"But why, alas! do mortal men in vain "Of Fortune, Fate, or Providence complain? "God gives us what he knows our wants require, "And better things than those which we desire: "Some pray for riches; riches they obtain;
"But, watched by robbers, for their wealth are slain ;
"Some pray from prison to be freed; and come,
"When guilty of their vows,* to fall at home;
"Murdered by those they trusted with their life,
"A favoured servant or a bosom wife.
"Such dear-bought blessings happen every day,
"Because we know not for what things to pray.
"Like drunken sots about the streets we roam :
"Well knows the sot he has a certain home,
"Yet knows not how to find the uncertain place,
"And blunders on, and staggers every pace.
"Thus all seek happiness; but few can find,
"For far the greater part of men are blind.
"This is my case, who thought our utmost good
"Was in one word of freedom understood:
"The fatal blessing came: from prison free,
"I starve abroad, and lose the sight of Emily." Thus Arcite but if Arcite thus deplore
His sufferings, Palamon yet suffers more.
For when he knew his rival freed and gone,
He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous moan;
He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground;
"Thou livest at large, thou drawest thy native air,
"Pleased with thy freedom, proud of my despair:
"Thou mayest, since thou hast youth and courage joined,
"Thy portion double joys, and double sorrows mine." The rage of jealousy then fired his soul,
And his face kindled like a burning coal :
Now cold despair, succeeding in her stead,
To livid paleness turns the glowing red.
His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within his veins,
Like water which the freezing wind constrains.
A Latinism: "voti reus." (Virg. Æn. v 237.)
Then thus he said: "Eternal Deities,
"Who rule the world with absolute decrees,
"And write whatever time shall bring to pass
"With pens of adamant on plates of brass;
"What is the race of human kind your care
Beyond what all his fellow-creatures are?
"He with the rest is liable to pain,
"And like the sheep, his brother-beast, is slain.
"Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure,
"All these he must, and guiltless oft, endure;
"Or does your justice, power, or prescience fail,
"When the good suffer and the bad prevail?
"What worse to wretched virtue could befal,
If Fate or giddy Fortune governed all?
66 Nay, worse than other beasts is our estate :
"Them, to pursue their pleasures, you create;
"We, bound by harder laws, must curb our will,
"And your commands, not our desires, fulfil :
Then, when the creature is unjustly slain, 'Yet, after death at least, he feels no pain; "But man in life surcharged with woe before,
"Not freed when dead, is doomed to suffer more.
"A serpent shoots his sting at unaware;
"An ambushed thief forelays a traveller ;
"The man lies murdered, while the thief and snake,
"One gains the thickets, and one thrids the brake.
'Tis hard to say who suffers greater pains;
One sees his love, but cannot break his chains;
One free, and all his motions uncontrolled,
Beholds whate'er he would but what he would behold.
Judge as you please, for I will haste to tell
What fortune to the banished knight befel.
When Arcite was to Thebes returned again,
The loss of her he loved renewed his pain;
* Dryden has introduced Mars and the quartil; they are not in Chaucer.
This when he had endured a year and more,
Now wholly changed from what he was before,
It happened once, that, slumbering as he lay,
He dreamt (his dream began at break of day)
That Hermes o'er his head in air appeared,
And with soft words his drooping spirits cheered;
His hat adorned with wings disclosed the god,
And in his hand he bore the sleep-compelling rod;
Such as he seemed, when, at his sire's command,
On Argus' head he laid the snaky wand.*
"Arise," he said, "to conquering Athens go;
"There Fate appoints an end of all thy woe."
The fright awakened Arcite with a start,
Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart;
But soon he said, with scarce recovered breath,
"And thither will I go to meet my death,
"Sure to be slain; but death is my desire,
"Since in Emilia's sight I shall expire."
By chance he spied a mirror while he spoke,
And gazing there beheld his altered look ;
Wondering, he saw his features and his hue
So much were changed, that scarce himself he knew.
A sudden thought then starting in his mind,
"Since I in Arcite cannot Arcite find,
"The world may search in vain with all their eyes,
"But never penetrate through this disguise.
Argus of the hundred eyes, who was lulled to sleep by Mercury, by command of Jupiter, Juno having set Argus to watch Io.
"Thanks to the change which grief and sickness give,
"In low estate I may securely live,
"And see, unknown, my mistress day by day."
He said, and clothed himself in coarse array,
A labouring hind in show; then forth he went,
And to the Athenian towers his journey bent:
One squire attended in the same disguise,
Made conscious of his master's enterprise.
Arrived at Athens, soon he came to court,
Unknown, unquestioned in that thick resort:
Proffering for hire his service at the gate,
To drudge, draw water, and to run or wait.
So fair befel him, that for little gain
He served at first Emilia's chamberlain;
And, watchful all advantages to spy,
Was still at hand, and in his master's eye;
And as his bones were big, and sinews strong,
Refused no toil that could to slaves belong;
But from deep wells with engines water drew,
And used his noble hands the wood to hew.
He passed a year at least attending thus
On Emily, and called Philostratus.
But never was there man of his degree
So much esteemed, so well beloved as he.
This well employed, he purchased friends and fame,
But cautiously concealed from whence it came.
Thus for three years he lived with large increase
In arms of honour, and esteem in peace;
To Theseus' person he was ever near,
And Theseus for his virtues held him dear.
PALAMON AND ARCITE, OR THE KNIGHT'S TALE.
WHILE Arcite lives in bliss, the story turns
Where hopeless Palamon in prison mourns.
For six long years immured, the captive knight
Had dragged his chains, and scarcely seen the light :
Lost liberty and love at once he bore;
His prison pained him much, his passion more :
Nor dares he hope his fetters to remove,
Nor ever wishes to be free from love.
But when the sixth revolving year was run,
And May within the Twins received the sun,
Were it by Chance, or forceful Destiny,
Which forms in causes first whate'er shall be,
Assisted by a friend one moonless night,*
This Palamon from prison took his flight:
A pleasant beverage he prepared before
Of wine and honey mixed, with added store
Of opium; to his keeper this he brought,
Who swallowed unaware the sleepy draught,
And snored secure till morn, his senses bound
In slumber, and in long oblivion drowned.
Short was the night, and careful Palamon
Sought the next covert ere the rising sun.
A thick-spread forest near the city lay,
To this with lengthened strides he took his way,
(For far he could not fly, and feared the day.)
Safe from pursuit, he meant to shun the light,
Till the brown shadows of the friendly night
To Thebes might favour his intended flight.
When to his country come, his next design
Was all the Theban race in arms to join,
And war on Theseus, till he lost his life,
Or won the beauteous Emily to wife.
Thus while his thoughts the lingering day beguile,
To gentle Arcite let us turn our style;+
Who little dreamt how nigh he was to care,
Till treacherous fortune caught him in the snare.
The morning-lark, the messenger of day,
Saluted in her song the morning gray;
Chaucer says the third night of May, "the thridde night," and "sone after the midnight." It was therefore the morning of the fourth day of May; and the fourth day was Friday, the day of Venus. See below, line 84.
Style is here used in the sense of the Latin stylus or stilus, a pen or pencil of iron or brass with which tablets of wax were written on. There is a corresponding use of the verb in "Absalom and Achitophel," part 2, line 1051 (Tate's portion).
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