The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3). Christopher Marlowe

limb help'd other to put on disgrace:

      No form was seen, where form held all her sight;

      But like an embryon that saw never light,

      Or like a scorchèd statue made a coal

      With three-wing'd lightning, or a wretched soul

      Muffled with endless darkness, she did sit:

      The night had never such a heavy spirit.

      Yet might a penetrating63 eye well see

      How fast her clear tears melted on her knee

      Through her black veil, and turn'd as black as it,

      Mourning to be her tears. Then wrought her wit

      With her broke vow, her goddess' wrath, her fame,—

      All tools that enginous64 despair could frame:

      Which made her strew the floor with her torn hair,

      And spread her mantle piece-meal in the air.

      Like Jove's son's club, strong passion struck her down,

      And with a piteous shriek enforc'd her swoun:

      Her shriek made with another shriek ascend

      The frighted matron that on her did tend;

      And as with her own cry her sense was slain,

      So with the other it was called again.

      She rose, and to her bed made forcèd way,

      And laid her down even where Leander lay;

      And all this while the red sea of her blood

      Ebb'd with Leander: but now turn'd the flood,

      And all her fleet of spirits came swelling in,

      With child65 of sail, and did hot fight begin

      With those severe conceits she too much marked:

      And here Leander's beauties were embarked.

      He came in swimming, painted all with joys,

      Such as might sweeten hell: his thought destroys

      All her destroying thoughts; she thought she felt

      His heart in hers, with her contentions melt,

      And chide her soul that it could so much err,

      To check the true joys he deserved in her.

      Her fresh-heat blood cast figures in her eyes,

      And she suppos'd she saw in Neptune's skies

      How her star wander'd, wash'd in smarting brine,

      For her love's sake, that with immortal wine

      Should be embath'd, and swim in more heart's-ease

      Than there was water in the Sestian seas.

      Then said her Cupid-prompted spirit, "Shall I

      Sing moans to such delightsome harmony?

      Shall slick-tongu'd Fame, patch'd up with voices rude,

      The drunken bastard of the multitude

      (Begot when father Judgment is away,

      And, gossip-like, says because others say,

      Takes news as if it were too hot to eat,

      And spits it slavering forth for dog-fees meat),

      Make me, for forging a fantastic vow,

      Presume to bear what makes grave matrons bow?

      Good vows are never broken with good deeds,

      For then good deeds were bad: vows are but seeds,

      And good deeds fruits; even those good deeds that grow

      From other stocks than from th' observèd vow.

      That is a good deed that prevents a bad:

      Had I not yielded, slain myself I had.

      Hero Leander is, Leander Hero;

      Such virtue love hath to make one of two.

      If, then, Leander did my maidenhead git,

      Leander being myself, I still retain it:

      We break chaste vows when we live loosely ever,

      But bound as we are, we live loosely never:

      Two constant lovers being join'd in one,

      Yielding to one another, yield to none.

      We know not how to vow till love unblind us,

      And vows made ignorantly never bind us.

      Too true it is, that, when 'tis gone, men hate

      The joy66 as vain they took in love's estate:

      But that's since they have lost the heavenly light

      Should show them way to judge of all things right.

      When life is gone, death must implant his terror:

      As death is foe to life, so love to error.

      Before we love, how range we through this sphere,

      Searching the sundry fancies hunted here:

      Now with desire of wealth transported quite

      Beyond our free humanity's delight;

      Now with ambition climbing falling towers,

      Whose hope to scale, our fear to fall devours;

      Now rapt with pastimes, pomp, all joys impure:

      In things without us no delight is sure.

      But love, with all joys crowned, within doth sit:

      O goddess, pity love, and pardon it!"

      Thus spake she67 weeping: but her goddess' ear

      Burn'd with too stern a heat, and would not hear.

      Ay me! hath heaven's strait fingers no more graces

      For such as Hero68 than for homeliest faces?

      Yet she hoped well, and in her sweet conceit

      Weighing her arguments, she thought them weight,

      And that the logic of Leander's beauty,

      And them together, would bring proofs of duty;

      And if her soul, that was a skilful glance

      Of heaven's great essence, found such imperance69

      In her love's beauties, she had confidence

      Jove loved him too, and pardoned her offence:

      Beauty in heaven and earth this grace doth win,

      It supples rigour, and it lessens sin.

      Thus, her sharp wit, her love, her secrecy,

      Trooping together, made her wonder why

      She should not leave her bed, and to the temple;

      Her health said she must live; her sex, dissemble.

      She viewed Leander's place, and wished he were

      Turned to his place, so his place were Leander.

      "Ay me," said she, "that love's sweet life and sense

      Should do it harm! my love had not gone hence

      Had he been like his place: O blessèd place,

      Image of constancy! Thus my love's grace

      Parts nowhere, but it leaves something behind

      Worth observation: he renowns his kind:

      His motion is, like heaven's, orbicular,

      For

63

So the modern editors for an "imitating."

64

Ingenious. Chapman has the form "enginous" in his translation of the Odyssey, i. 452,

"By open force or prospects enginous."

65

Some modern editors unnecessarily give "With crowd of sail."

66

Old eds. "joys."

67

Old eds. "he."

68

Some eds. give "For such a Hero."

69

Command.