<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=342087" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Masque of Queen Bersabe: A Miracle-Play</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">KING DAVID.<br>Knights mine, all that be in hall,<br>I have a counsel to you all,<br>Because of this thing God lets fall<br>Among us for a sign.<br>For some days hence as I did eat<br>From kingly dishes my good meat,<br>There flew a bird between my feet<br>As red as any wine.<br>This bird had a long bill of red<br>And a gold ring above his head;<br>Long time he sat and nothing said,<br>Put softly down his neck and fed<br>From the gilt patens fine:<br>And as I marvelled, at the last<br>He shut his two keen eyën fast<br>And suddenly woxe big and brast<br>Ere one should tell to nine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PRIMUS MILES.<br>Sir, note this that I will say;<br>That Lord who maketh corn with hay<br>And morrows each of yesterday,<br>He hath you in his hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">SECUNDUS MILES (Paganus quidam).<br>By Satan I hold no such thing;<br>For if wine swell within a king<br>Whose ears for drink are hot and ring,<br>The same shall dream of wine-bibbing<br>Whilst he can lie or stand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">QUEEN BERSABE.<br>Peace now, lords, for Godis head,<br>Ye chirk as starlings that be fed<br>And gape as fishes newly dead;<br>The devil put your bones to bed,<br>Lo, this is all to say.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">SECUNDUS MILES.<br>By Mahound, lords, I have good will<br>This devil’s bird to wring and spill;<br>For now meseems our game goes ill,<br>Ye have scant hearts to play.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">TERTIUS MILES.<br>Lo, sirs, this word is there said,<br>That Urias the knight is dead<br>Through some ill craft; by Poulis head,<br>I doubt his blood hath made so red<br>This bird that flew from the queen’s bed<br>Whereof ye have such fear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">KING DAVID.<br>Yea, my good knave, and is it said<br>That I can raise men from the dead?<br>By God I think to have his head<br>Who saith words of my lady’s bed<br>For any thief to hear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Et percutiat eum in capite.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">QUEEN BERSABE.<br>I wis men shall spit at me,<br>And say, it were but right for thee<br>That one should hang thee on a tree;<br>Ho! it were a fair thing to see<br>The big stones bruise her false body;<br>Fie! who shall see her dead?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">KING DAVID.<br>I rede you have no fear of this,<br>For, as ye wot, the first good kiss<br>I had must be the last of his;<br>Now are ye queen of mine, I wis,<br>And lady of a house that is<br>Full rich of meat and bread.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PRIMUS MILES.<br>I bid you make good cheer to be<br>So fair a queen as all men see,<br>And hold us for your lieges free;<br>By Peter’s soul that hath the key,<br>Ye have good hap of it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">SECUNDUS MILES.<br>I would that he were hanged and dead<br>Who hath no joy to see your head<br>With gold about it, barred on red;<br>I hold him as a sow of lead<br>That is so scant of wit.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tunc dicat NATHAN propheta</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O king, I have a word to thee;<br>The child that is in Bersabe<br>Shall wither without light to see;<br>This word is come of God by me<br>For sin that ye have done.<br>Because herein ye did not right,<br>To take the fair one lamb to smite<br>That was of Urias the knight;<br>Ye wist he had but one.<br>Full many sheep I wot ye had,<br>And many women, when ye bade,<br>To do your will and keep you glad;<br>And a good crown about your head<br>With gold to show thereon.<br>This Urias had one poor house<br>With low-barred latoun shot-windows<br>And scant of corn to fill a mouse;<br>And rusty basnets for his brows,<br>To wear them to the bone.<br>Yea the roofs also, as men sain,<br>Were thin to hold against the rain;<br>Therefore what rushes were there lain<br>Grew wet withouten foot of men;<br>The stancheons were all gone in twain<br>As sick man’s flesh is gone.<br>Nathless he had great joy to see<br>The long hair of this Bersabe<br>Fall round her lap and round her knee<br>Even to her small soft feet, that be<br>Shod now with crimson royally<br>And covered with clean gold.<br>Likewise great joy he had to kiss<br>Her throat, where now the scarlet is<br>Against her little chin, I wis,<br>That then was but cold.<br>No scarlet then her kirtle had<br>And little gold about it sprad;<br>But her red mouth was alway glad<br>To kiss, albeit the eyes were sad<br>With love they had to hold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">SECUNDUS MILES.<br>How! old thief, thy wits are lame;<br>To clip such it is no shame;<br>I rede you in the devil’s name,<br>Ye come not here to make men game;<br>By Termagaunt that maketh grame,<br>I shall to-bete thine head.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hic Diabolus capiat eum.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This knave hath sharp fingers, perfay;<br>Mahound you thank and keep alway,<br>And give you good knees to pray;<br>What man hath no lust to play,<br>The devil wring his ears, I say;<br>There is no more but wellaway,<br>For now am I dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">KING DAVID.<br>Certes his mouth is wried and black,<br>Full little pence be in his sack;<br>This devil hath him by the back,<br>It is no boot to lie.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">NATHAN.<br>Sitteth now still and learn of me;<br>A little while and ye shall see<br>The face of God’s strength presently.<br>All queens made as this Bersabe,<br>All that were fair and foul ye be,<br>Come hither; it am I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Et hìc omnes cantabunt.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">HERODIAS.<br>I am the queen Herodias.<br>This headband of my temples was<br>King Herod’s gold band woven me.<br>This broken dry staff in my hand<br>Was the queen’s staff of a great land<br>Betwixen Perse and Samarie.<br>For that one dancing of my feet,<br>The fire is come in my green wheat,<br>From one sea to the other sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">AHOLIBAH.<br>I am the queen Aholibah.<br>My lips kissed dumb the word of Ah<br>Sighed on strange lips grown sick thereby.<br>God wrought to me my royal bed;<br>The inner work thereof was red,<br>The outer work was ivory.<br>My mouth’s heat was the heat of flame<br>For lust towards the kings that came<br>With horsemen riding royally.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">CLEOPATRA.<br>I am the queen of Ethiope.<br>Love bade my kissing eyelids ope<br>That men beholding might praise love.<br>My hair was wonderful and curled;<br>My lips held fast the mouth o’ the world<br>To spoil the strength and speech thereof.<br>The latter triumph in my breath<br>Bowed down the beaten brows of death,<br>Ashamed they had not wrath enough.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ABIHAIL.<br>I am the queen of Tyrians.<br>My hair was glorious for twelve spans,<br>That dried to loose dust afterward.<br>My stature was a strong man’s length;<br>My neck was like a place of strength<br>Built with white walls, even and hard.<br>Like the first noise of rain leaves catch<br>One from another, snatch by snatch,<br>Is my praise, hissed against and marred.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">AZUBAH.<br>I am the queen of Amorites.<br>My face was like a place of lights<br>With multitudes at festival.<br>The glory of my gracious brows<br>Was like God’s house made glorious<br>With colours upon either wall.<br>Between my brows and hair there was<br>A white space like a space of glass<br>With golden candles over all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">AHOLAH.<br>I am the queen of Amalek.<br>There was no tender touch or fleck<br>To spoil my body or bared feet.<br>My words were soft like dulcimers,<br>And the first sweet of grape-flowers<br>Made each side of my bosom sweet.<br>My raiment was as tender fruit<br>Whose rind smells sweet of spice-tree root,<br>Bruised balm-blossom and budded wheat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">AHINOAM.<br>I am the queen Ahinoam.<br>Like the throat of a soft slain lamb<br>Was my throat, softer veined than his:<br>My lips were as two grapes the sun<br>Lays his whole weight of heat upon<br>Like a mouth heavy with a kiss:<br>My hair’s pure purple a wrought fleece,<br>My temples therein as a piece<br>Of a pomegranate’s cleaving is.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ATARAH.<br>I am the queen Sidonian.<br>My face made faint the face of man,<br>And strength was bound between my brows.<br>Spikenard was hidden in my ships,<br>Honey and wheat and myrrh in strips,<br>White wools that shine as colour does,<br>Soft linen dyed upon the fold,<br>Split spice and cores of scented gold,<br>Cedar and broken calamus.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">SEMIRAMIS.<br>I am the queen Semiramis.<br>The whole world and the sea that is<br>In fashion like a chrysopras,<br>The noise of all men labouring,<br>The priest’s mouth tired through thanksgiving,<br>The sound of love in the blood’s pause,<br>The strength of love in the blood’s beat,<br>All these were cast beneath my feet<br>And all found lesser than I was.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">HESIONE.<br>I am the queen Hesione.<br>The seasons that increased in me<br>Made my face fairer than all men’s.<br>I had the summer in my hair;<br>And all the pale gold autumn air<br>Was as the habit of my sense.<br>My body was as fire that shone;<br>God’s beauty that makes all things one<br>Was one among my handmaidens.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">CHRYSOTHEMIS.<br>I am the queen of Samothrace.<br>God, making roses, made my face<br>As a rose filled up full with red.<br>My prows made sharp the straitened seas<br>From Pontus to that Chersonese<br>Whereon the ebbed Asian stream is shed.<br>My hair was as sweet scent that drips;<br>Love’s breath begun about my lips<br>Kindled the lips of people dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">THOMYRIS.<br>I am the queen of Scythians.<br>My strength was like no strength of man’s,<br>My face like day, my breast like spring.<br>My fame was felt in the extreme land<br>That hath sunshine on the one hand<br>And on the other star-shining.<br>Yea, and the wind there fails of breath;<br>Yea, and there life is waste like death;<br>Yea, and there death is a glad thing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">HARHAS.<br>I am the queen of Anakim.<br>In the spent years whose speech is dim,<br>Whose raiment is the dust and death,<br>My stately body without stain<br>Shone as the shining race of rain<br>Whose hair a great wind scattereth.<br>Now hath God turned my lips to sighs,<br>Plucked off mine eyelids from mine eyes,<br>And sealed with seals my way of breath.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">MYRRHA.<br>I am the queen Arabian.<br>The tears wherewith mine eyelids ran<br>Smelt like my perfumed eyelids’ smell.<br>A harsh thirst made my soft mouth hard,<br>That ached with kisses afterward;<br>My brain rang like a beaten bell.<br>As tears on eyes, as fire on wood,<br>Sin fed upon my breath and blood,<br>Sin made my breasts subside and swell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PASIPHAE.<br>I am the queen Pasiphae.<br>Not all the pure clean-coloured sea<br>Could cleanse or cool my yearning veins;<br>Nor any root nor herb that grew,<br>Flag-leaves that let green water through,<br>Nor washing of the dews and rains.<br>From shame’s pressed core I wrung the sweet<br>Fruit’s savour that was death to eat,<br>Whereof no seed but death remains.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">SAPPHO.<br>I am the queen of Lesbians.<br>My love, that had no part in man’s,<br>Was sweeter than all shape of sweet.<br>The intolerable infinite desire<br>Made my face pale like faded fire<br>When the ashen pyre falls through with heat.<br>My blood was hot wan wine of love,<br>And my song’s sound the sound thereof,<br>The sound of the delight of it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">MESSALINA.<br>I am the queen of Italy.<br>These were the signs God set on me;<br>A barren beauty subtle and sleek,<br>Curled carven hair, and cheeks worn wan<br>With fierce false lips of many a man,<br>Large temples where the blood ran weak,<br>A mouth athirst and amorous<br>And hungering as the grave’s mouth does<br>That, being an-hungred, cannot speak.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">AMESTRIS.<br>I am the queen of Persians.<br>My breasts were lordlier than bright swans,<br>My body as amber fair and thin.<br>Strange flesh was given my lips for bread,<br>With poisonous hours my days were fed,<br>And my feet shod with adder-skin.<br>In Shushan toward Ecbatane<br>I wrought my joys with tears and pain,<br>My loves with blood and bitter sin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">EPHRATH.<br>I am the queen of Rephaim.<br>God, that some while refraineth him,<br>Made in the end a spoil of me.<br>My rumour was upon the world<br>As strong sound of swoln water hurled<br>Through porches of the straining sea.<br>My hair was like the flag-flower,<br>And my breasts carven goodlier<br>Than beryl with chalcedony.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">PASITHEA.<br>I am the queen of Cypriotes.<br>Mine oarsmen, labouring with brown throats,<br>Sang of me many a tender thing.<br>My maidens, girdled loose and braced<br>With gold from bosom to white waist,<br>Praised me between their wool-combing.<br>All that praise Venus all night long<br>With lips like speech and lids like song<br>Praised me till song lost heart to sing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ALACIEL.<br>I am the queen Alaciel.<br>My mouth was like that moist gold cell<br>Whereout the thickest honey drips.<br>Mine eyes were as a grey-green sea;<br>The amorous blood that smote on me<br>Smote to my feet and finger-tips.<br>My throat was whiter than the dove,<br>Mine eyelids as the seals of love,<br>And as the doors of love my lips.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ERIGONE.<br>I am the queen Erigone.<br>The wild wine shed as blood on me<br>Made my face brighter than a bride’s.<br>My large lips had the old thirst of earth,<br>Mine arms the might of the old sea’s girth<br>Bound round the whole world’s iron sides.<br>Within mine eyes and in mine ears<br>Were music and the wine of tears,<br>And light, and thunder of the tides.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Et hìc exeant, et dicat Bersabe regina;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alas, God, for thy great pity<br>And for the might that is in thee,<br>Behold, I woful Bersabe<br>Cry out with stoopings of my knee<br>And thy wrath laid and bound on me<br>Till I may see thy love.<br>Behold, Lord, this child is grown<br>Within me between bone and bone<br>To make me mother of a son,<br>Made of my body with strong moan;<br>There shall not be another one<br>That shall be made hereof.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">KING DAVID.<br>Lord God, alas, what shall I sain?<br>Lo, thou art as an hundred men<br>Both to break and build again:<br>The wild ways thou makest plain,<br>Thine hands hold the hail and rain,<br>And thy fingers both grape and grain;<br>Of their largess we be all well fain,<br>And of their great pity:<br>The sun thou madest of good gold,<br>Of clean silver the moon cold,<br>All the great stars thou hast told<br>As thy cattle in thy fold<br>Every one by his name of old;<br>Wind and water thou hast in hold,<br>Both the land and the long sea;<br>Both the green sea and the land,<br>Lord God, thou hast in hand,<br>Both white water and grey sand;<br>Upon thy right or thy left hand<br>There is no man that may stand;<br>Lord, thou rue on me.<br>O wise Lord, if thou be keen<br>To note things amiss that been,<br>I am not worth a shell of bean<br>More than an old mare meagre and lean;<br>For all my wrong-doing with my queen,<br>It grew not of our heartès clean,<br>But it began of her body.<br>For it fell in the hot May<br>I stood within a paven way<br>Built of fair bright stone, perfay,<br>That is as fire of night and day<br>And lighteth all my house.<br>Therein be neither stones nor sticks,<br>Neither red nor white bricks,<br>But for cubits five or six<br>There is most goodly sardonyx<br>And amber laid in rows.<br>It goes round about my roofs,<br>(If ye list ye shall have proofs)<br>There is good space for horse and hoofs,<br>Plain and nothing perilous.<br>For the fair green weather’s heat,<br>And for the smell of leavès sweet,<br>It is no marvel, well ye weet,<br>A man to waxen amorous.<br>This I say now by my case<br>That spied forth of that royal place;<br>There I saw in no great space<br>Mine own sweet, both body and face,<br>Under the fresh boughs.<br>In a water that was there<br>She wesshe her goodly body bare<br>And dried it with her owen hair:<br>Both her arms and her knees fair,<br>Both bosom and brows;<br>Both shoulders and eke thighs<br>Tho she wesshe upon this wise;<br>Ever she sighed with little sighs,<br>And ever she gave God thank.<br>Yea, God wot I can well see yet<br>Both her breast and her sides all wet<br>And her long hair withouten let<br>Spread sideways like a drawing net;<br>Full dear bought and full far fet<br>Was that sweet thing there y-set;<br>It were a hard thing to forget<br>How both lips and eyen met,<br>Breast and breath sank.<br>So goodly a sight as there she was,<br>Lying looking on her glass<br>By wan water in green grass,<br>Yet saw never man.<br>So soft and great she was and bright<br>With all her body waxen white,<br>I woxe nigh blind to see the light<br>Shed out of it to left and right;<br>This bitter sin from that sweet sight<br>Between us twain began.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">NATHAN.<br>Now, sir, be merry anon,<br>For ye shall have a full wise son,<br>Goodly and great of flesh and bone;<br>There shall no king be such an one,<br>I swear by Godis rood.<br>Therefore, lord, be merry here,<br>And go to meat withouten fear,<br>And hear a mass with goodly cheer;<br>For to all folk ye shall be dear,<br>And all folk of your blood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Et tunc dicant Laudamus.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Algernon+Charles+Swinburne">Algernon Charles Swinburne</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=342087" data-title="The Masque of Queen Bersabe: A Miracle-Play de Algernon Charles Swinburne" data-description="KING DAVID. Knights mine, all that be in hall, I have a counsel to you all, Because of this thing God lets fall Among us for a sign. For some days hence as I did eat From kingly dishes my good meat, There flew a bird between my feet As red as any ..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black