I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers,Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass,In midst whereof there wasA lady clothed like summer with sweet hours.Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon,Made my blood burn and swoonLike a flame rained upon.Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids' blue,And her mouth's sad red heavy rose all throughSeemed sad with glad things gone.She held a little cithern by the strings,Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hairOf some dead lute-playerThat in dead years had done delicious things.The seven strings were named accordingly;The first string charity,The second tenderness,The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin,And loving-kindness, that is pity's kinAnd is most pitiless.There were three men with her, each garmentedWith gold and shod with gold upon the feet;And with plucked ears of wheatThe first man's hair was wound upon his head:His face was red, and his mouth curled and sad;All his gold garment hadPale stains of dust and rust.A riven hood was pulled across his eyes;The token of him being upon this wiseMade for a sign of Lust.The next was Shame, with hollow heavy faceColoured like green wood when flame kindles it.He hath such feeble feetThey may not well endure in any place.His face was full of grey old miseries,And all his blood's increaseWas even increase of pain.The last was Fear, that is akin to Death;He is Shame's friend, and always as Shame saithFear answers him again.My soul said in me; This is marvellous,Seeing the air's face is not so delicateNor the sun's grace so great,If sin and she be kin or amorous.And seeing where maidens served her on their knees,I bade one crave of theseTo know the cause thereof.Then Fear said: I am Pity that was dead.And Shame said: I am Sorrow comforted.And Lust said: I am Love.Thereat her hands began a lute-playingAnd her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue;And all the while she sungThere was no sound but long tears followingLong tears upon men's faces, waxen whiteWith extreme sad delight.But those three following menBecame as men raised up among the dead;Great glad mouths open and fair cheeks made redWith child's blood come again.Then I said: Now assuredly I seeMy lady is perfect, and transfigurethAll sin and sorrow and death,Making them fair as her own eyelids be,Or lips wherein my whole soul's life abides;Or as her sweet white sidesAnd bosom carved to kiss.Now therefore, if her pity further me,Doubtless for her sake all my days shall beAs righteous as she is.Forth, ballad, and take roses in both arms,Even till the top rose touch thee in the throatWhere the least thornprick harms;And girdled in thy golden singing-coat,Come thou before my lady and say this;Borgia, thy gold hair's colour burns in me,Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes;Therefore so many as these roses be,Kiss me so many times.Then it may be, seeing how sweet she is,That she will stoop herself none otherwiseThan a blown vine-branch doth,And kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes,Ballad, and on thy mouth.
I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers,Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass,In midst whereof there wasA lady clothed like summer with sweet hours.Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon,Made my blood burn and swoonLike a flame rained upon.Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids' blue,And her mouth's sad red heavy rose all throughSeemed sad with glad things gone.
She held a little cithern by the strings,Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hairOf some dead lute-playerThat in dead years had done delicious things.The seven strings were named accordingly;The first string charity,The second tenderness,The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin,And loving-kindness, that is pity's kinAnd is most pitiless.
There were three men with her, each garmentedWith gold and shod with gold upon the feet;And with plucked ears of wheatThe first man's hair was wound upon his head:His face was red, and his mouth curled and sad;All his gold garment hadPale stains of dust and rust.A riven hood was pulled across his eyes;The token of him being upon this wiseMade for a sign of Lust.
The next was Shame, with hollow heavy faceColoured like green wood when flame kindles it.He hath such feeble feetThey may not well endure in any place.His face was full of grey old miseries,And all his blood's increaseWas even increase of pain.The last was Fear, that is akin to Death;He is Shame's friend, and always as Shame saithFear answers him again.
My soul said in me; This is marvellous,Seeing the air's face is not so delicateNor the sun's grace so great,If sin and she be kin or amorous.And seeing where maidens served her on their knees,I bade one crave of theseTo know the cause thereof.Then Fear said: I am Pity that was dead.And Shame said: I am Sorrow comforted.And Lust said: I am Love.
Thereat her hands began a lute-playingAnd her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue;And all the while she sungThere was no sound but long tears followingLong tears upon men's faces, waxen whiteWith extreme sad delight.But those three following menBecame as men raised up among the dead;Great glad mouths open and fair cheeks made redWith child's blood come again.
Then I said: Now assuredly I seeMy lady is perfect, and transfigurethAll sin and sorrow and death,Making them fair as her own eyelids be,Or lips wherein my whole soul's life abides;Or as her sweet white sidesAnd bosom carved to kiss.Now therefore, if her pity further me,Doubtless for her sake all my days shall beAs righteous as she is.
Forth, ballad, and take roses in both arms,Even till the top rose touch thee in the throatWhere the least thornprick harms;And girdled in thy golden singing-coat,Come thou before my lady and say this;Borgia, thy gold hair's colour burns in me,Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes;Therefore so many as these roses be,Kiss me so many times.Then it may be, seeing how sweet she is,That she will stoop herself none otherwiseThan a blown vine-branch doth,And kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes,Ballad, and on thy mouth.
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,Girdle thyself with sighing for a girthUpon the sides of mirth,Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine earsBe filled with rumour of people sorrowing;Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighsUpon the flesh to cleave,Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,And many sorrows after each his wiseFor armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.O Love's lute heard about the lands of death,Left hanged upon the trees that were therein;O Love and Time and Sin,Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,Three lovers, each one evil spoken of;O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mineCame softer with her praise;Abide a little for our lady's love.The kisses of her mouth were more than wine,And more than peace the passage of her days.O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see.O Time, thou shalt not find in any landTill, cast out of thine hand,The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee,Another woman fashioned like as this.O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in herWas made a goodly thing;Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss,With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelierThan lips of amorous roses in late spring.By night there stood over against my bedQueen Venus with a hood striped gold and black,Both sides drawn fully backFrom brows wherein the sad blood failed of red,And temples drained of purple and full of death.Her curled hair had the wave of sea-waterAnd the sea's gold in it.Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth.Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her,And pearl and purple and amber on her feet.Upon her raiment of dyed sendalineWere painted all the secret ways of loveAnd covered things thereof,That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine;Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves,And brides that kept within the bride-chamberTheir garment of soft shame,And weeping faces of the wearied lovesThat swoon in sleep and awake wearier,With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame.The tears that through her eyelids fell on meMade mine own bitter where they ran betweenAs blood had fallen therein,She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and seeIf any glad thing be or any goodNow the best thing is taken forth of us;Even she to whom all praiseWas as one flower in a great multitude,One glorious flower of many and glorious,One day found gracious among many days:Even she whose handmaiden was Love—to whomAt kissing times across her stateliest bedKings bowed themselves and shedPale wine, and honey with the honeycomb,And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering;Even she between whose lips the kiss becameAs fire and frankincense;Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king,Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame,Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.Then I beheld, and lo on the other sideMy lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead.Sweet still, but now not red,Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died.And sweet, but emptied of the blood's blue shade,The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes.And sweet, but like spoilt gold,The weight of colour in her tresses weighed.And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes,The body that was clothed with love of old.Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hairAnd all the hollow bosom of her gown—Ah! that my tears ran downEven to the place where many kisses were,Even where her parted breast-flowers have place,Even where they are cloven apart—who knows not this?Ah! the flowers cleave apartAnd their sweet fills the tender interspace;Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kissEre their fine gold was tarnished at the heart.Ah! in the days when God did good to me,Each part about her was a righteous thing;Her mouth an almsgiving,The glory of her garments charity,The beauty of her bosom a good deed,In the good days when God kept sight of us;Love lay upon her eyes,And on that hair whereof the world takes heed;And all her body was more virtuousThan souls of women fashioned otherwise.Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine handsAnd sheaves of brier and many rusted sheavesRain-rotten in rank lands,Waste marigold and late unhappy leavesAnd grass that fades ere any of it be mown;And when thy bosom is filled full thereofSeek out Death's face ere the light altereth,And say "My master that was thrall to LoveIs become thrall to Death."Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan,But make no sojourn in thy outgoing;For haply it may beThat when thy feet return at eveningDeath shall come in with thee.
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,Girdle thyself with sighing for a girthUpon the sides of mirth,Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine earsBe filled with rumour of people sorrowing;Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighsUpon the flesh to cleave,Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,And many sorrows after each his wiseFor armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.
O Love's lute heard about the lands of death,Left hanged upon the trees that were therein;O Love and Time and Sin,Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,Three lovers, each one evil spoken of;O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mineCame softer with her praise;Abide a little for our lady's love.The kisses of her mouth were more than wine,And more than peace the passage of her days.
O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see.O Time, thou shalt not find in any landTill, cast out of thine hand,The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee,Another woman fashioned like as this.O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in herWas made a goodly thing;Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss,With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelierThan lips of amorous roses in late spring.
By night there stood over against my bedQueen Venus with a hood striped gold and black,Both sides drawn fully backFrom brows wherein the sad blood failed of red,And temples drained of purple and full of death.Her curled hair had the wave of sea-waterAnd the sea's gold in it.Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth.Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her,And pearl and purple and amber on her feet.
Upon her raiment of dyed sendalineWere painted all the secret ways of loveAnd covered things thereof,That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine;Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves,And brides that kept within the bride-chamberTheir garment of soft shame,And weeping faces of the wearied lovesThat swoon in sleep and awake wearier,With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame.
The tears that through her eyelids fell on meMade mine own bitter where they ran betweenAs blood had fallen therein,She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and seeIf any glad thing be or any goodNow the best thing is taken forth of us;Even she to whom all praiseWas as one flower in a great multitude,One glorious flower of many and glorious,One day found gracious among many days:
Even she whose handmaiden was Love—to whomAt kissing times across her stateliest bedKings bowed themselves and shedPale wine, and honey with the honeycomb,And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering;Even she between whose lips the kiss becameAs fire and frankincense;Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king,Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame,Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.
Then I beheld, and lo on the other sideMy lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead.Sweet still, but now not red,Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died.And sweet, but emptied of the blood's blue shade,The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes.And sweet, but like spoilt gold,The weight of colour in her tresses weighed.And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes,The body that was clothed with love of old.
Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hairAnd all the hollow bosom of her gown—Ah! that my tears ran downEven to the place where many kisses were,Even where her parted breast-flowers have place,Even where they are cloven apart—who knows not this?Ah! the flowers cleave apartAnd their sweet fills the tender interspace;Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kissEre their fine gold was tarnished at the heart.
Ah! in the days when God did good to me,Each part about her was a righteous thing;Her mouth an almsgiving,The glory of her garments charity,The beauty of her bosom a good deed,In the good days when God kept sight of us;Love lay upon her eyes,And on that hair whereof the world takes heed;And all her body was more virtuousThan souls of women fashioned otherwise.
Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine handsAnd sheaves of brier and many rusted sheavesRain-rotten in rank lands,Waste marigold and late unhappy leavesAnd grass that fades ere any of it be mown;And when thy bosom is filled full thereofSeek out Death's face ere the light altereth,And say "My master that was thrall to LoveIs become thrall to Death."Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan,But make no sojourn in thy outgoing;For haply it may beThat when thy feet return at eveningDeath shall come in with thee.
Lors dit en plourant; Hélas trop malheureux homme et mauldict pescheur, oncques ne verrai-je clémence et miséricorde de Dieu. Ores m'en irai-je d'icy et me cacherai dedans le mont Horsel, en requérant de faveur et d'amoureuse merci ma doulce dame Vénus, car pour son amour serai-je bien à tout jamais damné en enfer. Voicy la fin de tous mes faicts d'armes et de toutes mes belles chansons. Hélas, trop belle estoyt la face de ma dame et ses yeulx, et en mauvais jour je vis ces chouses-là. Lors s'en alla tout en gémissant et se retourna chez elle, et là vescut tristement en grand amour près de sa dame. Puis après advint que le pape vit un jour esclater sur son baston force belles fleurs rouges et blanches et maints boutons de feuilles, et ainsi vit-il reverdir toute l'escorce. Ce dont il eut grande crainte et moult s'en esmut, et grande pitié lui prit de ce chevalier qui s'en estoyt départi sans espoir comme un homme misérable et damné. Doncques envoya force messaigers devers luy pour le ramener, disant qu'il aurait de Dieu grace et bonne absolution de son grand pesché d'amour. Mais oncques plus ne le virent; car toujours demeura ce pauvre chevalier auprès de Vénus la haulte et forte déesse ès flancs de la montagne amoureuse.Livre des grandes merveilles d'amour, escript en latinet en françoys par Maistre Antoine Gaget.1530.
Lors dit en plourant; Hélas trop malheureux homme et mauldict pescheur, oncques ne verrai-je clémence et miséricorde de Dieu. Ores m'en irai-je d'icy et me cacherai dedans le mont Horsel, en requérant de faveur et d'amoureuse merci ma doulce dame Vénus, car pour son amour serai-je bien à tout jamais damné en enfer. Voicy la fin de tous mes faicts d'armes et de toutes mes belles chansons. Hélas, trop belle estoyt la face de ma dame et ses yeulx, et en mauvais jour je vis ces chouses-là. Lors s'en alla tout en gémissant et se retourna chez elle, et là vescut tristement en grand amour près de sa dame. Puis après advint que le pape vit un jour esclater sur son baston force belles fleurs rouges et blanches et maints boutons de feuilles, et ainsi vit-il reverdir toute l'escorce. Ce dont il eut grande crainte et moult s'en esmut, et grande pitié lui prit de ce chevalier qui s'en estoyt départi sans espoir comme un homme misérable et damné. Doncques envoya force messaigers devers luy pour le ramener, disant qu'il aurait de Dieu grace et bonne absolution de son grand pesché d'amour. Mais oncques plus ne le virent; car toujours demeura ce pauvre chevalier auprès de Vénus la haulte et forte déesse ès flancs de la montagne amoureuse.
Livre des grandes merveilles d'amour, escript en latinet en françoys par Maistre Antoine Gaget.1530.
Asleep or waking is it? for her neck,Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speckWherein the pained blood falters and goes out;Soft, and stung softly—fairer for a fleck.But though my lips shut sucking on the place,There is no vein at work upon her face;Her eyelids are so peaceable, no doubtDeep sleep has warmed her blood through all its ways.Lo, this is she that was the world's delight;The old grey years were parcels of her might;The strewings of the ways wherein she trodWere the twain seasons of the day and night.Lo, she was thus when her clear limbs enticedAll lips that now grow sad with kissing Christ,Stained with blood fallen from the feet of God,The feet and hands whereat our souls were priced.Alas, Lord, surely thou art great and fair.But lo her wonderfully woven hair!And thou didst heal us with thy piteous kiss;But see now, Lord; her mouth is lovelier.She is right fair; what hath she done to thee?Nay, fair Lord Christ, lift up thine eyes and see;Had now thy mother such a lip—like this?Thou knowest how sweet a thing it is to me.Inside the Horsel here the air is hot;Right little peace one hath for it, God wot;The scented dusty daylight burns the air,And my heart chokes me till I hear it not.Behold, my Venus, my soul's body, liesWith my love laid upon her garment-wise,Feeling my love in all her limbs and hairAnd shed between her eyelids through her eyes.She holds my heart in her sweet open handsHanging asleep; hard by her head there stands,Crowned with gilt thorns and clothed with flesh like fire,Love, wan as foam blown up the salt burnt sands—Hot as the brackish waifs of yellow spumeThat shift and steam—loose clots of arid fumeFrom the sea's panting mouth of dry desire;There stands he, like one labouring at a loom.The warp holds fast across; and every threadThat makes the woof up has dry specks of red;Always the shuttle cleaves clean through, and heWeaves with the hair of many a ruined head.Love is not glad nor sorry, as I deem;Labouring he dreams, and labours in the dream,Till when the spool is finished, lo I seeHis web, reeled off, curls and goes out like steam.Night falls like fire; the heavy lights run low,And as they drop, my blood and body soShake as the flame shakes, full of days and hoursThat sleep not neither weep they as they go.Ah yet would God this flesh of mine might beWhere air might wash and long leaves cover me,Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers,Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea.Ah yet would God that stems and roots were bredOut of my weary body and my head,That sleep were sealed upon me with a seal,And I were as the least of all his dead.Would God my blood were dew to feed the grass,Mine ears made deaf and mine eyes blind as glass,My body broken as a turning wheel,And my mouth stricken ere it saith Alas!Ah God, that love were as a flower or flame,That life were as the naming of a name,That death were not more pitiful than desire,That these things were not one thing and the same!Behold now, surely somewhere there is death:For each man hath some space of years, he saith,A little space of time ere time expire,A little day, a little way of breath.And lo, between the sundawn and the sun,His day's work and his night's work are undone;And lo, between the nightfall and the light,He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.Ah God, that I were as all souls that be,As any herb or leaf of any tree,As men that toil through hours of labouring night,As bones of men under the deep sharp sea.Outside it must be winter among men;For at the gold bars of the gates againI heard all night and all the hours of itThe wind's wet wings and fingers drip with rain.Knights gather, riding sharp for cold; I knowThe ways and woods are strangled with the snow;And with short song the maidens spin and sitUntil Christ's birthnight, lily-like, arow.The scent and shadow shed about me makeThe very soul in all my senses ache;The hot hard night is fed upon my breath,And sleep beholds me from afar awake.Alas, but surely where the hills grow deep,Or where the wild ways of the sea are steep,Or in strange places somewhere there is death,And on death's face the scattered hair of sleep.There lover-like with lips and limbs that meetThey lie, they pluck sweet fruit of life and eat;But me the hot and hungry days devour,And in my mouth no fruit of theirs is sweet.No fruit of theirs, but fruit of my desire,For her love's sake whose lips through mine respire;Her eyelids on her eyes like flower on flower,Mine eyelids on mine eyes like fire on fire.So lie we, not as sleep that lies by death,With heavy kisses and with happy breath;Not as man lies by woman, when the brideLaughs low for love's sake and the words he saith.For she lies, laughing low with love; she liesAnd turns his kisses on her lips to sighs,To sighing sound of lips unsatisfied,And the sweet tears are tender with her eyes.Ah, not as they, but as the souls that wereSlain in the old time, having found her fair;Who, sleeping with her lips upon their eyes,Heard sudden serpents hiss across her hair.Their blood runs round the roots of time like rain:She casts them forth and gathers them again;With nerve and bone she weaves and multipliesExceeding pleasure out of extreme pain.Her little chambers drip with flower-like red,Her girdles, and the chaplets of her head,Her armlets and her anklets; with her feetShe tramples all that winepress of the dead.Her gateways smoke with fume of flowers and fires,With loves burnt out and unassuaged desires;Between her lips the steam of them is sweet,The languor in her ears of many lyres.Her beds are full of perfume and sad sound,Her doors are made with music, and barred roundWith sighing and with laughter and with tears,With tears whereby strong souls of men are bound.There is the knight Adonis that was slain;With flesh and blood she chains him for a chain;The body and the spirit in her earsCry, for her lips divide him vein by vein.Yea, all she slayeth; yea, every man save me;Me, love, thy lover that must cleave to theeTill the ending of the days and ways of earth,The shaking of the sources of the sea.Me, most forsaken of all souls that fell;Me, satiated with things insatiable;Me, for whose sake the extreme hell makes mirth,Yea, laughter kindles at the heart of hell.Alas thy beauty! for thy mouth's sweet sakeMy soul is bitter to me, my limbs quakeAs water, as the flesh of men that weep,As their heart's vein whose heart goes nigh to break.Ah God, that sleep with flower-sweet finger-tipsWould crush the fruit of death upon my lips;Ah God, that death would tread the grapes of sleepAnd wring their juice upon me as it drips.There is no change of cheer for many days,But change of chimes high up in the air, that swaysRung by the running fingers of the wind;And singing sorrows heard on hidden ways.Day smiteth day in twain, night sundereth night,And on mine eyes the dark sits as the light;Yea, Lord, thou knowest I know not, having sinned,If heaven be clean or unclean in thy sight.Yea, as if earth were sprinkled over me,Such chafed harsh earth as chokes a sandy sea,Each pore doth yearn, and the dried blood thereofGasps by sick fits, my heart swims heavily,There is a feverish famine in my veins;Below her bosom, where a crushed grape stainsThe white and blue, there my lips caught and cloveAn hour since, and what mark of me remains?I dare not always touch her, lest the kissLeave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss,Brief bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin;Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.Sin, is it sin whereby men's souls are thrustInto the pit? yet had I a good trustTo save my soul before it slipped therein,Trod under by the fire-shod feet of lust.For if mine eyes fail and my soul takes breath,I look between the iron sides of deathInto sad hell where all sweet love hath end,All but the pain that never finisheth.There are the naked faces of great kings,The singing folk with all their lute-playings;There when one cometh he shall have to friendThe grave that covets and the worm that clings.There sit the knights that were so great of hand,The ladies that were queens of fair green land,Grown grey and black now, brought unto the dust,Soiled, without raiment, clad about with sand.There is one end for all of them; they sitNaked and sad, they drink the dregs of it,Trodden as grapes in the wine-press of lust.Trampled and trodden by the fiery feet.I see the marvellous mouth whereby there fellCities and people whom the gods loved well,Yet for her sake on them the fire gat hold,And for their sakes on her the fire of hell.And softer than the Egyptian lote-leaf is,The queen whose face was worth the world to kiss,Wearing at breast a suckling snake of gold;And large pale lips of strong Semiramis,Curled like a tiger's that curl back to feed;Red only where the last kiss made them bleed;Her hair most thick with many a carven gem,Deep in the mane, great-chested, like a steed.Yea, with red sin the faces of them shine;But in all these there was no sin like mine;No, not in all the strange great sins of themThat made the wine-press froth and foam with wine.For I was of Christ's choosing, I God's knight,No blinkard heathen stumbling for scant light;I can well see, for all the dusty daysGone past, the clean great time of goodly fight.I smell the breathing battle sharp with blows,With shriek of shafts and snapping short of bows;The fair pure sword smites out in subtle ways,Sounds and long lights are shed between the rowsOf beautiful mailed men; the edged light slips,Most like a snake that takes short breath and dipsSharp from the beautifully bending head,With all its gracious body lithe as lipsThat curl in touching you; right in this wiseMy sword doth, seeming fire in mine own eyes,Leaving all colours in them brown and redAnd flecked with death; then the keen breaths like sighs,The caught-up choked dry laughters following them,When all the fighting face is grown a flameFor pleasure, and the pulse that stuns the ears,And the heart's gladness of the goodly game.Let me think yet a little; I do knowThese things were sweet, but sweet such years ago,Their savour is all turned now into tears;Yea, ten years since, where the blue ripples blow,The blue curled eddies of the blowing Rhine,I felt the sharp wind shaking grass and vineTouch my blood too, and sting me with delightThrough all this waste and weary body of mineThat never feels clear air; right gladly thenI rode alone, a great way off my men,And heard the chiming bridle smite and smite,And gave each rhyme thereof some rhyme again,Till my song shifted to that iron one;Seeing there rode up between me and the sunSome certain of my foe's men, for his threeWhite wolves across their painted coats did run.The first red-bearded, with square cheeks—alack,I made my knave's blood turn his beard to black;The slaying of him was a joy to see:Perchance too, when at night he came not back,Some woman fell a-weeping, whom this thiefWould beat when he had drunken; yet small griefHath any for the ridding of such knaves;Yea, if one wept, I doubt her teen was brief.This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves;A sign across the head of the world he stands,An one that hath a plague-mark on his brows;Dust and spilt blood do track him to his houseDown under earth; sweet smells of lip and cheek,Like a sweet snake's breath made more poisonousWith chewing of some perfumed deadly grass,Are shed all round his passage if he pass,And their quenched savour leaves the whole soul weak,Sick with keen guessing whence the perfume was.As one who hidden in deep sedge and reedsSmells the rare scent made where a panther feeds,And tracking ever slotwise the warm smellIs snapped upon by the sweet mouth and bleeds,His head far down the hot sweet throat of her—So one tracks love, whose breath is deadlier,And lo, one springe and you are fast in hell,Fast as the gin's grip of a wayfarer.I think now, as the heavy hours deceaseOne after one, and bitter thoughts increaseOne upon one, of all sweet finished things;The breaking of the battle; the long peaceWherein we sat clothed softly, each man's hairCrowned with green leaves beneath white hoods of vair;The sounds of sharp spears at great tourneyings,And noise of singing in the late sweet air.I sang of love too, knowing nought thereof;"Sweeter," I said, "the little laugh of loveThan tears out of the eyes of Magdalen,Or any fallen feather of the Dove."The broken little laugh that spoils a kiss,The ache of purple pulses, and the blissOf blinded eyelids that expand again—Love draws them open with those lips of his,"Lips that cling hard till the kissed face has grownOf one same fire and colour with their own;Then ere one sleep, appeased with sacrifice,Where his lips wounded, there his lips atone."I sang these things long since and knew them not;"Lo, here is love, or there is love, God wot,This man and that finds favour in his eyes,"I said, "but I, what guerdon have I got?"The dust of praise that is blown everywhereIn all men's faces with the common air;The bay-leaf that wants chafing to be sweetBefore they wind it in a singer's hair."So that one dawn I rode forth sorrowing;I had no hope but of some evil thing,And so rode slowly past the windy wheatAnd past the vineyard and the water-spring,Up to the Horsel. A great elder-treeHeld back its heaps of flowers to let me seeThe ripe tall grass, and one that walked therein,Naked, with hair shed over to the knee.She walked between the blossom and the grass;I knew the beauty of her, what she was,The beauty of her body and her sin,And in my flesh the sin of hers, alas!Alas! for sorrow is all the end of this.O sad kissed mouth, how sorrowful it is!O breast whereat some suckling sorrow clings,Red with the bitter blossom of a kiss!Ah, with blind lips I felt for you, and foundAbout my neck your hands and hair enwound,The hands that stifle and the hair that stings,I felt them fasten sharply without sound.Yea, for my sin I had great store of bliss:Rise up, make answer for me, let thy kissSeal my lips hard from speaking of my sin,Lest one go mad to hear how sweet it is.Yet I waxed faint with fume of barren bowers,And murmuring of the heavy-headed hours;And let the dove's beak fret and peck withinMy lips in vain, and Love shed fruitless flowers.So that God looked upon me when your handsWere hot about me; yea, God brake my bandsTo save my soul alive, and I came forthLike a man blind and naked in strange landsThat hears men laugh and weep, and knows not whenceNor wherefore, but is broken in his sense;Howbeit I met folk riding from the northTowards Rome, to purge them of their souls' offence,And rode with them, and spake to none; the dayStunned me like lights upon some wizard way,And ate like fire mine eyes and mine eyesight;So rode I, hearing all these chant and pray,And marvelled; till before us rose and fellWhite cursed hills, like outer skirts of hellSeen where men's eyes look through the day to night,Like a jagged shell's lips, harsh, untunable,Blown in between by devils' wrangling breath;Nathless we won well past that hell and death,Down to the sweet land where all airs are good,Even unto Rome where God's grace tarrieth.Then came each man and worshipped at his kneesWho in the Lord God's likeness bears the keysTo bind or loose, and called on Christ's shed blood,And so the sweet-souled father gave him ease.But when I came I fell down at his feet,Saying, "Father, though the Lord's blood be right sweet,The spot it takes not off the panther's skin,Nor shall an Ethiop's stain be bleached with it."Lo, I have sinned and have spat out at God,Wherefore his hand is heavier and his rodMore sharp because of mine exceeding sin,And all his raiment redder than bright blood"Before mine eyes; yea, for my sake I wotThe heat of hell is waxen seven times hotThrough my great sin." Then spake he some sweet word,Giving me cheer; which thing availed me not;Yea, scarce I wist if such indeed were said;For when I ceased—lo, as one newly deadWho hears a great cry out of hell, I heardThe crying of his voice across my head."Until this dry shred staff, that hath no whitOf leaf nor bark, bear blossom and smell sweet,Seek thou not any mercy in God's sight,For so long shalt thou be cast out from it."Yea, what if dried-up stems wax red and green,Shall that thing be which is not nor has been?Yea, what if sapless bark wax green and white,Shall any good fruit grow upon my sin?Nay, though sweet fruit were plucked of a dry tree,And though men drew sweet waters of the sea,There should not grow sweet leaves on this dead stem,This waste wan body and shaken soul of me.Yea, though God search it warily enough,There is not one sound thing in all thereof;Though he search all my veins through, searching themHe shall find nothing whole therein but love.For I came home right heavy, with small cheer,And lo my love, mine own soul's heart, more dearThan mine own soul, more beautiful than God,Who hath my being between the hands of her—Fair still, but fair for no man saving me,As when she came out of the naked seaMaking the foam as fire whereon she trod,And as the inner flower of fire was she.Yea, she laid hold upon me, and her mouthClove unto mine as soul to body doth,And, laughing, made her lips luxurious;Her hair had smells of all the sunburnt south,Strange spice and flower, strange savour of crushed fruit,And perfume the swart kings tread underfootFor pleasure when their minds wax amorous,Charred frankincense and grated sandal-root.And I forgot fear and all weary things,All ended prayers and perished thanksgivings,Feeling her face with all her eager hairCleave to me, clinging as a fire that clingsTo the body and to the raiment, burning them;As after death I know that such-like flameShall cleave to me for ever; yea, what care,Albeit I burn then, having felt the same?Ah love, there is no better life than this;To have known love, how bitter a thing it is,And afterward be cast out of God's sight;Yea, these that know not, shall they have such blissHigh up in barren heaven before his faceAs we twain in the heavy-hearted place,Remembering love and all the dead delight,And all that time was sweet with for a space?For till the thunder in the trumpet be,Soul may divide from body, but not weOne from another; I hold thee with my hand,I let mine eyes have all their will of thee,I seal myself upon thee with my might,Abiding alway out of all men's sightUntil God loosen over sea and landThe thunder of the trumpets of the night.EXPLICIT LAUS VENERIS.
Asleep or waking is it? for her neck,Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speckWherein the pained blood falters and goes out;Soft, and stung softly—fairer for a fleck.
But though my lips shut sucking on the place,There is no vein at work upon her face;Her eyelids are so peaceable, no doubtDeep sleep has warmed her blood through all its ways.
Lo, this is she that was the world's delight;The old grey years were parcels of her might;The strewings of the ways wherein she trodWere the twain seasons of the day and night.
Lo, she was thus when her clear limbs enticedAll lips that now grow sad with kissing Christ,Stained with blood fallen from the feet of God,The feet and hands whereat our souls were priced.
Alas, Lord, surely thou art great and fair.But lo her wonderfully woven hair!And thou didst heal us with thy piteous kiss;But see now, Lord; her mouth is lovelier.
She is right fair; what hath she done to thee?Nay, fair Lord Christ, lift up thine eyes and see;Had now thy mother such a lip—like this?Thou knowest how sweet a thing it is to me.
Inside the Horsel here the air is hot;Right little peace one hath for it, God wot;The scented dusty daylight burns the air,And my heart chokes me till I hear it not.
Behold, my Venus, my soul's body, liesWith my love laid upon her garment-wise,Feeling my love in all her limbs and hairAnd shed between her eyelids through her eyes.
She holds my heart in her sweet open handsHanging asleep; hard by her head there stands,Crowned with gilt thorns and clothed with flesh like fire,Love, wan as foam blown up the salt burnt sands—
Hot as the brackish waifs of yellow spumeThat shift and steam—loose clots of arid fumeFrom the sea's panting mouth of dry desire;There stands he, like one labouring at a loom.
The warp holds fast across; and every threadThat makes the woof up has dry specks of red;Always the shuttle cleaves clean through, and heWeaves with the hair of many a ruined head.
Love is not glad nor sorry, as I deem;Labouring he dreams, and labours in the dream,Till when the spool is finished, lo I seeHis web, reeled off, curls and goes out like steam.
Night falls like fire; the heavy lights run low,And as they drop, my blood and body soShake as the flame shakes, full of days and hoursThat sleep not neither weep they as they go.
Ah yet would God this flesh of mine might beWhere air might wash and long leaves cover me,Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers,Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea.
Ah yet would God that stems and roots were bredOut of my weary body and my head,That sleep were sealed upon me with a seal,And I were as the least of all his dead.
Would God my blood were dew to feed the grass,Mine ears made deaf and mine eyes blind as glass,My body broken as a turning wheel,And my mouth stricken ere it saith Alas!
Ah God, that love were as a flower or flame,That life were as the naming of a name,That death were not more pitiful than desire,That these things were not one thing and the same!
Behold now, surely somewhere there is death:For each man hath some space of years, he saith,A little space of time ere time expire,A little day, a little way of breath.
And lo, between the sundawn and the sun,His day's work and his night's work are undone;And lo, between the nightfall and the light,He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.
Ah God, that I were as all souls that be,As any herb or leaf of any tree,As men that toil through hours of labouring night,As bones of men under the deep sharp sea.
Outside it must be winter among men;For at the gold bars of the gates againI heard all night and all the hours of itThe wind's wet wings and fingers drip with rain.
Knights gather, riding sharp for cold; I knowThe ways and woods are strangled with the snow;And with short song the maidens spin and sitUntil Christ's birthnight, lily-like, arow.
The scent and shadow shed about me makeThe very soul in all my senses ache;The hot hard night is fed upon my breath,And sleep beholds me from afar awake.
Alas, but surely where the hills grow deep,Or where the wild ways of the sea are steep,Or in strange places somewhere there is death,And on death's face the scattered hair of sleep.
There lover-like with lips and limbs that meetThey lie, they pluck sweet fruit of life and eat;But me the hot and hungry days devour,And in my mouth no fruit of theirs is sweet.
No fruit of theirs, but fruit of my desire,For her love's sake whose lips through mine respire;Her eyelids on her eyes like flower on flower,Mine eyelids on mine eyes like fire on fire.
So lie we, not as sleep that lies by death,With heavy kisses and with happy breath;Not as man lies by woman, when the brideLaughs low for love's sake and the words he saith.
For she lies, laughing low with love; she liesAnd turns his kisses on her lips to sighs,To sighing sound of lips unsatisfied,And the sweet tears are tender with her eyes.
Ah, not as they, but as the souls that wereSlain in the old time, having found her fair;Who, sleeping with her lips upon their eyes,Heard sudden serpents hiss across her hair.
Their blood runs round the roots of time like rain:She casts them forth and gathers them again;With nerve and bone she weaves and multipliesExceeding pleasure out of extreme pain.
Her little chambers drip with flower-like red,Her girdles, and the chaplets of her head,Her armlets and her anklets; with her feetShe tramples all that winepress of the dead.
Her gateways smoke with fume of flowers and fires,With loves burnt out and unassuaged desires;Between her lips the steam of them is sweet,The languor in her ears of many lyres.
Her beds are full of perfume and sad sound,Her doors are made with music, and barred roundWith sighing and with laughter and with tears,With tears whereby strong souls of men are bound.
There is the knight Adonis that was slain;With flesh and blood she chains him for a chain;The body and the spirit in her earsCry, for her lips divide him vein by vein.
Yea, all she slayeth; yea, every man save me;Me, love, thy lover that must cleave to theeTill the ending of the days and ways of earth,The shaking of the sources of the sea.
Me, most forsaken of all souls that fell;Me, satiated with things insatiable;Me, for whose sake the extreme hell makes mirth,Yea, laughter kindles at the heart of hell.
Alas thy beauty! for thy mouth's sweet sakeMy soul is bitter to me, my limbs quakeAs water, as the flesh of men that weep,As their heart's vein whose heart goes nigh to break.
Ah God, that sleep with flower-sweet finger-tipsWould crush the fruit of death upon my lips;Ah God, that death would tread the grapes of sleepAnd wring their juice upon me as it drips.
There is no change of cheer for many days,But change of chimes high up in the air, that swaysRung by the running fingers of the wind;And singing sorrows heard on hidden ways.
Day smiteth day in twain, night sundereth night,And on mine eyes the dark sits as the light;Yea, Lord, thou knowest I know not, having sinned,If heaven be clean or unclean in thy sight.
Yea, as if earth were sprinkled over me,Such chafed harsh earth as chokes a sandy sea,Each pore doth yearn, and the dried blood thereofGasps by sick fits, my heart swims heavily,
There is a feverish famine in my veins;Below her bosom, where a crushed grape stainsThe white and blue, there my lips caught and cloveAn hour since, and what mark of me remains?
I dare not always touch her, lest the kissLeave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss,Brief bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin;Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.
Sin, is it sin whereby men's souls are thrustInto the pit? yet had I a good trustTo save my soul before it slipped therein,Trod under by the fire-shod feet of lust.
For if mine eyes fail and my soul takes breath,I look between the iron sides of deathInto sad hell where all sweet love hath end,All but the pain that never finisheth.
There are the naked faces of great kings,The singing folk with all their lute-playings;There when one cometh he shall have to friendThe grave that covets and the worm that clings.
There sit the knights that were so great of hand,The ladies that were queens of fair green land,Grown grey and black now, brought unto the dust,Soiled, without raiment, clad about with sand.
There is one end for all of them; they sitNaked and sad, they drink the dregs of it,Trodden as grapes in the wine-press of lust.Trampled and trodden by the fiery feet.
I see the marvellous mouth whereby there fellCities and people whom the gods loved well,Yet for her sake on them the fire gat hold,And for their sakes on her the fire of hell.
And softer than the Egyptian lote-leaf is,The queen whose face was worth the world to kiss,Wearing at breast a suckling snake of gold;And large pale lips of strong Semiramis,
Curled like a tiger's that curl back to feed;Red only where the last kiss made them bleed;Her hair most thick with many a carven gem,Deep in the mane, great-chested, like a steed.
Yea, with red sin the faces of them shine;But in all these there was no sin like mine;No, not in all the strange great sins of themThat made the wine-press froth and foam with wine.
For I was of Christ's choosing, I God's knight,No blinkard heathen stumbling for scant light;I can well see, for all the dusty daysGone past, the clean great time of goodly fight.
I smell the breathing battle sharp with blows,With shriek of shafts and snapping short of bows;The fair pure sword smites out in subtle ways,Sounds and long lights are shed between the rows
Of beautiful mailed men; the edged light slips,Most like a snake that takes short breath and dipsSharp from the beautifully bending head,With all its gracious body lithe as lips
That curl in touching you; right in this wiseMy sword doth, seeming fire in mine own eyes,Leaving all colours in them brown and redAnd flecked with death; then the keen breaths like sighs,
The caught-up choked dry laughters following them,When all the fighting face is grown a flameFor pleasure, and the pulse that stuns the ears,And the heart's gladness of the goodly game.
Let me think yet a little; I do knowThese things were sweet, but sweet such years ago,Their savour is all turned now into tears;Yea, ten years since, where the blue ripples blow,
The blue curled eddies of the blowing Rhine,I felt the sharp wind shaking grass and vineTouch my blood too, and sting me with delightThrough all this waste and weary body of mine
That never feels clear air; right gladly thenI rode alone, a great way off my men,And heard the chiming bridle smite and smite,And gave each rhyme thereof some rhyme again,
Till my song shifted to that iron one;Seeing there rode up between me and the sunSome certain of my foe's men, for his threeWhite wolves across their painted coats did run.
The first red-bearded, with square cheeks—alack,I made my knave's blood turn his beard to black;The slaying of him was a joy to see:Perchance too, when at night he came not back,
Some woman fell a-weeping, whom this thiefWould beat when he had drunken; yet small griefHath any for the ridding of such knaves;Yea, if one wept, I doubt her teen was brief.
This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves;A sign across the head of the world he stands,
An one that hath a plague-mark on his brows;Dust and spilt blood do track him to his houseDown under earth; sweet smells of lip and cheek,Like a sweet snake's breath made more poisonous
With chewing of some perfumed deadly grass,Are shed all round his passage if he pass,And their quenched savour leaves the whole soul weak,Sick with keen guessing whence the perfume was.
As one who hidden in deep sedge and reedsSmells the rare scent made where a panther feeds,And tracking ever slotwise the warm smellIs snapped upon by the sweet mouth and bleeds,
His head far down the hot sweet throat of her—So one tracks love, whose breath is deadlier,And lo, one springe and you are fast in hell,Fast as the gin's grip of a wayfarer.
I think now, as the heavy hours deceaseOne after one, and bitter thoughts increaseOne upon one, of all sweet finished things;The breaking of the battle; the long peace
Wherein we sat clothed softly, each man's hairCrowned with green leaves beneath white hoods of vair;The sounds of sharp spears at great tourneyings,And noise of singing in the late sweet air.
I sang of love too, knowing nought thereof;"Sweeter," I said, "the little laugh of loveThan tears out of the eyes of Magdalen,Or any fallen feather of the Dove.
"The broken little laugh that spoils a kiss,The ache of purple pulses, and the blissOf blinded eyelids that expand again—Love draws them open with those lips of his,
"Lips that cling hard till the kissed face has grownOf one same fire and colour with their own;Then ere one sleep, appeased with sacrifice,Where his lips wounded, there his lips atone."
I sang these things long since and knew them not;"Lo, here is love, or there is love, God wot,This man and that finds favour in his eyes,"I said, "but I, what guerdon have I got?
"The dust of praise that is blown everywhereIn all men's faces with the common air;The bay-leaf that wants chafing to be sweetBefore they wind it in a singer's hair."
So that one dawn I rode forth sorrowing;I had no hope but of some evil thing,And so rode slowly past the windy wheatAnd past the vineyard and the water-spring,
Up to the Horsel. A great elder-treeHeld back its heaps of flowers to let me seeThe ripe tall grass, and one that walked therein,Naked, with hair shed over to the knee.
She walked between the blossom and the grass;I knew the beauty of her, what she was,The beauty of her body and her sin,And in my flesh the sin of hers, alas!
Alas! for sorrow is all the end of this.O sad kissed mouth, how sorrowful it is!O breast whereat some suckling sorrow clings,Red with the bitter blossom of a kiss!
Ah, with blind lips I felt for you, and foundAbout my neck your hands and hair enwound,The hands that stifle and the hair that stings,I felt them fasten sharply without sound.
Yea, for my sin I had great store of bliss:Rise up, make answer for me, let thy kissSeal my lips hard from speaking of my sin,Lest one go mad to hear how sweet it is.
Yet I waxed faint with fume of barren bowers,And murmuring of the heavy-headed hours;And let the dove's beak fret and peck withinMy lips in vain, and Love shed fruitless flowers.
So that God looked upon me when your handsWere hot about me; yea, God brake my bandsTo save my soul alive, and I came forthLike a man blind and naked in strange lands
That hears men laugh and weep, and knows not whenceNor wherefore, but is broken in his sense;Howbeit I met folk riding from the northTowards Rome, to purge them of their souls' offence,
And rode with them, and spake to none; the dayStunned me like lights upon some wizard way,And ate like fire mine eyes and mine eyesight;So rode I, hearing all these chant and pray,
And marvelled; till before us rose and fellWhite cursed hills, like outer skirts of hellSeen where men's eyes look through the day to night,Like a jagged shell's lips, harsh, untunable,
Blown in between by devils' wrangling breath;Nathless we won well past that hell and death,Down to the sweet land where all airs are good,Even unto Rome where God's grace tarrieth.
Then came each man and worshipped at his kneesWho in the Lord God's likeness bears the keysTo bind or loose, and called on Christ's shed blood,And so the sweet-souled father gave him ease.
But when I came I fell down at his feet,Saying, "Father, though the Lord's blood be right sweet,The spot it takes not off the panther's skin,Nor shall an Ethiop's stain be bleached with it.
"Lo, I have sinned and have spat out at God,Wherefore his hand is heavier and his rodMore sharp because of mine exceeding sin,And all his raiment redder than bright blood
"Before mine eyes; yea, for my sake I wotThe heat of hell is waxen seven times hotThrough my great sin." Then spake he some sweet word,Giving me cheer; which thing availed me not;
Yea, scarce I wist if such indeed were said;For when I ceased—lo, as one newly deadWho hears a great cry out of hell, I heardThe crying of his voice across my head.
"Until this dry shred staff, that hath no whitOf leaf nor bark, bear blossom and smell sweet,Seek thou not any mercy in God's sight,For so long shalt thou be cast out from it."
Yea, what if dried-up stems wax red and green,Shall that thing be which is not nor has been?Yea, what if sapless bark wax green and white,Shall any good fruit grow upon my sin?
Nay, though sweet fruit were plucked of a dry tree,And though men drew sweet waters of the sea,There should not grow sweet leaves on this dead stem,This waste wan body and shaken soul of me.
Yea, though God search it warily enough,There is not one sound thing in all thereof;Though he search all my veins through, searching themHe shall find nothing whole therein but love.
For I came home right heavy, with small cheer,And lo my love, mine own soul's heart, more dearThan mine own soul, more beautiful than God,Who hath my being between the hands of her—
Fair still, but fair for no man saving me,As when she came out of the naked seaMaking the foam as fire whereon she trod,And as the inner flower of fire was she.
Yea, she laid hold upon me, and her mouthClove unto mine as soul to body doth,And, laughing, made her lips luxurious;Her hair had smells of all the sunburnt south,
Strange spice and flower, strange savour of crushed fruit,And perfume the swart kings tread underfootFor pleasure when their minds wax amorous,Charred frankincense and grated sandal-root.
And I forgot fear and all weary things,All ended prayers and perished thanksgivings,Feeling her face with all her eager hairCleave to me, clinging as a fire that clings
To the body and to the raiment, burning them;As after death I know that such-like flameShall cleave to me for ever; yea, what care,Albeit I burn then, having felt the same?
Ah love, there is no better life than this;To have known love, how bitter a thing it is,And afterward be cast out of God's sight;Yea, these that know not, shall they have such bliss
High up in barren heaven before his faceAs we twain in the heavy-hearted place,Remembering love and all the dead delight,And all that time was sweet with for a space?
For till the thunder in the trumpet be,Soul may divide from body, but not weOne from another; I hold thee with my hand,I let mine eyes have all their will of thee,
I seal myself upon thee with my might,Abiding alway out of all men's sightUntil God loosen over sea and landThe thunder of the trumpets of the night.
EXPLICIT LAUS VENERIS.
HIPPOLYTUS.Lay not thine hand upon me; let me go;Take off thine eyes that put the gods to shame;What, wilt thou turn my loathing to thy death?PHÆDRA.Nay, I will never loosen hold nor breatheTill thou have slain me; godlike for great browsThou art, and thewed as gods are, with clear hair:Draw now thy sword and smite me as thou art god,For verily I am smitten of other gods,Why not of thee?CHORUS.O queen, take heed of words;Why wilt thou eat the husk of evil speech?Wear wisdom for that veil about thy headAnd goodness for the binding of thy brows.PHÆDRA.Nay, but this god hath cause enow to smite;If he will slay me, baring breast and throat,I lean toward the stroke with silent mouthAnd a great heart. Come, take thy sword and slay;Let me not starve between desire and death,But send me on my way with glad wet lips;For in the vein-drawn ashen-coloured palmDeath's hollow hand holds water of sweet draughtTo dip and slake dried mouths at, as a deerSpecked red from thorns laps deep and loses pain.Yea, if mine own blood ran upon my mouth,I would drink that. Nay, but be swift with me;Set thy sword here between the girdle and breast,For I shall grow a poison if I live.Are not my cheeks as grass, my body pale,And my breath like a dying poisoned man's?O whatsoever of godlike names thou be,By thy chief name I charge thee, thou strong god,And bid thee slay me. Strike, up to the gold,Up to the hand-grip of the hilt; strike here;For I am Cretan of my birth; strike now;For I am Theseus' wife; stab up to the rims,I am born daughter to Pasiphae.See thou spare not for greatness of my blood,Nor for the shining letters of my name:Make thy sword sure inside thine hand and smite,For the bright writing of my name is black,And I am sick with hating the sweet sun.HIPPOLYTUS.Let not this woman wail and cleave to me,That am no part of the gods' wrath with her;Loose ye her hands from me lest she take hurt.CHORUS.Lady, this speech and majesty are twain;Pure shame is of one counsel with the gods.HIPPOLYTUS.Man is as beast when shame stands off from him.PHÆDRA.Man, what have I to do with shame or thee?I am not of one counsel with the gods.I am their kin, I have strange blood in me,I am not of their likeness nor of thine:My veins are mixed, and therefore am I mad,Yea therefore chafe and turn on mine own flesh,Half of a woman made with half a god.But thou wast hewn out of an iron wombAnd fed with molten mother-snow for milk.A sword was nurse of thine; Hippolyta,That had the spear to father, and the axeTo bridesman, and wet blood of sword-slain menFor wedding-water out of a noble well,Even she did bear thee, thinking of a sword,And thou wast made a man mistakingly.Nay, for I love thee, I will have thy hands,Nay, for I will not loose thee, thou art sweet,Thou art my son, I am thy father's wife,I ache toward thee with a bridal blood,The pulse is heavy in all my married veins,My whole face beats, I will feed full of thee,My body is empty of ease, I will be fed,I am burnt to the bone with love, thou shalt not go,I am heartsick, and mine eyelids prick mine eyes,Thou shalt not sleep nor eat nor say a wordTill thou hast slain me. I am not good to live.CHORUS.This is an evil born with all its teeth,When love is cast out of the bound of love.HIPPOLYTUS.There is no hate that is so hateworthy.PHÆDRA.I pray thee turn that hate of thine my way,I hate not it nor anything of thine.Lo, maidens, how he burns about the brow,And draws the chafing sword-strap down his hand.What wilt thou do? wilt thou be worse than death?Be but as sweet as is the bitterest,The most dispiteous out of all the gods,I am well pleased. Lo, do I crave so much?I do but bid thee be unmerciful,Even the one thing thou art. Pity me not:Thou wert not quick to pity. Think of meAs of a thing thy hounds are keen uponIn the wet woods between the windy ways,And slay me for a spoil. This body of mineIs worth a wild beast's fell or hide of hair,And spotted deeper than a panther's grain.I were but dead if thou wert pure indeed;I pray thee by thy cold green holy crownAnd by the fillet-leaves of Artemis.Nay, but thou wilt not. Death is not like thee.Albeit men hold him worst of all the gods.For of all gods Death only loves not gifts,[1]Nor with burnt-offering nor blood-sacrificeShalt thou do aught to get thee grace of him;He will have nought of altar and altar-song,And from him only of all the lords in heavenPersuasion turns a sweet averted mouth.But thou art worse: from thee with baffled breathBack on my lips my prayer falls like a blow,And beats upon them, dumb. What shall I say?There is no word I can compel thee withTo do me good and slay me. But take heed;I say, be wary; look between thy feet,Lest a snare take them though the ground be good.HIPPOLYTUS.Shame may do most where fear is found most weak;That which for shame's sake yet I have not done,Shall it be done for fear's? Take thine own way;Better the foot slip than the whole soul swerve.PHÆDRA.The man is choice and exquisite of mouth;Yet in the end a curse shall curdle it.CHORUS.He goes with cloak upgathered to the lip,Holding his eye as with some ill in sight.PHÆDRA.A bitter ill he hath i' the way thereof,And it shall burn the sight out as with fire.CHORUS.Speak no such word whereto mischance is kin.PHÆDRA.Out of my heart and by fate's leave I speak.CHORUS.Set not thy heart to follow after fate.PHÆDRA.O women, O sweet people of this land,O goodly city and pleasant ways thereof,And woods with pasturing grass and great well-heads,And hills with light and night between your leaves,And winds with sound and silence in your lips,And earth and water and all immortal things,I take you to my witness what I am.There is a god about me like as fire,Sprung whence, who knoweth, or who hath heart to say?A god more strong than whom slain beasts can soothe,Or honey, or any spilth of blood-like wine,Nor shall one please him with a whitened browNor wheat nor wool nor aught of plaited leaf.For like my mother am I stung and slain,And round my cheeks have such red maladyAnd on my lips such fire and foam as hers.This is that Ate out of AmathusThat breeds up death and gives it one for love.She hath slain mercy, and for dead mercy's sake(Being frighted with this sister that was slain)Flees from before her fearful-footed shame,And will not bear the bending of her browsAnd long soft arrows flown from under themAs from bows bent. Desire flows out of herAs out of lips doth speech: and over herShines fire, and round her and beneath her fire.She hath sown pain and plague in all our house,Love loathed of love, and mates unmatchable,Wild wedlock, and the lusts that bleat or low,And marriage-fodder snuffed about of kine.Lo how the heifer runs with leaping flankSleek under shaggy and speckled lies of hair,And chews a horrible lip, and with harsh tongueLaps alien froth and licks a loathlier mouth.Alas, a foul first steam of trodden tares,And fouler of these late grapes underfoot.A bitter way of waves and clean-cut foamOver the sad road of sonorous seaThe high gods gave king Theseus for no love,Nay, but for love, yet to no loving end.Alas the long thwarts and the fervent oars,And blown hard sails that straightened the scant rope!There were no strong pools in the hollow seaTo drag at them and suck down side and beak,No wind to catch them in the teeth and hair,No shoal, no shallow among the roaring reefs,No gulf whereout the straining tides throw spars,No surf where white bones twist like whirled white fire.But like to death he came with death, and soughtAnd slew and spoiled and gat him that he would.For death, for marriage, and for child-getting,I set my curse against him as a sword;Yea, and the severed half thereof I leavePittheus, because he slew not (when that faceWas tender, and the life still soft in it)The small swathed child, but bred him for my fate.I would I had been the first that took her deathOut from between wet hoofs and reddened teeth,Splashed horns, fierce fetlocks of the brother bull?For now shall I take death a deadlier way,Gathering it up between the feet of loveOr off the knees of murder reaching it.
HIPPOLYTUS.
Lay not thine hand upon me; let me go;Take off thine eyes that put the gods to shame;What, wilt thou turn my loathing to thy death?
PHÆDRA.
Nay, I will never loosen hold nor breatheTill thou have slain me; godlike for great browsThou art, and thewed as gods are, with clear hair:Draw now thy sword and smite me as thou art god,For verily I am smitten of other gods,Why not of thee?
CHORUS.
O queen, take heed of words;Why wilt thou eat the husk of evil speech?Wear wisdom for that veil about thy headAnd goodness for the binding of thy brows.
PHÆDRA.
Nay, but this god hath cause enow to smite;If he will slay me, baring breast and throat,I lean toward the stroke with silent mouthAnd a great heart. Come, take thy sword and slay;Let me not starve between desire and death,But send me on my way with glad wet lips;For in the vein-drawn ashen-coloured palmDeath's hollow hand holds water of sweet draughtTo dip and slake dried mouths at, as a deerSpecked red from thorns laps deep and loses pain.Yea, if mine own blood ran upon my mouth,I would drink that. Nay, but be swift with me;Set thy sword here between the girdle and breast,For I shall grow a poison if I live.Are not my cheeks as grass, my body pale,And my breath like a dying poisoned man's?O whatsoever of godlike names thou be,By thy chief name I charge thee, thou strong god,And bid thee slay me. Strike, up to the gold,Up to the hand-grip of the hilt; strike here;For I am Cretan of my birth; strike now;For I am Theseus' wife; stab up to the rims,I am born daughter to Pasiphae.See thou spare not for greatness of my blood,Nor for the shining letters of my name:Make thy sword sure inside thine hand and smite,For the bright writing of my name is black,And I am sick with hating the sweet sun.
HIPPOLYTUS.
Let not this woman wail and cleave to me,That am no part of the gods' wrath with her;Loose ye her hands from me lest she take hurt.
CHORUS.
Lady, this speech and majesty are twain;Pure shame is of one counsel with the gods.
HIPPOLYTUS.
Man is as beast when shame stands off from him.
PHÆDRA.
Man, what have I to do with shame or thee?I am not of one counsel with the gods.I am their kin, I have strange blood in me,I am not of their likeness nor of thine:My veins are mixed, and therefore am I mad,Yea therefore chafe and turn on mine own flesh,Half of a woman made with half a god.But thou wast hewn out of an iron wombAnd fed with molten mother-snow for milk.A sword was nurse of thine; Hippolyta,That had the spear to father, and the axeTo bridesman, and wet blood of sword-slain menFor wedding-water out of a noble well,Even she did bear thee, thinking of a sword,And thou wast made a man mistakingly.Nay, for I love thee, I will have thy hands,Nay, for I will not loose thee, thou art sweet,Thou art my son, I am thy father's wife,I ache toward thee with a bridal blood,The pulse is heavy in all my married veins,My whole face beats, I will feed full of thee,My body is empty of ease, I will be fed,I am burnt to the bone with love, thou shalt not go,I am heartsick, and mine eyelids prick mine eyes,Thou shalt not sleep nor eat nor say a wordTill thou hast slain me. I am not good to live.
CHORUS.
This is an evil born with all its teeth,When love is cast out of the bound of love.
HIPPOLYTUS.
There is no hate that is so hateworthy.
PHÆDRA.
I pray thee turn that hate of thine my way,I hate not it nor anything of thine.Lo, maidens, how he burns about the brow,And draws the chafing sword-strap down his hand.What wilt thou do? wilt thou be worse than death?Be but as sweet as is the bitterest,The most dispiteous out of all the gods,I am well pleased. Lo, do I crave so much?I do but bid thee be unmerciful,Even the one thing thou art. Pity me not:Thou wert not quick to pity. Think of meAs of a thing thy hounds are keen uponIn the wet woods between the windy ways,And slay me for a spoil. This body of mineIs worth a wild beast's fell or hide of hair,And spotted deeper than a panther's grain.I were but dead if thou wert pure indeed;I pray thee by thy cold green holy crownAnd by the fillet-leaves of Artemis.Nay, but thou wilt not. Death is not like thee.Albeit men hold him worst of all the gods.For of all gods Death only loves not gifts,[1]Nor with burnt-offering nor blood-sacrificeShalt thou do aught to get thee grace of him;He will have nought of altar and altar-song,And from him only of all the lords in heavenPersuasion turns a sweet averted mouth.But thou art worse: from thee with baffled breathBack on my lips my prayer falls like a blow,And beats upon them, dumb. What shall I say?There is no word I can compel thee withTo do me good and slay me. But take heed;I say, be wary; look between thy feet,Lest a snare take them though the ground be good.
HIPPOLYTUS.
Shame may do most where fear is found most weak;That which for shame's sake yet I have not done,Shall it be done for fear's? Take thine own way;Better the foot slip than the whole soul swerve.
PHÆDRA.
The man is choice and exquisite of mouth;Yet in the end a curse shall curdle it.
CHORUS.
He goes with cloak upgathered to the lip,Holding his eye as with some ill in sight.
PHÆDRA.
A bitter ill he hath i' the way thereof,And it shall burn the sight out as with fire.
CHORUS.
Speak no such word whereto mischance is kin.
PHÆDRA.
Out of my heart and by fate's leave I speak.
CHORUS.
Set not thy heart to follow after fate.
PHÆDRA.
O women, O sweet people of this land,O goodly city and pleasant ways thereof,And woods with pasturing grass and great well-heads,And hills with light and night between your leaves,And winds with sound and silence in your lips,And earth and water and all immortal things,I take you to my witness what I am.There is a god about me like as fire,Sprung whence, who knoweth, or who hath heart to say?A god more strong than whom slain beasts can soothe,Or honey, or any spilth of blood-like wine,Nor shall one please him with a whitened browNor wheat nor wool nor aught of plaited leaf.For like my mother am I stung and slain,And round my cheeks have such red maladyAnd on my lips such fire and foam as hers.This is that Ate out of AmathusThat breeds up death and gives it one for love.She hath slain mercy, and for dead mercy's sake(Being frighted with this sister that was slain)Flees from before her fearful-footed shame,And will not bear the bending of her browsAnd long soft arrows flown from under themAs from bows bent. Desire flows out of herAs out of lips doth speech: and over herShines fire, and round her and beneath her fire.She hath sown pain and plague in all our house,Love loathed of love, and mates unmatchable,Wild wedlock, and the lusts that bleat or low,And marriage-fodder snuffed about of kine.Lo how the heifer runs with leaping flankSleek under shaggy and speckled lies of hair,And chews a horrible lip, and with harsh tongueLaps alien froth and licks a loathlier mouth.Alas, a foul first steam of trodden tares,And fouler of these late grapes underfoot.A bitter way of waves and clean-cut foamOver the sad road of sonorous seaThe high gods gave king Theseus for no love,Nay, but for love, yet to no loving end.Alas the long thwarts and the fervent oars,And blown hard sails that straightened the scant rope!There were no strong pools in the hollow seaTo drag at them and suck down side and beak,No wind to catch them in the teeth and hair,No shoal, no shallow among the roaring reefs,No gulf whereout the straining tides throw spars,No surf where white bones twist like whirled white fire.But like to death he came with death, and soughtAnd slew and spoiled and gat him that he would.For death, for marriage, and for child-getting,I set my curse against him as a sword;Yea, and the severed half thereof I leavePittheus, because he slew not (when that faceWas tender, and the life still soft in it)The small swathed child, but bred him for my fate.I would I had been the first that took her deathOut from between wet hoofs and reddened teeth,Splashed horns, fierce fetlocks of the brother bull?For now shall I take death a deadlier way,Gathering it up between the feet of loveOr off the knees of murder reaching it.