Le Roi S’Amuse
Jove gazed
On woven mazes
Of patterned movement as the atoms whirled.
His glance turned
Into dancing, burning
Colour-gods who rushed upon that sullen world,
Waking, re-making, exalting it anew –
Silver and purple, shrill-voiced yellow, turgid crimson, and virgin blue.
Jove stared
On overbearing
And aching splendour of the naked rocks.
Where his gaze smote,
Hazily floated
To mount like thistledown in countless flocks,
Fruit-loving, root-loving gods, cool and green
Of feathery grasses, heather and orchard, pollen'd lily, the olive and the bean.
Jove laughed.
Like cloven-shafted
Lightning, his laughter into brightness broke.
From every dint
Where the severed splinters
Had scattered a Sylvan or a Satyr woke;
Ounces came pouncing, dragon-people flew,
There was spirited stallion, squirrel unrespectful, clanging raven and kangaroo.
Jove sighed.
The hoving tide of
Ocean trembled at the motion of his breath.
The sigh turned
Into white, eternal,
Radiant Aphrodite unafraid of death;
A fragrance, a vagrant unrest on earth she flung,
There was favouring and fondling and bravery and building
and chuckling music and suckling of the young.
Jove thought.
He strove and wrought at
A thousand clarities; from his brows sprang
With earnest mien
Stern Athene;
The cold armour on her shoulders rang.
Our sires at the fires of her lucid eyes began
To speak in symbols, to seek out causes, to name the creatures; they became Man.
World and Man
Unfurled their banner –
It was gay Behemoth on a sable field.
Fresh-robed
In flesh, the ennobled
Spirits carousing in their myriads reeled;
There was frolic and holiday. Jove laughed to see
The abyss empeopled, his bliss imparted, the throng that was his and no longer he.
poem by Clive Staples Lewis
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Related quotes
To A Friend On His Nuptials
When Jove lay bless'd in his Alcmæna's charms,
Three nights in one he press'd her in his arms;
The sun lay set, and conscious nature strove
To shade her god, and to prolong his love.
From that auspicious night Alcides came;
What less could rise from Jove and such a dame?
May this auspicious night with that compare,
Nor less the joys, nor less the rising heir,
He strong as Jove, she like Alcmæna fair.
poem by Matthew Prior
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Homer's Hymn To Minerva
I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes,
Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise,
Tritogenia, town-preserving Maid,
Revered and mighty; from his awful head
Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed,
Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed
The everlasting Gods that Shape to see,
Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously
Rush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove;
Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move
Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed;
Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide;
And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high
In purple billows, the tide suddenly
Stood still, and great Hyperion’s son long time
Checked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime,
Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw
The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view.
Child of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee,
Nor thine nor others’ praise shall unremembered be.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Sonnet XIII: Phoebus Was Judge
Phoebus was judge between Jove, Mars, and Love,
Of those three gods, whose arms the fairest were:
Jove's golden shield did eagle sables bear,
Whose talons held young Ganymede above:
But in vert field Mars bare a golden spear,
Which through a bleeding heart his point did shove:
Each had his crest; Mars carried Venus' glove,
Jove in his helm the thunderbolt did rear.
Cupid them smiles, for on his crest there lies
Stella's fair hair, her face he makes his shield,
Where roses gules are borne in silver field.
Phoebus drew wide the curtains of the skies
To blaze these last, and sware devoutly then,
The first, thus match'd, were scantly gentlemen.
poem by Philip Sidney
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Licia Sonnets 13
Enamored Jove commanding did entreat
Cupid to wound my love, which he denied,
And swore he could not for she wanted heat
And would not love, as he full oft had tried.
Jove in a rage, impatient this to hear,
Replied with threats; "I'll make you to obey!"
Whereat the boy did fly away for fear
To Licia's eyes, where safe intrenched he lay.
Then Jove he scorned, and dared him to his face,
For now more safe than in the heavens he dwelled,
Nor could Jove's wrath do wrong to such a place
Where grace and honour have their kingdom held.
Thus in the pride and beauty of her eyes
The seely boy the greatest god defies.
poem by Giles Fletcher The Elder
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On The World
WITH a whirl of thoughts oppress’d,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
A horrid vision seized my head,
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, arm’d with terrors, bursts the skies,
And thunder roars and lightning flies!
Amazed, confused, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hung his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said:
“Offending race of human kind,
By nature, reason, learning, blind;
You who, through frailty, stepp’d aside;
And you, who never fell from pride:
You who in different sects were shamm’d,
And come to see each other damn’d;
(So some folk told you, but they knew
No more of Jove’s designs than you
—The world’s mad business now is o’er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
—I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools!—Go, go, you’re bit.”
poem by Jonathan Swift
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On Seeing Mrs. ** Perform In The Character Of
FOR you, bright fair, the nine address their lays,
And tune my feeble voice to sing thy praise.
The heartfelt power of every charm divine,
Who can withstand their all-commanding shine?
See how she moves along with every grace,
While soul-brought tears steal down each shining face.
She speaks! 'tis rapture all, and nameless bliss,
Ye gods! what transport e'er compared to this.
As when in Paphian groves the Queen of Love
With fond complaint addressed the listening Jove,
'Twas joy, and endless blisses all around,
And rocks forgot their hardness at the sound.
Then first, at last even Jove was taken in,
And felt her charms, without disguise, within.
poem by Oliver Goldsmith
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The Trial of the Gods
NEVER nobler was the Senate,
Never grander the debate:
Rome's old gods are on their trial
By the judges of the state!
Torn by warring creeds, the Fathers
Urge to-day the question home—
'Whether Jupiter or Jesus
Shall be God henceforth in Rome?'
Lo, the scene! In Jove's own temple,
As of old, the Fathers meet;
Through the porch, to hear the speeches,
Press the people from the street.
Pontiffs, rich with purple vesture,
Pass from senate chair to chair;
Learned augurs, still as statues—
Voiceless statues, too—are there;
Vestal virgins, white with terror,
Mutely asking—what has come?
What new light shall turn to darkness
Vesta's holy fire in Rome?
Answer, Quindecemvirs! Surely,
Of this wondrous Nazarene
Ye must know, who keep the secrets
Of the prophet Sibylline?
Nay, no word! Here stand the Flamens:
Have ye read the omens, priests?
Slain the victims, white and sable,
Scanned the entrails of the beast?
Priest of Pallas, see! the people
Ask for oracles to-day:
Silent! Priests of Mars and Venus?
Lo, they turn, dumb-lipped, away!
Priest of Jove? Flamen dialis!
Here in Jove's own temple meet
In debate the Roman Senate,
And Jove's priest with timid feet
Stands beyond the altar railing!
Gods, I feel ye frown above!
In the shadow of Jove's altar
Men defy the might of Jove!
Treason riots in the temple
At the sacrilege profound:
Virgins mocked, and augurs banished,
And divinities discrowned!
Hush! Old Rome herself appeareth,
Pleading for the ancient faith:
Urging all her by-gone glory—
That to change the old were death.
Rudely answer the patricians,
Scoffing at the time-worn snare:
Twice a thousand years of sacrifice
Have melted into air;
Twice a thousand years of worship
Have bitterly sufficed
To prove there is no Jupiter!
The Senate votes for Christ!
Not aimless is the story,
The moral not remote:
For still the gods are questioned,
And still the Senates vote.
Men sacrifice to Venus;
To Mars are victims led;
And Mercury is honored still;
And Bacchus is not dead;—
But these are minor deities
That cling to human sight:
Our twilight they—but Right and Wrong
Are clear as day and night.
We know the Truth: but falsehood
With our lives is so inwove—
Our Senates vote down Jesus
As old Rome degraded Jove!
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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From The Prometheus Vinctus Of Aeschylus
Great Jove, to whose almighty throne
Both gods and mortals homage pay,
Ne'er may my soul thy power disown,
Thy dread behests ne'er disobey.
Oft shall the sacred victim fall
In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall;
My voice shall raise no impious strain
'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main.
How different now thy joyless fate,
Since first Hesione thy bride,
When placed aloft in godlike state,
The blushing beauty by the side,
Thou sat'st, while reverend Ocean smiled,
And mirthful strains the hours beguiled;
The Nymphs and Tritons dances around,
Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless frown'd.
Homer's Hymn To Venus
Muse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite,
Who wakens with her smile the lulled delight
Of sweet desire, taming the eternal kings
Of Heaven, and men, and all the living things
That fleet along the air, or whom the sea,
Or earth, with her maternal ministry,
Nourish innumerable, thy delight
All seek ... O crowned Aphrodite!
Three spirits canst thou not deceive or quell:--
Minerva, child of Jove, who loves too well
Fierce war and mingling combat, and the fame
Of glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame.
Diana ... golden-shafted queen,
Is tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green
Of the wild woods, the bow, the...
And piercing cries amid the swift pursuit
Of beasts among waste mountains,--such delight
Is hers, and men who know and do the right.
Nor Saturn’s first-born daughter, Vesta chaste,
Whom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last,
Such was the will of aegis-bearing Jove;
But sternly she refused the ills of Love,
And by her mighty Father’s head she swore
An oath not unperformed, that evermore
A virgin she would live mid deities
Divine: her father, for such gentle ties
Renounced, gave glorious gifts--thus in his hall
She sits and feeds luxuriously. O’er all
In every fane, her honours first arise
From men--the eldest of Divinities.
These spirits she persuades not, nor deceives,
But none beside escape, so well she weaves
Her unseen toils; nor mortal men, nor gods
Who live secure in their unseen abodes.
She won the soul of him whose fierce delight
Is thunder--first in glory and in might.
And, as she willed, his mighty mind deceiving,
With mortal limbs his deathless limbs inweaving,
Concealed him from his spouse and sister fair,
Whom to wise Saturn ancient Rhea bare.
but in return,
In Venus Jove did soft desire awaken,
That by her own enchantments overtaken,
She might, no more from human union free,
Burn for a nursling of mortality.
For once amid the assembled Deities,
The laughter-loving Venus from her eyes
Shot forth the light of a soft starlight smile,
And boasting said, that she, secure the while,
Could bring at Will to the assembled Gods
The mortal tenants of earth’s dark abodes,
And mortal offspring from a deathless stem
She could produce in scorn and spite of them.
Therefore he poured desire into her breast
Of young Anchises,
Feeding his herds among the mossy fountains
Of the wide Ida’s many-folded mountains,--
Whom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung
Like wasting fire her senses wild among.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Ad Lesbiam
Equal to Jove that youth must be-
Greater than Jove he seems to me-
Who, free from Jealousy's alarms,
Securely views thy matchless charms;
That cheek, which ever dimpling glows,
That mouth, from whence such music flows,
To him, alike, are always known,
Reserved for him, and him alone.
Ah! Lesbia! though 'tis death to me,
I cannot choose but look on thee;
But, at the sight, my senses fly,
I needs must gaze, but, gazing, die;
Whilst trembling with a thousand fears,
Parch'd to the throat my tongue adheres,
My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short,
My limbs deny their slight support,
Cold dews my pallid face o'erspread,
With deadly languor droops my head,
My ears with tingling echoes ring,
And life itself is on the wing;
My eyes refuse the cheering light,
Their orbs are veil'd in starless night:
Such pangs my nature sinks beneath,
And feels a temporary death.
poem by Catullus, translated by Byron
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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First Epigram: Upon Being Contented with a Little
1 We deem them moderate, but Enough implore,
2 What barely will suffice, and ask no more:
3 Who say, (O Jove) a competency give,
4 Neither in Luxury, or Want we'd live.
5 But what is that, which these Enough do call?
6 If both theIndies unto some should fall,
7 Such Wealth would yet Enough but onely be,
8 And what they'd term not Want, or Luxury.
9 Among the Suits, O Jove, my humbler take;
10 A little give, I that Enough will make.
poem by Anne Killigrew
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King Cophetua The First
Said Jove within himself one day,
‘I'll make me a mistress out of clay!
These ninefold spheres of chiming quires,
Though little things and therefore sweet,
Too Godlike are for my desires:
My pleasure still is incomplete.
The gust of love is mystery,
Which poorly yet the heavens supply.
Now where may God for mystery seek
Save in the earthly, small, and weak?
My work, then, let me crown and end
With what I ne'er shall comprehend!’
And so the unfathomable Need,
Hell's mock, Heaven's pity, was decreed.
And, with perversity immense
As all his other affluence,
Jove left his wondering Court behind
And Juno's almost equal mind,
On low and little Earth to seek
That vessel infinitely weak,
(The abler for the infinite honour
He hugely long'd to put upon her,)
And, in a melancholy grove,
Found sighing his predestined Love,
A pretty, foolish, pensive maid,
The least of heaven-related things,
Of every boy and beast afraid,
But not of him, the King of Kings.
He look'd so measurelessly mild,
And so he flatter'd her, poor child,
By lifting with respect her hand
To his salute benign and grand,
That, when he spoke, and begged to be
Instructed in her wishes, she,
Having a modest minute tarried,
Lisp'd, ‘I should like, Sire, to be married.’
But, when he smiling ask'd, ‘Whom to?’
She blush'd and said, she scarcely knew.
Then Jove named Shepherds, Lords, and Kings
To her free choice; for all such things
Were his and his to give; but these
She shook her curls at. ‘Hard to please
Is my small Cousin, but my nod
Shall call from heaven some splendid God—’
‘Ah, Maker mine, no God will do
That's not as great a God as you!’
Thereat Jove laugh'd: ‘As least of things
Alone can sate the King of Kings,
So the least thing, it seems, that I
Alone of Gods can satisfy!’
And, fading in her flushing arms,
He blazed for ever from her charms.
Thenceforth the maiden sang and shone,
Admired by all and woo'd by none,
For, though she said she was a sinner,
'Twas clear to all that Jove was in her,
And, but for that deep pagan night,
She would have been a Carmelite.
poem by Coventry Patmore
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Thaumantia and Fame
Go Thaumantia,' said Jove, 'and descend from the sky,
'For Fame's golden clarion I hear;
'Go learn what great mortal's desert is so high
'As to ask notes so loud, sweet, and clear.
The goddess in haste met the starry wing'd dame,
And demands why her notes she does raise?
'For the greatest of patriots and heroes,' said Fame,
'Tell Jove it is Washington's praise!'
poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
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An Allegory On Man
A thoughtful Being, long and spare,
Our Race of Mortals call him Care:
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What Name the Gods have call'd him too)
With fine Mechanick Genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, tho' no one bought.
This Being, by a Model bred
In Jove's eternal sable Head,
Contriv'd a Shape impow'rd to breathe,
And be the Worldling here beneath.
The Man rose staring, like a Stake;
Wond'ring to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The Bus'ness he was made to do;
That pleas'd to see with what a Grace
He gravely shew'd his forward Face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An Under-something of the Sky.
But e'er he gave the mighty Nod,
Which ever binds a Poet's God:
(For which his Curls Ambrosial shake,
And Mother Earth's oblig'd to quake
He saw old Mother Earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his Eyes;
But not with what we read she wore,
A Castle for a Crown before,
Nor with long Streets and longer Roads
Dangling behind her, like Commodes:
As yet with Wreaths alone she drest,
And trail'd a Landskip-painted Vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, (as Ovid said)
And thrice she bow'd, her weighty Head.
Her Honours made, Great Jove, she cry'd,
This Thing was fashion'd from my Side;
His Hands, his Heart, his Head are mine;
Then what hast thou to call him thine?
Nay rather ask, the Monarch said,
What boots his Hand, his Heart, his Head,
Were what I gave remov'd away?
Thy Part's an idle Shape of Clay.
Halves, more than Halves! cry'd honest Care,
Your Pleas wou'd make your Titles fair,
You claim the Body, you the Soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.
Thus with the Gods Debate began,
On such a trivial Cause, as Man.
And can Celestial Tempers rage?
(Quoth Virgil in a later Age.)
As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paint him such as I,
For what the Fabling Antients sung
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young.)
As yet his Winters had not shed
Their silver Honours on his Head;
He just had got his Pinions free
From his old Sire Eternity.
A Serpent girdled round he wore,
The Tail within the Mouth before;
By which our Almanacks are clear
That learned Ægypt meant the Year.
A Staff he carry'd, where on high
A Glass was fix'd to measure by,
As Amber Boxes made a Show
For Heads of Canes an Age ago.
His Vest, for Day, and Night, was py'd;
A bending Sickle arm'd his Side;
And Spring's new Months his Train adorn;
The other Seasons were unborn.
Known by the Gods, as near he draws,
They make him Umpire of the Cause.
O'er a low Trunk his Arm he laid,
(Where since his Hours a Dial made
Then leaning heard the nice Debate,
And thus pronounc'd the Words of Fate.
Since Body from the Parent Earth,
And Soul from Jove receiv'd a Birth,
Return they where they first began;
But since their Union makes the Man,
'Till Jove and Earth shall part these two,
To Care who join'd them, Man is due.
He said, and sprung with swift Career
To trace a Circle for the Year;
Where ever since the Seasons wheel,
And tread on one another's Heel.
'Tis well, said Jove, and for consent
Thund'ring he shook the Firmament.
Our Umpire Time shall have his Way,
With Care I let the Creature stay:
Let Bus'ness vex him, Av'rice blind,
Let Doubt and Knowledge rack his Mind,
Let Error act, Opinion speak,
And Want afflict, and Sickness break,
And Anger burn, Dejection chill,
And Joy distract, and Sorrow kill.
'Till arm'd by Care and taught to Mow,
Time draws the long destructive Blow;
And wasted Man, whose quick decay
Comes hurrying on before his Day,
Shall only find, by this Decree,
The Soul flies sooner back to Me.
poem by Thomas Parnell
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I Dreamed I Moved Among The Elysian Fields
I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields,
In converse with sweet women long since dead;
And out of blossoms which that meadow yields
I wove a garland for your living head.
Danai, that was the vessel for a day
Of golden Jove, I saw, and at her side,
Whom Jove the Bull desired and bore away,
Europa stood, and the Swan's featherless bride.
All these were mortal women, yet all these
Above the ground had had a god for guest;
Freely I walked beside them and at ease,
Addressing them, by them again addressed,
And marvelled nothing, for remembering you,
Wherefore I was among them well I knew.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Jove.
Jove himself moves in the abyss
As in the heights he goes;
The God is so in all that is,
Yet is what no one knows.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Sonnet VI: Some Lovers Speak
Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain,
Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires:
Of force of heav'nly beams, infusing hellish pain:
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires.
Some one his song in Jove, and Jove's strange tales attires,
Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain;
Another humbler wit to shepherd's pipe retires,
Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein.
To some a sweetest plaint a sweetest style affords,
While tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his words:
His paper pale despair, and pain his pen doth move.
I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they,
But think that all the map of my state I display,
When trembling voice brings forth that I do Stella love.
poem by Philip Sidney
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Sonnet 6: Some Lovers Speak
Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain,
Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires:
Of force of heav'nly beams, infusing hellish pain:
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires.
Some one his song in Jove, and Jove's strange tales attires,
Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain;
Another humbler wit to shepherd's pipe retires,
Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein.
To some a sweetest plaint a sweetest style affords,
While tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his words:
His paper pale despair, and pain his pen doth move.
I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they,
But think that all the map of my state I display,
When trembling voice brings forth that I do Stella love.
poem by Philip Sidney
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To A Moralist
Are the sports of our youth so displeasing?
Is love but the folly you say?
Benumbed with the winter, and freezing,
You scold at the revels of May.
For you once a nymph had her charms,
And Oh! when the waltz you were wreathing,
All Olympus embraced in your arms--
All its nectar in Julia's breathing.
If Jove at that moment had hurled
The earth in some other rotation,
Along with your Julia whirled,
You had felt not the shock of creation.
Learn this--that philosophy beats
Sure time with the pulse,--quick or slow
As the blood from the heyday retreats,--
But it cannot make gods of us--No!
It is well icy reason should thaw
In the warm blood of mirth now and then,
The gods for themselves have a law
Which they never intended for men.
The spirit is bound by the ties
Of its gaoler, the flesh;--if I can
Not reach as an angel the skies,
Let me feel on the earth as a man!
poem by Friedrich Schiller
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Homage To Sextus Propertius - VIII
Jove, be merciful to that unfortunate woman
Or an ornamental death will be held to your debit,
The time is come, the air heaves in torridity,
The dry earth pants against the canicular heat,
But this heat is not the root of the matter:
She did not respect all the gods;
Such derelictions have destroyed other young ladies aforetime,
And what they swore in the cupboard
wind and wave scattered away.
Was Venus exacerbated by the existence of a comparable equal?
Is the ornamental goddess full of envy?
Have you contempted Juno's Pelasgian temples,
Have you denied Pallas good eyes ?
Or is it my tongue that wrongs you
with perpetual ascription of graces?
There comes, it seems, and at any rate
through perils, (so many) and of a vexed life,
The gentler hour of an ultimate day.
Io mooed the first years with averted head,
And now drinks Nile water like a god,
Ino in her young days fled pellmell out of Thebes,
Andromeda was offered to a sea-serpent
and respectably married to Perseus,
Callisto, disguised as a bear,
wandered through the Arcadian prairies
While a black veil was over her stars,
What if your fates are accelerated,
your quiet hour put forward,
You may find interment pleasing,
You will say that you succumbed to a danger identical,
charmingly identical, with Semele's,
And believe it, and she also will believe it,
being expert from experience,
And amid all the gloried and storied beauties of Maeonia
There shall be none in a better seat, not
one denying your prestige,
Now you may bear fate's stroke unperturbed,
Or Jove, harsh as he is, may turn aside your ultimate day.
Old lecher, let not Juno get wind of the matter,
Or perhaps Juno herself will go under,
If the young lady is taken?
There will be, in any case, a stir on Olympus.
poem by Ezra Pound
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