CHRISTS PASSION A TRAGEDIE WITH ANNOTATIONS LONDON Printed by Iohn Legatt M. D. C. XL. M. TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE SIR I Am bold to present you with this Peece of the PASSION the Originall designed by the curious Pensill of Grotius whose former afflictions seeme to have taught him pliable passions and art to rule the affections of others cloathing the saddest of Subjects in the sutable attire of Tragedy not without the Example of two ancient Fathers of the Primitive Church Apollinarius and Nazianzen The Argument is of both the Testaments a patheticall Abstract Those formidable Wonders effected by God in his owne Common-wealth those stupendious Miracles for truth a Pattern to all History for strangenesse to all Fables here meet together to attend on CHRIST'S PASSION The effects of his Power here sweetly end in those of his Mercy and that terrible Lord of Hosts is now this meeke God of Peace reconciling all to one another and Man-kinde to Him-selfe Sr. in this change of Language I am no punctuall Interpreter a way as servill as ungracefull Quintilian censures a Painter that he more affected Similitude then Beauty who would have shown greater Skill if lesse of Resemblance the same in Poetry is condemned by Horace of that Art the great Law-giver Thus in the Shadow of your Absence dismist from Arms by an Act of Time have I in what I was able continued to serve you The humblest of your Majesties Servants GEORGE SANDYS THE PERSONS JESUS CHORUS OF JEWISH WOMEN PETER PONTIUS PILATE CAIAPHAS JUDAS THE JEWS FIRST NUNCIUS SECOND NUNCIUS CHORUS OF ROMANE SOULDIERS JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA NICODEMUS JOHN MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS Imprimatur Tho: Wykes September 17. 1639 THE FIRST ACT. JESVS O Thou who govern'st what thou didst create With equall sway great Arbiter of Fate The Worlds Almighty Father I thy Son Though born in Time before his Course begun Thus far my Deeds have answered thy Commands If more remain my Zeale prepared stands To execute thy Charge all that I feare All that I hate I shall with patience beare No misery refuse no toile nor shame I know for this into the world I came And yet how long shall these extreames indure What Day or Night have known my life secure My burthen by induring heavier grows And present ills a way to worse disclose My Kingdome Heaven I left to visit Earth And suffer'd banishment before my Birth An unknown Infant in a stable born Lodg'd in a manger little poore forlorn And miserable though so vile a Thing Yet worthy of the envy of a King Two yeers scarce yet compleat too old was thought By Herods fears while I alone was sought The bloudy Sword Ephratian Dames deprives Of their dear Babes through wounds they exhal'd their lives Secur'd by flying to a forreign Clime The Tyrant through his Error lost his Crime A Thousand Miracles have made me known Through all the World and my extraction shown Envy against me raves yet Vertue hath More storms of Mischief rais'd then Herods wrath It is decreed by thy unchanging Will I should be acknowledg'd and rejected still Th' inspired Magi from the Orient came Prefer'd my Starre before their Mithra's flame And at my infant feet devoutly fell But Abrahams Seed the House of Israel To thee sequestred from Eternity Degenerate and ingrate their God deny Behold the contumacious Pharisies Arm'd with dissembled Zeale against me rise The bloudy Priests to their stern Party draw The Doctors of their unobserved law And impious Sadduces to perpetrate My intended Overthrow incense the State What rests to quicken Faith Even at my Nod Nature submits acknowledging her God The Galilean Youth drink the pure bloud Of generous Grapes drawn from the Neighbor floud I others famin cur'd subdu'd my own Life-strengthning food for fourty dayes unknown Twixt the Dispensers hands th' admired Bread Increas'd great multitudes of People fed Yet more then all remain'd The Windes asswage Their stormes threatning Billows calme their rage The hardned Waves unsinking feet indure And pale Diseases which despise their cure My Voice subdues Long Darknesse chac'd away To me the Blind by Birth now owes his Day He hears who never yet was heard now speaks And in my Praises first his silence breaks Those damned Spirits of infernall Night Rebels to God and to the Sonnes of Light Inveterate foes my Voice but heard forsake The long possest and struck with terror quake Nor was 't enough for Christ such wonders done To profit those alone who see the Sunne To vanquish Death my powerfull hand invades His silent Regions and inferior Shades The Stars the Earth the Seas my triumphs know VVhat rests to conquer but the Deeps below Through op'ning Sepulchers Nights gloomy Caves The violated priviledge of Graves I sent my dread Commands A heat new born Reanimates the Dead from funerals torn And Deaths-numb Cold expulst inforc'd a way For Soules departed to review the Day The Ashes from their ransackt Tombs receive A second life and by my bounty breathe But Death his late free Empire thus restrain'd Not used to restore his Spoyles complain'd That I should thus unweave the web of Fate Decrease his Subjects and subvert his State I for so many ransomed from Death Must to his anger sacrifice my breath And now that horrid Houre is almost come When sinfull Mortalls shall their Maker doom When I the worlds great Lord who life on all Mankinde bestow'd must by their fury fall That Tragick Time to my last Period hasts And Night who now on all her Shadows casts While with the motion of the Heavens she flies This short delay of my sad life envies Fate be lesse sterne in thy intended Course Nor drag him who will follow without force After so many miseries indur'd Cold Heat Thirst Famine eyes to teares inur'd The end yet worst of ills draws neare their breath For whom I suffer must procure my death The Innocent made guilty by the foule Defects of others must his weary Soule Sigh into aire and though of heavenly birth With his chaste bloud distain th' ungratefull Earth They traffick for my Soule my death long sought Is by the mitred Merchants faction bought And Treason findes reward My travels draw Neare their last end These practices I saw See what this Nights confederate Shadows hide My Minde before my Body crucifi'd Horrour shakes all my Powers my entrailes beat And all my Body flowes with purple sweat O whither is my ancient Courage fled And God-like Strength by Anguish captive led O Death how farre more cruell in thy kinde Th' anxiety and torment of the Minde Then must I be of all at once bereft Or is there any hope of safety left O might I to my heavenly Father pray So supple to my teares to take away Part of these ills But his eternall Doome Forbids and ordered Course of things to come His purpose fixt when yet the world was young And Oracles so oft by Prophets sung Now rushing on their
ô too blest Whom Yester-night saw leaning on thy brest If Love in death survive if yet as great Even by that Love thy pardon I intreat By this thy weeping Mother I the Heire By thee adopted to thy filiall care Though alike wretched and as comfortlesse Yet as I can will comfort her distresse O Virgin-mother favour thy Reliefe Though just yet moderate thy flowing griefe Thy downe-cast Minde by thy owne Vertue raise Th' old Prophets fill their Volumes with thy praise No Age but shall through all the round of Earth Sing of that heavenly Love and sacred Birth What female glory parallels thy Worth So grew a Mother such a Son brought forth She who prov'd fruitfull in th' extreame of age And found the truth of that despis'd presage She whose sweet Babe expos'd among the reeds Which ancient Nilus with his moisture feeds Who then a smiling Infant overcame The threatning floud aspir'd not to thy fame But these expressions are for thee too low The op'ning Heavens did their observance show Those radiant Troopes which Darknesse put to flight Thy Throws assisted in that festive Night Who over thy adored Infant hung With golden wings and Allelujah's sung While the Old Sky to imitate that birth Bare a new Starre to amaze the wondring Earth MARY Sorrow is fled Joy a long banish'd Guest With heavenly rapture fill's my inlarged brest More great then that in youth when from the Sky An Angel brought that blessed Embassy When Shame not soon instructed blush'd for feare How I a Son by such a Fate should beare I greater things fore-see my eyes behold What ever is by Destiny inrold With troops of pious Soules more great then they Thou to felicity shalt lead the way A holy People shall obey thy Throne And Heaven it selfe surrender thee thy own Subjected Death thy Triumph now attends While thou from thy demolish'd Tombe ascends Nor shalt thou long be seene by mortall eies But in perfection mount above the Skies Propitious ever from that heighth shalt give Peace to the World instructed how to live A thousand Languages shall thee adore Thy Empire know no bounds The farthest Shore Washt by the Ocean those who Dayes bright Flame Scarce warmes shall heare the thunder of thy Name Licentious sword nor hostill Fury shall Prevaile against thee thou the Lord of all Those Tyrants whom the vanquisht Worlds obay Before thy feete shall Caesars Scepter lay The Time draws on in which it selfe must end When thou shalt in a Throne of Clouds descend To judge the Earth In that reformed World Those by their sins infected shall be hurl'd Downe under one perpetuall Night while they Whom thou hast cleans'd injoy perpetuall Day The END THe Tragedie of CHRIST'S PASSION was first written in Greek by Apollinarius of Laodicea Bishop of Hieropolis and after him by Gregory Nazianzen though this now extant in his Works is by some ascribed to the former by others accounted suppositions as not agreeing with his Strain in the rest of his Poems which might alter in that particular upon his imitation of Euripides But Hugo Grotius of late hath transcended all on this Argument whose steps afar-off I follow ANNOTATIONS VPON THE FIRST ACT. VErse 23. Ephratian Dames Of Ephrata the same with Bethlehem Ver. 33. Magi Tradition will have them three of severall Nations and honour them with crownes But the word delivers them for Persians for so they called their Philosophers such as were skilfull in the Coelestiall Motions from whence they drew their predictions and with whom their Princes consulted in all matters of moment Some write that they were of the posteritie of Balaam by his Prophesies informed of the birth of Christ and apparition of that narrative Starre but more consonant to the Truth that they received it from divine inspiration Ver. 34. My Starre None of those which adorne the Firmament nor Comet proceeding from condensed Vapors inflamed in the Aire but above Nature and meerely miraculous which as they write not onely illuminated the eye but the understanding excited thereby to that heavenly inquisition Some will have it an Angel in that forme The excellencie whereof is thus described by Prudentius This which in Beames and Beauty far Exceld the Sunnes flame-bearing Car Shew'd Gods descent from Heaven to Earth Accepting of a humane Birth No servant to the humerous Night Nor following Phoebe's changing Light But didst thy single Lamp display To guide the Motion of the Day Hym Epiphaniae It is probable that this Starre continued not above thirteene dayes if we may beleeve that Tradition How the Magi were so long in travelling from their Countrey unto Bethlehem Ver. 34. Mithra's flame Mithra the same with the Sunne adored by the Persians His Image had the countenance of a Lion with a Tiara on his head depressing an Oxe by the hornes Of this Statius Come O remember thy owne Temple prove Propitious still and Juno's Citie love Whether we should thee rosy Titan call Osyris Lord of Ceres festivall Or Mithra shrin'd in Persian rocks a Bull Subduing by the horror of his skull Thebaid l. 1. And in a Cave his Rites were solemnized from whence they drew an Oxe by the hornes which after the singing of certaine Paeans was sacrificed to the Sun Zorastes placeth him between Oremazes and Arimanius the good and bad Daemon from which he took that denomination Vers. 39. Pharisees A precise Sect among the Iews separating themselves from others in habit manners and conversation from whence they had their Name as their Originall from Antigonus Sochaeus who was contemporary with Alexander the Great Men full of appearing Sanctitie observant to Traditions and skilfull expositors of the Moysaicall Law wearing the Precepts thereof in Phylacters narrow scroules of parchment bound about their browes and above their left elbowes passing thorow the streets with a slow motion their eyes fixed on the ground as if ever in divine contemplations and wincking at the approach of women by meanes whereof they not seldome met with churlish incounters Superstitious in their often washing keeping their bodies cleaner then their soules They held that all was governed by God and Fate yet that man had the power in himselfe to doe good or evill That his Soule was immortall that after the death of the body if good it returned into an other more excellent but if evill condemned to perpetuall torments Vers. 43. Sadduces These derived the Sect and name from Sadock the scholar of Antigonus Socaeus as he his Heresie by misinterpreting the words of his Master that we should not serve God as servants in hope of reward concluding thereupon that in another World there was no reward for Pietie and consequently no resurrection holding the Soul to be annihilated after the death of the Body herein agreeing with the Stoicks As smoke from trembling flames ascends and there Lost in its liberty resolves to aire As empty Clouds which furious tempests chace Consume and vanish in their aiery race So our commanding Souls
onely in regard of the fabulous transformation of their Goddesse Dercetis but that they held it injustice to kill those Creatures which did them no harm and were fed on rather for luxury then necessity Withall conceiving the Sea to be the originall and father of all that had life and that man was ingendred of a liquid substance they adored fishes as being of their own generation and Subsistence So did they a Dove not onely because their glorious Empresse Semiramis carried that name and was after as they fable transformed into that creature but expressing the Aire by the Dove as by a fish the water reverencing both as comprising the Nature of all things V. 229 From Belus whose c. From certain marishes in the valley of Acre runs the River of Belus with a tardy pace and exonerates it self into the Sea hard by Ptolemais whose sand affordeth matter for glasse becomming fusible in the furnace Strabo reports the like of divers places there about and Iosephus speaking of this that there is an adjoyning Pit an hundred cubits in circuit covered with sand that glistered like glasse and when carried away for therewith they accustomed to ballast their ships it forth-with was filled again borne thither by windes from places adjacent Moreover that what minerall soever was contained therein converted into glasse and glasse there laid againe into sand Vers. 231. From Arnons bankes those c. Arnon riseth in the mountaines of Arabia and dividing the Countrey of the Moabites from the Ammonites fals into the Dead Sea By those ancient Warres is meant the Overthrow which Moses gave unto Og and Sehon Vers. 234. Asphaltis The Dead Sea or Lake of Sodome and Gomorrah having no egresse unlesse under the Earth Seventy miles in length and sixteen broad here at large described by our Author Vers. 237. VVhat over flies c. The like is written of Avernus whereof the poeticall Philosopher Avernus cald a name impos'd of right In that so fatall to all Birds of flight VVhich when those aiery Passengers o're-fly Forgetfull of their wings they fall from high With stretcht out necks on Earth where Earth partakes That killing propertie where Lakes on Lakes Lucr. l. 6. Vers. 215. VVhen she c. Lots wife Iosephus writes that he himselfe had seene that Statue of Salt yet extant if Brocardus and Saligniacus professed Eye-witnesses be to be beleeved Vers. 255. Devout Esseans A Sect among the Iews strictly preserving the worship of God the rules of Religion and Iustice living on the common stock never eating of flesh and wholly abstaining from Wine and Women They wore their apparell white and cleanly pray'd before the rising of the Sunne laboured all day long for the publike utilitie fed in the evening with a generall silence and had their Sobriety rewarded with a life long and healthfull Their chiefe study was the Bible and next to that Physick taking their name from the cure of diseases All were servants one to an other They never sware an oath nor offered any thing that had life in their sacrifice ascribing all unto Fate and nothing to free Will They preserved their Society by the adoption of children inured to piety and labour Their Sect though ancient hath no known Originall yet much agreeing with the discipline of the Pythagoreans Vers. 274. The first unleaven'd Bread Eaten with the Paschal Lambe at the Israelites departing out of Aegypt the Ceremonies used therein are at large delivered by Moses Vers. 275. She never would retaine The Libertie they lost in the Babylonian Captivitie was never absolutely recovered for the most part under the Persians Grecians Aegyptians or Syrians although in the reigne of the Asmones they had the face of a Kingdome yet maintained with perpetuall bloudshed after governed by the Idumeans and lastly by the Romanes often rebelling and as often suppressed Ver. 278. Horned Hammons Temple Iupiter Hammon which signifies Sand because his Temple stood in the Lybian Desarts with such difficultie visited by Alexander Or rather being the same with Ham the sonne of Noah from whom Idolatry had her Originall who usually wore the carved head of a Ram on his Helmet whereupon his Idol was so fashioned But Iupiter Hammon is also taken for the Sunne Hammah signifying Heate in the Hebrew And because the Yeere beginneth at his entrance into Aries he therefore was carved with Rams hornes Ver. 281. Built his proud City Alexandria in Aegypt built by Alexander the Great upon a Promentory neer the Isle of Pharos so directed as they write by Homer in a Vision Vers. 282. To their old prison Babylon Not all the Iews returned with Zorobbabel but remained at Babylon and by the favour of succeeding Princes planted thereabout their Colonies grew a great Nation observing their ancient Rites and Religion These were called Babylonian Iews to whom not a few of their Countrey men fled from the troubles of their Countrey Vers. 283. To freezing Taurus c. The greatest Mountaine of the World which changeth its name according to the countries through which it extendeth that part properly so called which divideth Pamphilia and Cilicia from the lesser Armenia and Cappadocia Whither many of the Iews were retired Vers. 284. And Tiber now c. Rome the Empresse of Cities adorning the bankes of Tiber to which the Ocean then yeelded Obedience ANNOTATIONS VPON THE SECOND ACT. VErse 1. Bloud-thirsty Romulus The Originall of the Race and Name of the Romanes who laide the Wals of Rome in the bloud of his brother Remus Vers. 15. To such a Guide c. It was a Custome among the Easterne Nations and not relinquished by many at this Day for men to kisse one another in their salutations So did the Romanes untill interdicted by Tiberius With the Iews it was a pledge of peace and amitie used also to their Lords and Princes by way of homage and acknowledged subjection as perfidious Iudas did here to his Master Vers. 55. Memphis By this is meant the Aegyptian Servitude Memphis of old the chiefe Citie in Aegypt Vers. 55. Devouring Desarts All the Israelites that came out of Aegypt perished in the Desarts but Ioshuah and Caleb Vers. 55. Civill warres As between the Tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Tribes the Iews and Israelites Israelites against Israelites and Iews against Iews Discord threw her Snakes among the Asmones nor had Herods Posteritie better successe Vers. 56. Oft forreign yokes Often subdued by their Neighbours and delivered by their Iudges and Princes Vers. 56. Assyrian Conquerers Who sackt Ierusalem destroyed the Temple which was built by Solomon led their King captive and their whole Nation unto Babylon Vers. 57. Great Pompeys Eagles Pompey who bore the Romane Eagle on his Standard took Ierusalem and the Temple by force yet would not meddle with the Treasure nor sacred Vtensils subdued the Iews and made them tributaries to the Romanes Vers. 57. Sacred Rites Profan'd Who entred the Sanctum Sanctorum with his followers and prophaned the Religion of