Imatges de pàgina
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With bitter fafts, with penitential groans ;
With nightly tears, and daily heart-fore fighs.
For, in revenge of my contempt of love,
Love hath chac'd sleep from my enthralled eyes,.
And made them watchers of mine own heart's forrow.

O gentle Protheus, love's a mighty lord;
And hath so humbled me, as, I confefs,

There

by which I exalted myself above human passions or frail, ties, have brought upon me fasts and groans." J. Ovid fays in the epiftle of Phedra to Hippolitus,

Quicquid amor jussit, non eft contemnere tutum :
Regnat, & in fuperos jus habet ille deos.
'Tis dangerous to contemn the pow'r of love,
He rules o'er all things, and is king above.

And the old shepherd, in Pastor Fido, obferves,

Vuol una volta amer amor ne' cuori noftri
Mostrar quant' egli vale.

-Love will be fure before

We die, to make us all once feel his pow'r.

Otway

Fanshaw..

In the Antigone of Sophocles, the chorus fings thus to the honour of love;

Έρως ανίκατε μαχαν, &c.

God of love, whose boundless sway

All created things obey:

1

You in the yielding fair ones eye

Or on her foft and damask cheek,
Lull'd to repose securely lie;

Or o'er the wild waves lightly fly,

Thy vengeance, on such as contemn thee, to wreak.
On downy pinions through the air

Bird-like, you cut your pathless way :
The gods themselves you do not spare:
Then how should ever mortal dare

Ev'n hope that he shall not obey?
All once the pleasing pain must prove,
The fond emotions of distracting love,

There is no woe (11) to his correction:
Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
Now no difcourse, except it be of love;
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and fleep,

Upon the very naked name of love.

Love fed by Praise..

-Call her divine.

Pro. I will not flatter her.

Val. O flatter me; for love delights in praise.

Lover's Wealth...

Not for the world; why, man, she is mine own;:

And I as rich in having such a jewel,
As twenty seas, if all their fand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold. -

True Love jealous.

For love, thou know'st, is full of jealoufy..

Love compared to a waxen Image...

Now (12) my love is thaw'd,
Which like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impreffion of the thing it was.

SCENE

(11) No woe to bis, &c.] " No misery which can be compared to the punishment inflicted by love." Herbert called for the prayers of the liturgy a little before his death, faying, None to them, none to them. J.

(12) Νου, &c.] Almost the same simile is applied to life departing, in King John;

Retaining but a quantity of life,
Which bleeds away, e'en as a form of wax
Resolveth from its figure 'gainst the fire...

Ovid,

:

SCENE VI.

Unheedful Vows to be broken...

Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit, that wants resolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better..

SCENE VII. Opposition to Love increases it..

Jul A true devoted pilgrim is not weary
To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;
Much less shall she, that hath love's wings to fly;
And when the flight is made to one fo dear,
Of such divine perfection, as Sir Protheus.

Luc. Better forbear, till Protheus make return.
Jul. Oh, know'st thou not, his looks are my fouls-

food?

Pity the dearth that I have pined in,
By longing for that food so long a time.
Did'ft thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou would'st as foon go kindle fire with snow,
As feek to quench the fire of love with words.

Luc. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,

Ovid, in his Metamorphofes, uses the same simile;
Sed ut intabefcere flave,

Igne levi cera, matutinæve pruine, &c.

As wax against the fire dissolves away-
Or as the morning ice begins to run,
And trickle into drops before the fun. &c.

So Spencer,

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Addison.

Yet still he wasted as the snow congeal'd,
When the bright fun his beams thereon doth beat.

B. 3. C. 4. S.49.

which poffibly he borrowed from Tasso, Gieru. Lib. 6. 20. S. 136.

- As against the warmth of Titan's fire Snow-drifts confume on tops of mountains tall.

See Act 3. Sc. 5.

But qualify the fire's extremest rage,
Left it should burn above the bounds of reason,

Jul. The more thou damm'st it up the more it burns:
The current (3) that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know'ft, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with th' enamel'd stones;;
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
And fo by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Then let me go, and hinder not my course;
I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,
And make a paftime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;
And there I'll reft, as, after much turmoil,
A blessed foul doth in Elysium.

A faithful and constant Lover.

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;
His love fincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears, pure messengers fent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud, as heav'n from earth.

ACT

(13) The current, &c.] So, in Pastor Fido, Ergafto tells Mirtillo, nothing augments love more than fuppreffing and confining it,

Mirtillo amor, &c. Act 1. Sc. 2.
Mirtillo, love's a mighty pain at best,
But more, by how much more it is supprest:
For as hot steeds run faster at the check,.
Than if you laid the reins upon their neck;
So love restrain'd augments, and fiercer grows
In a close prison, than when loofe he goes.

Sir R. Fanshaw.

And in a fragment of Euripides, it is observed,
Τοιαυτ' αλυει νεθετεμενος γ' ερως.
Love rages more, the more it is supprest.

:

ACT III.

SCENΕΙ.

Gifts prevalent with Woman.

Win (14) her with gifts, if she respect not words; Dumb jewels, often, in their filent kind, More than quick words, do move a woman's mind.

Flattery prevalent with Woman.

Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces; Tho' ne'er so black, swear they have angels' faces : That man who hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue, he cannot win a woman.

A Lover's Banishment.

(15) And why not death, rather than living tor

ment?

To die, is to be banished from myself,

And

(14) Win, &c.] We are told, and that very beautifully, gifts are of no avail, and by no means regarded in true love. Winter's Tale, Act 4.

(15) See Romeo and Juliet, Act 3. In the 2d Act, and 3d Scene of The Two Noble Kinsmen, Arcite speaks thus;

Banish'd the kingdom? 'Tis a benefit,
A mercy I must thank 'em for: but banish'd
The free enjoying of that face I die for,
Oh, 'twas a studied punishment; a death
Beyond imagination; fuch vengeance,
That were I old and wicked, all my fins
Cou'd never pluck upon me. Palamon,
Thou haft the start now, thou shalt stay and fee
Her bright eyes break each morning 'gainst the window
And let in life unto thee: thou shalt feed
Upon the sweetness of a noble beauty,
That nature ne'er exceeded, nor ne'er small :
Good gods-what happiness has Palamon!
Twenty to one, he'll come to fpeak to her,
And if the be as gentle, as the 's fair,

I know

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