Chorus Sacerdotum from "Mustapha"
Chorus Sacerdotum from "Mustapha"
Original Text
Fulke Greville, Baron Brooke, The Tragedy of Mustapha (London: [J. Windet] for N. Butler, 1609). STC 12362
2Born under one law, to another bound;
3Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
4Created sick, commanded to be sound.
5What meaneth nature by these diverse laws?
6Passion and reason self-division cause.
7It is the mark or majesty of power
8To make offences that it may forgive;
9Nature herself doth her own self deflower,
10To hate those errors she herself doth give.
11For how should man think that he may not do,
12If nature did not fail and punish too?
13Tyrant to others, to herself unjust,
14Only commands things difficult and hard,
15Forbids us all things which it knows is lust,
16Makes easy pains, unpossible reward.
17If nature did not take delight in blood,
18She would have made more easy ways to good.
19We that are bound by vows and by promotion,
20With pomp of holy sacrifice and rites,
22To preach of heaven's wonders and delights:
23Yet when each of us in his own heart looks
24He finds the God there far unlike his books.
Notes
1] A tragedy on the classical model, not intended for the stage. Back to Line
21] still: instil. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1609
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
2RP.1.179; RPO 1996-2000.