SATURN

Titan keep off, I charge thee near me not, Lest I thy bold presumption seal with blood. Titan we both acknowledge thee a brother, And Vesta's son, which we'll express in love, But since for many virtues growing in me That have no life in you, the Queen, the Peers, And all the people, with loud suffrages, Have shrild their Auees high above the clouds, And stiled me King, we should forget their loves Not to maintain their strange election. Advise you therefore, since this bold adventure Is much above your strength, to arm your self, In search of future honours with our love, For what can Titan do against a people? Let Titan make demand of any thing Saving our Crown, he shall enjoy it freely. The Gods (if there be any above our self) Envy our greatness, and of one that seeks To bear himself above man, makes me more wretched Then the most slavish bruit. What shall my Sibyl Bring me a son; that shall depose me then? He shall not; I will cross the Deities, I'll tomb th'usurper in his Infant blood, I'll keep my oath; Prince Titan shall succeed, Maugre the envious Gods, the brat shall bleed. How fares ourmother? How i'st with fair Sibilla, our deer Queen? Of some female birth, You Deities I beg: make me o Heavens, No more inhumane in the tragic slaughter Of princely Infants, fill my decreed number With Virgins, though in them I lose my name And kingdom, either make her barren ever Or else all generative power and appetite Deprive me: lest my purple sin be stiled Many degrees above murder. What's her birth? It is my son whom I command to death, A Prince that may succeed me in my Throne, And to posterity revive my name. Call Vesta back, and bid her save the Babe. Yet stay: the lad to kill I save my oath, and keep my kingdom still. Post after her and charge them on their lives, Send me the babes blood in a cup of gold, A present which I'll offer to the Gods. Delay not, be't our mother, nay our wife, Forfeits her own to save the Infants life. Is this a deity, To be more wretched then the worst on earth, To be deprived, that comfort of my issue, Which even the basest of my land enjoy: Il'e henceforth for my rigor hate my self, Pleasures despise, and joys abandon quite. The purest blood that runs within my veins, I'll dull with thick, and troubled melancholy, Il'e war with comfort, be at odds with solace, And league with nothing but distemperature. Henceforth my vnkem'd locks shall knot in curls, Razor nor any edge shall kiss my cheek, Until my chin appear a wilderness, And make we wild in knowledge to the world. Perpetual care shall cabin in my heart, My tyranny I'll punish in my self, And save the Gods that labour— Satur's disturbance to the world shall be, That planet that infuseth melancholy. The nimble Ladies have outstripped us quite, Unless we speed we shall not see him fallen. We are too slow in pursuit of our game; Let's after though; since they outstrip our eyes, Run by their notes, that from their Bugles rise. None speak, let no harsh voice presume to jarr In our distressed care, I am all sad, All horrout and affrightment, since the slaughter And tragic murder of my first born Ops, Continued in the vnnat urall massacre Of three young Princes: not a day hath left me Without distaste, no night but double darkened With terror and confused melancholy: No hour but hath had care and discontent Proportioned to his minutes not and instant: Without remorse and anguish. O you crowns, Why are you made, and mettald out of cares? I am overgrown with sorrow, circumuailed With multiplicity of distemperatures, And Saturn is a King of nothing else, But woes, vexations, sorrows, and laments. To add to these the threatenings of read war, As if the murder of my Princely babes Were not enough to plague and usurpation, But they must add the rage of sword and fire, To affright my people: these are Misery's, Able to be comprised in no dimension. My dearest Juno, beautiful remainder Of Saturn's royal issue, but for thee I had ere this with these my fingers torn A graven out of the rocks, to have entombed The wretched carcase of a caitiff King: And I will live, be't but to make thee Queen Of all the triumphs and the spoils I win. Speak, what's the project of their invasion? Have I not their bloods Already quaffed to angry Nemesis? Have not these ruthless and remorseless eyes, (Vn-father-like) beheld their panting hearts Swimming in bowls of blood? Am I not sonless? Nay childless too, save Juno whom I love: And dare they then? Come, our continued sorrow Shall into scarlet indignation turn, And my sons blood shall crown their guilty heads With purple vengeance. Valiant Lords, set on, And meet them to their last destruction. Stay, because we'll ground our wars On justice: Fair Sibilla, on thy life, I charge thee tell me, and dissemble not, By all the Hope's in Saturn thou hast stored, Our nuptial pleasures, and affairs of love, As thou esteemest our grace, or vengeance fearest, Resolve me truly. Hast thou sons alive? These tears, and that dejection on thy knee, Accompanied with dumbness, argue gilded. Arise and speak. Amazement, war, the threatening Oracle, All muster strange perplexions about my brain, And rob me of the true ability Of my direct conceiuements. Doubt, and war. Titans invasion, and my jealousy; Make me unfit for answer. Divine assistance plunge me from these troubles, Mortality here fails me, I am wrapped In millions of confusions. All my disturbances Convert to rage, and make my spleen as high As is their topless fury, to encounter With equal force and vengeance. Go Sibilla, Convey my beauteous Juno to the place Of our best strength, whilst we contend in Arms For this rich Cretan wreathe: the battle done, And they confined, we'll treat of these affairs. Perhaps our love may with this breach dispense,, But first to Arms, to beat intruders hence. The heavens have for our barbarous cruelty Done in the murder of our first born Ops, Poured on our head this vengeance. Where, o where Shall we find rcscue? Bid Wolves be mild, and Tigers pitiful, Command the Libian Lions abstinence, Teach me to mollify the Corsic rock, Or make the Mount Chymera passable. What Monarch wrapped in my confusions, Can tell what patience means? O either teach me rescue from these troubles, Or bid me everlastingly, ey ever Sink in despair and horror, More then tyrannous To triumph over the weak, and to oppress The low dejected. Let your cruelty Be the sad perjod of my wretchedness: Only preserve my lovely Juno's life, And give Sibilla freedom, Never was Saturn deified till now, Nor found that perfectness the Gods enjoy. Heaven can assure no greater happiness Then I attain in sighed of Jupiter, Degenerate boys, base bastards, not my sons, Behold the death we threatened in your Cradles We come to give you now. See here King Troos In pity of deposed Saturn's wrongs, Is come in person to chastise your pride, And be the heavens relentless Justicer. Ganymede, It shall be so, pour out your spleen and rage On our proud Issue. Let the thirsty soil Of barren Creet quaff their degenerate bloods, And surfeit in their sins. All Saturn's Hope's And Fortune's are engaged upon this day. It is our last, and all, be't our endeavour To win't for ay, or else to lose it ever. Amidst the throng of weapons, acting wonders. Twice did I call aloud to have him fly, And twice he swore he had vowed this day to die. Tush, 'tis vain. To seek to save him we shall lose our selves. The day is lost, and Ganymede lost too Without divine assistance. High my Lord Unto your ships, no safety lives a land, Even to the Ocean's ma gent we are pursued, Then save your self by sea. To sea must Saturn too, To whom all good stars are still opposite. My Crown I first bought with my infants blood, Not long enjoyed, till Titan wrested it; Repurchased, and re-lost by Jupiter. These horrid mischiefs that have crowned our brows, Have bred in us such strange distemperature, That we are grown dejected and forlorn. Our blood is changed to Ink, our hairs to quils, Our eyes half buried in our quechy plots. Consumptions and cold agues have devoured And eat up all our flesh, leaving behind Nought save the Image of despair and death: And Saturn shall to after ages be That star, that shall infuse dull melancholy. To Italy I'll fly, and there abide, Till divine powers my place above provide. Behold what nature skanted me in years, And time, below my brother; your applause, And general love, fully supplies me with: And make me to his crown inheritable. I choose it as my right by gift of heaven, The peoples suffrage, the dead Kings bequest, And your election, our fair mother Queen, Against all these what can twelve moons of time, Prevail with Titan to disherit us. The last, not least, this use of Archery, Thostringed, bow, and nimble-fethered-shaft: By this you may command the flying fowl, And reach her from on high: this serves for war, To strike and wound thy foeman from a far. What means this acclamation? We'll study future profits for their use, And in our fresh inventions prove divine. But Gods are never touched with my suspires, Passion and throbs: their Godlike Issue thrive, While I unmanlike must desttoy my babes. O my strict oath to Titan, which confounds All my precedent honours: one sweet babe, My youngest Ops hath felt the bloody knife, And perished in his swathing: And my Queen Swells with another Infant in her womb, Ready to taste Like rigor. Is that Lord Returned from Delphos yet? Admit him: now what does the Oracle Speak by the Delphian Priest. Be ever dumb, let everlasting silence Tong-tye the world, all humane voice henceforth, Turn to confused, and undistinguished found, Of barking Hounds, hoarse bears, & howling wolves, To stop all rumour that may sil the world With Saturn's tyrannies against his sons. Then spare the lad: I did offend too much To kill the first, tell Sibyl he shall live, I'll be no more so monstrous in my rigor, Nor with the blood of Princes buy my Crown. No more their Cradles shall be made their Tombs, Nor their soft swathes become their winding sheets: How can my subjects think Il'e spare their lives, That to my own can be so tyrannous? Tell Sibyl he shall live. Stay, let me first reward the Oracle, It told me Sibyl should produce a son, That should his Father's virtues much excel, Cease on my Crown, and driven me down to Hell. Must I then give and Infant-traitor life, To sting me to the heart? the brat shall bleed. He that next replies, Mother or friend, by Saturn's fury die. Away, fetch me his heart, brim me a bowl With his warm blood. Tyrant, my vow I'll keep, Life newly wakend, shall as newly sleep. Command the child to death. Thou hast Sybilla kept that son alive That only can redeem me from this thraldom, O how shall we acquaint young Jupiter, With this his father's hard success in Arms. If royal Jupiter be Saturn's son, We shall be either rescued or revenged, And now I shall not dread those Tytanois, That threaten fire and steel. Thou art my anchor, and the only column That supports Saturn's glory, O my Jupiter, On thee the basis of my Hope's I erect, And in thy life King Saturn's fame survives. Are messengers dispatched to signify My son of our distress. Then Titan, and the proud Enceladus, Hyperion and Aegeon with the rest, Of all the earth-bread raze we weigh you not, Threaten your worst, let all your eyes spark fire. Your flaming nostrils Like Avernus's smoke, Your tongues speak thunder, & your armed hands Fling Trisulke lightning: Be you Gods above, Or come you with infernal hatred armed, We dread you not: we have a son survives, Shall calm your tempests: beauteous Juno comfort, And cheer Sybilla, if he undertake Our rescue, we from danger are secure, We in his valour all our lives assure. It's Juno, and thy sister. What is it I'l deny my Jupiter? She is thy own. I'l royalize thy nuptials With all the solemn triumphs Creet can yield. Then to our Palace Pass on in state, let all raryeties Shower down from heaven a lardges, that these bridals may exceed mortal pomp. March, March, and leave me To contemplate these joys, and to devise, How with best state this night to solemnize. Saturn at length is happy by his son, Whose matchless and unrivalled dignities Are without peer on earth, O joy, joy? corrosive Worse then the throws of childbirth, or the tortures Of black Cimmerian darkness. Saturn, now Bethink thee of the Delphiun Oracle: He shall his father's virtue first excel, Seize Creet, and after driven him down to hell. The first is passed: my virtues are exceeded: The last I will prevent, by force or treason. I'l work his ruin here he grow too high. His stars have cast it, and the boy shall die. More sons I have, more crowns I cannot win, The Gods say he must die, and 'tis no sin. We accept your loves, And we will strive by merit to exceed you. In joust requital of these favours done. To cut off all hostile effusion Of human blood, which by our difference Must needs be spilled upon the barren earth, We'll swear to this accord. Kill my sons? Titan, thy friendship We'll buy with our own blood, all our male children, (If we hereafter shall have any born) Shall perish in their births, to this we swear, As we are King and Saturn. First stay with us and feast, Titan this day shall be King Satur's guest. You shall no more be lodged beneath the trees, Nor chamber underneath the spreading Oaks: Behold, I have devised you forms for tools, To square out timber, and perform the Art Of Architecture, yet unknown till now. I'll draw you forms of Cities, Towns and Towers, For use and strength, behold the models here. Issue from us? See here a second Art of Husbandry, To till the earth, to blow, to sow, to plant, Devised by Saturn: here is gold refined From Grosser metals, silver, brass, and tin, With other minerals, extract from earth. I likewise have found out to make your brooks, Rivers and by practice Navigable. Behold a form to make your Craers and Barks To pass huge streams in safety, dangerless.