Would be repining at these niggard stones :
Now I forbid thee, thou pursuest like wind,
No tedious space of time, nor storm can tire thee;
But I will seek out some high slippery close,
Where every step shall reach the gate of death,
That fear may make thee cease to follow me.
Luc. There will I bodiless be, when you are there;
For love despiseth death, and scorneth fear.
Lass. I'll wander where some boisterous river parts
The solid continent, and swim from thee.
Luc. And there I'll follow, though I drown for thee.
Lass. O, weary of the way and of my life,
Where shall I rest my sorrowed, tired limbs?
Luc. Rest in my bosom, rest you here, my lord,
A place securer you can no way find-
Lass. Nor more unfit for my unpleased mind.
A heavy slumber calls me to the earth,
Here will I sleep, if sleep will harbour here.
Luc. Unhealthful is the melancholy earth;
O, let my lord rest on Lucilia's lap,
I'll help to shield you from the searching air,
And keep the cold damps from your gentle blood.
Lass. Pray thee, away! for, whilst thou art so near,
No sleep will seize on my suspicious eyes.
Luc. Sleep then, and I am pleased far off to sit,
Like to a poor and forlorn sentinel,
Watching the unthankful sleep, that severs me
From my due part of rest, dear love, with thee.
An Enchanter, who is enamoured of LUCILIA, charms the Earl to a dead sleep, and LUCILIA to a forgetfulness of her past lover. Ench. (to LASSINBERGH). Lie there and lose the memory of her,
Who likewise hath forgot the love of thee
By my enchantments :-come, sit down, fair nymph,
And taste the sweetness of these heavenly cates,
Whilst from the hollow crannies of this rock
Music shall sound to recreate my love.
But tell me, had you ever lover yet?
Luc. I had a lover, I think, but who it was,
Or where, or how long since, ay me, I know not :
Yet beat my timorous thoughts on such a thing,
I feel a passionate heat, yet find no flame;
Think what I know not, nor know what I think. Ench. Hast thou forgot me then? I am thy love,Whom sweetly thou wert wont to entertain
With looks, with vows of love, with amorous kisses. Look'st thou so strange? dost thou not know me yet?
Luc. Sure I should know you.
Ench. Why, love, doubt you that?
'Twas I that led you 1 through the painted meads, Where the light fairies danc'd upon the flowers, Hanging on every leaf an orient pearl,
Which, struck together with the silken wind
Of their loose mantles made a silver chime.
'Twas I that, winding my shrill bugle-horn,
Made a gilt palace break out of the hill,
Filled suddenly with troops of knights and dames,
Who danc'd and revel'd, whilst we sweetly slept
Upon a bed of roses, wrapp'd all in gold.
Dost thou not know me now?
Luc. Yes, now I know thee.
Ench. Come then, confirm thy knowledge with a kiss.
Luc. Nay, stay; you are not he, how strange is this!
Ench. Thou art grown passing strange, my love,
To him that made thee so long since his bride.
Luc. O, was it you? come then. O, stay awhile,
I know not where I am, nor what I am,
Nor you, nor these I know, nor any thing.
JACK DRUM'S ENTERTAINMENT:
A COMEDY.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN, 1601.
The free humour of a noble housekeeper.
Fortune (a knight). I was not born to be my cradle's drudge,
To choke and stifle up my pleasure's breath,
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 flowering 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 fear'd,-
Since who is fear'd, still fears to be so fear'd,-
I care not to be like the Horeb calf,
One day ador'd, 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 ambition's 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 beldam, hobbling o'er my grave, May mumble thus:
"Here lies a knight, whose money was his slave."
SIR GILES GOOSECAP: A COMEDY. AUTHOR UNKNOWN, 1606.
Friendship in a lord; modesty in a gentleman.
Clarence [to some musicians]. Thanks, gentle friends; Is your good lord, and mine, gone up to bed yet? Momford. I do assure you not, sir, not yet, nor yet, my deep and studious friend, not yet, musical Clarence.
Mom. Nor yet, thou sole divider of my lordship.
Clar. That were a most unfit division,
And far above the pitch of my low plumes; bold and constant guest, my lord. Mom. Far, far from bold, for thou hast known me
Almost these twenty years, and half those years Hast been my bedfellow; long time before
This unseen thing, this thing of naught indeed,
Or atom, call'd my Lordship, shin'd in me;
And yet thou mak'st thyself as little bold
To take such kindness, as becomes the age
And truth of our indissoluble love,
As our acquaintance sprung but yesterday;
Such is thy gentle and too tender spirit.
Clar. My lord, my want of courtship makes me fear
I should be rude, and this my mean estate
Meets with such envy and detraction,
Such misconstructions and resolved misdooms
Of my poor worth, that should I be advanc'd
Beyond my unseen lowness, but one hair,
I should be torn in pieces with the spirits.
That fly in ill-lung'd tempests through the world,
Tearing the head of virtue from her shoulders,
If she but look out of the ground of glory.
'Twixt whom and me, and every worldly fortune,
There fights such sour and curst antipathy,
So waspish and so petulant a star,
That all things tending to my grace and good
Are ravish'd from their object, as I were
A thing created for a wilderness,
And must not think of any place with men.
LINGUA, A COMEDY.
Languages.
THE ancient Hebrew, clad with mysteries;
The learned Greek, rich in fit epithets,
Blest in the lovely marriage of pure words;
The Chaldee wise, the Arabian physical,
The Roman eloquent, and Tuscan grave,
The braving Spanish, and the smooth-tongued French
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