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)
Time.
Words
385
Characters
2102
Typicality
0.36 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A07525
BritDrama no.
1931
Cluster
Cluster 10 — Mourners, mothers & doleful voices
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Who ha more cause? Who more wronged then Time? Time passes all men With a regardless eye, at best, the worst Expect him with a greedy appetite. The landed Lord looks for his Quarter day, The big-bellied Usurer for his teeming gold That brings him forth the child of Interest: He that beyond the bounds of heavens large blessing, Hath made a fruitless creature to increase: Dull earthen Minerals to propagate, These only do expect and entertain me: But (being come) they bend their plodding heads, And while they count their bags, they let me pass, Yet instant wish me come about again. Would Time deserve their thanks, or Jove their praise, He must turn Time only to Quarter days. O, but my wrongs they are innumerable! The Lawyer drives me off from Term to Term, Bids me (and I doo't) bring forth my Alathae My poor child Truth, he sees, and will not see her: What I could manifest in one clear day, He still delays a cloudy Jubilee. The Prodigal wastes, and makes me sick with surfeits: The Drunkard (strong in Wine) trips up my heals, And sets me topsie-turuy, on my head, Waking my silent passage in the night With Revels, noise, and Thunder-clapping oaths, And snorting on my bright Meridian, And when they think I pass too slowly by: They have a newfound vapour to expel me, They smoke me out: ask um but why they doo't, And he that worst can speak, yet this can say, I take this whiff to driven the Time away. O, but the worst of all, women do hate me: I cannot set impression on their checks With all my circular hours, days, months, and years, But it's wiped off with gloss and pensilrie, Nothing so hateful, as grey hairs and Time; Rather no hair at all; it's sins Autumn now: For those fair Trees that were more fairer cropped, Or they fallen of themselves, or will be lopped: Even Time it self (to number all his griefs) Would waste himself unto his ending date: How many would eternity wish here, And that the Sun, and Time, and Age might stand And leave their Annual distinction, That nature were bedrid, all motion sleep? Time having then such foes, ha cause to weep. Redress it Jupiter.
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…