Christs passion a tragedie, with annotations. — Christus patiens. English

Author: Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645.1640

CHRISTS PASSION. A TRAGEDIE. WITH ANNOTATIONS.

LONDON, Printed by Iohn Legatt. M. D. C. XL.

TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE.

SIR,

I Am bold to present you with this Peece of the PASSION, the Originall designed by the curious Pensill of Grotius: whose former afflictions seeme to have taught him pliable passions, and art to rule the affections of others: cloathing the saddest of Subjects in the sutable attire of Tragedy; not without the Example of two ancient Fathers of the Primitive Church, Apollinarius and Nazianzen. The Argument is [Page] of both the Testaments a patheticall Abstract. Those formidable Wonders, effected by God in his owne Common-wealth; those stupendious Miracles, for truth a Pattern to all History, for strangenesse to all Fables; here meet together to attend on CHRIST'S PASSION. The effects of his Power here sweetly end in those of his Mercy: and that terrible Lord of Hosts, is now this meeke God of Peace; reconciling all to one another, and Man-kinde to Him-selfe. S^r. in this change of Language I am no punctuall Interpreter: a way as servill as ungracefull. Quintilian censures a Painter, [Page] that he more affected Similitude then Beauty; who would have shown greater Skill, if lesse of Resemblance: the same in Poetry is condemned by Horace; of that Art the great Law-giver. Thus in the Shadow of your Absence, dismist from Arms by an Act of Time, have I, in what I was able, continued to serve you.

The humblest of your Majesties Servants, GEORGE SANDYS.

[Page]

THE PERSONS.

JESUS.
CHORUS OF JEWISH WOMEN.
PETER.
PONTIUS PILATE.
CAIAPHAS.
JUDAS.
THE JEWS.
FIRST NUNCIUS.
SECOND NUNCIUS.
CHORUS OF ROMANE SOULDIERS.
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.
NICODEMUS.
JOHN.
MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS.

Imprimatur:

Tho: Wykes.

September 17. 1639.

[Page 1]

THE FIRST ACT.JESVS.
O Thou who govern'st what thou didst create
With equall sway, great Arbiter of Fate,
The Worlds Almighty Father; I, thy Son,
Though born in Time, before his Course begun;
Thus far my Deeds have answered thy Commands:
If more remain, my Zeale prepared stands
To execute thy Charge: all that I feare,
All that I hate, I shall with patience beare;
No misery refuse, no toile, nor shame:
I know for this into the world I came.
And yet how long shall these extreames indure!
What Day or Night have known my life secure!
My burthen, by induring, heavier grows;
And present ills a way to worse disclose.
My Kingdome, Heaven, I left, to visit Earth;
And suffer'd banishment before my Birth.
An unknown Infant, in a stable born,
Lodg'd in a manger: little, poore, forlorn,
And miserable: though so vile a Thing,
Yet worthy of the envy of a King.
Two yeers scarce yet compleat, too old was thought
By Herods fears: while I alone was sought,
[Page 2]The bloudy Sword Ephratian Dames deprives
Of their dear Babes; through wounds they exhal'd their lives.
Secur'd by flying to a forreign Clime,
The Tyrant through his Error lost his Crime.
A Thousand Miracles have made me known
Through all the World, and my extraction shown.
Envy against me raves: yet Vertue hath
More storms of Mischief rais'd, then Herods wrath.
It is decreed by thy unchanging Will,
I should be acknowledg'd, and rejected still?
Th'inspired Magi from the Orient came,
Prefer'd my Starre before their Mithra's flame,
And at my infant feet devoutly fell:
But Abrahams Seed, the House of Israel,
To thee sequestred from Eternity,
Degenerate and ingrate! their God deny.
Behold the contumacious Pharisies,
Arm'd with dissembled Zeale, against me rise:
The bloudy Priests to their stern Party draw
The Doctors of their unobserved law:
And impious Sadduces, to perpetrate
My intended Overthrow incense the State.
What rests to quicken Faith? Even at my Nod
Nature submits, acknowledging her God.
The Galilean Youth drink the pure bloud
Of generous Grapes, drawn from the Neighbor floud:
[Page 3]I others famin cur'd, subdu'd my own;
Life-strengthning food for fourty dayes unknown.
Twixt the Dispensers hands th'admired Bread
Increas'd, great multitudes of People fed,
Yet more then all remain'd. The Windes asswage
Their stormes; & threatning Billows calme their rage.
The hardned Waves unsinking feet indure:
And pale Diseases, which despise their cure,
My Voice subdues. Long Darknesse chac'd away,
To me the Blind by Birth now owes his Day.
He hears who never yet was heard; now speaks,
And in my Praises first his silence breaks.
Those damned Spirits of infernall Night,
Rebels to God, and to the Sonnes of Light
Inveterate foes; my Voice but heard, forsake
The long possest, and struck with terror quake.
Nor was't enough for Christ, such wonders done,
To profit those alone who see the Sunne:
To vanquish Death my powerfull hand invades
His silent Regions and inferior Shades.
The Stars, the Earth, the Seas, my triumphs know:
VVhat rests to conquer but the Deeps below?
Through op'ning Sepulchers, Nights gloomy Caves,
The violated priviledge of Graves,
I sent my dread Commands: A heat new born
Reanimates the Dead, from funerals torn;
[Page 4]And Deaths-numb Cold expulst, inforc'd a way
For Soules departed to review the Day.
The Ashes from their ransackt Tombs receive
A second life, and by my bounty breathe.
But Death, his late free Empire thus restrain'd,
Not used to restore his Spoyles, complain'd
That I should thus unweave the web of Fate,
Decrease his Subjects, and subvert his State:
I, for so many ransomed from Death,
Must to his anger sacrifice my breath.
And now that horrid Houre is almost come,
When sinfull Mortalls shall their Maker doom:
When I, the worlds great Lord, who life on all
Mankinde bestow'd, must by their fury fall.
That Tragick Time to my last Period hasts;
And Night, who now on all her Shadows casts,
While with the motion of the Heavens she flies,
This short delay of my sad life envies.
Fate, be lesse sterne in thy intended Course;
Nor drag him who will follow without force!
After so many miseries indur'd;
Cold, Heat, Thirst, Famine, eyes to teares inur'd;
The end, yet worst of ills, draws neare: their breath,
For whom I suffer, must procure my death.
The Innocent, made guilty by the foule
Defects of others, must his weary Soule
[Page 5]Sigh into aire; and though of heavenly birth,
With his chaste bloud distain th'ungratefull Earth.
They traffick for my Soule: my death, long sought,
Is by the mitred Merchants faction bought;
And Treason findes reward. My travels draw
Neare their last end. These practices I saw;
See what this Nights confederate Shadows hide:
My Minde before my Body crucifi'd.
Horrour shakes all my Powers: my entrailes beat,
And all my Body flowes with purple sweat.
O whither is my ancient Courage fled,
And God-like Strength! by Anguish captive led.
O Death, how farre more cruell in thy kinde!
Th'anxiety and torment of the Minde!
Then must I be of all at once bereft?
Or is there any hope of safety left?
O might I to my heavenly Father pray,
So supple to my teares, to take away
Part of these ills! But his eternall Doome
Forbids, and ordered Course of things to come.
His purpose, fixt when yet the world was young,
And Oracles, so oft by Prophets sung,
Now rushing on their destinated end,
No Orisons, nor Sacrifice can bend.
Why stay I with triumphant feet to tread
Vpon th'infernall Serpents poysnous Head,
[Page 6]And break th' old Dragons jaws? The sin of our
First Parents must be cleansed with a showre
Of bloud, rain'd from my wounds: my death appease,
And cure the venome of that dire Disease.
All you who live, rejoyce; all you who die:
You sacred ashes of the just which lie
In peacefull Vrnes, rejoyce in this my fall:
I for the living liv'd, but die for all.
My sufferings are not lost. To Earth I owe
These promis'd ills: bonds, whips, and thorns to grow
About out bleeding brows; the Crosse the scorn
Of a proud People, to destruction born.
O let my Fathers wrath through singed aire
On me in thunder dart, so mine it spare!
Lest the World should, I perish [...]; and must beare
The punishments of all that ever were.
You who inhabit, where the Sunne displaies
His earely light, or neer his setting Raies;
Who suffer by his perpendicular
Aspect, or frieze beneath the Northerne star;
Affect this ready Sacrifice, who am
A greater offering then the Paschall Lamb.
My precious bloud alone the vertue hath
To purge your sins, and quench my Fathers wrath.
Now the full Moone succeeds that Vernal light,
Which equally divides the Day and Night;
[Page 7]Sacred to Feasts. The next Sunne shall survay
One brighter then himselfe, and lose his Day.
False Traitor, through thy guilt so timerous growne,
Although thou lead'st an army against One,
Shrouded in Night; I am not taken by
Thy guile, but know thy'fraud, and hast to die.
But you my chosen friends, who yet preserve
Your faith intire, nor from your duty swerve;
Your Festivall, our washings past, reherse
Your Makers excellence insacred Verse;
While I to those frequented Shades repaire
Where the trees answer to the sighing Aire.
Learn, as we walke along, unto what place
I shortly shall return; what heavenly Grace
Is to descend upon you from above;
What are the laws of Charity and Love.
While my last prayers solicit Heaven, to Sleep
Give no accesse: this Night my Vigil keep.
CHORVS OF JEWISH WOMEN.
THe rapid Motion of the Spheres
Old Night from our Horizon bears;
And now declining shades give way
To the return of chearefull Day.
[Page 8]But Phosphorus, who leads the Starres,
And Day's illustriou's Path prepares,
Who last of all the Hoast retires,
Not yet with-draws those radiant Fires:
Nor have our Trumpets summoned
The Morning from her dewy Bed:
As yet her Roses are unblown,
Nor by her purple Mantle known.
All night we in the Temple keep,
Not yeelding to the charmes of Sleep;
That so we might with zealous praier
Our thoughts and cleansed hearts prepare
To celebrate th'insuing Light,
When Phoebe shall her hornes unite.
This annuall Feast to Memory
Is sacred, nor with us must die:
Thus by that dreadfull Exul taught,
When God his plagues on Aegypt brought.
Those Cities these our Rites bereave
Of Citizens, and widdows leave,
Where Jordan from two bubling Heads
His oft-returning waters leads;
Till they their narrow bounds forsake,
And grow a Sea-resembling Lake.
Those Woods of Palme, producing Dates;
Of fragrant Balsamum, which hates
[Page 9]The touch of Steele; where once the sound
Of trumpets level'd with the ground
Vnbatter'd Wals; that Mount which shrouds
His aiëry head in hanging Clouds,
Where Death clos'd our lost Prophets eies;
Admire to see their Colonies
Ascend the hills of Solyma
In celebration of this Day.
Cephaeans, whose strong Wals with-stood
The ruines of the Generall Flood,
To solemnize this Day forsake
Ador'd Dercetis, and her Lake.
Hither the Palestines from strong
Azotus, both the Jamnes throng.
Not Lydda could her Own restraine;
Nor Caparorsa's wals containe
Her Edomites; Damascus could
Not hers, though she ten Nations ruld:
Nor yet Sabaste, long the Nurse
Of impious Sons, sprung from our Surse.
Phoenicians, who did first produce
To Mortals letters, with their use;
Where Tyrus full of Luxury
With Mother Sidon, front the Sky,
Hither with hasty zeale repaire:
Among the Syrians, those who dare
[Page 10]Feed on forbidden fish; nor more
The Deitie of a Dove adore.
From Belus, whose slow waters passe
On glittering sands, which turn to glasse:
From Arnons banks; those Borderars
The subject of our ancient wars:
Whose sulphurous Bitumen take
From salt Asphaltis deadly lake.
No Tempest on that Sea provailes;
No ship upon her bosome sailes;
Vnmov'd with oares: what over-flies,
Struck by her breath, fals down and dies:
Hates all that lives; in her Profound
None are receiv'd, but flore undrownd:
No Seas, by slymie fhores imbras't,
So pestilent a vapor cast:
This blasts the corne before it bears,
And poysons the declining Ears:
Sad Autumns fruits to cinders turn,
And all the fields in ashes mourn:
Lest time should waste the memory
Of those revengefull flames, the sky
On Earth in melting sulphur showr'd,
Which that accursed Race devour'd:
When she who did commiserate
With impious griefe her Cities fate,
[Page 11]Grew, in the moment of her fault,
A Statue of congealed Salt.
Hither devout Esseans fly,
Who without issue multiply,
And Vertue onely propagate:
All sensuall loves, all lucre hate,
And equall Povertie imbrace:
Thrice happy, of a noble Race,
Who slight your own particular,
Transported with a publique care.
He flies a pitch above our woes,
Or crimes, who gladly undergoes
Their toile and want; nor would possesse
VVhat others miscall Happinesse.
VVhat numbers from the Suns up-rise,
From where he leaves the mourning Skies,
Of our dispersed Abrahamites,
This Vesper to their Homes invites!
Yet we, in yeerly triumph, still
A Lamb for our deliverance kill.
Since Libertie our Confines fled,
Given with the first unleaven'd Bread,
She never would return; though bought
With wounds, and in destruction sought.
Some stray to Lybia's scorched Sands,
Where horned Hammons Temple stands:
[Page 12]To Nilus some, where Philips Son,
VVho all the rifled Orient won,
Built his proud City: others gon
To their old Prison, Babylon:
A part to freezing Taurus fled;
And Tiber, now the Oceans Head.
Our Ruines all the world have fill'd:
But you, by use in sufferings skill'd,
Forgetting in remoter Climes
Our vanisht Glory; nor those Times,
Those happy Times, compare with these,
Your burdens may support with ease.
More justly we of Fate complaine,
VVho Servitude at home sustaine:
VVe, to perpetuall woes design'd,
In our owne Countrey Aegypt find.

[Page 13]
THE SECOND ACT.PETER.
YOu Of-spring of bloud-thirsty Romulus,
Foes to sweet Peace, to our great God, and us,
And you prophaner Sacrificers, who
VVith subtil mischiefe guiltlesse bloud pursue;
Since you would not refuse to binde the hands
Of Innocence, on me impose your bands:
Seize on the guilty; he who hath refus'd
His Lord and Master, by himselfe accus'd.
The ills yet suffer'd, I deserve to beare
For looking on; what follows, for my feare.
You need no torches to subdue the Night's
Dark Shades to finde me; no sterne Satellites
Drawn from the Temple, nor with Romanes joyne
To act one Sin; nor spend your sacred Coine
In salary to such a Guide as may
VVith a perfidious kisse his Lord betray.
This Head I give you freely; hither hast:
No sudden hurl-windes shall your bodies cast
On trembling Earth. Behold; I with my hands
Behinde me bound, implore your dire Commands;
And run to meet your stripes. Are you now prone
To melting pitty? will you punish none
[Page 14]But with injustice? is your fury slow,
Vnlesse to those who no offences know?
We both alike have impiously transgrest:
You in not punishing a fault confest;
And I who have the living Lord deni'd.
Just Jugdes of a life so sanctified
To whom suborned Witnesses have sold
Their damned perjuries, a Wretch behold,
And heare his Crime: My Countrey Galile,
To follow Christ I left both Land and Sea:
Son to the Thunderer, his onely Heire;
From Heaven sent by his Father to repaire
And rule th'affairs of Mortals. This is He,
VVhom you have bound, who must his Countrey free.
Rebellious Vassals, you have doom'd your King.
I know the impious Race from whence you spring,
Your savage manners, cruel Ancestors,
VVhom Nature, as her greatest curse, abhors.
Such, when the trembling Boy his brethrens hands,
Their truculent aspects, and servill bands
Beheld; though privy to a better fate,
Whose providence was to reward their hate:
Soon after, cal'd to Niles seven channel'd Flood,
He famine from both Lands expel'd with food.
So your seditious Fathers mutined
At Sina's rocks against their sacred Head:
[Page 15]And there the food of Angels loth'd, which fell
From Heaven in showres: besotted Israel
Aegypt and Servitude prefer'd above
The Tents of Moses, and their Countries love.
What numbers, with prophetick Raptures fill'd,
Have you, and yet not unrevenged, kill'd!
Memphis, devouring Desarts, Civill wars,
Oft forreign Yokes, Assyrian Conquerars,
Great Pompeys Eagles, sacred Rites profan'd,
Your Temple sackt, with slaughtered Levites stain'd;
Are all forgot? Yet worse attend your Hate.
O that I were the Minister of Fate!
I then would teare your guilty buildings down,
And in a crimson Sea their ruines drown.
Witnesse you Groves, late conscious to our cares,
Where Christ with tears pour'd forth his funeral praiers,
How I revenge pursu'd; and with their bloud
Would have augmented Cedrons murmuring Floud:
But he, for whom I struck, reproov'd the blow;
And following his own Precept, cur'd his foe.
For Malchus, rushing on in front of all,
Perceiving part of his, with-out him, fall,
Searcht with his flaming brand: the bleeding eare
See on the earth, revenge subdu'd his feare;
Who lowdly roaring shook his threatned bands,
And streight incountred those all-healing hands:
[Page 16] They to his Head that Ornament restor'd,
And benefits for injuries affor'd.
But O blinde Mischief! I, who gave the Wound,
Am left at large; and he, who heal'd it, bound.
O Peter, canst thou yet forbeare to throw
Thy body on the weapons of the Foe!
If thou would'st vindicate thy Lord, begin
First with thy selfe, and punish thy own Sin.
Thou that dar'st menace armies, thou that art
Fierce, as a Midian Tyger, of a heart
Invincible, nor knows what 'tis to dread;
VVith Fortune, at the first incounter, fled.
A Fugitive, a Rebel; one that hath
All crimes committed in this breach offaith.
VVho towring hopes on his own strength erects,
Nor the selfe-flattering Mindes deceit suspects,
But his vaine Vertue trust; let him in me
The sad example of his frailty see:
From slippery heights how pronely Mortals slide;
Their heady errors punishing their pride.
VVhat can I adde to these misdeeds of mine!
VVho have defil'd the water, bread, and wine,
VVith my abhor'd defection! O, could I
Those lips pollute with wilfull perjury,
But newly feasted with that sacred food,
Presenting his torne flesh, and powr'd-out blood!
[Page 17]O Piety! for this, thou Renegate,
Did Jesus wash thy flying feet of late!
Not Jordan with two Heads, whose waters roule
From snow-top Libanus, can cleanse thy Soule:
Not thou Callirhoe; nor that ample Lake,
From whose forsaken shore my birth I take,
Could'st thou blue Nereus, in whose troubled Deep
Niles seven large Mouthes their foming currents steep▪
Or that red Sea, whose waves in Rampires stood
While our Fore-Fathers past the parted Flood?
These purging streames from thy own Springs must flow.
Repentance, why are thy complaints so slow!
Raise stormes of sighes; let teares in torrentsfall,
And on thy blushing cheekes deep furrows gall.
O so! run freely: beat thy stubborn breast:
Here spend thy rage; these blowes become thee best.
This, wretched Cephas, for thy crimes I owe:
What can I for my injur'd Lord bestow!
My deeds and sufferings disproportion'd are;
Nor must they in an equall sorrow share.
Should this Night ever last, to propagate
Increasing sorrowes, till subdn'd by Fate,
My penitent Soule this wasted flesh forsake;
Yet can my guilt no reparation make.
Swoln eyes, now weep you? then you should have wept,
Besprinkled my devotion, and have kept
[Page 18]That holy Watch, when interdicted Sleep
Your drowsie lids did in his Lethe steep.
You should have dropt my brains into a Flood,
Before he at that dire Tribunall stood:
Ere thrice abjur'd, on me his looks he threw;
Or ere th'accusing Bird of Dawning drew.
Where shall I hide me! in what Dungeon may
My troubled Soul avoid the wofull Day!
Fly quickly to some melancholy Cave,
In whose dark entrails thou maist finde a grave
To bury thee alive: there waste thy yeares
In chearisht Sorrow, and unwitnest Tears.
PONTIVS PILAT. CAIAPHAS.
TArpaean Jove; Mars, great Quirinus Sire;
You Houshold gods, snatcht from Troys funerall Fire,
With greater Zeal ador'd; when shall I pay
My Vows! my Offerings on your Altars lay!
And see those Roofs which top the Clouds! the Beams
With burnisht gold inchac'd, and blazing Gems.
Those Theaters; which ring with their applause
Who on the conquered World impose their Lawes!
And thee, the triple Earths imperious Guide,
Great-Soul'd Tiberius! whether thou reside
On Tibers banks, ador'd by gratefull Rome;
Ambitious of his residence, for whom
[Page 19]She gave the World; or Caprae, much renown'd
For soft delights, impoverish the Long-gown'd!
Farre from my friends, farre from my native Soyl
I here in honourable Exile toyl,
To curb a People whom the Gods disclaim:
Who cover under the usurped Name
Of Piety, their hate to all Man-kinde;
Condemne the world; in their own vices blinde:
And with false grounded fear abjure for One,
All those Immortalls which the Heavens inthrone.
Their onely Law is to renounce all Laws:
Their Error, which from others hatred draws,
Fomenting their own discord, still provokes
Their Spirits to Rebellion, who their yokes
Have oft attempted to shake-off; though they
More eas'ly are subdu'd, then taught to obey.
Cleare Justice, sincere Faith, bear witnesse you
With how much grief our swords the Hebrews slew:
But such as stubborn and inhumane are,
Vnlesse they suffer, would inforce a War:
And Reason urgeth those who Scepters bear,
Against their Nature, oft to prove severe.
I go to question what these Prelates would:
Since they forbear to enter, lest they should
(Their Feast so neare) with my unhallowed Floore
Their feet pollute. Who's this, by such a power
[Page 20]In shackles led! How reverend his aspect!
How full of awe! these Looks no guilt detect.
Thou, Caiaphas, of Solyma the Prime,
And Prince of Priests, relate th'imputed Crime.
CAIAPHAS.
Great Guardian of the Romane Peace, whom we
Next Caesar honour; to be doom'd by thee
Our Senate brings th'Infection of these Times:
Whom we accuse of no suggested crimes.
Those holy Rites which grave Antiquity
First introduced, since defended by
A long descent, this Innovator sought
To abolish, and a new Religion taught.
Nor fearing the Recesse of Gods own Seat,
The Temples ruine sings, and Roof repleat
With the full Deitie: disturbs the Feast
Of the seventh Day, design'd for sacred Rest.
Those lawes rejects which Moses pen reveal'd,
Even those by God with dreadfull thunder seal'd.
Nor so content; with Heaven his furie warres,
Aspires that Throne, and tramples on the Starres.
Who stiles himself, though of ignoble birth,
His onely sonne, who made both Heaven and Earth.
This, Death must expiate; he hath judg'd his Cause,
Who writ in leaves of Marble our ten Lawes.
PILAT.
[Page 21]When Wrath, the Nurse of War, and thirst of gold
Destructive Arts produc'd; the better Soul'd
No peace nor safety found, inforc't to bear:
Life, of it self infirme, through common fear
Into Societies the scattered drew,
Who by united forces potent grew:
Intrenched Cities with high walls immur'd;
But more by well-digested Lawes secur'd:
The Crime and Punishment proportion kept;
And Wrongs, like Wolves, on their first Authors leapt:
Justice from each Offence example took;
And his own weapon the Delinquent strook:
Spoil seaz'd on Rapine, Bloud drew bloud; deter'd
From doing that, which they to suffer fear'd.
But more then humane plagues attend on those
Who God provoke: he prosecutes his foes
With sure revenge. Why should those Hands which tear
The clouds with thunder, shake the World with fear;
Their wrath to Man resigne? The impious finde
Their scourge: the terror of th'astonish'd Minde
Affrights their peace: who feel what they deny;
And fear an unbeleeved Deity.
One Day no period to his torment gives:
To tremble at the Name of Death he lives;
[Page 22]Still apprehending what then death is worse;
Long life awarded to prolong his curse.
But if he have your laws infring'd, be you
Your selves the judges, and his guilt pursue.
CAIAPHAS.
Although those ancient Laws, which now remain
Among us, we acknowledge to retain
From Romes free bounty; yet to you 'tis knowne,
Our curbed Power can death inflict on none.
You, to whom Caesars Fortunes recommend
His Rods and Axes, sacred Rule defend.
This guilty Wretch, whose practises we feare,
Of late his place of birth forsaking, where
The Sea is honour'd with Tiberius Name,
With troopes of Clients to this City came.
Who seeds of War among the Vulgarsowes:
With what injustice Romane Armes impose
Their Tribute on a Nation ever free.
With magick Charmes, and Stygian compact, he
Attracts beliefe: denies the dead their rest,
Of those un-envi'd Mansions dispossest
By wicked Spels. These prodigies delude
The novelty-affecting Multitude:
Whom for their Lord their loud Hosannas greet;
And strew the noble Palme beneath his seet.
[Page 23]Imboldned by these Arts; He, as his own
By birth, aspires to Davids ancient Throne.
When Rome, provok'd by his rebellion, shall
Arme her just Griefe; we by the sword must fall,
Our City sinke in flames, our Countrey lye
Depopulated. But since One must dye
To save the Generall; sentenc'd by thy breath,
Let him redeeme his Nation with his death.
PILAT.
Such doubtfull causes grave advice require:
Here, if you please, attend; while I retire.
The Pris'ner to the Souldiers care commit:
On whom this day we will in judgement fit.
CHORVS OF JEWISH WOMEN.
YOu lofty towers of Solyma,
Thou ancient Throne of Soveraign sway:
To thee the conquered Tribute pay'd,
From th'Isthmos, crown'd with Ebon shade,
To great Euphrates trembling Streames:
Arabians, scorch'd by Phoebus beames.
Th'admiring Queen, wing'd with thy Fame,
From her black-peopled Empire came.
[Page 24]Great Kings, ambitious of thy love,
To joyne with thee in friendship strove.
Those who Canopus Scepter bore;
Those Monarchs who the Sun adore,
And o're the wealthy Orient reigne:
Sarrana, Soveraigne of the Main.
Now, ah! a miserable Thrall!
O, nothing, but a prey to all!
This Land, t'one God once chastly wed,
How often hath she chang'd her Head,
Since they our Temples ruin'd pride
With bad presage reedifi'd!
Since those, in forrein bondage born,
Did with their servile Fates return!
On us Antiochus guilt reflects:
Our Fathers Sinnes sit on our necks.
What durst that wicked Age not do,
Which could those Altars naked view,
Oft flaming with celestiall Fire!
Provoking Heavens deserved ire
With their adult'rat Sacrifice!
For this did Ours so highly prize
Th'Iönian Gods, by mortals made,
And incense to those Idols pay'd?
Since when th'Accurst their brothers slew;
Wives, lesse malitious poyson brew;
[Page 25]Sons fall by Mothers: we have known
That, which will be beleev'd by none.
Twice vanquished by Romane Armes;
Twice have their Conquerours our harmes
Remov'd for greater: Fortunes change
To our proud Masters prov'd as strange.
Yet this no lesse our grief provokes,
Our kindred beare divided yokes:
One part by Romane bondage wrung;
The other two by Brothers, sprung
From Savage Idumaeans, whom
Our Fathers have so oft ore-come.
O thou the Hope, the onely One
Of our distresse, and ruin'd Throne;
Of whom, with a prophetick tongue,
To Judah dying Jacob sung:
The crowned Muse on ivory Lyre,
His breast inflam'd with holy Fire,
This oft fore-told; That thou shouldst free
The People consecrate to thee;
That thou, triumphing, shouldst revoke
Sweet Peace, then never to be broke;
When free'd Judaea should obey
One Lord, and all affect his Sway.
O when shall we behold thy Face,
So often promis'd to our Race!
[Page 26]If Prophets, who have won belief
By our mishaps and flowing grief,
Of joyfull change as truely sung;
Thy absence should not now belong.
Thee, by thy Vertue, we intreat;
The Temples Vaile, the Mercies Seat;
That Name, by which our Fathers sware,
Which in our vulgar Speech we dare
Not utter, to compassionate
Thy Kindreds Teares, and ruin'd State.
Hast, to our great Redemption, hast,
O thou most Holy! and at last
Blesse with thy Presence; that we may
To thee our Vowes devoutly pay.

[Page 27]
THE THIRD ACT.JVDAS. CAIAPHAS.
YOu who preserve your pure integrity;
O you whose crimes transcend not credit, fly
Farre from my presence! whose invenom'd sight
Pollutes the guilty. Thou, who wrong and right
Distinctly canst discern; whose gentle brest
All faith hath not abandon'd, but art blest
With children, brothers, friends; nor hast declin'd
The sweet affections of a pious Minde;
Shut up the winding entry of thine eare,
Nor let the world of such a bargain heare.
A Sinne so horrible should be to none
Besides the desperate Contractors known.
Wher's now that mitred Chief? where that dire Train
Of Sacrificers, worthy to be slain
On their own Altars? I have found my Curse:
The Sun, except my self, sees nothing worse.
Heare, without hire; O heare the too well known:
If you seek for a witnesse; I am one
That can the truth reveal: Or would you finde
A Villain? Her's a self-accusing Minde.
That sacred Life, O most immaculate!
More then my Masters! to your deadly Hate
[Page 28]Have I betrai'd: discharge my hands I may,
Although not of the Guilt, yet of the Prey.
Receive the gift you gave: a treachery
Second to mine, you may of others buy.
CAIAPHAS.
If thou accuse thy selfe of such a Sin
Deservedly, thou hast a Court with-in,
That will condemne thee. Thy offences be
No Crimes of ours: our consciences are free.
Nor shall the sacred Treasury receive
The price of bloud. Thee to thy Fate we leave.
JVDAS.
Is this the doctrine of your piety
To approve the Crime, yet hate the Hire? O fly,
Fly, wretch, unto the Altar, and pollute
The Temple with thy Sins accursed fruite.
Nor will I for my selfe with hopelesse praier
Solicit Heaven; lost in my owne despaire;
But Gods sterne Justice urge, that we, who were
Joyn'd in the guilt, may equall vengeance beare.
Nor shall I in my punishment proove slow:
Behold, your Leader will before you go;
'Tis fit you follow; to those silent Deepes,
Those horrid Shades, where Sorrow never fleepes.
[Page 29]Thou great Director of the rouling Starres,
Vnlesse thou idlely lookst on mens affaires,
And vainely we thy brutish Thunder feare;
Why should thy land so dire a Monster beare?
Or the Sun not retire, and yet behold?
If those thy fearefull punishments of old
Require beliefe, in one unite them all:
Let Seas in Cataracts from Meteors fall,
Afford no shore, but swallow in their Brine;
That so the Worlds first ruine may prove mine.
Let melting Stars their sulphrous surfet shed,
And all the Heavenly Fires fall on my Head.
And thou, O injur'd Earth, thy jawes extend,
That I may to th'infernall Shades descend:
Lesse cause had thy revenge, when she the five
Inrag'd Conspirators devour'd alive.
Those evils which amaz'd the former-times,
Thy fury hath consum'd on smaller Crimes.
O slow revenger of his injuries,
And he thy Son! some fearefull death devize;
Vnknowne, and horrid: Or shall I pursue
My owne offence, and act what thou shouldst doe?
You Legions of Heavens Exuls, you who take
Revenge on Mortals for the crimes you make;
Why troope you thus about me? Or what need
These terrors? Is my punishment decree'd
[Page 30]In Hell already? Furies, now I come.
In your darke dungeons what more horrid Rome
Shall now devoure me? Must I to that Place,
Where the curs'd Father of a wicked Race
Your scourges feeles? who, when the world was new,
And but possest by foure, his brother slew.
Or where that faithlesse Prince blasphemes? then all
His Host more eminent; who lest his fall
Should honour to his enemies afford,
Made way for hated Life with his own sword.
He most affects me, who his fathers Chaire
Vsurp'd; when caught by his revenging Haire,
He lost the Earth and Life: the way he led
T'avoided Death, my willing feet shall tread.
Master, I fly to anticipate the event
Of my foule crime with equall punishment.
PONTIVS PILAT. THE JEWS.
HOrror distracts my sense: irresolute
Whether I should break silence, or sit mute.
Envy th'accus'd condemnes, whom Justice cleares.
I must confesse, perswaded by my Feares,
Lest I this State and People should insence,
I wisht they could have prov'd that great Offence.
[Page 31]Yet whatsoever they inforc'd of late,
No fault of his reveal'd, but their own hate.
His silence was a vanquishing reply.
Who for detecting their false piety
(Whose supercilious looks, with fasting pale,
Close avarice, and proud ambition vaile)
Is by their Arts made guilty: One that slights
The God they adore, and violates his Rites.
From hence those many-nam'd Offences spring;
And his aspiring to become their King.
Can those poore Fishers of that In-land Sea,
And women, following him from Galile,
So great a Spirit in their Leader raise;
That Rome should feare, whom all the World obayes.
Yet he avers his Kingdome is unknown,
Nor of this World; and bows to Caesars Throne.
Prov'd by th'event: for when the Vulgar bound
His yeelding hands, they no resistance found.
But his endowments, zealous in defence
Of clouded Truth, their mortall hate incense.
Follow'd by few, who like affections beare,
And with beliefe their Masters doctrine heare.
If true, he may speak freely; nor must dye
For Ostentation, though he broach a lye.
But if distracted, that's a punishment
Even to it selfe, and Justice doth prevent.
[Page 32]He, whom this Annual Solemnity
Hath now invited to the Temple by
His Father built, whose Kingdome borders on
The land innobled by Agenor's Throne,
Of these stupendious acts by Rumour spred
Could fixe no faith, though in his City bred.
To laughter doom'd, his Rivall Herod seorn'd;
And sent him back, in purple robes adorn'd.
Th'implacable, now far more fiercely bent
To prosecute the twice-found innocent:
Perhaps afraid lest they their owne should loose,
Vnlesse they him of forged guilt accuse.
But when Revenge doth once the Minde ingage;
O how it raves! lost to all sense but rage!
No Lionesse, late of her whelps bereft,
With wilder sury prosecutes the Theft.
O Shame I through feare I sought to shield the Right
VVith honest Fraud, and Justice steale by slight:
As when the labouring Bark, too weak to stem
The boysterous Tide, obliquely cuts the stream.
They have an ancient Custome, if we may
Believe the Jews, derived from that Day
When the delivered Sons of Israel
Fled from those banks whose flouds in summer swel:
That ever when the Vernall Moone shall joyne
Her silver Orb, and in full lustre shine,
[Page 33]They should some one release, to gratifie
The People, by their Law condemn'd to die.
Now, hoping to have free'd the Innocent,
The violent Priests my Clemency prevent:
Who urge the heady Vulgar to demand
One Barrabas; a Thiefe, who had a hand
In every murther, hot with humane blood.
How little it avails us to be good!
Preposterous Favour! through the hate they heare
His guiltlesse Soule, their Votes the guilty cleare.
And now my Wifes not idle dreames perplex
My strugling thoughts, which all this night did vex
Her troubled slumbers: who conjures me by
All that is holy, all the Gods, that I
Should not the laws of Justice violate
To gratifie so undeserv'd a hate.
For this shall I the Hebrew Fathers slight,
Th'indeavours of a Nation so unite,
Committed to my charge? Shall I for One
Poore Abject, forfeit all the good I have done?
These pester'd Wals all Jewry now infold;
The Houses hardly can their Strangers hold,
Sent from all parts to this great Festivall:
What if the Vulgar to their weapons fall?
Who knows the end, if once the Storme begin?
Sure I, their Judge, egregious praise should win
[Page 34]By troubling of the publique Peace. Shall I
Then render him to death? Impiety!
For what offence? Is his offence not great,
Whose innovation may a warre beget?
Lest Empire suffer, they who scepters beare
Oft make a Crime, and punish what they feare.
One hope remaines: Our Souldiers the Free-borne,
And yet by our command, with whips have torne.
A sight so full of pitty may asswage
The swiftly-spreading fire of popular Rage.
Look on this Spectacle! his armes all o're
With lashes gall'd, deep dy'd in their own gore!
His sides exhausted! all the rest appeares
Like that Fictitious Scarlet which he weares!
And for a Crown, the wreathed Thornes infol'd
His bleeding browes! With griefe his griefe behold!
JEWES.
Away with him: from this Contagion free
Th'infected Earth, and naile him on a Tree.
PILAT.
What, crucifie your King?
JEWES.
Dominion can
No Rivall brook. His rule, a Law to Man,
[Page 35]Whom Rome adores, we readily obay:
And will admit of none but Caesars Sway.
He Caesars right usurps, who hopes to ascend
The Hebrew Throne. Thy own affairs intend.
Dost thou discharge thy Masters trust, if in
Thy government a president begin
So full of danger, tending to the rape
Of Majesty? Shall treason thus escape?
PILAT.
The Tumult swels: the Vulgar and the Great,
Joyne in their Votes with contributed heat.
Whose whisperings such a change of murmur raise
As when the rising Windes first Fury strayes
'Mong wave-beat Rocks; when gathering Clouds de­forme
The face of Heaven, whose Wrath begets a Storme:
The fearefull Pilot then distrusts the Skies;
And to the neerest Port for refuge flies.
To these rude Clamours they mine eares inure:
Such sharpe diseases crave a sudden cure.
You my Attendants, hither quickly bring
Spot-purging Water from the living Spring.
Thou liquid Chrystall, from pollution cleare;
And you my innocent hands like record beare,
On whom these cleansing streames so purely runne;
I voluntarily have nothing done.
[Page 36]Nor am I guilty, though he guiltlesse die:
Yours is the Crime; his Blood upon you lie.
JEWES.
Rest thou secure. If his destruction shall
Draw down celestiall Vengeance, letit fall
Thick on our heads, in punishment renew:
And ever our dispersed Race pursue.
PILAT.
Then I, from this Tribunall, mounted on
Imbellish'd Marble, Judgements awfull Throne,
Thus censure: Lead him to the Crosse; and by
A servil death let Judahs King there dye.
CHORVS OF JEWISH WOMEN JESVS.
VVE all deplore thy miseries;
For Thee we beat our brests; our eyes
In bitter teares their moysture shed:
If thou be he by Ravens fed,
Aloft on flaming Charriot born;
Yet wouldst to cruell Lords return:
Or that sad Bard, believ'd too late,
Who sung his Countreys servil Fate;
[Page 37]Now come to sigh her destiny,
A like unhappy; twice to dye:
Or he, long nourish'd in the Wood,
Who late in Jordans cleansing Flood
So many wash'd; that durst reprove
A King for his incestious love;
Slain for a Dancer. If the same,
Or other of an elder fame,
Sent back to Earth, in vices drown'd,
To raise it from that dark Profound;
'Tis sure thy Sanctitie exceeds,
Blaz'd by thy Vertue and thy Deeds.
O never more, ring'd with a Throng
Of Followers, shall thy sacred tongue
Informe our Actions; nor the way
To Heaven, and heavenly joyes, display!
The Blind, who now the unknown light
Beholds, scarce trusting his own sight,
Thy gift, shall not the Giver see.
Those maladies, subdu'd by thee,
Which powerfull Art and Hearbs desie,
No more thy soveraign Touch shall fly.
Nor Loaves, so tacidly increast,
Againe so many thousands feast.
Thou Rule of Lifes Perfection,
By Practice, as by Precept, shown;
[Page 38]Late hemb'd with Auditors, whose store
Incumbred the too-narrow Shore,
The Mountains cover'd with their Preasse,
The Mountains then their People lesse;
For whom our Youths their garments strew,
Victorious Boughs before thee threw,
While thou in Triumph rid'st along,
Saluted with a joyfull Song:
Now, see what change from Fortune springs!
O dire Vicissitude of Things!
Betray'd, abandon'd by thy owne;
Drag'd by thy Foes, oppos'd by none.
Thou hope of our afflicted state,
Thou Balme of Life, and Lord of Fate;
Not erst to such unworthy bands
Did'st thou submit thy powerfull Hands.
Lo, he who gave the dumbe a tongue,
With patient silence bears his wrong!
The Souldier, ah! renews his blows;
The whip new-op'ned furrows shows,
Which now in angry tumors swel:
To us their wrath the Romans sel.
Lo, how his members flow! the smart
Confin'd to no particular part:
His stripes, which make all but one sore,
Run in confused streames of gore.
[Page 39]Art thou the Slave of thy owne Fate,
To beare thy torments cursed waight?
What Arab, though he wildly stray
In wandring Tents, and live by prey;
Or Cyclop, who no pitty knowes,
Would such a cruel task impose?
O that the fatall pressure might
Sinke thee to Earth, nor weigh more light
Then Death upon thee; that thy weake
Vntwisted thread of life might breake!
It were a blessing so to dye:
But O for how great cruelty
Art thou reserv'd! the Crosse thou now
Support'st, must with thy burden bow.
JESVS.
Daughters of Solyma, no more
My wrongs thus passionately deplore.
These teares for future sorrows keep:
Wives, for your selves and children weep.
That horrid day will shortly come,
When you shall blesse the barren Wombe,
And Brest that never infant fed:
Then shall you wish the mountains head
Would from his trembling basis slide,
And all in tomb's of ruins hide.
CHORVS.
[Page 40]Alas! thou spotlesse Sacrifice
To greedy Death! no more our eyes
Shall see thy Face! ah, never more
Shalt thou return from Deaths dark shore.
Though Lazarus, late at thy call,
Brake through the barrs of Funerall;
Rais'd from that Prison to review
The World which then he hardly knew:
Who forth-with former sense regains;
The bloud sprung in his heated Veins;
His sinews supple grew, yet were
Again almost conjeal'd with feare.
Thy followers, Sadock, now may know
Their Error from the Shades below.
A Few, belov'd by the Most High,
Through Vertue of the Deitie,
To others rarely rendred breath:
None ever rais'd himselfe from death.

[Page 41]
THE FOVRTH ACT.FIRST NVNCIVS. CHORVS OF JEWISH WOMEN. SECOND NVNCIVS.
I From the horrid'st Act that ever fed
The fire of barbarous Rage, at length am fled:
Yet O too neare! The Object still pursues;
Flotes in mine eyes, that sad Scene renewes.
CHORVS.
Art thou a witnesse of his miserie?
Saw'st thou the Galilean Prophet die?
1. NVNCIVS.
Those Savages, to Scythian Rocks confin'd,
Who know no God, nor vertue of the Minde,
But onely Sense pursue; who hunger tame
With slaughtered Lives; they, and their food, the same;
Would this detest.
CHORVS.
Vain Innocence! would none
Lend him a teare! were all transform'd to stone!
1. NVNCIVS.
[Page 42]No certainly: yet so commiserate,
As Pittie prov'd more tyrannous then Hate.
The cursed Tree with too much weight opprest
His stooping shoulders: Death had now releast
His fainting Soul: but O, the Lenitie
Of Malice would not suffer him to die,
Part of the load impos'd with idle scorn
On Lybian Simon, in Cyrene born.
To whom th'affected quiet of the fields,
Secur'd by Poverty, no safety yeelds.
The Furies of the Citie him surprise,
Who from the vices of the Citie flies:
Who beares not his own burden, that none may
Misdoubt, the Innocent became their prey.
CHORVS.
Forth-with unmask this wretched face of Wo:
All that he suffer'd, and the manner show;
What words brake from his sorrow; give thy tongue
A liberall scope: Our mindes not seldome long
To know what they abhorre: nor spare our eares;
What can be heard, is fancied by our feares.
1. NVNCIVS.
[Page 43]With-out the Citie, on that side which lies
Exposed to the boysterous injuries
Of the cold North, to War a fatall Way,
Infamous by our slaughters, Golgotha
Exalts his Rock. No flowers there paint the field,
Nor flourishing trees refreshing shadowes yield:
The ground all white, with bones of mortalls spread,
Stencht with the putrefaction of the dead,
And reliques of unburied Carcases.
Who on his aged Fathers throat durst sease,
Rip-up his mothers wombe; who poyson drest
For his own brother; or his unknown Guest
Betray'd, and gave his mangled flesh for food
Vnto the wild inhabitants of the Wood;
This Stage of Death deserv'd: while every soule
Misdeed of theirs pursues the guilty Soule.
Now when the Nazarite at this dismall place
Arrived, with a weak and tardy pace;
Least he should die too quickly, some preferre
Sweet wine, mixt with the bitter teares of Myrrhe.
He of the idle present hardly tasts;
But to incounter with his torments hasts.
The Steel now bor'd his feet, whose slit veines spout
Like pierced conduits; both his armes strechtout.
[Page 44]His hands fixt with two nailes. While his great Soule
These tortures suffer'd, while the rising Bole
Forsook the Earth, and crimson Torrents sprung
From his fresh wounds, he gave his Grief no tongue.
The Crosse advanc'd and fixt; then, as more nigh
To his own Heaven, his eyes bent on the Skie,
Among such never to be equal'd woes
(Who would beleeve it!) pities his stern foes;
And thinks those false Contrivers, those who gor'd
His flesh with wounds, more fit to be deplor'd:
Who even their merited destruction feares;
And falsely judg'd, the truly guilty cleares.
Father, he cries, forgive this sinne: they knew
Not what they did, nor know what now they do.
Mean-while the Souldiers, who in bloud delight,
With hearts more hard then Rocks, behold this sight;
And savage Rigor never reconcil'd
To Pitty, all humanitie exil'd:
Who, us'd to pillage, now intend their prey;
Nor for his death, though then a dying, stay;
But he alive, and looking on, divide
The Spoil; yet more in the Spectatour joy'd.
Fury in trifles sports: their scorn his poore,
Yet parted garments, distribute to foure.
His inward Robe, with one contexture knit,
Nor of the like division would admit,
[Page 45]Their votes to the dispose of Lots referre,
Electing Chance for their blinde Arbiter.
Nor wast the least of evils to behold
Th' ignoble Partners of his pain; who old
In mischief rob'd the murder'd Passengers;
Follow'd by Troops, that fill'd the Night with feares.
While thus they hung, none could the doubt explain,
VVhether He more had sav'd then They had slain.
The numerous Index of each bloudy deed
Now brand their lives: when those who could not read
At such a distance, of the next inquire
For what they dy'd; who had the same desire.
But above his declining Head they hung
A table in three Languages: the Tongue,
The first of tongues, which taught our Abrahamites
Those heavenly Precepts, and mysterious Rites;
Next, that which to th'informed World imparts
The Grecian Industry, and learned Arts;
Then this, from whence the conquer'd Earth now takes
Her Lawes, and at the Romane Virtue quakes;
All of one sense. His place of birth, his Name
Declare; and for the Hebrew King proclame.
After the bloudy Priests so long had fed
On this lov'd Spectacle; at length they read
The Title: and in such a miserie,
So full of ruth, found something to envy.
[Page 46]The Governour intreating to take down
That glorious Stile; lest he the Hebrew Crown
Should vindicate in Death; and so deny
That Princes by Subordinates should die.
But who that Day soreadily compli'd
To give a life, austerely this deni'd.
CHORVS.
While lingring Death his sad release deferr'd,
How lookt the standers by? what words were heard?
I. NVNCIVS.
Not all alike: discording murmurs rise.
Some, with transfixed hearts, and wounded eyes,
Astonisht stand: some joy in his slow fate,
And to the last extend their Barbarous hate.
Motion it self variety begets,
And by a strange vicissitude regrets
What it affected, nor one posture beares:
Teares scornfull laughter raise, and laughter teares.
Who to the Temple from th'impoverisht shore
Of Galilee his followed steps adore,
And ministred to his life, now of his End
The Witnesses; still to their dying friend
Their faith preserve: which, as they could, they show
In all th'expressions of a perfect woe.
[Page 47]One, from her panting brest her garments tare;
Another, the bright tresses of her haire;
This, with her naked armes her bosome beats;
The hollow rock Her fearfull shriekes repeat;
She, stiff with sorrow. But what grief could vie
With that example of all piety,
His virgin Mothers! this affords no way
To lessening teares; nor could it self display.
Where should she fix her looks! if on the ground;
She sees that with her bloud, he bleeding, drown'd:
Or if she raise her eyes; the killing sight
Of her wombes tort'red Issue quencht their light.
Fearing to look on either, both disclose
Their terrours; who now licences her woes.
Ready to have stept forward, and imbrast
The bloudy Crosse, her feeble lims stuck fast:
Her feet their motion lost; her voice in vain
A passage sought: such Grief could not complain.
Whose Soul almost as great a Sorrow stung,
As his, who on the Tree in torments hung.
That Youth, one of the Twelve, so dignifi'd
By his deare Masters love, stood by her side.
Beholding this sad Paire, those Souls that were
To him then life, while life remain'd, more deare;
He found an other Crosse: his spirits melt
More for the sorrow seen, then torments felt.
[Page 48]At length, in strength transcending either, brake
The barres of his long silence, and thus spake:
A legacie to each of you I leave:
Mother, this sonne in stead of me receave
By thy adoption: and thou gentle boy,
The seed of Zebedeus, late my joy,
Thy friend now for thy mother take. This said,
Again he to his torments bow'd his Head.
The Vulgar with the Elders of our Race,
And Souldiers, shake their heads in his disgrace:
Is this the man, said they, whose hands can raise
The Temple, and rebuild it in three dayes?
Now shew thy strength. Or if the Thunderer
Above the rank of Mortalls thee preferre,
Acknowledg'd for his Heir; let him descend,
Confirme thy hopes, and timely succour lend.
Behold, the help thou gav'st to others, failes
The Authour. Break these Bonds, these stubborn Nails,
And from the Crosse descend: then we will say
Thou art our King, and thy Commands obey.
Nor wast enough that the surrounding Throng
Wound with reproches: Who besides him hung,
Doth now again a murderers minde disclose;
And in his punishment more wicked growes.
Who thus: If thou be he whom God did choose
To Govern the free'd Nation of the Jews,
[Page 49]Thy self, and us release: thus honour win.
The Partner of his death, as of his sinne,
Who had his fiercenesse, with the thief, cast-off,
Ill brookes, and thus reprooves, that impious scoff:
Hast thou as yet not learnt to acknowledge God?
Nor sacred Justice fear? who now the rod
Of vengeance feel'st? wilt thou again offend,
And to the jaws of Hell thy guilt extend?
This death we owe to our impiety:
But what are his misdeeds? why should he die?
Then looking on his face with dropping eyes:
Forgive me, O forgive a wretch, he cries:
And O my Lord, my King, when thou shalt be
Restor'd to thy own Heaven, remember me.
He mildly gives consent; and from the barres
Of that sad Crosse, thus rais'd him to the Starres:
With me, a happy Guest, thou shalt injoy
Those sacred Orchards where no frosts destroy
The eternall Spring, before the Morne display
The purple Ensigne of th' ensuing Day.
CHORVS.
What's this! the Centre pants with sudden throwes!
And trembling Earth a sad distemper showes!
The Sun, affrighted, hides his golden Head;
From hence by an unknown Ecliptick fled!
[Page 50]Irregular Heavens abortive shades display;
And Night usurpes the empty Throne of Day!
What threats do these dire Prodigies portend
To our offending Race! Those ills transcend
All that can be imagin'd, which inforce
Disturbed Nature to forget her Course.
I heare approaching feet: What ere thou art,
Whom darknesse from our sight conceales, impart
All that thou know'st to our prepared eares:
Accomplish, or dissolve our pressing feares.
II NVNCIVS.
Fury (from which, if loose, the Earth had fled)
And fatall Starres have their event: He's dead.
CHORVS.
O Heaven! we pardon now Dayes hasty flight;
Nor will complain, since they have quencht this light.
Yet tell how he dispos'd of his last breath;
The passages, and order of his death.
II NVNCIVS.
As the declining Sun the shades increast,
Reflecting on the more removed East,
His blazing haire grew black: no clouds obscures
His vanisht Light; this his own Orb immures.
[Page 51]The Dayes fourth part as yet invests the Pole,
Were this a Day; when from the afflicted Soule
This voice was clearely heard, not like the breath
Of those who labour between life and death;
My God, O why dost thou thy own forsake!
VVhich purposely the Multitude mistake,
But to prolong their cruel mirth; who said,
He on the Thesbian Prophet calls for aid;
Now to return, and draw from Heaven again
Devouring Showres of Fire, or Flouds of Rain.
VVith silence this he indures. His body rent,
His bloud exhausted, and his Spirits spent,
He cry'd; I Thirst. As servants to his will,
The greedy hollowes of a spunge they fill
VVith vineger, which Hyssops sprigs combine,
And on a reed exalt the deadly Wine.
This scarcely tasted, his pale lips once more
He opens, and now lowder then before
Cry'd, All is finisht; here my labours end:
To thee, O heavenly Father, I commend
My parting Soul. This said, hung down his head;
And with his words his mixed Spirits fled:
Leaving his body, which again must bleed,
Now senselesse of the Crosse. From prison freed,
Those happy seats he injoyes, by God assign'd
To injur'd Vertue, and th'etheriall Minde.
[Page 52]But Terrours, which with Nature war, affright
Our peacelesse Souls. The World hath lost its Light:
Heaven, and the Deeps below, our Guilt pursue:
Pale troops of wandring Ghosts now hurrie through
The holy Citie; whom, from her unknown
And secret Wombe, the trembling Earth hath thrown.
The cleaving Rocks their horrid jawes display:
And yawning Tombes afford the dead a way
To those that live. Heaven is the generall
And undistinguisht Sepulcher to all.
Old Chaos now returnes. Ambitious Night
Impatient of alternate Rule, or Right,
Such as before the Dayes etheriall birth,
With her own shady People fills the Earth.
CHORVS.
How did the many-minded People look
At these Portents? with what affection strook?
II. NVNCIVS.
The Lamentations, mixed with the cries
Of weeping Women, in low'd Vollies rise.
Those who had known him, who his followers were
While yet he liv'd, and did in death adhere,
In that new Night sighs from their sorrowes send;
And to those Heavens they could not see, extend
[Page 53]Their pious hands; complaining that the Sun
Would then appeare when this was to be done.
The safety of their lives the Vulgar dread:
Some for themselves lament, some for the dead;
Others the ruine of the world bewaile.
Their Courages the cruel Romanes faile:
Those hands, which knew no peace, now lazie grew;
And conquering Feare to earth their weapons threw.
Th'amaz'd Centurion with our thoughts compli'd;
And swore the Heros most unjustly dy'd:
Whose punishment the Earth could hardly brook,
But groaning, with a horrid motion shook.
Confirmed by the Dayes prodigious flight
To be a beame of the celestiall Light:
And so the mourning Heavens inverted face,
Showes to the Vnder world his Heavenly Race.
CHORVS.
Why flock the People to the Temple thus?
No cause, excepting piety, in us
Can want belief. Hope they to satisfie
With Sacrifice the Wrath of the most High?
II. NVNCIVS.
New prodigies, as horrid, thither hale
Th'astonisht Multitude. The Temples Vale
[Page 54]That hung on guilded Beames in purple dy'd,
Asunder rent, and fell on either side.
The trust of what was sacred is betray'd;
And all the Hebrew Mysteries display'd.
That fatall Ark, so terrible of old
To our palefoes, which Cherubins of Gold
Veil'd with their hovering wings; whose closure held
Those two-leav'd Tables, wherein Godreveal'd
His sacred Lawes; That Food which by a new
Example fell from Heaven in fruitfull Dew
About our Tents, and tacidly exprest
By intermitted showres the seventh Dayes rest;
The Rod with never dying blossoms spread;
Which with a Miter honour Aarons Head:
These, with th'old Temple perisht: Th'eye could reach
No object in this rupture, but the Breach.
What was from former Ageshid, is shown;
Which struck so great a reverence when unknown.
The Temple shines with flames; and to the sight
That fear'd Recesse disclos'd with its own Light.
Either Religion from their fury flies,
Leaving it naked to profaner eyes:
Or God doth this abhorred Seat reject,
And will his Temple in the Minde erect.
CHORVS.
[Page 55]Shall Punishment in Death yet finde an end?
Shall his cold Corps to earth in peace descend?
Or naked hang, and with so dire a sight
Profane the Vefper of the sacred Night?
II. NVNCIVS.
Too late Religion warmes their savage brests,
Lest that neare Houre, which harbengers their Feast;
Should take them unprepar'd: to Pilat they
Repaire; intreat him that the Souldier may
From bloudy crosses take their bodies down,
Before their Festivalls the Morning crown:
That no uncleannesse might from thence arise;
In memory of th' Aegyptian Sacrifice.
The leggs of the two Thieves, they brake, whose breath
Yet groan'd between the bounds of life and death.
The crashing bones report a dreadfull sound;
While both their souls at once a passage found.
Nor had the Cohortlesse to Jesus done,
Who now the Courseprescrib'd by Fate had runne:
But dead, deep in his side his trembling speare
A Souldier strake: his entrails bare appeare;
And from that wide-mouth'd Orifice, a floud
Of water gusht, mixt with a stream of bloud.
[Page 56]The Crosses now discharged of their fraught,
The People fled; not with one look or thought:
Part sad, and part amaz'd. Spent Fury dies.
Whither so fast? run you to sacrifice
A silly Lambe? too mean an Offering
Is this for you, who have sacrific'd your King.
CHORVS.
Either deceiv'd by the ambiguous Day,
Or troops of mourners to my eyes display
A perfect Sorrow: Women with their bare
And bleeding brests, drown'd cheeks, dissheveld haire.
The Souldiers slowly march, with knees that bend
Beneath their feares, and Pilats staires ascend.
CHORVS OF ROMANE SOVLDIERS.
O Thou who on thy flaming Charriot rid'st,
And with perpetuall Motion Time divid'st;
Great King of Day, from whose farre-darting Eye
Night-wandring Stars with fainting Splendor flie;
Whither, thus intercepted, dost thou stray!
Through what an unknown darknesse lies thy way!
In Heaven, what new-born Night the Day invades!
The Mariner that sails by Tyrian Gades,
[Page 57]As yet sees not thy panting Horses steepe
Their fiery fet-locks in th'Hesperian Deep.
No pitchy storme, wrapt up in swelling Clouds
By Earth exhal'd, thy golden Tresses shrouds:
Nor thy pale Sister in her wandring Race
With interposed wheeles obscures thy Face;
But now farre-off retires with her stolne Light,
Till in a silver Orbe her hornes unite.
Hath some Thessalian Witch with Charms unknown
Surpriz'd and bound thee! What new Phaëton
With feeble hands to guide thy Charriot strives,
And farre from the deserted Zodiack drives!
What horrid fact, before th' approach of Night.
Deservedly deprives the World of Light!
As when stern Atreus to his Brother gave
His Childrens flesh, who made his owne their grave:
Or when the Vestall Ilia's God-like Sun,
Who our unbounded Monarchie begun,
Was in a hundred pieces cut; by theft
At once of Life and Funerals bereft.
Or hath that Day wherein the Gods were borne
Finish'd the Course of Heaven in its returne;
And now the aged Stars refuse to run
Beyond that place from whence they first begun!
Nature, what plagues dost thou to thine intend!
Whither shrinks this hugh Masse! what fatall end!
[Page 58]If now the Generall Floud againe retire,
If the World perish by licentious Fire,
What shall of those devouring Seas become!
Where shall those funerall Ashes finde a Tomb!
What ever innovates the Course of Things,
To men alone, nor Nations, ruine brings:
Either the groaning Worlds disordered Frame
Now suffers, or that Power which guides the same.
Doe proud Titanians with their impious War
Again provoke th' Olympian Thunderer?
Is there a mischiefe extant, greater then
Dire Python, or the Snake of Lerna's Fen,
That poysons the pure Heavens with Viperous breath?
What God, from Gods deriv'd, opprest by Death,
Is now in his own Heaven bewail'd? Divine
Lyeus gave to man lesse precious Wine;
Not Hercules so many Monsters flew;
Vnshorne Apollo lesse in Physick knew.
Sure we with darknesse are invelloped
Because that innocent bloud by Envy shed,
So deare unto the Gods, this place defam'd:
VVhich shook the Earth, and made the Day asham'd.
Great Father of us all, whose Influence
Informes the World thou mad'st; though Sin incense
Thy just displeasure, easie to forgive
Those who confesse, and for their Vices grieve;
[Page 59]Now to the desperate Sons of men, who stray
In sinnes dark Labyrinth, restore the Day.
One Sacrifice seek we to expiate
All our Offences, and appease his hate.
VVhich the Religion of the Samian,
Nor Thracian Harpe, wild beasts instructing, can;
Nor that Prophetick Boy, the Gleabs swart son,
VVho taught the Thuscans Divination.
The Bloud, which from that mangled body bled,
Must purge our sins, which we unjustly shed.
O smooth thy brows! Receive the innocence
Of one for all; and with our guilt dispence.
For sin, what greater Ransome can we pay?
VVhat worthier Offering on thy Altar lay?

[Page 60]
THE FIFTH ACT.JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA. NICODEMVS.
SEe, Citizens, we Pilats bounty beare:
With-out a suite men cannot man interre.
The Romane Progeny nor freely will
Doe what is good; nor, unrewarded ill.
Nothing is now in use but barbarous Vice:
They sell our bloud, on graves they set a price.
NICODEMVS.
O Joseph, these vaine extasies refraine:
But if it seeme so pleasant to Complaine,
Let Rome alone, and seek a neerer guilt:
His bloud not Romulus sons, but Abrahams spilt.
VVho so the purer sense sincerely draws
From those celestiall Oracles and Lawes,
By God above himselfe inspir'd, will say
None led to Eternitie a straighter way.
VVhat's that to Pilat? fell the Innocent by
A Romane Oath? was't through the subtilty
Of Senators or Priests? The Doome display'd
They Caesarlesse then Caiaphas obay'd.
[Page 61]Let us transferre the fact; the impious Jew
VVith heart, with tongue and eyes, first Jesus slew:
The Romans onely acted their Offence.
How well the Heavens with Hebrew hands dispence!
For this the Jew th'Italians Crime envi'd,
And wish'd himselfe the bloody Homicide.
Doe we as yet our servitude lament,
VVhen such a murder meets no punishment?
This doe they, this command.
JOSEPH.
The Progeny
Of Romane Ilia, and of Sara, I
VVith equall detestation execrate.
O may they perish by a fearefull Fate!
Just Heaven, why sleepes thy Lightning! in a Showre
Of pitch descend: Let stenching Seas de youre
This cursed City. Sodome, thou art cleare,
Compar'd to ours. No more will I a teare
Shed for my Countrey. Let the Great in War,
VVorse then the Babylonian Conquerar,
Enter her Breaches like a violent Floud,
Vntill the bloudy City swim in bloud.
Is this too little? Let Diseases sow
Their fruitfull Seed, and in destruction grow:
[Page 62]Famine, in their dry entrailes take thy seat;
VVhat Nature most abhors, inforce to eat.
Let th' Infant tremble at his Fathers knife;
The Babe re-enter her who gave it Life.
VVhile yet the eager Foe invests the wall,
VVithin may they by their own weapons fall:
The Temple wrapt in flames. Let th' Enemy
Decide their Civill Discord, and destroy
VVith fire and sword ungratefull Solyma:
The reliques of their slaughter drive away;
Nor seventy yeers dissolve their servill bands;
Despis'd, and wretched, wander through all Lands:
Abolish'd be their Law; all forme of State:
No Day see their returne. Let sudden Fate
Succeed my curses. This infected Soyle
No more shall feed me. What unusuall toyle
Shall my old feet refuse, so they no more
Tread on this Earth! though to that unknown shore,
VVhich lyes beneath the slow Bootes VVaine,
Dasht by th' unconstant billows of that Maine.
That Countrey shall be mine, where Justice swayes;
And bold Integrity the Truth obayes.
NICODEMVS.
This Error with a secret poyson feeds
The minds Disease. VVho censures his own deeds?
[Page 63]VVho not anothers? These accusing Times
Rather the men condemne, then taxe their Crimes.
Such is the Tyranny of Judgement; prone
To sentence all Offences, but our owne.
Because of late we cry'd not Crucifie,
Nor falsely doom'd the Innocent to die,
Our selves we please: as it a Vertue were;
And Great one, if from great Offences cleare.
Confesse; what Orator would plead his Cause?
To vindicate his truth who urg'd the Laws?
Or once accus'd their bloudy suffrages,
By Envy sign'd? VVho durst those Lords displease?
So Piety suffer'd, while by speaking they,
And we by silence, did the Just betray.
VVhen women openly their zeale durst show,
VVe, in acknowledging our Master, slow,
Vnder the shady coverture of Night
Secur'd our feares, which would not brook the Light.
Joseph, at length our faith it selfe exprest;
But to the Dead.
JOSEPH.
This is a truth confest.
The Evening now restored Day subdues:
And lo, the Vigil with the Night enseues.
[Page 64]Not farre from Golgotha's in famous Rocks
A Cave there is, hid with the shady Locks
Of funerall Cypresse, hewne through living stone:
The house of Death; as yet possest by none.
My Age this chose for her eternall rest:
VVhich now shall entertaine a nobler Guest.
That ample Stone which shuts the Sepulcher,
Shall the inscription of his Vertues beare.
VVho knows but soon a holier Age may come,
VVhen all the World shall celebrate this Tombe;
And Kings as in a Temple hereadore;
Through fire and sword sought from the farthest Shore?
NICODEMVS.
Pure water of the Spring, you precious Tears,
Perfumes which Odor-breathing Saba beares,
VVith your preservatives his body lave,
Sinke through his pores, and from corruption save.
Nor God, nor Fate will suffer, that this pure,
This sacred Corps, should more then death indure.
Religion, if thou know'st the Shades below,
Let never filthy putrefaction flow
Through his uncover'd bones; nor wast of Time
Resolve this beavenly figure into slime.
[Page 65]
JOHN. MARY THE MOTHER OF JESVS.
THou reverent Virgin, of his royall Bloud,
Who all between the Erythrean Floud
And great Euphrates won by strenuous Armes:
Assume his noble fortitude; those harmes
Which presse thy Soul, subdue: ungentle Fate
Hath by undoing thee secur'd thy state.
Fortune her strength by her own blowes hath spent.
Judaea's kingdome from thy Fathers rent
By forrein hands; of ancient Wealth bereft;
Except thy Son, what was for danger left?
These stormes by death disperst, serene appeare:
For what hath childlesse Poverty to feare?
MARY.
O John, for thee in such extreames to mourn
Perhaps is new: but I to grief was born.
With this have we convers't twice sixteen yeares:
No form of sorrow hath beguil'd our feares.
To me how ominously the Prophets sung,
Even from the time that heavenly Infant sprung
In my chaste Wombe! Old Simeon this reveal'd;
And in my Soul the deadly wound beheld.
[Page 66]When One, among so many Infants slain,
Was by the Tyrants Weapons sought in vain,
No miracles had then his fame displaid,
Or him the object of their envy made.
Perfidious Fraud in Sanctities disguise,
Nor the adulterated Pharisies,
By his detection had he yet inflam'd;
Nor for despising of their Rites defam'd;
A Trumpet of intestine Warre: the Earth
Of nothing then accus'd him, but his birth.
Not that fierce Prince, so cruell to his Own;
Nor his Successour in that fatall Throne,
As high in vice, who with the Prophets Head
Suppli'd his Feast, and on the bloud he had shed
Fed his incestuous eyes, in dire delight
To highthen impious Love, could me affright:
Nor yet the vulgar, hating his free tongue;
And showres of stones by a thousand Furies flung.
I though no mischief could our steps pursue,
That was more great; or to our sufferings new.
What wants example, what no mother fear'd;
This, this alone my dying hopes inter'd.
Wretch, wilt thou seek for words t'expresse thy woes!
Or this so vast a grief in silence close!
Great God (such is my faith) why wouldst thou come
To this inferiour Kingdome through my wombe!
[Page 67]Why mad'st thou choice of me to bring thee forth
For punishment! unhappy in my worth!
No woman ever bare a Son, by touch
Of man conceiv'd, whose Soule indures so much:
No mother such an issue better gain'd;
Nor lost it worse; by cursed Death profan'd.
JOHN.
What lowder grief with such an emphasis
Strikes through mine eares! What honour'd Corse is this,
With Tyrian linen vail'd? What's he whose haires
Contend with snow, whose cies look through their tears,
Who on those veins, yet bleeding, odors powres?
Or his assistant, crown'd with equall houres?
What troops of women hither throng! what stormes
Rise in their looks! Grief wanders through all formes.
My eyes, ah! wound my Heart. This was thy son;
This is thy bloud, thy mangled flesh. O run,
Take thy last kisses, ere of those bereft
By funerall: What else of all is left?
MARY.
My Soul, tyr'd with long miserie,
A midst these greater Sorrows die;
While Grief at his sad Exequies
Poures out her last Complaints in these.
[Page 68]Let me this snowy Paul unfold,
Once more those quickning looks behold.
O Son, born to a sad event;
Thus, thus, to thy poore Mother sent!
O Salem, was thy hatred such,
To murder him who lov'd so much!
Ah see, his side gor'd with a spear!
Those hands, that late so bounteous were,
Transfixt! his feet pierc'd with one wound!
The Sun had better never found
His losse, then with restored light
To shew the World so dire a sight.
You Neighbours to the Suns up-rise,
Who read their motions in the Skies;
O you in chief who found your Lord,
And with such lively Zeal ador'd,
Now view the Heavens inverted laws:
With me bewail the wretched Cause.
His Birth a Starre, new kindled, sign'd:
To see his Death the Sun grew blinde.
Thou hope of my afflicted State;
Thou living, I accus'd not Fate:
The Day again with light is crown'd,
But thou in Night for ever drown'd.
O could'st thou see my broken heart!
The flowing teares these springs impart!
[Page 69]Thy mother, whom man never knew;
Who by the Word then fruitfull grew:
My Womb admir'd that unknown Guest,
Whose burden for nine Moones increast.
Thy Mother, to a Scepter borne,
With age and wrinkling sorrow worne,
This Countrey sees to get her bread
With labour, in an humble Shed.
Thy milk from these two fountaines sprung:
These armes about my neck have hung,
Coucht on the flowry bancks of Nile:
Aegypt, so just to thy exile,
Hath now redeem'd her former Curse;
Our Jews then those of Memphis worse.
If his chast bloud at length asswage
The bitter tempest of your rage;
If you can pitty misery,
O let me by your mercy dye:
Or, if not glutted with his bloud;
With mine increase this purple floud.
O my deare sonne! what here our eyes behold,
What yonder hung, or what Death could infold
In endlesse Night; is mine, and onely mine:
No mortall did in thy conception joyne,
Nor part of thee can challenge: Since the losse
Was onely ours, let us the griefe ingrosse.
[Page 70]Vngratefull Man! who his Protector slew:
Nor feels his Curse, nor then his Blessing knew.
Poore wretch! no soule in thy defence durst rise:
And now the murdred unrevenged lies.
The Lame, who by thy powerfull Charmes were made
Sound and swift-footed, ran not to thy aide:
Those Eies, which never saw the glorious Light
Before thy soveraign touch, avoid thy sight:
And others, from Deaths silent mansion by
Thy Vertue ravish'd, suffer'd thee to dye.
JOHN.
Too true is thy Complaint, too just thy Woes:
Such were his friends, whom from a World he chose.
O desperate Faith! from whence, from whom are we
Thus falne! our Soules from no defection free!
Some sold, forswore him; none from tainture cleare;
All from him fled to follow their owne feare.
Thou Oracle! a father in thy care,
In love a brother, the delinquent spare,
In thy divine affection ô too blest!
Whom Yester-night saw leaning on thy brest:
If Love in death survive, if yet as great;
Even by that Love thy pardon I intreat:
By this thy weeping Mother: I the Heire
By thee adopted to thy filiall care,
[Page 71]Though alike wretched, and as comfortlesse;
Yet, as I can, will comfort her distresse.
O Virgin-mother, favour thy Reliefe;
Though just, yet moderate thy flowing griefe:
Thy downe-cast Minde by thy owne Vertue raise.
Th'old Prophets fill their Volumes with thy praise:
No Age but shall through all the round of Earth
Sing of that heavenly Love, and sacred Birth.
What female glory parallels thy Worth!
So grew a Mother, such a Son brought forth!
She who prov'd fruitfull in th'extreame of age,
And found the truth of that despis'd presage:
She, whose sweet Babe, expos'd among the reeds
Which ancient Nilus with his moisture feeds,
Who then, a smiling Infant, overcame
The threatning floud; aspir'd not to thy fame,
But these expressions are for thee too low;
The op'ning Heavens did their observance show:
Those radiant Troopes, which Darknesse put to flight,
Thy Throws aslisted in that festive Night:
Who over thy adored Infant hung
With golden wings, and Allelu jah's sung:
While the Old Sky, to imitate that birth,
Bare a new Starre to amaze the wondring Earth.
MARY.
[Page 72]Sorrow is fled: Joy, a long banish'd Guest,
With heavenly rapture fill's my inlarged brest:
More great then that in youth, when from the Sky
An Angel brought that blessed Embassy;
When Shame, not soon instructed, blush'd for feare,
How I a Son by such a Fate should beare.
I greater things fore-see: my eyes behold
What ever is by Destiny inrold.
With troops of pious Soules, more great then they,
Thou to felicity shalt lead the way.
A holy People shall obey thy Throne;
And Heaven it selfe surrender thee thy own.
Subjected Death thy Triumph now attends,
While thou from thy demolish'd Tombe ascends.
Nor shalt thou long be seene by mortall eies,
But in perfection mount above the Skies;
Propitious ever, from that heighth shalt give
Peace to the World, instructed how to live.
A thousand Languages shall thee adore:
Thy Empire know no bounds. The farthest Shore
Washt by the Ocean, those who Dayes bright Flame
Scarce warmes, shall heare the thunder of thy Name.
Licentious sword, nor hostill Fury, shall
Prevaile against thee: thou, the Lord of all.
[Page 73]Those Tyrants, whom the vanquisht Worlds obay,
Before thy feete shall Caesars Scepter lay.
The Time draws on, in which it selfe must end,
When thou shalt in a Throne of Clouds descend
To judge the Earth. In that reformed World,
Those by their sins infected, shall be hurl'd
Downe under one perpetuall Night; while they
Whom thou hast cleans'd, injoy perpetuall Day.

The End.

[Page]

THe Tragedie of CHRIST'S PASSION was first written in Greek by Apollinarius of Laodicea,, Bishop of Hieropolis: and after him by Gregory Nazianzen; though this, now extant in his Works, is by some ascribed to the former: by others accounted supposititious, as not agreeing with his Strain in the rest of his Poems; which might alter in that particular upon his imitation of Euripides. But Hugo Grotius, of late hath transcended all on this Argument: whose steps afar-off I follow.

[Page 75]

ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FIRST ACT.

VErse 23. Ephratian Dames]: Of Ephrata, the same with Bethlehem.
Ver. 33. Magi]: Tradition will have them three, of severall Nations, and honour them with crownes. But the word delivers them for Persians, for so they called their Philosophers; such as were skilfull in the Coelestiall Motions, from whence they drew their predictions: and with whom their Princes consulted in all matters of moment. Some write that they were of the posteritie of Balaam, by his Prophesies informed of the birth of Christ, and apparition of that narrative Starre: but more consonant to the Truth, that they received it from divine inspiration.
Ver. 34. My Starre]: None of those which adorne the Firmament; nor Comet, proceeding from condensed Vapors inflamed in the Aire; but above Nature, and meerely miraculous: which, as they write, not onely illuminated the eye, but the understanding; excited thereby to that heavenly inquisition. Some will have it an Angel in that forme. The excellencie whereof is thus described by Prudentius. [Page 76]
This, which in Beames and Beauty far

Exceld the Sunnes flame-bearing Car,

Shew'd Gods descent from Heaven to Earth,

Accepting of a humane Birth.

No servant to the humerous Night,

Nor following Phoebe's changing Light;

But didst thy single Lamp display

To guide the Motion of the Day.

Hym Epiphaniae.
It is probable that this Starre continued not above thirteene dayes, if we may beleeve that Tradition, How the Magi were so long in travelling from their Countrey unto Bethlehem.
Ver. 34. Mithra's flame]: Mithra: the same with the Sunne, adored by the Persians. His Image had the countenance of a Lion, with a Tiara on his head, depressing an Oxe by the hornes. Of this Statius
Come, O remember thy owne Temple; prove

Propitious still, and Juno's Citie love:

Whether we should thee rosy Titan call;

Osyris, Lord of Ceres festivall;

Or Mithra shrin'd in Persian rocks, a Bull,

Subduing by the horror of his skull.

Thebaid. l. 1.
And in a Cave his Rites were solemnized: from [Page 77] whence they drew an Oxe by the hornes; which, after the singing of certaine Paeans, was sacrificed to the Sun, Zorastes placeth him between Oremazes and Arimanius, the good and bad Daemon, from which he took that denomination.
Vers. 39. Pharisees]: A precise Sect among the Iews, separating themselves from others in habit, manners, and conversation: from whence they had their Name; as their Originall from Antigonus Sochaeus, who was contemporary with Alexander the Great. Men full of appearing Sanctitie; observant to Traditions, and skilfull expositors of the Moysaicall Law: wearing the Precepts thereof in Phylacters (narrow scroules of parchment) bound about their browes, and above their left elbowes: passing thorow the streets with a slow motion, their eyes fixed on the ground, as if ever in divine contemplations: and wincking at the approach of women, by meanes whereof they not seldome met with churlish incounters. Superstitious in their often washing, keeping their bodies cleaner then their soules. They held that all was governed by God and Fate; yet that man had the power in himselfe to doe good or evill: That his Soule was immortall; that after the death of the body, if good, it returned into an other more excellent; but if evill, condemned to perpetuall torments.
Vers. 43. Sadduces]: These derived the Sect and name from Sadock, the scholar of Antigonus [Page 78] Socaeus: as he his Heresie by misinterpreting the words of his Master; that we should not serve God as servants, in hope of reward: concluding thereupon that in another World there was no reward for Pietie, and consequently no resurrection: holding the Soul to be annihilated after the death of the Body herein agreeing with the Stoicks.
As smoke from trembling flames ascends, and there,

Lost in its liberty, resolves to aire;

As empty Clouds, which furious tempests chace,

Consume and vanish in their aiery race;

So our commanding Souls fleet with our breath:

After Death nothing rests; and nothing Death,

But of swift Life the Gole. Ambition lay

Thy hopes aside; nor Care our peace betray.

Inquir'st thou to what place thou shalt return

VVhen dead? To that, where lie the yet Vnborn.

Seneca in Troad.
They held that there was neither Spirits nor Angels; rejected all Traditions; and onely allowed of the five books of Moses; that there was no such thing as Fate; that no evil proceeded from God; and that Vertue and Vice were in our own Arbitrements. The Pharisees were sociable among themselves: but the Sadduces ever at discord, and as uncivill to their own Sect as to strangers. This Heresie infected not [Page 79] a few of the High Priests: for Hircanus with his two Sons, Aristobulus and Alexander, were Sadduces; so was Auanus the younger.
Vers. 151. Now the full Moon]: In the first full Moon after the Suns ascending into the Equinoctiall, they celebrated the annuall Passeover, according to the positive Law of Moses; eating the Lambe in the Evening at their private houses, and lying about the table on beds, as the Romanes upon their Trielinium: never fewer then ten together; if they wanted of their owne Family, they supplied themselves with their Neighbours; nor above the number of twenty. This Feast was onely to be kept at Ierusalem: but those that came short of the Day by reason of the distance, or were defiled with the Dead, had a second Passeover in the moneth following assigned.
Vers. 161. Our washings past]: It was the Custome as well of all the Eastern Nations, as of the Iewes, to wash the feet of their Guests, though performed by inferior Servants; but here by Christ himself, to give an example of humilitie. They had vessels standing by, ready fill'd with water for that purpose. This, at this Feast, was observed between the first and second lying down, by way of Purification:
Vers. 175. Phosphorus]: The same with Lucifer, which is a bringer in of Light; and therefore the Harbinger of the Day: said to conduct and withdraw the Starres in that the last that shineth. This is the beautifull Planet of Venus; which when it riseth [Page 80] before the Sun is the Morning Starre; and setting after it, the Evening.
Now sea-bath'd Hesperus, who brings

Night on, and first displayes his wings:

Now, radiant Lucifer; who Day

Exalting, chaceth Night away.
In regard that her Course is sometimes swifter then the Sun, and sometimes slower: yet never farre off, and fulfilling the same period.
Vers. 193. Those Cities, &c.]: The Cities which lie at the foot of Libanus, on the North of Galilee; whereof Cesarea Philippi, the Seat of the Tetrarch, was the principall: where Iordan not farre above descends from Ior and Dan, two neighbouring Fountains.
Vers 198. A Sea-resembling Lake.]: The Lake of Genesareth called also the Sea of Galilee, and of Tiberias; taking this name from that Citie there built by Antipas in honour of Tiberius. It extendeth forty fur-longs in breadth, and in length an hundred: the shore once inriched with the Cities of Capharnaum, Tiberias, Bethsaida, Bethsan, Gadra, Taricha, and Chorosaim.
Vers. 199. Those VVoods of Palmes.]: In the Plaines adjoyning to Iericho: from theirabundance called the Citie of Palmes.
Vers. 200. Of fragrant Balsamum, which &c.]: As in [Page 81] Engaddi, so Balsamum grew plentifully about Iericho. A plant onely proper to that Countrey: and from thence transported into Aegypt by Antonius, to gratifie Cleopatra. It dies, if it be toucht with iron: and therefore they lanch the rinde with sharp stones, or knives of bone, from whence that precious liquour distilleth.
Vers. 203. That mount]: Phasga: from whence Moses saw all the land of Promise from Dan to Bersheba; and there died: buried in an unknown Sepulcher by an Angel, lest that should have drawn the Israelites to Idolatry. Saint Hitrome writes, how the Devil, indeavouring to reveale the place, was resisted by Michael the Archangel.
Vers 209. Cepheans, whose strong walls, &c,]: Cepheus, the son of Phoenix, reigned in Ioppa: A citie built by Iaphet before the Floud, and rather covered then demolisht by that Deluge. The Inhabitants, with their territories, took the name of their King: Who worshipped Dercetis the Goddesse of the Ascalonites their neighbours. She, as they fable, inflamed with the love of a beautifull Youth who sacrific'd unto her, having by him a Daughter (who after, in that nourished by Doves, was called Semiramis) ashamed of her incontinency, put away the Youth, exposed the childe to the mercie of the Deserts; and distracted with sorrow, threw her self into a Lake neare [Page 82] Ascalon, and there was changed into a fish. Of which Ovid.
—To insist upon

The sad Dercetis of great Babylon:

Who, as the Palestines beleeve, did take

A scaly form, inhabiting a Lake.
To whom a magnificent Temple was erected, with her image in the likenesse of a fish from the navell downward. This was that Dagon, the Idol of the Ascolonites, according to S. Hierome, (by interpretation the Fish of Sorrow) which fell before the Ark of God, when it was brought into her Temple.
Vers. 214. Azotus, both the Jamnes]: Maritim townes belonging to the Philistines: the latter so called of the flourishing Soyle.
Vers. 215. Lydda]: A Citie seated in the valley above, and a little to the North of Ioppa: called after, the Citie of Iupiter: famous for the Allegoricall Combat of S^t George, and his Martyrdome.
Vers. 216. Caparorsa]: A Citie of Iudaea according to Ptolomey; rather of Idumea, as here intimated by our Authour.
Vers. 217. Damascus]: The regall Citie of Syria: as pleasant as great; here said to have commanded ten Nations. It lieth on the North of Galiee, in a valley beyond Antelibanus: six short dayes journey from Ierusalem.
Vers. 219. Sabaste]: Samaria, the soveraigne Citie of those ten Tribes which fell from the House of Iudah: not much above a dayes journey from Ierusalem. Built by Amri on the top of a Hill, presenting an admirable Prospect, which he bought of Samarus, of whom it was called Samaria. The Inhabitants infamous for their frequent falling from God to Idolatry.
Vers. 221. Phoenicians, who]: The Inhabitants between the great Sea and Galilee (so called of Phoenix their king, the fifth in descent from Iupiter) honour'd for the invention of Letters.
Phoenicians first exprest (if Fame be true)

The fixt voice in rude figures. Memphis knew

Not yet how streame-lov'd Biblus to prepare:

But birds and beasts, carv'd out in stone, declare

Their Hieroglyphick Wisdomes.

Lucan. l. 3.
These Cadmus the sonne of Agenor communicated to the Grecians.
Vers. 223. Tyrus, full of Luxury]: The Metropolis of Phoenicia; once soveraigne of the Sea, and of all the World: the greatest Emporium: whose beauty, commerce, and riches, the parent of luxury, is by the Prophet Ezekiel most gloriously described.
Vers. 224. Mother Sidon]: The ancientest Citie of Phoenicia built by Sida, the daughter of Belus, or rather [Page 84] by Sidon the first-born of Canaan. The mother of Tyrus; for the Tyrians were a Colony of the Sidonians.
Vers. 226. Among the Syrians, those, &c.]: The Syrians would eat no fish; not onely in regard of the fabulous transformation of their Goddesse Dercetis; but that they held it injustice to kill those Creatures which did them no harm, and were fed on, rather for luxury then necessity: Withall, conceiving the Sea to be the originall and father of all that had life, and that man was ingendred of a liquid substance, they adored fishes as being of their own generation and Subsistence. So did they a Dove; not onely because their glorious Empresse Semiramis carried that name, and was after, as they fable, transformed into that creature: but expressing the Aire by the Dove, as by a fish the water; reverencing both, as comprising the Nature of all things.
V. 229 From Belus, whose &c.]: From certain marishes in the valley of Acre runs the River of Belus with a tardy pace, and exonerates it self into the Sea hard by Ptolemais: whose sand affordeth matter for glasse, becomming fusible in the furnace. Strabo reports the like of divers places there about: and Iosephus, speaking of this, that there is an adjoyning Pit, an hundred cubits in circuit, covered with sand that glistered like glasse; and when carried away (for therewith they accustomed to ballast their ships) it forth-with was filled again, borne thither by windes [Page 85] from places adjacent. Moreover, that what minerall soever was contained therein converted into glasse; and glasse there laid, againe into sand.
Vers. 231. From Arnons bankes; those, &c.]: Arnon riseth in the mountaines of Arabia; and dividing the Countrey of the Moabites from the Ammonites, fals into the Dead Sea. By those ancient Warres is meant the Overthrow which Moses gave unto Og and Sehon.
Vers. 234. Asphaltis]: The Dead Sea, or Lake of Sodome and Gomorrah; having no egresse, unlesse under the Earth; Seventy miles in length, and sixteen broad: here at large described by our Author.
Vers. 237. VVhat over flies, &c.]: The like is written of Avernus: whereof the poeticall Philosopher
Avernus cald: a name impos'd of right,

In that so fatall to all Birds of flight.

VVhich when those aiery Passengers o' re-fly,

Forgetfull of their wings, they fall from high

With stretcht out necks: on Earth, where Earth partakes

That killing propertie; where Lakes, on Lakes.

Lucr. l. 6.
Vers. 215. VVhen she, &c.]: Lots wife. Iosephus writes that he himselfe had seene that Statue of Salt: yet extant, if Brocardus and Saligniacus, professed Eyewitnesses, be to be beleeved.
Vers. 255. Devout Esseans]: A Sect among the Iews; strictly preserving the worship of God, the rules of Religion and Iustice: living on the common stock; never eating of flesh, and wholly abstaining from Wine and Women. They wore their apparell white and cleanly: pray'd before the rising of the Sunne; laboured all day long for the publike utilitie; fed in the evening with a generall silence; and had their Sobriety rewarded with a life long and healthfull. Their chiefe study was the Bible; and next to that, Physick, taking their name from the cure of diseases. All were servants one to an other. They never sware an oath, nor offered any thing that had life in their sacrifice: ascribing all unto Fate, and nothing to free Will. They preserved their Society by the adoption of children, inured to piety and labour. Their Sect, though ancient, hath no known Originall; yet much agreeing with the discipline of the Pythagoreans.
Vers. 274. The first unleaven'd Bread]: Eaten with the Paschal Lambe at the Israelites departing out of Aegypt: the Ceremonies used therein are at large delivered by Moses.
Vers. 275. She never would retaine]: The Libertie they lost in the Babylonian Captivitie, was never absolutely recovered: for the most part under the Persians, Grecians, Aegyptians, or Syrians (although in the reigne of the Asmones they had the face of a Kingdome, yet maintained with perpetuall bloudshed) [Page 78] after governed by the Idumeans, and lastly by the Romanes: often rebelling, and as often suppressed.
Ver. 278. Horned Hammons Temple]: Iupiter Hammon, which signifies Sand; because his Temple stood in the Lybian Desarts: with such difficultie visited by Alexander. Or rather being the same with Ham the sonne of Noah; from whom Idolatry had her Originall: who usually wore the carved head of a Ram on his Helmet; whereupon his Idol was so fashioned. But Iupiter Hammon is also taken for the Sunne; Hammah signifying Heate in the Hebrew. And because the Yeere beginneth at his entrance into Aries, he therefore was carved with Rams hornes.
Ver. 281. Built his proud City]: Alexandria in Aegypt; built by Alexander the Great upon a Promentory neer the Isle of Pharos: so directed, as they write, by Homer in a Vision.
Vers. 282. To their old prison, Babylon]: Not all the Iews returned with Zorobbabel, but remained at Babylon, and by the favour of succeeding Princes planted thereabout their Colonies; grew a great Nation, observing their ancient Rites and Religion. These were called Babylonian Iews: to whom not a few of their Countrey men fled from the troubles of their Countrey.
Vers. 283. To freezing Taurus, &c.]: The greatest Mountaine of the World, which changeth its name [Page 88] according to the countries through which it extendeth: that part properly so called, which divideth Pamphilia and Cilicia from the lesser Armenia and Cappadocia: Whither many of the Iews were retired.
Vers. 284. And Tiber now, &c.]: Rome, the Empresse of Cities adorning the bankes of Tiber, to which the Ocean then yeelded Obedience.

[Page 89]

ANNOTATIONS VPON THE SECOND ACT.

VErse 1. Bloud-thirsty Romulus]: The Originall of the Race and Name of the Romanes: who laide the Wals of Rome in the bloud of his brother Remus.
Vers. 15. To such a Guide, &c.]: It was a Custome among the Easterne Nations, and not relinquished by many at this Day, for men to kisse one another in their salutations. So did the Romanes, untill interdicted by Tiberius. With the Iews it was a pledge of peace and amitie: used also to their Lords and Princes by way of homage and acknowledged subjection: as perfidious Iudas did here to his Master.
Vers. 55. Memphis]: By this is meant the Aegyptian Servitude; Memphis of old the chiefe Citie in Aegypt.
Vers. 55. Devouring Desarts]: All the Israelites, that came out of Aegypt, perished in the Desarts, but Ioshuah and Caleb.
Vers. 55. Civill warres]: As between the Tribe of Benjamin, and the rest of the Tribes; the Iews and Israelites; Israelites against Israelites, and Iews against Iews. Discord threw her Snakes among the Asmones, nor had Herods Posteritie better successe.
Vers. 56. Oft forreign yokes]: Often subdued by their Neighbours, and delivered by their Iudges and Princes.
Vers. 56. Assyrian Conquerers]: Who sackt Ierusalem, destroyed the Temple which was built by Solomon, led their King captive, and their whole Nation, unto Babylon.
Vers. 57. Great Pompeys Eagles]: Pompey, who bore the Romane Eagle on his Standard, took Ierusalem and the Temple by force (yet would not meddle with the Treasure, nor sacred Vtensils) subdued the Iews, and made them tributaries to the Romanes.
Vers. 57. Sacred Rites Profan'd]: Who entred the Sanctum Sanctorum with his followers, and prophaned the Religion of the place by beholding that which was to be seene but by the High Priest onely.
Vers. 58. The Temple sackt, with bloud, &c.]: He slew twelve thousand Iews within the wals of the Temple.
Vers. 66. Cedron]: This Brook, or Torrent, runnes thorough the Vale of Iehosaphat, between Mount Olivet and the City, close by the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ was betrayed.
Vers. 103. Not Jordan with two, &c.]: See the Note upon vers. 195. Act. 1.
Vers. 105. Callithoe]: A Citie in the Tribe of Ruben, so called of her beautifull Springs: where from a Rock two neighbour Fountaines gush out as from the brests of a woman: the one of hot, but sweet [Page 91] water; the other of cold and bitter; which joyning together make a pleasant Bath, salubrious for many diseases; and flowes from thence into the Lake of Asphaltis. Herod in his sicknesse repaired to this place: but finding no help, and despairing of life, removed to Iericho; where he died.
Vers. 105. That ample Lake]: The Sea of Galilee, by which Peter was borne.
Vers. 107. Blew Nereus, &c.]: Nereus is taken for the Sea in generall, but here for the Aegyptian; into which Nilus dischargeth his waters by seven currents; the fresh water keeping together, and changing the colour of the Salt, far further into the Sea, then the shore from thence can be discerned.
Vers. 128. Lethe]: A River of Africa, passing by Bernice, and running into the Mediterranian Sea neere the Promontory of the Syrtes. It hath that name from Oblivion, because those, who drunk thereof, forgot whatsoever they had formerly done. Of this Lucan.
Where silent Lethe glides: this (as they tell)

Draws her Oblivion from the veines of Hell.
So feigned, because of the oblivion which is in Death; as allegorically for that of Sleep.
Vers. 139. Tarpean Jove]: Tarpeus is a Mountaine in Rome, taking that name from the Vestall Virgin Tarpea, who betrayed her Fathers Fort to the Sabines, [Page 92] upon promise to receive what they ware on their left armes for her reward; she meaning their golden bracelets: which they not onely gave, but threw their shields upon her (a part of the bargaine) and so prest her to death; who buried her in the Place: since called the Capitol, where Iupiter had his Temple.
Vers. 139. Mars, great Quirinus Sire]: Romulus was called Quirinus of his Speare; or for his uniting the two Nations of the Cures and Romanes: as the sonne of Mars, in that so strenuous a Souldier. Plutarch writes that he was begotten by his Vncle Aemulius, who counterfeiting Mars, disguised in Armour, ravished his mother Ilia: not onely to satisfie his Lust, but to procure her destruction, as the heire to his elder brother, the law condemning a defiled Vestall to be buried alive.
Vers. 140. You Houshold Gods, snatcht, &c.]: Penates: which Aeneas saved from burning at the sack of Troy, and brought them with him into Italy: supposing that from them they received their flesh, their life, and understanding.
Vers 151. Caprae]: A little Iland in the Tyrrhen Sea, and in the sight of Naples, naturally walled about with up-right Cliffs, and having but one passage into it. Infamous for the Cruelties and Lusts of Tiberius; who retiring thither from the affairs of the Common-wealth, sent from thence his Mandates of death; polluting the place with all varietie of uncleannesse; [Page 93] whereupon it was called the Iland of secret lusts, and he Caprenius: conversing there with Magicians, and South-sayers; whereof the Satyr speaking of Sejanus:
The Princes Tutor glorying to be nam'd;

Sitting in caves of Caprae with defam'd

Chaldeans.

Iuv: Sat. 10.
Ver. 152. The long-gown.]: The gowne was a garment peculiar to the Romanes, by which they were distinguished from other Nations; as of what qualitie among themselves by the wooll and colour, fashion, and trimming. In so much as they were called Togati: Whereof Virgil in the person of Iupiter
Curst Juno, who Sea, Earth, and Heaven above,

With her distemper tires, shall friendly prove;

And joyne with us in gracing the Long-gownd

And Lordly Romanes, still with conquest crown'd.

Aen. l. 1.
Vers. 157. Their hate to all &c]: The Iews with the hate of an enemy detested all other Nations: would neither eat with them, nor lodge in their houses; but avoided the stranger as a pollution. Proud in their greatest poverty: calling themselves the elect of God: boasting of their Countrey, their Religion, [Page 94] and ancient Families: in their conversation austere and respectlesse. So full of jealous envy, that by a Decree in the reigne of Hircanus and Aristobulus such suffered the dreadfull censure of a Curse, who instructed their sons in the Grecian Disciplines: and much regrated that the laws of Moses was translated into a profane language by the command of Philadelphus; expressing their grief by an annuall Fast, which they kept on the Eighth day of the moneth Teveth.
Vers. 159. Abjure for one, &c.]: Pilat accuseth them here for their piety: who after the Captivity, as much detested Idolatry as they affected it before: who could not be compelled by their Conquerours to worship the Images of Tiberius Caesar, which Pilat brought into the Citie, but was forced to carry them away upon their refusall. Caius not long after commanded that the Statues of the Gods should be erected in their Temple; menacing, if they should refuse it, their utter subversion. But his death prevented their ruine: who before had made their protestation, that they would rather suffer the generall destruction of themselves, and their City, then suffer such an abomination, so repugnant to their Law and Religion.
Vers. 168. With how much grief our swords &c.]: Iosephus mentions one slaughter onely, which Pilat, as then, had made of the Iews; and that about the drawing of water by conduits into the sacred Treasury; [Page 95] which divers thousands of the Iewes tumultuarily resisted. Pilat invironed them with his Souldiers, disguised in popular garments; who privately armed, fell upon the naked People, and by the slaughter of a number appeased the mutiny.
Vers. 234. Rods and Axes]: Borne before the Romane Consuls, Pretors, and Governours of Provinces: bound together in bundles, to informe the Magistrate that he should not be too swift in execution, nor unlimited: but that in the unbinding thereof he might have time to deliberate, and perhaps to alter his sentence: that some are to be corrected with Rods, and others cut off with Axes, according to the quality of their offences.
Vers. 254. Since one must die, &c.]: Caiaphas prophesied; being then the High Priest, though not of the House of Aaron. He was thrown out of his Office by Lucius Vitellius, who succeeded Pilat, and Ionathan the sonne of Annas placed in his room: when distracted with melancholy and desperation, he received his death from his own hands.
Vers. 242. Stygian]: Styx is a Fountain of Arcadia, whose waters are so deadly, that they presently kill whatsoever drinks thereof: so corrodiating that they can onely be contained in the hoof of a mule. This in regard of the dire effects, was feigned by the Poets to be a river in Hell.
Vers. 361. Solyma]: So called by the Grecians; as by the Hebrews Salem; and when David had taken [Page 96] it from the Iebusites, Ierusalem, which is as much as Jebusalem, turning B into R for the better harmony: called after the building of the Temple Hierosolyma by the Greeks, of Hieron which signifies a Temple in their language.
Vers. 264. From th' Isthmos]: This Isthmos lies between Aegypt, and the bottom of the Red Sea, from whence to Euphrates David extended his conquests: inforcing all the Arabians to become his Tributaries. Who also overthrew the King of Sophona hard by the eruption of Tygris, overcame the Mesopotamians, the King of Damascus, and drew that City, with all Syria, under his obedience: having before subdued the neighbouring Nations.
Vers. 267. Th'admiring Queen, &c.]: Josephus makes her Queen of Aethiopia; and to have bestowed on Solomon that pretious Plant of Balsamum, which he after planted in Engaddi: but this grew in Canaan in the dayes of Jacob, who sent a Present thereof, among other fruits of that Countrey, into Aegypt. The Aethiopian Emperours glory in their descent from Solomon by this Queen; in regard whereof they greatly favour the Jewish nation. They have a Citie called Saba, which lies on the West side of the Arabian Gulf. But by the presents which she brought, and vicinitie of the Countrey, it is more probable that she came from Saba, the principall Citie of Arabia the Happy.
Vers. 271. Canopus Scepter &c.]: Kings of Aegypt, of [Page 97] Canopus a principal Citie, which stood on that branch of Nilus which is next to Alexandria; taking that Name from Menelaus his Pilot, there buried by his shipwrackt master.
Vers. 272. Those Monarchs &c.]: Chaldean Monarchs: Babylon, the seat of their Empire; who, as the Persians, adored the Sun under the name of Mithra.
Vers. 274. Sarrana]: Tyrus: so called in that it was built on a rock: the Arabians pronouncing Scar for Sar, from whence the Tyrian purple takes the name of Scarlet.
He Cities sacks, and houses fills with grones;

To lie on scarlet, drink in pretious stones.

Virg. Geor. l. c.
Not onely Iosephus, but the Scriptures, make often mention of the ancient amitie between the Iews and Tyrians.
Vers. 277. Ths land &c.]: See the Note upon V. 275. Act. 1.
Vers. 283. Antiochus guilt]: Antiochus Epiphanes; who abrogated their Law, and by threatnings and tortures enforced the Iews to Idolatry: polluting their Altar with sacrificed Swine.
Vers. 291. Iönian Gods]: The Gods of Greece: Antiochus being of a Grecian Family, and zealous in their Superstitions.
Vers. 293. Their brothers slew, &c.]: Aristobulus, the [Page 98] first that ware a Crown of the race of the Asmones upon a false suspicion, by the machination of Salome the Queen, caused his valiant and affectionate brother Antigonus to be treacherously murdred; who before had imprisoned the rest of his brethren, and famished his mother. After the desperate death of Aristobulus, Alexander his brother was removed from a Prison to a Throne: who slew his third brother out of a vain suspicion of his aspiring to the Kingdome. To conclude, from the first King of the Asmones, to the last of the Herods, no history is so fruitfull in examples of unnaturall Cruelties.
Vers. 297. Twice vanquished &c]: Pompey was the first of the Romanes that subdued the Iews: neither were the Romanes expulsed by any forrein Prince; but untill this time maintained their Government. It must then be meant by their expulsion of one another in their Civill warres: Inlius Coesar vanquishing Pompey: Mark Anthony being his Lieutenant in Syria (who gave a great part of the Territories of the Iews to Cleopatra) after absolute Lord of the Eastern parts of the Romane Empire; in the end overthrown and deprived of all by Augustus.
Vers. 303. One part by Romane &c.]: Iudea reduced into a Romane Province by Pompey, and then governed by Pontius Pilat.
Vers. 304. The other two by brothers &c.]: Philip and Antipas (called also Herod) sons to Herod the Great: the one Tetrarch of Iturea, a Countrey which lies at [Page 99] the foot of Libanus; and the other of Galilee: to whōm Agrippa succeeded, the son of Aristobulus slain by his father Herod, with the title of a King bestowed by Coesar.
Vers 305. From savage Idumaeans]: Antipater, the father of Herod, was an Idumoean; who in the contention between the two brethren Hircanus and Aristobulus, about the Kingdome, took part with Hircanus; and grew so powerfull, that he made a way for his son to the Soveraigntie, though he himself was prevented by poyson.
Vers. 327. That Name]: Iehova.

[Page 100]

ANNOTATIONS VPON THE THIRD ACT.

VErse 47. Brutish Thunder]: The Philosophers will have two sorts of Lightning: calling the one fatall, that is, pre-appointed and mortall; the other Brutish, that is, accidentall, and flying at random.
Vers. 119. He, whom &c.]: Herod Antipas; then Tetrarch of Galilee: whose father Herod the Great so magnificently reedified the Temple, that the glory of the latter exceeded that of the former.
Verse 122. The land &c.]: Phoenicia; the ancient kingdome of Agenor, son to Belus Priscus: who was reputed a God after his death, and honoured with Temples; called Bel by the Assyrians, and Baal by the Hebrews.
Verse 142. Whose flouds in Summer swell]: Nilus, which constantly begins to rise with the rising Sunne on the seventeenth of Iune, increasing by degrees, untill it make all the Land a Lake.
Not ty'd to laws of other Streams; the Sun

When furthest off, thy streams then poorest run:

Intemperate heaven to temper, midst of heat,

Vnder the burning Zone, bid to grow great.
[Page 101]
Then Nile assists the world; lest fire should quell

The Earth: and make his high-borne waters swell

Against the Lions flaming jaws.—

Lucan. l. 10.
Ver. 187. The free born]: It was the custome of the Romanes to punish slaves onely with whips, but their children and the free, with rods.
Verse 195. The wreathed Thorns]: in reverence of this crown of Thorns, which was platted about the brows of our Saviour, the Christians forbare to wear any garlands on their heads in their Festivalls; although it were the custome of those Nations, among whom they lived.
Vers. 221. Thou liquid chrystall, &c.]: Pilat washt not his hands to expresse his innocencie, as a Romane Custome; but therein observing the Iewish Ceremony: which was, that he who would professe himself guiltlesse of a suspected Man slaughter should wash his hands over a Heifer, with her head cut off.
Verse 338. Let it fall &c.]: This imprecation soon after fell upon them in all the fulnesse of horrour; and throughout the world at this day pursues them.
Verse 233. Drag him to the Crosse, &c.]: Pilat not onely out of fear, and against his conscience; but therein infringed a Law lately made by Tiberius, in the sudden execution: for by the same no offendour was to suffer within ten dayes after his condemnation. But he met with a Nemesis; soon after [Page 102] turn'd out of his Government by Vitellius for his cruelty inflicted upon the Samaritanes, and sent to Rome with his accusers. But Tiberius dying before his arrivall, he was banished the Citie by Caius: who troubled in minde, and desperate of restitution, slew himself at Vienna in France within two yeares after.
Vers. 238. If thou be he, &c.]: By this place taken out of the Gospel, it appeares that divers of the Iews were of the opinion of the Pythagoreans, or the Pythagoreans of theirs, concerning the transmigration of Soules into other bodies.
All alter, nothing finally decayes:

Hither and thither still the Spirit strayes;

Guest to all Bodies: out of beasts it flies

To men, from men to beasts, and never dies.

As pliant wax each new impression takes;

Fixt to no forme, but still the old forsakes;

Yet it the same: so Soules the same abide,

'Though various figures their reception hide.

Ovid. Met. l. 15.
Herod conceived that the Soule of Iohn the Baptist, by him wickedly murdered, was entered into the body of our blessed Saviour: And Iosephus in his Oration to his desperate Companions in the Cave of Iotopata: Those poore Soules which depart from this [Page 103] life by the law of Nature, and obediently render what from God they received, shall by him be placed in the highest Heavens; and from thence againe, after a certaine revolution of time, descend by command to dwell in chaste bodies.
Vers. 249. Slaine for a dancer]: This daughter of Herodias, as Nicephorus writes, going over a River that was frozen, fell in all but the head, which was cut off with the yce, as her body waved up and downe underneath.
Vers. 331. Sadock]: The Author of the Sect of the Sadduces. See the Note upon Vers. 43. Act. 1.

[Page 104]

ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FOVRTH ACT.

VErse 35. To Warre the fatall way]: The City of Ierusalem is onely on that side assailable: there forced and entred by the Babylonians, and after by Pompey.
Vers. 36. Golgotha]: Mount Calvary: a rocky hill, neither high, nor ample, lying then without the North-West wall of the City: the publique place of execution. Here they say that Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac; in memory whereof there now standeth a Chappell: as an Altar, where the Head of Adam was found, which gave the name to that Mount: buried in that place that his bones might be sprinkled with the reall bloud of our Saviour, which he knew would be there shed by a propheticall foreknowledge. It is said to stand in the midst of the Earth; which must needs be meant by the then habitable: for what middle can there be in a Sphericall Body?
V. 49. The Nazarite]: Not as Sampson by vow, nor of that Sect: but so called of that City, wherein he was conceived, and where he inhabited after his returne out of Aegypt.
Vers. 52. Mixt with the bitter tears of Myrrh]: Some suppose that this was proffered him by his friends, being of a stupifying qualitie, to make him lesse sensible of his torments. But it appeares by Petronius and Pliny, that it was a mixture much used in their delights: Whereof Martial
The teares of Myrrh in hot Falernum thaw:

From this the Wine a better taste will draw.

Epig. l. 14.
Strengthning the body, and refreshing the Spirits; and therefore more likely proffered by his enemies to prolong his sufferings.
Vers. 81. His inward Robe]: There be, who write that this was woven by the Virgin Mary: and we reade in the Scriptures, as frequently in Homer and other Authors, that women, and those of the highest qualitie, usually wrought garments for their Children and Husbands.
Vers. 203. The Center pants, &c.]: This Earth-quake proceeded not from the Windes imprisoned in the bowels of the Earth, strugling to break forth, or from any other naturall cause, but by the immediate singer of God.
Vers. 205. The Sunne affrighted hides, &c.]: Miraculous; without the interposition of the Moone, or palpable Vapours, was that defect of the Sunne, and unnaturall Darknesse, in the sixth houre of the Day: [Page 106] which appeareth by the Text to have cover'd all the World, and not Iudea alone, as some have conjectured. Divers Authours have recorded this in their Annals and Histories: but none so exactly as Dionysius Areopagita; who then resided in Aegypt, and was an eye-witnesse.
Vers. 240. The greedy hollowes of a Spunge, &c]: Physicians agree that Vineger being drunk, or held to the nose, hath in it a naturall Vertue for the stenching of bloud. Pliny attributes the like to Hyssop, and the better if joyned. Neither is it to be thought that the Iews offered this unto IESUS in humanity, but rather out of their hatred, that by prolonging his Life untill the Evening, his legges might have been broken to the increase of his torments.
Vers. 256. Pale troopes of wandring Ghosts]: These were the reall bodies of the dead, which entred the City from their graves (for it was, as now, their Custome to bury in the fields) and seen by day. Whereas deluding Spirits assume an Aery, thinne and fluxative Body, condensed by cold, but dissipated by heate, and therefore onely appeare in the Night time. Which Virgil intimates in the Ghost of Anchises:
And now farewell: the humid Night descends;

I sent Day's breath in his too-swift repaire.

This said, like smoak, he vanisneth to aire.

Aen. l. 12.
[Page 107]
Ver. 259 The cleaving Rocks]: The Rock of Mount Calvary was rent by that Earth-quake from the top to the bottome, which at this day is to be seene: the rupture such as Art could have no hand in; each side answerable ragged, and there where unaccessible to the workman.
Vers 263. Old Chaos now returnes]: That confused Masse, out of which God created the beautifull World: into which it was imagined that it should be againe reduced.
The aged World, dissolved by the Last

And fatall Houre, shall to Old Chaos hast.

Stars, justling Stars, shall in the Deepe confound

Their radiant fires: the Land shall give no bound

To swallowing Seas: the Moone shall crosse the Sun,

With scorne that her swift wheeles obliquely run,

Dayes throne aspiring. Discord then shall rend

The Worlds crackt Frame, and Natures Concord end.

Lucan. l. 4.
But many of our Divines are of opinion, that the World shall neither be dislolved nor anihilated: strengthning their assertion out of the eighth of the Romanes, and other places of Scripture.
Ver. 238. Th'amaz'd Centurion]: To this Centurion, who professed CHRIST to be the Sonne of God, they give the name of Longinus, and honour him with the crowne of Martyrdome.
Vers. 296. The Temples Veile]: Described by Iosephus to consist of Violet, Purple, and Scarlet Silke, cunningly mixt & wrought by Babylonian Needles: the colours containing a mysticall sense. Such was that of Solomons, and of the travelling Tabernacle; but that they were powdred with Cherubins. This, it should seeme, was renewed by Herod, when he so magnificently repaired the Temple. It hung before the Sanctum Sanctorum; into which none but the High Priest, and that but once in the yeer, was to enter: violated by Pompey, pursued by a miserable Destiny. There was an out-ward Veile, not unlike the other, which separated the Priests from the People: this, contrary to the Opinion of our Authour, Baronius conceives to be that which then rent asunder: interpreted to signifie the finall abolishing of the Law Ceremoniall. They write that at the tearing thereof a Dove was seene to flye out of the Temple.
Vers. 319. Or God doth this abhorr'd &c.]: Eusebius, S^t. Ierome, and others report, that with this Earthquake at the Passion, the Doores of the Temple flew open, and that the Tutular Angels were heard to cry, Let us remove from this place: though Iosephus referre it to the destruction of the Temple.
Vers. 362. Tyrian Gades]: Gades, now called Cales, an Iland lying on the South of Spaine without Hercules Pillars, held to be the uttermost Confines of the Western World, was planted by a Colony of the Tyrians.
Vers. 363. As yet sees not thy panting Horses, &c.]: A Charriot and Horses were attributed to the Sunne, in regard of the swiftnesse of his Motion; and to expresse what is beyond the object of the sense by that which is subject unto it. These also by the Idolatrous Iews were consecrated unto him. The Sunne was feined to descend into the Sea, because it so appeareth to the eye; the Horizon being there most perspicuous.
Vers. 371. Hath some Thessalian Witch, &c.]: The Thessalian women were infamous for their inchantments: said to have the power to darken the Sunne, and draw the Moone from her Spheare. Such Lucans Erictho:
Her words to poyson the bright Moone aspire;

First pale, then red, with darke and terrene fire:

As when deprived of her Brothers sight,

Earth interposing his Coelestiall Light:

Perplext with tedious Charmes, and held below,

Till she on under Hearbs her gelly throw.

Pha [...]. l. 6.
The Author of this opinion was Aglonice the daughter of Hegaemon: who being skilfull in Astronomy, boasted to the Thessalian women (foreknowing the time of her Eclips) that she would performe it at such a season: which hapning accordingly, and they beholding the distemper'd Moone, gave credit to her [Page 110] deception. The like may arise from the Eclipses of the Sunne,
Vers. 372. What new Phaëton]: The fable of Phaëton, the sonne of Phoebus, as the Allegory, is notorious; who by misguiding the Charriot of the Sunne set all the World on a conflagration.
Vers. 377. As when sterne Atreus &c.]: Atreus, having had his bed dishonored by his brother Thyestes, slew his children, and gave them for food to their father: when the Sunne, to avoid so horrid a sight, fled back to the Orient. So fained in that Atreus first discovered the Annuall Course of the Sun, which is contrary to his Diurnall.
Vers. 379. Ilia's god-like sonne, &c.]: Romulus: cut into a hundred pieces by the hundred Lords of the Senate, for being so rigorous to them, and so indulgent to the People; every one carrying a piece away with him under his long Gowne to conceale the murder: when Iulius Proculus, to appease the People, swore that he saw him ascend into Heaven: whereupon they consecrated Temples unto him, and gave him divine honours; changing his Name into Quirinus.
Vers. 383. Or hath that Day, &c.]: The Great Yeere: when all the Planets (here called Gods because they carry their Names) shall returne to that position which they were in at the beginning: Comprising, according to Cicero's Hortensius, the revolution of twelve thousand nine hundreth and fifty yeers.
Vers. 390. If the World perish by licentious fire]: The Romanes could not then have this from S^t. Peter; but rather from the Prophesies of the Sibyls:
These Signes the Worlds combustion shall fore-run:

Armes clashing, Trumpets, from the rising Sun

Horrible fragors, heard by all: this Frame

Of Nature then shall feed the greedy flame.

Men, Cities, Floods, and Seas, by rav'nous lust

Of Fire devour'd, all shall resolve to dust.

Orac. l. 4.
From hence perhaps the Ancient Philosophers derived their opinions; as Seneca a Latter, The Stars shall incounter one another, and what now shines so orderly, shall burne in one Fire.
Vers. 395. Either the groaning world, &c.
Vers. 397. Do proud Titanians &c]: The Poets feigne that the angry Earth, to be revenged of the Gods, brought forth the Titans, as after the Gyants; who by throwing mountains upon mountains attempted to scale the Heavens, and disinthrone Iupiter; who overthrew them with his Lightning, and cast those conjested Mountains upon them. Pherecydes the Syrian writes, how the Devils were cast out of Heaven by Iupiter (this fall of the Giants perhaps alluding to that of the Angels:) The chief called Ophionius, which signifies Serpentine: having after made use of that Creature to poyson Eve with a false ambition.
Vers. 400. Dire Python]: A prodigious Serpent, which after Deucalions Floud lay upon the Earth like a Mountain, and slain by Apollo: the sense of the Fable being meerely Physicall; for Python born after the deluge of the humid Earth, was that great Exhalation, which rose from the late drowned world; at length dissipated by the fervour of the Sunne, or Apollo.
The Earth then soak'd in showres, yet hardly dry,

Threw up thick clouds, which darkned all the Sky:

This was that Python.

Pont. Meteor.
The word signifies putrefaction: and because the Sun consumes the putrefaction of Earth, his beams darting from his Orb like arrows, with his arrows he is said to have slain Python.
Vers. 400. Lerna's Fen]: In this lay that venemous Serpent Hydra; which is said to have many Heads, whereof one being cut off, two rose in the room more terrible then the former, and with her poysnous breath to have infected all the Territories adjoyning. This Fable had a relation to that place, which through the eruption of waters annoyed the neighbouring Cities; when one being stopt many rose in the room: this Hercules perceiving, burnt them with fire.
[Page 113]
Corruption boyls away with heat;

And forth superfluous vapours sweat.
But Physically, Hydra signifies water, and Hercules according to Macrobius, presenteth the Sunne, whose extraordinary fervour dried up those noysome and infectious vapours.
Vers. 404. Lyaeus gave to man lesse precious wine]: Lyaeus is a name of Bacchus, because wine refresheth the Heart, and freeth it from sorrow. Noah was he who immediately after the Floud first planted a Vineyard and shewed the use of wine unto man: wherefore some write that of Noachus he was called Boachus, and after Bacchus by the Ethnicks, either by contraction, or through ignorance of the etymologie. This comparison hath relation to Christ's conversion of water into such excellent wine at Cana in Galilee.
Vers. 405. Not Hercules so many Monsters slew]: Hercules, saith Seneca, travelled over the world, not to oppresse it, but to free it from Oppressours; and by killing of Tyrants and Monsters to preserve it in tranquillitie. But how much more glorious were the victories of Christ; who by suffering for Sinne, subdued it; led Captivity captive, was the death of [Page 114] Death; triumphing over Hell, and those Spirits of Darknesse.
Vers. 406. Vnshorn Apollo desse in Physick knew]: Apollo; to whom they attribute long yellow haire, in regard of his beautifull Beams, is said to have invented the Art of Physick (his name importing a preservation from evil) because the Sunne is so powerfull in producing physicall Simples, and so salubrious to our bodies: when Christ by his own Vertue cured all diseases; gave sight to the blinde by birth, which surpasleth the power of art; threw out wicked Spirits from the tortured bodies of the possessed; and called the Dead from their beds of death to converse again with the Living.
Verse 419. With the Religion of the Samean]: Of Pythagoras of Samos; who by his doctrine and example withdrew the Crotonians from luxury and idlenesse to temperance and industry; calming the perturbations of the Minde with the musick of his Harp: for he held that Vertue, Strength, all Good, and even God himself, consisted of Harmony: That God was the Soul of the World; from whence each creature received his life; & dying, restored it. And lest it might be doubted that the Souls of all had not one Originall, in regard of their different understandings, he alleadged how that proceeded from the naturall [Page 115] complexion & composition of the Body, as more or lesse perfect: whose opinions are thus delivered by Virgil.
The arched Heavens, round Earth, the liquid Plain,

The Moons bright Orb, and Starres Titanian,

A Soul with-in sustaines; whose Vertues passe

Through every part, and mix that huge Masse.

Hence men, hence beasts, what ever fly with wing,

And Monsters in the marble Ocean spring:

Of Seed divine, and fiery Vigour, full;

But what grosse flesh, and dying member dull.

Thence fear, desire, grief, joy; nor more regard

Their heavenly Birth, in those blinde Prisons barr'd.

Aen. l. 6.
Moreover, he held that this visible Soul or Godhead, diffused throughout all the world, got it self such diversitie of Names, by the manifold operations which it effected in every part of the visible Vniverse.
Vers. 420. Nor Thracian Harp, wilde Beasts instructing, can]: Orpheus of Thrace; who with the musick of his Harp and voice attracted even beasts and sencelesse stones to heare him. The morall of which Fable may parallell with that of Amphion.
[Page 116]
Orpheus the Gods Interpreter, from blood

Rude men at first deterr'd, and savage food:

Hence said to have Tygers and fell Lions tam'd.

Amphion so, who Theban bulwarks fram'd,

T'have led the stones with musick of his lute,

And milde requests. Of old in high repute:

Publick from Private, Sacred from Prophane,

To separate; and wandring Lust restrain

With matrimoniall ties; faire Cities raise,

Laws stamp in brasse. This gave the honour'd Bayes

To sacred Poets, and to verse their praise.

Horat. de Art. Poet.
It is apparent by his Testament to his Scholar Musaeus (whereof certain verses are recited by Iustin Martyr) that his opinion in divinitie was in the main agreeable with the sacred Scriptures: As of one God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Authour of all good, and punisher of all evil; exhorting him to the hearing and understanding of that knowledge which was revealed from Heaven: meaning nothing else by those various Names which he gives to the Gods, but divine and naturall Vertues: shadowing God himself under the Name of Iupiter to avoid the envy and danger of those times; as is almost evident by these attributes.
[Page 117]
Omnipotent Jove; the First, the Last of things;

The Head, the Midst: all from Joves bounty springs:

Foundation of the Earth, and starry Skie:

A Male, a Female; who can never die.

Spirit of all: the Force of awfull Fire;

Sourse of the Sea; Sun, Moon, th'Originall,

The End of all things; and the King of all.

At first conceal'd, then by his wond'rous Might

And sacred Goodnesse, all produc'd to light.
Vers. 421. Nor that prophetick Boy, &c.]: Of whom Ovid.
The Nymphs and Amazonian this amaz'd,

No lesse then when the Tyrrhen Plow-man gaz'd

Vpon the fatall clod, that mov'd alone;

And, for a humane shape, exchang'd his own.

With infant lips, that were but earth of late,

Reveal'd the Mysteries of future Fate:

Whom Natives Tages call'd. He, first of all,

Th'Hetrurians taught to tell what would befall.

Met. l. 15.
And Cicero, in his second book of Divination: Tages, when the Earth was turned up, and the Plow had made a deeper impression, ascended (as they say) in the Tarquinian fields, and spake to [Page 118] the Tiller. It is written in the Hetrurian Records that he was seen in the form of a Boy, although old in wisdome. The Husband-man amazed, and exalting his voice, drew thither a great concourse of People; and with-in awhile all Thuscany: who spake many things in that populous audience; by them remembred, and committed to writing. His oration onely contained the discipline of Divination by the entrails of beasts: which after increased by experience, but is referred to this Originall. A delusion of the Devils to introduce that Superstition.

[Page 119]

ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FIFTH ACT.

VErse 30. O may they perish, &c.]: This imprecation comprehends those following calamities which the Divine Vengeance inflicted on the Iews: more, and more horrid, then ever befell any other Nation.
Vers. 35. Let the great in Warre, &c.]: Titus Vespasian: who besieged Ierusalem when almost all the Iewish Nation was within the Walles, there met to celebrate the Passeover: who took it by force, consumed the Temple with fire, (which fell on that day in which it was formerly burnt by the Chaldeans) and levelled the City with the ground: eleven hundred thousand Iewes there perishing by famine, pestilence, and the sword: another hundred thousand Captives were publikely sold, for a Romane penny a Iew; and sixteene thousand sent to Alexandria for servill imployments: two thousand of the most beautifull and personable young men reserved to attend on his Triumph, who after, to delight the Spectators, were torne in pieces by wild beasts in the Amphitheater.
Vers. 26. Let Diseases sow, &c.]: During the siege the Pestilence violently raged, proceeding from the stench of dead bodies, to whom they afforded no buriall, but piled them up in their houses, or threw them over the Wall of the City.
Vers. 41. Famine, in their dry entrailes, &c.]: Vnexpressible was the Famine they indured; and pittifull, if they themselves had had any pitty: enforced to seeth their Girdles and Shooes, and fighting fiercely with one another for so course a diet. Driven in the end to that exigent, that they were faine to rake the sincks and privies, and to feede on that which was loathsome to behold; neither could they keep what they found from the rapine of others.
Vers. 44. The Babe re-enter her, &c.]: Hunger had so overcome Nature, that a Woman of riches and honour, named Mary, being daily rob'd of her provision by the Seditious, slew her owne childe which suckt at her brest, and having sodden one halfe thereof, eat it. When at the sent of flesh, they broke in upon her; who presented them with the rest; the theeves then hardly refraining, though they trembled at so horrid a Spectacle.
Vers. 45. While yet the eager Foe, &c.]: The enemy assailed them without, and the Seditious [Page 121] massacred one another within; divided into three parties: the Zealous, the Idumaean Robbers, and the rest of the mutinous Citizens: but upon every assault of the Romanes, setting their private hatred aside, united themselves, as if of one Minde, and with admirable courage repulsed the Enemy: but upon the least cessation renewed their bloudy discord; some beginning with their owne hands to set the Temple on fire.
Vers. 47. Let th'Enemy, &c.]: See the Notes upon the 35. Verse.
Verse. 50. The Reliques of their slaughter,]: In the dayes of Adrian, the Iewes raised a new Commotion: of whom his Lieutenant, Iulius Severus, slew five hundred and foure score thousand; transporting the rest into Spaine by the command of the Emperour: so that Iewry was then without Iews, as it continues to this present.
Vers. 52. Despis'd, and wretched, wander, &c.]: Out of Spaine they were banished in the yeer 1500. by Ferdinand and Emanuel. Now scattred throughout the whole World, and hated by those among whom they live; yet suffered as a necessary mischiefe: subject to all wrongs and contumelies; who can patiently submit themselves to the times, and to whatsoever may advance their profit.
Vers. 53. Abolish'd by their Law, &c]: This they lost in the destruction of their City. Yet daily expect that Messias who is already come: and, as they beleeve, shall restore them to their temporall Kingdome.
Vers. 55. This infected soyle, &c.]: The Ecclesiasticall Histories report, how Ioseph of Arimathea, after he had suffered imprisonment by the envy of the Iews, and was delivered by an Angel, left his Countrey, and sailed to Marcellis in France: from thence passing over into this Iland, he preached the Gospell to the Brittaines and Scots: who there exchanged this life for a better.
Vers. 95. Who knows but soone a holier Age, &c.]: Helena the Mother of Constantine, throwing downe the Fane of Venus, which Adrian had erected on Calvary, covered both the Mount and Sepulchre with a magnificent Temple, which yet hath resisted the injuries of Insolence and Time: and what was before without, in reverence to the place, is now in the heart of the City. To recover this from the Saracens, divers of the Westerne Princes have unfortunately ventured their Persons and People: though Godfry of Bullein, with an Army of three hundred thousand, made of the City and Country an absolute Conquest: Whose Successours held it [Page 123] for fourescore and nine yeers, and then beaten out by Saladine the Aegyptian Sultan. Yet yeerly is the Sepulchre visited, though now in the possession of the Turke, from all parts of the World by thousands of Christians, who there pay their vowes, and exercise their Devotions.
Vers. 109. Of his Royall Bloud, &c]: Of Davids: See the Notes upon the 264. Verse of the second Act.
Vers. 139. Not that fierce Prince, &c.]: Herod the Great, the murderer of the Infants: who put three of his sonnes to death; with his wife Mariamme, whom he frantickly affected.
Vers. 140. Nor his Successour, &c.]: Herod Antipas, who cut off the Head of Iohn the Baptist.
Vers. 189. You neighbours to the Sunnes up-rise]: The Persian Magi.

FINIS.

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Imprimatur.

Ioannes Hansley.

September 27. 1639.

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