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Seb. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered.

Adr. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
Seb. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.
Ant. Or as 'twere perfum'd by a fen.

Gon. Here is every thing advantageous to life.
Ant. True; save means to live.

Seb. Of that there's none, or little.

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Gon. How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!

Ant. The ground, indeed, is tawny.

Seb. With an eye 6 of green in't.

Ant. He misses not much.

Seb. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. Gon. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost beyond credit,

Seb. As many vouch'd rarities are.

Gon.

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that our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness, and glosses; being rather new dyed than stain'd with salt water.

Ant. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say, he lies?

Seb. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report. Gon. Methinks, our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the king's fair daughter Claribel to the king of Tunis.

Seb. "Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.

Adr. Tunis was never grac'd before with such a paragon to their queen.

5 i. e. juicy, succulent.

"Red

• A tint or tinge of green. So in Sandy's Travels: "Cloth of silver, tissued with an eye of green;" and Bayle says: with an eye of blue makes a purple."

H.

Gon. Not since widow Dido's time.

Ant. Widow a pox o' that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido!

Seb. What if he had said widower Æneas too? good lord, how you take it!

Adr. Widow Dido, said you? you make me study of that she was of Carthage, not of Tunis. Gon. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.

Adr. Carthage ?

Gon. I assure you, Carthage.

Ant. His word is more than the miraculous harp.'

Seb. He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too. Ant. What impossible matter will he make easy next?

Seb. I think he will carry this island home in his pocket, and give it his son for an apple.

Ant. And sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands.

Gon. Ay?

Ant. Why, in good time.

Gon. Sir, we were talking, that our garments seem now as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who is now queen. Ant. And the rarest that e'er came there. Seb. 'Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido. Ant. O! widow Dido; ay, widow Dido.

Gon. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first

day I wore it? I mean, in a sort.

Ant.

That sort was well fish'd for.

7 Alluding to

"The Gift to king Amphion

That walled a city with its melody."

A lute was given to Amphion by Mercury, and with it he marshalled the stones of Thebes into their places.

H.

Gon. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage?

Alon. You cram these words into mine ears,

against

The stomach of my sense:

'Would I had never
Married my daughter there! for, coming thence,
My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too,
Who is so far from Italy remov'd,

I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir
Of Naples and of Milan! what strange fish
Hath made his meal on thee?

Fran.

Sir, he may live: I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs: he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke

To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, As stooping to relieve him: I not doubt,

He came alive to land.

Alon.

No, no; he's gone.

Seb. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great

loss;

That would not bless our Europe with your daughter, But rather lose her to an African;

Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye,

Who hath cause to wet the grief on't.

Alon.

Pr'ythee, peace.

Seb. You were kneel'd to, and impórtun'd

otherwise

By all of us; and the fair soul herself

8 The meaning of this line will be clear enough, if who be understood as referring to eye. Who and which were often used indiscriminately.

H.

Weigh'd, between loathness and obedience, at
Which end o' the beam she'd bow."

your son,

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We have lost

I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have
More widows in them of this business' making,
Than we bring men to comfort them: the fault's
Your own.

Alon. So is the dearest of the loss.

My lord Sebastian,

Gon.
The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,
And time to speak it in: you rub the sore,

When you should bring the plaster.

Seb.

Ant. And most chirurgeonly.

Very well.

Gon. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,

When you are cloudy.

Seb.

Ant.

Foul weather?

Very foul.

Gon. Had I a plantation of this isle, my lord,— Ant. He'd sow't with nettle-seed.

Seb. Or docks, or mallows. Gon. And were the king on't, what would I do? Seb. 'Scape being drunk, for want of wine. Gon. I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things: for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none: No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil:

No occupation; all men idle, all;

And women too; but innocent and pure:
No sovereignty:-

9 i. e. she was in doubt towards which scale of the balance she should incline.

H.

Seb.

Ant.

Yet he would be king on't.

The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

Gon. All things in common nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,10 Would I not have; but nature should bring forth, Of its own kind, all foison,11 all abundance, To feed my innocent people.

Seb. No marrying 'mong his subjects?

Ant. None, man; all idle; whores, and knaves. Gon. I would with such perfection govern, sir, To excel the golden age." Seb.

12

Ant. Long live Gonzalo !
Gon.

'Save his majesty!

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And, do you mark me, sir? Alon. Pr'ythee, no more: thou dost talk noth

ing to me.

Gon. I do well believe your highness; and did

10 An engine was a term applied to any kind of machine in Shakespeare's age.

11 Foison is only another word for plenty or abundance of provision, but chiefly of the fruits of the earth.

12 In Montaigne's Essay "Of the Cannibals," translated by Florio in 1603, is the following: "Me seemeth that what in those nations we see by experience, doth not only exceed all the pictures wherewith licentious poesy hath proudly embellished the golden age, and all her quaint inventions to feign a happy condition of man, but also the conception and desire of philosophy. - It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politic superiority; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no successions, no dividences; no occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon, were never heard amongst them." From which it is plain enough, that Montaigne and Gonzalo must have been together, and "fed on one thought."

VOL. I.

5

H.

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