Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

SUM. A broken staff, a lame right hand I had, If thou wert all the stay that held me up, _Nihil violentum perpetuum_. No violence that liveth to old age. Ill-govern'd star, that never bod'st good luck, I banish thee a twelvemonth and a day Forth of my presence; come not in my sight, Nor show thy head so much as in the night.

ORION. I am content: though hunting be not out, We will go hunt in hell for better hap. One parting blow, my hearts, unto our friends, To bid the fields and huntsmen all farewell. Toss up your bugle-horns unto the stars: Toil findeth ease, peace follows after wars. [_Exit_.

[_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, Show thyself like a beast. Goodman Harvest, yeoman, come in and say what you can. Boom for the scythe and the sickle there.

_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,
Trowl the blade bowl[67] to me;
Hey derry, derry, with a poup and a lerry,
I'll trowl it again to thee:

Hooky, hooky, we have shorn,
And we have bound,
And we have brought Harvest
Home to town_.

SUM. Harvest, the bailiff of my husbandry, What plenty hast thou heap'd into our barns? I hope thou hast sped well, thou art so blithe.

HAR. Sped well or ill, sir, I drink to you on the same. Is your throat clear to help us sing, _Hooky, hooky?

[Here they all sing after him.

Hooky, hooky, we have shorn,
And we have bound;
And we have brought Harvest
Home to town_.

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] For fear we whet your scythe upon your pate.

SUM. Since thou art so perverse in answering, Harvest, hear what complaints are brought to me. Thou art accused by the public voice For an engrosser of the common store; A carl that hast no conscience nor remorse, But dost impoverish the fruitful earth, To make thy garners rise up to the heavens. To whom giv'st thou? who feedeth at thy board? No alms, but [an] unreasonable gain Digests what thy huge iron teeth devour: Small beer, coarse bread, the hind's and beggar's cry, Whilst thou withholdest both the malt and flour, And giv'st us bran and water (fit for dogs).

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,
And side, and for the time;
For Harvest your master is
Abusd without reason or rhyme_.

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! For other than I hear detract[73] I nought.

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. But tell me, hast thou a good crop this year?

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 Do want no fetches[79] to undo great towns.

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. Harvest, when all is done, thou art the man: Thou dost me the best service of them all. Rest from thy labours, till the year renews, And let the husbandmen [all] sing thy praise.

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!
Trowl the black bowl to me.
Hey derry, derry, with a poup and a lerry;
I'll trowl it again to thee.

Hooky, hooky, we have shorn
And we have bound,
And we have brought Harvest
Home to town_.

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, Baron of double beer and bottle ale, Come in and show thy nose that is nothing pale: Back, back, that[83] God barrel-belly may enter.

_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,
In cup, in corn or glass.
God Bacchus, do me right,
And dub me knight
Domingo_.[84]

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? My lord asks thee what vintage thou hast made?

BAC. Our vintage was a vintage, for it did not work upon the advantage: it came in the vauntguard of Summer. And winds and storms met it by the way, And made it cry, alas, and well-a-day!

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. I pray thee, may I ask without offence, How many tuns of wine hast in thy paunch? Methinks that [that is] built like a round church, Should yet have some of Julius Caesar's wine: I warrant 'twas not broached this hundred year.

BAC. Hear'st thou, dough-belly! because thou talk'st and talk'st, and dar'st not drink to me a black jack, wilt thou give me leave to broach this little kilderkin of my corpse against thy back? I know thou art but a micher,[89] and dar'st not stand me. _A vous, Monsieur Winter_, a frolic up-se-frieze:[90] cross, ho.' _super naculum_.[91] [_Knocks the jack upon his thumb_.

WIN. Gramercy, Bacchus, as much as though I did. For this time thou must pardon me perforce.

BAC. What, give me the disgrace? go to, I say, I am no Pope to pardon any man. Ran, ran, tara: cold beer makes good blood. St George for England![92] Somewhat is better than nothing. Let me see, hast thou done me justice? why so: thou art a king, though there were no more kings in the cards but the knave. Summer, wilt thou have a demi-culverin, that shall cry _Husty-tusty_, and make thy cup fly fine meal in the element?

SUM. No, keep thy drink, I pray thee, to thyself.

BAC. This Pupilonian in the fool's coat shall have a cast of martins and a whiff. To the health of Captain Rinocerotry! Look to it; let him have weight and measure.

WILL SUM. What an ass is this! I cannot drink so much, though I should burst.

BAC. Fool, do not refuse your moist sustenance: come, come, dog's head in the pot; do what you are born to.

WILL SUM. If you will needs make me a drunkard against my will, so it is; I'll try what burden my belly is of.

BAC. Crouch, crouch on your knees, fool, when you pledge God Bacchus.

[_Here_ WILL SUMMER _drinks, and they sing
about him_, BACCHUS _begins_.

All. _Monsieur Mingo for quaffing did surpass In cup, in can, or glass_.

BAC. Ho, well shot, a toucher, a toucher! _For quaffing Toy doth pass, In cup, in can, or glass_.[93]

All. _God Bacchus, do him right, And dub him knight_.

BAC. Rise up, Sir Robert Toss-pot.
[_Here he dubs_ WILL SUMMER _with the black jack_.

SUM. No more of this, I hate it to the death. No such deformer of the soul and sense, As is this swinish damn'd horn drunkenness. Bacchus, for thou abusest so earth's fruits, Imprison'd live in cellars and in vaults. Let none commit their counsels unto thee; Thy wrath be fatal to thy dearest friends; Unarmed run upon thy foemen's swords; Never fear any plague, before it fall: Dropsies and watery tympanies haunt thee; Thy lungs with surfeiting be putrified, To cause thee have an odious stinking breath; Slaver and drivel like a child at mouth; Be poor and beggarly in thy old age; Let thine own kinsmen laugh when thou complain'st, And many tears gain nothing but blind scoffs. This is the guerdon due to drunkenness: Shame, sickness, misery follow excess.

BAC. Now on my honour, Sim Summer, thou art a bad member, a dunce, a mongrel, to discredit so worshipful an art after this order. Thou hast cursed me, and I will bless thee. Never cap of Nipitaty[94] in London come near thy niggardly habitation! I beseech the gods of good fellowship thou may'st fall into a consumption with drinking small beer! Every day may'st thou eat fish, and let it stick in the midst of thy maw, for want of a cup of wine to swim away in. Venison be _venenum_ to thee: and may that vintner have the plague in his house that sells a drop of claret to kill the poison of it! As many wounds may'st thou have as Caesar had in the senate-house, and get no white wine to wash them with; and to conclude, pine away in melancholy and sorrow, before thou hast the fourth part of a dram of my juice to cheer up thy spirits.

SUM. Hale him away, he barketh like a wolf: It is his drink, not he, that rails on us.

BAC. Nay soft, brother Summer, back with that fool. Here is a snuff in the bottom of the jack, enough[95] to light a man to bed withal: we'll leave no flocks behind us, whatsoever we do.

SUM. Go drag him hence, I say, when I command.

BAC. Since we must needs go, let's go merrily. Farewell, Sir Robert Toss-pot: sing amain _Monsieur Mingo_, whilst I mount up my ass.

[_Here they go out, singing, "Monsieur Mingo," as they came in_.

WILL SUM. Of all the gods, this Bacchus is the ill-favoured'st mis-shapen god that ever I saw. A pox on him! he hath christened me with a new nickname of Sir Robert Toss-pot that will not part from me this twelvemonth. Ned fool's clothes are so perfumed with the beer he poured on me, that there shall not be a Dutchman within twenty miles, but he'll smell out and claim kindred of him. What a beastly thing it is to bottle up all in a man's belly, when a man must set his guts on a gallon-pot last, only to purchase the alehouse title of _boon companion_. "Carouse; pledge me, and you dare! 'Swounds, I'll drink with thee for all that ever thou art worth!" It is even as two men should strive who should run farthest into the sea for a wager. Methinks these are good household terms, "Will it please you to be here, sir? I commend me to you! Shall I be so bold as trouble you? Saving your tale, I drink to you." And if these were put in practice but a year or two in taverns, wine would soon fall from six-and-twenty pound a tun, and be beggar's money--a penny a quart, and take up his inn with waste beer in the alms-tub. I am a sinner as others: I must not say much of this argument. Every one, when he is whole, can give advice to them that are sick. My masters, you that be good fellows, get you into corners, and sup off your provender closely:[96] report hath a blister on her tongue! open taverns are tell-tales. _Non peccat quicunque potest peccasse negare_.

SUM. I'll call my servants to account, said I? A bad account; worse servants no man hath. _Quos credis fidos effuge, tutis eris_: The proverb I have prov'd to be too true, _Totidem domi hostes habemus quot servos_. And that wise caution of Democritus, _Servus necessaria possessio, non autem dulcis_: Nowhere fidelity and labour dwells. How[97] young heads count to build on had I wist. Conscience but few respect, all hunt for gain: Except the camel have his provender Hung at his mouth, he will not travel on. Tyresias to Narcissus promised Much prosperous hap and many golden days, If of his beauty he no knowledge took. Knowledge breeds pride, pride breedeth discontent: Black discontent, thou urgest to revenge: Revenge opes not her ears to poor men's prayers. That dolt destruction is she without doubt, That hales her forth and feedeth her with nought. Simplicity and plainness, you I love! Hence, double diligence, thou mean'st deceit: Those that now serpent-like creep on the ground, And seem to eat the dust, they crouch so low-- If they be disappointed of their prey, Most traitorously will trace their nails and sting. Yea, such as, like[98] the lapwing, build their nests In a man's dung, come up by drudgery, Will be the first that, like that foolish bird, Will follow him with yelling and false cries. Well[99] sung a shepherd, that now sleeps in skies,[100] "Dumb swans do love, and not vain chattering pies." In mountains, poets say, Echo is hid, For her deformity and monstrous shape: Those mountains are the houses of great lords, Where Stentor, with his hundred voices, sounds A hundred trumps at once with rumour fill'd. A woman they imagine her to be, Because that sex keep nothing close they hear; And that's the reason magic writers frame[101] There are more witches women, than of men; For women generally, for the most part, Of secrets more desirous are than men[102], Which having got, they have no power to hold. In these times had Echo's first fathers liv'd, No woman, but a man, she had been feign'd (Though women yet will want no news to prate); For men (mean men), the scum and dross of all, Will talk and babble of they know not what, Upbraid, deprave, and taunt they care not whom. Surmises pass for sound approved truths; Familiarity and conference, That were the sinews of societies, Are now for underminings only us'd; And novel wits, that love none but themselves, Think wisdom's height as falsehood slyly couch'd, Seeking each other to o'erthrow his mate. O friendship! thy old temple is defac'd: Embracing envy,[103] guileful courtesy, Hath overgrown fraud-wanting honesty. Examples live but in the idle schools: Sinon bears all the sway in princes' courts. Sickness, be thou my soul's physician; Bring the apothecary Death with thee. In earth is hell, hell true[104] felicity, Compared with this world, the den of wolves!

AUT. My lord, you are too passionate without cause.

WIN. Grieve not for that which cannot be recall'd. Is it your servant's carelessness you 'plain? Tully by one of his own slaves was slain. The husbandman close in his bosom nurs'd A subtle snake, that after wrought his bane.

AUT. _Servos fideles liberalitas facit_; Where on the contrary, _servitutem_-- Those that attend upon illiberal lords, Whose covetise yields nought else but fair looks, Even of those fair looks make their gainful use. For, as in Ireland and in Denmark both, Witches for gold will sell a man a wind[105] Which, in the corner of a napkin wrapp'd, Shall blow him safe unto what coast he will; So make ill-servants sale of their lord's wind Which, wrapp'd up in a piece of parchment, Blows many a knave forth danger of the law.

SUM. Enough of this: let me go make my will. Ah! it is made, although I hold my peace: These two will share betwixt them what I have. The surest way to get my will perform'd Is to make my executor my heir; And he, if all be given him, and none else, Unfallibly will see it well-perform'd. Lions will feed though none bid them go to. Ill-grows the tree affordeth ne'er a graft: Had I some issue to sit on my throne, My grief would die, death should not hear me groan; But when, perforce, these must enjoy my wealth, Which thank me not, but enter't as a prey, Bequeath'd it is not, but clean cast away. Autumn, be thou successor to my seat: Hold, take my crown:--look, how he grasps for it! Thou shalt not have it yet--but hold it, too; Why should I keep what needs I must forego?

WIN. Then, duty laid aside, you do me wrong. I am more worthy of it far than he: He hath no skill nor courage for to rule. A weatherbeaten, bankrupt ass it is That scatters and consumeth all he hath: Each one do pluck from him without control. He is not hot nor cold; a silly soul, That fain would please each part[106], if so he might. He and the Spring are scholars' favourites: What scholars are, what thriftless kind of men, Yourself be judge; and judge of him by them. When Cerberus was headlong drawn from hell, He voided a black poison from his mouth, Call'd _Aconitum_, whereof ink was made: That ink, with reeds first laid on dried barks, Serv'd me awhile to make rude works withal, Till Hermes, secretary to the gods, Or Hermes Trismegistus, as some will, Weary with graving in blind characters And figures of familiar beasts and plants, Invented letters to write lies withal. In them he penn'd the fables of the gods, The giants' war, and thousand tales besides. After each nation got these toys in use[107] There grew up certain drunken parasites, Term'd poets, which, for a meal's meat or two. Would promise monarchs immortality. They vomited in verse all that they knew; Feign'd causes and beginnings of the world; Fetch'd pedigrees of mountains and of floods From men and women whom the gods transform'd. If any town or city they pass'd by Had in compassion (thinking them madmen) Forborne to whip them, or imprison them, That city was not built by human hands; 'Twas rais'd by music, like Megara walls: Apollo, poets' patron, founded it, Because they found one fitting favour there. Musaeus, Linus, Homer, Orpheus, Were of this trade, and thereby won their fame.

WILL SUM. _Fama malum, quo non [aliud] velocius ullum_[108].

WIN. Next them a company of ragged knaves, Sun-bathing beggars, lazy hedge-creepers, Sleeping face upwards in the fields all night, Dream'd strange devices of the sun and moon; And they, like gipsies, wandering up and down, Told fortunes, juggled, nicknam'd all the stars, And were of idiots term'd philosophers. Such was Pythagoras the silencer; Prometheus, Thales, Milesius, Who would all things of water should be made: Anaximander, Anaxamines, That positively said the air was God: Zenocrates, that said there were eight gods; And Cratoniates and Alcmaeon too, Who thought the sun and moon and stars were gods. The poorer sort of them, that could get nought, Profess'd, like beggarly Franciscan friars, And the strict order of the Capuchins, A voluntary, wretched poverty, Contempt of gold, thin fare, and lying hard. Yet he that was most vehement in these, Diogenes, the cynic and the dog, Was taken coining money in his cell.

WILL SUM. What an old ass was that. Methinks he should have coined carrot-roots rather; for, as for money, he had no use for['t], except it were to melt, and solder up holes in his tub withal.

WIN. It were a whole Olympiad's work to tell How many devilish, _ergo_, armed arts, Sprung all as vices of this idleness: For even as soldiers not employ'd in wars, But living loosely in a quiet state-- Not having wherewithal to maintain pride, Nay, scarce to find their bellies any food-- Nought but walk melancholy, and devise, How they may cozen merchants, fleece young heirs, Creep into favour by betraying men, Rob churches, beg waste toys, court city dames, Who shall undo their husbands for their sakes; The baser rabble how to cheat and steal, And yet be free from penalty of death:[109] So these word-warriors, lazy star-gazers, Us'd to no labour but to louse themselves, Had their heads fill'd with cozening fantasies. They plotted how to make their poverty Better esteem'd of than high sovereignty. They thought how they might plant a heaven on earth, Whereof they would be principal low-gods;[110] That heaven they called Contemplation: As much to say as a most pleasant sloth, Which better I cannot compare than this, That if a fellow, licensed to beg, Should all his lifetime go from fair to fair And buy gape-seed, having no business else. That contemplation, like an aged weed, Engender'd thousand sects, and all those sects Were but as these times, cunning shrouded rogues. Grammarians some, and wherein differ they From beggars that profess the pedlar's French?[111] The poets next, slovenly, tatter'd slaves, That wander and sell ballads in the streets. Historiographers others there be, And they, like lazars, lie[112] by the highway-side, That for a penny or a halfpenny Will call each knave a good-fac'd gentleman, Give honour unto tinkers for good ale, Prefer a cobbler 'fore the black prince far, If he bestow but blacking on their shoes: And as it is the spittle-houses' guise Over their gate to write their founders' names, Or on the outside of their walls at least, In hope by their example others mov'd Will be more bountiful and liberal; So in the forefront of their chronicles, Or _peroratione operis_, They learning's benefactors reckon up, Who built this college, who gave that free school, What king or queen advanced scholars most, And in their times what writers flourished. Rich men and magistrates, whilst yet they live, They flatter palpably, in hope of gain. Smooth-tongued orators, the fourth in place-- Lawyers our commonwealth entitles them-- Mere swash-bucklers and ruffianly mates, That will for twelvepence make a doughty fray, Set men for straws together by the ears. Sky-measuring mathematicians, Gold-breathing alchemists also we have, Both which are subtle-witted humourists, That get their meals by telling miracles, Which they have seen in travelling the skies. Vain boasters, liars, makeshifts, they are all; Men that, removed from their ink-horn terms,[113] Bring forth no action worthy of their bread. What should I speak of pale physicians, Who as _Fismenus non nasatus_ was (Upon a wager that his friends had laid) Hir'd to live in a privy a whole year, So are they hir'd for lucre and for gain, All their whole life to smell on excrements.

WILL SUM. Very true, for I have heard it for a proverb many a time and oft, _Hinc os faetidum_; Fah! he stinks like a physician.

WIN. Innumerable monstrous practices Hath loitering contemplation brought forth more, Which were too long particular to recite: Suffice they all conduce unto this end, To banish labour, nourish slothfulness, Pamper up lust, devise new-fangled sins. Nay, I will justify, there is no vice Which learning and vile knowledge brought not in, Or in whose praise some learned have not wrote. The art of murder Machiavel hath penn'd;[114] Whoredom hath Ovid to uphold her throne, And Aretine of late in Italy, Whose Cortigiana teacheth[115] bawds their trade. Gluttony Epicurus doth defend, And books of the art of cookery confirm, Of which Platina hath not writ the least. Drunkenness of his good behaviour Hath testimonial from where he was born; That pleasant work De Arte Bibendi, A drunken Dutchman spew'd out few years since.[116] Nor wanteth sloth, although sloth's plague be want, His paper pillars for to lean upon.[117] The praise of nothing pleads his worthiness.[118] Folly Erasmus sets a flourish on: For baldness a bald ass I have forgot Patch'd up a pamphletary periwig.[119] Slovenry Grobianus magnifieth:[120] Sodomitry a cardinal commends, And Aristotle necessary deems. In brief, all books, divinity except, Are nought but tales of the devil's laws, Poison wrapt up in sugar'd words, Man's pride, damnation's props, the world's abuse. Then censure, good my lord, what bookmen are: If they be pestilent members in a state, He is unfit to sit at stern of state, That favours such as will o'erthrow his state. Blest is that government, where no art thrives; _Vox pupuli, vox Dei_, The vulgar's voice it is the voice of God. Yet Tully saith, _Non est concilium in vulgo, Non ratio, non discrimen, non differentia_, The vulgar have no learning, wit, nor sense. Themistocles, having spent all his time In study of philosophy and arts, And noting well the vanity of them, Wish'd, with repentance for his folly pass'd, Some would teach him th'art of oblivion, How to forget the arts that he had learn'd. And Cicero, whom we alleged before, (As saith Valerius), stepping into old age, Despised learning, loathed eloquence. Naso, that could speak nothing but pure verse, And had more wit than words to utter it, And words as choice as ever poet had, Cried and exclaim'd in bitter agony, When knowledge had corrupted his chaste mind: _Discite, qui sapitis, non haec quae scimus inertes, Sed trepidas acies et fera bella sequi_.[121] You that be wise, and ever mean to thrive, O, study not these toys we sluggards use, But follow arms, and wait on barbarous wars. Young men, young boys, beware of schoolmasters; They will infect you, mar you, blear your eyes: They seek to lay the curse of God on you, Namely, confusion of languages, Wherewith those that the Tower of Babel built Accursed were in the world's infancy. Latin, it was the speech of infidels; Logic hath nought to say in a true cause; Philosophy is curiosity; And Socrates was therefore put to death, Only for he was a philosopher. Abhor, contemn, despise these damned snares.

WILL SUM. Out upon it! who would be a scholar? not I, I promise you: my mind always gave me this learning was such a filthy thing, which made me hate it so as I did. When I should have been at school construing, _Batte, mi fili, mi fili, mi Batte_, I was close under a hedge, or under a barn-wall, playing at span-counter or jack-in-a-box. My master beat me, my father beat me, my mother gave me bread and butter, yet all this would not make me a squitter-book.[122] It was my destiny; I thank her as a most courteous goddess, that she hath not cast me away upon gibridge. O, in what a mighty vein am I now against horn-books! Here, before all this company, I profess myself an open enemy to ink and paper. I'll make it good upon the accidence, body [of me,] that in speech is the devil's paternoster. Nouns and pronouns, I pronounce you as traitors to boys' buttocks; syntaxis and prosodia, you are tormentors of wit, and good for nothing, but to get a schoolmaster twopence a-week. Hang, copies! Fly out, phrase-books! let pens be turn'd to pick-tooths! Bowls, cards, and dice, you are the true liberal sciences! I'll ne'er be a goosequill, gentlemen, while I live.

SUM. Winter, with patience unto my grief I have attended thy invective tale. So much untruth wit never shadowed: 'Gainst her own bowels thou art's weapons turn'st. Let none believe thee that will ever thrive. Words have their course, the wind blows where it lists, He errs alone in error that persists. For thou 'gainst Autumn such exceptions tak'st, I grant his overseer thou shalt be, His treasurer, protector, and his staff; He shall do nothing without thy consent: Provide thou for his weal and his content.

WIN. Thanks, gracious lord; so I'll dispose of him, As it shall not repent you of your gift.

AUT. On such conditions no crown will I take. I challenge Winter for my enemy; A most insatiate, miserable carl, That to fill up his garners to the brim Cares not how he endamageth the earth, What poverty he makes it to endure! He overbars the crystal streams with ice, That none but he and his may drink of them: All for a foul Backwinter he lays up. Hard craggy ways, and uncouth slippery paths He frames, that passengers may slide and fall. Who quaketh not, that heareth but his name? O, but two sons he hath worse than himself: Christmas the one, a pinchback, cutthroat churl, That keeps no open house, as he should do, Delighteth in no game or fellowship, Loves no good deeds, and hateth talk; But sitteth in a corner turning crabs, Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale. Backwinter th'other, that's his nown[123] sweet boy, Who like his father taketh in all points. An elf it is, compact of envious pride, A miscreant born for a plague to men; A monster that devoureth all he meets. Were but his father dead, so he would reign, Yea, he would go good-near to deal by him As Nebuchadnezzar's ungracious son, Foul Merodach[124], by his father dealt: Who when his sire was turned to an ox Full greedily snatch'd up his sovereignty, And thought himself a king without control. So it fell out, seven years expir'd and gone, Nebuchadnezzar came to his shape again, And dispossess'd him of the regiment;[125] Which my young prince, no little grieving at, When that his father shortly after died, Fearing lest he should come from death again, As he came from an ox to be a man, Will'd that his body, 'spoiled of coverture, Should be cast forth into the open fields, For birds and ravens to devour at will; Thinking, if they bare, every one of them, A bill-ful of his flesh into their nests, He could not rise to trouble him in haste.

WILL SUM. A virtuous son! and I'll lay my life on't he was a cavalier and a good fellow.[126]

WIN. Pleaseth your honour, all he says is false. For my own part, I love good husbandry, But hate dishonourable covetise. Youth ne'er aspires to virtue's perfect growth, Till the wild oats be sown; and so the earth, Until his weeds be rotted by my frosts Is not for any seed or tillage fit. He must be purged that hath surfeited: The fields have surfeited with summer fruits; They must be purg'd, made poor, oppress'd with snow, Ere they recover their decayed pride. For overbarring of the streams with ice, Who locks not poison from his children's taste? When Winter reigns, the water is so cold, That it is poison, present death, to those That wash or bathe their limbs in his cold streams. The slipp'rier that ways are under us, The better it makes us to heed our steps, And look, ere we presume too rashly on. If that my sons have misbehav'd themselves, A God's name, let them answer't 'fore my lord.

AUT. Now, I beseech your honour it may be so.

SUM. With all my heart. Vertumnus, go for them.

WILL SUM. This same Harry Baker[127] is such a necessary fellow to go on errands as you shall not find in a country. It is pity but he should have another silver arrow, if it be but for crossing the stage with his cap on.

SUM. To weary out the time, until they come, Sing me some doleful ditty to the lute, That may complain my near-approaching death.

_The Song.

Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss; This world uncertain is. Fond are life's lustful joys, Death proves them all but toys. None from his darts can fly: I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth; Gold cannot buy you health. Physic himself must fade: All things to end are made. The plague full swift goes by. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower, Which wrinkles will devour: Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair. Dust hath clos'd Helen's eye. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!

Strength stoops into the grave: Worms feed on Hector brave. Swords may not fight with fate: Earth still holds ope her gate. Come, come, the hells do cry. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!

Wit with his wantonness Tasteth death's bitterness. Hell's executioner Hath no ears to hear, What vain art can reply. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!

Haste therefore each degree To welcome destiny: Heaven is our heritage, Earth but a player's stage. Mount we unto the sky. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us_!

SUM. Beshrew me, but thy song hath moved me.

WILL SUM. "Lord, have mercy on us," how lamentable 'tis!

_Enter_ VERTUMNUS, _with_ CHRISTMAS _and_ BACKWINTER.

VER. I have despatched, my lord; I have brought you them you sent me for.

WILL SUM. What say'st thou? hast thou made a good batch? I pray thee, give me a new loaf![128]

SUM. Christmas, how chance thou com'st not as the rest, Accompanied with some music or some song? A merry carol would have grac'd thee well: Thy ancestors have us'd it heretofore.

CHRIST. Ay, antiquity was the mother of ignorance: this latter world, that sees but with her spectacles, hath spied a pad in those sports more than they could.

SUM. What, is't against thy conscience for to sing?

CHRIST. No, not to say, by my troth, if I may get a good bargain.

SUM. Why, thou should'st spend, thou should'st not care to get: Christmas is god of hospitality.

CHRIST. So will he never be of good husbandry. I may say to you, there is many an old god that is now grown out of fashion; so is the god of hospitality.

SUM. What reason canst thou give he should be left?

CHRIST. No other reason, but that gluttony is a sin, and too many dunghills are infectious. A man's belly was not made for a powdering beef-tub; to feed the poor twelve days, and let them starve all the year after, would but stretch out the guts wider than they should be, and so make famine a bigger den in their bellies than he had before. I should kill an ox, and have some such fellow as Milo to come and eat it up at a mouthful; or, like the Sybarites,[129] do nothing all one year but bid guests against the next year. The scraping of trenchers you think would put a man to no charges: it is not a hundred pound a year would serve the scullion in dishclouts. My house stands upon vaults; it will fall, if it be overladen with a multitude. Besides, have you never read of a city that was undermined and destroyed by moles? So, say I, keep hospitality and a whole fair of beggars bid me to dinner every day. What with making legs[130], when they thank me at their going away, and settling their wallets handsomely on their backs, they would shake as many lice on the ground as were able to undermine my house, and undo me utterly. Is it their prayers would build it again, if it were overthrown by this vermin, would it? I pray, who began feasting and gormandis[ing] first, but Sardanapalus, Nero, Heliogabalus, Commodus? tyrants, whoremasters, unthrifts. Some call them emperors, but I respect no crowns but crowns in the purse. Any man may wear a silver crown that hath made a fray in Smithfield, and lost but a piece of his brain-pan; and to tell you plain, your golden crowns are little better in substance, and many times got after the same sort.

SUM. Gross-headed sot! how light he makes of state!

AUT. Who treadeth not on stars, when they are fall'n? Who talketh not of states, when they are dead? A fool conceits no further than he sees, He hath no sense of aught but what he feels.

CHRIST. Ay, ay; such wise men as you come to beg at such fools' doors as we be.

AUT. Thou shutt'st thy door; how should we beg of thee? No alms but thy sink carries from thy house.

WILL SUM. And I can tell you that's as plentiful alms for the plague as the Sheriff's tub to them of Newgate.

AUT. For feast thou keepest none; cankers thou feed'st. The worms will curse thy flesh another day, Because it yieldeth them no fatter prey.

CHRIST. What worms do another day, I care not, but I'll be sworn upon a whole kilderkin of single beer, I will not have a worm-eaten nose, like a pursuivant, while I live. Feasts are but puffing up of the flesh, the purveyors for diseases; travel, cost, time, ill-spent. O, it were a trim thing to send, as the Romans did, round about the world for provision for one banquet. I must rig ships to Samos for peacocks; to Paphos for pigeons; to Austria for oysters; to Phasis for pheasants; to Arabia for phoenixes; to Meander for swans; to the Orcades for geese; to Phrygia for woodcocks; to Malta for cranes; to the Isle of Man for puffins; to Ambracia for goats; to Tartole for lampreys; to Egypt for dates; to Spain for chestnuts--and all for one feast.

WILL SUM. O sir, you need not: you may buy them at London better cheap.

CHRIST. _Liberalitas liberalitate perit_; Love me little, and love me long[131]: our feet must have wherewithal to feed the stones: our backs, walls of wool to keep out the cold that besiegeth our warm blood; our doors must have bars, our doublets must have buttons. Item, for an old sword to scrape the stones before the door with; three halfpence for stitching a wooden tankard that was burst. These water-bearers will empty the conduit and a man's coffers at once. Not a porter that brings a man a letter but will have his penny. I am afraid to keep past one or two servants, lest (hungry knaves) they should rob me; and those I keep (I warrant) I do not pamper up too lusty. I keep them under with red herring and poor John all the year long. I have dammed up all my chimneys for fear (though I burn nothing but small coal) my house should be set on fire with the smoke. I will not dine[132] but once in a dozen year, when there is a great rot of sheep, and I know not what to do with them; I keep open house for all the beggars in some of my out-yards: marry, they must bring bread with them; I am no baker.

WILL SUM. As good men as you, and have thought it no scorn to serve their 'prenticeships on the pillory.

SUM. Winter, is this thy son? Hear'st how he talks?

WIN. I am his father, therefore may not speak, But otherwise I could excuse his fault.

SUM. Christmas, I tell thee plain, thou art a snudge[133], And were't not that we love thy father well, Thou shouldst have felt what 'longs to avarice. It is the honour of nobility To keep high-days and solemn festivals; Then to set their magnificence to view, To frolic open with their favourites, And use their neighbours with all courtesy; When thou in hugger-mugger[134] spend'st thy wealth. Amend thy manners, breathe thy rusty gold; Bounty will win thee love, when thou art old.

WILL SUM. Ay, that bounty I would fain meet, to borrow money of; he is fairly bless'd now-a-days, that 'scapes blows when he begs. _Verba dandi et reddendi_ go together in the grammar rule: there is no giving but with condition of restoring. Ah! _benedicite_: Well is he hath no necessity Of gold nor of sustenance: Slow good hap comes by chance; Flattery best fares; Arts are but idle wares: Fair words want giving hands, The _Lento_[135] begs that hath no lands. Fie on thee, thou scurvy knave, That hast nought, and yet goes brave: A prison be thy deathbed, Or be hang'd all save the head.

SUM. Back-winter, stand forth.

VER. Stand forth, stand forth: hold up your head; speak out.

BACK-WIN. What should I stand, or whither should I go?

SUM. Autumn accuses thee of sundry crimes, Which here thou art to clear or to confess.

BACK-WIN. With thee or Autumn have I nought to do, I would you both were hanged, face to face.

SUM. Is this the reverence that thou ow'st to us?

BACK-WIN. Why not? What art thou? shalt thou always live?

AUT. It is the veriest dog in Christendom.

WIN. That's for he barks at such as knave as thou.

BACK-WIN. Would I could bark the sun out of the sky; Turn moon and stars to frozen meteors, And make the ocean a dry land of ice! With tempest of my breath turn up high trees, On mountains heap up second mounts of snow Which, melted into water, might fall down, As fell the deluge on the former world! I hate the air, the fire, the spring, the year, And whatsoe'er brings mankind any good. O that my looks were lightning to blast fruits! Would I with thunder presently might die, So I might speak in thunder to slay men. Earth, if I cannot injure thee enough, I'll bite thee with my teeth, I'll scratch thee thus: I'll beat down the partition with my heels, That, as a mud-vault, severs hell and thee. Spirits, come up! 'tis I that knock for you; One that envies[136] the world far more than you. Come up in millions! millions are too few To execute the malice I intend.

SUM. _O scelus inauditum, O vox damnatorum_! Not raging Hecuba, whose hollow eyes Gave suck to fifty sorrows at one time, That midwife to so many murders was, Us'd half the execrations that thou dost.

BACK-WIN. More I will use, if more I may prevail. Back-winter comes but seldom forth abroad, But when he comes, he pincheth to the proof. Winter is mild, his son is rough and stern: Ovid could well write of my tyranny, When he was banish'd to the frozen zone.

SUM. And banish'd be thou from my fertile bounds. Winter, imprison him in thy dark cell, Or with the winds in bellowing caves of brass Let stern Hippotades[137] lock him up safe, Ne'er to peep forth, but when thou, faint and weak, Want'st him to aid thee in thy regiment.

BACK-WIN. I will peep forth, thy kingdom to supplant. My father I will quickly freeze to death, And then sole monarch will I sit, and think, How I may banish thee as thou dost me.

WIN. I see my downfall written in his brows. Convey him hence to his assigned hell! Fathers are given to love their sons too well.

[_Exit_ BACK-WINTER.

WILL SUM. No, by my troth, nor mothers neither: I am sure I could never find it. This Back-winter plays a railing part to no purpose: my small learning finds no reason for it, except as a back-winter or an after-winter is more raging, tempestuous, and violent than the beginning of winter; so he brings him in stamping and raging as if he were mad, when his father is a jolly, mild, quiet old man, and stands still and does nothing. The court accepts of your meaning. You might have written in the margin of your play-book--"Let there be a few rushes laid[138] in the place where Back-winter shall tumble, for fear of 'raying[139] his clothes:" or set down, "Enter Back-winter, with his boy bringing a brush after him, to take off the dust, if need require." But you will ne'er have any wardrobe-wit while you live: I pray you, hold the book well;[140] [that] we be not _non plus_ in the latter end of the play.