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But what shall curse and crucify thee, feel in
[science,
thyself
Nothing but what thou art, bane and bad con-
'Till this man rest; but for whose reverence,
Because thou art his mother, I would say,
Whore, this shall be! Do you nod? I'll waken
[you
With my sword's point.

Brun. I wish no more of Heaven,
Nor hope no more, but a sufficient anger
To torture thee!

Mart. See, she that makes you see, sir! And, to your misery, still see your mother, The mother of your woes, sir, of your waking, The mother of your people's cries and curses, Your murdering mother, your malicious mo[hour now! ther!

Thi. Physicians, half my state to sleep an
Is it so, mother?

Brun. Yes, it is so, son;
And, were it yet again to do, it should be.
Mart. She nods again; swinge her66 !
Thi. But, mother,

1
(For yet I love that reverence, and to death
Dare not forget you have been so) was this,
This endless misery, this cureless malice,
This snatching from me all my youth together,
All that you made me for, and happy mothers,
Crown'd with eternal time are proud to finish,
Done by your wil!?

Brun. It was, and by that will

Thi. Oh, mother, do not lose your name!
forget not

The touch of Nature in you, tenderness!
'Tis all the soul of woman, all the sweetness:
Forget not, I beseech you, what are children,
Nor how you have groan'd for them; to what
love

They are born inheritors, with what care kept;
And, as they rise to ripeness, still remember
How they imp out your age! and when time

calls you,

That as an autumn flower you fall, forget not
How round about your hearse they hang, like
[penons!
Brun. Holy fool,
Whose patience to prevent my wrongs has
kill'd thee,

Preach not to me of punishments or fears,
Or what I ought to be; but what I am,
A woman in her liberal will defeated,
In all her greatness cross'd, in pleasure blasted!
My angers have been laugh'd at, my ends
[tunes,
slighted,

And all those glories that had crown'd my for

Suffer'd by blasted virtue to be scatter'd :
I am the fruitful mother of these angers,
And what such have done, read, and know
Thi. Heav'n forgive you!
[thy ruin!
Mart. She tells you true; for millions of
her mischiefs

Are now apparent: Protaldye we have taken,
An equal agent with her, to whose care,
After the damn'd defeat on you, she trusted
Enter Messenger.

The bringing-in of Leonor the bastard,
Son to your murder'd brother: her physician
By this time is attach'd to that damn'd devil,
Mess, 'Tis like he will be so; for ere we
came,

Fearing an equal justice for his mischiefs,
He drench'd himself.

Brun. He did like one of mine then!
Thi. Must I still see these miseries? no
night

[dye

To hide me from their horrors? That Protal-
See justice fall upon!

Brun. Now I could sleep too. [the lady,
Mart. I'll give you yet more poppy: bring

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Thi. Martell, I cannot last long! See the

(I see it perfectly) of my Ordella,

The heav'nly figure of her sweetness, there!

66 Swing her.] Former editions. Swinge, which properly signifies to beat with rods, is probably the true word.

Seward.

67 And Heav'n in her embraces give him quiet.] The editors of 1750 pretend to have amended this passage by substituting give for gives. So, p. 438, 1st col. l. 18, to have altered promise to promises; p. 439, 2d col, l. 15, letches to leeches; p. 451, 2d col. 1. 24, keeping to keep; same p. and col. 1. 27, ye to eye; p. 454, 1st col. 1. 40, my to thy; p. 469, 1st col. 1. 17, praises to prayers; and p. 449, 1st col. 1. 40, to have placed the name Martell as being spoken to, instead of as speaker. The quarto is right in all.

68 NOR right. This seems corrupt. The context requires, DO HER right, or something to that effect. If not corrupt, it may, by a licentious construction, be interpreted, Shew her no favour.'

602

Forgive

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Mart. She's alive, sir.

Thi. In everlasting life; I know it, friend:

Oh, happy, happy soul!

Ord. Alas, I live, sir;

A mortal woman still.

Thi. Can spirits weep too?

[Lady,

Mart. She is no spirit, sir; pray kiss her.

Be very gentle to him!

Thi. Stay!-She's warm;

[brightness, And, by my life, the same lips! Tell me, Are you the same Ordella still?

Mart. The same, sir,
[from ruin.
Whom Heav'ns and my good angel stay'd
Thi. Kiss me again!

Ord. The same still, still your servant.
Thi. 'Tis she! I know her now, Martell.
Sit down, sweet!
[slumber

Oh, Eless'd and happiest woman!--A dead
Begins to creep upon me: ob, my jewel!

Enter Messenger and Memberge.

'Ord. Oh, sleep, my lord!

Thi. My joys are too much for me!

Mess. Brunhalt, impatient of her constraint

to see

Protaldye tortur'd, has choak'd herself.
Mart. No more!
Her sins go with her!

Thi. Love I must die; I faint:
Close up my glasses!

1 Doctor. The queen faints too, and deadly.
Thi. One dying kiss!

Ord. My last, sir, and my dearest69 !
And now, close my eyes too!

Thi. Thou perfect woman!

Martell, the kingdom's yours: take Mem-
berge to you,

And keep my line alive! Nay, weep not, lady!
Take me! I go.

Ord. Take me too! Farewell, Honour!
[Die both.

2 Doctor. They're gone for ever.
Mart. The peace of happy souls go after
them!

Bear them unto their last beds, whilst I study
A tomb to speak their loves whilst old Time
lasteth.

I am your king in sorrows.

Omnes. We your subjects! [near us! Mart. De Vitry, for your services 70, be Whip out these instruments of this mad mother [cause From court, and all good people; and, beShe was born noble, let that title find her A private grave, but neither tongue nor honour!

And now lead on!-They that shall read this story,

Shall find that Virtue lives in good, not glory. [Exeunt omnes.

69 My lust, sir, and my dearest.] There are two senses of this, which the reader will please to take his choice of. If the above points be right, last and dearest relate to her kiss; if we point with the old editions (which the suspicion of another sense made me turn to)

My last sir, and my dearest,,

The sense will be, my last and dearest lord! For sir is often us'd in this its original sense. Seward.

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Ordella had no other lords. The sense obviously is, Take my last kiss, and the most affectionate I ever gave.'

70 For your service.] Services was probably the original word here.

71 But neither tongue nor honour.] Both Mr. Theobald and Mr. Sympson would reject tongue here, and read tomb, but surely without sufficient reason: for tongue signifies the Juneral oration, honour the escutcheons and other ceremonics of the funeral, together with the monument, or whatever may shew respect to the deceas'd. As to the character of Brunhalt, or Brunhaud, though it may perhaps be thought too shocking to appear upon the stage, history has still represented her as a worse devil than our poets have done. Thierry and Theodoret, or Theodibert, were her grand-children, whose father she had poison'd when he came of age, in order to keep the government in her own hands. She irritated Thierry against Theodibert, whom she caus'd him to slay, and then poison'd Thierry, in hopes that the states would have submitted to her government; but her horrid wickednesses being laid open to the peers of France, she was accus'd of having been the murdress of ten kings, beside debauching her grand-child Thierry, making him put away a virtuous wife, and providing him with misses. She was condemn'd to the rack, which she suffer'd three days, was then carry'd about the camp upon a camel's back, afterwards ty'd by the feet to a wild mare, and so dasli'd in pieces. Seward.

THE

THE WOMAN-HATER.

This Play was originally printed in quarto in the year 1607. It was afterwards revived by Sir William Davenant, who added a second title, Or, The Hungry Courtier, and wrote a new Prologue to it, printed in his Works, p. 239, and in the quarto of 1649. The title page of the latter edition ascribes it to both Authors: both the Original and Davenant's Prologues, however, speak of it as the production of but one; and Langbaine positively says it was one of those plays which Fletcher wrote alone. It has not been acted many years.

PROLOGUE.

I dare not

GENTLEMEN, inductions are out of date, and a Prologue in verse is as stale as a black velvet cloak, and a bay garland; therefore you shall have it plain prose, thus: if there be any amongst you that come to hear lascivious scenes, let them depart; for I do pronounce this, to the utter discomfort of all two-penny gallery-men, you shall have no bawdry in it: or if there be any lurking amongst you in corners, with table-books, who have some hope to find fit matter to feed his-malice on, let them clasp them up, and slink away, or stay and be converted. For he that made this Play means to please auditors so, as he may be an auditor himself hereafter, and not purchase them with the dear loss of his ears. call it Comedy or Tragedy; 'tis perfectly neither: a Play it is, which was meant to make you Some things in it you laugh; how it will please you, is not written in my part: for though you should like it to-day, perhaps yourselves know not how you should digest it to-morrow. may meet with, which are out of the common road: a duke there is, and the scene lies in Italy, as those two things lightly we never miss. But you shall not find in it the ordinary and over-worn trade of jesting at lords, and courtiers, and citizens, without taxation of any particular or new vice by them found out, but at the persons of them: such, he, that made this, thinks vile, and for his own part vows, that he did never think, but that a lord, lordborn, might be a wise man, and a courtier an honest man2.

PROLOGUE AT THE REVIVAL.

LADIES, take't as a secret in your ear,
Instead of homage, and kind welcome here,
I heartily could wish you all were gone;
For if you stay, good faith, we are un-

donc.

Alas! you now expect, the usual ways
Of our address, which is your sex's praise:
But we to-night, unluckily, must speak
Such things will make your lovers' heart-
strings break,

Inductions] Such as precede Cynthia's Revels, Bartholomew-Fair, The Taming of the Shrew, and many other plays of that period. By the former of those we learn, that it was usual for the speaker of a prologue, in those times, to be habited in a black cloak: it is possible the custom of dressing in black, which continued to be the fashion for prologuespeakers until very lately, was derived from hence.

R.

2 From this prologue as well as a thousand other passages in our authors, it is very evident that their plays were in the age they liv'd remarkable for the decency and delicacy of their language; though several of their expressions are become now very gross, and are apt to give offence to modest ears; but they ought to be judged by the fashion of the age they Seward, lived in, not by that which now reigns,

Be-lie

Be-lie your virtues, and your beauties stain, With words, contriv'd long since, in your disdain.

Tis strange you stir not yet; not all this while
Lift up your fans to hide a scornful simile;
Whisper, or jog your lords to steal away,
So leave us tact, unto ourselves, our play:
Then sure, there may be hope, you can
subdue

Your patience to endure an act or two;
Nay more, when you are told our poet's rage
Pursues but one example, which that age
Wherein he liv'd produc'd; and we rely
Not on the truth, but the variety.

His muse believ'd not what she then did write;
Her wings were wont to make a nobler flight,

Soar'd high, and to the stars your sex did

raise;

For which, full twenty years he wore the bays.
'Twas he reduc'd Evadue from her scorn,
And taught the sad Aspatio how to mourn;
Gave Arethusa's love a glad relief;
And made Panthea elegant in grief.

If those great trophies of bis noble muse
Cannot one humour 'gainst your sex excuse,
Which we present to-night, you'll find a way
How to make good the libel in our play:
So you are cruel to yourselves; whilst he
(Safe in the fame of his integrity)
Will be a prophet, not a poet thought,
And this fine web last long, tho' loosely
wrought.

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Into our sight how gently doth she slide,
Hiding her chaste cheeks, like a modest bride,
With a red veil of blushes; as is she3,
Even such all modest virtuous women be!
Why thinks your lordship I am up so soon?

Lucio. About some weighty state-plot.

Duke. And what thinks

Your knighthood of it?

Arr. I do think, to cure

[wealth.

Some strange corruptions in the commonDuke. You're well conceited of yourselves,

to think

I chuse you out to bear me company
In such affairs and business of state:
But am not I a pattern for all princes,
That break my soft sleep for my subjects'
Am I not careful? very provident?
[good?
Lucio. Your grace is careful.
Arr. Very provident.

[working plots

Duke. Nay, knew you how my serious

3 As if she.] This nonsensical lection is in all editions but the first quarto.

4 My serious working plots.] I never think it right to discard good sense because another reading appears preferable, but a compound word, secret-working, occurr'd at first sight, and was rejected as unnecessary, 'till reading three lines below Arrigo's answer,

You secretly will cross some other state,

which seems to imply something of secrecy being mention'd before, the conjecture seem'd much more probable. Seward.

Concern

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since

Of meat, that have been in the court, e'er
[can thrust
Our great-grandfather's time; and when he
In at no table, he makes his meat of that.
Lucio. The very saine, my lord.
Duke. A courtier call'st thou him?
Believe me, I ucio, there be many such
About our court, respected, as they think,
Ev'n by ourself. With thee I will be plain:
We princes do use to prefer many for no-
thing,

And to take particular and free knowledge,
Almost in the nature of acquaintance, of
many

Whom we do use only for our pleasures;
And do give largely to numbers,

More out of policy to be thought liberal,
And by that means to make the people

strive

To deserve our love, than to reward
Any particular desert of theirs

[hear

To whom we give! and do suffer ourselves to
Flatterers, more for recreation

Than for love of it, tho' we seldom hate it:
And yet we know all these; and when we
please,

[about. Can touch the wheel, and turn their names Lucio. I wonder they that know their states so well,

Should fancy such base slaves.

Duke. Thou wonder'st, Lucio? [Milan,
Dost not thou think, if thou wert duke of
Thou shouldst be flatter'd?

Lucio. I know, my lord, I would not.
Duke. Why, so I thought 'till I was duke;
I thought

I should have left me no more flatterers
Than there are now plain-dealers; and yet,
For all this my resolution, I am most
Palpably flatter'd: the poor man may loath
Covetousness and flattery, but fortune will
Alter the mind when the wind turns; there
may

Be well a little conflict, but it will drive
The billows before it. Arrigo, it grows late;
For see, fair Tethys hath undone the bars
To Phoebus' team; and his unrival'd light
Hath chas'd the morning's modest blush away:
Now must we to our love. Bright Paphian
queen,

Thou Cytherean goddess, that delights

4 Her sovereign eyes.] First quarto and Seward read as in text.

5 The umbrana.] In another passage, this fislr is called an umbrane; and is probably the same which Cotgrave describes in t'e following manner, under the name of an umbrine: 'A great-eyed, round-tongued, small-toothed, and holesome sea-fish, which hath certaine 'barres over crosse her backe, and growing often to the bignesse of a maigre, is sometimes 'taken for it.' Florio, in his Worlde of Wordes,' folio, 1598, uoce umbrine, calls ita 'kinde of fish, which some take to be the halybut;' and Cotgrave, who, as before, says it is sometimes taken for a maigre, gives the following account of the latter: A great and skalie fish, having a wattle on his chinne, two holes on the top of his beake neere his eyes; and two stones within his head of some vertue (as is supposed) against the cholicke: the French do tearme him thus, not because he is leane, but because by the whitenesse of his flesh he seems so; howsoever, and howsoever he be dressed, he is reasonable good

'meat.' R.

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