LIN. Perfidious liar, how can I endure thee! Call'st my unspotted chastity in question? O, could I use the breath mine anger spends, I'd make thee know—

AUD. Heav'ns look on my distress, Defend me from this railing viperess! For if I stay, her words' sharp vinegar Will fret me through. Lingua, I must be gone: I hear one call me more than earnestly. [Exit AUDITUS.

LIN. May the loud cannoning of thunderbolts, Screeking of wolves, howling of tortur'd ghosts, Pursue thee still, and fill thy amaz'd ears With cold astonishment and horrid fears! O, how these senses muffle Common Sense! And more and more with pleasing objects strive To dull his judgment and pervert his will To their behests: who, were he not so wrapp'd I'the dusky clouds of their dark policies, Would never suffer right to suffer wrong. Fie, Lingua, wilt thou now degenerate? Art not a woman? dost not love revenge? Delightful speeches, sweet persuasions, I have this long time us'd to get my right. My right—that is, to make the senses six; And have both name and power with the rest. Oft have I season'd savoury periods With sugar'd words, to delude Gustus' taste, And oft embellish'd my entreative phrase With smelling flow'rs of vernant rhetoric, Limning and flashing it with various dyes, To draw proud Visus to me by the eyes; And oft perfum'd my petitory[174] style With civet-speech, t'entrap Olfactus' nose; And clad myself in silken eloquence, To allure the nicer touch of Tactus' hand. But all's become lost labour, and my cause Is still procrastinated: therefore now, Hence, ye base offspring of a broken mind, Supple entreaties and smooth flatteries: Go kiss the love-sick lips of puling gulls,[175] That 'still their brain to quench their love's disdain: Go gild the tongues of bawds and parasites; Come not within my thoughts. But thou, deceit, Break up the pleasure of my brimful breast, Enrich my mind with subtle policies. Well then, I'll go; whither? nay, what know I? And do, in faith I will, the devil knows what. What, if I set them all at variance, And so obtain to speak? it must be so. It must be so, but how? there lies the point: How? thus: tut, this device will never prove, Augment it so: 'twill be too soon descried; Or so, nor so; 'tis too-too dangerous. Pish, none of these! what, if I take this course? ha! Why, there it goes; good, good; most excellent! He that will catch eels must disturb the flood; The chicken's hatch'd, i' faith; for they are proud, And soon will take a cause of disagreement.



SCAENA SECUNDA.

MENDACIO, attired in a taffeta suit of a light colour changeable, like an ordinary page.[176]

LINGUA, MENDACIO.

LIN. I see the heavens nurse my new-born device; For lo, my page Mendacio comes already, To file and burnish that I hammer'd out. Never in better time, Mendacio, What! hast thou done?

MEN. Done? yes, long ago.

LIN. Is't possible thou shouldst despatch so soon?

MEN. Madam, I had no sooner told Tactus that Gustus would fain speak with him, But I spied Visus, Gustus, and the rest, And serv'd them all with sauce of several lies. Now the last sense I spake with was Olfactus Who, having smelt the meaning of my message, Straight blew his nose, and quickly puff'd me hither; But in the whirlwind of his furious blast, Had not by chance a cobweb held me fast, Mendacio had been with you long ere this.

LIN. Witness this lie, Mendacio's with me now; But, sirrah, out of jesting will they come?

MEN. Yes, and it like your ladyship, presently; Here may you have me prest[177] to flatter them.

LIN. I'll flatter no such proud companions, 'Twill do no good, therefore I am determin'd To leave such baseness.

MEN. Then shall I turn and bid them stay at home?

LIN. No; for their coming hither to this grove Shall be a means to further my device. Therefore I pray thee, Mendacio, go presently; Run, you vile ape.

MEN. Whither?

LIN. What, dost thou stand?

MEN. Till I know what to do.

LIN. 'Sprecious, 'tis true, So might'st thou finely overrun thine errand. Haste to my chest.

MEN. Ay, ay.

LIN. There shalt thou find A gorgeous robe and golden coronet; Convey them hither nimbly, let none see them.

MEN. Madam, I fly, I fly. [Exit MENDACIO.

LIN. But hear you, sirrah? Lock up your fellow-servant Veritas.

MEN. I warrant you, You need not fear so long as I am with you. [He goes out, and comes in presently. What colour is the robe?

LIN. There is but one.

[MENDACIO, going, turns in haste.

MEN. The key, madam, the key.

LIN. By Juno, how forgetful Is sudden speed! Here, take it, run.

MEN. I'll be here instantly.

[Exit MENDACIO.



SCAENA TERTIA.

LINGUA sola.

LIN. Whilome this crown and gorgeous ornament Were the great prize for which five orators With the sharp weapons of their tongues contended: But all their speeches were so equal wrought And alike gracious,[178] that, if his were witty, His was as wise; the third's fair eloquence Did parallel the fourth's firm gravity; The last's good gesture kept the balance even With all the rest; so that the sharpest eye And most judicious censor could not judge, To whom the hanging victory should fall. Therefore with one consent they all agreed To offer up both crown and robe to me, As the chief patroness of their profession, Which heretofore I holily have kept, Like to a miser's gold, to look on only. But now I'll put them to a better use, And venture both, in hope to—



SCAENA QUARTA.

MENDACIO, LINGUA.

MEN. Have I not hied me, madam? look you here, What shall be done with these temptations?

LIN. They say a golden Ball Bred enmity betwixt three goddesses; So shall this crown be author of debate Betwixt five senses.

MEN. Where shall it be laid!

LIN. There, there, there; 'tis well; so, so, so.

MEN. A crown's a pleasing bait to look upon; The craftiest fox will hardly 'scape this trap.

LIN. Come, let us away, and leave it to the chance.

MEN. Nay, rather let me stand close hereabouts, And see the event.

LIN. Do so, and if they doubt, How it came there, feign them some pretty fable, How that some god—

MEN. Tut, tut, tut, let me alone: I that have feign'd so many hundred gods, Can easily forge some fable for the turn: Whist, madam; away, away: you fright the fowl; Tactus comes hard by, look you.

LIN. Is't he for certain?

MEN. Yes, yes, yes, 'tis he.

LIN. 'Tis he indeed.

[Exit LINGUA.



SCAENA QUINTA.

TACTUS, in a dark-coloured satin mantle over a pair of silk bases, a garland of bays, mixed with white and red roses, upon a black grogram, a falchion, wrought sleeves, buskins, &c.

MENDACIO, TACTUS.

MEN. Now, chaste Diana, grant my nets to hold.

TAC. The blushing[179] childhood of the cheerful morn Is almost grown a youth, and overclimbs[180] Yonder gilt eastern hills; about which time Gustus most earnestly importun'd me To meet him hereabouts, what cause I know not.

MEN. You shall do shortly, to your cost, I hope. [Aside.]

TAC. Sure by the sun it should be nine o'clock.

MEN. What, a star-gazer! will you ne'er look down? [Aside.]

TAC. Clear is the sun and blue the firmament; Methinks the heavens do smile— [TACTUS sneezeth.

MEN. At thy mishap! To look so high, and stumble in a trap. [Aside. TACTUS stumbleth at the robe and crown.

TAC. High thoughts have slipp'ry feet, I had well-nigh fallen.

MEN. Well doth he fall that riseth with a fall. [Aside.]

TAC. What's this?

MEN. O, are you taken? 'tis in vain to strive. [Aside.]

TAC. How now?

MEN. You'll be so entangled straight— [Aside.]

TAC. A crown!

MEN. That it will be hard— [Aside.]

TAC. And a robe.

MEN. To loose yourself. [Aside.]

TAC. A crown and a robe.

MEN. It had been fitter for you to have found a fool's coat and a bauble[181], eh, eh? [Aside.]

TAC. Jupiter, Jupiter, how came this here?

MEN. O sir, Jupiter is making thunder, he hears you not: here's one knows better. [Aside.]

TAC. 'Tis wondrous rich, ha! but sure it is not so, ho! Do I not sleep and dream of this good luck, ha? No, I am awake and feel it now; Whose should it be? [He takes it up.

MEN. Set up a si quis for it. [Aside.]

TAC. Mercury! all's mine own; here's none to cry half's mine.

MEN. When I am gone.

[Exit MENDACIO.



SCAENA SEXTA.

TACTUS solus.

TAC. Tactus, thy sneezing somewhat did portend. Was ever man so fortunate as I? To break his shins at such a stumbling-block! Roses and bays, pack hence[182]: this crown and robe My brows and body circles and invests; How gallantly it fits me! sure the slave Measur'd my head that wrought this coronet. They lie that say complexions cannot change: My blood's ennobled, and I am transform'd Unto the sacred temper of a king. Methinks I hear my noble parasites Styling me Caesar or great Alexander; Licking my feet, and wondering where I got This precious ointment. How my pace is mended! How princely do I speak! how sharp I threaten! Peasants, I'll curb your headstrong impudence, And make you tremble when the lion roars, Ye earth-bred worms. O, for a looking-glass! Poets will write whole volumes of this scorce[183]; Where's my attendants? Come hither, sirrah, quickly; Or by the wings of Hermes—



SCAENA SEPTIMA.

OLFACTUS, in a garland of bays intermingled with white and red roses upon a false hair, his sleeves wrought with flowers under a damask mantle, over a pair of silk bases; a pair of buskins drawn with ribbon, a flower in his hand.

TACTUS, OLFACTUS.

TAC. Ay me! Olfactus comes; I call'd too soon, He'll have half part, I fear; what shall I do! Where shall I run? how shall I shift him off? [TACTUS wraps up the robe and crown, and sits upon them.

OLF. This is the time, and this the place appointed, Where Visus promis'd to confer with me. I think he's there—no, no, 'tis Tactus sure. How now? what makes you sit so nicely?

TAC. 'Tis past imagination, 'tis so indeed.

OLF. How fast his hands[184] are fixed, and how melancholy he looks! Tactus! Tactus!

TAC. For this is true, man's life is wondrous brittle.

OLF. He's mad, I think, he talks so idly. So ho, Tactus!

TAC. And many have been metamorphosed To stranger matters and more uncouth forms.

OLF. I must go nearer him; he doth not hear.

TAC. And yet methinks, I speak as I was wont; And—

OLF. Tactus, Tactus!

TAC. Olfactus, as thou lov'st me, come not near me.

OLF. Why, art thou hatching eggs? th'art afeard[185] to break them?

TAC. Touch me not, lest thou chance to break my life.

OLF. What's this under thee?

TAC. If thou meddle with me, I am utterly undone.

OLF. Why, man, what ails thee?

TAC. Let me alone, and I'll tell thee; Lately I came from fine Phantastes' house.

OLF. So I believe, for thou art very foolish.

TAC. No sooner had I parted out of doors[186], But up I held my hands before my face, To shield mine eyes from th'light's piercing beams; When I protest I saw the sun as clear Through these my palms, as through a perspective. No marvel; for when I beheld my fingers, I saw my fingers were transform'd to glass; Opening my breast, my breast was like a window, Through which I plainly did perceive my heart: In whose two concaves[187] I discern'd my thoughts Confus'dly lodged in great multitudes.

OLF. Ha, ha, ha, ha! why, this is excellent, Momus himself can find no fault with thee, Thou'dst make a passing live anatomy; And decide the question much disputed Betwixt the Galenists and Aristotle.

TAC. But when I had arriv'd, and set me down Viewing myself—myself, ay me! was changed, As thou now seest, to a perfect urinal.

OLF. T'a perfect urinal? O monstrous, monstrous! Art not mad to think so?

TAC. I do not think so, but I say I am so, Therefore, Olfactus, come not near, I advise you.

OLF. See the strange working of dull melancholy! Whose drossy thoughts, drying the feeble brain, Corrupts the sense, deludes the intellect, And in the soul's fair table falsely graves Whole squadrons of fantastical chimeras And thousand vain imaginations, Making some think their heads as big as horses, Some that th'are dead[188], some that th'are turn'd to wolves[189], As now it makes him think himself all glass. Tactus, dissuade thyself; thou dost but think so.

TAC. Olfactus, if thou lov'st me, get thee gone; I am an urinal, I dare not stir For fear of cracking in the bottom.

OLF. Wilt thou sit thus all day?

TAC. Unless thou help me.

OLF. Bedlam must help thee. What wouldst have me do?

TAC. Go to the city, make a case for me; Stuff it with wool, then come again and fetch me.

OLF. Ha, ha, ha! Thou'lt be laughed out of case and countenance.

TAC. I care not. So it must be, or I cannot stir.

OLF. I had best leave troubling him; he's obstinate. Urinal, I leave you, but above all things take heed Jupiter sees you not; for, if he do, he'll ne'er make water in a sieve again; thou'lt serve his turn so fit, to carry his water unto Esculapius. Farewell, Urinal, farewell. [Exit OLFACTUS.

TAC. Speak not so loud; the sound's enough to crack me. What, is he gone? I an urinal! ha, ha, ha! I protest I might have had my face washed finely if he had meant to abuse me. I an urinal! ha, ha, ha! Go to, Urinal; you have 'scaped a fair scouring. Well, I'll away, and get me to mine own house; there I'll lock up myself fast, playing the chemic, Augmenting this one crown to troops of angels, With which gold-winged messengers I mean To work great wonders, as to build and purchase; Fare daintily; tie up men's tongues and loose them; Command their lives, their goods, their liberties, And captive all the world with chains of gold. Hey, hey, tery, linkum tinkum. [He offers to go out, but comes in suddenly amazed. O Hercules! Fortune, the queen, delights to play with me, Stopping my passage with the sight of Visus: But as he makes hither, I'll make hence, There's more ways to the wood than one[190]. What, more devils to affright me? O Diabolo! Gustus comes here to vex me. So that I, poor wretch, am like A shuttlecock betwixt two battledoors. If I run there, Visus beats me to Scylla; If here, then Gustus blows me to Charybdis. Neptune hath sworn my hope shall suffer shipwreck. What shall I say? mine Urinal's too thin To bide the fury of such storms as these.



SCAENA OCTAVA.

VISUS in a garland of bays, mixed with white and red roses, a light-coloured taffeta mantle striped with silver, and fringed upon green silk bases, buskins, &c. GUSTUS in the same fashion, differing only in colour. TACTUS in a corner of the stage.

VISUS, GUSTUS, TACTUS.

VIS. Gustus, good day.

GUS. I cannot have a bad, Meeting so fair an omen as yourself.

TAC. Shall I? will't prove? ha! well, 'tis best to venture. [TACTUS puts on the robes.

GUS. Saw you not Tactus? I should speak with him.

TAC. Perchance so; a sudden lie hath best luck.

VIS. That face is his, or else mine eye's deceiv'd. Why, how now, Tactus! what, so gorgeous?

GUS. Where didst thou get these fair habiliments?

TAC. Stand back, I charge you, as you love your lives; By Styx, the first that toucheth me shall die.

VIS. I can discern no weapons. Will he kill us?

TAC. Kill you? not I, but come not near me, You had best.

VIS. Why, art thou mad?

TAC. Friends, as you love your lives, Venture not once to come within my reach.

GUS. Why dost threaten so?

TAG. I do not threaten, But in pure love advise you for the best: Dare not to touch me, but hence fly apace; Add wings unto your feet, and save your lives.

VIS. Why, what's the matter, Tactus? prythee, tell me?

TAC. If you will needs jeopard your lives so long, As hear the ground of my amazedness, Then for your better safety stand aside.

GUS. How full of ceremonies! sure he'll conjure; For such like robes magicians use to wear.

VIS. I'll see the end, though he should unlock hell, And set th'infernal hags at liberty.

TAC. How rash is man on hidden harms[191] to rush! It was my chance—O chance most miserable!— To walk that way that to Crumena leads.

GUS. You mean Cremona, a little town hard-by.

TAC. I say Crumena, called Vacua, A town which doth, and always hath belong'd, Chiefly to scholars. From Crumena walls I saw a man come stealing craftily, Apparell'd in this vesture which I wear; But, seeing me, eftsoons[192] he took his heels, And threw his garment from him all in haste, Which I perceiving to be richly wrought, Took it me up; but, good, now get you gone, Warn'd by my harms, and 'scape my misery.

VIS. I know no danger: leave these circumstances.

TAC. No sooner had I put it on my back, But suddenly mine eyes began to dim, My joints wex[193] sore, and all my body burnd With most intestine torture, and at length It was too evident, I had caught the plague.

VIS. The plague! away, good Gustus, let's be gone; I doubt 'tis true, now I remember me, Crumena Vacua never wants the plague.

GUS. Tactus, I'll put myself in jeopardy To pleasure thee.

TAC. No, gentle Gustus, Your absence is the only thing I wish, Lest I infect you with my company.

GUS. Farewell. [Exit GUSTUS.

VIS. I willingly would stay to do thee good.

TAC. A thousand thanks; but since I needs must die, Let it suffice, death only murders me. O, 'twould augment the dolour of my death, To know myself the most unhappy bow, Through which pale death should aim his shafts at you.

VIS. Tactus, farewell; yet die with this good hope, Thy corpse shall be interred as it ought. [Exit VISUS.

TAC. Go, make my tomb, provide my funerals; ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Excellent asses thus to be deluded, Bewail his death and cruel destinies, That lives, and laughs your fooleries to scorn. But where's my crown! O, here: I well deserve Thus to be crown'd for two great victories! Ha, ha, ha! Visus, take care my corpse be well interr'd: Go make my tomb, and write upon the stone,

Here lies the Sense that living[194] gull'd them all With a false plague and feigned urinal.



SCAENA NONA.

AUDITUS, TACTUS.

AUD. Tactus, Tactus!

TAC. O Jupiter, 'tis Auditus, all's marred, I doubt: the sly knave hears so far; but yet I'll grope him. How now, Ears[195], what make you here, ha?

AUD. Nay, what make you here, I pray? What were you talking even now of an ass, and a crown, and an urinal, and a plague?

TAC. A plague on you! what, I?

AUD. O, what you!

TAC. O, I had well-nigh forgot; nothing; but I say—

AUD. What?

TAC. That if a man (do you mark, sir?), being sick of the plague (do you see, sir?), had a, a, a—hem, hem (this cold troubles me; it makes me cough sometimes extremely)—had a French crown, sir, (you understand me?) lying by him, and (come hither, come hither), and would not bestow twopence (do you hear?) to buy an urinal (do you mark me?) to carry his water to the physician, hem!

AUD. What of all this?

TAC. I say such a one was a very ass. This was all. I use to speak to myself, when I am alone; but, Auditus, when shall we hear a new set of singing-books? Or the viols? Or the concert of instruments?

AUD. This was not all, for I heard mention of a tomb and an epitaph.

TAC. True, true, I made myself merry with this epitaph upon such a fool's tomb thus a—thus, thus: plague brought this man—foh, I have forgotten—O, thus, plague brought this man (so, so, so), unto his burial, because, because, because (hem, hem)—because he would not buy an urinal. Come, come, Auditus, shall we hear thee play the lyreway or the luteway, shall we? Or the cornet, or any music? I am greatly revived, when I hear.

AUD. Tactus, Tactus, this will not serve; I heard all. You have not found a crown, you? no, you have not!



SCAENA ULTIMA.

TACTUS, AUDITUS, VISUS, GUSTUS, MENDACIO.

TAC. Peace, peace, faith, peace; come hither, hark thee, Good [Auditus], now.

AUD. I cannot hold, I must needs tell.

TAC. O, do not, do not, do not; come hither. Will you be a fool?

VIS. Had he not wings upon his feet and shoulders?

MEN. Yes, yes, and a fine wand in his hand, Curiously wrapped with a pair of snakes.

TAC. Will half content you? pish, 'twill ne'er be known.

GUS. My life, 'twas Mercury.

MEN. I do not know his name; But this I'm sure, his hat had wings upon't.

VIS. Doubtless 'twas he; but say, my boy, what did he?

MEN. First I beheld him hovering in the air, And then down stooping with an hundred gyres:[196] His feet he fixed on Mount Cephalon;[197] From whence he flew and lighted on that plain, And with disdainful steps soon glided thither: Whither arrived, he suddenly unfolds A gorgeous robe and glittering ornament, And lays them all upon that hillock: This done, he wafts his wand, took wing again, And in a moment vanish'd out of sight. With that mine eyes 'gan stare, and heart grew cold, And all my quiv'ring joints with sweat bedew'd: My heels (methought) had wings as well as his, And so away I ran; but by the way I met a man, as I thought, coming thither.

GUS. What marks had he?

MEN. He had a great—what! this is he, this is he.

VIS. What, Tactus?

GUS. This was the plague vex'd him so: Tactus, your grave gapes for you; are you ready?

VIS. Since you must needs die, do as others do, Leave all your goods behind you; bequeath The crown and robe to your executors.

TAC. No such matter; I, like the Egyptian kings,[198] For the more state will be buried in them.

VIS. Come, come, deliver. [VISUS snatcheth the crown, and sees letters graven in it.

TAC. What, will you take my purse from me?

VIS. No, but a crown, that's just more than your own. Ha, what's this? 'tis a very small hand, What inscription is this?

He of the five that proves himself the best, Shall have his temples with this coronet blest.

This crown is mine, and mine this garment is; For I have always been accounted best—

TAC. Next after me—high[199] as yourself at any time: Besides, I found it first, therefore 'tis mine.

GUS. Neither of yours, but mine as much as both.

AUD. And mine the most of any of you all.

VIS. Give me it, or else—

TAC. I'll make you late repent it—

GUS. Presumptuous as you are—

AUD. Spite of your teeth—

MEN. Never till now. Ha, ha! it works apace. [Aside. Visus, I know 'tis yours; and yet methinks, Auditus, you should have some challenge to it; But that your title, Tactus, is so good, Gustus, I would swear the coronet were yours: What, will you all go brawl about a trifle? View but the pleasant coast of Microcosm, Is't not great pity to be rent with wars? Is't not a shame to stain with brinish tears The smiling cheeks of ever-cheerful peace? Is't not far better to live quietly, Than broil in fury of dissension? Give me the crown, ye shall not disagree, If I can please you. I'll play Paris' part, And, most impartial, judge the controversy.

VIS. Sauce-box! go meddle with your lady's fan, And prate not here.

MEN. I speak not for myself, But for my country's sole[200] commodity.

VIS. Sirrah, be still.

MEN. Nay, and you be so hot, the devil part you! I'll to Olfactus, and send him amongst you. O, that I were Alecto for your sakes! How liberally would I bestow my snakes! [Exit MENDACIO.

VIS. Tactus, upon thine honour, I challenge thee to meet me here, Strong as thou canst provide, in th'afternoon.

TAC. I undertake the challenge, and here's my hand, In sign thou shalt be answered.

GUS. Tactus, I'll join with thee, on this condition That, if we win, he that fought best of us Shall have the crown, the other wear the robe.

TAC. Give me your hand: I like the motion.

VIS. Auditus, shall we make our forces double Upon the same terms?

AUD. Very willingly.

VIS. Come, let's away: fear not the victory; Right's more advantage than an host of soldiers.

[Exeunt omnes.



ACTUS SECUNDUS, SCAENA PRIMA.

APPETITUS, a long, lean, raw-boned fellow, in a soldier's coat, a sword, &c.

MENDACIO, APPETITUS.

MEN. I long to see those hotspur Senses at it: they say they have gallant preparations, and not unlikely, for most of the soldiers are ready in arms, since the last field fought against their yearly enemy Meleager[201] and his wife Acrasia; that conquest hath so fleshed them, that no peace can hold them. But had not Meleager been sick, and Acrasia drunk, the Senses might have whistled for the victory.

APP. Foh, what a stink of gunpowder is yonder!

MEN. Who's this? O, O, 'tis Appetitus, Gustus's hungry parasite. [Aside.]

APP. I cannot endure the smoking of guns, the thundering of drums: I had rather hear the merry hacking of pot-herbs, and see the reeking of a hot capon. If they would use no other bucklers in war but shields of brawn, brandish no swords but sweards of bacon,[202] trail no spears but spare-ribs of pork, and instead of arquebuss pieces discharge artichoke-pies: toss no pikes but boiled pickrels, then Appetitus would rouse up his crest, and bear up himself with the proudest.

MEN. Ah! here's a youth stark naught at a trench, but an old dog at a trencher, a tall squire at a square table. [Aside.]

APP. But now my good masters must pardon me; I am not one for their service, for their service is without service, and indeed their service is too hot for my diet. But what, if I be not myself, but only this be my spirit that wanders up and down, and Appetitus be killed in the camp? the devil he is as soon. How's that possible? tut, tut, I know I am. I am Appetitus, and alive, too—by this infallible token, that I feel myself hungry.

MEN. Thou mightest have taken a better token of thyself, by knowing thou art a fool. [Aside.]

APP. Well, then, though I made my fellow-soldiers admire the beauty of my back, and wonder at the nimbleness of my heels, yet now will I, at safety at home, tell in what dangers they are in abroad. I'll speak nothing but guns and glaves,[203] and staves and phalanges,[204] and squadrons and barricadoes, ambuscadoes, palmedoes, blank-point, demi-point,[205] counterpoint, counterscarp, sallies and lies, saladoes, tarantantaras, ranta, tara, tara, hey.

MEN. I must take the fife out of his mouth, or he'll ne'er ha' done. [Aside.]

APP. But, above all, I'll be sure on my knees to thank the great—

[MENDACIO blinds him.

MEN. Who am I, who am I, who I?

APP. By the blood-stained falchion of Mavors,[206] I am on your side.

MEN. Why, who am I?

APP. Are you a soldier?

MEN. No.

APP. Then you are Master Helluo the bearward.

MEN. No, no; he's dead.

APP. Or Gulono the gutty serjeant, or Delphino the vintner, or else I know you not; for these are all my acquaintance.

MEN. Would I were hanged, if I be any of these!

APP. What, Mendacio! By the faith of a knight, thou art welcome; I must borrow thy whetstone, to sharpen the edges of my martial compliments.

MEN. By the faith of a knight! What a pox, where are thy spurs?[207]

APP. I need no spurs; I ride, like Pegasus, on a winged horse—on a swift jennet, my boy, called Fear.

MEN. What shouldst thou fear in the wars? He's not a good soldier that hath not a good stomach.

APP. O, but the stink of powder spoils Appetitus's stomach, and then thou knowest, when 'tis gone, Appetitus is dead; therefore I very manfully drew my sword, and flourished it bravely about mine ears, hist![208] and finding myself hurt, most manfully ran away.

MEN. All heart indeed, for thou rann'st like a hart out of the field. It seems, then, the Senses mean to fight it out.

APP. Ay, and outfight themselves, I think; and all about a trifle, a paltry bauble found, I know not where.

MEN. Thou art deceived: they fight for more than that; a thing called superiority, of which the crown is but an emblem.

APP. Mendacio, hang this superiority; crown me no crown, but Bacchus's crown of roses; give me no sceptre but a fat capon's leg, to show that I am the great king of Hungary! Therefore, I prythee, talk no more of state-matters: but in brief, tell me, my little rascal, how thou hast spent thy time this many a day.

MEN. Faith, in some credit, since thou sawest me last.

APP. How so? where?

MEN. Everywhere. In the court your gentlewomen hang me at their apron-strings, and that makes them answer so readily. In the city I am honoured like a god; none so well acquainted with your tradesmen. Your lawyers, all the termtime, hire me of my lady; your gallants, if they hear my name abused, they stab for my sake; your travellers so doat upon me as passes.[209] O, they have good reason; for I have carried them to many a good meal under the countenance of my familiarity. Nay, your statesmen have oftentimes closely conveyed me under their tongues, to make their policies more current. As for old men, they challenge my company by authority.

APP. I am exceeding glad of your great promotion.

MEN. Now, when I am disposed, I can philosophy it in the university with the subtlest of them all.

APP. I cannot be persuaded that thou art acquainted with scholars, ever since thou wert pressed to death in a printing-house.

MEN. No? why, I was the first founder of the three sects of philosophy, except one of the Peripatetics, who acknowledge Aristotle, I confess, their great grandfather.

APP. Thou boy! how is this possible? Thou art but a child, and there were sects of philosophy, before thou wert born.

MEN. Appetitus, thou mistakest me. I tell thee, three thousand years ago was Mendacio born in Greece,[210] nursed in Crete, and ever since honoured everywhere. I'll be sworn I held old Homer's pen, when he writ his Iliads and his Odysseys.

APP. Thou hadst need, for I hear say he was blind.

MEN. I helped Herodotus to pen some part of his "Muses";[211] lent Pliny ink to write his history; rounded Rabelais in the ear,[212] when he historified Pantagruel: as for Lucian, I was his genius. O, those two books "De Vera Historia," howsoever they go under his name, I'll be sworn I writ them every tittle.

APP. Sure as I am hungry, thou'st have it for lying. But hast thou rusted this latter time for want of exercise?

MEN. Nothing less. I must confess I would fain have jogged Stow and great Hollingshed on their elbows, when they were about their chronicles; and, as I remember, Sir John Mandeville's "Travels" and a great part of the "Decads"[213] were of my doing. But for the "Mirror of Knighthood," "Bevis of Southampton," "Palmerin of England," "Amadis of Gaul," "Huon de Bordeaux," "Sir Guy of Warwick," "Martin Marprelate," "Robin Hood," "Garragantua," "Gerileon," and a thousand such exquisite monuments as these, no doubt but they breathe in my breath up and down.

APP. Downwards, I'll swear, for there's stinking lies in them.

MEN. But what, should I light a candle to the bright sunshine of my glorious renown? The whole world is full of Mendacio's fame.

APP. And so it will be so long as the world is full of fame.

MEN. But, sirrah, how hast thou done this long time?

APP. In as much request as thyself. To begin with the court, as thou didst: I lie with the ladies all night, and that's the reason they call for cullies and gruellies so early before their prayers. Your gallants never sup, breakfast, or bever[214] without me.

MEN. That's false, for I have seen them eat with a full stomach.

APP. True, but because they know a little thing drives me from them, therefore in midst of meat they present me with some sharp sauce or a dish of delicate anchovies, or a caviare,[215] to entice me back again. Nay, more: your old sires, that hardly go without a prop, will walk a mile or two every day to renew their acquaintance with me. As for the academy, it is beholding to me for adding the eighth province unto the noble Heptarchy of the liberal sciences.[216]

MEN. What's that, I prythee?

APP. The most desired and honourable art of cookery. Now, sirrah, in the city I am———'st, 'st! O, the body of a louse!

MEN. What, art a louse in the city?

APP. Not a word more; for yonder comes Phantastes and somebody else.

MEN. What a pox can Phantastes do?

APP. Work a miracle, if he would prove wise.

MEN. 'Tis he indeed, the vilest nup.[217] Yet the fool loves me exceedingly; but I care not for his company, for if he once catch me, I shall never be rid of him.

[Exeunt APPETITUS and MENDACIO.



SCAENA SECUNDA.

PHANTASTES, a swart-complexioned fellow, but quick-eyed, in a white satin doublet of one fashion, green velvet hose of another, a fantastical hat with a plume of feathers of several colours, a little short taffeta cloak, a pair of buskins cut, drawn out with sundry-coloured ribbands, with scarfs hung about him after all fashions and of all colours, rings, jewels, a fan, and in every place other odd complements.[218] HEURESIS, a nimble-sprited page in the newest fashion, with a garland of bays, &c.

PHANTASTES, HEURESIS.

PHA. Sirrah boy! Heuresis! boy! how now, biting your nails?

HEU. Three things have troubled my brain this many a day, and just now, when I was laying hold on the invention of them, your sudden call made them, like Tantalus's apples, fly from my fingers.

PHA. Some great matters, questionless; what were they?

HEU. The quadrature of a circle, the philosopher's stone, and the next way to the Indies.

PHA. Thou dost well to meditate on these three things at once, for they'll be found out altogether—ad Graecas Calendas; but let them pass, and carry the conceit I told you this morning to the party you wot of. In my imagination 'tis capricious; 'twill take, I warrant thee.

HEU. I will, sir. But what say you to the gentleman that was with you yesterday?

PHA. O, I think thou meanest him that made nineteen sonnets of his mistress's busk-point.[219]

HEU. The same, the same, sir. You promised to help him out with the twentieth.

PHA. By Jupiter's cloven pate, 'tis true. But we witty fellows are so forgetful; but stay, Heu, Heu,[220] carry him this.

The Gordian knot, which Alexander great Did whilom, cut with his all-conquering sword, Was nothing like thy busk-point, pretty peat,[221] Nor could so fair an augury afford.

Then to conclude, let him pervert Catullas's Zonam solvit diu ligatum thus, thus—

Which if I chance to cut, or else untie, Thy little world I'll conquer presently.

'Tis pretty, pretty, tell him 'twas extemporal.

HEU. Well, sir, but now for Master Inamorato's love-letter.

PHA. Some nettling stuff, i'faith; let him write thus: Most heart-commanding-faced gentlewoman, even as the stone in India, called Basaliscus, hurts all that looks on it, and as the serpent in Arabia, called Smaragdus, delighteth the sight, so does thy celestial orb-assimilating eyes both please, and in pleasing wound my love-darted heart.

HEU. But what trick shall I invent for the conclusion?

PHA. Pish, anything, love will minister ink for the rest. He that [hath] once begun well, hath half done; let him begin again, and there's all.

HEU. Master Gullio spoke for a new fashion; what for him?

PHA. A fashion for his suit! Let him button it down the sleeve with four elbows, and so make it the pure hieroglyphic of a fool.

HEU. Nay, then let me request one thing of you.

PHA. What's that, boy? By this fair hand, thou shalt have it.

HEU. Mistress Superbia, a gentlewoman of my acquaintance, wished me to devise her a new set for her ruff and an odd tire. I pray, sir, help me out with it.

PHA. Ah, boy, in my conceit 'tis a hard matter to perform. These women have well-nigh tired me with devising tires for them, and set me at a nonplus for new sets. Their heads are so light, and their eyes so coy, that I know not how to please them.

HEU. I pray, sir, she hath a bad face, and fain would have suitors. Fantastical and odd apparel would perchance draw somebody to look on her.

PHA. If her face be nought, in my opinion, the more view it the worse. Bid her wear the multitude of her deformities under a mask, till my leisure will serve to devise some durable and unstained blush of painting.

HEU. Very good, sir.

PHA. Away, then, hie thee again; meet me at the court within this hour at the farthest. [Exit HEURESIS.] O heavens! how have I been troubled these latter times with women, fools, babes, tailors, poets, swaggerers, gulls, ballad-makers! They have almost disrobed me of all the toys and trifles I can devise. Were it not that I pity the multitude of printers, these sonnet-mongers should starve for conceits for all Phantastes. But these puling lovers—I cannot but laugh at them, and their encomiums of their mistresses. They make, forsooth, her hair of gold, her eyes of diamond, her cheeks of roses, her lips of rubies, her teeth of pearl, and her whole body of ivory; and when they have thus idoled her like Pygmalion, they fall down and worship her.[222] Psyche, thou hast laid a hard task upon my shoulders to invent at every one's ask. Were it not that I refresh my dulness once a day with thy most angelical presence, 'twere impossible for me to undergo it.



SCAENA TERTIA.

COMMUNIS SENSUS, a grave man, in a black velvet cassock like a councillor, speaks coming out of the door.

COMMUNIS SENSUS, PHANTASTES.

COM. SEN. I cannot stay, I tell you. 'Tis more than time I were at court. I know my sovereign Psyche hath expected me this hour.

PHA. In good time; yonder comes Common Sense. I imagine it should be he by his voice.

COM. SEN. Crave my counsel! Tell me what manner of man he is? Can he entertain a man in his house? Can he hold his velvet cap in one hand, and vail[223] his bonnet with the other? Knows he how to become a scarlet gown? Hath he a pair of fresh posts at his door?[224]

PHA. He's about some hasty state matters. He talks of posts, methinks.

COM. SEN. Can he part a couple of dogs brawling in the street? Why, then, choose him mayor. Upon my credit, he'll prove a wise officer.

PHA. Save you, my lord; I have attended your leisure this hour.

COM. SEN. Fie upon't! What a toil have I had to choose them a mayor yonder? There's a fusty currier will have this man; there's a chandler wipes his nose on his sleeve, and swears it shall not be so; there's a mustard-maker looks as keen as vinegar will have another. O, this many-headed multitude, 'tis a hard matter to please them!

PHA. Especially where the multitude is so well-headed. But I pray you, where's Master Memory? Hath he forgotten himself, that he is not here?

COM. SEN. 'Tis high time he were at court. I would he would come.



SCAENA QUARTA.

MEMORY, an old decrepit man, in a black velvet cassock,[225] a taffeta gown furred with white grogram, a white beard, velvet slippers, a watch, staff, &c. ANAMNESTES, his page, in a grave satin suit, purple buskins, a garland of bays and rosemary, a gimmal ring[226] with one link hanging, ribbons and threads tied to some of his fingers; in his hand a pair of table-books, &c.

MEMORY, ANAMNESTES, PHANTASTES, COMMUNIS SENSUS.

MEM. How soon a wise man shall have his wish!

COM. SEN. Memory, the season of your coming is very ripe.

PHA. Had you stayed a little longer, 'twould have been stark rotten.

MEM. I am glad I saved it from the swine. 'Sprecious, I have forgot something. O, my purse, my purse! Why, Anamnestes, Remembrance? that wild boy is always gadding. I remember he was at my heels even now, and now the vile rascal is vanished.

PHA. Is he not here? Why, then in my imagination he's left behind. Hollo! Anamnestes, Remembrance!

ANA. [Running in haste.] Anon, anon, sir; anon, anon, sir; anon, anon, sir; anon, anon, sir.

MEM. Ha, sirrah, what a brawling's here?

ANA. I do but give you an answer with, anon, sir.

MEM. You answer sweetly; I have called you three or four times one after another.

ANA. Sir, I hope I answered you three or four times, one in the neck of another. But if your good worship have lent me any more calls, tell me, and I'll repay them, as I'm a gentleman.

MEM. Leave your tattle. Had you come at first, I had not spent so much breath in vain.

ANA. The truth is, sir, the first time you called I heard you not: the second, I understood you not: the third, I knew not whether it were you or no: the fourth, I could not tell where you were, and that's the reason I answered so suddenly.

MEM. Go, sirrah: run: seek everywhere. I have lost my purse somewhere.

ANA. I go, sir. Go, sirrah, seek, run; I have lost; bring! here's a dog's life, with a pox! Shall I be always used like a water-spaniel? [Exit ANAMNESTES.

COM. SEN. Come, good Master Register, I wonder you be so late now-a-days.

MEM. My good lord, I remember that I knew your grandfather in this your place, and I remember your grandfather's great grandfather's grandfather's father's father; yet in those days I never remember that any of them could say that Register Memory ever broke one minute of his appointment.

COM. SEN. Why, good father, why are you so late now-a-days?

MEM. Thus 'tis; the most customers I remember myself to have, are, as your lordship knows, scholars; and now-a-days the most of them are become critics, bringing me home such paltry things to lay up for them, that I can hardly find them again.

PHA. Jupiter, Jupiter, I had thought these flies had bit none but myself: do critics tickle you, i'faith?

MEM. Very familiarly: for they must know of me, forsooth, how every idle word is written in all the musty moth-eaten manuscripts, kept in all the old libraries in every city betwixt England and Peru.

COM. SEN. Indeed, I have noted these times to affect antiquities more than is requisite.

MEM. I remember, in the age of Assaracus and Ninus, and about the wars of Thebes and the siege of Troy, there were few things committed to my charge, but those that were well worthy the preserving; but now every trifle must be wrapped up in the volume of eternity. A rich pudding-wife or a cobbler cannot die but I must immortalise his name with an epitaph; a dog cannot piss in a nobleman's shoe, but it must be sprinkled into the chronicles; so that I never could remember my treasure more full, and never emptier of honourable and true heroical actions.

PHA. By your leave, Memory, you are not alone troubled; chronologers many of them are so fantastic, as when they bring a captain to the combat, lifting up his revengeful arm to dispart the head of his enemy, they'll hold up his arms so long, till they have bestowed three or four pages in describing the gold hilts of his threatening falchion: so that in my fancy the reader may well wonder his adversary stabs him not, before he strikes. Moreover, they are become most palpable flatterers, always begging at my gates for invention.

COM. SEN. This is a great fault in a chronologer to turn parasite: an absolute historian should be in fear of none;[227] neither should he write anything more than truth for friendship, or less for hate; but keep himself equal and constant in all his discourses. But, for us, we must be contented; for, as our honours increase, so must the burthen of the cares of our offices urge us to wax heavy.

PHA. But not till our backs break; 'slud, there was never any so haunted as I am: this day there comes a sophister to my house, knocks at my door; his errand being asked, forsooth his answer was to borrow a fair suit of conceits out of my wardrobe, to apparel a show he had in hand: and what think you is the plot?

COM. SEN. Nay, I know not, for I am little acquainted with such toys.

PHA. Meanwhile, he's somewhat acquainted with you, for he's bold to bring your person upon the stage.

COM. SEN. What, me? I can't remember that I was ever brought upon the stage before.

PHA. Yes, you, and you, and myself with all my fantastical tricks and humours: but I trow I have fitted him with fooleries: I trust he'll never trouble me again.

COM. SEN. O times! O manners! when boys dare to traduce men in authority; was ever such an attempt heard?

MEM. I remember there was: for, to say the truth, at my last being at Athens—it is now, let me see, about one thousand eight hundred years ago—I was at a comedy of Aristophanes' making.[228] I shall never forget it; the arch-governor of Athens took me by the hand, and placed me; and there, I say, I saw Socrates abused most grossly, himself being then a present spectator: I remember he sat full against me, and did not so much as show the least countenance of discontent.

COM. SEN. In those days it was lawful; but now the abuse of such liberty is insufferable.

PHA. Think what you will of it, I think 'tis done, and I think it is acting by this time: hark, hark; what drumming's yonder! I'll lay my life they are come to present the show I spake of.

COM. SEN. It may be so; stay, we'll see what 'tis.



SCAENA QUINTA.

LINGUA, MENDACIO, COMMUNIS SENSUS, and the rest.

LIN. Feign thyself in great haste.

MEN. I warrant you, madam: I doubt 'tis in vain to run, by this they are all past overtaking.

COM. SEN. Is not this Lingua, that is in such haste?

PHA. Yes, yes, stand still.

MEN. I must speak with him.

COM. SEN. With whom?

MEN. Assure yourself they are all at court ere this.

LIN. Run after them, for, unless he know it—

COM. SEN. Lingua!

LIN. O, is't your lordship? I beseech you, pardon me. Haste and fear, I protest, put out mine eyes: I looked so long for you, that I knew not, when I had found you.

PHA. In my conceit that's like the man that inquired who saw his ass, when himself rid on him.

LIN. O, my heart beats so! fie, fie, fie, fie!

MEN. I am so weary; so, so, so, so.

COM. SEN. I prythee, Lingua, make an end.

LIN. Let me begin first, I beseech you; but if you will needs have the end first—thus 'tis: the commonwealth of Microcosm at this instant suffers the pangs of death, 'tis gasping for breath. Will you have all? 'tis poisoned.

PHA. What apothecary durst be so bold as make such a confection? ha, what poison is't?

LIN. A golden crown.

MEN. I mistake; or else Galen, in his book "De Sanitate Tuenda," commends gold as restorative.

COM. SEN. Lingua, express yourself.

MEN. Madam, if you want breath, let me help you out.

LIN. I prythee do, do.

MEN. My lord, the report is that Mercury, coming late into this country, in this very place left a coronet with this inscription, that the best of the five should have it, which the Senses thinking to belong unto them—

LIN. Challenge each other, and are now in arms, and't like your lordship.

COM. SEN. I protest it likes not me.

LIN. Their battles are not far hence; ready ranged.

COM. SEN. O monstrous presumption! what shall we do?

MEM. My lord, in your great grandfather's time there was, I remember, such a breach amongst them; therefore my counsel is that, after his example, by the strength of your authority you convene them before you.

COM. SEN. Lingua, go presently; command the Senses, upon their allegiance to our dread sovereign Queen Psyche, to dismiss their companies, and personally to appear before me without any pretence of excuse.

LIN. I go, my lord.

PHA. But hear you, madam? I pray you, let your Tongue's page[229] walk with us a little, till you return again.

LIN. With all my heart. [Exit LINGUA.

PHA.[230] Hot youths, I protest: saw you those warlike preparations?

MEN, Lately, my lords, I sped into the army; But O, 'tis far beyond my reach of wit Or strength of utterance to describe their forces.

COM. SEN. Go to; speak what thou canst.

MEN. Upon the right hand of a spacious hill Proud Visus marshalleth a puissant army, Three thousand eagles strong, whose valiant captain Is Jove's swift thunder-bearer, that same bird, That hoist up Ganymede from the Trojan plains. The vanguard strengthened with a wondrous flight Of falcons, haggards, hobbies, terselets,[231] Lanards and goshawks, sparhawks, and ravenous birds. The rearward granted to Auditus' charge, Is stoutly follow'd with an impetuous herd Of stiff-neck'd bulls and many horn-mad stags, Of the best head the forest can afford.

PHA. I promise you, a fearful troop of soldiers.

MEN. Right opposite stands Tactus, strongly mann'd With three thousand bristled urchens[232] for his pikemen, Four hundred tortoises for elephants; Besides a monstrous troop of ugly spiders, Within an ambushment he hath commanded Of their own guts to spin a cordage fine, Whereof t'have fram'd a net (O wondrous work!) That, fastened by the concave of the moon, Spreads down itself to th'earth's circumference.

MEM. 'Tis very strange; I cannot remember the like engine at any time.

MEN. Nay more, my lord, the masks[233] are made so strong, That I myself upon them scal'd the heavens, And boldly walk'd about the middle region, Where, in the province of the meteors, I saw the cloudy shops of hail and rain, Garners of snow, and crystals full of dew; Rivers of burning arrows, dens of dragons, Huge beams of flames, and spears like firebrands. Where I beheld hot Mars and Mercury, With rackets made of spheres and balls of stars, Playing at tennis for a tun of Nectar. And that vast gaping of the firmament Under the southern pole is nothing else But the great hazard[234] of their tennis-court; The Zodiac is the line; the shooting stars, Which in an eye-bright evening seem to fall, Are nothing but the balls they lose at bandy. Thus, having took my pleasure with those sights, By the same net I went up I descended.

COM. SEN. Well, sirrah, to what purpose tends this stratagem?

MEN. None know directly; but I think it is T'entrap the eagles, when the battles join.

PHA. Who takes Tactus his part?

MEN. Under the standard of thrice-hardy Tactus, Thrice-valiant Gustus leads his warlike forces; An endless multitude of desperate apes; Five hundred marmosets and long-tail'd monkeys, All trained to the field, and nimble gunners.

PHA. I imagine there's old moving[235] amongst them: methinks a handful of nuts would turn them all out of their soldiers' coats.

MEN. Ramparts of pasty-crust and forts of pies, Entrench'd with dishes full of custard stuff, Hath Gustus made, and planted ordinance— Strange ordinance, cannons of hollow canes, Whose powder's rape-seed, charg'd with turnip-shot.

MEM. I remember, in the country of Utopia[236] they use no other kind of artillery.

COM. SEN. But what's become of Olfactus?

MEN. He politicly leans to neither part, But stands betwixt the camps as at receipt, Having great swine[237] his pioneers to entrench them.

PHA. In my foolish imagination Olfactus is very like the Goddess of Victory, that never takes any part but the conqueror's.

MEN. And in the woods be[238] placed secretly Two hundred couple of hounds and hungry mastiffs; And o'er his head hover at his command A cloud of vultures, which o'erspread the light, Making a night before the day be done: But to what end not known, but fear'd of all.

PHA. I conjecture he intends to see them fight, and after the battle to feed his dogs, hogs, and vultures upon the murdered carcases.

MEN. My lord, I think the fury of their anger will not be obedient to the message of Lingua; for otherwise, in my conceit, they should have been here ere this. With your lordship's good liking, we'll attend upon you to see the field for more certainty.

COM. SEN. It shall be so; come, Master Register, let's walk.

[Exeunt omnes.



ACTUS TERTIUS, SCAENA PRIMA.

ANAMNESTES, with a purse in his hand.

ANA. Forsooth, Oblivio, shut the door upon me; I could come no sooner: ha! is he not here? O excellent! would I were hanged, but I looked for a sound rap on the pate, and that made me beforehand to lift up this excuse for a buckler. I know he's not at court, for here is his purse, without which warrant there's no coming thither; wherefore now, Anamnestes, sport thyself a little, while thou art out of the prison of his company. What shall I do? by my troth, anatomise his purse in his absence. Plutus send there be jewels in it, that I may finely geld it of the stones—the best, sure, lies in the bottom; pox on't, here's nothing but a company of worm-eaten papers: what's this? Memorandum that Master Prodigo owes me four thousand pounds, and that his lands are in pawn for it. Memorandum that I owe. That he owes? 'Tis well the old slave hath some care of his credit; to whom owes he, trow I? that I owe Anamnestes; what, me? I never lent him anything; ha, this is good, there's something coming to me more than I looked for. Come on; what is't? Memorandum that I owe Anamnestes———a breeching;[239] i'faith, sir, I will ease you of that payment. [He rends the bill.] Memorandum that, when I was a child, Robusto tripped up my heels at football: what a revengeful dizard[240] is this?



SCAENA SECUNDA.

MENDACIO, with cushions under his arms, trips up ANAMNESTES' heels.

MENDACIO, ANAMNESTES.

ANA. How now?

MEN. Nothing, but lay you upon the cushion, sir, or so.

ANA. Nothing, but lay the cushion upon you, sir.

MEN, What, my little Nam? By this foot, I am sorry I mistook thee.

ANA. What, my little Men? By this hand, it grieves me I took thee so right. But, sirrah, whither with these cushions?

MEN. To lay them here, that the judges may sit softly, lest my Lady Lingua's cause go hard with her.

ANA. They should have been wrought with gold; these will do nothing. But what makes my lady with the judges?

MEN. Pish! know'st not? She sueth for the title of a Sense, as well as the rest that bear the name of the Pentarchy.

ANA. Will Common Sense and my master leave their affairs to determine that controversy?

MEN. Then thou hear'st nothing.

ANA. What should I hear?

MEN. All the Senses fell out about a crown fallen from heaven, and pitched a field for it; but Vicegerent Common Sense, hearing of it, took upon him to umpire the contention, in which regard he hath appointed them (their arms dismissed) to appear before him, charging every one to bring, as it were in a show, their proper objects, that by them he may determine of their several excellencies.

ANA. When is all this?

MEN. As soon as they can possibly provide.

ANA. But can he tell which deserves best by their objects?

MEN. No, not only; for every Sense must describe his instrument, that is, his house, where he performs his daily duty, so that by the object and the instrument my lord can with great ease discern their place and dignities.

ANA. His lordship's very wise.

MEN. Thou shalt hear all anon. Fine Master Phantastes and thy master will be here shortly. But how is't, my little rogue? methinks thou look'st lean upon't!

ANA. Alas! how should I do otherwise, that lie all night with such a raw-boned skeleton as Memory, and run all day on his errands? The churl's grown so old and forgetful, that every hour he's calling, Anamnestes, Remembrance; where art, Anamnestes? Then presently something's lost. Poor I must run for it, and these words, Run, boy; come, sirrah, quick, quick, quick! are as familiar with him as the cough, never out on's mouth.

MEN. Alack, alack! poor rogue, I see my fortunes are better. My lady loves me exceedingly; she's always kissing me, so that I tell thee, Nam, Mendacio's never from betwixt her lips.

ANA. Nor I out of Memory's mouth,[241] but in a worse sort, always exercising my stumps, and, which is more, when he favours best, then I am in the worst taking.

MEN. How so?

ANA. Thus: when we are friends, then must I come and be dandled upon his palsy-quaking knees, and he'll tell me a long story of his acquaintance with King Priamus and his familiarity with Nestor, and how he played at blowpoint[242] with Jupiter, when he was in his sidecoats, and how he went to look bird-nests with Athous,[243] and where he was at Deucalion's flood, and twenty such old wives' tales.

MEN. I wonder he, being so old, can talk so much.

ANA. Nature, thou know'st, knowing what an unruly engine the tongue is, hath set teeth round about for watchmen. Now, sir, my master's old age hath coughed out all his teeth, and that's the cause it runs so much at liberty.

MEN. Philosophical!

ANA. O, but there's one thing stings me to the very heart—to see an ugly, foul, idle, fat, dusty cloghead, called Oblivio, preferred before me. Dost know him?

MEN. Who, I? Ay, but care not for his acquaintance. Hang him, blockhead! I could never abide him. Thou, Remembrance, are the only friend that the arms of my friendship shall embrace. Thou hast heard Oportet mendacem esse memorem. But what of Oblivio?

ANA. The very naming of him hath made me forget myself. O, O, O, O, that rascal is so made of everywhere!

MEN. Who, Oblivio?

ANA. Ay, for our courtiers hug him continually in their ungrateful bosoms, and your smooth-bellied,[244] fat-backed, barrel-paunched, tun-gutted drones are never without him. As for Memory, he's a false-hearted fellow; he always deceives them; they respect not him, except it be to play a game at chests,[245] primero,[246] saunt,[247] maw,[248] or such like.

MEN. I cannot think such fellows have to do with Oblivio, since they never got anything to forget.

ANA. Again, these prodigal swaggerers that are so much bound to their creditors, if they have but one cross about them, they'll spend it in wine upon Oblivio.

MEN. To what purpose, I prythee?

ANA. Only in hope he'll wash them in the Lethe of their cares.

MEN. Why, then, no man cares for thee.

ANA. Yes, a company of studious paperworms and lean scholars, and niggarly scraping usurers, and a troop of heart-eating, envious persons, and those canker-stomached, spiteful creatures that furnish up commonplace books with other men's faults. The time hath been, in those golden days when Saturn reigned, that, if a man received a benefit of another, I was presently sent for to put him in mind of it; but now, in these iron afternoons, save your friend's life, and Oblivio will be more familiar with him than you.



SCAENA TERTIA.

HEURESIS, MENDACIO, ANAMNESTES.

HEU. Phantastes not at court? Is't possible? 'Tis the strangest accident that ever was heard of. I had thought the ladies and gallants would never lie without him.

ANA. Hist, hist, Mendacio; I prythee observe Heuresis. It seems he cannot find his master, that's able to find out all things. And art thou now at a fault? Canst not find out thine own master?

HEU. I'll try one more way. O yes![249]

MEN. What a proclamation for him?

ANA. Ay, ay, his nimble head is always full of proclamations.

HEU. O yes!

MEN. But doth he cry him in the wood?

ANA. O good sir, and good reason, for every beast hath Phantasy at his pleasure.

HEU. O yes! If any man can tell any tidings of a spruce, neat, apish, nimble, fine, foolish, absurd, humorous, conceited, fantastic gallant, with hollow eyes, sharp look, swart complexion, meagre face, wearing as many toys in his apparel as fooleries in his looks and gesture, let him come forth and certify me thereof, and he shall have for his reward—

ANA. I can tell you where he is. What shall he have?

HEU. A box o' the ear, sirrah. [Snap.]

ANA. How now, Invention, are you so quick-fingered? I'faith, there's your principal, sirrah, [snap], and here's the interest ready in my hand [snap. They fall together by the ears.] Yea, have you found out scratching? Now I remember me—

HEU. Do you bite me, rascal?

MEN. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Here's the lively picture of this axiom, A quick invention and a good memory can never agree. Fie, fie, fie: Heuresis! beat him, when he's down?

ANA. Prythee, let's alone: proud jackanapes, I'll—

HEU. What will you do?

ANA. Untruss thy points, and whip thee, thou paltry ——. Let me go, Mendacio, if thou lov'st me. Shall I put up the—

MEN. Come, come, come, you shall fight no more, in good faith. Heuresis, your master will catch you anon.

HEU. My master! where is he?

MEN. I'll bring you to him; come away.

HEU. Anamnestes, I scorn that thou shouldst think I go away for fear of anything thou canst do unto me. Here's my hand, as soon as thou canst pick the least occasion, put up thy finger, I am for thee.

ANA. When thou dar'st, Heuresis, when thou dar'st, I'll be as ready as thyself at any time. [Exeunt MENDACIO and HEURESIS.] This Heuresis, this Invention, is the proudest jackanapes, the pertest, self-conceited boy that ever breathed. Because, forsooth, some odd poet or some such fantastic fellows make much on him, there's no ho with him.[250] The vile dandi-prat will overlook the proudest of his acquaintance; but well I remember me, I learned a trick t'other day to bring a boy o'er the thigh finely. If he come, i'faith, I'll tickle him with it.

[MENDACIO comes running back in great haste.

MEN. As I am a rascal, Nam, they are all coming. I see Master Register trudging hither as fast as his three feet will carry up his four ages.

[Exit MENDACIO.



SCAENA QUARTA.

MEMORIA, ANAMNESTES.

MEM. Ah, you leaden-heeled rascal!

ANA. Here 'tis, sir; I have it, I have it.

MEM. Is this all the haste you make?

ANA. An't like your worship, your cloghead Oblivio went before me, and foiled the trail of your footsteps, that I could hardly undertake the quest of your purse, forsooth.

MEM. You might have been here long ere this. Come hither, sirrah, come hither: what, must you go round about? Goodly, goodly, you are full of circumstances.

ANA. In truth, sir, I was here before, and missing you, went back into the city, sought you in every alehouse, inn, tavern, dicing-house, tennis-court, stews, and such like places, likely to find your worship in.

MEM. Ha, villain! am I a man likely to be found in such places, ha?

ANA. No, no, sir; but I was told by my Lady Lingua's page that your worship was seeking me; therefore I inquired for you in those places, where I knew you would ask for me, an it please your worship.

MEM. I remember another quarrel, sirrah; but—well, well, I have no leisure.



SCAENA QUINTA.

COMMUNIS SENSUS, LINGUA, PHANTASTES, MEMORY, ANAMNESTES.

COM. SEN. Lingua, the Senses, by our appointment, anon are to present their objects before us. Seeing, therefore, they be not in readiness, we license you in the meanwhile, either in your own person or by your advocate, to speak what you can for yourself.

LIN. My lord, if I should bring before your honour all my friends, ready to importune you in my behalf, I should have so many rhetoricians, logicians, lawyers, and (which is more) so many women, to attend me, that this grove would hardly contain the company; wherefore, to avoid the tediousness, I will lay the whole cause upon the tip of mine own tongue.

COM. SEN. Be as brief as the necessity of our short time requires.

LIN. My lord, though the imbecillitas of my feeble sex might draw me back from this tribunal, with the habenis, to wit timoris and the Catenis pudoris, notwithstanding being so fairly led on with the gracious [Greek: epiecheia] of your justissime [Greek: dikaiosynaes]. Especially so aspremente spurd' con gli sproni di necessita mia pugente, I will without the help of orators commit the totam salutem of my action to the volutabilitati [Greek: ton gynaicheion logon], which avec vostre bonne plaisir, I will finish with more than Laconica brevitate.

COM. SEN. What's this? here's a gallimaufry of speech indeed.

MEM. I remember about the year 1602 many used this skew kind of language which, in my opinion, is not much unlike the man Platony,[251] the son of Lagus, king of Egypt, brought for a spectacle, half-white, half-black.

COM. SEN. I am persuaded these same language-makers have the very quality of cold in their wit, that freezeth all heterogeneal languages together, congealing English tin, Grecian gold, Roman latten[252] all in a lump.

PHA. Or rather, in my imagination, like your fantastical gull's apparel, wearing a Spanish felt, a French doublet, a Granado stocking, a Dutch slop, an Italian cloak, with a Welsh freeze jerkin.

COM. SEN. Well, leave your toying: we cannot pluck the least feather from the soft wing of time. Therefore, Lingua, go on, but in a less formal manner. You know an ingenious oration must neither swell above the banks with insolent words, nor creep too shallow in the ford with vulgar terms; but run equally, smooth and cheerful, through the clean current of a pure style.

LIN. My lord, this one thing is sufficient to confirm my worth to be equal or better than the Senses, whose best operations are nothing till I polish them with perfection; for their knowledge is only of things present, quickly sublimed with the deft[253] file of time: whereas the tongue is able to recount things past, and often pronounce things to come, by this means re-edifying such excellences as time and age do easily depopulate.

COM. SEN. But what profitable service do you undertake for our dread queen Psyche?

LIN. O, how I am ravished to think how infinitely she hath graced me with her most acceptable service! But above all (which you, Master Register, well remember), when her highness, taking my mouth for her instrument, with the bow of my tongue struck so heavenly a touch upon my teeth, that she charmed the very tigers asleep, the listening bears and lions to couch at her feet, while the hills leaped, and the woods danced to the sweet harmony of her most angelical accents.

MEM. I remember it very well. Orpheus played upon the harp, while she sung, about some four years after the contention betwixt Apollo and Pan, and a little before the excoriation of Marsyas.

ANA. By the same token the river Alpheus, at that time pursuing his beloved Arethusa, dischannelled himself of his former course, to be partaker of their admirable consort[254], and the music being ended, thrust himself headlong into earth, the next way to follow his amorous chace. If you go to Arcadia, you shall see his coming up again.

COM. SEN. Forward, Lingua, with your reason.

LIN. How oft hath her excellency employed me as ambassador in her most urgent affairs to foreign kings and emperors—I may say to the gods themselves? How many bloodless battles have my persuasions attained, when the Senses' forces have been vanquished? how many rebels have I reclaimed, when her sacred authority was little regarded? Her laws (without exprobation be it spoken) had been altogether unpublished, her will unperformed, her illustrious deeds unrenowned, had not the silver sound of my trumpet filled the whole circuit of the universe with her deserved fame. Her cities would dissolve, traffic would decay, friendships be broken, were not my speech the knot, mercury, and mastic, to bind, defend, and glue them together. What should I say more? I can never speak enough of the unspeakable praise of speech, wherein I can find no other imperfection at all, but that the most exquisite power and excellency of speech cannot sufficiently express the exquisite power and excellency of speaking.

COM. SEN. Lingua, your service and dignity we confess to be great; nevertheless these reasons prove you not to have the nature of a Sense.

LIN. By your ladyship's favour, I can soon prove that a Sense is a faculty, by which our queen sitting in her privy chamber hath intelligence of exterior occurrences. That I am of this nature, I prove thus. The object which I challenge is—

Enter APPETITUS in haste.

APP. Stay, stay, my lord; defer, I beseech you, defer the judgment.

COM. SEN. Who's this that boldly interrupts us thus?

APP. My name is Appetitus, common servant to the pentarchy of the Senses who, understanding that your honour was handling this action of Lingua's, sent me hither thus hastily, most humbly requesting the Bench to consider these articles they allege against her, before you proceed to judgment.

COM. SEN. Hum, here's good stuff; Master Register, read them. Appetitus, you may depart, and bid your mistress make convenient speed.

APP. At your lordship's pleasure. [Exit APPETITUS.

MEM. I remember that I forgot my spectacles; I left them in the 349th page of Hall's "Chronicles," where he tells a great wonder of a multitude of mice, which had almost destroyed the country, but that there resorted a great mighty flight of owls, that destroyed them. Anamnestes, read these articles distinctly.

ANA. Art. 1. Imprimis, We accuse Lingua of high treason and sacrilege against the most honourable commonwealth of letters; for, under pretence of profiting the people with translations, she hath most vilely prostituted the hard mysteries of unknown languages to the profane ears of the vulgar.

PHA. This is as much as to make a new hell in the upper world; for in hell they say Alexander is no better than a cobbler, and now by these translations every cobbler is as familiar with Alexander as he that wrote his life.

ANA. Art. 2. Item, that she hath wrongfully imprisoned a lady called Veritas.

Art. 3. Item, That she's a witch, and exerciseth her tongue in exorcisms.

Art. 4. Item, That she's a common whore, and lets every one lie with her.

Art. 5. Item, that she rails on men in authority, depraving their honours with bitter jests and taunts; and that she's a backbiter, setting strife betwixt bosom friends.

Art. 6. Item, that she lends wives weapons to fight against their husbands.

Art. 7. Item, that she maintains a train of prating pettifoggers, prowling sumners[255], smooth-tongued bawds, artless[256] empirics, hungry parasites, newscarriers, janglers[257], and such like idle companions, that delude the commonalty.

Art. 8. Item, that she made rhetoric wanton, logic to babble, astronomy to lie.

Art. 9. Item that she's an incontinent tell-tale.

Art. 10. Item (which is the last and worst), that she's a woman in every respect, and for these causes not to be admitted to the dignity of a Sense. That these articles be true, we pawn our honours, and subscribe our names.

1. VISUS. 4. OLFACTUS. 3. GUSTUS. 2. AUDITUS. 5. TACTUS.

COM. SEN. Lingua, these be shrewd allegations, and, as I think, unanswerable. I will defer the judgment of your cause, till I have finished the contention of the Senses.

LIN. Your lordship must be obeyed. But as for them, most ungrateful and perfidious wretches—

COM. SEN. Good words become you better; you may depart, if you will, till we send for you. Anamnestes, run, remember Visus; 'tis time he were ready.

ANA. I go. [Exit ANAMNESTES et redit.] He stays here, expecting your lordship's pleasure.



SCAENA SEXTA.

A page carrying a scutcheon argent, charged with an eagle displayed proper: then VISUS, with a fan of peacock's feathers: next LUMEN, with a crown of bays and a shield with a bright sun in it, apparelled in tissue: then a page bearing a shield before COELUM, clad in azure taffeta, dimpled with stars, a crown of stars on his head, and a scarf resembling the zodiac overthwart the shoulders: next a page clad in green, with a terrestrial globe before TERRA, in a green velvet gown stuck with branches and flowers, a crown of turrets upon her head, in her hand a key: then a herald, leading in his hand COLOUR, clad in changeable silk, with a rainbow out of a cloud on her head: last, a boy. VISUS marshalleth his show about the stage, and presents it before the Bench.

VISUS, LUMEN, COELUM, PHANTASTES, COMMUNIS SENSUS, MEMORY.

VIS. Lo, here the objects that delight the sight! The goodliest objects that man's heart can wish! For all things, that the orb first movable Wraps in the circuit of his large-stretch'd arms, Are subject to the power of Visus' eyes. That you may know what profit light doth bring, Note Lumen's words, that speaks next following.

LUM. Light, the fair grandchild to the glorious sun, Opening the casements of the rosy morn, Makes the abashed heavens soon to shun The ugly darkness it embrac'd beforn;[258] And, at his first appearance, puts to flight The utmost relics of the hell-born night. This heavenly shield, soon as it is display'd, Dismays the vices that abhor the light; To wanderers by sea and land gives aid; Conquers dismay, recomforteth affright; Rouseth dull idleness, and starts soft sleep, And all the world to daily labour keep. This a true looking-glass impartial, Where beauty's self herself doth beautify With native hue, not artificial, Discovering falsehood, opening verity: The day's bright eye colours distinction, Just judge of measure and proportion. The only means by which each mortal eye Sends messengers to the wide firmament, That to the longing soul brings presently High contemplation and deep wonderment; By which aspirement she her wings displays, And herself thither, whence she came, upraise.

PHA. What blue thing's that, that's dappled so with stars.

VIS. He represents the heaven.

PHA. In my conceit 'Twere pretty, if he thundered when he speaks.

VIS. Then none could understand him.

COEL. Tropic, colures, the equinoctial, The zodiac, poles, and line ecliptical, The nadir, zenith, and anomalies, The azimuth and ephimerides, Stars, orbs, and planets, with their motions, The oriental regradations, Eccentrics, epicyctes, and—and—and—

PHA. How now, Visus, is your heaven at a stay, Or is it his motus trepidationis that makes him stammer? I pray you, Memory, set him a-gate[259] again.

MEM. I remember, when Jupiter made Amphitryo cuckold, and lay with his wife Alcmena, Coelum was in this taking for three days space, and stood still just like him at a nonplus.

COM. SEN. Leave jesting; you'll put the fresh actor out of countenance.

COEL. Eccentrics, epicyctes, and aspects In sextile, trine and quadrate, which effects Wonders on earth: also the oblique part Of signs, that make the day both long and short, The constellations, rising cosmical, Setting of stars, chronic, and heliacal, In the horizon or meridional, And all the skill in deep astronomy, Is to the soul derived by the eye.

PHA. Visus, you have made Coelum a heavenly speech, past earthly capacity; it had been as good for him he had thundered. But I pray you, who taught him to speak and use no action? methinks it had been excellent to have turned round about in his speech.

VIS. He hath so many motions, he knows not which to begin withal.

PHA. Nay, rather it seems he's of Copernicus' opinion, and that makes him stand still.

[TERRA comes to the midst of the stage, stands still a while, saith nothing, and steps back.

COM. SEN. Let's hear what Terra can say—just nothing?

VIS. And't like your lordship, 'twere an indecorum Terra should speak.

MEM. You are deceived; for I remember, when Phaeton ruled the sun (I shall never forget him, he was a very pretty youth), the Earth opened her mouth wide, and spoke a very good speech to Jupiter.

ANA. By the same token Nilus hid his head then, he could never find it since.

PHA. You know, Memory, that was an extreme hot day, and 'tis likely Terra sweat much, and so took cold presently after, that ever since she hath lost her voice.

HER. A canton ermine added to the field Is a sure sign the man that bore these arms Was to his prince as a defensive shield, Saving him from the force of present harms[260].

PHA. I know this fellow of old, 'tis a herald: many a centaur, chimaera[261], barnacle[262], crocodile, hippopotame, and such like toys hath he stolen out of the shop of my Invention, to shape new coats for his upstart gentlemen. Either Africa must breed more monsters,[263] or you make fewer gentlemen, Master Herald, for you have spent all my devices already. But since you are here, let me ask you a question in your own profession: how comes it to pass that the victorious arms of England, quartered with the conquered coat of France, are not placed on the dexter side, but give the flower-de-luce the better hand?

HER. Because that the three lions are one coat made of two French dukedoms, Normandy and Aquitain.

[PHA.][264] But I pray you, Visus, what joy is that, that follows him?

VIS. 'Tis Colour, an object of mine, subject to his commandment.

PHA. Why speaks he not?

VIS. He is so bashful, he dares not speak for blushing: What thing is that? tell me without delay.

BOY. That's nothing of itself, yet every way As like a man as a thing like may be: And yet so unlike as clean contrary, For in one point it every way doth miss, The right side of it a man's left side is; 'Tis lighter than a feather, and withal It fills no place nor room, it is so small.

COM. SEN. How now, Visus, have you brought a boy with a riddle to pose us all?

PHA. Pose us all, and I here? That were a jest indeed. My lord, if he have a Sphinx, I have an Oedipus, assure yourself; let's hear it once again.

BOY. What thing is that, sir, &c.

PHA. This such a knotty enigma? Why, my lord, I think 'tis a woman, for first a woman is nothing of herself, and, again, she is likest a man of anything.

COM. SEN. But wherein is she unlike?

PHA. In everything: in peevishness, in folly. 'St, boy?

HEU. In pride, deceit, prating, lying, cogging, coyness, spite, hate, sir.

PHA. And in many more such vices. Now, he may well say, the left side a man's right side is, for a cross wife is always contrary to her husband, ever contradicting what he wisheth for, like to the verse in Martial, Velle tuum.

MEM. Velle tuum nolo, Dindyme, nolle volo.

PHA. Lighter than a feather—doth any man make question of that?

MEM. They need not, for I remember I saw a cardinal weigh them once, and the woman was found three grains lighter.

COM. SEN. 'Tis strange, for I have seen gentlewomen wear feathers oftentimes. Can they carry heavier things than themselves?

MEM. O, sir, I remember, 'tis their only delight to do so.

COM. SEN. But how apply you the last verse? it fills no place, sir.

PHA. By my faith, that spoils all the former, for these farthingales take up all the room now-a-days; 'tis not a woman, questionless. Shall I be put down with a riddle? Sirrah Heuresis, search the corners of your conceit, and find it me quickly.

HEU. Eh, [Greek: heureka, heureka] I have it: 'tis a man's face in a looking-glass.

PHA. My lord, 'tis so indeed. Sirrah let's see it, for do you see my right eye here?

COM. SEN. What of your eye?

PHA. O lord, sir, this kind of frown is excellent, especially when 'tis sweetened with such a pleasing smile.

COM. SEN. Phantastes!

PHA. O sir, my left eye is my right in the glass, do you see? By these lips, my garters hang so neatly, my gloves and shoes become my hands and feet so well. Heuresis, tie my shoe-strings with a new knot—this point was scarce well-trussed, so, 'tis excellent. Looking-glasses were a passing invention. I protest the fittest books for ladies to study on—

MEM. Take heed you fall not in love with yourself. Phantastes, as I remember—Anamnestes, who was't that died of the looking disease?

ANA. Forsooth, Narcissus: by the same token he was turned to a daffodil, and as he died for love of himself, so, if you remember, there was an old ill-favoured, precious-nosed, babber-lipped, beetle-browed, blear-eyed, slouch-eared slave that, looking himself by chance in a glass, died for pure hate.

PHA. By the lip of my —— I could live and die with this face.

COM. SEN. Fie, fie, Phantastes, so effeminate! for shame, leave off. Visus, your objects I must needs say, are admirable, if the house and instrument be answerable. Let's hear therefore in brief your description.

VIS. Under the forehead of Mount Cephalou,[265] That overpeers the coast of Microcosm, All in the shadow of two pleasant groves, Stand by two mansion-houses, both as round As the clear heavens: both twins, as like each other As star to star, which by the vulgar sort, For their resplendent composition, Are named the bright eyes of Mount Cephalon: With four fair rooms those lodgings are contrived, Four goodly rooms in form most spherical, Closing each other like the heavenly orbs: The first whereof, of nature's substance wrought, As a strange moat the other to defend, Is trained movable by art divine, Stirring the whole compacture of the rest: The second chamber is most curiously Compos'd of burnish'd and transparent horn.

PHA. That's a matter of nothing. I have known many have such bed-chambers.

MEM. It may be so, for I remember, being once in the town's library, I read such a thing in their great book of monuments, called "Cornucopia," or rather their "Copiacornu."

VIS. The third's a lesser room of purest glass; The fourth's smallest, but passeth all the former In worth of matter: built most sumptuously, With walls transparent of pure crystalline. This the soul's mirror and the body's guide, Love's cabinet, bright beacons of the realm, Casements of light, quiver of Cupid's shafts, Wherein I sit, and immediately receive The species of things corporeal, Keeping continual watch and sentinel; Lest foreign hurt invade our Microcosm, And warning give (if pleasant things approach), To entertain them. From this costly room Leadeth, my lord, an entry to your house, Through which I hourly to yourself convey Matters of wisdom by experience bred: Art's first invention, pleasant vision, Deep contemplation, that attires the soul In gorgeous robes of flowing literature: Then, if that Visus have deserved best, Let his victorious brow with crown be blest.

COM. SEN. Anamnestes, see who's to come next.

ANA. Presently, my lord.

PHA. Visus, I wonder that amongst all your objects, you presented us not with Plato's idea, or the sight of Nineveh,[266] Babylon, London, or some Stourbridge-fair monsters; they would have done passing well. Those motions, in my imagination, are very delightful.

VIS. I was loth to trouble your honours with such toys, neither could I provide them in so short a time.

COM. SEN. We will consider your worth; meanwhile, we dismiss you.

[VISUS leads his show about the stage, and so goeth out with it.



SCAENA ULTIMA.

AUDITUS, &c.

AUD. Hark, hark, hark, hark! peace, peace, O, peace! O sweet, admirable, swanlike, heavenly! hark, O most mellifluous strain! O, what a pleasant close was there! O fall[267] most delicate!

COM. SEN. How now, Phantastes! is Auditus mad?

PHA. Let him alone, his musical head is always full of old crotchets.

AUD. Did you mark the dainty driving of the last point, an excellent maintaining of the song; by the choice timpan of mine ear, I never heard a better! hist, 'st, 'st, hark! why, there's a cadence able to ravish the dullest stoic.

COM. SEN. I know not what to think on him.

AUD. There how sweetly the plain-song was dissolved into descant, and how easily they came off with the last rest. Hark, hark, the bitter'st[268] sweetest achromatic.

COM. SEN. Auditus!

AUD. Thanks, good Apollo, for this timely grace, Never couldst thou in fitter hour indulge it: O more than most musical harmony! O most admirable concert! have you no ears? Do you not hear this music?

PHA. It may be good; but, in my opinion, they rest too long in the beginning.

AUD. Are you then deaf? do you not yet perceive The wondrous sound the heavenly orbs do make With their continual motion? hark, hark, O honey-sweet!

COM. SEN. What tune do they play?

AUD. Why such a tune as never was, nor ever shall be heard. Mark now, now mark: now, now!

PHA. List, list, list.

AUD. Hark! O sweet, sweet, sweet.

PHA. List! how my heart envies my happy ears. Hist, by the gold-strung harp of Apollo, I hear the celestial music of the spheres, As plainly as ever Pythagoras did. O most excellent diapason! good, good. It plays Fortune my foe,[269] as distinctly as may be.

COM. SEN. As the fool thinketh, so the bell clinketh. I protest I hear no more than a post.

PHA. What, the Lavolta![270] eh? nay, if the heavens fiddle, Fancy must needs dance.

COM. SEN. Prythee, sit still, thou must dance nothing but the passing measures[271]. Memory, do you hear this harmony of the spheres?

MEM. Not now, my lord; but I remember about some four thousand years ago, when the sky was first made, we heard very perfectly.

ANA. By the same token, the first tune the planets played, I remember Venus the treble ran sweet division upon Saturn the bass. The first tune they played was Sellenger's round[272], in memory whereof ever since it hath been called "the beginning of the world."

COM. SEN. How comes it we cannot hear it now?

MEM. Our ears are so well acquainted with the sound, that we never mark it. As I remember, the Egyptian Catadupes[273] never heard the roaring of the fall of Nilus, because the noise was so familiar unto them.

COM. SEN. Have you no other objects to judge by than these, Auditus?

AUD. This is the rarest and most exquisite: Most spherical, divine, angelical; But since your duller ears cannot perceive it, May it please your lordship to withdraw yourself Unto this neighbouring grove: there shall you see How the sweet treble of the chirping birds, And the soft stirring of the moved leaves, Running delightful descant to the sound Of the base murmuring of the bubbling brook[274], Becomes a concert of good instruments; While twenty babbling echoes round about, Out of the stony concave of their mouths, Restore the vanished music of each close, And fill your ears full with redoubled pleasure.

COM. SEN. I will walk with you very willingly, for I grow weary of sitting. Come, Master Register and Master Phantastes.

[Exeunt OMNES.



ACTUS QUARTUS, SCAENA PRIMA.

MENDACIO, ANAMNESTES, HEURESIS.

MEN. Prythee, Nam, be persuaded: is't not better to go to a feast, than stay here for a fray?

ANA. A feast? dost think Auditus will make the judges a feast?

MEN. Faith, ay. Why should he carry them to his house else?

ANA. Why, sirrah, to hear a set or two of songs: 'slid, his banquets are nothing but fish, all sol, sol, sol.[275] I'll teach thee wit, boy; never go thee to a musician's house for junkets, unless thy stomach lies in thine ears; for there is nothing but commending this song's delicate air, that ode's dainty air, this sonnet's sweet air, that madrigal's melting air, this dirge's mournful air: this church air, that chamber air: French air, English air, Italian air. Why, lad, they be pure camelions; they feed only upon air.

MEN. Camelions? I'll be sworn some of your fiddlers be rather camels, for by their good wills they will never leave eating.

ANA. True, and good reason, for they do nothing all the day but stretch and grate their small guts. But, O, yonder's the ape Heuresis; let me go, I prythee.

MEN. Nay, good-now, stay a little, let's see his humour.

HEU. I see no reason to the contrary, for we see the quintessence of wine will convert water into wine; why therefore should not the elixir of gold turn lead into pure gold? [Soliloquises.]

MEN. Ha, ha, ha, ha! He is turned chemic, sirrah; it seems so by his talk.

HEU. But how shall I devise to blow the fire of beechcoals with a continual and equal blast? ha? I will have my bellows driven with a wheel, which wheel shall be a self-mover.

ANA. Here's old turning[276]; these chemics, seeking to turn lead into gold, turn away all their own silver.

HEU. And my wheel shall be geometrically proportioned into seven or nine concave encircled arms, wherein I will put equal poises: ay, ay; [Greek: heureka, heureka] I have it, I have it, I have it.

MEN. Heuresis!

HEU. But what's best to contain the quicksilver, ha?

ANA. Do you remember your promise, Heuresis?

HEU. It must not be iron; for quicksilver is the tyrant of metals, and will soon fret it.

ANA. Heuresis? Heuresis?

HEU. Nor brass, nor copper, nor mastlin[277], nor mineral: [Greek: heureka, heureka] I have it, I have it, it must be—

ANA. You have, indeed, sirrah, and thus much more than you looked for. [Snap.

[HEURESIS and ANAMNESTES about to fight, but MENDACIO parts them.

MEN. You shall not fight; but if you will always disagree, let us have words and no blows. Heuresis, what reason have you to fall out with him?

HEU. Because he is always abusing me, and takes the upper hand of me everywhere.

ANA. And why not, sirrah? I am thy better in any place.

HEU. Have I been the author of the seven liberal sciences, and consequently of all learning, have I been the patron of all mechanical devices, to be thy inferior? I tell thee, Anamnestes, thou hast not so much as a point, but thou art beholding to me for it.

ANA. Good, good; but what had your invention been, but for my remembrance? I can prove that thou, belly-sprung invention, art the most improfitable member in the world; for ever since thou wert born, thou hast been a bloody murderer; and thus I prove it: In the quiet years of Saturn (I remember Jupiter was then but in his swathe-bands), thou rentest the bowels of the earth, and broughtest gold to light, whose beauty, like Helen, set all the world by the ears. Then, upon that, thou foundest out iron, and puttest weapons in their hands, and now in the last populous age thou taughtest a scabshin friar the hellish invention of powder and guns.

HEU. Call'st it hellish? thou liest! It is the admirablest invention of all others, for whereas others imitate nature, this excels nature herself.

MEM. True; for a cannon will kill as many at one shot as thunder doth commonly at twenty.

ANA. Therefore more murdering art thou than the light-bolt[278].

HEU. But to show the strength of my conceit, I have found out a means to withstand the stroke of the most violent culverin. Mendacio, thou saw'st it, when I demonstrated the invention.

ANA. What, some woolpacks or mud walls, or such like?

HEU. Mendacio, I prythee tell it him, for I love not to be a trumpeter of mine own praises.

MEN. I must needs confess this device to pass all that ever I heard or saw, and thus it was—first he takes a falcon, and charges it (without all deceits) with dry powder well-camphired[279], then did he put in a single bullet, and a great quantity of drop-shot both round and lachrymal. This done, he sets me a boy sixty paces off, just point blank over against the mouth of the piece. Now in the very midst of the direct line he fastens a post, upon which he hangs me in a cord a siderite of Herculean stone[280].

ANA. Well, well, I know it well, it was found out in Ida, in the year of the world —— by one Magnes, whose name it retains, though vulgarly they call it the Adamant.

MEN. When he had hanged this adamant in a cord, he comes back, and gives fire to the touchhole: now the powder consumed to a void vacuum—

HEU. Which is intolerable in nature, for first shall the whole machine of the world, heaven, earth, sea, and air, return to the misshapen house of Chaos, than the least vacuum be found in the universe.

MEN. The bullet and drop-shot flew most impetuously from the fiery throat of the culverin; but, O, strange, no sooner came they near the adamant in the cord, but they were all arrested by the serjeant of nature, and hovered in the air round about it, till they had lost the force of their motion, clasping themselves close to the stone in most lovely manner, and not any one flew to endanger the mark; so much did they remember their duty to nature, that they forgot the errand they were sent of.

ANA. This is a very artificial lie.

MEN. Nam, believe it, for I saw it, and which is more, I have practised this device often. Once when I had a quarrel with one of my lady Veritas' naked knaves, and had 'ppointed him the field, I conveyed into the heart of my buckler an adamant, and when we met, I drew all the foins of his rapier, whithersoever he intended them, or howsoever I guided mine arm, pointed still to the midst of my buckler, so that by this means I hurt the knave mortally, and myself came away untouched, to the wonder of all the beholders.

ANA. Sirrah, you speak metaphorically, because thy wit, Mendacio, always draws men's objections to thy forethought excuses.

HEU. Anamnestes, 'tis true, and I have an addition to this, which is to make the bullet shot from the enemy to return immediately upon the gunner. But let all these pass, and say the worst thou canst against me.

ANA. I say, guns were found out for the quick despatch of mortality; and when thou sawest men grow wise, and beget so fair a child as Peace of so foul and deformed a mother as War, lest there should be no murder, thou devisedst poison.

MEN. Nay, fie, Nam, urge him not too far.

ANA. And last and worst, thou foundest out cookery, that kills more than weapons, guns, wars, or poisons, and would destroy all, but that thou invented'st physic, that helps to make away some.

HEU. But, sirrah, besides all this, I devised pillories for such forging villains as thyself.

ANA. Call'st me villain?

[They fight, and are parted by MENDACIO.

MEN. You shall not fight as long as I am here. Give over, I say.

HEU. Mendacio, you offer me great wrong to hold me: in good faith, I shall fall out with you.