Ev.0001_Modernised

Oedipus: Three Cantoes. Wherein is Contained: 1 His Unfortunate Infancy, 2 His Execrable Actions, 3 His Lamentable End. By T. E. Bach. Art. Cantab. London, printed by Nicholas Okes. 1615.

To the right worshipful the patron and pattern of good arts, Mr John Clapham, Esquire, one of the six clerks of the Chancery. D. D.

Sir, the multitude of writers in our age hath begotten a scarcity of patrons. And poesy is grown so frequent, that it may say with Niobe, inopem se copia fecit: when its own community hath brought it into contempt. Insomuch that being about to publish these slight composures, which have so far overleavened my disposition, addicted to nothing less than popularity; that notwithstanding my desire to suppress it, yet rupto iecore exire caprificus, I was compelled with Catullus, Quoi dono novum at illepidum libellum, when I could not think of any that would be so partial as to think has nugas esse aliquid: seeing that nowadays Thespis cannot act without the reprehension of Solon. And most men, like supercilious Catoes, ever censure verse to be loose, though it be never so strictly restrained within the limits of untainted numbers. Till at last, through the happy knowledge of yourself, I resolved to make intrusion ambitious to you, from whom I could not choose but conceive encouragement, when your elaborate lines do promise you to favour that in others, which others admire in you. I could here enter into a discourse of your deserved praises, but that I know it cannot be acceptable to an ingenuous disposition; and I find it a burthen intolerable for an unable quill. Neither can Alexander digest the soothings of Aristobulus, neither will he suffer any to portray out his stature but Policletus. Sith then I cannot like Protogenes judge truly de lineis Apellaeis, I wil pass over that in silence which wold surpass all my endeavours. It is all I seek, if the abundance of your worth may take away any thing from the unworthinesse of my imperfect labors. And if that laurel, doctae frontis praemia, which shadowes your temples, shall prove to me as Naturalists report to all, φυτον αλεξικακον, I will not feare the tyrannies of our censuring times; but whilest other Nightingales boast the sufficiency of their Musick to coment it selfe; this only shall excuse her scritching by being the bird of Pallas. To whose protection in you, I commit both it and my selfe.

Tho. Evans.

To the Ingenious and Ingenuous Readers.

Gentlemen, for the best of you I desire to be no more, and the worst I hope will prove no less, to you only I offer the perusing of my labours. If any immodest Thalassius require moving epigrams and lascivious odes, able to corrupt a vestal, and make Priapus blush at his own rites, I pray him to abstain his frustrated expectation. I love not to set before my reader the head of Polypus, nor do I account it a sufficient excuse for poets to say “lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba”. I would have carmina ithiphallica and fescennina banished from their writings, and not only themselves to live well, but their lines to be drawn out by their lives. I cannot satisfy neither those greedy pursuers of humours that would have jests broken against gentlemen-ushers’ little legs, every chevalier’s bald pate uncovered, and the deformities of a hooded dame deciphered through her mask. Nothing but satyrs, whips, and scourges, to such, I say: I will not defile myself with others’ pitch, judging him always a notorious corrupted person that best expresses the guilt in others, which he finds liveliest charactered in himself. Yet, if any of them shall tempt me, they shall find me an Archilochus, whose standish can swarm with wasps as well as his sepulchre. I request also those, that come as Cato into the theatre, tantum ut exirent, who seeing the title of my book take it up, where

  lectis uix paginis duabus

  spectant descatholicon seuere

either not to begin to read or not to show their dislike in their discontinuance. But as for you, whose squeamish niceness condemns poesy, because it is so, be as far from me, as I endeavour to be from your ignorance. ’Tis not to you but ad sacra uatum carmen affero nostrum. Now a greater scarcity than you have of wit befall you what mean you to move in a sphere above your knowledge and censure exquisite numbers, which your capacity cannot reach to? Know poesy is divine: no marvail if it suit not the humour of earthly clods; grovel with your dejected cogitations, while they breath heavenly raptures.

  Quos cantor Apollo

  non patitur versare lutum.

’Tis not your scandalous imputations can sully the lustre of a poet: the archbuilder of this universe is so stiled; whom therefore they call ποιητὴν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῆς γῆς. No less are those, whom that divinity with celestial inspirations abstracts from the society of men. As for myself, so far am I from the slighted opinion of such that it is my wish

  Me primum ante omnia Musae.

  Quarum sacra fero, ardenti perculsus amore

  accipiant, coeli; uias, et sidera monstrent.

And, oh you, that are Castalidum decus sororum, that have been rockt in the laps of the nursing Muses, suffer me to taste of your milk; as for your honey I will not presume to touch. Though my want of industry denies me your crowns of ivy, yet, non sum adeo deformis, but that I deem myself worthy of a sprig of laurel. But I fear my just spleen and zealous affection hath transported me too far. I will therefore return to you, ingenious readers, whom I earnestly request that it may be lawful for me to live, occipiti coeco, secured in your approbations from all the dislikes which I almost desire may be sprinkled upon me to kindle my more earnest flame. As for the story I treat of, I will not urge your faith neither in the thing itself nor the relation: for being a matter so diversly spoken of amongst diverse writers, I was utterly ignorant, as Sabellicus saith upon the same, in re tam antiqua et fabulosa, quid certi dicerem. I thought it as good therefore to follow my own fancy, as the uncertainty of others: hoping my authority will pass current, when omnibus hoc licitum est poetis. If at any time the frequency of reading about the history hath begot imitation, impute it to the obvious aptness of the author, so copious that scarce no invention lives from his lines that another can imagine fit for the same matter. Howsoever community may excuse a bad custom. Few there are which are only supposititii to themselves; and for myself, I am not often faulty in that kind. For I protest I have many times took pains to shun his almost inevitable sentences: but I will not make a fault by excusing. Accept it as it is; it is my first child, but not the heir of all the father’s wit. There is some laid up to enrich a second brother, to keep it from accustomed dishonesty, when I shall put it to shift into the world: yet if this prove a grief to the parent, I will instantly be divorced from Thalia, and make myself happy in the progeny from a better stock: Farewell.

Thine T. E.

OEDIPUS: CANTO I

The Argument

Oracles conceal’d to preserve a sonne

Exposed is to death, reserv’d by chance

Doth all that to him’s destin’d to be done.

In father’s blood be sleeps his impious lance,

Partakes incestuous sweets through ignorance:

Until truth known, he tears out both his eyes,

So kills his mother, and by lightning dies.

Ere gloomy Cinthya, pallid queen of night,

Had seven times pac’d through each coelestial sign,

Sometimes a niggard, shutting up her light,

Sometimes more free bestowing all her shine,

Since Thebes, the stage of fearful Tragedies,

With wanton odes, rites that unholy are,

And ceremonious use did solomnize

The royal nuptials of a royal paire,

Love was not barren: but Iocasta’s womb

Gave certain notice of ensuing fruits,

That not a grave all Laius might intomb,

Issue so well oblivions force confutes.

Wherefore the hopeful father straight decrees

To search the fate of yet his unborne heir:

For man, unpatient of uncertainties,

Loves to know truths, though known they grievous are.

To Delphos then his brother Creon hies,

Where great Apollo from his secret cell

Declares events in mystic prophesies,

Answers dark questions and men’s fate foretells.

Here all obsequious duties done and past,

His prayers entreating what his gifts enforc’t:

The heavenly priest this answer made at last,

And for their best indeavours told the worst,

The child that but an embryo is as yet

By Nature rarely good, by Fortune bad,

Shall wed his mother, brothers shall beget,

And work his death, of whom his life he had.

No sooner ended was the dire presage,

But as a man transform’d poor Creon stood:

Fear such a war with hosts of doubts did wage,

That tears supply’d the office of his blood.

Not any tincture of vermilion red,

Did keep possession on his liveless cheek,

But leaving that with salt dew coloured

The fainting heart to cherish out did seek.

A sudden palsy quiver’d every limb,

So great an earth-quake shook that little world;

His tongue grew infant, and his sight waxt dim:

His hair (by nature soft) distraction curl’d:

Great signs of grief did show a grief too great

To bound itself, or be exprest in signs;

As little tablets do in brief repeat

The ample sum contain’d in larger lines.

No sooner reason was recovered,

But finding grief should not be long prolong’d,

Ere more made light, what one ore-burthened,

He parts the weight to whom the weight belong’d.

For time not many wasted sands had spent,

Ere Haste, the herald of too ill success,

Inforc’d suspition doubt some ill event:

That knew delay still usher’d happiness.

The longing King sick in this short return,

Feels many fits of cold despairing fires,

As often freezing as he oft doth burn,

Desires to know, yet fears what he desires.

Tell me (quoth he) yet prithee do not tell:

If clouds foretell a tempest’s violence,

If looks not right cote something that’s not well,

Keep sorrow there, which hurts proceeding thence.

If thy tongues language harshly jars on chance,

Conceal the story of unhappy news,

I can endure a patient ignorance,

And rather this, than to repent, do choose.

Far better is’t for me to live in hope,

Than knowing truths, to have my hopes despair:

Expected mischiefs have an endless scope,

And still are present, ere they present are.

But if that Fortune will so much forget,

To be herself, as to be fortunate,

Bet not unwilling to discharge the debt

That may enrich all my ensuing state.

Here did he stay, though still he might have spoke,

Had not suspence, too covetous of reply,

Longing to be resolv’d, more speeches broke,

When silence yet gave words more liberty.

But speechless Creon prisons up his tongue,

And will not take occasion to reveal;

But with fixt eyeballs, and a head down hung,

Declares the message which he would conceale.

By this the King conjectures, that ’tis ill,

Yet could not gather what that ill should be:

He saw too much a fainting heart to kill,

But not enough to clear uncertainty.

Therefore afresh he doth renew his suit,

More earnest now to have him tell the worst,

Than erst desirous that he should be mute;

Entreating now, what he refus’d at first.

“Although”, quoth he, “by this I know too much

To make me wretched, though the rest unknown;

Yet, lo, the fondness of our nature’s such,

As much to grieve at doubted ills, as shown.

Suspition euer doth far more torment

Than can the mischief that we do suspect,

When never certain of the hid event,

After one ill, we still a worse expect.

The ominous blaze of heaven’s fantastic fire,

That never shines, but for prodigious end,

Affrights th’unskilful gazets that admire,

When knowing not what, they know they do portend.

Hadst thou with offerings never solicited

The Delian Altars, for unhappy truth,

With hope myself I might have flattered:

Mine age should never have envi’d at my youth.

But sith the Gods do otherwise consent,

Add not more mischief to the sacred doom,

Tell what thou know’st, that told, we may prevent,

Or arm’d with patience, bear what ere shall come”.

Here rests again the yet uncertain king,

And here again doth Creon hold his peace,

A while deferring what his hast did bring;

That grief late told, might somewhat grief release.

Fain would he speak some comfort that was feign’d,

Fain would he place the words in other sense:

But fear of what might happen, him constrain’d,

To be offensive, for to shun offence:

Who being heard, look how – alass I err,

If I compare what is beyond compare;

Too flight are words, too weak are characters

T’express the passions that unuttered are.

Well may we draw soft-natur’d men that melt

At others sorrows with drownd cheeks and eyes:

But as for him that hath the sorrow felt,

The cunning’st pencil, with a vail descries.

Suffice it that he grieves and spends his houres

In solitary loneness; casts what must be done,

Whether to yield unto the higher powers,

Or by prevention their intents to shun.

When through time’s swiftness now the time was come,

That this unhappy issue must be borne,

The secret sorrows of a labouring womb

Seizes the queen, of all save grief forlorn.

Unto whose succour people more devout,

Invoke P(?) for an easy birth:

Saturnia’s Al(?) decked all about,

Invite their goddess to behold the earth.

And, oh Lucina, thou their prayers heard’st,

Though th’other office of thy deity

Had better shown how much that thou regard’st

The sacred vows that then were made to thee,

When with thy nymphs thou rangest in the wood,

In steady hand clasping an ivory bow,

The N(?) monsters, and the tiger’s blood

Make thy darts blush to soothe murder so.

And do’st thou now to pity here begin?

Or want’st thou arrows for to tyrannize?

Lo, suck a monster never before hath been,

Prey to thy force, grace to thy victories.

But now I see, what the eternall Fate

Decrees, shall happen, all you rest decree:

Your heavenly wills differ from ours estate,

Which through our weakness still contrary be.

But, you do all conspire in one consent,

To make unhappy that which must be so:

More cruell, when your cruelty might prevent,

What mischiefs fall after you pity show.

Wherefore a safe deliverance thou gav’st

And now a goodly issue springs at last.

Hadst thou destroy’d what thou unkindly sav’dst,

My present quill had not told sorrows past.

For now no sooner was the tidings brought

To Laius hearing of what’s come to pass,

But that fresh cares, and contradicting thoughts

Arise to trouble what not settled was.

But taking truce a while, he goes to see

After what sort a child so ill might look,

Whether not monstrous as his manners be,

Seeing the face is the soul’s reckoning book.

Yet he not found what reason thought he should,

A swarthy visage, clouded up in frowns,

Sunk eyes, that buried in their houses stood,

Or torted shadow which his temples crown;

But there as in a glass himself he saw,

And in his cheek markt how his cheek was di’d,

Where cunning Nature beds of flowers did draw,

Whose head to crop, hard harts wold have deni’d.

Long in this mirror he himself beheld,

Till like Narcissus self-enamoured,

He seem’d transform’d; and when his peace he held,

His own perfections he in silence read,

In those fair eyes, that seem’d to mock his eyes,

Imagination from her duty swerv’d,

Attentive wondering, a self-love descries,

Being not himself, when he himself observ’d.

Pigmalion-like, with many a melting kiss,

He dotes upon this picture he had made,

Only desire in him contraried, his,

Who for his liveless image motion pray’d:

This grieving, that his workmanship expres’t

Unto the life, a creature so divine;

Wisht those pure beauties were in ivory dres’t,

Whose white, nor sin might spot, nor time decline.

“What reason is’t, that reason should collect”,

Says he, when wonder to his words gave place,

“Our disposition in our eyes aspect,

Reading our minds imprinted in our face?

Were that an axiom: who’st that should admire

This apt proportion of well-order’d parts?

This breath perfum’d to kindle Cupid’s fire,

These precious chains to prison captiv’d hearts:

And would not grant this were the decent bower,

Where comely Graces had set down to dwell,

Where Virtue, of herself an ample dower,

Wedded herself, divorc’d from other cell.

If glorious temples with their pride declare

Th’inhabited greatness of the deity:

Oh then what precious jewels lodged are

In such a gorgeous well-built treasury!

Surely at least it can but empty be

Of the expected riches, and not fraught

With the suspected mass of injury:

Nought sure can here be harbour’d that is naught,

Sin would have chosen a more unpolish’t den

Whose ugly building it could not defile,

More barbarous looks for direful agents, when

These seem not rude, and steed of frowning smile.

Unless, perchance, Vice, weary of contempt,

Would borrow count’nance of this countenance,

Having no other beauty, but what’s lent

It’s own unseen misfeature to advance:

For had it beene truly apparelled

In’t own native garments, as soon I should

Have loath’d the form, as that it harboured;

As soon have hated, as now lov’d it good.

Oh could our eyes carry a stronger sight

Than man’s compacted out-side could reflect;

Or were his brest transparent as the light,

To let weak beams his inward parts detect.

This gay attire of beauty would no more

Bewitch our fancies than a golden chain

Worne from it’s place, or Thetis’ paramour:

Divining blush before a shower of rain.

But when the face is all we can perceive,

And as that pleases we affected are,

How easy is’t for beauty to deceive,

When sin still hides itself by seeming fair?

And it may be, ’twas for some greater end,

That subtil Nature fram’d this feature thus,

Namely, to further what the Gods pretend,

Which never she could, were this not glorious.

Now such a precious sanguine keeps his tide

In th’azure conduits of well-branched veins,

As to let out were worse than patricide,

In other vessel than what it contains.

So rare this form, as sure ’tis worser far

For me to offer violence than for it

T’attempt the crimes that to it destin’d are,

When it of force, I a free fault commit.

I love thee, son, too well those powers know

The hearts of parents, and how much a child

In barren’st pity makes affection grow.

Oh that thou wer’t less comely, or less vild.

Yet howsoever, shall my kind fondness add

More power to Fortune, over subject man?

Who well may triumph if we warning had,

Yet do not shun her frailty when we can.

Shall I, to save thy life, go lose mine own?

Procure the name of Incest to my bed?

And what hath more in ages past beene known,

Suffer a brother in a father’s stead.

First, let me better manifest my love

To thee my son, first let this beauty die

Unspotted, as such beauty doth behoove:

Flowers are pluck’t, when fresh, not being dry.

Never shall writers blot thy memory,

Or from thy life fetch argument to their song;

But for thee blame death’s hasty cruelty,

Deem’d vertues hope, hadst thou not di’d so young.

Oh you deprived fathers, that with tears,

Behold your children’s timeless funeral,

Dry, dry your eyes, with them are fled your fears,

In their deep graves your cares lie tombed all.

Call not to mind their form, their wantonness

They wearied time with; never (alas) recount

The hopes you had, that they your age should bless:

Such reckonings oft fall short of our account.

Oft have I seen a curious gardener

Cherish an imp with the kind start be had,

Whose youth gay flowers and goodly blooms did bear;

But the best fruit his age could show was bad:

Then he repents his cares and labours lost,

Wishing it then had perish’t when it pleas’d,

Or that he never had hop’d, since hopes are cros’t,

Then a sav’d labour might have sorrow eas’d.

Many fair sunshines do our youth adorn:

But when as age gives liberty to sin,

A cloudy evening doth eclipse our morn,

Weeds overgrow the hearbs before hath been.

And far more pleasing do we find it then,

If being vertuous we had perished

That our kind parents might larnent us, when

Living we wring more tears than being dead,

Here forcing pitty somewhat to retire

A yet-ne’er-guilty weapon forth he draws,

Which lifting up t’accomplish his desire

Affection stays his hand, and makes him pause.

The child, with apprehension, innocent

Smiles at his image in his father’s eyes:

The soon-mov’d father herewithal relents

And in distracted passion thus he cries.

Can nature be so far unnaturall,

As that a father should a butcher be?

Can the least drop, that a child’s eye lets fall

Pass unregarded without efficacy?

Or if there could; can heaven forget to speak,

In the loud language of confused thunder?

Can such an act be, and the clouds not break?

Not Joves artillery cleave the earth in sunder?

Or if example might the fact admit,

And heaven not punish us for doing ill:

Can I, whose heart was ne’er so brazen yet,

As the mean’st bloudless creatures’ blood to spill,

First on my son my cruelty express?

A father more inhuman than a man,

To others kind, to mine own pitiless,

The sanguine spill, that with my sanguine ran.

Rather it should be one, thine enemy

Fram’d of a harder mould than could be found

Amongst th’obdurate vulgar tyranny,

One that would ground a mischief on no ground.

I never should thy funerals bewail

In the sad habit of a weeping black,

Thy purple still would make my sable pale,

Mourning my fault, thy death would mourning lack,

Those hands must be more irreligious far

Than mine, and challenge a less interest

In this same life, that must this life debar,

A heart that’s prison’d in an iron brest.

Hereafter when thy epitaph worn out

In letters old, revives thy story new,

The weeping readers, that do stand about

And throgh their tears the crime do greater view,

Will wrong my softness thus, and thus exclaim:

‘What flinty matter did the man compose?

How rocky was the womb from whence he came

That could relentless a son’s life depose?

When we, that but spectators, absent be

And no beholders of what we behold,

Thaw into water, when we think we see

The merciless murder which he did of old.

The stone that now weeps ore this monument

Was for compassionate tears first made a stone:

If Pity then attir’d in marble went,

What garment did such Cruelty put on?’

Our Writers surely do past times belie,

And tell but tales for us to emulate.

Where in our age can we such acts espy?

Such deeds beyond our reach to imitate.

The seasons are but nick-nam’d, and we try

Theirs were the iron, ours the golden times:

Only we want their plenty, the reason why,

Our age is punish’t for their ages’ crimes.

Ere thus a scandal do prevent my death,

Thy hand, oh child, my scandall shall prevent,

Finish thy mischiefs with unworthy breath.

Be worse than thou art able to repent,

Before that I, in whom compassion fits,

My unstain’d hands in guiltless blood pollutes

Some wretch for such a villany’s more fit,

I cannot hear thy cries and persecute”.

Here tears from their stop’t fountains gan to break,

Whereat he houses up the fatal knife:

And having nothing more that he could speak,

Seeks ’mongst his swains one to attempt his life.

Poor men, alas, they all were pitiful,

Whose only practise ever was to save:

Yet one there was amongst the rest more dull,

Whose looks of crabbed members notice gave.

This from his fellows being call’d apart,

The King thinks apt’st to act a tragedy;

To him he opes the hid griefs of his heart,

And strictly charges that his son do die.

“Do not, I pray”, quoth he, “expostulate

Or blame me being thus unnatural;

Know only this, repentance comes too late,

When either this or a worse ill must fall.

And, oh dear child, when thy pure soul is freed

From this corpse prison, let it rest in peace

In pleasant fields, and on Ambrosia feed;

Let not my act thy happiness decrease.

’Tis not the base desire I have to live

Makes me thus cruel: by my clear thoughts I’d first

My second breath, that fame affords me, give,

Die twice than by thy death once live accurs’t.

Could Destinies but alter their intent,

Or Delphes contradict it own presage,

I’d let an immortality be spent,

Ere thou shouldst perish in unripen’d age.

Now for thy self ’tis, that thy self must die:

Who else must live the monster of the earth:

No offering else the Gods can pacify,

Die then newborn, ere live to curse thy birth”.

Ev’n as a froward child affected stands,

Playing the wanton, with some sharp delight,

Whose sport though pleasing; yet will hurt his hand,

Cries being had, or taken from his sights

The like inconstant passions hold this King,

Grieving to lose what grieves him being bad,

And more, alas! He sorrows in this thing,

That that should grieve him which should make him glad.

Now doth he print his last departing kiss

When now affection coins some new delay:

“Only”, quoth he, “I will but utter this”,

Then strives to speak when he had nought to say.

The mother, not so manly in her woe,

Speaks all her sorrows in a female eye;

Like weeping Rhea, when she should forgo

Her first borne son, through Saturne’s cruelty.

After her grief struggling for greater vent,

Had sigh’d a farewell from her big-swol’n heart,

With briny myrrh, that stead of odours went,

She balms the hearse, and now the hearse departs.

Now had the Sun, with blushing modesty

Took his unwilling leave on Thetis’ cheek,

And other tapers of the golden sky

Put out their lights, elsewhere the night to seek;

When early riser Phorbas, jolliest swain

That on Cithaeron tunes an oaten quill,

Display’d his silver flocks upon the plain,

Himself to be inspir’d, sate on the hill.

Where many morning madrigals he sang

In praise of Pan, with many amorous lays

Of shepheards’ loves, that all the meadows rang,

And Phaebus seem’d attentive with his rays.

There fell he to compassion Majesty

And great men’s cares in such a blithsome strain

As well his music did his mind descry

His song, and thoughts did the same notes contain.

When on the sudden some near neighbouring shrinks

Not strong enough to sillable it’s woes,

Breaks off his pastime, and doth wonder strike

In him a stranger to such cries as those.

And listening still, he heard a second voice

That breath’d together Pitty, Cruelty:

Both life and death in one confused noise

Relenting, that it must persisting be.

“You Powers”, said it, “that guide these things below,

Unman me quite from this same shape of man:

Let all my limbs to oaken branches grow,

Obdure my heart, e’en harder, if you can:

That as I am, I don’t so much digress

From being myself, as yet alas I must

Be too disloyall, or too pitiless,

Hazard my virtues, or deceive my trust.

Authority commands, I do obey,

And reason ’tis command should be respected:

And yet remorse Authority gainsays;

Either do threat, if either be neglected.

Whither, oh then, shall I myself convert,

On either side I am attach’t with guilt,

Shunning a fault, I can’t a fault divert,

But sinne as much in blood, that’s sav’d, as spil’t.

Oh Laius, and in him you earthly Kings,

That print your waxen vassails as you list,

Observe in me what your injustice brings,

How much our wills do oft your wills resist.

Think you, that you can ere yourselves acquit,

In the assistant doers of your plots?

The crime’s more heinous sure you do commit,

Doubled dishonour doth your honour blot.

When not content, with your own virtues wast,

To the foul acts you might have done alone,

More are corrupted, more in mischief plac’t,

By others crimes to amplify your own.

That we beholding in your vices’ face

Looks so deform’d, deem that our faults are fair:

And if a King, no dire attempts disgrace,

Surely in us they but beseeming are.

Yet, why do I move in too high a sphere?

Censure Kings’ actions? They have eagles’ eyes,

And in their matters further insight bear

Than the misconstruing common search descries.

They weigh not rumours’ breath, but still direct

Their not rash doings to some second end:

Which ’tis not for the vulgar to detect,

Sith Kings endeavour’s oft their sight offend.

Well, howsoever, I know there nothing is,

From good, though falsely stiled, so remote,

Which circumstance, yea in an act as this,

Cannot of virtue give some seeming note.

Yet greatness know, though fortune blind hath put

In our estates some inequality,

Our minds yet Nature in one mould hath shut,

And meannesse cannot alter quality.

The same affections that do move in you,

As well in us, do claim their interest,

We do not blushless, what you blush to do.

Our crimes accuse us in like guilty brest.

Then to discharge me of so bad a charge

Yet keep a conscience free, immaculate,

Il’e not performe, what I’ll performe at large,

Taught to use others, us’d for others hate.

You, goodly poplars, that do fringe this brook

With a fair bordure of an even green,

To you the guilt I leave, which I forsook,

You shall be faultless, when no fault you ween.

You hearing want, by which should be convey’d

Feeling relentance at an infant’s moan,

Unless your griefs in amber wet array’d

Seem to weep others sorrowes in your own.

Take you the business of this tragic deed,

Forget your female passions were of yore,

Let not, alas, see you of this take heed,

New griefs the form, your old griefs chang’d, restore:

For so your female softness may forbear

To work a story, which, when one shall tell,

Renews your late left shape in them that hear:

Be then still secret, senseless, and farewell”.

Here ends the voice, and here fresh cries begin,

When the uncertain swain to be resolv’d

Pries through the glade, where he obscur’d had been,

And view’d a sight that all his joints dissolv’d.

A child erst unacquainted with the air,

Till now brought forth to bid the air adieu,

Whose feet with pliant osiers pierced were,

Hung up as fruit, that on the poplar grew,

Not far his fellow keeper of the folds,

Pursu’d with his own guilty steps did run,

Whose flight, with his retired nearness told

His eyes abhor’d the fact his hands had done.

A while conceal’d he stayed, till he espied

By his sight’s failing, all discovery

Absent, and vanish’t, then eft-soons him he hid

T’express his goodness, there, where none could see.

Soon from the willing branches he unloads

The harmless burthen, which retiring back,

A quivering ditty with their leaves bestow’d

For the deliverance from a sin so black.

Th’amazed shepherd over-gone with wonder,

Conjectures first, then doubts to gather more.

Yet the King’s virtues keeps suspicion under,

But still the fact approves his thoughts before.

When, now alas!, the swain is more perplex’t,

Because he sav’d, then erst he was to save;

Compassion now repentance had annex’t:

Thus second thoughts not the first motions have.

Fear forc’d him somewhat from his virtues shrink.

So much doth danger goodness violate.

That now he makes a question, and bethinks

How ill it was to be compassionate.

Not long in these contrary fits he stood,

E’re looking up, he chanc’d to spy not far

A man, whose age gave notice he was good,

Sith livers ill, seldom, long livers are.

To him drawn near, this spectacle he shows,

And all the manner, how the child was found,

Only keeps in, what he still doubts he knows,

Mistrusting mischief that might once redound.

The easy natur’d old man, that had now

Almost forgot, unpractis’d, how to weep,

Let’s fall a shower, a watering to bestow

On his parch’d beauties, buried in wrinckles deep.

Who so had seen those lukewarm drops distill,

For ever would the prodigy remember,

That tepid springs should rise from frozen hill

Or April rain in midst of cold December.

Tears soon dissolv’d, he falls into complaints;

But with slow speech, and a dull tardy tongue:

His breath he spent, although for breath he faints,

As well you’d iudge it was a swan that sung.

At last, as poor in words, as in his wet,

His mourning ceas’t, when through compassion,

That in his bosom limitless was set,

He begs the child of Phorbas for his own.

He yields as willing, as the other asks.

So after some inquiring chat, they part:

The one to tend his flocks, his daily task,

The other home, burthen’d, but light in heart.

Where come; to Corinth’s childless king and queen

He gives the infant, which Polybius

With care brought up, as it his own had been,

And from his swollen feet nam’d him Oedipus.

His after-fortunes, and sinister fate

That mischiefs, that unknown to him befell,

It skills not with continuance to relate:

Another Canto shall it plainly tell.

OEDIPUS: CANTO II.

Cothurnal writers as a rule propose

Th’unhappy issue of a tragedy

Proceeds from mischiefs not so great, and those

Have blith beginnings in their infancy.

Oh then! How black may we expect the scene

Arising from a protasy so sad,

Sorrow that welcomes is an unwelcome means

To Horror’s cell in frightful darkness clad.

Mischief before was young and could not go

But as a learner practis’d how she might,

As in her age, so in perfection grow,

At last to pour down all her ripen’d spite:

Whom therefore late we as an infant left,

Now think him fully come to man’s estate,

Enjoying friends, although of friends bereft,

On whom to all men’s thinking fortune waits.

Enrich’t with gifts of Nature, gifts of Art,

Happy in his supposed parents’ love:

The hope of Corinth, and the very heart

Which Greece desir’d, once by the same to move,

In midst of all this earthly jollity,

Knowledge which he through industry had got

More than was trite, prov’d curiosity,

And ’tis more dangerous so to know than not,

For having now attain’d to all he could

By use or precept: as man’s nature is

Insatiate, resolv’d that ’tis more good

Rather than to reserve, to search and miss,

So in th’abundance of quick sight he winks,

And wanton’d with too much, himself persuades

He yet wants somewhat, and still of that he thinks

But finds, that it from finding, up was laid,

Namely, his coming fortune, good, or ill,

Conceal’d within the God of Natures brest,

In vain for man, t’attempt to know, or will,

Till Times commission be too manifest.

But no impossibility withstands

Desire, as earnest, as ambitious.

Sith then his own search not so much commands

Delphos be hopes, will prove propitious.

Thither he hastes: what fondness is’t that man

Should burn in so inquisitive a fire

To know what is predestinate and when,

Enquiring what’s most hurtful to enquire.

For say the augurs do foretell content,

Who always presuppose our industry,

We in predictions ever consident,

Neglectful prove, to prove at last they lie.

If ill, Misfortune is no cockatrice,

Whose sight infections, if first seen, is shun.

Bad luck admits no counsel, no advice,

We fall into it by prevention:

Witness these rash proceedings: for now come

To Phoebus’ temple, he with suppliant vows

Implores the Deities determin’d doom,

Who with prophetic fires his priests endows.

Soon the Castalian Nymph inspir’d, replies,

“Dare mortals dally with immortality?

Think they the Delian Oracle telles lies,

That for one’s fate, they twice solicit me?

Do I ere use myself to contradict?

Or am I not at every time the same?

Am I benign sometimes, and sometimes strict?

Change I decrees, as you do change your flame?

If not, why then, what diffidence is this

In our truths power, that what once answer’d was,

As ’twere to pose us, now propounded is?

Hope you for better things to come to pass?

Know, thou that hadst thy sentence yet unborn,

Which heretofore thy hapless sire receiv’d,

Though now what we foretold, thou laughst to scorn,

That our prophetick laurel’s not deceiv’d.

Quickly begone, our doom to verify,

That by thy fate our credit may be won;

Yet lives thy father, by thy hand to die.

Thy mother yet, to bear her son a son”.

Fury and madness now possess him first,

That superstition should enforce belief,

’Gainst all assurance in his bosom nurs’t,

Which in our judgment should persuade us chief.

Anon with Phoebus he the cause debates,

“I wonder not”, says he, “that thou dost err,

Nor do I credit what thou dost relate,

Thy licence’s known, thou art a traveller.

Tell me, Apollo, if thou canst me tell,

To whom is man’s corrupted inside known?

Doth not himself, himself perceive, as well

As you, and best determines of his own?

If not: how vain is’t that thy temple door

Commands self-knowledge, when do all he can

To know himself, man knows himself no more,

Then I believe thou know’st thyself of man?

And if we do, oh, why shouldst thou persuade

Us to be such, whereof we nothing know,

But that ’tis false? Never is that gainsaid,

Which in ourselves we are assur’d is so.

See, if celestial eyes, that power have

To view our entrails, ransack every nook,

Where cogitation wanders in her cave,

Observe me throughly with one searching look,

Mark strictly, and declare if thou canst find

One thought, one little motion, whereby

To be confirm’d, nay if thou scan’st my mind,

There nothing dwels, which giues thee not the lie.

I know thus much, I am not ignorant,

So far in my soft-natur’d disposition,

Though to diseases apt it health may want,

Yet I presume I’m still mine own physician.

And but I find mine innocence gainsays,

Ev’n with my life I’d finish that intent.

And yet there are evasions many ways,

Death set apart, to hinder the event,

Before those rays, wherewith thou seest me now,

Twice mask their glories in the clouded West,

Ere twice Aurora with a bashful brow,

Asham’d of Tithon, blushes in the East,

I’ll ease this ground whereon I now do tread,

Of my loath’d burthen: all the world I’ll range,

Wheresoever I am by fame or fancy led,

That changing climates, I my fate may change.

Corinth farewell, and all my household Lares,

Thy pleasures, your protection I forsake,

For sorrow, dangers, poverty and cares:

’Tis virtue only me an exile makes.

Never will I take repentant step to turn,

Where my mischance is native as my soil:

And first I’ll see thy loved buildings burn,

Before thy smoke shall tempt me from my toil.

Parents, farewell. Thus I, your hapless son,

Turn hence m’unwilling lights: for why I fear

I am turn’d basilisk, whose infection

? in the eyeballs; else I know not where.

Inhospitable, regions stay for me,

Wilds unfrequented, shores unman’d, unknown,

Nights pitchy birth-right, where no Sun they see,

Each country’s mine to breath in, same mine own”.

Thus in distemper’d blood he Delphos leaves,

With some few private friends, and as a man

Desperate, himself of all forecast bereaves,

Dares all the worst that now misfortune can:

Ev’n as a pinnace by a pirate chas’d,

Steers her indifferent keel for any coast,

Harbours with any danger met in haste,

Rather than try the danger feared most:

So he, untravel’d in the seas of chance,

To Scylla from suppos’d Charybdis hies:

Mischief once known and shun’d, with ignorance

Is met: the same he follows, which he flies.

Turn, turn to Corinth, fond misdeeming youth,

Keep thyself there, and keep thyself secure,

Our fortune, us, as we the world pursueth;

And sure she is; but in a place unsure.

Then be not thou degenerate from good,

So far, as to take pains in doing ill,

If thou must quench thy eagles’ thirst with blood,

Shun tediousness, and drink with ease thy fill.

Change the white livery of Polybius’ head

With his effused gore; and that being done,

Deface the print of Meropes’ chast bed:

Think thou dost all, that now this thinkst to shun,

And so perchance thou mayst prevent with doing

What thou must do in seeking to prevent.

Thy wariness works now thine own undoing,

And by resisting, furthers Fate’s intent.

But thou must on to act, and I to tell

Thy deeds of horror, that without thine aid,

Learning’s great armed Goddess on me dwell,

I shall ////// recite? less heinous being afraid.

From Thebes there lies a narrow beaten way,

Made rudely pleasant with uneven thorn,

Which wandering long through cool Castalia,

Loses itself upon a plain unworn.

There Nature portrai’d Flora’s counterfeit

In youthfulst beauties, on a ground of green,

Which she with such skil’d workmanship had set,

As well how much she scorned Art was seen.

Near whose embroidered margent Elea glides,

With crooked turnings winding in and out,

That she might longer in the mead abide,

And find the readiest way in going about.

Hither oft Laius came, as was his use,

With solace to spur on the tardy time,

Reposing his wild thoughts, and taking truce

With conscience, still accusing him of crime.

And now, alas, ’twas his unhappy hap,

As he from Thebes to Phocis journied,

A little town, within whose purple lap

Tipsy Lyaeus lays his drowsy head.

Here on this green to meet his thought-dead son

Posting to Thebes, whose indigested rage,

In him had all humanity undone,

Left no respect, neither of state nor age:

For grown to choler, after melancholly,

He rudely rushes through the peaceful train,

And passing forth with more irreverent folly,

Over-turns his father’s chariot on the plain.

The kingly old man all posses’t with spleen,

Thirsts after a revengeful recompence:

And as the flies have stings, the ant her teen,

He draws the sword he wore for show, not sense.

His readiness doth prompt his company

To the like valorous opposition:

But Oedipus as ready as was he,

Asks pardon with maintaining, not contrition.

Now the inconstant Goddess ’gins to smile,

Triumphing in her self-lov’d policy,

How quaintly she can man’s intents beguile,

And blinder then herself make those that see.

You Furies too, th’observant slaves of chance,

Though discords nurses, yet you now conspire,

Where Death sounds Iron harmony, to dance,

To crown Erinyes with your brands of ivy.

But Nature, where art thou? Where Sympathy

That elms and vines espouseth? Vanish gone?

’Twixt whom, or where should Inclination be,

If here abandon’d in the Sire and Son?

Or you neglectful Genii, that attend

On our directed actions, where are you,

That now you loiter? Is’t to be contemn’d

We are indulgent, or a debt we owe?

Methinkes the liberal expense bestow’d

On your unnecessary feasts might charm

From you some succour, that some power bestow’d

To hinder purposes that tend to harm.

But you oft-blamed sisters in my verse,

That do determine man’s uncertain years,

’Tis you: but thou of all the three most fierce,

That a son’s sword mistakest for thy shares,

By which poor Laius threed being cut, he falls.

Ev’n as an antique edifice of stone,

Struck with a thundering peal of shot, whose walls

If not by force, would have decay’d alone.

No sooner fell he; but the Thebans fled,

Some for assistant succour, some for fear.

Some wash’t their bloody cheeks in tears they shed,

Others with outcries forced others’ tear.

The murderers, not knowing whom th’had slain,

Howsoever would not trust their innocence,

Their guilt assures them that they shall be taken,

If long they stay: so they depart from thence,

Leaving the busy multitude employ’d

In vain enquiry of they know not whom,

All the whole cheerfulness of Thebes destroy’d,

And Cadmus race quite sorrow overcome:

Amongst the rest, the but half-living queen

Comes where her other best-lov’d half lay dead:

Whose mangled body, when she once had seen,

Her heart his wounds receiv’d, but faster bled.

Anon herself on his stiff trunk she throws,

Kisses his blood-left cheeks: “Oh thus”, quoth she,

“The all she hath of thine, thy wife bestows,

Ev’n till she hath no breath, she’ll breath on thee.

And being dead, thus on thy grave I’ll lie,

Tombing thee in an alablaster shrine,

With open bosom, that the passer-by

May see what thy heart was, by seeing mine.

And now I think thee happy Niobe,

Whose marble breast yield to no sense of woes,

After thou twice seven funerals didst see,

Twice didst thy children in thy womb enclose.

Oh, would my fortune now like thine might prove,

I’m sure the grief is greatest I abide.

Thou but for children mourned’st, I for a Love

Might have made me a mother ere I di’d”.

Remembrance now at this sad name of mother,

Doth old mishaps to be wept over, bring out.

A green wound’s anguish oft unskins another,

Sorrow’s a circle, and still turns about.

Now comes to mind her childbirth’s bitterness,

Made heavier with the burden that she bore,

Which had he liv’d yet, wold have griev’d her less

Though he had triumph’d in his father’s gore.

In vain, oh Laius, didst thou kill thy son,

When from a stranger thou hast death receiv’d:

If needs thy thread must have been cut, ere spun,

Would he had liv’d, thy life to have bereav’d.

He might have best been author of thy death,

In whom thou liv’dst: through him perpetual

Succession might have lengthen’d thy short breath,

Built from these ruins towers that never should fall,

Now both are perish’t with your memory,

Of whom no age-withstanding record’s left;

Only my breast retaines what none can see,

What soon will fail, so soon of you bereft.

Oh ill betide thee cruel hearted man,

If man thou be’st, that had a heart so cruel,

Uncivil monster I think rather than

Compos’d of heavenly fire and earthly fuel.

The savage tyrant of the forest would

Have loath’d the fact to do; and being done,

Flints wold have wept, and rocks, if here they stood,

Would melt as wax at presence of the sun.

Oh rocks and snaggy flints, when we compare

Hard men with you, we do you injury:

Men are themselves, I most like men they are,

When they are furthest from humanity.

Here from the bounds of charity transported,

She on the murderer bitterly exclaims,

Wishing him woes not to be comforted,

To prove his father’s ruins, mother’s shame.

Till what her sad attendants could afford,

She tastes of comfort, if there comfort live

’Mongst those that in one misery accord,

Wanting that most which they desire to give.

Reason at last establish’t patience;

So taking up the relics of their king,

With slow procession they depart from thence

Towards Thebes, and with them their sad load do bring

Where long it was not, ere with funeral rites,

The corps were brought vnto the funeral pile.

Music sounds harsh, though it elsewhere delights

What mirth did use; now us’d, doth mirth exile.

Performed are the obsequies at last,

The people cloath’d in customary black,

To give more state unto their sorrow past,

Mould to present it by their looking back.

Scarce were their cypress’ garlands withered,

Scarce of their spent tears had they took their leave

Ere Mischief, Hydra-like, exalts her head,

Which by the former’s loss she doth receive.

For angry Juno, never reconcil’d,

To her corrivals brother’s progeny,

Burning in rage, so oft to be beguil’d,

Thus wreakes herself on them with tyranny,

Hard by the city in Crenaea’s sight,

A hill there is, whose spired top commands

A spacious prospect, which Phycaeos’ height,

Washing his gravel’d feet in Dirce’s sands.

Here the too much enraged Goddess plac’d

Echidna’s daughter, triple featur’d Sphinx,

Of rare composure ’bove the doubtful was’t,

Which baser grows, as nearer earth it sinks.

A virgin’s face she had, where might be read

Perfection printed in each graceful part:

And from her head a golden curtain spread,

Hangs as the cover to some curious art.

As for her voice, no princes’ wronged lad,

No Syren sweeter, or more cunning sings,

Plump moving breast, smooth skin, white arms she had,

Fanning a feather’d pair of painted wings.

But as an artist leans his carved work

On forms deform’d: or as each wise man tells,

Worst serpents under gayest flowers lurk,

Or pleasures welcomes have but harsh farewells:

So Nature in a lion’s half had put,

That other half; but totally Divine;

Whose meaning, sith from most it up be shut,

Disdain not this morality of mine.

Learning and Knowledge by our Sphinx is meant,

As hid, as her aenigma’s, posing wits

In hierogliphicks, and to this intent

On armed Pallas’ helmets top she sits.

On hill she keeps, and so the Muses do,

Hard are the numbers of a poet’s rhyme,

Nature, Art, Use, are the three steps thereto:

Care must be had, that we directly climb.

Nature doth rudely our dull mass prepare,

And if not help’t, contemplates but with sense,

Her groveling looks downwards dejected are,

And can derive but earthly knowledge thence.

But Art erects itself with Reason; scans

Things above reach: then taking Use’s wings,

Man’s spirit soars up higher then a man’s,

Hovering above heaven’s crystal orb, he sings.

Beast, Maid, and Bird, is Nature, Art, and Use,

Join’d in one knowledge, as those three in one,

If you admit not this, admit excuse.

Learning’s a Sphinx, her riddles are unknown:

Well, here she held long her dominion,

Propounding questions unto passers-by,

Given by the Muses to her, on condition,

If answer’d, she; else, the not-answerers die.

To many low, her riddles she propounds,

Whose hidden meaning was so intricate,

That to her none the mystery expounds,

So all by her took the last stroke of Fate.

Thebes long with these injurious wrongs was vex’t

Almost unpeopled: the remainder mew’d

Up in the city walls, that all perplex’t,

They fall to counsel, where they thus conclude;

That forthwith it abroad be published,

That who the question of dark Sphinx unfolds,

Shall to the widowed queen be married,

And th’unswayed scepter of the kingdom hold,

Soon the shrill trumpet of dispersed Fame,

Reported the adventure far and near:

Amongst the rest to Oedipus it came,

Pursuing rumors with an open ear.

Retiring straight himself into his mind,

He weighes the prize, casts what the dangers be:

Then urg’d with exile, and his fate assign’d,

Resolves to go; if not to speed, to die.

With winged haste to Theban gates he hies,

Craves his admittance to the governor:

Obtain’d, he manifests his enterprise,

So he may have what he adventures for.

Confirm’d more fully, he is welcom’d thither,

Fairely entreated, with the best observance,

Anon with Creon he goes forth together

To show Jocasta his allegeance.

Her Maiesty dejects him on his knee,

So much of mother-ignorance perceiv’d,

Well did that formal reverence agree,

Had not obedience been therein deceiv’d.

She takes him up soon from the humble ground,

When each of other taking stricter view,

Their hearts gan throb, portentuous fires they found

Blaze in their breasts, threatening what would ensue.

She loves, she likes, both doting on their own,

Such correspondence had affection bred.

Hadst thou, O Nature, erst thyself thus shown,

The sonn had never the father butchered.

The modest queen cal’d by the instant night,

Commits them to a wish’t untroubled rest,

Herselfe withdrawing from attendant sight,

Enters the privy chamber of her breast.

Where with a troop of traitrous thoughts surpriz’d

She findes herselfe tane prisoner by desire,

With Protean variety so disguis’d,

That she at first could not detect the fire:

Till scorch’t, she both found out, and lov’d the flame,

Grew jealous of it, whisper’d by her fear,

The means to get, was but to lose the same,

But shame commands prevention to forbear.

Love against shame disputes, and bashful laws,

Shame ’gainst the lawless liberty of love:

Both do object, both answer in their cause,

Till sleep breaks up the court, and cause removes,

Early when Phoebe couch’t her silver horn,

Drowsy Endimion with a kiss to wake,

The rosy horses of the red-cheek’t morn

To their fresh journey do themselves betake.

The longing multitude betimes await

Their champion’s coming, who when he arose,

Condemn’d himself for sleeping over-late,

Deferring bliss, or adding time to woes.

He’s ready, and of all things furnish’t is,

Only he stays to bid the queen fare-well,

When he bestowed his first incestuous kiss,

That after opened the black way to Hell.

Away he goes, and after him she sent

Her earnest looks: oft did she go about

To call him back; but ever that intent

Was cros’t with blushing, nor could words come out.

So with her prayers for him, she retires:

When now the Monster, as her manner was,

Unto her mountain’s narrow top aspires,

Watching for strangers, which that way should pass.

Anon she sees one coming all alone,

Save that with cries he was accompanied

Of those, which further off did make their moan,

Lamenting for his death ere he was dead.

Approach’t within the limits of their words,

“Vain man”, said she, “what rashness bids thee come

Hither to me, thus of thine own accord,

Whither with pains I scarce can hale in some?

Thinkst to prevaile? Or seek’st thou death out here?

Attend me then: what is’t, I fain would know,

Which in the morn itself on four doth bear,

At noon on two, at night on three feet goes?”

Now all his wits together he collects,

Thinks of a thousand species of things,

Of Sun-observing plants, and those insects,

To whom one day, life and corruption brings.

But he whose stars maliciously reserv’d

For firmer fastening, their slow influence,

Must from this little danger be preserv’d,

That it not lessen ruin’s eminence.

Therefore with too quick readiness inspir’d,

That help’t but for advantage, he replies;

“If this be all, strict poser, that’s requir’d:

Danger doth easly teach me to be wise.

The creature thou inquirest for, is man,

Who from the mansion where he dwells, doth borrow

His mutability: who nothing can

But by degrees, never the same tomorrow.

View first his childhood, when his heavenly fire

Proportion’d to his stature, scarcely warms

The earthen house, where Nature it inspires,

He puts no difference ’twixt his legs and arms,

But as a sluggard, looking up espies

The morning’s clearness, and again doth sleep:

So he newborn, falls whence he first did rise,

Still his acquaintance with the earth to keep.

When grown to man, with countenance more erect

Having his weary pilgrimage half spent,

He views his journeys end with strict aspect,

Contemplats heaven, from whence his soul was lent NEOPLAT?

As for the earth, with a disdainful heel

He treads upon’t, and makes this orbed base

The weight of two fair sinewy columns feel.

And of what else leans on their arched space.

At last, though as a building he still wears

The same first strengthning, the same timber, walls,

Yet craz’d with batteries of tempestuous years

His weakness craves more props, more pedestals.

For after sunset, when the spotted night

Puts on a roab of stars, though now we see

More tapers burning, yet if we’d have more light grow,

An artificial noon must added be.

Thus men grown old, perchance they wise may

Yet if their age put one foot in the grave,

Necessity enforces when he goes

That he another to supply it have;

And that’s a staff, to free his wither’d hand

From th’unsteady palsy: behold him than

He as Apollo’s tripos right doth stand,

And thus what thou enquirest for is man”.

At this such anger, as a man inflames

E’en to the height of madness, and transports

Considerative revenge, from whence wrong came,

Thither where felt, self hindred to retort,

Possesses Typhon’s offspring, who beholding

Her date expir’d, flutters her baleful wings,

Bears talents ’gainst herself, her hair enfolding

To comb the curl’d locks, from their rooted springs.

Anon she digs wells on her cheeks which bleed

Torrents of gore: when now this prologue past

The act ensues, in which as ’twas decreed

From her steep hill, herself she headlong casts.

Against whose flinty bottom she beats out

Her subtle brains, being so of breath bereav’d,

Which apprehended by the distant rout,

Was with no common shouts, and claps receiv’d:

Some flung their caps up, others cheerly sung

Peans of triumph; others strew’d the ways,

Whilst some depart from the confused thrung

To gather garlands of victorious bays.

In brief, themselves they carefully employ

To gratulate their country’s greed redeemer:

The queen expresses in her looks such joy

As modesty doth counsel best beseems her.

There with a public, but discreet embrace,

Her arms do take possession of their own,

And having giv’n all the respectful grace,

That with so short acquaintance could be show’n,

Back they return, usher’d with music’s voice,

Whose curious running descant, and choice strain

Would have mov’d marble, and made flints rejoice,

Able t’have built Thebes’ towers once again.

The monster laid upon a silly ass,

Is by each fearless vulgar eye discern’d,

Her talents touch’t, as she along doth pass,

For learning’s knot’s undone, who is not learn’d?

Come to Amphion’s wondrous architect,

Whose waist a seven-clasp’t girdle doth contain;

The conquerour, in conscience yet uncheck’t,

Claims his reward, danger requires gain.

The honest state denies not, but invests

His temples in the Theban royalty:

The queen and he soon took their interests

The each of other, whereto all agree.

Appointed is the nuptial day, and come

Whisper’d for fatal by the mourning doves,

Nor was the scritch owl, nor the raven dumb,

In signs preposterous of preposterous love.

Hymen’s uncheerly flame doth sadly burn

And sparely drinks the sullen wax that fries

Less than gives food, not surfeits; hid powers turn

Thalassios ballads into elegies.

O Midwife-Goddess, Love-betrothing Queen

Show some misliking wonder to forbid:

Thou frown’st when harlots in thy porch are seen:

Can incest then be in thy temple hid?

Borrow some fury of thy brother fell

And rive thy guilty mansion, sane profane.

Better have no place where thy rites may dwell,

Than have it blemisht with so foul a stain:

’Tis no dismembered sacrifice of beasts

Can an incenst Divinity appease.

God’s trafic not with men, nor to our feasts

Bring guest-like palats, for a meal to please.

They laugh our scorn’d endeavors, and though now

These from permission gather thy consent,

Yet shall they find, that a long wrinckled brow

Is never level’d with fond blandishment.

In vain exemp’t they from thy hostial flame

To teach the Paphian turtles’ love, the gall,

When in their kisses they shall find the same,

And bitterness e’en from their sweets shall fall.

For take imaginations wings, and flie,

Over ten summers crown’d with ripen’d corn,

Let ruddy grapes, ten luscious autumns die,

And from their surfeits see an issue born:

Two manly twins, to call their father, brother,

This Eteocles, Polynices he,

Antigone the sister to her mother,

Too fair a blossom from so foul a tree.

Mischief is come to age, and pleasure must

Resign here birthright, what’s supposed clear

Unknown, with knowledge manifests the rust.

Bad men are guiltless, till their guilt appear.

Unyoke thy team yet, weary waggoner,

Phoebus hath tane his horses from the car.

Rough are the ways throgh which thou hast to err,

And daylight asks no pilot’s arctic star.

The Milch-cow with full udder bellows home,

And rich Menalchas folds his fleecy sheep:

When Pyrois next, on champed bit doth fome,

Forwards proceed, Night calls thee now to sleep.

OEDIPUS: CANTO III.

Up, sluggish fury, see thy Muses’ friend

Solicites matter for thy numerous verse:

With morn begin, thou, that thy work wouldst end,

Though night were thy fit’st hearer, yet rehearse.

Hereto with hasty steps, thou hast o’errun

An infant’s fate, by whom a sire did die,

A mother’s chang’d relation with her son,

And riddles made in consanguinity.

Now with as much celerity set down

The justice of revengeful Nemesis,

The sicknesses of an abused crown,

How sin is punish’t, though unknown it is.

Oh! Saddest sister of the sacred nine,

That shroud’st thyself in cabin hung with black,

Lend me thy ebon quill, or guide thou mine:

Endow me now, with what I most would lack.

Time wearing out, which ignorance made sweet

With execrable pleasures vertuous thought

New ills Pandora’s box, new open’d fleet

By whom worse things, then by the first are wrought.

No soft Etesiae, with cool blasts doth fan

The sweaty drops from the least labouring brow,

And frustrate is the use of breathing, when

The air is suck’t, as from a scalding stow.

Phoebus, bestriding the fierce Lion’s back,

Stirs up the fury of th’unloosed Dog,

Drinks up the brooks, burns the Earth’s vesture black,

Wants diving vapours from the fenny bog.

Dirce commands no further than her head,

No watery relics show the stranger proof

How far Ismenos' liquid greatness spread;

The oxen pass the ford with unwash’t hoof.

Sickly Diana keeps her cloudy chamber,

Looks not abroad, but with a countenance pale,

No healthful planet spreads his locks of amber,

But from the earth a counterfeit exhales.

Abortiue Ceres doth her fruit deny

Adds fuel to herself-consuming fire,

Which when the patient husbandman doth see

He weeps perhaps to quench his scorch’d desire.

There is no place in Thebes’ stretch’t territories

Free from some plague or other, no age, no sex:

Here paralel’d, were all examples, stories

That ever did this universe perplex.

Both old and young, fathers and children fall,

Wives with their husbands, and what’s most unkind

Friends are not left to weep friends’ funerals,

Death, just in this, lets none to stay behind.

Ere scarce the son be rak’t up in the pyre,

The flame’s again renewed by the mother,

Oft are they burned in the self-same fire

Which earst they kindled to consume another.

No art prevails: physicians cannot give

Themselves assurance, showing their skill they die,

Promising life to others, they not live:

The earth more tombs, the woods more piles deny.

In these afflictions, the sad king distres’t

Pours out himself in prayer, but unheard,

He doth entreate to have those ills redres’t,

Or that death only ben’t from him debar’d.

Jove had his offerings burnt to him with oak

Juno her lamb, Isis her calf did smell:

The hyacinth Apollo did invoke,

Poppy on Ceres safforn’d Altars fell.

Pan knew his pine tree, and the lars their whelps,

Venus her pigeons, deck’t with crimson roses,

But none are willing to employ their helps.

No God of Thebes yet otherwise disposes,

Therefore to neighbouring Delphos they repair,

Where they do suppliant ask what must be done

For Thebes’ deliverance, what offering, pray’r,

The Gods require for satisfaction.

To them an answer usher’d was with thunder:

“No star shall look on Thebes but with a frown:

No plague unheard of, till ’tis felt with wonder,

Shall cease it’s siege ’gainst your unpeopled town,

Till he that was the murderer of your king

Be from the air you breath in banished,

His wretched presence doth these mischiefs bring

Which live in him, and shall pursue him fled”.

The King, great thanks upon the Gods bestows,

Commanding that which to perform behoves,

The same which justice to oppression owes,

No more they may establish subjects’ loves:

“Soon shall my country’s plague be cured now;

Oh easy Gods, that with compassionate eyes

Behold Thebes desolate buildings, mark my vow,

And be auspicious to my enterprise.

Be present too, oh daylight’s greater guide,

Empal’d with crownets of majestic rays,

That in twelve empires dost thy orb divide,

Variously treading heaven’s distinguish’t maze.

Night-wandering Goddess be not absent neither,

Nor thou that dost in iron fetters bind

Blasting Praenester, that with a word canst either

Call home, or send abroad thy struggling wind.

And thou lascivious Neptune that dost cast

Thy amorous arms, thy trident laid aside,

Almost about my monarchy’s small waist

As thou by both her water’d sides dost ride.

Attend me all: by whose hand Laius fell

Let him no harbour, no abode enjoy,

No plague unheard of, till ’tis felt with wonder,

No not himself, wherein himself may dwell,

But when none else, let he himself annoy.

May his own househould Gods unfaithful prove,

And the unnatural Lars in exile worse,

Reap he most shame, from what he most doth love,

And may his wife an impious offspring nurse.

Kill he his father, as he kil’d his king,

And let his acts my wishes’ power outgo,

If a worse fate than mine can torment bring

Heap’t up, yet do he, what I shun to do.

And for myself, as I with prayers desire

My untouch’t parents may proclaim me good,

No cooling intermission shall retire,

Revenge, till blood be wash’t away with blood.

But play not with us, true prophetic spirit,

Thus by denied grants to make us long:

Search is ambitious, and would all inherit,

Secrets withheld make inquisition strong.

A taste but whets the licorish appetite

For satisfactions earnester pursuit.

Unto a prisoner, the spare-scanted light

A bondage is, to want it, and to view’t.

Then do thou, heavenly goodness, whom it pleas’d

To show the means, further the means unfold:

Point forth the man, that soon we may be eas’d,

Or teach us to forget what thou hast told.

Else as impatient patients we fare,

To whom the chemic hath prescrib’d receipts

Of such ingredients as so hidden are,

That they are doubted to be skil’d deceits.

Urge Gods no more, replies the sacred priest:

Man must work somewhat for his better being,

Yet if with this thou not contented bee’st,

Blinded Tiresias eyes must help thy seeing”.

Forthwith the faithful Creon is dismis’t

To Phoebus’ second Oracle, who late

Lost sight, yet gain’d a better than he mis’t,

As he celestial matters did debate.

Far from the city lies a nighted grove

Down in the valley where fleet Dirce glides,

Where th’untouch’t cipress spreads his boughs above

And from the sun the subject bramble hides.

The aged oak his rotten branches tends,

From whose corrupted side thick jelly drops,

And stooping under many years he bends

To rest his crippled trunk on younger props:

There bitter-berried Daphne, Mirrha stood,

The trembling apse, the birch, with smooth thin rind:

Th’eternal cedar for my lines too good,

The upright alder, and sun-gilded pine.

In midst of this is situate a tree

Of wondrous greatness, whose extended arms

Meet the large confines of its empery,

And fence the weak inhabitants from harms.

Within the hollow compass of whose trunk

Nature had cut out an uncivil den,

Which a cold fountain, without ceasing drunk

Up of the earth, moats with a miry fen.

Here, by his daughter Manto led he meets,

Reverenc’d Tiresias, and from the King

Him, all humanity observ’d, he greets;

And further utters what him thither brings.

Then as the never-erring prophet wild,

A hostial fire upon the altar’s made

Which they before of turfs of earth did build,

And there two cole-black heifers on were laid.

The sacred vates standing by the fire

In direful robes yclad, with box-tree crown’d,

Oft waves his powerful wand, and then enquires

What omens in the beasts or flames are found.

Anon he sings the hideous magic verse,

Calls on the names of duteous spirits thrice,

Thrice doth he smite the shook earth, thrice rehearse,

What devils may compell, or devils tice.

A bloody shower from his right hand falls,

And from his left drops blood with Bacchus mix’t:

Then with more earnest voice again he calls

With steady countenance, on the center fix’t.

Now dismal Hecat’s dogs began to bark,

Which to repeat, the wood by Echo’s taught

A night comes now there answering day so dark.

A blinder Chaos seen than th’old was thought.

Up rise the subjects of infernal Dis,

At which each tree his frighted branches heaves,

Many an oak in splinters shiver’d is,

Many an elm shrinks up his blasted leaves.

Earth suffers violence, and open rends

Her seal’d up womb, to show her tombed dead,

The subtile spirits, penetrating fiends

Out of her cavernes lift their crisped heads:

There might one see the grisly God of Hell

Put his numb hand out of his frozen lake;

Nights very self, three sister’d furies fell,

Picking quaint morsels, on a speckled snake.

The viperous brood of strange produced brothers.

Blind Fury running careless of a guide,

Horror with upright hair, and all the others

Eternal darkeness doth create or hide.

Grief ’gainst itself that exercises rage,

Sickness that droops a litherhead down hung,

Fear never certain, self-despising age,

Detraction last with her back-biting tongue,

That even Manto custom’d to these rites

Astonish’t stood: only her unmov’d sire

Doth more the ghosts than ghosts can men affright,

That trembling fiends closely themselves retire.

When he afresh effectual charms infers

Grave-bedrid corps out of death’s sleep to wake,

Who breaking ope their marble sepulchers,

Their living forms unto their souls retake.

So many leaves doth not Oeta shed,

So many swallows doth not winter chase,

So many bees are not in Hybla fed,

So many billows wash not Neptune’s face,

As there of sundry nations’ ghosts appear’d,

Some with dismembred bodies, some with scars

Doubly disfigur’d, and were doubly sear’d:

Others untouch’t, slain by love’s stroke, not war’s.

Amongst the rest, Laius his head erects

With meager looks, gor’d through with ghastly wounds,

That almost none him by his forme detects,

While thus he speaks, while he in tears abounds.

“Oh, house of Cadmus, never satisfied

With blood of kindred, once my country dear,

Whose first bad offspring by each other died,

And still that enmity the last doth bear:

’Tis not heaven’s anger, but thy wickedness

Thou labour’st with, no South-wind pestilence brings.

The thirsty earth unquencht with rain, hurts less,

Then th’abhominable action of thy king’s.

’Tis he not yet corrected parricide

My murderer, that for satisfaction

Of a sire’s death, a mother makes his bride,

A worser father, though too bad a son.

’Tis he, to one womb twice a divers load,

Curs’t with prodigious issue, who, alas!

Upon himself two brothers hath bestow’d:

Darker aenigmas than ere Sphinx’s was.

He, He, it is, that now my scepter sways:

Whom I, with all your city prosecute,

Only his exile misery allays,

And till reueng’d I still will persecute.

He gone, the painted spring shall soon repaire

Your wither’d arbors with their wonted green;

No poisonous vapour shall infect your air,

But all shall be, as it before hath been”.

This done, and the infernal crew dismis’t,

Creon departs with sundry thoughts perplex’t,

Who in no steady counsel can persist,

Approving what’s disproved by the next.

Anon the king is instant for the news,

And after wanton preparation ended,

The messenger would fain himself excuse

From telling it, by telling where it tended.

But he more earnest through denial, threats

By torment to extort it from his tongue,

And mixes with his anger fair entreats,

Till both prevail’d: he hears it, and was stung.

A while with cogitations much distract,

He pauses on it, and begins to doubt

Some subtle stratagem, contriv’d compact,

Which Creon forg’d his crown to go about.

This he augments by his unwillingness

And politic deferrings, common tricks

In those near crowns to tempt king’s easiness,

When in the state, themselves, they’d surer fix.

And so concludes of this, for he that knows

His innocence, cannot without prejudice

Of reason credit such reports as those:

“The Gods persuade not what’s known otherwise.

Polybius that yet lives, and yet enjoys

Merope’s kisses, which I never tried

But as a son, all argument destroys

Either of incest or of paricide.

And as for Laius death, you Gods can tell

I’m ignorant of ’t, my memory

Records but one that ere by my hand fell:

Hard is my fortune if that one were he”.

Yet to be further satisfied, he hies,

Conjures a true narration from his wife

Of Laius’ fortunes; she with tears descries

Each circumstance both of his death and life.

The person’s age, the manner, time, and place,

How, when, and where, he slaughter’d was, agree,

Prove him an homicide unto his face,

By demonstration, not by fallacy.

Long he debates the matter in his mind,

Wherein no resolution can be found;

Kings’ wreaths about their heads are faster twin’d

Than slightly may be from their heads unbound.

He balances in even-poised scales

A kingdom’s glories, with a kingdom’s woes:

Fear holds when one, love when the other, fails,

The eye both heaviest, both doth light’st suppose.

Pils wrap’t in sugar, hounied bitterness,

The licorish tast persuasively dissuades,

Infected beauty, gorgeous wretchedness

With tempting frights, embold’ning makes afraid,

Ev’n as the loadstones Northerne Pole doth hold

Th’attracted iron, with an amorous kiss:

But turning thence her wanton lips, behold

Strange love for stranger hatred changed is.

Such is the nature of a crown distres’t,

View only outside, and we’re captives tane:

But if we turn our eyes, to see the rest,

It frights more powerfully than it can detain.

Fain would the king, our subject, still command,

And would as fain his country had relief.

Thoughts undetermin’d, yet are at a stand,

Whether to keep with care, or leave with grief.

Fix’t thus in wavering, lo a gray-hair’d man

Feebled with age and weariness, who first

Ere Oedipus was a Corinthian,

Out of Cithaeron brought him to be nurs’t,

From Corinth’s confines to Boeotia comes,

With news of craz’d Polybius mellow’d fall

Also from forreign rule to fetch him home

To order his sire’s crown, and funeral.

His message done, still Oedipus enquires

About his death: and much distempered,

“Was it not I”, says he, “that built the fire

That was ordain’d to be his funeral bed?

Mark if thou know’st me, prethee, don’t I look

Like to a parricide, surfeited with death?

Say, was he patient when he life forsook?

Breath’d he not ‘Oedipus’ when he scarce had breath?

What disease had he? Was’t not some unkind thought

Of my misconster’d disobedience?

Which, whilst within to smother it he sought,

Fester’d and burst like to an ulcer thence.

I, I, ’tis so, the wily Gods beguile

Me in my fortunes, when their dread intent

Could have no way been brought about, but while

My niceness was too wary to prevent:

I’ll try your cunning further: you that made

My power above itself, ther’s yet another,

And a worse mischief you to me have laid,

See if my absence can defile my mother.

Never will I her lov’d loath’d presence grant

To my witch’t eyes, I must I know not whither,

Corinth and Thebes live happy in my want,

Sith without mischief I can live in neither”.

Disjoynted words end their distracted sound

In as discordant gesture, giving note

What troubled dregs did in his brain abound

When on his looks Frenzy herself did quote.

Compassion, with pathetic letters prints

A feeling seeing in spectators by:

No shame of womanish imputation stints

The helpless fluxure of th’affected eye.

Mou’d with the rest, the aged messenger,

Learn’d in the grounds from whence his grief did rise,

Shows him how far his woes and fears did err,

And clears his doubts with worse uncertainties.

“Feare not”, sayes he, “Merope’s wrongful bed,

She’s but a fostering stranger to thy blood,

These hands to her first thee delivered;

But to supply defects in womanhood.

Polybius claim’d no interest of a son

In thee; but of what he bestow’d on thee,

Being his by nothing but adoption:

Thou nothing owd’st but thanks for charity”.

As a mistrustful patient long diseas’d,

His med’cines doubts, mislikes his uncouth drinks,

Wherewith his queasy stomach is displeasd,

His sickness better than his potion thinks:

So fares the king, who in this remedy

Collects more dangerous plots to be included,

Fears that this knowledge will worse ill’s descry,

Wishes he still were, as at first, deluded.

But sith begun, he’s minded to go on,

Fall out what will, he all will have reveal’d,

Charging a true and full narration

Of all his fortunes hitherto conceal’d;

Which thus the old man utter’d. “At what time

The sun attended by the heavenly twins,

Smil’d on the wanton springs enamel’d prime,

Look’t on clear Strymon’s fishes’ gilded fins:

When first the daisies op’t their painted lids,

To wait on Tytan without slumbring home:

I followed my lascivious wandering kids,

Whither Cithaeron swells her fertile womb.

There of a Theban shepherd I receiv’d

Thyself a child, bor’d through the feet with plants,

Almost of life, through cruelty bereav’d.

By what chance done, to tell my knowledge wants,

Your parents likewise are unknown to me:

Nor can I tell what of the swain became,

And if my sight helps not my memory,

Describe I cannot, nor unfold his name.

Herewith the king, eager to sift out all,

Himself will wretched absolutely make;

And Phorbas with his fellow swains home calls,

Of whom the old man new acquaintance takes.

The rest dismis’t, of him it is demanded,

What child it was, that he away did give:

At which he blushes; and again commanded,

“A poor found child”, he says, “that could not live”.

That answer though will not enough suffice,

The infant’s parents and mischance are urg’d

On him, which he with timorousness denies,

And oft himself with protestations purg’d.

Till wrinch’t awhile upon the torturing rack,

His constancy turns coward, and bewrays

Collected secrets, that no proof did lack:

“Thy wife was mother to that child”, he says.

Ev’n as a lion on the Lybian plain,

Struck with an arrow from the hunter’s bow,

Shakes the shag’d order of his golden main,

Doth wrathful fires from his nostrils blow,

Spits seas of foam from his incensed jaws,

Shoots sparkles from his ruddy eyeballs, rends

The earth’s green mantle with revengeful claws;

And ’gainst himself lastly his fury bends:

So rages Oedipus, and spurns the ground,

To call up furies; lifts his eyes to heaven,

To see if bright Astraea there sat crown’d

With wreaths of stars above the wandering seven.

Oft doth he shake his head, as if he meant

Again to settle his distracted brains,

Many a groan from his grip’t heart is sent,

Many a trembling earthquake he sustains.

Till, as extremities never long endure,

Sleep binds his senses in a gaol of jet:

Yet horror here is not enough secure,

Dreams catch his swimming fancies in a net.

His slumbers broken with illusive sights,

Raise sudden starts, mutter out words abrupt,

His hair on tip-toe, heaves with vain affrights:

Rest do minds troubled, rest doth interrupt.

Anon he wakes, calls for his horse to fly.

He is pursu’d: ’tis true, but whither wilt?

Thou hear’st about thee thine own enemy,

And fly thy country mayst, but not thy guilt.

Perceiving then how he did err, he smiles

Ev’n out of grief’s antiperistasis.

Alas thou er’st not, nor thy dream beguiles,

Pursu’d thou art, crimes the pursuers be.

But grief and he grown more familiar,

Strange welcomes, artfull gratulations ceas’t,

Which more in inns than mansions used are,

Not to a daily, but a seldom guest.

Yet when acquaintance would unnurtur’d grow,

And too much on a wearied friend rely,

Unmannerly, till it be bidden go,

He looks upon it with disliking eye.

And to be rid of cumbersome intrusion,

Cuts kindness shorter, and directly chides

His trouble from him; when ingrate confusion

Claims it as due, and curtesy derides:

And having got the upper hand, insults

Ore his dejected owner, rebel-like:

As when ambition gathering head, revolts,

And at a crown’s forbidden lustre strikes.

When as the king sees that submit he must,

Impatience thus in sillables breaks out:

“Blast me some powerfull vapour into dust,

Circle me Furies with your brands about.

Oh let the weight of my impiety

Press down the center, dig itself a grave,

Or from two poles crack the warp’t axle-tree,

That Nature may a second labour have.

Earth shrink thou under me: and thou to whom

Divided Chaos pitchy darkness sent,

Let me inhabit in some vaulted room

Where no light is through guilty crannies lent.

You, citizens of Thebes, for me distres’t,

Tomb me alive with stones: you childless mothers,

Striping the milk out from your unsuck’t breasts,

You that have lost the names of sons and brothers:

You widowed matrons, love-deprived maids,

Pierce me at once with clamours loud and thick:

’Tis I whom Gods do hate, and man upbraids,

The very but where Fate her arrows stick.

Why do I stay? Why doth not heaven ordain

Some punishing iron? Or some strangling rope?

Or why descends not some consuming rain?

Is vengeance laid up for a further scope?

I have sin’d all I can; but I mistake,

A punishment cannot be thought on fit:

There’s some unheard-of creature yet to make,

That join’d to cruelty, may have art and wit.

Methinks I feel a vulture peck my liver,

My entrailes by some tyger eaten up,

Or in the muddy bottom of a river,

The nibbling fry upon my carcass sup.

Oh, my sad soul, do not look pale on death,

Fear not thy period unto all thy fears:

Delights but commas are to gather breath,

Lest we should tire ere the full point appears.

See here”, for now he had unsheath’d his sword,

“How easy is it for a man to die?

One little touch, yea oftentimes a word,

Man’s great bulk falls, ev’n conquer’d with a fly.

There is but one, and that a narrow way

To enter life; but if we would go out,

Of many thousand beaten paths we may

Take our own choice, we need not go about.

And this is all that man can call his own,

What else he hath, Nature or Fortune lends:

Many can life deny, but death can none.

Only to die, upon man’s will depends.

Die then”. So setting to his naked breast

His weapons point, ready thereon to fall,

Somewhat detaines him to perform the rest;

Not that he thought death grievous, but too small.

“Death is a felon’s sentence: and shall I

For parricide and incest feele no more?

Some men do count it happiness to die,

A cure esteem it rather then a sore.

Yet say, the violent separation

Of the acquainted body from the soul,

Chiefly to such, who no relation

Have but to earth, doth manliness control;

What then? Thy Father’s death, thy death requires:

Thy death for incest must the God appease:

Thy death must quench thy country’s funeral fires:

And with one death can’st satisfy all these?

Couldst thou die often, could thy corps renew’d

Change tenants oft, couldst thou be born again,

Die again faultless, could vicissitude

Of life and death draw out an endless pain,

Revenge might somewhat be suffic’d; but now

Life is thy greatest torment, death espying

As more remote, so with more frightful brow,

Sith thou but once, oh, bee thou long in dying,

’Tis now grown vulgar to be stoical,

Peasants redeem with easy deaths their fears:

Who would be manly, or heroical,

What cowards think intolerable, bears.

Linger my hasty soul, be not bankrupt

Merely in policy, break not so soon,

Some sighs thou still hast left to furnish out

Thy trade with breath; hold out till they be done”.

A sudden shower from his eyes doth rain,

“Have I tears yet?”, says he, “alas vain wet,

Thou canst not wash away one spot, one stain

That my least guilt upon my fame hath set.

’Tis not enough to weep, I oft have usd

Tears in my mirth; let them not look out here,

Yet pour it down, if there be blood infus’d,

And see the eye drop after it’s shed tear;

You shall weep blood, mine eyes”, and sets his nails

Where sight had built her azure monument:

“Thus shed yourselves, no moisture else prevails”.

Then from their crak’t strings he his eyeballs rent.

“Now, now ’tis finish’t: I am clear, no light

Betrays me to myself, I’m living dead,

Exempt from those that live, by wanting sight;

From those are dead, because unburied”.

So having all the office of his eye

Discharg’d by th’other four, his guideless feet

Are usher’d by his hands, when suddenly

His wife, his mother, both in one him meets.

“Son, husband”, cries she, would not both, or neither,

“My womb’s primitiae, my bed’s second lord!”

Why turnst thou hence thy hollow circles? Whither

Those rings without their jewels? Hold this sword,

Look on my bosom with the eyes of thought,

Lend thou the hand, and I will lend the sight:

My death thou mayst, that hast a father’s wrought.

Strike thou but home, thou canst not but strike right

Why dost thou stay? Am I not guilty too?

Then bear not all the punishment alone,

Some of’t is mine; on me mine own bestow:

A heavy burthen parted seemeth none.

Oh I conjure thee by these lamps extinguish’t,

By all the wrongs and rights that we have done,

By this womb lastly that hath not distinguish’t

Her love betwixt a husband, and a son”.

Overcome at length, he strikes with one full blow

Her life itself to a long flight betakes:

He wanders thence, secur’d in dangers now,

Made less already than fate less can make.

Long liv’d he so, till heaven compassion took:

Revenge herself saw too much satisfied,

Jove with unwonted thunderbolt him stroke

Into a heap of peaceful ashes dried.

His sons both killing wars, his daughters fate,

To following buskin’d writers I commit:

My popinjay is lesson’d not to prate,

Where many words may argue little wit.

FINIS.