you freely hither hast No sudden hurl-windes shall your bodies cast On trembling Earth Behold I with my hands Behinde me bound implore your dire Commands And run to meet your stripes Are you now prone To melting pitty will you punish none But with injustice is your fury slow Vnlesse to those who no offences know We both alike have impiously transgrest You in not punishing a fault confest And I who have the living Lord deni'd Just Judges of a life so sanctified To whom suborned Witnesses have sold Their damned perjuries a Wretch behold And heare his Crime My Countrey Galile To follow Christ I left both Land and Sea Son to the Thunderer his onely Heire From Heaven sent by his Father to repaire And rule th' affairs of Mortals This is He VVhom you have bound who must his Countrey free Rebellious Vassals you have doom'd your King I know the impious Race from whence you spring Your savage manners cruel Ancestors VVhom Nature as her greatest curse abhors Such when the trembling Boy his brethrens hands Their truculent aspects and servill bands Beheld though privy to a better fate Whose providence was to reward their hate Soon after cal'd to Niles seven channel'd Flood He famine from both Lands expel'd with food So your seditious Fathers mutined At Sina's rocks against their sacred Head And there the food of Angels loth'd which fell From Heaven in showres besotted Israel Aegypt and Servitude prefer'd above The Tents of Moses and their Countries love What numbers with prophetick Raptures fill'd Have you and yet not unrevenged kill'd Memphis devouring Desarts Civill wars Oft forreign Yokes Assyrian Conquerars Great Pompeys Eagles sacred Rites profan'd Your Temple sackt with slaughtered Levites stain'd Are all forgot Yet worse attend your Hate O that I were the Minister of Fate I then would teare your guilty buildings down And in a crimson Sea their ruines drown Witnesse you Groves late conscious to our cares Where Christ with tears pour'd forth his funeral praiers How I revenge pursu'd and with their bloud Would have augmented Cedrons murmuring Floud But he for whom I struck reproov'd the blow And following his own Precept cur'd his foe For Malchus rushing on in front of all Perceiving part of his with-out him fall Searcht with his flaming brand the bleeding eare See on the earth revenge subdu'd his feare Who lowdly roaring shook his threatned bands And streight incountred those all-healing hands They to his Head that Ornament restor'd And benefits for injuries affor'd But O blinde Mischief I who gave the Wound Am left at large and he who heal'd it bound O Peter canst thou yet forbeare to throw Thy body on the weapons of the Foe If thou would'st vindicate thy Lord begin First with thy selfe and punish thy own Sin Thou that dar'st menace armies thou that art Fierce as a Midian Tyger of a heart Invincible nor knows what 't is to dread VVith Fortune at the first incounter fled A Fugitive a Rebel one that hath All crimes committed in this breach of faith VVho towring hopes on his own strength erects Nor the selfe-flattering Mindes deceit suspects But his vaine Vertue trust let him in me The sad example of his frailty see From slippery heights how pronely Mortals slide Their heady errors punishing their pride VVhat can I adde to these misdeeds of mine VVho have defil'd the water bread and wine VVith my abhor'd defection O could I Those lips pollute with wilfull perjury But newly feasted with that sacred food Presenting his torne flesh and powr'd-out blood O Piety for this thou Renegate Did Jesus wash thy flying feet of late Not Jordan with two Heads whose waters roule From snow-top Libanus can cleanse thy Soule Not thou Callirhoe nor that ample Lake From whose forsaken shore my birth I take Could'st thou blue Nereus in whose troubled Deep Niles seven large Mouthes their foming currents steep Or that red Sea whose waves in Rampires stood While our Fore-Fathers past the parted Flood These purging streames from thy own Springs must flow Repentance why are thy complaints so slow Raise stormes of sighes let teares in torrents fall And on thy blushing cheekes deep furrows gall O so run freely beat thy stubborn breast Here spend thy rage these blowes become thee best This wretched Cephas for thy crimes I owe What can I for my injur'd Lord bestow My deeds and sufferings disproportion'd are Nor must they in an equall sorrow share Should this Night ever last to propagate Increasing sorrowes till subdu'd by Fate My penitent Soule this wasted flesh forsake Yet can my guilt no reparation make Swoln eyes now weep you then you should have wept Besprinkled my devotion and have kept That holy Watch when interdicted Sleep Your drowsie lids did in his Lethe steep You should have dropt my brains into a Flood Before he at that dire Tribunall stood Ere thrice abjur'd on me his looks he threw Or ere th' accusing Bird of Dawning drew Where shall I hide me in what Dungeon may My troubled Soul avoid the wofull Day Fly quickly to some melancholy Cave In whose dark entrails thou maist finde a grave To bury thee alive there waste thy yeares In chearisht Sorrow and unwitnest Tears PONTIVS PILAT CAIAPHAS TArpaean Jove Mars great Quirinus Sire You Houshold gods snatcht from Troys funerall Fire With greater Zeal ador'd when shall I pay My Vows my Offerings on your Altars lay And see those Roofs which top the Clouds the Beams With burnisht gold inchac'd and blazing Gems Those Theaters which ring with their applause Who on the conquered World impose their Lawes And thee the triple Earths imperious Guide Great-Soul'd Tiberius whether thou reside On Tibers banks ador'd by gratefull Rome Ambitious of his residence for whom She gave the World or Caprae much renown'd For soft delights impoverish the Long-gown'd Farre from my friends farre from my native Soyl I here in honourable Exile toyl To curb a People whom the Gods disclaim Who cover under the usurped Name Of Piety their hate to all Man-kinde Condemne the world in their own vices blinde And with false grounded fear abjure for One All those Immortalls which the Heavens inthrone Their onely Law is to renounce all Laws Their Error which from others hatred draws Fomenting their own discord still provokes Their Spirits to Rebellion who their yokes Have oft attempted to shake-off though they More eas'ly are subdu'd then taught to obey Cleare Justice sincere Faith bear witnesse you With how much grief our swords the Hebrews slew But such as stubborn and inhumane are Vnlesse they suffer would inforce a War And Reason urgeth those who Scepters bear Against their Nature oft to prove severe I go to question what these Prelates would Since they forbear to enter lest they should Their Feast so neare with my unhallowed Floore Their feet pollute Who 's this by such a power In shackles led How reverend his aspect How full of awe these Looks no guilt detect Thou Caiaphas of Solyma
who have sacrific'd your King CHORVS Either deceiv'd by the ambiguous Day Or troops of mourners to my eyes display A perfect Sorrow Women with their bare And bleeding brests drown'd cheeks dissheveld haire The Souldiers slowly march with knees that bend Beneath their feares and Pilats staires ascend CHORVS OF ROMANE SOVLDIERS O Thou who on thy flaming Charriot rid'st And with perpetuall Motion Time divid'st Great King of Day from whose farre-darting Eye Night-wandring Stars with fainting Splendor flie Whither thus intercepted dost thou stray Through what an unknown darknesse lies thy way In Heaven what new-born Night the Day invades The Mariner that sails by Tyrian Gades As yet sees not thy panting Horses steepe Their fiery fet-locks in th' Hesperian Deep No pitchy storme wrapt up in swelling Clouds By Earth exhal'd thy golden Tresses shrouds Nor thy pale Sister in her wandring Race With interposed wheeles obscures thy Face But now farre-off retires with her stolne Light Till in a silver Orbe her hornes unite Hath some Thessalian Witch with Charms unknown Surpriz'd and bound thee What new Phaëton With feeble hands to guide thy Charriot strives And farre from the deserted Zodiack drives What horrid fact before th' approach of Night Deservedly deprives the World of Light As when stern Atreus to his Brother gave His Childrens flesh who made his owne their grave Or when the Vestall Ilia's God-like Sun Who our unbounded Monarchie begun Was in a hundred pieces cut by theft At once of Life and Funerals bereft Or hath that Day wherein the Gods were borne Finish'd the Course of Heaven in its returne And now the aged Stars refuse to run Beyond that place from whence they first begun Nature what plagues dost thou to thine intend Whither shrinks this huge Masse what fatall end If now the Generall Floud againe retire If the World perish by licentious Fire What shall of those devouring Seas become Where shall those funerall Ashes finde a Tomb What ever innovates the Course of Things To men alone nor Nations ruine brings Either the groaning Worlds disordered Frame Now suffers or that Power which guides the same Doe proud Titanians with their impious War Again provoke th' Olympian Thunderer Is there a mischiefe extant greater then Dire Python or the Snake of Lerna's Fen That poysons the pure Heavens with Viperous breath What God from Gods deriv'd opprest by Death Is now in his own Heaven bewail'd Divine Lyeus gave to man lesse precious Wine Not Hercules so many Monsters flew Vnshorne Apollo lesse in Physick knew Sure we with darknesse are invelloped Because that innocent bloud by Envy shed So deare unto the Gods this place defam'd VVhich shook the Earth and made the Day asham'd Great Father of us all whose Influence Informes the World thou mad'st though Sin incense Thy just displeasure easie to forgive Those who confesse and for their Vices grieve Now to the desperate Sons of men who stray In sinnes dark Labyrinth restore the Day One Sacrifice seek we to expiate All our Offences and appease his hate VVhich the Religion of the Samian Nor Thracian Harpe wild beasts instructing can Nor that Prophetick Boy the Gleabs swart son VVho taught the Thuscans Divination The Bloud which from that mangled body bled Must purge our sins which we unjustly shed O smooth thy brows Receive the innocence Of one for all and with our guilt dispence For sin what greater Ransome can we pay VVhat worthier Offering on thy Altar lay THE FIFTH ACT. JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA NICODEMVS SEe Citizens we Pilats bounty beare With-out a suite men cannot man interre The Romane Progeny nor freely will Doe what is good nor unrewarded ill Nothing is now in use but barbarous Vice They sell our bloud on graves they set a price NICODEMVS O Joseph these vaine extasies refraine But if it seeme so pleasant to Complaine Let Rome alone and seek a neerer guilt His bloud not Romulus sons but Abrahams spilt VVho so the purer sense sincerely draws From those celestiall Oracles and Lawes By God above himselfe inspir'd will say None led to Eternitie a straighter way VVhat 's that to Pilat fell the Innocent by A Romane Oath was 't through the subtilty Of Senators or Priests The Doome display'd They Caesar lesse then Caiaphas obay'd Let us transferre the fact the impious Jew VVith heart with tongue and eyes first Jesus slew The Romans onely acted their Offence How well the Heavens with Hebrew hands dispence For this the Jew th' Italians Crime envi'd And wish'd himselfe the bloody Homicide Doe we as yet our servitude lament VVhen such a murder meets no punishment This doe they this command JOSEPH The Progeny Of Romane Ilia and of Sara I VVith equall detestation execrate O may they perish by a fearefull Fate Just Heaven why sleepes thy Lightning in a Showre Of pitch descend Let stenching Seas deuour This cursed City Sodome thou art cleare Compar'd to ours No more will I a teare Shed for my Countrey Let the Great in War VVorse then the Babylonian Conquerar Enter her Breaches like a violent Floud Vntill the bloudy City swim in bloud Is this too little Let Diseases sow Their fruitfull Seed and in destruction grow Famine in their dry entrailes take thy seat VVhat Nature most abhors inforce to eat Let th' Infant tremble at his Fathers knife The Babe re-enter her who gave it Life VVhile yet the eager Foe invests the wall VVithin may they by their own weapons fall The Temple wrapt in flames Let th' Enemy Decide their Civill Discord and destroy VVith fire and sword ungratefull Solyma The reliques of their slaughter drive away Nor seventy yeers dissolve their servill bands Despis'd and wretched wander through all Lands Abolish'd be their Law all forme of State No Day see their returne Let sudden Fate Succeed my curses This infected Soyle No more shall feed me What unusuall toyle Shall my old feet refuse so they no more Tread on this Earth though to that unknown shore VVhich lyes beneath the slow Bootes VVaine Dasht by th' unconstant billows of that Maine That Countrey shall be mine where Justice swayes And bold Integrity the Truth obayes NICODEMVS This Error with a secret poyson feeds The minds Disease VVho censures his own deeds VVho not anothers These accusing Times Rather the men condemne then taxe their Crimes Such is the Tyranny of Judgement prone To sentence all Offences but our owne Because of late we cry'd not Crucifie Nor falsely doom'd the Innocent to die Our selves we please as it a Vertue were And Great one if from great Offences cleare Confesse what Orator would plead his Cause To vindicate his truth who urg'd the Laws Or once accus'd their bloudy suffrages By Envy sign'd VVho durst those Lords displease So Piety suffer'd while by speaking they And we by silence did the Just betray VVhen women openly their zeale durst show VVe in acknowledging our Master slow Vnder the shady coverture of Night Secur'd our feares which would not brook the Light Joseph
Rome with his accusers But Tiberius dying before his arrivall he was banished the Citie by Caius who troubled in minde and desperate of restitution slew himself at Vienna in France within two yeares after Vers. 238. If thou be he c. By this place taken out of the Gospel it appeares that divers of the Iews were of the opinion of the Pythagoreans or the Pythagoreans of theirs concerning the transmigration of Soules into other bodies All alter nothing finally decayes Hither and thither still the Spirit strayes Guest to all Bodies out of beasts it flies To men from men to beasts and never dies As pliant wax each new impression takes Fixt to no forme but still the old forsakes Yet it the same so Soules the same abide 'Though various figures their reception hide Ovid. Met. l. 15. Herod conceived that the Soule of Iohn the Baptist by him wickedly murdered was entered into the body of our blessed Saviour And Iosephus in his Oration to his desperate Companions in the Cave of Iotopata Those poore Soules which depart from this life by the law of Nature and obediently render what from God they received shall by him be placed in the highest Heavens and from thence againe after a certaine revolution of time descend by command to dwell in chaste bodies Vers. 249. Slaine for a dancer This daughter of Herodias as Nicephorus writes going over a River that was frozen fell in all but the head which was cut off with the yce as her body waved up and downe underneath Vers. 331. Sadock The Author of the Sect of the Sadduces See the Note upon Vers. 43. Act. 1. ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FOVRTH ACT. VErse 35. To Warre the fatall way The City of Ierusalem is onely on that side assailable there forced and entred by the Babylonians and after by Pompey Vers. 36. Golgotha Mount Calvary a rocky hill neither high nor ample lying then without the North-West wall of the City the publique place of execution Here they say that Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac in memory whereof there now standeth a Chappell as an Altar where the Head of Adam was found which gave the name to that Mount buried in that place that his bones might be sprinkled with the reall bloud of our Saviour which he knew would be there shed by a propheticall fore-knowledge It is said to stand in the midst of the Earth which must needs be meant by the then habitable for what middle can there be in a Sphericall Body V. 49. The Nazarite Not as Sampson by vow nor of that Sect but so called of that City wherein he was conceived and where he inhabited after his returne out of Aegypt Vers. 52. Mixt with the bitter tears of Myrrh Some suppose that this was proffered him by his friends being of a stupifying qualitie to make him lesse sensible of his torments But it appeares by Petronius and Pliny that it was a mixture much used in their delights Whereof Martial The teares of Myrrh in hot Falernum thaw From this the Wine a better taste will draw Epig. l. 14. Strengthning the body and refreshing the Spirits and therefore more likely proffered by his enemies to prolong his sufferings Vers. 81. His inward Robe There be who write that this was woven by the Virgin Mary and we reade in the Scriptures as frequently in Homer and other Authors that women and those of the highest qualitie usually wrought garments for their Children and Husbands Vers. 203. The Center pants c. This Earth-quake proceeded not from the Windes imprisoned in the bowels of the Earth strugling to break forth or from any other naturall cause but by the immediate singer of God Vers. 205. The Sunne affrighted hides c. Miraculous without the interposition of the Moone or palpable Vapours was that defect of the Sunne and unnaturall Darknesse in the sixth houre of the Day which appeareth by the Text to have cover'd all the World and not Iudea alone as some have conjectured Divers Authours have recorded this in their Annals and Histories but none so exactly as Dionysius Areopagita who then resided in Aegypt and was an eye-witnesse Vers. 240. The greedy hollowes of a Spunge c Physicians agree that Vineger being drunk or held to the nose hath in it a naturall Vertue for the stenching of bloud Pliny attributes the like to Hyssop and the better if joyned Neither is it to be thought that the Iews offered this unto IESUS in humanity but rather out of their hatred that by prolonging his Life untill the Evening his legges might have been broken to the increase of his torments Vers. 256. Pale troopes of wandring Ghosts These were the reall bodies of the dead which entred the City from their graves for it was as now their Custome to bury in the fields and seen by day Whereas deluding Spirits assume an Aery thinne and fluxative Body condensed by cold but dissipated by heate and therefore onely appeare in the Night time Which Virgil intimates in the Ghost of Anchises And now farewell the humid Night descends I sent Day 's breath in his too-swift repaire This said like smoak he vanisneth to aire Aen. l. 12. Ver. 259 The cleaving Rocks The Rock of Mount Calvary was rent by that Earth-quake from the top to the bottome which at this day is to be seene the rupture such as Art could have no hand in each side answerable ragged and there where unaccessible to the workman Vers 263. Old Chaos now returnes That confused Masse out of which God created the beautifull World into which it was imagined that it should be againe reduced The aged World dissolved by the Last And fatall Houre shall to Old Chaos hast Stars justling Stars shall in the Deepe confound Their radiant fires the Land shall give no bound To swallowing Seas the Moone shall crosse the Sun With scorne that her swift wheeles obliquely run Dayes throne aspiring Discord then shall rend The Worlds crackt Frame and Natures Concord end Lucan l. 4. But many of our Divines are of opinion that the World shall neither be dissolved nor anihilated strengthning their assertion out of the eighth of the Romanes and other places of Scripture Ver. 238. Th' amaz'd Centurion To this Centurion who professed CHRIST to be the Sonne of God they give the name of Longinus and honour him with the crowne of Martyrdome Vers. 296. The Temples Veile Described by Iosephus to consist of Violet Purple and Scarlet Silke cunningly mixt wrought by Babylonian Needles the colours containing a mysticall sense Such was that of Solomons and of the travelling Tabernacle but that they were powdred with Cherubins This it should seeme was renewed by Herod when he so magnificently repaired the Temple It hung before the Sanctum Sanctorum into which none but the High Priest and that but once in the yeer was to enter violated by Pompey pursued by a miserable Destiny There was an out-ward Veile not unlike the other which separated the Priests
from the People this contrary to the Opinion of our Authour Baronius conceives to be that which then rent asunder interpreted to signifie the finall abolishing of the Law Ceremoniall They write that at the tearing thereof a Dove was seene to flye out of the Temple Vers. 319. Or God doth this abhorr'd c. Eusebius St. Ierome and others report that with this Earthquake at the Passion the Doores of the Temple flew open and that the Tutular Angels were heard to cry Let us remove from this place though Iosephus referre it to the destruction of the Temple Vers. 362. Tyrian Gades Gades now called Cales an Iland lying on the South of Spaine without Hercules Pillars held to be the uttermost Confines of the Western World was planted by a Colony of the Tyrians Vers. 363. As yet sees not thy panting Horses c. A Charriot and Horses were attributed to the Sunne in regard of the swiftnesse of his Motion and to expresse what is beyond the object of the sense by that which is subject unto it These also by the Idolatrous Iews were consecrated unto him The Sunne was feined to descend into the Sea because it so appeareth to the eye the Horizon being there most perspicuous Vers. 371. Hath some Thessalian Witch c. The Thessalian women were infamous for their inchantments said to have the power to darken the Sunne and draw the Moone from her Spheare Such Lucans Erictho Her words to poyson the bright Moone aspire First pale then red with darke and terrene fire As when deprived of her Brothers sight Earth interposing his Coelestiall Light Perplext with tedious Charmes and held below Till she on under Hearbs her gelly throw Phar l. 6. The Author of this opinion was Aglonice the daughter of Hegaemon who being skilfull in Astronomy boasted to the Thessalian women foreknowing the time of her Eclips that she would performe it at such a season which hapning accordingly and they beholding the distemper'd Moone gave credit to her deception The like may arise from the Eclipses of the Sunne Vers. 372. What new Phaëton The fable of Phaëton the sonne of Phoebus as the Allegory is notorious who by misguiding the Charriot of the Sunne set all the World on a conflagration Vers. 377. As when sterne Atreus c. Atreus having had his bed dishonored by his brother Thyestes slew his children and gave them for food to their father when the Sunne to avoid so horrid a sight fled back to the Orient So fained in that Atreus first discovered the Annuall Course of the Sun which is contrary to his Diurnall Vers. 379. Ilia's god-like sonne c. Romulus cut into a hundred pieces by the hundred Lords of the Senate for being so rigorous to them and so indulgent to the People every one carrying a piece away with him under his long Gowne to conceale the murder when Iulius Proculus to appease the People swore that he saw him ascend into Heaven whereupon they consecrated Temples unto him and gave him divine honours changing his Name into Quirinus Vers. 383. Or hath that Day c. The Great Yeere when all the Planets here called Gods because they carry their Names shall returne to that position which they were in at the beginning Comprising according to Cicero's Hortensius the revolution of twelve thousand nine hundreth and fifty yeers Vers. 390. If the World perish by licentious fire The Romanes could not then have this from St. Peter but rather from the Prophesies of the Sibyls These Signes the Worlds combustion shall fore-run Armes clashing Trumpets from the rising Sun Horrible fragors heard by all this Frame Of Nature then shall feed the greedy flame Men Cities Floods and Seas by rav'nous lust Of Fire devour'd all shall resolve to dust Orac. l. 4. From hence perhaps the Ancient Philosophers derived their opinions as Seneca a Latter The Stars shall incounter one another and what now shines so orderly shall burne in one Fire Vers. 395. Either the groaning world c. Vers. 397. Do proud Titanians c The Poets feigne that the angry Earth to be revenged of the Gods brought forth the Titans as after the Gyants who by throwing mountains upon mountains attempted to scale the Heavens and disinthrone Iupiter who overthrew them with his Lightning and cast those conjested Mountains upon them Pherecydes the Syrian writes how the Devils were cast out of Heaven by Iupiter this fall of the Giants perhaps alluding to that of the Angels The chief called Ophionius which signifies Serpentine having after made use of that Creature to poyson Eve with a false ambition Vers. 400. Dire Python A prodigious Serpent which after Deucalions Floud lay upon the Earth like a Mountain and slain by Apollo the sense of the Fable being meerely Physicall for Python born after the deluge of the humid Earth was that great Exhalation which rose from the late drowned world at length dissipated by the fervour of the Sunne or Apollo The Earth then soak'd in showres yet hardly dry Threw up thick clouds which darkned all the Sky This was that Python Pont. Meteor The word signifies putrefaction and because the Sun consumes the putrefaction of Earth his beams darting from his Orb like arrows with his arrows he is said to have slain Python Vers. 400. Lerna's Fen In this lay that venemous Serpent Hydra which is said to have many Heads whereof one being cut off two rose in the room more terrible then the former and with her poysnous breath to have infected all the Territories adjoyning This Fable had a relation to that place which through the eruption of waters annoyed the neighbouring Cities when one being stopt many rose in the room this Hercules perceiving burnt them with fire Corruption boyls away with heat And forth superfluous vapours sweat But Physically Hydra signifies water and Hercules according to Macrobius presenteth the Sunne whose extraordinary fervour dried up those noysome and infectious vapours Vers. 404. Lyaeus gave to man lesse precious wine Lyaeus is a name of Bacchus because wine refresheth the Heart and freeth it from sorrow Noah was he who immediately after the Floud first planted a Vineyard and shewed the use of wine unto man wherefore some write that of Noachus he was called Boachus and after Bacchus by the Ethnicks either by contraction or through ignorance of the etymologie This comparison hath relation to Christ's conversion of water into such excellent wine at Cana in Galilee Vers. 405. Not Hercules so many Monsters slew Hercules saith Seneca travelled over the world not to oppresse it but to free it from Oppressours and by killing of Tyrants and Monsters to preserve it in tranquillitie But how much more glorious were the victories of Christ who by suffering for Sinne subdued it led Captivity captive was the death of Death triumphing over Hell and those Spirits of Darknesse Vers. 406. Vnshorn Apollo desse in Physick knew Apollo to whom they attribute long yellow haire in regard of his beautifull Beams is
said to have invented the Art of Physick his name importing a preservation from evil because the Sunne is so powerfull in producing physicall Simples and so salubrious to our bodies when Christ by his own Vertue cured all diseases gave sight to the blinde by birth which surpasseth the power of art threw out wicked Spirits from the tortured bodies of the possessed and called the Dead from their beds of death to converse again with the Living Verse 419. With the Religion of the Samean Of Pythagoras of Samos who by his doctrine and example withdrew the Crotonians from luxury and idlenesse to temperance and industry calming the perturbations of the Minde with the musick of his Harp for he held that Vertue Strength all Good and even God himself consisted of Harmony That God was the Soul of the World from whence each creature received his life dying restored it And lest it might be doubted that the Souls of all had not one Originall in regard of their different understandings he alleadged how that proceeded from the naturall complexion composition of the Body as more or lesse perfect whose opinions are thus delivered by Virgil The arched Heavens round Earth the liquid Plain The Moons bright Orb and Starres Titanian A Soul with-in sustaines whose Vertues passe Through every part and mix that huge Masse Hence men hence beasts what ever fly with wing And Monsters in the marble Ocean spring Of Seed divine and fiery Vigour full But what grosse flesh and dying member dull Thence fear desire grief joy nor more regard Their heavenly Birth in those blinde Prisons barr'd Aen. l. 6. Moreover he held that this visible Soul or Godhead diffused throughout all the world got it self such diversitie of Names by the manifold operations which it effected in every part of the visible Vniverse Vers. 420. Nor Thracian Harp wilde Beasts instructing can Orpheus of Thrace who with the musick of his Harp and voice attracted even beasts and sencelesse stones to heare him The morall of which Fable may parallell with that of Amphion Orpheus the Gods Interpreter from blood Rude men at first deterr'd and savage food Hence said to have Tygers and fell Lions tam'd Amphion so who Theban bulwarks fram'd T' have led the stones with musick of his lute And milde requests Of old in high repute Publick from Private Sacred from Prophane To separate and wandring Lust restrain With matrimoniall ties faire Cities raise Laws stamp in brasse This gave the honour'd Bayes To sacred Poets and to verse their praise Horat. de Art Poet It is apparent by his Testament to his Scholar Musaeus whereof certain verses are recited by Iustin Martyr that his opinion in divinitie was in the main agreeable with the sacred Scriptures As of one God the Creator of Heaven and Earth the Authour of all good and punisher of all evil exhorting him to the hearing and understanding of that knowledge which was revealed from Heaven meaning nothing else by those various Names which he gives to the Gods but divine and naturall Vertues shadowing God himself under the Name of Iupiter to avoid the envy and danger of those times as is almost evident by these attributes Omnipotent Jove the First the Last of things The Head the Midst all from Joves bounty springs Foundation of the Earth and starry Skie A Male a Female who can never die Spirit of all the Force of awfull Fire Sourse of the Sea Sun Moon th' Originall The End of all things and the King of all At first conceal'd then by his wond'rous Might And sacred Goodnesse all produc'd to light Vers. 421. Nor that prophetick Boy c. Of whom Ovid The Nymphs and Amazonian this amaz'd No lesse then when the Tyrrhen Plow-man gaz'd Vpon the fatall clod that mov'd alone And for a humane shape exchang'd his own With infant lips that were but earth of late Reveal'd the Mysteries of future Fate Whom Natives Tages call'd He first of all Th' Hetrurians taught to tell what would befall Met. l. 15. And Cicero in his second book of Divination Tages when the Earth was turned up and the Plow had made a deeper impression ascended as they say in the Tarquinian fields and spake to the Tiller It is written in the Hetrurian Records that he was seen in the form of a Boy although old in wisdome The Husband-man amazed and exalting his voice drew thither a great concourse of People and with-in awhile all Thuscany who spake many things in that populous audience by them remembred and committed to writing His oration onely contained the discipline of Divination by the entrails of beasts which after increased by experience but is referred to this Originall A delusion of the Devils to introduce that Superstition ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FIFTH ACT. VErse 30. O may they perish c. This imprecation comprehends those following calamities which the Divine Vengeance inflicted on the Iews more and more horrid then ever befell any other Nation Vers. 35. Let the great in Warre c. Titus Vespasian who besieged Ierusalem when almost all the Iewish Nation was within the Walles there met to celebrate the Passeover who took it by force consumed the Temple with fire which fell on that day in which it was formerly burnt by the Chaldeans and levelled the City with the ground eleven hundred thousand Iewes there perishing by famine pestilence and the sword another hundred thousand Captives were publikely sold for a Romane penny a Iew and sixteene thousand sent to Alexandria for servill imployments two thousand of the most beautifull and personable young men reserved to attend on his Triumph who after to delight the Spectators were torne in pieces by wild beasts in the Amphitheater Vers. 26. Let Diseases sow c. During the siege the Pestilence violently raged proceeding from the stench of dead bodies to whom they afforded no buriall but piled them up in their houses or threw them over the Wall of the City Vers. 41. Famine in their dry entrailes c. Vnexpressible was the Famine they indured and pittifull if they themselves had had any pitty enforced to seeth their Girdles and Shooes and fighting fiercely with one another for so course a diet Driven in the end to that exigent that they were faine to rake the sincks and privies and to feede on that which was loathsome to behold neither could they keep what they found from the rapine of others Vers. 44. The Babe re-enter her c. Hunger had so overcome Nature that a Woman of riches and honour named Mary being daily rob'd of her provision by the Seditious slew her owne childe which suckt at her brest and having sodden one halfe thereof eat it When at the sent of flesh they broke in upon her who presented them with the rest the theeves then hardly refraining though they trembled at so horrid a Spectacle Vers. 45. While yet the eager Foe c. The enemy assailed them without and the Seditious massacred one another within divided into three parties the Zealous the Idumaean Robbers and the rest of the mutinous Citizens but upon every assault of the Romanes setting their private hatred aside united themselves as if of one Minde and with admirable courage repulsed the Enemy but upon the least cessation renewed their bloudy discord some beginning with their owne hands to set the Temple on fire Vers. 47. Let th' Enemy c. See the Notes upon the 35. Verse Verse 50. The Reliques of their slaughter In the dayes of Adrian the Iewes raised a new Commotion of whom his Lieutenant Iulius Severus slew five hundred and foure score thousand transporting the rest into Spaine by the command of the Emperour so that Iewry was then without Iews as it continues to this present Vers. 52. Despis'd and wretched wander c. Out of Spaine they were banished in the yeer 1500. by Ferdinand and Emanuel Now scattred throughout the whole World and hated by those among whom they live yet suffered as a necessary mischiefe subject to all wrongs and contumelies who can patiently submit themselves to the times and to whatsoever may advance their profit Vers. 53. Abolish'd by their Law c This they lost in the destruction of their City Yet daily expect that Messias who is already come and as they beleeve shall restore them to their temporall Kingdome Vers. 55. This infected soyle c. The Ecclesiasticall Histories report how Ioseph of Arimathea after he had suffered imprisonment by the envy of the Iews and was delivered by an Angel left his Countrey and sailed to Marcellis in France from thence passing over into this Iland he preached the Gospell to the Brittaines and Scots who there exchanged this life for a better Vers. 95. Who knows but soone a holier Age c. Helena the Mother of Constantine throwing downe the Fane of Venus which Adrian had erected on Calvary covered both the Mount and Sepulchre with a magnificent Temple which yet hath resisted the injuries of Insolence and Time and what was before without in reverence to the place is now in the heart of the City To recover this from the Saracens divers of the Westerne Princes have unfortunately ventured their Persons and People though Godfry of Bullein with an Army of three hundred thousand made of the City and Country an absolute Conquest Whose Successours held it for fourescore and nine yeers and then beaten out by Saladine the Aegyptian Sultan Yet yeerly is the Sepulchre visited though now in the possession of the Turke from all parts of the World by thousands of Christians who there pay their vowes and exercise their Devotions Vers. 109. Of his Royall Bloud c Of Davids See the Notes upon the 264. Verse of the second Act Vers. 139. Not that fierce Prince c. Herod the Great the murderer of the Infants who put three of his sonnes to death with his wife Mariamme whom he frantickly affected Vers. 140. Nor his Successour c. Herod Antipas who cut off the Head of Iohn the Baptist Vers. 189. You neighbours to the Sunnes up-rise The Persian Magi FINIS Imprimatur Ioannes Hansley September 27. 1639