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The Poetaster; or, His Arraignment, a play by Ben Jonson |
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Act 1 - Scene 1 |
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_ ACT I - SCENE I SCENE 1--Scene draws, and discovers OVID in his study.
[Enter Luscus, with a gown and cap.]
Ovid. Give me; how near is my father? Lusc. Heart a'man: get a law book in your hand, I will not answer you else. [Ovid puts on his cap and gown ]. Why so! now there's some formality in you. By Jove, and three or four of the gods more, I am right of mine old master's humour for that; this villainous poetry will undo you, by the welkin. Ovid. What, hast thou buskins on, Luscus, that thou swearest so tragically and high? Lusc. No, but I have boots on, sir, and so has your father too by this time; for he call'd for them ere I came from the lodging. Ovid. Why, was he no readier? Lusc. O no; and there was the mad skeldering captain, with the velvet arms, ready to lay hold on him as he comes down: he that presses every man he meets, with an oath to lend him money, and cries, Thou must do't, old boy, as thou art a man, a man of worship. Ovid. Who, Pantilius Tucca? Lus. Ay, he; and I met little master Lupus, the tribune, going thither too. Ovid. Nay, an he be under their arrest, I may with safety enough read over my elegy before he come. Lus. Gods a'me! what will you do? why, young master, you are not Castalian mad, lunatic, frantic, desperate, ha! Ovid. What ailest thou, Luscus? Lus. God be with you, sir; I'll leave you to your poetical fancies, and furies. I'll not be guilty, I. [Exit.] Envy, why twit'st thou me my time's spent ill, [Enter OVID senior, followed by Luscus, Tucca, and Lupus.]
Ovid ju. No, sir. Ovid se. Yes, sir; I hear of a tragedy of yours coming forth for the common players there, call'd Medea. By my household gods, if I come to the acting of it, I'll add one tragic part more than is yet expected to it: believe me, when I promise it. What! shall I have my son a stager now? an enghle for players? a gull, a rook, a shot-clog, to make suppers, and be laugh'd at? Publius, I will set thee on the funeral pile first. Ovid ju. Sir, I beseech you to have patience. Lus. Nay, this 'tis to have your ears damn'd up to good counsel. I did augur all this to him beforehand, without poring into an ox's paunch for the matter, and yet he would not be scrupulous. Tuc. How now, goodman slave! what, rowly-powly? all rivals, rascal? Why, my master of worship, dost hear? are these thy best projects? is this thy designs and thy discipline, to suffer knaves to be competitors with commanders and gentlemen? Are we parallels, rascal, are we parallels? Ovid se. Sirrah, go get my horses ready. You'll still be prating. Tuc. Do, you perpetual stinkard, do, go; talk to tapsters and ostlers, you slave; they are in your element, go; here be the emperor's captains, you raggamuffin rascal, and not your comrades. Lup. Indeed. Marcus Ovid, these players are an idle generation, and do much harm in a state, corrupt young gentry very much, I know it; I have not been a tribune thus long and observed nothing: besides, they will rob us, us, that are magistrates, of our respect, bring us upon their stages, and make us ridiculous to the plebeians; they will play you or me, the wisest men they can come by still, only to bring us in contempt with the vulgar, and make us cheap. Tur. Thou art in the right, my venerable cropshin, they will indeed; the tongue of the oracle never twang'd truer. Your courtier cannot kiss his mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent gallant pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper. An honest decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen in a bawdy-house, but he shall be straight in one of their wormwood comedies. They are grown licentious, the rogues; libertines, flat libertines. They forget they are in the statute, the rascals; they are blazon'd there; there they are trick'd, they and their pedigrees; they need no other heralds, I wiss. Ovid se. Methinks, if nothing else, yet this alone, the very reading of the public edicts, should fright thee from commerce with them, and give thee distaste enough of their actions. But this betrays what a student you are, this argues your proficiency in the law!
Ovid ju. Cornelius Gallus borrowed it to read. Ovid se. Cornelius Gallus! there's another gallant too hath drunk of the same poison, and Tibullus and Propertius. But these are gentlemen of means and revenues now. Thou art a younger brother, and hast nothing but they bare exhibition; which I protest shall be bare indeed, if thou forsake not these unprofitable by-courses, and that timely too. Name me a profest poet, that his poetry did ever afford him so much as a competency. Ay, your god of poets there, whom all of you admire and reverence so much, Homer, he whose worm-eaten statue must not be spewed against, but with hallow'd lips and groveling adoration, what was he? what was he? Tuc. Marry, I'll tell thee, old swaggerer; he was a poor blind, rhyming rascal, that lived obscurely up and down in booths and tap-houses, and scarce ever made a good meal in his sleep, the whoreson hungry beggar. Ovid se. He says well:--nay, I know this nettles you now; but answer me, is it not true? You'll tell me his name shall live; and that now being dead his works have eternised him, and made him divine: but could this divinity feed him while he lived? could his name feast him? Tuc. Or purchase him a senator's revenue, could it? Ovid se. Ay, or give him place in the commonwealth? worship, or attendants? make him be carried in his litter? Tuc. Thou speakest sentences, old Bias. Lup. All this the law will do, young sir, if you'll follow it. Ovid se. If he be mine, he shall follow and observe what I will apt him to, or I profess here openly and utterly to disclaim him.
Lup. Nay, you take him too quickly, Marcus Ovid se. Why, he cannot speak, he cannot think out of poetry; he is bewitch'd with it. Lup. Come, do not misprise him. Ovid se. Misprise! ay, marry, I would have him use some such words now; they have some touch, some taste of the law. He should make himself a style out of these, and let his Propertius' elegies go by. Lup. Indeed, young Publius, he that will now hit the mark, must shoot through the law; we have no other planet reigns, and in that sphere you may sit and sing with angels. Why, the law makes a man happy, without respecting any other merit; a simple scholar, or none at all, may be a lawyer. Tuc. He tells thee true, my noble neophyte; my little gram maticaster, he does: it shall never put thee to thy mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy, and I know not what supposed Suficiencies; if thou canst but have the patience to plod enough, talk, and make a noise enough, be impudent enough, and 'tis enough. Lup. Three books will furnish you. Tuc. And the less art the better: besides, when it shall be in the power of thy chevril conscience, to do right or wrong at thy pleasure, my pretty Alcibiades. Lup. Ay, and to have better men than himself, by many thousand degrees, to observe him, and stand bare. Tuc. True, and he to carry himself proud and stately, and have the law on his side for't, old boy. Ovid se. Well, the day grows old, gentlemen, and I must leave you. Publius, if thou wilt hold my favour, abandon these idle, fruitless studies, that so bewitched thee. Send Janus home his back face again, and look only forward to the law: intend that. I will I allow thee what shall suit thee in the rank of gentlemen, and maintain thy society with the best; and under these conditions I leave thee. My blessings light upon thee, if thou respect them; if not, mine eyes may drop for thee, but thine own heart will ache for itself; and so farewell! What, are my horses come? Lus. Yes, sir, they are at the gate Without. Ovid se. That's well.--Asinius Lupus, a word. Captain, I shall take my leave of you? Tuc. No, my little old boy, dispatch with Cothurnus there: I'll attend thee, I-- Lus. To borrow some ten drachms: I know his project. [Aside.] Ovid se. Sir, you shall make me beholding to you. Now, captain Tucca, what say you? Tuc. Why, what should say, or what can I say, my flower O' the order? Should I say thou art rich, or that thou art honourable, or wise, or valiant, or learned, or liberal? why, thou art all these, and thou knowest it, my noble Lucullus, thou knowest it. Come, be not ashamed of thy virtues, old stump: honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times. Thou art the man of war's Mecaenas, old boy. Why shouldst not thou be graced then by them, as well as he is by his poets? [Enter PYRGUS and whispers TUCCA.] How now, my carrier, what news? Lus. The boy has stayed within for his cue this half-hour. [Aside.] Tuc. Come, do not whisper to me, but speak it out: what; it is no treason against the state I hope, is it? Lus. Yes, against the state of my master's purse. [Aside, and exit.] Pyr. [aloud.] Sir, Agrippa desires you to forbear him till the next week; his mules are not yet come up. Tuc. His mules! now the bots, the spavin, and the glanders, and some dozen diseases more, light on him and his mules! What, have they the yellows, his mules, that they come no faster? or are they foundered, ha? his mules have the staggers belike, have they? Pyr. O no, sir;--then your tongue might be suspected for one of his mules. [Aside.] Tuc He owes me almost a talent, and he thinks to bear it away with his mules, does he? Sirrah, you nut cracker. Go your ways to him again, and tell him I must have money, I: I cannot eat stones and turfs, say. What, will he clem me and my followers? ask him an he will clem me; do, go. He would have me fry my jerkin, would he? Away, setter, away. Yet, stay, my little tumbler, this old boy shall supply now. I will not trouble him, I cannot be importunate, I; I cannot be impudent. Pyr. Alas, sir, no; you are the most maidenly blushing creature upon the earth. [Aside] Tuc. Dost thou hear, my little six and fifty, or thereabouts? thou art not to learn the humours and tricks of that old bald cheater, Time; thou hast not this chain for nothing. Men of worth have their chimeras, as well as other creatures; and they do see monsters sometimes, they do, they do, brave boy. Pyr. Better cheap than he shall see you, I warrant him. [Aside.] Tuc. Thou must let me have six-six drachma, I mean, old boy: thou shalt do it; I tell thee, old boy, thou shalt, and in private too,--dost thou see?--Go, walk off: [to the Boy]-There, there. Six is the sum. Thy son's a gallant spark and must not be put out of a sudden. Come hither, Callimachus; thy father tells me thou art too poetical, boy: thou must not be so; thou must leave them, young novice, thou must; they are a sort of poor starved rascals, that are ever wrap'd up in foul linen; and can boast of nothing but a lean visage, peering out of a seam-rent suit, the very emblems of beggary. No, dost hear, turn lawyer, thou shalt be my solicitor.--- 'Tis right, old boy, is't? Ovid Sr. You were best tell it, captain. Tuc. No; fare thou well, mine honest horseman; and thou, old beaver. [To Lupus]-Pray thee, Roman, when thou comest to town, see me at my lodging, visit me sometimes? thou shalt be welcome. old boy. Do not balk me, good swaggerer. Jove keep thy chain from pawning; go thy ways, if thou lack money I'll lend thee some; I'll leave thee to thy horse now. Adieu... Ovid Sr. Farewell, good captain. Tuc. Boy, you can have but half a share now, boy Ovid Sr. 'Tis a strange boldness that accompanies this fellow. Come. Ovid ju. I'll give attendance on you to your horse, sir, please you.
Tib. [within.] Ovid! Ovid. Who's there? Come in. Tib. Good morrow, lawyer. Ovid. Good morrow, dear Tibullus; welcome: sit down. Tib. Not I. What, so hard at it? Let's see, what's here? Numa in decimo nono. I Nay, I will see it Ovid. Prithee away
Tib. Off with this. gown; I come to have thee walk. Ovid. No, good Tibullus, I'm not now in case. Pray let me alone. Tib. How! Not in case? Slight, thou'rt in too much case, by all this law. Tib. The hell thou wilt! What! turn law into verse Ovid. How! subscribed Julia! O my life, my heaven! Tib. Is the mood changed? Ovid. Tib. What is it, Ovid? Ovid. That I must meet my Julia, the princess Julia. Tib. Where? Ovid. Why, at--- Heart, I've forgot; my passion so transports me. Ovid. Who? Cytheris, Cornelius Gallus' love? Tib. Ay, he'll be there too, and my Plautia. Ovid. And why not your Delia? Tib. Yes, and your Corinna. Tib. Publius, thou'lt lose thyself. Ovid.
Ovid. O, how does my Sextus? Tib. Faith, full of sorrow for his Cynthia's death. Ovid. What, still? Ovid.
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