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William Blake

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?

Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?

Or Love in a golden bowl?

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noun

One who, or that which, accelerates.

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Digitized by VjOOQIC

65 lines
Christopher Marlowe·1564–1593·English Renaissance theatre
8 . F. Mot, Nay, now you're here alone, I'll speak myipind.155 Lan. And so will I; and then, my lord, farewell. r. Mor, The idle triumphs, masks, lascivious shows.And prodigal gifts bestowed on Gaveston,*Have drawn thy treasury dry, and made thee weak;The murmuring commons, overstretched, br^ak.160 Lan, Look for rebellion, look to be deposed;Thy gammons are beaten out of France,And, lame and poor, lie groaning at the gates.The wild Oneyl, with swarms of Irish kerns,Lives uncontrolled within the English pale.165 Unto the walls of York the Scots make road,And unresisted drive away rich spoils. Y, Mor, The haughty Dane commands the narrowseas,While in the harbour ride thy ships unrigged.Lan, What foreign prince sends thee ambassadors?170 r. Mor, Who loves thee, but a sort of flatterers?Lan. Thy gentle queen, sole sister to Valois, 163. kerns is a Celtic nameto denote foot-soldiers of thelowest description, armed withdarts, daggers or knives; thederivation is doubtful, perhapsfrom ceam *man' in old Gaelicand Irish. In Macbeth Y 7,17 the word is used of thecommon soldiers of the Eng-lish army. 164. the English pale, thedistrict around Dublin wherethe earliest English colonistshad settled under Henry II.(1172). 165 road is frequently usedby the Elizabethan poets inthe sense of raids or inroads;comp. e. g. in the Pseudo-Shakespearian drama, EdwardIII. (p. 7 Tauchn.), tuith ea^erroads beyond their city York, 167. Dyce observes that asimilar line — Stern FauLcon-bridge commands the narrowseas — occurs in The TrueTragedy of Richard, Duke ofYork , whence Scakespearetransferred it to his Thirdpart of King Henry VI. I 1. 170 sort, a set, company,lot. So Spenser F. Q. HI 1,40 they luathed the loose de-meanovr of that wanton sort;and in ^Astrophel', a sort ofshepherds . . came 2into theplace, Shakesp. Richard HI.V 3, 316 a sort of vagabonds,rascals and runaways. Comp.also Ben Jonson, Every Manout of his Humour V 8, beingat supper to-night at a tavernwith a sort of gallants. Henceto consort *to associate*.