Du Bartas. 1544-1590.
(From his "Divine Weekes and Workes," translated by J. Sylvester.)
The world 's a stage[780:2] where God's omnipotence,
His justice, knowledge, love, and providence
Do act the parts.
First Week, First Day.
And reads, though running,[780:3] all these needful motions.
First Week, First Day.
Mercy and justice, marching cheek by joule.
First Week, First Day.
Not unlike the bear which bringeth forth
In the end of thirty dayes a shapeless birth;
But after licking, it in shape she drawes,
And by degrees she fashions out the pawes,
The head, and neck, and finally doth bring
To a perfect beast that first deformed thing.[780:4]
First Week, First Day.
[781]
What is well done is done soon enough.
First Week, First Day.
And swans seem whiter if swart crowes be by.
First Week, First Day.
Night's black mantle covers all alike.[781:1]
First Week, First Day.
Hot and cold, and moist and dry.[781:2]
First Week, Second Day.
Much like the French (or like ourselves, their apes),
Who with strange habit do disguise their shapes;
Who loving novels, full of affectation,
Receive the manners of each other nation.[781:3]
First Week, Second Day.
With tooth and nail.
First Week, Second Day.
From the foure corners of the worlde doe haste.[781:4]
First Week, Second Day.
Oft seen in forehead of the frowning skies.[781:5]
First Week, Second Day.
From north to south, from east to west.[781:6]
First Week, Second Day.
Bright-flaming, heat-full fire,
The source of motion.[781:7]
First Week, Second Day.
Not that the earth doth yield
In hill or dale, in forest or in field,
A rarer plant.[781:8]
First Week, Third Day.
'T is what you will,—or will be what you would.
First Week, Third Day.
Or savage beasts upon a thousand hils.[781:9]
First Week, Third Day.
[782]
To man the earth seems altogether
No more a mother, but a step-dame rather.[782:1]
First Week, Third Day.
For where 's the state beneath the firmament
That doth excel the bees for government?[782:2]
First Week, Fifth Day, Part i.
A good turn at need,
At first or last, shall be assur'd of meed.
First Week, Sixth Day.
There is no theam more plentifull to scan
Than is the glorious goodly frame of man.[782:3]
First Week, Sixth Day.
These lovely lamps, these windows of the soul.[782:4]
First Week, Sixth Day.
Or almost like a spider, who, confin'd
In her web's centre, shakt with every winde,
Moves in an instant if the buzzing flie
Stir but a string of her lawn canapie.[782:5]
First Week, Sixth Day.
Even as a surgeon, minding off to cut
Some cureless limb,—before in ure he put
His violent engins on the vicious member,
Bringeth his patient in a senseless slumber,
And grief-less then (guided by use and art),
To save the whole, sawes off th' infested part.
First Week, Sixth Day.
Two souls in one, two hearts into one heart.[782:6]
First Week, Sixth Day.
Which serves for cynosure[782:7]
To all that sail upon the sea obscure.
First Week, Seventh Day.
[783]
Yielding more wholesome food than all the messes
That now taste-curious wanton plenty dresses.[783:1]
Second Week, First Day, Part i.
Turning our seed-wheat-kennel tares,
To burn-grain thistle, and to vaporie darnel,
Cockle, wild oats, rough burs, corn-cumbring
Tares.[783:2]
Second Week, First Day, Part iii.
In every hedge and ditch both day and night
We fear our death, of every leafe affright.[783:3]
Second Week, First Day, Part iii.
Dog, ounce, bear, and bull,
Wolfe, lion, horse.[783:4]
Second Week, First Day, Part iii.
Apoplexie and lethargie,
As forlorn hope, assault the enemy.
Second Week, First Day, Part iii.
Living from hand to mouth.
Second Week, First Day, Part iv.
In the jaws of death.[783:5]
Second Week, First Day, Part iv.
Did thrust as now in others' corn his sickle.[783:6]
Second Week, Second Day, Part ii.
Will change the pebbles of our puddly thought
To orient pearls.[783:7]
Second Week, Third Day, Part i.
Soft carpet-knights, all scenting musk and amber.[783:8]
Second Week, Third Day, Part i.
The will for deed I doe accept.[783:9]
Second Week, Third Day, Part ii.
[784]
Only that he may conform
To tyrant custom.[784:1]
Second Week, Third Day, Part ii.
Sweet grave aspect.[784:2]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book i.
Who breaks his faith, no faith is held with him.
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
Who well lives, long lives; for this age of ours
Should not be numbered by years, daies, and hours.[784:3]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
My lovely living boy,
My hope, my hap, my love, my life, my joy.[784:4]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
Out of the book of Natur's learned brest.[784:5]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
Flesh of thy flesh, nor yet bone of thy bone.
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
Through thick and thin, both over hill and plain.[784:6]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book iv.
Weakened and wasted to skin and bone.[784:7]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book iv.
I take the world to be but as a stage,
Where net-maskt men do play their personage.[784:8]
Dialogue, between Heraclitus and Democritus.
Made no more bones.
The Maiden Blush.
Footnotes
[780:2] See Shakespeare, page 69.
[780:3] See Cowper, page 422.
[780:4] See Burton, page 186.
[781:1] Come, civil night,... with thy black mantle.—Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, act iii. sc. 2.
[781:2] See Milton, page 229.
[781:3]
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Shakespeare: Richard II. act ii. sc. 1.
[781:4] See Shakespeare, page 80.
[781:5] See Milton, page 248.
[781:6] From north to south, from east to west.—Shakespeare: Winter's Tale, act i. sc. 2.
[781:7] Heat considered as a Mode of Motion (title of a treatise, 1863).—John Tyndall.
[781:8] See Marlowe, page 40.
[781:9] The cattle upon a thousand hills.—Psalm i. 10.
[782:1] See Pliny, page 717.
[782:2]
So work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in Nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
Shakespeare: Henry V. act i. sc. 3.
[782:3] See Pope, page 314.
[782:4] Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.—Shakespeare: Richard III. act v. sc. 3.
[782:5] See Davies, page 176.
[782:6] See Pope, page 340.
[782:7] See Milton, page 248.
[783:1] See Milton, page 248.
[783:2]
Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.
Shakespeare: Lear, act iv. sc. 4.
[783:3] See Shakespeare, page 48.
[783:4] Lion, bear, or wolf, or bull.—Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii. sc. 1.
[783:5] See Shakespeare, page 77.
[783:6] See Publius Syrus, page 711.
[783:7] See Milton, page 234.
Orient pearls.—Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream, act iv. sc. 1.
[783:8] See Burton, page 187.
[783:9] See Swift, page 292.
[784:1] See Shakespeare, page 151.
[784:2] See Shakespeare, page 99. Also Milton, page 227.
[784:3] See Sheridan, page 443.
[784:4]
My fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world.
Shakespeare: King John, act iii. sc. 4.
[784:5] The book of Nature is that which the physician must read; and to do so he must walk over the leaves.—Paracelsus, 1490-1541. (From the Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth edition, vol. xviii. p. 234.)
[784:6] See Spenser, page 28.
[784:7] See Byrom, page 351.
[784:8] See Shakespeare, page 69.