Menaphon. A sound of music touched mine ears, or rather,
Indeed, entranced my soul. As I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw
This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute,
With strains of strange variety and harmony,
Proclaiming, as it seemed, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the wood, the birds,
That as they flocked about him all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard. I wondered too.
Amethus. And do so I: good, on.
Men. A nightingale,
Nature's best-skilled musician, undertakes
The challenge, and for every several strain
The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own:
He could not run division with more art
Vpon his quaking instrument than she
The nightingale did with her various notes
Reply to: for a voice and for a sound,
Amethus, 'tis much easier to believe
That such they were, than hope to hear again.
Ameth. How did the rivals part?
Men. You term them rightly.
For they were rivals, and their mistress, Harmony.
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird,
Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study
Had busied many hours to perfect practice.
To end the controversy, in a rapture,
Vpon his instrument he plays so swiftly
So many voluntaries, and so quick,
That there was curiosity and cunning,
Concord in discord, lines of differing method
Meeting in one full centre of delight.
Ameth. Now for the bird.
Men. The bird, ordained to be
Music's first master, strove to imitate
These several sounds; which when her warbling throat
Failed in, for grief down dropped she on his lute,
And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness,
To see the conqueror upon her hearse
To weep.[37]
Comment is needless on such pale, empty literality, as compared with the vitality and élan of Crashaw, in all but Ford's; while even Ford's is surpassed in every way by the 'Musick's Duell.'
The 'Suspicion of Herod,' by Marino (c. i.), is a grand poem in the original. Milton knew it, and was taken by it. Our Poet had glorious materials whereon to work, accordingly, when he turned Translator of this all-too-little known Singer of Italy. But Crashaw's soul was more spacious, his imagination more imperial, his vocabulary wealthier, than even Marino's. The greatness and grandeur and force of the Italian roused the Englishman to emulation. Willmott (as before) has placed the original Italian beside Crashaw's interpretation, and the advance in the Translator on his original is almost startling. We prefer adducing Crashaw, and then giving a close rendering of the original: e.g.
'He saw Heav'n blossome with a new-borne light,
On which, as on a glorious stranger, gaz'd
The golden eyes of Night.' (st. xvii.)