Page:The Works of Ben Jonson - Gifford - Volume 6.djvu/269

The smoother ewes are ready to receive
The mounting rams again; and both do feed,
As either promised to increase your breed
At eaning-time, and bring you lusty twins:
Why should or you or we so much forget
The season in ourselves, as not to make
Use of our youth and spirits, to awake
The nimble horn-pipe, and the timburine,
And mix our songs and dances in the wood,
And each of us cut down a triumph-bough?—
Such are the rites the youthful June allow.^[1]

Cla. They were, gay Robin; but the sourer sort
Of shepherds now disclaim in all such sport:^[2]
And say, our flock the while are poorly fed,
When with such vanities the swains are led.

Tuck. Would they, wise Clarion, were not hurried more^[3]
With covetise and rage, when to their store

1. Such are the rites, &c.] The folio reads were by an evident misprint, as appears from the line which immediately follows.
2. Cla. They were, gay Robin, but the sourer sort
   Of shepherds, now disclaim in all such sport:] The Puritans had a strange aversion to wakes and may-games, which they considered as remains of Paganism; and the dislike was greatly increased by the indulgence granted to the country-people, in the exercise of their rural sports on holidays. Whal.
3. Tuck. Would they, wise Clarion, were not hurried more, &c] This and the beautiful speeches which follow, are levelled with great force and discrimination, at the Puritans, who about this time began to grow formidable, and display that covetise and rage which soon afterwards laid waste the sheepfold. That "the flock was poorly fed," was, we see, the watchword of the time, and therefore adopted by Milton, who knew better, and must have been actuated by evil passions:
   "The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
   But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
   Rot inwardly ———
   
   
   The pastors were changed soon after this was written, and it would require more than the prejudice and intrepidity of this