INDUCTION.
THE STAGE.
AFTER THE SECOND SOUNDING.
ENTER THREE OF THE CHILDREN, STRUGGLING.
1 CHILD. Pray you away; why, fellows! Gods so, what do you mean?
2 CHILD. Marry, that you shall not speak the prologue sir.
3 CHILD. Why, do you hope to speak it?
2 CHILD. Ay, and I think I have most right to it: I am sure I
studied it first.
3 CHILD. That's all one, if the author think I can speak it
better.
1 CHILD. I plead possession of the cloak: gentles, your suffrages,
I pray you.
[WITHIN.] Why children! are you not ashamed? come in there.
3 CHILD. Slid, I'll play nothing in the play: unless I speak it.
1 CHILD. Why, will you stand to most voices of the gentlemen? let
that decide it.
3 CHILD. O, no, sir gallant; you presume to have the start of us
there, and that makes you offer so prodigally.
1 CHILD. No, would I were whipped if I had any such thought; try
it by lots either.
2 CHILD. Faith, I dare tempt my fortune in a greater venture than
this.
3 CHILD. Well said, resolute Jack! I am content too; so we draw
first. Make the cuts.
1 CHILD. But will you not snatch my cloak while I am stooping?
3 CHILD. No, we scorn treachery.
2 CHILD. Which cut shall speak it?
3 CHILD. The shortest.
1 CHILD. Agreed: draw. [THEY DRAW CUTS.] The shortest is come
to the shortest. Fortune was not altogether blind in this. Now,
sir, I hope I shall go forward without your envy.
2 CHILD. A spite of all mischievous luck! I was once plucking at
the other.
3 CHILD. Stay Jack: 'slid I'll do somewhat now afore I go in,
though it be nothing but to revenge myself on the author; since I
speak not his prologue, I'll go tell all the argument of his play
afore-hand, and so stale his invention to the auditory, before it
come forth.
1 CHILD. O, do not so.
2 CHILD. By no means.
3 CHILD. [ADVANCING TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE.] First, the title
of his play is "Cynthia's Revels," as any man that hath hope to be
saved by his book can witness; the scene, Gargaphie, which I do
vehemently suspect for some fustian country; but let that vanish.
Here is the court of Cynthia whither he brings Cupid travelling on
foot, resolved to turn page. By the way Cupid meets with Mercury,
(as that's a thing to be noted); take any of our play-books without
a Cupid or a Mercury in it, and burn it for an heretic in poetry.
—[IN THESE AND THE SUBSEQUENT SPEECHES, AT EVERY BREAK, THE OTHER
TWO INTERRUPT, AND ENDEAVOUR TO STOP HIM.] Pray thee, let me
alone. Mercury, he in the nature of a conjurer, raises up Echo, who
weeps over her love, or daffodil, Narcissus, a little; sings;
curses the spring wherein the pretty foolish gentleman melted
himself away: and there's an end of her.—Now I am to inform
you, that Cupid and Mercury do both become pages. Cupid attends on
Philautia, or Self-love, a court lady: Mercury follows Hedon, the
Voluptuous, and a courtier; one that ranks himself even with
Anaides, or the Impudent, a gallant, and, that's my part; one that
keeps Laughter, Gelaia, the daughter of Folly, a wench in boy's
attire, to wait on him—These, in the court, meet with Amorphus,
or the deformed, a traveller that hath drunk of the fountain, and
there tells the wonders of the water. They presently dispatch away
their pages with bottles to fetch of it, and themselves go to visit
the ladies. But I should have told you—Look, these emmets put
me out here—that with this Amorphus, there comes along a
citizen's heir, Asotus, or the Prodigal, who, in imitation of the
traveller, who hath the Whetstone following him, entertains the
Beggar, to be his attendant.—Now, the nymphs who are mistresses
to these gallants, are Philautia, Self-love; Phantaste, a light
Wittiness; Argurion, Money; and their guardian, mother Moria; or
mistress Folly.
1 CHILD. Pray thee, no more.
3 CHILD. There Cupid strikes Money in love with the Prodigal,
makes her dote upon him, give him jewels, bracelets, carcanets,
etc. All which he most ingeniously departs withal to be made
known to the other ladies and gallants; and in the heat of this,
increases his train with the Fool to follow him, as well as the
Beggar—By this time, your Beggar begins to wait close, who is
returned with the rest of his fellow bottlemen.—There they all
drink, save Argurion, who is fallen into a sudden apoplexy—
1 CHILD. Stop his mouth.
3 CHILD. And then there's a retired scholar there, you would not
wish a thing to be better contemn'd of a society of gallants, than
it is; and he applies his service, good gentleman, to the Lady
Arete, or Virtue, a poor nymph of Cynthia's train, that's scarce
able to buy herself a gown; you shall see her play in a black robe
anon: a creature, that, I assure you, is no less scorn'd than
himself. Where am I now? at a stand!
2 CHILD. Come, leave at last, yet.
3 CHILD. O, the night is come ('twas somewhat dark, methought),
and Cynthia intends to come forth; that helps it a little yet. All
the courtiers must provide for revels; they conclude upon a masque,
the device of which is—What, will you ravish me?—that each of
these Vices, being to appear before Cynthia, would seem other than
indeed they are; and therefore assume the most neighbouring Virtues
as their masking habit—I'd cry a rape, but that you are
children.
2 CHILD. Come, we'll have no more of this anticipation; to give
them the inventory of their cates aforehand, were the discipline of
a tavern, and not fitting this presence.
1 CHILD. Tut, this was but to shew us the happiness of his memory.
I thought at first he would have plaid the ignorant critic with
everything along as he had gone; I expected some such device.
3 CHILD. O, you shall see me do that rarely; lend me thy cloak.
1 CHILD. Soft sir, you'll speak my prologue in it.
3 CHILD. No, would I might never stir then.
2 CHILD. Lend it him, lend it him:
1 CHILD. Well, you have sworn. [GIVES HIM THE CLOAK.]
3 CHILD. I have. Now, sir; suppose I am one of your genteel
auditors, that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with
much ado, and here I take my place and sit down: I have my three
sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin.
[AT THE BREAKS HE TAKES HIS TOBACCO.] By this light, I wonder that
any man is so mad, to come to see these rascally tits play here—
They do act like so many wrens or pismires—not the fifth part of
a good face amongst them all.—And then their music is abominable
—able to stretch a man's ears worse then ten—pillories and their
ditties—most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that
make them—poets. By this vapour, an 'twere not for tobacco—
I think—the very stench of 'em would poison me, I should not
dare to come in at their gates—A man were better visit fifteen
jails—or a dozen or two of hospitals—than once adventure to
come near them. How is't? well?
1 CHILD. Excellent; give me my cloak.
3 CHILD. Stay; you shall see me do another now: but a more sober,
or better-gather'd gallant; that is, as it may be thought, some
friend, or well-wisher to the house: and here I enter.
1 CHILD. What? upon the stage too?
2 CHILD. Yes; and I step forth like one of the children, and ask
you. Would you have a stool sir?
3 CHILD. A stool, boy!
2 CHILD. Ay, sir, if you'll give me sixpence, I'll fetch you one.
3 CHILD. For what, I pray thee? what shall I do with it?
2 CHILD. O lord, sir! will you betray your ignorance so much?
why throne yourself in state on the stage, as other gentlemen use,
sir.
3 CHILD. Away, wag; what would'st thou make an implement of me?
'Slid, the boy takes me for a piece of perspective, I hold my life,
or some silk curtain, come to hang the stage here! Sir crack, I am
none of your fresh pictures, that use to beautify the decayed dead
arras in a public theatre.
2 CHILD. 'Tis a sign, sir, you put not that confidence in your
good clothes, and your better face, that a gentleman should do,
sir. But I pray you sir, let me be a suitor to you, that you will
quit our stage then, and take a place; the play is instantly to
begin.
3 CHILD. Most willingly, my good wag; but I would speak with your
author: where is he?
2 CHILD. Not this way, I assure you sir; we are not so officiously
befriended by him, as to have his presence in the tiring-house, to
prompt us aloud, stamp at the book-holder, swear for our
properties, curse the poor tireman, rail the music out of tune, and
sweat for every venial trespass we commit, as some author would, if
he had such fine enghles as we. Well, 'tis but our hard fortune!
3 CHILD. Nay, crack, be not disheartened.
2 CHILD. Not I sir; but if you please to confer with our author, by
attorney, you may, sir; our proper self here, stands for him.
3 CHILD. Troth, I have no such serious affair to negotiate with
him; but what may very safely be turn'd upon thy trust. It is in
the general behalf of this fair society here that I am to speak;
at least the more judicious part of it: which seems much distasted
with the immodest and obscene writing of many in their plays.
Besides, they could wish your poets would leave to be promoters of
other men's jests, and to way-lay all the stale apothegms, or old
books they can hear of, in print or otherwise, to farce their
scenes withal. That they would not so penuriously glean wit from
every laundress or hackney-man; or derive their best grace, with
servile imitation, from common stages, or observation of the
company they converse with; as if their invention lived wholly
upon another man's trencher. Again, that feeding their friends
with nothing of their own, but what they have twice or thrice
cooked, they should not wantonly give out, how soon they had drest
it; nor how many coaches came to carry away the broken meat,
besides hobby-horses and foot-cloth nags.
2 CHILD. So, sir, this is all the reformation you seek?
3 CHILD. It is; do not you think it necessary to be practised, my
little wag?
2 CHILD. Yes, where any such ill-habited custom is received.
3 CHILD. O (I had almost forgot it too), they say, the umbrae, or
ghosts of some three or four plays departed a dozen years since,
have been seen walking on your stage here; take heed boy, if your
house be haunted with such hobgoblins, 'twill fright away all your
spectators quickly.
2 CHILD. Good, sir; but what will you say now, if a poet, untouch'd
with any breath of this disease, find the tokens upon you, that are
of the auditory? As some one civet-wit among you, that knows no
other learning, than the price of satin and velvets: nor other
perfection than the wearing of a neat suit; and yet will censure
as desperately as the most profess'd critic in the house, presuming
his clothes should bear him out in it. Another, whom it hath
pleased nature to furnish with more beard than brain, prunes his
mustaccio; lisps, and, with some score of affected oaths, swears
down all that sit about him; "That the old Hieronimo, as it was
first acted, was the only best, and judiciously penn'd play of
Europe". A third great-bellied juggler talks of twenty years
since, and when Monsieur was here, and would enforce all wits to be
of that fashion, because his doublet is still so. A fourth
miscalls all by the name of fustian, that his grounded capacity
cannot aspire to. A fifth only shakes his bottle head, and out of
his corky brain squeezeth out a pitiful learned face, and is
silent.
3 CHILD. By my faith, Jack, you have put me down: I would I knew
how to get off with any indifferent grace! here take your cloak,
and promise some satisfaction in your prologue, or, I'll be sworn
we have marr'd all.
2 CHILD. Tut, fear not, child, this will never distaste a true
sense: be not out, and good enough. I would thou hadst some sugar
candied to sweeten thy mouth.
THE THIRD SOUNDING.
PROLOGUE.
If gracious silence, sweet attention,
Quick sight, and quicker apprehension,
The lights of judgment's throne, shine any where,
Our doubtful author hopes this is their sphere;
And therefore opens he himself to those,
To other weaker beams his labours close,
As loth to prostitute their virgin-strain,
To every vulgar and adulterate brain.
In this alone, his Muse her sweetness hath,
She shuns the print of any beaten path;
And proves new ways to come to learned ears:
Pied ignorance she neither loves, nor fears.
Nor hunts she after popular applause,
Or foamy praise, that drops from common jaws
The garland that she wears, their hands must twine,
Who can both censure, understand, define
What merit is: then cast those piercing rays,
Round as a crown, instead of honour'd bays,
About his poesy; which, he knows, affords
Words, above action; matter, above words.
ACT I
SCENE I.—A GROVE AND FOUNTAIN.
ENTER CUPID, AND MERCURY WITH HIS CADUCEUS, ON DIFFERENT SIDES.
CUP. Who goes there?
MER. 'Tis I, blind archer.
CUP. Who, Mercury?
MER. Ay.
CUP. Farewell.
MER. Stay Cupid.
CUP. Not in your company, Hermes, except your hands were riveted at
your back.
MER. Why so, my little rover?
CUP. Because I know you have not a finger, but is as long as my
quiver, cousin Mercury, when you please to extend it.
MER. Whence derive you this speech, boy?
CUP. O! 'tis your best polity to be ignorant. You did never steal
Mars his sword out of the sheath, you! nor Neptune's trident! nor
Apollo's bow! no, not you! Alas, your palms, Jupiter knows, they
are as tender as the foot of a foundered nag, or a lady's face new
mercuried, they'll touch nothing.
MER. Go to, infant, you'll be daring still.
CUP. Daring! O Janus! what a word is there? why, my light
feather-heel'd coz, what are you any more than my uncle Jove's
pander? a lacquey that runs on errands for him, and can whisper a
light message to a loose wench with some round volubility? wait
mannerly at a table with a trencher, warble upon a crowd a little,
and fill out nectar when Ganymede's away? one that sweeps the god's
drinking-room every morning, and sets the cushions in order again,
which they threw one at another's head over night; can brush the
carpets, call the stools again to their places, play the crier of
the court with an audible voice, and take state of a president upon
you at wrestlings, pleadings, negociations, etc. Here's the
catalogue of your employments, now! O, no, I err; you have the
marshalling of all the ghosts too that pass the Stygian ferry, and
I suspect you for a share with the old sculler there, if the truth
were known; but let that scape. One other peculiar virtue you
possess, in lifting, or leiger-du-main, which few of the house of
heaven have else besides, I must confess. But, methinks, that
should not make you put that extreme distance 'twixt yourself and
others, that we should be said to "over-dare" in speaking to your
nimble deity. So Hercules might challenge priority of us both,
because he can throw the bar farther, or lift more join'd stools at
the arm's end, than we. If this might carry it, then we, who have
made the whole body of divinity tremble at the twang of our bow,
and enforc'd Saturnius himself to lay by his curled front, thunder,
and three-fork'd fires, and put on a masking suit, too light for a
reveller of eighteen to be seen in—
MER. How now! my dancing braggart in decimo sexto! charm your
skipping tongue, or I'll—
CUP. What! use the virtue of your snaky tip staff there upon us?
MER. No, boy, but the smart vigour of my palm about your ears.
You have forgot since I took your heels up into air, on the very
hour I was born, in sight of all the bench of deities, when the
silver roof of the Olympian palace rung again with applause of
the fact.
CUP. O no, I remember it freshly, and by a particular instance;
for my mother Venus, at the same time, but stoop'd to embrace you,
and, to speak by metaphor, you borrow'd a girdle of her's, as you
did Jove's sceptre while he was laughing; and would have done his
thunder too, but that 'twas too hot for your itching fingers.
MER. 'Tis well, sir.
CUP. I heard, you but look'd in at Vulcan's forge the other day,
and entreated a pair of his new tongs along with you for company:
'tis joy on you, i' faith, that you will keep your hook'd talons in
practice with any thing. 'Slight, now you are on earth, we shall
have you filch spoons and candlesticks rather than fail: pray Jove
the perfum'd courtiers keep their casting-bottles, pick-tooths, and
shittle-cocks from you, or our more ordinary gallants their
tobacco-boxes; for I am strangely jealous of your nails.
MER. Never trust me, Cupid, but you are turn'd a most acute
gallant of late! the edge of my wit is clean taken off with the
fine and subtile stroke of your thin-ground tongue; you fight with
too poignant a phrase, for me to deal with.
CUP. O Hermes, your craft cannot make me confident. I know my own
steel to be almost spent, and therefore entreat my peace with you,
in time: you are too cunning for me to encounter at length, and I
think it my safest ward to close.
MER. Well, for once, I'll suffer you to win upon me, wag; but use
not these strains too often, they'll stretch my patience. Whither
might you march, now?
CUP. Faith, to recover thy good thoughts, I'll discover my whole
project. The huntress and queen of these groves, Diana, in regard
of some black and envious slanders hourly breathed against her, for
her divine justice on Acteon, as she pretends, hath here in the
vale of Gargaphie, proclaim'd a solemn revels, which (her godhead
put off) she will descend to grace, with the full and royal expense
of one of her clearest moons: in which time it shall be lawful for
all sorts of ingenious persons to visit her palace, to court her
nymphs, to exercise all variety of generous and noble pastimes; as
well to intimate how far she treads such malicious imputations
beneath her, as also to shew how clear her beauties are from the
least wrinkle of austerity they may be charged with.
MER. But, what is all this to Cupid?
CUP. Here do I mean to put off the title of a god, and take the
habit of a page, in which disguise, during the interim of these
revels, I will get to follow some one of Diana's maids, where, if
my bow hold, and my shafts fly but with half the willingness and
aim they are directed, I doubt not but I shall really redeem the
minutes I have lost, by their so long and over nice proscription of
my deity from their court.
MER. Pursue it, divine Cupid, it will be rare.
CUP. But will Hermes second me?
MER. I am now to put in act an especial designment from my father
Jove; but, that perform'd, I am for any fresh action that offers
itself.
CUP. Well, then we part. [EXIT.]
MER. Farewell good wag.
Now to my charge.—Echo, fair Echo speak,
'Tis Mercury that calls thee; sorrowful nymph,
Salute me with thy repercussive voice,
That I may know what cavern of the earth,
Contains thy airy spirit, how, or where
I may direct my speech, that thou may'st hear.
ECHO. [BELOW] Here.
MER. So nigh!
ECHO. Ay.
MER. Know, gentle soul, then, I am sent from Jove,
Who, pitying the sad burthen of thy woes,
Still growing on thee, in thy want of words
To vent thy passion for Narcissus' death,
Commands, that now, after three thousand years,
Which have been exercised in Juno's spite,
Thou take a corporal figure and ascend,
Enrich'd with vocal and articulate power.
Make haste, sad nymph, thrice shall my winged rod
Strike the obsequious earth, to give thee way.
Arise, and speak thy sorrows, Echo, rise,
Here, by this fountain, where thy love did pine,
Whose memory lives fresh to vulgar fame,
Shrined in this yellow flower, that bears his name.
ECHO. [ASCENDS.] His name revives, and lifts me up from earth,
O, which way shall I first convert myself,
Or in what mood shall I essay to speak,
That, in a moment, I may be deliver'd
Of the prodigious grief I go withal?
See, see, the mourning fount, whose springs weep yet
Th' untimely fate of that too beauteous boy,
That trophy of self-love, and spoil of nature,
Who, now transform'd into this drooping flower,
Hangs the repentant head, back from the stream,
As if it wish'd, "Would I had never look'd
In such a flattering mirror!" O Narcissus,
Thou that wast once, and yet art, my Narcissus,
Had Echo but been private with thy thoughts,
She would have dropt away herself in tears,
Till she had all turn'd water; that in her,
As in a truer glass, thou might'st have gazed
And seen thy beauties by more kind reflection,
But self-love never yet could look on truth
But with blear'd beams; slick flattery and she
Are twin-born sisters, and so mix their eyes,
As if you sever one, the other dies.
Why did the gods give thee a heavenly form,
And earthly thoughts to make thee proud of it?
Why do I ask? 'Tis now the known disease
That beauty hath, to bear too deep a sense
Of her own self-conceived excellence.
O, hadst thou known the worth of heaven's rich gift,
Thou wouldst have turn'd it to a truer use,
And not with starv'd and covetous ignorance,
Pined in continual eyeing that bright gem,
The glance whereof to others had been more,
Than to thy famish'd mind the wide world's store:
So wretched is it to be merely rich!
Witness thy youth's dear sweets here spent untasted,
Like a fair taper, with his own flame wasted.
MER. Echo be brief, Saturnia is abroad,
And if she hear, she'll storm at Jove's high will.
CUP. I will, kind Mercury, be brief as time.
Vouchsafe me, I may do him these last rites,
But kiss his flower, and sing some mourning strain
Over his wat'ry hearse.
MER. Thou dost obtain;
I were no son to Jove, should I deny thee,
Begin, and more to grace thy cunning voice,
The humorous air shall mix her solemn tunes
With thy sad words: strike, music from the spheres,
And with your golden raptures swell our ears.
ECHO. [ACCOMPANIED]
Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:
Yet, slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.
Droop herbs and flowers,
Fall grief and showers;
Our beauties are not ours;
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature's pride is now a wither'd daffodil.—
MER. Now have you done?
ECHO. Done presently, good Hermes: bide a little;
Suffer my thirsty eye to gaze awhile,
But e'en to taste the place, and I am vanish'd.
MER. Forego thy use and liberty of tongue,
And thou mayst dwell on earth, and sport thee there.
ECHO. Here young Acteon fell, pursued, and torn
By Cynthia's wrath, more eager than his hounds;
And here—ah me, the place is fatal!—see
The weeping Niobe, translated hither
From Phrygian mountains; and by Phoebe rear'd,
As the proud trophy of her sharp revenge.
MER. Nay but hear—
ECHO. But here, O here, the fountain of self-love,
In which Latona, and her careless nymphs,
Regardless of my sorrows, bathe themselves
In hourly pleasures.
MER. Stint thy babbling tongue!
Fond Echo, thou profan'st the grace is done thee.
So idle worldlings merely made of voice,
Censure the powers above them. Come away,
Jove calls thee hence; and his will brooks no stay.
ECHO. O, stay: I have but one poor thought to clothe
In airy garments, and then, faith, I go.
Henceforth, thou treacherous and murdering spring,
Be ever call'd the FOUNTAIN OF SELF-LOVE:
And with thy water let this curse remain,
As an inseparate plague, that who but taste
A drop thereof, may, with the instant touch,
Grow dotingly enamour'd on themselves.
Now, Hermes, I have finish'd.
MER. Then thy speech
Must here forsake thee, Echo, and thy voice,
As it was wont, rebound but the last words.
Farewell.
ECHO. [RETIRING.] Well.
MER. Now, Cupid, I am for you, and your mirth,
To make me light before I leave the earth.
ENTER AMORPHUS, HASTILY.
AMO. Dear spark of beauty, make not so fast away:
ECHO. Away.
MER. Stay, let me observe this portent yet.
AMO. I am neither your Minotaur, nor your Centaur, nor your satyr,
nor your hyaena, nor your babion, but your mere traveller, believe
me.
ECHO. Leave me.
MER. I guess'd it should be some travelling motion pursued Echo
so.
AMO. Know you from whom you fly? or whence?
ECHO. Hence. [EXIT.]
AMO. This is somewhat above strange: A nymph of her feature and
lineament, to be so preposterously rude! well, I will but cool
myself at yon spring, and follow her.
MER. Nay, then, I am familiar with the issue: I will leave you
too. [EXIT.]
AMOR. I am a rhinoceros, if I had thought a creature of her
symmetry would have dared so improportionable and abrupt a
digression.—Liberal and divine fount, suffer my profane hand to
take of thy bounties. [TAKES UP SOME OF THE WATER.] By the purity
of my taste, here is most ambrosiac water; I will sup of it again.
By thy favour, sweet fount. See, the water, a more running,
subtile, and humorous nymph than she permits me to touch, and
handle her. What should I infer? if my behaviours had been of a
cheap or customary garb; my accent or phrase vulgar; my garments
trite; my countenance illiterate, or unpractised in the encounter
of a beautiful and brave attired piece; then I might, with some
change of colour, have suspected my faculties: But, knowing myself
an essence so sublimated and refined by travel; of so studied and
well exercised a gesture; so alone in fashion, able to render the
face of any statesman living; and to speak the mere extraction of
language, one that hath now made the sixth return upon venture; and
was your first that ever enrich'd his country with the true laws of
the duello; whose optics have drunk the spirit of beauty in some
eight score and eighteen prince's courts, where I have resided, and
been there fortunate in the amours of three hundred and forty and five
ladies, all nobly, if not princely descended; whose names I have in
catalogue: To conclude, in all so happy, as even admiration
herself doth seem to fasten her kisses upon me:—certes, I do
neither see, nor feel, nor taste, nor savour the least steam or
fume of a reason, that should invite this foolish, fastidious
nymph, so peevishly to abandon me. Well, let the memory of her
fleet into air; my thoughts and I am for this other element, water.
ENTER CRITES AND ASOTUS.
CRI. What, the well dieted Amorphus become a water-drinker! I see
he means not to write verses then.
ASO. No, Crites! why?
CRI. Because—
Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt,
Quae scribuntur aquae potoribus.
AMO. What say you to your Helicon?
CRI. O, the Muses' well! that's ever excepted.
AMO. Sir, your Muses have no such water, I assure you; your
nectar, or the juice of your nepenthe, is nothing to it; 'tis above
your metheglin, believe it.
ASO. Metheglin; what's that, sir? may I be so audacious to
demand?
AMO. A kind of Greek wine I have met with, sir, in my travels; it
is the same that Demosthenes usually drunk, in the composure of all
his exquisite and mellifluous orations.
CRI. That's to be argued, Amorphus, if we may credit Lucian, who,
in his "Encomio Demosthenis," affirms, he never drunk but water in
any of his compositions.
AMO. Lucian is absurd, he knew nothing: I will believe mine own
travels before all the Lucians of Europe. He doth feed you with
fittons, figments, and leasings.
CRI. Indeed, I think, next a traveller, he does prettily well.
AMO. I assure you it was wine, I have tasted it, and from the hand
of an Italian antiquary, who derives it authentically from the duke
of Ferrara's bottles. How name you the gentleman you are in rank
there with, sir?
CRI. 'Tis Asotus, son to the late deceased Philargyrus, the
citizen.
AMO. Was his father of any eminent place or means?
CRI. He was to have been praetor next year.
AMO. Ha! a pretty formal young gallant, in good sooth; pity he is
not more genteelly propagated. Hark you, Crites, you may say to
him what I am, if you please; though I affect not popularity, yet I
would loth to stand out to any, whom you shall vouchsafe to call
friend.
CRI. Sir, I fear I may do wrong to your sufficiencies in the
reporting them, by forgetting or misplacing some one: yourself can
best inform him of yourself sir; except you had some catalogue or
list of your faculties ready drawn, which you would request me to
show him for you, and him to take notice of.
AMO. This Crites is sour: [ASIDE.]—I will think, sir.
CRI. Do so, sir.—O heaven! that anything in the likeness of man
should suffer these rack'd extremities, for the uttering of his
sophisticate good parts. [ASIDE.]
ASO. Crites, I have a suit to you; but you must not deny me; pray
you make this gentleman and I friends.
CRI. Friends! why, is there any difference between you?
ASO. No; I mean acquaintance, to know one another.
CRI. O, now I apprehend you; your phrase was without me before.
ASO. In good faith, he's a most excellent rare man, I warrant
him.
CRI. 'Slight, they are mutually enamour'd by this time. [ASIDE.]
ASO. Will you, sweet Crites?
CRI. Yes, yes.
ASO. Nay, but when? you'll defer it now, and forget it.
CRI. Why, is it a thing of such present necessity, that it
requires so violent a dispatch!
ASO. No, but would I might never stir, he's a most ravishing man!
Good Crites, you shall endear me to you, in good faith; la!
CRI. Well, your longing shall be satisfied, sir.
ASO. And withal, you may tell him what my father was, and how well
he left me, and that I am his heir.
CRI. Leave it to me, I'll forget none of your dear graces, I
warrant you.
ASO. Nay, I know you can better marshal these affairs than I can
—O gods! I'd give all the world, if I had it, for abundance of
such acquaintance.
CRI. What ridiculous circumstance might I devise now, to bestow
this reciprocal brace of butterflies one upon another? [ASIDE.]
AMO. Since I trod on this side the Alps, I was not so frozen in my
invention. Let me see: to accost him with some choice remnant of
Spanish, or Italian! that would indifferently express my languages
now: marry, then, if he shall fall out to be ignorant, it were both
hard, and harsh. How else? step into some ragioni del stato, and
so make my induction! that were above him too; and out of his
element I fear. Feign to have seen him in Venice or Padua! or some
face near his in similitude! 'tis too pointed and open. No, it must
be a more quaint and collateral device, as—stay: to frame some
encomiastic speech upon this our metropolis, or the wise
magistrates thereof, in which politic number, 'tis odds but his
father fill'd up a room? descend into a particular admiration of
their justice, for the due measuring of coals, burning of cans, and
such like? as also their religion, in pulling down a superstitious
cross, and advancing a Venus; or Priapus, in place of it? ha!
'twill do well. Or to talk of some hospital, whose walls record
his father a benefactor? or of so many buckets bestow'd on his
parish church in his lifetime, with his name at length, for want of
arms, trickt upon them? any of these. Or to praise the cleanness
of the street wherein he dwelt? or the provident painting of his
posts, against he should have been praetor? or, leaving his parent,
come to some special ornament about himself, as his rapier, or some
other of his accountrements? I have it: thanks, gracious Minerva!
ASO. Would I had but once spoke to him, and then—He comes to
me!
AMO. 'Tis a most curious and neatly wrought band this same, as I
have seen, sir.
ASO. O lord, sir.
AMO. You forgive the humour of mine eye, in observing it.
CRI. His eye waters after it, it seems. [ASIDE.]
ASO. O lord, sir! there needs no such apology I assure you.
CRI. I am anticipated; they'll make a solemn deed of gift of
themselves, you shall see. [ASIDE.]
AMO. Your riband too does most gracefully in troth.
ASO. 'Tis the most genteel and received wear now, sir.
AMO. Believe me, sir, I speak it not to humour you—I have not
seen a young gentleman, generally, put on his clothes with more
judgment.
ASO. O, 'tis your pleasure to say so, sir.
AMO. No, as I am virtuous, being altogether untravell'd, it
strikes me into wonder.
ASO. I do purpose to travel, sir, at spring.
AMO. I think I shall affect you, sir. This last speech of yours
hath begun to make you dear to me.
ASO. O lord, sir! I would there were any thing in me, sir, that
might appear worthy the least worthiness of your worth, sir. I
protest, sir, I should endeavour to shew it, sir, with more than
common regard sir.
CRI. O, here's rare motley, sir. [ASIDE.]
AMO. Both your desert, and your endeavours are plentiful, suspect
them not: but your sweet disposition to travel, I assure you, hath
made you another myself in mine eye, and struck me enamour'd on
your beauties.
ASO. I would I were the fairest lady of France for your sake, sir!
and yet I would travel too.
AMO. O, you should digress from yourself else: for, believe it,
your travel is your only thing that rectifies, or, as the Italian
says, "vi rendi pronto all' attioni," makes you fit for action.
ASO. I think it be great charge though, sir.
AMO. Charge! why 'tis nothing for a gentleman that goes private,
as yourself, or so; my intelligence shall quit my charge at all
time. Good faith, this hat hath possest mine eye exceedingly; 'tis
so pretty and fantastic: what! is it a beaver?
ASO. Ay, sir, I'll assure you 'tis a beaver, it cost me eight
crowns but this morning.
AMO. After your French account?
ASO. Yes, sir.
CRI. And so near his head! beshrew me, dangerous. [ASIDE.]
AMO. A very pretty fashion, believe me, and a most novel kind of
trim: your band is conceited too!
ASO. Sir, it is all at your service.
AMO. O, pardon me.
ASO. I beseech you, sir, if you please to wear it, you shall do me
a most infinite grace.
CRI. 'Slight, will he be prais'd out of his clothes?
ASO. By heaven, sir, I do not offer it you after the Italian
manner; I would you should conceive so of me.
AMO. Sir, I shall fear to appear rude in denying your courtesies,
especially being invited by so proper a distinction: May I pray
your name, sir?
ASO. My name is Asotus, sir.
AMO. I take your love, gentle Asotus, but let me win you to
receive this, in exchange.—[THEY EXCHANGE BEAVERS.]
CRI. Heart! they'll change doublets anon. [ASIDE.]
AMO. And, from this time esteem yourself in the first rank of
those few whom I profess to love. What make you in company of this
scholar here? I will bring you known to gallants, as Anaides of
the ordinary, Hedon the courtier, and others, whose society shall
render you graced and respected: this is a trivial fellow, too
mean, too cheap, too coarse for you to converse with.
ASO. 'Slid, this is not worth a crown, and mine cost me eight but
this morning.
CRI. I looked when he would repent him, he has begun to be sad a
good while.
AMO. Sir, shall I say to you for that hat? Be not so sad, be not
so sad: It is a relic I could not so easily have departed with, but
as the hieroglyphic of my affection; you shall alter it to what
form you please, it will take any block; I have received it varied
on record to the three thousandth time, and not so few: It hath
these virtues beside: your head shall not ache under it, nor your
brain leave you, without license; It will preserve your complexion
to eternity; for no beam of the sun, should you wear it under zona
torrida, hath power to approach it by two ells. It is proof
against thunder, and enchantment; and was given me by a great man
in Russia, as an especial prized present; and constantly affirm'd
to be the hat that accompanied the politic Ulysses in his tedious
and ten years' travels.
ASO. By Jove, I will not depart withal, whosoever would give me a
million.
ENTER COS AND PROSAITES.
COS. Save you sweet bloods! does any of you want a creature, or a
dependent?
CRI. Beshrew me, a fine blunt slave!
AMO. A page of good timber! it will now be my grace to entertain
him first, though I cashier him again in private.—How art thou
call'd?
COS. Cos, sir, Cos.
CRI. Cos! how happily hath fortune furnish'd him with a whetstone?
AMO. I do entertain you, Cos; conceal your quality till we be
private; if your parts be worthy of me, I will countenance you; if
not, catechise you.—Gentles, shall we go?
ASO. Stay, sir: I'll but entertain this other fellow, and then—
I have a great humour to taste of this water too, but I'll come
again alone for that—mark the place.—What's your name, youth?
PROS. Prosaites, sir.
ASO. Prosaites! a very fine name; Crites, is it not?
CRI. Yes, and a very ancient one, sir, the Beggar.
ASO. Follow me, good Prosaites; let's talk.
[EXEUNT ALL BUT CRITES.]
CRI. He will rank even with you, ere't be long.
If you hold on your course. O, vanity
How are thy painted beauties doted on,
By light and empty idiots! how pursued
With open, and extended appetite!
How they do sweat, and run themselves from breath,
Raised on their toes, to catch thy airy forms,
Still turning giddy, till they reel like drunkards,
That buy the merry madness of one hour
With the long irksomeness of following time!
O, how despised and base a thing is man,
If he not strive to erect his grovelling thoughts
Above the strain of flesh? but how more cheap,
When, ev'n his best and understanding part,
The crown and strength of all his faculties,
Floats, like a dead drown'd body, on the stream
Of vulgar humour, mixt with common'st dregs!
I suffer for their guilt now, and my soul,
Like one that looks on ill-affected eyes,
Is hurt with mere intention on their follies.
Why will I view them then, my sense might ask me?
Or is't a rarity, or some new object,
That strains my strict observance to this point?
O, would it were! therein I could afford
My spirit should draw a little near to theirs,
To gaze on novelties; so vice were one.
Tut, she is stale, rank, foul; and were it not
That those that woo her greet her with lock'd eyes,
In spight of all th' impostures, paintings, drugs,
Which her bawd, Custom, dawbs her cheeks withal,
She would betray her loath'd and leprous face,
And fright the enamour'd dotards from themselves:
But such is the perverseness of our nature,
That if we once but fancy levity,
How antic and ridiculous soe'er
It suit with us, yet will our muffled thought
Choose rather not to see it, than avoid it:
And if we can but banish our own sense,
We act our mimic tricks with that free license,
That lust, that pleasure, that security;
As if we practised in a paste-board case,
And no one saw the motion, but the motion.
Well, check thy passion, lest it grow too loud:
While fools are pitied, they wax fat, and proud.
ACT II
SCENE I.—THE COURT.
ENTER CUPID AND MERCURY, DISGUISED AS PAGES.
CUP. Why, this was most unexpectedly followed, my divine delicate
Mercury, by the beard of Jove, thou art a precious deity.
MER. Nay, Cupid, leave to speak improperly; since we are turn'd
cracks, let's study to be like cracks; practise their language, and
behaviours, and not with a dead imitation: Act freely, carelessly,
and capriciously, as if our veins ran with quicksilver, and not
utter a phrase, but what shall come forth steep'd in the very brine
of conceit, and sparkle like salt in fire.
CUP. That's not every one's happiness, Hermes: Though you can
presume upon the easiness and dexterity of your wit, you shall give
me leave to be a little jealous of mine; and not desperately to
hazard it after your capering humour.
MER. Nay, then, Cupid, I think we must have you hood-wink'd again;
for you are grown too provident since your eyes were at liberty.
CUP. Not so, Mercury, I am still blind Cupid to thee.
MER. And what to the lady nymph you serve?
CUP. Troth, page, boy, and sirrah: these are all my titles.
MER. Then thou hast not altered thy name with thy disguise?
CUP. O, no, that had been supererogation; you shall never hear
your courtier call but by one of these three.
MER. Faith, then both our fortunes are the same.
CUP. Why, what parcel of man hast thou lighted on for a master?
MER. Such a one as, before I begin to decipher him, I dare not
affirm to be any thing less than a courtier. So much he is during
this open time of revels, and would be longer, but that his means
are to leave him shortly after. His name is Hedon, a gallant
wholly consecrated to his pleasures.
CUP. Hedon! he uses much to my lady's chamber, I think.
MER. How is she call'd, and then I can shew thee?
CUP. Madame Philautia.
MER. O ay, he affects her very particularly indeed. These are his
graces. He doth (besides me) keep a barber and a monkey; he has a
rich wrought waistcoat to entertain his visitants in, with a cap
almost suitable. His curtains and bedding are thought to be his
own; his bathing-tub is not suspected. He loves to have a fencer,
a pedant, and a musician seen in his lodging a-mornings.
CUP. And not a poet?
MER. Fie no: himself is a rhymer, and that's thought better than
a poet. He is not lightly within to his mercer, no, though he come
when he takes physic, which is commonly after his play. He beats a
tailor very well, but a stocking-seller admirably: and so
consequently any one he owes money to, that dares not resist him.
He never makes general invitement, but against the publishing of a
new suit; marry, then you shall have more drawn to his lodging,
than come to the launching of some three ships; especially if he be
furnish'd with supplies for the retiring of his old wardrobe from
pawn: if not, he does hire a stock of apparel, and some forty or
fifty pound in gold, for that forenoon to shew. He is thought a
very necessary perfume for the presence, and for that only cause
welcome thither: six milliners' shops afford you not the like
scent. He courts ladies with how many great horse he hath rid that
morning, or how oft he hath done the whole, or half the pommado in a
seven-night before: and sometime ventures so far upon the virtue of
his pomander, that he dares tell 'em, how many shirts he has sweat
at tennis that week; but wisely conceals so many dozen of balls he
is on the score. Here he comes, that is all this.
ENTER HEDON, ANAIDES, AND GELAIA.
HED. Boy!
MER. Sir.
HED. Are any of the ladies in the presence?
MER. None yet, sir.
HED. Give me some gold,—more.
ANA. Is that thy boy, Hedon?
HED. Ay, what think'st thou of him?
ANA. I'd geld him; I warrant he has the philosopher's stone.
HED. Well said, my good melancholy devil: sirrah, I have devised
one or two of the prettiest oaths, this morning in my bed, as ever
thou heard'st, to protest withal in the presence.
ANA. Prithee, let's hear them.
HED. Soft, thou'lt use them afore me.
ANA. No, d—mn me then—I have more oaths than I know how to
utter, by this air.
HED. Faith, one is, "By the tip of your ear, sweet lady." Is it
not pretty, and genteel?
ANA. Yes, for the person 'tis applied to, a lady. It should be
light, and—
HED. Nay, the other is better, exceeds it much: the invention is
farther fet too. "By the white valley that lies between the alpine
hills of your bosom, I protest.—"
ANA. Well, you travell'd for that, Hedon.
MER. Ay, in a map, where his eyes were but blind guides to his
understanding, it seems.
HED. And then I have a salutation will nick all, by this caper:
hay!
ANA. How is that?
HED. You know I call madam Philautia, my Honour; and she calls me
her Ambition. Now, when I meet her in the presence anon, I will
come to her, and say, "Sweet Honour, I have hitherto contented my
sense with the lilies of your hand; but now I will taste the roses
of your lip"; and, withal, kiss her: to which she cannot but
blushing answer, "Nay now you are too ambitious." And then do I
reply: "I cannot be too Ambitious of Honour, sweet lady." Will't
not be good? ha? ha?
ANA. O, assure your soul.
HED. By heaven, I think 'twill be excellent: and a very politic
achievement of a kiss.
ANA. I have thought upon one for Moria of a sudden too, if it take.
HED. What is't, my dear Invention?
ANA. Marry, I will come to her, (and she always wears a muff, if
you be remembered,) and I will tell her, "Madam your whole self
cannot but be perfectly wise; for your hands have wit enough to
keep themselves warm."
HED. Now, before Jove, admirable! [GELAIA LAUGHS.] Look, thy page
takes it too. By Phoebus, my sweet facetious rascal, I could eat
water-gruel with thee a month for this jest, my dear rogue.
ANA. O, Hercules 'tis your only dish; above all your potatoes or
oyster-pies in the world.
HED. I have ruminated upon a most rare wish too, and the prophecy
to it; but I'll have some friend to be the prophet; as thus: I do
wish myself one of my mistress's cioppini. Another demands, Why
would he be one of his mistress's cioppini? a third answers,
Because he would make her higher: a fourth shall say, That will
make her proud: and a fifth shall conclude, Then do I prophesy
pride will have a fall;—and he shall give it her.
ANA. I will be your prophet. Gods so, it will be most exquisite;
thou art a fine inventious rogue, sirrah.
HED. Nay, and I have posies for rings, too, and riddles, that they
dream not of.
ANA. Tut, they'll do that, when they come to sleep on them, time
enough: But were thy devices never in the presence yet, Hedon?
HED. O, no, I disdain that.
ANA. 'Twere good we went afore then, and brought them acquainted
with the room where they shall act, lest the strangeness of it put
them out of countenance, when they should come forth.
[EXEUNT HEDON AND ANAIDES.]
CUP. Is that a courtier, too.
MER. Troth, no; he has two essential parts of the courtier, pride
and ignorance; marry, the rest come somewhat after the ordinary
gallant. 'Tis Impudence itself, Anaides; one that speaks all that
comes in his cheeks, and will blush no more than a sackbut. He
lightly occupies the jester's room at the table, and keeps
laughter, Gelaia, a wench in page's attire, following him in place
of a squire, whom he now and then tickles with some strange
ridiculous stuff, utter'd as his land came to him, by chance. He
will censure or discourse of any thing, but as absurdly as you
would wish. His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is
beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt. He does
naturally admire his wit that wears gold lace, or tissue: stabs
any man that speaks more contemptibly of the scholar than he. He
is a great proficient in all the illiberal sciences, as cheating,
drinking, swaggering, whoring, and such like: never kneels but to
pledge healths, nor prays but for a pipe of pudding-tobacco. He
will blaspheme in his shirt. The oaths which he vomits at one
supper would maintain a town of garrison in good swearing a
twelvemonth. One other genuine quality he has which crowns all
these, and that is this: to a friend in want, he will not depart
with the weight of a soldered groat, lest the world might censure
him prodigal, or report him a gull: marry, to his cockatrice or
punquetto, half a dozen taffata gowns or satin kirtles in a pair or
two of months, why, they are nothing.
CUP. I commend him, he is one of my clients.
[THEY RETIRE TO THE BACK OF THE STAGE.]
ENTER AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, AND COS.
AMO. Come, sir. You are now within regard of the presence, and
see, the privacy of this room how sweetly it offers itself to our
retired intendments.—Page, cast a vigilant and enquiring eye
about, that we be not rudely surprised by the approach of some
ruder stranger.
COS. I warrant you, sir. I'll tell you when the wolf enters, fear
nothing.
MER. O what a mass of benefit shall we possess, in being the
invisible spectators of this strange show now to be acted!
AMO. Plant yourself there, sir; and observe me. You shall now, as
well be the ocular, as the ear-witness, how clearly I can refel
that paradox, or rather pseudodox, of those, which hold the face to
be the index of the mind, which, I assure you, is not so in any
politic creature: for instance; I will now give you the particular
and distinct face of every your most noted species of persons, as
your merchant, your scholar, your soldier, your lawyer, courtier,
etc., and each of these so truly, as you would swear, but that your
eye shall see the variation of the lineament, it were my most
proper and genuine aspect. First, for your merchant, or city-face,
'tis thus; a dull, plodding-face, still looking in a direct line,
forward: there is no great matter in this face. Then have you
your student's, or academic face; which is here an honest, simple,
and methodical face; but somewhat more spread then the former. The
third is your soldier's face, a menacing and astounding face, that
looks broad and big: the grace of his face consisteth much in a
beard. The anti-face to this, is your lawyer's face, a contracted,
subtile, and intricate face, full of quirks and turnings, a
labyrinthean face, now angularly, now circularly, every way
aspected. Next is your statist's face, a serious, solemn, and
supercilious face, full of formal and square gravity; the eye, for
the most part, deeply and artificially shadow'd; there is great
judgment required in the making of this face. But now, to come to
your face of faces, or courtier's face; 'tis of three sorts,
according to our subdivision of a courtier, elementary, practic,
and theoric. Your courtier theoric, is he that hath arrived to his
farthest, and doth now know the court rather by speculation than
practice; and this is his face: a fastidious and oblique face; that
looks as it went with a vice, and were screw'd thus. Your courtier
practic, is he that is yet in his path, his course, his way, and
hath not touch'd the punctilio or point of his hopes; his face is
here: a most promising, open, smooth, and overflowing face, that
seems as it would run and pour itself into you: somewhat a
northerly face. Your courtier elementary, is one but newly
enter'd, or as it were in the alphabet, or ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la of
courtship. Note well this face, for it is this you must practise.
ASO. I'll practise them all, if you please, sir.
AMO. Ay, hereafter you may: and it will not be altogether an
ungrateful study. For, let your soul be assured of this, in any
rank or profession whatever, the more general or major part of
opinion goes with the face and simply respects nothing else.
Therefore, if that can be made exactly, curiously, exquisitely,
thoroughly, it is enough: but for the present you shall only apply
yourself to this face of the elementary courtier, a light,
revelling, and protesting face, now blushing, now smiling, which
you may help much with a wanton wagging of your head, thus, (a
feather will teach you,) or with kissing your finger that hath the
ruby, or playing with some string of your band, which is a most
quaint kind of melancholy besides: or, if among ladies, laughing
loud, and crying up your own wit, though perhaps borrow'd, it is
not amiss. Where is your page? call for your casting-bottle, and
place your mirror in your hat, as I told you; so! Come, look not
pale, observe me, set your face, and enter.
MER. O, for some excellent painter, to have taken the copy of all
these faces! [ASIDE.]
ASO. Prosaites!
AMO. Fie! I premonish you of that: in the court, boy, lacquey, or
sirrah.
COS. Master, lupus in—O, 'tis Prosaites.
ENTER PROSAITES.
ASO. Sirrah, prepare my casting-bottle; I think I must be
enforced to purchase me another page; you see how at hand Cos waits
here.
[EXEUNT AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, COS, AND PROSAITES.]
MER. So will he too in time.
CUP. What's he Mercury?
MER. A notable smelt. One that hath newly entertain'd the beggar
to follow him, but cannot get him to wait near enough. 'Tis
Asotus, the heir of Philargyrus; but first I'll give ye the other's
character, which may make his the clearer. He that is with him is
Amorphus, a traveller, one so made out of the mixture of shreds of
forms, that himself is truly deform'd. He walks most commonly with
a clove or pick-tooth in his mouth, he is the very mint of
compliment, all his behaviours are printed, his face is another
volume of essays, and his beard is an Aristarchus. He speaks all
cream skimm'd, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. He
is his own promoter in every place. The wife of the ordinary gives
him his diet to maintain her table in discourse; which, indeed, is
a mere tyranny over her other guests, for he will usurp all the
talk: ten constables are not so tedious. He is no great shifter;
once a year his apparel is ready to revolt. He doth use much to
arbitrate quarrels, and fights himself, exceeding well, out at a
window. He will lie cheaper than any beggar, and louder than most
clocks; for which he is right properly accommodated to the
Whetstone, his page. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most
of these tricks after him; sweats to imitate him in every thing to
a hair, except a beard, which is not yet extant. He doth learn to
make strange sauces, to eat anchovies, maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli,
and caviare, because he loves them; speaks as he speaks, looks,
walks, goes so in clothes and fashion: is in all as if he were
moulded of him. Marry, before they met, he had other very pretty
sufficiencies, which yet he retains some light impression of; as
frequenting a dancing school, and grievously torturing strangers
with inquisition after his grace in his galliard. He buys a fresh
acquaintance at any rate. His eyes and his raiment confer much
together as he goes in the street. He treads nicely like the
fellow that walks upon ropes, especially the first Sunday of his
silk stockings; and when he is most neat and new, you shall strip
him with commendations.
CUP. Here comes another. [CRITES PASSES OVER THE STAGE.]
MER. Ay, but one of another strain, Cupid; This fellow weighs
somewhat.
CUP. His name, Hermes?
MER. Crites. A creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one,
in whom the humours and elements are peaceably met, without
emulation of precedency; he is neither too fantastically
melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly sanguine, or too
rashly choleric; but in all so composed and ordered; as it is clear
Nature went about some full work, she did more than make a man when
she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon, but
not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be
that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and is so
truly learned, that he affects not to shew it. He will think and
speak his thought both freely; but as distant from depraving
another man's merit, as proclaiming his own. For his valour, 'tis
such, that he dares as little to offer any injury, as receive one.
In sum, he hath a most ingenuous and sweet spirit, a sharp and
season'd wit, a straight judgment and a strong mind. Fortune
could never break him, nor make him less. He counts it his
pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more delighted with good
deeds than goods. It is a competency to him that he can be
virtuous. He doth neither covet nor fear; he hath too much reason
to do either; and that commends all things to him.
CUP. Not better than Mercury commends him.
MER. O, Cupid, 'tis beyond my deity to give him his due praises:
I could leave my place in heaven to live among mortals, so I were
sure to be no other than he.
CUP. 'Slight, I believe he is your minion, you seem to be so
ravish'd with him.
MER. He's one I would not have a wry thought darted against,
willingly.
CUP. No, but a straight shaft in his bosom I'll promise him, if I
am Cytherea's son.
MER. Shall we go, Cupid?
CUP. Stay, and see the ladies now: they'll come presently. I'll
help to paint them.
MER. What lay colour upon colour! that affords but an ill blazon.
CUP. Here comes metal to help it, the lady Argurion.
[ARGURION PASSES OVER THE STAGE.]
MER. Money, money.
CUP. The same. A nymph of a most wandering and giddy disposition,
humorous as the air, she'll run from gallant to gallant, as they
sit at primero in the presence, most strangely, and seldom stays
with any. She spreads as she goes. To-day you shall have her look
as clear and fresh as the morning, and to-morrow as melancholic as
midnight. She takes special pleasure in a close obscure lodging,
and for that cause visits the city so often, where she has many
secret true concealing favourites. When she comes abroad she's
more loose and scattering than dust, and will fly from place to
place, as she were wrapped with a whirlwind. Your young student,
for the most part, she affects not, only salutes him, and away: a
poet, nor a philosopher, she is hardly brought to take any notice
of; no, though he be some part of an alchemist. She loves a player
well, and a lawyer infinitely; but your fool above all. She can do
much in court for the obtaining of any suit whatsoever, no door
but flies open to her, her presence is above a charm. The worst in
her is want of keeping state, and too much descending into inferior
and base offices; she's for any coarse employment you will put upon
her, as to be your procurer, or pander.
MER. Peace, Cupid, here comes more work for you, another character
or two.
ENTER PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA.
PHA. Stay sweet Philautia; I'll but change my fan, and go
presently.
MOR. Now, in very good serious, ladies, I will have this order
revers'd, the presence must be better maintain'd from you: a
quarter past eleven, and ne'er a nymph in prospective! Beshrew my
hand, there must be a reform'd discipline. Is that your new ruff,
sweet lady-bird? By my troth, 'tis most intricately rare.
MER. Good Jove, what reverend gentlewoman in years might this be?
CUP. 'Tis madam Moria, guardian of the nymphs; one that is not now
to be persuaded of her wit; she will think herself wise against all
the judgments that come. A lady made all of voice and air, talks
any thing of any thing. She is like one of your ignorant poetasters
of the time, who, when they have got acquainted with a strange
word, never rest till they have wrung it in, though it loosen the
whole fabric of their sense.
MER. That was pretty and sharply noted, Cupid.
CUP. She will tell you, Philosophy was a fine reveller, when she
was young, and a gallant, and that then, though she say it, she was
thought to be the dame Dido and Helen of the court: as also, what
a sweet dog she had this time four years, and how it was called
Fortune; and that, if the Fates had not cut his thread, he had been
a dog to have given entertainment to any gallant in this kingdom;
and unless she had whelp'd it herself, she could not have loved a
thing better in this world.
MER. O, I prithee no more; I am full of her.
CUP. Yes, I must needs tell you she composes a sack-posset well;
and would court a young page sweetly, but that her breath is
against it.
MER. Now, her breath or something more strong protect me from her!
The other, the other, Cupid.
CUP. O, that's my lady and mistress, madam Philautia. She admires
not herself for any one particularity, but for all: she is fair,
and she knows it; she has a pretty light wit too, and she knows it;
she can dance, and she knows that too; play at shuttle-cock, and
that too: no quality she has, but she shall take a very particular
knowledge of, and most lady-like commend it to you. You shall have
her at any time read you the history of herself, and very subtilely
run over another lady's sufficiencies to come to her own. She has
a good superficial judgment in painting; and would seem to have so
in poetry. A most complete lady in the opinion of some three
beside herself.
PHI. Faith, how liked you my quip to Hedon, about the garter?
Was't not witty?
MOR. Exceeding witty and integrate: you did so aggravate the jest
withal.
PHI. And did I not dance movingly the last night?
MOR. Movingly! out of measure, in troth, sweet charge.
MER. A happy commendation, to dance out of measure!
MOR. Save only you wanted the swim in the turn: O! when I was at
fourteen—
PHI. Nay, that's mine own from any nymph in the court, I'm sure
on't; therefore you mistake me in that, guardian: both the swim and
the trip are properly mine; every body will affirm it that has any
judgment in dancing, I assure you.
PHA. Come now, Philautia, I am for you; shall we go?
PHI. Ay, good Phantaste: What! have you changed your head-tire?
PHA. Yes, faith; the other was so near the common, it had no
extraordinary grace; besides, I had worn it almost a day, in good
troth.
PHI. I'll be sworn, this is most excellent for the device, and
rare; 'tis after the Italian print we look'd on t'other night.
PHA. 'Tis so: by this fan, I cannot abide any thing that savours
the poor over-worn cut, that has any kindred with it; I must have
variety, I: this mixing in fashion, I hate it worse than to burn
juniper in my chamber, I protest.
PHI. And yet we cannot have a new peculiar court-tire, but these
retainers will have it; these suburb Sunday-waiters; these
courtiers for high days; I know not what I should call 'em—
PHA. O, ay, they do most pitifully imitate; but I have a tire a
coming, i'faith, shall—
MOR. In good certain, madam, it makes you look most heavenly; but,
lay your hand on your heart, you never skinn'd a new beauty more
prosperously in your life, nor more metaphysically: look good lady,
sweet lady, look.
PHI. 'Tis very clear and well, believe me. But if you had seen
mine yesterday, when 'twas young, you would have—Who's your
doctor, Phantaste?
PHA. Nay, that's counsel, Philautia; you shall pardon me: yet I'll
assure you he's the most dainty, sweet, absolute, rare man of the
whole college. O! his very looks, his discourse, his behaviour, all
he does is physic, I protest.
PHI. For heaven's sake, his name, good dear Phantaste?
PHA. No, no, no, no, no, no, believe me, not for a million of
heavens: I will not make him cheap. Fie—
[EXEUNT PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA.]
CUP. There is a nymph too of a most curious and elaborate strain,
light, all motion, an ubiquitary, she is every where, Phantaste—
MER. Her very name speaks her, let her pass. But are these,
Cupid, the stars of Cynthia's court? Do these nymphs attend upon
Diana?
CUP. They are in her court, Mercury, but not as stars; these never
come in the presence of Cynthia. The nymphs that make her train
are the divine Arete, Time, Phronesis, Thauma, and others of that
high sort. These are privately brought in by Moria in this
licentious time, against her knowledge; and, like so many meteors,
will vanish when she appears.
ENTER PROSAITES SINGING, FOLLOWED BY GELAIA AND COS, WITH BOTTLES.
Come follow me, my wags, and say, as I say,
There's no riches but in rags, hey day, hey day:
You that profess this art, come away, come away,
And help to bear a part. Hey day, hey day, etc.
[MERCURY AND CUPID COME FORWARD.]
MER. What, those that were our fellow pages but now, so soon
preferr'd to be yeomen of the bottles! The mystery, the mystery,
good wags?
CUP. Some diet-drink they have the guard of.
PRO. No, sir, we are going in quest of a strange fountain, lately
found out.
CUP. By whom?
COS. My master or the great discoverer, Amorphus.
MER. Thou hast well entitled him, Cos, for he will discover all he
knows.
GEL. Ay, and a little more too, when the spirit is upon him.
PRO. O, the good travelling gentleman yonder has caused such a
drought in the presence, with reporting the wonders of this new
water, that all the ladies and gallants lie languishing upon the
rushes, like so many pounded cattle in the midst of harvest,
sighing one to another, and gasping, as if each of them expected a
cock from the fountain to be brought into his mouth; and without
we return quickly, they are all, as a youth would say, no better
then a few trouts cast ashore, or a dish of eels in a sand-bag.
MER. Well then, you were best dispatch, and have a care of them.
Come, Cupid, thou and I'll go peruse this dry wonder. [EXEUNT.]