She mus'd how she could look upon her sire,
And not show that without, that was intire*.
For as a glass is an inanimate eye,
And outward forms embraceth inwardly:
So is the eye an animate glass, that shows
In-forms without us; and as Phoebus throws
His beams abroad, though he in clouds be closed,
Still glancing by them till he find opposed
A loose and rorid vapour that is fit
T'event his searching beams, and useth it
To form a tender twenty-coloured eye,
Cast in a circle round about the sky;
So when our fiery soul, our body's star (That ever is in motion circular)
Conceives a form, in seeking to display it
Through all our cloudy parts, it doth convey it
Forth at the eye, as the most pregnant place,
And that reflects it round about the face.
And this event uncourtly Hero thought,
Her inward guilt would in her looks have wrought: For yet the world's stale cunning she resisted,
To bear foul thoughts, yet forge what looks she listed, And held it for a very silly sleight
To make a perfect metal counterfeit,
Glad to disclaim herself, proud of an art,
That makes the face a pandar to the heart.
Those be the painted moons, whose lights profane
Beauty's true heaven, at full still in their wane;
Those be the lapwing faces that still cry,
"Here 'tis!" when that they vow is nothing nigh.
Base fools! when every Moorish fool can teach
That which men think the height of human reach.
But custom, that the apoplexy is
Of bedrid Nature, and lives led amiss,
And takes away all feeling of offence,
Yet braz'd not Hero's brow with impudence;
And this she thought most hard to bring to pass,
To seem in countenance other than she was,
As if she had two souls; one for the face,
One for the heart, and that they shifted place
As either list to utter, or conceal
What they conceiv'd: or as one soul did deal
With both affairs at once, keeps and ejects
Both at an instant contrary effects:
Retention and ejection in her powers
Being acts alike: for this one vice of ours,
That forms the thought, and sways the countenance, Rules both our motion and our utterance.
These, and more grave conceits toil'd Hero's
For though the light of her discoursive wits,
Perhaps might find some little hole to pass
Through all these worldly cinctures; yet, alas!
There was a heavenly flame encompass'd her;
Her Goddess,—in whose fane she did prefer
Her virgin vows, from whose impulsive sight
She knew the black shield of the darkest night
Could not defend her, nor wit's subtlest art:
This was the point pierc'd Hero to the heart;
Who heavy to the death, with a deep sigh,
And hand that languish'd, took a robe was nigh,
Exceeding large, and of black cyprus made,
In which she sate, hid† from the day, in shade,
E'en over head and face, down to her feet;
Her left hand made it at her bosom meet,
Her right hand lean'd on her heart-bowing knee,
Wrapp'd in unshapeful folds: 'twas death to see:
Her knee staid that, and that her falling face;
Each limb help'd other to put on disgrace.
No form was seen, where form held all her sight:
But like an embryon that saw never light;
Or like a scorched statue made a coal
With three-wing'd lightning; or a wretched soul
Muffled with endless darkness, she did sit:
The night had never such a heavy spirit.
Yet might a penetrating* eye well see,
How fast her clear tears melted on her knee Through her black veil, and turn'd as black as it, Mourning to be her tears: then wrought her wit With her broke vow, her goddess' wrath,—her fame,
All tools that enginous despair could frame:
Which made her strew the floor with her torn hair, And spread her mantle piece-meal in the air.
Like Jove's son's club, strong passion struck her down,
And with a piteous shriek enforc'd her swoon:
Her shriek, made with another shriek ascend
The frighted matron that on her did tend:
And as with her own cry her sense was slain,
So with the other it was call'd again.
She rose and to her bed made forced way,
And laid her down e'en where Leander lay:
And all this while the red sea of her blood
Ebb'd with Leander: but now turn'd the flood,
*an imitating, edit. 1606.
And all her fleet of spirits came swelling in
With crowd of sail, and did hot fight begin
With those severe conceits, she too much mark'd,
And here Leander's beauties were embark'd.
He came in swimming, painted all with joys,
Such as might sweeten hell: his thought destroys
All her destroying thoughts: she thought she felt
His heart in hers: with her contentions melt,
And chide her soul that it could so much err,
To check the true joys he deserv'd in her.
Her fresh heat blood cast figures in her eyes,
And she suppos'd she saw in Neptune's skies
How her star wander'd, wash'd in smarting brine
For her love's sake, that with immortal wine
Should be embath'd, and swim in more heart's-ease,
Than there was water in the Sestian seas.
Then said her Cupid-prompted spirit, “ Shall I
Sing moans to such delightsome harmony?
Shall slick-tongued Fame patch'd up with voices rude,
The drunken bastard of the multitude,
(Begot when father Judgment is away,
And gossip-like, says because others say,
Takes news as if it were too hot to eat,
And spits it slavering forth for dog-fees meat,)
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