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The Purple Island.

Phineas Fletcher.

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This Renascence Editions text was transcribed by Daniel Gustav Anderson, July 2003, and reproduces the 1633 publication of The Purple Island, with the Piscatory Eclogues and Poeticall Miscellenie. It retains the spelling and punctuation of the original, silently amending obvious typographical errors such as missing periods at stanza ends. The long "s" and the vowel ligatures, also, are silently amended to the letters of the conventional keyboard. Any errors that have crept into the transcription are the fault of the present publisher. The text is in the public domain. Content unique to this presentation is copyright © 2003 the editor and the University of Oregon. For nonprofit and educational uses only.


THE

PURPLE ISLAND

OR

THE ISLE OF MAN:

TOGETHER WITH

PISCATORIE ECLOGS

AND OTHER

POETICALL MISCELLANIES

By P. F.

<printer’s mark>

Printed by the Printers to the Universitie
of Cambridge. 1633.


TO

MY MOST WORTHY

AND LEARNED FRIEND,

EDWARD BENLOWES

ESQUIRE.


SIR,

AS some Optick-glasses, if we look one way, increase the object; if the other, lessen the quantity: Such is an Eye that looks through Affection; It doubles any good, and extenuates what is amisse. Pardon me, Sir, for speaking plain truth; such is that eye whereby you have viewed the raw Essayes of my very unripe yeares, and almost childehood. How unseasonable are Blossomes in Autumne! (unlesse perhaps in this age, where are more flowers than fruit) I am entring upon my Winter, and yet these Blooms of my first Spring must now shew themselves to our ripe wits, which certainly will give them no other entertainment but derision. For my self, I canot account that worthy of your Patronage, which comes forth so short of my Desires, thereby meriting no other light then the fire. But since you please to have them see more Day then their credit can well endure, marvel not if they flie under your Shadow, to cover them from the piercing eye of this very curious (yet more censorious) age. In letting them abroad I desire only to testifie, how much I preferre your desires before mine own, and how much I owe to You more than any other: this if they witnesse for me, it is all their service I require. Sir, I leave them to you tuition, and entreat you to love him who will contend with you in nothing but to out-love you, and would be known to the world by no other Name, then

Your true friend,

P. F.

Hilgay, May 1. 1633.


To the Readers.

HE that would learn Theologie, must first studie Autologie. The way to God is by our selves: It is a blinde and ditry way; it hath many windings, and is easie to be lost: This Poem will make them understand that way; and therefore my desire is, that thou maist understand this Poem. Peruse it as thou shouldst thy self, from thy first sheet to thy last. The first view, perchance, may runne thy judgement in debt; the second will promise payment; and the third will perform promise. Thou shalt here find Philosophie, and Moralitie, two curious handmaids, dressing the Kings daughter, whose garments smell of Myrrhe and Cassia, and being wrought with needlework, and gold, shall make thee take pleasure in her beautie. Here are no blocks for the purblinde; no snares for the timorous; no dangers for the bold: I invite all sorts to be readers; all readers to be understanders; all understanders to be happie.

DANIEL FEALTY.

D. D.

ON THE EXCELLENT

MORALL POEM,

ENTITULED THE

ISLE OF MAN.

LOrd! how my youth with this vain world hath err'd,
Applauding theirs as th' onely happy fate,
Whom to some Empire bloud, choice, chance preferr'd,
Or who of learned arts could wisely prate;
Or travelling the world, had well conferr'd
Mens natures with the mysteries of state!
       But now thy wiser Muse hath taught me this,
      That these and most men else do aim at blisse;
But these and most men else to take their aim amisse.

Reigne o're the world, not o're this Isle of Man,
Worse then a slave thou thine own slaves obey'st.
Study all arts devis'd since time began,
And not thy Self, thou studiest not, but play'st.
Out-travell wise Ulysses, (if you can)
Yet misse this Isle, thou travell'st not, but stray'st.
       Let me (O Lord) but reigne o're mine own heart,
       And master be of this self-knowing art,
I'le dwell in th' Isle of Man, ne're travell forrain part.

E. BENLOWES.

BENEVOLUS.


Ingeniose


INgeniose tuo ne libro supprime nomen;
       Ingenio Authorem deteget ille suo.
Nempe verecundo memini te scribere vati,
       Quod pulchre ingenio quadrat, amice, tuo.

       QUid tuas retegis nimis tegendo
       Noctiluca faces? pates latendo:
       Ipsa es sphaera tuae comesque stellae.
       Diem si repetas, die latebis.
       on te nox tenebrist tegit fovendo,
       Sed te nox tenebris fovendo prodit.



TO THE LEARNED
AUTHOUR, SONNE
AND BROTHER TO
two judicious Poets, himself the
third, not second to either.


GRave Father of this Muse, thou deem'st too light
To wear thy name, 'cause of thy youthfull brain
It seems a sportfull childe; resembling right
Thy wittie childehood, not thy graver strain,
Which now esteems these works of fancie vain.
       Let not thy childe, thee living, orphan be;
       Who when th' art dead, will give a life to thee.

How many barren wits would gladly own,
How few o' th' pregnantest own such another?
Thou Father art, yet blushest to be known;
And though't may call the best of Muses Mother,
Yet thy severer judgement would it smother.
       O judge not Thou, let Readers judge thy book:
       Such Cates should rather please the Guest, then Cook.

O but thou fear'st't will stain the reverend gown
Thou wearest now; nay then fear not to show it:
For were't a stain, 't were natures, not thine own:
For thou art Poet born; who know thee, know it:
Thy brother, sire, thy very name's a Poet.
       Thy very name will make these Poems take,
       These very Poems else thy name will make.

W. BENLOWES.


TO
THE INGENIUS
COMPSER OF THIS
PASTORALL, THE
SPENCER of this age.

I Vow (sweet stranger) if my lazie quill
Had not been disobedient to fulfill
My quick desires, this glory which is thine,
Had but the Muses pleased had been mine.
My Genius jumpt with thine; the very same
Was our Foundation: in the very Frame
Thy Genius jumpt with mine; it got the start
In nothing, but Prioritie, and Art.
If (my ingenious Rivall) these dull times
Should want the present strength to prize thy rhymes,
The time-instructed children of the next
Shall fill thy margent, and admire the text;
Whose well read lines will teach the how to be
The happie knowers of themselves and thee.


FRAN. QUARLES.


TO THE UNKNOWN
Mr. P. F. UPON SURVAY
of his ISLE OF MAN.

REnowned Author, let it not seem strange
A Merchants eye should thus thy Island range:
It is a Merchants progresse to surround
The earth, and seek out undiscover'd ground.

What though my foot hath trod the fourefold shore?
And eyes survaid their subdivided store?
Yet rarer wonders in this Isle of thine
I view'd this day, then in twice six years time.

Justly didst thou, great Macedo, repine
That thou could'st adde no other world to thine.
He is not truely great, nor stout, who can
Curb the great world, and not the lesser, Man.

And 1thou whose name the Western world impos'd
Upon it self, first by thy skill disclos'd;
Yet is thy skill by this farre overcome,
Who hath descride an unknown World at home:

A World, which to search out, subdue, and till,
Is the best object of mans wit, strength, skill:
A World, where all may dangerlesse obtain
Without long travell, cheapest, greatest gain.

LOD. ROBERTS


ON THE MOST ACCU-
RATE POEM, INSCRIBED
THE PURPLE ISLAND.

HEnceforth let wandering Delos cease to boast
Herself the God of Learnings dearest coast;
And let that double-headed mountain hallow
No more the honour'd name of great Apollo:
And may the Pegasean spring, that uses
To cheer the palats of the thirstie Muses,
Drie up: and let this happie Isle of thine
Preserve Apolloes harp; where every line
Carries a Suada with't, and doth display
The banners of heav'n-born Urania.
Henceforth let all the world thy verse admire
Before that Thracean Orpheus charming lyre:
He but enchanted Beasts, but to thy divine
And higher aires bring Deities to this Isle of thine.
A. C.




MAn's Bodie's like a house: his greater bones
Are the main timber; and the lesser ones
Are smaller splints: his ribs are laths, daub'd o're,
Plaster'd with flesh, and bloud: his mouth's the doore,
His throat's the narrow entrie, and his heart
Is the great chamber, full of curious art:
His midriffe is a large partition-wall
'Twixt the great chamber, and the spacious hall:
His stomack is the kitchin, where the meat
Is often but half sod, for want of heat:
His splene's a vessell nature does allot
To take the skumme that rises from the pot:
His lungs are like the bellows, that respire
In ev'ry office, quickning ev'ry fire:
His nose the chimney is, whereby are vented
Such fumes as with the bellows are augmented:
His bowels are the sink, whose part's to drein
All noisome filth, and keep the kitchin clean:
His eyes are crystall windows, cleare and bright;
Let in the object, and let out the sight.
And as the timber is or great, or small,
Or strong or weak, 'tis apt to stand, or fall:
Yet is the likeliest building sometimes known
To fall by obvious chances; overthrown
Ofttimes by tempests, by the full-mouth'd blasts
Of heav'n; sometimes by fire; sometimes in wastes
Through unadvis'd neglect: put case the stuff
Were ruine-proofe, by nature strong enough
To conquer time, and age; but case it should
Ne're know an end, alas our leafes would.
What hast thou then, proud flesh and bloud, to boast?
Thy dayes are evil, at best; but few, at most;
But sad, at merriest; and but weak, and strongest;
Unsure, at surest; and but short, at longest.

FRAN. QUARLES.


1 Americus.


 
THE

PURPLE ISLAND,

OR

THE ISLE OF MAN.


CANT. I STAN. I.

THe warmer Sun the golden Bull outran,
And with the Twins made haste to inne and play:
Scatt’ring ten thousand flowres, he new began
To paint the world, and piece the length’ning day:
     (The world more aged by new youths accrewing)
     Ah wretched man this wretched world pursuing,
Which still grows worse by age, & older by renewing!

2
The shepherd-boyes, who with the Muses dwell,
Met in the plain their May-lords new to chuse,
(For two they yearly chuse) to order well
Their rurall sports, and yeare that next ensues:
     Now were they sat, where by the orchyard walls
     The learned Chame with stealing water crawls,
And lowly down before that royall temple falls.

3
Among the rout they take two gentle swains,
Whose sprouting youth did now but greenly bud:
Well could they pipe and sing; but yet their strains
Were onely known unto the silent wood:
     Their nearest bloud from self-same fountains flow,
     Their souls self-same in nearer love did grow:
So seem’d two joyn’d in one, or one disjoyn’d in two.

4
Now when the shepherd-lads with common voice
Their first consent had firmly ratifi’d,
A gentle boy thus ‘gan to wave their choice;
Thirsil, (said he) though yet thy Muse untri’d
     Hath onely learn’d in private shades to feigne
     Soft sighs of love unto a looser strain,
Or thy poore Thelgons wrong in mournfull verse to plain;

5
Yet since the shepherd-swains do all consent
To make thee lord of them, and of their art;
And that choice lad (to give a full content)
Hath joyn’d with thee in office, as in heart;
     Wake, wake thy long- (thy too long) sleeping Muse,
     And thank them with a song, as is the use:
Such honour thus conferr’d thou mayst not well refuse.


6
Sing what thou list, be it of Cupids spite,
(Ah lovely spite, and spitefull lovelinesse!)
Or Gemma’s grief, if sadder be thy sprite:
Begin, thou loved swain, with good successe.
     Ah, (said the bashfull boy) such wanton toyes
     A better minde and sacred vow destroyes,
Since in a higher love I settled all my joyes.

7
New light new love, new love new life hath bred;
A life that lives by love, and loves by light:
A love to him, to whom all loves are wed;
A light, to whom the Sunne is darkest night:
     Eyes light, hearts love, souls onely life he is:
     Life, soul, love, heart, light, eye, and all are his:
He eye, light, heart, love, soul; he all my joy, & blisse.

8
But if you deigne my ruder pipe to heare,
(Rude pipe, unus’d, untun’d, unworthy hearing)
These infantine beginnings gently bear,
Whose best desert and hope must be your bearing.
     But you, O Muses, by soft Chamus sitting,
     (Your daintie songs unto his murmures fitting,
Which bears the under-song unto your chearfull dittying;)


9
Tell me, ye Muses, what our father-ages
Have left succeeding times to play upon:
What now remains unthought on by those Sages,
Where a new Muse may trie her pineon?
     What lightning Heroes, like great Peleus heir,
     (Darting his beams through our hard-frozen aire)
May stirre up gentle heat, and virtues wane repair?

10
Who knows not Jason? or bold Tiphys hand,
That durst unite what Natures self would part?
He makes Isles continent, and all one land;
O’re seas, as earth, he march’d with dangerous art:
     He rides the white-mouth’d waves, and scorneth all
     Those thousand deaths wide gaping for his fall:
He death defies, fenc’t with a thin, low, wooden wall.

11
Who ha’s not often read Troyes twice-sung fires,
And at the second time twice better sung?
Who ha’s not heard th’ Arcadian shepherds quires,
Which now have gladly chang’d their native tongue;
     And sitting by slow Mincius, sport their fill,
     With sweeter voice and never-equall’d skill,
Chaunting their amorous layes unto a Romane quill?

12
And thou, choice wit, Loves scholar and Loves master,
Art known to all, where Love himself is known:
Whether thou bidd’st Ulysses hie him faster,
Or dost thy fault and distant exile moan.
Who ha’s not seen upon the mourning stage
Dire Atreus feast, and wrong’d Medea’s rage,
Marching in tragick state, and buskin’d equipage?

13
And now of late 1th’ Italian fisher-swain
Sits on the shore to watch his trembling line;
There teaches rocks and prouder seas to plain
By Nesis fair, and fairer Mergiline:
     While his thinne net, upon his oars twin’d,
     With wanton strife catches the Sunne, and winde,
Which still do slip away, and still remain behinde.

14
And that 2French Muses eagle eye and wing
Hath soar’d to heav’n, and there hath learn’d the art
To frame Angelick strains, and canzons sing
Too high and deep for every shallow heart.
     Ah blessed soul! in those celestiall rayes,
     Which gave thee light these lower works to blaze,
Thou sitt’st emparadis’d, and chaunt’st eternall layes.

15
Thrice happy wits, which in your springing May
(Warm’d with the Sunne of well deserved favours)
Disclose your buds, and your fair blooms display,
Perfume the aire with your rich fragrant savours!
     Nor may, nor ever shall those honour’d flowers
     Be spoil’d by summers heat, or winters showers;
But last when eating time shal gnaw the proudest towers.

16
Happy, thrice happy times in silver age!
When generous plants advanc’t their lofty crest;
When honour stoopt to be learn’d wisdomes page;
When baser weeds starv’d in their frozen nest;
     When th’ highest flying Muse still highest climbes;
     And virtues rise keeps down all rising crimes.
Happy, thrice happy age! happy, thrice happy times!

17
But wretched we, to whom these iron daies
(Hard daies) afford nor matter, nor reward!
Sings Maro? men deride high Maro’s layes;
Their hearts with lead, with steel their sense is barr’d:
     Sing Linus, or his father, as he uses,
     Our Midas eares their well tun’d verse refuses.
What cares an asse for arts? he brayes at sacred Muses.

18
But if fond Bavius vent his clowted song,
Or Maevius chaunt his thoughts in brothell charm;
The witlesse vulgar, in a numerous throng,
Like summer flies about their dunghills swarm:
     They sneer, they grinne. Like to his like will move.
     Yet never let them greater mischief prove
Then this, Who hates not one, may he the other love.

19
Witnesse our 3Colin; whom though all the Graces,
And all the Muses nurst; whose well taught song
Parnassus self, and Glorian embraces,
And all the learn’d, and all the shepherds throng;
     Yet all his hopes were crost, all suits deni’d;
     Discourag’d, scorn’d, his writings vilifi’d:
Poorly (poore man) he liv’d; poorly (poore man) he di’d.

20
And had not that great Hart, (whose honour’d head
Ah lies full low) piti’d thy wofull plight;
There hadst thou lein unwept, unburied,
Unblest, nor grac’t with any common rite:
     Yet shalt thou live, when thy great foe shall sink
     Beneath his mountain tomb, whose fame shall stink;
And time his blacker name shall blurre with blackest ink.

21
O let th’Iambick Muse revenge that wrong,
Which cannot slumber in thy sheets of lead:
Let thy abused honour crie as long
As there be quills to write, or eyes to reade:
     On his rank name let thine own votes be turn’d,
     Oh may that man that hath the Muses scorn’d,
Alive, nor dead, be ever of a Muse adorn’d!

22
Oft therefore have I chid my tender Muse;
Oft my chill breast beats off her fluttering wing:
Yet when new spring her gentle rayes infuse,
All storms are laid, I ‘gin to chirp and sing:
     At length soft fires disperst in every vein,
     Yeeld open passage to the thronging train,
And swelling numbers tide rolls like the surging main.

23
So where fair Thames, and crooked Isis sonne
Payes tribute to his King, the mantling stream
Encounter’d by the tides (now rushing on
With equall force) of’s way doth doubtfull seem;
     At length the full-grown sea, and waters King
     Chide the bold waves with hollow murmuring:
Back flie the streams to shroud them in their mother spring.

24
Yet thou sweet numerous Muse, why should’st thou droop
That every vulgar eare thy musick scorns?
Nor can they rise, nor thou so low canst stoop;
No seed of heav’n takes root in mud or thorns.
     When owls or crows, imping their flaggy wing
     With thy stoln plumes, their notes through th’ayer fling;
Oh shame! They howl & croke, while fond they strain to sing.

25
Enough for thee in heav’n to build thy nest;
(Farre be dull thoughts of winning dunghill praise)
Enough, if Kings enthrone thee in their breast,
And crown their golden crowns with higher baies:
     Enough that those who weare the crown of Kings
     (Great Israels Princes) strike thy sweetest strings:
Heav’ns Dove when high’st he flies, flies with thy heav’nly wings.

26
Let others trust the seas, dare death and hell,
Search either Inde, vaunt of their scarres and wounds;
Let others their deare breath (nay silence) sell
To fools, and (swoln, not rich) stretch out their bounds
     By spoiling those that live, and in wronging dead;
     That they may drink in pearl, and couch their head
In soft, but sleeplesse down; in rich, but restlesse bed.

27
Oh let them in their gold quaff dropsies down;
Oh let them surfets feast in silver bright:
While sugar hires the taste the brain to drown,
And bribes of sauce corrupt false appetite,
     His masters rest, health, heart, life, soul to sell.
     Thus plentie, fulnesse, sicknesse, ring their knell:
Death weds and beds them; first in grave, and then in hell.

28
But (ah!) let me under some Kentish hill
Neare rowling Medway ‘mong my shepherd peers,
With fearlesse merrie-make, and piping still,
Securely passe my few and slow-pac’d yeares:
     While yet the great Augustus of our nation
     Shuts up old Janus in this long ccessation,
Strength’ning our pleasing ease, and gives us sure vacation.

29
There may I, master of a little flock,
Feed my poore lambes, and often change their fare:
My lovely mate shall tend my sparing stock,
And nurse my little ones with pleasing care;
     Whose love and look shall speak their father plain.
     Health be my feast, heav’n hope, content my gain:
So in my little house my lesser heart shall reigne.

30
The beech shall yeeld a cool safe canopie,
While down I sit, and chaunt to th’ echoing wood:
Ah singing might I live, and singing die!
So by fair Thames, or silver Medwayes floud,
     The dying swan, when yeares her temples pierce,
     In musick strains breathes out her life and verse;
And chaunting her own dirge tides on her watry herse.

31
What shall I then need seek a patron out,
Or begge a favor from a mistris eyes,
To fence my song against the vulgar rout,
Or shine upon me with her Geminies?
     What care I, if they praise my slender song?
     Or reck I, if they do me right, or wrong?
A shepherds blisse nor stands nor falls to ev’ry tongue.

32
Great prince of shepherds, then thy heav’ns more high,
Low as our earth, here serving, ruling there;
Who taught’st our death to live, thy life to die;
Who when we broke thy bonds, our bonds would’st bear;
     Who reignedst in thy heav’n, yet felt’st our hell;
     Who (God) bought’st man, whom man (though God) did sell;
Who in our flesh, our graves (and worse) our hearts would’st dwell:

33
Great Prince of shepherds, thou who late didst deigne
To lodge thy self within this wretched breast,
(Most wretched breast such guest to entertain,
Yet oh most happy lodge in such a guest!)
     Thou first and last, inspire thy sacred skill;
     Guide thou my hand, grace thou my artlesse quill:
So shall I first begin, so last shall end thy will.

34
Heark then, ah heark, you gentle shepheard-crue;
An Isle I fain would sing, an Island fair;
A place too seldome view’d, yet still in view;
Neare as our selves, yet farthest from our care;
     Which we by leaving find, by seeking lost;
     A forrain home, a strange, though native coast;
Most obvious to all, yet most unknown to most:

35
Coevall with the world in her nativitie:
Which though it now hath pass’d through many ages,
And still retain’d a naturall proclivitie
To ruine, compast with a thousand rages
     Of foe-mens spite, which still this Island tosses;
     Yet ever grows more prosp’rous by her crosses;
By with’ring springing fresh, and rich by often losses.

36
Vain men, too fondly wise, who plough the seas,
With dangerous pains another earth to find;
Adding new worlds to th’ old, and scorning ease,
The earths vast limits dayly more unbind!
     The aged world, though now it falling shows,
     And hastes to set, yet still in dying grows.
Whole lives are spent to win, what one deaths houre must lose.

37
How like’s the world unto a tragick stage!
Where every changing scene the actours change;
Some subject crouch and fawn; some reigne and rage:
And new strange plots brings scenes as new & strange,
     Till most are slain; the rest their parts have done:
     So here; some laugh and play; some weep and grone;
Till all put of their robes, and stage and actours gone.

38
Yet this fair Isle, sited so nearly neare,
That from our sides nor place nor time may sever;
Though to your selves your selves are not more deare,
Yet with strange carelesnesse you travel never:
     Thus while your selves and native home forgetting,
     You searche farre distant worlds with needlesse sweating,
You never find your selves; so lose ye more by getting.

39
When that great Power, that All, farre more then all,
(When now his fore-set time was fully come)
Brought into act this undigested Ball,
Which in himself till then had onely room;
     He labour’d not, nor suffer’d pain, or ill;
     But bid each kind their severall places fill:
He bid, and they obeyed; their action was his will.

40
First stepp’d the Light, and spread his chearfull rayes
Through all the Chaos; darknesse headlong fell,
Frighted with suddain beams, and new-born dayes;
And plung’d her ougly head in deepest hell:
     Not that he meant to help his feeble sight
     To frame the rest, he made the day of night:
All els but darkness; he the true, the onely Light.

41
Fire, Water, Earth, and Aire (that fiercely strove)
His soveraigne hand in strong alliance ti’d,
Binding their deadly hate in constant love:
So that great Wisdome temper’d all their pride,
     Commanding strife and love should never cease)
     That by their peacefull fight, and fighting peace,
The world might die to live, and lessen to increase.

42
Thus Earths cold arm cold Water friendly holds,
But with his drie the others wet defies:
Warm Aire with mutuall love hot Fire infolds;
As moist, his dryth abhorres: drie Earth allies
     With Fire, but heats with cold new warres prepare:
     Yet Earth drencht Water proves, which boil’d turns Aire;
Hot Aire makes Fire: condenst all change, and home repair.

43
Now when the first weeks life was almost spent,
And this world built, and richly furnished;
To store heav’ns courts, and steer earths regiment,
He cast to frame an Isle, the heart and head
     Of all his works, compos’d with curious art;
     Which like an Index briefly should impart
The summe of all; the whole, yet of the whole a part.

44
That Trine-one with himself in councell sits,
And purple dust takes from the new-born earth;
Part circular, and part triang’lar fits,
Endows it largely at the unborn birth,
     Desputes his Favorite Vice-roy; doth invest
     With aptnesse thereunto, as seem’d him best;
And lov’d it more then all, and more then all it blest.

45
Then plac’t it in the calm pacifick seas,
And bid nor waves, nor troublous windes offend it;
Then peopled it with subjects apt to please
So wise a Prince, made able to defend it
     Against all outward force, or inward spite;
     Him framing like himself, all shining bright;
A little living Sunne, Sonne of the living Light.

46
Nor made he this like other Isles; but gave it
Vigour, sense, reason, and a perfect motion,
To move it self whither it self would have it,
And know what falls within the verge of notion:
     No time might change it, but as ages went,
     So still return’d; still spending, never spent;
More rising in their fall, more rich in detriment.

47
So once the 4Cradle of that double light,
Whereof one rules the night, the other day,
(Till sad Latona flying Juno’s spite,
Her double burthen there did safely lay)
     Not rooted yet, in every sea was roving,
     With every wave, and every winde removing;
But since to those fair Twins hath left her ever moving.

48
Look as a scholar, who doth closely gather
Many large volumes in a narrow place;
So that great Wisdome all this All together
Confin’d into this Islands little space;
     And being one, soon into two he fram’d it;
     And now made two, to one again reclaim’d it;
The little Isle of Man, or Purple Island nam’d it.

49
Thrice happy was the worlds first infancie,
Nor knowing yet, nor curious ill to know:
Joy without grief, love without jealousie:
None felt hard labour, or the sweating plough:
     The willing earth brought tribute to her King;
     Bacchus unborn lay hidden in the cling
Of big-swoln grapes; their drink was every silver spring.

50
Of all the windes there was no difference:
None knew mild Zephyres from cold Eurus mouth;
Nor Orithyia’s lovers violence
Distinguisht from the ever-dropping South:
     But either gentle West-winds reign’d alone,
     Or else no winde, or harmfull winde was none:
But one wind was in all, and all the windes in one.

51
None knew the sea; (oh blessed ignorance!)
None nam’d the stars, the North carres constant race,
Taurus bright horns, or Fishes happy chance:
Astraea yet chang’d not her name or place;
     Her ev’n-pois’d ballance heav’n yet never tri’d:
     None sought new coasts, nor forrain lands descri’d;
But in their own they liv’d, and in their own they di’d.

52
But (ah!) what liveth long in happinesse?
Grief, of an heavy nature, steddy lies,
And cannot be remov’d for weightinesse;
But joy, of lighter presence, eas’ly flies,
     And seldome comes, and soon away will goe:
     Some secret power here all things orders so,
That for a sun-shine day follows an age of woe.

53
Witnesse this glorious Isle, which not content
To be confin’d in bounds of happinesse,
Would trie what e’re is in the continent;
And seek out ill, and search for wretchednesse.
     Ah fond, to seek what then was in thy will!
     That needs no curious search; ‘tis next us still.
‘Tis grief to know of grief, and ill to know of ill.

54
That old slie Serpent, (slie, but spitefull more)
Vext with the glory of this happy Isle,
Allures it subt’ly from the peacefull shore,
And with fair painted lies, & colour’d guile
     Drench’d in 5dead seas; whose dark streams, full of fright,
     Emptie their sulphur waves in endlesse night;
Where thousand deaths and hells torment the damned sprite.

55
So when a fisher-swain by chance hath spi’d
A big-grown Pike pursue the lesser frie,
He sets a withy Labyrinth beside,
And with fair baits allures his nimble eye;
     Which he invading with out-stretched finne,
     All suddainly is compast with the ginne,
Where there is no way out, but easie passage in.

56
That deathfull lake hath these three properties;
No turning path, or issue thence is found:
The captive never dead, yet ever dies;
It endlesse sinks, yhet never comes to ground:
     Hells self is pictur’d in that brimstone wave;
     For what retiring from that hellish grave?
Or who can end in death, where deaths no ending have?

57
For ever had this Isle in that foul ditch
With curelesse grief and endlesse errour strai’d,
Boyling in sulphur, and hot-bubbling pitch;
Had not the King, whose laws he (fool) betrai’d,
     Unsnarl’d that chain, then from that lake secur’d;
     For which ten thousand tortures he endur’d:
So hard was this lost Isle, so hard to be recur’d.

58
O thou deep well of life, wide stream of love,
(More deep, more wide then widest deepest seas)
Who dying Death to endlesse death didst prove,
To work this wilfull-rebell Islands ease;
     Thy love no time began, no time decaies;
     But still increaseth with decreasing daies:
Where then may we begin, where may we end thy praise?

59
My callow wing, that newly left the nest,
How can it make so high a towring flight?
O depth without a depth! in humble breast
With praises I admire so wondrous height.
But thou, my 6sister Muse, mayst well go higher,     
     And end thy flight; ne’re may thy pineons tire:
Thereto may he his grace and gentle heat aspire.

60
Then let me end my easier taken storie,
And sing this Islands new recover’d seat.
But see, the eye of noon, in brightest glorie,
(Teaching great men) is ne’re so little great:
     Our panting flocks retire into the glade;
     They crouch, and close to th’ earth their horns have laid:
Vail we our scorched heads in that thick beeches shade.

1 Sannazar.

2 Bartas

3 Spencer.

4 Delos.

5 Mare mortuum.

6 A book called Christ Victorie and Triumph.


CANT. II.

DEclining Phoebus, as he larger grows,
(Taxing proud folly) gentler waxeth still;
Never lesse fierce, then when he greatest shows;
When Thirsil on a gentle rising hill
     (Where all his flock he round might feeding view)
     Sits down, and circled with a lovely crue
Of Nymphs & shepherd-boyes, thus ‘gan his song renew:

2
Now was this Isle pull’d from that horrid main,
Which bears the fearfull looks and name of death;
And setled new with bloud and dreadfull pain,
By him who twice had giv’n (once forfeit) breath:
     A baser state then what was first assign’d;
     Wherein (to curb the too aspiring minde)
The better things were lost, the worst were left behinde.

3
That glorious image of himself was raz’d;
Ah! scarce the place of that best part we finde;
And that bright Sun-like knowledge much defac’d,
Onely some twinkling starres remain behinde:
     Then mortall made; yet as one fainting dies,
     Two other in its place succeeding rise:
And drooping stock with branches fresh immortalize.

4
So that ‘lone bird in fruitfull Arabie,
When now her strength and waning life decaies,
Upon some airie rock, or mountain high,
In spiced bed (fir’d by neare Phoebus rayes)
     Her self and all her crooked age consumes:
     Straight from the ashes and those rich perfumes
A new-born Phoenix flies, & widow’d place resumes.

5
It grounded lies upon a sure 1foundation,
Compact, and hard; whose matter (cold and drie)
To marble turns in strongest congelation;
Fram’d of fat earth, which fires together tie:
     Through all the isle, and every part extent,
     To give just form to every regiment;
Imparting to each part due strength and stablishment.

6
2Whose looser ends are glu’d with brother earth,
Of nature like, and of a neare relation;
Of self-same parents both, and self-same birth;
3That oft it self stands for a good foundation:
     Both4 these a third doth soulder fast, and binde;
     Softer then both, yet of the self-same kinde;
All instruments of motion, in one league combin’d.

7
Upon this base a 5curious work is rais’d,
Like undivided brick, entire and one;
Though soft, yet lasting, with just balance pais’d;
Distributed with due proportion:
     And that the rougher frame might lurk unseen,
     All fair is hung with coverings slight and thinne;
Which partly hide it all, yet all is partly seen:

8
As when a virgin her snow-circled breast
Displaying hides, and hiding sweet displaies;
The greater segments cover’d, and the rest
The vail transparent willingly betraies;
     Thus takes and gives, thus lends and borrows light:
     Lest eyes should surfet with too greedy sight,
Transparent lawns withhold, more to increase delight.

9
6Nor is there any part in all this land,
But is a little Isle: for thousand brooks
In azure chanels glide on silfer sand;
Their serpent windings, and deceiving crooks
     Circling about, and wat’ring all the plain,
     Emptie themselves into th’ all-drinking main;
And creeping forward slide, but never turn again.

10
Three diff’ring streams from fountains different,
Neither in nature nor in shape agreeing,
(Yet each with other friendly ever went)
Give to this Isle his fruitfulnesse and being:
     The 7first in single chanels skie-like blue,
     With luke-warm waters di’d in porphyr hue,
Sprinkle this crimson Isle with purple-colour’d dew.

11
8The next, though from the same springs first it rise,
Yet passing through another greater fountain,
Doth lose his former name and qualities:
Through many a dale it flows, and many a mountain;
     More firie light, and needful more then all;
     And therefore fenced with a double wall,
All froths his yellow streams with many a sudding fall.

12
9The last, in all things diff’ring from the other,
Fall from an hill, and close together go,
Embracing as they runne, each with his brother;
Guarded with double trenches sure they flow:
     The coldest spring, yet nature best they have;
     And like the lacteall stones which heaven pave,
Slide down to every part with their thick milky wave.

13
10These with a thousand streams through th’ Island roving,
Bring tribute in; the first gives nourishment,
Next life, last sense and arbitrarie moving:
For when the Prince hath now his mandate sent,
     The nimble poasts quick down the river runne,
     And end their journey, though but now begunne;
But now the mandate came, & now the mandate’s done.

14
11The whole Isle, parted in three regiments,
By three Metropolies is jointly sway’d;
Ord’ring in peace and warre their governments
With loving concord, and with mutuall aid:
     The lowest hath the worst, but largest See;
     The middle lesse, of greater dignitie:
The highest least, but holds the greatest soveraigntie.

15
Deep in a vale doth that first province lie,
With many a citie grac’t, and fairly town’d;
And for a fence from forrain enmitie,
12With five strong-builded walls encompast round;
     Which my rude pencil will in limming stain;
     A work more curious, then which poets feigne
Neptune and Phoebus built, and pulled down again.

16
13The first of these is that round spreading fence,
Which like a sea girts th’ Isle in every part;
Of fairest building, quick and nimble sense,
Of common matter fram’d with speciall art;
     Of middle temper, outwardest of all,
     To warn of every chance that may befall:
The same a fence, and spie; a watchman, and a wall.

17
14His native beautie is a lilie white,
Which still some other colou’d stream infecteth;
Least like it self, with divers stainings dight,
The inward disposition detecteth:
     If white, it argues wet; if purple, fire;
     If black, a heavie cheer, and fixt desire;
Youthfull and blithe, if suited in a rosie tire.

18
15It cover’d stands with silken flourishing,
Which as it oft decaies, renews again,
The others sense and beautie perfecting;
Which els would feel, but with unusuall pain:
     Whose pleasing sweetnesse, and resplendent shine,
     Softning the wanton touch, and wandring ey’n,
Doth oft the Prince himself with witch’ries undermine.

19
16The second rampier of a softer matter,
Cast up by th’ purple rivers overflowing:
Whose airy wave, and swelling waters, fatter
For want of heat congeal’d, and thicker growing,
     The 17wandring heat (which quiet ne’re subsisteth)
     Sends back again to what confine it listeth;
And outward enemies by yielding most resisteth.

20
18The third more inward, firmer then the best,
May seem at first but thinly built, and slight;
But yet of more defence then all the rest;
Of thick and stubborn substance, strongly dight.
     hese three (three common fences) round impile
     This regiment, and all the other Isle;
And saving inward friends, their outward foes beguile.

21
Beside these three, 19two more appropriate guards
With constant watch compasse this government:
The first eight companies in severall wards,
(To each his station in this regiment)
     On each side foure, continuall watch observe,
     And under one great Captain jointly serve;
Two fore-right stand, two crosse, and four obliquely swerve.

22
20The other fram’d of common matter, all
This lower region girts with strong defence;
More long then round, with double-builded wall,
Though single often seems to slighter sense;
     With many gates, whose strangest properties
     Protect this coast from all conspiracies;
Admitting welcome friends, excluding enemies.

23
21Between this fences double-walled sides,
Foure slender brooks run creeping o’re the lea;
The first is call’d the Nurse, and rising slides
From this low regions Metropolie:
     Two from th’ Heart-citie bend their silent pace;
     The last from Urine-lake with waters base
In th’ Allantoid sea empties his flowing race.

24
22Down in a vale, where these two parted walls
Differ from each with wide distending space,
Into a lake the Urine-river falls,
Which at the Nephros hill beginnes his race:
     Crooking his banks he often runs astray,
     Lest his ill streams might backward finde a way:
Thereto, some say, was built a curious framed bay.

25
23The Urine-lake drinking his colour’d brook,
By little swells, and fills his stretching sides:
But when the stream the brink ‘gins over-look,
A sturdy groom empties the swelling tides;
     Sphincter some call; who if he loosed be,
     Or stiffe with cold, out flows the senselesse sea,
And rushing unawares covers the drowned lea.

26
24From thence with blinder passage, (flying name)
These noisome streams a secret pipe conveys;
Which though we tearm the hidden parts of shame,
Yet for the skill deserve no lesser praise
vThen they, to which we honour’d names impart.
     Oh powerfull Wisdome, with what wondrous art
Mad’st thou the best, who thus hast fram’d the vilest part!

27
25Six goodly Cities, built with suburbs round,
Do fair adorn this lower region:
26The first Koilia, whose extreamest bound
On this side border’d by the Splenion,
     On that by soveraigne Hepars large commands:
     The merry Diazome above it stands,
To both these joyn’d in league & never failing bands.

28
27The form (as when with breath our bag-pipes rise,
And swell) round-wise, and long, yet long-wise more;
Fram’d to the most capacious figures guise:
For ‘tis the Islands garner; here its store
     Lies treasur’d up, which well prepar’d it sends
     By secret path that to th’ Arch-citie bends;
Which making it more fit, to all the Isle dispends.

29
Farre hence at foot of rocky Cephals hills
This Cities 28Steward dwells in vaulted stone;
And twice a day Koilia’s store-house fills
With certain rent, and due provision:
     Aloft he fitly dwells in arched cave;
     Which to describe I better time shall have,
When that fair mount I sing, & his white curdy wave.

30
At that caves mouth 29twice sixteen Porters stand,
Receivers of the customarie rent;
Of each side foure, (the formost of the band)
Whose office to divide what in is sent:
     Straight other foure break it in peices small;
     And at each hand twice five, which grinding all,
Fit it for convoy, and this cities Arsenall.

31
From thence a 30Groom with wondrous volubilitie
Delivers all unto near officers,
Of nature like himself, and like agilitie;
At each side foure, that are the governours
     To see the vict’als shipt at fittest tide;
     Which straight from thence with prosp’rous chanel slide,
And in Koilia’s port with nimble oars glide.

32
The 31haven, fram’d with wondrous sense and art,
Opens it self to all that entrance seek;
Yet if ought back would turn, and thence depart,
With thousand wrinkles shuts the ready creek:
     But when the rent is slack, it rages rife,
     And mutines in it self with civil strife:
Thereto a 32little groom egges it with sharpest knife.

33
33Below dwells in this Cities market-place
The Islands common Cook, Concoction,
Common to all; therefore in middle space
Is quarter’d fit in just proportion;
     Whence never from his labour he retires;
     No rest he asks, or better change requires:
Both night and day he works, ne’re sleeps, nor sleep desires.

34
34That heat, which in his furnace ever fumeth,
Is nothing like to our hot parching fire;
Which all consuming, self at length consumeth;
But moistening flames a gentle heat inspire,
     Which sure some in-born neighbor to him lendeth;
     And oft the bord’ring coast fit fuell sendeth,
And oft the rising fume, which down again descendeth.

35
Like to a pot, where under hovering
Divided flames, the iron sides entwining,
Above is stopt with close-laid covering,
Exhaling fumes to narrow straits confining;
     So doubling heat, his dutie doubly speedeth:
     Such is the fire Concoctions vessel needeth,
Who daily all the Isle with fit provision feedeth.

36
There many a groom the busie Cook attends
In under offices, and severall place:
This gathers up the scumme, and thence it sends
To be cast out; another liquours base,
     Another garbage, which the kitchin cloyes,
     And divers filth, whose sent the place annoyes,
By divers secret waies in under-sinks convoyes.

37
35Therefore a second Port is sidelong fram’d,
To let out what unsavorie there remains:
There sits a needful groom, the Porter nam’d,
Which soon the full-grown kitchin cleanly drains
     By divers pipes, with hundred turnings giring;
     Lest that the food too speedily retiring
Should whet the appetite, still cloy’d, & still desiring.

38
So Erisicthon once fir’d (as men say)
With hungry rage, fed never, ever feeding;
Ten thousand dishes serv’d in every day,
Yet in ten thousand, thousand dishes needing,
In vain his daughter hundred shapes assum’d:
     A whole camps meat he in his gorge inhum’d;
And all consum’d, his hunger yet was unconsum’d.

39
Such would the state of this whole Island be,
If those pipes windings (passage quick delaying)
Should not refrain too much edacitie,
With longer stay fierce appetite allaying.
     These36 pipes are seven-fold longer then the Isle,
     Yet all are folded in a little pile,
Whereof three noble are, and thinne; three thick, & vile.

40
37The first is narrow’st, and down-right doth look,
Lest that his charge discharg’d might back retire;
And by the way takes in a bitter brook,
That when the chanel’s stopt with stifeling mire,
     Through th’ idle pipe with piercing waters soking,
     His tender sides with sharpest stream provoking,
Thrusts out the muddy parts, & rids the miry choking.

41
38The second lean and lank, still pill’d, and harri’d
By mighty bord’rers oft his barns invading:
Always his food and new-inn’d store is carri’d;
Therefore an angry colour, never fading,
     Purples his cheek: 39the third for length exceeds,
     And down his stream in hundred turnings leads:
These three most noble are, adorn’d with silken threads.

42
40The formost of the base half blinde appears;
And where his broad way in an Isthmos ends,
There he examines all his passengers,
And those who ought not scape, he backward sends:
The41 second Aeols court, where tempests raging
     Shut close within a cave the windes encaging,
With earthquakes shakes the Island, thunders sad presaging.

43
42The last down-right falls to port Esquiline,
More strait above, beneath still broader growing;
Soon as the gate opes by the Kings assigne,
Empties it self, farre thence the filth out-throwing:
     This gate endow’d with many properties,
     Yet for his office sight and naming flies;
Therefore between two hills, in darkest valley lies.

44
43To that Arch-citie of this government
The three first pipes the ready feast convoy:
The other three, in baser office spent,
Fling out the dregs, which else the kitchin cloy.
In44 every one the Hepar keeps his spies;
     Who if ought good with evil blended lies,
Thence bring it back again to Hepars treasuries.

45
Two severall covers fence these twice three pipes:
45The first from over-swimming takes his name,
Like cobweb-lawn woven with hundred stripes:
46The second, strength’ned with a double frame,
     From forein enmitie the pipes maintains:
     Close 47 by the Pancreas stands, who ne’re complains;
Though prest by all his neighbors, he their state sustains.

46
Next Hepar, chief of all these lower parts,
One of the three, yet of the three the least.
But see, the Sunne, like to undaunted hearts,
Enlarges in his fall his ample breast:
     Now hie we home; the pearled dew ere long
     Will wet the mothers, and their tender young:
To morrow with the day we may renew our song.

1 The foundation of the body is the bones. Bones are a similar part of the body, most dry, or cold; made by the vertue generative, through heat of the thicker portion of seed, which is most earthy and fat for the establishment and figure of the whole.

2 A cartilage, or grisle, is of a middle nature betwixt bones, and ligaments or sinews, made of the same matter, and in the same manner as bones, for variety and safetie in motion.

3 Some of these (even as bones) sustain and uphold some parts.

4 Both these are knit with ligaments: A ligament or sinew is of nature between grisles, and nerves, framed of a tough and clammy portion of the seed, for knitting & holding the bones together, & fitting them for motion.

5 Upon the bones as a foundation, is built the flesh. Flesh is a similar part of the body, soft, ruddy, made of bloud indifferently dried, covered with the common membrane or skinne.

6 The whole body is as it were watered with great plenty of rivers, veins, arteries, and nerves.

7 A vein is a vessel long, round, hollow, rising from the liver, appointed to contein, concoct, and distribute the bloud. It hath but one tunicle, and that thinne; the colour of this bloud is purple.

8 An arterie is a vessel long, round, hollow, formed for conveyance of that more spritely bloud, which is elaborate in the heart. This bloud is frothy, yellowish, full of spirits, therefore compast with a double tunicle, that it might not exhale or sweat out by reason of the thinnesse.

9 A nerve is a spermaticall part rising from the brain and the pith of the backbone, the outside skinne, the inside full of pith, carrying the animall spirits for sense and motion and therefore doubly skinned as the brain: none of them single, but runne in couples.

10 The veins convey nourishment from the liver, the arteries life and heat from the heart, the nerves sense and motion from the brain. The will commands, the nerve brings, and the part executes the mandate; all almost in an instant.

11 The whole body may be parted into three regions: the lowest, or belly; the middle, or breast; the highest, or head. In the lowest the liver is sovereigne, whose regiment is the widest, but meanest. In the middle the heart reigns, most necessarie. The brain obtains the highest place, and is as the least in compasse, so the greatest in dignitie.

12 The parts of the lower region are either the contained, or the containing: the containing either common or proper: the common are the skinne, the fleshie panicle, and the fat: the proper are the muscles of the belly-peece, or the inner rimme of the belly.

13 The skinne is a membrane of all the rest the most large, and thick, formed of the mixture of seed and bloud; the covering, and ornament of parts that are under it: the temper moderate, the proper organ of outward touching (say Physicians.)

14 The native colour of the skinne is white but (as Hippocrates) changed into the same colour which is brought by the humour predominant. Where melancholie abounds, it is swarthy; where flegme, it is white, and pale; where holer reignes, it is red and firy; but in sanguine of a rosie colour.

15 The skinne is covered with the cuticle, or flourishing of the skinne, it is the mean of touching, without which we feel, but with pain. It polisheth the skinne, which many times is hanged, and (as it is with snakes) put off, and a new, and more amiable brought in.

16 The fat cometh from the airy portion of the bloud; which when it flows to the membranes, by their weak heat (which Physicians account, & call cold) grows thick, and close.

17 The fat increaseth inward heat by keeping it from outward parts, and defends the parts subject to it from bruises.

18 The fleshie pannicle is a membrane very thick, sinewy, woven in with little veins.

19 The proper parts infolding this lower region are two, the first the muscles of the belly-peece, which are eight, foure side-long, two right, and two crosse.

20 Peritonaeum (which we call the rimme of the belly) is a thin membrane taking his name from compassing the bowels; round, but longer: every where double, yet so thinne, that it may seem but single. It hath many holes, that the veins, arteries, and other needful vessels might have passage both in, & out.

21 The double tunicle of the rimme is plainly parted into a large space, that with a double wall it might fence the bladder, where the vessels of the navil are contained. These are foure: first, the nurse; which is a vein nourishing the infant in the womb: 2, two arteries in which the infant breaths: the fourth, the Ourachos, a pipe wherby (while the childe is in the wombe) the urine is carried into the Allantoid, or rather Amnion; which is a membrane receiving the sweat and urine.

22 The passages carrying the urine from the kidneys to the bladder. Some affirm that in the passage stands a curious lid, or cover.

23 The bladder endeth in a neck of flesh, and is girded with a muscle which is called Sphincter: which holds in the urine lest it flow away without our permission. If this be loosened, or cold, the urine goes away from us of it self without any feeling.

24 Hence the urine is conveyed through the ordinary passages and cast out.

25 Beside the bladder there are six speciall parts contained in this lower region: the liver, stomack, with the guts; the gall, the splene, or milt; the kidneys, and parts for generation.

26 The stomack (or Koilia) is the first in order though not in dignitie.

27 Koilia, or the stomack is long & round, like a bag-pipe, made to receive and concoct the meat, and to perfect the Chyle or white juice, which riseth from the meat concocted.

28 Gustus, the taste, is the caterer, or the steward to the stomack, which hath his place in Cephal, that is, the head.

29 In either chap are sixteen teeth; foure cutters, two dog-teeth, or breakers, ten grinders.

30 The tongue with great agilitie delivers up the meat (well chewed) to the instruments of swallowing: eight muscles serving to this purpose which instantly send the meat through the Oesophagus or meat-pipe into the stomack.

31 The upper mouth of the stomack hath little veins, or strings circular, to shut in the meat, and keep it from returning.

32 Vas breve, or the short vessel, which sending in a melancholy humour, sharpens the appetite.

33 In the bottome of the stomack (which is placed in the midst of the belly) is concoction perfected.

34 The concoction of meats in the stomack is perfected, as by an innate propertie, and speciall vertue, so also by the outward heat of parts adjoyning. For it is on every side compassed with hotter parts, which as fire to a cauldron helps to seethe, and concoct; and the hot steams within it do not a little further digestion.

35 The lower orifice, or mouth of the stomack, is not placed at the very bottome, but at the side, and is called the (Janitor or) Porter, as sending out the food now concocted through the entrails, which are knotty, and full of windings, lest the meat too suddenly passing through the body should make it too subject to appetite and greedinesse.

36 It is approved that the entrails dried, and blown, are seven times longer then the body: there are all one entire body, yet their differing substance hath distinguished them into the thinne, & thick: the thinne have the more noble office.

37 The first is straight without any winding, that the chyle might not return; and most narrow, that it might not finde too hasty pa passage. It takes in a little passage from the gall, which there purges his choler, to provoke the entrails (when they are slow) to cast out the excrements. This is called Duodenum (or twelve finger) from his length.

38 The second is called the lank or hungry gut, as being more emptie then the rest: for the liver being neare it sucks out his juice, or cream: it is known from the rest by the red colour.

39 The third called Ilion (or winding) from his many folds and turnings, is of all the longest.

40 The first of the baser is called blinde: at whose end is an appendant, where if any of the thinner chyle do chance to escape, it is stopt, and by the veins of the midriffe suckt out.

41 The second is Colon (or the tormenter) because of the winde there staying, & vexing the body.

42 The last called Rectum, or straight, hath no windings, short, larger toward the end; that the excrement may more easily be ejected, and retained also upon occasion.

43 The thinne entrails serve for the carrying, & through-concocting of the chyle: the thicker for the gathering, and containing the excrements.

44 The are all sprinkled with little veins, that no part of the chyle might escape till all be brought to the liver.

45 Epiploon (or Overswimmer, descends below the navill; and ascends above the highest entrails, of skinny substance all interlaced with fat.

46 The Mesenterium (or midst amongst the entrails, whence it takes the name) ties and knits the entrails together: it hath a double tunicle.

47 Pancreas (or All-flesh, for so it seems) is laid as a pillow under the stomack; and sustains all the veins that are dispread from the gate-vein.

CANT. III.

THe Morning fresh, dappling her horse with roses,
(Vext at the lingring shades, that long had left her
In Tithons freezing arms) the light discloses;
And chasing Night, of rule and heav’n bereft her:
     The Sunne with gentle beams his rage disguises,
     And like aspiring tyrants, temporizes;
Never to be endur’d, but when he falls, or rises.

2
Thirsil from withy prison, as he uses,
Lets out his flock, and on an hill stood heeding
Which bites the grasse, and which his meat refuses;
So his glad eyes fed with their greedy feeding:
     Straight flock a shoal of Nymphs & shepherd-swains
     While all their lambes rang’d on the flowry plains;
Then thus the boy began, crown’d with their circling trains.

3
You gentle shepherds, and you snowie fires,
That sit around, my rugged rimes attending;
How may I hope to quit your strong desires,
In verse uncomb’d such wonders comprehending?
     Too well I know my rudeness all unfit
     To frame this curious Isle, whose framing yet
Was never thoroughly known to any humane wit.

4
Thou Shepherd-God, who onely know’st it right,
And hid’st that art from all the world beside;
Shed in my mistie breast thy sparkling light,
And in this fogge my erring footsteps guide;
     Thou who first mad’st, and never wilt forsake it:
     Else how shall my weak hand dare undertake it,
When thou thy self ask’st counsel of thy self to make it?

5
Next to Koilia, on the right side stands,
Fairly dispread in large dominion,
Th’ 1Arch-citie Hepar, stretching her commands
To all within this lower region;
     Fenc’t with sure barres, and strongest situation;
     So never fearing foreiners invasion:
Hence are the 2walls slight, thinne; built but for sight & fashion.

6
3To th’  Heart and to th’ Head-citie surely ti’d
With firmest league, and mutuall reference:
His liegers there, theris ever here abide,
To take up strife, and casuall difference:
     Built 4 all alike, seeming like rubies sheen,
     Of some peculiar matter; such I ween,
As over all the world may no where else be seen.

7
5Much like a mount it easily ascendeth;
The upper part’s all smooth as slipperie glasse:
But on the lower many a cragge dependeth;
Like to the hangings of some rockie masse:
     Here6 first the purple fountain making vent,
     By thousand rivers through the Isle dispent,
Gives every part fit growth and daily nourishment.

8
7In this fair town the isles great Steward dwells;
His porphyre house glitters in purple die;
In purple clad himself: from hence he deals
His store to all the Isles necessitie:
     And though the rent he daily duly pay,
     Yet doth his flowing substance ne’re decay;
All day he rent receives, returns it all the day.

9
And like that golden starre, which cuts his way
Through Saturns ice, and Mars his firy ball;
Temp’ring their strife with his more kindely ray:
So ‘tween the Splenions frost and th’ angry Gall
     The joviall Hepar sits; with great expence
     Cheering the Isle by his sweet influence;
So slakes their envious rage end endlesse difference.

10
Within, some say, 8Love hath his habitation;
Not Cupids self, but Cupids better brother:
For Cupids self dwells with a lower nation,
But this more sure, much chaster then the other;
     By whose command we either love our kinde,
     Or with most perfect love affect the mind;
With such a diamond knot he often souls can binde.

11
9Two purple streams here raise their boiling heads;
The first and least in th’ hollow cavern breeding,
His waves on divers neighbour grounds dispreads:
The next fair river all the rest exceeding,
     Topping the hill, breaks forth in fierce evasion,
     And sheds abroad his Nile-like inundation;
So gives to all the Isle their food and vegetation.

12
Yet these from other streams much different;
For others, as they longer, broader grow;
These as they runne in narrow banks impent,
Are then at least, when in the main they flow:
     Much like a tree, which all his roots so guides,
     That all the trunk in his full body hides;
Which straight his stemme to thousand branches subdivides.

13
10Yet lest these streams might hap to be infected
With other liquours in the well abounding;
Before their flowing chanels are detected,
Some lesser delfs, the fountains bottome sounding,
     Suck out the baser streams, the springs annoying,
     An hundred pipes unto that end employing;
Thence run to fitter place their noisome load convoying.

14
Such is fair Hepar; 11which with great dissension
Of all the rest pleads most antiquitie;
But yet th’ Heart-citie with no lesse contention
And justest challenge, claims prioritie:
     But sure the Hepar was the elder bore;
     For that small river, call’d the Nurse, of yore
Laid boths foundation, yet Hepar built afore.

15
Three pois’nous liquours from this purple well
Rise with the native streams; 12the first like fire,
All flaming hot, red, furious, and fell,
The spring of dire depate, and civile ire;
     Which wer’t not surely held with strong retention,
     Would stirre domestick strife, and fierce contention,
And waste the weary Isle with never ceas’d dissension.

16
Therefore close by a little conduit stands,
13Choledochus, that drags this poison hence,
And safely locks it up in prison bands;
Thence gently drains it through a narrow fence;
     A needful fence, attended with a guard,
     That watches in the straits all closely barr’d,
Lest some might back escape, and break the prison ward.

17
The next ill 14stream the wholesome fount offending,
All dreery black and frightfull, hence convay’d
By divers drains unto the Splenion tending,
The Splenion o’re against the Hepar laid,
      Built long, and square: some say that laughter here
      Keeps residence; but laughter fits not there,
Where darknesse ever dwells, and melancholy fear.

18
15And should these waies, stopt by ill accident,
To th’ Hepar streams turn back their muddie humours;
The cloudie Isle with hellish dreeriment
Would soon be fill’d, and thousand fearfull rumours:
     Fear hides him here, lockt deep in earthy cell;
     Dark, dolefull, deadly-dull, a little hell;
Where with him fright, despair, and thousand horrours dwell.

19
16If this black town in over-growth increases,
With too much strength his neighbors over-bearing;
The Hepar daily, and whole Isle decreases,
Like ghastly shade, or ashie ghost appearing:
     But when it pines, th’ Isle thrives; its curse, his blessing:
     So7 when a tyrant raves, his subjects pressing,
His gaining is their losse, his treasure their distressing.

20
18The third bad water, bubbling from this fountain,
Is wheyish cold, which with good liquours meint,
Is drawn into the double Nephros mountain;
Which suck the best for growth, and nourishment:
     The19 worst, as through a little pap, distilling
     To divers pipes, the pale cold humour swilling,
Runs down to th’ Urine-lake, his banks thrice daily filling.

21
20These mountains differ but in situation;
In form and matter like; the left is higher,
Lest even height might slack their operation:
Both like the Moon which now wants half her fire;
     Yet into two obtuser angles bended,
     Both strongly with a double wall defended;
And both have walls of mudde before those walls extended.

22
The sixt and last town in this region,
With largest stretcht precincts, and compasse wide,
Is that, where Venus and her wonton sonne
(Her wonton Cupid) will in youth reside:
     For though his arrows and his golden bow
     On other hills he frankly does bestow,
Yet here he hides the fire with which each heart doth glow.

23
For that great Providence, their course foreseeing
Too eas’ly led into the sea of death;
After this first, gave them a second being,
Which in their off-spring newly flourisheth:
     He therefore made the fire of generation
     To burn in Venus courts without cessation,
Out of whose ashes comes another Island nation.

24
For from the first a fellow Isle he fram’d,
(For what alone can live, or fruitful be?)
Arren the first, the second Thelu nam’d;
Weaker the last, yet fairer much to see:
     Alike in all the rest, here disagreeing,
     Where Venus and her wonton have their being:
For nothing is produc’t of two in all agreeing.

25
But though some few in these hid parts would see
Their Makers glory, and their justest shame;
Yet for the most would turn to luxurie,
And what they should lament, would make their game:
     Flie then those parts, which best are undescri’d;
     Forbear, my maiden song, to blazon wide
What th’ Isle and Natures self doth ever strive to hide.

26
These two fair Isles distinct in their creation,
Yet one extracted from the others side,
Are oft made one by Loves firm combination,
And from this unitie are multipli’d:
     Strange may it seem; such their condition,
     That they are more dispread by union;
And two are twenty made, by being made in one.

27
For from these two in Loves delight agreeing,
Another little Isle is soon proceeding;
At first of unlike frame and matter being,
In Venus temple takes it form and breeding;
     Till at full time the tedious prison flying,
     It breaks all lets its ready way denying;
And shakes the trembling Isle with often painfull dying.

28
So by the Bosphor straits in Euxine seas,
Not farre from old Byzantum, closely stand
Two neighbor Islands, call’d Symplegades,
Which sometime seem but one combined land:
     For often meeting on the watrie plain,
     And parting oft, tost by the boist’rous main,
They now are joyn’d in one, and now disjoyn’d again.

29
Here oft not Lust, but sweetest Chastitie,
Coupled sometimes, and sometimes single, dwells;
Now linkt with Love, to quench Lusts tyrannie,
Now Phoenix-like alone in narrow cells:
     Such Phoenix one, but one at once may be:
     In Albions hills thee, Basilissa, thee,
Such onely have I seen, such shall I never see.

30
What Nymph was this, (said fairest Rosaleen)
Whom thou admirest thus above so many?
She, while she was, (ah!) was the shepherds Queen;
Sure such a shepherds Queen was never any:
     But (ah!) no joy her dying heart contented,
     Since she a deare Deers side unwilling rented;
Whose death she all too late, too soon, too much, repented.

31
Ah royall maid! why should’st thou thus lament thee?
Thy little fault was but too much beleeving:
It is too much so much thou should’st repent thee;
His joyous soul at rest desires no grieving.
     These words (vain words!) fond comforters did lend her;
     But (ah!) no words, no prayers might ever bend her
To give an end to grief, till endlesse grief did end her.

32
But how should I those sorrows dare display?
Or how limme forth her virtues wonderment?
She was (ay me! she was) the sweetest May
That ever flowr’d in Albions regiment.
     Few eyes fall’n lights adore: yet fame shall keep
     Her name awake, when others silent sleep;
While men have eares to hear, eyes to look back, and weep.

33
And though the curres (which whelpt & nurst in Spain,
Learn of fell Geryon to snarle and brawl)
Have vow’d and strove her Virgin tomb to stain;
And grinne, and fome, and rage, and yelp, and bawl:
     Yet shall our Cynthia’s high-triumphing light
     Deride their houling throats, and toothlesse spight;
And sail through heav’n, while they sink down in endlesse night.

34
So is this Islands lower region:
Yet ah much better is it sure then so.
But my poore reeds, like my condition,
(Low is the shepherds state, my song as low)
     Marre what they make: but now in yonder shade
     Rest we, while Sunnes have longer shadows made:
See how our panting flocks runne to the cooler glade.


1 Of all this lower region the Hepar, or liver, is the principall. The situation strong and safe, walled in by the ribs.

2 It is covered with one single tunicle: & that very thinne, and slight.

3 The liver is tied to the heart by arteries, to the head by nerves, and to both by veins dispersed to both.

4 The liver consists of no ordinary flesh, but of a kind proper to it self.

5 The livers upper part rises & swells gently; is very smooth, and even; the lower in the outside like to an hollow rock, rugged & craggy.

6 From it rise all the springs of bloud, which runnes in the veins.

7 The steward of the whole Isle is here fitly placed, because as all (that is brought in) is here fitted, and disposed, so from hence returned, and dispensed.

8 Here Plato disposed the seat of love. And certainly though lust (which some perversely call love) be otherwhere seated, yet that affection whereby we wish, and do well to others, may seem to be better fitted in the liver, then in the heart, (where most do place it) because this moderate heat appears more apt for this affection; and fires of the heart where (as Salamander) anger lives, seem not so fit to entertain it.

9 Hence rise the two great rivers of bloud, of which all the rest are lesser streams: The first is Porta, or the gate-vein, issuing from the hollow part and is shed toward the stomack, splene, guts, and the Epiploon. The second is Cava, the hollow vein, spreading his river over all the body.

10 The chyle, or juice of meats concocted in the stomack could not all be turned into sweet bloud by reason of the divers kindes of humours in it: Therefore there are three kinds of excrementall liquors suckt away by little vessels, and carried to their appointed places: one too light, and fiery; an other too earthy, and heavy; a third wheyish and watery.

11 Famous the controversie between the Peripateticks, and Physicians: one holding the heart, the other the liver to be first. That the liver is first in time and making, is manifest; because the Nurse (the vein that feeds the infant in the womb) empties it self upon the liver.

12 The first excrement drawn from the liver to the gall is cholerick, bitter, like flame in colour; which were it not removed, and kept in due place, would fill all the body with bitternesse, and gnawing.

13 Choledochus or the Gall, is of a membranous substance, having but one, yet that a strong tunicle. It hath two passages, one drawing the humour from the liver, another conveying the overplus into the first gut, and so emptying the gall. And this fence hath a double gate to keep the liquour from returning.

14 The second ill humour is earthy, and heavy, which is drawn from the liver by little vessels unto the splene, the native seat of melancholie, here some have placed laughter: but the splene seems rather the seat of malice and heavinesse.

15 If the splene should fail in this office, the whole body would be filled with melancholy fancies, and vain terrours.

16 Where the splene flourishes, all the body decayes, and withers; where the splene is kept down, the body flourishes. Hence Stratonicus merrily said, that in Crete dead men walked, because they were so splenitive, and pale-coloured.

17 Trajan compared the splene to his exchequer: because as his coffers being full drained his subjects purses, so the full splene makes the body saplesse.

18 The watery humour with some good bloud (which is spent for the nourishment of those parts) is drawn by the kidneys.

19 The Ureters receive the water separated from the bloud, as distilled from little fleshie substances in the kidneys, like to teats.

20 The kidneys are both alike; the left somewhat higher: both have a double skinne, and both compassed with fat.



CANT. IIII.


THe shepherds in the shade their hunger feasted

With simple cates, such as the countrey yeelds;
And while from scorching beams secure they rested,
The Nymphs disperst along the woody fields,
     Pull’d from their stalks the blushing strawberries,
     Which lurk close shrouded from high-looking eyes;
Shewing that sweetnesse oft both low and hidden lies.

2
But when the day had his meridian runne
Between his highest throne, and low declining;
Thirsil again his forced task begunne,
His wonted audience his sides entwining.
     The middle Province next this lower stands,
     Where th’ Isles Heart-city spreads his large comands,
Leagu’d to the neighbour towns with sure and friendly bands.

3
Such as that starre, which sets his glorious chair
In midst of heav’n, and to dead darknesse here
Gives light and life; such is this citie fair:
Their ends, place, office, state, so nearly neare,
     That those wise ancients from their natures sight,
     And likenesse, turn’d their names, and call’d aright
The sunne the great worlds heart, the heart the lesse worlds light.

4
1This middle coast to all the Isle dispends
All heat and life: hence it another Guard
(Beside those common to the first) defends;
Built whole of massie stone, cold, drie, and hard:
     Which stretching round about his circling arms,
     Warrants these parts from all exteriour harms;
Repelling angry force, securing all alar’ms.

5
But in the front 2two fair twin-bulwarks rise,
In th’ Arren built for strength, and ornament;
In Thelu of more use, and larger size;
For hence the young Isle draws his nourishment:
     Here lurking Cupid hides his bended bow;
     Here milkie springs in sugred rivers flow;
Which first gave th’ infant Isle to be, and then to grow.

6
3For when the lesser Island (still increasing
In Venus temple) to some greatnesse swells,
Now larger rooms and bigger spaces seizing,
It stops the Hepar rivers; backward reels
     The stream, and to these hills bears up his flight,
     And in these founts (by some strange hidden might)
Dies his fair rosie waves into a lily white.

7
So where fair Medway, down the Kentish dales
To many towns her plenteous waters dealing,
Lading her banks, into wide Thamis falls;
The big-grown main with fomie billows swelling,
     Stops there the sudding stream; her steddy race
     Staggers awhile, at length flies back apace,
And to the parent fount returns its fearfull pace.

8
4These two fair mounts are like two hemispheres,
Endow’d with goodly gifts and qualities;
Whose top two little purple hillocks reares,
Most like the poles in heavens Axletrees:
     And round about two circling altars gire,
     In blushing red; the rest in snowy tire
Like Thracian Haemus looks, which ne’re feels Phoebus fire.

9
That mighty hand in these dissected wreathes,
(Where moves our Sunne) his thrones fair picture gives;
The pattern breathlesse, but the picture breathes;
His highest heav’n is dead, our low heav’n lives:
     Nor scorns that loftie one thus low to dwell;
     Here his best starres he sets, and glorious cell;
And fills with saintly spirits, so turns to heav’n from hell.

10
About this Region round in compasse stands
A Guard, both for defence, and respiration,
5Of sixtie foure, parted in severall bands;
Half to let out the smokie exhalation,
     The other half to draw in fresher windes:
     Beside both these, a third of both their kindes,
That lets both out, & in; which no enforcement binds.

11
This third the merrie 6Diazome we call,
A border-citie these two coasts removing;
Which like a balk, with his crosse-builded wall,
Disparts the terms of anger, and of loving;
     Keeps from th’ Heart-citie fuming kitchin fires,
     And to his neighbours gentle windes inspires;
7Loose when he sucks in aire, contract when he expires.

12
8The Diazome of severall matter’s fram’d:
The first moist, soft; harder the next, and drier:
His fashion like the fish a Raia nam’d;
Fenc’d with two walls, one low, the other higher;
     By eight streams water’d; two from Hepar low,
     And from th’ Heart-town as many higher go;
But two twice told down from the Cephal mountain flow.

13
9Here sportfull Laughter dwells, here ever sitting,
Defies all lumpish griefs, and wrinkled care;
And twentie merrie-mates mirth causes fitting,
And smiles, which Laughters sonnes, yet infants are.
     But if this town be fir’d with burnings nigh,
     With selfsame flames high Cephals towers fry;
Such is their feeling love, and loving sympathie.

14
This coast stands girt with a 10peculiar wall,
The whole precinct, and every part defending:
11The chiefest Citie, and Imperiall,
Is fair Kerdia, farre his bounds extending;
     Which full to know were knowledge infinite:
     How then should my rude pen this wonder write,
Which thou, who onely mad’st it, onely know’st aright?

15
In middle of this middle Regiment
Kerdia seated lies, the centre deem’d
Of this whole Isle, and of this government:
If not the chiefest this, yet needfull’st seem’d,
     Therefore obtain’d an equall distant seat,
     More fitly hence to shed his life and heat,
And with his yellow streams the fruitfull Island wet.

16
12Flankt with two severall walls (for more defence)
Betwixt them ever flows a wheyish moat;
In whose soft waves, and circling profluence
This Citie, like an Isle, might safely float:
     In motion still (a motion fixt, not roving)
     Most like to heav’n in his most constant moving:
Hence most here plant the seat of sure and active loving.

17
Built of a substance like smooth porphyrie;
13His matter hid, and (like it self) unknown:
Two rivers of his own; another by,
That from the Hepar rises, like a crown,
      Infold the narrow part: for that great All
      This his works glory made pyramicall;
Then crown’d with triple wreath, & cloath’d in scarlet pall.

18
The Cities self in two 14partitions rest;
That on the right, thes on the other side;
15The right (made tributarie to the left)
Brings in his pension at his certain tide,
     A pension of liquours strangely wrought;
     Which first by Hepars streams are thither brought,
And here distill’d with art, beyond or words or thought.

19
16The grosser waves of these life-streams (which here
With much, yet much lesse labour is prepar’d)
A doubtfull chanel doth to Pneumon bear:
But to the left those labour’d extracts shar’d,
     As17 through a wall, with hidden passage slide;
     Where many secret gates (gates hardly spi’d)
With safe convoy give passage to the other side.

20
At each hand of the left 18two streets stand by,
Of severall stuffe, and severall working fram’d,
With hundred crooks, and deep-wrought cavitie:
Both like the eares in form, and so are nam’d.
      I’ th’ right hand street the tribute liquour sitteth:
      The left forc’t aire into his concave getteth;
Which subtile wrought, & thinne, for future workmen fitteth.

21
The Cities 19left side, (by some hid direction)
Of this thinne aire, and of that right sides rent,
(Compound together) makes a strange confection;
And in one vessel both together meynt,
     Stills them with equall never-quenched firing:
     Then in small streams (through all the Island wiring)
Sends it to every part, both heat and life inspiring.

22
20In this Heart-citie four main streams appeare;
One from the Hepar, where the tribute landeth,
Largely poures out his purple river here;
At whose wide mouth a band of Tritons standeth,
     (Three Tritons stand) who with their three-forkt mace
     Drive on, and speed the rivers flowing race,
But strongly stop the wave, if once it back repace.

23
21The second is that doubtfull chanel, lending
Some of this tribute to the Pneumon nigh;
Whose springs by carefull guards are watcht, that sending
From thence the waters, all regresse denie:
 The22 third unlike to this, from Pneumon flowing,
     And his due ayer-tribute here bestowing,
Is kept by gates and barres, which stop all backward going.

24
23The last full spring out of this left side rises,
Where three fair Nymphs, like Cynthia’s self appearing,
Draw down the stream which all the Isle suffices;
But stop back-waies, some ill revolture fearing.
     This river still it self to lesse dividing,
     At length with thousand little brooks runes sliding,
His fellow course along with Hepar chanels guiding.

25
24Within this Citie is the palace fram’d,
Where life, and lifes companion, heat, abideth;
And their attendants, passions untam’d:
(Oft very hell in this strait room resideth)
     And did not neighboring hills, cold aires inspiring,
     Allay their rage and mutinous conspiring,
Heat all (it self and all) would burn with quenchlesse firing.

26
Yea that great Light, by whom all heaven shines
With borrow’d beams, oft leaves his loftie skies,
And to this lowly seat himself confines.
Fall then again, proud heart, now fall to rise:
     Cease earth, ah cease, proud Babel earth, to swell:
     Heav’n blast high towers, stoops to a low-rooft cell;
First heav’n must dwell in man, then man in heav’n shall dwell.

27
Close to Kerdia 25Pneumon takes his seat,
Built of a lighter frame, and spungie mold:
Hence rise fresh aires to fanne Kerdia’s heat;
Temp’ring those burning fumes with moderate cold:
     It self of largest size, distended wide,
     In divers streets and out-wayes multipli’d:
Yet in one Corporation all are jointly ti’d.

28
Fitly ‘t is cloath’d with hangings 26thinne and light,
Lest too much weight might hinder motion:
His chiefest use to frame the voice aright;
(The voice which publishes each hidden notion)
     And for that end 27a long pipe down descends,
     (Which here it self in many lesser spends)
Untill low at the foot of Cephal mount it ends.

29
This pipe was built for th’ aiers safe purveiance,
To fit each severall voice with perfect sound;
Therefore of divers matter the conveiance
Is finely fram’d; the first in circles round,
     In hundred circles bended, hard and drie,
     (For watrie softnesse is sounds enemie)
Not altogether close, yet meeting very nigh.

30
The seconds drith and hardnesse somewhat lesse,
But smooth and pliable made for extending,
Fills up the distant circles emptinesse;
All in one bodie joyntly comprehending:
     The28 last most soft, which where the circles scanted
     Not fully met, supplies what they have wanted,
Not hurting tender parts, which next to this are planted.

31
29Upon the top there stands the pipes safe covering,
Made for the voices better modulation:
Above it foureteen carefull warders hovering,
Which shut and open it at all occasion:
     The cover in foure parts it self dividing,
     Of substance hard, fit for the voices guiding;
One still unmov’d (in Thelu double oft) residing.

32
30Close by this pipe runnes that great chanel down,
Which from high Cephals mount twice every day
Brings to Koilia due provision:
31Straight at whose mouth a floud-gate stops the way,
     Made like an Ivie leaf, broad-angle-fashion;
     Of matter hard, fitting his operation,
For swallowing soon to fall, and rise for inspiration.

33
But see, the smoak mounting in village nigh,
With folded wreaths steals through the quiet aire;
And mixt with duskie shades in Eastern skie,
Begins the night, and warns us home repair:
     Bright Vesper now hat chang’d his name and place,
     And twinkles in the heav’n with doubtfull face:
Home then my full-fed lambes; the night comes, home apace.

1 The heart is the seat of heat and life; therefore walled about with the ribs, for more safety.

2 The breasts, or paps, are given to men for strength, and ornament; to women, for milk and nurserie also.

3 When the infant grows big, he so oppresseth the vessls of bloud, that partly through the redinesse of the passage, but especially by the providence of God, the bloud turns back to the breast, & there by an innate but wonderfull facultie is turned into milk.

4 The breasts are in figure hemisphericall; whose tops are crowned with the teats, about which are reddish circles called (Areolae, or) little altars.

5 In the Thorax or breast, are sixty five muscles for respiration, or breathing, which is either free, or forced: The instruments of forced breathing are sixtie foure, whereof thirtie two distend, and as many contract it.

6 The instrument of the free breathing is the Diazome or Diaphragma, which we call the midriffe, as a wall parting the heart and liver: Plato affirms it a partition between the seats of desire, and anger: Aristotle, a barre to keep the noisome odour of the stomack from the heart.

7 The midriffe dilates it self when it draws in, contracts it self when it puffes out the aire.

8 The midriffe consists of two circles, one skinny, the other fleshie. It hath two tunicles, as many veins and arteries, and foure nerves.

9 Here most men have placed the seat of laughter: It hath much sympathie with the brain; so that if the midriffe be inflamed, present madness ensues it.

10 Within, the Pleura (or skinne which clotheh the ribs on the inside) compasses this middle region.

11 The chiefest part of this middle region is the Heart, placed in the midst of this province, and of the whole bodie: fitly was it placed in the midst of all, as being of all the most needful.

12 The Heart is immured partly by a membrane going round about it, (and thence receiving his name) and a peculiar tunicle; partly with an humour like whey or urine, as well as to cool the heart, as to lighten the body.

13 The flesh of the heart is proper and peculiar to it self, not like other muscles; of a figure pyramicall. The point of the heart is (as with a diademe) girt with two arteries, and a vein, called the crowns.

14 Though the heart be an entire body, yet it is severed into two partitions, the right, and left; of which the left is more excellent and noble.

15 The right receives into his hollownesse the bloud flowing from the liver, and concocts it.

16 This right side sends down to the lungs that part of this bloud with is lesse laboured, and thicker; but the thinner part of it sweats through a fleshie partition into the left side.

17 This fleshie partition severs the right side from the left; at first it seems thick, but if it be well viewed, we shall see it full of many pores, or passages.

18 Two skinny additions (from their likenesse called the eares) receive, the one the thicker bloud, (that called the right) the other (called the left) takes in the aire sent by the lungs.

19 The left side of the heart takes in this aire, and bloud; and concocting them both in his hollow bosome, sends them out by the great arterie into the whole body.

20 In the heart are foure great vessels: the first is the hollow vein bringing in the bloud from the liver; at whose mouth stand three little folding doores, with three forks giving passage, but no return to the bloud.

21 The second vessel is called the arterie-vein, which rising from the right side of the heart, carries down the bloud here prepared to the lungs for their nourishment. Here also is the three-folding doore, made like half-circles; giving passage from the heart, but not backward.

22 The third is called the Veiny arterie, rising from he left side, which hath two folds three-forked.

23 The fourth is the great arterie. This hath also a floudgate made of three semi-circular membranes, to give out load to the vital spirits, and stop their regresse.

24 The Heart is the fountain of life and heat to the whole bodie, and the seat of passions.

25 The Pneumon (or lungs) is nearest the heart, whose flesh is light, and spongie, very large. It is the instrument of breathing, and speaking, divided into many parcels, yet all united into one bodie.

26 The Lungs are covered with a light & very thinne tunicle, lest it might be an hindrance to the motion.

27 The winde-pipe, which is framed partly of cartilage, or grisly matter, because the voice is perfected with hard & smooth things; (these cartilages are compassed like a ring) partly of skin, which tie the grisles together.

28 And because the rights of the grisles do not wholly meet, this space is made up by muscles, that so the meat-pipe adjoyning might not be galled, or hurt.

29 The Larynx, or covering of the winde-pipe, is a grisly substance, parted into foure grisles of which the first is ever unmoved, and in women often double.

30 Adjoyning to it is the Oesophagus, or meat-pipe: conveying meats and drinks to the stomack.

31 At whose end is the Epiglottis, or cover of the throat, the principall instrument of tuning, and apting the voice; & therefore grisly, that it might sooner fall when we swallow, and rise when we breathe.




 
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