your conversation agair, jointly with your said learned friend, over a poor ineal or two, that we might have banded together some good Authors of the ancient time; among which I observed you to have been familiar. "Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kind letter from you dated the 6th of this month, and for a dainty piece of entertainment which came therewith. Wherein I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your Songs and Odes, whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: Ipsa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you that I now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer. For the work itself I had viewed some good while before with singular delight; having received it from our common friend Mr. R., in the very close of the late R.'s Poems, printed at Oxford: whereunto it was added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of Stationers, and to leave the reader con la bocca dolce. "Now, Sir, concerning your travels; wherein I may challenge a little more privilege of discourse with you. I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way: therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B., whom you shall easily find attending the young Lord S. as his governor ; and you may surely receive from him good directions for the shaping of your farther journey into Italy where he did reside, by my choice, some time for the King, after mine own recess from Venice. “I should think that your best line will be through the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa ; whence the passage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge. I hasten, as you do, to Florence or Siena, the rather to tell you a short story, from the interest you have given me in your safety. "At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times; having been steward to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this only man that escaped by foresight of the tempest. With him I had often much chat of those affairs, into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour; and, at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience), I had won his confidence enough to beg his advice how I might carry myself there without offence of others or of mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo mio,' says he, 'I pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto will go safely over the whole world.' Of which Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment doth need no commentary; and therefore, Sir, I will commit you, with it, to the best of all securities, God's dear love, remaining "Your friend, as much to command as any of longer date, Postscript. "Sir: I have expressly sent this my footboy to prevent your departure without some acknowledgment from me of the receipt of your obliging letter; having myself through some business, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad and diligent to entertain you with home-novelties, even for some fomentation of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle." THE PERSONS. The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS COMUS, with his Crew. THE LADY. FIRST BROTHER. SECOND BROTHER. SABRINA, the Nymph. The Chief Persons which presented were:- The Lord Brackley ; Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother; The Lady Alice Egerton. [This list of the Persons, &c., appeared in the Edition of 1645, but was omitted in that of 1673.) L L COMUS. The first Scene discovers a wild wood. The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters. BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care, To such my errand is; and, but for such, But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway Which he, to grace his tributary gods, By course commits to several government, And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns The greatest and the best of all the main, He quarters to his blue-haired deities; ΙΟ 20 And all this tract that fronts the falling sun 30 Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide And new-intrusted 'sceptre. But their way This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks, Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named : Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields, At last betakes him to this ominous wood, And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered, Offering to every weary traveller His orient liquor in a crystal glass, To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste (For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst), Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance, The express resemblance of the gods, is changed Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, But boast themselves more comely than before, I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy, These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris' woof, Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song, 90 COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel glistering. They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands. Comus. The star that bids the shepherd fold And the gilded car of day His glowing axle doth allay In the steep Atlantic stream: And the slope sun his upward beam Braid your locks with rosy twine, 100 And Advice with scrupulous head, Strict Age, and sour Severity, With their grave saws, in slumber lie. 11Ο We, that are of purer fire, Imitate the starry quire, Who, in their nightly watchful spheres, Lead in swift round the months and years. The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove, Now to the moon in wavering morrice move; And on the tawny sands and shelves Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves. By dimpled brook and fountain-brim, The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim, 120 Their merry wakes and pastimes keep: |