text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Since Athens first began to draw mankind,
To picture life, and show the impassion'd mind;
The truly wise have ever deem'd the stage
The moral school of each enlighten'd age.
There, in full pomp, the tragic Muse appears,
Queen of soft sorrows, and of useful fears.
Faint is the lesson reason's rules impart:
She pours it strong, and instant through the heart.
If virtue is her theme, we sudden glow
With generous flame; and what we feel, we grow.
If vice she paints, indignant passions rise;
The villain sees himself with loathing eyes.
His soul starts, conscious, at another's groan,
And the pale tyrant trembles on his throne",2009-09-14 19:36:40 UTC,"""Faint is the lesson reason's rules impart: / [Drama] pours it strong and instant through the heart""",2004-06-22 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","•The effects of this pouring are described in the lines that follow
•Sambrook gives 1739 as first printed edition of tragedy (acted same year). Sambrook: ""The season 1738-9 saw a concerted stage attack upon the king and Walpole's government by a group of opposition playwrights, Thomson, Mallet, Aaron Hill, and Henry Brooke, writing under the advice of Pope, Bolingbroke, and Lyttelton, with the Prince of Wales determining the order in which their tendentious should be acted: See B. A. Goldgar, Walpole and the Wits (Lincoln, Nebr.,1976), pp. 180-2"" (429). Mustapha was a great success. ","Searching ""rule"" and ""reason"" in HDIS (Poetry",12169,4614
"SIGISMUNDA.
O may the Furies light his Nuptial Torch!
Be it accurs'd as mine! For the fair Peace,
The tender Joys of Hymeneal Love,
May Jealousy awak'd, and fell Remorse,
Pour all their fiercest Venom thro' his Breast!--
Where the Fates lead, and blind Revenge, I follow!--
Let me not think--By injur'd Love! I vow,
Thou shalt, base Prince! perfidious and inhuman!
Thou shalt behold me in another's Arms!
In his thou hatest! Osmond's!
(III.iii)",2013-06-28 14:49:22 UTC,"""For the fair Peace, / The tender Joys of Hymeneal Love, / May Jealousy awak'd, and fell Remorse, / Pour all their fiercest Venom thro' his Breast!""",2013-06-28 14:49:22 UTC,"Act III, scene iii","",,Animals,"",C-H Lion,21251,7490
"TANCRED.
I know too much.
O how I could reproach Thee, Sigismunda!
Pour out my injur'd Soul in just Complaints!
But now the Time permits not, These swift Moments--
I told thee how thy Father's Artifice
Forc'd me to seem perfidious in thy Eyes.
Ah, fatal Blindness! not to have observ'd
The mingled Pangs of Rage and Love that shook me;
When, by my cruel Publick Situation
Compell'd, I only feign'd Consent, to gain
A little Time, and more secure Thee mine.
E'er since--A dreadful Interval of Care!--
My Thoughts have been employ'd, not without Hope,
How to defeat Siffredi's barbarous Purpose.
But thy Credulity has ruin'd all,
Thy rash, thy wild--I know not what to name it--
Oh it has prov'd the giddy Hopes of Man
To be Delusion all, and sickening Folly!
(V.vi)",2013-06-28 14:59:37 UTC,"""O how I could reproach Thee, Sigismunda! / Pour out my injur'd Soul in just Complaints!""",2013-06-28 14:59:37 UTC,"Act V, scene vi","",,"","",C-H Lion,21258,7490
"LADY RANDOLPH.
Silent, alas! is he for whom I mourn:
Childless, without memorial of his name,
He only now in my remembrance lives.
This fatal day stirs my time-settled sorrow,
Troubles afresh the fountain of my heart.
(Act I, p. 8)",2013-06-28 16:18:41 UTC,"""This fatal day stirs my time-settled sorrow, / Troubles afresh the fountain of my heart.""",2013-06-28 16:18:41 UTC,Act I,"",,"","",C-H Lion,21267,7492
"LORD RANDOLPH.
When was it pure of sadness! These black weeds
Express the wonted colour of thy mind,
For ever dark and dismal. Seven long years
Are pass'd, since we were join'd by sacred ties:
Clouds, all the while have hung upon thy brow,
Nor broke, nor parted by one gleam of joy.
Time, that wears out the trace of deepest anguish,
As the sea smooths the prints made in the sand,
Has past o'er thee in vain.
(Act I, p. 8)",2013-06-28 16:22:36 UTC,"""Time, that wears out the trace of deepest anguish, / As the sea smooths the prints made in the sand, / Has past o'er thee in vain.""",2013-06-28 16:22:36 UTC,Act I,"",,Impressions,"",C-H Lion,21270,7492
"LORD RANDOLPH.
That I confess; yet ever must regret
The grief I cannot cure. Would thou wert not
Compos'd of grief and tenderness alone,
But had'st a spark of other passions in thee,
Pride, anger, vanity, the strong desire
Of admiration, dear to woman kind;
These might contend with, and allay thy grief,
As meeting tides and currents smooth our firth.
(Act I, p. 9)",2013-06-28 16:24:22 UTC,"""Would thou wert not / Compos'd of grief and tenderness alone, / But had'st a spark of other passions in thee, / Pride, anger, vanity, the strong desire / Of admiration, dear to woman kind;/ These might contend with, and allay thy grief, / As meeting tides and currents smooth our firth.""",2013-06-28 16:24:22 UTC,Act I,"",,"","",C-H Lion,21271,7492
"EPILOGUE.
An Epilogue I ask'd; but not one word
Our bard will write. He vows, 'tis most absurd
With comic wit to contradict the strain
Of tragedy, and make your sorrows vain.
Sadly he says, that pity is the best,
The noblest passion of the human breast:
For when its sacred streams the heart o'erflow,
In gushes pleasure with the tide of woe;
And when its waves retire, like those of Nile,
They leave behind them such a golden soil,
That there the virtues without culture grow,
There the sweet blossoms of affection blow.
These were his words:---void of delusive art
I felt them; for he spoke them from his heart.
Nor will I now attempt, with witty folly,
To chase away celestial melancholy.",2013-06-28 16:44:56 UTC,"""Sadly he says, that pity is the best, / The noblest passion of the human breast: / For when its sacred streams the heart o'erflow, / In gushes pleasure with the tide of woe; / And when its waves retire, like those of Nile, / They leave behind them such a golden soil, / That there the virtues without culture grow, / There the sweet blossoms of affection blow.""
",2013-06-28 16:44:56 UTC,Epilogue,"",,"","",C-H Lion,21288,7492