A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 78

COMMUNIS SENSUS, LINGUA, PHANTASTES, MEMORY, ANAMNESTES.

COM. SEN. Lingua, the Senses, by our appointment, anon are to present their objects before us. Seeing, therefore, they be not in readiness, we license you in the meanwhile, either in your own person or by your advocate, to speak what you can for yourself.

LIN. My lord, if I should bring before your honour all my friends, ready to importune you in my behalf, I should have so many rhetoricians, logicians, lawyers, and (which is more) so many women, to attend me, that this grove would hardly contain the company; wherefore, to avoid the tediousness, I will lay the whole cause upon the tip of mine own tongue.

COM. SEN. Be as brief as the necessity of our short time requires.

LIN. My lord, though the _imbecillitas_ of my feeble s.e.x might draw me back from this tribunal, with the _habenis_, to wit _timoris_ and the _Catenis pudoris_, notwithstanding being so fairly led on with the gracious [Greek: epiecheia] of your _justissime_ [Greek: dikaiosynaes].

Especially so _aspremente spurd' con gli sp.r.o.ni di necessita mia pugente_, I will without the help of orators commit the _totam salutem_ of my action to the _volutabilitati_ [Greek: ton gynaicheion logon], which _avec vostre bonne plaisir_, I will finish with more than _Laconica brevitate_.

COM. SEN. What's this? here's a gallimaufry of speech indeed.

MEM. I remember about the year 1602 many used this skew kind of language which, in my opinion, is not much unlike the man Platony,[251] the son of Lagus, king of Egypt, brought for a spectacle, half-white, half-black.

COM. SEN. I am persuaded these same language-makers have the very quality of cold in their wit, that freezeth all heterogeneal languages together, congealing English tin, Grecian gold, Roman latten[252] all in a lump.

PHA. Or rather, in my imagination, like your fantastical gull's apparel, wearing a Spanish felt, a French doublet, a Granado stocking, a Dutch slop, an Italian cloak, with a Welsh freeze jerkin.

COM. SEN. Well, leave your toying: we cannot pluck the least feather from the soft wing of time. Therefore, Lingua, go on, but in a less formal manner. You know an ingenious oration must neither swell above the banks with insolent words, nor creep too shallow in the ford with vulgar terms; but run equally, smooth and cheerful, through the clean current of a pure style.

LIN. My lord, this one thing is sufficient to confirm my worth to be equal or better than the Senses, whose best operations are nothing till I polish them with perfection; for their knowledge is only of things present, quickly sublimed with the deft[253] file of time: whereas the tongue is able to recount things past, and often p.r.o.nounce things to come, by this means re-edifying such excellences as time and age do easily depopulate.

COM. SEN. But what profitable service do you undertake for our dread queen Psyche?

LIN. O, how I am ravished to think how infinitely she hath graced me with her most acceptable service! But above all (which you, Master Register, well remember), when her highness, taking my mouth for her instrument, with the bow of my tongue struck so heavenly a touch upon my teeth, that she charmed the very tigers asleep, the listening bears and lions to couch at her feet, while the hills leaped, and the woods danced to the sweet harmony of her most angelical accents.

MEM. I remember it very well. Orpheus played upon the harp, while she sung, about some four years after the contention betwixt Apollo and Pan, and a little before the excoriation of Marsyas.

ANA. By the same token the river Alpheus, at that time pursuing his beloved Arethusa, dischannelled himself of his former course, to be partaker of their admirable consort[254], and the music being ended, thrust himself headlong into earth, the next way to follow his amorous chace. If you go to Arcadia, you shall see his coming up again.

COM. SEN. Forward, Lingua, with your reason.

LIN. How oft hath her excellency employed me as amba.s.sador in her most urgent affairs to foreign kings and emperors--I may say to the G.o.ds themselves? How many bloodless battles have my persuasions attained, when the Senses' forces have been vanquished? how many rebels have I reclaimed, when her sacred authority was little regarded? Her laws (without exprobation be it spoken) had been altogether unpublished, her will unperformed, her ill.u.s.trious deeds unrenowned, had not the silver sound of my trumpet filled the whole circuit of the universe with her deserved fame. Her cities would dissolve, traffic would decay, friendships be broken, were not my speech the knot, mercury, and mastic, to bind, defend, and glue them together. What should I say more? I can never speak enough of the unspeakable praise of speech, wherein I can find no other imperfection at all, but that the most exquisite power and excellency of speech cannot sufficiently express the exquisite power and excellency of speaking.

COM. SEN. Lingua, your service and dignity we confess to be great; nevertheless these reasons prove you not to have the nature of a Sense.

LIN. By your ladyship's favour, I can soon prove that a Sense is a faculty, by which our queen sitting in her privy chamber hath intelligence of exterior occurrences. That I am of this nature, I prove thus. The object which I challenge is--

_Enter_ APPEt.i.tUS _in haste_.

APP. Stay, stay, my lord; defer, I beseech you, defer the judgment.

COM. SEN. Who's this that boldly interrupts us thus?

APP. My name is Appet.i.tus, common servant to the pentarchy of the Senses who, understanding that your honour was handling this action of Lingua's, sent me hither thus hastily, most humbly requesting the Bench to consider these articles they allege against her, before you proceed to judgment.

COM. SEN. Hum, here's good stuff; Master Register, read them. Appet.i.tus, you may depart, and bid your mistress make convenient speed.

APP. At your lordship's pleasure. [_Exit_ APPEt.i.tUS.

MEM. I remember that I forgot my spectacles; I left them in the 349th page of Hall's "Chronicles," where he tells a great wonder of a mult.i.tude of mice, which had almost destroyed the country, but that there resorted a great mighty flight of owls, that destroyed them.

Anamnestes, read these articles distinctly.

ANA. Art. 1. Imprimis, We accuse Lingua of high treason and sacrilege against the most honourable commonwealth of letters; for, under pretence of profiting the people with translations, she hath most vilely prost.i.tuted the hard mysteries of unknown languages to the profane ears of the vulgar.

PHA. This is as much as to make a new h.e.l.l in the upper world; for in h.e.l.l they say Alexander is no better than a cobbler, and now by these translations every cobbler is as familiar with Alexander as he that wrote his life.

ANA. Art. 2. Item, that she hath wrongfully imprisoned a lady called Veritas.

Art. 3. Item, That she's a witch, and exerciseth her tongue in exorcisms.

Art. 4. Item, That she's a common wh.o.r.e, and lets every one lie with her.

Art. 5. Item, that she rails on men in authority, depraving their honours with bitter jests and taunts; and that she's a backbiter, setting strife betwixt bosom friends.

Art. 6. Item, that she lends wives weapons to fight against their husbands.

Art. 7. Item, that she maintains a train of prating pettifoggers, prowling sumners[255], smooth-tongued bawds, artless[256] empirics, hungry parasites, newscarriers, janglers[257], and such like idle companions, that delude the commonalty.

Art. 8. Item, that she made rhetoric wanton, logic to babble, astronomy to lie.

Art. 9. Item that she's an incontinent tell-tale.

Art. 10. Item (which is the last and worst), that she's a woman in every respect, and for these causes not to be admitted to the dignity of a Sense. That these articles be true, we p.a.w.n our honours, and subscribe our names.

1. VISUS. 4. OLFACTUS.

3. GUSTUS.

2. AUDITUS. 5. TACTUS.

COM. SEN. Lingua, these be shrewd allegations, and, as I think, unanswerable. I will defer the judgment of your cause, till I have finished the contention of the Senses.

LIN. Your lordship must be obeyed. But as for them, most ungrateful and perfidious wretches--

COM. SEN. Good words become you better; you may depart, if you will, till we send for you. Anamnestes, run, remember Visus; 'tis time he were ready.

ANA. I go. [_Exit_ ANAMNESTES _et redit_.] He stays here, expecting your lordship's pleasure.

SCAENA s.e.xTA.

_A page carrying a scutcheon argent, charged with an eagle displayed proper: then_ VISUS, _with a fan of peac.o.c.k's feathers: next_ LUMEN, _with a crown of bays and a shield with a bright sun in it, apparelled in tissue: then a page bearing a shield before_ COELUM, _clad in azure taffeta, dimpled with stars, a crown of stars on his head, and a scarf resembling the zodiac overthwart the shoulders: next a page clad in green, with a terrestrial globe before_ TERRA, _in a green velvet gown stuck with branches and flowers, a crown of turrets upon her head, in her hand a key: then a herald, leading in his hand_ COLOUR, _clad in changeable silk, with a rainbow out of a cloud on her head: last, a boy_. VISUS _marshalleth his show about the stage, and presents it before the Bench_.

VISUS, LUMEN, COELUM, PHANTASTES, COMMUNIS SENSUS, MEMORY.

VIS. Lo, here the objects that delight the sight!

The goodliest objects that man's heart can wish!

For all things, that the orb first movable Wraps in the circuit of his large-stretch'd arms, Are subject to the power of Visus' eyes.