A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter

W[illiam] S[hakespeare], "A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter,"

(London: G.Eld for T.Thorpe, 1612).  Normalized text, ed. Donald Foster.TO MASTER JOHN PETER

of Bowhay in Devon, Esquire.

The love I bore to your brother, and will do to his memory, hath craved

from me this last duty of a friend; I am herein but a second to the

privilege of truth, who can warrant more in his behalf than I undertook to

deliver.  Exercise in this kind I will little affect, and am less addicted

to, but there must be miracle in that labor which, to witness my

remembrance to this departed gentleman, I would not willingly undergo.  Yet

whatsoever is here done, is done to him and to him only. For whom and whose

sake I will not forget to remember any friendly respects to you, or to any

of those that have loved him for himself, and himself for his

deserts.W. S.A FUNERAL ELEGY. Since time, and his predestinated end,  Abridged the circuit of his hopeful days,  Whiles both his youth and virtue did intend  The good endeavors of deserving praise,  5  What memorable monument can last  Whereon to build his never-blemished name  But his own worth, wherein his life was graced. . .  Sith as that ever he maintained the same?  Oblivion in the darkest day to come,  10  When sin shall tread on merit in the dust,  Cannot rase out the lamentable tomb  Of his short-lived deserts; but still they must,  Even in the hearts and memories of men,  Claim fit respect, that they, in every limb  15  Remembering what he was, with comfort then  May pattern out one truly good, by him.  For he was truly good, if honest care  Of harmless conversation may commend  A life free from such stains as follies are,  20  Ill recompensed only in his end.  Nor can the tongue of him who loved him least  (If there can be minority of love  To one superlative above the rest  Of many men in steady faith) reprove  25  His constant temper, in the equal weight  Of thankfulness and kindness: Truth doth leave  Sufficient proof, he was in every right  As kind to give, as thankful to receive.  The curious eye of a quick-brained survey  30  Could scantly find a mote amidst the sun  Of his too-shortened days, or make a prey  Of any faulty errors he had done.  Not that he was above the spleenful sense  And spite of malice, but for that he had  35  Warrant enough in his own innocence  Against the sting of some in nature bad.  Yet who is he so absolutely blest  That lives encompassed in a mortal frame,  Sometime in reputation not oppressed  40  By some in nothing famous but defame?  Such in the bypath and the ridgeway lurk  That leads to ruin, in a smooth pretense  Of what they do to be a special work  Of singleness, not tending to offense;  45  Whose very virtues are, not to detract  Whiles hope remains of gain (base fee of slaves),  Despising chiefly men in fortunes wracked.  But death to such gives unremembered graves.  Now therein lived he happy, if to be  50  Free from detraction happiness it be.  His younger years gave comfortable hope  To hope for comfort in his riper youth,  Which, harvest-like, did yield again the crop  Of education, bettered in his truth.  55  Those noble twins of heaven-infused races,  Learning and wit, refined in their kind  Did jointly both, in their peculiar graces,  Enrich the curious temple of his mind;  Indeed a temple, in whose precious white  60  Sat reason by religion overswayed,  Teaching his other senses, with delight,  How piety and zeal should be obeyed.  Not fruitlessly in prodigal expense  Wasting his best of time, but so content  65  With reason's golden mean to make defense  Against the assault of youth's encouragement;  As not the tide of this surrounding age  (When now his father's death had freed his will)  Could make him subject to the drunken rage  70  Of such whose only glory is their ill.  He from the happy knowledge of the wise  Draws virtue to reprove secured fools  And shuns the glad sleights of ensnaring vice  To spend his spring of days in sacred schools.  75  Here gave he diet to the sick desires  That day by day assault the weaker man,  And with fit moderation still retires  From what doth batter virtue now and then.  But that I not intend in full discourse  80  To progress out his life, I could display  A good man in each part exact and force  The common voice to warrant what I say.  For if his fate and heaven had decreed  That full of days he might have lived to see  85  The grave in peace, the times that should succeed  Had been best-speaking witnesses with me;  Whose conversation so untouched did move  Respect most in itself, as who would scan  His honesty and worth, by them might prove  90  He was a kind, true, perfect gentleman.  Not in the outside of disgraceful folly,  Courting opinion with unfit disguise,  Affecting fashions, nor addicted wholly  To unbeseeming blushless vanities,  95  But suiting so his habit and desire  As that his virtue was his best attire.  Not in the waste of many idle words  Cared he to be heard talk, nor in the float  Of fond conceit, such as this age affords,  100  By vain discourse upon himself to dote;  For his becoming silence gave such grace  To his judicious parts, as what he spake  Seemed rather answers which the wise embrace  Than busy questions such as talkers make.  105  And though his qualities might well deserve  Just commendation, yet his furnished mind  Such harmony of goodness did preserve  As nature never built in better kind;  Knowing the best, and therefore not presuming  110  In knowing, but for that it was the best,  Ever within himself free choice resuming  Of true perfection, in a perfect breast;  So that his mind and body made an inn,  The one to lodge the other, both like framed  115  For fair conditions, guests that soonest win  Applause; in generality, well famed,  If trim behavior, gestures mild, discreet  Endeavors, modest speech, beseeming mirth,  True friendship, active grace, persuasion sweet,  120  Delightful love innated from his birth,  Acquaintance unfamiliar, carriage just,  Offenseless resolution, wished sobriety,  Clean-tempered moderation, steady trust,  Unburthened conscience, unfeigned piety;  125  If these, or all of these, knit fast in one  Can merit praise, then justly may we say,  Not any from this frailer stage is gone  Whose name is like to live a longer day. . .  Though not in eminent courts or places great  130  For popular concourse, yet in that soil  Where he enjoyed his birth, life, death, and seat  Which now sits mourning his untimely spoil.  And as much glory is it to be good  For private persons, in their private home,  135  As those descended from illustrious blood  In public view of greatness, whence they come.  Though I, rewarded with some sadder taste  Of knowing shame, by feeling it have proved  My country's thankless misconstruction cast  140  Upon my name and credit, both unloved  By some whose fortunes, sunk into the wane  Of plenty and desert, have strove to win  Justice by wrong, and sifted to embane  My reputation with a witless sin;  145  Yet time, the father of unblushing truth,  May one day lay ope malice which hath crossed it,  And right the hopes of my endangered youth,  Purchasing credit in the place I lost it.  Even in which place the subject of the verse  150  (Unhappy matter of a mourning style  Which now that subject's merits doth rehearse)  Had education and new being; while  By fair demeanor he had won repute  Amongst the all of all that lived there,  155  For that his actions did so wholly suit  With worthiness, still memorable here.  The many hours till the day of doom  Will not consume his life and hapless end,  For should he lie obscured without a tomb,  160  Time would to time his honesty commend;  Whiles parents to their children will make known,  And they to their posterity impart,  How such a man was sadly overthrown  By a hand guided by a cruel heart,  165  Whereof as many as shall hear that sadness  Will blame the one's hard fate, the other's madness;  Whiles such as do recount that tale of woe,  Told by remembrance of the wisest heads,  Will in the end conclude the matter so,  170  As they will all go weeping to their beds.  For when the world lies wintered in the storms  Of fearful consummation, and lays down  Th' unsteady change of his fantastic forms,  Expecting ever to be overthrown;  175  When the proud height of much affected sin  Shall ripen to a head, and in that pride  End in the miseries it did begin  And fall amidst the glory of his tide;  Then in a book where every work is writ  180  Shall this man's actions be revealed, to show  The gainful fruit of well-employed wit,  Which paid to heaven the debt that it did owe.  Here shall be reckoned up the constant faith,  Never untrue, where once he love professed;  185  Which is a miracle in men, one saith,  Long sought though rarely found, and he is best  Who can make friendship, in those times of change,  Admired more for being firm than strange.  When those weak houses of our brittle flesh  190  Shall ruined be by death, our grace and strength,  Youth, memory and shape that made us fresh  Cast down, and utterly decayed at length;  When all shall turn to dust from whence we came  And we low-leveled in a narrow grave,  195  What can we leave behind us but a name,  Which, by a life well led, may honor have?  Such honor, O thou youth untimely lost,  Thou didst deserve and hast; for though thy soul  Hath took her flight to a diviner coast,  200  Yet here on earth thy fame lives ever whole,  In every heart sealed up, in every tongue  Fit matter to discourse, no day prevented  That pities not thy sad and sudden wrong,  Of all alike beloved and lamented.  205  And I here to thy memorable worth,  In this last act of friendship, sacrifice  My love to thee, which I could not set forth  In any other habit of disguise.  Although I could not learn, whiles yet thou wert,  210  To speak the language of a servile breath,  My truth stole from my tongue into my heart,  Which shall not thence be sundered, but in death.  And I confess my love was too remiss  That had not made thee know how much I prized thee,  215  But that mine error was, as yet it is,  To think love best in silence: for I sized thee  By what I would have been, not only ready  In telling I was thine, but being so,  By some effect to show it.  He is steady  220  Who seems less than he is in open show.  Since then I still reserved to try the worst  Which hardest fate and time thus can lay on me.  T' enlarge my thoughts was hindered at first,  While thou hadst life; I took this task upon me,  225  To register with mine unhappy pen  Such duties as it owes to thy desert,  And set thee as a president to men,  And limn thee to the world but as thou wert. . .  Not hired, as heaven can witness in my soul,  230  By vain conceit, to please such ones as know it,  Nor servile to be liked, free from control,  Which, pain to many men, I do not owe it.  But here I trust I have discharged now  (Fair lovely branch too soon cut off) to thee,  235  My constant and irrefragable vow,  As, had it chanced, thou mightst have done to me. . .  But that no merit strong enough of mine  Had yielded store to thy well-abled quill  Whereby t' enroll my name, as this of thine,  240  How s'ere enriched by thy plenteous skill.  Here, then, I offer up to memory  The value of my talent, precious man,  Whereby if thou live to posterity,  Though 't be not as I would, 'tis as I can:  245  In minds from whence endeavor doth proceed,  A ready will is taken for the deed.  Yet ere I take my longest last farewell  From thee, fair mark of sorrow, let me frame  Some ampler work of thank, wherein to tell  250  What more thou didst deserve than in thy name,  And free thee from the scandal of such senses  As in the rancor of unhappy spleen  Measure thy course of life, with false pretenses  Comparing by thy death what thou hast been.  255  So in his mischiefs is the world accursed:  It picks out matter to inform the worst.  The willful blindness that hoodwinks the eyes  Of men enwrapped in an earthy veil  Makes them most ignorantly exercise  260  And yield to humor when it doth assail,  Whereby the candle and the body's light  Darkens the inward eyesight of the mind,  Presuming still it sees, even in the night  Of that same ignorance which makes them blind.  265  Hence conster they with corrupt commentaries,  Proceeding from a nature as corrupt,  The text of malice, which so often varies  As 'tis by seeming reason underpropped.  O, whither tends the lamentable spite  270  Of this world's teenful apprehension,  Which understands all things amiss, whose light  Shines not amidst the dark of their dissension?  True 'tis, this man, whiles yet he was a man,  Soothed not the current of besotted fashion,  275  Nor could disgest, as some loose mimics can,  An empty sound of overweening passion,  So much to be made servant to the base  And sensual aptness of disunioned vices,  To purchase commendation by disgrace,  280  Whereto the world and heat of sin entices.  But in a safer contemplation,  Secure in what he knew, he ever chose  The ready way to commendation,  By shunning all invitements strange, of those  285  Whose illness is, the necessary praise  Must wait upon their actions; only rare  In being rare in shame (which strives to raise  Their name by doing what they do not care),  As if the free commission of their ill  290  Were even as boundless as their prompt desires;  Only like lords, like subjects to their will,  Which their fond dotage ever more admires.  He was not so: but in a serious awe,  Ruling the little ordered commonwealth  295  Of his own self, with honor to the law  That gave peace to his bread, bread to his health;  Which ever he maintained in sweet content  And pleasurable rest, wherein he joyed  A monarchy of comfort's government,  300  Never until his last to be destroyed.  For in the vineyard of heaven-favored learning  Where he was double-honored in degree,  His observation and discreet discerning  Had taught him in both fortunes to be free;  305  Whence now retired home, to a home indeed  The home of his condition and estate,  He well provided 'gainst the hand of need,  Whence young men sometime grow unfortunate;  His disposition, by the bonds of unity,  310  So fastened to his reason that it strove  With understanding's grave immunity  To purchase from all hearts a steady love;  Wherein not any one thing comprehends  Proportionable note of what he was,  315  Than that he was so constant to his friends  As he would no occasion overpass  Which might make known his unaffected care,  In all respects of trial, to unlock  His bosom and his store, which did declare  320  That Christ was his, and he was friendship's rock:  A rock of friendship figured in his name,  Foreshowing what he was, and what should be,  Most true presage; and he discharged the same  In every act of perfect amity.  325  Though in the complemental phrase of words  He never was addicted to the vain  Of boast, such as the common breath affords;  He was in use most fast, in tongue most plain,  Nor amongst all those virtues that forever  330  Adorned his reputation will be found  One greater than his faith, which did persever,  Where once it was protested, alway sound.  Hence sprung the deadly fuel that revived  The rage which wrought his end, for had he been  335  Slacker in love, he had been longer lived  And not oppressed by wrath's unhappy sin. . .  By wrath's unhappy sin, which unadvised  Gave death for free good will, and wounds for love.  Pity it was that blood had not been prized  340  At higher rate, and reason set above  Most unjust choler, which untimely drew  Destruction on itself; and most unjust,  Robbed virtue of a follower so true  As time can boast of, both for love and trust:  345  So henceforth all (great glory to his blood)  Shall be but seconds to him, being good.  The wicked end their honor with their sin  In death, which only then the good begin.  Lo, here a lesson by experience taught  350  For men whose pure simplicity hath drawn  Their trust to be betrayed by being caught  Within the snares of making truth a pawn;  Whiles it, not doubting whereinto it enters,  Without true proof and knowledge of a friend,  355  Sincere in singleness of heart, adventers  To give fit cause, ere love begin to end:  His unfeigned friendship where it least was sought,  Him to a fatal timeless ruin brought;  Whereby the life that purity adorned  360  With real merit, by this sudden end  Is in the mouth of some in manner scorned,  Made questionable, for they do intend,  According to the tenor of the saw  Mistook, if not observed (writ long ago  365  When men were only led by reason's law),  That "Such as is the end, the life proves so."  Thus he, who to the universal lapse  Gave sweet redemption, offering up his blood  To conquer death by death, and loose the traps  370  Of hell, even in the triumph that it stood:  He thus, for that his guiltless life was spilt  By death, which was made subject to the curse,  Might in like manner be reproved of guilt  In his pure life, for that his end was worse.  375  But O far be it, our unholy lips  Should so profane the deity above  As thereby to ordain revenging whips  Against the day of judgment and of love.  The hand that lends us honor in our days  380  May shorten when it please, and justly take  Our honor from us many sundry ways,  As best becomes that wisdom did us make.  The second brother, who was next begot  Of all that ever were begotten yet,  385  Was by a hand in vengeance rude and hot  Sent innocent to be in heaven set.  Whose fame the angels in melodious choirs  Still witness to the world.  Then why should he,  Well-profited in excellent desires,  390  Be more rebuked, who had like destiny?  Those saints before the everlasting throne  Who sit with crowns of glory on their heads,  Washed white in blood, from earth hence have not gone  All to their joys in quiet on their beds,  395  But tasted of the sour-bitter scourge  Of torture and affliction ere they gained  Those blessings which their sufferance did urge,  Whereby the grace fore-promised they attained.  Let then the false suggestions of the froward,  400  Building large castles in the empty air,  By suppositions fond and thoughts untoward  (Issues of discontent and sick despair)  Rebound gross arguments upon their heart  That may disprove their malice, and confound  405  Uncivil loose opinions which insert  Their souls into the roll that doth unsound  Betraying policies, and show their brains,  Unto their shame, ridiculous; whose scope  Is envy, whose endeavors fruitless pains,  410  In nothing surely prosperous, but hope. . .  And that same hope, so lame, so unprevailing,  It buries self-conceit in weak opinion;  Which being crossed, gives matter of bewailing  Their vain designs, on whom want hath dominion.  415  Such, and of such condition, may devise  Which way to wound with defamation's spirit  (Close-lurking whisper's hidden forgeries)  His taintless goodness, his desertful merit.  But whiles the minds of men can judge sincerely,  420  Upon assured knowledge, his repute  And estimation shall be rumored clearly  In equal worth--time shall to time renew 't.  The grave, that in his ever-empty womb  Forever closes up the unrespected,  425  Who when they die, die all, shall not entomb  His pleading best perfections as neglected.  They to his notice in succeeding years  Shall speak for him when he shall lie below;  When nothing but his memory appears  430  Of what he was, then shall his virtues grow.  His being but a private man in rank  (And yet not ranked beneath a gentleman)  Shall not abridge the commendable thank  Which wise posterity shall give him then;  435  For nature, and his therein happy fate.  Ordained that by his quality of mind  T' ennoble that best part, although his state  Were to a lower blessedness confined.  Blood, pomp, state, honor, glory and command,  440  Without fit ornaments of disposition,  Are in themselves but heathenish and profaned,  And much more peaceful is a mean condition  Which, underneath the roof of safe content,  Feeds on the bread of rest, and takes delight  445  To look upon the labors it hath spent  For its own sustenance, both day and night;  Whiles others, plotting which way to be great,  How to augment their portion and ambition,  Do toil their giddy brains, and ever sweat  450  For popular applause and power's commission.  But one in honors, like a seeled dove  Whose inward eyes are dimmed with dignity,  Does think most safety doth remain above,  And seeks to be secure by mounting high:  455  Whence, when he falls, who did erewhile aspire,  Falls deeper down, for that he climbed higher.  Now men who in lower region live  Exempt from danger of authority  Have fittest times in reason's rules to thrive,  460  Not vexed with envy of priority,  And those are much more noble in the mind  Than many that have nobleness by kind.  Birth, blood, and ancestors, are none of ours,  Nor can we make a proper challenge to them  465  But virtues and perfections in our powers  Proceed most truly from us, if we do them.  Respective titles or a gracious style,  With all what men in eminence possess,  Are, without ornaments to praise them, vile:  470  The beauty of the mind is nobleness.  And such as have that beauty, well deserve  Eternal characters, that after death  Remembrance of their worth we may preserve,  So that their glory die not with their breath.  475  Else what avails it in a goodly strife  Upon this face of earth here to contend,  The good t' exceed the wicked in their life,  Should both be like obscured in their end?  Until which end, there is none rightly can  480  Be termed happy, since the happiness  Depends upon the goodness of the man,  Which afterwards his praises will express.  Look hither then, you that enjoy the youth  Of your best days, and see how unexpected  485  Death can betray your jollity to ruth  When death you think is least to be respected!  The person of this model here set out  Had all that youth and happy days could give him,  Yet could not all-encompass him about  490  Against th' assault of death, who to relieve him  Strook home but to the frail and mortal parts  Of his humanity, but could not touch  His flourishing and fair long-lived deserts,  Above fate's reach, his singleness was such.  495  So that he dies but once, but doubly lives,  Once in his proper self, then in his name;  Predestinated time, who all deprives,  Could never yet deprive him of the same.  And had the genius which attended on him  500  Been possibilited to keep him safe  Against the rigor that hath overgone him,  He had been to the public use a staff,  Leading by his example in the path  Which guides to doing well, wherein so few  505  The proneness of this age to error hath  Informed rightly in the courses true.  As then the loss of one, whose inclination  Stove to win love in general, is sad,  So specially his friends, in soft compassion  510  Do feel the greatest loss they could have had.  Amongst them all, she who those nine of years  Lived fellow to his counsels and his bed  Hath the most share in loss; for I in hers  Feel what distemperature this chance hath bred.  515  The chaste embracements of conjugal love,  Who in a mutual harmony consent,  Are so impatient of a strange remove  As meager death itself seems to lament,  And weep upon those cheeks which nature framed  520  To be delightful orbs in whom the force  Of lively sweetness plays, so that ashamed  Death often pities his unkind divorce.  Such was the separation here constrained  (Well-worthy to be termed a rudeness rather),  525  For in his life his love was so unfeigned  As he was both an husband and a father. . .  The one in firm affection and the other  In careful providence, which ever strove  With joint assistance to grace one another  530  With every helpful furtherance of love.  But since the sum of all that can be said  Can be but said that "He was good" (which wholly  Includes all excellence can be displayed  In praise of virtue and reproach of folly).  535  His due deserts, this sentence on him gives,  "He died in life, yet in his death he lives."  Now runs the method of this doleful song  In accents brief to thee, O thou deceased!  To whom those pains do only all belong  540  As witnesses I did not love thee least.  For could my worthless brain find out but how  To raise thee from the sepulcher of dust,  Undoubtedly thou shouldst have partage now  Of life with me, and heaven be counted just  545  If to a supplicating soul it would  Give life anew, by giving life again  Where life is missed; whereby discomfort should  Right his old griefs, and former joys retain  Which now with thee are leaped into thy tomb  550  And buried in that hollow vault of woe,  Expecting yet a more severer doom  Than time's strict flinty hand will let 'em know.  And now if I have leveled mine account  And reckoned up in a true measured score  555  Those perfect graces which were ever wont  To wait on thee alive, I ask no more  (But shall hereafter in a poor content  Immure those imputations I sustain,  Learning my days of youth so to prevent  560  As not to be cast down by them again);  Only those hopes which fate denies to grant  In full possession to a captive heart  Who, if it were in plenty, still would want  Before it may enjoy his better part:  565  From which detained, and banished in th' exile  Of dim misfortune, has none other prop  Whereon to lean and rest itself the while  But the weak comfort of the hapless, "hope."  And hope must in despite of fearful change  570  Play in the strongest closet of my breast,  Although perhaps I ignorantly range  And court opinion in my deep'st unrest.  But whether doth the stream of my mischance  Drive me beyond myself, fast friend, soon lost,  575  Long may thy worthiness thy name advance  Amongst the virtuous and deserving most,  Who herein hast forever happy proved:  In life thou lived'st, in death thou died'st beloved. 