George Chapman (1559?-1634). Epithalamion Teratos. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

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William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Epithalamion Teratos

By George Chapman (1559?–1634)


COME, 1 come, dear Night, Love’s mart of kisses,
Sweet close of his ambitious line,
The fruitful summer of his blisses,
Love’s glory doth in darkness shine.

O come, soft rest of cares! come, Night!	5
Come, naked Virtue’s only tire,
The reapèd harvest of the light
Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire.
Love calls to war;
Sighs his alarms,	10
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.

Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand
On glorious Day’s outfacing face;
And all thy crownèd flames command	15
For torches to our nuptial grace.
Love calls to war;
Sighs his alarms,
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.	20

No need have we of factious Day,
To cast, in envy of thy peace,
Her balls of discord in thy way;
Here Beauty’s day doth never cease;
Day is abstracted here,	25
And varied in a triple sphere,
Hero, Alcmane, Myra, so outshine thee,
Ere thou come here, let Thetis thrice refine thee.
Love calls to war;
Sighs his alarms,	30
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.

Note 1. From the Tale of Teras in the Fifth Sestiad of Hero and Leander, 1598. The poem to the end of the Second Sestiad was a fragment left by Marlowe at his death and first printed in 1598; Chapman wrote the remaining three Sestiads, in one of which appears this song. Though Warton describes Hero and Leander as a translation, it is a paraphrase from the Greek poem attributed to Musæus. [back]

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