LXII. 39-61.

Look in a garden croft, when a flower privily growing, &c.

Opinion. Look how a flower that close in closes grows, Hid from rude cattle, bruised with no ploughs, Which th’ air doth stroke, sun strengthen, showers shoot higher, It many youths and many maids desire; The same, when cropt by cruel hand ‘tis wither’d, No youths at all, no maidens have desired; So a virgin while untouch’d she doth remain Is dear to hers; but when with body’s stain Her chaster flower is lost, she leaves to appear Or sweet to young men or to maidens dear.

Truth. Virgins, O Virgins, to sweet Hymen yield, For as a lone vine in a naked field Never extols her branches, never bears Ripe grapes, but with a headlong heaviness wears Her tender body, and her highest sprout Is quickly levell’d with her fading root; By whom no husbandmen, no youths will dwell; But if by fortune she be married well, To the elm her husband, many husbandmen And many youths inhabit by her then; So whilst a virgin doth untouch’d abide, All unmanur’d she grows old with her pride; But when to equal wedlock, in fit time, Her fortune and endeavour lets her climb, Dear to her love and parents she is held. Virgins, O Virgins, to sweet Hymen yield.

BEN JONSON, The Barriers.

LXIII.

In the metre of this poem Catullus observes the following general type--

--’ | --’ -- uu- u- -u -- | uu- uuu u- (so Heyse.) uu | uu

Except in 18, Hilarate aere citatis erroribus animum, 53, Et earum omnia adirem furibunda latibula, where the Ionic a minore, which seems to have been the original basis of the rhythm, is preserved intact in the former half of the line. I have followed Catullus generally with exactness, but with an occasional resolution of one long into two short syllables, where it has not been introduced by the poet, e.g. in 31, 34, 49, 64, 65, 68, 79. In v. 10 I have ventured on a license which Catullus does not admit, but which is, I think, justified by other and earlier specimens of the metre, an anaclasis of the original Ionic a minore at the end of the line. In reading this poem it should never be forgotten that there is a pause in the middle of each line, which practically divides it into two halves. Tennyson, in his Boadicea, written on the model of the Attis, divides each verse similarly in the middle; but in the first half he has changed the rhythm of Catullus to a trochaic rhythm, in the second, while producing much of the effect of the Attis by the accumulation of short syllables at the end of the line, he has not bound himself to the same strictly defined feet as Catullus, and generally has preferred to take from the somewhat emasculate character of the verse by adding an unaccented syllable at the close.

LXIII.

8 Taborine

Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow.

Troilus and Cressida, Act iv. sc. 5.

16 Aby

abide; as, I think, in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, vi. 2, 19.

But he was fierce and whot, Ne time would give, nor any termes aby.

Below, lxiv. 297, I have used it in its more common meaning of atoning for, Faerie Queene, iv. 1, 53.

Yet thou, false Squire, his fault shalt deare aby, And with thy punishment his penance shalt supply.

Midsummer Night’s Dream, iii. 2.

Lest to thy peril thou aby it dear.

24 Ululation.

There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud Resounded through the air without a star.

LONGFELLOW’S Dante Inf. iii. 22.

41 When he smote the shadowy twilight with his healthy team sublime.

Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, And shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes, And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.

TENNYSON, Tithonus.

83 On a nervy neck.

Four maned lions hale The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws, Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails Covering their tawny brushes.

KEATS, Endymion, II. ad fin.