Page 563 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

and from thy justice fly.

Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws
a thunderbolt. The Ghosts fall on their knees.

JUPITER
No more, you petty spirits of region low,
Offend our hearing: hush! How dare you ghosts

Accuse the thunderer, whose bolt (you know) [95]
Sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts?
Poor shadows of Elysium, hence, and rest
Upon your never-withering banks of flowers:

Be not with mortal accidents opprest,
No care of yours it is, you know ’tis ours. [100]
Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift,
The more delay’d, delighted. Be content,

Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift:
His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent:
Our Jovial star reign’d at his birth, and in [105]
Our temple was he married. Rise, and fade.

He shall be lord of lady Imogen,
And happier much by his affliction made.
This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein
Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine, [110]

And so away: no farther with your din
Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.
Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.
[Ascends.]

SICILIUS
He came in thunder; his celestial breath

Was sulphurous to smell: the holy eagle [115]
Stoop’d, as to foot us: his ascension is
More sweet than our blest fields: his royal bird

Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,
As when his god is pleased.

ALL