Look, how the world's poor people are amazed, Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed, So she at these sad signs draws up her breath, “Hard-favored tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean, Hateful divorce of love," (thus chides she Death,) "Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what, dost thou mean To stifle beauty, and to steal his breath, Who when he lived, his breath and beauty set "If he be dead, -O, no, it cannot be, Thy mark is feeble age; but thy false dart 1 "Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke, 1 His for its. 2 Boswell has quoted a passage from Massinger's "Virgin Martyr," alluding, as Shakspeare here does, to the beautiful fable of Cupid and death exchanging arrows :— "Strange affection! Cupid once more hath changed his shafts with Death, "Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st such weeping? What may a heavy groan advantage thee? Here overcome, as one full of despair, She vailed1 her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopped But through the floodgates breaks the silver rain, O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow! Both crystals, where they viewed each other's sorrow, But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain, Variable passions throng her constant woe, But none is best; then join they all together, By this, far off she hears some huntsmen hollo : o 1 Vailed, lowered. 2 Hollo, or hollow, is not quite the same word as holla, which we have already noticed, although the usual spelling of this word in the passage before us is holla. The dire imagination she did follow Whereat her tears began to turn their tide, O, hard-believing love, how strange it seems The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely, Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought; Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame; It was not she that called him all-to1 naught; Now she adds honors 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; Then, gentle shadow, (truth I must confess,) 1 All-to. Mr. Dyce explains this as entirely, altogether. ""Tis not my fault: the boar provoked my tongue; Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet Thus, hoping that Adonis is alive, Her rash suspect she doth extenuate ; And that his beauty may the better thrive, Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs; and stories "O Jove," quoth she, "how much a fool was I, For he being dead, with him is beauty slain, "Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves." As falcon to the lure away she flies; The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light; 1 Shakspeare, in his greater works, was not ashamed to recur to the treasury of his early thoughts : “Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee! and when I love thee not And in her haste unfortunately spies The foul boar's conquest on her fair delight; Which seen, her eyes, as murdered with the view, Like stars ashamed of day, themselves withdrew. Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit, So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled Where they resign their office and their light Whereat each tributary subject quakes: That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes; And, being opened, threw unwilling light Upon the wide wound that the boar had trenched With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drenched : No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed, But stole his blood, and seemed with him to bleed |