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_ ACT II - SCENE VI
SCENE VI.--TOM THUMB, HUNCAMUNCA.
Thumb. Where is my princess? where's my Huncamunca?
Where are those eyes, those cardmatches of Jove,
That[1] light up all with love my waxen soul?
Where is that face which artful nature made
[2] In the same moulds where Venus' self was cast?
[Footnote 1:
This image, too, very often occurs:
--Bright as when thy eye
First lighted up our loves.--_Aurengzebe_.
'Tis not a crown alone lights up my name.--_Busiris_.]
[Footnote 2:
There is great dissension among the poets concerning
the method of making man. One tells his mistress
that the mould she was made in being lost, Heaven
cannot form such another. Lucifer, in Dryden, gives
a merry description of his own formation:
Whom heaven, neglecting, made and scarce design'd,
But threw me in for number to the rest .--_State of Innocence_.
In one place the same poet supposes man to be made of metal:
I was form'd
Of that coarse metal which, when she was made
The gods threw by for rubbish.--_All for Love_.
In another of dough:
When the gods moulded up the paste of man,
Some of their clay was left upon their hands,
And so they made Egyptians.--_Cleomenes_.
In another of clay:
--Rubbish of remaining clay.--_Sebastian_.
One makes the soul of wax:
Her waxen soul begins to melt apace.--_Anna Bullen_.
Another of flint:
Sure our two souls have somewhere been acquainted
In former beings, or, struck out together,
One spark to Africk flew, and one to Portugal.--_Sebastian_.
To omit the great quantities of iron, brazen, and leaden
souls, which are so plenty in modern authors--I cannot
omit the dress of a soul as we find it in Dryden:
Souls shirted but with air.--_King Arthur_.
Nor can I pass by a particular sort of soul in a particular
sort of description in the New Sophonisba:
Ye mysterious powers,
--Whether thro' your gloomy depths I wander,
Or on the mountains walk, give me the calm,
The steady smiling soul, where wisdom sheds
Eternal sunshine, and eternal joy.]
Hunc.
[1]Oh! what is music to the ear that's deaf,
Or a goose-pie to him that has no taste?
What are these praises now to me, since I
Am promised to another?
[Footnote 1:
This line Mr Banks has plunder'd entire in his Anna Bullen.]
Thumb.
Ha! promised?
Hunc.
Too sure; 'tis written in the book of fate.
Thumb.
[1]Then I will tear away the leaf
Wherein it's writ; or, if fate won't allow
So large a gap within its journal-book,
I'll blot it out at least.
[Footnote 1:
Good Heaven! the book of fate before me lay,
But to tear out the journal of that day.
Or, if the order of the world below
Will not the gap of one whole day allow,
Give me that minute when she made her vow.
---Conquest of Granada.] _
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