Thou shalt be able now to read, and learn What be their worth, the plain shall by degrees

With downy ear wax yellow, and the bunch Shall dangle blushing from untutored thorns, And churlish oaks their dewy honies still. Yet some few footsteps of the ancient crime 40

Shall steal behind, to bid [men] Thetis tempt

In ships, and girdle round with walls the towns,

And cleave-in furrows into earth. Another Tiphys then

Shall be, another Argo, too, to waft Choice heroes; there shall e'en be other

60. Or: "Shall scarlet, as they feed, array the lambs."

63. Spenser finely describes the offices of the Parcæ: Faerie Queene, iv. 2, 48:

"There she them found all sitting round about
The direfull Distaffe standing in the mid,
And with unwearied fingers drawing out
The lines of life, from living knowledge hid.
Sad Clotho held the rocke, the whiles the thrid
By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine,
That cruel Atropos eftsoones undid,
With cursed knife cutting the twist in twain:
Most wretched men, whose dayes depend on thrids
so vaine !"

70. So Eve dreams that Adam says to her:
"Heaven wakes with all his eyes,
Whom to behold but thee, Nature's desire?
In whose sight all things joy."

Milton, P. L. v.

Line 3. It is evident from this whole Eclogue, and especially from comparing vv. 51, 55 of Ecl. III., that dicere versus means to sing songs, not to rehearse or indite them.

See also Ecl. IX., and compare v. 35 with v. 36. 7. "My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad, When every thing doth make a gleeful boast? The birds chaunt melody on every bush; The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun: The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground: Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit." Shakespeare, Tit. And. ii. 3. "How sweet these solitary places are! how wantonly

9.

The wind blows through the leaves, and courts and plays with 'em!

Will you sit down and sleep? The heat invites

you.

Hark, how yond purling stream dances and

murmurs!

The birds sing softly too: pray, take some rest,
sir."
J. Fletcher, The Pilgrim, v. 4.
"So fashioned a porch with rare device,
Archt over head with an embracing vine,
Whose bounches hanging downe seemd to entice
All passers by to taste their lushious wine."
Spenser, F. Q. ii. 12, 54.
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant."
Milton, P. L. iv.
Deep in the gloomy glade a grotto bends,
Wide through the craggy rock an arch extends;
The rugged stone is clothed with mantling vines,
And round the cave the creeping woodbine
twines."
Gay, The Fan, i. 99–102.

12. Certat seems to have better authority than certet, and is certainly a more graphic reading.

Mop. But cease thou more, O swain; we've reached the grot.

Quenched by fell death, the Nymphs did Daphnis weep.

15, 16. So Spenser, Sh. Cal. May, 172: "Now, Piers, of fellowship, tell us that saying; For the lad can keep both our flockes from straying."

A. Philips varies the idea: Past. 4:

"And since our ewes have grazed, what harm if

they

Lie round and listen, while the lambkins play?" 20. "Shall the queen of the inhabitants of the air, The eagle, that bears thunder on her wings, In her angry mood destroy her hopeful young, For suffering a wren to perch too near them? Such is our disproportion."

P. Massinger, The Great Duke of Florence, iv. 2. 26. See Milton's Lycidas:

"But oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn:

The willows and the hazel-copses green
Shall now no more be seen

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays."

The same miseries Spenser makes the consequence of Colin Clout's absence. Hobbinol tells him: Colin Clout, xxii. :

"Whilst thou wast hence, all dead in dole did lie: The woods were heard to waile full many a sythe,

And all their birds with silence to complaine: The fields with faded flowers did seem to mourne, And all their flocks from feeding to refraine : The running waters wept for thy returne, And all their fish with languour did lament." 26-29. So Alexander on the death of Clytus: "Here I will lie

Close to his bleeding side, thus kissing him;

These pale dead lips that have so oft advised me ;
Thus bathing o'er his reverend face with tears:
Thus clasping his cold body in my arms,
Till Death, like him, has made me stiff and horrid."
Lee, Rival Queens, iv. end.

A. Philips happily imitates this passage:
"The pious mother comes, with grief oppress'd;
Ye trees and conscious fountains can attest
With what sad accents, and what piercing cries,
She fill'd the grove, and importuned the skies,
And every star upbraided with his death,
When, in her widow'd arms, devoid of breath,
She clasp'd her son.'
Past. 3.
33. So Spenser says of Dido's death: Sh. Cal.
Nov. 133:

"The feeble flockes in field refuse their former

foode,

And hang their heades as they would learne to weepe."

39. Velvet, or, "waving," "pliant."

50. That is, plant flowers to grace the ground, and trees to shade the founts.

"This rosemary is withered; pray get fresh!

I would have these herbs grow up in his grave,
When I am dead and rotten. Reach the bays;
I'll tie a garland here about his head:
'Twill keep my boy from lightning."

Webster, Vittoria Corombona, v. 1.

Upon the springs, O shepherds: such behests

Daphnis enjoins to be for him observed.
Do ye both form a tomb, and on the tomb
The lay inscribe: "I, Daphnis, in the
woods,

Hence even to the constellations famed,
Of a fair flock the guard, more fair myself."
Men. Thy song is such to us, O heav'nly
bard,

As slumber to the weary on the grass;

Philips introduces Angelot praying:

54. Instead of an inscription on Albino's tomb,

"Oh! peaceful may thy gentle spirit rest!
The flowery turf be light upon thy breast;
Nor shrieking owl nor bat thy tomb fly round,
Nor midnight goblins revel o'er the ground."
Past. 3.
"But since that I shal die her slauve,

Her slauve, and eke her thrall:
Write you, my frendes, upon my grauve
This chaunce that is befall:

'Here lieth unhappy Harpalus,

By cruell louve now slaine;,
Whom Phylida vnjustly thus

Hath murdred with disdaine.'"

These are the concluding verses of a beautiful composition, probably the earliest Pastoral poem in the language. It will be found among "Poems of Vncertaine Auctors" in Chalmers' "English Poets," vol. ii.

masterly Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke:

It is impossible here to withhold Ben Jonson's

"Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse,

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother:
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned, and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee."

Underwoods, xv.

"As soon as I am dead, Come all and watch about my hearse; Bring each a mournful story and a tear, To offer at it when I go to earth: With fluttering ivy clasp my coffin round; Write on my brow my fortune; let my bier Be borne by virgins, that shall sing by course The truth of maids and perjuries of men." Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy, ii. 1. 57. "For, while I sit with thee, I seem in Heaven And sweeter thy discourse is to my ear Than fruits of palm-tree, pleasantest to thirst And hunger both, from labour at the hour Of sweet repast: they satiate, and soon fill, Though pleasant; but thy words, with grace

divine

Imbued, bring to their sweetness no satiety." Milton, P.L. viii.

58. Sopor strictly means "deep sleep," but the Latin poets use it for "sleep" in general. In the same lax way, "slumber" is used by English poets to represent "sleep," though strictly it means "light sleep." Still, though there is so marked a difference between sopor and "slumber," yet as the poet does not seem to use the word here in the accurate signification attached to it in En. iii. 173, "slumber" may well be admitted, being far more harmonious in this passage than "sleep." The same liberty is taken in rendering En. iv. 522. V. 45-47 are amplified by Spenser in his exquisite

As in the summer-tide to slake the thirst By some delicious water's skipping rill. 60 Nor is't alone on reeds, but in thy voice, Thou rivallest thy master: happy swain! Thou now shalt be the second after him. Still we will these of ours, howe'er [we may],

To thee in turn recite, and Daphnis thine Raise to the stars; we Daphnis to the stars Will bear away: us, too, did Daphnis love. Mop. Can aught to us of higher value be Than such a favor? Both the swain himself

Was worthy to be sung, and those thy lays Now long since Stimicon hath praised to us. Men. Bright Daphnis marvels at th' unwonted gate 72

Of th' Empyrean, and beneath his feet Beholds the clouds and stars. Hence lively joy

Absorbs the woods, and other rural scenes, And Pan, and shepherds, and the Dryad maids.

Nor doth the wolf an ambush for the flock, Nor any toils their craft for harts, devise: Benignant Daphnis loves repose. The

mounts

Themselves, unshorn, in gladness to the stars 80 very

Fling forth their voices; now the cliffs,

description of the "Bower of Bliss:" Faerie Queene, ii. 5, 30:

"And fast beside there trickled softly downe

A gentle streame, whose murmuring wave did play

Emongst the pumy stones, and made a sowne, To lull him soft asleepe that by it lay: The wearie traveiler, wandring that way, Therein did often quench his thristy heat, And then by it his wearie limbes display, (Whiles creeping slomber made him to forget His former payne,) and wypt away his toilsom

sweat.

72. So Spenser of Dido, in Sh. Cal. Nov. 175; see also 195, &c. :

"She raignes a goddess now emong the saintes, That whilome was the saynt of shepheards light, And is enstalled nowe in heavens night."

Now, free from earth, thy disencumber'd soul Mounts up, and leaves behind the clouds and starry pole." Dryden, Abs. and Achit. 850, 1.

More directly imitated in Amyntas, 66-73. "Damon, behold yon breaking purple cloud; Hear'st thou not hymns and songs divinely loud? There mounts Amyntas; the young cherubs play About their godlike mate, and sing him on his way.

He cleaves the liquid air, behold, he flies,
And every moment gains upon the skies.
The new-come guest admires the etherial state,
The sapphire portal, and the golden gate."
74. Or: "lively," or "active."

"If, like a statue,

Cold and unglorified by art, you call

Our sense to wonder, where shall we find eyes To stand the brightness, when you're turned a shrine,

Embellished with the burning light of diamonds,
And other gifts, that dwell, like stars about you?"
Shirley, The Imposture, ii. 3.
84. Ara and altare are used of the same altar in
En. ii. 514, 515, xii. 171, 174.

107. Milton similarly in Par. Lost, viii. 5:
"What thanks sufficient, or what recompense
Equal, have I to render to thee, divine
Historian ?"

108. "Colin, to heare thy rymes and roundelayes,
Which thou were wont on wastefull hilles to sing,
I more delight then larke in sommer dayes,
Whose echo made the neighbour groves to ring."
Spenser, Sh. Cal. June, 49.

"O happy fair!
Your eyes are lodestars, and your tongue sweet air,
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, and hawthorn buds appear."

Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1. A. Philips happily imitates verses 45-47, 81-84: Past. 4:

This taught us, "Corydon with fervor loved The fair Alexis ;" this the same, "Whose flock?

Is't that of Melibœus ?"
Мор.
But do thou
Accept this crook, which, though he begged
me oft,

Antigenes hath never borne away-
He, too, was worthy then of being loved-
With even knobs and bronze, Menalcas,
fair.

Out of her bowre, that many flowers strowes:
So through the flowry dales she tumbling downe
Through many woods and shady coverts flowes,
That on each side her silver channell crowne."
Spenser, Canto vi. of Mutabilitie.
118. Or: "Though he."

THE first that in the Syracusan strain Deigned to disport, nor blushed to haunt the woods,

Was our Thalia. When I would of kings And battles sing, the Cynthian twitched

mine ear,

By fancy charmed, shall read, O Varus, thee

Our tam'risks, thee shall all the woodland sing;

Nor any page to Phoebus sweeter is Than that which hath the name of Varus traced

Upon its front. Proceed, Pierian maids. The striplings Chromis and Mnasylos spied

Silenus lying in a cave asleep, With yestern Bacchus swollen through his veins,

20

As ever. Garlands just outside him lay,
But merely fallen off his head, and hung
His heavy beaker by its handle worn.
Assailing him-for oft the agèd man
Had, with the expectation of a song,
Played false with both of them-they fetters
throw

Upon him, from the very garlands [forged].
As their companion, Ægle joins herself,
And sudden comes upon them in their fear,
Ægle, the fairest of the water Nymphs. 30
And now, as up he looks, with mulberries
Blood-red his forehead and his brows she
stains.

He, laughing at the trick,-"Why fetters tie ?"

Exclaims: "Release me, lads; it is enough That it is seen that you have had the power.

20. "Help, Virtue ! these are sponges and not men! Bottles! mere vessels !"

Ben Jonson, Pleasure reconciled to Virtue.