COMUS
41
Storied of old in high immortal vers
Of dire Chimera’s and inchanted Iles,
And rifted Rocks whose entrance leads to hell;
For such there be, but unbelief is blind.
Within the navil of this hideous Wood,
Immur’d in cypress shades, a Sorcerer dwels,
Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus,
Deep skill’d in all his mothers witcheries;
And here to every thirsty wanderer
By sly enticement gives his banefull cup,
With many murmurs mix t; whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likenes of a beast
Fixes instead, unmoulding reasons mintage
Character’d in the face; this have I learn’t
Tending my flocks hard by i’th hilly crofts
That brow this bottom glade; whence night by night
He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl
Like stabl’d wolves or tigers at their prey,
Doing abhorred rites to Hecate
In their obscured haunts of inmost bowres.
Yet have they many baits, and guilefull spells
To inveigle and invite th’unwary sense
Of them that pass unweeting by the way.
This evening late, by then the chewing flocks
Of dire Chimera’s and inchanted Iles,
And rifted Rocks whose entrance leads to hell;
For such there be, but unbelief is blind.
Within the navil of this hideous Wood,
Immur’d in cypress shades, a Sorcerer dwels,
Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus,
Deep skill’d in all his mothers witcheries;
And here to every thirsty wanderer
By sly enticement gives his banefull cup,
With many murmurs mix t; whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likenes of a beast
Fixes instead, unmoulding reasons mintage
Character’d in the face; this have I learn’t
Tending my flocks hard by i’th hilly crofts
That brow this bottom glade; whence night by night
He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl
Like stabl’d wolves or tigers at their prey,
Doing abhorred rites to Hecate
In their obscured haunts of inmost bowres.
Yet have they many baits, and guilefull spells
To inveigle and invite th’unwary sense
Of them that pass unweeting by the way.
This evening late, by then the chewing flocks
