LIN. Perfidious liar, how can I endure thee!
Call'st my unspotted chastity in question?
O, could I use the breath mine anger spends,
I'd make thee know—
AUD. Heav'ns look on my distress,
Defend me from this railing viperess!
For if I stay, her words' sharp vinegar
Will fret me through. Lingua, I must be gone:
I hear one call me more than earnestly.
[Exit AUDITUS.
LIN. May the loud cannoning of thunderbolts,
Screeking of wolves, howling of tortur'd ghosts,
Pursue thee still, and fill thy amaz'd ears
With cold astonishment and horrid fears!
O, how these senses muffle Common Sense!
And more and more with pleasing objects strive
To dull his judgment and pervert his will
To their behests: who, were he not so wrapp'd
I'the dusky clouds of their dark policies,
Would never suffer right to suffer wrong.
Fie, Lingua, wilt thou now degenerate?
Art not a woman? dost not love revenge?
Delightful speeches, sweet persuasions,
I have this long time us'd to get my right.
My right—that is, to make the senses six;
And have both name and power with the rest.
Oft have I season'd savoury periods
With sugar'd words, to delude Gustus' taste,
And oft embellish'd my entreative phrase
With smelling flow'rs of vernant rhetoric,
Limning and flashing it with various dyes,
To draw proud Visus to me by the eyes;
And oft perfum'd my petitory[174] style
With civet-speech, t'entrap Olfactus' nose;
And clad myself in silken eloquence,
To allure the nicer touch of Tactus' hand.
But all's become lost labour, and my cause
Is still procrastinated: therefore now,
Hence, ye base offspring of a broken mind,
Supple entreaties and smooth flatteries:
Go kiss the love-sick lips of puling gulls,[175]
That 'still their brain to quench their love's disdain:
Go gild the tongues of bawds and parasites;
Come not within my thoughts. But thou, deceit,
Break up the pleasure of my brimful breast,
Enrich my mind with subtle policies.
Well then, I'll go; whither? nay, what know I?
And do, in faith I will, the devil knows what.
What, if I set them all at variance,
And so obtain to speak? it must be so.
It must be so, but how? there lies the point:
How? thus: tut, this device will never prove,
Augment it so: 'twill be too soon descried;
Or so, nor so; 'tis too-too dangerous.
Pish, none of these! what, if I take this course? ha!
Why, there it goes; good, good; most excellent!
He that will catch eels must disturb the flood;
The chicken's hatch'd, i' faith; for they are proud,
And soon will take a cause of disagreement.
SCAENA SECUNDA.
MENDACIO, attired in a taffeta suit of a light colour changeable, like an ordinary page.[176]
LINGUA, MENDACIO.
LIN. I see the heavens nurse my new-born device;
For lo, my page Mendacio comes already,
To file and burnish that I hammer'd out.
Never in better time, Mendacio,
What! hast thou done?
MEN. Done? yes, long ago.
LIN. Is't possible thou shouldst despatch so soon?
MEN. Madam, I had no sooner told
Tactus that Gustus would fain speak with him,
But I spied Visus, Gustus, and the rest,
And serv'd them all with sauce of several lies.
Now the last sense I spake with was Olfactus
Who, having smelt the meaning of my message,
Straight blew his nose, and quickly puff'd me hither;
But in the whirlwind of his furious blast,
Had not by chance a cobweb held me fast,
Mendacio had been with you long ere this.