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_ ACT II - SCENE IV
SCENE IV.-KING, HUNCAMUNCA.
King.
Let all but Huncamunca leave the room.
[Exeunt CLEORA and MUSTACHA.]
Daughter, I have observed of late some grief.
Unusual in your countenance: your eyes!
[1]That, like two open windows, used to shew
The lovely beauty of the rooms within,
Have now two blinds before them. What is the cause?
Say, have you not enough of meat and drink?
We've given strict orders not to have you stinted.
[Footnote 1:
Lee hath improved this metaphor:
Dost thou not view joy peeping from my eyes,
The casements open'd wide to gaze on thee?
So Rome's glad citizens to windows rise,
When they some young triumpher fain would see.
---_Gloriana_.]
Hunc.
Alas! my lord, I value not myself
That once I eat two fowls and half a pig;
[1]Small is that praise! but oh! a maid may want
What she can neither eat nor drink.
[Footnote 1:
Almahide hath the same contempt for these appetites:
To eat and drink can no perfection be.
--_Conquest of Granada_.
The earl of Essex is of a different opinion, and seems
to place the chief happiness of a general therein:
Were but commanders half so well rewarded,
Then they might eat.--_Banks's Earl of Essex_.
But, if we may believe one who knows more than either,
the devil himself, we shall find eating to be an affair
of more moment than is generally imagined:
Gods are immortal only by their food.
--_Lucifer; in the State of Innocence_.]
King.
What's that?
Hunc.
O[1] spare my blushes; but I mean a husband.
[Footnote 1:
"This expression is enough of itself," says Mr D.,
"utterly to destroy the character of Huncamunca!" Yet
we find a woman of no abandoned character in Dryden
adventuring farther, and thus excusing herself:
To speak our wishes first, forbid it pride,
Forbid it modesty; true, they forbid it,
But Nature does not. When we are athirst,
Or hungry, will imperious Nature stay,
Nor eat, nor drink, before 'tis bid fall on?--_Cleomenes_.
Cassandra speaks before she is asked: Huncamunca
afterwards. Cassandra speaks her wishes to her lover:
Huncamunca only to her father.]
King.
If that be all, I have provided one,
A husband great in arms, whose warlike sword
Streams with the yellow blood of slaughter'd giants,
Whose name in Terra Incognita is known,
Whose valour, wisdom, virtue make a noise
Great as the kettle-drums of twenty armies.
Hunc.
Whom does my royal father mean?
King.
Tom Thumb.
Hunc.
Is it possible?
King. Ha! the window-blinds are gone;
[1]A country-dance of joy is in your face.
Your eyes spit fire, your cheeks grow red as beef.
[Footnote 1:
Her eyes resistless magick bear;
Angels, I see, and gods, are dancing there
--_Lee's Sophonisba_.]
Hunc.
O, there's a magick-musick in that sound,
Enough to turn me into beef indeed!
Yes, I will own, since licensed by your word,
I'll own Tom Thumb the cause of all my grief.
For him I've sigh'd, I've wept, I've gnaw'd my sheets.
King.
Oh! thou shalt gnaw thy tender sheets no more.
A husband thou shalt have to mumble now.
Hunc.
Oh! happy sound! henceforth let no one tell
That Huncamunca shall lead apes in hell.
Oh! I am overjoy'd!
King.
I see thou art.
[1] Joy lightens in thy eyes, and thunders from thy brows;
Transports, like lightning, dart along thy soul,
As small-shot through a hedge.
[Footnote 1:
Mr Dennis, in that excellent tragedy called
Liberty Asserted, which is thought to have given
so great a stroke to the late French king, hath frequent
imitations of this beautiful speech of king Arthur:
Conquest light'ning in his eyes, and thund'ring in his arm,
Joy lighten'd in her eyes.
Joys like lightning dart along my soul.]
Hunc.
Oh! say not small.
King.
This happy news shall on our tongue ride post,
Ourself we bear the happy news to Thumb.
Yet think not, daughter, that your powerful charms
Must still detain the hero from his arms;
Various his duty, various his delight;
Now in his turn to kiss, and now to fight,
And now to kiss again. So, mighty[1] Jove,
When with excessive thund'ring tired above,
Comes down to earth, and takes a bit--and then
Flies to his trade of thund'ring back again.
[Footnote 1:
Jove, with excessive thund'ring tired above,
Comes down for ease, enjoys a nymph, and then
Mounts dreadful, and to thund'ring goes again.--_Gloriana_.] _
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