Save me, as ever you desire to have
Your babe to joy and prosper in the world:
Which will the better prosper sure, if you

Shall mercy show, which is with mercy paid!"
Then kisses she her feet, then kisses too

The infant's feet; and, "O, sweet babe," (said she,)
"Couldst thou but to thy mother speak for me,
And crave her to have pity on my case,
Thou mightst perhaps prevail with her so much,
Although I cannot; child, ah, couldst thou speak!"
The infant, whether by her touching it,
Or by instinct of nature, seeing her weep,
Looks earnestly upon her, and then looks
Upon the mother, then on her again,

And then it cries, and then on either looks:
Which she perceiving; "Blessed child,” (said she,)
"Although thou canst not speak, yet dost thou cry
Unto thy mother for me. Hear thy child,

Dear mother; it's for me it cries;

It's all the speech it hath. Accept those cries.
Save me at his request from being defiled:
Let pity move thee, that thus moves the child."
The woman, though by birth and custom rude,
Yet having veins of nature, could not be
But pierceable, did feel at length the point
Of pity enter so, as out gush'd tears,
(Not usual to stern eyes,) and she besought
Her husband to bestow on her that prize,
With safeguard of her body at her will.

;

The captain, seeing his wife, the child, the nymph,
All crying to him in this piteous sort,

Felt his rough nature shaken too, and grants
His wife's request, and seals his grant with tears;
And so they wept all four for company:
And some beholders stood not with dry eyes;
Such passion wrought the passion of their prize.
Never was there pardon, that did take
Condemned from the block more joyful than
This grant to her: for all her misery
Seem'd nothing to the comfort she received,
By being thus saved from impurity:

And from the woman's feet she would not part,

Nor trust her hand to be without some hold
Of her, or of the child, so long as she remain'd
Within the ship, which in few days arrives
At Alexandria, whence these pirates were;
And there this woeful maid for two years' space
Did serve, and truly serve this captain's wife,
(Who would not lose the benefit of her
Attendance, for her profit otherwise,)
But daring not in such a place as that
To trust herself in woman's habit, craved
That she might be apparel'd like a boy;
And so she was, and as a boy she served.
At two years' end her mistress sends her forth
Unto the port for some commodities,

Which, whilst she sought for, going up and down,
She heard some merchantmen of Corinth talk,
Who spake that language the Arcadians did,
And were next neighbours of one continent.
To them, all wrapt with passion, down she kneels,
Tells them she was a poor distressed boy,
Born in Arcadia, and by pirates took,
And made a slave in Egypt; and besought
Them, as they fathers were of children, or
Did hold their native country dear, they would
Take pity on her, and relieve her youth
From that sad servitude wherein she lived:
For which she hoped that she had friends alive
Would thank them one day, and reward them too;
If not, yet that she knew the Heavens would do.
The merchants, moved with pity of her case,
Being ready to depart, took her with them,
And landed her upon her country coast:

Where, when she found herself, she prostrate falls,
Kisses the ground, thanks gives unto the gods,
Thanks them who had been her deliverers,
And on she trudges through the desert woods,
Climbs over craggy rocks, and mountains steep,
Wades thorough rivers, struggles thorough bogs,
Sustained only by the force of love;

Until she came unto the native plains,

Unto the fields where first she drew her breath.
There she lifts up her eyes, salutes the air,

Salutes the trees, the bushes, flowers and all:
And, "O, dear Sirthis, here I am," said she,
"Here, notwithstanding all my miseries,
I am the same I was to thee; a pure,
A chaste, and spotless maid."

ALAHAM: A TRAGEDY,

BY FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE.

ALAHAM, second son to the KING of ORMUS, deposes his father, whose eyes, and the eyes of his elder brother ZOPHI, (acting upon a maxim of oriental policy,) he causes to be put out. They, blind, and fearing for their lives, wander about. In this extremity they are separately met by the king's daughter CELICA, who conducts them to places of refuge; hiding her father amid the vaults of a temple, and guiding her brother to take sanctuary at the altar.

KING. CALICA.

King. Cælica; thou only child, whom I repent
Not yet to have begot, thy work is vain:
Thou runn'st against my destiny's intent.
Fear not my fall; the steep is fairest plain;
And error safest guide unto his end,

Who nothing but mischance can have to friend.
We parents are but nature's nursery;

When our succession springs, then ripe to fall.
Privation unto age is natural.

Age there is also in a prince's state,

Which is contempt, grown of misgovernment;
Where love of change begetteth princes' hate:
For hopes must wither, or grow violent,
If fortune bind desires to one estate.

Then mark! Blind, as a man; scorn'd, as a king;
A father's kindness loathed, and desolate;
Life without joy, or light: what can it bring,
But inward horror unto outward hate?

O safety! thou art then à hateful thing,

When children's death assures the father's state.
No, safe I am not, though my son were slain,
My frailty would beget such sons again.
Besides, if fatal be the Heavens' will,
Repining adds more force to destiny;

Whose iron wheels stay not on fleshly wit,
But headlong run down steep necessity.
And as in danger, we do catch at it
That comes to help; and unadvisedly
Oft do our friends to our misfortune knit :
So with the harm of those who would us good
Is destiny impossibly withstood.

Cælica, then cease; importune me no more:
My son, my age, the state where things are now,
Require my death. Who would consent to live
Where love cannot revenge, nor truth forgive?
Calica. Though fear see nothing but extremity,
Yet danger is no deep sea, but a ford,

Where they that yield can only drowned be.
In wrongs, and wounds, sir, you are too remiss:
To thrones a passive nature fatal is.

King. Occasion to my son hath turn'd her face;
My inward wants all outward strengths betray;
And so make that impossible I may.

Calica. Yet live:

Live for the state.

King. Whose ruins glasses are

Wherein see errors of myself I must,

And hold my life of danger, shame, and care. Calica. When fear propounds, with loss men ever choose. King. Nothing is left me but myself to lose.

Calica. And is it nothing then to lose the state?

King. Where chance is ripe, there counsel comes too late. Calica, by all thou owest the gods and me,

I do conjure thee, leave me to

my chance.

What's past was error's way; the truth it is,
Wherein I wretch can only go amiss.

If nature saw no cause of sudden ends,

She, that but one way made to draw our breath,
Would not have left so many doors to death.
Calica. Yet, sir, if weakness be not such a sand
As neither wrong nor counsel can manure;
Choose and resolve what death you will endure.
King. This sword, thy hands, may offer up my breath,
And plague my life's remissness in my death.
Calica. Unto that duty if these hands be born,

I must think God, and truth, were names of scorn.

Again, this justice were if life were loved,
Now merely grace; since death doth but forgive
A life to you, which is a death to live.

Pain must displease that satisfies offence.

King. Chance hath left death no more to spoil but sense.
Calica. Then sword, do justice' office thorough me: [herself.
I offer more than that he hates to thee. [Offers to kill
King. Ah! stay thy hand. My state no equal hath,
And much more matchless my strange vices be:
One kind of death becomes not thee and me.
Kings' plagues by chance or destiny should fall;
Headlong he perish must that ruins all.
Calica. No cliff or rock is so precipitate,

But down it eyes can lead the blind away;
Without me live, or with me die you may.
King. Cælica, and wilt thou Alaham exceed?
His cruelty is death, you torments use;
He takes my crown, you take myself from me;
A prince of this fallen empire let me be.
Calica. Then be a king, no tyrant of thyself:
Be; and be what you will: what nature lent
Is still in hers, and not our government.
King. If disobedience, and obedience both,

Still do me hurt; in what strange state am I?
But hold thy course: it well becomes my blood,
To do their parents mischief with their good.
Calica. Yet, sir, hark to the poor oppressed tears,
The just men's moan, that suffer by your fall;
A prince's charge is to protect them all.
And shall it nothing be that I am yours?
The world without, my heart within, doth know,
I never had unkind, unreverent powers.
If thus you yield to Alaham's treachery,
He ruins you: 'tis you, sir, ruin me.

King. Cælica, call up the dead; awake the blind;

Turn back the time; bid winds tell whence they come :
As vainly strength speaks to a broken mind.

Fly from me, Calica; hate all I do:

Misfortunes have in blood successions too. Calica. Will you do that which Alaham cannot ? He hath no good; you have no ill, but he: This mar-right yielding's honour's tyranny.