[399] “As bold as blind bayard” was a proverb (as old as Chaucer) applied to those who do not look before they leap. In R. B.’s Appius and Virginia, 1575, we have:—“As bold as blind bayard, as wise as a woodcock.” Bayard was the name for a bay-horse.
Nor labours he the favour of the rude,
Nor offers sops unto the Stygian dog,
To force a silence in his viperous tongues;
Nor cares he to insinuate the grace
Of loath’d detraction, nor pursues the love
Of the nice critics of this squeamish age;
Nor strives he to bear up with every sail
Of floating censure; nor once dreads or cares
What envious hand his guiltless muse hath struck;
Sweet breath from tainted stomachs who can suck?
But to the fair proportion’d loves of wit, 11
To the just scale of even, paizèd[400] thoughts;
To those that know the pangs of bringing forth
A perfect feature; to their gentle minds,
That can as soon slight of as find a blemish;
To those, as humbly low as to their feet,
I am obliged to bend—to those his muse
Makes solemn honour for their wish’d delight.
He vows industrious sweat shall pale his cheek,
But he’ll gloss up sleek objects for their eyes; 20
For those he is asham’d his best’s too bad.
A silly subject, too too[401] simply clad,
Is all his present, all his ready pay
For many debts. Give further day.[402]
I’ll give a proverb,—Sufferance giveth ease:
So you may once be paid, we once may please.
[Exit.
[400] Balanced.—Perhaps we should read “even-paizèd.”
[401] Sometimes written “too-too” (a strengthened form of too), but quite as often printed as two separate words. I have followed the old copies.
[402] “Give further day” = allow the day of payment to be deferred. Cf. Middleton, ii. 337.
Duke of Venice.
Albano, a merchant.
Jacomo, in love with Celia.
Andrea, and
Randolfo, brothers to Albano.
Quadratus.
Laverdure, a Frenchman.
Lampatho Doria.
Simplicius Faber.
Francisco, a perfumer.
Philus, page to Jacomo.
Bidet, page to Laverdure.
Slip, page to Albano.
Holofernes Pippo, page to Simplicius.
A Schoolmaster.
Battus, Nous, Nathaniel, and Slip, schoolboys.
Noose, Trip, and Doit, pages.