English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Cap_. I, Sir; but they are such phantasticall ayres as it putts a Poet
out of his witts to rhime to them; but let mee heare.
1 _Play_.
_Capt_. No, I doe not like that.
1 _Play againe_.
_Capt_. Nor that. (_Play againe_)--No, no, no, neither.
1. An't please your Worship, Mr. _Capt_., our Boyes can singe songs
to these.
_Cap_. No, no, saveing your presence, your Boyes have nothing,
sarreverence,[263] but Love songs, and I hate those monstruously, to
make thinges appeare better then they are, and that is but _deceptio
Visus_, which after some embraceings the parties see presently what
it is.
_The Musique Playes_.
(_Hee sings and reeks and fillips all the time
with his finger, then sayees_:)
_Cap_. I, I, this thumping tune I like a life; a Song, a Song to it!
_One Singes.
This Song.
_The Juice of Spanish squeez'd Grapes is It
That makes a dull Braine so full of witt;
The Lemonades cleere sparkling wine
The grosser witts too, doth much refine.
Then to bee foxd[264] it is no crime,
Since thickest and dull Braines It makes sublime.
The Stillyards Reanish wine and Divells white,
Who doth not in them sometimes take delight?
If with Mimique Gestures you'le keep you from sadnes,
Then drinke lusty Clarett twill put you in Madnes;
And then to settle you no hopes in Beer
But wholesome Potts of Scotch ale though its deere_.
_Cap_. But looke you, Child, you say the Divells white in your Song. You
have beene ill catechiz'd, Boy, for a _White Divell_ is but a poeticall
fiction[265]; for the Divell, God bless us, Child, is blacke.
_Boy_. No, Captaine, I say white wine at the Divell.
_Cap_. That's true; thats a good Boy, indeed. _Underwit_, lend mee a
Peice to give these harmonious men there. And now begon, my Masters,
without noise, for I will have no more fiddle-faddle for my money, no
tunes of supererrogation after the Musicall Bill is paid.
[_Exeunt[266] omnes_.
[SCENE 2.]
_Enter Thomas_.
_Tho_. They are all drunke already, and such Confusion in their heads
and tongues, my master kisses the next man and calls him Mistres
_Dorothy_; Mr. _Courtwell_, possest with the spiritt of defiance to
_Cupid_, is ready to beat him for being in love; my Projector dead drunk
in a Chaire, and the Captaine peepeing into his mouth like a tooth
drawer and powring downe sack which he feeles not, but his chapps shut
againe like a spring lock till he returne with a key to open his teeth,
to poure in the next health.
_Enter Courtwell_.
_Cou_. My Cloake and sword, Drawer.
_Tho_. Tis here, sir.
_Cou_. Thou art a pretty fellow; here's half a Crowne, say I am
gone _Thomas_.
_Tho_. You are pretty well.
_Enter Captaine and Underwit_.
_Un_. What shalls doe with him; this Engine burnes like _Etna_.
_Cap_. Throw him into the River.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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