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_ ACT IV - SCENE VI
SCENE VI. -- PUNTARVOLO'S LODGINGS.
[ENTER PUNTARVOLO, FASTIDIOUS BRISK IN A NEW SUIT, AND SERVANTS WITH THE DOG.]
PUNT.
Well, now my whole venture is forth, I will resolve to depart shortly.
FAST.
Faith, sir Puntarvolo, go to the court, and take leave of the ladies first.
PUNT.
I care not, if it be this afternoon's labour. Where is Carlo?
FAST.
Here he comes.
[ENTER CARLO, SOGLIARDO, SHIFT, AND MACILENTE.]
CAR.
Faith, gallants, I am persuading this gentleman [POINTS TO SOGLIARDO] to turn courtier. He is a man of fair revenue, and his estate will bear the charge well. Besides, for his other gifts of the mind, or so, why they are as nature lent him them, pure, simple, without any artificial drug or mixture of these two threadbare beggarly qualities, learning and knowledge, and therefore the more accommodate and genuine. Now, for the life itself --
FAST.
O, the most celestial, and full of wonder and delight, that can be imagined, signior, beyond thought and apprehension of pleasure! A man lives there in that divine rapture, that he will think himself i' the ninth heaven for the time, and lose all sense of mortality whatsoever, when he shall behold such glorious, and almost immortal beauties; hear such angelical and harmonious voices, discourse with such flowing and ambrosial spirits, whose wits are as sudden as lightning, and humorous as nectar; oh, it makes a man all quintessence and flame, and lifts him up, in a moment, to the very crystal crown of the sky, where, hovering in the strength of his imagination, he shall behold all the delights of the Hesperides, the Insulae Fortunatae, Adonis' Gardens, Tempe, or what else, confined within the amplest verge of poesy, to be mere umbrae, and imperfect figures, conferred with the most essential felicity of your court.
MACI.
Well, this ecomium was not extemporal, it came too perfectly off.
CAR.
Besides, sir, you shall never need to go to a hot-house, you shall sweat there with courting your mistress, or losing your money at primero, as well as in all the stoves in Sweden. Marry, this, sir, you must ever be sure to carry a good strong perfume about you, that your mistress's dog may smell you out amongst the rest; and, in making love to her, never fear to be out; for you may have a pipe of tobacco, or a bass viol shall hang o' the wall, of purpose, will put you in presently. The tricks your Resolution has taught you in tobacco, the whiffe, and those sleights, will stand you in very good ornament there.
FAST.
Ay, to some, perhaps; but, an he should come to my mistress with tobacco (this gentleman knows) she'd reply upon him, i'faith. O, by this bright sun, she has the most acute, ready, and facetious wit that -- tut, there's no spirit able to stand her. You can report it, signior, you have seen her.
PUNT.
Then can he report no less, out of his judgment, I assure him.
MACI.
Troth, I like her well enough, but she's too self-conceited, methinks.
FAST.
Ay, indeed, she's a little too self-conceited; an 'twere not for that humour, she were the most-to-be-admired lady in the world.
PUNT.
Indeed, it is a humour that takes from her other excellences.
MACI.
Why, it may easily be made to forsake her, in my thought.
FAST.
Easily, sir! then are all impossibilities easy.
MACI.
You conclude too quick upon me, signior. What will you say, if I make it so perspicuously appear now, that yourself shall confess nothing more possible?
FAST.
Marry, I will say, I will both applaud and admire you for it.
PUNT.
And I will second him in the admiration.
MACI.
Why, I'll show you, gentlemen. -- Carlo, come hither.
[MACI., CAR., PUNT., AND FAST. WHISPER TOGETHER.]
SOG.
Good faith, I have a great humour to the court. What thinks my Resolution? shall I adventure?
SHIFT.
Troth, Countenance, as you please; the place is a place of good reputation and capacity.
SOG.
O, my tricks in tobacco, as Carlo says, will show excellent there.
SHIFT.
Why, you may go with these gentlemen now, and see fashions; and after, as you shall see correspondence.
SOG.
You say true. You will go with me, Resolution?
SHIFT.
I will meet you, Countenance, about three or four o'clock; but, to say to go with you, I cannot; for, as I am Apple-John, I am to go before the cockatrice you saw this morning, and therefore pray, present me excused, good Countenance.
SOG.
Farewell, good Resolution, but fail not to meet.
SHIFT.
As I live.
[EXIT.]
PUNT.
Admirably excellent!
MACI.
If you can but persuade Sogliardo to court, there's all now.
CAR.
O, let me alone, that's my task.
[GOES TO SOGLIARDO.]
FAST.
Now, by wit, Macilente, it's above measure excellent; 'twill be the only court-exploit that ever proved courtier ingenious.
PUNT.
Upon my soul, it puts the lady quite out of her humour, and we shall laugh with judgment.
CAR.
Come, the gentleman was of himself resolved to go with you, afore I moved it.
MACI.
Why, then, gallants, you two and Carlo go afore to prepare the jest; Sogliardo and I will come some while after you.
CAR.
Pardon me, I am not for the court.
PUNT.
That's true; Carlo comes not at court, indeed. Well, you shall leave it to the faculty of monsieur Brisk, and myself; upon our lives, we will manage it happily. Carlo shall bespeak supper at the Mitre, against we come back: where we will meet and dimple our cheeks with laughter at the success.
CAR.
Ay, but will you promise to come?
PUNT.
Myself shall undertake for them; he that fails, let his reputation lie under the lash of thy tongue.
CAR.
Ods so, look who comes here!
[ENTER FUNGOSO.]
SOG.
What, nephew!
FUNG.
Uncle, God save you; did you see a gentleman, one monsieur Brisk, a courtier? he goes in such a suit as I do.
SOG.
Here is the gentleman, nephew, but not in such a suit.
FUNG.
Another suit!
SOG.
How now, nephew?
FAST.
Would you speak with me, sir?
CAR.
Ay, when he has recovered himself, poor Poll!
PUNT.
Some rosa-solis.
MACI.
How now, signior?
FUNG.
I am not well, sir.
MACI.
Why, this it is to dog the fashion.
CAR.
Nay, come, gentlemen, remember your affairs; his disease is nothing but the flux of apparel.
PUNT.
Sirs, return to the lodging, keep the cat safe; I'll be the dog's guardian myself.
[EXEUNT SERVANTS.]
SOG.
Nephew, will you go to court with us? these gentlemen and I are for the court; nay, be not so melancholy.
FUNG.
'Slid, I think no man in Christendom has that rascally fortune that I have.
MACI.
Faith, you suit is well enough, signior.
FUNG.
Nay, not for that, I protest; but I had an errand to monsieur Fastidious, and I have forgot it.
MACI. Why, go along to court with us, and remember it; come, gentlemen, you three take one boat, and Sogliardo and I will take another; we shall be there instantly.
FAST.
Content: good sir, vouchsafe us your pleasance.
PUNT.
Farewell, Carlo: remember.
CAR.
I warrant you: would I had one of Kemp's shoes to throw after you.
PUNT.
Good fortune will close the eyes of our jest, fear not; and we shall frolick.
[EXEUNT.]
MIT.
This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on a sudden, methinks, than he was before: there's some portent in it, I believe.
COR.
O, he's a fellow of a strange nature. Now does he, in this calm of his humour, plot, and store up a world of malicious thoughts in his brain, till he is so full with them, that you shall see the very torrent of his envy break forth like a land-flood: and, against the course of all their affections, oppose itself so violently, that you will almost have wonder to think, how 'tis possible the current of their dispositions shall receive so quick and strong an alteration.
MIT.
Ay, marry, sir, this is that, on which my expectation has dwelt all this while; for I must tell you, signior, though I was loth to interrupt the scene, yet I made it a question in mine own private discourse, how he should properly call it "Every Man out of his Humour", when I saw all his actors so strongly pursue, and continue their humours?
COR.
Why, therein his art appears most full of lustre, and approacheth nearest the life; especially when in the flame and height of their humours, they are laid flat, it fills the eye better, and with more contentment. How tedious a sight were it to behold a proud exalted tree kept and cut down by degrees, when it might be fell'd in a moment! and to set the axe to it before it came to that pride and fulness, were, as not to have it grow.
MIT.
Well, I shall long till I see this fall, you talk of.
COR.
To help your longing, signior, let your imagination be swifter than a pair of oars: and by this, suppose Puntarvolo, Brisk, Fungoso, and the dog, arrived at the court-gate, and going up to the great chamber. Macilente and Sogliardo, we'll leave them on the water, till possibility and natural means may land them. Here come the gallants, now prepare your expectations. _
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