FROM

LACENA'S RIDDLE.

(ED. 1587.)

THE DESCRIPTION OF SILVESTRO'S

LADY.

HER stature like the tall straight cedar-trees
Whose stately bulks do fame th' Arabian groves;
A pace like princely Juno when she brav'd
The Queen of Love 'fore Paris in the vale;
A front beset with love and courtesy ;
A face like modest Pallas when she blush'd
A seely shepherd should be beauty's judge;
A lip sweet ruby-red, grac'd with delight;
A cheek wherein for interchange of hue
A wrangling strife 'twixt lily and the rose;
Her eyes two twinckling* stars in winter-nights
When chilling frost doth clear the azur'd sky;
Her hair of golden hue doth dim the beams
That proud Apollo giveth from his coach;
The Gnidian doves, whose white and snowy

pens

Do stain the silver-streaming ivory,

May not compare with those two moving hills Which, topp'd + with pretty teats, discover down a vale

Wherein the God of Love may deign to sleep;
A foot like Thetis when she tripp'd the sands
To steal Neptunus' favour with her ‡ steps;
In fine,§ a piece, despite of beauty, fram'd
To show what Nature's lineage could afford.

twinckling] The 4to. "tinckling."

Which, topp'd, &c.] Qy. did Greene intend an Alexandrine here, or is the line corrupted?

Neptunus'. . . . her] The 4to. "Neptunes. . . . his." In fine] Not in the 4to.; but found in the alteration of these verses apud our author's Farewell to Folly: sec post, p. 309, first col.

And rules his diet by geometry;

Whose restless mind rips up his mother's

breast,

To part her bowels for his family;
And fetcheth Pluto's glee in from the grass

By careless cutting of a goddess' gifts;
That throws his gotten labour to the earth,

As trusting to content for others' shifts; 'Tis he, good sir, that Saturn best did please When golden world set worldlings all at ease; His name is Person, and his progeny, Now tell me, of what ancient pedigree?

VERSES

UNDER THE PICTURE OF FORTUNE.

THE fickle seat whereon proud Fortune sits, The restless globe whereon the Fury stands, Bewrays her fond and far inconstant fits;

The fruitful horn she handleth in her hands Bids all beware to fear her flattering smiles, That giveth most when most she meaneth guiles;

The wheel that, turning, never taketh rest,

The top whereof fond worldlings count their bliss,

Within a minute makes a black exchange,

And then the vile* and lowest better is: Which emblem tells us the inconstant state Of such as trust to Fortune or to Fate.

vile] The 4to. "vild": but see note t, p. 167, sec. col.

FROM

MENAPHON.

(ED. 1589, COMPARED WITH ED. 1616.)

APOLLO'S ORACLE.

WHEN Neptune, riding on the southern seas,

Shall from the bosom of his leman* yield Th' Arcadian wonder, men and gods to please, Plenty in pride shall march amidst the field; Dead men shall war, and unborn babes shall frown,"

And with their falchions hew their foemen down.

When lambs have lions for their surest guide,
And planets rest upon th' Arcadian hills,
When swelling seas have neither ebb nor tide,
When equal banks the ocean-margin fills;
Then look, Arcadians, for a happy time,
And sweet content within your troubled clime.

MENAPHON'S SONG.

SOME say Love,

Foolish Love,

Doth rule and govern all the gods:

I say Love,

Inconstant Love,

Sets men's senses far at odds.

Some swear Love,

Smooth-fac'd + Love,

Is sweetest sweet that men can have:

I say Love,

Sour Love,

Makes virtue yield as beauty's slave: A bitter sweet, a fully worst of all, That forceth wisdom to be folly's thrall.

Love is sweet:

Wherein sweet?

In fading pleasures that do pain. Beauty sweet:

Is that sweet,

That yieldeth sorrow for a gain? If Love's sweet,

Herein sweet,

That minutes' joys are monthly woes: 'Tis not sweet,

That is sweet

Nowhere but where repentance grows. Then love who list, if beauty be so sour; Labour for me, Love rest in prince's bower.

leman] i. e. mistress, love.

+ Smooth-fac'd] Both 4tos. "Smooth'd face."

Whenas my nymph, impatient of the night,
Bade bright Astræus* with his train give place,
Whiles she led forth the day with her fair face,
And lent each star a more than Delian light.

Not Jove or Nature, should they both agree
To make a woman of the firmament,
Of his mix'd purity could not invent
A sky-born form † so beautiful as she.

MELICERTUS' MADRIGAL.

WHAT are my sheep without their wonted food?
What is my life except I gain my love?
My sheep consume and faint for want of blood,
My life is lost unless I grace approve :
No flower that sapless thrives,

No turtle without fere.+

The day without the sun doth lour for woe,
Then woe mine eyes, unless they beauty see;
My sun Samela's eyes, by whom I know
Wherein delight consists, where pleasures be:
Naught more the heart revives

Than to embrace his dear.

The stars from earthly humours gain their light,
Our humours by their light possess their power;
Samela's eyes, fed by my weeping sight,
Infuse § my pain or joys by smile or lour:
So wends the source of love;

It feeds, it fails, it ends.

Kind looks, clear to your joy behold her eyes,
Admire her heart, desire to taste her kisses;
In them the heaven of joy and solace lies,
Without them every hope his succour misses :
O, how I love to prove
Whereto this solace tends!

MENAPHON'S SONG IN HIS BED. You restless cares, companions of the night, That wrap my joys in folds of endless woes,

Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays.

Mourn heavens, mourn earth; your shepherd is
forlorn;
[bower;
Mourn times and hours, since bale invades my
Curse every tongue the place where I was born,
Curse every thought the life which makes me
lour:

Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays.

Was I not free? was I not fancy's aim?
Fram'd not desire my face to front disdain ?
I was; she did; but now one silly maim
Makes me to droop, as he whom love hath slain :
Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays.

Yet drooping, and yet living to this death,
I sigh, I sue for pity at her shrine,
Whose fiery eyes exhale my vital breath,
And make my flocks with parching heat to pine:
Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays.

Fade they, die I: long may she live to bliss,
That feeds a wanton fire with fuel of her form,
And makes perpetual summer where she is ;
Whiles I do cry, o'ertook with envy's storm,

"Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days;

Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays."

SONG.

FAIR fields, proud Flora's vaunt, why is't you Whenas I languish? [smile

You golden meads, why strive you to beguile

My weeping anguish ?

I live to sorrow, you to pleasure spring: Why do you spring thus?

Since love and fortune prove my equal foes:

Astraus] The father of the primeval stars: vide Aratus, AIN. 98; and compare Marlowe's Dido, Works, p. 252, ed. Dyce, 1858.

A sky-born form, &c.] The Rev. J. Mitford (Gent. Mag. for March 1833, p. 218) remarks that this passage is borrowed, with some alterations, by the author of The Thracian Wonder, a play falsely ascribed to Webster (see Webster's Works, iv. 211, ed. Dyce, 1830); and that Collins (Ode to Mercy) has adopted from our text the expression "Gentlest of sky-born forms," &c.

fere i. e. mate.

§ Infuse] The 4to. of 1589 "Insues"; that of 1616 "Infudes." Tire] i. e. prey.

Take some pity on us,

And send forth winter in her rusty weed,
To wail† my bemoanings, +
Whiles I distress'd do tune my country-reed
Unto my groanings?

But heaven, and earth, time, place, and every
Have with her conspir'd [power

To turn my blissful sweets to baleful sour,

Since fond I desir'd

That feeds, &c.] See note t, p. 285, first col.

t wail] The 4to. of 1589 "waite.'

bemoanings] Qy. "moanings "?