This is the cause why ev'ry living Creature affects an endless being. A grain of this bright love each thing Had giv'n at first by their great King; And still they creep--drawn on by this-- And look back towards their first bliss. For, otherwise, it is most sure, Nothing that liveth could endure: Unless its love turn'd retrograde Sought that First Life, which all things made. LIB. IV. METRUM III. If old tradition hath not fail'd, Ulysses, when from Troy he sail'd Was by a tempest forc'd to land Where beauteous Circe did command. Circe, the daughter of the sun, Which had with charms and herbs undone Many poor strangers, and could then Turn into beasts the bravest men. Such magic in her potions lay, That whosoever passed that way And drank, his shape was quickly lost. Some into swine she turn'd, but most To lions arm'd with teeth and claws; Others like wolves with open jaws Did howl; but some--more savage--took The tiger's dreadful shape and look. But wise Ulysses, by the aid Of Hermes, had to him convey'd A flow'r, whose virtue did suppress The force of charms, and their success: While his mates drank so deep, that they Were turn'd to swine, which fed all day On mast, and human food had left, Of shape and voice at once bereft; Only the mind--above all charms-- Unchang'd did mourn those monstrous harms. O, worthless herbs, and weaker arts, To change their limbs, but not their hearts! Man's life and vigour keep within, Lodg'd in the centre, not the skin. Those piercing charms and poisons, which His inward parts taint and bewitch, More fatal are, than such, which can Outwardly only spoil the man. Those change his shape and make it foul, But these deform and kill his soul. LIB. III. METRUM VI. All sorts of men, that live on Earth, Have one beginning and one birth. For all things there is one Father, Who lays out all, and all doth gather. He the warm sun with rays adorns, And fills with brightness the moon's horns. The azur'd heav'ns with stars He burnish'd, And the round world with creatures furnish'd. But men--made to inherit all-- His own sons He was pleas'd to call, And that they might be so indeed, He gave them souls of divine seed. A noble offspring surely then Without distinction are all men. O, why so vainly do some boast Their birth and blood and a great host Of ancestors, whose coats and crests Are some rav'nous birds or beasts! If extraction they look for, And God, the great Progenitor, No man, though of the meanest state, Is base, or can degenerate, Unless, to vice and lewdness bent, He leaves and taints his true descent. THE OLD MAN OF VERONA OUT OF CLAUDIAN, [EPIGRAMMA II.]