Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
Ulysses and the Siren
Samuel Daniel (15621619)
Siren.
COME, worthy Greek! Ulysses, come, | Possess these shores with me: | The winds and seas are troublesome, | And here we may be free. | Here may we sit and view their toil | That travail in the deep, | And joy the day in mirth the while, | And spend the night in sleep. Ulysses. | Fair Nymph, if fame or honour were | To be attain’d with ease, | Then would I come and rest with thee, | And leave such toils as these. | But here it dwells, and here must I | With danger seek it forth: | To spend the time luxuriously | Becomes not men of worth. Siren. | Ulysses, O be not deceived | With that unreal name; | This honour is a thing conceived, | And rests on others’ fame: | Begotten only to molest | Our peace, and to beguile | The best thing of our life—our rest, | And give us up to toil. Ulysses. | Delicious Nymph, suppose there were | No honour nor report, | Yet manliness would scorn to wear | The time in idle sport: | For toil doth give a better touch | To make us feel our joy, | And ease finds tediousness as much | As labour yields annoy. Siren. | Then pleasure likewise seems the shore | Whereto tends all your toil, | Which you forego to make it more, | And perish oft the while. | Who may disport them diversely | Find never tedious day, | And ease may have variety | As well as action may. Ulysses. | But natures of the noblest frame | These toils and dangers please; | And they take comfort in the same | As much as you in ease; | And with the thought of actions past | Are recreated still: | When Pleasure leaves a touch at last | To show that it was ill. Siren. | That doth Opinion only cause | That’s out of Custom bred, | Which makes us many other laws | Than ever Nature did. | No widows wail for our delights, | Our sports are without blood; | The world we see by warlike wights | Receives more hurt than good. Ulysses. | But yet the state of things require | These motions of unrest; | And these great Spirits of high desire | Seem born to turn them best: | To purge the mischiefs that increase | And all good order mar: | For oft we see a wicked peace | To be well changed for war. Siren. | Well, well, Ulysses, then I see | I shall not have thee here: | And therefore I will come to thee, | And take my fortune there. | I must be won, that cannot win, | Yet lost were I not won; | For beauty hath created been | T’ undo, or be undone.
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