Ran. Cease! the duke approacheth: ’tis almost night,
For the duke’s up: now begins his day.
Come, grace his entrance. Lights! lights! Now ’gins our play.

Duke. Still these same bawling pipes: sound softer strains!
Slumber our sense: tut! these are vulgar strains.
Cannot your trembling wires throw a chain
Of powerful rapture ’bout our mazèd sense?
Why is our chair thus cushion’d tapestry,    200
Why is our bed tirèd with wanton sports,
Why are we clothed in glistering attires,
If common bloods can hear, can feel,
Can sit as soft, lie as lascivious,
Strut[555] all as rich as the greatest potentate:—
Soul! and you cannot feast my thristing[556] ears
With aught but what the lip of common birth can taste,
Take all away; your labour’s idly waste.
What sport for night?

Lam. A comedy, entitled Temperance.    210

Duke. What sot elects that subject for the court?
What should dame Temperance do here? Away!
The itch on Temperance, your moral play!

Qua. Duke, prince, royal blood!—thou that hast the best means to be damn’d of any lord in Venice;—thou great man! let me kiss thy flesh. I am fat,[557] and therefore faithful; I will do that which few of thy subjects do,—love thee: but I will never do that which all thy subjects do,—flatter thee thy humour’s real, good. A comedy!    220

No, and thy sense would banquet in delights
Appropriate to the blood of emperors,
Peculiar to the state of majesty,
That none can relish but dilated greatness,
Vouchsafe to view the structure of a scene
That stands on tragic solid passion.
O that’s fit traffic to commerce with births,
Strain’d from the mud of base unable brains!
Give them a scene may force their struggling blood
Rise up on tiptoe in attention,    230
And fill their intellect with pure elixed wit;
O that’s for greatness apt, for princes fit!

Duke. Darest thou then undertake to suit our ears
With such rich vestment?

Qua. Dare! Yes, my prince, I dare;—nay, more, I will.
And I’ll present a subject worth thy soul;—
The honour’d end of Cato Utican.

Duke. Who’ll personate him?

Qua. Marry, that will I, on sudden, without change.

Duke. Thou want’st a beard.    240

Qua. Tush! a beard ne’er made Cato, though many men’s Cato hang only on their chin.
Suppose this floor the city Utica,
The time the night that prolonged Cato’s death;
Now being placed ’mong his philosophers,
These first discourse the soul’s eternity.

Jaco. Cato grants that, I am sure, for he was valiant and honest, which an epicure ne’er was, and a coward never will be.

Qua. Then Cato holds a distinct notion    250
Of individual actions after death.
This being argued, his resolve maintains
A true magnanimous spirit should give up dirt
To dirt, and with his own flesh dead his flesh,
’Fore chance should force it crouch unto his foe;
To kill one’s self, some ay, some hold it no.
O these are points would entice away one’s soul
To break indenture of base prenticage,

Enter Francisco.

And run away from ’s body in swift thoughts,
 To melt in contemplation’s luscious sweets!    260
Now, O my voluptuous duke, I’ll feed thy sense
Worth his creation: give me audience.

Fran. My liege, my royal liege, hear, hear my suit.

Qua. Now may thy breath ne’er smell sweet as long as thy lungs can pant, for breaking my speech, thou Muscovite! thou stinking perfumer!    266

Enter Albano.

Duke. Is not this Albano, our sometimes courtier?

Fran. No, troth, but Francisco, your always perfumer.

Alb. Lorenzo Celso, our brave Venice Duke, Albano Belletzo, thy merchant, thy soldier, thy courtier, thy slave, thy anything, thy What thou Wilt, kisseth thy noble blood. Do me right, or else I am canonized a cuckold! canonized a cuckold! I am abused!—I am abused!—my wife’s abused!—my clothes abused!—my shape,—my house,—my all,—abused! I am sworn out of myself,—beated out of myself,—baffled,—jeer’d at,—laugh’d at,—barred my own house,—debarr’d my own wife!—whilst others swill my wines,—gormandize my meat, meat,—kiss my wife!—O gods! O gods! O gods! O gods! O gods!    280

Lav. Who is’t? Who is’t?

Cel. Come, sweet, this is your waggery, i’faith; as if you knew him not.

Lav. Yes, I fear I do too well: would I could slide away invisible.

Duke. Assured this is he.

Jaco. My worthy liege, the jest comes only thus.
 Now to stop and cross it with mere like deceit:
All being known, the French knight hath disguised
A fiddler, like Albano too, to fright the perfumer:—this is all.    291

Duke. Art sure ’tis true?

Mel. ’Tis confess’d ’tis right.

Alb. Ay, ’tis right, ’tis true; right; I am a fiddler, a fiddler, a fiddler,—uds fut! a fiddler. I’ll not believe thee; thou art a woman: and ’tis known, veritas non quærit angulos, truth seeks not to lurk under varthingalls; veritas non quærit angulos; a fiddler?

Lav. Worthy sir, pardon; and permit me first to confess [to] yourself,—your deputation[558] dead, hath made my love live, to offend you.    301

Alb. Ay, mock on,—scoff on,—flout on,—do, do, do.

Lav. Troth, sir, in serious.

Alb. Ay, good, good; come hither, Celia.
Burst, breast! rive, heart, asunder! Celia,
Why startest thou back? Seest thou this, Celia?
O me!
How often, with lascivious touch, thy lip
Hath kissed this mark? How oft this much-wrong’d breast
Hath borne the gentle weight of thy soft cheek?    310

Cel. O me, my dearest lord,—my sweet, sweet love!

Alb. What, a fiddler,—a fiddler? now thy love?
I am sure thou scorn’st it; nay, Celia, I could tell
What, on the night before I went to sea,
And took my leave, with hymeneal rites,
What thou lisped
Into my ear, a fiddler and perfumer now!

And.[559] And——

Ran. Dear brother.

Jaco. Most respected signior;
Believe it, by the sacred end of love,    320
What much, much wrong hath forced your patience,
Proceeded from most dear affièd love,
Devoted to your house.

And.[559] Believe it, brother.

Jaco. Nay, yourself, when you shall hear the occurrences, will say ’tis happy, comical.

Ran. Assure thee, brother.

Alb. Shall I be brave? Shall I be myself now? Love, give me thy love; brothers, give me your breasts; French knight, reach me thy hand; perfumer, thy fist. Duke, I invite thee; love, I forgive thee; Frenchman, I hug thee. I’ll know all,—I’ll pardon all,—and I’ll laugh at all!

[Albano and his brothers talk apart.

Qua. And I’ll curse you all!—O ye ha’ interrupt a scene!    334

Duke. Quadratus, we will hear these points discuss’d,
With apter and more calm affected hours.

Qua. Well, good, good.

Alb. Was’t even so? I’faith, why then, capricious mirth,
Skip light moriscoes in our frolic blood,[560]
Flagg’d veins, sweat,[561] plump with fresh-infusèd joys!
Laughter, pucker our cheeks, make shoulders shog
With chucking lightness! Love, once more thy lips!
For ever clasp our hands, our hearts, our crests!    343
Thus front, thus eyes, thus cheek, thus all shall meet!
Shall clip, shall hug, shall kiss, my dear, dear sweet!
Duke, wilt thou see me revel? Come, love, dance
Court, gallants, court; suck amorous dalliance!

Lam. Beauty, your heart!

Mel. First, sir, accept my hands:
She leaps too rash that falls in sudden bands.

Lam. Shall I despair? Never will I love more!    350

Mel. No sea so boundless vast but hath a shore.

Qua. Why, marry me;
Thou canst have but soft flesh, good blood, sound bones;
And that which fills up all your bracks,—good stones.

Lyz. Stones, trees, and beasts, in love still firmer prove
Than man; I’ll none; no hold-fasts in your loves.

Lav. Since not the mistress,—come on, faith, the maid!

Alb. Ten thousand duckets, too, to boot, are laid.

Lav. Why, then, wind cornets, lead on, jolly lad.

Alb. Excuse me, gallants, though my legs lead wrong,
’Tis my first footing; wind out nimble tongue.    361

Duke. ’Tis well, ’tis well:—how shall we spend this night?

Qua. Gulp Rhenish wine, my liege; let our paunch rent;
Suck merry jellies; preview, but not prevent,
No mortal can, the miseries of life.

Alb. I home invite you all. Come, sweet, sweet wife.
My liege, vouchsafe thy presence.
Drink, till the ground look blue, boy!

Qua. Live still in springing hopes, still in fresh new joys!—
May your loves happy hit in fair-cheek’d wives,    370
Your flesh still plump with sapp’d restoratives.
That’s all my honest frolic heart can wish.
A fico for the mew and envious pish!
Till night, I wish good food and pleasing day;
But then sound rest. So ends our slight-writ play.

[Exeunt.

Deo op: max: gratias.

END OF VOL. II.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

[539] From the Battle of Alcazar, 1594 (attributed to Peele):—“Feed then and faint not, fair Calipolis.” Pistol in 2 Henry IV. quotes the line as it is given by Marston.

[540] See note 4, p. 355.

[541] i.e., cover or embroider thickly. Cf. Guilpin’s Skialetheia, epigr. 53:—
“He wears a jerkin cudgell’d with gold lace,
A profound slop, a hat scarce pipkin-high.”

[542] Half-a-crown was a somewhat extravagant price for an ordinary. Two shillings or eighteenpence was the usual price for a good ordinary.

[543] Hatch’d sword was a sword with an engraved hilt.

[544] See note, vol. i. p. 36.

[545] Cheator was a cant term for a rogue who made his living by cheating at dice.—“Cheating Law—or the art of winning money by false dice: those that practise this study call themselves cheators, the dice cheaters, and the money which they purchase cheats.”—Dekker’s Bellman of London (Works, ed. Grosart, iii. 117).

[546] Throws at dice.

[547] “He was wrapt up in the tail of his mother’s smock,—saying of any one remarkable for his success with the ladies.”—Grose’s Class. Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

[548] i.e., copiousness.—Ben Jonson was fond of using the word copy in this sense.

[549] Simplicius seems to be trying to recall some passage of Euphues.

[550] Old eds. “boyes.”

[551] Plunder.

[552] “This may be an allusion,” says Dilke, “to a superstition still existing in a degree among sailors, that to whistle during a storm will increase its violence.” No such allusion is intended. The “whistle” is the boatswain’s whistle.

[553] Old eds. “crownes.”

[554] Old eds. “Adrian.”

[555] Ed. 1. “stut.”

[556] Ed. 2. “thirsting.”—Spenser has thrist and thristy (for thirst and thirsty).

[557] Cf. Jul. Ceas., i. 2:—“Let me have men about me that are fat,” &c.

[558] i.e., the report that you were dead.

[559] Old eds. “Adri.”

[560] Cf. Second Part of Antonio and Mellida, v. 2:—

“Force the plump-lipp’d god
Skip light lavoltas in your full-sapp’d veins.”

[561] Old eds. “sweete” and “sweet.”

INDEX.