devoured

Leave the discourse of Venus and her son* To young beginners, and their brains inspire With stories of great love, and from that fire Get heat to write the fortunes they have won,

Nor faint

Let me turn back, shame cries I ought return Nor faint, though crosses with* my fortunes kiss

Ways are on all sides while the way I miss

Thus let me take the right, or left hand way; Go forward, or stand still, or back retire; I must these doubts endure without allay Or help, but travail* find for my best hire; Yet that which most my troubled sense doth move Is to leave all, and take the thread of love.

the thread of love.

allay

sure to

crosses

As a child then, leave him crying; Nor seek him so given to flying.

Feathers are as firm in staying; Wolves no fiercer in their preying; As a child then, leave him crying; Nor seek him so given to flying.

Are his gifts, his favours lighter.

He will triumph in your wailing; And yet cause be of your failing:

He vows nothing but false matter; And to cozen you will flatter; Let him gain the hand, he’ll leave you And still glory to deceive you.

His desires have no measure; Endless folly is his treasure; What he promiseth he breaketh; Trust not one word that he speaketh.

crying

he straight is flying

Please him, and he straight is flying

To truth, which shall eternal goodness prove; Enjoying of true joy, the most, and best, The endless gain which never will remove.

n, still smothered in my grieved breast, Seeks for some ease, yet cannot passage find To be discharged of this unwelcome guest; When most I strive, more fast his burdens bind,

Desire shall quench love’s flames, spring hate sweet showers, Cupid shall lose his darts,* have sight, and see His shame, and Venus hinder happy hours;

fie

martyring

lesse

yet had this sign of worldly sorrow, the drops falling in that abundance, as if there were a kind strife among them, to rid their Master first of that burdenous carriage; o

Can there be any near the unhappiness of being ignorant, and that in the highest kind, not being certain of mine own estate and birth ?

Urania 

Let me turn back, shame cries I ought return

therein danger is; If to the left, suspicion hinders bliss,

If to the right hand, there in love I burn

LOVE, a child, is ever crying;

My pain, still smothered in my grieved breast, Seeks for some ease, yet cannot passage find To be discharged of this unwelcome guest;

Go then, my thoughts, and cry

Yet childlike, we cannot his sports refuse

Thus shadow they their wicked vile intent, Colouring evil with the mask* of good

For hope deluding brings us to the pride Of our desires the farther down to slide.

39

Why should wee not love’s purblind charms resist? Must we be servile, doing what he list?

Cupid shall lose his darts,* have sight, and see His shame

Desire shall quench love’s flames,

Love what art thou? Causeless cursed Yet alas these not the worst, Much more of thee may be said

Love what art thou? light, and fair, Fresh as morning clear as th’air,

Idle smiles did thee beget While fond wishes made that* net Which so many fools have caught

beget

A vain thought,

vain

And answer gives hke friend of mine own choice.

Pleasures to dying eyes bring but disease

Doubly resounded by that moanful voice, Which seems to second me in misery,

.

Unseen, unknown, I here alone complain To rocks, to hills, to meadows, and to springs, Which can no help return to ease my pain, But back my sorrows the sad Echo brings.

mead

.

Phoebus

Mary Wroth

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a

rich embroidery,

to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; f

sabbath

indignities

Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses; so as a man may

, but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.

Religious Meditations.

free-will

.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested;

penury.

surcharge

extirpation

similitude

epicycles

Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses;

“vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati.

facile

that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it.

“It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene,) and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests in the vale below:”

. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,

use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules

for ability.

not after examples of known attires; Turks, soldiers, mariners, and the like

naturally take the sense, and not respect petty wonderments.

It is better to sound a person with whom one deals afar off, than to fall upon the point at first

deal by speech than by letter

.

freedom

both because they ask less labour, and because they serve for meat as well as for bread;

where people are not displanted to the end to plant in others; for else it is rather an extirpation than a

but now it is old, it begets fewe

r.

and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the

private answers to suitors

for if thou dost not, it is a debt will sure be paid when thou art gone

do not drive away such as bring thee information as meddlers, but accept of them in good part.

de facto

; but be not too positive and peremptory; and express thyself well when thou digressest from thy lure.

.

Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame,

ey are more cruel and hardhearted

.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune

”

serpent

.

carbuncle,

But I cannot tell

lie’s sake

free-wil

nd would not stay for an answe

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested;

for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

it is better they should be graced with elegancy, than daubed with cost

Acting in song, especially in dialogues, hath an extreme good grace; I say acting, not dancing, (for that is a mean and vulgar thing;) and the voices of the dialogue would be strong and manly, (a base and a tenor, no treble,) and the ditty high and tragical, not nice or dainty.

In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

by the mediation of a third

The people wherewith you plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, labourers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks, and bakers.

for the principal thing that hath been the destruction of most plantations, hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years.

PLANTATIONS

When the plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women as well as with men; that the plantation may spread into generations,

For government, let it be in the hands of one, assisted with some counsel; and let them have commission to exercise martial laws, with some limitation;

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves,

lucre

prelates

stratagems

pharisaica

Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly and tenderly;

For roughness, it is a needless cause of discontent; severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate

The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing

because their means are less exhaust

but the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think heir girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles.

both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public

lieth

Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights.

Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

providence

Let the scenes abound with light, especially coloured and varied; and let the masquers, or any other that are to come down from the scene, have some motions upon the scene it self before their coining down; for it draws the eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure to desire to see that it cannot perfectly discern. Let the songs be loud and cheerful, and not chirpings or pulings: let the music likewise be sharp and loud, and well placed. The colours that show best by candle-light, are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green and ouches, or spangs, as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory.

Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing: for as it addeth deformity to an ape to be so like a man, so the similitude of superstition to religion makes it the more deformed:

omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset

Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, quaæ fecerunt manus suæ, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis

Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses;

Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives are of that condition.

ippocras

mutton

commenc’d

He had learned to take tobacco; and when he was assured he should die, he desired they would give him a pipe in his mouth, ready lighted; which they did. And the executioner came, and first cut off his members, and threw them into the fire; after that, with an ill-favored knife, they cut off his ears and his nose and burned them; he still smoked on, as if nothing had touched him; then they hacked off one of his arms, and still he bore up, and held his pipe; but at the cutting off the other arm, his head sunk, and his pipe dropped, and he gave up the ghost, without a groan or a reproach.

“O monster! that hast murdered thy wife.”

with a hand resolved, and a heart breaking within, gave the fatal stroke, first cutting her throat, and then severing her yet smiling face from that delicate body, pregnant as it was with the fruits of tenderest love.

he told her his design, first of killing her, and then his enemies, and next himself, and the impossibility of escaping, and therefore he told her the necessity of dying. He found the heroic wife faster pleading for death that he was to propose it, when she found his fixed resolution; and, on her knees, besought him not to leave her a prey to his enemies

They spared Imoinda, and did not let her see this barbarity committed towards her lord, but carried her down to Parham, and shut her up; which was not in kindness to her, but for fear she should die with the sight, or miscarry, and then they should lose a young slave, and perhaps the mother

and surprising them, bound them to two several stakes, and whipped them in a most deplorable and inhuman manner, rending the very flesh from their bones,

that he was ashamed of what he had done, in endeavoring to make those free who were by nature slaves, poor wretched rogues, fit to be used as Christian’s tolls; dogs, treacherous and cowardly, fit for such masters, and they wanted only but to be whipped into the knowledge of the Christian gods, to be the vilest of all creeping things

left him only Tuscan and his heroic Imoinda, who, grown big as she was, did nevertheless press near her lord, having a bow and a quiver full of poisoned arrows, which she managed with such dexterity that she wounded several, and shot the Governor into the shoulder;

Yield! and leave Caesar to their revenge”; that by degrees the slaves abandoned Caesar,

and men that had the courage and the bravery to attempt, at least, for liberty; and if they died in the attempt, it would be more brave than to live in perpetual slavery.

“And why,” said he, “my dear friends and fellow-sufferers, should we be slaves to an unknown people? Have they vanquished us nobly in fight? Have they won us in honorable battle? And are we by the chance of war become their slaves? This would not anger a noble heart; this would not animate a soldiers soul: no, but we are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards; and the support of rogues and runagates, that have abandoned their own countries for rapine, murders, theft, and villainies. Do you not hear every day how they upbraid each other with infamy of life, below the wildest savages? And shall we render obedience to such a degenerate race, who have no one human virtue left, to distinguish them from the vilest creatures? Will you, I say, suffer the lash from such hands?”

but now Imoinda began to show she was with child, and did nothing but sigh and weep for the captivity of her lord,

but however their shapes appeared, their souls were very humane and noble; but some wanted their noses, some their lips, some both noses and lips, some their ears, and others cut through each cheek, with long slashes, through which their teeth appeared: they had several other formidable wounds and scars, or rather dismemberings. They had comitias, or little aprons before ’em; and girdles of cotton, with their knives naked stuck in it; a bow at their back, and a quiver of arrows on their thighs; and most had feathers on their heads of divers colors.

For my part, I took ’em for hobgoblins, or fiends, rather than men:

I soon perceived, by an admiration that is natural to these people, and by the extreme ignorance and simplicity of ’em, it were not difficult to establish any unknown or extravagant religion among them, and to impose any notions or fictions upon ’em.

They were all naked; and we were dressed, so as is most commode for the hot countries, very glittering and rich; so that we appeared extremely fine: my own hair was cut short, and I had a taffety cap, with black feathers on my head; my brother was in a stuff-suit, with silver loops and buttons, and abundance of green ribbon.

so that they cut in pieces all they could take, getting into houses, and hanging up the mother and all her children about her; and cut a footman, I left behind me, all in joints, and nailed him to trees.

called a numb eel (an eel of which I have eaten) that, while it is alive, it has a quality so cold that those who are angling, though with a line of ever so great a length, with a rod at the end of it, it shall, in the same minute the bait is touched by this eel, seize him or her that holds the rod with a numbness that shall deprive ’em of sense for a while; and some have fallen into the water, and others dropped as dead on the banks of the rivers where they stood, as soon as this fish touches the bait.

’tis there eternal spring, always the very months of April, May, and June; the shades are perpetual, the trees bearing at once all degrees of leaves and fruit, from blooming buds to ripe autumn: groves of oranges, lemons, citrons, figs, nutmegs, and noble aromatics continually bearing their fragrancies. The trees appearing all like nosegays adorned with flowers of different kinds; some are all white, some purple, some scarlet, some blue, some yellow; bearing at the same time ripe fruit, and blooming young, or producing every day new. The very wood of all these trees has an intrinsic value above common timber; for they are, when cut, of different colors, glorious to behold, and bear a price considerable, to inlay withal. Besides this, they yield rich balm and gums; so that we make our candles of such an aromatic substance as does not only give a sufficient light, but, as they burn, they cast their perfumes all about. Cedar is the common firing, and all the houses are built with it.

’Tis a continent whose vast extent was never yet known, and may contain more noble earth than all the universe beside; for, they say, it reaches from east to west one way as far as China, and another to Peru:

and that they would delay him till the time of his wife’s delivery, and make a slave of that too

This new accident made him more impatient of liberty,

he soon saw Imoinda all over her; in a minute he saw her face, her shape, her air, her modesty, and all that called forth his soul with joy at his eyes, and left his body destitute of almost life: it stood without motion, and for a minute knew not that it had a being; and, I believe, he had never come to himself, so oppressed he was with over-joy, if he had not met with this allay, that he perceived Imoinda fall dead in the hands of Trefry. This awakened him, and he ran to her aid, and caught her in his arms, where by degrees she came to herself; and ’tis needless to tell with what transports, what ecstasies of joy, they both a while beheld each other, without speaking; then snatched each other to their arms; then gazed again, as if they still doubted whether they possessed the blessing they grasped: but when they recovered their speech, ’tis not to be imagined what tender things they expressed to each other; wondering what strange fate had brought them again together.

I have been ready to make use of those advantages of strength and force nature has given me:

I have been ready to make use of those advantages of strength and force nature has given me: but oh! she disarms me with that modesty and weeping, so tender and so moving that I retire, and thank my stars she overcame me.”

that the breezes would steal kisses from her delicate mouth.

“Farewell, Sir, ’tis worth my sufferings to gain so true a knowledge both of you and of your gods by whom you swear.”

upbraiding him with eyes that forced blushes on his guilty cheeks,

Possessed with a thousand thoughts of past joys with this fair young person, and a thousand griefs for her eternal loss, he endured a tedious voyage

and entreated him to oblige ’em to eat, and assure ’em of that liberty on the first opportunity

So that being deprived of all other means, he resolved to perish for want of food; and pleased at last with that thought, and toiled and tired by rage and indignation, he laid himself down, and sullenly resolved upon dying, and refused all things that were brought him.

so that the captain, who had well laid his design before, gave the word, and seized on all his guests; they clapping great irons suddenly on the prince, when he was leaped down into the hold to view that part of the vessel; and locking him fast down, secured him.

: but no motives of beauties, though all endeavored it, could engage him in any sort of amour, though he had all the invitations to it, both from his own youth and others’ ambitions and designs.

languishmen

the prince from his amorous slumber, in which he had remained buried for two days, without permitting any sustenance to approach him

and the continual thoughts of what his lord and grandfather had thought good to send out of the world, with all that youth, that innocence and beauty.

But as it is the greatest crime in nature amongst ’em to touch a woman after having been possessed by a son, a father, or a brother, so now he looked on Imoinda as a polluted thing, wholly unfit for his embrace;

believed she should appease the fury of a jealous king, by saying she was surprised, and that it was by force of arms he got into her apartment

Tis not to be imagined the satisfaction of these two young lovers; nor the vows she made him, that she remained a spotless maid till that night, and that what she did with his grandfather had robbed him of no part of her virgin-honor; the gods, in mercy and justice, having reserved that for her plighted lord, to whom of right it belonged

But nothing could appease the jealousy of the old lover

and to find those caresses paid to new beauties, to which once she laid claim

certainly, nothing is more afflicting to a decayed beauty than to behold in itself declining charms that were once adored

what rage! what wild frenzies seized his heart!

gallantries

the raging of his flame

In this time, the prince, who was returned from hunting, went to visit his Imoinda, but found her gone; and not only so, but heard she had received the royal veil.

After a thousand assurances of his lasting flame, and her eternal empire over him, she condescended to receive him for her husband;

such ill morals are only practised in Christian countries, where they prefer the bare name of religion; and, without virtue or morality, think that sufficient

the beautiful black Venus to our young Mars

e had an extreme good and graceful mien, and all the civility of a well-bred great man. He had nothing of barbarity in his nature, but in all points addressed himself as if his education had been in some European court.

Besides, he was adorned with a native beauty, so transcending all those of his gloomy race that he struck an awe and reverence even into those that knew not his quality;

but in the water, one would think they were gods of the rivers, or fellow-citizens of the deep; so rare an art they have in swimming, diving, and almost living in water; by which they command the less swift inhabitants of the floods.

And though they are all thus naked, if one lives forever among ’em there is not to be seen an undecent action, or glance: and being continually used to see one another so unadorned, so like our first parents before the Fall, it seems as if they had no wishes, there being nothing to heighten curiosity; but all you can see, you see at once, and every moment see; and where there is no novelty, there can be no curiosity.

We dealt with ’em with beads of all colors, knives, axes, pins, and needles; which they used only as tools to drill holes with in their ears, noses, and lips, where they hang a great many little things; as long beads, bits of tin, brass or silver beat thin, and any shining trinket. The beads they weave into aprons about a quarter of an ell long, and of the same breadth; working them very prettily in flowers of several colors; which apron they wear just before ’em, as Adam and Eve did the fig-leaves; the men wearing a long stripe of linen, which they deal with us for. They thread these beads also on long cotton threads, and make girdles to tie their aprons to, which come twenty times, or more, about the waist, and then cross, like a shoulder-belt, both ways, and round their necks, arms, and legs. This adornment, with their long black hair, and the face painted in little specks or flowers here and there, makes ’em a wonderful figure to behold.

I was myself an eye-witness to a great part of what you will find here set down; and what I could not be witness of, I received from the mouth of the chief actor in this history, the hero himself, who gave us the whole transactions of his youth