A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 3 — John Shaqi
A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 3
General
A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 3
English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Cla_. Worke on, sweet love; I am not yet resolved
T'exhaust this troubled spring of vanities
And Nurse of perturbations, my poore life,
And therefore since in every man that holds
This being deare, there must be some desire,
Whose power t'enjoy his object may so maske
The judging part, that in her radyant eyes
His estimation of the World may seeme
Vpright, and worthy, I have chosen love
To blind my Reason with his misty hands
And make my estimative power beleive
I have a project worthy to imploy
What worth so ever my whole man affordes:
Then sit at rest, my soule, thou now hast found
The end of thy infusion; in the eyes
Of thy divine _Eugenia_ looke for Heaven.
Thanks gentle friends. [_A song to the Violls_.
Is your good Lord, and mine, gon up to bedd yet?
_Enter Momford_.
_Mom_. I do assure ye not, sir, not yet, nor yet, my deepe, and studious
friend; not yet, musicall _Clarence_.
_Cla_. My Lord?
_Mom_. Nor yet, thou sole divider of my Lordshippe.
_Cla_. That were a most unfit division,
And farre above the pitch of my low plumes;
I am your bold, and constant guest my Lord.
_Mom_. Far, far from bold, for thou hast known me long
Almost these twenty yeeres, and halfe those yeeres
Hast bin my bed-fellow; long time before
This unseene thing, this thing of naught indeed,
Or _Atome_ cald my Lordshippe shind in me,
And yet thou mak'st thy selfe as little bould
To take such kindnes, as becomes the Age
And truth of our indissolable love,
As our acquaintance sprong but yesterday;
Such is thy gentle, and too tender spirit.
_Cla_. My _Lord_, my want of Courtship makes me feare
I should be rude, and this my meane estate
Meetes with such envie, and detraction,
Such misconstructions and resolud misdoomes
Of my poore worth, that should I be advaunce'd
Beyond my unseene lowenes, but one haire,
I should be torne in peeces with the Spirits
That fly in ill-lungd tempests through the world,
Tearing the head of vertue from her shoulders
If she but looke out of the ground of glorie.
Twixt whom and me, and every worldly fortune
There fights such sowre, and curst _Antipathy_,
So waspish and so petulant a Starre,
That all things tending to my grace or good
Are ravisht from their object, as I were
A thing created for a wildernes,
And must not thinke of any place with men.
_Mom_. O harke you Sir, this waiward moode of yours
Must sifted be, or rather rooted out.
Youle no more musick Sir?
_Cla_. Not now, my Lord.
_Mom_. Begon my masters then to bedd, to bedd.
_Cla_. I thanke you, honest friends.
[_Exeunt Musicians_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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