ACTUS V., SCAENA 1.
PHILOMUSUS and STUDIOSO become fiddlers: with their concert.
PHILOMUSUS.
And tune, fellow-fiddlers; Studioso and I are ready.
[They tune.
STUDIOSO, going aside, sayeth,
Fair fell good Orpheus, that would rather be
King of a molehill than a keisar's slave:
Better it is 'mongst fiddlers to be chief,
Than at [a] player's trencher beg relief.
But is't not strange, this mimic ape should prize
Unhappy scholars at a hireling rate?
Vile world, that lifts them up to high degree,
And treads us down in groveling misery.
England affords those glorious vagabonds,
That carried erst their fardles on their backs,
Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets,
Sweeping[128] it in their glaring satin suits,
And pages to attend their masterships:
With mouthing words that better wits have framed,
They purchase lands, and now esquires are made.[129]
PHILOMUSUS.
Whate'er they seem, being ev'n at the best,
They are but sporting fortune's scornful jest.
STUDIOSO.
So merry fortune's wont from rags to take
Some ragged groom, and him a[130] gallant make.
PHILOMUSUS.
The world and fortune hath play'd on us too long.
STUDIOSO.
Now to the world we fiddle must a song.
PHILOMUSUS.
Our life is a plain-song with cunning penn'd,
Whose highest pitch in lowest base doth end.
But see, our fellows unto play are bent;
If not our minds, let's tune our instrument.
STUDIOSO.
Let's in a private song our cunning try,
Before we sing to stranger company.
[PHILOMUSUS sings. They tune.
How can he sing, whose voice is hoarse with care?
How can he play, whose heart-strings broken are?
How can he keep his rest, that ne'er found rest?
How can he keep his time, whom time ne'er bless'd?
Only he can in sorrow bear a part
With untaught hand and with untuned heart.
Fond hearts, farewell, that swallow'd have my youth;
Adieu, vain muses, that have wrought my ruth;
Repent, fond sire, that train'dst thy hapless son
In learning's lore, since bounteous alms are done.
Cease, cease, harsh tongue: untuned music, rest;
Entomb thy sorrows in thy hollow breast.
STUDIOSO.
Thanks, Philomusus, for thy pleasant song.
O, had this world a touch of juster grief,
Hard rocks would weep for want of our relief.
PHILOMUSUS.
The cold of woe hath quite untun'd my voice,
And made it too-too hard for list'ning ear:
Time was, in time of my young fortune's spring,
I was a gamesome boy, and learn'd to sing—
But say, fellow-musicians, you know best whither we go: at what door
must we imperiously beg?
JACK FIDDLERS. Here dwells Sir Raderic and his son. It may be now at this good time of new year he will be liberal. Let us stand near, and draw.
PHILOMUSUS. Draw, callest thou it? Indeed, it is the most desperate kind of service that ever I adventured on.
ACTUS V., SCAENA 2.
Enter the two PAGES.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE. My master bids me tell you that he is but newly fallen asleep, and you, base slaves, must come and disquiet them! What, never a basket of capons? mass, and if he comes, he'll commit you all.
AMORETTO'S PAGE. Sirrah Jack, shall you and I play Sir Raderic and Amoretto, and reward these fiddlers? I'll my Master Amoretto, and give them as much as he useth.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE.
And I my old Master Sir Raderic. Fiddlers, play. I'll reward you; faith,
I will.
AMORETTO'S PAGE. Good faith, this pleaseth my sweet mistress admirably. Cannot you play Twitty, twatty, fool? or, To be at her, to be at her?
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE.
Have you never a song of Master Dowland's making?
AMORETTO'S PAGE. Or, Hos ego versiculos feci, &c. A pox on it! my Master Amoretto useth it very often: I have forgotten the verse.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE. Sir Theon,[131] here are a couple of fellows brought before me, and I know not how to decide the cause: look in my Christmas-book, who brought me a present.
AMORETTO'S PAGE. On New-Year's day, goodman Fool brought you a present; but goodman Clown brought you none.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE.
Then the right is on goodman Fool's side.
AMORETTO'S PAGE. My mistress is so sweet, that all the physicians in the town cannot make her stink; she never goes to the stool. O, she is a most sweet little monkey. Please your worship, good father, yonder are some would speak with you.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE. What, have they brought me anything? If they have not, say I take physic. [SIR RADERIC'S voice within.] Forasmuch, fiddlers, as I am of the peace, I must needs love all weapons and instruments that are for the peace, among which I account your fiddles, because they can neither bite nor scratch. Marry, now, finding your fiddles to jar, and knowing that jarring is a cause of breaking the peace, I am, by the virtue of my office and place, to commit your quarrelling fiddles to close prisonment in their cases. [The fiddlers call within.] Sha ho! Richard! Jack!
AMORETTO'S PAGE. The fool within mars our play without. Fiddlers, set it on my head. I use to size my music, or go on the score for it: I'll pay it at the quarter's end.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE. Farewell, good Pan! sweet Thamyras,[132] adieu! Dan Orpheus, a thousand times farewell!
JACK FIDDLERS.
You swore you would pay us for our music.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE. For that I'll give Master Recorder's law, and that is this: there is a double oath—a formal oath and a material oath; a material oath cannot be broken, the formal oath may be broken. I swore formally. Farewell, fiddlers.
PHILOMUSUS.
Farewell, good wags, whose wits praiseworth I deem,
Though somewhat waggish; so we all have been.
STUDIOSO. Faith, fellow-fiddlers, here's no silver found in this place; no, not so much as the usual Christmas entertainment of musicians, a black jack of beer and a Christmas pie.
[They walk aside from their fellows.
PHILOMUSUS.
Where'er we in the wide world playing be,
Misfortune bears a part, and mars our melody;
Impossible to please with music's strain,
Our heart-strings broke are, ne'er to be tun'd again.
STUDIOSO.
Then let us leave this baser fiddling trade;
For though our purse should mend, our credits fade.
PHILOMUSUS.
Full glad am I to see thy mind's free course.
Declining from this trencher-waiting trade.
Well, may I now disclose in plainer guise
What erst I meant to work in secret wise;
My busy conscience check'd my guilty soul,
For seeking maintenance by base vassalage;
And then suggested to my searching thought
A shepherd's poor, secure, contented life,
On which since then I doated every hour,
And meant this same hour in [a] sadder plight,
To have stol'n from thee in secrecy of night.
STUDIOSO.
Dear friend, thou seem'st to wrong my soul too much,
Thinking that Studioso would account
That fortune sour which thou accountest sweet;
Not[133] any life to me can sweeter be,
Than happy swains in plain of Arcady.
PHILOMUSUS.
Why, then, let's both go spend our little store
In the provision of due furniture,
A shepherd's hook, a tar-box, and a scrip:
And haste unto those sheep-adorned hills,
Where if not bless our fortunes, we may bless our wills.
STUDIOSO.
True mirth we may enjoy in thacked stall,
Nor hoping higher rise, nor fearing lower fall.
PHILOMUSUS. We'll therefore discharge these fiddlers. Fellow-musicians, we are sorry that it hath been your ill-hap to have had us in your company, that are nothing but screech-owls and night-ravens, able to mar the purest melody: and, besides, our company is so ominous that, where we are, thence liberality is packing. Our resolution is therefore to wish you well, and to bid you farewell. Come, Studioso, let us haste away, Returning ne'er to this accursed place.
ACTUS V., SCAENA 3.
Enter INGENIOSO, ACADEMICO.
INGENIOSO. Faith, Academico, it's the fear of that fellow—I mean, the sign of the sergeant's head—that makes me to be so hasty to be gone. To be brief, Academico, writs are out for me to apprehend me for my plays; and now I am bound for the Isle of Dogs. Furor and Phantasma comes after, removing the camp as fast they can. Farewell, mea si quid vota valebunt.
ACADEMICO. Faith, Ingenioso, I think the university is a melancholic life; for there a good fellow cannot sit two hours in his chamber, but he shall be troubled with the bill of a drawer or a vintner. But the point is, I know not how to better myself, and so I am fain to take it.
ACTUS V., SCAENA 4.
PHILOMUSUS, STUDIOSO, FUROR, PHANTASMA.
PHILOMUSUS.
Who have we there? Ingenioso and Academico?
STUDIOSO.
The very same; who are those? Furor and Phantasma?
[FUROR takes a louse off his sleeve.
FUROR.
And art thou there, six-footed Mercury?
[PHANTASMA, with his hand in his bosom.
Are rhymes become such creepers nowadays?
Presumptuous louse, that doth good manners lack,
Daring to creep upon poet Furor's back!
Multum refert quibuscum vixeris:
Non videmus manticae quod in tergo est.
PHILOMUSUS. What, Furor and Phantasma too, our old college fellows? Let us encounter them all. Ingenioso, Academico, Furor, Phantasma, God save you all.
STUDIOSO.
What, Ingenioso, Academico, Furor, Phantasma, how do you, brave lads?
INGENIOSO.
What, our dear friends Philomusus and Studioso?
ACADEMICO.
What, our old friends Philomusus and Studioso?
FUROR.
What, my supernatural friends?
INGENIOSO.
What news with you in this quarter of the city?
PHILOMUSUS.
We've run[134] through many trades, yet thrive by none,
Poor in content, and only rich in moan.
A shepherd's life, thou know'st I wont t'admire,
Turning a Cambridge apple by the fire:
To live in humble dale we now are bent,
Spending our days in fearless merriment.
STUDIOSO.
We'll teach each tree, ev'n of the hardest kind,
To keep our woful name within their rind:
We'll watch our flock, and yet we'll sleep withal:
We'll tune our sorrows to the water's fall.
The woods and rocks with our shrill songs we'll bless;
Let them prove kind, since men prove pitiless.
But say, whither are you and your company jogging? it seems by your
apparel you are about to wander.
INGENIOSO.
Faith we are fully bent to be lords of misrule in the world's wide
heath: our voyage is to the Isle of Dogs, there where the blatant beast
doth rule and reign, renting the credit of whom it please.
Where serpents' tongues the penmen are to write,
Where cats do wawl by day, dogs by night.
There shall engorged venom be my ink,
My pen a sharper quill of porcupine,
My stained paper this sin-loaden earth.
There will I write in lines shall never die,
Our seared lordings' crying villany.
PHILOMUSUS.
A gentle wit thou hadst, nor is it blame
To turn so tart, for time hath wrong'd the same.
STUDIOSO.
And well thou dost from this fond earth to flit,
Where most men's pens are hired parasites.
ACADEMICO.
Go happily; I wish thee store of gall
Sharply to wound the guilty world withal.
PHILOMUSUS.
But say, what shall become of Furor and Phantasma?
INGENIOSO.
These my companions still with me must wend.
ACADEMICO.
Fury and Fancy on good wits attend.
FUROR.
When I arrive within the Isle of Dogs,
Dan Phoebus, I will make thee kiss the pump.
Thy one eye pries in every draper's stall,
Yet never thinks on poet Furor's need.
Furor is lousy, great Furor lousy is;
I'll make thee rue[135] this lousy case, i-wis.
And thou, my sluttish[136] laundress, Cynthia,
Ne'er think'st on Furor's linen, Furor's shirt.
Thou and thy squirting boy Endymion
Lies slav'ring still upon a lawless couch.
Furor will have thee carted through the dirt,
That mak'st great poet Furor want his shirt.
INGENIOSO.
Is not here a trusty[137] dog, that dare bark so boldly at the moon?
PHILOMUSUS.
Exclaiming want, and needy care and cark,
Would make the mildest sprite to bite and bark.
PHANTASMA. Canes timidi vehementius latrant. There are certain burrs in the Isle of Dogs called, in our English tongue, men of worship; certain briars, as the Indians call them; as we say, certain lawyers; certain great lumps of earth, as the Arabians call them; certain grocers, as we term them. Quos ego—sed motos praestat componere fluctus.
INGENIOSO.
We three unto the snarling island haste,
And there our vexed breath in snarling waste.
PHILOMUSUS.
We will be gone unto the downs of Kent,
Sure footing we shall find in humble dale;
Our fleecy flock we'll learn to watch and ward,
In July's heat, and cold of January.
We'll chant our woes upon an oaten reed,
Whiles bleating flock upon their supper feed.
STUDIOSO.
So shall we shun the company of men,
That grows more hateful, as the world grows old.
We'll teach the murm'ring brooks in tears to flow,
And steepy rock to wail our passed woe.
ACADEMICO.
Adieu, you gentle spirits, long adieu;
Your wits I love, and your ill-fortunes rue.
I'll haste me to my Cambridge cell again;
My fortunes cannot wax, but they may wain.
INGENIOSO.
Adieu, good shepherds; happy may you live.
And if hereafter in some secret shade
You shall recount poor scholars' miseries,
Vouchsafe to mention with tear-swelling eyes
Ingenioso's thwarting destinies.
And thou, still happy Academico,
That still may'st rest upon the muses' bed,
Enjoying there a quiet slumbering,
When thou repair'st[138] unto thy Granta's stream,
Wonder at thine own bliss, pity our case,
That still doth tread ill-fortune's endless maze;
Wish them, that are preferment's almoners,
To cherish gentle wits in their green bud;
For had not Cambridge been to me unkind,
I had not turn'd to gall a milky mind.
PHILOMUSUS.
I wish thee of good hap a plenteous store;
Thy wit deserves no less, my love can wish no more.
Farewell, farewell, good Academico;
Ne'er may'st thou taste of our fore-passed woe.
We wish thy fortunes may attain their due.—
Furor and you, Phantasma, both adieu,
ACADEMICO.
Farewell, farewell, farewell; O, long farewell!
The rest my tongue conceals, let sorrow tell.
PHANTASMA. Et longum vale, inquit Iola.
FUROR.
Farewell, my masters; Furor's a masty dog,
Nor can with a smooth glosing farewell cog.
Nought can great Furor do but bark and howl,
And snarl, and grin, and carl, and touse the world,
Like a great swine, by his long, lean-ear'd lugs.
Farewell, musty, dusty, rusty, fusty London;
Thou art not worthy of great Furor's wit,
That cheatest virtue of her due desert,
And suffer'st great Apollo's son to want.
INGENIOSO.
Nay, stay awhile, and help me to content
So many gentle wits' attention,
Who ken the laws of every comic stage,
And wonder that our scene ends discontent.
Ye airy wits subtle,
Since that few scholars' fortunes are content,
Wonder not if our scene ends discontent.
When that your fortunes reach their due content,
Then shall our scene end here in merriment.
PHILOMUSUS.
Perhaps some happy wit with seely[139] hand
Hereafter may record the pastoral
Of the two scholars of Parnassus hill,
And then our scene may end, and have content.
INGENIOSO.
Meantime, if there be any spiteful ghost,
That smiles to see poor scholars' miseries,
Cold is his charity, his wit too dull:
We scorn his censure, he's a jeering gull.
But whatsoe'er refined sprites there be,
That deeply groan at our calamity:
Whose breath is turn'd to sighs, whose eyes are wet,
To see bright arts bent to their latest set;
Whence never they again their heads shall rear,
To bless our art-disgracing hemisphere,
Let them. |
|
FUROR. |
Let them. | all give us a plaudite.
|
PHANTASMA. |
Let them.
ACADEMICO. |
And none but them. |
|
PHILOMUSUS. | give us a plaudite.
And none but them. |
|
STUDIOSO. |
And none but them. |