LIN. My lord, though the imbecillitas of my feeble sex might draw me back from this tribunal, with the habenis, to wit timoris and the Catenis pudoris, notwithstanding being so fairly led on with the gracious [Greek: epiecheia] of your justissime [Greek: dikaiosynaes]. Especially so aspremente spurd' con gli sproni di necessita mia pugente, I will without the help of orators commit the totam salutem of my action to the volutabilitati [Greek: ton gynaicheion logon], which avec vostre bonne plaisir, I will finish with more than Laconicâ brevitate.
COM. SEN. What's this? here's a gallimaufry of speech indeed.
MEM. I remember about the year 1602 many used this skew kind of language which, in my opinion, is not much unlike the man Platony,[251] the son of Lagus, king of Egypt, brought for a spectacle, half-white, half-black.
COM. SEN. I am persuaded these same language-makers have the very quality of cold in their wit, that freezeth all heterogeneal languages together, congealing English tin, Grecian gold, Roman latten[252] all in a lump.
PHA. Or rather, in my imagination, like your fantastical gull's apparel, wearing a Spanish felt, a French doublet, a Granado stocking, a Dutch slop, an Italian cloak, with a Welsh freeze jerkin.
COM. SEN. Well, leave your toying: we cannot pluck the least feather from the soft wing of time. Therefore, Lingua, go on, but in a less formal manner. You know an ingenious oration must neither swell above the banks with insolent words, nor creep too shallow in the ford with vulgar terms; but run equally, smooth and cheerful, through the clean current of a pure style.
LIN. My lord, this one thing is sufficient to confirm my worth to be equal or better than the Senses, whose best operations are nothing till I polish them with perfection; for their knowledge is only of things present, quickly sublimed with the deft[253] file of time: whereas the tongue is able to recount things past, and often pronounce things to come, by this means re-edifying such excellences as time and age do easily depopulate.
COM. SEN. But what profitable service do you undertake for our dread queen Psyche?
LIN. O, how I am ravished to think how infinitely she hath graced me with her most acceptable service! But above all (which you, Master Register, well remember), when her highness, taking my mouth for her instrument, with the bow of my tongue struck so heavenly a touch upon my teeth, that she charmed the very tigers asleep, the listening bears and lions to couch at her feet, while the hills leaped, and the woods danced to the sweet harmony of her most angelical accents.
MEM. I remember it very well. Orpheus played upon the harp, while she sung, about some four years after the contention betwixt Apollo and Pan, and a little before the excoriation of Marsyas.