University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Amyntas, and Thyrsis.
AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, the gentle streams have not denied
Their sympathetick murmur to my woes.
I've known the trees, with softly-trembling leaves,
Whisper their pity to my warm complaint:
The rocks have softened as I poured my lay.
Harder than rocks I find my cruel fair:
Her breast will ne'er admit my moving tale.
Doth she deserve the tender name of woman?
No; she hath quite renounced her feeling sex,
The delicate emotions of her nature;
Since she denies her lover that compassion
Which even the world inanimate vouchsafes him.

THYRSIS.
'Tis the lamb's joy to crop the tender herb;
The wolf's regale is to devour the lamb;
But more inexorable love delights
In the fell homage of a harsher tribute;
Sighs are his incense; his libation, tears.

AMYNTAS.
Alas! my Thyrsis, love is surely sated
With my reiterated sighs, and tears:
The savage god is thirsting for my blood;
And soon it shall be shed; soon shall stern Cupid,
With sterner Sylvia, view my deadly wound,
And with their eyes enjoy life's crimson flood,
My spreading paleness, and my last convulsions.

THYRSIS.
You rave, Amyntas; moderate your passion
With reason; you may find another mistress,
If you're despised by this inhuman fair one.

AMYNTAS.
Another mistress find!—I've lost myself:
When grim despair with his chill hand hath seized us,
And broken nature's elasticity,
We look around for solace, but in vain.

THYRSIS.
Weak-hearted man!—drive off the fiend despair:
Firm perseverance yet may gain the nymph.
What will not time, and perseverance do!
The keen progression of the mind of man
Changes in every age the face of nature:
Nought is too wondrous for it's force, and art;
It tames the lions, and Hyrcanian tygers.

AMYNTAS.
But my distress will not admit delay:
I long for shelter in the quiet grave.

THYRSIS.
You will not need to brook a long delay;
Woman is angry soon, and soon appeased;
A childish, volatile, capricious thing;
By trifling motives different ways inclined,
As is the nodding ear of golden Ceres,
Or limber osier by the lightest air.
But sure Amyntas might acquaint his Thyrsis
With the whole secret of his hapless passion.
You have to me lamented oft your flame;
But you have never yet told me it's object.
It is a trust you may repose in me,
A trust to friendship, and the Muses due.
Together oft we cultivate the Muses,
And with their scenes enrich our simple life:
Oft do the Muses on a beauteous eve,
The sky serene, and drowsy nature hushed,
We tending homewards through the silent vale,
Vouchsafe celestial sounds to rural ears;
And raise our humble minds above their stretch,
With such warm fancy, such ethereal forms,
As 'scape the vulgar intellectual eye.
These views, Amyntas, should enlarge thy soul,
Pardon the kind rebuke, and make thee know
Where thou may'st lodge it in full confidence.
Why need I launch into the praise of friendship?
Friendship the best support of wretched man!
Which gives us, when our life is painful to us,
A sweet existence in another's being!
Revere, O swain, the sacred rights of friendship.

AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, I'll tell without reserve to thee,
What oft I've told to streams, and trees, and mountains,
But never yet revealed to human ear.
For as my death approaches, I would wish
To leave my story with my faithful friend,
That he at proper junctures might relate it,
And carve it on some venerable beech,
Under whose boughs I have my sepulture;
A useful monument to future swains.
Then may the cruel fair-one tread my ashes;
Then may she say, with barbarous exultation,
“Thus have my powerful charms completely triumphed.”
Then may her triumph be increased, to find
My tale is known to all the neighbouring swains,
Is known to many a traveller who by chance
Bends to the melancholy spot his way.
And, Thyrsis, may not I presume (alas!
I hope the honour of too great a boon)
That Sylvia, one day, will repent her harshness;
Will feel her heart melt with too late compassion;
Will love my memory, and by oft comparing
Amyntas living with Amyntas dead,
Comparison which kills the worst resentments,
Break into some such tender exclamation—
“Oh! were he yet on earth; and were he mine!”
Now, Thyrsis, hear.

THYRSIS.
Proceed; I mark thee well;
Haply for better purpose than thou weenest.

AMYNTAS.
When yet I was a boy; when yet my hand
Could hardly reach to seize the luscious fig,
Depending from it's fragrant lowly tree,
I formed an intimacy with a maid,
The fairest sure, whose flowing, golden tresses
Were ever kissed by Zephyr's wanton breeze.
The daughter of Cydippe is the fair,
Her father is Montanus, rich in herds;
Sylvia her name: she was my young companion;
And she at present is my amorous theme.
Sylvia, the pride of woods, the flame of shepherds!
Amyntas with his Sylvia lived some time,
Exchanging such a pure, delightful friendship,
That the harmonious hearts of two chaste turtles
Did never beat in truer unison.
Near to each other were our cottages;
But nearer to each other were our souls;
Time had impressed us both with equal years;
But nature with more equal sentiments.
Nets was I wont to spread with her, the ambush
To catch the feathered tribe, and scaly fry;
With her I always urged the vigorous chace:
Our sport was common; common was our spoil.
But while I thus waged war with animals,
And made fell havock of the brute creation,
Love by degrees stealing me from myself,
Insensibly subdued the mighty hunter.
I found a gradual, and a new affection
Spring in my breast, as grows the blade of grass,
Advancing by degrees from source unknown.
This unaccountable augmenting passion
Made me unhappy but in Sylvia's presence;
And while I gazed upon her, from her eyes
I drank a strange, intoxicating pleasure,
Which, though transporting, left a sting behind it.
I often sighed, and wondered why I sighed;
I was a lover, ignorant of love.
Well did I know it's nature in the end:
I'll tell the how:—Thyrsis attend my story.

THYRSIS.
You paint so strongly that I must attend it.

AMYNTAS.
One day beneath the beech's spreading shade,
Phillis and Sylvia sate, and I sate with them.
When lo, a bee, that hummed around the mead,
Gathering her sweets, fastened on Phillis' cheek,
Bit it with eagerness, and sucked its balm—
On Phillis' cheek, vermilion as the rose;
And haply by its view deceived, the insect,
Mistook it for some rich, ambrosial flower.
Phillis, forthwith, impatient of the puncture,
Expressed her pain in girlish lamentation.
But her consoling Sylvia thus addressed her:
“Grieve not, my Phillis; I'll remove thy smart;
The intruder's little wound I soon will heal
By application of a verbal charm.
I learned the secret from the sage Aresia;
And in return a beauteous horn I gave her,
Which to the chace I bore (thou oft hast seen it)
Ivory the substance was; 'twas set in gold.”
She spoke; and straight approached her beauteous lips,
Her lips nectareous to the wounded cheek
Of Phillis, pressed them to the injured part;
And in sweet accent murmured certain verses;
But murmured them so low I could not hear them.
Astonishing effect! immediately,
The pain, and bite that caused it, were removed;
Whether by virtue of the magick words,
Or rather, as I ween, by Sylvia's lips,
Whose touch, with more than Esculapian power,
Must balsam give to body, and to soul.
I, who till then no higher bliss desired
Than to enjoy the golden privilege
Of viewing the mild lustre of her eyes,
Or hearing the sweet musick of her tongue,
Far sweeter than the murmuring rivulet,
Whose gliding stream the pebbles gently break;
More soothing than the breath of vernal Zephyr,
In whisper stealing through the trembling leaves:
I from that moment felt a new desire,
Wishing that Sylvia's lips, and mine might meet:
And on a sudden, from a rustic boy,
Grown to a politician (strange! how love
Whets the blunt intellect!) I soon bethought me
Of a sly stratagem to gain my purpose.
An angry bee, enraged, as I pretended,
Because with heedless hand I drove it from me,
Had on my lip a thrilling wound inflicted.
Keen agony I feigned, and sore lamented;
And with a supplicating aspect begged
The favour, which my tongue durst not petition.
The simple Sylvia took compassion on me,
And offered me her efficacious cure.
But when I felt her rosy mouth touch mine,
Heavens! how it penetrated all my frame!
It smote each nerve with instantaneous fire,
Deepened my real wound, and made it mortal.
Assiduous bee never such honey sipped,
As I from Sylvia's blooming lips inhaled,
More aromatic than the new-blown rose.
And yet the kiss was languid; maiden instinct
Prevented Sylvia from impressing it;
And I with awe was overwhelmed, and durst not
Complete it with the energy of love.
That memorable kiss conveyed such sweets,
Though mixed with lurking poison to my heart,
That I kept up the fraud; and oft told Sylvia,
Her magick had not its effect on me;
And she repeated oft the pleasing charm.
Augmenting daily from that fatal time,
My passion grew at length so violent,
And so impatient my anxiety,
They tore my breast, and forced me to reveal them.
Once when the shepherds, and the nymphs were met,
For evening relaxation, at the pastime,
In which each member of the merry circle
Whispers his secret in his neighbour's ear;
My cruel fair was seated next to me.
I whispered her,—“Sylvia, I burn for thee;
“Favour thy lover's passion, or he dies.”
She to the ground her beauteous face declined,
Suffused with sudden red, the mark of shame,
And anger: silence was her sole rejoinder;
It was a sullen, agitated silence,
On which severe reproofs, and dreadful threats
Sate lowering. She arose, and left the play:
And hath not from that time vouchsafed to see me.
Now three times hath the sweating reaper shorn
From the luxuriant fields the golden grain;
Three times departing autumn hath announced
With falling leaves the bleak approach of winter,
While to appease that unforgiving maid,
Each art, each effort have I tried, but death.
And willingly I'd die, would but my death
Either excite her pleasure, or her grief—
But which emotion should I wish to raise?
'Twould be but grateful in her to embalm
The memory of her constant swain with grief.
And yet I would not wish with sharp sensation
To sting, and harrass her soft, snowy breast;
Or dim, with tears, the lustre of her eye.

THYRSIS.
And is it possible that if she heard
These generous words she would not pity thee;
And pity is an avenue to love.

AMYNTAS.
I dare not hope she would; for now her ear
Is as insensible to my complaint
As is the adder's to the charms of musick.

THYRSIS.
Fear not, Amyntas; I will undertake
To soften thy obdurate fair-one's rigour,
And make her more propitious to thy suit.

AMYNTAS.
Alas! my friend, too well I know her nature;
Thy kind endeavours nothing will avail:
Or if they should obtain a patient ear,
Her heart will still be inaccessible.

THYRSIS
Why art thou thus a prey to black despair?

AMYNTAS.
I have but too just reason to despair,
For Mopsus prophesied my hapless love:
Mopsus, endowed with more than mortal wisdom;
The language of the birds to him is known,
He knows the latent powers of plants, and springs.

THYRSIS.
What Mopsus dost thou mean? that artful Mopsus,
Whose tongue is honeyed with endearing words;
On whose false lips sits an inviting smile;
Mopsus, who cloaks the murderer with the friend?
For all the idle, dismal prophecies,
With which he terrifies unwary minds,
Uttering them with authoritative air,
As if they carried fate, are ne'er fulfilled.
Experience warrants me to paint him thus:
Therefore again I say, be of good courage;
For I believe your flame will be successful,
From his malicious, and blind augury.

AMYNTAS.
If by experience, Thyrsis, thou art taught
To give no credit to his prophecies,
An instance would afford me consolation.

THYRSIS.
A memorable instance will I give thee.
When fortune brought me to our peaceful shades,
I soon became acquainted with this Mopsus;
And then I judged him such as thou hast thought him,
Wise, and sincere, and friendly I believed him.
It so fell out, that I was called by business,
And urged by rustick curiosity,
To visit that great city where the Po,
Immortalized by bards, his tribute pours.
Before I undertook this enterprize,
High enterprize to simple, fearful swain,
To Mopsus I unfolded my design,
As to a faithful counsellor, and prophet.
He shook his head, and said—Beware, my son,
And tread with cautious step the dangerous ground,
Whither thou tendest: 'tis beset with snares.
The merchant there will lie in wait for thee;
Tempt thee with the false lustre of his ware,
Rob thee with smiles of generosity,
With all the paltry eloquence of trade,
And tell a thousand lies to gain a farthing.
The courtier, too depraved in soul to feel
Humane enjoyment at the sight of nature,
Will make a sport of thee, thy coarse attire,
Thy simple manners, thy unpolished language,
Thy happy ignorance of perverted life;
His mean servility, his rampant bow,
His trembling at a creature like himself,
His childish passions, his ideal wants,
Ten thousand times more worthy to be laughed at.
Guide then thy steps, my son, with circumspection:
Avoid the lumber, the parade of grandeur;
Let not thy mind be dazzled with the glare.
Fly from the Tyrian glow that mocks the eye;
The plume as airy as the head that wears it;
The lying blazon, falsely speaking worth;
The monument of long-departed greatness.
Fly all the vain idolaters of fashion;
Their souls as trifling as the modes they worship.
But above all, withhold thy prudent step
From the grand magazine of earthly folly.
What place is that, said I?—There, he replied,
Female magicians dwell; who with false sights
Delude the eye, and with false sounds the ear.
Their diamond is rude stone, their gold but brass:
Their silver coffers full of orient treasure,
Are wicker baskets, and replete with trash.
With art of sorcery the walls are formed;
Strangely they speak, and answer to the speaker;
Not giving back the mutilated word,
As echo answers in the rural shade;
But fully they return it; and they add,
(Surprizing to relate!) words of their own.
The tables, and the chairs, the beds, and curtains,
All implements of that inchanted palace,
Articulate, and speak with restless tongue.
There, lies, in shape of little playful children,
Hover, and sport, inspiring wicked tales.
Nay; if a person, speechless from the womb,
Should chance to enter there, his organ straight
Would by the devilish magick be unloosed;
Spite of himself, he'd in a moment catch
The voluble infection of the place.
But these are the least evils thou may'st meet:
Thou may'st of human figure be deprived;
May'st pass into a melancholy willow,
Into a plaintive stream, or sighing flame.
Such was the lesson gloomy Mopsus gave me.
I to the city went, not without fear,
My fancy haunted by his dreadful picture,
Which better information soon effaced.
Kind Providence my wandering steps conducted
To the blest mansion of terrestrial sweets,
Which he had drawn in such alarming colours.
Forth from the palace issued heavenly musick,
The voice of swains, melodious nymphs, and Sirens;
And such a tide of captivating bliss,
That for a while I stood, absorbed in wonder.
A goodly person at the door I spied,
He seemed the guardian of the paradise;
Graceful his shape, and noble was his mien:
I knew not from his ensigns, what to deem him,
A warriour brave, or courtly cavalier.
With face benign, tempering his dignity,
Accosting me, he begged that I would enter,
Survey the mansion, and partake it's pleasures.
Thus he, among the first in rank and splendor,
Was pleased to honour an ignoble swain.
Enter I did—but heavens! what sights I saw!
I saw musicians with Orphean finger
Striking the lyre: a company I saw
Of heavenly goddesses, and beauteous nymphs;
Some in luxuriant, airy dress; their hair,
And face uncumbered with fantastick mode;
Bright as Aurora, harbinger of day,
Diffusing virgin light, and pearly dew.
Apollo and the Muses there I saw,
With heavenly sounds enchanting mortal ear;
Raising the coldest hearer to a poet,
And opening all the sentimental world.
Amongst the Muses was Elpinus seated,
Elpinus high in fame amongst our swains.
With such pervading, and parental eye
Omniscient Heaven the worthy man surveys,
In the sequestered shade and humble garb;
And raises to such unexpected honour
The modest friend of virtue, and the Muse.
Spurning my rustick diffidence, to think
The fortune of Elpinus might be mine,
And waked to rapture I had never known,
My fancy heated with surrounding objects,
I raised my voice, and sung of war and heroes,
My former unaspiring themes disdaining,
The shepherds humble, and unpolished lay.
And though it was my fate to seek again
These woods; yet still my pipe retains a part
Of the bold character which then I caught;
It sounds not weak, but with a martial tone,
And makes the astonished woods, and valleys ring.
The envious Mopsus heard my epic strain,
And viewed me with malign, bewitching eye:
With hoarseness I was smit; and, for a time,
I could not speak; the neighbouring shepherds thought
A wolf had seen me; but the wolf was he.
So much I've told thee, that thou may'st not fear
To have such fate as he predicted thee:
Instead of robbery and ridicule,
I, at the famous city, met with honours,
And I returned enriched with sacred genius.
Mopsus' heart is black; whence every object
Wears a grim hue to his distempered soul.
And though his warning in the main was just,
And holds too strongly in exalted life;
He was not seer enough to know the court
To which I went, was an exception to it.
In general, what he prophecies is false:
Hope then; and give his prophecy to thee,
A happy, and inverted explanation.

AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, thy words give comfort to my soul;
Be thou the generous guardian of my life.

THYRSIS.
I'll not neglect the charge, I'll urge thy interest:
Fail not to meet me here within an hour.
Mean while, the duties of a man revolve,
And steel thy bosom with the firm resolve,
Not to resign thyself a dupe to fear,
By giving scope to fancy's wild career.
For oh! Amyntas! when misguided man
Departs from reason's all-sufficient plan,
To happiness in vain presumes to tend,
By means that do not on himself depend;
Crosses attack him in a numerous train,
And all the family of moral pain.
Yet this but theory; I do not mean
From it's deep-rooted love thy heart to wean;
Love still must actuate the sequestered swain,
His highest pleasure, and acutest pain;
Or else a mere machine he'd draw his breath,
In dull indifference, in a living death.
But in thy breast let reason have her share;
A tempered passion gives a tempered care.
When reason's gentle government we quit,
Too warmly with an earthly object smit;
Blindly we're driven by passions furious sway,
The heddy mind is every trifle's play;
Each little circumstance our fear awakes,
Which reason in it's just proportion takes.
Thus does the shepherd, blest with vigorous eyes,
See objects in their proper form, and size:
But if distemper hath impaired his sight,
Bright Sol directs him with fallacious light;
He sees a robber in the rustling spray,
And for a wolf mistakes his faithful Tray.

CHORUS.