:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Am I so much deformed, so changed of late?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> -<span class="i0">What partial judges are our love and hate!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ten wildings have I gathered for my dear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How ruddy, like your lips, their streaks appear!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far-off you viewed them with a longing eye<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the topmost branch (the tree was high);<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet nimbly up, from bough to bough, I swerved,<a id="FNanchor_BH_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_BH_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And for to-morrow have ten more reserved.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Look on me kindly, and some pity shew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or give me leave at least to look on you.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some god transform me by his heavenly power,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even to a bee to buzz within your bower,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The winding ivy-chaplet to invade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And folded fern, that your fair forehead shade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now to my cost the force of love I find,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The heavy hand it bears on human kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The milk of tygers was his infant food, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Taught from his tender years the taste of blood; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His brother whelps and he ran wild about the wood.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Ah nymph, trained up in his tyrannic court,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make the sufferings of your slaves your sport!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unheeded ruin! treacherous delight!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O polished hardness, softened to the sight!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose radiant eyes your ebon brows adorn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like midnight those, and these like break of morn!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smile once again, revive me with your charms,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let me die contented in your arms.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I would not ask to live another day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might I but sweetly kiss my soul away.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ah, why am I from empty joys debarred?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For kisses are but empty when compared.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I rave, and in my raging fit shall tear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The garland, which I wove for you to wear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of parsley, with a wreath of ivy bound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bordered with a rosy edging round.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What pangs I feel, unpitied and unheard!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since I must die, why is my fate deferred!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I strip my body of my shepherd's frock;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behold that dreadful downfal of a rock,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where yon old fisher views the waves from high!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis that convenient leap I mean to try.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You would be pleased to see me plunge to shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But better pleased if I should rise no more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I might have read my fortune long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When, seeking my success in love to know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I tried the infallible prophetic way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A poppy-leaf upon my palm to lay.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I struck, and yet no lucky crack did follow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet I struck hard, and yet the leaf lay hollow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, which was worse, if any worse could prove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The withering leaf foreshowed your withering love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet farther,—ah, how far a lover dares!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My last recourse I had to sieve and sheers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And told the witch Agreo my disease:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Agreo, that in harvest used to lease;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, harvest done, to chare-work did aspire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Meat, drink, and two-pence was her daily hire;)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To work she went, her charms she muttered o'er,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And yet the resty sieve wagged ne'er the more; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I wept for woe, the testy beldame swore, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, foaming with her God, foretold my fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I was doomed to love, and you to hate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A milk-white goat for you I did provide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two milk-white kids run frisking by her side,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For which the nut-brown lass, Erithacis,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full often offered many a savoury kiss.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hers they shall be, since you refuse the price;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What madman would o'erstand his market twice!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My right eye itches, some good-luck is near,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps my Amaryllis may appear; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I'll set up such a note as she shall hear. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">What nymph but my melodious voice would move?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She must be flint, if she refuse my love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hippomenes, who ran with noble strife <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To win his lady, or to lose his life, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">(What shift some men will make to get a wife?)<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Threw down a golden apple in her way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all her haste, she could not choose but stay:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Renown said, Run; the glittering bribe cried, Hold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The man might have been hanged, but for his gold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet some suppose 'twas love, (some few indeed!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That stopt the fatal fury of her speed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She saw, she sighed; her nimble feet refuse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their wonted speed, and she took pains to lose.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A prophet some, and some a poet cry,<a id="FNanchor_BI_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_BI_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">(No matter which, so neither of them lie,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From steepy Othry's top to Pylus drove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His herd, and for his pains enjoyed his love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If such another wager should be laid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I'll find the man, if you can find the maid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why name I men, when love extended finds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His power on high, and in celestial minds?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Venus the shepherd's homely habit took,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And managed something else besides the crook;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nay, when Adonis died, was heard to roar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And never from her heart forgave the boar.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How blest was fair Endymion with his moon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who sleeps on Latmos' top from night to noon!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What Jason from Medea's love possest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You shall not hear, but know 'tis like the rest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My aching head can scarce support the pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This cursed love will surely turn my brain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Feel how it shoots, and yet you take no pity;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nay, then, 'tis time to end my doleful ditty.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A clammy sweat does o'er my temples creep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My heavy eyes are urged with iron sleep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I lay me down to gasp my latest breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wolves will get a breakfast by my death;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet scarce enough their hunger to supply,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For love has made me carrion ere I die.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BG_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BG_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> This appeared in the First Miscellany.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BH_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BH_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> To swerve, as the word is here used, means to draw one's self -up a tree by clinging round it with the legs and arms. It occurs -in the old ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, where he sends one of his -men aloft: -</p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then Gordon swarved the maine-mast tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He swarved it with might and main.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p><br /><i>Reliques of Ancient Poetry</i>, Vol. II. p. 192<br /></p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BI_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BI_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Melampus, the son of Amythaon, was a prophet and physician. -Tibullus cites him in the character of an augur: -</p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">——<i>compertum est veracibus ut mihi signis,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Queis Amythaonius nequeat certare Melampus.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -<p> -As a physician, he discovered the use of hellebore; thence called -Melampodium.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -EPITHALAMIUM<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">HELEN AND MENELAUS.</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">EIGHTEENTH IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS.</span><a id="FNanchor_BJ_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_BJ_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Twelve Spartan virgins, noble, young, and fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With violet wreaths adorned their flowing hair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to the pompous palace did resort,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where Menelaus kept his royal court.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There, hand in hand, a comely choir they led, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To sing a blessing to his nuptial bed, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With curious needles wrought, and painted flowers bespread.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Jove's beauteous daughter now his bride must be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Jove himself was less a God than he;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For this their artful hands instruct the lute to sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their feet assist their hands, and justly beat the ground.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> -<span class="i0">This was their song:—Why, happy bridegroom, why,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere yet the stars are kindled in the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere twilight shades, or evening dews are shed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why dost thou steal so soon away to bed?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has Somnus brushed thy eye-lids with his rod,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or do thy legs refuse to bear their load, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With flowing bowls of a more generous god? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">If gentle slumber on thy temples creep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(But, naughty man, thou dost not mean to sleep,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betake thee to thy bed, thou drowzy drone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sleep by thyself, and leave thy bride alone:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go, leave her with her maiden mates to play<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At sports more harmless till the break of day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give us this evening; thou hast morn and night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the year before thee, for delight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O happy youth! to thee, among the crowd<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of rival princes, Cupid sneezed aloud;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every lucky omen sent before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To meet thee landing on the Spartan shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all our heroes, thou canst boast alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Jove, whene'er he thunders, calls thee son;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt two sheets thou shalt enjoy her bare,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With whom no Grecian virgin can compare; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">So soft, so sweet, so balmy, and so fair. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A boy, like thee, would make a kingly line;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But oh, a girl like her must be divine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her equals we in years, but not in face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twelve score viragos of the Spartan race,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While naked to Eurotas' banks we bend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there in manly exercise contend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When she appears, are all eclipsed and lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hide the beauties that we made our boast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So, when the night and winter disappear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The purple morning, rising with the year,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Salutes the spring, as her celestial eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Adorn the world, and brighten all the skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So beauteous Helen shines among the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tall, slender, straight, with all the Graces blest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As pines the mountains, or as fields the corn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or as Thessalian steeds the race adorn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So rosy-coloured Helen is the pride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Lacedemon, and of Greece beside.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like her no nymph can willing osiers bend <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">In basket-works, which painted streaks commend;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With Pallas in the loom she may contend. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But none, ah! none can animate the lyre,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the mute strings with vocal souls inspire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether the learned Minerva be her theme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or chaste Diana bathing in the stream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">None can record their heavenly praise so well<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Helen, in whose eyes ten thousand Cupids dwell.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O fair, O graceful! yet with maids enrolled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But whom to-morrow's sun a matron shall behold!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet ere to-morrow's sun shall show his head,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The dewy paths of meadows we will tread, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For crowns and chaplets to adorn thy head. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Where all shall weep, and wish for thy return,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As bleating lambs their absent mother mourn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our noblest maids shall to thy name bequeath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The boughs of Lotos, formed into a wreath.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This monument, thy maiden beauties due,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">High on a plane-tree shall be hung to view;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the smooth rind the passenger shall see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy name engraved, and worship Helen's tree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Balm, from a silver-box distilled around,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall all bedew the roots, and scent the sacred ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The balm, 'tis true, can aged plants prolong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Helen's name will keep it ever young.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hail bride, hail bridegroom, son-in-law to Jove!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With fruitful joys Latona bless your love!<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Let Venus furnish you with full desires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Add vigour to your wills, and fuel to your fires!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Almighty Jove augment your wealthy store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give much to you, and to his grandsons more!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From generous loins a generous race will spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each girl, like her, a queen; each boy, like you, a king.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now sleep, if sleep you can; but while you rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sleep close, with folded arms, and breast to breast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rise in the morn; but oh! before you rise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forget not to perform your morning sacrifice.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We will be with you ere the crowing cock<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Salutes the light, and struts before his feathered flock.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hymen, oh Hymen, to thy triumphs run,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And view the mighty spoils thou hast in battle won!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BJ_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BJ_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> This and the three following Idylliums were first published -in the Second Miscellany.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -DESPAIRING LOVER.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">TWENTY-THIRD IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">With inauspicious love, a wretched swain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pursued the fairest nymph of all the plain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fairest indeed, but prouder far than fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She plunged him hopeless in a deep despair:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her heavenly form too haughtily she prized,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His person hated, and his gifts despised;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor knew the force of Cupid's cruel darts,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor feared his awful power on human hearts;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But either from her hopeless lover fled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or with disdainful glances shot him dead.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No kiss, no look, to cheer the drooping boy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No word she spoke, she scorned even to deny;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, as a hunted panther casts about<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her glaring eyes, and pricks her listening ears to scout;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So she, to shun his toils, her cares employed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fiercely in her savage freedom joyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her mouth she writhed, her forehead taught to frown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her eyes to sparkle fires to love unknown;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Her sallow cheeks her envious mind did shew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every feature spoke aloud the curstness of a shrew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet could not he his obvious fate escape;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His love still dressed her in a pleasing shape;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every sullen frown, and bitter scorn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But fanned the fuel that too fast did burn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long time, unequal to his mighty pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He strove to curb it, but he strove in vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last his woes broke out, and begged relief<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With tears, the dumb petitioners of grief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With tears so tender, as adorned his love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And any heart, but only hers, would move.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trembling before her bolted doors he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there poured out the unprofitable flood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Staring his eyes, and hagard was his look;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, kissing first the threshold, thus he spoke.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ah nymph, more cruel than of human race!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy tygress heart belies thy angel face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too well thou show'st thy pedigree from stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy grandame's was the first by Pyrrha thrown;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unworthy thou to be so long desired;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But so my love, and so my fate required.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I beg not now (for 'tis in vain) to live;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But take this gift, the last that I can give.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This friendly cord shall soon decide the strife<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt my lingering love and loathsome life:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This moment puts an end to all my pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I shall no more despair, nor thou disdain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Farewell, ungrateful and unkind! I go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Condemned by thee to those sad shades below.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I go the extremest remedy to prove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To drink oblivion, and to drench my love:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There happily to lose my long desires;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ah! what draught so deep to quench my fires?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Farewell, ye never-opening gates, ye stones,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And threshold guilty of my midnight moans!<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> -<span class="i0">What I have suffered here ye know too well;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What I shall do, the Gods and I can tell.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The violet sweet, but quickly past the prime;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">White lilies hang their heads, and soon decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whiter snow in minutes melts away:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such is your blooming youth, and withering so;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The time will come, it will, when you shall know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rage of love; your haughty heart shall burn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In flames like mine, and meet a like return.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obdurate as you are, oh! hear at least<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My dying prayers, and grant my last request!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When first you ope your doors, and, passing by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sad ill-omened object meets your eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think it not lost a moment if you stay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The breathless wretch, so made by you, survey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some cruel pleasure will from thence arise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To view the mighty ravage of your eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wish (but oh! my wish is vain, I fear)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The kind oblation of a falling tear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then loose the knot, and take me from the place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And spread your mantle o'er my grisly face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon my livid lips bestow a kiss,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O envy not the dead, they feel not bliss!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor fear your kisses can restore my breath;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even you are not more pitiless than death.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then for my corpse a homely grave provide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which love and me from public scorn may hide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thrice call upon my name, thrice beat your breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hail me thrice to everlasting rest:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Last, let my tomb this sad inscription bear;— <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">"A wretch, whom love has killed, lies buried here; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">"O passengers, Aminta's eyes beware." <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Thus having said, and furious with his love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He heaved, with more than human force, to move<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A weighty stone, (the labour of a team,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, raised from thence, he reached the neighbouring beam;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Around its bulk a sliding knot he throws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fitted to his neck the fatal noose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, spurning backward, took a swing, till death<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crept up, and stopt the passage of his breath.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bounce burst ope the door; the scornful fair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Relentless looked, and saw him beat his quivering feet in air;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor wept his fate, nor cast a pitying eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor took him down, but brushed regardless by;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as she past, her chance or fate was such,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her garments touched the dead, polluted by the touch.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Next to the dance, thence to the bath did move;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bath was sacred to the God of Love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose injured image, with a wrathful eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stood threatning from a pedestal on high.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nodding a while, and watchful of his blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He fell, and, falling, crushed the ungrateful nymph below:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her gushing blood the pavement all besmeared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this her last expiring voice was heard;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">"Lovers, farewell, revenge has reached my scorn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">"Thus warned, be wise, and love for love return."<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> - - -<h2><a id="DAPHNIS_AND_CHLORIS">DAPHNIS AND CHLORIS.</a></h2> - -<p>FROM THE</p> - -<p>TWENTY SEVENTH IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS.</p> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The shepherd Paris bore the Spartan bride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By force away, and then by force enjoyed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I by free consent can boast a bliss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A fairer Helen, and a sweeter kiss.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Kisses are empty joys, and soon are o'er.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A kiss betwixt the lips is something more.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I wipe my mouth, and where's your kissing then?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I swear you wipe it to be kissed agen.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Go, tend your herd, and kiss your cows at home;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am a maid, and in my beauty's bloom.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">'Tis well remembered; do not waste your time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wisely use it ere you pass your prime.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And raisins keep their luscious native taste.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The sun's too hot; those olive shades are near;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I fain would whisper something in your ear.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">'Tis honest talking where we may be seen; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">God knows what secret mischief you may mean;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I doubt you'll play the wag, and kiss again.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">At least beneath yon elm you need not fear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My pipe's in tune, if you're disposed to hear.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Play by yourself, I dare not venture thither;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You, and your naughty pipe, go hang together.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Coy nymph, beware, lest Venus you offend.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I shall have chaste Diana still to friend.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">You have a soul, and Cupid has a dart.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Diana will defend, or heal my heart.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nay, fie, what mean you in this open place?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unhand me, or I swear I'll scratch your face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let go for shame; you make me mad for spite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My mouth's my own; and, if you kiss, I'll bite.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Away with your dissembling female tricks;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What, would you 'scape the fate of all your sex?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I swear, I'll keep my maidenhead till death,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And die as pure as queen Elizabeth.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Nay, mum for that; but let me lay thee down;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Better with me, than with some nauseous clown.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I'd have you know, if I were so inclined, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I have been woo'd by many a wealthy hind; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But never found a husband to my mind. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But they are absent all; and I am here.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i39"> <span class="ir1">}<br /></span></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i39"> <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The matrimonial yoke is hard to bear, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And marriage is a woeful word to hear. <span class="ir1">}<br /></span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A scarecrow, set to frighten fools away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Marriage has joys, and you shall have assay.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Sour sauce is often mixed with our delight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You kick by day more than you kiss by night.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Sham stories all; but say the worst you can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A very wife fears neither God nor man.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But child-birth is, they say, a deadly pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It costs at least a month to knit again.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Diana cures the wounds Lucina made;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your goddess is a midwife by her trade.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But I shall spoil my beauty, if I bear.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But Mam and Dad are pretty names to hear.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But there's a civil question used of late;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where lies my jointure, where your own estate?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">My flocks, my fields, my woods, my pastures take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With settlement as good as law can make.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Swear then you will not leave me on the common,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But marry me, and make an honest woman.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I swear by Pan, though he wears horns you'll say,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cudgelled and kicked, I'll not be forced away.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I bargain for a wedding-bed at least,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A house, and handsome lodging for a guest.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A house well furnished shall be thine to keep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, for a flock-bed, I can sheer my sheep.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">What tale shall I to my old father tell?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">'Twill make him chuckle thou'rt bestowed so well.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But, after all, in troth I am to blame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To be so loving, ere I know your name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A pleasant sounding name's a pretty thing.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Faith, mine's a very pretty name to sing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They call me Daphnis; Lycidas my sire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Both sound as well as woman can desire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nomæa bore me; farmers in degree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He a good husband, a good housewife she.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Your kindred is not much amiss, 'tis true;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet I am somewhat better born than you.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I know your father, and his family;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, without boasting, am as good as he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Menalcas; and no master goes before.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Hang both our pedigrees! not one word more;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if you love me, let me see your living,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your house, and home; for seeing is believing.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">See first yon cypress grove, a shade from noon.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Browze on, my goats; for I'll be with you soon.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Feed well, my bulls, to whet your appetite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That each may take a lusty leap at night.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">What do you mean, uncivil as you are,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To touch my breasts, and leave my bosom bare?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">These pretty bubbies, first, I make my own.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Pull out your hand, I swear, or I shall swoon.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Why does thy ebbing blood forsake thy face?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Throw me at least upon a cleaner place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My linen ruffled, and my waistcoat soiling—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What, do you think new clothes were made for spoiling?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I'll lay my lambkins underneath thy back.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">My head-gear's off; what filthy work you make!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">To Venus, first, I lay these offerings by.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Nay, first look round, that nobody be nigh:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Methinks I hear a whispering in the grove.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The cypress trees are telling tales of love.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">You tear off all behind me, and before me;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I'm as naked as my mother bore me.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I'll buy thee better clothes than these I tear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lie so close I'll cover thee from air.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">You're liberal now; but when your turn is sped,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You'll wish me choked with every crust of bread.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I'll give thee more, much more than I have told;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would I could coin my very heart to gold!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Forgive thy handmaid, huntress of the wood!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I see there's no resisting flesh and blood!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The noble deed is done!—my herds I'll cull;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cupid, be thine a calf; and Venus, thine a bull.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">CHLORIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A maid I came in an unlucky hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But hence return without my virgin flower.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DAPHNIS.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A maid is but a barren name at best;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If thou canst hold, I bid for twins at least.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus did this happy pair their love dispense<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With mutual joys, and gratified their sense;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The God of Love was there, a bidden guest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And present at his own mysterious feast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His azure mantle underneath he spread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And scattered roses on the nuptial bed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While folded in each other's arms they lay, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He blew the flames, and furnished out the play, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And from their foreheads wiped the balmy sweat away.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">First rose the maid, and with a glowing face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her downcast eyes beheld her print upon the grass;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thence to her herd she sped herself in haste: <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The bridegroom started from his trance at last,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And piping homeward jocundly he past. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_308"></a></span></p> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font09">TRANSLATIONS</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -LUCRETIUS.</h2> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_310"></a></span></p> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">BEGINNING OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">THE FIRST BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -LUCRETIUS.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Delight of human kind, and gods above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Parent of Rome, propitious Queen of Love!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose vital power, air, earth, and sea supplies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And breeds whate'er is born beneath the rolling skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For every kind, by thy prolific might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Springs, and beholds the regions of the light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thee, goddess, thee the clouds and tempests fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at thy pleasing presence disappear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thee the land in fragrant flowers is drest; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For thee the ocean smiles, and smooths her wavy breast, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And heaven itself with more serene and purer light is blest.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For, when the rising spring adorns the mead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a new scene of nature stands displayed,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> -<span class="i0">When teeming buds, and cheerful greens appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And western gales unlock the lazy year;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The joyous birds thy welcome first express,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose native songs thy genial fire confess;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then savage beasts bound o'er their slighted food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Struck with thy darts, and tempt the raging flood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All nature is thy gift; earth, air, and sea;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all that breathes, the various progeny,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stung with delight, is goaded on by thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O'er barren mountains, o'er the flowery plain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The leafy forest, and the liquid main,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Extends thy uncontrouled and boundless reign;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through all the living regions dost thou move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And scatterest, where thou goest, the kindly seeds of love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since, then, the race of every living thing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obeys thy power; since nothing new can spring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without thy warmth, without thy influence bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or beautiful, or lovesome can appear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be thou my aid, my tuneful song inspire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And kindle with thy own productive fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While all thy province, Nature, I survey, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And sing to Memmius an immortal lay <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Of heaven and earth, and every where thy wondrous power display:<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To Memmius, under thy sweet influence born,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom thou with all thy gifts and graces dost adorn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rather then assist my Muse and me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Infusing verses worthy him and thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mean time on land and sea let barbarous discord cease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lull the listning world in universal peace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To thee mankind their soft repose must owe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thou alone that blessing canst bestow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because the brutal business of the war<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is managed by thy dreadful servant's care;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Who oft retires from fighting fields, to prove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pleasing pains of thy eternal love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, panting on thy breast, supinely lies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While with thy heavenly form he feeds his famished eyes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sucks in with open lips thy balmy breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By turns restored to life, and plunged in pleasing death.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There while thy curling limbs about him move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Involved and fettered in the links of love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When, wishing all, he nothing can deny,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy charms in that auspicious moment try;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With winning eloquence our peace implore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And quiet to the weary world restore.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">BEGINNING OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">THE SECOND BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -LUCRETIUS.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">'Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rolling ship, and hear the tempest roar;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not that another's pain is our delight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But pains unfelt produce the pleasing sight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis pleasant also to behold from far<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The moving legions mingled in the war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But much more sweet thy labouring steps to guide<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To virtue's heights, with wisdom well supplied, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And all the magazines of learning fortified; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">From thence to look below on human kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bewildered in the maze of life, and blind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see vain fools ambitiously contend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For wit and power; their last endeavours bend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To outshine each other, waste their time and health<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In search of honour, and pursuit of wealth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O wretched man! in what a mist of life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Inclosed with dangers and with noisy strife,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He spends his little span; and overfeeds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His crammed desires, with more than nature needs!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For nature wisely stints our appetite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And craves no more than undisturbed delight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which minds, unmixed with cares and fears, obtain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A soul serene, a body void of pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So little this corporeal frame requires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So bounded are our natural desires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wanting all, and setting pain aside,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With bare privation sense is satisfied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If golden sconces hang not on the walls,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To light the costly suppers and the balls;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If the proud palace shines not with the state<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of burnished bowls, and of reflected plate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If well-tuned harps, nor the more pleasing sound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of voices, from the vaulted roofs rebound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet on the grass, beneath a poplar shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the cool stream, our careless limbs are laid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With cheaper pleasures innocently blest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the warm spring with gaudy flowers is drest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor will the raging fever's fire abate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With golden canopies and beds of state;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the poor patient will as soon be sound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the hard mattress, or the mother ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then since our bodies are not eased the more<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By birth, or power, or fortune's wealthy store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis plain, these useless toys of every kind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As little can relieve the labouring mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless we could suppose the dreadful sight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of marshalled legions moving to the fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Could, with their sound and terrible array,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of death away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, since the supposition vain appears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since clinging cares, and trains of inbred fears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are not with sounds to be affrighted thence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But in the midst of pomp pursue the prince,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Not awed by arms, but in the presence bold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without respect to purple, or to gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why should not we these pageantries despise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose worth but in our want of reason lies?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For life is all in wandering errors led;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And just as children are surprised with dread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tremble in the dark, so riper years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even in broad day-light, are possessed with fears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shake at shadows fanciful and vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As those which in the breasts of children reign.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These bugbears of the mind, this inward hell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No rays of outward sunshine can dispel;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But nature and right reason must display<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their beams abroad, and bring the darksome soul to-day.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> - - -<h2><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">LATTER PART OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">THE THIRD BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -LUCRETIUS.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">What has this bugbear, death, to frighten men,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If souls can die, as well as bodies can?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, as before our birth we felt no pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Punic arms infested land and main,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When heaven and earth were in confusion hurled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the debated empire of the world,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which awed with dreadful expectation lay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sure to be slaves, uncertain who should sway:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So, when our mortal flame shall be disjoined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We shall not feel, because we shall not be.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We should not move, we only should be tost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nay, even suppose, when we have suffered fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The soul could feel in her divided state.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> -<span class="i0">What's that to us? for we are only we,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While souls and bodies in one frame agree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nay, though our atoms should revolve by chance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And matter leap into the former dance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though time our life and motion could restore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And make our bodies what they were before;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What gain to us would all this bustle bring?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The new-made man would be another thing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When once an interrupting pause is made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That individual being is decayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which to that other mortal shall accrue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom of our matter time shall mould anew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For backward if you look on that long space<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of ages past, and view the changing face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of matter, tost, and variously combined<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sundry shapes, 'tis easy for the mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From thence to infer, that seeds of things have been<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the same order as they now are seen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because a pause of life, a gaping space,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has come betwixt, where memory lies dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the wandering motions from the sense are fled.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, whosoe'er shall in misfortunes live,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must <i>be</i>, when those misfortunes shall arrive;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And since the man who <i>is</i> not, feels not woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For death exempts him, and wards off the blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which we, the living, only feel and bear,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What is there left for us in death to fear?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When once that pause of life has come between,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis just the same as we had never been.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, therefore, if a man bemoan his lot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That after death his mouldering limbs shall rot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or flames, or jaws of beasts devour his mass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Know, he's an unsincere, unthinking ass.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A secret sting remains within his mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fool is to his own cast offals kind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He boasts no sense can after death remain; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Yet makes himself a part of life again, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">As if some other <i>he</i> could feel the pain.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">If, while we live, this thought molest his head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What wolf or vulture shall devour me dead?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wastes his days in idle grief, nor can<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Distinguish 'twixt the body and the man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thinks himself can still himself survive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, what when dead he feels not, feels alive.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then he repines that he was born to die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor knows in death there is no other <i>he</i>,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No living <i>he</i> remains his grief to vent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And o'er his senseless carcase to lament.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If, after death, 'tis painful to be torn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By birds, and beasts, then why not so to burn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or drenched in floods of honey to be soaked,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Embalmed to be at once preserved and choked;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or on an airy mountain's top to lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exposed to cold and heaven's inclemency;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or crowded in a tomb, to be opprest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With monumental marble on thy breast?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But to be snatched from all the household joys,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From thy chaste wife, and thy dear prattling boys,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose little arms about thy legs are cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's haste,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Inspiring secret pleasure through thy breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah! these shall be no more; thy friends opprest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy care and courage now no more shall free;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah! wretch, thou criest, ah! miserable me!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One woeful day sweeps children, friends, and wife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the brittle blessings of my life!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Add one thing more, and all thou say'st is true;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy want and wish of them is vanished too;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, well considered, were a quick relief<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To all thy vain imaginary grief:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For thou shalt sleep, and never wake again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, quitting life, shall quit thy loving pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But we, thy friends, shall all those sorrows find, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Which in forgetful death thou leav'st behind; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">No time shall dry our tears, nor drive thee from out mind.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The worst that can befal thee, measured right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is a sound slumber, and a long good-night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet thus the fools, that would be thought the wits,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Disturb their mirth with melancholy fits;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When healths go round, and kindly brimmers flow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the fresh garlands on their foreheads glow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They whine, and cry, let us make haste to live,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Short are the joys that human life can give.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eternal preachers, that corrupt the draught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pall the god, that never thinks, with thought;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Idiots with all that thought, to whom the worst<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of death, is want of drink, and endless thirst,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or any fond desire as vain as these.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, even in sleep, the body, wrapt in ease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Supinely lies, as in the peaceful grave;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, wanting nothing, nothing can it crave.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were that sound sleep eternal, it were death;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet the first atoms then, the seeds of breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are moving near to sense; we do but shake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rouse that sense, and straight we are awake.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then death to us, and death's anxiety,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is less than nothing, if a less could be;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For then our atoms, which in order lay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are scattered from their heap, and puffed away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And never can return into their place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When once the pause of life has left an empty space.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, last, suppose great Nature's voice should call<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To thee, or me, or any of us all,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What dost thou mean, ungrateful wretch, thou vain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou mortal thing, thus idly to complain,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And sigh and sob, that thou shalt be no more?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, if thy life were pleasant heretofore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If all the bounteous blessings I could give <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thou hast enjoyed, if thou hast known to live, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And pleasure not leaked through thee like a sieve;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Why dost thou not give thanks as at a plenteous feast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crammed to the throat with life, and rise and take thy rest?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, if my blessings thou hast thrown away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If undigested joys passed through, and would not stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why dost thou wish for more to squander still?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If life be grown a load, a real ill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I would all thy cares and labours end,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lay down thy burden, fool, and know thy friend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To please thee, I have emptied all my store; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">I can invent, and can supply no more, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But run the round again, the round I ran before.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Suppose thou art not broken yet with years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet still the self-same scene of things appears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And would be ever, couldst thou ever live;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For life is still but life, there's nothing new to give.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What can we plead against so just a bill?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We stand convicted, and our cause goes ill.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if a wretch, a man oppressed by fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should beg of nature to prolong his date,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She speaks aloud to him with more disdain,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be still, thou martyr fool, thou covetous of pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if an old decrepit sot lament,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What, thou! she cries, who hast outlived content!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dost thou complain, who hast enjoyed my store?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But this is still the effect of wishing more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unsatisfied with all that nature brings;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loathing the present, liking absent things;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From hence it comes, thy vain desires, at strife<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within themselves, have tantalized thy life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ghastly death appeared before thy sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere thou hast gorged thy soul and senses with delight.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Now leave those joys, unsuiting to thy age,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a fresh comer, and resign the stage.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is Nature to be blamed if thus she chide?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No, sure; for 'tis her business to provide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against this ever-changing frame's decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New things to come, and old to pass away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One being, worn, another being makes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Changed, but not lost; for nature gives and takes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New matter must be found for things to come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And these must waste like those, and follow nature's doom.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All things, like thee, have time to rise and rot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from each other's ruin are begot:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For life is not confined to him or thee;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis given to all for use, to none for property.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Consider former ages past and gone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose circles ended long ere thine begun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then tell me, fool, what part in them thou hast?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus may'st thou judge the future by the past.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What horror seest thou in that quiet state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What bugbear dreams to fright thee after fate?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No ghost, no goblins, that still passage keep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But all is there serene, in that eternal sleep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all the dismal tales, that poets tell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are verified on earth, and not in hell.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No Tantalus looks up with fearful eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or dreads the impending rock to crush him from on high;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But fear of chance on earth disturbs our easy hours,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or vain imagined wrath of vain imagined powers.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No Tityus torn by vultures lies in hell; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor could the lobes of his rank liver swell <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To that prodigious mass, for their eternal meal;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Not though his monstrous bulk had covered o'er <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nine spreading acres, or nine thousand more; <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Not though the globe of earth had been the giant's floor;<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor in eternal torments could he lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor could his corpse sufficient food supply.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he's the Tityus, who, by love opprest, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or tyrant passion preying on his breast, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And ever anxious thoughts, is robbed of rest.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The Sisyphus is he, whom noise and strife<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seduce from all the soft retreats of life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To vex the government, disturb the laws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drunk with the fumes of popular applause,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He courts the giddy crowd to make him great,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sweats and toils in vain, to mount the sovereign seat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, still to aim at power, and still to fail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ever to strive, and never to prevail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What is it, but, in reason's true account,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To heave the stone against the rising mount?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which urged, and laboured, and forced up with pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Recoils, and rolls impetuous down, and smokes along the plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, still to treat thy ever-craving mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With every blessing, and of every kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet never fill thy ravening appetite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though years and seasons vary thy delight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet nothing to be seen of all the store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But still the wolf within thee barks for more;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is the fable's moral, which they tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fifty foolish virgins damned in hell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To leaky vessels, which the liquor spill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To vessels of their sex, which none could ever fill.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As for the dog, the furies, and their snakes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gloomy caverns, and the burning lakes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the vain infernal trumpery,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But here, on earth, the guilty have in view<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Racks, prisons, poisons, the Tarpeian rock,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stripes, hangmen, pitch, and suffocating smoke;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And last, and most, if these were cast behind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The avenging horror of a conscious mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose deadly fear anticipates the blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sees no end of punishment and woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But looks for more, at the last gasp of breath;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This makes an hell on earth, and life a death.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Meantime, when thoughts of death disturb thy head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Consider, Ancus, great and good, is dead;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ancus, thy better far, was born to die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thou, dost thou bewail mortality?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So many monarchs with their mighty state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who ruled the world, were over-ruled by fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That haughty king, who lorded o'er the main,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whose stupendous bridge did the wild waves restrain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(In vain they foamed, in vain they threatened wreck,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While his proud legions marched upon their back,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him death, a greater monarch, overcame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor spared his guards the more, for their immortal name.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Roman chief, the Carthaginian dread, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Scipio, the thunder bolt of war, is dead, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And, like a common slave, by fate in triumph led.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The founders of invented arts are lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wits, who made eternity their boast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where now is Homer, who possessed the throne?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The immortal work remains, the immortal author's gone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Democritus, perceiving age invade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His body weakened, and his mind decayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obeyed the summons with a cheerful face;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Made haste to welcome death, and met him half the race.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That stroke even Epicurus could not bar, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Though he in wit surpassed mankind, as far <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">As does the mid-day sun the midnight star. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And thou, dost thou disdain to yield thy breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose very life is little more than death?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More than one half by lazy sleep possest; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And when awake, thy soul but nods at best, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Day-dreams and sickly thoughts revolving in thy breast<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose cause and cure thou never hop'st to find;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But still uncertain, with thyself at strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wanderest in the labyrinth of life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O, if the foolish race of man, who find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A weight of cares still pressing on their mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Could find as well the cause of this unrest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all this burden lodged within the breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sure they would change their course, nor live as now,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Uncertain what to wish, or what to vow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Uneasy both in country and in town,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They search a place to lay their burden down.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One, restless in his palace, walks abroad,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And vainly thinks to leave behind the load,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But strait returns; for he's as restless there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And finds there's no relief in open air.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another to his villa would retire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And spurs as hard as if it were on fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No sooner entered at his country door, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But he begins to stretch, and yawn, and snore,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or seeks the city, which he left before <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thus every man o'erworks his weary will, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To shun himself, and to shake off his ill; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The shaking fit returns, and hangs upon him still.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">No prospect of repose, nor hope of ease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wretch is ignorant of his disease;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, known, would all his fruitless trouble spare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he would know the world not worth his care:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then would he search more deeply for the cause,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And study nature well, and nature's laws;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For in this moment lies not the debate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But on our future, fixed, eternal state;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That never-changing state, which all must keep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom death has doomed to everlasting sleep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why are we then so fond of mortal life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beset with dangers, and maintained with strife?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A life, which all our care can never save;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One fate attends us, and one common grave.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Besides, we tread but a perpetual round; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">We ne'er strike out, but beat the former ground, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And the same maukish joys in the same track are found.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For still we think an absent blessing best, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Which cloys, and is no blessing when possest;<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">A new arising wish expels it from the breast.<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The feverish thirst of life increases still;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We call for more and more, and never have our fill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet know not what to-morrow we shall try,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What dregs of life in the last draught may lie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor, by the longest life we can attain, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">One moment from the length of death we gain;<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For all behind belongs to his eternal reign.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">When once the fates have cut the mortal thread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The man as much to all intents is dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who dies to-day, and will as long be so,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he who died a thousand years ago.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">LATTER PART OF</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">THE FOURTH BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -LUCRETIUS;<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">CONCERNING THE NATURE OF LOVE.</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">BEGINNING AT THIS LINE:</span><br /> - -<span class="font06"><i>Sic igitur Veneris qui telis accipit ictum, &c.</i></span><br /> -</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thus, therefore, he, who feels the fiery dart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of strong desire transfix his amorous heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether some beauteous boy's alluring face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or lovelier maid, with unresisting grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From her each part the winged arrow sends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From whence he first was struck he thither tends;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Restless he roams, impatient to be freed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eager to inject the sprightly seed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For fierce desire does all his mind employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ardent love assures approaching joy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such is the nature of that pleasing smart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose burning drops distil upon the heart,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The fever of the soul shot from the fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the cold ague of succeeding care.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If absent, her idea still appears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And her sweet name is chiming in your ears.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But strive those pleasing phantoms to remove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shun the aërial images of love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That feed the flame: when one molests thy mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Discharge thy loins on all the leaky kind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For that's a wiser way, than to restrain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within thy swelling nerves that hoard of pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For every hour some deadlier symptom shews,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by delay the gathering venom grows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When kindly applications are not used;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The scorpion, love, must on the wound be bruised.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On that one object 'tis not safe to stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But force the tide of thought some other way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The squandered spirits prodigally throw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the common glebe of nature sow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor wants he all the bliss that lovers feign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who takes the pleasure, and avoids the pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For purer joys in purer health abound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And less affect the sickly than the sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When love its utmost vigour does employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even then 'tis but a restless wandering joy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor knows the lover in that wild excess,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hands or eyes, what first he would possess;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But strains at all, and, fastening where he strains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too closely presses with his frantic pains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With biting kisses hurts the twining fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which shews his joys imperfect, insincere:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, stung with inward rage, he flings around,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And strives to avenge the smart on that which gave the wound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But love those eager bitings does restrain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mingling pleasure mollifies the pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For ardent hope still flatters anxious grief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sends him to his foe to seek relief:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Which yet the nature of the thing denies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For love, and love alone of all our joys,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By full possession does but fan the fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more we still enjoy, the more we still desire.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nature for meat and drink provides a space,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, when received, they fill their certain place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hence thirst and hunger may be satisfied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But this repletion is to love denied:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Form, feature, colour, whatsoe'er delight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Provokes the lover's endless appetite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These fill no space, nor can we thence remove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With lips, or hands, or all our instruments of love:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In our deluded grasp we nothing find,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thin aërial shapes, that fleet before the mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he, who in a dream with drought is curst,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And finds no real drink to quench his thirst,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Runs to imagined lakes his heat to steep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And vainly swills and labours in his sleep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So love with phantoms cheats our longing eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which hourly seeing never satisfies:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our hands pull nothing from the parts they strain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wander o'er the lovely limbs in vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor when the youthful pair more closely join,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When hands in hands they lock, and thighs in thighs they twine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just in the raging foam of full desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When both press on, both murmur, both expire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They gripe, they squeeze, their humid tongues they dart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As each would force their way to t'other's heart:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain; they only cruize about the coast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For bodies cannot pierce, nor be in bodies lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As sure they strive to be, when both engage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In that tumultuous momentary rage;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So tangled in the nets of love they lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till man dissolves in that excess of joy.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then, when the gathered bag has burst its way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ebbing tides the slackened nerves betray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A pause ensues; and nature nods awhile,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till with recruited rage new spirits boil;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then the same vain violence returns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With flames renewed the erected furnace burns;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Again they in each other would be lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But still by adamantine bars are crost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All ways they try, successless all they prove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To cure the secret sore of lingering love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Besides——<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They waste their strength in the venereal strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to a woman's will enslave their life;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The estate runs out, and mortgages are made, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">All offices of friendship are decayed, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Their fortune ruined, and their fame betrayed. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Assyrian ointment from their temples flows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And diamond buckles sparkle in their shoes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cheerful emerald twinkles on their hands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all the luxury of foreign lands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the blue coat, that with embroidery shines,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is drunk with sweat of their o'er-laboured loins.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their frugal father's gains they misemploy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And turn to point, and pearl, and every female toy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">French fashions, costly treats are their delight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The park by day, and plays and balls by night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain;——<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in the fountain, where their sweets are sought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some bitter bubbles up, and poisons all the draught.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">First, guilty conscience does the mirror bring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then sharp remorse shoots out her angry sting;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And anxious thoughts, within themselves at strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upbraid the long mispent, luxurious life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps, the fickle fair-one proves unkind, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or drops a doubtful word, that pains his mind, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And leaves a rankling jealousy behind. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps, he watches close her amorous eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the act of ogling does surprise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thinks he sees upon her cheeks the while <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The dimpled tracks of some foregoing smile; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His raging pulse beats thick, and his pent spirits boil. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">This is the product e'en of prosperous love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think then what pangs disastrous passions prove;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Innumerable ills; disdain, despair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all the meagre family of care.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus, as I said, 'tis better to prevent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than flatter the disease, and late repent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because to shun the allurement is not hard<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To minds resolved, forewarned, and well prepared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wonderous difficult, when once beset,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To struggle through the straits, and break the involving net.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet, thus ensnared, thy freedom thou may'st gain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If, like a fool, thou dost not hug thy chain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If not to ruin obstinately blind, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And wilfully endeavouring not to find <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Her plain defects of body and of mind. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For thus the Bedlam train of lovers use<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To enhance the value, and the faults excuse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therefore 'tis no wonder if we see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They doat on dowdies and deformity.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even what they cannot praise, they will not blame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But veil with some extenuating name.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sallow skin is for the swarthy put,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And love can make a slattern of a slut;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If cat-eyed, then a Pallas is their love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If freckled, she's a party-coloured dove;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If little, then she's life and soul all o'er;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An Amazon, the large two-handed whore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She stammers; oh what grace in lisping lies!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If she says nothing, to be sure she's wise.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> -<span class="i0">If shrill, and with a voice to drown a quire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sharp-witted she must be, and full of fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lean, consumptive wench, with coughs decayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is called a pretty, tight, and slender maid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The o'er-grown, a goodly Ceres is exprest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bedfellow for Bacchus at the least;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flat-nose the name of Satyr never misses,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hanging blobber lips but pout for kisses.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The task were endless all the rest to trace;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet grant she were a Venus for her face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shape, yet others equal beauty share,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And time was you could live without the fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She does no more, in that for which you woo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than homelier women full as well can do.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Besides, she daubs, and stinks so much of paint,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her own attendants cannot bear the scent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But laugh behind, and bite their lips to hold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Meantime, excluded, and exposed to cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whining lover stands before the gates,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there with humble adoration waits;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crowning with flowers the threshold and the floor,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And printing kisses on the obdurate door;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, if admitted in that nick of time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If some unsavoury whiff betray the crime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invents a quarrel straight, if there be none,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or makes some faint excuses to be gone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And calls himself a doating fool to serve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ascribing more than woman can deserve.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which well they understand, like cunning queans,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hide their nastiness behind the scenes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From him they have allured, and would retain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But to a piercing eye 'tis all in vain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For common sense brings all their cheats to view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the false light discovers by the true;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which a wise harlot owns, and hopes to find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A pardon for defects, that run through all the kind.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Nor always do they feign the sweets of love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When round the panting youth their pliant limbs they move.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cling, and heave and moisten every kiss;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They often share, and more than share the bliss:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From every part, even to their inmost soul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They feel the trickling joys, and run with vigour to the goal.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stirred with the same impetuous desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Birds, beasts, and herds, and mares, their males require;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because the throbbing nature in their veins<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Provokes them to assuage their kindly pains.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lusty leap the expecting female stands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By mutual heat compelled to mutual bands.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus dogs with lolling tongues by love are tied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor shouting boys nor blows their union can divide;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At either end they strive the link to loose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain, for stronger Venus holds the noose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which never would those wretched lovers do, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But that the common heats of love they know; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The pleasure therefore must be shared in common too: <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And when the woman's more prevailing juice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sucks in the man's, the mixture will produce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mother's likeness; when the man prevails,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His own resemblance in the seed he seals.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when we see the new-begotten race<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reflect the features of each parent's face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then of the father's and the mother's blood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The justly tempered seed is understood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When both conspire, with equal ardour bent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From every limb the due proportion sent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When neither party foils, when neither foiled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This gives the splendid features of the child.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes the boy the grandsire's image bears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes the more remote progenitor he shares;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Because the genial atoms of the seed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lie long concealed ere they exert the breed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, after sundry ages past, produce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tardy likeness of the latent juice.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hence, families such different figures take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And represent their ancestors in face, and hair, and make;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because of the same seed, the voice, and hair, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And shape, and face, and other members are, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And the same antique mould the likeness does prepare. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, oft the father's likeness does prevail<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In females, and the mother's in the male;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, since the seed is of a double kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From that, where we the most resemblance find,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We may conclude the strongest tincture sent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that was in conception prevalent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor can the vain decrees of powers above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deny production to the act of love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or hinder fathers of that happy name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or with a barren womb the matron shame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As many think, who stain with victims blood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mournful altars, and with incense load,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To bless the showery seed with future life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to impregnate the well-laboured wife.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain they weary heaven with prayer, or fly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To oracles, or magic numbers try;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For barrenness of sexes will proceed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Either from too condensed, or watery, seed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The watery juice too soon dissolves away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the parts projected will not stay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The too condensed, unsouled, unwieldy mass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drops short, nor carries to the destined place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor pierces to the parts, nor, though injected home,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will mingle with the kindly moisture of the womb.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For nuptials are unlike in their success;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some men with fruitful seed some women bless,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And from some men some women fruitful are,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just as their constitutions join or jar:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And many seeming barren wives have been,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who after, matched with more prolific men,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have filled a family with prattling boys;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And many, not supplied at home with joys,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have found a friend abroad to ease their smart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And to perform the sapless husband's part.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So much it does import, that seed with seed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should of the kindly mixture make the breed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thick with thin, and thin with thick should join,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So to produce and propagate the line.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of such concernment too is drink and food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To incrassate, or attenuate the blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of like importance is the posture too,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which the genial feat of love we do;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, as the females of the four-foot kind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Receive the leapings of their males behind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So the good wives, with loins uplifted high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And leaning on their hands, the fruitful stroke may try:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in that posture will they best conceive;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not when, supinely laid, they frisk and heave;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For active motions only break the blow, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And more of strumpets than the wives they show, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">When, answering stroke with stroke, the mingled liquors flow. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Endearments eager, and too brisk a bound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Throw off the plow-share from the furrowed ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But common harlots in conjunction heave,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because 'tis less their business to conceive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than to delight, and to provoke the deed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A trick which honest wives but little need.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor is it from the gods, or Cupid's dart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That many a homely woman takes the heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wives well-humoured, dutiful, and chaste, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And clean, will hold their wandering husbands fast; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Such are the links of love, and such a love will last. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For what remains, long habitude, and use,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will kindness in domestic bands produce;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For custom will a strong impression leave.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hard bodies, which the lightest stroke receive,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In length of time will moulder and decay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stones with drops of rain are washed away.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">THE FIFTH BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -LUCRETIUS.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06"> -<i>Tum porrò puer, &c.</i></span> -</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thus, like a sailor by a tempest hurled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ashore, the babe is shipwrecked on the world.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Naked he lies, and ready to expire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Helpless of all that human wants require;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exposed upon unhospitable earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the first moment of his hapless birth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Straight with foreboding cries he fills the room,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too true presages of his future doom.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But flocks and herds, and every savage beast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By more indulgent nature are increased:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They want no rattles for their froward mood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor nurse to reconcile them to their food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With broken words; nor winter blasts they fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor change their habits with the changing year;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor, for their safety, citadels prepare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor forge the wicked instruments of war;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unlaboured earth her bounteous treasure grants,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Nature's lavish hand supplies their common wants.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_338"></a></span></p> -<p class="pmb2" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font09">TRANSLATIONS</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -HORACE.</h2> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_340"></a></span></p> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">THIRD ODE OF THE FIRST BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -HORACE.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">INSCRIBED TO</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font075">THE EARL OF ROSCOMMON,</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">ON HIS INTENDED VOYAGE TO IRELAND.<a id="FNanchor_BK_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_BK_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So may the auspicious queen of love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the twin stars, the seed of Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he who rules the raging wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To thee, O sacred ship, be kind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gentle breezes fill thy sails,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Supplying soft Etesian gales;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As thou, to whom the Muse commends<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The best of poets and of friends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dost thy committed pledge restore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And land him safely on the shore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And save the better part of me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From perishing with him at sea.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Sure he, who first the passage tried,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">In hardened oak his heart did hide, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And ribs of iron armed his side; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or his at least, in hollow wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who tempted first the briny flood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor feared the winds' contending roar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor billows beating on the shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Hyades portending rain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor all the tyrants of the main.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What form of death could him affright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who unconcerned, with stedfast sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Could view the surges mounting steep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And monsters rolling in the deep!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Could through the ranks of ruin go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With storms above, and rocks below!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vain did Nature's wise command<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Divide the waters from the land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If daring ships and men prophane<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Invade the inviolable main;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The eternal fences over-leap,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pass at will the boundless deep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No toil, no hardship, can restrain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ambitious man, inured to pain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more confined, the more he tries,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at forbidden quarry flies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus bold Prometheus did aspire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stole from Heaven the seeds of fire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A train of ills, a ghastly crew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The robber's blazing track pursue;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Fierce famine with her meagre face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fevers of the fiery race,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In swarms the offending wretch surround,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All brooding on the blasted ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And limping death, lashed on by fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Comes up to shorten half our date.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This made not Dædalus beware,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With borrowed wings to sail in air;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To hell Alcides forced his way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plunged through the lake, and snatched the prey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nay, scarce the gods, or heavenly climes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are safe from our audacious crimes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We reach at Jove's imperial crown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pull the unwilling thunder down.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BK_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BK_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, an elegant poet and -accomplished nobleman, was created captain of the band of pensioners -after the Restoration, and made a considerable figure at the -court of Charles II. But, having injured his fortune by gaming, -and being engaged in a lawsuit with the Lord Privy Seal concerning -a considerable part of his estate, he found himself obliged to retire -to Ireland, and resigned his post at the English court. After -having resided some years in that kingdom, where he enjoyed the -post of captain of the guards to the Duke of Ormond, he returned -to England, where he died in 1684. Besides the ode which follows, -there are several traces through Dryden's works of his intimacy -with Roscommon.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">NINTH ODE OF THE FIRST BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -HORACE.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - - -<div class="block2"> - -<p class="ia5">I.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Behold yon mountain's hoary height,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Made higher with new mounts of snow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Again behold the winter's weight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Oppress the labouring woods below;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And streams, with icy fetters bound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Benumbed and crampt to solid ground.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">II.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">With well-heaped logs dissolve the cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And feed the genial hearth with fires;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Produce the wine, that makes us bold,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And sprightly wit and love inspires:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For what hereafter shall betide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God, if 'tis worth his care, provide.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ia5">III.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Let him alone, with what he made,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To toss and turn the world below;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At his command the storms invade,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The winds by his commission blow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till with a nod he bids them cease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then the calm returns, and all is peace.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">IV.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">To-morrow and her works defy,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lay hold upon the present hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And snatch the pleasures passing by,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To put them out of fortune's power:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor love, nor love's delights, disdain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whate'er thou get'st to-day, is gain.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">V.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Secure those golden early joys,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That youth unsoured with sorrow bears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere withering time the taste destroys,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With sickness and unwieldy years.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For active sports, for pleasing rest, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">This is the time to be possest; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The best is but in season best. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">VI.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The appointed hour of promised bliss,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The pleasing whisper in the dark,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The half unwilling willing kiss,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The laugh that guides thee to the mark;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the kind nymph would coyness feign, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And hides but to be found again; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">TWENTY-NINTH ODE OF THE FIRST BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -HORACE.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">PARAPHRASED IN PINDARIC VERSE,</span><br /> - -<span class="font06">AND INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. LAURENCE,</span><br /> - -<span class="font06">EARL OF ROCHESTER.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> - -<p class="ia5">I.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Descended of an ancient line,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That long the Tuscan sceptre swayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make haste to meet the generous wine,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose piercing is for thee delayed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rosy wreath is ready made,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And artful hands prepare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fragrant Syrian oil, that shall perfume thy hair.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">II.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When the wine sparkles from afar,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the well-natured friend cries, "Come away!"<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make haste, and leave thy business and thy care,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No mortal interest can be worth thy stay.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ia5">III.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Leave for a while thy costly country seat,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And, to be great indeed, forget<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nauseous pleasures of the great:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Make haste and come;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Come, and forsake thy cloying store;<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Thy turret, that surveys, from high,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The smoke, and wealth, and noise of Rome,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And all the busy pageantry<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That wise men scorn, and fools adore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come, give thy soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">IV.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sometimes 'tis grateful to the rich to try<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A short vicissitude, and fit of poverty:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A savoury dish, a homely treat,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where all is plain, where all is neat,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Without the stately spacious room,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Persian carpet, or the Tyrian loom,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the great.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">V.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The sun is in the Lion mounted high;<br /></span> -<span class="i10">The Syrian star<br /></span> -<span class="i10">Barks from afar,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And with his sultry breath infects the sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ground below is parched, the heavens above us fry:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The shepherd drives his fainting flock<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beneath the covert of a rock,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And seeks refreshing rivulets nigh:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Sylvans to their shades retire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those very shades and streams new shades and streams require,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And want a cooling breeze of wind to fan the raging fire.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ia5">VI.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Thou, what befits the new Lord Mayor,<a id="FNanchor_BL_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_BL_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i2">And what the city factions dare,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And what the Gallic arms will do,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And what the quiver-bearing foe,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Art anxiously inquisitive to know:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But God has, wisely, hid from human sight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The dark decrees of future fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And sown their seeds in depth of night;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He laughs at all the giddy turns of state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When mortals search too soon, and fear too late.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">VII.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Enjoy the present smiling hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And put it out of fortune's power;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tide of business, like the running stream,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is sometimes high, and sometimes low,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A quiet ebb, or a tempestuous flow,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And always in extreme.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now with a noiseless gentle course<br /></span> -<span class="i2">It keeps within the middle bed;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Anon it lifts aloft the head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bears down all before it with impetuous force:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And trunks of trees come rolling down,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Sheep and their folds together drown;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Both house and homested into seas are borne,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And rocks are from their old foundations torn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And woods, made thin with winds, their scattered honours mourn.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ia5">VIII.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Happy the man, and happy he alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">He, who can call to-day his own;<br /></span> -<span class="i6">He who, secure within, can say,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day:<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Not heaven itself upon the past has power,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">IX.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Fortune, that with malicious joy<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Does man, her slave, oppress,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Proud of her office to destroy,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Is seldom pleased to bless:<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Still various, and unconstant still,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">But with an inclination to be ill,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And makes a lottery of life.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">I can enjoy her while she's kind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when she dances in the wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And shakes the wings, and will not stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">I puff the prostitute away:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The little or the much she gave, is quietly resigned;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Content with poverty my soul I arm,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="ia5">X.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">What is't to me,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Who never sail in her unfaithful sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">If storms arise, and clouds grow black,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">If the mast split, and threaten wreck?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then let the greedy merchant fear<br /></span> -<span class="i6">For his ill-gotten gain;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And pray to gods that will not hear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While the debating winds and billows bear<br /></span> -<span class="i6">His wealth into the main.<br /></span> -</div></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">For me, secure from fortune's blows,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Secure of what I cannot lose,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In my small pinnace I can sail,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Contemning all the blustering roar;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And running with a merry gale,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With friendly stars my safety seek,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Within some little winding creek,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And see the storm ashore.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BL_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BL_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> The poem seems to have been written during the political -conflicts in the city of London.</p></div></div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">SECOND EPODE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -HORACE.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">How happy in his low degree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How rich in humble poverty, is he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who leads a quiet country life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Discharged of business, void of strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the griping scrivener free?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus, ere the seeds of vice were sown,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lived men in better ages born,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who ploughed, with oxen of their own,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their small paternal field of corn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor trumpets summon him to war,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor drums disturb his morning sleep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor knows he merchants' gainful care,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor fears the dangers of the deep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The clamours of contentious law,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And court and state, he wisely shuns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor bribed with hopes, nor dared with awe,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To servile salutations runs;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But either to the clasping vine<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Does the supporting poplar wed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or with his pruning-hook disjoin<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unbearing branches from their head,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And grafts more happy in their stead:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or, climbing to a hilly steep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He views his herds in vales afar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or sheers his overburthened sheep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or mead for cooling drink prepares,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or virgin honey in the jars.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or in the now declining year,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When bounteous autumn rears his head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He joys to pull the ripened pear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And clustering grapes with purple spread.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fairest of his fruit he serves,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Priapus, thy rewards:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sylvanus too his part deserves,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose care the fences guards.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes beneath an ancient oak,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or on the matted grass he lies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No god of sleep he need invoke;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The stream, that o'er the pebbles flies,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With gentle slumber crowns his eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wind, that whistles through the sprays,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Maintains the concert of the song;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hidden birds, with native lays,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The golden sleep prolong.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when the blast of winter blows,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And hoary frost inverts the year,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the naked woods he goes,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And seeks the tusky boar to rear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With well-mouthed hounds and pointed spear:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or spreads his subtle nets from sight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With twinkling glasses, to betray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The larks that in the meshes light,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or makes the fearful hare his prey.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Amidst his harmless easy joys<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No anxious care invades his health,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor love his peace of mind destroys,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor wicked avarice of wealth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if a chaste and pleasing wife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To ease the business of his life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Divides with him his household care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such as the Sabine matrons were,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such as the swift Apulian's bride,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sun-burnt and swarthy though she be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will fire for winter nights provide,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And without noise will oversee<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His children and his family,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And order all things till he come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweaty and overlaboured, home;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If she in pens his flocks will fold,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And then produce her dairy store,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With wine to drive away the cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And unbought dainties of the poor;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not oysters of the Lucrine lake<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My sober appetite would wish,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor turbot, or the foreign fish<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That rolling tempests overtake,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And hither waft the costly dish.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not heath-pout, or the rarer bird,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which Phasis or Ionia yields,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More pleasing morsels would afford<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Than the fat olives of my fields;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than shards or mallows for the pot,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That keep the loosened body sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or than the lamb, that falls by lot<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To the just guardian of my ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amidst these feasts of happy swains,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The jolly shepherd smiles to see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His flock returning from the plains;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The farmer is as pleased as he,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> -<span class="i0">To view his oxen sweating smoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hear on their necks the loosened yoke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To look upon his menial crew,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That sit around his cheerful hearth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bodies spent in toil renew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With wholesome food and country mirth.—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">This Morecraft said within himself:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Resolved to leave the wicked town,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And live retired upon his own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He called his money in:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But the prevailing love of pelf<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Soon split him on the former shelf,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He put it out again.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font09">TRANSLATIONS</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -HOMER.</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_356"></a></span></p> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">FIRST BOOK</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -HOMER'S ILIAD.</h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - - -<p class="center">THE ARGUMENT.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>Chryses, priest of Apollo, brings presents to the Grecian princes, to -ransom his daughter Chryseis, who was prisoner in the fleet. -Agamemnon, the general, whose captive and mistress the young -lady was, refuses to deliver her, threatens the venerable old man, and -dismisses him with contumely. The priest craves vengeance of -his God, who sends a plague among the Greeks; which occasions -Achilles, their great champion, to summon a council of the chief -officers: he encourages Calchas, the high priest and prophet, to -tell the reason, why the Gods were so much incensed against them. -Calchas is fearful of provoking Agamemnon, till Achilles engages -to protect him: then, emboldened by the hero, he accuses the general -as the cause of all, by detaining the fair captive, and refusing -the presents offered for her ransom. By this proceeding, -Agamemnon is obliged, against his will, to restore Chryseis, with -gifts, that he might appease the wrath of Phœbus; but, at the -same time, to revenge himself on Achilles, sends to seize his slave -Briseis. Achilles, thus affronted, complains to his mother Thetis; -and begs her to revenge his injury, not only on the general, -but on all the army, by giving victory to the Trojans, till the ungrateful -king became sensible of his injustice. At the same time, -he retires from the camp into his ships, and withdraws his aid - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> -from his countrymen. Thetis prefers her son's petition to Jupiter, -who grants her suit. Juno suspects her errand, and quarrels -with her husband for his grant; till Vulcan reconciles his parents -with a bowl of nectar, and sends them peaceably to bed.</i></p></blockquote> - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The wrath of Peleus' son, O muse, resound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose dire effects the Grecian army found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And many a hero, king, and hardy knight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were sent, in early youth, to shades of night:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their limbs a prey to dogs and vultures made;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So was the sovereign will of Jove obeyed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From that ill-omened hour when strife begun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt Atrides great, and Thetis' godlike son.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What power provoked, and for what cause, relate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sowed in their breasts the seeds of stern debate:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove's and Latona's son his wrath expressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vengeance of his violated priest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the king of men; who, swoln with pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Refused his presents, and his prayers denied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For this the God a swift contagion spread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amid the camp, where heaps on heaps lay dead.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For venerable Chryses came to buy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gold and gifts of price, his daughter's liberty.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suppliant before the Grecian chiefs he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Awful, and armed with ensigns of his God:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bare was his hoary head; one holy hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Held forth his laurel crown, and one his sceptre of command.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His suit was common; but above the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To both the brother-princes thus addressed:—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ye sons of Atreus, and ye Grecian powers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So may the Gods, who dwell in heavenly bowers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Succeed your siege, accord the vows you make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And give you Troy's imperial town to take;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So, by their happy conduct, may you come<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With conquest back to your sweet native home;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> -<span class="i0">As you receive the ransom which I bring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Respecting Jove, and the far-shooting king,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And break my daughter's bonds, at my desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And glad with her return her grieving sire.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With shouts of loud acclaim the Greeks decree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To take the gifts, to set the damsel free.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The king of men alone with fury burned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And haughty, these opprobrious words returned:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hence, holy dotard! and avoid my sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere evil intercept thy tardy flight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor dare to tread this interdicted strand, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Lest not that idle sceptre in thy hand, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor thy god's crown, my vowed revenge withstand.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Hence, on thy life! the captive maid is mine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom not for price or prayers I will resign;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mine she shall be, till creeping age and time<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her bloom have withered, and consumed her prime.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till then my royal bed she shall attend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, having first adorned it, late ascend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This, for the night; by day, the web and loom, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And homely household-task, shall be her doom, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Far from thy loved embrace, and her sweet native home.—<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He said: the helpless priest replied no more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sped his steps along the hoarse-resounding shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Silent he fled; secure at length he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Devoutly cursed his foes, and thus invoked his God:—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O source of sacred light, attend my prayer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God with the silver bow, and golden hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom Chrysa, Cilla, Tenedos obeys,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whose broad eye their happy soil surveys!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If, Smintheus, I have poured before thy shrine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The blood of oxen, goats, and ruddy wine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And larded thighs on loaded altars laid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hear, and my just revenge propitious aid!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pierce the proud Greeks, and with thy shafts attest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How much thy power is injured in thy priest.—<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> -<span class="i2">He prayed; and Phœbus, hearing, urged his flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With fury kindled, from Olympus' height;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His quiver o'er his ample shoulders threw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His bow twanged, and his arrows rattled as they flew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Black as a stormy night, he ranged around<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tents, and compassed the devoted ground;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then with full force his deadly bow he bent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And feathered fates among the mules and sumpters sent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The essay of rage; on faithful dogs the next;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And last, in human hearts his arrows fixed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The God nine days the Greeks at rovers killed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nine days the camp with funeral fires was filled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tenth, Achilles, by the queen's command,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who bears heaven's awful sceptre in her hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A council summoned; for the goddess grieved<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her favoured host should perish unrelieved.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The kings, assembled, soon their chief inclose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then from his seat the goddess-born arose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus undaunted spoke:—What now remains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But that once more we tempt the watery plains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, wandering homeward, seek our safety hence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In flight at least, if we can find defence?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such woes at once encompass us about,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The plague within the camp, the sword without.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Consult, O king, the prophets of the event; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And whence these ills, and what the God's intent, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Let them by dreams explore, for dreams from Jove are sent.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">What want of offered victims, what offence<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In fact committed could the Sun incense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To deal his deadly shafts? What may remove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His settled hate, and reconcile his love?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he may look propitious on our toils,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hungry graves no more be glutted with our spoils.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus to the king of men the hero spoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Calchas the desired occasion took;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Calchas, the sacred seer, who had in view<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Things present and the past, and things to come foreknew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Supreme of augurs, who, by Phœbus taught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Grecian powers to Troy's destruction brought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Skilled in the secret causes of their woes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The reverend priest in graceful act arose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus bespoke Pelides:—Care of Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Favoured of all the immortal powers above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wouldst thou the seeds deep sown of mischief know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And why, provoked, Apollo bends his bow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plight first thy faith, inviolably true,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To save me from those ills that may ensue.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I shall tell ungrateful truths to those,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose boundless powers of life and death dispose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sovereigns, ever jealous of their state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forgive not those whom once they mark for hate:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even though the offence they seemingly digest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Revenge, like embers raked within their breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bursts forth in flames, whose unresisted power<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will seize the unwary wretch, and soon devour.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such, and no less, is he, on whom depends<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sum of things, and whom my tongue of force offends.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secure me then from his foreseen intent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That what his wrath may doom, thy valour may prevent.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To this the stern Achilles made reply:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be bold, (and on my plighted faith rely,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To speak what Phœbus has inspired thy soul<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For common good, and speak without controul.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His godhead I invoke; by him I swear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That while my nostrils draw this vital air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">None shall presume to violate those bands, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Or touch thy person with unhallowed hands; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Even not the king of men, that all commands.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> -<span class="i2">At this, resuming heart, the prophet said:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor hecatomb unslain, nor vows unpaid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On Greeks accursed this dire contagion bring;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or call for vengeance from the bowyer king;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he the tyrant, whom none dares resist,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Affronts the godhead in his injured priest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He keeps the damsel captive in his chain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And presents are refused, and prayers preferred in vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For this the avenging power employs his darts,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And empties all his quiver in our hearts;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus will persist, relentless in his ire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the fair slave be rendered to her sire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ransom-free restored to his abode,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With sacrifice to reconcile the God;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then he, perhaps, atoned by prayer, may cease<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His vengeance justly vowed, and give the peace.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus having said, he sate:—Thus answered then,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upstarting from his throne, the king of men,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His breast with fury filled, his eyes with fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which rolling round, he shot in sparkles on the sire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Augur of ill, whose tongue was never found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without a priestly curse, or boding sound!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For not one blessed event foretold to me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Passed through that mouth, or passed unwillingly;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now thou dost with lies the throne invade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By practice hardened in thy slandering trade;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obtending heaven, for whate'er ills befall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sputtering under specious names thy gall.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now Phœbus is provoked, his rites and laws<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are in his priest profaned, and I the cause;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since I detain a slave, my sovereign prize,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sacred gold, your idol-god, despise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I love her well; and well her merits claim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To stand preferred before my Grecian dame:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not Clytemnestra's self in beauty's bloom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More charmed, or better plied the various loom:<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Mine is the maid, and brought in happy hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With every household-grace adorned, to bless my nuptial bower.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet shall she be restored, since public good <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For private interest ought not to be withstood,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To save the effusion of my people's blood. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But right requires, if I resign my own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I should not suffer for your sakes alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alone excluded from the prize I gained,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by your common suffrage have obtained.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The slave without a ransom shall be sent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It rests for you to make the equivalent.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To this the fierce Thessalian prince replied:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O first in power, but passing all in pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Griping, and still tenacious of thy hold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would'st thou the Grecian chiefs, though largely souled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should give the prizes they had gained before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with their loss thy sacrilege restore?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whate'er by force of arms the soldier got,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is each his own, by dividend of lot;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which to resume were both unjust and base,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not to be borne but by a servile race.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But this we can; if Saturn's son bestows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sack of Troy, which he by promise owes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then shall the conquering Greeks thy loss restore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with large interest make the advantage more.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To this Atrides answered:—Though thy boast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assumes the foremost name of all our host,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pretend not, mighty man, that what is mine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Controuled by thee, I tamely should resign.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall I release the prize I gained by right,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In taken towns, and many a bloody fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While thou detain'st Briseis in thy bands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By priestly glossing on the God's commands?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resolve on this, (a short alternative,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quit mine, or, in exchange, another give;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Else I, assure thy soul, by sovereign right<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will seize thy captive in thy own despite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or from stout Ajax, or Ulysses, bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What other prize my fancy shall prefer:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then softly murmur, or aloud complain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rage as you please, you shall resist in vain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But more of this, in proper time and place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To things of greater moment let us pass.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A ship to sail the sacred seas prepare, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Proud in her trim, and put on board the fair, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With sacrifice and gifts, and all the pomp of prayer.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The crew well chosen, the command shall be <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">In Ajax; or if other I decree, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">In Creta's king, or Ithacus, or, if I please, in thee:<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Most fit thyself to see performed the intent, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">For which my prisoner from my sight is sent, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">(Thanks to thy pious care,) that Phœbus may relent.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">At this Achilles rolled his furious eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fixed on the king askant, and thus replies:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O, impudent, regardful of thy own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose thoughts are centered on thyself alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Advanced to sovereign sway for better ends<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than thus like abject slaves to treat thy friends!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What Greek is he, that, urged by thy command,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the Trojan troops will lift his hand?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not I; nor such enforced respect I owe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Pergamus I hate, nor Priam is my foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What wrong from Troy remote could I sustain,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To leave my fruitful soil and happy reign, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And plough the surges of the stormy main? <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thee, frontless man, we followed from afar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy instruments of death, and tools of war.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thine is the triumph; ours the toil alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We bear thee on our backs, and mount thee on the throne.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> -<span class="i0">For thee we fall in fight; for thee redress<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy baffled<a id="FNanchor_BM_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_BM_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> brother,—not the wrongs of Greece.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now thou threaten'st, with unjust decree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To punish thy affronting heaven on me;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To seize the prize which I so dearly bought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By common suffrage given, confirmed by lot.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mean match to thine; for, still above the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy hooked rapacious hands usurp the best;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though mine are first in fight, to force the prey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And last sustain the labours of the day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor grudge I thee the much the Grecians give,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor murmuring take the little I receive;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet even this little, thou, who wouldst ingross<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whole, insatiate, enviest as thy loss.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Know, then, for Phthia fixed is my return; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Better at home my ill-paid pains to mourn, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Than from an equal here sustain the public scorn.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">The king, whose brows with shining gold were bound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who saw his throne with sceptered slaves encompassed round,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus answered stern:—Go, at thy pleasure, go;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We need not such a friend, nor fear we such a foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There will not want to follow me in fight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove will assist, and Jove assert my right:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thou of all the kings (his care below)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Art least at my command, and most my foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Debates, dissensions, uproars are thy joy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Provoked without offence, and practised to destroy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strength is of brutes, and not thy boast alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At least 'tis lent from heaven, and not thy own.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fly then, ill-mannered, to thy native land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there thy ant-born Myrmidons command.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But mark this menace; since I must resign<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My black-eyed maid, to please the Powers divine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A well-rigged vessel in the port attends,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Manned at my charge, commanded by my friends;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ship shall waft her to her wished abode,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full fraught with holy bribes to the far-shooting God.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This thus dispatched, I owe myself the care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My fame and injured honour to repair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From thy own tent, proud man, in thy despite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This hand shall ravish thy pretended right.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Briseis shall be mine, and thou shalt see <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">What odds of awful power I have on thee, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">That others at thy cost may learn the difference of degree.—<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">At this the impatient hero sourly smiled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His heart impetuous in his bosom boiled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, jostled by two tides of equal sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stood for a while suspended in his way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Betwixt his reason and his rage untamed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One whispered soft, and one aloud reclaimed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That only counselled to the safer side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This to the sword his ready hand applied.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unpunished to support the affront was hard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor easy was the attempt to force the guard;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But soon the thirst of vengeance fired his blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Half shone his faulchion, and half sheathed it stood.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In that nice moment, Pallas, from above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Commissioned by the imperial wife of Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Descended swift; (the white-armed Queen was loath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fight should follow, for she favoured both;)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just as in act he stood, in clouds enshrined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her hand she fastened on his hair behind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then backward by his yellow curls she drew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To him, and him alone, confessed in view.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tamed by superior force, he turned his eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Aghast at first, and stupid with surprise;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But by her sparkling eyes, and ardent look,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The virgin-warrior known, he thus bespoke.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Com'st thou, Celestial, to behold my wrongs?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To view the vengeance which to crimes belongs?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus he.—The blue-eyed Goddess thus rejoined:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I come to calm thy turbulence of mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If reason will resume her sovereign sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, sent by Juno, her commands obey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Equal she loves you both, and I protect;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then give thy guardian Gods their due respect,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cease contention; be thy words severe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sharp as he merits; but the sword forbear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An hour unhoped already wings her way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When he his dire affront shall dearly pay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the proud king shall sue, with treble gain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To quit thy loss, and conquer thy disdain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thou, secure of my unfailing word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Compose thy swelling soul, and sheath the sword.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The youth thus answered mild:—Auspicious maid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven's will be mine, and your commands obeyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Gods are just, and when, subduing sense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We serve their Powers, provide the recompence.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said; with surly faith believed her word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the sheath, reluctant, plunged the sword.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her message done, she mounts the blessed abodes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mixed among the senate of the Gods.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At her departure his disdain returned;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fire she fanned with greater fury burned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rumbling within till thus it found a vent:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dastard and drunkard, mean and insolent!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tongue-valiant hero, vaunter of thy might,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In threats the foremost, but the lag in fight!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When didst thou thrust amid the mingled preace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Content to bide the war aloof in peace?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arms are the trade of each plebeian soul;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis death to fight, but kingly to controul;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Lord-like at ease, with arbitrary power,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To peel the chiefs, the people to devour.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These, traitor, are thy talents; safer far<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than to contend in fields, and toils of war.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor couldst thou thus have dared the common hate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were not their souls as abject as their state.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, by this sceptre solemnly I swear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Which never more green leaf or growing branch shall bear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Torn from the tree, and given by Jove to those<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who laws dispense, and mighty wrongs oppose,)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That when the Grecians want my wonted aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No gift shall bribe it, and no prayer persuade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Hector comes, the homicide, to wield<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His conquering arms, with corpse to strew the field,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then shalt thou mourn thy pride, and late confess<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My wrong, repented when 'tis past redress.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said; and with disdain, in open view,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the ground his golden sceptre threw,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then sate; with boiling rage Atrides burned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And foam betwixt his gnashing grinders churned.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But from his seat the Pylian prince arose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With reasoning mild, their madness to compose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Words, sweet as honey, from his mouth distilled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Two centuries already he fulfilled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now began the third; unbroken yet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once famed for courage, still in council great.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What worse, he said, can Argos undergo,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What can more gratify the Phrygian foe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than these distempered heats, if both the lights<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Greece their private interest disunites?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Believe a friend, with thrice your years increased,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let these youthful passions be repressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I flourished long before your birth; and then<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Lived equal with a race of braver men, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Than these dim eyes shall e'er behold again. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Ceneus and Dryas, and, excelling them,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great Theseus, and the force of greater Polypheme.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With these I went, a brother of the war,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their dangers to divide, their fame to share;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor idle stood with unassisting hands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When savage beasts, and men's more savage bands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their virtuous toil subdued: yet those I swayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With powerful speech; I spoke, and they obeyed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If such as those my counsels could reclaim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think not, young warriors, your diminished name<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall lose of lustre, by subjecting rage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the cool dictates of experienced age.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou, king of men, stretch not thy sovereign sway<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond the bounds free subjects can obey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But let Pelides in his prize rejoice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Atchieved in arms, allowed by public voice.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor thou, brave champion, with his power contend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before whose throne even kings their lowered sceptres bend;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The head of action he, and thou the hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Matchless thy force, but mightier his command.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou first, O king, release the rights of sway;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Power, self-restrained, the people best obey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sanctions of law from thee derive their source;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Command thyself, whom no commands can force.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The son of Thetis, rampire of our host,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is worth our care to keep, nor shall my prayers be lost.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus Nestor said, and ceased.—Atrides broke<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His silence next, but pondered ere he spoke:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wise are thy words, and glad I would obey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But this proud man affects imperial sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Controuling kings, and trampling on our state;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His will is law, and what he wills is fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Gods have given him strength; but whence the style<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of lawless power assumed, or licence to revile?<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Achilles cut him short, and thus replied:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My worth, allowed in words, is, in effect, denied;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For who but a poltroon, possessed with fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such haughty insolence can tamely bear?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Command thy slaves; my freeborn soul disdains<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A tyrant's curb, and, restiff, breaks the reins.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take this along, that no dispute shall rise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Though mine the woman) for my ravished prize;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, she excepted, as unworthy strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dare not, I charge thee dare not, on thy life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Touch aught of mine beside, by lot my due,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But stand aloof, and think profane to view;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This faulchion else, not hitherto withstood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These hostile fields shall fatten with thy blood.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He said, and rose the first; the council broke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all their grave consults dissolved in smoke.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The royal youth retired, on vengeance bent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Patroclus followed silent to his tent.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Meantime, the king with gifts a vessel stores,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Supplies the banks with twenty chosen oars;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And next, to reconcile the shooter God,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within her hollow sides the sacrifice he stowed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chryseis last was set on board, whose hand <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Ulysses took, entrusted with command; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">They plow the liquid seas, and leave the lessening land.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i2">Atrides then, his outward zeal to boast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bade purify the sin-polluted host.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With perfect hecatombs the God they graced,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose offered entrails in the main were cast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Black bulls and bearded goats on altars lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And clouds of savoury stench involve the sky.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These pomps the royal hypocrite designed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For show, but harboured vengeance in his mind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till holy malice, longing for a vent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At length discovered his concealed intent,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Talthybius, and Eurybates the just,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heralds of arms, and ministers of trust,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He called, and thus bespoke:—Haste hence your way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the Goddess-born demand his prey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If yielded, bring the captive; if denied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The king (so tell him) shall chastise his pride;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with armed multitudes in person come<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To vindicate his power, and justify his doom.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This hard command unwilling they obey, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And o'er the barren shore pursue their way, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Where quartered in their camp the fierce Thessalians lay.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Their sovereign seated on his chair they find,<span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">His pensive cheek upon his hand reclined, <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And anxious thoughts revolving in his mind. <span class="ir1a">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With gloomy looks he saw them entering in <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Without salute; nor durst they first begin,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Fearful of rash offence and death foreseen.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">He soon, the cause divining, cleared his brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thus did liberty of speech allow:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Interpreters of Gods and men, be bold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Awful your character, and uncontrouled:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Howe'er unpleasing be the news you bring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I blame not you, but your imperious king.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You come, I know, my captive to demand;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Patroclus, give her to the herald's hand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But you authentic witnesses I bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the Gods, and your ungrateful king,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of this my manifest, that never more<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This hand shall combat on the crooked shore:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No; let the Grecian powers, oppressed in fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unpitied perish in their tyrant's sight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blind of the future, and by rage misled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He pulls his crimes upon his people's head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forced from the field in trenches to contend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his insulted camp from foes defend.—<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and soon, obeying his intent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Patroclus brought Briseis from her tent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then to the entrusted messengers resigned:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She wept, and often cast her eyes behind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forced from the man she loved, they led her thence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Along the shore, a prisoner to their prince.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sole on the barren sands the suffering chief<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Roared out for anguish, and indulged his grief;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cast on his kindred seas a stormy look,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his upbraided mother thus bespoke:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unhappy parent of a short-lived son,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since Jove in pity by thy prayers was won<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To grace my small remains of breath with fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why loads he this embittered life with shame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suffering his king of men to force my slave,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whom, well deserved in war, the Grecians gave?—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Set by old Ocean's side the Goddess heard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then from the sacred deep her head she reared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rose like a morning mist, and thus begun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To sooth the sorrows of her plaintive son:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why cries my care, and why conceals his smart?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let thy afflicted parent share her part.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then, sighing from the bottom of his breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the Sea-Goddess thus the Goddess-born addressed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou know'st my pain, which telling but recals;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By force of arms we razed the Theban walls;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ransacked city, taken by our toils,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We left, and hither brought the golden spoils:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Equal we shared them; but before the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The proud prerogative had seized the best.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chryseis was the greedy tyrant's prize,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chryseis, rosy-cheeked, with charming eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her sire, Apollo's priest, arrived to buy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With proffered gifts of price, his daughter's liberty.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suppliant before the Grecian chiefs he stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Awful, and armed with ensigns of his God;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Bare was his hoary head; one holy hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Held forth his laurel-crown, and one his sceptre of command.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His suit was common, but, above the rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To both the brother-princes was addressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With shouts of loud acclaim the Greeks agree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To take the gifts, to set the prisoner free.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not so the tyrant, who with scorn the priest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Received, and with opprobrious words dismissed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The good old man, forlorn of human aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For vengeance to his heavenly patron prayed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Godhead gave a favourable ear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And granted all to him he held so dear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In an ill hour his piercing shafts he sped,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And heaps on heaps of slaughtered Greeks lay dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While round the camp he ranged: at length arose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A seer, who well divined, and durst disclose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The source of all our ills: I took the word;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And urged the sacred slave to be restored,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The God appeased: the swelling monarch stormed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then the vengeance vowed he since performed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Greeks, 'tis true, their ruin, to prevent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have to the royal priest his daughter sent;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But from their haughty king his heralds came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And seized, by his command, my captive dame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By common suffrage given;—but thou be won,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If in thy power, to avenge thy injured son!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ascend the skies, and supplicating move<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy just complaint to cloud-compelling Jove.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If thou by either word or deed hast wrought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A kind remembrance in his grateful thought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Urge him by that; for often hast thou said<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy power was once not useless in his aid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When he, who high above the highest reigns,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Surprised by traitor Gods, was bound in chains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Juno, Pallas, with ambition fired,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his blue brother of the seas conspired,<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thou freed'st the sovereign from unworthy bands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou brought'st Briareus with his hundred hands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(So called in heaven, but mortal men below<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By his terrestrial name, Ægeon, know;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twice stronger than his sire, who sate above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assessor to the throne of thundering Jove.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Gods, dismayed at his approach, withdrew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor durst their unaccomplished crime pursue.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That action to his grateful mind recal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Embrace his knees, and at his footstool fall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That now, if ever, he will aid our foes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let Troy's triumphant troops the camp inclose;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ours, beaten to the shore, the siege forsake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what their king deserves, with him partake;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the proud tyrant, at his proper cost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May learn the value of the man he lost.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To whom the Mother-goddess thus replied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sighed ere she spoke, and while she spoke she cried,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah wretched me! by fates averse decreed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To bring thee forth with pain, with care to breed!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did envious heaven not otherwise ordain, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Safe in thy hollow ships thou should'st remain,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor ever tempt the fatal field again; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But now thy planet sheds his poisonous rays,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And short and full of sorrow are thy days.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For what remains, to heaven I will ascend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the Thunderer's throne thy suit commend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till then, secure in ships, abstain from fight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Indulge thy grief in tears, and vent thy spite.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For yesterday the court of heaven with Jove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Removed; 'tis dead vacation now above.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twelve days the Gods their solemn revels keep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And quaff with blameless Ethiops in the deep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Returned from thence, to heaven my flight I take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Knock at the brazen gates, and Providence awake;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Embrace his knees, and suppliant to the sire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doubt not I will obtain the grant of thy desire.—<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> -<span class="i2">She said, and, parting, left him on the place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swoln with disdain, resenting his disgrace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Revengeful thoughts revolving in his mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He wept for anger, and for love he pined.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Meantime, with prosperous gales Ulysses brought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The slave, and ship, with sacrifices fraught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Chrysa's port; where, entering with the tide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He dropped his anchors, and his oars he plyed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Furled every sail, and, drawing down the mast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His vessel moored, and made with haulsers fast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Descending on the plain, ashore they bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hecatomb to please the shooter king.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dame before an altar's holy fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ulysses led, and thus bespoke her sire:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Reverenced be thou, and be thy God adored!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The king of men thy daughter has restored,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sent by me with presents and with prayer.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He recommends him to thy pious care,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Phœbus at thy suit his wrath may cease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And give the penitent offenders peace.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He said; and gave her to her father's hands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who glad received her, free from servile bands.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This done, in order they, with sober grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their gifts around the well-built altar place.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then washed, and took the cakes, while Chryses stood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hands upheld, and thus invoked his God.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">God of the silver bow, whose eyes survey <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The sacred Cilla! thou, whose awful sway <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Chrysa the blessed, and Tenedos obey! <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Now hear, as thou before my prayer hast heard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the Grecians, and their prince, preferred.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once thou hast honoured, honour once again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy priest, nor let his second vows be vain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But from the afflicted host and humbled prince<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Avert thy wrath, and cease thy pestilence!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Apollo heard, and, conquering his disdain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unbent his bow, and Greece respired again.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Now when the solemn rites of prayer were past,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their salted cakes on crackling flames they cast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, turning back, the sacrifice they sped,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fatted oxen slew, and flayed the dead;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chopped off their nervous thighs, and next prepared<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To involve the lean in cauls, and mend with lard.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet-breads and collops were with skewers pricked<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About the sides, imbibing what they decked.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The priest with holy hands was seen to tine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cloven wood, and pour the ruddy wine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The youth approached the fire, and, as it burned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On five sharp broachers ranked, the roast they turned;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These morsels stayed their stomachs, then the rest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They cut in legs and fillets for the feast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which drawn and served, their hunger they appease<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With savoury meat, and set their minds at ease.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now when the rage of eating was repelled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The boys with generous wine the goblets filled:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The first libations to the gods they pour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then with songs indulge the genial hour.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Holy debauch! Till day to night they bring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hymns and pæans to the bowyer king.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At sun-set to their ship they make return,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And snore secure on decks till rosy morn.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The skies with dawning day were purpled o'er;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Awaked, with labouring oars they leave the shore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Power appeased, with wind sufficed the sail,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bellying canvas strutted with the gale;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The waves indignant roar with surly pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And press against the sides, and, beaten off, divide.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They cut the foamy way, with force impelled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Superior, till the Trojan port they held;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, hauling on the strand, their galley moor,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pitch their tents along the crooked shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Meantime the goddess-born in secret pined,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor visited the camp, nor in the council joined;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But, keeping close, his gnawing heart he fed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hopes of vengeance on the tyrant's head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wished for bloody wars and mortal wounds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of the Greeks oppressed in fight to hear the dying sounds.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now when twelve days complete had run their race,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gods bethought them of the cares belonging to their place.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove at their head ascending from the sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A shoal of puny Powers attend his way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then Thetis, not unmindful of her son,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Emerging from the deep to beg her boon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pursued their track, and wakened from his rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the sovereign stood, a morning guest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him in the circle, but apart, she found;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rest at awful distance stood around.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She bowed, and, ere she durst her suit begin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One hand embraced his knees, one prop'd his chin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then thus.—If I, celestial sire, in aught<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have served thy will, or gratified thy thought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One glimpse of glory to my issue give,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Graced for the little time he has to live!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dishonoured by the king of men he stands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His rightful prize is ravished from his hands.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thou, O father, in my son's defence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assume thy power, assert thy providence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let Troy prevail, till Greece the affront has paid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With doubled honours, and redeemed his aid.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">She ceased; but the considering God was mute,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till she, resolved to win, renewed her suit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor loosed her hold, but forced him to reply:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or grant me my petition, or deny;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove cannot fear; then tell me to my face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I, of all the gods, am least in grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This I can bear.—The cloud-compeller mourned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, sighing first, this answer he returned.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Know'st thou what clamours will disturb my reign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What my stunned ears from Juno must sustain?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In council she gives licence to her tongue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loquacious, brawling, ever in the wrong;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now she will my partial power upbraid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If, alienate from Greece, I give the Trojans aid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But thou depart, and shun her jealous sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The care be mine to do Pelides right.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go then, and on the faith of Jove rely,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When, nodding to thy suit, he bows the sky.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This ratifies the irrevocable doom;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sign ordained, that what I will shall come;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stamp of heaven, and seal of fate.—He said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shook the sacred honours of his head:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With terror trembled heaven's subsiding hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from his shaken curls ambrosial dews distil.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Goddess goes exulting from his sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And seeks the seas profound, and leaves the realms of light.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He moves into his hall; the Powers resort,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each from his house, to fill the sovereign's court;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor waiting summons, nor expecting stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But met with reverence, and received the God.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He mounts the throne; and Juno took her place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But sullen discontent sate lowering on her face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With jealous eyes, at distance she had seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whispering with Jove, the silver-footed queen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, impotent of tongue, her silence broke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus turbulent, in rattling tone, she spoke.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Author of ills, and close contriver Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which of thy dames, what prostitute of love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has held thy ear so long, and begged so hard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For some old service done, some new reward?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Apart you talked, for that's your special care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The consort never must the council share.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One gracious word is for a wife too much;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such is a marriage vow, and Jove's own faith is such.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Then thus the sire of Gods, and men below:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What I have hidden, hope not thou to know.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even goddesses are women; and no wife<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has power to regulate her husband's life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Counsel she may; and I will give thy ear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The knowledge first of what is fit to hear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What I transact with others, or alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beware to learn, nor press too near the throne.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To whom the Goddess, with the charming eyes:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What hast thou said, O tyrant of the skies!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When did I search the secrets of thy reign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though privileged to know, but privileged in vain?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But well thou dost, to hide from common sight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy close intrigues, too bad to bear the light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor doubt I, but the silver-footed dame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tripping from sea, on such an errand came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To grace her issue at the Grecians' cost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, for one peevish man, destroy an host.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To whom the Thunderer made this stern reply:—<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">My household curse! my lawful plague! the spy <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Of Jove's designs! his other squinting eye! <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Why this vain prying, and for what avail?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jove will be master still, and Juno fail.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should thy suspicious thoughts divine aright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou but becom'st more odious to my sight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For this attempt; uneasy life to me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still watched and importuned, but worse for thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curb that impetuous tongue, before too late<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Gods behold, and tremble at thy fate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pitying, but daring not, in thy defence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To lift a hand against Omnipotence.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This heard, the imperious queen sate mute with fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor further durst incense the gloomy Thunderer:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Silence was in the court at this rebuke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor could the Gods abashed sustain their sovereign's look.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> -<span class="i2">The limping Smith observed the saddened feast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, hopping here and there, himself a jest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Put in his word, that neither might offend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Jove obsequious, yet his mother's friend.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What end in heaven will be of civil war,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If Gods of pleasure will for mortals jar?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such discord but disturbs our jovial feast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One grain of bad embitters all the best.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mother, though wise yourself, my counsel weigh;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">'Tis much unsafe my sire to disobey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not only you provoke him to your cost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But mirth is marred, and the good chear is lost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tempt not his heavy hand, for he has power<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To throw you headlong from his heavenly tower;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But one submissive word, which you let fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will make him in good humour with us all.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He said no more, but crowned a bowl unbid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The laughing nectar overlooked the lid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then put it to her hand, and thus pursued:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This cursed quarrel be no more renewed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be, as becomes a wife, obedient still;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though grieved, yet subject to her husband's will.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I would not see you beaten; yet afraid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Jove's superior force, I dare not aid.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too well I know him, since that hapless hour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When I, and all the Gods, employed our power<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To break your bonds; me by the heel he drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And o'er heaven's battlements with fury threw.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All day I fell; my flight at morn begun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ended not but with the setting sun.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pitched on my head, at length the Lemnian ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Received my battered skull, the Sinthians healed my wound.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At Vulcan's homely mirth his mother smiled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, smiling, took the cup the clown had filled.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The reconciler-bowl went round the board,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, emptied, the rude skinker still restored.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Loud fits of laughter seized the guests, to see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The limping God so deft<a id="FNanchor_BN_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_BN_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> at his new ministry.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The feast continued till declining light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They drank, they laughed, they loved, and then 'twas night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor wanted tuneful harp, nor vocal quire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Muses sung, Apollo touched the lyre.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drunken at last, and drowsy, they depart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each to his house, adorned with laboured art<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the lame architect. The thundering God,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even he, withdrew to rest, and had his load;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His swimming head to needful sleep applied,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Juno lay unheeded by his side.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<div class="footnotes"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BM_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BM_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Baffled is here used for insulted.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_BN_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BN_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Deft for dexterous.</p></div></div> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="no-break"><span class="font06">THE</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font09">LAST PARTING</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">OF</span><br /><br /> - -HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.<br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">FROM</span><br /><br /> - -<span class="font06">THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE ILIAD.</span></h2> - -<hr class="r20a" /> - -<p class="center pmb1">THE ARGUMENT.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="ii1 pmb2"><i>Hector returning from the field of battle, to visit Helen, his sister-in-law, -and his brother Paris, who had fought unsuccessfully, hand -to hand with Menelaus, from thence goes to his own palace to see -his wife Andromache, and his infant son Astyanax. The description -of that interview is the subject of this translation.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<div class="block2"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thus having said, brave Hector went to see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His virtuous wife, the fair Andromache.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He found her not at home; for she was gone,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Attended by her maid and infant son, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">To climb the steepy tower of Ilion; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">From whence, with heavy heart, she might survey<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bloody business of the dreadful day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her mournful eyes she cast around the plain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sought the lord of her desires in vain.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> -<span class="i2">But he, who thought his peopled palace bare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When she, his only comfort, was not there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stood in the gate, and asked of every one,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which way she took, and whither she was gone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If to the court, or with his mother's train,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In long procession to Minerva's fane?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The servants answered,—Neither to the court,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where Priam's sons and daughters did resort;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor to the temple was she gone, to move<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With prayers the blue-eyed progeny of Jove;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But more solicitous for him alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than all their safety, to the tower was gone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There to survey the labours of the field,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the Greeks conquer, and the Trojans yield;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swiftly she passed, with fear and fury wild;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nurse went lagging after with the child.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This heard, the noble Hector made no stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The admiring throng divide to give him way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He passed through every street, by which he came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the gate he met the mournful dame.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His wife beheld him; and, with eager pace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flew to his arms, to meet a dear embrace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His wife, who brought in dower Cilicia's crown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in herself a greater dower alone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Aetion's heir, who, on the woody plain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Hippoplacus, did in Thebé reign.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Breathless she flew, with joy and passion wild;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The nurse came lagging after with the child.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The royal babe upon her breast was laid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who, like the morning star, his beams displayed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scamandrius was his name, which Hector gave,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From that fair flood which Ilion's wall did lave;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But him Astyanax the Trojans call,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From his great father who defends the wall.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hector beheld him with a silent smile,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His tender wife stood weeping by the while;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Pressed in her own, his warlike hand she took,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then sighed, and thus prophetically spoke:—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thy dauntless heart, which I foresee too late,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too daring man, will urge thee to thy fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor dost thou pity, with a parent's mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This helpless orphan, whom thou leav'st behind;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor me, the unhappy partner of thy bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who must in triumph by the Greeks be led.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They seek thy life; and, in unequal fight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With many, will oppress thy single might.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Better it were for miserable me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To die, before the fate which I foresee;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, ah! what comfort can the world bequeath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Hector's widow, after Hector's death!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eternal sorrow and perpetual tears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Began my youth, and will conclude my years;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I have no parents, friends, nor brothers left,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By stern Achilles all of life bereft.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, when the walls of Thebes he overthrew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His fatal hand my royal father slew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He slew Aetion, but despoiled him not,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor in his hate the funeral rites forgot;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Armed as he was he sent him whole below,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And reverenced thus the manes of his foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A tomb he raised; the mountain-nymphs around<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enclosed, with planted elms, the holy ground.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My seven brave brothers, in one fatal day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To death's dark mansions took the mournful way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slain by the same Achilles, while they keep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bellowing oxen, and the bleating sheep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My mother, who the royal sceptre swayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was captive to the cruel victor made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hither led; but, hence redeemed with gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her native country did again behold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And but beheld; for soon Diana's dart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In an unhappy chace, transfixed her heart.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> -<span class="i2">But thou, my Hector, art thyself alone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My parents, brothers, and my lord, in one.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O, kill not all my kindred o'er again, <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Nor tempt the dangers of the dusty plain <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But in this tower, for our defence, remain.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Thy wife and son are in thy ruin lost;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This is a husband's and a father's post.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Scæan gate commands the plains below; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Here marshal all thy soldiers as they go; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">And hence, with other hands, repel the foe.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">By yon wild fig-tree lies their chief ascent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thither all their powers are daily bent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The two Ajaces have I often seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the wronged husband of the Spartan queen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With him his greater brother; and, with these,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fierce Diomede, and bold Meriones;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Uncertain if by augury, or chance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But by this easy rise they all advance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Guard well that pass, secure of all beside.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To whom the noble Hector thus replied:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That and the rest are in my daily care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, should I shun the dangers of the war,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With scorn the Trojans would reward my pains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And their proud ladies, with their sweeping trains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Grecian swords and lances I can bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But loss of honour is my only fear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall Hector, born to war, his birth-right yield,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Belie his courage, and forsake the field?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Early in rugged arms I took delight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still have been the foremost in the fight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With dangers dearly have I bought renown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And am the champion of my father's crown.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet my mind forebodes, with sure presage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That Troy shall perish by the Grecian rage:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fatal day draws on, when I must fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And universal ruin cover all.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Not Troy itself, though built by hands divine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor Priam, nor his people, nor his line,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My mother, nor my brothers of renown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose valour yet defends the unhappy town,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not these, nor all their fates which I foresee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are half of that concern I have for thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I see, I see thee, in that fatal hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Subjected to the victor's cruel power;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Led hence a slave to some insulting sword,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forlorn, and trembling at a foreign lord;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A spectacle in Argos, at the loom,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gracing with Trojan fights, a Grecian room;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or from deep wells the living stream to take,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on thy weary shoulders bring it back.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While, groaning under this laborious life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They insolently call thee Hector's wife;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upbraid thy bondage with thy husband's name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from my glory propagate thy shame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This when they say, thy sorrows will increase<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">With anxious thoughts of former happiness; <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">That he is dead who could thy wrongs redress.<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">But I, oppressed with iron sleep before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall hear thy unavailing cries no more.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He said;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, holding forth his arms, he took his boy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pledge of love and other hope of Troy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fearful infant turned his head away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on his nurse's neck reclining lay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His unknown father shunning with affright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And looking back on so uncouth a sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Daunted to see a face with steel o'erspread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his high plume that nodded o'er his head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His sire and mother smiled with silent joy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Hector hastened to relieve his boy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dismissed his burnished helm, that shone afar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pride of warriors, and the pomp of war;<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The illustrious babe, thus reconciled, he took,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hugged in his arms, and kissed, and thus he spoke:—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Parent of Gods and men, propitious Jove!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And you, bright synod of the powers above!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On this my son your gracious gifts bestow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grant him to live, and great in arms to grow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To reign in Troy, to govern with renown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To shield the people, and assert the crown;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, when hereafter he from war shall come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bring his Trojans peace and triumph home,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some aged man, who lives this act to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And who, in former times, remembered me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May say, the son, in fortitude and fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Outgoes the mark, and drowns his father's name:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, at these words, his mother may rejoice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And add her suffrage to the public voice.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus having said;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He first, with suppliant hands, the Gods adored;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then to the mother's arms the child restored.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With tears and smiles she took her son, and pressed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The illustrious infant to her fragrant breast.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He, wiping her fair eyes, indulged her grief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eased her sorrows with this last relief:—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My wife and mistress, drive thy fears away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor give so bad an omen to the day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think not it lies in any Grecian's power<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To take my life, before the fatal hour.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When that arrives, nor good nor bad can fly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The irrevocable doom of destiny.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Return; and, to divert thy thoughts at home,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">There task thy maids, and exercise the loom,<span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">Employed in works that womankind become. <span class="ir1">}</span></span> -<span class="i0">The toils of war, and feats of chivalry<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Belong to men; and, most of all, to me.—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At this, for new replies he did not stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But laced his crested helm, and strode away.<br /></span> - <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> -<span class="i0">His lovely consort to her house returned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, looking often back, in silence mourned.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Home when she came, her secret woe she vents,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fills the palace with her loud laments;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those loud laments her echoing maids restore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Hector, yet alive, as dead deplore.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="pmb3" /> - - -<p class="p2 center pmb3">END OF THE TWELFTH VOLUME.</p> - - -<p class="center font06 pmb3"> -<span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>:<br /> -Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.<br /> -</p> - - -<p class="break" /> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="transnote"> -<b><a id="Transcribers_notes">Transcriber's notes:</a></b> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected, but other -variations in spelling and punctuation remain unchanged.</p> -</div> - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of John Dryden, Now First -Collected in Eighteen Volumes; 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