Like drunken sots about the street we roam :
Well knows the sot he has a certain home;
Yet knows not how to find th' 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 good
Was 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 deplore
His 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 bath'd his fetter'd feet,
And dropt all o'er with agony of sweat.
"Alas!" he cry'd, "I wretch in prison pine,
Too happy rival, while the fruit is thine :
Thou liv'st at large, thou draw'st thy native air,
Pleas'd with thy freedom, proud of my despair:
Thou mayst, since thou hast youth and courage
join'd,

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, possess
Fair Emily, the pledge of lasting peace.
So thine shall be the beauteous prize, while I
Must languish in despair, in prison die.
Thus all th' advantage of the strife is thine,

Thy portion double joys, and double sorrows mine."

The rage of jealousy then fir'd his soul,
And his face kindled like a burning coal:
Now 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 pass,
With pens of adamant, on plates of brass;
What, is the race of human kind your care,
Beyond 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 befall,
If Fate or giddy Fortune govern'd 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 surcharg'd with woe before,
Not freed when dead, is doom'd to suffer more.
A serpent shoots his sting at unaware;

An ambush'd thief forelays a traveller :

The man lies murder'd, 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 quartile, move
My pangs of jealousy for Arcite's love."

Let Palamon, oppress'd in bondage, mourn,
While to his exil'd rival we return.

[hold.

By this, the Sun, declining from his height,
The day had shorten'd, 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 banish'd 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 uncontroll'd,
Beholds whate'er he would, but what he would be.
Judge as you please, for I will haste to tell
What fortune to the banish'd knight befell.
When Arcite was to Thebes return'd again,
The loss of her he lov'd renew'd his pain;
What could be worse, than never more to see
His life, his soul, his charming Emily?
He rav'd with all the madness of despair,
He roar'd, he beat his breast, he tore his hair.
Dry sorrow in his stupid eyes appears,
For, wanting nourishment, he wanted tears:
His eye-balls in their hollow sockets sink :
Bereft of sleep, he loaths his meat and drink :

He withers at his heart, and looks as wan
As the pale spectre of a murder'd man :
That pale turns yellow, and his face receives
The faded hue of sapless boxen leaves:
In solitary groves he makes his moan,
Walks early out, and ever is alone :

Nor, mix'd in mirth, in youthful pleasures shares,
But sighs when songs and instruments he hears :
His spirits are so low, his voice is drown'd,
He hears as from afar, or in a swoon,
Like the deaf murmurs of a distant sound:
Uncomb'd his locks, and squalid his attire,
Unlike the trim of Love and gay Desire:
But full of museful mopings, which presage
The loss of reason, and conclude in rage.
This when he had endur'd a year and more,
Now wholly changed from what he was before,
It happen'd once, that, slumbering as he lay,
He dream'd (his dream began at break of day)
That Hermes o'er his head in air appear'd,
And with soft words his drooping spirits cheer'd:
His hat, adorn'd with wings, disclos'd the god,
And in his hand he bore the sleep-compelling rod :
Such as he seem'd, 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 to all thy woe."
The fright awaken'd Arcite with a start,
Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart;
But soon he said, with scarce recover'd 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 spy'd a mirror while he spoke,
And gazing there beheld his alter'd look ;
Wondering, he saw his features and his hue

So much were chang'd, 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 cloth'd himself in coarse array :
A labouring hind in show, then forth he went,
And to th' Athenian towers his journey bent:
One squire attended in the same disguise,
Made conscious of his master's enterprise.
Arriv'd at Athens, soon he came to court,
Unknown, unquestion'd, in that thick resort:
Proffering for hire his service at the gate,
To drudge, draw water, and to run or wait.
So fair befell him, that for little gain
He serv'd 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,
Refus'd no toil, that could to slaves belong;
But from deep wells with engines water drew,
And us'd his noble hands the wood to hew.