And prove more hot unto the Turkish Empery Than the Promethean blaze did trouble Jove !First sacrifice those brats! Alad. wife. Dear father, let thy fury rush on me! Within these entrails sheath thine insate sword! And let this ominous and too fruitful womb Be torn in sunder! for from thence those babes Took all their crimes; error (hath) made them guilty- For their dear father, so to a father I For my dear babes and husband-husband! father! Which shall I first embrace? Victorious father! Be blunt those now sharp thoughts; lay down those threats; Unclasp that impious helmet; fix to earth. Amur. I fear; for after daughter's perjury, Nor will I trust thy children or thyself. O let me kiss, kind father! first the earth On which you tread, then kiss mine husband's cheek. Great king, embrace those babes-you are the stock On which these grafts were planted Amur. True; and when sprouts do rob the tree of sap, They must be prun'd. Alad. wife. Dear father! leave such harsh similitudes. By my deceased mother, to whose womb Amur. Yes; to have them collect a manly strength, And their first lesson that their dad shall teach them, Shall be to read my misery. Alad. Stern conqueror! but that thy daughter There once dwelt good in that obdurate breast, If not on me, have mercy on my babes, Which with thy mercy thou may'st turn to love. Whose horns are yet scarce crept from out his front, Grows on a sudden tall, and in the fields Ungratefully bars his mother's sight from heaven I love not future Aladins. Alas, these infants!-these weak-sinew'd hands Put from your thoughts all memory of descent; If your own misery you can feel, Thus learn of me to weep-of me to kneel. 1st Child. Good grandsire, see-see how my father cries! Wife. Good father, hear-hear how thy daughter prays. Thou that know'st how to use stern warrior's arms, Learn how to use mild warrior's pity too. Amur. Rise, my dear child! as marble against rain, So I at these obedient showers melt. Thus I do raise thy husband-thus thy babes, Freely admitting you to former state. * Be thou our son and friend. 募 SIR FULK GREVILLE, WHO ordered this inscription for his own grave: "Servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sydney;" was created knight of the bath at James's coronation, afterwards appointed sub-treasurer, chancellor of the exchequer, and made a peer, by the title of Baron Brook, in 1621. He died by the stab of a revengeful servant, in 1628. STANZAS FROM HIS TREATISE ON HUMAN LEARNING. KNOWLEDGE. A CLIMBING height it is, without a head, Not comprehended, all it comprehends; For our defects in nature who sees not? Knowledge's next organ is imagination, The last chief oracle of what man knows Which, where they reign, let no perfection in. Nor in a right line can her eyes ascend, So reason, stooping to attend the sense, Darkens the spirit's clear intelligence. |