"Man's life's a tragedy; his mother's womb,
From which he enters, is the tiring-room;
This spacious earth the theatre, and the stage
That country which he lives in: passions, rage,
Folly and vice are actors; the first cry
The prologue to the ensuing tragedy;
The former act consisteth of dumb shows;
The second, he to more perfection grows;
I' the third he is a man and doth begin
To nurture vice and act the deeds of sin;
I' the fourth declines; i' the fifth diseases clog
And trouble him; then death's his epilogue."
_Page_ 153. "What needeth all this travail and turmoiling?"--Suggested
by Spenser's fifteenth sonnet:--
"Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle
Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain,
And both the Indias of their treasure spoile,
What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?
For loe! my Love doth in her selfe containe
All this worlds riches that may farre be found.
If Saphyres, loe! her eies be Saphyres plaine;
If Rubies, loe! hir lips be Rubies sound;
If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles, both pure and round;
If Yvorie, her forehead yvory weene;
If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;
If Silver, her faire hands are silver sheene:
But that which fairest is but few behold,
Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold."
_Page_ 154, l. 1. "And fortune's fate not fearing."--Oliphant boldly
reads, for the sake of the rhyme, "And _fickle fortune scorning_."--in
"England's Helicon" the text is the same as in the song-book.
_Page_ 158, l. 5. "And when she saw that I was in her danger."--_Within
one's danger_ = to be in a person's power or control.
L. 16. "White _Iope_."--Campion must have had in his mind a passage of
Propertius (ii. 28);--
"Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum:
Pulchra sit in superis, si licet, una locis.
Vobiscum est _Iope_, vobiscum candida Tyro,
Vobiscum Europe, nec proba Pasiphae."
See Hertzberg's note on that passage.
_Page_ 162. "While that the sun."--Also printed in "England's Helicon,"
1600.