Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-LoveJonson, Ben
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Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love
Jonson, Ben
English drama (Comedy); English drama -- 17th century
PHI. Troth, the very same I am. Only I would wish myself a little
more command and sovereignty; that all the court were subject to my
absolute beck, and all things in it depending on my look; as if
there were no other heaven but in my smile, nor other hell but in
my frown; that I might send for any man I list, and have his head
cut off when I have done with him, or made an eunuch if he denied
me; and if I saw a better face than mine own, I might have my
doctor to poison it. What would you wish, Phantaste?
PHA. Faith, I cannot readily tell you what: but methinks I should
wish myself all manner of creatures. Now I would be an empress,
and by and by a duchess; then a great lady of state, then one of
your miscellany madams, then a waiting-woman, then your citizen's
wife, then a coarse country gentlewoman, then a dairy-maid, then a
shepherd's lass, then an empress again, or the queen of fairies:
and thus I would prove the vicissitudes and whirl of pleasures
about and again. As I were a shepherdess, I would be piped and
sung to; as a dairy-wench, I would dance at maypoles, and make
syllabubs; as a country gentlewoman, keep a good house, and come up
to term to see motions; as a citizen's wife, to be troubled with a
jealous husband, and put to my shifts; others' miseries should be
my pleasures. As a waiting-woman, I would taste my lady's delights
to her; as a miscellany madam, invent new tires, and go visit
courtiers; as a great lady, lie a-bed, and have courtiers visit me;
as a duchess, I would keep my state; and as an empress, I would do
any thing. And, in all these shapes, I would ever be follow'd with
the affections of all that see me. Marry, I myself would affect
none; or if I did, it should not be heartily, but so as I might
save myself in them still, and take pride in tormenting the poor
wretches. Or, now I think on't, I would, for one year, wish myself
one woman; but the richest, fairest, and delicatest in a kingdom,
the very centre of wealth and beauty, wherein all lines of love
should meet; and in that person I would prove all manner of
suitors, of all humours, and of all complexions, and never have any
two of a sort. I would see how love, by the power of his object,
could work inwardly alike, in a choleric man and a sanguine, in a
melancholic and a phlegmatic, in a fool and a wise man, in a clown
and a courtier, in a valiant man and a coward; and how he could
vary outward, by letting this gallant express himself in dumb gaze;
another with sighing and rubbing his fingers; a third with
play-ends and pitiful verses; a fourth, with stabbing himself, and
drinking healths, or writing languishing letters in his blood; a
fifth, in colour'd ribands and good clothes; with this lord to
smile, and that lord to court, and the t'other lord to dote, and
one lord to hang himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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