The traytor A tragedie, written by Iames Shirley. Acted by her Majesties Servants

THE
TRAYTOR.
A
TRAGEDIE,
WRITTEN
BY
JAMES SHIRLEY.
ACTED
By her Majesties Servants.

LONDON
Printed for William Cooke, and are to be sold st his Shop at Furnivals Inne-gate in Holborne. 1635.

London.
PUBLISHED FOR William Cooke
1635

1. ACT III.

Du.
I see thy noble brother hath bin faithfull
To my desires, he has prepar'd thee with
A storie of my love, which thou rewardst
With too much humblenesse: thou hast a quarrell,
And a just one with thy Stars, that did not make thee
A Princesse Amidea, yet th'art greater,
Aud borne to justifie unto these times
A Queene of Love, Venus was but thy figure,
And all her graces prophesies of thine,
To make our last age best; I could dwell ever
[Page]
Here, and imagine I am in a Temple,
To offer on this Altar of thy lip,
Myriads of flaming kisses with a cloude
Of sighes breathd from my heart,
Which by the oblation would increase his stocke,
To make my pay eternall.
Am.
What meane you?
Du.
That question is propounded timely, hadst
Not interrupted me, I should ha lost
My selfe upon thy lips, and quite forgot
There is a blisse beyond it, which I came for:
Let others satisfie themselves to reade
The wonders in thy face, make proud their eye,
By seeing thine, turne statues at thy voice,
And thinke they never fixe enough to heare thee.
A man halfe dead with famine, would wish here
To feed on smiles, of which the least hath power
[...] an Anchorite from his prayers, tempt Saints
[...] their bodies on, thou dost with [...]ase
[...] aptivate Kings with every beame, and maist
Lead them like prisoners round about the world,
[...]roud of such golden chaines; this were enough,
Had not my Fate provided more, to make me
Beleeve my selfe immortall in thy touches,
Come to thy bed, transforme me there to happinesse;
Ile laugh at all the fables of the gods,
And teach our Poets after I know thee,
To write the true Elizium.
This is a selection from the original text

Keywords

cloud, fable, faithful, famine, king, poet

Source text

Title: The traytor A tragedie, written by Iames Shirley. Acted by her Majesties Servants

Author: James Shirley

Publication date: 1635

Edition: 2nd Edition

Place of publication: London

Provenance/location: This text was transcribed from images available at Early English Books Online: http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home Bibliographic name / number: Greg, II, 498(a). / Bibliographic name / number: STC (2nd ed.) / 22458 Physical description: [80] p. Copy from: Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery Reel position: STC / 1008:02

Digital edition

Original author(s): James Shirley

Language: English

Selection used:

  • 1 ) tp
  • 2 ) image no.22 (Act 3, "Du. I see thy noble brother ... the true Elizium")

Responsibility:

Texts collected by: Ayesha Mukherjee, Amlan Das Gupta, Azarmi Dukht Safavi

Texts transcribed by: Muhammad Irshad Alam, Bonisha Bhattacharya, Arshdeep Singh Brar, Muhammad Ehteshamuddin, Kahkashan Khalil, Sarbajit Mitra

Texts encoded by: Bonisha Bhattacharya, Shreya Bose, Lucy Corley, Kinshuk Das, Bedbyas Datta, Arshdeep Singh Brar, Sarbajit Mitra, Josh Monk, Reesoom Pal

Encoding checking by: Hannah Petrie, Gary Stringer, Charlotte Tupman

Genre: Britain > plays

For more information about the project, contact Dr Ayesha Mukherjee at the University of Exeter.

Acknowledgements