Chapter III: Introduction (3)

But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest? where you shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so many other under kingdoms, that the player, when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where he is, {84} or else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by, we hear news of shipwreck in the same place, then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while, in the meantime, two armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then, what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field?

Now of time they are much more liberal; for ordinary it is, that two young princes fall in love; after many traverses she is got with child; delivered of a fair boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get another child; and all this in two hours’ space; which, how absurd it is in sense, even sense may imagine; and art hath taught and all ancient examples justified, and at this day the ordinary players in Italy will not err in. Yet will some bring in an example of the Eunuch in Terence, that containeth matter of two days, yet far short of twenty years. True it is, and so was it to be played in two days, and so fitted to the time it set forth. And though Plautus have in one place done amiss, let us hit it with him, and not miss with him. But they will say, How then shall we set forth a story which contains both many places and many times? And do they not know, that a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience? Again, many things may be told, which cannot be showed: if they know the difference betwixt reporting and representing. As for example, I may speak, though I am here, of Peru, and in speech digress from that to the description of Calicut; but in action I cannot represent it without Pacolet’s horse. And so was the manner the ancients took by some “Nuntius,” {85} to recount things done in former time, or other place.

Lastly, if they will represent an history, they must not, as Horace saith, begin “ab ovo,” {86} but they must come to the principal point of that one action which they will represent. By example this will be best expressed; I have a story of young Polydorus, delivered, for safety’s sake, with great riches, by his father Priamus to Polymnestor, King of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after some years, hearing of the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure his own, murdereth the child; the body of the child is taken up; Hecuba, she, the same day, findeth a sleight to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. Where, now, would one of our tragedy-writers begin, but with the delivery of the child? Then should he sail over into Thrace, and so spend I know not how many years, and travel numbers of places. But where doth Euripides? Even with the finding of the body; leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus. This needs no farther to be enlarged; the dullest wit may conceive it.

But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not represented in one moment: and I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-comedies as Plautus hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find, that they never, or very daintily, match horn-pipes and funerals. So falleth it out, that having indeed no right comedy in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but scurrility, unworthy of any chaste ears; or some extreme show of doltishness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else; where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight; as the tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.

But our comedians think there is no delight without laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one thing breed both together. Nay, in themselves, they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature. Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature: delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling. For example: we are ravished with delight to see a fair woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter; we laugh at deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot delight; we delight in good chances; we laugh at mischances; we delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh: we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias, {87} in the mouth of some such men, as for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorrow he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not, but that they may go well together; for, as in Alexander’s picture well set out, we delight without laughter, and in twenty mad antics we laugh without delight: so in Hercules, painted with his great beard and furious countenance, in a woman’s attire, spinning at Omphale’s commandment, it breeds both delight and laughter; for the representing of so strange a power in love procures delight, and the scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.

But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be not upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mix with it that delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is, that they stir laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable than ridiculous; or in miserable, which are rather to be pitied than scorned. For what is it to make folks gape at a wretched beggar, and a beggarly clown; or against the law of hospitality, to jest at strangers, because they speak not English so well as we do? what do we learn, since it is certain,

“Nil habet infelix pauperatas durius in se,
Quam qnod ridiculos, homines facit.” {88}

But rather a busy loving courtier, and a heartless threatening Thraso; a self-wise seeming school-master; a wry-transformed traveller: these, if we saw walk in stage names, which we play naturally, therein were delightful laughter, and teaching delightfulness: as in the other, the tragedies of Buchanan {89} do justly bring forth a divine admiration.

But I have lavished out too many words of this play matter; I do it, because, as they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so much used in England, and none can be more pitifully abused; which, like an unmannerly daughter, showing a bad education, causeth her mother Poesy’s honesty to be called in question.

Other {90} sorts of poetry, almost, have we none, but that lyrical kind of songs and sonnets, which, if the Lord gave us so good minds, how well it might be employed, and with how heavenly fruits, both private and public, in singing the praises of the immortal beauty, the immortal goodness of that God, who giveth us hands to write, and wits to conceive; of which we might well want words, but never matter; of which we could turn our eyes to nothing, but we should ever have new budding occasions.

But, truly, many of such writings as come under the banner of unresistible love, if I were a mistress, would never persuade me they were in love; so coldly they apply fiery speeches, as men that had rather read lover’s writings, and so caught up certain swelling phrases, which hang together like a man that once told me, “the wind was at north-west and by south,” because he would be sure to name winds enough; than that, in truth, they feel those passions, which easily, as I think, may be bewrayed by the same forcibleness, or “energia” (as the Greeks call it), of the writer. But let this be a sufficient, though short note, that we miss the right use of the material point of poesy.

Now {91} for the outside of it, which is words, or (as I may term it) diction, it is even well worse; so is that honey-flowing matron eloquence, apparelled, or rather disguised, in a courtesan-like painted affectation. One time with so far-fetched words, that many seem monsters, but most seem strangers to any poor Englishman: another time with coursing of a letter, as if they were bound to follow the method of a dictionary: another time with figures and flowers, extremely winter-starved.

But I would this fault were only peculiar to versifiers, and had not as large possession among prose printers: and, which is to be marvelled, among many scholars, and, which is to be pitied, among some preachers. Truly, I could wish (if at least I might be so bold to wish, in a thing beyond the reach of my capacity) the diligent imitators of Tully and Demosthenes, most worthy to be imitated, did not so much keep Nizolian paper-books {92} of their figures and phrases, as by attentive translation, as it were, devour them whole, and make them wholly theirs. For now they cast sugar and spice upon every dish that is served at the table: like those Indians, not content to wear ear-rings at the fit and natural place of the ears, but they will thrust jewels through their nose and lips, because they will be sure to be fine.

Tully, when he was to drive out Catiline, as it were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often useth the figure of repetition, as “vivit et vincit, imo in senatum venit, imo in senatum venit,” &c. {93} Indeed, inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have his words, as it were, double out of his mouth; and so do that artificially which we see men in choler do naturally. And we, having noted the grace of those words, hale them in sometimes to a familiar epistle, when it were too much choler to be choleric.

How well, store of “similiter cadences” doth sound with the gravity of the pulpit, I would but invoke Demosthenes’ soul to tell, who with a rare daintiness useth them. Truly, they have made me think of the sophister, that with too much subtlety would prove two eggs three, and though he may be counted a sophister, had none for his labour. So these men bringing in such a kind of eloquence, well may they obtain an opinion of a seeming fineness, but persuade few, which should be the end of their fineness.

Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses, I think all herbalists, all stories of beasts, fowls, and fishes are rifled up, that they may come in multitudes to wait upon any of our conceits, which certainly is as absurd a surfeit to the ears as is possible. For the force of a similitude not being to prove anything to a contrary disputer, but only to explain to a willing hearer: when that is done, the rest is a most tedious prattling, rather overswaying the memory from the purpose whereto they were applied, than any whit informing the judgment, already either satisfied, or by similitudes not to be satisfied.

For my part, I do not doubt, when Antonius and Crassus, the great forefathers of Cicero in eloquence; the one (as Cicero testifieth of them) pretended not to know art, the other not to set by it, because with a plain sensibleness they might win credit of popular ears, which credit is the nearest step to persuasion (which persuasion is the chief mark of oratory); I do not doubt, I say, but that they used these knacks very sparingly; which who doth generally use, any man may see, doth dance to his own music; and so to be noted by the audience, more careful to speak curiously than truly. Undoubtedly (at least to my opinion undoubtedly) I have found in divers small-learned courtiers a more sound style than in some professors of learning; of which I can guess no other cause, but that the courtier following that which by practice he findeth fittest to nature, therein (though he know it not) doth according to art, though not by art: where the other, using art to show art, and not hide art (as in these cases he should do), flieth from nature, and indeed abuseth art.

But what! methinks I deserve to be pounded {94} for straying from poetry to oratory: but both have such an affinity in the wordish considerations, that I think this digression will make my meaning receive the fuller understanding: which is not to take upon me to teach poets how they should do, but only finding myself sick among the rest, to allow some one or two spots of the common infection grown among the most part of writers; that, acknowledging ourselves somewhat awry, we may bend to the right use both of matter and manner: whereto our language giveth us great occasion, being, indeed, capable of any excellent exercising of it. {95} I know some will say, it is a mingled language: and why not so much the better, taking the best of both the other? Another will say, it wanteth grammar. Nay, truly, it hath that praise, that it wants not grammar; for grammar it might have, but needs it not; being so easy in itself, and so void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses; which, I think, was a piece of the tower of Babylon’s curse, that a man should be put to school to learn his mother tongue. But for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceit of the mind, which is the end of speech, that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world, and is particularly happy in compositions of two or three words together, near the Greek, far beyond the Latin; which is one of the greatest beauties can be in a language.

Now, {96} of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the other modern; the ancient marked the quantity of each syllable, and according to that framed his verse; the modern, observing only number, with some regard of the accent, the chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of the words, which we call rhyme. Whether of these be the more excellent, would bear many speeches; the ancient, no doubt more fit for music, both words and time observing quantity; and more fit lively to express divers passions, by the low or lofty sound of the well-weighed syllable. The latter, likewise, with his rhyme striketh a certain music to the ear; and, in fine, since it doth delight, though by another way, it obtaineth the same purpose; there being in either, sweetness, and wanting in neither, majesty. Truly the English, before any vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts; for, for the ancient, the Italian is so full of vowels, that it must ever be cumbered with elisions. The Dutch so, of the other side, with consonants, that they cannot yield the sweet sliding fit for a verse. The French, in his whole language, hath not one word that hath his accent in the last syllable, saving two, called antepenultima; and little more, hath the Spanish, and therefore very gracelessly may they use dactiles. The English is subject to none of these defects.

Now for rhyme, though we do not observe quantity, we observe the accent very precisely, which other languages either cannot do, or will not do so absolutely. That “cæsura,” or breathing-place, in the midst of the verse, neither Italian nor Spanish have, the French and we never almost fail of. Lastly, even the very rhyme itself the Italian cannot put in the last syllable, by the French named the masculine rhyme, but still in the next to the last, which the French call the female; or the next before that, which the Italian calls “sdrucciola:” the example of the former is, “buono,” “suono;” of the sdrucciola is, “femina,” “semina.” The French, of the other side, hath both the male, as “bon,” “son,” and the female, as “plaise,” “taise;” but the “sdrucciola” he hath not; where the English hath all three, as “due,” “true,” “father,” “rather,” “motion,” “potion;” with much more which might be said, but that already I find the trifling of this discourse is much too much enlarged.

So {97} that since the ever praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue, breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of learning; since the blames laid against it are either false or feeble; since the cause why it is not esteemed in England is the fault of poet-apes, not poets; since, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honour poesy, and to be honoured by poesy; I conjure you all that have had the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the name of the Nine Muses, no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the reverend title of “a rhymer;” but to believe, with Aristotle, that they were the ancient treasurers of the Grecian’s divinity; to believe, with Bembus, that they were the first bringers in of all civility; to believe, with Scaliger, that no philosopher’s precepts can sooner make you an honest man, than the reading of Virgil; to believe, with Clauserus, the translator of Cornutus, that it pleased the heavenly deity by Hesiod and Homer, under the veil of fables, to give us all knowledge, logic, rhetoric, philosophy natural and moral, and “quid non?” to believe, with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry, which of purpose were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be abused; to believe, with Landin, that they are so beloved of the gods that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury. Lastly, to believe themselves, when they tell you they will make you immortal by their verses.

Thus doing, your names shall flourish in the printers’ shops: thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface: thus doing, you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all: you shall dwell upon superlatives: thus doing, though you be “Libertino patre natus,” you shall suddenly grow “Herculea proles,”

“Si quid mea Carmina possunt:”

thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante’s Beatrix, or Virgil’s Anchisis.

But if (fie of such a but!) you be born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus, that you cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry; if you have so earth-creeping a mind, that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become such a Mome, as to be a Momus of poetry; then, though I will not wish unto you the ass’s ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a poet’s verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself; nor to be rhymed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you in the behalf of all poets; that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour, for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.

POEMS.

TWO PASTORALS,

_Made by Sir Philip Sidney_, _upon his meeting with his two worthy friends and fellow poets_, _Sir Edward Dyer and M. Fulke Greville_.

JOIN mates in mirth to me,
Grant pleasure to our meeting;
Let Pan, our good god, see
How grateful is our greeting.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Ye hymns and singing skill
Of god Apollo’s giving,
Be pressed our reeds to fill
With sound of music living.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Sweet Orpheus’ harp, whose sound
The stedfast mountains moved,
Let there thy skill abound,
To join sweet friends beloved.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

My two and I be met,
A happy blessed trinity,
As three more jointly set
In firmest band of unity.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Welcome my two to me,
The number best beloved,
Within my heart you be
In friendship unremoved.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Give leave your flocks to range,
Let us the while be playing;
Within the elmy grange,
Your flocks will not be straying.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Cause all the mirth you can,
Since I am now come hither,
Who never joy, but when
I am with you together.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Like lovers do their love,
So joy I in you seeing:
Let nothing me remove
From always with you being.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

And as the turtle dove
To mate with whom he liveth,
Such comfort fervent love
Of you to my heart giveth.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Now joinéd be our hands,
Let them be ne’er asunder,
But link’d in binding bands
By metamorphosed wonder.
So should our severed bodies three
As one for ever joinéd be.

DISPRAISE OF A COURTLY LIFE.

WALKING in bright Phœbus’ blaze,
Where with heat oppressed I was,
I got to a shady wood,
Where green leaves did newly bud;
And of grass was plenty dwelling,
Decked with pied flowers sweetly smelling.

In this wood a man I met,
On lamenting wholly set;
Ruing change of wonted state,
Whence he was transforméd late,
Once to shepherds’ God retaining,
Now in servile court remaining.

There he wand’ring malecontent,
Up and down perpléxed went,
Daring not to tell to me,
Spake unto a senseless tree,
One among the rest electing,
These same words, or this affecting:

“My old mates I grieve to see
Void of me in field to be,
Where we once our lovely sheep
Lovingly like friends did keep;
Oft each other’s friendship proving,
Never striving, but in loving.

“But may love abiding be
In poor shepherds’ base degree?
It belongs to such alone
To whom art of love is known:
Seely shepherds are not witting
What in art of love is fitting.

“Nay, what need the art to those
To whom we our love disclose?
It is to be uséd then,
When we do but flatter men:
Friendship true, in heart assured,
Is by Nature’s gifts procured.

“Therefore shepherds, wanting skill,
Can Love’s duties best fulfil;
Since they know not how to feign,
Nor with love to cloak disdain,
Like the wiser sort, whose learning
Hides their inward will of harming.

“Well was I, while under shade
Oaten reeds me music made,
Striving with my mates in song;
Mixing mirth our songs among.
Greater was the shepherd’s treasure
Than this false, fine, courtly pleasure.

“Where how many creatures be,
So many puffed in mind I see;
Like to Juno’s birds of pride,
Scarce each other can abide:
Friends like to black swans appearing,
Sooner these than those in hearing.

“Therefore, Pan, if thou may’st be
Made to listen unto me,
Grant, I say, if seely man
May make treaty to god Pan,
That I, without thy denying,
May be still to thee relying.

“Only for my two loves’ sake,
In whose love I pleasure take;
Only two do me delight
With their ever-pleasing sight;
Of all men to thee retaining,
Grant me with those two remaining.

“So shall I to thee always
With my reeds sound mighty praise:
And first lamb that shall befall,
Yearly deck thine altar shall,
If it please thee to be reflected,
And I from thee not rejected.”

So I left him in that place,
Taking pity on his case;
Learning this among the rest,
That the mean estate is best;
Better filléd with contenting,
Void of wishing and repenting.

DIRGE.

RING out your bells, let mourning shows be spread,
For Love is dead:
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain:
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Weep, neighbours, weep, do you not hear it said
That Love is dead:
His death-bed, peacock’s folly:
His winding-sheet is shame;
His will, false-seeming holy,
His sole executor, blame.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read,
For Love is dead:
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress’ marble heart;
Which epitaph containeth,
“Her eyes were once his dart.”
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Alas! I lie: rage hath this error bred;
Love is not dead,
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatchéd mind:
Where she his counsel keepeth
Till due deserts she find.
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a frenzy:
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

STANZAS TO LOVE.

AH, poor Love, why dost thou live,
Thus to see thy service lost;
If she will no comfort give,
Make an end, yield up the ghost!

That she may, at length, approve
That she hardly long believed,
That the heart will die for love
That is not in time relieved.

Oh, that ever I was born
Service so to be refused;
Faithful love to be forborn!
Never love was so abused.

But, sweet Love, be still awhile;
She that hurt thee, Love, may heal thee;
Sweet! I see within her smile
More than reason can reveal thee.

For, though she be rich and fair,
Yet she is both wise and kind,
And, therefore, do thou not despair
But thy faith may fancy find.

Yet, although she be a queen
That may such a snake despise,
Yet, with silence all unseen,
Run, and hide thee in her eyes:

Where if she will let thee die,
Yet at latest gasp of breath,
Say that in a lady’s eye
Love both took his life and death.

A REMEDY FOR LOVE.

PHILOCLEA and Pamela sweet,
By chance, in one great house did meet;
And meeting, did so join in heart,
That th’ one from th’ other could not part:
And who indeed (not made of stones)
Would separate such lovely ones?
The one is beautiful, and fair
As orient pearls and rubies are;
And sweet as, after gentle showers,
The breath is of some thousand flowers:
For due proportion, such an air
Circles the other, and so fair,
That it her brownness beautifies,
And doth enchant the wisest eyes.

Have you not seen, on some great day,
Two goodly horses, white and bay,
Which were so beauteous in their pride,
You knew not which to choose or ride?
Such are these two; you scarce can tell,
Which is the daintier bonny belle;
And they are such, as, by my troth,
I had been sick with love of both,
And might have sadly said, ‘Good-night
Discretion and good fortune quite;’
But that young Cupid, my old master,
Presented me a sovereign plaster:
Mopsa! ev’n Mopsa! (precious pet)
Whose lips of marble, teeth of jet,
Are spells and charms of strong defence,
To conjure down concupiscence.

How oft have I been reft of sense,
By gazing on their excellence,
But meeting Mopsa in my way,
And looking on her face of clay,
Been healed, and cured, and made as sound,
As though I ne’er had had a wound?
And when in tables of my heart,
Love wrought such things as bred my smart,
Mopsa would come, with face of clout,
And in an instant wipe them out.
And when their faces made me sick,
Mopsa would come, with face of brick,
A little heated in the fire,
And break the neck of my desire.
Now from their face I turn mine eyes,
But (cruel panthers!) they surprise
Me with their breath, that incense sweet,
Which only for the gods is meet,
And jointly from them doth respire,
Like both the Indies set on fire:

Which so o’ercomes man’s ravished sense,
That souls, to follow it, fly hence.
No such-like smell you if you range
To th’ Stocks, or Cornhill’s square Exchange;
There stood I still as any stock,
Till Mopsa, with her puddle dock,
Her compound or electuary,
Made of old ling and young canary,
Bloat-herring, cheese, and voided physic,
Being somewhat troubled with a phthisic,
Did cough, and fetch a sigh so deep,
As did her very bottom sweep:
Whereby to all she did impart,
How love lay rankling at her heart:
Which, when I smelt, desire was slain,
And they breathed forth perfumes in vain.
Their angel voice surprised me now;
But Mopsa, her Too-whit, Too-whoo,
Descending through her oboe nose,
Did that distemper soon compose.

And, therefore, O thou precious owl,
The wise Minerva’s only fowl;
What, at thy shrine, shall I devise
To offer up a sacrifice?
Hang Æsculapius, and Apollo,
And Ovid, with his precious shallow.
Mopsa is love’s best medicine,
True water to a lover’s wine.
Nay, she’s the yellow antidote,
Both bred and born to cut Love’s throat:
Be but my second, and stand by,
Mopsa, and I’ll them both defy;
And all else of those gallant races,
Who wear infection in their faces;
For thy face (that Medusa’s shield!)
Will bring me safe out of the field.

VERSES.

_To the tune of the Spanish song_, “_Si tu señora no ducles de mi_.”

O FAIR! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Heart and soul do sing in me.
This you hear is not my tongue,
Which once said what I conceived;
For it was of use bereaved,
With a cruel answer stung.
No! though tongue to roof be cleaved,
Fearing lest he chastised be,
Heart and soul do sing in me.

O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Just accord all music makes;
In thee just accord excelleth,
Where each part in such peace dwelleth,
One of other beauty takes.
Since then truth to all minds telleth,
That in thee lives harmony,
Heart and soul do sing in me.

O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
They that heaven have known do say,
That whoso that grace obtaineth,
To see what fair sight there reigneth,
Forcéd are to sing alway:
So then since that heaven remaineth
In thy face, I plainly see,
Heart and soul do sing in me.

O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Sweet, think not I am at ease,
For because my chief part singeth;
This song from death’s sorrow springeth:
As to swan in last disease:
For no dumbness, nor death, bringeth
Stay to true love’s melody:
Heart and soul do sing in me.

TRANSLATION.

_From Horace_, _Book II. Ode X._, _beginning_ “_Rectius vives_, _Licini_,” _&c._

YOU better sure shall live, not evermore
Trying high seas; nor, while sea’s rage you flee,
Pressing too much upon ill-harboured shore.

The golden mean who loves, lives safely free
From filth of foreworn house, and quiet lives,
Released from court, where envy needs must be.

The wind most oft the hugest pine tree grieves:
The stately towers come down with greater fall:
The highest hills the bolt of thunder cleaves.

Evil haps do fill with hope, good haps appall
With fear of change, the courage well prepared:
Foul winters, as they come, away they shall.

Though present times, and past, with evils be snared,
They shall not last: with cithern silent Muse,
Apollo wakes, and bow hath sometime spared.

In hard estate, with stout shows, valour use,
The same man still, in whom wisdom prevails;
In too full wind draw in thy swelling sails.

A SONNET BY SIR EDWARD DYER.

PROMETHEUS, when first from heaven high
He brought down fire, till then on earth not seen;
Fond of delight, a satyr, standing by,
Gave it a kiss, as it like sweet had been.

Feeling forthwith the other burning power,
Wood with the smart, with shouts and shrieking shrill,
He sought his ease in river, field, and bower;
But, for the time, his grief went with him still.

So silly I, with that unwonted sight,
In human shape an angel from above,
Feeding mine eyes, th’ impression there did light;
That since I run and rest as pleaseth love:
The difference is, the satyr’s lips, my heart,
He for a while, I evermore, have smart.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S SONNET IN REPLY.

A SATYR once did run away for dread,
With sound of horn which he himself did blow:
Fearing and feared, thus from himself he fled,
Deeming strange evil in that he did not know.

Such causeless fears when coward minds do take,
It makes them fly that which they fain would have;
As this poor beast, who did his rest forsake,
Thinking not why, but how, himself to save.

Ev’n thus might I, for doubts which I conceive
Of mine own words, my own good hap betray;
And thus might I, for fear of may be, leave
The sweet pursuit of my desiréd prey.
Better like I thy satyr, dearest Dyer,
Who burnt his lips to kiss fair shining fire.

MUST LOVE LAMENT?

MY mistress lowers, and saith I do not love:
I do protest, and seek with service due,
In humble mind, a constant faith to prove;
But for all this, I cannot her remove
From deep vain thought that I may not be true.

If oaths might serve, ev’n by the Stygian lake,
Which poets say the gods themselves do fear,
I never did my vowéd word forsake:
For why should I, whom free choice slave doth make,
Else-what in face, than in my fancy bear?

My Muse, therefore, for only thou canst tell,
Tell me the cause of this my causeless woe?
Tell, how ill thought disgraced my doing well?
Tell, how my joys and hopes thus foully fell
To so low ebb that wonted were to flow?

O this it is, the knotted straw is found;
In tender hearts, small things engender hate:
A horse’s worth laid waste the Trojan ground;
A three-foot stool in Greece made trumpets sound;
An ass’s shade e’er now hath bred debate.

If Greeks themselves were moved with so small cause,
To twist those broils, which hardly would untwine:
Should ladies fair be tied to such hard laws,
As in their moods to take a ling’ring pause?
I would it not, their metal is too fine.

My hand doth not bear witness with my heart,
She saith, because I make no woeful lays,
To paint my living death and endless smart:
And so, for one that felt god Cupid’s dart,
She thinks I lead and live too merry days.

Are poets then the only lovers true,
Whose hearts are set on measuring a verse?
Who think themselves well blest, if they renew
Some good old dump that Chaucer’s mistress knew;
And use but you for matters to rehearse.

Then, good Apollo, do away thy bow:
Take harp and sing in this our versing time,
And in my brain some sacred humour flow,
That all the earth my woes, sighs, tears may know;
And see you not that I fall low to rhyme.

As for my mirth, how could I but be glad,
Whilst that methought I justly made my boast
That only I the only mistress had?
But now, if e’er my face with joy be clad,
Think Hannibal did laugh when Carthage lost.

Sweet lady, as for those whose sullen cheer,
Compared to me, made me in lightness sound;
Who, stoic-like, in cloudy hue appear;
Who silence force to make their words more dear;
Whose eyes seem chaste, because they look on ground:

Believe them not, for physic true doth find,
Choler adust is joyed in woman-kind.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SHEPHERDS.

_Uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton_.

_Will_. Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Show that we do not grudge at all when others do rejoice.

_Dick_. Ah Will, though I grudge not, I count it feeble glee,
With sight made dim with daily tears another’s sport to see.
Whoever lambkins saw, yet lambkins love to play,
To play when that their lovéd dams are stolen or gone astray?
If this in them be true, as true in men think I,
A lustless song forsooth thinks he that hath more lust to cry.

_Will_. A time there is for all, my mother often says,
When she, with skirts tucked very high, with girls at football plays
When thou hast mind to weep, seek out some smoky room:
Now let those lightsome sights we see thy darkness overcome.

_Dick_. What joy the joyful sun gives unto blearéd eyes;
That comfort in these sports you like, my mind his comfort tries.

_Will_. What? Is thy bagpipe broke, or are thy lambs miswent;
Thy wallet or thy tar-box lost; or thy new raiment-rent?

_Dick_. I would it were but thus, for thus it were too well.

_Will_. Thou see’st my ears do itch at it: good Dick thy sorrow tell.

_Dick_. Hear then, and learn to sigh: a mistress I do serve,
Whose wages make me beg the more, who feeds me till I starve;
Whose livery is such, as most I freeze apparelled most,
And looks so near unto my cure, that I must needs be lost.

_Will_. What? These are riddles sure: art thou then bound to her?

_Dick_. Bound as I neither power have, nor would have power, to stir.

_Will_. Who bound thee?

_Dick_. Love, my lord.

_Will_. What witnesses thereto?

_Dick_. Faith in myself, and Worth in her, which no proof can undo.

_Will_. What seal?

_Dick_. My heart deep graven.

_Will_. Who made the band so fast?

_Dick_. Wonder that, by two so black eyes the glitt’ring stars be
past.

_Will_. What keepeth safe thy band?

_Dick_. Remembrance is the chest
Lock’d fast with knowing that she is of worldly things the best.

_Will_. Thou late of wages plain’dst: what wages may’sh thou have?

_Dick_. Her heavenly looks, which more and more do give me cause to
crave.

_Will_. If wages make you want, what food is that she gives?

_Dick_. Tear’s drink, sorrow’s meat, wherewith not I, but in me my
death lives.

_Will_. What living get you then?

_Dick_. Disdain; but just disdain;
So have I cause myself to plain, but no cause to complain.

_Will_. What care takes she for thee?

_Dick_. Her care is to prevent
My freedom, with show of her beams, with virtue, my content.

_Will_. God shield us from such dames! If so our dames be sped,
The shepherds will grow lean I trow, their sheep will be ill-fed.
But Dick, my counsel mark: run from the place of woo:
The arrow being shot from far doth give the smaller blow.

_Dick_. Good Will, I cannot take thy good advice; before
That foxes leave to steal, they find they die therefore.

_Will_. Then, Dick, let us go hence lest we great folks annoy:
For nothing can more tedious be than plaint in time of joy.

_Dick_. Oh hence! O cruel word! which even dogs do hate:
But hence, even hence, I must needs go; such is my dogged fate.

SONG.

_To the tune of_ “_Wilhelmus van Nassau_,” _&c._

WHO hath his fancy pleased,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raised
On Nature’s sweetest light;
A light which doth dissever,
And yet unite the eyes;
A light which, dying, never
Is cause the looker dies.

She never dies, but lasteth
In life of lover’s heart;
He ever dies that wasteth
In love his chiefest part.
Thus is her life still guarded,
In never dying faith;
Thus is his death rewarded,
Since she lives in his death.

Look then and die, the pleasure
Doth answer well the pain;
Small loss of mortal treasure,
Who may immortal gain.
Immortal be her graces,
Immortal is her mind;
They, fit for heavenly places,
This heaven in it doth bind.

But eyes these beauties see not,
Nor sense that grace descries;
Yet eyes deprivéd be not
From sight of her fair eyes:
Which, as of inward glory
They are the outward seal,
So may they live still sorry,
Which die not in that weal.

But who hath fancies pleaséd,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raiséd
On Nature’s sweetest light.

THE SMOKES OF MELANCHOLY.

I.

WHO hath e’er felt the change of love,
And known those pangs that losers prove,
May paint my face without seeing me,
And write the state how my fancies be,
The loathsome buds grown on Sorrow’s tree.

But who by hearsay speaks, and hath not fully felt
What kind of fires they be in which those spirits melt,
Shall guess, and fail, what doth displease,
Feeling my pulse, miss my disease.

II.

O no! O no! trial only shows
The bitter juice of forsaken woes;
Where former bliss, present evils do stain;
Nay, former bliss adds to present pain,
While remembrance doth both states contain.
Come, learners, then to me, the model of mishap,
Ingulphéd in despair, slid down from Fortune’s lap;
And, as you like my double lot,
Tread in my steps, or follow not.