That mingle with thy fancy. I however With maladies innumerable In heart, head, breast, and reins; To th' inmost mind, There exercise all his fierce accidents, As on entrails, joints, and limbs, 610 With answerable pains, but more intense, 615 Though void of corporal sense. My griefs not only pain me As a ling'ring disease, But, finding no redress, ferment and rage, Rankle, and fester, and gangrene, To black mortification. 620 [stings, Thoughts my tormentors, arm'd with deadly Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts, Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise 625 Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb, Or medicinal liquor can asswage, 605 healing] Eurip. Hippol. v. 478. Εἰσὶν δ ̓ ἐπὼδαι, καὶ λόγοι θελκτήριοι. Todd 627 Medicinal] Milton always spells this word Medcinal.' Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp. To death's benumbing opium as my only cure: 630 Thence faintings, swoonings of despair, And sense of heav'n's desertion. I was his nursling once, and choice delight, His destin'd from the womb, Promis'd by heavenly message twice descending: Under his special eye. Abstemious I grew up, and thriv'd amain; He led me on to mightiest deeds, Above the nerve of mortal arm, Against the uncircumcised, our enemies: Whom I by his appointment had provok❜d, The close of all my miseries, and the balm. CHOR. Many are the sayings of the wise, In ancient and in modern books enroll'd, Extolling patience as the truest fortitude; And to the bearing well of all calamities, All chances incident to man's frail life, Consolatories writ 640 615 630 655 With studied argument, and much persuasion Lenient of grief and anxious thought: [sought, But with th' afflicted in his pangs their sound 660 Little prevails, or rather seems a tune Harsh and of dissonant mood from his complaint; Unless he feel within Some source of consolation from above, Secret refreshings, that repair his strength, God of our fathers, what is man! That thou towards him with hand so various, 665 669 Temper❜st thy providence through his short course, Th' angelic orders and inferior creatures mute, Nor do I name of men the common rout, Grow up and perish, as the summer fly, And people's safety, which in part they effect: 669 contrarious] Chaucer, Leg. of Dido, 435. 676 Todd. 675 summer fly] Hen. VI. P. iii., act ii. sc. vi. The common people swarm like summer flies.' Todd. 680 Amidst their height of noon, Changest thy countenance, and thy hand with no regard Of highest favours past From thee on them, or them to thee of service. Nor only dost degrade them, or remit To life obscur'd, which were a fair dismission, 685 But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt them high, Unseemly falls in human eye, Too grievous for the trespass of omission; Oft leav'st them to the hostile sword Of heathen and profane, their carcasses 690 694 To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captív'd ; With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down, In crude old age: Though not disordinate, yet causeless suff'ring The punishment of dissolute days: in fine, Just or unjust, alike seem miserable, For oft alike both come to evil end. 700 So deal not with this once thy glorious champion, The image of thy strength, and mighty minister. What do I beg? how hast thou dealt already! 694 dogs] Hom. Il. i. 4. Newton. 700 crude] Premature, coming before its time, as funera' in Statius. Jortin. • Cruda Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn' That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, Comes this way sailing Like a stately ship Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles Of Javan or Gadire, With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, Sails fill'd, and streamers waving, 710 who is this] Sed hic quis est, quem huc advenientem conspicor, Suam qui undantem chlamydem quassando facit?' Plauti Epid. act. iii. sc. 3. 714 715 a stately ship] This passage may be well illustrated by a quotation from a Sermon called Wilkinson's Merchant Royall,' preached at the nuptials of the Lord Hay, in 1607 4to. The text is from Proverbs, xxxi. 14. She is like a Merchants shippe, she bringeth her foode from afarre! "But of all qualities, a woman must not have one quality of a ship, and that is, too much rigging. Oh! what a wonder it is to see a ship under saile, with her tacklings and her masts, and her tops, and her top-gallants, with her upper deckes, and her nether deckes, and so bedeckt with her streamers, flags, and ensignes, and I know not what; yea, but a world of wonders it is to see a woman created in God's image, so miscreate oft times and deformed with her French, her Spanish, and her foolish fashions, that he that made her, when hee lookes upon her, shall hardlie know her, with her plumes, her fannes, and a silken vizard, with a ruffe like a saile, yea, a ruffe like a rainebow, with a feather in her cap, like a flag in her top, to tell, I think, which way the winde will blowe." p. 15. |