Hero and Leander and Other Poems | Page 8

wring,?Forth plungeth, and oft flutters with her wing,?She trembling strove: this strife of hers, like that?Which made the world, another world begat?Of unknown joy. Treason was in her thought,?And cunningly to yield herself she sought.?Seeming not won, yet won she was at length:?In such wars women use but half their strength.?Leander now, like Theban Hercules,?Enter'd the orchard of th' Hesperides;?Whose fruit none rightly can describe, but he?That pulls or shakes it from the golden tree.?Wherein Leander, on her quivering breast,?Breathless spoke something, and sigh'd out the rest;?Which so prevail'd, as he, with small ado,?Enclos'd her in his arms, and kiss'd her too:?And every kiss to her was as a charm,?And to Leander as a fresh alarm:?So that the truce was broke, and she, alas,?Poor silly maiden, at his mercy was.?Love is not full of pity, as men say,?But deaf and cruel where he means to prey.?And now she wish'd this night were never done,?And sigh'd to think upon th' approaching sun;?For much it griev'd her that the bright day-light?Should know the pleasure of this blessed night,?And them, like Mars and Erycine, display?Both in each other's arms chain'd as they lay.?Again, she knew not how to frame her look,?Or speak to him, who in a moment took?That which so long, so charily she kept;?And fain by stealth away she would have crept,?And to some corner secretly have gone,?Leaving Leander in the bed alone.?But as her naked feet were whipping out,?He on the sudden cling'd her so about,?That, mermaid-like, unto the floor she slid;?One half appear'd the other half was hid.?Thus near the bed she blushing stood upright,?And from her countenance behold ye might?A kind of twilight break, which through the air,?As from an orient cloud, glimps'd here and there;?And round about the chamber this false morn?Brought forth the day before the day was born.?So Hero's ruddy cheek Hero betray'd,?And her all naked to his sight display'd:?Whence his admiring eyes more pleasure took?Than Dis, on heaps of gold fixing his look.?By this, Apollo's golden harp began?To sound forth music to the ocean;?Which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard,?But he the bright Day-bearing car prepar'd,?And ran before, as harbinger of light,?And with his flaring beams mock'd ugly Night?Till she, o'ercome with anguish, shame, and rage,?Dang'd down to hell her loathsome carriage.
Here Marlowe's work ends. The rest of the poem is by Chapman.
THE THIRD SESTIAD
THE ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD SESTIAD
Leander to the envious light?Resigns his night-sports with the night,?And swims the Hellespont again.?Thesme, the deity sovereign?Of customs and religious rites,?Appears, reproving his delights,?Since nuptial honours he neglected;?Which straight he vows shall be effected.?Fair Hero, left devirginate,?Weighs, and with fury wails her state:?But with her love and woman's wit?She argues and approveth it.
New light gives new directions, fortunes new?To fashion our endeavours that ensue.?More harsh, at least more hard, more grave and high?Our subject runs, and our stern Muse must fly.?Love's edge is taken off, and that light flame,?Those thoughts, joys, longings, that before became?High unexperienc'd blood, and maids' sharp plights,?Must now grow staid, and censure the delights,?That, being enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise,?As having parted: evenings crown the days.?And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires,?Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires,?Ye lisping Flatteries, and obsequious Glances,?Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances,?And you detested Charms constraining love!?Shun love's stoln sports by that these lovers prove.?By this, the sovereign of heaven's golden fires,?And young Leander, lord of his desires,?Together from their lover's arms arose:?Leander into Hellespontus throws?His Hero-handled body, whose delight?Made him disdain each other epithite.?And so amidst th' enamour'd waves he swims,?The god of gold of purpose gilt his limbs,?That, this word _gilt_ including double sense,?The double guilt of his incontinence?Might be express'd, that had no stay t' employ?The tresure which the love-god let him joy?In his dear Hero, with such sacred thrift?As had beseem'd so sanctified a gift;?But, like a greedy vulgar prodigal,?Would on the stock dispend, and rudely fall,?Before his time, to that unblessed blessing?Which, for lust's plague, doth perish with possessing:?Joy graven in sense, like snow in water, wasts;?Without preserve of virtue, nothing lasts.?What man is he, that with a wealthy eye?Enjoys a beauty richer than the sky,?Through whose white skin, softer than soundest sleep,?With damask eyes the ruby blood doth peep,?And runs in branches through her azure veins,?Whose mixture and first fire his love attains;?Whose both hands limit both love's deities,?And sweeten human thoughts like paradise;?Whose disposition silken and is kind,?Directed with an earth-exempted mind;--?Who thinks not heaven with such a love is given??And who, like earth, would spend that dower of heaven,?With rank desire to joy it all at first??What simply kills our hunger, quencheth thirst,?Clothes but our nakedness, and makes us live,?Praise doth not any of her favours give:?But what doth plentifully minister?Beauteous apparel and delicious cheer,?So order'd that it still excites desire,?And still gives pleasure freeness to aspire,?The