Page images
PDF
EPUB

With bitter fafts, with penitential groans;
With nightly tears, and daily heart-fore fighs.
For, in revenge of my contempt
of love,

Love hath chac'd fleep from my enthralled eyes,.

And made them watchers of mine own heart's forrow. O gentle Protheus, love's a mighty lord;

And hath fo humbled me, as, I confefs,

There

by which I exalted myself above human paffions or frail, ties, have brought upon me fafts and groans." 7. Ovid fays in the epiftle of Phædra to Hippolitus,

Quicquid amor juffit, non eft contemnere tutum :
Regnat, & in fuperos jus habet ille deos.
'Tis dangerous to contemn the pow'r of love,,
He rules o'er all things, and is king above.

And the old fhepherd, in Paftor Fida, obferves,
Vuol una volta amer amor ne' cuori noftri
Moftrar quant' egli vale.

-Love will be fure before

We die, to make us all once feel his pow'r.

Otway

Fanshaw..

In the Antigone of Sophocles, the chorus fings thus to the

honour of love;

Έρως ανίκατε μάχαν, &c.

God of love, whose boundless sway
All created things obey:

You in the yielding fair ones eye.
Or on her foft and damask cheek,

Lull'd to repofe fecurely lie;

Or o'er the wild waves lightly fly,

Thy vengeance, on fuch as contemn thee, to wreak.

On downy pinions through the air

Bird-like, you cut your pathlefs way:

The gods themselves you do not spare:
Then how fhould ever mortal dare
Ev'n hope that he fhall not obey?
All once the pleafing pain muft prove,
The fond emotions of diftracting love,

There is no woe (11) to his correction:
Nor to his fervice no fuch joy on earth.
Now no discourse, except it be of love;
Now can I break my faft, dine, sup, and sleep,
Upon the
very naked name of love.

Love fed by Praife.

-Call her divine.

Pro. I will not flatter her.

Val. O flatter me; for love delights in praise.、

Lover's Wealth..

Not for the world; why, man, fhe is mine own; ; And I as rich in having fuch a jewel,

As twenty feas, if all their fand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold...

True Love jealous.

For love, thou know'ft, is full of jealoufy.

Love compared to a waxen Image.

Now (12) my love is thaw'd,

Which like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impreffion of the thing it was.

SCENE

(11) No woe to his, &c.] " No mifery which can be compared to the punishment inflicted by love." Herbert called for the prayers of the liturgy a little before his death, faying, None to them, none to them. J.

(12) Now, &c.] Almoft the fame fimile is applied to life departing, in King John;

Retaining but a quantity of life,

Which bleeds away, e'en as a form of wax

Refolveth from its figure 'gainst the fire. .

SCENE VI. Unheedful Vows to be broken.

Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit, that wants refolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better..

SCENE VII. Oppofition to Love increases it.

Jul A true devoted pilgrim is not weary
To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;
Much lefs fhall fhe, that hath love's wings to fly;
And when the flight is made to one fo dear,
Of fuch divine perfection, as Sir Protheus.

Luc.

Jul.

Better forbear, till Protheus make return.
Oh, know'st thou not, his looks are my fouls-
food?

Pity the dearth that I have pined in,

By longing for that food fo long a time.
Did'st thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou would't as foon go kindle fire with fnow,
As feek to quench the fire of love with words.
Luc. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,

Ovid, in his Metamorphofes, uses the fame fimile;

Sed ut intabefcere flava,

Igne levi cera, matutinave pruinæ, &c.
As wax against the fire diffolves away———
Or as the morning ice begins to run,
And trickle into drops before the fun. &c.

So Spencer,

But

Addifon.

Yet still he wafted as the fnow congeal'd,
When the bright fun his beams thereon doth beat.
B. 3. C. 4. S. 49.

which poffibly he borrowed from Taffo, Gieru. Lib. 6. 20. S. 136.

As against the warmth of Titan's fire
Snow-drifts confume on tops of mountains tall.

See Act 3. Sc. 5.

But qualify the fire's extremeft rage,

Left it fhould burn above the bounds of reafon,

Jul. The more thou damm'ft it up the more it burns:: The current (3) that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know'ft, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;, But when his fair courfe is not hindered,

He makes sweet mufic with th' enamel'd stones ;
Giving a gentle kifs to every fedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;

And fo by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing fport to the wild ocean.

Then let me go, and hinder not my courfe ;;
I'll be as patient as a gentle ftream,
And make a paftime of each weary step,
Till the laft ftep have brought me to my love;
And there I'll reft, as, after much turmoil,
A bleffed foul doth in Elyfium.

A faithful and conftant Lover.

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;
His love fincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears, pure meffengers fent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud, as heav'n from earth.

ACT

(13) The current, &c.] So, in Paftor Fido, Ergafto tells Mirtillo, nothing augments love more than fuppreffing and confining it,

Mirtillo amor, &c. A&t 1. Sc. z.
Mirtillo, love's a mighty pain at best,
But more, by how much more it is fuppreft:
For as hot fteeds run faster at the check,
Than if you laid the reins upon their neck;
So love restrain'd augments, and fiercer grows
In a close prifon, than when loofe he goes.

Sir R. Fanfbaw.
And in a fragment of Euripides, it is obferved,
Τοιαυτ' αλύει νεθετεμενος γ' ερως.

Love rages more, the more it is fuppreft.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

Gifts prevalent with Woman.

Win (14) her with gifts, if fhe refpect not words; Dumb jewels, often, in their filent kind,

More than quick words, do move a woman's mind.

Flattery prevalent with Woman.

Flatter and praife, commend, extol their graces; Tho' ne'er fo black, fwear they have angels' faces : That man who hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue, he cannot win a woman.

A Lover's Banishment.

(15) And why not death, rather than living tor

ment?

To die, is to be banished from myself,

And

(14) Win, &c.] We are told, and that very beautifully, gifts are of no avail, and by no means regarded in true love. Winter's Tale, A& 4.

(15) See Romeo and Juliet, A&t 3. In the 2d A&t, and 3d Scene of The Two Noble Kinfmen, Arcite speaks thus ; Banish'd the kingdom? 'Tis a benefit,

A mercy
I muft thank 'em for: but banish'd
The free enjoying of that face I die for,
Oh, 'twas a ftudied punishment; a death
Beyond imagination; fuch avengeance,
That were I old and wicked, all my fins
Cou'd never pluck upon me. Palamon,
Thou haft the start now, thou shalt stay and fee
Her bright eyes break each morning 'gainst the window,
And let in life unto thee: thou fhalt feed

Upon the sweetness of a noble beauty,

That nature ne'er exceeded, nor ne'er shall :
Good gods-what happiness has Palamon !
Twenty to one, he'll come to fpeak to her,
And if he be as gentle, as fhe's fair,

I know

« PreviousContinue »