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)
Sea Cap. | Sea-Capt.
Words
325
Characters
1798
Typicality
0.37 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A07525
BritDrama no.
1931
Cluster
Cluster 6 — Battlefield messengers & soldiers
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Be ready if I call to give fire to the Ordnance. Peace Purser, no more, I'm vexed, I'm kindled. You, Land Captain, quick, deliver. Deliver, or I'll thunder thee a pieces, Make night within this hour, even at high noon, Belched from the Canon: darest expostulate With me? my fury? What's thy merit, Land-worm, That mine not centuples? Thy lazy Marches and safe-footed battles Are but Like dangerous dreams to my encounters: Why, every minute the Deep gapes for me, Beside the fiery throats of the loud fight, When we go too't, and our fell Ordnance play, It's Like the figure of a latter day. Let me but give the word, night begins now, Thy breath and prize both beaten from thy body: How darest thou be so slow? Not yet—then— For this resign, Partly thou shalt have still, but the greatest mine. Only to us belongs the golden sway, Th'Indies load us; thou livest but by thy pay. No in sooth Sir, Coward and coozner; how many Sea-Battels Hast thou compounded to be cabled up? Yet when the fights were ended, who so ready To cast sick soldiers and dismembered wretches, Overboard, instantly, crying, away With things without Arms; it's and ugly sighed; When troth thine own should have been off by right: But thou layest safe within a wall of hemp, Telling the guns, and numbering they with farting: Leave me, and speedily; I'll have thee rammed Into a Culverin else, and thy rear flesh Shot all into potched eggs. The motion's worthy, I will join with thee, Both to defend and enrich Majesty. Whose this? Some Scholar. He may be what he will for me, fellow Captain; For I have seen no Church these five and twenty years; I mean as people ought to see it, inwardly. Grave Sir, I give thy words their deserved honour, And to thy Sacred charge freely resign, All that my Fortune, and the Age made mine.
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…