Syr. Prince of patrons——
Dam. I tell thee, foul fiend, all Rome has been at my heels, hooting and hallooing, sweating and swearing, making a very chaos of greasy caps and grievous imprecations, red flambeaux and faces almost as red, cooks and cobblers, slaves and centurions, money borrowers and money lenders. By Pollux, again I say, Themison is not more weary when he has prescribed for his twentieth patient, nor Palemon, when the last disputant of his hundred has murthered grammar and great Julius together.
Syr. Merciful lord——
Dam. Hecate! We are come to a pretty pass, when a man of my blood may not walk in the dark, and swear in a mask, and kiss a girl in the Capitol, and cudgel a usurer in the Suburra—but fathers, and brothers, and cousins—ay, by the gods of the hearthstone! and mothers and aunts to boot—must start up, like the Argonaut’s harvest, scouring and screaming in all the streets of Rome and all the dialects of its provinces. Marry, hang them! Is there no respect or reverence for my this year’s chariot, or my last year’s fasces? Nay, then, honour may hide in a cloaca, and fashion walk a-foot; patricians shall patronize the tunic, and consulships be sold for an as.
Syr. Most munificent of revellers——
Dam. And for thee, scum of Ethiopia, for thee to keep thy supporter and thy sovereign lingering thus long before thy threshold, and listening to the cries, and the curses, and the distant murmurs of a mob. May I never fling Venus again, may I never lip Mela’s Falernian, may the black plague poison my pickles, may the green jacket fail in the circus, if ever I danced the client so long—no, not before the Emperor’s gate—no, not under Triphenion’s window, though she be witty, and wicked, and gay, and golden-haired, the fairest and the fondest of the daughters of Corinth! Epona! belike thou hast forgotten me; there is nothing to be remembered in my forehead and my features! Look at me, villain, slave—who am I?
Syr. My most admirable and excellent master, I lick thy[Pg 258] foot. Thou art the supreme of sin and song, the chief choice of charioteers, the love of all thy slaves, the envy of all the Senate, priest of pledgings and king of cups, the Mars of midnight, the Cupid of costume, the Jupiter of all joviality!
Dam. Excellent well! I had not deemed thy recollection so good; marry, thou mayest perhaps recollect the far-back landing, and the lorn look, and the chalked sole, and the bored ear; and thou mayest perhaps have some slight vision of thrushes fried to dust, and boars burned to powder, and the inflicted scourge, and the threatened crucifixion. I thought that withered skin of thine had undergone metempsychosis, or that thou hadst found the two springs of Lethe in Vindicta and Vertigo.
Syr. Prince of men, it is not so lightly that I forget my native dust, or the hand that raised me from it. All I have is thine own; take of it to eat or to drink, or to wear or to waste; set thy slipper on my head, and crush my brains beneath thee; give me thy dagger, and let me pledge a health to thee in my best heart’s blood.
Dam. Honest Syrinx, I forgive thee! let there be new peace and old wine between us. Ha! little Cyane, where hast thou hidden thy mirth and mitra? Come hither, little Cyane! What! I warrant me thou wert afraid of me, because my frown was somewhat grim, and my posture somewhat gladiatorial. But mine anger is vanished; I am as cold as the snows of Hæmus, or the pleadings of Pedo. Sit by me, Cyane; we will have music anon.