in The World Tossed at Tennis — Middleton, Thomas; Rowley, William
Metadata
Play
The World Tossed at Tennis
Author
Middleton, Thomas; Rowley, William
Year (catalogued)
1620
First performance
1620
Decade
1620s
Genre
Masque
Play type
Occasional; Adult Professional
Company
Prince Charles's Men (first)
Speech prefix(es)
Law. | Law:
Words
426
Characters
2440
Typicality
0.49 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A07525
BritDrama no.
1931
Cluster
Cluster 14 — Law & judgment
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
No more, the case is clear. I grant, my Pills are bitter, I, and costly; But their effects are rare, Divine, and wholesome, Theres and Excommunicate Capiendo, Capias post K. and and Ne exeat Regno. I grant, theres bitter Egrimony in um, And Antimony, I put money in all still: And it works preciously, who ejects injuries, Makes um belch forth in vomit but the Law? Who clears the Widow's case, and after gets her If she be wealthy: but the Advocate?—then to conclude, If you'll have Mundus, à Mundo, clean, firm, Give him to me, I'll scour him every Term. Thee! Infamy to our profession, Which, without wrong to truth, next the Divine one, Is the most graven and hono rabble Function That gives a Kingdom blessed: but thou, the poison, Disease, that grows close to the heart of Law, And makest rash censurers think the found partly perished, Thou fowl Eclipse, that interposing Equity, As the dark Earth, the Moon, makest the world Judge, That blackness and corruption have possessed The silver-shine of Justice; when 'tis only The smoke ascending from thy poys'nons ways Cos nage, Demurs, and fifteen Term-delays: Yet hold thee, take the Muck on't, thats thine own, The Devil and all; but the fair Fame and honour Of righteous actions, good men's prayers and wishes, Which is that glorious portion of the World The noble Lawyer strives for; that thy bribery, Thy double-handed gripe shall never reach to: Wit fat and filthy gain thy Lust may feast, But poor men's curses Beatrice thee from the rest. He that pleads for the world, must fallen To his business roundly, most gracious And illustrious Prince, thus stands the case: The world in Greek is Cosmos, in Latin, Mundus, In Law-French Lamonde, we leave the Greek, And come to the Law-French, or glide upon the Latin, All's one business; then unde mundus? shall we come to that? Nonne diriuatur à munditia? The word cleanness, Mundus, quasi mundus, clean, And what can cleanse or mundify the world Better then Law, the clearer of all Cases, The Sovereign pill or potion that expels All poisonous, rotten, and infectious wrongs, From the vexed bosom of the Commonwealth? Theres a familiar phrase implies thus much, I'll put you to your purgation; that is, The Law shall cleanse you: Can the sick world then Tossed up and down from time to time, repose it self In a Physicians hand better improved? Upon my life and reputation, In all the Courts I come at, be assured I'll make it clean.
Plot summary
Plot — The World Tossed at Tennis
The royal palaces of Richmond and St James now have a rival, Denmark House. Richmond is afraid that the newcomer will take all Prince Charles’s attention, leaving them neglected; but Denmark House assures them that each is suitable for a particular season (herself for winter, St James’s for spring, and Richmond for summer), and that the Prince will rotate among them equally. An unemployed scholar and an unemployed soldier consider their options. Their patroness Pallas descends, argues that the complete man combines both their professions, art and arms together, and invokes Jupiter's help. Jupiter presents the Muses and the Nine 1620 Worthies as an illustration of the virtue of former times. Time weeps at the encroaching vice of the present; he finds himself continually abused and hated. Deceit and pride have damaged the world in its latter days, and Jupiter summons the five coloured starches as illustrations of the absurdity of modern fashion. White Starch claims precedence over the others, but Yellow wins acclaim. Simplicity arrives to see what has become of the world (represented on stage by a globe), and is not reassured by his observations. Deceit wants to cozen him of the world, Simplicity to protect it from Deceit’s bad influence. Deceit successively gains the confidence of a series of men with worldly power: a king, a land- captain, a sea-captain, a flamen, and a lawyer. Each in turn is persuaded that the world should belong to him: the King takes it from Simplicity, and the Land- Captain from the King (through a display of superior military power); the Sea-Captain threatens the Land- Captain with naval cannon and they agree to share the world; but the Flamen takes it from them, urging them to look to their souls, and the Lawyer in turn takes it from the Flamen, insisting on his role in maintaining proper social discipline. On each occasion, Deceit asks for his share of the world, and is rebuffed at every turn (though the Lawyer gives him all the money in the world): none of the worldly powers is susceptible to corruption. A dance ensues in which the various powers pass the world between themselves; Deceit and the Devil repeatedly attempt to possess it, and fail. The world ends up in the hands of the King. With the world now at ease, Jupiter tells the Soldier and Scholar that they have only themselves to blame if they are unemployed, and encourages them to go and get jobs. The Soldier goes to war overseas; the Scholar stays in England under its…