If usuall wit, and strength will doe no good,
Vertues of stones, nor herbes : use stronger charmes,
Anger, and love, best hookes of humane blood.
If all faile wee 'l put on our proudest Armes,
And pouring on Heav'ns face the Seas huge flood
Quench his curl'd fires, wee 'I wake with our Alarmes
Ruine, where e're she sleepes at Natures feet;
And crush the world till his wide corners meet.
Reply'd the proud King, O my Crownes Defence,
Stay of my strong hopes, you of whose brave worth,
The frighted stars tooke faint experience,
When 'gainst the Thunders mouth we marched forth:
Still you are prodigall of your Love's expence
In our great projects, both 'gainst Heav'n and Earth.
I thanke you all, but one must single out,
Cruelty, she alone shall cure my doubt.
Fourth of the cursed knot of Hags is shee,
Or rather all the other three in one;
Hells shop of slaughter shee do's oversee,
And still assist the Execution.
But chiefly there do's she delight to be,
Where Hells capacious Cauldron is set on :
And while the black soules boile in their own gore,
To hold them down, and looke that none seeth o're.
Thrice howl'd the Caves of Night, and thrice the sound,
Thundring upon the bankes of those black lakes
Rung, through the hollow vaults of Hell profound:
At last her listning Eares the noise o're takes,
She lifts her sooty lampes, and looking round,
A gen'rall hisse from the whole Tire of snakes
Rebounding, through Hells inmost Cavernes came,
In answer to her formidable Name.
'Mongst all the Palaces in Hells command,
No one so mercilesse as this of hers.
The Adamantine Doors, for ever stand
Impenetrable, both to prai'rs and Teares,
The walls inexorable steele, no hand
Of Time, or Teeth of hungry Ruine feares.
Their ugly ornaments are the bloody staines,
Of ragged limbs, torne sculls, & dasht out Braines.
There has the purple Vengeance a proud seat,
Whose ever-brandisht Sword is sheath'd in blood.
About her Hate, Wrath, Warre, and Slaughter sweat;
Bathing their hot limbs in life's pretious flood.
There rude impetuous Rage do's storme, and fret:
And there, as Master of this murd'ring brood,
Swinging a huge Sith stands impartiall Death,
With endlesse businesse almost out of Breath.
For hangings and for Curtaines, all along
The walls, (abominable ornaments!)
Are tooles of wrath, Anvills of Torments hung;
Fell Executioners of foule intents,
Nailes, hammers, hatchets sharpe, and halters strong,
Swords, Speares, with all the fatall Instruments
Of sin, and Death, twice dipt in the dire staines
Of brothers mutuall blood, and Fathers braines.
The Tables furnisht with a cursed Feast,
Which Harpyes, with leane Famine feed upon,
Unfill'd for ever. Here among the rest,
Inhumane Erisi-cthon too makes one;
Tantalus, Atreus, Progne, here are guests:
Wolvish Lycaon here a place hath won.
The cup they drinke in is Medusa's scull,
Which mixt with gall & blood they quaffe brim full.
The foule Queens most abhorred Maids of Honour
Medea, Jezabell, many a meager Witch,
With Circe, Scylla, stand to wait upon her:
But her best huswifes are the Parca, which
Still worke for her, and have their wages from her:
They prick a bleeding heart at every stitch.
Her cruell cloathes of costly threds they weave,
Which short-cut lives of murdred Infants leave.
The house is hers'd about with a black wood,
Which nods with many a heavy headed tree.
Each flowers a pregnant poyson, try'd and good,
Each herbe a Plague. The winds sighes timed-bee
By a black Fount, which weeps into a flood.
Through the thick shades obscurely might you see
Minotaures, Cyclopses, with a darke drove
Of Dragons, Hydraes, Sphinxes, fill the Grove.
Here Diomed's Horses, Phereus dogs appeare,
With the fierce Lyons of Therodamas.
Busiris ha's his bloody Altar here,
Here Sylla his severest prison has.
The Lestrigonians here their Table reare;
Here strong Procrustes Plants his Bed of Brasse.
Here cruell Scyron boasts his bloody rockes,
And hatefull Schinis his so feared Oakes.
What ever Schemes of Blood, fantastick-frames
Of Death Mezentius, or Geryon drew;
Phalaris, Ochus, Ezelinus, names
Mighty in mischiefe, with dread Nero too,
Here are they all, Here all the swords or flames
Assyrian Tyrants, or Egyptian knew.
Such was the House, so furnisht was the Hall,
Whence the fourth Fury, answer'd Pluto's call.
Scarce to this Monster could the shady King,
The horrid summe of his intentions tell;
But shee (swift as the momentary wing
Of lightning, or the words he spoke) left Hell.
She rose, and with her to our world did bring,
Pale proofe of her fell presence, Th' aire too well
With a chang'd countenance witnest the sight,
And poore fowles intercepted in their flight.
Heav'n saw her rise, and saw Hell in the sight.
The field's faire Eyes saw her, and saw no more,
But shut their flowry lids, for ever Night,
And Winter strow her way; yea, such a sore
Is she to Nature, that a generall fright,
An universall palsie spreading o're
The face of things, from her dire eyes had run, Had not her thick Snakes hid them from the Sun.
Now had the Night's companion from her den,
Where all the busie day she close doth ly,
With her soft wing wipt from the browes of men
Day's sweat, and by a gentle Tyranny,
And sweet oppression, kindly cheating them
Of all their cares, tam'd the rebellious eye
Of sorrow, with a soft and downy hand,
Sealing all brests in a Lethaan band.
When the Erinnys her black pineons spread,
And came to Bethlem, where the cruell King
Had now retyr'd himselfe, and borrowed
His Brest a while from care's unquiet sting;
Such as at Thebes dire feast she shew'd her head,
Her sulphur-breathed Torches brandishing,
Such to the frighted Palace now she comes,
And with soft feet searches the silent roomes.
By Herod
now was borne
The Scepter, which of old great David swaid;
Whose right by David's image so long worne,
Himselfe a stranger to, his owne had made;
And from the head of Judahs house quite torne
The Crowne, for which upon their necks he laid
A sad yoake, under which they sigh'd in vaine,
And looking on their lost state sigh'd againe.
Up, through the spatious Pallace passed she,
To where the Kings proudly-reposed head
(If any can be soft to Tyranny
And selfe-tormenting sin) had a soft bed.
She thinkes not fit such he her face should see,
As it is seene by Hell; and seen with dread.
To change her faces stile she doth devise,
And in a pale Ghost's shape to spare his Eyes.
Her selfe a while she layes aside, and makes
Ready to personate a mortall part.
Joseph the Kings dead Brothers shape she takes,
What he by Nature was, is she by Art.
She comes toth' King, and with her cold hand slakes
His Spirits, the Sparkes of Life, and chills his heart,
Lifes forge; fain'd is her voice, and false too, be
Her words; sleep'st thou fond man? sleep'st thou? said she.
So sleeps a Pilot, whose poore Barke is prest
With many a mercylesse o're mastring wave;
For whom (as dead) the wrathfull winds contest,
Which of them deep'st shall digge her watry Grave.
Why dost thou let thy brave soule lye supprest,
In Death-like slumbers; while thy dangers crave
A waking eye and hand? looke up and see
The fates ripe, in their great conspiracy.
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