406 [DAIPHANTUS] THE PASSIONS OF LOVE. [A.Sc.

"Fie, no! Fond Love hath ever his reward!
A sea of tears! a world of sighs and groans!
Ah me! VITULLIA will have no regard
To ease my grief, and cure me of my moans;

If once her ear should hearken to that voice,
Relates my fortunes in Love's fickle choice.

But now, I will, their worth with hers declare,
That Truth by Error may have her true being;
Things good are lessened by the thing that 's rare.
Beauty increaseth by a blackness seeing.

Whoso is fair and chaste, they, sure, are best!
Such is VITULLIA! such are all the rest!

"But she is fair, and chaste, and wise." What then, So are they all, without a difference!

"She's fair, chaste, wise, and kind, yes, to all men." The rest are so ! Number makes Excellence.

"She 's fair, chaste, wise, kind, rich, yet humble." They three, her equal! Virtue can never stumble.

"VITULLIA is the sun; they stars of night!"
Yet night is the bosom wherein the sun doth rest.
"The moon herself borrows of the sun's light,"
All by the stars take counsel to be blest.

The day's the sun, yet Cupid can it blind;

The stars at night, Sleep cures the troubled mind.

"She is a rose, the fairer, so the sweeter!
She is a lute, whose belly tunes the music!
She is my prose, yet makes me speak all metre !
She is my life, yet sickens me with physic!

She is a virgin, that makes her a jewel!
She will not love me, therein She is cruel!

1604.

A. Sc.

AS] [DAIPHANTUS] THE PASSIONS OF LOVE. 407

"EURIALE is like Sleep when one is weary

URANIA is like a golden Slumber.

ARTESIA'S voice, like Dreams that make men merry.
VITULLIA, like a Bed, all these encumber.

1. Sleep, 2. Slumber, 3. Dreams upon a 4. Bed are best;
First, Second, Third, but in the Fourth is blest.

"O but VITULLIA, what? She's wondrous pretty!
O I, and what? so is She very fair!

O yes, and what? She's like herself most witty!
And yet, what is She? She is all but air!

What can earth be, but earth? So we are all!
Peace, then, my Muse! Opinion oft doth fall!

"EURIALE, I honour for humility! URANIA, I reverence for her wit! ARTESIA, I adore for true agility!

Three Graces for the goddesses most fit.

Each of these gifts are blessed in their faces,
O, what's VITULLIA, who hath all these Graces?

She is but a Lady! So are all the rest.
As pure, as sweet, as modest, yea as loyal;
Yes, She's the Shadow (shadows are the least!),
Which tells the Hour of Virtue by her dial.

By her, men see there is on earth a heaven!

By them, men know her virtues are matched even !

In praising all, much time he vainly spent,
Yet thought none worthy but VITULLIA;
Then called to mind, he could not well repent
The love he bare the wise URANIA.

EURIALE, ARTESIA, all, such beauties had,

Which as they pleased him, made him well nigh mad.

408 [DAIPHANTUS] THE PASSIONS OF LOVE. [A.Sc.

EURIALE, her beauty, his eyesight harmed!

URANIA, her wit, his tongue incensed!

ARTESIA, her voice, his ears had charmed!
Thus poor DAIPHANTUS was, with love tormented.
VITULLIA'S beauty, as he did impart,

The others' virtues vanquished his heart.

At length, he grew as in an ecstasy

'Twixt Love and Love, Whose beauty was the truer ?
His thoughts thus diverse, as in a lunacy,

He starts and stares, to see Whose was the purer?
Oft treads a maze, runs, suddenly then stays,
Thus with himself, himself makes many frays.

Now with his fingers, like a barber snaps!
Plays with the fire-pan, as it were a lute!
Unties his shoe-strings! Then his lips, he laps!
Whistles awhile, and thinks it is a flute!

At length, a glass presents it to his sight,
Where well he acts fond Love in Passions right.

1604.

His chin he strokes! swears "beardless men kiss best!"
His lips anoints, says "Ladies use such fashions!"
Spits on his napkin, terms that "the bathing jest."
Then on the dust, describes the Courtiers' Passion.
Then humble calls, "Though they do still aspire;
Ladies then fall, when Lords rise by desire."

Then straddling goes, says, "Frenchmen fear no bears!"
Vows "he will travel to the Siege of Brest!"
Swears, "Captains, they do all against the hair!"
Protests "Tobacco is a smoke-dried jest!"

Takes up his pen for a tobacco pipe,

Thus all besmeared, each lip, the other wipe.

ASC] [DAIPHANTUS] THE PASSIONS OF LOVE. 409

1604.

His breath, he thinks the smoke! his tongue, a coal!
Then runs for bottle-ale to quench his thirst;
Runs to his ink-pot, drinks! then stops the hole!
And thus grows madder than he was at first.
TASSO he finds, by that of HAMLET thinks

Terms him a madman, then of his inkhorn drinks!

Calls players "fools! The Fool, he judgeth wiseth,
Will learn them action out of Chaucer's Pander,
Proves of their poets bawds, even in the highest,
Then drinks a health! and swears it is no slander."
Puts off his clothes! his shirt he only wears!

66

Much like mad HAMLET, thus, as Passion tears!

Who calls me forth, from my distracted thought?
O Cerberus! if thou? I prithee speak!

Revenge, if thou? I was thy rival ought!

In purple gores, I'll make the ghosts to reek!
VITULLIA! O VITULLIA, be thou still!
I'll have revenge, or harrow up my will!

"I'll fallow up the wrinkles of the earth!
Go down to hell, and knock at PLUTO's gate!
I'll turn the hills to valleys! make a dearth
Of virtuous honour to eternal Fate!

I'll beat the winds, and make the tides keep back!
Reign in the sea, that lovers have no wrack!

"Yes, tell the Earth, 'It is a murderer!
Hath slain VITULLIA!' O VITULLIA's dead!
I'll count blind CUPID for a conjurer,
And with wild horses will I rend his head!

I, with a pickaxe, will pluck out his brains!
Laugh at this boy! ease lovers of much pains!

410 [DAIPHANTUS] THE PASSIONS of Love. [A. Sc.

"O then, I'll fly! I'll swim! yet stay, and then
I'll ride the moon, and make the clouds my horse!
Make me a ladder of the heads of men,

Climb up to heaven! Yes, my tongue will force
To gods and angels! O, I'll never end,
Till for VITULLIA, all my cries I spend !

"Then I, like a Spirit of pure Innocence,
I'll be all white! and yet behold I'll cry
Revenge!' O lovers! this my sufference;
Or else for love, for love, a soul must die!

EURIALE! URANIA! ARTESIA! so! —"

Heart rent in sunder, with these words of woe.

But soft, here comes! Who comes? and not calls out

Of rape and murder, love and villainy?

Stay, wretched man! Who runs? doth never doubt

It is thy soul! thy Saint! thy deity!

Then call the birds to ring a mourning Knell,

For mad DAIPHANTUS, who doth love so well!

"O sing a song, parted in parcels three, I'll bear the burden still of all your grief; Who is all Woe, can tune his misery

To discontents; but not to his relief.

O kiss her! kiss her! And yet do not do so!
They bring some joy, but with short joys, long woe!

Upon his knees, "O goddesses behold

A caitiff wretch bemoaning his mishap!

If ever pity were hired without gold,

Lament DAIPHANTUS, once in Fortune's lap!

1604.

Lament DAIPHANTUS, whose good deeds now slumber!
Lament a lover, whose woe no tongue can number!