Some weigh their pleasure by their lust, A cloaked craft their store of skill: My wealth is health and perfect ease: JOHN LYLY. (1554?-1606.) These are the first of the numerous songs from the Elizabethan Dramatists included in this volume. Mr. Bullen has edited a volume of such Lyrics from the Dramatists (London, 1889). The first and second occur in Alexander and Campaspe, 1584 (acted 1581). The Hymn to Apollo is in Midas, 1592 (acted 1590): Mr. Symonds compares this Hymn to the Processional Hymns of the Greek Parthenia, and says that it "might well have been used at such a festival". The Fairy Song is from Endymion, 1591 (acted circa 1580). The songs, however, were not included with the plays until the collective edition of 1632. There is a modern edition of Lyly's Dramatic Works edited by F. W. Fairholt (London, 1858, 2 vols.). APELLES' SONG. CUPID and my Campaspe played At cards for kisses-Cupid paid. He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, Growing on's cheek (but none knows how); SPRING'S WELCOME. WHAT bird so sings, yet so does wail? O't is the ravished nightingale. "Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu," she cries, HYMN TO APOLLO. SING to Apollo, god of day, Whose golden beams with morning play, And make her eyes so brightly shine, Aurora's face is called divine; Sing to Phoebus and that throne Of diamonds which he sits upon. To Physic's and to Poesy's king! Crown all his altars with bright fire, A Daphnean coronet for his head, To the glittering Delian king! FAIRY REVELS. Omnes. PINCH him, pinch him black and blue ; Saucy mortals must not view I Fairy. 2 Fairy. 3 Fairy. What the queen of stars is doing, Nor pry into our fairy wooing. Pinch him blue— And pinch him black Let him not lack Sharp nails to pinch him blue and red, Till sleep has rocked his addlehead. 4 Fairy. For the trespass he hath done, Spots o'er all his flesh shall run. Kiss Endymion, kiss his eyes, Then to our midnight heydeguyes. ROBERT GREENE. (1560?-1592.) Greene's Lullaby is from his pastoral romance of Menaphon, 1589. The second song is from Pandosto, 1588, and the last from Philomela, 1592. Dyce has edited the Dramatic and Poetical Works of Greene, and his Complete Works, edited by Dr. Grosart, occupy fifteen volumes in the Huth Library. Selections from his verse occur in Bullen's Poems from Elizabethan Romances, and also accompany the last edition of the same editor's Lyrics from Elizabethan Dramatists. Additional selections from Greene and other Elizabethan writers of pastoral lyrics may be found in Chambers's English Pastorals, in the present series. SEPHESTIA'S SONG TO HER CHILD. WE EEP not, my wanton, smile upon my knee; Father's sorrow, father's joy; Last his sorrow, first his joy. Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee; Tears of blood fell from his heart, Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, Mother cried, baby leapt; More he crowed, more we cried, Father's sorrow, father's joy. Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee; FAWNIA. AH, were she pitiful as she is fair, Ан Or but as mild as she is seeming so, That seems to melt even with the mildest touch, Then knew I where to seat me in a land, Under wide heavens, but yet I know not such. Ah, when she sings, all music else be still, She comforts all the world, as doth the sun, O glorious sun, imagine me the west, Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast! |