[The Nine Worthies dance,[248] and then exeunt.
Jup. Were not these precedents for all future ages?
Scho. But none attains their glories, king of stars;
These are the fames are follow’d and pursu’d,
But never overtaken.
Jup. The fate’s below,
The god’s arms are not shorten’d, nor do we shine
With fainter influence: who conquers now
Makes it his tyrant’s prize, and not his honour’s,
Abusing all the blessings of the gods;
Learnings and arts are theories, no practiques,
To understand is all they study to;
Men strive to know too much, too little do.
Sol. Plaints are not ours alone, great Jupiter;
Enter Time.
See, Time himself comes weeping.
Time. Who has more cause?
Who more wrong’d than Time? Time passes all men
With a regardless eye at best; the worst
Expect him with a greedy appetite;
The landed lord looks for his quarter-day,
The big-bellied usurer for his teeming gold,
That brings him forth the child of interest,
He that, beyond the bounds of heaven’s large blessing,
Hath made a fruitless creature to increase,
Dull earthen minerals to propagate;
These only do expect and entertain me,
But being come, they bend their plodding heads,
And while they count their bags they let me pass,
Yet instant wish me come about again:
Would Time deserve their thanks, or Jove their praise,
He must turn time only to quarter-days.
O, but my wrongs they are innumerable!
The lawyer drives me off from term to term,
Bids me—and I do’t—bring forth my Alethe,
My poor child Truth, he sees and will not see her;
What I could manifest in one clear day,
He still delays a cloudy jubilee:
The prodigal wastes and makes me sick with surfeits;
The drunkard, strong in wine, trips up my heels,
And sets me topsy-turvy on my head,
Waking my silent passage in the night
With revels, noise, and thunder-clapping oaths,
And snorting on my bright meridian;
And when they think I pass too slowly by,
They have a new-found vapour to expel me,
They smoke me out: ask ’em but why they do’t,
And he that worst can speak yet this can say,
I take this whiff to drive the time away.
O, but the worst of all, women do hate me!
I cannot set impression on their cheeks
With all my circular hours, days, months, and years,
But ’tis wip’d off with gloss and pencilry;
Nothing so hateful as gray hairs and time,
Rather no hair at all. ’Tis sin’s autumn now
For those fair trees that were more fairer cropt,
Or they fall of themselves, or will be lopt:
Even Time itself, to number all his griefs,
Would waste himself unto his ending date.
How many would eternity wish here,
And that the sun, and time, and age, might stand,
And leave their annual distinction,—
That nature were bed-rid, all motion sleep!
Time having then such foes, has cause to weep.—
Redress it, Jupiter. [Exit.
Jup. I tell thee, glorious daughter, and you, things
Shut up in wretchedness, the world knew once
His age of happiness, blessèd times own’d him,
Till those two ugly ills, Deceit and Pride,
Made it a perish’d substance. Pride brought in
Forgetfulness of goodness, merit, virtue,
And plac’d ridiculous officers in life,
Vain-glory, fashion, humour, and such toys,
That shame to be produc’d;
The frenzy of apparel, that’s run mad,
And knows not where to settle: masculine painting,
And the five Starches, mocking the five senses,
All in their different and ridiculous colours;
Which, for their apish and fantastic follies,
I summon to make odious, and will fit ’em
With flames of their own colours.

[Music striking up a light fantastic air, the Five Starches, White, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Red, all properly habited to express their affected colours,[249] come dancing in; and after a ridiculous strain, White Starch challenging precedency, standing upon her right by antiquity, out of her just anger presents their pride to them.

White S. What, no respect amongst you? must I wake you
In your forgetful duties? jet[250] before me!
Take place of me?—You, rude, presumptuous gossip,
Pray, who am I! not I the primitive Starch?
You, blue-ey’d frokin,[251] looks like fire and brimstone;—
You, caudle-colour, much of the complexion
Of high Shrove-Tuesday batter,[252] yellow-hammer;—
And you, my tanzy-face, that shews like pride
Serv’d up in sorrel-sops, green-sickness baggage;—
And last, thou Red Starch, that wear’st all thy blushes
Under thy cheeks, looks like a strangled moon-calf,
With all thy blood settled about thy neck,
The ensign of thy shame, if thou hadst any,—
Know I’m Starch Protestant, thou Starch Puritan
With the blue nostril, whose tongue lies i’ thy nose.
Blue S. Wicked interpretation!
Yel. S. I ha’ known
A white-fac’d hypocrite, lady sanctity—
A yellow ne’er came near her—and sh’as been
A citizen’s wife too, starch’d like innocence,
But the devil’s pranks not uglier; in her mind
Wears yellow, hugs it, if her husband’s trade
Could bear it, there’s the spite; but since she cannot
Wear her own linen yellow, yet she shews
Her love to’t, and makes him wear yellow hose.[253]
I am as stiff i’ my opinion
As any Starch amongst you.
Green S. I as you.
Red S. And I as any.
Blue S. I scorn to come behind.
Yel. S. Then conclude thus:
When all men’s several censures, all the arguments
The world can bring upon us, are applied,
The sin’s not i’ the colour, but the pride.
The other Starches. Oracle Yellow!
[The Starches dance, and exeunt.
Jup. These are the youngest daughters of Deceit,
With which the precious time of life’s beguil’d,
Fool’d, and abus’d; I’ll shew you straight their father,
His shapes, his labours, that has vex’d the world
From age to age,
And tost it from his first and simple state
To the foul centre where it now abides:
Look back but into times, here shall be shewn
How many strange removes the world has known.

[Loud music sounding, Jupiter leaves his state;[254] and to shew the strange removes of the world, places the orb whose figure it bears in the midst of the stage; to which Simplicity, by order of time having first access, enters.

Pal. Who’s this, great Jupiter?
Jup. Simplicity,
He that had first possession; one that stumbled
Upon the world and never minded it.
Sim. Hah, hah! I’ll go see how the world looks
since I stept aside from’t; there’s such heaving and
shoving about it, such toiling and moiling;—now I
stumbled upon’t when I least thought on’t. [Takes
up the orb.] Uds me! ’tis altered of one side since
I left it: hah, there’s a milkmaid got with child
since, methinks; what, and a shepherd forsworn
himself? here’s a foul corner: by this light, Subtlety
has laid an egg too, and will go nigh to hatch a
lawyer; this was well foreseen, I’ll mar the fashion
on’t; so, the egg’s broke, and ’t has a yolk as black
as buckram. What’s here a’ this side? O, a dainty
world! here’s one a-sealing with his tooth, and,
poor man, he has but one in all; I was afraid he
would have left it upon the paper, he was so
honestly earnest. Here are the reapers singing,
I’ll lay mine ear to ’em.
Enter Deceit, like a ranger.
Deceit. Yonder’s Simplicity, whom I hate deadly,
Has held the world too long; he’s but a fool,
A toy will cozen him: if I once fasten on’t,
I’ll make it such a nursery for hell,
Planting black souls in’t, it shall ne’er be fit
For Honesty to set her simples in. [Aside.
Sim. Whoop, here’s the cozening’st rascal in a kingdom!
The master-villain; has the thunder’s property,
For if he come but near the harvest-folks,
His breath’s so strong that he sours all their bottles.
If he should but blow upon the world now, the
stain would never get out again; I warrant, if he
were ript, one might find a swarm of usurers in his
liver, a cluster of scriveners in his kidneys, and his
very puddings stuft with bailiffs. [Aside.
Dec. I must speak fair to the fool. [Aside.
Sim. He makes more near me. [Aside.
Dec. ’Las, who has put that load, that carriage,
On poor Simplicity? had they no mercy?
Pretty, kind, loving worm; come, let me help it.
Sim. Keep off, and leave your cogging.[255]—Foh,
how abominably he smells of controversies, schisms,
and factions! methinks I smell forty religions together
in him, and ne’er a good one; his eyes look
like false lights, cozening trap-windows. [Aside.
Dec. The world, sweetheart, is full of cares and troubles,
No match for thee; thou art a tender thing,
A harmless, quiet thing, a gentle fool,
Fit for the fellowship of ewes and rams;
Go, take thine ease and pipe; give me the burden,
The clog, the torment, the heart-break, the world:
Here’s for thee, lamb, a dainty oaten pipe.
[Offers a pipe.
Sim. Pox a’ your pipe! if I should dance after
your pipe, I should soon dance to the devil.
Dec. I think some serpent, sure, has lick’d him over,
And given him only craft enough to keep,
And go no farther with him; all the rest
Is innocence about him, truth and bluntness.
I must seek other course; for I have learn’d
Of my infernal sire not to be lazy,
Faint, or discourag’d, at the tenth repulse:
Methinks that world Simplicity now hugs fast,
Does look as if’t should be Deceit’s at last.
[Aside, and exit.
Sim. So, so, I’m glad he’s vanished: methought
I had much ado to keep myself from a smatch of
knavery, as long as he stood by me; for certainly
villany is infectious, and in the greater person the
greater poison; as, for example, he that takes but
the tick of a citizen may take the scab of a courtier.
Hark, the reapers begin to sing! they’re come
nearer, methinks, too.
The Second Song.
Happy times we live to see,
Whose master is Simplicity;
This is the age where blessings flow,
In joy we reap, in peace we sow;
We do good deeds without delay,
We promise and we keep our day;
We love for virtue, not for wealth,
We drink no healths, but all for health;
We sing, we dance, we pipe, we play,
Our work’s continual holyday;
We live in poor contented sort,
Yet neither beg nor come at court.

Sim. These reapers have the merriest lives! they have music to all they do; they’ll sow with a tabor, and get children with a pipe.

Enter a King with Deceit.
Dec. Sir, he’s a fool, the world belongs to you;
You’re mighty in your worth and your command,
You know to govern, form, make laws, and take
Their sweet and precious penalty; it befits
A mightiness like yours: the world was made
For such a lord as you, so absolute
A majesty in all princely nobleness,
As yourself is: but to lie useless now,
Rusty or lazy, in a fool’s pre-eminence,
It is not for a glorious worth to suffer.
King. Thou’st said enough.
Dec. Now my hope ripens fairly. [Aside.
Sim. Here’s a brave glistering thing looks me i’ the face,
I know not what to say to’t. [Aside.
King. What’s thy name?
Sim. You may read it in my looks, Simplicity.
King. What mak’st thou with so great a charge about thee?
Resign it up to me, and be my fool.
Sim. Troth, that’s the way to be your fool indeed;
But shall I have the privilege to fool freely?
King. As ever folly had.
[Simplicity gives the orb to King.
Sim. I’m glad I’m rid on’t.
Dec. Pray, let me ease your majesty.
King. Thou? hence,
Base sycophant, insinuating hell-hound!
Lay not a finger on it, as thou lov’st
The state of thy whole body: all thy filthy
And rotten flatteries stink i’ my remembrance,
And nothing is so loathsome as thy presence.
Sim. Sure this will prove a good prince! [Aside.
Dec. Still repuls’d?
I must find ground to thrive on. [Aside, and exit.
Sim. Pray, remember now
You had the world from me clean as a pick,
Only a little smutted a’ one side
With a bastard got against it, or such a toy;
No great corruption nor oppression in’t,
No knavery, tricks, nor cozenage.
King. Thou say’st true, fool; the world has a clear water.
Sim. Make as few laws as you can then to trouble it,
The fewer the better; for always the more laws you make,
The more knaves thrive by’t, mark it when you will.
King. Thou’st counsel i’ thee too!
Sim. A little, ’gainst knavery; I’m such an enemy to’t,
That it comes naturally from me to confound it.
King. Look, what are those?
Sim. Tents, tents; that part o’ the world
Shews like a fair; but, pray, take notice on’t,
There’s not a bawdy booth amongst ’em all;
You have ’em white and honest as I had ’em,
Look that your laundresses pollute ’em not.
King. How pleasantly the countries lie about,
Of which we are sole lord! What’s that i’ the middle?
Simp. Looks like a point, you mean, a very prick?
King. Ay, that, that.

Sim. ’Tis the beginning of Amsterdam: they say the first brick there was laid with fresh cheese and cream, because mortar made of lime and hair was wicked and committed fornication.

King. Peace; who are these approaching?
Sim. Blustering fellows:
The first’s a soldier, he looks just like March.
Enter a Land-Captain, with Deceit as a soldier.
Dec. Captain, ’tis you that have the bloody sweats,
You venture life and limbs; ’tis you that taste
The stings of thirst and hunger.
L.-Cap. There thou hast nam’d
Afflictions sharper than the enemy’s swords.
Dec. Yet lets another carry away the world,
Of which by right you are the only master;
Stand curtsying for your pay at your return—
Perhaps with wooden legs—to every groom,
That dares not look full right upon a sword,
Nor upon any wound or slit of honour.
L.-Cap. No more; I’ll be myself: I that uphold
Countries and kingdoms, must I halt downright,
And be propt up with part of mine own strength,
The least part too? why, have not I the power
To make myself stand absolute of myself,
That keep up others?
King. How cheers our noble captain?
L.-Cap. Our own captain,
No more a hireling: your great foe’s at hand,
Seek your defence elsewhere, for mine shall fail you;
I’ll not be fellow-yok’d with death and danger
All my life-time, and have the world kept from me;
March in the heat of summer in a bath,
A furnace girt about me, and in that agony,
With so much fire within me, forc’d to wade
Through a cool river, practising in life
The very pains of hell, now scorch’d, now shivering,
To call diseases early into my bones,
Before I’ve age enough to entertain ’em:
No, he that has desire to keep the world,
Let him e’en take the sour pains to defend it.
King. Stay, man of merit, it belongs to thee,
[Gives the orb to Land-Captain.
I cheerfully resign it; all my ambition
Is but the quiet calm of peaceful days,
And that fair good I know thy arm will raise.
L.-Cap. Though now an absolute master, yet to thee
Ever a faithful servant. [Exit King.
Dec. Give’t me, sir, to lay up; I am your treasurer
In a poor kind.
L.-Cap. In a false kind, I grant thee:
How many vild[256] complaints, from time to time,
Have[257] been put up against thee? they have wearied me
More than a battle sixteen hours a-fighting;
I’ve heard the ragged regiment so curse thee,
I look’d next day for leprosy upon thee,
Or puffs of pestilence as big as wens,
When thou wouldst drop asunder like a thing
Inwardly eaten, thy skin only whole:
Avaunt, defrauder of poor soldiers’ rights,
Camp-caterpillar, hence! or I will send thee
To make their rage a breakfast.
Dec. Is it possible?
Can I yet set no footing in the world?
I’m angry, but not weary: I’ll hunt out still;
For, being Deceit, I bear the devil’s name,
And he’s known seldom to give o’er his game.
[Aside, and exit.

Sim. Troth, now the world begins to be in hucksters’ handling: by this light, the booths are full of cutlers! and yonder’s two or three queans going to victual the camp: hah! would I were whipt, if yonder be not a parson’s daughter with a soldier between her legs, bag and baggage!

Sol. Now ’tis the soldier’s time; great Jupiter,
Now give me leave to enter on my fortunes,
The world’s our own.
Jup. Stay, beguil’d thing: this time
Is many ages discrepant from thine;
This was the season when desert was stoopt to,
By greatness stoopt to, and acknowledg’d greatest;
But in thy time now desert stoops itself
To every baseness, and makes saints of shadows:
Be patient, and observe how times are wrought,
Till it comes down to thine, that rewards nought.
[Chambers[258] shot off within.

L.-Cap.
Sim., &c. bracket Hah! what’s the news?

Enter a Sea-Captain, with Deceit as a purser.

S.-Cap. Be ready, if I call, to give fire to the ordnance.

Sim. Bless us all! here’s one spits fire as he comes; he will go nigh to mull the world with looking on it: how his eyes sparkle!

Dec. Shall the Land-Captain, sir, usurp your right?
Yours, that try thousand dangers to his one,
Rocks, shelves, gulfs, quicksands, hundred, hundred horrors,
That make[259] the landmen tremble when they’re told,
Besides the enemy’s encounter?
S.-Cap. Peace,
Purser, no more; I’m vex’d, I’m kindled.—You,
Land-Captain, quick deliver.
L.-Cap. Proud salt-rover,
Thou hast the salutation of a thief.
S.-Cap. Deliver, or I’ll thunder thee a-pieces,
Make night within this hour, e’en at high noon,
Belch’d from the cannon: dar’st expostulate
With me? my fury? what’s thy merit, land-worm,
That mine not centuples?
Thy lazy marches and safe-footed battles
Are but like dangerous dreams to my encounters;
Why, every minute the deep gapes for me,
Beside the fiery throats of the loud fight;
When we go to’t and our fell ordnance play,
’Tis like the figure of a latter day:
Let me but give the word, night begins now,
Thy breath and prize both beaten from thy body:
How dar’st thou be so slow? not yet? then——
L.-Cap. Hold! [Gives the orb to Sea-Captain.
Dec. I knew ’twould come at last. [Aside.
S.-Cap. For this resign,
Part thou shalt have still, but the greatest mine;
Only to us belongs the golden sway;
Th’ Indies load us, thou liv’st but by thy pay.
Dec. And shall your purser help you?
S.-Cap. No, in sooth, sir:
Coward and cozener, how many sea-battles
Hast thou compounded to be cabled up?
Yet, when the fights were ended, who so ready
To cast sick soldiers and dismember’d wretches
Over-board instantly, crying, Away
With things without arms! ’tis an ugly sight;
When, troth, thine own should have been off by right;
But thou lay’st safe within a wall of hemp,
Telling the guns, and numbering ’em with farting.
Leave me, and speedily; I’ll have thee ramm’d
Into a culverin else, and thy rear[260] flesh
Shot all into poach’d eggs.
Dec. I will not leave yet:
Destruction plays in me such pleasant strains,
That I would purchase it with any pains.
[Aside, and exit.
S.-Cap. The motion’s worthy: I will join with thee,
Both to defend and enrich majesty.
Sim. Hoyday! I can see nothing now for ships;
Hark a’ the mariners!
The Third Song.
Hey, the world’s ours, we have got the time by chance;
Let us then carouse and sing, for the very house doth skip and dance
That we do now live in:
We have the merriest lives,
We have the fruitfull’st wives
Of all men;
We never yet came home,
But the first hour we come
We find them all with child agen.[261]

[A shout within: enter two Mariners with pipe and can, dancing severally by turns for joy the world is come into their hands; then exeunt.

Sim. What a crew of mad rascals are these! they’re ready at every can to fall into the haddocks’ mouths: the world begins to love lap now.

Enter a Flamen, with Deceit like a ——.[262]
Flam. Peace and the brightness of a holy love
Reflect their beauties on you!
S.-Cap. Who is this?
L.-Cap. A reverend shape!
S.-Cap. Some scholar.
L.-Cap. A divine one!
S.-Cap. He may be what he will for me, fellow-captain,
For I’ve seen no church these five-and-twenty years,—
I mean, as people ought to see it, inwardly.
Flam. I have a virtuous sorrow for you, sir,
And ’tis my special duty to weep for you;
For to enjoy one world as you do there,
And be forgetful of another, sir—
O, of a better millions of degrees!—
It is a frailty and infirmity
That many tears must go for,—all too little.
What is’t to be the lord of many battles,
And suffer to be overrun within you?
Abroad to conquer, and be slaves at home?
Remember there’s a battle to be fought,
Which will undo you if it be not thought;
And you must leave that world, leave it betimes,
That reformation may weep off the crimes:
There’s no indulgent hand the world should hold,
But a strict grasp, for making sin so bold;
We should be careless of it, and not fond;
Of things so held there is the best command.
S.-Cap. Grave sir, I give thy words their deserv’d honour,
And to thy sacred charge freely resign
All that my fortune and the age made mine.
[Gives the orb to Flamen.
Sim. If the world be not good now, ’twill ne’er be good,
There’s no hope on’t.
Dec. I have my wishes here. [Aside.]—My sanctified patron,
I’ll first fill all the chests i’ the vestry; then
There is a secret vault for great men’s legacies.
Flam. Art not confounded yet, struck blind or crippled,
For thy abusive thought, thou horrid hypocrite?
Are these the fruits of thy long orisons,
Three hours together; of thy nine lectures weekly,
Thy swooning at the hearing of an oath,
Scarce to be fetch’d again? Away, depart,
Thou white-fac’d devil, author of heresy,
Schisms, factions, controversies! now I know thee
To be Deceit itself, wrought in by simony,
To blow corruption upon sacred virtue.
Dec. I made myself sure here: church fail me too!
I thought it mere impossible, by all reason,
Since there’s so large a bridge to walk upon
’Twixt negligence and superstition:
Where could one better piece up a full vice?
One service lazy, t’other over-nice;
There had been ’twixt [’em] room enough for me;
I will take root, or run through each degree.
[Aside, and exit.

Sim. Whoop, here’s an alteration! by this hand, the ships are all turned to steeples, and the bells ring for joy, as if they would shake down the pinnacles. How? the masons are at work yonder, the freemasons; I swear it’s a free time for them: hah! there’s one building of a chapel of ease; O, he’s loath to take the pains to go to church: why, will he have it in’s house, when the proverb says, The devil’s at home? These great rich men must take their ease i’ their inn:[263] they’ll walk you a long mile or two to get a stomach for their victuals, but not a piece of a furlong to get an appetite to their prayers. [Flourish.

Re-enter King with a Lawyer, and Deceit as a pettifogger.
Law. No more, the case is clear.
Sim. ’Slid, who have we here?
Law. He that pleads for the world must fall to his business
Roundly.—Most gracious and illustrious prince,
Thus stands the case,—the world in Greek is cosmos,
In Latin mundus, in law-French la monde;
We leave the Greek, and come to the law-French,
Or glide upon the Latin; all’s one business:
Then unde mundus? shall we come to that?
Nonne derivatur a munditia?
The word cleanness, mundus quasi mundus, clean;
And what can cleanse or mundify the world
Better than law, the clearer of all cases,
The sovereign pill, or potion, that expels
All poisonous, rotten, and infectious wrongs
From the vex’d bosom of the commonwealth?
There’s a familiar phrase implies thus much—
I’ll put you to your purgation,—that is,
The law shall cleanse you. Can the sick world then,
Tost up and down from time to time, repose itself
In a physician’s hand better improv’d?
Upon my life and reputation,
In all the courts I come at, be assur’d
I’ll make it clean.
Sim. Yes, clean away, I warrant you;
We shall ne’er see’t again.
Law. I grant my pills are bitter, ay, and costly,
But their effects are rare, divine, and wholesome;
There’s an Excommunicato capiendo,
Capias post K, and an Ne exeat regno:
I grant there’s bitter egrimony[264] in ’em,
And antimony—I put money in all still,
And it works preciously: who ejects injuries,
Makes ’em belch forth in vomit, but the law?
Who clears the widow’s case, and after gets her,
If she be wealthy, but the advocate?
Then, to conclude,
If you’ll have mundus a mundo clean, firm,
Give him to me, I’ll scour him every term.
Flam. I part with’t gladly, take’t into thy trust,