but maintained some dignity in Cambridgeshire, being knighted about 1591. His first work was The Diall of Princes by Guevara, ‘Englysshed oute of the Frenche,' but partly at least direct from Spanish 1557). Lord Berners had as early as 1534 translated a shorter version by Guevara of the same work (see pages 104, 105). Of late it has been attempted to trace the Euphuism of Lyly to Guevara, and probably Lyly was influenced by the renderings both of Berners and of North; but a substantial residuum of Euphuism is Lyly's own, and cannot be traced to either of Guevara's translators. In other respects North's influence on almost all subsequent writers of English was very marked. The Morall Philosophie of Doni is a witty and pithy rendering of an Italian work. His most famous work, The Lives of the Neble Grecianes and Romanes compared together by that grave learned Philosopher and Historiographer Plutarke of Charonia, professedly from the French rendering of Amyot, was in magnificently racy, nervous, idiomatic English-all the more that the translator did not greatly concern himself to follow Amyot closely, still less the Greek original. He wrote freely, using newcoined Latinisms, contemporary colloquialisms, and English slang with equal effectiveness. The work, which reads like an original, became one of the most popular books of the time, and was largely Shakespeare's encyclopædia of classical history. In Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare has used North's words and phrases very closely; in Coriolanus there are whole speeches taken almost straight from North. Aristides the Just Ostracised. The people moreover being growen very dissolute & licencious, by reason of the victorie of Marathon, and seeking to have all thinges passe by them and their authoritie, beganne nowe to mislike and to be greatly offended that any private man should go before the rest good fame and reputacion. Whereupon they came eat of all shires of Attica into the city of Athens, and banished Aristides with the Ostracismon: disguising the envy they bare to his glory with the name of feare of tyranny. For this maner of banishment called Ostracismon, or Exostracismon, was no ordinary punishment for any fault or offence committed: but to give it an honest cloke, they said it was onely a pulling downe and tying shorte of too much greatnesse and authority, exceeding farre the maner and countenance of a popular state. But to tell you truly, it was none otherwise then a gentle meane to qualifie the peoples envy against some private person: which envy bred no malice to him whose greatnesse did offend them, but onely tended to the banishing of him for ten yeares. But afterwards when by practise this Ostracismon banishment was laid upon meane men and malefactors, 25 upon Hyperbolus that was the last man so banished, they never after used it any more at Athens. And by the way it shall not be amisse to tell you here why and wherefore this Hyperbolus was banished. Alcibiades and Nicias were the chiefest men of Athens at that time, and they both were ever at square together, a common thing amongest great men. They perceiving now by the peoples assembling, that they went about to execute the Ostracismon, were marvelously afrayed it was meant to banishe one of them: wherefore they spake together, and made both their followers frends with each other, and joyned them in one tribe together, insomuch, when the most voyces of the people were gathered to condemne him that should be banished, they founde it was Hyperbolus. The people therewith were much offended, to see the Ostracismon so embased and scorned, that they never after would use it againe, and so left it off for ever. But briefly to let you understand what the Ostracismon was, and after what sorte they used it ye are to know that at a certaine day appointed every citizen caried a great shell in his hande, whereupon he wrote the name of him he would have banished, and brought it into a certaine place railed about with woodden barres in the market place. Then, when every man had brought in his shell, the magistrates and officers of the city did count and tell the number of them for if there were lesse then 6000 citizens, that had thus brought these shels together, the Ostracismon was not full and perfect. That done, they laid apart every mans name written in these shels: and whose name they found written by most citizens, they proclaimed him by sounde of trumpet a banished man for ten yeares, during which time notwithstanding the party did enjoy al his goods. Now every man writing thus his name in a shel, whom they would have banished: it is reported there was a plaine man of the countrey (very simple) that could neither write nor reade, who came to Aristides (being the first man he met with) and gave him his shell, praying him to write Aristides name upon it. He being abashed withall, did aske the countrey man if Aristides had ever done him any displeasure. No, said the contrie man, he never did me hurt, nor I know him not: but it grieves me to heare every man call him a just man. Aristides hearing him say so, gave him no answer, but wrote his own name upon the shell, and delivered it againe to the countrie man. But as he went his way out of the city, he lift up his hands to heaven, and made a prayer contrary to that of Achilles in Homer, besechinge the gods that the Athenians might never have such troubles in hand as they should be compelled to call for Aristides againe. Notwithstanding, within three yeares after, when Xerxes king of Persia came with his army through the countries of Thessaly and Boeotia, & entred into the heart of the country of Attica, the Athenians revoking the law of their Ostracismon, called home againe all those they had banished, and specially, because they were affraid Aristides would take part with the barbarous people, and that his example should move many other to do the like; wherin they were greatly deceived in the nature of the man: for before that he was called home, he continually travelled up and downe, perswading and incouraging the Grecians to maintaine and defende their liberty. After that lawe was repealed by proclamation, & that Themistocles was chosen the only Lieutenant general of Athens, he did alwaies faithfully aid and assist him in al things, as well with his travell, as also with his counsell: and thereby wan his enemies great honor, because it stood upon the safety and preservation of his countrey. For when Euribiades, Generall of the army of the Grecians, had determined to forsake the Ile of Salamina, and that the gallies of the barbarous people were come into the middest of the seas, and had environed the Iles all about and the mouth of the arme of the straight of Salamina, before any man knew they were thus inclosed in: Aristides departing out of the Ile of Ægina with a marvellous boldnesse, ventured through the middest of all the barbarous ships and fleete, and by good hap got in the night into Themistocles tent, and calling him out, spake with him there in this sort: Themistocles, if we be both wise, it is high time we should now leave off this vaine envy and spite we have long time borne each other, and that we should enter into another sort of envy more honourable and profitable for us both: I meane, which of us two should do his best endeavour to save Grece you, by ruling and commaunding all like Lieutenant generall: and I, by counselling you the best, and executing your commandement considering you are the man alone that will roundliest come unto the point that is best: which is in my opinion that we should hazard battell by sea within the straight of Salamina, and that as soone as might be possible. But if our frendes and confederates do let this to be put in execution, I do assure you your enemies do helpe it forward. For it is said, that the sea both before and behind us, & round about us, is covered all over with their shippes, so as they that would not before, shall now be compelled of force and in spight of their hearts to fight and bestirre them like men: because they are compassed in all about; and there is no passage left open for them to escape, nor to flie. Whereunto Themistocles answered, I am sory, Aristides, that herein your honesty appeareth greater then mine: but since it is so, that you have deserved the honor in beginning and procuring such an honourable and commendable strife betweene us, I will henceforth indevour my selfe to excede you in continuing this your desire. See the Lives of the Norths by Roger North, as edited by Dr Jessopp (3 vols. 1890); and Professor Skeat's notes in his Shakespeare's Plutarch (1857) on the Lives that illustrate Shakespeare's Plays, the edition of the Morall Philosophie by Joseph Jacobs (1888), and the edition by Wyndham of the Plutarch in the Tudor Translations (6 vols. 1895-96). Philemon Holland (1552-1637), styled by Fuller the translator-general of his age,' was born at Chelmsford, became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1591 obtained somewhere the degree of M.D. He afterwards practised medicine at Coventry, and in 1628 was headmaster for ten months of the free school there. His more notable translations were Livy, Pliny's Natural History, Suetonius, Plutarch's Morals, Ammianus Marcellinus, Xenophon's Cyropædia, and Camden's Britannia. The translation of Suetonius was carried out when the plague raged at Coventry in 1605-6; in his later years the old man suffered from bodily frailties and poverty. His translations are faithful on the whole, and in fine Elizabethan English, and though not so stately as North's English renderings, have their own quaint charm. They mostly appeared in majestic folios; and this, with their number, led to Pope's well-known jesting allusion, And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends.' His son, Henry Holland, a bookseller in London, wrote some historical works, and published, after his father's death, one or two works by Philemon on medical subjects. Hannibal crossing the Alps. So that Anniball took up his lodging for one night, without his cariages & horsemen. The morrow after, when as the barbarous people ran betweene them more coldly than before, he joined his forces together, and passed the streight, not without great dammage and losse; but with more hurt of the sumpter horses than of men. After this, the mountainers (fewer in number, and in robbing wise rather than in warlike sort) ran in heapes, one while upon the vaward, other while upon the rereward, as any one of them could either get the vantage of ground, or by going one while afore, and by staying another while behind, winne and catch any occasion & opportunity. The elephants, as they were driven with great leasure, because through these narrow streights, they were readie ever & anone to run on their noses: so what way soever they went, they kept the army safe & sure from the enemies; who being not used unto them, durst not once come neer. The ninth day he woon the verie tops of the Alpes, through by-lanes and blind crankes: after he had wandred many times out of the way, either through the deceitfulnesse of their guides, or for that when they durst not trust them, they adventured rashly themselves upon the vallies, and guessed the way at adventure, and went by aime. Two daies abode he encamped upon the tops thereof, and the soldiors weried with travaile and fight rested that time: certaine also of the sumpter horses (which had slipt aside from the rockes) by following the tracks of the armie as it marched, came to the campe. When they were thus overtoiled and wearied with these tedious travailes, the snow that fell (for now the starre Vergilie [i.e. the Pleiades] was set and gone downe out of that horizon) increased their feare exceedingly. Now when as at the breake of day the ensignes were set forward, and the armie marched slowly, through the thicke and deepe snow; and that there appeared in the countenance of them all, slouthfulnesse and desperation: Anniball advanced before the standerds, and commaunded his soldiours to stay upon a certaine high hill, (from whence they had a goodly prospect and might see a great way all about them) and there shewed unto them Italie, and the goodly champion fields about the Po, which lie hard under the foot of the Alpine mountains: saying, That even then they mounted the wals, not only of Italy. but also of the cittie of Rome; as for all besides (saith hee) will be plaine and easie to be travelled: and after one or two battailes at the most, ye shall have at your command, the verie castle and head citie of all Italy. Then began the armie to march forward and as yet the enemies verely themselves adventured nothing at all, but some pettie robberies by stealth, as opportunitie & occasion served. Howbeit they had much more difficult travailing down the hill, than in the climbing & getting up; for that most of the advenues to the Alpes from Italy side, as they be shorter, so they are more upright: for all the way in a manner was steepe, narrow, and slipperie, so as neither they could hold themselves from sliding, nor if any tripped and stumbled never so little, could they possibly (they staggered so) recover themselves and keep sure footing, but one fell upon another, as well horse as man. After this they came to a much narrower rocke, with crags & rags so steepe downeright, that hardly a nimble soldiour without his armour and baggage (do what he could to take hold with hands upon the twigs and plants that there about grew forth) was able to creep down. This place being before naturally of it selfe steepe & pendant with a downe-fall, now was choked & dammed up with a new fall of earth, which left a bank behind it of a wonderful & monstrous heigth. There the horsmen stood still as if they had been come to their waies end. And when Anniball merveiled much what the matter might be that staied them so, as they marched not on : word was brought him, that the Rock was unaccessible & unpassable. Wherupon, he went himself in person to view the place, & then he saw indeed without all doubt, that although he had fetched a compasse about, yet he had gained nought thereby, but conducted his armie to passe through wilds & such places as before had never been beaten & troden. And verely that (of al other) was such as it was impossible to passe through. For, wher as there lay old snow untouched & not trodden on, and over it other snow newly fallen, of a smal depth; in this soft & tender snow, & the same not verie deep, their feet as they went easely tooke hold: but that snow, being once with the gate of so many people & beasts upon it, fretted and thawed, they were faine to go upon the bare yce underneath, and in the slabberie snow-broth, as it relented and melted about their heeles. There they had foule adoe and much strugling, for that they could not tread sure upon the slipperie yce and againe, going as they did (downe hill) their feet sooner failed them and when they had helped themselves once in getting up, either with hands or knees; if they chanced to fal again, when those their props and staies deceived them, there were no twigs nor rootes about, whereon a man might take hold, and rest or stay himselfe, either by hand or foot. And therefore all that the poore garrons and beasts could doe was to tumble and wallow only upon the slipperie and glassie yce and the molten slabbie snow. Otherwhiles also they perished as they went in the deepe snow, whiles it was yet soft and tender: for when they were once slidden and fallen, with flinging out their heeles, and beating with their hoofes more forcibly for to take hold, they brake the yce through; so as most of them, as if they had ben caught fast and fettered, stucke still in the deepe, hard frozen, & congealed yce. At last, when as both man & beast were weried and overtoiled, and all to no purpose, they encamped upon the top of an hill, having with very much ado clensed the place aforehand for that purpose: such a deale of snow there was to be digged, faied, and thrown out. This done, the souldiors were brought to breake that rocke, through which was their onely waie and against the time that it was to be hewed through, they felled & overthrew many huge trees that grew there about, and made a mightie heape and pile of wood: the wind served fitly for the time to kindle a fire, & then they set all a burning. Now when the rock was on fire and red hot, they powred thereon strong vineger for to calcine & dissolve it. When as the rock was thus baked (as it were) with fire, they digged into it, and opened it with pickeaxes, and made the descent gentle and easie, by meanes of moderate windings and turnings: so as not onely the horses and other beasts, but even the elephants also might be able to go downe. Foure daies he spent about the levelling of this rock : & the beasts were almost pined and lost for hunger. For the hill tops for the most part are bare of grasse; and looke what fog and forage there was, the snow overhilled it. The dales and lower grounds have some little banks lying to the sunne, and rivers withall, neere unto the woods, yea and places more meet and beseeming for men to inhabite. There were the labouring beasts put out to grasse & pasture, and the soldiors that were wearied with making the waies had three daies allowed to rest in. From thence they went downe into the plaine countrie, where they found both the place more easie and pleasant, and the nåtures of the inhabitants more tractable. (From the Livy.) See Fuller's Worthies, and Whibley's preface to the Suetonius in the Tudor Translations' (1899). Garron is a pony; faied, cleared away; fog, coarse winter grass. John Florio, the translator of Montaigne, was born in London about 1553. His father was a Protestant exile and Italian preacher in London, but unpleasant charges were brought against his moral character, and he lost his post and his patrons. John Florio appears as a private tutor in foreign languages at Oxford about 1576, and two years later published his First Fruites, mainly English and Italian dialogues, accompanied by A Perfect Induction to the Italian and English Tongues. In 1581 Florio was admitted a member of Magdalen College, and became a teacher of French and Italian. He enjoyed the patronage successively of the Earls of Leicester, Southampton, and Pembroke. The Second Fruites, more Italian and English dialogues, had annexed to it the Garden of Recreation, containing Italian Proverbs (1591). His Italian and English dictionary, entitled A Worlde of Wordes, was published in 1598, and was repeatedly reprinted, extended, and translated. Florio was appointed reader in Italian to Queen Anne, and afterwards groom of the privy-chamber. In 1603 he published in folio his famous translation of Montaigne, of which it is praise enough to say. that it is a version worthy of its original, and a noble monument of Elizabethan English. Thanks to him, as was said at the time, 'Montaigne now speaks English:' in that version Montaigne spoke to Shakespeare. In his later translation (1685) Charles Cotton, himself not immaculate, dwells on the numerous and gross errors of his predecessor. There are indeed not a few slips in Florio's by no means literal translation; and it may fairly be claimed that Cotton's easy colloquial style comes nearer the diction of the Essays than Florio's quaint and stately but cumbrous and involved English. But Florio, it should be remembered, would not seem quaint to Elizabethans; and his Montaigne still ranks as the great standard English rendering. The title was The Essayes on Morall, Politike and Millitarie Discourses of Lord Michaell de Montaigne. It is certain from the Tempest that Shakespeare was familiar with the book; and it was long, but quite gratuitously, believed that the pedantic Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost was a study after Florio. No doubt Shakespeare must have known one who was a protégé of his own patrons; but Florio was not the only Italian then in London, and Florio (who died of plague at Fulham in 1625) was no absurd pedant. From the Essay of Lyers. I see all men generally busied (and that verie improperly) to punish certaine innocent errours in children, which have neither impression nor consequence, and chastice and vex them for rash and fond actions. Onely lying, and stubbornnesse somewhat more, are the faults whose birth and progresse I would have severely punished and cut off; for they grow and increase with them and if the tongue have once gotten this ill habit, good Lord! how hard, nay how impossible it is to make her leave it! whereby it ensueth, that we see many very honest men in other matters, to bee subject and enthralled to that fault. I have a good lad to my tailour, whom I never heard speak a truth; no not when it might stand him in stead of profit. If a lie had no more faces but one, as truth hath, we should be in farre better termes than we are: For whatsoever a lier should say, we would take it in a contrarie sense. But the opposite of truth hath many, many shapes, and an undefinite field. The Pythagoreans make good to be certaine and finite, and evill to bee infinite and uncertaine. A thousand bywayes misse the marke, one onely hits the same. Surely I can never assure my selfe to come to a good end, to warrant an extreme and evident danger, by a shamelesse and solemne lie. An ancient Father saith, We are better in the companie of a knowne dogge, than in a mans societie whose speech is unknowne to us. Ut externus alieno non sit hominis vice (PLIN. Nat. Hist. vii. 1). A stranger to a stranger is not like a man. And how much is a false speech lesse sociable than silence? (Book i. chap. 15.) Of the Force of Imagination. Fortis imaginatio generat casum: A strong imagination begetteth chance, say learned clearks. I am one of those that feele a very great conflict and power of imagination. All men are shockt therewith, and some overthrowne by it. The impression of it pierceth me, and for want of strength to resist her, my endevour is to avoid it. I could live with the only assistance of holy and merry-hearted men. The sight of others anguishes doth sensibly drive me into anguish; and my sense hath often usurped the sense of a third man. If one cough continually, he provokes my lungs and throat. I am more unwilling to visit the sicke dutie doth engage me unto, than those to whom I am little beholding and regard least. I apprehend the evill which I studie, and place it in me. I deeme it not strange that she brings both agues and death to such as give her scope to worke her wil, and applaude her. Simon Thomas was a great Physitian in his daies. I remember upon a time comming by chance to visit a rich old man that dwelt in Tholouse, and who was troubled with the cough of the lungs, who discoursing with the said Simon Thomas of the meanes of his recoverie, he told him that one of the best was to give me occasion to be delighted in his companie, and that fixing his eyes upon the livelines and freshnes of my face, and setting his thoughts upon the jolitie and vigor wherewith my youthfull age did then flourish, and filling all his senses with my florising estate, his habitude might thereby be amended and his health recovered. But he forgot to say that mine might also be empaired and infected. Gallus Vibius did so well enure his mind to comprehende the essence and motions of folly, that he so transported his judgement from out his seat, as he could never afterward bring it to his right place againe; and might rightly boast to have become a foole through wisdome. Some there are that through feare anticipate the hangmans hand; as he did, whose friends having obtained his pardon, and putting away the cloth wherewith he was hood-winkt that he might heare it read, was found starke dead upon the scaffold, wounded only by the stroke of imagination. Wee sweat, we shake, we grow pale, and we blush at the motions of our imaginations; and wallowing in our beds we seele our bodies agitated and turmoiled at their apprehensions, yea in such manner as sometimes we are ready to yeeld up the spirit. (Book i. chap. 20.) The Profit of One Man is the Dammage of Demades the Athenian condemned a man of the Citie, whose trade was to sell such necessaries as belonged to burials, under colour, hee asked too much profit for them; and that such profit could not come unto him without the death of many people. This judgement seemeth to be ill taken, because no man profiteth but by the losse of others by which reason a man should condemne all manner of gaine. The Merchant thrives not but by the licentiousnesse of youth; the Husbandman by dearth of corne; the Architect but by the ruine of houses; the Lawyer by suits and controversies betweene men: Honour it selfe, and practice of religious Ministers, is drawne from our death and vices. No Physitian delighteth in the health of his owne friend, said the ancient Greeke Comike: nor no Souldier is pleased with the peace of his Citie, and so of the rest. And which is worse, let every man sound his owne conscience, hee shall finde that our inward desires are for the most part nourished and bred in us by the losse and hurt of others; which when I considered, I began to thinke how Nature doth not gainesay herselfe in this, concerning her generall policie; for Physitians hold that The birth, increase, and augmentation of everything is the alteration and corruption of another. (Book i. chap. 21.) The second edition of the Montaigne appeared in 1613, and a third in 1632. There have been recent reprints by Professor Morley (1 vol. 1885), J. H. M'Carthy (3 vols. 1889-90), Chubb (1 vol. 1893), Waller (in the 'Temple Classics,' 6 vols. 1897–98), and Professor Saintsbury (in the Tudor Translations,' 3 vols. 1892-93). William Painter (1540?-94) studied at Cambridge, was master of Sevenoaks school, but in 1561 became Clerk of Ordnance in the Tower. His Palace of Pleasure (1566-67), largely composed of stories from Boccaccio, Bandello, and Margaret of Navarre, became popular, and was the main source whence many dramatists drew their plots; several of Shakespeare's plays owe something to his Italian borrowings. Twenty-six of the tales come from Bandello, but were done, not from the Italian, but from one or other of the French versions. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is based directly on the rhymed translation of Arthur Broke, but may in some points have followed Painter's Rhomeo and Julietta, published in the second volume (1567) of the Palace of Pleasure. The reader may compare the balcony scene in Painter with that given on the next page as in Broke: And continuing this manner of Lyfe for certaine Dayes, Rhomeo not able to content himself with lookes, daily did behold and marke the fituation of the house, and one day amongs others hee efpyed Iulietta at hir Chamber Window, bounding vpon a narrow Lane, ryght ouer against which Chamber he had a Gardein, which was the cause that Rhomeo, fearing discouery of their loue, began the day time to paffe no more before the Gate, but fo foone as the Night with his browne Mantell had couered the Earth, hee walked alone vp and downe that little ftreat. And after he had bene there many times, miffing the chiefeft cause of his comming, Iulietta, impacient of hir euill, one night repaired to hir window, & perceived throughe the bryghtneffe of the Moone hir Friend Rhomeo vnder hir Window, no leffe attended for, than hee hymfelfe was waighting. Then she secretly with Teares in hir Eyes, & wyth voyce interrupted by fighes, said: Signior Rhomeo, me thinke that you hazarde your person to mutch, and commyt the fame into great Daunger, at thys time of the Nyght to protrude your felf to the Mercy of them which meane you little good. Who yf they had taken would haue cut you in pieces, and mine honor (which I efteme dearer than my Lyfe,) hindred and fufpected for euer.' 'Madame,' aunfwered Rhomeo, my Lyfe is in the Hand of God, who only can dispose the fame: howbeyt yf any Man had foughte menes to bereyue mee of my Lyfe, I should (in the presence of you) haue made him knowen what mine ability had ben to defend the fame. Notwythftandyng Lyfe is not fo deare, and of futch eftimation wyth me, but that I coulde vouchsafe to facryfice the fame for your fake and althoughe my myshappe had bene so greate, as to bee dyspatched in that Place, yet had I no cause to be sorrye therefore, excepte it had bene by lofynge the meanes, and way how to make you vnderstande the good wyll and duety which I beare you, defyrynge not to conferue the same for anye commodytye that I hope to haue thereby, nor for anye other respecte, but onelye to Loue, Serue, and Honor you fo long as breath fhal remaine in me.' So foone as he had made an end of his talke, loue and pity began to feaze vpon the heart of Iulietta, & leaning hir head vpon hir hand, hauing hir face all befprent wyth teares, she said vnto Rhomeo: Syr Rhomeo, I pray you not to renue that grief agayne: for the onely Memory of futch inconuenyence maketh me to counterpoyse betwene Death and Lyfe, my heart being so vnited with yours, as you cannot receyue the leaft Injury in this world, wherein I shall not be so great a Partaker as your felf: beseechyng you for conclufion, that if you defire your owne health and mine, to declare vnto me in fewe Wordes what youre determynation is to attaine: for if you couet any other secrete thing at my Handes, more than myne Honoure can well allowe, you are maruelously deceiued. The Palace of Pleasure has been edited by Haslewood (1813) and Joseph Jacobs (1890). Arthur Broke, or BROOKE, had the honour of writing that Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562) from which probably Shakespeare chiefly took the story of his drama. Though professedly translating from the Italian of Bandello, Broke worked from a French translation, and the result was a paraphrase, with additions, amplifications, and alterations, in rather limping verserhymed couplets of twelve and thirteen syllables alternately. (The prose version of the tale by Painter may also have been before Shakespeare, but Broke's poem gave Shakespeare not merely the plot but sometimes the words; the Nurse is partly Broke's creation.) Part of the balcony scene is quoted. Nothing is known of Broke except that he died by shipwreck while passing to France by way of Newhaven to join the English troops fighting for the Huguenots in 1563: Impacient of her woe, she hapt to leane one night Within her window, and anon the Moone did shine so bright That she espyde her loue, her hart reuiued, sprang ; And now for ioy she clappes her handes, which erst for woe she wrang. Eke Romeus, when he sawe his long desired sight, His moorning cloke of mone cast of, hath clad him with delight. Yet dare I say, of both that she reioyced more : His care was great, hers twise as great was all the tyme before. But eche of them alike dyd burne in equall flame, Oh Romeus of your lyfe too lauas sure you are: they teare. In ruth and in disdayne, I, weary of my life, With cruell hand my moorning hart would perce with bloudy knyfe. For you, myne owne once dead, what ioy should I haue heare? And eke my honor staynde which I then lyfe doe holde more deare. Fayre lady myne, dame Iuliet, my lyfe (quod he) Euen from my byrth committed was to fatall sisters three. They may, in spyte of foes, draw foorth my liuely threed; And they also, who so sayth nay, a sonder may it shreed. But who to reaue my lyfe, his rage and force would bende, Perhaps should trye vnto his payne how I it could defende. Ne yet I loue it so, but alwayes, for your sake, A sacrifice to death I would my wounded corps betake. And how I wishe for lyfe, not for my propre ease : Tyll dedly pangs the sprite out of the corps shall send : Lauas is lavish; peysed, poised. The poem has been repeatedly reprinted since 1821, as in J. P. Collier's School of Shakespeare (1843). |