Then said I also to myself, “So many

dost thou command. They follow all thy stars
and as on some great number set their All
upon thy single head, and only man
the vessel of thy fortune. Yet a day

will come, when destiny shall once more scatter
all these in many a several direction:

few be they who will stand out faithful to thee."
I yearn'd to know which one was faithfullest
of all, this camp included. Great Destiny,
give me a sign! And he shall be the man,
who on the approaching morning comes the first
to meet me with a token of his love.

S. T. COLERIDGE from Schiller

754 THE GRIEF OF ASPASIA AT BEING FORSAKEN BY AMINTOR

755

HIS lady

THIS

walks discontented, with her watery eyes bent on the earth. The unfrequented woods are her delight; where, when she sees a bank stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell her servants what a pretty place it were to bury lovers in; and make her maids pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse. She carries with her an infectious grief, that strikes all her beholders; she will sing the mournful'st things that ever ear hath heard, and sigh, and sing again: and when the rest of our young ladies, in their wanton blood, tell mirthful tales in course, that fill the room with laughter, she will, with so sad a look, bring forth a story of the silent death of some forsaken virgin, which her grief will put in such a phrase that, ere she end, she'll send them weeping one by one away. J. FLETCHER

Adam

ADAM AND ORLANDO

OUT do not so. I have five hundred crowns,

BU

the thrifty hire I sav'd under your father, which I did store, to be my foster-nurse, when service should in my old limbs lie lame,

and unregarded age in corners thrown:
take that; and He that doth the ravens feed,
yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
all this I give you. Let me be your servant:
though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
for in my youth I never did apply

hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
the means of weakness and debility;
therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
frosty, but kindly; let me go with you:
I'll do the service of a younger man
in all your business and necessities.

756 Orl. O! good old man, how well in thee appears, the constant service of the antique world, when service swet for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, where none will sweat but for promotion; and, having that, do choke their service up even with the having; 'tis not so with thee. But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree, that cannot so much as a blossom yield in lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. But come thy ways; we'll go along together, and, ere we have thy youthful wages spent, we'll light upon some settled low content. Adam Master, go on, and I will follow thee to the last gasp with truth and loyalty.— From seventeen years till now almost fourscore here livéd I, but now live here no more. At seventeen years many their fortunes seek, but at fourscore it is too late a week: yet fortune cannot recompense me better than to die well, and not my master's debtor.

W. SHAKESPEARE

757

INJURY

THE purpose of an injury 'tis to vex

and trouble me; now nothing can do that

to him that's valiant. He that is affected
with the least injury, is less than it.

It is but reasonable to conclude

that should be stronger still which hurts, than that
which is hurt. Now no wickedness is stronger
than what opposeth it; not fortune's self,
when she encounters virtue, but comes off
both lame and less! why should a wise man then
confess himself the weaker, by the feeling
of a fool's wrong? There may an injury
be meant me. I may choose, if I will take it.
But we are now come to that delicacy

and tenderness of sense, we think an insolence
worse than an injury, bare words worse than deeds;
we are not so much troubled with the wrong,

as with the opinion of the wrong; like children
we are made afraid of visors.

B. JONSON

758

759

A MOTHER'S APPEAL TO HER DAUGHTER

Y dearest daughter, at your feet I fall;

MY

hear, oh yet hear your wretched mother's call. Think, at your birth, ah think what pains I bore, and can your eyes behold me suffer more? You were the child which from your infancy I still loved best, and then you best loved me. About my neck your little arms you spread, nor could you sleep without me in the bed ; but sought my bosom when you went to rest, and all night long would be across my breast. Nor without cause did you that fondness shew you may remember when our Nile did flow, while on the bank you innocently stood, and with a wand made circles in the flood, it rose, and just was hurrying you to death, when I, from far, all pale and out of breath, ran and rush'd in:

:

and from my waves my floating pledge did bear, so much my love was stronger than my fear.

TRIUMPHAL ENTRY

J. DRYDEN

YOUR glorious father, my victorious lord,

loaden with spoils, and ever-living laurels, is ent'ring now, in martial pomp, the palace: five hundred mules precede his solemn march,

which groan beneath the weight of Moorish wealth;
chariots of war, adorn'd with glitt'ring gems,
succeed; and next a hundred neighing steeds,
white as the fleecy ram on Alpine hills,

that bound, and foam, and champ the golden bit,
as they disdain'd the victory they grace;
pris'ners of war in shining fetters follow,
and captains, ́of the noblest blood of Africk,
sweat by his chariot wheels, and lick, and grind,
with gnashing teeth, the dust his triumphs raise:
the swarming pop'lace spread on every wall,
and cling, as if with claws they did enforce,
their hold through clifted stones, stretching and staring
as they were all eyes, and every limb
would feed its faculty of admiration.

W. CONGREVE

760 ION APPROACHING THE ALTAR AND LIFTING UP

THE KNIFE, GIVEN HIM BY KTESIPHON, VOWS VEN-
GEANCE AGAINST ADRASTUS, KING OF ARGOS

YE eldest

E eldest gods,

who mindful of the empire which ye held
over dim Chaos, keep revengeful wrath

on falling nations, and on kingly lines
about to sink for ever; ye, who shed
into the passions of earth's giant brood
and their fierce usages the sense of justice;
who clothe the fated battlements of tyranny
with blackness as a funeral pall, and breathe
through the proud halls of time-embolden'd guilt
portents of ruin, hear me!-In your presence,
for now I feel ye nigh, I dedicate

this arm to the destruction of the king
and of his race: O keep me pitiless;

expel all human weakness from my frame,

that this keen weapon shake not when his heart should feel its point; and if he has a child whose blood is needful to the sacrifice

my country asks, harden my soul to shed it!

T. N. TALFOURD

761 POLONIUS' ADVICE TO HIS SON LAERTES ON HIS

762

DEPARTURE FOR FOREIGN TRAVEL

IVE thy thoughts no tongue,

his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
but do not dull thy palm with entertainment
of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
of entrance to a quarrel: but being in,
bear't, that th' opposéd may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

but not expressed in fancy: rich, not gaudy.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
for loan oft loses both itself and friend;
and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all, to thine ownself be true;
and it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.

W. SHAKESPEARE

A.

U.

WH

TROILUS

AGAMEMNON-ULYSSES

HAT Trojan is that same that looks so heavy? The youngest son of Priam, a true knight; not yet mature, yet matchless: firm of word; speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue ; not soon provok'd, nor being provok'd soon calm'd: his heart and hand both open and both free; for what he has he gives, what thinks he shows; yet gives he not till judgement guide his bounty, nor dignifies an impure thought with breath: manly as Hector, but more dangerous; for Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes to tender objects; but he, in heat of action, is more vindicative than jealous love: they call him Troilus: and on him erect a second hope, as fairly built as Hector. Thus says Æneas; one that knows the youth