The Hesperides & Noble Numbers Part 105

Speak, what art thou? _Euc_. One once that had a lover, Than which thyself ne'er wafted sweeter over.

He was---- _Cha._ Say what? _Euc._ Ah me, my woes are deep.

_Cha._ Prithee relate, while I give ear and weep.

_Euc._ He was a Hastings; and that one name has In it all good that is, and ever was.

He was my life, my love, my joy, but died Some hours before I should have been his bride.

_Chorus._ Thus, thus the G.o.ds celestial still decree, For human joy contingent misery.

_Euc._ The hallowed tapers all prepared were, And Hymen call'd to bless the rites. _Cha._ Stop there.

_Euc._ Great are my woes. _Cha._ And great must that grief be That makes grim Charon thus to pity thee.

But now come in. _Euc._ More let me yet relate.

_Cha._ I cannot stay; more souls for waftage wait And I must hence. _Euc._ Yet let me thus much know, Departing hence, where good and bad souls go?

_Cha._ Those souls which ne'er were drench'd in pleasure's stream, The fields of Pluto are reserv'd for them; Where, dress'd with garlands, there they walk the ground Whose blessed youth with endless flowers is crown'd.

But such as have been drown'd in this wild sea, For those is kept the Gulf of Hecate, Where with their own contagion they are fed, And there do punish and are punished.

This known, the rest of thy sad story tell When on the flood that nine times circles h.e.l.l.

_Chorus._ We sail along to visit mortals never; But there to live where love shall last for ever.

EPITAPH ON THE TOMB OF SIR EDWARD GILES AND HIS WIFE IN THE SOUTH AISLE OF DEAN PRIOR CHURCH, DEVON.

No trust to metals nor to marbles, when These have their fate and wear away as men; Times, t.i.tles, trophies may be lost and spent, But virtue rears the eternal monument.

What more than these can tombs or tombstones pay?

But here's the sunset of a tedious day: These two asleep are: I'll but be undress'd And so to bed: pray wish us all good rest.

NOTES.

NOTES.

569. _And of any wood ye see, You can make a Mercury._ Pythagoras allegorically said that Mercury's statue could not be made of every sort of wood: cp. Rabelais, iv. 62.

575. _The Apparition of his Mistress calling him to Elysium._ An earlier version of this poem was printed in the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's poems under the t.i.tle, _His Mistris Shade_, having been licensed for separate publication at Stationers' Hall the previous year. The variants are numerous, and some of them important. l. 1, _of silver_ for _with silv'rie_; l. 3, on the Banks for _in the Meads_; l. 8, _Spikenard through_ for _Storax from_; l. 10 reads: "_Of mellow_ Apples, _ripened_ Plums _and_ Pears": l. 17, the order of "naked younglings, handsome striplings" is reversed; in place of l. 20 we have:--

"So soon as each his dangling locks hath crown'd With Rosie Chaplets, Lilies, Pansies red, Soft Saffron Circles to perfume the head";

l. 23, _to_ for _too unto_; l. 24, _their_ for _our_; ll. 29, 30:--

"Unto the Prince of Shades, whom once his Pen Ent.i.tuled the Grecian Prince of Men";

l. 31, _thereupon_ for _and that done_; l. 36, _render him true_ for _show him truly_; l. 37, _will_ for _shall_; l. 38, "Where both may _laugh_, both drink, _both_ rage together"; l. 48, _Amphitheatre_ for _s.p.a.cious theatre_; l. 49, _synod_ for _glories_, followed by:--

"crown'd with sacred Bays And flatt'ring _joy, we'll have to_ recite their plays, _Shakespeare and Beamond_, Swans to whom _the Spheres_ Listen while they _call back the former year[s]

To teach the truth of scenes_, and more for thee, There yet remains, _brave soul_, than thou can'st see,"

etc.;

l. 56, _ill.u.s.trious for capacious_; l. 57, _shall be_ for _now is_ [Jonson died 1637]; ll. 59-61:--

"To be of that high Hierarchy where none But brave souls take illumination Immediately from heaven; but hark the c.o.c.k," etc.;

l. 62, _feel_ for _see_; l. 63, _through_ for _from_.

579. _My love will fit each history._ Cp. Ovid, _Amor._ II. iv. 44: Omnibus historiis se meus aptat amor.

580. _The sweets of love are mixed with tears._ Cp. Propert. I. xii. 16: Nonnihil adspersis gaudet Amor lacrimis.

583. _Whom this morn sees most fortunate_, etc. Seneca, _Thyest._ 613: Quem dies vidit veniens superb.u.m Hunc dies vidit fugiens jacentem.

586. _Night hides our thefts_, etc. Ovid, _Ars Am._ i. 249:--

Nocte latent mendae vitioque ignoscitur omni, Horaque formosam quamlibet illa facit.

590. _To his brother-in-law, Master John Wingfield._ Of Brantham, Suffolk, husband of the poet's sister, Mercy. See 818, and Sketch of Herrick's Life in vol. i.

599. _Upon Lucia._ Cp. "The Resolution" in _Speculum Amantis_, ed. A. H.

Bullen.

604. _Old Religion._ Certainly not Roman Catholicism, though Jonson was a Catholic. Herrick uses the noun and its adjective rather curiously of the dead: cp. 82, "To the reverend shade of his religious Father," and 138, "When thou shalt laugh at my religious dust". There may be something of this use here, or we may refer to his ancient cult of Jonson. But the use of the phrase in 870 makes the exact shade of meaning difficult to fix.

605. _Riches to be but burdens to the mind._ Seneca _De Provid._ 6: Democritus divitias projecit, onus illas bonae mentis existimans.

607. _Who covets more is evermore a slave._ Hor. I. _Ep._ x. 41: Serviet aeternum qui parvo nesciet uti.

615. _No Wrath of Men._ Cp. Hor. _Od._ III. iii. 1-8.

616. _To the Maids to walk abroad._ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, under the t.i.tle: _Abroad with the Maids_.

618. _Mistress Elizabeth Lee, now Lady Tracy._ Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas, first Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh, in Warwicks.h.i.+re, married John, third Viscount Tracy. She survived her husband two years, and died in 1688.

624. _Poets._ _Wantons we are_, etc. From Ovid, _Trist._ ii. 353-4:--

Crede mihi, mores distant a carmine nostri: Vita verecunda est, Musa jocosa, mihi.

625. _'Tis cowardice to bite the buried._ Cp. Ben Jonson, _The Poetaster_, I. 1: "Envy the living, not the dead, doth bite"; perhaps from Ovid, _Am._ I. xv. 39: Pascitur in vivis livor; post fata quiescit.

626. _n.o.ble Westmoreland._ See Note to 112.

_Gallant Newark._ Robert Pierrepoint was created Viscount Newark in 1627 and Earl of Kingston in the following year. But Herrick is perhaps addressing his son, Henry Pierrepoint, afterwards Marquis of Dorchester (see 962 and Note), who during the first Earl of Kingston's life would presumably have borne his second t.i.tle.

633. _Sweet words must nourish soft and gentle love._ Ovid, _Ars Am._ ii. 152: Dulcibus est verbis mollis alendus amor.

639. _Fates revolve no flax they've spun._ Seneca, _Herc. Fur._ 1812: Durae peragunt pensa sorores, Nec sua retro fila revolvunt.

642. _Palms ... gems._ A Latinism. Cp. Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 152: Et nova de gravido palmite gemma tumet.

645. _Upon Tears._ Cp. S. Bernard: Pnitentium lacrimae vinum angelorum.