Venus and Adonis | |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. | |
EVEN as the sun with purple-colour’d face | |
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn, | |
Rose-cheek’d Adonis hied him to the chase; | |
Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn; | |
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him, | 5 |
And like a bold-fac’d suitor ’gins to woo him. | |
‘Thrice fairer than myself,’ thus she began, |
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‘The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare, | |
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man, | |
More white and red than doves or roses are; | 10 |
Nature that made thee, with herself at strife, | |
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life. | |
‘Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed, |
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And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow; | |
If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed | 15 |
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know: | |
Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses; | |
And being set, I ’ll smother thee with kisses: | |
‘And yet not cloy thy lips with loath’d satiety, |
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But rather famish them amid their plenty, | 20 |
Making them red and pale with fresh variety; | |
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty: | |
A summer’s day will seem an hour but short, | |
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.’ | |
With this she seizeth on his sweating palm, |
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The precedent of pith and livelihood, | |
And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm, | |
Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good: | |
Being so enrag’d, desire doth lend her force | |
Courageously to pluck him from his horse. | 30 |
Over one arm the lusty courser’s rein, |
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Under her other was the tender boy, | |
Who blush’d and pouted in a dull disdain, | |
With leaden appetite, unapt to toy; | |
She red and hot as coals of glowing fire, | 35 |
He red for shame, but frosty in desire. | |
The studded bridle on a ragged bough |
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Nimbly she fastens;—O! how quick is love:— | |
The steed is stalled up, and even now | |
To tie the rider she begins to prove: | 40 |
Backward she push’d him, as she would be thrust, | |
And govern’d him in strength, though not in lust. | |
So soon was she along, as he was down, |
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Each leaning on their elbows and their hips: | |
Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown, | 45 |
And ’gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips; | |
And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken, | |
‘If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.’ | |
He burns with bashful shame; she with her tears |
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Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks; | 50 |
Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs | |
To fan and blow them dry again she seeks: | |
He saith she is immodest, blames her miss; | |
What follows more she murders with a kiss. | |
Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast, |
55 |
Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone, | |
Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste, | |
Till either gorge be stuff’d or prey be gone; | |
Even so she kiss’d his brow, his cheek, his chin, | |
And where she ends she doth anew begin. | 60 |
Forc’d to content, but never to obey, |
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Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face; | |
She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey, | |
And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace; | |
Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers, | 65 |
So they were dew’d with such distilling showers. | |
Look! how a bird lies tangled in a net, |
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So fasten’d in her arms Adonis lies; | |
Pure shame and aw’d resistance made him fret, | |
Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes: | 70 |
Rain added to a river that is rank | |
Perforce will force it overflow the bank. | |
Still she entreats, and prettily entreats, |
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For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale; | |
Still is he sullen, still he lowers and frets, | 75 |
’Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy-pale; | |
Being red, she loves him best; and being white, | |
Her best is better’d with a more delight. | |
Look how he can, she cannot choose but love; |
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And by her fair immortal hand she swears, | 80 |
From his soft bosom never to remove, | |
Till he take truce with her contending tears, | |
Which long have rain’d, making her cheeks all wet; | |
And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt. | |
Upon this promise did he raise his chin |
85 |
Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave, | |
Who, being look’d on, ducks as quickly in; | |
So offers he to give what she did crave; | |
But when her lips were ready for his pay, | |
He winks, and turns his lips another way. | 90 |
Never did passenger in summer’s heat |
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More thirst for drink than she for this good turn. | |
Her help she sees, but help she cannot get; | |
She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn: | |
‘O! pity,’ ’gan she cry, ‘flint-hearted boy: | 95 |
’Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy? | |
‘I have been woo’d, as I entreat thee now, |
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Even by the stern and direful god of war, | |
Whose sinewy neck in battle ne’er did bow, | |
Who conquers where he comes in every jar; | 100 |
Yet hath he been my captive and my slave, | |
And begg’d for that which thou unask’d shalt have. | |
‘Over my altars hath he hung his lance, |
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His batter’d shield, his uncontrolled crest, | |
And for my sake hath learn’d to sport and dance, | 105 |
To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest; | |
Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red, | |
Making my arms his field, his tent my bed. | |
‘Thus he that overrul’d I oversway’d, |
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Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain: | 110 |
Strong-temper’d steel his stronger strength obey’d, | |
Yet was he servile to my coy disdain. | |
O! be not proud, nor brag not of thy might, | |
For mastering her that foil’d the god of fight. | |
‘Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine,— |
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Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red,— | |
The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine: | |
What seest thou in the ground? hold up thy head: | |
Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies; | |
Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes? | 120 |
‘Art thou asham’d to kiss? then wink again, |
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And I will wink; so shall the day seem night; | |
Love keeps his revels where there are but twain; | |
Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight: | |
These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean | 125 |
Never can blab, nor know not what we mean. | |
‘The tender spring upon thy tempting lip |
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Shows thee unripe, yet mayst thou well be tasted. | |
Make use of time, let not advantage slip; | |
Beauty within itself should not be wasted: | 130 |
Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their prime | |
Rot and consume themselves in little time. | |
‘Were I hard-favour’d, foul, or wrinkled-old, |
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Ill-nurtur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice, | |
O’erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold, | 135 |
Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice, | |
Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee; | |
But having no defects, why dost abhor me? | |
‘Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow; |
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Mine eyes are grey and bright, and quick in turning; | 140 |
My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow; | |
My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning; | |
My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt, | |
Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt. | |
‘Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear, |
145 |
Or like a fairy trip upon the green, | |
Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell’d hair, | |
Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen: | |
Love is a spirit all compact of fire, | |
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire. | 150 |
‘Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie; |
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These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me; | |
Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky, | |
From morn till night, even where I list to sport me: | |
Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be | 155 |
That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee? | |
‘Is thine own heart to thine own face affected? |
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Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left? | |
Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected, | |
Steal thine own freedom, and complain on theft. | 160 |
Narcissus so himself himself forsook, | |
And died to kiss his shadow in the brook. | |
‘Torches are made to light, jewels to wear, |
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Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use, | |
Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear; | 165 |
Things growing to themselves are growth’s abuse: | |
Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty; | |
Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty. | |
‘Upon the earth’s increase why shouldst thou feed, |
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Unless the earth with thy increase be fed? | 170 |
By law of nature thou art bound to breed, | |
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead; | |
And so in spite of death thou dost survive, | |
In that thy likeness still is left alive.’ | |
By this the love-sick queen began to sweat, |
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For where they lay the shadow had forsook them, | |
And Titan, tired in the mid-day heat, | |
With burning eye did hotly overlook them; | |
Wishing Adonis had his team to guide, | |
So he were like him and by Venus’ side. | 180 |
And now Adonis with a lazy spright, |
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And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye, | |
His louring brows o’erwhelming his fair sight, | |
Like misty vapours when they blot the sky, | |
Souring his cheeks, cries, ‘Fie! no more of love: | 185 |
The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.’ | |
‘Ay me,’ quoth Venus, ‘young, and so unkind? |
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What bare excuses mak’st thou to be gone; | |
I ’ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind | |
Shall cool the heat of this descending sun: | 190 |
I ’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs; | |
If they burn too, I ’ll quench them with my tears. | |
‘The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm, |
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And lo! I lie between that sun and thee: | |
The heat I have from thence doth little harm, | 195 |
Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me; | |
And were I not immortal, life were done | |
Between this heavenly and earthly sun. | |
‘Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel? |
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Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth. | 200 |
Art thou a woman’s son, and canst not feel | |
What ’tis to love? how want of love tormenteth? | |
O! had thy mother borne so hard a mind, | |
She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind. | |
‘What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this? |
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Or what great danger dwells upon my suit? | |
What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss? | |
Speak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute: | |
Give me one kiss, I ’ll give it thee again, | |
And one for interest, if thou wilt have twain. | 210 |
‘Fie! lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone, |
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Well-painted idol, image dull and dead, | |
Statue contenting but the eye alone, | |
Thing like a man, but of no woman bred: | |
Thou art no man, though of a man’s complexion, | 215 |
For men will kiss even by their own direction.’ | |
This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue, |
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And swelling passion doth provoke a pause; | |
Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong; | |
Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause: | 220 |
And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak, | |
And now her sobs do her intendments break. | |
Sometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand; |
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Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground; | |
Sometimes her arms infold him like a band: | 225 |
She would, he will not in her arms be bound; | |
And when from thence he struggles to be gone, | |
She locks her lily fingers one in one. | |
‘Fondling,’ she saith, ‘since I have hemm’d thee here |
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Within the circuit of this ivory pale, | 230 |
I ’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer; | |
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale: | |
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, | |
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie. | |
‘Within this limit is relief enough, |
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Sweet bottom-grass and high delightful plain, | |
Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, | |
To shelter thee from tempest and from rain: | |
Then be my deer, since I am such a park; | |
No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.’ | 240 |
At this Adonis smiles as in disdain, |
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That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple: | |
Love made those hollows, if himself were slain, | |
He might be buried in a tomb so simple; | |
Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie, | 245 |
Why, there Love liv’d and there he could not die. | |
These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits, |
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Open’d their mouths to swallow Venus’ liking. | |
Being mad before, how doth she now for wits? | |
Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking? | 250 |
Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn, | |
To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn! | |
Now which way shall she turn? what shall she say? |
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Her words are done, her woes the more increasing; | |
The time is spent, her object will away, | 255 |
And from her twining arms doth urge releasing: | |
‘Pity,’ she cries; ‘some favour, some remorse!’ | |
Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse. | |
But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by, |
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A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud, | 260 |
Adonis’ tramping courser doth espy, | |
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud: | |
The strong-neck’d steed, being tied unto a tree, | |
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he. | |
Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds, |
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And now his woven girths he breaks asunder; | |
The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds, | |
Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder; | |
The iron bit he crushes ’tween his teeth, | |
Controlling what he was controlled with. | 270 |
His ears up-prick’d; his braided hanging mane |
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Upon his compass’d crest now stand on end; | |
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again, | |
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send: | |
His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire, | 275 |
Shows his hot courage and his high desire. | |
Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps, |
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With gentle majesty and modest pride; | |
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, | |
As who should say, ‘Lo! thus my strength is tried; | 280 |
And this I do to captivate the eye | |
Of the fair breeder that is standing by.’ | |
What recketh he his rider’s angry stir, |
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His flattering ‘Holla,’ or his ‘Stand, I say?’ | |
What cares he now for curb or pricking spur? | 285 |
For rich caparisons or trapping gay? | |
He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, | |
Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees. | |
Look, when a painter would surpass the life, |
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In limning out a well-proportion’d steed, | 290 |
His art with nature’s workmanship at strife, | |
As if the dead the living should exceed; | |
So did this horse excel a common one, | |
In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone. | |
Round-hoof’d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, |
295 |
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, | |
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, | |
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: | |
Look, what a horse should have he did not lack, | |
Save a proud rider on so proud a back. | 300 |
Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares; |
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Anon he starts at stirring of a feather; | |
To bid the wind a base he now prepares, | |
And whe’r he run or fly they know not whether; | |
For through his mane and tail the high wind sings, | 305 |
Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather’d wings. | |
He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her; |
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She answers him as if she knew his mind; | |
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her, | |
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind, | 310 |
Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels, | |
Beating his kind embracements with her heels. | |
Then, like a melancholy malcontent, |
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He vails his tail that, like a falling plume | |
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent: | 315 |
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume. | |
His love, perceiving how he is enrag’d, | |
Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag’d. | |
His testy master goeth about to take him; |
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When lo! the unback’d breeder, full of fear, | 320 |
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him, | |
With her the horse, and left Adonis there. | |
As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them, | |
Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them. | |
All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits, |
325 |
Banning his boisterous and unruly beast: | |
And now the happy season once more fits, | |
That love-sick Love by pleading may be blest; | |
For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong | |
When it is barr’d the aidance of the tongue. | 330 |
An oven that is stopp’d, or river stay’d, |
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Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage: | |
So of concealed sorrow may be said; | |
Free vent of words love’s fire doth assuage; | |
But when the heart’s attorney once is mute, | 335 |
The client breaks, as desperate in his suit. | |
He sees her coming, and begins to glow,— |
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Even as a dying coal revives with wind,— | |
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow; | |
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind, | 340 |
Taking no notice that she is so nigh, | |
For all askance he holds her in his eye. | |
O! what a sight it was, wistly to view |
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How she came stealing to the wayward boy; | |
To note the fighting conflict of her hue, | 345 |
How white and red each other did destroy: | |
But now her cheek was pale, and by and by | |
It flash’d forth fire, as lightning from the sky. | |
Now was she just before him as he sat, |
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And like a lowly lover down she kneels; | 350 |
With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat, | |
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels: | |
His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand’s print, | |
As apt as new-fall’n snow takes any dint. | |
O! what a war of looks was then between them; |
355 |
Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing; | |
His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them; | |
Her eyes woo’d still, his eyes disdain’d the wooing: | |
And all this dumb play had his acts made plain | |
With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain. | 360 |
Full gently now she takes him by the hand, |
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A lily prison’d in a gaol of snow, | |
Or ivory in an alabaster band; | |
So white a friend engirts so white a foe: | |
This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling, | 365 |
Show’d like two silver doves that sit a-billing. | |
Once more the engine of her thoughts began: |
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‘O fairest mover on this mortal round, | |
Would thou wert as I am, and I a man, | |
My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound; | 370 |
For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee, | |
Though nothing but my body’s bane would cure thee.’ | |
‘Give me my hand,’ saith he, ‘why dost thou feel it?’ |
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‘Give me my heart,’ saith she, ‘and thou shalt have it; | |
O! give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it, | 375 |
And being steel’d, soft sighs can never grave it: | |
Then love’s deep groans I never shall regard, | |
Because Adonis’ heart hath made mine hard.’ | |
‘For shame,’ he cries, ‘let go, and let me go; |
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My day’s delight is past, my horse is gone, | 380 |
And ’tis your fault I am bereft him so: | |
I pray you hence, and leave me here alone: | |
For all my mind, my thought, my busy care, | |
Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.’ | |
Thus she replies: ‘Thy palfrey, as he should, |
385 |
Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire: | |
Affection is a coal that must be cool’d; | |
Else, suffer’d, it will set the heart on fire: | |
The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none; | |
Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone. | 390 |
‘How like a jade he stood, tied to the tree, |
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Servilely master’d with a leathern rein! | |
But when he saw his love, his youth’s fair fee, | |
He held such petty bondage in disdain; | |
Throwing the base thong from his bending crest, | 395 |
Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast. | |
‘Who sees his true-love in her naked bed, |
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Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white, | |
But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed, | |
His other agents aim at like delight? | 400 |
Who is so faint, that dare not be so bold | |
To touch the fire, the weather being cold? | |
‘Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy; |
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And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee, | |
To take advantage on presented joy; | 405 |
Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee. | |
O learn to love; the lesson is but plain, | |
And once made perfect, never lost again.’ | |
‘I know not love,’ quoth he, ‘nor will not know it, |
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Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it; | 410 |
’Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it; | |
My love to love is love but to disgrace it; | |
For I have heard it is a life in death, | |
That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath. | |
‘Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish’d? |
415 |
Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth? | |
If springing things be any jot diminish’d, | |
They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth: | |
The colt that ’s back’d and burden’d being young | |
Loseth his pride and never waxeth strong. | 420 |
‘You hurt my hand with wringing; let us part, |
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And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat: | |
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart; | |
To love’s alarms it will not ope the gate: | |
Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery; | 425 |
For where a heart is hard, they make no battery.’ | |
‘What! canst thou talk?’ quoth she, ‘hast thou a tongue? |
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O! would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing; | |
Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong; | |
I had my load before, now press’d with bearing: | 430 |
Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding, | |
Ear’s deep-sweet music, and heart’s deep-sore wounding. | |
‘Had I no eyes, but ears, my ears would love |
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That inward beauty and invisible; | |
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move | 435 |
Each part in me that were but sensible: | |
Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see, | |
Yet should I be in love by touching thee. | |
‘Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me, |
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And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch, | 440 |
And nothing but the very smell were left me, | |
Yet would my love to thee be still as much; | |
For from the still’tory of thy face excelling | |
Comes breath perfum’d that breedeth love by smelling. | |
‘But O! what banquet wert thou to the taste, |
445 |
Being nurse and feeder of the other four; | |
Would they not wish the feast might ever last, | |
And bid Suspicion double-lock the door, | |
Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest, | |
Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast?’ | 450 |
Once more the ruby-colour’d portal open’d, |
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Which to his speech did honey passage yield; | |
Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken’d | |
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field, | |
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds, | 455 |
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds. | |
This ill presage advisedly she marketh: |
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Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth, | |
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh, | |
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth, | 460 |
Or like the deadly bullet of a gun, | |
His meaning struck her ere his words begun. | |
And at his look she flatly falleth down, |
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For looks kill love and love by looks reviveth; | |
A smile recures the wounding of a frown; | 465 |
But blessed bankrupt, that by love so thriveth! | |
The silly boy, believing she is dead, | |
Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red; | |
And all-amaz’d brake off his late intent, |
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For sharply he did think to reprehend her, | 470 |
Which cunning love did wittily prevent: | |
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her! | |
For on the grass she lies as she were slain, | |
Till his breath breatheth life in her again. | |
He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks, |
475 |
He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard, | |
He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks | |
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr’d: | |
He kisses her; and she, by her good will, | |
Will never rise, so he will kiss her still. | 480 |
The night of sorrow now is turn’d to day: |
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Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth, | |
Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array | |
He cheers the morn and all the world relieveth: | |
And as the bright sun glorifies the sky, | 485 |
So is her face illumin’d with her eye; | |
Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix’d, |
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As if from thence they borrow’d all their shine. | |
Were never four such lamps together mix’d, | |
Had not his clouded with his brows’ repine; | 490 |
But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light, | |
Shone like the moon in water seen by night. | |
‘O! where am I?’ quoth she, ‘in earth or heaven, |
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Or in the ocean drench’d, or in the fire? | |
What hour is this? or morn or weary even? | 495 |
Do I delight to die, or life desire? | |
But now I liv’d, and life was death’s annoy; | |
But now I died, and death was lively joy. | |
‘O! thou didst kill me; kill me once again: |
|
Thy eyes’ shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine, | 500 |
Hath taught them scornful tricks and such disdain | |
That they have murder’d this poor heart of mine; | |
And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen, | |
But for thy piteous lips no more had seen. | |
‘Long may they kiss each other for this cure! |
505 |
O! never let their crimson liveries wear; | |
And as they last, their verdure still endure, | |
To drive infection from the dangerous year: | |
That the star-gazers, having writ on death, | |
May say, the plague is banish’d by thy breath. | 510 |
‘Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, |
|
What bargains may I make, still to be sealing? | |
To sell myself I can be well contented, | |
So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing; | |
Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips | 515 |
Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips. | |
‘A thousand kisses buys my heart from me; |
|
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one. | |
What is ten hundred touches unto thee? | |
Are they not quickly told and quickly gone? | 520 |
Say, for non-payment that the debt should double, | |
Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?’ | |
‘Fair queen,’ quoth he, ‘if any love you owe me, |
|
Measure my strangeness with my unripe years: | |
Before I know myself, seek not to know me; | 525 |
No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears: | |
The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast, | |
Or being early pluck’d is sour to taste. | |
‘Look! the world’s comforter, with weary gait, |
|
His day’s hot task hath ended in the west; | 530 |
The owl, night’s herald, shrieks, ’tis very late; | |
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest, | |
And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven’s light | |
Do summon us to part and bid good night. | |
‘Now let me say good night, and so say you; |
535 |
If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.’ | |
‘Good night,’ quoth she; and ere he says adieu, | |
The honey fee of parting tender’d is: | |
Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace; | |
Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face. | 540 |
Till, breathless, he disjoin’d, and backward drew |
|
The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth, | |
Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew, | |
Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth: | |
He with her plenty press’d, she faint with dearth, | 545 |
Their lips together glu’d, fall to the earth. | |
Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey, |
|
And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth; | |
Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey, | |
Paying what ransom the insulter willeth; | 550 |
Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high, | |
That she will draw his lips’ rich treasure dry. | |
And having felt the sweetness of the spoil, |
|
With blindfold fury she begins to forage; | |
Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil, | 555 |
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage; | |
Planting oblivion, beating reason back, | |
Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honour’s wrack. | |
Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing, |
|
Like a wild bird being tam’d with too much handling, | 560 |
Or as the fleet-foot roe that ’s tir’d with chasing, | |
Or like the froward infant still’d with dandling, | |
He now obeys, and now no more resisteth, | |
While she takes all she can, not all she listeth. | |
What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering, |
565 |
And yields at last to every light impression? | |
Things out of hope are compass’d oft with venturing, | |
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission: | |
Affection faints not like a pale-fac’d coward, | |
But then woos best when most his choice is froward. | 570 |
When he did frown, O! had she then gave over, |
|
Such nectar from his lips she had not suck’d. | |
Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover; | |
What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis pluck’d: | |
Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast, | 575 |
Yet love breaks through and picks them all at last. | |
For pity now she can no more detain him; |
|
The poor fool prays her that he may depart: | |
She is resolv’d no longer to restrain him, | |
Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart, | 580 |
The which, by Cupid’s bow she doth protest, | |
He carries thence incaged in his breast. | |
‘Sweet boy,’ she says, ‘this night I ’ll waste in sorrow, |
|
For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch. | |
Tell me, Love’s master, shall we meet to-morrow? | 585 |
Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match?’ | |
He tells her, no; to-morrow he intends | |
To hunt the boar with certain of his friends. | |
‘The boar!’ quoth she; whereat a sudden pale, |
|
Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose, | 590 |
Usurps her cheeks, she trembles at his tale, | |
And on his neck her yoking arms she throws: | |
She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck, | |
He on her belly falls, she on her back. | |
Now is she in the very lists of love, |
595 |
Her champion mounted for the hot encounter: | |
All is imaginary she doth prove, | |
He will not manage her, although he mount her; | |
That worse than Tantalus’ is her annoy, | |
To clip Elysium and to lack her joy. | 600 |
Even as poor birds, deceiv’d with painted grapes, |
|
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw, | |
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps, | |
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw. | |
The warm effects which she in him finds missing, | 605 |
She seeks to kindle with continual kissing. | |
But all in vain; good queen, it will not be: |
|
She hath assay’d as much as may be prov’d; | |
Her pleading hath deserv’d a greater fee; | |
She ’s Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d. | 610 |
‘Fie, fie!’ he says, ‘you crush me; let me go; | |
You have no reason to withhold me so.’ | |
‘Thou hadst been gone,’ quoth she, ‘sweet boy, ere this, |
|
But that thou told’st me thou wouldst hunt the boar. | |
O! be advis’d; thou know’st not what it is | 615 |
With javelin’s point a churlish swine to gore, | |
Whose tushes never sheath’d he whetteth still, | |
Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill. | |
‘On his bow-back he hath a battle set |
|
Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes; | 620 |
His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret; | |
His snout digs sepulchres where’er he goes; | |
Being mov’d, he strikes whate’er is in his way, | |
And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay. | |
‘His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm’d, |
625 |
Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter; | |
His short thick neck cannot be easily harm’d; | |
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture: | |
The thorny brambles and embracing bushes, | |
As fearful of him part, through whom he rushes. | 630 |
‘Alas! he nought esteems that face of thine, |
|
To which Love’s eyes pay tributary gazes; | |
Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne, | |
Whose full perfection all the world amazes; | |
But having thee at vantage, wondrous dread! | 635 |
Would root these beauties as he roots the mead. | |
‘O! let him keep his loathsome cabin still; |
|
Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends: | |
Come not within his danger by thy will; | |
They that thrive well take counsel of their friends. | 640 |
When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble, | |
I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble. | |
‘Didst thou not mark my face? was it not white? |
|
Saw’st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye? | |
Grew I not faint? And fell I not downright? | 645 |
Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie, | |
My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest, | |
But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast. | |
‘For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy |
|
Doth call himself Affection’s sentinel; | 650 |
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny, | |
And in a peaceful hour doth cry “Kill, kill!” | |
Distempering gentle Love in his desire, | |
As air and water do abate the fire. | |
‘This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy, |
655 |
This canker that eats up Love’s tender spring, | |
This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy, | |
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring, | |
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear | |
That if I love thee, I thy death should fear: | 660 |
‘And more than so, presenteth to mine eye |
|
The picture of an angry-chafing boar, | |
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie | |
An image like thyself, all stain’d with gore; | |
Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed | 665 |
Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head. | |
‘What should I do, seeing thee so indeed, |
|
That tremble at the imagination? | |
The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed, | |
And fear doth teach it divination: | 670 |
I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow, | |
If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow. | |
‘But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul’d by me; |
|
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare, | |
Or at the fox which lives by subtilty, | 675 |
Or at the roe which no encounter dare: | |
Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs, | |
And on thy well-breath’d horse keep with thy hounds. | |
‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, |
|
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles | 680 |
How he outruns the winds, and with what care | |
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles: | |
The many musits through the which he goes | |
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes. | |
‘Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep, |
685 |
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell, | |
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, | |
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell, | |
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer; | |
Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear: | 690 |
‘For there his smell with others being mingled, |
|
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt, | |
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled | |
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out; | |
Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies, | 695 |
As if another chase were in the skies. | |
‘By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, |
|
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, | |
To hearken if his foes pursue him still: | |
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear; | 700 |
And now his grief may be compared well | |
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell. | |
‘Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch |
|
Turn, and return, indenting with the way; | |
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch, | 705 |
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay: | |
For misery is trodden on by many, | |
And being low never reliev’d by any. | |
‘Lie quietly, and hear a little more; |
|
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise: | 710 |
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar, | |
Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralize, | |
Applying this to that, and so to so; | |
For love can comment upon every woe. | |
‘Where did I leave?’ ‘No matter where,’ quoth he; |
715 |
‘Leave me, and then the story aptly ends: | |
The night is spent,’ ‘Why, what of that?’ quoth she. | |
‘I am,’ quoth he, ‘expected of my friends; | |
And now ’tis dark, and going I shall fall.’ | |
‘In night,’ quoth she, ‘desire sees best of all.’ | 720 |
‘But if thou fall, O! then imagine this, |
|
The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips, | |
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss. | |
Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips | |
Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn, | 725 |
Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn. | |
‘Now of this dark night I perceive the reason: |
|
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine, | |
Till forging Nature be condemn’d of treason, | |
For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine; | 730 |
Wherein she fram’d thee in high heaven’s despite, | |
To shame the sun by day and her by night. | |
‘And therefore hath she brib’d the Destinies, |
|
To cross the curious workmanship of nature, | |
To mingle beauty with infirmities, | 735 |
And pure perfection with impure defeature; | |
Making it subject to the tyranny | |
Of mad mischances and much misery; | |
‘As burning fevers, agues pale and faint, |
|
Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood, | 740 |
The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint | |
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood; | |
Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn’d despair, | |
Swear nature’s death for framing thee so fair. | |
‘And not the least of all these maladies |
745 |
But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under: | |
Both favour, savour, hue, and qualities, | |
Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder, | |
Are on the sudden wasted, thaw’d and done, | |
As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day sun. | 750 |
‘Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity, |
|
Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns, | |
That on the earth would breed a scarcity | |
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons, | |
Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night | 755 |
Dries up his oil to lend the world his light. | |
‘What is thy body but a swallowing grave, |
|
Seeming to bury that posterity | |
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have, | |
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity? | 760 |
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain, | |
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain. | |
‘So in thyself thyself art made away; |
|
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife, | |
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay, | 765 |
Or butcher-sire that reaves his son of life. | |
Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, | |
But gold that ’s put to use more gold begets.’ | |
‘Nay then,’ quoth Adon, ‘you will fall again |
|
Into your idle over-handled theme; | 770 |
The kiss I gave you is bestow’d in vain, | |
And all in vain you strive against the stream; | |
For by this black-fac’d night, desire’s foul nurse, | |
Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse. | |
‘If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues, |
775 |
And every tongue more moving than your own, | |
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s songs, | |
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown; | |
For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear, | |
And will not let a false sound enter there; | 780 |
‘Lest the deceiving harmony should run |
|
Into the quiet closure of my breast; | |
And then my little heart were quite undone, | |
In his bedchamber to be barr’d of rest. | |
No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan, | 785 |
But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone. | |
‘What have you urg’d that I cannot reprove? |
|
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger; | |
I hate not love, but your device in love, | |
That lends embracements unto every stranger. | 790 |
You do it for increase: O strange excuse! | |
When reason is the bawd to lust’s abuse. | |
‘Call it not love, for Love to heaven is fled, |
|
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp’d his name; | |
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed | 795 |
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame; | |
Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves, | |
As caterpillars do the tender leaves. | |
‘Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, |
|
But Lust’s effect is tempest after sun; | 800 |
Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain, | |
Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done. | |
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies; | |
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies. | |
‘More I could tell, but more I dare not say; |
805 |
The text is old, the orator too green. | |
Therefore, in sadness, now I will away; | |
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen: | |
Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended, | |
Do burn themselves for having so offended.’ | 810 |
With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace |
|
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast, | |
And homeward through the dark laund runs apace; | |
Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress’d. | |
Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky, | 815 |
So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye; | |
Which after him she darts, as one on shore |
|
Gazing upon a late-embarked friend, | |
Till the wild waves will have him seen no more, | |
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend: | 820 |
So did the merciless and pitchy night | |
Fold in the object that did feed her sight. | |
Whereat amaz’d, as one that unaware |
|
Hath dropp’d a precious jewel in the flood, | |
Or ’stonish’d as night-wanderers often are, | 825 |
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood; | |
Even so confounded in the dark she lay, | |
Having lost the fair discovery of her way. | |
And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans, |
|
That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled, | 830 |
Make verbal repetition of her moans; | |
Passion on passion deeply is redoubled: | |
‘Ay me!’ she cries, and twenty times, ‘Woe, woe!’ | |
And twenty echoes twenty times cry so. | |
She marking them, begins a wailing note, |
835 |
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty; | |
How love makes young men thrall and old men dote; | |
How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty: | |
Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe, | |
And still the choir of echoes answer so. | 840 |
Her song was tedious, and outwore the night, |
|
For lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short: | |
If pleas’d themselves, others, they think, delight | |
In such like circumstance, with such like sport: | |
Their copious stories, oftentimes begun, | 845 |
End without audience, and are never done. | |
For who hath she to spend the night withal, |
|
But idle sounds resembling parasites; | |
Like shrill-tongu’d tapsters answering every call, | |
Soothing the humour of fantastic wits? | 850 |
She says, ‘’Tis so:’ they answer all, ‘’Tis so;’ | |
And would say after her, if she said ‘No.’ | |
Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest, |
|
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, | |
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast | 855 |
The sun ariseth in his majesty; | |
Who doth the world so gloriously behold, | |
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish’d gold. | |
Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow: |
|
‘O thou clear god, and patron of all light, | 860 |
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow | |
The beauteous influence that makes him bright, | |
There lives a son that suck’d an earthly mother, | |
May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.’ | |
This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove, |
865 |
Musing the morning is so much o’erworn, | |
And yet she hears no tidings of her love; | |
She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn: | |
Anon she hears them chant it lustily, | |
And all in haste she coasteth to the cry. | 870 |
And as she runs, the bushes in the way |
|
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face, | |
Some twine about her thigh to make her stay: | |
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace, | |
Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache, | 875 |
Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake. | |
By this she hears the hounds are at a bay; |
|
Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder | |
Wreath’d up in fatal folds just in his way, | |
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder; | 880 |
Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds | |
Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds. | |
For now she knows it is no gentle chase, |
|
But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud, | |
Because the cry remaineth in one place, | 885 |
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud: | |
Finding their enemy to be so curst, | |
They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first. | |
This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear, |
|
Through which it enters to surprise her heart; | 890 |
Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear, | |
With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part; | |
Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield, | |
They basely fly and dare not stay the field. | |
Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy, |
895 |
Till, cheering up her senses sore dismay’d, | |
She tells them ’tis a causeless fantasy, | |
And childish error, that they are afraid; | |
Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more: | |
And with that word she spied the hunted boar, | 900 |
Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red, |
|
Like milk and blood being mingled both together, | |
A second fear through all her sinews spread, | |
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither: | |
This way she runs, and now she will no further, | 905 |
But back retires to rate the boar for murther. | |
A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways, |
|
She treads the path that she untreads again; | |
Her more than haste is mated with delays, | |
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain, | 910 |
Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting, | |
In hand with all things, nought at all effecting. | |
Here kennel’d in a brake she finds a hound, |
|
And asks the weary caitiff for his master, | |
And there another licking of his wound, | 915 |
’Gainst venom’d sores the only sovereign plaster; | |
And here she meets another sadly scowling, | |
To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling. | |
When he hath ceas’d his ill-resounding noise, |
|
Another flap-mouth’d mourner, black and grim, | 920 |
Against the welkin volleys out his voice; | |
Another and another answer him, | |
Clapping their proud tails to the ground below, | |
Shaking their scratch’d ears, bleeding as they go. | |
Look, how the world’s poor people are amaz’d |
925 |
At apparitions, signs, and prodigies, | |
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz’d, | |
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies; | |
So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath, | |
And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death. | 930 |
‘Hard-favour’d tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean, |
|
Hateful divorce of love,’—thus chides she Death,— | |
‘Grim-grinning ghost, earth’s worm, what dost thou mean | |
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath, | |
Who when he liv’d, his breath and beauty set | 935 |
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet? | |
‘If he be dead, O no! it cannot be, |
|
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it; | |
O yes! it may; thou hast no eyes to see, | |
But hatefully at random dost thou hit. | 940 |
Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart | |
Mistakes that aim and cleaves an infant’s heart. | |
‘Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke, |
|
And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power. | |
The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke; | 945 |
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck’st a flower. | |
Love’s golden arrow at him should have fled, | |
And not Death’s ebon dart, to strike him dead. | |
‘Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok’st such weeping? |
|
What may a heavy groan advantage thee? | 950 |
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping | |
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see? | |
Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour, | |
Since her best work is ruin’d with thy rigour.’ | |
Here overcome, as one full of despair, |
955 |
She vail’d her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp’d | |
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair | |
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp’d; | |
But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain, | |
And with his strong course opens them again. | 960 |
O! how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow; |
|
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye; | |
Both crystals, where they view’d each other’s sorrow, | |
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry; | |
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain, | 965 |
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again. | |
Variable passions throng her constant woe, |
|
As striving who should best become her grief; | |
All entertain’d, each passion labours so, | |
That every present sorrow seemeth chief, | 970 |
But none is best; then join they all together, | |
Like many clouds consulting for foul weather. | |
By this, far off she hears some huntsman holla; |
|
A nurse’s song ne’er pleas’d her babe so well: | |
The dire imagination she did follow | 975 |
This sound of hope doth labour to expel; | |
For now reviving joy bids her rejoice, | |
And flatters her it is Adonis’ voice. | |
Whereat her tears began to turn their tide, |
|
Being prison’d in her eye, like pearls in glass; | 980 |
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside, | |
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass, | |
To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground, | |
Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown’d. | |
O hard-believing love! how strange it seems |
985 |
Not to believe, and yet too credulous; | |
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes; | |
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous: | |
The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely, | |
In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly. | 990 |
Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought, |
|
Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame; | |
It was not she that call’d him all to naught, | |
Now she adds honours to his hateful name; | |
She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings, | 995 |
Imperious supreme of all mortal things. | |
‘No, no,’ quoth she, ‘sweet Death, I did but jest; |
|
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear | |
Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast, | |
Which knows no pity, but is still severe; | 1000 |
Then, gentle shadow,—truth I must confess,— | |
I rail’d on thee, fearing my love’s decease. | |
‘’Tis not my fault: the boar provok’d my tongue; |
|
Be wreak’d on him, invisible commander; | |
’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong; | 1005 |
I did but act, he ’s author of my slander: | |
Grief hath two tongues: and never woman yet, | |
Could rule them both without ten women’s wit.’ | |
Thus hoping that Adonis is alive, |
|
Her rash suspect she doth extenuate; | 1010 |
And that his beauty may the better thrive, | |
With Death she humbly doth insinuate; | |
Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs; and stories | |
His victories, his triumphs, and his glories. | |
‘O Jove!’ quoth she, ‘how much a fool was I, |
1015 |
To be of such a weak and silly mind | |
To wail his death who lives and must not die | |
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind; | |
For he being dead, with him is beauty slain, | |
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again. | 1020 |
‘Fie, fie, fond love! thou art so full of fear |
|
As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves; | |
Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear, | |
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.’ | |
Even at this word she hears a merry horn | 1025 |
Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn. | |
As falcon to the lure, away she flies; |
|
The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light; | |
And in her haste unfortunately spies | |
The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight; | 1030 |
Which seen, her eyes, as murder’d with the view, | |
Like stars asham’d of day, themselves withdrew: | |
Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit, |
|
Shrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain, | |
And there, all smother’d up, in shade doth sit, | 1035 |
Long after fearing to creep forth again; | |
So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled | |
Into the deep dark cabins of her head: | |
Where they resign their office and their light |
|
To the disposing of her troubled brain; | 1040 |
Who bids them still consort with ugly night, | |
And never wound the heart with looks again; | |
Who, like a king perplexed in his throne, | |
By their suggestion gives a deadly groan, | |
Whereat each tributary subject quakes; |
1045 |
As when the wind, imprison’d in the ground, | |
Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes, | |
Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound. | |
This mutiny each part doth so surprise | |
That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes; | 1050 |
And, being open’d, threw unwilling light |
|
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’d | |
In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white | |
With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench’d: | |
No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed, | 1055 |
But stole his blood and seem’d with him to bleed. | |
This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth, |
|
Over one shoulder doth she hang her head, | |
Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth; | |
She thinks he could not die, he is not dead: | 1060 |
Her voice is stopp’d, her joints forget to bow, | |
Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now. | |
Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly, |
|
That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three; | |
And then she reprehends her mangling eye, | 1065 |
That makes more gashes where no breach should be: | |
His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled; | |
For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled. | |
‘My tongue cannot express my grief for one, |
|
And yet,’ quoth she, ‘behold two Adons dead! | 1070 |
My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone, | |
Mine eyes are turn’d to fire, my heart to lead: | |
Heavy heart’s lead, melt at mine eyes’ red fire! | |
So shall I die by drops of hot desire. | |
‘Alas! poor world, what treasure hast thou lost? |
1075 |
What face remains alive that ’s worth the viewing? | |
Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast | |
Of things long since, or anything ensuing? | |
The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim; | |
But true-sweet beauty liv’d and died with him. | 1080 |
‘Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear! |
|
Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you: | |
Having no fair to lose, you need not fear; | |
The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you: | |
But when Adonis liv’d, sun and sharp air | 1085 |
Lurk’d like two thieves, to rob him of his fair: | |
‘And therefore would he put his bonnet on, |
|
Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep; | |
The wind would blow it off, and, being gone, | |
Play with his locks: then would Adonis weep; | 1090 |
And straight, in pity of his tender years, | |
They both would strive who first should dry his tears. | |
‘To see his face the lion walk’d along |
|
Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him; | |
To recreate himself when he hath sung, | 1095 |
The tiger would be tame and gently hear him; | |
If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey, | |
And never fright the silly lamb that day. | |
‘When he beheld his shadow in the brook, |
|
The fishes spread on it their golden gills; | 1100 |
When he was by, the birds such pleasure took, | |
That some would sing, some other in their bills | |
Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries; | |
He fed them with his sight, they him with berries. | |
‘But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar, |
1105 |
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave, | |
Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore; | |
Witness the entertainment that he gave: | |
If he did see his face, why then I know | |
He thought to kiss him, and hath kill’d him so. | 1110 |
‘’Tis true, ’tis true; thus was Adonis slain: |
|
He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear, | |
Who did not whet his teeth at him again, | |
But by a kiss thought to persuade him there; | |
And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine | 1115 |
Sheath’d unaware the tusk in his soft groin. | |
‘Had I been tooth’d like him, I must confess, |
|
With kissing him I should have kill’d him first; | |
But he is dead, and never did he bless | |
My youth with his; the more am I accurst.’ | 1120 |
With this she falleth in the place she stood, | |
And stains her face with his congealed blood. | |
She looks upon his lips, and they are pale; |
|
She takes him by the hand, and that is cold; | |
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale, | 1125 |
As if they heard the woeful words she told; | |
She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes, | |
Where, lo! two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies; | |
Two glasses where herself herself beheld |
|
A thousand times, and now no more reflect; | 1130 |
Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell’d, | |
And every beauty robb’d of his effect: | |
‘Wonder of time,’ quoth she, ‘this is my spite, | |
That, you being dead, the day should yet be light. | |
‘Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy, |
1135 |
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend: | |
It shall be waited on with jealousy, | |
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end; | |
Ne’er settled equally, but high or low; | |
That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe. | 1140 |
‘It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud, |
|
Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while; | |
The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d | |
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile: | |
The strongest body shall it make most weak, | 1145 |
Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak. | |
‘It shall be sparing and too full of riot, |
|
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures; | |
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet, | |
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures; | 1150 |
It shall be raging mad, and silly mild, | |
Make the young old, the old become a child. | |
‘It shall suspect where is no cause of fear; |
|
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust; | |
It shall be merciful, and too severe, | 1155 |
And most deceiving when it seems most just; | |
Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward, | |
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward. | |
‘It shall be cause of war and dire events, |
|
And set dissension ’twixt the son and sire; | 1160 |
Subject and servile to all discontents, | |
As dry combustious matter is to fire: | |
Sith in his prime Death doth my love destroy, | |
They that love best their love shall not enjoy.’ | |
By this, the boy that by her side lay kill’d |
1165 |
Was melted like a vapour from her sight, | |
And in his blood that on the ground lay spill’d, | |
A purple flower sprung up, chequer’d with white; | |
Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood | |
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood. | 1170 |
She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell, |
|
Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath; | |
And says within her bosom it shall dwell, | |
Since he himself is reft from her by death: | |
She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears | 1175 |
Green dropping sap, which she compares to tears. | |
‘Poor flower,’ quoth she, ‘this was thy father’s guise, |
|
Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire | |
For every little grief to wet his eyes: | |
To grow unto himself was his desire, | 1180 |
And so ’tis thine; but know, it is as good | |
To wither in my breast as in his blood. | |
‘Here was thy father’s bed, here in my breast; |
|
Thou art the next of blood, and ’tis thy right: | |
Lo! in this hollow cradle take thy rest, | 1185 |
My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night: | |
There shall not be one minute in an hour | |
Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love’s flower.’ | |
Thus weary of the world, away she hies, |
|
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid | 1190 |
Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies | |
In her light chariot quickly is convey’d; | |
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen | |
Means to immure herself and not be seen. |