r.
Why wouldst thou go, with one consent they cry,
When thou hadst gold enough, and Emily?

Theseus himself, who should have cheer'd the grief
Of others, wanted now the same relief;
Old Egeus only could revive his son,
Who various changes of the world had known,
And strange vicissitudes of human fate,
Still altering, never in a steady state; 880
Good after ill, and, after pain, delight,
Alternate like the scenes of day and night:
Since every man who lives, is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,
Nor joy, nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend;
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.
Even kings but play; and when their part is done,
Some other, worse or better, mount the throne. 890
With words like these the crowd was satisfied,
And so they would have been, had Theseus died.
But he, their king, was labouring in his mind,
A fitting place for funeral pomps to find,
Which were in honour of the dead design'd.
And after long debate, at last he found
(As love itself had mark'd the spot of ground)
That grove for ever green, that conscious laund,
Where he with Palamon fought hand to hand:
That where he fed his amorous desires 900
With soft complaints, and felt his hottest fires;
There other flames might waste his earthly part,
And burn his limbs, where love had burn'd his heart.

This once resolved, the peasants were enjoin'd
Sere-wood, and firs, and dodder'd oaks to find.
With sounding axes to the grove they go,
Fell, split, and lay the fuel on a row,
Vulcanian food: a bier is next prepared,
On which the lifeless body should be rear'd,
Cover'd with cloth of gold, on which was laid 910
The corpse of Arcite, in like robes array'd.
White gloves were on his hands, and on his head
A wreath of laurel, mix'd with myrtle spread.
A sword keen-edged within his right he held,
The warlike emblem of the conquer'd field:
Bare was his manly visage on the bier:
Menaced his countenance; even in death severe.
Then to the palace-hall they bore the knight,
To lie in solemn state, a public sight.
Groans, cries, and howlings fill the crowded place, 920
And unaffected sorrow sate on every face.
Sad Palamon