PAN'S ANNIVERSARY.

The SCENE Arcadia.

The Court being seated, enter three Nymphs, strewing several sorts of flowers, followed by an old SHEPHERD, with a censer and perfumes.

I Nymph.

HUS, thus begin the yearly rites

Are due to Pan on these bright nights;

His morn now riseth, and invites

To sports, to dances, and delights:
All envious and profane, away,

This is the shepherd's holyday.

2 Nym. Strew, strew the glad and smiling ground With every flower, yet not confound

The primrose drop, the spring's own

spouse,

Bright day's-eyes, and the lips of cows,

The garden-star, the queen of May,
The rose, to crown the holyday.

3 Nym. Drop, drop your violets, change your hues,
Now red, now pale, as lovers use,
And in your death go out as well,
As when you lived unto the smell:

That from your odour all may say,
This is the shepherd's holyday.

Shep. Well done, my pretty ones, rain roses still, Until the last be dropt: then hence; and fill Your fragrant prickles' for a second shower. Bring corn-flag, tulips, and Adonis' flower, Fair ox-eye, goldy-locks, and columbine, Pinks, goulands, king-cups, and sweet sops-in-wine, Blue hare-bells, pagles, pansies, calaminth, Flower-gentle, and the fair-hair'd hyacinth, Bring rich carnations, flower-de-luces, lilies, The checqued, and purple-ringed daffodillies, Bright crown-imperial, kingspear, holyhocks, Sweet Venus-navel, and soft lady-smocks, Bring too some branches forth of Daphne's hair, And gladdest myrtle for these posts to wear, With spikenard weav'd, and marjoram between, And starr'd with yellow-golds, and meadows-queen, That when the altar, as it ought, is drest, More odour come not from the phoenix' nest; The breath thereof Panchaia may envý,

The colours China, and the light the sky.

Loud Music.

The Scene opens, and the Masquers are discovered sitting about the Fountain of Light, with the Musicians, attired like the Priests of Pan, standing in the work beneath them.

Enter a Fencer, flourishing.

Fen. Room for an old trophy of time; a son of the sword, a servant of Mars, the minion of the muses, and a master of fence! One that hath shown

1 Your fragrant prickles.] So the gardeners still call the light open wicker baskets, in which flowers are brought to market.

2 The colours China.] This is the earliest allusion that I have found to the beautiful colouring of this ware; which now began to make its appearance in the shops, or, as they were called, Chinahouses of the capital.

his quarters, and played his prizes at all the games of Greece in his time; as fencing, wrestling, leaping, dancing, what not? and hath now usher'd hither, by the light of my long sword, certain bold boys of Boeotia, who are come to challenge the Arcadians at their own sports, call them forth on their own holyday, and dance them down on their own green

swarth.

Shep. 'Tis boldly attempted, and must be a Boeotian enterprise, by the face of it, from all the parts of Greece else, especially at this time, when the best, and bravest spirits of Arcadia, called together by the excellent Arcas, are yonder sitting about the Fountain of Light, in consultation of what honours they may do to the great Pan, by increase of anniversary rites, fitted to the music of his peace.

Fen. Peace to thy Pan, and mum to thy music, swain: there is a tinker of Thebes a coming, called Epam, with his kettle, will make all Arcadia ring of him: What are your sports for the purpose? say, if singing, you shall be sung down; if dancing, danced down. There is no more to be done with you, but know what; which it is; and you are in smoke, gone, vapoured, vanished, blown, and, as a man would say, in a word of two syllables, nothing.

Shep. This is short, though not so sweet. Surely the better part of the solemnity here will be dancing. Fen. Enough: they shall be met with instantly in their own sphere, the sphere of their own activity, a dance. But by whom, expect: no Cynætheian, nor Satyrs; but, as I said, boys of Boeotia, things of Thebes, (the town is ours, shepherd) mad merry Greeks, lads of life, that have no gall in us, but all air and sweetness. A tooth-drawer is our foreman, that if there be but a bitter tooth in the company, it may be called out at a twitch: he doth command any man's teeth out of his head upon the point of his

poniard; or tickles them forth with his riding rod: he draws teeth a horse-back in full speed, yet he will dance a foot, he hath given his word: he is yeoman of the mouth to the whole brotherhood, and is charged to see their gums be clean, and their breath sweet, at a minute's warning. Then comes my learned Theban, the tinker, I told you of,3 with his kettle drum, before and after, a master of music, and a man of metal, he beats the march to the tune of Ticklefoot, Pam, Pam, Pam, brave Epam with a Nondas. That's the strain. Shep. A high one!

Fen. Which is followed by the trace, and tract of an excellent juggler, that can juggle with every joint about him, from head to heel. He can do tricks with his toes, wind silk, and thread pearl with them, as nimble a fine fellow of his feet, as his hands: for there is a noble corn-cutter, his companion, hath so pared and finified them-Indeed, he hath taken it into his care, to reform the feet of all, and fit all their footing to a form! only one splay foot in the company, and he is a bellows-mender, allowed, who hath the looking to all of their lungs by patent, and by his place is to set that leg afore still, and with his puffs, keeps them in breath, during pleasure: a tinder

3 Then comes my learned Theban, the tinker, I told you of.] In Lear, the poor old king says,

"I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban." On which Steevens observes, "Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Pan's Anniversary, has introduced a tinker, whom he calls a learned Theban, perhaps in ridicule of this passage." The ridicule (if ridicule there be) must be in the word learned, for (though Steevens was ignorant of it) the tinker actually was a Theban: as he was also a master of music, the epithet does not seem to be very much out of its place. But, "perhaps," Jonson laid the scene of this grave Antimasque in Greece, that he might have an opportunity of "ridiculing Shakspeare ;" and this I take to be the case, as Thebes is not particularly celebrated for the musical talents of its tinkers. The commentators should consider this well.

box-man, to strike new fire into them at every turn, and where he spies any brave spark that is in danger to go out, ply him with a match presently.

Shep. A most politic provision!

Fen. Nay, we have made our provisions beyond example, I hope. For to these, there is annexed a clock-keeper, a grave person, as Time himself, who is to see that they all keep time to a nick, and move every elbow in order, every knee in compass. He is to wind them up, and draw them down, as he sees cause then is there a subtle shrewd bearded sir, that hath been a politician, but is now a maker of mouse-traps, a great inginer yet: and he is to catch the ladies' favours in the dance, with certain cringes he is to make; and to bait their benevolence. Nor can we doubt of the success, for we have a prophet amongst us of that peremptory pate, a tailor or master-fashioner, that hath found it out in a painted cloth, or some old hanging, (for those are his library,) that we must conquer in such a time, and such a half time; therefore bids us go on cross-legg'd, or however thread the needles of our own happiness, go through stitch with all, unwind the clew of our cares; he hath taken measure of our minds, and will fit our fortune to our footing. And to better assure us, at his own charge, brings his philosopher with him, a great clerk, who, they say, can write, and it is shrewdly suspected but he can read too. And he is to take the whole dances from the foot by brachygraphy, and so make a memorial, if not a map of the business. Come forth, lads, and do your own

turns.

The Boeotians enter for the ANTIMASQUE,
which is Danced,
After which,

4 To a nick,] i. e. what Shakspeare calls "a jar o' the clock."