The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
EPISTLES.
TO MY HONOURED FRIEND SIR ROBERT HOWARD,[1] ON HIS EXCELLENT POEMS.
As there is music uninform’d by
art
In those wild notes, which, with a merry
heart,
The birds in unfrequented shades express,
Who, better taught at home, yet please
us less:
So in your verse a native sweetness dwells,
Which shames composure, and its art excels.
Singing no more can your soft numbers
grace,
Than paint adds charms unto a beauteous
face.
Yet as, when mighty rivers gently creep,
Their even calmness does suppose them
deep; 10
Such is your muse: no metaphor swell’d
high
With dangerous boldness lifts her to the
sky:
Those mounting fancies, when they fall
again,
Show sand and dirt at bottom do remain.
So firm a strength, and yet withal so
sweet,
Did never but in Samson’s riddle
meet.
’Tis strange each line so great
a weight should bear,
And yet no sign of toil, no sweat appear.
Either your art hides art, as Stoics feign
Then least to feel when most they suffer
pain; 20
And we, dull souls, admire, but cannot
see
What hidden springs within the engine
be:
Or ’tis some happiness that still
pursues
Each act and motion of your graceful muse.
Or is it fortune’s work, that in
your head
The curious net,[2] that is for fancies
spread,
Lets through its meshes every meaner thought,
While rich ideas there are only caught?
Sure that’s not all; this is a piece
too fair
To be the child of chance, and not of
care. 30
No atoms casually together hurl’d
Could e’er produce so beautiful
a world.
Nor dare I such a doctrine here admit,
As would destroy the providence of wit.
’Tis your strong genius, then, which
does not feel
Those weights would make a weaker spirit
reel.
To carry weight, and run so lightly too,
Is what alone your Pegasus can do.
Great Hercules himself could ne’er
do more,
Than not to feel those heavens and gods
he bore. 40
Your easier odes, which for delight were
penn’d,
Yet our instruction make their second
end:
We’re both enrich’d and pleased,
like them that woo
At once a beauty and a fortune too.
Of moral knowledge poesy was queen,
And still she might, had wanton wits not
been;
Who, like ill guardians, lived themselves
at large,
And, not content with that, debauch’d
their charge.
Like some brave captain, your successful
pen
Restores the exiled to her crown again:
50
And gives us hope, that having seen the
days
When nothing flourish’d but fanatic
bays,
All will at length in this opinion rest,—
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: ‘Sir Robert Howard:’ brother to Dryden’s wife.]
[Footnote 2: ‘The curious net,’ &c.: a compliment to a poem of Sir Robert’s, called ‘Rete Mirabile.’]
[Footnote 3: ‘Statius:’ author of ‘Thebaid’ and the ‘Achilleid;’ the latter translated by Sir Robert Howard.]
[Footnote 4: ‘With Monk you end,’ &c.: alluding to a poem of this gentleman’s on General Monk.]
[Footnote 5: ‘Rufus:’ a Roman consul, banished to Smyrna through intrigues, but greatly respected.]LE II.
* * * * *
TO MY HONOURED FRIEND DR CHARLETON, ON HIS LEARNED AND USEFUL WORKS; BUT MORE PARTICULARLY HIS TREATISE OF STONEHENGE,[6] BY HIM RESTORED TO THE TRUE FOUNDER.
The longest tyranny that ever sway’d,
Was that wherein our ancestors betray’d
Their free-born reason to the Stagyrite,
And made his torch their universal light.
So truth, while only one supplied the
state,
Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.
Still it was bought, like empiric wares,
or charms,
Hard words seal’d up with Artistotle’s
arms.
Columbus was the first that shook his
throne,
And found a temperate in a torrid zone,
10
The feverish air fann’d by a cooling
breeze,
The fruitful vales set round with shady
trees:
And guiltless men, who danced away their
time,
Fresh as their groves, and happy as their
clime.
Had we still paid that homage to a name,
Which only God and nature justly claim,
The western seas had been our utmost bound,
Where poets still might dream the sun
was drown’d:
And all the stars that shine in southern
skies,
Had been admired by none but savage eyes.
20
Among the asserters of free
reason’s claim,
Our nation’s not the least in worth
or fame.
The world to Bacon does not only owe
Its present knowledge, but its future
too.
Gilbert[7] shall live, till loadstones
cease to draw,
Our British fleets the boundless ocean
awe.
And noble Boyle, not less in nature seen,
Than his great brother read in states
and men.
The circling streams, once thought but
pools, of blood
(Whether life’s fuel, or the body’s
food) 30
From dark oblivion Harvey’s[8] name
shall save;
While Ent[9] keeps all the honour that
he gave.
Nor are you, learned friend, the least
renown’d,
Whose fame, not circumscribed with English
ground,
Flies like the nimble journeys of the
light;
And is, like that, unspent too in its
flight.
Whatever truths have been, by art or chance,
Redeem’d from error, or from ignorance,
Thin in their authors, like rich veins
of ore,
Your works unite, and still discover more.
40
Such is the healing virtue of your pen,
To perfect cures on books, as well as
men.
Nor is this work the least: you well
may give
To men new vigour, who make stones to
These ruins[10] shelter’d
once his sacred head,
When he from Worcester’s fatal battle
fled;
Watch’d by the genius of this royal
place,
And mighty visions of the Danish race.
His refuge then was for a temple shown:
But, he restored, ’tis now become
a throne.
* * * * *
[Footnote 6: ‘Treatise of Stonehenge:’ Charleton wrote a book proving, against Inigo Jones, that Stonehenge was built by the Danes.]
[Footnote 7: ‘Gilbert:’ Dr William Gilbert, a physician both to Queen Elizabeth and King James, and author of a treatise on the magnet.]
[Footnote 8: ‘Harvey:’ discoverer of the circulation of the blood.]
[Footnote 9: ‘Ent:’ a physician of the day.]
[Footnote 10: ‘These ruins,’ &c.: in the dedication of this book to Charles II. is the following passage, which gave occasion to the last six lines of this poem:—’I have had the honour to hear from your majesty’s own mouth, that you were pleased to visit this monument, and entertain yourself with the delightful view thereof, after the defeat of your army at Worcester.’]
* * * * *
TO THE LADY CASTLEMAIN,[11] UPON HER ENCOURAGING HIS FIRST PLAY.
As seamen, shipwreck’d on some happy shore,
Discover wealth in lands unknown before;
And, what their art had labour’d long in vain,
By their misfortunes happily obtain:
So my much-envied Muse, by storms long tost,
Is thrown upon your hospitable coast,
And finds more favour by her ill success,
Than she could hope for by her happiness.
Once Cato’s virtue did the gods oppose;
While they the victor, he the vanquish’d chose:
10
But you have done what Cato could not do,
To choose the vanquish’d, and restore him too.
Let others triumph still, and gain their cause
By their deserts, or by the world’s applause;
Let merit crowns, and justice laurels give,
But let me happy by your pity live.
True poets empty fame and praise despise;
Fame is the trumpet, but your smile the prize.
You sit above, and see vain men below
Contend for what you only can bestow:
20
But those great actions others do by chance,
Are, like your beauty, your inheritance;
* * * * *
[Footnote 11: ‘Lady Castlemain’ this lady was for many years a favourite mistress of Charles II., and was afterwards created Duchess of Cleveland.]
[Footnote 12: ‘Grandison:’ her father, killed at Edgehill.]
* * * * *
TO MR LEE, ON HIS “ALEXANDER.”
The blast of common censure could I fear,
Before your play my name should not appear;
For ’twill be thought, and with
some colour too,
I pay the bribe I first received from
you;
That mutual vouchers for our fame we stand,
And play the game into each other’s
hand;
And as cheap pen’orths to ourselves
afford,
As Bessus[13] and the brothers of the
sword.
Such libels private men may well endure,
When states and kings themselves are not
secure: 10
For ill men, conscious of their inward
guilt,
Think the best actions on by-ends are
built.
And yet my silence had not ’scaped
their spite;
Then, envy had not suffer’d me to
write;
For, since I could not ignorance pretend,
Such merit I must envy or commend.
So many candidates there stand for wit,
A place at court is scarce so hard to
get:
In vain they crowd each other at the door;
* * * * *
[Footnote 13: ‘Bessus:’ a cowardly character in Beaumont and Fletcher’s comedy of ‘A King and no King.’]
* * * * *
TO THE EARL OF ROSCOMMON, ON HIS EXCELLENT ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE.
Whether the fruitful Nile, or Tyrian shore,
The seeds of arts and infant science bore,
’Tis sure the noble plant, translated
first,
Advanced its head in Grecian gardens nursed.
The Grecians added verse: their tuneful
tongue
Made Nature first, and Nature’s
God their song.
Nor stopp’d translation here:
for conquering Rome,
With Grecian spoils, brought Grecian numbers
home;
Enrich’d by those Athenian Muses
more,
Than all the vanquish’d world could
yield before. 10
Till barbarous nations, and more barbarous
times,
Debased the majesty of verse to rhymes:
Those rude at first; a kind of hobbling
prose,
* * * * *
[Footnote 14: ‘An English peer:’ the Earl of Mulgrave.]
* * * * *
TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK, ON HER RETURN FROM SCOTLAND IN THE YEAR 1682.
When factious rage to cruel exile drove
The queen of beauty,[15] and the court
of love,
The Muses droop’d, with their forsaken
arts,
And the sad Cupids broke their useless
darts:
Our fruitful plains to wilds and deserts
turn’d
Like Eden’s face, when banish’d
man it mourn’d,
Love was no more, when loyalty was gone,
The great supporter of his awful throne.
Love could no longer after beauty stay,
But wander’d northward to the verge
of day, 10
As if the sun and he had lost their way.
But now the illustrious nymph, return’d
again,
Brings every grace triumphant in her train.
The wondering Nereids, though they raised
no storm,
Foreflow’d her passage, to behold
her form:
Some cried, A Venus; some, A Thetis, pass’d;
But this was not so fair, nor that so
chaste.
Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife,
and Pride;
And Envy did but look on her, and died.
Whate’er we suffer’d from
our sullen fate, 20
Her sight is purchased at an easy rate.
Three gloomy years against this day were
set,
But this one mighty sum has clear’d
the debt:
Like Joseph’s dream, but with a
better doom,
The famine past, the plenty still to come.
For her the weeping heavens become serene;
For her the ground is clad in cheerful
green:
For her the nightingales are taught to
sing,
And Nature has for her delay’d the
spring.
The Muse resumes her long-forgotten lays;
30
And Love, restored his ancient realm surveys,
Recalls our beauties, and revives our
plays;
His waste dominions peoples once again,
And from her presence dates his second
reign.
But awful charms on her fair forehead
sit,
Dispensing what she never will admit:
Pleasing, yet cold, like Cynthia’s
silver beam,
The people’s wonder, and the poet’s
theme.
Distemper’d Zeal, Sedition, canker’d
Hate,
No more shall vex the Church, and tear
the State: 40
No more shall Faction civil discords move,
Or only discords of too tender love:
Discord, like that of music’s various
parts;
Discord, that makes the harmony of hearts;
Discord, that only this dispute shall
bring,
Who best should love the Duke, and serve
the King.
* * * * *
[Footnote 15: ‘Queen of beauty:’ Mary D’Este, the beautiful second wife of the Duke of York; she had been banished to Scotland.]
* * * * *
A LETTER TO SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE.[16]
To you who live in chill degree,
As map informs, of fifty-three,
And do not much for cold atone,
By bringing thither fifty-one,
Methinks all climes should be alike,
From tropic e’en to pole arctique;
Since you have such a constitution
As nowhere suffers diminution.
You can be old in grave debate,
And young in love-affairs of state;
10
And both to wives and husbands show
The vigour of a plenipo.
Like mighty missioner you come
“Ad Partes Infidelium.”
A work of wondrous merit sure,
So far to go, so much t’ endure;
And all to preach to German dame,
Where sound of Cupid never came.
Less had you done, had you been sent
As far as Drake or Pinto went,
20
For cloves or nutmegs to the line-a,
Or even for oranges to China.
That had indeed been charity;
Where love-sick ladies helpless lie,
Chapt, and for want of liquor dry.
But you have made your zeal appear
Within the circle of the Bear.
What region of the earth’s so dull
That is not of your labours full?
Triptolemus (so sung the Nine)
30
Strew’d plenty from his cart divine,
But spite of all these fable-makers,
He never sow’d on Almain acres:
No; that was left by Fate’s decree,
To be perform’d and sung by thee.
Thou break’st through forms with
as much ease
As the French king through articles.
In grand affairs thy days are spent,
In waging weighty compliment,
With such as monarchs represent.
40
They, whom such vast fatigues attend,
Want some soft minutes to unbend,
To show the world that now and then
Great ministers are mortal men.
Then Rhenish rammers walk the round;
In bumpers every king is crown’d;
Besides three holy mitred Hectors,
And the whole college of Electors,
No health of potentate is sunk,
That pays to make his envoy drunk.
50
These Dutch delights I mention’d
last
Suit not, I know, your English taste:
For wine to leave a whore or play
Was ne’er your Excellency’s
way.
Nor need this title give offence,
For here you were your Excellence,
For gaming, writing, speaking, keeping,
His Excellence for all but sleeping.
Now if you tope in form, and treat,
* * * * *
[Footnote 16: Written to Etherege, then at Ratisbon, in reply to one from Sir George to the Earl of Middleton, at the Earl’s request.]
* * * * *
TO MR SOUTHERNE, ON HIS COMEDY CALLED “THE WIVES’ EXCUSE.”
Sure there’s a fate in plays, and
’tis in vain
To write, while these malignant planets
reign.
Some very foolish influence rules the
pit,
Not always kind to sense, or just to wit:
And whilst it lasts, let buffoonry succeed
To make us laugh; for never was more need.
Farce, in itself, is of a nasty scent;
But the gain smells not of the excrement.
The Spanish nymph, a wit and beauty too,
With all her charms, bore but a single
show: 10
But let a monster Muscovite appear,
He draws a crowded audience round the
year.
May be thou hast not pleased the box and
pit;
Yet those who blame thy tale applaud thy
wit:
So Terence plotted, but so Terence writ.
Like his thy thoughts are true, thy language
clean
Even lewdness is made moral in thy scene.
The hearers may for want of Nokes repine;
But rest secure, the readers will be thine.
Nor was thy labour’d drama damn’d
or hiss’d, 20
But with a kind civility dismiss’d;
With such good manners, as the Wife[17]
did use,
Who, not accepting, did but just refuse.
There was a glance at parting; such a
look,
As bids thee not give o’er, for
one rebuke.
But if thou wouldst be seen, as well as
read,
Copy one living author, and one dead:
The standard of thy style let Etherege
be;
For wit, the immortal spring of Wycherly:
Learn, after both, to draw some just design,
30
And the next age will learn to copy thine.
* * * * *
[Footnote 17: ‘Wife:’ the wife in the play, Mrs Friendall.]
* * * * *
TO HENRY HIGDEN,[18] ESQ., ON HIS TRANSLATION OF THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.
The Grecian wits, who Satire first began,
Were pleasant Pasquins on the life of
man;
At mighty villains, who the state oppress’d,
They durst not rail, perhaps; they lash’d,
at least,
And turn’d them out of office with
a jest.
No fool could peep abroad, but ready stand
The drolls to clap a bauble in his hand.
Wise legislators never yet could draw
A fop within the reach of common law;
For posture, dress, grimace, and affectation,
10
Though foes to sense, are harmless to
the nation.
Our last redress is dint of verse to try,
And Satire is our Court of Chancery.
This way took Horace to reform an age,
Not bad enough to need an author’s
rage:
But yours,[19] who lived in more degenerate
times,
Was forced to fasten deep, and worry crimes.
Yet you, my friend, have temper’d
him so well,
You make him smile in spite of all his
zeal:
An art peculiar to yourself alone,
20
To join the virtues of two styles in one.
Oh! were your author’s
principle received,
Half of the labouring world would be relieved:
For not to wish is not to be deceived.
Revenge would into charity be changed,
Because it costs too dear to be revenged:
It costs our quiet and content of mind,
And when ’tis compass’d leaves
a sting behind.
Suppose I had the better end o’
the staff,
Why should I help the ill-natured world
to laugh? 30
’Tis all alike to them, who get
the day;
They love the spite and mischief of the
fray.
No; I have cured myself of that disease;
Nor will I be provoked, but when I please:
But let me half that cure to you restore;
You gave the salve, I laid it to the sore.
Our kind relief against a
rainy day,
Beyond a tavern, or a tedious play,
We take your book, and laugh our spleen
away.
If all your tribe, too studious of debate,
40
Would cease false hopes and titles to
create,
Led by the rare example you begun,
Clients would fail, and lawyers be undone.
* * * * *
[Footnote 18: ‘Higden:’ author of a bad comedy, which was condemned.]
[Footnote 19: ‘Yours:’ Juvenal, the tenth satire of whom Higden had translated.]
* * * * *
TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR CONGREVE, ON HIS COMEDY CALLED “THE DOUBLE-DEALER.”
Well, then, the promised hour is come
at last,
The present age of wit obscures the past:
Strong were our sires, and as they fought
they writ,
Conquering with force of arms, and dint
of wit:
Theirs was the giant race, before the
flood;
And thus, when Charles return’d,
our empire stood.
Like Janus he the stubborn soil manured,
With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;
Tamed us to manners, when the stage was
rude;
And boisterous English wit with art endued.
10
Our age was cultivated thus at length;
But what we gain’d in skill we lost
in strength.
Our builders were with want of genius
cursed;
The second temple was not like the first:
Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at
length;
Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.
Firm Doric pillars found your solid base:
The fair Corinthian crowns the higher
space:
Thus all below is strength, and all above
is grace.
In easy dialogue is Fletcher’s praise;
20
He moved the mind, but had not power to
raise.
Great Jonson did by strength of judgment
please;
Yet, doubling Fletcher’s force,
he wants his ease.
In differing talents both adorn’d
their age;
One for the study, the other for the stage.
But both to Congreve justly shall submit—
One match’d in judgment, both o’ermatch’d
in wit.
In him all beauties of this age we see,
Etherege’s courtship, Southerne’s
purity,
The satire, wit, and strength of manly
Wycherly. 30
All this in blooming youth you have achieved:
Nor are your foil’d contemporaries
grieved.
So much the sweetness of your manners
move,
We cannot envy you, because we love.
Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw
A beardless consul made against the law,
And join his suffrage to the votes of
Rome;
Though he with Hannibal was overcome.
Thus old Romano bow’d to Raphael’s
fame,
And scholar to the youth he taught became.
40
O that your brows my laurel
had sustain’d!
Well had I been deposed, if you had reign’d:
The father had descended for the son;
For only you are lineal to the throne.
Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,
A greater Edward in his room arose:
But now, not I, but poetry is cursed;
For Tom the second reigns like Tom the
first.
But let them not mistake my patron’s
part,
Nor call his charity their own desert.
50
Yet this I prophesy: Thou shalt be
seen
(Though with some short parenthesis between)
High on the throne of wit, and, seated
there,
Not mine, that’s little, but thy
laurel wear.
Thy first attempt an early promise made;
Maintain your post: that’s
all the fame you need;
For ’tis impossible you should proceed.
Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage:
Unprofitably kept at Heaven’s expense,
I live a rent-charge on his providence:
But you, whom every muse and grace adorn,
70
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains; and O defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
But shade those laurels which descend
to you:
And take for tribute what these lines
express:
You merit more; nor could my love do less.
* * * * *
TO MR GRANVILLE,[20] ON HIS EXCELLENT TRAGEDY CALLED “HEROIC LOVE.”
Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy, what I must commend!
But since ’tis nature’s law,
in love and wit,
That youth should reign, and withering
age submit,
With less regret those laurels I resign,
Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.
With better grace an ancient chief may
yield
The long-contended honours of the field,
Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
10
Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they
rise:
Old monarchs, though successful, still
in doubt,
Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming
age
Can best, if any can, support the stage;
Which so declines, that shortly we may
see
Players and plays reduced to second infancy.
Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of
renown,
They plot not on the stage, but on the
town, 20
And, in despair, their empty pit to fill,
Set up some foreign monster in a bill.
Thus they jog on, still tricking, never
thriving,
And murdering plays, which they miscall
reviving.
Our sense is nonsense, through their pipes
convey’d:
Scarce can a poet know the play he made;
’Tis so disguised in death; nor
thinks ’tis he
That suffers in the mangled tragedy.
Thus Itys first was kill’d, and
after dress’d
For his own sire, the chief invited guest.
30
I say not this of thy successful scenes,
* * * * *
[Footnote 20: ‘Mr Granville:’ Lord Lansdowne.]
[Footnote 21: ‘Setting sun,’ &c.: Betterton, who had mustered up a company, and played in Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.]
[Footnote 22: ‘Neighbouring coast:’ Drury Lane play-house.]
* * * * *
TO MY FRIEND MR MOTTEUX,[23] ON HIS TRAGEDY CALLED “BEAUTY IN DISTRESS.”
’Tis hard, my friend, to write in
such an age,
As damns, not only poets, but the stage.
That sacred art, by Heaven itself infused,
Which Moses, David, Solomon have used,
Is now to be no more: the Muses’
foes
Would sink their Maker’s praises
into prose.
Were they content to prune the lavish
vine
Of straggling branches, and improve the
wine,
Who but a madman would his thoughts defend?
All would submit; for all but fools will
mend. 10
But when to common sense they give the
lie,
And turn distorted words to blasphemy,
They give the scandal; and the wise discern,
Their glosses teach an age, too apt to
learn.
What I have loosely, or profanely, writ,
Let them to fires, their due desert, commit:
Nor, when accused by me, let them complain:
Their faults, and not their function,
I arraign.
Rebellion, worse than witchcraft, they
pursued;
The pulpit preach’d the crime, the
people rued. 20
The stage was silenced; for the saints
would see
In fields perform’d their plotted
tragedy.
But let us first reform, and then so live,
That we may teach our teachers to forgive:
Our desk be placed below their lofty chairs;
Ours be the practice, as the precept theirs.
The moral part, at least, we may divide,
Humility reward, and punish pride;
Ambition, interest, avarice, accuse:
These are the province of a tragic Muse.
30
These hast thou chosen; and the public
voice
Has equall’d thy performance with
thy choice.
Time, action, place, are so preserved
by thee,
That even Corneille might with envy see
The alliance of his tripled Unity.
Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are
sown;
But too much plenty is thy fault alone.
* * * * *
[Footnote 23: ‘Motteux:’ an exiled Frenchman, translator of ’Don Quixote,’ and a play-wright. Dryden alludes here to Collier’s attacks on himself.]
* * * * *
TO MY HONOURED KINSMAN, JOHN DRYDEN,[24] OF CHESTERTON, IN THE COUNTY OF HUNTINGDON, ESQ.
How bless’d is he who leads a country
life,
Unvex’d with anxious cares, and
void of strife!
Who studying peace, and shunning civil
rage,
Enjoy’d his youth, and now enjoys
his age:
All who deserve his love, he makes his
own;
And, to be loved himself, needs only to
be known.
Just, good, and wise, contending
neighbours come,
From your award to wait their final doom;
And, foes before, return in friendship
home.
Without their cost, you terminate the
cause; 10
And save the expense of long litigious
laws:
Where suits are traversed; and so little
won,
That he who conquers, is but last undone:
Such are not your decrees; but so design’d,
The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind;
Like your own soul, serene; a pattern
of your mind.
Promoting concord, and composing
strife,
Lord of yourself, uncumber’d with
a wife;
Where, for a year, a month, perhaps a
night,
Long penitence succeeds a short delight:
20
Minds are so hardly match’d, that
even the first,
Though pair’d by Heaven, in Paradise
were cursed.
For man and woman, though in one they
grow,
Yet, first or last, return again to two.
He to God’s image, she to his was
made;
So farther from the fount the stream at
random stray’d.
How could he stand, when,
put to double pain,
He must a weaker than himself sustain!
Each might have stood perhaps; but each
alone;
Two wrestlers help to pull each other
down. 30
Not that my verse would blemish
all the fair;
But yet, if some be bad, ’tis wisdom
to beware;
And better shun the bait, than struggle
in the snare.
Thus have you shunn’d, and shun
the married state,
Trusting as little as you can to fate.
No porter guards the passage
of your door,
To admit the wealthy, and exclude the
poor;
For God, who gave the riches, gave the
heart,
To sanctify the whole, by giving part;
Heaven, who foresaw the will, the means
has wrought, 40
And to the second son a blessing brought;
The first-begotten had his father’s
share:
But you, like Jacob, are Rebecca’s
heir.[25]
So may your stores and fruitful
fields increase;
And ever be you bless’d, who live
to bless.
As Ceres sow’d, where’er her
chariot flew;
As Heaven in deserts rain’d the
bread of dew;
So free to many, to relations most,
You feed with manna your own Israel host.
With crowds attended of your
ancient race, 50
You seek the champion sports, or sylvan
chase:
With well-breath’d beagles you surround
the wood,
Even then, industrious of the common good:
And often have you brought the wily fox
To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks;
Chased even amid the folds; and made to
bleed,
Like felons, where they did the murderous
deed.
This fiery game your active youth maintain’d;
Not yet by years extinguish’d, though
restrain’d:
You season still with sports your serious
hours: 60
For age but tastes of pleasures youth
devours.
The hare in pastures or in plains is found,
Emblem of human life, who runs the round;
And, after all his wandering ways are
done,
His circle fills, and ends where he begun—
Just as the setting meets the rising sun.
Thus princes ease their cares;
but happier he,
Who seeks not pleasure through necessity,
Than such as once on slippery thrones
were placed;
And chasing, sigh to think themselves
are chased. 70
So lived our sires, ere doctors
learn’d to kill,
And multiplied with theirs the weekly
bill.
The first physicians by debauch were made:
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade,
Pity the generous kind their cares bestow
To search forbidden truths (a sin to know),
To which, if human science could attain,
The doom of death, pronounced by God,
were vain.
In vain the leech would interpose delay;
Fate fastens first, and vindicates the
prey. 80
What help from art’s endeavours
can we have?
Gibbons[26] but guesses, nor is sure to
save:
But Maurus[27] sweeps whole parishes,
and peoples every grave;
And no more mercy to mankind will use,
Than when he robb’d and murder’d
Maro’s Muse.
Wouldst thou be soon despatch’d,
and perish whole,
Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourn[28]
with thy soul.
By chase our long-lived fathers
earn’d their food;
Toil strung the nerves, and purified the
blood:
But we their sons, a pamper’d race
of men, 90
Are dwindled down to threescore years
and ten.
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
The tree of knowledge, once
in Eden placed,
Was easy found, but was forbid the taste:
Oh, had our grandsire walk’d without
his wife,
He first had sought the better plant of
life!
Now both are lost: yet, wandering
in the dark, 100
Physicians, for the tree, have found the
bark:
They, labouring for relief of human kind,
With sharpen’d sight some remedies
may find;
The apothecary-train is wholly blind,
From files a random recipe they take,
And many deaths of one prescription make.
Garth,[29] generous as his Muse, prescribes
and gives;
The shopman sells; and by destruction
lives:
Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper’s
brood,
From medicine issuing, suck their mother’s
blood! 110
Let these obey; and let the learn’d
prescribe;
That men may die, without a double bribe:
Let them, but under their superiors, kill;
When doctors first have sign’d the
bloody bill;
He ’scapes the best, who, nature
to repair,
Draws physic from the fields, in draughts
of vital air.
You hoard not health, for
your own private use;
But on the public spend the rich produce.
When, often urged, unwilling to be great,
Your country calls you from your loved
retreat, 120
And sends to senates, charged with common
care,
Which none more shuns, and none can better
bear;
Where could they find another form’d
so fit,
To poise, with solid sense, a sprightly
wit?
Were these both wanting, as they both
abound,
Where could so firm integrity be found?
Well born, and wealthy, wanting no support,
You steer betwixt the country and the
court:
Nor gratify whate’er the great desire,
Nor grudging give what public needs require.
130
Part must be left, a fund when foes invade;
And part employ’d to roll the watery
trade:
Even Canaan’s happy land, when worn
with toil,
Required a sabbath-year to mend the meagre
soil.
Good senators (and such as
you) so give,
That kings may be supplied, the people
thrive.
And he, when want requires, is truly wise,
Who slights not foreign aids, nor over-buys;
But on our native strength, in time of
need, relies.
Munster was bought, we boast not the success;
140
Who fights for gain, for greater makes
his peace.
Our foes, compell’d
by need, have peace embraced:
The peace both parties want, is like to
last:
Which, if secure, securely we may trade;
Or, not secure, should never have been
made.
Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves
we stand,
The sea is ours, and that defends the
land.
Be then the naval stores the nation’s
care,
New ships to build, and batter’d
to repair.
Observe the war, in every
annual course; 150
What has been done, was done with British
force:
Namur subdued,[30] is England’s
palm alone;
The rest besieged, but we constrain’d
the town;
We saw the event that follow’d our
success;
France, though pretending arms, pursued
the peace;
Obliged, by one sole treaty,[31] to restore
What twenty years of war had won before.
Enough for Europe has our Albion fought:
Let us enjoy the peace our blood has bought.
When once the Persian king was put to
flight, 160
The weary Macedons refused to fight:
Themselves their own mortality confess’d:
And left the son of Jove to quarrel for
the rest.
Even victors are by victories
undone;
Thus Hannibal, with foreign laurels won,
To Carthage was recall’d, too late
to keep his own.
While sore of battle, while our wounds
are green,
Why should we tempt the doubtful die again?
In wars renew’d, uncertain of success;
Sure of a share, as umpires of the peace.
170
A patriot both the king and
country serves:
Prerogative and privilege preserves:
Of each our laws the certain limit show;
One must not ebb, nor the other overflow:
Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand;
The barriers of the state on either hand:
May neither overflow, for then they drown
the land.
When both are full, they feed our bless’d
abode;
Like those that water’d once the
paradise of God.
Some overpoise of sway, by
turns, they share; 180
In peace the people, and the prince in
war:
Consuls of moderate power in calms were
made;
When the Gauls came, one sole dictator
sway’d.
Patriots, in peace, assert
the people’s right;
With noble stubbornness resisting might:
No lawless mandates from the court receive,
Nor lend by force, but in a body give.
Such was your generous grandsire; free
to grant
In parliaments, that weigh’d their
prince’s want:
But so tenacious of the common cause,
190
As not to lend the king against his laws;
And, in a loathsome dungeon doom’d
to lie,
In bonds retain’d his birthright
liberty,
And shamed oppression, till it set him
free.
O true descendant of a patriot
line,
Who, while thou shar’st their lustre,
lend’st them thine!
Vouchsafe this picture of thy soul to
see;
’Tis so far good, as it resembles
thee:
The beauties to the original I owe;
Which when I miss, my own defects I show:
200
Nor think the kindred Muses thy disgrace:
A poet is not born in every race.
Two of a house few ages can afford;
One to perform, another to record.
Praiseworthy actions are by thee embraced;
And ’tis my praise, to make thy
praises last.
For even when death dissolves our human
frame,
The soul returns to heaven from whence
it came;
Earth keeps the body—verse
preserves the fame.
* * * * *
[Footnote 24: ‘John Dryden:’ this poem was written in 1699; the person to whom it is addressed was cousin-german to the poet, and a younger brother of the baronet. He repaid this poem by a ‘noble present’ to his kinsman.]
[Footnote 25: ‘Rebecca’s heir:’ he inherited his mother’s fortune.]
[Footnote 26: ‘Gibbons:’ Dr Gibbons, physician.]
[Footnote 27: ‘Maurus:’ Sir Richard Blackmore.]
[Footnote 28: ‘Milbourn:’ the foe of Dryden’s ‘Virgil,’ and a clergyman.]
[Footnote 29: ‘Garth:’ author of ‘The Dispensary.’]
[Footnote 30: ‘Namur subdued:’ in 1695, King William took Namur, after a siege of one month.]
[Footnote 31: ‘Treaty:’ the treaty of Ryswick, concluded in September 1697.]
* * * * *
TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER, PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO HIS MAJESTY.
Once I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And still the sweet idea charms my mind:
True, she was dumb; for Nature gazed so
long,
Pleased with her work, that she forgot
her tongue;
But, smiling, said, She still shall gain
the prize;
I only have transferr’d it to her
eyes.
Such are thy pictures, Kneller: such
thy skill,
That Nature seems obedient to thy will;
Comes out and meets thy pencil in the
draught;
Lives there, and wants but words to speak
her thought. 10
At least thy pictures look a voice; and
we
Imagine sounds, deceived to that degree,
We think ’tis somewhat more than
just to see.
Shadows are but privations
of the light;
Yet, when we walk, they shoot before the
sight;
With us approach, retire, arise, and fall;
Nothing themselves, and yet expressing
all.
Such are thy pieces, imitating life
So near, they almost conquer in the strife;
And from their animated canvas came,
20
Demanding souls, and loosen’d from
the frame.
Prometheus, were he here,
would cast away
His Adam, and refuse a soul to clay;
And either would thy noble work inspire,
Or think it warm enough, without his fire.
But vulgar hands may vulgar
likeness raise;
This is the least attendant on thy praise:
From hence the rudiments of art began;
A coal, or chalk, first imitated man:
Perhaps the shadow, taken on a wall,
30
Gave outlines to the rude original;
Ere canvas yet was strain’d, before
the grace
Of blended colours found their use and
place,
Or cypress tablets first received a face.
By slow degrees the godlike
art advanced;
As man grew polish’d, picture was
enhanced:
Greece added posture, shade, and perspective;
And then the mimic piece began to live.
Yet perspective was lame, no distance
true,
But all came forward in one common view:
40
No point of light was known, no bounds
of art;
When light was there, it knew not to depart,
But glaring on remoter objects play’d;
Not languish’d, and insensibly decay’d.
Rome raised not art, but barely
kept alive,
And with old Greece unequally did strive:
Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude northern
race,
Did all the matchless monuments deface.
Then all the Muses in one ruin be,
And rhyme began to enervate poetry.
50
Thus, in a stupid military state,
The pen and pencil find an equal fate.
Flat faces, such as would disgrace a screen,
Such as in Bantam’s embassy were
seen,
Unraised, unrounded, were the rude delight
Of brutal nations only born to fight.
Long time, the sister arts,
in iron sleep,
A heavy sabbath did supinely keep:
At length, in Raphael’s age, at
once they rise,
Stretch all their limbs, and open all
their eyes. 60
Thence rose the Roman, and
the Lombard line:
One colour’d best, and one did best
design.
Raphael’s, like Homer’s, was
the nobler part,
But Titian’s painting look’d
like Virgil’s art.
Thy genius gives thee both;
where true design,
Postures unforced, and lively colours
join.
Likeness is ever there; but still the
best,
Like proper thoughts in lofty language
dress’d:
Where light, to shades descending, plays,
not strives,
Dies by degrees, and by degrees revives.
70
Of various parts a perfect whole is wrought:
Thy pictures think, and we divine their
thought.
Shakspeare, thy gift, I place
before my sight;
With awe, I ask his blessing ere I write;
With reverence look on his majestic face;
Proud to be less, but of his godlike race.
His soul inspires me, while thy praise
I write,
And I, like Teucer, under Ajax fight:
But oh! the painter Muse,
though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob’s
race.
Apelles’ art an Alexander found;
And Raphael did with Leo’s gold
abound;
But Homer was with barren laurel crown’d.
Thou hadst thy Charles a while, and so
had I;
But pass we that unpleasing image by.
Rich in thyself, and of thyself divine,
All pilgrims come and offer at thy shrine.
A graceful truth thy pencil can command;
100
The fair themselves go mended from thy
hand.
Likeness appears in every lineament;
But likeness in thy work is eloquent.
Though nature there her true resemblance
bears,
A nobler beauty in thy peace appears.
So warm thy work, so glows the generous
frame,
Flesh looks less living in the lovely
dame.
Thou paint’st as we describe, improving
still,
When on wild nature we ingraft our skill;
But not creating beauties at our will.
110
But poets are confined in
narrower space,
To speak the language of their native
place:
The painter widely stretches his command;
Thy pencil speaks the tongue of every
land.
From hence, my friend, all climates are
your own,
Nor can you forfeit, for you hold of none.
All nations all immunities will give
To make you theirs, where’er you
please to live;
And not seven cities, but the world would
strive.
Sure some propitious planet,
then, did smile, 120
When first you were conducted to this
isle:
Our genius brought you here to enlarge
our fame;
For your good stars are everywhere the
same.
Thy matchless hand, of every region free,
Adopts our climate, not our climate thee.
Great Rome and Venice early
did impart
To thee the examples of their wondrous
art.
Those masters then, but seen, not understood,
With generous emulation fired thy blood:
For what in nature’s dawn the child
admired, 130
The youth endeavour’d, and the man
acquired.
If yet thou hast not reach’d
their high degree,
’Tis only wanting to this age, not
thee.
Thy genius, bounded by the times, like
mine,
Drudges on petty draughts, nor dare design
A more exalted work, and more divine.
For what a song, or senseless opera
Is to the living labour of a play;
Or what a play to Virgil’s work
would be,
Such is a single piece to history.
140
But we, who life bestow, ourselves
must live:
Kings cannot reign, unless their subjects
give;
And they who pay the taxes, bear the rule:
Thus thou, sometimes, art forced to draw
a fool:
But so his follies in thy posture sink,
The senseless idiot seems at last to think.
Good heaven! that sots and
knaves should be so vain,
To wish their vile resemblance may remain!
And stand recorded, at their own request,
To future days, a libel or a jest!
150
Else should we see your noble
pencil trace
Our unities of action, time, and place:
A whole composed of parts, and those the
best,
With every various character express’d;
Heroes at large, and at a nearer view,
Less, and at distance, an ignobler crew.
While all the figures in one action join,
As tending to complete the main design.
More cannot be by mortal art
express’d;
But venerable age shall add the rest:
160
For time shall with his ready pencil stand;
Retouch your fingers with his ripening
hand;
Mellow your colours, and embrown the tint;
Add every grace, which time alone can
grant;
To future ages shall your fame convey,
And give more beauties than he takes away.
* * * * *
[Footnote 32: Supposed to be an acknowledgment of a copy of the Chandos portrait of Shakspeare given to Dryden by Kneller.]
* * * * *
TO HIS FRIEND THE AUTHOR, JOHN HODDESDON, ON HIS DIVINE EPIGRAMS.
Thou hast inspired me with thy soul, and
I
Who ne’er before could ken of poetry,
Am grown so good proficient, I can lend
A line in commendation of my friend.
Yet ’tis but of the second hand;
if ought
There be in this, ’tis from thy
fancy brought.
Good thief, who dar’st, Prometheus-like,
aspire,
And fill thy poems with celestial fire:
Enliven’d by these sparks divine,
their rays
Add a bright lustre to thy crown of bays.
10
Young eaglet, who thy nest thus soon forsook,
So lofty and divine a course hast took
As all admire, before the down begin
To peep, as yet, upon thy smoother chin;
Reader, I’ve done, nor
longer will withhold
Thy greedy eyes; looking on this pure
gold
Thou’lt know adulterate copper,
which, like this,
Will only serve to be a foil to his.
* * * * *
EPISTLE XVI.
TO MY FRIEND MR J. NORTHLEIGH, AUTHOR
OF “THE
PARALLEL,” ON HIS “TRIUMPH
OF THE BRITISH
MONARCHY.”
So Joseph, yet a youth, expounded well
The boding dream, and did the event foretell;
Judged by the past, and drew the Parallel.
Thus early Solomon the truth explored,
The right awarded, and the babe restored.
Thus Daniel, ere to prophecy he grew,
The perjured Presbyters did first subdue,
And freed Susanna from the canting crew.
Well may our monarchy triumphant stand,
While warlike James protects both sea
and land; 10
And, under covert of his sevenfold shield,
Thou send’st thy shafts to scour
the distant field.
By law thy powerful pen has set us free;
Thou studiest that, and that may study
thee.
* * * * *
TO THE MEMORY OF MR OLDHAM.[33]
Farewell, too little, and too lately known,
Whom I began to think, and call my own:
For sure our souls were near allied, and
thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine!
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both abhorr’d
alike.
To the same goal did both our studies
drive;
The last set out, the soonest did arrive.
Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place,
Whilst his young friend performed, and
won the race. 10
O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the
young)
Have taught the smoothness of thy native
tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will
shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged
line.
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betray’d.
Thy generous fruits, though gather’d
ere their prime,
Still show’d a quickness; and maturing
time 20
But mellows what we write, to the dull
sweets of rhyme.
Once more, hail! and farewell, farewell,
thou young,
But, ah! too short, Marcellus of our tongue!
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee
around.
* * * * *
[Footnote 33: ‘Mr Oldham:’ John Oldham, the satirist, died of the small-pox in his 30th year, 1683.]
* * * * *
TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY MRS ANNE KILLIGREW,[34] EXCELLENT IN THE TWO SISTER ARTS OF POESY AND PAINTING. AN ODE. 1685.
I.
Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new pluck’d from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring
star,
Thou roll’st above us, in thy wandering
race,
Or, in procession fix’d
and regular,
Mov’st with the heavens’
majestic pace;
Or, call’d to more superior
bliss,
Thou tread’st, with seraphims, the
vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since Heaven’s eternal
year is thine.
Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,
In
no ignoble verse;
But such as thy own voice did practise
here,
When thy first fruits of Poesy were given;
To make thyself a welcome inmate there:
While yet a young
probationer,
And
candidate of heaven.
II.
If by traduction came thy
mind,
Our wonder is the less to
find
A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul
Was form’d, at first,
with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels
wore,
And was that Sappho last, which once it
was before.
If so, then cease thy flight,
O heaven-born mind!
Thou hast no dross to purge
from thy rich ore:
Nor can thy soul a fairer
mansion find,
Than was the beauteous frame
she left behind:
Return to fill or mend the choir of thy
celestial kind.
May we presume to say, that,
at thy birth,
New joy was sprung in heaven, as well
as here on earth?
For sure the milder planets
did combine
On thy auspicious horoscope
to shine,
And even the most malicious
were in trine.
Thy brother angels at thy
birth
Strung each his
lyre, and tuned it high,
That all the people
of the sky
Might know a poetess was born
on earth.
And then, if ever,
mortal ears
Had heard the music of the
spheres,
And if no clustering swarm
IV.
O gracious God! how far have
we
Profaned thy heavenly gift of Poesy!
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordain’d
above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of
love!
O wretched we! why were we hurried down
This lubrique and adulterate
age,
(Nay added fat pollutions of our own,)
To increase the streaming ordures of the
stage?
What can we say to excuse our second fall?
Let this thy vestal, Heaven, atone for
all:
Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil’d,
Unmix’d with foreign filth, and
undefiled:
Her wit was more than man, her innocence
a child.
V.
Art she had none, yet wanted
none;
For nature did that want supply:
So rich in treasures of her
own,
She might our boasted stores
defy:
Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,
That it seem’d borrow’d where
’twas only born.
Her morals too were in her bosom bred.
By great examples daily fed,
What in the best of books, her father’s
life, she read:
And to be read herself she need not fear;
Each test, and every light, her Muse will
bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
Even love (for love sometimes her Muse
express’d)
Was but a lambent flame which play’d
about her breast:
Light as the vapours of a morning dream,
So cold herself, whilst she such warmth
express’d,
’Twas Cupid bathing in Diana’s
stream.
VI.
Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,
One would have thought she should have
been content
To manage well that mighty government;
But what can young ambitious souls confine?
To the next realm she stretch’d
her sway,
For Painture near adjoining
lay,
A plenteous province, and alluring prey.
A Chamber of Dependencies
was framed,
(As conquerors will never want pretence,
When arm’d, to justify
the offence)
And the whole fief, in right of poetry,
she claim’d.
The country open lay without defence:
For poets frequent inroads there had made,
And perfectly could represent
The shape, the face, with
every lineament,
And all the large domains which the Dumb
Sister sway’d;
All bow’d beneath her
government,
Received in triumph wheresoe’er
she went.
Her pencil drew whate’er her soul
design’d,
And oft the happy draft surpass’d
the image in her mind.
The sylvan scenes of herds
and flocks,
And fruitful plains and barren
rocks,
Of shallow brooks that flow’d
VII.
The scene then changed:
with bold erected look
Our martial king the sight with reverence
strook:
For not content to express his outward
part,
Her hand call’d out the image of
his heart:
His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,
His high-designing thoughts were figured
there,
As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.
Our phoenix queen was portray’d
too so bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take so right;
Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
Were all observed, as well as heavenly
face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands,
As in that day she took the crown from
sacred hands:
Before a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.
Thus nothing to her genius
was denied,
But like a ball of fire the further thrown,
Still with a greater blaze
she shone,
And her bright soul broke out on every
side.
What next she had design’d Heaven
only knows:
To such immoderate growth her conquest
rose,
That fate alone its progress could oppose.
VIII.
Now all those charms, that
blooming grace,
The well-proportion’d shape, and
beauteous face,
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
In earth the much lamented virgin lies.
Not wit, nor piety could Fate
prevent;
Nor was the cruel destiny
content
To finish all the murder at
a blow,
To sweep at once her life,
and beauty too;
But, like a harden’d felon, took
a pride
To
work more mischievously slow,
And
plunder’d first, and then destroy’d.
Oh, double sacrilege on things divine,
To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!
But
thus Orinda[35] died:
Heaven, by the same disease,
did both translate:
As equal were their souls, so equal was
their fate.
IX.
Meantime her warlike brother
on the seas
His waving streamers to the
wind displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion,
pays.
Ah, generous youth!
that wish forbear,
The winds too
X.
When in mid-air the golden
trump shall sound,
To raise the nations
under ground:
When in the Valley
of Jehoshaphat,
The judging God shall close the book of
fate:
And there the
last assizes keep,
For those who
wake, and those who sleep;
When rattling
bones together fly,
From the four
corners of the sky;
When sinews o’er the skeletons are
spread,
Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires
the dead;
The sacred poets first shall hear the
sound,
And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are cover’d with the lightest
ground;
And straight, with inborn vigour, on the
wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning
sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the quire
shalt go,
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show,
The way which thou so well hast learn’d
below.
* * * * *
[Footnote 34: ‘Killigrew:’ a lady of remarkable promise alike in painting and poetry; maid of honour to the Duchess of York; died at the age of 25, in 1685; her father an eminent clergyman, her brother a wit.]
[Footnote 35: ‘Orinda:’ Mrs Catherine Philips, author of a book of poems, died, like Mrs Killigrew, of the small-pox, in 1664, being only thirty-two years of age.]
* * * * *
UPON THE DEATH OF
THE EARL OF DUNDEE.[36]
Oh, last and best of Scots! who didst maintain
Thy country’s freedom from a foreign reign;
New people fill the land now thou art gone,
New gods the temples, and new kings the throne.
Scotland and thee did each in other live;
Nor wouldst thou her, nor could she thee survive.
Farewell! who dying didst support the state,
And couldst not fall but with thy country’s
fate.
* * * * *
[Footnote 36: This is translated from a Latin elegy by Dr Pitcairn.]
* * * * *
ELEONORA:
A PANEGYRICAL POEM, DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE COUNTESS OF ABINGDON.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF ABINGDON, &c.
MY LORD,—The commands, with which you honoured me some months ago, are now performed: they had been sooner; but betwixt ill health, some business, and many troubles, I was forced to defer them till this time. Ovid, going to his banishment, and writing from on shipboard to his friends, excused the faults of his poetry by his misfortunes; and told them, that good verses never flow but from a serene and composed spirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings fastened to his head and heels, can fly but slowly in a damp air. I therefore chose rather to obey you late than ill: if at least I am capable of writing anything, at any time, which is worthy your perusal and your patronage. I cannot say that I have escaped from a shipwreck; but have only gained a rock by hard swimming, where I may pant a while and gather breath: for the doctors give me a sad assurance, that my disease never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in performing this inconsiderable service to my lady’s memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we please; but must wait until the god comes rushing on us, and invades us with a fury which we are not able to resist: which gives us double strength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent at its departure. Let me not seem to boast, my lord, for I have really felt it on this occasion, and prophesied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me while I was writing. I swam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will easily observe that I was transported by the multitude and variety of my similitudes; which are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonness of wit. Had I called in my judgment to my assistance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pass for beautiful faults amongst the better sort of critics: for the whole poem, though written in that which they call Heroic verse, is of the Pindaric nature, as well in the thought as the expression; and, as such, requires the same grains of allowance for it. It was intended, as your lordship sees in the title, not for an elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of apotheosis, indeed, if a heathen word may be applied to a Christian use. And on all occasions of praise, if we take the ancients for our patterns, we are bound by prescription to employ the magnificence of words, and the force of figures, to adorn the sublimity of thoughts. Isocrates amongst the Grecian orators, and Cicero, and the younger Pliny, amongst the Romans, have left us their precedents for our security; for I think I need not mention the inimitable Pindar, who stretches on these pinions out of sight, and is carried upward, as it were, into another world.
This, at least, my lord, I may justly plead, that if I have not performed so well as I think I have, yet I have used my best endeavours to excel myself. One disadvantage I have had; which is, never to have known or seen my lady: and to draw the lineaments of her mind, from the description which I have received from others, is for a painter to set himself at work without the living original before him: which, the more beautiful it is, will be so much the more difficult for him to conceive, when he has only a relation given him of such and such features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches, which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artist is apt enough to flatter himself (and I amongst the rest) that their own ocular observations would have discovered more perfections, at least others, than have been delivered to them: though I have received mine from the best hands, that is, from persons who neither want a just understanding of my lady’s worth, nor a due veneration for her memory.
Dr Donne, the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet of our nation, acknowledges, that he had never seen Mrs Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable “Anniversaries.” I have had the same fortune, though I have not succeeded to the same genius. However, I have followed his footsteps in the design of his panegyric; which was to raise an emulation in the living, to copy out the example of the dead. And therefore it was, that I once intended to have called this poem “The Pattern:” and though, on a second consideration, I changed the title into the name of the illustrious person, yet the design continues, and Eleonora is still the pattern of charity, devotion, and humility; of the best wife, the best mother, and the best of friends.
And now, my lord, though I have endeavoured to answer your commands; yet I could not answer it to the world, nor to my conscience, if I gave not your lordship my testimony of being the best husband now living: I say my testimony only; for the praise of it is given you by yourself. They who despise the rules of virtue both in their practice and their morals, will think this a very trivial commendation. But I think it the peculiar happiness of the Countess of Abingdon to have been so truly loved by you while she was living, and so gratefully honoured after she was dead. Few there are who have either had, or could have, such a loss; and yet fewer who carried their love and constancy beyond the grave. The exteriors of mourning, a decent funeral, and black habits, are the usual stints of common husbands: and perhaps their wives deserve no better than to be mourned with hypocrisy, and forgot with ease. But you have distinguished yourself from ordinary lovers, by a real and lasting grief for the deceased; and by endeavouring to raise for her the most durable monument, which is that of verse. And so it would have proved, if the workman had been equal to the
I therefore think myself obliged to thank your lordship for the commission which you have given me: how I have acquitted myself of it, must be left to the opinion of the world, in spite of any protestation which I can enter against the present age, as incompetent or corrupt judges. For my comfort, they are but Englishmen, and, as such, if they think ill of me to-day, they are inconstant enough to think well of me to-morrow. And after all, I have not much to thank my fortune that I was born amongst them. The good of both sexes are so few, in England, that they stand like exceptions against general rules: and though one of them has deserved a greater commendation than I could give her, they have taken care that I should not tire my pen with frequent exercise on the like subjects; that praises, like taxes, should be appropriated, and left almost as individual as the person. They say, my talent is satire: if it be so, it is a fruitful age, and there is an extraordinary crop to gather. But a single hand is insufficient for such a harvest: they have sown the dragons’ teeth themselves, and it is but just they should reap each other in lampoons. You, my lord, who have the character of honour, though it is not my happiness to know you, may stand aside, with the small remainders of the English nobility, truly such, and, unhurt yourselves, behold the mad combat. If I have pleased you and some few others, I have obtained my end. You see I have disabled myself, like an elected speaker of the house: yet like him I have undertaken the charge, and find the burden sufficiently recompensed by the honour. Be pleased to accept of these my unworthy labours, this paper-monument; and let her pious memory, which I am sure is sacred to you, not only plead the pardon of my many faults, but gain me your protection, which is ambitiously sought by, my lord, your lordship’s most obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.
* * * * *
As when some great and gracious monarch dies,
Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs rise
Among the sad attendants; then the sound
Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around,
Through town and country, till the dreadful blast
Is blown to distant colonies at last;
Who then, perhaps, were offering vows in vain,
For his long life, and for his happy reign:
So slowly, by degrees, unwilling fame
Did matchless Eleonora’s fate proclaim, 10
Till public as the loss the news became.
The nation felt it in the
extremest parts,
With eyes o’erflowing, and with
bleeding hearts;
But most the poor, whom daily she supplied,
Beginning to be such, but when she died.
For, while she lived, they slept in peace
by night,
Secure of bread, as of returning light;
And with such firm dependence on the day,
That need grew pamper’d, and forgot
to pray:
So sure the doll, so ready at their call,
20
They stood prepared to see the manna fall.
Such multitudes she fed, she
clothed, she nursed,
That she herself might fear her wanting
first.
Of her five talents, other five she made;
Heaven, that had largely given, was largely
paid:
And in few lives, in wondrous few, we
find
A fortune better fitted to the mind.
Nor did her alms from ostentation fall,
Or proud desire of praise; the soul gave
all:
Unbribed it gave; or, if a bribe appear,
30
No less than heaven—to heap
huge treasures there.
Want pass’d for merit
at her open door;
Heaven saw, He safely might increase His
poor,
And trust their sustenance with her so
well,
As not to be at charge of miracle.
None could be needy, whom she saw, or
knew;
All in the compass of her sphere she drew:
He, who could touch her garment, was as
sure,
As the first Christians of the apostles’
cure.
The distant heard, by fame, her pious
deeds, 40
And laid her up for their extremest needs;
A future cordial for a fainting mind;
For, what was ne’er refused, all
hoped to find,
Each in his turn; the rich might freely
come,
As to a friend; but to the poor ’twas
home.
As to some holy house the afflicted came,
The hunger-starved, the naked and the
lame;
Want and diseases fled before her name.
For zeal like her’s her servants
were too slow;
She was the first, where need required,
to go; 50
Herself the foundress and attendant too.
Sure she had guests sometimes
to entertain,
Guests in disguise, of her great Master’s
train:
Her Lord himself might come, for aught
we know;
Since in a servant’s form He lived
below:
Beneath her roof He might be pleased to
stay;
Or some benighted angel, in his way,
Might ease his wings, and, seeing heaven
appear
In its best work of mercy, think it there:
Where all the deeds of charity and love
60
Were, in as constant method as above,
All carried on; all of a piece with theirs;
As free her alms, as diligent her cares;
As loud her praises, and as warm her prayers.
Yet was she not profuse; but
feared to waste,
And wisely managed, that the stock might
last;
That all might be supplied, and she not
grieve,
When crowds appear’d, she had not
to relieve:
Which to prevent, she still increased
her store;
Laid up, and spared, that she might give
the more. 70
So Pharaoh, or some greater king than
he,
Provided for the seventh necessity:
Taught from above his magazines to frame,
That famine was prevented ere it came.
Thus Heaven, though all-sufficient, shows
a thrift
In His economy, and bounds His gift:
Creating, for our day, one single light;
And his reflection, too, supplies the
night.
Perhaps a thousand other worlds, that
lie
Remote from us, and latent in the sky,
80
Are lighten’d by his beams, and
kindly nursed;
Of which our earthly dunghill is the worst.
Now, as all virtues keep the
middle line,
Yet somewhat more to one extreme incline,
Such was her soul; abhorring avarice,
Bounteous, but almost bounteous to a vice:
Had she given more, it had profusion been,
And turn’d the excess of goodness
into sin.
These virtues raised her fabric
to the sky;
For that, which is next heaven, is Charity.
90
But, as high turrets, for their airy steep,
Require foundations in proportion deep;
And lofty cedars as far upward shoot,
As to the nether heavens they drive the
root:
So low did her secure foundation lie,
She was not humble, but Humility.
Scarcely she knew that she was great,
or fair,
Or wise, beyond what other women are;
Or, which is better, knew, but never durst
compare:
For to be conscious of what all admire,
100
And not be vain, advances virtue higher.
But still she found, or rather thought
she found,
Her own worth wanting, others’ to
abound;
Ascribed above their due to every one—
Unjust and scanty to herself alone.
Such her devotion was, as
might give rules
Of speculation to disputing schools,
And teach us equally the scales to hold
Betwixt the two extremes of hot and cold;
That pious heat may moderately prevail,
110
And we be warm’d, but not be scorch’d
with zeal:
Business might shorten, not disturb, her
prayer;
Heaven had the best, if not the greater
share.
An active life long orisons forbids;
Yet still she pray’d, for still
she pray’d by deeds.
Her every day was Sabbath;
only free
From hours of prayer, for hours of charity:
Such as the Jews from servile toil released;
Where works of mercy were a part of rest;
Such as blest angels exercise above,
120
Varied with sacred hymns and acts of love:
Muse, down again precipitate
thy flight!
For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal
light?
But as the sun in water we can bear—
Yet not the sun, but his reflection there,
So let us view her, here, in what she
was,
And take her image in this watery glass:
Yet look not every lineament to see;
140
Some will be cast in shades, and some
will be
So lamely drawn, you’ll scarcely
know ’tis she.
For where such various virtues we recite,
’Tis like the milky-way, all over
bright,
But sown so thick with stars,’tis
undistinguish’d light.
Her virtue, not her virtues,
let us call;
For one heroic comprehends them all:
One, as a constellation is but one,
Though ’tis a train of stars, that,
rolling on,
Rise in their turn, and in the zodiac
run: 150
Ever in motion; now ’tis faith ascends,
Now hope, now charity, that upward tends,
And downwards with diffusive good descends.
As in perfumes composed with
art and cost,
’Tis hard to say what scent is uppermost;
Nor this part musk or civet can we call,
Or amber, but a rich result of all;
So she was all a sweet, whose every part,
In due proportion mix’d, proclaim’d
the Maker’s art.
No single virtue we could most commend,
160
Whether the wife, the mother, or the friend;
For she was all, in that supreme degree,
That as no one prevail’d, so all
was she.
The several parts lay hidden in the piece;
The occasion but exerted that, or this.
A wife as tender, and as true
withal,
As the first woman was before her fall:
Made for the man, of whom she was a part;
Made to attract his eyes, and keep his
heart.
A second Eve, but by no crime accursed;
170
As beauteous, not as brittle, as the first:
Had she been first, still Paradise had
been,
And Death had found no entrance by her
sin:
So she not only had preserved from ill
Her sex and ours, but lived their pattern
still.
Love and obedience to her
lord she bore;
She much obey’d him, but she loved
him more:
Not awed to duty by superior sway,
But taught by his indulgence to obey.
Thus we love God, as author of our good;
180
So subjects love just kings, or so they
should.
Nor was it with ingratitude return’d;
In equal fires the blissful couple burn’d;
One joy possess’d them both, and
in one grief they mourn’d.
His passion still improved; he loved so
fast
As if he fear’d each day would be
her last.
Too true a prophet to foresee the fate
That should so soon divide their happy
state;
When he to heaven entirely must restore
That love, that heart, where he went halves
before. 190
Yet as the soul is all in every part,
So God and he might each have all her
heart.
So had her children too; for
charity
Was not more fruitful, or more kind than
she:
Each under other by degrees they grew;
A goodly perspective of distant view.
Anchises look’d not with so pleased
a face,
In numbering o’er his future Roman
race,
And marshalling the heroes of his name,
As, in their order, next to light they
came. 200
Nor Cybele, with half so kind an eye,
Survey’d her sons and daughters
of the sky;
Proud, shall I say, of her immortal fruit?
As far as pride with heavenly minds may
suit.
Her pious love excell’d to all she
bore;
New objects only multiplied it more.
And as the chosen found the pearly grain
As much as every vessel could contain;
As in the blissful vision each shall share
As much of glory as his soul can bear;
210
So did she love, and so dispense her care.
Her eldest thus, by consequence, was best,
As longer cultivated than the rest.
The babe had all that infant care beguiles,
And early knew his mother in her smiles:
But when dilated organs let in day
To the young soul, and gave it room to
play,
At his first aptness, the maternal love
Those rudiments of reason did improve:
The tender age was pliant to command;
220
Like wax it yielded to the forming hand:
True to the artificer, the labour’d
mind
With ease was pious, generous, just, and
kind;
Soft for impression, from the first prepared,
Till virtue with long exercise grew hard:
With every act confirm’d, and made
at last
So durable as not to be effaced,
It turn’d to habit; and, from vices
free,
Goodness resolved into necessity.
Thus fix’d she virtue’s
image, that’s her own, 230
Till the whole mother in the children
shone;
For that was their perfection: she
was such,
They never could express her mind too
much.
So unexhausted her perfections were,
That, for more children, she had more
to spare;
For souls unborn, whom her untimely death
Deprived of bodies, and of mortal breath;
And (could they take the impressions of
her mind)
Enough still left to sanctify her kind.
Then wonder not to see this
soul extend 240
The bounds, and seek some other self,
a friend:
As swelling seas to gentle rivers glide,
To seek repose, and empty out the tide;
So this full soul, in narrow limits pent,
Unable to contain her, sought a vent
To issue out, and in some friendly breast
Discharge her treasures, and securely
rest:
To unbosom all the secrets of her heart,
Take good advice, but better to impart:
For ’tis the bliss of friendship’s
holy state, 250
To mix their minds, and to communicate;
Though bodies cannot, souls can penetrate.
Fix’d to her choice, inviolably
true,
And wisely choosing, for she chose but
few.
Some she must have; but in no one could
find
A tally fitted for so large a mind.
The souls of friends, like
kings in progress, are
Still in their own, though from the palace
far:
Thus her friend’s heart her country
dwelling was
A sweet retirement to a coarser place;
260
Where pomp and ceremonies enter’d
not,
Where greatness was shut out, and business
well forgot.
This is the imperfect draught;
but short as far
As the true height and bigness of a star
Exceeds the measures of the astronomer.
She shines above, we know; but in what
place,
How near the throne, and Heaven’s
imperial face,
By our weak optics is but vainly guess’d;
Distance and altitude conceal the rest.
Though all these rare endowments
of the mind 270
Were in a narrow space of life confined,
The figure was with full perfection crown’d;
Though not so large an orb, as truly round.
As when in glory, through
the public place,
The spoils of conquer’d nations
were to pass,
And but one day for triumph was allow’d,
The consul was constrain’d his pomp
to crowd;
And so the swift procession hurried on,
That all, though not distinctly, might
be shown:
So in the straiten’d bounds of life
confined, 280
She gave but glimpses of her glorious
mind:
And multitudes of virtues pass’d
along;
Bach pressing foremost in the mighty throng,
Ambitious to be seen, and then make room
For greater multitudes that were to come.
Yet unemploy’d no minute
slipp’d away;
Moments were precious in so short a stay.
The haste of heaven to have her was so
great,
That some were single acts, though each
complete;
But every act stood ready to repeat.
290
Her fellow-saints with busy
care will look
For her bless’d name in Fate’s
eternal book;
And, pleased to be outdone, with joy will
see
Numberless virtues, endless charity:
But more will wonder at so short an age,
To find a blank beyond the thirtieth page;
And with a pious fear begin to doubt
The piece imperfect, and the rest torn
out.
But ’twas her Saviour’s time;
and, could there be
A copy near the Original, ’twas
she. 300
As precious gums are not for
lasting fire,
They but perfume the temple, and expire:
So was she soon exhaled, and vanish’d
hence;
A short sweet odour, of a vast expense.
She vanish’d, we can scarcely say
she died;
For but a now did heaven and earth divide:
She pass’d serenely with a single
breath;
This moment perfect health, the next was
death:
One sigh did her eternal bliss assure;
So little penance needs, when souls are
almost pure. 310
As gentle dreams our waking thoughts pursue;
Or, one dream pass’d, we slide into
a new;
So close they follow, such wild order
keep,
We think ourselves awake, and are asleep:
So softly death succeeded life in her,
She did but dream of heaven, and she was
there.
No pains she suffer’d,
nor expired with noise;
Her soul was whisper’d out with
God’s still voice;
As an old friend is beckon’d to
a feast,
And treated like a long-familiar guest.
320
He took her as He found, but found her
so,
As one in hourly readiness to go:
Even on that day, in all her trim prepared;
As early notice she from heaven had heard,
And some descending courier from above
Had given her timely warning to remove;
Or counsell’d her to dress the nuptial
room,
For on that night the Bridegroom was to
come.
He kept His hour, and found her where
she lay
Clothed all in white, the livery of the
day. 330
Scarce had she sinn’d in thought,
or word, or act;
Unless omissions were to pass for fact:
That hardly death a consequence could
draw,
To make her liable to nature’s law:
And, that she died, we only have to show
The mortal part of her she left below:
The rest, so smooth, so suddenly she went,
Look’d like translation through
the firmament;
Or, like the fiery car, on the third errand[37]
sent.
O happy soul! if thou canst
view from high, 340
Where thou art all intelligence, all eye;
If, looking up to God, or down to us,
Thou find’st that any way be pervious,
Survey the ruins of thy house, and see
Thy widow’d, and thy orphan family:
Look on thy tender pledges left behind;
And, if thou canst a vacant minute find
From heavenly joys, that interval afford
To thy sad children, and thy mourning
lord.
See how they grieve, mistaken in their
love, 350
And shed a beam of comfort from above;
Give them, as much as mortal eyes can
bear,
A transient view of thy full glories there;
That they with moderate sorrow may sustain
And mollify their losses in thy gain:
Or else divide the grief; for such thou
wert,
That should not all relations bear a part,
It were enough to break a single heart.
Let this suffice: nor
thou, great saint, refuse
This humble tribute of no vulgar Muse:
360
Who, not by cares, or wants, or age depress’d,
Stems a wild deluge with a dauntless breast;
And dares to sing thy praises in a clime
Where vice triumphs, and virtue is a crime;
Where even to draw the picture of thy
mind,
Is satire on the most of human kind:
Take it, while yet ’tis praise;
before my rage,
Unsafely just, break loose on this bad
age;
So bad, that thou thyself hadst no defence
From vice, but barely by departing hence.
370
Be what, and where thou art:
to wish thy place,
Were, in the best, presumption more than
grace.
Thy relics (such thy works of mercy are)
Have, in this poem, been my holy care.
As earth thy body keeps, thy soul the
sky,
So shall this verse preserve thy memory;
For thou shalt make it live, because it
sings of thee.
* * * * *
[Footnote 37: ‘Third errand:’ Enoch and Elias were the first two.]
* * * * *
ON THE DEATH OF AMYNTAS.
A PASTORAL ELEGY.
’Twas on a joyless and a gloomy
morn,
Wet was the grass, and hung with pearls
the thorn;
When Damon, who design’d to pass
the day
With hounds and horns, and chase the flying
prey,
Rose early from his bed; but soon he found
The welkin pitch’d with sullen clouds
around,
An eastern wind, and dew upon the ground.
Thus while he stood, and, sighing, did
survey
The fields, and cursed the ill omens of
the day,
He saw Menalcas come with heavy pace;
10
Wet were his eyes, and cheerless was his
face:
He wrung his hands, distracted with his
care,
And sent his voice before him from afar.
Return, he cried, return, unhappy swain!
The spungy clouds are fill’d with
gathering rain:
The promise of the day not only cross’d,
But even the spring, the spring itself
is lost.
Amyntas—oh!—he could
not speak the rest,
Nor needed, for presaging Damon guess’d.
Equal with heaven young Damon loved the
boy, 20
The boast of nature, both his parents’
joy,
His graceful form revolving in his mind;
So great a genius, and a soul so kind,
Gave sad assurance that his fears were
true;
Too well the envy of the gods he knew:
For when their gifts too lavishly are
placed,
Soon they repent, and will not make them
last.
For sure it was too bountiful a dole,
The mother’s features, and the father’s
soul.
Then thus he cried; the morn bespoke the
news: 30
MENALCAS.
The mother, lovely, though
with grief oppress’d,
Reclined his dying head upon her breast.
The mournful family stood all around;
One groan was
heard, one universal sound:
All were in floods of tears and endless
sorrow drown’d.
So dire a sadness sat on every look,
Even Death repented he had given the stroke.
He grieved his fatal work had been ordain’d
But promised length of life to those who
yet remain’d. 50
The mother’s and her eldest daughter’s
grace,
It seems, had bribed him to prolong their
space.
The father bore it with undaunted soul,
Like one who durst his destiny control:
Yet with becoming grief he bore his part,
Resign’d his son, but not resign’d
his heart:
Patient as Job; and may he live to see,
Like him, a new increasing family!
DAMON.
Such is my wish, and such
my prophecy.
For yet, my friend, the beauteous mould
remains; 60
Long may she exercise her fruitful pains!
But, ah! with better hap, and bring a
race
More lasting, and endued with equal grace!
Equal she may, but further none can go:
For he was all that was exact below.
MENALCAS.
Damon! behold yon breaking
purple cloud;
Hear’st thou not hymns and songs
divinely loud?
There mounts Amyntas; the young cherubs
play
About their godlike mate, and sing him
on his way!
He cleaves the liquid air, behold he flies,
70
And every moment gains upon the skies!
The new-come guest admires the ethereal
state,
The sapphire portal, and the golden gate;
And now admitted in the shining throng,
He shows the passport which he brought
along:
His passport is his innocence and grace,
Well known to all the natives of the place.
Now sing, ye joyful angels, and admire
Your brother’s voice that conies
to mend your quire
Sing you,—while endless tears
our eyes bestow: 80
For like Amyntas none is left below.
* * * * *
ON THE DEATH OF A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN.
He who could view the book of destiny,
And read whatever there was writ of thee,
O charming youth, in the first opening page,
So many graces in so green an age,
Such wit, such modesty, such strength of mind,
A soul at once so manly and so kind;
Would wonder, when he turn’d the volume o’er,
And after some few leaves should find no more,
Nought but a blank remain, a dead void space,
A step of life that promised such a race.
10
We must not, dare not think, that Heaven began
A child, and could not finish him a man;
Reflecting what a mighty store was laid
Of rich materials, and a model made:
The cost already furnish’d; so bestow’d,
As more was never to one soul allow’d:
Yet after this profusion spent in vain,
Nothing but mouldering ashes to remain,
I guess not, lest I split upon the shelf,
Yet durst I guess, Heaven kept it for himself;
20
And giving us the use, did soon recall,
Ere we could spare, the mighty principal.
Thus then he disappeared, was rarified;
For ’tis improper speech to say he died:
He was exhaled; his great Creator drew
His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.
’Tis sin produces death; and he had none,
But the taint Adam left on every son.
He added not, he was so pure, so good,
’Twas but the original forfeit of his blood:
30
And that so little, that the river ran
More clear than the corrupted fount began.
Nothing remain’d of the first muddy clay;
The length of course had wash’d it in the way:
So deep, and yet so clear, we might behold
The gravel bottom, and that bottom gold.
As such we loved, admired, almost adored,
Gave all the tribute mortals could afford.
Perhaps we gave so much, the powers above
Grew angry at our superstitious love:
40
For when we more than human homage pay,
The charming cause is justly snatch’d away.
Thus was the crime not his, but ours alone:
And yet we murmur that he went so soon;
Though miracles are short and rarely shown.
Learn, then, ye mournful parents, and divide
That love in many, which in one was tied.
That individual blessing is no more,
But multiplied in your remaining store.
The flame’s dispersed, but does not all expire;
50
The sparkles blaze, though not the globe of fire.
Love him by parts, in all your numerous race,
And from those parts form one collected grace:
Then, when you have refined to that degree,
Imagine all in one, and think that one is he.
* * * * *
UPON YOUNG MR ROGERS OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
Of gentle blood, his parents’ only
treasure,
Their lasting sorrow, and their vanish’d
pleasure,
Adorn’d with features, virtues,
wit, and grace,
A large provision for so short a race;
More moderate gifts might have prolong’d
his date,
Too early fitted for a better state;
But, knowing heaven his home, to shun
delay,
He leap’d o’er age, and took
the shortest way.
* * * * *
ON THE DEATH OF MR PURCELL.
SET TO MUSIC BY DR BLOW.
1 Mark how the lark and linnet sing;
With rival notes
They strain their warbling throats,
To welcome in the spring.
But in the close of night,
When Philomel begins her heavenly lay,
They cease their mutual spite,
Drink in her music with delight,
And, listening, silently obey.
2 So ceased the rival crew, when Purcell
came;
They sung no more, or only sung his fame:
Struck dumb, they all admired the godlike man:
The godlike man,
Alas! too soon retired,
As he too late began.
We beg not hell our Orpheus to restore:
Had he been there,
Their sovereign’s fear
Had sent him back before.
The power of harmony too well they knew:
He long ere this had tuned their jarring sphere,
And left no hell below.
3 The heavenly choir, who heard his
notes from high,
Let down the scale of music from the sky:
They handed him along,
And all the way he taught, and all the way they
sung
Ye brethren of the lyre, and tuneful voice,
Lament his lot; but at your own rejoice:
Now live secure, and linger out your days;
The gods are pleased alone with Purcell’s
lays,
Nor know to mend their choice.
* * * * *
EPITAPH ON THE LADY WHITMORE.
Fair, kind, and true, a treasure each alone,
A wife, a mistress, and a friend in one,
Rest in this tomb, raised at thy husband’s cost,
Here sadly summing what he had, and lost.
Come, virgins, ere in equal bands ye join,
Come first, and offer at her sacred shrine;
Pray but for half the virtues of this wife,
Compound for all the rest, with longer life;
And wish your vows, like hers, may be return’d,
So loved when living, and when dead so mourn’d.
* * * * *
EPITAPH ON SIR PALMES FAIRBONE’S TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
SACRED TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF SIR PALMES FAIRBONE,
KNIGHT, GOVERNOR OF TANGIER; IN EXECUTION OF WHICH
COMMAND, HE WAS MORTALLY WOUNDED BY A
SHOT FROM THE MOORS, THEN BESIEGING THE TOWN, IN THE
FORTY-SIXTH YEAR OF
HIS AGE. OCTOBER 24, 1680.
Ye sacred relics, which your marble keep,
Here, undisturb’d by wars, in quiet sleep:
Discharge the trust, which, when it was below,
Pairbone’s undaunted soul did undergo,
And be the town’s Palladium from the foe.
Alive and dead these walls he will defend:
Great actions great examples must attend.
The Candian siege his early valour knew,
Where Turkish blood did his young hands imbrue.
From thence returning with deserved applause,
10
Against the Moors his well-flesh’d sword he
draws;
The same the courage, and the same the cause.
His youth and age, his life and death, combine,
As in some great and regular design,
All of a piece throughout, and all divine.
Still nearer heaven his virtues shone more bright,
Like rising flames expanding in their height;
The martyr’s glory crown’d the soldier’s
fight.
More bravely British general never fell,
Nor general’s death was e’er revenged
so well; 20
Which his pleased eyes beheld before their close,
Follow’d by thousand victims of his foes.
To his lamented loss for time to come
His pious widow consecrates this tomb.
* * * * *
UNDER MR MILTON’S PICTURE, BEFORE
HIS
PARADISE LOST.[38]
Three Poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn.
The first, in loftiness of thought surpass’d;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join’d the
former two.
* * * * *
[Footnote 38: In Tonson’s folio edition.]
* * * * *
ON THE MONUMENT OF A FAIR MAIDEN LADY[39], WHO DIED AT BATH, AND IS THERE INTERRED.
Below this marble monument is laid
All that heaven wants of this celestial
maid.
Preserve, O sacred tomb! thy trust consign’d;
The mould was made on purpose for the
mind:
And she would lose, if, at the latter
day,
One atom could be mix’d of other
clay.
Such were the features of her heavenly
face,
Her limbs were form’d with such
harmonious grace:
So faultless was the frame, as if the
whole
Had been an emanation of the soul:
10
Which her own inward symmetry reveal’d
And like a picture shone, in glass anneal’d.
Or like the sun eclipsed, with shaded
light:
Too piercing, else, to be sustain’d
by sight.
Each thought was visible that roll’d
within:
As through a crystal case the figured
hours are seen.
And Heaven did this transparent veil provide,
Because she had no guilty thought to hide.
* * * * *
[Footnote 39: This Lady is interred in the Abbey-church. Her name was Mary Frampton. She died in 1698.]
* * * * *
EPITAPH ON MRS MARGARET PASTON, OF BURNINGHAM IN NORFOLK.
So fair, so young, so innocent, so sweet,
So ripe a judgment, and so rare a wit,
Require at least an age in one to meet.
In her they met; but long they could not stay,
’Twas gold too fine to mix without allay.
Heaven’s image was in her so well express’d,
Her very sight upbraided all the rest;
Too justly ravish’d from an age like this,
Now she is gone, the world is of a piece.
* * * * *
ON THE MONUMENT OF THE MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER.[40]
He who in impious times undaunted stood,
And ’midst rebellion durst be just and good;
Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more
Confirm’d the cause for which he sought before,
Rests here, rewarded by an heavenly prince,
For what his earthly could not recompense.
Pray, reader, that such times no more appear:
Or, if they happen, learn true honour here.
Ask of this age’s faith and loyalty,
Which, to preserve them, Heaven confined in thee.
Few subjects could a king like thine deserve;
And fewer such a king so well could serve.
Blest king, blest subject, whose exalted state
By sufferings rose, and gave the law to fate!
Such souls are rare, but mighty patterns given
To earth, and meant for ornaments to heaven.
* * * * *
[Footnote 40: Winchester, a staunch royalist, besieged two years in his castle of Basing, died in 1674.]
* * * * *
I.
THE FAIR STRANGER.[41]
A SONG.
1 Happy and free, securely blest,
No beauty could disturb
my rest;
My amorous heart was
in despair,
To find a new victorious
fair.
2 Till you descending on our plains,
With foreign force renew
my chains:
Where now you rule without
control
The mighty sovereign
of my soul.
3 Your smiles have more of conquering
charms,
Than all your native
country arms;
Their troops we can
expel with ease,
Who vanquish only when
we please.
4 But in your eyes, oh! there’s
the spell,
Who can see them, and
not rebel?
You make us captives
by your stay,
Yet kill us if you go
away.
* * * * *
[Footnote 41: This song is a compliment to the Duchess of Portsmouth, Charles’s mistress, on her first coming to England.]
* * * * *
ON THE YOUNG STATESMEN.
WRITTEN IN 1680.
1 CLARENDON had law and sense,
Clifford
was fierce and brave;
Bennet’s grave
look was a pretence,
And Danby’s matchless
impudence
Help’d
to support the knave.
2 But Sunderland, Godolphin, Lory[42],
These will appear such
chits in story,
’Twill
turn all politics to jests,
To be repeated like
John Dory,
When fiddlers
sing at feasts.
3 Protect us, mighty Providence!
What would
these madmen have?
First, they would bribe
us without pence,
Deceive us without common
sense,
And without
power enslave.
4 Shall free-torn men, in humble
awe,
Submit to
servile shame;
Who from consent and
custom draw
The same right to be
ruled by law,
Which kings
pretend to reign?
5 The duke shall wield his conquering
sword,
The chancellor
make a speech,
The king shall pass
his honest word,
The pawn’d revenue
sums afford,
And then,
come kiss my breech.
6 So have I seen a king on chess
(His rooks
and knights withdrawn,
His queen and bishops
in distress)
Shifting about, grow
less and less,
With here
and there a pawn.
* * * * *
[Footnote 42: ‘Laurence Hyde,’ afterwards Earl of Rochester, is the person here called Lory.]
* * * * *
A SONG FOR ST CECILIA’S DAY,[43]1687.
1 FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music’s power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it rail,
The diapason closing full in Man.
2 What passion cannot Music raise
and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.
Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell,
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
3 The trumpet’s loud clangour
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger,
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries, hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge!’tis too late to retreat.
4 The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper’d
by the warbling lute.
5 Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs, and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion,
For the fair, disdainful dame.
6 But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach,
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
7 Orpheus could lead the savage
race;
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appear’d,
Mistaking earth for heaven.
GRAND CHORUS.
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator’s praise
To all the bless’d above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.
* * * * *
[Footnote 43: ‘St Cecilia’s Day’: 22d November-birthday of St Cecilia, the patron saint of music-a Roman lady martyred in the third century, said to have been taught music by an angel.]
* * * * *
THE TEARS OF AMYNTA, FOR THE DEATH OF DAMON.
A SONG.
1 On a bank, beside a willow,
Heaven her covering, earth her pillow,
Sad Amynta sigh’d alone:
From the cheerless dawn of morning
Till the dews of night returning,
Singing thus she made her moan:
Hope is banish’d,
Joys are vanish’d,
Damon, my beloved, is gone!
2 Time, I dare thee to discover
Such a youth and such a lover;
Oh, so true, so kind was he!
Damon was the pride of nature,
Charming in his every feature;
Damon lived alone for me;
Melting kisses,
Murmuring blisses:
Who so lived and loved as we?
3 Never shall we curse the morning.
Never bless the night returning,
Sweet embraces to restore:
Never shall we both lie dying,
Nature failing, Love supplying
All the joys he drain’d before:
Death come end me,
To befriend me:
Love and Damon are no more.
* * * * *
THE LADY’S SONG.[44]
1 A Choir of bright beauties in spring
did appear,
To choose a May-lady to govern
the year;
All the nymphs were in white,
and the shepherds in green;
The garland was given, and
Phyllis was queen:
But Phyllis refused it, and
sighing did say,
I’ll not wear a garland
while Pan is away.
2 While Pan and fair Syrinx are fled from
our shore,
The Graces are banish’d,
and Love is no more:
The soft god of pleasure,
that warm’d our desires,
Has broken his bow, and extinguish’d
his fires;
And vows that himself and
his mother will mourn,
Till Pan and fair Syrinx in
triumph return.
3 Forbear your addresses, and court us
no more;
For we will perform what the
Deity swore:
But if you dare think of deserving
our charms,
Away with your sheephooks,
and take to your arms;
Then laurels and myrtles your
brows shall adorn,
When Pan, and his son, and
fair Syrinx return.
* * * * *
[Footnote 44: Intended to apply to the banishment of King James and his wife, Mary of Este.]
* * * * *
A SONG.
1 Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize
Reserved for your victorious
eyes:
From crowds, whom at your
feet you see,
O pity, and distinguish me!
As I from thousand beauties
more
Distinguish you, and only
you adore.
2 Your face for conquest was design’d,
Your every motion charms my
mind;
Angels, when you your silence
break,
Forget their hymns, to hear
you speak;
But when at once they hear
and view,
Are loth to mount, and long
to stay with you.
3 No graces can your form improve,
But all are lost, unless you
love;
While that sweet passion you
disdain,
Your veil and beauty are in
vain:
In pity then prevent my fate,
For after dying all reprieve’s
too late.
* * * * *
A SONG.
High state and honours to others impart,
But give me your heart:
That treasure, that treasure alone,
I beg for my own.
So gentle a love, so fervent a fire,
My soul does inspire;
That treasure, that treasure alone,
I beg for my own.
Your love let me crave;
Give me in possessing
So matchless a blessing;
That empire is all I would have.
Love’s my
petition,
All
my ambition;
If e’er
you discover
So faithful a
lover,
So real a flame,
I’ll die,
I’ll die,
So give up my
game.
* * * * *
RONDELAY.
1 Chloe found Amyntas lying,
All in tears upon
the plain;
Sighing to himself, and crying,
Wretched I, to
love in vain!
Kiss me, dear, before my dying;
Kiss me once,
and ease my pain!
2 Sighing to himself, and crying,
Wretched I, to
love in vain!
Ever scorning and denying
To reward your
faithful swain:
Kiss me, dear, before my dying;
Kiss me once,
and ease my pain:
3 Ever scorning, and denying
To reward your
faithful swain:
Chloe, laughing at his crying,
Told him, that
he loved in vain:
Kiss me, dear, before my dying;
Kiss me once,
and ease my pain!
4 Chloe, laughing at his crying,
Told him, that
he loved in vain:
But repenting, and complying,
When he kiss’d,
she kiss’d again:
Kiss’d him up before
his dying;
Kiss’d him
up, and eased his pain.
* * * * *
A SONG.
1 Go tell Amynta, gentle swain,
I would not die, nor dare
complain:
Thy tuneful voice with numbers
join,
Thy words will more prevail
than mine.
To souls oppress’d and
dumb with grief,
The gods ordain this kind
relief;
That music should in sounds
convey,
What dying lovers dare not
say.
2 A sigh or tear perhaps she’ll
give,
But love on pity cannot live.
Tell her that hearts for hearts
were made,
And love with love is only
paid.
Tell her my pains so fast
increase,
That soon they will be past
redress;
But ah! the wretch that speechless
lies,
Attends but death to close
his eyes.
* * * * *
A SONG TO A FAIR YOUNG LADY, GOING OUT OF TOWN IN THE SPRING.
1 Ask not the cause, why sullen Spring
So long delays
her flowers to bear;
Why warbling birds forget
to sing,
And winter storms
invert the year:
Chloris is gone, and fate
provides
To make it Spring, where she
resides.
2 Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
She cast not back
a pitying eye;
But left her lover in despair,
To sigh, to languish,
and to die:
Ah, how can those fair eyes
endure
To give the wounds they will
not cure?
3 Great God of love, why hast thou made
A face that can
all hearts command,
That all religions can evade,
And change the
laws of every land?
Where thou hadst placed such
power before,
Thou shouldst have made her
mercy more.
4 When Chloris to the temple comes,
Adoring crowds
before her fall;
She can restore the dead from
tombs,
And every life
but mine recall.
I only am by Love design’d
To be the victim for mankind.
* * * * *
SONGS IN THE “INDIAN EMPEROR.”
I.
Ah, fading joy! how quickly art thou past!
Yet
we thy ruin haste.
As if the cares of human life were few,
We
seek out new:
And follow Fate, which would too fast
pursue.
See how on every bough the birds express,
In their sweet notes, their
happiness.
They all enjoy, and nothing
spare;
But on their mother Nature
lay their care:
Why then should man, the lord of all below,
Such
troubles choose to know,
As none of all his subjects undergo?
Hark, hark, the waters fall, fall, fall,
And with a murmuring sound
Dash, dash upon the ground,
To
gentle slumbers call.
II.
I look’d, and saw within the book
of fate,
When
many days did lour,
When
lo! one happy hour
Leap’d up, and smiled to save the
sinking state;
A day shall come when in thy
power
Thy
cruel foes shall be;
Then
shall thy land be free:
And
then in peace shall reign;
But take, O take that opportunity,
Which, once refused, will never come again.
* * * * *
SONG IN THE “MAIDEN QUEEN.”
I feed a flame within, which so torments
me,
That it both pains my heart, and yet contents
me:
’Tis such a pleasing smart, and
I so love it,
That I had rather die than once remove
it.
Yet he for whom I grieve shall never know
it:
My tongue does not betray, nor my eyes
show it.
Not a sigh, not a tear, my pain discloses,
But they fall silently, like dew on roses.
Thus, to prevent my love from being cruel,
My heart’s the sacrifice, as ’tis
the fuel:
And while I suffer this to give him quiet,
My faith rewards my love, though he deny
it.
On his eyes will I gaze, and there delight
me;
Where I conceal my love no frown can fright
me:
To be more happy, I dare not aspire;
Nor can I fall more low, mounting no higher.
* * * * *
SONGS IN “THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA.”
I.
Wherever I am, and whatever I do,
My Phyllis is still in my
mind;
When angry, I mean not to Phyllis to go,
My feet, of themselves, the
way find:
Unknown to myself I am just at her door,
And when I would rail, I can bring out
no more,
Than, Phyllis too fair and
unkind!
When Phyllis I see, my heart bounds in
my breast,
And the love I would stifle
is shown;
But asleep or awake I am never at rest,
When from my eyes Phyllis
is gone.
Sometimes a sad dream does delude my sad
mind;
But, alas! when I wake, and no Phyllis
I find,
How I sigh to myself all alone!
Should a king be my rival in her I adore,
He should offer his treasure
in vain:
Oh, let me alone to be happy and poor,
And give me my Phyllis again!
Let Phyllis be mine, and but ever be kind,
I could to a desert with her be confined,
And envy no monarch his reign.
Alas! I discover too much of my love,
And she too well knows her
own power!
She makes me each day a new martyrdom
prove,
And makes me grow jealous
each hour:
But let her each minute torment my poor
mind,
I had rather love Phyllis, both false
and unkind,
Than ever be freed from her
power.
II.
HE. How unhappy a lover am
I,
While I sigh for my Phyllis in vain:
All my hopes of delight
Are another man’s right,
Who is happy, while I am in pain!
SHE. Since her honour allows
no relief,
But to pity the pains which you bear,
’Tis the best of your fate,
In a hopeless estate,
To give o’er, and betimes to despair.
HE. I have tried the false
medicine in vain;
For I wish what I hope not to win:
From without, my desire
Has no food to its fire;
But it burns and consumes me within.
SHE. Yet, at least, ’tis
a pleasure to know
That you are not unhappy alone:
For the nymph you adore
Is as wretched, and more;
And counts all your sufferings her own.
HE. O ye gods, let me suffer
for both;
At the feet of my Phyllis I’ll lie:
I’ll resign up my breath,
And take pleasure in death,
To be pitied by her when I die.
SHE. What her honour denied
you in life,
In her death she will give to your love.
Such a flame as is true
After fate will renew,
For the souls to meet closer above.
* * * * *
SONG OF THE SEA-FIGHT, IN AMBOYNA.
Who ever saw a noble sight,
That never view’d a brave sea-fight!
Hang up your bloody colours in the air,
Up with your fights, and your nettings prepare;
Your merry mates cheer, with a lusty bold spright.
Now each man his brindace, and then to the fight.
St George, St George, we cry,
The shouting Turks reply.
Oh, now it begins, and the gun-room grows hot,
Ply it with culverin and with small shot;
Hark, does it not thunder? no, ‘tis the guns’
roar,
The neighbouring billows are turn’d into gore;
Now each man must resolve to die,
For here the coward cannot fly.
Drums and trumpets toll the knell,
And culverins the passing bell.
Now, now they grapple, and now board amain;
Blow up the hatches, they’re off all again:
Give them a broadside, the dice run at all,
Down comes the mast and yard, and tacklings fall;
She grows giddy now, like blind Fortune’s wheel,
She sinks there, she sinks, she turns up her keel.
Who ever beheld so noble a sight,
As this so brave, so bloody sea-fight!
* * * * *
INCANTATION IN OEDIPUS.
TIR. Choose the darkest part o’
th’ grove,
Such as ghosts at noonday love.
Dig a trench, and dig it nigh
Where the bones of Laius lie;
Altars raised, of turf or stone,
Will th’ infernal powers have none,
Answer me, if this be done?
ALL PR. ’Tis done.
TIR. Is the sacrifice made fit?
Draw her backward to the pit:
Draw the barren heifer back;
Barren let her be, and black.
Cut the curl’d hair that grows
Full betwixt her horns and brows:
And turn your faces from the sun,
Answer me, if this be done?
ALL PR. ’Tis done.
TIR. Pour in blood, and blood-like
wine,
To Mother Earth and Proserpine:
Mingle milk into the stream;
Feast the ghosts that love the steam:
Snatch a brand from funeral pile:
Toss it in to make them boil;
And turn your faces from the sun,
Answer me, if this be done?
ALL PR. ’Tis done.
* * * * *
SONGS IN ALBION AND ALBANIUS.
I.
Cease, Augusta! cease thy mourning,
Happy days appear,
Godlike Albion is returning,
Loyal hearts to cheer!
Every grace his youth adorning,
Glorious as the star of morning,
Or the planet of the year.
II.
Albion, by the nymph attended,
Was to Neptune recommended,
Peace and plenty spread the
sails:
Venus, in her shell before him,
From the sands in safety bore him,
And supplied Etesian gales.
Archon on the shore commanding,
Lowly met him at his landing,
Crowds of people swarm’d
around;
Welcome, rang like peals of thunder,
Welcome, rent the skies asunder,
Welcome, heaven and earth
resound.
III.
Infernal offspring of the Night,
Debarr’d of heaven your native right,
And from the glorious fields of light,
Condemn’d in shades to drag the
chain,
And fill with groans the gloomy plain;
Since pleasures here are none below,
Be ill our good, our joy be woe;
Our work t’ embroil the worlds above,
Disturb their union, disunite their love,
And blast the beauteous frame of our victorious
foe.
IV.
See the god of seas attends thee,
Nymphs divine, a beauteous train:
All the calmer gales befriend thee
In thy passage o’er the main:
Every maid her locks is binding,
Every Triton’s horn is winding,
Welcome to the watery plain.
V.
Albion, loved of gods and men,
Prince of Peace too mildly reigning,
Cease thy sorrow and complaining,
Thou shalt be restored again:
Albion, loved of gods and men.
Still thou art the care of heaven,
In thy youth to exile driven:
Heaven thy ruin then prevented,
Till the guilty land repented:
In thy age, when none could aid thee,
Foes conspired, and friends betray’d
thee.
To the brink of danger driven,
Still thou art the care of heaven.
* * * * *
XVII.
SONGS IN KING ARTHUR.
Where a battle is supposed to be given behind the scenes, with drums, trumpets, and military shouts and excursions; after which, the Britons, expressing their joy for the victory, sing this song of triumph.
I.
Come, if you dare, our trumpets sound;
Come, if you dare, the foes rebound:
We come, we come, we come, we come,
Says the double, double, double beat of
the thundering drum.
Now they charge on amain,
Now they rally again:
The gods from above the mad labour behold,
And pity mankind, that will perish for
gold.
The fainting Saxons quit their ground,
Their trumpets languish in the sound:
They fly, they fly, they fly, they fly;
Victoria, Victoria, the bold Britons cry.
Now the victory’s won,
To the plunder we run:
We return to our lasses like fortunate
traders,
Triumphant with spoils of the vanquish’d
invaders.
II.
MAN SINGS.
O sight, the mother of desires,
What charming objects dost thou yield!
’Tis sweet, when tedious
night expires,
To see the rosy morning gild
The mountain-tops, and paint
the field!
But when Clarinda comes in sight,
She makes the summer’s day more
bright;
And when she goes away, ’tis night.
CHORUS.
When fair Clarinda comes in sight, &c.
WOMAN SINGS.
’Tis sweet the blushing morn to
view;
And plains adorn’d with pearly dew:
But such cheap delights to see,
Heaven and nature
Give each creature;
They have eyes, as well as we;
This is the joy, all joys above,
To see, to see,
That only she,
That only she we love!
CHORUS.
This is the joy, all joys above, &c.
III.
Two daughters of this aged stream are
we;
And both our sea-green locks have comb’d
for thee;
Come bathe with us an hour or two,
Come naked in, for we are so:
What danger from a naked foe?
Come bathe with us, come bathe, and share
What pleasures in the floods appear;
We’ll beat the waters till they
bound,
And circle round, around, around,
And circle round, around.
IV.
Ye blustering brethren of the skies,
Whose breath has ruffled all
the watery plain,
Retire, and let Britannia rise,
In triumph o’er the
main.
Serene and calm, and void of fear,
The Queen of Islands must appear:
Serene and calm, as when the Spring
The new-created world began,
And birds on boughs did softly sing
Their peaceful homage paid to man;
While Eurus did his blasts forbear,
In favour of the tender year.
Retreat, rude winds, retreat
To hollow rocks, your stormy seat;
There swell your lungs, and vainly, vainly
threat.
V.
Foe folded flocks, on fruitful plains,
The shepherd’s and the farmer’s
gains,
Fair Britain all the world
outvies;
And Pan, as in Arcadia, reigns,
Where pleasure mix’d
with profit lies.
Though Jason’s fleece was famed
of old,
The British wool is growing gold;
No mines can more of wealth
supply;
It keeps the peasant from the cold,
And takes for kings the Tyrian
dye.
VI.
Fairest isle, all isles excelling,
Seat of pleasures and of loves;
Venus here will choose her dwelling,
And forsake her Cyprian groves.
Cupid from his favourite nation
Care and envy will remove;
Jealousy, that poisons passion,
And despair, that dies for
love,
Gentle murmurs, sweet complaining,
Sighs, that blow the fire
of love;
Soft repulses, kind disdaining,
Shall be all the pains you
prove.
Every swain shall pay his duty,
Grateful every nymph shall
prove;
And as these excel in beauty,
Those shall be renown’d
for love.
* * * * *
SONG OF JEALOUSY, IN LOVE TRIUMPHANT.
What state of life can be so blest
As love, that warms a lover’s breast?
Two souls in one, the same desire
To grant the bliss, and to require!
But if in heaven a hell we find,
’Tis all from thee,
O Jealousy!
’Tis all from thee,
O Jealousy!
Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,
Thou tyrant of the mind!
All other ills, though sharp they prove,
Serve to refine, and perfect love:
In absence, or unkind disdain,
Sweet hope relieves the lover’s
pain.
But, ah! no cure but death we find,
To set us free
From Jealousy:
O Jealousy!
Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,
Thou tyrant of the mind!
False in thy glass all objects are,
Some set too near, and some too far;
Thou art the fire of endless night,
The fire that burns, and gives no light.
All torments of the damn’d we find
In only thee,
O Jealousy!
Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,
Thou tyrant of the mind!
* * * * *
SONG. FAREWELL, FAIR ARMIDA.
Farewell, fair Armida, my joy and my grief,
In vain I have loved you, and hope no
relief;
Undone by your virtue, too strict and
severe,
Your eyes gave me love, and you gave me
despair;
Now call’d by my honour, I seek
with content
The fate which in pity you would not prevent:
To languish in love, were to find by delay
A death that’s more welcome the
speediest way.
On seas and in battles, in bullets and
fire,
The danger is less than in hopeless desire;
10
My death’s-wound you give, though
far off I bear
My fall from your sight—not
to cost you a tear:
But if the kind flood on a wave should
convey,
And under your window my body should lay,
The wound on my breast when you happen
to see,
You’ll say with a sigh—it
was given by me.
* * * * *
ALEXANDER’S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC.
AN ODE, IN HONOUR OF ST CECILIA’S DAY.
1 ’Twas at the royal feast,
for Persia won
By Philip’s warlike son:
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne:
His valiant peers were placed around;
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crown’d).
The lovely Thais, by his side,
Sate like a blooming Eastern bride
In flower of youth and beauty’s pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserves the fair.
CHORUS.
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserves the fair.
2 Timotheus, placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire,
With flying fingers touch’d the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above
(Such is the power of mighty love).
A dragon’s fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spires he rode,
When he to fair Olympia press’d:
And while he sought her snowy breast:
Then, round her slender waist he curl’d,
And stamp’d an image of himself, a sovereign
of the world.
The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,
A present deity, they shout around,
A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravish’d ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
CHORUS.
With ravish’d ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
3 The praise of Bacchus then, the
sweet musician sung;
Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets; beat the drums;
Flush’d with a purple grace
He shows his honest face:
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure;
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
CHORUS.
Bacchus’ blessings are
a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure;
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
4 Soothed with the sound the
king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o’er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice
he slew the slain.
The master saw the madness rise;
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and check’d his pride.
He chose a mournful muse
Soft pity to infuse:
He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his alter’d soul
The various turns of chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole;
And tears began to flow.
CHORUS.
Revolving in his alter’d
soul
The various turns of chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole;
And tears began to flow.
5 The mighty master smiled, to
see
That love was in the next degree:
’Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour, but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.
The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So Love was crown’d, but Music won the
cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gazed on the fair
Who caused his care,
And sigh’d and look’d, sigh’d
and look’d,
Sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d
again:
At length, with love and wine at once oppress’d,
The vanquish’d victor sunk upon her breast.
CHORUS.
The prince, unable to conceal
his pain,
Gazed on the fair
Who caused his care,
And sigh’d and look’d, sigh’d
and look’d,
Sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d
again:
At length, with love and wine at once oppress’d,
The vanquish’d victor sunk upon her breast.
6 Now strike the golden lyre again:
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark, the horrid sound
Has raised up his head:
As awaked from the dead,
And amazed, he stares around.
Revenge, Revenge, Timotheus cries,
See the Furies arise:
See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,
Each a torch in his hand!
Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were
slain,
And unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain:
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew.
Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
The princes applaud, with a furious joy;
And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.
CHORUS.
And the king seized a flambeau with
zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.
Thus, long ago,
Ere heaving bellows learn’d to blow,
While organs yet were mute;
Timotheus, to his breathing flute,
And sounding lyre,
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With nature’s mother-wit, and arts unknown
before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown;
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.
GRAND CHORUS.
At last, divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred
store,
Enlarged
the former narrow bounds,
And
added length to solemn sounds,
With nature’s mother-wit, and arts
unknown before.
Let old Timotheus
yield the prize,
Or
both divide the crown;
He raised a mortal
to the skies;
She
drew an angel down.
* * * * *
THE SECULAR MASQUE.[45]
Enter JANUS.
Janus. Chronos, Chronos, mend thy pace; An hundred times the rolling sun Around the radiant belt has run In his revolving race. Behold, behold the goal in sight, Spread thy fans, and wing thy flight.
Enter CHRONOS, with a scythe
in his hand, and a globe
on his back; which he sets down at his
entrance.
Chronos. Weary, weary of my
weight,
Let me, let me drop my freight,
And leave the world behind.
I could not bear,
10
Another year,
The load of human kind.
Enter MOMUS, laughing.
Momus. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
ha! well hast thou done
To lay down thy
pack,
And lighten thy
back.
The world was a fool, ere
since it begun,
And since neither Janus nor
Chronos, nor I,
Can hinder the
crimes,
Or mend the bad
times,
’Tis better to laugh
than to cry. 20
Chorus of all three. ’Tis better to laugh than to cry.
Janus. Since Momus comes to
laugh below,
Old time begin
the show,
That he may see, in every scene,
What changes in this age have been.
Chronos. Then goddess of the silver bow begin.
[Horns, or hunting-music within.]
Enter DIANA.
Diana. With horns and with hounds, I waken the day, And hie to the woodland walks away; I tuck up my robe, and am buskin’d soon, And tie to my forehead a waxing moon; 30 I course the fleet stag, unkennel the fox, And chase the wild goats o’er summits of rocks; With shouting and hooting we pierce through the sky, And Echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry.
Chorus of all. With shouting
and hooting we pierce through the sky,
And Echo turns hunter, and doubles the
cry.
Janus. Then our age was in its prime:
Chronos. Free from rage:
Diana.—And free from crime.
Momus. A very merry, dancing,
drinking, 40
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.
Chorus of all. Then our age was in its prime, Free from rage, and free from crime, A very merry, dancing, drinking, Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.
[Dance of Diana’s attendants.]
Enter MARS.
Mars. Inspire the vocal brass,
inspire;
The world is past its infant age:
Arms and honour,
Arms and honour,
Set the martial mind on fire,
50
And kindle manly rage.
Mars has look’d the sky to red;
And Peace, the lazy god, is fled.
Plenty, peace, and pleasure fly;
The sprightly green,
In woodland walks, no more is seen;
The sprightly green has drunk the Tyrian
dye.
Chorus of all. Plenty, peace, &c.
Mars. Sound the trumpet, beat the drum; Through all the world around, 60 Sound a reveillie, sound, sound, The warrior god is come.
Chorus of all. Sound the trumpet, &c.
Momus. Thy sword within the scabbard
keep,
And let mankind agree;
Better the world were fast asleep,
Than kept awake by thee.
The fools are only thinner,
With all our cost and care:
But neither side a winner,
70
For things are as they were.
Chorus of all. The fools are only, &c.
Enter VENUS.
Venus. Calms appear when storms are past; Love will have his hour at last: Nature is my kindly care; Mars destroys, and I repair; Take me, take me, while you may, Venus comes not every day.
Chorus of all. Take her, take her, &c.
Chronos. The world was then
so light, 80
I scarcely felt the weight;
Joy ruled the day, and Love
the night.
But, since the queen of pleasure left
the ground,
I faint, I lag,
And feebly drag
The ponderous orb around.
Momus. All, all of a piece throughout; [Pointing to Diana.] Thy chase had a beast in view; [To Mars.] Thy wars brought nothing about; [To Venus.] Thy lovers were all untrue. 90
Janus. ’Tis well an old age is out.
Chronos. And time to begin a new.
Cho. of all. All, all of a piece throughout; Thy chase had a beast in view: Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. ’Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new.
Dance of huntsmen, nymphs, warriors, and lovers.
* * * * *
[Footnote 45: This Masque, with the song of a scholar and his mistress, was performed in 1700, for the author’s benefit, with the play of the Pilgrim, altered by Sir John Vanbrugh, his fortune and health being at that time in a declining state.]
* * * * *
SONG OF A SCHOLAR AND HIS MISTRESS,
WHO, BEING CROSSED BY THEIR FRIENDS, FELL MAD FOR ONE ANOTHER; AND NOW FIRST MEET IN BEDLAM.
[Music within.]
The Lovers enter at opposite doors, each held by a keeper.
Phillis. Look, look I see—I see my love appear! ’Tis he—’Tis he alone; For, like him, there is none: ’Tis the dear, dear man, ’tis thee, dear.
Amyntas. Hark! the winds war;
The foamy waves roar;
I see a ship afar:
Tossing and tossing, and making to the
shore:
But what’s
that I view,
So radiant of
hue,
St Hermo, St Hermo, that sits upon the
sails?
Ah! No, no,
no.
St Hermo never, never shone so bright;
’Tis Phillis, only Phillis, can
shoot so fair a light;
’Tis Phillis, ’tis Phillis,
that saves the ship alone,
For all the winds are hush’d, and
the storm is overblown.
Phillis. Let me go, let me run, let me fly to his arms.
Amyntas. If all the fates
combine,
And all the furies join,
I’ll force my way to Phillis, and
break through the charm.
[Here they break from their keepers,
run to each other,
and embrace.]
Phillis. Shall I marry the
man I love?
And shall I conclude
my pains?
Now bless’d be the powers above,
I feel the blood bound in my veins;
With a lively leap it began to move,
And the vapours
leave my brains.
Amyntas. Body join’d
to body, and heart join’d to heart,
To make sure of the cure,
Go call the man in black, to mumble o’er
his part.
Phillis. But suppose he should stay—
Amyntas. At worst if he delay,
’Tis a work must be done,
We’ll borrow but a day,
And the better, the sooner
begun.
Cho. of both. At worst if he delay, &c.
[They run out together hand in hand.]
* * * * *
’Tis much desired, you judges of
the town
Would pass a vote to put all prologues
down:
For who can show me, since they first
were writ,
They e’er converted one hard-hearted
wit?
Yet the world’s mended well; in
former days
Good prologues were as scarce as now good
plays.
For the reforming poets of our age,
In this first charge, spend their poetic
rage:
Expect no more when once the prologue’s
done:
The wit is ended ere the play’s
begun. 10
You now have habits, dances, scenes, and
rhymes;
High language often; ay, and sense, sometimes.
As for a clear contrivance, doubt it now;
They blow out candles to give light to
the plot.
And for surprise, two bloody-minded men
Fight till they die, then rise and dance
again,
Such deep intrigues you’re welcome
to this day:
But blame yourselves, not him who writ
the play;
Though his plot’s dull, as can be
well desired,
Wit stiff as any you have e’er admired:
20
He’s bound to please, not to write
well; and knows
There is a mode in plays as well as clothes;
Therefore, kind judges....
A SECOND PROLOGUE ENTERS.
2. Hold; would you admit
For judges all you see within the pit?
1. Whom would he then except, or on what score?
2. All who (like him) have writ ill plays before; For they, like thieves condemn’d, are hangmen made, To execute the members of their trade. All that are writing now he would disown, But then he must except—even all the town; All choleric, losing gamesters, who, in spite, Will damn to-day, because they lost last night; All servants, whom their mistress’ scorn upbraids; All maudlin lovers, and all slighted maids; All who are out of humour, all severe; All that want wit, or hope to find it here.
* * * * *
As the music plays a soft air, the curtain rises slowly and discovers an Indian boy and girl sleeping under two plantain-trees; and, when the curtain is almost up, the music turns into a tune expressing an alarm, at which the boy awakes, and speaks:
BOY. Wake, wake, Quevira! our soft
rest must cease,
And fly together with our country’s
peace!
No more must we sleep under plantain shade,
Which neither heat could pierce, nor cold
invade;
Where bounteous nature never feels decay,
And opening buds drive falling fruits
away.
QUE. Why should men quarrel here,
where all possess
As much as they can hope for by success?—
None can have most, where nature is so
kind,
As to exceed man’s use, though not
his mind. 10
BOY. By ancient prophecies we have
been told,
Our world shall be subdued by one more
old;—
And, see, that world already’s hither
come.
QUE. If these be they, we welcome
then our doom!
Their loots are such, that mercy flows
from thence,
More gentle than our native innocence.
BOY. Why should we then fear these,
our enemies,
That rather seem to us like deities?
QUE. By their protection, let us
beg to live;
They came not here to conquer, but forgive.
20
If so, your goodness may your power express,
And we shall judge both best by our success.
* * * * *
III.
SPOKEN BY MONTEZUMA.
You see what shifts we are enforced to
try,
To help out wit with some variety;
Shows may be found that never yet were
seen,
’Tis hard to find such wit as ne’er
has been:
You have seen all that this old world
can do,
We therefore try the fortune of the new,
And hope it is below your aim to hit
At untaught nature with your practised
wit:
Our naked Indians, then, when wits appear,
Would as soon choose to have the Spaniards
here. 10
’Tis true, you have marks enough,
the plot, the show,
The poet’s scenes, nay, more, the
painter’s too;
If all this fail, considering the cost,
’Tis a true voyage to the Indies
lost:
But if you smile on all, then these designs,
Like the imperfect treasure of our minds,
Will pass for current wheresoe’er
they go,
When to your bounteous hands their stamps
they owe.
* * * * *
BY A MERCURY.
To all and singular in this full meeting,
Ladies and gallants, Phoebus sends ye
greeting.
To all his sons, by whate’er title
known,
Whether of court, or coffee-house, or
town;
From his most mighty sons, whose confidence
Is placed in lofty sound, and humble sense,
Even to his little infants of the time,
Who write new songs, and trust in tune
and rhyme
Be ’t known, that Phoebus (being
daily grieved
To see good plays condemn’d, and
bad received) 10
Ordains your judgment upon every cause,
Henceforth, be limited by wholesome laws.
He first thinks fit no sonnetteer advance
His censure farther than the song or dance,
Your wit burlesque may one step higher
climb,
And in his sphere may judge all doggrel
rhyme;
All proves, and moves, and loves, and
honours too;
All that appears high sense, and scarce
is low.
As for the coffee wits, he says not much;
Their proper business is to damn the Dutch:
20
For the great dons of wit—
Phoebus gives them full privilege alone,
To damn all others, and cry up their own.
Last, for the ladies, ’tis Apollo’s
will,
They should have power to save, but not
to kill:
For love and he long since have thought
it fit,
Wit live by beauty, beauty reign by wit.
* * * * *
Fools, which each man meets in his dish
each day,
Are yet the great regalios of a play;
In which to poets you but just appear,
To prize that highest, which cost them
so dear:
Fops in the town more easily will pass;
One story makes a statutable ass:
But such in plays must be much thicker
sown,
Like yolks of eggs, a dozen beat to one.
Observing poets all their walks invade,
As men watch woodcocks gliding through
a glade:
And when they have enough for comedy,
They stow their several bodies in a pie:
The poet’s but the cook to fashion
it,
For, gallants, you yourselves have found
the wit.
To bid you welcome, would your bounty
wrong;
None welcome those who bring their cheer
along.
* * * * *
As when a tree’s cut down, the secret
root
Lives under ground, and thence new branches
shoot;
So from old Shakspeare’s honour’d
dust, this day
Springs up and buds a new reviving play:
Shakspeare, who (taught by none) did first
impart
To Fletcher wit, to labouring Jonson art.
He, monarch like, gave those, his subjects,
law;
And is that nature which they paint and
* * * * *
Self-love, which, never rightly understood,
Makes poets still conclude their plays
are good,
And malice in all critics reigns so high,
That for small errors, they whole plays
decry;
So that to see this fondness, and that
spite,
You’d think that none but madmen
judge or write,
Therefore our poet, as he thinks not fit
To impose upon you what he writes for
wit;
So hopes, that, leaving you your censures
free,
You equal judges of the whole will be:
10
They judge but half, who only faults will
see.
Poets, like lovers, should be bold and
dare,
They spoil their business with an over
care;
And he, who servilely creeps after sense,
Is safe, but ne’er will reach an
excellence.
Hence ’tis, our poet, in his conjuring,
Allow’d his fancy the full scope
and swing.
But when a tyrant for his theme he had,
He loosed the reins, and bid his muse
run mad:
And though he stumbles in a full career,
20
Yet rashness is a better fault than fear.
He saw his way; but in so swift a pace,
To choose the ground might be to lose
the race.
They, then, who of each trip the advantage
take,
Find but those faults, which they want
wit to make.
* * * * *
WHEN REVIVED.
Of all dramatic writing, comic wit,
As ’tis the best, so ’tis
most hard to hit,
For it lies all in level to the eye,
Where all may judge, and each defect may
spy.
Humour is that which every day we meet,
And therefore known as every public street;
In which, if e’er the poet go astray,
You all can point, ’twas there he
lost his way.
But, what’s so common, to make pleasant
too,
Is more than any wit can always do.
10
For ’tis like Turks, with hen and
rice to treat;
To make regalios out of common meat.
But, in your diet, you grow savages:
Nothing but human flesh your taste can
please;
And, as their feasts with slaughter’d
slaves began,
So you, at each new play, must have a
man.
Hither you come, as to see prizes fought;
If no blood’s drawn, you cry, the
prize is nought.
But fools grow wary now: and, when
they see
A poet eyeing round the company,
20
Straight each man for himself begins to
doubt;
They shrink like seamen when a press comes
out.
Few of them will be found for public use,
Except you charge an oaf upon each house,
Like the train bands, and every man engage
For a sufficient fool, to serve the stage,
And when, with much ado, you get him there,
Where he in all his glory should appear.
Your poets make him such rare things to
say,
That he’s more wit than any man
i’ th’ play:
30
But of so ill a mingle with the rest,
As when a parrot’s taught to break
a jest.
Thus, aiming to be fine, they make a show,
As tawdry squires in country churches
do.
Things well consider’d, ’tis
so hard to make
A comedy, which should the knowing take,
That our dull poet, in despair to please,
Does humbly beg, by me, his writ of ease.
’Tis a land-tax, which he’s
too poor to pay;
You therefore must some other impost lay.
40
Would you but change, for serious plot
and verse,
This motley garniture of fool and farce,
Nor scorn a mode, because ’tis taught
at home,
Which does, like vests, our gravity become,
Our poet yields you should this play refuse:
As tradesmen, by the change of fashions,
lose,
With some content, their fripperies of
France,
In hope it may their staple trade advance.
* * * * *
PROLOGUE.
SPOKEN THE FIRST DAY OF THE KING’S HOUSE ACTING AFTER THE FIRE OF LONDON.
So shipwreck’d passengers escape
to land,
So look they, when on the bare beach they
stand,
Dropping and cold, and their first fear
scarce o’er,
Expecting famine on a desert shore.
From that hard climate we must wait for
bread,
Whence even the natives, forced by hunger,
fled.
Our stage does human chance present to
view,
But ne’er before was seen so sadly
true:
You are changed too, and your pretence
to see
Is but a nobler name for charity.
10
Your own provisions furnish out our feasts,
While you the founders make yourselves
the guests.
Of all mankind beside fate had some care,
But for poor Wit no portion did prepare,
’Tis left a rent-charge to the brave
and fair.
You cherish’d it, and now its fall
you mourn,
Which blind unmanner’d zealots make
their scorn,
Who think that fire a judgment on the
stage,
Which spared not temples in its furious
rage.
But as our new-built city rises higher,
20
So from old theatres may new aspire,
Since fate contrives magnificence by fire.
Our great metropolis does far surpass
Whate’er is now, and equals all
that was:
Our wit as far does foreign wit excel,
And, like a king, should in a palace dwell.
But we with golden hopes are vainly fed,
Talk high, and entertain you in a shed:
Your presence here, for which we humbly
sue,
Will grace old theatres, and build up
new. 30
* * * * *
They who have best succeeded on the stage,
Have still conform’d their genius
to their age.
Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show,
When men were dull, and conversation low.
Then comedy was faultless, but ’twas
coarse:
Cobb’s tankard was a jest, and Otter’s
horse.
And, as their comedy, their love was mean;
Except, by chance, in some one labour’d
scene,
Which must atone for an ill-written play.
They rose, but at their height could seldom
stay. 10
Fame then was cheap, and the first comer
sped;
And they have kept it since, by being
dead.
But, were they now to write, when critics
weigh
Each line, and every word, throughout
a play,
None of them, no not Jonson in his height,
Could pass, without allowing grains for
weight.
Think it not envy, that these truths are
told:
Our poet’s not malicious, though
he’s bold.
’Tis not to brand them, that their
faults are shown,
But, by their errors, to excuse his own.
20
If love and honour now are higher raised,
’Tis not the poet, but the age is
praised.
* * * * *
As needy gallants in the scrivener’s
hands,
Court the rich knave that gripes their
mortgaged lands,
The first fat buck of all the season’s
sent,
And keeper takes no fee in compliment:
The dotage of some Englishmen is such,
To fawn on those who ruin them—the
Dutch.
They shall have all, rather than make
a war
With those who of the same religion are.
The Straits, the Guinea trade, the herrings
too,
Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle
you. 10
Some are resolved not to find out the
cheat,
But, cuckold-like, love him who does the
feat:
What injuries soe’er upon us fall,
Yet, still the same religion answers all:
Religion wheedled you to civil war,
Drew English blood, and Dutchmen’s
now would spare:
Be gull’d no longer, for you’ll
find it true,
They have no more religion, faith—than
you;
Interest’s the god they worship
in their state;
And you, I take it, have not much of that.
20
Well, monarchies may own religion’s
name,
But states are atheists in their very
frame.
They share a sin, and such proportions
fall,
That, like a stink, ’tis nothing
to them all.
How they love England, you shall see this
day;
No map shows Holland truer than our play:
Their pictures and inscriptions well we
know;
We may be bold one medal sure to show.
View then their falsehoods, rapine, cruelty;
And think what once they were, they still
would he: 30
But hope not either language, plot, or
art;
’Twas writ in haste, but with an
English heart:
And least hope wit; in Dutchmen that would
be
As much improper, as would honesty.
* * * * *
[Footnote 46: ‘Amboyna:’ a play written against the Dutch.]
* * * * *
A Poet once the Spartans led to fight,
And made them conquer in the muse’s
right;
So would our poet lead you on this day,
Showing your tortured fathers in his play.
To one well born the affront is worse,
and more,
When he’s abused and baffled by
a boor:
With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs
do,
They’ve both ill nature and ill
manners too.
Well may they boast themselves an ancient
nation,
For they were bred ere manners were in
fashion,
And their new commonwealth has set them
free,
Only from honour and civility.
Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,
Than did their lubber state mankind bestride;
Their sway became them with as ill a mien,
As their own paunches swell above their
chin:
Yet is their empire no true growth, but
humour,
And only two kings’ touch can cure
the tumour.
As Cato did his Afric fruits display,
So we before your eyes their Indies lay:
All loyal English will, like him, conclude,
Let Caesar live, and Carthage be subdued!
* * * * *
PROLOGUE.
SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW HOUSE, MARCH 26, 1674.
A plain-built[47] house, after so long
a stay,
Will send you half unsatisfied away;
When, fallen from your expected pomp,
you find
A bare convenience only is design’d.
You, who each day can theatres behold,
Like Nero’s palace, shining all
with gold,
Our mean ungilded stage will scorn, we
fear,
And, for the homely room, disdain the
cheer.
Yet now cheap druggets to a mode are grown,
And a plain suit, since we can make but
one, 10
Is better than to be by tarnish’d
gawdry known.
They, who are by your favours wealthy
made,
With mighty sums may carry on the trade:
We, broken bankers, half destroy’d
by fire,
With our small stock to humble roofs retire:
Pity our loss, while you their pomp admire.
For fame and honour we no longer strive,
We yield in both, and only beg to live:
Unable to support their vast expense,
Who build and treat with such magnificence;
20
That, like the ambitious monarchs of the
age,
They give the law to our provincial stage.
Great neighbours enviously promote excess,
While they impose their splendour on the
less.
But only fools, and they of vast estate,
The extremity of modes will imitate,
The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat.
Yet if some pride with want may be allow’d,
We in our plainness may be justly proud:
Our royal master will’d it should
be so; 30
Whate’er he’s pleased to own,
can need no show:
That sacred name gives ornament and grace,
And, like his stamp, makes basest metals
* * * * *
[Footnote 47: This Prologue was written for the King’s company, who had just opened their house in Drury-lane.]
[Footnote 48: The reflection on the taste of the town in these four lines is levelled at the Duke’s company, who had exhibited the siege of Rhodes, and other expensive operas, and were now getting up the operas of Psyche, Circe, &c.]
* * * * *
SPOKEN BY MR HART.
Poets, your subjects have their parts
assign’d
To unbend, and to divert their sovereign’s
mind:
When tired with following nature, you
think fit
To seek repose in the cool shades of wit,
And, from the sweet retreat, with joy
survey
What rests, and what is conquer’d,
of the way.
Here, free yourselves from envy, care,
and strife
You view the various turns of human life:
Safe in our scene, through dangerous courts
you go,
And, undebauch’d, the vice of cities
know. 10
Your theories are here to practice brought,
As in mechanic operations wrought;
And man, the little world, before you
set,
As once the sphere[49] of crystal show’d
the great.
Blest, sure, are you above all mortal
kind,
If to your fortunes you can suit your
mind:
Content to see, and shun, those ills we
show,
And crimes on theatres alone to know.
With joy we bring what our dead authors
writ,
And beg from you the value of their wit:
20
That Shakspeare’s, Fletcher’s,
and great Jonson’s claim,
May be renew’d from those who gave
* * * * *
[Footnote 49: ‘Sphere,’ &c.: referring to the macrocosm—the universe; and the microcosm—man]
* * * * *
BY DR DAVENANT,[50] 1675.
Were you but half so wise as you’re
severe,
Our youthful poet should not need to fear:
To his green years your censures you would
suit,
Not blast the blossom, but expect the
fruit.
The sex, the best does pleasure understand,
Will always choose to err on the other
hand.
They check not him that’s awkward
in delight,
But clap the young rogue’s cheek,
and set him right.
Thus hearten’d well, and flesh’d
upon his prey,
The youth may prove a man another day.
10
Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first
young flight,
Did no Volpone, nor Arbaces write;
But hopp’d about, and short excursions
made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid,
And each was guilty of some Slighted Maid.
Shakspeare’s own muse her Pericles
first bore;
The Prince of Tyre was elder than the
Moor:
’Tis miracle to see a first good
play;
All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas-day.
A slender poet must have time to grow,
20
And spread and burnish, as his brothers
do.
Who still looks lean, sure with some pox
is cursed:
But no man can be Falstaff-fat at first.
Then damn not, but indulge his rude essays;
Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise,
That he may get more bulk before he dies:
He’s not yet fed enough for sacrifice.
Perhaps, if now your grace you will not
grudge,
He may grow up to write, and you to judge.
* * * * *
[Footnote 50: Son of Sir William Davenant, and author of several political pieces, much esteemed.]
* * * * *
EPILOGUE,
INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN BY THE LADY HEN. MAR. WENTWORTH, WHEN “CALISTO"[51] WAS ACTED AT COURT.
As Jupiter I made my court in vain;
I’ll now assume my native shape
again.
I’m weary to be so unkindly used,
And would not be a god to be refused.
State grows uneasy when it hinders love;
A glorious burden, which the wise remove.
Now, as a nymph I need not sue, nor try
The force of any lightning but the eye.
Beauty and youth more than a god command;
No Jove could e’er the force of
these withstand. 10
’Tis here that sovereign power admits
dispute;
Beauty sometimes is justly absolute.
Our sullen Catos, whatsoe’er they
say,
Even while they frown, and dictate laws,
obey.
You, mighty sir,[52] our bonds more easy
make,
And gracefully, what all must suffer,
take:
Above those forms the grave affect to
wear;
For ’tis not to be wise to be severe.
True wisdom may some gallantry admit,
And soften business with the charms of
wit. 20
These peaceful triumphs with your cares
you bought,
And from the midst of fighting nations
brought.
You only hear it thunder from afar,
And sit in peace the arbiter of war:
Peace, the loathed manna, which hot brains
despise.
You knew its worth, and made it early
prize:
And in its happy leisure sit and see
The promises of more felicity:
Two glorious nymphs,[53] of your own godlike
line,
Whose morning rays like noontide strike
and shine: 30
Whom you to suppliant monarchs shall dispose,
To bind your friends, and to disarm your
foes.
* * * * *
[Footnote 51: ‘Calisto:’ a Masque, written by Crowne, Dryden’s rival and Rochester’s protege; this Epilogue was through Rochester’s influence rejected.]
[Footnote 52: This part of the Epilogue is addressed to the King.]
* * * * *
Our author, by experience, finds it true,
’Tis much more hard to please himself
than you;
And out of no feign’d modesty, this
day
Damns his laborious trifle of a play;
Not that it’s worse than what before
he writ,
But he has now another taste of wit;
And, to confess a truth, though out of
time,
Grows weary of his long-loved mistress,
Rhyme.
Passion’s too fierce to be in fetters
* * * * *
[Footnote 53: The Duke of York’s two daughters, Mary and Ann.]
* * * * *
BY SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE, 1676.
Most modern wits such monstrous fools
have shown,
They seem not of Heaven’s making,
but their own.
Those nauseous harlequins in farce may
pass;
But there goes more to a substantial ass:
Something of man must be exposed to view,
That, gallants, they may more resemble
you.
Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ,
The ladies would mistake him for a wit;
And, when he sings, talks loud, and cocks,
would cry,
I vow, methinks, he’s pretty company:
10
So brisk, so gay, so travell’d,
so refined,
As he took pains to graff upon his kind.
True fops help nature’s work, and
go to school
To file and finish God Almighty’s
fool.
Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him can call;
He’s knight o’ the shire,
and represents ye all.
* * * * *
Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail,
Have one sure refuge left—and
that’s to rail.
Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thunder’d
through the pit;
And this is all their equipage of wit.
We wonder how the devil this difference
grows,
Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours
in prose:
For, ’faith, the quarrel rightly
understood,
’Tis civil war with their own flesh
and blood.
The threadbare author hates the gaudy
coat;
And swears at the gilt coach, but swears
afoot: 10
For ’tis observed of every scribbling
man,
He grows a fop as fast as e’er he
can;
Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,
If pink and purple best become his face.
For our poor wretch, he neither rails
nor prays;
Nor likes your wit, just as you like his
plays;
He has not yet so much of Mr Bayes.
He does his best; and if he cannot please,
Would quietly sue out his writ of ease.
Yet, if he might his own grand jury call,
20
By the fair sex he begs to stand or fall.
Let Caesar’s power the men’s
ambition move,
But grace you him who lost the world for
love!
Yet if some antiquated lady say,
The last age is not copied in his play;
Heaven help the man who for that face
must drudge,
Which only has the wrinkles of a judge.
Let not the young and beauteous join with
those;
For should you raise such numerous hosts
of foes,
Young wits and sparks he to his aid must
call; 30
’Tis more than one man’s work
to please you all.
* * * * *
True wit has seen its best days long ago;
It ne’er look’d up, since
we were dipp’d in show:
When sense in doggerel rhymes and clouds
was lost,
And dulness flourish’d at the actors’
cost.
Nor stopp’d it here; when tragedy
was done,
Satire and humour the same fate have run,
And comedy is sunk to trick and pun.
Now our machining lumber will not sell,
And you no longer care for heaven or hell;
What stuff can please you next, the Lord
can tell. 10
Let them, who the rebellion first began
To wit restore the monarch, if they can;
Our author dares not be the first bold
man.
He, like the prudent citizen, takes care
To keep for better marts his staple ware;
His toys are good enough for Sturbridge
fair.
Tricks were the fashion; if it now be
spent,
’Tis time enough at Easter to invent;
No man will make up a new suit for Lent.
If now and then he takes a small pretence,
20
To forage for a little wit and sense,
Pray pardon him, he meant you no offence.
Next summer, Nostradamus tells, they say,
That all the critics shall be shipp’d
away,
And not enow be left to damn a play.
To every sail beside, good heaven, be
kind:
But drive away that swarm with such a
wind,
That not one locust may be left behind!
* * * * *
BY NATHAN LEE, 1678.
You’ve seen a pair of faithful lovers
die:
And much you care; for most of you will
cry,
’Twas a just judgment on their constancy.
For, heaven be thank’d, we live
in such an age,
When no man dies for love, but on the
stage:
And even those martyrs are but rare in
plays;
A cursed sign how much true faith decays.
Love is no more a violent desire;
’Tis a mere metaphor, a painted
fire.
In all our sex, the name examined well,
10
Tis pride to gain, and vanity to tell.
In woman, ’tis of subtle interest
made:
Curse on the punk that made it first a
trade!
She first did wit’s prerogative
remove,
And made a fool presume to prate of love.
Let honour and preferment go for gold;
But glorious beauty is not to be sold:
Or, if it be, ’tis at a rate so
high,
That nothing but adoring it should buy.
Yet the rich cullies may their boasting
spare; 20
They purchase but sophisticated ware.
’Tis prodigality that buys deceit,
Where both the giver and the taker cheat.
Men but refine on the old half-crown way;
And women fight, like Swissers, for their
pay.
* * * * *
When Athens all the Grecian state did
guide,
And Greece gave laws to all the world
beside;
Then Sophocles with Socrates did sit,
Supreme in wisdom one, and one in wit:
And wit from wisdom differ’d not
in those,
But as ’twas sung in verse, or said
in prose.
Then, Oedipus, on crowded theatres,
Drew all admiring eyes and listening ears:
The pleased spectator shouted every line,
The noblest, manliest, and the best design!
10
And every critic of each learned age,
By this just model has reform’d
the stage.
Now, should it fail (as Heaven avert our
fear),
Damn it in silence, lest the world should
hear.
For were it known this poem did not please,
You might set up for perfect savages:
Your neighbours would not look on you
as men,
But think the nation all turn’d
Picts again.
Faith, as you manage matters, ’tis
not fit
You should suspect yourselves of too much
wit: 20
Drive not the jest too far, but spare
this piece;
And, for this once, be not more wise than
Greece.
See twice: do not pellmell to damning
fall,
Like true-born Britons, who ne’er
think at all:
Pray be advised; and though at Mons you
won,
On pointed cannon do not always run.
With some respect to ancient wit proceed;
You take the four first councils for your
creed.
But, when you lay tradition wholly by,
And on the private spirit alone rely,
30
You turn fanatics in your poetry.
If, notwithstanding all that we can say,
You needs will have your penn’orths
of the play,
And come resolved to damn, because you
pay,
Record it, in memorial of the fact,
The first play buried since the woollen
act.
* * * * *
What Sophocles could undertake alone,
Our poets found a work for more than one;
And therefore two lay tugging at the piece,
With all their force, to draw the ponderous
mass from Greece;
A weight that bent e’en Seneca’s
strong Muse,
And which Corneille’s shoulders
did refuse:
So hard it is the Athenian harp to string!
So much two consuls yield to one just
king!
Terror and pity this whole poem sway;
The mightiest machines that can mount
a play. 10
How heavy will those vulgar souls be found,
Whom two such engines cannot move from
ground!
When Greece and Rome have smiled upon
this birth,
You can but damn for one poor spot of
earth:
And when your children find your judgment
such,
They’ll scorn their sires, and wish
themselves born Dutch;
* * * * *
SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON, REPRESENTING THE GHOST OF SHAKSPEARE.
See, my loved Britons, see your Shakspeare
rise,
An awful ghost, confess’d, to human
eyes!
Unnamed, methinks, distinguish’d
I had been
From other shades, by this eternal green,
About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive,
And with a touch their wither’d
bays revive.
Untaught, unpractised in a barbarous age,
I found not, but created first the stage.
And, if I drain’d no Greek or Latin
store,
’Twas that my own abundance gave
me more. 10
On foreign trade I needed not rely,
Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply.
In this my rough-drawn play you shall
behold
Some master strokes, so manly and so bold,
That he who meant to alter, found ’em
such,
He shook, and thought it sacrilege to
touch.
Now, where are the successors to my name?
What bring they to fill out a poet’s
fame?
Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age;
Scarce living to be christen’d on
the stage! 20
For humour, farce—for love
they rhyme dispense,
That tolls the knell for their departed
sense.
Dulness might thrive in any trade, but
this
’Twould recommend to some fat benefice:
Dulness, that in a playhouse meets disgrace,
Might meet with reverence in its proper
place.
The fulsome clench, that nauseates the
town,
Would from a judge or alderman go down;
Such virtue is there in a robe and gown!
And that insipid stuff, which here you
hate, 30
Might somewhere else be call’d a
grave debate:
Dulness is decent in the church and state.
But I forget that still ’tis understood,
* * * * *
BY NATHAN LEE, 1680.
The unhappy man, who once has trail’d
a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other
men;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and
blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think
good.
What praise soe’er the poetry deserve,
Yet every fool can bid the poet starve.
That fumbling lecher to revenge is bent,
Because he thinks himself or whore is
meant:
Name but a cuckold, all the city swarms;
From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms:
10
Were there no fear of Antichrist, or France,
In the bless’d time poor poets live
by chance.
Either you come not here, or, as you grace
Some old acquaintance, drop into the place,
Careless and qualmish, with a yawning
face:
You sleep o’er wit, and, by my troth,
you may;
Most of your talents lie another way.
You love to hear of some prodigious tale,
The bell that toll’d alone, or Irish
whale.
News is your food, and you enough provide,
20
Both for yourselves, and all the world
beside;
One theatre there is of vast resort,
Which whilome of Requests was called the
Court;
But now the great Exchange of News ’tis
hight,
And full of hum and buzz from noon till
night.
Up stairs and down you run, as for a race,
And each man wears three nations in his
face.
So big you look, though claret you retrench,
That, arm’d with bottled ale, you
huff the French.
But all your entertainment still is fed
30
By villains in your own dull island bred.
Would you return to us, we dare engage
To show you better rogues upon the stage.
You know no poison but plain ratsbane
here;
Death’s more refined, and better
bred elsewhere.
They have a civil way in Italy,
By smelling a perfume to make you die:
A trick would make you lay your snuff-box
by.
Murder’s a trade, so known and practised
there,
That ’tis infallible as is the Chair.
40
But mark their feast, you shall behold
such pranks;
The Pope says grace, but ’tis the
Devil gives thanks.
* * * * *
[Footnote 54: ‘Caesar Borgia:’ a play produced about the time of the Popish Plot.]
* * * * *
ACTED AT OXFORD, 1680.
WRITTEN BY NATHAN LEE.
Thespis,[55] the first professor of our
art,
At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,
“Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata
Thespis.”
But AEschylus, says Horace in some page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the
stage:
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport
Of tossing poets in a tennis-court.
But ’tis the talent of our English
nation,
Still to be plotting some new reformation:
10
And few years hence, if anarchy goes on,
Jack Presbyter shall here erect his throne,
Knock out a tub with preaching once a
day,
And every prayer be longer than a play.
Then all your heathen wits shall go to
pot,
For disbelieving of a Popish plot:
Your poets shall be used like infidels,
And worst, the author of the Oxford bells:
Nor should we ’scape the sentence,
to depart,
Even in our first original, a cart.
20
No zealous brother there would want a
stone
To maul us cardinals, and pelt Pope Joan:
Religion, learning, wit, would be suppress’d—
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the
beast:
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down,
As chief supporters of the triple crown;
And Aristotle’s for destruction
ripe;
Some say he call’d the soul an organ-pipe,
Which by some little help of derivation,
Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.
30
* * * * *
[Footnote 55: ‘Thespis:’ the inventor of tragedy.]
* * * * *
BY MR TATE, 1680.
If yet there be a few that take delight
In that which reasonable men should write;
To them alone we dedicate this night.
The rest may satisfy their curious itch
With city-gazettes, or some factious speech,
Or whate’er libel, for the public
good,
Stirs up the shrove-tide crew to fire
and blood.
Remove your benches, you apostate pit,
And take, above, twelve pennyworth of
wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the rope,
10
Or see, what’s worse, the Devil
and the Pope.
The plays that take on our corrupted stage,
Methinks, resemble the distracted age;
Noise, madness, all unreasonable things,
That strike at sense, as rebels do at
kings.
* * * * *
[Footnote 56: ‘Forty-one, forty-eight:’ referring to the Puritan era, which some were then seeking to revive.]
* * * * *
PROLOGUE[57] TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
1681.
The famed Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance
Orlando and the Paladins of France,
Records, that, when our wit and sense
is flown,
’Tis lodged within the circle of
the moon,
In earthen jars, which one, who thither
soar’d,
Set to his nose, snuff’d up, and
was restored.
Whate’er the story be, the moral’s
true;
The wit we lost in town, we find in you.
Our poets their fled parts may draw from
hence,
And fill their windy heads with sober
sense. 10
When London votes with Southwark’s
disagree,
Here may they find their long-lost loyalty.
Here busy senates, to the old cause inclined,
May snuff the votes their fellows left
behind:
Your country neighbours, when their grain
grows dear,
May come, and find their last provision
here:
Whereas we cannot much lament our loss,
Who neither carried back, nor brought
one cross.
We look’d what representatives would
bring;
But they help’d us, just as they
did the king. 20
Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth
The Sibyl’s books to those who know
their worth;
And though the first was sacrificed before,
These volumes doubly will the price restore.
Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prescription you are kind.
He whose undaunted Muse, with loyal rage,
Has never spared the vices of the age,
Here finding nothing that his spleen can
raise,
Is forced to turn his satire into praise.
30
* * * * *
[Footnote 57: ‘Prologue:’ spoken during the sitting of Parliament there. See Macaulay’s History.]
* * * * *
PROLOGUE[58] TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS,
UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE’S THEATRE, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND, 1682.
In those cold regions which no summers
cheer,
Where brooding darkness covers half the
year,
To hollow caves the shivering natives
go;
Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks
of snow:
But when the tedious twilight wears away,
And stars grow paler at the approach of
day,
The longing crowds to frozen mountains
run;
Happy who first can see the glimmering
sun:
The surly savage offspring disappear,
And curse the bright successor of the
year. 10
Yet, though rough bears in covert seek
defence,
White foxes stay, with seeming innocence:
That crafty kind with daylight can dispense.
Still we are throng’d so full with
Reynard’s race,
That loyal subjects scarce can find a
place:
Thus modest truth is cast behind the crowd:
Truth speaks too low: hypocrisy too
loud.
Let them be first to flatter in success;
Duty can stay, but guilt has need to press.
Once, when true zeal the sons of God did
call, 20
To make their solemn show at heaven’s
Whitehall,
The fawning Devil appear’d among
the rest,
And made as good a courtier as the best.
The friends of Job, who rail’d at
him before,
Came, cap in hand, when he had three times
more.
Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true;
Kings can forgive, if rebels can but sue:
A tyrant’s power in rigour is express’d;
The father yearns in the true prince’s
breast.
We grant, an o’ergrown Whig no grace
can mend; 30
But most are babes, that know not they
offend.
The crowd, to restless motion still inclined,
Are clouds, that tack according to the
wind.
Driven by their chiefs, they storms of
hailstones pour;
Then mourn, and soften to a silent shower.
O welcome to this much-offending land,
The prince that brings forgiveness in
his hand!
Thus angels on glad messages appear:
Their first salute commands us not to
fear.
Thus Heaven, that could constrain us to
obey, 40
(With reverence if we might presume to
say)
Seems to relax the rights of sovereign
sway:
Permits to man the choice of good and
ill,
And makes us happy by our own free will.
* * * * *
[Footnote 58: ‘Prologue:’ spoken when the Duke of York returned from Scotland in triumph. He went to the theatre in Dorset Gardens, when this was uttered as the Prologue to “Venice Preserved.”]
* * * * *
BY MR J. BANKS, 1682.
SPOKEN TO THE KING AND QUEEN AT THEIR COMING TO THE HOUSE.
When first the ark was landed on the shore,
And Heaven had vow’d to curse the
ground no more;
When tops of hills the longing patriarch
saw,
And the new scene of earth began to draw;
The dove was sent to view the waves’
decrease,
And first brought back to man the pledge
of peace.
’Tis needless to apply, when those
appear,
Who bring the olive, and who plant it
here.
We have before our eyes the royal dove,
Still innocent, as harbinger of love:
10
The ark is open’d to dismiss the
train,
And people with a better race the plain.
Tell me, ye Powers! why should vain man
pursue,
With endless toil, each object that is
new,
And for the seeming substance leave the
true?
Why should he quit for hopes his certain
good,
And loathe the manna of his daily food?
Must England still the scene of changes
be,
Tost and tempestuous, like our ambient
sea?
Must still our weather and our wills agree?
20
Without our blood our liberties we have:
Who that is free would fight to be a slave?
Or, what can wars to after-times assure,
Of which our present age is not secure?
All that our monarch would for us ordain,
Is but to enjoy the blessings of his reign.
Our land’s an Eden, and the main’s
our fence,
While we preserve our state of innocence:
That lost, then beasts their brutal force
employ,
And first their lord, and then themselves
destroy. 30
What civil broils have cost, we know too
well;
Oh! let it be enough that once we fell!
And every heart conspire, and every tongue,
Still to have such a king, and this king
long.
* * * * *
We act by fits and starts, like drowning
men,
But just peep up, and then pop down again.
Let those who call us wicked change their
sense;
For never men lived more on Providence.
Not lottery cavaliers are half so poor,
Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore;
Not courts, nor courtiers living on the
rents
Of the three last ungiving parliaments:
So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine,
He might have spared his dream of seven
lean kine, 10
And changed his vision for the Muses Nine.
The comet that, they say, portends a dearth,
Was but a vapour drawn from play-house
* * * * *
[Footnote 59: Epilogue spoken in 1682; and full of temporary allusions now of no earthly interest.]
* * * * *
BY MR SOUTHERN, 1682.
POETS, like lawful monarchs, ruled the
stage,
Till critics, like damn’d Whigs,
debauch’d our age.
Mark how they jump: critics would
regulate
Our theatres, and Whigs reform our state:
Both pretend love, and both (plague rot
them!) hate.
The critic humbly seems advice to bring;
The fawning Whig petitions to the king:
But one’s advice into a satire slides;
The other’s petition a remonstrance
hides.
These will no taxes give, and those no
pence; 10
Critics would starve the poet, Whigs the
prince.
The critic all our troops of friends discards;
Just so the Whig would fain pull down
the guards.
Guards are illegal, that drive foes away,
As watchful shepherds, that fright beasts
of prey.
Kings, who disband such needless aids
as these,
Are safe—as long as e’er
their subjects please:
And that would be till next Queen Bess’s
night: [61]
Which thus grave penny chroniclers indite.
Sir Edmondbury first, in woful wise,
20
Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin
eyes.
There’s not a butcher’s wife
* * * * *
[Footnote 60: ‘The Loyal Brother; or, the Persian Prince,’ Mr Southern’s first play, acted at Drury-Lane in 1682. The Loyal Brother was intended for the Duke of York.]
[Footnote 61: ‘Queen Bess’s night:’ alluding to a procession of the Whigs, carrying party effigies, and a representation of the dead body of Sir E. Godfrey, on the 17th of November, the birthday of Queen Elizabeth.]
[Footnote 62: By the Bartholomew Act not more than five Dissenters were allowed to commune together at one time.]
* * * * *
UPON THE UNION OF THE TWO COMPANIES IN 1686.
1 Since faction ebbs, and rogues grow
out of fashion,
Their penny scribes take care
to inform the nation,
How well men thrive in this
or that plantation:
2 How Pennsylvania’s air agrees
with Quakers,
And Carolina’s with
Associators:
Both even too good for madmen
and for traitors.
3 Truth is, our land with saints is so
run o’er,
And every age produces such
a store,
That now there’s need
of two New-Englands more.
4 What’s this, you’ll say,
to us and our vocation?
Only thus much, that we have
left our station,
And made this theatre our
new plantation.
5 The factious natives never could agree;
But aiming, as they call’d
it, to be free,
Those playhouse Whigs set
up for property.
6 Some say, they no obedience paid of
late;
But would new fears and jealousies
create;
Till topsy-turvy they had
turn’d the state.
7 Plain sense, without the talent of foretelling,
Might guess ’twould
end in downright knocks and quelling:
For seldom comes there better
of rebelling.
8 When men will, needlessly, their freedom
barter
For lawless power, sometimes
they catch a Tartar;
There’s a damn’d
word that rhymes to this call’d Charter.
9 But, since the victory with us remains,
You shall be call’d
to twelve in all our gains;
If you’ll not think
us saucy for our pains.
10 Old men shall have good old plays to
delight them
And you, fair ladies
and gallants, that slight them,
We’ll treat with
good new plays; if our new wits can write them.
11 We’ll take no blundering verse,
no fustian tumour,
No dribbling love, from
this or that presumer;
No dull fat fool shamm’d
on the stage for humour.
12 For, faith, some of them such vile
stuff have made,
As none but fools or
fairies ever play’d;
But ’twas, as
shopmen say, to force a trade.
13 We’ve given you tragedies, all
sense defying,
And singing men, in
woful metre dying;
This ’tis when
heavy lubbers will be flying.
14 All these disasters we well hope to
weather;
We bring you none of
our old lumber hither;
Whig poets and Whig
sheriffs may hang together.
* * * * *
[Footnote 63: Two theatrical companies: the Duke’s and the King’s Houses—both full of every species of abomination—at last united in 1686, and the most profligate poet of the age was fitly chosen to proclaim the banns.]
* * * * *
SPOKEN BY MR HART, AT THE ACTING OF “THE SILENT WOMAN.”
What Greece, when learning flourish’d,
only knew,
Athenian judges, you this day renew;
Here too are annual rites to Pallas done,
And here poetic prizes lost or won.
Methinks I see you, crown’d with
olives, sit,
And strike a sacred horror from the pit.
* * * * *
EPILOGUE,
SPOKEN BY THE SAME.
No poor Dutch peasant, wing’d with
all his fear,
Flies with more haste, when the French
arms draw near,
Than we with our poetic train come down,
For refuge hither, from the infected town:
Heaven, for our sins, this summer has
thought fit
To visit us with all the plagues of wit.
A French troop first swept all things
in its way;
But those hot Monsieurs were too quick
to stay:
Yet, to our cost, in that short time,
we find
They left their itch of novelty behind.
10
The Italian Merry-Andrews took their place,
And quite debauch’d the stage with
lewd grimace:
Instead of wit and humours, your delight
Was there to see two hobby-horses fight;
* * * * *
EPILOGUE,
SPOKEN AT OXFORD, BY MRS MARSHALL.
Oft has our poet wish’d, this happy
seat
Might prove his fading Muse’s last
retreat:
I wonder’d at his wish, but now
I find
He sought for quiet, and content of mind;
Which noiseful towns, and courts can never
know,
And only in the shades like laurels grow.
Youth, ere it sees the world, here studies
rest,
And age returning thence concludes it
best.
What wonder if we court that happiness
Yearly to share, which hourly you possess;
10
Teaching even you, while the vex’d
world we show,
Your peace to value more, and better know?
’Tis all we can return for favours
past,
Whose holy memory shall ever last;
For patronage from him whose care presides
O’er every noble art, and every
science guides:
Bathurst,[64] a name the learn’d
with reverence know,
And scarcely more to his own Virgil owe;
Whose age enjoys but what his youth deserved,
To rule those Muses whom before he served.
20
His learning, and untainted manners too,
We find, Athenians, are derived to you:
Such ancient hospitality there rests
In yours, as dwelt in the first Grecian
breasts,
Whose kindness was religion to their guests.
Such modesty did to our sex appear,
As, had there been no laws, we need not
fear,
Since each of you was our protector here.
Converse so chaste, and so strict virtue
shown,
As might Apollo with the Muses own.
30
Till our return, we must despair to find
Judges so just, so knowing, and so kind.
* * * * *
[Footnote 64: Dr Ralph Bathurst, President of Trinity College, Oxford.]
* * * * *
Discord and plots, which have undone our
age,
With the same ruin have o’erwhelm’d
the stage.
Our house has suffer’d in the common
woe,
We have been troubled with Scotch rebels
too.
Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed
departed,
And of our sisters, all the kinder-hearted,
To Edinburgh gone, or coach’d, or
carted.
With bonny bluecap there they act all
night
For Scotch half-crown, in English three-pence
hight.
One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff’s
lean, 10
There with her single person fills the
scene.
Another, with long use and age decay’d,
Dived here old woman, and rose there a
maid.
Our trusty doorkeepers of former time
There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme.
Tack but a copper-lace to drugget suit,
And there’s a hero made without
dispute:
And that, which was a capon’s tail
before,
Becomes a plume for Indian emperor.
But all his subjects, to express the care
20
Of imitation, go, like Indians, bare:
Laced linen there would be a dangerous
thing;
It might perhaps a new rebellion bring;
The Scot, who wore it, would be chosen
king.
But why should I these renegades describe,
When you yourselves have seen a lewder
tribe?
Teague has been here, and, to this learned
pit,
With Irish action slander’d English
wit:
You have beheld such barbarous Macs appear,
As merited a second massacre:
30
Such as, like Cain, were branded with
disgrace,
And had their country stamp’d upon
their face.
When strollers durst presume to pick your
purse,
We humbly thought our broken troop not
worse.
How ill soe’er our action may deserve,
Oxford’s a place where wit can never
starve.
* * * * *
Though actors cannot much of learning
boast,
Of all who want it, we admire it most:
We love the praises of a learned pit,
As we remotely are allied to wit.
We speak our poet’s wit, and trade
in ore,
Like those who touch upon the golden shore:
Betwixt our judges can destinction make,
Discern how much, and why, our poems take:
Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
Whether the applause be only sound or
* * * * *
Full twenty years and more, our labouring
stage
Has lost on this incorrigible age:
Our poets, the John Ketches of the nation,
Have seem’d to lash ye, even to
excoriation:
But still no sign remains; which plainly
notes,
You bore like heroes, or you bribed like
Oates.
What can we do, when mimicking a fop,
Like beating nut-trees, makes a larger
crop?
Faith, we’ll e’en spare our
pains! and, to content you,
Will fairly leave you what your Maker
meant you. 10
Satire was once your physic, wit your
food:
One nourish’d not, and t’other
drew no blood:
We now prescribe, like doctors in despair,
The diet your weak appetites can bear.
Since hearty beef and mutton will not
do,
Here’s julep-dance, ptisan of song
and show:
Give you strong sense, the liquor is too
heady:
You’re come to farce,—that’s
asses’ milk,—already.
Some hopeful youths there are, of callow
wit,
Who one day may be men, if Heaven think
fit: 20
Sound may serve such, ere they to sense
are grown,
Like leading-strings till they can walk
alone.
But yet, to keep our friends in countenance,
know,
The wise Italians first invented show:
Thence into France the noble pageant pass’d:
’Tis England’s credit to be
cozen’d last.
Freedom and zeal have choused you o’er
and o’er:
Pray give us leave to bubble you once
more;
You never were so cheaply fool’d
before:
We bring you change, to humour your disease; 30 Change for the worse has ever used to please: Then, ’tis the mode of France; without whose rules None must presume to set up here for fools. In France, the oldest man is always young, Sees operas daily, learns the tunes so long, Till foot, hand, head keep time with every song: Each sings his part, echoing from pit and box, With his hoarse voice, half harmony, half pox: Le plus grand roi du monde is always ringing, They show themselves good subjects by their singing: 40 On that condition, set up every throat: You Whigs may sing, for you have changed your note. Cits and citesses raise a joyful strain, ’Tis a good omen to begin a reign: Voices may help your charter to restoring, And get by singing what you lost by roaring.
* * * * *
After our AEsop’s fable shown to-day,
I come to give the moral of the play.
Feign’d Zeal, you saw, set out the
speedier pace:
But the last heat, Plain Dealing won the
race:
Plain Dealing for a jewel has been known;
But ne’er till now the jewel of
a crown.
When Heaven made man, to show the work
divine,
Truth was His image stamp’d upon
the coin:
And when a king is to a god refined,
On all he says and does he stamps his
mind: 10
This proves a soul without alloy, and
pure;
Kings, like their gold, should every touch
endure.
To dare in fields is valour; but how few
Dare be so thoroughly valiant,—to
be true!
The name of great let other kings affect:
He’s great indeed, the prince that
is direct.
His subjects know him now, and trust him
more
Than all their kings, and all their laws
before.
What safety could their public acts afford?
Those he can break; but cannot break his
word. 20
So great a trust to him alone was due;
Well have they trusted whom so well they
knew.
The saint, who walk’d on waves,
securely trod,
While he believed the beckoning of his
God:
But when his faith no longer bore him
out,
Began to sink, as he began to doubt.
Let us our native character maintain;
’Tis of our growth to be sincerely
plain.
To excel in truth we loyally may strive,
Set privilege against prerogative:
30
He plights his faith, and we believe him
just;
His honour is to promise, ours to trust.
Thus Britain’s basis on a word is
laid,
As by a word the world itself was made.
* * * * *
BY LODOWICK CARLELL, ESQ., 1690.
SPOKEN BY MR HART.
With sickly actors and an old house too,
We’re match’d with glorious
theatres and new;
And with our alehouse scenes, and clothes
bare worn,
Can neither raise old plays, nor new adorn.
If all these ills could not undo us quite,
A brisk French troop is grown your dear
delight;
Who with broad bloody bills call you each
day
To laugh and break your buttons at their
play;
Or see some serious piece, which we presume
Is fallen from some incomparable plume;
10
And therefore, Messieurs, if you’ll
do us grace,
Send lackeys early to preserve your place.
We dare not on your privilege intrench,
Or ask you why you like them? they are
French.
Therefore some go, with courtesy exceeding,
Neither to hear nor see, but show their
breeding:
Each lady striving to out-laugh the rest;
To make it seem they understood the jest.
Their countrymen come in, and nothing
pay,
To teach us English where to clap the
play: 20
Civil, egad! our hospitable land
Bears all the charge, for them to understand:
Mean time we languish and neglected lie,
Like wives, while you keep better company;
And wish for your own sakes, without a
satire,
You’d less good breeding, or had
more good nature.
* * * * *
SPOKEN BY A WOMAN.
The judge removed, though he’s no
more my lord,
May plead at bar, or at the council board:
So may cast poets write; there’s
no pretension
To argue loss of wit from loss of pension.
Your looks are cheerful; and in all this
place
I see not one that wears a damning face.
The British nation is too brave to show
Ignoble vengeance on a vanquish’d
foe.
At last be civil to the wretch imploring;
And lay your paws upon him without roaring.
10
Suppose our poet was your foe before,
Yet now, the business of the field is
o’er;
’Tis time to let your civil wars
alone,
When troops are into winter quarters gone.
Jove was alike to Latian and to Phrygian;
And you well know, a play’s of no
religion.
Take good advice, and please yourselves
this day;
No matter from what hands you have the
play.
Among good fellows every health will pass,
That serves to carry round another glass:
20
When with full bowls of Burgundy you dine,
Though at the mighty monarch you repine,
You grant him still Most Christian in
his wine.
Thus far the poet; but his
brains grow addle,
And all the rest is purely from his noddle.
You have seen young ladies at the senate
door
Prefer petitions, and your grace implore;
However grave the legislators were,
Their cause went ne’er the worse
for being fair.
Reasons as weak as theirs, perhaps, I
bring; 30
But I could bribe you with as good a thing.
I heard him make advances of good nature;
That he, for once, would sheath his cutting
satire.
Sign but his peace, he vows he’ll
ne’er again
The sacred names of fops and beaux profane.
Strike up the bargain quickly; for I swear,
As times go now, he offers very fair.
Be not too hard on him with statutes neither;
Be kind; and do not set your teeth together,
To stretch the laws, as cobblers do their
leather. 40
Horses by Papists are not to be ridden,
But sure the Muses’ horse was ne’er
forbidden;
For in no rate-book it was ever found
That Pegasus was valued at five pound;
Fine him to daily drudging and inditing:
And let him pay his taxes out in writing.
* * * * *
BY BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON. 1690.
What Nostradame, with all his art, can
guess
The fate of our approaching Prophetess?
A play which, like a perspective set right,
Presents our vast expenses close to sight;
But turn the tube, and there we sadly
view
Our distant gains; and those uncertain
too:
A sweeping tax, which on ourselves we
raise,
And all, like you, in hopes of better
days;
When will our losses warn us to be wise?
Our wealth decreases, and our charges
rise. 10
Money, the sweet allurer of our hopes,
Ebbs out in oceans, and comes in by drops;
We raise new objects to provoke delight,
But you grow sated ere the second sight.
False men, e’en so you serve your
mistresses:
They rise three storeys in their towering
dress;
And, after all, you love not long enough
To pay the rigging, ere you leave them
off.
Never content with what you had before,
But true to change, and Englishmen all
o’er. 20
Now honour calls you hence; and all your
care
Is to provide the horrid pomp of war.
In plume and scarf, jack-boots, and Bilbo
blade,
Your silver goes, that should support
our trade.
Go, unkind heroes![66] leave our stage
to mourn,
Till rich from vanquished rebels you return;
And the fat spoils of Teague in triumph
draw,
His firkin-butter, and his usquebaugh.
Go, conquerors of your male and female
foes!
* * * * *
[Footnote 65: This prologue was forbid by the Earl of Dorset, then Lord Chamberlain, after the first day of its being spoken.]
[Footnote 66: King William was at this time prosecuting the war in Ireland.]
* * * * *
BY JOSEPH HARRIS, COMEDIAN, 1690. (WRITTEN BY SOME OTHER.)
Enter Mr Bright.
Gentlemen, we must beg your pardon; here’s no Prologue to be had to-day; our new play is like to come on, without a frontispiece; as bald as one of you young beaux, without your periwig. I left our young poet, snivelling and sobbing behind the scenes, and cursing somebody that has deceived him.
Enter Mr Bowen.
Hold your prating to the audience: here is honest Mr Williams,
just come in, half mellow, from the Rose Tavern. He swears he is
inspired with claret, and will come on, and that extempore too,
either with a prologue of his own or something like one. Oh,
here he comes to his trial, at all adventures: for my part I
wish him a good deliverance.
[Exeunt Mr Bright and Mr Bowen.
Enter Mr Williams.
Save ye, sirs, save ye! I am in a hopeful way.
I should speak something in rhyme, now, for the play:
But the deuce take me, if I know what to say.
I’ll stick to my friend the author, that I can tell ye,
To the last drop of claret in my belly.
So far I’m sure ’tis rhyme—thatPage 89
needs no granting:
And, if my verses’ feet stumble—you see my own are wanting.
Our young poet has brought a piece of work,
In which, though much of art there does not lurk,
It may hold out three days—and that’s as long as Cork. 10
But for this play (which till I have done, we show not)
What may be its fortune—by the Lord! I know not.
This I dare swear, no malice here is writ:
’Tis innocent of all things—even of wit.
He’s no highflier—he makes no sky-rockets,
His squibs are only levell’d at your pockets.
And if his crackers light among your pelf,
You are blown up; if not, then he’s blown up himself.
By this time, I’m something recover’d of my fluster’d madness:
And now, a word or two in sober sadness. 20
Ours is a common play; and you pay down
A common harlot’s price—just half-a-crown.
You’ll say, I play the pimp, on my friend’s score;
But since ’tis for a friend your gibes give o’er:
For many a mother has done that before.
How’s this? you cry; an actor write?—we know it;
But Shakspeare was an actor, and a poet.
Has not great Jonson’s learning often fail’d?
But Shakspeare’s greater genius still prevail’d.
Have not some writing actors, in this age, 30
Deserved and found success upon the stage?
To tell the truth, when our old wits are tired,
Not one of us but means to be inspired.
Let your kind presence grace our homely cheer;
Peace and the butt is all our business here:
So much for that;—and the devil take small beer.
* * * * *
SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON.
Sure there’s a dearth of wit in
this dull town,
When silly plays so savourily go down;
As, when clipt money passes, ’tis
a sign
A nation is not over-stock’d with
coin.
Happy is he who, in his own defence,
Can write just level to your humble sense;
Who higher than your pitch can never go;
And, doubtless, he must creep, who writes
below.
So have I seen, in hall of knight, or
lord,
A weak arm throw on a long shovel-board;
10
He barely lays his piece, bar rubs and
knocks,
Secured by weakness not to reach the box.
A feeble poet will his business do,
Who, straining all he can, comes up to
you:
For, if you like yourselves, you like
him too.
An ape his own dear image will embrace;
An ugly beau adores a hatchet face:
So, some of you, on pure instinct of nature,
Are led, by kind, to admire your fellow-creature.
In fear of which, our house has sent this
day, 20
To insure our new-built vessel, call’d
a play;
No sooner named, than one cries out, These
* * * * *
To say, this comedy pleased long ago,
Is not enough to make it pass you now.
Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit;
When few men censured, and when fewer
writ.
And Jonson, of those few the best, chose
this
As the best model of his masterpiece.
Subtle was got by our Albumazar,
That Alchymist by this Astrologer;
Here he was fashion’d, and we may
suppose
He liked the fashion well, who wore the
clothes. 10
But Ben made nobly his what he did mould;
What was another’s lead becomes
his gold:
Like an unrighteous conqueror he reigns,
Yet rules that well which he unjustly
gains.
By this our age such authors does afford,
As make whole plays, and yet scarce write
one word:
Who, in his anarchy of wit, rob all,
And what’s their plunder, their
possession call:
Who, like bold padders, scorn by night
to prey,
But rob by sunshine, in the face of day:
20
Nay, scarce the common ceremony use
Of, Stand, sir, and deliver up your Muse;
But knock the Poet down, and, with a grace,
Mount Pegasus before the owner’s
face.
Faith, if you have such country Toms abroad,
’Tis time for all true men to leave
that road.
Yet it were modest, could it but be said,
* * * * *
[Footnote 67: An old play written by one Tomkins, four years, however, after Jonson’s “Alchymist,” and resuscitated in 1668.]
* * * * *
AN EPILOGUE.
You saw our wife was chaste, yet thoroughly
tried,
And, without doubt, ye are hugely edified;
For, like our hero, whom we show’d
to-day,
You think no woman true, but in a play.
Love once did make a pretty kind of show:
Esteem and kindness in one breast would
grow:
But ’twas Heaven knows how many
years ago.
Now some small chat, and guinea expectation,
Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation:
In comedy your little selves you meet;
10
’Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges
Street.
Smile on our author then, if he has shown
A jolly nut-brown bastard of your own.
Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight,
Who act those follies, Poets toil to write!
The sweating Muse does almost leave the
chase;
She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean
vices pace.
Pinch you but in one vice, away you fly
To some new frisk of contrariety.
You roll like snow-balls, gathering as
you run, 20
And get seven devils, when dispossess’d
of one.
Your Venus once was a Platonic queen;
Nothing of love beside the face was seen;
But every inch of her you now uncase,
And clap a vizard-mask upon the face.
For sins like these, the zealous of the
land,
With little hair, and little or no band,
Declare how circulating pestilences
Watch, every twenty years, to snap offences.
* * * * *
BY MR JOHN DRYDEN, JUN., 1696.[68]
Like some raw sophister that mounts the
pulpit,
So trembles a young Poet at a full pit.
Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for
fear,
And wonders how the devil he durst come
there;
Wanting three talents needful for the
place—
Some beard, some learning, and some little
grace.
Nor is the puny Poet void of care;
For authors, such as our new authors are,
Have not much learning, nor much wit to
spare:
And as for grace, to tell the truth, there’s
scarce one 10
But has as little as the very Parson:
Both say, they preach and write for your
instruction:
But ’tis for a third day, and for
induction.
The difference is, that though you like
the play,
The Poet’s gain is ne’er beyond
his day.
But with the Parson ’tis another
case,
He, without holiness, may rise to grace.
The Poet has one disadvantage more,
That if his play be dull, he’s damn’d
all o’er,
Not only a damn’d blockhead, but
damn’d poor. 20
But dulness well becomes the sable garment;
I warrant that ne’er spoil’d
a Priest’s perferment:
Wit’s not his business, and as wit
now goes,
Sirs, ’tis not so much yours as
you suppose,
For you like nothing now but nauseous
beaux.
You laugh not, gallants, as by proof appears,
At what his beauship says, but what he
wears;
So ’tis your eyes are tickled, not
your ears.
The tailor and the furrier find the stuff,
The wit lies in the dress, and monstrous
muff. 30
The truth on ’t is, the payment
of the pit
Is like for like, clipt money for clipt
wit.
You cannot from our absent author hope
He should equip the stage with such a
fop:
Fools change in England, and new fools
arise,
For though the immortal species never
dies,
Yet every year new maggots make new flies;
But where he lives abroad, he scarce can
find
One fool for millions that he left behind.
* * * * *
[Footnote 68: ‘John Dryden, jun.’: second son of the poet, who was at Rome when this play was brought out.]
* * * * *
BY BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
REVIVED FOR OUR AUTHOR’S BENEFIT, ANNO 1700.
How wretched is the fate of those who
write!
Brought muzzled to the stage, for fear
they bite.
Where, like Tom Dove, they stand the common
foe;
Lugg’d by the critic, baited by
the beau.
Yet worse, their brother poets damn the
play,
And roar the loudest, though they never
pay.
The fops are proud of scandal, for they
cry,
At every lewd, low character,—That’s
I.
He who writes letters to himself would
swear,
The world forgot him, if he was not there.
10
What should a poet do? ’Tis
hard for one
To pleasure all the fools that would be
shown:
And yet not two in ten will pass the town.
Most coxcombs are not of the laughing
kind;
More goes to make a fop, than fops can
find.
Quack Maurus,[69] though he
never took degrees
In either of our universities,
Yet to be shown by some kind wit he looks,
Because he play’d the fool, and
writ three books.
But, if he would be worth a Poet’s
pen, 20
He must be more a fool, and write again:
For all the former fustian stuff he wrote
Was dead-born doggerel, or is quite forgot:
His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe,
Is just the proverb, and as poor as Job.
One would have thought he could no longer
jog;
But Arthur was a level, Job’s a
bog.
There, though he crept, yet still he kept
in sight;
But here, he founders in, and sinks down
right,
Had he prepared us, and been dull by rule,
30
Tobit had first been turn’d to ridicule:
But our bold Briton, without fear or awe,
O’erleaps at once the whole Apocrypha;
Invades the Psalms with rhymes, and leaves
no room
For any Vandal Hopkins yet to come.
But when if, after all, this
godly gear
Is not so senseless as it would appear;
Our mountebank has laid a deeper train,
His cant, like Merry-Andrew’s noble
vein,
Cat-calls the sects to draw them in again.
40
At leisure hours, in epic song he deals,
Writes to the rumbling of his coach’s
wheels,
Prescribes in haste, and seldom kills
by rule,
But rides triumphant between stool and
stool.
Well, let him go; ’tis
yet too early day,
To get himself a place in farce or play.
We know not by what name we should arraign
him,
For no one category can contain him;
A pedant, canting preacher, and a quack,
Are load enough to break one ass’s
back: 50
At last, grown wanton, he presumed to
write,
Traduced two kings, their kindness to
requite;
One made the doctor, and one dubb’d
the knight.
* * * * *
[Footnote 69: ‘Quack Maurus:’ Sir Richard Blackmore.]
* * * * *
Perhaps the parson[70] stretch’d
a point too far,
When with our Theatres he waged a war.
He tells you, that this very moral age
Received the first infection from the
stage.
But sure, a banish’d court, with
lewdness fraught,
The seeds of open vice, returning, brought.
Thus lodged (as vice by great example
thrives)
It first debauch’d the daughters
and the wives.
London, a fruitful soil, yet never bore
So plentiful a crop of horns before.
10
The poets, who must live by courts, or
starve,
Were proud so good a government to serve:
And, mixing with buffoons and pimps profane,
Tainted the stage, for some small snip
of gain.
For they, like harlots under bawds profess’d,
Took all the ungodly pains, and got the
least.
Thus did the thriving malady prevail:
The court, its head, the poets but the
tail.
The sin was of our native growth, ’tis
true;
The scandal of the sin was wholly new.
20
Misses they were, but modestly conceal’d;
Whitehall the naked Venus first reveal’d,
Who, standing as at Cyprus, in her shrine,
The strumpet was adored with rites divine.
Ere this, if saints had any secret motion,
’Twas chamber-practice all, and
close devotion.
I pass the peccadilloes of their time;
Nothing but open lewdness was a crime.
A monarch’s blood was venial to
the nation,
Compared with one foul act of fornication.
30
Now, they would silence us, and shut the
door,
That let in all the barefaced vice before.
As for reforming us, which some pretend,
That work in England is without an end:
Well may we change, but we shall never
mend.
Yet, if you can but bear the present Stage,
We hope much better of the coming age.
What would you say, if we should first
begin
To stop the trade of love behind the scene,
Where actresses make bold with married
men? 40
For while abroad so prodigal the dolt
is,
Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt
is.
In short, we’ll grow as moral as
we can,
Save here and there a woman or a man:
But neither you, nor we, with all our
pains,
Can make clean work; there will be some
remains,
While you have still your Oates, and we
our Haines.
* * * * *
[Footnote 70: ‘Parson:’ Jeremy Collier.]
* * * * *
TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ORMOND.
Anno 1699.
My Lord,—Some estates are held in England by paying a fine at the change of every lord: I have enjoyed the patronage of your family, from the time of your excellent grandfather to this present day. I have dedicated the translation of the “Lives of Plutarch” to the first Duke; and have celebrated the memory of your heroic father. Though I am very short of the age of Nestor, yet I have lived to a third generation of your house; and by your Grace’s favour am admitted still to hold from you by the same tenure.
I am not vain enough to boast that I have deserved the value of so illustrious a line; but my fortune is the greater, that for three descents they have been pleased to distinguish my poems from those of other men; and have accordingly made me their peculiar care. May it be permitted me to say, that, as your grandfather and father were cherished and adorned with honours by two successive monarchs, so I have been esteemed and patronised by the grandfather, the father, and the son, descended from one of the most ancient, most conspicuous, and most deserving families in Europe?
It is true, that by delaying the payment of my last fine, when it was due by your Grace’s accession to the titles and patrimonies of your house, I may seem, in rigour of law, to have made a forfeiture of my claim; yet my heart has always been devoted to your service; and since you have been graciously pleased, by your permission of this address, to accept the tender of my duty, it is not yet too late to lay these poems at your feet.
The world is sensible that you worthily succeed, not only to the honours of your ancestors, but also to their virtues. The long chain of magnanimity, courage, easiness of access, and desire of doing good even to the prejudice of your fortune, is so far from being broken in your Grace, that the precious metal yet runs pure to the newest link of it; which I will not call the last, because I hope and pray it may descend to late posterity: and your flourishing youth, and that of your excellent Duchess, are happy omens of my wish. It is observed by Livy and by others, that some of the noblest Roman families retained a resemblance of their ancestry, not only in their shapes and features, but also in their manners, their qualities, and the distinguishing characters of their minds. Some lines were noted for a stern, rigid virtue, savage, haughty, parsimonious, and unpopular: others were more sweet and affable, made of a more pliant paste, humble, courteous, and obliging, studious of doing charitable offices, and diffusive of the goods which they enjoyed. The last of these is the proper and indelible character of your Grace’s family. God Almighty has endued you with a softness, a beneficence, an attractive behaviour winning on the hearts of others;
You are so easy of access, that Poplicola was not more, whose doors were opened on the outside to save the people even the common civility of asking entrance; where all were equally admitted—where nothing that was reasonable was denied—where misfortune was a powerful recommendation, and where (I can scarce forbear saying) that want itself was a powerful mediator, and was next to merit.
The history of Peru assures us, that their Incas, above all their titles esteemed that the highest which called them Lovers of the Poor—a name more glorious than the Felix, Pius, and Augustus of the Roman emperors, which were epithets of flattery, deserved by few of them, and not running in a blood like the perpetual gentleness and inherent goodness of the Ormond family.
Gold, as it is the purest, so it is the softest and most ductile of all metals. Iron, which is the hardest, gathers rust, corrodes itself, and is therefore subject to corruption; it was never intended for coins and medals, or to bear the faces and inscriptions of the great. Indeed, it is fit for armour, to bear off insults, and preserve the wearer in the day of battle; but the danger once repelled, it is laid aside by the brave, as a garment too rough for civil conversation; a necessary guard in war, but too harsh and cumbersome in peace, and which keeps off the embraces of a more humane life.
For this reason, my Lord, though you have courage in an heroical degree, yet I ascribe it to you but as your second attribute: mercy, beneficence, and compassion claim precedence, as they are first in the Divine nature. An intrepid courage, which is inherent in your Grace, is at best but a holiday kind of virtue, to be seldom exercised, and never but in cases of necessity: affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, I mean good-nature, are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind, and staff of life; neither sighs, nor tears, nor groans, nor curses of the vanquished, follow acts of compassion and of charity, but a sincere pleasure and serenity of mind, in him who performs an action of mercy, which cannot suffer the misfortunes of another without redress, lest they should bring a kind of contagion along with them, and pollute the happiness which he enjoys.
Yet since the perverse tempers of mankind, since oppression on one side, and ambition on the other, are sometimes the unavoidable occasions of war; that courage, that magnanimity, and resolution, which is born with you, cannot be too much commended. And here it grieves me that I am scanted in the pleasure of dwelling on many of your actions; but [Greek: aideomai Troas] is an expression which Tully often uses, when he would do what he dares not, and fears the censure of the Romans.
I have sometimes been forced to amplify on others; but here, where the subject is so fruitful that the harvest overcomes the reaper, I am shortened by my chain, and can only see what is forbidden me to reach, since it is not permitted me to commend you, according to the extent of my wishes, and much less is it in my power to make my commendations equal to your merits. Yet in this frugality of your praises there are some things which I cannot omit without detracting from your character. You have so formed your own education, as enables you to pay the debt you owe your country; or, more properly speaking, both your countries, because you were born, I may almost say, in purple, at the castle of Dublin, when your grandfather was Lord-Lieutenant, and have since been bred in the court of England.
If this address had been in verse, I might have called you, as Claudian calls Mercury, Numen commune, gemino faciens commercia mundo. The better to satisfy this double obligation, you have early cultivated the genius you have to arms, that when the service of Britain or Ireland shall require your courage and your conduct, you may exert them both to the benefit of either country. You began in the Cabinet what you afterwards practised in the Camp; and thus both Lucullas and Caesar (to omit a crowd of shining Romans) formed themselves to war by the study of history, and by the examples of the greatest captains, both of Greece and Italy, before their time. I name those two commanders in particular, because they were better read in chronicle than any of the Roman leaders; and that Lucullus, in particular, having only the theory of war from books, was thought fit, without practice, to be sent into the field against the most formidable enemy of Rome. Tully, indeed, was called the learned consul in derision; but then he was not born a soldier—his head was turned another way; when he read the Tactics, he was thinking on the bar, which was his field of battle. The knowledge of warfare is thrown away on a general who dares not make use of what he knows. I commend it only in a man of courage and resolution: in him it will direct his martial spirit, and teach him the way to the best victories,—which are those which are least bloody, and which, though achieved by the hand, are managed by the head. Science distinguishes a man of honour from one of those athletic brutes whom undeservedly we call heroes. Cursed be the poet who first honoured with that name a mere
If I designed this for a poetical encomium, it were easy to enlarge on so copious a subject; but, confining myself to the severity of truth, and to what is becoming me to say, I must not only pass over many instances of your military skill, but also those of your assiduous diligence in the war, and of your personal bravery, attended with an ardent thirst of honour—a long train of generosity—profuseness of doing good—a soul unsatisfied with all it has done and an unextinguished desire of doing more. But all this is matter for your own historians; I am, as Virgil says, Spatiis exclusus iniquis.
Yet not to be wholly silent of all your charities, I must stay a little on one action, which preferred the relief of others to the consideration of yourself. When, in the battle of Landen, your heat of courage (a fault only pardonable to your youth) had transported you so far before your friends, that they were unable to follow, much less to succour you; when you were not only dangerously, but in all appearance mortally wounded; when in that desperate condition you were made prisoner and carried to Namur, at that time in possession of the French: then it was, my Lord, that you took a considerable part of what was remitted to you of your own revenues, and, as a memorable instance of your heroic charity, put it into the bands of Count Guiscard, who was governor of the place, to be distributed among your fellow-prisoners. The French commander, charmed with the greatness of your soul, accordingly consigned it to the use for which it was intended by the donor; by which means the lives of so many miserable men were saved, and a comfortable provision made for their subsistence, who had otherwise perished, had not you been the companion of their misfortune; or rather sent by Providence, like another Joseph, to keep out famine from invading those whom in humility you called your brethren. How happy was it for those poor creatures that your Grace was made their fellow-sufferer! and how glorious for you that you chose to want rather than not relieve the wants of others! The heathen poet, in commending the charity of Dido to the Trojans, spoke like a Christian: Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco. All men, even those of a different interest, and contrary principles, must praise this action as the most eminent for piety, not only in this degenerate age, but almost in any of the former; when men were made de meliore luto; when examples of charity were frequent, and when there were in being, Teucri pulcherrima proles, magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis. No envy can detract from this: it will shine in history, and, like swans, grow whiter the longer it endures, and the name of ORMOND will be more celebrated in his captivity than in his greatest triumphs.
But all actions of your Grace are of a piece, as waters keep the tenor of their fountains: your compassion is general, and has the same effect as well on enemies as friends. It is so much in your nature to do good, that your life is but one continued act of placing benefits on many, as the sun is always carrying his light to some part or other of the world; and were it not that your reason guides you where to give, I might almost say that you could not help bestowing more than is consisting with the fortune of a private man or with the will of any but an Alexander.
What wonder is it, then, that being born for a blessing to mankind, your supposed death in that engagement was so generally lamented through the nation! The concernment for it was as universal as the loss; and though the gratitude might be counterfeit in some, yet the tears of all were real: where every man deplored his private part in that calamity, and even those who had not tasted of your favours, yet built so much on the fame of your beneficence, that they bemoaned the loss of their expectations.
This brought the untimely death of your great father
into fresh remembrance: as if the same decree
had passed on two short successive generations of
the virtuous; and I repeated to myself the same verses
which I had formerly applied to him: Ostendunt
terris hunc tantum fata, nec ultra esse sinunt.
But to the joy, not only of all good men, but of mankind
in general, the unhappy omen took not place. You
are still living to enjoy the blessings and applause
of all the good you have performed, the prayers of
multitudes whom you have obliged, for your long prosperity;
and that your power of doing generous and charitable
actions may be as extended as your will; which is by
none more zealously desired than by your Grace’s
most humble, most obliged, and most obedient servant,
JOHN
DRYDEN.
* * * * *
PREFACE.
It is with a poet as with a man who designs to build, and is very exact, as he supposes, in casting up the cost beforehand; but, generally speaking, he is mistaken in his account, and reckons short in the expense he first intended. He alters his mind as the work proceeds, and will have this or that convenience more, of which he had not thought when he began. So has it happened to me: I have built a house, where I intended but a lodge; yet with better success than a certain nobleman, who, beginning with a dog-kennel, never lived to finish the palace he had contrived.
From translating the first of Homer’s Iliads (which I intended as an essay to the whole work) I proceeded to the translation of the twelfth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, because it contains, among other things, the causes, the beginning, and ending of the Trojan war. Here I ought in reason to have stopped; but the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses lying next in my way, I could not baulk them.
With this account of my present undertaking, I conclude the first part of this discourse; in the second part, as at a second sitting, though I alter not the draught, I must touch the same features over again, and change the dead colouring of the whole. In general I will only say, that I have written nothing which savours of immorality or profaneness; at least, I am not conscious to myself of any such intention. If there happen to be found an irreverent expression, or a thought too wanton, they are crept into my verses through my inadvertency; if the searchers find any in the cargo, let them be staved or forfeited, like contraband goods; at least, let their authors be answerable for them, as being but imported merchandise, and not of my own manufacture. On the other side, I have endeavoured to choose such fables, both ancient and modern, as contain in each of them some instructive moral, which I could prove by induction; but the way is tedious, and they leap foremost into sight, without the reader’s trouble of looking after them. I wish I could affirm with a safe conscience, that I had taken the same care in all my former writings; for it must be owned, that supposing verses are never so beautiful or pleasing, yet if they contain anything which shocks religion, or good manners, they are at best, what Horace says of good numbers without good sense, Versus inopes rerum, nugaeque canorae. Thus far, I hope, I am right in court, without renouncing my other right of self-defence, where I have been wrongfully accused, and my sense withdrawn into blasphemy or bawdry, as it has often been by a religious lawyer, in a late pleading against the stage, in which he mixes truth with falsehood, and has not forgotten the old rule of calumniating strongly, that something may remain.
I resume the thread of my discourse with the first of my translation, which was the first Iliad of Homer. If it shall please God to give me longer life, and moderate health, my intentions are to translate the whole Ilias; provided still that I meet with those encouragements from the public which may enable me to proceed in my undertaking with some cheerfulness. And this I dare assure the world beforehand, that I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil (though I say not the translation will be less laborious); for the Grecian is more according to my genius, than the Latin poet. In the works of the two authors, we may read their manners and natural inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet, sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words; Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties, both of numbers and of expressions, which his language, and the age in which he lived, allowed him: Homer’s invention was more copious, Virgil’s more confined; so that if Homer had not led the way, it was not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry; for nothing can be more
This is what I thought needful in this place to say of Homer. I proceed to Ovid and Chaucer; considering the former only in relation to the latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue: from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were not unlike: both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings—it may be also in their lives. Their studies were the same—philosophy and philology. Both of them were known in astronomy, of which Ovid’s books of the Roman feasts, and Chaucer’s treatise of the Astrolabe, are sufficient witnesses. But Chaucer was likewise an astrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Persius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness: neither were great inventors; for Ovid only copied the Grecian fables, and most of Chaucer’s stories were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their predecessors. Boccace’s Decameron was first published; and from thence our Englishman has borrowed many of his Canterbury tales; yet that of Palamon and Arcite was written in all probability by some Italian wit, in a former age; as I shall prove hereafter. The tale of Grizzild was the invention of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace; from whom it came to Chaucer. Troilus and Cressida was also written by a Lombard author; but much amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the genius of our countrymen in general being rather to improve an invention, than to invent themselves; as is evident not only in our poetry, but in many of our manufactures. I find
In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense; learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects; as he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off—a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets is sunk in his reputation, because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his way; but swept like a drag-net, great and small. There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill-sorted; whole pyramids of sweetmeats, for boys and women; but little of solid meat, for men. All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment; neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets; but only indulged himself in the luxury of writing; and perhaps knew it was a fault, but hoped the reader would not find it. For this reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer; and for ten impressions, which his works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a twelvemonth: for, as my last Lord Rochester said, though somewhat profanely, not being of God, he could not stand.
Chaucer followed nature everywhere; but was never so bold to go beyond her: and there is a great difference of being Poeta and nimis Poeta, if we believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest behaviour and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us; but it is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was auribus istius temporis accommodata. They who lived with him, and some time after him, thought it musical; and it continues so even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lidgate and Gower, his contemporaries: there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. It is true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him; for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine. But this opinion is not worth confuting; it is so gross and obvious an error, that common sense (which is a rule in every thing but matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader, that equality of numbers in every verse which we call Heroic, was either not known, or not always practised in Chaucer’s age. It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise. We can only say, that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We must be children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of time a Lucilius, and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace; even after Chaucer there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax, before Waller and Denham were in being; and our numbers were in their nonage till these last appeared. I need say little of his parentage, life and fortunes: they are to be found at large in all the editions of his works. He was employed abroad and favoured by Edward the Third, Richard the Second, and Henry the Fourth, and was poet, as I suppose, to all three of them. In Richard’s time, I doubt, he was a little dipt in the rebellion of the commons; and being brother-in-law to John of Gaunt, it was no wonder if he followed the fortunes of that family; and was well with Henry the Fourth when he had deposed his predecessor. Neither is it to be admired, that Henry, who was a wise as well as a valiant prince, who claimed by succession, and was sensible that his title was not sound, but was rightfully in Mortimer, who had married the heir of York; it was not to be admired, I say, if that great politician should be pleased to have the greatest wit of those times in his interests, and to be the trumpet of his praises. Augustus had given him the example, by the advice of Maecenas, who recommended Virgil and Horace to him; whose praises helped to make him popular while he was alive, and after his death have made him precious to posterity. As for the religion of our poet, he seems to have some little bias towards
“But first, I pray you of your courtesy,
That ye ne arrettee it nought my villainy,
Though that I plainly speak in this mattere,
To tellen you her words, and eke her chere:
Ne though I speak her words properly,
For this ye knowen as well as I,
Who shall tellen a tale after a man,
He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can:
Everich word of it been in his charge,
All speke he, never so rudely, ne large.
Or else he mote tellen his tale untrue,
Or feine things, or find words new:
He may not spare, although he were his
brother,
He mote as well say o word as another,
Christ spake himself full broad in holy
writ,
And well I wote no villainy is it;
Eke Plato saith, who so can him rede,
the words mote been cousin to the dede.”
Yet, if a man should have inquired of Boccace or of Chaucer what need they had of introducing such characters, where obscene words were proper in their mouths, but very indecent to be heard,—I know not what answer they could have made; for that reason, such tale shall be left untold by me. You have here a specimen of Chaucer’s language, which is so obsolete, that his sense is scarce to be understood; and you have likewise more than one example of his unequal numbers, which were mentioned before. Yet many of his verses consist of ten syllables, and the words not much behind our present English; as, for example, these two lines in the description of the carpenter’s young wife:
“Wincing she was, as is a jolly
colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.”
I have almost done with Chaucer when I have answered some objections relating to my present work. I find some people are offended that I have turned these tales into modern English, because they think them unworthy of my pains, and look on Chaucer as a dry, old-fashioned wit not worth reviving. I have often heard the late Earl of Leicester say that Mr Cowley himself was of that opinion, who, having read him over at my lord’s request declared he had no taste of him. I dare not advance my opinion against the judgment of so great an author, but I think it fair, however, to leave the decision to the public. Mr Cowley was too modest to set up for a dictator, and being shocked, perhaps, with
“There saw I Dane turned into a
tree,
I mean not the goddess Diane,
But Venus’ daughter, which that
hight Dane:”
Which, after a little consideration, I knew was to be reformed into this sense, that Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was turned into a tree. I durst not make thus bold with Ovid, lest some future Milbourn should arise, and say I varied from my author because I understood him not.
But there are other judges who think I ought not to have translated Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion. They suppose there is a certain veneration due to his old language, and that it is little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are farther of opinion, that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this opinion was that excellent person whom I mentioned, the late Earl of Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr Cowley despised him. My lord dissuaded me from this attempt (for I was thinking of it some years before his death), and his authority prevailed so far with me, as to defer my undertaking while he lived, in deference to him; yet my reason was not convinced with what he urged against
Boccace comes last to be considered, who, living in the same age with Chaucer, had the same genius, and followed the same studies. Both writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue. But the greatest resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar style, and pleasing way of relating comical adventures, I may pass it over, because I have translated nothing from Boccace of that nature. In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer’s side; for though the Englishman has borrowed many tales from the Italian, yet it appears that those of Boccace were not generally of his own making, but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only modelled; so that what there was of invention in either of them may be judged equal. But Chaucer has refined on Boccace, and has mended the stories which he has borrowed, in his way of telling; though prose allows more liberty of thought, and the expression is more easy when unconfined by numbers. Our countryman carries weight, and yet wins the race at disadvantage. I desire not the reader should take my word, and, therefore, I will set two of their discourses on the same subject, in the same light, for every man to judge betwixt them. I translated Chaucer first, and, amongst the rest, pitched on the Wife of Bath’s tale, not daring, as I have said, to adventure on her prologue, because it is too licentious. There Chaucer introduces an old woman of mean parentage, whom a youthful knight of noble blood was forced to marry, and consequently loathed her. The crone being in bed with him on the wedding night, and finding his aversion, endeavours to win his affection by reason, and speaks a good word for herself, (as who could blame her?) in hope to mollify the sullen bridegroom. She takes her topics from the benefits of poverty, the advantages of old age and ugliness, the vanity of youth, and the silly pride of ancestry and titles without inherent virtue, which is the true nobility. When I had closed Chaucer I returned to Ovid and translated some more of his fables, and by this time had so far forgotten the Wife of Bath’s tale, that, when I took up Boccace, unawares I fell on the same argument of preferring virtue to nobility of blood and titles, in the story of Sigismunda, which I had certainly avoided for the resemblance of the two discourses, if my memory had not failed me. Let the reader weigh them both, and if he thinks me partial to Chaucer, it is in him to right Boccace.
I prefer in our countryman, far above all his other stories, the noble poem of Palamon and Arcite, which is of the Epic kind, and perhaps not much inferior to the Ilias, or the AEneis. The story is more pleasing than either of them, the manners as perfect, the diction as poetical, the learning as deep and various, and the disposition full as artful,—only it includes a greater length of time, as taking up seven years at least; but Aristotle has left undecided the duration of the action, which, yet, is easily
As a corollary to this preface, in which I have done justice to others, I owe somewhat to myself: not that I think it worth my time to enter the lists with one Milbourn, and one Blackmore, but barely to take notice, that such men there are, who have written scurrilously against me without any provocation. Milbourn, who is in orders, pretends, amongst the rest, this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood. If I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied that he shall not be able to force himself upon me for an adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If (as they say he has declared in print) he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment: for it is agreed on all hands that he writes even below Ogilby: that, you will say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot Milbourn bring about? I am satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired him underhand to write so ill against me; but upon my honest word I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. ’Tis true, I should be glad, if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another critique on any thing of mine; for I find by experience he has a great stroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my poetry; but nobody will be persuaded to take the same with his. If I had taken to the church (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts), I should have had more sense, if not more grace, than to have turned myself out of my benefice by writing libels on my parishioners. But his account of my manners and my principles are of a piece with his cavils and his poetry; and so I have done with him for ever.
As for the City Bard, or Knight Physician, I hear his quarrel to me is, that I was the author of Absalom and Achitophel, which he thinks is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.
But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the dead; and therefore peace be to the manes of his Arthurs! I will only say, that it was not for this noble knight that I drew the plan of an Epic poem on King Arthur, in my preface to the translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by Entellus. Yet from that preface he plainly took his hint; for he began immediately upon the story, though he had the baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor, but instead of it, to traduce me in a libel.
I shall say the less of Mr Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove, that in many places he has perverted my meaning by his glosses; and interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were not guilty; besides that he is too much given to horse-play in his raillery; and comes to battle like a dictator from the plough. I will not say, the zeal of God’s house has eaten him up; but I am sure it has devoured some part of his good-manners and civility. It might also be doubted whether it were altogether zeal which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding: perhaps it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays: a divine might have employed his pains to better purpose than in the nastiness of Plautus and Aristophanes; whose examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly supposed that he read them not without some pleasure. They who have written commentaries on those poets, or on Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explained some vices, which without their interpretation had been unknown to modern times. Neither has he judged impartially betwixt the former age and us.
There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher’s, called “The Custom of the Country,” than in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted on the stage in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reformed now, than they were five-and-twenty years ago? If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow-poets, though I abandon my own defence. They have some of them answered for themselves, and
—Demetri, teque Tigelli
Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.
* * * * *
WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM OF PALAMON AND ARCITE.
MADAM,
The bard who first adorn’d our native
tongue,
Tuned to his British lyre this ancient
song:
Which Homer might without a blush rehearse,
And leaves a doubtful palm in Virgil’s
verse:
He match’d their beauties, where
they most excel;
Of love sung better, and of arms as well.
Vouchsafe, illustrious Ormond!
to behold
What power the charms of beauty had of
old;
Nor wonder if such deeds of arms were
done,
Inspired by two fair eyes that sparkled
like your own. 10
If Chaucer by the best idea
wrought,
And poets can divine each other’s
thought,
The fairest nymph before his eyes he set;
And then the fairest was Plantagenet;
Who three contending princes made her
prize,
And ruled the rival nations with her eyes:
Who left immortal trophies of her fame,
And to the noblest order gave the name.
Like her, of equal kindred
to the throne,
You keep her conquests, and extend your
own: 20
As when the stars in their ethereal race,
At length have roll’d around the
liquid space,
At certain periods they resume their place;
From the same point of heaven their course
advance,
And move in measures of their former dance;
Thus, after length of ages, she returns,
Restored in you, and the same place adorns;
Or you perform her office in the sphere,
Born of her blood, and make a new Platonic
year.
O true Plantagenet! O race divine!
30
(For beauty still is fatal to the line)
Had Chaucer lived that angel-face to view,
Sure he had drawn his Emily from you;
Or had you lived to judge the doubtful
right,
Your noble Palamon had been the knight;
And conquering Theseus from his side had
sent
Your generous lord, to guide the Theban
government.
Time shall accomplish that; and I shall
see
A Palamon in him, in you an Emily.
Already have the Fates your path prepared,
Now in this interval, which
Fate has cast 90
Betwixt your future glories, and your
past,
This pause of power, ’tis Ireland’s
hour to mourn;
While England celebrates your safe return,
By which you seem the seasons to command,
And bring our summers back to their forsaken
land.
The vanquish’d isle
our leisure must attend,
Till the fair blessing we vouchsafe to
send;
Nor can we spare you long, though often
we may lend.
The dove was twice employ’d abroad,
before
The world was dried, and she return’d
no more. 100
Nor dare we trust so soft
a messenger,
New from her sickness, to that northern
air:
Rest here a while, your lustre to restore,
That they may see you as you shone before;
For yet the eclipse not wholly past, you
wade
Through some remains, and dimness of a
shade.
A subject in his prince may
claim a right,
Nor suffer him with strength impair’d
to fight;
Till force returns, his ardour we restrain,
And curb his warlike wish to cross the
main. 110
Now past the danger, let the
learn’d begin
The inquiry where disease could enter
in;
How those malignant atoms forced their
way;
What in the faultless frame they found
to make their prey,
Where every element was weigh’d
so well,
That Heaven alone, who mix’d the
mass, could tell
Which of the four ingredients could rebel;
And where, imprison’d in so sweet
a cage,
A soul might well be pleased to pass an
age.
And yet the fine materials
made it weak: 120
Porcelain, by being pure, is apt to break:
Even to your breast the sickness durst
aspire;
And, forced from that fair temple to retire,
Profanely set the holy place on fire.
In vain your lord, like young Vespasian,
mourn’d
When the fierce flames the sanctuary burn’d:
And I prepared to pay in verses rude
A most detested act of gratitude:
Even this had been your elegy, which now
Is offer’d for your health, the
table of my vow. 130
Your angel sure our Morley’s
mind inspired,
To find the remedy your ill required;
As once the Macedon, by Jove’s decree,
Was taught to dream an herb for Ptolemy:
Or Heaven, which had such over-cost bestow’d,
As scarce it could afford to flesh and
blood,
So liked the frame, he would not work
anew,
To save the charges of another you.
Or by his middle science did he steer,
And saw some great contingent good appear,
140
Well worth a miracle to keep you here:
And for that end preserved the precious
mould,
Which all the future Ormonds was to hold;
And meditated in his better mind
An heir from you, which may redeem the
failing kind.
Blest be the Power which has
at once restored
The hopes of lost succession to your lord!
Joy to the first and last of each degree—
Virtue to courts, and, what I long’d
to see,
To you the Graces, and the Muse to me!
150
O daughter of the rose! whose cheeks unite
The differing titles of the red and white;
Who Heaven’s alternate beauty well
display,
The blush of morning, and the milky way;
Whose face is Paradise, but fenced from
sin:
For God in either eye has placed a cherubin.
All is your lord’s alone;
even absent, he
Employs the care of chaste Penelope.
For him you waste in tears your widow’d
hours,
For him your curious needle paints the
flowers; 160
Such works of old imperial dames were
taught;
Such, for Ascanius, fair Eliza wrought.
The soft recesses of your hours improve
The three fair pledges of your happy love:
All other parts of pious duty done,
You owe your Ormond nothing but a son;
To fill in future times his father’s
place,
And wear the garter of his mother’s
race.
* * * * *
[Footnote 71: ‘Duchess of Ormond:’ daughter of Duke of Bedford, afterwards Lieutenant of Ireland, and who had recently visited it.]
* * * * *
OR, THE KNIGHT’S TALE.
In days of old, there lived, of mighty
fame,
A valiant prince, and Theseus was his
name:
A chief, who more in feats of arms excell’d,
The rising nor the setting sun beheld.
Of Athens he was lord; much land he won,
And added foreign countries to his crown.
In Scythia with the warrior queen he strove,
Whom first by force he conquer’d,
then by love;
He brought in triumph back the beauteous
dame,
With whom her sister, fair Emilia, came.
10
With honour to his home let Theseus ride,
With love to friend, and fortune for his
guide,
And his victorious army at his side.
I pass their warlike pomp, their proud
array,
Their shouts, their songs, their welcome
on the way.
But, were it not too long, I would recite
The feats of Amazons, the fatal fight
Betwixt the hardy queen and hero knight;
The town besieged, and how much blood
it cost
The female army, and the Athenian host;
20
The spousals of Hippolita the queen;
What tilts and tourneys at the feast were
seen;
The storm at their return, the ladies’
fear:
But these, and other things, I must forbear.
The field is spacious I design to sow,
With oxen far unfit to draw the plough:
The remnant of my tale is of a length
To tire your patience, and to waste my
strength;
And trivial accidents shall be forborne,
That others may have time to take their
turn; 30
As was at first enjoin’d us by mine
host:
That he whose tale is best, and pleases
most,
Should win his supper at our common cost.
And therefore where I left,
I will pursue
This ancient story, whether false or true,
In hope it may be mended with a new.
The prince I mention’d, full of
high renown,
In this array drew near the Athenian town;
When in his pomp and utmost of his pride,
Marching he chanced to cast his eye aside,
40
And saw a choir of mourning dames, who
lay
By two and two across the common way:
At his approach they raised a rueful cry,
And beat their breasts, and held their
hands on high,
Creeping and crying, till they seized
at last
His courser’s bridle, and his feet
embraced.
Tell me, said Theseus, what and whence
you are,
And why this funeral pageant you prepare?
Is this the welcome of my worthy deeds,
To meet my triumph in ill-omen’d
weeds? 50
Or envy you my praise, and would destroy
With grief my pleasures, and pollute my
joy?
Or are you injured, and demand relief?
Name your request, and I will ease your
grief.
The most in years of all the
mourning train
Began; but swooned first away for pain,
Then scarce recover’d spoke:
Nor envy we
Thy great renown, nor grudge thy victory;
’Tis thine, O king, the afflicted
to redress,
And fame has fill’d the world with
thy success: 60
We wretched women sue for that alone,
Which of thy goodness is refused to none;
Let fall some drops of pity on our grief,
If what we beg be just, and we deserve
relief:
For none of us, who now thy grace implore,
But held the rank of sovereign queen before;
Till, thanks to giddy chance, which never
bears,
That mortal bliss should last for length
of years,
She cast us headlong from our high estate,
And here in hope of thy return we wait:
70
And long have waited in the temple nigh,
Built to the gracious goddess Clemency.
But reverence thou the Power whose name
it bears,
Relieve the oppress’d, and wipe
the widow’s tears.
I, wretched I, have other fortune seen,
The wife of Capaneus, and once a queen:
At Thebes he fell; cursed be the fatal
day!
And all the rest thou seest in this array,
To make their moan, their lords in battle
lost
Before that town besieged by our confederate
host: 80
But Creon, old and impious, who commands
The Theban city, and usurps the lands,
Denies the rites of funeral fires to those
Whose breathless bodies yet he calls his
foes.
Unburn’d, unburied, on a heap they
lie;
Such is their fate, and such his tyranny;
No friend has leave to bear away the dead,
But with their lifeless limbs his hounds
are fed.
At this she shriek’d aloud; the
mournful train
Echoed her grief, and grovelling on the
plain, 90
With groans, and hands upheld, to move
his mind,
Besought his pity to their helpless kind!
The prince was touch’d,
his tears began to flow,
And, as his tender heart would break in
two,
He sigh’d, and could not but their
fate deplore,
So wretched now, so fortunate before.
Then lightly from his lofty steed he flew,
And, raising one by one the suppliant
crew,
To comfort each full solemnly he swore,
That by the faith which knights to knighthood
bore, 100
And whate’er else to chivalry belongs,
He would not cease, till he revenged their
wrongs:
That Greece should see perform’d
what he declared;
And cruel Creon find his just reward.
He said no more, but, shunning all delay,
Rode on; nor enter’d Athens on his
way:
But left his sister and his queen behind,
And waved his royal banner in the wind:
Where in an argent field the god of war
Was drawn triumphant on his iron car;
110
Red was his sword, and shield, and whole
attire,
And all the godhead seem’d to glow
with fire;
Even the ground glitter’d where
the standard flew,
And the green grass was dyed to sanguine
hue.
High on his pointed lance his pennon bore
His Cretan fight, the conquer’d
Minotaur:
The soldiers shout around with generous
rage,
And in that victory their own presage.
He praised their ardour: inly pleased
to see
His host the flower of Grecian chivalry,
120
All day he march’d, and all the
ensuing night,
And saw the city with returning light.
The process of the war I need not tell,
How Theseus conquer’d, and how Creon
fell:
Or after, how by storm the walls were
won,
Or how the victor sack’d and burn’d
the town:
How to the ladies he restored again
The bodies of their lords in battle slain:
And with what ancient rites they were
interr’d;
All these to fitter times shall be deferr’d.
130
I spare the widows’ tears, their
woeful cries,
And howling at their husbands’ obsequies;
How Theseus at these funerals did assist,
And with what gifts the mourning dames
dismiss’d.
Thus when the victor chief
had Creon slain,
And conquer’d Thebes, he pitch’d
upon the plain
His mighty camp, and, when the day return’d,
The country wasted, and the hamlets burn’d,
And left the pillagers, to rapine bred,
Without control to strip and spoil the
dead. 140
There, in a heap of slain,
among the rest
Two youthful knights they found beneath
a load oppress’d
Of slaughter’d foes, whom first
to death they sent—
The trophies of their strength, a bloody
monument.
Both fair, and both of royal blood they
seem’d,
Whom kinsmen to the crown the heralds
deem’d;
That day in equal arms they fought for
fame;
Their swords, their shields, their surcoats
were the same.
Thus year by year they pass,
and day by day,
Till once, ’twas on the morn of
cheerful May,
The young Emilia, fairer to be seen
170
Than the fair lily on the flowery green,
More fresh than May herself in blossoms
new,
For with the rosy colour strove her hue,
Waked, as her custom was, before the day,
To do the observance due to sprightly
May:
For sprightly May commands our youth to
keep
The vigils of her night, and breaks their
sluggard sleep;
Each gentle breast with kindly warmth
she moves;
Inspires new flames, revives extinguish’d
loves.
In this remembrance, Emily, ere day,
180
Arose, and dress’d herself in rich
array;
Fresh as the month, and as the morning
fair:
Adown her shoulders fell her length of
hair:
A riband did the braided tresses bind,
The rest was loose and wanton’d
in the wind.
Aurora had but newly chased the night,
And purpled o’er the sky with blushing
light,
When to the garden walk she took her way,
To sport and trip along in cool of day,
And offer maiden vows in honour of the
May. 190
At every turn, she made a
little stand,
And thrust among the thorns her lily hand
To draw the rose, and every rose she drew
She shook the stalk, and brush’d
away the dew:
Then party-colour’d flowers of white
and red
She wove, to make a garland for her head:
This done, she sung and caroll’d
out so clear,
That men and angels might rejoice to hear:
Even wondering Philomel forgot to sing;
And learn’d from her to welcome
in the spring. 200
The tower, of which before was mention
made,
Within whose keep the captive knights
were laid,
Built of a large extent, and strong withal,
Was one partition of the palace wall;
The garden was enclosed within the square
Where young Emilia took the morning air.
It happen’d Palamon,
the prisoner knight,
Restless for woe, arose before the light,
And with his jailer’s leave desired
to breathe
An air more wholesome than the damps beneath.
210
This granted, to the tower he took his
way,
Cheer’d with the promise of a glorious
day:
Then cast a languishing regard around,
And saw, with hateful eyes, the temples
crown’d
With golden spires, and all the hostile
ground.
He sigh’d, and turn’d his
eyes, because he knew
’Twas but a larger jail he had in
view:
Then look’d below, and from the
castle’s height
Beheld a nearer and more pleasing sight:
The garden, which before he had not seen,
220
In spring’s new livery clad of white
and green,
Fresh flowers in wide parterres, and shady
walks between.
This view’d, but not enjoy’d,
with arms across
He stood, reflecting on his country’s
loss;
Himself an object of the public scorn,
And often wish’d he never had been
born.
At last, for so his destiny required,
With walking giddy, and with thinking
tired,
He through a little window cast his sight,
Though thick of bars, that gave a scanty
light: 230
But even that glimmering served him to
descry
The inevitable charms of Emily.
Scarce had he seen, but seized
with sudden smart,
Stung to the quick, he felt it at his
heart;
Struck blind with overpowering light he
stood,
Then started back amazed, and cried aloud.
Young Arcite heard; and up
he ran with haste,
To help his friend, and in his arms embraced;
And ask’d him why he look’d
so deadly wan,
And whence and how his change of cheer
began? 240
Or who had done the offence? But
if, said he,
Your grief alone is hard captivity;
For love of Heaven, with patience undergo
A cureless ill, since Fate will have it
so:
So stood our horoscope in chains to lie,
And Saturn in the dungeon of the sky,
Or other baleful aspect, ruled our birth,
When all the friendly stars were under
earth:
Whate’er betides, by Destiny ’tis
done;
And better bear like men, than vainly
seek to shun. 250
Nor of my bonds, said Palamon again,
Nor of unhappy planets I complain;
But when my mortal anguish caused my cry,
That moment I was hurt through either
eye;
Pierced with a random shaft, I faint away,
And perish with insensible decay;
A glance of some new goddess gave the
wound,
Whom, like Actaeon, unaware I found.
Look how she walks along yon shady space!
Not Juno moves with more majestic grace;
260
And all the Cyprian queen is in her face.
If thou art Venus (for thy charms confess
That face was form’d in heaven,
nor art thou less
Thus Palamon: but Arcite
with disdain
In haughty language thus replied again:
Forsworn thyself: the traitor’s
odious name
I first return, and then disprove thy
claim.
If love be passion, and that passion nursed
With strong desires, I loved the lady
first.
Canst thou pretend desire, whom zeal inflamed
To worship, and a power celestial named?
Thine was devotion to the blest above,
I saw the woman and desired her love;
320
Like AEsop’s hounds
contending for the bone,
Each pleaded right, and would be lord
alone:
The fruitless fight continued all the
day;
A cur came by, and snatch’d the
prize away.
As courtiers, therefore, jostle for a
grant,
And when they break their friendship,
plead their want;
So thou, if fortune will thy suit advance,
Love on, nor envy me my equal chance;
For I must love, and am resolved to try
350
My fate, or, failing in the adventure,
die.
Great was their strife, which
hourly was renew’d,
Till each with mortal hate his rival view’d;
Now friends no more, nor walking hand
in hand;
But when they met, they made a surly stand;
And glared like angry lions as they pass’d,
And wish’d that every look might
be their last.
It chanced at length, Pirithous
came to attend
This worthy Theseus, his familiar friend:
Their love in early infancy began,
360
And rose as childhood ripen’d into
man.
Companions of the war; and loved so well,
That when one died, as ancient stories
tell,
His fellow to redeem him went to Hell.
But to pursue my tale; to
welcome home
His warlike brother is Pirithous come:
Arcite of Thebes was known in arms long
since,
And honour’d by this young Thessalian
prince.
Theseus, to gratify his friend and guest,
Who made our Arcite’s freedom his
request, 370
Restored to liberty the captive knight,
But on these hard conditions I recite:
That if hereafter Arcite should be found
Within the compass of Athenian ground,
By day or night, or on whate’er
pretence,
His head should pay the forfeit of the
offence.
To this Pirithous for his friend agreed,
And on his promise was the prisoner freed.
Unpleased and pensive hence
he takes his way,
At his own peril; for his life must pay.
380
Who now but Arcite mourns his bitter fate,
Finds his dear purchase, and repents too
late?
What have I gain’d, he said, in
prison pent,
If I but change my bonds for banishment?
And banish’d from her sight, I suffer
more
In freedom than I felt in bonds before;
Forced from her presence, and condemn’d
to live:
Unwelcome freedom, and unthank’d
reprieve!
Heaven is not, but where Emily abides,
And where she’s absent, all is hell
besides. 390
Next to my day of birth, was that accursed,
Which bound my friendship to Pirithous
first:
Had I not known that prince, I still had
been
In bondage, and had still Emilia seen:
For though I never can her grace deserve,
’Tis recompence enough to see and
serve.
O Palamon, my kinsman and my friend,
How much more happy fates thy love attend!
Thine is the adventure; thine the victory:
Well has thy fortune turn’d the
dice for thee: 400
Thou on that angel’s face may’st
feed thine eyes,
In prison, no; but blissful paradise!
Thou daily seest that sun of beauty shine,
And lovest at least in love’s extremest
line.
I mourn in absence, love’s eternal
night;
And who can tell but since thou hast her
sight,
And art a comely, young, and valiant knight,
Fortune (a various power) may cease to
frown,
And by some ways unknown thy wishes crown?
But I, the most forlorn of human kind,
410
Nor help can hope, nor remedy can find;
But doom’d to drag my loathsome
life in care,
For my reward, must end it in despair.
Fire, water, air, and earth, and force
of fates,
That governs all, and Heaven that all
creates,
Nor art, nor nature’s hand can ease
my grief;
Nothing but death, the wretch’s
last relief:
Then farewell youth, and all the joys
that dwell,
With youth and life, and life itself farewell!
But why, alas! do mortal men
in vain 420
Of fortune, fate, or Providence complain?
God gives us what he knows our wants require,
And better things than those which we
desire:
Some pray for riches; riches they obtain;
But, watch’d by robbers, for their
wealth are slain:
Some pray from prison to be freed; and
come,
When guilty of their vows, to fall at
home;
Murder’d by those they trusted with
their life,
A favour’d servant, or a bosom wife.
Such dear-bought blessings happen every
day, 430
Because we know not for what things to
pray.
Like drunken sots about the street we
roam;
Well knows the sot he has a certain home;
Yet knows not how to find the uncertain
place,
Thus Arcite; but if Arcite
thus deplore
His sufferings, Palamon yet suffers more.
For when he knew his rival freed and gone,
He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous
moan:
He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps
the ground;
The hollow tower with clamours rings around:
With briny tears he bathed his fetter’d
feet,
And dropp’d all o’er with
agony of sweat.
Alas! he cried, I wretch in prison pine,
450
Too happy rival, while the fruit is thine:
Thou livest at large, thou draw’st
thy native air,
Pleased with thy freedom, proud of my
despair:
Thou may’st, since thou hast youth
and courage join’d,
A sweet behaviour and a solid mind,
Assemble ours, and all the Theban race,
To vindicate on Athens thy disgrace;
And after, by some treaty made, possess
Fair Emily, the pledge of lasting peace.
So thine shall be the beauteous prize,
while I 460
Must languish in despair, in prison die.
Thus all the advantage of the strife is
thine,
Thy portion double joys, and double sorrows
mine.
The rage of jealousy then
fired his soul,
And his face kindled like a burning coal:
Now cold despair, succeeding in her stead,
To livid paleness turns the glowing red.
His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within
his veins,
Like water which the freezing wind constrains.
Then thus he said: Eternal Deities,
470
Who rule the world with absolute decrees,
And write whatever time shall bring to
pass,
With pens of adamant on plates of brass;
What! is the race of human kind your care,
Beyond what all his fellow-creatures are?
He with the rest is liable to pain,
And like the sheep, his brother-beast,
is slain;
Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a
cure,
All these he must, and guiltless, oft
endure.
Or does your justice, power, or prescience
fail, 480
When the good suffer, and the bad prevail?
What worse to wretched virtue could befall,
If fate or giddy fortune govern’d
all?
Nay, worse than other beasts is our estate;
Them, to pursue their pleasures, you create;
We, bound by harder laws, must curb our
will,
And your commands, not our desires, fulfil;
Then when the creature is unjustly slain,
Yet after death, at least, he feels no
pain;
But man, in life surcharged with woe before,
490
Not freed when dead, is doom’d to
Let Palamon oppress’d
in bondage mourn,
While to his exiled rival we return.
By this, the sun, declining from his height,
The day had shorten’d to prolong
the night;
The lengthen’d night gave length
of misery
Both to the captive lover and the free.
For Palamon in endless prison mourns,
And Arcite forfeits life if he returns:
The banish’d never hopes his love
to see, 510
Nor hopes the captive lord his liberty.
’Tis hard to say who suffers greater
pains:
One sees his love, but cannot break his
chains:
One free, and all his motions uncontroll’d,
Beholds whate’er he would, but what
he would behold.
Judge as you please, for I will haste
to tell
What fortune to the banish’d knight
befell.
When Arcite was to Thebes
return’d again,
The loss of her he loved renew’d
his pain;
What could be worse, than never more to
see 520
His life, his soul, his charming Emily?
He raved with all the madness of despair,
He roar’d, he beat his breast, he
tore his hair.
Dry sorrow in his stupid eyes appears,
For, wanting nourishment, he wanted tears:
His eye-balls in their hollow sockets
sink,
Bereft of sleep, he loathes his meat and
drink.
He withers at his heart, and looks as
wan
As the pale spectre of a murder’d
man:
That pale turns yellow, and his face receives
530
The faded hue of sapless boxen leaves:
In solitary groves he makes his moan,
Walks early out, and ever is alone:
Nor, mix’d in mirth, in youthful
pleasures shares,
But sighs when songs and instruments he
hears.
His spirits are so low, his voice is drown’d,
He hears as from afar, or in a swound,
Like the deaf murmurs of a distant sound:
Uncomb’d his locks and squalid his
attire,
Unlike the trim of love and gay desire;
540
But full of museful mopings, which presage
The loss of reason, and conclude in rage.
This when he had endured a
year and more,
Now wholly changed from what he was before,
It happen’d once, that, slumbering
as he lay,
He dream’d (his dream began at break
of day)
That Hermes o’er his head in air
appear’d,
And with soft words his drooping spirits
cheer’d:
So fair befell him, that for
little gain
He served at first Emilia’s chamberlain;
And, watchful all advantages to spy,
Was still at hand, and in his master’s
eye;
And as his bones were big, and sinews
strong,
Refused no toil that could to slaves belong;
But from deep wells with engines water
drew,
And used his noble hands the wood to hew.
He pass’d a year at least attending
thus
On Emily, and call’d Philostratus.
590
But never was there man of his degree
So much esteem’d, so well beloved
as he.
So gentle of condition was he known,
That through the court his courtesy was
blown:
All think him worthy of a greater place,
And recommend him to the royal grace;
That, exercised within a higher sphere,
His virtues more conspicuous might appear.
Thus by the general voice was Arcite praised,
And by great Theseus to high favour raised;
600
Among his menial servants first enroll’d,
And largely entertain’d with sums
of gold:
Besides what secretly from Thebes was
sent,
Of his own income, and his annual rent:
This well employ’d, he purchased
friends and fame,
But cautiously conceal’d from whence
it came.
Thus for three years he lived with large
increase,
In arms of honour, and esteem in peace;
To Theseus’ person he was ever near;
And Theseus for his virtues held him dear.
610
While Arcite lives in bliss, the story
turns
Where hopeless Palamon in prison mourns.
For six long years immured, the captive
knight
Had dragg’d his chains, and scarcely
seen the light:
Lost liberty and love at once he bore:
His prison pain’d him much, his
passion more:
Nor dares he hope his fetters to remove,
Nor ever wishes to be free from love.
But when the sixth revolving
year was run,
And May within the Twins received the
sun, 10
Were it by chance, or forceful destiny,
Which forms in causes first whate’er
shall be,
Assisted by a friend, one moonless night,
This Palamon from prison took his flight:
A pleasant beverage he prepared before
Of wine and honey, mix’d with added
store
Of opium; to his keeper this he brought,
Who swallow’d unaware the sleepy
draught,
And snored secure till morn, his senses
bound
In slumber, and in long oblivion drown’d.
20
Short was the night, and careful Palamon
Sought the next covert e’er the
rising sun.
A thick-spread forest near the city lay,
To this with lengthen’d strides
he took his way,
(For far he could not fly, and fear’d
the day).
Safe from pursuit, he meant to shun the
light,
Till the brown shadows of the friendly
night
To Thebes might favour his intended flight.
When to his country come, his next design
Was all the Theban race in arms to join,
30
And war on Theseus, till he lost his life,
Or won the beauteous Emily to wife.
Thus while his thoughts the
lingering day beguile,
To gentle Arcite let us turn our style;
Who little dreamt how nigh he was to care,
Till treacherous fortune caught him in
the snare.
The morning lark, the messenger of day,
Saluted in her song the morning gray;
And soon the sun arose with beams so bright,
That all the horizon laugh’d to
see the joyous sight: 40
He with his tepid rays the rose renews,
And licks the drooping leaves, and dries
the dews;
When Arcite left his bed, resolved to
pay
Observance to the month of merry May:
Forth on his fiery steed betimes he rode,
That scarcely prints the turf on which
he trode:
At ease he seem’d, and, prancing
o’er the plains,
Turn’d only to the grove his horse’s
reins,
The grove I named before; and, lighted
there,
A woodbine garland sought to crown his
hair; 50
Then turn’d his face against the
rising day,
And raised his voice to welcome in the
May.
For thee, sweet month! the
groves green liveries wear,
If not the first, the fairest of the year:
For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours,
And Nature’s ready pencil paints
the flowers:
When thy short reign is past, the feverish
sun
The sultry tropic fears, and moves more
slowly on.
So may thy tender blossoms fear no blight,
Nor goats with venom’d teeth thy
tendrils bite, 60
As thou shalt guide my wandering feet
to find
The fragrant greens I seek, my brows to
bind.
His vows address’d,
within the grove he stray’d,
Till Fate, or Fortune, near the place
convey’d
His steps where, secret, Palamon was laid.
Full little thought of him the gentle
knight,
Who, flying death, had there conceal’d
his flight,
In brakes and brambles hid, and shunning
mortal sight:
And less he knew him for his hated foe,
But fear’d him as a man he did not
know. 70
But as it has been said of ancient years,
That fields are full of eyes, and woods
have ears;
For this the wise are ever on their guard,
For, unforeseen, they say, is unprepared.
Uncautious Arcite thought himself alone,
And less than all suspected Palamon,
Who, listening, heard him, while he search’d
the grove,
And loudly sung his roundelay of love:
But on the sudden stopp’d, and silent
stood,
As lovers often muse, and change their
mood; 80
Now high as heaven, and then as low as
hell;
Now up, now down, as buckets in a well:
For Venus, like her day, will change her
cheer,
And seldom shall we see a Friday clear.
Thus Arcite having sung, with alter’d
hue
Sunk on the ground, and from his bosom
drew
A desperate sigh, accusing Heaven and
Fate,
And angry Juno’s unrelenting hate.
Cursed be the day when first I did appear;
Let it be blotted from the calendar,
90
Lest it pollute the month, and poison
all the year!
Still will the jealous queen pursue our
race?
Cadmus is dead, the Theban city was:
Yet ceases not her hate: for all
who come
From Cadmus are involved in Cadmus’
doom.
I suffer for my blood: unjust decree!
That punishes another’s crime on
me.
In mean estate I serve my mortal foe,
The man who caused my country’s
overthrow.
This is not all; for Juno, to my shame,
100
Has forced me to forsake my former name;
Arcite I was, Philostratus I am.
That side of heaven is all my enemy:
Mars ruin’d Thebes: his mother
ruin’d me.
Of all the royal race remains but one
Besides myself, the unhappy Palamon,
Whom Theseus holds in bonds, and will
not free;
Without a crime, except his kin to me.
Yet these, and all the rest, I could endure;
At this a sickly qualm his
heart assail’d,
His ears ring inward, and his senses fail’d.
120
No word miss’d Palamon of all he
spoke,
But soon to deadly pale he changed his
look:
He trembled every limb, and felt a smart,
As if cold steel had glided through his
heart;
No longer staid, but starting from his
place,
Discover’d stood, and show’d
his hostile face:
False traitor, Arcite! traitor to thy
blood!
Bound by thy sacred oath to seek my good,
Now art thou found forsworn, for Emily;
And darest attempt her love, for whom
I die. 130
So hast thou cheated Theseus with a wile,
Against thy vow, returning to beguile
Under a borrow’d name: as false
to me,
So false thou art to him who set thee
free.
But rest assured, that either thou shalt
die,
Or else renounce thy claim in Emily:
For though unarm’d I am, and (freed
by chance)
Am here without my sword, or pointed lance,
Hope not, base man, unquestioned hence
to go,
For I am Palamon, thy mortal foe.
140
Arcite, who heard his tale,
and knew the man,
His sword unsheath’d, and fiercely
thus began:
Now by the gods who govern heaven above,
Wert thou not weak with hunger, mad with
love,
That word had been thy last, or in this
grove
This hand should force thee to renounce
thy love.
The surety which I gave thee, I defy:
Fool, not to know that love endures no
tie,
And Jove but laughs at lovers’ perjury.
Know I will serve the fair in thy despite;
150
But since thou art my kinsman, and a knight,
Here, have my faith, to-morrow in this
grove
Our arms shall plead the titles of our
love:
And Heaven so help my right, as I alone
Will come, and keep the cause and quarrel
both unknown;
With arms of proof both for myself and
thee;
Choose thou the best, and leave the worst
to me.
And, that at better ease thou may’st
abide,
Bedding and clothes I will this night
provide,
And needful sustenance, that thou may’st
be 160
A conquest better won, and worthy me.
His promise Palamon accepts; but pray’d
To keep it better than the first he made.
Thus fair they parted till the morrow’s
dawn,
For each had laid his plighted faith to
pawn.
Oh, Love! thou sternly dost thy power
maintain,
And wilt not bear a rival in thy reign;
Tyrants and thou all fellowship disdain!
This was in Arcite proved, and Palamon,
Both in despair, yet each would love alone.
170
Arcite return’d, and, as in honour
tied,
His foe with bedding, and with food supplied;
Then, ere the day, two suits of armour
sought,
Which, borne before him on his steed,
he brought:
Both were of shining steel, and wrought
so pure,
As might the strokes of two such arms
endure.
Now, at the time, and in the appointed
place,
The challenger and challenged, face to
face,
Approach; each other from afar they knew,
And from afar their hatred changed their
hue. 180
So stands the Thracian herdsman with his
spear,
Pull in the gap, and hopes the hunted
bear,
And hears him rustling in the wood, and
sees
His course at distance by the bending
trees;
And thinks, Here comes my mortal enemy,
And either he must fall in fight, or I:
This while he thinks, he lifts aloft his
dart;
A generous chilness seizes every part:
The veins pour back the blood, and fortify
the heart.
Thus pale they meet; their
eyes with fury burn; 190
None greets; for none the greeting will
return:
But in dumb surliness, each arm’d
with care
His foe profess’d, as brother of
the war:
Then both, no moment lost, at once advance
Against each other, arm’d with sword
and lance:
They lash, they foin, they pass, they
strive to bore
Their corslets and the thinnest parts
explore.
Thus two long hours in equal arms they
stood,
And wounded, wound, till both were bathed
in blood;
And not a foot of ground had either got,
200
As if the world depended on the spot.
Fell Arcite like an angry tiger fared,
And like a lion Palamon appear’d:
Or, as two boars, whom love to battle
draws,
With rising bristles, and with frothy
jaws,
Their adverse breasts with tusks oblique
they wound;
With grunts and groans the forest rings
around.
So fought the knights, and fighting must
abide,
Till fate an umpire sends their difference
to decide.
The power that ministers to
God’s decrees, 210
And executes on earth what Heaven foresees,
Call’d providence, or chance, or
fatal sway,
Comes with resistless force, and finds
or makes her way.
Nor kings, nor nations, nor united power,
One moment can retard the appointed hour;
And some one day, some wondrous chance
appears,
Which happen’d not in centuries
of years:
For sure, whate’er we mortals hate,
or love,
Or hope, or fear, depends on Powers above;
They move our appetites to good or ill,
220
To this replied the stern
Athenian prince,
And sourly smiled: In owning your
offence
You judge yourself; and I but keep record
In place of law, while you pronounce the
word.
Take your desert, the death you have decreed;
I seal your doom, and ratify the deed:
By Mars, the patron of my arms, you die!
He said; dumb sorrow seized
the standers-by.
The queen above the rest, by nature good,
310
(The pattern form’d of perfect womanhood)
For tender pity wept: when she began,
Through the bright quire the infectious
virtue ran.
All dropt their tears, even the contended
maid;
And thus among themselves they softly
said:
What eyes can suffer this unworthy sight!
Two youths of royal blood, renown’d
in fight,
The mastership of Heaven in face and mind,
And lovers, far beyond their faithless
kind:
See their wide streaming wounds; they
neither came 300
For pride of empire, nor desire of fame:
Kings fight for kingdoms, madmen for applause;
But love for love alone; that crowns the
lover’s cause.
This thought, which ever bribes the beauteous
kind,
Such pity wrought in every lady’s
mind,
They left their steeds, and, prostrate
on the place,
From the fierce king implored the offenders’
grace.
He paused a while, stood silent
in his mood
(For yet his rage was boiling in his blood);
But soon his tender mind the impression
felt, 330
(As softest metals are not slow to melt,
And pity soonest runs in softest minds):
Then reasons with himself; and first he
finds
His passion cast a mist before his sense,
This freely sworn, the knights
their grace obtain’d;
Then thus the king his secret thoughts
explain’d:
If wealth, or honour, or a royal race,
Or each, or all, may win a lady’s
grace,
Then either of you knights may well deserve
A princess born; and such is she you serve:
For Emily is sister to the crown,
And but too well to both her beauty known:
But should you combat till you both were
dead,
Two lovers cannot share a single bed:
400
As, therefore, both are equal in degree,
The lot of both be left to destiny.
Now hear the award, and happy may it prove
To her, and him who best deserves her
love.
Depart from hence in peace, and, free
as air,
Search the wide world, and where you please
repair;
But on the day when this returning sun
To the same point through every sign has
run,
Then each of you his hundred knights shall
bring,
In royal lists, to fight before the king;
410
And then the knight, whom fate or happy
chance
Shall with his friends to victory advance,
And grace his arms so far in equal fight,
From out the bars to force his opposite,
Or kill, or make him recreant on the plain,
The prize of valour and of love shall
gain;
The vanquish’d party shall their
claim release,
And the long jars conclude in lasting
peace.
The charge be mine to adorn the chosen
ground,
The theatre of war, for champions so renown’d;
420
And take the patron’s place of either
knight,
With eyes impartial to behold the fight;
And Heaven of me so judge as I shall judge
aright.
If both are satisfied with this accord,
Swear by the laws of knighthood on my
sword.
Who now but Palamon exults
with joy?
And ravish’d Arcite seems to touch
the sky:
The whole assembled troop was pleased
as well,
Extol the award, and on their knees they
fell
To bless the gracious king. The knights,
with leave, 430
Departing from the place, his last commands
receive;
On Emily with equal ardour look,
And from her eyes their inspiration took.
From thence to Thebes’ old walls
pursue their way,
Each to provide his champions for the
day.
It might be deem’d,
on our historian’s part,
Or too much negligence, or want of art,
If he forgot the vast magnificence
Of royal Theseus, and his large expense,
He first enclosed for lists a level ground,
440
The whole circumference a mile around;
The form was circular; and all without
A trench was sunk, to moat the place about.
Within an amphitheatre appear’d,
Raised in degrees; to sixty paces rear’d:
That when a man was placed in one degree,
Height was allow’d for him above
to see.
Eastward was built a gate
of marble white;
The like adorn’d the western opposite.
A nobler object than this fabric was,
450
Rome never saw; nor of so vast a space.
For rich with spoils of many a conquer’d
land,
All arts and artists Theseus could command;
Who sold for hire, or wrought for better
fame;
The master-painters, and the carvers came.
So rose within the compass of the year
An age’s work, a glorious theatre.
Then o’er its eastern gate was raised
above
A temple, sacred to the Queen of Love;
An altar stood below: on either hand
460
A priest with roses crown’d, who
held a myrtle wand.
The dome of Mars was on the
gate opposed,
And on the north a turret was enclosed,
Within the wall, of alabaster white,
And crimson coral, for the Queen of Night,
Who takes in sylvan sports her chaste
delight.
Within these oratories might
you see
Rich carvings, portraitures, and imagery:
Where every figure to the life express’d
The godhead’s power to whom it was
address’d. 470
In Venus’ temple on the sides were
seen
The broken slumbers of enamour’d
men;
Prayers that even spoke, and pity seem’d
to call,
And issuing sighs that smoked along the
wall;
Complaints, and hot desires, the lover’s
hell,
And scalding tears that wore a channel
where they fell:
And all around were nuptial bonds, the
ties,
Of love’s assurance, and a train
of lies,
That, made in lust, conclude in perjuries.
Beauty, and Youth, and Wealth, and Luxury,
480
And spritely Hope, and short-enduring
Joy;
And Sorceries to raise the infernal powers,
And Sigils framed in planetary hours:
Expense, and After-Thought, and idle Care,
And Doubts of motley hue, and dark Despair;
Suspicious, and fantastical Surmise,
And Jealousy suffused, with jaundice in
her eyes,
Discolouring all she view’d, in
tawny dress’d,
Down-look’d, and with a cuckoo on
her fist.
Opposed to her, on the other side advance
490
The costly feast, the carol, and the dance,
Minstrels and Music, Poetry and Play,
And balls by night, and tournaments by
day.
All these were painted on the wall, and
more;
With acts and monuments of times before:
And others added by prophetic doom,
And lovers yet unborn, and loves to come:
For there the Idalian mount, and Citheron,
The court of Venus, was in colours drawn:
Before the palace-gate, in careless dress,
500
And loose array, sat portress Idleness:
There, by the fount, Narcissus pined alone;
There Samson was; with wiser Solomon,
And all the mighty names by love undone.
Medea’s charms were there, Circean
But in the dome of mighty
Mars the red
With different figures all the sides were
spread;
This temple, less in form, with equal
grace,
Was imitative of the first in Thrace:
For that cold region was the loved abode
And sovereign mansion of the warrior god.
The landscape was a forest wide and bare;
530
Where neither beast, nor human kind repair;
The fowl, that scent afar, the borders
fly,
And shun the bitter blast, and wheel about
the sky.
A cake of scurf lies baking on the ground,
And prickly stubs, instead of trees, are
found;
Or woods, with knots and knares, deform’d
and old;
Headless the most, and hideous to behold:
A rattling tempest through the branches
went,
That stripp’d them bare, and one
sole way they bent.
Heaven froze above, severe, the clouds
congeal, 540
And through the crystal vault appear’d
the standing hail.
Such was the face without; a mountain
stood
Threatening from high, and overlook’d
the wood:
Beneath the lowering brow, and on a bent,
The temple stood of Mars armipotent:
The frame of burnish’d steel, that
cast a glare
From far, and seem’d to thaw the
freezing air.
A strait long entry to the temple led,
Blind with high walls; and horror over
head:
Thence issued such a blast, and hollow
roar, 550
As threaten’d from the hinge to
heave the door:
In through that door, a northern light
there shone;
’Twas all it had, for windows there
were none.
The gate was adamant; eternal frame!
Which, hew’d by Mars himself, from
Indian quarries came,
The labour of a god; and all along
Tough iron plates were clench’d
to make it strong.
A tun about was every pillar there;
A polish’d mirror shone not half
so clear.
There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
560
Tired with deformities of
death, I haste
To the third temple of Diana chaste.
A sylvan scene with various greens was
drawn,
Shades on the sides, and in the midst
a lawn: 620
The silver Cynthia, with her nymphs around,
Pursued the flying deer, the woods with
horns resound:
Calisto there stood manifest of shame,
And, turn’d a bear, the northern
star became:
Her son was next, and, by peculiar grace,
In the cold circle held the second place:
The stag Acteon in the stream had spied
The naked huntress, and, for seeing, died:
His hounds, unknowing of his change pursue
The chase, and their mistaken master slew.
630
Peneian Daphne too was there to see,
Apollo’s love before, and now his
tree:
The adjoining fane the assembled Greeks
express’d,
And hunting of the Caledonian beast.
Oenides’ valour, and his envied
prize;
The fatal power of Atalanta’s eyes;
Diana’s vengeance on the victor
shown,
The murderess mother; and consuming son;
The Volscian queen extended on the plain;
The treason punish’d, and the traitor
slain. 640
The rest were various huntings, well design’d,
And savage beasts destroy’d, of
every kind.
The graceful goddess was array’d
in green;
About her feet were little beagles seen,
That watch’d with upward eyes the
motions of their queen.
Her legs were buskin’d, and the
left before,
In act to shoot; a silver bow she bore,
And at her back a painted quiver wore.
She trod a waxing moon, that soon would
wane,
And, drinking borrow’d light, be
fill’d again: 650
With downcast eyes, as seeming to survey
The dark dominions, her alternate sway.
Before her stood a women in her throes,
And call’d Lucina’s aid, her
burden to disclose.
All these the painter drew with such command,
That Nature snatch’d the pencil
from his hand,
Ashamed and angry that his art could feign
And mend the tortures of a mother’s
pain.
Theseus beheld the fanes of every god,
And thought his mighty cost was well bestow’d.
660
So princes now their poets should regard;
But few can write, and fewer can reward.
The theatre thus raised, the
lists enclosed,
And all with vast magnificence disposed,
We leave the monarch pleased, and haste
to bring
The knights to combat, and their arms
to sing.
The day approach’d when Fortune
should decide
The important enterprise, and give the
bride;
For now, the rivals round the world had
sought,
And each his number, well appointed, brought.
The nations, far and near, contend in
choice,
And send the flower of war by public voice;
With Palamon above the rest
in place,
Lycurgus came, the surly king of Thrace;
Black was his beard, and manly was his
face; 40
The balls of his broad eyes roll’d
in his head,
And glared betwixt a yellow and a red:
He look’d a lion with a gloomy stare,
And o’er his eyebrows hung his matted
hair:
Big-boned, and large of limbs, with sinews
strong,
Broad-shoulder’d, and his arms were
round and long.
Four milk-white bulls (the Thracian use
of old)
Were yoked to draw his car of burnish’d
gold.
Upright he stood, and bore aloft his shield,
Conspicuous from afar, and overlook’d
the field. 50
His surcoat was a bear-skin on his back;
His hair hung long behind, and glossy
raven black.
His ample forehead bore a coronet,
With sparkling diamonds and with rubies
set:
Ten brace, and more, of greyhounds, snowy
fair,
And tall as stags, ran loose, and coursed
around his chair,
A match for pards in flight, in grappling
for the bear:
With golden muzzles all their mouths were
bound,
And collars of the same their necks surround.
Thus through the fields Lycurgus took
his way; 60
His hundred knights attend in pomp and
proud array.
To match this monarch, with
strong Arcite came
Emetrius, king of Ind, a mighty name;
On a bay courser, goodly to behold,
The trappings of his horse adorn’d
with barbarous gold.
Not Mars bestrod a steed with greater
grace;
His surcoat o’er his arms was cloth
of Thrace,
Adorn’d with pearls, all orient,
round, and great;
His saddle was of gold, with emeralds
set,
His shoulders large a mantle did attire,
70
With rubies thick, and sparkling as the
fire:
His amber-colour’d locks in ringlets
run,
With graceful negligence, and shone against
the sun.
His nose was aquiline, his eyes were blue;
Ruddy his lips, and fresh and fair his
hue:
Some sprinkled freckles on his face were
seen,
Whose dusk set off the whiteness of the
skill:
His awful presence did the crowd surprise,
Nor durst the rash spectator meet his
eyes;
Eyes that confess’d him born for
kingly sway, 80
So fierce, they flash’d intolerable
day.
His age in nature’s youthful prime
appear’d,
And just began to bloom his yellow beard.
Whene’er he spoke, his voice was
heard around,
Loud as a trumpet, with a silver sound;
A laurel wreathed his temples, fresh and
green;
And myrtle sprigs, the marks of love,
were mix’d between.
Upon his fist he bore, for his delight,
An eagle well reclaim’d, and lily
white.
His hundred knights attend
him to the war, 90
All arm’d for battle; save their
heads were bare.
Words and devices blazed on every shield,
And pleasing was the terror of the field.
For kings, and dukes, and barons, you
might see,
Like sparkling stars, though different
in degree,
All for the increase of arms, and love
of chivalry.
Before the king tame leopards led the
way,
And troops of lions innocently play.
So Bacchus through the conquer’d
Indies rode,
And beasts in gambols frisk’d before
their honest god. 100
In this array, the war of
either side
Through Athens pass’d with military
pride.
At prime, they enter’d on the Sunday
morn;
Rich tapestry spread the streets, and
flowers the posts adorn.
The town was all a jubilee of feasts;
So Theseus will’d, in honour of
his guests;
Himself with open arms the kings embraced,
Then all the rest in their degrees were
graced.
No harbinger was needful for the night,
For every house was proud to lodge a knight.
110
I pass the royal treat, nor
must relate
The gifts bestow’d, nor how the
champions sate:
Who first, who last, or how the knights
address’d
Their vows, or who was fairest at the
feast;
Whose voice, whose graceful dance did
most surprise;
Soft amorous sighs, and silent love of
eyes.
The rivals call my Muse another way,
To sing their vigils for the ensuing day.
’Twas ebbing darkness,
past the noon of night:
And Phosphor, on the confines of the light,
120
Promised the sun; ere day began to spring,
The tuneful lark already stretch’d
her wing,
And flickering on her nest, made short
essays to sing.
When wakeful Palamon, preventing day,
Took to the royal lists his early way,
To Venus at her fane, in her own house,
to pray.
There, falling on his knees before her
shrine,
He thus implored with prayers her power
divine:
Creator Venus, genial power
of love,
The bliss of men below, and gods above!
130
Beneath the sliding sun thou runn’st
thy race,
Dost fairest shine, and best become thy
place.
For thee the winds their eastern blasts
forbear,
Thy month reveals the spring, and opens
all the year.
Thee, goddess! thee the storms of winter
fly,
Earth smiles with flowers renewing, laughs
the sky,
And birds to lays of love their tuneful
notes apply.
For thee the lion loathes the taste of
blood,
And, roaring, hunts his female through
the wood:
For thee the bulls rebellow through the
groves, 140
And tempt the stream, and snuff their
absent loves.
’Tis thine, whate’er is pleasant,
good, or fair:
All nature is thy province, life thy care:
Thou madest the world, and dost the world
repair.
Thou gladder of the mount of Cytheron,
Increase of Jove, companion of the sun!
If e’er Adonis touch’d thy
tender heart,
Have pity, goddess, for thou know’st
the smart!
Alas! I have not words to tell my
grief;
To vent my sorrow would be some relief;
150
Light sufferings give us leisure to complain;
We groan, but cannot speak, in greater
pain.
O goddess! tell thyself what I would say,
Thou know’st it, and I feel too
much to pray.
So grant my suit, as I enforce my might,
In love to be thy champion, and thy knight;
A servant to thy sex, a slave to thee,
A foe profess’d to barren chastity.
Nor ask I fame or honour of the field,
Nor choose I more to vanquish than to
yield: 160
In my divine Emilia make me blest;
Let Fate, or partial Chance, dispose the
rest:
Find thou the manner, and the means prepare;
Possession, more than conquest, is my
care.
Mars is the warrior’s god; in him
it lies,
On whom he favours to confer the prize;
With smiling aspect you serenely move
In your fifth orb, and rule the realm
of love.
The Fates but only spin the coarser clue,
The finest of the wool is left for you;
170
Spare me but one small portion of the
twine,
And let the sisters cut below your line:
The rest among the rubbish may they sweep,
Or add it to the yarn of some old miser’s
heap.
But, if you this ambitious prayer deny,
(A wish, I grant, beyond mortality,)
Then let me sink beneath proud Arcite’s
arms,
And I once dead, let him possess her charms.
Thus ended he; then with observance
due
The sacred incense on her altar threw:
180
The curling smoke mounts heavy from the
fires;
At length it catches flame, and in a blaze
expires;
At once the gracious goddess gave the
sign,
Her statue shook, and trembled all the
shrine:
Pleased Palamon the tardy omen took:
For, since the flames pursued the trailing
smoke,
He knew his boon was granted; but the
day
To distance driven, and joy adjourn’d
with long delay.
Now morn with rosy light had
streak’d the sky,
Up rose the sun, and up rose Emily;
190
Address’d her early steps to Cynthia’s
fane,
In state attended by her maiden train,
Who bore the vests that holy rites require,
Incense, and odorous gums, and cover’d
fire.
The plenteous horns with pleasant mead
they crown,
Nor wanted aught besides in honour of
the Moon.
Now while the temple smoked with hallow’d
steam,
They wash the virgin in a living stream;
The secret ceremonies I conceal,
Uncouth, perhaps unlawful, to reveal:
200
But such they were as Pagan use required,
Perform’d by women when the men
retired,
Whose eyes profane their chaste mysterious
rites
Might turn to scandal, or obscene delights.
Well-meaners think no harm; but for the
rest,
Things sacred they pervert, and silence
is the best.
Her shining hair, uncomb’d, was
loosely spread,
A crown of mastless oak adorn’d
her head:
When to the shrine approach’d, the
spotless maid
Had kindling fires on either altar laid:
210
(The rites were such as were observed
of old,
By Statius in his Theban story told.)
Then kneeling with her hands across her
breast,
Thus lowly she preferr’d her chaste
request:
Oh, goddess, haunter of the woodland green,
To whom both heaven and earth and seas
are seen;
Queen of the nether skies, where half
the year
Thy silver beams descend, and light the
gloomy sphere!
Goddess of maids, and conscious of our
hearts,
So keep me from the vengeance of thy darts,
220
Which Niobe’s devoted issue felt,
When hissing through the skies the feather’d
deaths were dealt;
As I desire to live a virgin life,
Nor know the name of mother or of wife.
Thy votress from my tender years I am,
And love, like thee, the woods and sylvan
game.
Like death, thou know’st, I loathe
the nuptial state,
And man, the tyrant of our sex, I hate,
A lowly servant, but a lofty mate:
Where love is duty on the female side;
230
On theirs, mere sensual gust, and sought
with surly pride.
Now by thy triple shape, as thou art seen
In heaven, earth, hell, and everywhere
The flames ascend on either
altar clear,
While thus the blameless maid address’d
her prayer.
When, lo! the burning fire that shone
so bright, 250
Flew off all sudden, with extinguish’d
light,
And left one altar dark, a little space;
Which turn’d self-kindled, and renew’d
the blaze:
The other victor-flame a moment stood,
Then fell, and lifeless left the extinguish’d
wood;
For ever lost, the irrevocable light
Forsook the blackening coals, and sunk
to night:
At either end it whistled as it flew,
And as the brands were green, so dropp’d
the dew;
Infected as it fell with sweat of sanguine
hue. 260
The maid from that ill omen
turn’d her eyes,
And with loud shrieks and clamours rent
the skies,
Nor knew what signified the boding sign,
But found the Powers displeased, and fear’d
the wrath divine.
Then shook the sacred shrine,
and sudden light
Sprung through the vaulted roof, and made
the temple bright.
The Power, behold! the Power
in glory shone,
By her bent bow, and her keen arrows known;
The rest, a huntress issuing from the
wood,
Reclining on her cornel spear she stood.
270
Then gracious thus began: Dismiss
thy fear,
And Heaven’s unchanged decrees attentive
hear:
More powerful gods have torn thee from
my side,
Unwilling to resign, and doom’d
a bride:
The two contending knights are weigh’d
above;
One Mars protects, and one the Queen of
Love:
But which the man, is in the Thunderer’s
breast;
This he pronounced, ’Tis he who
loves thee best.
The fire that, once extinct, revived again,
Foreshows the love allotted to remain:
280
Farewell! she said, and vanish’d
from the place;
The sheaf of arrows shook, and rattled
in the case.
Aghast at this, the royal virgin stood,
Disclaim’d, and now no more a sister
of the wood:
But to the parting goddess thus she pray’d:
Propitious still be present to my aid,
Nor quite abandon your once favour’d
maid.
Then sighing she return’d; but smiled
betwixt,
With hopes and fears, and joys with sorrows
mix’d.
The next returning planetary
hour 290
Of Mars, who shared the heptarchy of power,
His steps bold Arcite to the temple bent,
To adore with Pagan rites the power armipotent:
Then prostrate, low before his altar lay,
And raised his manly voice, and thus began
to pray:
Strong God of arms, whose
iron sceptre sways
The freezing North, and Hyperborean seas,
And Scythian colds, and Thracia’s
wintry coast,
Where stand thy steeds, and thou art honour’d
most!
There most; but everywhere thy power is
known, 300
The fortune of the fight is all thy own:
Terror is thine, and wild amazement, flung
From out thy chariot, withers even the
strong:
And disarray and shameful rout ensue,
And force is added to the fainting crew.
Acknowledged as thou art, accept my prayer,
If aught I have achieved deserve thy care:
If to my utmost power, with sword and
shield,
I dared the death, unknowing how to yield,
And falling in my rank, still kept the
field: 310
Then let my arms prevail, by thee sustain’d,
That Emily by conquest may be gain’d.
Have pity on my pains; nor those unknown
To Mars, which, when a lover, were his
own.
Venus, the public care of all above,
Thy stubborn heart has soften’d
into love:
Now, by her blandishments and powerful
charms,
When yielded she lay curling in thy arms,
Even by thy shame, if shame it may be
call’d,
When Vulcan had thee in his net enthrall’d;
320
(Oh, envied ignominy, sweet disgrace,
When every god that saw thee wish’d
thy place!)
By those dear pleasures, aid my arms in
fight,
And make me conquer in my patron’s
right:
For I am young, a novice in the trade,
The fool of love, unpractised to persuade:
And want the soothing arts that catch
the fair,
But, caught myself, lie struggling in
the snare:
And she I love, or laughs at all my pain,
Or knows her worth too well; and pays
me with disdain. 330
For sure I am, unless I win in arms,
To stand excluded from Emilia’s
charms:
Nor can my strength avail, unless by thee
Endued with force, I gain the victory!
Then for the fire which warm’d thy
generous heart,
Pity thy subject’s pains, and equal
smart.
So be the morrow’s sweat and labour
mine,
The palm and honour of the conquest thine:
Then shall the war, and stern debate,
and strife
Immortal, be the business of my life;
340
And in thy fane, the dusty spoils among,
High on the burnish’d roof, my banner
shall be hung:
Rank’d with my champions’
bucklers, and below,
With arms reversed, the achievements of
my foe:
And while these limbs the vital spirit
feeds,
While day to night, and night to day succeeds,
The champion ceased; there
follow’d in the close
A hollow groan: a murmuring wind
arose;
The rings of iron, that on the doors were
hung,
Sent out a jarring sound, and harshly
rung: 360
The bolted gates flew open at the blast,
The storm rush’d in, and Arcite
stood aghast:
The flames were blown aside, yet shone
they bright,
Fann’d by the wind, and gave a ruffled
light.
Then from the ground a scent began to
rise,
Sweet smelling, as accepted sacrifice:
This omen pleased, and as the flames aspire
With odorous incense Arcite heaps the
fire:
Nor wanted hymns to Mars, or heathen charms:
At length the nodding statue clash’d
his arms, 370
And with a sullen sound and feeble cry,
Half sunk, and half pronounced the word
of victory.
For this, with soul devout, he thank’d
the god,
And, of success secure, return’d
to his abode.
These vows thus granted, raised
a strife above,
Betwixt the God of War and Queen of Love.
She, granting first, had right of time
to plead;
But he had granted too, nor would recede.
Jove was for Venus; but he fear’d
his wife,
And seem’d unwilling to decide the
strife; 380
Till Saturn from his leaden throne arose,
And found a way the difference to compose:
Though sparing of his grace, to mischief
bent,
He seldom does a good with good intent.
Wayward, but wise; by long experience
taught,
To please both parties, for ill ends,
he sought:
For this advantage age from youth has
won,
As not to be outridden, though outrun.
By fortune he was now to Venus trined,
And with stern Mars in Capricorn was join’d:
390
Of him disposing in his own abode,
He soothed the goddess, while he gull’d
the god:
Cease, daughter, to complain, and stint
the strife;
Thy Palamon shall have his promised wife:
And Mars, the lord of conquest, in the
fight
With palm and laurel shall adorn his knight.
Wide is my course, nor turn I to my place,
Till length of time, and move with tardy
pace.
Man feels me, when I press the ethereal
plains,
My hand is heavy, and the wound remains.
400
Mine is the shipwreck, in a watery sign;
And in an earthy, the dark dungeon mine.
In Athens all was pleasure,
mirth, and play,
All proper to the spring, and spritely
May:
Which every soul inspired with such delight,
430
’Twas jesting all the day, and love
at night.
Heaven smiled, and gladded was the heart
of man;
And Venus had the world as when it first
began.
At length in sleep their bodies they compose,
And dreamt the future fight, and early
rose.
Now scarce the dawning day
began to spring,
As at a signal given, the streets with
clamours ring:
At once the crowd arose; confused and
high,
Even from the heaven, was heard a shouting
cry;
For Mars was early up, and roused the
sky. 440
The gods came downward to behold the wars,
Sharpening their sights, and leaning from
their stars.
The neighing of the generous horse was
heard,
For battle by the busy groom prepared:
Rustling of harness, rattling of the shield,
Clattering of armour, furbish’d
for the field.
Crowds to the castle mounted up the street,
Battering the pavement with their coursers’
feet:
The greedy sight might there devour the
gold
Of glittering arms, too dazzling to behold:
450
And polish’d steel, that cast the
view aside,
And crested morions, with their plumy
pride.
Knights, with a long retinue of their
squires,
In gaudy liveries march, and quaint attires.
One laced the helm, another held the lance:
A third the shining buckler did advance.
The courser paw’d the ground with
restless feet,
The trumpets, next the gate,
in order placed,
Attend the sign to sound the martial blast;
The palace-yard is fill’d with floating
tides,
And the last comers bear the former to
the sides.
The throng is in the midst: the common
crew
Shut out, the hall admits the better few;
In knots they stand, or in a rank they
walk, 470
Serious in aspect, earnest in their talk;
Factious, and favouring this or the other
side,
As their strong fancy or weak reason guide:
Their wagers back their wishes; numbers
hold
With the fair freckled king, and beard
of gold:
So vigorous are his eyes, such rays they
cast,
So prominent his eagle’s beak is
placed.
But most their looks on the black monarch
bend,
His rising muscles, and his brawn commend;
His double-biting axe, and beamy spear,
480
Each asking a gigantic force to rear.
All spoke as partial favour moved the
mind;
And, safe themselves, at others’
cost divined.
Waked by the cries, the Athenian
chief arose,
The knightly forms of combat to dispose;
And passing through the obsequious guards,
he sate
Conspicuous on a throne, sublime in state;
There, for the two contending knights
he sent;
Arm’d cap-a-pie, with reverence
low they bent;
He smiled on both, and with superior look
490
Alike their offer’d adoration took.
The people press on every side to see
Their awful prince, and hear his high
decree.
Then signing to their heralds with his
hand,
They gave his orders from their lofty
stand.
Silence is thrice enjoin’d; then
thus aloud
The king-at-arms bespeaks the knights
and listening crowd:
Our sovereign lord has ponder’d
in his mind
The means to spare the blood of gentle
kind;
And of his grace, and inborn clemency,
500
He modifies his first severe decree!
The keener edge of battle to rebate,
The troops for honour fighting, not for
hate:
He wills, not death should terminate their
strife,
And wounds, if wounds ensue, be short
of life:
But issues, ere the fight, his dread command,
That slings afar, and poniards hand to
hand,
Be banish’d from the field; that
none shall dare
With shorten’d sword to stab in
closer war;
But in fair combat fight with manly strength,
510
Nor push with biting point, but strike
at length;
The tourney is allow’d but one career,
The herald ends: the
vaulted firmament
With loud acclaims and vast applause is
rent:
Heaven guard a prince so gracious and
so good,
So just, and yet so provident of blood!
This was the general cry. The trumpets
sound,
And warlike symphony is heard around.
The marching troops through Athens take
their way, 530
The great earl-marshal orders their array.
The fair from high the passing pomp behold;
A rain of flowers is from the windows
roll’d.
The casements are with golden tissue spread,
And horses’ hoofs, for earth, on
silken tapestry tread.
The king goes midmost, and the rivals
ride
In equal rank, and close his either side.
Next after these, there rode the royal
wife,
With Emily, the cause, and the reward
of strife.
The following cavalcade, by three and
three, 540
Proceed by titles marshall’d in
degree.
Thus through the southern gate they take
their way,
And at the list arrived ere prime of day.
There, parting from the king, the chiefs
divide,
And wheeling east and west, before their
many ride.
The Athenian monarch mounts his throne
on high,
And after him the queen and Emily:
Next these, the kindred of the crown are
graced
With nearer seats, and lords by ladies
placed.
Scarce were they seated, when with clamours
loud 550
In rush’d at once a rude promiscuous
crowd;
The guards, and then each other overbear,
And in a moment throng the spacious theatre.
Now changed the jarring noise to whispers
low,
As winds forsaking seas more softly blow;
When at the western gate, on which the
car
Is placed aloft, that bears the god of
war,
Proud Arcite entering arm’d before
his train,
Stops at the barrier, and divides the
plain.
Red was his banner, and display’d
abroad 560
The bloody colours of his patron god.
At that self moment enters
Palamon
The gate of Venus, and the rising Sun;
Waved by the wanton winds, his banner
flies,
All maiden white, and shares the people’s
eyes.
From east to west, look all the world
around,
Two troops so match’d were never
to be found;
Such bodies built for strength, of equal
age,
In stature sized; so proud in equipage:
The nicest eye could no distinction make,
570
Where lay the advantage, or what side
to take.
Thus ranged, the herald for
the last proclaims
A silence, while they answer’d to
their names:
For so the king decreed, to shun the care,
The fraud of musters false, the common
bane of war.
The tale was just, and then the gates
were closed;
And chief to chief, and troop to troop
opposed.
The heralds last retired, and loudly cried—
The fortune of the field be fairly tried!
At this, the challenger with
fierce defy 580
His trumpet sounds; the challenged makes
reply;
With clangour rings the field, resounds
the vaulted sky.
Their vizors closed, their lances in the
rest,
Or at the helmet pointed, or the crest,
They vanish from the barrier, speed the
race,
And spurring see decrease the middle space.
A cloud of smoke envelops either host,
And all at once the combatants are lost:
Darkling they join adverse, and shock
unseen,
Coursers with coursers jostling, men with
men: 590
As labouring in eclipse, a while they
stay,
Till the next blast of wind restores the
day.
They look anew: the beauteous form
of fight
Is changed, and war appears a grisly sight.
Two troops in fair array one moment show’d,
The next, a field with fallen bodies strow’d:
Not half the number in their seats are
found;
But men and steeds lie grovelling on the
ground.
The points of spears are stuck within
the shield,
The steeds without their riders scour
the field. 600
The knights, unhorsed, on foot renew the
fight;
The glittering falchions cast a gleaming
light:
Hauberks and helms are hew’d with
many a wound,
Out spins the streaming blood and dyes
the ground.
The mighty maces with such haste descend,
They break the bones, and make the solid
armour bend.
This thrusts amid the throng with furious
force;
Down goes, at once, the horseman and the
horse:
That courser stumbles on the fallen steed,
And floundering throws the rider o’er
his head. 610
One rolls along, a foot-ball to his foes;
One with a broken truncheon deals his
blows.
This halting, this disabled with his wound,
In triumph led, is to the pillar bound,
Where by the king’s award he must
abide:
There goes a captive led on the other
side.
By fits they cease; and leaning on the
lance,
Take breath a while, and to new fight
advance.
Full oft the rivals met, and
neither spared
His utmost force, and each forgot to ward.
620
The head of this was to the saddle bent,
The other backward to the crupper sent:
Both were by turns unhorsed; the jealous
blows
Fall thick and heavy, when on foot they
close.
So deep their falchions bite, that every
stroke
Pierced to the quick; and equal wounds
they gave and took.
Borne far asunder by the tides of men,
Like adamant and steel they meet again.
So when a tiger sucks the
bullock’s blood,
A famish’d lion issuing from the
wood 630
Roars lordly fierce, and challenges the
food:
Each claims possession, neither will obey,
But both their paws are fasten’d
on the prey;
They bite, they tear; and while in vain
they strive,
The swains come arm’d between, and
both to distance drive.
At length, as Fate foredoom’d,
and all things tend
By course of time to their appointed end;
So when the sun to west was far declined,
And both afresh in mortal battle join’d,
The strong Emetrius came in Arcite’s
aid, 640
And Palamon with odds was overlaid:
For turning short, he struck with all
his might
Full on the helmet of the unwary knight.
Deep was the wound; he stagger’d
with the blow,
And turn’d him to his unexpected
foe;
Whom with such force he struck, he fell’d
him down,
And cleft the circle of his golden crown.
But Arcite’s men, who now prevail’d
in fight,
Twice ten at once surround the single
knight:
O’erpower’d, at length, they
force him to the ground, 650
Unyielded as he was, and to the pillar
bound;
And King Lycurgus, while he fought in
vain
His friend to free, was tumbled on the
plain.
Who now laments but Palamon,
compell’d
No more to try the fortune of the field!
And, worse than death, to view with hateful
eyes
His rival’s conquest, and renounce
the prize!
The royal judge, on his tribunal
placed,
Who had beheld the fight from first to
last,
Bade cease the war; pronouncing from on
high, 660
Arcite of Thebes had won the beauteous
Emily.
The sound of trumpets to the voice replied,
And round the royal lists the heralds
cried,
Arcite of Thebes has won the beauteous
bride!
The people rend the skies
with vast applause;
All own the chief, when Fortune owns the
cause.
Arcite is own’d even by the gods
above,
And conquering Mars insults the Queen
of Love.
So laugh’d he, when the rightful
Titan fail’d,
And Jove’s usurping arms in heaven
prevail’d. 670
Laugh’d all the powers who favour
tyranny;
And all the standing army of the sky.
But Venus with dejected eyes appears,
And, weeping on the lists, distill’d
her tears;
Her will refused, which grieves a woman
most,
And, in her champion foil’d, the
cause of Love is lost.
Till Saturn said, Fair daughter, now be
still,
The blustering fool has satisfied his
will;
His boon is given; his knight has gain’d
the day,
But lost the prize; the arrears are yet
to pay; 680
Thy hour is come, and mine the care shall
be
To please thy knight, and set thy promise
free.
Now while the heralds run
the lists around,
And Arcite! Arcite! heaven and earth
resound;
A miracle (nor less it could be call’d)
Their joy with unexpected sorrow pall’d.
The victor knight had laid his helm aside,
Part for his ease, the greater part for
pride;
Bare-headed, popularly low he bow’d,
And paid the salutations of the crowd.
690
Then spurring at full speed, ran endlong
on
Where Theseus sate on his imperial throne;
Furious he drove, and upward cast his
eye,
Where, next the queen, was placed his
Emily;
Then passing, to the saddle-bow he bent:
A sweet regard the gracious virgin lent;
(For women, to the brave an easy prey,
Still follow Fortune where she leads the
way):
Just then, from earth sprung out a flashing
fire,
By Pluto sent, at Saturn’s bad desire:
700
The startling steed was seized with sudden
fright,
And, bounding, o’er the pommel cast
the knight:
Forward he flew, and pitching on his head,
He quiver’d with his feet, and lay
for dead.
Black was his countenance in a little
space,
For all the blood was gather’d in
his face.
Help was at hand: they rear’d
him from the ground,
And from his cumbrous arms his limbs unbound;
Then lanced a vein, and watch’d
returning breath;
It came, but clogg’d with symptoms
of his death. 710
The saddle-bow the noble parts had press’d,
All bruised and mortified his manly breast.
Him still entranced, and in a litter laid,
They bore from field, and to his bed convey’d.
At length he waked, and with a feeble
cry,
The word he first pronounced was “Emily.”
Mean time the king, though
inwardly he mourn’d,
In pomp triumphant to the town return’d,
Attended by the chiefs, who fought the
field;
(Now friendly mix’d, and in one
troop compell’d.) 720
Composed his looks to counterfeited cheer,
And bade them not for Arcite’s life
to fear.
But that which gladded all the warrior
train,
Though most were sorely wounded, none
were slain.
The surgeons soon despoil’d them
of their arms,
And some with salves they cure, and some
with charms;
Foment the bruises, and the pains assuage,
And heal their inward hurts with sovereign
draughts of sage.
The king in person visits all around,
Comforts the sick, congratulates the sound;
730
Honours the princely chiefs, rewards the
rest,
And holds for thrice three days a royal
feast.
None was disgraced; for falling is no
shame;
And cowardice alone is loss of fame.
The venturous knight is from the saddle
thrown;
But ’tis the fault of Fortune, not
his own,
If crowds and palms the conquering side
adorn,
The victor under better stars was born:
The brave man seeks not popular applause,
Nor, overpower’d with arms, deserts
his cause; 740
Unshamed, though foil’d, he does
the best he can;
Force is of brutes, but honour is of man.
Thus Theseus smiled on all
with equal grace,
And each was set according to his place;
With ease were reconciled the differing
parts,
For envy never dwells in noble hearts.
At length they took their leave, the time
expired,
Well pleased, and to their several homes
retired.
Mean while the health of Arcite
still impairs;
From bad proceeds to worse, and mocks
the leech’s cares 750
Swoln is his breast; his inward pains
increase,
All means are used, and all without success.
The clotted blood lies heavy on his heart,
Corrupts, and there remains, in spite
of art:
Nor breathing veins, nor cupping will
prevail;
All outward remedies and inward fail:
The mould of nature’s fabric is
destroy’d,
Her vessels discomposed, her virtue void;
The bellows of his lungs begin to swell:
All out of frame is every secret cell,
760
Nor can the good receive, nor bad expel.
Those breathing organs thus within oppress’d,
With venom soon distend the sinews of
his breast.
Nought profits him to save abandon’d
life,
Nor vomit’s upward aid, nor downward
laxative.
The midmost region batter’d and
destroy’d,
When nature cannot work, the effect of
art is void.
For physic can but mend our crazy state,
Patch an old building, not a new create.
Arcite is doom’d to die in all his
pride, 770
Must leave his youth, and yield his beauteous
bride,
Gain’d hardly, against right, and
unenjoy’d.
When ’twas declared all hope of
life was past,
Conscience (that of all physic works the
last)
Caused him to send for Emily in haste.
With her, at his desire, came Palamon;
Then on his pillow raised, he thus begun:
No language can express the
smallest part
Of what I feel, and suffer in my heart
For you, whom best I love and value most;
780
But to your service I bequeath my ghost;
Which from this mortal body when untied,
Unseen, unheard, shall hover at your side;
Nor fright you waking, nor your sleep
offend,
But wait officious, and your steps attend:
How I have loved, excuse my faltering
tongue,
My spirit’s feeble, and my pains
are strong:
This I may say, I only grieve to die,
Because I lose my charming Emily:
To die, when Heaven had put you in my
power, 790
Fate could not choose a more malicious
hour!
What greater curse could envious Fortune
give,
Than just to die, when I began to live?
Vain men! how vanishing a bliss we crave,
Now warm in love, now withering in the
grave!
Never, oh never more to see the sun!
Still dark, in a damp vault, and still
alone!
This fate is common; but I lose my breath;
Near bliss, and yet not bless’d
This was his last; for Death
came on amain,
And exercised below his iron reign;
Then upward to the seat of life he goes:
Sense fled before him, what he touch’d
he froze:
Yet could he not his closing eyes withdraw,
840
Though less and less of Emily he saw;
So, speechless, for a little space he
lay;
Then grasp’d the hand he held, and
sigh’d his soul away.
But whither went his soul,
let such relate
Who search the secrets of the future state:
Divines can say but what themselves believe;
Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative:
For, were all plain, then all sides must
agree,
And faith itself be lost in certainty.
To live uprightly, then, is sure the best,
850
To save ourselves, and not to damn the
rest.
The soul of Arcite went where heathens
go,
Who better live than we, though less they
know.
In Palamon a manly grief appears;
Silent, he wept, ashamed to show his tears:
Emilia shriek’d but once, and then,
oppress’d
With sorrow, sunk upon her lover’s
breast:
Till Theseus in his arms convey’d
with care,
Far from so sad a sight, the swooning
fair.
’Twere loss of time her sorrow to
relate; 860
Ill bears the sex a youthful lover’s
fate,
When just approaching to the nuptial state.
But like a low-hung cloud, it rains so
fast,
That all at once it falls, and cannot
last.
The face of things is changed, and Athens
now,
That laugh’d so late, becomes the
scene of woe:
Matrons and maids, both sexes, every state,
With tears lament the knight’s untimely
fate.
Nor greater grief in falling Troy was
seen
For Hector’s death; but Hector was
not then, 870
Old men with dust deform’d their
hoary hair,
The women beat their breasts, their cheeks
they tear.
Why wouldst thou go, with one consent
they cry,
When thou hadst gold enough, and Emily?
Theseus himself, who should
have cheer’d the grief
Of others, wanted now the same relief;
Old Egeus only could revive his son,
Who various changes of the world had known,
And strange vicissitudes of human fate,
Still altering, never in a steady state;
880
Good after ill, and, after pain, delight,
Alternate like the scenes of day and night:
Since every man who lives, is born to
die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind, what happens, let us
bear,
Nor joy, nor grieve too much for things
beyond our care.
Like pilgrims to the appointed place we
tend;
The world’s an inn, and death the
journey’s end.
Even kings but play; and when their part
is done,
Some other, worse or better, mount the
throne. 890
With words like these the crowd was satisfied,
And so they would have been, had Theseus
died.
But he, their king, was labouring in his
mind,
A fitting place for funeral pomps to find,
Which were in honour of the dead design’d.
And after long debate, at last he found
(As love itself had mark’d the spot
of ground)
That grove for ever green, that conscious
laund,
Where he with Palamon fought hand to hand:
That where he fed his amorous desires
900
With soft complaints, and felt his hottest
fires;
There other flames might waste his earthly
part,
And burn his limbs, where love had burn’d
his heart.
This once resolved, the peasants
were enjoin’d
Sere-wood, and firs, and dodder’d
oaks to find.
With sounding axes to the grove they go,
Fell, split, and lay the fuel on a row,
Vulcanian food: a bier is next prepared,
On which the lifeless body should be rear’d,
The straw, as first I said,
was laid below;
Of chips and sere-wood was the second
row;
The third of greens, and timber newly
fell’d;
The fourth high stage the fragrant odours
held,
And pearls, and precious stones, and rich
array;
In midst of which, embalm’d, the
body lay.
The service sung, the maid with mourning
eyes
The stubble fired; the smouldering flames
arise: 980
This office done, she sunk upon the ground;
But what she spoke, recover’d from
her swound,
I want the wit in moving words to dress;
But by themselves the tender sex may guess.
While the devouring fire was burning fast,
Rich jewels in the flame the wealthy cast;
And some their shields, and some their
lances threw,
And gave their warrior’s ghost a
warrior’s due.
Full bowls of wine, of honey, milk, and
blood
Were pour’d upon the pile of burning
wood, 990
And hissing flames receive, and hungry
lick the food.
Then thrice the mounted squadrons ride
around
The fire, and Arcite’s name they
thrice resound:
Hail, and farewell! they shouted thrice
amain,
Thrice facing to the left, and thrice
they turn’d again:
Still as they turn’d, they beat
their clattering shields;
The women mix their cries; and clamour
fills the fields.
The warlike wakes continued all the night,
And funeral games were play’d at
new returning light;
Who naked wrestled best, besmear’d
with oil, 1000
Or who with gauntlets gave or took the
foil,
I will not tell you, nor would you attend;
But briefly haste to my long story’s
end.
I pass the rest; the year
was fully mourn’d,
And Palamon long since to Thebes returned:
When, by the Grecians’ general consent,
At Athens Theseus held his parliament:
Among the laws that pass’d, it was
decreed,
That conquer’d Thebes from bondage
should be freed;
Reserving homage to the Athenian throne,
1010
To which the sovereign summon’d
Palamon.
Unknowing of the cause, he took his way,
Mournful in mind, and still in black array.
The monarch mounts the throne,
and, placed on high,
Commands into the court the beauteous
Emily:
So call’d, she came; the senate
rose, and paid
Becoming reverence to the royal maid.
And first, soft whispers through the assembly
went;
With silent wonder then they watch’d
the event:
All hush’d, the king arose with
awful grace, 1020
Deep thought was in his breast, and counsel
in his face.
At length he sigh’d; and having
first prepared
The attentive audience, thus his will
declared:
The Cause and Spring of motion,
from above,
Hung down on earth the golden chain of
Love:
Great was the effect, and high was his
intent,
When peace among the jarring seeds he
sent.
Fire, flood, and earth, and air by this
were bound,
And Love, the common link, the new creation
crown’d.
The chain still holds; for though the
forms decay, 1030
Eternal matter never wears away:
The same First Mover certain bounds has
placed,
How long those perishable forms shall
last:
Nor can they last beyond the time assign’d
By that all-seeing, and all-making mind:
Shorten their hours they may; for will
is free;
But never pass the appointed destiny.
So men oppress’d, when weary of
their breath,
Throw off the burden, and suborn their
death.
Then since those forms begin, and have
their end, 1040
On some unalter’d cause they sure
depend:
Parts of the whole are we; but God the
whole;
Who gives us life, and animating soul.
For nature cannot from a part derive
That being, which the whole can only give:
He perfect, stable; but imperfect we,
Subject to change, and different in degree;
Plants, beasts, and man; and as our organs
are,
We more or less of his perfection share.
But by a long descent, the ethereal fire
1050
Corrupts; and forms, the mortal part,
expire:
As he withdraws his virtue, so they pass,
And the same matter makes another mass:
This law the Omniscient Power was pleased
to give,
That every kind should by succession live:
That individuals die, His will ordains;
The propagated species still remains.
The monarch oak, the patriarch of the
trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow
degrees;
Three centuries he grows, and three he
stays, 1060
Supreme in state, and in three more decays:
So wears the paving pebble in the street,
And towns and towers their fatal periods
meet:
So rivers, rapid once, now naked lie,
Forsaken of their springs; and leave their
channels dry.
So man, at first a drop, dilates with
heat,
Then, form’d, the little heart begins
to beat;
Secret he feeds, unknowing in the cell;
At length, for hatching ripe, he breaks
the shell,
And struggles into breath, and cries for
aid; 1070
Then, helpless, in his mother’s
lap is laid:
He creeps, he walks, and issuing into
man,
Grudges their life, from whence his own
began:
Reckless of laws, affects to rule alone,
Anxious to reign, and restless on the
throne:
First vegetive, then feels, and reasons
last;
Rich of three souls, and lives all three
to waste.
Some thus; but thousands more in flower
of age:
For few arrive to run the latter stage.
Sunk in the first, in battle some are
So may the Queen of Love long
duty bless,
And all true lovers find the same success!
* * * * *
THE COCK AND THE FOX: OR, THE TALE OF THE NUN’S PRIEST.
There lived, as authors tell, in days
of yore,
A widow somewhat old, and very poor:
Deep in a cell her cottage lonely stood,
Well thatch’d, and under covert
of a wood.
This dowager, on whom my tale I found,
Since last she laid her husband in the
ground,
A simple sober life, in patience, led,
And had but just enough to buy her bread:
But huswifing the little Heaven had lent,
She duly paid a groat for quarter rent;
10
And pinch’d her belly, with her
daughters two,
To bring the year about with much ado.
The cattle in her homestead
were three sows,
A ewe call’d Mally, and three brinded
cows.
Her parlour-window stuck with herbs around,
Of savoury smell; and rushes strew’d
the ground.
A mapple-dresser in her hall she had,
On which full many a slender meal she
made;
For no delicious morsel pass’d her
throat;
According to her cloth she cut her coat:
20
No poignant sauce she knew, nor costly
treat,
Her hunger gave a relish to her meat:
A sparing diet did her health assure;
Or sick, a pepper posset was her cure.
Before the day was done, her work she
sped,
And never went by candlelight to bed:
With exercise she sweat ill humours out,
Her dancing was not hindered by the gout.
Her poverty was glad; her heart content;
Nor knew she what the spleen or vapours
meant. 30
Of wine she never tasted through the year,
But white and black was all her homely
cheer:
Brown bread, and milk (but first she skimm’d
her bowls),
And rashers of singed bacon on the coals;
On holy days, an egg or two at most;
But her ambition never reach’d to
roast.
A yard she had with pales
enclosed about,
Some high, some low, and a dry ditch without.
Within this homestead lived, without a
peer
For crowing loud, the noble Chanticleer;
40
So hight her cock, whose singing did surpass
The merry notes of organs at the mass.
More certain was the crowing of the cock
To number hours, than is an abbey-clock;
And sooner than the matin-bell was rung,
He clapp’d his wings upon his roost,
and sung:
For when degrees fifteen ascended right,
By sure instinct he knew ’twas one
at night.
High was his comb, and coral-red withal,
In dents embattled like a castle wall;
50
His bill was raven-black, and shone like
jet;
Blue were his legs, and orient were his
feet;
White were his nails, like silver to behold,
His body glittering like the burnish’d
gold.
This gentle cock, for solace of his life,
Six misses had, besides his lawful wife.
Scandal that spares no king, though ne’er
so good,
Says, they were all of his own flesh and
blood,
His sisters both by sire and mother’s
side;
And sure their likeness show’d them
near allied. 60
But make the worst, the monarch did no
more,
Than all the Ptolemys had done before:
When incest is for interest of a nation,
’Tis made no sin by holy dispensation.
Some lines have been maintain’d
by this alone,
Which by their common ugliness are known.
But passing this, as from
our tale apart,
Dame Partlet was the sovereign of his
heart:
Ardent in love, outrageous in his play,
He feather’d her a hundred times
a day: 70
And she, that was not only passing fair,
But was with all discreet, and debonair,
Resolved the passive doctrine to fulfil,
Though loth; and let him work his wicked
will:
At board and bed was affable and kind,
According as their marriage vow did bind,
And as the Church’s precept had
enjoin’d.
Even since she was a se’ennight
old, they say,
Was chaste and humble to her dying day,
Nor chick nor hen was known to disobey.
80
By this her husband’s
heart she did obtain;
What cannot beauty, join’d with
virtue, gain!
She was his only joy, and he her pride,
She, when he walk’d, went pecking
by his side;
If spurning up the ground, he sprung a
corn,
The tribute in his bill to her was borne.
But oh! what joy it was to hear him sing
In summer, when the day began to spring,
Stretching his neck, and warbling in his
throat;
Solus cum sola then was all his
note. 90
For in the days of yore, the birds of
parts
Were bred to speak, and sing, and learn
the liberal arts.
It happ’d that, perching
on the parlour-beam
Amidst his wives, he had a deadly dream,
Just at the dawn; and sigh’d, and
groan’d so fast,
As every breath he drew would be his last.
Dame Partlet, ever nearest to his side,
Heard all his piteous moan, and how he
cried
For help from gods and men: and sore
aghast
She peck’d and pull’d, and
waken’d him at last. 100
Dear heart, said she, for love of heaven
declare
Your pain, and make me partner in your
care!
You groan, sir, ever since the morning-light,
As something had disturb’d your
noble sprite.
And, madam, well I might,
said Chanticleer;
Never was shrovetide cock in such a fear.
Even still I run all over in a sweat,
My princely senses not recover’d
yet.
For such a dream I had, of dire portent,
That much I fear my body will be shent:
110
It bodes I shall have wars and woful strife,
Or in a loathsome dungeon end my life.
Know, dame, I dreamt within my troubled
breast,
That in our yard I saw a murderous beast,
That on my body would have made arrest.
With waking eyes I ne’er beheld
his fellow;
His colour was betwixt a red and yellow:
Tipp’d was his tail, and both his
pricking ears
Were black; and much unlike his other
hairs:
The rest, in shape a beagle’s whelp
throughout, 120
With broader forehead, and a sharper snout:
Deep in his front were sunk his glowing
eyes,
That yet, methinks, I see him with surprise.
Reach out your hand, I drop with clammy
sweat,
And lay it to my heart, and feel it beat.
Now fie, for shame, quoth she; by Heaven
above,
Thou hast for ever lost thy lady’s
love!
No woman can endure a recreant knight,
He must be bold by day, and free by night:
Our sex desires a husband or a friend,
130
Who can our honour and his own defend.
Wise, hardy, secret, liberal of his purse:
A fool is nauseous, but a coward worse:
No bragging coxcomb, yet no baffled knight.
How darest thou talk of love, and darest
not fight?
How darest thou tell thy dame thou art
affear’d?
Hast thou no manly heart, and hast a beard?
If aught from fearful dreams
may be divined,
They signify a cock of dunghill kind.
All dreams, as in old Galen I have read,
140
Are from repletion and complexion bred;
From rising fumes of indigested food,
And noxious humours that infect the blood:
And sure, my lord, if I can read aright,
These foolish fancies you have had to-night
Are certain symptoms (in the canting style)
Of boiling choler, and abounding bile;
This yellow gall, that in your stomach
floats,
Engenders all these visionary thoughts.
Madam, quoth he, gramercy
for your care,
But Cato, whom you quoted, you may spare:
’Tis true, a wise and worthy man
he seems,
And (as you say) gave no belief to dreams:
But other men of more authority,
And, by the immortal powers! as wise as
he, 200
Maintain, with sounder sense, that dreams
forebode;
For Homer plainly says they come from
God.
Nor Cato said it: but some modern
fool
Imposed in Cato’s name on boys at
school.
Believe me, madam, morning dreams foreshow
The events of things, and future weal
or woe:
Some truths are not by reason to be tried,
But we have sure experience for our guide.
An ancient author, equal with the best,
Relates this tale of dreams among the
rest. 210
Two friends or brothers, with
devout intent,
On some far pilgrimage together went.
It happen’d so that, when the sun
was down,
They just arrived by twilight at a town;
That day had been the baiting of a bull,
’Twas at a feast, and every inn
so full,
That no void room in chamber, or on ground,
And but one sorry bed was to be found:
And that so little it would hold but one,
Though till this hour they never lay alone.
220
So were they forced to part; one staid
behind,
His fellow sought what lodging he could
find:
At last he found a stall where oxen stood,
And that he rather chose than lie abroad.
’Twas in a farther yard without
a door;
But, for his ease, well litter’d
was the floor.
His fellow, who the narrow bed had kept,
Was weary, and without a rocker slept:
Supine he snored; but in the dead of night
He dream’d his friend appear’d
before his sight, 230
Who, with a ghastly look and doleful cry,
Said, Help me, brother, or this night
I die:
Arise, and help, before all help be vain,
Or in an ox’s stall I shall be slain.
Roused from his rest, he waken’d
in a start,
Shivering with horror, and with aching
heart;
At length to cure himself by reason tries;
’Tis but a dream, and what are dreams
but lies?
So thinking, changed his side, and closed
his eyes.
His dream returns; his friend appears
again: 240
The murderers come, now help, or I am
slain:
’Twas but a vision still, and visions
are but vain.
He dream’d the third: but now
his friend appear’d
Pale, naked, pierced with wounds, with
blood besmear’d:
Thrice warn’d, awake, said he; relief
is late,
The deed is done; but thou revenge my
fate:
Tardy of aid, unseal thy heavy eyes;
Awake, and with the dawning day arise:
Take to the western gate thy ready way,
For by that passage they my corpse convey:
250
My corpse is in a tumbril laid, among
The filth and ordure, and enclosed with
dung;
That cart arrest, and raise a common cry;
For sacred hunger of my gold, I die:
Then show’d his grisly wound; and
last he drew
A piteous sigh, and took a long adieu.
The frighted friend arose
by break of day,
And found the stall where late his fellow
lay.
Then of his impious host inquiring more,
Was answer’d that his guest was
gone before: 260
Muttering he went, said he, by morning
light,
And much complain’d of his ill rest
by night.
This raised suspicion in the pilgrim’s
mind;
Because all hosts are of an evil kind,
And oft to share the spoils with robbers
join’d.
His dream confirm’d
his thought: with troubled look
Straight to the western gate his way he
took:
There, as his dream foretold, a cart he
found,
That carried compost forth to dung the
ground.
This when the pilgrim saw, he stretch’d
his throat, 270
And cried out murder with a yelling note.
My murder’d fellow in this cart
lies dead,
Vengeance and justice on the villain’s
head;
You, magistrates, who sacred laws dispense,
On you I call to punish this offence.
The word thus given, within
a little space
The mob came roaring out, and throng’d
the place.
All in a trice they cast the cart to ground,
And in the dung the murder’d body
found;
Though breathless, warm, and reeking from
the wound.
Good Heaven, whose darling attribute we
find
Is boundless grace and mercy to mankind,
280
Abhors the cruel; and the deeds of night
By wondrous ways reveals in open light:
Murder may pass unpunish’d for a
time,
But tardy justice will o’ertake
the crime.
And oft a speedier pain the guilty feels;
The hue and cry of Heaven pursues him
at the heels,
Fresh from the fact; as in the present
case,
The criminals are seized upon the place:
290
Carter and host confronted face to face.
Stiff in denial, as the law appoints,
On engines they distend their tortured
joints:
So was confession forced, the offence
was known,
And public justice on the offenders done.
Here may you see that visions
are to dread;
And in the page that follows this, I read
Of two young merchants, whom the hope
of gain
Induced in partnership to cross the main:
Waiting till willing winds their sails
supplied, 300
Within a trading town they long abide,
Full fairly situate on a haven’s
side.
One evening it befell, that,
looking out,
The wind they long had wish’d was
come about:
Well pleased, they went to rest; and if
the gale
Till morn continued, both resolved to
sail.
But as together in a bed they lay,
The younger had a dream at break of day.
A man he thought stood frowning at his
side:
Who warn’d him for his safety to
provide, 310
Nor put to sea, but safe on shore abide.
I come, thy Genius, to command thy stay;
Trust not the winds, for fatal is the
day,
And death unhoped attends the watery way.
The vision said; and vanish’d from
his sight:
The dreamer waken’d in a mortal
fright:
Then pull’d his drowsy neighbour,
and declared
What in his slumber he had seen and heard.
His friend smiled scornful, and with proud
contempt
Rejects as idle what his fellow dreamt.
320
Stay, who will stay: for me no fears
Sometimes we but rehearse
a former play,
The night restores our actions done by
day;
As hounds in sleep will open for their
prey.
In short, the farce of dreams is of a
piece: 340
Chimeras all; and more absurd, or less:
You, who believe in tales, abide alone;
Whate’er I get this voyage is my
own.
Thus while he spoke, he heard
the shouting crew
That call’d aboard, and took his
last adieu.
The vessel went before a merry gale,
And for quick passage put on every sail:
But when least fear’d, and even
in open day,
The mischief overtook her in the way:
Whether she sprung a leak, I cannot find,
350
Or whether she was overset with wind,
Or that some rock below her bottom rent;
But down at once with all her crew she
went:
Her fellow ships from far her loss descried;
But only she was sunk, and all were safe
beside.
By this example you are taught
again,
That dreams and visions are not always
vain:
But if, dear Partlet, you are still in
doubt,
Another tale shall make the former out.
Kenelm, the son of Kenulph,
Mercia’s king, 360
Whose holy life the legends loudly sing,
Warn’d in a dream, his murder did
foretell
From point to point as after it befell:
All circumstances to his nurse he told,
(A wonder from a child of seven years
old):
The dream with horror heard, the good
old wife
From treason counsell’d him to guard
his life;
But close to keep the secret in his mind,
For a boy’s vision small belief
would find.
The pious child, by promise bound, obey’d,
370
Nor was the fatal murder long delay’d:
By Quenda slain, he fell before his time,
Made a young martyr by his sister’s
crime.
The tale is told by venerable Bede,
Which, at your better leisure, you may
read.
Macrobius, too, relates the
vision sent
To the great Scipio, with the famed event:
Objections makes, but after makes replies,
And adds, that dreams are often prophecies.
Of Daniel you may read in
holy writ, 380
Who, when the king his vision did forget,
Could word for word the wondrous dream
repeat.
Nor less of patriarch Joseph understand,
Who by a dream enslaved the Egyptian land,
The years of plenty and of dearth foretold,
When, for their bread, their liberty they
sold.
Nor must the exalted butler be forgot,
Nor he whose dream presaged his hanging
lot.
And did not Croesus the same
death foresee,
Raised in his vision on a lofty tree?
390
The wife of Hector, in his utmost pride,
Dream’d of his death the night before
he died;
Well was he warn’d from battle to
refrain,
But men to death decreed are warn’d
in vain:
He dared the dream, and by his fatal foe
was slain.
Much more I know, which I
forbear to speak,
For, see, the ruddy day begins to break;
Let this suffice, that plainly I foresee
My dream was bad, and bodes adversity:
But neither pills nor laxatives I like,
400
They only serve to make the well-man sick:
Of these his gain the sharp physician
makes,
And often gives a purge, but seldom takes:
They not correct, but poison all the blood,
And ne’er did any but the doctors
good.
Their tribe, trade, trinkets, I defy them
all;
With every work of pothecary’s hall.
These melancholy matters I forbear:
But let me tell thee, Partlet mine, and
swear,
That when I view the beauties of thy face,
410
I fear not death, nor dangers, nor disgrace:
So may my soul have bliss, as when I spy
The scarlet red about thy partridge eye,
While thou art constant to thy own true
knight,
While thou art mine, and I am thy delight,
All sorrows at thy presence take their
flight.
For true it is, as in principio,
Mulier est hominis confusio.
Madam, the meaning of this Latin is,
That woman is to man his sovereign bliss.
420
For when by night I feel your tender side,
Though for the narrow perch I cannot ride,
Yet I have such a solace in my mind,
That all my boding cares are cast behind;
And even already I forget my dream.
He said, and downward flew from off the
beam;
For daylight now began apace to spring,
The thrush to whistle, and the lark to
sing;
Then, crowing, clapp’d his wings,
the appointed call,
To chuck his wives together in the hall.
430
By this the widow had unbarr’d
the door,
And Chanticleer went strutting out before.
With royal courage, and with heart so
light,
As show’d he scorned the visions
of the night.
Now roaming in the yard, he spurn’d
the ground,
And gave to Partlet the first grain he
’Twas now the month
in which the world began,
(If March beheld the first created man):
And since the vernal equinox, the sun,
In Aries twelve degrees, or more, had
run;
When, casting up his eyes against the
light,
Both month, and day, and hour he measured
right; 450
And told more truly than the Ephemeris:
For art may err, but nature cannot miss.
Thus numbering times and seasons in his
breast,
His second crowing the third hour confess’d.
Then turning, said to Partlet, See, my
dear,
How lavish nature has adorn’d the
year;
How the pale primrose and blue violet
spring,
And birds essay their throats disused
to sing:
All these are ours; and I with pleasure
see
Man strutting on two legs, and aping me:
460
An unfledged creature, of a lumpish frame,
Endow’d with fewer particles of
flame;
Our dame sits cowering o’er a kitchen
fire,
I draw fresh air, and nature’s works
admire:
And even this day in more delight abound,
Than, since I was an egg, I ever found.
The time shall come when Chanticleer
shall wish
His words unsaid, and hate his boasted
bliss:
The crested bird shall by experience know,
Jove made not him his masterpiece below;
470
And learn the latter end of joy is woe.
The vessel of his bliss to dregs is run,
And Heaven will have him taste his other
tun.
Ye wise, draw near, and hearken
to my tale,
Which proves that oft the proud by flattery
fall:
The legend is as true, I undertake,
As Tristran is, and Launcelot of the lake:
Which all our ladies in such reverence
hold,
As if in Book of Martyrs it were told.
A fox, full-fraught with seeming
sanctity, 480
That fear’d an oath, but, like the
devil, would lie;
Who look’d like Lent, and had the
holy leer,
And durst not sin before he said his prayer;
This pious cheat, that never suck’d
the blood,
Nor chew’d the flesh of lambs, but
when he could,
Had pass’d three summers in the
neighbouring wood:
And musing long, whom next to circumvent,
On Chanticleer his wicked fancy bent;
And in his high imagination cast,
By stratagem, to gratify his taste.
490
The plot contrived,
before the break of day
Saint Reynard through the hedge had made
his way;
The pale was next, but proudly with a
bound
He leapt the fence of the forbidden ground:
Yet fearing to be seen, within a bed
Of coleworts he conceal’d his wily
head;
Then skulk’d till afternoon, and
watch’d his time
(As murderers use) to perpetrate his crime.
Oh, hypocrite, ingenious to
destroy!
Oh, traitor, worse than Sinon was to Troy!
500
Oh, vile subverter of the Gallic reign,
More false than Gano was to Charlemagne!
Oh, Chanticleer, in an unhappy hour
Didst thou forsake the safety of thy bower!
Better for thee thou hadst believed thy
dream,
And not that day descended from the beam.
But here the doctors eagerly dispute:
Some hold predestination absolute;
Some clerks maintain, that Heaven at first
foresees,
And in the virtue of foresight decrees.
510
If this be so, then prescience binds the
will,
And mortals are not free to good or ill;
For what he first foresaw, he must ordain,
Or its eternal prescience may be vain:
As bad for us as prescience had not been:
For first, or last, he’s author
of the sin.
And who says that, let the blaspheming
man
Say worse even of the devil, if he can.
For how can that Eternal Power be just
To punish man, who sins because he must?
520
Or, how can he reward a virtuous deed,
Which is not done by us; but first decreed?
I cannot bolt this matter
to the bran,
As Bradwardin and holy Austin can;
If prescience can determine actions so
That we must do, because he did foreknow,
Or that, foreknowing, yet our choice is
free,
Not forced to sin by strict necessity;
This strict necessity they simple call,
Another sort there is conditional.
530
The first so binds the will, that things
foreknown
By spontaneity, not choice, are done.
Thus galley-slaves tug willing at their
oar,
Content to work, in prospect of the shore;
But would not work at all if not constrain’d
before.
That other does not liberty constrain,
But man may either act, or may refrain.
Heaven made us agents free to good or
ill,
And forced it not, though he foresaw the
will.
Freedom was first bestow’d on human
race, 540
And prescience only held the second place.
If he could make such agents
wholly free,
I not dispute, the point’s too high
for me;
For Heaven’s unfathom’d power
what man can sound,
Or put to his Omnipotence a bound?
He made us to his image, all agree;
That image is the soul, and that must
be,
Or not, the Maker’s image, or be
free.
But whether it were better man had been
Silence in times of suffering
is the best,
’Tis dangerous to disturb an hornet’s
nest.
In other authors you may find enough,
But all they say of dames is idle stuff:
568
Legends of lying wits together bound,
The Wife of Bath would throw them to the
ground;
These are the words of Chanticleer, not
mine;
I honour dames, and think their sex divine.
Now to continue what my tale
begun:
Lay Madam Partlet basking in the sun,
Breast-high in sand: her sisters
in a row
Enjoy’d the beams above, the warmth
below;
The cock, that of his flesh was ever free,
Sung merrier than the mermaid in the sea:
And so befell, that as he cast his eye
Among the coleworts on a butterfly,
580
He saw false Reynard where he lay full
low:
I need not swear he had no list to crow:
But cried cock, cock, and gave
a sudden start,
As sore dismay’d, and frighted at
his heart:
For birds and beasts, inform’d by
nature, know
Kinds opposite to theirs, and fly their
foe;
So Chanticleer, who never saw a fox,
Yet shunn’d him as a sailor shuns
the rocks.
But the false loon, who could not work
his will
But open force, employ’d his flattering
skill; 590
I hope, my lord, said he, I not offend;
Are you afraid of me, that am your friend?
I were a beast indeed to do you wrong,
I, who have loved and honour’d you
so long:
Stay, gentle sir, nor take a false alarm,
For, on my soul, I never meant you harm.
I come no spy, nor as a traitor press,
To learn the secrets of your soft recess:
Far be from Reynard so profane a thought,
But by the sweetness of your voice was
brought: 600
For, as I bid my beads, by chance I heard
The song as of an angel in the yard;
A song that would have charm’d the
infernal gods,
And banish’d horror from the dark
abodes:
Had Orpheus sung it in the nether sphere,
So much the hymn had pleased the tyrant’s
ear,
The wife had been detain’d, to keep
the husband there.
My lord, your sire familiarly
I knew,
A peer deserving such a son as you:
He, with your lady-mother (whom Heaven
rest!) 610
Has often graced my house, and been my
guest;
To view his living features does me good,
For I am your poor neighbour in the wood;
And in my cottage should be proud to see
The worthy heir of my friend’s family.
But since I speak of singing, let me say,
As with an upright heart I safely may,
That, save yourself, there breathes not
on the ground
One like your father for a silver sound.
So sweetly would he wake the winter day,
620
That matrons to the church mistook their
way,
And thought they heard the merry organ
play.
And he, to raise his voice, with artful
care,
(What will not beaux attempt to please
the fair?)
On tiptoe stood to sing with greater strength,
And stretch’d his comely neck at
all the length:
And while he strain’d his voice
to pierce the skies,
As saints in raptures use, would shut
his eyes,
That the sound striving through the narrow
throat,
His winking might avail to mend the note,
630
By this, in song, he never had his peer,
From sweet Cecilia down to Chanticleer;
Nor Maro’s muse, who sung the mighty
Man,
Nor Pindar’s heavenly lyre, nor
Horace when a swan.
Your ancestors proceed from race divine:
From Brennus and Belinus is your line;
Who gave to sovereign Rome such loud alarms,
That even the priests were not excused
from arms.
Besides, a famous monk of
modern times
Has left of cocks recorded in his rhymes,
640
That of a parish priest the son and heir
(When sons of priests were from the proverb
clear),
Affronted once a cock of noble kind,
And either lamed his legs, or struck him
blind;
For which the clerk his father was disgraced,
And in his benefice another placed.
Now sing, my lord, if not for love of
me,
Yet for the sake of sweet Saint Charity;
Make hills and dales, and earth and heaven
rejoice,
And emulate your father’s angel-voice.
650
The cock was pleased to hear
him speak so fair,
And proud beside, as solar people are;
Nor could the treason from the truth descry,
So was he ravish’d with this flattery;
So much the more, as from a little elf
He had a high opinion of himself;
Though sickly, slender, and not large
of limb,
Concluding all the world was made for
him.
Ye princes, raised by poets
to the gods,
And Alexander’d[72] up in lying
odes! 660
Believe not every flattering knave’s
report,
There’s many a Reynard lurking in
the court;
And he shall be received with more regard,
And listen’d to, than modest truth
is heard.
This Chanticleer, of whom
the story sings,
Stood high upon his toes, and clapp’d
his wings;
Then stretch’d his neck, and wink
d with both his eyes,
Ambitious as he sought the Olympic prize.
But while he pain’d himself to raise
his note,
False Renyard rush’d and caught
him by the throat. 670
Then on his back he laid the precious
load,
And sought his wonted shelter of the wood;
Swiftly he made his way the mischief done,
Of all unheeded, and pursued by none.
Alas, what stay is there in
human state!
Or who can shun inevitable fate?
The doom was written, the decree was pass’d,
Ere the foundations of the world were
cast!
In Aries though the sun exalted stood,
His patron-planet, to procure his good;
680
Yet Saturn was his mortal foe, and he,
In Libra raised, opposed the same degree:
The rays both good and bad, of equal power,
Each thwarting other, made a mingled hour.
On Friday morn he dreamt this
direful dream,
Cross to the worthy native, in his scheme!
Ah, blissful Venus, Goddess of delight!
How couldst thou suffer thy devoted knight
On thy own day to fall by foe oppress’d,
The wight of all the world who served
thee best? 690
Who, true to love, was all for recreation,
And minded not the work of propagation.
Ganfride,[73] who couldst so well in rhyme
complain
The death of Richard with an arrow slain,
Why had not I thy muse, or thou my heart,
To sing this heavy dirge with equal art?
That I, like thee, on Friday might complain;
For on that day was Coeur de Lion slain.
Not louder cries, when Ilium
was in flames,
Were sent to Heaven by woful Trojan dames,
700
When Pyrrhus toss’d on high his
burnish’d blade,
And offer’d Priam to his father’s
shade,
Than for the cock the widow’d poultry
made.
Fair Partlet first, when he was borne
from sight,
With sovereign shrieks bewail’d
her captive knight:
Far louder than the Carthaginian wife,
When Asdrubal, her husband, lost his life;
When she beheld the smouldering flames
ascend,
And all the Punic glories at an end:
Willing into the fires she plunged her
head, 710
With greater ease than others seek their
bed.
Not more aghast the matrons of renown,
When tyrant Nero burn’d the imperial
town,
Shriek’d for the downfall in a doleful
cry,
For which their guiltless lords were doom’d
to die.
Now to my story I return again:
The trembling widow, and her daughters
twain,
This woful cackling cry with horror heard,
Of those distracted damsels in the yard;
And starting up beheld the heavy sight,
720
How Reynard to the forest took his flight,
And ’cross his back, as in triumphant
scorn,
The hope and pillar of the house was borne.
The fox! the wicked fox! was
all the cry;
Out from his house ran every neighbour
nigh:
The vicar first, and after him the crew,
With forks and staves the felon to pursue.
Ran Coll our dog, and Talbot with the
band,
And Malkin, with her distaff in her hand:
Ran cow and calf, and family of hogs,
730
In panic horror of pursuing dogs;
With many a deadly grunt and doleful squeak,
Poor swine, as if their pretty hearts
would break.
The shouts of men, the women in dismay,
With shrieks augment the terror of the
day.
The ducks that heard the proclamation
cried,
And fear’d a persecution might betide,
Full twenty miles from town their voyage
take,
Obscure in rushes of the liquid lake.
The geese fly o’er the barn; the
bees in arms 740
Drive headlong from their waxen cells
in swarms.
Jack Straw at London-stone, with all his
rout,
Struck not the city with so loud a shout;
Not when, with English hate, they did
pursue
A Frenchman, or an unbelieving Jew:
Not when the welkin rung with ‘one
and all;’
And echoes bounded back from Fox’s
hall:
Earth seem’d to sink beneath, and
heaven above to fall.
With might and main they chased the murderous
fox,
With brazen trumpets, and inflated box,
750
To kindle Mars with military sounds,
Nor wanted horns to inspire sagacious
hounds.
But see how Fortune can confound
the wise,
And when they least expect it, turn the
dice!
The captive-cock, who scarce could draw
his breath,
And lay within the very jaws of death;
Yet in this agony his fancy wrought,
And fear supplied him with this happy
thought:
Yours is the prize, victorious
prince! said he,
The vicar my defeat, and all the village
see. 760
Enjoy your friendly fortune while you
may,
And bid the churls that envy you the prey
Call back their mongrel curs, and cease
their cry,
See, fools, the shelter of the wood is
nigh,
And Chanticleer in your despite shall
die,
He shall be pluck’d and eaten to
the bone.
’Tis well advised, in
faith it shall be done;
This Reynard said: but as the word
he spoke,
The prisoner with a spring from prison
broke;
Then stretch’d his feather’d
fans with all his might, 770
And to the neighbouring maple wing’d
his flight;
Whom, when the traitor safe on tree beheld,
He cursed the gods, with shame and sorrow
fill’d:
Shame for his folly, sorrow out of time,
For plotting an unprofitable crime;
Yet mastering both, the artificer of lies
Renews the assault, and his last battery
tries.
Though I, said he, did ne’er
in thought offend,
How justly may my lord suspect his friend?
The appearance is against me, I confess,
780
Who seemingly have put you in distress:
You, if your goodness does not plead my
cause,
May think I broke all hospitable laws,
To bear you from your palace-yard by might,
And put your noble person in a fright:
This, since you take it ill, I must repent,
Though, Heaven can witness, with no bad
intent:
I practised it, to make you taste your
cheer
With double pleasure, first prepared by
fear.
So loyal subjects often seize their prince,
790
Forced (for his good) to seeming violence,
Yet mean his sacred person not the least
offence.
Descend; so help me Jove, as you shall
find,
That Reynard comes of no dissembling kind.
Nay, quoth the Cock, but I
beshrew us both,
If I believe a saint upon his oath:
An honest man may take a knave’s
advice,
But idiots only may be cozen’d twice:
Once warn’d is well bewared; no
nattering lies
Shall soothe me more to sing with winking
eyes, 800
And open mouth, for fear of catching flies.
Who blindfold walks upon a river’s
brim,
When he should see, has he deserved to
swim?
Better, Sir Cock, let all
contention cease,
Come down, said Reynard, let us treat
of peace.
A peace with all my soul, said Chanticleer;
But, with your favour, I will treat it
here:
And, lest the truce with treason should
be mix’d,
’Tis my concern to have the tree
betwixt.
THE MORAL.
In this plain fable you the
effect may see 810
Of negligence, and fond credulity:
And learn besides of flatterers to beware,
Then most pernicious when they speak too
fair.
The cock and fox, the fool and knave imply;
The truth is moral, though the tale a
lie.
Who spoke in parables, I dare not say;
But sure he knew it was a pleasing way,
Sound sense, by plain example, to convey.
And in a heathen author we may find,
That pleasure with instruction should
be join’d; 820
So take the corn, and leave the chaff
behind.
* * * * *
[Footnote 72: ‘Alexander’d’: an allusion to his famous ode.]
[Footnote 73: ‘Ganfride’: a mediaeval ballad-monger.]
* * * * *
OR, THE LADY IN THE ARBOUR.[74]
A VISION.
Now turning from the wintry signs, the
sun,
His course exalted, through the Ram had
run,
And whirling up the skies, his chariot
drove
Through Taurus, and the lightsome realms
of love;
Where Venus from her orb descends in showers,
To glad the ground, and paint the fields
with flowers:
When first the tender blades of grass
appear,
And buds, that yet the blast of Eurus
fear,
Stand at the door of life, and doubt to
clothe the year:
Till gentle heat, and soft repeated rains,
10
Make the green blood to dance within their
veins:
Then, at their call, embolden’d
out they come,
And swell the gems, and burst the narrow
room;
Broader and broader yet, their blooms
display,
Salute the welcome sun, and entertain
the day.
Then from their breathing souls the sweets
repair
To scent the skies, and purge the unwholesome
air:
Joy spreads the heart, and, with a general
song,
Spring issues out, and leads the jolly
months along.
In that sweet season, as in
bed I lay, 20
And sought in sleep to pass the night
away,
I turn’d my weary side, but still
in vain,
Though full of youthful health, and void
of pain:
Cares I had none, to keep me from my rest,
For love had never enter’d in my
breast;
I wanted nothing fortune could supply,
Nor did she slumber till that hour deny.
I wonder’d then, but after found
it true,
Much joy had dried away the balmy dew:
Seas would be pools, without the brushing
air 30
To curl the waves; and sure some little
care
Should weary nature so, to make her want
repair.
When Chanticleer the second
watch had sung,
Scorning the scorner sleep, from bed I
sprung;
And dressing, by the moon, in loose array,
Pass’d out in open air, preventing
day,
And sought a goodly grove, as fancy led
my way.
Straight as a line in beauteous order
stood
Of oaks unshorn a venerable wood;
Fresh was the grass beneath, and every
tree, 40
At distance planted in a due degree,
Their branching arms in air with equal
space
Stretch’d to their neighbours with
a long embrace:
And the new leaves on every bough were
seen,
Some ruddy colour’d, some of lighter
green.
The painted birds, companions of the spring,
Hopping from spray to spray, were heard
to sing.
Both eyes and ears received a like delight,
Enchanting music, and a charming sight.
On Philomel I fix’d my whole desire,
50
And listen’d for the queen of all
the quire;
Fain would I hear her heavenly voice to
sing;
And wanted yet an omen to the spring.
Attending long in vain, I
took the way
Which through a path but scarcely printed
lay;
In narrow mazes oft it seem’d to
meet,
And look’d as lightly press’d
by fairy feet.
Wandering I walk’d alone, for still
methought
To some strange end so strange a path
was wrought:
At last it led me where an arbour stood,
60
The sacred receptacle of the wood:
This place unmark’d, though oft
I walk’d the green,
In all my progress I had never seen:
And seized at once with wonder and delight,
Gazed all around me, new to the transporting
sight.
’Twas bench’d with turf, and
goodly to be seen,
The thick young grass arose in fresher
green:
The mound was newly made, no sight could
pass
Betwixt the nice partitions of the grass,
The well-united sods so closely lay;
70
And all around the shades defended it
from day;
For sycamores with eglantine were spread,
A hedge about the sides, a covering overhead.
And so the fragrant brier was wove between,
The sycamore and flowers were mixed with
green,
That nature seem’d to vary the delight,
And satisfied at once the smell and sight.
The master workman of the bower was known
Through fairy-lands, and built for Oberon;
Who twining leaves with such proportion
drew, 80
They rose by measure, and by rule they
grew;
No mortal tongue can half the beauty tell;
For none but hands divine could work so
well.
Both roof and sides were like a parlour
made,
A soft recess, and a cool summer shade;
The hedge was set so thick, no foreign
eye
The persons placed within it could espy;
But all that pass’d without with
ease was seen,
As if nor fence nor tree was placed between.
’Twas border’d with a field;
and some was plain 90
With grass, and some was sow’d with
rising grain.
That (now the dew with spangles deck’d
the ground)
A sweeter spot of earth was never found.
I look’d, and look’d, and
still with new delight;
Such joy my soul, such pleasures fill’d
my sight;
And the fresh eglantine exhaled a breath,
Whose odours were of power to raise from
death.
Nor sullen discontent, nor anxious care,
Even though brought thither, could inhabit
there:
But thence they fled as from their mortal
foe; 100
For this sweet place could only pleasure
know.
Thus as I mused, I cast aside
my eye,
And saw a medlar-tree was planted nigh.
The spreading branches made a goodly show,
And full of opening blooms was every bough:
A goldfinch there I saw, with gaudy pride
Of painted plumes, that hopp’d from
side to side,
Still pecking as she pass’d; and
still she drew
The sweets from every flower, and suck’d
the dew:
Sufficed at length, she warbled in her
throat, 110
And tuned her voice to many a merry note,
But indistinct, and neither sweet nor
clear,
Yet such as soothed my soul, and pleased
my ear.
Her short performance was
no sooner tried,
When she I sought, the nightingale, replied:
So sweet, so shrill, so variously she
sung,
That the grove echoed, and the valleys
rung;
And I so ravish’d with her heavenly
note,
I stood entranced, and had no room for
thought,
But all o’er-power’d with
ecstasy of bliss, 120
Was in a pleasing dream of paradise.
At length I waked, and looking round the
bower,
Search’d every tree, and pry’d
on every flower,
If any where by chance I might espy
The rural poet of the melody;
For still methought she sung not far away:
At last I found her on a laurel spray.
Close by my side she sat, and fair in
sight,
Full in a line, against her opposite;
Where stood with eglantine the laurel
twined; 130
And both their native sweets were well
conjoin’d.
On the green bank I sat, and
listen’d long;
(Sitting was more convenient for the song):
Nor till her lay was ended could I move,
But wish’d to dwell for ever in
the grove.
Only methought the time too swiftly pass’d,
And every note I fear’d would be
the last.
My sight and smell, and hearing were employ’d,
And all three senses in full gust enjoy’d.
And what alone did all the rest surpass,
140
The sweet possession of the fairy place;
Single, and conscious to myself alone
Of pleasures to the excluded world unknown:
Pleasures which nowhere else were to be
found,
And all Elysium in a spot of ground.
Thus while I sat intent to
see and hear,
And drew perfumes of more than vital air,
All suddenly I heard the approaching sound
Of vocal music on the enchanted ground:
A host of saints it seem’d, so full
the quire; 150
As if the bless’d above did all
conspire
To join their voices, and neglect the
lyre.
At length there issued from the grove
behind
A fair assembly of the female kind:
A train less fair, as ancient fathers
tell,
Seduced the sons of heaven to rebel.
I pass their form, and every charming
grace,
Less than an angel would their worth debase:
But their attire, like liveries of a kind,
All rich and rare, is fresh within my
mind. 160
In velvet white as snow the troop was
gown’d,
The seams with sparkling emeralds set
around;
Their hoods and sleeves the same; and
purfled o’er
With diamonds, pearls, and all the shining
store
Of eastern pomp: their long descending
train,
With rubies edged, and sapphires, swept
the plain:
High on their heads, with jewels richly
set,
Each lady wore a radiant coronet.
Beneath the circles, all the quire was
graced
With chaplets green on their fair foreheads
placed: 170
She in the midst began with
sober grace;
Her servants’ eyes were fix’d
upon her face;
And as she moved or turn’d, her
motions view’d, 180
Her measures kept, and step by step pursued.
Methought she trod the ground with greater
grace,
With more of godhead shining in her face;
And as in beauty she surpass’d the
quire,
So, nobler than the rest, was her attire.
A crown of ruddy gold enclosed her brow,
Plain without pomp, and rich without a
show:
A branch of Agnus castus in her hand
She bore aloft (her sceptre of command);
Admired, adored by all the circling crowd,
190
For wheresoe’er she turn’d
her face, they bow’d:
And as she danced, a roundelay she sung,
In honour of the laurel, ever young:
She raised her voice on high, and sung
so clear,
The fawns came scudding from the groves
to hear:
And all the bending forest lent an ear.
At every close she made, the attending
throng
Replied, and bore the burden of the song:
So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note,
It seem’d the music melted in the
throat. 200
Thus dancing on, and singing
as they danced,
They to the middle of the mead advanced,
Till round my arbour a new ring they made,
And footed it about the sacred shade.
O’erjoy’d to see the jolly
troops so near,
But somewhat awed, I shook with holy fear;
Yet not so much, but what I noted well
Who did the most in song or dance excel.
Not long I had observed, when
from afar
I heard a sudden symphony of war;
210
The neighing coursers, and the soldiers
cry,
And sounding trumps, that seem’d
to tear the sky:
I saw soon after this, behind the grove
From whence the ladies did in order move,
Come issuing out in arms a warrior train,
That like a deluge pour’d upon the
plain;
On barbed steeds they rode in proud array,
Thick as the college of the bees in May,
When swarming o’er the dusky fields
they fly,
New to the flowers, and intercept the
sky, 220
So fierce they drove, their coursers were
so fleet,
That the turf trembled underneath their
feet.
To tell their costly furniture
were long,
The summer’s day would end before
the song:
To purchase but the tenth of all their
store,
Would make the mighty Persian monarch
poor.
Yet what I can, I will; before the rest
Nine royal knights in equal
rank succeed,
Each warrior mounted on a fiery steed;
In golden armour glorious to behold;
The rivets of their arms were nail’d
with gold.
Their surcoats of white ermine fur were
made;
With cloth of gold between, that cast
a glittering shade.
The trappings of their steeds were of
the same; 260
The golden fringe even set the ground
on flame,
And drew a precious trail: a crown
divine
Of laurel did about their temples twine.
Three henchmen were for every
knight assign’d,
All in rich livery clad, and of a kind;
White velvet, but unshorn, for cloaks
they wore,
And each within his hand a truncheon bore:
The foremost held a helm of rare device;
A prince’s ransom would not pay
the price.
The second bore the buckler of his knight,
270
The third of cornel-wood a spear upright,
Headed with piercing steel, and polish’d
bright.
Like to their lords their equipage was
seen,
And all their foreheads crown’d
with garlands green.
And after these came, arm’d
with spear and shield,
A host so great as cover’d all the
field:
And all their foreheads, like the knights
before,
With laurels ever-green were shaded o’er,
Or oak, or other leaves of lasting kind,
Tenacious of the stem, and firm against
the wind. 280
Some in their hands, beside the lance
and shield,
The boughs of woodbine, or of hawthorn
held,
The ladies left their measures
at the sight,
To meet the chiefs returning from the
fight, 310
And each with open arms embraced her chosen
knight.
Amid the plain a spreading laurel stood,
The grace and ornament of all the wood:
That pleasing shade they sought, a soft
retreat
From sudden April showers, a shelter from
the heat:
Her leafy arms with such extent were spread.
So near the clouds was her aspiring head,
That hosts of birds, that wing the liquid
air,
Perch’d in the boughs, had nightly
lodging there:
And flocks of sheep beneath the shade
from far 320
Might hear the rattling hail, and wintry
war;
From heaven’s inclemency here found
retreat,
Enjoy’d the cool, and shunn’d
the scorching heat:
A hundred knights might there at ease
abide;
And every knight a lady by his side:
The trunk itself such odours did bequeath,
That a Moluccan[77] breeze to these was
common breath.
The lords and ladies here, approaching,
paid
Their homage, with a low obeisance made;
And seem’d to venerate the sacred
shade. 330
These rites perform’d, their pleasures
they pursue,
With song of love, and mix with measures
new;
Around the holy tree their dance they
frame,
And every champion leads his chosen dame.
I cast my sight upon the farther
field,
And a fresh object of delight beheld:
For from the region of the West I heard
New music sound, and a new troop appear’d;
Of knights and ladies mix’d, a jolly
band,
But all on foot they march’d, and
hand in hand. 340
The ladies dress’d in
rich symars were seen
Of Florence satin, flower’d with
white and green,
And for a shade betwixt the bloomy gridelin.
The borders of their petticoats below
Were guarded thick with rubies on a row;
And every damsel wore upon her head
Of flowers a garland blended white and
red.
Attired in mantles all the knights were
seen,
That gratified the view with cheerful
green:
Their chaplets of their ladies’
colours were, 350
Composed of white and red, to shade their
shining hair.
Before the merry troop the minstrels play’d;
All in their masters’ liveries were
array’d,
And clad in green, and on their temples
wore
The chaplets white and red their ladies
bore.
Their instruments were various in their
kind,
Some for the bow, and some for breathing
wind;
The sawtry, pipe, and hautboy’s
noisy band,
And the soft lute trembling beneath the
touching hand.
A tuft of daisies on a flowery lea
360
They saw, and thitherward they bent their
way;
To this both knights and dames their homage
made,
And due obeisance to the daisy paid.
And then the band of flutes began to play,
To which a lady sung a virelay:[78]
And still at every close she would repeat
The burden of the song, The daisy is
so sweet,
The daisy is so sweet: when she
begun,
The troop of knights and dames continued
on.
The concert and the voice so charm’d
my ear,
And soothed my soul, that it was heaven
to hear. 370
But soon their pleasure pass’d:
at noon of day
The sun with sultry beams began to play:
Not Sirius shoots a fiercer flame from
high,
When with his poisonous breath he blasts
the sky:
Then droop’d the fading flowers
(their beauty fled)
And closed their sickly eyes, and hung
the head;
And rivell’d up with heat, lay dying
in their bed.
The ladies gasp’d, and scarcely
could respire;
The breath they drew, no longer air but
fire; 380
The fainty knights were scorch’d,
and knew not where
To run for shelter, for no shade was near;
And after this the gathering clouds amain
Pour’d down a storm of rattling
hail and rain;
And lightning flash’d betwixt:
the field, and flowers,
Burnt up before, were buried in the showers.
The ladies and the knights, no shelter
nigh,
Bare to the weather and the wintry sky,
Were drooping wet, disconsolate, and wan,
And through their thin array received
the rain; 390
While those in white, protected by the
tree,
Saw pass in vain the assault, and stood
from danger free;
But as compassion moved their gentle minds,
When ceased the storm, and silent were
the winds,
Displeased at what, not suffering they
had seen,
The Lady of the Leaf ordain’d
a feast,
And made the Lady of the Flower her guest:
When, lo! a bower ascended on the plain,
With sudden seats ordain’d, and
large for either train.
This bower was near my pleasant arbour
placed,
That I could hear and see whatever pass’d:
The ladies sat with each a knight between,
Distinguish’d by their colours,
white and green; 430
The vanquish’d party with the victors
join’d,
Nor wanted sweet discourse, the banquet
of the mind.
Meantime the minstrels play’d on
either side,
Vain of their art, and for the mastery
vied:
The sweet contention lasted for an hour,
And reach’d my secret arbour from
the bower.
The sun was set; and Vesper,
to supply
His absent beams, had lighted up the sky.
When Philomel, officious all the day
To sing the service of the ensuing May,
440
Fled from her laurel shade, and wing’d
her flight
Directly to the queen array’d in
white:
And, hopping, sat familiar on her hand,
A new musician, and increased the band.
The goldfinch, who, to shun
the scalding heat,
Had changed the medlar for a safer seat,
And hid in bushes ’scaped the bitter
shower,
Now perch’d upon the Lady of the
Flower;
And either songster holding out their
throats,
And folding up their wings, renew’d
their notes: 450
As if all day, precluding to the fight,
This when I saw, inquisitive
to know
The secret moral of the mystic show,
460
I started from my shade, in hopes to find
Some nymph to satisfy my longing mind:
And as my fair adventure fell, I found
A lady all in white, with laurel crown’d,
Who closed the rear, and softly paced
along,
Repeating to herself the former song.
With due respect my body I inclined,
As to some being of superior kind,
And made my court according to the day,
Wishing her queen and her a happy May.
470
Great thanks, my daughter, with a gracious
bow,
She said; and I, who much desired to know
Of whence she was, yet fearful how to
break
My mind, adventured humbly thus to speak:
Madam, might I presume and not offend,
So may the stars and shining moon attend
Your nightly sports, as you vouchsafe
to tell,
What nymphs they were who mortal forms
excel,
And what the knights who fought in listed
fields so well.
To this the dame replied: Fair daughter,
know, 480
That what you saw was all a fairy show;
And all those airy shapes you now behold,
Were human bodies once, and clothed with
earthly mould;
Our souls, not yet prepared for upper
light,
Till doomsday wander in the shades of
night;
This only holiday of all the year,
We privileged in sunshine may appear:
With songs and dance we celebrate the
day,
And with due honours usher in the May.
At other times we reign by night alone,
490
And posting through the skies pursue the
moon;
But when the morn arises, none are found;
For cruel Demogorgon walks the round,
And if he finds a fairy lag in light,
He drives the wretch before, and lashes
into night.
All courteous are by kind;
and ever proud
With friendly offices to help the good.
In every land we have a larger space
Than what is known to you of mortal race;
Where we with green adorn our fairy bowers,
500
And even this grove, unseen before, is
ours.
Know farther; every lady clothed in white,
And, crown’d with oak and laurel
every knight,
Are servants to the Leaf, by liveries
known
Of innocence; and I myself am one.
Saw you not her, so graceful to behold,
In white attire, and crown’d with
radiant gold?
The sovereign lady of our land is she,
Diana call’d, the Queen of Chastity:
And, for the spotless name of maid she
But what are those, said I,
the unconquer’d nine,
Who, crown’d with laurel-wreaths,
in golden armour shine?
And who the knights in green, and what
the train
Of ladies dress’d with daisies on
the plain? 530
Why both the bands in worship disagree,
And some adore the flower, and some the
tree?
Just is your suit, fair daughter,
said the dame:
Those laurell’d chiefs were men
of mighty fame;
Nine worthies were they call’d of
different rites,
Three Jews, three Pagans, and three Christian
knights.
These, as you see, ride foremost in the
field,
As they the foremost rank of honour held,
And all in deeds of chivalry excell’d:
Their temples wreathed with leaves, that
still renew; 540
For deathless laurel is the victor’s
due:
Who bear the bows were knights in Arthur’s
reign,
Twelve they, and twelve the peers of Charlemagne:
For bows the strength of brawny arms imply,
Emblems of valour, and of victory.
Behold an order yet of newer date,
Doubling their number, equal in their
state;
Our England’s ornament, the crown’s
defence,
In battle brave, protectors of their prince;
Unchanged by fortune, to their sovereign
true, 550
For which their manly legs are bound with
blue.
These, of the Garter call’d, of
faith unstain’d,
In fighting fields the laurel have obtain’d,
And well repaid the honours which they
gain’d.
The laurel wreaths were first by Cesar
worn,
And still they Cesar’s successors
adorn:
One leaf of this is immortality,
And more of worth than all the world can
buy.
One doubt remains, said I,
the dames in green,
What were their qualities, and who their
queen? 560
Flora commands, said she, those nymphs
and knights,
Who lived in slothful ease and loose delights;
Who never acts of honour durst pursue,
The men inglorious knights, the ladies
all untrue:
Who, nursed in idleness, and train’d
With humble words, the wisest
I could frame,
And proffer’d service, I repaid
the dame;
That, of her grace, she gave her maid
to know
The secret meaning of this moral show.
And she, to prove what profit I had made
600
Of mystic truth, in fables first convey’d,
Demanded, till the next returning May,
Whether the Leaf or Flower I would obey?
I chose the Leaf; she smiled with sober
cheer,
And wish’d me fair adventure for
the year,
And gave me charms and sigils, for defence
Against ill tongues that scandal innocence:
But I, said she, my fellows must pursue,
Already past the plain, and out of view.
We parted thus; I homeward
sped my way, 610
Bewilder’d in the wood till dawn
of day;
And met the merry crew who danced about
the May.
Then late refresh’d with sleep,
I rose to write
The visionary vigils of the night.
Blush, as thou may’st,
my little book, with shame,
Nor hope with homely verse to purchase
fame;
For such thy maker chose; and so design’d
Thy simple style to suit thy lowly kind.
* * * * *
[Footnote 74: This poem is intended to describe, in those who honour the “Flower,” the votaries of perishable beauty; and in those who honour the “Leaf,” the votaries of virtue.]
[Footnote 75: ‘Agnus castus:’ a flower representing chastity.]
[Footnote 76: ‘Cerrial-oak:’ Cerrus, bitter oak.]
[Footnote 77: ‘Molucca:’ one of the Spice Islands.]
[Footnote 78: ‘Virelay:’ a poem with recurring rhymes.]
* * * * *
In days of old, when Arthur fill’d
the throne,
Whose acts and fame to foreign lands were
blown;
The king of elves and little fairy queen
Gamboll’d on heaths, and danced
on every green;
And where the jolly troop had led the
round,
The grass unbidden rose, and mark’d
the ground:
Nor darkling did they dance, the silver
light
Of Phoebe served to guide their steps
aright,
And with their tripping pleased, prolong
the night.
Her beams they follow’d, where at
full she play’d, 10
Nor longer than she shed her horns they
stay’d;
From thence with airy flight to foreign
lands convey’d
Above the rest our Britain held they dear,
More solemnly they kept their sabbaths
here,
And made more spacious rings, and revell’d
half the year.
I speak of ancient times,
for now the swain
Returning late may pass the woods in vain,
And never hope to see the nightly train:
In vain the dairy now with mints is dress’d,
The dairymaid expects no fairy guest,
20
To skim the bowls, and after pay the feast.
She sighs and shakes her empty shoes in
vain,
No silver penny to reward her pain:
For priests, with prayers, and other godly
gear,
Have made the merry goblins disappear;
And where they play’d their merry
pranks before,
Have sprinkled holy water on the floor:
And friars, that through the wealthy regions
run,
Thick as the motes that twinkle in the
sun,
Resort to farmers rich, and bless their
halls, 30
And exorcise the beds, and cross the walls:
This makes the fairy quires forsake the
place,
When once ’tis hallow’d with
the rites of grace:
But in the walks where wicked elves have
been,
The learning of the parish now is seen,
The midnight parson, posting o’er
the green,
With gown tuck’d up, to wakes, for
Sunday next,
With humming ale encouraging his text;
Nor wants the holy leer to country girl
betwixt.
From fiends and imps he sets the village
free, 40
There haunts not any incubus but he.
The maids and women need no danger fear
To walk by night, and sanctity so near:
For by some haycock, or some shady thorn,
He bids his beads both even-song and morn.
It so befell, in this King
Arthur’s reign,
A lusty knight was pricking o’er
the plain;
A bachelor he was, and of the courtly
train.
It happen’d, as he rode, a damsel
gay,
In russet robes, to market took her way.
50
Soon on the girl he cast an amorous eye,
So straight she walk’d, and on her
pasterns high:
If, seeing her behind, he liked her pace,
Now turning short, he better likes her
face.
He lights in haste, and, full of youthful
fire,
By force accomplish’d his obscene
desire:
This done, away he rode, not unespied,
For swarming at his back the country cried:
And once in view they never lost the sight,
But seized, and pinion’d brought
to court the knight, 60
Then courts of kings were
held in high renown,
Ere made the common brothels of the town:
There, virgins honourable vows received,
But chaste as maids in monasteries lived:
The king himself, to nuptial ties a slave,
No bad example to his poets gave:
And they, not bad, but in a vicious age,
Had not, to please the prince, debauch’d
the stage.
Now, what should Arthur do?
He loved the knight,
But sovereign monarchs are the source
of right: 70
Moved by the damsel’s tears and
common cry,
He doom’d the brutal ravisher to
die.
But fair Geneura rose in his defence,
And pray’d so hard for mercy from
the prince,
That to his queen the king the offender
gave,
And left it in her power to kill or save:
This gracious act the ladies all approve,
Who thought it much a man should die for
love;
And with their mistress join’d in
close debate,
(Covering their kindness with dissembled
hate) 80
If not to free him, to prolong his fate.
At last agreed, they call him by consent
Before the queen and female parliament;
And the fair speaker, rising from the
chair,
Did thus the judgment of the house declare:
Sir knight, though I have
ask’d thy life, yet still
Thy destiny depends upon my will:
Nor hast thou other surety than the grace
Not due to thee from our offended race.
But as our kind is of a softer mould,
90
And cannot blood without a sigh behold,
I grant thee life; reserving still the
power
To take the forfeit when I see my hour:
Unless thy answer to my next demand
Shall set thee free from our avenging
hand.
The question, whose solution I require,
Is, What the sex of women most desire?
In this dispute thy judges are at strife;
Beware; for on thy wit depends thy life.
Yet (lest surprised, unknowing what to
say, 100
Thou damn thyself) we give thee farther
day:
A year is thine to wander at thy will,
Woe was the knight at this
severe command;
But well he knew ’twas bootless
to withstand:
The terms accepted, as the fair ordain,
110
He put in bail for his return again,
And promised answer at the day assign’d,
The best, with Heaven’s assistance,
he could find.
His leave thus taken, on his
way he went
With heavy heart, and full of discontent,
Misdoubting much, and fearful of the event.
’Twas hard the truth of such a point
to find,
As was not yet agreed among the kind.
Thus on he went; still anxious more and
more,
Ask’d all he met, and knock’d
at every door; 120
Inquired of men; but made his chief request,
To learn from women what they loved the
best.
They answer’d each according to
her mind,
To please herself, not all the female
kind.
One was for wealth, another was for place;
Crones, old and ugly, wish’d a better
face:
The widow’s wish was oftentimes
to wed;
The wanton maids were all for sport a-bed.
Some said the sex were pleased with handsome
lies,
And some gross flattery loved without
disguise: 130
Truth is, says one, he seldom fails to
win
Who flatters well; for that’s our
darling sin:
But long attendance, and a duteous mind,
Will work even with the wisest of the
kind.
One thought the sex’s prime felicity
Was from the bonds of wedlock to be free;
Their pleasures, hours, and actions all
their own,
And uncontroll’d to give account
to none.
Some wish a husband-fool; but such are
cursed,
For fools perverse of husbands are the
worst: 140
All women would be counted chaste and
wise,
Nor should our spouses see, but with our
eyes;
For fools will prate; and though they
want the wit
To find close faults, yet open blots will
hit;
Though better for their ease to hold their
tongue,
For womankind was never in the wrong.
So noise ensues, and quarrels last for
life;
The wife abhors the fool, the fool the
wife.
And some men say that great delight have
we,
To be for truth extoll’d, and secrecy;
150
And constant in one purpose still to dwell;
And not our husbands’ counsels to
reveal.
But that’s a fable; for our sex
is frail,
Inventing rather than not tell a tale.
Like leaky sieves, no secrets we can hold:
Witness the famous tale that Ovid told.
Midas the king, as in his
book appears,
By Phoebus was endow’d with ass’s
ears,
Which under his long locks he well conceal’d,
(As monarchs’ vices must not be
reveal’d) 160
For fear the people have them in the wind,
Who long ago were neither dumb nor blind:
Nor apt to think from Heaven their title
springs,
Since Jove and Mars left off begetting
kings.
This Midas knew; and durst communicate
To none but to his wife his ears of state:
One must be trusted, and he thought her
fit,
As passing prudent, and a parlous wit.
To this sagacious confessor he went,
And told her what a gift the gods had
sent: 170
But told it under matrimonial seal,
With strict injunction never to reveal.
The secret heard, she plighted him her
troth,
(And sacred sure is every woman’s
oath)
The royal malady should rest unknown,
Both for her husband’s honour and
her own;
But ne’ertheless she pined with
discontent;
The counsel rumbled till it found a vent.
The thing she knew she was obliged to
hide;
By interest and by oath the wife was tied;
180
But if she told it not, the woman died.
Loath to betray a husband and a prince,
But she must burst, or blab; and no pretence
Of honour tied her tongue from self-defence.
A marshy ground commodiously was near,
Thither she ran, and held her breath for
fear;
Lest if a word she spoke of any thing,
That word might be the secret of the king.
Thus full of counsel to the fen she went,
Griped all the way, and longing for a
vent; 190
Arrived, by pure necessity compell’d,
On her majestic marrow-bones she kneel’d:
Then to the water’s brink she laid
her head,
And as a bittour[79] bumps within a reed,
To thee alone, O lake, she said, I tell,
(And, as thy queen, command thee to conceal!)
Beneath his locks the king, my husband
wears
A goodly royal pair of ass’s ears:
Now I have eased my bosom of the pain,
Till the next longing fit return again.
200
Thus through a woman was the
secret known;
Tell us, and in effect you tell the town.
But to my tale; the knight with heavy
cheer,
Wandering in vain, had now consumed the
year:
One day was only left to solve the doubt,
Yet knew no more than when he first set
out.
But home he must, and as the award had
been,
Yield up his body captive to the queen.
In this despairing state he happ’d
to ride,
As fortune led him, by a forest side:
210
Lonely the vale, and full of horror stood,
Brown with the shade of a religious wood!
When full before him, at the noon of night,
(The moon was up, and shot a gleamy light)
One only hag remain’d;
but fouler far
Than grandame apes in Indian forests are:
Against a wither’d oak she lean’d
her weight,
Propp’d on her trusty staff, not
half upright,
And dropp’d an awkward courtesy
to the knight;
Then said, What makes you, sir, so late
abroad
Without a guide, and this no beaten road?
230
Or want you aught that here you hope to
find,
Or travel for some trouble in your mind?
The last I guess; and if I read aright,
Those of our sex are bound to serve a
knight;
Perhaps good counsel may your grief assuage,
Then tell your pain; for wisdom is in
age.
To this the knight: Good
mother, would you know
The secret cause and spring of all my
woe?
My life must with to-morrow’s light
expire,
Unless I tell what women most desire.
240
Now could you help me at this hard essay,
Or for your inborn goodness, or for pay;
Yours is my life, redeem’d by your
advice,
Ask what you please, and I will pay the
price;
The proudest kerchief of the court shall
rest
Well satisfied of what they love the best.
Plight me thy faith, quoth she, that what
I ask,
Thy danger over, and perform’d thy
task,
That thou shalt give for hire of thy demand;
Here take thy oath, and seal it on my
hand; 250
I warrant thee, on peril of my life,
Thy words shall please both widow, maid,
and wife.
More words there needed not
to move the knight
To take her offer, and his truth to plight.
With that she spread a mantle on the ground,
And, first inquiring whither he was bound,
Bade him not fear, though long and rough
the way,
At court he should arrive ere break of
day;
His horse should find the way without
a guide.
She said: with fury they began to
ride, 260
He on the midst, the beldam at his side.
The horse what devil drove I cannot tell,
But only this, they sped their journey
well:
And all the way the crone inform’d
the knight,
How he should answer the demand aright.
To court they came; the news
was quickly spread
Of his returning to redeem his head.
The female senate was assembled soon,
With all the mob of women in the town:
The queen sat lord chief-justice of the
hall, 270
And bade the crier cite the criminal.
The knight appear’d; and silence
they proclaim;
Then first the culprit answer’d
to his name:
And, after forms of law, was last required
To name the thing that women most desired.
The offender, taught his lesson
by the way,
And by his counsel order’d what
to say,
Thus bold began: My lady liege, said
he,
What all your sex desire is Sovereignty.
The wife affects her husband to command;
280
All must be hers, both money, house, and
land.
The maids are mistresses even in their
name;
And of their servants full dominion claim.
This, at the peril of my head, I say,
A blunt plain truth, the sex aspires to
sway,
You to rule all, while we, like slaves,
obey.
There was not one, or widow, maid, or
wife,
But said the knight had well deserved
his life.
Even fair Geneura, with a blush, confess’d
The man had found what women love the
best.
Upstarts the beldam, who was
there unseen, 290
And, reverence made, accosted thus the
queen:
My liege, said she, before the court arise,
May I, poor wretch, find favour in your
eyes,
To grant my just request? ’twas
I who taught
The knight this answer, and inspired his
thought;
None but a woman could a man direct
To tell us women what we most affect.
But first I swore him on his knightly
troth,
(And here demand performance of his oath)
300
To grant the boon that next I should desire;
He gave his faith, and I expect my hire:
My promise is fulfill’d; I saved
his life,
And claim his debt, to take me for his
wife.
The knight was ask’d, nor could
his oath deny,
But hoped they would not force him to
comply.
The women, who would rather wrest the
laws,
Than let a sister-plaintiff lose the cause,
(As judges on the bench more gracious
are,
And more attent to brothers of the bar)
310
Cried one and all, the suppliant should
have right,
And to the grandame hag adjudged the knight.
In vain he sigh’d, and
oft with tears desired
Some reasonable suit might be required.
But still the crone was constant to her
note;
The more he spoke, the more she stretch’d
her throat.
In vain he proffer’d all his goods,
to save
His body destined to that living grave.
The liquorish hag rejects the pelf with
scorn;
And nothing but the man would serve her
turn. 320
Not all the wealth of eastern kings, said
she,
Have power to part my plighted love, and
me;
And, old and ugly as I am, and poor,
Yet never will I break the faith I swore;
For mine thou art by promise, during life,
And I thy loving and obedient wife.
My love! nay, rather, my damnation
thou,
Said he: nor am I bound to keep my
vow:
The fiend thy sire hath sent thee from
below,
Else how couldst thou my secret sorrows
know? 330
Avaunt, old witch! for I renounce thy
bed:
Sore sigh’d the knight,
who this long sermon heard;
At length, considering all, his heart
he cheer’d, 510
And thus replied: My lady, and my
wife,
To your wise conduct I resign my life:
Choose you for me, for well you understand
The future good and ill, on either hand:
But if an humble husband may request,
Provide, and order all things for the
best;
Yours be the care to profit, and to please;
And let your subject servant take his
ease.
Then thus in peace, quoth
she, concludes the strife,
Since I am turn’d the husband, you
the wife: 520
The matrimonial victory is mine,
Which, having fairly gain’d, I will
resign:
Forgive if I have said or done amiss,
And seal the bargain with a friendly kiss.
I promised you but one content to share,
But now I will become both good and fair:
No nuptial quarrel shall disturb your
ease;
The business of my life shall be to please:
And for my beauty, that, as time shall
try—
But draw the curtain first, and cast your
eye. 530
He look’d, and saw a
creature heavenly fair,
In bloom of youth, and of a charming air.
With joy he turn’d, and seized her
ivory arm;
And like Pygmalion found the statue warm.
Small arguments there needed to prevail;
A storm of kisses pour’d as thick
as hail.
Thus long in mutual bliss they lay embraced,
And their first love continued to the
last:
One sunshine was their life, no cloud
between;
Nor ever was a kinder couple seen.
540
And so may all our lives like
theirs be led;
Heaven send the maids young husbands fresh
in bed!
May widows wed as often as they can,
And ever for the better change their man!
And some devouring plague pursue their
lives,
Who will not well be govern’d by
their wives!
* * * * *
[Footnote 79: ‘Bittour:’ bittern.]
* * * * *
A parish priest was of the pilgrim train;
An awful, reverend, and religious man.
His eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.
Rich was his soul, though his attire was
poor;
(As God had clothed his own ambassador;)
For such, on earth, his bless’d
Redeemer bore.
Of sixty years he seem’d; and well
might last
To sixty more, but that he lived too fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense;
10
And made almost a sin of abstinence,
Yet, had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere.
The tithes, his parish freely
paid, he took;
But never sued, or cursed with bell and
book.
With patience bearing wrong; but offering
none:
Since every man is free to lose his own.
The country churls, according to their
kind,
(Who grudge their dues, and love to be
behind),
The less he sought his offerings, pinch’d
the more,
And praised a priest contented to be poor.
Yet of his little he had some
to spare, 50
To feed the famish’d, and to clothe
the bare;
For mortified he was to that degree,
A poorer than himself he would not see.
True priests, he said, and preachers of
the Word,
Were only stewards of their sovereign
Lord:
Nothing was theirs; but all the public
store;
Intrusted riches, to relieve the poor:
Who, should they steal for want of his
relief,
He judged himself accomplice with the
thief.
Wide was his parish; not contracted
close 60
In streets, but here and there a straggling
house;
Yet still he was at hand, without request,
To serve the sick; to succour the distress’d:
Tempting, on foot, alone, without affright,
The dangers of a dark tempestuous night.
All this the good old man
perform’d alone,
Nor spared his pains; for curate he had
none:
Nor durst he trust another with his care;
Nor rode himself to Paul’s, the
public fair,
To chaffer for preferment with his gold,
70
Where bishoprics and sinecures are sold:
But duly watch’d his flock, by night
and day,
And from the prowling wolf redeem’d
the prey;
And hungry sent the wily fox away.
The proud he tamed, the penitent
he cheer’d;
Nor to rebuke the rich offender fear’d.
His preaching much, but more his practice
wrought;
(A living sermon of the truths he taught);
For this by rules severe his life he squared,
That all might see the doctrine which
they heard. 80
For priests, he said, are patterns for
the rest:
(The gold of heaven, who bear the God
impress’d):
But when the precious coin is kept unclean,
The Sovereign’s image is no longer
seen.
If they be foul on whom the people trust,
Well may the baser brass contract a rust.
The prelate for his holy life
he prized;
The worldly pomp of prelacy despised:
His Saviour came not with a gaudy show;
Nor was his kingdom of the world below.
90
Patience in want, and poverty of mind,
These marks of Church and Churchmen he
design’d,
And living taught, and dying left behind.
The crown he wore was of the pointed thorn:
In purple he was crucified, not born.
They who contend for place and high degree,
Are not his sons, but those of Zebedee.
Not but he knew the signs
of earthly power
Might well become Saint Peter’s
successor;
The holy father holds a double reign,
100
The prince may keep his pomp, the fisher
must be plain.
Such was the saint, who shone
with every grace,
Reflecting, Moses’-like, his Maker’s
face.
God saw his image lively was express’d;
And his own work, as in creation, bless’d.
The Tempter saw him too, with
envious eye;
And, as on Job, demanded leave to try.
He took the time when Richard was deposed,
And high and low with happy Harry closed.
This prince, though great in arms, the
priest withstood: 110
Near though he was, yet not the next of
blood.
Had Richard, unconstrain’d, resign’d
the throne,
A king can give no more than is his own:
The title stood entail’d, had Richard
had a son.
Conquest, an odious name,
was laid aside,
Where all submitted, none the battle tried.
The senseless plea of right by Providence
Was, by a flattering priest, invented
since;
And lasts no longer than the present sway;
But justifies the next who comes in play.
120
The people’s right remains;
let those who dare
Dispute their power, when they the judges
are.
He join’d not in their
choice, because he knew
Worse might, and often did, from change
ensue.
Much to himself he thought; but little
spoke;
And, undeprived, his benefice forsook.
Now, through the land, his
cure of souls he stretch’d;
And like a primitive apostle preach’d:
Still cheerful; ever constant to his call;
By many follow’d; loved by most,
admired by all. 130
With what he begg’d, his brethren
he relieved:
And gave the charities himself received.
Gave, while he taught; and edified the
more,
Because he showed, by proof, ’twas
easy to be poor.
He went not with the crowd
to see a shrine;
But fed us, by the way, with food divine.
In deference to his virtues,
I forbear
To show you what the rest in orders were:
This brilliant is so spotless and so bright,
He needs no foil, but shines by his own
proper light. 140
* * * * *
[Footnote 80: This poem is intended as a palinode for some of Dryden’s former misdeeds, and partly as a covert panegyric on the Nonjuring clergy.]
* * * * *
THE END.