Chapter X: Appendix: Geoffrey Chaucer (1)

THE PRIORESS.

[From the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales.]

There was also a nonne, a prioresse,
That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy;
Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy;
And she was cleped[23] madame Eglentine.
Ful wel she sange the service devine,
Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;
And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly[24]
After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,[25]
For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.
At mete was she wel ytaught withalle;
She lette no morsel from hire lippe falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.
In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.[26]
Hire over lippe wiped she so clene
That in hire cuppe was no ferthing[27] sene
Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught.
Ful semely after hire mete she raught.[28]
And sikerly[29] she was of grete disport
And ful plesant and amiable of port,
And peined hire to contrefeten chere
Of court,[30] and ben estatelich of manere
And to ben holden digne[31] of reverence.
But for to speken of hire conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous,
She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous
Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rested flesh and milk and wastel brede.[32]
But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,
Or if men smote it with a yerde[33] smert:[34]
And all was conscience and tendre herte.

[Footnote 23: Called.] [Footnote 24: Neatly.] [Footnote 25: Stratford on the Bow (river): a small village where such French as was spoken would be provincial.] [Footnote 26: Delight.] [Footnote 27: Farthing, bit.] [Footnote 28: Reached.] [Footnote 29: Surely.] [Footnote 30: Took pains to imitate court manners.] [Footnote 31: Worthy.] [Footnote 32: Fine bread.] [Footnote 33: Stick.] [Footnote 34: Smartly.]

PALAMON'S FAREWELL TO EMELIE.

[From the Knightes Tale.]

Naught may the woful spirit in myn herte
Declare o[35] point of all my sorwes smerte
To you, my lady, that I love most.
But I bequethe the service of my gost
To you aboven every creature,
Sin[36] that my lif ne may no lenger dure.
Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge
That I for you have suffered, and so longe!
Alas the deth! alas min Emelie!
Alas departing of our compagnie!
Alas min hertes quene! alas my wif!
Min hertes ladie, euder of my lif!
What is this world? what axen[37] men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave
Alone withouten any compagnie.
Farewel my swete, farewel min Emelie,
And softe take me in your armes twey,[38]
For love of God, and herkeneth[39] what I sey.

[Footnote 35: One.] [Footnote 36: Since.] [Footnote 37: Ask.] [Footnote 38: Two.] [Footnote 39: Hearken.]

EMELIE IN THE GARDEN.

[From the Knightes Tale.]

Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day,
Till it felle ones in a morwe[40] of May
That Emelie, that fayrer was to sene[41]
Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene,
And fresher than the May with floures newe,
(For with the rose colour strof hire hewe;
I n'ot[42] which was the finer of hem two)
Er it was day, as she was wont to do,
She was arisen and all redy dight,[43]
For May wol have no slogardie a-night.
The seson priketh every gentil herte,
And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte,
And sayth, "Arise, and do thin observance."
This maketh Emelie han remembrance
To dou honour to May, and for to rise.
Yclothed was she fresh for to devise.[44]
Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse
Behind hire back, a yerde long I gesse.
And in the gardin at the sonne uprist[45]
She walketh up and doun wher as hire list.[46]
She gathereth floures, partie white and red,
To make a sotel[47] gerlond for hire bed,
And as an angel hevenlich she song.

[Footnote 40: Morning.] [Footnote 41: See.] [Footnote 42: Know not.] [Footnote 43: Dressed.] [Footnote 44: Describe.] [Footnote 45: Sunrise.] [Footnote 46: Wherever it pleases her.] [Footnote 47: Subtle, cunningly enwoven.]

ALISON.

[From the Millere's Tale.]

Fayre was this yonge wif, and therwithal
As any wesel hire body gent and smal[48]
A seint[49] she wered, barred al of silk,
A barm-cloth[50] eke as white as morne milk[51]
Upon hire lendes[52] ful of many a gore,
White was hire smok, and brouded[53] al before
And eke behind on hire colere[54] aboute
Of cole-black silk within and eke withoute.
The tapes of hire white volupere[55]
Were of the same suit of hire colere;
Hire fillet brode of silk and set ful hye;
And sikerly[56] she had a likerous[57] eye,
Ful smal ypulled[58] were hire browes two,
And they were bent and black as any slo,
She was wel more blisful on to see
Than is the newe perjenete[59] tree,
And softer than the wolle is of a wether.
And by hire girdle heng a purse of lether,
Tasseled with silk and perled with latoun,[60]
In all this world to seken up and doun
Ther n'is no man so wise that coude thenche[61]
So gay a popelot[62] or swiche[63] a wenche.
Ful brighter was the shining of hire hewe
Than in the tour, the noble yforged newe.
But of hire song, it was as loud and yerne[64]
As any swalow sitting on a berne.
Thereto she coude skip and make a game
As any kid or calf folowing his dame.
Hire mouth was swete as braket[65] or the meth,[66]
Or horde of apples laid in hay or heth.
Winsing[67] she was, as is a jolly colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
A broche she bare upon hire low colere.
As brode as is the bosse of a bokelere.[68]
Hire shoon were laced on hire legges hie;
She was a primerole,[69] a piggesnie,[70]
For any lord, to liggen[71] in his bedde,
Or yet for any good yeman[72] to wedde.

[Footnote 48: Trim and slim.] [Footnote 49: Girdle.] [Footnote 50: Apron.] [Footnote 51: Morning's milk.] [Footnote 52: Loins.] [Footnote 53: Embroidered.] [Footnote 54: Collar.] [Footnote 55: Cap.] [Footnote 56: Surely.] [Footnote 57: Wanton.] [Footnote 58: Trimmed fine.] [Footnote 59: Young pear.] [Footnote 60: Ornamented with pearl-shaped beads of a metal resembling brass.] [Footnote 61: Think.] [Footnote 62: Puppet.] [Footnote 63: Such.] [Footnote 64: Brisk.] [Footnote 65: A sweet drink of ale, honey, and spice.] [Footnote 66: Mead.] [Footnote 67: Skittish.] [Footnote 68: Buckler.] [Footnote 69: Primrose.] [Footnote 70: Pansy.] [Footnote 71: Lie.] [Footnote 72: Yeoman.]

* * * * *

ANONYMOUS BALLADS OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.

WALY, WALY BUT LOVE BE BONNY.

O waly,[73] waly up the bank,
And waly, waly down the brae,[74]
And waly, waly yon burn[75] side,
Where I and my love wont to gae.

I lean'd my back unto an aik,[76]
I thought it was a trusty tree;
But first it bow'd and syne[77] it brak,
Sae my true love did lightly me.

O waly, waly but love be bonny,
A little time while it is new;
But when 'tis auld it waxeth cauld,
And fades away like the morning dew.

O wherefore should I busk[78] my head?
Or wherefore should I kame[79] my hair?
For my true love has me forsook,
And says he'll never love me mair.

Now Arthur-Seat shall be my bed,
The sheets shall ne'er be fyl'd by me;
Saint Anton's well[80] shall be my drink,
Sinn my true love has forsaken me.

Martinmas' wind, when wilt thou blaw
And shake the green leaves off the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou come?
For of my life I'm aweary.

'Tis not the frost that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snow's inclemency;
'Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry,
But my love's heart grown cauld to me.

When we came in by Glasgow town
We were a comely sight to see;
My love was clad in the black velvet,
And I myself in cramasie.[81]

But had I wist, before I kissed,
That love had been sae ill to win,
I'd lock'd my heart in a case of gold,
And pin'd it with a silver pin.

Oh, oh, if my young babe were born,
And set upon the nurse's knee,
And I myself were dead and gane,
And the green grass growing over me!

[Footnote 73: An exclamation of sorrow, woe! alas!] [Footnote 74: Hillside.] [Footnote 75: Brook.] [Footnote 76: Oak.] [Footnote 77: Then.] [Footnote 78: Adorn.] [Footnote 79: Comb.] [Footnote 80: At the foot of Arthur's-Seat, a cliff near Edinburgh.] [Footnote 81: Crimson.]

THE TWO CORBIES.[82]

As I was walking all alane
I heard twa corbies making a mane;
The tane unto the t'other say,
"Where sail we gang and dine to-day?"

"In behint yon auld fail[83] dyke,
I wot there lies a new-slain knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there
But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

"His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild fowl hame,
His lady's ta'en another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.

"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,[84]
And I'll pick out his bonny blue een;
Wi' ae[85] lock o' his gowden hair,
We'll theck[86] our nest when it grows bare.

"Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sail ken where he is gane;
O'er his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sail blow for evermair."

BONNIE GEORGE CAMPBELL.

Hie upon Highlands and low upon Tay,
Bonnie George Campbell rade out on a day.
Saddled and bridled and gallant rade he;
Hame cam' his horse, but never cam' he.

Out came his auld mother, greeting[87] fu' sair;
And out cam' his bonnie bride, riving her hair.
Saddled and bridled and booted rade he;
Toom[88] hame cam' the saddle, but never cam' he.

"My meadow lies green and my corn is unshorn;
My barn is to bigg[89] and my babie's unborn."
Saddled and bridled and booted rade he;
Toom cam' the saddle, but never cam' he.

[Footnote 82: The two ravens.] [Footnote 83: Turf.] [Footnote 84: Neck-bone.] [Footnote 85: One.] [Footnote 86: Thach.] [Footnote 87: Weeping.] [Footnote 88: Empty.] [Footnote 89: Build.]

EDMUND SPENSER.

THE SUITOR'S LIFE.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide;
To lose good days that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent:
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peere's[90]:
To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeers,
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires:
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone!

THE MUSIC OF THE BOWER OF BLISS.

[From the _Faerie Queene_. Book II. Canto XII.]

Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound,
Of all that mote[2] delight a daintie eare,
Such as attonce[91] might not on living ground,
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:
Right hard it was for wight which did it heare,
To read what manner of music that mote[92] bee;
For all that pleasing is to living eare
Was there consorted in one harmonee;
Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.

The joyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade,
Their notes unto the voyce attempred sweet;
Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver sounding instruments did meet
With the base[93] murmure of the waters fall;
The waters fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all....

The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay;
Ah! see, whoso fayre thing doest faine[94] to see,
In springing flowre the image of thy day!
Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly shee
Doth first peepe foorth with bashfull modestee,
That fairer seemes the lesse ye see her may!
Lo! see, soone after how more bold and free
Her bared bosome she doth broad display;
Lo! see, soone after how she fades and falls away.

So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre;
Ne more doth florish after first decay,
That earst[95] was sought to deck both bed and bowre
Of many a lady, and many a paramowre!
Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime,[96]
For soone comes age that will her pride deflowre:
Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time,
Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equall crime.

[Footnote 90: A reference to Lord Burleigh's hostility to the poet] [Footnote 91: Might.] [Footnote 92: At once.] [Footnote 93: Bass.]

THE HOUSE OF SLEEP.

[From the _Faerie Queene_. Book I. Canto I.]

He, making speedy way through spersed ayre,
And through the world of waters wide and deepe,
To Morpheus' house doth hastily repaire:
Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe
And low, where dawning day doth never peepe,
His dwelling is; there Tethys his wet bed
Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe
In silver deaw his ever-drouping hed,
Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred....

And more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,
And ever-drizling raine upon the loft,
Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.
No other noyse, nor people's troublous cryes,
As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne,
Might there be heard; but careless quiet lyes
Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.

[Footnote 94: Rejoice.] [Footnote 95: First, formerly.] [Footnote 96: Spring.]

WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.

SONNET XC.

Then hate me when thou wilt: if ever, now:
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after loss.
Ah! do not when my heart hath scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite;
But in the onset come: So shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune's might;
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.

SONG.

[From _As You Like It_.]

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho! Sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly,
Then heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot;
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! etc.

THE SLEEP OF KINGS.

[From _Henry IV_.--Part II.]

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopy of costly state,
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamors in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Can'st thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low-lie-down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

FALSTAFF AND BARDOLPH.

[From _Henry IV_.--Part I.]

_Falstaff_. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle?

Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown; I am wither'd like an old apple-John.

Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company, villainous company hath been the spoil of me:

_Bardolph_. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

_Fal_. Why, there it is. Come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: swore little; diced, not above seven times a week; paid money that I borrowed, three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.

_Bard_. Why you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass; out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

_Fal_. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop--but 'tis in the nose of thee; thou art the knight of the burning lamp.

_Bard_. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

_Fal_ No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head or a _memento mori_: I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert anyway given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be: By this fire: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light of thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou runn'st up Gad's Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an _ignis fatuus_, or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that Salamander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it!

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN.

[From _As You Like It_.]

_Jacques_. All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school: and then, the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow: Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth: And then the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well-saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans[97] teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them? To die--to sleep--
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to--'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished: to die, to sleep;
To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus take
With a bare bodkin?[98] Who would fardels[99] bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn away
And lose the name of action.

[Footnote 97: Without.]

DETACHED PASSAGES FROM THE PLAYS.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Our revels now are ended: these our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself--
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack[100] behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded[101] with a sleep.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and uncertain thoughts
Imagine howling! 'tis too horrible!

O who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
O no! the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek; she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat, like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.

Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth:
But either it was different in blood;
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it;
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied[102] night,
That, in a spleen,[103] unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.

[Footnote 98: Small sword.] [Footnote 99: Burdens.] [Footnote 100: Cloud.] [Footnote 101: Encompassed.] [Footnote 102: Black.] [Footnote 103: Caprice, whim.]

FRANCIS BACON.

OF DEATH.

[From the Essays.]

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured; and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, _Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa._[104] Groans and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death, and therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupateth[105] it. It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood: who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good doth avert the dolours of death; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is _Nunc dimittis_[106] when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy: _Extinctus amabitur idem_.[107]

[Footnote 104: The shows of death terrify more than death itself.] [Footnote 105: Anticipates.] [Footnote 106: Now thou dismissest us.] [Footnote 107: The same man will be loved when dead.]

OF STUDIES.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring: for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar: they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously;[108] and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments,[109] and the meaner sorts of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend: _Abeunt studia in mores_;[110] nay, there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises--bowling is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head and the like; so, if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the school-men, for they are _Cymini sectores_;[111] if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

[Footnote 108: Attentively.] [Footnote 109: Subjects.] [Footnote 110: Studies pass into the character.] [Footnote 111: Hair-splitters.]

OF ADVERSITY.

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that "the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired"--_Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia_. Certainly, if miracles be the command over Nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen), "It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god "--_Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem dei_. This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed; and the poets indeed have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery;[112] nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian; "that Hercules, when he went to unbind _Prometheus_ (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher," lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. But, to speak in a _mean_[113] the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed[114] or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

[Footnote 112: An allegorical meaning.] [Footnote 113: Moderately, that is, without poetic figures.] [Footnote 114: Burnt.]

BEN JONSON.

SONG TO CELIA.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon did'st only breathe
And sent'st it back to me:
Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

LONG LIFE.

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauty see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

THE THANKLESS MUSE.

[From _The Poetaster_.]

O this would make a learned and liberal soul
To rive his stained quill up to the back,
And damn his long-watched labours to the fire--
Things that were born when none, but the still night
And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes;
Were not his own free merit a more crown,
Unto his travails than their reeling claps.[115]
This 'tis that strikes me silent, seals my lips,
And apts me rather to sleep out my time,
Than I would waste it in contemned strifes
With these vile Ibides,[116] these unclean birds
That make their mouths their clysters, and still purge
From their hot entrails. But I leave the monsters
To their own fate. And, since the Comic Muse
Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try
If tragedy have a more kind aspect:
Her favors in my next I will pursue,
Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one,
So he judicious be, he shall be alone
A theater unto me. Once I'll 'say[117]
To strike the ear of time in those fresh strains,
As shall, beside the cunning of their ground,
Give cause to some of wonder, some despite,
And more despair to imitate their sound.
I, that spend half my nights and all my days
Here in a cell, to get a dark pale face,
To come forth worth the ivy or the bays,
And in this age can hope no other grace--
Leave me! There's something come into my thought
That must and shall be sung high and aloof,
Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof.[118]

[Footnote 115: Applauses.] [Footnote 116: Plural of ibis.] [Footnote 117: That is, I will try once for all.] [Footnote 118: That is, envy and stupidity.]

JOHN FLETCHER AND FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

A SONG OF TRUE LOVE DEAD.

[From _The Maid's Tragedy_.]

Lay a garland on my hearse
Of the dismal yew;
Maidens willow branches bear;
Say I died true:
My love was false, but I was firm
From my hour of birth:
Upon my buried body lie
Lightly, gentle earth.

A SONG OF CRUEL LOVE.[119]

[From _Rollo, Duke of Normandy_.]

Take, oh take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn,
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, though sealed in vain.

Hide, oh hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears;
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.

SWEET MELANCHOLY.[120]

[From _The Nice Valor_.]

Hence, all your vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There's naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,
But only melancholy:
O sweetest melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fastened on the ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound!
Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves,
Moonlight walks when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls,
A midnight bell, a parting groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley:
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

[Footnote 119: The first stanza of this song was probably Shakspere's.] [Footnote 120: This should be compared with Milton's _Il Penserosa_.]

CAESAR'S LAMENT OVER POMPEY.

[From _The False One._]

O thou conqueror,
Thou glory of the world once, now the pity:
Thou awe of nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus?
What poor fate followed thee and plucked thee on
To trust thy sacred life to an Egyptian?
The life and light of Rome to a blind stranger
That honorable war ne'er taught a nobleness,
Nor worthy circumstance showed what a man was?
That never heard thy name sung but in banquets
And loose lascivious pleasures? To a boy
That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness,
No study of thy life to know thy goodness?...
Egyptians, dare you think your high pyramides,
Built to out-dure the sun, as you suppose,
Where your unworthy kings lie raked in ashes,
Are monuments fit for him? No, brood of Nilus,
Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven;
No pyramid set off his memories,
But the eternal substance of his greatness,
To which I leave him.

JOHN MILTON.

FAME.

[From _Lycidas._]

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,[121]
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed."

THE PLEASURES OF MELANCHOLY.

[From _Il Penseroso._]

Sweet bird that shun'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among
I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And, missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm[122]
To bless the doors from nightly harm....
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof.
With antique pillars massy-proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high and anthem clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew,
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give;
And I with thee will choose to live.

[Footnote 121: Atropos, the fate who cuts the thread of life.] [Footnote 122: The watchman's call.]

THE PROTECTION OF CONSCIENCE.

[From _Comus_.]

Scene: A wild wood; night.

_Lady_: My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favor of these pines,
Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labor of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stolen them from me. Else, O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
With everlasting oil, to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistening guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honor unassailed....
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

INVOCATION TO LIGHT.

[From _Paradise Lost_.]

Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou
Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene[123] hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate,
I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,[124]
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark,
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

[Footnote 123: The _gutta serena_, or cataract.] [Footnote 124: Homer.]

SATAN.

[From _Paradise Lost_.]

He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield,
Etherial temper, massy, large and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist[125] views
At evening from the top of Fesole,[126]
Or in Valdamo, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains on her spotty globe.
His spear (to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand)
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore beside, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower, or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrewn,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.

[Footnote 125: Galileo.] [Footnote 126: A hill near Florence.]

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.[127]

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant,[128] that from these may grow
A hundred-fold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.[129]

[Footnote 127: This sonnet refers to the persecution instituted in 1655 by the Duke of Savoy against the Vaudois Protestants.] [Footnote 128: The Pope, who wore the triple crown or tiara.] [Footnote 129: The Papacy, with which the Protestant reformers identified Babylon the Great, the "Scarlet Woman" of Revelation.]

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

THE VANITY OF MONUMENTS.

[From _Urn Burial_]

There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things. Our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks....The iniquity[130] of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations and Thersites[131] is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favor of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methusaleh's long life had been his only chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired.[132] The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, and the reported names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina[133] of life, and even pagans could doubt whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right descensions and makes but winter arches, and, therefore, it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness and have our light in ashes. Since the brother[134] of death daily haunts us with dying mementoes, and time that grows old in itself bids us hope no long duration; diuturnity is a dream and folly of expectation....

There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end. All others have a dependent being and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death makes a folly of posthumous memory. God, who can only[135] destroy our souls, and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustrations, and to hold long subsistence seems but a scape[136] in oblivion. But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery[137] in the infamy of his nature.

[Footnote 130: Injustice.] [Footnote 131: See Shakspere's _Troilus and Cressida_.] [Footnote 132: That is, bribed, bought off.] [Footnote 133: The goddess of childbirth. We must die to be born again.] [Footnote 134: Sleep.] [Footnote 135: That is, the only one who can.] [Footnote 136: Freak.] [Footnote 137: Ostentation.]

* * * * *

JOHN DRYDEN.

THE CHARACTER OF ZIMRI.[138]

[From _Absalom and Achitophel_.]

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand,
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was every thing by turns, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking,
Blest madman, who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes,
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
So over-violent or over-civil
That every man with him was God or Devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggared by fools whom still he found[139] too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief:
For spite of him, the weight of business fell
To Absalom and wise Achitophel.[140]
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.

[Footnote 138: This is a satirical sketch of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.] [Footnote 139: Found out, detected.] [Footnote 140: The Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Shaftesbury.]

THE CHEATS OF HOPE.

[From _Aurengzebe_.]

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit,
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay;
To-morrow's falser than the former day.
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain,
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
I'm tired of waiting for this chymic[141] gold
Which fools us young and beggars us when old.

[Footnote 141: The gold which the alchemists tried to make from base metals.]

* * * * *

JONATHAN SWIFT.

THE EMPEROR OF LILLIPUT.

[From _Gulliver's Travels_.]