The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw Volume I Part 26

So said, her richest snake, which to her wrist For a beseeming bracelet she had ty'd (A speciall worme it was as ever kist The foamy lips of Cerberus) she apply'd To the king's heart: the snake no sooner hist, But Vertue heard it, and away she hy'd: Dire flames diffuse themselves through every veine: This done, home to her h.e.l.l she hy'd amaine.

LX.

He wakes, and with him (ne're to sleepe) new feares: His sweat-bedewed bed hath now betraid him To a vast field of thornes; ten thousand speares All pointed in his heart seem'd to invade him: So mighty were th' amazing characters With which his feeling dreame had thus dismay'd him, He his owne fancy-framed foes defies: In rage, My armes, give me my armes, he cryes.

LXI.

As when a pile of food-preparing fire, The breath of artificiall lungs embraves, The caldron-prison'd waters streight conspire And beat the hot bra.s.se with rebellious waves; He murmurs, and rebukes their bold desire; Th' impatient liquor frets, and foames, and raves, Till his o're-flowing pride suppresse the flame Whence all his high spirits and hot courage came.

LXII.

So boyles the fired Herod's blood-swolne brest, Not to be slak't but by a sea of blood: His faithlesse crowne he feeles loose on his crest, Which a false tyrant's head ne're firmely stood.

The worme of jealous envy and unrest To which his gnaw'd heart is the growing food, Makes him, impatient of the lingring light, Hate the sweet peace of all-composing Night.

LXIII.

A thousand prophecies that talke strange things Had sowne of old these doubts in his deepe brest.

And now of late came tributary kings, Bringing him nothing but new feares from th' East, More deepe suspicions, and more deadly stings, With which his feav'rous cares their cold increast.

And now his dream (Hel's fireband) still more bright, Shew'd him his feares, and kill'd him with the sight.

LXIV.

No sooner therefore shall the Morning see (Night hangs yet heavy on the lids of Day) But all the counsellours must summon'd bee, To meet their troubled lord: without delay Heralds and messengers immediately Are sent about, who poasting every way To th' heads and officers of every band, Declare who sends, and what is his command.

LXV.

Why art thou troubled, Herod? what vaine feare Thy blood-revolving brest to rage doth move?

Heaven's King, Who doffs Himselfe weak flesh to weare, Comes not to rule in wrath, but serve in love.

Nor would He this thy fear'd crown from thee teare, But give thee a better with Himselfe above.

Poor jealousie! why should He wish to prey Vpon thy crowne, Who gives His owne away?

LXVI.

Make to thy reason, man, and mock thy doubts, Looke how below thy feares their causes are; Thou art a souldier, Herod; send thy scouts, See how Hee's furnish't for so fear'd a warre?

What armour does He weare? A few thin clouts.

His trumpets? tender cries; His men to dare So much? rude shepheards: what His steeds? alas Poore beasts! a slow oxe and a simple a.s.se.

_Il fine del primo Libro._

NOTES AND ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

See our Essay for critical remarks on the original and CRASHAW'S interpretation. These things may be recorded:

St. viii. line 6. '(His shop of flames) he _fries_ himself.' This verb 'fries,' like 'stick' and some others, had not in Elizabethan times and later, that colloquial, and therefore in such a context ludicrous, sound that it has to us. In MARLOWE'S or JONSON'S translation of Ovid's fifteenth elegy (book i.) the two lines which originally ran thus,

'Lofty Lucretius shall live that hour That Nature shall dissolve this earthly bower,'

were afterwards altered by JONSON himself to,

'Then shall Lucretius' lofty numbers die, When earth and seas in fire and flame shall _frie_.'

In another way one of our most ludicrous-serious experiences of printers' errors was in a paper contributed by us to an American religious periodical. The subject was Affliction, and we remarked that G.o.d still, as of old with the 'three children' (so-called) permits His people to be put into the furnace of 'fiery trials,' wherein He _tries_ them whether they be ore or dross. To our horror we found the _t_ changed into _f_, and so read sensationally '_fries_'--all the worse that some might think it the author's own word.

St. xxviii. and x.x.x. The star Lucifer or Phosporos, to whom 'the droves of stars that guild the morn, in charge were given,' can never climb the North or reach the zenith, being conquered by the effulgence of the sun of day. When did the fable of the angel Lucifer, founded on an astronomical appearance, mingle itself as it has done here, and grandly in MILTON, and in the popular mind generally, with the biblical history of Satan?

St. x.x.xvi. line 2. TURNBULL perpetuates the misprint of 'whose' for 'my'

from 1670.

St. li. line 3, 'linage' = 'lineage.' For once 1670 is correct in reading 'linage' for the misprint 'image' of 1646 and 1648. The original is literally as follows:

'Herod the liege of Augustus, a man now aged, Then ruled over the royal courts of David: Not of the royal _line_ ...'

St. lix. line 3, 'a special worm:' so SHAKESPEARE (Ant. and Cleopatra, v. 2), 'the pretty worm' and 'the worm.'

St. lx. Every one will be reminded of the tent-scene in Richard III.

At end of this translation PEREGRINE PHILLIPS adds 'cetera desunt--heu!

heu!'

MARINO and CRASHAW have left proper names in the poem unannotated. They are mostly trite; but these may be noticed: st. xlii. l. 4, Erisichton (see Ovid, _Met._ viii. 814 &c.); he offended Ceres, and was by her punished with continual hunger, so that he devoured his own limbs: line 5, Tantalus the fabled son of Zeus and Pluto, whose doom in the 'lower world,' has been celebrated from Homer (_Od._ xi. 582) onward: ib.

Atreus, grandson of Tantalus, immortalised in infamy with his brother Thyestes: ib. Progne = Procne, wife of Tereus, who was metamorphosed into a swallow (Apollod. iii. 14, 8): l. 6, Lycaon, like Tantalus, with his sons changed by Zeus into wolves (Ovid; Paus. viii. 3, -- 1): st.

xliii. line 2, Medea, most famous of the mythical sorcerers: ib.

Jezebel, 2 Kings ix. 10, 36: line 3, Circe, another mythical sorceress: Scylla, daughter of Typho and rival of Circe, who transformed her (Ovid, _Met._ xiv. 1-74); cf. Paradise Lost: line 4, the Parae = the Fates, ever spinning: st. xliv. lines 7-8, all cla.s.sic monsters: st. xlv. line 1, 'Diomed's horses' = the fabled 'mares' fed on human flesh (Apollod. ii.

5, -- 8): 'Phereus' dogs,' or Fereus of mythical celebrity: line 2, Therodamas or Theromedon, king of Scythia, who fed lions with human blood (Ovid, _Ibis_ 385, _Pont._ i. 2, 121): line 3, Busiris, a.s.sociated with Osiris of Egypt; but Herodotus denies that the Egyptians ever offered human sacrifices: line 4, Sylla = Sulla: line 5, Lestrigonians, ancient inhabitants of Sicily who fed on human flesh (Ovid, _Met._ xiv.

233, &c.): line 6, Procrustes, _i.e._ the Stretcher, being a surname of the famous robber Damastes (Ovid, _Met._ vii. 438): line 7, Scyron, or Sciron (Ovid, _Met._ vii. 444-447), who threw his captives from the rocks: line 8, Schinis, more accurately Sinis or Sinnis, a celebrated robber, his name being connected with {sinomai}, expressing the manner in which he tore his victims to pieces by tying them to branches of two trees, which he bent together and then let go (Ovid, _Met._ vii. 440); according to some he was surnamed Procrustes, but MARINO and CRASHAW distinguish the two: st. xlvi. line 2, Mezentius, a mythical king of the Etruscans (Virgil, _aeneid_, viii. 480, &c.); he put men to death by tying them to a corpse: ib. Geryon, a fabulous king of Hesperia (Apollod. ii. 5, -- 10); under this name the very reverend Dr. J.H.

Newman has composed one of his most remarkable poems: line 3, Phalaris, _the_ tyrant of Sicily, whose 'brazen bull' of torture gave point to Cicero's words concerning him, as 'crudelissimus omnium tyrannorum' (in Verr. iv. 33): ib. Ochus = Artaxerxes III. a merciless king of Persia: ib. Ezelinus or Ezzelinus, another wicked tyrant.

THE HYMN OF SAINTE THOMAS,

IN ADORATION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.[42]

Ecce panis Angelorum, Adoro te.

With all the powres my poor heart hath 1 Of humble loue and loyall faith, Thus lowe (my hidden life!) I bow to Thee Whom too much loue hath bow'd more low for me.

Down, down, proud Sense! discourses dy! 5 Keep close, my soul's inquiring ey!

Not touch, nor tast, must look for more But each sitt still in his own dore.