AMPHIBIUS

A wandering soul. Worthy Philoponus. I love thoe. I admire though . I envy thee. Alas, I am now Like a cropped flower, which fades and hangs the head, I am pulled from the stalk on which I grew. I must untwist. No: but from my bound of service to Apollo. Oh how the drums and trumpets found alarm. What strokes, what shrieks, what fierce incoun ters, wounds and death's! Alarm, alarm, to war. I fight, I fight. I must maintain the quarrel on both sides. Amphibius, and Amphibius. Never till now a true Amphibius As I am Apollos and thine. I walk and march with thee, I fight under the Muses colours against ignorance, idleness and voluptuousness. But as I am another self, my left side walks another way. Oh force. Oh compulsion. I yield. Fatis agimur, cedite fatis. The destinies are powerful. If the fates say I, who dares say no? Far easier is it to mock my misery then to cure it. Oh could I! or couldst thou my Esculapius? Facile est miserum irridere. What potent charm is that? I pray you teach it me. Oft have I thought and said it, but another word crowds in withal, and makes a counter charm. Volo. Vos testor omnes Calites, hoc quod volo, Me notte. Yes, another Mistress overawes me, more po werfull then that Enchantress. When this all-conquering Queen, sends forth her mandates, alas virtue melts into and aercall con templation, and fame vanishes into and empty found. Oh valiant Sir, can I, can you, can any mortal wight stand out and rebel when he is apprehended by this Queens writ? Oh but these arrests do not so much command by authority, as convince & persuade by argument and reason. Tu si hic esses, aliter sentires, the case would be all tered, and you would plead as hard on my side. The Muses? Apollos school? I tell you the argu ments by which I am convinced, are translated out of the Records of the Muses, and cite every where Apollos Parliaments. Alas not mine, but on higher hand hath spun and twisted them. The Queen her self vouchsafed with her own wit and hand to compose this soon reign Nepenthe to imbalm my soul in most desi rabble content. Queen Hedone her self wrote this lar e mellifluous letter to me, poor me. I thought she had not known me: but (Oh generous sweet gram tiousnesse) to this mean negected Amphibius, she (that high and mighty sovereign of delights) sent this amiable garland of choicest flowers, culled by her own delicious hand; that hand, which the chie fist Poets labour to paint cut, and the highest gods affect to kiss. By whom, but by her worthy maid of honour Dame Si en, whole voice with one warble can thaw the most frozen affections I pray you view these lives. You will confess they are strong lines. I p ay you read. El e you rob me of my defence, and your self of care pleasing soul-conquering suavity! (Meaning me.) (Meaning me, very good still) (Oh complete!) (Yet she does not arrest me for money debt, No) Had these title been of my own devising, modesty would not have suffered me, to hear them read. But what Queen Hedone says, is a law; and it is a partly of my obedience to accept the honour she confers upon me by her own hand. She trusteth no Secretary when she writes to me. I think the Mu ses will wooc me for copies of this letter, they will imitate it, when they sing hymns in praise of Apollo. Why? what? Why? Am I not in the endorsement? I neue herd of any other Amphibius. I will be this Amphibi us till you find another Amphibius. Perh psalm indorcements and names of note, are written in another hand for excellency. That is the Court style. London? Where's that? In England? What then? I buy none there. What's this to me? Admit sir this, that my name, was put in by the bearer upon general instructions only. Yet the po werfull contents of the letter enforce in themselves the conclusion of my yielding. Yes brother, and thine, and anies else, whose heart is not hewed out of a marble rock. Mine is of flesh, I call a woman Mother. True, no Oracle more certain. But alas. But I know not what within this melting breast cries out louder, and says, Amphibius, Thou shalt now to this case dispense with those severe rules. Nay, the Arguments used by Hedone, are not emptily blown up with passion, but soundly groun dead on Philosophy, Logic and Oratory. S en told me that her Lady Hedone is near allied to Manto, Cassandra, Aspasia, and the ancient Roman Tanaquil. That this Hedone, better then Lesbian Sapph , might pretend to be the tenth Muse. Siren tells me, she had done so, but that she knew not of the set day, and now resideth in one of the fortunate Lands in the Atlantic sea f rye oft from Thessaly. And beside all this, she is invited to a feast of four or five gods by Mercury into Ethiopiam. For the cause of her absence I pass not much But I'm sure she's learned, and deeply read. That S ee shows by the reasons and Authorities heaped in her letter. Even those which we read and admire in Apollos school. What say you to Tully, Plutarch, Aristotle, Sc neca, Socrates, Horace, &c. Read but this line here in the bottom of the see cond page. Attend what your Tully says, Dan du aliquid atat . No S mper ncat ratio, &c. You have, judicious Philoponus, More hardly in the grove, more briefly here, Dispelled those mists, which that enchanting witch Had cast before mine eyes. I see, I see The light of reason, then eclipsed quite, But now reviving my recovered sighed. Oh how I loath, and hate that jug ling hand, That wrote, or each't to me these baleful lines. What sacrifice to Virtue can I yield More r, then thus to tear that obe, wherein That poison was conveyed, to be to me As was the deadly shirt to Hercules? So would I also her. What heaps of thanks owe I, and cannot pay, To such a faithful other self, whose hand Hath reached forth that Ariadnes thread Which me out of this Labyrinth hath led. I will have one kick more at her for inveigling me: Out Bitch.— Exit Siren. WHat is he gone? I so. He keeps out wonted time, and now is well employ ed in doing sacred homage to Apollo. There lays he the foundation of his studious diligence. There S re he misses me, and says unto himself. Where is my Amphibius? Why keeps he not his accuostomed hour? What, shall I after Philoponus into the tem ple? It's with the latest now. And (to confess the truth) alas I dare not there appear to present my self before Apollos Altar. Nor have I now the bold ness to look my deer Philoponus in the face. His settled countenance and graven gesture give a I ke unto my levity. His very silence reads unto me a e cture of reprehension. My passion so deep inthrald another way, bid me now rather to withdraw from such society, and hide my self in shades and g oves, and solitude Alas Amphibius, though having idem himself to the mast of safety by the bo ds of temperance, yet breaks lose, and leaps into the sea of danger. A las he cannot hold. This Sirens song is so attractive. I yield, I come And yet how can I? shall I unne a way from the worthy trade whereto I am bound ap prentice? My name is enrolled in Apol os register, and shall I raze it out, and be recko ed among the fugi tiues and renegados? Not so. And yet and yet it will be so. Oh how my v y book seems now a burden unto me, and that which heretofore did elevate my soul, and give it wings to fly aloft, sweet contem plation of nature and of arts, that now alas lays on me the heavy load of upbraiding, I fly, I fly, I hast into the by ways of these thickest groves What dark some Can e will give me shelter, and hide me from the light of mortal eyes, and of the immortal eye of this world the all-vu ewing Phoe us. OR this, or that. This is my duty. So. And though so, yet why not rather that? I oh that mine inclina cion draws me. Oh strange Monster, worse then ever nature did bring forth. A man in whom the light of reason shines, to walk in the cloudy night of tem pestuous passion, to live at once in two contrary ele ments. Glorious Apollo I feign would still rrmaine chine. And yet. And yet sweet Hedo e, I cannot di uorce my self from thee. Would I were Like thee now, as heretofore I have been, then should I not be thus dashed with shame. In a word, I am turned soldier.