A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 42

PHILOMUSUS.

Why, then, let's both go spend our little store In the provision of due furniture, A shepherd's hook, a tar-box, and a scrip: And haste unto those sheep-adorned hills, Where if not bless our fortunes, we may bless our wills.

STUDIOSO.

True mirth we may enjoy in thacked stall, Nor hoping higher rise, nor fearing lower fall.

PHILOMUSUS.

We'll therefore discharge these fiddlers. Fellow-musicians, we are sorry that it hath been your ill-hap to have had us in your company, that are nothing but screech-owls and night-ravens, able to mar the purest melody: and, besides, our company is so ominous that, where we are, thence liberality is packing. Our resolution is therefore to wish you well, and to bid you farewell. Come, Studioso, let us haste away, Returning ne'er to this accursed place.

ACTUS V., SCAENA 3.

_Enter_ INGENIOSO, ACADEMICO.

INGENIOSO.

Faith, Academico, it's the fear of that fellow--I mean, the sign of the sergeant's head--that makes me to be so hasty to be gone. To be brief, Academico, writs are out for me to apprehend me for my plays; and now I am bound for the Isle of Dogs. Furor and Phantasma comes after, removing the camp as fast they can. Farewell, _mea si quid vota valebunt_.

ACADEMICO.

Faith, Ingenioso, I think the university is a melancholic life; for there a good fellow cannot sit two hours in his chamber, but he shall be troubled with the bill of a drawer or a vintner. But the point is, I know not how to better myself, and so I am fain to take it.

ACTUS V., SCAENA 4.

PHILOMUSUS, STUDIOSO, FUROR, PHANTASMA.

PHILOMUSUS.

Who have we there? Ingenioso and Academico?

STUDIOSO.

The very same; who are those? Furor and Phantasma?

[FUROR _takes a louse off his sleeve_.

FUROR.

And art thou there, six-footed Mercury?

[PHANTASMA, _with his hand in his bosom_.

Are rhymes become such creepers nowadays?

Presumptuous louse, that doth good manners lack, Daring to creep upon poet Furor's back!

_Multum refert quibusc.u.m vixeris: Non videmus manticae quod in tergo est_.

PHILOMUSUS.

What, Furor and Phantasma too, our old college fellows? Let us encounter them all. Ingenioso, Academico, Furor, Phantasma, G.o.d save you all.

STUDIOSO.

What, Ingenioso, Academico, Furor, Phantasma, how do you, brave lads?

INGENIOSO.

What, our dear friends Philomusus and Studioso?

ACADEMICO.

What, our old friends Philomusus and Studioso?

FUROR.

What, my supernatural friends?

INGENIOSO.

What news with you in this quarter of the city?

PHILOMUSUS.

We've run[134] through many trades, yet thrive by none, Poor in content, and only rich in moan.

A shepherd's life, thou know'st I wont t'admire, Turning a Cambridge apple by the fire: To live in humble dale we now are bent, Spending our days in fearless merriment.

STUDIOSO.

We'll teach each tree, ev'n of the hardest kind, To keep our woful name within their rind: We'll watch our flock, and yet we'll sleep withal: We'll tune our sorrows to the water's fall.

The woods and rocks with our shrill songs we'll bless; Let them prove kind, since men prove pitiless.

But say, whither are you and your company jogging? it seems by your apparel you are about to wander.

INGENIOSO.

Faith we are fully bent to be lords of misrule in the world's wide heath: our voyage is to the Isle of Dogs, there where the blatant beast doth rule and reign, renting the credit of whom it please.

Where serpents' tongues the penmen are to write, Where cats do wawl by day, dogs by night.

There shall engorged venom be my ink, My pen a sharper quill of porcupine, My stained paper this sin-loaden earth.

There will I write in lines shall never die, Our seared lordings' crying villany.

PHILOMUSUS.

A gentle wit thou hadst, nor is it blame To turn so tart, for time hath wrong'd the same.

STUDIOSO.

And well thou dost from this fond earth to flit, Where most men's pens are hired parasites.

ACADEMICO.

Go happily; I wish thee store of gall Sharply to wound the guilty world withal.

PHILOMUSUS.

But say, what shall become of Furor and Phantasma?

INGENIOSO.

These my companions still with me must wend.

ACADEMICO.

Fury and Fancy on good wits attend.

FUROR.