CORCUTUS

Did he not frown, and storm? Cling to my temples thou blessed ornament, Be ever unremoved, though all the gods Chide me in thunder for this insolence, Am I in heaven? in state placed on the sphere Of eminence, but barely to appear, With faint, and borrowed luster, then descend, Ranked with the vulgar heads, first let me feel, The Titio vulture, or Ixion's wheel; And the worst torture hell it self can bring, To scourge my soul, o let me die a King; But stay, I must bethink me at what rate, I purchase these fair trappings: would? the curse Of him that God me: start my daunted spirits, Shall I usurp a throne, and fit above my father, Whilst the gaping pit of hell, With wide stretched jaws, yawns for my fallen, Oh I am struck with horror, and the slaves of stix, Already sting my wounded soul. I am distracted, and me thinks I burn, Under these robes of state, a boiling heat, Runs from them through my veins, Jove's hardy son, When he bewrapt himself in Nessus shirt, Felt not more bitter agonies, then I, Clothed in the trappings of my Majesty. I am resolved; Bassa's, go me to our father, Allure him home with this: I am begun To be no King, but a repentant son. Pallas I ask thy pardon, I have strayed A graceless trewant from thy happy schools, Whither I'll now return; theres not a rank, Place, or degree, can sort us out true bliss Without thy Temple, there my dwellin g is: Amongst the Sacred monuments of wit, Which Classic authors carefully have writ For our instruction, I will wast my time; So to wash out the spots of this sad crime. Court honours, and you shadows of true joy That shine Like stars, till but a greater light Drown your weak luster, I adjure your sighed, Even from my meditations, and my thoughts I banish your enticing vanities, And closely kept within my study walls, As from a cave of rest, henceforth I'll see, And smile, but never taste your misery. I but as yet am floating on the waves, Of stormy danger, nor am sure to escape The violent blast of angry Bajazet. Blow fair my Hope's and when I touch the shore, I'll venture forth on this rough surge no more. See where he comes, o how my guilty blood Starts to my face, and proves my cause not good. Our duty to our father, Freed from a Princely burden, I possess A Kingly liberty, and am no less Princely; observance wait on him, on me Thoughts undisturbed, I shall then happy be. My father bids, I go to undertake the charge, his love Hath thrown upon me; That's rich Ionia. Buzzing reports have pier't my sluddy walls, And clogged my meditations airy wings, By which I mount above the moving spheres And search the hidden closets of the heaven, I cannot live retired, but I must hear Mine own wrongs sounded in my troubled ear: What? will my father falsify that oath; In which he vowed successions right to me, When I resigned my honours up to him, He deeply swore; when the uprising Sun Of his bright-shining royalty had run It's complete course through the whole heaven of state, And fainting dropped into the Western lapse; My brightness next should throw it's golden beams, Upon the world's wide face, and over-peer The dusky clouds of hidden privacy, And shall Acho ates succeed? Shall he Shine in the spangled robes of Majesty? Then Bajazet is false, let it be so I am secured from a huge mass of woe. Yet I'll toth'Court, that when Achomates Shall spy me, and rememb but my endue It'll stain his lustre with a blushing hue, Royal Father. Heaven whither run these projects? is the thought Of man so senseless, void of wit, yet fraught With threatening ambition? to what end Does this di tempered madness headlong bend? Bless me my Genius from these hated toils Of murdering warfare, and these sweating broils, Of watchful policy; Phœbus let it be That I may know no other God but thee. Learned experience says, ambiguous fates Vex eminent Fortune's, and he only sta S Without the beams of envy, whom the hands Of some propitious power, hath ranked below Those short delights that troubled thoughts do know; A Crown's a golden mark, which being hit, Falls not alone, but off the head with it: Honours are smoky, nothing, then let the Queen Of learning, great Minerva, and the nine Chaste sisters, that adorn the Grecian hill, Devote me to themselves, but let me still Within Apollos sacred Temple fit, And spend my body to increase my wit; Reign Selymus, for I shall never thee hate, Thy supreme power, nor envy thy state, Corcutus stands divorced from a life, Engaged to vain ambition factious state, And empty power of Kings; He's great in fame Not who seeks after, but neglects the same. Since thou hast grieved me Phœbus, free my wit, That I my ease my grief by speaking it; If thou deniest found God, 'twill be in vain, Sorrow can sing, though thou not tune the strain. Then thou sweet Muse from whence there flows, words able to express our ill, Teach me to warble out my woes, and with a sighs each accent fill: Infuse my breast with doleful strains, Whose heavy note may speak my pains, Oh let me sighs, and sighing weep, Till night deprive my woes with sleep. The pleasing murmurers of the air, that gently fan each moving thing, I being herd, straight do repair, and bear a burden while I sing, And heavy burden doleful song, The father's grief the subjects wrong, Oh let me sighs, and sighing weep, Till night beguiles my woes with sleep. The grie ed Flora hangs the head Of every youthful plant and tree And flowery pleasures are stark dead, at my lamenting melody, Then all you Muses he pe my strain To reach the depth of bitter pain. O let me sighs, and ighing weep Till night beguiles my woes with sleep. Me thinks I hear the singing spheres, tune their melodious strains to mine, The dewy clouds dissolve in tears, as if they grieved to see me pine; Thus each thing joins to help my moan, Thus seldom come true sighs alone; Then let me sighs, and sighing weep, Till night beguile my woes with sleep. He sleeps: Then enter two murder S Who slaying him, ear him away. Which that applause hath crowned, and with it Will ever spite of traitors joying fit As now we do; nor shall my watchful care Be wanting to you, while this ubtill air Feeds mine industrious spirits, I shall fill The good with joy, by cutting of the ill Corrupted rags of men; Jove let me stand And object in thine eye, when thy swift hand Fails in the stroke of Justice, virtue return From thy sad exile, I will purge the walls From spotted vice, and make this City free To entertain so fair a Queen as she. Then ( Bassa's ) I embrace what you have thrown Upon me, and these signs of honour thus We rebestow; their power still stays with us. Could this vast body of the Commonwealth Stand fast without a soul? each man should see I am not greedy of this dignity: This burdenous weight which some must undergo, The gods are busied with diviner things, And put Earth's care into the hands of Kings. Right noble Father, it's a faithful rule In moral rites, that who desires a good, And most suspects his right to it, is bold And turbulent, and eager in pursuit, Whereas the man to whom this good is endue, Rests happily contented; till time fit Crown him in the possession of his wish. Would I had slept with Trizham, and that hand That strangled Mahomet, had stopped my breath, Rather then live to see my self thus wronged. Why kneels great Bajazet? I am thy son Thy slave: and if thy wrath but frown, undone. Why kneels great Bajazet, heavens hide thy face, From these preposterous doings. Those ornaments be thine, Here Bajazet I Crown thee Monarch of the spacious West, Asia, and Africa: if ought be mine, Greater then these I here proclaim it thine. Yes: Dear Selymus adieu.