440

THE RIGHTEOUS KING

'HE power of kings, if rightly understood,

THE

is but a grant from heaven of doing good; proud tyrants, who maliciously destroy,

and ride o'er ruins with malignant joy,

humbled in dust, soon to their cost shall know
heaven our avenger, and mankind their foe;
while gracious monarchs reap the good they sow:
blessing, are bless'd; far spreads their just renown,
consenting nations their dominion own,

and joyful happy crowds support their throne.
In vain the powers of earth and hell combine,
each guardian angel shall protect that line,
who by their virtues prove their right divine.

W. SOMERVILE

441 EDIPUS ON HEARING HIS NAME CALLED OUT

BY THE GHOST

HEN the sun sets, shadows that shew'd at noon

WHE

but small, appear most long and terrible;

so when we think fate hovers o'er our heads,
our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds,
owls, ravens, crickets seem the watch of death!
nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons:
echoes, the very leavings of a voice,

grow babbling ghosts and call us to our graves:
each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus,
while we fantastic dreamers heave and puff,
and sweat with an imagination's weight;
as if like Atlas with these mortal shoulders
we could sustain the burden of the world.

DRYDEN AND LEE

442

VI

VIRTUE AND AMBITION

VIRTUE hath not half so much trouble in it: it sleeps quietly, without startings and affrighting fancies; it looks cheerfully; smiles with much serenity; and though it laughs not often, yet it is ever delightful in the apprehensions of some faculty; it fears no man, nor no thing, nor is it decomposed; and hath no concernments in the great alterations of the world, and entertains death like a friend, and reckons the issues

443

444

of it as the greatest of its hopes. But ambition is full of distractions; it teems with stratagems, and is swelled with expectations; and sleeps sometimes, as the wind in a storm still and quiet for a minute, that it may burst out into an impetuous blast, till the cordage of his heart-strings crack.

SAMSON TO MANOAH

that solicitation. Let me here,

PARE that proposal, Father; spare the trouble

as I deserve, pay on my punishment;
and expiate, if possible, my crime,
shameful garrulity. To have revealed
secrets of men, the secrets of a friend,

how heinous had the fact been, how deserving
contempt and scorn of all, to be excluded
all friendship, and avoided as a blab,

the mark of fool set on his front! But I
God's counsel have not kept, his holy secret
presumptuously have published, impiously,
weakly at least, and shamefully.

J. MILTON

DUTIES RELATIVE TO THE PUBLIC

'HE single and peculiar life is bound,

THER

with all the strength and armour of the mind, to keep itself from noyance; but much more that spirit upon whose weal depend and rest the lives of many. The cease of majesty dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw what's near it with it: it is a massy wheel, fixed on the summit of the highest mount, to whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls, each small annexment, petty consequence, attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

W. SHAKESPEARE

445

Me.

SUCH

MEROPE-POLYPHONTES

UCH chance as killed the father, killed the sons.
Po. One son at least I spared, for still he lives.

Me. Tyrants think him they murder not they spare.
Po. Not much a tyrant thy free speech displays me.
Me. Thy shame secures my freedom, not thy will.
Po. Shame rarely checks the genuine tyrant's will.
Me. One merit, then, thou hast: exult in that.
Po. Thou standest out, I see, repellest peace.
Me. Thy sword repelled it long ago, not I.

Po. Doubtless thou reckonest on the hope of friends.
Me. Not help of men, although, perhaps, of Gods.
Po. What Gods? the Gods of concord, civil weal?
Me. No: the avenging Gods, who punish crime.

446

447

BUT

THE DYING GREEK

M. ARNOLD

UT he cried, "Phantoms of the free, we come! armies of the Eternal, ye who strike

to dust the citadels of sanguine kings,

and shake the souls throned on their stony hearts,
and thaw their frost-work diadems like dew ;-
O ye who float around this clime, and weave
the garment of the glory which it wears:

whose fame, though earth betray the dust it clasped,
lies sepulcred in monumental thought ;-

progenitors of all that yet is great,
ascribe to your bright senate, O accept

in your high ministrations, us, your sons—
us first, and the more glorious yet to come!"

D

MALEFORT'S DESPAIR

P. B. SHELLEY

O, do rage on! rend open, Æolus,

thy brazen prison, and let loose at once

thy stormy issue! Blustering Boreas,

aided with all the gales, can't raise a tempest
through the vast region of the air, like that
I feel within me: for I am possess'd

with whirlwinds, and each guilty thought to me is
a dreadful hurricano. Though this centre
labour to bring forth earthquakes, and hell open
her wide-stretched jaws, and let out all her furies,
they cannot add an atom to the mountain
of fears and terrors that each minute threaten
to fall on my accursed head.

P. MASSINGER

448

BEATRICE TO HER FATHER COUNT CENCI

ETIRE thou, impious man! Ay, hide thyself
where never eye can look upon thee more!
wouldst thou have honour and obedience,
who art a torturer? Father, never dream,
though thou mayst overbear this company,
but ill must come of ill.-Frown not on me!
haste, hide thyself, lest with avenging looks
my brothers' ghosts should hunt thee from thy seat!
cover thy face from every living eye,

and start if thou but hear a human step:
seek out some dark and silent corner, there
bow thy white head before offended God,
and we will kneel around, and fervently
pray that he pity both ourselves and thee.

P. B. SHELLEY

449 BEATRICE TO HER STEP-MOTHER LUCRETIA

450

AFTER THE MURDER OF COUNT CENCI

HAT is done wisely, is done well. Be bold

WHAT

as thou art just.. 'Tis like a truant child,

to fear that others know what thou hast done,

even from thine own strong consciousness, and thus
write on unsteady eyes and altered cheeks

all thou wouldst hide. Be faithful to thyself,
and fear no other witness but thy fear.
For if, as cannot be, some circumstance
should rise in accusation, we can blind
suspicion with such cheap astonishment,
or overbear it with such guiltless pride,
as murderers cannot feign. The deed is done,
and what may follow now regards not me.

Med. LEV

MEDEA AND HER NURSE

P. B. SHELLEY

EVIS est dolor qui capere consilium potest et clepere sese. Magna non latitant mala. Libet ire contra. Nutr. Siste furialem impetum, alumna: vix te tacita defendit quies.

Med. Fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos premit.

Nutr. Tunc est probanda si locum virtus habet.

Med. Nunquam potest non esse virtuti locus.
Nutr. Spes nulla monstrat rebus afflictis viam.
Med. Qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil.
Nutr. Abiere Colchi: conjugis nulla est fides:

nihilque superest opibus e tantis tibi. Med. Medea superest: hic mare et terras vides, ferrumque et ignes et deos et fulmina.

L. A. SENECA

451

MARCIA THE DAUGHTER OF CATO

JUBA TO SYPHAX

IS not a set of features or complexion,

'The tincture of a skin, that I admire;

beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex:
true, she is fair—(oh how divinely fair!)
but still the lovely maid improves her charms
with inward greatness, unaffected wisdom,
and sanctity of manners. Cato's soul

shines out in everything she acts or speaks,
while winning mildness and attractive smiles
dwell in her looks, and with becoming grace
soften the rigour of her father's virtues.

J. ADDISON

452

IF

IPHIGENIA BEFORE THOAS

F I concealed, O King, my name, my race,
'twas fear that prompted me and not 'mistrust.
For didst thou know who stands before thee now,
and what accursed head thy arm protects,

a shuddering horror would possess thy heart;
and, far from wishing me to share thy throne,
thou, ere the time appointed, from thy realm
would'st banish me perchance, and thrust me forth,
before a glad re-union with my friends

and period to my wanderings is ordained,
to meet that sorrow, which in every clime,
with cold, inhospitable, fearful hand,
awaits the outcast, exiled from his home.

J. F. GOETHE