University of Virginia Library

CANTO XI.

Behold the man that sought contentions out,
Whose recreation was in angry arms,
And for his Venns rang'd the world about,
To find out dreadful combats, fierce alarms:
From former disposition alienate,
Shuns all occasion may procure debate.
In his own wrongs by vow he will not strike,
Let injury impose what strife can do,
Abuses shall not force him to dislike,
For he hath now fram'd Nature therunto:
And taken patience by the hand for's guide,
To lead his thoughts where meekness doth abide.
No worldly joy can give his mind content;
Delights are gone, as they had never been:
His only care is, how he may repent
His spending youth about the serving sin;
And fashion Age to look like contrite sorrow,
That little time to come, which life doth borrow,
His looks were sad, complexion pale and wan,
His diet of the meanest, hard and spare:
His life he led like a Religious man,
His habit poor and homely, thin and bare;
His dignities and honour were forgot,
His Warwicks Earldom he regarded not.
Sometimes he would go search into a grave,
And there he finds a rotten dead mans skull;
And with the same a conference would have,
Examining each vanity at full,
And then himself would answer for the head,
His own objection in the dead mans stead.
If thou hast been some Monarch, where's thy crown,
Or who in fear of thy stern looks do stand?
Death hath made Conquest of my great renown,
My golden Scepter, in a fleshly hand,
Is taken from me by another King,
And I in dust am made a rotten thing.
Hast thou been some great Counsellor of State,
Whose potent wit did rule a mighty Realm?
Where is the policy thou hadst of late?
Consum'd and gone, even like an idle dream.
I have not so much wit as will suffice,
To kill the worms that in my Coffin lies.
Perhaps thou wast some beautious Ladies face,
For whom right strange adventures have been wrought,
Even such, as (when it was my loving case)
For my dear kindest Phælce I have fought.
Perhaps about this skull there was a skin
Fairer than Hellen's was inclosed in.
And on this scalp so wormy eaten bare,
(Where nothing now but bone we may behold)
Where Natures ornaments, such locks of hair,
As might induce the eye to deem them gold;
And chrystal Eyes in those two hollow caves;
And here such lips, as love, for kissing craves.
But where's the substance of this beauty sent,
So loving, precious in the sight of men?
With powerful death unto the dust it went;
Grew loathsome, filthy, came to nothing then.
And what a picture of it doth remain,
To tell the wife, All beauty is but vain.
Such memories he often would prefer,
Of mortal frailty and the force of death:
To teach the flesh how apt it is to err,
And post repentance off till latest breath:
Thus would he in the worlds contempt reprove
All that seduce the soul from heavenly love.
Now for a while reverse your vows of wo,
For one sad subject to behold another,
To see new sorrow back to England go,
And to long absent years commit the other:
Leave doleful Guy to aged grief and cares,
And look on Phælice, how his Lady fares
Like to a widow, all in black attire,
She doth express her inward doleful mind:
A Chamber-prison is her chief desire,
Where she to passion wholly is enclin'd.
She that of late was pride of English Court,
With Majesty no longer will consort,
But lives a life like one despis'd life's being;
And every day unto the world did die,
With judgment's eyes far into folly seeing,
And nothing well, how fast false pleasures flie;
Leaving for every taste of vain delight,
A greater heap of cares than pen can write.
Her thoughts run after her departed Lord,
And travel'd in conceit more fast than he:
What place (quoth she) can rest to thee afford,
That pilgrim like hath thus forsaken me;
Oh sad laments! my soul your burthen bears,
To think poor Guy remembers me in tears.
Methinks he sits now by a River side,
And swells the water with his weeping eyes:
Methinks that, Phælice, Phælice, loud he cry'd,
And charged Eccho bear it through the skies;
Then rising up he runs with might and main,
Saying, sweet Eccho bring my love again.
Then comes he to a Cypress Tree, and says,
Sylvanus, this was once the lovely Boy,
Whom thou for feature to the Clouds didst praise,
But here's thy sensless and transformed joy;
'Tis nothing now but boughs and leaves, and tree,
And made to wither, as all beauties be.
And then methinks he sits him sadly down,
And on his bending knees his elbow stays,
With head in hand, saying, Farewel renown,
Vanish vain pleasures of my youthful days;
My true repentance do you all displace;
A happy end brings sinful souls to grace.
Ah worthy man that thus canst mortifie
The Rebel flesh, to conquer Adams nature,
And for the gaining of Eternity,
Dost live on earth, as if an earthly creature;
Dead and alive, old and new-born again,
True Valiant Guy, that hath the Devil slain.
As thy advice was when thou didst depart,
That I should live a Vestal Virgins life;
Although when I was Maid, by Lovers art
Thou didst perswade me to become a Wife:
I vow by Heaven's, and all the Pow'rs Divine,
To keep my thoughts as constant, chaste as thine.
My beauty I will blemish all I may,
With tears, and sighs, and doleful lamentation;
By abstinance I will attain the way
To overcome the force of sins temptation:
This sentence have I often read and seen,
A womans chastity is Virtues Queen.
Cerus and Bacebus I will careful shun,
Foes to Diana, Friends to Venus ever;
Unto licentious life they teach us run,
And with sobriety associate never,
Spare Diet shall become my daily fare,
The soul thrives best to keep the body bare.
The Courtly ornament I wore of late,
In honour of King Athelstons's fair Queen,
Ev'n all those Jewels and those Robes of State,
Wherein so often I was glorious seen,
Shall with their price and value now supply
Those naked poor that in the streets do lie:
The Gold and Silver that I do possess,
About good works shall all imployed be;
The purchase of eternal happiness
Is of all wealth most precious unto me;
All that in want to VVarwick Castle come,
And crave relief, I will afford them some.
For halt, and lame, and blind, I will provide
Some Hospital, with Land to be maintain'd;
For widows, and poor fatherless beside,
That their necessities may be sustain'd;
For young Beginners their Estates to raise;
And for repairing of decay'd High-ways.
This I account to be the Heavenly thrift,
Lay up your Treasure where it cannot rust.
And give the riches we receive by gift,
As each good Steward is enjoyn'd he must:
That after this short stinted life's decay,
We may have life an everlasting day.
Rejected World, thus do I take my leave
With thee, and all things thou do'st most esteem:
Thy shews are snares, and all thy hopes deceive,
Thy goodness is but only good to seem:
Of thy false pleasures, I as much have seen,
As she that bears the Title of a Queen.
Oh that I were in such unknown disguise,
(Attending on my Guy where-ere he be)
As once the King Sulpitia did devise,
His Lentulus in banishment to see!
Or Hypsicrata like, in mans attire
Following her exil'd King, through Love's desire.
'Twould something ease my sorrow wounded heart,
So to divide the burthen of unrest;
For where affliction take afflictions part,
In hard extreams some comfort is exprest
Misery is more easie to abide,
When friends with friends their crosses do divide.
But all in vain I wish'd, would God I were;
Or thus, or thus, it nought avails my woe:
Though starving thoughts do wander here and there,
My poor weak body knows not where to go:
Unto the Holy-Land I heard him say
God send me thither at my dying day.
I will about my vows, and see them paid,
To do the goood that Charity requires:
When grace to works of virtue does perswade,
'Tis blessedness to further such desires.
And while on earth I do a sinner dwell,
I'le strive to please my God with living well.
In this resolve, that life she entertains,
Performing all the course she had propounded,
And such severity therein explains,
Her sex with wonder rests amaz'd, confounded,
To see so rare a beauty, rich, high-born,
Hold all worlds pleasures in contempt and scorn.
For no perswading friend that she would hear,
Which motion'd company or recreation;
Unto their speech she would not lend an ear,
That sought to alter her determination:
But such as came, and of compassion spake,
She did relieve for blessed Jesus sake.
Her wandring Lord from Land to Land repairs,
To seek out places Pilgrims do frequent:
By careful years turn'd into silver hairs;
Exceeding chang'd with grief and languishment.
(For sorrow gives a man more ancient look
Than elder time, which lesser cares have took).
His old acquaintance in those foreign parts,
That had before most worthy actions seen,
Right bold adventures of his long deserts,
Had lost Sir Guy, as he had never been.
Those that in Armour knew his Martial face,
Did not expect him in a Friars case.
Amongst the rest to whom he had been known,
He met Earl Terry banish'd to exile:
Each unto other being strangers grown,
Through sorrow, which the senses do beguile;
They had forgot that ere they saw each other,
Yet Guy was Terry's, Terry Guy's sworn brother.
Having related how their Travels grew,
One's voluntary, t'other's by constraint;
In taking leave with courtesies adieu,
Oh English man (saith Terry, sighing faint)
I had a friend, a Countrey-man of thine,
Was Justice Champion to great wrongs of mine.
Tyranny to the free he durst defie.
And stamp his foot upon oppression's neck:
Tell me, dear friend, hast thou not heard of Guy,
That had a hand to help, in sword to check?
I have (quoth he) and knew him many years,
Guy VVarwick's Earl, is one of England Peers.
What is thy name, Terry (quoth he) I hight,
Greater by birth than fortune makes me seem.
Terry (said he) I vow to do thee right
In what I may, my poor good will esteem:
To human thought my nature doth agree,
Thou lov'st my friend, I must of force love thee.
Direct me to the man exil'd thee thus,
I'le take thy part as far as strength extends:
If Guy himself were here to joyn with us,
He could but say, I'le venture life and friends.
And be assured, though I simple be,
I oft have had as good success as he.
Terry with loving thanks his love requites,
And brings him to his Foe, whom he defies,
And valiant with his adverse Champion fights,
Till mortal wounded at his feet he dies;
Yet 'twas a man suppos'd of matchless worth,
That for that Combat they had singled forth.
When this was done, the Earl demands his name:
Pardon (quoth he) that were against a vow;
To no man living I'le reveal the same,
For I have changed name and nature now:
Nature's corruption I do strive to leave,
A new regeneration to receive.
Farewel my friend, ev'n as my soul would fare,
If we ne're meet on earth, Heav'n be the place;
For idle hours I have none to spare,
My hairs look gray, they turn to white apace;
I have great loss in short time to redeem;
A minute's sorrow is of much esteem
So he departs towards Judea's ground,
Samaria and Galilee to see,
Those parts where Christian Pilgrims so renown'd
Because their Saviour's choice was there to be,
Where he did suffer to redeem our loss;
Ev'n from the Cratch unto the bloody Cross.
Much time he spends and many years bestows,
From place to place about this holy-Land,
That all his friends in England do suppose,
Now death of him hath got the upper-hand:
For no report came that could ere relate
His life, his being, or his present state.
This put the world to silence, men were mute,
Concerning Guy they knew not what to say.
The dreadful Champion in the armed suit,
Was never known nor fear'd in simple gray,
But did endeavour all that ere he might,
Never to be reveal'd to any Wight.
For unto none he would his name disclose,
Nor tell direct what Countrey-man he was;
Nor of his noble mind make any shows,
But strive in all things most obscure to pass,
Until by native love his mind was led,
To come and lay his bones where he was bred.