A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 86

APP. It smells well. I would fain begin to them.

MEN. Nay, stay no longer, lest they have supped before thou come.

APP. Mendacio, how shall I requite thy infinite courtesy?

MEN. Nay, pray thee leave, go catch occasion by the foretop. But hear'st thou? As soon as it is presented, round[301] my Lady Lingua in the ear, and tell her of it.

APP. I will, I will: adieu, adieu, adieu.

[_Exit_ APPEt.i.tUS.

SCAENA TERTIA.

MENDACIO _solus_.

MEN. Why. this is better than I could have wish'd it; Fortune, I think, is fallen in love with me, Answering so right my expectation.

By this time Appet.i.te is at the table, And with a lowly cringe presents the wine To his old master Gustus; now he takes it, And drinks, perchance, to Lingua; she craftily Kisses the cup, but lets not down a drop, And gives it to the rest: 'tis sweet, they'll swallow it: But when 'tis once descended to the stomach, And sends up noisome vapours to the brain, 'Twill make them swagger gallantly; they'll rage Most strangely, or Acrasia's art deceives her; When if my lady stir her nimble tongue, And closely sow contentious words amongst them, O, what a stabbing there will be! what bleeding!

SCAENA QUARTA.

LINGUA, MENDACIO.

LIN. What, art thou there, Mendacio? pretty rascal!

Come let me kiss thee for thy good deserts.

MEN. Madam, does't take? Have they all tasted it?

LIN. All, all, and all are well-nigh mad already.

O, how they stare and swear, and fume, and brawl!

Wrath gives them weapons; pots and candlesticks, Joint stools and trenchers, fly about the room, Like to the b.l.o.o.d.y banquet of the centaurs.

But all the sport's to see what several thoughts The potion works in their imaginations.

For Visus thinks himself a ----, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

SCAENA QUINTA.

APPEt.i.tUS, MENDACIO, LINGUA.

APP. So ho, Mendacio! so ho, so ho!

MEN. Madam, I doubt they come; yonder is Appet.i.tus. You had best be gone, lest in their outrage they should injure you. [_Exit_ LINGUA.]

How now, Hunger? How dost thou, my fine maypole, ha?

APP. I may well be called a maypole, for the Senses do nothing but dance a morrice about me.

MEN. Why, what ails them? Are they not (as I promised thee) friends with thee?

APP. Friends with me! nay, rather frenzy. I never knew them in such a case in all my life.

MEN. Sure, they drank too much, and are mad for love of thee.

APP. They want Common Sense amongst them. There's such a hurlyburly.

Auditus is stark deaf, and wonders why men speak so softly that he cannot hear them. Visus hath drunk himself stark blind, and therefore imagineth himself to be Polyphemus. Tactus is raging mad, and cannot be otherwise persuaded but he is Hercules _furens_. There's such conceits amongst them.

SCAENA s.e.xTA.

VISUS, APPEt.i.tUS, MENDACIO.

VIS. O, that I could but find the villain Outis[302], Outis the villain, that thus blinded me!

MEN. Who is this? Visus?

APP. Ay, ay, ay; otherwise called Polyphemus.

VIS. By heaven's bright sun, the day's most glorious eye, That lighteneth all the world but Polypheme.

And by mine eye, that once was answerable Unto that sun, but now's extinguished--

MEN. He can see to swear, methinks.

VIS. If I but once lay hands upon the slave, That thus hath robb'd me of my dearest jewel, I'll rend the miscreant to a thousand pieces, And gnash his trembling members 'twixt my teeth, Drinking his live-warm blood to satisfy The boiling thirst of pain and furiousness, That thus exasperates great Polypheme.

MEN. Pray thee, Appet.i.tus, see how he grasps for that he would be loth to find.

APP. What's that? a stumblingblock?

VIS. These hands, that whilom tore up st.u.r.dy oaks, And rent the rock that dash'd out Acis' brains, Bath'd[303] in the stole bliss of my Galatea, Serve now (O misery!) to no better use, But for bad guides to my unskilful feet, Never accustom'd thus to be directed.

MEN. As I am a rogue, he wants nothing but a wheel to make him the true picture of fortune; how say'st? what, shall we play at blind-man's-buff with him?

APP. Ay, if thou wilt; but first I'll try whether he can see?

VIS. Find me out Outis, search the rocks and woods, The hills and dales, and all the coasts adjoining, That I may have him, and revenge my wrong.

APP. Visus, methinks your eyes are well enough.

VIS. What's he that calls me Visus? dost not know--