Читать книгу Some Longer Elizabethan Poems - Группа авторов - Страница 8

Table of Contents

1.

Here lives the man, that never yet did hear

Of chaste Penelope, Ulysses's Queen?

Who kept her faith unspotted twenty year;

Till he returned, that far away had been,

And many men and many towns had seen:

Ten year at Siege of Troy, he ling'ring lay;

And ten year in the midland sea did stray.

2.

Homer, to whom the Muses did carouse

A great deep cup, with heavenly nectar filled;

The greatest deepest cup in Jove's great house

(For Jove himself had so expressly willed):

He drank of all, ne let one drop be spilled;

Since when, his brain, that had before been dry,

Became the Wellspring of all Poetry.

3.

Homer doth tell, in his abundant verse,

The long laborious travails of the Man;

And of his Lady too, he doth rehearse,

How she illudes, with all the art she can,

Th'ungrateful love which other Lords began;

For of her Lord, false Fame, long since, had sworn

That Neptune's monsters had his carcass torn.

4.

All this he tells, but one thing he forgot,

One thing most worthy his eternal Song,

But he was old, and blind, and saw it not:

Or else he thought he should Ulysses wrong,

To mingle it his tragic acts among:

Yet was there not, in all the world of things,

A sweeter burden for his Muse's wings:

5.

The Courtly love Antinous did make,

Antinous, that fresh and jolly Knight,

Which of the Gallants that did undertake

To win the Widow, had most Wealth and Might,

Wit to persuade, and Beauty to delight:

The Courtly love he made unto the Queen,

Homer forgot, as if it had not been.

6.

Sing then, Terpsichore, my light Muse, sing

His gentle art and cunning courtesy!

You, Lady, can remember everything,

For you are daughter of Queen Memory:

But sing a plain and easy melody,

For the soft mean that warbleth but the ground,

To my rude ear doth yield the sweetest sound.

7.

Only one night's Discourse I can report:

When the great Torchbearer of heaven was gone

Down, in a masque, unto the Ocean's Court,

To revel it with Tethys, all alone;

Antinous disguised, and unknown,

Like to the Spring in gaudy ornament,

Unto the Castle of the Princess went.

8.

The sovereign Castle of the rocky isle,

Wherein Penelope the Princess lay,

Shone with a thousand lamps, which did exile

The dim dark shades, and turned the night to day.

Not Jove's blue tent, what time the sunny ray

Behind the bulwark of the earth retires,

Is seen to sparkle with more twinkling fires.

9.

That night, the Queen came forth from far within,

And in the presence of her Court was seen.

For the sweet singer Phœmius did begin

To praise the Worthies that at Troy had been:

Somewhat of her Ulysses she did ween,

In his grave Hymn, the heavenly man would sing,

Or of his wars, or of his wandering.

10.

Pallas, that hour, with her sweet breath divine,

Inspired immortal beauty in her eyes,

That with celestial glory she did shine

Brighter than Venus, when she doth arise

Out of the waters to adorn the skies.

The Wooers, all amazèd, do admire

And check their own presumptuous desire.

11.

Only Antinous, when at first he viewed

Her star-bright eyes, that with new honour shined,

Was not dismayed; but therewithal renewed

The noblesse and the splendour of his mind:

And, as he did fit circumstances find,

Unto the throne, he boldly 'gan advance,

And, with fair manners, wooed the Queen to dance.

12.

Goddess of women! sith your heavenliness

Hath now vouchsafed itself to represent

To our dim eyes; which though they see the less,

Yet are they blest in their astonishment:

Imitate heaven, whose beauties excellent

Are in continual motion day and night,

And move thereby more wonder and delight.

13.

Let me the mover be, to turn about

Those glorious ornaments that Youth and Love

Have fixed in you, every part throughout:

Which if you will in timely measure move;

Not all those precious gems in heaven above

Shall yield a sight more pleasing to behold

With all their turns and tracings manifold.

14.

With this, the modest Princess blushed and smiled

Like to a clear and rosy eventide,

And softly did return this answer mild:

Fair Sir! You needs must fairly be denied,

Where your demand cannot be satisfied.

My feet, which only Nature taught to go,

Did never yet the Art of Footing know.

15.

But why persuade you me to this new rage?

For all Disorder and Misrule is new:

For such misgovernment in former Age

Our old divine forefathers never knew;

Who if they lived, and did the follies view,

Which their fond nephews make their chief affairs,

Would hate themselves, that had begot such heirs.

16.

Sole Heir of Virtue, and of Beauty both!

Whence cometh it, Antinous replies,

That your imperious Virtue is so loath

To grant your Beauty her chief exercise?

Or from what spring doth your opinion rise

That Dancing is a Frenzy and a Rage,

First known and used in this new-fangled Age?

17.

Dancing, bright Lady! then, began to be,

When the first seeds whereof the world did spring;

The Fire, Air, Earth, and Water did agree

By Love's persuasion (Nature's mighty King)

To leave their first disordered combating;

And, in a dance, such Measure to observe,

As all the world their motion should preserve.

18.

Since when, they still are carried in a round;

And changing come one in another's place:

Yet do they neither mingle nor confound,

But every one doth keep the bounded space,

Wherein the Dance doth bid it turn or trace:

This wondrous miracle did Love devise,

For Dancing is Love's proper exercise.

19.

Like this, he framed the gods' eternal bower,

And of a shapeless and confusèd mass,

By his through-piercing and digesting power,

The turning Vault of Heaven formèd was;

Whose starry wheels he hath so made to pass

As that their movings do a Music frame,

And they themselves still dance unto the same.

20.

Or if "this All, which round about we see"

As idle Morpheus some sick brains hath taught,

"Of undivided motes compactèd be,"

How was this goodly architecture wrought?

Or by what means were they together brought?

They err, that say, "they did concur by Chance!"

Love made them meet in a well ordered Dance!

21.

As when Amphion with his charming Lyre

Begot so sweet a Siren of the air,

That, with her rhetoric, made the stones conspire,

The ruins of a city to repair

(A work of Wit and Reason's wise affair):

So Love's smooth tongue the motes such measure taught,

That they joined hands; and so the world was wrought!

22.

How justly then is Dancing termèd new,

Which, with the world, in point of time began?

Yea Time itself (whose birth Jove never knew,

And which is far more ancient than the sun)

Had not one moment of his age outrun,

When out leaped Dancing from the heap of things

And lightly rode upon his nimble wings.

23.

Reason hath both their pictures in her Treasure;

Where Time the Measure of all moving is,

And Dancing is a moving all in measure.

Now, if you do resemble that to this,

And think both One, I think you think amiss:

But if you Judge them Twins, together got,

And Time first born, your judgement erreth not.

24.

Thus doth it equal age with Age enjoy,

And yet in lusty youth for ever flowers;

Like Love, his Sire, whom painters make a boy,

Yet is he Eldest of the Heavenly Powers;

Or like his brother Time, whose wingèd hours,

Going and coming, will not let him die,

But still preserve him in his infancy.

25.

This said, the Queen, with her sweet lips divine,

Gently began to move the subtle air,

Which gladly yielding, did itself incline

To take a shape between those rubies fair;

And being formed, softly did repair,

With twenty doublings in the empty way,

Unto Antinous' ears, and thus did say.

26.

What eye doth see the heaven, but doth admire

When it the movings of the heavens doth see?

Myself, if I, to heaven may once aspire,

If that be Dancing, will a dancer be;

But as for this, your frantic jollity,

How it began, or whence you did it learn,

I never could, with Reason's eye discern?

27.

Antinous answered, Jewel of the earth!

Worthy you are, that heavenly Dance to lead;

But for you think our Dancing base of birth,

And newly born but of a brain-sick head,

I will forthwith his antique gentry read,

And (for I love him) will his herald be,

And blaze his arms, and draw his pedigree.

28.

When Love had shaped this world, this great fair wight,

(That all wights else in this wide womb contains),

And had instructed it to dance aright

A thousand measures, with a thousand strains,

Which it should practise with delightful pains,

Until that fatal instant should revolve,

When all to nothing should again resolve:

29.

The comely Order and Proportion fair

On every side did please his wand'ring eye;

Till, glancing through the thin transparent air,

A rude disordered rout he did espy

Of men and women, that most spitefully

Did one another throng and crowd so sore

That his kind eye, in pity, wept therefore.

30.

And swifter than the lightning down he came,

Another shapeless chaos to digest.

He will begin another world to frame

(For Love, till all be well, will never rest).

Then with such words as cannot be expresst,

He cuts the troops, that all asunder fling,

And ere they wist, he casts them in a ring.

31.

Then did he rarify the Element,

And in the centre of the ring appear;

The beams that from his forehead shining went

Begot a horror and religious fear

In all the souls that round about him were,

Which in their ears attentiveness procures,

While he, with such like sounds, their minds allures.

32.

"How doth Confusions's Mother, headlong Chance,

Put Reason's noble squadron to the rout?

Or how should you, that have the governance

Of Nature's children, heaven and earth throughout,

Prescribe them rules, and live yourselves without?

Why should your fellowship a trouble be,

Since Man's chief pleasure is Society?

33.

"If Sense hath not yet taught you, learn of me

A comely moderation and discreet;

That your assemblies may well ordered be,

When my uniting power shall make you meet,

With heavenly tunes it shall be tempered sweet;

And be the model of the world's great frame,

And you, Earth's children, Dancing shall it name.

34.

"Behold the world, how it is whirlèd round!

And for it is so whirlèd, is namèd so:

In whose large volume, many rules are found

Of this new Art, which it doth fairly show.

For your quick eyes in wandering to and fro,

From East to West, on no one thing can glance;

But (if you mark it well) it seems to dance.

35.

"First, you see fixed, in this huge mirror blue,

Of trembling lights a number numberless;

Fixed, they are named but with a name untrue;

For they are moved and in a dance express

The great long Year that doth contain no less

Than threescore hundreds of those years in all,

Which the Sun makes with his course natural.

36.

"What if to you these sparks disordered seem,

As if by chance they had been scattered there?

The gods a solemn measure do it deem

And see a just proportion everywhere,

And know the faints whence first their movings were

To which first points, when all return again,

The Axletree of Heaven shall break in twain.

37.

"Under that spangled sky, five wandering Flames,

Besides the King of Day and Queen of Night,

Are wheeled around, all in their sundry frames,

And all in sundry measures do delight;

Yet altogether keep no measure right;

For by itself each doth itself advance,

And by itself each doth a Galliard dance.

38

"Venus (the mother of that bastard Love,

Which doth usurp the world's Great Marshal's name),

Just with the sun, her dainty feet doth move;

And unto him doth all her gestures frame

Now after, now afore, the flattering Dame,

With divers cunning passages doth err,

Still him respecting, that respects not her.

39.

"For that brave Sun, the Father of the Day,

Doth love this Earth, the Mother of the Night,

And like a reveller, in rich array,

Doth dance his Galliard in his leman's sight;

Both back, and forth, and sideways passing light.

His gallant grace doth so the gods amaze,

That all stand still, and at his beauty gaze.

40.

"But see the Earth, when she approacheth near,

How she for joy doth spring and sweetly smile;

But see again, her sad and heavy cheer

When, changing places, he retires a while;

But those black clouds he shortly will exile,

And make them all before his presence fly,

As mists consumed before his cheerful eye.

41.

"Who doth not see the Measures of the Moon?

Which thirteen times she danceth every year,

And ends her Pavin thirteen times as soon

As doth her brother, of whose golden hair

She borroweth part, and proudly doth it wear.

Then doth she coyly turn her face aside

That half her cheek is scarce sometimes descried.

42.

"Next her, the pure, subtle, and cleansing fire

Is swiftly carried in a circle even:

Though Vulcan be pronounced by many, a liar,

The only halting god that dwells in heaven.

But that foul name may be more fitly given

To your false fire, that far from heaven is fall,

And doth consume, waste, spoil, disorder all.

43.

"And now, behold your tender nurse, the Air,

And common neighbour that aye runs around;

How many pictures and impressions fair,

Within her empty regions are there found,

Which to your senses, Dancing do propound?

For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds

But Dancings of the Air, in sundry kinds?

44.

"For when you Breathe, the air in order moves;

Now in, now out, in time and measure true

And when you Speak, so well the Dancing loves

That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,

With thousand forms she doth herself endue.

For all the words that from your lips repair,

Are nought but tricks and turnings of the Air.

45.

"Hence is her prattling daughter, Echo, born,

That dances to all voices she can hear.

There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn;

Nor any time, wherein she will forbear

The airy pavement with her feet to wear;

And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick,

For after time she endeth every trick."

46.

"And thou, sweet Music, Dancing's only life,

The ear's sole happiness, the Air's best speech,

Loadstone of fellowship, Charming rod of strife,

The soft mind's Paradise, the sick mind's Leech,

With thine own tongue, thou trees and stones canst teach,

That when the Air doth dance her finest measure.

Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure."

47.

"Lastly, where keep the Winds their revelry,

Their violent turnings, and wild whirling Hayes;

But in the Air's tralucent gallery?

Where she herself is turned a hundred ways,

While with those Maskers, wantonly she plays.

Yet in this misrule, they such rule embrace

As two, at once, encumber not the place.

48.

"If then Fire, Air, Wandering and Fixed Lights,

In every province of th' imperial sky,

Yield perfect forms of Dancing to your sights;

In vain I teach the ear, that which the eye,

With certain view, already doth descry;

But for your eyes perceive not all they see,

In this, I will your senses' master be.

49.

"For lo, the Sea that fleets about the land,

And like a girdle clips her solid waist,

Music and Measure both doth understand

For his great Crystal Eye is always cast

Up to the Moon, and on her fixèd fast;

And as she danceth, in her pallid sphere,

So danceth he about the centre here.

50.

"Sometimes his proud green waves, in order set,

One after other, flow unto the shore;

Which when they have with many kisses wet,

They ebb away in order, as before:

And to make known his Courtly Love the more,

He oft doth lay aside his three-forked mace,

And with his arms the timorous Earth embrace.

51.

"Only the Earth doth stand for ever still:

Her rocks remove not, nor her mountains meet

(Although some wits enriched with learning's skill,

Say 'Heaven stands firm, and that the Earth doth fleet,

And swiftly turneth underneath their feet');

Yet, though the Earth is ever steadfast seen,

On her broad breast hath Dancing ever been.

52.

"For those blue veins, that through her body spread;

Those sapphire streams which from great hills do spring,

(The Earth's great dugs! for every wight is fed

With sweet fresh moisture from them issuing)

Observe a Dance in their wild wandering;

And still their Dance begets a murmur sweet,

And still the Murmur with the Dance doth meet.

53.

"Of all their ways, I love Mæander's path;

Which, to the tunes of dying swans, doth dance

Such winding slights. Such turns and tricks he hath,

Such creeks, such wrenches, and such daliance

That (whether it be hap or heedless chance)

In his indented course and wringing play,

He seems to dance a perfect cunning Hay.

54.

"But wherefore do these streams for ever run?

To keep themselves for ever sweet and clear;

For let their everlasting course be done,

They straight corrupt and foul with mud appear.

O ye sweet Nymphs, that beauty's loss do fear,

Contemn the drugs that physic doth devise;

And learn of Love, this dainty exercise.

55.

"See how those flowers, that have sweet beauty too,

The only jewels that the Earth doth wear

When the young Sun in bravery her doth woo)

As oft as they the whistling wind do hear,

Do wave their tender bodies here and there:

And though their dance no perfect measure is;

Yet oftentimes their music makes them kiss.

56.

"What makes the Vine about the Elm to dance

With turnings, windings, and embracements round?

What makes the loadstone to the North advance

His subtle point, as if from thence he found

His chief attractive virtue to redound?

Kind Nature, first, doth cause all things to love;

Love makes them dance, and in just order move.

57.

"Hark how the birds do sing! and mark then how,

Jump with the modulation of their lays,

They lightly leap, and skip from bough to bough;

Yet do the cranes deserve a greater praise,

Which keep such measure in their airy ways:

As when they all in order rankèd are,

They make a perfect form triangular.

58.

"In the chief angle, flies the watchful guide;

And all the followers their heads do lay

On their foregoers' backs, on either side:

But, for the Captain hath no rest to stay

His head forwearied with the windy way,

He back retires; and then the next behind,

As his Lieutenant, leads them through the wind.

59.

"By why relate I every singular?

Since all the world's great fortunes and affairs

Forward and backward rapt and whirlèd are,

According to the music of the spheres;

And Chance herself her nimble feet upbears

On a round slippery wheel, that rolleth aye,

And turns all states with her impetuous sway.

60.

"Learn then to dance you, that are princes born

And lawful Lords of earthly creatures all;

Imitate them, and thereof take no scorn,

For this new Art to them is natural.

And imitate the stars celestial;

For when pale Death your vital twist shall sever,

Your better parts must dance with them for ever."

61.

Thus Love persuades, and all the crowd of men

That stands around, doth make a murmuring,

As when the wind, loosed from his hollow den,

Among the trees a gentle bass doth sing;

Or as a brook, through pebbles wandering:

But in their looks, they uttered this plain speech,

"That they would learn to dance, if Love would teach."

62.

Then, first of all, he doth demonstrate plain,

The motions seven that are in Nature found;

Upward and downward, forth and back again,

To this side, and to that, and turning round:

Whereof a thousand Brawls he doth compound,

Which he doth teach unto the multitude;

And ever, with a turn they must conclude.

63.