University of Virginia Library

SYLVIA;

OR, THE MAY QUEEN.

CHARACTERS.

• Romanzo.
• Andrea. His Servant.
• Geronymo.
• Sylvia.
• Agatha. Her Mother.
• Stephania. Peasant Girl.
• Roselle. Peasant Girl.
• Jacintha. Peasant Girl.
• Peasants, &c.

Spirits.

• Morgana. Queen of the Fairies.
• Nephon.
• Osme.
• Floretta.
• Fairies.
• Ararach. King of the Fiends.
• Grumiel.
• Momiel.
• Demons.

The Scene lies in Italy amongst the Apennines.

ACT I.

Scene I.

Romanzo.
[Descends.
[Echo.
[Birds.
[Voice within—“Beautiful Glen!”
Ha! what was that?—was it a voice indeed,
Or but the repetition of my words
Made by some hollow cave?—Never before
Came syllables from Echo's faltering tongue
So exquisitely clear!—Haply, I dream,
And this is all illusion: soft! I'll prove it— [Sings]
“Beautiful Glen!”
[The Voice repeats—“Beautiful Glen!”
Wondrous!—this is no voice
Of earth, yet speaks to mortal apprehension!
O who—who art thou, minstrel invisible?
Tell me, who art thou that dost sing so sweetly?

[The Voice sings]
Sing, and I shall answer meetly.
Romanzo.
Who art thou that sing'st so sweetly,
Echo, Echo, is it thou?

(Voice.)
Now I'm ask'd the question meetly,
I will answer meetly now.

Romanzo
Who art thou?

(Voice.)
Perhaps what thou art!

Romanzo.
I'm a rover!

(Voice.)
So am I!

Romanzo.
Art thou mortal?

(Voice.)
Not as thou art!

Romanzo.
Art thou spirit?

(Voice.)
Come and try!

Romanzo.
Now I've ask'd the question meetly,
Answer me as meetly now.

(Voice.)
I have answer'd thee discreetly,
More I cannot answer now.

Romanzo.

Shall I believe in this?—Ears, can I trust your evidence? I have likened ye oft to those wild sea-shells which are full of most delicate music born in their own hollows: was this but the fantastical creation of yours? No! it was plain as light; and if unreal, then is yon marble dome but

a vapour of the imagination!—What meant this syren of the air? Why did it court me on?—No matter! As the poor swimmer dives for a jewel at the bottom of the perilous gulf, so must thou too, Romanzo, seek thy fortune in the depths of this mystery; though, like him, the waves of ruin may o'erwhelm thee.—Ha! what a palace is here! a rural one!—Nature, thou hast a Doric hand, but a most Corinthian fancy!—Or is this, too, a work of enchantment? Has it been transported hither while I was dreaming, by some genii, the mighty slaves of a magician, or raised by the wand of fairy Maimoun, as we read of in the tales of the East?— To be sure, this jessamine tapestry is thick enough to hide a less modest dwelling. How prettily it smiles through the leaves! like a russet maiden holding a rose before her beauty to enhance by concealing it. Does a woodman live here, or an anchorite?—It is the very retreat for an uncanonized saint, or the snow-bearded tenant of a wilderness. At home, father?

[Knocks.

Enter Agatha.
Agatha.

Your will, signior?

Romanzo.

Pardon, good dame! I have need of that for my rudeness, ere I can expect any other favour. Pardon, I beseech you, for my intrusion.

Agatha.

It needs none, signior! The traveller is welcome to my poor cottage, though but few enter it.

Romanzo.

Strange! for I think its beauty might allure the steps of a courtier. Do many people inhabit this valley?

Agatha.

Two only, signior; myself and daughter.

Romanzo.

Oh!—then it was she I heard just now sing so divinely?

Agatha.

My daughter, signior? no; she is now far away on the hills, gathering wild-flowers or simples.

Romanzo.

What then, do you keep a mockingbird?

Agatha.

The echo, signior, is loud in this place: you are now standing on the plat we call “Echo's ground;” say echo! and it will be thrice answered.

Romanzo.

Ay, but can your echo maintain a conversation?—for here was one, I assure you.

Agatha.

Nay, signior, I cannot account for it; your senses must have been deceived.

Romanzo.

Perhaps so. [Aside.]
But it is a mystery I will rather die than leave unravelled. [Aloud.]
Prithee, dame, if a wanderer may presume on your good-nature, will you afford me a night's lodging in your pretty birdcage?

Agatha.

Willingly, signior, if its poor accommodations may content you.

Romanzo.

Poor!—while this vine forms the gable of your tenement, and hangs at your window, you have meat, drink, and shelter together. Thanks, gentle hostess!

Agatha.

Pray walk in.

[Exeunt into the cottage.

Scene II.

Morgana descends amid sweet and solemn music.
Morgana.
No more, my Spirits!—I have come from whence
Peace, with white sceptre wafting to and fro,
Smoothes the wide bosom of the Elysian world.
Would't were as calm on Earth! But there are some
Who mar the sweet intent. Ev'n in these bounds,
Ararach, wizard vile! who sold himself
To Eblis, for a brief sway o'er the fiends,
Would set up his dark canopy, and make
Our half o' the vale, by force or fraud, his own.
We must take care he do not.—Where's that ouphe?
That feather-footed, light-heel'd, little Mercury?
That fairy-messenger? whom we saw now
Horsed on a dragon-fly wing round the fields?
Come out, sir!—Where is Nephon?

Nephon.

Here am I! here am I!

Softer than a lover's sigh,
Swifter than the moonbeam, I
Dance before thee duteously.

Morgana.
Light gentleman, say whither hast thou been?

Nephon.
Over the dales, and mossy meadows green.

Morgana.
Doing the deed I told thee?

Nephon.
Else would I fear thou 'st scold me!

Morgana.
Led'st thou the Rover downward to the glen?

Nephon.
Down, down to the glen,
Through forest and fen;
O'er rock, and o'er rill,
I flatter'd him still;
With chirp, and with song,
To lure him along;
Like a bird hopping onward from bramble to briar,
I led the young Wanderer nigher and nigher!

Morgana.
None of your idle songs!—speak to me plain.

Nephon.
I laid a knotted riband in his path,
Which he took up; kiss'd—'t was so fine!—and put it
Into his breast: Ting! ting! said I, from out
A bush half down the dale: he gazed. Ting! ting!
Said I again. On came he, wondering wide,
And stumbling oft, ha! ha!—but ne'er the less,
He followed sweet ting! ting! down the hill-side,
E'en to the bottom: where I mock'd, and left him.

Morgana.
I'll bring thee a sweet cup of dew for this,
Cold from the moon.

Nephon.
Meantime I'll drain a flower
Fill'd with bright tears from young Aurora's eye.

Morgana.
Skip not away, sir!—List what thou must do.
False Ararach doth love the gentle maid
Who shepherds in this vale: nay, he would have her
Sit on his iron throne, and rule with him.
She has oft wept, and call'd Heaven pitiless,
So that I've laugh'd to see her needless pain.
She is my favourite, and I will protect her:
I've search'd the wilderness of Earth all o'er
To find her a fit bridegroom: this is he
Whom thou hast guided hither.

Nephon.
A trim youth!

Morgana.
Be it thy business to search out the wiles,
Prevent the malice, curb the violence,
With which the spiteful monarch will assail him.
Ev'n now he scents some new-come virtue here,
And plots its quick destruction. Swift, away!
Thou 'lt see me nich'd within a hovering cloud,
Pointing thee what to do. When thou would'st know
How to direct thyself, look up to Heaven,
And light will fall upon thee. Swift, away!

Nephon.
Away! away! away!
Away will I skip it!
Away will I trip it!
Flowers, take care of your heads as I go!
Who has a bright bonnet
I'll surely step on it,
And leave a light print of my minikin toe!
Away! away! away!

[Vanishes.
Morgana.
I've seen a man made out of elder pith
More steady than that puppet!—Yet he's careful,
Even where he seems most toyish.—Virgin spirit!
Come hither, fair Floretta!

Floretta.
As the murmuring bird-bee comes,
Circling with his joyous hums
Red-lipt rose, or lily sweet,—
Thus play I about thy feet!

Morgana.
Thou art the Queen of Flowers, and lov'st to tend
Thy beauteous subjects. Thou dost spread thy wing
Between the driving rain-drop and the rose,
Shelt'ring it at thy cost. I've seen thee stand
Drowning amid the fields to save a daisy,
And with warm kisses keep its sweet life in.
The shrinking violet thou dost cheer; and raise
The cowslip's drooping head: and once did'st cherish
In thy fond breast a snowdrop, dead with cold,
Ev'n till thy cheek grew paler than its own.

Floretta.
Ay, but it never smiled again! Ah me!

Morgana.
Go now, since beauty is so much thy care,

Floretta.
Ere thou say Be gone! I'm gone:
'Tis more slowly said than done!

[Vanishes.
Morgana.
Osmé, thou fragrant spirit! where art thou?

Osme.
Rocking upon a restless marigold,
And in its saffron, leafy feathers roll'd;
But with a bound I'm with you here—behold!

Morgana.
Hast thou been sipping what the wild bee hides
Deep in his waxen cave,—thou smell'st so sweet?

Osme. No:
I would never rob the minstrel-thing
That lulls me oft to sleep with murmuring,
And as I slumber, fans me with his wing.

Morgana.
My gentle elve!—Come thou, come thou with me:
I've an apt business for thy strength. Sit here,
On my light car, and be the charioteer;
Guide thou my trembling birds of Paradise,
That prune themselves from this dull earth to rise,
And cry with painful joy to float amid the skies.—
Ascend ye other Spirits all with me!

CHORUS.

Scene III.

Romanzo.

It is true! it is true!—This scene is too bright for an illusion!—Joy! extasy! I tread the earth! I hear the song of birds, and the fall of waters!—No! my senses could not so far deceive me!—O how I feared, on waking, to find all that had passed, a dream!—Sun, I thank thee, for dispelling with thy glorious light the mists of doubt and apprehension!—Nay, here is living testimony! —Good morrow, hostess!—Why, Fortune herself does not turn the wheel faster!

Agatha.

I wish she were obliged to turn it as steadily.

Romanzo.

Would that she had your beechen wheel, and you her golden one, even for a single round!

Agatha.

She would be a fool to make the exchange; and I, perhaps, no better.—May she be as kind to you, signior, as you wish her!

Romanzo.

Thanks, my good dame!—What! are

your birds always so merry at matins? or is it me whom they welcome so joyfully?

Agatha.

You and the sun, I suppose, signior.

Romanzo.

Ah! I doubt whether the god has not the greater share of the compliment.—But, hostess! kind hostess, what angel-voice was that I heard this morning? It thrilled my very heartstrings with pleasure!

Agatha.

Are you quite sure it was an angel you heard, signior?

Romanzo.

Truly, I would think it!

Agatha.

Else, I should have said it was no more divine a being than my daughter.

Romanzo.

O for the love you bear her, say not so!—If she be such a cherub, Earth cannot pretend to keep her!—Yet, by our Lady, we have need of a saint or two here, for there is no lack of sinners.

Agatha.

O, sir, you must not talk so wildly. My daughter rises when the lark is but shaking the dew off his breast; she is almost as light to mount the hills as he the heavens; and it is nearly as hard to get the one as the other to speak without singing.

Romanzo.

Whither has she gone?

Agatha.

Do you see that little bird I spoke of. hitching himself, as it were, up the sky?

Romanzo.

Yes, as if he were scaling an invisible ladder. What of him?

Agatha.

You might as well climb the stepless air and catch that voice, that singing speck in the clouds—for he is now no more,—as overtake my Sylvia. But they will both, wild-ones as they are, sink at once into their nests when their duty calls them.

Romanzo.

Well, I must be patient.—From your speech, good lady, I surmise—pardon me—that you have not always lived in this secluded valley.

Agatha.

Not always, sir, as you say. My fortunes were once higher, though my wishes never. Had my husband been but left to me, I had not regretted the loss of worldly treasures. He, however, died, in the field of glory, as they call it,—and that was also the death of my happiness. In the fatal plain of Aost—

Romanzo.

Ha! it is something to have fallen with Bayard!

Agatha.

Little to the widow:—Hark!—

[Song without]
O sweet to rove
The wilds we love,
Soft glade, smooth valley, and mountain steep—

Agatha.

She comes! my bird—

Romanzo.

The voice! the lovely voice!—Show thyself, chantress! lest I go mad with expectation!

Agatha.

Pray, signior, retire into the arbour:

hide yourself in the foliage. Silent is the nightingale when the stranger's eye is upon her.—Ah! roamer!

[Sylvia appears on the bridge.]
Agatha.

Come hither, truant! and let age play the child in thy bosom.—Where hast thou been, wanderer! tell me?

Sylvia.
O sweet to rove
The wilds we love,
Soft glade, smooth valley, and mountain steep;
Ere birds begin
Their morning din,
Bright sun abed, and bright flowers asleep.

Agatha.

Come to my arms!

Romanzo.
(Within the arbour.)

Is it a sylph or wood-nymph that glitters before me?

Sylvia.
(Approaching.)

Agatha.

No longer! no longer!—

Sylvia.
O sweet! O sweet!
And sweeter yet,
My crown of roses, my pearls of dew,
To come! to come!
Once more to home,
With flow'rs, and kisses as sweet, for you!

Romanzo.
(Bursting from the arbour.)

Angels are brighter than I dreamt them!

Sylvia.
Ha!—Morgana defend me!

Agatha.

Fear not, my daughter. Thou knowest there is no evil spirit can enter this half of the glen. Look not so strange at him.

Sylvia.

Evil!—O, if that creature be evil, I

cannot be good!—It is not one of Morgana's courtiers, is it? They take all shapes that are delightful.

Agatha.

This is my daughter, sir; daughter, this is our guest. [Aside.]
Youth salutes youth as rose doth rose—they blush at each other, and sigh. —I must be prudent here; these new acquaintances will be near ones, though they keep the matter so silent.

Sylvia.

Some bee hath got into my bosom: out, stranger!

Romanzo.
Lady?

Agatha.

I will bestir me now: you shall taste our fruits and cream. [Lays a table.]
Grapes here— bread there—honey—Both! both through the heart! —Two birds upon one bough with the same arrow! —Cupid is a rare sportsman!—So; ay—A leaf to garnish these strawberries—Love at first sight is an old adage, but I never thought till now it was a true one.—I must know more of this stranger.

Romanzo.
O fairest!

Sylvia.
O rarest!

Both.
Creature of no mortal birth!

Romanzo.
If thou 'rt woman,

Sylvia.
If thou'rt human,

Both.
Heaven is sure outdone on earth!

Romanzo.
Pearly brow, and golden hair,
Lips that seem to scent the air,
Eyes as bright, and sweet, and blue,
As violets fill'd with orbs of dew.
O fairest!

Sylvia.
O rarest! &c.

Sylvia.
Godlike form, and gracious mien,
As he once a king had been!
Glory's star is on his brow,
He is King of Shepherds now!
O rarest!

Romanzo.
O fairest! &c.

Agatha.

Come! come!—you are playing the birds' parts, and they will play yours at this fruittable, if you thus leave it them.—Come!

[They sit down to table.
Scene closes.

Scene IV.

Ararach.
Silence, curst demons!—Listen to me, or
I'll strike ye dumb as logs!—Breathe no more flames
In one another's faces, but pen up
Each one his fiery utterance while I speak!—
Silence, I say!—and cower before me, slaves!—
I must and will have all this Valley mine!

Demons.
You must and shall!

Ararach.
Silence, and down!—Hear me!—
We've sworn indeed—but what are oaths to us?
Oaths are to bind, where there's some touch of honour,
Though not enough. It were a crime against
The majesty of Sin, for us to keep
An oath; and honour is dishonourable
Amongst the fiends, whose glory is in shame.
We'll break the truce, I say!

Demons.
We will! we'll break it!

Ararach.
Silence!—'Tis true, I and that witch Morgana
Have battled long about this place: we halved it
At our last contest, when her ivory spear
Wounded my basilisk, and made him bite me
Here in the wrist, or I had crush'd the minion.

Demons.
Vengeance!—war!—war!

Ararach.
Down with that trump!—not so!—
We must be cunning, for yon queen is wise.
I'll first secure the mountain-girl I love;
Sylvia, the shepherdess: who else may fly,
Scared by the din of arms: perhaps be scorch'd
Or kill'd amid the fray.—Spirits and Horrors!

All.
Ay! ay! ay!

Ararach.
Which of you loves a mischievous adyenture?

All.
I, my lord!—I!—I!—I!

Ararach.
That will hurt men,
Please me, and gain great praise?—Who speaks?

All.
All! all!

Ararach.
But there's some danger in it: you must face
Morgana and her imps. What! does that fright ye?
Cowards!—Will none leap forward?

Grumiel comes forward.
Ha! brave Grumiel!
Momiel.
(Coming forward.)
Master, I'll do the mischief; let me, pray thee!
Were it to kill a baby in its play,
Ravin a leaguer'd city's corn, or drain
The traveller's only well i' the sanded wilds,
That his dry heart shall crumble; yea, the beauty
Laid warmly in her bridegroom's treasuring arms,
Shall turn a corpse-cheek to his morning kisses
If thou wilt have it so.—Let me, I pray thee!

Ararach.
Good! good!—Go both of ye!—Thou, my bold slave!
And thou, my sly one!—aid him with thy strength,
And he will prompt thy dulness.

Grumiel.
Hang him, poltroon!
Must I divide my glory with a knave
Who winks at a drawn blade?—a foul-mouth'd cur,
That bites the heel and runs!

Momiel.
Master, yon fool
Hath no more brains than a cauliflower: pray
Let him not go with me!—An alehouse board
Sets him to spell: he cannot count his fingers
Without a table-book.

Grumiel.
Curse ye, vile babbler!—hound!—
Mouse-hearted wretch!—

Momiel.
How wittily he calls names,
Like an ostler's paraquito!

Ararach.
Ye will prate,
Both of ye in my presence, will ye?—Take thou that—
And thou another? [Strikes them.]
Ay, stand there and writhe,
But whine not, ev'n for pain. Ye'll say, forsooth,
What ye would have!—Listen to my commands,
And do them to the tittle, ye were best!—
Go forth, but stealthily: we'll try at first
What may be done by craft. I'd rather gain
One treacherous point, than win a battle-field.
Go forth, I say; and use all smooth deceit
To wile the Maid into our bounds: or, if
She is too coy, and fearful, being warn'd
Of our intents by some sly ouphe, then hear
What ye shall do. A youth has lately wander'd
Into this bourne, whom by my art I know
The witch hath for this Nymph selected spouse.
Him shall ye seize; for he is all unversed
In these wild paths, and is a hotbrain, too,
That loves a deed of peril for its name.
If we could grip him, the elf-queen would scarce
Make up the loss; at least her present aim
Would be thus baffled, and our road left clear.
Ye know your business: off! and do it wisely!
Grumiel, be thou the master; and thou, sirrah!
Counsel him to thy best.

Momiel.
[Aside.]
Oh ay, I'll lead him!—
I'll be his Jack with the Lantern!

Grumiel.
Follow me,
Thou muttering slave!

Ararach.
If you do take the youth,
Brain him not: do you hear me?—We will keep him
Alive in torture here: perchance the Nymph
(Whom they will give love-potions) may be tempted
Thus to approach our realm, and lose herself
Ere she find him. That were a triumph worth
Laying ten plots for. Vanish!

Demons.
Way for the king!

[They vanish separately.

ACT II.

Scene I.

Andrea.

O my unfortunate master! O my kind—O!—

Stephania.

Another bowl of cream!

Andrea.

Thank, gentle signorina!—if it were deep enough to drown me, miserable that I am! it would be only the more deeply welcome!—O sweet and excellent [drinks]
master!

Roselle.

Look what a tempting bunch of grapes! do pluck one.

Andrea.

Are they good for a hoarseness?

Roselle.

Better than a box of lozenges, I warrant them.

Andrea.

Say you so?—Then I will consent to devour a sprig or two, for I am hoarse with lamentation and bawling.—O comely youth! O taper young gentleman! O kind, noble, chaste, sweet-spoken, vagabond master!—shall I ever behold—

Stephania.

Such a cheese as the moon was never made of! I pressed it with my own two hands. 'Tis the purest fine goat's-milk cheese—pray, signior, have a slice of it.

Andrea.

It will strengthen me for whooping and calling; else, I would not touch it for diamonds! It will make me ma-a like a he-goat on a rock-top when he misses the beard of his charmer.

Roselle.

Indeed now, you must try our apricots and walnuts. Here is another loaf hot from the oven.

Stephania.

Do not spare the pasty; its fellow is in the larder. Help yourself to another cup of wine: the flagon is beside you.

Andrea.

Alas!—I cannot.

Stephania.

Pray be entreated.

Andrea.

I am inexorable!—No! I will abstain —mortify—I will make a desperate vow—Hear me, thou adorable flagon! If ever I drink a single cup of thy contents, while my dear master—

Roselle.

Nay, it is too late; you have had some half-dozen already.

Andrea.

The very reason I can take no more!

Stephania.

Wherefore, dear signior?

Andrea.

Simply because there is no more to take: the wine has evacuated its tenement; the flagon is empty.

Stephania.

Run, dear sister! Go: fetch out our mother's flasket of cordial. You can guess where it lies. It is better than a hogshead of ordinary wine.—Here it is.

Roselle.
(Filling out a goblet.)

Now, bachelor!

Andrea.
(Taking the goblet.)

Do you see this vessel? Do you mark its capacity and dimensions? Well:—I have rained the full of this from either flood-gate, threescore of times at a modest computation, since I lost my unfortunate master yesterday morning. Can you wonder if my lachrymatories be in want of a replenishment?

(Drinks.)

Stephania.

Alas! true-hearted youth!

Roselle.

Forlorn creature!

Andrea.

I have drunk nothing but salt water from the brine-pits of mine eyes, since my master mislaid himself among these villanous mountains. And that, you know, were sufficient to make me as dry as a turnspit in the dog-days; or the cook of a ship's company on pickled allowance, in the latitude of the line, at noontide, when the sun looks like a

red-hot shot in a furnace, and the air would stew salamanders.

Stephania and Roselle.

True! true!

Andrea.

I have spouted as much water through my head as the lion on an aqueduct, or a whale in a fit of sneezing. Verily, I never wept so much for any two of my grandmothers, though the last left me heir to all she had in the world, videlicet: her blessing. Have you no sad verses to suit the occasion? no miserable rhymes? no ballad about love and murder, or elegy on the death of a favourite lap-dog? Pray consult your albums.

[Sings]
O Sorrow was ever a thirsty soul,
As Margery did discover;
For every tear she drank a bowl,
That her eyes might still run over! [Drinks.]

The melancholics always give me the poetics: therefore, O sweet hostesses! pity my hapless situation.

Stephania.

In what respect beside being a melancholy poet?

Andrea.

O, I have lost the most amiable, provoking, excellent, incorrigible whistlecap of a master, that ever poor fellow had since the days of

knight-errantry. The guide of my youth! the protector of my innocence! the defender of my virtue! —Here do I find myself, like a distressed damosel, or the Wandering Jew, in the midst of this frightful wilderness, without knowing either how I came into it, or how I am to get out of it: looking as strange and bepuzzled as a flying-fish caught in the shrouds, or a wild-man-of-the-woods in a show-box. I have not even a word to put forth in excuse if a shepherd's cur chose to ask me my business. Wherefore and therefore:—O unfortunate Andrea! O luckless Pimpinella! O miserable Ribobolo! O unfortunate, luckless, and miserable—Andrea della Pimpinella di Ribobolo!

Roselle.

What shall we do with him? he is again in a fit of the boetics.

Stephania.

Prithee, friend Andrea della Pimpinella di Ribobolo, do not frighten the squirrels.

Andrea.

I must give vent to my passion; I must relieve my oppressed heart with an effusion of some sort or other.

(Drinks.)

Stephania.

Only that the cup has a bottom, you might think it was a spyglass.

Roselle.

He is going to balance it on his nose; stay a little.

Andrea.

Would this bottle were pewter that I might squeeze it!—Slidikins! where did that other

sun come from? No! 'tis the sun and moon shining together: excellent!—I find this wine begin to elevate me.

[Andrea in his chair is slowly raised from the ground.]

You need not draw away the table, though.—Why, hostesses!—where are you going?—Sinking! sinking!—Mercy upon me! do they live in a well?

Stephania and Roselle.

O strange!

Andrea.

Have I been singing with Mermaidens? —Down! down!—Still?—Hew! by Saint George and the Dragon, they are on a mining expedition!— Out upon ye, speculators!—Alas!—O!—Uds my life! is their father a pump-sinker?

Stephania.

Wonderful! wonderful!

Roselle.

Hush, sister! I have heard of these moon-calves. He is one, I am sure, by his roaring.

Stephania.

And his great mouth. Whither is he going?

Roselle.

Only to catch larks for his supper. Or maybe his dam bleats for him: did you not hear him cry out the moon! the moon! this moment?

Andrea.

Now could I weep pitcherfuls!

Stephania.

I thought he was a flighty sort of a gentleman. But lo! where he rises!—Take care of your hat, sir!

Roselle.

Hold on by a tree-top!

Andrea.

Hold on by a fiddlestick!—Catch you

some root, or tuft, or brushwood! Get astride of some bough, I tell ye!—O sinful pair! what have ye been doing that the fiend should carry you down in this manner?

Stephania and Roselle.

O friend Andrea, what can you have done that you should deserve to go to Heaven in such a hurry?

Andrea.

Take to your marrowbones;—kneel— pray—confess—out with all your iniquities!—Weep, children! roar! sing!—Have ye no pater, or ave, or credo?—What do the fools gape at?—Begin!— Beat your breasts! maul your petticoats! take down the pride of your tuckers!—O miserable women!—Tear your hands! wring your hair!—Will ye not?—Did you ever see such a couple of unconverted Magdalens?

Stephania and Roselle.

Alas! alas! he is growing as small as a tom-tit!

Andrea.

Son of my father! they look like two white mice at the door of a trap!—Farewell, hostesses!—good-bye!—O sad! O marvellous!— they are not the size of their noses!—Phew! I begin to smell brimstone and pitchforks!

Stephania and Roselle.

Let us pray for his safety.

Andrea.

They are at it! they are at it!—Now is there some hope of their perdition from utter

salvation. Obstinate jades! they would not do so when I told them. Louder! louder!—I can scarcely catch a mumble. Who the vengeance, d'ye think, is to hear you at this height?—They are sighing in anguish and contrition. Poor souls!—deeper and deeper!—He has them now by the ankles: O kind Satan! send them a gentle swinging, if thou hast any compassion in thy sooty bosom!

Stephania.

Poor Andrea!

Roselle

Poor signior Di Gobble-o!

Scene II.

Sylvia.
I am too light of foot, I fear, for you.

Romanzo.
Are you of earth? I see the bended grass
Fillip you off its shoulders like the dew
At glistening up-suntide. You press the herb
As tenderly as mist. Sure you have coursed
With Naiads after pearls on the quick stream,
That you can fleet so deftly: or has Zephyr
Lent you his winged slippers?

Sylvia.
O no! no!
My sole companions until now have been
The wild bird and gazelle: haunting with them
Has made me near as buoyant. Pardon me!
Sooth I forgot myself with our sweet talk,
And when I should be courteous, and restrain
My wonted pace, the music that I hear
Makes me dance on ward like the thistle down
Timing its gait to the wind's eloquence,
But you are all to blame!

Romanzo.
Oh, I could follow you
To the world's bound! o'er unsupporting seas
And snows infirm as light! Methinks I could
Fleet across bottomless gulfs on the thick air,
And scale the cliffs that nought but sunbeams climb,
Borne up by aspiration towards your beauty.
I have oft dream'd
Of gliding by long leaps o'er the green ground
In breathless ecstasy: through plushy lanes
Tree-sided; and down sloping esplanades
Battening in sunlight; along valleys dim,
High-terraced rivers and wild meadow-lands,
Bending my easy way: by will alone,
And inward heaving, rais'd, I seem to flee,
With pleasant dread of touching the near grass
That brushes at my feet. But this fine dream
Is now as dull as life! Yon angel sun
Swims up the welkin not with half the joy,
The silent joy in smoothness, that I feel
Soaring up this hill-side so green with you.

Sylvia.
Why do I feel such pain to hear you speak?
Your gentle voice thrills in my happy bosom
Like waters trembling in their fountain-cell
At hearing the groved nightingale. Speak on.

Romanzo.
Dear Sylvia—

Sylvia.
I did never think my name
So beautiful before! Have other men
Voices as soft as yours?

Romanzo.
The mountain air
Sweetens its tone.

Sylvia.
O no! it was the same
Down in the vale, when you told in mine ear
Things that I understood not, though I wish'd.
Wilt say them o'er again?

Romanzo.
Not now; I dare not!
When you look back upon me with that brow
So golden; all with curled sunbeams hung;
Brightening above me into that sweet smile
Angelical,—I almost think you come
From Heaven to lead me thither. That light garb
Floating behind you seems to part in wings,
And your ethereal form glides up the steep
As smooth and noiseless as it rose indeed
Spontaneous to its own cherubic sphere.
I could even kneel to thee!

Sylvia.
Nay sit you down
Upon this mossy bank o'er-violeted,
And we will gaze upon the vales below:
And we will spend an hour of rapturous talk—
And gaze—and talk—and read each other's eyes,
Blissful as birds: or pluck wild flowers, and sing
To the hoarse-cadent waterfalls: or hymn
A lovely story out, and stop and listen
While the wind bears to echo the faint tale,
That wooes its sweet way back to us again.

Romanzo.
Oh I am wrapt in glory!—Seem we not
Like two young Spirits stole from Heaven to view
This green creation; who with looks of praise
Sit murmuring on the early mountain tops
In close ambrosial converse?—O look round!
Pleasure lies floating o'er the scenes beneath
Dissolved in the warm air; and gorgeous Noon
O'er the ripe fields her yellow veil doth spread
So thick, mine eyes scarce pierce it.

Sylvia.
Turn them here
And drink fresh wonder. Yon's my favourite haunt:
A winding elm-walk, by a silver stream
Ambling free-footed down the mountain's side,
Weetless of whither: till it falls at last,
With gentle wail that it must sleep so soon,
Over the rocky shelve into the lake,
The glassy-bosom'd lake, so deep and clear.

Romanzo.
Methinks the boughs that keep it dark and cool
Hang o'er the jetty marge in a fond dream:
Even their whispering speaks of sleepiness.

Sylvia.
Look at the feeding swan beneath the willows:
How pure her white neck gleams against their green
As she sits nesting on the waters!

Romanzo.
Beautiful!
She is the lady of the reed-girt Isles!
See! how she swells her navigable wings
And coasts her sedgy empire keenly round!
She looks a bird of snow dropt from the clouds
To queen it o'er the minnows!

Sylvia.
Doth she not?
Side-looking, slow, disdainful one!

Romanzo.
The bright,
The pearly creature!—Lone and calm she rides,
Like Dian on the wave when night is clear,
And the sleek west-wind smooths the billows down
Into forgetfulness, that she may see
How fast her silver gondola can boom
Sheer on the level deep.

Sylvia.
Behold yon rock
Down which a torrent shines afar: the noise
Is loud, yet we can't hear it.

Romanzo.
Partial Heavens!
O what a splendid deluge thou pour'st down
From out thy glorious flood-gate, on this vale!
Thickets, and knolls, slopes, lawns, and bosomy dells,
Scarce show their green for gold. Yet, it is strange!
There is a melancholy in sun-bright fields
Deeper to me than gloom; I am ne'er so sad
As when I sit amid bright scenes alone.

Sylvia.
Perchance your fortunes are not of that hue,
And then it seems to mock them.—Come, your eyes
Are full of meditation's tears. Come on!
I have a garland still to bind for you:
Come! to the myrtle grove.

Romanzo.
The myrtle grove!

Sylvia.
I'll teach you too how it behoves you walk
This valley. Come!

Romanzo.
Sweet! to the myrtle grove!

[Exeunt.

Scene III.

Enter Grumiel and Momiel.
Momiel.
Proceed, master!—proceed, thou infallible vade-mecum!

Grumiel.
Goad me not, fleering pest! with thy long nails,
Else I will tear the skin from off thy back,
In straps; or gouge thine eyes out.

Momiel.
But, my lord,
We shall not catch our prey else.

Grumiel.
Fogs on him!
And him that sent us! and thee too, thou zany!
Come on, and thou shalt see there is no means
To pass without our limbo.

Momiel.
So! his rush
Is out, I think!

Grumiel.
Feel here; a sightless plane
Of glass stands like a crystal wall, as high
As bridgy Heav'n: 't is thinner than blown soap,
Yet strong as adamant to smoky natures
Like thine and mine: this is the jealous pale
And limit of our realm. We cannot pierce it
Without a spell, and that would rouse Morgana.
Come hither; strive to punch thy finger through,
Or break thy foot against it.

Momiel.
No, my lord,
I'll use a tougher mallet—give me leave—

Grumiel.
What wouldst thou do?

Momiel.
Why, take thee leg and arm,
And bounce thee 'gainst it like a battering-ram,
Till skull or wall should crack: better if both.

Grumiel.
Thou that canst grin so like a wolf, howl too!

[Strikes him.
Momiel.
I'll get thee plagued for this: I'll be revenged!

Grumiel.
We must slouch home.

Momiel.
Ay, and be scorch'd to fritters!
That is your wisdom!—No; hear my device:
Let us creep serpent-wise along the ground,
Close by the wall, and trap the younker ranging.

Grumiel.
Poh! thou'rt a counsellor indeed? How trap him?
How should we lure him o'er? first tell me that.

Momiel.
I have a stratagem. The heat is fierce,
And he will rage with thirst. Do thou stand here,
With a deep bowl of Lethe in thy fist,
A little from the wall: thou hast a face,
A good bronze face, and Ethiop lims to boot,
So may'st assume the statue. If he thrust
A nostril through the wall, the deadly fume
Will cloud his brain, and through all lets he'll come,
Like a blind horse, to drink. Stand till he tries
To bathe his lip in the fresh cup thou hold'st,
And then we'll seize upon him.

Grumiel.
Good!—I see it.
Vanish thou when he comes. I will stand fast
As the unquarried rock; and so present him
This maple bowl, crown'd with such juicy weeds
And dropping such pure blobs, that he will drink
Though angels bid him hold.

Momiel.
Lie close! lie close!

[Exeunt.
Enter Nephon behind.
Nephon.
Ho! ho! I thought that I should catch ye;
Snakes i' the grass, I'll over-match ye.
There comes an instrument that shall
Work our advantage, and your bale.—
Hist! hist! Floretta!

Enter Floretta.
Floretta.
Ay!—like you
I have been eaves-dropping too.
Now I must like wind away
To my virgin care,
And entice her if I may
From this demon snare.
Eve shall hang the clouds with scarlet
Ere I rest me!

[Vanishes.
Nephon.
Here's the varlet!—
In the skylark's simple bed,
Nephon, hide thy artful head.

Enter Andrea.
Andrea.

I have heard of Pacolet and his horse, that could fly from Constantinople to Rome by the turning of a peg in his neck, and without the turning of a hair on his body: for indeed he had none; being made, I think, of good dry oak, if it were not rather Spanish mahogany. But, for the most part, I have always set down such matters as nothing better than moral tales; with no more truth in them than is to be found at the bottom of a well; and of use only to give youth a relish for history and learning. Now do I see the vanity of this age in pretending to cry down such things. What! have not I been soaring? have not I been taking down a few cobwebs from the “hazy canopy,” as we say in rhyme? have I not cut “the starry firmament” hither, on a four-legged stool? How many minutes is it since I was cheek by cheek with a couple of frolicksome damsels, or rather a still more kiss-provoking double-tankard?—and now—O sorrowful change!—I am only beside myself, in this hideously beautiful valley! O Master! Master! would I might see the fringe of thy skirt, or pick up one of thy stray belts!—it would do to hang myself, if I had no other consolation!

[An embroidered suit falls in different places about him.

So-ho there!—Does it snow by the yard here? and in summer too?—Cloaks! doublets! indescribables!— What! are the clouds woollen-manufactories! Is Heaven any place for a tailor? could he soar thither on his goose?—O fine!—If the fig-trees in this place grow leaves equal to these, I have found out the site of Adam's paradise. They shall not long be in want of a wearer. 'Slife! they fit me like a new skin. Now if I should meet Signior Romanzo! No matter; I would not bend a hair from my altitude: I shall be as good a gentleman as he in my fourth generation. O grand!—Now could I lead a troop of horse!—O magnificent Andrea!—Wert thou ever a plebeian?—But, alas! of what use is all this splendour when there is no one but myself to admire it?

Nephon.

Signior Andrea!

Andrea.

Ahoy!—who squeaks?

Nephon.

Signior Andrea della Pimpinella!

Andrea.

Santa Maria! am I pinching the tail of a grass-mouse?—Where did it get my name, though?

Nephon.

Signior Andrea della Pimpinella di Ribobolo!

Andrea.

Andrea della Pimpinella di Ribobolo! —he has learnt it all as pat as my godfather!—only that he sings it a little through his nose. Where

is this mighty small-spoken gentleman?—Hilloa, Signior Nobody!—at what point of the compass must I look, to be mannerly?

Nephon.

Consult your shoebuckles.

Andrea.

O pupil of mine eyes! what do I behold?—Art thou Gorgoglio, the son of the giant Gorbellione? or only a simple Patagonian from the South Pole? What heathen ogress gave such an enormity birth? Did Nature cut thee out of a mountain?—What art thou?

Nephon.

Look at my mustaches!

Andrea.

Ay, I might have known thee for an hussar by the ferocity of thy voice, and the stoutness of thy figure: thou art all over tags and bobs too, like an itinerant haberdasher. What is thy name?—Grimbalduno, or Hurlothrumbo?

Nephon.

I shall not be loth to declare it upon any gentlemanly occasion.

Andrea.

Lud-a-mercy! I did not mean to send your reverence a challenge! The very wind of your weapon would make flitches of me: slice me from nape to hip, like two moieties of a pig hung up i' the shambles. No! no! I have more wit than to have my skull laid open like a boiled rabbit's, or to die the divisible death of a walnut!

Nephon.

Will you walk then,—I mean saunter?

Andrea.

So as your reverence has no

blood-thirsty intention: I am no dare-devil to encounter such a Goliath. But take care lest my foot happen to light on your reverence; it might squeeze your reverence into the capacity of a dollar: and by 'r lady! I cannot undertake to distinguish your reverence while dame Earth keeps her beard unshorn. If I should step into a two-inch tuft, it is odds but I commit manslaughter. Could not your reverence manage to take my heel by the elbow? we might then trot on brotherly together.

Nephon.

Take care of thyself, Master Andrea: there are man-traps hereabout. Leave me to my own discretion.

Andrea.

Agreed, your reverence: only remember that if I shall chance, in raising my foot, to kick your worship to Grand Cairo, I shall not be bound to measure swords with your reverence for the insult.

Nephon.

Agreed! agreed!

[Exeunt.

Scene changes to another part of the woodland.
Enter Romanzo and Sylvia.
Sylvia.
No farther, dear companion!—where yon stream
Tinkles amid the bushes down the vale,
The ground becomes unholy.

Romanzo.
O sweet Sylvia!
I long to be thy champion, thy true knight!—
Thy conquering smile upon me, with this sword
I'll undertake to blaze destruction
Through every demon cave—

Sylvia.
Not for the world!
Thou must not be so venturous!

Romanzo.
I would do
Some deed of high devotion, as of old
Renowned Youths did for their lady-loves.
Prithee, assent!—With Heaven's good aid and thine,
Yon half o' the vale, now sable-green, and drear,
Shall bloom beneath thy fearless step like this;
And thou shalt range it, as the palmy hind
Her forest-walks, unscared.

Sylvia.
Do it, and make me
Fall from my happy state!—Wilt have me weep?

Romanzo.
Nay, kill me with a frown—if thou canst frown.
Ah! strive not!—on thy candid brow a star
Shines cloudlessly, and oh, more constant bright
Than ev'n the marble tutoress of a cave
Holds 'tween her heavy eyelids, when the moon
Has stol'n upon her beauty. 'Tis in vain!
Thy lips are grave—no more! Come, thou must smile!

Sylvia.
Then do not pain my heart, by talking thus
Of wild attempts: I'm satisfied with thee,
And do not wish thee greater; nor a space
More wide for our sweet rambles.—Let me show thee
Carefully all the fatal founds, that when
Thou walk'st, perchance, alone, thou may'st avoid them.—
Then will we to the bower.

Enter Floretta.
Romanzo.
What is here?
Sylvia!—see! see!

Sylvia.
Peace! 'tis a fairy!
One of the petty angels of this realm;
We must be courteous to the gentle thing,
Or 'twill not hum its song. Listen! O listen!

Romanzo.
O Heavens! I almost weep and laugh at once
To hear its silver words; and see it tipping
Every fair-crested daughter of the field
With puny hand.—What! doth it steal their leaves?

Sylvia.
Sweet friend, keep silence!

Floretta.

[Exit, followed by Romanzo and Sylvia.
Enter Grumiel and Momiel.
Grumiel.

Pugh! I smell villanous mortality! —Our prey is near.

Momiel.

Is this he striding towards us in seven-league shoes, with a whole peacock's tail in his bonnet?

Grumiel.

Ay; doth he not strut most

wrathfully, like a lobster-nosed alderman, or a new-made lord o' the bed-chamber? A 's a gallant fellow! It must be he!

Momiel.

Doubtless it must: he comes of a coach-keeping family, at least; for the smirk of my lady's footman shines out in his visage: I warrant you now, simple as he walks there, he can trace his pedigree to Adam!

Grumiel.

Ay, and to popes and emperors; he is scarlet even to the tip of his nostril. Tell me that I have not the eyes of discovery again, sirrah!

Momiel.

Faith, yes, to detect the pulp of a melon under the coat of a pumpkin. Are the seven wise souls of Greece clubbed in thy politic person?— [Aside]
There is nothing of the Narcissus about this swaggerer; a bulrush bred out o' the mire: he hath not the look of a flower-gentle. Some ass in the hide of a zebra: some highwayman, that hath changed cloaks with a cardinal. But 'twill do! this sot of a spaniel here will get lugged for his mistake; setting a scare-crow instead of a woodcock. I'll humour it!

Grumiel.

Slink off, thou gibbering ape!—I'll stiffen into metal, with the cup.

Momiel.

Ay, thou 'lt brazen it out, never fear thee, like a saint upon a vintner's sign-post.—Here he comes, walking as wide and crop-swoln as a

magpie in red spatterdashes.—How naturally that brother of mine looks through glass eyes at nothing!

Enter Andrea; Nephon behind.
Andrea.

Paugh! the sun, I think, is very indecorously hot; nothing above lukewarm is fashionable: therefore Apollo is less of a gentleman than this brother Phebe, as we lassically dessecrate the night's bright lunatic. 'Slidikins! I melt like a waxen image in the bodice of a fat landlady.—Oh for another pull at “our mother's flasket of cordial!”— What hoa! signior Grasshopper!—Could'st thou pilot me to some well or stream? I'll set thee on the back of a minnow for it, if thou lik'st such a cockhorse.—The homunculus had almost slipped out of my remembrance during the last minute. 'Slife! 'tis vanished out of my sight also!—O lamentable! Ox that I am, I have trodden his little frogship into a mummy! his blood is upon my toe!—This comes of walking with greatness; this comes of conversing with those that are above thee; thou wilt be crushed as a grain of wheat by a millstone! —Phial of Saint Januarius! what have we here? A noddling mandarin-cup-bearer! a Hottentot Granny-maid!—if it be not rather a newly-cast chandelier walked abroad from the foundery! Is it the bottom of a brewer's vat, he stretches forth so

courteously?—O now I have it! 'tis a charity-cup for the wayfarer, posted here by some benevolent monks in the neighbourhood. I'll be bound for it though, the hospitable gentlemen have not squeezed the best o'their vintage into it. Nothing, as I live! more precious than water, and that none of the most fragrant. Waugh! I hope the spring was not poisoned; nevertheless my tongue is drier than a camel's hoof, and I must soak it a little, if 'twere only to prevent it growing cloven. So, Monsieur Dumb-waiter, by your leave—

Grumiel.
[Seizing him]

Dog! I have thee!

Momiel.

Collar him! collar him! with thy brassy talons!

Andrea.

I am betrayed, like an innocent!—Oh thou treacherous mite! Oh thou iniquitous atom! Oh thou vile thumb of a man! would that I never—

Momiel.

Chuck him under the chin for his brave speech-speaking: grip him fast by his thumpcushion arm, lest he overdo the action.

Grumiel.

Drag him along, the field-preacher!

Momiel.

Ay, to court with him! he shall preach before his majesty.

Andrea.

Beseech ye, noble Abyssinians—

Grumiel.

Shall I cork thee with this mallet?

Momiel.

Nay, if he will not, let us put a ring in his nose, and haul him along like a bull for the

baiting. Nudge him on the other side, with the crank of thy elbow, and see how merrily he 'll amble.

Andrea.

Oh miserable son of a weaver! Oh unfortunate poet! Oh intolerably unlucky, and never-enough-to-be-pitied-for-thy-innumerable-and-inex- pressible-woes-and-unheard-of-misventures, Andrea della Pimpinella di Ribobolo!

Momiel.

Ay, ay, that is your alias; and like every other knave that would conceal himself, you have as many titles as a Spanish grandee: but it sha'n't serve at this turning: no, no, Signior Alias!

Grumiel.

Whirl him along, thou accursed stone-chatter! thou soul of a spinster!

Andrea.

I am getting addled as a nest-egg. Am I an animal or a Mameluke?

[Exeunt the fiends, dragging Andrea.

Scene IV.

Enter Fiends.
Ararach.
No word?—no sign?—no messenger?

Fiends.
None, lord!

Ararach.
O ye shall freeze, ye slugs! in lakes of ice,
For this!—ye shall! What! none?—For ages, ay,
Till roaring conflagration seize the world,
Ye shall stand oozing blood from either eye,
With bitter pain!—

Fiends.
Hark! the resounding floors!
Thunders the echoing porch, and clang the barry doors!

Enter Grumiel and Momiel, with Andrea prisoner.
Ararach.
What's he? You staring fool! Speak, ye torpedos!
Where have ye slept your time?

Grumiel.
Master, we bring
Thy victim-rival, the spruce lord—

Ararach.
That charlatan?—
Ho!—bear these dormice instant to the torture!
Let them be lash'd to strips inch-broad! let both
Trudge blistering o'er a fiery-sanded plain,
While ye on wing do scourge them!

Grumiel.
Howl! howl! howl!

Momiel.
Ha! ha!—I care not what I suffer, while
I see him get the lashes!—Ha! ha! ha!—
Thou 'lt find a springy Oasis in the desert,
Eh, thou discoverer? or a North Pole
To cool thy feet?

Grumiel.
I'll grind thy head for this,
If ever we get free!

[Exeunt Grumiel and Momiel with the torturers.
Ararach.
Who art thou, idiot?

Andrea.

I know no more of my parents, your worship, than a foundling tied to a knocker. When I was alive, if I can collect my scattered faculties, I might, please your worship, have been (without pride be it spoken!) the only hope of a tailor: but indeed I have not the boldness to maintain it; for within these few minutes, I have, with pure fear and exaggeration, forgotten all my geography.—O will these teeth wear themselves round, like a parcel of jackstones?—Shall I ever crack a filberd again?— Chatter! chatter! chatter!

Ararach.
What have they brought me here?—A half-brain'd loon!
A mimmering driveller!—Shove him without!
He's not worth torments. Stay: thou shalt not go
Without our mark upon thee.—Hence, stupidity!
[Striking him with his wand.
Trot on a cloven-heel away, and satyr-like
As Nature should have made thee!—Stretch his ears
Into a Panic size!—Go! scare the wilds,
Thou bungle of a man!—Hoot him away!

Andrea.

I do most verdantly beseech our Lady, to grant your worship long life and propriety!

[Exit running.
Ararach.
I'll send these tortured slaves trooping again
Upon mine errand: 'twas that yellow fiend
Perplex'd his brother. But I'll promise him
Pains that will make his spirit sob to hear them,
If he do so again. I have no choice;
They are my best of servants. Call those fiends!

The scene closes.

ACT III.

Scene I.

Sylvia.
[Singing as she binds]
This lily! I must put her next the rose;
They always go together.

Romanzo.
[Aside]
Even in rhyme!

Sylvia.
How “left?”—did her lover die?—It is a song
I've heard my mother sing.—O me! how soon
This tall Sweet-William faded!—Ay! 'tis the way!
Come! it is done. I never weft before
So beautiful a chaplet.

Romanzo.
It might wreathe
A brow most godlike!

Sylvia.
Ay, and shall do so!
Else I would strew the weeds under my feet,
And break mine heart with weeping!

Romanzo.
Would I were so, indeed!—Look! I have knelt
That I may feel thy soft hands in my hair,
Like winds in autumn leaves. Around thy form
I'll close my suppliant arms, and like a shrine,
Press it to smile on my devotedness!

Agatha.
(Behind)
'Tis as I feared! O these soft myrtle bowers!—

Sylvia.
Now, it is trim as may be. I would keep
Thee ever kneeling thus; and still would find
Some flower awry to settle: but yon cushat
'Gins her lone widow-note at evening hour;
That is my warning home!

Agatha.
Still! still my daughter!

Sylvia.
Amid the valleys far away,
A mother-bird sits on a tree,
And weeps unto her long-astray—
“O come my little bird to me!”
So “long-astray”
Must now away
Unto its parent tree!

Romanzo.
As light the day,
Or love the May,
Sweet!—I will follow thee!

Agatha.
They are both innocent: Love's taper burns
Brightest in purest bosoms.—Yet I'll task him;
It is a mother's right.—So! I have met ye!
What a wild pair of ramblers ye have been!—
The whole, whole morn away!

Romanzo.
Nay, we were going
Straight to the cottage; and the birds' way too,—
The shortest we could see.

Agatha.
Let go my neck,
[To Sylvia.
Thou fondler!—murmuring about my lips
With thy bee kisses. What should I care for thee,
A bird that leav'st thy summer-cage, whene'er
The wicket opens?

Sylvia.
Ay, but comes again
To feed upon its mistress' hand, and hide
Its softness in her bosom.

Agatha.
There's no chiding thee!—
Hie home; my limbs are weary. It is time
Our guest should taste refreshment: to prepare it
Has been my morning's work, while you were roaming.
Go: all is spread; but still, I think, it wants
Your garnishing: go, deck it with fresh flowers,
As you are wont when we sit all alone.

Sylvia.
Then do not ye stay long! I'll have it deckt
Ere ye could pluck the blossoms.

[Exit.
Agatha.
Sir, your crown
Becomes you bravely!

Romanzo.
O it has taken all
Its beauty from the wreather!—her sweet touch
Has lent it a new perfume, and a lustre
It never had before!—Now, she is gone,
I will be king no longer.

[Takes off his crown.
Agatha.
O, sir! sir!
If you, who are a stranger, can speak thus,
How should another, who has seen this flower
Bud, bloom, and hallow its wild parent-home
With smiles no garden knows!—Forgive me, Youth,
That I speak thus of her: forgive me, too,
This foolish, beating, mother's heart of mine,
That fain would question him who has reveal'd
So much, and yet no more.

Romanzo.
I have no secret!
None!—What you ask, I'll answer.—Or, perchance,
You'll hear my life's short story? I am a bachelor;
The lord of some few acres; whom the love
Of scenes by Nature's wandering pencil drawn,
Has led among these solitudes: with this,
My death, were I to die as I am speaking,
Were all, I ween, that friend or foe could grave
Justly upon my tomb.

Agatha.
'Tis frankly spoken:
And I should mourn to think that Youth had grown
So cunning in the world since I have left it,
To wear a brow so clear as yours, the while
One spot was on the heart.

Romanzo.
I do confess,
If you would have more witness of my truth
I scarce could give it: being come so far
From Padua, where I studied, and am known,
With but one servant. He, poor knave, I lost
In the deep gorges of these purple hills
But yesterday. If we may chance on him,
He will confirm the story you have heard,
And then you must believe.

Agatha.
I do already:
But still—We mothers!—O, we are such cowards!

Romanzo.
Put me to trial: I'll submit myself
To a whole year's probation: I will do
Any thing you can ask, if so I may
Win my sweet mistress.—

Agatha.
Well—well—well— Re-enter Sylvia in terror.

My child!
What ails my love? my daughter?

Sylvia.
Oh! I have seen
So wild and strange a creature!

Romanzo.
What! a wolf?

Sylvia.
No, some uncouth resemblance of a man,
But not like thee. As I approach'd the cottage,
From a green nook outstarted this rough thing,
And brush'd me swiftly by. I could not move,
Or cry, with sudden terror; but stood there
Fixt like a tree, how long I do not know,
Till sense return'd, and scarcely so much strength
As bore me hither.

Romanzo.
Let it be man or beast
I'll scourge it from this vale!

[Tears down a branch, and exit.
Sylvia.
O ye kind powers!
Save him, Morgana! save him!

[Exit after Romanzo.
Agatha.
Sylvia!—rash girl!—

[Exit after her.
The Scene changes to the front of the Cottage, where a table is laid with refreshments.
Enter Andrea.
Andrea.

Tin! sin! whee! ree!—Whether I have been sun-stricken or no, I cannot tell; but my head sings like a boiling kettle. I think—and yet I think I don't think. I remember—and still I forget what I remember. Now would I give a natural philosopher, Prato the Grig, or Julia Scissars of Rome, a very handsome douser if he would absolve me whether my feet stand under me, or I stand under my feet.—Stay: what was I at the time of the Deluge?—Oh! a mandrake, swimming about merrily, and was drowned like the Dutch-skipper with my hands in my breeches-pockets. After that I had the convoy of a whole fleet of sea-calves, with which we peopled the famous Island of Bulls. I

remember it as well as my breakfast to-morrow: we multified prodigiously there, and should have been lords of the creation, only that we had some cannibal qualities about us; great beef-eaters! fasthating fellows!—Hilloah! what's here to be seen? By the mass, here is as soft a carpet of clover as ever I cooled my heels on; good! Set that down, commentator! item: “an acre of green baize for a sky-coloured parlour.” Here, too, is a—Bless me! I totally forget the name for a house—good! no matter; call it a pigeon-box. Finally and firstly of all, I see trenchers to be quaffed, and bowls to be muncht: so will proceed no farther in the decalogue, but content myself with this humble shoulder of mutton.

[Sits down and helps himself to fruit.

Admirable!—tastes a little racy or so; it must have had the run of a fruitery. [Drinking off a bowl of milk.]
Nothing like your creaming Champagne, after all!—Comfort thyself, poor Gandrea! it is now exactly the best part of a fortnight since thou didst swallow a single granary of nutriment. Thou canst not always, man! live upon air, like a camelleopard.—Sir, you are welcome to Tartary!

Enter Romanzo. Sylvia and Agatha following.
Romanzo.
Who—what art thou that dar'st—By all that's strange,
This is my servant, Andrea!—but so alter'd
I scarce could know him. Sirrah! where have you been,
That you are thus transform'd?

Andrea.

Indeed I have been spending an hour or two with my old friend, clerk of the kitchen to Ancient Nicolas; so I hope am good company for any one of the cloth, under a Jesuit or Holy Inquisitor.

Sylvia.
It talks strange reason!

Agatha.
Servant!—O we are lost!
What may the master be, if such the man?
Pray Heaven he be no demon in disguise!

Romanzo.
Hast thou left off thy reverence with thy shape?
Why dost thou not rise up and bow to me?
Who am I, knave?

Andrea.

You?—The man from the moon, I think, by your crazy appearance. What a magnifico you are! Where's your fur-cloak and your poodle?—You, indeed!—Orson might have been your great-aunt by the mother's side, for all I know of the matter.—Do the people in this quarter dangle such canes at the wrist as that you are switching your boots with?—Oh! lack-a-day! lack-a-daisy! now I remember you!—Let me hear you grumble.

Romanzo.
Well! art thou still a stranger to this frown?

Andrea.

Verily I do entertain some oblivious recollection that I may have seen such a frizziognomy before: Or is it one from a dream of ugly faces?—Stop: Odso, now I have it! You are the bravo that robbed my unfortunate master, threw him into a milldam hard by, and made me hold my nostril over a cauldron of deadly nightshade, till I am grown as dizzy as a beetle. The same! I'll swear it before this Madonna herself!—And these are his very garments, of which, with sacratitious hands, you have stripped and deluded his body. O thief! burglarer! fortune-hunter! kidnapper!

Agatha.

What do I hear?

Sylvia.

There is no truth in him: Believe not that rude thing!

Andrea.

I'll take it on my life he is a capital fellow!—a murderer! a committer of fo-paws, and every other crime that deserves a halter!—He cannot deny it!

Romanzo.
Slave! liar! devil!
My rage unnerves me!

Andrea.

Will you abscond?—or must I have you laid by the heels for a common taxgatherer?

Romanzo.
Down to the dust, to which I'll crumble thee!

Andrea.

O, fool! fool! fool!—You have demolished at one blow a feast that might have tempted St. Anthony himself!—That pitcher will never

recover the thwack you have given it, if it lived to the age of Methusalem!—You have injured, O lamentable! the rotundity of that cheese beyond redemption; spoiled the shape of that pie for ever and long after!—Oons! he will make a whiptsyllabub of me if I stay any longer. Roo-roo-roo!

[Exit pursued by Romanzo.
The Scene closes.

Scene II.

Stephania, Roselle, Jacintha, Geronymo, and Peasants assembled.
Chorus.

1st Peasant.

Ha! ha! ha!—Now! who's for nine-pins?

2d Peasant.

Who's for ball?

3d Peasant.

I!

4th Peasant.

And I!

5th Peasant.

I'm for the bowling-green!

6th Peasant.

For ball! for ball!—Pins are only for women and tailors!

Geronymo.

Stay your feet, lads!—and your tongues, ladies!—they are both running without reason. Will you hear me?

All.

Hear him! hear him! hear him!

Geronymo.

Plague on't! You make more noise in keeping silence than the town-criers. Will you stop your bawling?

All.

Ay, stop your bawling! stop your bawling!

Geronymo.

Mercy upon me, what a set of peacemakers!—Then you will not listen to me?—You fellow here, with the bull-neck, roar me down these rascals!—only, pray, do not gape so wide, else there is some danger your head may fall off by the ears.

1st Peasant.

Silence!—Let no man say another word, or I'll make him cry peccavi!

Geronymo.

Well said, Hircoles!—you might play Hircoles, without his club, for your fist falls like a weaver's beam.—Now be quiet! Hear what I have to bring forth! This it is, lads; this it is, fellows: or, as it were, this is the tot of the matter; that is to say, in short and briefly to complain the whole business—We have forgotten to choose a May-Queen!—Shall I be heard in this land here-after?

All.

A May-Queen! a May-Queen! Who shall we choose? Who is she to be? Which is the handsomest? And the prettiest? Ay, and the most beautiful too? Which is she?

Geronymo.

Shall I be heard again, I say?

1st Peasant.

Silence!

Geronymo.

Thanks, thou stertorean fellow!— If Wisdom would be heard, she must always keep a swaggerer like this at her elbow. I say, my friends: I humbly repose—that is, I succumb to your better judgments, whether, in this case—mark me!—thus it stands, or, as I may say, here 'tis: There are so many of these lasses who are the handsomest, and prettiest, ay, and most beautiful one of them all, that I think it will go hard with us to choose her who is the most so. Therefore I

humbly assent, and maintain, and suspect, that it is better to let it go by straws.

All.

Ay! ay! let straws end it!

Geronymo.

Why come then! see what it is to have a noddle. Here is my hat to hold the lots. Mistress Stephania, a straw for you; another straw for you, Mistress Roselle; another, 'nother, 'nother, —straws a piece for the prettiest six among ye. Now listen to me: this is the case, and thus it stands, or as may be delivered in one word, here 'tis: Whoever of ye pulls the longest straw is to be May-Queen. Do I speak like a wiseacre or no?

All.

Like a very Salmon! Spoke like a very Salmon!

2d Peasant.

Should we not take the senses of the assembly upon it?

All.

No! no! no!—Come, lasses! draw! draw! draw!

Stephania.

Very well.

[Pulls a straw.]

Roselle.

Ay, very well.

[Pulls.]

1st Girl.
[Pulls.]

O lawk! such a pudget of a thing!

2d Girl.

Now for me!

[Pulls.]

3d Girl.
[Pulling.]

I vow I am the longest of you all!—I vow so it is!

Enter Osme above, playing on a lyre.
Stephania.
Hark! hark! O hark! what measures play,
So sweet! so clear! yet far away!

Roselle.
Whence is the music? who can say?

Jacintha.
'Tis like the crystal sound of wells,
Betrampled by the sparkling rain!

Stephania.
Or dew-drops fal'n on silver bells
That tingle o'er and o'er again!

1st Girl.
'Tis in the air!

2d Girl.
'Tis under ground!

3d Girl.
'Tis every where!

4th Girl.
The magic sound!

All.
Hush! O hush! and let us hear:
'Tis too beautiful to fear.

Osme
sings and plays.

[Exeunt Peasants led by the music.

Scene III.

Andrea.

I have grown wondrous 'rithmetical of late, being, indeed, most lamentably given to poesy and numbers. But chiefly of all I affect the pastoral, the fal-lal, or as it may be very opprobriously described,—the lambkin style of farcification. Let me see: what can I do in this way?

Enter Grumiel and Momiel.

Momiel.
Didst thou not mark them winding down the glen,
Flaunting their quickset crowns?

Grumiel.
Ay, what of that?

Momiel.
What of it? humph!—this fellow hunts as keen
As a blind grayhound: cannot scent his prey
Though rubb'd to's nose.

Grumiel.
What's to be made of clowns
And country-queans?

Momiel.
Ingenious Mischief turns
The clumsiest tools into brave instruments
When work is to be done. Leave all to me:
I'll save thy back a drubbing.—Ho! thou knave!

Andrea.

The same to you, sir; and may you long deserve the title!

Momiel.
Put on this ivy skirt, this gown of leaves
To hide thy shaggy limbs: and here!—this too—
This bulrush bonnet, that thy horns and ears
May not perk out.

Andrea.

It fits me like a beehive, or an old hat on a broomstick, to fright crows in a cornfield. What a farthingale too!—Now if I were only simple enough, I might pass for a wild Indianness, and exhibit myself as a pattern of unsophisticated nature.

Momiel.
Listen to me, dull beast!—Thou hast but smell'd
The oblivious liquor, yet art drunk as though
Thou hadst been soak'd in it. Hear what I say,
And what thou hast to do. If thou forget'st it,
I'll bend four pines to earth, whose strong recoil
Shall fling thee piecemeal o'er their whistling backs
To where the great winds rise!

Andrea.

Sir, I will not regret a tittle of it, if it were even as long and tedious as a curtain-lecture to a tired courier.

Momiel.
Thou wert best not. Come hither to this knoll;
See'st thou yon troop of villagers?

Andrea.
I do.

Momiel.
They're seeking a May-Queen: dost hear?

Andrea.
Why ay,
Catching May-flies, you say.

Momiel.
A May-Queen, fool!

[Strikes him.
Grumiel.
Good! rap it into his skull!

Momiel.
What was't I said?

Andrea.
Eh?—Oh!—Ay! catching a May-Queen.

Momiel.
So!—well!—
Thou hast no more to do, but take this wreath
And cast it in their path. Dost hear me, idiot?

Andrea.
With my two eyes.

Momiel.
Begone then, to thy service!
Look thou perform it, or I'll strangle thee!

[Exeunt Grumiel and Momiel.
Andrea.
Fear not; I will do it most ingenuously.

The Scene changes to another part of the glen.
Enter the Peasants.
Roselle.

This will-o'the-wisp of a musician has stopt in time; I am weary almost to fainting. Proceed, neighbours; I must sit down a moment on this bank.

Stephania.

Nay, I will bear you company. Go on, friends; we 'll follow you towards the cottage, when my sister is able to walk.

Peasants.

Very well. Trudge on, Geronymo. You are the head gander in this wildgoose exhibition.

[Exeunt Peasants.
The Scene changes again.
Enter the Peasants.
Geronymo.

Where are we now, can any body tell?

2d Peasant.

In a maze, that's certain.

Geronymo.

Thank ye, for the discovery: What a treasure thou would'st be to a map-maker!

3d Peasant.

We are all astray, like the Babes in the Wood, and therefore I see nothing better we can do but innocently sit down upon the ground, and kiss one-another.

Geronymo.

Stay; who's there?—Hollo! neighbour in the green petticoat; a word with ye!

Enter Andrea.
1st Girl.

Lawk! such a fright!

2d Girl.

Prithee, good woman! from what pedler do you buy your millinery?

Geronymo.

I remember seeing such another face upon a city-fountain, with a cap of reeds like a floating island.

1st Peasant.

Haw! haw! haw! haw!—'A looks as if'a was carrying off a bed of turnips!—haw! haw! haw! haw!

3d Peasant.

Excellent!—Or crying jonquils by the hundred!

4the Peasant.

Who are you?—Whence come you? —What's your business?

Andrea.

'Tis more easily told than yours to ask it. But no matter: Stand round, and I will unlighten you with a clear exploration.

5th Peasant.

I'll warrant you she's a basket-maker, by these rushes.

All.

Well?—What is't?—Speak!—Now!— Begin!—Out with't!

Andrea.

Why then, if you will know, the long and the short of the matter is this, videlicet: I am come to elect myself unanimously your May-Queen!

All.

A May-Queen! ha! ha! ha!—You a May-Queen!—O good!—O the monster!—

Andrea.

Monster!—do ye select me for a monster?—Perchance there are others in the company who have as good a right to the honour, if there were a fair show of horns for it. But here! ye ungrateful plebeians! take this halter— [throwing down the wreath]
and hang yourselves in it, verbatim et literatim every one of ye! I have done with such vagabonds!

[Exit, but returns.

5th Peasant.

I knew she was a weaver of some sort or other, by her pestilent tongue.

1st Girl.

Lawk! what is this?

[Taking up the wreath.
2d Girl.

O beautiful!

3d Girl.

Let me see it!

4th Girl.

We'll all see it!—let it go round!

5th Girl.

What a precious—Lo! here is a scroll, too, stuck in the middle!—Where is Jacintha?— She is a scholar—Let her read the intents of it. She can say her a, b, ab, as quick as nobody.

Jacintha.
[Reads]

1st Girl.

Lawk! I'm sure it will just fit me: it is just my size—

[Puts on the wreath, which enlarges and falls about her to the ground.
Andrea.

By Saint Bridget, then, you must be just the cut of a landlady!

2d Girl.

Let me try it!

[It contracts to a single tuft on her head.
Andrea.

She wears it as a hen sparrow does her topping. It will come to me after all!

The Girls all try it, but without success.
All.

Nay, we must look farther. Where is Stephania? Where is Roselle?—Here they come! Show it! give it them!

Enter Stephania and Roselle.
4th Girl.

Whoever this fits is to be May-Queen. 'Tis a fairy garland. Read here!

Stephania.
[Trying it.]

Pooh! it has slipt off me—

Andrea.

Like a cat down a cottage-eave!

Roselle.

Then it must be mine!—Come! I'll be chaired!— [Trying it on.]
Plague on't! 'tis bewitched! I'll none of it!

Andrea.

Well said, Mistress Magnanimity!

Stephania.

Where did ye get it?

Roselle.

How did ye come by it?

Geronymo.

Why, let me speak—here 'tis: From this smooth cheeked damsel before ye; this Watergoddess!

Stephania.

As sure as sure, I see our friend Andrea in disguise! hid beneath these flags and rushes, like Love amongst the Roses! 'Tis he! What say you, Roselle?

Roselle.

I would almost swear to that leering eye of his, with the crow's-foot stepping into it! But he has grown as barbarous as an ape since we last saw him. It is! it is the self-same gentleman! Does he come in this habit to frighten us? Hang him, scare-crow!

Geronymo.

An imposthume! An imposthume! He is an imposthume, neighbours!

All.

Ho! a wolf in sheep's clothing!—Tear off his rushy cap there! Off with it!

[They pull off his cap.
Stephania and Roselle.

Ah!—Save us! deliver us!

Andrea.

What is the matter with the gypsies? —Do they take me for the ghost of some young man whom they have seduced to commit homicide?

Roselle.

O now indeed unhappy Signior Pimplenose!

Stephania.

Miserable Ribobolo!—Mercy upon us! what a pair of ears he has got!

Andrea.

Why what fault have you with my ears, little Mistress Red-Riding-Hood?—Am I going to swallow you?

Stephania.

What new mishap has overtaken you?—Have you been in the pillory since we saw you, that your ears are stretched to such a size? Have you been hectoring in a tap-room, and been pulled out by the ears, that they are lengthened so prodigiously?

Andrea.

Prodigiously!—Why what would you have of them?—I'm sure they are better than those half crown-pieces of yours with holes punched i' the middle! You have no more ears than a fish!

Methinks it is ye who have been in the pillory, and have had your ears cropt for perjury, like a hollybush. Show me any beast upon earth but yourselves with such apologies for sound-catchers, and I'll pare mine down to the heel like an old cheese, —No! these, indeed, are something like ears! these are respectable hearing-leathers! But yours!—I would as soon think of listening through a couple of penny-whistles!—Perchance you will say my horns, too, are a little branchy or so?

Stephania.

Horrible! horrible!

Roselle.

Ave Maria! santa purissima!

Geronymo.

Et secula seculorum!—O for a priest to conjure him!

Andrea.

Well, come, this is good now! as if they never saw horns before!

Stephania.

Never on you! never on you! D' ye think I'd keep company with a rhinoceros?

Roselle.

Some wicked fairy has charmed him into this shape! he is enchanted!

Andrea.

Charming and enchanting!—Why ay, they always said these ornaments became me.

Roselle.

O dreadful!—had you these budders when we knew you at the mill?

Andrea.

These?—Bless you, I should take cold without them!—I never was without horns in my life! I was born with them, like a young snail.

My horns and ears grew together, one behind the other, like mushrooms.

Roselle.

Nay, 'tis false! you had them not!— We should have seen them!

Andrea.

O effrontery! what will the world come to at last?—They will begin to persuade me just now that I never wore hooves either; but that these feet are no better than theirs, letter L's turned under them—

[Showing his feet.
Peasants.

The devil! the devil in a bottle-green petticoat!—Fly, neighbours! run for it, countrymen!—Off! off!—Let us break our necks rather than be eaten alive by this goat-footed heretic!

[They run away.
Andrea.

As I'm a person, I never saw such illbred people in my life!—They were never at court, as I was, that's plain as the face upon my nose!— Let them die in their simplicity, ignorants!—I wash their hands of me for ever!

[Exit.

Scene IV.

Romanzo.
Her mother shuns me, and with eyes averse,
Hardly endures my sight. What she may think,
I cannot tell; but that denial strange
Of my fool servant, gave her cautious nature
Reason to doubt I am not what I say.
Yet I will not forsake them:—Some dark storm
Seems to make heavy the dull air about us,
Although the sky is clear. I'll see it down;
Perchance I may have leave, if it do come,
To stand between the thunder-bolt and them:
This is a hope!—My Sylvia, too, is kind,
Still kind! and with yet dearer, sweeter smiles,
Endeavours to repair her mother's frowns.—
What noise is here? Enter the Peasants.

Some villagers a-Maying: Who are ye?

Geronymo.

Why here 'tis, your worship: We

are the most harmful people in the world; and indeed would not tread upon a worm if it sought our mercy. Yet have we been assailed here in this wood, by—saving your worship's worship!—no less a personage than Satan himself, in the form of a mountain-goat, only that he stood on's hind legs, bolt upright; with eyes like two red-hot warmingpans, ten horns, each as tall as a young oak-tree, and whisking a long tail over his head as if he was going to thrash us with it.—In short—

Romanzo.
Be you at peace!—I have expell'd him hence.
It is no devil, but a mortal wretch
Whom the elves sport with, and have thus transform'd
To make them merriment.

Geronymo.

We humbly thank your worship for exercising him from this place. Can your worship detect us to a little green cottage, that bubbles over the stream somewhere here about?

Romanzo.

Here come the owners; they will best direct you.

[Retires.
Geronymo.

A very personable sort of person, I'll assure ye, for a person of these parts!—O lud! here is a most preternatural creature!

Enter Sylvia and Agatha.
Peasants.

Huzza! huzza!—This is she! this is she whom we have been looking for!—Not such a beauty in all the Earth, nor in the New World either!—Welcome to our Queen! welcome! welcome!—Huzza!

Sylvia.
Good people! wherefore do ye come with shouts
To break the holy silence of this vale?
Would ye aught with us?

Peasants.
To it, Geronymo!

Sylvia.
Why do you call me “Queen”? and throw your wreaths
At my unworthy feet?—By my simplicity!
I do not love the title!

Peasants.

Plague on't! will nobody out with a speech?—I could as soon look at the sun in his brightness!—My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth, like the hammer to an old bell!—She's a rare pretty one, that's certain!—Geronymo! where is thy 'ration?—Where have we lived that we have never seen her before?—Geronymo! plague take him, where is his speech? where is his 'ration?— Begin! I'll second thee, man! I'll stand behind thee!

Geronymo.

Most mightiful! and most beautiful! and most dutiful princess!

We do most passionately design and request that— And—so—hum!—that—hem!— In a word, and as I may say, thus it stands, or here 'tis, most lovely flower of this flowery loveliness! We have been tickled hither in the ear by an indivisible singing-bird, through dangers and demons, over precipices and watercresses, in spite of quagmires and quicksands, by numberless out-o'-the-way short-cuts, and straight-forward roundabouts, from our village to this place—

Peasants.

Bravo! bravo!

Geronymo.

Mar me not! I am in the very passion of it!—And so, to include my narration, thou paradox of beauty! thou superlatively superexcellent and most sweet creature! we come in a body to offer you our loves and submissions; for 'tis only looking at your pretty face for one moment to see that you, and none but you, are she whom Destiny has cut out with her shears for our May-Queen!

Peasants.

Huzza!—the wreath! the wreath!— Crown her!—Huzza!

Sylvia is crowned as May-Queen.
Sylvia.

'Tis all so sudden that I cannot strive— Nay, choose some other—It will not become—

Agatha.

Would every crown were won as peacefully!

Sylvia is carried by the Peasants to a flowery bank, where she is installed as May-Queen.
Peasants.

The song! the song that our pastor taught us for the 'casion!—Come!—the roundel! the roundel!—Take hands, and sing it as we dance about and about her.

Geronymo.

I am taken! I am quite taken!— Venus, the god of Love, has shot me through the breast with his quiver! My heart falls asunder like a cleft apple!—Madam Agatha, I would have some words with you.

Agatha.

With me, friend?

Geronymo.

Ay, Madam.—Now to break the ice in delicate manner!—You must know, Madam; the case is thus, or thus it stands, or in other terms and insinuations, here 'tis, and this is the tot of the matter: I am over head and ears with Mistress Sylvia, your daughter—in short, I love her to destruction—and so, if our politics happen to suit, I hope we shall have your dissent to our marriage.

Agatha.
(Aside.)

What should I say now?—My mind misgives me about this Traveller, as he calls himself: and even were he what he pretends, is he a fit husband for my lowly daughter? This honest villager would make my Sylvia a homelier, but perchance a happier mate.

Geronymo.

Well?—what say you, Madam Quietly?

Agatha.

How now? what is the matter?

Sylvia.
O me! a heavy slumber seals mine eyes!
Vapors as thick as Night curtain me round
With herse-like folds; and the moist hand of Death
Laid coldly on my brow presses me down
Upon the dreary pillow of Oblivion.
Mother!—where art thou? Fare thee well, my love!
Goodnight for ever!—ever!—

Agatha.

Alas! what strange disorder?—These changes and surprises have wrought too much upon her tenderness. Bear her within, my friends, to her green chamber. This way—gently—so—

[She is borne in.
2d Peasant.

This joy hath a sorrowful ending. Let us go home, and return to-morrow by day-light to inquire after her.

Peasants.

Let us do so. Alas! poor maiden!

[Exeunt.
Geronymo.

Marry, I'll not stir a foot! I'll wait, Heaven willing! though 'twere a thousand years: that I'm dissolved upon!

Stephania.

Ho! ho! my weathercock is inconstant, I see. But he shall not shift his tail without a breeze, or I'm no daughter of a true woman! So, Mister Geronymo! you are going to—

Geronymo.

I am, incontinently.

[Exit.
Roselle.

Follow him, sister; follow him. We'll

give him no more peace than a kettle at a dog's tail. We'll make him wish himself deaf and us dumb; we'll speak knitting-needles into his ear, till his head grows all miz-miz and infusion.

Stephania.

The ungrateful fellow!—After all my pains to tangle him!

Roselle.

The saucy jackanapes, rather! Come! he shall neither eat, drink, nor be merry, with any comfort, till he gives us satisfaction: We too can be dissolved upon this matter. Follow me!

[Exeunt.

Scene V.

Grumiel, Momiel, and Andrea.
Grumiel.
Well, brain-spinner!
What fly is this fine web of thine to catch?
Plague on thy sleights and stratagems! ne'er used
But when the arm lacks power.—Deeds! deeds! deeds!
'Tis sleight of hand that suits me best!

Momiel.
Tall soul!—
Where'er he comes are blows, and blows enough;
But then he gets them; that he calls his courage!
If courage were esteemed by what it bears
No Pantaloon was ever half so valiant,
For he stands kicks like compliments; and bangs
Too hard for Punchinello's wooden cheek,
He takes like fan-taps, ladies' punishment!—
I'll no such courage!

Grumiel.
Well? what mutter'st thou?

Momiel.
Let me work on, I tell thee, or thou'lt rue it:
Spoil me this scheme and I'll undo thy doings!—
Come hither, block!
[To Andrea.
Stoop down, and hold thy head
Under this weed I wring: the juice of it
Dropt in the winding channel of thine ear
Will reach the brain, and like a chymic drug
Precipitate the thick and muddy film
That now hangs dully, as a cloud in air,
Between the light and sense. Be thou again
The natural fool we found thee, but no more!

Andrea.

Thank ye, most considerate gentlemen!

—ye do not pinch my collar so wofully as at first. As I'm a person! it shall do ye no disservice. Come! speak the word; if ye are ambitious for office, say it! I will recommend ye as the most tender-hearted catchpolls: the most worthy to be thief-catchers and bumbailiffs, that any honest man would like to have to do withal.

Momiel.
Peace, gabbler!—Look at thy feet!

Andrea.
O marvellous!

Momiel.
Stoop o'er this green reflector, and behold
Within its shivering mirror, what thou art.
Wilt bend, and kiss thine image?

Andrea.

That is not me! Eh?—let me feel!—'Tis true!—O lack! O transmigration! Why my own father, wise as he is, would not know me again!—When did these sprouts put forth?—I am furnished like a twoyear old buffalo!—they will slay me shortly for my hide and horns!—There is enough upon my head to set up a dozen dealers in tortoise-shell combs and knife-handles:—Ears too, into which you might thrust your hands like hedging-gloves!—O lamentable! lamentable!

Grumiel.
Knock him o'the head!

Momiel.
No!—Listen, thou wretch:
Our art which has deformed thee, can re-form
As easily. But thou must earn with pains
Thy disenthralment from this bestial shape.
Wilt thou, on promise to be re-made man—

Andrea.

I will!—Turn out your Ogres and your Green Dragons; I'll put them to flight like crows!—Where be these Anthropophagi?—Show 'em to me!—Any thing but the Old Lady of Babylon herself, I'll undertake for; and even with her too, I would venture to cross a horn!—Give me a cudgel, if you love me! and let me be doing—

Grumiel.
(Strikes him.)

There!—is't not a tough one? eh?

Andrea.

This is giving me the cudgel with a vengeance!—He is an orator, I suppose, and speaks to the feelings! an indelible-impression-leaver, hang him!

Momiel.
Wilt not have done?
I'll crack thy neck if thou speak'st one more word!—
List what I say: Follow this creeping stream
And it will lead thee to a hut, where live
An old dame and her daughter. Live, I say,
Though now I guess thou 'lt find the younger one
Laid on a flowery bier, with doleful clowns
Trooping around it. Her thou must contrive
To bear off hitherward; and fetch her safe
To where I will appoint. Do this but featly
And thou shalt be restored by our great Art
To thy old shape. What answer? Is't agreed?

Andrea.

Say no more!—I will carry her off as a lion does a lamb. What! did I not belong to the honourable fraternity of conveyancers? Did I not lie, for a whole summer, among the Lazzaroni, on the steps of the Transport Office, at Naples? She shall be translated hither as softly as a bishop to a new benefice; as dexterously as if I had served an apprenticeship to an undertaker, or been purveyor to an anatomist. There are, to be sure, sweeter occupations under the moon than body-snatching; but the old proverb sanctifies it, on this occasion, for “Needs must”—the rest might be personal— Mum!

Momiel.
Come, we will show thee where we'll take our stand,
To watch thy enterprise, and see the issue,
That we may give, receiving; or perchance,
If need be, to rush out and help thy weakness.
Follow the clue I gave thee: we'll be near.

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

Scene I.

Morning:
I would, but cannot, sing
How with light foot, and half-spread wing,—
Or as a lady-page that soothes
A steed whose neck she hardly smoothes,
While proud, yet mad, to be carest,
He turns his red eye on her breast,
Snorts with high rage, yet stoops his crest,—
Day's bright conductress in doth come
Sleeking two coursers pied with foam,
And her white clasp their bridles on
Leads in the chariot of the Sun.
Enough to say that Morn appears,
When smiles may turn so soon to tears.
How know I there's no cause to weep?
What meant that fatal cloud of sleep?
In yonder bower my Sylvia lies,
O that the gentle girl would rise,
Glad my fond heart, and greet mine eyes!—
Come in, come in, thou loitering lover!
I burn till this suspense be over.

Enter Romanzo.
Romanzo.
The dawn springs, yet no daylight to my soul!—
Soft! I will wake this bird, whose heavenly song
Cheers all beneath it. She was wont to pour
Her morning salutation to the sun
From peaked hill, ere he had tipt with light
The watery lamps that hang upon the thorn,
Or tinged their crystals blue. Come, let me wake her
With a lark's call!—

[Bursts in through the lattice-door of Sylvia's chamber.
Enter Agatha from the door of the cottage.
Agatha.
Alas! what noise was that?—My child!—Geronymo!—
Help! help!—Some villain—

[Exit into Sylvia's chamber through the lattice door.
Enter Romanzo from the cottage-door, with the body of Sylvia in his arms. Geronymo, Stephania, Roselle, Jacintha, and the other Peasants.
Romanzo.
Peace, good woman! peace!—
She sleeps like marble on a monument
As cold and soundly.—But not dead!—not dead!—
No! no!—Else that firm-propp'd, high-fixed ocean
Pendant above us, would melt o'er our heads,
And drown the miserable sight in tears!—
O, what will come of this?

Agatha.
[From the cottage-door]
Where has he ta'en her?

Romanzo.
I sought you, painfully. Away! away!
You shall not have her now. Hark! was she sighing?

Geronymo.
Alack, she's dead! stark dead!

Romanzo.
Thou slanderous liar!
But for this precious burden in my arms,
I'd teach thee croak—

Agatha.
Sylvia!—She's gone!—she's dead!—
She stirs not!—breathes not!—

Romanzo.
Dead?

Geronymo.
Ay, dead as clay!

Romanzo.
Is it e'en so?—Why, then, I do beseech ye
That we may both be buried in one grave!

Agatha.
O he has murder'd her!—he has disgraced
My child, and then destroy'd her!

Peasants.
Villain! villain!

Geronymo.
Down with him! down with him!
Drive him away! Off! off!

[The Peasants assault Romanzo.
Romanzo.
O use your will! my pride of man is o'er!
If all your staves were straws, I could not face them!

[Exit, the Peasants following.
Agatha, Stephania, and Roselle, bear Sylvia to the cottage.
The Scene closes.

Scene II.

Nephon astride upon an elm-branch swinging himself up and down.
[Descends.
[A Voice from the flower.]
Nephon.
Ha?—ha?—that's Osmé!—Come, I know your voice;
It is the sweetest of our tribe:—Come forth;
You need not hide within that flowery bell,
Nor think to cheat me; come, I know you well.

Osme.
(Coming out of the lily.)
Nephon, the queen is angry that you stay,
And sent me down to bid you haste away.
Two fiends are coming; dark, malignant things!
List! you may hear the brushing of their wings
Along the distant grass.—Away, dear Nephon!

Nephon.
Off! off! off!
Like a needle of light from the sun
So straight to my object I run!

[They vanish.

Scene III.

Romanzo muffled in a cloak, solus.
Romanzo.
Hither they bend them slowly. On this stone,
Green with the antique moss of many a year,
I think they mean to lay her; and perform
The simple rites which country-people love
Around her gentle earth, ere it be borne
To consecrated ground. Young heralds twain
Have deckt the place already.—I'll retire:
My presence might disturb the holy scene,
And I would be at peace as well as she!
My storm of life at length, I hope, is o'er;
A stillness is upon me, like the pause
That ushers in eternity!—'Tis well!

[Retires.
The Procession enters. Six Maidens strewing flowers. The Dirgers. Then four Youths with a bier, on which Sylvia is laid beneath a virgin pall. Agatha supported by Stephania and Roselle. Geronymo, Jacintha, and Peasants following.
Geronymo.

Cease!—we must bear her on. 'Tis a long way to the village, and she must lie there a time before the priest will give her viaticum. Take up the bier!

Jacintha.

Should we leave the crown upon her thus?

Peasants.

Ay! ay! she was our May-Queen, and shall go to the grave with all her honours about her, like the greatest prince in Christendom. Come away!

Enter Andrea.
Andrea.

As I'm a person, my old acquaintances!—Beauteous Mistress Stephania, your servant! Lovely Mistress Roselle, yours!—Ladies, one and all, I am your most devoted—

Peasants.

The fiend! the fiend!—Away!

[They all run off except Agatha.
Agatha.

Come twenty fiends I'll stay by thee, my child!

Andrea.

What a-vengeance do the people see in me to frighten them?—Alack! I forgot that I was a prodigy! a lusum naturum!—Yet, after all, I do not know that a pair of neatly-twisted antlers are such a run-away matter; unless I threatened to butt with them! Then as to cloven feet,—why it is but having four toes instead of ten, and make the most of it! The 'longation of my ears, indeed, I consider as a manifest improvement—an “accession,” as we elegantly term it. So that, upon the whole, although I should be loth to flatter myself, I think I am a very personable-looking—Tizzy, Master

Andrea! tizzy voo! look what is before you. As I live, here is a dead virgin! It is she whom I am to elope with. 'Adad! she's a tender one! I shall feel her no more, than the flying horse Packasses (so they most asininely call him) does a starved poet. Now then for an act of regeneration—

[Approaching the bier.
Romanzo.
(Darting forward.)
Miscreant, forbear! Hold off thy impious hands!

Andrea.
(Falling on his knees.)
O lud! the ghost of my unfortunate master!

Romanzo.
Slave that denied'st me! Ingrate!
Scorn of man!
Thou kneel'st for sacrifice at this pure altar,
And from the deep pollution of thy touch
Shalt cleanse it with thy blood!

Agatha.
(Holding his arm.)
Stay!—stay!—no blood—
Let there be none spill'd here. In death as life
Her bed be stainless!—O profane it not
With aught unsacred, or her cheek will grow
More pale with horror still!

Andrea.

'Slife! I must not let the old lady lose the fruits of her eloquence! While she talks, I'll walk: he may catch me if he can, but at least I will show him a fair pair of heels for it—

[Runs away.

Agatha.
O youth! dead Beauty's soldier! pardon me!
The widow's, the unchilded mother's thanks,
Attend thee ever!—let this act of thine
Make thy last pillow softer than the babe's
That smiling goes to Heaven!—O I have done ye
Most cruel wrong!

Romanzo.
Speak not of it, I pray you.
Let us stand here, on either side the shrine,
And weep in silence o'er her.

Enter Floretta.
Floretta.
[Takes off the magic wreath.

Nephon.
(Above.)
Away! come away!

Osme.
(Above.)
We have springes to lay,
While thou 'rt chattering here—

Nephon.
(Above.)
Like a starling!

Floretta.
Then fare thee well,
My bonnibel!
I would thou wert indeed a flower;
Thy breast should be
My canopy,
And I a queen in that sweet bower!

[Vanishes.
Agatha.
I did not hope such joy this side the grave:
O could my bosom clasp thee all—close!—close!

Romanzo.
This hand's enough for me.

Sylvia.
Dear Mother!—Friend!—
Anon I'll say how much I love ye both:
I'm faint as yet, and wandering; lead me in.

[Exeunt.
Enter Nephon with a suit like Andrea's.
Nephon.
Now shall my disguise
Cheat the spinster's eyes,
And, as they shall rue,
Cheat the demons' too.
But I first must grow
Some five feet or so,
And swell out my span
To the size of man.
[Takes the shape of Andrea, and assumes his dress.
Mortals, blame us not
For the tricks we play;
Were ye fairies, what
Would ye do, I pray?
I would lay a crum,
Could ye change your shapes,
Ye would all become
Mischievous as apes.
Troth I think at present
In the tricking trade,—
Though not quite as pleasant,—
Ye are just as bad! (Peasants without.)

A miracle! a miracle!

Nephon.
Here the loobies come
Pat as A, B, C.
So behind the tomb
I will nestle me.

[Hides himself.
Enter the Peasants.
All.

'Tis true, 'tis certain, 'tis a fact to be chronicled in tradition. Here she lay; here is her crown. She is alive again! Let us go, and welcome her back from darkness.to daylight. Huzza!

[As they go out, Nephon twitches Roselle by the skirt.
Nephon.

Mistress Roselle! What, never a word for your old friend and bottle-companion, Andrea?

Roselle.

Andrea!—I vow he is himself again! Turn about: let me see all your points, lest I be jockeyed. What have you done with your headgear? Have you been using the infallible corn-and-horn-rubber of little Beppo, the pedlar, that you have gotten rid of your monstrosities?

Nephon.

Pooh! 'twas only a disguise to see if you had love enough to remember me.—Ah! Mistress Roselle, you know by mine eloquent eye in what a situation my heart is.

Roselle.

Why, as I guess, just under your left breast.

Nephon.

No, gypsy! but just under yours; there you have it, close prisoner, like a kernel in a filbert.—Hear me now: do you see this crown?

Roselle.

Ay; why do you untangle it?

Nephon.

It makes me mad to see that pale-faced

simperer wear this beautiful chaplet, while my lovely Roselle deserves so much better to be May-Queen.

Roselle.

Why, as to that, indeed, I do not know for certain, but I think, as it were, that, mayhap, I shall look quite as well in it as my fine lady there. But, if the plaguy thing wont fit me—

Nephon.

Try it: I have taken out that twig, and if it does not fit you now, why cap never fitted a felon. Only try it.

Roselle.
(Putting it on.)

By our ladykin, so it does!—O beautiful!—What do you think, friend Andrea? Am I a Venus in dimity, or not?

Nephon.

You are the most exquisite, incomparable, incomprehensible princess, that ever made her appearance in wooden clogs and stuff petticoats.— (Aside.)
Going!—going!—how she searches about for the pillow!

Roselle.

Stephania! pull off my shoes—untie my sash—now!—now!—Where have you hidden the pillow?—I'm as sleepy to-night as a hedgehog.

Nephon.

And shall lie as hard. Hooh! what pig-iron creatures these mortals are! even the lightest o' the species! I should not like to be the miller, your father, pretty maiden, if all my sacks were so weighty.

[Lays her upon the stone.

Now, ye malicious couple! spend your spite upon this. I have had a hint of your doings.

[Vanishes.

Enter Grumiel and Momiel.
Momiel.
Ha! here she lies—Quick! up with her, thou log!—
Let not the imp fry catch us.

Grumiel.
Wasps!

Momiel.
That blockhead!
He should have had no profit by success.
But, having served us, worn our livery still
Which he so hated: now shall he assume
What will dislike him more,—a brutish tail,
The most ridiculous badge to smooth mankind.
Thus prosper they who covenant with the fiends!

[Exeunt, bearing off Roselle.

Scene IV.

Morgana.
By this, I think, our host should be assembled:
Thou gav'st command to Nephon?

Osme.
Madam, I did.

Morgana.
Where he should place his guards, and line our bounds
Securely, did'st thou?

Osme.
Yes, so please your highness.
He would convene too, on the level sward,
Minstrels and morris-dancers—

Morgana.
Foolish sprite!
We shall have other feats anon. Two fiends
Already have transgressed my flowery verge,
And borne a sleeping shepherdess away.
Well, if no more: but, from yon woods I deem
War, like a couchant lion, waits to spring
At opportunity.—Flit down, and know
What has been done: my breast is full of cares
Both for my kingdom, and my shepherd twain.

Osme.
A fairy Iris, I will make my bow
Of a bent sunbeam, and glide down as swift
As minnow doth the waterfall.

[Vanishes.
Morgana.
She lights!
And birdlike wings into the woody Vale,
Full of her errand. It is featly done.—
Fall midway to the Earth, sweet Lark! I pray.

The Scene closes.

Scene V.

TRIO.

1st Elve.
Sweet! sweet!

2d Elve.
O how finely
They do spark their feet!

3d Elve.
Divinely!
I can scarcely keep from dancing,
'Tis so wild a measure!

4th Elve.
E'en the heavy steeds are prancing
With uneasy pleasure!

2d Elve.
Smooth the cadence of the music,
Smooth as wind!

5th Elve.
O me!—I'm dew-sick!—

All.
Glutton! glutton! you've been drinking
Till your very eyes are winking!

4th Elve.
Put him to bed in that green tuft.

2d Elve.
He should not have a bed so soft!

1st Elve.
Let him be toss'd into a thistle!

3d Elve.
We'll tease his nose with barley-bristle!

6th Elve.
Or paint his face with that ceruse
Which our fine bella-donnas use,
The sweet conserve of maiden-blushes.

1st Elve.
Or cage him in a crib of rushes;
There let him lie in verdant jail
Till he out-mourns the nightingale.

4th Elve.

Sad thing! what shall become of thee, When thy light nature wanes to something new?—

5th Elve.
O let me, let me be
A gliding minnow in a stream of dew!

2d Elve.
The sot!

1st Elve.
The dolt!

6th Elve.

2d Elve.
Hi! hi!

4th Elve.
Whither? whither?

2d Elve.
I must try
To get that feather
Floating near the stilly sun.

4th Elve.
Now you have it, clap it on!
What a gallant bonnet-plume,
Ruby-black with golden bloom!

2d Elve.
It must have belonged, I swear,
To some gaudy bird of air;
One of the purple-crested team who fly
With the Junonian curricle;
Or he that with rich breast, and tawny eye,
Flames at the Sminthian's chariot-wheel.

1st Elve.
But where is Nephon? who can tell?

7th Elve.
How wondrous grand he's grown of late!

8th Elve.
And walks so high! and slaps his pate
Ten times a moment, as the state
Of Fairyland depended on him,
Or tit-mice had agreed to crown him.

3d Elve.
And takes such mighty airs upon him
As I can witness: 'Twas but now
I challenged him to ride the bough,
When pursing bigly—“Silly thou!
Trouble me not,” said he, and stalk'd
As stiff as if a radish walk'd
Past me, forsooth!

1st Elve.
He has not talk'd
Of any body but himself
This mortal day.

2d Elve.
Conceited elf!
Would he were bottled on a shelf!

Osme.
Fay-ladies be not scandalous,
Ah speak not of poor Nephon thus!

3d Elve.
Then wherefore should he sneer at us?

7th Elve.
He grows more haughty every day
'Cause he's the queen's factotal fay,
And scorns with other elves to play.

4th Elve.
When will his Excellence appear?

Osme.
He sent a wild-dove messenger
To bid us all assemble here,
On the green glade; for he had some
Great work in hand.—

7th Elve.
The saucy gnome!
“Bid us,” forsooth!

Floretta.
I wish he'd come!
I hear on distant heaths behind
A hare-bell weeping to the wind,
Unkind Floretta! ah unkind,
To leave me thus forsaken!

Osme.
I
Will mount a crowback to the sky,
Morgana waits for me on high.

[Laughter without.]
All.
Hist! hist!

[Without.]
Ha! ha! ha!
All.
List! list!

[Without.]
Ha! ha! ha!
All.
In the noisy name of thunder
What is all this rout, I wonder?

[Without.]
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
Enter Nephon with his lap full of flowers.
Nephon.
[A sprig of broom falls at his feet.]

Nephon.
Bow! wow!

Floretta.
What is this,
With spikes and thorns, but not a leaf on?

Nephon.
By my fay! I think it is
A rod for Nephon.
Whe-e-e-w!
I shall be whipt, as sure as I
Stand here—Holla! you idle Elves!
Leap, skip, hop, jump, bounce, fly,
And range yourselves,
Obedient, till I lesson you
In what you have, each one, to do.
You, sir! you, sir! you, sir! you!
Knight, and squire, and stout soldado,
To your charge, good men and true,
We commit this happy meadow.
From yon dingle to that dell,
See no hostile foot profane it;
And let minute-trumpets tell
How ye steadily maintain it.
Drums strike up, and clarions bray!
Ranks i' the rear take open order!
Left foot foremost! March away!
On by the Valley's midland border!

[Exit, with the rest of the army.

ACT V.

Scene I.

Andrea.

'Tis with me, only out of the fryingpan into the fire: I live the life of a flying-fish: no sooner do I 'scape this shark than that cormorant pounces upon me; when I dive for safety from the

beak of the air-devil, I find the jaws of the water-devil most hospitably open to receive me.—Saint Bridget be my protector! here come my old friends, the Moorish ambassadors!—just in the nick of time to give my speech a new proof and illustration!— Again, I say, miserable! thrice-miserable Ribobolo! It is not two skips of the sun since thou wert on the point of being cut down like a flower of the field, in all the pride of thy beauty, and now, to crown thy ill-fortune, here are two devils come to possess thee.—Save ye, gentlemen!

Enter Grumiel and Momiel with Roselle.
Momiel.
Ha! ha! thou scape-goat!—art thou caught again?
Stir not a pace, but tremble where thou stand'st.

Andrea.

With all my might, sir!—I shake where I grow, as if I were about to turn into an aspen.

Momiel.
See! we have done thy duty, thou forsworn,
Contemptible wretch! This is the maiden-prize
Thou should'st have brought us, and been man again.

Andrea.

Lud-amercy! here is one of my mountain landladies!—Mistress Roselle, as I'm a person, the miller's daughter!

Momiel.

This?

Andrea.

This! Ay this! I'll stake my ears on't!—Odso! Now that I call the matter to mind, Satan was guilty of her abduction: he gathered her and her sister as they were growing, posy-fashion, beside the mill-pond, to sweeten the air of his roaring kitchen. Where is t' other pullet? has he spitted her already?

Grumiel.

Ha! ha! ha! ha! here was a stratagem!

Momiel.
Curse thee, vile oaf! dost laugh at me?
I'll tear thee!

Grumiel.
Come on! I'll writhe about thee as a snake,
And twist thy bones like gristle—

Momiel.
Help! help, king!

Andrea.

Well done, my chickens! To't, boys! Excellent! Five to one upon Spitfire!—At him, Snap-dragon!—To't!—Bravo!—Now if they would only eat each other up, after the precedent of the two cats in the sawpit, 'twould be a desideratum much to be desired.—Hilloah! are heaven, earth, and purgatory coming together?

Ararach descends amid thunder and lightning. Attendant Fiends.
Ararach.
Bunglers again?—Hurry them to the flames,
As I commanded: Sweep them from my sight,
Rebels! that serve their passions and not mine!
[Exeunt Fiends with Grumiel and Momiel.
Myself, I find, though sore against my will,
Both chief and actor must be in their business.
Come hither, clown!—Take thy man-shape again;
See what thou ow'st my pity. Get thee gone!
There is thy road; 'twill lead thee to thy friends,
Whom thou may'st hither fetch, if they will come,
To bear this maiden grave-ward. We'll depart:
See that yon corse burden not long our realm,
Or thou, and all thy rout, shall lie as cold!

[Ascends.
Andrea.

My stars! what a—phew! he has left after him: like the last sighs of ten thousand expiring candles. It is enough to smother all the hives in Sicily. Now if he would be only satisfied to live like a man of reputation, he might earn an honest livelihood by travelling as a sulphur-merchant to the North (where, I am told, there is a great demand for that article), or by selling matches through the streets,—two bundles for a halfpenny. But ods bobs! why do I stand here lecturing on commercial affairs, when I don't know but his pestiferous majesty may descend in another cloud of such frankincense, and I shall be smoked to the flavour of Westphalia bacon? Well, if it were only

from one feature in my face, videlicet, my tongue, I would even swear that I was the identical son of my mother!—Fly, Andrea, as fast as thy legs can carry thee!

[Exit.
Ararach descends again.
Ararach.
Now let me use my skill. Thou sleeping earth,
Take thou the form of Sylvia, the May-Queen!
And lie there in that thicket, till one comes
Whom I would lime for a decoy, to bring
The bird I love about her. So!—'tis done!—

[Ascends again.
The Scene closes.

Scene II.

Stephania.

O sister! sister! what has become of you?—I will never go home without you, if I were to seek a thousand years!—What should I say to my mother when she asked for her pretty Rose?

Geronymo.

Nay, weep not so heartily, I pray you: be not in such woful contrition. The case is not so bad, by a hundred miles, as you think it: for, look you now, it stands thus, or in other words, here 'tis: You have lost your sister beyond recovery; good—

Stephania.

Begone, fickle-hearted turncoat!— If I could even forget your treachery, I am not in the mood now to hear such a prig discoursing.

Geronymo.

Why very well, there 'tis: I am a prig. Bear witness to that: she calls me-prig, and refuses to hear condolement.

1st Peasant.

Go to! you are ejected, and may wear the willow.

Geronymo.

No matter! 'tis all very well! very well indeed!—I will hang myself some of these fine mornings, and then, mayhap, she will see what it is to wound the heart of a sensible-plant like me, by calling him prig and turncoat. Cruel Mrs. Stephania! I thought your soul was as tender as a chicken, but now I find it is harder than Adam's aunt or marble!

Stephania.

If you wish to soften it again, you will find out my sister. I can think of nothing else till she be discovered.

Geronymo.

Say no more, but put your trust in my zigacity. Above ground and beneath sky, I'll

ferret her out, though she were hid in a blind nutshell.

2d Peasant.

So, friend! whither are you going?

Enter Andrea.
Andrea.

Indeed I cannot particularly say: but going I am!—I have taken up the trade of a water-wheel lately, and am always going! moreover betoken that, like it, I cannot get out of the pickle in which the malice of my enemies has placed me, but am continually soused over head and ears by a flood of misfortune. However, time cures all sorrows, and philosophy the remainder—Saw you any peasants about here? clowns, clodpates, popolaccio, dregs, that is to say, honest, foolish kind of persons?

Peasants.

Why I hope we be such: what else do you take us for?

Andrea.

By this light, now that I observe it, so ye are. Ye answer the description exactly: no hue-and-cry ever gave the dimensions of a banditti more precisely. Well; and wherefore in the dumps, my honest, foolish kind of neighbours?

Geronymo.

Why if it so please you, here 'tis now—

Andrea.

This is a logicizer: you may always know a logicizer, by his laying down the law with his forefinger. Save thy invisible bellows, thou

oracular fellow; I know all thou wouldst say, better than if there was a glass window in thy stomach. Ye are seeking for one of your lost lambs, my pastors?

Peasants.

By the mass, so we are! He must be a witch, neighbours, to tell us this without knowing it.

Andrea.

Follow your noses, and I will undertake to lead you by them to where she is: I owe her as much gratitude as would fill a wine-flagon, pie-dish, brandy-flask, et cetera, nappercyhand, nappercyhand. She and her sister made a cramm'd fowl of me, I thank them. Indeed, if a stone could melt, I had poured out my heart at her feet, in expressions of love and affliction. But this is irreverent! Come along: 'tis not five-score yards beyond the bowsprits I have promised to tow ye by.

Peasants.

Willingly, and thank you.

[Exeunt.

Scene changes to another part of the Glen.
Enter Andrea and the Peasants.
Andrea.

There! in that thicket, that bramblebush; if your eyes be not scratched out by leaping into it, you will see her there.

Peasants.

Well, come with us, and show it more catacullycully.

Andrea.

Ay, to be sure I will!—Go on; I'll be

whipper-in of your whole pack. Proceed, I tell ye! it is all before you, as a pedlar carries his knapsack.

Peasants.

Lead away, then!

Andrea.

Right; you are in the very track of it: I shall cry out “roast beef!” when you are about to tumble upon her.

Peasants.

Good! Proceed, Geronymo. Our guide will come after us.

Andrea.

O doleful! woful! racks! torments! thumbscrews!—O my great toe! my great toe!

Peasants.

What is the matter?

Andrea.

My great toe, I say!—O now are the sins of my ancestors coming against me!—The gout! the gout!—I cannot stir an inch farther, if I got the bribe of a secretary!—Go on, go on; if you stay here making mouths at my foot it will only grow the more angry.

Peasants.

Well, remain here for us, while we search the bushes.

Andrea.

Speed ye, neighbours!—Hark 'ee!

Peasants.

What?

Andrea.

Ye will be here when ye come back, eh?

Peasants.

Ay, certainly.

Andrea.

Why then, mean time, I will put my foot in a sling, and prepare to hop off with ye.

Good bye!—Oo! such a twinge! as if the fiend's claw and my foot struck a bargain for ever! Oo!

Peasants.

On, folks! on!—He must be sorely afflicted to make such a piteous howling, and such heinously ill-favoured grimaces. How he lolls his tongue out at us, like a mad dog! we are well rid of him.

[Exeunt.
Andrea.

'Slife! why was I not a politician? a Machiavelian?—I would overreach his Spanish majesty himself, who, they tell me, is the very flower of dissimulation, the pink of hypocrisy.— Those empty-pates! those human ostriches! that run their heads into a bush and think themselves hidden from danger, because it is hidden from them!—I know more of jurisprudence than to play at blindman's buff with Mephistopheles and his convent of Black Friers. Well, he may enlist them all under his pitchy ensign, but he shall not have me for a fugue-man. I will rather be fugitive!

[Exit.

Scene III.

Romanzo and Sylvia.
Romanzo.
After the Night how lovely springs the Morn!
After the shower how freshly blooms the green!
After the clouds and tempest of our fate,
How sweetly breaks the beauty of the sky,
And hangs its rainbow ev'n amid our tears!—
Now Mercy joins us in her circling arms,
And, like a beauteous mother, wishes us
All joy that can betide!—Is not her blessing
Already come upon us? Is not this
Perfect beatitude?

Sylvia.
O, but I fear
It will not last for ever!—'Tis too sweet.

Romanzo.
What should Heaven find in either of us two
That should provoke its shaft?—No! we will live,
Bosom to bosom thus, like harmless doves,
And so be spared for our great innocence!—
Look up, and smile!

Sylvia.
Nay, I am of thy mind—
Ecstasy is too deeply-soul'd to smile.
I am more near to weep; but such fond tears
As flow'rets, ill-intreated of the night,
Shed, when the morn-winds sing i' the Eastern gate
That father Sun doth rise.

Romanzo.
Is not this love
A happy thing? a fountain of new life,
Another urn of blood within the heart
That floods the ebbing veins; and teems new life
Through all those ruby channels?—O it is
Warmest of bosom-friends!—Joy'st not to feel
This downy bird rustle within thy arms,
Choosing his fragrant bed; as fond as he,
The nectar-bibbing fly, who doth disturb,
With most uxorious care, yon rose, the while
He settles in her breast?

Sylvia.
Is Love a bird?

Romanzo.
A boy!—with curls of crisped gold, like thine:
Lips like the fresh sea-coral: in his cheek
The sleepless Laughter cradles; and above
Perpetual Sport rides in his humorous eye.
This guest of man hath to his use beside
A quiver, and light arrows, and a bow;
With which he stings his votaries' willing hearts,
Aiming from beauty's hills, or vantage-ground,
Where he can light: then flies (for pinions he
Fleeces the wand'ring gossamer) to tend
The wounds his bolt hath made; and often there,
Like a good surgeon, pillows till they heal,
Or sweetly cruel makes them bleed again.
This is Love's picture; and his page of life
Writ in Time's chronicle.

Sylvia.
Sure it must be
A marvellous child!

Romanzo.
O, 'tis a winsome boy!
And tells such pleasant tales, and sings such songs,
With harp gay-tinkling like a Troubadour,
That icy nuns through charitable grates
Thrust forth their lovely arms to pamper him;
And so he often wounds them, while they leave
Their bosoms undefended.

Sylvia.
I would hear
Some of his minstrelsy.

Romanzo.
Why so thou hast:
He speaks through various lips; even now through mine.

Sylvia.
Ah! thou deceiv'st me: thou art he! but clothed
In shape more godlike.

Romanzo.
[Kisses her.

Sylvia.
Would it were sweeter,
For thy sake, than it is!—We are betroth'd,
And so I hold my petty treasures thine,
My lord and husband.

Romanzo.
Therefore in their use
I will be frugal, since thou 'rt generous.—

Sylvia.
Hark! hark! a cry!—

Romanzo.
Fear not!—thou 'rt in my arms.

Andrea without.

Alas! alas!—Help! help!—Do I live amongst Saracens or Turkies?—No pity? no assistance?— The good dame! the excellent old lady! Kidnapt! transposed! elevated!—She who saved me from that mad-pated fellow, my master!

Sylvia.

My mother!

Romanzo.

What 's this ruffian hurly? speak!

Enter Andrea.

Help, I say!—Rescue! rescue!—If ye have hearts the size of queen-cakes, let your swords leap from your scabbards, and cut down these sans-culottes! these Carbonari! sons of the Black Prince! whelps of Belzebub!—O Master! Master! turn away the eyes of your wrath from me upon those dingy freebooters!—Lamentable! O lamentable! lamentable!

Romanzo.

Speak! Who?—who?—

Sylvia.

If thou hast pity, speak!

Andrea.

Pity!—Am I not weeping my eyes out?—What can I do more?—Are either of ye half as pitiful a fellow?—Do I stand nonchancically here like a statue, as if I were gaping for bobcherries, or had set my mouth for a fly-trap?— Pity, indeed!—Am I not shouting, ranting, and calling down vengeance upon the heads of these nefarious woman-stealers as fast as tiles in a storm? —What call you this but pity,—active, stirring, practical,—I say, practical pity?—Oons! I should have been president of some humane society, or an overseer of the poor, at the least, had I remained turnspit to the Sardinian ambassador in England.

Sylvia.

Agony choaks me!—O I shall go mad!

Romanzo.

Dastardly hound! I'll shake thy story out of thee!

Andrea.

Pray do not; it would discompose me much in the telling of it, I assure you. Mark me now—“Here 'tis!” as neighbour Geronymo says; or thus it stands, or this is the tot of the matter. We proceeded on our excursion, or incursion (to speak critically, for we were about to enter the preserve of a Nabob, though, indeed, we had a special licence from his diabolical lordship)—Well! —Take your knuckless off my throat, I beseech you, sir; my words come out pip! pip! like bullets from a potgun. Well—as I was saying,—the

peasants and I, or, in other words, I and the peasants, which you will,—proceeded on our progress to seek for young Mrs. Roselle, the miller's daughter, in the wood, just there, over your worship's nose, where the grass is so parched and thin, it would hardly fodder a goose. Well! so far, so good —A little more vent, if you please, sir! I shall never run out else. Well—When we had come thither, lo and behold ye! no Mrs. Roselle; not the print of her shoe upon the moss, though she wore beechen ones an inch thick, and clouted from heel to toe with sixpenny hobnails. Well!—no maid o' the mill, as I told ye, was to be found there, but in her stead the shapes and figures of one Mrs. Sylvia, as the peasants entitled her: some country-hoyden, I surmise, that purls a little through an oaten pipe, and infests these parts in a sheep-keeping character,—a “dear Pastora,” as one might say, a Mrs. Simplicity—O! your worship! do not tuck that thumb so inexorably under my gizzard as if you were nailing up wall-fruit—You'll spoil my story!

Romanzo.

Would I could strangle thee, and hear thee after!

Andrea.

Why, indeed, hanging is almost too good a death for an informer; but it is considered more politic to reward him. However, to proceed

as we went on: I being foremost, that is, foremost in the rear, I debouche towards dame Agatha, who, indeed, was coming by hasty marches to warn us of some danger, and I communicate to her my intelligence—

Romanzo.

Well?—What did she?—what?—what?—speak it!

Andrea.

Fell all of a heap like a haycock, your worship; and thereupon darted immediately into the wood as if her heels were loaded with quicksilver; from thence bolted into the arms of a couple of Black Hussars, who carried her off to perdition: And so, if they don't live happy, I hope—

Sylvia.

Fly! fly, and save her!—O your mercy, Heavens!

[Swoons.
Romanzo.
Hear me, thou villain!—On thy hopes of life,
Here and hereafter, guard this lovely one,
Sustain, restore, and tend her, while hard fate
Keeps me from that dear office,—or as sure
As lightning blasts, thy doom is fixt—

[Exit.
Andrea.

Indeed so it appears: to be ever surrounded and o'erwhelmed by innumerable and indescribable miseries and mischances, accidents and offences, dreadful calamities and singular occurrences!—They come as thick upon me as if they were showered from a dredging-box! I am

powdered with sorrows and afflictions! Salted, peopered, pickled! roasted, basted, stewed, fried, crimped, scarified, tossed like a pancake, and beaten like a batter, upon all occasions! Finally, I have been cooked up into a devil, and may perhaps be buried alive in a minced-pie to be served up at a Christmas-feast among the Cannibals. Nevertheless, I will endeavour to revive this lovely maiden according to the prescriptions of Galen and Hippocrypha—

Raises Sylvia in his arms.

Truly, my adventures follow one another with marvellous dexterity: if they were only printed I might string them together like ballads, and sell them by the yard as they do popular songs, or Bologna sausages: I should have every mob-cap in the neighbourhood peeping out of the attics, and have copper jingling about me as if I were playing the triangle,—could I only bring myself to chant my own deeds for remuneration.—Here now am I, without ever having studied more of the Healing Art than a farrier's dog,—here am Iinstalled as physician-general of this uninhabited district, and condemned under the penalty of bastinado and carbonization, to raise this mortal from the dead, as if I had invented an universal restorative!—'Sbodikins! it is too much! were my shoulders as broad as Mount

Hatless, I could not long bear this world of negotiations that is laid upon them!—If I were any thing less than the most tender-hearted Samaritan in all Christendom, I would leave this pretty faint-away here to get well as she could, by the study of “Every man his own physician,” and take to my heels like a dancing bear when I am threatened with such a flagellation. But no matter!—the heart of man was made for misfortune as an ass's back for a packsaddle. We must be all stocks and philosophers!—I'll run for a capfull of the limpid, to baptize her.

[Exit.

Scene closes.

Scene IV.

Enter Ararach and Fiends with Romanzo prisoner.
Ararach.
Enter before us!—
I will not have him torn with thongs, nor pierced
With barbed instruments; nor pincht, nor crampt;
These are but laughing pains to such wild tortures
As I'll afflict him with: he shall not bellow
His furnace pains shut in an ox of brass,
Like him whose craft was proved upon himself;
Nor shall his lopt or lengthen'd form be stretch'd
On iron bed, accommodately fill'd
By every guest, pygmy, or stout, or tall.
Trite code of agonies! that writhe the frame
But hardly wring the mind. Peasants who have
Their feelings in their flesh, and none more inward,
Shrink at the bloody pincers: but high natures
Who feel not in their clay, despise all pangs
That reach no deeper.—I will plague him there!
In a refined, imaginative way;
And work upon his sensibility,
Not on his senses, which he'd reck as much
As the wild Indian at the stake, or he
Who burnt his hand for bravery.—What ho!
Is the stage rear'd?

Fiend.
Dismiel, the machinist,
Is hard about it, lord: you hear the clang,
And music of his anvil, which doth sing
At every stroke, like a cathedral bell,
And every iron tingles in the hand
Of his accomplices.

Ararach.
Go! quicken him
With a few stings i' the elbow.—And thou, too,
See if my quaint device go smoothly off,
Ere the Phantasma pass before his eyes,
Whom we would entertain with feats and shows
As such a guest deserves. If one particular
Fail in the presentation, even by chance,
I'll hold thee punishable: Mark it well!

[Exit. The Fiends vanish.

Scene V.

Enter Sylvia, Stephania, Roselle, Jacintha, and Peasant-girls following.
Stephania.

Alas! alas! she is distract—

Jacintha.

Ay, truly: you may know it by her hands locked so; and her streaming hair; and her eye fixt upon the ground as if she were choosing her steps over a bridge not a hair's breadth. O it is a piteous condition!

Roselle.

Sweet Sylvia! Gentle maid!—Go not, we pr'ythee, towards that haunted wood: do not, we beseech thee!—She looks at me, but speaks not —O her eyes! her eyes!

Girls.

Go not, our queen! our beauteous sovereign!—We will kneel to thee, if thou wilt stay.

Stephania.

'Tis vain!—she heeds us not.

3d Girl.

She seemed to love Jacintha, because she could talk more gentlefolk than we: let Jacintha pray her not to go.

Jacintha.
[Embracing Sylvia.]

O gentle friend! by this entreating and affectionate kiss—

Sylvia.

No comfort! no!—they are ta'en! they are ta'en!

Jacintha.

I but offend her.

Sylvia.

Is he not dead, answer me that?—Is not my mother ta'en?—Why trouble ye me thus— Forgive, but leave me!

Jacintha.

Sweetness, even in her moods and wilfulness.

Girls.

Let us fall down about her on her knees.

Sylvia.

Prevent me not, I say!—I will proceed!

[Exit.
Peasants.

'Twill make her fractious: she will go. Let us follow her to the extent we dare, and persuade her back if possible.

[Exeunt after Sylvia.

Scene VI.

Romanzo.
Endure! O heart! endure!—
O strings of passion, break not!—Hold but firm
Till I have scaled this iron tomb: burst then,
Fountain of life, and let me choak with blood!—
Thou fair iniquity! I'll reach thy locks,
And strangle thee in their twisted goldenness!—
Might, double-thew my limbs! Knot the great sinews,
That my tough, boughy arms, curl with their strength,
Like the prodigious elm: I would pull down
To dust these riotous lovers!—Foul abortion!—
I will—O words!—For thee, young treachery!
Beautiful sin! fair hypocrite! I'll paint
Thy cheek a bloodier hue!—O is this earth
Limed to retain me?—Though my feet do move,
Weights, huge as millstones, seem to clog their steps,
Locking me to this goal—Torture of sight!
What! wilt thou wind thy passionate arms about him?—
Kiss him not, wanton!

Phantom of Ararach.
Fairer than fair!

Phantom of Sylvia.
Sweet king!

Romanzo.
O scorpion words!—Vile pair!—Must I yet storm
Like the fixt oak with idly-threatening arms,
Uttering loud tempest-talk, swung with blind rage,
But spur-bound to a spot?

Phantom of Sylvia.
Look! here's a wreath:
[To the Phantom-king.
I'll twist it round thy brow.

Romanzo.
Cruel! oh cruel!
That was my crown! my garland!

Phantom of Ararach.
Come and claim it.
Knock off his miry fetters there!

Phantom of Sylvia.
Poor fool!

Romanzo.
Vengeance!—I'm free!—Now, you luxurious pair,
Have at your hot alcove!—In war, in war
I've leap'd a battlement Alp-high to this.

Phantom of Ararach.
Work up! work up!—Dismiel, thou art too slow!

Romanzo.
Ha! what is this?—O grief!—the dungeon sides
Arise like murky clouds at thunder-call,
Hanging a rocky ciel above my head,
Ready to crush me if I breathe!—

Phantom of Ararach.
Let down,
Let down our shafted stairs!—Mount, worshipper!
Thine eyes must ache with lowly adoration.
Courage, and knee our throne!

A golden staircase is let down.
Romanzo.
Where lead these steps?—
Or how do they come here?—Ah! Pity stoops
Half out of Heaven, and to her bracelet links
This stair, that I on earth may groan no more,
But creep along her arm into her bosom,
And, like a hurt babe in its mother's breast,
Lament myself to peace!

Phantom of Sylvia.
Sir brideman, come!
We cannot tarry longer for thy torch
To light us bedward.

Phantom of Ararach.
Raise the nuptial song!
Music may draw him, though our love do not.

Romanzo.
Am I spell-stricken, now?—Now are my feet
Riveted! bolted! chained! that I forbear
To mount to my revenge?—Hold fast! hold fast,
Ye silver-clouted stars!—Afford me still
This pendulous step-inviter to your sphere,
I'll up as swift as soaring Victory
To clap at Heaven-gate her triumphant wings!—
I come! I come!
As he approaches, the steps fade away.
'Sdeath! do mine eyes melt at the flaming gold?
Phantoms of Ararach and Sylvia.
Ha! ha!—the rainbow-grasper weeps to see
His vision—air!

Romanzo.
Justice! Justice, ye gods!
Is this your equity?—
[The stair vanishes entirely.
I'll pray no more
The absent Powers. Justice long since, now Hope,
Ev'n Hope, hath left this planet!—Blank Despair,
Thou only dost abide!—Lend me a sword;
'Tis all I crave, and what thou lov'st to proffer:
A sword, kind deity of the miserable!
Let fall a sword, and I will swear thy name
Sweeter than Mercy's to the wretch in dread
Of everlasting pain!
A sword falls upon the ground.
Thanks!—Now farewell,
Earth, and its woes for ever!

Phantoms of Ararach and Sylvia.
Ha! ha! ha!

[Laughter above.
Romanzo.
Nay, let me pause!
There's something dread and horrid in that joy!—
'Tis said the fiends laugh where the angels weep:—
I will not do 't!—O all-disposing Heaven,
Pour down thy sorrows as thou wilt, I'll drink them
In patience, though in tears!

Phantoms of Ararach and Sylvia.
Ill done! O rage!

[Murmurs above.
Romanzo.
Now may I know Heaven smiles upon my deed,
For Hell is most unhappy.

Phantoms of Ararach and Sylvia.
Let's provoke him!

The Canopy, with the Phantom-lovers, descends.
Phantom of Ararach.
Behold!

Phantom of Sylvia.
Thy rival!—O behold!

Phantom of Ararach.
Thy love!

Romanzo.
To death and darkness, with one lightning-sweep
Of this blue thunderbolt!

His sword divides the Canopy, which vanishes with the Phantoms, displaying the Enchanted Vale, and Sylvia beside her lover.
Sylvia.
[Leaping to his bosom.]
My life! my lord!—
Take me into thine arms! take me!—

Romanzo.
Avaunt!
By what reed nature dost thou only bow
Beneath my stormy hand?—Dares thy slight insolence
Brave me again?

Sylvia.
Nay, I will kneel for death,
So my lord wills it!

[Kneels.
Romanzo.
Good! O art o' the sex!
How well she does it!

Sylvia.
Come! I'll bind mine eyes,
Or cast them on the ground, lest their fond looks
Persuade thee into pity. I would die!
In sooth, I would! now I have lost thy love.

Romanzo.
Perfidiousness!—

Sylvia.
Kill me! O kill me first,
And name me after!—Let me die believing
I am thy dear-one still—the simple thought
Would make me kiss the weapon. Gentle love!
One agony—one agony! Kill me not twice,
With sorrow, and the sword!

Romanzo.
Were I not staunch
As Murder, I would melt at this!—Wilt strive?
Wilt talk? wilt question with me?

Sylvia.
I will be dumb—
I'll cross my patient hands upon my breast,
And wait my death as meek as the poor lily
Whose head falls smiling at her slayer's feet.
Or I will clasp thy knees,—thus—thus!—And if
Tears through my blinding hair will come at all,
'Tis for thy misery when I am slain.
Now!—while I kiss thy gentler hand—

Romanzo.
Thus then,
[Raising his sword.
Die! die, thou traitress—Now, by heavens, she clings,
Clings to me like a babe!—Whate'er she be,
O God! how pitiful are woman's tears!

Sylvia.
No!—no!—they are not for myself!—

Romanzo.
Go, wretch!
That seem'st so innocent, but art not,—go!
I cannot murder thee: 'tis like infanticide!

Sylvia.
Where shall I go?—wretch as I am!

Romanzo.
I care not!—
Any where—any where!—so it be from me!
Go to thy paramour; thy sceptred love;
Thy demon wooer; whom my sword dispersed,
But slew not: him thou didst caress but now—

Sylvia.
Him? him? the Sorcerer?

Romanzo.
Ay, thou false one! ay!
With cheeks as flagrant as the sun's in June,
Smiles broad and liberal as she bestows
Whose blush is wine-engender'd; with such hands
As smoothe the unshorn Satyr when he loves,
Or weave his drunken crowns!—Follow him, go!
He'll perk thee by his side, I dare be sworn,
On his mock throne; call thee his florid queen;
While roars that bring down all the vaulted clouds
To quench the clamor, shall proclaim your title
As wide as Shame can hollo!—After him, go!

Sylvia.
'Tis a most hideous dream!—Would I had waken'd!

Romanzo.
For me,—O that some violent bolt would fall,
And make me ashes!—some oak-bending storm
Lap me in its wild skirt, and swirl me down
Precipices footed in the raging waves
Where thunder learns to bellow; where leviathan
Tosses his foam abroad, and to the sands
Sucks down the shrieking mariner!—plunged there,
Ten thousand fathoms deep amid the billows,
I would find out an ever-stunning grave
Where voice of man could never hail me more!—
O my brain seethes with fire!—Death! death! O death!

[Exit.
Sylvia retires, and sits down beside a rock with her head leaning against it.
Sylvia.

“Wretch”!—“False-one”!—“Precipices”!—“Grave”!—“Death! death”!— What is all this?—O, I am crazed! I'm crazed!— Mother!—Romanzo!—help me!—Fool! fool! silence!— Ha! ha! ha! ha!—No; I'll not laugh; I'll sing.

Why, the key to her happiness, that he may rob her of it, and begone; leaving her to live on her scholarship. Ah, deceiver!

O yes, indeed!

“Violets”!—what next?—Pah! I forget—“violets”!—

I have no better words: but they go pat enough; and would be sweet, sweet indeed, could the flower sigh them over my grave!—O that it were bedtime! I am aweary of this sun; and long to sleep beneath the fresh-green turf, with a sweet-briar at my head to entice the nightingale, and a streamlet at my foot to join in the lullaby.

At least if all maidens be like me!—and pray Heaven, I die ere night of this thorn in my bosom!

So she wept till the very shroud was moist with her tears! O what a kind shepherd! Would I had such another!—But no! Who thinks of Sylvia?— Not even Sylvia, though she is beside herself! ha! ha! ha!—the first jest I ever made in my life, and, without another, it is a most miserable one!—Indeed, indeed, I am not very happy, though I do sing. Where did I end?

Enter Floretta behind.
Floretta.
O happy sight! O happy hour!
I've found my beauteous lady-flower!
Arise, arise, and come with me,
Thou'rt in the realm of perfidy.

Sylvia.

Ay, that's true; it rhymed to me—

There was a swain for you!—ha! ha! ha! ha!

Floretta.
O see my tears! O hear my cries!
My love! my beauty! rise! arise!
Sit not, I pray thee, chanting there
Wild ditties to the ruthless air,
Like the lost Genius of Despair!
Two fiends are hither winging fast
To seize my lovely-one at last.
Sylvia!—Dost hear me?—

Sylvia.
Bird!

Floretta.
O come!
Return to thy forgotten home!
Hear ye not how the valleys mourn—
“When will our Shepherdess return?”
Return! return! the rocks of gray
And murmuring streams and hollows say!

Sylvia.

Ay, when I have sung my song, indeed!—when I have sung my song!

What does your fairyhood say to that?—Do your little goodies spin thread fine and strong enough to bind up a broken heart?—If so I will buy it of them for a silver penny cut out of the moon. Bear them my offer; I will sing here till you come back.

Floretta.
Enter Grumiel and Momiel.

Grumiel.

Ha! ha! have we caught thee at last?

Momiel.

Napping, i' faith! like a wild cat, with her eyes open. Come! bring her along.

Floretta.
O my lost flower! my flower!

Momiel,

Ay, Trip-Madam is her name: see how kindly she comes to it!

Grumiel.
What is that hizzing thing there?

Momiel.

Why nothing less than three barleycorns' length of woman-kind, in a huge petticoat made of a white thumbstall, and having wings as long as a brown hornet's or a caterpillar's after conversion. A pocket-piece!—She too has a name— Busybody. Wilt come with us, Gad-about?

Grumiel.

No! we have more of the sex by one than is welcome.

Momiel.

Nay, thou may'st flutter and squeal and ricket about, like an old wren (as thou art!) when the schoolboy filches thy young one. Adieu, mistress! and bear my respects to Monsieur Saint Vitus, thy dancing-master.

Grumiel.

Come on, thou gibbering ape!

Momiel.

Then, I may say, like one of my kindred in the fable, putting my hand upon this wig-block of thine,—“Bless me! what a fine head were this, if it only had brains!”

Grumiel.
I'll—

Momiel.

Go! go on!—Take a graybeard's advice: never open thy mouth but to eat thy porridge. Though thou didst live upon garbage, nothing would ever go into thy throat that was not better than aught that came out of it. Go on, pray thee!— despise not the use of thy trotters.—Good-bye,

little Mistress Hop-o'my thumb!—Warm work for an afternoon, Mistress! Thou look'st for all the world like a humming-top on the wing; and indeed would'st make a most lively representation of the proverb—a reel in a bottle.—Go on, buzzard!

[Exeunt Fiends with Sylvia.
Floretta.
Now may I to some covert creep,
And like the secret bird of sorrow
In darkling tears for ever weep,
Nor bid again the sun good morrow!
And wo! wo! wo!
Shall be my note where'er I go.

[Vanishes.

Scene VII.

Morgana.
Look out! look out!—Floretta should be here;
Or Osmé whom we sent—
[Exeunt scouts.
Nephon, droop not,
Thou didst perform thy careful duty well!
Rash and presumptuous Youth! he merits all
The punishment he suffers: To neglect
The warning that thou gav'st him ere he past
Insolent o'er the bounds, where his perdition
Gaped for him, like the monster of the Nile,
In every brake and jungle!

Nephon.
Madam, indeed,
I told him 'twas a fiendish stratagem,
To lure him over, but he would not hear;
Stampt when I plucked his skirt, and swung his sword
Round by the wrist, so that I'd lost my hold
And hand together, but I let him go.

Morgana.
I know, I saw it; thou art not to blame.
Proud of his azure weapon, he would cope
With those who scorn it, as they do the edge
Of bladed feather, or those grassy swords
Which our soft tourneyers wield—
(Cry without.)
A messenger!

Enter Osme.
Morgana.
Where is thy sister? hast thou seen her, say?

Osme.
Here comes the elve, weeping her silent way:
Some dreadful news I wot she brings
So lost in grief the wretch appears,
Her head she hides between her wings,
And cannot tell her tale for tears!

Morgana.
The Maid is lost!—Arm! arm, ye warlike elves!
With potent virtues now endue yourselves;
Lay by your puppet words and spears and shields,
We must prepare for other fights and fields.
Mount! mount with me in clouds the blackening sky!
War be the word, and Battle be the cry!

Scene VIII.

[Chorus of Spirits within.]
Enter the Fairy Host in triumph.
[Exeunt rejoicing.

Scene IX.

Stephania, Roselle, Jacintha, Andrea, Geronymo, and Peasants, assembled. They perform a dance; Andrea, between Stephania and Roselle as partners.
Stephania.

Nay, I can foot it no longer.

Roselle.

Nor I, in faith! I cannot feel my legs under me. Signior Andrea, you must dance to that oaken stump, if you will not sit down with the rest of us. O! my heart bounces so, it will break my girdle!

Jacintha.

Well, all is happy now. Our beautiful Queen and her partner are restored.

2d Peasant.

Ay, and here is an entertainment the hospitable dame has provided to welcome us all.

Would the hostess were now at the head of her table!

3d Peasant.

Ay, would she were!—Jollity has set in for the evening.

Roselle.

If it would only last till doomsday, we might be satisfied!

Geronymo.

We are, we are satisfied! We are all blessed ones, that is the tot of the matter!

Stephania.

And our unlucky friend there is the happiest of us all. He has not yet finished his setting-step to his stumpy partner.

1st Girl.

Lawk! what a skip-jack! what a bounce-about!—How he cuts!

2d Girl.

How he capers! He must have been a rope-dancer, as sure as sure—

4th Peasant.

Was he ever on the stage, think ye?

Geronymo.

Absolutely he was, absolutely: I saw him myself there; namelessly, or, that is to say, on the top of a barrel.

3d Girl.

Is this he I have heard of under the name of Merry Andrew?

Roselle.

No wonder if it was, for he is the merriest rogue—Oh! I do love that impudent smock-face of his!

Jacintha.

I think he looks as if he were about to jump out of his skin with joy.

Stephania.

All his afflictions are at an end. He has not even a bone in his foot to complain of.

Andrea.
[Stopping short]

O misery of miseries! O unspeakable misfortune!

Roselle.

Mercy upon us! what new calamity?

Andrea.

O that a man cannot have two wives at a time!—I could find it in my heart to turn Turk for the privilege.

Roselle.

Ho! ho! signior Doleful!—is it this that afflicts you?

Stephania.

I thought there was another face under that hood.

Andrea.

What say you, Cherrybud? would you have me?—And you, Sweetlips?

Stephania.

By your leave, signior: either or neither.

Roselle.

Come, tell us honestly now: What kind of a husband should you make? How should you behave were you married to either of us simple maidens?

Andrea.

Hang myself incontinently.

Stephania.

O pretty!—hang yourself if married to either!

Andrea.

Ay; in despair for the other. But if I were only married to both—ye Graces! what a trio we should make! what a picture for a painter!

—Would there be any thing, do you think, on this side of the sky to compare with us?

Roselle.

No, certainly; unless it were a white goose between a couple of gray ones.

Andrea.

Holla?

Stephania.

Or an ass between two thistles.

Andrea.

O gemini!

Roselle.

Or the likeness would be more like if we said, a crab-apple between two cherries.

Stephania.

Or, as it is in the church, a figure of Death between two angels.

Andrea.

Astonishment!—I profess the women have tongues!—Tongues apiece, as I live, to do evil!

Stephania.

Ay, and more than that—

Andrea.

What! more than one tongue apiece? —O monstrous!

Stephania.

No, signior; but we have the use of that we possess, as you shall find if you please to set it a-going.

Andrea.

By that bunch of keys at your girdle I know you to be a housekeeper, and therefore a person worthy of credit; I will take your word in this matter.—[To Geronymo]
Well, friend!— What a bowing dost thou keep there? as if thou wast upper man of a sawpit!—Is this what you call scraping an acquaintance?

Geronymo.
[To Stephania]

O imperious mistress of my heart!—Suffering-queen of my affections!—I cannot say what I could say, nor will I speak what I would speak!

Andrea.

Write it then, write it! If your tongue is bound to keep the peace on this ground, take her on some other. Inscribe her a billet-doux, and let it be as full of compliments as if it were her epitaph; let it breathe professions like the air of a minister's levee-room; stick it all over with sweet words, as a pastrycook does a tart with comfits; and, in the end, let me advise you, as one that knows the fashion, to subscribe it—“yours faithfully;” yours faithfully, which is as much as to say —Put your whole trust in me, and fear not!

Geronymo.

I will! I will do so! And I will take care as you say, not to admit—“yours faith-fully!” it has a most porpoise-like air with it!

Stephania.

O Geronymo! you need not be porpoise-like to gain me: you are already a melting creature!

Andrea.

Pooh! here have we been conjuring up a whirlwind to blow gossamer! This is a quail, indeed! that comes, fat and foolish, at the first pipe of the sportsman. Well! the vanities of this life are enough to make any man a crying philosopher. —Hark ye, ladies! [To Jacintha and Roselle]

What say you to a glee, or catch, or chorus?—Li! ti! lirra! tirra!—Eh, temptresses? eh, you pair of wild pigeons?

Jacintha.

Roselle chants like a green linnet; but I—

Andrea.

No, you cannot sing at all: I'd swear it, from the shape of your neck. It is made like an ivory pipe, only to be played upon with the fingers; and a man must put his lips to your mouth if he would produce sweet music. Come, I'll charm it out of you.

Jacintha.

Not so free, brother.

Roselle.

Not quite so free, Signior Rolypolillo!

Andrea.

Bless me! have I got into a mountain-nunnery?—Well; it is all one to me; I have my kisses, and you have your lips. If you will not embrace your good fortune when it offers, 'tis your own loss. I know there will be biting of nails for it in private: but never come with your tilly-vally to me! never presume even to blow me a favour! I had rather kiss, ay, a thousand times, the brim of this delicious goblet, than the lips of the Empress of Morocco herself, though they say her mouth might be taken for a bee-hive.

[Drinks.
2d Peasant.

He should have gills like a fish, to let all he gulps pass out behind his ears.

Andrea.

Come, lasses, a glee! a glee! My pipe

is as mellow as a French horn. Come; you have nothing to do but say hem! hem!—put your right hand under your left breast to show that your heart is beating—and then, with an interesting droop of the head, thus, as if you offered your neck to a scimitar, and, indeed, la! had much rather die than exhibit your faculty,—begin espressivo e amabile, raising your voice by degrees till it bullies the echo, and almost breaks your sweet heartstrings as short as maccaroni. Allons! “Tirra lee!”

Andrea.
Looking sad while they were laughing,
What, the silly clown! does he?—
Takes, in mere despair, to quaffing,
Sweeter far than tirra lee!

[Drinks.
Roselle.

A good excuse!

Jacintha.

His modesty had some need of it.

Andrea.
O how happy, happy he
Pouring out his tirra lee!

Enter Agatha, Sylvia, and Romanzo.
ROMANZO

As I live, madam, your wine-merchant is an honest fellow: this is as excellent Champagne as ever I drank at five-and-sixpence a bottle!—though, indeed, a little too potent of the gooseberry.

Peasants.

All joy attend our Queen! our Queen! —the lady of our hearts!—our sovereign-princess! —the star of our worships!—the idol of our perfections!—Huzza! our May Queen! our May Queen!

Sylvia.

Thanks, kind friends and neighbours! Would I were, indeed, a queen for some few hours, that I might reward, by other means than these acknowledgments, your love and loyalty! But though my coffers are empty, my heart is full, and you shall partake largely of its affections. Welcome to you all!

Agatha.

Welcome! welcome, friends and neighbours!

Peasants.

Does she not speak very queen-like? —so courtsying, and gracious, and withal so highspoken and indignified!—O if our duke had only seen her before he married the proud French princess, with her nose turned up like the toe of a China-man's slipper!—Well! to see the luck of foreigners in this country! we make hothouse plants of them, and leave our own pretty flowers to the will of the weather!

Romanzo
[to Andrea.]

I may freely pardon you for what you did unwittingly: but let me beseech you for the future to keep a stricter guard upon your tongue; whose volubility is ever laying you open to your enemies.

Andrea.

Here she is, sir, in petticoat regimentals (Pointing at Roselle):
this is she who will stand sentinel over my volatility; this is my body-guard, my life-guard, my beef-eater, who will never let me travel the length of her apron-string without keeping, I dare swear for her, watch and ward upon my actions. What other guard would you have me set over my tongue, unless I were to go muzzled like a terrier in the dog-days?

Roselle.

Never doubt me! I will stop your mouth—

Andrea.

With kisses: O you are a sad wanton! —She will always hang upon me thus, sir, as if I wore her for a Spanish cloak, and our lips are always touching like a double-cherry. In a word, sir, she is, poor girl! so incorrigibly fond of me, that I believe I must, perforce—take her to wife, lest there might be, as they say in England, a suspension of her habeas corpus, or some other dreadful calamity, too tedious to mention.

Roselle.

I will promise to hang myself for love, when you drown yourself for melancholy.

Romanzo.

There is surely something very catching in this place. I should as soon think of your taking a lock-jaw as a love-fever.

Andrea.

Reform, sir! reform!—it is the order of the day, and shall be radical in my constitution. I have determined to remedy all abuses, redress all grievances, root out all old prejudices, customs, and inveterate habits, which have so long made a borough of my body; and to regulate myself in future by a new code, which in a short time I hope and trust will render me—the envy of all my surrounding neighbours, and the admiration of the world!

Romanzo.

Marriage is the serious end of all our follies.

Andrea.

Alas! ay, sir! It is what we must all

come to! Death and matrimony are both grave words; and the chief distinction between them is that the halter very often brings us to death, while matrimony very often brings us the halter.

Roselle.

No fear of that with you: if you are to be choked, it will be with a flagon of Rhenish.

Andrea.

But the upshot of the whole is, there is nothing left me now but—conjugal felicity. I have been, it is true, while in your worship's company, little better than a reprobate; now that I have kept this lady's, I am little better than one of the converted. In a word, sir, this nymph has made a prototype of me, and I only await your benediction. From having been, as you know, sir, a perfect she-Timon, or in other words, a manhater of all woman-kind, I am now, in all love-matters, become as faithful and fond as a green turtle!—Come, sir, pray give away the bridegroom: I shall never have courage to throw myself into her arms without your paternal countenance.

Stephania.

O the Virgin! how he blushes!

Roselle.

In good troth, sweetheart, if bashfulness had been the only stumbling-block in the way of your promotion, you would never have broken your shins over it. However, I like you better than if you were ever so modest.

Romanzo.

Well then, come, I will bestow your innocence upon this maiden—

Geronymo.

So please your reverence, and mine too upon Mistress Stephania; she will be much beholden to your reverence for the donation.

Andrea.

Ha! ha! ha! ha! your worship is like to have all the modesty of the country at your disposal, if you will take it under your protection.

Romanzo.

Truly I have no desire to meddle with it: you and honest Geronymo must endeavour to get rid of the troublesome commodity without my assistance. I dare say you will experience no impediment from your partners.

Andrea.

'Pon my feracity! I apprehend there will be no let in that quarter: eh, brother Sheepface?

Geronymo.

You have said it, you have said it: there 'tis, and that is the tot of the matter!

Romanzo.

Our hostesses are seated.

Agatha.

You are so full of joy, that you seem to want no other nourishment.

Peasants.

Should not our Queen sit under the Maybush at the head of the table?

Romanzo.

True, neighbours, it should be so. Come, fairest! you shall take your state, and I will be your cupbearer.

Sylvia.

No, you must sit beside me, else I shall be like many a real queen, unhappy in my splendour. If I be indeed queen, you must obey me in this. Come, sit, sit. Sit, fair companions, and let each shepherd choose his place next the lass who

will make room for him. But hearken!—Ere we touch what is set before us, it is meet that we return a solemn thanks for our happy deliverance from peril and sorrow to that Power which has befriended us in our extremity.

FINAL CHORUS.