At a solemn feast of the Triumviri in Rome, it was seen and observed that the birds ceased to sing, and sat solitary on the housetops, by reason of the sight of a painted serpent set openly to view. So fares it with us novices, that here betray our imperfections: we, afraid to look on the imaginary serpent of envy, painted in men's affections, have ceased to tune any music of mirth to your ears this twelvemonth, thinking that, as it is the nature of the serpent to hiss, so childhood and ignorance would play the gosling, contemning and condemning what they understood not. Their censures we weigh not, whose senses are not yet unswaddled. The little minutes will be continually striking, though no man regard them: whelps will bark before they can see, and strive to bite before they have teeth. Politianus speaketh of a beast who, while he is cut on the table, drinketh and represents the motions and voices of a living creature. Such like foolish beasts are we who, whilst we are cut, mocked, and flouted at, in every man's common talk, will notwithstanding proceed to shame ourselves to make sport. No man pleaseth all: we seek to please one. Didymus wrote four thousand books, or (as some say) six-thousand, on the art of grammar. Our author hopes it may be as lawful for him to write a thousand lines of as light a subject. Socrates (whom the oracle pronounced the wisest man of Greece) sometimes danced: Scipio and Laslius, by the sea-side, played at peeble-stone: Semel insanivimus omnes. Every man cannot with Archimedes make a heaven of brass, or dig gold out of the iron mines of the law. Such odd trifles as mathematicians' experiments be artificial flies to hang in the air by themselves, dancing balls, an egg-shell that shall climb up to the top of a spear, fiery-breathing gores, poeta noster professeth not to make. Placeat sibi quinque licebit. What's a fool but his bauble? Deep-reaching wits, here is no deep stream for you to angle in. Moralisers, you that wrest a never-meant meaning out of everything, applying all things to the present time, keep your attention for the common stage; for here are no quips in characters for you to read. Vain glosers, gather what you will; spite, spell backward what thou canst. As the Parthians fight flying away, so will we prate and talk, but stand to nothing that we say. How say you, my masters? do you not laugh at him for a coxcomb? Why, he hath made a prologue longer than his play: nay, 'tis no play neither, but a show. I'll be sworn the jig of Rowland's godson is a giant in comparison of it. What can be made of Summer's last will and testament! Such another thing as Gyllian of Brentford's[20] will, where she bequeathed a score of farts amongst her friends. Forsooth, because the plague reigns in most places in this latter end of summer,[21] Summer must come in sick; he must call his officers to account, yield his throne to Autumn, make Winter his executor, with tittle-tattle Tom-boy. God give you good night in Watling Street; I care not what you say now, for I play no more than you hear; and some of that you heard too (by your leave) was extempore. He were as good have let me had the best part, for I'll be revenged on him to the uttermost, in this person of Will Summer, which I have put on to play the prologue, and mean not to put it off till the play be done. I'll sit as a chorus, and flout the actors and him at the end of every scene. I know they will not interrupt me, for fear of marring of all; but look to your cues, my masters, for I intend to play the knave in cue, and put you besides all your parts, if you take not the better heed. Actors, you rogues, come away; clear your throats, blow your noses, and wipe your mouths ere you enter, that you may take no occasion to spit or to cough, when you are non plus. And this I bar, over and besides, that none of you stroke your beards to make action, play with your cod-piece points, or stand fumbling on your buttons, when you know not how to bestow your fingers. Serve God, and act cleanly. A fit of mirth and an old song first, if you will. Enter SUMMER, leaning on AUTUMN'S and WINTER'S _Fair Summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore, What! shall those flowers that deck'd thy garland erst, [The Satyrs and Wood-nymphs go out singing, and leave_ WILL SUM. A couple of pretty boys, if they would wash their faces, and were well breech'd[23] in an hour or two. The rest of the green men have reasonable voices, good to sing catches or the great Jowben by the fire's side in a winter's evening. But let us hear what Summer can say for himself, why he should not be hiss'd at. SUM. What pleasure always lasts? no joy endures: VER. I will, my lord. Ver, lusty Ver, by the name of lusty Ver, come into the court! lose a mark in issues. Enter VER, _with his train, overlaid with suits of green moss, representing short grass, singing. The Song. Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king, The palm and may make country houses gay, The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, WILL SUM. By my troth, they have voices as clear as crystal: this is a pratty thing, if it be for nothing but to go a-begging with. SUM. Believe me, Ver, but thou art pleasant bent; VER. No, faith, nor care not whether I do or no. Falangtado, Falangtado, SUM. Nay, stay awhile, we must confer and talk. VER. If that be all, we will not disagree: WILL SUM. The truth is, this fellow hath been a tapster in his days. VER goes in, and fetcheth out the hobby-horse[27] and the morris-dance, who dance about. SUM. How now? is this the reckoning we shall have? WIN. My lord, he doth abuse you; brook it not. AUT. Summa totalis, I fear, will prove him but a fool. VER. About, about! lively, put your horse to it, rein him harder; jerk him with your wand: sit fast, sit fast, man! fool, hold up your ladle there. WILL SUM. O brave Hall![28] O, well-said, butcher. Now for the credit of Worcestershire. The finest set of morris-dancers that is between this and Streatham. Marry, methinks there is one of them danceth like a clothier's horse, with a woolpack on his back. You, friend with the hobby-horse, go not too fast, for fear of wearing out my lord's tile-stones with your hobnails. VER. So, so, so; trot the ring twice over, and away. May it please my lord, this is the grand capital sum; but there are certain parcels behind, as you shall see. SUM. Nay, nay, no more; for this is all too much. VER. Content yourself; we'll have variety. Here enter three CLOWNS and three MAIDS, _singing this song, dancing:— Trip and go, heave and hoe, WILL SUM. Beshrew my heart, of a number of ill legs I never saw worse dancers. How bless'd are you, that the wenches of the parish do not see you! SUM. Presumptuous Ver, uncivil-nurtur'd boy? Think'st I will be derided thus of thee? Is this th'account and reckoning that thou mak'st? VER. Troth, my lord, to tell you plain, I can give you no other account; nam quae habui perdidi; what I had, I spent on good fellows; in these sports you have seen, which are proper to the spring, and others of like sort (as giving wenches green gowns,[29] making garlands for fencers, and tricking up children gay), have I bestowed all my flowery treasure and flower of my youth. WILL SUM. A small matter. I know one spent in less than a year eight and fifty pounds in mustard, and another that ran in debt, in the space of four or five year, above fourteen thousand pound in lute-strings and grey-paper.[30] SUM. O monstrous unthrift! who e'er heard the like? VER. What, talk you to me of living within my bounds? I tell you none but asses live within their bounds: the silly beasts, if they be put in a pasture, that is eaten bare to the very earth, and where there is nothing to be had but thistles, will rather fall soberly to those thistles and be hunger-starv'd, than they will offer to break their bounds; whereas the lusty courser, if he be in a barren plot, and spy better grass in some pasture near adjoining, breaks over hedge and ditch, and to go, ere he will be pent in, and not have his bellyful. Peradventure, the horses lately sworn to be stolen,[31] carried that youthful mind, who, if they had been asses, would have been yet extant. WILL SUM. Thus, we may see, the longer we live the more we shall learn: VER. This world is transitory; it was made of nothing, and it must to nothing: wherefore, if we will do the will of our high Creator, whose will it is that it pass to nothing, we must help to consume it to nothing. Gold is more vile than men: men die in thousands and ten thousands, yea, many times in hundred thousands, in one battle. If then the best husband has been so liberal of his best handiwork, to what end should we make much of a glittering excrement, or doubt to spend at a banquet as many pounds as he spends men at a battle? Methinks I honour Geta, the Roman emperor, for a brave-minded fellow; for he commanded a banquet to be made him of all meats under the sun, which were served in after the order of the alphabet, and the clerk of the kitchen, following the last dish, which was two miles off from the foremost, brought him an index of their several names. Neither did he pingle, when it was set on the board, but for the space of three days and three nights never rose from the table. WILL SUM. O intolerable lying villain, that was never begotten without the consent of a whetstone![32] SUM. Ungracious man, how fondly he argueth! VER. Tell me, I pray, wherefore was gold laid under our feet in the veins of the earth, but that we should contemn it, and tread upon it, and so consequently tread thrift under our feet? It was not known till the iron age, donec facinus invasit mortales, as the poet says; and the Scythians always detested it. I will prove it that an unthrift, of any, comes nearest a happy man, in so much as he comes nearest to beggary. Cicero saith, summum bonum consists in omnium rerum vacatione, that is, the chiefest felicity that may be to rest from all labours. Now who doth so much vacare À rebus, who rests so much, who hath so little to do as the beggar? who can sing so merry a note, as he that cannot change a groat?[33] Cui nil est, nil deest: he that hath nothing wants nothing. On the other side, it is said of the carl, Omnia habeo, nec quicquam habeo: I have all things, yet want everything. Multi mihi vitio vertunt quia egeo, saith Marcus Cato in Aulus Gellius; at ego illis quia nequeunt egere: many upbraid me, saith he, because I am poor; but I upbraid them, because they cannot live if they be poor.[34] It is a common proverb, Divesque miserque, a rich man and a miserable: nam natura paucis contenta, none so contented as the poor man. Admit that the chiefest happiness were not rest or ease, but knowledge, as Herillus, Alcidamus, and many of Socrates' followers affirm; why paupertas omnes perdocet artes, poverty instructs a man in all arts; it makes a man hardy and venturous, and therefore is it called of the poets paupertas audax, valiant poverty. It is not so much subject to inordinate desires as wealth or prosperity. Non habet, unde suum paupertas pascat amorem;[35] poverty hath not wherewithal to feed lust. All the poets were beggars; all alchemists and all philosophers are beggars. Omnia mea mecum porto, quoth Bias, when he had nothing but bread and cheese in a leathern bag, and two or three books in his bosom. Saint Francis, a holy saint, and never had any money. It is madness to doat upon muck. That young man of Athens, Aelianus makes mention of, may be an example to us, who doated so extremely on the image of Fortune, that when he might not enjoy it, he died for sorrow. The earth yields all her fruits together, and why should we not spend them together? I thank heavens on my knees, that have made me an unthrift.[36] SUM. O vanity itself: O wit ill-spent! WILL SUM. Heigho. Here is a coil indeed to bring beggars to stocks. I promise you truly I was almost asleep; I thought I had been at a sermon. Well, for this one night's exhortation, I vow, by God's grace, never to be good husband while I live. But what is this to the purpose? "Hur come to Fowl," as the Welshman says, "and hur pay an halfpenny for hur seat, and hur hear the preacher talg, and hur talg very well, by gis[37]; but yet a cannot make her laugh: go to a theatre and hear a Queen's Fice, and he make hur laugh, and laugh hur belly full." So we come hither to laugh and be merry, and we hear a filthy, beggarly oration in the praise of beggary. It is a beggarly poet that writ it; and that makes him so much commend it, because he knows not how to mend himself. Well, rather than he shall have no employment but lick dishes, I will set him a work myself, to write in praise of the art of stooping, and how there never was any famous thresher, porter, brewer, pioneer, or carpenter that had straight back. Repair to my chamber, poor fellow, when the play is done, and thou shalt see what I will say to thee. SUM. Vertumnus, call Solstitium. VER. Solstitium, come into the court: without, peace there below! make room for Master Solstitium. Enter SOLSTITIUM, like an aged hermit, carrying a pair of balances, with an hour-glass in either of them—one hour-glass white, the other black: he is brought in by a number of Shepherds, playing upon recorders.[38] SOL. All hail to Summer, my dread sovereign lord. SUM. Welcome, Solstitium: thou art one of them, SOL. Alas, my lord! what gave you me to keep SUM. What dost thou with those balances thou bear'st? SOL. In them I weigh the day and night alike: SUM. I like thy moderation wondrous well; SOL. Nothing, my lord, nor aught more did I ask. SUM. But hadst thou always kept thee in my sight, SOL. Deserts, my lord, of ancient servitors SUM. I grieve no more regard was had of thee: [Here, SOLSTITIUM goes out with his music, as he comes in. WILL SUM. Fie, fie, of honesty, fie! Solstitium is an ass, perdy, this play is a gallimaufry. Fetch me some drink, somebody. What cheer, what cheer, my hearts? Are not you thirsty with listening to this dry sport? What have we to do with scales and hour-glasses, except we were bakers or clock-keepers? I cannot tell how other men are addicted, but it is against my profession to use any scales but such as we play at with a bowl, or keep any hours but dinner or supper. It is a pedantical thing to respect times and seasons: if a man be drinking with good fellows late, he must come home for fear the gates be shut: when I am in my warm bed, I must rise to prayers, because the bell rings. I like no such foolish customs. Actors, bring now a black jack and a rundlet of Rhenish wine, disputing of the antiquity of red noses: let the Prodigal Child[41] come in in his doublet and hose all greasy, his shirt hanging forth, and ne'er a penny in his purse, and talk what a fine thing it is to walk summerly, or sit whistling under a hedge, and keep hogs. Go forward, in grace and virtue to proceed, but let us have no more of these grave matters. SUM. Vertumnus, will Sol come before us? VER. Sol, Sol; ut, re, mi, fa, sol![42] Enter SOLSTITIUM very richly attired, SUM. Ay, marry, here comes majesty in pomp, SOL. My liege, what crav'st thou at thy vassal's hands? SUM. Hypocrisy, how it can change his shape! SOL. My lord, what need these terms betwixt us two? AUT. O arrogance exceeding all belief! WIN. No dunghill hath so vile an excrement, AUT. Lascivious and intemperate he is: WIN. Let him not talk, for he hath words at will, SUM. Bad words, bad wit! O, where dwells faith or truth? SOL. If envy unconfuted may accuse, SUM. Thou know'st too much to know to keep the mean: SOL. The winds, not I, have floods and tides in chase. SUM. A bare conjecture, builded on per-haps.[54] SOL. What is eclips'd will one day shine again: WILL SUM. I think the sun is not so long in passing through the twelve signs, as the son of a fool hath been disputing here about had I wist.[55] Out of doubt, the poet is bribed of some that have a mess of cream to eat, before my lord go to bed yet, to hold him half the night with raff-raff of the rumming of Elinor.[56] If I can tell what it means, pray God I may never get breakfast more, when I am hungry. Troth, I am of opinion he is one of those hieroglyphical writers, that by the figures of beasts, plants, and of stones, express the mind, as we do in A B C; or one that writes under hair, as I have heard of a certain notary, Histiaesus,[57] who, following Darius in the Persian wars, and desirous to disclose some secrets of import to his friend Aristagoras, that dwelt afar off, found out this means. He had a servant, that had been long sick of a pain in his eyes, whom, under pretence of curing his malady, he shaved from one side of his head to the other, and with a soft pencil wrote upon his scalp (as on parchment) the discourse of his business, the fellow all the while imagining his master had done nothing but 'noint his head with a feather. After this he kept him secretly in his tent, till his hair was somewhat grown, and then willed him to go to Aristagoras into the country, and bid him shave him as he had done, and he should have perfect remedy. He did so, Aristagoras shaved him with his own hands, read his friend's letter, and when he had done, washed it out, that no man should perceive it else, and sent him home to buy him a nightcap. If I wist there were any such knavery, or Peter Bales's brachygraphy,[58] under Sol's bushy hair, I would have a barber, my host of the Murrion's Head, to be his interpreter, who would whet his razor on his Richmond cap, and give him the terrible cut like himself, but he would come as near as a quart pot to the construction of it. To be sententious, not superfluous, Sol should have been beholding to the barber, and not to the beard-master.[59] Is it pride that is shadowed under this two-legg'd sun, that never came nearer heaven than Dubber's hill? That pride is not my sin, Sloven's Hall, where I was born, be my record. As for covetousness, intemperance, and exaction, I meet with nothing in a whole year but a cup of wine for such vices to be conversant in. Pergite porro, my good children,[60] and multiply the sins of your absurdities, till you come to the full measure of the grand hiss, and you shall hear how we shall purge rheum with censuring your imperfections. SUM. Vertumnus, call Orion. VER. Orion, Urion, Arion; My lord thou must look upon. Orion, gentleman dog-keeper, huntsman, come into the court: look you bring all hounds and no bandogs. Peace there, that we may hear their horns blow. Enter ORION like a hunter, with a horn about his neck, all his men after the same sort hallooing and blowing their horns. ORION. Sirrah, was't thou that call'd us from our game? SUM. 'Twas I, Orion, caus'd thee to be call'd. ORION. 'Tis I, dread lord, that humbly will obey. SUM. How happ'st thou left'st the heavens to hunt below? AUT. Please it, your honour, heaven's circumference ORION. A tedious discourse built on no ground. SUM. We call'd thee not, Orion, to this end, ORION. What tribute should I pay you out of nought? SUM. A broken staff, a lame right hand I had, ORION. I am content: though hunting be not out, [Here they go out, blowing their horns, and hallooing as they came in. WILL SUM. Faith, this scene of Orion is right prandium caninum, a dog's dinner which, as it is without wine, so here's a coil about dogs without wit. If I had thought the ship of fools[66] would have stay'd to take in fresh water at the Isle of Dogs, I would have furnish'd it with a whole kennel of collections to the purpose. I have had a dog myself, that would dream and talk in his sleep, turn round like Ned fool, and sleep all night in a porridge-pot. Mark but the skirmish between Sixpence and the fox, and it is miraculous how they overcome one another in honourable courtesy. The fox, though he wears a chain, runs as though he were free; mocking us (as it is a crafty beast), because we, having a lord and master to attend on, run about at our pleasures, like masterless men. Young Sixpence, the best page his master hath, plays a little, and retires. I warrant he will not be far out of the way when his master goes to dinner. Learn of him, you diminutive urchins, how to behave yourselves in your vocation: take not up your standings in a nut-tree, when you should be waiting on my lord's trencher. Shoot but a bit at butts; play but a span at points. Whatever you do, memento mori—remember to rise betimes in the morning. SUM. Vertumnus, call Harvest. VER. Harvest, by west and by north, by south and by east, Enter HARVEST, _with a scythe on his neck, and all his reapers with sickles, and a great black bowl with a posset in it, borne before him; they come in singing. The Song. Merry, merry, merry: cheery, cheery, cheery, Hooky, hooky, we have shorn, SUM. Harvest, the bailiff of my husbandry, HAR. Sped well or ill, sir, I drink to you on the same. [Here they all sing after him. Hooky, hooky, we have shorn, AUT. Thou Corydon, why answer'st not direct? HAR. Answer? why, friend, I am no tapster, to say, Anon, anon, sir:[68] but leave you to molest me, goodman tawny-leaves, for fear (as the proverb says, leave is light) so I mow off all your leaves with my scythe. WIN. Mock not and mow[69] not too long; you were best not,[70] SUM. Since thou art so perverse in answering, HAR. Hooky, hooky! if you were not my lord, I would say you lie. First and foremost, you say I am a grocer. A grocer is a citizen: I am no citizen, therefore no grocer. A hoarder up of grain: that's false; for not so much for my elbows eat wheat every time I lean upon them.[71] A carl: that is as much as to say, a coneycatcher of good fellowship. For that one word you shall pledge me a carouse: eat a spoonful of the curd to allay your choler. My mates and fellows, sing no more Merry, merry, but weep out a lamentable Hooky, hooky, and let your sickles cry— Sick, sick, and very sick, I have no conscience, I? I'll come nearer to you, and yet I am no scab, nor no louse. Can you make proof wherever I sold away my conscience, or pawned it? Do you know who would buy it, or lend any money upon it? I think I have given you the pose. Blow your nose, Master Constable. But to say that I impoverish the earth, that I rob the man in the moon, that I take a purse on the top of St Paul's steeple; by this straw and thread, I swear you are no gentleman, no proper man, no honest man, to make me sing, O man in desperation.[72] SUM. I must give credit unto what I hear! HAR. Ay, ay; nought seek, nought have: An ill-husband is the first step to a knave. You object, I feed none at my board: I am sure, if you were a hog, you would never say so: for, sir reverence of their worships, they feed at my stable-table every day. I keep good hospitality for hens and geese: gleaners are oppressed with heavy burthens of my bounty: They take me and eat me to the very bones, Till there be nothing left but gravel and stones; And yet I give no alms, but devour all! They say, what a man cannot hear well, you hear with your harvest-ears; but if you heard with your harvest-ears, that is, with the ears of corn which my alms-cart scatters, they would tell you that I am the very poor man's box of pity; that there are more holes of liberality open in Harvest's heart than in a sieve or a dust-box. Suppose you were a craftsman or an artificer, and should come to buy corn of me, you should have bushels of me; not like the baker's loaf, that should weigh but six ounces, but usury for your money, thousands for one. What would you have more? Eat me out of my apparel,[74] if you will, if you suspect me for a miser. SUM. I credit thee, and think thou wert belied. HAR. Hay, good[75] plenty, which was so sweet and so good, that when I jerted my whip, and said to my horses but hay, they would go as they were mad. SUM. But hay alone thou sayst not, but hay-ree[76]. HAR. I sing hay-ree, that is, hay and rye; meaning that they shall have hay and rye, their bellyfuls, if they will draw hard. So we say, Wa hay, when they go out of the way; meaning that they shall want hay if they will not do as they should do. SUM. How thrive thy oats, thy barley, and thy wheat? HAR. My oats grow like a cup of beer that makes the brewer rich; my rye like a cavalier, that wears a huge feather in his cap, but hath no courage in his heart; hath[77] a long stalk, a goodly husk, but nothing so great a kernel as it was wont. My barley, even as many a novice, is cross-bitten,[78] as soon as ever he peeps out of the shell, so was it frost-bitten in the blad, yet pick'd up his crumbs again afterward, and bad "Fill pot, hostess," in spite of a dear year. As for my peas and my vetches, they are famous, and not to be spoken of. AUT. Ay, ay, such country-button'd caps as you HAR. Will you make good your words that we want no fetches? WIN. Ay, that he shall. HAR. Then fetch us a cloak-bag, to carry away yourself in. SUM. Plough-swains are blunt, and will taunt bitterly. HAR. Rest from my labours, and let the husbandmen sing my praise? Nay, we do not mean to rest so: by your leave, we'll have a largess amongst you, ere we part. ALL. A largess, a largess, a largess! WILL SUM. Is there no man will give them a hiss for a largess? HAR. No, that there is not, goodman Lungis.[80] I see charity waxeth cold, and I think this house be her habitation, for it is not very hot: we were as good even put up our pipes and sing Merry, merry, for we shall get no money. [_Here they all go out singing. Merry, merry, merry: cheery, cheery, cheery! Hooky, hooky, we have shorn WILL SUM. Well, go thy ways, thou bundle of straw: I'll give thee this gift; thou shalt be a clown while thou liv'st. As lusty as they are, they run on the score with George's wife for their posset; and God knows who shall pay goodman Yeoman for his wheat sheaf. They may sing well enough— "Trowl the black bowl to me, Trowl the black bowl to me;" for a hundred to one but they will all be drunk, ere they go to bed. Yet of a slavering fool, that hath no conceit in anything but in carrying a wand in his hand with commendation, when he runneth by the highway-side, this stripling Harvest hath done reasonable well. O, that somebody had the sense to set his thatched suit on fire, and so lighted him out: if I had but a jet[81] ring on my finger, I might have done with him what I list. I had spoiled him, had I[82] took his apparel prisoner; for, it being made of straw, and the nature of jet to draw straw unto it, I would have nailed him to the pommel of my chair, till the play were done, and then have carried him to my chamber-door, and laid him at the threshold, as a wisp or a piece of mat, to wipe my shoes on every time I come up dirty. SUM. Vertumnus, call Bacchus. VER. Bacchus, Baccha, Bacchum: God Bacchus, God fat-back, Enter BACCHUS _riding upon an ass trapped in ivy, himself dressed in vine leaves, and a garland of grapes on his head; his companions having all jacks in their hands, and ivy garlands on their heads; they come singing. The Song. Monsieur Mingo for quaffing doth surpass, BAC. Wherefore didst thou call me, Vertumnus? hast any drink to give me? One of you hold my ass, while I light: walk him up and down the hall, till I talk a word or two. SUM. What, Bacchus; still animus in patina:[85] no mind but on the pot? BAC. Why, Summer, Summer, how wouldst do but for rain? What's a fair house without water coming to it! Let me see how a smith can work, if he have not his trough standing by him. What sets an edge on a knife? the grindstone alone? No, the moist element poured upon it, which grinds out all gaps, sets a point upon it, and scours it as bright as the firmament. So I tell thee, give a soldier wine before he goes to battle; it grinds out all gaps, it makes him forget all scars and wounds, and fight in the thickest of his enemies, as though he were but at foils among his fellows. Give a scholar wine going to his book, or being about to invent; it sets a new point on his wit, it glazeth it, it scours it, it gives him acumen. Plato saith, Vinum esse fomitem quendam, et incitabilem ingenii virtutisque. Aristotle saith, Nulla est magna scientia absque mixtura dementia! There is no excellent knowledge without mixture of madness, and what makes a man more mad in the head than wine? Qui bene vult [Greek: Pioein] debet ante [Greek: pinein]: He that will do well must drink well. Prome, prome, potum prome! Ho, butler, a fresh pot! Nunc est libendum, nunc pede libero terra pulsanda:[86] a pox on him that leaves his drink behind him. Rendezvous! SUM. It is wine's custom to be full of words. I pray thee, Bacchus, give us vicissitudinem loquendi. BAC. A fiddlestick! ne'er tell me I am full of words. Faecundi calices, quem non fecere disertum; aut bibe[87] aut abi; either take your drink, or you are an infidel. SUM. I would about thy vintage question thee. How thrive thy vines? hadst thou good store of grapes? BAC. Vinum quasi venenum; Wine is poison to a sick body. A sick body is no sound body; ergo, wine is a pure thing, and is poison to all corruption. Try-lill! the hunters whoop to you. I'll stand to it: Alexander was a brave man, and yet an arrant drunkard. WIN. Fie, drunken sot! forgett'st thou where thou art? BAC. Our vintage was a vintage, for it did not work upon the advantage: SUM. That was not well; but all miscarried not? BAC. Faith, shall I tell no lie? Because you are my countryman, and so forth; and a good fellow is a good fellow, though he have never a penny in his purse.[88] We had but even pot-luck—little to moisten our lips and no more. That same Sol is a pagan and a proselyte: he shined so bright all summer, that he burnt more grapes than his beams were worth, were every beam as big as a weaver's beam. A fabis abstinendum; faith, he should have abstained, for what is flesh and blood without his liquor? AUT. Thou want'st no liquor, nor no flesh and blood. |