THE THIRD SESTIAD

THE ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD SESTIAD

Leander to the envious light Resigns his night-sports with the night, And swims the h.e.l.lespont again.

Thesme, the deity sovereign Of customs and religious rites, Appears, reproving his delights, Since nuptial honours he neglected; Which straight he vows shall be effected.

Fair Hero, left devirginate, Weighs, and with fury wails her state: But with her love and woman's wit She argues and approveth it.

New light gives new directions, fortunes new To fashion our endeavours that ensue.

More harsh, at least more hard, more grave and high Our subject runs, and our stern Muse must fly.

Love's edge is taken off, and that light flame, Those thoughts, joys, longings, that before became High unexperienc'd blood, and maids' sharp plights, Must now grow staid, and censure the delights, That, being enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise, As having parted: evenings crown the days.

And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires, Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires, Ye lisping Flatteries, and obsequious Glances, Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances, And you detested Charms constraining love!

Shun love's stoln sports by that these lovers prove.

By this, the sovereign of heaven's golden fires, And young Leander, lord of his desires, Together from their lover's arms arose: Leander into h.e.l.lespontus throws His Hero-handled body, whose delight Made him disdain each other epithite.

And so amidst th' enamour'd waves he swims, The G.o.d of gold of purpose gilt his limbs, That, this word _gilt_ including double sense, The double guilt of his incontinence Might be express'd, that had no stay t' employ The tresure which the love-G.o.d let him joy In his dear Hero, with such sacred thrift As had beseem'd so sanctified a gift; But, like a greedy vulgar prodigal, Would on the stock dispend, and rudely fall, Before his time, to that unblessed blessing Which, for l.u.s.t's plague, doth perish with possessing: Joy graven in sense, like snow in water, wasts; Without preserve of virtue, nothing lasts.

What man is he, that with a wealthy eye Enjoys a beauty richer than the sky, Through whose white skin, softer than soundest sleep, With damask eyes the ruby blood doth peep, And runs in branches through her azure veins, Whose mixture and first fire his love attains; Whose both hands limit both love's deities, And sweeten human thoughts like paradise; Whose disposition silken and is kind, Directed with an earth-exempted mind;-- Who thinks not heaven with such a love is given?

And who, like earth, would spend that dower of heaven, With rank desire to joy it all at first?

What simply kills our hunger, quencheth thirst, Clothes but our nakedness, and makes us live, Praise doth not any of her favours give: But what doth plentifully minister Beauteous apparel and delicious cheer, So order'd that it still excites desire, And still gives pleasure freeness to aspire, The palm of Bounty ever moist preserving; To Love's sweet life this is the courtly carving.

Thus Time and all-states-ordering Ceremony Had banish'd all offence: Time's golden thigh Upholds the flowery body of the earth In sacred harmony, and every birth Of men and actions makes legitimate; Being us'd aright, the use of time is fate.

Yet did the gentle flood transfer once more This prize of love home to his father's sh.o.r.e, Where he unlades himself of that false wealth That makes few rich,--treasures compos'd by stealth; And to his sister, kind Hermione, (Who on the sh.o.r.e kneel'd, praying to the sea For his return,) he all love's goods did show, In Hero seis'd for him, in him for Hero.

His most kind sister all his secrets knew, And to her, singing, like a shower, he flew, Sprinkling the earth, that to their tombs took in Streams dead for love, to leave his ivory skin, Which yet a snowy foam did leave above, As soul to the dead water that did love; And from thence did the first white roses spring (For love is sweet and fair in every thing), And all the sweeten'd sh.o.r.e, as he did go, Was crown'd with odorous roses, white as snow.

Love-blest Leander was with love so fill'd, That love to all that touch'd him he instill'd; And as the colours of all things we see, To our sight's powers communicated be, So to all objects that in compa.s.s came Of any sense he had, his senses' flame Flow'd from his parts with force so virtual, It fir'd with sense things mere insensual.

Now, with warm baths and odours comforted, When he lay down, he kindly kiss'd his bed, As consecrating it to Hero's right, And vow'd thererafter, that whatever sight Put him in mind of Hero or her bliss, Should be her altar to prefer a kiss.

Then laid he forth his late-enriched arms, In whose white circle Love writ all his charms, And made his characters sweet Hero's limbs, When on his breast's warm sea she sideling swims; And as those arms, held up in circle, met, He said, "See, sister, Hero's carquenet!

Which she had rather wear about her neck, Than all the jewels that do Juno deck."

But, as he shook with pa.s.sionate desire To put in flame his other secret fire, A music so divine did pierce his ear, As never yet his ravish'd sense did hear; When suddenly a light of twenty hues Brake through the roof, and, like the rainbow, views Amaz'd Leander: in whose beams came down The G.o.ddess Ceremony, with a crown Of all the stars; and Heaven with her descended: Her flaming hair to her bright feet extended, By which hung all the bench of deities; And in a chain, compact of ears and eyes, She led Religion: all her body was Clear and transparent as the purest gla.s.s, For she was all presented to the sense: Devotion, Order, State, and Reverence, Her shadows were; Society, Memory; All which her sight made live, her absence die.

A rich disparent pentacle she wears, Drawn full of circles and strange characters.

Her face was changeable to every eye; One way look'd ill, another graciously; Which while men view'd, they cheerful were and holy, But looking off, vicious and melancholy.

The snaky paths to each observed law Did Policy in her broad bosom draw.

One hand a mathematic crystal sways, Which, gathering in one line a thousand rays From her bright eyes, Confusion burns to death, And all estates of men distinguisheth: By it Morality and Comeliness Themselves in all their sightly figures dress.

Her other hand a laurel rod applies, To beat back Barbarism and Avarice, That follow'd, eating earth and excrement And human limbs; and would make proud ascent To seats of G.o.ds, were Ceremony slain.

The Hours and Graces bore her glorious train; And all the sweets of our society Were spher'd and treasur'd in her bounteous eye.

Thus she appear'd, and sharply did reprove Leander's bluntness in his violent love; Told him how poor was substance without rites, Like bills unsign'd; desires without delights; Like meats unseason'd; like rank corn that grows On cottages, that none or reaps or sows; Not being with civil forms confirm'd and bounded, For human dignities and comforts founded; But loose and secret all their glories hide; Fear fills the chamber, Darkness decks the bride.

She vanish'd, leaving pierc'd Leander's heart With sense of his unceremonious part, In which, with plain neglect of nuptial rites, He close and flatly fell to his delights: And instantly he vow'd to celebrate All rites pertaining to his married state.

So up he gets, and to his father goes, To whose glad ears he doth his vows disclose.

The nuptials are resolv'd with utmost power; And he at night would swim to Hero's tower, From whence he meant to Sestos' forked bay To bring her covertly, where ships must stay, Sent by his father, throughly rigg'd and mann'd, To waft her safely to Abydos' strand.

There leave we him; and with fresh wing pursue Astonish'd Hero, whose most wished view I thus long have forborne, because I left her So out of countenance, and her spirits bereft her: To look of one abashed is impudence, When of slight faults he hath too deep a sense.

Her blushing het her chamber: she look'd out, And all the air she purpled round about; And after it a foul black day befell, Which ever since a red morn doth foretell, And still renews our woes for Hero's woe; And foul it prov'd, because it figur'd so The next night's horror; which prepare to hear; I fail, if it profane your daintiest ear.

Then, ho, most strangely-intellectual fire, That, proper to my soul, hast power t'inspire Her burning faculties, and with the wings Of thy unsphered flame visit'st the springs Of spirits immortal! Now (as swift as Time Doth follow Motion) find th' eternal clime Of his free soul, whose living subject stood Up to the chin in the Pierian flood, And drunk to me half this Musaean story, Inscribing it to deathless memory: Confer with it, and make my pledge as deep, That neither's draught be consecrate to sleep; Tell it how much his late desires I tender (If yet it know not), and to light surrender My soul's dark offspring, willing it should die To loves, to pa.s.sions, and society.

Sweet Hero, left upon her bed alone, Her maidenhead, her vows, Leander gone, And nothing with her but a violent crew Of new-come thoughts, that yet she never knew, Even to herself a stranger, was much like Th' Iberian city that War's hand did strike By English force in princely Ess.e.x' guide, When Peace a.s.sur'd her towers had fortified, And golden-finger'd India had bestow'd Such wealth on her, that strength and empire flow'd Into her turrets, and her virgin waist The wealthy girdle of the sea embrac'd; Till our Leander, that made Mars his Cupid, For soft love suits with iron thunders chid; Swum to her town, dissolv'd her virgin zone; Led in his power, and made Confusion Run through her streets amaz'd, that she suppos'd She had not been in her own walls enclosed, But rapt by wonder to some foreign state, Seeing all her issue so disconsolate, And all her peaceful mansions possess'd With war's just spoil, and many a foreign guest From every corner driving an enjoyer, Supplying it with power of a destroyer.

So far'd fair Hero in th' expugned fort Of her chaste bosom; and of every sort Strange thoughts possess'd her, ransacking her breast For that that was not there, her wonted rest.

She was a mother straight, and bore with pain Thoughts that spake straight, and wish'd their mother slain; She hates their lives, and they their own and hers: Such strife still grows where sin the race prefers: Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams, That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes.

She mus'd how she could look upon her sire, And not show that without, that was intire; For as a gla.s.s is an inanimate eye, And outward forms embraceth inwardly, So is the eye an animate gla.s.s, that shows In forms without us; and as Ph?bus throws His beams abroad, though he in clouds be clos'd, Still glancing by them till he find oppos'd A loose and rorid vapour that is fit T' event his searching beams, and useth it To form a tender twenty-colour'd eye, Cast in a circle round about the sky; So when our fiery soul, our body's star, (That ever is in motion circular,) Conceives a form, in seeking to display it Through all our cloudy parts, it doth convey it Forth at the eye, as the most pregnant place, And that reflects it round about the face.

And this event, uncourtly Hero thought, Her inward guilt would in her looks have wrought; For yet the world's stale cunning she resisted, To bear foul thoughts, yet forge what looks she listed, And held it for a very silly sleight, To make a perfect metal counterfeit.

Glad to disclaim herself, proud of an art That makes the face a pandar to the heart.

Those be the painted moons, whose lights profane Beauty's true heaven, at full still in their wane; Those be the lapwing faces that still cry, "Here 'tis!" when that they vow is nothing nigh: Base fools! when every moorish fool can teach That which men think the height of human reach.

But custom, that the apoplexy is Of bed-rid nature and lives led amiss, And takes away all feeling of offence, Yet braz'd not Hero's brow with impudence; And this she thought most hard to bring to pa.s.s, To seem in countenance other than she was, As if she had two souls, one for the face, One for the heart, and that they shifted place As either list to utter or conceal What they conceiv'd, or as one soul did deal With both affairs at once, keeps and ejects Both at an instant contrary effects; Retention and ejection in her powers Being acts alike; for this one vice of ours, That forms the thought, and sways the countenance, Rules both our motion and our utterance.

These and more grave conceits toil'd Hero's spirits; For, though the light of her discoursive wits Perhaps might find some little hole to pa.s.s Through all these worldly cinctures, yet, alas!

There was a heavenly flame encompa.s.s'd her,-- Her G.o.ddess, in whose fane she did prefer Her virgin vows, from whose impulsive sight She knew the black shield of the darkest night Could not defend her, nor wit's subtlest art: This was the point pierc'd Hero to the heart; Who, heavy to the death, with a deep sigh, And hand that languish'd, took a robe was nigh, Exceeding large, and of black cypress made, In which she sate, hid from the day in shade, Even over head and face, down to her feet; Her left hand made it at her bosom meet, Her right hand lean'd on her heart-bowing knee, Wrapp'd in unshapeful folds, 'twas death to see; Her knee stay'd that, and that her falling face; Each limb help'd other to put on disgrace: No form was seen, where form held all her sight; But, like an embryon that saw never light, Or like a scorched statue made a coal With three-wing'd lightning, or a wretched soul m.u.f.fled with endless darkness, she did sit: The night had never such a heavy spirit.

Yet might a penetrating eye well see How fast her clear tears melted on her knee Through her black veil, and turn'd as black as it, Mourning to be her tears. Then wrought her wit With her broke vow, her G.o.ddess' wrath, her fame,-- All tools that enginous despair could frame: Which made her strew the floor with her torn hair, And spread her mantle piece-meal in the air.

Like Jove's son's club, strong pa.s.sion struck her down And with a piteous shriek enforc'd her swoun: Her shriek made with another shriek ascend The frighted matron that on her did tend; And as with her own cry her sense was slain, So with the other it was call'd again.

She rose, and to her bed made forced way, And laid her down even where Leander lay; And all this while the red sea of her blood Ebb'd with Leander: but now turn'd the flood, And all her fleet of spirits came swelling in, With child of sail, and did hot fight begin With those severe conceits she too much mark'd: And here Leander's beauties were embark'd.

He came in swimming, painted all with joys, Such as might sweeten h.e.l.l: his thought destroys All her destroying thoughts; she thought she felt His heart in hers, with her contentions melt, And chide her soul that it could so much err, To check the true joys he deserv'd in her.

Her fresh heat-blood cast figures in her eyes, And she suppos'd she saw in Neptune's skies How her star wander'd, wash'd in smarting brine, For her love's sake, that with immortal wine Should be embath'd, and swim in more heart's-ease Than there was water in the Sestian seas.

Then said her Cupid-prompted spirit: "Shall I Sing moans to such delightsome harmony?

Shall slick-tongu'd Fame, patch'd up with voices rude, The drunken b.a.s.t.a.r.d of the mult.i.tude, (Begot when father Judgment is away, And, gossip-like, says because others say, Takes news as if it were too hot to eat, And spits it slavering forth for dog-fees meat,) Make me, for forging a fantastic vow, Presume to bear what makes grave matrons bow?

Good vows are never broken with good deeds, For then good deeds were bad: vows are but seeds, And good deeds fruits; even those good deeds that grow From other stocks than from th' observed vow.

That is a good deed that prevents a bad; Had I not yielded, slain myself I had.

Hero Leander is, Leander Hero; Such virtue love hath to make one of two.

If, then, Leander did my maidenhead git, Leander being myself, I still retain it: We break chaste vows when we live loosely ever, But bound as we are, we live loosely never: Two constant lovers being join'd in one, Yielding to one another, yield to none.

We know not how to vow till love unblind us, And vows made ignorantly nerver bind us.

Too true it is, that, when 'tis gone, men hate The joys as vain they took in love's estate: But that's since they have lost the heavenly light Should show them way to judge of all things right.

When life is gone, death must implant his terror: As death is foe to life, so love to error.

Before we love, how range we through this sphere, Searching the sundry fancies hunted here!

Now with desire of wealth transported quite Beyond our free humanity's delight; Now with ambition climbing falling towers, Whose hope to scale, our fear to fall devours; Now rapt with pastimes, pomp, all joys impure: In things without us no delight is sure.

But love, with all joys crown'd, within doth sit: O G.o.ddess, pity love, and pardon it!"

Thus spake she weeping: but her G.o.ddess' ear Burn'd with too stern a heat, and would not hear.

Ay me! hath heaven's strait fingers no more graces For such as Hero than for homeliest faces?

Yet she hop'd well, and in her sweet conceit Weighing her arguments, she thought them weight, And that the logic of Leander's beauty, And them together, would bring proofs of duty; And if her soul, that was a skillful glance Of heaven's great essence, found such imperance In her love's beauties, she had confidence Jove lov'd him too, and pardon'd her offence: Beauty in heaven and earth this grace doth win, It supples rigour, and it lessens sin.

Thus, her sharp wit, her love, her secrecy, Trooping together, made her wonder why She should not leave her bed, and to the temple; Her health said she must live; her s.e.x, dissemble.

She view'd Leander's place, and wish'd he were Turn'd to his place, so his place were Leander.

"Ay me," said she, "that love's sweet life and sense Should do it harm! my love had not gone hence, Had he been like his place: O blessed place, Image of constancy! Thus my love's grace Parts nowhere, but it leaves something behind Worth observation: he renowns his kind: His motion is, like heaven's, orbicular, For where he once is, he is ever there.

This place was mine; Leander, now 'tis thine, Thou being myself, then it is double mine, Mine, and Leander's mine, Leander's mine.

O, see what wealth it yields me, nay, yields him!

For I am in it, he for me doth swim.

Rich, fruitful love, that, doubling self estates, Elixir-like contracts, though separates!

Dear place, I kiss thee, and do welcome thee, As from Leander ever sent to me."

THE FOURTH SESTIAD

THE ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH SESTIAD

Hero, in sacred habit deckt, Doth private sacrifice effect.

Her scarf's description, wrought by Fate; Ostents that threaten her estate; The strange, yet physical, events, Leander's counterfeit presents.

In thunder Cyprides descends, Presaging both the lovers' ends: Ecte, the G.o.ddess of remorse, With vocal and articulate force Inspires Leucote, Venus' swan, T' excuse the beauteous Sestian.

Venus, to wreak her rites' abuses, Creates the monster Eronusis, Inflaming Hero's sacrifice With lightning darted from her eyes; And thereof springs the painted beast That ever since taints every breast.

Now from Leander's place she rose, and found Her hair and rent robe scatter'd on the ground; Which taking up, she every piece did lay Upon an altar, where in youth of day She us'd t' exhibit private sacrifice: Those would she offer to the deities Of her fair G.o.ddess and her powerful son, As relics of her late-felt pa.s.sion; And in that holy sort she vow'd to end them, In hope her violent fancies, that did rend them, Would as quite fade in her love's holy fire, As they should in the flames she meant t' inspire.

Then she put on all her religious weeds, That deck'd her in her secret sacred deeds; A crown of icicles, that sun nor fire Could ever melt, and figur'd chaste desire; A golden star shin'd in her naked breast, In honour of the queen-light of the east.

In her right hand she held a silver wand, On whose bright top Peristera did stand, Who was a nymph, but now transform'd a dove, And in her life was dear in Venus' love; And for her sake she ever since that time Choos'd doves to draw her coach through heaven's blue clime.

Her plenteous hair in curled billows swims On her bright shoulder: her harmonious limbs Sustain'd no more but a most subtile veil, That hung on them, as it durst not a.s.sail Their different concord; for the weakest air Could raise it swelling from her beauties fair; Nor did it cover, but adumbrate only Her most heart-piercing parts, that a blest eye Might see, as it did shadow, fearfully, All that all-love-deserving paradise: It was as blue as the most freezing skies; Near the sea's hue, for thence her G.o.ddess came: On it a scarf she wore of wondrous frame; In midst whereof she wrought a virgin's face, From whose each cheek a fiery blush did chase Two crimson flames, that did two ways extend, Spreading the ample scarf to either end; Which figur'd the division of her mind, Whiles yet she rested bashfully inclined, And stood not resolute to wed Leander; This serv'd her white neck for a purple sphere, And cast itself at full breadth down her back: There, since the first breath that begun the wrack Of her free quiet from Leander's lips, She wrought a sea, in one flame, full of ships; But that one ship where all her wealth did pa.s.s, Like simple merchants' goods, Leander was; For in that sea she naked figur'd him; Her diving needle taught him how to swim, And to each thread did such resemblance give, For joy to be so like him it did live: Things senseless live by art, and rational die By rude contempt of art and industry.

Scarce could she work, but, in her strength of thought, She fear'd she p.r.i.c.k'd Leander as she wrought, And oft would shriek so, that her guardian, frighted, Would staring haste, as with some mischief cited: They double life that dead things' grief sustain; They kill that feel not their friends' living pain.

Sometimes she fear'd he sought her infamy; And then, as she was working of his eye, She thought to p.r.i.c.k it out to quench her ill; But, as she p.r.i.c.k'd, it grew more perfect still: Trifling attempts no serious acts advance; The fire of love is blown by dalliance.

In working his fair neck she did so grace it, She still was working her own arms t' embrace it.

That, and his shoulders, and his hands were seen Above the stream; and with a pure sea-green She did so quaintly shadow every limb, All might be seen beneath the waves to swim.

In this conceited scarf she wrought beside A moon in change, and shooting stars did glide In number after her with b.l.o.o.d.y beams; Which figur'd her affects in their extremes, Pursuing nature in her Cynthian body, And did her thoughts running on change imply; For maids take more delight, when they prepare, And think of wives' states, than when wives they are.