 | An Unhistorical Pastoral |  |
SCENE II.
—A Garden before Rupert's House.Enter Felice and Bruno.
Bruno.
Think you the Prince's present humour lasting?
Felice.
Ay, while the relish smacks. This rustication
Of heather honey; lacking domination
O'er appetite, he'll gorge and surfeit soon
On country pleasures; sick of nature's sweet,
Of making hay, and gazing on the moon,
Of hearing kine low, wool-producers bleat,
Cocks crow, crows caw, doves coo, and goslings gabble,
Of all their junketing and rural sport,
Their ales, mays, harvests, songs and silly babble,
He'll hasten to the spiced and pickled court.
With all due reverence for mighty Pan,
Here's one who wishes we might leave to-morrow;
For, by my beard, I'll soon lose all the man
Hushing my wit, and suckling of that sorrow.
Bruno.
I fear it much; mine is at least asleep:
Plague on these blowsy girls and brown-faced knaves,
Who rake their brains and set our jests asteep,
Distilling that which no refining craves,
Concentrating wit's subtle, quaint, quintessence.
In courtly spheres fat dullards feed fine lights;
But brilliant stars wane swiftly from their crescence
When doomed to shine among chaotic wights:
Too much damp fuel quells the strongest fire;
We perish of this plethora of faggots.
Felice.
Respect has wrought a transformation dire:
We are dead dogs, these creatures are our maggots.
We, air imperial, burn in this gas,
Which once illumined us, its atmosphere;
I am a beast of burden; you, an ass—
Slaves, where before our lash was held in fear.
We are the clowns; the country louts, the wit.
Bruno.
Here comes knave Scipio, the Prince's friend,
Stuck like a wild-flower in his love-lock's shade,
Replacing us, poor withered hothouse blooms.
We'll dust his livery with wordy strokes,
And in his own outspoken chaff deride him.
Enter Scipio.
Felice.
By Jove, we will!—Come hither, Scipio.
Master of wit, lord of a cabbage-bed,
Knight of the cudgel, toady, knave, and clown,
Beseech your mightiness to signify
To us, your humble servants, what's o'clock?
Scipio.
The clock's hand points now to that very hour
It indexed at the same time yesterday.
Felice.
Sirrah, you lie, because the clock's gone fast.
Scipio.
Then is it very adverse to your wit.
Felice.
And like to yours, for fast is loose: your wit
Is dissipated, drunk; 'tis redolent
Of sour ale and the smoke of tavern ingles.
Bruno.
That is as much as to say it is ailing, and lapped
in inkle, in flannel.
Scipio.
Verily it is ailing, in sore pangs of travail, having
been impregnated by yours; yet will you hate your offspring.
By the cock and the goose!—which is a Grecian oath, and
very religious and philosophic—your wits are mad, stark
mad: Democritus, with an acre of hellebore, could not cure
them. Gentlemen, I can prove you the maddest fools out of
your own mouths.
Indeed, we are out of our own mouths; for our
mouths are within us; but I thought the foolishest and
most unruly member had been in the mouth.
Felice.
A fool expose fools! Let the blind lead the
blind.
Scipio.
Nay; set a thief to catch a thief. But shall I
advise you of your folly?
Bruno.
Wise men are silent when fools advise.
Scipio.
Well said; therefore shall I be silent. But no;
for that would be for the wise man to follow the fool's
advice. Sir, do you seek for anything?
Felice.
I seek for some ripe grain of wisdom in the desert
of your brain.
Scipio.
And how much do you find?
Felice.
Not a stalk.
Scipio.
He is a fool who seeks that he cannot find; and
you a superlative fool to seek in a wilderness, where you
are jagged and torn by prickly briars, for what you believe
cannot, without the miraculous intervention of Ceres, grow
there. Pray, sir, do you seek for anything?
Bruno.
I seek nothing from you.
Scipio.
What an ass have we here, what a dizzard! He
is surely the king of fools who seeks what, being found, will
do him no good—namely, nothing: 'tis a folly worthy of
that greatest of fools and criminals, old Nick Nemo.
Bruno.
And who may he be?
Scipio.
Do you seek to know?
Bruno.
Ay.
Scipio.
Then shall I not tell you.
Bruno.
But you shall, if he were the devil.
Scipio.
What? Jove help you! Are your wits entirely
like the melancholy bishop's? Now are you—I cannot say
how foolish. You would seek to know the devil? O
damned fool! who seek to know that which, being found,
will do you more harm than good! Out upon you! out
upon you!
Felice.
Fellow, do you seek for anything?
Scipio.
I seek for something, for something in a special
way. I mean I do not seek for nothing; nor do I seek
that which I cannot find; nor that which, being found, will
do me more harm than good.
Bruno.
'Twere a gospel to tell us what you do seek for.
Scipio.
Sirs, I seek to be rid of you; therefore, farewell.
Bruno.
This fellow must be whipt.
Felice.
For being witty? It is very true
His words are fitted for the barest need,
His jests being like himself, but scantly clad,
Of aspect somewhat sour; but this I see
Plain-speaking blunts much sharper wits than we.
Bruno.
I relish not such Spartan-tongued conversers.
The Prince approaches, and in company.
Enter Rupert and Cinthio.
Rupert.
Ah! do you jest with Scipio? Know him, friends,
A fellow of a right good stinging wit;
Who will not spare a king for sordid ends,
But utter all his mind whoe'er he hit.
This shepherd here is of a different sort;
His present speech will certify you so.—
And temple of the graces; in her grow
A spring of beauties; and Pandora's dower
By heritage she wears even at this hour.
Cinthio.
I am a lowly youth, and love a maid
More high than I am low, and oh, so fair!
Her brow might lend the noonday heaven aid
To shine upon the world with richer glare;
Her eyebrows are twin rainbows; and her eyes
Peered suns, excelling all that ever shone,
For they illuminate bright red-rose skies
Of cheeks celestial with a day-long dawn:
Day being ended, scarcely night's blue veils,
Her fringed eyelids, can enshroud their beams:
Setting or rising radiance never fails
To mark their absence in the land of dreams.
Sweet cups of perfumed flowers her nostrils be:
No bees suck there; the odour makes them faint.
Her little chin is bent with dimples three
Beneath rich fruit her summer blood does paint
With brighter hues than apples on their trees:
Alas, to me they are forbidden fruit,
Dearer than apples of Hesperides,
And guarded by as dragonish a brute.
And when her lips do ope they show her teeth
Like pearly seeds in sliced pomegranate
Breathing an air that balmily agreeth
With that delicious fruit. O hapless fate,
That orchards up such dainties to be tasted!
Were I their keeper they should not be wasted.
Felice.
Who may this wild hyperbolist be?
A sherpherd who feeds his sheep upon Parnassus.
He gets admission to the chimney-corner at the Castalian
Inn, being very thick with the Muses, and a minion of mine
host, Apollo.
Rupert.
In very sooth the damsel of your heart
Seems but a copy of my peerless love,
Fashioned by nature's self-admiring art,
Which yet has failed to equal what it strove,
My goddess' perfect, yet extempore, beauty:
Whereby this breathing picture, uttered now,
Far short, as you will swear—a lover's duty—
Of its exalted theme, must languish low
Beneath the high original I praise,
By two detractions of her copied grace.
Your miniature you finished with her chin
Look you, where you desisted, I'll begin.
Her neck into her bosom coyly glides;
It have I never seen, but well I know
Beneath the little billowy bodice hides
Costlier treasure than the deep can show:
How white it is I cannot realise,
Because her hands are whiter than the snow
In sunny winters that half-blinds the eyes,
Vesting the swelling hills in satin so.
Her waist is fitting for so rare a maid;
Methinks it was not fashioned for an arm;
In whatsoever garment 'tis arrayed
Too dainty seems it for maternal harm.
The dimples of her cheek and of her chin,
The blue veins of her brow, her lashes long,
Her faultless arms, her fingers lithe and thin—
Sometimes a ring appearing them among,
Round which the petals of the lily cluster:
Her sloping shoulders, and her feet so small,
That hardly can sufficient courage muster,
Even in the circumlocutory shoe,
To show themselves in their entirety,
But like a maid's first love-thoughts from the view
Of her own eyes retire most trepidly.
The limbs above them! Hush, the moonlight pales
Before their splendour white as sunlight seems.
Her hair! The brightest imagery fails
To be a proxy for its rippling streams,
Like shimmering wavelets when the sun has set
Where his pale golden glory lingers yet.
When I am with her I need not to think;
For if she silent sit, or walk, or stand,
My faculties do altogether link
And chain my eyes upon her by command
Of her magnetic power; or if she speak
In tones that Mercury might imitate,
Or through her lips a sounding streamlet break
With rush of sweetest melody, create
Within the coral, pearled grotto of her mouth
In tones that Philomel could not surpass;
Then does deep hearing cause a summer drouth
In sense's welling founts, whose waters pass
Into the yawning ocean of my ears,
Entranced as by the music of the spheres.
Cophetua's bride was humbler than she is;
Yet is she humblest of the maids I know.
Mage Hymen will transmute girl to princess;
My empress love enthroned her long ago.
I know this wonder.
Felice.
Which the Prince praises?
Scipio.
Ay. She is indeed a miracle. Her mother is a
woman; and there are those who will swear she was once no
higher than her grandam's armchair. It is reported that
she eats when she is hungry; her liquor, too, most commonly
runs down her throat. Rumour says she is of no kin to
graymalkin, for without light she cannot see; yet can her
eyes pierce a whinstone as woundily as another's: that she can
hear in the night, when she has been known to sleep; that
she is often stirring in the day; that when she talks, her
organ of utterance is her tongue. Those who should know
best will certify that her mouth stands across between her
nose and her chin. But the oddest thing about her is her
gait; for, look you, when she walks, as the old song goes,
one leg or t'other will always be first. Lo, our shepherd has
gathered the flock of his thoughts: listen, while he shall tell
his tale.
Cinthio.
No wealth, power, state, can I bestow upon her,
Who dowers me with herself—that trifles all.
I naught possess save unstained youth and honour;
But could I purchase it, hers were this ball.
Yea, to my queen the universe I'd give,
Fastening her zodiac-girdle with the sun,
Which from its fixture I would swiftly rive
By love's unrivalled power. This being done,
The moon I would assail, and, for a brooch,
Place it between the fair moons on her breast;
Nor would the ornament on them encroach
So pure are they. Nor would I then desist,
And with the most magnate a carkanet
String for her neck; with other heavenly flowers
Bead for her richer hair a priceless net;
And ring her fingers, deck her little ears—
So like their homes, the stars would have no fears.
Scipio.
Well said, shepherd! All the world on our side!
Nothing remains but hell.
Cinthio.
Not even that; for she with piteous tears
Would quench its sulphurous flames.
Rupert.
So it appears
There's naught beneath, on earth, in heaven above,
Remains for me to ornament my love.
And, truly, it needs not; for in her smock
She would outshine your star-bedizened dear.—
But lo, the mayers to the maypole flock!
I am resolved to live no more in fear,
But straightway hasten to that company
Where now my sweetheart is; move her aside;
Tell her I love her heartily and true,
And ask her to become my darling bride.
Then shall she murmur sweetly, ‘I love thee.’
I'll kiss her then, and gaze into her eyes;
Appoint a near date for our union too,
And pray for sweet conjunctions in the skies.
[Goes out.
Cinthio.
Permit me, gentlemen, to part from you.
[Goes out.
Bruno.
Willingly, willingly.—A new rival.
Felice.
Then is Scipio cut out too. Come, we'll be friends
with him.—Scipio, do you know where the Prince is gone?
Do I know what kind of beast a lover is? Does
he not follow his mistress like a lamb to the slaughter? If
she be in the mouth of hell, I warrant you'll find him in the
jaws of death, an he be no nearer. The Prince is now upon
his way to her.
Felice.
And she?
Scipio.
Is where he will find her.
Felice.
Which is—?
Scipio.
Whither I will bring you, if you be so minded;
and on the road I will tell you how all the beauteous
virginity and lusty bachelory of Dolorosa be even now
assembled to choose a May-queen; how thereafter they will
go to bed, and sleep till midnight; how they will then
journey to the forest accompanied with music and blowing
of horns, to gather may-blossoms and birchen boughs, and
deck themselves with nosegays and crowns of flowers.
What else they may do there I shall also hint at, specifying
to what proceedings on the morrow these actions are
prelusive.
Felice.
Of all this the light of knowledge has revealed to
us somewhat; but concerning Mademoiselle Eulalie, the
Prince's sweetheart, we are in Egyptian darkness.
Scipio.
Behold, her mother is a fisherman's widow, who
in her poverty nursed the half-drowned prince, pinching
herself and her daughter, who was, if possible, more willing
to be starved that the unknown sick gentleman might have
dainties. She has no gold but the gold of her hair; and no
jewels save her eyes. If beauty be riches, her wealth is incalculable;
moreover, it is safely lodged in the bank of health.
Felice.
And the Prince, by legal usury, would increase her
beauty if she would permit him.
Even so. But there is another merchant in
terms for this commodity, for such he would make her.
He has more bushels of gold than stones of flesh, and more
carnality than wisdom. He is as strong as a horse, but a
most outrageous braggart, and little better than a coward.
He makes great estimation of his personal appearance, and
his figure would be passable enough were it not so bent
with worshipping his calves. He dresses like a herald or a
macer; and grows the eccentricities of fashion into absurdities,
lopping such as by their generality have almost become
beauties. This great monkey must needs fall in love with
my dainty Eulalie; and finding, though he come before her
as gaudy as a serpent, that he works no fascination upon her,
he has betaken himself to other charms, and hopes to approach
her in a shower of gold.
Felice.
But she is no Danae, you would say; and that this
would-be Jupiter will find. Now, what do you think? Shall
we play some trick upon—what d'ye call him?
Scipio.
Torello. By Jove, I would give something to see
him taken down a peg!
Bruno.
We'll peg him. We'll whip him about like a
top.
Felice.
Then let us, as we wend along, conclude
Some scheme to harm Torello for his good.
| An Unhistorical Pastoral | |