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Cynthia's Revels, a play by Ben Jonson |
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Act 2 Scene 1 |
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_ ACT II SCENE I. THE COURT. [ENTER CUPID AND MERCURY, DISGUISED AS PAGES.] CUP. Why, this was most unexpectedly followed, my divine delicate Mercury, by the beard of Jove, thou art a precious deity. MER. Nay, Cupid, leave to speak improperly; since we are turn'd cracks, let's study to be like cracks; practise their language, and behaviours, and not with a dead imitation: Act freely, carelessly, and capriciously, as if our veins ran with quicksilver, and not utter a phrase, but what shall come forth steep'd in the very brine of conceit, and sparkle like salt in fire. CUP. That's not every one's happiness, Hermes: Though you can presume upon the easiness and dexterity of your wit, you shall give me leave to be a little jealous of mine; and not desperately to hazard it after your capering humour. MER. Nay, then, Cupid, I think we must have you hood-wink'd again; for you are grown too provident since your eyes were at liberty. CUP. Not so, Mercury, I am still blind Cupid to thee. MER. And what to the lady nymph you serve? CUP. Troth, page, boy, and sirrah: these are all my titles. MER. Then thou hast not altered thy name with thy disguise? CUP. O, no, that had been supererogation; you shall never hear your courtier call but by one of these three. MER. Faith, then both our fortunes are the same. CUP. Why, what parcel of man hast thou lighted on for a master? MER. Such a one as, before I begin to decipher him, I dare not affirm to be any thing less than a courtier. So much he is during this open time of revels, and would be longer, but that his means are to leave him shortly after. His name is Hedon, a gallant wholly consecrated to his pleasures. CUP. Hedon! he uses much to my lady's chamber, I think. MER. How is she call'd, and then I can shew thee? CUP. Madame Philautia. MER. O ay, he affects her very particularly indeed. These are his graces. He doth (besides me) keep a barber and a monkey; he has a rich wrought waistcoat to entertain his visitants in, with a cap almost suitable. His curtains and bedding are thought to be his own; his bathing-tub is not suspected. He loves to have a fencer, a pedant, and a musician seen in his lodging a-mornings. CUP. And not a poet? MER. Fie no: himself is a rhymer, and that's thought better than a poet. He is not lightly within to his mercer, no, though he come when he takes physic, which is commonly after his play. He beats a tailor very well, but a stocking-seller admirably: and so consequently any one he owes money to, that dares not resist him. He never makes general invitement, but against the publishing of a new suit; marry, then you shall have more drawn to his lodging, than come to the launching of some three ships; especially if he be furnish'd with supplies for the retiring of his old wardrobe from pawn: if not, he does hire a stock of apparel, and some forty or fifty pound in gold, for that forenoon to shew. He is thought a very necessary perfume for the presence, and for that only cause welcome thither: six milliners' shops afford you not the like scent. He courts ladies with how many great horse he hath rid that morning, or how oft he hath done the whole, or half the pommado in a seven-night before: and sometime ventures so far upon the virtue of his pomander, that he dares tell 'em, how many shirts he has sweat at tennis that week; but wisely conceals so many dozen of balls he is on the score. Here he comes, that is all this. [ENTER HEDON, ANAIDES, AND GELAIA.] HED. Boy! MER. Sir. HED. Are any of the ladies in the presence? MER. None yet, sir. HED. Give me some gold, -- more. ANA. Is that thy boy, Hedon? HED. Ay, what think'st thou of him? ANA. I'd geld him; I warrant he has the philosopher's stone. HED. Well said, my good melancholy devil: sirrah, I have devised one or two of the prettiest oaths, this morning in my bed, as ever thou heard'st, to protest withal in the presence. ANA. Prithee, let's hear them. HED. Soft, thou'lt use them afore me. ANA. No, d--mn me then -- I have more oaths than I know how to utter, by this air. HED. Faith, one is, "By the tip of your ear, sweet lady." Is it not pretty, and genteel? ANA. Yes, for the person 'tis applied to, a lady. It should be light, and -- HED. Nay, the other is better, exceeds it much: the invention is farther fet too. "By the white valley that lies between the alpine hills of your bosom, I protest. -- " ANA. Well, you travell'd for that, Hedon. MER. Ay, in a map, where his eyes were but blind guides to his understanding, it seems. HED. And then I have a salutation will nick all, by this caper: hay! ANA. How is that? HED. You know I call madam Philautia, my Honour; and she calls me her Ambition. Now, when I meet her in the presence anon, I will come to her, and say, "Sweet Honour, I have hitherto contented my sense with the lilies of your hand; but now I will taste the roses of your lip"; and, withal, kiss her: to which she cannot but blushing answer, "Nay now you are too ambitious." And then do I reply: "I cannot be too Ambitious of Honour, sweet lady." Will't not be good? ha? ha? ANA. O, assure your soul. HED. By heaven, I think 'twill be excellent: and a very politic achievement of a kiss. ANA. I have thought upon one for Moria of a sudden too, if it take. HED. What is't, my dear Invention? ANA. Marry, I will come to her, (and she always wears a muff, if you be remembered,) and I will tell her, "Madam your whole self cannot but be perfectly wise; for your hands have wit enough to keep themselves warm." HED. Now, before Jove, admirable! [GELAIA LAUGHS.] Look, thy page takes it too. By Phoebus, my sweet facetious rascal, I could eat water-gruel with thee a month for this jest, my dear rogue. ANA. O, Hercules 'tis your only dish; above all your potatoes or oyster-pies in the world. HED. I have ruminated upon a most rare wish too, and the prophecy to it; but I'll have some friend to be the prophet; as thus: I do wish myself one of my mistress's cioppini. Another demands, Why would he be one of his mistress's cioppini? a third answers, Because he would make her higher: a fourth shall say, That will make her proud: and a fifth shall conclude, Then do I prophesy pride will have a fall; -- and he shall give it her. ANA. I will be your prophet. Gods so, it will be most exquisite; thou art a fine inventious rogue, sirrah. HED. Nay, and I have posies for rings, too, and riddles, that they dream not of. ANA. Tut, they'll do that, when they come to sleep on them, time enough: But were thy devices never in the presence yet, Hedon? HED. O, no, I disdain that. ANA. 'Twere good we went afore then, and brought them acquainted with the room where they shall act, lest the strangeness of it put them out of countenance, when they should come forth. [EXEUNT HEDON AND ANAIDES.] CUP. Is that a courtier, too. MER. Troth, no; he has two essential parts of the courtier, pride and ignorance; marry, the rest come somewhat after the ordinary gallant. 'Tis Impudence itself, Anaides; one that speaks all that comes in his cheeks, and will blush no more than a sackbut. He lightly occupies the jester's room at the table, and keeps laughter, Gelaia, a wench in page's attire, following him in place of a squire, whom he now and then tickles with some strange ridiculous stuff, utter'd as his land came to him, by chance. He will censure or discourse of any thing, but as absurdly as you would wish. His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt. He does naturally admire his wit that wears gold lace, or tissue: stabs any man that speaks more contemptibly of the scholar than he. He is a great proficient in all the illiberal sciences, as cheating, drinking, swaggering, whoring, and such like: never kneels but to pledge healths, nor prays but for a pipe of pudding-tobacco. He will blaspheme in his shirt. The oaths which he vomits at one supper would maintain a town of garrison in good swearing a twelvemonth. One other genuine quality he has which crowns all these, and that is this: to a friend in want, he will not depart with the weight of a soldered groat, lest the world might censure him prodigal, or report him a gull: marry, to his cockatrice or punquetto, half a dozen taffata gowns or satin kirtles in a pair or two of months, why, they are nothing. CUP. I commend him, he is one of my clients. [THEY RETIRE TO THE BACK OF THE STAGE.] [ENTER AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, AND COS.] AMO. Come, sir. You are now within regard of the presence, and see, the privacy of this room how sweetly it offers itself to our retired intendments. -- Page, cast a vigilant and enquiring eye about, that we be not rudely surprised by the approach of some ruder stranger. COS. I warrant you, sir. I'll tell you when the wolf enters, fear nothing. MER. O what a mass of benefit shall we possess, in being the invisible spectators of this strange show now to be acted! AMO. Plant yourself there, sir; and observe me. You shall now, as well be the ocular, as the ear-witness, how clearly I can refel that paradox, or rather pseudodox, of those, which hold the face to be the index of the mind, which, I assure you, is not so in any politic creature: for instance; I will now give you the particular and distinct face of every your most noted species of persons, as your merchant, your scholar, your soldier, your lawyer, courtier, etc., and each of these so truly, as you would swear, but that your eye shall see the variation of the lineament, it were my most proper and genuine aspect. First, for your merchant, or city-face, 'tis thus; a dull, plodding-face, still looking in a direct line, forward: there is no great matter in this face. Then have you your student's, or academic face; which is here an honest, simple, and methodical face; but somewhat more spread then the former. The third is your soldier's face, a menacing and astounding face, that looks broad and big: the grace of his face consisteth much in a beard. The anti-face to this, is your lawyer's face, a contracted, subtile, and intricate face, full of quirks and turnings, a labyrinthean face, now angularly, now circularly, every way aspected. Next is your statist's face, a serious, solemn, and supercilious face, full of formal and square gravity; the eye, for the most part, deeply and artificially shadow'd; there is great judgment required in the making of this face. But now, to come to your face of faces, or courtier's face; 'tis of three sorts, according to our subdivision of a courtier, elementary, practic, and theoric. Your courtier theoric, is he that hath arrived to his farthest, and doth now know the court rather by speculation than practice; and this is his face: a fastidious and oblique face; that looks as it went with a vice, and were screw'd thus. Your courtier practic, is he that is yet in his path, his course, his way, and hath not touch'd the punctilio or point of his hopes; his face is here: a most promising, open, smooth, and overflowing face, that seems as it would run and pour itself into you: somewhat a northerly face. Your courtier elementary, is one but newly enter'd, or as it were in the alphabet, or ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la of courtship. Note well this face, for it is this you must practise. ASO. I'll practise them all, if you please, sir. AMO. Ay, hereafter you may: and it will not be altogether an ungrateful study. For, let your soul be assured of this, in any rank or profession whatever, the more general or major part of opinion goes with the face and simply respects nothing else. Therefore, if that can be made exactly, curiously, exquisitely, thoroughly, it is enough: but for the present you shall only apply yourself to this face of the elementary courtier, a light, revelling, and protesting face, now blushing, now smiling, which you may help much with a wanton wagging of your head, thus, (a feather will teach you,) or with kissing your finger that hath the ruby, or playing with some string of your band, which is a most quaint kind of melancholy besides: or, if among ladies, laughing loud, and crying up your own wit, though perhaps borrow'd, it is not amiss. Where is your page? call for your casting-bottle, and place your mirror in your hat, as I told you; so! Come, look not pale, observe me, set your face, and enter. MER. O, for some excellent painter, to have taken the copy of all these faces! [ASIDE.] ASO. Prosaites! AMO. Fie! I premonish you of that: in the court, boy, lacquey, or sirrah. COS. Master, lupus in -- O, 'tis Prosaites. [ENTER PROSAITES.] ASO. Sirrah, prepare my casting-bottle; I think I must be enforced to purchase me another page; you see how at hand Cos waits here. [EXEUNT AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, COS, AND PROSAITES.] MER. So will he too in time. CUP. What's he Mercury? MER. A notable smelt. One that hath newly entertain'd the beggar to follow him, but cannot get him to wait near enough. 'Tis Asotus, the heir of Philargyrus; but first I'll give ye the other's character, which may make his the clearer. He that is with him is Amorphus, a traveller, one so made out of the mixture of shreds of forms, that himself is truly deform'd. He walks most commonly with a clove or pick-tooth in his mouth, he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are printed, his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is an Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimm'd, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. He is his own promoter in every place. The wife of the ordinary gives him his diet to maintain her table in discourse; which, indeed, is a mere tyranny over her other guests, for he will usurp all the talk: ten constables are not so tedious. He is no great shifter; once a year his apparel is ready to revolt. He doth use much to arbitrate quarrels, and fights himself, exceeding well, out at a window. He will lie cheaper than any beggar, and louder than most clocks; for which he is right properly accommodated to the Whetstone, his page. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most of these tricks after him; sweats to imitate him in every thing to a hair, except a beard, which is not yet extant. He doth learn to make strange sauces, to eat anchovies, maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli, and caviare, because he loves them; speaks as he speaks, looks, walks, goes so in clothes and fashion: is in all as if he were moulded of him. Marry, before they met, he had other very pretty sufficiencies, which yet he retains some light impression of; as frequenting a dancing school, and grievously torturing strangers with inquisition after his grace in his galliard. He buys a fresh acquaintance at any rate. His eyes and his raiment confer much together as he goes in the street. He treads nicely like the fellow that walks upon ropes, especially the first Sunday of his silk stockings; and when he is most neat and new, you shall strip him with commendations. CUP. Here comes another. [CRITES PASSES OVER THE STAGE.] MER. Ay, but one of another strain, Cupid; This fellow weighs somewhat. CUP. His name, Hermes? MER. Crites. A creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one, in whom the humours and elements are peaceably met, without emulation of precedency; he is neither too fantastically melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly sanguine, or too rashly choleric; but in all so composed and ordered; as it is clear Nature went about some full work, she did more than make a man when she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon, but not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and is so truly learned, that he affects not to shew it. He will think and speak his thought both freely; but as distant from depraving another man's merit, as proclaiming his own. For his valour, 'tis such, that he dares as little to offer any injury, as receive one. In sum, he hath a most ingenuous and sweet spirit, a sharp and season'd wit, a straight judgment and a strong mind. Fortune could never break him, nor make him less. He counts it his pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more delighted with good deeds than goods. It is a competency to him that he can be virtuous. He doth neither covet nor fear; he hath too much reason to do either; and that commends all things to him. CUP. Not better than Mercury commends him. MER. O, Cupid, 'tis beyond my deity to give him his due praises: I could leave my place in heaven to live among mortals, so I were sure to be no other than he. CUP. 'Slight, I believe he is your minion, you seem to be so ravish'd with him. MER. He's one I would not have a wry thought darted against, willingly. CUP. No, but a straight shaft in his bosom I'll promise him, if I am Cytherea's son. MER. Shall we go, Cupid? CUP. Stay, and see the ladies now: they'll come presently. I'll help to paint them. MER. What lay colour upon colour! that affords but an ill blazon. CUP. Here comes metal to help it, the lady Argurion. [ARGURION PASSES OVER THE STAGE.] MER. Money, money. CUP. The same. A nymph of a most wandering and giddy disposition, humorous as the air, she'll run from gallant to gallant, as they sit at primero in the presence, most strangely, and seldom stays with any. She spreads as she goes. To-day you shall have her look as clear and fresh as the morning, and to-morrow as melancholic as midnight. She takes special pleasure in a close obscure lodging, and for that cause visits the city so often, where she has many secret true concealing favourites. When she comes abroad she's more loose and scattering than dust, and will fly from place to place, as she were wrapped with a whirlwind. Your young student, for the most part, she affects not, only salutes him, and away: a poet, nor a philosopher, she is hardly brought to take any notice of; no, though he be some part of an alchemist. She loves a player well, and a lawyer infinitely; but your fool above all. She can do much in court for the obtaining of any suit whatsoever, no door but flies open to her, her presence is above a charm. The worst in her is want of keeping state, and too much descending into inferior and base offices; she's for any coarse employment you will put upon her, as to be your procurer, or pander. MER. Peace, Cupid, here comes more work for you, another character or two. [ENTER PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA.] PHA. Stay sweet Philautia; I'll but change my fan, and go presently. MOR. Now, in very good serious, ladies, I will have this order revers'd, the presence must be better maintain'd from you: a quarter past eleven, and ne'er a nymph in prospective! Beshrew my hand, there must be a reform'd discipline. Is that your new ruff, sweet lady-bird? By my troth, 'tis most intricately rare. MER. Good Jove, what reverend gentlewoman in years might this be? CUP. 'Tis madam Moria, guardian of the nymphs; one that is not now to be persuaded of her wit; she will think herself wise against all the judgments that come. A lady made all of voice and air, talks any thing of any thing. She is like one of your ignorant poetasters of the time, who, when they have got acquainted with a strange word, never rest till they have wrung it in, though it loosen the whole fabric of their sense. MER. That was pretty and sharply noted, Cupid. CUP. She will tell you, Philosophy was a fine reveller, when she was young, and a gallant, and that then, though she say it, she was thought to be the dame Dido and Helen of the court: as also, what a sweet dog she had this time four years, and how it was called Fortune; and that, if the Fates had not cut his thread, he had been a dog to have given entertainment to any gallant in this kingdom; and unless she had whelp'd it herself, she could not have loved a thing better in this world. MER. O, I prithee no more; I am full of her. CUP. Yes, I must needs tell you she composes a sack-posset well; and would court a young page sweetly, but that her breath is against it. MER. Now, her breath or something more strong protect me from her! The other, the other, Cupid. CUP. O, that's my lady and mistress, madam Philautia. She admires not herself for any one particularity, but for all: she is fair, and she knows it; she has a pretty light wit too, and she knows it; she can dance, and she knows that too; play at shuttle-cock, and that too: no quality she has, but she shall take a very particular knowledge of, and most lady-like commend it to you. You shall have her at any time read you the history of herself, and very subtilely run over another lady's sufficiencies to come to her own. She has a good superficial judgment in painting; and would seem to have so in poetry. A most complete lady in the opinion of some three beside herself. PHI. Faith, how liked you my quip to Hedon, about the garter? Was't not witty? MOR. Exceeding witty and integrate: you did so aggravate the jest withal. PHI. And did I not dance movingly the last night? MOR. Movingly! out of measure, in troth, sweet charge. MER. A happy commendation, to dance out of measure! MOR. Save only you wanted the swim in the turn: O! when I was at fourteen -- PHI. Nay, that's mine own from any nymph in the court, I'm sure on't; therefore you mistake me in that, guardian: both the swim and the trip are properly mine; every body will affirm it that has any judgment in dancing, I assure you. PHA. Come now, Philautia, I am for you; shall we go? PHI. Ay, good Phantaste: What! have you changed your head-tire? PHA. Yes, faith; the other was so near the common, it had no extraordinary grace; besides, I had worn it almost a day, in good troth. PHI. I'll be sworn, this is most excellent for the device, and rare; 'tis after the Italian print we look'd on t'other night. PHA. 'Tis so: by this fan, I cannot abide any thing that savours the poor over-worn cut, that has any kindred with it; I must have variety, I: this mixing in fashion, I hate it worse than to burn juniper in my chamber, I protest. PHI. And yet we cannot have a new peculiar court-tire, but these retainers will have it; these suburb Sunday-waiters; these courtiers for high days; I know not what I should call 'em -- PHA. O, ay, they do most pitifully imitate; but I have a tire a coming, i'faith, shall -- MOR. In good certain, madam, it makes you look most heavenly; but, lay your hand on your heart, you never skinn'd a new beauty more prosperously in your life, nor more metaphysically: look good lady, sweet lady, look. PHI. 'Tis very clear and well, believe me. But if you had seen mine yesterday, when 'twas young, you would have -- Who's your doctor, Phantaste? PHA. Nay, that's counsel, Philautia; you shall pardon me: yet I'll assure you he's the most dainty, sweet, absolute, rare man of the whole college. O! his very looks, his discourse, his behaviour, all he does is physic, I protest. PHI. For heaven's sake, his name, good dear Phantaste? PHA. No, no, no, no, no, no, believe me, not for a million of heavens: I will not make him cheap. Fie -- [EXEUNT PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA.] CUP. There is a nymph too of a most curious and elaborate strain, light, all motion, an ubiquitary, she is every where, Phantaste -- MER. Her very name speaks her, let her pass. But are these, Cupid, the stars of Cynthia's court? Do these nymphs attend upon Diana? CUP. They are in her court, Mercury, but not as stars; these never come in the presence of Cynthia. The nymphs that make her train are the divine Arete, Time, Phronesis, Thauma, and others of that high sort. These are privately brought in by Moria in this licentious time, against her knowledge; and, like so many meteors, will vanish when she appears. [ENTER PROSAITES SINGING, FOLLOWED BY GELAIA AND COS, WITH BOTTLES.]
[MERCURY AND CUPID COME FORWARD.] MER. What, those that were our fellow pages but now, so soon preferr'd to be yeomen of the bottles! The mystery, the mystery, good wags? CUP. Some diet-drink they have the guard of. PRO. No, sir, we are going in quest of a strange fountain, lately found out. CUP. By whom? COS. My master or the great discoverer, Amorphus. MER. Thou hast well entitled him, Cos, for he will discover all he knows. GEL. Ay, and a little more too, when the spirit is upon him. PRO. O, the good travelling gentleman yonder has caused such a drought in the presence, with reporting the wonders of this new water, that all the ladies and gallants lie languishing upon the rushes, like so many pounded cattle in the midst of harvest, sighing one to another, and gasping, as if each of them expected a cock from the fountain to be brought into his mouth; and without we return quickly, they are all, as a youth would say, no better then a few trouts cast ashore, or a dish of eels in a sand-bag. MER. Well then, you were best dispatch, and have a care of them. Come, Cupid, thou and I'll go peruse this dry wonder. [EXEUNT.] _ |
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