Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage:
Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense,
I live a rent-charge on His providence :
But you, whom every Muse and grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
But shade those laurels which descend to you:
And take for tribute what these lines express;
You merit more, nor could my love do less.
[Book III. vv. 524-635; 1698 or 1699.]
The herald ends: the vaulted firmament
With loud acclaims and vast applause is rent:
'Heaven guard a Prince so gracious and so good,
So just, and yet so provident of blood!'
This was the general cry. The trumpets sound,
And warlike symphony is heard around.
The marching troops through Athens take their way,
The great Earl-marshal orders their array.
The fair from high the passing pomp behold;
A rain of flowers is from the windows rolled.
The casements are with golden tissues spread,
And horses' hoofs, for earth, on silken tapestry tread.
The King goes midmost, and the rivals ride
In equal rank, and close his either side.
Next after these there rode the royal wife,
With Emily, the cause and the reward of strife.
The following cavalcade, by three and three,
Proceed by titles marshalled in degree.
1 A version of part of The Knightes Tale in the Canterbury Tales, vv. 2563– 2638.
Thus through the southern gate they take their way, And at the list arrived ere prime of day.
There, parting from the King, the chiefs divide,
And wheeling east and west, before their many ride.
The Athenian monarch mounts his throne on high,
And after him the Queen and Emily:
Next these, the kindred of the crown are graced
With nearer seats, and lords by ladies placed.
Scarce were they seated, when with clamours loud
In rushed at once a rude promiscuous crowd,
The guards, and then each other overbare,
And in a moment throng the spacious theatre.
Now changed the jarring noise to whispers low,
As winds forsaking seas more softly blow,
When at the western gate, on which the car
Is placed aloft that bears the God of War,
Proud Arcite entering armed before his train
Stops at the barrier, and divides the plain.
Red was his banner, and displayed abroad
The bloody colours of his patron god.
At that self moment enters Palamon
The gate of Venus, and the rising Sun;
Waved by the wanton winds, his banner flies,
All maiden white, and shares the people's eyes.
From east to west, look all the world around,
Two troops so matched were never to be found;
Such bodies built for strength, of equal age,
In stature sized; so proud an equipage:
The nicest eye could no distinction make,
Where lay the advantage, or what side to take.
Thus ranged, the herald for the last proclaims
A silence, while they answered to their names :
For so the king decreed, to shun with care
The fraud of musters false, the common bane of war.
The tale was just, and then the gates were closed;
And chief to chief, and troop to troop opposed.
The heralds last retired, and loudly cried,
'The fortune of the field be fairly tried!'
At this the challenger, with fierce defy,
His trumpet sounds; the challenged makes reply:
With clangour rings the field, resounds the vaulted sky.
Their vizors closed, their lances in the rest,
Or at the helmet pointed or the crest,
They vanish from the barrier, speed the race,
And spurring see decrease the middle space.
A cloud of smoke envelopes either host,
And all at once the combatants are lost :
Darkling they join adverse, and shock unseen,
Coursers with coursers justling, men with men :
As labouring in eclipse, a while they stay,
Till the next blast of wind restores the day.
They look anew the beauteous form of fight
Is changed, and war appears a grisly sight.
Two troops in fair array one moment showed,
The next, a field with fallen bodies strowed :
Not half the number in their seats are found,
But men and steeds lie grovelling on the ground.
The points of spears are stuck within the shield,
The steeds without their riders scour the field.
The knights unhorsed, on foot renew the fight;
The glittering fauchions cast a gleaming light;
Hauberks and helms are hewed with many a wound,
Out spins the streaming blood, and dyes the ground.
The mighty maces with such haste descend,
They break the bones, and make the solid armour bend.
This thrusts amid the throng with furious force;
Down goes, at once, the horseman and the horse:
That courser stumbles on the fallen steed,
And, floundering, throws the rider o'er his head.
One rolls along, a football to his foes;
One with a broken truncheon deals his blows.
This halting, this disabled with his wound,
In triumph led, is to the pillar bound,
Where by the king's award he must abide;
There goes a captive led on t'other side.
By fits they cease, and leaning on the lance,
Take breath a while, and to new fight advance.
Full oft the rivals met, and neither spared
His utmost force, and each forgot to ward:
The head of this was to the saddle bent,
The other backward to the crupper sent:
Both were by turns unhorsed; the jealous blows
Fall thick and heavy, when on foot they close.
So deep their fauchions bite, that every stroke
Pierced to the quick; and equal wounds they gave and took.
Borne far asunder by the tides of men,
Like adamant and steel they met again.
So when a tiger sucks the bullock's blood,
A famished lion issuing from the wood
Roars lordly fierce, and challenges the food.
Each claims possession, neither will obey,
But both their paws are fastened on the prey;
They bite, they tear; and while in vain they strive,
The swains come armed between, and both to distance drive.
TO MY HONOURED KINSMAN, John Dryden,'
Of Chesterton, in the county of Huntingdon, Esq.; 1699.
How blessed is he who leads a country life,
Unvexed with anxious cares and void of strife!
Who, studying peace and shunning civil rage,
Enjoyed his youth and now enjoys his age:
All who deserve his love he makes his own;
And, to be loved himself, needs only to be known.
Just, good, and wise, contending neighbours come
From your award to wait their final doom,
And, foes before, return in friendship home.
Without their cost you terminate the cause
And save the expense of long litigious laws,
Where suits are traversed, and so little won
That he who conquers is but last undone.
1 John Dryden, first cousin of the poet, was Member for Huntingdonshire, and seems to have belonged to the Opposition, which called itself the Country party.
Such are not your decrees; but so designed,
The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind,
Like your own soul serene, a pattern of your mind.
Promoting concord and composing strife,
Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife;
Where, for a year, a month, perhaps a night,
Long penitence succeeds a short delight:
Minds are so hardly matched, that even the first,
Though paired by Heaven, in Paradise were cursed.
For man and woman, though in one they grow,
Yet, first or last, return again to two;
He to God's image, she to his was made;
So farther from the fount the stream at random strayed. How could he stand, when, put to double pain,
He must a weaker than himself sustain?
Each might have stood perhaps, but each alone;
Two wrestlers help to pull each other down.
Not that my verse would blemish all the fair ;
But yet, if some be bad, 'tis wisdom to beware,
And better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.
Thus have you shunned and shun the married state,
Trusting as little as you can to Fate.
No porter guards the passage of your door,
To admit the wealthy and exclude the poor;
For God, who gave the riches, gave the heart
To sanctify the whole by giving part.
Heaven, who foresaw the will, the means has wrought, And to the second son a blessing brought!
The first-begotten had his father's share,
But you, like Jacob, are Rebecca's heir.1
So may your stores and fruitful fields increase, And ever be you blessed, who live to bless.
As Ceres sowed where'er her chariot flew,
As Heaven in deserts rained the bread of dew,
So free to many, to relations most,
You feed with manna your own Israel host.
1 John Dryden inherited from his mother.
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