Here shall I bring you two the most entire And constant lovers that were ever seen, From out the greatest sufferings of annoy That Fortune could inflict, to their full joy: Wherein no wild, no rude, no antic sport, But tender passions, motions soft and grave, The still spectators must expect to have.

For these are only Cynthia's recreatives Made unto Phoebus, and are feminine; And therefore must be gentle like to her, Whose sweet affections mildly move and stir. And here, with this white wand will I effect As much as with my flaming torch of love: And with the power thereof, affections move In these fair nymphs and shepherds round about.

ENVY.

Stay, Hymen, stay, you shall not have the day
Of this great glory, as you make account:
We will herein, as we were ever wont,
Oppose you in the matches you address,
And undermine them with disturbances.

HYMEN.

Now, do thy worst, base Envy, thou canst do, Thou shalt not disappoint my purposes.

AVARICE.

Then will I, Hymen, in despite of thee,
I will make parents cross desires of love
With those respects of wealth, as shall dissolve
The strongest knots of kindest faithfulness.

HYMEN.

Hence, greedy Avarice, I know thou art
A bag that dost bewitch the minds of men:
Yet shalt thou have no share at all herein.

JEALOUSY.

Then will I, Hymen, do thou what thou canst,
I will steal closely into linked hearts;
And shake their veins with cold distrustfulness;
And ever keep them waking in their fears,
With spir'ts, which their imagination rears.

HYMEN.

Disquiet Jealousy, vile Fury, thou

That art the ugly monster of the mind,
Avaunt, begone, thou shalt have nought to do
In this fair work of ours, nor ever more ́
Canst enter there, where honour keeps the door.

And therefore, hideous furies, get you hence, This place is sacred to integrity,

And clean desires; your sight most loathsome is Unto so well dispos'd a company.

Therefore be gone, I charge you by my power, We must have nothing in Arcadia, sour.

ENVY.

Hymen, thou canst not chase us so away,
For look, how long as thou mak'st marriages,
So long will we produce encumbrances;
And we will in the same disguise as thou,
Mix us amongst the shepherds, that we may
Effect our work the better, being unknown;
For ills show other faces than their own.

And with the thought of actions past

Are recreated still:

When pleasure leaves a touch at last To show that it was ill

SYREN.

That doth opinion only cause,

That's out of custom bred; Which makes us many other laws, Than ever Nature did. No widows wail for our delights, Our sports are without blood; The world we see by warlike wights Receives more hurt than good.

ULYSSES.

But yet the state of things require
These motions of unrest,

And these great spirits of high desire
Seem born to turn them best:

To purge the mischiefs, that increase, And all good order mar:

For oft we see a wicked peace,

To be well chang'd for war.

SYREN.

Well, well, Ulysses, then I see

I shall not have thee here; And therefore I will come to thee, And take my fortune there. I must be won that cannot win, Yet lost were I not won ; For beauty hath created been T'undo or be undone.

DEDICATION

OF

THE QUEEN'S ARCADIA.

A PASTORAL TRAGI-COMEDY.

PRESENTED TO HER MAJESTY AND HER LADIES, BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN CHRIST'S CHURCH, IN AUGUST, 1605,

TO THE

QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

THAT which their zeal, whose only zeal was bent
To show the best they could that might delight
Your royal mind, did lately represent,
Renown'd empress, to your princely sight:
Is now the offering of their humbleness,
Here consecrated to your glorious name;
Whose happy presence did vouchsafe to bless
So poor presentments, and to grace the same.
And though it be in th' humblest rank of words,
And in the lowest region of our speech,
Yet is it in that kind, as best accords
With rural passions, which use not to reach
Beyond the groves, and woods, where they were bred:
And best become a cloistral exercise,
Where men shut out retir'd, and sequester'd
From public fashion, seem to sympathise

With innocent and plain simplicity:
And living here under the awful hand
Of discipline and strict observancy,
Learn but our weaknesses to understand.
And therefore dare not enterprise to show
In lower style the hidden mysteries,

And arts of thrones, which none that are below
The sphere of action, and the exercise

Of power, can truly show; though men may strain
Conceit above the pitch where it should stand,
And form more monstrous figures than contain
A possibility, and go beyond

The nature of those managements so far,
As oft their common decency they mar:
Whereby the populace (in which such skill
Is needless) may be brought to apprehend
Notions, that may turn all to a taste of ill
Whatever power shall do, or might intend:
And think all cunning, all proceeding one,
And nothing simple, and sincerely done:
Yet th' eye of practice, looking down from high
Upon such over-reaching vanity,

Sees how from errour to errour it doth float,
As from an unknown ocean into a gulf:

And how though th' wolf would counterfeit the goat,
Yet every chink bewrays him for a wolf.

And therefore in the view of state t' have show'd A counterfeit of state, had been to light

A candle to the Sun, and so bestow'd
Our pains to bring our dimness unto light.
For majesty and power can nothing see
Without itself, that can sight-worthy be.
And therefore durst not we but on the ground,
From whence our humble argument hath birth,
Erect our scene, and thereon are we found,
And if we fall, we fall but on the earth,
From whence we pluck'd the flow'rs that here we
Which if at their first opening they did please,
It was enough, they serve but for a spring,
The first scent is the best in things as these:
A music of this nature on the ground,

[bring;

Is ever wont to vanish with the sound.
But yet your royal goodness may raise new,
Grace but the Muses, they will honour you.
Chi non fa, non falla.

IN THE

VISION OF THE TWELVE GODDESSES.

DESERT, Reward, and Gratitude,

The graces of society,

Do here with hand in haud conclude

The blessed chain of amity:
For we deserve, we give, we thank,
Thanks, gifts, deserts, thus join in rank.
We yield the splendent rays of light,

Unto these blessings that descend:
The grace whereof with more delight,

The well disposing doth commend; Whilst gratitude, rewards, deserts, Please, win, draw on, and couple hearts.

For worth, and power, and due respect,

Deserves, bestows, returns with grace: The meed, reward, the kind affect,

That give the world a cheerful face, And turning in this course of right, Make virtue move with true delight.

SONG.

FROM THE SAME.

WHILST worth with honour make their choice
For measur'd notions order'd right,
Now let us likewise give a voice,

Unto the touch of our delight.

For comforts lock'd up without sound,
Are th' unborn children of the thought:
Like unto treasures never found,

That buried low are left forgot.

Where words our glory doth not show,
(There) like brave actions without fame :

It seems as plants not set to grow,
Or as a tomb without a name.

DEDICATION

OF

THE TRAGEDY OF CLEOPATRA.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LADY MARY, COUNTESS
OF PEMBROKE.

Lo! here the labour which she did impose,
Whose influence did predominate my Muse,
The star of wonder my desires first chose,
To guide their travels in the course I use:
She, whose clear brightness had the power t' infuse
Strength to my thoughts, from whence these mo-
tions came,

Call'd up my spirits from out their low repose,
To sing of state, and tragic notes to frame.

I who (contented with an humble song)
Made music to myself that pleas'd me best,
And only told of Delia, and her wrong,

And prais'd her eyes, and plain'd mine own unrest:
(A text from whence my Muse had not digress'd)
Madam, had not thy well-grac'd Antony
(Who all alone having remained long)
Requir'd his Cleopatra's company.

Who if she here do so appear in act,

That he can scarce discern her for his queen,
Finding how much she of herself hath lack'd,
And miss'd that grace wherein she should be seen,
Her worth obscur'd, her spirit embased clean;
Yet lightning thon by thy sweet cheerfulness
My dark defects, which from her powers detract,
He may her guess by some resemblances.

And I hereafter in another kind,
More suiting to the nature of my vein,
May peradventure raise my humble mind
To other music in this higher strain;

Since I perceive the world and thou dost deign
To countenance my song, and cherish me,
I must so work posterity may find,
My love to verse, my gratitude to thee.

Now when so many pens (like spears) are charg'd
To chase away this tyrant of the north,
Gross Barbarism, whose pow'r grown far enlarg'd,
Was lately by thy valiant brother's worth
First found, encounter'd, and provoked forth:
Whose onset made the rest audacious,
Whereby they likewise have so well discharg'd
Upon that hideous beast encroaching thus.

And now must I with that poor strength I have
Resist so foul a foe in what I may:
And arm against oblivion and the grave,
That else in darkness carries all away,
And makes of all an universal prey;
So that if by my pen procure I shall,
But to defend me, and my name to save,
Then though I die, I cannot yet die all.

But still the better part of me will live,
And in that part will live thy rev'rend name,
Although thyself dost far more glory give
Unto thyself, than I can by the same,
Who dost with thine own hand a bulwark frame
Against these monsters, (enemies of honour)
Which evermore shall so defend thy fame,
As time or they shall never prey upon her.

[came;

Those hymns which thou dost consecrate to Heav'n,
Which Israel's singer to his God did frame,
Unto thy voice eternity hath given,
And makes thee dear to him from whence they
In them must rest thy venerable name,
So long as Sion's God remaineth honoured;
And till confusion hath all zeal bereaven,
And murther'd faith, and temples ruined.

When Wilton lies low levelled with the ground:
By this (great lady) thou must then be known,
And this is that which thou may'st call thine own,
Which sacrilegious time cannot confound.
Here thou surviv'st thyself, here thou art found
Of late succeeding ages, fresh in fame:
This monument cannot be overthrown,
Where, in eternal brass, remains thy name.

O that the ocean did not bound our style
Within these strict and narrow limits so;
But that the melody of our sweet isle
Might now be heard to Tyber, Arne, and Po:
That they might know how far Thames doth out-ge
The music of declined Italy;

And list'ning to our songs another while,
Might learn of thee their notes to purify.

O why may not some after-coming hand
Unlock these limits, open our confines,
And break asunder this imprisoning band,
T' enlarge our spirits, and publish our designs;
Planting our roses on the Apenines?

And to teach Rheyne, the Loyre, and Rhodanus,
Our accents, and the wonders of our land,
That they might all admire and honour us.

Whereby great Sidney and our Spencer might,
With those Po singers being equalled,
Enchant the world with such a sweet delight,
That their eternal songs (for ever read)
May show what great Eliza's reign hath bred.
What music in the kingdom of her peace
Hath now been made to her, and by her might,
Whereby her glorious fame shall never cease.