MELIBAEUS

And we that never were accustomed To quarrel for our bounds, how do we see Montanus and Acrysius inter-striue How far their several Sheep-walks should extend, And cannot be agreed do what we can: As if some underworking hand strake fire, To apt enkindling tinder of debate, And fostered their contention and their hate. Beside their various habits grow so strange, As that although their faces certain are, Their bodies are uncertain every day, And always differing from themselves so far, As if they scorned to be the same they are. And all of us are so transformed, that we Discern not and Arcadian by that attire, Our ancient Pastoral habits are dispisd, And all is strange, hearts, clothes, and all disguised. Content Ergastus, and even here will be A place convenient for so fit a work: For here our Nymph's, and herdsmen on this Green, Do usually resort, and in this Grove We may observe them best, and be unseen. 'Tis true. And what and instrument hath he there God, To be the Agent of his villainy? How truly she negotiats, and does plot, To undermine frail imbecility. How strong, these spirits, combine them in a knot, To circum ent plain open honesty? And what a creature there is to converse With feeble maids, whose weakness soon is led With toys, and new disguises, to reverse The cour e wherein by custom they were bred? And then what fitness too, her trade affords, To traffic with the secrets of their heart, And I p n their affections with fair words. Which women straight to women will impart? And then to see how soon example will Disperse it self, being met with our desire: How soon, it will nkindle others ill, Like Naptha, that takes fire by sighed of fire? So that unless we run with all the speed We can, to quench this new arising flame. Of vanity, and lust, it will proceed T'vndoe us, ere we shall perceive the same: How far already is the mischief run, Before we scarce perceived it was begun? And see that other vain fantastic spirit, Who would corrupt out bodies too likewise, As this our minds, and make our health to be As trouolesome as sickness, to devise, That no partly of us ever should be free; Both foraging on our credulity, Take still advantage of our weaknesses; Both cloth their frivolous uncertainties In strange attires, to make it seen the less. Well, come Ergastus, we have seen enough, And it is more then time, that we prepare Against this Hydra of confusion now, Which still presents new hideous heads of fear: And every hour we see begets new broils, And intricates our youth in desperate toils. And therefore let advantage of this day, Which is the great, and general hunting day In Eremanthus, serve for this good deed And when we meet (as all of us shall meet Here in this place anon, as is decreed) We will advise our Shepherds to intermit That work, and fallen to this imports us more, To chase out these wild mischiefs that do lurk, And worse infest, then the Eremanthian Boar, Oh ll Beasts else, which only spoil our fields, While these which are of more prodigious kinds, Bend all their forces to destroy our minds. But there are two the most pernicious spirit; The world I think did ever yet produce. Colax and Techne, two such instruments Of Wantonness, of Lust and treachery, As are of power to entice and to debauch The universal state of honesty. This man I found with them now since you went Maintaining hight dispute with Titerus About the rites, and mysteries of Pan. But now to show the horrible effects Of Colax, and of Technes practises, (Beside this last exploit they wrought upon, Amyntas (who, poor youth, lies, now full weak: Under Urania's cure, whose skill we hear Hath yet recalled him to himself again) We have sent out abroad into the woods, For Silvia and Palamon two chased souls Whom they have tortured so with jealousy, Of each the other, as they made them ru A partly, to languish severally alone; And we have sent for diverse others too, Whose hearts have felt what impious craft can do. And here they come, and now you shall know all. Stand not confused deer lovers any more, For this is now the certain truth you hear, And this vile wretch hath done you both this wrong. And you Carinus look on that good Nymph Whose eye is still on you, as if she thought Her sufferings too, deserved some time of joy And now expects her turn, hath brought her lap For comfort too while fortune deals good hap. And therefore let her have it now poor soul For she is worthy to possess your love. Then thus we see the sadness of this day Is ended with the evening of our joy: And now you impious spirits, who thus have raised The hideous tempests of these Misery's, And thus abused our simple innocence, We charge you all here presently t'auoyd, From out our confines, under pain to be Cast down, and dashed in pieces from these rocks, And to-have your odious carcases deum red By beasts, being worse your selves then beasts to Now what a muttering keep you there, away Be gone I say, and best too, while you may. And since we have redeemed our selves so well Out of the hands of mischief, let us all Exile with them their ill example too, Which never more remains, as it begun, But is a wicked sire t'a far worse son, And stays not till it makes us slaves unto (That universal Tyrant of the earth Custom) who takes from us our privilege To be our selves, reads that great charter too Of nature, and would likewise cancel man: And so inchaynes our judgments, and discourse Unto the present usances; that we Must all our senses there unto refer, Be as we find our selves, not as we are, As if we had no other touch of truth And reason then the nations of the times And place wherein we live, and being our selves Corrupted, and abastardized thus Think all looks ill, that does not look Like us. And therefore let us recollect our selves Dispersed into these strange confused ill, And be again Arcadians as we were In manners and in habit as we were. And so solemnize this our happy day, Of restauration, with other feasts of joy. So this is well. Here's one discovery made; Here are the heads of that distemperature, From ̄ whence these strange deban'shme ̄ ts of our nymphs And vile deluding of our Shepheadrs Springs: Here is a monster, that hath made his ustes As wide as is his will, and leaft his will Without all bounds, and cares not whom he wrongs, So that he may his own desires fulfil, And being all foul himself, would make all ill. This is that Colax that from foreign lands, Hath brought home that infection which undoes His country goodness, and impoisons all. His being abroad would mar us quite, at home. 'Tis strange to see, that by his going out, He hath outgone that native honesty, Which here the breeding of his country gave. For here I do remember him a child, The son of Nicoginus of the Hill, A man though low in fortune, yet in mind High set, a man still practising Advance his forward son beyond the train Of our, Arcadian breed, and still me thought I saw a disposition in the youth, Bent to a self conceited surliness, With and insinuating impudence. You gentle Shepherds and inhabitors Of these remote, and solitary parts Of Montaynous Arcadiae, shut up here Within these Rocks, those unfrequented Cliffs, The walls and Bulwarks of our liberty, From out the noise of tumult, and the throng Of sweating toil, rattling concurrency, And have continued still the same and one In all successions from antiquity, While all the states on earth beside have made A thousand revolutions, and have rolled From change to change, and never yet found rest, Nor ever bettered their estates by change. You, I invoke this day in general, To do a work that now concerns us all: Least that we leave not to posterity, the Arcadia that we found continued thus By our forefathers care who leaft it us. For none of you I know, whose judgment's graven Can ought discern, but sees how much we are Transformed of late, and changed from what we were; And what distempers daily do arise Amongst our people, never felt before, At which I know you marvel, as indeed You well may marvel, whence they should proceed: And so did good Ergastus here, and I, Until we set our selves more warily To search it out, which by good hap we have, And found the Authors of this wickedness. Which Devils attired here in the shape of men, We have produced before you, to the end You may take speedy order to suppress Our growing follies, and their impiousness. Now what infernal projects are here laid, Afflict and honest heart, t'expose a maid, Unto the danger of alone aslault, To make her to offend without her fault. Indeed Ergastus I have never known, So universal a distemperature, In all parts of the body of our state, As now there is; nor ever have we herd So much complaining of disloyalty, Amongst our younger Nymph's, nor ever found Our herdsmen so deluded in their loves, As if there were no faith on either side. We never had in any age before So many spotless Nymph's, so much distained With black report, and wrongful infamy, That few escape the tongue of malice free.