n thistle-tops, to testify
The hardness of their first life in their last; 280
The first, in thorns of love, that sorrows past:
And so most beautiful their colours show,
As none (so little) like them; her sad brow
A sable velvet feather covers quite,
Even like the forehead-cloth that, in the night,
Or when they sorrow, ladies use[125] to wear:
Their wings, blue, red, and yellow, mixed appear:
Colours that, as we construe colours, paint
Their states to life;--the yellow shows their saint,
The dainty[126] Venus, left them; blue their truth; 290
The red and black, ensigns of death and ruth.
And this true honour from their love-death sprung,--
They were the first that ever poet sung.[127]

FOOTNOTES:

[113] It should be _binds_: _i.e._, "Leucote flies to the several winds,
and, commissioned by the Fates, commands them to restrain their
violence." _Broughton._

[114] The next few lines are in Chapman's obscurest manner. "Devotes,"
in l. 21, means, I suppose, "tokens of devotion to his patron."

[115] Cunningham says, "I cannot perceive the meaning of 'doth repair
more tender fawns.'" "Fawns" is equivalent to "fawnings;" and the
meaning seems to be, "applies himself to softer blandishments."

[116] Orithyia.--The story of the rape of Orithyia is told in a
magnificent passage of Mr. Swinburne's _Erectheus_.

[117] So the Isham copy. Later eds. "true."

[118] So the Isham copy. Later eds. "torrent."

[119] Some eds. "himselfe surpris'd." Dyce gives "himself so priz'd."

[120] A short arrow blunted at the end; it killed birds without piercing
them.

[121] Countenance.

[122] Clipt, embraced.

[123] From Gr. [Greek: Atthis] (a woman of Attica, _i.e._, Orithyia).

[124] "The flame taking _bait_ (refreshment), feeding." Dyce. (Old eds.
"bating.")

[125] Old eds. "vsde."

[126] Isham copy "deuil."

[127] In Chapman's day the work of the grammarian Musaeus was supposed
to be the genuine production of the fabulous son of Eumolpus.

OVID'S ELEGIES.

All the old editions of Marlowe's translation of the _Amores_ are
undated, and bear the imprint Middleburgh (in various spellings). It is
probable that the copy which Mr. Charles Edmonds discovered at Lamport
Hall, Northamptonshire (the seat of Sir Charles Isham, Bart.), is the
earliest of extant editions. The title-page of this edition
is--_Epigrammes and Elegies By