Madrigal And Trulletta A Mock-Tragedy |
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 | Madrigal And Trulletta |  |
SCENE III.
A Parlour.Madrigal, Trulletta. (meeting.
Mad.
My fair Trulletta!
embracing.
Trul.
Oh! my Madrigal!
embracing.
Thou nature's whole perfection in one piece!
I'll hold thee thus, till we incorporate,
And make between us an hermaphrodite.
So closely will I clasp thee in my arms,
That the big wedge, which cleaves the knotted oak,
Could hardly rend me from thy lov'd embrace—
Oh! my Trulletta, let me press thy lips,
My eager, my devouring lips to thine,
And eat thee with my hungry kisses—Now
Ye envying deities Olympian!
Aquatic! and Infernal! see, behold!
Look down, look up—confess—but speak the truth—
Say, would you not ungod yourselves, to be
The happier Madrigal? to clasp her thus?
Thus, thus to strain her to your panting bosoms?
To suck th'Ambrosia of her Hybla lips?
To banquet on her eyes? to be, like me,
Trul.
Alas, my Madrigal!
Mad.
That deep-fetch'd sigh,
Sorrow's sad offspring, speaks thy tender soul
Lab'ring with woe—thy brilliant eyes appear
Studded with pearly drops—oh! let me kiss them off,
These richer jewels, than embowell'd lie
In pregnant India's gem-prolific womb—
Why all this grief?—and is it thus we meet?—
Yes, I must chide; perforce, must chide thee, fair one:
For, oh! our meeting is not like the former;
When every look, when all our talk was love—
Yes, changeful beauty! once there was a time,
When my Trulletta rush'd into my arms,
Swift as the iron messengers of death,
Forc'd from the mortal engines, whose wide throats
Th' immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit.
Trul.
Well might'st thou think my heart encrusted o'er
With marble; or insensible, as rocks,
Should my unfilial niggard eyes refuse
To sympathize my father's threaten'd ruin.
Thou know'st the angry sentence of the law
Hangs heavy o'er him, like a gather'd cloud;
And, e'er to-morrow's journeying sun hath made
His lucid progress to his noon-day summit,
Must by the law's fell shears be cut in twain—
Ye gods! what havock does the halter make
Among your works!
Mad.
Alas! angelic nymph;
Even with a more, far more than filial woe,
I mourn the good old Cabbagino's danger:
For, should the fatal noose—the stinging thought
Alas! hath bred ten thousand scorpions here,
And given my very soul a fit of th' gripes:
That cursed mercer for a web of velvet—
Web, did I say? by all the gods a remnant!
A paultry remnant! scarce a yard! to bring
Thy venerable father to the tree;
'Tis such infernal cruelty, and ire,
As circle-bearded Israelites would scorn—
Yes; he shall feel the terrors of my rage—
The slave shall feel—I'll tear him all to pieces.
By hell's grim king I will—in black and white—
I'll have a hundred hawkers bellow out,
In roar most dreadfully vociferous—
Oh! how I'll gall him—may this carcase rot
A loathsome banquet to the fowls of heaven,
If e'er my breast admit a thought to bound,
A single thought, the progress of my rage.
Trul.
May the revengeful bloodhound never feel
A moment's respite from his gouty pangs:
And all the racking pains, that flesh is heir to,
May he accumulated underbear!
Eternal moths and mildews haunt his shop!
When, o'er his pipe, th' exhilerating juice
Of punch, that compound manifold, he sips,
May my dear father's grinning spectre rise,
And snatch th' uplifted nipperkin away
From his untasting lips! when from his glass
Of life th'out-hast'ning sands are shook, may fiends
Ten thousandfold than elemental fire:
Then snatch, half-roasted, snatch him to a mount
In icy Zembla's keen-congealing clime:
There let him freeze, ye gods! unpitied freeze,
(kneels
With shiv'ring limbs, blue nose, and chatt'ring teeth,
A spectacle of horror!
Mad.
Amen to that, sweet pow'rs!—thy filial prayer
Is register'd above; and he is doom'd
To suffer all thy imprecated curse—
But come, my dearest; dry this crystal sluice!
Thou hast been tender over much, and mourn'd,
Even too profusely mourn'd, thy father's danger—
Madam, 'tis prudent, I confess it is;
But is it loving, as true lovers ought,
To be so very prudent in our loves?
What interruption this?
An original image, and of double beauty of any I ever yet met with in the English language. Dr. Humbug.
Alexander the Great.
The expression of eating with hungry kisses is undoubtedly very sublime; but the same author in his Massacre of Paris, carries the image yet higher, where he says,
And eat your Marguirite with your hungry eyes.The epithet hungry is frequently used by tragic authors, which may probably be occasion'd by the hunger they so often experience. The sublime Mr. Banks, in his Earl of Essex, hath the elegant phrase of hungry nostrils:
with hungry nostrilswaits for my blood,
which last word I am apt to imagine an error of the press: I am of opinion it ought to be read snuff, as snuff is almost the only food for the nostrils.
Dr. Humbug.This is the most superlatively grandest expression, I have met with in any dramatic author, and may justly be called, a carrying the English language, as far as it can possibly go. Dr. Humbug.
Th' immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit.
Among your works!
This line may possibly admit of a cavil among some quibbling criticks; but there are innumerable dramatic authorities to justify our author, and incontestably prove the soul is subject to the disorders of the body. Among such authorities is one of the judicious Aaron Hill, Esquire, who says in his Merope,
And my shock'd soul aches at him.Now if the soul be liable to aches I would ask these pitiful carpers, the criticks, why it may not be as naturally subject to a fit of the gripes.
Dr. Humbug.My translator, Mr. Rone, hath render'd it horse-shoe bearded; but as circle-bearded is a more genteel and musical epithet, I have given it, as it now stands in the text.
Our author, in this spirited image, which is taken from the Regicide, hath, in my opinion, follow'd the original too closely; for, with submission to so great a genius as the DOCTOR, loathsome banquet seems to border a little on the tipperarian idiom. Dr. Humbug.
In the original it is compound quadruple; which phrase, I apprehend, is not so just as compound manifold. It is generally supposed that punch is sometimes made of more ingredients than four; especially when brew'd by the three-penny retailers. Dr. Humbug.
Our author seems to have had an eye on the following passage in the dedication to Merope, viz.
------ Life's evening gleam survey,Nor shake th' out-hast'ning sands, nor bid them stay.
It may not be amiss to inform my less knowing readers, that the said dedication is in rhyme; and that it is indubitably the most sublime, and poetical dedication in the English language. There are such a variety of beautiful sentiments, figures, and metaphors in it, that it will bear reading over a thousand times. For my part, I must ingenuously own, the style is so very masterly and poetical, that I am not yet acquainted with all its beauties, tho' I have studied it like an enigma.
Dr. Humbug, | Madrigal And Trulletta | |