The gravel ground, with sleeves tied on the helm, On foaming horse, with swords and friendly hearts, With cheer, as though one should another whelm, Where we have fought, and chased oft with darts; With silver drops the mead yet spread for ruth, In active games of nimbleness and strength, Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth, Our tender limbs that yet shot up in length; The secret groves which oft we made resound Of pleasant plaint and of our ladies' praise, Recording oft what grace each one had found, What hope of speed, what dread of long delays; The wild forest, the clothed holts with green, With reins avaled, and swift ybreathed horse, With cry of hounds and merry blasts between, Where we did chase the fearful hart of force; The wide vales eke that harbored us each night, Wherewith, alas, reviveth in my breast The sweet accord; such sleeps as yet delight, The pleasant dreams, the quiet bed of rest; The secret thoughts imparted with such trust, The wanton talk, the divers change of play, The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just, Wherewith we passed the winter night away. And with this thought the blood forsakes the face, The tears berain my cheeks of deadly hue, The which as soon as sobbing sighs, alas, Upsuppëd have, thus I my plaint renew: O place of bliss, renewer of my woes, Give me account-where is my noble fere? Whom in thy walls thou dost each night enclose, To other lief, but unto me most dear! Echo, alas, that doth my sorrow rue, Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint. Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew, In prison pine with bondage and restraint; And with remembrance of the greater grief To banish the less, I find my chief relief.
Exhortation to learn by others' trouble My Ratcliffe, when thy reckless youth offends, Receive thy scourge by others' chastisement; For such calling, when it works none amends, Then plagues are sent without advertisement. Yet Solomon said, The wronged shall recure; But Wyatt said true, The scar doth aye endure,
FROM WILLIAM BALDWIN'S Treatise of Moral Philosophy, 1547 The things that cause a quiet life Written by Martial
The equal friend-no grudge, Such sleeps as may beguile the
No charge of rule, nor governance; Without disease, the healthy life, The household of continuance;
Content thyself with thine estate, Neither wish death, nor fear his might.
FROM Additional Ms. 36529 [London, hast thou accused me?]
London, hast thou accused me Of breach of laws, the root of strife?
To wake thy sluggards with my bow
Thou haste to strife, my secret call. Endurëd hearts no warning feel; 50 O shameless whore, is dread then gone
With famine and pest lamentably Stricken shall be thy lechers all; Thy proud towers and turrets high, En'mies to God, beat stone from
Thine idols burnt that wrought iniquity;
When none thy ruin shall bemoan, But render unto the right wise Lord
That so hath judged Babylon, By such thy foes as meant thy weal? | Immortal praise with one accord.
FROM Certain Books of Virgil's Æneis, 1557
They whisted all, with fixed face attent, When prince Æneas from the royal seat Thus gan to speak: O Queen, it is thy will I should renew a woe cannot be told!
How that the Greeks did spoil and overthrow The Phrygian wealth and wailful realm of Troy. Those ruthful things that I myself beheld And whereof no small part fell to my share, Which to express, who could refrain from tears? What Myrmidon? or yet what Dolopes? What stern Ulysses' wagëd soldier?
And lo, moist night now from the welkin falls, And stars, declining, counsel us to rest. But since so great is thy delight to hear Of our mishaps and Troyë's last decay, Though to record the same my mind abhors And plaint eschews, yet thus will I begin.
The Greeks' chieftains, all irked with the war
Wherein they wasted had so many years, And oft repulsed by fatal destiny, A huge horse made, high raised like a hill, By the divine science of Minerva, (Of cloven fir compacted were his ribs) For their return a feignëd sacrifice; The fame whereof so wandered it at point. In the dark bulk they closed bodies of men, Chosen by lot, and did enstuff by stealth The hollow womb with armëd soldiers.
There stands in sight an isle hight Tenedon, Rich and of fame while Priam's kingdom stood, Now but a bay, and road unsure for ship. Hither them secretly the Greeks withdrew, Shrouding themselves under the desert shore. And, weening we they had been fled and gone, And with that wind had fet the land of Greece, Troyë discharged her long-continued dole.
The gates cast up, we issued out to play, The Greekish camp desirous to behold, The places void, and the forsaken coasts. Here Pyrrhus' band, there fierce Achilles', pight; Here rode their ships; there did their battles join. Astonied, some the scatheful gift beheld, Behight by vow unto the chaste Minerve, All wond'ring at the hugeness of the horse.
And first of all Timætes gan advise Within the walls to lead and draw the same, And place it eke amid the palace court,- Whether of guile or Troyë's fate it would. Capys, with some of judgment more discreet, Willed it to drown, or underset with flame, The suspect present of the Greeks' deceit, Or bore and gauge the hollow caves uncouth. So diverse ran the giddy people's mind.
Lo, foremost of a rout that followed him, Kindled Laocoon hasted from the tower, Crying far off, O wretched citizens, What so great kind of frenzy fretteth you? Deem ye the Greeks, our enemies, to be gone? Or any Greekish gifts can you suppose Devoid of guile? Is so Ulysses known? Either the Greeks are in this timber hid Or this an engine is to annoy our walls, To view our towers and overwhelm our town. Here lurks some craft. Good Trojans, give no trust
Unto this horse, for, whatsoever it be, I dread the Greeks-yea, when they offer gifts! And with that word with all his force a dart He lancëd then into that crooked womb; Which trembling stuck, and shook within the side, Wherewith the caves gan hollowly resound. And but for fates, and for our blind forecast, The Greeks' device and guile had he descried, Troy yet had stand, and Priam's towers so high.
Us caitiffs then a far more dreadful chance Befell, that troubled our unarmëd breasts. Whiles Laocoon, that chosen was by lot Neptunus' priest, did sacrifice a bull Before the holy altar, suddenly From Tenedon, behold, in circles great By the calm seas came fleeting adders twain, Which plied towards the shore-I loathe to tell- With reared breast lift up above the seas; Whose bloody crests aloft the waves were seen. The hinder part swam hidden in the flood, Their grisly backs were linkëd manifold; With sound of broken waves they gat the strand, With glowing eyne, tainted with blood and fire; Whose walt'ring tongues did lick their hissing mouths. We fled away, our face the blood forsook; But they, with gait direct, to Lacoon ran. And first of all each serpent doth enwrap The bodies small of his two tender sons, Whose wretched limbs they bit, and fed thereon. Then raught they him, who had his weapon caught To rescue them. Twice winding him about, With folded knots and circled tails his waist, Their scaled backs did compass twice his neck, With reared heads aloft and stretched throats. He with his hands strave to unloose the knots, Whose sacred fillets all besprinkled were With filth of gory blood and venom rank, And to the stars such dreadful shouts he sent, Like to the sound the roaring bull forth lows Which from the altar wounded doth astart, The swerving axe when he shakes from his neck. The serpents twain with hasted trail they glide To Pallas' temple and her towers of height; Under the feet of which, the goddess stern,
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