DESCRIPTION OF THE STEED OF ADONIS.
IMPERIOUSLY he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder; The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds, Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder; The iron bit he crushes 'tween his teeth, Controlling what he was controlled with.
His ears up prick'd; his braided hanging mane
Upon his compass'd1 crest now stands on end;
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
His eye, which glisters2 scornfully like fire,
Shows his hot courage and his high desire.
Sometimes he trots, as if he told the steps,
With gentle majesty and modest pride;
Anon he rears upright, curvets3 and leaps,
As who should say, "Lo, thus my strength is try'd, And thus I do to captivate the eye
Of the fair breeder that is standing by."
Look, when a painter would surpass the life,
In limning out a well-proportioned steed,
His art with nature's workmanship at strife,
1 compass'd, arching
2 glisters, shines.
3 curvets, bounds,
'limning, painting, lit. illuminating, as in the old Manuscripts.
As if the dead the living should exceed;
So did this horse excel a common one,
In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.
Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;
To bid the wind a base he now prepares,
And whether he run, or fly, they know not whether; For through his mane and tail the high wind sings, Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings.
How many thousand of my poorest subjects,
Are at this hour asleep!-O Sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
5 a base, a game, a race.
6 who. The relative was as yet unfixed in its genders, in Shakspeare's day.
Upon uneasy pallets1 stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody ;3
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,5
And in the visitation of the winds,"
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low,' lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
pallets, small, poor beds.
2 the costly roof, or canopies of state beds.
3 melody, music played and sung to lull the King to sleep.
4 watch-case. Nothing is a fitter image of the beating wakefulness of his thoughts, than that his bed
was round him as the case is round the sleepless ticking of a watch.
5 the waves rocking the ship as if it were a cradle.
midst the fiercest blowing of the winds.
7 low, humble man.
ANTONY'S ORATION OVER CÆSAR'S BODY.
FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones:
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus3
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-→
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all-all honourable men ;
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
Mark Antony, afterwards opposed by Augustus. Killed him
self in Egypt, B.C. 36.
3 Brutus, born B.C. 89, nephew of Cato, and much favoured by Cæsar.
2 Julius Cæsar was murdered at Rome, March 15th, в C. 44.
You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,*
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse-was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke;
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar;
And I must pause till it come back to me.
But yesterday, the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
O Masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here's a parchment with the seal of Cæsar:
I found it in his closet, 'tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament,
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Lupercal, an ancient Roman festival, held on July 15th.
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