we are by what we were And Mans condition 's valu'd more or lesse By what he had not what he does possesse For no Extreams could ever gain a Height From their own natures but each other's weight So Lucan made the flying Pompey blame Not present Woes but his too-early Fame Great * Hannibal in his excellent Speech to Scipio between their Armies then ready to fight set down by Livie among other motives to Scipis for peace by his own example advises him to be secure from the Ingratitude of his Country which afterwards was too largely evident by their reducing him to Privacy as great as his former Glories and render'd themselves unworthy of his Ashes which to this day lie in an unknown Grave Scipio whose too happy courage made His Country free and Hannibal's enslav'd Had been more happy had he been but lesse And not fear'd want of glory but excesse Whose Countrie-men's ungrateful fears were more For his successe than Hannibal's before So much Plebeian Souls from Nature's School Are fitted more for Servitude than Rule Would such Examples had been onely known But we have felt a greater of our own In your Great Father seen whose Sunshine-days Deserves not more our wonder than our praise Nor did his days of Tempests lesse proclaim But taught us more of Miracle and Fame And equal'd all the miseries it brought By vertues which unequal'd sufferings taught Frailty affliction brings and yet a friend In giving those afflictions too an end Yet immortality can no blessing give But make that perfect which must ever live His soul refin'd so by Celestiall heat One could not hurt and t'other ha's made great He pay'd his scores of Frailty and of Joy's To live where nothing that 's enjoy'd destroy's And fell lest this frail World like Heaven might be At once admitting Him and Constancy Happy were we had we but understood None were too great nor we our selves too good Within our selves and by our selves confin'd One by our Ocean t'other by our Mind Whilst the obliged World by War unsought Was willingly by gentler Traffick brought Secure and Rich whilst every swelling Tide That brought us safety brought us Wealth beside Above the reach of the World's power grown And had been safe had we but fâ—ar'd our owne What the Grave Spaniard and the Belgian too The active French by power could not do Our passions did and quickly made it known We could be Conquered by our selves alone And acting that which others could not do Are now fit for their Scorn and Conquest too How just and sure Heaven's revenges are We slighted peace and grow despis'd by War Like Mad men then possest with Lunacy We now must find a Cure in misery And by our suffering to our wits redeem'd Our long-lost peacefull temper grows esteem'd For man does most by the Comparative At the true knowledge of Extreams arrive And in aâ—fliction's ready to adore That which he hardly could indure before How fatally this Nation proves it true In mourning for our banish't Peace and You To You Great Sir Fortunâ—'s in debt alone Who can be no way pai'd but by your owne Your Vertues have not more made Crowns your duâ— Than sufferings taught you how to use them too Stroaks upon solid bodies do provoke A secret brightnesse free unmixt with smoak No grossnesse mingled but bright sparks declare What mighty firmnesse their Composures are So whilst the stroaks of Fortune on You light Your mighty frame appears more firm and bright Affliction often by its powerfull weight Is the Case-shot of Destiny and Fate Routing faint principles together brouâ—ht By prosperous vertues not by hazards taught Whilst the weak man is too much understood His frailty more than his substantiall good As in the low declining of the day Mens shaddows more enlarged shew than they So in the worlds great last adversity When every Element their power must try To dissolution they must all retire And leave but one pure Element of fire All that was grosse which from weak nature flows In your great trialls so expiring shows And all unto your Nobler Soul resign'd Nothing seems left in you but what 's refin'd No longer now subject to what is frail But have from Nature cut off the entail Nor yet could Fortune with her pow'r or frowns Ravish your Father's Vertues though his Crowns So little was th' esteem of human things To that once best and now most blest of Kings One that in all his time was never known Greedy of Lives though weary of his own Peace Crown'd his thoughts though not his wretched time His Nature was his faâ—e his Crown his crime Despis'd by his own people first because He stoop't below his power and their laws His casie gifts seem'd all but debts when they Had nothing left to ask nor he to pay Yet that he might unjust or mean appear For what his nature gave they â—hank't his fear All the fair vertues of his Halâ—yon-times Instead of gratitude contracted crimes In those who from the fears he ever had Of being ill took boldnesse to be bad Such as on peace the name of idle fling And make their Prince a Tyrant or no King So fell that Prince too good for such bad times By his own Verues and by others Crimes Now against you Great Sir their swords are turn'd And joy in what the VVorld besides has mourn'd Still constant in their Crimes and Cruelty All Conscience turn'd into Necessity Which by the view of acted sins before Does safe appear onely by doing more As those who quit firm shores when the wind raves Must not retire but bustle still in waves The wandring Needle so can never stay Till it finds out the Point it should obey Our Constitution toucht by Monarchy Till it rests there must always wandring bee And that must fix in You None could convay True light but He that ought to rule the day VVhen Phaeton did to that heighth aspire He brought not influence to the world but fire So those led by Ambition to your Throne Have brought us ruine and have found their own VVhilst thus our Sphear is over-cast with Clowds You the bright Sun their envious darkness shrouds As ready to break forth when Factions here Divide as when dark clowds part in the Sphear The Sun can be No offer you neglect To warm us with your lustre and protect From such foggs of mean Souls which still will flie O're us till all 's dispell'd by Majesty Once for your Kingdome 's sake you durst oppose Your Laurel'd Enemies with your * Comming in with the Scots who were before Conquer'd by the English at Dunbar conquer'd foes Yet Heaven from your assistance then was staid Lest the ill Act the good had over-vveigh'd And in the Victory those Scots had found Their Crimes together vvith your Vertues crovvn'd Then 't was You did attempt your debt to pay To Us or Nature by a noble way The bold * Stat casus
short in strength but shar'd an equall fate The next adjacent stream Achilles seeks And with the River cleans'd his sullied cheeks So tired Castor in Eurota's streams Restores his looks bright as his new Star's beams Pleas'd Chiron on his fair proportion stares The joy that Thetis took made great her cares The Centaur then invites them to his Feast And fills Lyaeus to his troubled guest His Harp to welcome Thetis he prepares Whose charming notes lessen the weight of cares And having gently tri'd the warbling strings He gives it to Aeacides who sings The acts of Heroes how great Iuno's spleen Vanquish'd so oft by Hercules had been The Victories of Pollux and how too The monstrous Minotaur fam'd Theseus slew Lastly great Peleus and his Mother's love He sung the Marriage grac'd by those above At this sad Thetis seem'd to force a smile Night now laid on her heavy charms the while Achilles the kind Centaur's shoulder took And his affecting Mother's breast forsook ANNOTATIONS On the first Book of STATIUS his ACHILLEIS 2. AN issue fear'd by heaven's thundring King When Iove sought the marriage of Thetis he was told by Proteus that the issue that came from Thetis should exceed the father who begot it At which mistrusting his own Omnipotency he left his Love to keep Heaven The Fable is thus rendred by the incomparable Sandys Motamorph 11. For aged Proteus thus foretold the truth To wave-wet Thetis thou shalt bear a Youth Greater then him from whom he took his birth In Arms and Fame Left any thing on earth Should be more great than Jove Jove shuns the bed Of Sea-thron'd Thetis though her beauty led His strong desires Who bids Aeacides Succeed his Love and wed the Queen of Seas 6. Scyros An Island of the Aegean Sea one of the Cyclades over against Peloponnesus as Strabo l. 10. relateth having a Town of the same name Famous most in being the place where Achilles lived disguised See Servius and Sabinus on Virgil's Aen. 2. 7. Not of dragg'd Hector c. Statius here proposeth his designe to sing the acts of Achilles onely from his infancy which Homer had omitted justly presenting the death of Hector for all his Victories whose fate was Troy's ruine Senec. Troad v. 185. Aut cùm superbo victor in curru stetit Egitque habenas Hectorem Trojam trahens Or when the Conqueror did his Horses guide And Troy which Hector at his Chariot ty'd For Achilles having killed him tied him to his Chariot and dragged him thrice round the walls of Troy as Homer Iliad 22. Which unwelcome sight Aeneas saw painted at Carthage Virg. Aen. 2. 487. Ter circum Iliacos raptaver at Hectora muros Examinumque auro corpus vendebat Achilles Tum verò ingentem gemitum dat pectore ab imo Vt spolia ut currus utque ipsum corpus amici Tendentemque manus Priamum conspexit inermes About Troy's walls Hector's dead body thrice Achilles dragg'd and sold it for a price Then from the bottom of his breast he drew A grief-expressing sigh his friend to view His Spoils and Chariot and how Priam stands Begging with his erected aged hands 12. With sacred fillets bound These were Ornaments for the Priests heads in Latine Vittae Hence Iuvenal Sat. 4. of the Vestall Virgin Vittata Sacerdos And Virgil thus presenteth Anius Aen. 3. 80. Rex Anius Rex idem hominum Phoebique Sacerdos Vittis sacra redimitus tempora lauro Anius a King and Priest his Temples bound With sacred Fillets and with Lawrel crown'd The Title of Priest was antiently conferr'd on Kings as Casaubon on Suetonius in Augusto delivereth from Aristotle Polit. 3. and Synesius Epist. 121. by reason that the Government of all Commonwealths consisted in Eccleâ—iasticall Ceremonies and Politicall Laws the care of both which belonged to Kings Hence Augustus was created chief Priest that all kinds of power might be in him And as Servius observeth on Aen. 3. 80. the style of Pontifex Max. was still assumed by the succeeding Emperors as may also be seen in the Inscriptions of the Caesars at the end of Suetonius set forth by Schildius 1651. Poets called themselves Phoebus Priests so Tibullus and Propertius frequently Hereupon Statius here dresseth himself with Priestly Ornaments 13. Witnesse those Theban fields c. Our Poet here intimateth his Poem of the Theban-War So that hence and by the ensuing Complement to Domitius it is clear that this was Statius his second Work and his Silvae the last To his Thebans with confidence enough he here promiseth as lasting a same as Thebes could give Amphion the son of Iupiter and Antiope who having as Plinie saith l. 7. c. 56. found out the use of the Harp handled it so harmoniously that he made stones come of their own accord to raise the Walls of Thebes Sence Theb. act 4. nulla quaâ— struxit manus Sed convocatus vocis cith arae sono Per se ipse turres venit in summas lapis Rais'd by no labouring workman's hands but brings With his harmonious voice and charming strings The willing stones together which compose Themselves and into lofty Towers rose Some joyne his brother Zethus with him in the businesse So Palaephatus who reducing the Fable to a seeming truth saith The two Brothers admitted their Auditors to their Musick on condition that every one should afford his assistance to the Building A far truer Mythologie is glanced at by Horace De arte Poet. v. 391. Silvestres homines sacer interpresque Deorum Caedibus victu foedo deterruit Orpheus Dictus ob hoc lenire Tigres rabidosque Leones Dictus Amphion Thâ—banae conditor arcis Saxa movere sono testuainis prece blandâ Ducere quò vellet Orpheus inspir'd from gods first rude men brought From loving blood and slaughters hence was thought Fierce Lions and wild Tigers to have tam'd And so Amphion with his Harp was fam'd To raise the Theban walls and at his choice To move deaf stones with his admired voice So perhaps the Fable arose from his reducing a savage people to live under a form of Government and for their safety than which no argument can be more prevalent perswading them to compasse in their City with a Wall And herein in my opinion he was much more judicious than Lycurgus and Agesilaus who believed the breasts of valiant Citizens defence enough And so also thinketh Plato l. 6. De leg For these reasons Orpheus was said to have made wild beasts gentle and Amphion to have moved stones that is men of savage lives and obdurat natures Macrobius in Somn. Scip. l. 2. c. 3. keepeth closer to the Fable for setting forth the excellencies of Musick he saith That from it the Universall Soul of the world took its originall and that by it therefore all men not onely the civill but the barbarous also are either animated to vertue or dissolved into pleasure quia anima in corpus defert memoriam Musicae cujus in coelo
Sed qualis rediit nempe und nave cruentis Fluctibus ac tardâ per densa cadavera prorâ We have believ'd deep Rivers could not find Liquor for Xerxes army while they din'd Things sung by Soâ—â—ratus well drench'd with wine Yet he that so return'd from Salamine Once scourg'd the winds because they redely blew Which in th' Aeolian caves they never knew But how was his return In one small boat Which could but slowly for dead bodies float So Iustine lib. 2. Erat res spectaculo digna aestimatione sortis humanae rerum varietate miranda in exiguo latentem videre navigio quem paulò antè vix aequor omne capiebat Thus the Hellespont hath the greatest part of its fame from the misfortunes of two kind Lovers and one proud Prince It received its name from Helle daughter of Athamas King of Thebes who fearing the treacheries of her Mother in Law fled with Phryâ—â—us her Brother and with him was here drowned Lucian Dialogo Neâ—tuni Nereidum saith she fell into the water by reason of a Vertigo that took her on the suddain And Hesiod troubled with such another saith she was married to Neptune of whom he begat Paeon 37. What Proteus told This was a Sea-God famous for his prophecying and for the power he had to change his shape at his pleasure Ovid Metamorph l. 2. v. 9. and lib. 8. v. 737. Virgil Georg. 4. 388. Hygin fab 118. He fore-told Thetis that her Son should be killed in the Trojan War Which prophecy gave the argument to the ensuing story This Proteus was King of Aegypt serv. in Aeneid 1. and perhaps got this fame of transforming himselfe by his using still to alter his temper and disposition suitably to his affairs and occasions From the like ground sprung the fame of Hercules labours atchieved with unimitable strength and valour Proteus was also called Hercules as Servius affirmeth on that of Virgil Aen. 11. 262. Atreides Protei Menelaus ad usque columnas Exulat Those Columnes having been wholly attributed to Hercules are there set for the bounds of Aegypt 40. Ionian Over the Ionian sea many auxiliaries came to assist the Greeks against Troy This Sea took its name from Ion son of Dyrrhachius whom Hercules having by mischance slain that he might make him some amends by perpetuating his memory threw him into this Sea Others alledge different reasons but none worth setting down Formerly as Pausanias saith it was accounted part of the Adriatick But Ptolomy in his description of Macedon attributeth that part of the Adriatick which washeth Macedonia on the East to the Ionian But Pliny lib. 3. c. 6. more rightly divideth these two Seas by the Ceraunian or as Horace lib. 1. Carm. Od. 3. v. 20. calleth them Acroceraunian mountains From which the Ionian Sea reacheth to the promontory of Malea ¶ Aegean billows A Sea between Asia and Greece full of Islands called Cyclades and Sporades of as uncertain Etymology as the Ionian Most say it had its name from Aegeus the father of Theseus Who going to fight the Minotaur was charged if he got the victory to give notice thereof at his return by a white sail But he forgetting so to do his Father from his Tower seeing the ship coming without the token of successe gave his Son for lost and for grief cast himselfe into the Sea But some derive the name from Aege a Queen of the Amazons Strabo from Aegae a Sea-Town in Eubaea Servius in Aen. 3. calleth that the Aegean which is between the Hellespont and the Adriarick others that between the Hellespont and Tenedus It is now named the Archipelago 41. All the sworn Greeks which the Atrides got i. e. Merelaus and Agamemnon called Atridae from Atreus their supposed father But they were indeed the sons of Philiâ—â—henes and onely bred by Atreus their Uncle These two Brethren to revenge the injury done by Paris having assembled the whole strength of Greece at Aâ—â—is bound them all by an Oath to see Troy ruined or never to return Serv. in Aen. 4. as will also appear in the third book of thiâ— Poem Thucydides lib. 1. glanceth at the reason of the unanimous consent of the Greeks to punish the rape of Helen viz. an Oath by which Tâ—â—darus had obliged all that came Suitors to his daugher that they should revenge whatsoever wrong should be done to him that should enjoy her But he rather believeth that Agamemnon being heir to the houses of Perseus and Pelops and as Homer styleth him King of many Islands was the chief cause of the Expedition The account of the ships in this Fleet is various in severall Authors Diâ—â—ys Cretensis maketh them 1138. Dâ—res 1140. Homer 1193. our Author here with a Poeticâ—ll carelessenesse reckoneth them but 1000. So Seneca in Agamemnon and Virgil Aen. 2. Talibus insidiis perjurique arte Sinonis Credita res captique dolis lacrimisque coactis Quos neque Tydides nec Larissaeus Achilles Non anni domuêre decem non mille carinae Thus they themselves made captives by belief Of Sinon's perjur'd fraud and feigned grief Not Diomed nor Aeacides prevails Nor ten years War nor yet their thousand sails Thucydides saith the number of the Souldiers was not great But by an indifferent judgement on his own words the 1200 ships as he numbreth them carried 102000 men a number in my opinion not to be made so â—light of Some as Dion Chrysostomus have made a question whether there ever was such a War although it hath employed the pens of Homer Dares Phrygius Dyctis Creâ—ensis Lycophron with his Scholiast and Iosephus Iscanius and hath been believed by so many Authors in succeeding ages That a siege should continue ten whole years seemed ridiculous to some but Thucydides lib. 1. initio giveth a reason for it Others have conceived and our late Travellers have also observed that a potent King could not reign in so inconsiderable a place Neither do the ruines give testimony of an ample and famous City And though there never were such a War yet is it not to be wondred at that so many have reported it and that more have believed it since the report of false-hoods especially when favoured by an antient penne 〈◊〉 belief either because it cannot be disproved or because the 〈◊〉 of it saveth pains Besides things are seldome examined or 〈…〉 where interest is not concerned 44. On Pelion breâ— in Chiron's den Pelion is a mountain of Thessaly in the 〈◊〉 of Magnesia joyning to the mountain Ossa Hâ—rodot l. b 7. 〈◊〉 Pelion was the Cave of Chiron who as the rest of 〈…〉 Centaurs was like an Horse behind but forward like a Maâ—â— S â—sidore lib. 4. holdeth that he was so represented quia medicâ—â—â— jumentorum quidam Chiron Graecus invenit because he found out medicines for beasts And he was named Chiron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he was a Chirurgion Suidas saith he was the son of â—xion and the Cloud as the others