aiden, at his mercy was.
Love is not full of pity, as men say,
But deaf and cruel where he means to prey. 300
And now she wish'd this night were never done,
And sigh'd to think upon th' approaching sun;
For much it griev'd her that the bright day-light
Should know the pleasure of this blessed night,
And them, like Mars and Erycine, display[38]
Both in each other's arms chain'd as they lay.
Again, she knew not how to frame her look,
Or speak to him, who in a moment took
That which so long, so charily she kept;
And fain by stealth away she would have crept, 310
And to some corner secretly have gone,
Leaving Leander in the bed alone.
But as her naked feet were whipping out,
He on the sudden cling'd her so about,
That, mermaid-like, unto the floor she slid;
One half appear'd, the other half was hid.
Thus near the bed she blushing stood upright,
And from her countenance behold ye might
A kind of twilight break, which through the air,[39]
As from an orient cloud, glimps'd[40] here and there; 320
And round about the chamber this false morn
Brought forth the day before the day was born.
So Hero's ruddy cheek Hero betray'd,
And her all naked to his sight display'd:
Whence his admiring eyes more pleasure took
Than Dis,[41] on heaps of gold fixing his look.
By this, Apollo's golden harp began
To sound forth music to the ocean;
Which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard,
But he the bright Day-bearing car[42] prepar'd, 330
And ran before, as harbinger of light,
And with his flaring beams mock'd ugly Night,
Till she, o'ercome with anguish, shame, and rage,
Dang'd[43] down to hell her loathsome carriage.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Cf. _Rom. and Jul._ v. 1--

"I dreamed my lady came and found me dead,
Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!--
And _breathed such life with kisses in my lips_,
That I revived and was an emperor."

[27] Omitted in eds. 1600, 1606, 1613, and 1637.

[28] Peised, weighed.

[29] Rooms were strewed with rushes before the introduction of carpets.
Shakespeare, like Marlowe, attributed the customs of his own day to
ancient times. Cf. _Cymb._ ii. 2--

"Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the _rushes_ ere he wakened
The chastity he wounded."

[30]