CHRISTS PASSION A TRAGEDIE WITH ANNOTATIONS LONDON Printed by Iohn Legatt M. D. C. XL. M. TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE SIR I Am bold to present you with this Peece of the PASSION the Originall designed by the curious Pensill of Grotius whose former afflictions seeme to have taught him pliable passions and art to rule the affections of others cloathing the saddest of Subjects in the sutable attire of Tragedy not without the Example of two ancient Fathers of the Primitive Church Apollinarius and Nazianzen The Argument is of both the Testaments a patheticall Abstract Those formidable Wonders effected by God in his owne Common-wealth those stupendious Miracles for truth a Pattern to all History for strangenesse to all Fables here meet together to attend on CHRIST'S PASSION The effects of his Power here sweetly end in those of his Mercy and that terrible Lord of Hosts is now this meeke God of Peace reconciling all to one another and Man-kinde to Him-selfe Sr. in this change of Language I am no punctuall Interpreter a way as servill as ungracefull Quintilian censures a Painter that he more affected Similitude then Beauty who would have shown greater Skill if lesse of Resemblance the same in Poetry is condemned by Horace of that Art the great Law-giver Thus in the Shadow of your Absence dismist from Arms by an Act of Time have I in what I was able continued to serve you The humblest of your Majesties Servants GEORGE SANDYS THE PERSONS JESUS CHORUS OF JEWISH WOMEN PETER PONTIUS PILATE CAIAPHAS JUDAS THE JEWS FIRST NUNCIUS SECOND NUNCIUS CHORUS OF ROMANE SOULDIERS JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA NICODEMUS JOHN MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS Imprimatur Tho: Wykes September 17. 1639 THE FIRST ACT. JESVS O Thou who govern'st what thou didst create With equall sway great Arbiter of Fate The Worlds Almighty Father I thy Son Though born in Time before his Course begun Thus far my Deeds have answered thy Commands If more remain my Zeale prepared stands To execute thy Charge all that I feare All that I hate I shall with patience beare No misery refuse no toile nor shame I know for this into the world I came And yet how long shall these extreames indure What Day or Night have known my life secure My burthen by induring heavier grows And present ills a way to worse disclose My Kingdome Heaven I left to visit Earth And suffer'd banishment before my Birth An unknown Infant in a stable born Lodg'd in a manger little poore forlorn And miserable though so vile a Thing Yet worthy of the envy of a King Two yeers scarce yet compleat too old was thought By Herods fears while I alone was sought The bloudy Sword Ephratian Dames deprives Of their dear Babes through wounds they exhal'd their lives Secur'd by flying to a forreign Clime The Tyrant through his Error lost his Crime A Thousand Miracles have made me known Through all the World and my extraction shown Envy against me raves yet Vertue hath More storms of Mischief rais'd then Herods wrath It is decreed by thy unchanging Will I should be acknowledg'd and rejected still Th' inspired Magi from the Orient came Prefer'd my Starre before their Mithra's flame And at my infant feet devoutly fell But Abrahams Seed the House of Israel To thee sequestred from Eternity Degenerate and ingrate their God deny Behold the contumacious Pharisies Arm'd with dissembled Zeale against me rise The bloudy Priests to their stern Party draw The Doctors of their unobserved law And impious Sadduces to perpetrate My intended Overthrow incense the State What rests to quicken Faith Even at my Nod Nature submits acknowledging her God The Galilean Youth drink the pure bloud Of generous Grapes drawn from the Neighbor floud I others famin cur'd subdu'd my own Life-strengthning food for fourty dayes unknown Twixt the Dispensers hands th' admired Bread Increas'd great multitudes of People fed Yet more then all remain'd The Windes asswage Their stormes threatning Billows calme their rage The hardned Waves unsinking feet indure And pale Diseases which despise their cure My Voice subdues Long Darknesse chac'd away To me the Blind by Birth now owes his Day He hears who never yet was heard now speaks And in my Praises first his silence breaks Those damned Spirits of infernall Night Rebels to God and to the Sonnes of Light Inveterate foes my Voice but heard forsake The long possest and struck with terror quake Nor was 't enough for Christ such wonders done To profit those alone who see the Sunne To vanquish Death my powerfull hand invades His silent Regions and inferior Shades The Stars the Earth the Seas my triumphs know VVhat rests to conquer but the Deeps below Through op'ning Sepulchers Nights gloomy Caves The violated priviledge of Graves I sent my dread Commands A heat new born Reanimates the Dead from funerals torn And Deaths-numb Cold expulst inforc'd a way For Soules departed to review the Day The Ashes from their ransackt Tombs receive A second life and by my bounty breathe But Death his late free Empire thus restrain'd Not used to restore his Spoyles complain'd That I should thus unweave the web of Fate Decrease his Subjects and subvert his State I for so many ransomed from Death Must to his anger sacrifice my breath And now that horrid Houre is almost come When sinfull Mortalls shall their Maker doom When I the worlds great Lord who life on all Mankinde bestow'd must by their fury fall That Tragick Time to my last Period hasts And Night who now on all her Shadows casts While with the motion of the Heavens she flies This short delay of my sad life envies Fate be lesse sterne in thy intended Course Nor drag him who will follow without force After so many miseries indur'd Cold Heat Thirst Famine eyes to teares inur'd The end yet worst of ills draws neare their breath For whom I suffer must procure my death The Innocent made guilty by the foule Defects of others must his weary Soule Sigh into aire and though of heavenly birth With his chaste bloud distain th' ungratefull Earth They traffick for my Soule my death long sought Is by the mitred Merchants faction bought And Treason findes reward My travels draw Neare their last end These practices I saw See what this Nights confederate Shadows hide My Minde before my Body crucifi'd Horrour shakes all my Powers my entrailes beat And all my Body flowes with purple sweat O whither is my ancient Courage fled And God-like Strength by Anguish captive led O Death how farre more cruell in thy kinde Th' anxiety and torment of the Minde Then must I be of all at once bereft Or is there any hope of safety left O might I to my heavenly Father pray So supple to my teares to take away Part of these ills But his eternall Doome Forbids and ordered Course of things to come His purpose fixt when yet the world was young And Oracles so oft by Prophets sung Now rushing on their
ô too blest Whom Yester-night saw leaning on thy brest If Love in death survive if yet as great Even by that Love thy pardon I intreat By this thy weeping Mother I the Heire By thee adopted to thy filiall care Though alike wretched and as comfortlesse Yet as I can will comfort her distresse O Virgin-mother favour thy Reliefe Though just yet moderate thy flowing griefe Thy downe-cast Minde by thy owne Vertue raise Th' old Prophets fill their Volumes with thy praise No Age but shall through all the round of Earth Sing of that heavenly Love and sacred Birth What female glory parallels thy Worth So grew a Mother such a Son brought forth She who prov'd fruitfull in th' extreame of age And found the truth of that despis'd presage She whose sweet Babe expos'd among the reeds Which ancient Nilus with his moisture feeds Who then a smiling Infant overcame The threatning floud aspir'd not to thy fame But these expressions are for thee too low The op'ning Heavens did their observance show Those radiant Troopes which Darknesse put to flight Thy Throws assisted in that festive Night Who over thy adored Infant hung With golden wings and Allelujah's sung While the Old Sky to imitate that birth Bare a new Starre to amaze the wondring Earth MARY Sorrow is fled Joy a long banish'd Guest With heavenly rapture fill's my inlarged brest More great then that in youth when from the Sky An Angel brought that blessed Embassy When Shame not soon instructed blush'd for feare How I a Son by such a Fate should beare I greater things fore-see my eyes behold What ever is by Destiny inrold With troops of pious Soules more great then they Thou to felicity shalt lead the way A holy People shall obey thy Throne And Heaven it selfe surrender thee thy own Subjected Death thy Triumph now attends While thou from thy demolish'd Tombe ascends Nor shalt thou long be seene by mortall eies But in perfection mount above the Skies Propitious ever from that heighth shalt give Peace to the World instructed how to live A thousand Languages shall thee adore Thy Empire know no bounds The farthest Shore Washt by the Ocean those who Dayes bright Flame Scarce warmes shall heare the thunder of thy Name Licentious sword nor hostill Fury shall Prevaile against thee thou the Lord of all Those Tyrants whom the vanquisht Worlds obay Before thy feete shall Caesars Scepter lay The Time draws on in which it selfe must end When thou shalt in a Throne of Clouds descend To judge the Earth In that reformed World Those by their sins infected shall be hurl'd Downe under one perpetuall Night while they Whom thou hast cleans'd injoy perpetuall Day The END THe Tragedie of CHRIST'S PASSION was first written in Greek by Apollinarius of Laodicea Bishop of Hieropolis and after him by Gregory Nazianzen though this now extant in his Works is by some ascribed to the former by others accounted suppositions as not agreeing with his Strain in the rest of his Poems which might alter in that particular upon his imitation of Euripides But Hugo Grotius of late hath transcended all on this Argument whose steps afar-off I follow ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FIRST ACT. VErse 23. Ephratian Dames Of Ephrata the same with Bethlehem Ver. 33. Magi Tradition will have them three of severall Nations and honour them with crownes But the word delivers them for Persians for so they called their Philosophers such as were skilfull in the Coelestiall Motions from whence they drew their predictions and with whom their Princes consulted in all matters of moment Some write that they were of the posteritie of Balaam by his Prophesies informed of the birth of Christ and apparition of that narrative Starre but more consonant to the Truth that they received it from divine inspiration Ver. 34. My Starre None of those which adorne the Firmament nor Comet proceeding from condensed Vapors inflamed in the Aire but above Nature and meerely miraculous which as they write not onely illuminated the eye but the understanding excited thereby to that heavenly inquisition Some will have it an Angel in that forme The excellencie whereof is thus described by Prudentius This which in Beames and Beauty far Exceld the Sunnes flame-bearing Car Shew'd Gods descent from Heaven to Earth Accepting of a humane Birth No servant to the humerous Night Nor following Phoebe's changing Light But didst thy single Lamp display To guide the Motion of the Day Hym Epiphaniae It is probable that this Starre continued not above thirteene dayes if we may beleeve that Tradition How the Magi were so long in travelling from their Countrey unto Bethlehem Ver. 34. Mithra's flame Mithra the same with the Sunne adored by the Persians His Image had the countenance of a Lion with a Tiara on his head depressing an Oxe by the hornes Of this Statius Come O remember thy owne Temple prove Propitious still and Juno's Citie love Whether we should thee rosy Titan call Osyris Lord of Ceres festivall Or Mithra shrin'd in Persian rocks a Bull Subduing by the horror of his skull Thebaid l. 1. And in a Cave his Rites were solemnized from whence they drew an Oxe by the hornes which after the singing of certaine Paeans was sacrificed to the Sun Zorastes placeth him between Oremazes and Arimanius the good and bad Daemon from which he took that denomination Vers. 39. Pharisees A precise Sect among the Iews separating themselves from others in habit manners and conversation from whence they had their Name as their Originall from Antigonus Sochaeus who was contemporary with Alexander the Great Men full of appearing Sanctitie observant to Traditions and skilfull expositors of the Moysaicall Law wearing the Precepts thereof in Phylacters narrow scroules of parchment bound about their browes and above their left elbowes passing thorow the streets with a slow motion their eyes fixed on the ground as if ever in divine contemplations and wincking at the approach of women by meanes whereof they not seldome met with churlish incounters Superstitious in their often washing keeping their bodies cleaner then their soules They held that all was governed by God and Fate yet that man had the power in himselfe to doe good or evill That his Soule was immortall that after the death of the body if good it returned into an other more excellent but if evill condemned to perpetuall torments Vers. 43. Sadduces These derived the Sect and name from Sadock the scholar of Antigonus Socaeus as he his Heresie by misinterpreting the words of his Master that we should not serve God as servants in hope of reward concluding thereupon that in another World there was no reward for Pietie and consequently no resurrection holding the Soul to be annihilated after the death of the Body herein agreeing with the Stoicks As smoke from trembling flames ascends and there Lost in its liberty resolves to aire As empty Clouds which furious tempests chace Consume and vanish in their aiery race So our commanding Souls
jaws of Hell thy guilt extend This death we owe to our impiety But what are his misdeeds why should he die Then looking on his face with dropping eyes Forgive me O forgive a wretch he cries And O my Lord my King when thou shalt be Restor'd to thy own Heaven remember me He mildly gives consent and from the barres Of that sad Crosse thus rais'd him to the Starres With me a happy Guest thou shalt injoy Those sacred Orchards where no frosts destroy The eternall Spring before the Morne display The purple Ensigne of th' ensuing Day CHORVS What 's this the Centre pants with sudden throwes And trembling Earth a sad distemper showes The Sun affrighted hides his golden Head From hence by an unknown Ecliptick fled Irregular Heavens abortive shades display And Night usurpes the empty Throne of Day What threats do these dire Prodigies portend To our offending Race Those ills transcend All that can be imagin'd which inforce Disturbed Nature to forget her Course I heare approaching feet What ere thou art Whom darknesse from our sight conceales impart All that thou know'st to our prepared eares Accomplish or dissolve our pressing feares II NVNCIVS Fury from which if loose the Earth had fled And fatall Starres have their event He 's dead CHORVS O Heaven we pardon now Dayes hasty flight Nor will complain since they have quencht this light Yet tell how he dispos'd of his last breath The passages and order of his death II NVNCIVS As the declining Sun the shades increast Reflecting on the more removed East His blazing haire grew black no clouds obscures His vanisht Light this his own Orb immures The Dayes fourth part as yet invests the Pole Were this a Day when from the afflicted Soule This voice was clearely heard not like the breath Of those who labour between life and death My God O why dost thou thy own forsake VVhich purposely the Multitude mistake But to prolong their cruel mirth who said He on the Thesbian Prophet calls for aid Now to return and draw from Heaven again Devouring Showres of Fire or Flouds of Rain VVith silence this he indures His body rent His bloud exhausted and his Spirits spent He cry'd I Thirst As servants to his will The greedy hollowes of a spunge they fill VVith vineger which Hyssops sprigs combine And on a reed exalt the deadly Wine This scarcely tasted his pale lips once more He opens and now lowder then before Cry'd All is finisht here my labours end To thee O heavenly Father I commend My parting Soul This said hung down his head And with his words his mixed Spirits fled Leaving his body which again must bleed Now senselesse of the Crosse From prison freed Those happy seats he injoyes by God assign'd To injur'd Vertue and th' etheriall Minde But Terrours which with Nature war affright Our peacelesse Souls The World hath lost its Light Heaven and the Deeps below our Guilt pursue Pale troops of wandring Ghosts now hurrie through The holy Citie whom from her unknown And secret Wombe the trembling Earth hath thrown The cleaving Rocks their horrid jawes display And yawning Tombes afford the dead a way To those that live Heaven is the generall And undistinguisht Sepulcher to all Old Chaos now returnes Ambitious Night Impatient of alternate Rule or Right Such as before the Dayes etheriall birth With her own shady People fills the Earth CHORVS How did the many-minded People look At these Portents with what affection strook II. NVNCIVS The Lamentations mixed with the cries Of weeping Women in low'd Vollies rise Those who had known him who his followers were While yet he liv'd and did in death adhere In that new Night sighs from their sorrowes send And to those Heavens they could not see extend Their pious hands complaining that the Sun Would then appeare when this was to be done The safety of their lives the Vulgar dread Some for themselves lament some for the dead Others the ruine of the world bewaile Their Courages the cruel Romanes faile Those hands which knew no peace now lazie grew And conquering Feare to earth their weapons threw Th' amaz'd Centurion with our thoughts compli'd And swore the Heros most unjustly dy'd Whose punishment the Earth could hardly brook But groaning with a horrid motion shook Confirmed by the Dayes prodigious flight To be a beame of the celestiall Light And so the mourning Heavens inverted face Showes to the Vnder world his Heavenly Race CHORVS Why flock the People to the Temple thus No cause excepting piety in us Can want belief Hope they to satisfie With Sacrifice the Wrath of the most High II. NVNCIVS New prodigies as horrid thither hale Th' astonisht Multitude The Temples Vale That hung on guilded Beames in purple dy'd Asunder rent and fell on either side The trust of what was sacred is betray'd And all the Hebrew Mysteries display'd That fatall Ark so terrible of old To our pale foes which Cherubins of Gold Veil'd with their hovering wings whose closure held Those two-leav'd Tables wherein God reveal'd His sacred Lawes That Food which by a new Example fell from Heaven in fruitfull Dew About our Tents and tacidly exprest By intermitted showres the seventh Dayes rest The Rod with never dying blossoms spread Which with a Miter honour Aarons Head These with th' old Temple perisht Th' eye could reach No object in this rupture but the Breach What was from former Ages hid is shown Which struck so great a reverence when unknown The Temple shines with flames and to the sight That fear'd Recesse disclos'd with its own Light Either Religion from their fury flies Leaving it naked to profaner eyes Or God doth this abhorred Seat reject And will his Temple in the Minde erect CHORVS Shall Punishment in Death yet finde an end Shall his cold Corps to earth in peace descend Or naked hang and with so dire a sight Profane the Vefper of the sacred Night II. NVNCIVS Too late Religion warmes their savage brests Lest that neare Houre which harbengers their Feast Should take them unprepar'd to Pilat they Repaire intreat him that the Souldier may From bloudy crosses take their bodies down Before their Festivalls the Morning crown That no uncleannesse might from thence arise In memory of th' Aegyptian Sacrifice The leggs of the two Thieves they brake whose breath Yet groan'd between the bounds of life and death The crashing bones report a dreadfull sound While both their souls at once a passage found Nor had the Cohort lesse to Jesus done Who now the Course prescrib'd by Fate had runne But dead deep in his side his trembling speare A Souldier strake his entrails bare appeare And from that wide-mouth'd Orifice a floud Of water gusht mixt with a stream of bloud The Crosses now discharged of their fraught The People fled not with one look or thought Part sad and part amaz'd Spent Fury dies Whither so fast run you to sacrifice A silly Lambe too mean an Offering Is this for you
at length our faith it selfe exprest But to the Dead JOSEPH This is a truth confest The Evening now restored Day subdues And lo the Vigil with the Night enseues Not farre from Golgotha's in famous Rocks A Cave there is hid with the shady Locks Of funerall Cypresse hewne through living stone The house of Death as yet possest by none My Age this chose for her eternall rest VVhich now shall entertaine a nobler Guest That ample Stone which shuts the Sepulcher Shall the inscription of his Vertues beare VVho knows but soon a holier Age may come VVhen all the World shall celebrate this Tombe And Kings as in a Temple here adore Through fire and sword sought from the farthest Shore NICODEMVS Pure water of the Spring you precious Tears Perfumes which Odor-breathing Saba beares VVith your preservatives his body lave Sinke through his pores and from corruption save Nor God nor Fate will suffer that this pure This sacred Corps should more then death indure Religion if thou know'st the Shades below Let never filthy putrefaction flow Through his uncover'd bones nor wast of Time Resolve this heavenly figure into slime JOHN MARY THE MOTHER OF JESVS THou reverent Virgin of his royall Bloud Who all between the Erythrean Floud And great Euphrates won by strenuous Armes Assume his noble fortitude those harmes Which presse thy Soul subdue ungentle Fate Hath by undoing thee secur'd thy state Fortune her strength by her own blowes hath spent Judaea's kingdome from thy Fathers rent By forrein hands of ancient Wealth bereft Except thy Son what was for danger left These stormes by death disperst serene appeare For what hath childlesse Poverty to feare MARY O John for thee in such extreames to mourn Perhaps is new but I to grief was born With this have we convers't twice sixteen yeares No form of sorrow hath beguil'd our feares To me how ominously the Prophets sung Even from the time that heavenly Infant sprung In my chaste Wombe Old Simeon this reveal'd And in my Soul the deadly wound beheld When One among so many Infants slain Was by the Tyrants Weapons sought in vain No miracles had then his fame displaid Or him the object of their envy made Perfidious Fraud in Sanctities disguise Nor the adulterated Pharisies By his detection had he yet inflam'd Nor for despising of their Rites defam'd A Trumpet of intestine Warre the Earth Of nothing then accus'd him but his birth Not that fierce Prince so cruell to his Own Nor his Successour in that fatall Throne As high in vice who with the Prophets Head Suppli'd his Feast and on the bloud he had shed Fed his incestuous eyes in dire delight To highthen impious Love could me affright Nor yet the vulgar hating his free tongue And showres of stones by a thousand Furies flung I though no mischief could our steps pursue That was more great or to our sufferings new What wants example what no mother fear'd This this alone my dying hopes inter'd Wretch wilt thou seek for words t' expresse thy woes Or this so vast a grief in silence close Great God such is my faith why wouldst thou come To this inferiour Kingdome through my wombe Why mad'st thou choice of me to bring thee forth For punishment unhappy in my worth No woman ever bare a Son by touch Of man conceiv'd whose Soule indures so much No mother such an issue better gain'd Nor lost it worse by cursed Death profan'd JOHN What lowder grief with such an emphasis Strikes through mine eares What honour'd Corse is this With Tyrian linen vail'd What 's he whose haires Contend with snow whose eyes look through their tears Who on those veins yet bleeding odors powres Or his assistant crown'd with equall houres What troops of women hither throng what stormes Rise in their looks Grief wanders through all formes My eyes ah wound my Heart This was thy son This is thy bloud thy mangled flesh O run Take thy last kisses ere of those bereft By funerall What else of all is left MARY My Soul tyr'd with long miserie A midst these greater Sorrows die While Grief at his sad Exequies Poures out her last Complaints in these Let me this snowy Paul unfold Once more those quickning looks behold O Son born to a sad event Thus thus to thy poore Mother sent O Salem was thy hatred such To murder him who lov'd so much Ah see his side gor'd with a spear Those hands that late so bounteous were Transfixt his feet pierc'd with one wound The Sun had better never found His losse then with restored light To shew the World so dire a sight You Neighbours to the Suns up-rise Who read their motions in the Skies O you in chief who found your Lord And with such lively Zeal ador'd Now view the Heavens inverted laws With me bewail the wretched Cause His Birth a Starre new kindled sign'd To see his Death the Sun grew blinde Thou hope of my afflicted State Thou living I accus'd not Fate The Day again with light is crown'd But thou in Night for ever drown'd O could'st thou see my broken heart The flowing teares these springs impart Thy mother whom man never knew Who by the Word then fruitfull grew My Womb admir'd that unknown Guest Whose burden for nine Moones increast Thy Mother to a Scepter borne With age and wrinkling sorrow worne This Countrey sees to get her bread With labour in an humble Shed Thy milk from these two fountaines sprung These armes about my neck have hung Coucht on the flowry bancks of Nile Aegypt so just to thy exile Hath now redeem'd her former Curse Our Jews then those of Memphis worse If his chast bloud at length asswage The bitter tempest of your rage If you can pitty misery O let me by your mercy dye Or if not glutted with his bloud With mine increase this purple floud O my deare sonne what here our eyes behold What yonder hung or what Death could infold In endlesse Night is mine and onely mine No mortall did in thy conception joyne Nor part of thee can challenge Since the losse Was onely ours let us the griefe ingrosse Vngratefull Man who his Protector slew Nor feels his Curse nor then his Blessing knew Poore wretch no soule in thy defence durst rise And now the murdred unrevenged lies The Lame who by thy powerfull Charmes were made Sound and swift-footed ran not to thy aide Those Eies which never saw the glorious Light Before thy soveraign touch avoid thy sight And others from Deaths silent mansion by Thy Vertue ravish'd suffer'd thee to dye JOHN Too true is thy Complaint too just thy Woes Such were his friends whom from a World he chose O desperate Faith from whence from whom are we Thus falne our Soules from no defection free Some sold forswore him none from tainture cleare All from him fled to follow their owne feare Thou Oracle a father in thy care In love a brother the delinquent spare In thy divine affection
1. NVNCIVS With-out the Citie on that side which lies Exposed to the boysterous injuries Of the cold North to War a fatall Way Infamous by our slaughters Golgotha Exalts his Rock No flowers there paint the field Nor flourishing trees refreshing shadowes yield The ground all white with bones of mortalls spread Stencht with the putrefaction of the dead And reliques of unburied Carcases Who on his aged Fathers throat durst sease Rip-up his mothers wombe who poyson drest For his own brother or his unknown Guest Betray'd and gave his mangled flesh for food Vnto the wild inhabitants of the Wood This Stage of Death deserv'd while every soule Misdeed of theirs pursues the guilty Soule Now when the Nazarite at this dismall place Arrived with a weak and tardy pace Least he should die too quickly some preferre Sweet wine mixt with the bitter teares of Myrrhe He of the idle present hardly tasts But to incounter with his torments hasts The Steel now bor'd his feet whose slit veines spout Like pierced conduits both his armes strechtout His hands fixt with two nailes While his great Soule These tortures suffer'd while the rising Bole Forsook the Earth and crimson Torrents sprung From his fresh wounds he gave his Grief no tongue The Crosse advanc'd and fixt then as more nigh To his own Heaven his eyes bent on the Skie Among such never to be equal'd woes Who would beleeve it pities his stern foes And thinks those false Contrivers those who gor'd His flesh with wounds more fit to be deplor'd Who even their merited destruction feares And falsely judg'd the truly guilty cleares Father he cries forgive this sinne they knew Not what they did nor know what now they do Mean-while the Souldiers who in bloud delight With hearts more hard then Rocks behold this sight And savage Rigor never reconcil'd To Pitty all humanitie exil'd Who us'd to pillage now intend their prey Nor for his death though then a dying stay But he alive and looking on divide The Spoil yet more in the Spectatour joy'd Fury in trifles sports their scorn his poore Yet parted garments distribute to foure His inward Robe with one contexture knit Nor of the like division would admit Their votes to the dispose of Lots referre Electing Chance for their blinde Arbiter Nor wa st the least of evils to behold Th' ignoble Partners of his pain who old In mischief rob'd the murder'd Passengers Follow'd by Troops that fill'd the Night with feares While thus they hung none could the doubt explain VVhether He more had sav'd then They had slain The numerous Index of each bloudy deed Now brand their lives when those who could not read At such a distance of the next inquire For what they dy'd who had the same desire But above his declining Head they hung A table in three Languages the Tongue The first of tongues which taught our Abrahamites Those heavenly Precepts and mysterious Rites Next that which to th' informed World imparts The Grecian Industry and learned Arts Then this from whence the conquer'd Earth now takes Her Lawes and at the Romane Virtue quakes All of one sense His place of birth his Name Declare and for the Hebrew King proclame After the bloudy Priests so long had fed On this lov'd Spectacle at length they read The Title and in such a miserie So full of ruth found something to envy The Governour intreating to take down That glorious Stile lest he the Hebrew Crown Should vindicate in Death and so deny That Princes by Subordinates should die But who that Day so readily compli'd To give a life austerely this deni'd CHORVS While lingring Death his sad release deferr'd How lookt the standers by what words were heard I. NVNCIVS Not all alike discording murmurs rise Some with transfixed hearts and wounded eyes Astonisht stand some joy in his slow fate And to the last extend their Barbarous hate Motion it self variety begets And by a strange vicissitude regrets What it affected nor one posture beares Teares scornfull laughter raise and laughter teares Who to the Temple from th' impoverisht shore Of Galilee his followed steps adore And ministred to his life now of his End The Witnesses still to their dying friend Their faith preserve which as they could they show In all th' expressions of a perfect woe One from her panting brest her garments tare Another the bright tresses of her haire This with her naked armes her bosome beats The hollow rock Her fearfull shriekes repeat She stiff with sorrow But what grief could vie With that example of all piety His virgin Mothers this affords no way To lessening teares nor could it self display Where should she fix her looks if on the ground She sees that with her bloud he bleeding drown'd Or if she raise her eyes the killing sight Of her wombes tort'red Issue quencht their light Fearing to look on either both disclose Their terrours who now licences her woes Ready to have stept forward and imbrast The bloudy Crosse her feeble lims stuck fast Her feet their motion lost her voice in vain A passage sought such Grief could not complain Whose Soul almost as great a Sorrow stung As his who on the Tree in torments hung That Youth one of the Twelve so dignifi'd By his deare Masters love stood by her side Beholding this sad Paire those Souls that were To him then life while life remain'd more deare He found an other Crosse his spirits melt More for the sorrow seen then torments felt At length in strength transcending either brake The barres of his long silence and thus spake A legacie to each of you I leave Mother this sonne in stead of me receave By thy adoption and thou gentle boy The seed of Zebedeus late my joy Thy friend now for thy mother take This said Again he to his torments bow'd his Head The Vulgar with the Elders of our Race And Souldiers shake their heads in his disgrace Is this the man said they whose hands can raise The Temple and rebuild it in three dayes Now shew thy strength Or if the Thunderer Above the rank of Mortalls thee preferre Acknowledg'd for his Heir let him descend Confirme thy hopes and timely succour lend Behold the help thou gav'st to others failes The Authour Break these Bonds these stubborn Nails And from the Crosse descend then we will say Thou art our King and thy Commands obey Nor wast enough that the surrounding Throng Wound with reproches Who besides him hung Doth now again a murderers minde disclose And in his punishment more wicked growes Who thus If thou be he whom God did choose To Govern the free'd Nation of the Jews Thy self and us release thus honour win The Partner of his death as of his sinne Who had his fiercenesse with the thief cast-off Ill brookes and thus reprooves that impious scoff Hast thou as yet not learnt to acknowledge God Nor sacred Justice fear who now the rod Of vengeance feel'st wilt thou again offend And to the
Rome with his accusers But Tiberius dying before his arrivall he was banished the Citie by Caius who troubled in minde and desperate of restitution slew himself at Vienna in France within two yeares after Vers. 238. If thou be he c. By this place taken out of the Gospel it appeares that divers of the Iews were of the opinion of the Pythagoreans or the Pythagoreans of theirs concerning the transmigration of Soules into other bodies All alter nothing finally decayes Hither and thither still the Spirit strayes Guest to all Bodies out of beasts it flies To men from men to beasts and never dies As pliant wax each new impression takes Fixt to no forme but still the old forsakes Yet it the same so Soules the same abide 'Though various figures their reception hide Ovid. Met. l. 15. Herod conceived that the Soule of Iohn the Baptist by him wickedly murdered was entered into the body of our blessed Saviour And Iosephus in his Oration to his desperate Companions in the Cave of Iotopata Those poore Soules which depart from this life by the law of Nature and obediently render what from God they received shall by him be placed in the highest Heavens and from thence againe after a certaine revolution of time descend by command to dwell in chaste bodies Vers. 249. Slaine for a dancer This daughter of Herodias as Nicephorus writes going over a River that was frozen fell in all but the head which was cut off with the yce as her body waved up and downe underneath Vers. 331. Sadock The Author of the Sect of the Sadduces See the Note upon Vers. 43. Act. 1. ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FOVRTH ACT. VErse 35. To Warre the fatall way The City of Ierusalem is onely on that side assailable there forced and entred by the Babylonians and after by Pompey Vers. 36. Golgotha Mount Calvary a rocky hill neither high nor ample lying then without the North-West wall of the City the publique place of execution Here they say that Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac in memory whereof there now standeth a Chappell as an Altar where the Head of Adam was found which gave the name to that Mount buried in that place that his bones might be sprinkled with the reall bloud of our Saviour which he knew would be there shed by a propheticall fore-knowledge It is said to stand in the midst of the Earth which must needs be meant by the then habitable for what middle can there be in a Sphericall Body V. 49. The Nazarite Not as Sampson by vow nor of that Sect but so called of that City wherein he was conceived and where he inhabited after his returne out of Aegypt Vers. 52. Mixt with the bitter tears of Myrrh Some suppose that this was proffered him by his friends being of a stupifying qualitie to make him lesse sensible of his torments But it appeares by Petronius and Pliny that it was a mixture much used in their delights Whereof Martial The teares of Myrrh in hot Falernum thaw From this the Wine a better taste will draw Epig. l. 14. Strengthning the body and refreshing the Spirits and therefore more likely proffered by his enemies to prolong his sufferings Vers. 81. His inward Robe There be who write that this was woven by the Virgin Mary and we reade in the Scriptures as frequently in Homer and other Authors that women and those of the highest qualitie usually wrought garments for their Children and Husbands Vers. 203. The Center pants c. This Earth-quake proceeded not from the Windes imprisoned in the bowels of the Earth strugling to break forth or from any other naturall cause but by the immediate singer of God Vers. 205. The Sunne affrighted hides c. Miraculous without the interposition of the Moone or palpable Vapours was that defect of the Sunne and unnaturall Darknesse in the sixth houre of the Day which appeareth by the Text to have cover'd all the World and not Iudea alone as some have conjectured Divers Authours have recorded this in their Annals and Histories but none so exactly as Dionysius Areopagita who then resided in Aegypt and was an eye-witnesse Vers. 240. The greedy hollowes of a Spunge c Physicians agree that Vineger being drunk or held to the nose hath in it a naturall Vertue for the stenching of bloud Pliny attributes the like to Hyssop and the better if joyned Neither is it to be thought that the Iews offered this unto IESUS in humanity but rather out of their hatred that by prolonging his Life untill the Evening his legges might have been broken to the increase of his torments Vers. 256. Pale troopes of wandring Ghosts These were the reall bodies of the dead which entred the City from their graves for it was as now their Custome to bury in the fields and seen by day Whereas deluding Spirits assume an Aery thinne and fluxative Body condensed by cold but dissipated by heate and therefore onely appeare in the Night time Which Virgil intimates in the Ghost of Anchises And now farewell the humid Night descends I sent Day 's breath in his too-swift repaire This said like smoak he vanisneth to aire Aen. l. 12. Ver. 259 The cleaving Rocks The Rock of Mount Calvary was rent by that Earth-quake from the top to the bottome which at this day is to be seene the rupture such as Art could have no hand in each side answerable ragged and there where unaccessible to the workman Vers 263. Old Chaos now returnes That confused Masse out of which God created the beautifull World into which it was imagined that it should be againe reduced The aged World dissolved by the Last And fatall Houre shall to Old Chaos hast Stars justling Stars shall in the Deepe confound Their radiant fires the Land shall give no bound To swallowing Seas the Moone shall crosse the Sun With scorne that her swift wheeles obliquely run Dayes throne aspiring Discord then shall rend The Worlds crackt Frame and Natures Concord end Lucan l. 4. But many of our Divines are of opinion that the World shall neither be dissolved nor anihilated strengthning their assertion out of the eighth of the Romanes and other places of Scripture Ver. 238. Th' amaz'd Centurion To this Centurion who professed CHRIST to be the Sonne of God they give the name of Longinus and honour him with the crowne of Martyrdome Vers. 296. The Temples Veile Described by Iosephus to consist of Violet Purple and Scarlet Silke cunningly mixt wrought by Babylonian Needles the colours containing a mysticall sense Such was that of Solomons and of the travelling Tabernacle but that they were powdred with Cherubins This it should seeme was renewed by Herod when he so magnificently repaired the Temple It hung before the Sanctum Sanctorum into which none but the High Priest and that but once in the yeer was to enter violated by Pompey pursued by a miserable Destiny There was an out-ward Veile not unlike the other which separated the Priests
said to have invented the Art of Physick his name importing a preservation from evil because the Sunne is so powerfull in producing physicall Simples and so salubrious to our bodies when Christ by his own Vertue cured all diseases gave sight to the blinde by birth which surpasseth the power of art threw out wicked Spirits from the tortured bodies of the possessed and called the Dead from their beds of death to converse again with the Living Verse 419. With the Religion of the Samean Of Pythagoras of Samos who by his doctrine and example withdrew the Crotonians from luxury and idlenesse to temperance and industry calming the perturbations of the Minde with the musick of his Harp for he held that Vertue Strength all Good and even God himself consisted of Harmony That God was the Soul of the World from whence each creature received his life dying restored it And lest it might be doubted that the Souls of all had not one Originall in regard of their different understandings he alleadged how that proceeded from the naturall complexion composition of the Body as more or lesse perfect whose opinions are thus delivered by Virgil The arched Heavens round Earth the liquid Plain The Moons bright Orb and Starres Titanian A Soul with-in sustaines whose Vertues passe Through every part and mix that huge Masse Hence men hence beasts what ever fly with wing And Monsters in the marble Ocean spring Of Seed divine and fiery Vigour full But what grosse flesh and dying member dull Thence fear desire grief joy nor more regard Their heavenly Birth in those blinde Prisons barr'd Aen. l. 6. Moreover he held that this visible Soul or Godhead diffused throughout all the world got it self such diversitie of Names by the manifold operations which it effected in every part of the visible Vniverse Vers. 420. Nor Thracian Harp wilde Beasts instructing can Orpheus of Thrace who with the musick of his Harp and voice attracted even beasts and sencelesse stones to heare him The morall of which Fable may parallell with that of Amphion Orpheus the Gods Interpreter from blood Rude men at first deterr'd and savage food Hence said to have Tygers and fell Lions tam'd Amphion so who Theban bulwarks fram'd T' have led the stones with musick of his lute And milde requests Of old in high repute Publick from Private Sacred from Prophane To separate and wandring Lust restrain With matrimoniall ties faire Cities raise Laws stamp in brasse This gave the honour'd Bayes To sacred Poets and to verse their praise Horat. de Art Poet It is apparent by his Testament to his Scholar Musaeus whereof certain verses are recited by Iustin Martyr that his opinion in divinitie was in the main agreeable with the sacred Scriptures As of one God the Creator of Heaven and Earth the Authour of all good and punisher of all evil exhorting him to the hearing and understanding of that knowledge which was revealed from Heaven meaning nothing else by those various Names which he gives to the Gods but divine and naturall Vertues shadowing God himself under the Name of Iupiter to avoid the envy and danger of those times as is almost evident by these attributes Omnipotent Jove the First the Last of things The Head the Midst all from Joves bounty springs Foundation of the Earth and starry Skie A Male a Female who can never die Spirit of all the Force of awfull Fire Sourse of the Sea Sun Moon th' Originall The End of all things and the King of all At first conceal'd then by his wond'rous Might And sacred Goodnesse all produc'd to light Vers. 421. Nor that prophetick Boy c. Of whom Ovid The Nymphs and Amazonian this amaz'd No lesse then when the Tyrrhen Plow-man gaz'd Vpon the fatall clod that mov'd alone And for a humane shape exchang'd his own With infant lips that were but earth of late Reveal'd the Mysteries of future Fate Whom Natives Tages call'd He first of all Th' Hetrurians taught to tell what would befall Met. l. 15. And Cicero in his second book of Divination Tages when the Earth was turned up and the Plow had made a deeper impression ascended as they say in the Tarquinian fields and spake to the Tiller It is written in the Hetrurian Records that he was seen in the form of a Boy although old in wisdome The Husband-man amazed and exalting his voice drew thither a great concourse of People and with-in awhile all Thuscany who spake many things in that populous audience by them remembred and committed to writing His oration onely contained the discipline of Divination by the entrails of beasts which after increased by experience but is referred to this Originall A delusion of the Devils to introduce that Superstition ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FIFTH ACT. VErse 30. O may they perish c. This imprecation comprehends those following calamities which the Divine Vengeance inflicted on the Iews more and more horrid then ever befell any other Nation Vers. 35. Let the great in Warre c. Titus Vespasian who besieged Ierusalem when almost all the Iewish Nation was within the Walles there met to celebrate the Passeover who took it by force consumed the Temple with fire which fell on that day in which it was formerly burnt by the Chaldeans and levelled the City with the ground eleven hundred thousand Iewes there perishing by famine pestilence and the sword another hundred thousand Captives were publikely sold for a Romane penny a Iew and sixteene thousand sent to Alexandria for servill imployments two thousand of the most beautifull and personable young men reserved to attend on his Triumph who after to delight the Spectators were torne in pieces by wild beasts in the Amphitheater Vers. 26. Let Diseases sow c. During the siege the Pestilence violently raged proceeding from the stench of dead bodies to whom they afforded no buriall but piled them up in their houses or threw them over the Wall of the City Vers. 41. Famine in their dry entrailes c. Vnexpressible was the Famine they indured and pittifull if they themselves had had any pitty enforced to seeth their Girdles and Shooes and fighting fiercely with one another for so course a diet Driven in the end to that exigent that they were faine to rake the sincks and privies and to feede on that which was loathsome to behold neither could they keep what they found from the rapine of others Vers. 44. The Babe re-enter her c. Hunger had so overcome Nature that a Woman of riches and honour named Mary being daily rob'd of her provision by the Seditious slew her owne childe which suckt at her brest and having sodden one halfe thereof eat it When at the sent of flesh they broke in upon her who presented them with the rest the theeves then hardly refraining though they trembled at so horrid a Spectacle Vers. 45. While yet the eager Foe c. The enemy assailed them without and the Seditious massacred one another within divided into three parties the Zealous the Idumaean Robbers and the rest of the mutinous Citizens but upon every assault of the Romanes setting their private hatred aside united themselves as if of one Minde and with admirable courage repulsed the Enemy but upon the least cessation renewed their bloudy discord some beginning with their owne hands to set the Temple on fire Vers. 47. Let th' Enemy c. See the Notes upon the 35. Verse Verse 50. The Reliques of their slaughter In the dayes of Adrian the Iewes raised a new Commotion of whom his Lieutenant Iulius Severus slew five hundred and foure score thousand transporting the rest into Spaine by the command of the Emperour so that Iewry was then without Iews as it continues to this present Vers. 52. Despis'd and wretched wander c. Out of Spaine they were banished in the yeer 1500. by Ferdinand and Emanuel Now scattred throughout the whole World and hated by those among whom they live yet suffered as a necessary mischiefe subject to all wrongs and contumelies who can patiently submit themselves to the times and to whatsoever may advance their profit Vers. 53. Abolish'd by their Law c This they lost in the destruction of their City Yet daily expect that Messias who is already come and as they beleeve shall restore them to their temporall Kingdome Vers. 55. This infected soyle c. The Ecclesiasticall Histories report how Ioseph of Arimathea after he had suffered imprisonment by the envy of the Iews and was delivered by an Angel left his Countrey and sailed to Marcellis in France from thence passing over into this Iland he preached the Gospell to the Brittaines and Scots who there exchanged this life for a better Vers. 95. Who knows but soone a holier Age c. Helena the Mother of Constantine throwing downe the Fane of Venus which Adrian had erected on Calvary covered both the Mount and Sepulchre with a magnificent Temple which yet hath resisted the injuries of Insolence and Time and what was before without in reverence to the place is now in the heart of the City To recover this from the Saracens divers of the Westerne Princes have unfortunately ventured their Persons and People though Godfry of Bullein with an Army of three hundred thousand made of the City and Country an absolute Conquest Whose Successours held it for fourescore and nine yeers and then beaten out by Saladine the Aegyptian Sultan Yet yeerly is the Sepulchre visited though now in the possession of the Turke from all parts of the World by thousands of Christians who there pay their vowes and exercise their Devotions Vers. 109. Of his Royall Bloud c Of Davids See the Notes upon the 264. Verse of the second Act Vers. 139. Not that fierce Prince c. Herod the Great the murderer of the Infants who put three of his sonnes to death with his wife Mariamme whom he frantickly affected Vers. 140. Nor his Successour c. Herod Antipas who cut off the Head of Iohn the Baptist Vers. 189. You neighbours to the Sunnes up-rise The Persian Magi FINIS Imprimatur Ioannes Hansley September 27. 1639