University of Virginia Library

For the Second Act.

Physander led in by Ianus.
Ian.
Come forth thou son of earth, and view the day
That glories in the presence of thy beauty.

Phys.
What am I? My imperfect sence is yet
Vnapprehensive, and the intellect
My mother hath inspir'd, doth not instruct me
To know my selfe.

Ian.
Looke up thou master-peece
Of Natures workemanship, thou little world:
Thou that excel'st in forme, that comprehends
All the perfections which her curious hand
Design'd and finisht: That when other creatures
Behold the earth, and with dejected eyes
Looke downwards on't, hast an erected figure
To see the starres, and contemplate their beings,
Celestiall causes, and their influence,
Whence great effects ensue: Thou that hast speech
To be thy thoughts interpreter, expect
A farther act of Love to crowne thy life
By joyning thee to an immortall wife.

Exit.
Phys.
Receive my thanks great power. I yet am maz'd,
And wander in a labyrinth of thoughts,
That throng confusedly together, striving
Who should first issue, 'till their multitude
Choakes up the passage. Oh ye powers that made me
To be a King, and to have soveraignty
Annext unto my difference, send me quickly
The glorious guide that may remove this darknesse.

To him the 4. Complexions.
Phys.

Ha! what are these?

Chol.

You may goe looke. Yet if you aske me mildly,
perhaps Ile answer you.

Blood.
We are sent to be your servants.

Phys.
By whom?

[Chol.]
Our parents, the foure Elements.

Phys.
Your names?

Chol.

My name is Choller. I was begot by Fire on
Natures Cooke-maide in the time of a Feastivall. I was
dry nursed by a leane Butterwife, and bred up in Mars
his Fencing-schoole: where I have learn't a mystery that
consists in lying, distance and direction; pase, space and
place; Time, motion and action; progression, reversion
and traversion; blowes, thrusts, falses, doubles, slips and
wards; closings, gripes and wrastlings; fights guardant,
open, variable and close. Then have wee our stocatas,
imbrocatas, mandritas, puintas and puintas reversas; our
stramisons, passatas, carricadas, amazzas and incartatas.

Phys.

And what's all this?

Chol.

Termes in our dialect to pusle desperate ignorance.

Phys.

What's yours?

Blood.

My name is Blood. Ayre was my father, and
my mother a light-heel'd madame that kept a vaulting-schoole
at the signe of Virgo. As she was one day practising
a high trick, she lost her hould, and fell downe into
my fathers regions, where had not hee kind man stopt
her about the middle, shee had brake her neck against a
rock of Ice that hung beneath her, and Blood had not
beene as he is, a Dancer sir.

Phys.

What art skill'd in?

Blood.

Garbes and postures of the body. Here's an
honour for a Lord; a back-fall for a Lady, and a high rising
is best in an active gallant. But pardonne moy monsier,
it doe straine a de back too mush. Here's a traverse for a
nimble Lawyer. A hop and skip shall raise the sonne of
a Cobler well under-lay'd with pieces to the government
of a province, 'till over-much ambitious cutting
weares him into his Last. A turne above ground for a
Mercuriall pick-pocket, and an easie passage to destruction

for him that danceth after infected wantonnesse.
Cum multis alijs.

Phys.

And what's your name?

Phle.

Phlegme mine sir. Water was my mother, and
she made me a Physician. I was nurst by Apolloes Hearb-wife
that dwells at the signe of the Crab, and she taught
me to goe backwards.

Phys.

And what can you doe?

Phle.

Live by the inspection of excrements, and draw
aurum palpabile out of them. Kill any one cum privilegio
artis. I am Venus Midwife, and trusted with many secrets,
which I never reveale but to my Apothecary when
we meete at Libra to share and settle our correspondence.
Your Physician will serve you at your death sir.

Physa.

Now your name?

Melan.

I am called Melancholy. I was begotten on
the earth after a great drought in the time of barrennesse:
who breeding me up hardly, enabled me the better
for this hungry profession. I would faigne be in love;
but having no other mistresse, I am inforc't to love mine
owne humour.

Physa.
All these are humours, and must be my servants.
What a vast bounty have the heavens given me?
But I must labour to preserve them regular,
And not exceeding their proportions
Blood skipping about, justles Choller.
Of substance or of quality, for then
They will be masters. Disagreeing!

Chol.
He hath stirr'd me sir, and I will be angry.

Blood.
Then Phlegme must coole you.

Chol.
Phlegme's a foole.

Melan.
Or a Physitian.

Phleg.
Choller, you must be taken downe.

Chol.

Ile soone be up againe. Provoke me no more:
I am adust with rage, and will make you an odde number.

Phys.
Come, this agrees not with a servants duty.
You must subscribe to order. Phlegme shall be
My substitute to moderate these jarrings.
And if hereafter any one transgresse
But in the least dissention that disturbs
The quiet of my state, he shall correct it;
Nor spare himselfe. For in a government
Th'offence is greatest in the instrument
That hath the power to punish; and in lawes
The authors trespasse makes the foulest cause.
Recorders.
What admiration workes upon my sense!
I heare and see such objects as would make
Creation doubtfull whether she were perfect
Without these parts. Into what strange delights
I'm hurried on the sudden? ha!

The second Scene is here discover'd, being a perspective of clouds, the inmost glorious, where Bellamina sits betwixt Love and Nature; behind her the Bonus and Malus Genius.
Nat.
Looke hither
Thou comfort of my love that gave thee being
To figure greater power. See, Love hath brought
Thy wish a spouse of's owne immortall race,
Clad in the glory of her innocence.
Doe not defile her, yet shee's virgin white,
And joyn'd unto thee, that thou mayst enjoy
Knowledge and vertue, not thy sensuall pleasures,
For being linckt unto thee she is made
As sensible of thy corrupted passions,
As thou of mortall griefes. Let her direct
Thy powers of appetite. Shee'l shew thee heaven,
And the reward of good; and if thou misse
The path she guides thee in, thou wilt enforce her
To share thy ruine, and pervert the ends
Of her eternity. Which if thou tread
By her directions, she communicates,
And makes thee like her selfe. She must be chang'd
According to thy disposition.
Then let my counsaile be so deepe imprest
The prosecution of't may make thee blest.

Whilst the following song is singing, they descend from the Scene and present Bellamina to Physander.
Love.
The Song.

Love and Nature returne to the Scene, and it closeth.
Phys.
After my sacrifice of vowes and thankes
Let me imbrace with reverence, Oh my life,
And better soule: joy hath possession taken
Of all my faculties, and gives a welcome
To these delights.

Bella.
Doe not abuse them then,
For my pure substance will admit no mixture
With any thing that's earthy, lest it should
Be so defil'd. Together with my selfe
I must bestow on thee two different servants.
The one is like my selfe, all innocence.
The other's clad in an infernall robe
Of malice to us, and will tempt thy frailty
To loose desires, from her black invention
Forging aspersions on me to divert
Thy love: which I so prize, my blisse or ruine
Hath sole dependance on it. If she urge
Those accusations, deafe thy understanding
To her suggestions, and informe thy reason
Onely from th'other, who best knowes my passions,
Powers and habits: thou wast made for me
To be my instrument, and I for thee.

Bella.
And when I doe forsake thee, or infect
My looser thoughts with any other object
Then thy wisht good, may I be made th'example
Of imbecillity; the spoyle of time;
Mockery of fortune; image of inconstancy;
The scale of envie and calamity.
And this faire structure (now by these upheld)
Be buried in it's owne and their sad ruines.

Chol.

I am angry at it. We shall have morall now in
stead of Martiall discipline. Challenges will bee proclaim'd
cowardise: and every white-liver'd silk-skinn'd
Lady-courtier will answer a mans anger with, if it were

not for the lawe and conscience. If no body will provoke
me, Ile quarrell with my selfe.

Phleg.

Take heed Choller of a halter.

Chol.

Phlegme thou art a Mountebank, and I will make
thee quake.

Melan.

Not so hot good Choller. I am partaking, and
as discontented at this match as envie can make mee. I
could hatch a conspiracy to sever them, should cause posterity
attribute all Matchiavillianisme to Melancholy.

Blood.

Blood's prevented, and the expectation of so
many children begot on severall mothers that should
dote on the quivering of my calves, and the strength of
my back is utterly frustrate. No Lady of liberty must
admire this passage, or that skipping, 'till her veines
swell with my addition. I must no more run here and
there to tickle her sense, and fright the greene-sicknesse
from her complexion.

Mela.
Shall it be a plot?

Chol.
Let's kill them presently.

Phleg.
But the meanes?

Blood.
Why, is not Phlegme a Physitian?

Phys.
Come my kind servants, let your active limbs
Move to delight us, whilst the spheares agree
To guide your measures with their harmony.
A dance, wherein the complexions expresse themselves in their differences: the two Genij alwaies opposite in the figure, and the Malus Genius stealing many times to Physander, whispers in his eare.
I am disturb'd within; a new desire
Whet's appetite of pleasure in some change,
Such as may touch the sence without a scruple
Of wedlocks breach. Hence with these lawes of conscience
That would set limits to what's infinite.
Two kisses more will cloy me; nought can relish
But variation.

Mal. Gen.
Hearken then to me.
Leave this strict Bride that curbs licentious will,
And rayn's it with her temperance. Liberty
Makes delight full and swelling: it must feed
On severall objects, else 'twill glut it selfe
Into a loathing.

Phys.
I applaude thy counsaile,
And am prepar'd to act it.

Bella.
Ha! Physander.
So suddenly forgetfull of thy vowes
Before full consummation of those rites
Crowne Bridegroomes happy?

Bon. Ge.
Be not thus mis-led
By her malicious envie. She but shewes thee
The easie path to ruine, whose broad entrance
Painted with falsest pleasures, ends in a point
Of all the ills attend our misery
Contracted into one. Though vertues way
Be hard and straight to enter, yet the end
Reacheth to heaven, where her faire hand bestowes
Wreathes of bright stars to crowne deserving browes.

Phys.
Whisper that still; each accent's musicall.
The meere conceit of it makes me immortall.
Hence; by converse is hatefull. Ile not tye
Desire to such imbraces. Ile enjoy
A mistresse free and sportive; that can vary
All shapes of dallyance, and present delight
Each minute in a severall fashion.
Guide me, Ile follow.

Compl.
And we will attend.

Exeunt.
Bella.
Wretched Bellamina, that in the instant
Of thy expected comfort, shouldst be throwne
Below all misery! O that lustfull sense
Should cause divorce betwixt us! I am lost
Almost beyond recovery, since my substance
Must be partaking of his hated ills:
Such is the fate of wedlock. His content
Exit with Bon. Genius.
In false delights, must be my punishment.