Cynthia's Revels (quarto) | The Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson

Edited by Eric Rasmussen and Matthew Steggle

Introduction

According to the folio title-page, Cynthia’s Revels was first acted in 1600 by the Children of the Chapel; the quarto adds that this was at the Blackfriars Theatre. The date can be further narrowed, since Henry Evans’s lease of this playhouse from Richard Burbage was not signed until 2 September 1600. The quarto also (entered on the Stationers’ Register on 23 May 1601) describes it as having been ‘sundry times privately acted’ by the Children of the Chapel.

This newly created boys’ company, run by Evans, a scrivener and entrepreneur. The children had established their base at the Blackfriars playhouse, empty since 1596. As a company, they were modelled on and rivals to the recently revived Children of Pauls. Despite their name they had no link to the royal choir-school or to the previous children’s companies that had assumed its name. Nathaniel Giles, the music master, was Master of the Chapel at Windsor, and thus enjoyed the right to recruit and even compel children to join the company, leading in 1601 to a legal dispute with parents who complained that this privilege amounted almost to child abduction (Bentley, 1942). The musicians whom Giles assembled for the company, the Blackfriars consort, ‘soon became the most celebrated group of musicians in London’ (Gurr, 1996, 347), performing music before the play for up to an hour’s duration. The actors at Jonson’s disposal in 1600 included Salomon Pavy (b. c. 1589), whom Jonson described on his death in 1602 as ‘the stage’s jewel’ ( Epigr. 120); John Underwood (b. c. 1588), later an adult actor; and Nathan Field (b. 1587), who became Jonson’s ‘scholar’ ( Informations, 121) and went on to be one of the most famous adult actors of his day as well as a successful playwright.

It is unclear whether Cynthia’s Revels was ever performed at court. There are two records that might indicate possible performances. On 6 January 1601, the Children of the Chapel were paid £5 to perform at court ‘a show with music and special songs prepared for the purpose’. On 22 February, they were paid £10 to present a ‘play’ at night (MSC, 6.32). Herford and Simpson (9.188) argue that the earlier record is of a performance of Cynthia’s Revels, but Leslie Hotson notes that £10 was the usual fee for a play, which suggests that the entertainment on 6 January was less extensive, and observes also that neither record names the play (Hotson, 1954, 17–18). Thomas Dekker’s mocking reference to Jonson’s plays being ‘misliked at court’ ( Satiromastix, 5.2.325) certainly implies that at least one Jonson play had fared badly there. Cynthia’s Revels seems the best candidate for this, and it would also make sense of Jonson’s choice of epigraph in Q, which appears to indicate that the play met with a cool reception from an elite audience. However, the same epigraph was also used for the 1601 quarto of Every Man In His Humour (see Bednarz, 2001, 268–70). Beyond this, the play’s career is hard to trace, and though a setting by Henry Lawes for one of the songs suggests that a later revival was at least contemplated, no performance has been recorded after 1601. Gifford’s statement that it was revived at the Restoration is an error (Judson, Cynthia, xxii).

The folio text calls the play Cynthia’s Revels, or the Fountain of Self-Love. The Stationers’ Register entry for the quarto, on the other hand, calls it Narcissus, The Fountain of Self-Love, while its title-page has The Fountain of Self-Love, or Cynthia’s Revels. In the Praeludium it is stated that the title is Cynthia’s Revels (33), apparently written above the stage for the audience to see, and this also appears in the quarto running-heads; also Dekker alludes to the play by this title ( Satiromastix, 1.2.100–1). Hence there is no doubt over what it should properly be called.

The text printed in the 1616 folio renames the central character ‘Criticus’ as ‘Crites’; makes hundreds of minor changes to the text; and adds another subplot and around a thousand lines. Previous criticism has usually considered the F-only passages integral to the play, whereas this edition regards them as additions. It is clear that the Q version is coherent and complete without the extra passages introduced in F, and that, while interesting in themselves, the inconsistencies, complications, and, above all, the extra length have impaired critical appreciation of the play as a whole as presented in the quarto.

As regards the genre of the play, commentators have usually been happy to accept Jonson’s own retrospective definition in F, which locates Cynthia’s Revels as the middle one of the three ‘comical satires’. This generic label implies a decisive break with previous vernacular theatrical tradition, and especially with contemporary drama, in favour of a neoclassical style. At the same time it also implies a certain gritty realism of social satire. Certainly, Cynthia’s Revels is grounded in classical literature, and makes no secret of that fact. Paradoxically, though, particularly from the point of view of its description as ‘comical satire’, it is perhaps Jonson’s most surreal play. It puts on stage four gods, and nine female characters described as ‘nymphs’, where the latter functions both as an affected description of fashionable ladies, and as an allusion to the semi-divine female spirits of Greek myth. Cynthia’s Revels features ‘live’ magic enacted on stage, in the form of magical drinks, invisibility, and a crystal ball. The characters Argurion and Prosaites, in particular, are so allegorical that they can scarcely be accommodated within the literal story.

But if this comical satire cannot be called realistic, then neither can it be described as an entirely fresh start in terms of dramaturgy. In many ways the play is rooted in sixteenth-century theatrical culture. For instance, Asotus’s name indicates his affinities with the eponymous hero of Macropedius’s Asotus (1540), a Dutch prodigal-son drama. When, in the F version, his first name turns out to be Acolastus, this links him to a second such prodigal-son figure, from Gnapheus’s Acolastus (1529), and advertises again his emergence from European Latin drama. The structuring device of a masque in which vices are disguised as their neighbour virtues recalls the morality play tradition of Tudor interludes such as John Skelton’s Magnificence and Nicholas Udall’s Respublica. To look to more recent models, this play has a complicated relationship with John Lyly’s drama of the 1580s, in its use of Ovidian metamorphosis, boy-actors, and dangerously multivalent panegyric. And among its most contemporary rivals, the resemblances to contemporary drama are as conspicuous as the differences. For instance, Dekker is often (and perhaps wrongly) taken as a typical example of the naive vernacular tradition against which Jonson is reacting; but like Dekker’s Old Fortunatus (acted 1599), Cynthia’s Revels makes use of magic, includes a scene with Echo, and figures Elizabeth as Cynthia. One might even note that the subtitle seems to invite comparison with the lost play attributed to George Chapman, The Fount of New Fashions (acted 1598). For all that comical satire appears to be a departure from contemporary theatrical practice, Cynthia’s Revels has deep roots in earlier drama.

It also has complex intertextual relationships with a number of non-dramatic texts, as a glance through our commentary indicates. The Greek satirist Lucian is translated extensively in 1.1 and mentioned in 1.2. As Duncan (1979) has shown, Renaissance reception of Lucian tended to take its cues from Erasmus’s praise of him, and Erasmus’s Lucianic Praise of Folly is another text that clearly leaves its mark on this play, most notably in the character of Moria. Formally, the play’s use of the character sketch certainly puts it in a relationship with the Theophrastan tradition, a classical genre whose later English exponents included Joseph Hall and Thomas Overbury (Boyce, 1947; Thron, 1971). Elsewhere, Silver Age Latin is important: Criticus imports large pieces of Seneca into his Stoic meditations, and builds his satirical meditations around Juvenal and Martial.

The play’s most complex literary relationship is with Ovid’s Metamorphoses, since Cynthia’s Revels is dominated by mirrors, reflections, and alterations of form. From its opening, in which Echo, the Renaissance figure of reflection par excellence, wishes she had acted as a true mirror to Narcissus, deceived by an over-accurate reflection, the theme is set. The courtiers, obsessed by shape and appearance, are fittingly marshalled by the shapeless Amorphus (and in F, his shapely cousin Morphides). Their queen, Cynthia, is famous for her shape-changing and yet for her underlying sameness. The play is framed by victims of Ovidian metamorphosis — most importantly, Actaeon from Metamorphoses 3, whose death at the hands of Cynthia is alluded to at the beginning and the end.

Ovid’s text itself is strangely and characteristically ambiguous about whether Actaeon deserved to be turned into a stag and torn to pieces for an offence he did not deliberately commit, and the point was still being debated by Renaissance scholars and critics (Brown, 2000). This play exploits such uncertainty, intensifying it by putting on stage the stone remains of another victim of Cynthia, Niobe, whose punishment, in the form of slaughter of her fourteen children, followed by petrification, seems grotesquely to exceed her crime of unwise boasting. Such calculated moral ambiguity, inviting consideration of how Cynthia’s actions can or should be justified, is particularly interesting in the light of the political interpretations of the play discussed below. But first, it is necessary to consider the play’s relation to a much more local dispute.

Cynthia’s Revels is implicated in the War of the Theatres, the theatrical quarrel involving Jonson, Dekker, and John Marston, which reached its peak in the clearly personal lampoons of Poetaster and Dekker’s Satiromastix (see the introductory Life of Jonson, 1.xcv). This has given rise to some wild interpretations of Cynthia’s Revels, most notably by Fleay (1891) and Penniman (1897), who both treat the entire play as a roman-à-clef, offering identifications for no fewer than eight characters, and reducing them in the process to recordings of contemporary literary celebrities. While such a totalizing approach is clearly wrong, it is undeniable that speeches from this play turn up, quoted and misquoted, in Dekker’s Satiromastix and in Marston’s What You Will (1607). In particular, Satiromastix quotes Criticus’s words against Hedon and Anaides as if they were Jonson’s accusations against Dekker and Marston, conflating for this purpose Criticus with the Horace (alias Jonson) of Poetaster and Satiromastix; Hedon with the Crispinus (alias Marston) of the two later plays; and Anaides with Demetrius, the Dekker-surrogate in Poetaster and Satiromastix (see commentary on 3.3).

Was Dekker claiming that Hedon and Anaides were portraits of himself and Marston? If so, should his statement be believed, or taken as just an attempt to add to imagined injuries? Critics still disagree about how far Hedon and Anaides should be seen as personations. Berringer (1943) argues forcefully that they cannot be interpreted in any such way, since both are clearly spoiled courtiers rather than practising theatre professionals. Hoy (1980) and Bednarz (2001), on the other hand, argue again that there is an element of personation at work, with Jonson caricaturing his enemies in the cause of asserting that his drama is superior in literary and moral terms to their worthless activity. Interestingly, the climactic scenes in which Criticus/Crites finally crushes Hedon and Anaides by impersonating them in a performance, scenes which do indeed seem to be about the power of personation (Steggle, 1998), are only present in the F additions.

One may need to question another of the axioms of such biographical readings. A consequence of the reception of the play — especially of Dekker’s Satiromastix — has been a tendency to assume that Jonson ‘is’ Criticus/Crites; that even if Jonson is not claiming his male lead as a self-portrait exactly, the play lacks tension because the character is so obviously right and sympathetic.

This is particularly a problem in F, since there Crites has the explicit support (and indeed presence) of a god in his one-sided rout of the fools. In F he defeats the gallants primarily through his masterly performance as, in effect, a comical satirist, mimicking Hedon’s and Anaides’s affectations so effectively that they retreat in disgrace. Having demonstrated that he and Mercury can beat the gallants at their own game, he then, as an afterthought, further humiliates them in a masque improvised almost on the spot.

In the Q version, the emphasis falls differently. Criticus does not stoop to fighting the gallants by insults, and instead achieves moral reformation through judicious use of a masque. Furthermore, the latter has been composed in the space of some hours rather than being virtually impromptu, and the gallants do not enter it already crushed by their satirical defeat in the courtship contest. Their exposure in the masque thus seems less gratuitously humiliating and more educative, holding out the possibility of changing them into what they might reasonably aspire to be. Such a theoretical justification of masque looks forward to Jonson’s own future career as a masque writer (Loewenstein, 1985).

Returning to the Q text also helps strip Criticus of some of the later associations of the type he represents. He is clearly an early example of the Jonsonian ideal of the poet–scholar–satirist, proof against all detractors, but whereas that sturdy independence is (in the minds of Jonson’s modern readers) usually tied to images of Jonson’s later literal and metaphorical maturity and literal and physical weight, in Q Criticus was incarnated in a boy of around twelve years old who is ‘little’ (4.1.64) even by the standards of his colleagues. Criticus is a less combative, more vulnerable figure than Crites and his successors. Furthermore, in Q more clearly than in F, Criticus’s crowning achievement is the crystal ball through which Cynthia sees a miraculous vision of Elizabeth. To translate him into the terms of Jonson’s next play, Poetaster, Criticus is in some respects more like the national poet-magus Virgil than the satirical Horace with whom he is more usually conflated.

In this light, too, one might need to pay more attention to Amorphus, generally written off as a buffoon. While certainly foolish, he is at the centre of the play’s action due to his energy and inventiveness, both verbal and physical, which to some extent prefigures Jonson’s later tricksters. As the emerging leader of the gallants, he becomes the natural foil for Phantaste (who represents a quality Jonson the poet cannot wholeheartedly despise), and he even has a certain mythical stature, thanks to his frequent associations with the traveller and liar Ulysses (1.4.150n.). Indeed, biographically Jonson is more like Amorphus than Criticus. In 1600 Jonson’s experiences of foreign travel rather than formal education, and his undoubted natural charisma and drive, perhaps inform those characteristics in Amorphus. Similarly, Amorphus’s weaknesses (lack of money and tendency to exaggerate) are close to those of Jonson, who was rarely accused of excessive self-effacement in the way that Criticus is. It is perhaps not advisable to claim that Amorphus ‘is’ Jonson, or even to over-allegorize the tension between Amorphus and his nemesis Criticus, but one can say that Q is not unconditionally damning of all of the foolish but lively denizens of Cynthia’s court.

This is particularly so since, like much social satire, the play disseminates information on fashionable possessions, language, and behaviour even while purporting to satirize them (Haynes, 1992). The codes which mark out gentility — codes which Asotus, for instance, cannot master — were certainly of pressing interest for many of Jonson’s audience. In the clearest example of this process in action, a F passage satirizing a foolish word-game is appropriated later in the seventeenth century, and used as a serious example in a conduct manual advising the reader on fashionable games (see F 4.3.129–30n.). Amorphus, in particular, is a master of these codes, as we see in the programmatic opening encounter in which he wins Asotus’s hat (1.4). The hat is merely the first of a series of material objects which act as important visual symbols of the changing power dynamics within the play. These are particularly prominent in the course of 4.1–5, a single long passage of stage action which revolves around the changing ownership of a succession of stage properties. A purse and a watch are displayed and later exchanged; Amorphus puts into circulation two manuscripts; and a chain of pearl, a diamond, bracelets, pendants, and a glove all pass into and out of the hands of Asotus. In a similar spirit of commodification, a set of portraits of all the male characters provides an opportunity on which could be built a series of visual jokes. In Cynthia’s Revels, fashions and fashionable possessions are not an indication of an unchanging social order but are seen as shifting, contingent, and negotiable.

Mutability is one of the main themes of a work which has the moon at its centre. Cynthia, the virgin moon goddess, was one of Elizabethan literature’s favourite surrogates for the figure of Elizabeth herself, in forms varying from The Faerie Queene to court pageants, from drama (Lyly’s Endymion) to lyrics such as Sir Walter Ralegh’s The Ocean to Cynthia. In particular, there was a growing tension in lunar representations of the ageing Elizabeth in the last decades of her reign, as the prospect of her death and succession became more thinkable. The moon is an especially interesting emblem from this point of view, since it stands problematically on the celestial border between a sublunary, mortal world, subject to time and death, and the unchanging heavens above. Successive representations of Elizabeth attempted in different ways to negotiate the gap between her idealization as a goddess and the increasingly obvious evidence of her political vulnerability and personal mortality (Berry, 1994; Hackett, 1995). The representation of Elizabeth in this play used to be interpreted as straightforward panegyric, but as Clare (1998) has argued, it is more complex. In particular, it is left unclear how much Cynthia really knows about the improprieties in her court, and why she has not acted against them earlier.

Most of all, though, the tensions centre on the figure of Actaeon, who, it is generally agreed, in some way figures Elizabeth’s erstwhile favourite, the disgraced Earl of Essex. Like Actaeon, Essex was an active young man who offended a powerful woman; like him, part of his crime was to ‘enter sacred bowers’ (5.5.105), in that Essex had rushed into Elizabeth’s bedchamber on his return from Ireland in September 1599, surprising her before she was fully ready to be seen (see 5.5.100n.). (Lees-Jeffries, 2007, notes that this incident took place at Nonsuch, where gardens and fountains celebrated Elizabeth as Diana.) It seems that Jonson may at this date have been close to several members of the Essex circle. For instance, his first ‘Ode’ (Und. 25) was composed at around the same date as Cynthia’s Revels. In it, Jonson advises an addressee who is suffering misfortune, probably Essex’s ally James, Earl of Desmond, to be patient and to keep faith with the monarch. In the context of Cynthia’s Revels, particularly interesting are lines 57–65 of the autograph Christ Church manuscript version:

If I auspiciously divine

(As my hope tells) that our drad Cynthia’s shine

Shall light those places

With lustrous graces,

Where Darkness with her gloomy-sceptred hand

Doth now command;

O thou (our best-best-loved) let me importune

That you will stand

As far from all revolt, as you are now from fortune.

The overlap with the imagery of the play is obvious, and is made all the more striking by the manuscript reading ‘Cynthia’s’ in place of the printed version’s ‘Phoebe’s’. The ‘Ode’ is evidence that links Jonson to the Essex circle around this date, but it shows too that he is already using the language of Cynthia to describe their political situation. Jonson’s interest in Essex extends beyond this play to Poetaster as well (Cain, 1998), so that Cynthia’s Revels is part of a wider pattern of reference in his early work.

However, it is harder to say whether the play describes an Essex who is merely disgraced, or under sentence of death–or already dead. Out of favour after 1599, Essex organized his failed rebellion in February 1601, and was executed on 25 February. If Actaeon’s punishment does figure Essex’s death, the possibilities are: (1) that the play as a whole was first performed after that date (argued by Small, 1899); (2) that the Actaeon passages were later additions to the text as performed after that date; (3) that they were additions to the printed text alone. Judson (Cynthia xxix–xxxi) argues for (2) or (3), noting how easily the Actaeon passages can be detached from their context. Herford and Simpson (1.394–6), on the other hand, reject all three theories, pointing out correctly that it is still uncertain whether these references allegorize execution or mere disgrace. What can be said about the Essex parallels is that the ambivalent presentation of Cynthia’s ‘divine’ but violent justice draws on the long tradition of interpreting Actaeon in general, and Ovid’s version in particular. For Jonson, in this play, Ovidian myth is a vehicle for articulating concerns about the unaccountability of monarchy and the relationship between power and justice.

But if the play is haunted by Actaeon, then it is perhaps also haunted by another character we never meet: Cynthia’s brother Apollo. Apollo is named in passing within fourteen lines of the start of the first act, and the play frequently alludes to him and to his relationship to her. It is Apollo to whom Criticus prays for poetic inspiration, as is appropriate. The masque that Criticus writes, although addressed to Cynthia, comes close to calling her a temporary substitute for her brother: ‘Sister of Phoebus, to whose bright orb we owe that we not complain of his absence’ (5.4.1–2). The F dedication, of course, makes explicit one possible allegorization of this: that, the Elizabethan era was the ‘reign of Cynthia’, and now the court is under ‘thy Phoebus’ James. Yet the idea of James as Apollo to Elizabeth’s Cynthia was present before 1616 and as early as James’s coronation pageants. While Cynthia’s Revels is certainly in some senses a panegyric of Elizabeth, that is undercut by both a sense of her possible injustices and a wary eye on her likely successor.

In these ways, the Q version of Cynthia’s Revels is very obviously a product of its historical moment in 1600 and 1601. The situation is somewhat muddier, though, with the 1616 F version, which is significantly different from Q. The date and purpose of its alterations and additions remains unclear (a problem discussed in more depth in the Introduction to F Acts Four and Five). However, this edition argues that they are indeed additions on top of, and partially obscuring the logic of, Q. While they constitute a fascinating dramatic fragment in their own right, Q makes much better sense without them.

Partly, perhaps, because of the repetitiveness and contradiction introduced by the extra F material, Cynthia’s Revels is a neglected text. Barish (1960), 121, who calls F ‘a great fossilized dinosaur of a play’, accurately sums up the reaction of most readers who have come across it. However, most of the most damning criticisms apply to that version, and study of Q gives access to a shorter, better organized, and, in some ways, more ambitious play. Cynthia’s Revels is clearly interesting and important, for its development of masque, of mythology, and of comic fantasy in Jonson’s career; and, seemingly unstaged in either version since 1601, it would certainly carry the potential to surprise any audience lucky enough to see it.

The text edited here is that of the unrevised 1601 quarto. The collation notes record variant readings in the F text, save for the major additions in Acts 4 and 5, the F versions of which we have edited separately (see volume 5). Our edited F text also includes parallel versions of 3.1 and 3.4, scenes which are radically changed.

GULIELMUM CAMDENUM

Britanniae Phoebum,

Musarumque suarum parentem optimum

hic cum illis

Benjamin Jonsonius,

alumnus olim, aeternum amicus 5

juvenari voluit

Hor. — Non ego te meis

chartis inornatum silebo

Author ad Librum

Go, little book; go, little fable,

Unto the bright and amiable

Lucy of Bedford; she that bounty

Appropriates still unto that county.

Tell her, his muse that did invent thee, 5

To Cynthia’s fairest nymph, hath sent thee,

And sworn that he will quite discard thee

If any way she do reward thee

But with a kiss — if thou canst dare it —

Of her white hand or she can spare it. 10

The Number and Names of the Actors

1. cynthia
2. mercury
3. cupid
4. hesperus
5. echo: 5
6. criticus
7. arete
8. amorphus
9. phantaste
10. asotus: 10
11. argurion
12. hedon
13. philautia
14. anaides
15. moria: 15
16. prosaites
17. cos
18. morus
19. gelaia
20. phronesis: mute 20
21. thauma: mute
22. timè: mute
[a tailor
first child
second child: 25
third child

THE SCENE: GARGAPHIE ]

AD LECTOREM
Nasutum volo, nolo polyposum

Praeludium

Enter three of the CHILDREN.

FIRST CHILD

Pray, you, away! Why, children? God’s so, what do you mean?

SECOND CHILD

Marry, that you shall not speak the prologue, sir.

THIRD CHILD

Why? Do you hope to speak it?

SECOND CHILD

Ay, and I think I have most right to it; I am sure I studied it first.

THIRD CHILD

That’s all one if the author think I can speak it better. 5

FIRST CHILD

I plead possession of the cloak. [To the audience] Gentles, your

suffrages, for God’s sake.

VOICE

(Within) Why, children, are you not ashamed? Come in there!

THIRD CHILD

’Slid, I’ll play nothing i’the play, unless I speak it.

FIRST CHILD

Why, will you stand to most voices of the gentlemen? Let that 10

decide it.

THIRD CHILD

Oh, no, sir gallant! You presume to have the start of us there, and

that makes you offer so bountifully.

FIRST CHILD

No, would I were whipped if I had any such thought. Try it by lots,

either. 15

SECOND CHILD

Faith, I dare tempt my fortune in a greater venture than this.

THIRD CHILD

Well said, resolute Jack. I am content, too, so we draw first.

Make the cuts.

FIRST CHILD

But will you not snatch my cloak while I am stooping?

THIRD CHILD

No, we scorn treachery. 20

SECOND CHILD

Which cut shall speak it?

THIRD CHILD

The shortest.

FIRST CHILD

Agreed. Draw. [They draw straws.] The shortest is come to the

shortest. Fortune was not altogether blind in this. Now, children, I hope I

shall go forward without your envy. 25

SECOND CHILD

A spite of all mischievous luck! I was once plucking at the other.

THIRD CHILD

Stay, Jack. ’Slid, I’ll do somewhat now afore I go in, though it be

nothing but to revenge myself of the author, since I speak not his prologue.

I’ll go tell all the argument of his play aforehand, and so stale his invention

to the auditory before it come forth. 30

FIRST CHILD

Oh, do not so.

SECOND CHILD

By no means.

At the breaches in this speech following, the other two boys interrupt him.

THIRD CHILD

First, the title of his play is Cynthia’s Revels, as any man that hath

hope to be saved by his book can witness; the scene, Gargaphia, which I do

vehemently suspect for some fustian country, but let that vanish. Here is 35

the court of Cynthia, whither he brings Cupid, travelling on foot, resolved

to turn page. By the way, Cupid meets with Mercury (as that’s a thing to be

noted, take any of our playbooks without a Cupid or a Mercury in it and

burn it for an heretic in poetry). — [To one of the boys] Pray thee, let me alone! —

Mercury, he, in the nature of a conjurer, raises up Echo, who weeps over 40

her love, or daffodil, Narcissus, a little, sings, curses the spring wherein

the pretty, foolish gentleman melted himself away, and there’s an end of

her. — Now, I am to inform you that Cupid and Mercury do both become

pages. Cupid attends on Philautia, or self-love, a court lady. Mercury follows

Hedon, the voluptuous courtier, one that ranks himself even with Anaides, 45

or the impudent gallant (and that’s my part), a fellow that keeps Laughter,¹

the daughter of Folly² (a wench in boy’s attire) to wait on him. — These, in

the court, meet with Amorphus, or the deformed, a traveller that hath drunk

of the fountain and there tells the wonders of the water; they presently

dispatch away their pages with bottles to fetch of it, and themselves go to 50

visit the ladies. But, I should have told you — look, these emmets put me out

here — that with this Amorphus, there comes along a citizen’s heir, Asotus,

or the prodigal, who, in imitation of the traveller that hath the whetstone³

following him, entertains the beggar⁴ to be his attendant. — Now, the nymphs

who are mistresses to these gallants are Philautia (self-love), Phantaste (a light 55

wittiness), Argurion (money), and their guardian, Mother Moria (or mistress

folly). —

SECOND CHILD

Pray thee, no more.

THIRD CHILD

There Cupid strikes Money in love with the prodigal, makes

her dote upon him, give him jewels, bracelets, carcanets, etc., all which he 60

most ingeniously departs withal, to be made known to the other ladies and

gallants; and in the heat of this increases his train with the fool⁵ to follow

him, as well as the beggar. — By this time your beggar begins to wait close,

who is returned with the rest of his fellow bottle-men. — There they all drink,

save Argurion, who is fallen into a sudden apoplexy — 65

FIRST CHILD

Stop his mouth!

THIRD CHILD

And then there’s a retired scholar⁶ there (you would not wish a

thing to be better contemned of a society of gallants than it is), and he applies

his service, good gentleman, to the Lady Arete, or virtue, a poor nymph of

Cynthia’s train that’s scarce able to buy herself a gown; you shall see her play 70

in a black robe anon; a creature that, I assure you, is no less scorned than

himself. Where am I now? At a stand?

SECOND CHILD

Come, leave at last yet.

THIRD CHILD

Oh, the night is come (’twas somewhat dark, methought) and

Cynthia intends to come forth; that helps it a little yet. All the courtiers must 75

provide for revels; they conclude upon a masque, the device of which is —

[To the two boys] What, will you ravish me? — that each of these vices, being to

appear before Cynthia, would seem other than indeed they are, and therefore

assume the most neighbouring virtues as their masquing habits. — [To the two boys]

I’d cry a rape but that you are children. 80

SECOND CHILD

Come, we’ll have no more of this anticipation. To give them the

inventory of their cates aforehand were the discipline of a tavern, and not

fitting this presence.

FIRST CHILD

Tut, this was but to show us the happiness of his memory. I

thought at first he would have played the ignorant critic with everything 85

along as he had gone. I expected some such device.

THIRD CHILD

Oh, you shall see me do that rarely. Lend me thy cloak.

FIRST CHILD

Soft, sir, you’ll speak my prologue in it?

THIRD CHILD

No, would I might never stir then.

SECOND CHILD

Lend it him; lend it him. 90

FIRST CHILD

Well, you have sworn?

THIRD CHILD

I have. [First Child gives him the cloak.] Now, sir, suppose I am one

of your genteel auditors that am come in, having paid my money at the door

with much ado, and here I take my place and sit down. I have my three sorts

of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin: by God’s so, I 95

wonder that any man is so mad to come to see these rascally tits play here (At

the breaches he takes his tobacco.) — they do act like so many wrens or pismires —

not the fifth part of a good face amongst them all — and then their music is

abominable — able to stretch a man’s ears worse than ten — pillories, and their

ditties — most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that make them — 100

poets. By God’s lid, an ’twere not for tobacco — I think — the very stench of

’em would poison me. I should not dare to come in at their gates — a man were

better visit fifteen jails — or a dozen or two of hospitals — than once adventure

to come near them. How is’t? Well?

FIRST CHILD

Excellent. Give me my cloak. 105

THIRD CHILD

Stay! You shall see me do another now, but a more sober or better-gathered

gallant that is (as it may be thought) some friend or well-wisher to

the house. And here I enter —

FIRST CHILD

What? Upon the stage, too?

SECOND CHILD

Yes, and I step forth like one of the children and ask you: 110

‘Would you have stool, sir?’

THIRD CHILD

A stool, boy?

SECOND CHILD

Ay, sir, if you’ll give me sixpence, I’ll fetch you one.

THIRD CHILD

For what, I pray thee? What shall I do with it?

SECOND CHILD

Oh, God, sir! Will you betray your ignorance so much? Why, 115

throne yourself in state on the stage as other gentlemen use, sir.

THIRD CHILD

Away, wag! What, wouldst thou make an implement of me? ’Slid,

the boy takes me for a piece of prospective, I hold my life, or some silk curtain

come to hang the stage here. Sir Crack, I am none of your fresh pictures that

use to beautify the decayed dead arras in a public theatre. 120

SECOND CHILD

’Tis a sign, sir, you put not that confidence in your good clothes

and your better face that a gentleman should do, sir. But I pray you, sir, let

me be a suitor to you, that you will quit our stage then and take a place. The

play is instantly to begin.

THIRD CHILD

Most willingly, my good wag. But I would speak with your 125

author. Where’s he?

SECOND CHILD

Not this way, I assure you, sir. We are not so officiously

befriended by him as to have his presence in the tiring-house to prompt

us aloud, stamp at the book-holder, swear for our properties, curse the poor

tire-man, rail the music out of tune, and sweat for every venial trespass we 130

commit, as some author would, if he had such fine ingles as we. Well, ’tis but

our hard fortune.

THIRD CHILD

Nay, Crack, be not disheartened.

SECOND CHILD

Not I, sir. But if you please to confer with our author by attorney,

you may, sir; our proper self here stands for him. 135

THIRD CHILD

Troth, I have no such serious affair to negotiate with him, but

what may very safely be turned upon thy trust. It is in the general behalf of

this fair society here that I am to speak, at least the more judicious part of

it, which seems much distasted with the immodest and obscene writing of

many in their plays. Besides, they could wish your poets would leave to be 140

promoters of other men’s jests, and to waylay all the stale apophthegms or

old books they can hear of, in print or otherwise, to farce their scenes withal.

That they would not so penuriously glean wit from every laundress or

hackney-man, or derive their best grace with servile imitation from common

stages, or observation of the company they converse with, as if their invention 145

lived wholly upon another man’s trencher. Again, that feeding their

friends with nothing of their own, but what they have twice or thrice

cooked, they should not wantonly give out how soon they had dressed it;

nor how many coaches came to carry away the broken meat, besides hobby-horses

and foot-cloth nags. 150

SECOND CHILD

So, sir, this is all the reformation you seek?

THIRD CHILD

It is. Do not you think it necessary to be practised, my little wag?

SECOND CHILD

Yes, where there is any such ill-habited custom received.

THIRD CHILD

Oh, I had almost forgot it, too, they say the umbrae or ghosts of

some three or four plays departed a dozen years since have been seen walking 155

on your stage here. Take heed, boy, if your house be haunted with such

hobgoblins, ’twill fright away all your spectators quickly.

SECOND CHILD

Good, sir, but what will you say now if a poet, untouched

with any breath of this disease, find God’s tokens upon you that are of the

auditory? As some one civet-wit among you that knows no other learning 160

than the price of satin and velvets, nor other perfection than the wearing of

a neat suit, and yet will censure as desperately as the most professed critic in

the house, presuming his clothes should bear him out in’t. Another, whom

it hath pleased nature to furnish with more beard than brain, prunes his

mustachio, lisps, and, with some score of affected oaths, swears down all that 165

sit about him, ‘that the old Hieronimo’, as it was first acted, ‘was the only,

best, and judiciously penned play of Europe’. A third great-bellied juggler

talks of twenty years since and when Monsieur was here; and would enforce

all wit to be of that fashion because his doublet is still so. A fourth miscalls

all by the name of ‘fustian’ that his grounded capacity cannot aspire to. A 170

fifth only shakes his bottle-head, and out of his corky brain squeezeth out a

pitiful-learned face, and is silent.

THIRD CHILD

By my faith, Jack, you have put me down. I would I knew how to

get off with any indifferent grace. Here, take your cloak and promise some

satisfaction in your prologue or, I’ll be sworn, we have marred all. 175Exit.

SECOND CHILD

Tut, fear not, Sall, this will never distaste a true sense. Be not

out and good enough; I would thou hadst some sugar candied to sweeten thy

mouth. Exit.

Prologus

FIRST CHILD

If gracious silence, sweet attention,

Quick sight, and quicker apprehension

(The lights of judgement’s throne) shine anywhere,

Our doubtful author hopes this is their sphere.

And therefore opens he himself to those; 5

To other weaker beams his labours close,

As loath to prostitute their virgin strain

To every vulgar and adulterate brain.

In this alone his muse her sweetness hath:

She shuns the print of any beaten path, 10

And proves new ways to come to learnèd ears;

Pied ignorance she neither loves nor fears.

Nor hunts she after popular applause,

Or foamy praise, that drops from common jaws;

The garland that she wears, their hands must twine, 15

Who can both censure, understand, define

What merit is. Then cast those piercing rays

Round as a crown, instead of honoured bays,

About his poesy; which, he knows, affords

Words above action, matter above words. 20Exit.

1.1 [Enter] CUPID [and] MERCURY [meeting].

CUPID

Who goes there?

MERCURY

’Tis I, blind archer.

CUPID

Who? Mercury?

MERCURY

Ay.

CUPID

Farewell. 5

MERCURY

Stay, Cupid.

CUPID

Not in your company, Hermes, except your hands were riveted at your

back.

MERCURY

Why so, my little rover?

CUPID

Because I know you ha’ not a finger but is as long as my quiver, cousin 10

Mercury, when you please to extend it.

MERCURY

Whence derive you this speech, boy?

CUPID

Oh, ’tis your best policy to be ignorant. You did never steal Mars his

sword out of the sheath, you? Nor Neptune’s trident? Nor Apollo’s bow? No,

not you? Alas, your palms, Jupiter knows, they are as tender as the foot of a 15

foundered nag or a lady’s face new mercuried; they’ll touch nothing.

MERCURY

Go to, infant, you’ll be daring still.

CUPID

Daring? Oh, Janus, what a word is there! Why, my light feather-heeled

coz, what are you any more than my uncle Jove’s pander? A lackey that runs

on errands for him and can whisper a light message to a loose wench with 20

some round volubility, wait at a table with a trencher, and warble upon a

crowd a little? One that sweeps the gods’ drinking room every morning,

and sets the cushions in order again which they threw one at another’s head

overnight? Here’s the catalogue of all your employments now. Oh, no, I err.

You have the marshalling of all the ghosts, too, that pass the Stygian ferry, 25

and I suspect you for a share with the old sculler there, if the truth were

known — but let that scape. One other peculiar virtue you possess in lifting or

legerdemain, which few of the house of heaven have else besides, I must

confess. But methinks that should not make you set such an extreme distance

’twixt yourself and others, that we should be said to over-dare in speaking to 30

your nimble deity. So Hercules might challenge a priority of us both, because

he can throw the bar farther or lift more joint-stools at the arm’s end than

we. If this might carry it, then we who have made the whole body of divinity

tremble at the twang of our bow, and enforced Saturnius himself to lay by

his curled front, thunder, and three-forked fires and put on a masquing suit 35

too light for a reveller of eighteen to be seen in —

MERCURY

How now, my dancing braggart in decimo-sexto? Charm your skipping

tongue, or I’ll —

CUPID

What? Use the virtue of your snaky tipstaff there upon us?

MERCURY

No, boy, but the stretched vigour of mine arm about your ears. You 40

have forgot since I took your heels up into air, on the very hour I was born, in

sight of all the bench of deities, when the silver roof of the Olympian palace

rung again with the applause of the fact.

CUPID

Oh, no, I remember it freshly and by a particular instance; for my mother

Venus, at the same time, but stooped to embrace you, and — to speak by 45

metaphor — you borrowed a girdle of hers as you did Jove’s sceptre, while he

was laughing, and would have done his thunder, too, but that ’twas too hot

for your itching fingers.

MERCURY

’Tis well, sir.

CUPID

I heard you but looked in at Vulcan’s forge the other day and entreated a 50

pair of his new tongs along with you for company. ’Tis joy on you, i’faith, that

you will keep your hooked talons in practice with anything. ’Slight, now you

are on earth, we shall have you filch spoons and candlesticks rather than fail.

Pray Jove the perfumed courtiers keep their casting-bottles, pick-tooths, and

shuttlecocks from you, or our more ordinary gallants their tobacco-boxes, 55

for I am strangely jealous of your nails.

MERCURY

Ne’er trust me, Cupid, but you are turned a most acute gallant of late.

The edge of my wit is clear taken off with the fine and subtle stroke of your

thin-ground tongue; you fight with too poignant a phrase for me to deal

with. 60

CUPID

Oh, Hermes, your craft cannot make me confident. I know my own steel

to be almost spent, and therefore entreat my peace with you in time. You are

too cunning for me to encounter at length, and I think it my safest ward to

close.

MERCURY

Well, for once I’ll suffer you to come within me, wag, but use not these 65

strains too often, they’ll stretch my patience. Whither might you march now?

CUPID

Faith, to recover thy good thoughts, I’ll discover my whole project. The

huntress and queen of these groves, Diana, in regard of some black and envious

slanders hourly breathed against her for her divine justice on Actaeon,

as she pretends, hath here in the vale of Gargaphie proclaimed a solemn revels 70

which she will grace with the full and royal expense of one of her clearest

moons. In which time it shall be lawful for all sorts of ingenuous persons

to visit her palace, to court her nymphs, to exercise all variety of generous

and noble pastimes, as well to intimate how far she treads such malicious

imputations beneath her, as also to show how clear her beauties are from the 75

least wrinkle of austerity they may be charged with.

MERCURY

But what is all this to Cupid?

CUPID

Here do I mean to put off the title of a god and take the habit of a page,

in which disguise, during the interim of these revels, I will get to follow

some one of Diana’s maids, where, if my bow hold and my shafts fly but with 80

half the willingness and aim they are directed, I doubt not but I shall really

redeem the minutes I have lost by their so long and over-nice proscription of

my deity from their court.

MERCURY

Pursue it, divine Cupid, it will be rare!

CUPID

But will Hermes second me? 85

MERCURY

I am now to put in act an especial designment from my father Jove,

but that performed, I am for any fresh action that offers itself.

CUPID

Well, then we part. Exit.

MERCURY

Farewell, good wag.

Now to my charge. Echo, fair Echo, speak! 90

’Tis Mercury that calls thee. Sorrowful nymph,

Salute me with thy repercussive voice,

That I may know what cavern of the earth

Contains thy airy spirit; how or where

I may direct my speech that thou mayst hear. 95

1.2 ECHO [below].

ECHO

Here.

MERCURY

So nigh?

ECHO

Ay.

MERCURY

Know, gentle soul, then, I am sent from Jove,

Who, pitying the sad burden of thy woes 5

Still growing on thee, in thy want of words

To vent thy passion for Narcissus’ death,

Commands that now, after three thousand years

Which have been exercised in Juno’s spite,

Thou take a corporal figure and ascend, 10

Enriched with vocal and articulate power.

Make haste, sad nymph. Thrice doth my wingèd rod

Strike th’obsequious earth to give thee way.

Arise, and speak thy sorrows! Echo, rise,

[Echo] ascends.

Here by this fountain where thy love did pine, 15

Whose memory lives fresh to vulgar fame,

Shrined in this yellow flower that bears his name.

ECHO

His name revives and lifts me up from earth.

Oh, which way shall I first convert myself,

Or in what mood shall I assay to speak, 20

That in a moment I may be delivered

Of the prodigious grief I go withal?

See, see, the mourning fount whose spring weeps yet

Th’untimely fate of that too beauteous boy,

That trophy of self-love and spoil of nature, 25

Who, now transformed into this drooping flower,

Hangs the repentant head back from the stream

As if it wished ‘would I had never looked

In such a flattering mirror’. O Narcissus,

Thou that wast once, and yet art, my Narcissus, 30

Had Echo but been private with thy thoughts,

She would have dropped away herself in tears

Till she had all turned water, that in her,

As in a truer glass, thou mightst have gazed,

And seen thy beauties by more kind reflection. 35

But Self-Love never yet could look on truth

But with bleared beams; sleek Flattery and she

Are twin-born sisters, and so mix their eyes

As if you sever one, the other dies.

Why did the gods give thee a heavenly form 40

And earthy thoughts to make thee proud of it?

Why do I ask? ’Tis now the known disease

That beauty hath, to bear too deep a sense

Of her own self-conceivèd excellence.

Oh, hadst thou known the worth of heaven’s rich gift 45

Thou wouldst have turned it to a truer use,

And not, with lean and covetous ignorance,

Pined in continual eyeing that bright gem,

The glance whereof to others had been more

Than to thy famished mind the wide world’s store; 50

So wretched is it to be merely rich.

Witness thy youth’s dear sweets here spent untasted,

Like a fair taper with his own flame wasted.

MERCURY

Echo, be brief; Saturnia is abroad,

And if she hear, she’ll storm at Jove’s high will. 55

ECHO

I will, kind Mercury, be brief as time.

Vouchsafe me I may do him these last rites:

But kiss his flower and sing some mourning strain

Over his wat’ry hearse.

MERCURY

Thou dost obtain.

I were no son to Jove should I deny thee. 60

Begin, and more to grace thy cunning voice,

The humorous air shall mix her solemn tunes

With thy sad words; strike, Music, from the spheres,

And with your golden raptures swell our ears.

Cantus

ECHO

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears; 65

Yet, slower, yet, O faintly gentle springs,

List to the heavy part the music bears.

Woe weeps out her division when she sings.

Droop herbs, and flowers,

Fall grief in showers; 70

Our beauties are not ours.

Oh, I could still,

Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,

Drop, drop, drop, drop,

Since nature’s pride is now a withered daffodil. 75

MERCURY

Now, ha’ you done?

ECHO

Done presently, good Hermes; bide a little.

Suffer my thirsty eye to gaze awhile,

But e’en to taste the place, and I am vanished.

MERCURY

Forgo thy use and liberty of tongue 80

And thou mayst dwell on earth and sport thee there.

ECHO

Here young Actaeon fell, pursued and torn

By Cynthia’s wrath, more eager than his hounds;

And here — ay me, the place is fatal — see

The weeping Niobe translated hither 85

From Phrygian mountains, and by Phoebe reared

As the proud trophy of her sharp revenge.

MERCURY

Nay, but hear–

ECHO

But here, oh, here, the Fountain of Self-Love

In which Latona and her careless nymphs, 90

Regardless of my sorrows, bathe themselves

In hourly pleasures.

MERCURY

Stint thy babbling tongue,

Fond Echo. Thou profan’st the grace is done thee.

So idle worldlings, merely made of voice,

Censure the powers above them. Come away! 95

Jove calls thee hence and his will brooks no stay.

ECHO

Oh, stay! I have but one poor thought to clothe

In airy garments, and then, faith, I go.

Henceforth, thou treacherous and murdering spring,

Be ever called the Fountain of Self-Love; 100

And with thy water let this curse remain

As an inseparate plague: that who but tastes

A drop thereof may with the instant touch

Grow dotingly enamoured on themselves.

Now, Hermes, I have finished.

MERCURY

Then thy speech 105

Must here forsake thee, Echo, and thy voice,

As it was wont, rebound but the last words. Farewell.

ECHO

Well. [Begins to descend.]

MERCURY

Now, Cupid, I am for you and your mirth

To make me light before I leave the earth. 110

1.3 [Enter] AMORPHUS [meeting] ECHO.

AMORPHUS

Dear spark of beauty, make not so fast away!

ECHO

Away!

MERCURY

[Aside] Stay, let me observe this portent yet.

AMORPHUS

I am neither your minotaur, nor

your centaur, nor your satyr, nor your hyena, nor your baboon, but your mere traveller, believe me. 5

ECHO

Leave me.

MERCURY

[Aside] I guessed it should be some travelling motion pursued Echo

so.

AMORPHUS

Know you from whom you fly, or whence?

ECHO

Hence! 10Exit.

AMORPHUS

This is somewhat above strange; a nymph of her feature and lineament

to be so preposterously rude. Well, I will but cool myself at yon spring

and follow her.

MERCURY

[Aside] Nay, then, I am familiar with the issue; I’ll leave you, too. Exit.

AMORPHUS

I am a rhinoceros if I had thought a creature of her symmetry would 15

have dared so improportionable and abrupt a digression. Liberal and divine

fount, suffer my profane hand to take of thy bounties. [Drinks.] By the purity

of my taste, here is most ambrosiac water. I will sup of it again. By thy favour,

sweet fount. [Drinks.] See, the water, a more running, subtle, and humorous

nymph than she, permits me to touch and handle her. What should I 20

infer? If my behaviours had been of a cheap or customary garb, my accent or

phrase vulgar, my garments trite, my countenance illiterate or unpractised

in the encounter of a beautiful and brave-attired piece, then I might, with some

change of colour, have suspected my faculties. But knowing myself an essence

so sublimated and refined by travel, of so studied and well-exercised a gesture, 25

so alone in fashion, able to make the face of any statesman living, and

to speak the mere extraction of language; one that hath now made the sixth

return upon venture, and was your first that ever enriched his country with

the true laws of the duello; whose optics have drunk the spirit of beauty

in some eight score and eighteen princes’ courts, where I have resided, and been 30

there fortunate in the amours of three hundred forty and five ladies, all nobly

descended, whose names I have in catalogue; to conclude, in all so happy as

even admiration herself doth seem to fasten her kisses upon me; certes I do

neither see, nor feel, nor taste, nor savour the least steam or fume of a reason

that should invite this foolish fastidious nymph so peevishly to abandon me. 35

Well, let the memory of her fleet into air; my thoughts and I am for this other

element, water.

1.4 [Enter] CRITICUS [and] ASOTUS.

CRITICUS

What? The well-dieted Amorphus become a water-drinker? I see he means

not to write verses then.

ASOTUS

No, Criticus? Why?

CRITICUS

Quia nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt, quae scribuntur aquae

potoribus. 5

AMORPHUS

What say you to your Helicon?

CRITICUS

Oh, the muses’ well! That’s ever excepted.

AMORPHUS

Sir, your muses have no such water, I assure you. Your nectar or the

juice of your nepenthe is nothing to it. ’Tis above your metheglin, believe it!

ASOTUS

Metheglin! What’s that, sir, may I be so audacious to demand? 10

AMORPHUS

A kind of Greek wine I have met with, sir, in my travels. It is the same

that Demosthenes usually drunk in the composure of all his exquisite

and mellifluous orations.

CRITICUS

That’s to be argued, Amorphus, if we may credit Lucian, who in

his Encomium Demosthenis affirms he never drunk but water in any of his 15

compositions.

AMORPHUS

Lucian is absurd; he knew nothing. I will believe my own travels

before all the Lucians of Europe. He doth feed you with fictions and leasings.

CRITICUS

Indeed, I think, next a traveller, he does prettily well.

AMORPHUS

I assure you it was wine, I have tasted it, and from the hand of an 20

Italian antiquary who derives it authentically from the Duke of Ferrara’s

bottles. How name you the gentleman you are in rank with there, sir?

CRITICUS

’Tis Asotus, son to the late deceased Philargyrus the citizen.

AMORPHUS

Was his father of any eminent place or means?

CRITICUS

He was to have been praetor next year. 25

AMORPHUS

Ha! A pretty formal young gallant, in good sooth. Pity he is not more

genteelly propagated. Hark you, Criticus; you may say to him what I am, if

you please. Though I affect not popularity, yet I would be loath to stand out

to any whom you shall vouchsafe to call friend.

CRITICUS

Sir, I fear I may do wrong to your sufficiencies in the reporting them by 30

forgetting or misplacing some one. Yourself

can best inform him of yourself, sir, except you had some catalogue or inventory of your faculties ready-drawn

which you would request me to show him for you, and him to take notice of.

AMORPHUS

[Aside] This Criticus is sour. — I will think, sir.

CRITICUS

Do so, sir. [Aside] Oh, heaven, that anything in the likeness of man 35

should suffer these racked extremities for the uttering of his sophisticate

good parts!

ASOTUS

[Speaking apart to Criticus] Criticus, I have a suit to you, but you must not

deny me. Pray you make this gentleman and I friends.

CRITICUS

Friends! Why? Is there any difference between you? 40

ASOTUS

No. I mean acquaintance; to know one another.

CRITICUS

Oh, now I apprehend you. Your phrase was without me before.

ASOTUS

In good faith, he’s a most excellent rare man, I warrant him.

CRITICUS

[Aside] ’Slight, they are mutually enamoured by this time.

ASOTUS

Will you, sweet Criticus? 45

CRITICUS

Yes, yes.

ASOTUS

Nay, but when? You’ll defer it now and forget it?

CRITICUS

Why, is’t a thing of such present necessity that it requires so violent a

dispatch?

ASOTUS

No, but — would I might never stir — he’s a most ravishing man. Good 50

Criticus, you shall endear me to you, in good faith, law!

CRITICUS

Well, your longing shall be satisfied, sir.

ASOTUS

And withal you may tell him what my father was, and how well he left

me, and that I am his heir.

CRITICUS

Leave it to me, I’ll forget none of your dear graces, I warrant you. 55

ASOTUS

Nay, I know you can better marshal these affairs than I can. — O gods,

I’ll give all the world, if I had it, for abundance of such acquaintance.

CRITICUS

[Aside] What ridiculous circumstance might I devise now to bestow

this reciprocal brace of coxcombs one upon another?

AMORPHUS

[Aside] Since I trod on this side the Alps, I was not so frozen in my 60

invention. Let me see, to accost him with some choice remnant of Spanish,

or Italian, that would indifferently express my languages now? Marry then, if

he should fall out to be ignorant it were both hard and harsh. How else? Step

into some discourse of state and so make my induction? That were above him,

too, and out of his element, I fear. Feign to have seen him in Venice or Padua, 65

or some face near his in similitude? ’Tis too pointed and open. No, it must be a

more quaint and collateral device as — stay: to frame some encomiastic speech

upon this our metropolis, or the wise magistrates thereof, in which politic

number ’tis odds but his father filled up a room? Descend into a particular

admiration of their justice, for the due measuring of coals, burning of cans 70

, and such like? As also their religion in pulling down a superstitious cross

and advancing a Venus or Priapus in place of it? Ha! ’Twill do well! Or to

talk of some hospital whose walls record his father a benefactor, or of so

many buckets bestowed on his parish church in his lifetime, with his

name at length, for want of arms, tricked upon them? Any of these? Or to praise 75

the cleanness of the street wherein he dwelt, or the provident painting of

his posts against he should have been praetor. Or, leaving his parent, come

to some special ornament about himself, as his rapier, or some other of his

accoutrements? I have it! Thanks, gracious Minerva.

ASOTUS

Would I had but once spoke to him, and then — 80

AMORPHUS

’Tis is a most curious and neatly wrought band, this same, as I have

seen, sir.

ASOTUS

Oh, God, sir.

AMORPHUS

You forgive the humour of mine eye in observing it?

ASOTUS

Oh, Lord, sir, there needs no such apology, I assure you. 85

CRITICUS

[Aside] I am anticipated. They’ll make a solemn deed of gift of themselves,

you shall see.

AMORPHUS

Your rose, too, does most gracefully, in troth.

ASOTUS

’Tis the most genteel and received wear now, sir.

AMORPHUS

Believe me, sir — I speak it not to humour you — I have not seen a 90

young gentleman, generally, put on his clothes with more judgement.

ASOTUS

Oh, ’tis your pleasure to say so, sir.

AMORPHUS

No, as I am virtuous, being altogether untravelled, it strikes me into

wonder.

ASOTUS

I do purpose to travel, sir, at spring. 95

AMORPHUS

I think I shall affect you, sir; this last speech of yours hath begun to

make you dear to me.

ASOTUS

Oh, God, sir, I would there were anything in me, sir, that might appear

worthy the least worthiness of your worth, sir; I protest, sir, I should endeavour

to show it, sir, with more than common regard, sir. 100

CRITICUS

[Aside] Oh, here’s rare motley, sir.

AMORPHUS

Both your desert and your endeavours are plentiful, suspect them

not. But your sweet disposition to travel, I assure you, hath made you another

myself in mine eye, and struck me enamoured on your beauties.

ASOTUS

I would I were the fairest lady of France for your sake, sir, and yet I 105

would travel, too.

AMORPHUS

Oh, you should digress from yourself else, for, believe it, your travel

is your only thing that rectifies or, as the Italian says, vi rendi pronto all’ attioni,

makes you fit for action.

ASOTUS

I think it be great charge though, sir. 110

AMORPHUS

Charge? Why ’tis nothing for a gentleman that goes private, as

yourself, or so; my intelligence shall quit my charge at all times. Good faith,

this hat hath possessed mine eye exceedingly, ’tis so pretty and fantastic.

What, is’t a beaver?

ASOTUS

Ay, sir. I’ll assure you ’tis a beaver; it cost me six crowns but this 115

morning.

AMORPHUS

A very pretty fashion, believe me, and a most novel kind of trim;

your button is conceited, too!

ASOTUS

Sir, it is all at your service.

AMORPHUS

Oh, pardon me. 120

ASOTUS

I beseech you, sir, if you please to wear it you shall do me a most infinite

grace.

CRITICUS

[Aside] ’Slight, will he be praised out of his clothes?

ASOTUS

By heaven, sir, I do not offer it you after the Italian manner; I would you

should conceive so of me. 125

AMORPHUS

Sir, I shall fear to appear rude in denying your courtesies, especially

being invited by so proper a distinction. May I pray your name, sir?

ASOTUS

My name is Asotus, sir.

AMORPHUS

I take your love, gentle Asotus, but let me win you to receive this in

exchange — 130

[They exchange hats.]

CRITICUS

[Aside] Heart, they’ll change doublets anon.

AMORPHUS

And from this time esteem yourself in the first rank of those few

whom I profess to love. What make you in company of this scholar here? I

will bring you known to gallants, as Anaides, Hedon the courtier, and others

whose society shall render you graced and respected. This is a trivial fellow, 135

too mean, too coarse for you to converse with.

ASOTUS

[Examining Amorphus’s hat] ’Slid, this is not worth a crown, and mine cost

me six but this morning!

CRITICUS

[Aside] I looked when he would repent him; he has begun to be sad a

good while. 140

AMORPHUS

Sir, shall I say to you for that hat — be not so sad, be not so sad;

’tis a relic I could not so easily have departed with, but as the hieroglyphic

of my affection. You shall alter it to what form you please, it will take any

block; I have varied it myself to the three thousandth time, and not so few. It

hath these virtues beside: your head shall not ache under it, nor your brain 145

leave you without licence; it will preserve your complexion to eternity, for no

beam of the sun, should you wear it under zona torrida, hath force to approach

it by two ells; ’tis proof against thunder and enchantment; and was given

me by a great man in Russia as an especially prized present; and constantly

affirmed to be the hat that accompanied the politic Ulysses in his tedious and 150

ten years’ travels.

ASOTUS

By Jove, I will not depart withal, whosoever would give me a million.

1.5 [Enter] COS [and] PROSAITES.

COS

’Save you, sweet bloods. Does any of you want a creature or a dependant?

CRITICUS

[Aside] Beshrew me, a fine blunt slave.

AMORPHUS

[Aside] A page of good timber; it will now be my grace to entertain

him first, though I cashier him again in private. — How art thou called?

COS

Cos, sir, Cos. 5

CRITICUS

[Aside] Cos? How happily hath Fortune furnished him with a

whetstone!

AMORPHUS

I do entertain you, Cos. Conceal your quality till we be private. If

your parts be worthy of me, I will countenance you; if not, catechize you.

Gentles, shall we go? 10

ASOTUS

Stay, sir. I’ll but entertain this other fellow and then — [Aside] I have a

great humour to taste of this water too, but I’ll come again alone for that —

mark the place. — What’s your name, youth?

PROSAITES

Prosaites, sir.

ASOTUS

Prosaites? A very fine name, Criticus, is’t not? 15

CRITICUS

Yes, and a very ancient, sir: the beggar.

ASOTUS

Follow me, good Prosaites, let’s talk.

Exeunt [Asotus, Prosaites, Cos, and Amorphus].

CRITICUS

He will rank even with you ere’t be long

If you hold on your course. O Vanity,

How are thy painted beauties doted on 20

By light and empty idiots! How pursued

With open and extended appetite!

How they do sweat and run themselves from breath,

Raised on their toes, to catch thy airy forms,

Still turning giddy till they reel like drunkards 25

That buy the merry madness of one hour

With the long irksomeness of following time!

Oh, how despised and base a thing is man

If he not strive t’erect his grovelling thoughts

Above the strain of flesh! But how more cheap 30

When even his best and understanding part,

The crown and strength of all his faculties,

Floats like a dead drowned body on the stream

Of vulgar humour mixed with common’st dregs!

I suffer for their guilt now, and my soul, 35

Like one that looks on ill-affected eyes,

Is hurt with mere intention on their follies.

Why will I view them then, my sense might ask me?

Or is’t a rarity, or some new object,

That strains my strict observance to this point? 40

Oh, would it were, therein I could afford

My spirit should draw a little near to theirs

To gaze on novelties, so Vice were one.

Tut, she is stale, rank, foul, and were it not

That those that woo her greet her with locked eyes, 45

In spite of all the impostures, paintings, drugs,

Which her bawd Custom daubs her cheeks withal,

She would betray her loathed and leprous face,

And fright th’enamoured dotards from themselves;

But such is the perverseness of our nature, 50

That if we once but fancy levity,

How antique and ridiculous soe’er

It suit with us, yet will our muffled thought

Choose rather not to see it than avoid it;

And if we can but banish our own sense, 55

We act our mimic tricks with that free licence,

That lust, that pleasure, that security

As if we practised in a pasteboard case,

And no one saw the motion but the motion.

Well, check thy passion lest it grow too loud; 60

While fools are pitied they wax fat and proud. Exit.

2.1 [Enter] CUPID [and] MERCURY.

CUPID

Why, this was most unexpectedly followed, my divine delicate Mercury.

By the beard of Jove, thou art a precious deity!

MERCURY

Nay, Cupid, leave to speak improperly. Since we are turned 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 5

ran with quicksilver, and not utter a phrase but what shall come forth steeped

in the very brine of conceit and sparkle like salt in fire.

CUPID

That’s not everyone’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. 10

MERCURY

Nay then, Cupid, I think we must have you hoodwinked again, for

you are grown too provident since your eyes were at liberty.

CUPID

Not so, Mercury, I am still blind Cupid to thee.

MERCURY

And what to the lady nymph you serve?

CUPID

Troth, page, boy, and sirrah; these are all my titles. 15

MERCURY

Then thou hast not altered thy name with thy disguise?

CUPID

Oh, no, that had been supererogation; you shall never hear your courtier

call but by one of these three.

MERCURY

Faith, then both our fortunes are the same.

CUPID

Why, what parcel of man hast thou lighted on for a master? 20

MERCURY

Such a one as, before I begin to decipher him, I dare not affirm him

to be anything else 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.

CUPID

Hedon? He uses much to my lady’s chamber, I think. 25

MERCURY

How is she called, and then I can show thee?

CUPID

Madam Philautia.

MERCURY

Oh, 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 30

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.

CUPID

And not a poet?

MERCURY

Fie, no! Himself is a rhymer, and that’s a thought better than a poet. 35

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, anyone 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 40

lodging than come to the launching of some three ships, especially if he be

furnished 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 show. He’s thought a very necessary perfume for the

presence, and for that only cause welcome thither: six milliners’ shops afford 45

you not the like scent. He courts ladies with how many great horse he hath

rid that morning, or how oft he has done the whole or the half pomado 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 50

comes, that is all this.

2.2 [Enter] HEDON, ANAIDES, [and] GELAIA.

HEDON

Boy!

MERCURY

Sir.

HEDON

Are any of the ladies in the presence?

MERCURY

None yet, sir.

HEDON

Give me some gold; more. 5

[The servants stand aside.]

ANAIDES

Is that thy boy, Hedon?

HEDON

Ay, what thinkst thou of him?

ANAIDES

’Sheart, I’d geld him; I warrant he has the philosopher’s stone.

HEDON

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 10

withal in the presence.

ANAIDES

Pray thee, let’s hear ’em.

HEDON

Soft, thou’lt use ’em afore me.

ANAIDES

No, damn me then. I have more oaths than I know how to utter, by this

air. 15

HEDON

Faith, one is ‘by the tip of your ear, sweet lady’. Is’t not pretty and

genteel?

ANAIDES

Yes, for the person ’tis applied to, a lady. It should be light and —

HEDON

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 20

— etc.’

ANAIDES

Well, you travelled for that, Hedon.

MERCURY

[Aside] Ay, in a map, where his eyes were but blind guides to his

understanding, it seems.

HEDON

And then I have a salutation will nick all, by this caper, ho! [He leaps.] 25

ANAIDES

How is that?

HEDON

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 30

which she cannot but blushingly 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?

ANAIDES

Oh, assure your soul.

HEDON

By heaven, I think ’twill be excellent, and a very politic achievement of 35

a kiss.

ANAIDES

I have thought upon one for Moria of a sudden too, if it take.

HEDON

What is’t, my dear mischief?

ANAIDES

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 40

perfectly wise, for your hands have wit enough to keep themselves warm.’

HEDON

Now, before Jove, admirable! Look, thy page takes it too, by Phoebus.

My sweet facetious rascal, I could eat water-gruel with thee a month for this

jest — oh, my dear rogue!

ANAIDES

Oh, by Hercules, ’tis your only dish, above all your potatoes or oyster-pies 45

in the world.

HEDON

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’ ciopinos.’ Another demands, ‘Why would he be one of his mistress’

ciopinos?’ A third answers, ‘Because he would make her higher.’ A fourth 50

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.’

ANAIDES

I’ll be your prophet. By God’s so, it will be most exquisite! Thou art a

fine inventious rogue, sirrah.

HEDON

Nay, and I have posies for rings too, and riddles that they dream not of. 55

ANAIDES

Tut, they’ll do that when they come to sleep on them time enough. But

were thy devices never in the presence yet, Hedon?

HEDON

Oh, no, I disdain that.

ANAIDES

’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 60

countenance when they should come forth.

Exeunt [Hedon, Anaides, and Gelaia].

CUPID

Is that a courtier too?

MERCURY

Troth, no; he has two essential parts of the courtier, pride and ignorance

— I mean of such a courtier who is indeed but the zany to an exact

courtier — marry, the rest come somewhat after the ordinary gallant. ’Tis 65

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, uttered — as his land came to him — by chance. He will censure 70

or discourse of anything, 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, 75

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 80

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 taffeta

gowns or satin kirtles, in a pair or two of months, why they are nothing.

CUPID

I commend him; he is one of my clients.

2.3 [Enter] AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, [and] COS.

AMORPHUS

[To Asotus] 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. [To Cos] Page, cast a vigilant and inquiring 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. 5

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Oh, what a mass of benefit shall we possess, in being

the invisible spectators of this strange show now to be acted!

AMORPHUS

[To Asotus] 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 10

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 sees the variation of the lineament, it were my most proper and genuine 15

aspect. First, for your merchant’s, or city-face, ’tis thus [He makes a face]: 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

[He makes a face], an honest, simple, and methodical face, but somewhat more

spread than the former. The third is your soldier’s face [He makes a face], a 20

menacing and astounding face

that looks broad and big; the grace of this face consists much in a beard. The anti-face to this is your lawyer’s face [He makes

a face], a contracted, subtle, and intricate face, full of quirks and turnings; a

labyrinthean face, now angularly, now circularly, every way aspected. Next

is your statist’s face [He makes a face], a serious, solemn, and supercilious face, 25

full of formal and square gravity; the eye, for the most part, artificially and

deeply shadowed; there is great judgement 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 30

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 screwed thus [He makes a face]. Your courtier practic is he that is yet in

his path, his course, his way, and hath not touched the punctilio or point of

hopes; this face is here [He makes a face], a most promising, open, smooth, and 35

overflowing face, that seems as it would run and pour itself into you. Your

courtier elementary is one but newly entered or as it were in the alphabet, or

ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la, of courtship; note well this face [He makes a face], for it is

this you must practise.

ASOTUS

I’ll practise ’em all, if you please, sir. 40

AMORPHUS

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

whatsoever, the most 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 45

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 [He wags his head] — 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. 50

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.

MERCURY

[Aside] Oh, for some excellent painter, to have ta’en the copy of all

these faces! 55

ASOTUS

[Calling] Prosaites!

AMORPHUS

Fie, I premonished you of that; in the court, ‘boy’ or ‘sirrah’.

[Enter] PROSAITES.

COS

Master, lupus in — Oh, ’tis Prosaites.

ASOTUS

[To Prosaites] Sirrah, prepare me my casting-bottle. I think I must be

enforced to purchase me another page; you see how at hand Cos waits here. 60

Exeunt [Amorphus, Asotus, Cos, and Prosaites].

MERCURY

So will he too in time.

CUPID

What’s he, Mercury?

MERCURY

A notable finch. One that hath newly entertained the beggar to

follow him, but cannot get him to wait near enough. ’Tis Asotus, the heir of

Philargyrus. But first I’ll give you the other’s character, which may make his 65

the clearer. He that is with him is Amorphus, a traveller, one so made out of

the mixture and shreds of forms that himself is truly deformed. He walks

most commonly with a clove or pick-tooth in his mouth. He’s the very mint

of compliment; all his behaviours are printed, his face is another volume

of essays, and his beard an Aristarchus. He speaks all cream, skimmed, 70

and more affected than a dozen of waiting women. He’s 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, 75

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 everything to

a hair, except a beard, which is not yet extant. He doth learn to eat anchovies 80

and caviar because he loves ’em; speaks as he speaks; looks, walks, goes so

in clothes and fashion; is in all, as 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 85

acquaintance at any rate. His eye and his raiment confer much together as

he goes in the street. He treads nicely, like a 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.

CUPID

Here comes another. 90

MERCURY

Ay, but one of another strain, Cupid; this fellow weighs somewhat.

CRITICUS passeth by.

CUPID

His name, Hermes?

MERCURY

Criticus. 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 95

lightly sanguine, or too rashly choleric, but in all so composed and ordered

as it is clear Nature was 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 100

to show it. He will think and speak his thought both freely, but as distant

from depraving any other man’s merit as proclaiming his own. For his valour,

’tis such that he dares as little to offer an injury as receive one. In sum, he

hath a most ingenious and sweet spirit, a sharp and seasoned wit, a straight

judgement, and a strong mind, constant and unshaken. Fortune could never 105

break him or 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.

CUPID

Not better than Mercury commends him. 110

MERCURY

Oh, 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.

CUPID

’Slight, I believe he is your minion, you seem to be so ravished with him.

MERCURY

He’s one I would not have a wry thought darted against willingly. 115

CUPID

No, but a straight shaft in his bosom, I’ll promise him, if I am Cytherea’s

son.

MERCURY

Shall we go, Cupid?

CUPID

Stay and see the ladies now; they’ll come presently. I’ll help to paint them.

MERCURY

What, lay colour upon colour? That affords but an ill blazon. 120

ARGURION passeth by.

CUPID

Here comes metal to help it, the Lady Argurion.

MERCURY

Money, money.

CUPID

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. 125

Today you shall have her look as clear and fresh as the morning, and tomorrow

as melancholy 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

and 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 rapt with 130

a whirlwind. Your young student, for the most part, she affects not, only

salutes him, and away. A poet or 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

the court for the obtaining of any suit whatsoever; no door but flies open to 135

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.

MERCURY

Peace, Cupid, here comes more work for you, another character or

two. 140

2.4 [Enter] PHANTASTE, MORIA, [and] PHILAUTIA.

PHANTASTE

Stay, sweet Philautia, I’ll but change my fan and go presently.

[Exit.]

MORIA

Now, in very good serious, ladies, I will have this order reversed; the

presence must be better maintained from you. A quarter past eleven and

ne’er a nymph in prospective! Beshrew my hand, there must be a reformed

discipline. Is that your new ruff, sweet ladybird? By my truth, ’tis most 5

intricately rare.

[Mercury and Cupid converse aside.]

MERCURY

Good Jove, what reverend gentlewoman in years might this be?

CUPID

This, 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 judgements

that come. A lady made all of voice and air, talks anything of anything. She 10

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.

MERCURY

That was pretty and sharply noted, Cupid.

CUPID

She will tell you, ‘Philosophy was a fine reveller when she was young and 15

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 year, 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.’ 20

MERCURY

Oh, I pray thee no more, I am full of her.

CUPID

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.

MERCURY

Now, her breath, or something more strong, protect me from her!

Th’other, th’other, Cupid. 25

CUPID

Oh, 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 shuttlecock, and that too. No quality she has but she shall take

a very particular knowledge of and, most ladylike, commend it to you. You 30

shall have her at any time read you the history of herself, and very subtly

run over another lady’s sufficiencies to come to her own. She has a good

superficial judgement in painting, and would seem to have so in poetry. A

most complete lady in the opinion of some three beside herself.

PHILAUTIA

[To Moria] Faith, how liked you my quip to Hedon about the garter? 35

Was’t not witty?

MORIA

Exceeding witty and integrate. You did so aggravate the jest withal.

PHILAUTIA

And did I not dance movingly last night?

MORIA

Movingly! Out of measure, in troth, sweet lady.

MERCURY

A happy commendation, to dance out of measure. 40

MORIA

Save only you wanted the swim i’the turn. Oh! When I was at fourteen —

PHILAUTIA

Nay, that’s mine own from any nymph i’the court, I am sure on’t,

therefore you mistake me in that, guardian. Both the swim and the trip are

properly mine. Everybody will affirm it that has any judgement in dancing,

I assure you. 45

[Enter PHANTASTE.]

PHANTASTE

Come now, Philautia, I am for you, shall we go?

PHILAUTIA

Ay, good Phantaste. What! Ha’ you changed your head-tire?

PHANTASTE

Yes, faith; th’other was so near the common, it had no extraordinary

grace. Besides, I had worn it almost a day, in good troth.

PHILAUTIA

I’ll be sworn, this is most excellent for the device, and rare. ’Tis after 50

the Italian print we looked on t’other night.

PHANTASTE

’Tis so. By this fan, I cannot abide anything that savours the poor

overworn 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.

PHILAUTIA

And yet we cannot have a new peculiar court-tire, but these retainers 55

will have it; these suburb-Sunday-waiters, these courtiers for high days, I

know not what I should call ’em —

PHANTASTE

Oh, ay, they do most pitifully imitate; but I have a tire acoming,

i’faith, shall —

MORIA

In good certain, madam, it makes you look most heavenly. But, lay your 60

hand on your heart, you never skinned a new beauty more prosperously in

your life, nor more supernaturally. Look, good lady, sweet lady, look.

PHILAUTIA

’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?

PHANTASTE

Nay, that’s counsel, Philautia, you shall pardon me; yet, I’ll assure 65

you, he’s the most dainty, sweet, absolute rare man, of the whole college. Oh!

His very looks, his discourse, his behaviour, all he does is physic, I protest.

PHILAUTIA

For heaven’s sake, his name? Good, dear, Phantaste —

PHANTASTE

No, no, no, no, no, no! Believe me, not for a million of heavens, I

will not make him cheap. Fie — 70

Exeunt [Philautia, Phantaste, and Moria].

CUPID

There is a nymph too of a most curious and elaborate strain, light, all

motion, an ubiquitary, she is everywhere, Phantaste —

MERCURY

Her very name speaks her; let her pass. But are these, Cupid, the stars

of Cynthia’s court? Do these nymphs attend upon Diana?

CUPID

They are in her court, Mercury, but not as stars; these never come in the 75

presence of Cynthia. The nymphs that make her train are the divine Arete,

Timè, 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.

2.5 [ Enter] PROSAITES, GELAIA, [and] COS [ carrying bottles].

2.5 Cantus Beggars’ Rhyme

PROSAITES

Come follow me, my wags, and say as I say.

There’s no riches but in rags, hey day, hey day.

You that profess this art, come away, come away,

And help to bear a part, hey day, hey day.

Bear-wards and blackingmen, 5

Corn-cutters and car-men,

Sellers of marking stones,

Gatherers-up of marrow bones,

Pedlars and puppet-players,

Sow-gelders and soothsayers, 10

Gypsies and jailers,

Rat-catchers and railers,

Beadles and ballad-singers,

Fiddlers and fadingers,

Thomalins and tinkers, 15

Scavengers and skinkers,

There goes the hare away,

Hey day, hey day.

Bawds and blind doctors,

Paritors and spital proctors, 20

Chemists and cuttlebungs,

Hookers and horn-thumbs,

With all cast commanders

Turned post-knights or panders,

Jugglers and jesters, 25

Borrowers of testers,

And all the troop of trash

That’re allied to the lash,

Come and join with your lags,

Shake up your muscle-bags. 30

For beggary bears the sway,

Then sing: cast care away,

Hey day, hey day!

MERCURY

What? Those that were our fellow pages but now so soon preferred to

be yeomen of the bottles? The mystery, the mystery, good wags? 35

CUPID

Some diet drink they have the guard of.

PROSAITES

No, sir, we are going in quest of a strange fountain lately found out.

CUPID

By whom?

COS

My master, or the great discoverer, Amorphus.

MERCURY

Thou hast well entitled him, Cos, for he will discover all he knows. 40

GELAIA

Ay, and a little more too, when the spirit is upon him.

PROSAITES

Oh, the good travelling gentleman yonder has caused such a drought

i’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

i’the midst of harvest, sighing one to another, and gasping, as if each of 45

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 than

a few trouts cast ashore, or a dish of eels in a sandbag.

MERCURY

Well, then, you were best dispatch and have a care of them. Come,

Cupid, thou and I’ll go peruse this dry wonder. 50 [Exeunt.]

3.1 [Enter] AMORPHUS [and] ASOTUS.

AMORPHUS

Sir, let not this discountenance or disgallant you a whit; you must

not sink under the first disaster. It is with your young grammatical courtier as

with your neophyte player, a thing usual to be daunted at the first presence or

interview. You saw there was Hedon and Anaides, far more practised gallants

than yourself, who were both out, to comfort you. It is no disgrace, no more 5

than for your adventurous reveller to fall by some inauspicious chance in his

galliard, or for some subtle politician to undertake the bastinado, that the

state might think worthily of him and respect him as a man well beaten to

the world. What, hath your tailor provided the property we spake of at your

chamber, or no? 10

ASOTUS

I think he has.

AMORPHUS

Nay, I entreat you, be not so flat and melancholic. Erect your mind.

You shall redeem this with the courtship I will teach you against

afternoon. Where eat you today?

ASOTUS

Where you please, sir, anywhere, I. 15

AMORPHUS

Come, let us go and taste some light dinner, a dish of sliced caviar or

so, and after you shall practise an hour at your lodging some few forms that

I have remembered. If you had but so far gathered your spirits to you as to

have taken up a rush, when you were out, and wagged it thus [Demonstrating]

or cleansed your teeth with it, or but turned aside and feigned some business 20

to whisper with your page till you had recovered yourself, or but found some

slight stain in your stocking or any other pretty invention, so it had been

sudden, you might have come off with a most clear and courtly grace.

ASOTUS

A poison of all, I think, I was forspoke, I.

AMORPHUS

No, I do partly aim at the cause, which was ominous indeed: for 25

as you enter at the door, there is opposed to you the frame of a wolf in the

hangings, which, your eye taking suddenly, gave a false alarm to the heart,

and that was it called your blood out of your face and so disordered the whole

rank of your spirits. I beseech you labour to forget it. Exeunt.

3.2 [Enter] HEDON [and] ANAIDES.

HEDON

Heart, was there ever so prosperous an invention thus unluckily perverted

and spoiled by a whoreson bookworm, a candle-waster?

ANAIDES

Nay, be not impatient, Hedon.

HEDON

’Slight, I would fain know his name.

ANAIDES

Hang him, poor grogram rascal; prithee think not of him. I’ll send for 5

him to my lodging, and ha’ him blanketed when thou wilt, man.

HEDON

By God’s so, I would thou couldst. Look, here he comes. Laugh at him,

laugh at him. Ha, ha, ha!

CRITICUS passeth by [and stands aside].

ANAIDES

Foh, he smells all lamp-oil with studying by candlelight.

HEDON

How confidently he went by us, and carelessly! Never moved, nor stirred 10

at anything! Did you observe him?

ANAIDES

Ay, a pox on him. Let him go, dormouse; he is in a dream now. He has

no other time to sleep but thus when he walks abroad to take the air.

HEDON

God’s precious, this afflicts me more than all the rest, that we should so

particularly direct our hate and contempt against him, and he to carry it thus 15

without wound or passion! ’Tis insufferable.

ANAIDES

’Slid, my dear Envy, if thou but say’st the word now, I’ll undo him

eternally for thee.

HEDON

How, sweet Anaides?

ANAIDES

Marry, half a score of us get him in one night and make him pawn his 20

wit for a supper.

HEDON

Away, thou hast such unseasonable jests! By this heaven, I wonder at

nothing more than our gentlemen ushers, that will suffer a piece of serge or

perpetuana to come into the presence. Methinks they should, out of their

experience, better distinguish the silken disposition of a courtier than to let 25

such terrible coarse rags mix with ’em, able to fret any smooth or genteel

society to the threads with their rubbing devices.

ANAIDES

Damn me if I should adventure on his company once more without

a suit of buff to defend my wit. He does nothing but stab, the slave. How

mischievously he crossed thy device of the prophecy there! And Moria, she 30

comes without her muff too, and there my invention was lost.

HEDON

Well, I am resolved what I’ll do.

ANAIDES

What, my good spirituous spark?

HEDON

Marry, speak all the venom I can of him, and poison his reputation in

every place where I come. 35

ANAIDES

’Fore God, most courtly.

HEDON

And if I chance to be present where any question is made of his

sufficiencies, or of anything he hath done private or public, I’ll censure it

slightly, and ridiculously —

ANAIDES

At any hand, beware of that, so you may draw your own judgement 40

in suspect. No, I’ll instruct thee what thou shalt do, and by a safer means:

approve anything thou hear’st of his to the received opinion of it, but if it be

extraordinary, give it from him to some other whom thou more particularly

affect’st. That’s the way to plague him, and he shall never come to defend

himself. ’Sblood, I’ll give out all he does is dictated from other men; and 45

swear it too, if thou’lt ha’ me, and that I know the time and place where he

stole it. Though my soul be guilty of no such thing, and that I think, out of

my heart, he hates such barren shifts; yet to do thee a pleasure and him a

disgrace, I’ll damn myself, or do anything.

HEDON

Gramercies, my dear devil, we’ll put it seriously in practice, i’faith. 50

Exeunt.

3.3 CRITICUS [comes forward, having heard part of the previous conversation].

CRITICUS

Do, good Detraction, do, and I the while

Shall shake thy spite off with a careless smile.

Poor piteous gallants, what lean idle sleights

Their thoughts suggest to flatter their starved hopes!

As if I knew not how to entertain 5

These straw-devices, but of force must yield

To the weak stroke of their calumnious tongues.

Why should I care what every dor doth buzz

In credulous ears? It is a crown to me

That the best judgements can report me wronged, 10

Them liars, and their slanders impudent.

Perhaps, upon the rumour of their speeches,

Some grievèd friend will whisper, ‘Criticus,

Men speak ill of thee’; so they be ill men,

If they spake worse ’twere better, for of such 15

To be dispraised is the most perfect praise.

What can his censure hurt me, whom the world

Hath censured vile before me? If good Chrestus,

Euthus, or Phronimus had spoke the words,

They would have moved me, and I should have called 20

My thoughts and actions to a strict account

Upon the hearing. But when I remember

’Tis Hedon and Anaides, alas, then,

I think but what they are, and am not stirred:

The one, a light voluptuous reveller, 25

The other, a strange arrogating puff;

Both impudent and ignorant enough;

That talk, as they are wont, not as I merit,

Traduce by custom as most dogs do bark,

Do nothing out of judgement, but disease, 30

Speak ill because they never could speak well.

And who’d be angry with this race of creatures?

What wise physician have we ever seen

Moved with a frantic man? The same affects

That he doth bear to his sick patient 35

Should a right mind carry to such as these;

And I do count it a most rare revenge

That I can thus, with such a sweet neglect,

Pluck from them all the pleasure of their malice.

For that’s the mark of all their enginous drifts, 40

To wound my patience, howsoe’er they seem

To aim at other objects, which if missed,

Their envy’s like an arrow shot upright,

That in the fall endangers their own heads.

3.4 [Enter] ARETE.

ARETE

What, Criticus! Where have you spent the day?

You have not visited your jealous friends?

CRITICUS

Where I have seen, most honoured Arete,

The strangest pageant, fashioned like a court —

At least I dreamt I saw it — so diffused, 5

So painted, pied, and full of rainbow strains,

As never yet, either by time or place,

Was made the food to my distasted sense;

Nor can my weak imperfect memory

Now render half the forms unto my tongue 10

That were convolved within this thrifty room.

Here stalks me by a proud and spangled sir

That looks three handfuls higher than his foretop;

Savours himself alone, is only kind

And loving to himself; one that will speak 15

More dark and doubtful than six oracles;

Salutes a friend as if he had a stitch,

Is his own chronicle, and scarce can eat

For regist’ring himself; is waited on

By mimics, jesters, panders, parasites, 20

And other such like prodigies of men.

He past, there comes some subtle Proteus, one

Can change and vary with all forms he sees;

Be anything but honest, serves the time,

Hovers betwixt two factions, and explores 25

The drifts of both; which, with cross face, he bears

To the divided heads, and is received

With mutual grace of either; one that dares

Do deeds worthy the hurdle or the wheel,

To be thought somebody; and is, in sooth, 30

Such as the satirist points truly forth,

Criminibus debent hortos, praetoria, mensas.

ARETE

You tell us wonders, Criticus.

CRITICUS

Tut, this is nothing.

There stands a neophyte, glazing of his face 35

Against his idol enters, and repeats,

Like an unperfect prologue at third music,

His part of speeches and confederate jests

In passion to himself. Another swears

His scene of courtship over, and then seems 40

As he would kiss away his hand in kindness.

A third is most in action, swims and frisks,

Plays with his mistress’ paps, salutes her pumps,

Will spend his patrimony for a garter,

Or the least feather in her bounteous fan. 45

A fourth, he only comes in for a mute,

Divides the act with a dumb show, and exit.

Then must the ladies laugh, straight comes their scene,

A six times worse confusion than the rest.

Where you shall hear one talk of this man’s eye, 50

Another of his lip, a third his nose;

A fourth commend his leg, a fifth his foot,

A sixth his hand, and everyone a limb,

That you would think the poor distorted gallant

Must there expire. Then fall they in discourse 55

Of tires and fashions: how they must take place,

Where they may kiss, and whom; when to sit down,

And with what grace to rise; if they salute,

What courtesy they must use; such cobweb stuff

As would enforce the commonest sense abhor 60

Th’Arachnean workers.

ARETE

Patience, Criticus.

This knot of spiders will be soon dissolved,

And all their webs swept out of Cynthia’s court

When once her glorious deity appears

And but presents itself in her full light. 65

Till when, go in, and spend your hours with us

Your honoured friends, Timè and Phronesis,

In contemplation of our goddess’ name.

Think on some sweet and choice invention now,

Worthy her serious and illustrous eyes, 70

That from the merit of it we may take

Desired occasion to prefer your worth,

And make your service known to Cynthia.

It is the pride of Arete to grace

Her studious lovers; and, in scorn of time, 75

Envy, and ignorance, to lift their state

Above a vulgar height. True happiness

Consists not in the multitude of friends,

But in the worth and choice; nor would I have

Virtue a popular regard pursue; 80

Let them be good that love me, though but few.

CRITICUS

I kiss thy hands, divinest Arete,

And vow myself to thee and Cynthia. Exeunt.

3.5 [Enter] AMORPHUS, ASOTUS[, andTAILOR].

AMORPHUS

[To Asotus] A little more forward, so, sir. Now, go in, dis-cloak yourself,

and come forth. [Exit Asotus.]

Tailor, bestow thy absence upon us, and be not prodigal of this secret but to

a dear customer. [Exit Tailor.]

[Enter ASOTUS.]

’Tis well entered, sir. Stay, you come on too fast; your pace is too impetuous. 5

Imagine this to be the palace of your pleasure, or place where your lady

is pleased to be seen. First, you present yourself, thus [Demonstrating]; and,

spying her, you fall off and walk some two turns; in which time it is to be

supposed your passion hath sufficiently whited your face. Then, stifling

a sigh or two and closing your lips, with a trembling boldness and bold terror 10

you advance yourself forward. Try thus much, I pray you.

ASOTUS

Yes, sir, pray God I can light on it. Here I come in, you say, and present

myself?

AMORPHUS

Good.

ASOTUS

And then I spy her and walk off? 15

AMORPHUS

Very good.

ASOTUS

Now, sir, I stifle and advance forward?

AMORPHUS

Trembling.

ASOTUS

Yes, sir, trembling. I shall do it better when I come to it. And what must

I speak now? 20

AMORPHUS

Marry, you shall say, ‘Dear beauty’, or ‘Sweet honour’, or by what

other title you please to remember her, ‘methinks you are melancholy’. This

is if she be alone now and discompanied.

ASOTUS

Well, sir, I’ll enter again; her title shall be ‘My dear Lindabrides’.

AMORPHUS

Lindabrides? 25

ASOTUS

Ay, sir, the Emperor Alicandro’s daughter, and the Prince Meridian’s

sister, in The Knight of the Sun. She should have been married to him, but that

the Princess Claridiana —

AMORPHUS

Oh, you betray your reading.

ASOTUS

Nay, sir, I have read history, I am a little humanitian. Interrupt me not, 30

good sir. ‘My dear Lindabrides — my dear Lindabrides — my dear Lindabrides,

methinks you are melancholy.’

AMORPHUS

Ay, and take her by the rosy-fingered hand.

ASOTUS

Must I so? Oh, ‘My dear Lindabrides, methinks you are melancholy.’

AMORPHUS

Or thus, sir: ‘All variety of divine pleasures, choice sports, sweet 35

music, rich fare, brave attires, soft beds, and silken thoughts attend this dear

beauty.’

ASOTUS

Believe me, that’s pretty! ‘All variety of divine pleasures, choice sports,

sweet music, rich fare, brave attires, soft beds, and silken thoughts attend

this dear beauty.’ 40

AMORPHUS

And then, offering to kiss her hand, if she shall coyly recoil, and

signify your repulse, you are to re-enforce yourself with, ‘More than most

fair lady, let not the rigour of your just disdain thus coarsely censure of

your servant’s zeal’; and, withal, protest her ‘to be the only and absolute

unparalleled creature you do adore, and admire, and respect, and reverence 45

in this court, corner of the world, or kingdom.’

ASOTUS

This is hard, by my faith. I’ll begin it all again.

AMORPHUS

Do so, and I will act it for your lady.

ASOTUS

Will you vouchsafe, sir? ‘All variety of divine pleasures, choice sports,

sweet music, rich fare, brave attire, soft beds, and silken thoughts attend this 50

dear beauty.’

AMORPHUS

‘So, sir, pray you away.’

ASOTUS

‘More than most fair lady, let not the rigour of your just disdain thus

coarsely censure of your servant’s zeal. I protest you are the only and absolute

unapparelled’ — 55

AMORPHUS

Unparalleled.

ASOTUS

‘Unparalleled creature, I do adore, and admire, and respect, and reverence

in this court, corner of the world, or kingdom.’

AMORPHUS

This is, if she abide you. But now, put case she should be passant

when you enter, as thus [Demonstrating]; you are to frame your gait thereafter, 60

and call upon her, ‘Lady, nymph, sweet refuge, star of our court’. Then if she

be guardant, here [Demonstrating]; you are to come on and, laterally disposing

yourself, swear ‘by her blushing and well-coloured cheek, the bright dye of

her hair, her ivory teeth’, or some such white and innocent oath to induce

you. If reguardant [Demonstrating], then maintain your station, brisk and irpe, 65

show the supple motion of your pliant body, but, in chief, of your knee and

hand, which cannot but arride her proud humour exceedingly.

ASOTUS

I conceive you, sir. I shall perform all these things in good time, I doubt

not, they do so hit me.

AMORPHUS

Well, sir, I am your lady. Make use of any of these beginnings, or 70

some other out of your own invention, and prove how you can hold up and

follow it. Say, say.

ASOTUS

[Kneels] Yes, sir. ‘My dear Lindabrides’ —

AMORPHUS

No, you affect that Lindabrides too much, and, let me tell you, it is

not so courtly. Your pedant should provide you some parcels of French, or 75

some pretty commodity of Italian to commence with, if you would be exotic

and exquisite.

ASOTUS

Yes, sir, he was at my lodging t’other morning; I gave him a doublet.

AMORPHUS

Double your benevolence, and give him the hose too. Clothe you

his body, he will help to apparel your mind. But now, see what your proper 80

genius can perform alone, without adjection of any other Minerva.

ASOTUS

I comprehend you, sir.

AMORPHUS

I do stand you, sir; fall back to your first place. [Asotus demonstrates

the first posture.] Good, passing well, very properly pursued.

ASOTUS

‘Beautiful, ambiguous, and sufficient lady. What, are you all alone?’ 85

AMORPHUS

‘We would be, sir, if you would leave us.’

ASOTUS

‘I am at your beauty’s appointment, bright angel; but — ’

AMORPHUS

‘What but?’

ASOTUS

‘No harm, more than most fair feature.’

AMORPHUS

That touch relished well. 90

ASOTUS

‘But, I protest’ —

AMORPHUS

‘And why should you protest?’

ASOTUS

‘For good will, dear esteemed madam, and I hope Your Ladyship will so

conceive of it — if ever you have seen great Tamburlaine.’

AMORPHUS

Oh, that blank was excellent! If you could pick out more of these 95

play-particles, and, as occasion shall salute you, embroider or damask your

discourse with them, persuade your soul, it would judiciously commend you.

Come, this was a well-discharged and auspicious bout. Prove the second.

ASOTUS

‘Lady, I cannot swagger it in black and yellow.’

AMORPHUS

‘Why if you can revel it in white, sir, ’tis sufficient.’ 100

ASOTUS

’Say you so, sweet lady? Lan, tede de, de, dant, dant, dant, dante, etc.

No, in good faith, madam, whosoever told your ladyship so, abused you; but

I would be glad to meet your ladyship in a measure.’

AMORPHUS

‘Me, sir? Belike you measure me by yourself, then?’

ASOTUS

‘Would I might, fair feature.’ 105

AMORPHUS

‘And what were you the better, if you might?’

ASOTUS

‘The better it please you to ask, fair lady.’

AMORPHUS

Why, this was ravishing, and most acutely continued. Well, spend

not your humour too much, you have now competently exercised your conceit.

This, once or twice a day, will render you an accomplished, elaborate, 110

and well-levelled gentleman. Convey in your courting-stock; we will, in the

heat of this, go visit the nymphs’ chamber. [Exeunt.]

4.1 [Enter] PHANTASTE, PHILAUTIA, ARGURION, MORIA, [and] CUPID. [The ladies take their places on chairs and couches.]

PHANTASTE

I would this water would arrive once our travelling friend so commended

to us.

ARGURION

So would I, for he has left all us in travail with expectation of it.

PHANTASTE

Pray Jove I never rise from this couch if ever I thirsted more for a

thing in my whole time of being a courtier. 5

PHILAUTIA

Nor I, I’ll be sworn; the very mention of it sets my lips in a worse

heat than if he had sprinkled them with mercury. Reach me the glass, sirrah.

CUPID

Here, lady.

MORIA

They do not peel, sweet charge, do they?

PHILAUTIA

Yes, a little, guardian. 10

MORIA

Oh, ’tis a imminent good sign. Ever when my lips do so, I am sure to have

some delicious good drink or other approaching.

ARGURION

Marry, and this may be good for us ladies; for, it seems, ’tis far-fet by

their stay.

MORIA

My palate for yours, dear Honour, it shall prove most elegant, I warrant 15

you. Oh, I do fancy this gear that’s long a-coming, with an unmeasurable

strain.

PHANTASTE

Pray thee sit down, Philautia. That rebato becomes thee singularly.

PHILAUTIA

Is’t not quaint?

PHANTASTE

Yes, faith. Methinks thy servant Hedon is nothing so obsequious 20

to thee as he was wont to be. I know not how, he’s grown out of his garb alate,

he’s warped.

MORIA

In trueness, and so methinks too. He’s much converted.

PHILAUTIA

Tut, let him be what he will; ’tis an animal I dream not of. This tire,

methinks, makes me look very ingenuously, quick, and spirited; I should be 25

some Laura or some Delia, methinks.

MORIA

As I am wise, fair honours, that title she gave him, to be her Ambition,

spoiled him. Before, he was the most propitious and observant young

novice —

PHANTASTE

No, no; you are the whole heaven awry, guardian. ’Tis the swaggering 30

tilt-horse Anaides draws with him there has been the diverter of

him.

PHILAUTIA

For Cupid’s sake speak, no more of him. Would I might never dare

to look in a mirror again if I respect e’er a marmoset of them all, otherwise

than I would a feather or my shuttlecock, to make sport with now and then. 35

PHANTASTE

Come sit down; troth, an you be good beauties, let’s run over ’em

all now. Which is the properest man amongst them? I say the traveller,

Amorphus.

[They look at pictures of the male courtiers.]

PHILAUTIA

Oh, fie on him. He looks like a Dutch trumpeter i’the battle of

Lepanto in the gallery yonder, and speaks to the tune of a country lady that 40

comes ever i’the rearward or train of a fashion.

MORIA

I should have judgement in a feature, sweet beauties.

PHANTASTE

A body would think so, at these years.

MORIA

And I prefer another now, far before him, a million at least.

PHANTASTE

Who might that be, guardian? 45

MORIA

Marry, fair charge, Anaides.

PHANTASTE

Anaides? You talked of a tune, Philautia. There’s one speaks in a

key, like the opening of some justice’s gate or a post-boy’s horn, as if his voice

feared an arrest for some ill words it should give and were loath to come

forth. 50

PHILAUTIA

Ay, and he has a very imperfect face.

PHANTASTE

Like a squeezed orange: sour, sour.

PHILAUTIA

His hand’s too great, too; by at least a straw’s breadth.

PHANTASTE

Nay, he has a worse fault than that too.

PHILAUTIA

A long heel? 55

PHANTASTE

That were a fault in a lady rather than him. No, they say he puts off

the calves of his legs with his stockings every night.

PHILAUTIA

Out upon him! Turn to another of the pictures, for God’s sake. What

says Argurion? Whom does she commend afore the rest?

CUPID

[Aside] I hope I have instructed her sufficiently for an answer. 60

MORIA

Troth, I made the motion to her ladyship for one today i’the presence,

but it appeared she was other ways furnished before; she would none.

PHANTASTE

Who was that, Argurion?

MORIA

Marry, the little, poor, plain gentleman i’the black there.

PHANTASTE

Who, Criticus? 65

ARGURION

Ay, ay, he. A fellow that nobody so much as looked upon, or regarded,

and she would have had me done him particular grace.

PHANTASTE

That was a true trick of yourself, Moria, to persuade Argurion affect

the scholar.

ARGURION

Tut, but she shall be no chooser for me. In good faith, I like the 70

citizen’s son there, Asotus. Methinks none of them all come near him.

PHANTASTE

Not Hedon?

ARGURION

Hedon, in troth, no. Hedon’s a pretty slight courtier, and he wears

his clothes well and sometimes in fashion; marry, his face is but indifferent,

and he has no such excellent body. No, th’other is a most delicate youth, a 75

sweet face, a straight body, a well-proportioned leg and foot, a white hand, a

tender voice.

PHILAUTIA

How now, Argurion?

PHANTASTE

Oh, you should have let her alone; she was bestowing a copy of him

upon us. 80

PHILAUTIA

Why she dotes more palpably upon him than e’er his father did upon

her.

PHANTASTE

Believe me, the young gentleman deserves it; if she could dote more

’twere not amiss: he is an exceeding proper youth, and would have made a

most neat barber-surgeon, if he had been put to it in time. 85

PHILAUTIA

Say you so? Methinks he looks like a tailor already.

PHANTASTE

Ay, that had sayed on one of his customers’ suits.

ARGURION

Well ladies, jest on; the best of you both would be glad of such a

servant.

MORIA

Ay, I’ll be sworn would they. Go to, beauties, make much of time, and 90

place, and occasion, and opportunity, and favourites, and things that belong

to them, for I’ll ensure you they will all relinquish; they cannot endure above

another year. I know it out of future experience, and therefore take exhibition

and warning: I was once a reveller myself, and though I speak it, as mine own

trumpet, I was then esteemed — 95

PHILAUTIA

The very marchpane of the court, I warrant!

PHANTASTE

And all the gallants came about you like flies, did they not?

MORIA

Go to; they did somewhat, that’s no matter now. Here comes Hedon.

4.2 [Enter] HEDON, ANAIDES, [and] MERCURY.

HEDON

Save you, sweet and clear beauties! By the spirit that moves in me, you

are all most pleasingly bestowed, ladies. Only I can take it for no good omen

to find mine Honour so dejected.

PHILAUTIA

You need not fear, sir; I did of purpose humble myself against your

coming, to decline the pride of my Ambition. 5

HEDON

Fair Honour, Ambition dares not stoop; but if it be your sweet pleasure

I shall lose that title. I will, as I am Hedon, apply myself to your bounties.

PHILAUTIA

That were the next way to distitle myself of honour. Oh, no, rather

be still ambitious, I pray you.

HEDON

I will be anything that you please whilst it pleaseth you to be yourself, 10

lady. Sweet Phantaste, dear Moria, most beautiful Argurion —

ANAIDES

Farewell, Hedon.

HEDON

Anaides, stay! Whither go you?

ANAIDES

’Slight, what should I do here? An you engross ’em all for your own

use, ’tis time for me to seek out. 15

HEDON

I engross ’em? Away, mischief, this is one of your extravagant jests now,

because I began to salute ’em by their names —

ANAIDES

Faith, you might have spared us Madam Prudence, the guardian there,

though you had more covetously aimed at the rest.

HEDON

’Sheart, take ’em all, man! What speak you to me of aiming or covetous? 20

ANAIDES

Ay, say you so? Nay, then, have at ’em. Ladies, here’s one hath distinguished

you by your names already. It shall only become me to ask, ‘how you

do?’

HEDON

God’s so, was this the design you travailed with?

PHANTASTE

Who answers the brazen head? It spoke to somebody? 25

ANAIDES

[To Moria] Lady Wisdom, do you interpret for these puppets?

MORIA

In truth and sadness, honours, you are in great offence for this. Go to!

The gentleman (I’ll undertake with him) is a man of fair living, and able

to maintain a lady in her two coaches a day, besides pages, monkeys, and

paraquitos, with such attendants as she shall think meet for her turn; and 30

therefore there is more respect requirable, howsoever you seem to connive.

[To Anaides] Hark you, sir, let me discourse a syllable with you. I am to say to

you, these ladies are not of that close and open behaviour as happily you may

suspend. Their carriage is well known to be such as it should be, both gentle

and extraordinary. 35

MERCURY

Oh, here comes the other pair.

4.3 [Enter] AMORPHUS [and] ASOTUS.

AMORPHUS

[Aside to Asotus] That was your father’s love, the nymph Argurion.

I would have you direct all your courtship thither; if you could but endear

yourself to her affection, you were eternally engallanted.

ASOTUS

In truth, sir? Pray Phoebus I prove favoursome in her fair eyes.

AMORPHUS

[To the company] All divine mixture and increase of beauty to this 5

bright bevy of ladies; and to the male courtiers, compliment and courtesy!

HEDON

In the behalf of the males, I gratify you, Amorphus.

PHANTASTE

And I of the females.

AMORPHUS

Succinctly spoken. I do vail to both your thanks and kiss them, but

primarily to yours, most ingenious, acute, and polite lady. 10

[He bows and kisses Phantaste’s hands.]

PHILAUTIA

God’s my life, how he does all to bequalify her! Ingenious, acute,

and polite? As if there were not others in place as ingenious, acute, and polite

as she!

HEDON

Yes, but you must know, lady, he cannot speak out of a dictionary

method. 15

PHANTASTE

Sit down, sweet Amorphus. When will this water come, think you?

AMORPHUS

It cannot now be long, fair lady.

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] Now observe, Mercury.

ASOTUS

[To Argurion] How, most ambiguous beauty, love you? That I will, by this

handkerchief. 20

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] ’Slid, he draws his oaths out of his pocket.

ARGURION

But will you be constant?

ASOTUS

Constant, madam? I will not say for constantness, but by this purse —

which I would be loath to swear by unless ’twere embroidered — ‘I protest,

more than most fair lady, you are the only absolute and unparalleled creature 25

I do adore, and admire, and respect, and reverence in this court, corner of the

world, or kingdom; methinks you are melancholy.’

ARGURION

Does your heart speak all this?

ASOTUS

Say you?

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Oh, he is groping for another oath. 30

ASOTUS

Now, by this watch — I mar’l how forward the day is — I do unfeignedly

vow myself — ’slight, ’tis deeper than I took it, past five — yours entirely

addicted, madam.

ARGURION

I require no more dearest Asotus, henceforth let me call you mine;

and in remembrance of me, vouchsafe to wear this chain and this diamond. 35

[She presents him with gifts.]

ASOTUS

Oh, God, sweet lady.

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] There are new oaths for him. What, doth Hermes taste

no alteration in all this?

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Yes, thou hast struck Argurion enamoured on Asotus

methinks? 40

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] Alas, no; I am nobody, I. I can do nothing in this disguise.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] But thou hast not wounded any of the rest, Cupid?

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] Not yet; it is enough that I have begun so prosperously.

ARGURION

Tut, these are nothing to the gems I will hourly bestow upon thee.

Be but faithful and kind to me and I will lade thee with my richest bounties. 45

Behold, here, my bracelets from mine arms.

[She offers another gift.]

ASOTUS

Not so, good lady, by this diamond.

ARGURION

Take ’em; wear ’em; my jewels, chain of pearl, pendants, all I have.

ASOTUS

Nay, then, by this pearl, you make me a wanton.

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] Shall not she answer for this to maintain him thus in 50

swearing?

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Oh, no, there is a way to wean him from this. The

gentleman may be reclaimed.

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] Ay, if you had the airing of his apparel, coz, I think.

ASOTUS

Loving? ’Twere pity I should be living else, believe me. Save you, sir; 55

save you, sweet lady; save you, Monsieur Anaides; save you, dear madam.

ANAIDES

Dost thou know him that saluted thee, Hedon?

HEDON

No, some idle fungoso, I warrant you.

ANAIDES

’Sblood, I never saw him till this morning, and he salutes me as familiarly

as if we had known together since the first year of the siege of Troy. 60

AMORPHUS

A most right-handed and auspicious encounter. Confine yourself to

your fortunes.

PHILAUTIA

For God’s sake, let’s have some riddles or purposes, ho!

PHANTASTE

No, faith, your prophecies are best, the t’other are stale.

PHILAUTIA

Prophecies? We cannot all sit in at them; we shall make a confusion. 65

No, what called you that we had in the forenoon?

PHANTASTE

Substantives and adjectives. Is’t not, Hedon?

PHILAUTIA

Ay that, who begins?

PHANTASTE

I have thought. Speak your adjectives, sirs.

PHILAUTIA

But do not you change, then. 70

PHANTASTE

Not I. Who says?

MORIA

Odoriferous.

PHILAUTIA

Popular.

ARGURION

Humble.

ANAIDES

White-livered. 75

HEDON

Barbarous.

AMORPHUS

Pythagorical.

HEDON

Yours, signor.

ASOTUS

What must I do, sir?

AMORPHUS

Give forth your adjective with the rest; as prosperous, good, fair, 80

sweet, well.

HEDON

Anything that hath not been spoken.

ASOTUS

Yes, sir, ‘well-spoken’ shall be mine.

PHANTASTE

What, ha’ you all done?

ALL

Ay. 85

PHANTASTE

Then the substantive is ‘breeches’. Why odoriferous breeches,

guardian?

MORIA

Odoriferous, because odoriferous: that which contains most variety of

savour and smell, we say is most odoriferous. Now, breeches I presume are

incident to that variety, and therefore, odoriferous breeches. 90

PHANTASTE

Well, we must take it howsoever. Who’s next? Philautia.

PHILAUTIA

Popular.

PHANTASTE

Why popular breeches?

PHILAUTIA

Marry, that is when they are not content to be generally noted in

court, but will press forth on common stages and brokers’ stalls to the public 95

view of the world.

PHANTASTE

Good. Why humble breeches, Argurion?

ARGURION

Humble, because they use to be sat upon. Besides if you tie ’em not

up, their property is to fall down about your heels.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] She has worn the breeches, it seems, which have done 100

so.

PHANTASTE

But why white-livered?

ANAIDES

Why? ’Sheart, are not their linings white? Besides, when they come in

swaggering company, and will pocket up anything, may they not properly

be said to be white-livered? 105

PHANTASTE

Oh, yes, we cannot deny it. And why barbarous, Hedon?

HEDON

Barbarous, because commonly when you have worn your breeches sufficiently

you give them to your barber.

AMORPHUS

That’s good. But now Pythagorical.

PHANTASTE

Ay, Amorphus, why Pythagorical breeches? 110

AMORPHUS

Oh, most kindly of all, ’tis a conceit of that fortune I am bold to hug

my brain for.

PHANTASTE

How is’t, exquisite Amorphus?

AMORPHUS

Oh, I am rapt with it, ’tis so fit, so proper, so happy.

PHILAUTIA

Nay, do not rack us thus! 115

AMORPHUS

I never truly relished myself before. Give me your ears: breeches

Pythagorical, by reason of their transmigration into several shapes!

MORIA

Most rare, in sweet troth! Marry, this young gentleman, for his well-

spoken —

PHANTASTE

Ay, why well-spoken breeches? 120

ASOTUS

Well-spoken? Marry, well-spoken because whatsoever they speak is well

taken, and whatsoever is well taken, is well-spoken.

MORIA

Excellent, believe me.

ASOTUS

Not so, ladies, neither.

HEDON

But why breeches now? 125

PHANTASTE

Breeches, quasi bear-riches; when a gallant bears all his riches in

his breeches.

PHILAUTIA

In good faith, these unhappy pages would be whipped for staying

thus.

MORIA

Beshrew my hand and my heart else. 130

AMORPHUS

I do wonder at their protraction.

ANAIDES

Pray God my whore have not discovered herself to the rascally boys,

and that be the cause of their stay.

ASOTUS

I must suit myself with another page. This idle Prosaites will never be

brought to wait well. 135

MORIA

Sir, I have a kinsman I could willingly wish to your service, if you would

deign to accept of him.

ASOTUS

And I shall be glad, most sweet lady, to embrace him. Where is he?

MORIA

I can fetch him, sir, but I would be loath to make you turn away your

other page. 140

ASOTUS

You shall not, most sufficient lady, I will keep both. Pray you, let’s go

see him.

ARGURION

Whither goes my love?

ASOTUS

I’ll return presently; I go but to see a page with this lady.

Exeunt [Asotus and Moria].

ANAIDES

As sure as fate, ’tis so. She has opened all; a pox of all cockatrices! Damn 145

me if she have played loose with me, I’ll cut her throat within a hair’s breadth,

so it may be healed again. Exit.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] What, is he jealous of his hermaphrodite?

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] Oh, ay, this will be excellent sport.

PHILAUTIA

Phantaste, Argurion, what? You are suddenly struck methinks. For 150

God’s will, let’s ha’ some music till they come. Ambition, reach the lyra, I

pray you.

HEDON

Anything to which my Honour shall direct me.

[Hedon hands her a harp.]

PHILAUTIA

Come, Amorphus, cheer up Phantaste.

AMORPHUS

It shall be my pride, fair lady, to attempt all that is in my power. 155

But here is an instrument that alone is able to infuse soul in the most melancholic

and dull disposed creature upon earth. Oh, let me kiss thy fair knees!

Beauteous ears attend it.

HEDON

Will you have ‘The Kiss’, Honour?

PHILAUTIA

Ay, good Ambition. 160

Ode

HEDON

[Singing] Oh, that joy so soon should waste!

Or so sweet a bliss

As a kiss,

Might not forever last!

So sugared, so melting, so soft, so delicious, 165

The dew that lies on roses,

When the morn herself discloses,

Is not so precious.

Oh, rather than I would it smother,

Were I to taste such another; 170

It should be my wishing

That I might die kissing.

I made this ditty and the note to it upon a kiss that my Honour gave me. How

like you it, sir?

AMORPHUS

A pretty air! In general, I like it well. But, in particular, your long 175

‘die’ note did arride me most, but it was somewhat too long. I can show

one almost of the same nature but much before it, and not so long, in a

composition of mine own. I think I have both the note and ditty about me.

HEDON

Pray you, sir, see.

AMORPHUS

[Producing a paper] Yes, there is the note and all the parts, if I misthink 180

not. I will read the ditty to your beauties here, but first I am to make you

familiar with the occasion, which presents itself thus: upon a time, going

to take my leave of the emperor and kiss his great hands, there being

then present the kings of France and Aragon, the dukes of Savoy, Florence,

Orleans, Bourbon, Brunswick, the Landgrave, Count Palatine — all which had 185

severally feasted me — besides infinite more of inferior persons, as earls

and others — it was my chance, the emperor detained by some other affair, to wait

him the fifth part of an hour, or much near it. In which time, retiring myself

into a bay-window, I encountered the Lady Annabel, niece to the empress and

sister to the king of Aragon, who, having never before eyed me but only heard 190

the common report of my virtue, learning, and travel, fell into that extremity

of passion for my love that she there immediately sounded. Physicians were

sent for; she had to her chamber; so to her bed, where languishing some

few days, after many times calling upon me, with my name in her mouth,

she expired. As that, I must needs say, is the only fault of my fortune, that as it 195

hath ever been my hap to be sued to by all ladies and beauties where I have

come, so I never yet sojourned or rested in that place or part of the world

where some great and admirable fair creature died not for my love.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Oh, the sweet power of travel! Are you guilty of this,

Cupid? 200

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] No, Mercury; and that his page, Cos, knows, an he were

here present to be sworn.

PHILAUTIA

But how doth this draw on the ditty, sir?

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Oh, she is too quick with him. He hath not devised that

yet. 205

AMORPHUS

Marry, some hour before she departed, she bequeathed to me this

glove [Showing the glove], which the emperor himself took care to send after

me, in six coaches, covered all with black velvet, attended by the state of

his empire; all which he freely gave me, and I reciprocally (out of the same

bounty) gave it to the lords that brought it; only reserving, 210

and respecting, the gift of the deceased lady, upon which I composed this ode, and set it to

my most affected instrument, the lyra.

Ode

Thou more than most sweet glove,

Unto my more sweet love,

Suffer me to store with kisses 215

This empty lodging, that now misses

The pure rosy hand that ware thee,

Whiter than the kid that bare thee.

Thou art soft, but that was softer;

Cupid’s self hath kissed it ofter, 220

Than e’er he did his mother’s doves,

Supposing her the Queen of Love’s,

That was thy mistress,

Best of gloves.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Blasphemy, blasphemy, Cupid! 225

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] Ay, I’ll revenge it time enough, Hermes.

PHILAUTIA

Good Amorphus, let’s hear it sung.

AMORPHUS

I care not to do that, since it pleaseth Philautia to request it.

HEDON

Here, sir. [Offering the harp.]

AMORPHUS

Nay, play it, I pray you; you do well, you do well. 230

He sings [while Hedon plays.]

How like you it, sir?

HEDON

Very well, in troth.

AMORPHUS

But ‘very well’? Oh, you are a mere mammothrept in judgement

then! Why, do you not observe how excellently the ditty is affected in every

place? That I do not marry a word of short quantity to a long note, nor 235

an ascending syllable to a descending tone. Besides, upon the word ‘best’

there, you see how I do enter with an odd minim and drive it through the

breve, which no intelligent musician I know but will affirm to be very rare,

extraordinary, and pleasing.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] And yet not fit to lament the death of a lady for all this. 240

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] Tut, here be they will swallow anything.

PHANTASTE

Pray you, let me have a copy of it, Amorphus.

PHILAUTIA

And me too, in troth, I like it exceedingly.

AMORPHUS

I have denied it to princes; nevertheless, to you, the true female

twins of perfection, I am won to depart withal. 245

[Amorphus gives sheets of paper to Philautia and Phantaste]

HEDON

I hope I shall have my Honour’s copy.

PHANTASTE

You are ambitious in that, Hedon.

Enter ANAIDES.

AMORPHUS

How now, Anaides? What is it hath conjured up this distemperature

in the circle of your face?

ANAIDES

’Sblood, what have you to do? A pox of God o’your filthy travelling 250

beard! Hold your tongue.

HEDON

Nay, dost hear mischief?

ANAIDES

Away, musk-cat!

AMORPHUS

I say to thee, thou art rude, impudent, coarse, impolished; a frapler,

and base. 255

HEDON

[Aside] Heart of my father, what a strange alteration has half a year’s

haunting of ordinaries wrought in this fellow! That came with a tuftaffeta

jerkin to town but th’other day, and now he is turned Hercules; he wants but

a club!

ANAIDES

Sir, I will garter my hose with your guts and that shall be all. 260Exit.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] ’Slid, what rare fireworks be here? Flash, flash!

PHANTASTE

What’s the matter, Hedon? Can you tell?

HEDON

Nothing but that he lacks money, and thinks we’ll lend him some to be

friends.

Enter ASOTUS, MORIA [and] MORUS.

ASOTUS

[To Moria] Come, sweet lady, in good truth I’ll have it, you shall not deny 265

me. — Morus, persuade your aunt I may have her picture, by any means.

MORUS

Yes, sir. — Good aunt, now, let him have it. He will use me the better, if

you love me, do, good aunt.

MORIA

Well, tell him he shall have it.

MORUS

[To Asotus] Master, you shall have it, she says. 270

ASOTUS

Shall I? Thank her, good page.

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] What, has he entertained the fool?

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Ay, he’ll wait close, you shall see, though the beggar

hang off.

MORUS

[To Moria] Aunt, my master thanks you. 275

MORIA

Call him hither.

MORUS

Yes. — Master!

MORIA

Yes, in very truth, and gave me this purse, and he has promised me a

most fine dog; which he will have drawn with my picture, and desires most

vehemently to be known to Your Ladyships. 280

PHANTASTE

Call him hither, ’tis good groping such a gull.

MORIA

Master Asotus! Master Asotus!

ASOTUS

[To Argurion] For God’s sake, let me go. You see I am called to the ladies.

ARGURION

Wilt thou forsake me, then?

ASOTUS

God’s so, what would you have me do? 285

MORIA

Come hither, Master Asotus. — I do ensure Your Ladyships he is a

gentleman of a very worthy desert and of a most bountiful nature. — You

must show and insinuate yourself responsible and equivalent now to my

commendment. — Good honours, grace him.

ASOTUS

‘I protest, more than most fair ladies, I do wish all variety of divine 290

pleasure, choice sport, sweet music, rich fare, brave attires, soft beds, and

silken thoughts attend these fair beauties. [To Phantaste] Will it please Your

Ladyship to wear this chain of pearl, and this diamond for my sake?’

[He presents gifts.]

ARGURION

Oh!

ASOTUS

[To Philautia] And you, madam, this jewel and pendants. 295

[He presents gifts again.]

ARGURION

Oh!

PHANTASTE

We know not how to deserve these bounties out of so slight merit,

Asotus.

PHILAUTIA

No, in faith, but there’s my glove for a favour.

[She offers a glove.]

PHANTASTE

And soon after the revels I will bestow a garter on you. 300

ASOTUS

Oh, Lord, ladies, it is more grace than ever I could have hoped, but that

it pleaseth Your Ladyships to extend. I protest it is enough that you but take

knowledge of my — if Your Ladyships want embroidered gowns, tires of any

fashion, rebatoes, jewels, or carcanets, anything whatsoever, if you vouchsafe

to accept. 305

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] And for it they will help you to shoe-ties and devices.

ASOTUS

I cannot utter myself, dear beauties, but you can conceive —

ARGURION

Oh!

PHANTASTE

Sir, we will acknowledge your service, doubt not. Henceforth you

shall be no more ‘Asotus’ to us but our goldfinch, and we your cages. 310

ASOTUS

Oh, God, madams, how shall I deserve this? [Aside] If I were but made

acquainted with Hedon now! I’ll try. [To Argurion] Pray you, away.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] How he prays Money to go away from him!

ASOTUS

Amorphus, a word with you. Here’s a watch I would bestow upon you.

Pray you make me known to that gallant. 315

AMORPHUS

[Aside] That I will, sir. — Monsieur Hedon, I must entreat you to

exchange knowledge with this gentleman.

HEDON

’Tis a thing, next to the water we expect, I thirst after, sir. Good Monsieur

Asotus.

ASOTUS

Good Monsieur Hedon, I would be glad to be loved of men of your rank 320

and spirit, I protest. Please you to accept this pair of bracelets, sir; they are

not worth the bestowing.

[He offers gifts.]

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Oh, Hercules, how the gentleman purchases! This must

needs bring Argurion to a consumption.

HEDON

Sir, I shall never stand in the merit of such bounty, I fear. 325

ASOTUS

Oh, Lord, sir, your acquaintance shall be sufficient. And if at any time

you need my bill or my bond —

ARGURION

Oh, oh!

Argurion swoons.

AMORPHUS

Help the lady there!

MORIA

God’s dear, Argurion! Madam, how do you? 330

ARGURION

Sick.

PHANTASTE

Have her forth and give her air.

ASOTUS

I come again straight, ladies.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Well, I doubt all the physic he has will scarce recover

her; she’s too far spent. 335

Exeunt Asotus, Morus, [assisting] Argurion.

4.4 [Enter] ANAIDES, GELAIA, COS, [and] PROSAITES [with bottles].

PHILAUTIA

Oh, here’s the water come. — Fetch glasses, page.

GELAIA

[To Anaides] Heart of my body, here’s a coil indeed with your jealous

humours. Nothing but ‘whore’, and ‘bitch’, and all the villainous swaggering

names you can think on! ’Slid, take your bottle and put it in your guts for me,

I’ll see you poxed ere I follow you any longer! 5

ANAIDES

Nay, good punk, sweet rascal; damn me if I am jealous now.

GELAIA

That’s true indeed. Pray let’s go.

MORIA

What’s the matter there?

GELAIA

’Slight, he has me upon intergatories — nay, my mother shall know how

you use me — where I have been? And why I should stay so long? And how is’t 10

possible? And withal calls me at his pleasure I know not how many cockatrices

and things.

MORIA

In truth and sadness, these are no good epithets, Anaides, to bestow upon

any gentlewoman; and, I’ll ensure you, if I had known you would have dealt

thus with my daughter, she should never have fancied you so deeply as she 15

has done. Go to!

ANAIDES

Why, do you hear, Mother Moria? Heart!

MORIA

Nay, I pray you, sir, do not swear.

ANAIDES

Swear? Why? ’Sblood, I have sworn afore now, I hope. Both you and your

daughter mistake me. I have not honoured Arete, that is held the worthiest 20

lady in the court (next to Cynthia), with half that observance and respect as I

have done her in private, howsoever outwardly I have carried myself careless

and negligent. Come, you are a foolish punk and know not when you are well

employed. Kiss me. Come on. Do it, I say!

MORIA

Nay, indeed I must confess she is apt to misprision. But I must have you 25

leave it, minion.

Enter ASOTUS.

AMORPHUS

How now, Asotus? How does the lady?

ASOTUS

Faith, ill. I have left my page with her at her lodging.

[Hedon drinks some of the water.]

HEDON

Oh, here’s the rarest water that ever was tasted. [To Morus] Fill him some.

PROSAITES

[Aside to Mercury] What? Has my master a new page? 30

MERCURY

[Aside to Prosaites] Yes, a kinsman of the Lady Moria’s. You must wait

better now or you are cashiered, Prosaites.

ANAIDES

Come, gallants, you must pardon my foolish humour. When I am angry

that anything crosses me, I grow impatient straight. Here, I drink to you.

[He drinks.]

PHILAUTIA

Oh, that we had five or six bottles more of this liquor! 35

PHANTASTE

Now, I commend your judgement, Amorphus.

[A knock at the door.]

Who’s that knocks? Look, page.

[Cupid goes to the door.]

MORIA

Oh, most delicious! A little of this would make Argurion well.

PHANTASTE

Oh, no, give her no cold drink, by any means.

ANAIDES

’Slud, this water is the spirit of wine, I’ll be hanged else. 40

CUPID

Here’s the Lady Arete, madam.

4.5 [Enter] ARETE.

ARETE

What, at your bever, gallants?

MORIA

Wilt please Your Ladyship drink? ’Tis of the new fountain water.

ARETE

Not I, Moria, I thank you. Gallants, you must provide for some solemn

revels tonight; Cynthia is minded to come forth and grace your sports with

her presence. Therefore, I could wish there were something extraordinary to 5

entertain her.

AMORPHUS

What say you to a masque?

HEDON

Nothing better, if the invention or project were new and rare.

ARETE

Why, I’ll send for Criticus and have his advice. [To Phantaste] You will be

ready in your endeavours? 10

PHANTASTE

Yes, but will not Your Ladyship stay?

ARETE

Not now, Phantaste. Exit.

PHILAUTIA

Let her go, I pray you. Good Lady Sobriety, I am glad we are rid of

her.

PHANTASTE

What a set face the gentlewoman has, as she were still going to a 15

sacrifice!

PHILAUTIA

Oh, she is the extraction of a dozen of puritans for a look.

MORIA

Of all nymphs i’the court I cannot away with her; ’tis the coarsest thing —

PHILAUTIA

I wonder how Cynthia can affect her so above the rest! Here be they

are every way as fair as she, and a thought fairer, I trow. 20

PHANTASTE

Ay, and as ingenious and conceited as she.

MORIA

Ay, and as politic as she, for all she sets such a forehead on’t.

PHILAUTIA

Would I were dead if I would change to be Cynthia!

PHANTASTE

Or I.

MORIA

Or I. 25

AMORPHUS

And there’s her minion Criticus; why his advice more than

Amorphus’? Have I not invention afore him? Learning, to better that

invention, above him? And travail —

ANAIDES

Death, what talk you of his learning? He understands no more than

a schoolboy. I have put him down myself a thousand times, by this air, and 30

yet I never talked with him but twice in my life. You never saw his like; I

could never get him to argue with me but once, and then, because I could not

construe a piece of Horace at first sight, he went away and laughed at me. By

God’s will, I scorn him, as I do the sodden nymph that was here even now,

his mistress Arete, and I love myself for nothing else. 35

HEDON

I wonder the fellow does not hang himself, being thus scorned and

contemned of us that are held the most accomplished society of gallants!

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] By yourselves, none else.

HEDON

I protest, if I had no music in me, no courtship, that I were not a reveller

and could dance, or had not those excellent qualities that give a man life 40

and perfection, but a mere poor scholar as he is, I think I should make some

desperate way with myself; whereas now, would I might never breathe more

if I do know that creature in this kingdom with whom I would change.

CUPID

[Aside to Mercury] This is excellent! Well, I must alter this soon.

MERCURY

[Aside to Cupid] Look you do, Cupid. 45

ASOTUS

Oh, I shall tickle it soon. I did never appear till then. ’Slid, I am the

neatliest-made gallant i’the company and have the best presence; and my

dancing — I know what the usher said to me the last time I was at the school.

Would I might lead Philautia in the measure, an ’twere God’s will! I am most

worthy, I am sure. 50

Enter MORUS.

MORUS

Master, I can tell you news: the lady kissed me yonder, and played with

me, and says she loved you once as well as she does me, but that you cast her

off.

ASOTUS

Peace, my most esteemed page.

MORUS

Yes. 55

AMORPHUS

Gallants, think upon your time, and take it by the forehead. —

Anaides, we must mix this gentleman with you in acquaintance, Monsieur

Asotus.

ANAIDES

I am easily entreated to grace any of your friends, Amorphus.

ASOTUS

Sir, and his friends shall likewise grace you, sir. Nay, I begin to know 60

myself now.

AMORPHUS

[Aside to Asotus] Oh, you must continue your bounties.

ASOTUS

[Aside to Amorphus] Must I? Why, I’ll give him this ruby on my finger.

HEDON

Come, ladies. But stay, we shall want one to lady it in our masque in

place of Argurion. 65

ANAIDES

Why, my page shall do it, Gelaia.

HEDON

Troth, and he’ll do it well, it shall be so.

Exeunt [Hedon, Phantaste, Philautia, Moria, Gelaia, and Amorphus].

ASOTUS

[To Anaides] Do you hear, sir? I do heartily wish your acquaintance, and

I partly know myself worthy of it. Please you, sir, to accept this poor ruby in

a ring, sir. The poesy is of my own device. ‘Let this blush for me’, sir. 70

[He offers a ring.]

ANAIDES

So it must for me, too. For I am not ashamed to take it. Exit.

MORUS

Sweet man, by my troth, master, I love you; will you love me too, for my

aunt’s sake? I’ll wait well, you shall see, I’ll still be here. Would I might never

stir, but you are in gay clothes.

ASOTUS

As for that, Morus, thou shalt see more hereafter. In the meantime, by 75

this air, or by this feather, I’ll do as much for thee as any gallant shall do for

his page whatsoever, ‘in this court, corner of the world, or kingdom’.

Exeunt [all but the pages].

MERCURY

I wonder this gentleman should affect to keep a fool; methinks he

makes sport enough with himself.

CUPID

Well, Prosaites, ’twere good you did wait closer. 80

PROSAITES

Ay, I’ll look to it, ’tis time.

COS

We are like to have sumptuous revels tonight, sirs.

MERCURY

We must needs, when all the choicest singularities of the court are up

in pantofles; ne’er a one of them but is able to make a whole show of itself.

HEDON

(Within) Sirrah, a torch, a torch! 85

MERCURY

Oh, what a call is there! I will have a canzonet made with nothing in

it but ‘sirrah’; and the burden shall be ‘I come.’ Exeunt omnes.

4.6 [Enter] ARETE [and] CRITICUS.

CRITICUS

A masque, bright Arete?

Why, ’twere a labour more for Hercules.

Better and sooner durst I undertake

To make the different seasons of the year,

The winds, or elements to sympathize, 5

Than their unmeasurable vanity

Dance truly in a measure. They agree?

What though all concord’s borne of contraries,

So many follies will confusion prove,

And like a sort of jarring instruments, 10

All out of tune; because, indeed, we see

There is not that analogy twixt discords

As between things but merely opposite.

ARETE

There is your error. For as Hermes’ wand

Charms the disorders of tumultuous ghosts, 15

And as the strife of Chaos then did cease

When better light than Nature’s did arrive;

So, what could never in itself agree

Forgetteth the eccentric property,

And at her sight turns forthwith regular, 20

Whose sceptre guides the flowing ocean.

And though it did not, yet the most of them,

Being either courtiers, or not wholly rude,

Respect of majesty, the place, and presence,

Will keep them within ring; especially 25

When they are not presented as themselves,

But masked like others. For, in troth, not so

T’incorporate them could be nothing else

Than like a state ungoverned, without laws, or

A body made of nothing but diseases; 30

The one, through impotency poor and wretched,

The other, for the anarchy absurd.

CRITICUS

But lady, for the revellers themselves

It would be better, in my poor conceit,

That others were employed; for such as are 35

Unfit to be in Cynthia’s court can seem

No less unfit to be in Cynthia’s sports.

ARETE

That is not done, my Criticus, without

Particular knowledge of the goddess’ mind;

Who, holding true intelligence what follies 40

Had crept into her palace, she resolved

Of sports and triumphs; under that pretext,

To have them muster in their pomp and fullness,

That so she might more strictly, and to root,

Effect the reformation she intends. 45

CRITICUS

I now conceive her heavenly drift in all,

And will apply my spirits to serve thy will.

O thou, the very power by which I am,

And but for which it were in vain to be;

Chief, next Diana, virgin, heavenly fair, 50

Admired Arete, of them admired

Whose souls are not enkindled by the sense,

Disdain not my chaste fire, but feed the flame

Devoted truly to thy gracious name!

ARETE

Leave to suspect us; Criticus shall find 55

As we are now most dear, we’ll prove most kind.

VOICE

(Within) Arete!

ARETE

Hark, I am called. Exit.

CRITICUS

I follow instantly.

Phoebus Apollo, if with ancient rites

And due devotions I have ever hung 60

Elaborate paeans on thy golden shrine,

Or sung thy triumphs in a lofty strain,

Fit for a theatre of gods to hear:

And thou the other son of mighty Jove,

Cyllenian Mercury, sweet Maia’s joy, 65

If in the busy tumults of the mind

My path thou ever hast illuminèd,

For which thine altars I have oft perfumed

And decked thy statue with discoloured flowers:

Now thrive invention in this glorious court, 70

That not of bounty only, but of right,

Cynthia may grace, and give it life by sight! Exit.

5.1 [Enter] HESPERUS, CYNTHIA, ARETE, TIMÈ, PHRONESIS, [and] THAUMA.

Hymnus

HESPERUS

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,

Now the sun is laid to sleep,

Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep;

Hesperus entreats thy light, 5

Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade

Dare itself to interpose!

Cynthia’s shining orb was made

Heaven to clear, when day did close. 10

Bless us then with wishèd sight,

Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal-shining quiver;

Give unto the flying hart 15

Space to breathe, how short soever;

Thou, that mak’st a day of night,

Goddess excellently bright! Exit [Hesperus].

CYNTHIA

When hath Diana, like an envious wretch

That glitters only to his soothèd self, 20

Denying to the world the precious use

Of hoarded wealth, withheld her friendly aid?

Monthly we spend our still-repairèd shine,

And not forbid our virgin-waxen torch

To burn and blaze while nutriment doth last; 25

That once consumed, out of Jove’s treasury

Anew we take, and stick it in our sphere

To give the mutinous kind of wanting men

Their looked-for light. Yet what is their desert?

Bounty is wronged, interpreted as due; 30

Mortals can challenge not a ray but right,

Yet do expect the whole of Cynthia’s light.

But if that deities withdrew their gifts

For human follies, what should men deserve

But death and darkness? It behoves the high 35

For their own sakes to do things worthily.

ARETE

Most true, most sacred goddess, for the heavens

Receive no good of all the good they do.

Nor Jove, nor you, nor other heavenly power

Are fed with fumes which do from incense rise, 40

Or sacrifices reeking in their gore;

Yet for the care which you of mortals have,

Whose proper good it is that they be so,

You well are pleased with odours redolent:

But ignorant is all the race of men, 45

Which still complains, not knowing why or when.

CYNTHIA

Else, noble Arete, they would not blame

And tax for or unjust, or for as proud,

Thy Cynthia in the things which are indeed

The greatest glories in our starry crown: 50

Such is our chastity, which safely scorns

Not love — for who more fervently doth love

Immortal honour and divine renown? —

But giddy Cupid, Venus’ frantic son.

Yet Arete, if by this veilèd light 55

We but discovered — what we not discern —

Any the least of imputations, stand

Ready to sprinkle our unspotted fame

With note of lightness from these revels near,

Not for the empire of the universe 60

Should night or court, this whatsoever shine

Or grace of ours, unhappily enjoy.

Place and occasion are two privy thieves,

And from poor innocent ladies often steal

The best of things: an honourable name. 65

To stay with follies, or where faults may be,

Infers a crime, although the party free.

ARETE

How Cynthianly — that is, how worthily

And like herself — the matchless Cynthia speaks!

Infinite jealousies, infinite regards, 70

Do watch about the true virginity;

But Phoebe lives from all not only fault,

But as from thought, so from suspicion free.

Thy presence broad-seals our delights for pure;

What’s done in Cynthia’s sight is done secure. 75

CYNTHIA

That, then, so answered, dearest Arete,

What th’argument, or of what sort our sports

Are like to be this night, I not demand.

Nothing which duty and desire to please

Bears written in the forehead comes amiss. 80

But unto whose invention must we owe

The complement of this night’s furniture?

ARETE

Excellent goddess, to man’s, whose worth,

Without hyperbole, I thus may praise:

One, at least, studious of deserving well, 85

And, to speak truth, indeed deserving well.

Potential merit stands for actual

Where only opportunity doth want,

Not will, nor power; both which in him abound.

One whom the muses and Minerva love — 90

For whom should they more love than Criticus,

Whom Phoebus, though not Fortune, holdeth dear? —

And, which convinceth excellence in him,

A principal admirer of yourself.

Even through th’ungentle injuries of fate, 95

And difficulties, which do virtue choke,

Thus much of him appears. What other things

Of farther note do lie unborn in him,

Them I do leave for cherishment to show,

And for a goddess graciously to judge. 100

CYNTHIA

We have already judged him, Arete.

Nor are we ignorant how noble minds

Suffer too much through those indignities

Which times and vicious persons cast on them.

Ourself have ever vowèd to esteem 105

As virtue for itself, so fortune base;

Who first in worth, the same be first in place.

Nor farther notice, Arete, we crave

Than thine approval’s sovereign warranty.

Let be thy care to make us known to him. 110

Cynthia shall brighten what the world made dim.

5.2 The First Masque

[Enter] CUPID like ANTEROS [presenting a crystal. PHILAUTIA as STORGE, GELAIA as AGLAIA, PHANTASTE as EUPHANTASTE, and MORIA as APHELEIA are visible in the masque. The masquers carry imprese with mottoes.]

CUPID

[as Anteros] Clear pearl of heaven, and not to be farther ambitious in

titles, Cynthia: the fame of this illustrious night, among others, hath also

drawn these four fair virgins from the palace of their queen, Perfection — a

word which makes no sufficient difference ’twixt hers and thine — to visit

thy imperial court; for she, their sovereign lady, not finding where to dwell 5

among men, before her return to heaven, advised them wholly to consecrate

themselves to thy celestial service, as in whose clear spirit — the proper element

and sphere of virtues — they should behold not her alone, their ever honoured

mistress, but themselves, more truly themselves, to live enthronized. Herself

would have commended them unto thy favour more particularly, but that 10

she knows no commendation is more available with thee than that of proper

virtue. Nevertheless, she willed them to present this crystal mound, a note

of monarchy and symbol of perfection, to thy more worthy deity; which as

here by me they most humbly do, so amongst the rarities thereof, that is the

chief, to show whatsoever the world hath excellent, howsoever remote and 15

various. But your irradiate judgement will soon discover the secrets of this

little crystal world. Themselves, to appear the more plainly, because they

know nothing more odious than false pretexts, have chosen to express their

several qualities thus in several colours.

1 The first, in citron colour, is Natural Affection, which given us to procure 20

our good, is sometime called Storge, and as everyone is nearest to himself,

so this handmaid of Reason, allowable self-love, as it is without harm, so are

none without it; her place in the court of Perfection was to quicken minds

in the pursuit of honour. Her device is a perpendicular level upon a cube or

square. The word, se suo modulo, alluding to that true measure of one’s self, 25

which as everyone ought to make, so is it most conspicuous in thy divine

example.

2 The second, in green, is Aglaia, delectable and pleasant Conversation,

whose property it is to move a kindly delight, and sometime not without

laughter. Her office to entertain assemblies, and keep societies together with 30

fair familiarity. Her device within a ring of clouds, a heart with shine about

it. The word, curarum nubila pello, an allegory of Cynthia’s light, which no less

clears the sky than her fair mirth the heart.

3 The third, in discoloured mantle spangled all over, is Euphantaste,

a well-conceited Wittiness, and employed in honouring the court with the 35

riches of her pure invention. Her device upon a petasus, or mercurial hat, a

crescent. The word, sic laus ingenii, inferring that the praise and glory of wit

doth ever increase as doth thy growing moon.

4 The fourth, in white, is Apheleia, a nymph as pure and simple as the

soul, or as an abrase table, and is therefore called Simplicity; without folds, 40

without pleats, without colour, without counterfeit, and, to speak plainly,

plainness itself. Her device is no device. The word under her silver shield,

omnis abest fucus, alluding to thy spotless self, who art as far from impurity as

from mortality.

Myself, celestial goddess, more fit for the court of Cynthia than the 45

arbours of Cythere, am called Anteros, or Love’s Enemy; the more welcome

therefore to thy court and the fitter to conduct this quaternio, who as they

are thy professed votaries, and for that cause adversaries to Love, yet thee,

perpetual virgin, they both love and vow to love eternally.

5.3 [Cynthia looks into the crystal.]

CYNTHIA

Not without wonder, nor without delight,

Mine eyes have viewed in contemplation’s depth

This work of wit, divine and excellent.

What shape, what substance, or what unknown power,

In virgin’s habit crowned with laurel leaves 5

And olive branches woven in between,

On sea-girt rock like to a goddess shines?

O front! O face! O all celestial sure

And more than mortal! Arete, behold

Another Cynthia, and another queen, 10

Whose glory, like a lasting plenilune,

Seems ignorant of what it is to wane.

Not under heaven an object could be found

More fit to please. Let Criticus approach.

Bounty forbids to pall our thanks with stay, 15

Or to defer our favour after view.

The time of grace is, when the cause is new.

[Enter] CRITICUS.

ARETE

Lo, here the man, celestial Delia,

Who, like a circle bounded in itself,

Contains as much as man in fullness may. 20

Lo, here the man, who, not of usual earth,

But of that nobler and more precious mould

Which Phoebus’ self doth temper, is composed;

And who, though all were wanting to reward,

Yet to himself he would not wanting be. 25

Thy favour’s gain is his ambition’s most,

And labour’s best; who, humble in his height,

Stands fixèd silent in thy glorious sight.

CYNTHIA

With no less pleasure than we have beheld

This precious crystal, work of rarest wit, 30

Our eye doth read thee, now, our Criticus;

Whom learning, virtue, and our favour last,

Exempteth from the gloomy multitude.

With common eye the supreme should not see.

Henceforth be ours, the more thyself to be. 35

CRITICUS

Heaven’s purest light, whose orb may be eclipsed,

But not thy praise, divinest Cynthia,

How much too narrow for so high a grace

Thy, save therein, unworthy Criticus

Doth find himself! Forever shine thy fame, 40

Thine honours ever, as thy beauties do.

In me they must, my dark world’s chiefest lights,

By whose propitious beams my powers are raised

To hope some part of those most lofty points

Which blessèd Arete hath pleased to name 45

As marks, to which m’endeavour’s steps should bend;

Mine, as begun at thee, in thee must end.

5.4 The Second Masque

[Enter] MERCURY as a page. [AMORPHUS as EUCOSMOS, HEDON as EUPHATHES, ANAIDES as EUTOLMOS, and ASOTUS as EUCOLOS are visible as MERCURY presents them, fitted out with suitable heraldic devices.]

MERCURY

Sister of Phoebus, to whose bright orb we owe that we not complain of

his absence, these four brethren — for they are brethren and sons of Eutaxia,

a lady known and highly beloved of your resplendent deity, not able to be

absent when Cynthia held a solemnity — officiously insinuate themselves

into thy presence; for, as there are four cardinal virtues upon which the 5

whole frame of the court doth move, so are these the four cardinal properties

without which the body of compliment moveth not. With these four silver

javelins, which they bear in their hands, they support in princes’ courts the

state of the presence, as by office they are obliged; which though here they

may seem superfluous, yet for honour’s sake they thus presume to visit thee, 10

having also been employed in the palace of Queen Perfection. And though

to them, that would make themselves gracious to a goddess, sacrifices were

fitter than presents or impresas, yet they both hope thy favour, and, in place

of either, use several symbols containing the titles of thy imperial dignity.

1 The hithermost, in the changeable blue and green robe, is the commendably 15

fashionate gallant, Eucosmos; whose courtly habit is the grace of

the presence and delight of the surveying eye; whom ladies understand by

the names of Neat and Elegant. His symbol is divae virgini, in which he would

express thy deity’s principal glory, which hath ever been virginity.

2 The second, in the rich accoutrement and robe of purple impaled 20

with gold, is Eupathes; who entertains his mind with an harmless

but not incurious variety. All the objects of his senses are sumptuous, himself

a gallant that without excess can make use of superfluities, go richly in

embroiders, jewels, and what not, without vanity, and fare delicately without

gluttony; and therefore, not without cause, is universally thought to 25

be of fine humour. His symbol is divae optimae, an attribute to express thy

goodness in which thou so resemblest Jove, thy father.

3 The third, in the blush-coloured suit, is Eutolmos, as duly respecting

others as never neglecting himself; commonly known by the title of Good

Audacity; to courts and courtly assemblies, a guest most acceptable. His 30

symbol is divae viragini, to express thy hardy courage in chase of savage beasts

which harbour in woods and wilderness.

4 The fourth, in watchet-tinsel, is the kind and truly benefic Eucolos,

who imparteth not without respect, but yet without difficulty, and hath

the happiness to make every kindness seem double, by the timely and freely 35

bestowing thereof. He is the chief of them who, by the vulgar, are said to be of

good nature. His symbol is divae maximae, an adjunct to signify thy greatness,

which in heaven, earth, and hell is formidable.

5.5 The Masques join.

CUPID

Is not that Amorphus, the traveller?

MERCURY

As though it were not? Do you not see how his legs are in travail with

a measure?

CUPID

Hedon, thy master, is next.

MERCURY

What, will Cupid turn nomenclator and cry them? 5

CUPID

No, faith, but I have a comedy toward that would not be lost for a kingdom.

MERCURY

In good time, for Cupid will prove the comedy.

CUPID

Mercury, I am studying how to match them.

MERCURY

How to mismatch them were harder.

CUPID

It is the nymphs must do it. I shall sport myself with their passions above 10

measure.

MERCURY

Those nymphs would be tamed a little indeed, but I fear thou hast

not arrows for the purpose.

CUPID

Oh, yes, here be of all sorts, flights, rovers, and butt-shafts. But I can

wound with a brandish and never draw bow for the matter. 15

MERCURY

I cannot but believe it, my invisible archer, and yet methinks you are

tedious.

CUPID

It behoves me to be somewhat circumspect, Mercury, for if Cynthia hear

the twang of my bow, she’ll go near to whip me with the string. Therefore,

to prevent that, I thus discharge a brandish upon — it makes no matter which 20

of the couples. Phantaste and Amorphus, at you.

MERCURY

Will the shaking of a shaft strike ’em into such a fever of affection?

CUPID

As well as the wink of an eye. But I pray thee hinder me not with thy

prattle.

MERCURY

Jove forbid I hinder thee! Marry, all that I fear is Cynthia’s presence, 25

which, with the cold of her chastity, casteth such an antiperistasis about the

place that no heat of thine will tarry with the patient.

CUPID

It will tarry the rather, for the antiperistasis will keep it in.

MERCURY

I long to see the experiment.

CUPID

Why their marrow boils already, or they are all turned eunuchs. 30

MERCURY

Nay, an’t be so, I’ll give over speaking, and be a spectator only.

They dance the first strain.

AMORPHUS

[To himself] Cynthia, by my bright soul, is a right exquisite and

spendidious lady, yet Amorphus, I think, hath seen more fashions, I am sure

more countries. But whether I have or no, what need we gaze on Cynthia that

have ourself to admire? 35

PHANTASTE

[To herself] Oh, excellent Cynthia! Yet if Phantaste sat where she does

and had such a tire on her head (for attire can do much) I say no more —

but goddesses are goddesses, and Phantaste is as she is! I would the revels were

done once, I might go to my school of glass again and learn to do myself right

after all this ruffling. 40

MERCURY

How now, Cupid? Here’s a wonderful change with your brandish! Do

you not hear how they dote?

CUPID

What prodigy is this? No word of love? No mention? No motion?

MERCURY

Not a word, my little hell-fire, not a word.

CUPID

Are my darts enchanted? Is their vigour gone? Is their virtue — 45

MERCURY

What? Cupid turned jealous of himself? Ha, ha, ha!

CUPID

Laughs Mercury?

MERCURY

Is Cupid angry?

CUPID

Hath he not cause, when his purpose is so deluded?

MERCURY

A rare comedy; it shall be entitled Cupid’s. 50

CUPID

Do not scorn us, Hermes.

MERCURY

Choler and Cupid are two fiery things; I scorn ’em not. But I see that

come to pass which I presaged in the beginning.

CUPID

You cannot tell. Perhaps the physic will not work so soon upon some as

upon others. It may be the rest are not so resty. 55

MERCURY

Ex ungue, you know the old adage: as these, so are the remainder.

CUPID

I’ll try. This is the same shaft with which I wounded Argurion.

MERCURY

Ay, but let me save you a labour, Cupid. There were certain bottles of water

fetched and drunk off, since that time, by these gallants.

CUPID

Jove strike me into earth! The Fountain of Self-Love! 60

MERCURY

Nay, faint not, Cupid.

CUPID

I remembered it not.

MERCURY

Faith, it was ominous to take the name of Anteros upon you; you

know not what charm or enchantment lies in the word. You saw I durst not

venture upon any device in our presentment, but was content to be no other 65

than a simple page. Your arrows’ properties, to keep decorum, Cupid, are

suited, it should seem, to the nature of him you personate.

CUPID

Indignity not to be borne!

MERCURY

Nay, rather an attempt to have been forborne.

CUPID

[Aside] How might I revenge myself on this insulting Mercury? There’s 70

Criticus, his minion; he has not tasted of this water. It shall be so. —

They dance the second strain.

Is Criticus turned dotard on himself too?

MERCURY

That follows not, because the venom of your shafts cannot pierce him.

CUPID

As though there were one antidote for these, and another for him?

MERCURY

As though there were not! Or as if one effect might not arise of diverse 75

causes? What say you to Cynthia, Arete, Phronesis, Timè, and others there?

CUPID

They are divine.

MERCURY

And Criticus aspires to be so.

CUPID

But that shall not serve him.

MERCURY

’Tis like to do prettily well at this time. But Cupid is grown too 80

covetous, that will not spare one of a multitude.

CUPID

One is more than a multitude.

MERCURY

Arete’s favour makes anyone shot-proof against thee, Cupid.

They dance the third strain.

I pray thee, light honey-bee, remember thou art not now in Adonis’ garden,

but in Cynthia’s presence, where thorns lie in garrison about the roses. Soft, 85

Cynthia speaks.

CYNTHIA

Ladies and gallants,

To give a timely period to our sports,

Let us conclude them with declining night.

Our empire is but of the darker half; 90

And if you judge it any recompense

For your fair pains, t’have earned Diana’s thanks,

Diana grants them, and bestows their crown

To gratify your acceptable zeal.

For you are they that not, as some have done, 95

Do censure us as too severe and sour,

But as, more rightly, gracious to the good;

Although we not deny, unto the proud

Or the profane, perhaps indeed austere:

For so Actaeon, by presuming far, 100

Did, to our grief, incur a fatal doom,

And so swoll’n Niobe, comparing more

Than he presumed, was trophied into stone.

But are we therefore judgèd too extreme?

Seems it no crime to enter sacred bowers 105

And hallowed places with impure aspect

Most lewdly to pollute? Seems it no crime

To brave a deity? Let mortals learn

To make religion of offending heaven,

And not at all to censure powers divine. 110

To men, this argument should stand for firm,

A goddess did it, therefore it was good.

We are not cruel, nor delight in blood.

But what have serious repetitions

To do with revels and the sports of court? 115

We not intend to sour your late delights

With harsh expostulation. Let suffice

That we take notice and can take revenge

Of these calumnious and lewd blasphemies;

For we are no less Cynthia than we were, 120

Nor is our power, but as ourself, the same,

Though we have now put on no tire of shine

But mortal eyes undazzled may endure.

Years are beneath the spheres, and time makes weak

Things under heaven, not powers which govern heaven. 125

And though ourself be in ourself secure,

Yet let not mortals challenge to themselves

Immunity from thence. Lo, this is all:

Honour hath store of spleen, but wanteth gall.

Once more, we cast the slumber of our thanks 130

On your ta’en toil, which here let take an end.

And that we not mistake your several worths,

Nor you our favour, from yourselves remove

What makes you not yourselves, those clouds of mask;

Particular pains, particular thanks do ask. 135

They unmask.

Are we contemned?

Is there so little awe of our disdain

That any, under trust of their disguise,

Should mix themselves with others of the court?

And, without forehead, boldly press so far, 140

As farther none? How apt is lenity

To be abused? Severity to be loathed?

And yet, how much more doth the seeming face

Of neighbour virtues, and their borrowed names,

Add of lewd boldness to loose vanities! 145

Who would have thought that Philautia durst

Or have usurpèd noble Storge’s name,

Or with that theft have ventured on our eyes?

Who would have thought that all of them should hope

So much of our connivance as to come 150

To grace themselves with titles not their own?

Instead of medicines, have we maladies?

And such impostumes as Phantaste is

Grow in our palace? We must lance these sores,

Or all will putrefy. Nor are these all, 155

For we suspect a farther fraud than this;

Take off our veil that shadows may depart

And shapes appear, belovèd Arete. [She is unmasked] — So.

Another face of things presents itself

Than did of late. What, feathered Cupid masked, 160

And masked like to Anteros? But more strange!

Dear Mercury, our brother, like a page,

To countenance the ambush of the boy?

Nor endeth our discovery as yet;

Gelaia like a nymph, that but erewhile 165

In male attire did serve Anaides?

Cupid came hither to find sport and game,

Who, heretofore, hath been too conversant

Among our train, but never felt revenge;

And Mercury bare Cupid company. 170

Cupid, we must confess this time of mirth,

Proclaimed by us, gave opportunity

To thy attempts, although no privilege.

Tempt us no farther, we cannot endure

Thy presence longer; vanish, hence, away! 175

Exit Cupid.

You, Mercury, we must entreat to stay,

And hear what we determine of the rest,

For in this plot you have the deepest hand.

But — for we mean not a censorian task

And yet to lance these ulcers grown so ripe — 180

Dear Arete and Criticus, to you

We give the charge. Impose what pains you please.

Th’incurable cut off, the rest reform;

Remembering ever what we first decreed,

Since revels were proclaimed, let now none bleed. 185

ARETE

How well Diana can distinguish times

And sort her censures! Keeping to herself

The doom of gods, leaving the rest to us!

Come, cite them, Criticus, and then proceed.

CRITICUS

First Philautia, for she was the first, 190

Then light Gelaia in Aglaia’s name,

Thirdly Phantaste, and Moria next,

Main follies all, and of the female crew;

Amorphus, or Eucosmos counterfeit,

Voluptuous Hedon ta’en for Eupathes, 195

Brazen Anaides, and Asotus last,

With his two pages, Morus and Prosaites;

And thou, the traveller’s evil, Cos, approach,

Impostors all, and male deformities.

ARETE

Nay, forward, for I delegate my power, 200

And will that at thy mercy they do stand

Whom they so oft so plainly scorned before.

’Tis virtue which they want, and wanting it,

Honour no garment to their backs can fit.

Now, Criticus, use your discretion. 205

CRITICUS

Adorèd Cynthia, and bright Arete,

Another might seem fitter for this task

Than Criticus, but that you judge not so.

For I, not to appear vindicative,

Or mindful of contempts, which I contemned 210

As done of impotence, must be remiss;

Who, as I was the author in some sort,

To work their knowledge into Cynthia’s sight,

So should be much severer to revenge

The indignity hence issuing to her name. 215

But there’s not one of these who are unpained,

Or by themselves unpunishèd; for vice

Is like a fury to the vicious mind,

And turns delight itself to punishment.

But we must forward to define their doom. 220

You are offenders, that must be confessed.

Do you confess it?

ALL

We do.

CRITICUS

And that you merit sharp correction?

ALL

We do. 225

CRITICUS

Then we (reserving unto Delia’s grace

Her farther pleasure, and to Arete

What Delia granteth) thus do sentence you.

That from this place, for penance known of all,

Since you have drunk so deeply of self-love, 230

You, two and two, singing a palinode,

March to your several homes by Niobe’s stone,

And offer up two tears apiece thereon;

That it may change the name, as you must change,

And of a stone be callèd Weeping Cross, 235

Because it standeth cross of Cynthia’s way,

One of whose names is sacred Trivia.

And after penance thus performed, you pass

In like set order, not as Midas did

To wash his gold off into Tagus’ stream, 240

But to the well of knowledge, Helicon,

Where, purgèd of your present maladies,

Which are nor few nor slender, you become

Such as you fain would seem; and then return,

Off’ring your service to great Cynthia. 245

This is your sentence, if the goddess please

To ratify it with her high consent;

The scope of wise mirth unto fruit is bent.

CYNTHIA

We do approve thy censure, Criticus;

Which Mercury, thy true propitious friend, 250

A deity, next Jove beloved of us,

Will undertake to see exactly done.

And for this service of discovery

Performed by thee, in honour of our name,

We vow to guerdon it with such due grace 255

As shall become our bounty and thy place.

Princes that would their people should do well

Must at themselves begin, as at the heads;

For men by their example pattern out

Their imitations and regard of laws. 260

A virtuous court, a world to virtue draws.

Exeunt Cynthia, Arete[, Timè, Phronesis, Thauma, and Criticus].

Palinodia

AMORPHUS

From Spanish shrugs, French faces, smirks, irpes, and all affected

humours.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

PHANTASTE

From secret friends, sweet servants, loves, doves, and such fantastic

humours. 5

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

AMORPHUS

From stabbing of arms, flap-dragons, healths, whiffs, and all such

swaggering humours.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

PHANTASTE

From waving of fans, coy glances, glicks, cringes, and all such 10

simpering humours.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

AMORPHUS

From making love by attorney, courting of puppets, and paying for

new acquaintance.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us! 15

PHANTASTE

From perfumed dogs, monkeys, sparrows, dildos, and paraquitos.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

AMORPHUS

From wearing bracelets of hair, shoe-ties, gloves, garters, and rings

with posies.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us! 20

PHANTASTE

From pargeting, painting, slicking, glazing, and renewing old

rivelled faces.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

AMORPHUS

From squiring to tilt-yards, playhouses, pageants, and all such public

places. 25

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

PHANTASTE

From entertaining one gallant to gull another, and making fools

of either.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

AMORPHUS

From belying ladies’ favours, noblemen’s countenance, coining 30

counterfeit employments, vain-glorious taking to them other men’s services,

and all self-loving humours.

CHORUS

Good Mercury defend us!

Cantus

Now each one dry his weeping eyes,

And to the well of knowledge haste; 35

Where purgèd of your maladies,

We may of sweeter waters taste,

And with refinèd voice report,

The grace of Cynthia and her court.

Epilogus

[Enter EPILOGUE.]

EPILOGUE

Gentles, be’t known to you, since I went in

I am turned rhymer, and do thus begin:

The author, jealous how your sense doth take

His travails, hath enjoinèd me to make

Some short and ceremonious epilogue, 5

But if I yet know what, I am a rogue.

He ties me to such laws, as quite distract

My thoughts, and would a year of time exact.

I neither must be faint, remiss, nor sorry,

Sour, serious, confident, nor peremptory, 10

But betwixt these. Let’s see; to lay the blame

Upon the children’s action, that were lame.

To crave your favours with a begging knee,

Were to distrust the writer’s faculty.

To promise better at the next we bring, 15

Prorogues disgrace, commends not anything.

Stiffly to stand on this, and proudly approve

The play, might tax the maker of Self-Love.

I’ll only speak what I have heard him say:

‘By God, ’tis good, and if you like’t, you may.’ 20[Exeunt.]

Finis

Ecce rubet quidam, pallet, stupet, oscitat, odit.

Hoc volo: nunc nobis carmina nostra placent.

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

Cynthia’s Revels, or The Fountain of Self-Love, quarto version (1600)

Edited by Eric Rasmussen and Matthew Steggle

Introduction

GULIELMUM CAMDENUM

Author ad Librum

The Number and Names of the Actors

Praeludium

Prologus

Palinodia

Epilogus