She tells them 'tis a causeless fantasy,

And childish error that they are afraid;

Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no

more;

And with that word she spied the hunted boar;

Whose frothy mouth, be painted all with red,
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A second fear through all her sinews spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:
This way she runs, and now she will no further,
But back retires, to rate the boar for murther.

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways;
She treads the path that she untreads again ;
Her more than haste is mated' with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,

Full of respect, yet nought at all respecting,
In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.

Here kennelled in a brake she finds a hound,
And asks the weary caitiff for his master;
And there another licking of his wound,
'Gainst venomed sores the only sovereign plaster;
And here she meets another sadly scowling,
To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.

When he hath ceased his ill-resounding noise,
Another flap-mouthed mourner, black and grim,
Against the welkin volleys out his voice;
Another and another answer him,

Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,
Shaking their scratched ears, bleeding as they go.

1 Mated, confounded.

2 Respect, circumspection

Look, how the world's poor people are amazed,
At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,

Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies:

So she at these sad signs draws up her breath,
And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death.

"Hard-favored tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,
Hateful divorce of love," (thus chides she Death,)
Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what, dost thou

66

mean

To stifle beauty, and to steal his breath,

Who when he lived, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?

"If he be dead, — O, no, it cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it-
O, yes, it may; thou hast no eyes to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit.

Thy mark is feeble age; but thy false dart
Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant's heart.

"Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,
And hearing him thy power had lost his power.
The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke;
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck'st a flower:
Love's golden arrow at him should have fled,
And not Death's ebon dart, to strike him.dead.2

1 His for its.

2 Boswell has quoted a passage from Massinger's "Virgin Martyr," alluding, as Shakspeare here does, to the beautiful fable of Cupid and death exchanging arrows: —

"Strange affection!

Cupid once more hath changed his shafts with Death,
And kills, instead of giving life."

6

Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st such

weeping?

What may a heavy groan advantage thee?

Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping
Those eyes
that taught all other eyes to see?
Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigor,
Since her best work is ruined with thy rigor."

Here overcome, as one full of despair,

She vailed her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopped
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropped;

But through the floodgates breaks the silver rain,
And with his strong course opens them again.

O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;

Both crystals, where they viewed each other's sorrow,
Sorrow, that friendly sighs sought still to dry;

But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

Variable passions throng her constant woe,
As striving who should best become her grief;
All entertained, each passion labors so
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,

But none is best; then join they all together,
Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.

y this, far off she hears some huntsmen hollo: 2 A nurse's song ne'er pleased her babe so well:

Vailed, lowered.

2 Hollo, or hollow, is not quite the same word as holla, which we have already noticed, although the usual spelling of this word in the passage before us is holla.

The dire imagination she did follow
This sound of hope doth labor to expel;
For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,
And flatters her it is Adonis' voice.

Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,
Being prisoned in her eye, like pearls in glass,
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass,
To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,
Who is but drunken when she seemeth drowned.

O, hard-believing love, how strange it seems
Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes,
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:

The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.

Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought;
Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;

It was not she that called him all-to1 naught;
Now she adds honors to his hateful name;

She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,

Imperious supreme of all mortal things.

"No, no," quoth she, "sweet Death, I did but jest ;
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear,
Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,
Which knows no pity, but is still severe;

Then, gentle shadow, (truth I must confess,)
1 railed on thee, fearing my love's decease.

All-to. Mr. Dyce explains this as entirely, altogether.

'Tis not my fault: the boar provoked my tongue; Be wreaked on him, invisible commander; 'Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong; I did but act, he's author of thy slander;

Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet Could rule them both, without ten women's wit."

Thus, hoping that Adonis is alive,

Her rash suspect she doth extenuate;
And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With Death she humbly doth insinuate ;

Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs; and stories
His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.

"O Jove," quoth she, "how much a fool was I,
To be of such a weak and silly mind,
To wail his death who lives, and must not die,
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind!

For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.1

"Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemmed with thieves;
Trifles, unwitnesséd with eye or ear,

Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves."
Even at this word she hears a merry horn,
Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.

As falcon to the lure away, she flies;

The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light;

1 Shakspeare, in his greater works, was not ashamed to recur

to the treasury of his early thoughts:

"Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,

But I do love thee! and when I love thee not
Chaos is come again."