Page 137 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

ACT I IT

Enter Gower.

GOWER
To sing a song that old was sung,

From ashes ancient Gower is come,
Assuming man’s infirmities,
To glad your ear and please your eyes.

It hath been sung at festivals, [5]
On ember-eves and holy-ales,
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives.
The purchase is to make men glorious,

Et bonum quo antiquius eo melius. [10]
If you, born in these latter times
When wit’s more ripe, accept my rhymes,

And that to hear an old man sing
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might [15]
Waste it for you like taper-light.
This Antioch, then. Antiochus the Great

Built up this city for his chiefest seat;
The fairest in all Syria −
I tell you what mine authors say. [20]

This king unto him took a peer,
Who died and left a female heir,
So buxom, blithe, and full of face
As heaven had lent her all his grace;
With whom the father liking took, [25]

And her to incest did provoke.
Bad child, worse father, to entice his own
To evil should be done by none;

But custom what they did begin
Was with long use accounted no sin. [30]