The heroinæ: or, The lives of Arria, Paulina, Lucrecia, Dido, Theutilla, Cypriana, Aretaphila Heroinæ. Rivers, George. 1639 Approx. 106 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 93 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2004-08 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A10790 STC 21063 ESTC S101215 99837032 99837032 1336 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A10790) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 1336) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1475-1640 ; 974:14) The heroinæ: or, The lives of Arria, Paulina, Lucrecia, Dido, Theutilla, Cypriana, Aretaphila Heroinæ. Rivers, George. [8], 174 p. Printed by R. Bishop, for John Colby, and are to be sold at his shop under the Kings head Tavern, at Chancery-lane end in Fleet-street, London : 1639. By George Rivers. Reproduction of original in the Newberry Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Women -- Biography -- Early works to 1800. 2004-03 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2004-03 Aptara Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2004-04 Emma (Leeson) Huber Sampled and proofread 2004-04 Emma (Leeson) Huber Text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-07 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion THE HEROINAE : OR The lives OF ARRIA , PAULINA , LUCRECIA , DIDO , THEUTILLA , CYPRIANA , ARETAPHILA . LONDON , Printed by R. Bishop , for Iohn Colby , and are to be sold at his Shop under the Kings head Tavern , at Chancery-lane end in Fleet-street . 1639. TO The true Heroine Lady , the Lady DOROTHY SYDNEY , The HEROINAE are humbly p●●sented by G. RIVERS , To receive Fame from her Favour . Madam , THat I approach so faire a Shrine with so course an Offering ; accuse not my unworthinesse , but your owne worth ; which like a Load-star is pleas'd to attract the coursest mettle , to make knowne her power . Were it not a prophanation to sunder that symmetrie of Vertue and Beautie , ( pieces , of which you are the whole , and which worthily beget wonder and love ▪ I might aspire to levell prayses to some few particulars : but since such a disunion cannot bee made by a weake pen without cracking or disordering th● goodliest frame of Nature ; Madam you must give mee leave onely to admire you in great , as the great Subject of all admiration . If in writing You , I fall short of sense ; it is Love : if I overreach it ; it is Wonder : so is sense and language oppress'd ▪ or heightned by the subject that admits no meane . Madam , if this Pamphlet of You rise in the opinion of the World , it is You ; if it fall , it is I ; I , that have batter'd my braines against as great a miracle as the Philosophers stone . If you please to receive it with a favour answerable to the ambition it is offered , I shall account it the greatest honour that can bee done to him , in whose esteem ( Madam ) You are the first and last of these Stories ; the unparallel'd Lady DOROTHY SYDNEY , the incōparable ARETAPHILA . ARRIA . WHilest the Roman State was govern'd , or rather mangled between the Fencer , the Fidler , the Jugler , and the Player , liv'd Cecinna Paetus , sometimes Consull , a man every way worthy that high title , of a Spirit moulded for great designes , that would breake through all interruptions to advance his Honour : Hee , a faithfull friend to Scribonianus , in whose faction he had engaged his life and fortunes ; after his overthrow was taken prisoner by the Souldiers of Claudius Nero. When hee was taking Ship , ( a Triumph for Rome ) he desired the Officers that Arria his Wife might accompanie him ; holding it a grand discourtesie , since shee had shared his prosperous fortunes , to deny her his miseries : but the Souldiers , of men the best studied in crueltie , were more ambitious to tyrannize over his mind ( the greater Triumph ) than his body ; and well advised how sorrowes are substracted by being divided , denyed his most passionate prayers , and hoised saile . Many of them were flies engendred from his heat , who now fled him as an inhospitable clyme , too cold to nourish flattery . They beheld him as one whose misfortunes were infectious , not to bee sympathiz'd ; or as a Rock that stands the shock of the impetuous Wind , to ruine those that touch it . Adversity is the true touchstone of Vertue and Friendship ; Friendship followes the good fortune , but Vertue the bad . That calmenesse of mind which attends some high fortunes , is grounded rather upon Policie than Vertue : hee that swels when he is full , intends to break himselfe ; who then will be proud when he is prosperous ? As it is an argument of basenesse to bee elated ; so it is true magnanimity , not to bee dejected . Friendly offices , like Rivulets to the Ocean , are tributes reflecting to the fortunes , not the men : let these once decline , the other like Frie will swimme against the sinking streame : or like Mice , shelter themselves from the approaching storme . So Paetus out liv'd his happinesse , and his friends : onely his deare Arria , having hired a Fish-boat , followed along by the Shore of Sclavonia ; so noble was her piety ; as if shee did congratulate those extremities , as the tryall of that unshaken faith , that well-knit affection , not to bee ravel'd from her Paetus by the strongest battery of fortune . With so meane advantage as one small Bark , so small attendance as one mean Fisherman , no Saile but Resolution , no Pilot but that high Spirit that threatned destinie , and dar'd the utmost power of Fate , shee imbarqu'd her selfe into the dangers of the Seas . When shee was arriv'd at Rome , and in the Emperours presence , Iunia the Widow of Scribonianus , chiefe partner in her captivity , did familiarly accost her : to whom with words made for disdaine , shee made reply ; doest thou live , ( said shee ) shame of our sexe , and monument of our shame ! Thou , in whose armes Scribonianus thy Husband was slaine ! What stands between thee and death , now hee is removed that hindred thy prospect ? Unworthy woman , that prizest loathed life above thine honour , and lovest thy selfe above thy Lord ! Arria , thy courage ( said Iunia ) is ill plac'd : the Gods that sent us hither , gave us life as their greatest blessing , not to be appropriated to our selves , but communicated to our friends and Countrey ; if wee should live onely to our selves , wee should live onely to undoe all ; since this great All subsists by each particular : is then the whole of us our owne , when the least part of us is not only ours ? Grant our lives were intirely ours ; yet are they not of that small consequence , that like our clothes wee may devest us of them when our mis-guided fancies tell us they are out of fashion . Then if Scribonianus ( to whose departed soule thou slanderest my affection ) had held an end like this , an end of misery , or a way to happinesse and honour ; hee had counsel'd mee to die , and had not liv'd himselfe to have been slaine . Fond Woman ( replyed Arria ) how thine owne arguments condemn thee ! If the Gods give us life as their greatest blessing , then surely blessednesse is the quality and vertue of life : when they withdraw this , they call us ( if our faint soules could heare them ) nay , even nature her selfe whispers to us to bee gone to some better place . If our Friends and Countrey have part , or all of us , to whom do we belong , if they discard us ? must wee live wretched till the decay of nature doth remove us ? So patiently the poor silly Cottager awaites the good houre his house shall fall upon his head . If Scribonianus thy Husband had not dyed honourably in the Camp , ( so great an opinion have I of his Vertue ) hee had dyed as honourably in his Tent : but when thou leav'st the World , the World shall not leave to say of thee , that Iunia outliv'd her Vertue , and her Love died sooner then her selfe . The Emperour by these passages perceiv'd whereto shee tended , that shee would live no longer then till shee had a power to die ; commanded her to be streightly guarded : but this restraint was rather a spur then a bridle to her actions travelling to fame : for shee enraged that her death was denyed her , flung out of the Chaire where shee sate , and violently ranne her head against the Wall , with which blow , shee much wounded , fell into a deadly swoone : but as soon as her keepers had recall'd the unwelcom'd life to her , the life that griev'd her , not that it was gone , but returned ; she thus bespake them : You see how vainly you imploy your care to keep a prisoner that will be free ; you may make mee die with more paine , and lesse honour ; but not to die at all , this is beyond your power : whilst I wear a hand commanded by a heart that knowes no feare , I shall not despaire of death , nor shall I long protract a loathed breath in such wretched times that make life but the nursery of sorrowes , and seminary of misfortunes . Some few dayes she wasted in comforting , and condoling with her friends the generall calamities wherein the most vertuous were involv'd , under that monster of men , Nero , then tyrannizing . Then she retired into Paetus lodging , and there thus spake her last : The soule imprison'd in a necessity of being miserable , must break through all fence of nature into an honourable end . This very precept nature her selfe imprinteth in us ; shee denyeth not the iron-bound Slave a death to free him from the toylsome Oare ; doth she deny the Sun-scorch'd Pilgrim his nights sleep ? no , nor the world-beaten man his eternall rest . Surely then , shee allowes us to shake off her interest , when we are sunke below her succour . Paetus , thy life is not link'd to nature , but to fame : fall then by thine owne sword , and thy spirit wound up in thine honour , mounts to the Palaces of the immortall Gods : If thou faintest under so brave a resolution , or enviest thy selfe the glory of thy end ; know , that ere two dayes expire , thou thy selfe expirest : but how ? by whose hands ? beheaded by a base hangman , offered up a tame sacrifice to insated tyranny . Awake the Roman in thee ; shall high Paetus ( whom when the World unworthy of his Vertue , ingratefully flung off ) claspe broken hopes and fortunes , to save himselfe with the shipwrack of his fame ? shall hee , to whom thousand servile necks did bow , stoop to the basenesse to beg life , while his death is in his hands ? Cato and Scipio ( whom this age is more prone to adore then admire ) held it not honourable to begg life , though they might expect more from Caesars Vertue . But what canst thou hope for from a Tyrant abjur'd by all the Vertues , one that approves nothing in Soveraigntie but Power , and that guided by Passion to insatiate revenge ? Then ( as if shee had distrusted her Husbands spirit ) shee drew out the poyniard from his side : Paetus , ( said shee ) how I have not entertain'd life , nor death but for thy sake , this last act of honour be my witnesse . Doe this Paetus : then she plung'd the dagger into her heart , and having drawne it out , shee delivered it to him againe ; trust my departing breath , Paetus , ( said shee ) not the wound it gives mee , but thee , afflicts mee . There died the noble Arria , there did that soule flie to eternity ; that soule that was too great to owe her liberty to any power but to her owne . Paetus blushing to be indebted to a president for his death , especially his Wife ; took to him the dagger that was so lately guilded in his Arria's bloud , and with these words hastned to his end . Had fortune answered my resolution , and crown'd my enterprize with happinesse ; I had entered Rome , envied by the most noble , not pitied by the basest . I now see how the successe of humane affaires depends not upon valour , but uncertain fates ; and our actions elevated by the height of spirit , do but intrench us deeper into misery . But though I am bereft of all the advantages of fortune , and of honour : yet am I Master of a mind unconquered ; over which nor Tyrannie nor Fate shall triumph . Then embracing her dead , hee sigh'd , and said ; Pardon , blest spirit , my too long absence from thee ; I have borrowed this little leave of life but to admire thy Vertue , which being above my wonder , I must soare unto that height where it is ascended , to search out her true perfection : Pardon my soule that she ascends not to thee in an extasie ; faine would shee : but this dagger claimes her liberty that gave thee thine . Then he thrust it into his heart , and there the dagger acted his last and most faithfull service ; slew his Master . Pro Arria . THE first Being tyed the first two into one , and formed two different sexes into one body , and one soule ; the bodies by alternate use so proprietated , not to one , but both : the soules so sympathizing in affections and in passions , as both became one to both . They that keep this mystery inviolable , know no outward respects of power to divide them into two : If Paetus be unhappy , Arria is unfortunate : Paetus is doom'd to die ; and shall Arria live to see him slaine ? Hath hee outliv'd his hopes , and can shee hope to outlive him ? But why would she die ? was the feare of the Emperours cruelty mingled in her cause ? What feares she that feares not death ? what Emperour is cruell to her that dares die ? what cruelty is to be parallel'd to that which bereft her of her life ? It was Paetus slew her ; Paetus ? had Arria liv'd , Paetus had not slaine himselfe ; therefore Arria died : died because Paetus should die : Oh unheard of cruelty ! oh unparallel'd affection ! Arria died because Paetus could not live . Paetus by death redeem'd himself from what was worse than death ; from torture : Arria redeem'd her honour , and her Paetus from torture , and dishonour . Fortune made her miserable , that Vertue might make her happie : her faith so firmly tyed her love , that death could not undo it with her life . Her fortunes were so ingrafted in her Paetus , that with his they did bud , flourish and wither ▪ Her life was fastned to his strings of life : with him she liv'd , with him she died . Contra Arriam . THrough what forbidden pathes doth passion hurrie us , when once our reason is unseated ! Arria would die rather then bee led in triumph : did death redeem her ? No ; death was but fortunes headsman to execute her she had condemn'd . The Emperors power extended no faerther then to afflict her withred body : not able to endure this weak revenge , shee yeelded up her mind a triumph to her fortune , and her selfe unto her sorrow . If fear did not surprize her , then engag'd in Paetus treason , she was her own wrack and torture , scorning all Executioners but her self Who then condemns her death , when it was due to justice ? But what law exacts of her this justice ? The Gods forbid her to kill another , much more her self , being nearer to her selfe than any other . Nature by her law claims life , as her due debt , payable when shee demands it . If she died because Paetus should die ; shee did but invite him to her rage , not to her vertue . But I think fear , the common defect of Nature in women , depriv'd her of her life : for death appeard so accoutred in the terrours of wrack and hangman ; that she died for fear of death . PAVLINA . LVcius Annaeus Seneca the Philosopher , and Tutor to Nero the Emperour , was Lord of great Revenues , to which his vertue , not his fortune was his title ; his mind was richly embroydered with all the studied ornaments of learning ; a good part of his life hee exercised in the Court , where while the Princes ears were open to Philosophy , his heart and hand were both unbent to him ; his favour and his noblenesse , like rivalls , striv'd which should with most devotion serve their Soveraigne : but when debauchery usurp'd upon the Emperour , the Tutor was devanced and disgraced . In all these extremities Seneca in himself was so well poiz'd , that neither the greatnesse of fortune could bribe him into riot , the height of knowledge into pride , nor the Courtier into flattery : nor did he know any man great enough to make him lesse ; nor could his mind , which Philosophie had plac'd above the World , decline with fortune . In his old age hee married Pompea Paulina a young , faire , and nobly descended Roman Lady , a Lady of that worth , that no Roman but hee that did enjoy her , did deserve her . Nero having let loose the reines of reason , and himselfe to all licenciousnesse , so tyranniz'd , as if he did perswade himselfe that an Emperour was above the Law , and must also bee without it : what his will prescrib'd , his tyranny did execute , and so , as if his actions were accountable to no power but his owne . Among his chiefe and most remarked cruelties , it is not the least hee exprest against his Tutor Seneca ; to him hee sends his Satellites to denounce his death : the fashion of those times was , when a person of qualitie was condemn'd to die ; hee was allowed the liberty to chuse his death , and a time proportion'd according to the Emperours rage , to dispose of his affaires : but if his revenge flowed so high , that it would brook no delay : then hee enjoyd no time to doe any thing but die : if the condemned resisted his decrees ; then he commonly appointed , that by some slave hee should bee barbarously murdered : but the nobler Romans held it nearer way to honour with their owne hands to anticipate their fates , and in unhappinesse staid not the enforcement of tyranny or nature . Seneca , with an undaunted looke receiving the sentence of his death , called for inke and paper to write his last Will and Testament ; which the Captaine denying him , he turn'd about , and then bespake his friends : You see , my loving friends , ( said hee ) I cannot gratifie your affections with my fortunes : I must therefore leave you my life , and my Philosophy , to enrich your minds with the invaluable and nere-to-be-depriv'd-of treasure of precept and example . I shall desire you by all the tyes of friendship , and by the glory you shall purchase by it , to endeare my life and death ( which shall not staine the honour of my life ) unto your memory : then gently reproving them who seem'd too sorrowfull , hee said ; to what other purpose have I furnished you with precepts of Philosophie , then to arme your minds against the assaults of Fortune ? Is Nero's tyrannie unknowne to you ? What man is Master of his owne life under him that massacred his Brother , that us'd upon his Mother that cruelty which never yet knew name ? Then hee turn'd him to Paulina , in whom sorrow had sweld it selfe so high , that rather then break out , it threatned to break her heart : My Deare , ( said hee ) I am now going to act what I have long taught ; my houre is come , and nothing so welcome to me as my death ; now I am unloaded of this flesh that clogs my soule , I shall with more ease ascend unto eternity , to enjoy a condition without a change , an happinesse without a period : wherefore , my dearest Paulina , forbeare thy too immoderate passion , lest thy grief disgrace my end , and thou seem to value my death above mine honour : enjoy thy youth , but still retaine those seeds of vertue , ●herewith thy mind is ●●chly stored : I confesse , for thy sake I could bee content to live , when I consider that in my breast lives a young Lady , to whom my life may bee advantage . Paulina's love now raising up her courage , and her courage her dejected spirit ; Think not Seneca , ( said she ) that like your Physitian , I will leave you when the hope of life forsakes you ; but I will follow like your Wife , your fortune . This resolve shall tell you how much your life and doctrine hath availed your Paulina . When can I die well , but then when I cannot live well ? When I am bereft of thee , in whom all my joyes are so wealthily summ'd up , that thy losse will make my life my greatest curse ; then will I die in honour , and think it fitter for my fame , then linger out my life in sorrow . Trust mee , my Paulina ( said Seneca ) I cannot but admire thy love , knowing from what height of vertue it proceeds : as I will not envie thee thy death ; so I wish a glory may await thy end , great as the constancie that advanc'd thee to it . Then he commanded his Surgeon to cut the veins of both their armes , that they might bleed to death : but Seneca's veines , shrunk up through age and abstinence , denyed his bloud a speedy course ; therefore his thighs were also launced : but lest his pains might insinuate too farre into Paulina's torments , and a new addition of sorrow meeting with her losse of bloud , might make her faint , hee sought to mitigate her feares by the discourse of death . Why should ( said he ) this monster nothing so affright us ? while we are living , wee are dying , for life is but a dying being ; when we are dead , wee are after death : where then , or what is death ? It is that inconsiderable atome of time that divides the body from the soule : what is it then in this afflicts us ? Not the rarity , for all the world that is not gone before , will follow us : is it the separation , and tyed to that the jealousie how we shall bee dealt with ? upon this hinge , I confesse , turnes the wickeds fear : but the Stoick , whom Philosophy hath taught the art of living well , death frees from misery , and wafts him to the haven of his happinesse . For this necessity of death , wee are bound to thank the Gods ; for it redeems from a worse of being eternally miserable . The separation , as it is naturall , so it is the only meanes conducing to our better being . The body being the corruptible and ponderous part , falls naturally to the earth whence it was first elemented : the soul etheriall gaines by this losse ; for being purg'd from the drosse of weight , and of corruption , is made heavens richest ore ; so refin'd , that the great Gods image may bee stamp'd upon it , and ascends unto the skies from whence it first descended . Nor doe I hold this dis-junction to be eternal ; for when the world by the revolution of times and ages , whirls about into her first Chaos , then shall they meet again never to bee sundred . The soul shal be so purified by the immortall Gods : that it shall neither hope , nor feare , nor grieve ; that it shall bee freed from all those discording passions , and affections , that here transport it from it selfe . The body so spirited that it shall know no necessity of nourishment , and therefore no weight , alteration , or mortality . Of great consequence then is death to our wel-being ; since before it wee can account none happy ; we see it end all miseries ; we see it make none miserable ; why then should we feare it , or condemne it ? What have the wisest thought it , but the Port wee all must touch ? He that scarce arrives at half a man hath as little to quarrell at his fate , as hee that in a weeke reacheth his haven , whereas by the troubled winds he might bee bound up in the more troubled seas a year . Nor is hee that is his owne death , being condemn'd to die , shipwrack'd even at the very shoare : for honour and the Emperour allow the liberty , and to die by the most abject of men , an hangman , is to die dishonourable . For this boone I gratulate the Gods : but more that they are pleas'd to call the perfect Seneca unto their joyes , the Seneca that hath not yet outliv'd himselfe , nor return'd into his infancy . There Paulina , not through feare ( knowing none but what proceeded from her love ) but through decaying nature fainted ; therefore Seneca taking his leave caus'd her to be remov'd into the next chamber . In Seneca all these incisions were not of force to force out life ; he therefore commanded his Physitian to poyson him ; but wanting naturall heat to convey it to his heart , the poyson was rather a nourishment then a destruction to his nature : then he was laid in warme bathes , by this forc'd heat the poyson in his full source , and violence raged in his witherd body . While he had life he discours'd freely of life and death ; his end approaching , all bloudy in his bath hee bath'd his head , and said , I vow this to Iupiter the Deliverer ; Nature at the last conquerd by those strong assaults , yeelded up her Fort ( which weaknesse had so song fortified ) to death her common enemy . So liv'd the famous Seneca , and so hee died that with the Gods his soul 's immortaliz'd , with the world his fame . Nero informed of Paulina for whom hee seem'd much troubled : for though pitie had no entrance at his yron breast : yet feare the Tyrants tyrant ●old him that her death ( being one of the most nobly allyed in Rome ) would make his tyranny and hate the greater : hee therefore sent with all possible speed to recall her life now posting to her stage , and entring the dark confines of death . Her servants receiving the command unbound her , and clos'd up her incisions , she more than halfe dead , devoyd of sense , thus against her will return'd unto her life , and very honourably : for that of life shee lost , did witnesse to the world , that nothing but want of power restrain'd her from her death . Pro Paulina . PAulina , when Seneca was condemn'd to die , would die her selfe . was ever constancie raisd higher in a womans breast ? She did not die , there shee exprest the true valour that derives it selfe from vertue , and that spirit that issues from the truest honour . That shee would , but could not die , are both Nero's act ; that shee could live , or die , her owne . That she was Mistris of her fortune , witnesse that shee did live ; how she valued her Husbands death , that shee would die . Fame and vertue did both attend her in the progresse of her actions : had she died , it had been thought the wretched times had interest in her end : but in her life shee conquer'd the extremities of life and death . The rule of vertue ties us to live so long as we ought , not as we list : then is the fittest time to die , when we can live no longer . To die , is at the height but like a Roman : but to dare to live when life is tedious , this is as much above the Roman , as the true substance of vertue , that false shade of honour . Had shee then died , she had acted but the Roman : but she liv'd to exceed the noblest of all Romans , but her selfe . Contra Paulinam . VVHY revolted shee from her resolve , when Seneca himself allowed it ? Did hee teach her so to live that shee durst not die ? or did shee distrust his happinesse that shee would not follow him ? Shee had too much of death to have more , and those pangs so much endeared her to her life , that she would live at any rate , rather then break through fleeting torments into honour . While Seneca was yet alive , she was dying ; he dead , she return'd to life : Was her life vowed to him , when his death reviv'd her ? Nero call'd her back ; the greater was her shame to take Sanctuary in her Husbands murtherer . Sure death was far more terrible then Seneca did speak it : she fled to a most inhumane Tyrant for protection . Seneca did not force her to die , nor Nero to live ; one day gave her her liberty : she had as much strength , as life ; and that little power she could use , was able to force out that little life she did detain . She would dy , in the extremity of sorrow for her husbands fate : but she did live to repent her both of her sorrow , and her death . LVCRECIA . WHen Rome , in the glory of her active Spirits , had prest out her youth more ambitious of honour then life ; for the common exployt , the siege of Ardea : Sextus Tarquinius entertain'd the night with the Roman Nobility in the pride of luxury and riot : The ruines of Kingdomes were sacrificed to Bacchus , the sea and land plow'd up to appease ingenuous gluttony . They , as frolick as youth , and wine that made them so ; unlock the treasures of their hearts , their Wives , and their beauties , to the admiration of unsound eares : But Collatine the most justly prodigall of his Wives fame , tels them ; nor Italy , nor the World holds her , that stands in parallell of wonder with the faire and vertuous Lucrecia . Tarquin divided between astonishment and rage , that Collatine his servant , should be his Soveraigne in happinesse : mounted upon the wings of lust and fury , flies to Rome , where his eyes having encountred the Idoll of his heart , and he the noone of night to enjoy it ; with his sword and taper breaks into her chamber , into her presence : shee affrighted at the sword , and blasted by the light that lust gave life to , trembling like a prey with more horrour then attention , hears him thus bespeak her . Madam , wonder not at my unlookt for arrivall at Collatium , or at this visit so unseasonable : but applaud the wonder of your beauty ; the silent night will speak my purpose , when in my restlesse bed a flame kindled from your fair eyes burn'd through my soule , consum'd my Countries service , my hopes of honour , then which nothing but your faire selfe is so near unto my thoughts . Let not the slave Fear intrude upon your princely breast , nor this steele divorce those Roses from the Lilies , drawne to hew out a way through all obstacles , to encounter Paradise . The same love that arm'd those eyes with Lightning , armes these hands with Thunder ; bids them grapple with great Iove , were hee rivall in my affection . This night I must enjoy thee Lucrecia , or on thy name engrave an infamy , that Time , nor Times heire , Eternity , shal ne're devoure : If thou move or hand , or voice for ayd ; thy groome I 'le slay with thee ; then fling his loathed trunk on thine , and sweare I found him fast manacled in thy embraces : cease then to bee faire , or to bee cruell , and returne me the Prince ravish'd from mee , by the all commanding beauties that attend thee . The sin unknown is unacted , nor shall the sowrest vertue mis-read those blushes the liveliest pieces of innocence . Accuse not Nature of tyranny , she made not so delicate an object to tempt , but satisfie the appetite : yeeld then ; or this sword must enter that adamant , from whence all pitie is barakado'd . She conjur'd with this tyranny of complement , with as undistracted words as could bee pump'd from the deepest confusion of thoughts , makes her reply . Renowned Sir , let true pitie as really enter your eares , as false is banished mine . In Tarquines shape I entertain'd you ; wrong not the Prince so farre , as to prostrate his fame to so inglorious an action ; hee that hath the eyes of all Rome fix'd on his vertues , and must hereafter look like a Prince in Story , shall hee have all his glories sullied by the conquest of a woman ? Shall he bee read King of all the Romans but himselfe ? wanting this Soveraignty , all his honours shall be buried in his infamy : Then punish Great Sir , the Traitor to your vertue , this face ; teare it to a loathing ; so shall you appease the lewd rebellion of your bloud , and make your victories , still ending in your selfe , discourse for all posterity . But if you are conquer'd by your lust , you shall revenge your worth in her dishonour , who shall not be unpitied of men , or unrevenged of the Gods. This said , shee wept the rest . But he not daunted at that majesty of sorrow that sate inthron'd in cry ▪ stall , nor at her words that would charme the most inhumane : but rather whet , then refin'd in passion , unloads his lust , and with the night posts undiscover'd to Ardea . No sooner had the Morne unchain'd the prisoners of the Night , and spread his light ( welcome both to miserable and happie ) through the vast regions of the Skies ; that light that was so lovely to her , because it came to light her to her end : but shee sends to Ardea for Collatine and Brutus , her Husband and Uncle . Long before the day was fled into the other world , they at Collatium did arrive . First they saw her face stand in that amazed silence , that they could read , not heare the full contents of sorrow ; they in that expected some great cruelty had been us'd upon her , which had depriv'd her of the tongue to rell it . But this silence was but a pause in her great soule , whether shee might stoop to that wretched body , as to borrow those organs which commonly conveigh our friends calamities into our eares : but lest shee should detaine them too long lock'd up in wonder , hasting to her ease , shee unbent her soule , and gave vent unto her sorrow . Fortune , ( said shee ) hast thou now hit the marke thou hast long aym'd at , my poor heart ; take to thee now thy triumph , and leave mee to my injur'd vertue . Brutus and Collatine , you are come from Ardea to hear the storie that will break my heart ere I am delivered of it ; should I truly tell you how low I am ramm●d in miserie , If should bee farre too low for you to pitie mee , unlesse your love should lead you to dishonour . In what Court shall I appeale to justice ? The grand Gods act , and licence what I suffer : the houshold Powers are not of power to keep their Lawes inviolate . Shall I addresse , mee to the King ? his owne Sonne hath dishonourd mee : to him I would appeale , would hee revenge his guilt , as I mine innocence ; then would I speak him a true Prince ; when to advance his justice higher then his sinne ; he made her way through patricide and treason to her power . But hee loves his lust too well to loath his life ; of him I cannot expect justice who hath injur'd mee , nor of you mercie whom I have injur'd : I have tainted your bloud with mine owne . Tarquin hath conquer'd this body , Lucrecia this mind . You true Romans Brutus and Collatine , in whom my life was truely happy , I conjure you by all the tyes of bloud , love , and religion , bee as cruell to Tarquin , as hee to Lucrece , shee to her selfe , who with bold steele carves on her breast the Tragedie that shall stagger the piety , or awake the pitie of all posteritie . Her life and language had both this period ; for having tyed their vowes to her revenge , her soule too pure for her bodie , disclogg'd it selfe of clay , and broke the vault of mortalitie . So riseth day disrob'd of night : so did her soule ascend to immortality . It is beyond the art of words to expresse what valiant sorrow , what noble rage , this cruelty of hers had stamp'd upon these two princely brests . Silence at the instant had tongue-tied all language , wonder had pent up all teares , immensitie of furie had transcended all bounds of passion : so much had they to speak , they could not speak ; so great was their sorrow they could not sorrow ; so were all the powers of the soule knit and contracted into the project of revenge , that till they were scattered into their offices , passion was not discernable ; then the object lessened , wonder descended to passion , passion to expression ; then discolouring the crimson floud , and with their teares washing her body white as her innocence , they took it on their shoulders , set it in the Forum , where Collatine , when the Auditory was ripe for his Oratorie , bespake the Roman cofluxe . Romans , and Countrimen , this day presents to your wonder a fact of that height of impietie , so degenerating from all humanitie ; that in it hell hath plotted the dishonour of this whole nation , this whole age . Were not your affection stronger tied to the Oratour , then the Oratory : I should not hope to perswade you that the breast of man could travell in such a prodigie of exact villany . You see a monument of that miserie that vindicates the pitie of Tygers , or Tyrants : much more of minds ennobled with vertuous actions . The Tragedie ( not long to wrack your expectation ) I will briefely declare . Sextus Tarquinius ( I know not with what colourable excuses hee painted his designes ) left Ardea for Rome ; honour could not bridle his false furie of affection , nor the publick interest in the State overpoize his private passion ; I say , hee posted to Rome . Rome ! where the Gods have their Temples , the Vertues their Sanctuaries , that thou shouldst breed a Monster to prophane thee ! No sooner had hee entred Rome , but hee entred my house ; where like a Prince , a kinsman , like the happie messenger of Collatines happinesse , ( oh , that vice should bee so bravely disguis'd ! ) hee was receiv'd by Lucrecia , receiv'd in a bravery of affection too high for the apostate from vertue ; his face did not discover the false heart that lay in ambush to surprize her honour , nor his vertue shew it selfe , as it was , the staulking horse to his covert . The ceremonies of hospitality finished , hee retires to his lodging , though not to himselfe ; now when the brother of death had summon'd to still musick all but foule ravishers , theeves , and cares ; with his drawne sword hee leaps from his owne , enters Lucrecia's bed , her hee ravisheth . Shee having possess'd us with a full relation of her mis-fortunes : Shee Empresse of a mind unconquer'd of sinne or sorrow , with this poniard let out the life Tarquin had made loathed ; And now O Countrimen awake your Roman vertue , flesh your swords and valours upon the revenge of the proud usurper of publick liberty , the cruell murderer of private innocence : you cannot offer to the Gods a more gratefull sacrifice ; nor will they ever in requitall , forsake that State that forsakes not the defence of vertue . Such impression strikes Thunder upon Oakes , Earthquakes on Mountaines , as Collatine on the Roman hearts . Their thoughts were torne , and divided from themselves , anger boyled into malice the policie of passion , both flowed into resolution : then like an unpent torrent from some high precipice , the multitude violently ran to precipitate him made high for a precipice ; which in the perpetuall exile of the Tarquins was accomplish'd . Pro Lucrecia . THE Roman Story big with varietie of wonder , writes Lucrecia the female glory : shee forcibly abus'd by Tarquin , declares her innocence to the world , and confirmes it by her death . There were two in the act , one in the sinne ; one adulterer , and one chast ; her body conquer'd , her mind truely heroicall , not stooping to the lure of false pleasure ; that remained as untainted , as unforced . Why dyed shee being innocent ? to bee innocent . Why received shee her death from her owne hands ? haply to prevent it from anothers ; then had shee subscribed to guilt , and not left life without staine . For a Roman to outlive honour was dishonourable , for her to survive her infamie , was to act it . Curtius spur'd on by honour , did ride into the Gulfe . Regulus , rather then his faith , would prostitute himselfe to the witty cruelty of the Carthaginians . To honour did the three hundred Fabii sacrifice their lives . Honour chased the Tarquins out of Rome ; but Lucrece out of life . To wipe off all thought of guilt which maligne censure might imprint upon the act , she slew her selfe . Hee that condemnes her for the murder , accuseth her of the adultery ; life had been her guilt , whereas death was her innocence ; through her life shee made way to her fame , to which life and fortune are slaves , not to be entertained farther then they tend to her advancement . I confesse , torne haire and face , and eyes bankrupt of teares , and her owne vertue was of force to possesse the world shee had been ravished without the witnesse of her death : why then died shee ? Her shame was too great to bee supported by her life ; nor any thing but her death revenged her and all Rome , of the insulting Tarquins . Then Lucrece in the hight of glory sacrificed her selfe , as well to the State , as to her innocence . Contra Lucreciam . WHy dyed shee if shee were innocent ? why if an adulteresse ? is death due to innocence , or to adulterie ? was it that her crime was greater then Tarquins , that shee was slain and hee banished ? The Roman Law puts not to death the adulteresse : but what law screwd to tyranny destroyes the innocent ? The body might be purg'd by the adultery : not soule of the adultery by murder . This revenge may argue chastitie before and after : but not in the nick of the act , which yeelding to some secret enticement , might staine her thought ; then loathing her selfe for the act , held death a more satisfactory revenge then repentance . But , it was Tarquins lust staind her : no , it was Lucrece ; if Tarquins lust slained her , it was not Tarquins , but her own . The will left free by divine providence , is not constraind by humane power . If her will was ravished , why doe wee extoll her for murder who died for adultery ? had she slaine Tarquin , her act had been no way to be justified ; but how is this aggravated ? Lucrece is her chast and innocent self ; Tarquin her foul ravisher , and greatest enemy . She then did sacrifice her life to her honour : could not her insatiate thirst of glory bee slak'd but by her bloud ? Was it not unworthy Tarquin to bee her conquerour against her wil ? and was it not more unworthy Lucrece , not to endure the conquerour against her honour ? Her vertue was more debased by being enslav'd to common praise , then her selfe to carnall delight . Had shee kept her mind unconquered she had liv'd the mirrour of women : but her weaknesse press'd her downe to die in her despaire , rather then live after shee was dishonoured . DIDO . BElus King of Tyre left Pigmalion & Dido heires to his Kingdome : but the Tyrians as impatient of of a Duarchie , as Pigmalion of a Rivall : yeelded allegeance solely to him not of years to write man. Dido was married to her Uncle Sichaeus , Hercules Priest : this Sichaeus the sponge of Fortune , filled only to be squeesed ; was slaine by his Nephew and Brother Pigmalion . Hee a man of treasure vast enough to betray his life , jealous of the security of his greatnesse , trusted it to the earth : but Fame ( the most injurious Hyperbole ) drew it up ( perhaps greater then it was ) the many fathomes of earth , where it lay ramm'd from the eye , not the envie of the Prince . Unkind Fortune , that deal'st with us as the Persian with their slaves , crownest us for a Sacrifice ! Dido a Dowager by her Brothers tyranny , begins to feele a tyranny of sorrow ; that ( had not nature resolved to keep perfect as much of her as was hers ) had made her a Widdow also to her beauty ; her faire face clouded with discontent : but her fairer soule with no more passion , then betraid mortality ; shee betakes her to the male contented of the Tyrian Lords . Since Brothers ( said shee ) are enemies , let us seeke to our enemies for Brothers ; since pitie is fled humane brests , let us seeke it ( for such a creature there is , nature tels mee ) among salvages . Though we cannot expect it from his nature ; yet his youth might enfeeble him to it : but his very infancy is a monster ; what then will his riper yeares produce but the exile of all humanity ? What distant respects will hee know that wades through his owne bloud to his ends ? if an innocent Uncle and Brother be slaine ; if a Sister be not , where is a Subject secure ? Miserable Strato , thou wert a Prince by thy slave , to beget a Prince to make slaves of Princes ! Miserable Tyre , now more oppress'd by one Tyrant , then before by a thousand slaves ! Wretched wealth , to thee quiet poverty is a Prince ; thou hast divorced mee from my Sichaeus , thou hast made mee the foot-ball of a Tyrant Brother , toss'd from his Kingdome , into what unhappy shore is not yet knowne unto my thoughts . My Lords , I speake to minds too noble to be stifled in the narrow confines of fear : follow your Princesse , whose vertue the spite of Fortune shall not wrack into despaire . Her words proceeding from the height and sweetnes of her mind , were as great a spur as the hope of liberty to advance them into action : then as in a thoughtfull mind refresh'd with wine , Care it selfe keeps her revels : so were their thoughts ( before dejected ) now lifted to that pitch , that valiantly affronts the hard affronts of Fortune ; then with all speed they rig'd a fleet , and Dido with her treasure , and the Tyrian Lords in the advantage of night hoised saile . The Cyprian was the first shore they touched ; where ( as the fashion of the Countrey was ) their Virgins were assembled , to sacrifice for their chastities to Venus , before their marriage . Fourscore of these untouch'd Dido ravisheth from the barbarous sacrifice , and sailes with them into Affrica ; where when she was arriv'd , shee purchased as much land of the Inhabitants as might bee covered by an Oxes hide , which cut in thin pieces , made a great extent of ground : but scarce to containe a City two and twenty miles in compasse . There was the famous Carthage built by Dido , which after times dilated into a great Empire . By the consent of all there was a yearly rent paid for the land on which the City was founded . The concourse of Affricans ( which hope of gaine brought thither ) was great as their gaine they received by traffick , which invited them to settle themselves there . The many conspiring hands in no great space of time wrought it to a perfect Citie : but in the interim , their wealth that flowed thither in high tide , made Carthage the envie of Hiarbus King of the Mauritanians . Hee summons ten of the Carthaginian Princes , and with them treats of marriage with their Queen ; which if fairely may not bee obtain'd , hee resolves to try the force of armes . Dido hearing this unwelcome message , desires respite of resolution till the City was finished : which accomplished , shee in no wise would yeeld unto Hiarbus , whom lust linkt to rage and avarice , had arm'd against her and his honour . Dido now the creature which melancholly divorceth from society ; desires three months absence from her friends , whom shee tels she must goe whither her owne and the Cities fate did drive her : in which time a little remote from the Citie , shee erected a stately Pyre , which having kindled , and invok'd Sichaeus ghost ; shee a little eased her selfe against her fortune . What a monster of misery ( said shee ) received life with Dido ? The World hath dealt with mee , as Love with those it hath distracted ; allowed mee happinesse but by some short intervals . First I was borne Princesse of Tyre , then by my Brothers tyranny I was exil'd ; after long conflicts with the Winds and Seas , I arrived here in Affrica ; here I built this great Carthage , of which I am intitled Queene ; then I thought me plac'd above my envie , or my fate : but as those wretched creatures that are drawne higher , the more to bee strapado'd : so was I made great , great for Hiarbus envie ; so was I wound up to the height of happinesse and honour , only to fall never to rise againe . Prosperity and adversity might bee termed the fever of life , did not our best dayes aflict us more then our worst . In our happinesse , the feares that doe attend it make us miserable ; the hopes that await our unhappinesse , make us happy in our lowest unhappinesse ; which estate would a wise man chuse , that which will be better , or that which will bee worse ? then to be happy , is to bee miserable . As the pain of the soule transcends the paine of sense : so is misery to be valued above happinesse . For as what shall be is the greatest wrack of thought ; so what is , is the clearest reliefe , the clearest satisfaction . In our height of happinesse we know wee shall bee , in our lowest misery wee know wee cannot bee worse ; then to bee miserable is to bee happy . If I desire felicitie , I desire misery ; for I rise onely to fall . If misery , then happinesse ; this makes me Fortune's , that makes Fortune my triumph . Where is then content , since banished the height of State ? If in the low estate , then must I seek it in the Wildernesse , and in some un-sun-seen Cave waste out the remnant of my dayes ; there Pigmalion and Hiarbus follow mee ; there reignes as great a confusion of thoughts as at the Court : then welcome Death , thou didst divorce mee , thou shalt unite mee to my Love. Purged from earth , to the Skies I flie , and intwine my soule forever to my lov'd Sichaeus . Then she leap'd into the Pyre , and there consum'd . The meeting of Dido and Aeneas ( in which Virgils Muse hath sweat to the dishonour of them both ; her for love , him for ingratitude ) is so meerly fabulous , that it is scarce worth the expence of paper to disprove it , onely I am bound to vindicate her honour . Rome ( as Eutropius writes ) was built three hundred ninetie foure yeares after the destruction of Troy , none computes the time lesse . Carthage was built seventie two years before Rome , so Iustine writes . So there must bee of necessity two hundred yeares betweene the Trojan Prince and the Carthaginian Queen . Seven hundred yeares this Citie stood unconquered ; so long they sacrificed to Dido as their tutelar Goddesse ; at last by Scipio , thence called Affricanus , it was burnt , there their devotion ended with their fortune , and themselves . Pro Dido . WAS it the Queen of Carthage , or the Queen of beauty that Hiarbus coveted ? If Carthage was his end , money was his matrimony ; if beauty , hee sought a woman , not a wife ; if a wife , to make his lust warrantable . Dido in Sichaeus buried all husband , in Hiarbus all man. Love is the good which by being diffused , is corrupted ; shee that loves one , another , and a third , takes men in at the coile , and loves only for her pleasure . The object of true love is but one ; from the infancy of time to her decrepitude the love between two hath been held most honourable . Hee that tooke from the first man his wife , did not make every rib a wife ; not onely to shew us how out of the least of numbers he could draw infinites upon infinites : but especially that our desires might move within the narrow compasse of love , not expatiate themselves to lust ; that as the first man was all the men in the world to his wife : so now the husband should bee the wives Horizon , that where ere shee is plac'd , hee may bee all shee sees . The objects of lust are as various as numerous : as there are lovely beauties , and to attend them , fond desires . The wanton woman darts forth her unruly heats more freely then the lesse-offending Sun his beams ; he with the day , in courtesie to nature , withdrawes his fires : shee day and night carries the rage of dog-dayes in her breast , and never sets but then when shee can rise no more . Dido would not wed Hiarbus , because she thought all nuptiall rites had not their period in Sichaeus . Death is the divorce of man and woman , not of husband and wife ; that contract flesh ties and unties : but this is that of soules , which eternity cannot undoe ; it is as immortall as themselves , not deaded in being singled from earth , but reviv'd to a greater perfection : if then her soule did intirely love , the soule of her soule must be her only love . But Hiarbus sought lawfull marriage . Why did he force it ? Dido refused marriage , shee could not love . Marriage to her had been a rape , another had enjoy'd her against her will : if a rape must bee avoyded with the losse of life ; through how many death must she flie a loathed bed , where every night she shall be ravished ? Did her vertue attract Hiarbus ? why did he not covet her vertue in her prosperity , as in her misery ? He that hath lost the effect and quality of vertue in himselfe , will not value it in another , and with reason ; for her vertue was his greatest enemy ; forc'd her chastity so to whom she had been married , that like the Phoenix shee would marry to nothing but her ashes . Contra Dido . WHy refus'd she marriage ? because it was lawfull , it was not incestuous ; was it a crime because it was no sin ? Religion and honour allow her to marry Hiarbus ; neither Sichaeus : hee was a King , a stranger ; this a Subject , an Vncle. Marriage is the tie of strange blouds , not of the same . Nature bids us affect , not love our kindred ; in this , affection screwd to love , is unnaturall : could she then marry Sichaeus , and not Hiarbus ? did she think the Priest in Sichaeus a warrant for her incest , and not the King in Hiarbus for a lawfull contract ? Hath the King the liberty to make the Law , and the Priest to transgresse it ? Hiarbus desires the establishment of the law of Nations ; but Sichaeus violates the law which Nature wrote within him . The Gods suffer her to outlive her incest : she will murther her selfe rather then entertain a vertuous Love. Hiarbus us'd force . Why should shee refuse it ? The safety of Carthage depended on the marriage : she liv●d to build it , and would die to ruine it . Had shee burnt a Martyr to her Countrey , her act had been too great for Chronicle : but she would die to satisfie her passion , rather then live to preserve the Citie . Her love to Sichaeus was that she valued above Hiarbus . Shee would vexe a living King to appease a livelesse Trunke , and rather obey a Block then a Storke . But Sichaeus stands in competition with Carthage . Oh unequall ballance ! a womanish fancy poiz'd against a publick good . What other reason then had she to burn , but because shee would not marry ? THEVTILLA . FRance the richest embroydery of beauties , bred a maid from heaven inspir'd with all those excellencies which first made the virtues of her sexe . History writes her birth ignoble : but as it is the greatest Sol●cisme in honour for high blouds not to flow into high attempts : so it is a reall ennobling of meannesse of birth to be guilty of more then noble actions . Nobility and beautie are a fair varnish of vertue , the lively shadowes of that unseen substance , which were it visible , nothing so lovely : but being the true Idaea of the mind , cannot bee discern'd with the eyes of the body . Without this ( so much of nothing hath the unworthy honourable ) they are but the complements of man , serve onely to fill up this vast vacuum of honour . She basely noble , not nobly base , born under a smoak-dried roof ; which though of it selfe it receiv'd no more of heavens influence then through the loope-holes made by the rage thereof ; yet her presence made perpetuall day . But let her birth bee strangled in the wombe of History . Shee was Natures fairest paper , not compounded of the rags of common mortality : but so searsed and refined , that it could receive no impression but that of spotlesse innocence . How unfortunate had her beauty been , had shee had no other championesse then her selfe , the sequell of Theutilla will declare . Amalius , Dynasta of France , rich in treasure , magnificent in retinue , Lord of all the world admires , but himselfe , which hee most admires ; there was no deity to whom hee should owe his fortune , but his unworthinesse : for he was more hospitable to himselfe then to others , and freelyer feasted his senses then strangers . In summe , hee was what a vertuous man is not , what a voluptuous man should be . It hapned one time , the time pointed at in Chronicle ; when his soul ( the slave of his sense ) dancing and floating like a toast in his wine , was seiz'd on by sleepe ; the wine it selfe had paid the drawer of his wine his appetite . Then was he quiet , when hee was dead drunk . How fruitlesly were spent those thousand lamps of oyl ? those thousand pen-plowed reams of paper about the immortality of the soule ? Who hath a soule that will not here question it ? what is become of it ? is it onely for this interim metamorphized into a beast ? or doth it die ? if into a beast , since the prince of man , let it bee transmigrated into the prince of beasts , the Prince's beast . Who so sottish , so grosse of conceit , to think the Lyon , a creature of that invincible valour , and now commanded by reason ; having rescued so faire a Lady from so foul tyranny , will transgresse the lawes of honour , let her loose to her losse of liberty , her loath some dungeon ? Or doth she die ? or will you mince it into an intervallum of life , a three hours death ? it then followes , the soule thus dying will dye eternally . But to returne to Theutilla . Amalius servants have made the neighbouring Villages their rendevouz ; where having discovered Theutilla , and in her as much as the world could boast of ; they ra vish'd her from the weak resistance of her parents , and laden with the rich triumph of nature , returne unto their Lord , and lock her up in his lodging , whose sense and fancy was so strongly lock'd up in yron-sleep , hee had not power to dreame of what he would have acted . She thus forfeited to dishonour , and night the friend of dishonour , enjoying no more of light then the courteous candle , which betraid to her eye and hand a sword , which shee taking to her , revolves her present condition . If the soule straightned ( said shee ) in a necessitie of ill-doing , must trie all her power to gain her libertie : surely shee must not refuse any opportunity conduceable to the preservation of her purity . Death is then an honourable freedome , when it takes us from the danger of living ill . As we came into the world with nature ; so wee must goe out with honour ; wee must not rest on nature for our ends , since before her summons , thousands of extremities doe beset our lives . There shee paus'd . Welcome ( said shee ) my deare , deare Preserver ; to thee I owe this last , this most glorious act of my well-spent life ; to thee posterity shall be as much beholding as Theutilla ; thou shalt redeem the errours of after times in women . Then shee , borne for what shee did , drew the sword , anvil'd and filed for her sexes glory : no sooner ( said she ) have I unsheath'd thee , but I must sheath thee againe , Where ? In this guiltlesse breast of mine . Call up thy too degenerous spirit . Of what bravery can it accuse the act ? Thou murdrest a poor innocent maid . Shall posteritie brand mee with that weaknesse ? Shall it say , that not able to stand under the miseries of life , I was press'd down by the hard extremity of fortune to despaire to death ? No , my tide of furie flowes into another channell ; here is a revenge fit for thy spirit , fit for thine arme ; thine honour shall bee proud to riot in his bloud , whose bloud would riot in thine honour . Thus then I shake off woman , and her frailtie ; thus doe I strangle the monster lust that revels in thy veines ; and to complete my vengeance , send thy sin-surfetted soule into the land of endlesse night , where it hath already tane sure footing , With that , her spirit restlesse in the revenge of words , eager of action , directed her arme , which gave Amalius so fatall a wound , that it seem'd her hot-metled fury was bridled with exactest discretion , and nothing wanted the attempt but passion . Bravest Theutilla , sooner shall the Fathers bowels bee silent at the sight of his long unseen Sonne , then posterity forget thy name . Amalius now miserably groaning , now miserably opening his eyes to shut them againe more miserably , had little more of life then what could give her life , in appeasing the fury of his servants that rushed in to her destruction . What means ( said he ) is Chaos of confounding noise ; this unwelcome Traine , to the more unwelcome Pomp of death ? Whither rush yee , yee betrayers of innocence , yee servants of nothing but my lust ? Oh may mine infamie find a grave as soone as life ; and you sooner : that the world may want a witnesse of it . I conjure you by the relation that ties you to my commands , and this last ; spare her life , whose chastitie the Gods are pleas'd to spare . Then , to make a minute of his life famous , hee contemplated on mortality . Nature ( said hee ) that first digested this All into an exact method of parts , preserves it likewise by a constant concordance of the same , without the which it would soone resolve into the first nothing : onely man , ungovern'd man , Natures Master-peece , revolting from her allegeance , deposes her Lieutenant Reason , le ts in the Usurper , Passion , to untune the harmony that preserves the soul. Hence is it that death , the privation of being , in this disorder seizes the Fort , hurries the Governesse captive to an eternall , a never redeem'd imprisonment . The Sunne , the Sea , have both their bounds , and man his stage from life to death , of equall length to all , though one runs faster then another . The world whirles about continually till it be dissolv'd ; and mans brain not satisfied in the bare necessaries of life , moves in an unbounded motion , till stil'd by the period of action , the undoer of Nature , Death . There is but one doore at which wee enter this Labyrinth of life : but infinite are the waies wee turne and wind out of it . The infant no sooner with much difficulty rak'd out of the wombe , ( punishing the Mothers guilt of his short-liv'd misery ) enters the Tombe , flashing through the world , being but a lightning of life . Pleasure or businesse wears out the riper mans vitals , and forceth out life , let Nature block it up never so strongly . The aged man , because a burden to himselfe , sinks under his own weight . These are ordinary waies out of this world into the next : but to bee hurld out by violence of Fate , this is the doom of strictest Justice that makes eternity our curse . This is the hard fate my just merit hath encountred , to be punish'd by the sex I have so much abus'd . This was his last : for Nature , though shee could not tell him he had liv'd long enough ; told him hee had been long enough dying . There she withdrew her selfe from him , and seal'd up his eyes to the eternall sleep of eternall night . Pro Theutilla . REason is the only , and noble difference between the free and servile creature , and they whose actions are not moderated and well poyzed by her power , deviate from themselves into the slavery of Sense . Theutilla , if shee could obtaine of her selfe to yeeld to sense , why should not Amalius obtaine it ? If to reason ; why should shee not kill Amalius ? or why should she be ravished ? Her selfe then was Victor of her sense , and to conquer reason she conquer'd Amalius . Never had her vertue a fairer tryall , then when her honour was a martyr stak'd to unlawfull flames ; never could her honour bee more honourably releived , then by her vertue ; nor both , then by this act . Though Vertue being within her , Honour being above her , was not to be really violated without the Theutilla that was below her : yet must Amalius be sacrificed , as well to deprive her of the interest he might have in her dishonour , as to make opinion cleare as her actions . It was that mind that stoop'd not to her body , that made her of consequence ; not her beauty : the other sullied , who but Amalius would value this ? or one whose sense is so scattered in the admiration of the outward forme , that hee discernes not even those deformities of soule which are detected ? It was necessary for her fame not onely to resolve not to yeeld : but to prevent occasions that might prejudice her vertue , or her honour . But why was Amalius slaine , not master of the opportunity hee knew not ? why was she forc'd thither ? Because shee would not yeeld ; because she should bee ravished . But haply her handsome prayers had wrought him to an handsome repentance . Is beauty , the loadstar that attracts hearts of steel to it , the Orator that pleads against it selfe ? Amalius , had his eyes been open , had not read contradictions in her face , nor made so obscure a Comment upon so cleare a Text. Hee had seene her but as hee had seene her ; her eyes inviting all eyes , her lippes all lippes , her face Loves banquet , where shee ryots in the most luxuriant feast of sense : not as shee was the modell of Divine Perfection , so innocent shee knew not the meaning of a Mistris . Theutilla , had she had no other Sword but her innocence , might satisfie her selfe in that defence : but Conscience is but one witnesse to one , and her actions must endure the triall of another touch-stone beside her owne . Amalius would easily confront her meanenesse . Then allow her this great revenge of little innocence . Contra Theutillam . A Mind well habited to vertue , enjoyes all true content within it self , knowing nothing without it to transport it from it selfe . Why should she then strain her vertue to a vice ; in the too nice satisfaction of others , unsatisfie her selfe ? Why should shee , to prevent unlawfull love , act a more unlawfull revenge ? Why should shee revenge an unacted injury ; commit a certain murder , to avoid an uncertain rape ? Had she been absolutely tyed either to die , kill , or be ravished ; she had shewed a greater height of spirit in enduring , then revenging her dishonour . For the passive valour is more laudable then the active : this being often the fruit of a desperate , dejected ; that ever of a well-settled mind . Her valour was her crime , her cowardize : for as shee had the false spirit of a man , unjustly to kill a man : so had shee the true false spirit of a woman , to act a greater , lest she should sinke under a lesser evill . Perhaps glorie transported her to an attempt ( as shee flattered her self ) above a man : did shee not also descend into the cruell weaknesse of her sexe , slay a man that had already paid earnest to a sleep never to awake , that had already pawn'd himselfe to Death ? Did she not goe lower , sacrifice his soule to the furie of furies , her selfe ? Whither did her blind rage lead her , to punish innocence , to salve her honour that was not wounded ? This act carries little Valour in it , lesse Vertue . CYPRIANA . THE Iland Cyprus , Natures choycest storehouse , where she had reposed the chiefest blessings of the earth , flowing in wealth , the wantonizer of the mind , and by it once dedicated to the Queen of Love , courted and feared of the neighbouring Nations : while secure in her owne height ; the Othomannick Army , infinite in number , invincible in valour , unappeas'd by cruelty , breaks in like a sea , that threatens to eat her into another Iland , if not devoure her . Christianity was their crime , a wrong proud enough to unsheath a Turkish blade ; life was their greatest guilt , which must bee wip'd off by cruell death . That which to nature was preposterous , the souldier made methodicall ; the infant torn from the mothers brest , was mangled into as many atomes as it had lived minutes , and hewed out into more Sacrifices then it had sins : if sorrow was too weak to conquer the surviving distressed mother ; the sword ( therein courteous ) supplyed it , and intomb'd both in the wombe from whence they did unfortunately spring . Wives and Maids were first ravish'd , then slaine for adultery . Father and Daughter , Mother and Sonne , Brother and Sister were all incestuously piled up ; there was nothing wanting but new lives to satisfie the guilt of death . The Iland was an heape of carkasses in despaire of being repeopled but by Cannibals or Crows . Was ever cruelty so barbarously express'd ? Was ever steel refin'd for such cruelty ? Mustapha having almost dislimb'd the Iland , bends his fury to the head ; besiegeth Salamina , renowned for rich Citizens , brave Buildings , and stately Temples ; erected by the Telamonian Teucer , during the Trojan sieige . Dandalus the Governour , forc'd to submit himselfe to the Turkish yoke , after exquisite tortures , is beheaded ; and to strike a greater terrour in the survivors , his head is carryed upon the point of a sword through the razed Citie . Nero had here seene his cruell wish accomplish'd , the head of thousands of heads strooke off at one blow . The highest rate the Citizen could amount to , was too cheap for the securitie of life , where innocence was punish'd in stead of treason . Mustapha , his sword now surfetted in humane bloud , spurs on his sacrilegious furie to revenge him of the Gods : he razeth the Temples , whither the wretched Salaminians were fled for refuge ; the Altars are profan'd ; Hymens holy Tapers are lighted to rapes and adulteries at the very Altars . Murders are their Sacrifices ; innocent lives drop like beades from their bloudy hands , their more bloudy devotions . Good Heaven ! where is your thunder ? awake your sleeping armory : is not your whole Hoast blasphem'd ? Good Earth ! where is thy Earthquake ? cannot these monsters move thee ? The consecrated vessels are prophan'd to servile uses . The shrines of Saints that call'd the adoration of farthest Pilgrims , are demolish'd ; all , holy , and prophane , a e miscellaniously sacrific'd to fire and sword . Mustapha , his rage and avarice appeas'd , bethinks him of a present to appease Selimus his Masters lusts ; he sends captive the choicest beauties of both sexes ( doom'd to another destinie ) to the distain'd Carpathian Sea , where his fleet lay at anchor . The captives ship'd , and ready to be wafted in their owne bloud to Byzantium ; when the divinely inspired Cypriana wrought the miracle , worthy the memory of all time . Shee , servilly imployed in the powder-office , with a countenance that gave a majesty to her miserie , and scorn'd the subjection of sorrow ; resolves a powder-treason : a candle shee had flaming in her hand ; but a purer flame shot from heaven into her breast : from no other place could so generous a mind be fired . This fire ( said shee ) purer then the element of fire , shall both burne and cure , shall extinguish the lurking inflammations of lust . Nothing of Cyprus shall bee transported to Byzantium but my fame , powerfull to perfume the contagion of their sin . O Heaven ! to thee , the Sanctuary of innocence , flies my untainted soule : if my spirit enlightned by thine , act thy vengeance , thy mercy reward mee ; if I transgresse thy Commission , if I let out my life before thou requirest it : pardon the weaknesse of my vertue , pardon her that sacrificeth her self a spotlesse creature to thy most sacred throne . If thy justice exclude mee thy pitie , oh pitie these innocents ; rain all thy revenge on mee , burie my name from the discovery of posterity ; let not them , because they feel my fate , feel thy vengeance . Then gave shee fire to the Powder , that knew as little mercie as the Turke . The Masts and Sailes were hoysed nearer the Skies , then when the boysterous element conspires a shipwrack ; the ribs torn from the body , flew like murdering shot through the next ship ; where the unquench'd pitch seized the powder , so that both were swallowed by the same fate . Into these two ships were congested the Prime of the Turkish Souldiery , the Cyprian captivitie dispatch'd by Mustapha to Selimus at Byzantium . The miserable Salaminians now upon the shore , paying the last office of affection , to see the last of their wives and children , were more delighted then terrified at the spectacle ; they look'd on death not as a punishment ; but as the most honourable divorce , and last refuge of honour . Death had in it more courtesie then horrour : for as it was the last , so it was the least of their evils . Did they weepe at their misfortunes ? so did the Sea : with a generall acclamation they thank'd the Gods that had heard their prayers , desiring their friends should bee rather a prey to the mercilesse waves , then Selimus lusts , for which , by the misfortune of beauty , they were reserv'd untouch'd . Mustapha now again whets his sword , which before revenge had dull'd ; there was not a life that was not his prey , till hee had left the Iland breathlesse ; then , like a Tyger besmeard in the bloud of tamer beasts , hee returnes to his Fleet ; and laden with the spoiles of the Countrey , but most with infamie , hoyseth Sailes to Bzyantium . Now is he in the Carpathian sea ; where may hee see nothing but monsters ugly as himself ; may wind and water roar to him the name of bloud . If sleepe — charming-care steal on his restlesse mind ; may the Cyprian Ghosts awake him : may every minute bee feare of endlesse death , and may his sinne fright away his repentance : then in view of the Byzantium Towers , the great Seraglio , and his own Pallace ; may he bee betrayd by his nearest friend to a rock that splits him ; from thence let him sink into the lowest dungeon of Avernus . Pro Cypriana . THE Countrey is wasted and spoyled of her riches : but honour is shipp'd up a prisoner to Byzantium . Is there no refuge ; no redemption ? sword and fire can preserve this , as well as sword and fire consume the other . Policie allowes not captivitie a sword : but crueltie allowes her a candle , the clearer to see her slavery . Ignorance is the happinesse of misery which is not felt before it bee understood . Had Cypriana a slavish mind in a slavish body , shee had owed her attempt to fortune , not to vertue ; and merited more scorn then praise : but Nature that gave her a soule above her sexe , studied a discretion proportionable to manage it . Had shee well weighed , alwaies to redeem her honour with honour ; she could not better informe , or in a more ingenuous way relieve her selfe , then to make the embleme of her slavery the instrument of her freedome ; her justice was wittie , to punish the Turke by the same means he had punish'd them . Was it their misery , or their cruelty to which she owed her life ? Shee was halde from a glorious death , to an ignominious life , to an inglorious death . Shee was captivated by her owne beauty , and felt the greatest tyranny of it her selfe , why then also should her greatest offender bee unpunish'd ? shee did not kill her selfe for feare of the Turke : for her brest was arm'd to meet death in any shape of horrour , shee had before beheld him unaffrighted in all his ghastly formes . Life was below her honour ; her honour not above her friends , which nor life , nor death shall divorce from her affection . As they had accompanied her to her slavery : so it was equall to her libertie . Vnworthy is she of life , that lives by unworthinesse ; unworthy is she of an handsome death , that seeks it by an ignominious life : but shee soared to the height of glory : for shee would not goe a voluntary slave to her dishonour , when death might releeve her : but shee died , and in her selfe bequeath'd three wonders to the World ; a free Slave , a vertuous Prostitute , and an innocent Murderesse . Contra Cyprianam . VVHether was the Turk or shee more cruell ? he slew his enemies , and strangers : shee , her friends , kindred , and her self . Had she life to revenge it with self-murder ? or were she wronged by another , must she therefore be reveng'd on her selfe ? Was a life freely given bought at too dear a rate ? or because shee might feel their power , must she use her owne ? What was it that look'd on her more terrible then death , or that she look'd on through a multiplying glasse ? was it slavery ? that is the common fate of vertue , that stands unmov'd by misery , unshaken by despair . Had the Turk slaine her , he had not depriv'd the world of the opinion of her vertue : but the very substance is shipwrack'd by her selfe . The Turks cruelty was her courtesie : for though hee triumph'd over her ; yet hee gave her the opportunity to triumph over misery , and shew that height of spirit that scornes any thing without her should afflict her : but shee disdain'd to bee beholding to their courtesie , or her owne vertue . Was dishonour the thing beyond death or captivity ? had she asmuch of woman as not to feare a death from her selfe , and not asmuch , as not to feare a dishonour from another ? Could shee hate her vertue , and her sin ? could she better revenge her of her vertue , then by her dishonour ? Why should she feare what might befall her in life , who was regardlesse what might befall her after death . Then was slavery the terrible , joyn'd with dishonour her twin sister . Had she been transported to a Nunnery , where vertue is necessitated , had not that been a slavery ? would not her will break into a thousand sins , who broke through life into a false liberty ? But lesse then death , slavery , or dishonour , onely sense of her dishonour depriv'd her of her sense ; why should she be affrighted by a shadow , when her sense could bee wrong'd by none but her selfe ? ARETAPHILA . ARetaphila , a Cyrenaean , the last rank'd in these Stories , but first in my thoughts , which by the order of birth may claim the priviledge to do wonders . As some things are lesse curiously perform'd which are ordain'd for common use , not for the ornament or wonder of the world : so have I , like a French Volunteir on a Lute , all this while scatter'd slight aires , which may perchance surprize an indifferent eye : but now like the glasse that twists the Sun-beames to steale fire from heaven , I must in writing her , so lessen and contract so much of her as may sinke into our narrow faith , or narrower reason . If our Poets prophanely rake heaven for comparisons , for each part of a rotten Mistris that shall nere bee part of it ; one whom sinne , to prevent age , hath carcass'd in her cradle : to what heights must I ascend to reach a Subject fit for all fancy to work , not play upon ; one that is above all heights ? Sometimes she is pleas'd to stoop to bee admir'd , ador'd ; not that shee falls lower to rebound higher : but that wee are admir'd for admiring her , and we her prisoners feast our selves with the fragmentarie offalls of her Fame . Thus doe I admire her , till I admire my selfe out of breath ; then shee beckens to my soule ( the reason I cannot reach ; but I obey ) to come , whither I will not tell you : but now I am return'd a re-transmigrated-mountebank-Pedler , I will open to your Opticks that which shall purblind the whole art ; at your two nostrils you shal snuffe in both the Indies ; for your pallats , ( because the cleanest feeders are the cleanest meat ) you shall have the whole sect of Epicures ; if their opinions stick in your stomacks , you shall take all the sumes of Arabia in a Tobacco-pipe to concoct them : Here is that will chaine your care to the perpetuall sound of Aretaphila : For your touch , are you a Midas ? here is a Diamond set in gold , within two dayes it will bee a Rhodian Colosse ; then will it magnifie to an Escuriall ; then to a World ; then to tenne Worlds ; then to Aretaphila : thus Fortune blows dust up to a Lady , then to a Countesse , then to a Queen : thus Gold and Diamonds at length come to be Aretaphila , in whose name they have been valued . Please you to look into this inward Drawer , you shall see all the secrets of nature , that have befool'd the grand Clarks of all the World. Here shall you see reason for the ebb and flow of Seas , and of an Ague that resembles it ; here shall you see the wrack of your bodies wracks , how he is the onely Physician of himselfe . The wounded Roman State , like a broken Tobacco-pipe , was cured by bloud . Warre cures the Turkish Lethargie . The Aegyptian Dropsie is cured by drinking ; one month in a year the whole Countrey is drunk . The Plague cures Grand-Cairo of her diseases of repletion : but the Ague onely an Ague . It is an opinion of some , that every particular person hath two Angels , one waits at his right hand , the other at his left ; this left-handed Devill is the thing we speake of ; if wee bee fairely dispossest of him , we may say , the better Angell hath got the victory : but if by the holiogopheron hotontiperistaton , one Devill drives out another . Here you see this little little Pepper-corn ; Princes are captives , Emperours are subjects to this Pymee-tyrant , this is Love. Let him be pitied , he swells higher then Atlas ; heaven and earth is not a load for his little finger . Let him be scorn'd , then ( like a Prince's casheir'd Favourite ) hee is frown'd from a Duke to a male contented Gentleman ; then hee crosseth his crossed armes , and looks upon his fate with that regreet a younger Brother in the Low-countries doth his followers , who make his misery their food , and are the onely flatterers of low fortunes ; the little winke rereares the other ; four stivers in hot water defends this from the world , and which is worse , himselfe . Love hath been a tenant to this heart for many years , and hath now left it like a Farme in the eighteenth yeare , plowed up and harrowed out of heart ; under three years sleep it wil not again be tenantable . Here you may see the braine working like a Powder-mill , let the brasse be over-wrought , he is blown up ; and the rest of man is as confused as a beleagured Towne : screw him not up like a treble Lute-string , in a storme , to a French tune , and he will shew you the wonders of heaven so distinctly , that you shall confute a whole kennell of Almanacks . But oh ! whilst I am quacking , my Aretaphila is fled ; fled like the last age ; or faster , like yesterday ; and my soul , like a skie-climbing Falcon , sprited as the ayre shee flies in , hath gotten height , and wind , and thinkes to seize her : but oh ! shee is heightned into the incomprehensible ; shee is lessened into the invisible ; shee is greatned to the un-by-any — fancie — fathomable . Shall we aske Sense what she is ? Sense will tell us ; her face is the unclouded Welkin in the infancy of day : her eyes the Sunne and Moon that sleepe by turnes , lest they should leave the World in darknesse : her tongue the harmony of Sphears and Nature : her brests Heavens milkie way , spangled with azure Starres : her armes Castor and Pollux : her other parts , because of lower function , are but the Symmetry of all the beauties of her sexe : shee is too much first to have any second ; from the third , fourth , and fifth forme of women , from a million , or all of them you may take some piece of her , not all , for she herself is the All. Aske Reason what shee is ; Reason will tell you , shee is her Directresse , that shee keeps the elements at peace within us : our fire she confines to religious zeale , and suffers it not to inflame either to lust or superstition : our watry element shee hath design'd to quench unlawfull flames : our sighs to drie our blubbred eyes , when teares have tyred them : our earth like the earth to tread upon , or make no other account of it then of a skin-purse that holds ten thousand pound : the money outed , the purse is laid aside till it bee refill'd by the same treasure . Aske Faith what shee is : Faith that ties us morally to riddles , religiouslly to mysteries ; and Faith will tell you , shee hath yours , and mine , & an hundred other souls in one soule : nor doth her soule receive extension : for a soule fils no roome , though shee bee all over the body , and she all over ours ; yet none knowes where , nor how . If with some Philosophers wee will give them but such dimensions , that twenty of them cannot stand upon the point of a needle ; then may it follow that two or three thousand of them may bee circumscrib'd ( in which compasse I think so many misers soules may ) in a locall inch : if they have any dimensions , they may bee circumscrib'd ; if circumscrib'd , then followes the unheard-of absurdity ' that they are bodies . We are circumscriptive ; other Angels definitive : but her , immortall fame hath made ubiquitive , and repletive . There are orders of Angels , the first of higher knowledge , because of nobler function ; the knowledge of the second but derived from the first : yet those and these Angels know no more of each other then they are pleas'd to reveale to one another : but shee , first of the first ranke , knowes all of them and us , and wee weakely enlightned , have so much of her , as the watry elements of the Sun , but bare reflection . Some Angels protect Cities , others Countries ; but the noblest are Guardians to us frail and mortall men ; all these offices were by her undergone on earth ; to what high flights of exercise is shee now soared ? But I must stoop , and draw neer her into her low estate . Faith tels us she stands one contrary without another : were there , or were there no night : yet were shee an everlasting day . Were there none bad : yet were shee unparalleldly good . Were there any or none to be compar'd to her : yet were she superlative . All of her is an even proportion of extremes . Faith tels us , now she is beyond our apprehension , that shee is nothing , yet all of every thing . But now since she is , let us see what made her this all ; she was Wife to Phedimus , a Cyrenaean Citizen . As when we see the Eastern Morn shoot his fiery-pointed darts , we say they are the Tipstaves to usher into the World the approaching Snnne ; presently we see himselfe attended by his Page , the Day ; anon he goes to bed , then it is night : So shall you see the Aretaphila in her glimmering , Wife to Phedimus ; then in the bright of day , Queen and protectresse of the Cyrenaeans ; after that her returne to the solitary distaffe : then like a man that hath lost the other eye , I 'le bid good night to all the World. Nicocrates the Tyrant having made the sword his Oratour to plead his Title , usurp'd dominion over the Cyrenaeans ; among other his bloudy butcheries , hee put to death the innocent Phedimus ; and then forc'd the incomparable Aretaphila to be his Queen . She resenting the publick calamities more then her private injuries , meditates a remedy for both , and by advise of her nearest friends , attempts the poysoning of the King. The Tyrant had an old woman to his mother , named Calbia ; this carcasse , a better name I can hardly afford her outside , was the inside of a Sepulchre ; her head was unthatch'd as an old Parsonage ; her eyes ( like lights at the last snuffe , when the extinguisher is readie to make their Epitaphs ) sunk low into their candlesticks ; her eares now deaf , now happy ( such was her tongue ) they have lost their sense ; her nose worm'd like a peice of Homer of the first bind , offended with her breath , bowed to her chinne to damme it up ; her cheeks hol'd as the earth in dog-dayes drouth ; her lips fit to bee kiss'd by none but by themselves ; her teeth rotten as her soul , hollow as her heart , loose as the shingles of an old silenc'd steeple , scragged as a disparked pale , stood at that distance one could not bite another ; her tongue so weakly guarded , scolds like the alarm of a clock ; her chin was down'd with a China beard of twenty haires ; her brest lanke as a quicksand , wasted as an hour-glasse at the eleventh use ; one arme , one legge , one foot shee doff'd with day , and as a resurrection , dond with the morrow ; her bones ( pithlesse as a Stallion for seven Posterities ) the slightest feares might now make rattle in her skinne ; her body ( wasted to no waste , blasted with lust as an Oak with lightning ) was as familiar with diseases , as a Physician : to conclude ; she is odious beyond all comparison : one sight of her would make the heat of youth recoile into an infant continence . Yet she maintaines two Painters & three Apothecaries to maintain this old-old uglinesse , as the rare thing shee hath been these fourscore yeares in getting . But I have too long , like a Sexton , convers'd with rottennesse . She was Calbia , and in that , her soule was a wel acquainted with sin as a Confessor : shee was Nicocrates Mother , and in that name she carried to the faire and vertuous Aretaphila , the envy of age , the wormwood of a mother-in-law ; a word that is the originall that signifies all that is ill in the sexe : yet for the reliefe of some few particulars , read it like Hebrew , and it yeelds something that is good . This Calbia discovers the poison-plot . Then , as eagerly as my young Master in the Countrey fastens on the red-Deere-pie ( tougher then Drakes biskets that went round the world , hoary as Methusalem ) entaild by his Grandsire to the house for ever ; shee seizes the faire Aretaphila into her tallons , more griping then poverty it selfe ; nails that scratch like the law , and are as good a cure for the itch as the Goale for theeves ; her she brings to the rack , there intending , after confession , with most subtle tortures to let out her life . Oh , that Love in his Olympiads should bee drown'd in those faire eyes ! those eyes , more eloquent then all Rhetorick , that would raise an Anchoret from his grave , and turne the Fiend Fury into the Cherubin Pity , that those eyes should be of no other use then to vent sorrow to inexorable ears ! that those white and red roses ( which no rain but what fell from those heavenly eies ) could colour or sweeten , should wither in their prime ! those lips that staine the rubies , and make the roses blush ! those lips that command the scarlet-coloured morn into a cloud to hide his shame , should kisse a mercilesse and sinew-sundring rack ! that breath which makes us all Chamaelions should bee wasted into unregarded sighs ! that those brests eternally chast , and white as the Alps ; those legs , columnes of the fairest Parian marble , columnes that support this monument of all pens , should bee stretch'd into anatomies ! that her body that would call a soule from heaven into it , should bee mangled like one that hath hang'd in chaines these three years ! that her skin , smooth as the face of youth , soft as a bed of violets , white as the queen of innocence , sweet as the bean-blossomes after raine ; that that skin , the casket of that body , the karkanet of that soul , should be jag'd and torne with that remorselesse pitie we commonly bestow upon a scare-crow ! After long racking , when Calbia saw shee could rack no confession ; then when more torment would have been a reliefe ; she was taken down from the rack , and her body was pinn'd , as an unwelcome courtesie , upon her soule . Thus noble and pious guilt is twin-brother , and carries the same face with innocence : so was she spirited , that those tortures could scarce trie her patience , lesse her truth ; and though Calbia was not fully possess'd of any course to put her to death ; yet had shee cruelty enough to doe worse then kill her to make a cause . But , Aretaphila , though her Countries liberty , and her owne honour lifted higher then the flatteries of life , or feare of death ; resolv'd in spite of cruelty or fate , to live whilst shee had offred Nicocrates and Calbia to her oppress'd Countries rage : therefore the second time she was brought to the rack , when fearing she should be sacrific'd to Calbia , not Calbia to Cyrenaea , to calm Nicocrates , shee thus bespake him : Great Sir , when you were pleas'd to lift my humble fortunes up to those glories that willingly engage a womans pride ; when by kind fate , and kinder Nicocrates , I was snatch'd from base private arms , to the embraces of a Prince : were these cheeks dy'd into ingratitude and crueltie to make them lovely ? can your brest harbour such a thought ; that this brest which you were pleas'd to think worthy to harbour yours , can swell with those two monsters abandon'd by the most infamous of our sexe ? But since ( such is my hard fortune ) I am reduc'd to that misery as to defend mine innocence ; hear me Nicocrates ; not that I beg life ; for I scorne to stoop ( now I am suspected ) so low as to take it honourably . This potion ( which the comments of envie interpreted a poyson ) is a confection , not of Cantharides for thy lust : but of all those ingredients that may strengthen vertuous love . This ture innocence had no designe upon thy life , which ( oh thou all-seeing Skie witnesse ) I value as much above mine owne , as mine honour above mine enemy : but fearing lest like a needle betweene two loadstarres , the stronger might attract thee ; and my unworthinesse ( how happy am I in it since it pleads mine innocence ! ) might betray me to a worthyer Love ; I devis'd this potion to make thy love lasting as mine , which else would soon consume , fed with such withred fewell as this poore declining face ; this face that can boast nothing but her sorrow , which ( since deriv'd from you ) is most welcome to these eyes , and is receiv'd as your Embassadour , into this heartlesse heart . Oh let these tears for ever drown these eyes ! oh let this sorrow sacrifice this innocent heart in all her glory to the great Nicocrates ! oh let Aretaphila , the Aretaphila that is ( since she ) — There ( though no tongue could praise her but her owne ) the Tyrant impatient ( such oratory have teares in a faire face ) to heare more , tearing his haire , his rage too hastie to be silent ; hee express'd as much spleen to Calbia , as shee to Aretaphila . What furies ( said hee ) fled from their black region have possest thy blacker soule ( fir to lend rage to all the horrid haggs of Tartarie ) to act a deed , which , oh you Heavens ! can you behold without raine and thunder , your combin'd sorrow & rage ? can you rend the clouds which are but the suck'd up vapours of the earth ; and not her that takes in all the poysonous sin of hell to fortifie her wickednesse ? Accurs'd fury ! curs'd from the cradle to the tombe , curs'd above all that ever Heaven and Earth yet curs'd ! May all the sins of me , my Name , and House returne into thy venom'd soule , till they have press'd it into the low despaire of nere-below-repenting sinners . Then in his fury , too great for more words ; he had rack'd his Mother Calbia ; had not the vertuous Aretaphila stepp'd in betweene him and his revenge . Nicocrates now gladly possest of her innocence , endeavours by studied favours to raze out all the injuries imprinted on her body and her soule : but shee like an Anvile , too much heated by the last blowes to coole suddenly ; meditates upon another , and more safe way for the Tyrants death . She had a Daughter , every way exactly perfect , for she was Daughter to Aretaphila . The Tyrant had a brother called Leander ; you have already all that commends him ; hee was an haire-braind , wild-headed , unrein'd young man ; one whom lust or ambition might flatter into the most desperate attempts . Aretaphila wrought so far with the King , that a match between her Hero-Daughter and the young Leander was by his consent concluded ; her shee counsels to insinuate into her Husbands rashnesse , and perswade him ( and oh what will not this pestiferous night-geare doe ! ) to besiege his brothers Crown . Leander not contented with the Kingdome hee enjoyd in her ; thought now nothing lesse then to raise himselfe as high as his ambition , brib'd his Swiz — servant Diapheries , who in the first nick of opportunitie murthred Nicocrates . Whither do these crowns and scepters , the worlds magnalia , but indeed the balls of Fortune , hurrie thee , fond Leander ? thou hast not kill'd the Tyrant for the Countrey : but slaine thy brother for the Crowne . Through how many restlesse nights , and lesse restlesse thoughts do we encounter these sweet-bitter joyes : and as the more we graspe the water into our hands , the lesse wee hold : so is content the farther from us , the more we seeke it in these fading glories of the World ; which like an ignis fatuus , first lights us through wild untrodden pathes unto themselves ; then through vaste ayrie thoughts they lead us up to that precipice , from whence we fall , and there they leave us . Aretaphila could not appease her revenge till she had pluck'd up the Tyrant by the roots . First shee incenc'd the Citizens against Leander , the Traitour to his Prince , the parricide of his Countrey , the fratricide , and lastly the muderer of her Husband . They with one consent adjudged him to bee sowed up into a sack , and cast into the sea . Then judgement proceeded to Calbia , whom they condemned to the fire , and shee was burnt alive . Diapheries not worth naming , and therefore I think not worth hanging , the Storie mentions not his punishment . The Cyrenaeans now prostrate their lives and fortunes to the devotion of Aretaphila , that was owner of them both ; they offer her divine honours , and beseech her to take further protection of the Countrey . But she who to doe her Countrey service , could subdue her thoughts to be a Queen ; can fall from that height , to rise above all Crowns , into her owne content ; she shaking off those glorious loades of State , retired from all the crowding tumults of the Court , into a solitary and truely happy countrey-condition ; there to spinne out her thread of life at her homely distaffe : where we will leave her a veryer wonder then the Phoenix in the Desart , the alone Paragon of all peerlesse perfections . Her actions ( so above the criticisme of my purblind judgement ) I am not able to comprehend , much lesse contradict , or controvert . I am silent , lest you should passe that censure upon me for her ; which Famianus Strada did upon Horace for Plautus ; that my judgement is judicium sine judicio . FINIS . THe Heroina hath nothing of woman in her but her sex , nothing of sex but her body , and that dispos'd to serve , not rule her better part . It is as Nature left it , neglectfull , not negligent ; neat , not stretch'd upon the tenter-hookes of quaintnesse of dresse or garbe ; with Nature it decaies , with Mechanick art the ruines are not repaired . Her soule is her heaven in which she enjoyes aeternall harmony : her conscience is her Sanctuary , whither , when shee is wounded she flies for refuge . Her affections and passions , in constant calme , neither flow nor ebb with Fortune ; her hope is not screwd up to ambition , nor her fear dejected to despaire . Her joy is confin'd to smiles , her sorrow to teares . Prosperity is the type of what shee shall bee ; Adversity , her rowling yron that smoothes her way to Paradise . Outward happinesse she owes not ●o her Starres , but her Vertue that rules her Stars . If shee bee lash'd by Fortune , it is but like a Toppe , not to bee set up , but kept upright . Religion , not Pride or weaknesse makes her chast . She understands not the common conceit of love , nor entertaines that familiarity with man that hee may hope it . Flattery , the inseparable companion of Love , she scorns , though she cannot flatter her selfe . If Love enter her breast , it is in the most noble way directed to the beauty , neerest the most perfect beauty . If shee marry , it is onely to propagate ; the very act tending thereto shee singles from the thought of sinne . Vertue is the reward of her Vertue ; her soule is not so servile , as to be tyed by the hope of happinesse , or fear of miserie to bee what she is : but is cleerly satisfied for doing well , that she doth well . Shee is temperate , that her soule may still be Soveraigne of her sense . Shee entertains pitie as an attribute of the Divinitie , not of her sex . Shee is wise , because vertuous . She is valiant : for her conscience is ungall'd , and can endure the sharpest touch of tongue . If shee bee inwrapped in the straight that shee may sinne , shee relies upon the highest Providence , which forbids her to use a remedie worse then the evill . FINIS .