 | The Jealous Lovers |  |
SCEN. III.
Ballio, Asotus, Simo, Phryne, Thrasimachus, Hyperb. Chærilus, Bomolochus, Sexton.Asot.
VVho's within here?
Sext.
What's the matter without there?
Asot.
Ha! What art thou?
Sext.
The last of tailours, Sir,
that ne're take measure of you, while you have hope to weare a
new suit.
Asot.
How dost thou live?
Sext.
As worms do:—by the dead.
Asot.
A witty rascall. Let's have some discourse with him.
Thras.
Are any souldiers bones in garrison here?
Faith, Sir, but few: they like poore travellers
Take up their inne by chance: but some there be.
Thras.
Do not those warlike bones in dead of night
Rise up in arms, and with tumultuous broyls
Waken the dormise that dull peace hath lull'd
Into a lethargie?—Dost not heare 'um knock
Against their coffins, till they crack and break
The marble into shivers that intombes 'um?
Making the temple shake as with an earthquake,
And all the statues of the gods grow pale,
Affrighted with the horrour?
Sext.
No such matter.
Hyper.
Do they not call for arms? and fright thee, mortall,
Out of thy wits? Do they not break the legs,
And crush the skuls that dare approach too neare
Their honour'd graves?—When I shall come to dwell
In your dark family, if a noysome carcase
Offend my nostrils with too ranck a sent,
Know—I shall rage—and quarrell,—till I fright
The poore inhabitants of the charnell house:
That here shall run a toe, a shin-bone there:
Here creeps a hand, there trowles an arm away.
One way a crooked rib shall halting hie,
Another you shall trundling finde a skull.
Like the distracted citizens of a town
Beleaguer'd,—and in danger to be taken.
Asot.
For heavens sake, Sexton, lay my quiet bones
By some precise religious officer,
One that will keep the peace.—These roaring captains,
With blustring words and language full of dread,
Will make me quit my tombe, and run away
Wrap't in my winding sheet,—as if grim Minos,
Stern Æacus, and horrid Rhadamanth
Enjoyn'd the corps a penance.
Sext.
Never fear it.
This was a captains skull, one that carried a storm in his countenance,
and a tempest in his tongue. The great bug-beare of the
citie, that threw drawers down the stairs as familiarly as quartpots;
and had a pension from the Barbour-chirurgeons for breaking
and pandars, then the disease belonging to the trade.—And
yet I remember when he went to buriall, another corse took the
wall of him, and the ban-dog ne're grumbled.
Asot.
Then skull (although thou be a captains skull)
I say thou art a coward,—and no Gentleman;
Thy mother was a whore,—and thou liest in thy throat.
Hyper.
Do not, live hare, pull the dead lions beard.
Asot.
No, good Hyperbolus, I but make a jest
To show my reading in moralitie.
Chær.
Do not the ashes of deceased Poets
Inspir'd with sacred fury, carroll forth
Enthusiastick raptures? Dost not heare 'um
Sing mysteries, and talk of things conceal'd
The rest of mortall judgements? Dost not see
Apollo and the Muses every night
Dance rings about their tombes?
Bom.
Do not roses,
Lilies, and violets grow upon their graves?
Shoots not the laurell that impal'd their brows
Into a tree, to shadow their blest marble?
Do they not rise out of their shrowds to read
Their Epitaphs? and if they like 'um not,
Expunge 'um, and write new ones? Do they not
Rore in caliginous terms, and vapour forth
From reeking entrals fogs Egyptian,
To puzzle even an oculate intellect?
Prate they not cataracts of insensible noise,
That with obstreperous cadence cracks the organs
Acroamatick, till the deaf auditor
Admires the words he heares not?
Sext.
This was a poeticall noddle. O the sweet lines, choice
language, eloquent figures, besides the jests, half jests, quarter
jests, and quibbles that have come out o'these chaps that yawn so!
He has not now so much as a new-coyn'd-complement to procure
him a supper. The best friend he has may walk by him now,
and yet have ne're a jeere put upon him. His mistresse had a little
dog deceased the other day, and all the wit in this noddle could
seven yeares, and in all that while I never heard him rail against
the times, or complain of the neglect of learning. Melpomene
and the rest of the Muses have a good time on't that he is dead:
for while he lived, he ne're left calling upon 'um. He was buried
(as most of the tribe) at the charge of the parish, and is happier
dead then alive: for he has now as much money as the best in the
company,—and yet has left off the poeticall way of begging,
call'd Borrowing.
Asot.
I scorn thy Lyrick and Heroick strain,
Thy tart Iambick, and Satyrick vein.
Where be thy querks and tricks? show me again
The strange conundrums of thy frisking brain,
Thou Poets skull, and say, What's rime to chimney?
Sext.
Alas! Sir, you ha' pos'd him: he cannot speak to give
you an answer, though his mouth be alwayes open. A man may
safely converse with him now, and never fear stifling in a crowd
of verses. And now a Play of his may be freely censur'd, without a
libel upon the audience. The boyes may be bold to cry it down.
Ball.
I cannot yet contrive it handsomely.
Me thinks the darknesse of the night should prompt me
To a plot of that complexion.—Ruminate,
Ruminate Ballio.
Phryn.
Pray, Sir, how does death
Deal with the Ladies? Is he so unmannerly
As not to make distinction of degrees?
I hope the rougher bones of men have had
More education, then to trouble theirs
That are of gentler stuffe.
Sext.
Death is a blunt villain, Madam: he makes no distinction
betwixt Jone and my Lady. This was the prime Madam in
Thebes, the generall mistresse, the onely adored beauty. Little
would you think there were a couple of starres in these two augur-holes:
or that this pit had been arch'd over with a handsome
nose, that had been at the charges to maintain half a dozen of severall
silver arches to uphold the bridge. It had been a mighty favour
once, to have kiss'd these lips that grin so. This mouth out
of all the Madams boxes cannot now be furnished with a set of
chambermaids misplacing of a hair, was as much as her place
came to.—Oh! if that Lady now could but behold this
physnomie of hers in a looking-glasse, what a monster would she
imagine her self! Will all her perrukes, tyres and dresses, with
her chargeable teeth, with her cerusse and pomatum, and the benefit
of her painter and doctor, make this idol up again?
Paint Ladies while you live, and plaister fair,
But when the house is fallne 'tis past repair.
Phryn.
No matter, my Asotus: Let death do
His pleasure then, we'le do our pleasures now.
Each minute that is lost is past recall.
This is the time alotted for our sports,
'Twere sinne to passe it. While our lips are soft,
And our embraces warm, we'le twine and kisse.
When we shall be such things as these, let worms
Crawl through our eyes, and eat our noses off,
It is no matter. While we liv'd, we liv'd.
Asot.
And when we die, we die. We will be both embalm'd
In precious unguents to delight our sense,
And in our grave we'le busse, and hug, and dally
As we do here: for death can nothing be
To him that after death shall lie with thee.
Sexton, receive these coffins to the temple;
But not interre them,—for they both are guilty
Of their own bloud,—till we make expiation
T'assoyl the fact.—Tutour reward the Sexton.
I'le come sometimes and talk moralitie with him.
Ball.
This, Sir, my Pupill gives you:—but hereafter
I'le more then treble it, if you be no enemie
To your own profit.
Sext.
Profit's my religion.
Asot.
Now you that bore my dead friends to the grave,
Usher my living mistresse home again.
Thus joy with grief alternate courses shares,
Fortune, I see thy wheel in all affairs.
Exeunt omnes præter Sexton.
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