2. 6. 53 A strange woman. In Bart. Fair, Wks. 4. 395, Justice Overdo says: ‘Rescue this youth here out of the hands of the lewd man and the strange woman.’ Gifford explains in a note: ‘The scripture phrase for an immodest woman, a prostitute. Indeed this acceptation of the word is familiar to many languages. It is found in the Greek; and we have in Terence—pro uxore habere hanc peregrinam: upon which Donatus remarks, hoc nomine etiam meretrices nominabantur.’
2. 6. 57-113 WIT. No, my tune-full Mistresse? etc. This very important passage is the basis of Fleay’s theory of identification discussed in section D. IV. of the Introduction. The chief passages necessary for comparison are quoted below.
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.
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