HAEMON

Pardon me royal virgin, Think it not rudeness in me thus to press Upon your privacies; but call it service, Or zeal to wait upon you, and behold What I do most admire. To visit you, so you be pleased to grace That visit with a welcome, is a blessing No place has power to lessen, it would make Hells saddest cave a fair Elysium. Aemon never Was taxed of flattery, nor will your worth Admit it; gentle Lady, be but pleased To think my heart speaks in my tongue to you. O give me leave but to confess my flame, Which never can be hid; a better fire More chased, more true, and full of constancy, (I dare maintain it) warms no breast on earth. No earthly power but sweet Antigone Can sentence me to bliss or endless woe. O save that creature that depends on you. Make me immortal by a fair return Of grace from you and favour. (That title, though I hated you, your worth Would challenge from my truth) I love you better Then so to work your ruin; Love and wedlock Have still been fatal in our family. The baleful owls and croaking ravens sing Our Hymenean songs, and furies light Their brands for torches to our bridal beds. No, wondrous maid, you bear a heaven about you, A heaven of virtue, that is proof against The furies rage, and Fortune's utmost spite: You are above them all. O take me to you, And by conjunction of your goodness, make Me higher then the power of fate can reach. O heavenly voice! This promise from divine Antigone, More then fruition of the proudest beauty That ere mortality could boast, revives me, And makes me ever happy; all the hours, That from my countries' cause, and from the war I can be spared, I'll keep as holy ones To pay devotion here, here I'll relate What ever fortune throws on doubting Thebes. But one chased kiss and so farewell. The watch is up, and with a winged speed Pursues those lights, which my presaging soul Tells me attend on fair Antigone. Should what I fear prove true, they must not seize her, If all persuasions, promise of reward, Nor gold prevail not, the deer cause will lend This arm a strength above mortality. Dircus, she's gone, and I am worse then dead, O would the villains arms had had the power To have dispatched me quickly. Honest Dircus, What care can ere my body have without The presence of my soul? It seems it was Argia Dead Polynices wife, Adrastus daughter, Or else some grace or goddess in that shape Came to consort with good Antigone. A saintnesse seizes me, I prithee Dircus Let me have speedy news. How man? Expound This Aenigmatike sorrow. Enough, enough. Shut up alive to starve, o horrid doom! As if that death alone, though never so gentle, Had not been punishment enough for her For such a cause as that; but yet this sentence Gives respite to her death, and leaves a way To our prevention; I must spend no time In thinking now; all Actium is required. Thus it must be; be speedy faithful friend, Run to my mother, and with all the vows, And vehement protestations that thou canst From me assure her, if Antigone Be not released in time, it shall not lie In all the power of earth to save my life. Her love I fear not, though my father now Have cast his frown upon me, to this place Return again with all thy speed, whilst I Devise some other means if that should fail. Closed up alive within a tomb to starve! O horrid cruelty, I would I could Forget whose crime it were, that my free hate Might not be checked by duty to a father. Should I approve his Actium, 'twere a sin So great against virtue, as no time could pardon; Should I condemn it, I must then abhor the offendor, and that piety forbids. O why should piety, and virtue strive? That piety, which I so much admired In fair Antigone, my self transgress In loving her cross to my father's will. Yet in obeying him I must approve Her piety, or else condemn mine own. What thoughts will reign in this divided breast. Till Dircus do return? but courage heart, More strong is he, that can his doubts defer Then he that known calamities does bear. Then let us break this wealthy Cabinet, And take from thence a jewel, which the ransom Of all the Kings on earth would be a price To poor to purchase: Knewest thou, happy cave, Or knew the world what true vnualew'd wealth Thy bore unpolished bosom did contain, Thou wouldst despise the richest temples reared On Marble Columns, and high-roofed with gold; To thee would men with adoration come As to a place more sacred then the cave That nourished Cretan Jove, then Bacchus Nisa, Or the Oetaean Mount, from whence in flames The great All ides mounted to the sky. But I forget my self, I first must know Whither I live or no; for in that cave, Not he e does. Aemon breath. Antigone. Dircus I live; heardst thou that heavenly voice Which has inspired a happier life into me Then my creation did. Lets lose no time In this sweet business. Sad Thebes adieu, I'll find some happier country to convey My envied treasure to. Possessed of her I shall be richer then the Theban crown Can make me; speak how fares my fairest love; Shall we be gone? How? what fate Can let our journey, if thy love consent? O do not mock My joys, Antigone, or if thou dost not, Tell me what sad disaster can befall. No fate can make me happy, I am lost Beyond her cure. Her white soul is fled. What unsubstantial bubbles are the best Of humane joys? how from the top of all My Hope's and comforts in one fatal minute Has envious fortune thrown me down again Into the depth of misery, and woe. O fortune how extreme thou art in all Thy favours and thy frowns! Strike that string no more, Do not in vain torment a desperate man With thy dull counsel: 'Tis as possible Thou shouldst persuade a dead man to arise After his soul is fled, as me to live. Now she is dead, I do conjure thee Dircus By all the love thou bearest me, by that faith Which I have ever found and prized in thee, To leave me here. Too cruel Dircus. Was I not miserable enough before, But thou must load my sufferings with thy death? What cause hadst thou to die? thou hast not lost A love, why should my lose extend so far As to the ruin of so brave a friend? Thy death has injured fair Antigone, And made a strange Division in my grief. For all the sorrow which this breast could hold, Was endue to her before. I must encroach Upon her right in spending tears for thee. My breast's too narrow for so great a grief, And must be quickly opened. Thou pure soul Of my Antigone, which still suruiu'st, Though this fair palace be demolished quite By death's ungentle hand, thou heavenly substance, True object of a chased, and spotless love, Thy Aemon comes; and from these bonds of nature Flies forth to meet thee in the other world, To wed thee there; to finish there the rites Of long-cross'd love, and taste eternal sweets. How well this sad and solitary place Suits with my thoughts? these unfrequented woods, Where nature void of artificial robes Presents her naked and ungarnished face. In such abodes as these dwelled piety, White innocence, and spotless chastity In that first golden age when Saturn reigned. And still me thinks within these woods he reigns, Though banished quite from all the world beside, Here lives the soul of virtue; here abides The fair Antigone, whose matchless goodness Upbraids, and expiates this ages crimes, And quite our-weighs impiety of Thebes, This place the Gods, disdaining other sights, Behold with wonder, when Antigone With pious hands directs her blinded sire The woeful Oedipus; hither the Graces, The chaster Nymphs, and harmless Dryades Leaving their bowers of pleasure, all resort To uva to on her, and bear her company. MY fears have brought me early to this place. The night is young; No watches yet are set. How sad and deep a silence does possess These mourning fields! but why should that seem strange! Why shake I thus? Why do my coward thoughts Tell me 'tis ominous? is it not night? And who dares tread on this forbidden ground? The Ravens, Wolves, and Praetors here have filled Their hungry maws, and now are gone to rest. What noise should I expect, unless the Ghosts Of these dead Greeks with querulous cries should fill The air of night? what horror thus invades me? Is it because the Schreich owl cried about me Passing the gates of Thebes? because to night I have so often stumbled on dead men? Tut; these are toys for children, let not fear, That ever was a stranger to this breast, Reign in it now. But 'tis Antigone, Whom cruel virtue will command to night Into a world of danger, is the cause Of all my fear. O fair Antigone, Why art thou good? so excellently good, To make me more then wretched? you bright stars, That do alternally with Phœbus rule And measure time, if virtue be a kin To heaven and you, if your fair influence Govern this lower world, let not the night, Which is your time of reign, give privilege To murders, witchcrafts, and infernal arts, Whilst virtue suffers, and white innocence Is made a prey. I'll watch the fields to night; But not be seen, till time require mine aid. Secretly shrouded in yond Cypress grove I'll watch what Fortune's do attend my love. No news of comfort, or discomfort yet? Forgive me faithful Dircus, if my soul My lovesick soul unjustly do accuse Thy diligent care, and think thee slack; my heart Till thy return is stretched upon the wrack, A rack of torturing thoughts, more painful far Then tyranny could wish, or foes invent To punish foes, dost thou delay, because The news thou bringest is ill? if my fair love Be dead, or doomed to death, why dost thou keep My soul from her Celestial company? If all be well—but o presumptuous soul Check that too happy thought again; I know My father's nature is vnmoouable In all resolves, and this bound by and oath So deep, so solemn, and inviolable As ere't be broke will break this heart of mine. See here he comes, speak man, what news? Ay me, Thy very looks have blasted me before Thy tongue can be their sad interpreter. No news but black could force a soldiers tears. Antigone is dead. O comfortable Dircus, Do but assure me that, and I shall owe More then my life, and all my Fortune's to thee Upon mine honour, I'll not stir from hence Till thou return, nor stay thee now t'enquire More of the plot.