ACT II.

SCENE I. Another part of the Island.

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others.

Gon. 'Beseech you, sir, be merry: you have cause (So have we all) of joy; for our escape

Is much beyond our loss: our hint1 of woe
Is common; every day, some sailor's wife,

The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,
Have just our theme of woe: but for the miracle,
I mean our preservation, few in millions

Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh
Our sorrow with our comfort.

Alon.

Pr'ythee, peace.

Seb. He receives comfort like cold porridge.
Ant. The visitor3 will not give him o'er so.

Seb. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.

Gon. Sir,

Seb. One:- -Tell.

Gon. When every grief is entertain'd, that's offer'd, Comes to the entertainer

Seb.

A dollar.

Gon. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken truer than you purposed.

Seb. You have taken it wiselier than I meant should.

you

Gon. Therefore, my lord,

1 See note 14, p. 20.

2 It was usual to call a merchant-vessel a merchant, as we now say a merchant-man.

3 He calls Gonzalo the visitor, in allusion to the office of one who visits the sick to give advice and consolation.

Ant. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue! Alon. I pr'ythee, spare.

Gon. Well, I have: But yet

Seb. He will be talking.

Ant. Which of them, he, or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow?

Seb. The old cock.

Ant. The cockrel.

Seb. Done: The wager?
Ant. A laughter.

Seb. A match.

Adr. Though this island seem to be desert,-
Seb. Ha, ha, ha!

Ant. So you've pay'd.

Adr. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible,
Seb. Yet,

Adr. Yet.

Ant. He could not miss it.

Adr. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance*.

Ant. Temperance was a delicate wench.

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 perfumed 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.

Gon. How lush 5 and lusty the grass looks? how

green?

Ant. The ground, indeed, is tawny.

4 Temperance is here used for temperature, or temperateness. 5 Lush is luxuriant, in like manner luscious is used in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine."

Seb. With an eye 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. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness, and glosses; being rather new dy'd 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 Africk, 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 graced before with such a paragon to their queen.

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.

6 That is, with a shade or small portion of green.
"Red with an eye of blue makes a purple."-Boyle.

7 Alluding to the wonders of Amphion's music.

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 sortR.

Ant. That sort was well fish'd for.

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, That is, in a manner or degree.

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 has 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

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

your son,

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 10 of the loss.

Gon. My lord Sebastian, 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 it with nettle-seed.

Seb.

Or docks, or mallows.

Gon. And were the king of it, What would I do? Seb. 'Scape getting drunk, for want of wine.

9 i. e. Deliberated, was in suspense.

10 See note on Twelfth Night, Act v. Sc. 1.