A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
English drama
ANA. Ho, ho, Auditus, up, up; so ho, Olfactus, have at your nose; up,
Visus, Gustus, Tactus, up: what, can you not feel a pinch? have at you
with a pin.
TAC. O, you stab me, O!
COM. SEN. Tactus, know you how you came hither?
TAC. No, my lord, not I; this I remember,
We supp'd with Gustus, and had wine good store,
Whereof I think I tasted liberally.
Amongst the rest, we drunk a composition
Of a most delicate and pleasant relish,
That made our brains somewhat irregular.
SCAENA DECIMA NONA.
_The Senses awake_, LINGUA _asleep_, COMMUNIS SENSUS, MEMORY,
PHANTASTES, ANAMNESTES, HEURESIS _drawing_ CRAPULA.
HEU. My lord, here's a fat rascal was lurking in a bush very
suspiciously: his name, he says, is Crapula.
COM. SEN. Sirrah, speak quickly what you know of these troubles.
CRA. Nothing, my lord, but that the Senses were mad, and that Somnus, at
my request, laid them asleep, in hope to recover them.
COM. SEN. Why then, 'tis too evident Acrasia, at Lingua's request,
bewitched the Senses: wake her quickly, Heuresis.
LIN. Heigho, out alas, ah me, where am I? how came I here?
where am I? ah!
COM. SEN. Lingua, look not so strangely upon the matter; you have
confessed in your sleep, that with a crown and a robe you have disturbed
the Senses, using a crafty help to enrage them: can you deny it?
LIN. Ah me, most miserable wretch! I beseech your lordship forgive me.
COM. SEN. No, no, 'tis a fault unpardonable.
[_He consults with_ MEMORY.
PHA. In my conceit, Lingua, you should seal up your lips when you go to
bed, these feminine tongues be so glib.
COM. SEN. Visus, Tactus, and the rest, our former sentence concerning
you we confirm as irrevocable, and establish the crown to you, Visus,
and the robe to you, Tactus; but as for you, Lingua--
LIN. Let me have mine own, howsoever you determine, I beseech you.
COM. SEN. That may not be: your goods are fallen into our hands; my
sentence cannot be recalled: you may see, those that seek what is not
theirs, oftentimes lose what's their own: therefore, Lingua, granting
you your life, I commit you to close prison in Gustus's house, and
charge you, Gustus, to keep her under the custody of two strong doors,
and every day, till she come to eighty years of age, see she be
well-guarded with thirty tall watchmen, without whose licence she shall
by no means wag abroad. Nevertheless, use her ladylike, according to her
estate.
PHA. I pray you, my lord, add this to the judgment--that, whensoever
she obtaineth licence to walk abroad, in token the tongue was the cause
of her offence, let her wear a velvet hood, made just in the fashion of
a great tongue. In my conceit, 'tis a very pretty emblem of a woman.
TAC. My lord, she hath a wild boy to her page, a chief agent in this
treason: his name's Mendacio.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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