Eul. O love! whose nerves unite in equal bonds
This massy frame! thou cement of the world!
By which the orbs and elements agree,
By which all living creatures joy to be,
And dying live in their posterity.
Thy holy raptures warm each noble breast,
Sweetly inspiring more soul. Thy delight
Surpasses melody, nectar, and all pleasures
Of Tempe, and of Tempe's eldest sister,
Elysium: a banquet of all the senses!
By thy commanding power gods into beasts,
And men to gods, are chang'd, as poets say;
When sympathy rules, all like what they obey.
But love triumphs when man and woman meet
In full affection; double vows then fill
His sacred shrine. Yet this to me denied
More whets my passion: mutual love grows cold.
Venus, be thou propitious to my wiles,
And laugh at lovers' perjuries and guiles. [Exit.
SCENE III.
Lantonus, Hulacus, two Druids, in long robes; hats like pyramids, branches of misletoe.
Lan. That souls immortal are, I easily grant;
Their future state distinguish'd—joy or pain,
According to the merits of this life.
But then, I rather think, being free from prison
And bodily contagion, they subsist
In places fit for immaterial spirits;
Are not transfus'd from men to beasts, from beasts
To men again—wheel'd round about by change.
Hul. And were it not more cruel to turn out
Poor naked souls stripp'd of warm flesh (like land-lords),
Bidding them wander? then forsooth imagine
Some unknown cave or coast, whither all the myriads
Of souls deceas'd are shipp'd[284] and thrust together.
Nay, reason rather says, as at one moment
Some die, and some are born, so may their ghosts
Without more cost serve the succeeding age:
For (sure) they don't wear to be cast aside,
But enter straight less or more noble bodies,
According to desert of former deeds:
The valiant into lions; coward minds
Into weak hares; th' ambitious into eagles
Soaring aloft; but the perverse and peevish
Are next indeniz'd[285] into wrinkled apes,
Each vice and virtue wearing seemly shapes.
Lan. So you debase the gods' most lively image.
The human soul, and rank it with mere brutes,
Whose life, of reason void, ends with their sense.
Enter Belinus.
Bel. Hail to heaven's privy councillors! The king
Desires your judgment of these troublesome times.
Lan. The gods foretold these mischiefs long ago.
In Eldell's reign the earth and sky were fill'd
With prodigies, strange sights, and hellish shapes:
Sometimes two hosts with fiery lances met,
Armour and horse being heard amid the clouds:
With streamers red now march these airy warriors,
And then a sable hearse-cloth wraps up all;
And bloody drops speckled the grass, as falling
From their deep-wounded limbs:
Whilst staring comets[286] shook their flaming hair.
Thus all our wars were acted first on high,
And we taught what to look for.