This wretched personage is Sorrow,—
Sorrow I am, in endless torments pained,
Among the faries in the infernal lake;
That Sackville was not completely original in his conception of this character, will appear by the following quotation from Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose.
Sorrow was painted next envy,
Upon that wall of masonry;
But well was seen in her colour,
That she had lived in langour;
Her seemed to have the jaundice,
Not half so pale was avarice;
Full sad, pale, and meagre also,
Was never wight yet half so woe,
As that her seemed for to be,
Nor so fulfilled with ire as she :-
I trow that no wight might her please,
Nor do that thing that might her ease;
So deep y-was her woe begon,
And eke her heart in anger ron,
A sorrowful thing well seemed she;
Nor had she nothing slow y-be
For to be scratchen all her face,
And for to rent in many place
Her clothes, and for to tear her swire,*
As she that was fulfilled with ire.
And all to torn lay eke her hair
About her shoulders here and there.
And eke I tell you certainly,
How that she wept full tenderly;
And allto dashed herself for woe,
And smote together her hands two,
Her rought little of playing,
Or of clipping, or of kissing.
* The neck or bosom. The passive participle of reck,—
The "shadowy residents of Hellgate," from the same.
And first, within the porch and jaws of hell,
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent
With tears; and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and cursing never stent
To sob and sigh; but ever thus lament,
With thoughtful care, as she that all in vain
Would wear and waste continually in pain.
Her eyes unsteadfast rolling here and there,
Whirled on each place as place that vengeance'
brought
So was her mind continually in fear,
Tossed and tormented with the hideous thought,
Of those detested crimes which she had wrought:
With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.
Next saw we Dread all trembling how he shook,
With foot uncertain proffered here and there :
Benumbed of speech, and with a ghastly look,
Searched every place, all pale and dead for fear;
His cap borne up with starting of his hair;
Stoyned and amazed at his own shade for dread,
And fearing greater danger than was need.
And next, within the entry of this lake,
Sat fell Revenge gnashing her teeth for ire;
Devising means how she may vengeance take;
Never to rest 'till she have her desire;
But frets within so far forth with the fire
Of wreaking flames, that now determines she
To die by death, or venged by death to be.
When fell Revenge, with bloody foul pretence,
Had shewn herself as next in order set,
With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,
'Till in our eyes another sight we met ;
When from my heart a sigh forthwith I fet,
Rueing alas! upon the woeful plight,
Of Misery that next appeared in sight.
His face was lean and some deal pined away
And eke his hands consumed to the bone;
But what his body was I cannot say,
For on his carcase raiment had he none
Save clouts and patches pieced one by one. With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulder cast, His chief defence against the winter's blast.
His food for most was wild fruits of the tree, Unless sometimes some crumbs fell to his share; Which in his wallet long, God wot, kept he,
And on the same full daintly would he fare. His drink the running stream; his cup the bare Of his palm closed; his bed the hard cold ground. To this poor life was Misery y-bound.
Whose wretched state when we had well beheld,
With tender ruth on him and on his feres,†
With thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held,
And by and by, another shape appears
Of greedy Care,* still brushing up the breres. ‡
His knuckles knobbed, his flesh deep dented in,
With tawed hands, and hard y-tanned skin.
*Regretting, ruminating with pity. † Companions. Briars.
The morrow gray no sooner hath begun
To spread her light even peeping in our eyes, Than he is up, and to his work y-run ;
But let the night's black misty mantles rise,
And with foul dark never so much disguise
The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while,
But hath his cardles to prolong his toil.
By him lay heavy Sleep, cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corps, save yielding forth a breath.—
Small keep * took he whom fortune frowned on,
Or whom she lifted up into the throne
Of high renown, but as a living death,
So dead alive, of life he drew the breath.
The bodies' rest, the quiet of the heart,
The travels' ease, the still night's feer was he;
And of our life on earth the better part;
Reaver of sight, and yet in whom we see
Things oft that tide,‡ and oft that never be.
Without respect esteeming equally
King Cræsus' pomp, and Irus' poverty.
And next in order sad Old Age we found,
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind,
With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,
As on the place where nature him assigned
To rest, when that the sisters had untwined
His vital thread, and ended with their knife,
The fleeting course of fast declining life.
Custody, guard. That taketh away. Betide-happen.
There heard we him, with broken hollow plaint
Rue with himself his end approaching fast;
And all for nought his wretched mind torment,
With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past,
And fresh delights of lusty youth forwaste.
Recounting which, how would he sob and shreek,
And to be young again of Jove beseek.
But, and the cruel fates so fixed be,
That time forspent can not return again, This one request of Jove yet prayed he ;
That in such withered plight and wretched pain
As eld, accompanied with his loathsome train,
Had brought on him, all were it woe and grief,
He might awhile yet linger forth his life.
But who had seen him, sobbing where he stood,
Unto himself, and how he would bemoan
His youth forpast, as though it wrought him good
To talk of youth, although his youth forgone;
He would have mused and marvelled much whereon This wretched age should life desire so fain,
And know full well life doth but length his pain.
Crook back'd he was, tooth shaken, and blear eyed,
Went on three feet, and sometimes crept on four,
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side;
His scalp all pilled,* and he with eld forlore :
His withered fist still knocking at death's door; †
Fumbling and drivelling as he draws his breath;
For brief-the shape and messenger of death.
+ And every hour they knock at deathi's gate.-SPENSER.
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