work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3214,"","Searching ""rule"" and ""reason"" in HDIS",2004-06-10 00:00:00 UTC,"""My love! nay rather my damnation thou,""
Said he: ""nor am I bound to keep my vow;
The fiend thy sire has sent thee from below,
Else how couldst thou my secret sorrows know?
Avaunt, old witch, for I renounce thy bed:
The queen may take the forfeit of my head,
Ere any of my race so foul a crone shall wed.""
Both heard, the judge pronounced against the knight;
So was he married in his own despite:
And all day after hid him as an owl,
Not able to sustain a sight so foul.
Perhaps the reader thinks I do him wrong,
To pass the marriage-feast, and nuptial song:
Mirth there was none, the man was à-la-mort,
And little courage had to make his court.
To bed they went, the bridegroom and the bride.
Was never such an ill-paired couple tied!
Restless he tossed, and tumbled to and fro,
And rolled, and wriggled further off, for woe.
The good old wife lay smiling by his side,
And caught him in her quivering arms, and cried,--
""When you my ravished predecessor saw,
You were not then become this man of straw;
Had you been such, you might have scaped the law.
Is this the custom of King Arthur's court?
Are all Round-table Knights of such a sort?
Remember I am she who saved your life,
Your loving, lawful, and complying wife:
Not thus you swore in your unhappy hour,
Nor I for this return employed my power.
In time of need I was your faithful friend;
Nor did I since, nor ever will offend.
Believe me, my loved lord, 'tis much unkind;
What fury has possessed your altered mind?
Thus on my wedding-night--without pretence--
Come turn this way, or tell me my offence.
If not your wife, let reason's rule persuade;
Name but my fault, amends shall soon be made.""
(pp. 810-11, ll. 334-364)",2008-09-24,8444,•Appears Twice: Also in Ogle's Canterbury Tales (1741). See also entry under Ogle. ,"""If not your wife, let reason's rule persuade / Name but my fault, amends shall soon be made.""","",2009-09-14 19:33:34 UTC,""
3322,"","Searching ""heart"" and ""impression"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-05-16 00:00:00 UTC,"""His fear at length dismissed, he said,--'Whate'er
My fate ordains, my words shall be sincere:
I neither can nor dare my birth disclaim;
Greece is my country, Sinon is my name.
Though plunged by Fortune's power in misery,
'Tis not in Fortune's power to make me lie.
If any chance has hither brought the name
Of Palamedes, not unknown to fame,
Who suffered from the malice of the times,
Accused and sentenced for pretended crimes,
Because the fatal wars he would prevent;
Whose death the wretched Greeks too late lament--
Me, then a boy, my father, poor and bare
Of other means, committed to his care,
His kinsman and companion in the war.
While Fortune favoured, while his arms support
The cause, and ruled the counsels of the court,
I made some figure there; nor was my name
Obscure, nor I without my share of fame.
But when Ulysses, with fallacious arts,
Had made impression in the people's hearts,
And forged a treason in my patron's name
(I speak of things too far divulged by fame),
My kinsman fell. Then I, without support,
In private mourned his loss, and left the court.
Mad as I was, I could not bear his fate
With silent grief, but loudly blamed the state,
And cursed the direful author of my woes.--
'Twas told again; and hence my ruin rose.
I threatened, if indulgent heaven once more
Would land me safely on my native shore,
His death with double vengeance to restore.
This moved the murderer's hate; and soon ensued
The effects of malice from a man so proud.
Ambiguous rumours through the camp he spread,
And sought, by treason, my devoted head;
New crimes invented; left unturned no stone,
To make my guilt appear, and hide his own;
Till Calchas was by force and threatening wrought--
But why--why dwell I on that anxious thought?
If on my nation just revenge you seek,
And 'tis to appear a foe, to appear a Greek;
Already you my name and country know;
Assuage your thirst of blood, and strike the blow:
My death will both the kingly brothers please,
And set insatiate Ithacus at ease.'
This fair unfinished tale, these broken starts,
Raised expectations in our longing hearts;
Unknowing as we were in Grecian arts.
His former trembling once again renewed,
With acted fear, the villain thus pursued:--
'Long had the Grecians (tired with fruitless care,
And wearied with an unsuccessful war)
Resolved to raise the siege, and leave the town;
And, had the gods permitted, they had gone.
But oft the wintry seas, and southern winds,
Withstood their passage home, and changed their minds.
Portents and prodigies their souls amazed;
But most, when this stupendous pile was raised:
Then flaming meteors, hung in air, were seen,
And thunders rattled through a sky serene.
Dismayed, and fearful of some dire event,
Eurypylus, to inquire their fate, was sent.
He from the gods this dreadful answer brought:
""O Grecians, when the Trojan shores you sought,
Your passage with a virgin's blood was bought:
So must your safe return be bought again,
And Grecian blood once more atone the main.""
The spreading rumour round the people ran;
All feared, and each believed himself the man.
Ulysses took the advantage of their fright;
Called Calchas, and produced in open sight,
Then bade him name the wretch, ordained by fate
The public victim, to redeem the state.
Already some presaged the dire event,
And saw what sacrifice Ulysses meant.
For twice five days the good old seer withstood
The intended treason, and was dumb to blood,
Till, tired with endless clamours and pursuit
Of Ithacus, he stood no longer mute,
But, as it was agreed, pronounced that I
Was destined by the wrathful gods to die.
All praised the sentence, pleased the storm should fall
On one alone, whose fury threatened all.
The dismal day was come; the priests prepare
Their leavened cakes, and fillets for my hair.
I followed nature's laws, and must avow,
I broke my bonds, and fled the fatal blow.
Hid in a weedy lake all night I lay,
Secure of safety when they sailed away.
But now what further hopes for me remain,
To see my friends, or native soil, again;
My tender infants, or my careful sire,
Whom they returning will to death require;
Will perpetrate on them their first design,
And take the forfeit of their heads for mine?
Which, O! if pity mortal minds can move,
If there be faith below, or gods above,
If innocence and truth can claim desert,
Ye Trojans, from an injured wretch avert.'",,8590,•INTEREST. Continues differentiating animals from men: animals without judgment. ,"""But when Ulysses, with fallacious arts, / Had made impression in the people's hearts,""",Impression,2009-09-14 19:33:39 UTC,""
3397,"","Reading Martin C. Battestin's ""The Problem of Amelia: Hume, Barrow, and the Conversion of Captain Booth"" ELH. 613-648: p. 633.",2006-05-24 00:00:00 UTC,"But now, should any one venture to own such an odd and absurd Paradox, in any of those sober, rational Parts of Christendom, which have depraved their judging and discerning Faculties with those strange, new-found ecstatick Notions of Religion, which some (who call themselves Christians and Christians of the highest Form too) have, in the late super-reforming Age, taken up amongst us; how unnatural, or rather indeed, how romantick would such Divinity appear? For all the World acknowledges, that Hope and Fear are the two great Handles, by which the Will of Man is to be taken Hold of, when we would either draw it to Duty, or draw it off from Sin. They are the strongest, and most efficacious Means to bring such Things home to the Will, as are principally apt to move and work upon it. And the greatest, the noblest, and most renowned Actions, that were ever achieved upon the Face of the Earth, have first moved upon the Spring of a projecting Hope, carrying the Mind above all present Discouragements, by the Prospect of some glorious and Future Good.
(Vol. II, pp. 61-2)",,8684,"Battestin cites III, 126.","""For all the World acknowledges, that Hope and Fear are the two great Handles, by which the Will of Man is to be taken Hold of, when we would either draw it to Duty, or draw it off from Sin.""","",2013-10-25 21:14:50 UTC,""
3957,"","Searching ""throne"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2004-07-07 00:00:00 UTC,"""The Cause and Spring of motion, from above,
Hung down on earth, the golden chain of Love;
Great was the effect, and high was his intent,
When peace among the jarring seeds he sent:
Fire, flood, and earth, and air, by this were bound,
And love, the common link, the new creation crowned.
The chain still holds; for, though the forms decay,
Eternal matter never wears away:
The same first Mover certain bounds has placed,
How long those perishable forms shall last;
Nor can they last beyond the time assigned
By that all-seeing, and all-making Mind:
Shorten their hours they may; for will is free;
But never pass the appointed destiny.
So men oppressed, when weary of their breath,
Throw off the burden, and suborn their death.
Then, since those forms begin, and have their end,
On some unaltered cause they sure depend:
Parts of the whole are we; but God the whole;
Who gives us life, and animating soul.
For nature cannot from a part derive
That being, which the whole can only give:
He, perfect, stable; but imperfect we,
Subject to change, and different in degree;
Plants, beasts, and man; and, as our organs are,
We, more or less, of his perfection share.
But, by a long descent, the ethereal fire
Corrupts; and forms, the mortal part, expire.
As he withdraws his virtue, so they pass,
And the same matter makes another mass.
This law the Omniscient Power was pleased to give,
That every kind should by succession live;
That individuals die, his will ordains;
The propagated species still remains.
The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees;
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays,
Supreme in state, and in three more decays:
So wears the paving pebble in the street,
And towns and towers their fatal periods meet
So rivers, rapid once, now naked lie,
Forsaken of their springs, and leave their channels dry:
So man, at first a drop, dilates with heat,
Then formed, the little heart begins to beat;
Secret he feeds, unknowing in the cell;
At length, for hatching ripe, he breaks the shell,
And struggles into breath, and cries for aid;
Then, helpless, in his mother's lap is laid.
He creeps, he walks, and, issuing into man,
Grudges their life, from whence his own began;
Retchless of laws, affects to rule alone,
Anxious to reign, and restless on the throne;
First vegetive, then feels, and reasons last;
Rich of three souls, and lives all three to waste.
Some thus, but thousands more in flower of age;
For few arrive to run the latter stage.
Sunk in the first, in battle some are slain,
And others whelmed beneath the stormy main.
What makes all this, but Jupiter the king,
At whose command we perish, and we spring?
Then 'tis our best, since thus ordained to die,
To make a virtue of necessity;
Take what he gives, since to rebel is vain;
The bad grows better, which we well sustain;
And could we choose the time, and choose aright,
'Tis best to die, our honour at the height.
When we have done our ancestors no shame,
But served our friends, and well secured our fame;
Then should we wish our happy life to close,
And leave no more for fortune to dispose.
So should we make our death a glad relief
From future shame, from sickness, and from grief;
Enjoying, while we live, the present hour,
And dying in our excellence and flower.
Then round our deathbed every friend should run,
And joy us of our conquest early won;
While the malicious world, with envious tears,
Should grudge our happy end, and wish it theirs.
Since then our Arcite is with honour dead,
Why should we mourn, that he so soon is freed,
Or call untimely, what the gods decreed?
With grief as just, a friend may be deplored,
From a foul prison to free air restored.
Ought he to thank his kinsman or his wife,
Could tears recall him into wretched life?
Their sorrow hurts themselves; on him is lost;
And, worse than both, offends his happy ghost.
What then remains, but, after past annoy,
To take the good vicissitude of joy;
To thank the gracious gods for what they give,
Possess our souls, and while we live, to live?
Ordain we then two sorrows to combine,
And in one point the extremes of grief to join;
That thence resulting joy may be renewed,
As jarring notes in harmony conclude.
Then I propose, that Palamon shall be
In marriage joined with beauteous Emily;
For which already I have gained the assent
Of my free people in full parliament.
Long love to her has borne the faithful knight,
And well deserved, had fortune done him right:
'Tis time to mend her fault, since Emily,
By Arcite's death, from former vows is free;
If you, fair sister, ratify the accord,
And take him for your husband and your lord.
'Tis no dishonour to confer your grace
On one descended from a royal race;
And were he less, yet years of service past,
From grateful souls, exact reward at last.
Pity is heaven's and yours; nor can she find
A throne so soft as in a woman's mind.""
(pp. 631-4, ll. 1024-1134",,10286,"John Dryden. Ed. Keith Walker Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1987.","One cannot find ""A throne so soft as in a woman's mind""","",2009-09-14 19:34:52 UTC,""
3957,"","Searching ""stamp"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-04-06 00:00:00 UTC,"Curse on the unpardoning prince, whom tears can draw
To no remorse; who rules by lions' law;
And, deaf to prayers, by no submission bowed,
Rends all alike, the penitent and proud!""
At this, with look serene, he raised his head;
Reason resumed her place, and passion fled.
Then thus aloud he spoke: ""The power of Love,
In earth, and seas, and air, and heaven above,
Rules, unresisted, with an awful nod;
By daily miracles declared a god:
He blinds the wise, gives eyesight to the blind,
And moulds and stamps anew the lover's mind.
Behold that Arcite, and this Palamon,
Freed from my fetters, and in safety gone,
What hindered either, in their native soil,
At ease to reap the harvest of their toil?
But Love, their lord, did otherwise ordain,
And brought them, in their own despite again,
To suffer death deserved; for well they know,
'Tis in my power, and I their deadly foe.
The proverb holds,--that to be wise, and love,
Is hardly granted to the gods above.
See how the madmen bleed! behold the gains
With which their master, Love, rewards their pains!
For seven long years, on duty every day,
Lo their obedience, and their monarch's pay:
Yet, as in duty bound, they serve him on;
And, ask the fools, they think it wisely done;
Nor ease, nor wealth, nor life itself, regard;
For 'tis their maxim,--Love is love's reward.
This is not all,--the fair, for whom they strove,
Nor knew before, nor could suspect their love,
Nor thought, when she beheld the fight from far,
Her beauty was the occasion of the war.
But sure a general doom on man is past,
And all are fools and lovers, first or last:
This, both by others and myself, I know,
For I have served their sovereign long ago;
Oft have been caught within the winding train
Of female snares, and felt the lover's pain,
And learned how far the god can human hearts constrain.
To this remembrance, and the prayers of those,
Who for the offending warriors interpose,
I give their forfeit lives, on this accord,
To do me homage, as their sovereign lord;
And, as my vassals, to their utmost might,
Assist my person, and assert my right.""
This freely sworn, the knights their grace obtained;
Then thus the king his secret thoughts explained:--
""If wealth, or honour, or a royal race,
Or each, or all, may win a lady's grace,
Then either of you, knights, may well deserve
A princess born; and such is she you serve:
For Emily is sister to the crown,
And but too well to both her beauty known.
But should you combat till you both were dead,
Two lovers cannot share a single bed.
As therefore both are equal in degree,
The lot of both be left to Destiny.
Now hear the award, and happy may it prove
To her, and him who best deserves her love.
Depart from hence in peace, and free as air,
Search the wide world, and where you please repair;
But on the day when this returning sun
To the same point through every sign has run,
Then each of you his hundred knights shall bring,
In royal lists, to fight before the king;
And then the knight, whom Fate, or happy Chance,
Shall with his friends to victory advance,
And grace his arms so far in equal fight,
From out the bars to force his opposite,
Or kill, or make him recreant on the plain,
The prize of valour and of love shall gain;
The vanquished party shall their claim release,
And the long jars conclude in lasting peace.
The charge be mine to adorn the chosen ground,
The theatre of war for champions so renowned;
And take the patron's place of either knight,
With eyes impartial to behold the fight;
And heaven of me so judge, as I shall judge aright.
If both are satisfied with this accord,
Swear, by the laws of knighthood, on my sword.""",,10306,"","""He blinds the wise, gives eyesight to the blind, / And moulds and stamps anew the lover's mind.""",Impressions,2013-08-08 15:41:12 UTC,""
3322,"","Searching ""mind"" and ""chain"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2011-06-29 03:39:20 UTC,"There a Massylian priestess I have found,
Honoured for age, for magic arts renowned:
The Hesperian temple was her trusted care;
'Twas she supplied the wakeful dragon's fare.
She poppy-seeds in honey taught to steep,
Reclaimed his rage, and soothed him into sleep:
She watched the golden fruit. Her charms unbind
The chains of love, or fix them on the mind;
She stops the torrents, leaves the channel dry,
Repels the stars, and backward bears the sky.
The yawning earth rebellows to her call,
Pale ghosts ascend, and mountain ashes fall.
Witness, ye gods, and thou my better part,
How loth I am to try this impious art!
Within the secret court, with silent care,
Erect a lofty pile, exposed in air:
Hang, on the topmost part, the Trojan vest,
Spoils, arms, and presents, of my faithless guest.
Next, under these, the bridal bed be placed,
Where I my ruin in his arms embraced.
All relics of the wretch are doomed to fire;
For so the priestess and her charms require.""
Thus far she said, and further speech forbears.
A mortal paleness in her face appears:
Yet the mistrustless Anna could not find
The secret funeral, in these rites designed;
Nor thought so dire a rage possessed her mind.
(IV, ll. 698-724)",,18842,"","""Her charms unbind / The chains of love, or fix them on the mind.""",Fetters,2011-06-29 03:39:20 UTC,Book IV
7536,"",Browsing in EEBO,2013-07-11 15:08:06 UTC,"None, none descends into himself; to find
The secret Imperfections of his Mind:
But ev'ry one is Eagle-ey'd, to see
Another's Faults, and his Deformity.
Say, dost thou know Vectidius? Who, the Wretch
Whose Lands beyond the Sabines largely stretch;
Cover the Country; that a sailing Kite
Can scarce o'reflye 'em, in a day and night?
Him, do'st thou mean, who, spight of all his store,
Is ever Craving, and will still be Poor?
Who cheats for Half-pence, and who doffs his Coat,
To save a Farthing in a Ferry-Boat?
Ever a Glutton, at another's Cost,
But in whose Kithin dwells perpetual Frost?
Who eats and drinks with his Domestick Slaves;
A verier Hind than any of his Knaves?
Born, with the Curse and Anger of the Gods,
And that indulgent Genius he defrauds?
At Harvest-home, and on the Sheering-Day,
When he shou'd Thanks to Pan and Pales pay,
And better Ceres; trembling to approach
The little Barrel, which he fears to broach:
He 'says the Wimble, often draws it back,
And deals to thirsty Servants but a smack.
To a short Meal, he makes a tedious Grace,
Before the Barly Pudding comes in place:
Then, bids fall on; himself, for saving Charges,
A peel'd slic'd Onyon eats, and tipples Verjuice.
(p. 50-1, ll. 46-73)",,21650,"","""None, none descends into himself; to find / The secret Imperfections of his Mind: / But ev'ry one is Eagle-ey'd, to see / Another's Faults, and his Deformity.""","",2013-07-11 15:08:06 UTC,""
7537,"",Browsing in EEBO,2013-07-11 15:09:47 UTC,"PERSIUS.
Tis not, indeed, my Talent to engage
In lofty Trifles, or to swell my Page
With Wind and Noise; but freely to impart,
As to a Friend, the Secrets of my heart:
And, in familiar Speech, to let thee know
How much I love thee; and how much I owe.
Knock on my Heart; for thou hast skill to find
If it sound solid, or be fill'd with Wind;
And, thro the veil of words, thou view'st the naked Mind.
For this a hundred Voices I desire;
To tell thee what an hundred Tongues wou'd tire;
Yet never cou'd be worthily exprest,
How deeply thou art seated in my Breast.
(p. 61, ll. 27-39)",,21651,"","""Knock on my Heart; for thou hast skill to find / If it sound solid, or be fill'd with Wind; / And, thro the veil of words, thou view'st the naked Mind.""","",2013-07-11 15:09:47 UTC,""
7537,"",Browsing in EEBO,2013-07-11 15:10:40 UTC,"CORNUTUS
Free, what and fetter'd with so many Chains?
Can'st thou no other Master understandĀ·
Than him that freed thee, by the Praetor's Wand?
Shou'd he, who was thy Lord, command thee now,
With a harsh Voice, and supercilious Brow,
To servile Duties, thou wou'd'st fear no moreĀ·
The Gallows and the Whip are out of door.
But if thy Passions lord it in thy Breast,
Art thou not still a Slave, and still opprest.
(p. 67, ll. 180-8)",,21652,"","""But if thy Passions lord it in thy Breast, / Art thou not still a Slave, and still opprest.""",Fetters,2013-07-11 15:10:40 UTC,""
3322,"",Reading,2016-02-15 16:32:56 UTC,"Against the Tiber's mouth, but far away,
An ancient town was seated on the sea;
A Tyrian colony; the people made
Stout for the war, and studious of their trade:
Carthage the name; belov'd by Juno more
Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore.
Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav'n were kind,
The seat of awful empire she design'd.
Yet she had heard an ancient rumor fly,
(Long cited by the people of the sky,)
That times to come should see the Trojan race
Her Carthage ruin, and her tow'rs deface;
Nor thus confin'd, the yoke of sov'reign sway
Should on the necks of all the nations lay.
She ponder'd this, and fear'd it was in fate;
Nor could forget the war she wag'd of late
For conqu'ring Greece against the Trojan state.
Besides, long causes working in her mind,
And secret seeds of envy, lay behind;
Deep graven in her heart the doom remain'd
Of partial Paris, and her form disdain'd;
The grace bestow'd on ravish'd Ganymed,
Electra's glories, and her injur'd bed.
Each was a cause alone; and all combin'd
To kindle vengeance in her haughty mind.
For this, far distant from the Latian coast
She drove the remnants of the Trojan host;
And sev'n long years th' unhappy wand'ring train
Were toss'd by storms, and scatter'd thro' the main.
Such time, such toil, requir'd the Roman name,
Such length of labor for so vast a frame.
(Book I, ll. 19-49)",,24805,"","""Besides, long causes working in her mind, / And secret seeds of envy, lay behind; / Deep graven in her heart the doom remain'd / Of partial Paris, and her form disdain'd; / The grace bestow'd on ravish'd Ganymed, / Electra's glories, and her injur'd bed.""","",2016-02-15 16:32:56 UTC,""