University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Daphne, and Thyrsis.
DAPHNE.
Thyrsis, I've long perceived Amyntas' flame
For Sylvia; and heaven knows how oft
I've warmly pleaded for the hapless swain.
And I am ready with more earnestness
To urge his interest now, since you espouse it.
But trust me, I would rather undertake
To tame the playful steer, the bear, the tiger,
Than this same simple, foolish, beauteous girl,
Who will not know the charms she is endowed with,
The power, the bliss that heaven has lodged with woman;
Yet kills, with all her childish heedlessness;
Kills, though she hath not learned to take an aim.

THYRSIS.
Strange is her constitution—for thy sex
Are busied from their infancy to know
What dress, and manner best become their person,
And all the arts that steal away the soul,
Elaborate, and yet displayed with ease:
To know to give a meditated death,
Under the snare of trivial, airy pleasure;
To know the whole machinery of love—
To know what engines kill, what only wound;
What lenitives assuage the lover's pain;
What are the potent charms that bring him back
From Pluto's confines to the golden day;
From drooping nature to the bloom of health,
And all the sweets of fancy's paradise.

DAPHNE.
You paint a curious art; say who bestows it?

THYRSIS.
Daphne, thy question is a female wile;
Thou feignest ignorance to discover mine.
Who taught the birds their musick, and their flight?
Who taught the fish to swim, the ram to butt,
The peacock to unfurl his glistening train?

DAPHNE.
What is the name of this surprizing teacher?

THYRSIS.
Daphne, the name.

DAPHNE.
False, ridiculing tongue!

THYRSIS.
Reject not quite my strong hyperbole:
Thou an adept sufficient art in love,
In all its mystery, to erect a school,
And teach a thousand girls the pleasing system.
Indeed the school by Nature is precluded;
They have the science from her inspiration;
Yet nature owes a part to education;
The mother, and the nurse, improve her dictates;
Open, and throw them into ready practice.

DAPHNE.
Come; you're a phlegmatick, a gloomy reasoner.
I like not speculation; I will make
A female, but a pertinent transition,
And pass to woman's easy narrative.
To tell thee truth, I question much that Sylvia
Is in the tender art so unenlightened,
As from her words, and conduct she appears.
Her yesterday's behaviour caused my doubts.
I chanced to find her near the spacious meadow,
Adjacent to the city; in that meadow
Thou knowest there is a small peninsula,
Cloathed with a verdant turf, and gay with flowers;
'Tis almost by the large transparent lake
Surrounded. By this lake was Sylvia seated;
She stooped intently o'er the limpid mirror,
Admiring, as I thought, her image there.
She seemed consulting, too, the faithful water;
How with most grace she might collect her hair,
How best adorn it with the gifts of Flora,
Which on her lap in rich profusion lay.
She took by turns the lily, pink, and rose,
And to her cheeks and neck by turns applied them,
With vain comparison; a laugh succeeded
Of self-complacency, of female triumph,
Which might be thus translated into language.
“Ye vanquished flowers, where is your boasted hue?
Me nature hath suffused with brighter glow,
I have no need of you; but I will wear you,
Not for my ornament, but for your shame;
Not that your active aid may push my conquests,
Attract more notice from the swains, and pour
A fuller lustre on the wondering eye;
But that your beauties, drawing force no more,
From the soft verdure of your mother-earth,
Faded and sunk, may give relief to mine.”
But while she thus was busied in admiring
Her charms, and meditating future triumphs;
She accidentally turned round, and saw me.
She rose confused, let fall the flowers, and blushed.
I laughed at her confusion; and my laugh
Fluttered her more, and raised her deeper blushes.
But as her art already had disposed
Part of her hair, and part remained dishevelled;
I could observe her sometimes steal a look
To the clear water of sweet information,
And smile to see her half embellished figure:
For charms in negligence ne'er fail to please,
Admit an infinite variety; nay, seem
More free, and more expanded by disorder.
I heedfully remarked these circumstances;
Though at the time I seemed not to observe them.

THYRSIS.
By your account of Sylvia, my suspicions
Are verified; did I not shrewdly guess?

DAPHNE.
You did—but can it be that human kind
Had all this early craft in former days?
No—when I was myself of Sylvia's age,
I was a stranger quite to dark design;
Simply I thought, and simply spoke, and acted.
The world grows old; and growing old, grows worse:
The world collectively, like individuals,
Is chilled, and hardened by the hand of time;
Loses the genial mellowness of nature,
The vigorous flow of large philanthropy,
Contracted, shrivelled, and locked up in self.

THYRSIS.
Perhaps in earlier times the human form
Had not so much, within, the hungry wild beast;
Went not so much abroad in quest of prey.
Inhabitants of noisy capitals
Sought not so oft our rural shades to breathe in,
Cloyed with a multiplicity of pleasure,
Smiting the healthy minds of cottagers
With the contagion of distempered fancy.
Nor did our country-girls so often seek
The baleful atmosphere of publick life.
Different the practice of our modern times:
Man mixes universally with man;
Hence man is universally corrupted.
Life is disfigured; we but see the ruins
Of our original unblemished nature.—
Enough of this; say, canst thou not procure
An interview with Sylvia, for Amyntas,
Without a witness, or, at most with thee?

DAPHNE.
I know not; never did a simple girl
Affect a shyness so reserved as Sylvia's.

THYRSIS.
And never girl so shy as Sylvia found
A lover so respectful as Amyntas.

DAPHNE.
A lover too respectful, is a fool.
Tell him to quit the hardy trade of love,
Or lay aside that distant, timid homage.
He that would practise the true art of love,
Must quicken his respect with well timed courage.
Let him be bold; and if he wants a favour,
Solicit, importune; and if he finds
Solicitation, importunity,
Are feeble, ineffectual mediators;
Let him embrace a gay, unguarded moment,
To steal with dexterous theft the wished-for bliss.
And if his circumspection cannot steal it;
Let him risk all to win the golden prize,
And seize it with a gallant violence.
Women well know to wield their proper weapons;
Or women would be blanks in the creation:
It is not in their province to procure
Protection and respect from selfish man
By their strong influence in society.
They have no hold of the proud, lordly being,
Except the tender, silken bands of pleasure;
And if their tension is not nice, they break.
This tension is the politicks of love.
We must not give, the moment you demand,
Or we should nothing have worthy of giving.
Would you enjoy? the way to your enjoyment
Must not be plain; but you must climb and struggle
To reach the arduous pinnacle of bliss.
Great part of happiness precedes fruition,
And mingles with the labour of acquiring.
The trifling part the sensual organs give us,
Is gross, and animal, and soon grows vapid;
The finer part, which rises from the mind,
Is lasting, active, spirit all, and æther,
Worthy a being raised above the brutes.
In every nerve it beats, through every pore
It breathes, it's ardour buoys our mortal frame;
It purifies, it subtilizes matter,
And gives to man the pleasures of a god.
It cheers existence in whatever state;
Warms us on Caucasus, and on the line
It fans us with a cool Italian breeze.
We must not give the moment you demand,
Or we should dwindle in your estimation
From goddesses to despicable slaves.
No, we must grant with coyness, and reserve,
Not seemingly to gratify ourselves;
But as a stately empress would vouchsafe
Some signal favour to a trusty vassal.
Thus do we keep our gentle majesty.
Hence all the necessary tricks of love;
We fly, and wish our swain may overtake us:
When we refuse, we wish the thing requested
By art or force, may be extorted from us;
And when we struggle with a mock resistance,
We wish that our resistance may be baffled.
Thyrsis, to you I show, without reserve,
The whole economy of female love.
But have a care; repeat not what I've told you;
And above all let not your wanton satire
Lash, in keen verse, the government of women:
You know I can in verse return the charge;
Man for my satire is an ample field,
And I am too a favourite of the Muses.

THYRSIS.
How canst thou think that I would let a word
Escape this tongue, that would offend my friend?
But I conjure thee, by that time when love
Spoke his first language in those radiant eyes,
That thou wouldst plead Amyntas' cause, and try
To reconcile to life the dying swain.

DAPHNE.
Oh! what an adjuration thou hast thought of!
How couldst thou make me thus approximate
My past, for ever past, and present days!
My gay, my blooming spring, and withering autumn!
But say, how would you have me interpose?

THYRSIS.
I will not plan for you; be but resolved
To serve my friend, and you will find the means.

DAPHNE.
There let the matter rest: Sylvia, and I,
Such our agreement was, are soon to go
To Cynthia's fountain; where the plane-tree forms
O'er the clear element a quivering shade.
There the tired huntresses are often seated,
To catch the grateful coolness of the place.
Sylvia to-day in that retreat will bathe
Her snowy limbs in the translucent water.

THYRSIS.
What does this lead to?

DAPHNE.
What does it lead to, sayst thou?
Is not a word a lecture to the wise?

THYRSIS.
I understand you; but I fear he has not
Courage enough for amorous enterprize.

DAPHNE.
Then he should better brook his disappointments,
And wait with patience till his mistress woos him.

THYRSIS.
Such is the merit of my friend Amyntas,
That he almost deserves that condescension.

DAPHNE.
But let us wave Amyntas for the present:
Let me awhile speak to the heart of Thyrsis.
Hast thou with purpose stern, and unnatural,
Determined ne'er to taste the joys of love?
Thou hast not passed as yet the prime of life.
Sure thirty summers have not flushed that face;
And shouldst thou make thy fleeting, precious youth
An indolent, an unenjoying period?
For all life's other scenes, compared with love,
Are trifling, and unsatisfactory;
They're only children's unideal play;
Like it they actuate not, and feed the heart,
And spring it's vigour with a bolder tone:
Nothing but love deserves the name of pleasure.

THYRSIS.
He who on love rushes not prematurely,
Is not, for that, deserted by the God;
He is not galled with love's asperities;
And when it comes, it smoothly flows upon him.
He lounges not, but waits for an occasion;
Haply at last his prudence finds a maid
Whose heart, susceptible, and sympathetic,
In concord sweet revibrates to his own.
Thus does the wary connoisseur in love,
Taste all it's joys, and all it's pains elude;
He 'scapes the prickles of the flower; he crops
Nought but the sweets of that Arabian rose.

DAPHNE.
Man loves activity, and enterprize:
The sweet unseasoned with a dash of bitter
Is soon succeeded by satiety.

THYRSIS.
I rather would be satiate than oft stung
With an inordinate and painful craving.

DAPHNE.
Not surely if you have a high regale:
And if that high regale, when 'tis enjoyed,
Impresses an Elysium on the memory,
Raising the joy of every repetition.

THYRSIS.
But who possesses that celestial object,
With whom he still is pleased, who still is pleasing;
Who watches ever o'er her lover's bliss;
Conspires with all his sentiments of joy,
Jealous to send away none unfulfilled?

DAPHNE.
And pray what man can look for such a mate,
Unless he diligently tries to find her?

THYRSIS.
The acquisition is worth seeking for:
But oh! the search is dangerous; oft it brings us
Nought but the keenest anguish in return.
Thyrsis again will never be a lover,
Till he finds love an easier situation,
Exempted more from sighs, complaints, and tears:
Enough I've sighed; enough I have complained;
And therefore I have made a truce with love:
Rashly to plunge into the fatal passion,
I leave to confident, unpractised minds,
To minds just entering on a world of woe.

DAPHNE.
Why would you prematurely cease to love,
Before you've had your share of it's enjoyment?

THYRSIS.
Daphne, the large remainder of enjoyment,
Which yet the prime of manhood promises,
I rather would forego than pay it's price,
It's usual price, inestimable quiet.

DAPHNE.
Involuntary love may mock your plan;
May rise, and when he rises in the breast,
He will not easily be argued down.

THYRSIS.
I keep aloof, at distance from the tyrant.

DAPHNE.
Unthinking mortal! who is far from love?
All space he actuates, like almighty Jove;
Pervades each atom of the universe.

THYRSIS.
Who fears, and flies him, certainly escapes him.

DAPHNE.
Would you pretend to fly a winged god?

THYRSIS.
At first by Providence's kind decree,
Leaving it in our power to fly from ruin,
He meditates attack with feeble wing.
Short are the flights he takes, and near the ground.
He beats, and flutters, like a captive sparrow,
Which strives in vain to mount with shortened pinions,
The cruel pastime of some idle boy.
But if with love we trifle, and admit him
To hazardous familiarity,
Neglecting to repel his childish onset,
He soon gains strength, he soon becomes our master.
He haunts us waking, haunts us in our dreams;
With vigorous flight bursts through the cottage window:
If we seek shelter from his persecution
In the remotest corner of a forest,
We there elude not his pursuit; for there
With eagle-wing he overtakes his prey.

DAPHNE.
But commonly too late we see our danger;
We see it when in vain we would escape it;
When Cupid hath ensured his victory.

THYRSIS.
You speak of unexperienced, easy victims.

DAPHNE.
Well Thyrsis, much I would rejoice to see
Thy philosophick discipline subdued.
And I protest, since thou dost arrogate
The stag's velocity, and lynx's sight,
If love should take thee, unprepared, and wound thee,
I mean inflict a deep, tormenting wound,
And thou shouldst come to Daphne for assistance,
I would not stir my tongue, nor stir a finger,
To mitigate thy cruel destiny.
No, could a magick movement of my eye-brow,
Thy nymph propitiate to thy tender suit,
The magick eye-brow should not move to save thee.

THYRSIS.
What, Daphne, could you see me then expiring,
And not stretch out a friendly hand to help me?
But since you seem determined I shall love,
Deign you to be the object of my love.
Give me your hand; we from this day will vow
Only to live to make each other happy.

DAPHNE.
I know your proffer is but irony.
Yet much I question whether you deserve
So good a mistress as you'd find in me.
In general men are superficial fools;
Admiring but the surface of our worth.
An easy shape, fine face, and sparkling eye,
Are all that strike their gross imagination,
Impassive to superior mental beauty,

THYRSIS.
I was not jesting Daphne, but as you
Are mistress of the theory of woman,
You will, by rule, decline the first proposal.
But if you seriously reject my tender,
I will resolve to bid adieu to love.

DAPHNE.
Why shouldst thou, Thyrsis, bid adieu to love?
Thy happy circumstances love invites:
Love is of delicate and tender growth,
By life's inclemencies 'tis nipped and blighted.
To flourish in perfection, it demands
The fostering ray of warm prosperity.
You have been fortunate, you're blessed with affluence,
And affluence is the soil for love to spring on.

THYRSIS.
Daphne, a god bestowed this affluence on me;
For he shall ever be a god to me.
By all our swains he should be deemed a god.
'Tis he whose lowing herds and bleating flocks,
Are spread through Italy to either sea;
They're pampered on our most luxuriant plains,
And live more hardly on our Apennines.
When first my patron to his service took me.
He thus addressed his swain in words benign:
“Thyrsis, let others guard from wolves, and robbers
My well-fenced folds; let others to my servants
Justly dispense rewards and punishments;
Let others feed my flocks, and have the charge
Of milk, and wool, and all the rural stores:
Let finer objects fill thy tuneful mind,
And vacant be it's powers to sacred song.”
Whence it is meet I should employ my genius
On themes sublimer than terrestrial love;
And strive to celebrate in sounding strains
The ancestors of my divinity;
Whether my Phœbus, or my Jove to deem him,
I know not, for his attributes resemble
Both deities; a mighty master he,
A guardian of celestial poesy;
A friend, a benefactor of mankind.
Hence to our woods I oft commit the deeds
Of Cœlus, and of Saturn; and he deigns
With ear propitious to receive my verse;
Whether in simple Doric mode I chant it,
Or with the nobler powers of harmony.
Not that himself I e'er presume to sing;
The fittest homage he can have from me,
Is mute admiring reverence; yet his altar,
Shall oft be strewed with my devoted flowers;
And often there shall my religious incense
Exhale in fragrant odour to the skies.
And when this holy gratitude forsakes me,
All nature shall renounce it's present course:
The stag shall quit the lawns, and seek the sky;
Rivers shall backwards to their fountains flow,
Shall be transported from their native channels;
The Persian drink the Soane, the Gaul the Tigris.

DAPHNE.
Thyrsis, you mount: you grow enthusiastick;
You wander from the theme of your discourse.

THYRSIS.
This is our point; when to Diana's spring
You go with Sylvia, try to molify her,
Try to subdue her stubborn soul to love.
Meanwhile it shall be mine to school Amyntas,
And fit him for a gallant enterprize.
My task is no less difficult than yours.
Daphne, the time is precious; prithee, go.

DAPHNE.
I go; yet once again I must remind thee,
The theme of our discourse thou hast neglected.

THYRSIS.