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THEN, when this body falls in funeral fire, My name shall live, and my best partly aspire. It shall go so. Give me, how near's my Father? What, hast thou buskin's on, Luscus, that thou swearest so tragically and high? Why? was he no readier? Who? Pantilius Tucca? Nay, and he be under their arrest, I may (with safety e nough) read over my Elegy, before he come. What ailest thou, Luscus? Be not, good ignorance: I'm glad th'art gone: For thus alone, our Ear shall better judge The hasty errors of our morning Muse. I'll give attendance on you, to your horse, Sir; Please you.— And give me stomach to digest this law; That should have followed sure, had I been he. Oh sacred Poesy, thou spirit of Arts, The soul of Science, and the Queen of Souls, What profane violence, almost sacrilege, Hath here been offered thy Divinities! Hmh! that thine own guiltless Poverty should arm Prodigious Ignorance to wound thee thus! For thence, is all their force of Argument Drawn forth against thee; or from the abuse Of thy great powers in Adulterate brains; When, would men learn but to distinguish spirits, And set true difference betwixt those jaded wits, That run a broken pace for common hire, And the high Raptures of a happy soul, Born on the wings of her immortal thought, That kicks at earth with a disdainful heel, And beats at Heaven gates with her bright hooves; They would not then with such distorted faces, And dudgeon Censures stab at Poesy: They would admire bright knowledge, and their minds Should never descend on so unworthy objects, As Gold or Titles: they would dread far more, To be thought ignorant, then be known poor. "The time was once, when wit drowned wealth: but now, "Your only Barbarism's, to have wit, and want. "No matter now in virtue who excels, "He, that hath coin, hath all perfection else. Whose there? Come in. Good morrow (deer Tibullus ) welcome: fit down. Pray thee away. In troth, I know not: they run from my Pen Unwittingly, if they be verse. What's the news abroad? No, good Tibullus; I'm not now in case. Pray thee let me alone. Troth, if I live, I will new dress the Law, In sprightly Poesies Acoutrements. How! subscribed Julia! Oh my life, my Heaven! Music of wit! Note for th'harmonious Spheres! Celestial Accents, how you ravish me! That I must meet my Julia, the Princess Julia. Why at Heart, I have forgotten: my passion so trans ports me. Who? Cytheris, Cornelius Gallus Love? And why not your Delia? True; but my sweet Tibullus, keep that secret: I would not, for all Room, it should be thought I veil bright Julia underneath that name: Julia, the Gem, and Jewel of my soul, That takes her honours from the golden Sky, As beauty does all Lustre, from her Eye. The Air respires the pure Elyzium sweets, In which she breathes: and from her looks descend, The glories of the Summer. Heaven she is, Praised in her self above all praise: and he, Which hears her speak, would swear the Tuneful Orbs Turned in his Zenith only. Oh, in no Labyrinth, can I safelier err, Then when I lose my self in praising her. Hence Law, and welcome, Muses; though not rich, Yet are you pleasing: let's be reconcilde, And new made one. Hence forth, I promise faith, And all my serious hours to spend with you: With you, whose Music striketh on my heart, And with bewitching Tones steals forth my spirit, In Julia's name; Fair Julia, Julia's Love Shall be a Law, and that sweet Law I'll study, The Law, and Art of sacred Julia's Love: All other objects will but Abjects prove. Oh, how does my Sextus? What, still? Oh my Tibullus, Let us not blame him: for against such chances, The heartiest strife of virtue is not proof. We may read Constancy and Fortitude, To other souls: but had our selves been struck With the Like Planet; had our Loves (Like his) Been ravished from us, by injurious death, And in the height, and heat of our best days, It would have cracked our sinews, shrunk our veins, And made our very heart strings jar, Like his. Come, let's go take him forth, and prove, if Mirth, Or Company will but abate his passion. Sir, we all come to gratulate, for the good report of you. She will well deserve it Madam. I see, even in her looks, Gentry, and general worthiness. We find it so Sir. Nay, my sweet Sextus, infaith thou art not sociable, Worthy Roman! Me thinks I taste his misery; and could Fit down, and chide at his malignant Stars: What's that? A song? Come, he shall not deny her. Hermogenes? Hermogenes clear your throat: I see by him, here's a Gentleman will worthily challenge you. One of your own compositions, Hermogenes. He offers you vantage enough. If there were a praise above Excellence, the Gentlema ̄ highly deserves it. No, good Hermogenes: we'll end this differ ̄ ce within. Gods, and goddesses, take your several seats. Now, Mercury, move your Caduceus, and in Jupiters name come mand silence. O, he is the God of Reprehension; let him alone. It's 1 page duplicate 1 page duplicate his office. Mercury, go forward; and proclaim after Phœbus, our high pleasure, to all the Deities that shall partake this high Banquet. Mercury, give our Jester a stool, let him fit by; and reach him of our Cates. Deities, are you all agreed? Take his wife, Mars; & make him Cuckold, quickly. Fill us a bowl of Nectar, Ganymede: we will drink to our daughter Venus. Here daughter Venus, I drink to thee. Fill to our daughter Venus, Ganymede; who fills her fa there with affection. Why not, Juno? why should Jupiter, stand in awe of thy Face, Juno? What, shall a Husband be afraid of his wives Face? will she paint it so horribly? We are a King, Cotquean; and we will reign in our pleasures; & we will cudgel thee to death, if thou find fault with us. Juno, we will cudgel thee, Juno: we told thee so yesterday, when thou Wertenberg jealous of us, for Thetis. No more, Ganymede; we will cudgel thee, Iuuo: By Styx, we will. Yea, we will knock our Chin against our Breast; and shake thee out of Olympus, into and Oyster-boat, for thy scolding. We tell thee, thou angerst us, Cotquean; and we will thunder thee in pieces, for thy Cotqueanity: we will lay this City desolate, and flat as this hand, for thy offences. These two fingers are the Walls of it; these within, the People; which People, shall be all thrown down thus, and nothing left standing in this City, but these walls. Momus, you are envious: Would? would? Why, do, do, sing: Mercury. I Like not this sudden and general heaviness, a amongst our Godheads: It's somewhat ominous. Apollo, Command us louder Music, and let Mercury, and Momus contend to please, and revive our senses. I: This hath waked us. Mercury, our Herald; Go from our self the great God Jupiter, to the great Emperor, Augustus Caesar: And command him, from us (of whose Bounty he hath received his Surname, Augustus ) that for a Thank offering to our Beneficence, he presently Sacrifice as a Dish to this Banquet, his beautiful and wanton Daughter Julia: She's a cursed Quean, tell him; and plays the scold behind his back: Therefore let her be Sacrificed. Command him this, Mercury, in our high name of Jupiter Altitonans. Banished the Court? Let me be banished life; Since the chief end of Life is there concluded: Within the Court, is all the Kingdom bounded; And as her sacred Sphere does comprehend Ten thousand times so much, as so much Place In any partly of all the Empire else; So every Body, moving in her Sphere, Contains ten thousand times as in him, As any other, her choice Orb excludes. As in a circle, a Magician, then Is safe, against the Spirit, he excites; But out of it, is subject to his rage, And loses all the virtue of his Art: So I, exiled the circle of the Court, Lose all the good gifts, that in it I joyed. "No Virtue currant is, but with her stamp: "Nor no Vice vicious, blaunch't with her white hand. The Court's the Abstract of all Rome's desert; And my deer Inlia, the Abstract of the Court. Me thinks, now I come near her, I respire Some air, of that late comfort, I received: And while the Evening, with her modest veil, Gives leave to such poor Shadows as my self, To steal abroad; I, Like a heartless Ghost, Without the living Body of my Love, Will here walk, and attend her: For I know, Not far from hence, she is imprisoned, And Hope's, of her strict Guardian, to bribe So much admittance, as to speak to me, And cheer my fainting spirits, with her breath. Here, heavenly Julia. Oh, stay my Love: the Hope's thou dost conceive Of thy quick Death, and of thy future Life, Are not authentical. Thou choosest Death, So thou mightest joy thy Love, in th'other Life. But know (my princely Love) when thou art dead, Thou only must survive in perfect soul; And in the soul, are no Affections: We pour out our Affections with our Blood; And with our Bloods affections; fade our Loves. "No life hath Love in such sweet state, as this; "No Essence is so deer to moody Sense, "As Flesh, and Blood; whose Quintessence is Sense. "Beauty, composed of Blood, and Flesh, moves more, "And is more plausible to Blood, and Flesh: "Then Spiritual Beauty can be to the Spirit. Such Apprehension, as we have in Dreams (When Sleep, the bound of Senses, locks them up) Such shall we have, when Death destroys them quite. If Love be then thy Object, change not life, Live high, and happy still: I still below, Close with my Fortune's, in thy height, shall joy. Farewell all company; and if I could All light with thee: Hells shade should hide my brows, Till thy deer Beauty's beams redeemed my vows. For thine own good, fair Goddess, do not stay: Who would engage a Firmament of fires Shining in thee, for me, a falling Star? Be gone, sweet Lifeblood: if I should discern Thy self but touched, for my sake, I should die. Yet Julia, if thou wilt, A little longer stay. Oh mighty Ovid! what the sway of Heaven Could not retire, my breath hath turned back. If thou go first, my soul will follow thee. Aye me; there is no stay In amorous pleasures: if both stay, both die. I hear thy father; hence my Deity. Exit Julia. Fear forgeth sounds in my deluded ears; I did not hear him: I am mad with Love. There is no Spirit, under heaven, that works With such illusion; yet such witchcraft kill me, Ere a found mind, without it, save my life. Here, on my knees, I worship the blessed Place That held my Goddess; and the loving Air, That closed her body in his silken arms: Vain Ovid; kneel not to the Place, nor Air; She's in thy heart: Rise then, and worship there. "The truest wisdom silly men can have, "Is dotage, on the follies of their flesh. Exit. No Sir. Sir, I beseech you to have patience. Cornelius Gallus borrowed it to read. They wrong me sir, and do abuse you more, That blow your ears with these untrue reports. I am not known unto the open Stage, Nor do I traffic in their Theaters. Indeed, I do acknowledge, at request Of some near friends, and honourable Romans, I have begun a Poem of that nature.