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Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father's state,
And new-instructed sceptre: but their way

Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger:
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that by quick command from sovereign Jove
I was despatched for their defence and guard :
And listen why; for I will tell you now

What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell (who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun? whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine):
This nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,

Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,

Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,

At last betakes him to this ominous wood;

And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art,

Offering to every weary traveller

His orient liquor in a crystal glass,

To quench the drought of Phoebus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human countenance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were;
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore when any, favoured of high Jove,

Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star

I shoot from heaven to give him safe convoy,
As now I do: but first I must put off

These my sky-robes spun out of Iris' woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,

Who with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving weeds; nor of less faith,
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.

Comus enters with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel glistering; they come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands.

COMUS.

The star that bids the shepherd fold

Now the top of heaven doth hold;

And the gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;

And the slope sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing towards the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy, and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry,

Tipsy dance, and jollity.

Braid your locks with rosy twine
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed,

And Advice with scrupulous head,

Strict Age and sour Severity,

With their grave saws, in slumber lie.

We, that are of purer fire,

Imitate the starry quire,

Who in their nightly watchful spheres,

Lead in swift round the months and years.

The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves,

Trip the pert faeries and the dapper elves;
By dimpled brook and fountain brim,
The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep;
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove,
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come, let us our rites begin;

'Tis only day-light that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne'er report.

Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,

Dark-veiled Cotytto! to whom the secret flame Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame, That ne'er art called, but when the dragon womb Of Stygian darkness spits her thickest gloom, And makes one blot of all the air;

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out;

Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice morn, on the Indian steep

From her cabined loop-hole peep,

And to the tell-tale sun descry

Our concealed solemnity.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground

In a light fantastic round.

THE MEASURE.

Break off, break off, I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds, within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright: some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains; I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that's against my course:
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,

And well-placed words of glozing courtesy
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,

I shall appear some harmless villager,
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may, her business here.

The LADY enters.

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now: methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,

Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe,
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
When for their teeming flocks, and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness, and swilled insolence,
Of such late wassailers; yet O! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stept, as they said, to the next thicket-side,
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then, when the gray-hooded even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts; 'tis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me: else, O thievish night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars,
That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
With everlasting oil, to give due light

To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;

Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,

Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And aery tongues that syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound,
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.

O welcome, pure-eyed faith, white-handed hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings,
And thou, unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe

That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed.
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err, there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove:
I cannot halloo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.

SONG.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that livest unseen
Within thy aery shell,

By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale,

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are?

O, if thou have

Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere!

So mayest thou be translated to the skies,

And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.

Enter COMUS.

Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould

Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?

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