I'le dy, yet tell my Love e'en whilst I dy:
He lov'd, but could not hope for Love again.
For tho _Pastoral_ doth not admit any violent passions, such as proceed from the greatest extremity, and usually accompany despair; yet because Despairing Love is not attended with those frightful and horrible consequences, but looks more like _grief to be pittied_, and a _pleasing madness_, than _rage_ and _fury_, _Eclogue_ is so far from refusing, that it rather loves, and passionately requires them. Therefore an unfortunate _Shepherd_ may be brought in, complaining of his successless Love to the _Moon, Stars_, or _Rocks_, or to the Woods, and purling Streams, mourning the unsupportable anger, the frowns and coyness of his proud _Phyllis_; singing at his _Nymphs_ door, (which _Plutarch_ reckons among the signs of Passion) or doing any of those fooleries, which are familiar to Lovers. Yet the Passion must not rise too high, as _Polyphemus's_, _Galateas's_ mad Lover, of whom _Theocritus_ divinely thus, as almost of every thing else:
His was no common flame, nor could he move In the old Arts, and beaten paths of Love, No Flowers nor Fruits sent to oblige the Fair, { 62} His was all Rage, and Madness:
For all violent Perturbations are to be diligently avoided by _Bucolicks_, whose nature it is to be _soft_, and _easie_: For in small matters, and such must all the strifes and contentions of Shepherds be, to make a great deal of adoe, is as unseemly, as to put _Hercules's_ Vizard and Buskins on an Infant, as _Quintilian_ hath excellently observ'd. For since _Eclogue_ is but weak, it seems not capable of those Commotions which belong to the _Theater_, and _Pulpit_; they must be soft, and gentle, and all its Passion must seem to flow only, and not break out: as in _Virgil's Gallus_,
Ah, far from home and me You wander o're The _Alpine_ snows, the farthest Western shore, And frozen _Rhine_. When are we like to meet? Ah gently, gently, lest thy tender feet Sharp Ice may wound.
To these he may sometimes joyn some short Interrogations made to _inanimate Beings_, for those spread a strange life and vigor thro the whole Composure. Thus in _Daphnis_,
Did not You Streams, and Hazels, hear the Nymphs?