So thou, if fortune will thy fuit advance, Love on, nor envy me my equal chance: For I must love, and am refolv'd to try My fate, or failing in th' adventure die.
Great was their strife, which hourly was renew'd, Till each with mortal hate his rival view'd: Now friends no more, nor walking hand in hand; But when they met, they made a furly stand; And glar'd like angry lions as they pass'd, And wish'd that every look might be their last. It chanc'd at length, Pirithous came t' attend This worthy Theseus, his familiar friend; Their love in early infancy began, And rose as childhood ripen'd into man. Companions of the war; and lov'd so well, That when one dy'd, as ancient stories tell, His fellow to redeem him went to hell.
But to pursue my tale; to welcome home His warlike brother is Pirithous come : Arcite of Thebes was known in arms long since, And honour'd by this young Thessalian prince. Theseus, to gratify his friend and guest, Who made our Arcite's freedom his request, Restor'd to liberty the captive knight, But on these hard conditions I recite: That if hereafter Arcite should be found Within the compass of Athenian ground, By day or night, or on whate'er pretence, His head should pay the forfeit of th' offence.
To this Pirithous for his friend agreed, And on his promise was the prisoner freed.
Unpleas'd and pensive hence he takes his way, At his own peril; for his life must pay. Who now but Arcite mourns his bitter fate, Finds his dear purchase, and repents too late ? What have I gain'd, he said, in prifon pent, If I but change my bonds for banishment? And banish'd from her fight, I fuffer more In freedom, than I felt in bonds before; Forc'd from her prefence, and condemn'd to live: Unwelcome freedom, and unthank'd reprieve: Heavea is not, but where Emily abides; And where she's absent, all is hell befides. Next to my day of birth, was that accurst, Which bound my friendship to Pirithous first: Had I not known that prince, I still had been In bondage, and had ftill Emilia seen : For though I never can her grace deserve, 'Tis recompence enough to fee and ferve. O Palamon, my kinsman and my friend, How much more happy fates thy love attend! Thine is th' adventure; thine the victory : Well has thy fortune turn'd the dice for thee: Thou on that angel's face may'st feed thine eyes, In prifon, no; but blissful paradise! Thou daily seest that fun of beauty shine, And lov'st at least in love's extremest line.
I mourn in absence, love's eternal night; And who can tell but fince thou hast her fight, And art a comely, young, and valiant knight, Fortune (a various power) may cease to frown, And by fome ways unknown thy wishes crown ? But I, the most forlorn of human kind, Nor help can hope, nor remedy can find ; But, doom'd to drag my loathsome life in care, For my reward, must end it in despair.
Fire, water, air, and earth, and force of fates That governs all, and heaven that all creates, Nor art, nor nature's hand can ease my grief; Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief: Then farewel youth, and all the joys that dwell, With youth and life, and life itself farewel.
But why, alas! do mortal men in vain Of fortune, fate, or Providence complain? God gives us what he knows our wants require, And better things than those which we defire : Some pray for riches; riches they obtain;
But, watch'd by robbers, for their wealth are flain; Some pray from prison to be freed; and come, When guilty of their vows, to fall at home; Murder'd by those they trusted with their life, A favour'd fervant, or a bofom wife. Such dear-bought bleffings happen every day, Because we know not for what things to pray. Like drunken fots about the street we roam : Well knows the fot he has a certain home;
Yet knows not how to find th' uncertain place, And blunders on, and staggers every pace. Thus all feek happiness; but few can find, For far the greater part of men are blind. This is my cafe, who thought our utmost good Was in one word of freedom understood : The fatal blessing came: from prison free, I starve abroad, and lose the fight of Emily.
Thus Arcite; but if Arcite thus deplore His fufferings, Palamon yet suffers more. For when he knew his rival freed and gone, He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous moan: He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground; The hollow tower with clamours rings around : With briny tears he bath'd his fetter'd feet, And dropt all o'er with agony of sweat. Alas! he cry'd! I wretch in prifon pine, Too happy rival, while the fruit is thine : Thou liv'ft at large, thou draw'st thy native air, Pleas'd with thy freedom, proud of my despair: Thou mayst, since thou hast youth and courage join'd, A sweet behaviour and a folid mind, Assemble ours, and all the Theban race, To vindicate on Athens thy disgrace; And after, by some treaty made, pofiefs Fair Emily, the pledge of lasting peace. So thine shall be the beauteous prize, while I
Must languish in despair, in prison die.
Thus all th' advantage of the strife is thine,
Thy portion double joys, and double forrows mine.
The rage of Jealousy then fir'd his foul, And his face kindled like a burning coal : Now cold Despair, succeeding in her stead, To livid paleness turns the glowing red.
His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within his veins, Like water which the freezing wind constrains. Then thus he said: Eternal Deities, Who rule the world with absolute decrees, And write whatever time shall bring to pass, With pens of adamant, on plates of brass; What, is the race of human kind your care Beyond what all his fellow-creatures are? He with the rest is liable to pain, And like the sheep, his brother-beast, is flain. Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure, All these he must, and guiltless oft endure; Or does your justice, power, or prefcience fail, When the good fuffer, and the bad prevail ? What worse to wretched virtue could befal, If fate or giddy fortune govern'd all? Nay, worse than other beasts is our estate; Them, to pursue their pleasures, you create; We, bound by harder laws, must curb our will, And your commands, not our defires, fulfil; Then when the creature is unjustly flain,
Yet after death at least he feels no pain; But man in life furcharg'd with woe before, Not freed when dead, is doom'd to fuffer more.
A ferpent shoots his sting at unaware; An ambush'd thief forelays a traveller:
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