A party in this alteration, finding
Myself thus alter'd with it.

Patience

62

13-i. 2.

Of whose soft grace, I have her sovereign aid,
And rest myself content.

63

1-v. 1.

Left her in her tears, and dry'd not one of them with his comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few, bestowed* her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not. 5-iii. 1.

64

He that commends me to my own content,
Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
I to the world am like a drop of water,
That in the ocean seeks another drop;
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.

65

Wherefore weep you ?

At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer
What I desire to give; and much less take,
What I shall die to want: But this is trifling;

And all the more it seeks to hide itself,

14-i. 2.

The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning! And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!

I am your wife, if you will marry me;

If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellowt
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
Whether you will or no.

66

When maidens sue,

1-iii. 1.

Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,

All their petitions are as freely theirst

As they themselves would owe them.

5-i. 5.

† Companion.
§ Have.

Gave her up to her sorrows.
Freely granted to them.

This she? no,

67

If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimony,
If sanctimony be the gods' delight,
If there be rule in unity itself-

This was not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt; this is, and is not, Cressid!
Within my soul there doth commence a fight
Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifice for a point, as subtle
As is Arachne's broken woof, to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates;
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;
The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolved and loosed;
And with another knot, five-finger tied,*
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,

The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy reliques,
Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

68

Fear, and niceness

(The handmaids of all women, or, more truly, Woman its pretty self.)

69

A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.

70

Thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;
Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh,

26-v. 2.

31-iii. 4.

35-iii. 3.

Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,
A plague-sore, an emboss'd carbuncle,

A knot tied by giving her hand to Diomed,

In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee;
Let shame come when it will, I do not call it :-
Mend when thou can'st; be better at thy leisure.

71

34-ii. 4.

There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them :
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies, and herself,
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time, she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable* of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element: but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
36-iv. 7.

72

They hurried us aboard a bark;

Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcase of a boat, not rigg'd,

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar'd to us; to sigh
To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong..

Alack! what trouble!

Thou wast, that did preserve me!

Thou didst smile,

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

When I have deck'df the sea with drops full salt;
Under my burden groan'd; which raised in me

An undergoing stomach, to bear up

Against what should ensue....

How came we ashore?...

By Providence divine.

* Insen si ble.

† Sprinkled.

1-i. 2.

Stubborn resolution.

73

So long

As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of his mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,
How swift his ship.....

Thou should'st have made him
As little as a crow, or less, ere left

To after-eye him.—

I would have broke mine eyestrings; crack'd them, but

To look upon him; till the diminution

Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle:
Nay, followed him till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air; and then
Have turn'd mine eye, and wept.

74

To comfort you with chance,

Assure yourself, after our ship did split,

31-i. 4.

When you, and that poor number saved with you,
Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself

(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,

I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.

75

I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

4-i. 2.

The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke

To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd,
As stooping to relieve him.

76

At thy birth, dear boy,

1-ii. 1.

Nature and fortune join'd to make thee great:

Of nature's gifts, thou may'st with lilies boast,
And with the half-blown rose: but fortune, O!
She is corrupted, changed, and won from thee.

77

Methinks, I feel this youth's perfections,
With an invisible and subtle stealth,
To creep in at mine eyes.

78

O thou goddess,

16-iii 1.

4-i. 5.

Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
As zephyrs, blowing below the violet,

Not wagging his sweet head: and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchafed, as the rud'st wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him stoop to the vale. "Tis wonderful,
That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearn'd; honour untaught;
Civility not seen from other; valour,

That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
As if it had been sow'd!

31-iv. 2.

79

We were

Two lads, that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,

And to be boy eternal. . . .

We were as twinn'd lambs, that did frisk i' the sun,

And bleat the one at the other: What we changed,

Was innocence for innocence; we knew not

The doctrine of ill doing, no, nor dream'd

That any did. . . .

Temptations have since then been born to us.

80

When thou, haply, seest

Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel;

Wish me partaker in thy happiness,

13-i. 2.

When thou dost meet good hap; and, in thy danger,

If ever danger do environ thee,

Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,

For I will be thy bead's-man.

2-i. 1.