A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) - Various
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WILL SUM. _Fama malum, quo non [aliud] velocius ullum_[108].
WIN. Next them a company of ragged knaves,
Sun-bathing beggars, lazy hedge-creepers,
Sleeping face upwards in the fields all night,
Dream'd strange devices of the sun and moon;
And they, like gipsies, wandering up and down,
Told fortunes, juggled, nicknam'd all the stars,
And were of idiots term'd philosophers.
Such was Pythagoras the silencer;
Prometheus, Thales, Milesius,
Who would all things of water should be made:
Anaximander, Anaxamines,
That positively said the air was God:
Zenocrates, that said there were eight gods;
And Cratoniates and Alcmaeon too,
Who thought the sun and moon and stars were gods.
The poorer sort of them, that could get nought,
Profess'd, like beggarly Franciscan friars,
And the strict order of the Capuchins,
A voluntary, wretched poverty,
Contempt of gold, thin fare, and lying hard.
Yet he that was most vehement in these,
Diogenes, the cynic and the dog,
Was taken coining money in his cell.
WILL SUM. What an old ass was that. Methinks he should have coined
carrot-roots rather; for, as for money, he had no use for['t], except
it were to melt, and solder up holes in his tub withal.
WIN. It were a whole Olympiad's work to tell
How many devilish, _ergo_, armed arts,
Sprung all as vices of this idleness:
For even as soldiers not employ'd in wars,
But living loosely in a quiet state--
Not having wherewithal to maintain pride,
Nay, scarce to find their bellies any food--
Nought but walk melancholy, and devise,
How they may cozen merchants, fleece young heirs,
Creep into favour by betraying men,
Rob churches, beg waste toys, court city dames,
Who shall undo their husbands for their sakes;
The baser rabble how to cheat and steal,
And yet be free from penalty of death:[109]
So these word-warriors, lazy star-gazers,
Us'd to no labour but to louse themselves,
Had their heads fill'd with cozening fantasies.
They plotted how to make their poverty
Better esteem'd of than high sovereignty.
They thought how they might plant a heaven on earth,
Whereof they would be principal low-gods;[110]
That heaven they called Contemplation:
As much to say as a most pleasant sloth,
Which better I cannot compare than this,
That if a fellow, licensed to beg,
Should all his lifetime go from fair to fair
And buy gape-seed, having no business else.
That contemplation, like an aged weed,
Engender'd thousand sects, and all those sects
Were but as these times, cunning shrouded rogues.
Grammarians some, and wherein differ they
From beggars that profess the pedlar's French?[111]
The poets next, slovenly, tatter'd slaves,
That wander and sell ballads in the streets.
Historiographers others there be,
And they, like lazars, lie[112] by the highway-side,
That for a penny or a halfpenny
Will call each knave a good-fac'd gentleman,
Give honour unto tinkers for good ale,
Prefer a cobbler 'fore the black prince far,
If he bestow but blacking on their shoes:
And as it is the spittle-houses' guise
Over their gate to write their founders' names,
Or on the outside of their walls at least,
In hope by their example others mov'd
Will be more bountiful and liberal;
So in the forefront of their chronicles,
Or _peroratione operis_,
They learning's benefactors reckon up,
Who built this college, who gave that free school,
What king or queen advanced scholars most,
And in their times what writers flourished.
Rich men and magistrates, whilst yet they live,
They flatter palpably, in hope of gain.
Smooth-tongued orators, the fourth in place--
Lawyers our commonwealth entitles them--
Mere swash-bucklers and ruffianly mates,
That will for twelvepence make a doughty fray,
Set men for straws together by the ears.
Sky-measuring mathematicians,
Gold-breathing alchemists also we have,
Both which are subtle-witted humourists,
That get their meals by telling miracles,
Which they have seen in travelling the skies.
Vain boasters, liars, makeshifts, they are all;
Men that, removed from their ink-horn terms,[113]
Bring forth no action worthy of their bread.
What should I speak of pale physicians,
Who as _Fismenus non nasatus_ was
(Upon a wager that his friends had laid)
Hir'd to live in a privy a whole year,
So are they hir'd for lucre and for gain,
All their whole life to smell on excrements.
WILL SUM. Very true, for I have heard it for a proverb many a time and
oft, _Hinc os faetidum_; Fah! he stinks like a physician.
WIN. Innumerable monstrous practices
Hath loitering contemplation brought forth more,
Which were too long particular to recite:
Suffice they all conduce unto this end,
To banish labour, nourish slothfulness,
Pamper up lust, devise new-fangled sins.
Nay, I will justify, there is no vice
Which learning and vile knowledge brought not in,
Or in whose praise some learned have not wrote.
The art of murder Machiavel hath penn'd;[114]
Whoredom hath Ovid to uphold her throne,
And Aretine of late in Italy,
Whose Cortigiana teacheth[115] bawds their trade.
Gluttony Epicurus doth defend,
And books of the art of cookery confirm,
Of which Platina hath not writ the least.
Drunkenness of his good behaviour
Hath testimonial from where he was born;
That pleasant work De Arte Bibendi,
A drunken Dutchman spew'd out few years since.[116]
Nor wanteth sloth, although sloth's plague be want,
His paper pillars for to lean upon.[117]
The praise of nothing pleads his worthiness.[118]
Folly Erasmus sets a flourish on:
For baldness a bald ass I have forgot
Patch'd up a pamphletary periwig.[119]
Slovenry Grobianus magnifieth:[120]
Sodomitry a cardinal commends,
And Aristotle necessary deems.
In brief, all books, divinity except,
Are nought but tales of the devil's laws,
Poison wrapt up in sugar'd words,
Man's pride, damnation's props, the world's abuse.
Then censure, good my lord, what bookmen are:
If they be pestilent members in a state,
He is unfit to sit at stern of state,
That favours such as will o'erthrow his state.
Blest is that government, where no art thrives;
_Vox pupuli, vox Dei_,
The vulgar's voice it is the voice of God.
Yet Tully saith, _Non est concilium in vulgo,
Non ratio, non discrimen, non differentia_,
The vulgar have no learning, wit, nor sense.
Themistocles, having spent all his time
In study of philosophy and arts,
And noting well the vanity of them,
Wish'd, with repentance for his folly pass'd,
Some would teach him th'art of oblivion,
How to forget the arts that he had learn'd.
And Cicero, whom we alleged before,
(As saith Valerius), stepping into old age,
Despised learning, loathed eloquence.
Naso, that could speak nothing but pure verse,
And had more wit than words to utter it,
And words as choice as ever poet had,
Cried and exclaim'd in bitter agony,
When knowledge had corrupted his chaste mind:
_Discite, qui sapitis, non haec quae scimus inertes,
Sed trepidas acies et fera bella sequi_.[121]
You that be wise, and ever mean to thrive,
O, study not these toys we sluggards use,
But follow arms, and wait on barbarous wars.
Young men, young boys, beware of schoolmasters;
They will infect you, mar you, blear your eyes:
They seek to lay the curse of God on you,
Namely, confusion of languages,
Wherewith those that the Tower of Babel built
Accursed were in the world's infancy.
Latin, it was the speech of infidels;
Logic hath nought to say in a true cause;
Philosophy is curiosity;
And Socrates was therefore put to death,
Only for he was a philosopher.
Abhor, contemn, despise these damned snares.
WILL SUM. Out upon it! who would be a scholar? not I, I promise you: my
mind always gave me this learning was such a filthy thing, which made me
hate it so as I did. When I should have been at school construing,
_Batte, mi fili, mi fili, mi Batte_, I was close under a hedge, or under
a barn-wall, playing at span-counter or jack-in-a-box. My master beat
me, my father beat me, my mother gave me bread and butter, yet all this
would not make me a squitter-book.[122] It was my destiny; I thank her
as a most courteous goddess, that she hath not cast me away upon
gibridge. O, in what a mighty vein am I now against horn-books! Here,
before all this company, I profess myself an open enemy to ink and
paper. I'll make it good upon the accidence, body [of me,] that in
speech is the devil's paternoster. Nouns and pronouns, I pronounce you
as traitors to boys' buttocks; syntaxis and prosodia, you are tormentors
of wit, and good for nothing, but to get a schoolmaster twopence a-week.
Hang, copies! Fly out, phrase-books! let pens be turn'd to pick-tooths!
Bowls, cards, and dice, you are the true liberal sciences! I'll ne'er be
a goosequill, gentlemen, while I live.
SUM. Winter, with patience unto my grief
I have attended thy invective tale.
So much untruth wit never shadowed:
'Gainst her own bowels thou art's weapons turn'st.
Let none believe thee that will ever thrive.
Words have their course, the wind blows where it lists,
He errs alone in error that persists.
For thou 'gainst Autumn such exceptions tak'st,
I grant his overseer thou shalt be,
His treasurer, protector, and his staff;
He shall do nothing without thy consent:
Provide thou for his weal and his content.
WIN. Thanks, gracious lord; so I'll dispose of him,
As it shall not repent you of your gift.
AUT. On such conditions no crown will I take.
I challenge Winter for my enemy;
A most insatiate, miserable carl,
That to fill up his garners to the brim
Cares not how he endamageth the earth,
What poverty he makes it to endure!
He overbars the crystal streams with ice,
That none but he and his may drink of them:
All for a foul Backwinter he lays up.
Hard craggy ways, and uncouth slippery paths
He frames, that passengers may slide and fall.
Who quaketh not, that heareth but his name?
O, but two sons he hath worse than himself:
Christmas the one, a pinchback, cutthroat churl,
That keeps no open house, as he should do,
Delighteth in no game or fellowship,
Loves no good deeds, and hateth talk;
But sitteth in a corner turning crabs,
Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale.
Backwinter th'other, that's his nown[123] sweet boy,
Who like his father taketh in all points.
An elf it is, compact of envious pride,
A miscreant born for a plague to men;
A monster that devoureth all he meets.
Were but his father dead, so he would reign,
Yea, he would go good-near to deal by him
As Nebuchadnezzar's ungracious son,
Foul Merodach[124], by his father dealt:
Who when his sire was turned to an ox
Full greedily snatch'd up his sovereignty,
And thought himself a king without control.
So it fell out, seven years expir'd and gone,
Nebuchadnezzar came to his shape again,
And dispossess'd him of the regiment;[125]
Which my young prince, no little grieving at,
When that his father shortly after died,
Fearing lest he should come from death again,
As he came from an ox to be a man,
Will'd that his body, 'spoiled of coverture,
Should be cast forth into the open fields,
For birds and ravens to devour at will;
Thinking, if they bare, every one of them,
A bill-ful of his flesh into their nests,
He could not rise to trouble him in haste.
WILL SUM. A virtuous son! and I'll lay my life on't he was a cavalier
and a good fellow.[126]
WIN. Pleaseth your honour, all he says is false.
For my own part, I love good husbandry,
But hate dishonourable covetise.
Youth ne'er aspires to virtue's perfect growth,
Till the wild oats be sown; and so the earth,
Until his weeds be rotted by my frosts
Is not for any seed or tillage fit.
He must be purged that hath surfeited:
The fields have surfeited with summer fruits;
They must be purg'd, made poor, oppress'd with snow,
Ere they recover their decayed pride.
For overbarring of the streams with ice,
Who locks not poison from his children's taste?
When Winter reigns, the water is so cold,
That it is poison, present death, to those
That wash or bathe their limbs in his cold streams.
The slipp'rier that ways are under us,
The better it makes us to heed our steps,
And look, ere we presume too rashly on.
If that my sons have misbehav'd themselves,
A God's name, let them answer't 'fore my lord.
AUT. Now, I beseech your honour it may be so.
SUM. With all my heart. Vertumnus, go for them.
WILL SUM. This same Harry Baker[127] is such a necessary fellow to go on
errands as you shall not find in a country. It is pity but he should
have another silver arrow, if it be but for crossing the stage with his
cap on.
SUM. To weary out the time, until they come,
Sing me some doleful ditty to the lute,
That may complain my near-approaching death.
_The Song.
Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;
This world uncertain is.
Fond are life's lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from his darts can fly:
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth;
Gold cannot buy you health.
Physic himself must fade:
All things to end are made.
The plague full swift goes by.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Beauty is but a flower,
Which wrinkles will devour:
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair.
Dust hath clos'd Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Strength stoops into the grave:
Worms feed on Hector brave.
Swords may not fight with fate:
Earth still holds ope her gate.
Come, come, the hells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death's bitterness.
Hell's executioner
Hath no ears to hear,
What vain art can reply.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Haste therefore each degree
To welcome destiny:
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage.
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us_!
SUM. Beshrew me, but thy song hath moved me.
WILL SUM. "Lord, have mercy on us," how lamentable 'tis!
_Enter_ VERTUMNUS, _with_ CHRISTMAS _and_ BACKWINTER.
VER. I have despatched, my lord; I have brought you them you sent me for.
WILL SUM. What say'st thou? hast thou made a good batch? I pray thee,
give me a new loaf![128]
SUM. Christmas, how chance thou com'st not as the rest,
Accompanied with some music or some song?
A merry carol would have grac'd thee well:
Thy ancestors have us'd it heretofore.
CHRIST. Ay, antiquity was the mother of ignorance: this latter world,
that sees but with her spectacles, hath spied a pad in those sports
more than they could.
SUM. What, is't against thy conscience for to sing?
CHRIST. No, not to say, by my troth, if I may get a good bargain.
SUM. Why, thou should'st spend, thou should'st not care to get:
Christmas is god of hospitality.
CHRIST. So will he never be of good husbandry. I may say to you, there
is many an old god that is now grown out of fashion; so is the god of
hospitality.
SUM. What reason canst thou give he should be left?
CHRIST. No other reason, but that gluttony is a sin, and too many
dunghills are infectious. A man's belly was not made for a powdering
beef-tub; to feed the poor twelve days, and let them starve all the year
after, would but stretch out the guts wider than they should be, and so
make famine a bigger den in their bellies than he had before. I should
kill an ox, and have some such fellow as Milo to come and eat it up at a
mouthful; or, like the Sybarites,[129] do nothing all one year but bid
guests against the next year. The scraping of trenchers you think would
put a man to no charges: it is not a hundred pound a year would serve
the scullion in dishclouts. My house stands upon vaults; it will fall,
if it be overladen with a multitude. Besides, have you never read of a
city that was undermined and destroyed by moles? So, say I, keep
hospitality and a whole fair of beggars bid me to dinner every day. What
with making legs[130], when they thank me at their going away, and
settling their wallets handsomely on their backs, they would shake as
many lice on the ground as were able to undermine my house, and undo me
utterly. Is it their prayers would build it again, if it were overthrown
by this vermin, would it? I pray, who began feasting and gormandis[ing]
first, but Sardanapalus, Nero, Heliogabalus, Commodus? tyrants,
whoremasters, unthrifts. Some call them emperors, but I respect no
crowns but crowns in the purse. Any man may wear a silver crown that
hath made a fray in Smithfield, and lost but a piece of his brain-pan;
and to tell you plain, your golden crowns are little better in
substance, and many times got after the same sort.
SUM. Gross-headed sot! how light he makes of state!
AUT. Who treadeth not on stars, when they are fall'n?
Who talketh not of states, when they are dead?
A fool conceits no further than he sees,
He hath no sense of aught but what he feels.
CHRIST. Ay, ay; such wise men as you come to beg at such fools' doors
as we be.
AUT. Thou shutt'st thy door; how should we beg of thee?
No alms but thy sink carries from thy house.
WILL SUM. And I can tell you that's as plentiful alms for the plague as
the Sheriff's tub to them of Newgate.
AUT. For feast thou keepest none; cankers thou feed'st.
The worms will curse thy flesh another day,
Because it yieldeth them no fatter prey.
CHRIST. What worms do another day, I care not, but I'll be sworn upon a
whole kilderkin of single beer, I will not have a worm-eaten nose, like
a pursuivant, while I live. Feasts are but puffing up of the flesh, the
purveyors for diseases; travel, cost, time, ill-spent. O, it were a trim
thing to send, as the Romans did, round about the world for provision
for one banquet. I must rig ships to Samos for peacocks; to Paphos for
pigeons; to Austria for oysters; to Phasis for pheasants; to Arabia for
phoenixes; to Meander for swans; to the Orcades for geese; to Phrygia
for woodcocks; to Malta for cranes; to the Isle of Man for puffins; to
Ambracia for goats; to Tartole for lampreys; to Egypt for dates; to
Spain for chestnuts--and all for one feast.
WILL SUM. O sir, you need not: you may buy them at London better cheap.
CHRIST. _Liberalitas liberalitate perit_; Love me little, and love me
long[131]: our feet must have wherewithal to feed the stones: our backs,
walls of wool to keep out the cold that besiegeth our warm blood; our
doors must have bars, our doublets must have buttons. Item, for an old
sword to scrape the stones before the door with; three halfpence for
stitching a wooden tankard that was burst. These water-bearers will
empty the conduit and a man's coffers at once. Not a porter that brings
a man a letter but will have his penny. I am afraid to keep past one or
two servants, lest (hungry knaves) they should rob me; and those I keep
(I warrant) I do not pamper up too lusty. I keep them under with red
herring and poor John all the year long. I have dammed up all my
chimneys for fear (though I burn nothing but small coal) my house should
be set on fire with the smoke. I will not dine[132] but once in a dozen
year, when there is a great rot of sheep, and I know not what to do with
them; I keep open house for all the beggars in some of my out-yards:
marry, they must bring bread with them; I am no baker.
WILL SUM. As good men as you, and have thought it no scorn to serve
their 'prenticeships on the pillory.
SUM. Winter, is this thy son? Hear'st how he talks?
WIN. I am his father, therefore may not speak,
But otherwise I could excuse his fault.
SUM. Christmas, I tell thee plain, thou art a snudge[133],
And were't not that we love thy father well,
Thou shouldst have felt what 'longs to avarice.
It is the honour of nobility
To keep high-days and solemn festivals;
Then to set their magnificence to view,
To frolic open with their favourites,
And use their neighbours with all courtesy;
When thou in hugger-mugger[134] spend'st thy wealth.
Amend thy manners, breathe thy rusty gold;
Bounty will win thee love, when thou art old.
WILL SUM. Ay, that bounty I would fain meet, to borrow money of; he is
fairly bless'd now-a-days, that 'scapes blows when he begs. _Verba dandi
et reddendi_ go together in the grammar rule: there is no giving but
with condition of restoring.
Ah! _benedicite_:
Well is he hath no necessity
Of gold nor of sustenance:
Slow good hap comes by chance;
Flattery best fares;
Arts are but idle wares:
Fair words want giving hands,
The _Lento_[135] begs that hath no lands.
Fie on thee, thou scurvy knave,
That hast nought, and yet goes brave:
A prison be thy deathbed,
Or be hang'd all save the head.
SUM. Back-winter, stand forth.
VER. Stand forth, stand forth: hold up your head; speak out.
BACK-WIN. What should I stand, or whither should I go?
SUM. Autumn accuses thee of sundry crimes,
Which here thou art to clear or to confess.
BACK-WIN. With thee or Autumn have I nought to do,
I would you both were hanged, face to face.
SUM. Is this the reverence that thou ow'st to us?
BACK-WIN. Why not? What art thou? shalt thou always live?
AUT. It is the veriest dog in Christendom.
WIN. That's for he barks at such as knave as thou.
BACK-WIN. Would I could bark the sun out of the sky;
Turn moon and stars to frozen meteors,
And make the ocean a dry land of ice!
With tempest of my breath turn up high trees,
On mountains heap up second mounts of snow
Which, melted into water, might fall down,
As fell the deluge on the former world!
I hate the air, the fire, the spring, the year,
And whatsoe'er brings mankind any good.
O that my looks were lightning to blast fruits!
Would I with thunder presently might die,
So I might speak in thunder to slay men.
Earth, if I cannot injure thee enough,
I'll bite thee with my teeth, I'll scratch thee thus:
I'll beat down the partition with my heels,
That, as a mud-vault, severs hell and thee.
Spirits, come up! 'tis I that knock for you;
One that envies[136] the world far more than you.
Come up in millions! millions are too few
To execute the malice I intend.
SUM. _O scelus inauditum, O vox damnatorum_!
Not raging Hecuba, whose hollow eyes
Gave suck to fifty sorrows at one time,
That midwife to so many murders was,
Us'd half the execrations that thou dost.
BACK-WIN. More I will use, if more I may prevail.
Back-winter comes but seldom forth abroad,
But when he comes, he pincheth to the proof.
Winter is mild, his son is rough and stern:
Ovid could well write of my tyranny,
When he was banish'd to the frozen zone.
SUM. And banish'd be thou from my fertile bounds.
Winter, imprison him in thy dark cell,
Or with the winds in bellowing caves of brass
Let stern Hippotades[137] lock him up safe,
Ne'er to peep forth, but when thou, faint and weak,
Want'st him to aid thee in thy regiment.
BACK-WIN. I will peep forth, thy kingdom to supplant.
My father I will quickly freeze to death,
And then sole monarch will I sit, and think,
How I may banish thee as thou dost me.
WIN. I see my downfall written in his brows.
Convey him hence to his assigned hell!
Fathers are given to love their sons too well.
[_Exit_ BACK-WINTER.
WILL SUM. No, by my troth, nor mothers neither: I am sure I could never
find it. This Back-winter plays a railing part to no purpose: my small
learning finds no reason for it, except as a back-winter or an
after-winter is more raging, tempestuous, and violent than the beginning
of winter; so he brings him in stamping and raging as if he were mad,
when his father is a jolly, mild, quiet old man, and stands still and
does nothing. The court accepts of your meaning. You might have written
in the margin of your play-book--"Let there be a few rushes laid[138]
in the place where Back-winter shall tumble, for fear of 'raying[139]
his clothes:" or set down, "Enter Back-winter, with his boy bringing a
brush after him, to take off the dust, if need require." But you will
ne'er have any wardrobe-wit while you live: I pray you, hold the book
well;[140] [that] we be not _non plus_ in the latter end of the play.
SUM. This is the last stroke my tongue's clock must strike.
My last will, which I will that you perform.
My crown I have dispos'd already of.
Item, I give my wither'd flowers and herbs
Unto dead corses, for to deck them with.
My shady walks to great men's servitors,
Who in their masters' shadows walk secure.
My pleasant open air and fragrant smells
To Croydon and the grounds abutting round.
My heat and warmth to toiling labourers,
My long days to bondmen and prisoners,
My short night[s] to young [un]married souls.
My drought and thirst to drunkards' quenchless throats:
My fruits to Autumn, my adopted heir:
My murmuring springs, musicians of sweet sleep,
To malcontents [who], with their well-tun'd ears,[141]
Channell'd in a sweet falling quatorzain,
Do lull their cares[142] asleep, listening themselves.
And finally, O words, now cleanse your course
Unto Eliza, that most sacred dame,
Whom none but saints and angels ought to name,
All my fair days remaining I bequeath
To wait upon her, till she be return'd.
Autumn, I charge thee, when that I am dead,
Be prest[143] and serviceable at her beck,
Present her with thy goodliest ripen'd fruits;
Unclothe no arbours, where she ever sat,
Touch not a tree thou think'st she may pass by.
And, Winter, with thy writhen, frosty face,
Smooth up thy visage, when thou look'st on her;
Thou never look'st on such bright majesty.
A charmed circle draw about her court,
Wherein warm days may dance, and no cold come:
On seas let winds make war, not vex her rest;
Quiet enclose her bed, thought fly her breast.
Ah, gracious queen! though summer pine away,
Yet let thy flourishing stand at a stay.
First droop this universal's aged frame,
Ere any malady thy strength should tame.
Heaven raise up pillars to uphold thy hand,
Peace may have still his temple in thy land.
Lo! I have said; this is the total sum.
Autumn and Winter, on your faithfulness
For the performance I do firmly build.
Farewell, my friends: Summer bids you farewell!
Archers and bowlers, all my followers,
Adieu, and dwell with desolation:
Silence must be your master's mansion.
Slow marching, thus descend I to the fiends.
Weep, heavens!--mourn, earth! here Summer ends.