Near bliss, and yet not blessed before my death.
Farewell! but take me dying in your arms;
'Tis all I can enjoy of all your charms:
This hand I cannot but in death resign;
Ah, could I live! but while I live 'tis mine.
I feel my end approach, and thus embraced
Am pleased to die; but hear me speak my last:
Ah, my sweet foe! for you, and you alone,
I broke my faith with injured Palamon.
But love the sense of right and wrong confounds;
Strong love and proud ambition have no bounds.
And much I doubt, should Heaven my life prolong,
I should return to justify my wrong;
For while my former flames remain within,
Repentance is but want of power to sin.
With mortal hatred I pursued his life,
Nor he nor you were guilty of the strife;
Nor I, but as I loved; yet all combined,
Your beauty and my impotence of mind,
And his concurrent flame that blew my fire,
For still our kindred souls had one desire.
He had a moment's right in point of time;
Had I seen first, then his had been the crime.
Fate made it mine, and justified his right;
Nor holds this earth a more deserving knight
For virtue, valour, and for noble blood,
Truth, honour, all that is comprised in good;
So help me Heaven, in all the world is none
So worthy to be loved as Palamon.
He loves you too, with such a holy fire,
As will not, cannot, but with life expire:
Our vowed affections both have often tried,
Nor any love but yours could ours divide.
Then, by my love's inviolable band,
By my long suffering and my short command,
If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone,
Have pity on the faithful Palamon."
This was his last; for Death came on amain,
And exercised below his iron reign;
Then upward to the seat of life he goes;
Sense fled before him, what he touched he froze:
Yet could he not his closing eyes withdraw,
Though less and less of Emily he saw;
So, speechless, for a little space he lay;
Then grasped the hand he held, and sighed his soul away.
But whither went his soul? let such relate
Who search the secrets of the future state:
Divines can say but what themselves believe;
Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative;
For, were all plain, then all sides must agree,
And faith itself be lost in certainty.
To live uprightly then is sure the best;
To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest.
The soul of Arcite went where heathens go,
Who better live than we, though less they know.
In Palamon a manly grief appears;
Silent he wept, ashamed to show his tears.
Emilia shrieked but once; and then, opprest
With sorrow, sunk upon her lover's breast:
Till Theseus in his arms conveyed with care
Far from so sad a sight the swooning fair.
'Twere loss of time her sorrow to relate;
Ill bears the sex a youthful lover's fate,
When just approaching to the nuptial state:
But, like a low-hung cloud, it rains so fast,
That all at once it falls, and cannot last.
The face of things is changed, and Athens now
That laughed so late, becomes the scene of woe.
Matrons and maids, both sexes, every state,
With tears lament the knight's untimely fate.
Not greater grief in falling Troy was seen
For Hector's death; but Hector was not then.
Old men with dust deformed their hoary hair;
The women beat their breasts, their cheeks they tear.
"Why wouldst thou go," with one consent they cry,
When thou hadst gold enough, and Emily?"
Theseus himself, who should have cheered the grief
Of others, wanted now the same relief:
Old Ageus only could revive his son,
Who various changes of the world had known,
And strange vicissitudes of human fate,
Still altering, never in a steady state:
Good after ill and after pain delight,
Alternate, like the scenes of day and night.
Since every man who lives is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,
Nor joy, nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend;
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.
Even kings but play, and when their part is done,
Some other, worse or better, mount the throne.
With words like these the crowd was satisfied;
And so they would have been, had Theseus died.
But he, their King, was labouring in his mind
A fitting place for funeral pomps to find,
Which were in honour of the dead designed.
And, after long debate, at last he found
(As Love itself had marked the spot of ground,)
That grove for ever green, that conscious laund,
Where he with Palamon fought hand to hand;
That, where he fed his amorous desires
With soft complaints, and felt his hottest fires,
There other flames might waste his earthly part,
And burn his limbs, where love had burned his heart.
This once resolved, the peasants were enjoined
Sere-wood, and firs, and doddered oaks to find.
With sounding axes to the grove they go,
Fell, split, and lay the fuel in a row;
Vulcanian food: a bier is next prepared,
On which the lifeless body should be reared,
Covered with cloth of gold; on which was laid
The corps of Arcite, in like robes arrayed.
White gloves were on his hands, and on his head
A wreath of laurel, mixed with myrtle, spread.
A sword keen-edged within his right he held,
The warlike emblem of the conquered field:
Bare was his manly visage on the bier;
Menaced his countenance, even in death severe.
Then to the palace-hall they bore the knight,
To lie in solemn state, a public sight:
Groans, cries, and bowlings fill the crowded place,
And unaffected sorrow sat on every face.
Sad Palamon above the rest appears,
In sable garments, dewed with gushing tears;
His auburn locks on either shoulder flowed,
Which to the funeral of his friend he vowed;
But Emily, as chief, was next his side,
A virgin-widow and a mourning bride.
And, that the princely obsequies might be
Performed according to his high degree,
The steed, that bore him living to the fight,
Was trapped with polished steel, all shining bright,
And covered with the atchievements of the knight.
The riders rode abreast; and one his shield,
His lance of cornel-wood another held;
The third his bow, and, glorious to behold,
The costly quiver, all of burnished gold.
The noblest of the Grecians next appear,
And weeping on their shoulders bore the bier;
With sober pace they marched, and often stayed,
And through the master-street the corps conveyed.
The houses to their tops with black were spread,
And even the pavements were with mourning hid.
The right side of the pall old Ageus kept,
And on the left the royal Theseus wept;
Each bore a golden bowl of work divine,
With honey filled, and milk, and mixed with ruddy wine.
Then Palamon, the kinsman of the slain,
And after him appeared the illustrious train.
To grace the pomp came Emily the bright,
With covered fire, the funeral pile to light.
With high devotion was the service made,
And all the rites of pagan honour paid:
So lofty was the pile, a Parthian bow,
With vigour drawn, must send the shaft below.
The bottom was full twenty fathom broad,
With crackling straw, beneath in due proportion strowed.
The fabric seemed a wood of rising green,
With sulphur and bitumen cast between
To feed the flames: the trees were unctuous fir,
And mountain-ash, the mother of the spear;
The mourner-yew and builder-oak were there,
The beech, the swimming alder, and the plane,
Hard box, and linden of a softer grain,
And laurels, which the gods for conquering chiefs ordain.
How they were ranked shall rest untold by me,
With nameless Nymphs that lived in every tree;
Nor how the Dryads and the woodland train,
Disherited, ran howling o'er the plain:
Nor how the birds to foreign seats repaired,
Or beasts that bolted out and saw the forests bared:
Nor how the ground now cleared with ghastly fright
Beheld the sudden sun, a stranger to the light.
The straw, as first I said, was laid below:
Of chips and sere-wood was the second row;
The third of greens, and timber newly felled;
The fourth high stage the fragrant odours held,
And pearls, and precious stones, and rich array;
In midst of which, embalmed, the body lay.
The service sung, the maid with mourning eyes
The stubble fired; the smouldering flames arise:
This office done, she sunk upon the ground;
But what she spoke, recovered from her swound,
I want the wit in moving words to dress;
But by themselves the tender sex may guess.
While the devouring fire was burning fast,
Rich jewels in the flame the wealthy cast;
And some their shields, and some their lances threw,
And gave the warrior's ghost a warrior's due.
Full bowls of wine, of honey, milk and blood
Were poured upon the pile of burning wood,
And hissing flames receive, and hungry lick the food.
Then thrice the mounted squadrons ride around
The fire, and Arcite's name they thrice resound:
"Hail and farewell!" they shouted thrice amain,
Thrice facing to the left, and thrice they turned again:
Still, as they turned, they beat their clattering shields;
The women mix their cries, and clamour fills the fields.
The warlike wakes continued all the night,
And funeral games were played at new returning light:
Who naked wrestled best, besmeared with oil,
Or who with gauntlets gave or took the foil,
I will not tell you, nor would you attend;
But briefly haste to my long story's end.
I pass the rest; the year was fully mourned,
And Palamon long since to Thebes returned:
When, by the Grecians' general consent,
At Athens Theseus held his parliament;
Among the laws that passed, it was decreed,
That conquered Thebes from bondage should be freed;
Reserving homage to the Athenian throne,
To which the sovereign summoned Palamon.
Unknowing of the cause, he took his way,
Mournful in mind, and still in black array.
The monarch mounts the throne, and, placed on high,
Commands into the court the beauteous Emily.
So called, she came; the senate rose, and paid
Becoming reverence to the royal maid.
And first, soft whispers through the assembly went;
With silent wonder then they watched the event;
All hushed, the King arose with awful grace;
Deep thought was in his breast, and counsel in his face:
At length he sighed, and having first prepared
The attentive audience, thus his will declared:
"The Cause and Spring of motion from above
Hung down on earth the golden chain of Love;
Great was the effect, and high was his intent,
When peace among the jarring seeds he sent;
Fire, flood, and earth and air by this were bound,
And Love, the common link, the new creation crowned.
The chain still holds; for though the forms decay,
Eternal matter never wears away:
The same first mover certain bounds has placed,
How long those perishable forms shall last;
Nor can they last beyond the time assigned
By that all-seeing and all-making Mind:
Shorten their hours they may, for will is free,
But never pass the appointed destiny.
So men oppressed, when weary of their breath,
Throw off the burden, and suborn their death.
Then, since those forms begin, and have their end,
On some unaltered cause they sure depend:
Parts of the whole are we, but God the whole,
Who gives us life, and animating soul.
For Nature cannot from a part derive
"That being which the whole can only give:
He perfect, stable; but imperfect we,
Subject to change, and different in degree;
Plants, beasts, and man; and, as our organs are,
We more or less of his perfection share.
But, by a long descent, the etherial fire
Corrupts; and forms, the mortal part, expire.
As he withdraws his virtue, so they pass,
And the same matter makes another mass:
This law the omniscient Power was pleased to give,
That every kind should by succession live;
That individuals die, his will ordains;
The propagated species still remains.
The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees;
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays,
Supreme in state, and in three more decays:
So wears the paving pebble in the street,
And towns and towers their fatal periods meet:
So rivers, rapid once, now naked lie,
Forsaken of their springs, and leave their channels dry.
So man, at first a drop, dilates with heat,
Then, formed, the little heart begins to beat;
Secret he feeds, unknowing, in the cell;
At length, for hatching ripe, he breaks the shell,
And struggles into breath, and cries for aid;
Then helpless in his mother's lap is laid.
He creeps, he walks, and, issuing into man,
Grudges their life from whence his own began;
Reckless of laws, affects to rule alone,
Anxious to reign, and restless on the throne;
First vegetive, then feels, and reasons last;
Rich of three souls, and lives all three to waste.
Some thus; but thousands more in flower of age,
For few arrive to run the latter stage.
Sunk in the first, in battle some are slain,
And others whelmed beneath the stormy main.
What makes all this, but Jupiter the king,
At whose command we perish, and we spring?
Then 'tis our best, since thus ordained to die,
To make a virtue of necessity;
Take what he gives, since to rebel is vain;
The bad grows better, which we well sustain;
And could we choose the time, and choose aright,
'Tis best to die, our honour at the height.
When we have done our ancestors no shame,
But served our friends, and well secured our fame;
Then should we wish our happy life to close,
And leave no more for fortune to dispose;
So should we make our death a glad relief
From future shame, from sickness, and from grief;
Enjoying while we live the present hour,
And dying in our excellence and flower.
Then round our death-bed every friend should run,
And joy us of our conquest early won;
While the malicious world, with envious tears,
Should grudge our happy end, and wish it theirs.
Since then our Arcite is with honour dead,
Why should we mourn, that he so soon is freed,
Or call untimely what the gods decreed?
With grief as just a friend may be deplored,
From a foul prison to free air restored.
Ought he to thank his kinsman or his wife,
Could tears recall him into wretched life?
Their sorrow hurts themselves; on him is lost,
And worse than both, offends his happy ghost.
What then remains, but after past annoy
To take the good vicissitude of joy;
To thank the gracious gods for what they give,
Possess our souls, and, while we live, to live?
Ordain we then two sorrows to combine,
And in one point the extremes of grief to join;
That thence resulting joy may be renewed,
As jarring notes in harmony conclude.
Then I propose that Palamon shall be
In marriage joined with beauteous Emily;
For which already I have gained the assent
Of my free people in full parliament.
Long love to her has borne the faithful knight,
And well deserved, had Fortune done him right:
'Tis time to mend her fault, since Emily
By Arcite's death from former vows is free;
If you, fair sister, ratify the accord,
And take him for your husband and your lord,
'Tis no dishonour to confer your grace
On one descended from a royal race;
And were he less, yet years of service past
From grateful souls exact reward at last.
Pity is Heaven's and yours; nor can she find
A throne so soft as in a woman's mind."
He said; she blushed; and as o'erawed by might,
Seemed to give Theseus what she gave the knight.
Then, turning to the Theban, thus he said:
"Small arguments are needful to persuade
Your temper to comply with my command:"
And speaking thus, he gave Emilia's hand.
Smiled Venus, to behold her own true knight.
Obtain the conquest, though he lost the fight;
And blessed with nuptial bliss the sweet laborious night.
Eros and Anteros on either side,
One fired the bridegroom, and one warmed the bride;
And long-attending Hymen from above
Showered on the bed the whole Idalian grove.
All of a tenor was their after-life,
No day discoloured with domestic strife;
No jealousy, but mutual truth believed,
Secure repose, and kindness undeceived.
Thus Heaven, beyond the compass of his thought,
Sent him the blessing he so dearly bought.
So may the Queen of Love long duty bless,
And all true lovers find the same success.
NOTES.
DEDICATION.
Her Grace the Duchess of Ormond was by birth Lady Margaret
Somerset. Her husband, to whom Dryden dedicated the volume of
the _Fables_, was one of King William's supporters. He had been with
him at the Battle of the Boyne, in the war on the Continent, had
received marked evidences of his favor, and stood by his bedside at his
death.
1 1. The bard. Chaucer, whose _Knight's Tale_, paraphrased as
_Palamon and Arcite_, Dryden dedicated in these verses.
1 10. An Alexandrine, i.e., a verse of six accented syllables instead
of five.
1 14. Plantagenet. The surname of the royal family of England
from Henry II. to Richard III.
1 18. noblest order. The Order of the Garter, which is the highest
order of knighthood in Great Britain, was founded by Edward III.
about 1348.
2 21, 22, 23. A triplet, i.e., three successive verses with the same
rhyme; one device of Dryden's to avoid monotony.
2 29. Platonic year. A great cycle of years, at the end of which it
was supposed that the celestial bodies will occupy the same positions
as at the creation.
2 42. westward. The Duchess' visit to Ireland.
2 43. benighted Britain. Deprived of the light of her Grace's
presence.
2 44. Triton. A son of Neptune, generally represented with the
body of a man and the tail of a fish. His duty was to calm the sea by
a blast on his conch-shell horn.
2 45. Nereids. Nymphs of the sea as distinguished from the
Naiads, nymphs of streams and lakes.
2 46. Etesian gale. The Etesian winds were any steady periodical
winds.
2 48. Portunus. A lesser sea-god, more particularly the harbor-god.
2 51, 52. In these verses Dryden shows us that he had not shaken
off entirely the conceits of his early verse.
2 53. Hibernia. Ireland.
2 56. His father and his grandsire. Ormond's father was the gallant
Earl of Ossory, and his grandsire, the first Duke of Ormond,
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the famous supporter of the Stuart cause.
3 58. Kerns. The Irish peasantry.
3 63. Venus is the promise of the sun. Venus, as morning star, is
visible in the east just before sunrise.
3 65. Pales. A Roman divinity of flocks and shepherds. Ceres.
The goddess of agriculture.
3 67. three campaigns. The Jacobites had found sympathy in Ireland
and made a stand there. Vigorous efforts were made by William
to dislodge them and subjugate the island; but years passed before
civil strife was ended and peace restored.
3 72. relics of mankind. The human beings preserved in the ark,
all that was left of mankind after the flood.
3 82, 83. Dryden copies Virgil's golden age,_Eclogue IV_., 39, 40.
3 87. venom never known. This refers to the absence of reptiles
in Ireland.
4 102. New from her sickness. Recently recovered from a serious
illness.
4 117. four ingredients. Earth, air, fire, water, then supposed to be
the elements of all created substances.
5 125. young Vespasian. Titus Vespasianus, the conqueror of
Jerusalem, was so impressed by the beauty of the Temple that he
wept as it was destroyed.
5 128. A most detested act of gratitude. The elegy which the
danger of her death rendered imminent. Detested because the occasion
for the act would fill him with grief.
5 131. Morley. A celebrated physician of the seventeenth century.
S 133. Macedon. Thessalus, the son of Hippocrates, a famous
physician of antiquity, who resided at the Macedonian court.
5 134. Ptolemy. One of Alexander the Great's generals, who became,
after the great conqueror's death, the ruler of Egypt.
5 138. you. Used here as a noun.
5 151. daughter of the rose. The Duchess of Ormond was a descendant of
Somerset, who plucked the red rose in the Temple garden when Plantagenet
plucked the white, - an incident which badged the houses of York and
Lancaster during the War of the Roses.
5 158. Penelope. The wife of Ulysses, during the long years of her
lord's absence, steadfastly withstood the persuasions of suitors, and
remained true to her husband.
6 162. Ascanius. The son of Aeneas. Elissa. Another name for Dido. It is
Andromache, not Dido, who in Virgil's narrative presents Ascanius with
the elaborately embroidered mantle. Aeneid, Bk. III., 483, etc.
6 168. wear the garter. Become a Knight of the Garter.
BOOK I.
7 2. Theseus. A legendary hero of Greece, son of Aegeus. He freed Athens
from human tribute to the Cretan Minotaur, with the assistance of
Ariadne, whom he deserted. Succeeded Aegeus as king of Athens.
Expedition against the Amazons resulted in a victory for him, and he
married their queen, Antiope, not Hippolyta, as in Chaucer, Shakspere,
and Dryden. He joined in Caledonian hunt, fought the Centaurs, attempted
to carry off Proserpina for Pirithous. On his return found his kingdom
usurped, and, retiring to Scyros, was treacherously killed by Lycomedes.
7 7. warrior queen. Hippolyta, daughter of Mars, queen of the
Amazons, here confused with her sister Antiope, whom legend makes
the bride of Theseus.
7 21. spousals. Espousal, marriage.
7 22. tilts and turneys. Notice the anachronism of the transfer
of the mediaeval sport to legendary Greece. Dryden follows Chaucer's
general method, though here the elder poet makes no such statement.
8 29. accidents. Happenings, literal derivation from _accidere_, to happen.
8 31. enjoined us by mine host. The host of the Tabard, whence
Chaucer led his Canterbury pilgrims, had proposed that each member
of the company tell two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two on
the return, and that the best narrator should receive a supper at the
expense of the others. The plan was not fulfilled, but such stories as
were told form Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.
8 50. weeds. Garments, not restricted to mourning garments.
9 76. Capaneus. One of the seven heroes who marched from Argos (not
Athens) against Thebes. He defied Jupiter and was struck by lightning as
he was scaling the walls. His wife, Evadne, leaped into the flames ahd
perished. In presenting her here, Dryden followed Chaucer.
9 81. Creon. King of Thebes, surrendered the city to Aedipus, who had
freed it from the sphinx, resumed rule after death of Aedipus' sons,
killed by his son Haeemon for cruelty to Antigone, daughter of Aedipus.
10 116. Minotaur. A monster lurking in the labyrinth of Crete,
which devoured the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens sent by
Athens every ninth year. It was slain by Theseus.
11 150. An Alexandrine verse.
11 160. An Alexandrine verse.
12 165. An Alexandrine verse.
12 169. morn of cheerful May. The conventional month for love
in the old poets. Dryden followed Chaucer.
12 186. Aurora. Goddess of the morning-red. Each morning she
rose from the couch of Tithonus, and drove swiftly from Oceanus to
Olympus to announce to gods and mortals the coming of day.
13 199. Philomel. Nightingale. Philomela, dishonored by her
brother-in-law, was changed to a nightingale.
13 214. hateful eyes. Eyes full of hate.
14 245. horoscope. A diagram of the heavens by which astrologers
calculated nativities. Dryden resembled Chaucer in his belief in
astrology.
14 246. Saturn in the dungeon of the sky. Arcite declares that the
horoscope of their birth predicted chains, for it showed the planet
Saturn, an evil star at best, in the dungeon of the sky.
14 252. Unhappy planets. Planets that were thought to cause
unhappiness.
14 258. Actaeon. He unintentionally came upon Diana and her
nymphs while they were bathing in the stream, was transformed into
a stag by the goddess, and was coursed to death by his own hounds.
14 261. Cyprian Queen. Venus; Cyprus was a chief seat of her
worship.
15 264. habit. Dress. We retain the word with same meaning in
riding-habit.
16 300. Appeach. To impeach. Old form.
17 334, 335, 336, 339. Alexandrines, possibly used by Dryden in such
close succession to show Arcite's violent emotions.
17 342 Aesop's hounds. The hounds of the fable by Aesop. Their
story is told in succeeding verses.
17 346, 347. These verses indicate a condition with which both Chaucer
and Dryden were very familiar.
17 358. Pirithous. A legendary hero, between Theseus and whom
existed strong friendship. A Centaur's discourtesy to the bride at the
wedding of Pirithous was avenged by Theseus in the battle with the
Centaurs.
17 364. His fellow to redeem him went to hell. Chaucer and Dryden
have here confused the story of Theseus and Pirithous with account
of Castor and Pollux. Theseus did not go to the lower world to rescue
Pirithous; but went with him to abduct Proserpina, and they were both
seized and held by Pluto, till Hercules rescued Theseus.
18 382. Finds his dear purchase. Finds his purchase to be dear,
i.e., expensive.
19 414. Fire, water, air, and earth. These were regarded by the
ancients as the primary elements of created matter.
20 433. a certain home. The house is a definite existence.
20 434. uncertain place. It is uncertain in the sense that the drunkard
has difficulty in finding it.
21 493. forelays. Awaits before, a survival of an old English compound.
21 495. thrids. Threads, as in the phrase, "threads the mazes of
the dance."
21 498. Saturn, seated in a luckless place. A second reference to
the planet of his nativity and its unlucky position in heaven at the hour
of his birth.
21 500. Mars and Venus in a quartil move. Mars and Venus are
here the planets. When their longitudes differ by 90 they move in a
quartile. It was regarded in astrology as an omen of ill.
23 545. slumbering as he lay. As he lay slumbering. A favorite
inversion with Chaucer.
23 547. Hermes. Lat. Mercury, son of Jupiter. One of his chief
duties, to act as a messenger of Jupiter to carry sleep and dreams to
mortals.
23 550. sleep-compelling rod. Hermes carried a staff, the caduceus,
given him by Apollo, about which two serpents were twined. Its touch
induced sleep.
23 552. Argus. He had a hundred eyes and was sent by Juno to
guard the cow into which lo had been transformed. He was killed by
Mercury at the command of Jupiter, and Juno transferred his eyes to
the tail of her peacock.
24 573. A labouring hind in show. In appearance a laboring
peasant.
24 590. Philostratus. In Chaucer written Philostrate, and so in
Shakspere's _Midsummer Night's Dream_, the characters of which
plainly followed Chaucer.
BOOK II.
26 10. And May within the Twins received the sun. In May the
sun is in the sign of the zodiac known as Gemini, or the Twins. Dryden
here copies a favorite phrasing of Chaucer, though not used by him
in this particular instance.
26 16. Notice the enjambment,i.e., the overflow of this verse into
the next. It very rarely occurs in Dryden's later poems.
27 34. Style. Pen, from _stylus_.
27 55. Graces. Three sisters, Aglaia (the brilliant), Euphrosyne
(cheerfulness), and Thalia (bloom of life). They were the daughters
of Jupiter and Aurora.
27 58. The sultry tropic fears. At the end of May the sun,
approaching the summer solstice, gives the longest days; hence its
slowness.
28 78. roundelay. It is technically a lyric in which a phrase or idea
is continually repeated.
28 84. Friday. Named from Frigga, a Teutonic goddess, identified
with Venus. This day of the week among the Latin races is still named
from Venus. Italian, _Venerdi_; French,_Vendredi_.
28 93. Cadmus. He was the son of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. His sister
Europa had been carried off by Jupiter and he suffered from the
consequent jealousy of Juno. While searching for his sister he founded
Thebes, with the aid of Minerva, and was its first king. The legend of
Cadmus indicates the introduction of written language from the East, the
Theban city was. Compare "_Ilium fuit_" of Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. II., 325.
30 153. Our arms shall plead the titles of our love. We will make
good our right to love by strife in arms.
31 165. pawn. Pledge,i.e., each has pledged his faith.
31 182. hopes. Hopes for, syncope.
32 196. foin. To thrust with a weapon, a term used in fencing.
32 228. lively. Bright, like the living green of vegetation.
32 329. the tuneful cry. Compare _Midsummer Night's Dream,_
Act IV., Sc. I.
33 232. goddess of the silver bow. Diana, goddess of the chase, -
her symbol, the crescent moon; hence the silver bow.
33 237. forth-right. Straight forward; an archaism.
33 245. strook. Archaic for struck.
33 258. listed field. A field properly arranged for a tournament.
35 313. quire. Group. This is the proper spelling, not choir; see
Bk. I., v. 41.
35 314. contended maid. The maid contended for.
36 344, 347. In these verses Dryden follows Chaucer, but states the
thought more forcibly. He was undoubtedly glad of the chance to slap
the powers that were.
38 400. share a single bed. Two lovers cannot marry the same
woman.
38 414. From out the bars. Beyond the barriers,i.e., out of the lists.
38 415. recreant. Acknowledging defeat.
39 445. degrees. With the seats raised in tiers.
39 461. myrtle wand. The myrtle was sacred to Venus.
39 465. Queen of Wight. Diana, because she was goddess of the
moon.
39 467. oratories. Places for prayer.
40483. Sigils. Literally, a seal or sign; here an occult sign or mark
in astrology, another evidence of Dryden's leaning toward that
so-called science, for Chaucer makes no such statement here.
40 498. Idalian mount. Idalium, a town in Cyprus sacred to Venus;
here, as often, confused with Mount Ida.
40 498. Citheron. Cythera, not Citheron, is the island near which
Venus rose from the sea, and a famous seat of her worship. Cithaeron
is a mountain in Boeotia sacred to Zeus.
41 505. Medea's charms. Medea, daughter of Aetes, king of Colchis,
was a famous sorceress of antiquity. She aided Jason to get the
golden fleece, and fled with him. Deserted by him, she subsequently
became involved with Theseus and Hercules, eventually going to Asia.
From her sprung the Medes.
41 505. Circean feasts. A mythical sorceress, who feasted mariners
landed on her shores, and by charmed drinks changed them to swine.
Ulysses spent a year with her, and frustrated her arts.
41 515. bare below the breast. Bare from the shoulders to a point
below the breasts.
41534. scurf. Scaly matter on the surface, - scum.
42 536. knares. Knots on, a tree; an archaism.
42 544. bent. A declivity or slope.
42 558. tun. A huge cask for holding wine, ale, etc.
43 590. overlaid. Lain upon by the nurse to smother it.
44 604. Mars his ides. The Ides of March, the date of Caesar's
assassination. The month was named from the god.
44 607. Antony, Infatuated with Cleopatra, he lost his empire.
Dryden had previously told the story in his best play,_All for Love_.
44 614. geomantic. Pertaining to geomancy, the art of divining
future events by means of signs connected with the earth. The figure
here represents two constellations, Rubeus, which signifies Mars
direct, Puella, Mars retrograde.
44 616. direct... retrograde. The motion of a planet is direct
when it seems to move from west to east in the zodiac, and retrograde
when its apparent motion is reversed.
44 623. Calisto. Properly Callisto, one of Diana's nymphs. Jupiter
loved her and changed her to a bear to escape the notice of Juno;
but the latter discovered the ruse, and caused Diana to kill the bear.
Thereupon Jupiter transferred her to heaven as the constellation of
Arctos, in which is the pole-star.
44 631. Peneian Daphne. Daughter of the river-god Peneus.
Loved by Apollo and pursued by him, she prayed for assistance,
and was changed into a laurel tree. Thenceforth the laurel became
Apollo's favorite tree.
44 634. Calydonian beast. A huge boar sent by Diana to devastate the
territory of Aeneus, king of Calydon in Atolia, because he had not paid
her due honor. Theseus, Jason, Peleus, Telamon, Nestor, all the famous
heroes gathered to destroy the beast, and with them the swift-footed
maiden Atalanta. Her arrow gave the first wound. The story is
exquisitely told by Swinburne in Atalanta in Calydon.
44 635. Aenides. Meleager, son of Aeneus, who actually killed the
boar. He loved Atalanta and gave to her the head and hide of the
animal as a trophy. Jealously attacked by his uncles, he slew them.
At his birth, the fates had prophesied his death when a certain brand
upon the hearth should have burned. Thereupon his mother plucked
it from the fire, quenched it, and put it away. Angered by the death
of her brothers, she throws this brand upon the fire. It is consumed,
and Meleager dies.
45 639. The Volscian queen. Camilla, an Amazon, allied with
Turnus in his strife with Aeneas in Italy. She was treacherously
killed by Aruns, while pursuing a fleeing enemy. As Aruns was
stealthily withdrawing, he was slain by an arrow, fired by one of
Diana's nymphs.
45 654. Lucina. The name given to Diana as one of the goddesses
who presides at childbirth.
45 661, 662. Inserted by Dryden, a satirical reference to the wretched
Whig poets then in favor, and to his own removal from royal patronage.
BOOK III.
47 28. juppon. A light coat worn over armor, reaching to mid-thigh
and finished in points at the bottom.
47 31. Pruce. Prussia.
47 35. jambeux. Armor for the legs, from the French _jambe_, leg.
47 39. Lycurgus. King of Thrace; he persecuted Bacchus, and
was made mad by that god. In his madness he slew his son under the
impression that he was cutting down vines. The country now produced
no fruit, and the inhabitants carried the impious king to Mount
Pangaeus, where he was torn to pieces by horses.
48 63. Emetrius. A creation of Chaucer's whom Dryden follows.
Notice the poet's unusual representation of an Indian prince with fair
complexion and yellow hair.
48 88. Upon his fist he bore. It was customary in the time of
Chaucer to hunt with tame falcons, which were carried perched upon
the wrist when not after quarry.
49 99. So Bacchus through the conquered Indies rode. Bacchus,
a son of Jupiter, was the god of wine. His birth and up-bringing were
attended with dangers bred by the jealousy of Juno. When full grown,
Juno drove him mad, and in this state he journeyed over the earth.
He spent several years in India, introducing the vine and elements of
civilization. It was on his return that he was expelled from Thrace by
Lycurgus.
49 103. prime. Early morning, the first hour after sunrise.
49 109. harbinger. One who provides or secures lodgings for another,
from the Old French herbegtsr, whence harbor.
49 120. Phosphor. Light bringer, from phos and phero.
49 124. preventing. With the literal significance of the word, coming
before,i.e., he rose before day.
50 134. Thy month. May referred to as the month of Venus, since
it is, in the poets, particularly a season for love-making.
50 145. gladder. Thou who makest glad.
50 146. Increase. Offspring of Jove.
50 147. Adonis. A beautiful youth, loved by Venus, with whom he
spent eight months of the year. When he was killed by a boar, so
great was the sorrow of the goddess, that the deities of the nether
world allowed her to possess him for half of each year.
51 164. Notice the force of Palamon's request. He cares not so
much for glory of conquest as for the delights of possession. His
prayer is answered, for, though conquered, he eventually weds Emilia.
51 168. your fifth orb. The heavens werel supposed to consist of
concentric hollow spheres called orbs, and the sun, moon, stars, and
planets moved in their respective orbs, the planet Venus in the fifth.
51 169. clue. Thread.
51 172. And let the Sisters cut below your line. The sisters are the
three Fates. Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis held it, and
Atropos cut it. Palamon is willing that the Fates end his life, if they
will first allow him to enjoy love.
51 191. Cynthia. Another name for Diana, from Mount Cynthus,
her birthplace.
51 193. Vests. Vestments, robes.
52 200. Uncouth. Literally, unknown, hence strange.
52 205. Well-meaners think no harm. Compare the famous epigram
adopted by the Order of the Garter: "_honi soit qui mal y pense_"
(shamed be he who thinks evil of it). This order was founded during
Chaucer's life, and this sentiment may have been in his mind.
52 208. mastless oak. Oak leaves without acorns,i.e., without the
fruit, hence an appropriate garland for a maid.
52 212. Statius. A Latin author who died 96 A.D. Among his
works was an heroic poem in twelve books, embodying the legends
touching the expedition of the Seven against Thebes.
52 231. Niobe. She was the mother of seven sons and seven
daughters, and so thought herself superior to Latona, who had given
birth to only two, Apollo and Diana. To avenge their mother, they
slew all of Niobe's children with their darts. Hence the "devoted"
children, i.e., devoted to death.
53 231. gust. The sense or pleasure of tasting, hence relish; more
common form, gusto.
53 232. thy triple shape. Diana is often confused with Hecate, a
most mysterious divinity. Hecate is represented with three heads and
three bodies, and possessed the attributes of Luna in heaven, of Diana
on earth, and of Proserpina in the lower world.
53 238. frowning stars. If the stars at her birth were such and so
placed that they boded ill, they might be said to frown.
53 250-260. The omen foretells the event. One altar seems extinguished
and then relights when the other goes out entirely. So Palamon seems to
fail, but eventually wins Emilia after the death of Arcite.
54 290. planetary hour. This was the fourth hour of the day.
54 291. heptarchy. A rule by seven. It refers here to the seven
great gods, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Mars, Vulcan, Apollo, Mercury.
55 297. Hyperborean. Beyond the North. Applied originally to a
blessed people who dwelt beyond the north wind.
55 320. Vulcan had thee in his net enthralled. Vulcan, the husband
of Venus, once discovered improper relations between her and
Mars, and he entrapped the guilty pair in the meshes of an invisible
net and exposed them to the laughter of the gods. This passage would
appeal to the taste of Dryden's Restoration readers, and is developed
with a light grace, characteristic of the period.
55 325-332. In these verses the poet brings out the character of
Arcite, a more mannish man than Palamon.
56 355, 356. Arcite prays for victory; nothing else will satisfy. He
obtains his prayer, but loses Emily.
57 389. trined. An astrological term, meaning that the planets
Saturn and Venus were distant from each other 120 , or one-third of
the zodiac, a benign aspect.
57 390. with stern Mars in Capricorn was joined. Both Mars and
Saturn were in the sign of the zodiac, Capricorn.
58 401. watery sign. The so-called watery signs of the zodiac