University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

—A Meadow.
Enter Joseph attended, and Harvestmen severally.
Joseph.
Now, are the men at labour in the fields?

First Harvestman.
As thick as bees, great sir, and not one drone
Amongst them.

Joseph.
Let them lose no single grain.
Plenty sometimes proves coy, and like a maid
Who fears a waste because too easy won,
Will frown and turn upon your confidence:
Then thriftless prodigals do think on orts,
Envy your beggars, and o'er-beat the straw,
Where struggling grains are jewels.

First Harvestman.
I am come,
Commanded by your steward, to unfold
The issue of our labour. All the west
Of this great city, e'en from bound to bound,
Hath not a shed, or tent, or archèd roof,
Where lay our city stores, but it is gorg'd
Brim-full of weighty grain; nay, not a crack
Or crevice doth remain of public holds
But it is chok'd with it, and yet men flock
With empty purses and with laden cars
Craving for coin, and sick at plenteousness.
I left some hundreds thronging by the way,
Out of all spirit that your steward paus'd
To purchase more till you had given command.

Joseph.
Go, lade thy asses with two sacks of coin:
Buy all thou canst, and do not 'bate in price,
But pay the equal sum that I have fix'd
For every measure; and although these men
Will race to rid them of their future bread,
We will not therefore in our better sense
Take mean advantage of their ignorance.—
Besides, their coin must every piece come back
When their need presses.

First Harvestman.
But, my gracious lord,
What can we do with such a waste of corn
Unless we raise a mountain on the ground
And leave the dew and sun our harvestmen
To form a rind, and thus to roof itself?

Joseph.
Call all the carpenters and builders round,
And over-pay them half their proper hire;
And all the youth who have the strength to leap,
And all the old men that can touch the ground,
And let these last go out into the fields
And gather stover, rushes, reeds, and fern:
Command the first hew down the sapling oaks,
And bring them to the city, and there build
A granary to reach three thousand feet;
And let the thatchers thatch it from the rain.
Cram that, and if the land still throws her fraught,
Then raise another.

First Harvestman.
I will see it done.

Joseph.
This officer shall go along with thee.
See that the men who labour in my rule
Are amply paid, according to their work,
At shut of eve. Without a metal spur,
That which I order will be sloven'd o'er.
The eye and appetite thus over-fed,
Will turn the stomach of their gratitude,
And Heaven's bounty will be scorn'd to waste:
A miner's eye is sick of swarthy gold.

First Harvestman.
The bidding of my lord shall be perform'd.

[Exit.
Joseph.
The air is never cold, nor burning hot;
And usual extremity is sunk
In temp'rate days, and nourishing moist nights.
Birds swarm, and flowers blow, as if all things
Yielded to some magician's fantasy;
Laughter is heard wherever you can turn,
And men are fat as puttocks in a cage,
Fed choicely for the knife.—And such a turn
Would famine fain bestow on us withal—
E'en things of slothful life do feel the change;
The crocodile hath left her slimy bed
Encradled in the rushes of the Nile,
And makes a journey over marsh and flat
To hide her early eggs. Fierce snakes do quit
The rooted bottoms of the lordly woods,
And prey in meadows. Eagles have been seen
To settle in the city, and the kids
And heifers do break through the pasture bound;
A general and uncheck'd liberty,
Bred of this sudden change, doth tempt all things
To shun the habits of old circumstance.
Herein man's image too may be espied;
As when a beggar finds a miser's hoard,
To right and left he scatters it away
Till he is once more brought unto a crutch;
And men will sleep upon a dangerous ground
Nor dream of yawning earthquake underneath.
Great God doth jerk our judgments oftentimes—
Raises the fear, or punishes the fault—
But out, alas! once more the cup is full,
And sudden we are drunk. Men, in the mass,
Buy dear experience to throw away.
This lean and frightful famine now at hand
Will shake our city; some two seasons gone,
And then comes waste, and old abuse, and want.
So the great moral is thus cast away,
And wisdom in the public walk lies dead.
Men will be men, while God is merciful!