Nor the obedience of my flame accuse,
30That what I sought, myself conspir'd to lose:
The hapless state where I am fix'd is such,
To love I seem not, 'cause I love too much.
Commanded by his Mistress, &c.] Marino's name is so frequent in books on literature, and his work so little known to the ordinary reader, that this example may be welcome. The rather snip-snap antithesis, and the somewhat obvious conceit, show the famous Italian really at his worst. 'President' (l. 1), though not impossible, is probably for 'precedent'. The whole piece has a special interest as showing how this 'conceit' and 'false wit' actually encouraged the growth of the stopped antithetic couplet which was to be turned against both.
The Repulse.
Not that by this disdain
I am releas'd,
And freed from thy tyrannic chain,