“Fate holds the strings, and men like children move
But as they’re led: success is from above.”
“And can they better die than for Chruseis?
The world’s a worthless sacrifice for her
More worth than thousand worlds. Let chaos come,
Confusion seize on all, whene’er we part;
Int’rest, ambition, piety, renown,
Pity, and reason, I have weigh’d ’em all,
But O how light! when love is in the scale.”
“Brave as he is, oft when the trumpet sounds,
He’ll loyter3
For aparting kiss from his Briseis.”
“The sick, who know they perish for her sake,
Crawl from their tents, to gaze upon her face,
And looking on her feel returns of strength.”
9“When thy Gods
Enlighten thee to speak their dark decrees.”
“Let all be Hellens, perjur’d Devils all.
Let every Husband, be a noted Cuckold.”
“Their setting Sun still shoots a glim’ring ray,
Like ancient Rome, majestick in decay:
And better gleanings, their worn soil can boast,
“Than the Crab-Vintage of the neigh’bring Coast.”
“It so declines that shortly we shall see,
Players and plays reduc’d to second infancy.
They plot not on the stage, but on the town,
And in despair the empty pit to fill,
Set up some foreign monster in a bill:
Thus they jog on; still tricking, never thriving;
And murd’ring plays, which they miscall reviving.
Scarce can a poet know the play he made,
’Tis so disguis’d.”