ANDROMEDA LIBERATA. OR THE NUPTIALS OF PERSEUS and ANDROMEDA. By GEORGE CHAPMAN.  
Nihil a veritate nec virtute remotius quam vulgaris opinio.  Pet. 
LONDON, Printed for LAURENCE L'ISLE and are to be sold at his shop in St, Paules-Church-yard, at the sign of the Tigers-head▪ 1614   

TO THE RIGHT WORTHILY HONOURED, Robert Earl of Somerset, etc. AND HIS MOST NOBLE LADY the Lady FRANCES.  
AS nothing under heaven is more removed  
From Truth & virtue, than Opinions proved  
By vulgar Voices: So is nought more true  
Nor sound virtuous than things held by few:  
Whom Knowledge (entered by the sacred line,  
And governed evermore by grace divine,)  
Keeps in the narrow path to spacious heaven,  
And therefore, should no knowing spirit be driven  
From fact, nor purpose; for the spleens profane  
Of humours errant, and Plebeian;  
But, Famelike, gather force as he goes forth,  
The Crown of all Acts ends in only worth.  
Nor will I fear to prostrate this poor Rage  
Of forespoke Poesy, to your patronage,  
(Thrice worthy Earl), & your unequalled grace  
(Most Noble Countess) for the one-eared Race  
Of set-eyd vulgars', that will no way see  
But that their stiff necks drive them headlongy,  
Stung with the Gadfly of misgoverned zeal:  
Nor hear but one tale and that ever ill.  
These I contemn, as no Rubs fit for me  
To check at, in my way t' Integrity.  
Nor will ye be incensed that such a Toy  
Should put on the presumption to enjoy  
Your graver ear, my Lord, and your fair eye  
(Illustrious Lady) since poor Poesy  
Hath been a jewel in the richest ear  
Of all the Nuptial States, that ever were.  
For as the Body's pulse (in physic) is  
A little thing; yet therein th' Arteries  
Bewray their motion, and disclose, to Art  
The strength, or weakness, of the vital part;  
Perpetually moving, like a watch  
Put in our Bodies: So this three men's catch,  
This little Souls Pulse, Poesy, panting still  
Like to a dancing pease upon a Quill,  
Made with a child's breath; up and down to fly  
(Is no more manly thought) And yet thereby  
Even in the corpse of all the world we can  
Discover all the good and bad of man,  
Anatomise his nakedness, and be  
To his chief Ornament, a Majesty:  
Erect him past his human Period  
And heighten his transition into God.  
Thus Sunlike, did the learned and most divine  
Of all the golden world, make Poesy shine;  
That now, but like aglow worm, gleams by night  
Like Teachers, scarce found, by their proper light.  
But this (my Lord) and all poor virtues else  
Exposed, ah 'las, like perdu sentines  
●o warn the world of what must needs be nigh  
●or pride, and avarice, glazed by Sanctity,  
Must be distinguished, and decided by  
Your clear, ingenuous, and most quiet eye  
Exempt from passionate, and dusky fumes,  
That blind our Reason: and in which consumes  
The Soul, half choked, with stomach casting mists  
●red in the purest, turned mere humorists.  
And where with dovelike sweet humility  
They all things should authorize or deny,  
The vulgar heat and pride of spleen and blood  
Blaze their opinions, which cannot be good.  
For as the Body's Shadow, never can  
Show the distinct, and expact Form of man;  
So nor the bodies passionate affects  
Can ever teach well what the Soul respects.  
For how can mortal things, immortal show▪  
Or that which false is, represent the true▪  
The peaceful mixture then that meets in you  
(Most temperate Earl) that nought to rule do thou:  
In which, as in a through kindled Fire,  
Light and Heat marry judgement and Desire.  
Reason is still in quiet, and extends  
All things t' advantage of your honoured Ends,  
May well authorize all your Acts of Note,  
Since all Acts vicious, are of Passion got:  
" Through dead Calms, of our Perturbations ever  
" Truths Voice (to souls ears set) we hear or never  
" The merely animate Man, doth nothing see  
" That tends to heaven: It must be only He  
" That is mere foul: Her separable powers  
" The sceptre giving here: That then discourse  
" Of Motions that in sense do never fall,  
" Yet know them too, and can distinguish all  
" With such a freedom, that our earthly parts  
" Sink all to earth: And than th'ingenuous arts  
" Do their true office, Then true Policy  
" Wind's like: a serpent, through all Empery.  
" Her folds on both sides bounded, like a flood  
" With high-shores listed, making great and good  
" Whom she instructeth, to which, you (my Lord)  
May lay all claims that Temper can afford;  
Nought gathering ere it is ripe: and so must taste  
Kindly and sweetly, and the longer haste,  
All fruits, in youth, ripe in you; and must so  
Imply a faculty to ever grow.  
And as the morning that is calm and grey,  
Decked all with curled clouds; that the Sun doth lay  
With varied colours; All aloft exhalled  
As they t'adorn even heaven itself were called,  
And could not fall in slenderest dews till Night,  
But keep days Beauty: firm and exquisite;  
More for delight fit, and doth more adorn  
Even th'even with Graces, than the youthful morn:  
So you (sweet Earl) stay youth in aged bounds  
Even absolute now, in all life's gravest grounds,  
Like Air, fill every corner of your place,  
Your grace, your virtue heightening: virtue, grace  
And keeping all clouds high, air calm, & clear  
And in yourself all that their height should rear  
Your life and light will prove a still full Moon,  
And all your night time nobler than your noon,  
The Sun is in his rising, height, and set  
Still (in himself) alike, at all parts great,  
His light, heat, greatness, colours that are shown  
To us; as his charge, merely is our own.  
So let your charge, my Lord, in others be,  
But in yourself hold Sunlike constancy.  
For as men skilled in Nature's study, say,  
The world was not the world, nor did convey  
To coupling bodies Natures common form,  
But (all confused, like waves struck with a storm)  
Some small were, and (in no set being, stayed)  
All comprehension, and connexion fled;  
The greater, and the more compact disturbed  
With ceaseless war, and by no order curbed,  
Till earth receiving her set magnitude  
Was fixed herself, and all her Birth endued  
With stay and law, so this small world of ours:  
Is but a Chaos of corporeal powers:  
Nor yields his mixed parts, forms that may become  
A human Nature; But at random room  
Past brutish fashions, and so never can  
Be called the civil body of a man;  
But in it, and against itself still fights,  
In competence of Cares, joys, Appetites:  
The more great in command, made servile more,  
Glutted, not satisfied: in plenty, poor:  
Till up the Soul mounts, and the Sceptre sways  
Th'admired Fabric of her world surveys,  
And as it hath a magnitude confined,  
●o all the powers therein, she sees combined  
●n fit Acts for one end, which is t'obey  
Reason, her Regent; Nature giving way:  
Peace, Concord, Order, Stay proclaimed, and Law,  
And none commanding, if not all in Awe,  
Passion, and Anger, made to underlie,  
And here concludes, man's moral Monarchy  
●n which, your Lordship's mild Soul sits so hie  
Yet cares so little to be seen, or heard,  
That in the good thereof, her scope is Sphered.  
The Theban Ruler, paralleling Right,  
Who, thirst of glory, turned to appetite  
Of inward Goodness, was of speech so spare,  
To hear, and learn, so covetous, and you're,  
That (of his years) none, things so many knew:  
Nor in his speeches, ventured on so few:  
Forth then (my Lord) & these things ever thirst  
Till Scandal pine, and Bane-fed envy burst.  
And you, (most noble) Lady as in blood  
In mind be Noblest, make our factious brood  
Whose forked tongues, would fain your honour sting  
Convert their venomed points into their spring:  
Whose own hearts guilty, of faults feigned in yours  
Would fain be posting off: but, arm your powers  
With such a siege of virtues, that no vice  
Of all your Foes, Advantage may entice  
To sally forth, and charge you with offence,  
But starve within, for very conscience  
Of that Integrity, they see expressed  
In your clear life: Of which, th'examples Rest,  
May be so blameless; that all past must be  
(Being Fount to th'other) most undoubtedly  
Confessed untouched; and Curiosity  
The beam pick rather from her own squint eye,  
Then ramp still at the motes shade, feigned in yours,  
Nought doth so shame this chemic search of ours  
As when we pry long for assured huge prize,  
Our glasses broke, all up in vapour flies.  
And as, the Royal Beast, whose image you  
Bear in your arms, and airs great Eagle too;  
Sill as they go, are said to keep in close  
Their seres, & Talons, lest their points should lose  
Their useful sharpness, when they serve no use:  
So this our sharp-eyd search that we abuse  
In others breasts, we should keep in, t'explore  
Our own fowl bosoms, and quit them before  
We ransack others: but (great Lady) leave  
These Rules to them they touch; do you receive  
Those free joys in your honour, and your Love  
That you can say are yours; and ever move  
Where your command, as soon is served as known,  
joys placed without you, never are your own.  Your Honours ever most humbly and faithfully vowed. Geo. Chapman.  

To the prejudicate and peremptory Reader.  
I Am still in your hands; but was first in his, that (being our great sustainer of Sincerity, and Innocence) will, I hope, defend me from falling. I think you know not him I intent, more than you know me, nor can you know me, since your knowledge is imagined so much above mine, that it must needs oversee. He that lies on the ground can fall no lower. By such as backbite the highest, the lowest must look to be the uored, Forth with your curious Scrutiny, and find my Rush as knotty as you lust, and your own Crabtree, as smooth. Twillbe most ridiculous▪ and pleasing, to sit in a corner, and spend your teeth to the stumps, in mumbling an old Sparrow, till your lips bleed, and your eyes water: when all the faults you can find are first in yourselves, t' is no Herculean labour to crack what you breed. Ah 'las who knows not your uttermost dimensions? Or loves not the best things you would seem to love, in deed, and better? Truth was never the Fount of Faction. In whose Sphere since your purest thoughts move, their motion must of force be oblique and angulare. But whatsoever your disease be, I know it incurable, because your urine will never show it. At adventure, at no hand be let blood for it, but rather soothe your rank bloods and rub one another.  
You yet, ingenuous and judicious Reader: that (as you are yourself) retain in a sound body, as sound a soul: if your gentle tractability, have unwares let the common surfeit surprise you: abstain, take physic here, and recover. Since you read to learn, teach: Since you desire to be reformed, reform freely. Such strokes shall be so far from breaking my head; they shall be rich Balms to it, comfort, and strengthen the brain it bears, and make it healthfully neese out, whatsoever annoys it.  
Vale.   

The Argument.  
ANdromeda, Daughter of Cepheus, King of Aethiopia; and Cassiope (a virgin exempted from comparison in all the virtues & beauties, both o● mind and body) for the envy of juno to her Mother; being compared with her for beauty and wisdom; (or as others write, maligned by the Nereids, for the eminent Graces of herself) moved so much the Deities displeasures; that they procured Neptune to send into the Region of Ceph●us, a whale so monstrously vast and dreadful: that all the fields he spoiled and wasted; all the noblest edifices tumbling to ruin; the strongest cities of the kingdom, not forcible enough to withstand his invasions. Of which so unsufferable a plague Cepheus consulting with an Oracle; and ask both the cause, and remedy; after accustomed sacrifices, the Oracle gave answer, that the calamity would never cease, till his only daughter Andromeda, was exposed to the Monster. Cepheus returned, and with Iron chains bound his daughter to a rock, before a city of the kingdom called jop. At which city, the same time, Perseus arrived with the head of Medusa etc. who pitying so matchless a virgins exposure to so miserable an event; dissolved her chains and took her from the Rock. Both sitting together to expect the monster, & he ravenously hasting to devour her, Perseus, turndpart of him into stone, & through the rest made way with his sword to his utter slaughter. When (holding it wreath enough for so renowned a victory) He took Andromeda to wife, & had by her one daughter called pierce, another Erythraea, of whom, the sea in those parts is called Mare Erythraean; since she both lived and died there: and one son called after himself, another Electrion, a third Sthenelus: and after lived Princely and happily with his wife and his own Mother to his death. Then feigned for their virtues to be made Constellations in Heaven.   

ANDROMEDA LIBERATA.  
AWay ungodly Vulgars', far away,  
Fly ye profane, that dare not view the day,  
Nor speak to men but shadows, nor would hear  
Of any news, but what seditious were,  
Hateful and harmful ever to the best,  
Whispering their scandals, glorifying the rest,  
Impious, and yet 'gainst all ills but your own,  
The hottest sweaters of religion.  
Whose poisons all things to your spleens pervert,  
And all streams measure by the Fount your heart,  
That are in nought but misrule regulare,  
To whose eyes all seem ill, but those that are,  
That hate ye know not why, nor with more cause,  
Give whom ye most love your profane applause,  
That when Kings and their Peers (whose piercing eyes  
Broke through their broken sleeps and policies,  
men's inmost Cabinets disclose and hearts;  
Whose hands loves balance (weighing all deserts)  
Have let down to them; which grave conscience,  
Charged with the blood and soul of Innocence.  
Holds with her white hand, (when her either skole,  
Apt to be swayed with every grain of Soul,  
Herself sways up or down, to heaven or hell,  
Approve an action) you must yet conceal,  
A deeper insight, and retain a taint  
To cast upon the pure soul of a Saint.  
Away, in our mild Sphere doth nothing move,  
But all-creating, all preserving Love,  
At whose flames, virtues, lighted even to stars,  
All vicious envies, and seditious jars,  
Bane-spitting Murmurs and detracting Spells,  
Banish with curses to the blackest hells:  
Defence of Beauty and of Innocence,  
And taking off the chains of Insolence,  
From their profaned and godlike Lineaments,  
Actions heroic, and divine descents,  
All the sweet Graces, even from death reviv'd,  
And sacred fruits, from barren Rocks derived,  
Th' Immortal Subjects of our Nuptials are:  
Thee then (just scourge of factious populare;  
Fautor of peace, and all the powers that move  
In sacred Circle of religious Love;  
Fountain of royal learning, and the rich  
Treasure of Counsels, and mellifluous speech:)  
Let me invoke, that one drop of thy spring  
May spirit my aged Muse, and make her sing,  
As if th'inspired breast, of eternal youth  
Had lent her Accents, and all-moving truth.  
The Kingdom that the gods so much did love,  
And often feasted all the Powers above:  
At whose prime beauties the enamoured Sun,  
His Morning beams lights, and doth overrun  
The world with ardour (Aethiopia)  
Bore in her throne divine Andromeda,  
To Cepheus and Cassiope his Queen:  
Whose boundless beauties, made ore'flow the spleen  
Of every Neirid, for surpassing them:  
The Sun to her, resigned his Diadem:  
And all the Deities, admiring stood,  
Affirming nothing moved, like flesh and blood:  
Thunder would court her with words sweetly phrazed,  
And lightning stuck 'twixt heaven and earth amazed.  
This matchless virgin had a mother too,  
That did for beauty, and for wisdom go  
Before the foremost Ladies of her time:  
To whom of super-excellence the crime  
Was likewise laid by juno, and from hence  
Pined Envy sucked, the poison of offence.  
No truth of excellence, was ever seen,  
But bore the venom of the Vulgares spleen.  
And now the much enraged Neireides  
Obtained of him that moves the marble seas  
(To wreak the virtue, they called Insolence)  
A whale so monstrous, and so past defence,  
That all the royal Region he laid waste,  
And all the noblest edifices raced:  
Nor from his plague, were strongest Cities free,  
His bodies vast heap raged so heavily.  
With noblest names and bloods is still imbrued  
The monstrous beast, the ravenous Multitude.  
This plague thus preying upon all the land,  
With so incomprehensible a hand:  
The pious virgin of the father sought,  
By Oracles to know, what cause had brought  
Such baneful outrage over all his State,  
And what might reconcile the Deities hate.  
His orisons and sacrifices past,  
The Oracle gave answer, that the waste  
His Country suffered, never would conclude,  
Till his Andromeda he did extrude,  
To rapine of the Monster, he (good man,)  
Resolved to satiate the Leviathan:  
With her, before his Country, though he loved  
Her past himself, and bore a spirit moved  
To rescue Innocence in any one  
That was to him, or his, but kindly known,  
To grace, or profit; do them any good  
That lay in swift stream of his noblest blood,  
Constant to all, yet to his dearest seed,  
(For rights sake) flitting: thinking true indeed,  
The general uproar, that 'twas sin in her,  
That made men so exclaim, and gods confer  
Their approbation: saying the kingdoms bale  
Must end by her exposure to the Whale:  
With whom the Whale-like vulgar did agree,  
And their foul spleens, thought her impiety,  
Her most wise mother yet, the stern intent,  
Vowed with her best endeavour to prevent.  
And told her what her father did address;  
She (fearful) fled into the wilderness:  
And to th' instinct of savage beasts would yield,  
Before a father that would cease to shield  
A daughter, so divine and Innocent:  
Her feet were winged, and all the search out went,  
That after her was ordered: but she flew,  
And burst the winds that did incensed pursue,  
And with enamoured sighs, her parts assail,  
Played with her hair, and held her by the vail:  
From whom she broke, and did to woods repair:  
Still where she went, her beauties died the air,  
And with her warm blood, made proud Flora blush:  
But seeking shelter in each shady bush:  
Beauty like fire, compressed, more strength receives  
And she was still seen shining through the leaves.  
Hunted from thence, the Sun even burned to see,  
So more than sun-like a Divinity,  
Blinded her eyes, and all invasion seeks  
To dance upon the mixture of her cheeks,  
Which showed to all, that followed after far,  
As underneath the roundure of a star,  
The evening sky is purpleed with his beams:  
Her looks fired all things with her loves extremes.  
Her neck a chain of orient pearl did deck,  
The pearls were fair, but fairer was her neck:  
Her breasts (laid out) showed all inflamed sights  
Love, lie a sunning, twixt two Crysolites:  
Her naked wrists showed, as if through the sky,  
A hand were thrust, to sign the Deity  
Her hands, the confines, and digestions were  
Of Beauty's world; Love fixed his pillars there.  
Her eyes that others caught, now made her caught,  
Who to her father, for the whale was brought,  
Bound to a barren Rock, and death expected;  
But heaven hath still such Innocence protected:  
Beauty needs fear no Monsters, for the sea,  
(Mother of Monsters) sent Alcyone,  
To warrant her, not only 'gainst the waves,  
But all the deaths hid in her watery graves.  
The loving birds flight made about her still,  
(Still good presaging) show'd heavens saving will:  
Which cheering her, did comfort all the shore  
That mourned in shade of her sad eyes before:  
Her looks to pearl turned pebble, and her looks  
To burnished gold transformed the burning Rocks.  
And no● came roaring to the tied, the Tide  
All the Neireides decked in all their pride  
Mounted on Dolphins, ro●de to see their wreak  
The waves foamed with their envies; that did speak  
In mutest fishes, with their leaps aloft  
For brutish joy of the revenge they sought.  
The people greedy of disastrous sights  
And news, (the food of idle appetites  
From the king's Chamber, strait knew his intent,  
And almost his resolved thoughts did prevent  
In dry waves beating thick about the Shore  
And then came on the prodigy, that bore  
In one mass mixed their Image; that still spread  
A thousand bodies under one sole head  
Of one mind still to ill all ill men are  
Strange sights and mischiefs fit the Populare.  
Upon the Monster red Rhamnusia road,  
The Savage leapt beneath his bloody load  
Mad of his prey, given over now by all:  
When any high, have any means to fall,  
Their greatest lovers prove false props to prove it  
And for the mischief only, praise and love it.  
There is no good they will not then commend,  
Nor no Religion but they will pretend  
A mighty title to, when both are used,  
To warrant Innovation, or see bruised  
The friendless Reed, that under all feet lies:  
The sound parts evermore, they pass like flies,  
And dwell upon the sores, ill in themselves,  
They clearly sail with over rocks and shelves,  
But good in others ship wrack in the Deeps:  
Much more unjust is he that truly keeps  
Laws for more show, his own ends understood  
Then he that breaks them for another's good.  
And 'tis the height of all malignity,  
●o tender good so, that ye ill imply:  
●o tread on Pride but with a greater pride.  
When where no ill, but in ill thoughts is tried,  
To speak well is a charity divine:  
The rest retain the poison serpentine  
Under their lips, that sacred lives condemn,  
And we may worthily apply to them,  
This tragic execration: perish he  
That sits too far human infirmity.  
But as your cupping glasses still exhale  
The humour that is ever worst of all  
In all the flesh: So these spiced conscienced men  
The worst of things explore still, and retain.  
Or rather, as in certain Cities were  
Some ports through which all rites piaculare,  
All Executed men, all filth were brought,  
Of all things chaste, or pure, or sacred, nought  
Entering or issuing there: so curious men,  
Nought manly, elegant, or not unclean,  
Embrace, or bray out: Acts of stain are still  
Their Sirens, and their Muses: Any ill  
Is to their appetites, their supreme good,  
And sweeter than their necessary food.  
All men almost in all things they apply  
The By the Main make, and the Main the By.  
Thus this sweet Ladies sad exposure was  
Of all these moods in men, the only glass:  
But now the man that next to jove comptrold  
The triple world▪ got with a shower of gold:  
(Armed with Medusa's head, and Enyos eye:  
The Adamantine sword of Mercury  
The helm of Pluto, and minerva's Mirror,  
That from the Gorgus made his pass with Terror)  
Came to the rescue of this envied maid:  
Drew near, and first, in admiration stayed  
That for the common ill of all the land,  
She the particular obloquy should stand:  
And that a beauty, no less than divine  
Should men and women find so serpentine  
As but to think her any such event:  
Much less that eyes and hands should give consent  
To such a danger and to such a death.  
But though the whole Realm laboured underneath  
So foul an error, yet since jove and he  
Tendered her beauty, and integrity,  
In spite of all the more he set up spirit  
To do her right; the more all wronged her merit,  
He that both virtue had, and beauty too  
Equal with her to both knew what to do:  
The Ruthless still go laughed at to the Grave  
Those that no good will do, no goodness have:  
The mind a spirit is, and called the glass  
In which we see God; and corporeal grace  
The mirror is, in which we see the mind.  
Amongst the fairest women you could find  
Then Perseus, none more fair; 'mongst worthiest men,  
No one more manly: This the glass is then  
To show where our complexion is combined;  
A woman's beauty, and a manly mind:  
Such was the halfe-divine-borne Trojan Terror  
Where both Sex graces, met as in their Mirror.  
Perseus of Loves own form, those five parts had  
Which some give man, that is the loveliest made:  
Or rather that is loveliest inclined,  
And bears (with shape) the beauty of the mind:  
Young was he, yet not youthful, since mid-yeeres,  
The golden mean holds in men's loves and fears:  
Aptly composed, and soft (or delicate)  
Flexible (or tender) calm (or temperate)  
Of these five, three, make most exactly known,  
The Bodies temperate complexion:  
The other two, the order do express,  
The measure and whole Trim of comeliness.  
A temperate corporature (learned Nature saith)  
A smooth, a soft, a solid flesh bewrayeth:  
Which state of body shows th' affections State  
In all the humours, to be moderate;  
For which cause, soft or delicate they call  
Our conquering Perseus, and but young withal,  
Since time or years in men too much revolved,  
The subtler parts of humour being resolved,  
More thick parts rest, of fire and air the want,  
Makes earth and water more predominant:  
Flexible they called him, since his quick conceit,  
And pliant disposition, at the height  
took each occasion, and to Acts approved,  
As soon as he was full informed, he moved,  
Not flexible, as of inconstant state,  
Nor soft, as if too much effeminate,  
For these to a complexion moderate  
(Which we before affirm in him) imply,  
A most unequal contrariety.  
Composure fit for Ioues son Perseus had,  
And to his form, his mind fit answer made:  
" As to be loved, the fairest fittest are;  
" To love so to, most apt are the most fair,  
" Light like itself, transparent bodies makes,  
" At ones act▪ th'other joint impression takes.  
" Perseus', (as if transparent) at first sight,  
" Was shot quite through with her beauty's light:  
" Beauty breeds love▪ love consummates a man.  
" For love, being true, and Eleutherean,  
" No Injury nor contumely bears;  
" That his beloved, either feels or fears,  
" All goodwills interchange it doth conclude  
" And man's whole sum holds, which is gratitude:  
" No wisdom, noblesse, force of arms, nor laws,  
" Without love, wins man, his complete applause:  
" Love, makes him valiant, past all else desires  
" For Mars, that is, of all heavens erring fires  
" Most full of fortitude (since he inspires  
" Men with most valour) Cytheraea tames:  
" For when in heavens blunt Angels shine his flames,  
" Or he, his second or eight house ascends  
" Of ruled Nativities; and then portends  
" Ill to the then-borne: Venus in aspect  
" Sextile, or Trine doth (being conjoined) correct  
" His most malignity: And when his star  
" The birth of any governs (fit for war  
" The Issue making much to wrath inclined  
" And to the venturous greatness of the mind)  
" If Venus near him shine she doth not let  
" His magnanimity, but in order set  
" The vice of Anger making Mars more mild  
" And gets the mastery of him in the child:  
" Mars never masters her; but if she guide  
" She love inclines: and Mars set by her side  
" Her fires more ardent render, with his heat:  
" So that if he at any birth be set  
" In th' house of Venus, Libra, or the Bull,  
" The then-borne burns, and loves flames feels at full.  
" Besides, Mars still doth after Venus move  
" Venus' not after Mars: because, of Love  
" Boldness is handmaid, Love not so of her:  
" For not because men, bold affections bear  
" loves golden nets doth their affects enfold;  
" But since men love, they therefore are more bold  
" And made to dare, even Death, for their beloved,  
" And finally, loves Fortitude is proved  
" Past all, most clearly; for this cause alone  
" All things submit to Love, but love to none.  
" Celestials, Animals, all Corporeal things,  
" Wisemen, and Strong, Slave-rich, and Freeborn Kings  
" Are loves contributories; no gifts can buy,  
" No threats can love constrain, or terrify  
" For love is Free, and his Impulsions still  
Spring from his own free, and ingenious will.  
Not God himself, would willing love enforce  
But did at first decree, his liberal course:  
Such is his liberty, that all affects  
All arts and Acts, the mind beside directs  
To some wished recompense, but love aspires  
To no possessions, but his own desires:  
As if his wish in his own sphere did move,  
And no reward were worthy Love but love.  
Thus Perseus stood affected, in a Time  
When all love, but of riches was a crime  
A fancy and a folly. And this fact  
To add to loves deservings, did detract;  
For 'twas a Monster and a monstrous thing  
Whence he should combat out, his nuptial ring,  
The monster vulgar thought, and conquered gave  
The combatant already, the foul grave  
Of their fore-speakings, gaping for him stood  
And cast out fumes as from the Stygian flood  
'Gainst his great enterprise, which was so fit  
For Ioues chief Minion, that Plebeian wit  
Could not conceive it: Acts that are too high  
For Fame's cracked voice, resound all Infamy:  
O poor of understanding: if there were  
Of all your Acts, one only that did bear  
Man's worthy Image, even of all your best  
Which truth could not discover, to be dressed  
In your own ends, which Truth's self not compels,  
But covers in your bottoms, sinks and hells.  
Whose opening would abhor the sun to see  
(So ye stood sure of safe delivery  
Being great with gain or propagating lust)  
A man might fear your hubbubs; and some trust  
Give that most false Epiphonem, that gives  
Your voice, the praise of gods: but view your lives  
With eyes impartial, and ye may abhor  
To censure high acts, when your own taste more  
Of damned danger: Perseus scorned to fear  
The ill of good Acts, though hel-mouth gaped there:  
Came to Andromeda; sat by, and cheered:  
But she that loved, through all the death she feared,  
At first sight, like her Lover: for his sake  
Resolved to die, ere he should undertake  
A combat with a Monster so past man  
To tame or vanquish, though of jove he wan  
A power past all men else, for man should still  
Advance his powers to rescue good from ill,  
Where means of rescue served: and never where  
Ventures of rescue, so impossible were  
That would increase the danger: two for one  
Expose to Ruin: Therefore she alone  
Would stand the Monster's Fury and the Shame  
Of those harsh bands: for if he overcame  
The monstrous world would take the monsters part  
●o much the more: and say some sorcerous art  
Not his pure valour, nor his Innocence  
Prevailed in her deliverance her offence  
Would still the same be counted, for whose ill  
The Land was threatened by the Oracle.  
The poisoned Murmurs of the multitude.  
Rise more, the more, desert or power obtrude:  
Against their most (said he) come I the more:  
Virtue, in constant sufferance we adore.  
Nor could death fright him, for he dies that loves:  
And so all bitterness from death removes.  
He dies that loves, because his every thought,  
(Himself forgot) in his beloved is wrought.  
If of himself his thoughts are not employed  
Nor in himself they are by him enjoyed.  
And since not in himself, his mind hath Act  
(The minds act chiefly being of thought compact)  
Who works not in himself, himself not is:  
For, these two are in man joint properties,  
To work, and Be; for Being can be never  
But Operation, is combined ever.  
Nor Operation, Being doth exceed,  
Nor works man where he is not: still his deed  
His being, consorting, no true lovers mind  
He in himself can therefore ever find  
Since in himself it works not, if he gives  
Being from himself, not in himself he lives:  
And he that lives not, dead is, Truth then said  
That whosoever is in love, is dead.  
If death the Monster brought then, he had laid  
A second life up, in the loved Maid:  
And had she died, his third life Fame decreed,  
Since death is conquered in each living deed:  
Then came the Monster on, who being shown  
His charmed shield, his half he turned to stone  
And through the other with his sword made way:  
Till like a ruin'd City, dead he lay  
Before his love: The Neirids with a shriek  
And Sirens (fearful to sustain the like)  
And even the ruthless and the senseless Tide  
Before his hour, ran roaring terrified,  
Back to their strength: wonders and monsters both,  
With constant magnanimity, like froth  
Suddenly vanish, smothered with their press;  
No wonder lasts but virtue: which no less  
We may esteem, since it is as seldom found  
Firm & sincere, and when no vulgar ground  
Or flourish on it, fits the vulgar eye  
Who views it not but as a prodigy?  
Plebeian admiration, needs must sign  
All trueborn Acts, or like false fires they shine:  
If Perseus for such warrant had contained  
His high exploit, what honour had he gained?  
Who would have set his hand to his design  
But in his scorn? scorn censures things divine:  
True worth (like truth) sits in a groundless pit  
And none but true eyes see the depth of it  
Perseus had Enyos eye, and saw within  
That grace, which out-lookes, held a desperate sin:  
He, for itself, with his own end went on,  
And with his lovely rescued Paragon  
Longed of his Conquest, for the latest shock:  
Dissolved her chains, and took her from the rock  
Now wooing for his life that fled to her  
As hers in him lay: Love did both confer  
To one in both: himself in her he found  
She with herself, in only him was crowned:  
While thee I love (said he) you loving me  
In you I find myself: thought on by thee,  
And I (lost in myself by thee neglected)  
In thee recovered am, by thee affected:  
The same in me you work, miraculous strange  
Twixt two true Lovers is this interchange,  
For after I have lost myself, if I  
Redeem myself by thee, by thee supply  
I of myself have, if by thee I save  
Myself so lost, thee more than me I have.  
And nearer to thee, than myself I am  
Since to myself no otherwise I came  
Then by thee being the mean: In mutual love  
One only death and two revivals move:  
For he that loves, when he himself neglects  
Dies in himself once, In her he affects  
Strait he renews, when she with equal fire  
Embraceth him, as he did her desire:  
Again he lives too, when he surely seeth  
Himself in her made him: O blessed death  
Which two lives follow: O Commerce most strange  
Where, who himself doth for another change,  
Nor hath himself, nor ceaseth still to have:  
O gain, beyond which no desire can crave,  
When two are so made one, that either is  
For one made two, and doubled as in this:  
Who one life had: one intervenient death  
Makes him distinctly draw a two fold breath:  
In mutual Love the wreak most just is found,  
When each so kill that each cure others wound;  
But Churlish Homicides, must death sustain,  
For who beloved, not yielding love again  
And so the life doth from his love divide  
Denies himself to be a Homicide?  
For he no less a Homicide is held,  
That man to be borne lets: then he that killed  
A man that is borne: He is bolder far  
That present life reaves: but he crueler  
That to the to-be borne, envies the light  
And puts their eyes out, ere they have their sight.  
All good things ever we desire to have,  
And not to have alone, but still to save:  
All mortal good, defective is, and frail;  
Unless in place of things, on point to fail,  
We daily new beget. That things innate  
May last, the languishing we re'create  
●n generation, re'creation is,  
And from the prosecution of this  
Man his instinct of generation takes.  
Since generation, in continuance, makes  
Mortals, similitudes, of powers divine,  
Divine worth doth in generation shine.  
Thus Perseus said, and not because he saved  
Her life alone, he her in marriage craved:  
But with her life, the life of likely Race  
Was chief end of his action, in whose grace  
Her royal father brought him to his Court  
With all the then assembled glad resort  
Of Kings and Princes: where were solemnized  
Th'admired Nuptials: which great Heaven so prized  
That jove again stooped in a golden shower  
T'enrich the Nuptial as the natal hour  
Of happy Perseus▪ white-armd juno to  
Deposed her greatness, and what she could do  
To grace the Bride & Bridegroom, was vouchsaf●●  
All Subiect-deities stooped to: and the Shaft  
Golden and mutual, with which love compressed  
Both th'envied Lovers: offered to, and kissed:  
All answerably feasted to their States:  
In all the Stars beams, stooped the reverend Fates:  
And the rear banquet, that fore ran the Bed  
With his presage shut up, and seconded:  
And said they sung verse, that Posterity  
In no age should reprove, for Perfidy.  

Parcarum Epithalamion.  

O You this kingdoms glory that shall be  
Parents to so renowned a Progeny  
As earth shall envy, and heaven glory in,  
Accept of their lives threads, which Fates shall spin  
Their true spoke oracle, and live to see  
Your sons sons enter such a Progeny,  
As to the last times of the world shall last:  
Haste you that guide the web, haste spindle's haste.   

●ee Hesperus, with nuptial wishes crowned,  
●ake and enjoy; In all ye wish abound,  
Abound, for who should wish crown with her store  
●ut you that slew what barren made the shore?  
You that in winter, make your spring to come  
Your Summer needs must be Elysium:  
● race of mere souls springing, that shall cast  
●heir bodies off in cares, and all joys taste.  
Haste then that sacred web, haste spindle's haste.   

jove loves not many, therefore let those few  
That his gifts grace, affect still to renew:  
For none can last the same; that proper is  
To only more than Semideities:  
To last yet by renewing, all that have  
More merit than to make their birth their grave,  
As in themselves life, life in others save:  
First to be great seek, than loved, then to last:  
Haste you that guide the web, haste spindle's haste.   

She comes, o Bridegroom show thyself inflamed  
And of what tender tinder Love is flamed:  
Catch with each spark, her beauties hurl about:  
Nay with each thought of her be rapt throughout;  
Melt let thy liver, pant thy startled heart:  
Mount Love on earthquakes in thy every part:  
A thousand hews on thine, let her looks cast;  
Dissolve thyself to be by her embraced,  
Haste ye that guide the web, haste spindle's haste.   

As in each body, there is ebb and flood  
Of blood in every vain, of spirits in blood;  
Of joys in spirits, of the Soul in joys,  
And nature through your lives, this change employs  
To make her constant: so each mind retains  
Manners and customs, where vicicitude reigns:  
Opinions, pleasures, which such change enchains.  
And in this interchange all man doth last,  
Haste then who guide the web, haste spindle's haste.   

Who body loves best, feeds on daintiest meats,  
Who fairest seed seeks, fairest women gets:  
Who loves the mind, with loveliest disciplines  
loves to inform her, in which verity shines.  
Her beauty yet, we see not, since not her:  
But bodies▪ (being her forms) who fair forms bear  
We view, and chiefly seek her beauties there.  
The fairest then, for fair birth, see embraced,  
Haste ye that guide the web, haste spindle's haste.   

Stars ye are now, and overshine the earth:  
Stars shall ye be hereafter, and your birth  
In bodies rule here, as yourselves in heaven,  
What here Detraction steals, shall there be given:  
The bound that here you freed shall triumph there  
The chain that touched her wrists shall be a star  
Your beauties few can view, so bright they are:  
Like you shallbe your birth, with grace disgraced  
Haste ye that rule the web, haste spindle's haste.   

Thus by divine instinct, the fates enraged,  
Of Perseus and Andromeda presaged  
Who, (when the worthy nuptial State was done  
And that act past, which only two makes one,  
Flesh of each flesh and bone of either's bone)  
Left Cepheus Court; both freed and honoured.  
The loving Victor, and blessed Bridegroom led  
Home to the Seriphins, his rescued Bride;  
Who (after issue highly magnified  
Both rapt to heaven, did constellations reign,  
And to an Asterisme was turned the chain  
That only touched his grace of flesh & blood,  
In all which stands the Fates kind Omen good.    

APODOSIS.  
THus through the Fount of storms (the cruel seas)  
Her Monsters and malignant deities,  
Great Perseus made high and triumphant way  
To his star crowned deed, and bright Nuptial day.  
And thus do you, that Perseus' place supply  
In our Ioues love, get Persian victory  
Of our Land Whale, foul Barbarism, and all  
His brood of pride, and lives Atheistical:  
That more their palates and their purses prize  
Then propagating Persian victories:  
Take Monsters parts, not author manly parts:  
For Monsters kill the Man-informing Arts:  
And like a loathed prodigy despise  
The rapture that the Arts doth naturalise,  
Creating and immortalising men:  
Who scorns in her the Godheads virtue then,  
The Godheads self hath boldness to despise,  
And hate not her, but their Eternity's:  
Seek virtues love, and vicious flatteries hate,  
here is not true sweet, but in knowing State.  
Who Honour hurts, neglecting virtues love,  
Commits but Rapes on pleasures; for not jove  
His power in thunder hath, or downright flames,  
But his chief Rule, his Love and Wisdom frames▪  
You then, that in loves strife have overcome  
The greatest Subject blood of Crhistendome,  
The greatest subject mind take, and in Both  
Be absolute man: and give that end your oath.  
So shall my sad astonished Muse arrive  
At her chief object: which is, to revive  
By quickening honour, in the absolute best:  
And since none are, but in Eternity, blest,  
He that in paper can register things  
That Brass and Marble shall deny even Kings:  
Should not be trod on by each present flash:  
The Monster slain then, with your clear Seas, wash  
From spots of Earth, heavens beauty in the mind  
●n which, through death, hath all true Noblesse shined.  
FINIS.