Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Sir Walter Raleigh (1554?–1618). Poems. 1892.

XXIV.

Metrical Translations occurring in Sir W. Raleigh’s History of the World, 1614

THE HEAVEN and earth and all the liquid main,

The moon’s bright globe and stars Titanian,

A spirit within maintains; and their whole mass

A mind, which through each part infused doth pass,

Fashions and works, and wholly doth transpierce

All this great body of the universe.

THE WORLD discerns itself, while I the world behold;

By me the longest years and other times are told;

I, the world’s eye.

’GAINST fate no counsel can prevail.

Kingdoms to slaves by destiny,

To captives triumphs given be.

FROM wisdom fortune differs far;

And yet in works most like they are.

WHILE fury gallops on the way,

Let no man fury’s gallop stay.

MORE holy than the rest, and understanding more,

A living creature wants, to rule all made before;

So man began to be.

DISEASES, famine, enemies, in us no change have wrought;

What erst we were, we are; still in the same snare caught:

No time can our corrupted manners mend;

In vice we dwell, in sin that hath no end.

FROM thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care;

Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.

THE PLANTS and trees made poor and old

By winter envious,

The spring-time bounteous

Covers again from shame and cold;

But never man repaired again

His youth and beauty lost,

Though art and care and cost

Do promise nature’s help in vain.

THE SUN may set and rise;

But we, contrariwise,

Sleep after our short light

One everlasting night.

THE EAST wind with Aurora hath abiding

Among the Arabian and the Persian hills,

Whom Phœbus first salutes at his uprising.

THE JOYFUL spring did ever last, and Zephyrus did breed

Sweet flowers by his gentle blast, without the help of seed.

THE AMAZON with crescent-formed shield

Penthesilea leads into the field.

O WASTEFUL riot, never well content

With low-priced fare; hunger ambitious

Of cates by land and sea far fetched and sent;

Vain glory of a table sumptuous;

Learn with how little life may be preserved.

In gold and myrrh they need not to carouse;

But with the brook the people’s thirst is served,

Who, fed with bread and water, are not starved.

FROM the earth and from thy blood, O heaven, they came,

Whom thereupon the gods did giants name.

I SACRIFICE to God the beef which you adore;

I broil the Egyptian eels, which you as God implore;

You fear to eat the flesh of swine; I find it sweet;

You worship dogs; to beat them I think meet,

When they my store devour.

THE EGYPTIANS think it sin to root up or to bite

Their leeks or onions, which they serve with holy rite.

O happy nations, which of their own sowing

Have store of gods in every garden growing!

ASTRÆA last of heavenly wights the earth did leave.

THE GIANTS did advance their wicked hand

Against the stars, to thrust them headlong down;

And, robbing Jove of his imperial crown,

On conquered heavens to lay their proud command.

SATURN to be the fatter is not known,

By being the grave and burial of his own.

THINGS thus agreed, Titan made Saturn swear

No son to nourish; which by reigning might

Usurp the right of Titan’s lawful heir.

THE CRETANS ever liars were; they care not what they say;

For they a tomb have built for thee, O king that livest alway.

HEAVEN and earth one form did bear;

But when disjoined once they were

From mutual embraces,

All things to light appeared then;

Of trees, birds, beasts, fishes, and men

The still remaining races.

THEN marking this my sacred speech, but truly lend

Thy heart that’s reason’s sphere, and the right way ascend,

And see the world’s sole king. First, He is simply one

Begotten of Himself, from whom is born alone

All else, in which He’s still; nor could it e’er befall

A mortal eye to see Him once, yet He sees all.

THE FIRST of all is God, and the same last is He.

God is the head and midst; yea, from Him all things be.

God is the base of earth and of the starred sky;

He is the male and female too; shall never die.

The spirit of all is God; the sun and moon and what is higher;

The king, the original of all, of all the end:

For close in holy breast He all did comprehend;

Whence all to blessed light His wondrous power did send.

BURA and Helice on Achaian ground

Are sought in vain, but under sea are found.

SATURN descending from the heavens high,

Fearing the arms of Jupiter his son,

His kingdom lost, and banished, thence doth fly.

Rude people on the mountain tops he won

To live together, and by laws; which done,

He chose to call it Latium.

THEN came the Ausonian bands and the Sicanian tribes.

THE ANCIENTS called me Chaos; my great years

By those old times of which I sing appears.

TYRUS knew first how ships might use the wind.

THE MOISTENED osier of the hoary willow

Is woven first into a little boat;

Then, clothed in bullock’s hide, upon the billow

Of a proud river lightly doth it float

Under the waterman:

So on the lakes of overswelling Po

Sails the Venetian; and the Briton so

On the outspread ocean.

THE CHALYBES plough not their barren soil,

But undermine high hills for iron veins;

Changing the purchase of their endless toil

For merchandize, which their poor lives sustains.

THE ARCADIANS the earth inhabited

Ere yet the moon did shine, or Jove was bred.

SEMIRAMIS with walls of brick the city did enclose.

AH! wretched they that worship vanities,

And consecrate dumb idols in their heart;

Who their own maker, God on high, despise,

And fear the work of their own hands and art!

What fury, what great madness, doth beguile

Men’s minds, that man should ugly shapes adore,

Of birds or bulls or dragons, or the vile

Half-dog, half-man, on knees for aid implore!

IF Crœsus over Halys go,

Great kingdoms he shall overthrow.

WE fear by light, as children in the dark.

BUT fortune governed all their works, till when

I first found out how stars did set and rise,—

A profitable art to mortal men.

And others of like use I did device:

As letters to compose in learned wise

I first did teach, and first did amplify

The mother of the Muses, Memory.

NO man was better nor more just than he,

Nor any woman godlier than she.

I HAVE no wine of Gaza nor Falerna wine,

Nor any for thy drinking of Sarepta’s vine.

OF yew the Ituræans’ bows were made.

THE QUEEN anon commands the weighty bowl,

Weighty with precious stones and massy gold,

To flow with wine. This Belus used of old,

And all of Belus’ line.

PHŒNICIANS first, if fame may credit have,

In rude characters dared our words to grave.

IF a Phœnician born I am, what then?

Cadmus was so; to whom Greece owes

The books of learned men.

THE WHITE dove is for holy held in Syria Palestine.

HERE Tantalus in water seeks for water, and doth miss

The fleeting fruit he catcheth at; his long tongue brought him this.

THE THIRSTING Tantalus doth catch at streams that from him flee;

Why laughest thou? The name but changed, the tale is told of thee.

BECAUSE that, stealing immortality,

He did both nectar and ambrosia give

To guests of his own age to make them live.

NINE furlongs stretched lies Tityus, who for his wicked deeds

The hungry birds with his renewing liver daily feeds.

STRONG Ilion thou shalt see with walls and towers high,

Built with the harp of wise Apollo’s harmony.

THE BRAZEN tower, with doors close barred,

And watchful bandogs’ frightful guard,

Kept safe the maidenhead

Of Danae from secret love,

Till smiling Venus and wise Jove

Beguiled her father’s dread:

For, changed into a golden shower,

The god into her lap did pour

Himself and took his pleasure.

Through guards and stony walls to break

The thunderbolt is far more weak

Than is a golden treasure.

IF all this world had no original,

But things have ever been as now they are

Before the siege of Thebes or Troy’s last fall,

Why did no poet sing some elder war?

IN the main sea the isle of Crete doth lie,

Whence Jove was born; thence is our progeny.

There is Mount Ida; there in fruitful land

An hundred great and goodly cities stand.

Thence, if I follow not mistaken fame,

Teucer, the eldest of our grandsires, came

To the Rhœtean shores, and reigned there

Ere yet fair Ilion was built, and ere

The towers of Troy. Their dwelling-place they sought

In lowest vales. Hence Cybel’s rites were brought;

Hence Corybantian cymbals did remove;

And hence the name of our Idæan grove.

HESPERIA the Grecians call the place,—

An ancient fruitful land, a warlike race.

Œnotrians held it; now the later progeny

Gives it their captain’s name, and calls it Italy.

This seat belongs to us; hence Dardanus,

Hence came the author of our stock, Iasius.

SOME old Auruncans, I remember well—

Though time have made the fame obscure—would tell

Of Dardanus, how born in Italy;

From hence he into Phrygia did fly.

And leaving Tuscane, where he erst had place,

With Corythus did sail to Samothrace;

But now enthronized he sits on high,

In golden palace of the starry sky.

MANY by valour have deserved renown

Ere Agamemnon, yet lie all oppressed

Under long night, unwept for and unknown;

For with no sacred poet were they blest.

WHO rules the duller earth, the wind-swollen streams,

The civil cities and the infernal realms,

Who the host of heaven and the mortal band

Alone doth govern by his just command.

I AM that Dido which thou here dost see,

Cunningly framed in beauteous imagery.

Like this I was, but had not such a soul

As Maro feigned, incestuous and foul.

Æneas never with his Trojan host

Beheld my face, or landed on this coast.

But flying proud Iarbas’ villainy—

Not moved by furious love or jealousy—

I did, with weapon chaste, to save my fame,

Make way for death untimely ere it came.

This was my end. But first I built a town,

Revenged my husband’s death, lived with renown.

Why didst thou stir up Virgil, envious Muse,

Falsely my name and honour to abuse?

Readers, believe historians; not those

Which to the world Jove’s thefts and vice expose.

Poets are liars; and for verses’ sake,

Will make the gods of human crimes partake.

NOR southern heat nor northern snow,

That freezing to the ground doth grow,

The subject regions can fence,

And keep the greedy merchant thence.

The subtle shipmen way will find,

Storm never so the seas with wind.

SUCH as like heavenly wights do come

With an Elean garland home.

THERE is a land which Greeks Hesperia name,

Ancient and strong, of much fertility;

Œnotrians held it; but we hear by fame,

That, by late ages of posterity,

’Tis from a captain’s name called Italy.

YET, though thou fetch thy pedigree so far,

Thy first progenitor, whoe’er he were,

Some shepherd was; or else—that I’ll forbear.

SELDOM the villain, though much haste he make,

Lame-footed vengeance fails to overtake.

BY gifts the Macedon clave gates asunder,

The kings envying his estate brought under.

THE MINDS of men are ever so affected

As by God’s will they daily are directed.

OVER the Medes and light Sabæans reigns

This female sex; and under arms of Queen

Great part of the Barbarian land remains.

HAVE special care that valiant poverty

Be not oppressed with too great injury.

ONE fire than other burns more forcibly;

One wolf than other wolves does bite more sore;

One hawk than other hawks more swift doth fly;

So one most mischievous of men before,

Callicrates, false knave as knave might be,

Met with Menalcidas, more false than he.

EVEN they that have no murderous will

Would have it in their power to kill.