Unto the fields where first she drew her breath.
There lifts she up her eyes, salutes the air,
Salutes the trees, the bushes, flowers, and all:
And, "Oh, dear Sirthis, here I am," said she,
Here, notwithstanding all my miseries,
I am the same I was to thee; a pure,
A chaste, and spotless maid."
THE CASE IS ALTERED, A COMEDY : BY BEN JONSON.
The present humour to be followed.
AURELIA, PHOENIXELLA, sisters; their mother being lately dead.
Aur. Room for a case of matrons, colour'd black,
How motherly my mother's death hath made us!
I would I had some girls now to bring up.
OI could make a wench so virtuous,
She should say grace to every bit of meat,
And gape no wider than a wafer's thickness ;
And she should make French court'sies so most low,
That every touch should turn her over backward.
Phon. Sister, these words become not your attire,
Nor your estate ; our virtuous mother's death
Should print more deep effects of sorrow in us,
Than may be worn out in so little time.
Aur. Sister, i' faith you take too much tobacco,
It makes you black within, as you are without.
What, true-stitch, sister! both your sides alike!
Be of a slighter work; for of my word,
You shall be sold as dear, or rather dearer.
Will you
be bound to customs and to rites?
Shed profitable tears, weep for advantage,
Or else do all things as you are inclined:
Eat when your stomach serves, saith the physician,
Not at eleven and six. So if your humour
Be now affected with this heaviness,
Give it the reins, and spare not, as I do
In this my pleasurable appetite.
It is Precisianism to alter that
With austere judgment, that is given by nature.
I wept, you saw too, when my mother died
For then I found it easier to do So,
And fitter with my mood, than not to weep:
But now 'tis otherwise; another time
Perhaps I shall have such deep thoughts of her,
That I shall weep afresh some twelvemonth hence
And I will weep, if I be so disposed,
And put on black as grimly then as now.
Let the mind go still with the body's stature,
Judgment is fit for judges, give me nature.
Presentiment of treachery, vanishing at the sight of the person suspected.
LORD PAULO FARNESE. (Speaking to himself of
ANGELO.)
My thoughts cannot propose a reason
Why I should fear, or faint thus in my hopes,
Of one so much endeared to my love.
Some spark it is, kindled within the soul,
Whose light yet breaks not to the outward sense, That propagates this timorous suspect ;
His actions never carried any face
Of change, or weakness; then I injure him
In being thus cold-conceited of his faith.
O, here he comes. [While he speaks ANGELO enters. Angelo. How now, sweet lord, what's the matter? Paul. Good faith, his presence makes me half ashamed Of my stray'd thoughts.
JAQUES (a Miser) worships his gold.
Jaq. 'Tis not to be told
What servile villanies men will do for gold.
O it began to have a huge strong smell,
With lying so long together in a place;
I'll give it vent, it shall have shift enough;
And if the devil, that envies all goodness,
Have told them of my gold, and where I kept it,
I'll set his burning nose once more a work,
To smell where I removed it. Here it is;
I'll hide, and cover it with this horse-dung.
Who will suppose that such a precious nest
Is crown'd with such a dunghill excrement?
In, my dear life! sleep sweetly, my dear child!
Scarce lawfully begotten, but yet gotten,
And that's enough. Rot all hands that come near
Except mine own!
Except mine own!
To their enamour'd
Burn out all eyes that see thee,
All thoughts of thee be poison
hearts, except mine own!
I'll take no leave, sweet prince, great emperor,
But see thee every minute: king of kings,
I'll not be rude to thee, and turn my back
In going from thee, but go backward out,
With my face toward thee, with humble courtesies.
[The passion for wealth has worn out much of its grossness by tract of time. Our ancestors certainly conceived of money as able to confer a distinct gratification in itself, not alone considered simply as a symbol of wealth. The oldest poets, when they introduce a miser, constantly make him address his gold as his mistress; as something to be seen, felt, and hugged; as capable of satisfying two of the senses at least. The substitution of a thin unsatisfying medium for the good old tangible gold, has made avarice quite a Platonic affection in comparison with the seeing, touching, and handling pleasures of the old Chrysophilites. A bank-note can no more satisfy the touch of a true sensualist in this passion, than Creusa could return her husband's embrace in the shades. See the Cave of Mammon in Spenser; Barabas's contemplation of his wealth in the Jew of Malta; Luke's raptures in the City Madam, &c. Above all, hear Guzman, in that excellent old Spanish novel, The Rogue, expatiate on the "ruddy cheeks of your golden Ruddocks, your Spanish Pistolets, your plump and full-faced Portuguese, and your clear-skinned pieces of eight of Castile," which he and his fellows the beggars kept secret
to themselves, and did "privately enjoy in a plentiful manner." "For to have them, for to pay them away, is not to enjoy them; to enjoy them is to have them lying by us, having no other need of them than to use them for the clearing of the eye-sight, and the comforting of our senses. These we did carry about with us, sewing them in some patches of our doublets near unto the heart, and as close to the skin as we could handsomely quilt them in, holding them to be restorative."]
POETASTER; OR, HIS ARRAIGNMENT : A. COMICAL SATIRE.
OVID bewails his hard condition in being banished from court and the society of the princess JULIA,
BANISH'D the court! let me be banish'd life,
Since the chief end of life is there concluded:
Within the court is all the kingdom bounded,
And as her sacred sphere doth comprehend
Ten thousand times so much, as so much place
In any part of all the empire else ;
So every body, moving in her sphere,
Contains ten thousand times as much in him,
As any other her choice orb excludes.
As in a circle, a magician then
Is safe against the spirit he excites;
But out of it, is subject to his rage,
And loseth all the virtue of his art :
So I, exiled the circle of the court,
Lose all the good gifts that in it I joy'd.
No virtue current is, but with her stamp,
And no vice vicious, blanch'd with her white hand.
The court's the abstract of all Rome's desert,
And my dear Julia th' abstract of th' court.
Methinks, now I come near her, I respire
Some air of that late comfort I received;
And while the evening, with her modest veil,
Gives leave to such poor shadows as myself
To steal abroad, I, like a heartless ghost,
Without the living body of my love,
Will here walk, and attend her. For I know
Not far from hence she is imprisoned,
And hopes, of her strict guardian, to bribe
So much admittance, as to speak to me,
And cheer my fainting spirits with her breath.
JULIA appears at her chamber-window.
Jul. Ovid? my love?
Ovid. Here, heavenly Julia.
Jul. Here! and not here! O, how that word doth play.
With both our fortunes, differing, like ourselves,
But one; and yet divided, as opposed!
I high, thou low: O, this our plight of place
Doubly presents the two lets of our love,
Local and ceremonial height, and lowness :
Both ways, I am too high, and thou too low.
Our minds are even, yet; O, why should our bodies,
That are their slaves, be so without their rule?
I'll cast myself down to thee; if I die,
I'll ever live with thee: no height of birth,
Of place, of duty, or of cruel power,
Shall keep me from thee; should my father lock
This body up within a tomb of brass,
Yet I'll be with thee. If the forms, I hold
Now in my soul, be made one substance with it;
That soul immortal, and the same 'tis now;
Death cannot raze th' affects she now retaineth :
And then, may she be any where she will.
The souls of parents rule not children's souls,
When death sets both in their dissolved estates;
Then is no child nor father; then eternity
Frees all from any temporary respect.
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