HISTORY: Green,History of the English People, vols. iii, iv; Knight,Popular History of England, vols. iii, iv, v; Gardiner,The First Two Stuarts, and the Puritan Revolution; Hale,Fall of the Stuarts, and Western Europe; Green,Short History of the English People; Ransome,A Short History of England; Montgomery,English History.
BIOGRAPHY: Lives of Dryden in the editions of his Works by Scott, Malone, Christie; Johnson,Dryden (Lives of the Poets); Saintsbury,Dryden (English Men of Letters).
CRITICISM: Mitchell,English Lands, Letters, and Kings (Elizabeth to Anne); Gosse,From Shakespeare to Pope; Lowell,Dryden (Among my Books); Garnett,The Age of Dryden; Masson,Dryden and the Literature of the Restoration (Three Devils); Hamilton,The Poets Laureate of England; Hazlitt,On Dryden and Pope.
ROMANCE: Scott,Woodstock, Peveril of the Peak; Defoe,The Plague in London.
MYTHOLOGY: Bulfinch,Age of Fable; Gayley,Classic Myths in English Literature; Smith,Classical Dictionary.
Dryden's Life. History. English Literature.1631, Born Aug. 9th. 1631, Herbert, Temple.1632, Milton, L'Allegroand II Penseroso.1633. Birth of Prince James.1633, Massinger, New Wayto Pay Old Debts.Ford, Broken Heart.Prynne, Histrio-mastix1634. First Ship-money Writ.1634, Fletcher, Purple Island.Cowley, Poetical Blossoms.Milton, Comus.1635. Second Ship-money Writ.1635, Quarles, Emblems.1636, Sandys,Paraphrase of thePsalms.1637, Riot in Edinburgh.1637, Milton, Lycidas.1638, Scottish National Covenant.Judgment against John Hampden.1639. First Bishops' War.1640. Short Parliament.1640, Suckling,Ballad of a Wedding.Second Bishops' War.Carew, Poems.Long Parliament assembled.1641. Execution of Strafford.Constitutional1641, Milton,Smectymnuus Tracts,Reforms. DebateClarendon begins History ofon Grand Remonstrance.Civil War.1642. Committee of Public Safety.1642, Fuller, Holyand Profane State.Battle of Edgehill.Theaters closed. Browne,Religio Medici.
1643. Westminster Assembly. Solemn1643, Denham,Cooper's Hill.League and Covenant takenby House.1644. Scotch Army crosses Tweed.1644, Milton,Doctrine andDisciplineRoyalist defeatat Marston of Divorce,Areopagitica, OnMoor. Education.1645. Laud beheaded. 1645, Waller,Poems, lst edition.Royalists crushedat Naseby.1646, Charles surrenderedto Scots.1646, Crashaw,Steps to theTemple. Browne,Vulgar Errors.1647, Charles surrenderedby Scots. Army inpossession of London.Charles' flight fromHampton Court.1647, Cowley, TheMistress.1648, Second Civil War.Pride's Purge.1648, Herrick,Hesperides.Noble Numbers.1649, Poem on Death of Lord Hastings.1649, Charles beheaded.Cromwell subdues Ireland.1649, Lovelace,Lucasta. Gauden,Eikon Basilike.Milton,Eikonoklastes.1650, Entered Trinity, Cambridge.1650, Battle of Dunbar.1650, Baxter,Saints' EverlastingRest. Taylor, HolyLiving.1651, Cromwell wins atWorcester.1651, Davenant,Gondibert. Taylor,Holy Dying.Hobbes, Leviathan.1652, Punished for disobedience, Cambridge.1653, Cromwell dissolvesLong Parliament.Barebones Parliament.Made Lord Protector byLittle Parliament.1653, Walton,Compleat Angler,1654, Father died. Received B.A. from Cambridge.1654, First ProtectorateParliament, Dutch routedon the sea.1655. Yreaty with France.Jamaica seized from Spain.1656. Second ProtectorateParliament.1656, Cowley,Works, lst edition.Davenant, Siege ofRhodes.1657. Left Cambridge. Attached to Sir Gilbert Pickering.1658. Heroic Stanzas on Cromwell's Death.1658, Dunkirk seized fromSpain. Cromwell dies. Hisson Richard succeeds.1659, Richard Cromwell resigns.Long Parliament restored.Military government.1660, Astraea Redux.1660, Long Parliament againrestored.Declaration of Breda.Convention Parliament.Restoration Charles II.1660, Milton,Ready and Easy Wayto Establish aFree Commonwealth.Pepys, Diary begun.1661, Panegyric on Coronation.1661, Meeting of CavalierParliament. Corporation Act.1662, Poem to Lord Clarendon.1662, Act of Uniformity.Dissenting ministers expelled.Royal Society founded. Kingdeclares for Toleration. Dunkirksold to France.1662, Fuller,Worthies ofEngland.1663, Married Lady Elizabeth Howard. Poem to Dr. Charleton. Wild Gallant.1663, Butler,Hudibras.1664. Reference in Pepys to 'Dryden, the poet.'1664, Repeal of Triennial Act.Conventicle Act.1664, Etheridge, Comical Revenge. Evelyn, Sylva.1665, Poem to the Duchess of York. Indian Emperor.Poem to Lady Castlemaine.Left London for Charleton.1665, First Dutch War ofRestoration. Great Plague.Five-Mile Act.1665, Dorset,Song at Sea.1666, Essay on Dramatic Poesy. Son Charles born.1666, Great Fire.1667, Annus Mirabilis. Maiden Queen. Sir Martin Marall. Tempest.1667, Dutch blockade Thames.Peace of Breda. Clarendon's Fall.1667, Milton,Paradise Lost.1668, Mock Astrologer. Son John born.1668, Etheridge,She Would if SheCould. Sedley, AMulberry Garden.1669. Tyrannic Love. Son Erasmus born.1669, Pepys, Diarycloses. Shadwell,The Royal Shepherdess.Penn, No Cross, noCrown.1670, Conquest of Granada. Appointed Poet Laureate andHistoriographer Royal.Mother died.1670, Treaty of Dover.1670, Shadwell,Sullen Lovers.1671, Buckingham, Rehearsal. Milton, Paradise Regained. Samson Agonistes.1672. Marriage à la Mode.1672, Second Dutch Warof Restoration. Declarationof Indulgence.1673. Assignation, Amboyna.1673, Test Act. Shaftesbury dismissed.1673, Settle, Empress of Morocco.1674, A State of Innocence.1675. Aurengzebe.1678, All for Love, Limberham.1679. OEdipus. Additional Pensionof One HundredPounds. Troilus andCressida. Cudgeled inRose Alley.1680. Ovid's Heroides.1681, Spanish Friar. Absalomand Achitophel, Part I.1682. The Medal, MacFlecnoe,Absalom and Achitophel,Part II. ReligioLaici.1683. Collector of Customs at thePort of London.1684. Miscellanies, vol. i. TranslatesMaimbourg's Historyof League.1685. Miscellanies, vol. ii. Albionand Albanius.Threnodia Augustalis.1686. Ode on Memory of Mrs.Killegrew.1687. Hind and the Panther.St. Cecilia Ode.
1674, Peace with the Dutch.1675, Non-resistance Bill rejected.1677, Marriage of William and Mary.1678, Peace of Nymwegen.Popish plot.1679, Habeas Corpus Act. DissolutionCavalier Parliament.First Short Parliament.1680, Second Short Parliament.1681, Third Short Parliament.Tory Reaction.1682, Flight of Shaftesbury.1683, London City forfeits Charter.Rye House Plot.Russell and Sydney executed.1685, Death of Charles II. Accessionof James II.Prorogation of Parliament.Meeting of Parliament.Battle of Edgemore.Bloody Assizes.1686, Judges allowed King's DispensingPower.1687, First Declaration of Indulgence.English Literature.1675, Mulgrave, Essay on Satire.1676, Etheridge, The Man of Mode.1677, Crowne, Destruction of Jerusalem.Behn, The Rover.Wycherley, Plain Dealer.1678, Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress.Rymer, Tragedies of the Last Age.1679, Oldham, Satires upon the Jesuits.1680, Otway, The Orphan.1681, Marvell, Poems.Roscommon, Essay on TranslatedVerse.1682, Otway, Venice Preserved.1687, Newton, Principia.Prior and Montague, CountryMouse and City Mouse.1688, Britannia Rediviva.1688, Second Declaration of Indulgence. Bishops sent to Tower.Birth of Prince of Wales. William and Mary invited to take English Throne.William lands at Torbay. James flees.1689, Lost his offices and pensions.1689, William and Mary crowned. Toleration Act. Bill of Rights.Grand Alliance. Jacobite Rebellion.1689, Locke, Letters on Toleration, Treatise on Government.1690, Don Sebastian. Amphitryon.1690, Battle of the Boyne.1690, Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding.1691, King Arthur1691, Treaty of Limerick.1691, Langbane, Account of English Dramatic Poets. Rochester, Poems.1692, Eleonora, Cleomines.1692, Massacre of Glencoe. Churchill deprived of office.1692, Dennis, The Impartial Critick.1693, Miscellanies, vol. iii. Perseus and Juvenal.1693, Beginning of National Debt.1693, Congreve, Old Bachelor.1694, Miscellanies, vol. iv.1694, Bank of England established. Death of Queen Mary.1694, Southern, The Fatal Marriage. Addison, Account of GreatestEnglish Poets. Congreve, Double Dealer.1695, Poems to Kneller and Congreve. Fresnoy's Art of Painting.1695, Censorship of Press removed.1695, Congreve, Love for Love. Blackmore, Prince Arthur.1696, Life of Lucian.1696, Trials for Treason Act.1696, Southern, Oroonoko.1697, Virgil, Alexander's Feast composed.1697, Peace of Ryswick.1697, Congreve, Mourning Bride. Vanbrugh, The Relapse.1698, Partition Treaties.1698, Swift begins Battle of Books. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle.Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife. Collier, Short View of the Immoralityand Profaneness of the English Stage.1700, Fables. Died May 1st.1700, Severe Acts against Roman Catholics.1700, Congreve, Way of the World. Prior, Carmen Seculare.
The bard who first adorned our native tongueTuned to his British lyre this ancient song;Which Homer might without a blush reherse,And leaves a doubtful palm in Virgil's verse:He matched their beauties, where they most excel;Of love sung better, and of-arms as well.Vouchsafe, illustrious Ormond, to beholdWhat power the charms of beauty had of old;Nor wonder if such deeds of arms were done,Inspired by two fair eyes that sparkled like your own.If Chaucer by the best idea wrought,And poets can divine each other's thought,The fairest nymph before his eyes he set;And then the fairest was Plantagenet,Who three contending princes made her prize,And ruled the rival nations with her eyes;Who left immortal trophies of her fame,And to the noblest order gave the name.Like her, of equal kindred to the throne,You keep her conquests, and extend your own:As when the stars, in their etherial race,At length have rolled around the liquid space,At certain periods they resume their place,From the same point of heaven their course advance,And move in measures of their former dance;Thus, after length of ages, she returns,Restored in you, and the same place adorns:Or you perform her office in the sphere,Born of her blood, and make a new Platonic year.O true Plantagenet, O race divine,(For beauty still is fatal to the line,)Had Chaucer lived that angel-face to view,Sure he had drawn his Emily from you;Or had you lived to judge the doubtful right,Your noble Palamon had been the knight;And conquering Theseus from his side had sentYour generous lord, to guide the Theban government.Time shall accomplish that; and I shall seeA Palamon in him, in you an Emily.Already have the Fates your path prepared,And sure presage your future sway declared:When westward, like the sun, you took your way,And from benighted Britain bore the day,Blue Triton gave the signal from the shore,The ready Nereids heard, and swam beforeTo smooth the seas; a soft Etesian galeBut just inspired, and gently swelled the sail;Portunus took his turn, whose ample handHeaved up the lightened keel, and sunk the sand,And steered the sacred vessel safe to land.The land, if not restrained, had met your way,Projected out a neck, and jutted to the sea.Hibernia, prostrate at your feet, adoredIn you the pledge of her expected lord,Due to her isle; a venerable name;His father and his grandsire known to fame;Awed by that house, accustomed to command,The sturdy kerns in due subjection stand,Nor bear the reins in any foreign hand.At your approach, they crowded to the port;And scarcely landed, you create a court:As Ormond's harbinger, to you they run,For Venus is the promise of the Sun.The waste of civil wars, their towns destroyed,Pales unhonoured, Ceres unemployed,Were all forgot; and one triumphant dayWiped all the tears of three campaigns away.Blood, rapines, massacres, were cheaply bought,So mighty recompense your beauty brought.As when the dove returning bore the markOf earth restored to the long-labouring ark,The relics of mankind, secure of rest,Oped every window to receive the guest,And the fair bearer of the message blessed:So, when you came, with loud repeated cries,The nation took an omen from your eyes,And God advanced his rainbow in the skies,To sign inviolable peace restored;The saints with solemn shouts proclaimed the new accord.When at your second coming you appear,(For I foretell that millenary year)The sharpened share shall vex the soil no more,But earth unbidden shall produce her store;The land shall laugh, the circling ocean smile,And Heaven's indulgence bless the holy isle.Heaven from all ages has reserved for youThat happy clime, which venom never knew;Or if it had been there, your eyes aloneHave power to chase all poison, but their own.Now in this interval, which Fate has castBetwixt your future glories and your past,This pause of power, 'tis Ireland's hour to mourn;While England celebrates your safe return,By which you seem the seasons to command,And bring our summers back to their forsaken land.The vanquished isle our leisure must attend,Till the fair blessing we vouchsafe to send;Nor can we spare you long, though often we may lend.The dove was twice employed abroad, beforeThe world was dried, and she returned no more.Nor dare we trust so soft a messenger,New from her sickness, to that northern air;Rest here awhile your lustre to restore,That they may see you, as you shone before;For yet, the eclipse not wholly past, you wadeThrough some remains and dimness of a shade.A subject in his prince may claim a right,Nor suffer him with strength impaired to fight;Till force returns, his ardour we restrain,And curb his warlike wish to cross the main.Now past the danger, let the learned beginThe inquiry, where disease could enter in;How those malignant atoms forced their way,What in the faultless frame they found to make their prey,Where every element was weighed so well,That Heaven alone, who mixed the mass, could tellWhich of the four ingredients could rebel;And where, imprisoned in so sweet a cage,A soul might well be pleased to pass an age.And yet the fine materials made it weak;Porcelain by being pure is apt to break.Even to your breast the sickness durst aspire,And forced from that fair temple to retire,Profanely set the holy place on fire.In vain your lord, like young Vespasian, mourned,When the fierce flames the sanctuary burned;And I prepared to pay in verses rudeA most detested act of gratitude:Even this had been your Elegy, which nowIs offered for your health, the table of my vow.Your angel sure our Morley's mind inspired,To find the remedy your ill required;As once the Macedon, by Jove's decree,Was taught to dream an herb for Ptolemy:Or Heaven, which had such over-cost bestowedAs scarce it could afford to flesh and blood,So liked the frame, he would not work anew,To save the charges of another you;Or by his middle science did he steer,And saw some great contingent good appear,Well worth a miracle to keep you here,And for that end preserved the precious mould,Which all the future Ormonds was to hold;And meditated, in his better mind,An heir from you who may redeem the failing kind.Blessed be the power which has at once restoredThe hopes of lost succession to your lord;Joy to the first and last of each degree,Virtue to courts, and, what I longed to see,To you the Graces, and the Muse to me.O daughter of the Rose, whose cheeks uniteThe differing titles of the Red and White;Who heaven's alternate beauty well display,The blush of morning and the milky way;Whose face is Paradise, but fenced from sin;For God in either eye has placed a cherubin.All is your lord's alone; even absent, heEmploys the care of chaste Penelope.For him you waste in tears your widowed hours,For him your curious needle paints the flowers;Such works of old imperial dames were taught,Such for Ascanius fair Elisa wrought.The soft recesses of your hours improveThe three fair pledges of your happy love:All other parts of pious duty done,You owe your Ormond nothing but a son,To fill in future times his father's place,And wear the garter of his mother's race.
In days of old there lived, of mighty fame,A valiant Prince, and Theseus was his name;A chief, who more in feats of arms excelled,The rising nor the setting sun beheld.Of Athens he was lord; much land he won,And added foreign countries to his crown.In Scythia with the warrior Queen he strove,Whom first by force he conquered, then by love;He brought in triumph back the beauteous dame,With whom her sister, fair Emilia, came.With honour to his home let Theseus ride,With Love to friend, and Fortune for his guide,And his victorious army at his side.I pass their warlike pomp, their proud array,Their shouts, their songs, their welcome on the way;But, were it not too long, I would reciteThe feats of Amazons, the fatal fightBetwixt the hardy Queen and hero Knight;The town besieged, and how much blood it costThe female army, and the Athenian host;The spousals of Hippolyta the Queen;What tilts and turneys at the feast were seen;The storm at their return, the ladies' fear:But these and other things I must forbear.The field is spacious I design to sowWith oxen far unfit to draw the plough:The remnant of my tale is of a lengthTo tire your patience, and to waste my strength;And trivial accidents shall be forborn,That others may have time to take their turn,As was at first enjoined us by mine host,That he, whose tale is best and pleases most,Should win his supper at our common cost.And therefore where I left, I will pursueThis ancient story, whether false or true,In hope it may be mended with a new.The Prince I mentioned, full of high renown,In this array drew near the Athenian town;When, in his pomp and utmost of his prideMarching, he chanced to cast his eye aside,And saw a quire of mourning dames, who layBy two and two across the common way:At his approach they raised a rueful cry,And beat their breasts, and held their hands on high,Creeping and crying, till they seized at lastHis courser's bridle and his feet embraced."Tell me," said Theseus, "what and whence you are,"And why this funeral pageant you prepare?Is this the welcome of my worthy deeds,To meet my triumph in ill-omened weeds?Or envy you my praise, and would destroyWith grief my pleasures, and pollute my joy?Or are you injured, and demand relief?Name your request, and I will ease your grief."The most in years of all the mourning trainBegan; but swounded first away for pain;Then scarce recovered spoke: "Nor envy we"Thy great renown, nor grudge thy victory;'Tis thine, O King, the afflicted to redress,And fame has filled the world with thy success:We wretched women sue for that alone,Which of thy goodness is refused to none;Let fall some drops of pity on our grief,If what we beg be just, and we deserve relief;For none of us, who now thy grace implore,But held the rank of sovereign queen before;Till, thanks to giddy Chance, which never bearsThat mortal bliss should last for length of years,She cast us headlong from our high estate,And here in hope of thy return we wait,And long have waited in the temple nigh,Built to the gracious goddess Clemency.But reverence thou the power whose name it bears,Relieve the oppressed, and wipe the widows' tears.I, wretched I, have other fortune seen,The wife of Capaneus, and once a Queen;At Thebes he fell; cursed be the fatal day!And all the rest thou seest in this arrayTo make their moan their lords in battle lost,Before that town besieged by our confederate host.But Creon, old and impious, who commandsThe Theban city, and usurps the lands,Denies the rites of funeral fires to thoseWhose breathless bodies yet he calls his foes.Unburned, unburied, on a heap they lie;Such is their fate, and such his tyranny;No friend has leave to bear away the dead,But with their lifeless limbs his hounds are fed."At this she shrieked aloud; the mournful trainEchoed her grief, and grovelling on the plain,With groans, and hands upheld, to move his mind,Besought his pity to their helpless kind.The Prince was touched, his tears began to flow,And, as his tender heart would break in two,He sighed; and could not but their fate deplore,So wretched now, so fortunate before.Then lightly from his lofty steed he flew,And raising one by one the suppliant crew,To comfort each, full solemnly he swore,That by the faith which knights to knighthood bore,And whate'er else to chivalry belongs,He would not cease, till he revenged their wrongs;That Greece should see performed what he declared,And cruel Creon find his just reward.He said no more, but shunning all delayRode on, nor entered Athens on his way;But left his sister and his queen behind,And waved his royal banner in the wind,Where in an argent field the God of WarWas drawn triumphant on his iron car.Red was his sword, and shield, and whole attire,And all the godhead seemed to glow with fire;Even the ground glittered where the standard flew,And the green grass was dyed to sanguine hue.High on his pointed lance his pennon boreHis Cretan fight, the conquered Minotaur:The soldiers shout around with generous rage,And in that victory their own presage.He praised their ardour, inly pleased to seeHis host, the flower of Grecian chivalry.All day he marched, and all the ensuing night,And saw the city with returning light.The process of the war I need not tell,How Theseus conquered, and how Creon fell;Or after, how by storm the walls were won,Or how the victor sacked and burned the town;How to the ladies he restored againThe bodies of their lords in battle slain;And with what ancient rites they were interred;All these to fitter time shall be deferred:I spare the widows' tears, their woful cries,And howling at their husbands' obsequies;How Theseus at these funerals did assist,And with what gifts the mourning dames dismissed.Thus when the victor chief had Creon slain,And conquered Thebes, he pitched upon the plainHis mighty camp, and when the day returned,The country wasted and the hamlets burned,And left the pillagers, to rapine bred,Without control to strip and spoil the dead.There, in a heap of slain, among the restTwo youthful knights they found beneath a load oppressedOf slaughtered foes, whom first to death they sent,The trophies of their strength, a bloody monument.Both fair, and both of royal blood they seemed,Whom kinsmen to the crown the heralds deemed;That day in equal arms they fought for fame;Their swords, their shields, their surcoats were the same:Close by each other laid they pressed the ground,Their manly bosoms pierced with many a grisly wound;Nor well alive nor wholly dead they were,But some faint signs of feeble life appear;The wandering breath was on the wing to part,Weak was the pulse, and hardly heaved the heart.These two were sisters' sons; and Arcite one,Much famed in fields, with valiant Palamon.From these their costly arms the spoilers rent,And softly both conveyed to Theseus' tent:Whom, known of Creon's line and cured with care,He to his city sent as prisoners of the war;Hopeless of ransom, and condemned to lieIn durance, doomed a lingering death to die.This done, he marched away with warlike sound,And to his Athens turned with laurels crowned,Where happy long he lived, much loved, and more renowned.But in a tower, and never to be loosed,The woful captive kinsmen are enclosed.Thus year by year they pass, and day by day,Till once ('twas on the morn of cheerful May)The young Emilia, fairer to be seenThan the fair lily on the flowery green,More fresh than May herself in blossoms new,(For with the rosy colour strove her hue,)Waked, as her custom was, before the day,To do the observance due to sprightly May;For sprightly May commands our youth to keepThe vigils of her night, and breaks their sluggard sleep;Each gentle breast with kindly warmth she moves;Inspires new flames, revives extinguished loves.In this remembrance Emily ere dayArose, and dressed herself in rich array;Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair,Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair:A ribband did the braided tresses bind,The rest was loose, and wantoned in the wind:Aurora had but newly chased the night,And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light,When to the garden-walk she took her way,To sport and trip along in cool of day,And offer maiden vows in honour of the May. 190At every turn she made a little stand,And thrust among the thorns her lily handTo draw the rose; and every rose she drew,She shook the stalk, and brushed away the dew;Then party-coloured flowers of white and redShe wove, to make a garland for her head:This done, she sung and carolled out so clear,That men and angels might rejoice to hear;Even wondering Philomel forgot to sing,And learned from her to welcome in the spring.The tower, of which before was mention made,Within whose keep the captive knights were laid,Built of a large extent, and strong withal,Was one partition of the palace wall;The garden was enclosed within the square,Where young Emilia took the morning air.It happened Palamon, the prisoner knight,Restless for woe, arose before the light,And with his jailor's leave desired to breatheAn air more wholesome than the damps beneath.This granted, to the tower he took his way,Cheered with the promise of a glorious day;Then cast a languishing regard around,And saw with hateful eyes the temples crownedWith golden spires, and all the hostile ground.He sighed, and turned his eyes, because he knew'Twas but a larger jail he had in view;Then looked below, and from the castle's heightBeheld a nearer and more pleasing sight;The garden, which before he had not seen,In spring's new livery clad of white and green,Fresh flowers in wide parterres, and shady walks between.This viewed, but not enjoyed, with arms acrossHe stood, reflecting on his country's loss;Himself an object of the public scorn,And often wished he never had been born.At last (for so his destiny required),With walking giddy, and with thinking tired,He through a little window cast his sight,Though thick of bars, that gave a scanty light;But even that glimmering served him to descryThe inevitable charms of Emily.Scarce had he seen, but, seized with sudden smart,Stung to the quick, he felt it at his heart;Struck blind with overpowering light he stood,Then started back amazed, and cried aloud.Young Arcite heard; and up he ran with haste,To help his friend, and in his arms embraced;And asked him why he looked so deadly wan,And whence, and how, his change of cheer began?Or who had done the offence? "But if," said he,"Your grief alone is hard captivity,For love of Heaven with patience undergoA cureless ill, since Fate will have it so:So stood our horoscope in chains to lie,And Saturn in the dungeon of the sky,Or other baleful aspect, ruled our birth,When all the friendly stars were under earth;Whate'er betides, by Destiny 'tis done;And better bear like men than vainly seek to shun."Nor of my bonds," said Palamon again,Nor of unhappy planets I complain;But when my mortal anguish caused my cry,The moment I was hurt through either eye;Pierced with a random shaft, I faint away,And perish with insensible decay:A glance of some new goddess gave the wound,Whom, like Actaeon, unaware I found.Look how she walks along yon shady space;Not Juno moves with more majestic grace,And all the Cyprian queen is in her face.If thou art Venus (for thy charms confessThat face was formed in heaven), nor art thou less,Disguised in habit, undisguised in shape,O help us captives from our chains to scape!But if our doom be past in bonds to lieFor life, and in a loathsome dungeon die,Then be thy wrath appeased with our disgrace,And show compassion to the Theban race,Oppressed by tyrant power!"—While yet he spoke,Arcite on Emily had fixed his look;The fatal dart a ready passage foundAnd deep within his heart infixed the wound:So that if Palamon were wounded sore,Arcite was hurt as much as he or more:Then from his inmost soul he sighed, and said,"The beauty I behold has struck me dead:Unknowingly she strikes, and kills by chance;Poison is in her eyes, and death in every glance.Oh, I must ask; nor ask alone, but moveHer mind to mercy, or must die for love."Thus Arcite: and thus Palamon replies(Eager his tone, and ardent were his eyes,)"Speakest thou in earnest, or in jesting vein?""Jesting," said Arcite, "suits but ill with pain.""It suits far worse," (said Palamon again,And bent his brows,) "with men who honour weigh,Their faith to break, their friendship to betray;But worst with thee, of noble lineage born,My kinsman, and in arms my brother sworn.Have we not plighted each our holy oath,That one should be the common good of both;One soul should both inspire, and neither proveHis fellow's hindrance in pursuit of love?To this before the Gods we gave our hands,And nothing but our death can break the bands.This binds thee, then, to farther my design,As I am bound by vow to farther thine:Nor canst, nor darest thou, traitor, on the plainAppeach my honour, or thy own maintain,Since thou art of my council, and the friendWhose faith I trust, and on whose care depend.And wouldst thou court my lady's love, which IMuch rather than release, would choose to die?But thou, false Arcite, never shalt obtain,Thy bad pretence; I told thee first my pain:For first my love began ere thine was born;Thou as my council, and my brother sworn,Art bound to assist my eldership of right,Or justly to be deemed a perjured knight."Thus Palamon: but Arcite with disdainIn haughty language thus replied again:"Forsworn thyself: the traitor's odious nameI first return, and then disprove thy claim.If love be passion, and that passion nurstWith strong desires, I loved the lady first.Canst thou pretend desire, whom zeal inflamedTo worship, and a power celestial named?Thine was devotion to the blest above,I saw the woman, and desired her love;First owned my passion, and to thee commendThe important secret, as my chosen friend.Suppose (which yet I grant not) thy desireA moment elder than my rival fire;Can chance of seeing first thy title prove?And knowst thou not, no law is made for love?Law is to things which to free choice relate;Love is not in our choice, but in our fate;Laws are not positive; love's power we seeIs Nature's sanction, and her first decree,Each day we break the bond of human lawsFor love, and vindicate the common cause.Laws for defence of civil rights are placed,Love throws the fences down, and makes a general waste.Maids, widows, wives without distinction fall;The sweeping deluge, love, comes on and covers all.If then the laws of friendship I transgress,I keep the greater, while I break the less;And both are mad alike, since neither can possess.Both hopeless to be ransomed, never moreTo see the sun, but as he passes o'er.Like Æsop's hounds contending for the bone,Each pleaded right, and would be lord alone;The fruitless fight continued all the day,A cur came by and snatched the prize away.As courtiers therefore justle for a grant,And when they break their friendship, plead their want,So thou, if Fortune will thy suit advance,Love on, nor envy me my equal chance:For I must love, and am resolved to tryMy fate, or failing in the adventure die."Great was their strife, which hourly was renewed,Till each with mortal hate his rival viewed:Now friends no more, nor walking hand in hand;But when they met they made a surly stand,And glared like Angry lions as they passed,And wished that every look might be their last.It chanced at length, Pirithous came to attendThis worthy Theseus, his familiar friend:Their love in early infancy began,And rose as childhood ripened into man,Companions of the war; and loved so well,That when one died, as ancient stories tell,His fellow to redeem him went to hell.But to pursue my tale: to welcome homeHis warlike brother is Pirithous come:Arcite of Thebes was known in arms long since,And honoured by this young Thessalian prince.Theseus, to gratify his friend and guest,Who made our Arcite's freedom his request,Restored to liberty the captive knight,But on these hard conditions I recite:That if hereafter Arcite should be foundWithin the compass of Athenian ground,By day or night, or on whate'er pretence,His head should pay the forfeit of the offence.To this Pirithous for his friend agreed,And on his promise was the prisoner freed.Unpleased and pensive hence he takes his way,At his own peril; for his life must pay.Who now but Arcite mourns his bitter fate,Finds his dear purchase, and repents too late?"What have I gained," he said, "in prison pent,If I but change my bonds for banishment?And banished from her sight, I suffer moreIn freedom than I felt in bonds before;Forced from her presence and condemned to live,Unwelcome freedom and unthanked reprieve:Heaven is not but where Emily abides,And where she's absent, all is hell besides.Next to my day of birth, was that accurstWhich bound my friendship to Pirithous first:Had I not known that prince, I still had beenIn bondage and had still Emilia seen:For though I never can her grace deserve,'Tis recompense enough to see and serve.O Palamon, my kinsman and my friend,How much more happy fates thy love attend IThine is the adventure, thine the victory,Well has thy fortune turned the dice for thee:Thou on that angel's face mayest feed thy eyes,In prison, no; but blissful paradise!Thou daily seest that sun of beauty shine,And lovest at least in love's extremest line.I mourn in absence, love's eternal night;And who can tell but since thou hast her sight,And art a comely, young, and valiant knight,Fortune (a various power) may cease to frown,And by some ways unknown thy wishes crown?But I, the most forlorn of human kind,Nor help can hope nor remedy can find;But doomed to drag my loathsome life in care,For my reward, must end it in despair.Fire, water, air, and earth, and force of fatesThat governs all, and Heaven that all creates,Nor art, nor Nature's hand can ease my grief;Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief:Then farewell youth, and all the joys that dwellWith youth and life, and life itself, farewell!But why, alas! do mortal men in vainOf Fortune, Fate, or Providence complain?God gives us what he knows our wants require,And better things than those which we desire:Some pray for riches; riches they obtain;But, watched by robbers, for their wealth are slain;Some pray from prison to be freed; and come,When guilty of their vows, to fall at home;Murdered by those they trusted with their life,A favoured servant or a bosom wife.Such dear-bought blessings happen every day,Because we know not for what things to pray.Like drunken sots about the streets we roam:"Well knows the sot he has a certain home,Yet knows not how to find the uncertain place,And blunders on and staggers every pace.Thus all seek happiness; but few can find,For far the greater part of men are blind.This is my case, who thought our utmost goodWas in one word of freedom understood:The fatal blessing came: from prison free,I starve abroad, and lose the sight of Emily."Thus Arcite: but if Arcite thus deploreHis sufferings, Palamon yet suffers more.For when he knew his rival freed and gone,He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous moan;He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground;The hollow tower with clamours rings around:With briny tears he bathed his fettered feet,And dropped all o'er with agony of sweat."Alas!" he cried, "I, wretch, in prison pine,Too happy rival, while the fruit is thine:Thou livest at large, thou drawest thy native air,Pleased with thy freedom, proud of my despair:Thou mayest, since thou hast youth and courage joined,A sweet behaviour and a solid mind,Assemble ours, and all the Theban race,To vindicate on Athens thy disgrace;And after (by some treaty made) possessFair Emily, the pledge of lasting peace.So thine shall be the beauteous prize, while IMust languish in despair, in prison die.Thus all the advantage of the strife is thine,Thy portion double joys, and double sorrows mine."The rage of jealousy then fired his soul,And his face kindled like a burning coalNow cold despair, succeeding in her stead,To livid paleness turns the glowing red.His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within his veins,Like water which the freezing wind constrains.Then thus he said: "Eternal Deities,"Who rule the world with absolute decrees,And write whatever time shall bring to passWith pens of adamant on plates of brass;What is the race of human kind your careBeyond what all his fellow-creatures are?He with the rest is liable to pain,And like the sheep, his brother-beast, is slain.Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure,All these he must, and guiltless oft, endure;Or does your justice, power, or prescience fail,When the good suffer and the bad prevail?What worse to wretched virtue could befal,If Fate or giddy Fortune governed all?Nay, worse than other beasts is our estate:Them, to pursue their pleasures, you create;We, bound by harder laws, must curb our will,And your commands, not our desires, fulfil:Then, when the creature is unjustly slain,Yet, after death at least, he feels no pain;But man in life surcharged with woe before,Not freed when dead, is doomed to suffer more.A serpent shoots his sting at unaware;An ambushed thief forelays a traveller;The man lies murdered, while the thief and snake,One gains the thickets, and one thrids the brake.This let divines decide; but well I know,Just or unjust, I have my share of woe,Through Saturn seated in a luckless place,And Juno's wrath that persecutes my race;Or Mars and Venus in a quartil, moveMy pangs of jealousy for Arcite's love."Let Palamon oppressed in bondage mourn,While to his exited rival we return.By this the sun, declining from his height,The day had shortened to prolong the night:The lengthened night gave length of misery,Both to the captive lover and the free:For Palamon in endless prison mourns,And Arcite forfeits life if he returns;The banished never hopes his love to see,Nor hopes the captive lord his liberty.'Tis hard to say who suffers greater pains;One sees his love, but cannot break his chains;One free, and all his motions uncontrolled,Beholds whate'er he would but what he would behold.Judge as you please, for I will haste to tellWhat fortune to the banished knight befel.When Arcite was to Thebes returned again,The loss of her he loved renewed his pain;What could be worse than never more to seeHis life, his soul, his charming Emily?He raved with all the madness of despair,He roared, he beat his breast, he tore his hair.Dry sorrow in his stupid eyes appears,For wanting nourishment, he wanted tears;His eyeballs in their hollow sockets sink,Bereft of sleep; he loathes his meat and drink;He withers at his heart, and looks as wanAs the pale spectre of a murdered man:That pale turns yellow, and his face receivesThe faded hue of sapless boxen leaves;In solitary groves he makes his moan,Walks early out, and ever is alone;Nor, mixed in mirth, in youthful pleasure shares,But sighs when songs and instruments he hears.His spirits are so low, his voice is drowned,He hears as from afar, or in a swound,Like the deaf murmurs of a distant sound:Uncombed his locks, and squalid his attire,Unlike the trim of love and gay desire;But full of museful mopings, which presageThe loss of reason and conclude in rage.This when he had endured a year and more,Now wholly changed from what he was before,It happened once, that, slumbering as he lay,He dreamt (his dream began at break of day)That Hermes o'er his head in air appeared,And with soft words his drooping spirits cheered;His hat adorned with wings disclosed the god,And in his hand he bore the sleep-compelling rod;Such as he seemed, when, at his sire's command,On Argus' head he laid the snaky wand."Arise," he said, "to conquering Athens go;There Fate appoints an end of all thy woe."The fright awakened Arcite with a start,Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart;But soon he said, with scarce recovered breath,"And thither will I go to meet my death,Sure to be slain; but death is my desire,Since in Emilia's sight I shall expire."By chance he spied a mirror while he spoke,And gazing there beheld his altered look;Wondering, he saw his features and his hueSo much were changed, that scarce himself he knew.A sudden thought then starting in his mind,"Since I in Arcite cannot Arcite find,The world may search in vain with all their eyes,But never penetrate through this disguise.Thanks to the change which grief and sickness give,In low estate I may securely live,And see, unknown, my mistress day by day."He said, and clothed himself in coarse array,A labouring hind in show; then forth he went,And to the Athenian towers his journey bent:One squire attended in the same disguise,Made conscious of his master's enterprise.Arrived at Athens, soon he came to court,Unknown, unquestioned in that thick resort:Proffering for hire his service at the gate,To drudge, draw water, and to run or wait.So fair befel him, that for little gainHe served at first Emilia's chamberlain;And, watchful all advantages to spy,Was still at hand, and in his master's eye;And as his bones were big, and sinews strong,Refused no toil that could to slaves belong;But from deep wells with engines water drew,And used his noble hands the wood to hew.He passed a year at least attending thusOn Emily, and called Philostratus.But never was there man of his degreeSo much esteemed, so well beloved as he.So gentle of condition was he known,That through the court his courtesy was blown:All think him worthy of a greater place,And recommend him to the royal grace;That exercised within a higher sphere,His virtues more conspicuous might appear.Thus by the general voice was Arcite praised,And by great Theseus to high favour raised;Among his menial servants first enrolled,And largely entertained with sums of gold:Besides what secretly from Thebes was sent,Of his own income and his annual rent.This well employed, he purchased friends and fame,But cautiously concealed from whence it came.Thus for three years he lived with large increaseIn arms of honour, and esteem in peace;To Theseus' person he was ever near,And Theseus for his virtues held him dear.