Now is she in the very lists of love, Her champion mounted for the hot encounter: He will not manage her, although he mount her; Even as poor birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes," As those poor birds that helpless berries saw : But all in vain; good queen, it will not be: She's Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov'd. 66 Fie, fie," he says, "you crush me; let me go; You have no reason to withhold me so." "Thou hadst been gone," quoth she, "sweet boy, ere this, But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar, O be advis'd! thou know'st not what it is With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore, Like to a mortale butcher, bent to kill. "On his bow-back he hath a battle set Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes; His eyes like glowworms shine when he doth fret: ■ The allusion is to the picture of Zeuxis, mentioned by Pliny. We may observe that there was no English translation of Pliny so early as the date of this poem. Helpless-that afford no help. c Mortal-deadly. "His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd, The thorny brambles and embracing bushes, As fearful of him, part; through whom he rushes. "Alas! he nought esteems that face of thine, But having thee at vantage (wondrous dread!) "O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still! "Didst thou not mark my face? Was it not white? My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest, "For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny, As air and water do abate the fire. Danger-power of doing harm. So in The Merchant of Venice,' Act IV. Scene 1 : See Note on that passage. "You stand within his danger." This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy, That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring, "And more than so, presenteth to mine eye “What should I do, seeing thee so indeed, That tremble at the imagination? The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed, I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow, If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow. "But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me; Or at the roe, which no encounter dare: Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs, And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hounds. "And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, a Bate signifies strife. Mrs. Quickly says that John Rugby is no breed-bate. b Spring-bud or young shoot. Overshoot. The original editions read overshut. This reading is retained by Malone. d Cranks-winds. So in Henry IV., Part I.': "See how this river comes me cranking in." e Musits. The term is explained in Markham's Gentlemen's Academy,' 1595: "Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell, b And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer; "For there his smell with others being mingled, Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies, By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, Stands on his hinder legs with listening car, And now his grief may be compared well "Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch, And being low never reliev'd by any. "Lie quietly, and hear a little more; Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise: For love can comment upon every woe. "We term the place where she [the hare] sitteth her form; the place through which she goes to relief her musit." a Keep-dwell. b Sorteth-consorteth. • Moralize-comment. "Where did I leave?"-" No matter where," quoth he; "Leave me, and then the story aptly ends: The night is spent.”—“ Why, what of that?" quoth shc. "I am," quoth he, "expected of my friends; And now 't is dark, and going I shall fall.” "But if thou fall, O then imagine this, Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn. "Now of this dark night I perceive the reason: "And therefore hath she brib'd the Destinies, And pure perfection with impure defeature; Of mad mischances and much misery; As burning fevers, agues pale and faint, Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood,a The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint Disorder breeds by heating of the blood: Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn'd despair, And not the least of all these maladies, But in one minute's fight brings beauty under: a Wood-mad. |