Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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B13493
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Oedipus three cantoes. VVherein is contained: 1 His vnfortunate infancy. 2 His execrable actions. 3 His lamentable end. By T.E. Bach: Art. Cantab.
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Evans, Thomas, d. 1633.
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1615
(1615)
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STC 10594; ESTC S105537
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29,304
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80
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here is not enough secure Dreames catch his swimming fancies in a net His slumbers broken with illusiue sights Raise sudden starts mutter out words abrupt His haire on tip-toe heaues with vaine affrights Rest do minds troubled rest doth interrupt Anon he wakes calles for his horse to flye He is pursu'd 't is true but whither wilt Thou hear'st about thee thine owne enemy And flye thy countrey mayst but not thy guilt Perceiving then how he did erre he smiles Eu'n out of griefes Antiperistasie Alas thou er'st not nor thy dreame beguiles Pursu'd thou art Crimes the pursuers be But Griefe and he growne more familiar Strange welcomes Artfull gratulations ceast Which more in Innes then Mansions vsed are Not to a daily but a seldome guest Yet when acquaintance would vn-nurtur'd grow And too much on a wearied friend relye Vnmannerly till it be bidden goe He lookes vpon it with disliking eye And to be rid of cumbersome intrusion Cuts kindnesse shorter and directly chides His trouble from him when ingrate confusion Claimes it as due and curtesie derides And hauing got the vpper hand insults Ore his deiected owner rebell-like As when Ambition gathring head revolts And at a crownes forbidden lustre strikes When as the King sees that submit he must Impatience thus in sillables breakes out Blast me some powerfull vapour into dust Circle me Furies with your brands about Oh let the weight of my impietie Presse downe the center dig it selfe a graue Or from two poles crack the warpt Axletree That Nature may a second labour haue Earth shrinke thou vnder me and thou to whom Divided Chaos pitchy darknesse sent Let me inhabit in some vaulted roome Where no light is through guiltie crannies lent You Citizens of Thebes for me distrest Tombe me aliue with stones you childlesse mothers Striping the milke out from your vnsuckt breasts You that haue lost the names of sons brothers You widowed Matrons loue-deprived Maids Pierce me at once with clamors loud and thick 'T is I whom Gods do hate and Man vpbraids The very But where Fate her Arrowes stick Why doe I stay why doth not heauen ordaine Some punishing Iron or some strangling rope Or why descends not some consuming raine Is vengeance layd vp for a further scope I haue sin'd all I can but I mistake A punishment cannot be thought on fit There 's some vnheard-of creature yet to make That ioyn'd to cruelty may haue Art and wit Me thinkes I feele a Vulture peck my liver My intrailes by some Tyger eaten vp Or in the muddy bottome of a river The nibbling Fry vpon my carcasse sup Oh my sad soule do not looke pale on death Feare not thy period vnto all thy feares Delights but Comma's are to gather breath Lest we should tire ere the full poynts appeares See heere for now he had vnsheath'd his sword How easie is it for a man to dye One little touch yea oftentimes a word Mans great bulk falles eu'n conquer'd with a flye There is but one and that a narrow way To enter life but if we would go out Of many thousand beaten paths we may Take our owne choyce we need not goe about And this is all that man can call his owne What else he hath Nature or Fortune lends Many can life deny but death can none Onely to dye vpon mans will depends Dye then so setting to his naked breast His weapons poynt ready thereon to fall Somewhat detaines him to performe the rest Not that he thought death grievous but too small Death is a Felons sentence and shall I For parricide and incest feele no more Some men do count it happinesse to dye A cure esteeme it rather then a sore Yet say the violent separation Of the acquainted body from the soule Chiefly to such who no relation Haue but to earth doth manlinesse controule What then thy Fathers death thy death requires Thy death for incest must the God appease Thy death must quench thy countries funeral fires And with one death can'st satisfie all these Couldst thou dye often could thy corpes renewd Change tenants oft couldst thou be borne againe Dye againe faultlesse could vicissitude Of life and death draw out an endlesse paine Revenge might somewhat be suffisd but now Life is thy greatest torment death espying As more remote so with more frightful brow Sith thou but once oh bee thou long in dying 'T is now growne vulgar to be Stoicall Peasants redeeme with easie deaths their feares Who would be manly or heroicall What Cowards thinke intolerable beares Linger my hasty soule be not bankerous Meerely in policie breake not so soone Some sighes thou still hast left to furnish out Thy trade with breath hold out till they be done A sudden shower from his eyes doth raine Haue I teares yet saies he alas vaine wet Thou canst not wash away one spot one staine That my least guilt vpon my fame hath set 'T is not enough to weepe I oft haue vsd Teares in my mirth let them not looke out heere Yet powre it downe if there be bloud infusd And see the eye drop after it's shed teare You shal weep bloud mine eyes sets his nailes Where sight had built her azure monument Thus shed your selues no moisture else prevailes Then from their crakt strings he his eye-bals rent Now now 't is finisht I am cleare no light Betrayes me to my selfe I 'me living dead Exempt from those that liue by wanting sight From those are dead because vnburied So having all the office of his eye Discharg'd by th' other foure his guidlesse feet Are vsher'd by his hands when suddenly His wife his mother both in one him meets Son husband cries she would not both or neither My wombes Primitiae my beds second Lord Why turnst thou hence thy hollow circles whither Those rings without their iewels hold this sword Looke on my bosome with the eyes of thought Lend thou the hand and I will lend the sight My death thou mayst that hast a fathers wrought Strike thou but home thou canst not but strike right Why dost thou stay Am I not guilty too Then beare not all the punishment alone Some of 't is mine on me mine owne bestow A heavy burthen parted seemeth none Oh I coniure thee by these lampes extinguisht By all the wrongs and rights that we haue done By this wombe lastly that hath not distinguisht Her loue betwixt a husband and a sonne Ore-come at length he strikes with one full blowâ— Her life it selfe to a long flight betakes He wanders thence secur'd in dangers now Made lesse already then fate lesse can make Long liu'd he so till heaven compassion tooke Reuenge herselfe saw too much satisfied Ione with vnwonted thunder-bolt him strooke Into a heape of peacefull ashes dryed His sonnes both killing warres his daughters fate To following buskind Writers I commit My Popiniay is lesson'd not to prate Where many words may argue little wit FINIS
As thou by both her water'd sides dost ride Attend me all By whose hand Laius fell Let him no harbour no aboad enioy No not himselfe wherein himselfe may dwell But when none else let he himselfe annoy May his owne houshold Gods vnfaithfull proue And the vnnaturall Lart in exile worse Reap he most shame from what he most doth loue And may his wife an impious off-spring nurse Kill he his father as he kild his King And let his acts my wishes power out-goe If a worse fate then mine can torment bring Heap't vp yet doe he what I shun to doe And for my selfe as I with prayers desire My vntoucht parents may proclaime me good No cooling intermission shall retire Reuenge till bloud be washt away with bloâ—d But play not with vs true Propheticke spirit Thus by denyed grants to make vs long Search is ambitious and would all inherit Secrets with-held make inquisition strong A taste but whets the liâ—â—ish appetite For satisfactions earnester pâ—â—â—â—â—it Vnto a prisoner the spâ—â—e-scanted light A bondage is to want it and to view 't Then do thou heauenly goodâ—â—s whom it pleas'd To shew the meanes further the meanes vnfold Point forth the man that soone we may be eas'd Or teach vs to forget what thou hast â—old Else as impatient patients we fare To whom the Châ—â—â—â—k hath prescrib'd receits Of such ingredients as so hidden are That they are doubted to be skild deceits Vrge Gods no more replyes the sacred Priest Man must worke somewhat for his better being Yet if with this thou not contented bee'st Blinded Tiresias eyes must helpe thy seeing Forthwith the faithfull Creon is dismist To Phoebus second Oracle who late Lost sight yet gain'd a better then he mist As he Coelestiall matters did debate Far from the Citty lies a nighted Groue Downe in the Valley where fleete Dirce glides Where th'vntoucht Cipresse spreads his boughs aboue And froÌ„ the Sun the subiect Bramble hides The aged Oake his rotten branches tends From whose corrupted side thicke ielly drops And stooping vnder many yeares he bends To rest his crippled truncke on yonger props There bitter-berried Daphne Mirrha stood The trembling Apse the Birch with smooth thin rine Th' eternall Cedar for my lines too good The vpright Alder and Sunne-guilded Pine In midst of this is situate a Tree Of wondrous greatnesse whose extended armes Mete the large confines of it's Empery And fense the weake inhabitants from harmes Within the hollow compasse of whose trunke Nature had cut out an vnciuill den Which a cold fountaine without ceasing drunke Vp of the earth moats with a miry fen Heere by his daughter Manto led he meets Reuerenc'd Tiresias And from the King Him all humanity obseru'd he greets And further vtters what him thither brings Then as the neuer-erring Prophet wild A hostiall fire vpon the Altar's made Which they before of Turffs of earth did build And there two cole-blacke Heifers on were laid The sacred Vates standing by the fire In direfull roabs yclad with box-tree crown'd Oft waues his powerfull wand and then enquires What Omens in the beasts or flames are found Anon he sings the hideous magicke verse Cals on the names of dutious Spirits thrice Thrice doth he smite the shooke earth thrice rehearse What deuils may compell or deuils tice A bloudy shower from his right hand fals And from his left drops bloud with Bacchus mixt Then with more earnest voice againe he cals With steady countenance on the center fixt Now dismall Hecats Dogs began to barke Which to repeat the wood by Eccho's taught A night comes now there answering day so darke A blinder Chaos seene then th' old was thought Vp rise the subiects of infernall Dis At which each Tree his frighted branches heaues Many an Oake in splinters shiuer'd is Many an Elme shrinkes vp his blasted leaues Earth suffers violence and open rends Her seal'd vp wombe to shew her tombed dead The subtile spirits penetrating fiends Out of her cauernes lift their crisped heads There might one see the griesly God of Hell Put his num hand out of his frozen Lake Nights very selfe three sister'd furies fell Picking queint morsels on a speckled snake The viperous brood of strange produced brothers Blinde Fury running carelesse of a guide Horror with vpright haire And all the others Eternall Darkenesse doth create or hide Griefe ' gainst it selfe that exercises rage Sickenesse that droopes a lither-head down hung Feare neuer certaine selfe-despising age Detraction last with her backe-biting tong That euen Manto custom'd to these Rites Astonisht stood onely her vnmou'd Sire Doth more the ghosts theÌ„ ghosts can meÌ„ affright That trembling Fiends closely themselues retire When he afresh effectuall charmes infers Graue-bedrid corps out of Deaths sleepe to wake Who breaking ope their Marble Sepulchers Their liuing formes vnto their soules retake So many leaues doth not Oeta shed So many Swallowes doth not Winter chace So many Bees are not in Hybla fed So many billowes wash not Neptunes face As there of sundry Nations ghosts appear'd Some with dismembred bodies some with scarres Doubly disfigur'd and were doubly sear'd Others vntoucht slaine by loues stroke not wars Amongst the rest Laiuâ— his head erects With meager lookes gor'd through with ghastly wounds That almost none him by his forme detects While thus he speakes while he in teares abounds Oh house of Cadmus neuer satisfied With bloud of kindred once my Country deare Whose first bad off-spring by each other dyed And still that enmity the last doth beare 'T is not heauens anger but thy wickednes Thou labour'st with no South-wind pestilence brings The thirsty earth vnquencht with rain hurts lesse Then th' abhominable action of thy Kings 'T is he not yet corrected paricide My murderer that for satisfaction Of a Sires death a Mother makes his Bride A worser father though too bad a son 'T is he to one wombe twise a diuers load Curst with prodigious issue who ahlas Vpon himselfe two brothers hath bestow'd Darker Aenigâ—aes then ere Sphinxes was He He it is that now my Scepter swayes Whom I with all your Citty prosecute Onely his exile misery allaies And till reueng'd I still will persecute He gone the painted spring shall soone repaire Your wither'd Arbors with their wonted greene No poisonous vapour shall infect your Aire But all shall be as it before hath beene This done and the infernall crew dismist Creâ—â— departs with sundry thoughts perplext Who in no steady counsell can persist Approuing what 's disproued by the next Anon the King is instant for the newes And after wanton preparation ended The messenger would faine himselfe excuse From telling it by telling where it tended But he more earnest through denyall threats By torment to extort it from his tong And mixes with his anger faire entreates Till both preuail'd he heares it and was stung A while with cogitations much distract He pauses on it and begins to doubt Some subtle stratageme contriu'd compact Which