Fovre bookes of Du Bartas I. The Arke, II. Babylon, III. The Colonnyes, IIII. The Columues or Pyllars: In French and English, for the Instrvction and Pleasvre of Svch as Delight in Both Langvages. By William Lisle ... Together with a large Commentary by S. G. S |
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 | Fovre bookes of Du Bartas |  |
The Ball shee beares in lest the portrait is of heau'n;
For howbeit Arte we finde to Nature match vneuen,
Good wits yet ner'thelesse thus also take delight
To view and maruaile-at the Vault so flamie-bright.
For howbeit Arte we finde to Nature match vneuen,
Good wits yet ner'thelesse thus also take delight
To view and maruaile-at the Vault so flamie-bright.
O what a pleasure 'tis that turning softly about
This starrie briefe of heau'n we see as 'twere come out,
And with a stately traine before our eyes to coast,
The bands and banners bright of that all-conquering hoast!
One hath a quiu'r and bow, with arrowes quick-to-strike;
Another swayes a Mace; another shakes a pike.
One lies along, anoth'r enthrond in stately chaire
Rowles-ore the brasen blew of th'euer-shining Sphaire.
Behold, some march afoot, and some on horseback ride;
Some vp, some downe, and some before, behind, beside:
Her's ord'r eu'n in disord'r; and of this iarre doth come
Both vnto Sea and Land a plenty-swelling wombe.
I neuer see them looke one aft'r anoth'r askance
In tryangl', in quadrangle, or in sextile agglance,
Sometime with gentle smile, and sometime with a frowne,
But that me thinks I see the braue youth of a towne
All dancing on a greene; where each sex freely playes,
And one another leads to foot the country layes:
Where one darts as he go'th a looke of Ielousie,
Another throwes his Lasse a louely glauncing eye.
Then Phaleg said, how is't (Sir) that the Souerain-faire
Who naught vnseemly makes in Sea, in earth, in ayre,
Yet on this heau'nly vault, which doth all else containe,
(Where ought delight her selfe and grace and beauty raigne)
Sets many a cruell beast and many a monster fell,
That meeter were t'abide among the fiends in hell?
This starrie briefe of heau'n we see as 'twere come out,
And with a stately traine before our eyes to coast,
The bands and banners bright of that all-conquering hoast!
One hath a quiu'r and bow, with arrowes quick-to-strike;
Another swayes a Mace; another shakes a pike.
One lies along, anoth'r enthrond in stately chaire
Rowles-ore the brasen blew of th'euer-shining Sphaire.
Behold, some march afoot, and some on horseback ride;
Some vp, some downe, and some before, behind, beside:
Her's ord'r eu'n in disord'r; and of this iarre doth come
Both vnto Sea and Land a plenty-swelling wombe.
I neuer see them looke one aft'r anoth'r askance
In tryangl', in quadrangle, or in sextile agglance,
Sometime with gentle smile, and sometime with a frowne,
But that me thinks I see the braue youth of a towne
All dancing on a greene; where each sex freely playes,
And one another leads to foot the country layes:
Where one darts as he go'th a looke of Ielousie,
Another throwes his Lasse a louely glauncing eye.
Then Phaleg said, how is't (Sir) that the Souerain-faire
Who naught vnseemly makes in Sea, in earth, in ayre,
Yet on this heau'nly vault, which doth all else containe,
(Where ought delight her selfe and grace and beauty raigne)
Sets many a cruell beast and many a monster fell,
That meeter were t'abide among the fiends in hell?
Sonne (answers Heb'r) indeed the curious hand of God
Makes all by rules of Art, and nothing gracelesse-odde;
And this especially the world doth beautifie,
That both aloft and here is such varietie.
Yet more, our ancestors that wisely drew the lines,
And skoared first the Globe according to the Signes,
Gaue each a name and shape implying such effects
As on all vnder-things they worke by their aspects.
For thy a Ram they made the Sunnes twyhorned Inne,
His curly-golden signe whereat the yeares begin.
Wherevnd'r is all the land lukewarmed peece by peece
And puts on rich attire, a flowrie-golden fleece.
The next they made a Bull, for there they wont to yoke
The softly-drawing steers that in a sweaty smoke
Plow-vp the fallow grounds, and turning-ore the mould
Doe skowre the coult'r againe that rust before had fould.
Twinnes of the third they made, where Loue that angry-sweet
The male and female makes in one together meet
For eithers perfiture; when fruit in cluster growes,
And all at once are seene both flowr' and graynie rowes.
The fourth a Crab, whereat this prince of wandring fires
Acoast the South againe vntireably retires;
And backward (like a Crab) the way before he trode
Reprints with equall steps, and keeps his beaten rode.
The fift a Lyon fierce; for as the Lyons are
Of hot-infecting breath, so vnder this same starre
Our haruest glowes with heat; yea on the Sea and streames
The Lyon-maned Sun shoots-out his burning beames.
The sixt by their deuise the title hath of a maid,
Because th'Earth like a Girle therevnd'r is ill apaid
To beare the loue-hot looks that Phœbus on her flings,
And then, chast as a maid, no fruit at all she brings.
The next hath of the Scoales, because it seems to way
The silence-louing night and labour-guiding day,
The Summer and the Wint'r, and in the month of Wines
Makes either side so eu'n, as neither more declines.
The next, because we feele then first the Summer gon,
And sting of Winter come, they call'd a Scorpion.
The next, in name and shape an Archer, bow in hand,
He shooteth day and night vpon the witherd land,
Vpon th'embattled towrs, vpon the tufted woods,
His arrowes fethered with Ise and snowie foods.
The next they made a Goat, where, as in shaggie locks
The Goat is wont to clime and countermount the rocks,
Our goldy-locked Sun, the fairest wandring starre,
Remounting vp the Globe begins to come vs narre.
And in the latter signes, because they saw a wet
And euer-weeping heau'n, our fathers wisely set
One with a water-spout still running o're the brim,
And fishes there apaire which in the water swim.
But if-so this (my sonne) not satisfie thy minde,
A man may well thereof some other reason finde:
As, that before the word of God made all of naught,
Before that breeding voice not only th'Infant wrought
But euen the wombe of All; th'eterne exampl' and plot,
The wondrous print of things, (now being, and then not)
On heau'nly manner lodg'd in th'Architects foreseeing;
And thus, before it was, the world it had a being.
So first the great Three-One with drift ingenious
Diplaid of shining heau'n the curtaine precious;
And, as vpon a slate, or on a painters frame,
The shape, of things to-be, portrayed on the same.
Loe, is not here the draught of some gold-sandy brooke
That on this azure ground glydes (as it were) acrooke?
There softly fannes a Rav'n, here swiftly an Eagle driues;
There walloweth a Whale, and here a Dolphin diues:
A Dragon glisters here, a Bull there sweating frets;
Here runs the light-foot Kid, and there the horse curuets:
What thing so goodly abides in ayre, at sea, aground,
But some right shape thereof in heau'n aloft is found?
Our ballances, our crownes, our arrowes, darts and maulles,
What are they but estreats of those originals
Whereof th'Almighty word engroue the portraiture
Vpon the books of heau'n for euermore t'endure?
157
And this especially the world doth beautifie,
That both aloft and here is such varietie.
Yet more, our ancestors that wisely drew the lines,
And skoared first the Globe according to the Signes,
Gaue each a name and shape implying such effects
As on all vnder-things they worke by their aspects.
For thy a Ram they made the Sunnes twyhorned Inne,
His curly-golden signe whereat the yeares begin.
Wherevnd'r is all the land lukewarmed peece by peece
And puts on rich attire, a flowrie-golden fleece.
The next they made a Bull, for there they wont to yoke
The softly-drawing steers that in a sweaty smoke
Plow-vp the fallow grounds, and turning-ore the mould
Doe skowre the coult'r againe that rust before had fould.
Twinnes of the third they made, where Loue that angry-sweet
The male and female makes in one together meet
For eithers perfiture; when fruit in cluster growes,
And all at once are seene both flowr' and graynie rowes.
The fourth a Crab, whereat this prince of wandring fires
Acoast the South againe vntireably retires;
And backward (like a Crab) the way before he trode
Reprints with equall steps, and keeps his beaten rode.
The fift a Lyon fierce; for as the Lyons are
Of hot-infecting breath, so vnder this same starre
Our haruest glowes with heat; yea on the Sea and streames
The Lyon-maned Sun shoots-out his burning beames.
The sixt by their deuise the title hath of a maid,
Because th'Earth like a Girle therevnd'r is ill apaid
To beare the loue-hot looks that Phœbus on her flings,
And then, chast as a maid, no fruit at all she brings.
The next hath of the Scoales, because it seems to way
The silence-louing night and labour-guiding day,
The Summer and the Wint'r, and in the month of Wines
Makes either side so eu'n, as neither more declines.
The next, because we feele then first the Summer gon,
And sting of Winter come, they call'd a Scorpion.
158
He shooteth day and night vpon the witherd land,
Vpon th'embattled towrs, vpon the tufted woods,
His arrowes fethered with Ise and snowie foods.
The next they made a Goat, where, as in shaggie locks
The Goat is wont to clime and countermount the rocks,
Our goldy-locked Sun, the fairest wandring starre,
Remounting vp the Globe begins to come vs narre.
And in the latter signes, because they saw a wet
And euer-weeping heau'n, our fathers wisely set
One with a water-spout still running o're the brim,
And fishes there apaire which in the water swim.
But if-so this (my sonne) not satisfie thy minde,
A man may well thereof some other reason finde:
As, that before the word of God made all of naught,
Before that breeding voice not only th'Infant wrought
But euen the wombe of All; th'eterne exampl' and plot,
The wondrous print of things, (now being, and then not)
On heau'nly manner lodg'd in th'Architects foreseeing;
And thus, before it was, the world it had a being.
So first the great Three-One with drift ingenious
Diplaid of shining heau'n the curtaine precious;
And, as vpon a slate, or on a painters frame,
The shape, of things to-be, portrayed on the same.
Loe, is not here the draught of some gold-sandy brooke
That on this azure ground glydes (as it were) acrooke?
There softly fannes a Rav'n, here swiftly an Eagle driues;
There walloweth a Whale, and here a Dolphin diues:
A Dragon glisters here, a Bull there sweating frets;
Here runs the light-foot Kid, and there the horse curuets:
What thing so goodly abides in ayre, at sea, aground,
But some right shape thereof in heau'n aloft is found?
Our ballances, our crownes, our arrowes, darts and maulles,
What are they but estreats of those originals
Whereof th'Almighty word engroue the portraiture
Vpon the books of heau'n for euermore t'endure?
| Fovre bookes of Du Bartas | |