All to second _Barley-break_ again are bent.
During the second game, Strephon was chased by Urania.
Strephon so chased did seem in milk to swim;
He ran, but ran with eye o’er shoulder cast,
More marking her, than how himself did go,
Like Numid’s lions by the hunters chased,
Though they do fly, yet backwardly do glow
With proud aspect, disdaining greater haste:
What rage in them, that love in him did show;
But God gives them instinct the man to shun,
And he by law of _Barley-break_ must run.
Urania caught Strephon, and he was sent by the rules of the sport to the
condemned place, with a shepherdess, named Nous, who affirmed
---------it was no right, for his default,
Who would be caught, that she should go--
But so she must. And now the third assault
Of _Barley-break_.------
Strephon, in this third game, pursues Urania; Klaius, his rival suitor,
suddenly interposed.
For with pretence from Strephon her to guard,
He met her full, but full of warefulness,
With in-bow’d bosom well for her prepared,
When Strephon cursing his own backwardness
Came to her back, and so, with double ward,
Imprison’d her, who both them did possess
As heart-bound slaves.------
Her race did not her beauty’s beams augment,
For they were ever in the best degree,
But yet a setting forth it some way lent,
As rubies lustre when they rubbed be;
The dainty dew on face and body went,
As on sweet flowers, when morning’s drops we see:
Her breath then short, seem’d loth from home to pass,
Which more it moved, the more it sweeter was.
Happy, O happy! if they so might bide
To see their eyes, with how true humbleness,
They looked down to triumph over pride;
With how sweet blame she chid their sauciness--
Till she brake from their arms------
And farewelling the flock, did homeward wend,
And so, that even, the _Barley-break_ did end.
This game is mentioned by Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” as one
of our rural sports, and by several of the poets, with more or less of
description, though by none so fully as Sidney, in the first eclogue of
the “Arcadia,” from whence the preceding passages are taken.
The late Mr. Gifford, in a note on Massinger, chiefly from the
“Arcadia,” describes Barley-break thus: “It was played by six people,
(three of each sex,) who were coupled by lot. A piece of ground was then
chosen, and divided into three compartments, of which the middle one was
called _hell_. It was the object of the couple condemned to this
division to catch the others, who advanced from the two extremities; in
which case a change of situation took place, and hell was filled by the
couple who were excluded by preoccupation from the other places: in this
_catching_, however, there was some difficulty, as, by the regulations
of the game, the middle couple were not to separate before they had
succeeded, while the others might break hands whenever they found
themselves hard pressed. When all had been taken in turn, the last
couple were said to be in _hell_, and the game ended.”
Within memory, a game called Barley-break has been played among stacks
of corn, in Yorkshire, with some variation from the Scottish game
mentioned presently. In Yorkshire, also, there was another form of it,
more resembling that in the “Arcadia,” which was played in open ground.
The childish game of “Tag” seems derived from it. There was a “tig,” or
“tag,” whose touch made a prisoner, in the Yorkshire game.
* * * * *