and keep their impious turbans on, without
good morrow to the sun.-Hail, thou fair heaven!
we house i' the rock, yet use thee not so hardly
as prouder livers do.
Hail, heaven! Bel. Now, for our mountain sport: up to yond hill, your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider, when you above perceive me like a crow,
that it is place which lessens and sets off:
and you may then revolve what tales I have told you
of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war:
this service is not service, so being done,
but being so allowed: to apprehend thus,
draws us a profit from all things we see:
and often, to our comfort, shall we find
the sharded beetle in a safer hold
than is the full-wing'd eagle. O! this life
is nobler than attending for a check;
richer than doing nothing for a bauble;
prouder, than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
such gain the cap of him that makes 'em fine,
yet keeps his book uncrossed: no life to ours.
1002 Gui. Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledg'd, have never wing'd from view o' the nest, nor know not what air's from home. Haply this life is blest,
if quiet life be best; sweeter to you
that have a sharper known; well corresponding
with your stiff age; but unto us it is
What should we speak of,
when we are old as you? when we shall hear
the rain and wind beat dark December, how,
in this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
the freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
we are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey;
our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
we make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird,
and sing our bondage freely.
How you speak!
did you but know the city's usuries,
and felt them knowingly: the art of the court,
as hard to leave as keep: the toil o' the war,
a pain that only seems to seek out danger
i' the name of fame and honour; which dies i' the
and hath as oft a slanderous epitaph
as record of fair act; nay, many times,
doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse,
must courtsey at the censure:-O boys, this story
the world may read in me: Cymbeline loved me;
and when a soldier was the theme, my name
was not far off: then was I as a tree,
whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night,
a storm or robbery, call it what you will,
shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves, and left me bare to weather.
1003 Bel. My fault being nothing,—as I have told you oft,but that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline I was confederate with the Romans: so, follow'd my banishment; and, this twenty years, this rock and these demesnes have been my world: where I have liv'd at honest freedom; paid
more pious debts to heaven than in all
the fore-end of my time.—But up to the mountains;
this is not hunters' language:-he that strikes
the venison first shall be the lord o' the feast;
to him the other two shall minister;
and we will fear no poison, which attends
in place of greater state. I'll meet you i' the valleys. How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature! These boys know little they are sons to the king; nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
They think they are mine: and, though train'd up
thus meanly
i' the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
the roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them,
in simple and low things, to prince it much
beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,
the heir of Cymbeline and Britain, whom
the king his father call'd Guiderius,—Jove!
when on my three-foot stool I sit, and tell
the warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
into my story: say, "Thus mine enemy fell,
and thus I set my foot on's neck," even then
the princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,
not yet seen in the court. Hunting the buck,
I found him sitting by a fountain's side,
of which he borrow'd some to quench his thirst,
and paid the nymph again as much in tears.
A garland lay him by, made by himself,
of many several flowers bred in the vale,
stuck in that mystic order that the rareness
delighted me; but ever when he turn'd
his tender eyes upon 'em, he would weep,
as if he meant to make 'em grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
dwell in his face, I ask'd him all his story:
he told me that his parents gentle died,
leaving him to the mercy of the fields,
which gave him roots; and of the crystal springs,
which did not stop their courses; and the sun,
which still, he thanked him, yielded him his light.
then took he up his garland, and did shew
what every flower, as country-people hold,
did signify, and how all, order'd thus,
express'd his grief: and, to my thoughts, did read
the prettiest lecture of his country-art
that could be wish'd: so that methought I could
have studied it. I gladly entertain'd
him, who was glad to follow: and have got
the trustiest, loving'st and the gentlest boy,
that ever master kept. Him will I send
to wait on you, and bear our hidden love.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER
J007 BELLARIO DISCOVERED TO BE A WOMAN CONFESSES THE MOTIVE OF HER DISGUISE TO HAVE
BEEN LOVE FOR PRINCE PHILASTER
My father oft would speak
MY
your worth and virtue; and, as I did grow
more and more apprehensive, I did thirst
to see the man so praised. But yet all this
was but a maiden-longing, to be lost
as soon as found; till once I saw a god
I thought (but it was you) enter our gates;
my blood flew out and back again, as fast
as I had puff'd it forth and sucked it in
like breath; then was I called away in haste
to entertain you. Never was a man
heaved from a sheep-cot to a sceptre, raised
so high in thoughts as I; you left a kiss
upon these lips then, which I mean to keep
from you for ever; I did hear you talk
far above singing. After you were gone
I grew acquainted with my heart and searched
what stirred it so: alas, I found it love!
For this I did delude my noble father
with a feigned pilgrimage, and dress'd myself
in habit of a boy, and, for I knew
my birth no match for you, I was past hope
of having you; and understanding well
that when I made discovery of my sex,
I could not stay with you, I made a vow
by all the most religious things a maid
could call together, never to be known,
whilst there was hope to hide me from men's eyes,
for other than I seemed, that I might ever
abide with you. Then sate I by the fount
where first you took me up.
UT-let us not with melancholy thoughts
poison the enjoyment of an hour so fair-
see how those cottages, begirt with green,
gleam in the radiance of the setting sun!
His orb is disappearing; day is done;
yet he hastes on and calls to birth new life.
Alas! why can I not on pinions spurn the ground,
and still pursuing, still be left behind him?
Then at my feet should I entranced behold
evening's eternal stillness wrap the world;
find every summit, every vale at rest,
each stream of silver flow with waves of gold:
no deep ravines, no rugged mountain-top
would interrupt me in my godlike flight.
Even now the sea, with all its sunlit bays,
unrolls his depths before my wandering eyes.
But lo! at length he seems to sink away;
yet a new impulse is awakened in me,
I hasten on to drink perpetual light,
the day before me and the night behind,
the heavens above me and the waves beneath!
'tis but a glorious vision-he is gone-
oh that this gross material has no wings
to follow the pure spirit as it flies;
yet there is something resident within us
prompts all our feelings, lifts them to the skies;
whene'er the lark, lost in the boundless blue,
pours forth his stream of quivering melody,
or soars the eagle o'er the mountain pines
poised on the breadth of his almighty wings,
or o'er the wide-spread plains, o'er ocean's bed
the grey-plumed heron slowly sails towards home.
translated from GOETHE
ETHINKS I am a prophet new inspir'd,
his rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
for violent fires soon burn out themselves;
small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
he tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
with eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
this other Eden, demi-paradise;
this fortress, built by Nature for herself
against infection and the hand of war;
this happy breed of men, this little world;
this precious stone set in the silver sea,
which serves it in the office of a wall,
or as a moat defensive to a house,
against the envy of less happier lands;
this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, this land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
dear for her reputation through the world,
is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it),
like to a tenement or pelting farm:
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