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   For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy
Doth call himself Affection's sentinel;  650
Gives false alarms, suggested mutiny,
And in a peaceful hour doth cry "Kill, kill!"
Distempering gentle Love in his desire,
As air and water do abate the fire.

   This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,  655
This canker that eats up Love's tender spring,
This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear,
That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:  660

   And more than so, presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angry-chafing boar,
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself, all stain'd with gore;
Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed  665
Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.

   What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,
That tremble at the imagination?
The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,
And fear doth teach in divination:  670
I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,
If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

   But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,  675
Or at the roe which no encounter dare:
Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,
And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hounds.

   And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,  680
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

   Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,  685
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell;
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer:
Danger deviseth shifts: wit waits on fear:  690

   For there his smell with others being mingled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;
Then do they spend their mouth: Echo replies,  695
As if another chase were in the skies.

   By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still:
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;  700
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

   Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch,  705
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low never relieved by any.

   Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:  710
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize,
Applying this to that, and so to so;
For love can comment upon every woe.

   Where did I leave?» «No matter where», quoth he;  715
«Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:
The night is spent.» «Why, what of that?» quoth she.
«I am», quoth he, «expected of my friends;
And now 'tis dark, and going I shall fall.»
«In night», quoth she, «desire sees best of all.  720

   But if thou fall, O, then imagine this,
The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.
Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips
Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,  725
Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn.

   Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine,
Till forging Nature be condemn'd of treason,
For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine;  730
Wherein she framed thee, in high heaven's despite,
To shame the sun by day and her by night.

   And therefore hath she bribed the Destinies
To cross the curious workmanship of nature,
To mingle beauty with infirmities  735
And pure perfection with impure defeature;
Making it subject to the tyranny
Of mad mischances and such misery;

   As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,
Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,  740
The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood:
Surfeits, imposthumes, grief and damnm'd despair,
Swear Nature's death for framing thee so fair.

   And not the least of all these maladies  745
But in one minute's fight brings beauty under:
Both favour, savour, hue and qualities,
Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder,
Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd and done,
As mountain snow melts with the midday sun.  750

   Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,
Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,
That on the earth would breed a scarcity
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,
Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night  755
Dries up his oil lend the world his light.

   What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?  760
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.

   So in thyself thyself art made away;
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,  765
Or butcher-sire that reaves his son of life.
Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,
But gold that's put to use more gold begets.»

   «Nay, then», quoth Adon, «you will fall again
Into your idle over-handled theme:  770
The kiss I gave you is bestow'd in vain,
And all in vain you strive against the stream;
For, by this black-faced night, desire's foul nurse,
Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

   If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,  775
And every tongue more moving than your own,
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs,
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;
For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,
And will not let a false sound enter there;  780

   Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast;
And then my little heart were quite undone,
In his bedchamber to be barr'd of rest.
No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,  785
But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

   What have you urged that I cannot reprove?
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger:
I hate not love, but your decive in love
That lends embracements unto every stranger.  790
You do it for increase: O strange excuse,
When reason is the bawd to lust's abuse!

   Call it not love, for Love to heaven is fled
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name;
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed  795
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;
Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,
As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

   Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;  800
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.

   More I could tell, but more I dare not say;  805
The text is old, the orator too green.
Therefore, in sadness, now I will away:
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen:
Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended,
Do burn themselves for having so offended.»  810

    With this, he breaketh from the sweet embrace
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,
And homeward through the dark lawnd runs apace;
Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress'd.
Look, how a bright star shooth from the sky,  815
So glides he in the night from Venus' eye:

    Which this, him she darts, as one on shore
Gazing upon a late embarked friend,
Till the wild wawes will have him seen no more,
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:  820
So did the merciless and pitchy night
Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

    Whereat amazed, as one that unaware
Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood,
Or 'stonish'd as night-wanderers often are,  825
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood;
Even so confounded in the dark she lay,
Having lost the fair discovery of her way.

    And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,
That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,  830
Make verbal repetition of her moans;
Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:
«Ay me!» she cries, and twenty times, «Woe, woe!»
And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

    She, marking them, begins a wailing note,  835
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;
How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote;
How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:
Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,
And still the choir of echoes answer so.  840

    Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,
For lover's hours are long, though seeming short:
If pleased themselves, others, they think, delight
In such-like circumstance, with such-like sport:
Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,  845
End without audience, and are never done.

    For who hath she to spend the night withal,
But idle sounds resembling parasites;
Like shrill-tongued tapsters answering every call
Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?  850
She say «Tis so»: they answer all «Tis so»;
And would say after her, if she said «No».

    Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast  855
The sun ariseth in his majesty;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.

    Venus salutes him with this fair good-morrow:
«O thou clear god, and patron of all light,  860
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow
The beauteous influence that makes him bright,
There live a son, that suck'd an earthly mother,
May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.»

    This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,  865
Musing the morning is so much o'erworn,
And yet she hears no tidings of her love:
She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn:
Anon she hears them chant it lustily,
And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.  870

    And as she runs, the bushes in the way
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,
Some twine about her thing to make her stay:
She windly breaketh from their strict embrace,
Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,  875
Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.

    By this she hears the hounds are at a bay;
Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder
Wreathed up in fatal folds just in his way,
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder,  880
Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds
Appals her senses and her spirit confounds.

    For now she knows it is no gentle chase,
But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud.
Because the cry remaineth in one place,  885
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:
Finding their enemy to be so curts,
They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first.

    This dismal cry rings sandly in her ear,
Through which it enters to surprise her heart;  890
Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,
With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part:
Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,
They basely fly, and dare not stay the field.

    Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy;  895
Till, cheering up her senses all dismay'd,
She tells them 'tis a causeless fantasy,
And childish error, that they are afraid;
Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:
And with that word she spied the hunted boar;  900

    Whose frothy mouth, bepainted all with red,
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A second fear through all her sinews spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:
This way she runs, and now she will no further,  905
But back retires to rate the boar for murther.

    A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways;
She treads the path that she unthreads again;
Her more than haste is mated with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,  910
Full of respect, yet not at all respecting:
In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.

    Here kennell'd in a brake she finds a hound,
And asks the weary caitiff for his master;
And there another licking of his wound,  915
'Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster;
And here she meets another sadly scowling,
To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.

    When he hath ceased his ill-resounding noise,
Another flop-mouth'd mourner, black and grim,  920
Against the welkin volleys out his voice;
Another and another answer him,
Clapping their proud tales to the ground below,
Shaking their scratch'd ears, bleeding as they go.

    Look, how the world's poor people are amazed  925
At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;
So she at these sad signs draws up her breath,
And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death.  930

   «Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,
Hateful divorce of love», -thus chides she Death-,
«Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,
Who when he lived, his breath and beauty set  935
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?

   If he be dead, -O no, cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it;-
O yes, it may; thou hast no eyes to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit.  940
Thy mark is feeble age; but thy false dart
Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant's heart.

   Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,
And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power.
The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke;  945
They bid thee crop a weep, thou pluck'st a flower:
Love's golden arrow at him should have fled,
And not Death's ebon dart, to strike him dead.

    Dost thou drink tears, that thou provokest such weeping?
What may a heavy groan advantage thee?  950
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?
Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,
Since her best work is ruin'd with thy rigour.»

    Here overcome, as one full of despair,  955
She vail'd her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp'd
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp'd;
But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,
And with his strong course opens them again.  960

    O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eye seen in the tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,
Sorrow that friendly sight sought still to dry;
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,  965
Sight dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

    Variable passions throng her constant woe,
As striving who should best become her grief;
All entertain'd, each passion labours so
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,  970
But none is best: then join they all together,
Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.

    By this, far off she hears some huntsman holloa;
A nurse's song ne'er pleased her babe so well:
The dire imagination she did follow  975
This sound of hope doth labour to expel;
For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,
And flatters her it is Adonis' voice.

    Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,
Being prison,'d her eye like pearls in glass:  980
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass
To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,
Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown'd.

    O hard-believing love, how strange it seems  985
Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;
Despair, and hope, makes thee ridiculous :
The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.  990

    Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought;
Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;
It was not she that call'd him all to nought:
Now she adds honours to his hateful name;
She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,  995
Imperious supreme of all mortal things.

   «No, no», quoth she, «sweet Death, I did but jest;
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear
When as I met the boar, that bloody beast,
Which knows no pity, but is still severe;  1000
Then, gentle shadow, -truth I must confess,-
I rail'd on thee, fearing my love's decease.

   Tis not my fault: the boar provoked my tongue:
Be wreak'd on him, invisible commander;
'Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;  1005
I did but act, he's author of my slander:
Grief hath two tongues; and never woman yet
Could rule yhem both without ten womenn's wit.»

    Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,
Her rash suspect she doth extenuate;  1010
And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With Death she humbly doth insinuate;
Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs, and stories
His victories, his triumphs and his glories.

   «O Jove», quoth she, «how much a fool was I  1015
To be of such a weak and silly mind
To wail his death who lives and must not die
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind
For he being dead, with is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.  1020

   Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemm'd with thieves
Triflews unwitnessed with eye or ear
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieges.»
Even at this word she hears a merry horn,  1025
Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.

    As falcons to the lure, away she flies;
The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light;
And in her haste unfortunately spies
The foul boar's conquest on her fair delight;  1030
Which seen, her eyes, as munder'd with the view,
Like stars ashamed of day, themselves withdrew;

    Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,
And there all smother'd up in shade doth sit,  1035
Long after fearing to creep forth again;
So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled
Into the dee-dark cabins of her head;

    Where they resign their office and their light
To the disposing of her troubled brain;  1040
Who bids them still consort with ugly night,
And never wound the heart with looks again;
Who, like a king perplexed in his throne,
By their suggestion gives a deadly groan,

    Whereat each tributary subject quakes;  1045
As when the wind, imprison'd in the ground,
Struggling for passage, earth's foundation shakes,
Which with cold terror doth men's mind confound.
This mutiny each part doth so surprise,
That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes;  1050

    And being open'd threw unwilling light
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench'd:
In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white
With purple tears, that his wound weps, was drench'd:
No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, lear or weed,  1055
But stole his blood and seem'd with him to bleed.

    This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth;
Over one shoulder doth she hang her head;
Dumbly she passions, franticly she dotedh;
She thinks he could not die, he is not dead:  1060
Her voice is stopp'd, her joints forget to bow;
Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now.

    Upon his hurt she looked so steadfastly
That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem thee;
And then she reprehends her mangling eye,  1065
That makes more gashers where no breach should be:
His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled;
For oft the eve mistakes, the brain being troubled.

   «My tongue cannot express my grief for one,
And yet», quoth she, «Behold two Adonis dead!  1070
My sight are blown away, my salt tears gone,
Mine eyes are turn'd to fire, my heart to lead:
Heavy heart's lead, melt at mine eyes, red fire!
So shall I die by drops of hot desire.

   Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!  1075
What face remains alive that's worth the viewing?
Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast
Of things long since, or any thing ensuing?
The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim;
But true-sweet beauty lived and died with him.  1080

    Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!
Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:
Having no fair to lose, you need not fear;
The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you:
But when Adonis lived, sun and sharp air  1085
Lurk'd like two thieves, to rob him of his fair.

   And therefore would he put his bonnet on,
Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;
The wind would blow it off, and, being gone,
Play with his locks: then would Adonis weep;  1090
And straight, in pity of his tender years,
They both would strive who first should dry his tears.

   To see his face the lion walk'd along
Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;
To recreate himself when he hath sung,  1095
The tiger would be tame and gently hear him;
If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,
And never fright the silly lamb that day.

   When he beheld his shadow in the brook,
The fishes spread on it their golden gills;  1100
Wen he was by, the birds such pleasure took,
That some would sing, some other in their bills
Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries;
He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.

   But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,  1105
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,
Ne'er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;
Witness the entertain that he gave:
If he did see his face, why then I know
He thought to kiss him, and hath kill'd him so.  1110

   Tis true, tis true; thus was Adonis slain:
He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,
Who did not whet his teeth at him again,
But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;
And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine  1115
Sheathed unaware the tusk in his soft groin.

   Had I been tooth'd like him, I must confess,
With kissing him I should have kill'd him first;
But he is dead, and never did he bless
My youth with his; the more am I accurst.»  1120
With this, she falleth in the place she stood,
And stains her face with his congealed blood.

    Se looks upon his lips, and they are pale;
She takes him by the hand, and that is cold;
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,  1125
As if they heard the woeful words she told;
She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,
Were, lo, two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies;

    Two glasses, where herself herself beheld
A thousand times, and now no more reflect;  1130
Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell'd,
And every beauty robb'd of his effect:
«Wonder of time», quoth she, «this is my spite,
That, thou being dead, the day should yet be light.

   Since thou art dead, lo, here I prophesy,  1135
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning but unsavoury end;
Ne'r settled equally, but high or low,
That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.  1140

   It shall be fickle, false full of fraud;
Bud, and be blasted, in a breathing-while;
The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile:
The strongest body shall it make most weak,  1145
Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.

   It shall be sparing and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures  1150
It shall be raging-mad, and silly-mild,
Make the young old, the old become a child.

   It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful and too severe,  1155
And most deceiving when it seems most just;
Perverse it shall be where it shows most toward,
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

   It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissension 'twist the son ad sire;  1160
Subject and servile to all discontents,
As dry combustious matter is to fire:
Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy
That they love best their loves shall not enjoy.»

    By this the boy that by her side lay kill'd  1165
Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
And in his blood, that on the ground lay spill'd,
A purple flower sprung up, chequer'd with white,
Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.  1170

    She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,
Comparing it to her Adonis' breath;
And says, within her bosom it shall dwell,
Since he himself is reft from her by death:
She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears  1175
Green-dropping sap, which she compares to tears.

   «Poor flower», quoth she, «this was thy father's guise-
Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire-
For every little grief to wet his eyes:
To grow unto himself was his desire,  1180
And so 'tis thine; but know, it is a good
To wither in my breast as in his blood.

   Here was thy father's bed, here in my breast;
Thou art the next of blood, and 'tis thy right:
Lo, in this hollow cradle take thy rest;  1185
My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:
There shall not be one minute in an hour
Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love's flower.»

    Thus weary of the world, away she hies,
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid  1190
Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey'd;
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen.

 
 
THE END
 
 





Anterior Indice