University of Virginia Library

PASTORALS.

The FIRST PASTORAL.

Amarillis. Claius.

The SECOND PASTORAL.

Amintas. Admetas.

Admetas.
Amintas wherefore dost thou moane
As if all thy joyes were gone,
Up man, leave this uncouth shade,
This tenebrous and fatall glade,
Where none but Satyrs us'd to prance,
And the nimble Faeries daunce;
See, thy sheep go all astray,
Thy belt and scrip is stol'n away,
Thy pipe lies neere the Brook in twaine,
Chear up, O thou dejected Swaine.

Amintas.
Cease (good Admetas) thy harsh din,
And know I suffer for my sin,
Under this broad spreading Beech,
Whose curled front to Heaven doth reach,
I'le lie, and listen to the Owle,
And languishing sigh out my Soule.

Admetas.
So to dare thy frowning Fate,
Argues thee madly desperate,
Most loved Shepheard, what may be
The cause of thy great miserie?

Amintas.
O Friend, t'will but augment my griefe,

Admetas.
To breath one woe is some reliefe,
All the Shepheards of the plaine
Mourn for thee delicious Swaine,
They sorrow that thy Pipe is still,
Which came so near to Astrophill,
Yea, wont aswell to please the route,
As the rare Layes of Collin Clout:
Their Oaten Reeds they also break,
And make great sorrow for thy sake.

Amintas.
May they be happy, I am lost,
Split when I hope to harbour most,
I feell the frozen hand of death,
But yet before I yeeld my Breath,
Ile tell thee (dear Friend) ere thou goe,
The cause and progresse of my woe.

Admetas.
Here Il'e lie down, proceed to tell,

Amintas.
Admetas hear and mark mee well,
Thou knewst faire Cloris, lovely faire,
Who tyed wing'd Cupid in her haire,
The little god being glad to stay,
Did with his golden-fetters play,
Lovely as Hebe, fairer farre
Then she the plumpe god made a starre;
As coldly chaste as ere was she,
Titan turnd to Lawrell tree,
Wise as Tritonia, her bright eyes,
Dazl'd Apollo in his rise,
Her forehead cheerefull, corrall lip'd,
Her cheekes were Roses in milk dipt,
Fingers such as Aurora faire
When pleating her old Tythons haire,
This goddesse of my life and I
(Joynd in mutuall amitie)
By Hymen to the Temple led,
Dame Flora having deckd our bed,
To add unto our active sports
Fortune who still our wishes thwarts
Joyning with Atropos conspired,
To kill the thing I so desired,
Chloris in the Temple dies,
Her Nuptialls are her Obsequies.

Admetas.
Most gentle Shepheard I confesse,
Thou hast great cause of heavinesse,
But wise men have concluded still
Tis vaine to waile an helplesse ill.

Amintas.
Her memory remaines with me,
Although her body buried be,
Ye purling brooks, who murmuring
Still run on errands to your King,
Earth-shaking Neptune, bid him rore
Untill he do eat up the shore,
And let his Tritons loud resound
The cause, and dolour of my wound,
Both Death, and Destinie, and Hell,
Avernus, where the Furies dwell,
With the loathsome stream of Stix,
In their Counsels do commix
For to rob me of my Blisse,
Staying my Love in shadie Dis.

Admetas.
What frenzie doth possess thy brain,
O thou late most honoured Swaine?
But Love I know no Law abides,
Since his great power, Heaven guides,
And all things that on earth survive,
Without they love they never thrive.
“Love altereth nature, ruleth Reason,
“Makes vice a Virtue, Virtue Treason.
Iove, whose voice Olympus shakes,
Love, to be transformed makes.
Love caus'd Hypollitus with briers
(Shunning Phædras lustfull fires)
To be out of his Chariot born,
And into many peices torn.
Love layd Absyrtus limbs o'th Strand,
Scattered by his Sisters hand,
Forc'd Pasiphæ that impious trull)
To the embraces of a Bull.
Love great Alcides did betray,
And while upon Polixena
Achilles doated, he was slaine,
(Rhamnusia so her will did gaine.)
Love, smooth Leander did compell
To swim the Helespont so well.
No marvell then that thou art tane
(Admintas) thus unto thy bane,
These were with living beauties fir'd
By thee a dead Maid is desir'd.

Amintas.
Admetas, cease t'upbraid my will,
'Lesse thou hast Podalyrius skill,
And with thy oyntments canst asswage
The fire that in my heart doth rage,
In direfull sobbing, sighs and teares,
Perpetuall plaints Il'e spend my years,
On Rocks, in Dens, and deserts I
Will breath my woes incessantly,
Farewell for ever, my deare Flocks,
Ye Woods, ye Rivers, and ye Rocks,
A black stone ever on this day,
Let each true Lover cast away;
On which let Titan never shine,
But let the clustering clouds combine
For to obscure the sight of day,
And dim the glories of his ray,
Let loathsome snakes loud hissing keep,
And scaly fishes leave the deep,
To come on shore, let scritch-owles sing
Myrtles wither, Willowes spring;
Dearest Chloris, see I come
To meet thee in Elizium.

The THIRD PASTORAL.

Linus. Coridon.

Linus.
Come Coridon sit down by me,
Our flocks securely feeding be,
While Phœbus beames do parch the earth,
Giving the slime of Nilus birth,
An houre weel wholly spend in chat,
Finding discourse of this, and that.

Coridon.
I list not spend my time so ill,
But yet because it is your will,
Il'e sit, though much against my mind,
Now—what talk with me will you find.

Linus.
Indeed I know thou lov'st to heare
Of nought, but how thy Oxe will beare
His yoke, and when thy sheep to sheare,
That thou mayst make a gainefull yeare,
But yet to mee more pleasant is
To hear Tytirus play I wis
Upon his oaten Reed, while hee
Doth make delitious mellodie,
(As once to Orpheus Harp) each tree
Does nod, Beasts of the wood agree
To cast aside their furious kind,
And take to them a gentle mind,
While he records in pleasant verse
Sweettales of Love, and doth rehaerse
His dreames and songs, the stones do move.

Coridon.
O foole with fancies much in love,
I wot not what Tytirus was,
Nor for his tales and songs, do passe,
But yet I pray thee let me heare
Yet more of this fantastick geare,
If they were Shepheards like as we.

Linus.
O Coridon that cannot be,
They passe us Swainlings all as farr,
As doth the Moon the smallest Star,
But I to thee will now display
What I have heard my Father say.
Next unto Tytirus there came
One that deservd a greater name,
Then was bestowed, but when She swaid,
Whom to this day some call a Maid,
Then Collin Clout his pipe did sound,
Making both Heaven and Earth resound;
The Shepheards all both farre and near
About him flock'd his layes to hear,
And for his songs he was so fam'd,
He was the Prince of Shepheards nam'd:
And next to him was the sweet quill
Of far renowned Astrophil
Admired, who whether that he chose
To pipe in Verse or else in Prose,
Was held the bravest swain to be,
Ere folded Flocks in Arcadie:
After him rose as sweet a Swaine,
As ever pip'd upon the Plain,
He sang of warres, and Tragedies
He warbled forth, on him the eyes
Of all the Shepheards fixed were,
Rejoycing much his songs to hear.
And then liv'd He who sweetly sung,
Orlandos fate in his own tongue,
Who would not deigne t'divulge his own,
But by another would be known,
O gentle Shepheard we to thee
Are bound in a supream degree.
And after him a swain arose,
In whom sweet Ovids Spirit chose
For to reside, he sang of Love,
How Cupid Ladies hearts can move,
And each how large the Continent
Of Arcadie is in extent,
He praisd his maker in his Layes,
And from a King receiv'd the Bayes.

Coridon.
Although thy words a mistery
Include, not understood by me,
Yet these I think our Fathers were,
Have we none now their names to bear?
And able are their Pipes to sound
As lowd as those so much renownd.

Linus.
Yes Coridon, Ile tell thee then,
Not long agoe liv'd learned Ben,
He whose songs, they say, out-vie
All Greek and Latine Poesie,
Who chanted on his pipe Divine,
The overthrow of Cataline,
Both Kings and Princesses of might,
To heare his Layes did take delight,
The Arcadian Shepheards wonder all,
To heare him sing Sejanus fall,
O thou renowned Shepheard, we
Shall ne're have one againe like thee,
With him contemporary then,
(As Naso, and fam'd Maro, when
Our sole Redeemer took his birth)
Shakespeare trod on English earth,
His Muse doth merit more rewards
Then all the Greek, or Latine Bards,
What flowd from him, was purely rare,
As born to blesse the Theater,
He first refin'd the Commick Lyre,
His Wit all do, and shall admire,
The chiefest glory of the Stage,
Or when he sung of war and Strage,
Melpomene soon viewd the globe,
Invelop'd in her sanguine Robe,
He that his worth would truely sing,
Must quaffe the whole Pierian spring.
And now—(be gone ye gastfull feares
Alas I cannot speak for teares)
There is a Shepheard cag'd in stone
Destin'd unto destruction,
Worthy of all before him were,
Apollo him doth first preferre,
Renowned Lawreate be comtent,
Thy workes are thine own Monument.
Apollo still affords supply,
For the Castalian Fount's nere drie,
Two happy wits, late brightly shone,
The true sonnes of Hyperion,
Fletcher, and Beaumont, who so wrot,
Iohnsons Fame was soon forgot,
Shakespeare no glory was alow'd,
His Sun quite shrunk beneath a Cloud:
These had been solely of esteem,
Had not a Sucklin Rivald them.
Sucklin

Sir John Sucklin.

, whose neat superior phrase
At once delights, and doth amaze,
Serene, sententious, of such worth,
I want fit words to set it forth,
Exactly excellent, I think,
He us'd Nepenthe stead of Inke,
In this he all else doth out-do,
At once hee's grave, and sportive too.
And next to him well rankt may be
He, whose Pipe melodiously
Doth sound, who for his well-tun'd Layes,
May before Plautus claim the Bayes,
Whose Commick straines, and Tragick sounds,
Do ecchoe all about our grounds:
O gentle Shepheard still pipe on,
Still take deep draughts of Helicon,
And thou'lt be rankt I make no doubt
With Tytirus and Collin Clout.

Coridon.
Come let us rise, I wonder why,
Thou'lt spend thy time so foolishly,
By this we might our traps have set,
The Wolfe within our toiles to get,
Have made new Hurdles for our fold,
While we have heard these stories told,
That are not worth a lock of wooll,

Linus.
Wisely to speak unto a Foole
Is madnesse, come, bright Sol declines,
And glimmering on the Hills he shines.
Lets fold our flocks, which done, then I
My self will to my pipe apply.