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The Odysseys of Homer, together with the shorter poems

The Furnace called in to sing by Potters

Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition Homer and Chapman, George
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If ye deal freely, O my fiery friends, As ye assure, I’ll sing, and serve your ends. Pallas, vouchsafe thou here invok’d access, I Impose thy hand upon this Forge, and bless All cups these artists earn so, that they may Look black still with their depth, and every way Give all their vessels a most sacred sale. Make all well-burn’d; and estimation call Up to their prices. Let them market well, And in all highways in abundance sell, Till riches to their utmost wish arise, And, as thou mak’st them rich, so make me wise. But if ye now turn all to impudence, And think to pay with lies my patience, Then will I summon ’gainst your Furnace all Hell’s harmfull’st spirits; Maragus I’ll call, Sabactes, Asbett, and Omadamus, Who ills against your art innumerous Excogitates, supplies, and multiplies. Come, Pallas, then, and all command to rise, Infesting forge and house with fire, till all Tumble together, and to ashes fall, These potters selves dissolv’d in tears as small. And as a horse-cheek chides his foaming bit, So let this Forge murmur in fire and flit, And all this stuff to ashy ruins run. And thou, O Circe, daughter of the Sun, Great-many-poison-mixer, come, and pour Thy cruell’st poisons on this Potters’ floor, Shivering their vessels; and themselves affect With all the mischiefs possible to direct ’Gainst all their beings, urg’d by all thy fiends.
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Let Chiron likewise come; and all those friends (The Centaurs) that Alcides’ fingers fled, And all the rest too that his hand strook dead, (Their ghosts excited) come, and macerate These earthen men; and yet with further fate Affect their Furnace; all their tear-burst eyes Seeing and mourning for their miseries, While I look on, and laugh their blasted art And them to ruin. Lastly, if apart Any lies lurking, and sees yet, his face Into a coal let th’ angry fire embrace, That all may learn by them, in all their lust, To dare deeds great, to see them great and just.

Source attribution

The Odysseys of Homer, together with the shorter poems, Project Gutenberg eBook #48895

Written on the Council Chamber Eiresione, or the Olive Branch