Chapter 3

Deepe-wounding arrow, hart-consuming fire, Ruler of reason, slave to tyrant beautie, Monarch of harts, fuell of fond desire, Prentice to folly, foe to fained duetie. Pledge of true zeale, affections moitie, If thou kilst where thou wilt, and whom it list thee, Alas! how can a silly soule resist thee?

By thee great Collin lost his libertie, By thee sweet Astrophel forwent his joy; By thee Amyntas wept incessantly, By thee good Rowland liv'd in great annoy; O cruell, peevish, vylde, blind-seeing boy, How canst thou hit their harts, and yet not see? If thou be blinde, as thou art faind to bee.

A shepheard loves no ill, but onely thee; He hath no care, but onely by thy causing: Why doost thou shoot thy cruell shafts at mee? Give me some respite, some short time of pausing: Still my sweet love with bitter lucke th'art sawcing: Oh, if thou hast a minde to shew thy might, Kill mightie kings, and not a wretched wight.

Yet, O enthraller of infranchizd harts, At my poore hart if thou wilt needs be ayming, Doo me this favour, show me both thy darts, That I may chuse the best for my harts mayming, A free consent is priviledgd from blaming. Then pierce his hard hart with thy golden arrow, That thou my wrong, that he may rue my sorrow.

But let mee feele the force of thy lead pyle, What should I doo with love when I am old? I know not how to flatter, fawne, or smyle; Then stay thy hand, O cruell bowman, hold! For if thou strik'st me with thy dart of gold, I sweare to thee by Joves immortall curse, I have more in my hart than in my purse.

The more I weepe, the more he bends his brow, For in my hart a golden shaft I finde. Cruell, unkinde, and wilt thou leave me so? Can no remorce nor pittie move thy minde? Is mercie in the heavens so hard to finde? Oh, then it is no mervaile that on earth Of kinde remorce there is so great a dearth.

How happie were a harmles shepheards life, If he had never knowen what love did meane; But now fond Love in every place is rife, Staining the purest soule with spots uncleane, Making thicke purses thin, fat bodies leane. Love is a fiend, a fire, a heaven, a hell, Where pleasure, paine, and sad repentance dwell!

There are so manie Danaes now a dayes, That love for lucre, paine for gaine is sold; No true affection can their fancie please, Except it be a Jove, to raine downe gold Into their laps, which they wyde open hold: If _legem pone_ comes, he is receav'd, When _Vix haud habeo_ is of hope bereav'd.

Thus have I showed, in my countrey vaine, The sweet content that shepheards still injoy; The mickle pleasure and the little paine That ever doth awayte the shepheards boy: His hart is never troubled with annoy; He is a king, for he commands his sheepe; He knowes no woe, for he doth seldome weepe.

He is a courtier, for he courts his love; He is a scholler, for he sings sweet ditties; He is a souldier, for he wounds doth prove; He is the fame of townes, the shame of citties: He scornes false fortune, but true vertue pitties. He is a gentleman, because his nature Is kinde and affable to everie creature.

Who would not then a simple shepheard bee, Rather than be a mightie monarch made? Since he injoyes such perfect libertie As never can decay, nor never fade: He seldome sits in dolefull cypresse shade, But lives in hope, in joy, in peace, in blisse, Joying all joy with this content of his.

But now good fortune lands my little boate Upon the shoare of his desired rest: Now must I leave awhile my rurall noate, To thinke on him whom my soule loveth best; He that can make the most unhappie blest; In whose sweete lap Ile lay me downe to sleepe, And never wake till marble stones shall weepe.

FINIS.

SONNET.

Loe here behold these tributarie teares Paid to thy faire but cruell tyrant eyes; Loe here the blossome of my youthfull yeares, Nipt with the fresh of thy wraths winter, dyes! Here on Loves altar I doo offer up This burning hart for my soules sacrifice; Here I receave this deadly-poysned cu[p] Of Circe charm'd, wherein deepe magicke lyes. Then teares, if you be happie teares indeed, And hart, if thou be lodged in his brest, And cup, if thou canst helpe despaire with speed, Teares, hart, and cup, conjoine to make me blest! Teares move, hart win, cup cause, ruth, love, desire, In word, in deed; by moane, by zeale, by fire.

FINIS.

THE COMPLAINT OF CHASTITIE, BRIEFELY TOUCHING THE CAUSE OF THE DEATH OF MATILDA FITZWALTERS, AN ENGLISH LADIE, SOMETIME LOVED OF KING JOHN, AFTER POYSONED. THE STORIE IS AT LARGE WRITTEN BY MICHAEL DREYTON.

You modest dames, inricht with chastitie, Maske your bright eyes with Vestaes sable vaile, Since few are left so faire or chast as shee, Matter for me to weepe, you to bewaile! For manie seeming so, of Vertue faile, Whose lovely cheeks, with rare vermilion tainted, Can never blush, because their faire is painted.

O faire-foule tincture, staine of woman kinde, Mother of Mischiefe, daughter of Deceate, False traitor to the soule, blot to the minde, Usurping tyrant of true beauties seate! Right cousner of the eye, lewd follies baite, The flag of filthines, the sinke of shame, The divells dye, dishonour of thy name!

Monster of art, bastard of bad desier, Il-worshipt idoll, false imagerie! Ensigne of vice, to thine owne selfe a lier, Silent inchaunter, mindes anatomie, Sly bawd to lust, pandor to infamie, Slaunder of Truth, truth of dissimulation, Staining our clymate more than anie nation!

What shall I say to thee, thou scorne of Nature, Blacke spot of sinne, vylde lure of lecherie, Injurious blame to everie fæmale creature, Wronger of time, broker of trecherie, Trap of greene youth, false womens witcherie, Handmaid of pride, highway to wickednesse, Yet pathway to repentance nere the lesse?

Thou dost entice the minde to dooing evill, Thou setst dissention twixt the man and wife; A saint in show, and yet indeed a devill, Thou art the cause of everie common strife; Thou art the life of Death, the death of Life! Thou doost betray thyselfe to infamie, When thou art once discerned by the eye.

Ah, little knew Matilda of thy being, Those times were pure from all impure complection; Then Love came of Desert, Desert of seeing, Then Vertue was the mother of Affection, But Beautie now is under no subjection; Then women were the same that men did deeme, But now they are the same they doo not seeme.

What fæmale now intreated of a king With gold and jewels, pearles and precious stones, Would willingly refuse so sweete a thing, Onely for a little show of Vertue ones? Women have kindnes grafted in their bones. Gold is a deepe-perswading orator, Especially where few the fault abhor.

But yet shee rather deadly poyson chose, Oh cruell bane of most accursed clime! Than staine that milk-white mayden virgin rose, Which shee had kept unspotted till that time, And not corrupted with this earthly slime. Her soule shall live, inclosd eternally In that pure shrine of immortality!

This is my doome, and this shall come to passe, For what are pleasures but still vading joyes? Fading as flowers, brittle as a glasse, Or potters clay, crost with the least annoyes? All things in this life are but trifling toyes, But Fame and Vertue never shall decay, For Fame is toomblesse, Vertue lives for aye!

FINIS.

NOTES.

P. 6, l. 1.--_Blin._] To cease.

Mon that loveth falsnesse and nule never _blynne_, Sore may him drede the lyf that he is ynne.

_Wright's Political Songs_, p. 212.

P. 7, l. 25.--_Her hart more hard than adamant or steele._] Compare "Midsummer Night's Dream," ii. 2.--

"You draw me, _you hard-hearted adamant_; But yet you draw not iron, for my heart Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw, And I shall have no power to follow you."

P. 8, l. 15.--_Ban._] Curse.

P. 9, l. 13.--_Crownets._] Coronets. The term occurs in Shakespeare.

P. 9, l. 22.--_Hunts-up._] Mr. Collier has printed a very curious song, from which it appears that the _hunts-up_ was known as early as 28 Henry VIII. The following extract will show the nature of it:--

"The hunt is up, the hunt is up, &c. The Masters of Art and Doctors of Divinity Have brought this name out of good unity, Three noblemen have this to stay,-- My lord of Norfolk, Lord of Surrey, And my Lord of Shrewsbury, The Duke of Suffolk might have made England merry."

P. 10, l. 10.--_Eughes._] Yews.

P. 10, l. 15.--_Ladon._] A river in Arcadia.

P. 11, l. 2.--_Syrinx._] An Arcadian nymph, who, flying from Pan, was turned into a reed, which was afterwards made into a pipe by the pursuer.

P. 11, l. 24.--_Prickets._] Bucks of the second year.

P. 12, l. 10.--_Spyke._] Lavender.

P. 12, l. 11.--_The scarlet dyde carnation bleeding yet._] The idea of a bleeding flower gives additional grace to one of the most beautiful passages in Shakespeare.--

"Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell; It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound."

P. 12, l. 13.--_Good for the blinde._] According to Gerard, p. 537, "eiebright stamped and laid upon the eies, or the juice thereof, mixed with white wine, and dropped into the eies, or the destilled water, taketh awaie the darknesse and dimnesse of the eies, and cleereth the sight."

P. 12, l. 18.--_Sops in wine._] Pinks.

P. 12, l. 19.--_Bootes._] The marsh marigold. According to Gerard, p. 671, this name for the plant was current only "in Cheshire and those parts."

P. 13, l. 2.--_Tyce._] To entice.

P. 15, l. 6.--_The christall fountaines._]

"Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams."

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, iii. 2.

P. 16, l. 24.--_Boult._] A short thick arrow.

P. 16, l. 24.--_Thrustle-cocke._] The male thrush.

P. 16, l. 25.--_Afforde._] "Afford's," orig.

P. 17, l. 6.--_Grype._] A griffin.

P. 17, l. 13.--_Oozels._] Blackbirds. See p. 24.

P. 18, l. 3.--_As white as whale._]

"This is the flower that smiles on every one, That show his teeth _as white as whales bone_."

_Love's Labour's Lost_, v. ii.

P. 20, l. 12.--_My lovely faire._] Compare the Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1.--

----"O, happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars."

P. 22, l. 3.--_Fautors._] Abetters, supporters.

P. 25, l. 1.--_When huntsmen, &c._]

----"imitatus castora, qui se Eunuchum ipse facit, cupiens evadere damno Testiculorum."

_Juvenal_, xii. 84.

P. 27, l. 1.--_White is the colour._] This stanza seems to have been imitated in "Greenes Funeralls," 4to. London, 1594. See the "First Sketches of Henry VI," Introduction, p. xxiii.

P. 30, l. 4.--_Knife._] So in the original, but probably a mistake for swords.

P. 30, l. 8.--_Glaver._] To flatter.

P. 35, l. 11.--_Deck._] Pack of cards.

P. 40, l. 12.--_Rampicke._] Partially decayed; a term generally applied to a tree which begins to decay at the top through age.

P. 40, l. 21.--_Melt._] "Melts" in the original.

P. 42, l. 24.--_Cruell, unkinde, and wilt thou leave me so._] Compare Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2, "why unkindly didst thou leave me so?"

P. 46, l. 3.--_After._] Afterwards. The poetical legend by Drayton, here alluded to, will be found in the collected works of that writer.

P. 48, l. 4.--_Ones._] Once. After this poem is inserted, in the original, three pages entitled, "Hellens Rape, or a light Lanthorne for light Ladies. Written in English hexameters."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Affectionate Shepherd, by Richard Barnfield