Chapter 4

Earth, take this earth wherein my spirits languish; Spirits, leave this earth that doth in griefs retain you; Griefs, chase this earth that it may fade with anguish; Spirits, avoid these furies which do pain you! O leave your loathsome prison; freedom gain you; Your essence is divine; great is your power; And yet you moan your wrongs and sore complain you, Hoping for joy which fadeth every hour. O spirits, your prison loathe and freedom gain you; The destinies in deep laments have shut you Of mortal hate, because they do disdain you, And yet of joy that they in prison put you. Earth, take this earth with thee to be enclosed; Life is to me, and I to it, opposed!

XXX

Weep now no more, mine eyes, but be you drowned In your own tears, so many years distilled. And let her know that at them long hath frowned, That you can weep no more although she willed; This hap her cruelty hath her allotten, Who whilom was commandress of each part; That now her proper griefs must be forgotten By those true outward signs of inward smart. For how can he that hath not one tear left him, Stream out those floods that are due unto her moaning, When both of eyes and tears she hath bereft him? O yet I'll signify my grief with groaning; True sighs, true groans shall echo in the air And say, Fidessa, though most cruel, is most fair!

XXXI

Tongue, never cease to sing Fidessa's praise; Heart, however she deserve conceive the best; Eyes, stand amazed to see her beauty's rays; Lips, steal one kiss and be for ever blest; Hands, touch that hand wherein your life is closed; Breast, lock up fast in thee thy life's sole treasure; Arms, still embrace and never be disclosed; Feet, run to her without or pace or measure; Tongue, heart, eyes, lips, hands, breast, arms, feet, Consent to do true homage to your Queen, Lovely, fair, gentle, wise, virtuous, sober, sweet, Whose like shall never be, hath never been! O that I were all tongue, her praise to shew; Then surely my poor heart were freed from woe!

XXXII

Sore sick of late, nature her due would have, Great was my pain where still my mind did rest; No hope but heaven, no comfort but my grave, Which is of comforts both the last and least; But on a sudden, the Almighty sent Sweet ease to the distressed and comfortless, And gave me longer time for to repent, With health and strength the foes of feebleness; Yet I my health no sooner 'gan recover, But my old thoughts, though full of cares, retained, Made me, as erst, become a wretched lover Of her that love and lovers aye disdained. Then was my pain with ease of pain increased, And I ne'er sick until my sickness ceased.

XXXIII

He that would fain Fidessa's image see, My face of force may be his looking-glass. There is she portrayed and her cruelty, Which as a wonder through the world must pass. But were I dead, she would not be betrayed; It's I, that 'gainst my will, shall make it known. Her cruelty by me must be bewrayed, Or I must hide my head and live alone. I'll pluck my silver hairs from out my head, And wash away the wrinkles of my face; Closely immured I'll live as I were dead, Before she suffer but the least disgrace. How can I hide that is already known? I have been seen and have no face but one.

XXXIV

Fie pleasure, fie! Thou cloy'st me with delight; Sweet thoughts, you kill me if you lower stray! O many be the joys of one short night! Tush, fancies never can desire allay! Happy, unhappy thoughts! I think, and have not. Pleasure, O pleasing pain! Shows nought avail me! Mine own conceit doth glad me, more I crave not; Yet wanting substance, woe doth still assail me. Babies do children please, and shadows fools; Shows have deceived the wisest many a time. Ever to want our wish, our courage cools. The ladder broken, 'tis in vain to climb. But I must wish, and crave, and seek, and climb; It's hard if I obtain not grace in time.

XXXV

I have not spent the April of my time, The sweet of youth in plotting in the air, But do at first adventure seek to climb, Whilst flowers of blooming years are green and fair. I am no leaving of all-withering age, I have not suffered many winter lours; I feel no storm unless my love do rage, And then in grief I spend both days and hours. This yet doth comfort that my flower lasted Until it did approach my sun too near; And then, alas, untimely was it blasted, So soon as once thy beauty did appear! But after all, my comfort rests in this, That for thy sake my youth decayèd is.

XXXVI

O let my heart, my body, and my tongue Bleed forth the lively streams of faith unfeigned, Worship my saint the gods and saints among, Praise and extol her fair that me hath pained! O let the smoke of my suppressed desire, Raked up in ashes of my burning breast, Break out at length and to the clouds aspire, Urging the heavens to afford me rest; But let my body naturally descend Into the bowels of our common mother, And to the very centre let it wend, When it no lower can, her griefs to smother! And yet when I so low do buried lie, Then shall my love ascend unto the sky.

XXXVII

Fair is my love that feeds among the lilies, The lilies growing in that pleasant garden Where Cupid's mount, that well beloved hill is, And where that little god himself is warden. See where my love sits in the beds of spices, Beset all round with camphor, myrrh, and roses, And interlaced with curious devices, Which her from all the world apart incloses. There doth she tune her lute for her delight, And with sweet music makes the ground to move; Whilst I, poor I, do sit in heavy plight, Wailing alone my unrespected love, Not daring rush into so rare a place, That gives to her, and she to it, a grace.

XXXVIII

Was never eye did see my mistress' face, Was never ear did hear Fidessa's tongue, Was never mind that once did mind her grace, That ever thought the travail to be long. When her I see, no creature I behold, So plainly say these advocates of love, That now do fear and now to speak are bold, Trembling apace when they resolve to prove. These strange effects do show a hidden power, A majesty all base attempts reproving, That glads or daunts as she doth laugh or lower; Surely some goddess harbours in their moving Who thus my Muse from base attempts hath raised, Whom thus my Muse beyond compare hath praised.

XXXIX

My lady's hair is threads of beaten gold, Her front the purest crystal eye hath seen, Her eyes the brightest stars the heavens hold, Her cheeks red roses such as seld have been; Her pretty lips of red vermillion die, Her hand of ivory the purest white, Her blush Aurora or the morning sky, Her breast displays two silver fountains bright The spheres her voice, her grace the Graces three: Her body is the saint that I adore; Her smiles and favours sweet as honey be; Her feet fair Thetis praiseth evermore. But ah, the worst and last is yet behind, For of a griffon she doth bear the mind!

XL

Injurious Fates, to rob me of my bliss, And dispossess my heart of all his hope! You ought with just revenge to punish miss, For unto you the hearts of men are ope. Injurious Fates, that hardened have her heart, Yet make her face to send out pleasing smiles! And both are done but to increase my smart, And entertain my love with falsèd wiles. Yet being when she smiles surprised with joy, I fain would languish in so sweet a pain, Beseeching death my body to destroy, Lest on the sudden she should frown again. When men do wish for death, Fates have no force; But they, when men would live, have no remorse.

XLI

The prison I am in is thy fair face, Wherein my liberty enchainèd lies; My thoughts, the bolts that hold me in the place; My food, the pleasing looks of thy fair eyes. Deep is the prison where I lie enclosed, Strong are the bolts that in this cell contain me; Sharp is the food necessity imposed, When hunger makes me feed on that which pains me. Yet do I love, embrace, and follow fast, That holds, that keeps, that discontents me most; And list not break, unlock, or seek to waste The place, the bolts, the food, though I be lost; Better in prison ever to remain, Than being out to suffer greater pain.

XLII

When never-speaking silence proves a wonder, When ever-flying flame at home remaineth, When all-concealing night keeps darkness under, When men-devouring wrong true glory gaineth, When soul-tormenting grief agrees with joy, When Lucifer foreruns the baleful night, When Venus doth forsake her little boy, When her untoward boy obtaineth sight, When Sisyphus doth cease to roll his stone, When Otus shaketh off his heavy chain, When beauty, queen of pleasure, is alone, When love and virtue quiet peace disdain; When these shall be, and I not be, Then will Fidessa pity me.

XLIII

Tell me of love, sweet Love, who is thy sire, Or if thou mortal or immortal be? Some say thou art begotten by desire, Nourished with hope, and fed with fantasy, Engendered by a heavenly goddess' eye, Lurking most sweetly in an angel's face. Others, that beauty thee doth deify;-- O sovereign beauty, full of power and grace!-- But I must be absurd all this denying, Because the fairest fair alive ne'er knew thee. Now, Cupid, comes thy godhead to the trying; 'Twas she alone--such is her power--that slew me; She shall be Love, and thou a foolish boy, Whose virtue proves thy power is but a toy.

XLIV

No choice of change can ever change my mind; Choiceless my choice, the choicest choice alive; Wonder of women, were she not unkind, The pitiless of pity to deprive. Yet she, the kindest creature of her kind, Accuseth me of self-ingratitude, And well she may, sith by good proof I find Myself had died, had she not helpful stood. For when my sickness had the upper hand, And death began to show his awful face, She took great pains my pains for to withstand, And eased my heart that was in heavy case. But cruel now, she scorneth what it craveth; Unkind in kindness, murdering while she saveth.

XLV

Mine eye bewrays the secrets of my heart, My heart unfolds his grief before her face; Her face--bewitching pleasure of my smart!-- Deigns not one look of mercy and of grace. My guilty eye of murder and of treason,-- Friendly conspirator of my decay, Dumb eloquence, the lover's strongest reason!-- Doth weep itself for anger quite away, And chooseth rather not to be, than be Disloyal, by too well discharging duty; And being out, joys it no more can see The sugared charms of all deceiving beauty. But, for the other greedily doth eye it, I pray you tell me, what do I get by it?

XLVI

So soon as peeping Lucifer, Aurora's star, The sky with golden periwigs doth spangle; So soon as Phoebus gives us light from far, So soon as fowler doth the bird entangle; Soon as the watchful bird, clock of the morn, Gives intimation of the day's appearing; Soon as the jolly hunter winds his horn, His speech and voice with custom's echo clearing; Soon as the hungry lion seeks his prey In solitary range of pathless mountains; Soon as the passenger sets on his way, So soon as beasts resort unto the fountains; So soon mine eyes their office are discharging, And I my griefs with greater griefs enlarging.

XLVII

I see, I hear, I feel, I know, I rue My fate, my fame, my pain, my loss, my fall, Mishap, reproach, disdain, a crown, her hue, Cruel, still flying, false, fair, funeral, To cross, to shame, bewitch, deceive, and kill My first proceedings in their flowing bloom. My worthless pen fast chainèd to my will, My erring life through an uncertain doom, My thoughts that yet in lowliness do mount, My heart the subject of her tyranny; What now remains but her severe account Of murder's crying guilt, foul butchery! She was unhappy in her cradle breath, That given was to be another's death.

XLVIII

"Murder! O murder!" I can cry no longer. "Murder! O murder!" Is there none to aid me? Life feeble is in force, death is much stronger; Then let me die that shame may not upbraid me; Nothing is left me now but shame or death. I fear she feareth not foul murder's guilt, Nor do I fear to lose a servile breath. I know my blood was given to be spilt. What is this life but maze of countless strays, The enemy of true felicity, Fitly compared to dreams, to flowers, to plays! O life, no life to me, but misery! Of shame or death, if thou must one, Make choice of death and both are gone.

XLIX

My cruel fortunes clouded with a frown, Lurk in the bosom of eternal night; My climbing thoughts are basely haulèd down; My best devices prove but after-sight. Poor outcast of the world's exilèd room, I live in wilderness of deep lament; No hope reserved me but a hopeless tomb, When fruitless life and fruitful woes are spent. Shall Phoebus hinder little stars to shine, Or lofty cedar mushrooms leave to grow? Sure mighty men at little ones repine, The rich is to the poor a common foe. Fidessa, seeing how the world doth go, Joineth with fortune in my overthrow.

L

When I the hooks of pleasure first devoured, Which undigested threaten now to choke me, Fortune on me her golden graces showered; O then delight did to delight provoke me! Delight, false instrument of my decay, Delight, the nothing that doth all things move, Made me first wander from the perfect way, And fast entangled me in the snares of love. Then my unhappy happiness at first began, Happy in that I loved the fairest fair; Unhappily despised, a hapless man; Thus joy did triumph, triumph did despair. My conquest is--which shall the conquest gain?-- Fidessa, author both of joy and pain!

LI

Work, work apace, you blessed sisters three, In restless twining of my fatal thread! O let your nimble hands at once agree, To weave it out and cut it off with speed! Then shall my vexèd and tormented ghost Have quiet passage to the Elysian rest, And sweetly over death and fortune boast In everlasting triumphs with the blest. But ah, too well I know you have conspired A lingering death for him that loatheth life, As if with woes he never could be tired. For this you hide your all-dividing knife. One comfort yet the heavens have assigned me; That I must die and leave my griefs behind me.

LII

It is some comfort to the wrongèd man, The wronger of injustice to upbraid. Justly myself herein I comfort can, And justly call her an ungrateful maid. Thus am I pleased to rid myself of crime And stop the mouth of all-reporting fame, Counting my greatest cross the loss of time And all my private grief her public shame. Ah, but to speak the truth, hence are my cares, And in this comfort all discomfort resteth; My harms I cause her scandal unawares; Thus love procures the thing that love detesteth. For he that views the glasses of my smart Must need report she hath a flinty heart.

LIII

I was a king of sweet content at least, But now from out my kingdom banished; I was chief guest at fair dame pleasure's feast, But now I am for want of succour famished; I was a saint and heaven was my rest, But now cast down into the lowest hell. Vile caitiffs may not live among the blest, Nor blessed men amongst cursed caitiffs dwell. Thus am I made an exile of a king; Thus choice of meats to want of food is changed; Thus heaven's loss doth hellish torments bring; Self crosses make me from myself estranged. Yet am I still the same but made another; Then not the same; alas, I am no other!

LIV

If great Apollo offered as a dower His burning throne to beauty's excellence; If Jove himself came in a golden shower Down to the earth to fetch fair Io thence; If Venus in the curlèd locks was tied Of proud Adonis not of gentle kind; If Tellus for a shepherd's favour died, The favour cruel Love to her assigned; If Heaven's winged herald Hermes had His heart enchanted with a country maid; If poor Pygmalion was for beauty mad; If gods and men have all for beauty strayed: I am not then ashamed to be included 'Mongst those that love, and be with love deluded.

LV

O, No, I dare not! O, I may not speak! Yes, yes, I dare, I can, I must, I will! Then heart, pour forth thy plaints and do not break; Let never fancy manly courage kill; Intreat her mildly, words have pleasing charms Of force to move the most obdurate heart, To take relenting pity of my harms, And with unfeignèd tears to wail my smart. Is she a stock, a block, a stone, a flint? Hath she nor ears to hear nor eyes to see? If so my cries, my prayers, my tears shall stint! Lord! how can lovers so bewitchèd be! I took her to be beauty's queen alone; But now I see she is a senseless stone.

LVI

Is trust betrayed? Doth kindness grow unkind? Can beauty both at once give life and kill? Shall fortune alter the most constant mind? Will reason yield unto rebelling will? Doth fancy purchase praise, and virtue shame? May show of goodness lurk in treachery? Hath truth unto herself procurèd blame? Must sacred muses suffer misery? Are women woe to men, traps for their falls? Differ their words, their deeds, their looks, their lives? Have lovers ever been their tennis balls? Be husbands fearful of the chastest wives? All men do these affirm, and so must I, Unless Fidessa give to me the lie.

LVII

Three playfellows--such three were never seen In Venus' court--upon a summer's day, Met altogether on a pleasant green, Intending at some pretty game to play. They Dian, Cupid, and Fidessa were. Their wager, beauty, bow, and cruelty; The conqueress the stakes away did bear. Whose fortune then was it to win all three? Fidessa, which doth these as weapons use, To make the greatest heart her will obey; And yet the most obedient to refuse As having power poor lovers to betray. With these she wounds, she heals, gives life and death; More power hath none that lives by mortal breath.

LVIII

O beauty, siren! kept with Circe's rod; The fairest good in seem but foulest ill; The sweetest plague ordained for man by God, The pleasing subject of presumptuous will; Th' alluring object of unstayèd eyes; Friended of all, but unto all a foe; The dearest thing that any creature buys, And vainest too, it serves but for a show; In seem a heaven, and yet from bliss exiling; Paying for truest service nought but pain; Young men's undoing, young and old beguiling; Man's greatest loss though thought his greatest gain! True, that all this with pain enough I prove; And yet most true, I will Fidessa love.

LIX

Do I unto a cruel tiger play, That preys on me as wolf upon the lambs, Who fear the danger both of night and day And run for succour to their tender dams? Yet will I pray, though she be ever cruel, On bended knee and with submissive heart. She is the fire and I must be the fuel; She must inflict and I endure the smart. She must, she shall be mistress of her will, And I, poor I, obedient to the same; As fit to suffer death as she to kill; As ready to be blamed as she to blame. And for I am the subject of her ire, All men shall know thereby my love entire.

LX

O let me sigh, weep, wail, and cry no more; Or let me sigh, weep, wail, cry more and more! Yea, let me sigh, weep, wail, cry evermore, For she doth pity my complaints no more Than cruel pagan or the savage Moor; But still doth add unto my torments more, Which grievous are to me by so much more As she inflicts them and doth wish them more. O let thy mercy, merciless, be never more! So shall sweet death to me be welcome, more Than is to hungry beasts the grassy moor, As she that to affliction adds yet more, Becomes more cruel by still adding more! Weary am I to speak of this word "more;" Yet never weary she, to plague me more!

LXI

Fidessa's worth in time begetteth praise; Time, praise; praise, fame; fame, wonderment; Wonder, fame, praise, time, her worth do raise To highest pitch of dread astonishment. Yet time in time her hardened heart bewrayeth And praise itself her cruelty dispraiseth. So that through praise, alas, her praise decayeth, And that which makes it fall her honour raiseth! Most strange, yet true! So wonder, wonder still, And follow fast the wonder of these days; For well I know all wonder to fulfil Her will at length unto my will obeys. Meantime let others praise her constancy, And me attend upon her clemency.

LXII

Most true that I must fair Fidessa love. Most true that fair Fidessa cannot love. Most true that I do feel the pains of love. Most true that I am captive unto love. Most true that I deluded am with love. Most true that I do find the sleights of love. Most true that nothing can procure her love. Most true that I must perish in my love. Most true that she contemns the god of love. Most true that he is snarèd with her love. Most true that she would have me cease to love. Most true that she herself alone is love. Most true that though she hated, I would love. Most true that dearest life shall end with love.

FINIS

_Talis apud tales, talis sub tempore tali: Subque meo tali judice, talis ero._

CHLORIS OR, THE COMPLAINT OF THE PASSIONATE DESPISED SHEPHERD by WILLIAM SMITH

WILLIAM SMITH