"I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing, while thou on pressèd flowers dost sleep."
Titus, welcoming again to Rome the victorious legions, says of the
heroes who have fallen:
"There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,
And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars,"
promising them that in the land of the blest
"are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep."
Constantly also in anathemas throughout the plays are invoked, as the
deadliest of curses, broken rest and its usual accompaniment of
troublous dreams. Thus note the climax in Queen Margaret's curse upon
the traitorous Gloster:--
"If Heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
Oh, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!"
The witch, in "Macbeth," cataloguing the calamities in store for the
ambitious Thane, says:
"Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid."
It is curious also to remark, in the various lists of griefs which make
life a burden and a sorrow, how often the climax of these woes is the
lack of sleep, or the troubled dreams bearing their train of "gorgons,
hydras, and chimeras dire," which come with broken rest. Lady Percy says
to Hotspur:--
"Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks,
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?"