________________________________________________
_ ACT III - SCENE X
SCENE X.--KING, QUEEN, HUNCAMUNCA, Courtiers.
King.
Open the prisons, set the wretched free,
And bid our treasurer disburse six pounds
To pay their debts.--Let no one weep to-day.
Come, Dollallolla; [1] curse that odious name!
It is so long, it asks an hour to speak it.
By heavens! I'll change it into Doll, or Loll,
Or any other civil monosyllable,
That will not tire my tongue.--Come, sit thee down.
Here seated let us view the dancers' sports;
Bid 'em advance. This is the wedding-day
Of Princess Huncamunca and Tom Thumb;
Tom Thumb! who wins two victories [2] to-day,
And this way marches, bearing Grizzle's head.
[A dance here.]
[Footnote 1:
How I could curs my name of Ptolemy!
It is so long, it asks an hour to write it,
By Heaven! I'll change it into Jove or Mars!
Or any other civil monosyllable,
That will not tire my hand.
---Cleomenes.]
[Footnote 2:
Here is a visible conjunction of two days in
one, by which our author may have either intended
an emblem of a wedding, or to insinuate that men
in the honey-moon are apt to imagine time
shorter than it is. It brings into my mind a
passage in the comedy called the Coffee-House
Politician:
We will celebrate this day at my house to-morrow.]
Nood.
Oh! monstrous, dreadful, terrible, oh! oh!
Deaf be my ears, for ever blind my eyes!
Dumb be my tongue! feet lame! all senses lost!
[1] Howl wolves, grunt bears, hiss snakes, shriek all ye 'ghosts!
[Footnote 1:
These beautiful phrases are all to be found in one single
speech of King Arthur, or the British Worthy.]
King.
What does the blockhead mean?
Nood.
I mean, my liege,
[1] Only to grace my tale with decent horror.
Whilst from my garret, twice two stories high,
I look'd abroad into the streets below,
I saw Tom Thumb attended by the mob;
Twice twenty shoe-boys, twice two dozen links,
Chairmen and porters, hackney-coachmen, whores;
Aloft he bore the grizly head of Grizzle;
When of a sudden through the streets there came
A cow, of larger than the usual size,
And in a moment--guess, oh! guess the rest!--
And in a moment swallow'd up Tom Thumb.
[Footnote 1:
I was but teaching him to grace his tale
With decent horror. --Cleomenes.]
King.
Shut up again the prisons, bid my treasurer
Not give three farthings out-hang all the culprits,
Guilty or not--no matter.--Ravish virgins:
Go bid the schoolmasters whip all their boys!
Let lawyers, parsons, and physicians loose,
To rob, impose on, and to kill the world.
Nood.
Her majesty the queen is in a swoon.
Queen.
Not so much in a swoon but I have still
Strength to reward the messenger of ill news.
[Kills NOODLE.]
Nood.
O! I am slain.
Cle.
My lover's kill'd, I will revenge him so.
[Kills the QUEEN.]
Hunc.
My mamma kill'd! vile murderess, beware.
[Kills CLEORA.]
Dood.
This for an old grudge to thy heart.
[Kills HUNCAMUNCA.]
Must.
And this
I drive to thine, O Doodle! for a new one.
[Kills DOODLE.]
King.
Ha! murderess vile, take that.
[Kills MUST.]
[1] And take thou this.
[Kills himself, and falls.]
So when the child, whom nurse from danger guards,
Sends Jack for mustard with a pack of cards,
Kings, queens, and knaves, throw one another down,
Till the whole pack lies scatter'd and o'erthrown;
So all our pack upon the floor is cast,
And all I boast is--that I fall the last.
[Dies.]
[Footnote 1: We may say with Dryden,
Death did at length so many slain forget,
And left the tale, and took them by the great.
I know of no tragedy which comes nearer to this charming and bloody catastrophe than Cleomenes, where the curtain covers five principal characters dead on the stage. These lines too--
I ask no questions then, of who kill'd who?
The bodies tell the story as they lie--
seem to have belonged more properly to this scene of our author; nor can I help imagining they were originally his, The Rival Ladies, too, seem beholden to this scene:
We're now a chain of lovers link'd in death;
Julia goes first, Gonsalvo hangs on her,
And Angelina hangs upon Gonsalvo,
As I on Angelina.
No scene, I believe, ever received greater honours than this. It was applauded by several encores, a word very unusual in tragedy. And it was very difficult for the actors to escape without a second slaughter. This I take to be a lively assurance of that fierce spirit of liberty which remains among us, and which Mr Dryden, in his essay on Dramatick Poetry, hath observed: "Whether custom," says he, "hath so insinuated itself into our countrymen, or nature hath so formed them to fierceness, I know not; but they will scarcely suffer combats and other objects of horror to be taken from them." And indeed I am for having them encouraged in this martial disposition; nor do I believe our victories over the French have been owing to anything more than to those bloody spectacles daily exhibited in our tragedies, of which the French stage is so intirely clear.]
[THE END]
Henry Fielding's play: Tragedy Of Tragedies; Or, The Life And Death Of Tom Thumb The Great
_
Read previous: Act 3 - Scene 9
Table of content of Tragedy Of Tragedies; Or, The Life And Death Of Tom Thumb The Great
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
