Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-LoveJonson, Ben
General
Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love
Jonson, Ben
English drama (Comedy); English drama -- 17th century
MER. Let me alone, sir. I'll sufficiently decipher your amorous
solemnities.--Crites, have patience. See, if I hit not all their
practic observance, with which they lime twigs to catch their
fantastic lady-birds.
CRI. Ay, but you should do more charitably to do it more openly,
that they might discover themselves mock'd in these monstrous
affections. [A CHARGE.]
MER. Lackey, where's the tailor?
ENTER TAILOR, BARBER, PERFUMER, MILLINER, JEWELLER, AND
FEATHER-MAKER.
TAI. Here, sir.
HED. See, they have their tailor, barber, perfumer, milliner,
jeweller, feather-maker, all in common!
[THEY MAKE THEMSELVES READY ON THE STAGE.]
ANA. Ay, this is pretty.
AMO. Here is a hair too much, take it off. Where are thy mullets?
MER. Is this pink of equal proportion to this cut, standing off
this distance from it?
TAI. That it is, sir.
MER. Is it so, sir? You impudent poltroon, you slave, you list,
you shreds, you--[BEATS THE TAILOR.]
HED. Excellent! This was the best yet.
ANA. Why, we must use our tailors thus: this is our true
magnanimity.
MER. Come, go to, put on; we must bear with you for the times'
sake.
AMO. Is the perfume rich in this jerkin?
PER. Taste, smell; I assure you, sir, pure benjamin, the only
spirited scent that ever awaked a Neapolitan nostril. You would
wish yourself all nose for the love on't. I frotted a jerkin for a
new-revenued gentleman yielded me three-score crowns but this
morning, and the same titillation.
AMO. I savour no sampsuchine in it.
PER. I am a Nulli-fidian, if there be not three-thirds of a
scruple more of sampsuchinum in this confection, than ever I put in
any. I'll tell you all the ingredients, sir.
AMO. You shall be simple to discover your simples.
PER. Simple! why, sir? What reck I to whom I discover? I have
it in musk, civet, amber, Phoenicobalanus, the decoction of
turmerick, sesana, nard, spikenard, calamus odoratus, stacte,
opobalsamum, amomum, storax, ladanum, aspalathum, opoponax,
oenanthe. And what of all these now? what are you the better?
Tut, it is the sorting, and the dividing, and the mixing, and the
tempering, and the searching, and the decocting, that makes the
fumigation and the suffumigation.
AMO. Well, indue me with it.
PER. I will, sir.
HED. An excellent confection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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