I hope it is no crime
To laugh at all things. For I wish to know
What, after all, are all things—but a show?
(Ch. VII, stance 2.)
.... Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea,
Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair!
(Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick.)
Oh Julia! what is every other woe?—
(Here he fell sicker)......................
(For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor;
Pedro, Baptista, help me down below.)
Julia, my love! (You rascal, Pedro, quicker)—
Oh, Julia!—(this curst vessel pitches so)
Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching!
(Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)
.... Love's a capricious power....
Against all noble maladies he's bold;
But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet;
.... Shrinks from the application of hot towels,
And purgatives are dangerous to his reign,
Sea-sickness death....
.... 'Tis melancholy, and a fearful sign
Of human frailty, folly, also crime,
That love and marriage rarely can combine;
Although they both are born in the same clime;
Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine—
A sad, sour, sober beverage.—
.... An honest gentleman, at his return
May not have the good fortune of Ulysses;....
.... The odds are that he finds a handsome urn
To his memory—and two or three young misses
Born to some friend, who holds his wife and riches
And that his Argus bites him by—the breeches.—
.... Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication....