Qua. How, prithee? in a play? Come, come, be sociable.
In private severance from society;
Here leaps a vein of blood inflamed with love,
Mounting to pleasure, all addict to mirth;
Thou’lt read a satire or a sonnet now,
Clagging their airy humour with——
Lam. Lamp-oil, watch-candles, rug-gowns,[522] and small juice,
Thin commons, four o’clock rising,—I renounce you all. 180
Now may I ’ternally abandon meat,
Rust, fusty, you which most embraced disuse,
You ha’ made me an ass; thus shaped my lot,
I am a mere scholar, that is a mere sot.
Qua. Come, then, Lamp, I’ll pour fresh oil into thee;
Apply thy spirit, that it may nimbly turn
Unto the habit, fashion of the age.
I’ll make thee man the scholar, enable thy behaviour
Apt for the entertain of any presence. 189
I’ll turn thee gallant: first thou shalt have a mistress:
How is thy spirit raised to yonder beauty?—
She with the sanguine cheek, the[523] dimpled chin;
The pretty amorous smile, that clips her lips
And dallies ’bout her cheek; she with the speaking eye,
That casts out beams as ardent as those flakes
Which singed the world by rash-brain’d Phaethon;
She with the lip;—O lips!—she, for whose sake
A man could find in his heart to inhell himself!
There’s more philosophy, more theorems,
More demonstrations, all invincible, 200
More clear divinity drawn on her cheek,
Than in all volumes’ tedious paraphrase
Of musty eld. O, who would staggering doubt
The soul’s eternity, seeing it hath
Of heavenly beauty but to case it up!
Who would distrust a supreme existence,
Able to confound, when it can create
Such heaven on earth able to entrance,
Amaze! O, ’tis Providence, not chance!
Lam. Now, by the front of Jove, methinks her eye
Shoots more spirit in me. O beauty feminine; 211
How powerful art thou! What deep magic lies
Within the circle of thy speaking eyes!
Qua. Why, now could I eat thee; thou doest please
mine appetite. I can digest[524] thee. God make[525] thee a good fool, and happy, and ignorant, and amorous, and rich, and frail, and a satirist, and an essayist, and sleepy, and proud, and indeed a fool, and then thou shalt be sure of all these. Do but scorn her, she is thine own; accost her carelessly, and her eye promiseth she will be bound to the good abearing. 221
Cel. Now, sister Meletza, doest mark their craft; some straggling thoughts transport thy attentiveness from his discourse. Was’t Jacomo’s or our brother’s plot?
Lav. Both, both, sweet lady; my page heard all: we met the rogue; so like Albano, I beat the rogue.
Sim. Ay, but when you were gone the rogue beat me.