Cynthia's Revels Part 9

MER. That was pretty and sharply noted, Cupid.

CUP. She will tell you, Philosophy was a fine reveller, when she was young, and a gallant, and that then, though she say it, she was thought to be the dame Dido and Helen of the court: as also, what a sweet dog she had this time four years, and how it was called Fortune; and that, if the Fates had not cut his thread, he had been a dog to have given entertainment to any gallant in this kingdom; and unless she had whelp'd it herself, she could not have loved a thing better in this world.

MER. O, I prithee no more; I am full of her.

CUP. Yes, I must needs tell you she composes a sack-posset well; and would court a young page sweetly, but that her breath is against it.

MER. Now, her breath or something more strong protect me from her!

The other, the other, Cupid.

CUP. O, that's my lady and mistress, madam Philautia. She admires not herself for any one particularity, but for all: she is fair, and she knows it; she has a pretty light wit too, and she knows it; she can dance, and she knows that too; play at shuttle-c.o.c.k, and that too: no quality she has, but she shall take a very particular knowledge of, and most lady-like commend it to you. You shall have her at any time read you the history of herself, and very subtilely run over another lady's sufficiencies to come to her own. She has a good superficial judgment in painting; and would seem to have so in poetry. A most complete lady in the opinion of some three beside herself.

PHI. Faith, how liked you my quip to Hedon, about the garter?

Was't not witty?

MOR. Exceeding witty and integrate: you did so aggravate the jest withal.

PHI. And did I not dance movingly the last night?

MOR. Movingly! out of measure, in troth, sweet charge.

MER. A happy commendation, to dance out of measure!

MOR. Save only you wanted the swim in the turn: O! when I was at fourteen--

PHI. Nay, that's mine own from any nymph in the court, I'm sure on't; therefore you mistake me in that, guardian: both the swim and the trip are properly mine; every body will affirm it that has any judgment in dancing, I a.s.sure you.

PHA. Come now, Philautia, I am for you; shall we go?

PHI. Ay, good Phantaste: What! have you changed your head-tire?

PHA. Yes, faith; the other was so near the common, it had no extraordinary grace; besides, I had worn it almost a day, in good troth.

PHI. I'll be sworn, this is most excellent for the device, and rare; 'tis after the Italian print we look'd on t'other night.

PHA. 'Tis so: by this fan, I cannot abide any thing that savours the poor over-worn cut, that has any kindred with it; I must have variety, I: this mixing in fashion, I hate it worse than to burn juniper in my chamber, I protest.

PHI. And yet we cannot have a new peculiar court-tire, but these retainers will have it; these suburb Sunday-waiters; these courtiers for high days; I know not what I should call 'em--

PHA. O, ay, they do most pitifully imitate; but I have a tire a coming, i'faith, shall--

MOR. In good certain, madam, it makes you look most heavenly; but, lay your hand on your heart, you never skinn'd a new beauty more prosperously in your life, nor more metaphysically: look good lady, sweet lady, look.

PHI. 'Tis very clear and well, believe me. But if you had seen mine yesterday, when 'twas young, you would have--Who's your doctor, Phantaste?

PHA. Nay, that's counsel, Philautia; you shall pardon me: yet I'll a.s.sure you he's the most dainty, sweet, absolute, rare man of the whole college. O! his very looks, his discourse, his behaviour, all he does is physic, I protest.

PHI. For heaven's sake, his name, good dear Phantaste?

PHA. No, no, no, no, no, no, believe me, not for a million of heavens: I will not make him cheap. Fie--

[EXEUNT PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA.]

CUP. There is a nymph too of a most curious and elaborate strain, light, all motion, an ubiquitary, she is every where, Phantaste--

MER. Her very name speaks her, let her pa.s.s. But are these, Cupid, the stars of Cynthia's court? Do these nymphs attend upon Diana?

CUP. They are in her court, Mercury, but not as stars; these never come in the presence of Cynthia. The nymphs that make her train are the divine Arete, Time, Phronesis, Thauma, and others of that high sort. These are privately brought in by Moria in this licentious time, against her knowledge; and, like so many meteors, will vanish when she appears.

ENTER PROSAITES SINGING, FOLLOWED BY GELAIA AND COS, WITH BOTTLES.

Come follow me, my wags, and say, as I say, There's no riches but in rags, hey day, hey day: You that profess this art, come away, come away, And help to bear a part. Hey day, hey day, etc.

[MERCURY AND CUPID COME FORWARD.]

MER. What, those that were our fellow pages but now, so soon preferr'd to be yeomen of the bottles! The mystery, the mystery, good wags?

CUP. Some diet-drink they have the guard of.

PRO. No, sir, we are going in quest of a strange fountain, lately found out.

CUP. By whom?

COS. My master or the great discoverer, Amorphus.

MER. Thou hast well ent.i.tled him, Cos, for he will discover all he knows.

GEL. Ay, and a little more too, when the spirit is upon him.

PRO. O, the good travelling gentleman yonder has caused such a drought in the presence, with reporting the wonders of this new water, that all the ladies and gallants lie languishing upon the rushes, like so many pounded cattle in the midst of harvest, sighing one to another, and gasping, as if each of them expected a c.o.c.k from the fountain to be brought into his mouth; and without we return quickly, they are all, as a youth would say, no better then a few trouts cast ash.o.r.e, or a dish of eels in a sand-bag.

MER. Well then, you were best dispatch, and have a care of them.

Come, Cupid, thou and I'll go peruse this dry wonder. [EXEUNT.]

ACT III

SCENE I.--AN APARTMENT AT THE COURT.

ENTER AMORPHUS AND ASOTUS.

AMO. Sir, let not this discountenance or disgallant you a whit; you must not sink under the first disaster. It is with your young grammatical courtier, as with your neophyte player, a thing usual to be daunted at the first presence or interview: you saw, there was Hedon, and Anaides, far more practised gallants than yourself, who were both out, to comfort you. It is no disgrace, no more than for your adventurous reveller to fall by some inauspicious chance in his galliard, or for some subtile politic to undertake the bastinado, that the state might think worthily of him, and respect him as a man well beaten to the world. What? hath your tailor provided the property we spake of at your chamber, or no?

ASO. I think he has.

AMO. Nay, I entreat you, be not so flat and melancholic. Erect your mind: you shall redeem this with the courtship I will teach you against the afternoon. Where eat you to-day?