University of Virginia Library

Proteus speaks.
Ye doleful mountains, and ye shagged caves,
Whose echoes with the mournful wave are fill'd,
And your sad locks still dripping briny tears,
To you I come, to lay my sorrows down
In this waste nook, and angle of the world.
For pity may empierce your rugged breasts,
But not the flinty, hard Angelica.
Angelica, thou golden deity!
And wond'rous daughter of the elements!
The earth has had her brood; and the mere air,
Enliven'd by the birth-begetting Sun;
(For so was Ariel born, that fatal spirit,
Who does our enemy's behests, and yet
His beauty is more pregnant, than the beam;)
Nay, and the swelling flood, whereof is sprung
The wonder of the sky, whose dripping locks
Neptune fell down, and worshipp'd on the wave:
But thou surpassest all, as much as light
Outgoes Cimmerian darkness, or the beam
Of Phosphor the mere lanthern of a swain.
O thou divine, and passing pageant,
Thou smiling monster of ambrosial seed,
Would I had never seen thee, nor had known
What Nature may give challenge to the Gods.
O, O accursed fair, and fairest curse,
The woes, which I endure, no words can tell,
Nor horrid fables of Proserpine's world,
Where evil at the height is all her bliss.
Farewell, my herds! now may ye browse at large
Through all the wat'ry space; whom I have led,
With reedy pipe, sweet-speaking to your ears,
To pleasant pastures, oft beneath the moon,
And oft beneath the silver light of morn,
But lead no more, for now my hope is dead.
Yet have I seen the wonders of our world,
Oft passing to their hymeneal beds,
When Summer smooth'd the seas, whose awful charms
Compell'd the dolphins from their wat'ry holds,
And struck the shrilling Tritons with delight:
Nay, and their accents of persuasive love
Drew down the starry sparkles from their sphere.
But yet I never lov'd, nor now had lov'd,
Had all the treasury of Venus' court
Been pour'd before my eyes, with lib'ral gift
Of Jove, to make them my peculiar fee.
Thou, only thou, Angelica, could melt
My stony heart, and mould it to despair.
O son of Saturn, pierce me with thy fire,
That may undo my nature, else forbid;
Or give me great Nepenthè, that shall drown
All thoughts of this abhorred angel's form.
No: O divine Angelica, accept
The garland of my love; sweet-smelling pinks,
That in the garden of stern Neptune's queen
Delight the sense; and roses, such as deck
Her coral pavement, with the wat'ry flags,
And lilies, white and golden, and the flow'r
De-luce, of purple, and imperial stem.
Soft violets, and verdant asphodel,
And the flood-crocus, and the brimming wealth
Of all the cups of Flora, 'neath the sea.
These with the pallid ivy will I bind.
That crawls beside the margin of her throne,
Which Amphitrite loves, and add beside
The wat'ry jasmine, and the silver buds
Of myrtle, breathing through the crystal wave
A fragrant, and divine intelligence.
Thy golden forehead, and Sun-blaming hair,
More lovely than the Morn, I will embind
With weeds, more delicate than earthly flow'rs,
And make thee the bright Ocean's paragon.
Or, if thou choose it rather, thou shalt have
The glossy pearl, for which the Æthiop dives,
Or the green em'rald, or the turkis blue,
Which is Aurora's love, or amethysts,
Whose colour is the light of Hebe's robe,
Or purple sapphire, or the opal keen,
Fire-flashing like the day, or king of all,
The brilliant di'mond, rival of the sun.
These shall adorn thee, and, like stars in heav'n,
Discover all thy beauties to the world.
But, O, thou wilt despise them, if from me
Their wealth is offer'd, and my only choice
Is, to lie down, and perish on the beach.
Who am I, whom you scorn? no less a God,
Than Neptune's son, and keeper of his herds,
And mighty prophet of the murm'ring shore.
The Nymphs have lov'd me, and have oft untied
Their saffron belts within the darksome caves,
And yielded their pure virgin patents up
To my divine enforcement, with free will,
And lovely dalliance, prodigal of joy.
O, but this thought is fire, when I pursue
The like with thee, and know impossible
The fatal pleasure of thy radiant bed!
Impossible? why so? thy cruel pride
Shall have the like return: if Hell should gape,
And all the monsters of my father's world,
With hideous throats, uprising from the deep,
Deny my passage, yet would I fulfill
My glorious purpose, and the golden sand
Shall take the print of thy immortal form.
Angelica shall be Angelica,
But with her zone unloos'd, and flowing hair
Dishevell'd in delight; and reign the queen
Of the dark-weedy shore, and charm the caves
With prodigal demeanour to her God,
When disabus'd of her virginity.

A Mermaid rises, and sings.
Proteus, list; I sing to thee,
Daughter of the foaming sea:
In the centre late I lay,
Where the springs of ocean play,
Twenty thousand fathom down,
And gaz'd on Amphitrite's crown,
All inlaid with em'rald stones,
And opal, such as earth ne'er owns.
The jasper floor with songs was sweet,
And the Nymphs, with silver feet,
Of fragrant weed divinely wove
A silken counterpane of love;
All emboss'd with orient pearls,
Fit for the angel of chaste girls,
And saffron buds, to keep her sense
From the night-witch's foul offence:
And, as they wove, I list them say,
Love be to sweet Angelica,
And household faith, and golden nights,
And a brim ocean of delights:
And ev'ry one, in order due,
The marriage anthem did pursue,
As waves on waves in sequence flow,
When to the sands in love they go,
With musick, for a mermaid's ears,
Fit to charm the drowsy spheres.
In the 'midst of all their song,
A Nymph came in, to speak of wrong,
Done to Amphitrite's meads,
Where her herd, in charter, feeds,
Of water-elks, and ocean-deer,
By some of these you pasture here:
And in the silv'ry marshes too,
Where disports her dolphin crew,
Whose lilied banks are all o'er-thrown,
And purple blossoms trodden down:
And in her blooming orchard's fence,
Where her steeds delight their sense,
Her scaly horses, snorting forth,
In token of their love, and worth,
And lashing still their finned tails;
For there the outrage too prevails:
Her tender plants are bruis'd, and torn,
And fragrant apples cropp'd in scorn.
The wat'ry calves, O queen, came in,
With a lowing rush, and din,
Escap'd from Proteus' hoary care,
As when, between the Trojan straits,
Great Neptune rushes through the gates:
The Nymph then wept, her message sped,
And hid in woe her amber head.
Amphitrite, rising straight,
From her chair of glassy state,
Like the orbed Moon, in pride,
Held her pearly sceptre wide,
Tipp'd with em'rald, and she swore
A fatal oath, ne'er heard before
In a mermaid's dulcet ears,
To be aveng'd her servant's tears:
And sent a nymph to Neptune straight,
On whose swift feet depends thy fate.

Proteus speaks.
This is the fault of Caliban: 'twas but
The beaming of last Hesper, as we fed
Beneath Sigæum, by the lonely tomb
Of stern Achilles, who in golden arms
Oft flashes on the frighted mariner,
With privilege of woe, and points his wounds,
I gave the monster strict enforced charge,
To gather with sure staff his scaly herds:
For oft I saw them drop into the sea,
As stars of summer from the welkin shoot:
But in his drowsy ear the precept slept,
Which I will well avenge: ungracious monster!

The Mermaid sings.
Caliban i' th' eclipse was got,
When the night-shade pines with drought,
And then takes a deadlier hue,
And was dropp'd, to plague our view,
Underneath the iron shade
Of Hell's gates, and thence convey'd
To a witch, who brought him up,
And gave him of dame Hecat's cup,
Which has made him plaguesome thus:
What was his sire? a Succubus.
Was not Sycorax his dam?

Proteus speaks.
Well, I will penn the monster to a rock,
And let him howl nine moons into the deep,
Or bid the Tritons whip him, till his roar
Outgoes the copulating whale: what, wretch!
Forego my precept, and forsake his herd
Of porpusses, and fanged wat'ry calves?
But I will well requite thee.

The Mermaid sings.
Proteus, Love, who skims the seas,
And on the sands does what he please,
Not Caliban, 'though he be vile,
Hath work'd against thee with this guile.
A waning moon ago, I lay,
And comb'd my hair in Corinth bay,
Singing in my coral bower,
And mark'd young Cupid squeeze a flower,
Born of Helen's lively blood,
Which blushes sanguine by the flood:
With Ida's shepherd she at play
On the beach of Sparta lay;
A prickly thistle made a wound,
Which ting'd the shore with nectar round,
And of that crimson milk the flow'r
Was nurtur'd in that charmed hour.
With this he dipp'd his sharpest dart,
And quench'd it's fire in Proteus' heart.
Thou know'st it well; and this has made
The herdsman-God forsake his trade:
What dost thou since, but lie and groan,
And make the rocks repeat thy moan,
And all the winds of th' Ocean play
In praise of sweet Angelica?
The very sea-gulls know thy song—
Why Love has done thee this great wrong,
And Love must cure the wound he made,
By rape of this hard-hearted maid.
Now, Proteus, to thy eyes I lift
The mirrour, which is Neptune's gift,
And show thee, wreck'd upon the strand,
The barque of royal Ferdinand:
His large big-bellied sails are full,
And swelling waves wash on his hull
To th' island of old Prospero,
To do, what thou too well dost know.
But I will sing him to decay,
And wreck his wishes in the bay,
If thou wilt give the boy to me,
To hold him in the hoary sea,
And make stern Neptune grant the same,
And she, his amber-crowned dame.

Proteus speaks.
That which thou say'st, is true: my tears have worn
The iron rocks, and over-charg'd the sea:
But I will be reveng'd: is Ferdinand
So soon come back from Naples to his wife?
O, thou good maiden, whelm him in the flood,
And think his lips fine coral, and his eyes
Blue sapphires, and his locks, O, cursed locks!
The vegetable amber, ere he wed
Angelica, and ruin both our loves.
But I will go to Neptune, and assuage
His rugged brow, and Amphitrite's ire,
Walking beneath the sea with smoothed staff:
And, if my prayers can do it, he shall grant
Thy amorous suit, and charter thee the boy;
With whom in marriage rites thou shalt be laid,
And all the mermaids sing around thy bed,
And all the sea-nymphs dance; the Tritons blow
Their wreathed conchs, and I myself be there.
But since the States of Naples have assign'd
Angelica, the wife of Ferdinand,
For which he now returns, to bear her home,
I will awaken all the deity
To save my cause from ruin, and prevent
The liberal maid from marriage with a man.
Farewell, Celatis; true be to thyself,
To me, and to the Ocean.

The Mermaid speaks.