AUD. Ha, what's that?
APP. I say you have made me hoarse with speaking so loud.
AUD. Ha, what say'st thou of a creaking crowd?[307]
APP. I am hoarse, I tell you, and my head aches.
AUD. O, I understand thee! the first crowd was made of a horse-head.
'Tis true, the finding of a dead horse-head
Was the first invention of string instruments,
Whence rose the gittern, viol, and the lute:
Though others think the lute was first devis'd
In imitation of a tortoise-back,
Whose sinews, parched by Apollo's beams,
Echo'd about the concave of the shell:
And seeing the shortest and smallest gave shrill'st sound,
They found out frets, whose sweet diversity
(Well-touched by the skilful learned fingers)
Raiseth so strange a multitude of chords.
Which their opinion many do confirm,
Because Testado signifies a lute.
But if I by no means—
APP. Nay, if you begin to critic once, we shall never have done.
[Exit APPETITUS, and carries away AUDITUS perforce.
SCAENA DECIMA.
CRAPULA, a fat-bellied slave, clothed in a light veil of sarsanet, a garland of vine-leaves on his head, &c. SOMNUS in a mantle of black cobweb lawn down to the foot, over a dusky-coloured taffeta coat, and a crown of poppy-tops on his head, a company of dark-coloured silk scarfs in one hand, a mace of poppy in the other, leaving his head upon a pillow on CRAPULA'S shoulders.
CRA. Somnus, good Somnus, sweet Somnus, come apace!