University of Virginia Library

EGLOGVE I.

Gallio. Britannus.
Gall.
Heaven-blest Britannus; thou, whose Oaten Reed
Sings thy True-Love, whilst thy proud flocks do feed
Secure about thee, on this fruitfull Brow:
Above all Shepheards, ô how blest art Thou!
Your fruitfull Pastures flourish, and appeare
Fresh, and in perfect verdure all the yeare:
No Summers fire, nor Winters frost impaire
Your thriving Plains, continuing fresh and faire,
And full of vigor, like th'Elysian Lay,
Where every season's like the month of May:
Your milkwhite Ewes inrich your peacefull grounds,
No snarles of Foxes, nor the yelps of Hounds
Disturbe their quiet; whilst your sporting Lambs,
With bended knees, draw blessings from their dams.
How happy! O how more then all the rest,
In the wide world, are Britaine Shepheards blest.

Brit.
True, Gallio, we poore Shepheards doe inherit
A happinesse transcending farre our merit;
We have no griefe, no misery but this;
Senselesse we are, and blind to our owne Blisse:
Goods without evills are oftentimes despis'd,
And common happinesse is lowly priz'd:
But tel me Gallio, make relation how
Your pastures flourish, and what flocks have you:
What kind of government doe you live under,
That mak'st our State the object of your wonder.

Gall.
Ah, gentle Shepheard, there, there lyes the Corne
That wrings poore Gallios toe: O! there's the thorne
That stings my bleeding heart. The sad relation
Of our dysasters, will revive such passion
In my spent bosome, that each wounding word
Will prove a dagger, and each line a sword:
Come, sit thee downe beneath this shady Beech,
And lend thine eare: Full hearts are eas'd by speech,
I'le tell thee, whilst thy busie flocks doe feed.

Brit.
Wounds fester, Swaine, the lesse, the more they bleed:
Speake freely then, and this sad heart of mine
Shall comfort thee, or else shall bleed with thine.

Gall.
Then, Shepheard, know: There was a time (alas!
My heart even faints to think that word, There was)
Wherein our fruitfull Pastures were as fair
As faithfull Shepheards, by their fervent prayer,
Could make them, trench'd, and quickset round about,
Could neither Fox get in, nor Flocks get out:
Deep were the Trenches, and divinely fill'd
With living waters, waters that were still'd
In heavens great Limbeck, whose celestiall power
Exceeds a strong beliefe; but this short hower
We have to spend, can onely give a touch
In things of large discourse; Onely thus much,
The German Spaw (nor yet your Britain Bath)
Hath not such vertue, as this water hath:
Now my Britannus, needs me not to tell
How rare's the kernell, when so sweet's the shell;
Amongst wise Shepheards is not often found
Costly inclosures, and a barren ground;
No, no, Britannus; the bright eye of day,
That in twelve measur'd howers, does survay
The moity of this earth, did ne'er behold
More glorious Pastures: Nay, I dare be bold
(With awefull reverence to our great God Pan)
To say, that heaven could not devise on man
A Good we had not, nor augment our store
(If earth makes happy) with one blessing more:
Our flocks were faire, and fruitfull, and stood sound;
Our grounds enricht them; they enricht the ground:
The Alpine mountaines could not boast nor show
So pure a whitenesse, white surpassing snow:
Our ub'rous Ewes were evermore supply'd
With twins, attending upon either side,
Whose milk-abounding bags did overflow:
They fed our Lambs, and fill'd our dayry too:
In those past daies our Shepheards knew not what
Red-water meant; that common language, Rott,
Was neither fear'd, nor knowne; nor did they feare
That heart-confounding name of Massacre:
There was no putrid Scabbe to exercise
The malice of the maggot-blowing flies,
Whose Prince, Belzebub, (if report be true)
Breath'd forth his loud Retreat, and raging drew
His buzzing Army thence; and, for a time,
Led them to forage in another Clime;
And, to conclude, no Shepheard ere did keep
More thriving grounds; nor grounds, more dainty sheep:
O my Britannus, in those halcyon daies,
Our jolly Shepheards thirsted after praise,
Not servil wages; They were, then, ambitious
Of Fame; whose flocks should be the most auspicious;
Who, by most care, should most encrease their fold;
They hunted after faire report, not Gold:
They were good Shepheards, and they lov'd their sheep,
Watch'd day and night: One eye would never sleep:
Small Cottages would serve their turnes; That day
Knew no such things as Robes: A Shepheards gray
Would cloath their backs: for, being homly drest,
Their sheep, whose fleece they wore, would know them best:
They were good Shepheards; seldome durst they feed
On Cates, or drink the Juice that does proceed
From dangerous vines, for feare the fumes should steep
Their braines too much, and they neglect their sheep:
They were good Shepheards; these would every day
Twise tell their flocks, and, then, at night, convay
A secret blessing, got by fervent prayer,
Into their peacefull bosomes unaware;
They were good Shepheards; They would even lay downe
Their dearest lives, nay more, the eternall Crowne
Of promis'd Immortality, to keep
Their lambs from danger, and preserve their sheep:
But now, ah! now, those precious daies are done
With us poore Shepheards: ah! those times are gone,
Gone like our joyes, and never to returne:
Our joyes are gone, and we left here, to mourne:
Let this relation of those times of old,
Suffice; the rest were better be untold.

Brit.
My dearest Gallio, had it pleased heaven,
I wish no further matter had been given
To thy discourse: it would have pleas'd mine eare,
And eas'd thy tongue t'have pitch'd thy period here;
But since our God, that can doe nothing ill,
Hath sent a Change, we must submit our will;
What he hath made the subject of thy story,
Feare not to tell; his ends are his own glory:
There's nothing constant here; the States of Kings,
As well as Shepheards, are but tickle things:
Good daies, on earth, continue but a while;
We must have vinegar as well as oyle:
There must be rubs; can earth admit all levell?
The hist'ry of a State is good and evill.
Speake then my Gallio, this attentive eare
Can not heare worse then 'tis prepar'd to heare.

Gall.
Know'st thou Britannus, what, in daies of old,
Our great God Pan, by Oracle foretold
Of that brave City (whose proud buildings stood
As firme as earth, till stain'd with Shepheards blood)
That there's a time should come, wherein not one
Should live to see a stone upon a stone?
And is not, now, that prophecy made good?
Growes not grasse there, where these proud buildings stood?
Nay, my Britannus, what concernes us more,
Did not that Oracle, in times of yore,
Threaten to send his Foxes from their Holds,
Into our Vines? and Wolves into our Folds?
To breake our Fences, and to make a way
For the wilde Boare to ramble, and to prey
Where ere he pleas'd? O gentle Shepheard, thus,
Thus that prophetick evill's made good in us:
Our Hedge is broken, and our Pastures yeeld
But slender profit: All's turn'd Common-field:
Our Trenches are fill'd up: our crystall Springs
Are choak'd with Earth, and Trash, and baser things:
Our Shepheards are growne Plough-men all, and now
Our generous Crooke is turn'd a crooked Plough:
Shepheards build Halls, and carry Princely ports,
Their woolls are chang'd to silks; their Cotts to Courts:
They must have hospitable Barnes to keep
Riot on foot: no matter now for Sheep;
Turne them to graze upon the common Fallowes,
Whilst the luxurious Shepheard swills, and wallowes
In his own vomit: Having swallowed downe
Goblets of wine, he snorts in beds of Doun,
Whilst his poore Lambs, his poore neglected Lambs
Bend fruitless knees before their milkless Dams:
Nay, my Britannus, now these pamper'd Swaines
Are grown so idle, that they think it paines
To sheare their fleeces: No, they must be pickt
And rins'd in holy-water (they are strict
To touch defiled things) must be presented
Upon the knee, as if they had repented
Their service, and for which they must deserve
But what? A Dispensation now to sterve.

Brit.
But stay, my Gallio, let not my attention
Too farre exceed my slower apprehension;
'Tis better manners t'interrupt, then heare
Things serious with an ill-instructed eare:
Make me conceive your forain acceptation
Of that ambiguous word of Dispensation.

Gall.
It is a tearm that forain Shepheards use
Too much, (I was about to say, abuse.)
In elder times, when Pastors tooke delight
To feed their flocks, and not their appetite,
It was a word exprest (now faln asleep
To that true sense) A feeding of the sheep:
But now 'tis alter'd, and it does appeare
Diffring as much, as they from what they were:
And if your gentle patience will excuse it,
A word too much shall tell you how they use it:
In times of yore the pious minded Swaine
Finding base Sodomy, and Incest raigne
In looser brests, taught their obedient Sheep
T'observe those laws that Goats refus'd to keep,
Forbidding Twins to couple, and the Rams
To take a carnall knowledge of their Dams:
To which intent it was their studious care
To sever all such flocks as might not paire:
So much those holy Swaines abominated
Unnaturall Incest (as we finde related)
That even among their sheep they thought it good
To punish such enormous crimes with bloud,
Not to be us'd for sacrifice, nor food:
But now Britannus, times are growne more course,
Declin'd from good to bad; from bad to worse:
Those rules are broke by these licentious times,
Lawes are esteem'd no lawes; and crimes no crimes.
'Tis true, our Rascall-sheep, whose fly-blown skin
Hath lost her fleece, and brings no profit in,
To such, the law continues firm and strict,
On such the hand of justice does inflict
The height of law; But those, whose fleecy loines
Beare thriving burdens, there th'Edict injoines
An easie penance: sisters with their brothers,
And budding Rams may tup with their own mothers:
(O! where the sacred bell of profit rings,
Murthers are merits, Rapes are veniall things)
Such may transgresse their pleasures, such may doe
Their lists, be'incestuous with their Shepheard too.
Such may have Pardons for elapsed crimes,
And cheape Indulgences for present times:
Nay, more then that, a Twin-producing suitor
Shall finde a Dispensation for the future:
A liberty to sinne for yeares, or life, our Nation
(In a more shadow'd tearm) tearms Dispensation.

Brit.
Monsters of monsters! ô prodigious shame
To all mankind, and staine to Shepheards name!
I thought, our Shepheards had deserv'd the stile
Of bad, till now; and (to speake truth) a while,
Vpon the entrance of thy sad complaint,
I fear'd thy gamesome wit began to paint,
In shadow'd Scopticks, some that beare the Crook
In our blest Island; to which end, I took
Vngranted leave to hinder your relation,
With a forc'd ignorance of Dispensation,
To feele thy bent; But now my jealous eares
Are made unhappy losers by their feares:
But tell me Gallio, (for the eye of heaven
Is yet unclos'd, and hath not quite made even
With earth) where graze thy flocks, and to whose keep
Hast thou committed thy absented sheep.

Gall.

Brit.
Towards bright Titans evening Court there lyes
From hence ten miles not fully measur'd thrice,
A glorious Citie, called by the name
Of Troynovant, a place of noted fame
Throughout the Christian world, of great renowne
For charitable deeds, a place well knowne
For good and gratious Government; in briefe,
A place for common Refuge, and reliefe
To banisht Shepheards, and their scatter'd Sheep;
There our great Pans Vice-gerent now does keep
His royall Court, whose gracious hand hath store
Of soverain Balsames apt for every sore:
In that brave City, there be folds provided
For Sheep of diverse Quarters, all divided
One from the other, ready to receive
Affrighed flocks, and bounteous to releive
Their severall wants: Hast Gallio, hast thee thither,
And if thou misse thy ends, returne thee hither,
And make Britannus happy to enjoy thee,
Vntill thy pleased God shall re-imploy thee.

Gall.
Thankes gentle Shepheard; let that God encrease
Thy flocks: and give thy soule eternall peace.