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356

You, lord archbishop,

Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd;

Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd;
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor❜d;
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war?

357

These things, indeed, you have articulated,
To face the garment of rebellion

19-iv. 1.

With some fine colour, that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings, and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow, at the news
Of hurlyburly innovation:

And never yet did insurrection want

Such water-colours, to impaint his cause;
Nor moody beggars, starving for a time
Of pell-mell havoc and confusion.

18-v. 1.

358

You look pale, and gaze,

And put on fear, and cast yourself in wonder,
To see the strange impatience of the heavens:
But if you would consider the true cause,
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
Why birds, and beasts, from quality and kind;
Why old men, fools, and children calculate;
Why all these things change, from their ordinance,
Their natures, and pre-formed faculties,
To monstrous quality; why, you shall find,
That Heaven hath infused them with these spirits,
To make them instruments of fear, and warning,
Unto some monstrous state.

29-i. 3.

359

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

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As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,*
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,

Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse. 36—i. 1.

360

There is one within,

Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead:
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,

In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol:

The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan;
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

361

The people fear me; for they do observe

29-ii. 2.

Unfather'd heirs, and loathly birds of nature:
The seasons change their manners, as the year

Had found some months asleep, and leap'd them over.
The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between:
And the old folk, time's doting chronicles,
Say, it did so, a little time before

That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.

19-iv. 4.

* In the Prodigies, 36-i. 1. all the editions read "As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,"&c. and this has caused all the commentators to conclude something preceding has been lost; but I am of a different opinion: by reading "Stars fought with trains of fire, and dews of blood," &c. the sense is complete, and in accordance with the prodigy mentioned in Julius Cæsar, 29-ii. 2. "Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds," &c. See also, Judges v. 20, "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera."

-362

The night has been unruly: Where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say, Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death; And prophesying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion, and confused events,

New hatch'd to the woful time. The obscure bird Clamour'd the live-long night: some say, the earth Was feverous, and did shake.

363

They say, five moons were seen to-night:
Four fixed; and the fifth did whirl about
The other four, in wondrous motion.

364

15-ii. 3.

16-iv. 2.

Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time, I have seen
Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.

On Tuesday last,
A falcon, tow'ring in her pride of place,

Was by a mousing owl, hawk'd at, and kill’d. And Duncan's horses (a thing most strange and certain),

Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make War with mankind.

"Tis said, they eat each other.

15-ii. 4.

THE END.

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