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Philip Sidney

1554-1586

1590 [1580] | Sir Philip Sidney, ""Song of a Young Shepherd [offsite ebook]," in chap. 19, Book 1 of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (ebook history).

Thus Man was made; thus Man their Lord became:
Who at the first, wanting, or hiding pride,
He did to beastes best use his cunning frame;
With water drinke, herbes meate, and naked hide,
And fellow-like let his dominion slide;
Not in his sayings saying I, but we:
As if he meant his lordship common be.…

…Worst fell to smallest birds, and meanest heard,
Whom now his owne, full like his owne he vsed.
Yet first but wooll, or fethers off he teard:
And when they were well vs'de to be abused,
For hungrie teeth their flesh with teeth he brused:
At length for glutton taste he did them kill:
At last for sport their sillie lives did spill.

But yet o man, rage not beyond thy neede:
Deeme it no gloire to swell in tyrannie.
Thou art of blood; joy not to see things bleede:
Thou fearest death; thinke they are loth to die.
A plaint of guiltlesse hurt doth pierce the skie.
And you poore beastes, in patience bide your hell,
Or know your strengths, and then you shall do well.

Transcriber's Notes

Sir Philip Sidney, "Song of a Young Shepherd," in chap. 19, Book 1 of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1580; [Print Basis for the Online Edition: Sommer facsimile of a British Museum copy of the Ponsonby edition of 1590, posthumously published] Online Edition: Renascence Editions, 2003).