Act 5 — THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON PARAPHRASED.
Reading edition
333The Wisdome of Solomon Paraphrased. Written by Thomas Middleton. A Jove surgit opus. Printed at London by Valentine Sems, dwelling on Adling hil at the signe of the white Swanne. 1597. 4to.
335To the Right Honourable and my very good Lord, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and Ewe, Viscount of Hereford, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, Bourchier, and Louvaine, Master of Her Majesty’s Horse and Ordnance, Knight of the Honourable Order of the Garter, and one of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council.
The summer’s harvest, right honourable, is long since reaped, and now it is sowing-time again: behold, I have scattered a few seeds upon the young ground of unskilfulness; if it bear fruit, my labour is well bestowed; but if it be barren, I shall have less joy to set more. The husbandman observes the courses of the moon, I the forces of your favour; he desireth sunshine, I cheerful countenance, which once obtained, my harvest of joy will soon be ripened. My seeds as yet lodge in the bosom of the earth, like infants upon the lap of a favourite, wanting the budding spring-time of their growth, not knowing the east of their glory, the west of their quietness, the south of their summer, the north of their winter; but if the beams of your aspects lighten the small moiety of a smaller implanting, I shall have an every-day harvest, a fruition of content, a branch of felicity.
Your Honour’s addicted in all observance,
Thomas Middleton.
336TO THE GENTLEMEN-READERS.
Gentlemen,—I give you the surveyance of my new-bought ground, and will only stand unto your verdicts. I fear me that the acres of my field pass the ankers of my seed; if wanting seed, then I hope it will not be too much seeded. This is my bare excuse; but, trust me, had my wit been sufficient to maintain the freedom of my will, then both should have been answerable to your wishes; yet, nevertheless, think of it as a willing, though not a fulfilling moiety. But what mean I? While I thus argue, Momus and Zoïlus, those two ravens, devour my seed, because I lack a scarecrow; indeed, so I may have less than I have, when such foul-gutted ravens swallow up my portion: if you gape for stuffing, hie you to dead carrion carcasses, and make them your ordinaries. I beseech you, gentlemen, let me have your aid; and as you have seen the first practice of my husbandry in sowing, so let me have your helping hands unto my reaping.
Yours, devoted in friendship,
Thomas Middleton.
337THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON
PARAPHRASED.
Chap. I.
Wisdom, elixir of the purest life, Ver. 1
Hath taught her lesson to judicial views,
To those that judge a cause and end a strife,
Which sit[370] in judgment’s seat and justice use;
A lesson worthy of divinest care,
Quintessence of a true divinest fear:
Unwilling that exordium should retain
Her life-infusing speech, doth thus begin:
You, quoth she, that give remedy or pain,
Love justice, for injustice is a sin;
Give unto God his due, his reverend style,
And rather use simplicity than guile.
For him that guides the radiant eye of day, 2
Sitting in his star-chamber of the sky,
The horizons and hemispheres obey,
And winds, the fillers of vacuity;
Much less should man tempt God, when all obey,
But rather be a guide, and lead the way.
For tempting argues but a sin’s attempt,
Temptation is to sin associate;
So doing, thou from God art clean exempt,
Whose love is never plac’d in his love’s hate:
He will be found not of a tempting mind,
But found of those which he doth faithful find.
338Temptation rather separates from God, 3
Converting goodness from the thing it was,
Heaping the indignation of his rod
To bruise our bodies like a brittle glass;
For wicked thoughts have still a wicked end,
In making God our foe, which was our friend.
They muster up revenge, encamp our hate,
Undoing what before they meant to do,
Stirring up anger and unlucky fate,
Making the earth their friend, the heaven their foe:
But when heaven’s guide makes manifest his power,
The earth their friends doth them like foes devour.
O foolish men, to war against your bliss! 4
O hateful hearts, where wisdom never reign’d!
O wicked thoughts, which ever thought amiss!
What have you reap’d? what pleasure have you gain’d?
A fruit in show, a pleasure to decay,
This have you got by keeping folly’s way.
For wisdom’s harvest is with folly nipt,
And with the winter of your vice’s frost,
Her fruit all scatter’d, her implanting ript,
Her name decayèd, her fruition lost:
Nor can she prosper in a plot of vice,
Gaining no summer’s warmth, but winter’s ice.
Thou barren earth, where virtues never bud; 5
The fruitless womb, where never fruits abide;
And thou dry-wither’d sap, which bears no good
But the dishonour of thy proud heart’s pride:
A seat of all deceit,—deceit deceiv’d,
Thy bliss a woe, thy woe of bliss bereav’d!
339This place of night hath left no place for day,
Here never shines the sun of discipline,
But mischief clad in sable night’s array,
Thought’s apparition—evil angel’s sign;
These reign enhousèd with their mother night,
To cloud the day of clearest wisdom’s light.
O you that practise to be chief in sin, 6
Love’s hate, hate’s friend, friend’s foe, foe’s follower,
What do you gain? what merit do you win,
To be blaspheming vice’s practiser?
Your gain is wisdom’s everlasting hate,
Your merit grief, your grief your life’s debate.
Thou canst not hide thy thought—God made thy thought,
Let this thy caveat be for thinking ill;
Thou know’st that Christ thy living freedom bought,
To live on earth according to his will:
God being thy creator, Christ thy bliss,
Why dost thou err? why dost thou do amiss?
He is both judge and witness of thy deeds, 7
He knows the volume which thy heart contains;
Christ skips thy faults, only thy virtue reads,
Redeeming thee from all thy vice’s pains:
O happy crown of mortal man’s content,
Sent for our joy, our joy in being sent!
Then sham’st thou not to err, to sin, to stray,
To come to composition with thy vice,
With new-purg’d feet to tread the oldest way,
Leading new sense unto thy old device?
Thy shame might flow in thy sin-flowing face,
Rather than ebb to make an ebb of grace.
340For he which rules the orb of heaven and earth,8
And the inequal course of every star,
Did know man’s thoughts and secrets at his birth,
Whether inclin’d to peace or discord’s jar:
He knows what man will be ere he be man,
And all his deeds in his life’s living span.
Then ’tis impossible that earth can hide
Unrighteous actions from a righteous God,
For he can see their feet in sin that slide,
And those that lodge in righteousness’ abode;
He will extend his mercy on the good,
His wrath on those in whom no virtues bud.
Many there be, that, after trespass done,9
Will seek a covert for to hide their shame,
And range about the earth, thinking to shun
God’s heavy wrath and meritorious[371] blame;
They, thinking to fly sin, run into sin,
And think to end when they do new begin.
God made the earth, the earth denies their suit,
Nor can they harbour in the centre’s womb;
God knows their thoughts, although their tongues be mute,
And hears the sounds from forth their bodies’ tomb:
Sounds? ah! no sounds, but man himself he hears,
Too true a voice of man’s most falsest fears.
O see destruction hovering o’er thy head, 10
Mantling herself in wickedness’ array!
Hoping to make thy body as her bed,
Thy vice her nutriment, thy soul her prey:
Thou hast forsaken him that was thy guide,
And see what follows to assuage thy pride!
341Thy roaring vice’s noise hath cloy’d his ears,
Like foaming waves they have o’erwhelm’d thy joy;
Thy murmuring,[372] which thy whole body bears,
Hath bred thy wail, thy wail thy life’s annoy:
Unhappy thoughts, to make a soul’s decay,
Unhappy soul, in suffering thoughts to sway!
Then sith[373] the height of man’s felicity 11
Is plung’d within the puddle of misdeeds,
And wades amongst discredit’s infamy,
Blasting the merit of his virtues’ seeds;
Beware of murmuring,—the chiefest ill,
From whence all sin, all vice, all pains distil.
O heavy doom proceeding from a tongue,
Heavy-light tongue—tongue to thy own decay,
In virtue weak, in wickedness too strong,
To mischief prone, from goodness gone astray;
Hammer to forge misdeeds, to temper lies,
Selling thy life to death, thy soul to cries!
Must death needs pay the ransom of thy sin 12
With the dead carcass of descending spirit?
Wilt thou of force be snarèd in his gin,
And place thy error in destruction’s merit?
Life, seek not for thy death; death comes unsought,
Buying the life which not long since was bought.
Death and destruction never need[374] a call,
They are attendants on life’s pilgrimage,
And life to them is as their playing ball,
Grounded upon destruction’s anchorage;
Seek not for that which unsought will betide,
Ne’er wants destruction a provoking guide.
342Will you needs act your own destruction? 13
Will you needs harbour your own overthrow?
Or will you cause your own eversion,
Beginning with despair, ending with woe?
Then dye your hearts in tyranny’s array,
To make acquittance of destruction’s pay.
What do you meditate but on your death?
What do you practise but your living fall?
Who of you all have any virtue’s breath,
But ready armèd at a mischief’s call?
God is not pleasèd at your vices’ savour,
But you best pleasèd when you lose his favour.
He made not death to be your conqueror, 14
But you to conquer over death and hell;
Nor you to be destruction’s servitor,
Enhousèd there where majesty should dwell:
God made man to obey at his behest,
And man to be obey’d of every beast.
He made not death to be our labour’s hire,
But we ourselves made death through our desert;
Here never was the kingdom of hell-fire,
Before the brand was kindled in man’s heart:
Now man defieth God, all creatures man,
Vice flourisheth, and virtue lieth wan.
O fruitful tree, whose root is always green, 15
Whose blossoms ever bud, whose fruits increase,
Whose top celestial virtue’s seat hath been,
Defended by the sovereignty of peace!
This tree is righteousness; O happy tree,
Immortalisèd by thine own decree!
343O hateful plant, whose root is always dry,
Whose blossoms never bud, whose fruits decrease,
On whom sits the infernal deity,
To take possession of so foul a lease!
This plant is vice; O too unhappy plant,
Ever to die, and never fill death’s want!
Accursèd in thy growth, dead in thy root, 16
Canker’d with sin, shaken with every wind,
Whose top doth nothing differ from the foot,
Mischief the sap, and wickedness the rind;
So the ungodly, like this wither’d tree,
Is slack in doing good, in ill too free.
Like this their wicked growth, too fast, too slow;
Too fast in sloth, too slow in virtue’s haste;
They think their vice a friend when ’tis a foe,
In good, in wickedness, too slow, too fast:
And as this tree decays, so do they all,
Each one copartner of the other’s fall.
Chap. II.
Indeed they do presage what will betide, 1
With the misgiving verdict of misdeeds;
They know a fall will follow after pride,
And in so foul a heart grow[375] many weeds:
Our life is short, quoth they; no, ’tis too long,
Lengthen’d with evil thoughts and evil tongue.
A life must needs be short to them that dies,
For life once dead in sin doth weakly live;
These die in sin, and mask in death’s disguise,
And never think that death new life can give;
They say, life dead can never live again:
O thoughts, O words, O deeds, fond,[376] foolish, vain!
344Vild[377] life, to harbour where such death abodes, 2
Abodes worse than are thoughts, thoughts worse than words,
Words half as ill as deeds, deeds sorrow’s odes,
Odes ill enchanters of too ill records!
Thoughts, words, and deeds, conjoinèd in one song
May cause an echo from destruction’s tongue.
Quoth they, ’tis chance whether we live or die,
Born or abortive, be or never be;
We worship Fortune, she’s our deity;
If she denies, no vital breath have we:
Here are we placèd in this orb of death,
This breath once gone, we never look for breath.
Between both life and death, both hope and fear, 3
Between our joy and grief, bliss and despair,
We here possess the fruit of what is here,
Born ever for to die, and die death’s heir:
Our heritage is death annex’d to life,
Our portion death, our death an endless strife.
What is our life, but our life’s tragedy,
Extinguish’d in a momentary time?
And life to murder life is cruelty,
Unripely withering in a flowery prime;
An[378] urn of ashes pleasing but the shows,
Once dry, the toiling spirit wandering goes.
Like as the traces of appearing clouds 4
Give[379] way when Titan re-salutes the sea,
With new-chang’d flames gilding the ocean’s floods,
Kissing the cabinet where Thetis lay:
So fares our life, when death doth give the wound,
Our life is led by death, a captive bound.
345When Sol bestrides his golden mountain’s top,
Lightening heaven’s tapers with his living fire,
All gloomy powers have their diurnal stop,
And never gain[380] the darkness they desire;
So perisheth our name when we are dead,
Ourselves ne’er call’d to mind, our deeds ne’er read.
What is the time we have? what be our days? 5
No time, but shadow of what time should be,
Days in the place of hours, which never stays,
Beguiling sight of that which sight should see:
As soon as they begin, they have their fine;
Ne’er wax, still wane, ne’er stay, but still decline.
Life may be call’d the shadow of effect,
Because the cloud of death doth shadow it;
Nor can our life approaching death reject,
They both in one for our election sit;
Death follows life in every degree,
But life to follow death you never see.
Come we, whose old decrepit age doth halt, 6
Like limping winter, in our winter, sin;
Faulty we know we are—tush, what’s a fault?
A shadow’d vision of destruction’s gin;
Our life begun with vice, so let it end,
It is a servile labour to amend.
We joy’d in sin, and let our joys renew;
We joy’d in vice, and let our joys remain;
To present pleasures future hopes ensue,
And joy once lost, let us fetch back again:
Although our age can lend no youthful pace,
Yet let our minds follow our youthful race.
346What though old age lies, heavy on our back, 7
Anatomy of an age-crookèd clime,
Let mind perform that which our bodies lack,
And change old age into a youthful time:
Two heavy things are more than one can bear;
Black may the garments be, the body clear.
Decaying things be needful of repair—
Trees eaten out with years must needs decline;
Nature in time with foul doth cloud her fair,
Begirting youthful days with age’s twine:
We live; and while we live, come let us joy;
To think of after-life, ’tis but a toy.
We know God made us in a living form, 8
But we’ll unmake, and make ourselves again;
Unmake that which is made, like winter’s storm,
Make unmade things to aggravate our pain:
God was our maker, and he made us good,
But our descent springs from another blood.
He made us for to live, we mean to die;
He made the heaven our seat, we make the earth;
Each fashion makes a contrariety,
God truest God, man falsest from his birth:
Quoth they, this earth shall be our chiefest heaven,
Our sin the anchor, and our vice the haven.
Let heaven in earth, and earth in heaven consist, 9
This earth is heaven, this heaven is earthly heaven;
Repugnant earth repugnant heaven resist,
We joy in earth, of other joys bereaven:
This is the paradise of our delight;
Here let us live, and die in heaven’s spite.
347Here let the monuments of wanton sports
Be seated in a wantonness’ disguise;
Clos’d in the circuit of venereal forts,
To feed the long-starv’d sight of amour’s eyes;
Be this the chronicle of our content,
How we did sport on earth, still sport was spent.
But in the glory of the brightest day, 10
Heaven’s smoothest brow sometime is furrowèd,
And clouds usurp the clime in dim array,
Darkening the light which heaven had borrowèd;
So in this earthly heaven we daily see
That grief is placèd where delight should be.
Here live[381] the righteous, bane unto their lives,
O, sound from forth the hollow cave of woe!
Here live[381] age-crookèd fathers, widow’d wives—
Poor, and yet rich in fortune’s overthrow:
Let them not live; let us increase their want,
Make barren their desire, augment their scant.
Our law is correspondent to our doom, 11
Our law to doom, is dooming law’s offence;
Each one agreeth in the other’s room,
To punish that which strives and wants defence:
This, cedar-like, doth make the shrub to bend,
When shrubs do[382] waste their force but to contend.
The weakest power is subject to obey;
The mushrooms humbly kiss the cedar’s foot,
The cedar flourishes when they decay,
Because her strength is grounded on a root;
We are the cedars, they the mushrooms be,
Unabled shrubs unto an abled tree.
348Then sith[383] the weaker gives the stronger place, 12
The young the elder, and the foot the top,
The low the high, the hidden powers the face,
All beasts the lion, every spring his stop;
Let those which practise contrariety
Be join’d to us with inequality.
They say that we offend, we say they do;
Their blame is laid on us, our blame on them;
They strike, and we retort the strucken blow;
So in each garment there’s a differing hem:
We end with contraries, as they begun,
Unequal sharing of what either won.
In this long conflict between tongue and tongue, 13
Tongue new beginning what one tongue did end,
Made this cold battle hot in either’s wrong,
And kept no pausing limits to contend;
One tongue was echo to the other’s sound,
Which breathèd accents between mouth and ground.
He which hath virtue’s arms upon his shield, 14
Draws his descent from an eternal king:
He knows discretion can make folly yield,
Life conquer death, and vice a captive bring;
The other, tutor’d by his mother sin,
Respects not deeds nor words, but hopes to win.
The first, first essence of immortal life, 15
Reproves the heart of thought, the eye of sight,
The ear of hearing ill, the mind of strife,
The mouth of speech, the body of despite;
Heart thinks, eyes see, ears hear,[384] minds meditate,
Mouth utters both the soul and body’s hate.
349But nature, differing in each nature’s kind,
Makes differing hearts, each heart a differing thought;
Some hath she made to see, some folly-blind,
Some famous, some obscure, some good, some naught:
So these, which differ[385] in each nature’s reason,
Had nature’s time when time was out of season.
Quoth they, he doth reprove our heart of thinking, 16
Our eyes of sight, our ears of hearing ill,
Our minds, our hearts, in meditation linking,
Our mouths in speaking of our body’s will;
Because heart, sight, and mind do disagree,
He’d make heart, sight, and mind of their decree.
He says, our heart is blinded with our eyes,
Our eyes are blinded with our blinded heart,
Our bodies on both parts defilèd lies,
Our mouths the trumpets of our vices’ smart;
Quoth he, God is my father, I his son,
His ways I take, your wicked ways I shun.
As meditated wrongs are deeper plac’d 17
Within the deep core[386] of a wrongèd mind,
So meditated words are[387] never past
Before their sounds a settled harbour find;
The wicked, answering to the latter words,
Begin[388] to speak as much as speech affords.
One tongue must answer, other tongues reply,
Beginning boasts require an ending fall;
Words lively spoke do sometimes wordless die,
If not, live echoes unto speeches call:
Let not the shadow smother up the deed,
The outward leaf differs from inward seed.
350The shape and show of substance and effect 18
Do[389] shape the substance in the shadow’s hue,
And shadow put in substance will neglect
The wonted shadow of not being true:
Let substance follow substance, show a show,
And let not substance for the shadow go.
He that could give such admonition,
Such vaunting words, such words confirming vaunts,
As if his tongue had mounted to ambition,
Or climb’d the turrets which vain-glory haunts,
Now let his father, if he be his son,
Undo the knot which his proud boasts have spun.
We are his enemies, his chain our hands, 19
Our words his fetters, and our heart his cave,
Our stern embracements are his servile bands;
Where is the helper now which he should have?
In prison like himself, not to be found,
He wanteth help himself to be unbound.
Then sith[390] thy father bears it patiently,
To suffer torments, grief, rebuke, and blame,
’Tis needful thou should’st bear equality,
To see if meekness harbour in thy name:
Help, father, for thy son in prison lies!
Help, son, or else thy helpless father dies!
Thus is the righteous God and righteous man 20
Drown’d in oblivion with this vice’s reign;
God wanteth power (say they) of what we can,
The other would perform that which is vain;
Both faulty in one fault, and both alike
Must have the stroke which our law’s judgments strike.
351He calls himself a son from heaven’s descent;
What can earth’s force avail ’gainst heaven’s defence?
His life by immortality is lent;
Then how can punishment his wrath incense?
Though death herself in his arraignment deck,
He hath his life’s preserver at a beck.
As doth the basilisk with poison’d sight 21
Blind every function of a mortal eye,
Disarm the body’s powers of vital might,
Rob heart of thought, make living life to die,
So do[391] the wicked with their vice’s look
Infect the spring of clearest virtue’s brook.
This basilisk, mortality’s chief foe,
And to the heart’s long-knitted artery,
Doth sometime perish at her shadow’s show,
Poisoning herself with her own poison’d eye:
Needs must the sting fall out with over-harming,
Needs must the tongue burn out in over-warming.
So fares it with the practisers of vice, 22
Laden with many venomous adders’ stings,
Sometimes are blinded with their own device,
And tune[392] that song which their destruction sings;
Their mischief blindeth their mischievous eyes,
Like basilisks, which in their shadow dies.
They go, and yet they cannot see their feet,
Like blinded pilgrims in an unknown way,
Blind in perceiving things which be most meet,
But need nor sight nor guide to go astray:
Tell them of good, they cannot understand;
But tell them of a mischief, that’s at hand.
352The basilisk was made to blind the sight, 23
The adder for to sting, the worm to creep,
The viper to devour, the dog to bite,
The nightingale to wake when others sleep;
Only man differs from his Maker’s will,
Undoing what is good, and doing ill.
A godlike face he had, a heavenly hue, 24
Without corruption, image without spots;
But now is metamorphosèd anew,
Full of corruption, image full of blots;
Blotted by him that is the plot[393] of evil,
Undone, corrupted, vanquish’d by the devil.
Chap. III.
But every cloud cannot hide Phœbus’ face, 1
Nor shut the casement of his living flame;
Nor is there every soul which wanteth grace,
Nor every heart seduc’d with mischief’s name:
Life cannot live without corruption,
World cannot be without destruction.
Nor is the body all corrupt, or world
Bent wholly unto wickedness’ assault;
The adder is not always seen uncurl’d,
Nor every soul found guilty in one fault;
Some good, some bad; but those whom virtues guard,
Heaven is their haven, comfort their reward.
Thrice-happy habitation of delight, 2
Thrice-happy step of immortality,
Thrice-happy souls to gain such heavenly sight,
Springing from heaven’s perpetuity!
O peaceful place! but O thrice-peaceful souls,
Whom neither threats nor strife nor wars controls!
353They are not like the wicked, for they live;
Nor they like to the righteous, for they die;
Each of their lives a differing nature give:
One thinks that life ends with mortality,
And that the righteous never live again,
But die as subjects to a grievous pain.
What labouring soul refuseth for to sweat, 4
Knowing his hire, his payment, his reward,
To suffer winter’s cold and summer’s heat,
Assurèd of his labour’s due regard?
The bee with summer’s toil will lade her hive,
In winter’s frost to keep herself alive.
And what divinest spirit would not toil,
And suffer many torments, many pains,
This world’s destruction, heavy labour’s foil,
When heaven is their hire, heaven’s joy their gains?
Who would not suffer torments for to die,
When death’s reward is immortality?
Pain is the entrance to eternal joy; 5
Death endeth life, and death beginneth life,
Beginneth happy, endeth in annoy,
Begins immortal peace, ends mortal strife;
Then, seeing death and pains bring joy and heaven,
What need we fear death’s pain, when life is given?
Say sickness, or infirmity’s disease
(As many harms hang over mortal heads),
Should be his world’s reward; yet heaven hath ease,
A salve to cure, and quiet resting beds:
God maketh in earth’s world lament our pleasure,
That in heaven’s world delight might be our treasure.
354Fair may the shadow be, the substance foul; 6
After the trial followeth the trust;
The clearest skin may have the foulest soul;
The purest gold will sooner take the rust;
The brook, though ne’er so clear, may take some soil;
The hart, though ne’er so strong, may take some foil.
Wouldst thou be counted just? make thyself just,
Or purify thy mire-bespotted heart;
For God doth try thy actions ere he trust,
Thy faith, thy deeds, thy words, and what thou art;
He will receive no mud for clearest springs,
Nor thy unrighteous words for righteous things.
As God is perfect God and perfect good, 7
So he accepteth none but perfect minds;
They ever prosper, flourish, live, and bud,
Like blessèd plants, far from destruction’s winds;
Still bud, ne’er fade, still flourish, ne’er decay;
Still rise, ne’er fall, still spring, ne’er fade away.
Who would not covet to be such a plant,
Who would not wish to stand in such a ground,
Sith[394] it doth neither fruit nor blessing want,
Nor aught which in this plant might not be found?
They are the righteous which enjoy this earth,
The figure of an ever-bearing birth.
The small is always subject to the great, 8
The young to him which is of elder time,
The lowest place unto the highest seat,
And pale-fac’d Phœbe to bright Phœbus’ clime;
Vice is not governor of virtue’s place,
But blushes for to see so bright a face.
355Virtue is chief, and virtue will be chief,
Chief good, and chief Astræa, justice’ mate,
Both for to punish and to yield relief,
And have dominion over every state,
To right the wrongs which wickedness hath done,
Delivering nations from life-lasting moan.
O you, whose causes plungeth in despair, 9
Sad-fac’d petitioners with grief’s request!
What seek you? here’s nor justice nor her heir,
But woe and sorrow, with death’s dumb arrest;
Turn up your woe-blind eyes unto the sky,
There sits the judge can yield you remedy.
Trust in his power, he is the truest God,
True God, true judge, true justice, and true guide;
All truth is placèd in his truth’s abode,
All virtues seated at his virtuous side;
He will regard your suit, and ease your plaint,
And mollify your misery’s constraint.
Then shall you see the judges of the earth 10
Summonèd with the trumpet of his ire,
To give account and reckoning from their birth,
Where[395] worthy or unworthy of their hire:
The godly shall receive their labour’s trial,
The wicked shall receive their joy’s denial.
They which did sleep in sin, and not regarded
The poor man’s fortune prostrate at their feet,
Even as they dealt, so shall they be rewarded,
When they their toilèd souls’ destruction meet;
From judges they petitioners shall be,
Yet want the sight which they do sue to see.
356That labour which is grounded on delight, 11
That hope which reason doth enrich with hap,
That merit which is plac’d in wisdom’s might,
Secure from mischief’s bait or folly’s clap,
Wit’s labour, reason’s hope, and wisdom’s merit,
All three in one, make one thrice-happy spirit.
Why set I happiness ’fore mortal eyes,
Which covet[396] to be drench’d in misery,
Mantling their foolish minds in folly’s guise,
Despising wisdom’s perpetuity?
Sin’s labour, folly’s hope, and vice’s merit,
These three in one make a thrice-cursèd spirit.
Vain hope must needs consist in what is vain; 12
All foolish labours flow[397] from folly’s tears;
Unprofitable works proceed from pain,
And pain ill labour’s duest guerdon bears;
Three[398] vanities in one, and one in three,
Make three pains one, and one uncertainty.
A wicked king makes a more wicked land;
Heads once infected soon corrupt[399] the feet;
If the tree falls, the branches cannot stand,
Nor children, be their parents indiscreet;
The man infects the wife, the wife the child,
Like birds which in one nest be all defil’d.
The field which never was ordain’d to bear 13
Is happier far than a still-tillèd ground;
This sleeps with quietness in every year,
The other curs’d if any tares be found;
The barren happier than she that bears,
This brings forth joy, the other tares and tears.
357The eunuch never lay in vice’s bed, 14
The barren woman never brought forth sin;
These two in heaven’s happiness are led,
She fruit in soul, he fruit in faith doth win:
O rare and happy man, for ever blest!
O rare and happy woman, heaven’s guest!
Who seeks to reap before the corn be ripe? 15
Who looks for harvest among winter’s frost?
Or who in grief will follow pleasure’s pipe?
What mariner can sail upon the coast?
That which is done in time is done in season,
And things done out of time are[400] out of reason.
The glorious labour is in doing good,
In time’s observance, and in nature’s will,
Whose fruit is also glorious for our food,
If glory may consist in labour’s skill,
Whose root is wisdom, which shall never wither,
But spring, and sprout, and love, and live together.
But every ground doth not bear blessèd plants, 16
Nor every plant brings forth expected fruit;
What this same ground may have, another wants;
Nor are all causes answer’d with one suit:
That tree whose root is sound, whose grounding strong,
May firmly stand when others lie along.
View nature’s beauty, mark her changing hue,
She is not always foul, not always fair,
Chaste and unchaste she is, true and untrue,
And some spring[401] from her in a lustful air;
And these adulterers be, whose seed shall perish;
Never shall lust and wickedness long flourish.
358Although the flint be hard, the water soft, 17
Yet is it mollified with lightest drops;
Hard is the water when the wind’s aloft;
Small things in time may vanquish greatest stops:
The longer grows the tree, the greater moss;
The longer soil remains, the more the dross.
The longer that the wicked live[402] on earth,
The greater is their pain, their sin, their shame,
The greater vice’s reign and virtue’s dearth,
The greater goodness’ lack and mischief’s name;
When in their youth no honour they could get,
Old age could never pay so young a debt.
To place an honour in dishonour’s place, 18
Were but to make disparagement of both;
Both enemies, they could not brook the case,
For honour to subvert dishonour’s growth:
Dishonour will not change for honour’s room,
She hopes to stay after their bodies’ doom.
Or live they long, or die they suddenly,
They have no hope, nor comfort of reward;
Their hope of comfort is iniquity,
The bar by which they from their joys are barr’d:
O old-new end, made to begin new grief!
O new beginning, end of old relief!
Chap. IV.
If happiness may harbour in content, 1
If life in love, if love in better life,
Then unto many happiness is lent,
And long-departed joy might then be rife:[403]
Some happy if they live, some if they die,
Happy in life, happy in tragedy.
359Content is happiness because content;
Bareness and barrenness are[404] virtue’s grace,
Bare because wealth to poverty is bent,
Barren in that it scorns ill-fortune’s place;
The barren earth is barren of her tares,
The barren woman barren of her cares.
The soul of virtue is eternity, 2
All-filling essence of divinest rage;
And virtue’s true eternal memory
Is barrenness, her soul’s eternal gage:
O happy soul, that is engagèd there,
And pawns his life that barren badge to wear!
See how the multitude, with humble hearts,
Lies prostrate for to welcome her return!
See how they mourn and wail when she departs!
See how they make their tears her trophy’s urn!
Being present, they desire her; being gone,
Their hot desire is turn’d to hotter moan.
As every one hath not one nature’s mould, 3
So every one hath not one nature’s mind;
Some think that dross which others take for gold,
Each difference cometh from a differing kind;
Some do despise what others do embrace,
Some praise the thing which others do disgrace.
The barren doth embrace their barrenness,
And hold it as a virtue-worthy meed;
The other calls conception happiness,
And hold it as a virtue-worthy deed;
The one is firmly grounded on a rock,
The other billows’ game and tempests’ mock.
360Sometime the nettle groweth with the rose; 4
The nettle hath a sting, the rose a thorn;
This stings the hand, the other pricks the nose,
Harming that scent which her sweet birth had borne;
Weeds among herbs, herbs among weeds are found,
Tares in the mantle of a corny ground.
The nettle’s growth is fast, the rose’s slow,
The weeds outgrow the herbs, the tares the corn;
These may be well compar’d to vice’s show,
Which covets for to grow ere it be born:
As greatest danger doth pursue fast going,
So greatest danger doth ensue fast growing.
The tallest cedar hath the greatest wind, 5
The highest tree is subject unto falls;
High-soaring eagles soon are strucken blind;
The tongue must needs be hoarse with many calls:
The wicked, thinking for to touch the sky,
Are blasted with the fire of heaven’s eye.
So like ascending and descending air,
Both dusky vapours from two humorous clouds,
Lies witherèd the glory of their fair;[405]
Unpleasant branches wrench’d in folly’s floods;
Unprofitable fruits, like to a weed,
Made only to infect, and not to feed.
Made for to make a fast, and not a feast, 6
Made rather for infection than for meat,
Not worthy to be eaten of a beast,
Thy taste so sour, thy poison is so great;
Thou may’st be well comparèd to a tree,
Because thy branches are as ill as thee.
361Thou hast begot thine own confusion,
The witnesses of what thou dost begin,
Thy doomers in thy life’s conclusion,
Which will, unask’d and ask’d, reveal thy sin:
Needs must the new-hatch’d birds bewray the nest,
When they are nursèd in a step-dame’s breast.
But righteousness is of another sex, 7
Her root is from an everlasting seed,
No weak, unable grounding doth connex
Her never-limited memorial’s deed;
She hath no branches for a tempest’s prey,
No deeds but scorns to yield unto decay.
She hath no wither’d fruit, no show of store,
But perfect essence of a complete power;
Say that she dies to world, she lives the more,
As who so righteous but doth wait death’s hour?
Who knows not death to be the way to rest?
And he that never dies is never blest.
Happy is he that lives, twice he that dies, 8
Thrice happy he which neither liv’d nor died,
Which never saw the earth with mortal eyes,
Which never knew what miseries are tried:
Happy is life, twice happy is our death,
But three times thrice he which had never breath.
Some think[406] that pleasure is achiev’d by years,
Or by maintaining of a wretched life,
When, out, alas! it heapeth tears on tears,
Grief upon grief, strife on beginning strife:
Pleasure is weak, if measurèd by length;
The oldest ages have[407] the weaker strength.
362Three turnings are contain’d in mortal course, 9
Old, mean, and young; mean and old bring[408] age;
The youth hath strength, the mean decaying force,
The old are weak, yet strong in anger’s rage:
Three turnings in one age, strong, weak, and weaker,
Yet age nor youth is youth’s or age’s breaker.
Some say[409] that youth is quick in judging causes,
Some say[409] that age is witty, grave, and wise:
I hold of age’s side, with their applauses,
Which judges with their hearts, not with their eyes;
I say grave wisdom lies in grayest heads,
And undefilèd lives in age’s beds.
God is both grave and old, yet young and new, 10
Grave because agèd, agèd because young;
Long youth may well be callèd age’s hue,
And hath no differing sound upon the tongue:
God old, because eternities are old;
Young, for eternities one motion hold.
Some in their birth, some die[410] when they are born,
Some born, and some abortive, yet all die;
Some in their youth, some in old age forlorn,
Some neither young nor old, but equally:
The righteous, when he liveth with the sinner,
Doth hope for death, his better life’s beginner.
The swine delights to wallow in the mire, 11
The giddy drunkard in excess of wine;
He may corrupt the purest reason’s gyre,
And she turn virtue into vice’s sign:
Mischief is mire, and may infect that spring
Which every flow and ebb of vice doth bring.
363Fishes are oft deceivèd by the bait,
The bait deceiving fish doth fish deceive;
So righteous are allur’d by sin’s deceit,
And oft enticèd into sinners’ weave:
The righteous be as fishes to their gin,
Beguil’d, deceiv’d, allurèd into sin.
The fisher hath a bait deceiving fish, 12
The fowler hath a net deceiving fowls;
Both wisheth to obtain their snaring wish,
Observing time, like night-observing owls;
The fisher lays his bait, fowler his net,
He hopes for fish, the other birds to get.
This fisher is the wicked, vice his bait,
This fowler is the sinner, sin his net;
The simple righteous falls in their deceit,
And like a prey, a fish, a fowl beset:
A bait, a net, obscuring what is good,
Like fish and fowl took up for vice’s food.
But baits nor nets, gins nor beguiling snares, 13
Vice nor the vicious sinner, nor the sin,
Can shut the righteous into prison’s cares,
Or set deceiving baits to mew them in;
They know their life’s deliverer, heaven’s God,
Can break their baits and snares with justice’ rod.
When vice abounds on earth, and earth in vice, 14
When virtue keeps her chamber in the sky,
To shun the mischief which her baits entice,
Her snares, her nets, her guiles, her company;
As soon as mischief reigns upon the earth,
Heaven calls the righteous to a better birth.
364The blinded eyes can never see the way, 15
The blinded heart can never see to see,
The blinded soul doth always go astray;
All three want sight, in being blind all three:
Blind and yet see, they see and yet are blind,
The face hath eyes, but eyeless is the mind.
They see with outward sight God’s heavenly grace,
His grace, his love, his mercy on his saints;
With outward-facèd eye and eyèd face,
Their outward body inward soul depaints:
Of heart’s chief eye they chiefly are bereft,
And yet the shadow[s] of two eyes are left.
Some blinded be in face, and some in soul; 16
The face’s eyes are not incurable;
The other wanteth healing to be whole,
Or seems to some to be endurable;
Look in a blinded eye, bright is the glass,
Though brightness banishèd from what it was.
So, quoth the righteous, are these blinded hearts;
The outward glass is clear, the substance dark,
Both seem as if one took the other’s parts,
Yet both in one have not one brightness’ spark:
The outward eye is but destruction’s reader,
Wanting the inward eye to be the leader.
Our body may be call’d a commonweal,
Our head the chief, for reason harbours there, 17
From thence comes heart’s and soul’s united zeal;
All else inferiors be, which stand in fear:
This commonweal, rul’d by discretion’s eye,
Lives likewise if she live, dies if she die.
365Then how can weal or wealth, common or proper,
Long stand, long flow, long flourish, long remain,
When wail is weal’s, and stealth is wealth’s chief stopper,
When sight is gone, which never comes again?
The wicked see[411] the righteous lose their breath,
But know not what reward they gain by death.
Though blind in sight, yet can they see to harm, 18
See to despise, see to deride and mock;
But their revenge lies in God’s mighty arm,
Scorning to choose them for his chosen flock:
He is the shepherd, godly are his sheep,
They wake in joy, these in destruction sleep.
The godly sleep in eyes, but wake in hearts; 19
The wicked sleep in hearts, but wake in eyes:
These ever wake, eyes are no sleepy parts;
These ever sleep, for sleep is heart’s disguise:
Their waking eyes do see their heart’s lament,
While heart securely sleeps in eyes’ content.
If they awake, sleep’s image doth molest them, 20
And beats into their waking memories;
If they do sleep, joy waking doth detest them,
Yet beats into their sleeping arteries:
Sleeping or waking, they have fear on fear,
Waking or sleeping, they are ne’er the near.[412]
If waking, they remember what they are,
What sins they have committed in their waking;
If sleeping, they forget tormenting’s fare,
How ready they have been in mischief’s making:
When they awake, their wickedness betrays them;
When they do sleep, destruction dismays them.
366Chap. V.
As these two slumbers have two contraries, 1
One slumber in the face, one in the mind;
So their two casements two varieties,
One unto heaven, and one to hell combin’d:
The face is flattery, and her mansion hell;
The mind is just, this doth in heaven dwell.
The face, heaving her heavy eyelids up
From forth the chamber of eternal night,
Sees virtue hold plenty’s replenish’d cup,
And boldly stand[413] in God’s and heaven’s sight;
She, opening the windows of her breast,
Sees how the wicked rest in their unrest.
Quoth she, Those whom the curtain of decay 2
Hath tragically summonèd to pain,
Were once the clouds and clouders of my day,
Depravers and deprivers of my gain.
The wicked hearing this descending sound,
Fear struck their limbs to the pale-clothèd ground.
Amazèd at the freedom of her words, 3
Their tongue-tied accents drove them to despair,
And made them change their minds to woe’s records,
And say within themselves, Lo, what we are!
We have had virtue in derision’s place,
And made a parable of her disgrace.
See where she sits enthronis’d in the sky! 4
See, see her labour’s crown upon her head!
See how the righteous live, which erst did die,
From death to life with virtue’s loadstar led!
See those whom we derided, they are blest,
They heaven’s, not hell’s, we hell’s, not heaven’s guest!
367We thought the righteous had been fury’s son,
With inconsiderate speech, unstayèd way;
We thought that death had his dishonour won,
And would have made his life destruction’s prey:
But we were mad, they just; we fools, they wise;
We shame, they praise; we loss, they have the prize.
We thought them fools, when we ourselves were fools; 5
We thought them mad, when we ourselves were mad;
The heat which sprang from them, our folly cools;
We find in us which we but thought they had:
We thought their end had been dishonour’s pledge;
They but survey’d the place, we made the hedge.
We see how they are blest, how we are curst;
How they accepted are, and we refus’d;
And how our bands are tied, their bands are burst;
Our faults are hourly blam’d, their faults excus’d;
See how heavens gratulate their welcom’d sight,
Which come[414] to take possession of their right!
But O too late we see our wickedness, 6
Too late we lie in a repentant tomb,
Too late we smooth old hairs with happiness,
Too late we seek to ease our bodies’ doom!
Now falsehood hath advanc’d her forgèd banner,
Too late we seem to verify truth’s manner.
The sun of righteousness, which should have shin’d,
And made our hearts the cabins of his east,
Is now made cloudy night through vice’s wind,
And lodgeth with his downfall in the west;
That summer’s day, which should have been night’s bar,
Is now made winter in her icy car.
368Too much our feet have gone, but never right; 7
Much labour we have took, but none in good;
We wearièd ourselves with our delight,
Endangering ourselves to please our mood;
Our feet did labour much, ’twas for our pleasure;
We wearièd ourselves,’twas for our leisure.
In sin’s perfection was our labour spent,
In wickedness’ preferment we did haste;
To suffer perils we were all content
For the advancement of our vices past:
Through many dangerous ways our feet have gone,
But yet the way of God we have not known.
We which have made our hearts a sea of pride, 8
With huge risse[415] billows of a swelling mind,
With tossing tumults of a flowing tide,
Leaving our laden bodies plung’d behind;
What traffic have we got? ourselves are drown’d,
Our souls in hell, our bodies in the ground.
Where are our riches now? like us consum’d; 9
Where is our pomp? decay’d; where’s glory? dead;
Where is the wealth of which we all presum’d?
Where is our profit? gone; ourselves? misled:
All these are like to shadows what they were;
There is nor wealth, nor pomp, nor glory here.
The dial gives a caveat of the hour; 10
Thou canst not see it go, yet it is gone;
Like this the dial of thy fortune’s power,
Which fades by stealth, till thou art left alone:
Thy eyes may well perceive thy goods are spent,
Yet can they not perceive which way they went.
369Lo, even as ships sailing on Tethys’ lap
Plough[416] up the furrows of hard-grounded waves,
Enforcèd for to go by Æol’s clap,
Making with sharpest team the water graves;
The ship once past, the trace cannot be found,
Although she diggèd in the water’s ground:
Or as an eagle, with her soaring wings, 11
Scorning the dusty carpet of the earth,
Exempt from all her clogging jesses,[417] flings
Up to the air, to shew her mounting birth;
And every flight doth take a higher pitch,
To have the golden sun her wings enrich;
Yet none can see the passage of her flight,
But only hear her hovering in the sky,
Beating the light wind with her being light,
Or parting through the air where she might fly;
The ear may hear, the eye can never see
What course she takes, or where she means to be:
Or as an arrow which is made to go 12
Through the transparent and cool-blowing air,
Feeding upon the forces of the bow,
Else forceless lies in wanting her repair;
Like as the branches when the tree is lopt,
Wanteth the forces which they forceless cropt;
The arrow, being fed with strongest shot,
Doth part the lowest elemental breath,
Yet never separates the soft air’s knot,
Nor never wounds the still-foot winds to death;
It doth sejoin and join the air together,
Yet none there is can tell or where or whither:
370So are our lives; now they begin, now end, 13
Now live, now die, now born, now fit for grave;
As soon as we have breath, so soon we spend,
Not having that which our content would have:
As ships, as birds, as arrows, all as one,
Even so the traces of our lives are gone:
A thing not seen to go, yet going seen,
And yet not shewing any sign to go;
Even thus the shadows of our lives have been,
Which shew[418] to fade, and yet no virtues shew:
How can a thing consum’d with vice be good?
Or how can falsehood bear true virtue’s food?
Vain hope, to think that wickedness hath bearing 14
When she is drownèd in oblivion’s sea!
Yet can she not forget presumption’s wearing,
Nor yet the badge of vanity’s decay:
Her fruits are cares, her cares are vanities,
Two both in one destruction’s liveries.
Vain hope is like a vane turn’d with each wind;
’Tis like a smoke scatter’d with every storm;
Like dust, sometime before, sometime behind;
Like a thin foam made in the vainest form:
This hope is like to them which never stay,
But comes and goes again all in one day.
View nature’s gifts; some gifts are rich, some poor; 15
Some barren grounds there are, some cloth’d with fruit;
Nor hath all nothing, nor hath all her store;
Nor can all creatures speak, nor are all mute;
All die by nature, being born by nature;
So all change feature, being born with feature.
371This life is hers; this dead, dead is her power,
Her bound[419] begins and ends in mortal state;
Whom she on earth accounteth as her flower
May be in heaven condemn’d of mortal hate;
But he whom virtue judges for to live,
The Lord his life and due reward will give.
The servant of a king may be a king, 16
And he that was a king a servile slave;
Swans before death a funeral dirge do sing,
He that is lowest in this lowly earth
May be the highest in celestial birth.
The rich may be unjust in being rich,
For riches do corrupt and not correct;
The poor may come to highest honour’s pitch,
And have heaven’s crown for mortal life’s respect:
God’s hands shall cover them from all their foes,
God’s arm defend them from misfortune’s blows:
His hand eternity, his arm his force, 17, 18
His armour zealousy, his breast-plate heaven,
His helmet judgment, justice, and remorse,[422]
His shield is victory’s immortal steven;[423]
The world his challenge, and his wrath his sword,
Mischief his foe, his aid his gospel’s word:
His arm doth overthrow his enemy, 19, 20
His breast-plate sin, his helmet death and hell,
His shield prepar’d against mortality,
His sword ’gainst them which in the world do dwell:
So shall vice, sin, and death, world and the devil,
Be slain by him which slayeth every evil.
372All heaven shall be in arms against earth’s world; 21
The sun shall dart forth fire commix’d with blood,
The blazing stars from heaven shall be hurl’d,
The pale-fac’d moon against the ocean-flood;
Then shall the thundering chambers[424] of the sky
Be lighten’d with the blaze of Titan’s eye.
The clouds shall then be bent like bended bows,
To shoot the thundering arrows of the air;
Thick hail and stones shall fall on heaven’s foes,
And Tethys overflow in her despair;
The moon shall overfill her horny hood
With Neptune’s ocean’s overflowing flood.
The wind shall be no longer kept in caves, 22
But burst the iron cages of the clouds;
And Æol shall resign his office-staves,
Suffering the winds to combat with the floods:
So shall the earth with seas be palèd in,
As erst it hath been overflow’d with sin.
Thus shall the earth weep for her wicked sons,
And curse the concave of her tirèd womb,
Into whose hollow mouth the water runs,
Making wet wilderness her driest tomb;
Thus, thus iniquity hath reign’d so long,
That earth on earth is punish’d for her wrong.
Chap. VI.
After this conflict between God and man, 1
Remorse[425] took harbour in God’s angry breast;
Astræa to be pitiful began,
All heavenly powers to lie in mercy’s rest;
Forthwith the voice of God did redescend,
And his Astræa warn’d all to amend.
373To you I speak, quoth she; hear, learn, and mark, 2
You that be kings, judges, and potentates,
Give ear, I say; wisdom, your strongest ark,
Sends me as messenger to end debates;
Give ear, I say, you judges of the earth,
Wisdom is born, seek out for wisdom’s birth.
This heavenly embassage from wisdom’s tongue, 3
Worthy the volume of all heaven’s sky,
I bring as messenger to right your wrong;
If so, her sacred name might never die:
I bring you happy tidings; she is born,
Like golden sunbeams from a silver morn.
The Lord hath seated you in judgment’s seat,
Let wisdom place you in discretion’s places;
Two virtues, one will make one virtue great,
And draw more virtues with attractive faces:
Be just and wise, for God is just and wise;
He thoughts, he words, he words and actions tries.
If you neglect your office’s decrees, 4
Heap new lament on long-toss’d miseries,
Do and undo by reason of degrees,
And drown your sentences in briberies,
Favour and punish, spare and keep in awe,
Set and unset, plant and supplant the law;
O be assur’d there is a judge above, 5
Which will not let injustice flourish long;
If tempt him, you your own temptation move,
Proceeding from the judgment of his tongue:
Hard judgment shall he have which judgeth hard,
And he that barreth others shall be barr’d.
374For God hath no respect of rich from poor, 6
For he hath made the poor and made the rich;
Their bodies be alike, though their minds soar,
Their difference nought but in presumption’s pitch:
The carcass of a king is kept from foul,
The beggar yet may have the cleaner soul.
The highest men do bear the highest minds;
The cedars scorn to bow, the mushrooms bend;
The highest often superstition blinds,
But yet their fall is greatest in the end;
The winds have not such power of the grass,
Because it lowly stoopeth whenas they pass.
The old should teach the young observance’ way, 7
But now the young doth teach the elder grace;
The shrubs do teach the cedars to obey,
These yield to winds, but these the winds out-face:
Yet he that made the winds to cease and blow,
Can make the highest fall, the lowest grow.
He made the great to stoop as well as small, 8
The lions to obey as other beasts;
He cares for all alike, yet cares for all,
And looks that all should answer his behests;
But yet the greater hath the sorer trial,
If once he finds them with his law’s denial.
Be warn’d, you tyrants, at the fall of pride; 9
You see how surges change to quiet calm,
You see both flow and ebb in folly’s tide,
How fingers are infected by their palm:
This may your caveat be, you being kings,
Infect your subjects, which are lesser things.
375Ill scents of vice once crept into the head
Do[426] pierce into the chamber of the brain,
Making the outward skin disease’s bed,
The inward powers as nourishers of pain;
So if that mischief reigns in wisdom’s place,
The inward thought lies figur’d in the face.
Wisdom should clothe herself in king’s attire, 10
Being the portraiture of heaven’s queen;
But tyrants are no kings, but mischief’s mire,
Not sage, but shows of what they should have been;
They seek for vice, and how to go amiss,
But do not once regard what wisdom is.
They which are kings by name are kings by deed,
Both rulers of themselves and of their land;
They know that heaven is virtue’s duest meed,
And holiness is knit in holy band:
These may be rightly callèd by their name,
Whose words and works are blaz’d in wisdom’s flame.
To nurse up cruelty with mild aspèct, 11
Were to begin, but never for to end;
Kindness with tigers never takes effect,
Nor proffer’d friendship with a foelike friend:
Tyrants and tigers have all natural mothers,
Tyrants her sons, tigers the tyrants’ brothers.
No words’ delight can move delight in them,
But rather plough the traces of their ire;
Like swine, that take the dirt before the gem,
And scorn[427] that pearl which they should most desire:
But kings whose names proceed from kindness’ sound
Do plant their hearts and thoughts on wisdom’s ground.
376A grounding ever moist, and never dry, 12
An ever-fruitful earth, no fruitless way,
In whose dear womb the tender springs do lie,
Which ever flow and never ebb[428] away;
The sun but shines by day, she day and night
Doth keep one stayèd essence of her light.
Her beams are conducts to her substance’ view, 13
Her eye is adamant’s attractive force;
A shadow hath she none, but substance true,
Substance outliving life of mortal course:
Her sight is easy unto them which love her,
Her finding easy unto them which prove her.
The far-fet[429] chastity of female sex 14
Is nothing but allurement into lust,
Which will forswear and take, scorn and annex,
Deny and practise it, mistrust and trust:
Wisdom is chaste, and of another kind;
She loves, she likes, and yet not lustful blind.
She is true love, the other love a toy;
Her love hath eyes, the other love is blind;
This doth proceed from God, this from a boy;
This constant is, the other vain-combin’d:
If longing passions follow her desire,
She offereth herself as labour’s hire.
She is not coyish she, won by delay, 15
With sighs and passions, which all lovers use,
With hot affection, death, or life’s decay,
With lovers’ toys, which might their loves excuse:
Wisdom is poor, her dowry is content;
She nothing hath, because she nothing spent.
377She is not woo’d to love, nor won by wooing;
Nor got by labour, nor possess’d by pain;
The gain of her consists in honest doing;
Her gain is great in that she hath no gain:
He that betimes follows repentance’ way
Shall meet with her his virtue’s worthy pay.
To think upon her is to think of bliss, 16
The very thought of her is mischief’s bar,
Depeller of misdeeds which do amiss,
The blot of vanity, misfortune’s scar:
Who would not think, to reap such gain by thought?
Who would not love, when such a life is bought?
If thought be understanding, what is she?
The full perfection of a perfect power,
A heavenly branch from God’s immortal tree,
Which death, nor hell, nor mischief can devour:
Herself is wisdom, and her thought is so;
Thrice happy he which doth desire to know!
She man-like woos, men women-like refuses; 17
She offers love, they offer’d love deny,
And hold her promises as love’s abuses,
Because she pleads with an indifferent eye;
They think that she is light, vain, and unjust,
When she doth plead for love, and not for lust.
Hard-hearted men, quoth she, can you not love?
Behold my substance, cannot substance please?
Behold my feature, cannot feature move?
Can substance nor my feature help or ease?
See heaven’s joy defigur’d in my face,
Can neither heaven nor joy turn you to grace?
378O, how desire sways her pleading tongue, 18
Her tongue her heart, her heart her soul’s affection!
Fain would she make mortality be strong,
But mortal weakness yields rejection:
Her care is care of them, they careless are;
Her love loves them, they neither love nor care.
Fain would she make them clients in her law, 19
Whose law’s assurance is immortal honour;
But them nor words, nor love, nor care can awe,
But still will fight under destruction’s bonner:[430]
Though immortality be their reward,
Yet neither words nor deeds will they regard.
Her tongue is hoarse with pleading, yet doth plead, 20
Pleading for that which they should all desire;
Their appetite is heavy, made of lead,
And lead can never melt without a fire:
Her words are mild, and cannot raise a heat,
Whilst they with hard repulse her speeches beat.
Requested they, for what they should request;
Entreated they, for what they should entreat;
Requested to enjoy their quiet rest,
Entreated like a sullen bird to eat;
Their eyes behold joy’s maker which doth make it,
Yet must they be entreated for to take it.
You whose delight is plac’d in honour’s game, 21
Whose game in majesty’s imperial throne,
Majestic portraitures of earthly fame,
Relievers of the poor in age’s moan;
If your content be seated on a crown,
Love wisdom, and your state shall never down.
379Her crowns are not as earthly diadems,
But diapasons of eternal rest;
Her essence comes not from terrestrial stems,
But planted on the heaven’s immortal breast:
If you delight in sceptres and in reigning,
Delight in her, your crown’s immortal gaining.
Although the shadow[431] of her glorious view 22
Hath been as accessary to your eyes,
Now will I shew you the true substance’ hue,
And what she is, which without knowledge lies;
From whence she is deriv’d, whence her descent,
And whence the lineage of her birth is lent:
Now will I shew the sky, and not the cloud;
The sun, and not the shade; day, not the night;
Tethys herself, not Tethys in her flood;
Light, and not shadow of suppressing light;
Wisdom herself, true type of wisdom’s grace,
Shall be apparent before heart and face.
Had I still fed you with the shade of life, 23
And hid the sun itself in envy’s air,
Myself might well be callèd nature’s strife,
Striving to cloud that which all clouds impair;
But envy, haste thee hence! I loathe thy eye,
Thy love, thy life, thyself, thy company.
Here is the banner of discretion’s name,
Advanc’d on wisdom’s ever-standing tower;
Here is no place for envy or her shame,
For Nemesis, or black Megæra’s power:
He that is envious is not wisdom’s friend;
She ever lives, he dies when envies end.
380Happy, thrice-happy land, where wisdom reigns! 24
Happy, thrice-happy king, whom wisdom sways!
Where never poor laments, or soul[432] complains,
Where folly never keeps discretion’s ways;
That land, that king doth flourish, live, and joy,
Far from ill-fortune’s reach or sin’s annoy.
That land is happy, that king fortunate, 25
She in her days, he in his wisdom’s force;
For fortitude is wisdom’s sociate,
And wisdom truest fortitude’s remorse:
Be therefore rul’d by wisdom, she is chief,
That you may rule in joy, and not in grief.
Chap. VII.
What am I? man; O what is man? O nought! 1
What, am I nought? yes; what? sin and debate:
Three vices all in one, of one life bought:
Man am I not; what then? I am man’s hate:
Yes, man I am; man, because mortal, dead;
Mortality my guide, by mischief led.
Man, because like to man, man, because born;
In birth no man, a child, child, because weak;
Weak, because weaken’d by ill-fortune’s scorn;
Scorn’d, because mortal, mortal, in wrong’s wreak:
My father, like myself, did live on earth;
I, like myself and him, follow his birth.
My mother’s matrice was my body’s maker, 2
There had I this same shape of infamies;
Shape? ah, no shape, but substance mischief’s taker!
In ten months’ fashion; months? ah, miseries!
The shame of shape, the very shape of shame;
Calamity myself, lament my name.
381I was conceiv’d with seed, deceiv’d with sin;
Deceiv’d, because my seed was sin’s deceit;
My seed deceit, because it clos’d me in,
Hemm’d me about, for sin’s and mischief’s bait:
The seed of man did bring me into blood,
And now I bring myself, in what? no good.
When I was born, when I was, then I was; 3
Born? when? yet born I was, but now I bear,
Bear mine own vices, which my joys surpass,
Bear mine own burden full of mischief’s fear:
When I was born, I did not bear lament;
But now unborn, I bear what birth hath spent.
When I was born, my breath was born to me,
The common air which airs my body’s form;
Then fell I on the earth with feeble knee,
Lamenting for my life’s ill-fortune’s storm;
Making myself the index of my woe,
Commencing what I could, ere I could go.
Fed was I with lament, as well as meat; 4
My milk was sweet, but tears did make it sour;
Meat and lament, milk and my tears I eat,
As bitter herbs commix’d with sweetest flower;
Care was my swaddling clothes, as well as cloth,
For I was swaddled[433] and cloth’d in both.
Why do I make myself more than I am? 5
Why say I, I am nourishèd with cares,
When every one is clothèd with the same,
Sith[434] as I fare myself, another fares?
No king hath any other birth than I,
But wail’d his fortune with a watery eye.
382Say, what is mirth? an entrance unto woe; 6
Say, what is woe? an entrance unto mirth;
That which begins with joy doth not end so,
These go by change, because a changing birth:
Our birth is as our death, both barren, bare;
Our entrance wail, our going out with care.
Naked we came into the world, as naked,
We had not wealth nor riches to possess;
Now differ we, which difference riches maked,
Yet in the end we naked ne’ertheless;
As our beginning is, so is our end,
Naked and poor, which needs no wealth to spend.
Thus weighing in the balance of my mind 7
My state, all states, my birth, all births alike,
My meditated passions could not find
One freèd thought which sorrow did not strike;
But knowing every ill is cur’d by prayer,
My mind besought the Lord, my grief’s allayer.
Wherefore I pray’d; my prayer took effect,
And my effect was good, my good was gain;
My gain was sacred wisdom’s bright aspèct,
And her aspèct in my respect did reign;
Wisdom, that heavenly spirit of content,
Was unto me from heaven by prayer sent:
A present far more worthy than a crown, 8
Because the crown of an eternal rest;
A present far more worthy than a throne,
Because the throne of heaven, which makes us blest;
The crown of bliss, the throne of God is she;
Comparèd unto heaven, not, earth, to thee.
383Her footstool is thy face, her face thy shame;
Thy shame her living praise, her praise thy scorn;
Thy scorn her love, her love thy merit’s blame;
Thy blame her worth, her worth thy being born:
Thyself art dross to her comparison;
Thy valour weak unto her garrison.
To liken gold unto her radiant face, 9
Were likening day to night, and night to day,
The king’s high seat to the low subject’s place,
And heaven’s translucent breast to earthly way:
For what is gold? her scorn; her scorn? her ire;
Melting that dross with nought but anger’s fire.
In her respect ’tis dust, in her aspècts
Earth, in respect of her ’tis little gravel;
As dust, as earth, as gravel she rejects
The hope, the gain, the sight, the price, the travel;
Silver, because inferior to the other,
Is clay, which two she in one look doth smother.
Her sight I callèd health, herself my beauty; 10
Health as my life, and beauty as my light;
Each in performance of the other’s duty,
This curing grief, this leading me aright;
Two sovereign eyes, belonging to two places,
This guides the soul, and this the body graces.
The heart-sick soul is cur’d by heart-strong health,
The heart-strong health is the soul’s brightest eye,
The heart-sick body heal’d by beauty’s wealth;
Two sunny windolets of either’s sky,
Whose beams cannot be clouded by reproach,
Nor yet dismounted from so bright a coach.
384What dowry could I wish more than I have? 11
What wealth, what honour, more than I possess?
My soul’s request is mine, which I did crave;
For sole redress in soul I have redress:
The bodily expenses which I spend,
Are[435] lent by her which my delight doth lend.
Then I may call her author of my good,
Sith[436] good and goods are portions for my love;
I love her well; who would not love his food,
His joy’s maintainer, which all woes remove?
I richest am, because I do possess her;
I strongest am, in that none can oppress her.
It made me glad to think that I was rich, 12
More gladder for to think that I was strong;
For lowest minds do covet highest pitch,
As highest braves proceed from lowest tongue:
Her first arrival first did make me glad,
Yet ignorant at first, first made me sad.
Joyful I was, because I saw her power,
Woeful I was, because I knew her not;
Glad that her face was in mine eyes’-lock’d bower,
Sad that my senses never drew her plot:
I knew not that she was discretion’s mother,
Though I profess’d myself to be her brother.
Like a rash wooer feeding on the looks, 13
Disgesting[437] beauty, apparition’s shew,
Viewing the painted outside of the books,
And inward works little regards to know;
So I, feeding my fancies with her sight,
Forgot to make inquiry of her might.
385External powers I knew, riches I had,
Internal powers I scarcely had discern’d;
Unfeignedly I learnèd to be glad,
Feigning I hated, verity I learn’d:
I was not envious-learnèd to forsake her,
But I was loving-learnèd for to take her.
And had I not, my treasure had been lost, 14
My loss my peril’s hazard had proclaim’d,
My peril had my life’s destruction tost,
My life’s destruction at my soul had aim’d:
Great perils hazarded from one poor loss,
As greatest filth doth come with smallest dross.
This righteous treasure whoso rightly useth,
Shall be an heir in heaven’s eternity;
All earthly fruits her heritage excuseth,
All happiness in her felicity:
The love of God consists in her embracing,
The gifts of knowledge in her wisdom’s placing.
I speak as I am prompted by my mind, 15
My soul’s chief agent, pleader of my cause;
I speak these things, and what I speak I find,
By heaven’s judgment, not mine own applause:
God he is judge; I next, because I have her;
God he doth know; I next, because I crave her.
Should I direct, and God subvert my tongue,
I worthy were of an unworthy name,
Unworthy of my right, not of my wrong,
Unworthy of my praise, not of my shame;
But seeing God directs my tongue from missing,
I rather look for clapping than for hissing.
386He is the prompter of my tongue and me, 16
My tongue doth utter what his tongue applies;
He sets before my sight what I should see,
He breathes into my heart his verities;
He tells me what I think, or see, or hear;
His tongue a part, my tongue a part doth bear.
Our words he knows in telling of our hearts,
Our hearts he knows in telling of our words;
All in his hands, words, wisdom, works, and arts,
And every power which influence affords;
He knows what we will speak, what we will do,
And how our minds and actions will go.
The wisdom which I have is heaven’s gift, 17
The knowledge which I have is God’s reward;
Both presents my forewarnèd senses lift,
And of my preservation had regard:
This teaches me to know, this to be wise;
Knowledge is wit’s, and wit is knowledge’ guise.
Now know I how the world was first created, 18
How every motion of the air was fram’d,
How man was made, the devil’s pride abated,
How time’s beginning, midst, and end was nam’d;
Now know I time, time’s change, time’s date, time’s show,
And when the seasons come, and when they go:
I know the changing courses of the years, 19
And the division of all differing climes,
The situation of the stars and spheres,
The flowing tides, and the flow-ebbing times;
I know that every year hath his four courses,
I know that every course hath several forces.
387I know that nature is in every thing, 20
Beasts furious, winds rough, men wicked are,
Whose thoughts their scourge, whose deeds their judgment’s sting,
Whose words and works their peril and their care;
I know that every plant hath difference,
I know that every root hath influence.
True knowledge have I got in knowing truth, 21
True wisdom purchasèd in wisest wit;
A knowledge fitting age, wit fitting youth,
Which makes me young, though old with gain of it:
True knowledge have I, and true wisdom’s store,
True hap, true hope; what wish, what would I more?
Known things I needs must know, sith[438] not unknown,
My care is knowledge, she doth hear for me;
All secrets know I more because not shewn;
My wisdom secret is, and her I see:
Knowledge hath taught me how to hear known causes,
Wisdom hath taught me secrecy’s applauses.
Knowledge and wisdom known in wisest things 22
Is reason’s mate, discretion’s sentinel;
More than a trine of joys from virtues springs,
More than one union, yet in union dwell:
One for to guide the spring, summer the other;
One harvest’s nurse, the other winter’s mother.
Four mounts and four high mounters, all four one, 23
One holy union, one begotten life,
One manifold affection, yet alone,
All one in peace’s rest, all none in strife;
Sure, stable, without care, having all power,
Not hurtful, doing good, as one all four.
388This peaceful army of four-knitted souls 24
Is marching unto peace’s endless war,
Their weapons are discretion’s written rolls,
Their quarrel love, and amity their jar:
Wisdom director is, captain and guide;
All other take their places side by side.
Wisdom divides the conflict of her peace
Into four squadrons of four mutual loves;
Each bent to war, and never means to cease;
Her wings of shot her disputation moves:
She wars unseen, and pacifies unseen;
She is war’s victory, yet peace’s queen.
She is the martial trumpet of alarms, 25
And yet the quiet rest in peace’s night;
She guideth martial troops, she honours arms,
Yet joins she fight with peace, and peace with fight;
She is the breath of God’s and heaven’s power,
Yet peace’s nurse in being peace’s flower.
A flowing in of that which ebbeth out,
An ebbing out of that which floweth in;
Presumption she doth hate in being stout,
Humility, though poor, her favours win:
She is the influence of heaven’s flow;
No filth doth follow her where’er she go.
She is that spring which never hath an ebb, 26
That silver-colour’d brook which hath no mud,
That loom which weaves and never cuts the web,
That tree which grows and never leaves to bud:
She constant is, inconstancy her foe;
She doth not flow and ebb, nor come and go.
389Phœbus doth weep when watery clouds approach,
She keeps her brightness everlastingly;
Phœbe, when Phœbus shines, forsakes night’s coach,
Her day is night and day immortally;
The undefilèd mirror of renown,
The image of God’s power, her virtue’s crown.
Discretion, knowledge, wit, and reason’s skill, 27
All four are places in one only grace;
They wisdom are, obedient to her will,
All four are one, one in all four’s place;
And wisdom being one, she can do all,
Sith[439] one hath four, all subject to one call.
Herself remaining self, the world renews, 28
Renewing ages with perpetual youth,
Entering into the souls which death pursues,
Making them God’s friends which were friends to truth:
If wisdom doth not harbour in thy mind,
God loves thee not, and that thy soul shall find.
For how canst thou be led without thy light? 29
How can thy eyeless soul direct her way,
If wanting her which guides thy steps aright,
Thy steps from night into a path of day?
More beautiful then is the eye of heaven,
Gilding herself with her self-changing steven.[440]
The stars are twinkling handmaids to the moon, 30
Both moon and stars handmaids to wisdom’s sun;
These shine at middest night, this at midnoon,
Each new-begins their light when each hath done;
Pale-mantled night follows red-mantled day,
Vice follows both, but to her own decay.
390Chap. VIII.
Who is the empress of the world’s confine, 1
The monarchess of the four-corner’d earth,
The princess of the seas, life without fine,
Commixer of delight with sorrow’s mirth?
What sovereign is she which ever reigns,
Which queen-like governs all, yet none constrains?
Wisdom; O fly, my spirit, with that word!
Wisdom; O lodge, my spirit, in that name!
Fly, soul, unto the mansion of her lord,
Although thy wings be singèd in her flame:
Tell her my blackness doth admire her beauty;
I’ll marry her in love, serve her in duty.
If marry her, God is my father God, 2
Christ is my brother, angels are my kin,
The earth my dowry, heaven my abode,
My rule the world, my life without my sin:
She is the daughter of immortal Jove;
My wife in heart, in thought, in soul, in love.
Happy for ever he that thought in heart,
Happy for ever he that heart in thought;
Happy the soul of both which bears both part,
Happy that love which thought, heart, soul hath sought:
The name of love is happiest, for I love her;
Soul, heart, and thoughts, love’s agents are to prove her.
Ye parents, that would have your children rul’d, 3
Here may they be instructed, rul’d, and taught;
Ye children, that would have your parents school’d,
Feeding their wanton thirst with folly’s draught,
See here the school of discipline erected!
See here how young and old are both corrected!
391Children, this is the mistress of your bliss,
Your schoolmistress, reformer of your lives;
Parents, you that do speak, think, do amiss,
Here’s she which love’s and life’s direction gives;
She teacheth that which God knows to be true,
She chooseth that which God would choose for you.
What is our birth? poor, naked, needy, cold; 4
What is our life? poor as our birth hath been;
What is our age? forlorn in being old;
What is our end? as our beginning’s scene:
Our birth, our life, our age, our end is poor;
What birth, what life, what age, what end hath more?
Made rich it is with vanity’s vain show;
If wanting wisdom, it is folly’s game;
Or like a bended or unbended bow,
Ill fortune’s scoff it is, good fortune’s shame:
If wisdom be the riches of thy mind,
Then can thy fortune see, not seeing, blind.
Then if good fortune doth begin thy state, 5
Ill fortune cannot end what she begins;
Thy fate at first will still remain thy fate,
Thy conduct unto joys, not unto sins:
If thou the bridegroom art, wisdom the bride,
Ill fortune cannot swim against thy tide.
Thou marrying her dost marry more than she, 6
Thy portion is not faculties, but bliss;
Thou need’st not teaching, for she teacheth thee,
Nor no reformer, she thy mistress is;
The lesson which she gives thee for thy learning
Is every virtue’s love, and sin’s discerning.
392Dost thou desire experience for to know? 7
Why, how can she be less than what she is?
The growth of knowledge doth from wisdom grow,
The growth of wisdom is in knowing this:
Wisdom can tell all things, what things are past,
What done, what undone, what are doing last:
Nay, more, what things are come, what are to come,
Or words, or works, or shews, or actions,
In her brain’s table-book[441] she hath the sum,
And knows dark sentences’ solutions;
She knows what signs and wonders will ensue,
And when success of seasons will be new.
Who would not be a bridegroom? who not wed? 8
Who would not have a bride so wise, so fair?
Who would not lie in such a peaceful bed,
Whose canopy is heaven, whose shade the air?
How can it be that any of the skies
Can there be missing, where heaven’s kingdom lies?
If care-sick, I am comforted with joy;
If surfeiting on joy, she bids me care;
She says that overmuch will soon annoy,
Too much of joy, too much of sorrow’s fare:
She always counsels me to keep a mean,
And not with joy too fat, with grief too lean.
Fain would the shrub grow by the highest tree, 9
Fain would the mushroom kiss the cedar’s bark,
Fain would the seely[442] worm a-sporting be,
Fain would the sparrow imitate the lark:
Though I a tender shrub, a mushroom be,
Yet covet I the honour of a tree.
393And may I not? may not the blossoms bud?
Doth not the little seed make ears of corn?
Doth not a sprig, in time, bear greatest wood?
Do[443] not young evenings make an elder morn?
For wisdom’s sake, I know, though I be young,
I shall have praises from my elders’ tongue.
And as my growth doth rise, so shall my wit, 10
And as my wit doth rise, so shall my growth;
In wit I grow, both growths grow to be fit,
Both fitting in one growth be fittest both:
Experience follows age, and nature youth;
Some agèd be in wit, though young in ruth.
The wisdom which I have springs from above,
The wisdom from above is that I have;
Her I adore, I reverence, I love,
She’s my pure soul, lock’d in my body’s grave;
The judgment which I use from her proceeds,
Which makes me marvell’d at in all my deeds.
Although mute silence tie my judgment’s tongue, 11
Sad secretary of dumb action,
Yet shall they give me place, though I be young,
And stay my leisure’s satisfaction;
Even as a judge, which keeps his judgments mute,
When clients have no answer of their suit.
But if the closure of my mouth unmeets,
And dives within the freedom of my words,
They like petitioners’ tongues welcome greets,
And with attentive ear hears my accords;
But if my words into no limits go,
Their speech shall ebb, mine in their ebbing flow.
394And what of this vain world, vain hope, vain shew, 12
Vain glory seated in a shade of praise,
Mortality’s descent and folly’s flow,
The badge of vanity, the hour of days;
What glory is it for to be a king,
When care is crown, and crown is fortune’s sling?
Wisdom is immortality’s alline,[444]
And immortality is wisdom’s gain,
By her the heaven’s lineage is mine,
By her I immortality obtain;
The earth is made immortal in my name,
The heavens are made immortal in my fame.
Two spacious orbs of two as spacious climes 13
Shall be the heritage which I possess;
My rule in heaven, directing earthly times,
My reign in earth, commencing earth’s redress;
One king made two, one crown a double crown,
One rule two rules, one fame a twice renown.
What heaven is this, which every thought contains? 14
Wisdom my heaven, my heaven is wisdom’s heaven;
What earth is this, wherein my body reigns?
Wisdom my earth, all rule from wisdom given;
Through her I rule, through her I do subdue,
Through her I reign, through her my empire grew.
A rule, not tyranny, a reign, not blood, 15
An empire, not a slaughter-house of lives,
A crown, not cruelty in fury’s mood,
A sceptre which restores, and not deprives;
All made to make a peace, and not a war,
By wisdom, concord’s queen and discord’s bar.
395The coldest word oft cools the hottest threat,
The tyrant’s menaces the calms of peace;
Two colds augmenteth one, two heats one heat,
And makes both too extreme when both increase:
My peaceful reign shall conquer tyrants’ force,
Not arms, but words, not battle, but remorse.[445]
Yet mighty shall I be, though war in peace, 16
Strong, though ability hath left his clime,
And good, because my wars and battles cease,
Or, at the least, lie smother’d in their prime:
The fence once diggèd up with fear’s amaze,
Doth rage untam’d with folly’s fenceless gaze.
If wisdom doth not harbour in delight,
It breaks the outward passage of the mind;
Therefore I place my war in wisdom’s might,
Whose heavy labours easy harbours find;
Her company is pleasure, mirth, and joy,
Not bitterness, not mourning, not annoy.
When every thought was balancèd by weight 17
Within the concave of my body’s scale,
My heart and soul did hold the balance straight,
To see what thought was joy, what thought was wail;
But when I saw that grief did weigh down pleasure,
I put in wisdom to augment her treasure:
Wisdom, the weight of immortality; 18
Wisdom, the balance of all happiness;
Wisdom, the weigher of felicity;
Wisdom, the paragon of blessedness;
When in her hands there lies such plenty’s store,
Needs must her heart have twice as much and more.
396Her heart have I conjoinèd with her hand, 19
Her hand hath she conjoinèd with my heart,
Two souls one soul, two hearts one body’s band,
And two hands made of four, by amour’s art:
Was I not wise in choosing earthly life?
Nay, wise, thrice wise, in choosing such a wife?
Was I not good? good, then the sooner bad; 20
Bad, because earth is full of wickedness,
Because my body is with vices clad,
Anatomy of my sin’s heaviness:
As doth unseemly clothes make the skin foul,
So the sin-inkèd body blots the soul.
Thus lay my heart plung’d in destruction’s mire, 21
Thus lay my soul bespotted with my sin,
Thus lay myself consum’d in my desire,
Thus lay all parts ensnarèd in one gin;
At last my heart, mounting above the mud,
Lay between hope and death, mischief and good.
Thus panting, ignorant to live or die,
To rise or fall, to stand or else to sink,
I cast a fainting look unto the sky,
And saw the thought which my poor heart did think;
Wisdom my thought, at whose seen sight I pray’d,
And with my heart, my mind, my soul, I said:
Chap. IX.
O God of fathers, Lord of heaven and earth, 1, 2
Mercy’s true sovereign, pity’s portraiture,
King of all kings, a birth surpassing birth,
A life immortal, essence ever pure,
Which with a breath ascending from thy thought,
Hast made the heavens of earth, the earth of nought!
397Thou which hast made mortality for man, 3
Beginning life to make an end of woe,
Ending in him what in himself began,
His earth’s dominion through thy wisdom’s flow;
Made for to rule according to desert,
And execute revenge with upright heart;
Behold a crown, but yet a crown of care, 4
Behold a sceptre, yet a sorrow’s guise,
More than the balance of my head can bear,
More than my hands can hold, wherein it lies;
My crown doth want supportance for to bear,
My sceptre wanteth empire for to wear.
A legless body is my kingdom’s map,
Limping in folly, halting in distress;
Give me thy wisdom, Lord, my better hap,
Which may my folly cure, my grief redress;
O let me not fall in oblivion’s cave!
Let wisdom be my bail, for her I crave.
Behold thy servant pleading for his hire, 5
As an apprentice to thy gospel’s word!
Behold his poor estate, his hot-cold fire,
His weak-strong limbs, his merry woes’ record!
Born of a woman, woman-like in woe,
They weak, they feeble are, and I am so.
My time of life is as an hour of day,
’Tis as a day of months, a month of years;
It never comes again, but fades away,
As one morn’s sun about the hemispheres:
Little my memory, lesser my time,
But least of all my understanding’s prime.
398Say that my memory should never die, 6
Say that my time should never lose a glide,
Say that myself had earthly majesty,
Seated in all the glory of my pride;
Yet if discretion did not rule my mind,
My reign would be like fortune’s, folly-blind:
My memory a pathway to my shame,
My time the looking-glass of my disgrace,
Myself resemblance of my scornèd name,
My pride the puffèd shadow of my face:
Thus should I be remember’d, not regarded;
Thus should my labours end, but not rewarded.
What were it to be shadow of a king? 7
A vanity; to wear a shadow’d crown?
A vanity; to love an outward thing?
A vanity; vain shadows of renown:
This king is king of shades, because a shade,
A king in show, though not in action made.
His shape have I, his cognizance[446] I wear,
A smoky vapour hemm’d with vanity;
Himself I am, his kingdom’s crown I bear,
Unless that wisdom change my livery:
A king I am, God hath inflamèd me,
And lesser than I am I cannot be.
When I command, the people do obey, 8
Submissive subjects to my votive will;
A prince I am, and do what princes may,
Decree, command, rule, judge, perform, fulfil;
Yet I myself am subject unto God,
As are all others to my judgment’s rod.
399As do my subject[s] honour my command,
So I at his command a subject am;
I build a temple on mount Sion’s sand,
Erect an altar in thy city’s name;
Resemblances these are where thou dost dwell,
Made when thou framed’st heaven, earth, and hell.
All these three casements were contain’d in wit; 9
’Twas wisdom for to frame the heaven’s sky,
’Twas wisdom for to make the earth so fit,
And hell within the lowest orb to lie,
To make a heavenly clime, an earthly course,
And hell, although the name of it be worse.
Before the world was made wisdom was born,
Born of heaven’s God, conceivèd in his breast,
Which knew what works would be, what ages worn,
What labours life should have, what quiet rest,
What should displease and please, in vice, in good,
What should be clearest spring, what foulest mud.
O make my sinful body’s world anew, 10
Erect new elements, new airs, new skies!
The time I have is frail, the course untrue,
The globe unconstant, like ill fortune’s eyes:
First make the world, which doth my soul contain,
And next my wisdom, in whose power I reign.
Illumine earth with wisdom’s heavenly sight,
Make her ambassador to grace the earth;
O let her rest by day and lodge by night
Within the closure of my body’s hearth!
That in her sacred self I may perceive
What things are good to take, what ill to leave.
400The body’s heat will flow into the face, 11
The outward index of an outward deed;
The inward sins do keep an inward place,
Eyes, face, mouth, tongue, and every function feed:
She is my face; if I do any ill,
I see my shame in her repugnant will.
She is my glass, my type, my form, my map,
The figure of my deed, shape of my thought,
My life’s charàcter, fortune to my hap,
Which understandeth all that heart hath wrought;
What works I take in hand she finisheth,
And all my vicious thoughts diminisheth.
My facts are written in her forehead’s book, 12
The volume of my thoughts, lines of my words;
The sins I have she murders with a look,
And what one cheek denies, th’ other affords;
As white and red, like battles and retreats,
One doth defend the blows, the other beats:
So is her furious mood commix’d with smile,
Her rod is profit, her correction mirth;
She makes me keep an acceptable style,
And govern every limit of the earth:
Through her the state of monarchy is known,
Through her I rule, and guide my father’s throne.
Mortality itself, without repair, 13
Is ever falling feebly on the ground;
Submissive body, heart above the air,
Which fain would know, when knowledge is not found;
Fain would it soar above the eagle’s eye,
Though it be made of lead, and cannot fly.
401The soul and body are the wings of man;
The soul should mount, but that lies drown’d in sin,
With leaden spirit, but doth what it can,
Yet scarcely can it rise when it is in;
Then how can man so weak know God so strong?
What heart from thought, what thought from heart hath sprung?
We think that every judgment is alike, 14
That every purpose hath one final end;
Our thoughts, alas! are fears, fears horrors strike,
Horrors our life’s uncertain course do spend;
Fear follows negligence, both death and hell;
Unconstant are the paths wherein we dwell.
The hollow concave of our body’s vaults 15
Once laden up with sin’s eternal graves,
Straight bursts into the soul the slime of faults,
And overfloweth like a sea of waves;
The earth, as neighbour to our privy thought,
Keeps fast the mansion which our cares have bought.
Say, can we see ourselves? are we so wise? 16
Or can we judge our own with our own hearts?
Alas, we cannot! folly blinds our eyes,
Mischief our minds, with her mischievous arts:
Folly reigns there where wisdom should bear sway,
And folly’s mischief bars discretion’s way.
O weak capacity of strongest wit!
O strong capacity of weaker sense!
To guide, to meditate, unapt, unfit,
Blind in perceiving earth’s circumfluence:
If labour doth consist in mortal skill,
’Tis greater labour to know heaven’s will.
402The toiling spirit of a labouring man 17
Is toss’d in casualties of fortune’s seas;
He thinks it greater labour than he can,
To run his mortal course without an ease:
Then who can gain or find celestial things,
Unless their hope[447] a greater labour brings?
What volume of thy mind can then contain
Thoughts, words, and works, which God thinks, speaks, and makes,
When heaven itself cannot such honour gain,
Nor angels know the counsel which God takes?
Yet if thy heart be wisdom’s mansion,
Thy soul shall gain thy heart’s made mention.
Who can in one day’s space make two day’s toil? 18
Or who in two days’ space will spend but one?
The one doth keep his mean in overbroil,
The other under mean, because alone:
Say, what is man without his spirit sways him?
Say, what’s the spirit if the man decays him?
An ill-reformèd breath, a life, a hell,
A going out worse than a coming in;
For wisdom is the body’s sentinel,
Set to guard life, which else would fall in sin;
She doth correct and love, sways and preserves,
Teaches and favours, rules and yet observes.
Chap. X.
Correction follows love, love follows hate,1
For love in hate is hate in too much love;
So chastisement is preservation’s mate,
Instructing and preserving those we prove:
So wisdom first corrects, then favoureth,
But fortune favours first, then wavereth.
403First, the first father of this earthly world,
First man, first father call’d for after-time,
Unfashionèd and like a heap was hurl’d,
Form’d and reform’d by wisdom out of slime;
By nature ill reform’d, by wisdom purer,
She mortal life, she better life’s procurer.