They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings:
Let me die smiling.
Near. 'Tis a truth too ominous.
Cal. One kiss on these cold lips; my last. Crack, crack. Argos now's Sparta's King.
I do not know where to find in any Play a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as this. This is indeed, according to Milton, to "describe high passions and high actions." The fortitude of the Spartan Boy who let a beast gnaw out his bowels till he died without expressing a groan, is a faint bodily image of this dilaceration of the spirit and exenteration of the inmost mind, which Calantha with a holy violence against her nature keeps closely covered, till the last duties of a Wife and a Queen are fulfilled. Stories of martyrdom are but of chains and the stake; a little bodily suffering; these torments
On the purest spirits prey
As on entrails, joints, and limbs,
With answerable pains, but more intense.
What a noble thing is the soul in its strengths and in its weaknesses! who would be less weak than Calantha? who can be so strong? the expression of this transcendent scene almost bears me in imagination to Calvary and the Cross; and I seem to perceive some analogy between the scenical sufferings which I am here contemplating, and the real agonies of that final completion to which I dare no more than hint a reference.
Ford was of the first order of Poets. He sought for sublimity, not by parcels in metaphors or visible images, but directly where she has her full residence in the heart of man; in the actions and sufferings of the greatest minds. There is a grandeur of the soul above mountains, seas, and the elements. Even in the poor
perverted reason of Giovanni and Annabella (in the Play which precedes this) we discern traces of that fiery particle, which in the irregular starting from out of the road of beaten action, discovers something of a right line even in obliquity, and shows hints of an improveable greatness in the lowest descents and degradations of
HYMEN'S TRIUMPH : A PASTORAL TRAGI-COMEDY [PUBLISHED 1615]. BY SAMUEL DANIEL [1562-1619] Love in Infancy.
Ah, I remember well (and how can I
But evermore remember well) when first
Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The flame we felt when as we sat and sigh'd
And look'd upon each other, and conceiv'd
Not what we ail'd, yet something we did ail;
And yet were well, and yet we were not well,
And what was our disease we could not tell.
Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look.
In that first garden of our simpleness
We spent our childhood. But when years began
To reap the fruit of knowledge; ah, how then
Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow,
Check my presumption and my forwardness;
Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show
What she would have me, yet not have me know!
Palomon. Fie, Thyrsis, with what fond remembrances Dost thou these idle passions entertain!
For shame leave off to waste your youth in vain,
And feed on shadows: make your choice anew;
You other nymphs shall find, no doubt will be
As lovely, and as fair, and sweet as she.
Thyrsis. As fair and sweet as she! Palamon, peace: Ah, what can pictures be unto the life?
What sweetness can be found in images?
Which all nymphs else besides her seem to me.
She only was a real creature, she,
Whose memory must take up all of me.
Should I another love, then must I have
Another heart, for this is full of her,
And evermore shall be: here is she drawn
At length, and whole: and more, this table is
A story, and is all of her; and all
Wrought in the liveliest colours of my blood;
And can there be a room for others here?
Should I disfigure such a piece, and blot
The perfect'st workmanship that love e'er wrought?
Palæmon, no, ah no, it cost too dear;
It must remain entire whilst life remains,
The monument of her and of my pains.
The Story of Isulia.
There was sometimes a nymph,
Isulia named, and an Arcadian born,2
Whose mother dying left her very young
Unto her father's charge, who carefully
Di dbreed her up until she came to years
Of womanhood, and then provides a match
Both rich and young, and fit enough for her.
But she, who to another shepherd had,
Call'd Sirthis, vow'd her love, as unto one
Her heart esteem'd more worthy of her love,
'[Daniel's Works, ed. Grosart, vol. iii.]
Could not by all her father's means be wrought
To leave her choice, and to forget her vow.1
This nymph one day, surcharg'd with love and grief,
Which commonly (the more the pity) dwell
As inmates both together, walking forth
With other maids to fish upon the shore;
Estrays apart, and leaves her company,
To entertain herself with her own thoughts
And wanders on so far, and out of sight,
As she at length was suddenly surpriz'd
By pirates, who lay lurking underneath
Those hollow rocks, expecting there some prize;
And notwithstanding all her piteous cries,
Entreaties, tears, and prayers, those fierce men
Rent hair and veil, and carried her by force
Into their ship, which in a little creek
Hard by at anchor lay,
And presently hoisted sail and so away."
When she was thus enshipp'd, and woefully
Had cast her eyes about to view that hell
Of horror, whereinto she was so suddenly emplung'd,
She spies a woman sitting with a child
Sucking her breast, which was the captain's wife.
To her she creeps, down at her feet she lies;
“O woman, if that name of a woman may
Move you to pity, pity a poor maid;
The most distressed soul that ever breath'd ;
And save me from the hands of those fierce men!
Let me not be defil'd and made unclean,
Dear woman, now, and I will be to you
The faithfull'st slave that ever mistress serv'd;
Never poor soul shall be more dutiful,
To do whatever you command, than I.
No toil will I refuse; so that I may
Keep this poor body clean and undeflower'd,
Which is all I will ever seek. For know,
It is not fear of death lays me thus low,
But of that stain will make my death to blush."
All this would nothing move the woman's heart,
Whom yet she would not leave, but still besought
"O woman, by that infant at your breast,
And by the pains it cost you in the birth,
Save me, as ever you desire to have
Your babe to joy and prosper in the world:
Which will the better prosper sure, if you
Shall mercy show, which is with mercy paid."
Then kisses she her feet, then kisses too
The infant's feet; and, "O, sweet babe," (said she), "Couldst thou but to thy mother speak for me, And crave her to have pity on my case,
Thou mightst perhaps prevail with her so much,
Although I cannot; child, ah, could'st thou speak!'
The infant, whether by her touching it,
Or by instinct of nature, seeing her weep,
Looks earnestly upon her, and then looks
Upon the mother, then on her again,
And then it cries, and then on either looks:
Which she perceiving; "Blessed child,” (said she), "Although thou canst not speak, yet dost thou cry Unto thy mother for me. Hear thy child,
Dear mother; it's for me it
It's all the speech it hath. Accept those cries;
Save me at his request from being defiled:
Let pity move thee, that thus moves the child."
The woman, tho' by birth and custom rude,
Yet having veins of nature, could not be
But pierceable, did feel at length the point
Of pity enter so, as out gush'd tears,
(Not usual to stern eyes), and she besought
Her husband to bestow on her that prize,
With safeguard of her body at her will.
The captain seeing his wife, the child the nymph,
All crying to him in this piteous sort,
Felt his rough nature shaken too, and grants
His wife's request, and seals his grant with tears;
And so they wept all four for company:
And some beholders stood not with dry eyes;
Such passion wrought the passion of their prize.1
Never was there pardon, that did take
Condemned from the block more joyful than
This grant to her: for all her misery
Seem'd nothing to the comfort she receiv'd,
By being thus saved from impurity:
And from the woman's feet she would not part,
Nor trust her hand to be without some hold
Of her, or of the child, so long as she remain'd
Within the ship, which in few days arrives
At Alexandria, whence these pirates were;
1[Five lines spoken by Thirsis omitted.]
And there this woeful maid for two years' space
Did serve, and truly serve this captain's wife,
(Who would not lose the benefit of her
Attendance, for her profit otherwise),
But daring not in such a place as that
To trust herself in woman's habit, crav'd
That she might be apparel'd like a boy;
And so she was, and as a boy she served.1
At two years' end her mistress sends her forth
Unto the port for some commodities,
Which, whilst she sought for, going up and down,
She heard some merchantmen of Corinth talk,
Who spake that language the Arcadians did,
And were next neighbours of one continent.
To them, all rapt with passion, down she kneels,
Tells them she was a poor distressed boy,
Born in Arcadia, and by pirates took,
And made a slave in Egypt; and besought
Them, as they fathers were of children, or
Did hold their native country dear, they would
Take pity on her, and relieve her youth
From that sad servitude wherein she liv'd:
For which she hop'd that she had friends alive
Would thank them one day, and reward them too;
If not, yet that she knew the heav'ns would do.
The merchants, moved with pity of her case,
Being ready to depart, took her with them,
And landed her upon her country coast:
Where, when she found herself, she prostrate falls,
Kisses the ground, thanks gives unto the gods,
Thanks them who have been her deliverers,
And on she trudges through the desart woods,
Climbs over craggy rocks, and mountains steep,
Wades thorough rivers, struggles thorough bogs,
Sustained only by the force of love;
Until she came unto the native plains,
Unto the fields where first she drew her breath.
There she lifts up her eyes, salutes the air,
Salutes the trees, the bushes, flowers and all:
And, "Oh, dear Sirthis, here I am," said she,
Here, notwithstanding all my miseries,
"I am the same I was to thee; a pure,
"A chaste, and spotless maid."
[A line interjected by Thirsis.]
[Act iv., Sc. 3., p. 383.2]
2[For another extract from Daniel see page 458.]
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