Fovre bookes of Du Bartas :: :: University of Virginia Library

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

Lisle, William (1579?-1637)

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A Pastorall Dedication to the King.

[Fovre bookes of Du Bartas]

The end of Adam, and beginning of Nöe.

The first Booke of Noe, called the Arke.

The second Booke of Noe, called BABILON.

The third Booke of Noe, or the Colonies.

The Pillars, or fourth Booke of Noe.

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A Pastorall Dedication to the King.

I soong of late as time then gave me scope;
Howbee't for other times a way left ope:
But now, as now; to th'end my Lord may heare,
My voyce, then hoars, to day is waxen cleere:
My former Shepheards song devised was
To please great Scotus, and his Lycidas,
But this for Galla, whom th'All-mightie power
Hath made a Lilly-Rose, and double flower:
O Vally Lilly, and Sharon Rose her blesse!
Though this good speed prevēted hath my presse:
Else had I not this peece of booke alone,
But whole Du-Bartas offred at your throne;
For either nation counterpaged thus,
T'acquaint more us with them, and them With us.
Yet (o!) uovchsafe it thus and grant an eare
To these two Swains, whom I ore-heard whileare.
As Shepheard Musidor sate on a balke,
Philemon commeth to him, and they talke
(Least on [quoth he] my tongue ore-often run)
Thus each with oth'r; I stay till they have done.
Phi.
Good day! what not a word? how dost thou fare?
Or art thou sicke, or takest thou some care?

Mu.
Care, Shepheard? yea, to shew what joy I can.

Ph.
How? that's a riddle; what's thy meaning man?

Mu.
For sith a Nymph, a daughter of Shepherds God,
Who rules a world of sheepe with golden rod,
From loftie shrine descending yet will daigne
To stoope at this my cottage homely-plaine,
And of her favour make herselfe the guage
To me, that ought her seeke on Pilgrimage:

Ph.
Oh, now I see whereon thy minde is bent;
How to prepare fit entertainement.

Mu.
What shall behoove me do, or how to looke?
For though I pawne my fairest pype and hooke;
That one, which Damon gave me by his will,
That other woon in game on Magog hill;
Ile entertaine her (She, I pawne my life,
Will prove the greatest Kings child, sister, wife.)
Ile entertaine her: If I not mistake,
Some Wheat-floure have I for a bridall-cake,
And Abricots, and Plums blacke, red, and white,
Preserv'd with hony cleere as chrysolite;
And nuts and pears, and apples pretie store.
My poultrie will affoord me some-what more,
Except the Fox deceive me.

Phi.
Shame him take!
Oft hath he made our Chaunticleer to quake:
But Creame and Butt'r is skarce yet out of horn,
And all Achars this yeare apprize to corne.

Mu.
I nothing buy, nor have I much to sell.
Store is no sore; my house it finds full well.

For there is corne, and milke, and butt'r and cheese,
Thankes unto Pales: then, if please my bees,
(That waxen wasps when any shrews do fret them)
But if I may by gentlenesse entreat them
To lend m' a combe as sweet as is my guest,
Enough it will be for a Shepheards feast.

Phi.
Thou mak'st me think of my great gransirs cheere,
That would, but did not, kill for Iupitere;

Ovid 8. Met. de Philemone & Baucide. Vntus anser era minimæ custodiæ villæ.

And that he would was but a single goose,
The Sentinell of that skant furnisht house.

Mu.
I know the Gods do hart and welcome prize
Above great store of cheere and sacrifize.

Ph.
True, and their cheere some more, some lesse by rate,
Not of their owne, but of their hosts estate.

Mu.
I have a flocke too, Pan I praise therefore,
Though not so fat as hath beene heretofore.
But Ile receive this guest with such device,
As Shephard best becomes; no Muse is nice;
They quickly yeeld to grace a Pastorall,
Uranie, Thalie, Calliop, and all:
Such I prepare, and they will be all here,
With all the musicke of their heavenlie queere.

Phi.
But how (I pray thee as thou lov'st the kirke)
Wilt thou devise to set them all awerke?

Mu.
I have a pricke-song for Calliope,
To trie her voice in everie moode and key:

And she shall sing the battell of those Rammes,
Who, to th'affrighting of our tender lambes,
In rivalling for Helens of the flocke,
Affront each other with a cannon knocke,
Some faire Eweswool-lock wearing cach in horn,
Or other favour as they wont toforn,
At feast of Gor, good Shepheard, that of yore
Embrew'd the Crosier-staffe with Dragons gore.
This order shall she sing of all most liefe;
Because my faire guest weds thereof the chiefe.

Ph.
So for Calliope: What for the rest?

Mu.
In Orchard, that my selfe with care have drest,
My rarest tree (it beares but only seav'n)
Hath apples streaked like the Globe of Heaven.
On one of them Uranie shall discourse
Of every starre the setting and the sourse;
And shew the Bride and Bridegroome all confines
Of his and her land, by the mid day lines.

Ph.
Were lines of length, and breadth like easly seen
It were not heard

Mu.
Then on the flowrie green,
Or in my garden shall Thalia sing,
How divers waies dame Flora decks the Spring;
And how she smiles to see May after May
Draw'n-out, for her to tricke this Ladies way
With divers kind of divers-coulr'd flow'rs,

Some strew'd aground, sōe hanging on the bow'rs;
As curiovs writers wont embrave their Text
With new and gueason words.

Phi.
On, on to th'next.

Mu.
Well-pleasing Euterp shall the next in order
With gentle breath en whisper my Recorder;
And after playing sing, and after song
Trull-on her fingers all the cane along;
High, low, amids; now up, now downe the key
With Re-Mi-Fa-Sol, and Sol-Fa-Mi-Re;
Declaring how by foure the selfe-same notes
Are set all tunes of Instruments and Throates,
Which are to sound the Queenes sweet harmonie,
Both of her minde and bodies Symetrie.

Ph.
As I have heard report, such if it be,
(Mu. Fy-on that If)

Ph.
Deserves it only she.

Mu.
But I proceed; On harpe shall Polymnie
Renew great Orpheus sacred memorie;
For loving only one; and her so well,
That he assayd to fetch her out of Hell.

Phi.
So Poets say, but such come never there:
From death perhaps.

Mu.
So would I do (I sweare)
For such a wife.

Phi.
So would not I for mine.

But now the rest, for heres but five of nine,

Mu.
Sweet Erato that sets my guest a fire,
Shall play the romant of her hearts desire:
So bee't her Grace it hold no disrepute
To heare it charmy-quaverd on her lute.
Then shal the Bride-maids & the Bride-men dāce,
The Men of England, with the Maids of France;
And sing with Venus, Cupid, Himene,
This Madrigall, set by Terpsichore.
Spring Quyristers, record this merrie lay;
For Galla faire to daie
Goes forth to gather May.
Grow all the Grovnd, but chieslie where she goes,
With White and Crimsin Rose;
Her Love is both of those.
She shall him choose and take before the rest,
To decke her lockes and brest;
And both shall be so blest,
That they and theirs shall golden Scepter weild
Whereto must bow and yeild
The proudest Plant a feild.

Ph.
So, here is worke for Muses all but two;
What hast thou more?

Mu.
Enough for them to do.

Ph.
Nay, use but Clio; leave Melpomene.

Mu.
VVhy leave her out? a stately Muse is she.

Ph.
But still so sad, with looke cast-downe on earth,
I doubt hir presence will defeat the myrth.

Mu.
No, no, I will not part her from the Queere;
But fit her humor, and to mend the cheere,
(Out-set all other wofull destinie)
My fattest lambe shall make a Tragedie.
And sing the Muse will of no greater bug,
Then warre betwixt a yong child and his dug;
Controuling some, though not of high degree,
As cause thereof; ye Ladies pardon me!
The melancholie Muse yet saith, not I;
All that your Sex dishonour I defie;
But your faire bottles Melpomen doth thinke
Dame nature fill'd, for your faire bab's to drinke.

Ph.
Milke would she giue else only to the poore,
Not vnto such as drye'r and spillt a floore.

Mu.
And this 'tis like shee'll adde vnto the rest;
That Ladies child deserues a Ladies brest;
That brauer spirit suckt shall more embraue him,
And make him, man-grown, like a knight behaue him.

P.
Whē others make their gētle blod far-worse
By sucking young the basenesse of their nurse.

Mu.
For as their Heathen gods, the Heathen sayn,
No mortall blood had running in their vain;
But Venus wounded once by Diomed,
Ambrosian liquor at her finger shed:

Right so in blood of men there is great odds;
And such among them as are stiled Gods,
The finest haue, to breed their children food:
Blood was late milk, and milk will soone be blood.

Ph.
And some loue more (as cause of better luck)
Then wombe that bore them, paps that gaue them suck.
What parent would not such a reason moue,
Drawne from the gain, or losse, of childrens loue?

Mu.
I once beheld where Lady of high degree,
As with her Lord and others set was she,
In mids of dinner had her child brought-in,
And gaue it suck, scarce shewing any skin,
Through ynch-board hole of silk, pinn'd vp againe
When child was fed, without more taking paine.

Ph.
And is not this instinct through all dyssown,
That eur'y femall hatcheth-vp her owne?
Well, make an end.

Mu.
How can I be too long,
When Muses beare the burden of my song?
But here's a Trumpet, Fame selfe hath no better;
And Clio sounds it well, and i'le entreat her
Hereafter sing on high what foe shall bow
To th'issues of this happie match; but now
To surd it, as young trompeters are wont,
And, lest it sound too lowd, set stop vpon't;
Yet first bid welcome with a cheerefull clank

The French Deluce to Brytaines Rosy bank.

Phi.
Well fare thine heart for thinking on these things,
To please the children of so mighty Kings.
My selfe, though poore, wil thereto ioine my myte
On solemne day: so leaue thee for to night.

Mu.

And I so thee: time is our sheepe were penn'd:
The Sunne is soonken at the Landskop end.

Then Musidor made haste home, and began
Take order for the busines with his man.
(Wife had he none, the more was he distrest)
See (lad, quoth he) the house and garth well drest
To morrow morn; for then, or soone at least,
The sweetest Nymph on earth will be my guest.
Without, plash thistles and presumptuous thorns,
That neare the way grow-vp among the corns;
For feare they rase her hands more white thē milke,
Or teare her mantles windy-wauing silke:
Within, if Spiders heretofore haue durst
With cunning webs (wherethrough the stronger burst,
And weaker flies are caught) presume to quyp
The sacred lawes of men; with besome stryp
Both web and weauer downe: be-rush the floore,
The porch, and th'entries, and about the doore;
Set eau'n the trestles, and the tables wax,
And strew the windowes: house that mistres lacks
O how (quoth he, and deeply sigh'd therat)

'Tis out of order; wants I know not what!
Haue care (my lad) and be as 'twere my sonne,
He lowted low, and said it should be don.
Much hereto more was written when the Queene
Her beautie shar'd your sea and land betweene:
But after landing long will be my booke
Held vnder presse: on part then please you looke,
Till come the rest; but ô with gratious eye,
And pardon, for applying Maiestie
To Shepherds stile! so may you see conspire
Th'English and French, as no third tongue comes nigher;
No not the Greeke, vnt'either; though Sir Stephen
Hath made the same with French to march full
As doth our English, and it shall yet more,
Now heart, and hand ye Princes ioyne: wherefore eauen.
I pray, and will, with Hymen all mine houres,
That, for the good successe of you and yours,
While earth stands Cent'r, and Heau'n in circle goes
Together spring French Lillie and English Rose.

Your Maiesties faithfull subiect and seruant, W. L'isle.

[Fovre bookes of Du Bartas]

Iusqu' a la fin du Mond la lys Francoise
Fleurisse iointe auec la Rose Angloise.

The end of Adam, and beginning of Nöe.

Then thus he gan foretel. / The wauy territorie

Adam shews his sonne in how many daies the world was created.

Of people skalie-backt, / all this high vaulted story,
Wherein the thundring God / by his e'rlasting might
Hath placed sentinel / Sunne for day, Moone for night.
The highest Aire, the Mean / wherin the clouds do play,
And this below, the field / appointed for the fray
Of sturdie counterwinds / that with a roaring sound
Throw many a wood that stands / betwixt them, to the ground:
The flower-decked Inne / that lodgeth crazie Man,
Were all by th'awfull word / in six daies made, and than
Was hallowed the seuenth. / In like sort Earth, Sea, Aire,

How many ages it should continue.

And th'Azure-guilt that foldes / the world in curtaine faire,
Shall last six other daies, / but long and farre vnlike
The daies that Heauens bright eye / meates-out with golden strike.
That first begins at me, / the next at him that first

The first age vnder Adā. The second vnder Noe. The third vnder Abraham.

Inuented Ship, and taught / dry hills to slake his thirst
With cheerefull iuice of grapes: / the morning of the third,
Is he the mightie Groome / that led his flocke and heard
From home to follow God, / and sacrifizd his Sonne
By faith in heau'nly word / more than by reason woonne.
And he begins the fourth / that had the cannon-sling,

The fourth vnder Dauid. The fift vnder Zedechias.

And changed hooke to mace, / great Prophet, Poet, King.
The fift a dismall day / beginneth at the night,
Of that disastrous King / whose last most-rufull sight
Was, of his children slaine, / and Iewes all droue in rankes,
To lead a slauish life / by fat Euphrates bankes.

The sixt daies Sunne is Christ, the Sauiour lookt-for long,
Who sinnelesse, yet for sinne of man is mockt, beat, hong,

The sixt vnder Iesus Christ.

And laid in graue. The last is th'euerlasting rest.
Then shall th'embillowed Sea be downe a leuell prest:
The Sunne shall lose his light, Heau'n stay his whirling round,

The last shalbe the worlds rest.

All fruit shall cease to grow vpon th'all-bearing ground.
And we that haue on earth beleeued Heauenly troaths,
Shall keepe in Heau'nly ioy the Saboth of Sabothes.

What shall I hope (alas) of all the latter age,
Or fierie vengeance sent to burne this worldly stage,

Adam considers what shall betide his posteritie till the first world is ended by the Flood.

Or men who law'd by lust, nere heard of God, nor me?
What shall I hope of them, when these whose pedegree,
So late from Eden draw'n, continues liuely sense

Of Heau'nly doome on me, when these with mad offence,
Gods anger still prouoke? Ha traitor, and rebell soule,
Ha Lamech, was 't a fault so light thy bed to foule:
To third the paire-of-man: that yet more hellish wood,
Needs must thou dip thy blade in double-gransiers blood?
Nor could the Rogues pasport embrant betwixt his browes,
Nor his charge stay thine hand who power infernall bowes?
But Enos, O thou Saint, be bold, and plant againe

Enos restablisheth Gods seruice.

The standard of beleefe, which mans vnsteddie braine
Hath laied along the ground: Call-on the Sou'raine Good:
Besprinkle his altars hornes with sacrificed blood:
Send vnto his sacred smell the sweet perfumie clouds,
And Truths bright lampe retinde in Errors ashie shroudes.
See Enoch thy disciple, he with a godly strife,
Still dying to himselfe, liues in the Lord of life.

Grace of the world, and sets t'abide th'ey daunting shine

Faithfull Enoch taken away to the Lord for pleasing him Heb. 11. 5. Gen. 5. 24..

That blazeth lightning-like i'th' essence first diuine:
Lo how deliuered from yoake of bodies weight,
And sequestred from sense, he meats the toplesse height
Of Heau'n, and borne on wing of Fasting, Faith, and Prayer,
Styes vp the tent of Saints embroyd'red all so faire.
He, though a guest on earth, in heau'nly trance doth fall;
Know'th all, seeth all, hath all, in God that's all in all.
He passing each degree, from forme to forme ascends,
And (O most happie man) in Gods owne likenesse ends:
For lo, th'All-goodly-faire him for his vertue loues,
And, not in part, but all, from earth to heau'n remoues.
Gone art thou? art thou gone vnto the starrie blew?
Adieu my sonne Enoch, adieu my sonne, adieu.
Liue happie there on high, thy body now a sprite,
Or changed wondrously to shape of Angell bright,
Puts-on eternitie; thine eyes now no more eyes,
But newly-flaming starres, do beautifie the skies.
Thou drinkest now thy fill of Nectar wine, thy day
Of Saboth neuer ends; the vaile now draw'n away,
Thou seest God face to face, and holily vnite
Vnto the Good Three-one thou liu'st i'th infinite
An Angell new: but lo thou leauest here behind
Men of vnbounded lust, their hands rake all they find,

The Patriarchs children corrupt themselues by marrying with the profane race of Cain.

Their bellie like a gulfe is euer gluttonous,
Their tongue malitious, their bodie incestuous.
Yea (would a man beleeu't?) the very chosen race,
And holy peopl' of God, th'adopted sonnes of grace,
They are (alas) the men most impudent of all;
They gallop after sinne with bit in teeth, and fall
T'embrace in lustfull heat mans daughters lewd and vaine,
Profanely tempering the blood of Seth and Cain:
So with a shamelesse eye they choose the gawdy face
Before the godly mind: From these foule beds a race
Of Gyants (God knowes what) spring vp with bloodie minde,

Strong, fierce, plagues of the world, and whips of humane kind.
Then God who sees that sinne more by the long delay
Of his reuenging hand encreaseth day by day,
Is angrie and now no more will plead the reason why;
But man an all for man will sodainly destroy:
At least what ere with wing doth clip the yeelding aire,
Or haunt in mortall state the land so richly-faire.
With one hand sets he ope the windowes of the skie,
Whence on mens rebell heads there falleth from on hie
A thousand showrie seas; he gripes i'th' other hand
The soaken spongie globe of th'all defiled land,
And sets it hard in presse, and makes it cast anon
What flouds it euer dronke sen first the world began.
From euery vaulted rocke great riuers gin to flow,
And downe-hill so encrease with flouds of moulten snow,
That Firre and Cedar trees scarce any bow do show,
The water swol'n so hie, and bankes are sunke so low.
O what posteritie for want of skill to swimme,
Loose I within these gulfes, yet some full brauely climme
The craggie peakes of hills, t'escape the raging deepes,
And grapple about the rockes, but (ah) the wat'r vp creeps,
And lesning all these hills makes all the world a meere.
My children whither now? O whither can you steere
From God, but vnto God? whose anger hath shooke the world
Quite cut-off all your legs, in flood your bodies horld.
Now grows ye flood so high that th'erth is more then drownd
The riuers and the sea haue all one onely bound,
To wit, a clowdy skie, a heau'n still full of raine,
As trauelling with child of many another maine,
To make me childerlesse. O father miserable!
O too-to fruitfull reines! O children dammageable!
O gulphes reuealed for me that were before vnknown!
O end of all! O world enwrackt and ouerflow'n!
O Heau'n! O mightie sea! O land now no more land!
O flesh and blood! but here his voice began to stand;
For sorrow stopt the pipe, and ny of life bereft him:
So fall'n a swoond with griefe the Prophet Spirit left him.

The first Booke of Noe, called the Arke.

Diuine Verse, if with ease thou flow not as to fore
Frō out my weary quil, but make me toyle the more:

The Poets modest complaint to breed attention, and make way for his Inuocation.

The sacred crown of Bay, that wont my fore-head shade,
If now decheueled, it wither, dwindle, fade:
So that my Muse be falne into these earthly hels
From that twypointed Mount where thine Vranie dwels,
Accuse the deadly fewds of this vnthankfull Age,
My many suits in Law, mine often gardianage,
My houshold care, my griefe at late and sundry losses,
And bodies crasie state: these and such other crosses,
They downward force my thoughts aspiring heretofore,
And damp my Muses wings that erst so high did soare.
This haile beats downe my corne, these bushes & these weeds
Before my haruest comes choak-vp those heau'nly seeds
That in my soule shot-out. O rid me of all these lets,
My God and Father deere! kindle in me th'emberets
Of Faith so nie put out: and, least mans wit deceiue me,
Be pleas'd, ô Lord, and ô let not thy spirit leaue me!
Paint, varnish, guild my Verse, now better then before,
And grant I be not like the winde that in a rore
Sends all his hurring force vpon the first he meets
And proudest hils of all, rooting trees, scouring streets;
That driuing o're the plaine, makes with his angry blast

The stones to bound-againe and firie sparkles cast;
But fainteth more and more, as though his winged sway
Did scatter here and there her feathers by the way.
O rather make me like the streame that drop by drop
At first beginning fals from some rocks barren top;
But farther from the Spring and nar to Thetis flowing,
Encreaseth in his waues and gets more strength by going;
And then enbyllowed-high doth in his pride disdaine
With fome and roaring din all hugenesse of the Maine.
It came to passe at length, as our fore-sire foretold
And hausned long before, that angry heau'n enrould
And toomb'd the world in flood, t'auenge (as well it can)
The many plighted sinne of stubborne harted man.
Ne'r had the birds againe in coueys checky-pide
The windy-whirled ayre with hardy flight defide;
Nor beast nor man had beene: but on the land in vaine
Had sprung all kinde of fruit, of tree, of hearbe, of graine:
Had not the godly sonne of Lamech learn'd the skill,
And tooke the paine to build, that Arche huge as an hill,
Which of all breathing kinds safe from so great deluge
Aspaire of breeders held in sakersaint refuge.
When all were once i'th' Arche, Th'almighty bindeth fast

At the end of the second day of the first weeke.

In Eols closest caue the cleering Northen blast,
And lets the South goe loose; he flyes with my slie wing:
From each bristle of his berd there trickleth downe a spring:
A cloggy night of myst embowdleth round his braine,
His haire all bushy-shagd is turned into raine.

He squeaseth in his hand the sponge of cloudy soods;
And makes it thund'r & flash, & powre down showry floods.
Forthwith the foamie drains, the riuers and the brooks,
Are puft vp all at once: their mingled water lookes,
And cannot finde, her bound; but hauing got the raine,
Bears haruest as it runs into the brackie Maine.
All Earth begins to quake, to sweat, to weepe for feare,
That nor in veine nor eye she leaueth drop or teare.

And thou, O heau'n, thy selfe draw'st all the secret sluses
Of thy so mighty Pooles to wash away th'abuses
That had thy sister soyld, who void of law and shame
Pleas'd onely to displease thy King and scorne his name.
Now lost is all the land. Now Nereus hath no shore;
Into the watry waste the riuers run no more;
Themselues are all a Meere, and all the sundry Meeres
That were before, are one: This All naught else appeares
But as a mighty Poole, and as it would conuent
And ioyne flood with the floods aboue the firmament.
The Sturgeon mounting ore high Castles is abasht
To see so many townes all vnder water dasht.

The Secalues and the Seales now wand'r about the rocks,
Where late of bearded goats, were fed the iumping flocks.
Camoysed Dolphins haunt the place of birds, and browse
Vpon the hugest hils, the tallest Cedar browes.
A Greyhound or a Tygre, a Horse, a Haire, a Hinde,
It little auailes them now to run as wight as winde.
They swin and try to stand, and all but little auailes them;
The more they footing seeke (alas) the more it failes them.
The cruell Crocodile, the Tortesse and the Beuer
Haue now but wet aboad that wet and dry had euer.
The Wolfe swims with the Lambe, the Lyon with the Deere,
And neither other frayes; the Hawke and Swallow steere
About with weary wings against a certaine death,
At length for want of perch in fierce waue loose their breath.

But miserable men, how fare they? thinke one treads
On point of highest hill, anoth'r on turret-leads;
Another in Cedars top bestirs him hand and foot
To gaine of all the boughes the farthest from the root.
But (ô alas) the Flood, ascending as doe they,
Surmounteth euery head, whereas it makes a stay.
Behold then some their liues to floting plankes commit,
And some in troughes, and some in coffers tottring sit:
One halfe asleepe perceiues the wat'r away to iogge

His bed and life at once, another (like a frog)
Casts out his hands and feet in equall bredth and time,
And striuing still with head aboue the flood to clime,
Sees nere him how before it newly drownd his brother,
His only child, his wife, his father, and his mother:
At length his weary limbes, no longer fit to scull,
Vnto the mercy yeeld of wat'r vnmercifull.
All, all now goes to wracke; yet Fates and deadly seare,
That earst with hundred kindes of weapons armed were
To spoile the fairest things, now only by the force
And foamy sway of Sea make all the world a corse;
Meane while the Patriarch, who should the world refill,
Plowes vp the fallow-waue aboue the proudest hill;
And th'Arche on dapled backe of th'ocean swoln with pride,
Without or mast or oare doth all in safety ride,
Or ankers ankerlesse, although from hav'n so farre:
For God her pylot was, her compasse and her starre.
A hundred fiftie daies in generall profound
Thus is the world ywrackt; and during all the flound

Good Noe abridgeth not the space of night or day,
Nor puts-off irksomnesse with vaine discourse or play;
But as in dog-day seas'n a raine shed west-by-south,
When Earth desires to drink & thirst hath parcht her mouth,
Reflowreth euery stalke, regreeneth all the field,
That sunne and southerne wind with drought before had peild:
So from his pleafull tongue falls cheering dew and aire,
R'alliuing all his house and beating downe despaire.
And thus he washt their face and wyp'd away their teares,
And raised vp their heart opprest with vgly feares.
Good cheere (my lads) quoth he, the Lord will soone rebinde

He incourageth his familie with consideration of Gods great mercies who neuer forgets his children.

And up the murdring Seas, which his fierce angers winde
Hath whirled ore the world; and as his ang'r (I finde)
Hath armed Sea and Aire and Heau'n against our kinde;
So shall sure, er't be long, his mercy more renownd
Cleare heau'n, vnghust this ayre, & bring the Seas to bound.
Still follow one anoth'r his Anger and his Grace.
His anger lightning-like it stay's not long in place:

But th'other vnder wing it broodeth as an Hen,
The manifold descents of faithfull-hearted men.
The Lord, the gracious Lord, bestowes his wroth by waight,
And neuer waighes his grace; he whips vs & throwes straight
His rod into the fire; wer't on our body laid,
Or soule, or childe, or goods; he makes vs only afraid
With fingers tyck, and strikes not with his mightfull arme.
More often thunders he, then shoots a blasting harme.
And, wise-housholder-like, giues them that bend him knees
His angers wholsome wine, and enemies the lees.

This wise, that holy man, sire of the second age,
Discourseth on the praise of Gods both loue and rage.

But Cham in whose foule heart blind roots were lately sone

Wicked Cham replies vpon his father, and diuers waies opposes the wise and blamelesse prouidence of God, and the good and humble deuotion of Noe.

Of godlesse vnbeleefe; that thought ere this t'vnthrone
The mighty God of heau'n, and beare the scept'r himselfe:
To hold in Africke sands, with helpe of hellish Elfe,
By name of Hammon Ioue, some temple stately built,
Where, as a God, he might haue Altars bloudy-guilt:
With anger-bended brow, and count'nance ill apaid
Thus in disdainfull tone his father checkd; and said,

Fie fath'r, I am asham'd to see on you lay hold
These slauish thoughts, that seize base minds and flie the bold.
This fained angry Iudge thus alway will you feare?
As peyzing words and thoughts, and counting euery heare?
A Censour faine you still that beares in hand the keyes
Of yours and euery heart; to search out when he please
Yours, and all hidden thoughts; yea all your sighs t'enroule,
And present faults and past together to controule?
That ayming at your necke with bloud-embrued knife
Is hangman-like at hand to cut the strings of life?

Alas perceiue you not how this hood-winked zeale
And superstitious heat (to reason I appeale)
Makes errours many and foule your wits bright lampe to smother?
How light beleefe you driues from one extreame t'another?
You make a thousand qualmes your great Gods heart to strike:

You make him fell as Beare, and queasie woman-like.

Thus Atheists presumptuously censure the mercie and Iustice of God.

Let any sinner weepe, his tender heart will melt;
As if a wretches harme the great Commander felt:
He sees no drop of bloud, but (ere we know what ailes him)
Swoons, and in manly brest his female courage failes him:
And yet you make him fierce, and suffring oft the sway
And foamy streame of wroth to beare his reason away:
With heart of sauage Beare in manly shape he freats;
He rages then, he roares, he thunders out his threats.
Thus if your naile but ake, your God puts fing'r ith'eye;
Againe he kills, burnes, drownes, all for as light a why.
A wilde Boares tusked rage but only one forrest harries,
A Tyrant but a Realme; when angers tempest carries
Your God against the world with such a spightfull ghust,
As if his Realme of All should out of All be thrust.
Here's Iustice! here's good Right! (what other can ensue it?)
Some one or two perhaps haue sinn'd, and all doe rue it.
Nay, nay, his venging hand (alacke) for our offence
Destroys the very beasts for all their innocence.

The Atheists cōspiring with the Philosophers, ascribe vnto naturall reason all that is done by the iust reuenging hand of God.

O fath'r it cannot be that God's so passionate;
So soone in diuers fits, peace and warre, loue and hate:
Or so giu'n to reuenge, that he for one default
Should hurt his owne estate, and bring the world to naught.
The many watrie mists, the many floating clowds,
That heau'n hath stored vp and long kept vnder shrowds,
By selfe-waight enterprest and loosned of their bands,
Now gush out all at once, and ouer-flow the lands.
Then Aire amightie deale that vnder looser ground
(As thinne it is) a way by secret leaking found,
And lay in wind-shot hilles, by cold turn'd crystall waue,
At first well'd vp the skie, then downward gan to raue,

And drownd the corny rankes; at length so sweld and wox,
It pass'd the green-lock heads of tallest vpland okes.

By this the father gauld with griefe and godly smart,

Noes answer vnto all the blasphemies of Cham and his like.

A long sigh yexed-out from deepe cent'r of his heart.
And, ha vile Cam, quoth he, head of disloyall race,
Discomfort of myne age, my houses soule disgrace,
Vndon th'art, and deceiu'd, thy sence is growne vnsownd
By trusting to thy felfe without the Spirits ground.
And sure I feare (but o! God let me proue a lyar)
I feare with heauie hand the lofty-thundring Syre
Will blast thy godlesse head, and at thee shall be floong
His angers fierie darts: that, as thy shamelesse toong
With bould and brasen face presumes now to deny him,
Thy miserable estate in time to come may trie him.

I know (and God be thankt) this Circle all whole & sound,

First that God is infinite, vnchāge able, Almightie, and incomprehensible.

Whose cent'r hath place in all, as ou'r all go'th his round,
This onely being power, feeles not within his mind
A thousand diuers fits driu'n with a counter-wind;
He mooues All yet vnmooud, yea onely with a thought
Works-vp the frame of Heau'n, and pulls downe what he wrought.
I know his throne is built amids a flaming fire,
To which none other can (but only of grace) aspire.
For breathlesse is our breath, and ghostlesse is our ghost,
When his vnbounded might in circl 'he list to coast.
I know, I know, his face how bright it thorow shines
The double winged maske of glorious Cherubines.
That Holy, Almightie, Great, but on his backe behinde,
None euer saw, and then he passed like a winde.
The step-tracke of his feet is more then meruellable,
His Being vncomprisd, his name vnutterable:
That we who dwell on earth, so low thrust from the skie,
Do neuer speake of God but all vnproperly.
For, call him happie Ghost, ye grant him not an ase,
Aboue an Angells right: say Strong, and that's more base:
Say Greatest of all Great, he's void of quantitie:
Say Good, Faire, Holy one; he's void of qualitie.
Of his diuine estate the full accomplishment
Is meere substantiall, and takes not accident.
And that's the cause our tongue in such a loftie subiect

Attaining not the minde, more then the minde her obiect,

Why wee cannot speake of God, but in termes of manhood.

Doth lispe at euery word, and wanting eloquence
When talke it would of God with greatest reuerence,
By Manly-sufferance it hath him Jealous nam'd,
Repenting, pitifull, and with iust ang'r enflam'd.

Repentance yet in God emplies not, as in vs,

Repentance and change ascribed vnto God in Scripture, is farre from errour and fault.

Misdome or ignorance; nor is he enuious
For all his Iealosie; his pitie cannot set him
In miserable estate; his anger cannot fret him.
Calme and in quiet is the Spirit of the Lord:
And looke what goodly worke fraile man could ere afford,
Thrust headlong on with heat of any raging passion,
The Lord it workes, and all with ripe consideration.

What? shall the Leach behold without a weeping eye,

1. Comparison for that purpose.

Without a change of looke, without a swoone or cry,
The struggling of his friend with many sorts of paine;
And feele his fainting pulse, and make him whole againe:
And shall not God that was, and is, and shall be th'same,
On miserable man looke downe from heau'nly frame,
Without a fit of griefe, without a wofull crie;
Nor heale infirmities without infirmitie?

2. Comparison.

Or shall a Iudge condemne, without all angers sting,
The strange adulterer to shamefull suffering;
As aiming sharpe reuenge and setting his entence
Not on the sinn'r at all, but on the sole offence;
And shall the fancie of man so binde the will of God,
He may not lift his arme and iust reuenging rod

That which is Iustice in man, cannot be vice in God.

Without some fury against a theefe or Athean?

Or is't a vice in God, that's held a vertue in man?

God punisheth not to defend his owne estate: but to maintaine vertue and confoun vice.

And cannot God abhorre a sinne abominable,
But of some sinne himselfe he must be censurable?
He alwaies one-the same ne're takes vp armes to guard him
Or his estate from hurt, as if some treason skard him;
Whose campe is pight in heau'n beyond reach of our shot,
And fens'd with Diman wals, this, that-way; which way not?

But eu'n to guid our liues, to maintaine righteousnesse,
T'establish wholesome lawes, and bridle vnrulinesse.

Nor yet by drowning thus ny-all the world in flood,

The worlds iniquities deserued extreme punishment.

Go'th he beyond the bounds of reason in his mood.
For Adam, who the root was of this world and th'other,
Shot-forth a forked stocke, of Cain, and Seth, his brother,
Two ranke and plentious armes; the first a wylding bore,
Disrelisht, verdourlesse, but in aboundant store.
Good fruit on th'other grew; yet graff'd it was ere long
With thossame bastard ympes, and thereof quickly sprong
What lawlesse match begot. Then where, on all this round,

Sith all were corrupted, all deserued exile.

Could any right, or good, or innocence be found?
For Sinne, that was the right inheritance for Cain,
To Seths posteritie was giuen in dow'r againe
With daughter-heires of Cain: so were defiled then
The dearest groomes of God by marrying brides of men.
Yea we, we, that escape this cruell influence,
A million witnesses beare in our conscience,

The best without excuse.

Which all, and each alike vpon our guilt accords;
Nor haue we any excuse before the Lord of Lords.

Who deales not tyrant-like to whelme in wauy brees
The beast that goes on foot, and all on wing that flees:
Because for mans behoofe they were created all;
And he that should them vse is blotted by his fall
From out the Booke of life: and why then should they stay

Th'accessory followes the principall.

When he, for whom they were, is iustly tak'n away?

Man is the head of all that drawes the breath of life.
Let one a member loose, he liueth yet; but if
A deadly sword the head from bodies troonke diuide,
How can there any life in leg or arme abide?

But haply God's to feirce that hath the land orewheld.
Yea? had so many yeares disloiall man rebeld

A traitour deserues to haue his house raised.

Against the Lord his King, and had the Lord no reason
To rase the traitours house for such high points of treason?
To sow salt on the same, and mak't a monument

That his diuine reuenge, not Sea or Aire hath sent

The flood was no naturall accident but a iust iudgement of God.

This rauing water-Masse?

Let all the clowdie weather
That round-encourtaines Earth be gathered thicke together
From either cope of Heau'n, and bee't all powred downe
In place what e're, it would but some one countrie drowne:

But this our sauing ship, by floating euery where,
Now vnd'r a Southern Crosse, now vnd'r a Northen Beare,
And thwarting all this while so many a diuers Clime,
Shewes all the world is wrapt in generall abysme.

But if thou, vanquisht here, to caues in earth do flie,
With floods there made of Aire thy forces to supplie:
What are those hills, and where, with caues so deep & wide,
To hold-in so much ayre, as into water tri'de,
Might heale the proudest heights; when hardly a violl's fil'd
With water drop by drop of ten-fould aire dystil'd?

Besides, when th'aire to drops of water melts apace,
And lesned fals to spring, what bodie filles the place?
For no where in this all is found roome bodilesse:
Sad waue will sooner mount, and light aire downward presse.

Then how (thou'lt aske me) come these huge and raging floods,
That spoile on Riphean hils the Boree-shakē woods,
Drowne Libanus, and shew their enuious desires
To quench with tost-vp waue the highest heau'nly fires?
Ile aske thee (Cham;) how Wolues & Panthers from ye Wild
At time by Heau'n design'd before me came so mild.

This refutes all the obiections of Atheists.

How I keepe vnder yoke so many a fierce captiue,
Restored as I were to th'high prerogatiue
From whence fath'r Adam fell! how wild foule neuer mand
From euery coast of Heau'n came flying to my hand!

How in these cabins darke so many a gluttonous head
Is with so little meat, or drinke, or stouer fed!
Nor feares the Partridge here the Falcons beake & pounces;
Nor shuns the light-foot Hare a Tygers looke or Ounces!
How th'Arch holds-out so long against the wauy shot!
How th'aire so close, the breath and dong it choaks vs not
Confused as it is! and that we find no roome

For life in all the world, but as it were in toombe!

Ther's not so many planks, or boords, or nailes i'th' arch
As holy myracles, and wonders; which to marke,
Astonnes the wit of man. God shew'th as well his might
By thus preseruing all, as bringing all to light.

O holy Syre, appease, appease thy wroth and land
In hau'n our Sea-beat ship; ô knit the waters band;
That we may sing-of now, and ours in after age,
Thy mercie shew'd on vs, as on the rest thy rage.

Thus Noah past the time and lesned all their harme

God makes the flood to cease.

Of irkesome prisonment with such like gentle charme,
His hope was onely in God, who stopping now the vaines,
Whence issued-out before so many wells and raines,
Chidde th'aire, and bid her shut the flood-gate of her seas;

To that end commands the winds to driue backe the water, and drie the earth.

And sent North-windes abroad; go ye (quoth he) and ease
The Land of all this ill, ye cooling fannes of Heau'n,
Earths broomes and warre of woods, my herauts, posts, and eau'n
My sinnows and mine armes; ye birds that hale so lightly
My charriot ore the world, when as in cloud so nightly
With blasting scept'r in hand I, thundring rage and ire,
From smoaky flamed mouth breathe sulph'r and coles of fire.

Awake (I say) make hast, and soop the wat'r away,
That hides the Land from Heau'n, & robs the world of day.

The winds obey his voice, the flood beginnes t'abate,
The Sea retireth backe, And th'Arch in Ararate

The Arklanded.

Lands on a mountains head, that seem'd to threat the skie,
And troad downe vnd'r his feet a thousand hills full high.

Now Noes heart reioic'd with sweet conceit of hope,
And for the Rau'n to flie he sets a casement ope.

The Rauen sent out to discouer.

To find some resting place the bird soares round-about;
And finding none, returnes to him that sent her out:
Who few daies after sends the Doue, another spie,
That also came againe, because she found no drie.

But after senights rest, he sends her out againe,

The Doue sent out the second time brings an Oliue branch in signe of peace.

To search if my Land yet peer'd aboue the maine;
Behold an Oliue branch she brings at length in beake:

Then thus the Patriarch with ioy began to speake.
O happie signe! o newes, the best that could be thought!
O mysterie most-desir'd! Io, the Doue hath brought,
The gentle Doue hath brought a peacefull Oliue-bough:
God makes a truce with vs, and so sure sealeth now
The patent of his Loue and heau'nly promises,
That sooner shall we see the Tyger furylesse,
The Lyon fight in feare, the Leuret waxen bold,
Then him against our hope his woonted grace with-hold.
O first fruit of the world! O holy Oliue-tree!
O saufty-boading branch! for wheth'r aliue thou be
And wert all while the flood destroyd all else, I ioy
That all is not destroyd: or if, since all th'anoy,
That waters brought on all, so soone thou did'st rebudde,
I wonder at the Lord that is so mightie and good:
To r'alliue euery plant, and in so short a space
Cloath all the world anew in liueries of his grace.

So said he: yet (although the flood had so reflowd,

Noe comes not out of the Arke but by the commandement of God who sent him thereinto.

That all about appeerd some Islets thinly strew'd,
Him offring where to rest: although he spied a bright,
And cheerefull day amid his age-encreasing night:
Although th'infected ayre of such a nastie stall
Ny choakt him) would he not come forth before the call
Of God that sent him in: before some thunder-steauen
For warrant of his act gaue Oracle from Heauen.

No sooner spake the Lord, but he comes out of Cell,

He comes forth and all other liuing creatures that were with him.

Or rath'r out of dennes, of some infectious Hell,
With Sem, Cham, and Iaphet, his wife and daughters three,
And all the kinds of Bruits that pure or impure be,
Of hundred hundred shapes: for th'holy Patriarch
Had some of euery sort enclosd with him i'th' Arch.

Here yet the damned Crew, I lowdly bawling heare,
That durst ere now no more thē whisper each oth'r 'ith' eare.
Who but a foole (say they) will thinke a ship so small,
A hundred fiftie long, and thirtie cubits tall,
And fiftie broad, can hold so many months a charge
So combersome and huge? when as the Snout-horne large,

The rinde-hide Elephant, the Camell, Horse, and Bull,
They and their fodder stuffe the greatest Carack full.
O hellish-blasphemie if of vnlawfull matches
Sproong since a world of beasts, that were not vnder hatches

The answer, that many sorts of beasts are bred since, which were not in the Arke.

In that same floating parke, a many diuers kinds
Of Cockes, of Doues, of Haukes, of Dogs, of Cats, of Hinds,
Pyde Leopards, giddie Mules, and such as daily increase
By linsiewoolsie loue t'a sundrie-seeming spece:
A thing wherein we find dame Nature hath delight,
And euer had to shew her cunning and her might:
Nay if I plainely proue, with measure foot by foot,

The capacitie of the Arke proued in a word.

That in so large an hulke they might all well be shut,
So cunningly deuisd and so proportionall,
(Sith euery cubits length was Geometricall)
What Momus can replie? if reason go for pay
Among the mad, who stand against the Lord in ray.
But let me rath'r admire, then bring into dispute

A sure answer to all profane obiections.

The thrice-Almighties might; and here let flesh be mute.
What he hath said is doon, I build thereon my creede;
For all is one with him, the saying and the deede.
So brought his arme alone from-out the iawes of Hell,

Noe and his, offer sacrifice vnto God.

The skarr'd inhabitants of that same floating Cell:
Who now a peace-offering deuoutly sacrifise,
And from his Alter make perfumes to Heau'n arise
Of purer kinded beasts, and therewithall let flie
Zele-winged, heartie prayers; and thus aloud they crie.

O Father, King of winds, world-shaking, taming-seas,

Noes prayer to God.

O God, with gratious eye behold vs, and appease
The billowes of thy wroth: these planchers hardly sau'n,
Of such a piteous wracke, O bring at length to hau'n:

And once for eu'r againe pen-vp i' th' ancient bounds
The breezy Seas mad sway, that yet the land surrounds.

Th'Eternall heard their voice, and bid his Triton sound
Retreate vnto the flood; then waue by waue to bound

These verses are taken out of the second day of his first weeke.

The waters hast away; all riuers know their bankes,
And Seas their wonted shore; hils grow with swelling flanks;
Vpon the tufted woods appeare the slimie webbes;
And earth it seemes to flow as fast as water ebbes.
So did the Lord againe with mercy-might-full hand
Shew vnto Land the Heau'n, and vnto Heau'n the Land.

Then blest he man, and all, and said againe, Go breede,

Gods commands and promises to Noe & his posteritie. Gen. 6.

And ouerswarme the world with fast-encreasing seede:
R'enhand your Princely Mace, rule, and hold hard againe
The wildest of the beasts, that erst had got the raine.
Commaund all as before, take, vse, and kill for food:
But this, beware (my sonnes) you eat no flesh in blood,

Blood-eating forbidden.

The life thereof, beware; vnto the rau'ning foule
The strangled carcasse leaue, you of so heau'nly soule.
I hate the man of blood, be holy, as am I.
Shun all blood-thirstinesse, but more especially

Murder forbidden.

Regard a brothers life, and do not rase in man
The likenesse of your God: my soule doth curse and ban,
And euer shall pursue with stormie ghust of hate,
And strike with murdering hand the murdrer soone or late.

Moreouer, of a flood stand you no more in feare,

God promiseth there shall bee no more generall floods.

The world shall ne'r againe be ouerflow'n, I sweare,
I sweare eu'n by my selfe (and when broake I myne oath?)
Yet for a seale and more assurance of the troath,

Behold I set my bow vpon the cloud of raine:
That, when long season wet the world shall threat'n againe;

The Rainbow a signe thereof.

When th'aire all cloudie-thick at noone shal bring you night;
And heau'n orelaid with raine shall on your hills alight;
Ye may reioice to see my seale so eue'nly bow'd:
For, though't imprinted be vpon a misly clowd,
Though albeset with raine, and though it seeme to call
The waues of all the sea to drowne the world withall;
Yet at the sight thereof, in all your sore distresse,
Ye shall remember me, and I my promises.

Then Noe cast-vp eye, and wondred to behold

A description of the Rainebow.

A demy-circl' ith'aire of colours manifold,
That brightly shining-out, and heauing-vp to heau'n
Hath for Dyameter a line estrained eau'n
Betwixt both Horizons; a goodly bow to see
And comming all alike; nay one bow made of three,
A yellow, a greene, a blew; and yet blew, yellow, greene,
But dapled each with oth'r in neith'r is to be seene.

A bow that shines aloft in Thunder-shooters hand,
That halfe-diuides the heau'n, and laies on face of land
(As twere) her fine spunne string; and bending ore the rocks
Against a misly Sun i'th' Ocean dips her nockes:
The short enduring grace of Heau'ns enflamed blewes,
Whereon dame Nature layes her most-quicke-lustred hewes.
But if thou doe perceiue no more then blew and red,

What things are signified by this Bow.

Take them for Sacraments, as if they figured
The Water and the Fire; whereof th'one hath of yore,
And th'other at latter day shall all the world deuore.

All holy rites performd, our gransire Noe ne will

Noe tills the earth as he did before the flood:

That idlenesse and ease benome his armes, and kill
His muskles vnexersd; but hies-him to the field,
And wisely takes in hand the worke he learnd a child.

For all the tyran-stocke of brother-killing Cain,

Whereas the sons of Cain gaue themselues to policie.

More liking sinne with ease, then innocence with paine,

Preferd a citie-life, to rule the peoples wills
With Scepters, arts, and lawes, before fields, woods, or hills.
Whereas the race of Seth, well knowing nature will
With little be suffic'd, began the ground to till
For holy exercise, and kept on dales and rockes
The lowing hairie heards, and bleating woolly flockes.
A praise-worth vsurie, gaine void of enuie and strife,
Art nourishing all Arts, and life maintaining life.

No sooner had the Sunne, grace of cœlestiall brands,
Dry'd with rebounding beame the water-soaken lands,
But he that kept in ship the worlds seed from a wracke,
Plowes vp with sweating brow his mothers fruitfull backe.

Then carefull is to plant a Nectar-bearing vine

Noe plants a vine.

Vpon a grittie banke where Sunne doth all day shine:

Fit place for a Vine, and the manner of dressing it.

There either sets he pots, or else a trench he diggs
To sow-in steed of grape, or quick set yonger twiggs.
The next ensuing March he hoes the vine and lops it,
He rubbes, he trims, he spreads, he prunes, and vnderprops it.
So fruitfull then it was, that far beyond his thought,
A haruest rich-of-wine the third Septemb'r it brought.

Now Noe waxing old, and daily sad to see

Noe is ouertaken with wine.

So many towrs in mud, while none but his and he
Enhabited the world, to driue-of melancholie,
He tooke vpon a day more libertie then holy;
He quaffd and tripsie grew; he thought but for a season
To drowne his griefe in wine, and madly drownd his reason.

His tongue-strings ouerwet doe cause him lisp and stut;

A drunkard described.

No word flies through his teeth, but witlesse, broke and cut:
His stomack ouer-laid with hot fume hurts his braine,
And rawly belcheth wind; his feet stumble on the plaine,
So heauy was his head; the place is turned round;
No longer can he stand, but sleepe him layes aground
Amid his open tent; there he now like a swine
His snoaring carren rowles embrewd with cast-vp-wine:
And albeside himselfe, not knowing what he did,
He naked layes the parts, that dying Cæsar hid.
Behold as carren crowes with fanny wings oreflie

Fit comparisons for all such slanderers as Cham.

The Manna-dropping woods of happy Arabie:
And reckning light the lawns and gardens of delight,
Whose ammell beds perfume the skie both day and night,
Seiz-on with glouton beaks, or rath'r anatomize
Some executed corse all-rotting as it lies:
Or as young Painters wont with bungling penecyll
Good features of a face to misse, and hit what's ill;
To draw with little heed what ere is faire to see,

And more then duly marke the least deformitie,
A mole, a wart, a wen, a brow or lip too-fat,
Or else an eye too deep, or else a nose too flat:
So doe the spightfull sonnes of Satan prince of Hell
Spoonge with forgetfulnesse the shew of all that's well,
And biting lip thereat, cast venom of their eyes
Vpon the lightest faults of mens infirmities:
They laugh at others hurt, and sound through-out all ages
The very least escapes of greatest personages.
So shamelesse Cham beheld his drunken fathers shame,

The impudence of Cham.

It shew'd, and laught thereat, and made thereof a game.
Come (brothers) come, quoth he; loe he that oft controules
Each little fault in vs, how vp and downe he roules,
And spewing wine, his mast'r, at mouth, at eyes, at nose,
To all doth like a beast his priuitie disclose.
Ha dog, ha brazen face (good Sem and Iaphet said,

Sem and Iaphet reproue him: and doe their dutie.

And with a clowdie brow iust discontent bewraid)
Ha monster vile, vnkinde, vnworthy of this light;
Thou shouldst thy selfe alone, though we were out of sight
Cast on thy mantle, or hide with silence at the least
Thy fathers fault, that, once in all his life, opprest
With griefe, wine, age, hath fal'n; and dost thou make a game
To bring his hoary head first on the stage of shame?

Thus rate they Cham, and then with fromward looke retire

Noe waking curseth Cham and his posteritie.

To heale the nakednesse of their enyeared Sire.

Slept-out the surfet was, and he awoke at length,
And blushing knew his fault, and wondred at the strength
He found in blood of grape: then prickt with inward tine
He propheside, and said, Gods heauy curse and mine
Befall the race of Cham, let South, let East and West

For euer see them serue: but euermore be blest

He blesseth Sem and Iaphet.

Sems holy-chosen seed; be Canan slaue to them;
And Iaphet God perswade to dwell ith'tents of Sem:

A detestation of drunkennesse.

So ended. O foule vice, errour, enormitie,
Nay voluntarie rage, distract, and phrenesie,
Not long, but dangerous! by thee, mad as a fiend,
Agave slew her sonne, and Alexand'r his friend.
Doth any burne in sinne? thou dost increase the fuell;
Thou mak'st the prater vaine, the hastie cutter cruell,
The vaunting insolent, th'angry tempestuous,
The wanton minde vnchast, th'vnchast incestuous:
Thou canst nor blush nor see, thou life in life destroy'st,
And holiest men of all with many faults accloy'st:
Yea, as the strong new-wine with boyling inshut heat
Cracks eu'n the newest hoopes, and makes the vessell sweat;
Turnes vpsedowne the lees, and froths-out at the vent
From bottom of the caske the setled excrement;
So thou vndo'st thine host, and rashly mak'st to flie
From bottom of his heart all matt'r of secresie.
Though no more to thy charge be laid, ô poyson vile,
And this were all thy fault, to bruten for a while
A vertue-teaching life, nay vertue-selfe; I sweare
Man ought thee more then face of ghastly death to feare.

The second Booke of Noe, called BABILON.

O what a blessed life doe men lead vnd'r a Prince,

A preface representing the felicitie of commonwealths gouerned by good and wise Princes, and the distresse of people subiect to a Tyrant. Fitly fore placed of the Poet to lead him to the life and deeds of Nimrod.

That seeks, before his own, the weal of his Prouince!
That punisheth the bad, & rids the good of wrong,
That entertaines the graue, and shuns the pleasing tongue,
That sou'raine of himselfe doth all vice ouer-awe
More by his honest life then punishment or law:
That being inward meeke, outward maiesticall,
Hath for his guard the loue of all his comminall.
That maketh not his God the bright-emperled Mace;
And knowing that he stands on stages highest place,
Where, to controule his workes, a world hath him in sight,
Commands not what him lift; but rather what is right.
But sure a hell it is to suffer seruitude,
And daily beare the yoke of Tyrant blood-embrude:
A Denis that for feare with brand himselfe yshau'd,
A Nero that his house with incest all deprau'd:
An Owle that e're auoids the light of gouernment,
Of Parlament and Peeres, that feares the prattlement
Of eu'ry priuate toong; that for his only game
His people sets at odds, and feeds their angers-flame.
That honour, faith and right, hath ne'r before his eyes:
That powling Offices doth euery day deuise;
That likes-not of the men best learned, wisest, strongest;
But, as in field of corne, doth euer crop the longest
And best-y flowred eares: That, worse then Tygre wood,
Without respect of kin sheds eu'n his brothers blood:
That, though he sensed be with sword and halberds aid,
Yet feareth many more, then he doth make afraid.
That boasteth to deuise a taxe before vnknone,

And Canibally gnaw'th his peopl' all to the bone.

Imprint (ô king of Heau'n) within our Princes brests

A prayer to God, fitly arising of the words and matter aforegoing, and making way to the sequele.

Loue to their-people-ward, and reuerence of thine hests:
And where a courtly toong with venomous language,
Or oth'r enormities too-well knowne in this Age,
Shall taint a princely minde with Nimrods propertie,
Draw there thine iron pen, and rase it speedily.
That for proud Babels towre they may thy Sion reare,
And my Muse vnder them may chaunt it euery where.

Scarse is the sonne of Chus now waxen twelue yeere old.

Nimrods first studie and exercise, to get the soueraigntie of the people, furthered by nature.

But straight ou'r all his Peeres he playes the Tyrant bold.
He ouer-growes them all, and of his power to come
Vpon a trim foreshew he layes the ground with some:
And in his childish hand for scepter bearing reeds
Among the shephard-swaines beginn'th his prentise-deeds.
Then knowing that the man, whose courage doth aspire
Vnto the deemed blisse of an awfull Empire,
Must passe in braue exploits the doltish vulgar sort,
Or else by seeming good obtaine a good report,
He wasteth not the night in downie feather-bed,
Nor yet the day in shade; but, young, accustomed
Himselfe to good and ill, and made ambitiouslie
His pillowes of a rocke, his curtaines of the skie.
To toyle is his delight, to shoot, his chiefest game,
His baby-play the lysts, his hawk some Sparrow tame:
His most delicious meat the flesh of tender Kid
Which trembleth yet, and scarse is out of skin yslid.

Sometime he sports himselfe to conquer with a breath

The continuance of his labours to obtaine the peoples fauour.

Some craggy rocks ascent that ouerpeers the heath;
Or else some raging flood against the streame diuide,
That, swolne with raine, hath drou'n a hundred brigs aside,
And with a bounding course vnbridled gallops fast
All ouerthwart the stones in narrow valley cast:
Or else straight aft'r his throw to catch againe his dart,
Or else by footmanship to take the Hinde or Hart.

Thus till his twentith yeare his exercise continues,

He chaseth beasts first and afterward men.

Then vnderstanding well his manly minde and sinewes
May fit some great'r attempt, if he know'th any where
A Leopard, a Tyg'r, a Lion, or a Beare,

He stoutly goes t'encount'r, & knocks him downe with mace,
And plants the goary spoiles in most apparant place.

The people then that see by his all-conquering hands
The wayes enfranchised, and all the waster lands
Rid of such roaring theeues, and feeding now at ease
Their fearfull flocks and heards; they loue this Hercules,
This rid-ill monster-mast'r, and shew him speciall fauour,
And call him euermore their fath'r and eu'n their sauiour.

Here Nimrod by the locks hand-fasting his good fortune,

He leaueth his former chase for a better prey.

And striking th'iron hot, doth flatter, presse, importune
Now one and then anoth'r, and hasting to his blisse,
Before that hunted beasts, now of men hunter is.
For as he did imploy about his prey before
The grins, hare-pipes, and traps, and all the lymie store;
Yea furthermore, at need for stoutest had his art,
The heauy club, the shaft, the sharpe sword and the dart:
So some mens heart he gaines by faire hope closely stealing,
And some he wins by gift, and others by hard dealing:
And breaking all in rage the bonds of equitie,
Of that renforcing world vsurps the royaltie.
Whereas in time before the chiefe of each houshold
The same did rule apart; nor did the young man bold,
Aspiring, gyddie-braind, vpon a wanton braue
His sickle thrust, as now, int'haruest of the graue.

Now he enthroned is, he bendeth all his thought

The tyrannous gouernment of Nimrod, and his proud attempt.

To blood and crueltie, profanely sets at naught
The lawes of God and man, out-braues th'Almighty king,
And beardeth him (as'twere) with scepter flourishing.
And lest the peopl' at length, when ease had bred their pride,
Should aime to cast his yoke he keeps them occupyde:
He lauisheth his wealth, to make them labour still
In building of a towne; nay rath'r an Atlas hill.

We liue too long (quoth he) in brutish wandering;
Now leaue we roaguing tents, our houses wayfaring;
And let's a palace build that stately may be ioynt
In Base vnto the deepe, and vnto heau'n in poynt.

A priuiledged fort against another flood:
And there incorporate liue vnd'r a royall blood.
Lest, if we part in tents with many guides, we run
Asunder, void of help, as far as roules the Sun.

And in case burning coles of at-home-bred sedition,
Or what mishap so-er'e shall driue vs to diuision:
Yet (brothers) let vs leaue, as high as heau'nly flames,
Vpon this Towre engrau'n our euerlasting names.

As fire by shepherds left amidst the dry-leafe woods,
At first is hid, or makes but only smoakie floods

Among the lower shrubs, and then with help of winds
A way by flaming force to further mischiefe finds;
Vnto the bloomy thorne from th'humble shrub it stirres,
From Thorne to Oke, from Oke vnto the tallest Firres;
And, euer gaining ground, runs faster narre the marke,
And leaueth not a nymph within her natiue barke:
Right so this pleasing speech when first it had been grac'd
By fawning Fauourites, of others 'twas embrac'd;
Among the gyddie-braines then goes from hand to hand

Vnto the baser sort of people through the land;
Who greatly bent to see the famous tower made,
Doe labour day and night in all and euery trade.

Some trip the speare-wood Ash, with sharp-edg'd axes stroke,
And some the sailing Elme, and some th'enduring Oke;
So they degrade the woods and shew vnto the Sunne
The ground where his bright eye before had neuer shone.

Who euer did behold some forraine armie sacke
A citie vanquished? ther's griefe and ioy, no lacke,
Together hurly-burld; he carts, and he lays-hold,
He drags by force, he leads; and there the souldier bold,
Can finde no place too sure, nor yet no locke too strong,
The whole towne in a day forth at the gates doth throng.
So quickly do these men pull-off with one assent
From those Assyrian hills the shaking ornament:
The wildernesse of shade they take from off the rocks,
And sheare off albeswat the leuell countries locks:
The waynes and yoked Mules scarse one by the other wend;
The groaning axeltrees with load surcharged bend.

A liuely description of a people, busied about a great worke.

Behold here one for mort'r is day and night abruing
Of some thicke-slimie poole the water fatly gluing.
And here the Tyler bakes within his smoakie kell
His clay to stone; and here one hollows downe to hell
So deep foundations, that many a damned Spright
Aggazeth once againe the Sunnes vnhoped light.
Heau'n ecchoes out the sound of their mauls clitter-clatters,
And Tigris feeles his fish all trembling vnd'r his waters.
The ruddy-colourd walls in-height and compasse grow,
They far-off cast a shade, they far-off make a show.
The world's all on toile, and men borne all to die
Thinke at the first daies worke their hand shall reach the skie.

God being angry with the bold enterprise of Nimrod and his followers; determineth to breake of their enterprise, by confounding their language.

Hereat began th'Lord to sowre his countenance,
And with dread thūders sound that storm-wise wont to glance
Athwart the clowdie racks, that hills wont ouerthrow
And make heau'ns steddy gates flash often too and fro,
See see (quoth he) these dwarfes, see this same rascall people,
These children of the dust. O what a goodly steeple,

What mighty walls they build! Is this the Cittadell,
So recklesse of my shot that shakes the gates of Hell?
I sware an oath to them henceforth the fruitfull ground
Should neuer stand in feare of waters breaking bound:
They doubting fence themselues; I would by their extent
Haue peopled all the world, they by themselues are pent
In prison-walls of brick: I would haue beene for euer
Their master, their defence, their shepherd, their law-giuer;
And they haue chose for King a sauage Liue-by-spoile,
A Tyrant seeking gaine by their great losse and toile;
Who doth my force despise and with vaine-glory swone
Attempts to scale the walls of my most holy throne.
Come let's defeat their drift, and sith the bond of tong;
Of blood, of will, of law, doth egge on all day long,
And hearten them in sin; to stop their hastie intent,
Among them let vs send the Spirit of dissent;
Their language to confound, to make, both one and other,
The father strange to sonne, the brother deafe to brother.

Thus had he said, and straight confusedly there went

The execution of Gods sentence.

I know not what a brute throughout the buyldiment,
None other like (I guesse) then drunken peasants make
Where Bacchus doth his launce with Ivy garland shake.
One doth his language toothe, another nose his note,
Another frames his words vnseemly through the throte;
One howleth, one doth hisse, another stuttereth;
Each hath his babbl', and each in vaine endeuoureth
To finde those loued termes, and tunes before exprest,
That in their cradle-bands they drew from mothers brest.
Goe get thee vp betimes; and, while the morning gay
With rainbow-glosse bedecks the portaile of the day,

A fit comparison.

Giue eare a while and marke the disagreeing moods
Of winged quiristers that sing amid the woods
Good-morrow to their loues; where each one in his fashion
Is pearched on a bough and chaunteth his Oration:
Then shalt thou vnderstand what mingle-mangle of sounds

Confusedly was heard among the Mason-lounds.

A Trowell ho, saith one; his mate a beetl'him heaues:
Cut me, saith he, this stone; and he some timber cleaues.
Come ho, come ho, saith one, and winde me vp this rope;
Then one vnwinding striues to giue it all the scope.
This scaffold bourd, saith one; one makes it downe to fare:
Giue me the line, saith one; and one giues him the square.
He shouts, he signes in vaine, and he with anger boyles;
And looke what one hath made forthwith another spoiles,
VVith such confused cries in vaine they spend their winde;
And all the more they chafe, the lesse is knowne their minde.

At length as men that stand an arched bridge to build,
In riuers channell deepe that wont surround the field,
And sodainly behold how vnexpected raine

Another excellent comparison declaring how neither counsell, art, force, diligence, nor multitude, is able to resist God.

Hath sent a hundred floods, that downhill stretch amaine
Their yoake-refusing waues; they leaue with one aduise
(Some hasting here, some there) their earnest enterprise:
So when these Architects perceiu'd the stormy smart
Of Gods displeasure come, they straight were out of heart.
And there they ceas'd their work & with hands malecontent,
Rules, mallets, plomets, lines, all downe the towre they sent.

O proud rebellion! ô traiterous impietie!

The harmes that men suffer by the confusion of speech.

In what a fearefull fort, by this thy tongues varietie,
Hath God thee punished? alas that pleasant tongue,
That holy bond of townes, of anger bridle strong,
Strong glue of amitie, once one, now doth waifare
A hundred narrow wayes: this gold so richly rare,
Wrath-taming, charming-care, men-tysing, hart-entangling,
Both color, weight, and sound hath lost by mingle-mangling.
This gift corrupted is, and from the North to South
Confused Babels fall sounds yet in euery mouth.
The cold Finlanders once might visit Affricans,
The Spanish Indians, th'English Americans,
Without Interpreter; but now the compasse small
That doth our Cities bound, our language bounds withall:
And if we from our home but ne're so little went,
Dumbe should we seeme, and rest of reasons instrument.
Or if we speake to some that are but neighbour Nations,
'Tis by a borrow'd tongue, or by strange animations:
Without or Schoole, or paine, and sucking mothers brest,
We might haue learn'd the tongue that euery thought exprest,
And after seuen yeeres old vpon the glistring sand
Begun to draw with skill the shape of Sea and Land;
To part and multiply; and so from skill to skill
We might haue climbed soone the double-pointed hill,
Where Arts-perfection, in signe of their victorie,
Her fauourites doth crowne with euerlasting glory.

Now, euer baby-like, we, ere we learne to sound
The Latine, Hebrew, Greeke, are going to the ground.
We learne but eu'n to prate, and for the deepe inseying
Of Natures secresies, and of that onely Being
Which makes all things to be, we labour, as in maze,
To coniugate a verbe, and register a phrase.
In age we learne to spell, like young Grammaticasters,
And nought we know without authoritie of Masters;
Who teach vs still to read, and put into our hands
An A.B.C. for what the Ciuill Law commands:
Instead of Physicke skill, and of that holy Writ,
Where God's to them reueal'd, which godly readen it.

Nay, shall I tell you more? they spake in eu'ry place

The Hebrew tongue generally spoken before the confusion of tongues.

That holy tongue of God; so full of sence and grace,
As not a letter it hath, no not a point so small,
Without some ornament exceeding mysticall.
But since the proud reuolt, in sundry sort they prate
A bastard bibble-babble, impure, effeminate,
And change it eu'ry day; so loosing all their light
They vtter not a word of that first language right.

Once when th'Inhabitants of plenty-flowing Nile,
With men of Ida stroue for eldership of stile,

The Phrygians and Egyptians contend for antiquitie of tongue.

The right of Eloquence they tri'd by stammering,
And such as iudgement lackt they set to iudge the thing;
To wit, two sucking babes, whom their two Mothers dumbe
In hermitages kept, where no man else did come.
No charmy voyce of man was heard sound neere the place,

Till three times had the Sunne runne out his yeerely race.
When brought they were abroad, and set betwixt the people
Of Pantus and of Nile, they cry with voices feeble,
And often cry they Bec: bec, bec is all the ground
That either tongue can frame, or else their mouth will sound;
Whereat the men of Xanth, who knew the word implide
In Phrygian language Bread, in face they signifide
The ioy they felt in heart, and thought them highly blest
T'obtaine on their behalfe dame Natures owne arrest.

O fooles! who neuer cast how that the bleating flocks
That shore the tender flowres vpon the neighbour rocks
Had taught them such a tongue, and that the Dardanish,
French, Latine, Hebrew, Greeke, Egyptian, or English,
They are not borne with vs; but well may be discerned,
That euery tongue by haunt and by long vse is learned.
Disposednesse to speech indeede is Natures gift;
As is the grace of tongues diuersitie and shift,
So variably rich, and richly variable,
As makes a man to beast the more vncomparable.
And if you list oppose, how that the Bull he bellowes,

Men onely speak. An answere to the obiection taken from the vndistinct voyce of beasts. An answer to a second obiection taken from the chirping of birds.

The slothfull Asse doth bray, the Lyon and his fellowes
Now treble roare, now base, and by those tunes ye finde
They seemen eloquent to make vs know their minde:
I say these are no words but onely declarations
Of their disquiet sturres, prouokt by sundry passions;
Confused signes of griefe, or tokens of their sadnesse.
Of ioyfulnesse, of loue, of hunger, thirst, or madnesse,

The like may well be said of that light-winged quier
That on the greene-locke heads of Oake, Elme, Ash and Brier

An answer to the third obiection on touching Parrets.

Record the morning lay: for though (as is the weather)
By two, by three, by more, they seeme to talke together,
And though their voice it bends a hundred thousand wayes,
And descant though they can a hundred wanton layes;
Though great Apolles selfe within their Schoole was taught;
A groundlesse tune it is of notes entending naught:
A thousand times a day the selfe-same song repeated,
A dumbe discourse, amid the wilde of woods defeated.

But onely man hath powre to preach of modestie,
Of honour, of wisedome, of force, of equitie,
Of God, of heau'n, of earth, of water, and of ayre,
With words of good import, yee cull'd and sundry-faire.
Vnfoulding all his thoughts not onely in one language,
But like to Scaliger, the wonder of our age,
The Lampe of learned men, can wisely speake and much,
In Latine, Hebrew, Greeke, English, Italian, Dutch,
In Spanish, Arabicke, French, and Slauonian,
Caldean, Syrian, and Ethyopian.
This man Camelion-like will make his transformation,
(O rich, ô pliant wit!) to any authors fashion.
Great Iulies worthy sonne, great Syluies yonger brother,
In Gascany renoun'd more then was euer other.
But as for Popiniayes, that passing all their ages
Within the pearced grates of thorow-ayred cages,
In eloquence are bould to plead with vs for chiefe,
Pronounce all thorow-out the Christian beliefe;
Repeate the forme of Prayer that from our Sauiour came;
And all the houshold call together name by name;
They like dame Eccho be, our sounding voices daughter,
That through the vaulted hils so rudely bableth-after,
Not weening what she saith: In vaine this ayre they breake,
And speaking without sense, they speake, but nothing speake:
As deafe vnto themselues: for language is definde.
A voyce articulate that represents the minde:
And short it was, and sweet, and deckt with many a flowre,
And vnderstood of all, before the Babell towre.

Now when I duly wey how th'Ebrew doth report,

The Hebrew tongue most ancient.

And readily expresse in words both few and short,
Most cumbersome conceits, and through each secret plight
Of reasons Labyrinth affords the reader light;

The first reason.

Yea farre aboue the Greeke with her Synonyma,
Her lofty Metaphors, her bould Epitheta,
Her compounding of words, her tenses, and her cases,
And of so great request a thousand other graces:
When I consider well how in the Letter-row

The second reason.

Of that same tongue diuine the Rabby-schoole doth show,
All we beleeue with heart, all that with eye we see,

And that within the Law all arts implyed be:
By turning too and fro, and changing letters roome;
(As in Aritchmeticke it mends or bares the summe)
By gathring of some word the numbers mysticall,
And drawing them throughout a word proportionall.

Or that some word is know'n by some one Element,
Or by some onely word a perfect speech is ment;
As in a short deuise of mysticall embleme
The silent Egypt wont imploy a longer theme.

When I consider well that from th'East-Indie sand

The third reason.

Vnto the flaming Mount that borders Iserland,
And from the frozen Sea to scorched Tombuts shore,
Thou Sunne no people seest so voide of wit and lore,
No men so ignorant of Gods most holy Law,
But they retaine as yet, some words of Ebrew saw;
And but their letters doe (though out of order set)
Come neere the sacred names of Moses Alphabet.

When with my selfe I wey that th'holy counterpawne

The fourth reason

Of Gods old Testament was in those letters drawne:
That Vrim, that the Dreame, and that the Vision wise,
But in this Hebrew tongue spake not their prophesies;
And that th'Eternal-selfe did with his finger daigne
To graue in Hebrew stile his Law on tables twaine;
And, many winters since, the Messengers diuine
Did preach the ioyfull word in tongue of Palestine.

And when I further way, that th'ancient Patriarches

The fift reason.

Had all their names impos'd as reasonable markes,
And such as fully shew'd with mightie consequent
What was of all their time the rarest accident;
And thereto that we finde how eu'ry ancient name,
By writ, by sound, by sense, from Hebrew language came

(As Eue is consterd Life, Cain, first of all begot;

[HEBREW]

And Adam made of Clay, and Abel, profit not)
Seth, set in others place, and he surnamed Rest,
Who saw th'all-hurting flood below the ground supprest)
I cannot choose but grant, though Greece with furie some,
Preeminence of age to th'Ebrewes Idiome.

Then thus I thee salute, ô ouer-running spring
Of vtterance of minde, leide of th'eternall King,

Great commendation of the Hebrew tongue.

Thou brightly-shining Pearle, queene-mother of languages,
That spotlesse hast escap'd the dongeon of all ages:
Thou hast no word but wai'th; thy simplest elements
Are full of hidden sense; thy points haue Sacraments.
O holy dialect, in thee the proper names
Of men, townes, countries, are th'abridgements of their fames
And memorable deeds: the names of winged bands,
Of water-habitants, and armies of the Lands,
Are open treatises whereout a man might gather
Their natures historie, before th'heau'n-rowling father,
By mans offence prouokt with flaming Symiteer,
The way of Eden caru'd from these base countries here.

For Adam when in tok'n of his prerogatiue

Adam gaue Hebrew names to all creatures according to their nature.

He did in true Elise each creature title giue
When as before his eyes in muster generall
Two by two, side by side, in ranke they marched all;
He chose the names so fit, that eu'ry learned eare
Which vnderstood the sound, might als the wonders heare
Whereby th'alforming word did richly beautifie,
Or those that liue in wet, or those that liue in dry.

And for each body must or suffer thing, or doe,

He enriched the tongue with verbs and clauses

When he the nownes had fram'd, the verbs he ioyn'd thereto;
And more to beautifie this goodly ground of pleading,
He many titles made, that serue for knots in reading,
The parts of most account to ioyne, as best it sits,
Right as a little glew two plankes of timber knits;
As eke for ornament like wauing plume of Feathers,
Which on the chamfred top of shining helmet weathers:
Or as Marbl'Images their foot-stals haue and bases,

And siluer cups their eares, and veluet robes their laces.

This tongue that Adam spake, till in bad time arriu'd

The Hebrew tongue continued generally spoken, from Adam to Nimrod then it remained onely in the familie of Heber: whence it was called Hebrew.

That heau'n assaulting Prince, sincerely was deriu'd
From Father vnto Sonne, the worlds circumference
Did throughly sound the tunes of her rich eloquence:
But after partiall woxe and quickly she retir'd
To Hebers Family; for either he was not hir'd
Among the rebell crew, or wisely did abide
Farre from the Sennar plaine in so disaster tyde.
Or, if he thither were with other moe constrained,
In corners worship'd God and secretly complained,
And so with slauish hand them holpe to build the wall
Against his will, and wisht it sodainly might fall
Into the darkest hell; as gally-slaue in guyues
That combating the Sea most miserably striues
Against his libertie, and curseth in his heart
The head for whom he toyles in such a painefull art.
Or beit th'eternall God, with his hand euer-giuing,
Preuenting as it were the workes of men well liuing,
For his owne honours sake, and of his onely grace,
This treasure least in trust with Hebers holy race:
While all th'vngodly rest of Masons ill-bested
A hundred thousand wayes the same disfigured,
And eu'rychone dispers'd where destinie them taried,
Into their new-found land a new-made language caried.

But softly sliding Age, whose enuie all doth waste,

The first languages deriued from the Hebrew are each of them againe diuided into diuers others.

Those ancient languages soone eu'ry'chone defac'd,
Which in the thunder-sound of Masons clattring hands
On Tygris banke deuis'd had ouerspread the lands:
And that the world may be more out of order left,
Into a many tongues the least of them hath cleft.

And language altereth by reason of Merchandise,

Whence commeth the alteration of a tongue.

Which bringing vs to land the diuers treasuries
Of azure Amphatrite, and sending ours aboord,
With good successe assaies to change vs word for word:
Or when the learned man delightfully endighting,
With guilt and curled words attires his wanton writing,
And hunting after praise some stampe ne'r seene before
Sets both on deedes and things; or doth at least restore
Disclaimed words to vse, and makes anew be borne
The same that ouer-age with rot and mould had worne.
For herein fals it out as with leaues in a wood,
One sheds, another growes; the words that once were good
And like faire Lyllie-flowers in greenest Medow strew'd,
All ou'r a learned stile their glittring beauty shew'd,
Now are not in request; but, sith Court them exiles,
They blush and hide themselues eu'n vnder cottage tiles:

And such as long agoe were censur'd curiously,
For base and counterfeit, now passe-on currently.

A well-esteemed wit, discreet and fortunate,
May warrant words to passe, albe they but of late
His owne efforged ware; he on the naturall
May graffe some forraine impe, his language therewithall
Enriching more and more, and with a diuers glosse
Enameling his talke, his Poetry or Prose.

Some language hath no Law, but vse vntame and blinde
That runneth wheresoe're the peopl' as light as winde;
Goes headlong driuing it: another closely running
Within the bounds of Art, her phrases fits with cunning:
Some one straight waxing old as soone as it is borne
Is buried in the cradl'; anoth'r it is not worne
With file of many yeeres; some one faint-couraged
Within a straight precinct liues euer prisoned;
Another boldly doth from Alexanders altar
Among the learned reach vnto the Mount Gibraltar:
And such now th'Ebrew tongue, the Greeke and Latine be:

Hebrew, Greeke, and Latine the best of al tongues

For Hebrew still doth hold, as by her hand doe we,
The sacred word of God, eternall mak'r of all,
And was of Lawes diuine the true Originall:
The Greeke, as one that hath within her learned writ
Comprized all the skill of mans refined wit:
And Latine, for the sword, wherewith her eloquence
Was planted through the worlds so wide circumference.

When this I wrote, behold, with tysing labour led

The Poet takes breath to enter afresh into the next discourse, where by way of a Vision, he cunningly describeth the principall tongues, with their best authors

Of Pallas heau'nly skill, full heauy grew mine head:
And now and then I strike my chin vpon my brest,
That softly both mine eyes are closed vp to rest
With sweet Ambrosian dew; knit is my senses band,
And fairely slides my pen forth of my fainting hand.
Vpon my flattring couch I spread my selfe againe,
And plonge in Lethe-streame all troubles of my braine:
So drowne I all my care, saue one, that with no trance
Is discontinued, to please and profit France;
Whose sacred forge of loue, that me enflamed keepes,
Will not let sleepe my soule although my body sleepes.
Then golden-winged dreame from of th'East-Indy shore
Came forth at Christall gate, and little while before
The day-gate was vnlockt to valley of pleasant ayre
By fancie led my soule, where day, night, foule and faire,
The North winds & the South, the Summer & Winters hew,
The spring and fall of leafe did neu'r each other ensue:
Where alway raigned May and Zepherus bedight

VVith rosie coronets did breath-on day and night,
A young woods whizzing boughes, that blossomes sweet did yeeld,
And ouall-wise bewald the flowre-embossed field
In middle point of all this ammell-blooming glade
Arose a mighty rocke in footstall-manner made;
Vpon the top thereof a brasse-colosse did stand,
That in the left hand held a flaming fierbrand,
And in the right a spout; she shew'd a golden tongue,
And thence a many chaines all o're the medow sprong,
That worlds of hearers drew, with fine deuise of art;
For some were held by th'eares, & some were held by th'hart.
Before her feet the Boare, that forrest wilde had haunted,
The Tiger slept, and Beare, all aft'r a sort enchaunted.
The neighbour hillocks leapt, and woods reioyced round,
Carranting (as it were) at her sweet voices sound.

A double circled row of pillers high and dight
By cunning workmans hand all aft'r a Carian right
With bases vnder-pinn'd, to fasten their foundation,
Beset this goodly shrine of eloquent Oration;
And foure by foure bore-vp amid-them one language
Of those that flourish most in this our learned age.

Among the blessed wits, to whom was giu'n the grace
To beare-vp th'Ebrew tongue in such a sacred place;

1. The Hebrue.

The man whose fore-head shines, as doth a blazing starre,
Skie-gracing, frighting-men; who for his scepter barre
A seare, yet budding, rod, and hath in fingers hent
The ten-fould register of Gods Commandement;
Is he that Isac led: and first authoritie,
Both of free stile and verse, left to posteritie:
Such holy works as doe not onely long fore-run
The writings of the Greekes, but all that Greece hath done.
The second Dauid is, whose touch right cunningly
Combined with his voyce drawes downe sweet harmony
From th'Organized heau'ns, on harpe that aye shall sound
As long as dayes great starre shall o're our heads goe round:
Nay long'r, as who can tell, when all these heau'nly lights
Are at their measures end, but that the blessed sprights,

And Champions of Christ, at sound of his accords
Shall honour with a dance th'Almighty Lord of Lords:
When all the Quire of heau'n, and bands of winged ghosts,
Shall Holy, holy sing, O holy Lord of hosts.
The third is Salomon, whose worke more brightly beames

With golden sentences, then doth his crowne with gems.

The last is Amos sonne, beset with graces all,
Graue, holy, full of threats, deuout, rhetoricall.

The Greeke on Homer leanes; who sweetly versifies,

2. The Greeke.

Whose learned schoole hath taught a many Companies
Of old Philosophers, and from whose cunning plea
Run riuers through the world, as from an Ocean Sea.

On Plato th'all-diuine, who like the bird we call
The bird of paradise, ne soyles himselfe at all
VVith earth or waters touch; but, more then hels descent
Surmounted is by heau'n, surmounts the firmament.

On Herodote the plaine; and him, of pleaders arts
The Law Demosthenes, the guilt-tongue Prince of harts.
Then he that thunder-speaks, with lightning blast and shine
The Foe of Anthonie, the scourge of Catiline,

3. The Latine.

The spring of thousand floods wherein the rarest wits
Doe daily toyle themselues agast with wonder-fits;
And Cœsar, that can doe as well as he can plead:
And sinowie Salust next; then he that Troy doth lead
Againe to Tyber-shore, a writer sent from heauen,
That neuer shuts his eyes to slumber, morne or eu'n;
That euer treadeth sure, is euer plaine and graue;
Demurely venterous, and temperately braue;
That still is like himselfe, and vnlike others all;
These hold the sweet-graue tongue was last imperiall.
Th'Italian founded is on Boccace pleasurous;
With Petrarch finely dight, bould and sententious;

4. The Italian.

On flowing Ariost, selfe-vnlike, passionate;
With Tasso, worthy wight to frame a verse of State,
Sharpe, short, fil'd, figured, with language rowling fast,

The first to be esteem'd albeet he wrote the last.

Th'Arabian tongue is here most worthily sustained

5. The Arabian.

By great Auerroes deep-reaching, suttle-brained;
Ibnufarid the smooth allegorizing wag;
And faire-spoake Auicen, and Satyr Eldebag.

The glory of Wittenberg and Isleb, Martin Luther
Is one that beares the Dutch; another is Michael Buther,

6. The Dutch.

Who Sleydan Almaned; my Butrick is the next;
With Peucer, who reguilds his all-entising text.

Then Boscan, then Gueuare, Grenade and Gracilas,

7. The Spanish.

With Nectar all distain'd, that mantleth in the glasse
Of hony-powring Peith, vpheld the Castillane.
And had not th'ancient grace of speaking Catallane
Osias ouer-pleas'd, his learning might haue bore
The Spanish Crowne of Bay from one of th'other foure.

The burd'n of th'English tongue I finde here vndertaken

8. The English.

By quicke Sir Thomas More, and graue Sir Nicolas Bacon;
They knit and rais'd the stile, and were both eloquent,
And Keepers of the Seale, and skill'd in gouernment.
Sir Philip Sydn'y is next, who sung as sweet as Swan
That flaps the swelling waues of Tems with siluer fan:
This Riu'r his honour beares, and eloquence together,
To snow-foot Thetis lap, and Thetis eu'ry whither.
But what new sunne is this that beames vpon mine eyes?
Or, am I rapt amongst the heau'nly companies?

For the fourth piller of the English tongue hee nameth our gratious Queene Elizabeth, duly and truly praising her for wisdome, maintenance of peace, learning, and eloquence.

O what a princely grace! what State Emperiall!
What pleasant-lightning eyes! what face Angelicall!
Say, O yee learned guirles begot of heau'nly breath,
Is't not the wise Minerue, the great Elizabeth?
Who rules the Briton stout with such a tendering,
That neuer did he wish to change her for a King.
She whiles her neighbour Lands are spoil'd with sword and fire,
By Furies weary of hell, with head of snakie tire,
And, whiles the darke affright of tempest roring-great
Doth to the worlds Carack a fearefull ship wrack threat,
Retaines in happie peace her Isle, where true beliefe
And honorable Lawes are reckned of in chiefe.

She hath not only gift of plentie delectable
To speake her Mother-tongue; but readily is able
In Latine, Spanish, French (without premeditation)
In Greeke, Italian, Dutch, to make as good Oration,
As Greece can, as can France, as Rome Imperiall,
As Rhine, as Arne can, plead in their naturall.

O bright Pearle of the North, martiall Mars-conquering,
Loue still and cherish th'Arts, and heare the Muses sing:
And, in case any time my verses winged-light
Shall ouer th'Ocean Sea to thine Isle take their flight,
And by some happie chance into that faire hand slide,
Which doth so many men with lawfull Scepter guide;
O reade with gracious eye and fauourable thought:
I want thine eloquence to praise thee as I ought.

But what are those of France? this Image was vnshap'd,

9. The French.

Whence hath the bunglar hand of Idle mason skrap'd,
No more then th'harder skales of eu'ry rugged knot;
Thee (Marot) sure it meanes, that labourest so hot
Without Art Artist-like, and prickt with Phœbus Lance
Remouest Helicon from Italy to France.
Thee (Clement) I regard eu'n as an old Colosse,
All soiled, all to broke, and ouergrow'n with mosse;
As tabl' or tombe defac'd, more for th'antiquitie,
Then any bewty in them, or cunning that I see.

What one this other is, I scarce remember me;
A Cunning one he seemes, what one soere he be.
I rest yet in suspense, sometime he doth appeare
To be Iames Amiot, sometime Blase Uigineere.

Great Ronsard is the next, who doth of Graces wrong
The Greeke and Latine both to grace his Mother-tongue;
And with a bould attempt doth mannage happily
All kinde of Argument, of stile, of Poetry.

De Mornay this man is, encountring Atheisme,
Iewes stubborne vnbeleefe, and foolish Paganisme,
With weapons of their owne; he godly, graue, and prest,
So solideth his stile both simpl' and courtly-drest,
That feather'd with faire words his reasons sharpe as darts

Instrike themselues adeepe into the brauest hearts.

Then thus I spake to them, ô bright, ô goodly wits

The Poets desire considering the learned Writers of France.

Who in most happie case haue consecrate your writs
To Immortalities sith that my feeble shoulders
May not among you be the French renownes vpholders,
Alas! sith I vneth you follow can with eye
Vpon the twy-top hill so neare acoast the skie:
Yet suffer me at least here prostrate to embrace
Your honourable knees! ô giue me leaue to place
Vpon your shining heads a garland of the Spring,
And of your goodnesse grant that these meane tunes I sing
May in your glory draw an euerlasting glory,
And alway this my verse may register your story.

They yeelding to my suit, made semblance with their head;

The end of the Vision.

So vanished the vale, and all the pillars fled:
In like sort had the dreame with them together hasted,
But that I with mine Inke his nimble feathers pasted.

The third Booke of Noe, or the Colonies.

VVhile ore th'vnpeopled world, I lead the fruitfull stocke

Being to speake of so many peoples remoues as came from Noe, a hard matter, he desires the furtherance of Gods speciall fauour.

Of him that first assaid the waters wrackfull shocke;
While I by sea and land all in their places range
Discou'ries fortunate of many a kingdome strange;
And while of mightie Noe I toile to spread and twine
Fro th'one to th'other Sea the many-branched Vine;
O what twilight ycloud by day shall guide my sight,
What fiery pillar shall my course direct by night
To seats each peopl' ordaind before the Pair-of-Man
Their twy-fold-one estate in Paradise began!

Thou Holy-holy Flame, that led'st the Persian Wyses,
From th'all-perfumy coast where-out faire Titan rises,
To shew the cradle of Christ, whose youth in liuing light
For euer flourisheth; driue hence the gloomie night
That seeleth-vp mine eyes: and so my Muse it shall
Search all the darker nookes of this great earthy Ball.
For though my wandring thought al-throw this iorney long
Turne here and there, yet I no way more bend my song,
Nor ought doe more desire, than to direct and waine
My Readers to the Childe that was Diuine-humaine.

As, when the skie o're-cast with darksome cloudy rack

A comparison fitly shewing the effect of that astonishment befallen the builders of Babel.

A woods hart thorow-strikes with some great thunder-crack,
The Birds eu'n all at once their nest and pearch forsake,
And throw the troubled aire they flit for feare and quake,
One heare, another there; their pinions whizzing sound
Is nois'd all round-about; no greisell Turtle is found
Together with her mate; with downy-callow feather
Some young ones dare assay to wrastl' against the weather:
Right so the men who built the great Assyrian Tower,
Perceiuing Gods great voice in thunder-clashing stower
Of their confounded speech, each barbarous vnt'ether
Betake them to their heeles all fearefull altogether.
Some runne the left-hand way, and some acoste the right;
All tread th'vnhaunted earth as God ordain'd their flight.

Why God would not haue the posteritie of Noe stay in the plaine of Sennaar.

For that great King of heau'n, who long ere creature breath'd
In priuie counsaile had this vnder-world bequeth'd
Vnto the race of Man, ne would at all abide it
To be a den of theeues, as if men should diuide it
By dreadfull dint of sword, and eu'ry people border
This thickned Element beast-like and out of order:
But, fire of warre to quench, he did all try-diuide,
Among the sonnes of Noe allotting each his side.

The earth diuided betweene the sonnes of Noe.

So Sem enhabited the day-beginning East,
To Cham befell the South, and Iaphet gain'd the West.

This countrry reaching forth as rich as it is large,
From Peake of Perosites, where doth himselfe discharge

Sem went toward the West.

The stately running Ob, great Ob, fresh waters King,
A riuer hardly crost in six daies trauelling,
To Malaca, to th'Isles from whence are brought huge masses
Of Calamus and Cloues: Samotra whereon passes
Heau'ns Equinoctiall line; and to the waters far
Of Pearly Zeilan Isle, and goldie Bisnagar:
And from the Pont-Eusine, and from the brother waues
Of those two Chaldee streames, vnto the Sea that raues
With hideous noise about the Straight of Aniens,
To Quinsies moorie poole, and to Chiorza, whence
Come Elephantick buls with silken-haired hides;
This hight the share of Sem: for Gods decree it guides

Ashur t'Assyriland, that after some few daies

How and what Nations came of Sem.

Chal, Rezen, Niniué, their tow'rs to heau'n may raise.
The Persian hilles possest great Elams kingly race,
And those fat lands where-through Araxes bent his pace.
Lud held the Lydian fields, Aram th'Armenia,
And learned Arphaxad the quarter Chaldean.

Cham Lord was of the Land that Southward is beset
With blacke Guineas waues, and those of Guagamet;
Of Benin, Cefala; Botongas, Concritan,
That fruitfull is of drugs to poison beast or man.
It Northward fronts the sea from Abil pent betweene
The barren Affrick shore, and Europs fertill greene:
And on the Westerne coast, where Phœbus drownes his light,
Thrusts-out the Cape of Fesse, the green Cape and the white:
And hath on th'other side, whence comes the Sun from sleepe
Th'Arabick seas, and all the ruddy-sanded deepe.
Nay all the land betwixt the Liban mountaine spred,
And Aden waues, betwixt the Persick and the Red,
This mightie Southerne Prince, commanding far and wide,
Vnto the Regiment and scept'r of Affrick tide.

For Canan, one his sonne began, to build and dwell
By Iordan, gentle streame, whereas great Israel
Was after to be lodg'd: Phut peopled Lybia.
Misraijm Egypt had, Chus Ethiopia.

Now Iaphet spred along from th'Ellesponticke waters,

Iaphet to the North and West.

Th'Euxine, and Tanaies, vnto the mount Gibraltars
Renowned doubl'ascent, and that sun-setting Maine,
Which with his ebbe and flow playes on the shore of Spaine:
And from that higher sea, vpon whose frozen alleyes
Glide swiftly-teemed carres insted of winged gallies,
Vnto the Genoan Tyrrhene and prouence Seas,
With those of learned Greece, and of Peloponese.
Accoast the goodly shore of Asia the lesse,
(The second paradise, th'worlds chiefe happinesse)
And Tartarie, the ground that reacheth from Amane
Vnto the springs of Rha, and pleasant bankes of Tane.

All those braue men at armes, that France haue ouer-spred,
Of Gomers fruitfull seed, themselues professe, are bred;
And so the Germans are, sometime hight Gomerites:
Of Tubal Spaniards came, of Mosoch Moscouites,
Of Madai sprong the Medes, of Magog Scythians,
Of Iauan rose the Greekes: of Thyras Thracians.

Here if I were dispos'd vpon the ground to treade

He will not enter into matter farre out of knowledge.

Of that suppos'd Berose, abusing all that reade
As he and others doe; well might I let you see
Of all our Ancestors a fained pedegree:
I boldly might assay of all the worlds Prouinces,
From father vnto sonne, to name the former Princes:
To sing, of all the world, each peoples diuers lot,
And of the meanest townes to lay the grunsill-plot.

But what? I meane not, I, as eu'ry wind shall blow,
To leaue the former course, and rashly assay to row,
(The bright Load-starre vnseene) vpon the waues vnknow'n
Of such an Ocean sea, so full of rockes bestrow'n
And Scyllaes glutton gulfes; where tumbleth equall store
Of shipwracks on the sands, and billowes to the shore:
Not hauing other guide then writers such as faine
The names of ancient Kings, and romants tell vs vaine;
Who make all for themselues, and gaping after glory,
On footing of a flie can frame a perfect story.

Th'Allusion of words is not a suer ground

Why it is a hard matter to search Antiquities.

For any man thereon a steddy worke to found;
Sith greatest hilles and seas, and most renowmed riuers
(Though they continue still) among long-after liuers
Are often diuers-nam'd; as eke the generation
Of him that built a wall, or laid a townes foundation,
Enhabits not the same; nor any mortall race
Hath an eternall state in any one earthly place:
But holds for terme of life, in fee-farme, or at will,
Possession of a field, a forrest, or an hill.
And like as when the wind amid the main-sea rustles,
One waue another driues, and billow billow iustles;
So are the peopl' at oddes each one for others roome,
One thrusts anoth'r away, and scarce the seconds, come

To threshold of that house whereas he meanes to keepe,
But comes a third and makes him forth at window creepe.

So from great Albion th'old Britton being chas'd

A fit Exampe

By Saxon-English force, the Gaules forthwith displac'd
That wond in Armoricke, and call'd the Land Brittaine,
Where Loyre his gliding charge vnloadeth on the maine.

So when the Lombard left (with minde to rome a large)
Vnto the Skotched Hunnes the diuers furrow'd marge
Of Ister double-nam'd, he made the French to flie
By force of warlike rage from out rich Insubrie;
But vnder-fell againe the French reuenging heat,
And was to bondage brought by sword of Charles the Great.

And so th'Alaine, and so the Northen-borne Vandall.
Dislodged by the Goth from Cordube and Hispall,
In Carthage harboured, then by the conquering stroke
Of him that fram'd our Lawes, sustain'd the Roman yoke.
The Roman eke, and all the soyle Barbarian
Of frizell-headed Moores, obay'd th'Arabian.

This hunger ne'r-suffiz'd of gold and great Empire,

What causeth people often to remoue and change their dwelling.

This thirst of sharpe reuenge, and further this desire
Of honour in conceit (all builded on rapines,
On slaughters, cruelties, towne-burnings and ruines)
Dishabiteth a Land, and diuers waies and farre
To waue and wander makes the people sonnes of Warre.

I doe not speake-of here the spoiling Arabes,

Diuers examples of wandering people.

The Hordies ancient Scythes or shepheards Nomades,
Who gazing on in troopes disdained eu'ry fence,
And pitched where they list their bristle-hairy ten's;
Like as with wing are wont black swarmes of swallowes swift
Crosse o're th'embillowed sea their airy bodies lift,
And changing their abode, as 'twere on progresse goe
For milder season'd aire, twice yearely to and fro;
But other Nations fierce, who for a war-renowne,
With often losse of Bloud haue roamed vp and downe:
Who better skill'd the way how t'ouercome then weild;
To conquer, then to keepe; to pull downe, then to build;
And chosing rather warre, than holy and lawfull rest,

Haue boldly diuers lands, and one aft'r other, prest.

Right such that Lombard was, who, borne in Schonerland,

The naturall Countrey of the Lombardes, their diuers remoues and conquests.

Seiz'd on Liuonia, thence went to Rugiland;
And hauing wrought reuenge vpon the Bulgar-men
Of Agilmond his death, he boldly ventur'd then
Vpon Polonia; so march'd on braue and fine
To bathe his golden haire in siluer streame of Rhine:
Thence turning him about he setled in Morauie,
And so to Buda went, and after flew to Pauie:
There raign'd two hundred yeares, and honour'd Tesin so,
He princely dares compare streames with his neighbour Po.

Such was the Goth, who left the freezing-cold Finland,

Of the Goths.

Scanzie, and Scrifinie, Norway and Gottherland,
To sit on Wixel-bankes; and, for that aire did please,
As most in temper neare his owne of Baltick seas,
With his victorious hoste entring Sclauonia
Supprised Zipserland and all Valachia:
Then fortifi'd in Thrace; but scorning long to toile
Among the beggar Greekes, for hope of greater spoile
Foure times the Roman tride, God Mars his elder sonne,
To rob him of the crowne that he from all had wonne,
Led once by Radaguise, led once by Alarick,
Then vnder Vidimare, then vnder Dietrick:
And after dwelt in France; then (chased from Gascoine)
Aboade in Portugal, Castile and Cataloine.

Such whilome was the French, who, roaming out as farre

Of the ancient Gaules.

As darted are the beames of Titans firie carre,
Inuaded Italy, and would in rage haue spilt
The Tow'rs that Romulus, or Mars himselfe, had built:
Went thence int' Hungary, then with his conquering plough
He fallow'd-vp the soile cold Strimon runneth through:
The faire Emathick fields he then doth all-to-fleece,
And spareth not at all the greatest gods of Greece:
At last with Europe cloy'd he passeth Helespont,
Of th'Eunuck Dindym hill he wasteth all the Front,
Pisidia ruineth, surpriseth Mysia,
And plants another Gaule in mid'st of Asia.

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Of people most renown'd the darke antiquitie
Is like a Forrest wide, where hardy-foolery
Shall stumbl' at eu'ry step, the learned Souuenance
It selfe entangled is; but blind-fold ignorance
By blundring through the darke of her eternall Fogges,
Falls headlong downe in pits, in dungeons and bogges:

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It shall suffice me then to follow the ancient bounds,

He groundeth all his discourse vpon holy writ; and sheweth more particularly how the sons of Noe peopled all the world.

And from the golden mouth of Moses taking grounds,
With all religious heed in verses to record
How Sem, Iaphet and Cham, the world with people stor'd;
And how of mighty Noe the far-out-roaming boat
Did thus the second time all countries ouer-float.

Yet not as if Sems house from Babilon did run
Together all at once vnto the rising sun;
To drinke of Zaiton the water siluer-fine,
To peopl' all rich Catay with Cambalu and Chine:
Nor Iaphet vnto Spaine; nor that vngodly Cham
Vnto the droughty soile of Meder and of Bigam,
The fields of Cephala, the Mount of Zanzibar,
The promontory of Hope, which Africk thrusts-out far.

For as th'lblean hills, or those Hymettick trees,

Very meet comparisons.

Not all in one yeeres space were couered with Bees;
But first some little rock, that swarmed eu'ry prime
Two surcreases or three, made on their tops to clime,
Aside and all about those nurslings of the Sun,
At length all o're the cliffes their hony-combs to run:

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Or as two springing Elmes, that grow amids a field
With water compassed, about their stocks doe yeeld
A many younger trees; and they againe shoot-out
As many like themselues encroaching all about;
And gaining foot by foot, so thriue: that aft'r a while
They for a shared mead a forrest make that Isle:
Accordinly the men who built th'Assyrian tower,
Were scattred all abroad; though not all in an hower;
But first enhous'd themselues in Mesopotamie;
By processe then of time increasing happily,
They pass'd streame after streame, and seizd land after land;
And were not th'age of all cut short by Gods command,
No country might be found so sauage or vnknow'n
But by the stock of man had bin ere this o'regrown.
And this the cause is why the Tigre-abutting coast,
In all the former time of all did flourish most.
That first began to warre, that only got a name,
And little knew the rest but learned of the same.
For Babylon betimes drawne vnd'r a kingly throne

The cause, why the first monarchie was in Assiria.

Th'emperiall scepter swaid before the Greeks were knowne
To frame a politie, before by charming tones
Amphion walled Thebes of self-empyling stones;
Yer Latins had their townes, yer Frenchmen houshold rents,
Or Dutchmen cottages, or Englishmen their tents:
So Hebers sonnes had long abhorred Altars made

The Hebrues & their neighbors were learned and religious before the Greeks knew anything.

For any heathen gods; with Angels had their trade;
And knew the great Vnknowne, yea (ô most happy thing!)
With eyes of faith beheld their vnbeholden king.
The learned Chaldee knew of stars the numb'r and lawes,
Had measured the skie, and vnderstood the cause
That muffleth vp the light of Cinthia's siluer lips,
And how her thwarting doth her brothers light eclips.
The Priest of Memphis knew the nature of the soule,
And straitly marked how the heau'nly flames doe roule;
Who, that their faces might more flaming seeme and gay,
In Amphitrites poole once wash them euery day:
He physick also wrote and taught Geometree,

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Before that any Greeke had learn'd his A Be Cee.
All Egypt ouershone with golden vtensils,

The Egyptians & Tyrians had all riches and delights, before the Greeks and Gaules knew the world.

Before the limping smith by Ætnaes burning kills
Had hammerd iron barrs: before Prometheus found
The fire and vse thereof vpon th'Argolian ground.

Alas, we were not then, or, if we were, at least
We led an vnkouth life, and like the sauage beast,
Our garments feathers were, that birds in moulting cast;
We feasted vnder trees and gaped after mast.
VVhen as the men of Tyre already durst assay
To raze the saltie Blew twixt them and Africa,
Aduentur'd merchandise, with purpl'enguirt their flanks,
And pleasure kept her court about Euphrates banks.
For as a peble stone if thou on water fling
Of any sleepie poole, it frames a little ring
First whereabout it fell; then furth'r about doth rase
The wauing marbl', or eu'n the trembling Chrystall face
VVith mouing paralels of many circles moe,
That reaching furth'r abroad together-waxing flow
Vntill the round at length most outward and most large
Strikes of the standing lake both one and other marge:
So from the Cent'r of All (which here I meane to pitch
Vpon the waters brinke where discord sproong of speech)
Man dressing day by day his knowledge more and more
Makes arts and wisdome flow vnto the circle-shore;
As doth himselfe increase, and as in diuers bands
His fruitfull seed in time hath ouergrowne the lands.

From faire Assyriland the Semites gan to trauell

The first Colonies of Sem in the East.

Vnto the soile beguilt with glystring Hytan-grauell,
And peopling Persiland dronke Oroates iuyce,
And wat'r of cleare Coaspe that licks the walls of Suse:
So tooke the fruitfull dale and flow'r-embellyd plaines
Betwixt high Caucase tops, where shortly Arsace raignes:
And some in Medye dwelt, and some began to make
The fields abutting on the great Hircanian Lake.

These mens posteritie did like a flood surround

The second.

And ouerflow in time the Cheisel-fronting ground:

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They came in diuers troopes vpon Tac[illeg.]istan,
Caras, Gadel, Chabul, Bedane and Balistan.

Their Of-spring afterward broke-vp with toyling hands

The third.

Narzinga, Bisnagar, and all the plenteous lands
That Ganges thorow flowes, and peopled Toloman,
The realme of Mein, and Aue, and muskie Carazan:
They saw the fearefull sprights in wildernesse of Lop,
That maske in hundred shapes wayfairing men to stop.

Long aft'r at sundry times this Race still coasting east

The fourth.

Tipura seizd that breeds the horny-snowted beast,
Mangit and Gaucinchine that Aloes hath store;
And stopt at Anie straights and Cassagalie shore.

Now from the Center-point inclining to the Set

The first Colonies of Iaphet in the West.

Far spred abroad themselues the children of Iaphet,
To Armenie the lesse, and after to Cilice,
So got the hau'ns at length of Tarsis and of Ise,
The sweet Corician caue, that neere to Parnas hill
Delights the commers-in with Cymball-sounding skill:
Huge Taure his loftie downes, Ionie, Cappadoce,
Meanders winding banks, Bythine and Illios.

Then boldly passing-o're the narrow cut of Sest,

The second.

They dronke the water chill of Strimon, Heber and Nest:
The Rhodopean dales they graz'd, and laid in swathes
The leas that (running-by) Danubies water bathes.

Thrace did a thonside fill the Grecian territorie;

The third parted into many branches.

Greece peopled Italie, law-giuing, louing-glory;
By Italie was France, by France was filled Spaine,
The borderings of Rhine and all the Great Britaine:
Ath'otherside againe it sent a Colonie
Both to the Pont-Eusine, and toward Moldauie;
So raught Transyluanie, Morauie, Hungarie,
And Seruie farther-west, and eastward Podolie.
Thence men to Prussie came and Wyxell borders ear'd,
Then that of Almanie that narre the Pole is rear'd.

Now turning to the South, consider how Chaldea

The first Colonies of Cham in the South.

Spewes-out in Arabie, Phenice and Chananea,
The cursed line of Cham; yet ne'r the lesse it growes,

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And twixt Myd-sea and Red along int'Egypt goes:

The second.

So stores the towne Corene, and that renowmed coast
Whereon the Punick Seas are all to-froth betost;
Fesse, Gogden, Terminan, Argin, Gusola, Dara,

The third.

Tombuto, Gualata, Melli, Gago, Mansara,
The sparkling wildernesse of Lybie breeding-venim,
Caun, Guber, Amasen, Born, Zegzeg, Nubye, Benim;

The fourth.

And of the droughtie soile those euer-moouing sands,
Where Iesus yet is known and Prestre Ian commands;
Who, though in many points he commeth neere the Iew,
Yet hath a kind of Church not all vnlike the true.

Here if thou meane to know whence all the land so large,

How the North was peopled.

Which vnder-lies the draught of many a sliding barge,
All-ouer pau'd with Ise, and of the sea of Russe
Enuironed about with surges mutinous,
Was come-vnto by men; thinke after they forsooke
The plaine where Tegil flood swift-running ouertooke
Once and againe the streame of running-far Euphrates
They lodged at the foot of hoary hill Nyphates.

So forth of Armenie the field Hiberian,
The Colchish, th'Albanick, and high Bospherian
Might well be furnished, and thence vnto th'Vprist
Might come the Tartar fell, who roameth where he list
All on that circuit huge; and thence accoast the Set
Was stoard the land that Rha doth neere his rising fret,
The shore of Lyuonie, the plaine, of Moscouie,
Byarmie, Permie, Russe, White-lake and Scrifinie.

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But all this other world that Spaine hath new found-out

How America was peopled.

By floting Delos-like the Westerne Seas about,
And raised now of late from out the tombe of Leath,
And giu'n it (as it were) a liuing by a death;
How was't inhabited? if long agone: how is't

The first obiection.

Nor Persians, nor Greeks, nor Romans euer wist,
Or inkling heard thereof, whose euer conquering hosts
Haue spred abroad so farre, and troad so many coasts?
Or if it were of late, how could it swarme so thieke

The second obiection.

In euery towne, and haue such workes of stone and bricke,
As passe the tow'rs of Rome, th'antike Egyptian Pyramis,
The King Mausolus tombe, the wals of Queene Semiramis?

How thinke you then? belike these men fell from the skie

Answer negatiue by an Ironie.

All ready-shap'd, as doe the frogges rebounding frie,
That aft'r a sulty day, about the sun-set houre
Are powred on the meads by some warme Aprill-showre,
And entertouch themselues and swarme amid the dust,
All or'e the gaping clifts that former drought had brust:
Or grew of tender slips and were in earthly lap
(Instead of cradle) nurst, and had for milke the sap:

Or, as the Musherome, the Sowbread and the Blite,
Among the fatter clods, they start vp in a night:
Or as the Dragons teeth sow'n by the Duke of Thebes,
They brauely sprong all-arm'd from-out the fertill glebes.
Indeede this mighty ground, ycleaped Americke,

The first earnest answer.

Was not enhabited so soone as Affericke;
Nor as that learned soyle, tow'r-bearing, louing-right,
Which after Iupiter his deare-beloued hight;
Nor as that other part, which from cold Bosphers head
Doth reach the pearly morne at Titons saffran bed:
For they much more approach the diaprized ridges;
And faire-endented bankes of Tegil bursting-bridges;
From whence our ancestors discamp'd astonished,
And like to Partridges were all-to-scattered;
Then doth that newfound world whereto Columbus bore

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First vnder Ferdinand the Castill armes and lore.
But there the buildings are so huge and brauely dight,

Generall.

So differing the states, the wealth so infinite;
That long agone it seemes some people thither came,
Although not all at once, nor all by way the same.
For some by cloudy drift of tempest raging-sore,
Percase with broken barks were cast vpon the shore:
Some others much auoid with famine, plague and warre,
Their ancient seats forsooke and sought them new fo farre:

Particular.

Some by some Captaine led, who bare a searching minde,
With weary ships arriu'd vpon the Westerne Inde.

Or could not long ere this, the Quinsay vessels finde

The second.

A way by th'Anien straight from th'one to th'other Inde?

As short a cut it is, as that of Hellespont

Colonies according to the cond Answer: noting by the way certaine meruailes of the countrie.

From Asia to Greece; or that, where-ore they wont
Saile from the Spanish hill vnto the Realme of Fesse;
Or into Sicilie from out the hau'n of Resse.

So from the Wastes of Tolme and Quiuer (where the kine
Bring calues with weathers fleece, with Camels bunchie chine
And haire, as Genets, slicke) they peopled Azasie;
Cosse, Toua, Caliquas, Topira, Terlichie,
And Florida the faire, Auacal, Hochilega,
The frosen Labour-lands, Canada, Norumbega.

They sow'd ath'other side the land of Xalisco,
Mechuacan, Cusule; and founded Mexico
Like Venice, o're a Lake; and saw, astonished
The greenest budding trees become all withered,
As soone as euer touch'd; and eke a mountaine found
Vesevus-like enflam'd about Nicargua ground.
So passing forth along the straight of Panama,
Vpon the better hand they first Oucanama,
Then Quito, then Cusco, then Caxamalca built;
And in Peruuiland, a country thorow-guilt,
They wondred at the Lake that waters Colochim,
All vnder-paued salt, and fresh about the brim:

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And at the springs of Chinke, whose water strongly-good
Makes pebble-stones of chalke, and sandy stones of mood.

Then Chili they possest, whose riuers cold and bright
Run all the day apace, and rest them all the night:
Quinteat, Patagonie, and all those lower seats,
Whereon the foamy bracke of Magellanus beats,
Vpon the left they spread along by Darien side,
Where Huo them refresh'd, then in Vraba spide
How Zenu's wealthie waves adowne to Neptune rould
As bid as pullets egges the massie graines of gould;
A mount of Emeralds in Grenad saw they shine;
But on Cumana banks hoodwinked weare their eyne
With shady night of mist: so quickly from Cumane
They on to Pary went, Omagu and Caribane:
Then by Maragnon dwelt, then entred fierce Bresile
Then Plata's leauell fields, where flowes another Nile.

Moreouer, one may say that Picne by Grotland,

The third answer.

The land of Labour was by Brittish Iserland
Replenished with men: as eke, by Terminan,
By Tombut and Melli the shore of Corican.

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Well may I grant you then (faith one perhaps) ther's naught

How it was possible that Noe & his three sonnes should increase as they did.

In all this lower world, but will at length be raught
By mans ambition; it makes a breach in hills;
It runneth dry by Sea among the raging Scylls;
And in despite of thirst it guides the Carauands
Amids the drie Tolmish, Arabick, Numyd sands.
But yet he lewdly thinks it goes against all sense
That one house, beds but foure, should breake so large a sense,
As t'ouerbreed the lands of Affrick, Europe, Ase,
And make the world appeare too narrow for the race.

What ere thou be, if light thou reck th'Immortals hest,

1. Answer.

That once againe the bond of sacred mariage blest,
And said Encrease and fill: if thou profane denie

2. Answer.

That Iacobs little traine so thicke did multiplie
On Pharoh's fruitfull ground, that in foure hundred yeere
The seuentie liuing soules fiue hundred thousand were.

Alas, yet thinke at least, how (for in elder time

3. Answer.

The fruits they ate ne grew not on so foggy slime
As ours doe now, nor was their meats with sawces dight,
Nor altered as yet with health-empairing slight
Of gluttonating Cooks; and for with murdring sword
Of neighbour enemies they seld were swept aboord;
And for their mightie limbes they dulled not by sloth,
Or want of exercise) they wox in liuely groth,

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And liu'd some hundred yeeres, and in their latter daies
With siluer haired heads were able sons to raise.
So that Polygamie, then taken for a right,
This world an ant-hill made of creatures bolt-vpright,
And many peopl' arose in short time (if thou marke)
From out the fruitfull raines of some one Patriarch.

Eu'n as a graine of wheat, if all th'increase it yeelds

Two fit comparisons.

Be often-times resow'd vpon some harty fields,
Will stuffe the barnes at length and colour mighty launes
With yellow-stalked eares: and as two fishes spaunes
Cast int' a standing poole, so fast breed vp and downe,
That aft'r a while they store the larders of a towne.
And haue we not of late a certaine Elder knowne,

An example of late yeares.

That with his fruitfull seed a village had o're-growne
Of fiuescore houses big; so blessed that he saw
His sonnes and daughters knit by ord'r of mariage law?
The tree of parentage was ouershort and thin
To branch-out proper names for their degrees of kin.
Who knowes not that within three hundred yeeres and lesse,

Another example.

A few Arabians did Lybie fill and presse
With new inhabitants, and taught Mahound in Fesse
In Oran, in Argier, in Tunis, Bugy and Tesse?
Now if they so increas'd that woon'd in Afferick,
That with an humor sharpe, fretting, melancholick,
Prouok'd are day and night, and made more amorous,
Then able to beget, (for deed venerious,

The more enforc'd, the lesse it is of force (no doubt)
And inward doe they freize that most doe boyle without)
Imagine how the men, who neerer to the Poule
Behold the flaming wheeles of heau'nly chariots roule,
Doe wax and multiplie: because they come but feeld
And at well-chosen times, to Cithareas field:
And sith cold weather staies about the northen Beare,
O're all that rugged coast triumphing euery where,
The liuely heat retires into the bodies tower,

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And closer-trussed makes their seed of greater power.

The North hath swarmed with people, not the South.

And thence the Cimbrians, Gaules, Herules and Bulgares,
The Sweues, Burgundians, Circassians and Tartares,
Huns, Lombards, Tigurines, Alanes, and Estergoths,
Turks, Vandalls, Teutonicks, Normans, and Westergoths,
Haue ouerflow'd the lands, and like to Grashoppers
Destroy'd the fairer parts of all this Vniuerse:
Whereas the barren South in all those former daies
Hath scarce been able enough two martiall bands to raise
That could the North affright; one vnder Haniball;
Who brought the Punick State both vnto rule and thrall;
Anoth'r impression made as far as Towers wall,
And there with Abderame was knockt by Charles the Maule.

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O world of sundry kinds! O Nature full of wonders!

A fine discourse vpon the wonderfull wisdome of God that appeareth in the diuers temper & complexion of people.

For euery part thereof, as from the rest it sunders,
It hath not only men of diuers haire and hew,
Of stature, humor, force; but of behauiour new:
Be't that some custome held at length a nature makes,
Or that the younger sort still after th'elder takes,
Or that the proper lawes of diuers-coasted Realmes
Doe greatly disagree, or these enflowing beames
Of h'umour-altring lights, that whirling neuer stint,
Here in our minds below their heau'nly force imprint.

The Northen man is faire, the Southern fauor'd-hard;
One strong, another weake; one white, another sward;
This hath haire fine & smooth, that other grosse and twinde;
He loues the bodies paine, and he the toile of minde;
Some men are hot and moist, some other hot and drie;
Some merry, and other sad; one thunders out on hie,
Another speaketh low; one dudgen is and spightfull,
Another gentl' and plaine; one slow, another slightfull.
Some are vnconstant so, they often change their thought;
And others ne'r let goe conceits they once haue caught.
He tipples day and night, and he loues abstinence;
A penyfath'r is one, and one spares no expence.
One is for company, another hath his moods,
And like a Buggle-bo straies eu'r amids the woods:
One goes in leathern pelch, another richly dight;

129

On's a Philosopher, another borne to fight.

The middle man takes part of all the qualities
Of people dwelling neere the two extremities;
In bodie strong'r is made, but not of minde so franke,
As they who till the gleabes of Nyle his fruitfull banke.
Againe, he's not so strong, but many waies more fine
Then they that dwell betwixt the Donaw and the Rhine.

For in the wide precinct of th'vniuersall Towne
The Southern men that oft with ouer-musing sowne,
That fall int' extasies, that vse to dreame and proue,
That measure how the heau'ns by rules appointed moue,
And are so curious none other knowledge base
May satisfie their minds; they hold the Priest his place.
The Northen whose conceit in hand and finger lurkes,
That all, what ere he list, in wood and mettall workes,
And like Salmoneus with thunder-sound compares,
He's for the man of warre, and makes all cunning wares.
The meane, as knowing well to gouerne an Estate,
Sits with a grauer grace in throne of Magistrate:
And, to be short, the first seeks knowledge wondrously,
The second handie-crafts, the third good policie:
Though fourescore yeeres ago Themis that mends abuses,
Apollo, Mercurie, Minerua with her Muses,
Haue taught their holy schooles as neer the Northen coast,
As Vulcan euer forg'd, or Mars encamp'd his hoast.
Now eu'n among our selues that altogether mell,

How the French, Dutch, Jtalian, and Spanish nations differ in many points.

And haue of all the world no more whereon to dwell
Then as it were a clot, how diuers are the fashions?
How great varietie? the Dutch of all our Nations
Most stout, is hir'd to warre; the Spaniard soft and neat;
Th'Italian mercilesse; the Frenchman soone on heat.
The Dutch in counsaile cold, th'Italian all things weeting,
The Spaniard full of guile, the Frenchman euer-fleeting.
Th'Italian finely feeds, the Spaniard doth but minse,
The Dutch feeds like a swine, the Frenchman like a Prince.
The Frenchman gently speaks, the Spaniard fierce and braue,
The German plaine and grosse, the Roman fine and graue.

130

The Duch attire is strange, the Spanish is their owne,
Th'Italian sumptuous, and owers neuer knowne.
We braue an enemie, th'Italian friendly looks him,
The Duchman strikes him straight, the Spaniard neuerbrooks him.
We sing a cheerefull note, the Tuscan like a sheep;
The German seems to howle, the Lusitan to weep.
The French march thick & short, the Duch like battel-cocks,
The Spaniards Fencer-like, the Romans like an Oxe.
The Duch in loue is proud, th'Italian enuious,
The Frenchman full of mirth, the Spaniard furious.

Yet would th'Immortall pow'r appoint so strange a race

Why it pleased God the world should be inhabited of so diuers natur'd people.

Of this great earthie bowle to couer all the face:
To th'end he clensing all his children from the foile
Of sinne, which had as 'twere bestain'd their natiue soile,
His mercy might vnfold, and shew how heaun'ly signes
A little only moue, but not o'resway our mindes.
That eu'n in further parts his seruants eu'rychone
A sacrifice of praise might offer to his throne:
And that his holy name from Isye Scythia
Might sound vnto the sands of red-hot Africa:
Nor should his treasures hid in far-asunder lands
Created seeme in vaine, and neuer come to hands.
But that all country-coasts where Thetis enter-lyes
Might trafficke one with oth'r and change commodities.

The world compared to a great Citie.

For as a Citie large containes within her wall
Here th'Vniuersitie and there the Princes Hall;
Here men of handie-crafts, there Merchant-venterers;
This lane all full of ware and shops of shoomakers,
That other changing coyne, that other working gold,
Here silke, there cloth; here hats, there leather to be sold;
Here furniture for beds, there doublets ready made;
And each among themselues haue vse of others trade:

So from the Canar Isles the pleasant sugar comes,
And from Chaldea spice, and from Arabia gums,
That stand vs much in stead both for perfume and plaster,

131

And Peru sends vs gold and Damaske Alabaster;
Our Saffron comes from Spaine, our Ivory from Inde,
And out of Germanie our horse of largest kinde;
The scorched land of Chus brings Heben for our chamber,
The Northren Baltike Sound imparts her bleakish Amber,
The frostie coasts of Russe her Ermyns white as milke,
And Albion her Tynne, and Italie her silke.
Thus eu'ry country payes her diuers tribute-rate
Vnto the treasurie of th'vniuersall state.

And as the Persian Queene this prouince call'd her chains,

Man Lord of the world.

And that her stomachers; her plate this, that her traines;

So man may say; for loe, what desert so vntrad,
What hill so wilde and waste? what Region so bad?
Or what so wrackfull sea? or what so barren shore
From North to South appeares, but payes him euermore
Some kind of yearely rent, and grudging not his glory
Vnto his happy life becomes contributory?

These moores enamelled where many purling brooks

A particular declaration of the great vse of some vnlikely creatures against the Atheist, who saith they are to little vse, or made by chance.

Enchase their winding wayes with glassie-wauing crooks,
They stand for garden plots; their herbage, ere it fades,
Twise yearely sets on worke our swapping two-hand blades.
The plaine field Ceres holds, the stonie Bacchus fills;
These ladders of the skie, the rough-aspiring hills,
The store-houses of stormes, and forging-shops of thunders,
(Which thou vntruly call'st th'erths faults & shamfull wonders,
And thinkst the liuing God (to say't I am aferd)
Created them of spight, or in creating err'd)
They bound the kingdoms out with euer-standing marks,
And for our shipping beare of timber goodly parks:
The same afford thee stuffe to build thy sumptuous Hold;
The same in winter-time defend thee from the cold:
They pow'r-out day and night the deep-enchaneld riuers,
Which breed & beare on them to feed the neighbour-liuers:
They oft manure the lands with fruitfull clouds and showers,
They helpe the mylls to turne, and stand instead of towers

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And bulwarks to keepe-off Bellona's dreery stound,
They morter to the sea the mid-point of the ground.
The wasternesse of land, that men so much amazeth,
Is like a common field where store of cattell grazeth,
And whence by thousand heads they come our tylth t'enrood,
To furnish vs with furre, with leather, wooll and food.
The Sea it selfe, that seemes for nothing else to sarue
But eu'n to drowne the world (although it neuer swarue)
That roaring ouer-heales so many a mightie land,
Where, in the waters stead, much wauing corne might stand;
A mightie Stew it is, or vnd'r a watry plaine
Flocks numberlesse it feeds, to feed mankind againe.
For of the Cates thereof are thousand Cities saru'd,
Which could not otherwise but languish hunger-staru'd,
As doth a Dolphin whom vpon the shore halfe-dead
The tide vntrustie left, when backe againe it fled:
It shorter makes the wayes, increases marchandise;
And causes day and night the reaking mysts arise,
That still refresh our ayre, and downe in water flowing,
Set, eu'n before our eyes, the graynie pipe a growing.

But shall I still be rost with Boreas boysterous puffs?

The Poet as after a long voyage landeth in France.

Still subiect to the rage of Nere's counterbuffs?
And shall I neuer see my country-chimnies reake?
Alas, I row no more, my boat begins to leake:
I am vndone, I am, except some gentle banke
Receiue, and that with speed, this wrack-reserued planke.
O France, I ken thy shore; thou reachest me thine arme;
Thou op'nest wide thy lap to shend thy sonne from harme:
Nor wilt I end my dayes from home so many a mile,
Nor o're my bones triumph the Caniball Bresile,
Nor Catay o're my fame, nor Peru o're my verse;
As thou my cradle wert, so wilt thou be mine herse.
O thousand thousand times most happy land of price,

The praise of France.

O Europes only pearle, and earthly paradise!
All-haile renowmed France: from thee sprong many a knight,
Which hath in former time his flag of triumph pight
Vpon Euphrates banks, and blood with Bylboe shed

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Both at the suns vprist, and where he goes to bed.
Thou breedest many men which happy and boldly dare
In works of handy-trade with Nature selfe compare:
And many wits that seeke out all the skill diuine
From Egypt, Greece and Rome, and o're the learned shine
As o're the paler hewes doe glister golden yellowes,
The Sun aboue the star's, thy flow'r aboue the fellowes.

Thy riuers are like Seas; thy Cities prouinces,
In building full of state, and gentle in vsages;
Thine ayre is temperate, thy soile yeelds good increase,
Thou hast for thy defence two mountaines and two seas:
Th'Egyptian Crocodile disquiets not thy banks,
Th'infectious kind of Snakes with poyson-spotted flanks
Ne crawle not burst-in-plights vpon thy flowrie plaines,
Nor mete an ak'r of ground by length of dragling traines:
No Hircan Tygers flight boot-hailes thy vaulted hills,
Nor on thy scorched wasts th'Arcadian Lion kills
Thy wandring habitants; nor Cayrick water-horses
Drag vnd'r vncertaine tombe thy childers tender corses;
And though like Indie streames, thy fairest riuers driue not
Among their pebbles gold, although thy mountains riue not
With veines of siluer Ore, nor yet among thy greet
Carbuncles, Granats, Pearles, lie scattred at our feet;
Thy cloth, thy wooll, thy woad, thy salt, thy corne, thy wines,
(More necessarie fruits) are all sufficient mines,
T'entitle thee the queene of all this earthie scope:
Thy want is only peace. O God that holdest ope

Peace, the onely want of France, prayed-for in conclusion.

Alwaies thine eyes on vs, we humbly thee desire
Quench with thy mercy-drops the France-deuouring fire:
O calme our stormous ayre; Deere Fath'r vs all deliuer,
And put thine angers shafts againe into thy quiuer.

138

The Pillars, or fourth Booke of Noe.

Eternall, ô, if e're the purest of my minde
Hath beene possest with heat of any heau'nly winde,
If e're my heart enspir'd with thine high spirits glance,
Hath to thine Altar brought a verse of famous France,
O Father of shining light, ô first Fountaine of skill,
Or now, or neu'r is time, I Thine heauenly fury fill
And quintessence my soule, and that some thought diuine,
Base cares abandoning, me lift-vp to the skine.
Time is thou lead me farre fro mens cares and alarmes,
That I endronke my sence with heau'nly Syrens charmes,
Embrace with peace and ioy Vrany and her sisters,
And view th'all-starry roofe, that o're this Temple glisters.
To th'end, as heretofore our Elders haue beene taught
By thine owne hand the rules of this high rowling vaut,
Thou própt my Muse a verse, whose bewty & state may square
With state and bewty of all heau'ns clearest lights that are,
When th'Earth was seuered by mens ambitious Iarre.

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Old Heber on a time with Phaleg walking farre,
A piller found vpright that on the plaine stood-out

As Rock that scornes the Sea assaulting round-about,
And beares a signe in top, to warne least Amphitrite
Cast any there to waues of helly-darke Cocyte:
He saw not far-aside, another like in masse,
But not in stuffe the same, nor that like happie was;
For on the flowry land Cylinder-wise it lay,
All-only built of bricke and short enduring clay:
Whereas the standing pile was hew'n and framed strong
Of Iasper quarries huge, and Marbl'enduring-long.

What miracles be these, quoth Phaleg to his father,
What great enormous heaps? hils handy-wroughen rather:
I wonder what so strange a frame of worke entends;
Say thou (I pray) that hast ykon'd at fingers ends
The monuments of old, ô say for what entent,
When, and by whom, these twins of ancient worke vp-went.

Then Heber said; my sonne, of Gods eternall breth
First Adam learned all, and he enstructed 3 Seth
The compasse, course, and site of all those flaming boules
That gild th'abiding-place of th'euer-happy soules:
And Seth his children taught, they also view'd the skies,
And trim'd and perfected this Art in curious wise.
For, on the sourdy bankes of th'easterne hurring streames,
All-out the carelesse night, when other lay in dreames,
They fed their bleating flockes, and liuing many Ages,
Might well the wonders marke of all the shining stages.

And building on the plot of their fore-fathers ground-work,
They raised-vp in time a rich, a faire, a sound worke.
But vnderstanding well that Gods reuenging Ire
Should once the world destroy by wat'r, and then by fire,
(As th'old Tradition was) thus high aboue the land
They rais'd a paire of Pyles with cunning Masons hand.

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That there from throat of Time for their posterities,
They might the treasures hoard of Algrim Mysteries.

Thus hauing said, he went vnto the standing Rocke,
And did (I know not how) a secret doore vnlocke:
So went with Phaleg in, and to a candle came,
Which with eternall thirst maintain'd immortall flame.

As, when a priuate man is through a hundred wayes
Brought by some husher sterne vnto the shining rayes
At length of royall seat, he wonders at the sight,
And glaunces vp and downe his eyes vnstayed light;
So Phaleg was amaz'd, and said, ô father deere,
What cunning worke is this? whose are these statues heere?
I thinke foure water-drops may scarse be more then they
Th'each vnto th'other like. How strange is their aray?
What secret mystery of heau'nly-learned skilles
Is hidden vnder vaile of these faire vtensilles?

My sonne (quoth Heber) see foure daughter-twins of heau'n,
Foure sister-ladies braue, the fairest doubled eau'n
That ere th'Eternall Spirit proceeding one of twaine
Begotten hath, or e're conceiued manly braine.

She there, which euer shifts or euer seemes to shift
Her fingers and her tongue, to gather, lay, and lift
Her counters many-wise, is th'Art of Odde and eau'n,
Whose industrie can search and count all th'oast of heau'n,
The winter I sickles, and flowers diapreade,
Wherewith sweet sauoury Prime enguyrlands eu'ry meade.
She sets her bewtie forth with rich acoutrements,
And round about her lye great heapes of siluer pence;
Heau'n o're her sacred head a shining treasure powers
(Like Ioue in Danaes lap) of many golden showers.
Her gowne trailes on the ground; instead of glassie plate,
To view her bewties in, hangs at her girdl' a slate,
Which maugr' all force of time for vs here keepeth still
The more part of the rules of her most certaine skill.
See with what manner marke is painted 8 Vnitie,
The root of eu'ry numb'r, and of Infinitie,
True Friendships deare delight, renowne of Harmony,

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Seed-plot of all that is, and ayme of Polymnie;
No numb'r and more then numb'r, on all-sides so exact,
It hath in't all by powre, and is in all by act.

See here the Caracter, that signifieth Twaine,
The first-borne sonne of One, first numb'r and fath'r againe
Of heau'ns effeminate: See here of numbers Odde
That eldest brother Three, which proper is vnto God;
Wherein no-numb'r and numb'r is sweetly-kissing met,
Whose two extremities and cent'r are eau'nstly set
Asunder each from oth'r, a numb'r heau'ns fauour winning,
And first of all that hath both end, middle and beginning.
Heer's Foure, base of the Cube, and that with one, two, three,
His own contents, amounts iust to the tenth degree;
The numb'r of th'Elements, and of the name of feare,
Of Vertues, Honours, Winds, and seasons in the yeare.
Heer's Fiue, th'Ermaphrodite, which ne're is multiplide
With any numb'r vneu'n, but shewes it selfe in pride
Iust at the first Encount'r; as fiue times fiue we see
Full Fiue and twenty makes, and Fifteene, fiue times three.

Lo th'Analogicke Six, which, with his owne content,
Nor mounts aboue it selfe, nor needeth complement;
For three is halfe thereof, a third two, one, a sixt,
And all the six is made of one, two, three, commixt.

Behold The criticke seu'n, male, female, eu'n, & odde;
Containing three and foure, and call'd the Rest of God,
The numb'r of clearest brands that fixt are neare the Pole,
And those that guyrding heau'n with course vncertaine roule.
Heer's Eight the double square, And sacred nine lo heere
The sister-Muses holds in triple-triple queere.

See Ten, that doth the force of numbers all combine;
As one sets downe pricke, ten drawes in length the line,
An hundred broads the plaine, a thousand thickes the bulke;
So by redoubling ten, the ballast of an hulke
Or all the sand is summ'd vpon th'Atlantike coast,
Or all the swelling waues that angry winds haue tost.

See here how diuers summes, each right o're other set,
Are altogeth'r in one by rules of Adding met;

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How by abating here the lesser numb'r is tride
From out the more; and here how small ones multiplide
Waxe almost infinite: and then how counter-guided
Into as many small the greater summ's diuided.
This Nymph that sadly frownes, with back & shoulders bent,
And holds her stedfast eye still on the ground intent,
And drawes, or seemes to draw, with point of skilfull wand
So many portratures vpon the mouing sand,
In mantle of golden ground with riuers chamleted,
With many embroydred flow'rs all-ouer diuersed,
Embost with little trees, and greeny-leaued slips,,
And edg'd with azur-frenge of some sea bearing-ships;
It is Geometrie; her buskins dusty and rent
Shew well she trauell'd farre, and o're the Climats went

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Of North and Southerne Pole; painfull Geometrie,
The guide of Artisans, and mother of Symmetrie;
Life of those instruments so diuers-vsuall
And law eu'n of the law that framed all this All.
Behold her's nothing else but compasse, measure, weight,

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Rules, plommets, squiers, shapes: See vnd'r a line drawne straight

The soldiour Triangles, and th'architect Quadrangles,
With hundred other shapes of more increased Angles,
Sharpe, blont, or falling right; Loe here two crooked lines,
One like a crawling Snake, one like a Dodman twines:
Lo many crooked shapes, and here, of all the rest
The Circle in fauour most with eu'ry learned brest;
Whose roundell doth it selfe right-equally display,
And from the Center stands like distant euery way.
Here measure with thine eye all manner Cors-solids,
The Cubes, Dodechedrons, Cylinders, Pyramids;
And wond'r here at the Globe, which all doth comprehend,
So like the world it selfe, and hath nor mid, nor end:
The highest point of Art, and top of all his kynt
A maruaile that containes much counter-maruaile in't:
Moouabl' and immoouabl', inward-bent and bent-out,
Composed of a straight, yet crooked round about.
Behold, at any time when on a plaine 'tis throne,
It downe and vpward stirs, back, forward, all in one.
Nor stirs it all alone when cunning force it moues,
But neighbour moouables proportionally shoues;
As by the heau'ns appears; nay more, though still it bide,
It seemes to threat'n a fall and shake on eu'ry side:
Because a point is all it hath for standing-place,
And halfe on eu'ry side hangs o're so small a base.
And much more wond'r it is how this great earthie ball
Whereon we dwell, sans-base, hangs fast and cannot fall
Amids the yeelding ayre: it selfe is (out of doubt)
The commyd bodies midst, that are not press'd without.

All bodies other-shap'd, into the water cast,
Make shapes vnlike their owne; but alway round do last
Th'impressions of a Round: because it cannot strike
With any diuers part, all are vnt'all so like.

Beside as moe may stand in houses Amblygons,
Then can in equall-bought of any Oxygons;

150

Because the sharpe and right take not so large a stride
As corner blunt; so doth the Round in cloyster wide
More hold then all the rest.

And other bodies breake
With eu'ry knock, because they haue both bay and peake,
Beginning, end, and ioynts; whereas the bodie round
Is creastlesse, cornerlesse, and eu'ry-side-way sound.
Son, summon here thy wits, and marke that few haue found,
The doubling of a Cube, and squaring of a Round:
Such hundred-folded knots, such hidden mysteries,
As shall troubl' all the schooles of our posterities.
Keepe faster then in brasse for euer grau'n in minde,
In faithfull minde, these rules, which thou shalt proued finde,
Not by vaine syllogismes or probable arguments;
But whose vndoubted truth appears eu'n vnto sence:
An Art of certainties, whose euer-fruitfull wombe
With wonders new-deuis'd shall fill the world to come.
By her the gentle streame, by her the feeble winde,
Shall driué the whirling presse, and so be taught to grinde
The graine of life to meale; that with increase it may
Vnto the sparing Dames all that is due repay.
By her the brasen throat shall vomit Iron balles,
With smoake and roaring noyse, vpon besieged walles:
The force whereof shall rent the hardest rocks asunder,
And giue more fearefull thumps then any bolt of thunder.
By her the borrowed wings of some assisting winde
Shall beare from out Bresile vnto the rich East-Inde,
And to the frozen Sea from Affricks boyling flood,
A iogging towre, or eu'n a floating towne of wood:
Wherein the Pylot set shall with a leauer light
Most huge waights easily moue, and make all coast aright.
So shall one Printer worke more learned sheets aday,
Then eu'n a thousand hands of ready-writers may:
One Crane shall more auaile then Porters many a score;

151

And then a thousand men one Staffe shall profit more
To measure-out the fields; to part th'earth into lines,
And all the cope of heau'n int' eight and fortie signes:
So shall the wat'r, and sand, the Style and clock in towers,
Most euenly part the day to foure and twentie howers:
An Image made of wood some voice shall vtter plaine;
An artificiall globe heau'ns wonders shall containe:
Men through th'ayres emptinesse their bodies peysing right
Shall ouer-mount the Seas with bold-aduentring flight.
And doubtlesse if the wise Geometer had place
To plant his engins on, and stand himselfe in case
To stirre them aft'r his Art, so could he thrust and shoue,
That like some pettie-god the world he might remoue.

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Now these two Arts because they lead vs onward right
Into that sacred tent where Vranie the bright
Sits guirt in golden belt, with spangles albedight
Of carbuncl' and of pearle, of rubye and chrysolite;
And that a man without the help of eithers quill
May neuer mount the twyns of starrie Pernas hill;
But whosoeuer wants one of these Eagles eies,
In vaine beholds the glore and fabrick of the skies;
Therefore this cunning Wryght hath neer Arithmetrie
And th'Art of measuring set-forth Astronomie.

154

A siluer-bright new Moone shee weares for dyademe,
Wherevnder to her foot shines downe with golden beame
A firie blazing starre; two pyrops are her eyes,
Or flaming Carbuncles; her gowne is like the skies,
Blew damaske, all with stars and pictures beautifide,
And with two golden claspes on either shoulder ty'de:
And for her plume or fan shee beares the traine and wings
Of bird whom nature deckt with shining studs and rings.
But what (quoth Phaleg) mean these globes of diuers hew
Shee holds in hand, and seems to reach vnto our view.
My sonne (quoth Heber then) this round shape set-out here
With circles ouerthwart, is of the world the Spheare:
Where th'element of Earth made like a greenie ball,
The setled residence and cent'r of all this All,
Retaines the lowest place; this the wise Naturante
With azure-wauie skarfe hath guirt-about aslante:
Or (plaine to say) The Sea doth cou'r all eu'ry where,
But only certaine parts disparpled here and there.
For th'Ocean Tide he flowes and leaking finds a vent
Into the deepest holes of all th'erth-element;
And where her ouer-face hath any vnequall traite
Seeks-out the midder point not of his masse; but waite.
Here should th'Aire & the Fire, & all the wandring seau'n,
The starre-empowdred vault, the highest-whirling heau'n,
And th'empyrean-selfe be one ore other set,
But that each vpper seene would sight of th'vnder let.
Therefore in place of them the workman of this Round
Ten circles here hath made one ouer others bound,
And Armyllary-wise hath set-out their aray,

155

To lead vs vp on-high an easie and gainer way.
Among the greater Six, that with a counterplight

Six great Circles.

Doe halfe-diuide the globe, the circl' of match-day-night
Is iustly set betwixt the North and Southern pole,

The Æquator.

Which beare-vp, and whereon is turnd-about the Whole:
Now eu'ry lamp of heau'n that vnderglideth it
A longer iourney takes, and doth more wightly flit
Then any of all the rest, who narre the Poles haue leasure
Vnto the Lute of God to dance a slower measure:
And alway when the Sunne his giue day charrot guides
Right vnder line thereof, and rometh not besides,
The day and night goe euen, and cunning Nature than
In eu'ry country metes them out with equall span.
This other couched here next vnd'r it ouerth wart,

The Zodiacke.

Whose poles doe from the poles of th'All warp-out apart
Some twenty foure degrees, is call'd the Zodiack,
The race of wandring flames: here Phœbus keeps his track
To bring-about the yeares, and monthly changing Innes
Procures the quarter-change of Seasons double twinnes.
This other passing-through the poles both of the world

The first Colure.

And of the foresaid wheele where Phœbus round is horld,
And framing angles euen on th'Equinoctiall rote
A th'onside thwarts the Crab, ath'otherside the Goat,
The Solsticial Colure is call'd, for Phœbus there
Runs slow, as not along, but ath'onside the Sphere:
And this here crossing that in spheryck angles eu'n

The second Colure.

And running by the Ram, the Skoles and Axe of heau'n,
The second is, and call'd the nigh-equall Colure.
And this the circle of Noone, that neuer standeth sure,

The Meridian.

But with our Zenith flits: as also with our sight
Th'vnstedfast Horizon takes euery way his flight.

The Horizon.

Now for the lesser foure, aside th'Equator lie
The winter Tropick low, and summer Tropick high.

Foure lesse Circles.

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And higher then the high is th'Artick circle pight;

The Tropicks.

And lower then the low th'Antartick out of sight.
These foure misse common Centr' and wry-part heau'ns-high wheele;—

The North Circle and the South.

Each to th'Equat'r and each vnt' each is paraleel.

The Ball shee beares in lest the portrait is of heau'n;

The Globe of heauen.

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;

Shapes giuen by diuers aspect,

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

Phalegs obiection concerning the strange shape giuen by the

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

157

Makes all by rules of Art, and nothing gracelesse-odde;

Astronomers.

And this especially the world doth beautifie,

Hebers answer.

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.

Reason of the names giuen to the Signes. 1. The Ramme.

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

2. The Bull.

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

3. The Twinnes.

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

4. The Crab.

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

5. The Lion.

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

6. The Virgin.

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

7. The Ballance.

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.

8. The Scorpion.

158

The next, in name and shape an Archer, bow in hand,

9. The Archer.

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

10. The Boat.

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,

11. The Water-bearer.

And fishes there apaire which in the water swim.

12 The Fishes.

But if-so this (my sonne) not satisfie thy minde,
A man may well thereof some other reason finde:

Another more subtile reason.

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

On the heauens are the models of all on earth.

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?

168

Yea, were it not (I feare) to bold an enterprise,

Further, to blot out of memory the Greeke fables, Heber saith, that the names

(Although why should I feare to cancell all the vice,
Theft, furie, sacrilege, profane incestuous beds,
And all the monster-lyes wherewith Greeks idle heads,
(We know not what they were) to mock all After-age,

169

Of th'euermouing heau'n dishonour would the stage?)

giuen to the stars containe the mysteries of Holy Church.

Well could I let thee know how these shapes vnder them
Containe the mysteries of new Ierusalem:
That here the fing'r of God as on a crystall drew,
For holy men to reade, what euer should ensue:
A publike register and chartr' authenticall
Containing orderlesse the view propheticall
Of all Church-monuments. O chariot firie-cleer,

Charles-waine.

That swift and whirlwind-like vp-rauishedst the Seer;
About the Northen Pole thou draw'n art day and night,
And dippest not at all thy wheeles in Amphitrite:
Nor stablest once thy teeme, still-toyling, neuer spent,
Below the massie round of baser Element.
Meane while Elisha (loe) full wistly thee beholds,

Bootes.

And with a fiery zeale his master so with-holds,
That vp the starrie mount he makes the steeds to fling
And round and round againe to turne and trot the ring,
See Dauid fast-him-by, who beares in warlike hand

Hercules.

Some Lyons tufted mane, that flameth like a brand:

The Crowne.

Here shines his royall crowne, and here his harpe of gold;

The Harpe.

With seu'n stars richly deckt; here th'vgly Beare behold

The little Beare.

That for his fathers Lambe he, then a shepherd, slew;
And here the whizzing launce that mad Saul at him threw.

The Launce.

Now thee Susanna faire, example of chastitee,

Andromeda.

And honors chiefest hon'r, I tremble should to see,
And weep thy trickling teares; and those so weighty chaines
That binde thy lillie wrests would yeeld me a thousand paines
Among thy dearest kin; and cause me to the skies
For thy deliuerance ioine with them hands and eyes:

Cassiopea.

But that a Daniel I see makes holy speed

Cepheus.

From death and shamefull doome to saue a maid at need.
He with some powerfull beames of ouer-awing light,

Perseus.

Which comes not of Meduse, but of the Truth and Right,

Medusaes head.

Confounds the witnesses, and breaks them head and bones
With thunder-darted haile of ly-reuenging stones.
And sure, as long as heau'n doth whirl-round any Signe,
Shall eu'r aboue our head so holy a Trophey shine

170

Anuyst this Idol foule, this dragon vgly and fell,
Which was in Babel pent by that young Daniel.

The Dragon.

To whom may Pegasus more fitly be compared

Pegasus.

Then t'one of those same horse that in th'aire burning flared,
Before the Tyrant great of Asia the Lesse

Macab. c. 5.

Did in a firie rage Ierusalem oppresse.
This earnest Wagoner, who'st but Ez'chiel,

The Coachman.

Which manageth so right the Coach of Israel?
And who's the siluer swan that shineth here, but eu'n

The Swan.

That Deacon clad in white, the faithfull Martyr Steu'n,
Who death endured for his master crucified,
And sung more heau'nly sweet then swan before he died?
The siluer-scaled fish that shines here in the skies

The Fish of the South.

I take to be the same that heald old Tobyts eyes:
And whom this Dolphin bright but great Amramides

The Dolphin.

Which out of Egypt led athwart the ruddie Seas
The frie of Israel, and brought his armed ranks,
A-dryfoot, wanting ship, to th'ldumean banks?

What shall I further say? God hath not only engrau'n
His sakerfaint Emprese on brasse of whirling heau'n;

The Triangle.

And in tryangle shape embleam'd his mysterie
Of nature wonderfull, three in one, one in three:
But by this valiant youth, who slew yon creeping euill,

Ophiouchus.

Set-forth his only Sonne which ouercame the Deuill,
And with sway of a Crosse (his engine most of might)
Broke-ope the brasen gates of euerlasting night:
Yea by this goodly bird, the God-of-Gods delight,

The Eagle or Doue.

Which with a stedfast eye beholds the Sun so bright,
And takes the thunder-boult oft out of's angry hand,
His Spirit and Loue is ment; who visited the land
Descending feathered. for why? this winged signe
In head, in brest, in back of starred-ermyline,
No lesse resembl' it may the Pigeon simple and meeke,
Then th'eagle goodly-fierce, then th'Eagle crookie-beeke.

As for the golden belt wherewith all heau'n is cross'd,

Of the Zodiack.

Whereon the dosen signes are curiously emboss'd;
Who, but the Paschall Lambe, is he that leads the ring?

The Ram.

171

The Bull's that moulten calfe whom peopl' Idolatring

The Bull.

Made Aron make for God. The Twins, that shine so bright,

The Twins.

Are Isacks sons who stroue before they saw this light.

The Crab.

The next is Salomon, who like a Crab recoiles,
And in his latter time himselfe with sin besoiles:
And, as a swine in mud doth after washing roule,
Becomes adulterer both in his bodie and soule.
The Lyon is the same that crusht was like a Kid

The Lyon.

By Samsons thundring hand: The Virgin, she that hid

The Virgin.

In vndefiled wombe, (for vs made maiden-mother)
And brought-forth at her time, her father, husband, brother.
The Ballance here is set for Kings of Israel

The Ballance.

To iudge the peopl' aright and ponder causes well.
The next that serpent is which on the Maltan sand

The Scorpion.

With traiterous intent hung-on th'Apostles hand:
For whether it be call'd a spotted Scorpion,
Or Viper-poysonous, it matters not, all's one.
The Bowman may be thought old Abrahams elder childe.

The Atcher.

This Goat that scape-lot is whom Aaron lets goe wilde.

Levit. 16.

This Ewrer is the sonne of dombe Zacharia,

Capricorne. The Water-bearer

Messia's herbenger, preparer of his way:
Which in the siluer streame of Iordan drown'd the sinne
Of all that doe repent, and will new life beginne:
And these two Fishes they that with fiue loues of bread,

The Fishes.

Blest of thrall-feeding Word aboue fiue thousand fed.

But let the twinkling Ball now vpsidowne be rowld,

Of the Antartike

And with like curious eye the sotherne halfe behold:

Pole. Orion.

O know you not the face of this fierce warlike wight,
That neere the shining Bull enlustres heau'n with light?
The sonne of Nun it is, that worthy Ioshuah,
Who dry ore Iordan went as on a sandy bay:

Eridanus.

And did those Ganan dogges from prey vnworthy scare,

The Dogs.

And set his conquering soot vpon Loues hartlesse Hare.

The Hare.

Loe here that Argosie which all the world did saue,

Argo.

And brauely now triumphs both ouer wind and waue.

173

Lo here the yellow plights of Moses brasen snake,

Hydra.

That shone in wildernesse all others sting to slake.
Lo here that happy Rav'n which did Elia feed:

The Raven.

Here Iosephs golden cup wherein he wont arreed

The Goblet.

His wondrous prophesies: and here that heau'nly knight
Which vnto Machabee appeared all in white;
His ang'r-enflamed launce so strooke this Pagan Woolfe

The Centaure.

With paine and bursten-rot athwart the belly-gulfe,

The wolfe.

That on Gods Altar-stone prophaned many a yeere

The Altar-stone.

Now reeks a sweet perfume; and Levies hallowed queere
Sings ioyfull Psalms againe in Gods temple Idol-staind,
And th'ldumean Race this Crowne at length obtainde,

The southerne Crowne.

To raigne in Israel. Now here the Fish behold
With tribute paid for him that was for sinners sold:

The southerne Fish.

And here the gaping Whale, whose ill-digesting maw
Three daies a Prophets life held as empawn'd by law.

The Whale.

While Heb'r all sings for me, with Muse so bold, new, odd,

The Poet by this correction shews his pietie and learning.

And strikes a string vntouchd, and walks a path vntrod,
Thinke not (ô Christen peopl') I take all that he saith
Concerning th'oast of heau'n for articl' of my faith:
Or that I ment set-vp old Zenoes schoole againe,
T'embound th'eternall God, and so relinke the chaine
Of Stoyck destinie: or would of all to come
(As Caldeman) arreed in books of heau'n the summe.
No, nothing lesse I meane; but only thought by grace
Of such a new deuise, as here I enterlace,
Refresh your weary minds; that hauing past before
So many a foamy flood; such warre against the shore,
And hurly-burling rage of counterbuffed waue;
So many a ghastly Wylde, a dyke, a rock, a caue:
You might set foot at length on some delightfull place,
Whereon the skie may shew for eu'r a louely face:
Where runs a siluer streame, the wind blowes sweetly awhile,
And where to welcome you the ground-selfe seems to smile.

Oh who (good Reader) knowes, but fuller may be done
Hereaft'r, of some so zeal'd, this worke I first begon!

174

And, by the name of Saints giu'n t'eu'ry heau'nly Signe
In stead of heathen lyes, this Art made all-diuine?
Now heare we Heb'r againe; to Phaleg whose discourse
Of euery Planet shewes the downing and resours

The principal words of this Art.

Grau'n on the lasting brasse; and what's the Perigee,
Concentrike, Excentrike, Epicycl' Apogee;
And how the bring-day Sun, and Venus fond-of-mate,

The Planets learnedly distinguisht.

Together with the starre of Mars the sow-debate,
Saturne and Iupiter, three circles haue in one;
And Mercurie only fiue, and only foure the Moone:
For those same heau'nly wits who taught vs first this Art,
Perceiuing well these Lights now that, now this-way, start;
That now alow they stoop, and now aloft they reach;
To banish from aboue th'vnlikely voide, the breach
And bodie-piercing broile, the which their course vneau'n
Might cause among the Spheres enclos'd by th'vpper heau'n;
Vnt'each eternall wheele, that round each Planet soops,
Haue, more then manly, durst appoint some lesser hoops;
Who kissing either-oth'r oppose not other-either:
So well is round to round distinctly set together,
A lesse one vnd'r a great with bent so close embras'd;
Euen as the Chesnut is in tender skin encas'd,

175

The tender skin ypent within a tanned hyde,
The tanned hide in huske thick, sharp, rough, brittle-dry'd.
Then takes he th'Astrolabe, & shewes the Sphere in flats:

The lines verticall.

The Pole-heights, Azimuths, Alcanthars, Almadrats.
(Ye Muses pardon me if I deface with blots

Parallels of the Sunne.

A table of such a price, if I with barbarots
So soile my faire discourse; for why? this matt'r of mine,
In case I speake it right, I may not speake it fine.)
But on that other side a Sight-rule turnes about,
And vnd'r it lyes a tabl', on which they seeset-out
The course of wandring starres (who keep yet certaine rites)
The names of eu'ry month, the dayes and scale of heights.
He mouing that same Rule now takes the paine to teach

Vse of th'Astrolabe.

The toysing of a wall, and now to know the reach
From any place to place; the depth of any Well,
By view of breadth in heau'n a breadth on earth to tell:
As als'at what-signe Inne, by tyquet as it were,
Th'Almight' appoints the Sun to ledge all months i'th' yeere,
And where his Nadir is, and how much he declines,
Or how much he aduanc'd aboue th Equator shines:
What time a Signe entire allotted hath to runne
Ere on our Hemisphere he mount; and how to konne
Each countries mid-day-line, the Pole-heights euery way,
All howers of the night, all howers of the day.
The pregnant Phaleg yeelds vnt'all old Heber taught,

Phaleg improues and commends this Art to his posterity.

His eu'r attentiue care and quick-conceiuing thought;
As perfect Alcumist this gold he multiplies,
And vsing well the stock bequeaths rich legacies
Of learning, treasured in his encreasing Casse,
Vnt' all his noble race; and they their teacher passe.
But as of Venus, Mars, and Mercurie the lights
Goe visit otherwhile the naked Troglodytes;
Now Iava, now Peru, and oft remoue, to shine
In either world, a-this, a-that side th'Equall line:

176

So this renowmed Art was first an Hebrue borne,

This knowledge came from the Hebrewes to the Chaldeans From the Caldeans to the Egyptians.

And then a Chaldee adopt; soone after gan to scorne
And brauely set-by light old Babels ruyn'd pile,
So south from Tiger flew vnto the fruitfull Nile:
There taught sh'a noble schoole; but thence the Grecian wits
Her tysd, and shee to them her tooles and selfe commits:

Then to the Grecians.

Then vnder Ptolomey shee t'Egypt turnes againe,

Then to Egypt againe. Then to the Arabians, and so to the Italians and Almans.

Delighting to reuise her deere Pelusian plaine:
And yet vnconstant went from thence int'Arabie,
From thence int' Italie, from thence int' Almanie.
O right Endymions, on Latmos star-set hill

The praise of Astronomers, with commodities of Astronomie.

Who coll, embrace, and kisse your welbelou'd at will,
Dame Cynthia queene of heau'n: about whose bed there stand
A thousand thousand guards, with golden shield in hand:
O goodly-learned soules! ô Atlasses vnfained!
By whom the throne of God is eu'r (as 'twere) sustained!
Without your helps (alas) into the Sea or Hell
Of all forgetfulnesse this skill of heau'n had fell.
Tis you diuide the months and seasons of the yeere
Confused altofore; you quote the Marinere,
By searching all that Fate doth on the skie descriue,
His time to hoise-vp saile, and when and where t'arriue.
You teach the slow-foot oxe and daily-sweating swaine
What time the faithfull earth may best receiue their graine.
You teach the man of warre to keep his hold, or fight,
And when to scale a wall, and when to vittl' aright
His hunger-doubting camp: of you all season-good
The good Physician learnes, to purge and let vs blood,

177

And how to mingl' his drugs: you passe all o're the skie
In turning of an hand, or twinckling of an eye.
You, more then princely rule all countries vnder Sun;
You demigodly make heau'n twixt your hands to run.
For you (ô heauenly wits) my fairest painting quill
Should on these folded sheets her hony-dew distill,
Still would I write of you: but with her daintie sweets
The last sist'r of the foure me calls and louely greets.
For I this Phaleg heare with sonly-meeke language
His fath'r entreat to tell the name of th'oth'r Image;
And Heb'r him answer thus: Deere sonne, this painted girle
By that her wanton foot seems still to daunce and tirle,
By glauncing of her eye, the Cornets, Guytterns, Flutes,

181

Shawmes, Suckbuts, Vyols, Harps, Bandoraes, Organs, Lutes,

Musicke, the fourth Image, described with her Implements.

Which all-about her lye vpon the table and ground,
Appeares to be that Art which rules the voice and sound.
Which guides the gentle breath and mistresse-like appoints
How on the tuned string we trull our nimble ioynts.
The sacred harmonie, the discordant accord,
Law numbred, number law'd, which waited on the Lord,
When his creating Word spring of All-euerie
Made th'earth to stand so fast, and heau'n so fast to flie.
Sith euery Sphere (they say) hath some Intelligent,

Platoes opinion of Harmonie among the Spheres.

Or Angell musicall, for Lady president,
Appointed by the Word: to th'end of those aboue
These lower things may learne the perfect cord of loue;
And that with Angell-queers a dauncing Set be seene
To reuell on his praise in temple fyrie-sheene.
Or as from bellow-loongs a breath one and the same
In skilfull wise put-out straies through the secret frame

The Spirit of God compared to the wind of an Organ.

Of curious handyworke, quits euery stop and list,
That opens when the keyes are tickt by th Organist;
And mounting here and there from out the channell scored
Into th'esparsed pipes o'th'Sommier thorow-bored,
Alliues, all in a trice, Recorders sweetly-still
And Regals eager-tun'd, and Cymballs sounding shrill:
So of Gods mouth the breath and Spirit all-aliuing
Stirres of the tuned heau'n these wheeles all louely striuing,
And as their wonted way eternally they trace,
Some of them trill the Trebl', and some bomb-out the Base.
Now all these counter-notes, so charmy-sweet, appeere

Musicke in our Humours, Seasons and Elements.

Yet not so plainly in heau'n as eu'n among vs heere.
Th'humour Melancholike, the Wint'r, and cold-dry ground,
They beare the Bases part, and soft and slowly sound.

Basse

The white phleame, th'Autom-time, the water cold and wet,
They all aleauell run, and are for Tenor set.

Tenr.

The Blood the prime of yere, the moist and luke-warme Aire,
Play Descant florisher, deuider, painter, strayer.

Countertenor.

The Choller, Summer, Fire, that are so hot and dry,
Resembl' a strained chord that soundeth eu'r on high.

Treble.

179

See then the cause (my son) why song doth oftē win them

The reason and force of Musicke.

That are most fierce by kinde; there are inclos'd within them
The seeds of numb'r and time: nor can their life hold-out
But by the Spirits helpe, that whirleth heau'n about.
Sweet harmony it makes the fiercest Army stay

With wisemen

Their deadly fewd and force; the griefe it doth allay
Of eu'ry pained soule; and with a gentle charme
Withdraweth by degrees the Foole from trickes of harme;

And Fooles.

It bridleth hot desire, and putteth-out the flame
That makes a louers heart Idolatrize a dame;
It heales a man that's hurt with fly Phalangy's sting,
That eu'n at point of death will madly daunce and fling:
The Swan delights therein, deceiu'd thereby we finde

With Beasts.

The shye discoullard fowle, and fearefull starting hinde.
The Dolphin loues the Leere, th'vnhiued swarme of Bees
With tinkling sound of brasse, are clustred on the trees.
O what's to Musick hard? which wont so much to merit,

With God himselfe.

Which wont so to preuaile eu'n with th'enspiring Spirit,
As bring him downe on Saul, and in Elisha wed
The Spirit rauisher vnto the rauished?
Yea when th'eternall God, to sharpest anger bent,
Smoakes, thunders, lightens, hailes, with all his pow'rs assent,
And with his heau'd-vp arme, and with his backe enfoul't,
Is ready to discharge his sorest blasting-boult;
Th'armonyons accord that hearts deuout shall weepe
His sinnowes albenombes, and brings his ang'r asleepe:
Then sweet-ey'd mercy steales (as well shee wont and can)
From vnd'r his hand the rod deseru'd by rebell man.
But now as Heb'r had thought t'haue further gon & told
The practise and the skill of all the Musicke old;
See, Canan searching-out his Iordans fatall walke,
Vnto the Pillernies and breakes-off all the talke.
Nor can I further goe; this iourneyes irksome length
In weaknesse vndertooke, hath wasted all my strength:
I must anew entreat some helpe of heau'nly grace,
And some what need recoile to leape a greater space.

186

FINIS.