A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 14
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 14
English drama
FLO. And we presume
Your acquiescence will accomplish it.
Our mutual loves close in that harmony
That, though the airs of music still admit
Their closure in divisions, our joint strings,
So sweetly tun'd, may run their diapason
Without a discord.
FRI. By which sense we gather,
That we must prove your fiddlers?
FLO. You mistake me.
We hold you instruments; your fancies, strings,
To actuate our motion with that fulness
Arion ne'er attain'd to.
LADIES. We must yield,
Or they will storm us.
FRI. Yet let our conditions
Bring them within our lists. Well, our surprise
Must make you parties i' th' discovery.
ALL. For love's sake, how?
FRI. As thus: we stand at bar
T' express our grievances: and you must set
Grave censors or examinates to discuss
The weight of our complaints.
ALL. Content; we'll do't.
LADIES. But do't exactly, or you spoil the plot.
CAR. 'Slid, doubt not, ladies, we have wit enough
To frame intergotaries, so you make answer,
And with your quickness do not puzzle us.
ALL. Advance, advance; let's mount, and play the consuls.
[_The Confidants ascend the higher seats, erected after the
form of the Roman exedras, the Ladies, with petitions in
their hands, standing at the bar._
1ST BOY. How will these dainty dottrels act their parts?
2D BOY. Rarely, no doubt; their audience makes them confident.
SCENE V.
FLO. Now, fair ladies, what wind has blown you hither?
FRI. The storm of our insufferable wrongs
Call unto you for justice.
CAR. And your beauties
Enjoin our just assistance. Show your griefs.
1ST BOY. This is a caranto-man, with all my heart! must
Beauty be his landskip on the seat of justice?
[_Aside._
2D BOY. Pray thee, give them line.
[_Aside._
FRI. Should I discover my misfortunes, consuls,
They would enforce compassion, even in strangers,
Who know not my extraction. My descent,
Besides the fortunes I deriv'd from them
Who gave me being, breeding, with whate'er
Might complete youth, or give embellishment
To Nature's curious workmanship, was known
To shine more graceful in the eye of fame
Than to remain obscure: yet see my fate--
My sad occurring fate!
FLO. Express it, madam.
FRI. I married, reverend consul, and in that
Lost both my freedom, fortune, and myself.
My former single sweet condition
Clothes that remembrance in a sable weed,
Resolves mine eyes to Niobe's, whose tears
Might drop to marble, and erect an urn
T' inhume my funeral spousals.
[_She feigns to weep, in resentment of her former estate._
CAR. Alas! poor lady.
1ST BOY. Pitiful senator, if he have not drunk some coffee to
keep him waking, he will questionless fall asleep, or melt into
tears, before he delivers his sentence.
[_Aside._
PAL. Whence sprung this spring of infelicity?
Resolve us, madam.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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