SYMPOSIUM 3 



The man that tasted it should never die 

 But stand in record of eternitie. 



Jupiter is enraged at the daring attempt to usurp his divine 

 prerogative and banishes the plant to an unknown region. 

 After long searching the graces discover it in the palace of 

 the great Montezuma. They are royally entertained and 

 wish for no greater happiness than to remain eternally 

 regaling themselves with the vapour of the divine herb. 

 Another flight of fancy reveals the ' sweet and sole delight 

 of mortal men ' as a nymph of Virginia receiving the visits 

 of Jupiter clad in the garb of a shepherd. Juno, ever 

 watchful over the movements of her lord, discovers the 

 intrigue, and with threatening gesture storms at the poor 

 thing and transforms her into the Indian weed. 



It may be that the divine afflatus which Drayton, speak- 

 ing of Marlowe, says, ' rightly should possess a poet's brain, ' 

 imaging ' those brave translunary things that the first poets 

 had,' had not yet descended upon the young poet of Grace 

 Dieu. But it cannot be denied him that his diction is 

 stately, and that at times he displays flashes of grandeur. 

 Chalmers remarks of him that he brought to his task 'a 

 genius uncommonly fertile and commanding.' All through 

 his brief career he had yearned after a true poet's renown. 

 ' No earthly gift,' he wrote, ' lasts after death but fame.' 

 And he sighed over the thought that all his labour should 

 be left incomplete 'That's my vexation, that's my only 

 grief.' His longing for posthumous fame Drayton tenderly 

 notices in the following lines : 



Thy care for that which was not worth thy breath. 

 Brought on too soon thy much lamented death. 

 But heaven was kind and would not let thee see 

 The plagues that must upon this nation be. 



