The attendant SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
The LADY.
First BROTHER.
Second BROther.
SABRINA, the Nymph.
THE FIRST SCENE DISCOVERS A WILD WOOD.
The attendant SPIRIT descends or enters. BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court My mansion is, where those immortal shapes Of bright aerial spirits live insphered In regions mild of calm and serene air, Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care
Confined, and pestered in this pinfold here, Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being, Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives, After this mortal change, to her true servants,
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
To such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapors of this sin-worn mould.
But to my task: Neptune, besides the
Of every salt flood, and each ebbing stream,
Took in, by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove,
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles,
That like to rich and various gems inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
By course commits to several government,
And gives them leave to wear their sapphire
And wield their little tridents. But this isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
And all this tract, that fronts the falling sun,
A noble peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to
guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms;
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely All other parts remaining as they were;
Are coming to attend their father's state,
And new-intrusted sceptre; but their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear
wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger.
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that, by quick command from sovereign
Jove,
I was despatched for their defence and guard;
And listen why-for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple
grape
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than be-
fore;
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when any favored of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous
glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star
I shoot from heav'n, to give him safe con
As now I do. But first I must put off
These my sky robes, spun out of Iris' woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain,
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied
song,
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore as the winds Well knows to still the wild winds when they
listed,
On Circe's island fell. Who knows not Circe, And hush the waving woods; nor of less
The daughter of the sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering
locks
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe
youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more;
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus
named;
Who ripe, and frolic of his full grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And, in thick shelter of black shades imbow-
ered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art,
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
And, in this office of his mountain watch,
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid,
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.
COMUS enters, with a charming rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts-but otherwise like men and women, their apparel glistening; they come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands.
COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold;
And the gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;
To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as And the slope sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
(For most do taste through fond intemp'rate Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Soon as the potion works, their human coun- Meanwhile welcome Joy and Feast,
Midnight Shout and Revelry,
Th' express resemblance of the gods, is Tipsy Dance and Jollity.
Into some brutish form, of wolf, or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog or bearded goat
Braid your locks with rosy twine
Dropping odors, dropping wit
Rigor now is gone to bed,
And Advice with scrupulous head;
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws in slumber lie.
We that are of purer fire
Imitate the starry quire,
Who in their nightly watchful spheres
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook, and fountain brim,
The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep;
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove;
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come! let us our rites begin-
'Tis only daylight that makes us sin,
Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
Hail Goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto! t' whom the secret
flame
Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame, That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
And to my wily trains; I shall ere long
Be well stocked, with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spungy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments; lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight-
Which must not be, for that's against my
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares. When once her
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
I shall appear some harmless villager,
Whom thrift keeps up, about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may, her business here.
This way the noise was, if mine ear be trueMy best guide now; methought it was the sound
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom, Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
And makes one blot of all the air;
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe Stirs up among the loose, unlettered hinds,
Wherein thou ridest with Hecate, and be- When for their teeming flocks, and granges
Us, thy vowed priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the babbling eastern scout,
The nice morn, on the Indian steep
From her cabined loophole peep,
And to the tell-tale sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round!
Break off, break off! I feel the different pace Of some chaste footing near about this ground. Run to your shrouds, within these brakes and trees;
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be
To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet O! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favor of these pines,
Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket side
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me, then, when the gray-hooded
Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,
Our number may affright some virgin sure, (For so I can distinguish by mine art), Benighted in these woods. Now to my Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus'
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