To hang her, meteor-like, 'twixt heaven and earth,
And bind her, hand and foot, with golden cords,
As once I did for harming Hercules !
Gan. Might I but see that pretty sport a-foot,
O, how would I with Helen's brother laugh,
And bring the gods to wonder at the game!
Sweet Jupiter, if e'er I pleased thine eye,
Or seemed fair, wall'd-in with eagle's wings,1
Grace my immortal beauty with this boon,
And I will spend my time in thy bright arms.
Jup. What is't, sweet wag, I should deny thy youth?
Whose face reflects such pleasure to mine eyes,
As I, exhaled with thy fire-darting beams,
Have oft driven back the horses of the Night,
Whenas they would have haled thee from my sight.
Sit on my knee, and call for thy content,
Control proud Fate, and cut the thread of Time:
Why, are not all the gods at thy command,
And heaven and earth the bounds of thy delight?
Vulcan shall dance to make thee laughing-sport,
1 "This expression is well illustrated by Titian's [?] picture (in the National Gallery) of the rape of Ganymede.-In Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, act v. sc. 2, we have,
'A lady wall'd-about with diamonds!'"-Dyce.
2 This speech is undoubtedly by Marlow, but it is curious that Nashe, in Summer's Last Will and Testament speaks of the amusement caused, among the gods by the sight of Vulcan's dancing:-"To make the gods merry the celestial clown Vulcan tuned his polt foot to the measures of Apollo's lute, and danced a limping galliard in Jove's starry hall.” (Hazlitt's Dodsley, viii. 91). In both passages there is perhaps an allusion to the lines in the first book of the Iliad (599-600), describing how "unquenchable laughter rose among the blessed gods when they saw Hephaestus limping through the hall."
And my nine daughters sing when thou art sad;
From Juno's bird I'll pluck her spotted pride,
To make thee fans wherewith to cool thy face;
And Venus' swans shall shed their silver down,
To sweeten out the slumbers of thy bed;
Hermes no more shall show the world his wings,
If that thy fancy in his feathers dwell,
But, as this one, I'll tear them all from him,
[Plucks a feather from HERMES' wings. Do thou but say, "their colour pleaseth me." Hold here, my little love; these linkèd gems,
My Juno ware upon her marriage-day,
Put thou about thy neck, my own sweet heart,
And trick thy arms and shoulders with my theft.
Gan. I would have a jewel for mine ear,
And a fine brooch to put in[to] my hat,
And then I'll hug with you an hundred times.
Jup. And shall have, Ganymede, if thou wilt be my love.
Ven. I, this is it: you can sit toying there, And playing with that female wanton boy,
Whiles my Æneas wanders on the seas,
And rests a prey to every billow's pride.
Juno, false Juno, in her chariot's pomp,
Drawn through the heavens by steeds of Boreas'
Made Hebe to direct her airy wheels
Into the windy country of the clouds;
Where, finding Æolus entrenched with storms,
And guarded with a thousand grisly ghosts,
She humbly did beseech him for our bane,
And charged him drown my son with all his train.
Then gan the winds break ope their brazen doors,
And all Æolia to be up in arms;
Poor Troy must now be sacked upon the sea,
And Neptune's waves be envious men of war;
Epeus' horse, to Ætna's hill transform'd,
Prepared stands to wreck their wooden walls;
And Æolus, like Agamemnon, sounds
The surges, his fierce soldiers, to the spoil:
See how the night, Ulysses-like, comes forth,
And intercepts the day, as Dolon erst!
Ay me! the stars supprised,1 like Rhesus' steeds,
Are drawn by darkness forth Astræus' tents.2
What shall I do to save thee, my sweet boy?
Whenas the waves do threat our crystal world,
And Proteus, raising hills of floods on high,
Intends, ere long, to sport him in the sky.3
False Jupiter, reward'st thou virtue so?
What, is not piety exempt from woe?
Then die, Æneas, in thine innocence,
Since that religion hath no recompense.
Jup. Content thee, Cytherea, in thy care,
2 The stars were the children of Astræus and Eos. See Hesiod,
3 These rhyming lines are suggestive of Nashe,
Since thy Æneas' wandering fate is firm,1
Whose weary limbs shall shortly make repose
In those fair walls I promised him of yore.
But, first, in blood must his good fortune bud,
Before he be the lord of Turnus' town,
Or force her smile that hitherto hath frowned:
Three winters shall he with the Rutiles war,
And, in the end, subdue them with his sword;
And full three summers likewise shall he waste
In managing those fierce barbarian minds;
Which once performed, poor Troy, so long suppressed,
From forth her ashes shall advance her head,
And flourish once again, that erst was dead.
But bright Ascanius, beauty's better work,
Who with the sun divides one radiant shape,
Shall build his throne amidst those starry towers
That earth-born Atlas, groaning, underprops:
No bounds, but heaven, shall bound his empery,
Whose azured gates, enchasèd with his name,
Shall make the Morning haste her grey uprise,
To feed her eyes with his engraven fame.
Thus, in stout Hector's race, three hundred years
The Roman sceptre royal shall remain,
Till that a princess-priest,3 conceived by Mars,
1 .. "Parce metu, Cytherea; manént immota tuorum Fata tibi."
Hic jam ter centum totos regnabitur annos
Gente sub Hectorea."
3 "Donec regina sacerdos
Marte gravis geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem."
Shall yield to dignity a double birth,
Who will eternish1 Troy in their attempts.
Ven. How may I credit these thy flattering terms,
When yet both sea and sands beset their ships,
And Phoebus, as in Stygian pools, refrains
To taint his tresses in the Tyrrhene main ?
Jup. I will take order for that presently.-
Hermes, awake! and haste to Neptune's realm,
Whereas the wind-god, warring now with fate,
Besiege[s] th' offspring of our kindly loins:
Charge him from me to turn his stormy powers,
And fetter them in Vulcan's sturdy brass,
That durst thus proudly wrong our kinsman's peace.
Venus, farewell: thy son shall be our care.—
Come, Ganymede, we must about this gear.2
[Exeunt JUPITER and GANYMEDe. Ven. Disquiet seas, lay down your swelling looks, And court Æneas with your calmy cheer, Whose beauteous burden well might make you proud, Had not the heavens, conceiv'd with hell-born clouds, Veil'd his resplendent glory from your view:
For my sake, pity him, Oceanus,
That erst-while issu'd from thy watery loins,
And had my being from thy bubbling froth.
Triton, I know, hath filled his trump with Troy,
And therefore will take pity on his toil,
1 Probably a misspelling of "eternise."
3 The scene shifts to a wood near the sea-shore.
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