 | The Tragedy of Tragedies ; Or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great |  |
SCENE V.
Queen, Grizzle.Queen.
Teach me to scold, prodigious-minded Grizzle.
Mountain of Treason, ugly as the Devil,
Teach this confounded hateful Mouth of mine,
To spout forth Words malicious as thy self,
Words, which might shame all Billingsgate to speak.
Griz.
Far be it from my Pride, to think my Tongue
Your Royal Lips can in that Art instruct,
Wherein you so excel. But may I ask,
Without Offence, wherefore my Queen would scold?
Queen.
Wherefore, Oh! Blood and Thunder! han't you heard
(What ev'ry Corner of the Court resounds)
That little Thumb will be a great Man made.
Griz.
I heard it, I confess—for who, alas!
By grinding Knives, had first been set on Edge.
Queen.
Would I had heard at the still Noon of Night,
The Hallaloo of Fire in every Street!
Odsbobs! I have a mind to hang my self,
To think I shou'd a Grandmother be made
By such a Raskal.—Sure the King forgets,
When in a Pudding, by his Mother put,
The Bastard, by a Tinker, on a Stile
Was drop'd.—O, good Lord Grizzle! can I bear
To see him from a Pudding, mount the Throne?
Or can, Oh can! my Huncamunca bear,
To take a Pudding's Offspring to her Arms?
Griz.
Oh Horror! Horror! Horror! cease my Queen,
Thy Voice like twenty Screech-Owls, wracks my Brain.
Queen.
Then rouse thy Spirit—we may yet prevent
This hated Match.—
Griz.
—We will not Fate it self,
Should it conspire with Thomas Thumb, should cause it.
I'll swim through Seas; I'll ride upon the Clouds;
I'll dig the Earth; I'll blow out ev'ry Fire;
I'll rave; I'll rant; I'll rise; I'll rush; I'll roar;
Fierce as the Man whom smiling Dolphins bore,
From the Prosaick to Poetick Shore.
Queen.
Oh, no! prevent the Match, but hurt him not;
For, tho' I would not have him have my Daughter,
Yet can we kill the Man that kill'd the Giants?
Griz.
I tell you, Madam, it was all a Trick,
He made the Giants first, and then he kill'd them;
As Fox-hunters bring Foxes to the Wood,
And then with Hounds they drive them out again.
Queen.
How! have you seen no Giants? Are there not
Now, in the Yard, ten thousand proper Giants?
Griz.
Indeed, I cannot positively tell,
But firmly do believe there is not One.
Queen.
Hence! from my Sight! thou Traitor, hie away;
By all my Stars! thou enviest Tom Thumb.
Go, Sirrah! go, hie away! hie!—thou art,
A setting Dog be gone.
Madam, I go.
Tom Thumb shall feel the Vengeance you have rais'd:
So, when two Dogs are fighting in the Streets,
With a third Dog, one of the two Dogs meets,
With angry Teeth, he bites him to the Bone,
And this Dog smarts for what that Dog had done.
Grizzle was not probably possessed of that Glew, of which Mr. Banks speaks in his Cyrus.
I'll glew my Ears to ev'ry word.This Epithet to a Dolphin doth not give one so clear an Idea as were to be wished, a smiling Fish seeming a little more difficult to be imagined than a flying Fish. Mr. Dryden is of Opinion, that smiling is the Property of Reason, and that no irrational Creature can smile.
Smiles not allowed to Beasts from Reason move.State of Innocence.
These Lines are written in the same Key with those in the Earl of Essex;
Why sayst thou so, I love thee well, indeedI do, and thou shalt find by this, 'tis true.
Or with this in Cyrus;
The most heroick Mind that ever was.And with above half of the modern Tragedies.
Aristotle in that excellent Work of his which is very justly stiled his Master-piece, earnestly recommends using the Terms of Art, however coarse or even indecent they may be. Mr. Tate is of the same Opinion.
Bru.Do not, like young Hawks, fetch a Course about,
Your Game flies fair.
Fra.
Do not fear it.
He answers you in your own Hawking Phrase.
Injur'd Love.
I think these two great Authorities are sufficient to justify Dollalolla in the use of the Phrase—Hie away hie; when in the same Line she says she is speaking to a setting Dog.
| The Tragedy of Tragedies ; Or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great | |