The Malcontent describes himself.
I cannot sleep, my eyes' ill neighbouring lids
Will hold no fellowship. O thou pale sober night,
Thou that in sluggish fumes all sense dost steep;
Thou that giv'st all the world full leave to play,
Unbend'st the feebled veins of sweaty labour:
The gally-slave, that all the toilsome day
Tugs at the oar against the stubborn wave,
Straining his rugged veins, snores fast;
The stooping scythe-man, that doth barb the field,
Thou mak'st wink sure; in night all creatures sleep,
Only the Malcontent, that 'gainst his fate
Repines and quarrels: alas, he's Goodman Tell-clock;"
His sallow jaw-bones sink with wasting moan;
Whilst other's beds are down, his pillow's stone.
Place for a Penitent.
My cell 'tis, lady; where, instead of masks,
Music, tilts, tournies, and such court-like shows,
The hollow murmur of the checkless winds
Shall groan again, whilst the unquiet sea
Shakes the whole rock with foamy battery.
There Usherless 32 the air comes in and out;
The rheumy vault will force your eyes to weep,
Whilst you behold true desolation.
A rocky barrenness shall pierce your eyes;
Where all at once one reaches, where he stands,
With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands.
32 i. e. without the ceremony of an Usher to give notice of its ap proach, as is usual in Courts. As fine as Shakspeare: "the bleak air thy boisterous Chamberlain."
THE WONDER OF WOMEN OR THE TRAGEDY OF
Description of the witch Erictho.
Here in this desart, the great Soul of Charms
Dreadful Erictho lives; whose dismal brow
Contemns all roofs, or civil coverture.
Forsaken graves and tombs (the ghosts forc'd out)
She joys to inhabit.
A loathsome yellow leanness spreads her face,
A heavy hell-like paleness loads her cheeks,
Unknown to a clear heaven. But if dark winds
Or black thick clouds drive back the blinded stars,
When her deep magic makes forc'd heaven quake,
And thunder, spite of Jove: Erictho then
From naked graves stalks out, heaves proud her head,
With long unkemb'd hair loaden, and strives to snatch
The night's quick sulphur; then she bursts up tombs
From half-rot sear-cloths; then she scrapes dry gums
For her black rites: but when she finds a corse
But newly grav'd, whose entrails are not turn'd
To slimy filth, with greedy havock then
She makes fierce spoil, and swells with wicked triumph
To bury her lean knuckles in his eyes:
Then doth she gnaw the pale and o'er-grown nails
From his dry hand: but if she find some life
Yet lurking close, she bites his gelid lips,
And sticking her black tongue in his dry throat,
She breathes dire murmurs, which enforce him bear
Her baneful secrets to the spirits of horror.
-Hard by the reverent ruins
Of a once glorious Temple, rear'd to Jove,
Whose very rubbish (like the pitied fall
Of virtue much unfortunate) yet bears
A deathless majesty, though now quite ras'd,
Hurl'd down by wrath and lust of impious kings,
So that, where holy Flamens wont to sing
Sweet hymns to heaven, there the daw, and crow,
The ill-voic'd raven, and still-chattering pye,
Send out ungrateful sounds and loathsome filth;
Where statues and Jove's acts were vively33 limn'd,
Boys with black coals draw the veil'd parts of nature
And lecherous actions of imagin'd lust;
Where tombs and beauteous urns of well-dead men
Stood in assured rest, the shepherd now
Unloads his belly, corruption most abhorr'd
Mingling itself with their renowned ashes:
There once a charnel-house, now a vast cave,
Over whose brow a pale and untrod grove
Throws out her heavy shade, the mouth thick arms
Of darksome ewe, sun-proof, for ever choak;
Within, rests barren darkness, fruitless drought
Pines in eternal night; the steam of hell
Yields not so lazy air: there, that's her Cell.
THE INSATIATE COUNTESS: A TRAGEDY. BY JOHN MARSTON.
Isabella (the Countess) after a long series of crimes of infidelity to her husband and of murder, is brought to suffer on a scaffold. Roberto, her husband, arrives to take a last leave of her.
Roberto. Bear record all you blessed saints in heaven, I come not to torment thee in thy death; For of himself he's terrible enough. But call to mind a Lady like yourself, And think how ill in such a beauteous soul, Upon the instant morrow of her nuptials,
Apostacy and wild revolt would shew.
Withal imagine that she had a lord
Jealous, the air should ravish her chaste looks;
Doting, like the Creator in his models,
Who views them every minute and with care
Mixt in his fear of their obedience to him.
Suppose he sung through famous Italy,
More common than the looser songs of Petrarch,
To every several Zany's instrument:
And he poor wretch, hoping some better fate
Might call her back from her adulterate purpose,
Lives in obscure and almost unknown life;
Till hearing that she is condemn'd to die,
For he once lov'd her, lends his pined corps
Motion to bring him to her stage of honour,
Where, drown'd in woe at her so dismal chance,
He clasps her: thus he falls into a trance.
Isabella. O my offended lord, lift up your eyes;
But yet avert them from my lothed sight.
Had I with you enjoy'd the lawful pleasure,
To which belongs nor fear nor public shame,
I might have liv'd in honour, died in fame.
Your pardon on my faitering knees I beg;
Which shall confirm more peace unto my death,
Than all the grave instructions of the Church.
Roberto. Freely thou hast it. Farewell, my Isabella;
Let thy death ransome thy soul, O die a rare example.
The kiss thou gav'st me in the church, here take:
As I leave thee, so thou the world forsake.
Executioner. Madam, tie up your hair.
Isabella. O these golden nets,
That have insnared so many wanton youths!
Not one, but has been held a thread of life,
And superstitiously depended on.
Executioner. Madam, I must intreat you blind your eyes. Isabella. I have lived too long in darkness, my friend: And yet mine eyes with their majestic light
Have got new Muses in a Poet's spright.
They 've been more gaz'd at than the God of day;
Their brightness never could be flattered:
Yet thou command'st a fixed cloud of lawn
To eclipse eternally these minutes of light.
I am prepar'd.-
Who would have thought it? She that could no more
Forsake my company, than can the day
Forsake the glorious presence of the sun.
When I was absent, then her galled eyes
Would have shed April showers, and outwept
The clouds in that same o'er-passionate mood
When they drown'd all the world: yet now forsakes me.
Women, your eyes shed glances like the sun;
Now shines your brightness, now your light is done.
On the sweet'st flowers you shine, 'tis but by chance,
And on the basest weed you'll waste a glance.
WHAT YOU WILL: A COMEDY. BY JOHN MARSTON.
Venetian Merchant.
No knight,
But one (that title off) was even a prince,
A sultan Solyman: thrice was he made,
In dangerous arms, Venice' Providetore.
He was a merchant, but so bounteous,
Valiant, wise, learned, all so absolute,
That nought was valued praiseful excellent,
But in't was he most praiseful excellent.
OI shall ne'er forget how he went cloath'd.
He would maintain it a base ill-us'd fashion,
To bind a merchant to the sullen habit
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