A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 84

COM. SEN. Why in such anger, Tactus? what's the matter?

TAC. My lord, I had thought, as other Senses did, By sight of objects to have prov'd my worth; Wherefore considering that, of all the things That please me most, women are counted chief, I had thought to have represented in my show The queen of pleasure, Venus and her son, Leading a gentleman enamoured With his sweet touching of his mistress' lips, And gentle griping of her tender hands, And divers pleasant relishes of touch, Yet all contained in the bounds of chast.i.ty.

PHA. Tactus, of all I long to see your objects; How comes it we have lost those pretty sports?

TAC. Thus 'tis: five hours ago I set a dozen maids to attire a boy like a nice gentlewoman; but there is such doing with their looking-gla.s.ses, pinning, unpinning, setting, unsetting, formings and conformings; painting blue veins and cheeks; such stir with sticks and combs, cascanets, dressings, purls, falls, squares, busks, bodies, scarfs, necklaces, carcanets, rebatoes, borders, tires, fans, palisadoes, puffs, ruffs, cuffs, m.u.f.fs, pusles, fusles, partlets, frislets, bandlets, fillets, crosslets, pendulets, amulets, annulets, bracelets, and so many lets, that yet she's scarce dressed to the girdle; and now there is such calling for fardingales, kirtles, busk-points, shoe-ties, &c., that seven pedlars' shops--nay, all Stourbridge fair, will scarce furnish her. A ship is sooner rigged by far, than a gentlewoman made ready.

PHA. 'Tis strange that women, being so mutable, Will never change in changing their apparel.

COM. SEN. Well, let them pa.s.s; Tactus, we are content To know your dignity by relation.

TAC. The instrument of instruments, the hand, Courtesy's index, chamberlain to nature, The body's soldier, and mouth's caterer, Psyche's great secretary, the dumb's eloquence, The blind man's candle, and his forehead's buckler, The minister of wrath, and friendship's sign, This is my instrument: nevertheless my power Extends itself far as our queen commands, Through all the parts and climes of Microcosm.

I am the root of life, spreading my virtue By sinews, that extend from head to foot To every living part.

For as a subtle spider, closely sitting In centre of her web that spreadeth round, If the least fly but touch the smallest thread, She feels it instantly; so doth myself, Casting my slender nerves and sundry nets O'er every particle of all the body, By proper skill perceive the difference Of several qualities, hot, cold, moist, and dry; Hard, soft, rough, smooth, clammy, and slippery: Sweet pleasure and sharp pain profitable, That makes us (wounded) seek for remedy.

By these means do I teach the body fly From such bad things as may endanger it.

A wall of bra.s.s can be no more defence Unto a town than I to Microcosm.

Tell me what Sense is not beholden to me?

The nose is hot or cold, the eyes do weep, The ears do feel, the taste's a kind of touching: Thus, when I please, I can command them all, And make them tremble, when I threaten them.

I am the eldest and biggest of all the rest, The chiefest note and first distinction Betwixt a living tree and living beast; For though one hear and see, and smell and taste, If he wants touch, he is counted but a block.

Therefore, my lord, grant me the royalty; Of whom there is such great necessity.

COM. SEN. Tactus, stand aside. You, sirrah Anamnestes, tell the Senses we expect their appearance.

ANA. At your lordship's pleasure.

[_Exit_ ANAMNESTES.

SCAENA SEPTIMA.

COMMUNIS SENSUS, PHANTASTES, MEMORIA, HEURESIS, ANAMNESTES, _upon the Bench consulting among themselves. _VISUS, AUDITUS, TACTUS, GUSTUS, _and_ OLFACTUS, _every one with his shield upon his arm_. LINGUA, _and_ MENDACIO _with them_.

COM. SEN. Though you deserve no small punishment for these uproars, yet at the request of these my a.s.sistants I remit it; and by the power of judgment our gracious sovereign Psyche hath given me, thus I determine of your controversies: hum! By your former objects, instruments and reasons, I conceive the state of sense to be divided into two parts; one of commodity, the other of necessity; both which are either for our queen or for our country; but as the soul is more excellent than the body, so are the Senses that profit the soul to be estimated before those that are needful for the body. Visus and Auditus, serve yourselves. Master Register, give me the crown; because it is better to be well, than simply to be, therefore I judge the crown by right to belong to you of the commodity's part, and the robe to you of the necessity's side: and since you, Visus, are the author of invention, and you, Auditus, of increase and addition to the same, seeing it is more excellent to invent than to augment, I establish you, Visus, the better of the two, and chief of all the rest: in token whereof I bestow upon you this crown, to wear at your liberty.

VIS. I most humbly thank your lordships.

COM. SEN. But lest I should seem to neglect you, Auditus, I here choose you to be the lord intelligencer to Psyche her majesty: and you, Olfactus, we bestow upon you the chief priesthood of Microcosm, perpetually to offer incense in her majesty's temple. As for you, Tactus, upon your reasons alleged I bestow upon you the robe.

TAC. I accept it most gratefully at your just hands, and will wear it in the dear remembrance of your good lordship.

COM. SEN. And lastly, Gustus, we elect you Psyche's only taster, and great purveyor for all her dominions both by sea and land, in her realm of Microcosm.

GUS. We thank your lordship, and rest well content with equal arbitrament.

COM. SEN. Now for you, Lingua.

LIN. I beseech your honour, let me speak; I will neither trouble the company, nor offend your patience.

COM. SEN. I cannot stay so long; we have consulted about you, and find your cause to stand upon these terms and conditions. The number of the Senses in this world is answerable to the first[295] bodies in the great world: now, since there be but fire in the universe, the four elements and the pure substance of the heavens, therefore there can be but five Senses in our Microcosm, correspondent to those; as the sight to the heavens, hearing to the air, touching to the earth, smelling to the fire, tasting to the water, by which five means only the understanding is able to apprehend the knowledge of all corporeal substances: wherefore we judge you to be no sense simply: only thus much we from henceforth p.r.o.nounce, that all women for your sake shall have six senses--that is, seeing hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and the last and feminine sense, the sense of speaking.

GUS. I beseech your lordship and your a.s.sistants (the only cause of our friendship) to grace my table with your most welcome presence this night at supper.

COM. SEN. I am sorry I cannot stay with you: you know we may by no means omit our daily attendance at the court, therefore I pray you pardon us.

GUS. I hope I shall not have the denial at your hands, my masters, and you, my Lady Lingua. Come, let us drown all our anger in a bowl of hippocras[296].

[_Exeunt_ SENSUS _omnes exteriores_.

COM. SEN. Come, Master Register, shall we walk?

MEM. I pray you, stay a little. Let me see! ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

PHA. How now, Memory, so merry? what, do you trouble yourself with two palsies at once, shaking and laughing?

MEM. 'Tis a strange thing that men will so confidently oppose themselves against Plato's great year.

PHA. Why not?

MEM. 'Tis as true an opinion as need be; for I remember it very readily now, that this time 49,000 years ago all we were in this very place, and your lordship judged the very same controversy, after the very same manner, in all respects and circ.u.mstances alike.

COM. SEN. 'Tis wondrous strange.

ANA. By the same token you held your staff in your right hand, just as you do now; and Master Phantastes stood wondering at you, gaping as wide as you see him.

PHA. Ay, but I did not give you a box on the ear, sirrah, 49,000 years ago, did I? [_Snap_.]

ANA. I do not remember that, sir.

PHA. This time Plato's twelvemonth to come, look you save your cheeks better.

COM. SEN. But what entertainment had we at court for our long staying?

MEM. Let's go, I'll tell you as we walk.

PHA. If I do not seem pranker[297] now than I did in those days, I'll be hanged.

[_Exeunt omnes interiores Sensus: manet_ LINGUA.

SCAENA OCTAVA.

LINGUA, MENDACIO.

LIN. Why, this is good. By Common Sense's means, Lingua, thou hast fram'd a perfect comedy.

They are all good friends, whom thou mad'st enemies; And I am half a Sense: a sweet piece of service, I promise you, a fair step to preferment!