Which amorous hearts soon do insnare All pearls transcending The Down that 's under Angels Wings Is not so soft Titans bright fair Rich dazling tresses can't compare With that curl'd up in curious rings All Pearls transcending You heav'ns come shew your power and art Transform into a Gem my heart All Pearls transcending That having lustre from her eyes and there Fixed may make rings for the Gods to wear Ah is there none the way can find My captiv'd fetter'd â—eart t' unbind Bound in her hair The more this bow-knot I unloose Ah me the faster it doth knit And striving more I tangle it And wind it in an endless noose In her fair hair A bow knot well I may it call Since from Loves bow is all my thrall Strung with her hair Soon would my heart be eas'd of all my trouble Would she but tye this single Love-knot double Her lips are beauties nests that swell Pregnant with sweets where graces dwell Wrapt in Vermilion Th' Arabian Aromatick gales When they the blushing Roses kiss Breath not such sweet perfumes as is Her breath which her pure lips exhales Wrapt in Vermilion Each word an Eagle soaring high With wit that from those lips doth flye Wrapt in Vermilion When she speaks Angels listen and the Spheres Stand still neglect their Musick wish th' had ears No wonder all means prove so vain To make her heart love entertain For Love is slain And plunder'd too of every sweet In her hard marble heart he lies Intomb'd his shafts are in her eyes Her purest white 's his winding sheet Poor Love is slain Her lips with his blood sprinkled are His wings are now become her hair Ah! Love is slain His bow is turned into her arched brow And thus poor Love is slain but none knows how My Lute let 's sing his obsequies You Clouds with tears supply my eyes For Love is dead No marveil then that all things war Love tunes the whole worlds harmony Whose diapazon still doth lye In sweet consent where is no jar Ah! Love is dead Oh no the wanton sawcy Boy Would with his mother sport and toy Love is not dead For which she hath exil'd him and he 's fled Into my heart and feigns that he is dead Amphigenia that had attended to this Song with delight and astonishment admiring whence the Musick came for by reason of the thickness of the hangings and largeness of the room the Lutes sweet Airs were not so cleerly conveyed to her ear But directing her steps by the sobbing voice she came to the hangings behind which Danpion sat where calling for Florinda demanded of her if she knew whence those strains should come Who replyed that it must be some Angel that was turned inamorate and fled to her Chamber mistaking it for Loves Paradise for sure no mortal dares or can attempt said she so neer an approach when restrained by your Fathers special prohibition Danpion hearing Amphigenia make such strict inquiry hasted thence lest he should be discovered but now the flames of Love burned with more vehemency than before so that the torment had been insupportable had it not been fanned and cooled with hope which began to breath upon him with some gentle gusts For having such a passage where undiscovered to any he might have resort to her Chamber he resolved to personate some Intelligence till he might have free admittance to her presence which in time he thought he might be able to effect by reason of Florinda's intimacy with her who by her insinuations would confirm in Amphigenia's apprehensions what he should do not to be delusions but realities Accordingly the next night after when he thought the time of night might invite fair Amphigenia to refresh her self with sweet slumber he took his Lute as before and softly stole to her Chamber But as he went his mind was filled with distracting thoughts How well did he say doth this blind passage ressemble those blinder paths I thus tread to my happiness These dark windings and craggy turnings that this Vault abounds in methinks lightsomly represents the inexsucerable difficulties and inextricable intricacies I am forced to pass thorough and must be involved in ere I can arrive at any glimmerings of hope But my comfort is that as this conducts to an Elyzium such a one as the Gods would exchange theirs for such a one as the Antick Poets inspired with a prophetick as well as Poetick fury did but typifie in their fictions so the various windings of my unhappy love when my Cloudy fortune shall unmask her dusky face will at length be unwound and come to a bottom where they 'l centre in an Elyzium of happiness Being come to the end of the Cave he perceived Amphigenia fast asleep her Wax Taper burning by her As she lay his eyes carved such ravishing sweets as transported with the violence of so many Darts he thought he had attained the Zenith of his felicity The Pillow blest with a kiss from her Cheeks as pregnant with delight swelled on either side Her eyes Canopyed in sleeps dark veil shewed lifes triumph in the Map of death Her hand contended with the Lawn for whiteness and being partly covered with it looked like a Lilly through purest Crystall A lock that had stollen from its sweet prison folded in cloudy curls lay dallying with her breath sometimes striving to get a kiss and then repulsed flew back sometimes obtaining its desired bliss and then as rapt with joy retreats in wanton caperings Her body that lay arayed or rather disarayed in a thin Smock wrought with blew silk and silver obscured not her skin but rather made it appear the lovelier if lovelier it could be Her breasts at liberty displayed were of so pure a whiteness as if ones eye through the transparent skin had viewed the milky treasures they inclosed Her Violet veins that streamed in branched Rivers seemed like Azure paths in a milky heaven This confluence of delights put Danpion besides himself for a while but recollecting his thoughts he took his Lute and tuning it in Consort with his Soul in a Love rapture sang this Song Were I immur'd in flesh and blood And might enjoy so sweet a good I 'de not exchange my blissful state With any earthly Potentate Ah now I see that beauties Darts Can penetrate the Angels hearts I see those lucid Stars that shine In Heav'ns bright Orb neer the divine Empyreal throne though they transcend Earths beauties all yet love can rend The heav'ns and peirce the Azure sky And rapt them with loves extasie who 'd think the winged Boy could climb Through all the starry Spheres sublime His quiver fill'd with beauties rays And though so blind yet see such ways In heaven to steal and durst enthrall The very powers Angelical Sweet Amphigen ' thy beauty rings Through Heavens Court each Angel sings Thy praise and poor I to behold What same had eccho'd there and told Came thence but now flames from thine eye Hath sindg'd
thing that had the shape of comfort and make the Walls echo his groans with a sad dolefulness and the Marble drops to reflect his visage and therein the Portraiture of sorrow True grief delights in solitudes if it may be said to have any delight and he mourns with a witness that mourns without a witness But now to leave him in his lamentations and return to Amphigenia who with the fright she took at her surprizal fell into such a dangerous distemper as threatned little less than her sudden dissolution every moment the fatal Thief would steal some portion of her Rosy-excellence or rather the Graces enshrined in her beautious Face by a mysterious transition passed into my soul to make her fit to inhabit among the Celestial dwellers which when her Father saw he grew so enraged with Danpion as he resolved not to be partial but gave strict command to his Keeper that night to put out his eyes as others before had suffered for an offence of the like kind though without those high aggravations that attended his and moreover to keep him Prisoner until they saw whether Amphigenia would recover or not if not he should be sacrificed on her Tomb and her Epitaph should be written in his Ashes and engraven with the point of a Sword on his Skull but if the contrary he should have his freedom The Jailor to execute the Kings commands in the depth and dead of all the night softly steals up to Danpion's chamber whom care and sorrow and a strange noise of confused thoughts would not permit to sleep so that he was only laid down on his bed a little wax Taper burning by him and was reading the sad story of Hero and Leander's love and was so moved with its woful conclusion as that he could not but shed some drops on the Book and by drowning their names with Tears make them act over again their own Tragedy The Keeper perceiving a dim light in his Chamber which gave him to see his hopes to take him asleep were vanished rushes in violently with a naked Sword in his hand and with all the terror a deformed countenance expressing more horror in a gastly look than could be otherwise contained in a Volume could frame he delivers the message and commands him to submit with patience as he expected to meet with better usage Danpion hearing this unexpected tidings fixed his eye undauntedly upon him whose Majesty might have struck an awful terror into the most ruthless Villains heart and enraged more with the churlishness of his speech than with the terribleness of his message he with a resolute fury leaps upon the Jaylor and on the sudden writhes the sword out of his hand and redeems himself giving him blowes for his Ransom Extremity is Vertues Opportunity which never appears clad with greater lustre than when stript naked by Fortune Danpion having released himself runs to a near adjoyning Wood where he spends that night in sighing forth his woes somtimes raving at the Kings merciless tyranny somtimes cursing Bascanius's treachery somtimes lamenting Amphigenia's cruelty His Mind floating in a tempestuous Sea of thoughts would be wrecked somtimes upon Rocks of insuperable difficulties somtimes overwhelmed in a Gulf of despair Then his Tongue the servant of his Mind to give some little ease would vent some streams out of the over-flowings of his thoughts Words are airy successors to our intestate comforts Flitting Shadows and vanishing Pictures of our mindes or our mindes transformed into Air and that formed into Words invisible transcripts of our thoughts writ upon Air and copyed out by our Tongues poor breathing Orators of our woes whose Rhetorick will for a while hush them to silence who give ease though they give no succour So Danpion with the wind of his words would a little disperse the Clouds of grief in his mind Somtimes he would inveigh against Envy calling it the putrid Blain of a corrupt mind or the very Imposthume of all vitious humours which bursting with its own venom sends forth an infectious gore called Slaunder Slaunder that base canker of Renown filthy vapour of an ulcerous mind whose steam obscures Vertues bright Ray vile demolisher of the Temple of Honour and the accursed spawn of a hellish mind But then his Hate to Envy would bring to his mind the contrary opposite a Love to Vertue and both these would be as alarms to awaken the thoughts of Amphigenia the Object of the first and the Subject of the latter And then he would condemn his too too adventurous eyes for their presumptuous beholding of that miracle of beauty but more his remembrance for retaining that Soul-captivating Species her Idea but most of all his Heart for surrendring up its Cittadel to the tyranny of love And then he would call out Ah! Why did I love Alas alas Why did I love Thus to be made a slave to Beauty but how could I chuse but love love nay adore so Divine a Form Rather why do I remember since it is remembrance that is the life of my grief and that that renews my woes but how can I chuse but remember such a heavenly shape in whom all unparalleld Excellencies meet like parallels in their proper Centre whose every beam glanced from her eyes writ a compleat story in my mind of Beauties Perfection and Loves Prerogative But ah Why did I then give liberty to my eyes to see that model of Divine perfections since the eyes are the Crystal doors of the mind at which all Objects enter that enthrall the affections but alas who could but gaze and gaze himself to admiration and admire himself into an Extasie to behold one in whose Eye lay the diapazon of beauties visible harmony which with their motions like the Spheres would strike Entrancing Raptures into all chast hearts and where thousands of Stars lay couched under a sable Veil resembling nights Canopy whose rapting influence would compel all eyes to see all thoughts to remember and all hearts to love and adore Thus his thoughts flying from one opposite to another would still centre on Amphigenia like the Eagles that flying from East to VVest met in Delphos and thus he consumed the night untill about the dawning of the morn that impartially partial hour which whilest it seems to stand as a Neuter between night and day and to take to neither doth indeed incline to both when remembring that though his escape had freed him from present misery yet not from future ruine he therefore resolved to flee to Cyprus after his friend Periander and assist him in the releasment of Glycera and then return with him to Thessalia and by his means ingratiate himself with Pandion and he feared not but to procure a considerable Party that should revolt from Hiarbas upon the least knowledge of his intentions As he was thus walking and pondering there suddenly came upon him about five Horsmen who by force he having no weapon to defend himself carried him about the space
they were put in an incapacity of giving due testimonies of their gratitude to him and that if their Fortunes might be raised equal to their desires it should be that they might be able to return requital equal to his deserts The Hermit answered that as his deserts were small in themselves so they would be less should he be so mercenary as to shew kindness in expectation of a requital but however if he had merited any thing that they had sufficiently repaid him by their sweet conversation Thus after some ceremonies past between them they left the Hermit who at parting could no longer retain his gravity nor refrain from weeping tears of joy and sorrow of sorrow to part with them all but especially Pandion whom he had so long entertained as his Pupil and instilled those excellent principles the effects whereof shall be made apparent in the sequel of the story but of joy through the conceived hopes of his future prosperous Fortune These three noble Consorts having travelled for some few days together came at length to a parting way which might properly be so called for it was the means of parting Athalus from the other two whom we shall also part from for a time and leaving him associate our selves to Pandion and Periander who amongst many other adventures they encountred withall in their journey this was one Travelling along one scorching day the Sun darted his rayes with such vehement violence as that they were forced to betake themselves to a neer adjoyning shady Grove for protection where the spreading boughs so embraced each other as if they had combined together to exclude the Suns proud beams from entring there where being invited by the pleasantness of the place and their own wearisomness to refresh themselves they lighted off their Horses and having pulled their bits out of their mouths turned them to feed upon the Grass which there grew in great plenty whilst themselves being overcome with the murmurings of the sweet bubling streams and the whilstlings of the quivering leaves were lulled asleep But long they had not yielded to sleeps pleasing charms when their ears were suddenly filled with a sudden shriek which pierced and rent the air with such a dividing shrilness as plainly appeared it came from a heart pierced rent and divided with sorrow and withall so small and clear as they knew it came from some Female Breast neither came it alone but was presently followed by a train of doleful groans which pursued it with hue and cry as a Thief for stealing her joyes from her They no sooner heard it but they arose and guided their steps by the mournful noise till they came to a place where they saw a beautiful Lady lying along upon the ground leaning upon her elbow Nature had painted her Face with more than ordinary Beauty so that Sorrow seemed to appear in the liveliest colour her Face Gestures Sighs and Tears and all made apparent that sorrow had tuned her heart to so high a Key that the strings were near cracking Loath they were to interrupt her and yet desirous to serve her At length they heard her fetch a groan and that seconded by a sigh and both ushered in these words Hard-hearted enemies could your tyrant minds invent no other way to vent your merciless cruelty but by being thus cruelly merciful to leave me behind to weep his obsequies what wrong did you ever receive from his guiltless hands as nothing could satisfie your boundless rage nor satiate your thirsty souls but his dearest bloud and if it was I that did the wrong why did you not sheath your Swords in this breast that my Death might expiate his and why do you not come and steep your sulphrous souls in my diffused bloud that so both they as well as their horrid actions their monstrous of-springs may be of a Crimson dye O ye celestial powers since 't was your pleasure to joyn our Hands and unite our Hearts by Hymens sacred and inviolable bands dislodge this Soul of mine and take it up into that heavenly Chorus whereof he is one that so out of the reach of dull-browd sorrow we may sing prolonged Anthems of Peace together and being no longer intangled with this Worlds turmoyles my Soul may be involved in that bottomless Abyss and boundless Ocean of immortal happiness Oh sweet Death come and welcome put a period to my Griefs and rid me of this dying life oh how the thoughts of thy approach revive me frustrate then not my hopes and expectations the way to kill me is to let me live Oh then augment not my griefs by adding new let me not ever languish here in perpetual anguish but come oh come and if my enemies have extracted the quintessence of all cruelty and swilled it up into their parboyl'd Souls that so there is none left for thee what then it is mercy not cruelty that I crave for what greater mercy can there be than to unloose a soul intangled and hamper'd with griefs and sorrows oh then unty this knot of dull mortality that pineons my soul and makes her flutter here below and let her fly to him who is my Life my Heart my Joyes and all that my highest desires can attain unto And if with killing him thou hast spent thy Arrows for sure his great soul would not surrender up her mansion on too easie terms here 's Shafts within my Heart shot both from Love and adverse Fortune enough to fill thy Quiver and let that remain full still Come then and draw thy Bow and give that wound that shall heal all other wounds And therewithall she gave a sigh as if Death had indeed made a divoâ—ce between her Soul and Body and her tender heart had bid adieu to this lower world and fled into the Empyreal Regions But proceeding Charon said she prepare thy Boat to waft me over the Stygian Lake and if thou fearest it is too shoul to transport such a Cargo of Woes and Griefs as I am filled withall here 's tears enough that flow in uncontroled Streams from Griefs Fountains to make it at its lowest Ebb over-flow the Banks and if that will not suffice open my Veins drain my Heart dry rather than let me tarry behind for what Joys can ever accrew to me now Theon in whom my Joys are plac't hath bid farwell And then she stopt giving a groan as if her Heart had been rest in sunder and folding her fair Arms as if she went about to imbrace death Pandion and Periander hearing this no longer able to contain discovered themselves to her and craving pardon for their intrusion begged to know the cause of her sorrow telling her they would spend their dearest bloud to purchase her desires Oh then said she my desire is to be with my dear Theon hand me to the Elizian Plains where he resides I desire not your death but my own for alas what comfort can I have to tarry here behind Never more shall these
they preferred before all but the internal eyes of his Soul continually gazed upon the picture of Florinda that was lively painted in his Fancy by the Pencil of affection But Supper being ended after some Masks and Revels and other pleasures the night being far spent they all retired to their Lodgings THE SECOND BOOK OF PANDION AND AMPHIGENIA SWift-footed Time feathered with flying houres of it self posts away with such celerity that we are no sooner entred upon the Stage to act our parts on the Theatre of this world but ere we are aware the Scene is concluded and Death pronounces an Exit yet the mirth and jollity of those happy days seemed to add wings unto it while unhappy Periander and the more unhappy because so in the mids of so much happiness would not permit the least joy to intrude into his heart but abandoned his thoughts wholly to mournful meditations which though in themselves unpleasing yet sweet to him because hovering in Loves Dominions still lighted on so sweet a Centre as Florinda Oft would he walk alone and recount to himsâ—lf his various misfortunes and then account them all as Cyphers compar'd with his exilement from Florinda but then joyning both together with a multiplying addition how far would he say doth it surmount my Souls Arithmetick to number my innumerable griefs Had ever any one such mountains of sorrows heaped upon him and not overwhelmed Cetainly they are not set for steps to climbe to a Heaven of happiness rather aâ— Tombes where all my hopes desires and joys may be interred Thus as the Torpedo when it feels it self insnared by the deceitful hook vomits â—orth a bane-full humor into the briny Ocean and not onely fills the places neer adjoyning to her with a Chilling Ice but sends it up to the Anglers hand wherewith in a moment it 〈◊〉 and Charms his senses into a death-resembling sleep so Perianders sorrow intangled with Loves Bait not only fill'd his heart with the fumes of discontent but infected all those Joys that seemed to Angle for it with their delicious Baits And one morning by that time Aurora had spread her Vermilion Mantle on Heavens Azure floor and the Suns glistering Beams had gilded the mountain tops Periander leapt out of his Bed aâ—d went into the Walks where the shadiness of the Trees the coolness of the Air which was fann'd to and fro with Zephyrus wings and the sweet agreeable murmuring of the Fountaines fomented in his Breast that humor which fed it self with the remembrance of Florinda What strange unruly passions are these said he that thus stand Centinel at the doors of my senses and deny Rest entrance and if any Joys are suters for the possession of my heart they soon forbid the Banes and thus domineering within the Kingdom of my troubled Breast chase all contentment from me so that methinks I could consume an Age in thinking and make my Griefs keep Time with the Spheres harmonious motions till time shall be no more for as they do rise but never set for when they seem to set to us they then rise to our Antipodes so have my sorrows a beginning but never ending keeping a perpetual motion in my Breast and when the morning begins then doth my Heart greet the approaching light with a hope-abscoâ—ding Cloud of sighs exhaled by the heat of Loves Passions from the Ocean of Grief within my mind and when the Evening begins to close the Day then doth my Heart conclude it with showers of dewy Tears and all proceeds from the remembrance of Florinda Ah sweet remembrance said he happy were I wouldst thou make me forget all other happiness or smother the thoughts of my present misery But more sweet Florinda since all abstracted sweetness is lodged in thee how could I part with Thee and not part with Life or rather how could I part with Life in parting with Thee and yet live What was I senseless that I could hear the fatal Messenger pronounce that more fatal sentence and the very Cadence of his speech not stab me to the heart Sure the very sound would have struck me dead but alas misery had so filled my Heart that there was no room for death Oh envious Fortune couldst thou find no other time to blast my happiness but in the blooming of it In what poysonous composition didst thou dip thy invenomed shaft that feathered both with Life and Death shot Death to my happiness but Life to my misery Come once more bend thy Bow and since thou dost delight in my destruction draw thy Dart up to the head and here 's a Brest prepared for thee As he was further proceeding in his speech he was interrupted with a doleful noise which being handed to his ears by Eccho's reverberations seemed as if she had a fresh begun with pining lamentations to bewail her more pining Narcissus but er'e he could consider what it was or whence it came his ears were arrested with a train of mournful tones that followed their flying predecessor and then a peircing drilling cry would seem to be a treble to a murmuring Groan but drawing neer hoping to find one to sympathize with him in his misery he heard the voice formed into these words Oh heavens were it not enough to take her hence but you must take all mercy with her alas what need is there for mercy where there is no misery there is nothing but a boundless Sea of Happiness and here nothing but a bottomless abysse of Wo. Oh command Death to unlock the doors of happiness that I may enter in and exchange these Heart-infringing Groans for the Heaven-bred Raptures of that Seraphick Quire that surround the Heavenly Throne and these Soul-melting Tears for those Nectarian streamâ— of immortal pleasures Come Death thou that art so prodigal of thy Darts to shoot a Virgin in the Aurora of her days whose fresh smiles would have melted the most flinty heart into mercy come spare a shaft to me whose age aswell as miseries inviteth Oh! why art thou grown thus preposterous to take the young and leave the old would not her Beauty move pity in thy heart Methinks her blushing Cheeks might have made thee ashamed of thy cruelty How couldst thou find in thy heart to thrust thy Sithe into her tender sides Sure no such thing as Love could be the cause no Love never resides in an obdurate Heart And ah the Grave is too hard a marriage Bed and thy looks too gastly for her to delight in thy cold embracements Come then to me to whom thou shalt be wellcome puff out this blaze of Life and let my fledgd Soul take her Wing Thinkest thou that a few Tears can supply with moysture what so many griefs and years have dryed up No surely long it cannot be ere my sublime Soul must bid farewell to all these transitory Griefs and Joys Having spoken this he concluded with such a groan as if he had ended his speech and Life together But Periander
the King of the Castles surprizal and then with greater hast spurred on by a despairing hope to inform my Daughter the Queen of his heart of his own delivery But the first object that saluted his eyes was to behold Helena in Trebonius arms Here a most Rhetorical Orator might have a fair field to emblazon with Eloquence the strange diversity of Passions that abounded in their hearts at the first encountering He whose mind before was distracted between despair and hope was now wholly distracted with despair In his face one might have read a combat between the Beams of Love and Beauty and Cloud of grief and hatred and all these stunned with a maze of amazement whilst she no less answered his affection with reciprocal interchanges of Passion at first she blushed as ashamed of her unfaithfulness and then looked pale with fear lest I should perceive her blushing but then she blushed again lest her paleness should be discovered so that there seemed a sweet contention between the Rose and the Lily which should have the possession of her face At length Pentheus like one returned from a â—rance flung away with such a frowning mourning disdainful pale countenance as if anger grief hatred and death it self had all begun to prey upon him and all strove which should have the greatest share Which poor Helena seeing no longer able to contain gave a sigh as if that breath had been her last after which the tears gushed out which trickled down her Cheeks like Pearls dissolved just as the blushing Rose watered with Heavenly dew when the soft Air gently breaths upon it those Crystall drops leave their perfumed dwelling and distill upon the ground so did her tears blown with sweet gales of gentle sighs leave the Crystalline mansions of her eyes and descend upon the floor which she strove against with so sweet a violence as added such a grace to her sorrow that instead of restraining it she constrained us to imitate her stormy eyes so that there were scarce any present who were not drawn into society of their tears But at length swinging out of her Husbands arms with a hateful look in a lovely countenance counting him the only object of her hatred and cause of all her misery she run to her chamber and there made this complaint to her self which I her Husband stealing after her over-heard Hard-hearted Father said she and well thou maist call me so could a little estate bribe your affection so as not to regard the miserable estate of your poor Daughter True it is I derived my being from you a blessing which I can never requite but alas the blessing of a being cannot countervail the misery of a miserable being which I have also derived from you for better never come into this miserable world than come into such a world of misery as I am now involved in so that my Heart Head Eyes and Tongue are too barren of Sighs Thoughts Tears and Words to express my unexpressible grief come all you fountains fill my head with Springs of Tears and all you Clouds dissolve in shoures and come and inhabit my eyes that so these thirsty Eyes which before quaffed in such draughts of Love may now be punished for their sweet intemperance and satiated with over-flowing streams of briny tears or rather that this sinking soul of mine might be swallowed up in a deluge of surging griefs Ah hateful Trebonius from thee flows all my misery oh that my eyes had been masked with an eternal night when first they beheld thy loathed face or that my marriage bed had been my grave and instead of my Epithalamum that they had warbled out my Epicaedium then might my touring soul whilst they were chanting forth their dolefull tones here below have bore a part among the Angelical Hierarchy and there unskreen those awful secrets which are only reserved for the eyes of purified souls where no woes dare crave for entrance but all joys injoyed in their full perfection Ah my dear Pentheus little thinkst thou what a faithful lover thy poor Helena is to thee and what a killing thought it is to me to think that my foolish but necessitated levity should occasion thee to harbour any hard thoughts of me the very thought is able to put me beyond all thinking Oh my sweet guardian Angel if any such be allotted to my protection which sure if there were all these miseries would not befall me I say if any such I have prepare thy wings haste quickly fly to my Pentheus and tell him that he is more dear to Helenaâ— than ever and that a forced marriage hath only changed her State not her and though another to her endless grief enjoyed her Body yet none her Heart which she hath kept intire for him and that her chast unstained soul hath not embraced a thought or desire that hath thought of or desired any other but him But why do I fondly bemoan my self to these senseless walls haste I will to him without whom to Live were worse than Death and with whom to Dye is better than Life And therewithall she ran out of the chamber and ran down stayres but her speed was stopt by an affrightful messenger that lookt like one arisen from the dead to bring news from those dark Regions and as one that regarded not or indeed knew neither what nor to whom he spake in a mournful tone belched out by parcels the death of Pentheus Helena whose former griefs had carried her to such an excessive raging that they had transported her beyond her self so that at first she minded not what the messenger spake but Trebonius and I who still followed her he jealous of her and I what would be the issue demanded of the man the manner of it He like one newly awak'd from a terrible dream who looks about to see whether his past thoughts were realities or only the productions of his fancy mustering up his sences and collecting his thoughts told us that passing by it was his fortune to come just as Pentheus was speaking his last words some of which as well as his confused memory could retain he said were these Oh Helena how willingly would I resign my life might my remembrance but lye intombed in thy sweet thoughts where thy dayly meditations of me would be better than embalming spices would Heaven grant me such a favour I should then count the divorce between my soul and body the sweetest marriage to the greatest happiness How soon would I build my Funeral Pile of woes and miseries and enkindle them with the flames of Love and therein consume my self to Ashes might those Ashes be kept as a relique of one of Loves Martyrs within the Urn of thy breast Well may I call thy Heart a glassy Urine seeing I have found it both brittle and transparent But ah what woman is not so she must have degenerated from her Feminine nature or have been some third sex had she been endued with a
surrounded partly with lofty mountains whose high towring tops seemed to scale the Clouds as ambitious both to behold and embrace these rare delights and partly with little hills of meaner ascent whereon there blew the most pure refined gusts of clarified Air. Many Palaces here were for the nobles and Knights of Thessalia but in the centre of all stood the Kings a most magnificent structure the Walls of Porphiry rough-cast with shining Carbuncles and other precious stones cast in devises Scutcheons and Emblems inclosed with a Quadrangle-platform of Jasper made level with battlements At each corner a sumptuous convent wherein was a stately Temple dedicated to Venus Diana and Pallas signifying the three chief feminine Excellencies Chastity Wisdom and Beauty Within were Magazines of Arms Wardrobes rich edifices for the Kings Attendants besides many Groves of Cypress and Cedar goodly Gardens and Fountains encompassed with Ballisters of Copper and fair Arches supported with Brazen Pillars Danpion and Periander that they might the better view these glistering buildings and the other ravishing delights that the place did abound withall went up a little hill on whose brow they beheld in the bottom a pleasant Vale with a more pleasant Garden In the midst of which there was a Bath surrounded with a Wall of Jet and over head to defend it from the Suns peircing rays an Arched Roof supported by Statues standing upon gilded Columnes each Statue holding in her hand a silver Rod on which hung Curtaines of white Damask fringed with green Silk and Gold one of which being drawn Pandion espied a most lovely Lady resting her soft Limbs in a Chair of Jet made at the Basis of a Pillar Combing her golden Tresses newly come out of the Bath so that the Silver drops as it were grown ponderous with over-burdening grief that there nature should compell them to leave the possession of so much perfection fell in Tears from her Snow-white Limbs Each part was enshrined in so much excellency that Pandion felt his heart arrested with strange passions so that he could not restrain his eyes from surveying her rapting features and the more he gazed the more he desired to gaze and the more admirable she seemed Her eyes like two Lucent Stars shining with such a transporting influence as Pandion grew an Astrologian and his eyes Star-gazers fixedly observing the motions of these two wandring Planets whose every Beam darted a living death Her arched brows where sat a mild sweet Majesty seemed like two bows of love strung with his heart strings Her eye-lids like Ivory covers to two Cabinets filled with Diamonds at their opening a thousand sparkling Gemms would shine with a radiant fulgor and at their closing as many would be eclipsed Each cheek seemed a Rosie Paradise intermixed with Lilies Her lips like shreds of Vermilion Sattin inclosed two polisht rows of Ivory teeth from whence such sweet persuming fumes steamed forth as the very Air when she drew her breath seemed to press with delight into her delicate mouth Her nose chin and neck were of so pure a whiteness as the Lilies lookt pale with grief to see themselves so far excelled Her breasts were like two Ivory Caskes of Nectar from whence leads a milky way to Cupids Palace Her lovely hair which the wanton wind sportively tossed to and fro one while from her that it might the more freely kiss her Snowy skin then twist it in intricate Curles and then divide it now take a Tress and fan her face and then a golden thread and dally with her eye so that it seemed to weave a Net to entangle Pandions heart whiles her Lily hand endeavoured to repress those lascivious exorbitancies with a silver Combe so that Pandion was in doubt which was the more happy her hair to be methodized by so sweet a hand or her hand to handle such excellent hair so sweet both by Art and Nature as would make one wish for Mars his fortune to be ensnared in a Vulcans Net were it made of such Heavenly Wire Her leggs like two Columnes of Alabaster or Atlasses which supported this little world of Excellency Pandion whose sight was resisted by nothing but his avaritious eyes had full freedom to fill their Pearly Coffers with those sweet treasures had the flames of affection so augmented with admiration and delight that loath to trust the brittle treasury of his eyes he locked them in his heart And having his Wit refined by love and he inspired with a Poetick fury he to himself lest Periander should hear in mournful Aires warbled forth this Song What strange untrained passions do controle And domineer within my troubled Soul What means this crowd of thoughts within my breast Hath some strange antick fury dispossest Me of my Reason Oh 't is Love I see That of my mind usurps the Soveraignty And hath depos'd my Will Oh traitrous Eyes You are the inlets of my miseries You are th'incendiaries of this Civil War Within my breast answer to Reasons Bar My heart 's two Crystall Forts how durst y' unclose Your Ivory doors to admit such throngs of Woes Ah t is her Conquering Beauty that 's the Key That hath unlockt my Heart unveil'd my Eye That th' one cannot but look the other love And both admire what Deity above Mindless of us poor lovers here doth give To rapting Beauty such prerogative A skin where Rose and Lily do intwine Themselves in lovely mixtures and combine To make a box where sweets compacted lye Perfections quintessence is heav'n's Alchimy Divine Elixar that turns all to Gold Her hands do touch or her fair Eys behold This heav'nly extract stampt with sweet divine And heart-attracting features is a Coyn Might pass among the Gods what is 't they prize But she excells the lustre of her eyes Exceeds the Stars should she her fair hand lay On water streight 't would turn Ambrosia Not all the Goddesses can spin so rare So fine so soft a thred as is her hair Oh how my heart 's intangled in each Curl Whilst my eyes envy the rude wind should hurl Such golden treasure and have free access To her for whom I pine without redress In fine each part is fine rare and divine A mine of worth oh would her worth were mine Well then my Eyes since thus you 'd bribed be My heart too render to my enemy And suffer Cupid in a golden showre Of beauty to descend into the Tower And ravish there my Heart without controle This is your mulct to quench my burning Soul You are amerc'd by Loves all-conquering power Tributes of tears to pay each day and hour But having concluded he look'd about to see if Periander perceived his Passions but as he turned his head aside he saw a Gentleman on horsback a pretty distance off beckning with his hand to come to him They rid up to him and as they approached neer he met them with this salutation Sir said he pardon my abrupt interruption of your pleasing meditations and
more agreeable Musick in the harmony of his applause Neither was the King a less admirer of him but vehemently desired his abode with him telling that his great worth had made him ambitious of having such a Phoenix to adorn his Court. Danpion replyed that his Court already abounded with persons of such incomparable worth that he should be no other ornament to it than as a spot in the face of the Sun or as blackness is the foyl of beauty and he presumed that it was the lustre of their merits that had dazled him and obtruded an erroneous estimation of him which otherwise his over-peircing judgement would not entertain And since your Majesty is pleased said he to term me a Phoenix although it s not my happiness to merit it by any thing else yet it shall by this that my fortunes life and honor shall be ready to be sacrificed when the rays of your commands shall enkindle and I should account such an immolation as the greatest felicity the heavens could bestow it being the onely way to consecrate me to an eternity of honor among posterity Acts of Loyalty to ones Prince being as embalming spices to the names of faithful subjects Oh that it were my fortune to expire in such a nest of spices inflamed by your Royal Mandates Let this command answered the King to remain with me be for an exploration of your obedience which you so highly profess Let me be stigmatized with an eternal brand of infamy said Pandion if ever I let a command drop from your mouth in vain Thus with these and some other expressions was Pandions abode there concluded and he was led among them to the Palace And thus did Danpion play this first Act of that real enterlude whose Scenes as they had been hitherto generally mourntul Fortune dressing her self in Tragick attire so they continued for during the space of several Months that he remained in the Court he never could have opportunity either to reveal himself to Amphigenia the Mistris of his heart the main reason of his continuance there nor to meet with his friend Periander at the place appointed and agreed betwixt them Some few groundless hopes he flattered himself withall was his only support which daily encreased as his favour with the King increased which was also every day more and more so that in conclusion within a short time his graceful deportments unconquerable valour acute wit and all beyond his years and that which added grace to all his delicate beauty were all as so many letters of admission into the Kings heart so that nothing of moment was done in Court or Kingdom without Danpions consent and advice All Offices and favors were distributed and dispensed by him no affairs of consequence in the State but he had an influence upon and inspection into A great solecism in Policy for so great a Politician as Hiarbas was to commit for by these favors did he weave a webb to intangle himself to his utter ruine Princes had need beware whom they imbrace in the bosoms of their affections much more whom they entertain in their Cabinet Counsels For as the eye being the most tender part of the body will therefore least endure any injurious usage and we are most careful to preserve it being the directrix of the whole body so a Princes understanding being the eye of a Kingdom which ought to be of a Lynceous Sagacity and acuteness in the discerning of Counsels and Counsellors and be able to peirce not only into the wisdom of their advice but integrity of their very thoughts and purposes therefore most perillous to have it corrupted by the poysonings of unfaithful Counsel which like false Mediums represent the state of things in another posture than as they are in themselves and by that means their Government is under-min'd their honor eclipsed and a gap made for all innovations This Hiarbas considered not his judgement being blinded by his affection but let all things be swayed by Danpion who notwithstanding was little satisfied with all whilst he was barred all means of obtaining her whom he preferred before all And one Evening as he walked out to feed his love-starved heart with the sweet repast of his fancy he heard a voice deliver it self in such ravishing Airs as might have compared with the Spheres dancing harmony and drawing neer the more to enrich and refine his thoughts with those heart-pleasing strains with the distance interrupted he saw a Lady playing on a Lute with accents so sweet and soft as if each note had been a cloze of Angels Musick the Air with such sweet vibrations danced after her fingers as if the wind of it self had breathed Musical Tones and drawing near he heard her sing this Song The Song Phaebus lend me thy fulgent rays To pencill out my joy Free from annoy None else can to the life express My heart-transporting happiness Gild with thy Beams my happy days Expell each interposing Cloud That seeks to mask thy face and shrowd Thy golden locks and dim my joy Free from annoy On lively pieces Artists cast A pleasing darkning shade On what th 'ave made Umbriferous stroakes of black despair My infant joys soon would impair And them compell t' expire their last Should Fortune seek out of her hate In striving to delineat My bliss to cast despairs dark shade On what she ' as made You rowling Spheres lend me your tones To warble out my joy Free from annoy A Lutes sweet note-producing womb Is far more fit to be a tombe To interr the joys of mournful ones For her best straines are sweet and sad And makes the hearer sad and glad According discords but my joy Hath no annoy You Quire above lend me your Lays To twist a heavenly verse Joys to rehearse My wit 's too barren to express My words-transcending happiness Unless you it refine and raise Draw wits Elixar from the Nine Patrons of Poesie so that mine Heightned with that may in a verse My joys rehearse Sure Love 's no Vertue for it moves Its heart-inflaming beames Sill in extremes If deep despair racking annoy But if sure hope ther 's rapting joy He loveth not that meanly loves Rather 't is Vertues quintessence The spirits of their excellence Thesauriz'd in its Hive of beams Still in extremes Lovers have Poles to which they tend But if in love th' excell No parallel Or if they have these Parallels kiss And Poles do meet which makes the bliss In Lovers hearts which hath no end Then hence all cumbrous grief be gone Here 's room for nought but joy alone Our hearts do meet our Loves excell All parallel Having ended her Song there arose a Knight that had lain undiscovered on the ground and taking the Lady by the hand thus proffered to salute her Come my divided Soul said he my sweetest half let me fix on thy Rosie Lips the seal of my constant affection and let our kisses be as the endorsements of that delight
Supremacy and shall I lament because the Stars of Amphigenia's eyes refuse to shew their lustre at the high noon of my prosperity Amphigenia did I say Can I name that name and not adore it Could I in a Poetick rapture admire her transcendent beauty and not be thought an Idolizer I would translate my very Soul into a verse that might express the most pure Elixar of my Love which if I thought she would vouchsafe the reading I would dissolve my heart into a tear which black with constant griefs might serve for Ink to characterize my mind With these and the like speeches would he bewail his despairing and desperate affection All his hope was in Florinda whom he had prevailed with to be his Intercessor to Amphigenia to speak in his commendation and to dive into her thoughts what she could and to try whether it were possible to root out that humor in her so antipathetical to the Malesect and insect her with amorous inclinations and lastly to advise him how he might procure a view of her To all which he received little satisfaction the last excepted For Florinda had discovered a secret vault under ground that conducted to Amphigenia's Chamber this she informed Danpion off who as Florinda had advised him on an Evening took a Lute and stole to Amphigenia's Chamber and there behind the hangings thorough a crevice unseen he might discern all over the room on whose Arched top some rare Apelles had deciphered many excellent Hieroglyphicks devises and Impressa's There was Thisâ—e newly returned from the Cave where she had hid her self from the Lioness and beholding her lover Pyramus fallen on his sword she stood as if she was statuized the Painter having pourtrayed in her countenance the passions of grief grown insensibly profound and confounding admiration so to the life that the beholder might see a contention between them both and yet a predominancy of neither Not far distant was Narcissus kneeling over a Fountain beholding his face in the Crystall streams augmenting them with his tears and with a sweet lovely pining countenance lamenting that such a thin transparent Wall should part him from his imaginary love whilst the feigned species so lively reflected back his sweetly languishing looks that one could not tell which most desired the others embraces which most lamented and pined for their unhappy separation There stood the fair Phrygian Shepherd giving the golden Ball to Venus who receiving it with a pretty insulting smile looks on Juno and Pallas whilst scorn revenge and envy display themselves in Juno's countenance but a modest blush veils Pallas's beauty There was Jupiter courting Io with a look discovering both a venereous affection and a fear to be discovered by jealous Juno who was painted to come out of the Clouds with such â—lashes of rage from her eyes as if she had been a thudnerbolt and here the Painter used such Art that if you looked on the one side it was as here is represented but if on the other you might see Io meramorphosed into a Cow therein imitating Jupiter himself who as Poets feign was â—ain to transform his Concubine into a Heifer thinking thereby to hide his salacity under a Cows Hide from his wives jealousie Hard by this sat Hercules in womans attire spinning at Queen Omphales commandment with a furious countenance and a Beard like the Tow on his Distaff who would have moved a Stoicks spleen to laughter whilst the Queen sits in State and with a Majestick smile beholds him By these in Landskips was double-topt Atlas-like supporting the Clouds on his side sat the Nine Muses and Apollo the President of that Virgin Quire from his top stragling rivulets streamed down Near that was Mercury like a Shepherds Boy toying with Hebe under a spreading Oak In one part Ganymede carryed by an Eagle up to the Clouds and wanton Jupiter looking down from heaven with a greedy delight on his fair Boy and blaming his winged Embassador for his loytering In another was Phaeton thrown among the Clouds and Titansâ—aging â—aging Palfreys having broke their reigns galloping through the flaming sky the Chariot tumbling and Heaven and Earth of a blaze as if the Elements had exchanged their places the hungry Fire forsaking its lofty dwelling and comming to feed on the earth the Clouds dispossest of their Airy mansion by the smoak and the Earth and Water ascending only refined and minced into lesser Aâ—omes and in the midst of all this Combustion Phaeton falls into Padus His sisters bewailing his misfortune weeping as if those flames had exhaled all their moysture or as if with the moysture of their tears they endeavoured to quench those flames are turned into Trees but so retaining their natural forms as it was difficult to say whether the drops fell from dewy boughs or tears from their eyes Under a Canopy represented like a Cloud held up by four winged Angels whose golden plumes spread served for Curtaines was a rich Bed covered with a counterpane of Tissue The Table was spread with Carpets of Violet Damask bordered with Gold Amphigenia was set in an Ebony Chair covered with purple Velvet attired in Carnation Sattin embroidred with Roses of Gold her hair which hung in heartintangling Curles was powdered with seed of Pearl her face seemed a compendium of all those excellencies a treasury of all those riches that Beauty and Majesty can bestow to make humanity adorable Danpion that thorough the crevice could perceive this miracle of nature as if every beam shot from her eye had darted into him an Enthusiasm ravished with a kind of divine afflation he sings this Song You Angels that reside above Refine my wit to ' express my Love And sing her praise In Nectars spirits let me steep My brain for Hyppocrene's too course T' would stain my wit which wants a source And flowing fount of fancies deep To sing her praise Inhabit then my steril brains Inspire me with Seraphick strains To sing her piesâ— Whose each part is a Mint of heavenly treasures Excelling all Elizum's feigned pleasures Each eye 's a hive of radiant beams Whose heav'nly rays that thenceforth streams My soul intrance There Venus Doves do build their nests Thence Cupid shoots his fiery Darts Would melt and peirce the steeliest hearts And souls with rapting love divests As in a trance There wanton Love in ambush â—ys To snatch my soul out of my eys And it intrance Ravisht with her perfections here I lye Wrapt in a Soul-transporting extasie Then must I lye here in a swound And is there none can cure my wound The darts themselves That gave the wound the wound can cure Love with thy wings come gently fan My burning Soul ther 's none else can Heal me of my Love Calenture The darts themselves Except 〈◊〉 with Love balm My raging soul can't cure nor calm The Darts themselves Thus ript with love and beauty soon would ease My burning heart and raging soul appease Pure threds of purest gold 's her hair
his way thorough them to come to the Standard-bearer perceiving so great a breach and Chasm as it were in his enemies party improves the benefit of opportunity and rides up to the Standard-bearer kills him and in the fight of all his enemies carries away the Standard which Phoedon a Commander of Horse under Pandion espying pursued with full speed with all the men under his command Others that knew not of this accident seeing their Standard flying and so great a party fled after thought the day was lost and time to secure themselves and thereupon flung down their weapons and hasted after the rest with such confusion as put them into no less disorder than themselves With that a party of the Hiarbian Horse to compleat their victory pursued them and put them so to the rout that they leâ—t few to complain of their harsh usage and some rescued Danpion who being overtaken having indeavoured to keep his prey in despight of his adversaries that invironed him had almost resigned it up had he not been relieved by this fortunate chance In the mean time those few that were inclosed by the Hiarbians were sacrificed to appease the revengful fury of their enemies The victory being thus obtained and Danpion contrary to Hiarbas hopes and expectations won the Standard by this valiant act got so much renown that he was more admired than before the general applause of the Army so cried him up that Hiarbas grew more jealous of him than ever and resolved if that which his Daughter had writ was true to cast him out of favour wholly and put him in an utter incapacity to accomplish any of his high projects But though these were his secret intentions yet he carried himself with as much external serenity towards him as before and arriving with great triumph at the palace after he had abode there some time he secretly inquires of his Daughter whether any one else could affirm what she had writ to be truth She told him every circumstance of it and how that Florinda was come to her rescue before he had fled from her and that she presumed that she was able to inform him more distinctly of his intentions than her self to whom she was and ever should be an utter stranger With that a Lady was presently dispatched as a messenger to Florinda to acquaint her that the King desired a few minutes conference with her in Amphigenias Gardens where he stayed expecting her coming Florinda obeys the summons and accompanies the messenger to the King who after some private converse with her is exceeding inquisitive to know of her whether she could give him any particular information about Danpions design whether she ever had dived into his thoughts and could tell whether he had any aim at the Soveraignty or not and many other questions to the same effect he demanded of her Florinda gives him little or no satisfaction to all his Quaeâ—ies but endeavours to confirm his suspition what she could and inveighs against Danpion with more bitterness than Amphigenia and at length suggested to the King this Counsel that since they had no reasons to convince any man of Danpions treachery and disloyalty but what was grounded chiefly on suspition if his Majesty would deign to honour their advice with his acceptance she would inform him a way â—how he might ransack his very intrals and discover all his intentions and read the very inside of his heart The way she said was this that the King would please to counterfeit himself suddenly seized upon with a malignant distemper and for a time retire himself in his Chamber and admit none of his greatest favourites to wait upon him nor visit him but only the princess his Daughter and her self that so there might be no grounds of suspicion for Danpion and in conclusion to feign himself dead And then she said she questioned not but that she had such an influence upon him by reason of more than ordinary affection that Danpion bare to her as in his presence to make him confess to her if he had any thoughts tending to Amphigenia's dishonour or of disloyalty to the King This advice was accepted of both by Hiarbas and Amphigenia and accordingly put in execution So that suddenly the ears of all were filled with the sad news that the King was fallen dangerously sick The Courtiers swarm like Bees at the King Chamber door to perform their Allegiance to him but none admitted amongst whom Danpion was a constant visitant but as constantly as the rest repulsed In fine Danpion was secretly informed that the King was dead and that care must be taken for establishing his successor before his Death should be divulged lest the knowledge of it should cause any broils and tumults in the Kingdom which it might be apt to occasion there being such swarms of discontented persons and those that affected novelties and alterations though for the worse And if he received not this information for truth his eyes should convince him if he would come to his chamber for Amphigenia they told him durst not disoblige such a potent person as himself who might hazard to interrupt her succession These things being privately buzzed and whispered into Danpions ears by some that were Florindas engines he accordingly repairs to the Kings chamber where he finds him stretched out on a bed of State and covered with a Pall of black Velvet the body lying in a posture lively representing Death and none but Florinda in the room Danpion having contrived all this before hand and by the assistance and fidelity of Florinda thus far effected it was not now to seek in the latter part of his plot but thus begins to confer with Florinda Since Heavens said he seignedly weeping have thus deprived us of our King and me of my Royal Master accounting us unworthy of him and him more worthy to inhabit among the celestial dwellers than such as we are it is both our wisdom and duty first to proclame his Daughter Amphigenia lest an interregnum should occasion any insurrections among this people prone to rebellion and disorder And then to honour his Memorial with the celebration of his Funerals in as great State as may be both to testify to the World our Loyal affections to our deceased King and also that our Forein and Intestine wars have not so exhausted the publick treasury but that we are able to support and maintain the honour of our King and Country Tell not me my dearest said Florinda of State affairs they belong not to our Sex but if I have found any place in thy Heart let me conjure thee by the many vehement protestations of affection to disclose a secret to me the faithful revealing of which I shall esteem as a far greater confirmation of thy loves reality than ten thousand asseverations Prethee be free and ingenuous in thy expression and leave not my thoughts a prey to their own anxiety to doubt will more torment me than all thy
better notice of because she was all the cook they had And indeed she was an exquisite piece and so youl 'd say if you had seen her and so Anus her mother Moschus her suter and Bion her well-wisher said and I should think the verdict of such curious persons might be something regarded but you 'l object that their judgements were byassed with interest and affection so may be yourn is for ought I know But then to convince you further I 'le describe her To begin with the crown of her Head kind Nature the better to discover the pure whiteness of the skin that covered her thick Scull had lovingly unthatched her crown and peel'd away all the unnecessary haiâ— thereabouts and lest her a dainty soft ridge of moss that fringed her head round like a garland so that if you had seen her you would have certainly thought she had a night cap on thrumnd with furs This hair was something short lest it should hide her comly spatious Ears spatious they were that so they might hear the biggest sounds distinctly which was the reason that she often gave why she had the sense of hearing so admirable and could distinguish of sounds so acutely for she would stand without doors and if the Dog threw down the tonges in the kitchen or the Sow overset the Milk pan in the Dairy she would tell you exactly what it was fell down and never go into the house at all to know and therefore she would often wisely admire how it was possible for little ears to hear great sounds for said she how should great sounds get in at little ears but I think that Objection might be answered by your Naturalists that make it their business to pry into Natures abstruse and abscondite secrets and therefore to their wisdoms I leave the discussion of it and proceed in my description Her head was triangular that being as Moschus would often say the best and most commodious shape for said he for you must note he was book learned a head of a rotund figure cannot possibly be so commodious to lodge the three Organs of the Soul the common sense phantasie and the memory nor contain so much wit as a three square noddle for a Globical head quoth he learnedly confusedly jumbles all the three together which is the reason that many are so troubled with the Vertigo in their brain it is because they are round heads their conceits endlesly running in a circle of fancy having neither rational beginning nor ending But now a tripple corner'd noddle hath three convenient cavities where the three things aforesaid may lye distinctly and severally undisturbed like Hares on their Forms or Foxes in their holes untill they are started and unkennel'd by the barkings of Reason And further said he I 'me sure its plain it cannot contain so much wit for a Globe cannot fill a triangle much less can that that is contained in it fill it For quoth he this is an undeniable rule that body that can contain both the thing containing and the thing contained can much more contain the thing contained that can be contained in thing containing But prethee Moschus be not thus tedious in thy prolix comments upon thy Daphinsses strange perfections but let me proceed Her purple forehead that colour betokening Majesty was streaked with lovely wrinkles which black with atomes of dirt that as it were in love with her beauty had transplanted themselves from their native habitations to dwell in those amiable furrows so that they looked like shadowy stroaks that Nature made the better to set off the 〈◊〉 of her beauty or rathâ—r like curious folds where Nature wrapped her perfections lest they should dazzle spectators Eyes Eye-brows she had none lest she should srown and fright her poor Lovers her Eyes were dainty Matches at which Cupid enkindled the Torches of Affection and set them on fire for her Lovers hearts Matches did I say They were not Matches for the one was as big again as the other Her right Eye being of a Hazel brown stood peeping out of its Den like a Mouse catched in a Trap for so her Lovers thought that that be sure was ensnared in Loves Trap and enticed with the Bait of Affection but her left Eye being of a goggle size to revenge her sisters quarrel stood staring out ready to â—ly in their faces for having such base thoughts of the right And indeed Dame Nature had herein shewed abundance of wisdom for she had placed a third part of her left Eye out of her head leâ—t her right eye modestly hiding it self should creep into her head and placed her right eye farr into her head lest her left Eye should staâ—â— quite out of her head Her vertuous Nose was like the letter Y Pythagoras Hieroglyphick of vertue whence a rare quiâ—tessential distillation continually dropped which leâ—t it should be lost her nether lip stood pouâ—ing out to catch it Her Cheeks were of a Pease-porridge-tawny the Sun being in love with her rare beauty as the Moon was with Endymion had often all to be kisst her what had I like to have said but if I had I think you would have believed me if you had seen her complexion I say he often smacked her countenance and left the print of his lips behind Indeed a dainty crop of hair she had upon her upper lip which some said was made for an eye-brow because she being singular in her other parts was therein to have been a miracle and had her eyes placed under her nose that she might the better see the way to her mouth But Moschus whose judgement I chiefly follow replyed That the comely latitude of her mouth made it an easie mark for her fingers and then had they been placed there a constant Flux of Rheum from her nose had interrupted their sight But as for that curious hay-mow on her lip for so I may properly term it by reason of pretty mops and mews she used to make would provoke any one to spue out a laughter and because once in twenty five hours she used to mow it but if that term will not please then that thorn-hedge on her lip was but to fence round the dike her mouth to keep her nose from trespassing on her chin But Moschus said they were the prickles that grew about the Roses of her lips Her teeth as if afraid they should eat one another were ranked in their open order to give the freer passage to her words Rankt do I say I that they were like the dregs of putrefaction or the corrupted funk that steams from the purging Carkass of a gut-â—ed Cannibal Her neck warpt awry that made her head stand on one side as if she had a mind to a kiss But as for her other parts I leave the description of them to those that are better acquainted as Moschus Bion c. fearing lest in going about to convince my Reader of an uncharitable error I my self commit an error
King having notice of it he immediately sends for him to come to his presence to give an account of his absence for there wanted not in the Court those malitious and yet ambitious spirits that repining at Danpions supereminent glories took all advantages against him and in particular this of his withdrawing from the Court to beget suspitious thoughts of him in the King that so by degrees they might bring him to his Occident whose presence thus in the Meridian favour totally obscured their lustre and in whose absence only their dim Star-light could appear And knowing him to be too potent with the King and too strongly fixed in his bosom to remove by apparent violence and impetuosity they therefore imitating those that when they cannot take a Fort by storm seek to undermine it sought privately to calumniate and reproach him with treachery an infidelity to which this present absence of his seemed to add no small confirmation But all these obtrectations proved in the end but like Dogs barkings at the Moon who slackens her pace never the more nor wraps her face in a Cloud never the sooner for all his Cholerick yelpings So Danpion soon obtained his former favour when he had informed the King that the occasion of his absence was only an accidental loss of his way as he rode out on an Evening for his recreation Danpion having continued some time in the Court seeks by all means possible to acquaint Florinda that he was returned that she might give him intelligence whether there were any hopes of reconciliation with Amphigenia and whether all endeavors to that purpose would be fruitless or not Florinda having notice by this means that Danpion was come secretly repairs to his Chamber and there tells how desperate averse the Lady Amphigenia yet continued to all his Sex and in particular to him by reason of the last affront he offered her for so she esteemed it but yet incourages him to prosecute his intents with what prudence and secresie he could for she said the prosecution of such a design required both in the full extent of their natures and moreover she promised him that wherein her assistance could be available she did oblige her whole power to his service Danpion returning her infinite thanks for her unimitable civilities takes his leave and goeth and ponders by himself and at length concludes upon a plot which in short time he thus puts in execution It was when the black brow'd night triumphing over the day sate shaking her dewy locks in her Ebony throne having spred her rorid Carpet over the sable Hemisâ—here and dul-eyed Morpheus with his drooping Charmes and husht the tyred senses to their rest when Danpion attended on by his Page secretly steals through the crankling vault to Amphigenia's Chamber whom he finds just as the drowsie Deity had benummed her senses a book in her hand and her waxen Taper a Lovers true Hieroglyphick burning by her as if composed of Lovers hearts it had fetcht flames from her eyes and with those flames consumed it self to ashes And perceiving the opportunity fit for his intended enterprize he attires his beautiful Boy like one of heavens swift Pursivants with golden Wings which by reason of a private Engine so poyzed his body in the Air like Archytas Dove that as if some secret spirit lurkt in those gilded plumes he could convey himself whether he pleased About his fair naked body was girt a silken weed which partly of a Caerulean-colour sweetly intermixed with purple streaks seemed as if he had been clothed in a piece of Aurora's mantle and partly of a misty gloomy colour artificially interwoven with Gold looked as if he had snatcht a Sun-beam sheathed in a dewy cloud that golden Zone that encompassed his middle looked like the Zodiack the Jewels wherewith it was embost like the Planets and the rich Carbuncle that served for a button whose nature is to be most resulgent in the darkest night shone with so much resplendency as in the midst of that darkness it most lightsomely represented the Sun In the one hand he put a Harp and in the other a Letter which was thus superscribed Venus Queen of Beauty to Amphigenia her Successor In this Garb he conveys him into the room through a secret passage like a trap-door made in the roof of the Chamber that he had carved out for that purpose The lovely Boy being thus entred into the room and instructed in all things gently moves his Air-dividing Pineons and marrying his sweet quavering voyce to the Harpes ravishing Airs as he flys sings this Song Fair Venus Queen of Beauty's dead And hath bequeath'd her white and red To Amphigene And that her Graces all should lye In thee as in a treasury Perfections lovely Queen Thus runs her will And heavenly powers have sworn it to fulfill And those that us'd for to invoke Her name and make her Altars smoke With fumes of sighs And haunted oft her hallowed shrine And owned Love a power divine Quotidian votaries At her last breath More sweet than Myrrh to these she dâ—d bequeath A coyn made of thy heavenly gold With melting flames of love that should Dissolved be And Cupids image stampt thereon And dol'd about to these for none But such deserv't said she And then a groan She gave that heav'n eccho'd with the tone And sighing said as she did mone I here surrender up my Throne To Amphigene Her eyes refulgent beams must be Scepters to rule all hearts and she Must now be Beauties Queen Go Boy proclame Through all the world fair Amphigenia's fame Scarce this she said ere she expir'd I 'me come to do what she desir'd Hail Amphigene All hearts must now revere adore Thy rare perfections nay yet more To thee as Beauties Queen Admiring eyes And tongues must tribute pay and sacrifice The powers above to keep their vows With Graces all do Crown thy brows Her will t' obey Her neckless made by Cupids arts Of weeping eyes and bleeding hearts Linkt on a fulgent ray That streaming came From thy sweet eye they must restore the same The Coach where she triumphant rode And thy Idea hath abode Is Danpions heart Thy cheeks must be the milkâ— Doves By which the Chariot's drawn by Loves Transcendent Conquering Art And to restrain Thy tressing curles must be both whip and reign Then as a Herald from the powers Above the Queens Executors Proclame I do Thee Queen of hearts and Queen of Love That Angels rules that dwell above And men that live below Then here by Jove And Styx thou swear'st thou 'lt not a tyrant prove Having sung this Song as he wav'd to and fro in the room he gently descends upon the Bed where Amphigenia lay and delivers her the Letter which contained thus much Let not my death cause thee to entertain any undervaluing thoughts of thy perfections for though with its sordid embraces it may soil so pure an immaculate transcript where Nature in Rosie tâ—nctured â—eatures as
which those excellencies before drowned in sorrow now swimming in her countenance sufficiently testified so that Polienus who before beheld her only with compassion now looks upon her with admiration for she seemed to him not composed of the common principles but of some heavenly materials even refined to an immateriality fit to captivate an immaterial soul so that at length he never viewed her but he saw some sweetness some grace some delicacy that gradually converted his admiration into affection and by an imperceptible ascension gave love the soveraignty over his heart and now Glycera and none but Glycera grew the object of his thoughts the subject of his discourse and the joy of his heart Long did Polienus cover his affection with the veil of silence but love though its chiefest residence is in the heart yet it will oft peep forth at the Casements of the eyes and like the Bee though its dwelling is in the Hive of the heart yet it must come forth to feed it self with the heavenly sweets imparadized in those flowers that grow in the Garden of Beauty so Polienus though he endeavoured to conceal his griefs yet his eyes would disclose what his heart inclosed for if ever he was in her presence her beauties attracted both his eyes and heart and the radiant beams that glanc'd from hers would seem to strike upon his heart strings and compose such a soft entrancing melody as he thought he felt his very Soul charmed into a love extasie Polienus thus observing daily how love did degree it self into his heart and a crowd of inevitable inconveniences issuing thereupon thronging into his understanding he strove to suppress all insurrections of that passion that thus endeavoured to depose his will and make his Reason do homage to it what he could For you must know this Polienus was one of prime quality having both a great wit and a greater fortune so that what the former could devise the latter could accomplish his person also not being meanly beautiful yet his beauty consisting in a mean between a masculine comeliness and a feminine sweetness and one who as he was never a hater so neither ever any great admirer of the female sex but looked on them as piles of well complexioned dust that like Sodoms Apples with the least touch of Times finger would moulder to nothing or as Natures painted Gallipots where you may meet as oft with poison as with a potion where he saw Vertue enshrined in the Temple of Beauty there he could even adore and counted such as Angels invested in refined flesh but where he saw Vertue lye bleeding in a Rosie cheek and Lillyed beauty to serve only for Chastities winding sheet those he counted as Devils clothed in an Angels form and born to tempt men to recede from vertue and sent to be plagues to the minds of men and preserved for eternal pestilence to the world This Polienus had been beloved by Amorosia daughter to Loritus King of Cyprus a Lady whose accomplishments might well have challenged a reciprocal affection having a delicate wit treasured in the Ivory Cabinet of a beautiful body and as she had powerful passions in a great mind so her mind had great power over her passions so that long she could conceal her love sealing it under the impression of her memory but you know love is such a strong passion that you may as well think to squeez down the Sun-beams and hinder their reflection as to suppress the flames of love but in despight of all opposition yea the more for opposition they will rebound from the heart to the eyes and are legible there to any that are not unacquainted with the Characters of affections and besides in women that passion is ever most visible their Ivory faireness is but as white paper where they pourtray the picture of their minds which their tongues are loth to betray their thin skins being as transparent Crystal through which the beams of love wil shine therefore the most Chast in that respect have not the gift of continence but though they may think to Cloyster up Love as a Recluse in the chast Nunneries of their hearts yet alas upon the least allurements of their beloveds beauty they will suffer all such vain resolves to be ravished from them and their eyes and tongues to be wedded to a heart-inflaming eye so it was with Amorosia in his absence his praises was all the entertainment of her discourse in his presence her eyes must move with his as if the beams that came from his had chained hers and as oft as she spake she must accent her sentences with sighs by those fumes plainly discovering the fire in her heart which though Polienus observed yet he would not be observed to have observed it but rather penned down his observations in the leiger of his memory But Amorosia's affection that had thus long been imprisoned in her heart would no longer endure restraint but must either come forth or break the prison so that no longer able to endure the unsupportable tyranny of her passion she goes to Polienus and with as much eloquence as a mind wracked between the extremitiâ—s of two violent passions Love and Fear and distracted with the contrary thoughts of pondering how to speak and whether to speak at all could frame deciphering first in her sweet countenance the prologue of her discourse she displays the storehouse of her desires and withall craves of him to poize them in the ballances of honor and not to let this condescension of hers exhale any mists of uncharitable thoughts that might obscure her Vertue Polienus observing in what costly robes both her speech and countenance was apparelled the former clad in the refined Goâ—d of eloquence even dazled his mind with admiration but in the latter such a Majesty clothed in purple sat inthroned as seemed rather to dazle than delight so that he could not but wonder though he could not love or rather he wondred why he could not love but though her perswasive speeches and speaking looks could not dart affection into him yet they even tranâ—fixt his heart with compassion which procured from him only a short reply wishing that heaven would crown him with so much happiness as to raise his merits to that height that deservedly he might be seated in the throne of her heart but till then he craved pardon if he rejected her sute and begged of her rather to accuse his fortunes than him that did thus incapacitate him to satisfie so great a debt as the high honor she had done him did oblige him to But however since he could not retaliate her affection nor retribute her unparallel'd favours yet he would accept them with a desire to compensate when his benign Stars should bless him with a possibility With this answer she went home endeavoring to cast as charitable a gloss upon it as expressions of so deep a sable dye would bear so easie it is to circumvent a soul
but Glycera was conveyed to Kolax his house one who was much favoured of the King not for his merit but for his flattery being a man of a servile leaden spirit and one that would perfectly bow and comply with the Kings humour and receive any Form or Impression he would stamp upon him and thus by this counterfeit Coyn gilded over with fair pretences did he purchase his Kings favour and possess his easie nature so that if any thing that required extraordinary fidelity was to be done he was the Person Elected and for that reason Glycera became his Prisoner But Glycera under all these inquietudes behaved her self with so much aequanimity as plainly shewed that her soul had more Antidote in it than misfortune had Poyson as if her constant suffering Fortunes inconstancy had hardned her soul contrary to the nature of spirits to an impenetrability Which Kolax observing together with the vivacity of her Wit the magnanimity of her Spirit the solidity of her Judgment and the Majesty that attended them all could not sufficiently behold her and at length fell from beholding to admiring and from admiring to affecting and thus became his Prisoners Prisoner Glycera perceiving both visible and audible effects of his passion thought a favourable entertainment of him so far as vertue would permit might be a means to procure some liberty from her strict restraint and therefore received him still with a Countenance as full of sweetness and grace as her mind repleat with goodness could dispose her to frame so that at last she totally gained his heart to her devotion Zelota wiâ—e to Kolax a woman easie to be moved and being once moved of an implacable spirit espying her husbands love to Glycera not enduring that any should be admired or affected besides her self and yet doing nothing that might merit admiration or affection except to detract from others will challenge the Title of Desert and the reward of Admiration resolved to countermine all their underminings of her Honour and either to make way for Glycera's slight or to make her away where she should never more be a Pest to her cankered mind At length intelligence arrived at her ears of a Vessel bound for Peloponnesus which she presently gave information of to Glycera promising to assist in her escape to the utmost of her ability and covering the venom in her heart with pleasing looks and more pleasing expressâ—ons she prevailed so farr on Glycera's Charity as to infuse a sleepy Potion into her husbands drink that should seize all his senses with such a Lethargy as ere he recovered out of his brain-sick trance she might be near arrived at Peloponnesus and from thence she said the passage to Thessalia was not difficult Glycera poizing these Proposals in her judgment thought it not inconsistent with prudence to accept of them for all those mountains of discouragements that despair raised in her thoughts now lay level to her wishes and what would be the conclusion of her Imprisonment she knew not but however this she resolved should be the Conclusion of her doubtfully revolving thoughts that a few dayes should put a Conclusion to her abode there The next day Zelota comes to Glycera with a Cup commixt not with a sleepy but a poysonous drug oh heavens what will not a malitious mind animated with Revenge be provoked unto What venemous gore will not distil out of the ranklings of a gangrened mind festered with the incurable wounds of jealousie Glycera not at all imagining what a horrid enterprize she went about to atchive yet all the way as she went a strange kind of horror seized upon her spirits the very Ayr seemed to fetter her leggs and every shadowy appearance or even shadow of such an appearance seemed to interrupt her Progress that she even thought her self hurryed away by a strange kind of fate contrary to the bent of her own Genius however she stops not but goes to Kolax and tells him that she had brought him a Love-poâ—ion that would incite amorous desires in the coldest nature Kolax accepts it with gratitude as love you know invests all things with an amability that proceeds from the Object beloved and drinks of it with such excess as if he had a mind to convert himself into Loves individual substance But no sooner had he emptyed the Cup of Poyson than the poysonful Cup had filled him with pain and horror and having roared out some curses on Glycera he dyed leaving her overwhelmed with amazing Terrors and rerrifying amazement The Servants of the house hearing this hidious cry ran up to their Masters Chamber where they found him dead with Poyson and Glycera with astonishment affrighted with this woful sight some ran to find Zelota but she that morning had taken a walk abroad intending to be absent at the execution of her bloody Plot thereby to avoid suspition Others apply themselves to recall Glycera's miserable senses but ah to be the more sensible of her misery and others ran to call near-adjoyning Inhabitants to behold this lamentable Spectacle so that in a short time Fame had blazed abroad this direful Tragedy that it re-sounded in the Kings Court and at length came to the Kings ears also who no sooner heard it but he grew even distracted with sorrow for the loss of his minion and threatned presently to send Glycera after him of a message to Pluto to require him in his name to release Kolax from his dark Prisons and send him among the living or else if he could provoke all the Powers in Heaven and Earth to destroy his Kingdom he would do it Amorosia his Daughter that had a Character given her by some of Kolax his Servants of Glycera how she was a woman endued with solid Vertue profound Wisdom and strong Judgment and hated not so much the name of Vice as to be vitious that if the Air had a voyce it could proclaim no such infection from her as constantly steams from an impious soul so that an Angel in his most recluse retirements is not more chast than she and whoever had an eye that could have pierced into her heart would have been a greater admirer of her Internal Vertue than External Beauty though in that was sufficiently pourtrayed all the lineaments of a mind fraught with goodness Amorosia I say having this description given her could not let common fame commit such a Rape on her Charity or entice her to wed her belief to the tatling reports that all places abounded in but fell down on her knees and in a passionate manner implored Glycera's remission of her father or at least a forbearance of Execution till her Cause was heard But the King the more enraged with her Petitions thus replyed What said he we shall have you Attorney to every Strumpet to plead for their unlawful courses and intercede for perverting justice no Daughter let this resolve of mine henceforth make you cease the renovations of this sort of entreaties for believe it
I 'll not suffer an Innocents blood to rust that Sword of justice that hath hitherto been kept bright to the dazling of admiring Beholders Amorosia hearing this forbore any further supplications till her father freed from his passionate Feaver might be able to relish her counsel which being not long after she goeth to him and informs him of her state and lays before him all the probabilities of her innocency a mind discreet and charitable could suppose together with the inconveniences might ensue a rash execution of a Forein Lady allyed as she heard to the blood Royal of Thessalia and courted by Prince Pâ—â—dion and withall gave him such a description of her that at last divorced the former resolutions from his mind and wrought in him such a compassion for Glycera's adversity that he commanded she should be honorably attended and entertained but yet imprisoned for the space of about a year and half within which time if Pandion sent not some Knight that by encountring with and overcoming some Knight of Cyprus should release her that then she should endure the penalty of the Law but in the mean time he would dispatch a messenger unto him to give him intelligence of her condition and his determination The messenger that he sent was the Knight that I spake of before and the person elected to atchieve this enterprise is my self No sooner had he spoke these words than a shrill noise peirced their ears with such an acuteness as if it had fled before to make way for a groan that presently succeeded it which they hearing imagining they came from some distressed Lady ran with speed to help her and just as they turned round they espied Florinda under a Tree hard by the place where they had sate and discoursed fallen upon the ground in a swound Periander seeing this chafes her tender limbs and recovers her out of her deadly trance who when she perceived her self restored to her self she falls a weeping and sighing ah said she can my Periander find in his heart to leave me I can and will leave thee with all my heart said Periander I mean all my heart with thee but to find in my heart to leave thee I cannot since I can find nothing there but thee Oh but Periander shall not go said she Periander will not go said he for hee 'l leave his soul with thee his better part And will you then be gone said Florinda weeping what shall become of me the while think you Live in as much repose said Periander as a vertuous mind rewarded by heaven with earthly joys can extract from its own internal felicity Can true Lovers part then with so much ease said she I had hoped and then the tears distilled down her Cheeks in such abundance as interrupted her speech yet fain she would have spoke but her striving to speak made her speech the more difficult so that grief made so large a Parenthesis as if it would have put a period to her life in the midst of her sentence but proceeding I had hoped said she Periander had thought I had loved him too dearly ever to take any repose in his absence But though he can part from me and exchange a spotless affection for a little blood-stained honor though he can insatiably carowse my tears yet I could not see a tear drop from his eyes but 't would corrode my soul nor can I part from him and retain my self for affection hath so glewed him to my heart as the least separation would rend it in pieces But he discoursing to her how much it did import his honor and of what evil consequence to Danpions affairs his negligence in that respect would be she hung on his neck and kissed his cheeks and all the while bathed her kisses and his cheeks in tears Oh said she do not do not go if we must part now we must part for ever But with that as if every letter in the word Ever had been a thunderbolt shot from the sulphurous clouds of love mixt with sorrow in her heart her senses were on a sudden overwhelmed with extremity and she falls down into a swoun Periander seeing this was forc't to take an abrupt leave of Danpion whose dear affection each to other would else have compelled them to be more copious in their parting ceremonies and takes Florinda in his arms and carries her to a house neer adjoyning where we leave them Danpion being thus unhappily deprived of his friends and with them of his hopes of ever attaining either his Love or his Kingdom began most passionately to lament his condition For Periander that had so far befriended him on Pandions side and Florinda by whose means he had accomplished many projects in Hiarba's Court and who had defended him so often from Hiarbas and Amphigenia's displeasure were now both gone so that he seemed at once to have lost both his sword and buckler and left alone to manage his designs and bear the brunt of all In this condition he returned to his Chamber and there gave vent to his sorrows and in the midst of all his sadness he sets down this resolution with himself that since all his hopes were fled with Periander and Florinda he would quench that Vestal fire of chast love that flamed in his heart which could only be kindled at the beams of Amphigenia's beauty and with the smoke of that extinguished flame smother his grief and deface that image of sorrow deciphered in his de-dejected countenance and streight apply himself to Hiarbas will and comply with his humors by that means not onely to enter into but to interr himself alive during his dying life in his affection But humane determinations are but as glistering Bubbles where some bright reflections may please the fancy for a while but soon vanish into Air with the least blast of a divine decree every beam of a Planet comes laden with transformations which though it cannot have immediate commerce with the immaterial soul yet it will bribe the Organs and by that means unhinge the doors of resolution that exclude inconstancy from the mind So Danpion however for a time he flattered his sorrows with the thoughts of blotting out the Characters of love with black oblivion yet at length he found love to be of such a strange invincible unresistable force that the more he endeavoured to conquer its rebellions the more it rebelled and conquered his endeavors so that in despight of his reason he was led captive by his passion Flashes of beauty may dazle beholders eyes but where they light to purpose they melt the steeliest hearts and make them receive impressions of love which cannot soon be obliterated which Danpions experience could confirm for the more he endeavoured to extinguish the flames of affection with the cold blasts of despair the more ardent they grew and the less tolerable so that at length with constant pining not onely the colour but the figure of his face began to be
where as was reported luxury and excess seemed to ride in triumph in every dish as though the storehouses of the elements had been ransacked to furnish his Table as if he had been rather to have courted his Mistrisses appetite than her affection so that his Table seemed the Scene of Prodigality whereon was acted the Tragedy of Temperance and true Liberalty the most poinant meats being poisons to the former as excessive profuseness is destructive to the latter But the Feast being concluded Plivio had another play to act to which this served but for a Prologue and that was to seize upon Arritesia that since as the Philosopher saith every one is the framer of his own fate he resolved that none should accuse his negligence for his infelicity but he would purchase that by compulsion to which milder means he saw would prove ineffectual For my Lord you must know Arritesia was a Lady in whom appeared all the delicate attractives of beauty and external demonstrations of internal Vertue so that as the former would sufficiently excuse a Stoick should he become an amorist excuse nay accuse him of a base ignorance of worth should he not admire her perfections so the influence of the latter might have created goodness in the worst of men and rendered him inexcusable in whose breast was the least spark of an impure fire Now no wonder if a vertuous soul enshrined in so sweet a body by a reflex act viewing its own internal beauty be like Narcissus gazing on his picture limned by the Sun-beams in a Fountain enamoured with its own excellencies and so was Arritesia yet not so as to obscure her worth with being void of humility but rather made Humility a means to discover the worthiness of her worth and so her Vertues as they became more perspicuous so more delectable so that if her humility was apt to entice hope her dazling worth would again stupisie and confound it But as none can cast up their eyes at the Sun with more confidence and less dazling than the blind so none are less ravished with true worth than those whose ignorance of it makes them least admire it So Plivio though none had less grounds for hope yet none had greater confidence than he not because he so far excelled others as that his transcending deserts should excite her to pitch upon him but because his worth being short of many made him less able to discern of anothers and begat conceits of himself above what his deserts could challenge and such thoughts in any will soon augment hope to a presumption but this did but create the more disesteemes of him in Arritesia's thoughts who by the light of her own worth was able to see his worthlesness and where disesteem once gets entrance its hard to crowd out disaffection they being inseparably linked together as love and contempt are irreconcileably separated so that Arritesia thus slighting his person would much more contemn his importunings that she let all his words dye in their own sounds his most pathetick expressions taking no more impression on her than puffs of Air upon an Adamant Her mind was a Paradise where swarmed Angels of high thoughts such thoughts as each deserved a Crown and could he think such thoughts would admit of society with so mean and abject meditations as his imaginary Vertues But whither doth my passion transport me Plivio finding her thus as he tearmed her an obstinate piece bent his wit more to devise some stratagem how to procure her by the favour of policy than before he did to compose his smooth courting speeches to storm her by the force of eloquence And having by that subtilty enticed her to his Castle as I told you after the Feast was concluded and the riâ—hes of the time spent in dalliance and delights the two Siâ—â—ers with great acknowledgements of his câ—vility took leave of him Plivio being now if ever to accomplâ—sh his desâ—râ—s waits upon them to the Castle Gaâ—e performs many ceremonies to them both to delay their sudden departure but especially to Arritesia to whom he applies himself in all the dilatory postures of a parling Lover so that Matilda by this time was entered into her Coach and all their attendants stood without waiting when Plivio would dismiss their Lady whose ear was surfeited with his tedious complements But Plivio having now brought about what he desired thought it not prudence to dally with opportunity but on the suddain gives the watch-word to his servants who being able to interpret the meaning make fast the Gate and by force drew in Arritesia into the Castle not regarding her pittiful shrieks and crys and tears able to wound the flintyest heart and peirce the most impenetrable ears Oh! that heaven should ever permit any to fix the superscription of love upon actions so plainly visible to the dimmest eye to be nothing but the off-springs of a luxurious passion Matilda with the company that were without hearing Arritesia's crys and seeing the sad effects of his plot and that his former delays were but the courtings of occasion they in a confused manner run home to Pirotes's house to inform him of his Daughters surprizal but as they went amazing fear had so distracted some and fearless amazement transported others that when Pirotes at their arrival having his heart no less filled with terror than his ears were with the noise of that rout inquired of them the cause of their confusion as the one at first could not tell what to relate so neither could the other tell how to deliver their doleful message but made their countenances supply the defects of their speech till at length they declared the villany of Plivio and the misery of his Daughter Pirotes whose ears with such greedy haste hunted for words had now over-taken the prey that preyed upon him and pulling his hat over his face as I was told tears fell in such abundance as if his heart dissolved into drops had distilled thorough his eyes such a source of sorrow did over-â—low him as even drowned his senses and with too much sense of grief made grief become senseless Sorrow when it swells above the dam of moderation confounds it self In this confused conflict of mind he fixes this resolution in his thoughts if an unsteadfast mind floating on the inconstant waves of grief can ever be said to resolve that a few womanish complaints should not satisfie his revenge but he would give the coyn that Mars uses to purchase Kingdoms with for her Dowry The next day according to his resolution he summons all his Tenants together and as many as thorow either envy or hatred to Plivio or love to Arritesia for she had many suters and he many rivals whose merits far over-ballanced his though his fortunes exceeded theirs would appear in arms against him and besieges him in his Castle before his spies could give any information so that all his preparations were to fight Cupids battels for instead of that
another in her Apparel whom he said he put to death for endeavouring to betray him and in that manner to terrifie Hiarbas Every man astonisht at the hearing of this no less than if the Gods had come down from Heaven to act wonders on Earth but especially Pandion and Hiarbas whose affection had increased their admiration even to a transport but recollecting themselves they commanded she should be brought to them that they might bless their eyes with sight of the most beautiful Lady that ever made her Sex adored which to their unexpressable joy waâ— soon performed Amphigenia appearing in a mean habit but so as her beauty seemed to put a Majesty on meanness whom no sooner Hiarbas beheld but he ran and embraced her with somthing more fondness of affection than became a wise Father and more condescension than was fit for a King in such a presence to declare And as for Pandion the excess of joy at the first sight almost took away the act of seeing and pillaged his memory of those high-flown expressions that the raptures of love had created in his fancy but in an humble manner begged pardon for whatsoever of his that in the strictest sense might be interpreted rudeness which he said proceeded from an irresistible impulse of affection And further he craved of her that since it was not her pleasure so much as to inparadize his Form in her thoughts for her eyes were somthing cast aside upon the wall shewing a lofty kind of humility but to make an inanimate creature the object of his envy that yet she would permit his lips as Pilgrims from his heart to sacrifize the pure Oblations of his Love upon her hand that pure shrine of pureness and there to inscribe its Image that when the beauties of her hand might challenge a glance from her eyes that glance might challenge remembrance from her thoughts of the humblest of her servants and the most passionately devoted to her Princely Vertues Having said this he adventured to take her hand and steal the riches of a Kiss from that soft and delicate Treasury which she permitted with a countenance that shewed rather how she hated her captivity than loved her Captive These salutations being past Amphigenia was conducted to some Ladies that hearing of all these Accidents were come to congratulate their Princesses safety and to wait upon her home to the Palace After which Pandion accompanyed by Hiarbas attended by all the Lords and Gentlemen guarded by Athalus's Army having left Celadon Commander in chief of the Castle presently followed whereâ— having steeped some time in an Ocean of delights and bribed it with the choycest of Pleasures to mend its pace Pandion was crowned in the chief City of Thessalia with all the joy and contentment pomp and gallantry as might either beget Loyalty to Soveraignty or Reverence to Majesty both which that the people might express they sent up such volleys of acclamations to the Clouds as if they meant to storm Heaven and plunder it of its choysest glories wherewith to crown their King After which Hiarbas would have departed to his own Kingdom of Caonia together with his Daughter Amphigenia there to have spent the small remainder of his dayes But Pandion would by no means permit it telling him that the whole Kingdom should be as much at his command as ever only reserving the Superiority to himself acquainting him also what Impositions of affection his Daughters worth had laid upon him for which reasons Hiarbas consented to take up his abode in Pandion's Court chiefly perswaded thereunto by the hopes of having such an incomparable Prince for his Son in Law by whose happy conjunction with his Daughter in marriage the Soveraignty of Thessalia might run in his Reins which was ever the highest aym of his ambition Having thus led my Hero through all difficulties into the Throne and layd him in the lap of Fortune it may be expected that to compleat his happiness I should have placed him in the Arms of his beloved Amphigenia But they that know the tedious intricacy and perplexing but yet fidling difficulty there is in getting the love of a Coy Mistress will I hope excuse me if I give my Pen a quietus est after so long a Pilgrimage I esteem Ambition a more tolerable and Masculine distraction than Love And therefore I had rather place my Hero in the more noble embraces of Fortune than in the soft Effeminate Arms of a Lady about which I have not impertinent thoughts enow to spend Possibly I may be also thought too hard-hearted in leaving my other Lovers succourless in their miseries and not leading them out of their Labyrinths by the Threed of my discourse But the vulgar Rule of Romaâ—ces may salve all That the Knight must kill the Gyant and get the Lady And those that are not pleased with this Conclusion let them throw away as many idle hours as I have done and they may compleat that Story which hath now quite jaded and dull'd my Pen. Finis coronat Opus