Orpheus To Beasts

________________________________________________
Title:     Orpheus To Beasts
Author: Richard Lovelace [More Titles by Lovelace]

Orpheus <1> to Beasts

SONG SET BY MR. CURTES.<2>

I.
Here, here, oh here! EURIDICE,
Here was she slaine;
Her soule 'still'd through a veine:
The gods knew lesse
That time divinitie,
Then ev'n, ev'n these
Of brutishnesse.

II.
Oh! could you view the melodie
Of ev'ry grace,
And musick of her face,<3>
You'd drop a teare,
Seeing more harmonie
In her bright eye,
Then now you heare.

<1> By Orpheus we may perhaps understand Lovelace himself, and by Euridice, the lady whom he celebrates under the name of Lucasta. Grainger mentions (BIOG. HIST. ii. 74) a portrait of Lovelace by Gaywood, in which he is represented as Orpheus. I have not seen it. The old poets were rather fond of likening themselves to this legendary personage, or of designating themselves his poetical children:--

"We that are ORPHEUS' sons, and can inherit
By that great title"--
Davenant's WORKS, 1673, p. 215.

Many other examples might be given. Massinger, in his CITY MADAM, 1658, makes Sir John Frugal introduce a representation of the story of the Thracian bard at an entertainment given to Luke Frugal.

<2> A lutenist. Wood says that after the Restoration he became gentleman or singing-man of Christ Church, Oxford. He was one of those musicians who, after the abolition of organs, &c. during the civil war, met at a private house at Oxford for the purpose of taking his part in musical entertainments.

<3> "Such was Zuleika; such around her shone
The nameless charms unmark'd by her alone;
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face."
Byron's BRIDE OF ABYDOS, canto 1.
(WORKS, ed. 1825, ii. 299.)

[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: Orpheus To Beasts

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN