Volume III Part 5 (1/2)
Hero, in sacred habit deckt, Doth private sacrifice effect.
Her scarf's description, wrought by Fate; Ostents that threaten her estate; The strange, yet physical, events, Leander's counterfeit[70] presents.
In thunder Cyprides descends, Presaging both the lovers' ends: Ecte, the G.o.ddess of remorse, With vocal and articulate force 10 Inspires Leucote, Venus' swan, T' excuse the Beauteous Sestian.
Venus, to wreak her rites' abuses, Creates the monster Eronusis, Inflaming Hero's sacrifice With lightning darted from her eyes; And thereof springs the painted beast That ever since taints every breast.
Now from Leander's place she rose, and found Her hair and rent robe scatter'd on the ground; Which taking up, she every piece did lay Upon an altar, where in youth of day She us'd t' exhibit private sacrifice: Those would she offer to the deities Of her fair G.o.ddess and her powerful son, As relics of her late-felt pa.s.sion; And in that holy sort she vow'd to end them, In hope her violent fancies, that did rend them, 10 Would as quite fade in her love's holy fire, As they should in the flames she meant t' inspire.
Then put she on all her religious weeds, That decked her in her secret sacred deeds; A crown of icicles, that sun nor fire Could ever melt, and figur'd chaste desire; A golden star s.h.i.+ned in her naked breast, In honour of the queen-light of the east.
In her right hand she held a silver wand, On whose bright top Peristera did stand. 20 Who was a nymph, but now transformed a dove, And in her life was dear in Venus' love; And for her sake she ever since that time Choosed doves to draw her coach through heaven's blue clime.
Her plenteous hair in curled billows swims On her bright shoulder: her harmonious limbs Sustained no more but a most subtile veil, That hung on them, as it durst not a.s.sail Their different concord; for the weakest air Could raise it swelling from her beauties fair; 30 Nor did it cover, but adumbrate only Her most heart-piercing parts, that a blest eye Might see, as it did shadow, fearfully, All that all-love-deserving paradise: It was as blue as the most freezing skies; Near the sea's hue, for thence her G.o.ddess came: On it a scarf she wore of wondrous frame; In midst whereof she wrought a virgin's face, From whose each cheek a fiery blush did chase Two crimson flames, that did two ways extend, 40 Spreading the ample scarf to either end; Which figur'd the division of her mind, Whiles yet she rested bashfully inclin'd, And stood not resolute to wed Leander; This serv'd her white neck for a purple sphere, And cast itself at full breadth down her back: There, since the first breath that begun the wrack Of her free quiet from Leander's lips, She wrought a sea, in one flame, full of s.h.i.+ps; But that one s.h.i.+p where all her wealth did pa.s.s, 50 Like simple merchants' goods, Leander was; For in that sea she naked figured him; Her diving needle taught him how to swim, And to each thread did such resemblance give, For joy to be so like him it did live: Things senseless live by art, and rational die By rude contempt of art and industry.
Scarce could she work, but, in her strength of thought, She fear'd she p.r.i.c.k'd Leander as she wrought,[71]
And oft would shriek so, that her guardian, frighted, 60 Would startling haste, as with some mischief cited: They double life that dead things' griefs sustain; They kill that feel not their friends' living pain.
Sometimes she fear'd he sought her infamy; And then, as she was working of his eye, She thought to p.r.i.c.k it out to quench her ill; But, as she p.r.i.c.k'd, it grew more perfect still: Trifling attempts no serious acts advance; The fire of love is blown by dalliance.
In working his fair neck she did so grace it, 70 She still was working her own arms t' embrace it: That, and his shoulders, and his hands were seen Above the stream; and with a pure sea-green She did so quaintly shadow every limb, All might be seen beneath the waves to swim.
In this conceited scarf she wrought beside A moon in change, and shooting stars did glide In number after her with b.l.o.o.d.y beams; Which figur'd her affects[72] in their extremes, Pursuing nature in her Cynthian body, 80 And did her thoughts running on change imply; For maids take more delight, when they prepare, And think of wives' states, than when wives they are.
Beneath all these she wrought a fisherman,[73]
Drawing his nets from forth the ocean; Who drew so hard, ye might discover well The toughen'd sinews in his neck did swell: His inward strains drave out his blood-shot eyes, And springs of sweat did in his forehead rise; Yet was of naught but of a serpent sped, 90 That in his bosom flew and stung him dead: And this by Fate into her mind was sent, Not wrought by mere instinct of her intent.
At the scarf's other end her hand did frame, Near the fork'd point of the divided flame, A country virgin keeping of a vine, Who did of hollow bulrushes combine Snares for the stubble-loving gra.s.shopper, And by her lay her scrip that nourish'd her.
Within a myrtle shade she sate and sung; 100 And tufts of waving reeds above her sprung, Where lurked two foxes, that, while she applied Her trifling snares, their thieveries did divide, One to the vine, another to her scrip, That she did negligently overslip; By which her fruitful vine and wholesome fare She suffered spoiled to make a childish snare.
These ominous fancies did her soul express, And every finger made a prophetess, To show what death was hid in love's disguise, 110 And make her judgment conquer Destinies.
O, what sweet forms fair ladies' souls do shroud, Were they made seen and forced through their blood; If through their beauties, like rich work through lawn, They would set forth their minds with virtues drawn, In letting graces from their fingers fly, To still their eyas[74] thoughts with industry; That their plied wits in numbered silks might sing Pa.s.sion's huge conquest, and their needles[75] leading Affection prisoner through their own-built cities, 120 Pinioned with stones and Arachnean ditties.
Proceed we now with Hero's sacrifice: She odours burned, and from their smoke did rise Unsavoury fumes, that air with plagues inspired; And then the consecrated sticks she fired.
On whose pale flames an angry spirit flew, And beat it down still as it upward grew; The virgin tapers that on th' altar stood, When she inflam'd them, burned as red as blood;[76]
All sad ostents of that too near success,[77] 130 That made such moving beauties motionless.
Then Hero wept; but her affrighted eyes She quickly wrested from the sacrifice, Shut them, and inwards for Leander looked, Search'd her soft bosom, and from thence she plucked His lovely picture; which when she had viewed, Her beauties were with all love's joys renewed; The odours sweeten'd, and the fires burned clear, Leander's form left no ill object there: Such was his beauty, that the force of light, 140 Whose knowledge teacheth wonders infinite, The strength of number and proportion, Nature had placed in it to make it known, Art was her daughter, and what human wits For study lost, entombed in drossy spirits.
After this accident (which for her glory Hero could not but make a history), Th' inhabitants of Sestos and Abydos Did every year, with feasts propitious, To fair Leander's picture sacrifice: 150 And they were persons of especial price That were allowed it, as an ornament T' enrich their houses, for the continent Of the strange virtues all approved it held; For even the very look of it repelled All blastings, witchcrafts, and the strifes of nature In those diseases that no herbs could cure; The wolfy sting of avarice it would pull, And make the rankest miser bountiful; It kill'd the fear of thunder and of death; 160 The discords that conceit engendereth 'Twixt man and wife, it for the time would cease; The flames of love it quench'd, and would increase; Held in a prince's hand, it would put out The dreadful'st comet; it would ease[78] all doubt Of threaten'd mischiefs; it would bring asleep Such as were mad; it would enforce to weep Most barbarous eyes; and many more effects This picture wrought, and sprung[79] Leandrian[80] sects; Of which was Hero first; for he whose form, 170 Held in her hand, clear'd such a fatal storm, From h.e.l.l she thought his person would defend her, Which night and h.e.l.lespont would quickly send her.
With this confirm'd, she vow'd to banish quite All thought of any check to her delight; And, in contempt of silly bashfulness, She would the faith of her desires profess, Where her religion should be policy, To follow love with zeal her piety; Her chamber her cathedral-church should be, 180 And her Leander her chief deity; For in her love these did the G.o.ds forego; And though her knowledge did not teach her so, Yet did it teach her this, that what her heart Did greatest hold in her self-greatest part, That she did make her G.o.d; and 'twas less naught To leave G.o.ds in profession and in thought, Than in her love and life; for therein lies Most of her duties and their dignities; And, rail the brain-bald world at what it will, 190 That's the grand atheism that reigns in it still.
Yet singularity she would use no more, For she was singular too much before; But she would please the world with fair pretext: Love would not leave her conscience perplext: Great men that will have less do for them, still Must bear them out, though th' acts be ne'er so ill; Meanness must pander be to Excellence; Pleasure atones Falsehood and Conscience: Dissembling was the worst, thought Hero then, 200 And that was best, now she must live with men.
O virtuous love, that taught her to do best When she did worst, and when she thought it least!
Thus would she still proceed in works divine, And in her sacred state of priesthood s.h.i.+ne, Handling the holy rites with hands as bold, As if therein she did Jove's thunder hold, And need not fear those menaces of error, Which she at others threw with greatest terror.
O lovely Hero, nothing is thy sin, 210 Weigh'd with those foul faults other priests are in!
That having neither faiths, nor works, nor beauties, T' engender any 'scuse for slubbered[81] duties, With as much countenance fill their holy chairs, And sweat denouncements 'gainst profane affairs, As if their lives were cut out by their places, And they the only fathers of the graces.
Now, as with settled mind she did repair Her thoughts to sacrifice her ravished hair And her torn robe, which on the altar lay, 220 And only for religion's fire did stay, She heard a thunder by the Cyclops beaten, In such a volley as the world did threaten, Given Venus as she parted th' airy sphere, Descending now to chide with Hero here: When suddenly the G.o.ddess' waggoners, The swans and turtles that, in coupled pheres,[82]
Through all worlds' bosoms draw her influence, Lighted in Hero's window, and from thence To her fair shoulders flew the gentle doves,-- 230 Graceful _aedone_[83] that sweet pleasure loves, And ruff-foot Chreste[84] with the tufted crown; Both which did kiss her, though their G.o.ddess frown.
The swans did in the solid flood, her gla.s.s, Proin[85] their fair plumes; of which the fairest was Jove-lov'd Leucote,[86] that pure brightness is; The other bounty-loving Dapsilis.[87]
All were in heaven, now they with Hero were: But Venus' looks brought wrath, and urged fear.
Her robe was scarlet; black her head's attire: 240 And through her naked breast s.h.i.+n'd streams of fire, As when the rarified air is driven In flas.h.i.+ng streams, and opes the darken'd heaven.
In her white hand a wreath of yew she bore; And, breaking th' icy wreath sweet Hero wore, She forc'd about her brows her wreath of yew, And said, ”Now, minion, to thy fate be true, Though not to me; endure what this portends: Begin where lightness will, in shame it ends.
Love makes thee cunning; thou art current now, 250 By being counterfeit: thy broken vow Deceit with her pied garters must rejoin, And with her stamp thou countenances must coin; Coyness, and pure[88] deceits, for purities, And still a maid wilt seem in cozen'd eyes, And have an antic face to laugh within, While thy smooth looks make men digest thy sin.