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A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS:

In Ten Lyric Pieces.

V.

His Discourse with Cupid.

Noblest Charis, you that are
Both my fortune and my star,
And do govern more my blood,
Than the various moon the flood,
Hear, what late discourse of you, 5
Love and I have had; and true.
'Mongst my Muses finding me,
Where he chanced your name to see
Set, and to this softer strain;
Sure, said he, if I have brain, 10
This, here sung, can be no other,
By description, but my Mother!
So hath Homer praised her hair;
So Anacreon drawn the air
Of her face, and made to rise 15
Just about her sparkling eyes,
Both her brows bent like my bow.
By her looks I do her know,
Which you call my shafts. And see!
Such my Mother's blushes be, 20
As the bath your verse discloses
In her cheeks, of milk and roses;
Such as oft I wanton in:
And, above her even chin,
Have you placed the bank of kisses, 25
Where, you say, men gather blisses,
Ripen'd with a breath more sweet,
Than when flowers and west-winds meet.
Nay, her white and polish'd neck,
With the lace that doth it deck, 30
Is my mother's: hearts of slain
Lovers, made into a chain!
And between each rising breast,
Lies the valley call'd my nest,
Where I sit and proyne my wings 35
After flight; and put new stings
To my shafts: her very name
With my mother's is the same.
I confess all, I replied,
And the glass hangs by her side, 40
And the girdle 'bout her waist,
All is Venus, save unchaste.
But alas, thou seest the least
Of her good, who is the best
Of her sex: but couldst thou, Love, 45
Call to mind the forms that strove
For the apple, and those three
Make in one, the same were she.
For this beauty yet doth hide
Something more than thou hast spied. 50
Outward grace weak love beguiles:
She is Venus when she smiles:
But she's Juno when she walks,
And Minerva when she talks.


UNDERWOODS XXXVI.

_AN ELEGY_.

By those bright eyes, at whose immortal fires
Love lights his torches to inflame desires;
By that fair stand, your forehead, whence he bends
His double bow, and round his arrows sends;
By that tan grove, your hair, whose globy rings 5
He flying curls, and crispeth with his wings;
By those pure baths your either cheek discloses,
Where he doth steep himself in milk and roses;
And lastly, by your lips, the bank of kisses,
Where men at once may plant and gather blisses: 10
Ten me, my lov'd friend, do you love or no?
So well as I may tell in verse, 'tis so?
You blush, but do not:--friends are either none,
Though they may number bodies, or but one.
I'll therefore ask no more, but bid you love, 15
And so that either may example prove
Unto the other; and live patterns, how
Others, in time, may love as we do now.
Slip no occasion; as time stands not still,
I know no beauty, nor no youth that will. 20
To use the present, then, is not abuse,
You have a husband is the just excuse
Of all that can be done him; such a one
As would make shift to make himself alone
That which we can; who both in you, his wife, 25
His issue, and all circumstance of life,
As in his place, because he would not vary,
Is constant to be extraordinary.


THE GIPSIES METAMORPHOSED

_The Lady Purbeck's Fortune, by the_

_Gip. _ Help me, wonder, here's a book, 2
Where I would for ever look:
Never yet did gipsy trace
Smoother lines in hands or face:
Venus here doth Saturn move 5
That you should be Queen of Love;
And the other stars consent;
Only Cupid's not content;
For though you the theft disguise,
You have robb'd him of his eyes. 10
And to shew his envy further:
Here he chargeth you with murther:
Says, although that at your sight,
He must all his torches light;
Though your either cheek discloses 15
Mingled baths of milk and roses;
Though your lips be banks of blisses,
Where he plants, and gathers kisses;
And yourself the reason why,
Wisest men for love may die; 20
You will turn all hearts to tinder,
And shall make the world one cinder.


_From_

A CHALLENGE AT TILT,

AT A MARRIAGE.

_2 Cup. _ What can I turn other than a Fury itself to see thy
impudence? If I be a shadow, what is substance? was it not I that
yesternight waited on the bride into the nuptial chamber, and,
against the bridegroom came, made her the throne of love? had I
not lighted my torches in her eyes, planted my mother's roses in 5
her cheeks; were not her eye-brows bent to the fashion of my bow,
and her looks ready to be loosed thence, like my shafts? had I not
ripened kisses on her lips, fit for a Mercury to gather, and made
her language sweeter than his upon her tongue? was not the girdle
about her, he was to untie, my mother's, wherein all the joys and 10
delights of love were woven?

_1 Cup. _ And did not I bring on the blushing bridegroom to taste
those joys? and made him think all stay a torment? did I not
shoot myself into him like a flame, and made his desires and his
graces equal? were not his looks of power to have kept the night 15
alive in contention with day, and made the morning never wished
for? Was there a curl in his hair, that I did not sport in, or a
ring of it crisped, that might not have become Juno's fingers? his
very undressing, was it not Love's arming? did not all his kisses
charge? and every touch attempt? but his words, were they not 20
feathered from my wings, and flew in singing at her ears, like
arrows tipt with gold?

In the above passages the chief correspondences to be noted are
as follows:

1. _Ch. _ 5. 17; _U. _ 36. 3-4; _Challenge_ 6. Cf.
also _Ch. _ 9. 17:

Eyebrows bent, like Cupid's bow.

2. _Ch. _ 5. 25-6; _U. _ 36. 9-10; _DA. _ 2. 6. 86-7;
_Gipsies_ 17-8; _Challenge_ 8.

3. _Ch. _ 5. 21-2; _U. _ 36. 7-8; _DA. _ 2. 6. 82-3;
_Gipsies_ 15-6; _Challenge_ 5-6.

4. _Ch. _ 5. 41; _Challenge_ 9-10.

5. _U. _ 36. 5-6; _DA. _ 2. 6. 77-82; _Challenge_ 17-8. Cf.
also _Ch. _ 9. 9-12:

Young I'd have him too, and fair,
Yet a man; with crisped hair,
Cast in thousand snares and rings,
For love's fingers, and his wings.

6. _U. _ 36. 21; _DA. _ 1. 6. 132.

7? _U. _ 36. 1-2; _Gipsies_ 13-4; _Challenge_ 5.

8. _U. _ 36. 22-3; _DA. _ 2. 6. 64-5

9. _DA. _ 2. 6. 84-5; _Ch. _ 9. 19-20:

Even nose, and cheek withal,
Smooth as is the billiard-ball.

10. _Gipsies_ 19-20; _Ch. _ 1. 23-4:

Till she be the reason, why,
All the world for love may die.

=2. 6. 72 These sister-swelling brests. = 'This is an
elegant and poetical rendering of the _sororiantes mammae_ of
the Latins, which Festus thus explains: _Sororiare puellarum
mammae dicuntur, cum primum tumescunt_. '--G.

=2. 6. 76 SN. = 'Liberties very similar to these were, in the poet's
time, permitted by ladies, who would have started at being told that
they had foregone all pretensions to delicacy. '--G.

The same sort of familiarity is hinted at in Stubbes, _Anatomy
of Abuses_ (Part 1, p. 78). Furnivall quotes _Histriomastix_
(Simpson's _School of Shak. _ 2. 50) and _Vindication of Top
Knots_, Bagford Collection, 1. 124, in illustration of the
subject. Gosson's _Pleasant Quippes_ (1595) speaks of 'these
naked paps, the Devils ginnes. ' Cf. also _Cyn. Rev. _, _Wks. _
2. 266, and _Case is A. _, _Wks. _ 6. 330. It seems to have been
a favorite subject of attack at the hands of both Puritans and
dramatists.

=2. 6. 76 Downe to this valley. = Jonson uses a similar
figure in _Cyn. Rev. _, _Wks. _ 2. 240 and in _Charis_
(see note 2. 6. 57).

=2. 6. 78 these crisped groues. = So Milton, _Comus_, 984:
'Along the crisped shades and bowers. ' Herrick, _Hesper. , Cerem.
Candlemas-Eve_: 'The crisped yew. '

=2. 6. 85 well torn'd. = Jonson's usual spelling. See
_Timber_, ed. Schelling, 64. 33; 76. 22. etc.

=2. 6. 85 Billyard ball. = Billiards appears to have been an
out-of-door game until the sixteenth century. It was probably
introduced into England from France. See J. A. Picton, _N. &
Q. _. 5. 5. 283. Jonson uses this figure again in _Celeb. Charis_
9. 19-20.

=2. 6. 92 when I said, a glasse could speake=, etc. Cf.
1. 6. 80 f.

=2. 6. 100 And from her arched browes=, etc. Swinburne
says of this line: 'The wheeziest of barrel-organs, the most
broken-winded of bagpipes, grinds or snorts out sweeter music
than that. '--_Study of Ben Jonson_, p. 104.

=2. 6. 104 Have you seene.
= Sir John Suckling (ed. 1874, p.
79) imitates this stanza:

Hast thou seen the down in the air
When wanton blasts have tossed it?
Or the ship on the sea,
When ruder winds have crossed it?
Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping,
Or the fox's sleeping?
Or hast viewed the peacock in his pride,
Or the dove by his bride
When he courts for his lechery?
O, so fickle, O, so vain, O, so false, so false is she!

=2. 6. 104 a bright Lilly grow. = The figures of the lily, the snow,
and the swan's down have already been used in _The Fox_, _Wks. _ 3.
195. The source of that passage is evidently Martial, _Epig. _ 1. 115:

Loto candidior puella cygno,
Argento, nive, lilio, ligustro.

In this place Jonson seems to have more particularly in mind _Epig. _
5. 37:

Puella senibus dulcior mibi cygnis . . .
Cui nec lapillos praeferas Erythraeos, . . .
Nivesque primas liliumque non tactum.

=2. 7. 2, 3 that Wit of man will doe't. = There is evidently
an ellipsis of some sort before _that_ (cf. Abbott, ? 284).
Perhaps 'provided' is to be understood.

=2. 7. 4 She shall no more be buz'd at. = The metaphor is
carried out in the words that follow, _sweet meates_ 5, _hum_
6, _flye-blowne_ 7. 'Fly-blown' was a rather common term of
opprobrium. Cf. Dekker, _Satiromastix_, _Wks. _ 1. 195: 'Shal
distaste euery vnsalted line, in their fly-blowne Comedies. '
Jonson is very fond of this metaphor, and presses it beyond all
endurance in _New Inn_, Act 2. Sc. 2, _Wks. _ 5. 344, 5, etc.

=2. 7. 13 I am resolu'd on't, Sir. = See variants. Gifford
points out the quibble on the word _resolved_. See Gloss.

=2. 7. 17 O! I could shoote mine eyes at him. = Cf. _Fox_,
_Wks. _ 3. 305: 'That I could shoot mine eyes at him, like
gun-stones! '

=2. 7. 22. = See variants. The _the_ is probably absorbed by
the preceding dental. Cf. 5. 7. 9.

=2. 7. 33 fine pac'd huishers. = See note 4. 4. 201.

=2. 7. 38 turn'd my good affection. = 'Not diverted or
changed its course; but, as appears from what follows, soured
it. The word is used in a similar sense by Shakespeare:

Has friendship such a faint and _milky_ heart,
It turns in less than two nights!
_Timon_, 3. 2. '--G.

=2. 8. 9, 10 That was your bed-fellow. = Ingine, perhaps in
anticipation of Fitzdottrel's advancement, employs a term usually
applied to the nobility. Cf. _K. Henry V. _ 2. 2. 8:

Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he had cloy'd and grac'd with princely favors.

Steevens in a note on the passage points out that the familiar
appellation of _bedfellow_, which appears strange to us, was
common among the ancient nobility. ' He quotes from _A Knack
to know a Knave_, 1594; _Look about you_, 1600; _Cynthia's
Revenge_, 1613; etc. , where the expression is used in the sense
of 'intimate companion' and applied to nobles. Jonson uses the
term _chamberfellow_ in _Underwoods_, _Wks. _ 8. 353.

=2. 8. 20 An Academy. = With this passage compare _U. _ 62,
_Wks. _ 8. 412:

--There is up of late
The Academy, where the gallants meet--
What! to make legs? yes, and to smell most sweet:
All that they do at plays. O but first here
They learn and study; and then practice there.

Jonson again refers to 'the Academies' (apparently schools of
deportment or dancing schools) in 3. 5. 33.

=2. 8. 33 Oracle-Foreman. = See note 1. 2. 2.

=2. 8. 59 any thing takes this dottrel. = See note 2. 2. 49-50.

=2. 8. 64 Dicke Robinson. = Collier says: 'This player may have
been an original actor in some of Shakespeare's later dramas, and
he just outlived the complete and final suppression of the stage. '
His death and the date at which it occurred have been matters of
dispute.

His earliest appearance in any list of actors is at the end of
Jonson's _Catiline_, 1611, with the King's Majesty's Servants.
He was probably the youngest member of the company, and
doubtless sustained a female part. Gifford believes that he took
the part of Wittipol in the present play, though this is merely
a conjecture. 'The only female character he is known to have
filled is the lady of Giovanus in _The Second Maiden's Tragedy_,
but at what date is uncertain; neither do we know at what period
he began to represent male characters. ' Of the plays in which
he acted, Collier mentions Beaumont and Fletcher's _Bonduca_,
_Double Marriage_, _Wife for a Month_, and _Wild Goose Chase_
(1621); and Webster's _Duchess of Malfi_, 1622.

His name is found in the patent granted by James I. in 1619 and
in that granted by Charles I. in 1625. Between 1629 and 1647 no
notice of him occurs, and this is the last date at which we hear of
him. 'His name follows that of Lowin in the dedication to the folio
of Beaumont and Fletcher's works, published at that time. '--Collier,
_Memoirs_, p. 268.

Jonson not infrequently refers to contemporary actors. Compare
the _Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy_, _Ep. _ 120; the speech of Venus
in _The Masque of Christmas_, _Wks. _ 7. 263; and the reference
to Field and Burbage in _Bart. Fair_ 5. 3.

=2. 8. 73 send frolicks! = '_Frolics_ are couplets,
commonly of an amatory or satirical nature, written on small
slips of paper, and wrapt round a sweetmeat. A dish of them is
usually placed on the table after supper, and the guests amuse
themselves with sending them to one another, as circumstances
seem to render them appropriate: this is occasionally productive
of much mirth. I do not believe that the game is to be found in
England; though the drawing on Twelfth Night may be thought to
bear some kind of coarse resemblance to it. On the continent I
have frequently been present at it. '--G.

The _NED. _ gives only one more example, from R. H. _Arraignm. _
_Whole Creature XIV. _ ? 2. 244 (1631) 'Moveable as Shittlecockes
. . . or as Frolicks at Feasts, sent from man to man, returning
againe at last, to the first man. '

=2. 8. 74, 5 burst your buttons, or not left you seame. =
Cf. _Bart. Fair_, _Wks. _ 4. 359: 'he breaks his buttons,
and cracks seams at every saying he sobs out. '

=2. 8. 95, 103. = See variants.

=2. 8. 100 A Forrest moues not. = 'I suppose Trains means,
"It is in vain to tell him of venison and pheasant, the right
to the bucks in a whole forest will not move him. "'--C.

=2. 8. 100 that forty pound. = See 3. 3. 148.

=2. 8. 102 your bond Of Sixe; and Statute of eight
hundred! = I. e. , of six, and eight hundred pounds. 'Statutes
merchant, statutes staple, and recognizances in the nature of
a statute staple were acknowledgements of debt made in writing
before officers appointed for that purpose, and enrolled of
record. They bound the lands of the debtor; and execution
was awarded upon them upon default in payment without the
ordinary process of an action. These securities were originally
introduced for the encouragement of trade, by providing a sure
and speedy remedy for the recovery of debts between merchants,
and afterwards became common assurances, but have now become
obsolete. '--S. M.