Of anguish, rather than of crime, hath been,
Reserve her cause to her eternal doom;
And, in the mean,1 vouchsafe her honourable tomb.' 1Mean
'Palmer,' quoth he, 'death is an equal doom
To good and bad, the common inn of rest;
But after death the trial is to come,
When best shall be to them that livéd best:
But both alike, when death hath both supprest,
Religious reverence doth burial teen;3
Which whoso wants, wants so much of his rest:
For all so great shame after death I ween,
As self to dien bad, unburied bad to been.*
So both agree their bodies to engrave:4
The great earth's womb they open to the sky,
And with sad cypress seemly it embrave;5
Then, covering with a clod their closed eye,
They lay therein their corses tenderly,
And bid them sleep in everlasting peace.
But, ere they did their utmost obsequy,
Sir Guyon more affection to increase,
Bynempt a sacred vow, which none should aye
The dead knight's sword out of his sheath he drew,
With which he cut a lock of all their hair,
Which, medling7 with their blood and earth, he
Into the grave, and gan devoutly swear; [threw
'Such and such evil, God on Guyon rear,
And worse and worse, young orphan, be thy pain,
If I, or thou, due vengeance do forbear,
Till guilty blood her guerdon do obtain!'
So, shedding many tears, they clos'd the earth again.
*Upton thus paraphrases these two lines, I imagine it as great a shame after death to have been buried bad, as for a man's self to die bad.
5 Having
the hue
of guilt.
Babe's bloody hands may not be cleans'd.
The face of Golden Mean:
Her sisters, Two Extremities,
Strive her to banish clean.
THUS when Sir Guyon with his faithful guide
Had with due rites and dolorous lament
The end of their sad tragedy uptyde,1
The little babe up in his arms he hent;2
Who with sweet pleasance, and bold blandishment,
Gan smile on them, that rather ought to weep,
As careless of his woe, or innocent
Of that was done; that ruth empiercéd deep In that Knight's heart, and words with bitter tears did steep:
"Ah! luckless babe, born under cruel star,
And in dead parents' baleful ashes bred,
Full little weenest thou what sorrows are
Left thee for portion of thy livelihed;
Poor orphan! in the wide world scattered,
As budding branch rent from the native tree,
And throwen forth, till it be witheréd!
Such is the state of men! Thus enter we
Into this life with woe, and end with misery!'
Then, soft himself inclining on his knee
Down to that well, did in the water ween 4
(So love does loathe disdainful nicety)
His guilty hands from bloody gore to clean:
He wash'd them oft and oft, yet naught they been
For all his washing cleaner: still he strove;
Yet still the little hands were bloody seen:*
The which him into great amazement drove,
And into diverse doubt his wav'ring wonder clove.
He wist not whether blot of foul offence
Might not be purg'd with water nor with bath;
Or that High God, in lieu of innocence,
Imprinted had that token of His wrath,
To show how sore blood-guiltiness He hat'th;
Or that the charm and venom, which they drunk,
Their blood with secret filth infected hath,
Being diffuséd through the senseless trunk [stunk.
That, through the great contagion, direful deadly
Whom thus at gaze the palmer gan to bord 1
With goodly reason, and thus fair bespake;
'Ye been right hard amated,2 gracious lord,
And of your ignorance great marvel make,
Whiles cause not well conceivéd ye mistake.
But know, that secret virtues are infus'd
In every fountain, and in every lake, [chus'd,
Which, who hath skill them rightly to have
To proof of passing wonders hath full often us'd:
'Of those, some were so from their source indew'd
By great dame Nature, from whose fruitful pap
Their well-heads spring, and are with moisture
dew'd;
Which feeds each living plant with liquid sap,
And fills with flowers fair Flora's painted lap:
But other some, by gift of later grace,
Or by good prayers, or by other hap,
* ́Little hands bloody:' curious resemblance here to Lady Macbeth's famous All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,' &c.
Had virtue pour'd into their waters base, And thenceforth were renown'd, and sought from place to place.
'Such is this well, wrought by occasion strange,
Which to her nymph befel. Upon a day,
As she the woods with bow and shafts did range,
The heartless1 hind and roebuck to dismay,
Dan Faunus chanc'd to meet her by the way,
And, kindling fire at her fair-burning eye,
Inflaméd was to follow beauty's chase,
And chased her, that fast from him did fly;
As hind from her, so she fled from her enemy.
'At last, when failing breath began to faint,
And saw no means to scape; of shame afraid,
She sat her down to weep for sore constraint; 2
And, to Diana calling loud for aid,
Her dear besought to let her die a maid.
The goddess heard; and sudden, where she sate
Welling out streams of tears, and quite dismay'd
With stony fear of that rude rustic mate,
Transform'd her to a stone from steadfast virgin's state.
'Lo! now she is that stone; from whose two
As from two weeping eyes, fresh streams do flow,
Yet cold through fear and old conceivéd dreads:
And yet the stone her semblance seems to show,
Shap'd like a maid, that such ye may her know;
And yet her virtues in her water bide:
For it is chaste and pure as purest snow,
Ne lets her waves with any filth be dy'd;
But ever, like herself, unstainéd hath been tried.4
'From thence it comes, that this babe's bloody hand
May not be cleans'd with water of this well:
Ne certes, sir, strive you it to withstand,
But let them still be bloody, as befel,
That they his mother's innocence may tell,
As she bequeath'd in her last testament;
That, as a sacred symbol, it may dwell
In her son's flesh, to mind revengëment,
And be for all chaste dames an endless monument.'
He hearken'd to his reason; and the child
Uptaking, to the palmer gave to bear;
But his sad father's arms with blood defil'd,
An heavy load, himself did lightly rear;
And turning to that place, in which whylere1
He left his lofty steed with golden sell2
And goodly gorgeous barbes,3 him found not
there:
By other accident, that erst befell,
He is convey'd; but how, or where, here fits not tell.
though. 6 Nevertheless.
7 Go en
Which when Sir Guyon saw, all5 were he wroth, Al-
Yet algates mote he soft himself appease,
And fairly fare on foot, however loth:
His double burden did him sore disease.8
So, long they travelléd with little ease,
Till that at last they to a castle came,
Built on a rock adjoining to the seas:
It was an ancient work of antique fame, [frame.
And wondrous strong by nature and by skilful
Therein three sisters dwelt of sundry sort,
The children of one sire by mothers three;
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