Il pastor fido The faithfull shepherd : a pastorall / written in Italian by Baptista Guarini, a Knight of Italie ; and now newly translated out of the originall.

To the most Illustrious and most hopefull PRINCE CHARLES, Prince of WALES.

SIR,

WHilst I had the honour to serve your High∣nesse, I did it (how weakly soever) with that fidelity and dutifull affection to your Person, which found your gracious acceptance, together with some encou∣ragement from your own mouth to hope a new and more sixt relation to you in the future; the onely suit I was bold to make: as having ever esteemed that to serve your Highnesse, would of it self be an abundant reward for having served you.

In the mean time I hold my self bound to pay your High∣ness some tribute of my hours of vacancy, presenting to your Princely view for the present this Italian Pastorall, into which the no lesse wise then witty Guarini (having grown unprofitably grey in Travell, Vniversities, and Courts, as out of the fifth Act, where he personates himself under the name of old Carino, may be collected) infused whatso∣ever of excellent so eminent Schools could teach so apt a Scholer. His scope therein being, to make a Dernier effort (as the French call it) or generall muster of the whole forces of his Wit before his Princely Master (the then Duke

of Savoy) and withall to insinuate and bring into that aw∣full presence, in their masking clothes (as I may say) such principles of Vertue, and knowledge Morall, Politicall, and Theologicall, as (peradventure) in their own grave habits, out of the mouthes of severer Instructors, would not have found so easie admittance to a Prince in the heat of his youth, heightned with the pomp and flatteries that attend on Greatnesse, and with the glorious triumphs and felici∣ties of his royall Nuptials then celebrating: though this was the same Charles Emanuel who proved afterwards in his riper yeers, by his Councels and by his Prowesse, the Bulwark indeed of Italie, against the puissance of the great Henry of France himself, your Highnesse most renowned Grandfather.

Your Highnesse may have seen at Paris a Picture (it is in the Cabinet of the great Chancellor there) so admirably design'd, that, presenting to the common beholders a mul∣titude of little faces (the famous Ancestors of that Noble man); at the same time, to him that looks through a Per∣spective (kept there for that purpose) there appears onely a single portrait in great of the Chancellor himself; the Pain∣ter thereby intimating, that in him alone are contracted the Vertues of all his Progenitors; or perchance by a more subtile Philosophy demonstrating, how the Body Politick is composed of many naturall ones; and how each of these, intire in it self, and consisting of head, eyes, hands, and the like, is a head, an eye, or a hand in the other: as also, that mens Privates cannot be preserved, if the Publick be de∣stroyed, no more then those little Pictures could remain in

being, if the great one were defaced: which great one like∣wise was first and chiefest in the Painters designe, and that for which all the rest were made.

Just so our Authour (exposing to ordinary view an En∣terlude of Shepherds, their loves, and other little con∣cernments, with the stroke of a lighter pencill) presents through the perspective of the Chorus, another and more suitable object to his Royall Spectators. He shews to them the image of a gasping State (once the most flourishing in the world): A wild Boar (the sword) depopulating the Country: the Pestilence unpeopling the Towns: their gods themselves in the mercilesse humane Sacrifices exacting bloody contribution from both: and the Priests (a third Estate of misery) bearing the burthen of all in the Chorus, where they deplore their owne and the common Calamitie. Yet in the Catastrophe, the Boar slain; the Pestilence (but this was before upon that miserable composition with their Gods) ceased; the Priests above all others exulting with pious joy: and all this miraculous change occasion∣ed by the presaged Nuptials of two of Divine (that is, Royall) extraction; meaning those at that time of the Duke of Savoy with the Infanta of Spain, from which for∣tunate Conjunction hee prophesies a finall period to the troubles that had formerly distracted that State: So much depends upon the Marriages of Princes.

I am not ignorant (Sir) that this famous Dramatick Po∣em must have lost much of the life and quicknesse by being powred out of one vessell (that is, one Language) into an∣other, besides what difference may be in the capacity and

mettle of the Vessels themselves (the Italian being tran∣scendently both copious and harmonious), and beside the unsteadinesse of the hand that powres it; And that a Translation at the best is but the mock-Rainbow in the clouds, faintly imitating the true one: into which Apoll•• himself had a full and immediate influence.

Yet because it seems to me (beholding it at the best light) a Lantskip of these Kingdoms, (your Royall Patrimony) a•• well in the former flourishing, as the present distraction•• thereof, I thought it not improper for your Princely notion at this time, thereby to occasion your Highness, even in you•• recreations, to reflect upon the sad Originall, not without hope to see it yet speedily made a perfect parallell through∣out; and also your self a great Instrument of it. Whe∣ther by some happy Royall Marriage (as in this Pasto∣rall, and the case of Savoy, to which it alludes) thereby uniting a miserably divided people in a publick joy; o•• by such other wayes and means as it may have pleased th•• Divine Providence to ordain for an end of our woe; I leave to that Providence to determine.