Fort. Boys, be proud; your father hath the whole world in this compass. I am all felicity, up to the brims. In a minute am I come from Babylon; I have been this half hour in Famagosta. And. How! in a minute, father? I see travellers must lie. Death needs must marry you: those short lines, minutes, And. Faith, father, what pleasure have you met by walking your stations ? Fort. What pleasure, boy? I have revelled with kings, danced with queens, dallied with ladies; worn strange attires; seen fantasticoes; conversed with humourists; been ravished with divine raptures of Doric, Lydian and Phrygian harmonies; I have spent the day in triumphs and the night in banqueting. And. O, rare! this was heavenly.-He that would not be an Arabian phoenix to burn in these sweet fires, let him live like an owl for the world to wonder at. Amp. Why, brother, are not all these vanities? Fort. Vanities! Ampedo, thy soul is made of lead, too dull, too ponderous, to mount up to the incomprehensible glory that Travel lifts men to. And. Sweeten mine ears, good father, with some more. Worship'd these clouds as brightest: but, my boys, I scorn'd to crowd among the muddy throng There shall you see troops of chaste goddesses, Had with a look created a new world, The standers by being the fair workmanship. And. O, how my soul is rapt to a third heaven! I'll travel sure, and live with none but kings. In all perfection, no way blemished? Orleans to his friend Galloway defends the passion with which (being a prisoner in the English King's Court) he is enamoured to frenzy of the King's daughter Agripyna. Orl. This music makes me but more out of tune. O Agripyna! Gall. Gentle friend, no more. Thou sayst Love is a madness: hate it then, Orl. O, I love that madness, Ev'n for the name's sake. Gall. Let me tame this frenzy, By telling thee thou art a prisoner here, Orl. If he do, why so do I. Gall. Love is ambitious and loves majesty. Orl. Dear friend, thou art deceived: Love's voice doth sing Gall. Dear friend, thou art deceived: O bid thy soul And in this ample book of wonders read, And in sweet tune set that which none inherits. Gall. O call this madness in: see, from the windows Orl. Ha, ha, I laugh at them: are they not mad, Crowding together to be counted wise, And weep because (whether she be or not) My love was ever and is still forgot: forgot, forgot, forgot. Gall. Draw back this stream: why should my Orleans mourn? Orl. Look yonder, Galloway, dost thou see that sun? Is banish'd heaven, and then, for grief, this sky To enforce Care laugh, and Woe not shed a tear! Gall. Dear friend, forbear; Beauty (like sorrow) dwelleth everywhere. Which sitting on her cheeks (being Cupid's throne) Is my heart's soveraine: O, when she is dead, This wonder (beauty) shall be found in none. O fair Deformity, I muse all eyes Are not enamour'd of thee: thou didst never Thou art a faithful nurse to chastity; For cares, and age, and sickness her's deface, But thine's eternal: O Deformity, Thy fairness is not like to Agripyne's, [The humour of a frantic lover is here done to the life. Orleans is as passionate an Inamorato as any which Shakspeare ever drew. He is just such another adept in Love's reasons. The sober people of the world are with him a swarm of fools Crowding together to be counted wise. He talks "pure Biron and Romeo," he is almost as poetical as they, quite as philosophical, only a little madder. After all, Love's sectaries are a "reason unto themselves." We have gone retrograde in the noble heresy since the days when Sidney proselyted our nation to this mixed health and disease; the kindliest symptom yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish state of youth; the nourisher and the destroyer of hopeful wits; the mother of twin-births, wisdom and folly, valour and weakness; the servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's religion; the liberal superstition.] THE HONEST WHORE: A COMEDY, BY THOMAS DECKER. Hospital for Lunatics. There are of mad men, as there are of tame, All humour'd not alike. We have here some So apish and fantastick, play with a feather; smile. And, though 'twould grieve a soul to see God's image Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace: THE SECOND PART OF THE HONEST WHORE. Bellafront, a reclaimed harlot, recounts some of the miseries of her profession. Like an ill husband, though I knew the same To be my undoing, follow'd I that game. |