Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

in reverence I have forborn

Till now,
To ask, or to presume to guess, or know
My father's thoughts; whereof he might think

scorn:

For dreadful is that power that all may do;
Yet they, that all men fear, are fearful too.
Lo where he sits! Virtue, work thou in me,
That what thou seekest may accomplish'd be.
Solym. Ah death! is not thyself sufficient,
anguish,

But thou must borrow fear, that threatning glass,
Which, while it goodness hides, and mischief shows,
Doth lighten wit to honor's overthrows?
But hush! methinks away Camena steals;
Murther, belike, in me itself reveals.

Solym. Monsters yet be, and being are be-
lieved.
Cam. Incredible hath some inordinate pro-
gression:

Blood, doctrine, age, corrupting liberty,
Do all concur, where men such monsters be.
Pardon me, Sir, if duty do seem angry:
Affection must breathe out afflicted breath,
Where imputation hath such easy faith.
Solym. Mustapha is he that hath defil'd his
nest;

The wrong the greater for I loved him best.
He hath devised that all at once should die.
Rosten, and Rossa, Zanger, thou, and I.
Cam. Fall none but angels suddenly to hell?

Camena! whither now? why haste you from me? Are kind and order grown precipitate?

Is it so strange a thing to be a father?

Or is it I that am so strange a father?

Did ever any other man but he

In instant lose the use of doing well?

Cam. My Lord, methought, nay, sure I saw Sir, these be mists of greatness. Look again:

you busy:

Your child presumes, uncall'd, that comes unto you.
Solym. Who may presume with fathers, but
their own,

Whom nature's law hath ever in protection,
And gilds in good belief of dear affection?
Cam. Nay, reverence, Sir, so children's
worth doth hide,

As of the fathers it is least espy'd.
Solym. I think 'tis true, who know their
children least,

Have greatest reason to esteem them best.
Cam. How so, my lord? since love in
knowledge lives,

Which unto strangers therefore no man gives.

Solym. The life we gave them soon they

do forget,

[blocks in formation]

For kings that, in their fearful icy state,
Behold their children as their winding-sheet,
Do easily doubt; and what they doubt, they hate.
Solym. Camena! thy sweet youth, that
knows no ill,
Cannot believe thine elders, when they say,
That good belief is great estates' decay.
Let it suffice, that I, and Rossa too,
Are privy what your brother means to do.

Cam. Sir, pardon me, and nobly as a father,
What I shall say, and say of holy mother;
Know I shall say it, but to right a brother.
My mother is your wife: duty in her
Is love: she loves: which not well govern'd, bears
The evil angel of misgiving fears;

Whose many eyes, whilst but itself they see,
Still makes the worst of possibility:
Out of this fear she Mustapha accuseth:
Unto this fear, perchance, she joins the love
Which doth in mothers for their children move.
Perchance, when fear hath shew'd her yours
must fall,

In love she sees that hers must rise withall.
Sir, fear a frailty is, and may have grace,
And over-care of you cannot be blamed;
Care of our own in nature hath a place;

Passions are oft mistaken and misnamed;
Things simply good grow evil with misplacing.
Though laws cut off, and do not care to fashion,
Humanity of error hath compassion.
Yet God forbid, that either fear, or care
Should ruin those that true and faultless are.

Solym. Is it no fault, or fault I may forgive,
For son to seek the father should not live?

Cam. Is it a fault, or fault for you to know,
My mother doubts a thing that is not so?
These ugly works of monstrous parricide,

Mark from what hearts they rise, and where Laws did enquire, the answer must be grace.

they bide:

Violent, despair'd, where honor broken is;
Fear lord, time death; where hope is misery;
Doubt having stopt all honest ways to bliss;
And custom shut the windows up of shame
That craft may take upon her wisdom's name.
Compare now Mustapha with this despair:
Sweet youth, sure hopes, honor, a father's love,
No infamy to move, or banish fear,
Honor to stay, hazard to hasten fate:
Can horrors work in such a child's estate?
Besides, the gods, whom kings should imitate,
Have placed you high to rule, not overthow;
For us, not for yourselves, is your estate:
Mercy must hand in hand with power go.
Your sceptre should not strike with arms of fear,
Which fathoms all men's imbecility,
And mischief doth, lest it should mischief bear.
As reason deals within with frailty,
Which kills not passions that rebellious are,
But adds, subtracts, keeps down ambitious spirits,
So must power form, not ruin instruments;
For flesh and blood, the means 'twixt heav'n
and hell,

Unto extremes extremely racked be;
Which kings in art of government should see:
Else they, which circle in themselves with death,
Poison the air wherein they draw their breath.
Pardon, my lord, pity becomes my sex:
Grace with delay grows weak, and fury wise.
Remember Theseus' wish, and Neptune's haste,
Kill'd innocence and left succession waste.
Solym. If what were best for them that do
offend,

If mercy be so large, where's justice' place?

Cam. Where love despairs, and where God's promise ends.

For mercy is the highest reach of wit,
A safety unto them that save with it,
Born out of God, and unto human eyes,
Like God, not seen, till fleshly passion dies.
Solym. God may forgive, whose being, and
whose harms

Are far removed from reach of fleshly arms
But if God equals or successors had,
Even God of safe revenges would be glad.

Cam. While he is yet alive, he may be slain; But from the dead no flesh comes back again. Solym. While he remains alive, I live in fear. Cam. Though he were dead, that doubt still living were.

Solym. None hath the power to end what he begun.

Cam. The same occasion follows every son. Solym. Their greatness, or their worth, is not so much.

Cam. And shall the best be slain for being such? Solym. Thy mother, or thy brother, are amiss; I am betrayed, and one of them it is

Cam. My mother if she errs, errs virtuously; And let her err, ere Mustapha should die. Solym. Kings for their safety must not blame mistrust.

Cam. Nor for surmises sacrifice the just. Solym. Well, dear Camena, keep this secretly: I will be well advised before he die.

Southwell.

Robert Southwell ward 1560 zu St. Faith in Norfolk geboren und im englischen Collegium zu Douay in Flandern erzogen. Im Jahre 1576 ging er nach Rom, trat daselbst in die Gesellschaft Jesu und kehrte dann als Missionnair nach England zurück, in der Absicht den Fortschritten der Reformation entgegen zu arbeiten. Seine Bemühungen wurden jedoch, wie er selbst klagt, nicht mit Erfolg gekrönt und er lebte in seinem eignen Vaterlande gleich einem Fremdling unter Fremden. 1592 ward er angeblich wegen Verschwörung, im Tower eingekerkert, und dort drei Jahr lang festgehalten und wiederholt auf die Folter gespannt und endlich am 20. Februar 1595 wegen Hochverrath hingerichtet. Er erlitt den Tod mit standhafter Ruhe und Unerschrockenheit.

Seine Gedichte, sämmtlich religiösen Inhaltes, erschienen in folgenden verschiedenen Sammlungen: St. Peter's Complaint and St. Mary Magdalen's Funeral Teares with sundry other selected and devout Poems; Maeoniae or certain excellent Poems and spirituals Hymns; The Triumphs

over Death und erlebten ausserordentlich viele Auflagen. Ein tiefes religiöses Gefühl, das sich oft zur Begeisterung steigert, Innigkeit, Phantasie, Kraft und edle Diction, verleihen ihnen, abgesehen von der Beschränktheit der Richtung dieses Dichters, keinen geringen Werth.

[blocks in formation]

Daniel.

Samuel Daniel, der Sohn eines Musiklehrers, ward 1562 in der Nähe von Taunton geboren und erhielt durch die Unterstützung der Grüfin Pembroke eine gelehrte Erziehung. Nachdem er seine Studien zu Oxford vollendet, wurde er Erzieher der Lady Anna Clifford und dann Hofpoet (Poet Laureat) der Königin Elisabeth, was ihm jedoch Nichts eintrug. Nach ihrem Tode erhielt er das Amt eines Kammerdieners bei der Gemahlin Jacobs I. Später zog er sich auf das Land zurück und starb daselbst im October 1619. Seine gesammelten Werke wurden von seinem Bruder, London 1623, 1 Bd. in 4. herausgegeben und sind später neu aufgelegt worden u. A. London 1718, 2 Bde. in 12. Sie enthalten: The Complaint of Rosamond (57 Sonnette), Letter of Octavia to Mark Anthony; Hymen's Triumph und the Queens Arcadia (zwei Schäferdramen), Cleopatra und Philotas (zwei Trauerspiele) Musophilus (ein didactisches Gedicht), the History of the Civil Wars (ein episches Gedicht, den Kampf zwischen York und Lancaster schildernd) und vermischte Gedichte. Daniel ist als Dichter correct, elegant und oft gefühlvoll und natürlich, aber auch trocken, gesucht und künstelnd und der Form nicht selten den Inhalt opfernd.

To the Ladie Margaret, Countesse of

Cumberland.

He that of such a height hath built his minde, And rear'd the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,

As neither feare nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolved pow'rs, nor all the winde
Of vanitie or malice pierce to wrong
His setled peace, or to disturbe the same;
What a faire seate hath he, from whence he

may

He sees the face of right t' appeare as mani

folde

Who puts it in all colours, all attires,
As are the passions of uncertaine man,
To serve his ends and make his courses holde:
He sees, that let deceit worke what it can,
Plot and contrive base wayes to high desires,
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint, and mocks this smoake of wit.

Nor is he mov'd with all the thunder - cracks The boundlesse wastes and weids of man survay. Of tyrant's threats, or with the surly brow Of Power, that proudly sits on others crimes, And with how free an eye doth he looke Charg'd with more crying sinnes then those he

downe

Upon these lower regions of turmoyle
Where all the stormes of passions mainly

beat

On flesh and bloud, where honour, pow'r, re

nowne

Are onely gay afflictions, golden toyle,
Where greatnesse stands upon as feeble feet
As frailty doth, and onely great doth seeme
To little minds, who doe it so esteeme.

checks;

The stormes of sad confusion, that may grow
Up in the present, for the comming times,
Appall not him, that hath no side at all
But of himselfe, and knowes the worst can fall.

Although his heart so neere allied to earth,
Cannot but pitty the perplexed state
Of troublous and distrest mortalitie,
That thus make way unto the ougly birth
Of their owne sorrowes, and doe still beget

He lookes upon the mightiest monarchs Affliction upon imbecillitie:

warres

But onely as on stately robberies,
Where evermore the fortune that prevailes
Must be the right, the ill-succeeding marres
The fairest and the best-fac't enterprize:
Great pirat Pompey lesser pirats quailes,
Justice, he sees, as if seduced, still
Conspires with pow'r, whose cause must not be

ill.

Yet seeing thus the course of things must runne,
He lookes thereon, not strange; but as foredone.

And whilst distraught ambition compasses
And is incompast, whil'st as craft deceives
And is deceived, whil'st man doth ransacke

man,
And th' inheritance of desolation leaves

To great expecting hopes, he lookes thereon
As from the shore of peace with unwet eie,
And beares no venture in impietie.

But worke beyond their yeeres, and even denie
Dotage her rest, and hardly will dispence
With death: that when ability expires,
Desire lives still: so much delight they have

Thus, madam, fares that man that hath To carry toyle and travell to the grave.

[blocks in formation]

To plant your heart, and set your thoughts as A heart prepar'd, that feares no ill to come:

[blocks in formation]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »