Christ's PASSION. A tragedy. WITH ANNOTATIONS.  
LONDON, Printed by john Legatt. M. D. C. XL. M.   

TO THE king's MOST EXCELLENT majesty.  
SIR,  
I Am bold to present you with this Piece of the PASSION, the Original designed by the curious Pencil of Grotius: whose former afflictions seem to have taught him pliable passions, and art to rule the affections of others: clothing the saddest of Subjects in the suitable attire of Tragedy; not without the Example of two ancient Fathers of the Primitive Church, Apollinarius and Nazianzen. The Argument is of both the Testaments a pathetical Abstract. Those formidable Wonders, effected by God in his own Commonwealth; those stupendious Miracles, for truth a Pattern to all History, for strangeness to all Fables; here meet together to attend on CHRIST'S PASSION. The effects of his Power here sweetly end in those of his Mercy: and that terrible Lord of Hosts, is now this meek God of Peace; reconciling all to one another, and Mankind to Himself. Sr. in this change of Language I am no punctual Interpreter: a way as servile as ungraceful. Quintilian censures a Painter, that he more affected Similitude then Beauty; who would have shown greater Skill, if less of Resemblance: the same in Poetry is condemned by Horace; of that Art the great Lawgiver. Thus in the Shadow of your Absence, dismissed from Arms by an Act of Time, have I, in what I was able, continued to serve you.  
The humblest of your Majesty's Servants, GEORGE SANDYS.   

THE PERSONS.  

JESUS.  
CHORUS OF JEWISH WOMEN.  
PETER.  
PONTIUS PILATE.  
CAIAPHAS.  
JUDAS.  
THE JEWS.  
FIRST NUNCIUS.  
SECOND NUNCIUS.  
CHORUS OF ROMAN soldiers.  
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.  
NICODEMUS.  
JOHN.  
MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS.    

Imprimatur:  
Tho. Wykes. September 17. 1639.   


THE FIRST ACT.  JESUS. 
O Thou who governest what thou didst create  
With equal sway, great Arbiter of Fate,  
The World's Almighty Father; I, thy Son,  
Though born in Time, before his Course begun;  
Thus far my Deeds have answered thy Commands:  
If more remain, my Zeal prepared stands  
To execute thy Charge: all that I fear,  
All that I hate, I shall with patience bear;  
No misery refuse, no toil, nor shame:  
I know for this into the world I came.  
And yet how long shall these extremes endure!  
What Day or Night have known my life secure!  
My burden, by enduring, heavier grows;  
And present ills a way to worse disclose.  
My Kingdom, Heaven, I left, to visit Earth;  
And suffered banishment before my Birth.  
An unknown Infant, in a stable born,  
Lodged in a manger: little, poor, forlorn,  
And miserable: though so vile a Thing,  
Yet worthy of the envy of a King.  
Two years scarce yet complete, too old was thought  
By Herod's fears: while I alone was sought,  
The bloody Sword Ephratian Dames deprives  
Of their dear Babes; through wounds they exhaled their lives.  
Secured by flying to a foreign Clime,  
The Tyrant through his Error lost his Crime.  
A Thousand Miracles have made me known  
Through all the World, and my extraction shown.  
Envy against me raves: yet Virtue hath  
More storms of Mischief raised, than Herod's wrath.  
It is decreed by thy unchanging Will,  
I should be acknowledged, and rejected still?  
Th'inspired Magi from the Orient came,  
Preferred my Star before their Mithra's flame,  
And at my infant feet devoutly fell:  
But Abraham's Seed, the House of Israel,  
To thee sequestered from Eternity,  
Degenerate and ingrate! their God deny.  
Behold the contumacious Pharisies,  
Armed with dissembled Zeal, against me rise:  
The bloody Priests to their stern Party draw  
The Doctors of their unobserved law:  
And impious Sadduces, to perpetrate  
My intended Overthrow incense the State.  
What rests to quicken Faith? Even at my Nod  
Nature submits, acknowledging her God.  
The Galilean Youth drink the pure blood  
Of generous Grapes, drawn from the Neighbour flood:  
I other's famine cured, subdued my own;  
Life-strengthening food for forty days unknown.  
Twixt the dispenser's hands th'admired Bread  
Increased, great multitudes of People fed,  
Yet more than all remained. The Winds assuage  
Their storms; & threatening Billows calm their rage.  
The hardened Waves unsinking feet endure:  
And pale Diseases, which despise their cure,  
My Voice subdues. Long Darkness chased away,  
To me the Blind by Birth now owes his Day.  
He hears who never yet was heard; now speaks,  
And in my Praises first his silence breaks.  
Those damned Spirits of infernal Night,  
Rebels to God, and to the Sons of Light  
Inveterate foes; my Voice but heard, forsake  
The long possessed, and struck with terror quake.  
Nor was't enough for Christ, such wonders done,  
To profit those alone who see the Sun:  
To vanquish Death my powerful hand invades  
His silent Regions and inferior Shades.  
The Stars, the Earth, the Seas, my triumphs know:  
What rests to conquer but the Deeps below?  
Through opening Sepulchers, night's gloomy Caves,  
The violated privilege of Graves,  
I sent my dread Commands: A heat new born  
Reanimates the Dead, from funerals torn;  
And Deaths-numb Cold expulsed, enforced a way  
For Souls departed to review the Day.  
The Ashes from their ransacked Tombs receive  
A second life, and by my bounty breathe.  
But Death, his late free Empire thus restrained,  
Not used to restore his Spoils, complained  
That I should thus unweave the web of Fate,  
Decrease his Subjects, and subvert his State:  
ay, for so many ransomed from Death,  
Must to his anger sacrifice my breath.  
And now that horrid Hour is almost come,  
When sinful Mortals shall their Maker doom:  
When I, the world's great Lord, who life on all  
Mankind bestowed, must by their fury fall.  
That Tragic Time to my last Period hasts;  
And Night, who now on all her Shadows casts,  
While with the motion of the Heavens she flies,  
This short delay of my sad life envies.  
Fate, be less stern in thy intended Course;  
Nor drag him who will follow without force!  
After so many miseries endured;  
Cold, Heat, Thirst, Famine, eyes to tears enured;  
The end, yet worst of ills, draws near: their breath,  
For whom I suffer, must procure my death.  
The Innocent, made guilty by the foul  
Defects of others, must his weary Soul  
Sigh into air; and though of heavenly birth,  
With his chaste blood distain th'ungrateful Earth.  
They traffic for my Soul: my death, long sought,  
Is by the mitred Merchant's faction bought;  
And Treason finds reward. My travels draw  
Near their last end. These practices I saw;  
See what this night's confederate Shadows hide:  
My Mind before my Body crucified.  
Horror shakes all my Powers: my entrails beat,  
And all my Body flows with purple sweat.  
O whither is my ancient Courage fled,  
And Godlike Strength! by Anguish captive led.  
O Death, how far more cruel in thy kind!  
Th'anxiety and torment of the Mind!  
Then must I be of all at once bereft?  
Or is there any hope of safety left?  
O might I to my heavenly Father pray,  
So supple to my tears, to take away  
Part of these ills! But his eternal Doom  
Forbids, and ordered Course of things to come.  
His purpose, fixed when yet the world was young,  
And Oracles, so oft by Prophets sung,  
Now rushing on their destinated end,  
No Orisons, nor Sacrifice can bend.  
Why stay I with triumphant feet to tread  
Upon th'infernal Serpents poisonous Head,  
And break th' old dragon's jaws? The sin of our  
First Parents must be cleansed with a shower  
Of blood, rained from my wounds: my death appease,  
And cure the venom of that dire Disease.  
All you who live, rejoice; all you who die:  
You sacred ashes of the just which lie  
In peaceful Urns, rejoice in this my fall:  
I for the living lived, but die for all.  
My sufferings are not lost. To Earth I owe  
These promised ills: bonds, whips, and thorns to grow  
About out bleeding brows; the Cross the scorn  
Of a proud People, to destruction born.  
O let my Father's wrath through singed air  
On me in thunder dart, so mine it spare!  
Lest the World should, I perish; and must bear  
The punishments of all that ever were.  
You who inhabit, where the Sun displays  
His early light, or near his setting Rays;  
Who suffer by his perpendicular  
Aspect, or frieze beneath the Northern star;  
Affect this ready Sacrifice, who am  
A greater offering than the Paschal Lamb.  
My precious blood alone the virtue hath  
To purge your sins, and quench my Father's wrath.  
Now the full Moon succeeds that Vernal light,  
Which equally divides the Day and Night;  
Sacred to Feasts. The next Sun shall survey  
One brighter than himself, and lose his Day.  
False Traitor, through thy guilt so timorous grown,  
Although thou leadest an army against One,  
Shrouded in Night; I am not taken by  
Thy guile, but know thy fraud, and haste to die.  
But you my chosen friends, who yet preserve  
Your faith entire, nor from your duty swerve;  
Your Festival, our washings past, rehearse  
Your maker's excellence in sacred Verse;  
While I to those frequented Shades repair  
Where the trees answer to the sighing Air.  
Learn, as we walk along, unto what place  
I shortly shall return; what heavenly Grace  
Is to descend upon you from above;  
What are the laws of Charity and Love.  
While my last prayers solicit Heaven, to Sleep  
Give no access: this Night my Vigil keep.  CHORUS OF JEWISH WOMEN. 
THe rapid Motion of the Spheres  
Old Night from our Horizon bears;  
And now declining shades give way  
To the return of cheerful Day.  
But Phosphorus, who leads the Stars,  
And Day's illustrious Path prepares,  
Who last of all the Host retires,  
Not yet withdraws those radiant Fires:  
Nor have our Trumpets summoned  
The Morning from her dewy Bed:  
As yet her Roses are unblown,  
Nor by her purple Mantle known.  
All night we in the Temple keep,  
Not yielding to the charms of Sleep;  
That so we might with zealous prayer  
Our thoughts and cleansed hearts prepare  
To celebrate th'ensuing Light,  
When Phoebe shall her horns unite.  
This annual Feast to Memory  
Is sacred, nor with us must die:  
Thus by that dreadful Exul taught,  
When God his plagues on Egypt brought.  
Those Cities these our Rites bereave  
Of Citizens, and widows leave,  
Where Jordan from two bubbling Heads  
His oft-returning waters leads;  
Till they their narrow bounds forsake,  
And grow a Sea-resembling Lake.  
Those Woods of Palm, producing Dates;  
Of fragrant Balsamum, which hates  
The touch of Steel; where once the sound  
Of trumpets leveled with the ground  
Unbattered Walls; that Mount which shrouds  
His aiëry head in hanging Clouds,  
Where Death closed our lost prophet's eyes;  
Admire to see their Colonies  
Ascend the hills of Solyma  
In celebration of this Day.  
Cephaeans, whose strong Walls withstood  
The ruins of the General Flood,  
To solemnize this Day forsake  
Adored Dercetis, and her Lake.  
Hither the Palestines from strong  
Azotus, both the Jamnes throng.  
Not Lydda could her Own restrain;  
Nor Caparorsa's walls contain  
Her Edomites; Damascus could  
Not hers, though she ten Nations ruled:  
Nor yet Sabaste, long the Nurse  
Of impious Sons, sprung from our Surse.  
Phoenicians, who did first produce  
To Mortals letters, with their use;  
Where Tyrus full of Luxury  
With Mother Sidon, front the Sky,  
Hither with hasty zeal repair:  
Among the Syrians, those who dare  
Feed on forbidden fish; nor more  
The Deity of a Dove adore.  
From Belus, whose slow waters pass  
On glittering sands, which turn to glass:  
From Arnons banks; those Borderers  
The subject of our ancient wars:  
Whose sulphurous Bitumen take  
From salt Asphaltis' deadly lake.  
No Tempest on that Sea prevails;  
No ship upon her bosom sails;  
Unmoved with oars: what overflies,  
Struck by her breath, falls down and dies:  
Hates all that lives; in her Profound  
None are received, but flore undrowned:  
No Seas, by slimy shores embraced,  
So pestilent a vapour cast:  
This blasts the corn before it bears,  
And poisons the declining Ears:  
Sad autumn's fruits to cinders turn,  
And all the fields in ashes mourn:  
Lest time should waste the memory  
Of those revengeful flames, the sky  
On Earth in melting sulphur showered,  
Which that accursed Race devoured:  
When she who did commiserate  
With impious grief her City's fate,  
Grew, in the moment of her fault,  
A Statue of congealed Salt.  
Hither devout Esseans fly,  
Who without issue multiply,  
And Virtue only propagate:  
All sensual loves, all lucre hate,  
And equal Poverty embrace:  
Thrice happy, of a noble Race,  
Who slight your own particular,  
Transported with a public care.  
He flies a pitch above our woes,  
Or crimes, who gladly undergoes  
Their toil and want; nor would possess  
What others miscall Happiness.  
What numbers from the sun's uprise,  
From where he leaves the mourning Skies,  
Of our dispersed Abrahamites,  
This Vesper to their Homes invites!  
Yet we, in yearly triumph, still  
A Lamb for our deliverance kill.  
Since Liberty our Confines fled,  
Given with the first unleavened Bread,  
She never would return; though bought  
With wounds, and in destruction sought.  
Some stray to Lybia's scorched Sands,  
Where horned Hammons Temple stands:  
To Nilus some, where Philip's Son,  
Who all the rifled Orient won,  
Built his proud City: others gone  
To their old Prison, Babylon:  
A part to freezing Taurus fled;  
And Tiber, now the Ocean's Head.  
Our Ruins all the world have filled:  
But you, by use in sufferings skilled,  
Forgetting in remoter Climes  
Our vanisht Glory; nor those Times,  
Those happy Times, compare with these,  
Your burdens may support with ease.  
More justly we of Fate complain,  
Who Servitude at home sustain:  
We, to perpetual woes designed,  
In our own Country Egypt find.   

THE SECOND ACT.  PETER. 
YOu Offspring of bloodthirsty Romulus,  
Foes to sweet Peace, to our great God, and us,  
And you profane Sacrificers, who  
With subtle mischief guiltless blood pursue;  
Since you would not refuse to bind the hands  
Of Innocence, on me impose your bands:  
Seize on the guilty; he who hath refused  
His Lord and Master, by himself accused.  
The ills yet suffered, I deserve to bear  
For looking on; what follows, for my fear.  
You need no torches to subdue the Night's  
Dark Shades to find me; no stern Satellites  
Drawn from the Temple, nor with Romans join  
To act one Sin; nor spend your sacred Coin  
In salary to such a Guide as may  
With a perfidious kiss his Lord betray.  
This Head I give you freely; hither haste:  
No sudden hurl-winds shall your bodies cast  
On trembling Earth. Behold; I with my hands  
Behind me bound, implore your dire Commands;  
And run to meet your stripes. Are you now prone  
To melting pity? will you punish none  
But with injustice? is your fury slow,  
Unless to those who no offences know?  
We both alike have impiously transgressed:  
You in not punishing a fault confessed;  
And I who have the living Lord denied.  
Just Judges of a life so sanctified  
To whom suborned Witnesses have sold  
Their damned perjuries, a Wretch behold,  
And hear his Crime: My Country Galilee,  
To follow Christ I left both Land and Sea:  
Son to the Thunderer, his only Heir;  
From Heaven sent by his Father to repair  
And rule th'affairs of Mortals. This is He,  
Whom you have bound, who must his Country free.  
Rebellious Vassals, you have doomed your King.  
I know the impious Race from whence you spring,  
Your savage manners, cruel Ancestors,  
Whom Nature, as her greatest curse, abhors.  
Such, when the trembling Boy his brothers' hands,  
Their truculent aspects, and servile bands  
Beheld; though privy to a better fate,  
Whose providence was to reward their hate:  
Soon after, called to Nile's seven channeled Flood,  
He famine from both Lands expelled with food.  
So your seditious Fathers mutined  
At Sina's rocks against their sacred Head:  
And there the food of Angels loathed, which fell  
From Heaven in showers: besotted Israel  
Egypt and Servitude preferred above  
The Tents of Moses, and their country's love.  
What numbers, with prophetic Raptures filled,  
Have you, and yet not unrevenged, killed!  
Memphis, devouring Deserts, Civil wars,  
Oft foreign Yokes, Assyrian Conquerors,  
Great Pompey's Eagles, sacred Rites profaned,  
Your Temple sacked, with slaughtered Levites stained;  
Are all forgot? Yet worse attend your Hate.  
O that I were the Minister of Fate!  
I then would tear your guilty buildings down,  
And in a crimson Sea their ruins drown.  
Witness you Groves, late conscious to our cares,  
Where Christ with tears poured forth his funeral prayers,  
How I revenge pursued; and with their blood  
Would have augmented Cedrons murmuring Flood:  
But he, for whom I struck, reproved the blow;  
And following his own Precept, cured his foe.  
For Malchus, rushing on in front of all,  
Perceiving part of his, without him, fall,  
Searched with his flaming brand: the bleeding ear  
See on the earth, revenge subdued his fear;  
Who loudly roaring shook his threatened bands,  
And straight encountered those all-healing hands:  
They to his Head that Ornament restored,  
And benefits for injuries afford.  
But O blind Mischief! ay, who gave the Wound,  
Am left at large; and he, who healed it, bound.  
O Peter, canst thou yet forbear to throw  
Thy body on the weapons of the Foe!  
If thou wouldst vindicate thy Lord, begin  
First with thyself, and punish thy own Sin.  
Thou that dar'st menace armies, thou that art  
Fierce, as a Midian Tiger, of a heart  
Invincible, nor knows what 'tis to dread;  
With Fortune, at the first encounter, fled.  
A Fugitive, a Rebel; one that hath  
All crimes committed in this breach of faith.  
Who towering hopes on his own strength erects,  
Nor the self-flattering Minds deceit suspects,  
But his vain Virtue trust; let him in me  
The sad example of his frailty see:  
From slippery heights how prone Mortals slide;  
Their heady errors punishing their pride.  
What can I add to these misdeeds of mine!  
Who have defiled the water, bread, and wine,  
With my abhorred defection! O, could I  
Those lips pollute with wilful perjury,  
But newly feasted with that sacred food,  
Presenting his torn flesh, and poured-out blood!  
O Piety! for this, thou Renegade,  
Did Jesus wash thy flying feet of late!  
Not Jordan with two Heads, whose waters roll  
From snow-top Libanus, can cleanse thy Soul:  
Not thou Callirhoe; nor that ample Lake,  
From whose forsaken shore my birth I take,  
Couldst thou blue Nereus, in whose troubled Deep  
Nile's seven large Mouths their foaming currents steep,  
Or that red Sea, whose waves in Rampires stood  
While our forefathers past the parted Flood?  
These purging streams from thy own Springs must flow.  
Repentance, why are thy complaints so slow!  
Raise storms of sighs; let tears in torrents fall,  
And on thy blushing cheeks deep furrows gall.  
O so! run freely: beat thy stubborn breast:  
Here spend thy rage; these blows become thee best.  
This, wretched Cephas, for thy crimes I owe:  
What can I for my injured Lord bestow!  
My deeds and sufferings disproportioned are;  
Nor must they in an equal sorrow share.  
Should this Night ever last, to propagate  
Increasing sorrows, till subdued by Fate,  
My penitent Soul this wasted flesh forsake;  
Yet can my guilt no reparation make.  
Swollen eyes, now weep you? than you should have wept,  
Besprinkled my devotion, and have kept  
That holy Watch, when interdicted Sleep  
Your drowsy lids did in his Lethe steep.  
You should have dropped my brains into a Flood,  
Before he at that dire Tribunal stood:  
Ere thrice abjured, on me his looks he threw;  
Or ere th'accusing Bird of Dawning drew.  
Where shall I hide me! in what Dungeon may  
My troubled Soul avoid the woeful Day!  
Fly quickly to some melancholy Cave,  
In whose dark entrails thou mayst find a grave  
To bury thee alive: there waste thy years  
In cherished Sorrow, and unwitnessed Tears.  PONTIUS PILAT. CAIAPHAS. 
TArpaean Jove; Mars, great Quirinus' Sire;  
You Household gods, snatched from Troy's funeral Fire,  
With greater Zeal adored; when shall I pay  
My Vows! my Offerings on your Altars lay!  
And see those Roofs which top the Clouds! the Beams  
With burnished gold enchased, and blazing Gems.  
Those Theatres; which ring with their applause  
Who on the conquered World impose their Laws!  
And thee, the triple Earth's imperious Guide,  
Great-Souled Tiberius! whether thou reside  
On Tiber's banks, adored by grateful Rome;  
Ambitious of his residence, for whom  
She gave the World; or Caprae, much renowned  
For soft delights, impoverish the Long-gowned!  
Far from my friends, far from my native Soil  
I here in honourable Exile toil,  
To curb a People whom the Gods disclaim:  
Who cover under the usurped Name  
Of Piety, their hate to all Mankind;  
Condemn the world; in their own vices blind:  
And with false grounded fear abjure for One,  
All those Immortals which the Heavens enthrone.  
Their only Law is to renounce all Laws:  
Their Error, which from other's hatred draws,  
Fomenting their own discord, still provokes  
Their Spirits to Rebellion, who their yokes  
Have oft attempted to shake-off; though they  
More easily are subdued, then taught to obey.  
Clear Justice, sincere Faith, bear witness you  
With how much grief our swords the Hebrews slew:  
But such as stubborn and inhuman are,  
Unless they suffer, would enforce a War:  
And Reason urgeth those who Sceptres bear,  
Against their Nature, oft to prove severe.  
I go to question what these Prelates would:  
Since they forbear to enter, lest they should  
(Their Feast so near) with my unhallowed Floor  
Their feet pollute. Who's this, by such a power  
In shackles led! How reverend his aspect!  
How full of awe! these Looks no guilt detect.  
Thou, Caiaphas, of Solyma the Prime,  
And Prince of Priests, relate th'imputed Crime.  CAIAPHAS. 
Great Guardian of the Roman Peace, whom we  
Next Caesar honour; to be doomed by thee  
Our Senate brings th'Infection of these Times:  
Whom we accuse of no suggested crimes.  
Those holy Rites which grave Antiquity  
First introduced, since defended by  
A long descent, this Innovator sought  
To abolish, and a new Religion taught.  
Nor fearing the Recess of Gods own Seat,  
The Temple's ruin sings, and Roof replete  
With the full Deity: disturbs the Feast  
Of the seventh Day, designed for sacred Rest.  
Those laws rejects which Moses pen revealed,  
Even those by God with dreadful thunder sealed.  
Nor so content; with Heaven his fury wars,  
Aspires that Throne, and tramples on the Stars.  
Who styles himself, though of ignoble birth,  
His only son, who made both Heaven and Earth.  
This, Death must expiate; he hath judged his Cause,  
Who writ in leaves of Marble our ten Laws.  PILAT. 
When Wrath, the Nurse of War, and thirst of gold  
Destructive Arts produced; the better Souled  
No peace nor safety found, enforced to bear:  
Life, of itself infirm, through common fear  
Into Societies the scattered drew,  
Who by united forces potent grew:  
Entrenched Cities with high walls immured;  
But more by well-digested Laws secured:  
The Crime and Punishment proportion kept;  
And Wrongs, like Wolves, on their first Authors leapt:  
Justice from each Offence example took;  
And his own weapon the Delinquent struck:  
Spoil seized on Rapine, Blood drew blood; deterred  
From doing that, which they to suffer feared.  
But more than humane plagues attend on those  
Who God provoke: he prosecutes his foes  
With sure revenge. Why should those Hands which tear  
The clouds with thunder, shake the World with fear;  
Their wrath to Man resign? The impious find  
Their scourge: the terror of th'astonished Mind  
Affrights their peace: who feel what they deny;  
And fear an unbelieved Deity.  
One Day no period to his torment gives:  
To tremble at the Name of Death he lives;  
Still apprehending what then death is worse;  
Long life awarded to prolong his curse.  
But if he have your laws infringed, be you  
yourselves the judges, and his guilt pursue.  CAIAPHAS. 
Although those ancient Laws, which now remain  
Among us, we acknowledge to retain  
From Rome's free bounty; yet to you 'tis known,  
Our curbed Power can death inflict on none.  
You, to whom Caesar's Fortunes recommend  
His Rods and Axes, sacred Rule defend.  
This guilty Wretch, whose practises we fear,  
Of late his place of birth forsaking, where  
The Sea is honoured with Tiberius' Name,  
With troops of Clients to this City came.  
Who seeds of War among the Vulgar sows:  
With what injustice Roman Arms impose  
Their Tribute on a Nation ever free.  
With magic Charms, and Stygian compact, he  
Attracts belief: denies the dead their rest,  
Of those unenvied Mansions dispossessed  
By wicked Spells. These prodigies delude  
The novelty-affecting Multitude:  
Whom for their Lord their loud Hosannas greet;  
And strew the noble Palm beneath his see't.  
Emboldened by these Arts; He, as his own  
By birth, aspires to David's ancient Throne.  
When Rome, provoked by his rebellion, shall  
Arm her just Grief; we by the sword must fall,  
Our City sink in flames, our Country lie  
Depopulated. But since One must die  
To save the General; sentenced by thy breath,  
Let him redeem his Nation with his death.  PILAT. 
Such doubtful causes grave advice require:  
Here, if you please, attend; while I retire.  
The Prisoner to the soldier's care commit:  
On whom this day we will in judgement fit.  CHORUS OF JEWISH WOMEN. 
YOu lofty towers of Solyma,  
Thou ancient Throne of Sovereign sway:  
To thee the conquered Tribute paid,  
From th'Isthmos, crowned with Ebon shade,  
To great Euphrates trembling Streams:  
Arabians, scorched by Phoebus beams.  
Th'admiring Queen, winged with thy Fame,  
From her black-peopled Empire came.  
Great Kings, ambitious of thy love,  
To join with thee in friendship strove.  
Those who Canopus' Sceptre bore;  
Those Monarchs who the Sun adore,  
And o'er the wealthy Orient reign:  
Sarrana, Sovereign of the Main.  
Now, ah! a miserable Thrall!  
O, nothing, but a prey to all!  
This Land, t'one God once chastely wed,  
How often hath she changed her Head,  
Since they our Temples ruined pride  
With bad presage re-edified!  
Since those, in foreign bondage born,  
Did with their servile Fates return!  
On us Antiochus guilt reflects:  
Our Father's Sins sit on our necks.  
What durst that wicked Age not do,  
Which could those Altars naked view,  
Oft flaming with celestial Fire!  
Provoking Heavens deserved ire  
With their adulterate Sacrifice!  
For this did Ours so highly prize  
Th'Ionian Gods, by mortals made,  
And incense to those Idols paid?  
Since when th'Accurst their brothers slew;  
Wives, less malicious poison brew;  
Sons fall by Mothers: we have known  
That, which will be believed by none.  
Twice vanquished by Roman Arms;  
Twice have their conquerors our harms  
Removed for greater: Fortunes change  
To our proud Masters proved as strange.  
Yet this no less our grief provokes,  
Our kindred bear divided yokes:  
One part by Roman bondage wrung;  
The other two by Brothers, sprung  
From Savage Idumaeans, whom  
Our Fathers have so oft o'ercome.  
O thou the Hope, the only One  
Of our distress, and ruined Throne;  
Of whom, with a prophetic tongue,  
To Judah dying Jacob sung:  
The crowned Muse on ivory Lyre,  
His breast inflamed with holy Fire,  
This oft foretell; That thou shouldst free  
The People consecrate to thee;  
That thou, triumphing, shouldst revoke  
Sweet Peace, then never to be broke;  
When freed Judaea should obey  
One Lord, and all affect his Sway.  
O when shall we behold thy Face,  
So often promised to our Race!  
If Prophets, who have won belief  
By our mishaps and flowing grief,  
Of joyful change as truly sung;  
Thy absence should not now be long.  
Thee, by thy Virtue, we entreat;  
The Temple's Veil, the Mercies Seat;  
That Name, by which our Fathers swore,  
Which in our vulgar Speech we dare  
Not utter, to compassionate  
Thy kindred's Tears, and ruined State.  
Hast, to our great Redemption, haste,  
O thou most Holy! and at last  
Bless with thy Presence; that we may  
To thee our Vows devoutly pay.   

THE THIRD ACT.  JUDAS. CAIAPHAS. 
YOu who preserve your pure integrity;  
O you whose crimes transcend not credit, fly  
Far from my presence! whose envenomed sight  
Pollutes the guilty. Thou, who wrong and right  
Distinctly canst discern; whose gentle breast  
All faith hath not abandoned, but art blessed  
With children, brothers, friends; nor hast declined  
The sweet affections of a pious Mind;  
Shut up the winding entry of thine ear,  
Nor let the world of such a bargain hear.  
A Sin so horrible should be to none  
Besides the desperate Contractors known.  
where's now that mitred Chief? where that dire Train  
Of Sacrificers, worthy to be slain  
On their own Altars? I have found my Curse:  
The Sun, except myself, sees nothing worse.  
Hear, without hire; O hear the too well known:  
If you seek for a witness; I am one  
That can the truth reveal: Or would you find  
A Villain? Her's a self-accusing Mind.  
That sacred Life, O most immaculate!  
More than my Masters! to your deadly Hate  
Have I betrayed: discharge my hands I may,  
Although not of the Guilt, yet of the Prey.  
Receive the gift you gave: a treachery  
Second to mine, you may of others buy.  CAIAPHAS. 
If thou accuse thyself of such a Sin  
Deservedly, thou hast a Court within,  
That will condemn thee. Thy offences be  
No Crimes of ours: our consciences are free.  
Nor shall the sacred Treasury receive  
The price of blood. Thee to thy Fate we leave.  JUDAS. 
Is this the doctrine of your piety  
To approve the Crime, yet hate the Hire? O fly,  
Fly, wretch, unto the Altar, and pollute  
The Temple with thy Sins accursed fruit.  
Nor will I for myself with hopeless prayer  
Solicit Heaven; lost in my own despair;  
But God's stern Justice urge, that we, who were  
Joined in the guilt, may equal vengeance bear.  
Nor shall I in my punishment prove slow:  
Behold, your Leader will before you go;  
'Tis fit you follow; to those silent Deeps,  
Those horrid Shades, where Sorrow never sleeps.  
Thou great Director of the ruling Stars,  
Unless thou idly look'st on men's affairs,  
And vainly we thy brutish Thunder fear;  
Why should thy land so dire a Monster bear?  
Or the Sun not retire, and yet behold?  
If those thy fearful punishments of old  
Require belief, in one unite them all:  
Let Seas in Cataracts from Meteors fall,  
Afford no shore, but swallow in their Brine;  
That so the World's first ruin may prove mine.  
Let melting Stars their sulphurous surfeit shed,  
And all the Heavenly Fires fall on my Head.  
And thou, O injured Earth, thy jaws extend,  
That I may to th'infernal Shades descend:  
Less cause had thy revenge, when she the five  
Enraged Conspirators devoured alive.  
Those evils which amazed the former-times,  
Thy fury hath consumed on smaller Crimes.  
O slow revenger of his injuries,  
And he thy Son! some fearful death devise;  
Unknown, and horrid: Or shall I pursue  
My own offence, and act what thou shouldst do?  
You Legions of heaven's Exuls, you who take  
Revenge on Mortals for the crimes you make;  
Why troop you thus about me? Or what need  
These terrors? Is my punishment decreed  
In Hell already? Furies, now I come.  
In your dark dungeons what more horrid Rome  
Shall now devour me? Must I to that Place,  
Where the cursed Father of a wicked Race  
Your scourges feels? who, when the world was new,  
And but possessed by four, his brother slew.  
Or where that faithless Prince blasphemes? than all  
His Host more eminent; who lest his fall  
Should honour to his enemies afford,  
Made way for hated Life with his own sword.  
He most affects me, who his father's Chair  
Usurped; when caught by his revenging Hair,  
He lost the Earth and Life: the way he led  
T'avoided Death, my willing feet shall tread.  
Master, I fly to anticipate the event  
Of my foul crime with equal punishment.  PONTIUS PILAT. THE JEWS. 
HOrror distracts my sense: irresolute  
Whether I should break silence, or sit mute.  
Envy th'accused condemns, whom Justice clears.  
I must confess, persuaded by my Fears,  
Lest I this State and People should incense,  
I wished they could have proved that great Offence.  
Yet whatsoever they enforced of late,  
No fault of his revealed, but their own hate.  
His silence was a vanquishing reply.  
Who for detecting their false piety  
(Whose supercilious looks, with fasting pale,  
Close avarice, and proud ambition veil)  
Is by their Arts made guilty: One that slights  
The God they adore, and violates his Rites.  
From hence those many-named Offences spring;  
And his aspiring to become their King.  
Can those poor Fishers of that Inland Sea,  
And women, following him from Galilee,  
So great a Spirit in their Leader raise;  
That Rome should fear, whom all the World obeys.  
Yet he avers his Kingdom is unknown,  
Nor of this World; and bows to Caesar's Throne.  
Proved by th'event: for when the Vulgar bound  
His yielding hands, they no resistance found.  
But his endowments, zealous in defence  
Of clouded Truth, their mortal hate incense.  
Followed by few, who like affections bear,  
And with belief their Master's doctrine hear.  
If true, he may speak freely; nor must die  
For Ostentation, though he broach a lie.  
But if distracted, that's a punishment  
Even to itself, and Justice doth prevent.  
He, whom this Annual Solemnity  
Hath now invited to the Temple by  
His Father built, whose Kingdom borders on  
The land ennobled by Agenor's Throne,  
Of these stupendious acts by Rumour spread  
Could fix no faith, though in his City bred.  
To laughter doomed, his Rival Herod scorned;  
And sent him back, in purple robes adorned.  
Th'implacable, now far more fiercely bent  
To prosecute the twice-found innocent:  
Perhaps afraid lest they their own should lose,  
Unless they him of forged guilt accuse.  
But when Revenge doth once the Mind engage;  
O how it raves! lost to all sense but rage!  
No Lioness, late of her whelps bereft,  
With wilder fury prosecutes the Theft.  
O Shame I through fear I sought to shield the Right  
With honest Fraud, and Justice steal by slight:  
As when the labouring Bark, too weak to stem  
The boisterous Tide, obliquely cuts the stream.  
They have an ancient Custom, if we may  
Believe the Jews, derived from that Day  
When the delivered Sons of Israel  
Fled from those banks whose floods in summer swell:  
That ever when the Vernal Moon shall join  
Her silver Orb, and in full lustre shine,  
They should some one release, to gratify  
The People, by their Law condemned to die.  
Now, hoping to have freed the Innocent,  
The violent Priests my Clemency prevent:  
Who urge the heady Vulgar to demand  
One Barrabas; a Thief, who had a hand  
In every murder, hot with humane blood.  
How little it avails us to be good!  
Preposterous Favour! through the hate they hear  
His guiltless Soul, their Votes the guilty clear.  
And now my Wives not idle dreams perplex  
My struggling thoughts, which all this night did vex  
Her troubled slumbers: who conjures me by  
All that is holy, all the Gods, that I  
Should not the laws of Justice violate  
To gratify so undeserved a hate.  
For this shall I the Hebrew Fathers slight,  
Th'endeavours of a Nation so unite,  
Committed to my charge? Shall I for One  
Poor Abject, forfeit all the good I have done?  
These pestered Walls all Jewry now enfold;  
The Houses hardly can their Strangers hold,  
Sent from all parts to this great Festival:  
What if the Vulgar to their weapons fall?  
Who knows the end, if once the Storm begin?  
Sure I, their Judge, egregious praise should win  
By troubling of the public Peace. Shall I  
Then render him to death? Impiety!  
For what offence? Is his offence not great,  
Whose innovation may a war beget?  
Lest Empire suffer, they who sceptres bear  
Oft make a Crime, and punish what they fear.  
One hope remains: Our Soldiers the Freeborn,  
And yet by our command, with whips have torn.  
A sight so full of pity may assuage  
The swiftly-spreading fire of popular Rage.  
Look on this Spectacle! his arms all o'er  
With lashes galled, deep died in their own gore!  
His sides exhausted! all the rest appears  
Like that Fictitious Scarlet which he wears!  
And for a Crown, the wreathed Thorns enfold  
His bleeding brows! With grief his grief behold!  jews. 
Away with him: from this Contagion free  
Th'infected Earth, and nail him on a Tree.  PILAT. 
What, crucify your King?  jews. 
Dominion can  
No Rival brook. His rule, a Law to Man,  
Whom Rome adores, we readily obey:  
And will admit of none but Caesar's Sway.  
He Caesar's right usurps, who hopes to ascend  
The Hebrew Throne. Thy own affairs intend.  
Dost thou discharge thy Masters trust, if in  
Thy government a precedent begin  
So full of danger, tending to the rape  
Of Majesty? Shall treason thus escape?  PILAT. 
The Tumult swells: the Vulgar and the Great,  
Join in their Votes with contributed heat.  
Whose whisperings such a change of murmur raise  
As when the rising Winds first Fury strays  
'Mong wave-beat Rocks; when gathering Clouds deform  
The face of Heaven, whose Wrath begets a Storm:  
The fearful Pilot then distrusts the Skies;  
And to the nearest Port for refuge flies.  
To these rude Clamours they mine ears enure:  
Such sharp diseases crave a sudden cure.  
You my Attendants, hither quickly bring  
Spot-purging Water from the living Spring.  
Thou liquid Crystal, from pollution clear;  
And you my innocent hands like record bear,  
On whom these cleansing streams so purely run;  
I voluntarily have nothing done.  
Nor am I guilty, though he guiltless die:  
Yours is the Crime; his Blood upon you lie.  jews. 
Rest thou secure. If his destruction shall  
Draw down celestial Vengeance, let it fall  
Thick on our heads, in punishment renew:  
And ever our dispersed Race pursue.  PILAT. 
Then I, from this Tribunal, mounted on  
Embellished Marble, Judgements awful Throne,  
Thus censure: Lead him to the Cross; and by  
A servile death let Judah's King there die.  CHORUS OF JEWISH WOMEN JESUS. 
WE all deplore thy miseries;  
For Thee we beat our breasts; our eyes  
In bitter tears their moisture shed:  
If thou be he by Ravens fed,  
Aloft on flaming Chariot born;  
Yet wouldst to cruel Lords return:  
Or that sad Bard, believed too late,  
Who sung his Countries' servile Fate;  
Now come to sigh her destiny,  
A like unhappy; twice to die:  
Or he, long nourished in the Wood,  
Who late in Jordan's cleansing Flood  
So many washed; that durst reprove  
A King for his incestuous love;  
Slain for a Dancer. If the same,  
Or other of an elder fame,  
Sent back to Earth, in vices drowned,  
To raise it from that dark Profound;  
'Tis sure thy Sanctity exceeds,  
Blazed by thy Virtue and thy Deeds.  
O never more, ringed with a Throng  
Of Followers, shall thy sacred tongue  
Inform our Actions; nor the way  
To Heaven, and heavenly joys, display!  
The Blind, who now the unknown light  
Beholds, scarce trusting his own sight,  
Thy gift, shall not the Giver see.  
Those maladies, subdued by thee,  
Which powerful Art and Herbs defy,  
No more thy sovereign Touch shall fly.  
Nor Loaves, so tacitly increased,  
Again so many thousands feast.  
Thou Rule of Life's Perfection,  
By Practice, as by Precept, shown;  
Late hemmed with Auditors, whose store  
Encumbered the too-narrow Shore,  
The Mountains covered with their Press,  
The Mountains then their People less;  
For whom our Youths their garments strew,  
Victorious Boughs before thee threw,  
While thou in Triumph rid'st along,  
Saluted with a joyful Song:  
Now, see what change from Fortune springs!  
O dire Vicissitude of Things!  
Betrayed, abandoned by thy own;  
Dragged by thy Foes, opposed by none.  
Thou hope of our afflicted state,  
Thou Balm of Life, and Lord of Fate;  
Not erst to such unworthy bands  
Didst thou submit thy powerful Hands.  
Lo, he who gave the dumb a tongue,  
With patient silence bears his wrong!  
The Soldier, ah! renews his blows;  
The whip new-opened furrows shows,  
Which now in angry tumours swell:  
To us their wrath the Romans sold.  
Lo, how his members flow! the smart  
Confined to no particular part:  
His stripes, which make all but one sore,  
Run in confused streams of gore.  
Art thou the Slave of thy own Fate,  
To bear thy torments cursed weight?  
What Arab, though he wildly stray  
In wandering Tents, and live by prey;  
Or Cyclop, who no pity knows,  
Would such a cruel task impose?  
O that the fatal pressure might  
Sink thee to Earth, nor weigh more light  
Than Death upon thee; that thy weak  
Untwisted thread of life might break!  
It were a blessing so to die:  
But O for how great cruelty  
Art thou reserved! the Cross thou now  
Support'st, must with thy burden bow.  JESUS. 
Daughters of Solyma, no more  
My wrongs thus passionately deplore.  
These tears for future sorrows keep:  
Wives, for yourselves and children weep.  
That horrid day will shortly come,  
When you shall bless the barren Womb,  
And Breast that never infant fed:  
Then shall you wish the mountain's head  
Would from his trembling basis slide,  
And all in tombs of ruins hide.  CHORUS. 
Alas! thou spotless Sacrifice  
To greedy Death! no more our eyes  
Shall see thy Face! ah, never more  
Shalt thou return from Death's dark shore.  
Though Lazarus, late at thy call,  
broke through the bars of Funeral;  
Raised from that Prison to review  
The World which then he hardly knew:  
Who forthwith former sense regains;  
The blood sprung in his heated Veins;  
His sinews supple grew, yet were  
Again almost congealed with fear.  
Thy followers, Sadock, now may know  
Their Error from the Shades below.  
A Few, beloved by the Most High,  
Through Virtue of the Deity,  
To others rarely rendered breath:  
None ever raised himself from death.   

THE FOURTH ACT.  FIRST NUNCIUS. CHORUS OF JEWISH WOMEN. SECOND NUNCIUS. 
I From the horrid'st Act that ever fed  
The fire of barbarous Rage, at length am fled:  
Yet O too near! The Object still pursues;  
Floats in mine eyes, that sad Scene renews.  CHORUS. 
Art thou a witness of his misery?  
sawst thou the Galilean Prophet die?  1. NUNCIUS. 
Those Savages, to Scythian Rocks confined,  
Who know no God, nor virtue of the Mind,  
But only Sense pursue; who hunger tame  
With slaughtered Lives; they, and their food, the same;  
Would this detest.  CHORUS. 
Vain Innocence! would none  
Lend him a tear! were all transformed to stone!  1. NUNCIUS. 
No certainly: yet so commiserate,  
As Pity proved more tyrannous than Hate.  
The cursed Tree with too much weight oppressed  
His stooping shoulders: Death had now released  
His fainting Soul: but O, the Lenity  
Of Malice would not suffer him to die,  
Part of the load imposed with idle scorn  
On Lybian Simon, in Cyrene born.  
To whom th'affected quiet of the fields,  
Secured by Poverty, no safety yields.  
The Furies of the City him surprise,  
Who from the vices of the City flies:  
Who bears not his own burden, that none may  
Misdoubt, the Innocent became their prey.  CHORUS. 
Forthwith unmask this wretched face of Woe:  
All that he suffered, and the manner show;  
What words broke from his sorrow; give thy tongue  
A liberal scope: Our minds not seldom long  
To know what they abhor: nor spare our ears;  
What can be heard, is fancied by our fears.  1. NUNCIUS. 
Without the City, on that side which lies  
Exposed to the boisterous injuries  
Of the cold North, to War a fatal Way,  
Infamous by our slaughters, Golgotha  
Exalts his Rock. No flowers there paint the field,  
Nor flourishing trees refreshing shadows yield:  
The ground all white, with bones of mortals spread,  
staunched with the putrefaction of the dead,  
And relics of unburied Carcases.  
Who on his aged Father's throat durst seize,  
Rip-up his mother's womb; who poison dressed  
For his own brother; or his unknown Guest  
Betrayed, and gave his mangled flesh for food  
Unto the wild inhabitants of the Wood;  
This Stage of Death deserved: while every soul  
Misdeed of theirs pursues the guilty Soul.  
Now when the Nazarite at this dismal place  
Arrived, with a weak and tardy pace;  
lest he should die too quickly, some prefer  
Sweet wine, mixed with the bitter tears of Myrrh.  
He of the idle present hardly tastes;  
But to encounter with his torments hasts.  
The Steel now bored his feet, whose slit veins spout  
Like pierced conduits; both his arms strechtout.  
His hands fixed with two nails. While his great Soul  
These tortures suffered, while the rising bowl  
Forsook the Earth, and crimson Torrents sprung  
From his fresh wounds, he gave his Grief no tongue.  
The Cross advanced and fixed; then, as more nigh  
To his own Heaven, his eyes bent on the Sky,  
Among such never to be equaled woes  
(Who would believe it!) pities his stern foes;  
And thinks those false Contrivers, those who gored  
His flesh with wounds, more fit to be deplored:  
Who even their merited destruction fears;  
And falsely judged, the truly guilty clears.  
Father, he cries, forgive this sin: they knew  
Not what they did, nor know what now they do.  
Meanwhile the Soldiers, who in blood delight,  
With hearts more hard than Rocks, behold this sight;  
And savage Rigour never reconciled  
To Pity, all humanity exiled:  
Who, used to pillage, now intend their prey;  
Nor for his death, though then a dying, stay;  
But he alive, and looking on, divide  
The Spoil; yet more in the Spectator joyed.  
Fury in trifles sports: their scorn his poor,  
Yet parted garments, distribute to four.  
His inward Robe, with one contexture knit,  
Nor of the like division would admit,  
Their votes to the dispose of Lots refer,  
Electing Chance for their blind Arbiter.  
Nor was't the least of evils to behold  
Th' ignoble Partners of his pain; who old  
In mischief robbed the murdered Passengers;  
Followed by Troops, that filled the Night with fears.  
While thus they hung, none could the doubt explain,  
whether He more had saved then They had slain.  
The numerous Index of each bloody deed  
Now brand their lives: when those who could not read  
At such a distance, of the next inquire  
For what they died; who had the same desire.  
But above his declining Head they hung  
A table in three Languages: the Tongue,  
The first of tongues, which taught our Abrahamites  
Those heavenly Precepts, and mysterious Rites;  
Next, that which to th'informed World imparts  
The Grecian Industry, and learned Arts;  
Then this, from whence the conquered Earth now takes  
Her Laws, and at the Roman Virtue quakes;  
All of one sense. His place of birth, his Name  
Declare; and for the Hebrew King proclaim.  
After the bloody Priests so long had fed  
On this loved Spectacle; at length they read  
The Title: and in such a misery,  
So full of ruth, found something to envy.  
The Governor entreating to take down  
That glorious Style; lest he the Hebrew Crown  
Should vindicate in Death; and so deny  
That Princes by subordinate's should die.  
But who that Day so readily complied  
To give a life, austerely this denied.  CHORUS. 
While lingering Death his sad release deferred,  
How looked the standers by? what words were heard?  I. NUNCIUS. 
Not all alike: discording murmurs rise.  
Some, with transfixed hearts, and wounded eyes,  
Astonished stand: some joy in his slow fate,  
And to the last extend their Barbarous hate.  
Motion itself variety begets,  
And by a strange vicissitude regrets  
What it affected, nor one posture bears:  
Tears scornful laughter raise, and laughter tears.  
Who to the Temple from th'impoverished shore  
Of Galilee his followed steps adore,  
And ministered to his life, now of his End  
The Witnesses; still to their dying friend  
Their faith preserve: which, as they could, they show  
In all th'expressions of a perfect woe.  
One, from her panting breast her garments tore;  
Another, the bright tresses of her hair;  
This, with her naked arms her bosom beats;  
The hollow rock Her fearful shrieks repeat;  
She, stiff with sorrow. But what grief could vie  
With that example of all piety,  
His virgin Mother's! this affords no way  
To lessening tears; nor could itself display.  
Where should she fix her looks! if on the ground;  
She sees that with her blood, he bleeding, drowned:  
Or if she raise her eyes; the killing sight  
Of her womb's tortured Issue quenched their light.  
Fearing to look on either, both disclose  
Their terrors; who now licences her woes.  
Ready to have stepped forward, and embraced  
The bloody Cross, her feeble limbs stuck fast:  
Her feet their motion lost; her voice in vain  
A passage sought: such Grief could not complain.  
Whose Soul almost as great a Sorrow stung,  
As his, who on the Tree in torments hung.  
That Youth, one of the Twelve, so dignified  
By his dear Master's love, stood by her side.  
Beholding this sad Pair, those Souls that were  
To him then life, while life remained, more dear;  
He found another Cross: his spirits melt  
More for the sorrow seen, than torments felt.  
At length, in strength transcending either, broke  
The bars of his long silence, and thus spoke:  
A legacy to each of you I leave:  
Mother, this son in stead of me receive  
By thy adoption: and thou gentle boy,  
The seed of Zebedeus, late my joy,  
Thy friend now for thy mother take. This said,  
Again he to his torments bowed his Head.  
The Vulgar with the Elders of our Race,  
And Soldiers, shake their heads in his disgrace:  
Is this the man, said they, whose hands can raise  
The Temple, and rebuild it in three days?  
Now show thy strength. Or if the Thunderer  
Above the rank of Mortals thee prefer,  
Acknowledged for his Heir; let him descend,  
Confirm thy hopes, and timely succour lend.  
Behold, the help thou gav'st to others, fails  
The Author. Break these Bonds, these stubborn Nails,  
And from the Cross descend: than we will say  
Thou art our King, and thy Commands obey.  
Nor waste enough that the surrounding Throng  
Wound with reproaches: Who besides him hung,  
Doth now again a murderer's mind disclose;  
And in his punishment more wicked grows.  
Who thus: If thou be he whom God did choose  
To Govern the decreed Nation of the Jews,  
thyself, and us release: thus honour win.  
The Partner of his death, as of his sin,  
Who had his fierceness, with the thief, cast-off,  
Ill brooks, and thus reproves, that impious scoff:  
Hast thou as yet not learned to acknowledge God?  
Nor sacred Justice fear? who now the rod  
Of vengeance feel'st? wilt thou again offend,  
And to the jaws of Hell thy guilt extend?  
This death we owe to our impiety:  
But what are his misdeeds? why should he die?  
Then looking on his face with dropping eyes:  
Forgive me, O forgive a wretch, he cries:  
And O my Lord, my King, when thou shalt be  
Restored to thy own Heaven, remember me.  
He mildly gives consent; and from the bars  
Of that sad Cross, thus raised him to the Stars:  
With me, a happy Guest, thou shalt enjoy  
Those sacred Orchards where no frosts destroy  
The eternal Spring, before the Morn display  
The purple Ensign of th' ensuing Day.  CHORUS. 
What's this! the Centre pants with sudden throws!  
And trembling Earth a sad distemper shows!  
The Sun, affrighted, hides his golden Head;  
From hence by an unknown Ecliptic fled!  
Irregular Heavens abortive shades display;  
And Night usurps the empty Throne of Day!  
What threats do these dire Prodigies portend  
To our offending Race! Those ills transcend  
All that can be imagined, which enforce  
Disturbed Nature to forget her Course.  
I hear approaching feet: whate'er thou art,  
Whom darkness from our sight conceals, impart  
All that thou know'st to our prepared ears:  
Accomplish, or dissolve our pressing fears.  II NUNCIUS. 
Fury (from which, if loose, the Earth had fled)  
And fatal Stars have their event: He's dead.  CHORUS. 
O Heaven! we pardon now Days hasty flight;  
Nor will complain, since they have quenched this light.  
Yet tell how he disposed of his last breath;  
The passages, and order of his death.  II NUNCIUS. 
As the declining Sun the shades increased,  
Reflecting on the more removed East,  
His blazing hair grew black: no clouds obscures  
His vanisht Light; this his own Orb immures.  
The Days fourth part as yet invests the Pole,  
Were this a Day; when from the afflicted Soul  
This voice was clearly heard, not like the breath  
Of those who labour between life and death;  
My God, O why dost thou thy own forsake!  
Which purposely the Multitude mistake,  
But to prolong their cruel mirth; who said,  
He on the Thesbian Prophet calls for aid;  
Now to return, and draw from Heaven again  
Devouring Showers of Fire, or Floods of Rain.  
With silence this he endures. His body rent,  
His blood exhausted, and his Spirits spent,  
He cried; I Thirst. As servants to his will,  
The greedy hollows of a sponge they fill  
With vinegar, which Hyssops sprigs combine,  
And on a reed exalt the deadly Wine.  
This scarcely tasted, his pale lips once more  
He opens, and now louder than before  
Cried, All is finished; here my labour's end:  
To thee, O heavenly Father, I commend  
My parting Soul. This said, hung down his head;  
And with his words his mixed Spirits fled:  
Leaving his body, which again must bleed,  
Now senseless of the Cross. From prison freed,  
Those happy seats he enjoys, by God assigned  
To injured Virtue, and th'aethereal Mind.  
But Terrors, which with Nature war, affright  
Our peaceless Souls. The World hath lost its Light:  
Heaven, and the Deeps below, our Guilt pursue:  
Pale troops of wandering Ghosts now hurry through  
The holy City; whom, from her unknown  
And secret Womb, the trembling Earth hath thrown.  
The cleaving Rocks their horrid jaws display:  
And yawning Tombs afford the dead a way  
To those that live. Heaven is the general  
And undistinguished Sepulchre to all.  
Old Chaos now returns. Ambitious Night  
Impatient of alternate Rule, or Right,  
Such as before the day's etherial birth,  
With her own shady People fills the Earth.  CHORUS. 
How did the many-minded People look  
At these Portents? with what affection struck?  II. NUNCIUS. 
The Lamentations, mixed with the cries  
Of weeping Women, in lowed Volleys rise.  
Those who had known him, who his followers were  
While yet he lived, and did in death adhere,  
In that new Night sighs from their sorrows send;  
And to those Heavens they could not see, extend  
Their pious hands; complaining that the Sun  
Would then appear when this was to be done.  
The safety of their lives the Vulgar dread:  
Some for themselves lament, some for the dead;  
Others the ruin of the world bewail.  
Their Courages the cruel Romans fail:  
Those hands, which knew no peace, now lazy grew;  
And conquering Fear to earth their weapons threw.  
Th'amazed Centurion with our thoughts complied;  
And swore the Heros most unjustly died:  
Whose punishment the Earth could hardly brook,  
But groaning, with a horrid motion shook.  
Confirmed by the day's prodigious flight  
To be a beam of the celestial Light:  
And so the mourning Heavens inverted face,  
Shows to the Under world his Heavenly Race.  CHORUS. 
Why flock the People to the Temple thus?  
No cause, excepting piety, in us  
Can want belief. Hope they to satisfy  
With Sacrifice the Wrath of the most High?  II. NUNCIUS. 
New prodigies, as horrid, thither hale  
Th'astonished Multitude. The Temple's Vale  
That hung on guilded Beams in purple died,  
Asunder rent, and fell on either side.  
The trust of what was sacred is betrayed;  
And all the Hebrew Mysteries displayed.  
That fatal Ark, so terrible of old  
To our pale foes, which Cherubins of Gold  
Veiled with their hovering wings; whose closure held  
Those two-leaved Tables, wherein God revealed  
His sacred Laws; That Food which by a new  
Example fell from Heaven in fruitful Dew  
About our Tents, and tacitly expressed  
By intermitted showers the seventh day's rest;  
The Rod with never dying blossoms spread;  
Which with a Mitre honour Aaron's Head:  
These, with th'old Temple perished: Th'eye could reach  
No object in this rupture, but the Breach.  
What was from former Ages hid, is shown;  
Which struck so great a reverence when unknown.  
The Temple shines with flames; and to the sight  
That feared Recess disclosed with its own Light.  
Either Religion from their fury flies,  
Leaving it naked to profaner eyes:  
Or God doth this abhorred Seat reject,  
And will his Temple in the Mind erect.  CHORUS. 
Shall Punishment in Death yet find an end?  
Shall his cold Corpse to earth in peace descend?  
Or naked hang, and with so dire a sight  
Profane the Vesper of the sacred Night?  II. NUNCIUS. 
Too late Religion warms their savage breasts,  
Lest that near Hour, which harbingers their Feast;  
Should take them unprepared: to Pilot they  
Repair; entreat him that the Soldier may  
From bloody crosses take their bodies down,  
Before their Festivals the Morning crown:  
That no uncleanness might from thence arise;  
In memory of th' Egyptian Sacrifice.  
The legs of the two Thieves, they broke, whose breath  
Yet groaned between the bounds of life and death.  
The crashing bones report a dreadful sound;  
While both their souls at once a passage found.  
Nor had the Cohort less to Jesus done,  
Who now the Course prescribed by Fate had run:  
But dead, deep in his side his trembling spear  
A Soldier strake: his entrails bare appear;  
And from that wide-mouthed Orifice, a flood  
Of water gushed, mixed with a stream of blood.  
The Crosses now discharged of their fraught,  
The People fled; not with one look or thought:  
Part sad, and part amazed. Spent Fury dies.  
Whither so fast? run you to sacrifice  
A silly Lamb? too mean an Offering  
Is this for you, who have sacrificed your King.  CHORUS. 
Either deceived by the ambiguous Day,  
Or troops of mourners to my eyes display  
A perfect Sorrow: Women with their bare  
And bleeding breasts, drowned cheeks, disheveled hair.  
The Soldiers slowly march, with knees that bend  
Beneath their fears, and Pilate's stairs ascend.  CHORUS OF ROMAN soldiers. 
O Thou who on thy flaming Chariot rid'st,  
And with perpetual Motion Time dividest;  
Great King of Day, from whose far-darting Eye  
Night-wandering Stars with fainting Splendour fly;  
Whither, thus intercepted, dost thou stray!  
Through what an unknown darkness lies thy way!  
In Heaven, what newborn Night the Day invades!  
The Mariner that sails by Tyrian Gades,  
As yet sees not thy panting Horses steep  
Their fiery fetlocks in th'Hesperian Deep.  
No pitchy storm, wrapped up in swelling Clouds  
By Earth exhaled, thy golden Tresses shrouds:  
Nor thy pale Sister in her wandering Race  
With interposed wheels obscures thy Face;  
But now far-off retires with her stolen Light,  
Till in a silver Orb her horns unite.  
Hath some Thessalian Witch with Charms unknown  
Surprised and bound thee! What new Phaëton  
With feeble hands to guide thy Chariot strives,  
And far from the deserted Zodiac drives!  
What horrid fact, before th' approach of Night.  
Deservedly deprives the World of Light!  
As when stern Atreus to his Brother gave  
His Children's flesh, who made his own their grave:  
Or when the Vestal Ilia's Godlike Sun,  
Who our unbounded Monarchy begun,  
Was in a hundred pieces cut; by theft  
At once of Life and Funerals bereft.  
Or hath that Day wherein the Gods were borne  
Finished the Course of Heaven in its return;  
And now the aged Stars refuse to run  
Beyond that place from whence they first begun!  
Nature, what plagues dost thou to thine intent!  
Whither shrinks this huge Mass! what fatal end!  
If now the General Flood again retire,  
If the World perish by licentious Fire,  
What shall of those devouring Seas become!  
Where shall those funeral Ashes find a Tomb!  
whatever innovates the Course of Things,  
To men alone, nor Nations, ruin brings:  
Either the groaning World's disordered Frame  
Now suffers, or that Power which guides the same.  
Do proud Titanians with their impious War  
Again provoke th' Olympian Thunderer?  
Is there a mischief extant, greater than  
Dire Python, or the Snake of Lerna's Fen,  
That poisons the pure Heavens with Viperous breath?  
What God, from Gods derived, oppressed by Death,  
Is now in his own Heaven bewailed? Divine  
Lyeus gave to man less precious Wine;  
Not Hercules so many Monsters flew;  
Unshorn Apollo less in Physic knew.  
Sure we with darkness are enveloped  
Because that innocent blood by Envy shed,  
So dear unto the Gods, this place defamed:  
Which shook the Earth, and made the Day ashamed.  
Great Father of us all, whose Influence  
Informs the World thou mad'st; though Sin incense  
Thy just displeasure, easy to forgive  
Those who confess, and for their Vices grieve;  
Now to the desperate Sons of men, who stray  
In sins dark Labyrinth, restore the Day.  
One Sacrifice seek we to expiate  
All our Offences, and appease his hate.  
Which the Religion of the Samian,  
Nor Thracian Harp, wild beasts instructing, can;  
Nor that Prophetic Boy, the Glebe's swart son,  
Who taught the tuscans Divination.  
The Blood, which from that mangled body bled,  
Must purge our sins, which we unjustly shed.  
O smooth thy brows! Receive the innocence  
Of one for all; and with our guilt dispense.  
For sin, what greater Ransom can we pay?  
What worthier Offering on thy Altar lay?   

THE FIFTH ACT.  JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA. NICODEMUS. 
SEe, Citizens, we Pilate's bounty bear:  
Without a suit men cannot man inter.  
The Roman Progeny nor freely will  
Do what is good; nor, unrewarded ill.  
Nothing is now in use but barbarous Vice:  
They sell our blood, on graves they set a price.  NICODEMUS. 
O Joseph, these vain ecstasies refrain:  
But if it seem so pleasant to Complain,  
Let Rome alone, and seek a nearer guilt:  
His blood not Romulus sons, but Abraham's spilled.  
Who so the purer sense sincerely draws  
From those celestial Oracles and Laws,  
By God above himself inspired, will say  
None led to Eternity a straighter way.  
what's that to Pilate? fell the Innocent by  
A Roman Oath? was't through the subtlety  
Of Senators or Priests? The Doom displayed  
They Caesar less than caiaphas' obeyed.  
Let us transfer the fact; the impious Jew  
With heart, with tongue and eyes, first Jesus slew:  
The Romans only acted their Offence.  
How well the Heavens with Hebrew hands dispense!  
For this the Jew th'Italians Crime envied,  
And wished himself the bloody Homicide.  
Do we as yet our servitude lament,  
When such a murder meets no punishment?  
This do they, this command.  JOSEPH. 
The Progeny  
Of Roman Ilia, and of Sara, I  
With equal detestation execrate.  
O may they perish by a fearful Fate!  
Just Heaven, why sleeps thy Lightning! in a Shower  
Of pitch descend: Let stenching Seas devour  
This cursed City. Sodom, thou art clear,  
Compared to ours. No more will I a tear  
Shed for my Country. Let the Great in War,  
Worse than the Babylonian Conqueror,  
Enter her Breaches like a violent Flood,  
Until the bloody City swim in blood.  
Is this too little? Let Diseases sow  
Their fruitful Seed, and in destruction grow:  
Famine, in their dry entrails take thy seat;  
What Nature most abhors, enforce to eat.  
Let th' Infant tremble at his Father's knife;  
The Babe re-enter her who gave it Life.  
While yet the eager Foe invests the wall,  
Within may they by their own weapons fall:  
The Temple wrapped in flames. Let th' Enemy  
Decide their Civil Discord, and destroy  
With fire and sword ungrateful Solyma:  
The relics of their slaughter drive away;  
Nor seventy years dissolve their servile bands;  
Despised, and wretched, wander through all Lands:  
Abolished be their Law; all form of State:  
No Day see their return. Let sudden Fate  
Succeed my curses. This infected Soil  
No more shall feed me. What unusual toil  
Shall my old feet refuse, so they no more  
Tread on this Earth! though to that unknown shore,  
Which lies beneath the slow Boötes' Wain,  
Dashed by th' unconstant billows of that Main.  
That Country shall be mine, where Justice sways;  
And bold Integrity the Truth obeys.  NICODEMUS. 
This Error with a secret poison feeds  
The mind's Disease. Who censures his own deeds?  
Who not another's? These accusing Times  
Rather the men condemn, then tax their Crimes.  
Such is the Tyranny of Judgement; prone  
To sentence all Offences, but our own.  
Because of late we cried not Crucify,  
Nor falsely doomed the Innocent to die,  
ourselves we please: as it a Virtue were;  
And Great one, if from great Offences clear.  
Confess; what Orator would plead his Cause?  
To vindicate his truth who urged the Laws?  
Or once accused their bloody suffrages,  
By Envy signed? Who durst those Lords displease?  
So Piety suffered, while by speaking they,  
And we by silence, did the Just betray.  
When women openly their zeal durst show,  
We, in acknowledging our Master, slow,  
Under the shady coverture of Night  
Secured our fears, which would not brook the Light.  
Joseph, at length our faith itself expressed;  
But to the Dead.  JOSEPH. 
This is a truth confessed.  
The Evening now restored Day subdues:  
And lo, the Vigil with the Night ensues.  
Not far from Golgotha's in famous Rocks  
A Cave there is, hid with the shady Locks  
Of funeral Cypress, hewn through living stone:  
The house of Death; as yet possessed by none.  
My Age this chose for her eternal rest:  
Which now shall entertain a nobler Guest.  
That ample Stone which shuts the Sepulchre,  
Shall the inscription of his Virtues bear.  
Who knows but soon a holier Age may come,  
When all the World shall celebrate this Tomb;  
And Kings as in a Temple here adore;  
Through fire and sword sought from the farthest Shore?  NICODEMUS. 
Pure water of the Spring, you precious Tears,  
Perfumes which Odor-breathing Saba bears,  
With your preservatives his body lave,  
Sink through his pores, and from corruption save.  
Nor God, nor Fate will suffer, that this pure,  
This sacred Corpse, should more than death endure.  
Religion, if thou know'st the Shades below,  
Let never filthy putrefaction flow  
Through his uncovered bones; nor waste of Time  
Resolve this heavenly figure into slime.  JOHN. MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 
THou reverent Virgin, of his royal Blood,  
Who all between the Erythraean Flood  
And great Euphrates won by strenuous Arms:  
Assume his noble fortitude; those harms  
Which press thy Soul, subdue: ungentle Fate  
Hath by undoing thee secured thy state.  
Fortune her strength by her own blows hath spent.  
Judaea's kingdom from thy Father's rent  
By foreign hands; of ancient Wealth bereft;  
Except thy Son, what was for danger left?  
These storms by death dispersed, serene appear:  
For what hath childless Poverty to fear?  MARY. 
O John, for thee in such extremes to mourn  
Perhaps is new: but I to grief was born.  
With this have we conversed twice sixteen years:  
No form of sorrow hath beguiled our fears.  
To me how ominously the Prophets sung,  
Even from the time that heavenly Infant sprung  
In my chaste Womb! Old Simeon this revealed;  
And in my Soul the deadly wound beheld.  
When One, among so many Infants slain,  
Was by the tyrant's Weapons sought in vain,  
No miracles had then his fame displayed,  
Or him the object of their envy made.  
Perfidious Fraud in Sanctities disguise,  
Nor the adulterated Pharisies,  
By his detection had he yet inflamed;  
Nor for despising of their Rites defamed;  
A Trumpet of intestine War: the Earth  
Of nothing then accused him, but his birth.  
Not that fierce Prince, so cruel to his Own;  
Nor his Successor in that fatal Throne,  
As high in vice, who with the prophet's Head  
Supplied his Feast, and on the blood he had shed  
Fed his incestuous eyes, in dire delight  
To heighten impious Love, could me affright:  
Nor yet the vulgar, hating his free tongue;  
And showers of stones by a thousand Furies flung.  
I though no mischief could our steps pursue,  
That was more great; or to our sufferings new.  
What wants example, what no mother feared;  
This, this alone my dying hopes interred.  
Wretch, wilt thou seek for words t'express thy woes!  
Or this so vast a grief in silence close!  
Great God (such is my faith) why wouldst thou come  
To this inferior Kingdom through my womb!  
Why mad'st thou choice of me to bring thee forth  
For punishment! unhappy in my worth!  
No woman ever bare a Son, by touch  
Of man conceived, whose Soul endures so much:  
No mother such an issue better gained;  
Nor lost it worse; by cursed Death profaned.  JOHN. 
What louder grief with such an emphasis  
Strikes through mine ears! What honoured Corpse is this,  
With Tyrian linen veiled? What's he whose hairs  
Contend with snow, whose eies look through their tears,  
Who on those veins, yet bleeding, odours powers?  
Or his assistant, crowned with equal hours?  
What troops of women hither throng! what storms  
Rise in their looks! Grief wanders through all forms.  
My eyes, ah! wound my Heart. This was thy son;  
This is thy blood, thy mangled flesh. O run,  
Take thy last kisses, ere of those bereft  
By funeral: What else of all is left?  MARY. 
My Soul, tired with long misery,  
A midst these greater Sorrows die;  
While Grief at his sad Exequies  
Pours out her last Complaints in these.  
Let me this snowy Paul unfold,  
Once more those quickening looks behold.  
O Son, born to a sad event;  
Thus, thus, to thy poor Mother sent!  
O Salem, was thy hatred such,  
To murder him who loved so much!  
Ah see, his side gored with a spear!  
Those hands, that late so bounteous were,  
Transfixed! his feet pierced with one wound!  
The Sun had better never found  
His loss, then with restored light  
To show the World so dire a sight.  
You Neighbours to the sun's uprise,  
Who read their motions in the Skies;  
O you in chief who found your Lord,  
And with such lively Zeal adored,  
Now view the Heavens inverted laws:  
With me bewail the wretched Cause.  
His Birth a Star, new kindled, signed:  
To see his Death the Sun grew blind.  
Thou hope of my afflicted State;  
Thou living, I accused not Fate:  
The Day again with light is crowned,  
But thou in Night for ever drowned.  
O couldst thou see my broken heart!  
The flowing tears these springs impart!  
Thy mother, whom man never knew;  
Who by the Word then fruitful grew:  
My Womb admired that unknown Guest,  
Whose burden for nine Moons increased.  
Thy Mother, to a Sceptre borne,  
With age and wrinkling sorrow worn,  
This Country sees to get her bread  
With labour, in an humble Shed.  
Thy milk from these two fountains sprung:  
These arms about my neck have hung,  
Couched on the flowery banks of Nile:  
Egypt, so just to thy exile,  
Hath now redeemed her former Curse;  
Our Jews than those of Memphis worse.  
If his chaste blood at length assuage  
The bitter tempest of your rage;  
If you can pity misery,  
O let me by your mercy die:  
Or, if not glutted with his blood;  
With mine increase this purple flood.  
O my dear son! what here our eyes behold,  
What yonder hung, or what Death could enfold  
In endless Night; is mine, and only mine:  
No mortal did in thy conception join,  
Nor part of thee can challenge: Since the loss  
Was only ours, let us the grief engross.  
Ungrateful Man! who his Protector slew:  
Nor feels his Curse, nor then his Blessing knew.  
Poor wretch! no soul in thy defence durst rise:  
And now the murdered unrevenged lies.  
The Lame, who by thy powerful Charms were made  
Sound and swift-footed, ran not to thy aid:  
Those Eyes, which never saw the glorious Light  
Before thy sovereign touch, avoid thy sight:  
And others, from Death's silent mansion by  
Thy Virtue ravished, suffered thee to die.  JOHN. 
Too true is thy Complaint, too just thy Woes:  
Such were his friends, whom from a World he chose.  
O desperate Faith! from whence, from whom are we  
Thus fall'n! our Souls from no defection free!  
Some sold, forswore him; none from tainture clear;  
All from him fled to follow their own fear.  
Thou Oracle! a father in thy care,  
In love a brother, the delinquent spare,  
In thy divine affection o too blessed!  
Whom Yesternight saw leaning on thy breast:  
If Love in death survive, if yet as great;  
Even by that Love thy pardon I entreat:  
By this thy weeping Mother: I the Heir  
By thee adopted to thy filial care,  
Though alike wretched, and as comfortless;  
Yet, as I can, will comfort her distress.  
O Virgin-mother, favour thy Relief;  
Though just, yet moderate thy flowing grief:  
Thy downcast Mind by thy own Virtue raise.  
Th'old Prophets fill their Volumes with thy praise:  
No Age but shall through all the round of Earth  
Sing of that heavenly Love, and sacred Birth.  
What female glory parallels thy Worth!  
So grew a Mother, such a Son brought forth!  
She who proved fruitful in th'extreme of age,  
And found the truth of that despised presage:  
She, whose sweet Babe, exposed among the reeds  
Which ancient Nilus with his moisture feeds,  
Who then, a smiling Infant, overcame  
The threatning flood; aspired not to thy fame,  
But these expressions are for thee too low;  
The opening Heavens did their observance show:  
Those radiant Troops, which Darkness put to flight,  
Thy Throws assisted in that festive Night:  
Who over thy adored Infant hung  
With golden wings, and Allelujahs sung:  
While the Old Sky, to imitate that birth,  
Bore a new Star to amaze the wondering Earth.  MARY. 
Sorrow is fled: Joy, a long banished Guest,  
With heavenly rapture fills my enlarged breast:  
More great than that in youth, when from the Sky  
An Angel brought that blessed Embassy;  
When Shame, not soon instructed, blushed for fear,  
How I a Son by such a Fate should bear.  
I greater things foresee: my eyes behold  
whatever is by Destiny enrolled.  
With troops of pious Souls, more great than they,  
Thou to felicity shalt lead the way.  
A holy People shall obey thy Throne;  
And Heaven itself surrender thee thy own.  
Subjected Death thy Triumph now attends,  
While thou from thy demolished Tomb ascends.  
Nor shalt thou long be seen by mortal eyes,  
But in perfection mount above the Skies;  
Propitious ever, from that height shalt give  
Peace to the World, instructed how to live.  
A thousand Languages shall thee adore:  
Thy Empire know no bounds. The farthest Shore  
Washed by the Ocean, those who Days bright Flame  
Scarce warms, shall hear the thunder of thy Name.  
Licentious sword, nor hostile Fury, shall  
Prevail against thee: thou, the Lord of all.  
Those Tyrants, whom the vanquished Worlds obey,  
Before thy feet shall Caesar's Sceptre lay.  
The Time draws on, in which itself must end,  
When thou shalt in a Throne of Clouds descend  
To judge the Earth. In that reformed World,  
Those by their sins infected, shall be hurled  
Down under one perpetual Night; while they  
Whom thou hast cleansed, enjoy perpetual Day.   
The END   

THe Tragedy of CHRIST'S PASSION was first written in Greek by Apollinarius of Laodicea, Bishop of Hieropolis: and after him by Gregory Nazianzen; though this, now extant in his Works, is by some ascribed to the former: by others accounted suppositions, as not agreeing with his Strain in the rest of his Poems; which might alter in that particular upon his imitation of Euripides. But Hugo Grotius, of late hath transcended all on this Argument: whose steps afar-off I follow.  

ANNOTATIONS UPON THE FIRST ACT.  
VErse 23. Ephratian Dames] Of Ephrata, the same with Bethlehem.  
Ver. 33. Magi] Tradition will have them three, of several Nations, and honour them with crowns. But the word delivers them for Persians, for so they called their Philosophers; such as were skilful in the Celestial Motions, from whence they drew their predictions: and with whom their Princes consulted in all matters of moment. Some write that they were of the posterity of Balaam, by his prophecies informed of the birth of Christ, and apparition of that narrative Star: but more consonant to the Truth, that they received it from divine inspiration.  
Ver. 34. My Star] None of those which adorn the Firmament; nor Comet, proceeding from condensed Vapours inflamed in the Air; but above Nature, and merely miraculous: which, as they write, not only illuminated the eye, but the understanding; excited thereby to that heavenly inquisition. Some will have it an Angel in that form. The excellency whereof is thus described by Prudentius.  
This, which in Beams and Beauty far  
Excelled the sun's flame-bearing Car,  
Showed God's descent from Heaven to Earth,  
Accepting of a humane Birth.  
No servant to the humorous Night,  
Nor following Phoebe's changing Light;  
But didst thy single Lamp display  
To guide the Motion of the Day.  Him Epiphaniae. 
It is probable that this Star continued not above thirteen days, if we may believe that Tradition, How the Magi were so long in travelling from their Country unto Bethlehem.  
Ver. 34. Mithra's flame] Mithra: the same with the Sun, adored by the Persians. His Image had the countenance of a Lion, with a Tiara on his head, depressing an Ox by the horns. Of this Statius  
Come, O remember thy own Temple; prove  
Propitious still, and Juno's City love:  
Whether we should thee rosy Titan call;  
Osiris, Lord of Ceres' festival;  
Or Mithra shrined in Persian rocks, a Bull,  
Subduing by the horror of his skull.  Thebaid. l. 1. 
And in a Cave his Rites were solemnised: from whence they drew an Ox by the horns; which, after the singing of certain Paeans, was sacrificed to the Sun, Zorastes placeth him between Oremazes and Arimanius, the good and bad Daemon, from which he took that denomination.  
Vers. 39. Pharisees] A precise Sect among the jews, separating themselves from others in habit, manners, and conversation: from whence they had their Name; as their Original from Antigonus Sochaeus, who was contemporary with Alexander the Great. Men full of appearing Sanctity; observant to Traditions, and skilful expositors of the Mosaical Law: wearing the Precepts thereof in Phylacters (narrow scrolls of parchment) bound about their brows, and above their left elbows: passing thorough the streets with a slow motion, their eyes fixed on the ground, as if ever in divine contemplations: and winking at the approach of women, by means whereof they not seldom met with churlish encounters. Superstitious in their often washing, keeping their bodies cleaner than their souls. They held that all was governed by God and Fate; yet that man had the power in himself to do good or evil: That his Soul was immortal; that after the death of the body, if good, it returned into another more excellent; but if evil, condemned to perpetual torments.  
Vers. 43. Sadduces] These derived the Sect and name from Sadock, the scholar of Antigonus Socaeus: as he his Heresy by misinterpreting the words of his Master; that we should not serve God as servants, in hope of reward: concluding thereupon that in another World there was no reward for Piety, and consequently no resurrection: holding the Soul to be annihilated after the death of the Body herein agreeing with the Stoics.  
As smoke from trembling flames ascends, and there,  
Lost in its liberty, resolves to air;  
As empty Clouds, which furious tempests chase,  
Consume and vanish in their airy race;  
So our commanding Souls fleet with our breath:  
After Death nothing rests; and nothing Death,  
But of swift Life the Goal. Ambition lay  
Thy hopes aside; nor Care our peace betray.  
Inquirest thou to what place thou shalt return  
When dead? To that, where lie the yet Unborn.  Seneca in Troad. 
They held that there was neither Spirits nor Angels; rejected all Traditions; and only allowed of the five books of Moses; that there was no such thing as Fate; that no evil proceeded from God; and that Virtue and Vice were in our own Arbitrements. The Pharisees were sociable among themselves: but the Sadduces ever at discord, and as uncivil to their own Sect as to strangers. This Heresy infected not a few of the High Priests: for Hircanus with his two Sons, Aristobulus and Alexander, were Sadduces; so was Auanus the younger.  
Vers. 151. Now the full Moon] In the first full Moon after the Suns ascending into the Equinoctial, they celebrated the annual Passeover, according to the positive Law of Moses; eating the Lamb in the Evening at their private houses, and lying about the table on beds, as the Romans upon their Trielinium: never fewer than ten together; if they wanted of their own Family, they supplied themselves with their Neighbours; nor above the number of twenty. This Feast was only to be kept at jerusalem: but those that came short of the Day by reason of the distance, or were defiled with the Dead, had a second Passeover in the month following assigned.  
Vers. 161. Our washings past] It was the Custom as well of all the Eastern Nations, as of the Jews, to wash the feet of their Guests, though performed by inferior Servants; but here by Christ himself, to give an example of humility. They had vessels standing by, ready filled with water for that purpose. This, at this Feast, was observed between the first and second lying down, by way of Purification:  
Vers. 175. Phosphorus] The same with Lucifer, which is a bringer in of Light; and therefore the Harbinger of the Day: said to conduct and withdraw the Stars in that the last that shineth. This is the beautiful Planet of Venus; which when it riseth before the Sun is the Morning Star; and setting after it, the Evening.  
Now sea-bathed Hesperus, who brings  
Night on, and first displays his wings:  
Now, radiant Lucifer; who Day  
Exalting, chaseth Night away.  
In regard that her Course is sometimes swifter than the Sun, and sometimes slower: yet never far off, and fulfilling the same period.  
Vers. 193. Those Cities, etc.] The Cities which lie at the foot of Libanus, on the North of Galilee; whereof Caesarea Philippi, the Seat of the Tetrarch, was the principal: where jordan not far above descends from Ior and Dan, two neighbouring Fountains.  
Verse 198. A Sea-resembling Lake.] The Lake of Genesareth called also the Sea of Galilee, and of Tiberias; taking this name from that City there built by Antipas in honour of Tiberius. It extendeth forty furlongs in breadth, and in length an hundred: the shore once enriched with the Cities of Capharnaum, Tiberias, Bethsaida, Bethsan, Gadra, Taricha, and Chorosaim.  
Vers. 199. Those Woods of Palms.] In the Plains adjoining to jericho: from their abundance called the City of Palms.  
Vers. 200. Of fragrant Balsamum, which etc.] As in Engaddi, so Balsamum grew plentifully about jericho. A plant only proper to that Country: and from thence transported into Egypt by Antonius, to gratify Cleopatra. It dies, if it be touched with iron: and therefore they launch the rind with sharp stones, or knives of bone, from whence that precious liquor distilleth.  
Vers. 203. That mount] Phasga: from whence Moses saw all the land of Promise from Dan to Bersheba; and there died: buried in an unknown Sepulchre by an Angel, lest that should have drawn the Israelites to Idolatry. Saint Hierome writes, how the Devil, endeavouring to reveal the place, was resisted by Michael the Archangel.  
Verse 209. Cepheans, whose strong walls, etc.,] Cepheus, the son of Phoenix, reigned in joppa: A city built by japhet before the Flood, and rather covered than demolished by that Deluge. The Inhabitants, with their territories, took the name of their King: Who worshipped Dercetis the Goddess of the Ascalonites their neighbours. She, as they fable, inflamed with the love of a beautiful Youth who sacrificed unto her, having by him a Daughter (who after, in that nourished by Doves, was called Semiramis) ashamed of her incontinency, put away the Youth, exposed the child to the mercy of the Deserts; and distracted with sorrow, threw herself into a Lake near Ascalon, and there was changed into a fish. Of which Ovid.  
— To insist upon  
The sad Dercetis of great Babylon:  
Who, as the Palestines believe, did take  
A scaly form, inhabiting a Lake.  
To whom a magnificent Temple was erected, with her image in the likeness of a fish from the navel downward. This was that Dagon, the Idol of the Ascolonites, according to S. Jerome, (by interpretation the Fish of Sorrow) which fell before the Ark of God, when it was brought into her Temple.  
Vers. 214. Azotus, both the Jamnes] Maritime town's belonging to the Philistines: the latter so called of the flourishing Soil.  
Vers. 215. Lydda] A City seated in the valley above, and a little to the North of joppa: called after, the City of jupiter: famous for the Allegorical Combat of St George, and his martyrdom.  
Vers. 216. Caparorsa] A City of judaea according to Ptolomey; rather of Idumea, as here intimated by our Author.  
Vers. 217. Damascus] The regal City of Syria: as pleasant as great; here said to have commanded ten Nations. It lieth on the North of Galilee, in a valley beyond Antelibanus: six short days' journey from jerusalem.  
Vers. 219. Sabaste] Samaria, the sovereign City of those ten Tribes which fell from the House of judah: not much above a day's journey from jerusalem. Built by Amri on the top of a Hill, presenting an admirable Prospect, which he bought of Samarus, of whom it was called Samaria. The Inhabitants infamous for their frequent falling from God to Idolatry.  
Vers. 221. Phoenicians, who] The Inhabitants between the great Sea and Galilee (so called of Phoenix their king, the fifth in descent from jupiter) honoured for the invention of Letters.  
Phoenicians first expressed (if Fame be true)  
The fixed voice in rude figures. Memphis knew  
Not yet how stream-loved Biblus to prepare:  
But birds and beasts, carved out in stone, declare  
Their Hieroglyphic Wisdoms.  Lucan. l. 3. 
These Cadmus the son of Agenor communicated to the Grecians.  
Vers. 223. Tyrus, full of Luxury] The Metropolis of Phoenicia; once sovereign of the Sea, and of all the World: the greatest Emporium: whose beauty, commerce, and riches, the parent of luxury, is by the Prophet Ezekiel most gloriously described.  
Vers. 224. Mother Sidon] The ancientest City of Phoenicia built by Sida, the daughter of Belus, or rather by Sidon the first-born of Canaan. The mother of Tyrus; for the Tyrians were a Colony of the Sidonians.  
Vers. 226. Among the Syrians, those, etc.] The Syrians would eat no fish; not only in regard of the fabulous transformation of their Goddess Dercetis; but that they held it injustice to kill those Creatures which did them no harm, and were fed on, rather for luxury than necessity: Withal, conceiving the Sea to be the original and father of all that had life, and that man was engendered of a liquid substance, they adored fishes as being of their own generation and Subsistence. So did they a Dove; not only because their glorious Empress Semiramis carried that name, and was after, as they fable, transformed into that creature: but expressing the Air by the Dove, as by a fish the water; reverencing both, as comprising the Nature of all things.  
V. 229 From Belus, whose etc.] From certain marishes in the valley of Acre runs the River of Belus with a tardy pace, and exonerates itself into the Sea hard by Ptolemais: whose sand affordeth matter for glass, becoming fusible in the furnace. Strabo reports the like of divers places there about: and josephus, speaking of this, that there is an adjoining Pit, an hundred cubits in circuit, covered with sand that glistered like glass; and when carried away (for therewith they accustomed to ballast their ships) it forthwith was filled again, borne thither by winds from places adjacent. Moreover, that what mineral soever was contained therein converted into glass; and glass there laid, again into sand.  
Vers. 231. From Arnons banks; those, etc.] Arnon riseth in the mountains of Arabia; and dividing the Country of the Moabites from the Ammonites, falls into the Dead Sea. By those ancient Wars is meant the Overthrow which Moses gave unto Og and Sehon.  
Vers. 234. Asphaltis'] The Dead Sea, or Lake of Sodom and Gomorrah; having no egress, unless under the Earth; Seventy miles in length, and sixteen broad: here at large described by our Author.  
Vers. 237. What over flies, etc.] The like is written of Avernus: whereof the poetical Philosopher  
Avernus called: a name imposed of right,  
In that so fatal to all Birds of flight.  
Which when those airy Passengers o'erfly,  
Forgetful of their wings, they fall from high  
With stretched out necks: on Earth, where Earth partakes  
That killing property; where Lakes, on Lakes.  Lucr. l. 6. 
Vers. 215. When she, etc.] Lot's wife. josephus writes that he himself had seen that Statue of Salt: yet extant, if Brocardus and Saligniacus, professed Eyewitnesses, be to be believed.  
Vers. 255. Devout Esseans] A Sect among the jews; strictly preserving the worship of God, the rules of Religion and justice: living on the common stock; never eating of flesh, and wholly abstaining from Wine and Women. They wore their apparel white and cleanly: prayed before the rising of the Sun; laboured all day long for the public utility; fed in the evening with a general silence; and had their Sobriety rewarded with a life long and healthful. Their chief study was the Bible; and next to that, Physic, taking their name from the cure of diseases. All were servants one to another. They never swore an oath, nor offered any thing that had life in their sacrifice: ascribing all unto Fate, and nothing to free Will. They preserved their Society by the adoption of children, enured to piety and labour. Their Sect, though ancient, hath no known Original; yet much agreeing with the discipline of the Pythagoreans.  
Vers. 274. The first unleavened Bread] Eaten with the Paschal Lamb at the Israelites departing out of Egypt: the Ceremonies used therein are at large delivered by Moses.  
Vers. 275. She never would retain] The Liberty they lost in the Babylonian Captivity, was never absolutely recovered: for the most part under the Persians, Grecians, Egyptians, or Syrians (although in the reign of the Asmones they had the face of a Kingdom, yet maintained with perpetual bloodshed) after governed by the Idumeans, and lastly by the Romans: often rebelling, and as often suppressed.  
Ver. 278. Horned Hammons Temple] jupiter Hammon, which signifies Sand; because his Temple stood in the Lybian Deserts: with such difficulty visited by Alexander. Or rather being the same with Ham the son of Noah; from whom Idolatry had her Original: who usually wore the carved head of a Ram on his Helmet; whereupon his Idol was so fashioned. But jupiter Hammon is also taken for the Sun; Hammah signifying Heat in the Hebrew. And because the Year beginneth at his entrance into Aries, he therefore was carved with Rams horns.  
Ver. 281. Built his proud City] Alexandria in Egypt; built by Alexander the Great upon a Promontory near the Isle of Pharos: so directed, as they write, by Homer in a Vision.  
Vers. 282. To their old prison, Babylon] Not all the jews returned with Zorobbabel, but remained at Babylon, and by the favour of succeeding Princes planted thereabout their Colonies; grew a great Nation, observing their ancient Rites and Religion. These were called Babylonian jews: to whom not a few of their Country men fled from the troubles of their Country.  
Vers. 283. To freezing Taurus, etc.] The greatest Mountain of the World, which changeth its name according to the countries through which it extendeth: that part properly so called, which divideth Pamphilia and Cilicia from the lesser Armenia and Cappadocia: Whither many of the jews were retired.  
Vers. 284. And Tiber now, etc.] Rome, the Empress of Cities adorning the banks of Tiber, to which the Ocean then yielded Obedience.   

ANNOTATIONS UPON THE SECOND ACT.  
VErse 1. Bloodthirsty Romulus] The Original of the Race and Name of the Romans: who laid the Walls of Rome in the blood of his brother Remus.  
Vers. 15. To such a Guide, etc.] It was a Custom among the Eastern Nations, and not relinquished by many at this Day, for men to kiss one another in their salutations. So did the Romans, until interdicted by Tiberius. With the jews it was a pledge of peace and amity: used also to their Lords and Princes by way of homage and acknowledged subjection: as perfidious judas did here to his Master.  
Vers. 55. Memphis] By this is meant the Egyptian Servitude; Memphis of old the chief City in Egypt.  
Vers. 55. Devouring Deserts] All the Israelites, that came out of Egypt, perished in the Deserts, but joshuah and Caleb.  
Vers. 55. Civil wars] As between the Tribe of Benjamin, and the rest of the Tribes; the jews and Israelites; Israelites against Israelites, and jews against jews. Discord threw her Snakes among the Asmones, nor had Herod's Posterity better success.  
Vers. 56. Oft foreign yokes] Often subdued by their Neighbours, and delivered by their judges and Princes.  
Vers. 56. Assyrian Conquerors] Who sacked jerusalem, destroyed the Temple which was built by Solomon, led their King captive, and their whole Nation, unto Babylon.  
Vers. 57. Great Pompey's Eagles] Pompey, who bore the Roman Eagle on his Standard, took jerusalem and the Temple by force (yet would not meddle with the Treasure, nor sacred Utensils) subdued the jews, and made them tributaries to the Romans.  
Vers. 57. Sacred Rites Profaned] Who entered the Sanctum Sanctorum with his followers, and profaned the Religion of the place by beholding that which was to be seen but by the High Priest only.  
Vers. 58. The Temple sacked, with blood, etc.] He slew twelve thousand jews within the walls of the Temple.  
Vers. 66. Cedron] This Brook, or Torrent, runs through the Vale of jehosaphat, between Mount Olivet and the City, close by the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ was betrayed.  
Vers. 103. Not Jordan with two, etc.] See the Note upon vers. 195. Act. 1.  
Vers. 105. Callithoe] A City in the Tribe of Reuben, so called of her beautiful Springs: where from a Rock two neighbour Fountains gush out as from the breasts of a woman: the one of hot, but sweet water; the other of cold and bitter; which joining together make a pleasant Bath, salubrious for many diseases; and flows from thence into the Lake of Asphaltis. Herod in his sickness repaired to this place: but finding no help, and despairing of life, removed to jericho; where he died.  
Vers. 105. That ample Lake] The Sea of Galilee, by which Peter was borne.  
Vers. 107. Blue Nereus, etc.] Nereus is taken for the Sea in general, but here for the Egyptian; into which Nilus dischargeth his waters by seven currents; the fresh water keeping together, and changing the colour of the Salt, far further into the Sea, than the shore from thence can be discerned.  
Vers. 128. Lethe] A River of Africa, passing by Bernice, and running into the Mediterranean Sea near the Promontory of the Syrtes. It hath that name from Oblivion, because those, who drunk thereof, forgot whatsoever they had formerly done. Of this Lucan.  
Where silent Lethe glides: this (as they tell)  
Draws her Oblivion from the veins of Hell.  
So feigned, because of the oblivion which is in Death; as allegorically for that of Sleep.  
Vers. 139. Tarpean Jove] Tarpeus is a Mountain in Rome, taking that name from the Vestal Virgin Tarpea, who betrayed her Father's Fort to the Sabines, upon promise to receive what they wore on their left arms for her reward; she meaning their golden bracelets: which they not only gave, but threw their shields upon her (a part of the bargain) and so pressed her to death; who buried her in the Place: since called the Capitol, where jupiter had his Temple.  
Vers. 139. Mars, great Quirinus' Sire] Romulus was called Quirinus of his Spear; or for his uniting the two Nations of the Cures and Romans: as the son of Mars, in that so strenuous a Soldier. Plutarch writes that he was begotten by his Uncle Aemulius, who counterfeiting Mars, disguised in Armour, ravished his mother Ilia: not only to satisfy his Lust, but to procure her destruction, as the heir to his elder brother, the law condemning a defiled Vestal to be buried alive.  
Vers. 140. You Household Gods, snatched, etc.] Penates: which Aeneas saved from burning at the sack of Troy, and brought them with him into Italy: supposing that from them they received their flesh, their life, and understanding.  
Verse 151. Caprae] A little Island in the Tyrrhen Sea, and in the sight of Naples, naturally walled about with upright Cliffs, and having but one passage into it. Infamous for the Cruelties and Lusts of Tiberius; who retiring thither from the affairs of the Commonwealth, sent from thence his Mandates of death; polluting the place with all variety of uncleanness; whereupon it was called the Island of secret lusts, and he Caprenius: conversing there with Magicians, and Soothsayers; whereof the satire speaking of Sejanus:  
The PRINCE's Tutor glorying to be named;  
Sitting in caves of Caprae with defamed  
Chaldeans.  Iuv: Sat. 10. 
Ver. 152. The long-gown.] The gown was a garment peculiar to the Romans, by which they were distinguished from other Nations; as of what quality among themselves by the wool and colour, fashion, and trimming. In so much as they were called Togati: Whereof Virgil in the person of jupiter  
Cursed Juno, who Sea, Earth, and Heaven above,  
With her distemper tires, shall friendly prove;  
And join with us in gracing the Long-gowned  
And Lordly Romans, still with conquest crowned.  Aen. l. 1. 
Vers. 157. Their hate to all etc.] The jews with the hate of an enemy detested all other Nations: would neither eat with them, nor lodge in their houses; but avoided the stranger as a pollution. Proud in their greatest poverty: calling themselves the elect of God: boasting of their Country, their Religion, and ancient Families: in their conversation austere and respectless. So full of jealous envy, that by a Decree in the reign of Hircanus and Aristobulus such suffered the dreadful censure of a Curse, who instructed their sons in the Grecian Disciplines: and much regretted that the laws of Moses was translated into a profane language by the command of Philadelphus; expressing their grief by an annual Fast, which they kept on the Eighth day of the month Teveth.  
Vers. 159. Abjure for one, etc.] Pilate accuseth them here for their piety: who after the Captivity, as much detested Idolatry as they affected it before: who could not be compelled by their Conquerors to worship the Images of Tiberius Caesar, which Pilate brought into the City, but was forced to carry them away upon their refusal. Caius not long after commanded that the Statues of the Gods should be erected in their Temple; menacing, if they should refuse it, their utter subversion. But his death prevented their ruin: who before had made their protestation, that they would rather suffer the general destruction of themselves, and their City, then suffer such an abomination, so repugnant to their Law and Religion.  
Vers. 168. With how much grief our swords etc.] josephus mentions one slaughter only, which Pilate, as then, had made of the jews; and that about the drawing of water by conduits into the sacred Treasury; which divers thousands of the Jews tumultuarily resisted. Pilate environed them with his Soldiers, disguised in popular garments; who privately armed, fell upon the naked People, and by the slaughter of a number appeased the mutiny.  
Vers. 234. Rods and Axes] Borne before the Roman Consuls, Praetors, and Governors of Provinces: bound together in bundles, to inform the Magistrate that he should not be too swift in execution, nor unlimited: but that in the unbinding thereof he might have time to deliberate, and perhaps to alter his sentence: that some are to be corrected with Rods, and others cut off with Axes, according to the quality of their offences.  
Vers. 254. Since one must die, etc.] Caiaphas prophesied; being then the High Priest, though not of the House of Aaron. He was thrown out of his Office by Lucius Vitellius, who succeeded Pilate, and jonathan the son of Annas placed in his room: when distracted with melancholy and desperation, he received his death from his own hands.  
Vers. 242. Stygian] Styx is a Fountain of Arcadia, whose waters are so deadly, that they presently kill whatsoever drinks thereof: so corrodiating that they can only be contained in the hoof of a mule. This in regard of the dire effects, was feigned by the Poets to be a river in Hell.  
Vers. 361. Solyma] So called by the Grecians; as by the Hebrews Salem; and when David had taken it from the jebusites, jerusalem, which is as much as Jebusalem, turning B into R for the better harmony: called after the building of the Temple Hierosolyma by the Greeks, of Hieron which signifies a Temple in their language.  
Vers. 264. From th' Isthmos] This Isthmos lies between Egypt, and the bottom of the Red Sea, from whence to Euphrates David extended his conquests: enforcing all the Arabians to become his Tributaries. Who also overthrew the King of Sophona hard by the eruption of Tigris, overcame the Mesopotamians, the King of Damascus, and drew that City, with all Syria, under his obedience: having before subdued the neighbouring Nations.  
Vers. 267. Th'admiring Queen, etc.] Josephus makes her Queen of Aethiopia; and to have bestowed on Solomon that precious Plant of Balsamum, which he after planted in Engaddi: but this grew in Canaan in the days of Jacob, who sent a Present thereof, among other fruits of that Country, into Egypt. The Aethiopian emperor's glory in their descent from Solomon by this Queen; in regard whereof they greatly favour the Jewish nation. They have a City called Saba, which lies on the West side of the Arabian Gulf. But by the presents which she brought, and vicinity of the Country, it is more probable that she came from Saba, the principal City of Arabia the Happy.  
Vers. 271. Canopus' Sceptre etc.] Kings of Egypt, of Canopus a principal City, which stood on that branch of Nilus which is next to Alexandria; taking that Name from Menelaus his Pilot, there buried by his shipwrackt master.  
Vers. 272. Those Monarchs etc.] Chaldean Monarchs: Babylon, the seat of their Empire; who, as the Persians, adored the Sun under the name of Mithra.  
Vers. 274. Sarrana] Tyrus: so called in that it was built on a rock: the Arabians pronouncing Scar for Sar, from whence the Tyrian purple takes the name of Scarlet.  
He Cities sacks, and houses fills with groans;  
To lie on scarlet, drink in precious stones.  Virg. Geor. l. c. 
Not only josephus, but the Scriptures, make often mention of the ancient amity between the jews and Tyrians.  
Vers. 277. This land etc.] See the Note upon V. 275. Act. 1.  
Vers. 283. Antiochus' guilt] Antiochus Epiphanes; who abrogated their Law, and by threatenings and tortures enforced the jews to Idolatry: polluting their Altar with sacrificed Swine.  
Vers. 291. Iönian Gods] The Gods of Greece: Antiochus being of a Grecian Family, and zealous in their Superstitions.  
Vers. 293. Their brothers slew, etc.] Aristobulus, the first that wore a Crown of the race of the Asmones upon a false suspicion, by the machination of Salome the Queen, caused his valiant and affectionate brother Antigonus to be treacherously murdered; who before had imprisoned the rest of his brethren, and famished his mother. After the desperate death of Aristobulus, Alexander his brother was removed from a Prison to a Throne: who slew his third brother out of a vain suspicion of his aspiring to the Kingdom. To conclude, from the first King of the Asmones, to the last of the Herod's, no history is so fruitful in examples of unnatural Cruelties.  
Vers. 297. Twice vanquished etc.] Pompey was the first of the Romans that subdued the jews: neither were the Romans expulsed by any foreign Prince; but until this time maintained their Government. It must then be meant by their expulsion of one another in their Civil wars: Julius Caesar vanquishing Pompey: Mark Anthony being his Lieutenant in Syria (who gave a great part of the Territories of the jews to Cleopatra) after absolute Lord of the Eastern parts of the Roman Empire; in the end overthrown and deprived of all by Augustus.  
Vers. 303. One part by Roman etc.] judea reduced into a Roman Province by Pompey, and then governed by Pontius Pilate.  
Vers. 304. The other two by brothers etc.] Philip and Antipas (called also Herod) sons to Herod the Great: the one Tetrarch of Iturea, a Country which lies at the foot of Libanus; and the other of Galilee: to whom Agrippa succeeded, the son of Aristobulus slain by his father Herod, with the title of a King bestowed by Caesar.  
Verse 305. From savage Idumaeans] Antipater, the father of Herod, was an Idumoean; who in the contention between the two brethren Hircanus and Aristobulus, about the Kingdom, took part with Hircanus; and grew so powerful, that he made a way for his son to the Sovereignty, though he himself was prevented by poison.  
Vers. 327. That Name] jehova.   

ANNOTATIONS UPON THE THIRD ACT.  
VErse 47. Brutish Thunder] The Philosophers will have two sorts of Lightning: calling the one fatal, that is, pre-appointed and mortal; the other Brutish, that is, accidental, and flying at random.  
Vers. 119. He, whom etc.] Herod Antipas; then Tetrarch of Galilee: whose father Herod the Great so magnificently re-edified the Temple, that the glory of the latter exceeded that of the former.  
Verse 122. The land etc.] Phoenicia; the ancient kingdom of Agenor, son to Belus Priscus: who was reputed a God after his death, and honoured with Temples; called Bel by the Assyrians, and Baal by the Hebrews.  
Verse 142. Whose floods in Summer swell] Nilus, which constantly begins to rise with the rising Sun on the seventeenth of june, increasing by degrees, until it make all the Land a Lake.  
Not tied to laws of other Streams; the Sun  
When furthest off, thy streams then poorest run:  
Intemperate heaven to temper, midst of heat,  
Under the burning Zone, bid to grow great.  
Then Nile assists the world; lest fire should quell  
The Earth: and make his high-born waters swell  
Against the Lions flaming jaws.—  Lucan. l. 10. 
Ver. 187. The free born] It was the custom of the Romans to punish slaves only with whips, but their children and the free, with rods.  
Verse 195. The wreathed Thorns] in reverence of this crown of Thorns, which was plaited about the brows of our Saviour, the Christians forbore to wear any garlands on their heads in their Festivals; although it were the custom of those Nations, among whom they lived.  
Vers. 221. Thou liquid crystal, etc.] Pilate washed not his hands to express his innocency, as a Roman Custom; but therein observing the jewish Ceremony: which was, that he who would profess himself guiltless of a suspected Man slaughter should wash his hands over a Heifer, with her head cut off.  
Verse 338. Let it fall etc.] This imprecation soon after fell upon them in all the fullness of horror; and throughout the world at this day pursues them.  
Verse 233. Drag him to the Cross, etc.] Pilate not only out of fear, and against his conscience; but therein infringed a Law lately made by Tiberius, in the sudden execution: for by the same no offendor was to suffer within ten days after his condemnation. But he met with a Nemesis; soon after turned out of his Government by Vitellius for his cruelty inflicted upon the Sanaritans, and sent to Rome with his accusers. But Tiberius dying before his arrival, he was banished the City by Caius: who troubled in mind, and desperate of restitution, slew himself at Vienna in France within two years after.  
Vers. 238. If thou be he, etc.] By this place taken out of the Gospel, it appears that divers of the jews were of the opinion of the Pythagoreans, or the Pythagoreans of theirs, concerning the transmigration of Souls into other bodies.  
All alter, nothing finally decays:  
Hither and thither still the Spirit strays;  
Guest to all Bodies: out of beasts it flies  
To men, from men to beasts, and never dies.  
As pliant wax each new impression takes;  
Fixed to no form, but still the old forsakes;  
Yet it the same: so Souls the same abide,  
though various figures their reception hide.  Ovid. Met. l. 15. 
Herod conceived that the Soul of john the Baptist, by him wickedly murdered, was entered into the body of our blessed Saviour: And josephus in his Oration to his desperate Companions in the Cave of jotopata: Those poor Souls which depart from this life by the law of Nature, and obediently render what from God they received, shall by him be placed in the highest Heavens; and from thence again, after a certain revolution of time, descend by command to dwell in chaste bodies.  
Vers. 249. Slain for a dancer] This daughter of Herodias, as Nicephorus writes, going over a River that was frozen, fell in all but the head, which was cut off with the ice, as her body waved up and down underneath.  
Vers. 331. Sadock] The Author of the Sect of the Sadduces. See the Note upon Vers. 43. Act. 1.   

ANNOTATIONS UPON THE FOURTH ACT.  
VErse 35. To War the fatal way] The City of jerusalem is only on that side assailable: there forced and entered by the Babylonians, and after by Pompey.  
Vers. 36. Golgotha] Mount Calvary: a rocky hill, neither high, nor ample, lying then without the North-West wall of the City: the public place of execution. Here they say that Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac; in memory whereof there now standeth a Chapel: as an Altar, where the Head of Adam was found, which gave the name to that Mount: buried in that place that his bones might be sprinkled with the real blood of our Saviour, which he knew would be there shed by a prophetical foreknowledge. It is said to stand in the midst of the Earth; which must needs be meant by the then habitable: for what middle can there be in a Spherical Body?  
V. 49. The Nazarite] Not as Sampson by vow, nor of that Sect: but so called of that City, wherein he was conceived, and where he inhabited after his return out of Egypt.  
Vers. 52. Mixed with the bitter tears of Myrrh] Some suppose that this was proffered him by his friends, being of a stupefying quality, to make him less sensible of his torments. But it appears by Petronius and Pliny, that it was a mixture much used in their delights: Whereof Martial  
The tears of Myrrh in hot Falernum thaw:  
From this the Wine a better taste will draw.  Epig. l. 14. 
Strengthening the body, and refreshing the Spirits; and therefore more likely proffered by his enemies to prolong his sufferings.  
Vers. 81. His inward Robe] There be, who write that this was woven by the Virgin Mary: and we read in the Scriptures, as frequently in Homer and other Authors, that women, and those of the highest quality, usually wrought garments for their Children and Husbands.  
Vers. 203. The Centre pants, etc.] This Earthquake proceeded not from the Winds imprisoned in the bowels of the Earth, struggling to break forth, or from any other natural cause, but by the immediate singer of God.  
Vers. 205. The Sun affrighted hides, etc.] Miraculous; without the interposition of the Moon, or palpable Vapours, was that defect of the Sun, and unnatural Darkness, in the sixth hour of the Day: which appeareth by the Text to have covered all the World, and not judea alone, as some have conjectured. Divers Authors have recorded this in their Annals and Histories: but none so exactly as Dionysius Areopagita; who then resided in Egypt, and was an eyewitness.  
Vers. 240. The greedy hollows of a Sponge, etc.] Physicians agree that Vinegar being drunk, or held to the nose, hath in it a natural Virtue for the staunching of blood. Pliny attributes the like to Hyssop, and the better if joined. Neither is it to be thought that the jews offered this unto JESUS in humanity, but rather out of their hatred, that by prolonging his Life until the Evening, his legs might have been broken to the increase of his torments.  
Vers. 256. Pale troops of wandering Ghosts] These were the real bodies of the dead, which entered the City from their graves (for it was, as now, their Custom to bury in the fields) and seen by day. Whereas deluding Spirits assume an Airy, thin and fluxative Body, condensed by cold, but dissipated by heat, and therefore only appear in the Night time. Which Virgil intimates in the Ghost of Anchises:  
And now farewell: the humid Night descends;  
I sent Day's breathe in his too-swift repair.  
This said, like smoke, he vanisheth to air.  Aen. l. 12. 
Ver. 259 The cleaving Rocks] The Rock of Mount Calvary was rent by that Earthquake from the top to the bottom, which at this day is to be seen: the rupture such as Art could have no hand in; each side answerable ragged, and there where unaccessible to the workman.  
Verse 263. Old Chaos now returns] That confused Mass, out of which God created the beautiful World: into which it was imagined that it should be again reduced.  
The aged World, dissolved by the Last  
And fatal Hour, shall to Old Chaos haste.  
Stars, justling Stars, shall in the Deep confound  
Their radiant fires: the Land shall give no bound  
To swallowing Seas: the Moon shall cross the Sun,  
With scorn that her swift wheels obliquely run,  
day's throne aspiring. Discord then shall rend  
The World's cracked Frame, and Nature's Concord end.  Lucan. l. 4. 
But many of our Divines are of opinion, that the World shall neither be dissolved nor annihilated: strengthening their assertion out of the eighth of the Romans, and other places of Scripture.  
Ver. 238. Th'amazed Centurion] To this Centurion, who professed CHRIST to be the Son of God, they give the name of Longinus, and honour him with the crown of martyrdom.  
Vers. 296. The Temples Veil] Described by josephus to consist of Violet, Purple, and Scarlet Silk, cunningly mixed & wrought by Babylonian Needles: the colours containing a mystical sense. Such was that of Solomon's, and of the travelling Tabernacle; but that they were powdered with Cherubins. This, it should seem, was renewed by Herod, when he so magnificently repaired the Temple. It hung before the Sanctum Sanctorum; into which none but the High Priest, and that but once in the year, was to enter: violated by Pompey, pursued by a miserable Destiny. There was an outward Veil, not unlike the other, which separated the Priests from the People: this, contrary to the Opinion of our Author, Baronius conceives to be that which then rent asunder: interpreted to signify the final abolishing of the Law Ceremonial. They write that at the tearing thereof a Dove was seen to fly out of the Temple.  
Vers. 319. Or God doth this abhorred etc.] Eusebius, St. Jerome, and others report, that with this Earthquake at the Passion, the Doors of the Temple flew open, and that the tutelar Angels were heard to cry, Let us remove from this place: though josephus refer it to the destruction of the Temple.  
Vers. 362. Tyrian Gades] Gades, now called Cales, an Island lying on the South of Spain without Hercules' Pillars, held to be the uttermost Confines of the Western World, was planted by a Colony of the Tyrians.  
Vers. 363. As yet sees not thy panting Horses, etc.] A Chariot and Horses were attributed to the Sun, in regard of the swiftness of his Motion; and to express what is beyond the object of the sense by that which is subject unto it. These also by the Idolatrous jews were consecrated unto him. The Sun was feigned to descend into the Sea, because it so appeareth to the eye; the Horizon being there most perspicuous.  
Vers. 371. Hath some Thessalian Witch, etc.] The Thessalian women were infamous for their enchantments: said to have the power to darken the Sun, and draw the Moon from her Sphere. Such Lucan's Erichtho:  
Her words to poison the bright Moon aspire;  
First pale, then red, with dark and terrene fire:  
As when deprived of her Brother's sight,  
Earth interposing his Celestial Light:  
Perplexed with tedious Charms, and held below,  
Till she on under Herbs her jelly throw.  Phar.. l. 6. 
The Author of this opinion was Aglonice the daughter of Hegaemon: who being skilful in Astronomy, boasted to the Thessalian women (foreknowing the time of her Eclipse) that she would perform it at such a season: which happening accordingly, and they beholding the distempered Moon, gave credit to her deception. The like may arise from the Eclipses of the Sun,  
Vers. 372. What new Phaëton] The fable of Phaëton, the son of Phoebus, as the Allegory, is notorious; who by misguiding the Chariot of the Sun set all the World on a conflagration.  
Vers. 377. As when stern Atreus etc.] Atreus, having had his bed dishonoured by his brother Thyestes, slew his children, and gave them for food to their father: when the Sun, to avoid so horrid a sight, fled back to the Orient. So feigned in that Atreus first discovered the Annual Course of the Sun, which is contrary to his Diurnal.  
Vers. 379. Ilia's godlike son, etc.] Romulus: cut into a hundred pieces by the hundred Lords of the Senate, for being so rigorous to them, and so indulgent to the People; every one carrying a piece away with him under his long Gown to conceal the murder: when julius Proculus, to appease the People, swore that he saw him ascend into Heaven: whereupon they consecrated Temples unto him, and gave him divine honours; changing his Name into Quirinus.  
Vers. 383. Or hath that Day, etc.] The Great Year: when all the Planets (here called Gods because they carry their Names) shall return to that position which they were in at the beginning: Comprising, according to Cicero's Hortensius, the revolution of twelve thousand nine hundreth and fifty years.  
Vers. 390. If the World perish by licentious fire] The Romans could not then have this from St. Peter; but rather from the prophecies of the Sibyls:  
These Signs the World's combustion shall forerun:  
Arms clashing, Trumpets, from the rising Sun  
Horrible fragors, heard by all: this Frame  
Of Nature then shall feed the greedy flame.  
Men, Cities, Floods, and Seas, by ravenous lust  
Of Fire devoured, all shall resolve to dust.  Orac. l. 4. 
From hence perhaps the Ancient Philosophers derived their opinions; as Seneca a Latter, The Stars shall encounter one another, and what now shines so orderly, shall burn in one Fire.  
Vers. 395. Either the groaning world, etc.  
Vers. 397. Do proud Titanians etc.] The Poets feign that the angry Earth, to be revenged of the Gods, brought forth the Titans, as after the Giants; who by throwing mountains upon mountains attempted to scale the Heavens, and disenthrone jupiter; who overthrew them with his Lightning, and cast those congested Mountains upon them. Pherecydes the Syrian writes, how the Devils were cast out of Heaven by jupiter (this fall of the Giants perhaps alluding to that of the Angels:) The chief called Ophionius, which signifies Serpentine: having after made use of that Creature to poison Eve with a false ambition.  
Vers. 400. Dire Python] A prodigious Serpent, which after Deucalion's Flood lay upon the Earth like a Mountain, and slain by Apollo: the sense of the Fable being merely Physical; for Python born after the deluge of the humid Earth, was that great Exhalation, which rose from the late drowned world; at length dissipated by the fervour of the Sun, or Apollo.  
The Earth then soaked in showers, yet hardly dry,  
Threw up thick clouds, which darkened all the Sky:  
This was that Python.  Pont. Meteor. 
The word signifies putrefaction: and because the Sun consumes the putrefaction of Earth, his beams darting from his Orb like arrows, with his arrows he is said to have slain Python.  
Vers. 400. Lerna's Fen] In this laid that venomous Serpent Hydra; which is said to have many Heads, whereof one being cut off, two rose in the room more terrible than the former, and with her poisonous breath to have infected all the Territories adjoining. This Fable had a relation to that place, which through the eruption of waters annoyed the neighbouring Cities; when one being stopped many rose in the room: this Hercules perceiving, burned them with fire.  
Corruption boils away with heat;  
And forth superfluous vapours sweat.  
But Physically, Hydra signifies water, and Hercules according to Macrobius, presenteth the Sun, whose extraordinary fervour dried up those noisome and infectious vapours.  
Vers. 404. Lyaeus gave to man less precious wine] Lyaeus is a name of Bacchus, because wine refresheth the Heart, and freeth it from sorrow. Noah was he who immediately after the Flood first planted a Vineyard and showed the use of wine unto man: wherefore some write that of Noachus he was called Boachus, and after Bacchus by the Ethnics, either by contraction, or through ignorance of the etymology. This comparison hath relation to Christ's conversion of water into such excellent wine at Cana in Galilee.  
Vers. 405. Not Hercules so many Monsters slew] Hercules', saith Seneca, traveled over the world, not to oppress it, but to free it from Oppressors; and by killing of Tyrants and Monsters to preserve it in tranquillity. But how much more glorious were the victories of Christ; who by suffering for Sin, subdued it; led Captivity captive, was the death of Death; triumphing over Hell, and those Spirits of Darkness.  
Vers. 406. Unshorn Apollo desk in Physic knew] Apollo; to whom they attribute long yellow hair, in regard of his beautiful Beams, is said to have invented the Art of Physick (his name importing a preservation from evil) because the Sun is so powerful in producing physical Simples, and so salubrious to our bodies: when Christ by his own Virtue cured all diseases; gave sight to the blind by birth, which surpasseth the power of art; threw out wicked Spirits from the tortured bodies of the possessed; and called the Dead from their beds of death to converse again with the Living.  
Verse 419. With the Religion of the Samean] Of Pythagoras of Samos; who by his doctrine and example withdrew the Crotonians from luxury and idleness to temperance and industry; calming the perturbations of the Mind with the music of his Harp: for he held that Virtue, Strength, all Good, and even God himself, consisted of Harmony: That God was the Soul of the World; from whence each creature received his life; & dying, restored it. And lest it might be doubted that the Souls of all had not one Original, in regard of their different understandings, he alleged how that proceeded from the natural complexion & composition of the Body, as more or less perfect: whose opinions are thus delivered by Virgil.  
The arched Heavens, round Earth, the liquid Plain,  
The moon's bright Orb, and Stars Titanian,  
A Soul within sustains; whose Virtues pass  
Through every part, and mix that huge Mass.  
Hence men, hence beasts, whatever fly with wing,  
And Monsters in the marble Ocean spring:  
Of Seed divine, and fiery Vigour, full;  
But what gross flesh, and dying member dull.  
Thence fear, desire, grief, joy; nor more regard  
Their heavenly Birth, in those blind Prisons barred.  Aen. l. 6. 
Moreover, he held that this visible Soul or Godhead, diffused throughout all the world, got itself such diversity of Names, by the manifold operations which it effected in every part of the visible Universe.  
Vers. 420. Nor Thracian Harp, wild Beasts instructing, can] Orpheus of Thrace; who with the music of his Harp and voice attracted even beasts and senseless stones to hear him. The moral of which Fable may parallel with that of Amphion.  
Orpheus the God's Interpreter, from blood  
Rude men at first deterred, and savage food:  
Hence said to have Tigers and fell Lions tamed.  
Amphion so, who Theban bulwarks framed,  
T'have led the stones with music of his lute,  
And mild requests. Of old in high repute:  
Public from Private, Sacred from Profane,  
To separate; and wandering Lust restrain  
With matrimonial ties; fair Cities raise,  
Laws stamp in brass. This gave the honoured bays  
To sacred Poets, and to verse their praise.  Horat. de Art. Poet. 
It is apparent by his Testament to his Scholar Musaeus (whereof certain verses are recited by justin Martyr) that his opinion in divinity was in the main agreeable with the sacred Scriptures: As of one God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Author of all good, and punisher of all evil; exhorting him to the hearing and understanding of that knowledge which was revealed from Heaven: meaning nothing else by those various Names which he gives to the Gods, but divine and natural Virtues: shadowing God himself under the Name of jupiter to avoid the envy and danger of those times; as is almost evident by these attributes.  
Omnipotent Jove; the First, the Last of things;  
The Head, the Midst: all from Jove's bounty springs:  
Foundation of the Earth, and starry Sky:  
A Male, a Female; who can never die.  
Spirit of all: the Force of awful Fire;  
Source of the Sea; Sun, Moon, th'Original,  
The End of all things; and the King of all.  
At first concealed, then by his wondrous Might  
And sacred Goodness, all produced to light.  
Vers. 421. Nor that prophetic Boy, etc.] Of whom Ovid.  
The Nymphs and Amazonian this amazed,  
No less than when the Tyrrhen Ploughman gazed  
Upon the fatal clod, that moved alone;  
And, for a humane shape, exchanged his own.  
With infant lips, that were but earth of late,  
Revealed the Mysteries of future Fate:  
Whom Natives Tages called. He, first of all,  
Th'Etrurians taught to tell what would befall.  Met. l. 15. 
And Cicero, in his second book of Divination: Tages, when the Earth was turned up, and the Blow had made a deeper impression, ascended (as they say) in the Tarquinian fields, and spoke to the tiler. It is written in the Hetrurian Records that he was seen in the form of a Boy, although old in wisdom. The Husbandman amazed, and exalting his voice, drew thither a great concourse of People; and within awhile all Thuscany: who spoke many things in that populous audience; by them remembered, and committed to writing. His oration only contained the discipline of Divination by the entrails of beasts: which after increased by experience, but is referred to this Original. A delusion of the Devils to introduce that Superstition.   

ANNOTATIONS UPON THE FIFTH ACT.  
VErse 30. O may they perish, etc.] This imprecation comprehends those following calamities which the Divine Vengeance inflicted on the jews: more, and more horrid, then ever befell any other Nation.  
Vers. 35. Let the great in War, etc.] Titus Vespasian: who besieged jerusalem when almost all the jewish Nation was within the Walls, there met to celebrate the Passeover: who took it by force, consumed the Temple with fire, (which fell on that day in which it was formerly burnt by the Chaldeans) and levelled the City with the ground: eleven hundred thousand Jews there perishing by famine, pestilence, and the sword: another hundred thousand Captives were publicly sold, for a Roman penny a jew; and sixteen thousand sent to Alexandria for servile employments: two thousand of the most beautiful and personable young men reserved to attend on his Triumph, who after, to delight the Spectators, were torn in pieces by wild beasts in the Amphitheatre.  
Vers. 26. Let Diseases sow, etc.] During the siege the Pestilence violently raged, proceeding from the stench of dead bodies, to whom they afforded no burial, but piled them up in their houses, or threw them over the Wall of the City.  
Vers. 41. Famine, in their dry entrails, etc.] Unexpressible was the Famine they endured; and pitiful, if they themselves had had any pity: enforced to seethe their Girdles and Shoes, and fighting fiercely with one another for so course a diet. Driven in the end to that exigent, that they were fain to rake the sinks and privies, and to feed on that which was loathsome to behold; neither could they keep what they found from the rapine of others.  
Vers. 44. The Babe re-enter her, etc.] Hunger had so overcome Nature, that a Woman of riches and honour, named Mary, being daily robbed of her provision by the Seditious, slew her own child which sucked at her breast, and having sodden one half thereof, eat it. When at the scent of flesh, they broke in upon her; who presented them with the rest; the thieves then hardly refraining, though they trembled at so horrid a Spectacle.  
Vers. 45. While yet the eager Foe, etc.] The enemy assailed them without, and the Seditious massacred one another within; divided into three parties: the Zealous, the Idumaean Robbers, and the rest of the mutinous Citizens: but upon every assault of the Romans, setting their private hatred aside, united themselves, as if of one Mind, and with admirable courage repulsed the Enemy: but upon the least cessation renewed their bloody discord; some beginning with their own hands to set the Temple on fire.  
Vers. 47. Let th'Enemy, etc.] See the Notes upon the 35. Verse.  
Verse. 50. The Relics of their slaughter,] In the days of Adrian, the Jews raised a new Commotion: of whom his Lieutenant, julius Severus, slew five hundred and four score thousand; transporting the rest into Spain by the command of the Emperor: so that jewry was then without jews, as it continues to this present.  
Vers. 52. Despised, and wretched, wander, etc.] Out of Spain they were banished in the year 1500. by Ferdinand and Emanuel. Now scattered throughout the whole World, and hated by those among whom they live; yet suffered as a necessary mischief: subject to all wrongs and contumelies; who can patiently submit themselves to the times, and to whatsoever may advance their profit.  
Vers. 53. Abolished by their Law, etc.] This they lost in the destruction of their City. Yet daily expect that Messias who is already come: and, as they believe, shall restore them to their temporal Kingdom.  
Vers. 55. This infected soil, etc.] The Ecclesiastical Histories report, how joseph of Arimathea, after he had suffered imprisonment by the envy of the jews, and was delivered by an Angel, left his Country, and sailed to Marseilles in France: from thence passing over into this Island, he preached the Gospel to the Britons and Scots: who there exchanged this life for a better.  
Vers. 95. Who knows but soon a holier Age, etc.] Helena the Mother of Constantine, throwing down the Fane of Venus, which Adrian had erected on Calvary, covered both the Mount and Sepulchre with a magnificent Temple, which yet hath resisted the injuries of Insolence and Time: and what was before without, in reverence to the place, is now in the heart of the City. To recover this from the Saracens, divers of the Western Princes have unfortunately ventured their Persons and People: though Godfrey of Bullein, with an Army of three hundred thousand, made of the City and Country an absolute Conquest: Whose Successors held it for fourscore and nine years, and then beaten out by Saladine the Egyptian Sultan. Yet yearly is the Sepulchre visited, though now in the possession of the Turk, from all parts of the World by thousands of Christians, who there pay their vows, and exercise their Devotions.  
Vers. 109. Of his Royal Blood, etc.] Of David's: See the Notes upon the 264. Verse of the second Act.  
Vers. 139. Not that fierce Prince, etc.] Herod the Great, the murderer of the Infants: who put three of his sons to death; with his wife Mariam, whom he frantically affected.  
Vers. 140. Nor his Successor, etc.] Herod Antipas, who cut off the Head of john the Baptist.  
Vers. 189. You neighbours to the sun's uprise] The Persian Magi.   
FINIS.   

Imprimatur.  
joannes Hansley. September 27. 1639.