Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VIRGIDEMIAE: HIS DEFIANCE TO ENUIE, by JOSEPH HALL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VIRGIDEMIAE: HIS DEFIANCE TO ENUIE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Nay: let the prouder pines of ida fear
Last Line: Monstra noui monstri haec, & satyri & satyrae.
Subject(s): Envy; Fear; Muses


Nay: let the prouder Pines of Ida feare
The sudden fires of heauen: and decline
Their yeelding tops, that dar'd the skies whilere:
And shake your sturdy trunks ye prouder Pines,
Whose swelling graines are like be gald alone,
With the deepe furrowes of the thunderstone.

Stand ye secure, ye safer shrubs below,
In humble dales, whom heauens do not despight:
Nor angry clouds conspire your ouerthrow,
Enuying at your too-disdainfull hight.
Let high attemps dread Enuy and ill tongues
And cowardly shrink for feare of causelesse wrongs.

So wont big Okes feare winding Yuy-weed:
So soaring Egles feare the neighbour Sonne:
So golden Mazor wont suspicion breed,
Of deadly Hemlocks poysoned Potion.
So Adders shroud themselues in fayrest leaues:
So fouler Fate the fayrer thing bereaues.

Nor the low bush feares climbing Yuy twine:
Nor lowly Bustard dreads the distant rayes,
Nor earthen Pot wont secret death to shrine:
Nor suttle Snake doth lurke in pathed waies.
Nor baser deed dreads Enuie and ill tongues,
Nor shrinks so soone for feare of causlesse wrongs.

Needs me then hope, or doth me need mis-dread:
Hope for that honor, dread that wrongfull spight:
Spight of the partie, honor of the deed,
Which wont alone on loftie obiectes light.
That Enuy should accost my Muse and mee,
For this so rude, and recklesse Poesie.

Would she but shade her tender Brows with Bay,
That now lye bare in carelesse wilfull rage:
And trance her selfe in that sweet Extasie,
That rouseth drouping thoughts of bashfull age.
(Tho now those Bays, and that aspired thought,
In carelesse rage, she sets at worse then nought.)

Or would we loose her plumy pineon,
Manicled long with bands of modest feare:
Soone might she haue those Kestrels proud out gone
Whose flightty wings are dew'd with weeter ayre,
And hopen now to shoulder from aboue
The Eagle from the stayrs of friendly Ioue.

Or list she rather in late Triumph reare
Eternall Trophees to some Conqueror,
Whose dead desarts slept in his Sepulcher,
And neuer saw, nor life, nor light before:
To lead sad Pluto captiue with my song,
To grace the Triumphs he obscur'd so long.

Or scoure the rusted swords of Eluish knights,
Bathed in Pagan blood: or sheath them new
In misty morall Types: or tell their fights,
Who mighty Giants, or who Monsters slew.
And by some strange inchanted speare and shield,
Vanquisht their foe, & wan the doubtfull field.

May be she might in stately Stanzaes frame
Stories of Ladies, and aduenturous knights:
To raise her silent and inglorious name,
Vnto a reach-lesse pitch of praises hight:
And somewhat say, as more vnworthy done,
Worthy of Brasse, and hoary Marble stone.

Then might vaine Enuy waft her duller wing,
To trace the aerie steps, she spiting sees:
And vainely faint in hopelesse following
The clouded paths her natiue drosse denies,
But now such lowly Satyres here I sing,
Not worth our Muse, not worth their enuying.

Too good (if ill) to be expos'd to blame:
Too good, if worse, to shadowe shamelesse vice.
Ill, if too good, not answering their name:
So good and ill in fickle censure lies.
Since in our Satyre lyes both good and ill,
And they and it, in varying readers will.

Witnesse ye Muses how I wilfull song
These heddy rymes, withouten second care:
And wish't them worse, my guilty thoughts emong:
The ruder Satyre should goe rag'd and bare:
And show his rougher and his hairy hide:
Tho mine be smooth, and deckt in carelesse pride.

Would we but breath within a wax-bound quill,
Pans seuenfold Pipe, some plaintiue Pastorall:
To teach each hollow groue, and shrubby hill,
Ech murmuring brooke, ech solitary vale
To sound our loue, and to our song accord,
Wearying Eccho with one changelesse word.

Or list vs make two striuing shepheards sing,
With costly wagers for the victory,
Vnder Menalcas iudge: whiles one doth bring
A caruen Bole well wrought of Beechen tree:
Praising it by the story, or the frame,
Or want of vse, or skilfull makers name.

Another layeth a well-marked Lambe,
Or spotted Kid, or some more forward Steere;
And from the payle doth praise their fertile dam:
So do they striue in doubt, in hope, in feare,
Awaiting for their trustie Vmpires doome,
Faulted as false, by him that's ouercome.

Whether so me list my lonely thought to sing,
Come dance ye nimble Dryads by my side:
Ye gentle wood-Nymphs come: & with you bring
The willing Fauns that mought your musick guide.
Come Nimphs & Faunes, that haunt those shadie Groues,
Whiles I report my fortunes or my loues.

Or whether list me sing so personate,
My striuing selfe to conquer with my verse:
Speake ye attentiue swaynes that heard me late,
Needs me giue grasse vnto the Conquerers.
At Colins feete I throw my yeelding reed:
But let the rest win homage by their deed.

But now (ye Muses) sith your sacred hests
Profaned are by each presuming tongue:
In scornfull rage I vow this silent rest,
That neuer field nor groue shall here my song.
Onely these refuse rimes I here mispend,
To chide the world, that did my thoughts offend.

De suis Satyris.

Dum Satyrae dixi, videor dixisse Sat irae,
Corripio; aut istaec non satis est Satyra.

Ira facit Satyram, reliquum Sat temperat iram:
Pinge tuo Satyram sanguine, tum Satyra est.

Ecce nouam Satyram: Satyrum sine cornibus! Euge
Monstra noui monstri haec, & Satyri & Satyrae.





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