To poison with the venom'd cares of thrift
My private sweet of life: only to scrape
A heap of muck, to fatten and manure
The barren virtues of my progeny,
And make them sprout 'spite of their want of worth;
No, I do wish my girls should wish me live;
Which few do wish that have a greedy sire,
But still expect, and gape with hungry lip,
When he'll give up his gouty stewardship.
Friend. Then I wonder,
You not aspire unto the eminence
And height of pleasing life. To Court, to Court-
There burnish, there spread, there stick in pomp,
Like a bright diamond in a Lady's brow.
There plant your fortunes in the flow'ring spring,
And get the Sun before you of Respect.
There trench yourself within the people's love,
And glitter in the eye of glorious grace.
What's wealth, without respect and mounted place?
Fort. Worse and worse!-I am not yet distraught,
I long not to be squeez'd with my own weight,
Nor hoist up all my sails to catch the wind
Of the drunk reeling Commons. I labour not
To have an awful presence, nor be feared,
Since who is fear'd still fears to be so feared.
I care not to be like the Horeb calf,
One day adored, and next pasht all in pieces.
Nor do I envy Polyphemian puffs,
Switzers' slopt greatness. I adore the Sun,
Yet love to live within a temperate zone.
Let who will climb ambitious glibbery rounds,
And lean upon the vulgar's rotten love,
I'll not corrival him. The sun will give
As great a shadow to my trunk as his;
And after death, like Chessmen having stood
In play, for Bishops some, for Knights, and Pawns,
We all together shall be tumbled up
Let hush'd-calm quiet rock my life asleep;
And, being dead, my own ground press my bones;
Whilst some old Beldame, hobbling o'er my grave,
May mumble thus:
"Here lies a Knight whose Money was his slave."
1["You touch the quick of sense, but " omitted.]
[See The School of Shakspeare, ed. Simpson, 1878, vol. ii.]
Will with a thousand stabs turn me to dust,
That in a thousand prayers they might be happy?
Will no one do it? then give a mourner room,
A man of tears. Oh, immaculate Matilda,
These shed but sailing heat-drops, misling showers,
The faint dews of a doubtful April morning;
But from mine eyes ship-sinking cataracts,
Whole clouds of waters, wealthy exhalations,
Shall fall into the sea of my affliction,
Till it amaze the mourners.
Hub. Unmatch'd Matilda;
Celestial soldier, that kept a fort of chastity 'Gainst all temptations.
Fitzw. Not to be a Queen,
Would she break her chaste vow.
Unmatch'd Matilda was her name indeed.
John. O take into your spirit-piercing praise My scene of sorrow. I have well-clad woes, Pathetic epithets to illustrate passion,
And steal true tears so sweetly from all these
Shall touch the soul, and at once pierce and please.
[Peruses the motto and emblems on the hearse.
"To Piety and Purity" and "Lilies mix'd with Roses"— How well you have apparell'd woe! this Pendant,
To Piety and Purity directed,
Insinuates a chaste soul in a clean body,
Virtue's white Virgin, Chastity's red Martyr!
Suffer me then with this well-suited wreath
To make our griefs ingenious. Let all be dumb,
Whilst the king speaks her Epicedium.
Chest. His very soul speaks sorrow.
Oxf. And it becomes him sweetly.
John. Hail Maid and Martyr! lo on thy breast, Devotion's altar, chaste Truth's nest,
I offer (as my guilt imposes)
Thy merit's laurel, Lilies and Roses;
Lilies, intimating plain
Thy immaculate life, stuck with no stain ;
Roses red and sweet, to tell
How sweet red sacrifices smell.
Hang round then, as you walk about this hearse,
The songs of holy hearts, sweet virtuous verse.
Fitzw. Bring Persian silks, to deck her monument;
John. Arabian spices, quick'ning by their scent;
Fitzw. Numidian marble, to preserve her praise;
John. Corinthian ivory, her shape to praise : Fitzw. And write in gold upon it, In this breast Virtue sate mistress, Passion but a guest.
John. Virtue is sweet; and, since griefs bitter be, Strew her with roses, and give rue to me.
Bruce. My noble brother, I h' lost a wife and son1;
You a sweet daughter. Look on the king's penitence;
His promise for the public peace. Prefer
A public benefit. When it shall please,
Let Heaven question him. Let us secure
And quit the land of Lewis.3
Fitzw. Do any thing;
Do all things that are honourable; and the Great King
Make you a good king, sir! and when your soul
Shall at any time reflect upon your follies,
Good king John, weep, weep very heartily;
It will become you sweetly. At your eyes
Your sin stole in; there pay your sacrifice.
John. Back unto Dunmow Abbey. There we'll pay
To sweet Matilda's memory, and her sufferings,
A monthly obsequy, which (sweet'ned by
The wealthy woes of a tear-troubled eye)
Shall by those sharp afflictions of my face
Court mercy, and make grief arrive at grace.*
Matilda, now go take thy bed
In the dark dwellings of the dead;
And rise in the great waking day
Sweet as incense, fresh as May.
Rest there, chaste soul, fix'd in thy proper sphere,
Amongst Heaven's fair ones; all are fair ones there.
Rest there, chaste soul, whilst we here troubled
Time gives us griefs, Death takes our joys away.
This scene has much passion and poetry in it, if I mistake not. The last words of Fitzwater are an instance of noble temperament; but to understand him, the character throughout of this mad, merry, feeling, insensible-seeming lord, should
1 Also cruelly slain by the poisoning John.
2i.e., of peace; which this monstrous act of John's in this play comes to counteract, in the same way as the discovered death of Prince Arthur is like to break the composition of the King with his Barons in Shakspeare's play.
The Dauphin of France, whom they had called in, as in Shakspeare's play. [Four lines omitted.] 5["Rest thou" (Bullen).]
6 [Davenport, ed. Bullen, 1890. For other extracts from Davenport see pp. 444 and 586.]
THE BRAZEN AGE. AN HISTORICAL PLAY [PUBLISHED 1613]. BY THOMAS HEYWOOD
Ven. Why doth Adonis fly the Queen of Love,
And shun this ivory girdle of my arms?
To be thus scarf'd the dreadful God of War
Would give me conquer'd kingdoms. For a kiss,
But half like this, I could command the Sun
Rise 'fore his hour, to bed before his time;
And, being love-sick, change his golden beams,
And make his face pale as his sister Moon.
Look on me, Adon, with a stedfast eye,
That in these crystal glasses I may see
My beauty that charms Gods, makes Men amaz'd
And stown'd with wonder. Doth this roseate pillow
Offend my Love?
With my white fingers will I clap thy cheek;
Whisper a thousand pleasures in thy ear.
Adon. Madam, you are not modest. I affect
The unseen beauty that adorns the mind:
This looseness makes you foul in Adon's eye.
If you will tempt me, let me in your face
Read blushfulness and fear; a modest fear
Would make your cheek seem much more beautiful.1
Ven.
-wert thou made of stone,
I have heat to melt thee; I am Queen of Love.
There is no practice art of dalliance
Of which I am not mistress, and can use.
I have kisses than [that] can murder unkind words,
And strangle hatred that the gall sends forth;
Touches to raise thee, were thy spirits half dead;
Words than [that] can pour affection down thy ears.
Love me! thou canst not chuse; thou shalt not chuse.2
Adon. Madam, you woo not well. Men covet not
These proffer'd pleasures, but love sweets denied.
These prostituted pleasures surfeit still;
Where's fear, or doubt, men sue with best good will.
Ven. Thou canst instruct the Queen of Love in love.
Thou shalt not, Adon, take me by the hand;
Yet, if thou needs will force me, take my palm.
I'll frown on him: alas! my brow's so smooth,
It will not bear a wrinkle.-Hie thee hence
Unto the chace, and leave me; but not yet:
1[Four lines and a half omitted.]
VOL. IV.-28
Would play me twenty several tunes; yet I
Nor minded Astrophel, nor his melody.
Then there's Amniter, for whose love fair Leade
(That pretty Bee) flies up and down the mead
With rivers in her eyes; without deserving
Sent me trim Acorn bowls of his own carving,
To drink May dews and mead in. Yet none of these,
My hive-born Playfellows and fellow Bees,
Could I affect, until this strange Bee came;
And him I love with such an ardent flame,
Discretion cannot quench.-1
He labours and toils,
Extracts more honey out of barren soils
Than twenty lazy Drones. I have heard my Father,
Steward of the Hive, profess that he had rather
Lose half the Swarm than him. If a Bee, poor or weak,
Grows faint on his way, or by misfortune break
A wing or leg against a twig; alive,
Or dead, he'll bring into the Master's Hive
Him and his burthen. But the other day,
On the next plain there grew a fatal fray
Betwixt the Wasps and us; the wind grew high,
And a rough storm raged so impetuously,
Our Bees could scarce keep wing; then fell such rain,
It made our Colony forsake the plain,
And fly to garrison: yet still He stood,
And 'gainst the whole swarm made his party good;
And at each blow he gave, cried out His Vow,
His Vow, and Arethusa!-On each bough
And tender blossom he engraves her name
With his sharp sting. To Arethusa's fame
He consecrates his actions; all his worth
Is only spent to character her forth.
On damask roses, and the leaves of pines,
I have seen him write such amorous moving lines
In Arethusa's praise, as my poor heart
Has, when I read them, envied her desert;
And wept and sigh'd to think that he should be
To her so constant, yet not pity me.
Porrex, Vice Roy of Bees under King Oberon, describes his large prerogative.
To Us (who, warranted by Oberon's love,
Write Ourself Master Bee), both field and grove,
2[Day's Works, ed. Bullen, 1881.]
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