Ran. Cease! the duke approacheth: ’tis almost night,
For the duke’s up: now begins his day.
Come, grace his entrance. Lights! lights! Now ’gins our play.
Duke. Still these same bawling pipes: sound softer strains!
Slumber our sense: tut! these are vulgar strains.
Cannot your trembling wires throw a chain
Of powerful rapture ’bout our mazèd sense?
Why is our chair thus cushion’d tapestry, 200
Why is our bed tirèd with wanton sports,
Why are we clothed in glistering attires,
If common bloods can hear, can feel,
Can sit as soft, lie as lascivious,
Strut[555] all as rich as the greatest potentate:—
Soul! and you cannot feast my thristing[556] ears
With aught but what the lip of common birth can taste,
Take all away; your labour’s idly waste.
What sport for night?
Lam. A comedy, entitled Temperance. 210
Duke. What sot elects that subject for the court?
What should dame Temperance do here? Away!
The itch on Temperance, your moral play!
Qua. Duke, prince, royal blood!—thou that hast the best means to be damn’d of any lord in Venice;—thou great man! let me kiss thy flesh. I am fat,[557] and therefore faithful; I will do that which few of thy subjects do,—love thee: but I will never do that which all thy subjects do,—flatter thee thy humour’s real, good. A comedy! 220
No, and thy sense would banquet in delights
Appropriate to the blood of emperors,
Peculiar to the state of majesty,
That none can relish but dilated greatness,
Vouchsafe to view the structure of a scene
That stands on tragic solid passion.
O that’s fit traffic to commerce with births,
Strain’d from the mud of base unable brains!
Give them a scene may force their struggling blood
Rise up on tiptoe in attention, 230
And fill their intellect with pure elixed wit;
O that’s for greatness apt, for princes fit!
Duke. Darest thou then undertake to suit our ears
With such rich vestment?
Qua. Dare! Yes, my prince, I dare;—nay, more, I will.
And I’ll present a subject worth thy soul;—
The honour’d end of Cato Utican.
Duke. Who’ll personate him?