The Project Gutenberg ebook of The Works of John Marston, Vol. 2, edited by A. H. Bullen.

[403] “Rare.—Rare, seld, unusuall, geason.”—Cotgrave. (Spenser has the word more than once. The derivation is uncertain.)

[404] Old eds. “Lucea.”

[405] Repaired, renovated.

[406] “Id est, in the place where a wound is fatal. Tharsalio, in the Widow’s Tears of Chapman, says:—’I have given’t him i’ th’ speeding-place for all his confidence.’”—Dilke.

[407] Old eds. “’twilt.”

[408] The appropriate garland for forsaken lovers.

[409] Old eds. “thwart without stretched.”

[410] Old eds. “all.”

[411] Stockings drawn above the knee.

[412] Squares of coloured silk or velvet inserted in a garment.

[413] “To judge of the liberality of these notions of dress, we must advert to the days of Gresham and the consternation which a Phenomenon habited like a merchant here described would have excited among the flat round caps, and cloth stockings, upon Change, when those ‘original arguments or tokens of a citizen’s vocation were in fashion, not more for thrift and usefulness than for distinction and grace.’ The blank uniformity to which all professional distinctions in apparel have been long hastening is one instance of the Decay of Symbols among us, which, whether it has contributed or not to make us a more intellectual, has certainly made us a less imaginative people. Shakespeare knew the force of signs:—‘a malignant and a turban’d Turk.’ ‘This meal-cap miller,’ says the author of God’s Revenge against Murder, to express his indignation at the atrocious outrage committed by the miller Pierot upon the person of the fair Marieta.”—Charles Lamb.

[414] See note, p. 331.

[415] Mourning robes.

[416] Pet. (“A pretty peat.”—Taming of the Shrew, i. 1.)

[417] Takes up commodities,— gets goods on credit.

[418] Wanton.

[419] Old eds. give this line to Jacomo and read:—“She shall not, fathers, by our brother souls.”

[420] Stutters.

[421] The old editions read:—“Precise in each but Tassell, feare it not.”

ACT II.

Lav. Mor du, garzone! Set my richest gloves, garters, hats, just in the way of their eyes. So let them in; observe me with all duteous respect: let them in. 23

Qua. Phœbus, Phœbe, sun, moon, and seven stars, make thee the dilling [424] of fortune, my sweet Laverdure, my rich French blood. Ha, ye dear rogue, hast any pudding [425] tobacco?

Lam. Sir, I protest [426] I not only take distinct notice of your dear rarities of exterior presence, but also I protest I am most vehemently enamour’d, and very passionately dote on your inward adornments and liabilities of spirit! I protest I shall be proud to do you most obsequious vassalage. 43

Qua. [Aside.] Is not this rare, now? Now, by Gorgon’s head,
I gape, and am struck stiff in wonderment
At sight of these strange beasts. Yon [427] chamlet [428] youth,
Simplicius Faber, that hermaphrodite,
Party[429] per pale, that bastard mongrel soul,
Is nought but admiration and applause
Of yon [430] Lampatho Doria, a fusty cask, 50
Devote to mouldy customs of hoary eld;
Doth he but speak, “O tones of heaven itself!”
Doth he once write, “O Jesu admirable!”
Cries out Simplicius. Then Lampatho spits,
And says, “faith ’tis good.” But, O, to mark yon thing
Sweat to unite acquaintance to his friend,
Labour his praises, and endear his worth
With titles all as formally trick’d forth
As the cap of a dedicatory epistle.
Then, sir, to view Lampatho: he protests, 60
Protests and vows such sudden heat of love,
That O ’twere warmth enough of mirth to dry
The stintless tears [431] of old Heraclitus,—
Make Niobe to laugh!

Lam. I protest I shall be proud to give you proof I hold a most religious affiance with your love.

Lam. Let me not live else. I protest I will strain my utmost sinews in strengthening your precious estimate; I protest I will do all rights in all good offices that friendship can touch, or amplest virtue deserve. 71

Qua. I protest, believe him not; I’ll beg thee, Laverdure,
For a conceal’d idiot,[432] if thou credit him;
He’s a hyena,[433] and with civet scent
Of perfumed words, draws to make a prey
For laughter of thy credit. O this hot crackling love,
That blazeth on an instant, flames me out
On the least puff of kindness, with “protest, protest!”
Catzo, I dread these hot protests, that press,
Come on so fast. No, no! away, away! 80
You are a common friend, or will betray.
Let me clip amity that’s got with suit;
I hate this whorish love that’s prostitute.

Qua. Away, idolater! Why, you Don Kynsader![440]
Thou canker-eaten rusty cur! thou snaffle
To freer spirits!
Think’st thou, a libertine, an ungyved breast,
Scorns not the shackles of thy envious clogs?
You will traduce us unto public scorn?

Qua. A foutra for thy hand, thy heart, thy brain!
Thy hate, thy malice, envy, grinning spite!
Shall a free-born, that holds antipathy——

Qua. Ay, antipathy, a native hate
Unto the curse of man, bare-pated servitude,
Quake at the frowns of a ragg’d satirist—
A scrubbing railer, whose coarse, harden’d fortune,
Grating his hide, galling his starvèd ribs,
Sits howling at desert’s more battle fate [441]—
Who out of dungeon of his black despairs, 150
Scowls at the fortune of the fairer merit.

Lav. Pewte bougra! La, la, la! Tit! Shaugh!
Shall I forbear to caper, sing, or vault?
To wear fresh clothes, or wear perfumèd sweets?
To trick my face, or glory in my fate? 160
T’ abandon natural propensitudes?
My fancy’s humour?—for a stiff jointed,
Tatter’d, nasty, taber-fac’d —— Puh, la, la, ly ro!

Qua. Now, by thy lady’s cheek, I honour thee,
My rich free blood. O my dear libertine!
I could suck the juice, the sirrup of thy lip,
For thy most generous thought!—my Elysium!

Qua. No, sir; should discreet Mastigophoros,
Or the dear spirit acute Canaidus 170
(That Aretine, that most of me beloved,
Who in the rich esteem I prize his soul,
I term myself); should these once menace me,
Or curb my humours with well-govern’d check,
I should with most industrious regard,
Observe, abstain, and curb my skipping lightness;
But when an arrogant, odd, impudent,
A blushless forehead, only out of sense
Of his own wants, bawls in malignant questing
At others’ means of waving gallantry,— 180
Pight foutra!

Qua. And I have not jaded thy ears more than I have tired my tongue, I could run discourse, put him out of his full pace.
I could pour speech till thou criedst ho! but troth,
I dread a glut; and I confess much love
To freer gentry, whose pert agile spirits 220
Is too much frost-bit, numb’d with ill-strain’d snibs,[445]
Hath tenter-reach’d [446] my speech. By Brutus’ blood,
He is a turf that will be slave to man;
But he’s a beast that dreads his mistress’ fan.

Lav. Come, all mirth and solace, capers, healths, and whiffs;[447]
To-morrow are my nuptials celebrate.
All friends, all friends!

Sim. Good truth, I love you; and with the grace of Heaven, I’ll be very civil and——

Sim. I’ll be something; I have a conceal’d humour in me; and ’twere broach’d ’twould spurt i’faith.

Qua. Stand stiff! ho, stand! take footing firm! stand sure!
For if thou fall before thy mistress
Thy manhood’s damn’d. Stand firm! Ho! good! so, so!

Qua. Stay, take an old rhyme first; though dry and lean,
’Twill serve to close the stomach of the scene.

Lav. This is thy humour to berhyme us still;
Never so slightly pleased, but out they fly.

Qua. They are mine own, no gleanèd poetry;
My fashion’s known. Out, rhyme; take’t as you list: 270
A fico [451] for the sour-brow’d Zoilist!

Lav. Faith, so, so; tellement, quellement;
As ’t please opinion to current it.

Lav. I must give notice to an odd pedant, as we pass, of my nuptials: I use him, for he is obscure, and shall marry us in private. I have many enemies, but secresy is the best evasion from envy. 300

[422] A sort of coarse cloth.—“By this heaven I wonder at nothing more than our gentlemen ushers, that will suffer a piece of serge or perpetuana to come into the presence.”—Cynthia’s Revels, iii. 2.

[423] “A kind of loose drawers or stockings worn outside the legs over the other clothing.”—Halliwell.

[424] “Mignon.—A minion, favourite wanton, dilling, darling.”—Cotgrave.

[425] Pudding tobacco is frequently mentioned by the dramatists. Cf. Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 1:—“Never kneels but to pledge healths, nor prays but for a pipe of pudding-tobacco.” Probably it was tobacco compressed into a solid shape.

[426] From numerous passages it appears that it was regarded as a piece of affectation to use the word protest. See Dyce’s Shakesp. Glossary.

[427] Ed. 1. “You.”

[428] Chamlet (or camlet) was a mixed stuff of wool and silk.

[429] “‘Party per pale’ is a term in heraldry denoting that the field or ground on which the figures that make up a coat of arms are represented, is divided into two equal parts by a perpendicular line; and Quadratus means that the external appearances of the two sexes are, in Simplicius, divided with equal exactness.”—Dilke.

[430] Old eds. “you.”

[431] I beseech the reader to make “tears” equivalent to a dissyllable and not pronounce “Heraclītus” as “Heraclĭtus.”

[432] Formerly it was in the sovereign’s power to grant to any petitioner the care of the person and estates of a subject who had been legally proved to be an idiot.

[433] Marston has made a slip here: he has confused the hyena with the panther. “The panther or pardal,” says Topsel, “smelleth most sweetly, which savour he hath received from a divine gift, and doth not only feel the benefit of it himself, but also bewray it unto other beasts; for when he feeleth himself to be hungry and stand in need of meat, then doth he get up into some rough tree, and by his savour or sweet smell, draweth unto him an innumerable company of wild goats, harts, roes, and hinds, and such other beasts, and so upon a sudden leapeth down upon them when he espieth his convenient time. And Solinus saith that the sweetness of his savour worketh the same effect upon them in the open fields, for they are so mightily delighted with his spotted skin and fragrant smell that they always come running unto him from all parts, striving who shall come nearest to him to be satisfied with the sight; but when once they look upon his fierce and grim face they all are terrified and turn away” (History of Four-footed Beasts, ed. 1658, p. 451).

[434] The name of a piece of ordnance.

[435] An exclamation of impatience.

[436] Tadpole.—“Cavesot. A pole-head or bull-head; the little black vermine whereof toads and frogs do come.”—Cotgrave.

[437] Dilke reads “cheval,” and Mr. J. R. Lowell (in My Study Windows) approves of the emendation. I suspect that “Chirall” is a corruption of the name of some horse famous in one of the old romances.—Curtal (= docked horse) would be preferable to cheval.

[438] We have had in Parasitaster (p. 212) a travesty of this line of Richard III. So in the Scourge of Villainy:—
“A man! a man! a kingdom for a man!”
Again in Eastward Ho:—
“A boat! a boat! a full hundred marks for a boat!”

[439] A bacchanalian exclamation of uncertain origin.

[440] Kinsader was the pseudonym under which Marston published his Scourge of Villainy.

[441] If the text is not corrupt, “more battle fate” must mean “more prosperous fortune.” Battle and batful, applied to land, had the meaning—fertile, fruitful.

[442] Old eds. “and sting-blister.”—I suspect that Marston first wrote “stinge,” and afterwards corrected it into “blister,”—the printer keeping both words.

[443] See note 2, p. 348.

[444] A familiar form of address.

[445] Snubs.

[446] Ed. 1. “tender-reach’d.”

[447] A particular manner of smoking tobacco. In the Character of the Persons prefixed to Every Man out of his Humour it is said of Cavaliero Shift—“His chief exercises are taking the whiff, squiring a cockatrice, &c.” We learn from the Gull’s Horn-book (Dekker’s Works, ed. Grosart, ii. 242) that it was part of a gallant’s education to be skilled in taking the whiff.

[448] “With taper light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”—King John, iv. 2.

[449] Old eds. “Lucea.”

[450] A corruption of Fr. allons. Cf. Nashe’s Have with you to Saffron—“Alloune, alloune, let us march!” (Works, ed. Grosart, iii. 163.)

[451] See Dyce’s Shakesp. Glossary.

[452] A bacchanalian exclamation.

[453] Ed. 2. “helpeth.”

Enter a schoolmaster, draws the curtains behind, with Battus, Nous, Slip, Nathaniel, and Holofernes Pippo, schoolboys, sitting, with books in their hands.

Ped.[454] Salvete pueri, estote salvi, vos salvere exopto vobis salutem, Batte, mi fili, mi Batte!

Bat. A noun is the name of a thing that may be seen, felt, heard, or understood.

Bat. Adjectives. A noun substantive either is proper to the thing that it betokeneth—

Bat. In nouns be two numbers, the singular and the plural: the singular number speaketh of one, as lapis, a stone; the plural speaketh of more than one, as lapides, stones.

Ped. Ha, thou ass! thou dolt! idem per idem, mark it: lingua is declined with hæc, the feminine, because it is a household stuff, particularly belonging and most commonly resident under the roof of women’s mouths. Come on, you Nathaniel, say you, say you next; not too fast; say tretably:[456] say.

Hol. In what, sir?—in avi.
Ut no, nas, navi, vocito, vocitas, voci, voci, voci—

Ped. Why, thou ungracious child! thou simple animal! thou barnacle! Nous,—snare him; take him up: and you were my father, you should up. 68

Ped. Sans tricks, trifles, delays, demurrers, procrastinations, or retardations, mount him, mount him.

Ped. He is reprieved: and now, Apollo bless your brains; facundius, and elaborate elegance make your presence gracious in the eyes of your mistress. 91

Lam. I relish not this mirth; my spirit is untwist;
My heart is ravell’d out in discontents. 121
I am deep-thoughtful, and I shoot my soul
Through all creation of omnipotence.

Qua. What, art melancholy, Lamp? I’ll feed thy humour:
I’ll give thee reason strait to hang thyself.
Mark’t, mark’t: in Heaven’s handiwork there’s naught—
Believe it.

Lam. In Heaven’s handiwork there’s naught,
None more vile, accursed, reprobate to bliss,
Than man; and [463] ’mong men a scholar most. 130
Things only fleshly sensitive, an ox or horse,
They live and eat, and sleep, and drink, and die,
And are not touched with recollections
Of things o’er-past, or stagger’d infant doubts
Of things succeeding; but leave the manly beasts,
And give but pence apiece to have a sight
Of beastly man now——

Sim. [from within]. What so, Lampatho! Good truth, I will not pay your ordinary if you come not.

Sim. [from within]. Delicate good Lampatho, come away. I assure you I’ll give but twopence more.

Lam. How ’twas created, how the soul exists:
One talks of motes, the soul was made of motes;
Another fire, t’other light, a third
A spark of star-like nature;
Hippo water, Anaximenes air,
Aristoxenus music; Critias, I know not what.
A company of odd phrenetici!
Did eat my youth; and when I crept abroad, 190
Finding my numbness in this nimble age,
I fell a-railing; but now, soft and slow,
I know I know naught but I naught do know.
What shall I do—what plot, what course pursue?