Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?

"If he be dead,-O, no, it cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it!—
O yes, it may! thou hast no eyes to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit:

Thy mark is feeble age; but thy false darc
Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant's heart.

"Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,
And hearing him, thy power had lost his power.
The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke;
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck'st a flower:
Love's golden arrow at him should have fled,
And not Death's ebon dart, to strike him dead."

"Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st such weeping?
What may a heavy groan advantage thee?
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see
Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,
Since her best work is ruin'd with thy rigour."

Here overcome, as one full of despair,
She vail'd her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp'd
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp'd;

But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,
And with his strong course opens them again.

O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,—
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;

But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

Variable passions throng her constant woe,
As striving who should best become her grief;

Love's golden arrow at him should have fled,

And not Death's ebon dart, &c.]

This is a supposed allusion to the ancient apologue of Love and Death exchanging their darts by mistake. Massinger, in The Virgin-Martyr, Act IV. Sc. 3, refers to the same fable,

"Strange affection!

Cupid once more hath chang'd his shafts with Death,
And kills, instead of giving life."

See Gifford's note on this passage and his extract from Johannes Secundus, in Massinger's
Plays.

All entertain'd, each passion labours so,
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,

But none is best; then join they all together,
Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.

By this, far off she hears some huntsman hollo;
A nurse's song ne'er pleas'd her babe so well:
The dire imagination she did follow
This sound of hope doth labour to expel;
For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,
And flatters her it is Adonis' voice.

Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,
Being prison'd in her eye, like pearls in glass;
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass,
To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,
Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown'd.

O, hard-believing love, how strange it seems
Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:

The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.

Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought;
Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;

It was not she that call'd him all to-naught;
Now she adds honours to his hateful name;

She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,
Imperious supreme of all mortal things.

"No, no," quoth she, "sweet Death, I did but jest;
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear

Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,
Which knows no pity, but is still severe;

Then, gentle shadow,-truth I must confess,-
I rail'd on thee, fearing my love's decease.

""T is not my fault: the boar provok'd my tongue;
Be wreak'd on him, invisible commander;
"T is he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;

I did but act, he's author of thy slander:

Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet,
Could rule them both, without ten women's wit."

Thus, hoping that Adonis is alive,

Her rash suspect she doth extenuate;

clepes-] Calls. So in "Hamlet," Act I. Sc. 4,-"They clepe us drunkards," &c.

And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With Death she humbly doth insinuate;

Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs, and stories
His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.

"O, Jove, quoth she, "how much a fool was I,
To be of such a weak and silly mind,

To wail his death who lives, and must not die
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind!

For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.

"Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemm'd with thieves;
Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,

Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves."
Even at this word she hears a merry horn,
Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.

As falcon to the lure, away she flies;
The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light;
And in her haste unfortunately spies
The foul boar's conquest on her fair delight;
Which seen, her eyes, as murder'd with the view,
Like stars asham'd of day, themselves withdrew;

Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,
And there, all smother'd up, in shade doth sit,
Long after fearing to creep forth again;

So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled
Into the deep-dark cabins of her head;

Where they resign their office and their light
To the disposing of her troubled brain;
Who bids them still consort with ugly night,
And never wound the heart with looks again;
Who, like a king perplexed in his throne,
By their suggestion gives a deadly groan,

and stories

His victories,-]

The employment of story as a verb is not unfrequent in Shakespeare: thus, in "Cymbeline," Act I. Sc. 4,- How worthy he is I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing;" and in "Lucrece,”

"He stories to her ears her husband's fame."

We suspect, too, that in "Othello," Act IV. Sc. 4, the passage usually printed,"Have you scored me?" should be read,-"Have you storied me?" i.e. have you published my shame? The word in the quartos, indeed, is stor'd.

As falcon to the lure,-] The lection of the quarto 1600; all previous editions have, "falcons."

—as murder'd-] The quarto 1593 reads are for "as."

Whereat each tributary subject quakes;
As when the wind, imprison'd in the ground,"
Struggling for passage, earth's foundation shakes,
Which with cold terror doth men's minds confound,
This mutiny each part doth so surprise,

That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes;

And, being open'd, threw unwilling light
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench'd
In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white

With purple tears, that his wound wept, wasb drench'd:
No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed,
But stole his blood, and seem'd with him to bleed.

Her voice is stopp'd, her joints forget to bow;
Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now.

Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly
That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three;
And then she reprehends her mangling eye
That makes more gashes where no breach should be:
His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled;
For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.

"My tongue cannot express my grief for one,
And yet," quoth she, "behold two Adons dead!
My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,
Mine eyes are turn'd to fire, my heart to lead:

Heavy heart's lead melt at mine eyes' red fire!
So shall I die by drops of hot desire.

"Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!
What face remains alive that's worth the viewing?
Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast
Of things long since, or any thing ensuing?

The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim;
But true-sweet beauty liv'd and died with him.

As when the wind, imprison'd in the ground, &c.] This calls to mind the wellknown passage in "Henry IV." Part I. Act III. Scene 1,

"oft the teeming earth

Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd

By the imprisoning of unruly wind

Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,

Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down

Steeples, and moss-grown towers."

was drench'd:] All editions prior to 1600 read,-" had drench'd," &c.
she passions,-] See note (b), p. 50, Vol. I.

"Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!
Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:
Having no fair to lose, you need not fear;
The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you:
But when Adonis liv'd, sun and sharp air
Lurk'd like two thieves to rob him of his fair;

"And therefore would he put his bonnet on,
Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;
The wind would blow it off, and, being gone,
Play with his locks; then would Adonis weep;
And straight, in pity of his tender years,

They both would strive who first should dry his tears.

"To see his face the lion walk'd along
Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;
To recreate himself, when he hath sung,

The tiger would be tame, and gently hear him;
If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,
And never fright the silly lamb that day.

"When he beheld his shadow in the brook,
The fishes spread on it their golden gills;
When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,
That some would sing, some other in their bills

Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries;
He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.

"But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,
Ne'er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;
Witness the entertainment that he gave:

If he did see his face, why then I know
He thought to kiss him, and hath kill'd him so.

""T is true, 't is true; thus was Adonis slain:
He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,
Who did not whet his teeth at him again,
But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;
And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine
Sheath'd, unaware, the tusk in his soft groin.

"Had I been tooth'd like him, I must confess,
With kissing him I should have kill'd him first;
But he is dead, and never did he bless
My youth with his,-the more am I accurst."

fair-] That is, beauty. See note (c), p. 165, Vol. I.

because he would not fear him;] Because he would not frighten him: so in "Henry VI." Part III. Act III. Sc. 3,-"Go fear thy king withal."

- urchin-snouted—] An urchin is a hedgehog; but it also meant an elf or mischievous sprite.