Amor, Then is fhe love embracing charity; Animus, Moving a will in us, it is the mind, Mens, Retaining knowledge, ftill the fame in kind; Memoria, An intellectual, it is memory;
Ratio, in judging, reafon only is her name: Senfus, in fpeedy apprehenfion it is sense ; Confcientia, in right or wrong they call her confcience; Spiritus, the fpirit, when it to God-ward doth enflame; These of the foul the fev'ral functions be.
Didft thou never fee
A lark in a cage? Such is the foul in
The body: This world is like her little
Turf of grafs, and the heav'n o'er our heads, like Her looking-glafs; only gives us a mis'rable Knowledge of the fmall compafs of our prifon.
Webster's Dutchefs of Malfy.
1. That fouls immortal are, I easily grant: Their future ftate distinguish'd, joy, or pain, According to the merits of this life.
But then I rather think, being free from prifon, And bodily contagion, they fubfift
In places fit for immaterial spirits:
Are not transfus'd from men to beafts, from beafts To men again: Wheel'd round about by change. 2. And were it not more cruel, to turn out
Poor naked fouls, ftripp'd of warm flesh; like landlords, Bidding them wander? Than forfooth imagine Some unknown cave or coaft, or where all the myriads Of fouls deceas'd are flipt, and thrust together.. Nay, reafon rather fays, as at one moment, Some dye, and fome are born; fo may their ghosts Without more coft, ferve the fucceeding age : For fure they don't wear, to be caft afide, But enter ftrait, lefs, or more noble bodies, According to defert of former deeds; The valiant into lions; coward minds
Into weak hares; th' ambitious into eagles Soaring aloft; but the perverfe and peevish Are next indenizon'd into wrinkled apes: Each vice and virtue wearing fev'ral shapes. 1. So, you debafe the Gods moft lively image, The human foul, and rank it with mere brutes, Whofe life of reafon void, end with their fenfe.
Every foul's alike, a musical inftrument, The faculties in all men equal ftrings, Well, or ill handled, and thofe fweet or harsh.
Maflinger's Very Woman. Philofophers who have fo anxious been, Inquiring where the foul doth chief refide, Within the heart or brain? If they had seen How weapons were by all the foldiers ply'd, The question then had been no longer fcann'd; They had defin'd the feat t'ave been the hand.
How formlefs is the form of man, the foul! How various ftill, how diff'rent from itself! How falfly call'd queen of this little world! When she's a flave, and fubject not alone, Unto the body's temp'rature, but all The ftorms of fortune.
Man's foul immortal is; whilft here they live, The pureft minds for perfect knowledge strive; Which is the knowledge of that glorious God, From whom all life proceeds: In this abode Of flesh, the foul can never reach fo high; So reafon tells us: If the foul then dye, When from the body's bonds fhe takes her flight, Her unfulfill'd defire is fruftrate quite, And fo bestow'd in vain? It follows then, The beft defires unto the belt of men,
The great creator did in vain difpense;
Or else the foul muft live when gone from hence: 1 2
And if it live after the body fall,
What reafon proves that it should dye at all? Since, not compounded as the body is, And mix'd of ever-fighting contraries, But one pure fubftance, like itself; and may By reason's rules, fubfift alone for
And though we yield, that God, who did create, Can, if he please, again annihilate
The foul; and nothing in that sense can be, Indiffoluble, fave the deity;
Yet fouls, which in their nature do agree So near with that, fhall ne'er diffolved be, 'Till they at laft their wifhed end attain, And fo immortal by themselves remain. True grounds, quoth he, divine philofopher : Elfe what were virtue, or true knowledge here But waking dreams? Why more than beasts, should we Oblige ourselves to laws of piety,
Or curb our lufts? Owhy should virtue be Judg'd, by the wifeft, true felicity,
Before wealth, honour, pleasure ? Virtue here Does not, alas, fo beatiful appear,
But poor, and wretched rather! Nor is fhe (Unless, which in this life we do not fee, Some fairer fubftance or true form she have) Ought but an empty name, or fortune's flave. I'll try, fince most affur'd that fouls do live, What laws to us the other world will give : For fure the gods, 'mongft fouls departed hence, 'Twixt good and bad will put a difference. Thofe happy fouls, that while they lived here, By pure and perfect contemplation were Abstracted from the body, that with true Defires did oft the heav'nly beauties view, Shall thither go, when they from hence are fled To have their joys and knowledge perfected: Within the heav'ns fhall they for ever be, Since here with heav'n they made affinity.
But thofe dark fouls which drowned in the flesh, Did never dream of future happiness;
That, while they lived here, believ'd, or lov'd Nothing but what the bodies tafte approv'd; When they depart from hence, fhall fear the fight Of heav'n, nor dare t' approach that glorious light; But wander ftill in difmal darkness, near Their bodies, whom alone they loved here. Those fad, and ghaftly vifions, which to fight Of frighted people do appear by night,
About the tombs and graves, where dead men lie, Are fuch dark fouls condemn'd t'accompany Their bodies there; which fouls, because they be Grofs and corporeal, men do therefore see.
May's Continuation of Lucan. Ill purchas'd life, indeed; whofe ranfom craves A fadder price, than price of bloodshed faves. Go, learn, bad woman, what it is, how foul, By gaining of a life to fave a foul?
The price of one foul doth exceed as far A life here, as the fun in light a ftar.
Here though we live fome threefcore years or more; Yet we must die at last, and quit the score
We owe to nature: But the foul once dying, Dies ever, ever; no repurifying;
No earneft fighs or groans, no interceffion, No cares, no pennance, no too late confeffion Can move the ear of juftice, if it doom A foul paft cure to an infernal tomb.
The Queen, or, The Excellency of her Sex. 'Tis true, that the fouls
Of all men are alike; of the fame fubftance. By the fame maker into all infus'd;
But yet the fev'ral matters which they work on, How different they are, I need not tell you: And as thefe outward organs give our souls Or more, or lefs room, as they are contriv'd To fhew their luftre; fo again comes fortune, I 3
And darkens them to whom the gods have giv'n A foul divine, and body capable
Of that divinity and excellence.
Rutter's Shepherd's Holiday
Though life, fince finite, has no ill excufe For being but in finite objects learn'd; Ye fure the foul was made for little use, Unless it be in infinites concern'd.
Sir W. Davenant's Philofopher to the Chriftian.
Our fouls but like unhappy ftrangers come
From heav'n, their country, to this world's bad coaft; They land, then ftrait are backward bound for home, And many are in ftorms of paffion loft!
They long with danger fail through life's vext feas, In bodies, as in veffels full of leaks;
Walking in veins, their narrow galleries,
Shorter than walks of feamen on their decks.
Man's foul in a perpetual motion flows, And to no outward caufe that motion owes ; And therefore that no end can overtake, Because our minds cannot themselves forfake. And fince the matter of our foul is pure, And fimple, which no mixture can endure Of parts, which not among themselves agree, 'Therefore it never can divided be:
And nature fhews, without philofophy,
What cannot be divided, cannot die.
That foul, which gave me life, was seen by none; Yet by the actions it defign'd, was known: And though its flight no mortal eye fhall fee, Yet know, for ever it the fame fhall be. That foul, which can immortal glory give, To her own virtues must for ever live.
« EdellinenJatka » |