Page images
PDF
EPUB

In Paradise to tempt; his snares are broke:
For though that seat of earthly bliss be fail'd,
A fairer Paradise is founded now

For Adam and his chosen sons, whom thou

615

A Saviour art come down to re-instal.
Where they shall dwell secure, when time shall
be,

Of Tempter and temptation without fear.
But thou, infernal Serpent, shalt not long
Rule in the clouds; like an autumnal star

Or lightning thou shalt fall from Heav'n, trod down

625

Under his feet: for proof, ere this thou feel'st 621
Thy wound, yet not thy last and deadliest wound,
By this repulse receiv'd, and hold'st in Hell
No triumph; in all her gates Abaddon rues
Thy bold attempt; hereafter learn with awe
To dread the Son of God: he all unarm'd
Shall chase thee with the terror of his voice
From thy demoniac holds, possession foul,
Thee and thy legions; yelling they shall fly,
And beg to hide them in a herd of swine,
Lest he command them down into the Deep
Bound, and to torment sent before their time.
Hail Son of the Most High, heir of both worlds,
Queller of Satan, on thy glorious work

Now enter, and begin to save mankind.

Thus they the Son of God our Saviour meek Sung Victor, and from heav'nly feast refresh'd

3

630

635

Brought on his way with joy; he unobserv'd Home to his mother's house private return'd.

The End of Paradise Regain'd.

A DRAMATIC POEM.

Τραγωδία μίμησις πράξεως σπεδαίας, Θε

Aristot. Poet. cap. 6.

Tragoedia est imitatio aftionis seriae, etc. per misericordiam et metum perficiens talium affectuum lustrationem.

OF THAT SORT OF

DRAMATIC POEM

WHICH IS CALLED TRAGEDY.

TRAGEDY, as it was anciently compos'd, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems: therefore said by Aristotle to be of pozver by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirr'd up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion: for so in physic things of melancholic bue and quality are us'd against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt bumors. Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture, 1Cor. xv. 33.; and Paræus commenting

[82]

on the Revelation, divides the whole book as a tragedy, into acts distinguished each by a chorus of heavenly harpings and song between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have labor'd not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that honor Dionysius the Elder was no less ambitious than before of his attaining to the tyranny. Augustus Casar also had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinish'd. Seneca the philosopher is by some thought the author of those tragedies (at least the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a Father of the Church, thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy which is intitled Christ suffering. This is mention'd to vindicate tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day with other common interludes; hap'ning through the poets error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity; or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious hath been counted absurd; and brought in without discretion, corruptly to grattfy the people. And though ancient tragedy use no prologue, yet using sometimes, in case of self-defense or explanation, that which Martial calls an epistle; in behalf of this tragedy coming forth after the ancient manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus much before-hand may be epistled; that chorus is here introduced after the

[83]

Greek manner, not ancient only but modern, and still in use among the Italians. In the modelling therefore of this poem, with good reason, the ans cients and Italians are rather follow'd, as of much more authority and fame. The measure of verse us'd in the chorus is of all sorts, call'd by the Greeks Monostrophic, or rather Apolelymenon, without regard bad to Strophe, Antistrophe, or Epod, which were a kind of stanzas fram'd only for the music, then us'd with the chorus that sung; not essential to the poem, and therefore not material; or being divided into stanzas or pauses, they may be call'd Allæostropha. Division into act and scene referring chiefly to the stage (to which this Work never was intended) is here omitted.

It suffices if the whole drama be found not produc'd beyond the fifth act. Of the stile and uniformity, and that commonly call'd the plot, whether intricate or explicit, which is nothing indeed but such œconomy, or disposition of the fable as may stand best with versimilitude and decorum; they only will best judge, who are not unacquainted with Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets unequal'd yet by any, and the best rule to all who endevor to write tragedy. The circumscription of time, wherein the whole drama begins and ends, is according to ancient rule, and best example, within the space of twenty-four hours.

« PreviousContinue »