The Mirror for Magistrates: The Induction

The Mirror for Magistrates: The Induction

Original Text
William Baldwin, [A Mirror for Magistrates], 3rd edn. (T. Marshe, 1563). STC 1248.
4With chilling cold had pierc'd the tender green;
5The mantles rent, wherein enwrapped been
6    The gladsome groves that now lay overthrown,
8The soil, that erst so seemly was to seen,
9Was all despoiled of her beauty's hue;
13    The winter's wrath, wherewith each thing defac'd
14    In woeful wise bewail'd the summer past.
15Hawthorn had lost his motley livery,
16The naked twigs were shivering all for cold,
17And dropping down the tears abundantly;
18Each thing, methought, with weeping eye me told
19The cruel season, bidding me withhold
20    Myself within; for I was gotten out
21    Into the fields, whereas I walk'd about.
22When lo, the night with misty mantles spread,
23Gan dark the day and dim the azure skies;
25To bloody Mars, to will him not to rise,
26Which she herself approach'd in speedy wise;
31Down slid into the ocean flood apart;
33His grisly feet, with speed from thence he whipp'd;
34    For Thetis, hasting from the Virgin's bed,
35    Pursu'd the Bear, that ere she came was fled.
37With glistering beams, gold streaming where they bent,
38Was prest to enter in his resting place:
41    And, fast declining, hid away his head,
46When sparkling stars amid the heaven's face
47With twinkling light shone on the earth apace,
49    The dark had dimm'd the day ere I was ware.
50And sorrowing I to see the summer flowers,
51The lively green, the lusty leas forlorn,
52The sturdy trees so shatter'd with the showers,
53The fields so fade that flourish'd so beforn,
54It taught me well all earthly things be born
55    To die the death, for nought long time may last;
56    The summer's beauty yields to winter's blast.
58With night{:e}'s stars thick powder'd everywhere,
59Which erst so glisten'd with the golden streams
60That cheerful Ph{oe}bus spread down from his sphere,
61Beholding dark oppressing day so near;
62    The sudden sight reduced to my mind
63    The sundry changes that in earth we find.
64That musing on this worldly wealth in thought,
65Which comes and goes more faster than we see
66The flickering flame that with the fire is wrought,
67My busy mind presented unto me
68Such fall of peers as in this realm had be;
71And straight forth stalking with redoubl'd pace
72For that I saw the night drew on so fast,
73In black all clad there fell before my face
76    And sighing sore, her hands she wrung and fold,
77    Tare all her hair that ruth was to behold.
79As is the stalk that summer's drought oppress'd;
82In woe and plaint reposed was her rest;
83    And as the stone that drops of water wears,
84    So dented were her cheeks with fall of tears.
85Her eyes swollen with flowing streams afloat;
86Wherewith, her looks thrown up full piteously,
87Her forceless hands together oft she smote,
88With doleful shrieks that echo'd in the sky;
89Whose plaint such sighs did straight accompany,
91    A wight but half so woebegone as she.
92I stood aghast, beholding all her plight,
94That, while my hairs upstarted with the sight,
95The tears outstream'd for sorrow of her smart;
98    With doleful voice then thus to her I spake:
99"Unwrap thy woes, whatever wight thou be,
101Tell what thou art, and whence, for well I see
104    She looked up, and prostrate as she lay,
105    With piteous sound, lo, thus she 'gan to say:
106"Alas, I wretch whom thus thou seest distrain'd
107With wasting woes that never shall aslake,
108Sorrow I am, in endless torments pain'd
110Where Pluto, god of hell, so grisly black
111    Doth hold his throne, and Lethe's deadly taste
113"Whence come I am, the dreary destiny
114And luckless lot for to bemoan of those
115Whom Fortune in this maze of misery
116Of wretched chance most woeful mirrors chose;
117That when thou seest how lightly they did lose
118    Their pomp, their power, and that they thought most sure,
119    Thou mayst soon deem no earthly joy may dure."
120Whose rueful voice no sooner had out bray'd
121Those woeful words wherewith she sorrow'd so,
124The cold pale dread my limbs 'gan overgo,
126    That, what with grief and fear, my wits were reft.
127I stretch'd myself and straight my heart revives,
128That dread and dolour erst did so appale,
129Like him that with the fervent fever strives,
130When sickness seeks his castle health to scale;
133    My spirits return'd and then I thus begun:
135And that to thee this drear doth well pertain,
136In vain it were to seek to cease the same;
137But as a man himself with sorrow slain,
138So I, alas, do comfort thee in pain,
140    That at thy sight I can but sigh and weep."
142But that the storm so rumbl'd in her breast,
144And showers down rain'd from her eyne so fast
146    Well eased they the dolour of her mind,
148For forth she paced in her fearful tale:
150Come hear the plaining and the bitter bale
151Of worthy men by Fortune overthrow;
152Come thou and see them rueing all in row.
153    They were but shades that erst in mind thou roll'd;
154    Come, come with me, thine eyes shall them behold.'
155What could these words but make me more aghast,
156To hear her tell whereon I mus'd while ere?
157So was I maz'd therewith, till at the last,
158Musing upon her words and what they were,
159All suddenly well lesson'd was my fear;
160    For to my mind returned how she tell'd
162Whereby I knew that she a goddess was,
163And therewithal resorted to my mind
164My thought, that late presented me the glass
165Of brittle state, of cares that here we find,
167    And how she now bid me come and behold,
168    To see with eye that erst in thought I roll'd.
169Flat down I fell, and with all reverence
170Adored her, perceiving now that she,
171A goddess sent by godly providence,
172In earthly shape thus show'd herself to me,
173To wail and rue this world's uncertainty;
174    And while I honour'd thus her godhead's might,
175    With plaining voice these words to me she shright:
176"I shall thee guide first to the grisly lake
177And thence unto the blissful place of rest,
178Where thou shalt see and hear the plaint they make
180This shalt thou see, but great is the unrest
181    That thou must bide before thou canst attain
182    Unto the dreadful place where these remain."
183And with these words, as I upraised stood,
184And 'gan to follow her that straight forth pac'd,
185Ere I was ware, into a desert wood
186We now were come, where, hand in hand embrac'd,
187She led the way and through the thick so trac'd
188    As, but I had been guided by her might,
189    It was no way for any mortal wight.
190But lo, while thus amid the desert dark
192A rumbling roar, confus'd with howl and bark
193Of dogs, shook all the ground under our feet,
194And stroke the din within our ears so deep
195    As, half distraught, unto the ground I fell,
196    Besought return, and not to visit hell.
197But she, forthwith uplifting me apace,
198Remov'd my dread, and with a steadfast mind
199Bade me come on, for here was now the place,
201Wherewith I arose, and to the place assign'd
203    The dreadful place, that you will dread to hear.
205Of endless depth, o'erwhelm'd with ragged stone,
206With ugly mouth and grisly jaws doth gape,
207And to our sight confounds itself in one.
209    An horrible loathly lake we might discern,
211A deadly gulf where nought but rubbish grows,
213Which up in the air such stinking vapours throws
214That over there may fly no fowl but dies,
215Chok'd with the pestilent savours that arise;
216    Hither we come, whence forth we still did pace,
217    In dreadful fear amid the dreadful place.
218And first, within the porch and jaws of hell,
220With tears; and to herself oft would she tell
222To sob and sigh; but ever thus lament
223    With thoughtful care as she that, all in vain,
224    Would wear and waste continually in pain.
225Her eyes unsteadfast, rolling here and there,
226Whirl'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought,
227So was her mind continually in fear,
228Toss'd and tormented with the tedious thought
229Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;
231    Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.
232Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook,
233With foot uncertain proffer'd here and there,
234Benumb'd of speech, and with a ghastly look
235Search'd every place, all pale and dead for fear,
238    And fearing greater dangers than was need.
239And next, within the entry of this lake,
240Sat fell Revenge, gnashing her teeth for ire,
241Devising means how she may vengeance take,
242Never in rest till she have her desire;
243But frets within so far forth with the fire
245    To die by death, or veng'd by death to be.
246When fell Revenge with bloody foul pretence
247Had show'd herself as next in order set,
248With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,
249Till in our eyes another sight we met,
251    Rueing, alas, upon the woeful plight
252    Of Misery, that next appear'd in sight.
255But what his body was I cannot say,
256For on his carcass raiment had he none,
257Save clouts and patches, pieced one by one;
259    His chief defence against the winter's blast.
260His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree,
261Unless sometime some crumbs fell to his share,
263As on the which full daintily would he fare;
264His drink, the running stream; his cup, the bare
265    Of his palm clos'd; his bed, the hard cold ground;
266    To this poor life was Misery ybound.
267Whose wretched state when we had well beheld,
268With tender ruth on him and on his fears,
269In thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held;
270And by and by another shape appears,
272    His knuckles knobb'd, his flesh deep dented in,
274The morrow gray no sooner hath begun
275To spread his light, even peeping in our eyes,
276When he is up and to his work yrun;
277But let the night's black misty mantles rise,
278And with foul dark never so much disguise
279    The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while,
280    But hath his candles to prolong his toil.
281By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death,
282Flat on the ground and still as any stone,
283A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath.
284Small keep took he whom Fortune frowned on
285Or whom she lifted up into the throne
286    Of high renown; but as a living death,
287    So, dead alive, of life he drew the breath.
288The body's rest, the quiet of the heart,
290And of our life in earth the better part;
292Things oft that tide, and oft that never be;
293    Without respect esteeming equally
295And next in order sad Old Age we found,
296His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind,
298As on the place where nature him assign'd
300    His vital thread and ended with their knife
301    The fleeting course of fast declining life.
302There heard we him with broken and hollow plaint
303Rue with himself his end approaching fast,
304And all for nought his wretched mind torment
305With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past,
307    Recounting which, how would he sob and shriek,
312That in such wither'd plight and wretched pain
314    Had brought on him, all were it woe and grief,
315    He might a while yet linger forth his life;
316And not so soon descend into the pit
317Where Death, when he the mortal corpse hath slain,
318With reckless hand in grave doth cover it,
319Thereafter never to enjoy again
320The gladsome light, but in the ground ylain,
321    In depth of darkness waste and wear to nought,
322    As he had never into the world been brought.
323But who had seen him sobbing, how he stood
324Unto himself and how he would bemoan
325His youth forepast, as though it wrought him good
326To talk of youth, all were his youth foregone,
327He would have mus'd and marvell'd much, whereon
328    This wretched Age should life desire so fain,
330Crookback'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-ey'd,
331Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four,
332With old lame bones that rattled by his side,
334His wither'd fist still knocking at Death's door,
335    Fumbling and drivelling as he draws his breath;
336    For brief, the shape and messenger of Death.
337And fast by him pale Malady was plac'd,
338Sore sick in bed, her colour all foregone,
339Bereft of stomach, savour, and of taste,
340Ne could she brook no meat but broths alone;
341Her breath corrupt, her keepers every one
343    Detesting physic and all physic's cure.
344But oh, the doleful sight that then we see!
345We turn'd our look and on the other side
347With greedy looks and gaping mouth that cried
348And roar'd for meat, as she should there have died;
349    Her body thin and bare as any bone,
350    Whereto was left nought but the case alone.
351And that, alas, was gnawn on everywhere,
353From tears to see how she her arms could tear,
354And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain,
355When all for nought she fain would so sustain
356    Her starven corpse, that rather seem'd a shade
357    Than any substance of a creature made.
358Great was her force, whom stone wall could not stay,
359Her tearing nails snatching at all she saw;
360With gaping jaws that by no means ymay
362But eats herself as she that hath no law;
363    Gnawing, alas, her carcass all in vain,
364    Where you may count each sinew, bone, and vein.
365On her while we thus firmly fix'd our eyes,
366That bled for ruth of such a dreary sight,
367Lo, suddenly she shright in so huge wise,
368As made hell gates to shiver with the might;
369Wherewith a dart we saw, how it did light
370    Right on her breast, and therewithal pale Death
372And by and by a dumb dead corpse we saw,
373Heavy and cold, the shape of Death aright,
374That daunts all earthly creatures to his law;
375Against whose force in vain it is to fight;
377    No towns, ne realms, cities, ne strongest tower,
378    But all perforce must yield unto his power.
379His dart, anon, out of the corpse he took,
380And in his hand, a dreadful sight to see,
382That most of all my fears affrayed me;
383His body dight with nought but bones, perdy,
384    The naked shape of man there saw I plain,
385    All save the flesh, the sinew, and the vein.
386Lastly stood War, in glittering arms yclad,
387With visage grim, stern looks, and blackly hu'd;
388In his right hand a naked sword he had,
389That to the hilts was all with blood imbru'd;
390And in his left, that kings and kingdoms ru'd,
391    Famine and fire he held, and therewithal
392    He razed towns and threw down towers and all.
394In honour, glory, and rule above the best,
395He overwhelm'd and all their fame devour'd,
396Consum'd, destroy'd, wasted, and never ceas'd,
397Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppress'd;
400In midst of which, depainted there, we found
401Deadly Debate, all full of snaky hair,
402That with a bloody fillet was ybound,
403Out-breathing nought but discord everywhere.
404And round about were portray'd, here and there,
405    The hugy hosts, Darius and his power,
408With deep slaughter, despoiling all his pride,
409Pierc'd through his realms and daunted all his might.
410Duke Hannibal beheld I there beside,
411In Canna's field victor how he did ride,
412    And woeful Romans that in vain withstood,
414Yet saw I more: the fight at Thrasimene,
416And worthy Scipio last in arms were seen
418The world's empire, to whom it should befall;
419    There saw I Pompey and Caesar clad in arms,
420    Their hosts allied and all their civil harms;
422And Caesar weeping over Pompey's head.
423Yet saw I Sulla and Marius where they stood,
424Their great cruelty and the deep bloodshed
425Of friends; Cyrus I saw and his host dead,
426    And how the queen with great despite hath flung
427    His head in blood of them she overcome.
428Xerxes, the Persian king, yet saw I there
429With his huge host that drank the rivers dry,
430Dismounted hills, and made the vales uprear,
431His host and all yet saw I plain, perdy!
432Theb{:e}s I saw, all raz'd how it did lie
433    In heaps of stones, and Tyrus put to spoil,
434    With walls and towers flat even'd with the soil.
435But Troy, alas, methought, above them all,
436It made mine eyes in very tears consume,
438That by the wrathful will of gods was come;
439And Jove's unmoved sentence and foredoom
440    On Priam king and on his town so bent,
443As, force perforce, there might no force avail,
444But she must fall; and by her fall we learn
445That cities, towers, wealth, world, and all shall quail.
446No manhood, might, nor nothing mought prevail;
448    And many a knight that sold his death full dear.
449Not worthy Hector, worthiest of them all,
450Her hope, her joy; his force is now for nought.
451O Troy, Troy, Troy, there is no boot but bale;
452The hugy horse within thy walls is brought;
453Thy turrets fall, thy knights, that whilom fought
454    In arms amid the field, are slain in bed,
455    Thy gods defil'd, and all thy honour dead.
456The flames upspring and cruelly they creep
457From wall to roof till all to cinders waste;
458Some fire the houses where the wretches sleep,
459Some rush in here, some run in there as fast;
460In every where or sword or fire they taste;
461    The walls are torn, the towers whirl'd to the ground;
463Cassandra yet there saw I how they hal'd
466And Priam eke, in vain how he did run
467To arms, whom Pyrrhus with despite hath done
469    Of his son's blood, before the altar slain.
470But how can I describe the doleful sight
471That in the shield so lifelike fair did shine?
472Sith in this world I think was never wight
473Could have set forth the half, not half so fine.
474I can no more but tell how there is seen
476    And from the soil great Troy, Neptunus' town.
477Herefrom when scarce I could mine eyes withdraw,
478That fill'd with tears as doth the springing well,
479We passed on so far forth till we saw
480Rude Acheron, a loathsome lake to tell,
482    Where grisly Charon, at their fixed tide,
483    Still ferries ghosts unto the farther side.
484The aged god no sooner Sorrow spied,
485But hasting straight unto the bank apace,
486With hollow call unto the rout he cried
487To swerve apart and give the goddess place;
488Straight it was done, when to the shore we pace,
489    Where, hand in hand as we then linked fast,
491And forth we launch full fraughted to the brink,
492When with the unwonted weight, the rusty keel
493Began to crack as if the same should sink;
494We hoise up mast and sail, that in a while
496    For to arrive, but that we heard anon
497    A three-sound bark confounded all in one.
498We had not long forth pass'd but that we saw
499Black Cerberus, the hideous hound of hell,
500With bristles rear'd and with a three-mouth'd jaw
502Out of the deep dark cave where he did dwell;
503    The goddess straight he knew, and by and by,
505Thence come we to the horror and the hell,
506The large great kingdoms and the dreadful reign
507Of Pluto in his throne where he did dwell,
508The wide waste places and the hugy plain,
509The wailings, shrieks, and sundry sorts of pain,
510    The sighs, the sobs, the deep and deadly groan,
511    Earth, air, and all, resounding plaint and moan.
512Here pul'd the babes, and here the maids unwed
513With folded hands their sorry chance bewail'd,
514Here wept the guiltless slain, and lovers dead,
515That slew themselves when nothing else avail'd;
516A thousand sorts of sorrows here, that wail'd
518    That oh, alas, it was a hell to hear.
519We stay'd us straight, and with a rueful fear,
520Beheld this heavy sight, while from mine eyes
522And Sorrow eke, in far more woeful wise,
524    Her wretched hands, that with her cry the rout
525    Gan all in heaps to swarm us round about.
526"Lo here," quoth Sorrow, "Princes of renown,
527That whilom sat on top of fortune's wheel,
528Now laid full low, like wretches whirled down,
529Even with one frown, that stay'd but with a smile;
530And now behold the thing that thou, erewhile,
531    Saw only in thought, and what thou now shalt hear,
533Then first came Henry, Duke of Buckingham,
535Wringing his hands, and fortune oft doth blame,
538    Oft spread his arms, stretch'd hands he joins as fast
539    With rueful cheer, and vapour'd eyes upcast.
540His cloak he rent, his manly breast he beat,
541His hair all torn, about the place it lay;
543As feelingly methought it dropp'd away;
545    With stormy sighs the place did so complain,
546    As if his heart at each had burst in twain.
547Thrice he began to tell his doleful tale,
548And thrice with sighs did swallow up his voice,
549At each of which he shrieked so withal,
550As though the heavens rived with the noise;
551Till at the last, recovering his voice,
552    Supping the tears that all his breast berain'd,
553    On cruel fortune, weeping thus he plain'd.

Notes

1] A series of poems by various authors, issued with successive expansions in numerous editions from 1559 to 1620. Two leaves of an apparent suppressed edition of 1555 (?) also exist. It constitutes "a memorial of such princes as since the time of King Richard the Second have been unfortunate in the realm of England." The first edition (1559). the work of William Baldwin, George Ferrers, Thomas Churchyard and Thomas Phaer, related the fall of eleven prominent Englishmen, including Mortimer, Warwick, and Henry VI. A second edition (1563) included six additional narratives, one of which, The Complaint of Buckingham, with the Induction preceding it, was the work of Thomas Sackville, afterwards Lord Buckhurst. According to Baldwin's account, Sackville intended to revise the whole series, using the Induction as a general prologue, but he never had leisure to carry out this design. The poem is essentially mediaeval in plan and conception, setting forth as it does the fall of great men from prosperity to adversity through the enmity of Fortune. It was originally intended as a continuation of Lydgate's Fall of Princes (1430-1440) which is a translation of Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (c. 1350). Back to Line
2] treen: trees.
ybar'd: bared. Sackville occasionally retains the medieval prefix to the past participle. Back to Line
3] Saturnus: the Roman god of agriculture, associated with late autumn, the time of seeding. Back to Line
7] tapets: tapestries; figuratively for foliage. Back to Line
10] soote: sweet. Back to Line
11] Boreas: north wind. Back to Line
12] fowls: birds. Back to Line
24] Venus: the evening star. Back to Line
27] The constellation Virgo had sunk in the sea. Back to Line
28] Thetis: a daughter of Nereus' the sea-god. Back to Line
29] Sagittarius: the constellation known as the Archer; hence dart. Back to Line
30] prest: ready. Back to Line
32] The constellation Ursa Major, having just touched the northwest horizon, over the Irish sea, now rose clear. Back to Line
36] Phaethon: the sun. Back to Line
39] Erythius: one of the horses of the sun's chariot. Back to Line
40] stent: stopping-place. Back to Line
42] Titan: the sun; not distinguished from Phaethon here. Back to Line
43] pale Cynthia: the moon. Back to Line
44] her brother's: i.e., the sun's. Back to Line
45] noonstead. The position of the sun at noon. Back to Line
48] nightës: ME. genitive.
chair: car: a reference to the Big Dipper. Back to Line
57] leams: gleams. Back to Line
69] descrive: describe. Back to Line
70] wight: person. Back to Line
74] forwaste: wasted utterly. Back to Line
75] eyne: eyes.
outbrast: outburst. Back to Line
78] forwither'd: utterly withered.
forspent: exhausted. Back to Line
80] welked: wrinkled.
besprent: besprinkled. Back to Line
81] seem'd: beseemed. Back to Line
90] doom: opinion. Back to Line
93] distrain'd: distressed. Back to Line
96] apart: remove, set aside. Back to Line
97] dule: woe, lamentation. Back to Line
100] stint: cease.
spill: destroy. Back to Line
102] dure: endure. Back to Line
103] forfaint: utterly faint, very weak. Back to Line
109] the infernal lake: Avernus (210). Back to Line
112] reave: rob.
forepast: past before. Back to Line
122] shright: shrieked (also 175). Back to Line
123] to-dash'd: beat herself hard. Back to Line
125] eft: again. Back to Line
131] avale: sink. Back to Line
132] fordone: overcome. Back to Line
134] sith: since. Back to Line
139] forsunk: deeply sunk. Back to Line
141] sike: sigh. Back to Line
143] Aeolus: god of the winds. Back to Line
145] bedrent: drenched. Back to Line
147] swage: assuage. Back to Line
149] Sorrow will guide the poet through the lower world like the Cumean Sibyl in the Æneid and Virgil in The Divine Comedy. Back to Line
161] wone: abode. Back to Line
166] silly: innocent. Back to Line
179] swing: sway. Back to Line
191] unmeet: unequal. Back to Line
200] travail: labour. Back to Line
202] Astoin'd: astounded, confounded. Back to Line
204] This description of hell is modelled on Virgil's Æneid, VI, 237 ff. Also cf. Spenser, Faerie Queene, I, v, xxxi-v. Hell is traditionally depicted as a mouth with a jaws (206, 218). Back to Line
208] yeding: going; a pseudo-mediaeval form, based on the past tense of "go," which is "yode" or "yede." Back to Line
210] cleped: named. Back to Line
212] swelth: whirlpool. Back to Line
219] besprent: besprinkled. Back to Line
221] stent: cease. Back to Line
230] cheer: countenance. Back to Line
236] staring of his hair: his hair standing on end. Back to Line
237] 'Stoined: confounded. Back to Line
244] wreaking: avenging. Back to Line
250] fet: fetched. Back to Line
253] somedeal: somewhat. Back to Line
254] eke: also. Back to Line
258] scrip: satchel. Back to Line
262] wot: knows. Back to Line
271] still: continually.
breres: briars. Back to Line
273] tawed: hardened by severe beating. Back to Line
289] fere: companion. Back to Line
291] Reaver: robber, thief. Back to Line
294] Irus: the beggar of Ithaca in the Odyssey, who is slain by Odysseus. Back to Line
297] cheer: countenance. Back to Line
299] sisters: the sisters of fate. Back to Line
306] forewaste: utterly wasted. Back to Line
308] beseek: beseech. Back to Line
309] and: if. Back to Line
310] forepast: past. Back to Line
311] Jove: Jupiter. Back to Line
313] eld: old age. Back to Line
329] length: lengthen. Back to Line
333] pill'd: bald. Back to Line
342] recure: recovery. Back to Line
346] mought: might. Back to Line
352] ne mought: could not. Back to Line
361] maw: stomach. Back to Line
371] Enthrilling: piercing.
reave: rob. Back to Line
376] ne: not. Back to Line
381] eftsoons: soon afterwards. Back to Line
393] whilom: once, formerly. Back to Line
398] forhew'd: severely cut. Back to Line
399] targe: shield. Back to Line
406] flower: best (persons). Back to Line
407] Macedo: Alexander of Macedon. Back to Line
413] consul Paulus: Lucius Paulus who was slain in the battle of Cannae. Back to Line
415] Trebeie: Trebia, a river in Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Romans; pronounced as two syllables. Back to Line
417] try: test. Back to Line
421] forbath'd: bathed deeply. Back to Line
437] weird: destiny. Back to Line
441] lin: cease. Back to Line
442] sith: since. Back to Line
447] prest: ready. Back to Line
462] mischief: fatal end. Back to Line
464] spercled: sparkling, glittering. Back to Line
465] rout: large number of people.
empal'd: surrounded. Back to Line
468] baign: bath. Back to Line
475] gledes: glowing ashes. Back to Line
481] bubs up: throws up in bubbles.
swelth: whirlpool; filthy water. Back to Line
490] plac'd: "plast" in the original, which furnishes an eye-rhyme with "fast." Back to Line
495] fet: fetched, arrived at. Back to Line
501] Fordinning: making a dreadful din in. Back to Line
504] peas'd: was appeased, became still. Back to Line
517] yfere: together. Back to Line
521] stilled: fell in drops. Back to Line
523] took on: raved. Back to Line
532] kesar: emperor, caesar. Back to Line
534] pill'd: threadbare. Back to Line
536] of: from. Back to Line
537] lorn: lost. Back to Line
542] molt: melted. Back to Line
544] withouten: without. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1563
RPO poem Editors
F. D. Hoeniger
RPO Edition
3RP 1.21.
Rhyme