Bowl bearer. Do you hear, my friends? to whom did you sing all this now? Pardon me only that I ask you, for I do not look for an answer; I'll answer myself: I know it is now such a time as the Saturnals for all the world, that every man stands under the eaves of his own hat, and sings what pleases him; that's the right and the liberty of it. Now you sing of god Comus here, the belly-god; I say it is well, and I say it is not well; it is well as it is a ballad, and the belly worthy of it, I must needs say an 'twere forty yards of ballad more, as much ballad as tripe. But when the belly is not edified by it, it is not well; for where did you ever read or hear that the belly had any ears? Come, never pump for an answer, for you are defeated: our fellow Hunger there, that was as ancient a retainer to the Belly as any of us, was turned away for being unseasonable; not unreasonable, but unseasonable; and now is he, poor thin-gut, fain to get his living with teaching of starlings, magpies, 1parrots, and jack-daws, those things he would have taught the Belly. Beware of dealing with the Belly, the Belly will not be talked to, especially when he is full; then there is no venturing upon Venter, he will blow you all up, he will thunder indeed, la! Some in derision call him the father of farts; but I say he was the first inventor of great ordnance, and taught us to discharge them on festival days, would we had a fit feast for him, i' faith, to shew his activity; I would have something now fetched in to please his five senses, the throat; or the two senses, the eyes: pardon me for my two senses; for I that carry Hercules's bowl in the service may see double by my place; for I have drunk like a frog to-day: I would have a Tun now brought in to dance, and so many bottles about him. Ha! you look as if you would make a problem of this; do you see, do you see? a problem. Why bottles, and why a tun? and why a tun, and why bottles, to dance? I say that men that drink hard and serve the Belly in any place of quality (as the Jovial Tinkers, or the Lusty Kindred), are living measures of drink, and can transform themselves, and do every day, to bottles or tuns, when they please: and when they have done all they can they are as I say again (for I think I said somewhat like it afore) but moving measures of drink, and there is a piece in the cellar can hold more than all they. This will I make good if it please our new god but to give a nod, for the Belly does all by signs; and I am all for the belly, the truest clock in the world to go by. Here the FIRST ANTIMASQUE, danced by Men in the shape of bottles, tuns, &c. Enter HERCULES. Her. What rites are these? breeds earth more monsters yet? Antæus scarce is cold: what can beget This store? and, stay!-such contraries upon her! Is earth so fruitful of her own dishonour? Or 'cause his vice was inhumanity, Hopes she by vicious hospitality To work an expiation first? and then, (Help virtue), these are sponges and not men; Bottles; mere vessels; half a tun of paunch! How? and the other half thrust forth in haunch! Whose feast? the Belly's? Comus! and my cup Brought in to fill the drunken orgies up, And here abused; that was the crowned reward Of thirsty heroes, after labour hard !2 hear what Macrobius offers on this subject: Herculem vero fictores veteres non sine causa cum poculo fecerunt, et nonnunquam casabundum et ebrium: non solum quod is heros bibax fuisse perhibetur, sed etiam quod antiqua historia est Herculem poculo tanquam navigio ventis immensa maria transisse." He adds, afterwards, it was much more probable that he passed the ocean, not in a bowl, or scyphus, but in a vessel which bore that name. Ego tamen arbitror non poculo Herculem maria transvectum, sed navigio cui Scypho nomen fuit."Saturnal. 1. v. c. 21. It became the custom for succeeding heroes to drink in honour of Hercules out of a cup of the same form which he himself was supposed to have used. Thus Curtius, relating the man Burdens and shames of nature, perish, die! Been buried under the offence of life : Can this be pleasure to extinguish man, For they do suffer what and all they do. At this the GROVE and ANTIMASQUE vanished, and the whole Music was discovered sitting at the foot of the mountain, with PLEASURE and VIRTUE seated above them. Cho. Great friend and servant of the good, And from thy mighty labour cease. And give thy troubled spirits peace: Or fly: Already they are fled, Whom scorn had else left dead. This is Jonson's authority. It is not likely that Swift had much acquaintance with Philostratus; and it is therefore highly probable that he derived the hint of the first assault of the Lilliputians on the slumbering Gulliver from the passage before us. See here a crown the aged Hill hath sent thee, My grandsire Atlas, he that did present thee With the best sheep that in his fold were found, Or golden fruit in the Hesperian ground, For rescuing his fair daughters, then the prey Of a rude pirate, as thou cam'st this way; And taught thee all the learning of the sphere, And how, like him, thou might'st the heavens upbear, As that thy labour's virtuous recompense. He, though a mountain now, hath yet the sense Of thanking thee for more, thou being still now The time's arrived that Atlas told thee of, how B' unaltered law, and working of the stars, There should be a cessation of all jars, 'Twixt Virtue and her noted opposite, Pleasure; that both should meet here in the sight Of Hesperus, the glory of the west, The brightest star that from his burning crest Lights all on this side the Atlantic seas, See where he shines, Justice and Wisdom placed About his throne, and those with honour graced, Beauty and Love! it is not with his brother Bearing the world, but ruling such another Is his renown; PLEASURE for his delight IS RECONCILED TO VIRTUE, and this night Virtue brings forth twelve princes have been bred In this rough mountain, and near Atlas' head, The hill of knowledge; one, and chief of whom, 1 Of the bright race of Hesperus is come, Who shall in time the same that he is be, And now is only a less light than he: These now she trusts with Pleasure, and to these She gives an entrance to the Hesperides, 1 Chief of whom.] The names of the twelve Masquers are not given; it appears, however, that they were led on by Charles, now Prince of Fair beauty's garden; neither can she fear They should grow soft, or wax effeminate here; Since in her sight, and by her charge all's done, Pleasure the servant, Virtue looking on. Here the whole Quire of music called the twelve MASQUERS forth from the top of the mountain, which then opened, with this SONG. Ope, aged Atlas, open then thy lap, That men may read in the mysterious Of royal education, and the right. See how they come and show, That are but born to know. Descend, Descend! Though pleasure lead, Within the hill May safely tread No ground of good is hollow. In their descent from the Hill, DÆDALUS came down before them. Her. But, Hermes, stay, a little let me pause; Who's this that leads? Mer. A guide that gives them laws To all their motions, Dedalus the wise. Her. And doth in sacred harmony comprise His precepts? Mer. Yes. Her. They may securely prove, Then, any labyrinth, though it be of love. Here, while they put themselves in form, DÆDALUS had his first Wales. If we may trust Jenkin, in the next piece, this was the first time that he bore a part and danced in these entertainments. SONG. Dad. Come on, come on! and where you go, So interweave the curious knot, At which awhile all youth should stay, Yet not perplex men unto gaze: But measured, and so numerous too, Not only shows the mover's wit, Here the first DANCE. Dæd. O more and more! this was so well, As praise wants half his voice to tell, Again yourselves compose: And now put all the aptness on, Or colour can disclose: That if those silent arts were lost, In their true motions found. You form your second touch: That they may vent their murmuring hymns First figure out, &c.] This alludes to that beautiful apologue, the Choice of Hercules, by Prodicus. 2 Just to the] Some word (time or tune, probably) was lost at the press, or dropt in the MS. have already observed that all these Masques, from The Golden Age Restored, were Here the second DANCE. The subtlest maze of all, that's love, The fair will think you do them wrong. Go choose among-but with a mind Runs o'er the gentler flowers. 125 Grace, laughter, and discourse may meet, Will you that I give the law To all your sport, and sum it? Here they danced with the LADIES, and the whole REVELS followed; which ended, MERCURY called to DÆDALUS in this speech: which was after repeated in SONG by two trebles, two tenors, a base, and the whole Chorus. SONG. Mer. An eye of looking back were well, Or any murmur that would tell Your thoughts, how you were sent, And went To walk with Pleasure, not to dwell. These, these are hours by Virtue spared, Her sports be soft, her life is hard. You must return unto the Hill, That height and crown, printed, or at least published, some years after the author's death. That any one could look into this wretched volume (the folio of 1641) and suppose that Jonson had any share in forming it, is quite extraordinary. There is not a page without some ridiculous blunder. She, she it is in darkness shines, "Tis she that still herself refines, By her own light to every eye; More seen, more known, when vice stands by: And though a stranger here on earth, In heaven she hath her right of birth. There, there is Virtue's seat: Strive to keep her your own; "Tis only she can make you great, Though place here make you known. 1 This pleased the king so well, as he would see it again.] Who can wonder at it? It must have been a very graceful and splendid entertainment; and, with due respect be it spoken, nearly as worthy of the nobility as the private masquerades, &c., which, with such advantage to good manners, have been substituted for it. It is with peculiar modesty that we, who cannot eke out an evening's entertainment without the After which they danced their last DANCE, and returned into the Scene, which closed, and was a mountain again, as before." And so it ended. This pleased the king so well, as he would see it again; when it was presented with these additions-2 introduction of gamblers, hired buffoons, and voluntary jack-puddings, declaim on the 66 pedantry and wretched taste" of James and his Court. 2 With these additions] The sentence is incomplete, and must be filled up, as in the fol., with the words on the opposite page,--" For the Honour of Wales." |