LUCIUS

Ah my Endymion, seest thou yond rising Sun? Why nothing boy But at his presence why do those lesser-fires Pluck in their shamefaced heads? dost thou not mark Dull heavy Page? I can but meditate Upon the wit of Nature, who by objects Low and inanimate, as is that Sun — does read unto us A lecture of her higher mysteries. What dost thou think is meant by that same Sun? And those extinguished tapers? —he alas Poor aged wretch but coldly imitates That which Pandora does unto the life. While she is absent thousands of petty beauty's Do twinkle in the night, let her appear, And they all vanish. Endymion, lend me thine eyes a little; Dost thou desire to see a Map, a Model Of all the world in brief and in one word? View this— why readest thou not? thy happy lips Should thirst me thinks to have that blessed air Divorce them. read. Ah Pandora. Look here's the Sun, this place does Jupiter Possess, here Venus, and there Phoebe; mark— Here is the Earth, but in her bravery, And smiling as when Solemnizing does sleep betwixt The twining Gemini. Fortune! how happy were I was this face Of thine not counterfeit. Speak Endymion: But art thou sure that my Neander drew The fair Constantina for his Valentine? How never said it? Oh too too true presage of both our Fortune's. But let it be. When I do violate That love, that more then mortal bound, wherewith My soul is tied unto Neander, may I fallen unpitied, may no gentle sighs Be spent at my last obsequies, may I want A man to wish me again, would that prevail. But I do feel a poverty of words Begin to cease me. Good Endimyon, Where is my boy Luscinio? Call him in, That he may touch a string which may dissolve me Into a flood of tears—come on my boy, Enter Lusc. with a Lute. O teach that hollow pensive Instrument To give a true relation of my woes While I lie here, and with my sighs keep time. As with one That is of all men the most miserable. Ah my Pandora, when I record thy name, (Thy name that's bounded with that sacred number As showing all Perfection bides in thee) Me thinks the numerous Orbs dwell in mine ear, After which found all others seem unpleasing, Harsh, void of Harmony— Pandora —o How sweet a life had the Chameleon Might he but ever feed upon such airs! Live happy still, and when thine aged head Loaded with years Shall be inveloped Within this earth, may a perpetual spring Be on thy Grave. But when I Forget to love thee or thy memory, May my white name be stained with the blot Of baseness, and I die without one tear To wash it out. Ah Anteros, thou art too rough a Surgeon To handle my wounds. Do not blaspheme good Anteros; she is The model of the world. But my Pandora is The abstract of them all; when she was born, The whole house of heaven did meet, and there decreed Only in her mortality should reach Perfection. Sir I must leave you. Oh my deer friend Neander, Shall I do this to thee? to such a friend? But see Pandora. O how amazed and sudden is the flight Of all the spirits of darkness, when the day But shows her face! O you immortal Gods! Why did you suffer those vain Lunatic Poets So much to antedate the works of nature, Who living many ages since did write I know not what of many Nymphs and Graces, Muses and Sire's? they are mere fables all; With my Pandora they had all their births, And when she die they'll perish with her. O happy name! 'Tis my friend Neander. What is he gone? Love you? Now all the God's forbid it. I love you? My better Angel guard me from such a sin. Should I love you, a Thief? A thief I and the worst of Thieves— * Villain thou liest. aside. Lady, I'll tell you, since you do so long To hear your praises trumpeted to the world, First, thou hast robbed thy Father, thine own Father, Of all that little stock of virtue and goodness Which nature gave him, and (most covetous) Hast poured it to thy greater heap; beside Thou hast undone thy Sister, stolen from her All that was beautiful and lovely in her; That fair majestic straightness which attracts The eyes of thousands to admire, Was hers; Those rosy buds that open on your cheeks Were cropped out of her garden; upon her ruins Is that fair Aedifice of thine erected: Last, thou hast stolen from me and from Neander (Which are not two that have deserved the worst Of thee in all the world) our happiness All our content, our joy, our very selves. You see how amiable a creature you are, How well deserving love. Should I love you? I'de first embrace a Succubus, court the plague, Or kiss a cloud that's big with lightning — (heavens, Aside. Have ye no thunderbolts in store to strike This sacrilegious head that thus blaspheames One of your dearest pieces? —) I love you? Whose face dressed up in that same innocent lawn Shows Like a dunghill set about with Lilies. * (Thou art a perjured wretch) — should I love you! Aside. Whose eyes are Like two fired barrels set Upon a Beacon only to astonish Aside. And fright the neighbouring people—* (o my heart! It is a hundred thousand miles betwixt Thee and my tongue) — what do you meditate on? The graven? If thou wouldst have the shortest cut to hell, To that same receptacle of black souls, (Where such as die for love do walk in shades As dark as were their thoughts, while they lived here) Lend me thy hand and I will show it thee. Why thou art at thy journeys end already. amongst the departed souls, below Where the dire furies have their habitation, It's in this breast. Away thou prostitute, immodest, go. Or you, or I must leave this place. Neander! The Gods befriend thee, whosoever thou art, That I am thought worth naming yet, not lost Unto all mankind quite, though to my self! Who is that dares talk Of comfort to me? But once name the word That is exiled whole Nature? good M r Lively Wast you that spoke? What's that? How? happiness to me? thou shouldst have put The space of fifteen ages betwixt those words, They are so far from reconciliation; Thou hast no Grammar in thee, knowest no concord. How? mine to day? Vnspeak't again, it must not be. Dost thou intend to buy me to thee? and To break me and my Fortune's with a courtesy, Which I shall never be able to repay? Employ thy art then, all thy quicker plots To further my Neander in his love: Who by how much the more his virtues be Greater then mine (who hardly have so much As will redeem me from the name of vicious ) So much the more will apprehend the benefit, So much the more reward thee. But canst thou utter this (without a blush?) Or hath thy many years Blocked up those channels of thy blood, that now They are not able to afford that face, (That starved face of thine, bankrupt of virtue) The least relief? but I'll undo your plots. Since you do force me, I'll confess a secret, Which hitherto I've hardly whispered Unto my privatest thoughts. I am no husband, No husband (mark you) for Pandora, nor For any woman living; for kind Nature Has stamped Eunuch on me from my cradle. That w changed is true. Do you hear that? Not so, Rather that name belongs to you Neander, That shall have no such care to trouble you: For if my art deceives me not (fair creature Your hand) this wife of yours is never likely For to bear children, but on her back, or arms. Because in this little vale That lies at the foot of Venus mountain, here, I do discover something too much for mother. Come, come, Neander, these are poor devices, Tricks of the Scene, and stale, they will not take. And you grey hairs, me thinks that thou shouldst owe A greater and more filial reverence To the fair Ceremonies of the Church, then thus To stalk with them, to make them stales unto Such base ridiculous— I will not hear thee. A fair gown Indeed, and soap, and starch enough, to dazzle The eyes of some young country heir, that has Never been drilled through Drury lane, or Bloomsbury. But pray thee (friend) whose daughter hast thou married? What may she have to name? But is this Constantina? Is this Jack Loveall's sister? But is this she Whom Cleopes once loved, and has forsaken? Is this That cried up wonder? that Fidelia? A sudden change. Woman speak, What is he for a man? Neander, whilst we strive about the shadow We have the substance ravished from us. But does this woman gull us? Exit Plac. Or is it real thinkest thou? No more. 'Tis my boy Endymion, Now hell and tortures! Neander, It is a sacrilege unpardonable To pluck him from that Altar. Villain, and Traitor die. Did all mankind inhabit in that breast, I'de put the Gods unto a second trouble For to create that species a new. Oh Neander, Why do we stand thus coldly here? and not How out a passage through this prostitute To travail to the joust destruction Of her base Lover, and my baser vassal? But is this true? Believe him not, this is Boy, a villain (Whom I, but that—) Dressed up In woman's Clothes by that same dotard Lively. Sweetest Neander leave. By all the gods, it is a boy, it's false. But for to rob you of all hope of me Give me but care, I am and Eunuch, if You can endure to have a frozen statue, Sleep by your side, while you awake, recount The tedious minutes of your widowed nights And sighs, and think, and think, and sighs again, Behold and husband for you, I am he. She swonnes. What is the matter? Please you fair Lady To use my service? He is yours. What is he gone? so soon? Exit. To's Engineer I know, to his contriver; But I will follow them so fast, that not A syllable shall pass without my Knowledge. Stipes runs against Lucius. How now you Rascal? where are your eyes I wonder? Excellent. Nay forward, on, we know you have a tongue. Would you could raise your voice a little sir, You are not herd. Are you drawn dry so quickly, M r Lickthumbe? Have you no more good names in pickle for me? Nay come i'faith, let's have and other bout. So: but Sir resolve me, Have ye no Empirics? no Physicians I'th City, that you thus do send your mad men Into the country to be cured? but Sir I'll leave you. You will not? You will? but yet take heed that your ill language Procures not me to turn Physician. This sword of mine opens a vein but harshly, Do you hear. Suffer him; His tongue has learned the palsy from his hands; Alas he's old, and must be pardoned for't. But what imports this multitude? and see Neander With his Boy-bride. Pandora, sweetest Lady — By all the joys in Love, by all the sorrows, By all his Roses, and his Wormwood, take Thy thoughts from me, and let them doubled fallen Upon my friend Neander. —Fairest foul, Do but contemplate that most curious frame Of man, in what a pleasing harmony Nature has married all those provinces His limbs together: view but his sparkling eye, And read divinity there; look on his hair, Survey his face, and fee how Majesty And sweetness there do strive for victory, And still the issue's doubtful. Am I my self? or do I dream all this? Do I love her? do I deserve her love? Hast thou (sweet friend) for me forsaken her, Whom thou didst prize above thine own proper soul? And now hast married her whom thou didst fly? And all for my sake, and shall I thus repay thee? But for her love thou never hadst been Neander; And but for mine hadst been Neander still; Friend Cleopes, or if thou wilt Neander, (Under both titles most beloved of me) Was she all Venus; did each hair of hers Fetter a Love, were there as many Cupid's That hovered o'e her head, as there be lights Which guild yond Marble roof, by them I swear, By all that's Sacred, by what ever flies The touch of mortal eye, I swear again, I would disclaim her and her love for ever. So quickly? Oh Isabella, it's for thy sake I know That all these Misery's do happen me. (Forgive me good Laurentio) Isabella, At length I have experience what it is To love and outside, the mere bark of woman, And to forsake and inward virtue: but If once I have thee in possession more — I dare not look upon that wronged face. Fair soul Canst thou forgive thy Lucius? Give me a man dares ask That question? Good Laurentio let me crave Your liking and consent. To marry this your daughter. I will not hear of Portion, she her self Is dowry enough to me.— Oh Isabella! Thou art come To lose thy labour then; I am below Both all the love, and all the spite of Fortune, She will not make me happy, and she cannot Make me more wretched then I am. I lie, She may do both. But speak thou reverend head, Has ought that is good befallen my Neander, That thou darest venture out that name of happy So confidently upon me? —say. I do confess that I am something fallen Oft from that height of reason which before, While I had liberty, I did enjoy: But thou dost wrong me much, if thou dost think That Love has eaten up all man in me. I tell you, I do know your plots, your drifts, And all your consultations, as well As if I had had a cabin in your bosom, And had from thence betrayed them; did not I Hear when Neander did solicit thee For to procure a Masculine Bride for him? Did not I hear thee promise him to do it? Hast thou not now performed it? are not they By thy procurement now contracted? speak; It's not so easy to deceive the eyes Of Love, how ever our frantic Poets say He feeds on nought but Lolium.