ACT. IV. SCEN. V. APELLES, PAGE. Apelles. Now, Apelles, gather thy wits together: Campaspe is no less wise than fair, thyself must be no less cunning than faithful. It is no small matter to be rival with Alexander. Page. Apelles, you must come away quickly with the picture; the king thinketh that now you have painted it, you play with it. Apelles. If I would play with pictures, I have enough at home. Page. None perhaps you like so well. Apelles. It may be I have painted none so well. Page. I have known many fairer faces. Apelles. And I many better boys*. ACT. V. SCEN. I. [Exeunt. DIOGENES, SYLVIUS, PERIM, MILO, TRICO, MANES. Sylvius. I have brought my sons, Diogenes, to be taught of thee. Diogenes. What can thy sons do? Sylvius. You shall see their qualities: dance, sirrah. [Then Perim danceth. How like you this? doth he well? Diogenes. The musicians very bad, who only study to have their strings in tune, never framing their manners to order. Sylvius. Now shall you see the other-tumble, sirrah. [Milo tumbleth How like you this? why do you laugh? Diogenes. To see a wag that was born to break his neck by destiny, to practise it by art. Qu: Toys-i. e. to play with. O. G. Milo. This dog will bite me, I will not be with him. Diogenes. Fear not, boys, dogs eat no thistles. Perim. I marvel what dog thou art, if thou be a dog. Diogenes. When I am hungry, a mastiff; and when my belly is full, a spaniel. Sylvius. Dost thou believe that there are any gods, that thou art so dogged? Diogenes. I must needs believe there are gods: for I think thee an enemy to them. Sylvius. Why so? Diogenes. Because thou hast taught one of thy sons to rule his legs, and not to follow learning; the other to bend his body every way, and his mind no way. Perim. Thou doest nothing but snarl, and bark like a dog. Diogenes. It is the next way to drive away a thief. Sylvius. Now shall you hear the third, who sings like a nightingale. Diogenes. I care not: for I have heard a nightingale sing herself. Sylvius. Sing, sirrah. SONG 36 [Tryco singeth. What bird so sings, yet so does wail ? Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu she crys, And still her woes at midnight rise. Brave prick song! who is't now we hear? 37 None but the lark so shril and clear; 36 Song] This Song, as the two former, is omitted in all the quarto editions. It is here restored from Blount's edition, where it first appeared. 37 None but the lark, &c.] Milton seems to have had this passage in his mind when he wrote the following lines in his L'Allegro : "To hear the lark begin his flight, "And singing startle the dull night; "From his watch tow'r in the skies, "Till the dappled dawn doth rise; And a late elegant writer, Mr. F. Coventry, appears also to have been indebted to our Author in the last of the following lines: "When morn returns with doubtful light, "And Phebe pales her lamp of night. Now at heavens gates she claps her wings, Sylvius. Lo, Diogenes, I am sure thou canst not do so much. Diogenes. But there is never a thrush but can. Sylvius. What hast thou taught Manes thy man? Diogenes. To be as unlike as may be thy sons. Manes. He hath taught me to fast, lye hard, and run away. Sylvius. How sayest thou, Perim, wilt thou be with him? Perim. Ay, so he will teach me first to run away. Diogenes. Thou needest not be taught, thy legs are so nimble. Sylvius. How sayest thou, Milo, wilt thou be with him? Diogenes. Nay, hold your peace, he shall not. "Still let me wander forth anew, "And print my footsteps on the dew; 66 Prepares to yoke his oxen meet, "And early drest in neat array, "To milk maid chanting shrill her lay, "And the sound of distant flail; "Gives the ear a rough good morrow, "And at the gate of heaven sings." Penshurst, a Poem. Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. IV. Mr. Coventry might have been indebted either to a song in Shakspeare's Cymbeline, or to a passage in his 29 sonnet. Again, "Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings." "Like to the lark at break of day arising "From sullen earth, sings hims at heaven's gate." Again, to Milton's Paradise Lost. B. 5. ye birds, "That singing up to heaven's gate ascend." S. Sylvius. Why? Diogenes. There is not room enough for him and me to tumble both in one tub. Sylvius. Well, Diogenes, I perceive my sons brook not thy manners. Diogenes. I thought no less, when they knew my virtues. Sylvius. Farewell, Diogenes, thou needest not have scraped roots, if thou wouldst have followest Alexander. Diogenes. Nor thou have followed Alexander, if thou hadst scraped roots. I fear me, Apelles, that thine eyes have blabbed that which thy tongue durst not. What little regard hadst thou, whilst Alexander viewed the counterfeit of Campaspe! thou stoodst gazing on her countenance. If he espy or but suspect, thou must needs twice perish, with his hate, and thine own love. Thy pale looks, when he blushed, thy sad countenance, when he smiled, thy sighs, when he questioned, may breed in him a jealousy, perchance a frenzy. O love, I never before knew what thou wert, and now hast thou made me that I know not what myself am! only this I know, that I must endure intolerable passions, for unknown pleasures. Dispute not the cause, wretch, but yield to it for better it is to melt with desire, than wrestle with love. Cast thyself on thy careful bed, be content to live unknown, and die unfound. O Campaspe, I have painted thee in my heart! painted? nay, contrary to mine art, imprinted, and that in such deep characters, that nothing can rase it out, unless it rub my heart out. [Exit. ACT. V. SCEN. III. MILECTUS, PHRYGIUS, LAYIS, DIOGENES. Milectus .It shall go hard, but this peace shall bring us some pleasure. Phrygius. Down with arms, and up with legs, 38 this is a world for the nonce. Layis. Sweet youths, if you knew what it were to save your sweet blood, you would not so foolishly go about to spend it. What delight can there be in gashing, to make foul scars in fair faces, and crooked maims in strait legs? as though men being 38 - this is a world for the nonce.] "That is" (says Mr. Tyrwitt, in his Notes on Chaucer, vol. IV. 207.) " as I conceive for the "occasion. This phrase, which was very frequently, though not always very precisely, used by our old writers, I suppose to "have been originally a corruption of corrupt Latin. From pro 66 66 пипс, suppose came for the nunc, and so for the nonce; just as "from ad-nunc came anon. The Spanish entonces has been formed in the same manner from in tunc." To confirm this explanation, the following examples may be produced : 66 Erasmus's Praise of Folie, 1549, Sig. K 2: "This man mourneth, "and lorde, what folies saieth he, and dooeth he, hyrynge also some plaires (as it were) to wepe and howle for the nones.' Ibid. Sig. L 3: " eche of whome, in bablyng maye compare "with ten women chosen for the nones.' 66 Gascoigne's Supposes, 1587, A. 3. S. 3: -step to him all at once; take him; and with a cord that I have lay'd on the table 'for the nonce, bind him hand and foot." 66 Ben Jonson's Volpone, A. 2. S. 2: Here's a medicine for the "nones." Nash's Lenten Stuff, 1599: "Norwich at her majesty's coming in progress thither, presented her with a shew of knitters, on high stage placed for the nonce." The wonderfull Years, 1603, by Tho. Dekker: "Oh lamentable! "never did the olde buskinde tragedy beginne till now: for the "wives of those husbands, with whom she had play'd at fast and "loose, came with their nayles sharpened for the nonce, like cattes, "and tongues forkedly cut like the stings of adders, &c." Gascoigne's Works, 1587, p. 272: "In the ende she tooke out a booke (which she had brought for the nonce) and bound him by "othe to accomplish it." |