The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works

by Thomas Nashe

  And men account the fall but nature’s course.

  Vaunting my jewels, hasting to the west,

  Or rising early from the grey-ey’d morn,

  What do I vaunt but your large bountihood,

  And show how liberal a lord I serve?

  Music and poetry, my two last crimes,

  Are those two exercises of delight,

  Wherewith long labours I do weary out.

  The dying swan is not forbid to sing.

  The waves of Heber play’d on Orpheus’65 strings,

  When he, sweet music’s trophy, was destroy’d.

  And as for poetry, words’ eloquence,

  (Dead Phaeton’s three sisters’66 funeral tears,

  That by the gods were to electrum67 turn’d),

  Not flint, or rocks of icy cinders framed,

  Deny the source of silver-falling streams.

  Envy envieth not outcry’s unrest:

  In vain I plead; well is to me a fault,

  And these my words seem the slight web of art,

  And not to have the taste of sounder truth.

  Let none but fools be car’d for of the wise;

  Knowledge’s own children knowledge most despise.

  SUMMER: Thou know’st too much to know to keep the mean

  He that sees all things oft sees not himself.

  The Thames is witness of thy tyranny,

  Whose waves thou hast exhaust for winter showers.

  The naked channel plains her of thy spite,

  That laid’st her entrails unto open sight.

  Unprofitably born to man and beast,

  Which like to Nilus yet doth hide his head,

  Some few years since thou let’st o’erflow these walks,

  And in the horse-race headlong ran at race,

  While in a cloud thou hid’st thy burning face.

  Where was thy care to rid contagious filth,

  When some men wetshod; with his waters, droop’d?

  Others that ate the eels his heat cast up

  Sicken’d and died, by them empoisoned.

  Sleep’st thou, or keep’st thou then Admetus’ sheep,68

  Thou driv’st not back these Sowings to the deep?

  SOL: The winds, not I, have floods and tides in chase.

  Diana, whom our fables call the moon,

  Only commandeth o’er the raging main.

  She leads his wallowing offspring up and down;

  She waning, all streams ebb; as in the year

  She was edips’d, when that the Thames was bare.

  SUMMER: A bare conjecture, builded on perhaps!

  In laying thus the blame upon the moon,

  Thou imitat’st subtle Pythagoras,

  Who, what he would the people should believe,

  The same he wrote with blood upon a glass,

  And turn’d it opposite gainst the new moon;

  Whose beams, reflecting on it with full force,

  Show’d all those lines, to them that stood behind,

  Most plainly writ in circle of the moon.

  And then he said: ‘Not I, but the new moon,

  Fair Cynthia, persuades you this and that’

  With like collusion shalt thou not blind me;

  But for abusing both the moon and me,

  Long shalt thou be eclipsed by the moon,

  And long in darkness live, and see no light

  Away with him, his doom hath no reverse.

  SOL: What is eclips’d will one day shine again.

  Though Winter frowns, the Spring will ease my pain.

  Time from the brow doth wipe out every stain. [Exit Sol.]

  WILL SUMMERS: I think the sun is not so long in passing through the twelve signs, as the son of a fool hath been disputing here about ‘had I wist’. Out of doubt, the poet is bribed of some that have a mess of cream to eat before my lord go to bed yet, to hold him half the night with riff-raff of the rumming of Eleanor.69 If I can tell what it means, pray God I may never get breakfast more when I am hungry. Troth, I am of opinion he is one of those hieroglyphical writers that by the figures of beasts, planets, and of stones, express the mind as we do in A.B.C.; or one that writes under hair, as I have heard of a certain notary Histiaeus, who, following Darius in the Persian wars and desirous to disclose some secrets of import to his friend Aristagoras, that dwelt afar off, found out this means. He had a servant that had been long sick of a pain in his eyes, whom, under pretence of curing his malady, he shaved from one side of his head to the other, and with a soft pencil wrote upon his scalp, as on parchment, the discourse of his business, the fellow all the while imagining his master had done nothing but noint his head with a feather. After this, he kept him secretly in his tent, till his hair was somewhat grown, and then willed him to go to Aristagoras into the country and bid him shave him, as he had done, and he should have perfect remedy. He did so. Aristagoras shaved him with his own hands, read his friend’s letter, and when he had done, washed it out, that no man should perceive it else, and sent him home to buy him a night-cap. If I wist there were any such knavery, or Peter Bales’ Brachy-graphy,70 under Sol’s bushy hair, I would have a barber, my host of The Murrion’s Head’,71 to be his interpreter, who would whet his razor on his Richmond cap,72 and give him the terrible cut,73 like himself, but he would come as near as a quart pot to the construction of it. To be sententious, not superfluous, Sol should have been beholding to the barber, and not the beard-master. Is it pride that is shadowed under this two-legged sun, that never came nearer heaven than Dubber’s Hill?74 That pride is not my sin, Sloven’s Hall where I was born be my record. As for covetousness, intemperance and exaction, I meet with nothing in a whole year but a cup of wine, for such vices to be conversant in. Pergite porro,75 my good children, and multiply the sins of your absurdities, till you come to the full measure of the grand hiss, and you shall hear how we will purge rheum with censuring your imperfections.

  SUMMER: Vertumnus, call Orion.

  VERTUMNUS: Orion, Urion, Arion!

  My lord thou must look upon.

  Orion, gentleman dog-keeper, huntsman, come into the court! Look you bring all hounds, and no bandogs.76Peace there, that we may hear their horns blow!

  [Enter Orion like a hunter, with a horn about his neck, alt his men after the same sort hallooing and blowing then horns.]

  ORION: Sirrah, was’t thou that call’d us from our game?

  How durst thou (being but a petty god)

  Disturb me in the entrance of my sports?

  SUMMER: ‘Twas I, Orion, caus’d thee to be call’d.

  ORION: ‘Tis I, dread Lord, that humbly will obey.

  SUMMER: How haps’t thou leftst the heavens, to hunt below?

  As I remember, thou wert Hireus’77 son,

  Whom of a huntsman Jove chose for a star,

  And thou art call’d the dog-star, art thou not?

  AUTUMN: Pleaseth your honour, heaven’s circumference

  Is not enough for him to hunt and range,

  But with those venom-breathed curs he leads,

  He comes to chase health from our earthly bounds.

  Each one of those foul-mouthed mangy dogs

  Governs a day (no dog but hath his day),

  And all the days by them so governed,

  The dog-days hight78 Infectious fosterers

  Of meteors79 from carrion that arise,

  And putrefied bodies of dead men,

  Are they engender’d to that ugly shape,

  Being nought else but preserv’d corruption.

  ‘Tis these that, in the entrance of their reign,

  The plague and dangerous agues have brought in.

  They arre80 and bark at night against the moon,

  For fetching in fresh rides to cleanse the streets.

  They vomit flames, and blast the ripen’d fruits:

  They are Death’s messengers unto all those

  That sicken while their malice beareth sway.

  ORION: A tedi
ous discourse, built on no ground;

  A silly fancy, Autumn, hast thou told,

  Which no philosophy doth warrantize,

  No old received poetry confirms.

  I will not grace thee by confuting thee;

  Yet in a jest (since thou railest so gainst dogs)

  I’ll speak a word or two in their defence.81

  That creature’s best that comes most near to men:

  That dogs of all come nearest, thus I prove.

  First, they excel us in all outward sense,

  Which no one of experience will deny;

  They hear, they smell, they see better than we.

  To come to speech, they have it questionless,

  Although we understand them not so well.

  They bark as good old Saxon as may be,

  And that in more variety than we;

  For they have one voice when they are in chase,

  Another, when they wrangle for their meat,

  Another, when we beat them out of doors.

  That they have reason, this I will allege:

  They choose those things that are most fit for them,

  And shun the contrary all that they may;

  They know what is for their own diet best,

  And seek about for’t very carefully;

  At sight of any whip they run away,

  As runs a thief from noise of hue and cry;

  Nor live they on the sweat of others’ brows,

  But have their trades to get their living with,

  Hunting and coney-catching, two fine arts.

  Yea, there be of them, as there be of men,

  Of every occupation more or less:

  Some carriers, and they fetch; some watermen,

  And they will dive and swim when you bid them;

  Some butchers, and they do worry sheep by night;

  Some cooks, and they do nothing but turn spits.

  Chrysippus holds dogs are logicians,

  In that, by study and by canvassing,

  They can distinguish twixt three several things:

  As when he cometh where three broad ways meet,

  And of those three hath stay’d at two of them,

  By which he guesseth that the game went not,

  Without more pause he runneth on the third;

  Which, as Chrysippus saith, insinuates

  As if he reason’d thus within himself:

  ‘Either he went this, that, or yonder way,

  But neither that, nor yonder, therefore this.’

  But whether they logicians be or no,

  Cynics they are, for they will snarl and bite;

  Right courtiers to flatter and to fawn;

  Valiant to set upon the enemies,

  Most faithful and constant to their friends;

  Nay, they are wise, as Homer witnesseth,

  Who, talking of Ulysses coming home,

  Saith all his household but Argus, his dog,

  Had quite forgot him. Ay, and his deep insight

  Nor Pallas’ art82 in altering of his shape,

  Nor his base weeds, nor absence twenty years,

  Could go beyond, or any way delude.

  That dogs physicians are, thus I infer:

  They are ne’er sick, but they know their disease,

  And find out means to ease them of their grief;

  Special good surgeons to cure dangerous wounds,

  For, strucken with a stake into the flesh,

  This policy they use to get it out:

  They trail one of their feet upon the ground,

  And gnaw the flesh about, where the wound is,

  Till it be clean drawn out; and then, because

  Ulcers and sores kept foul are hardly cur’d,

  They lick and purify it with their tongue,

  And well observe Hippocrates’ old rule;

  The only medicine for the foot is rest,’

  For if they have the least hurt in their feet,

  They bear them up and look they be not stirr’d

  When humours rise, they eat a sovereign83 herb,

  Whereby what cloys their stomachs they cast up,

  And, as some writers of experience tell,

  They were the first invented vomiting.

  Sham’st thou not, Autumn, unadvisedly

  To slander such rare creatures as they be?

  SUMMER: We call’d thee not, Orion, to this end,

  To tell a story of dogs’ qualities.

  With all thy hunting how are we enrich’d?

  What tribute payest thou us for thy high place?

  ORION: What tribute-should I pay you out of nought?

  Hunters do hunt for pleasure, not for gain.

  While dog-days last, the harvest safely thrives;

  The sun burns hot, to finish up fruits’ growth;

  There is no blood-letting to make men weak.

  Physicians with their Cataposia,

  Recipe Elinctoria,

  Masticatorum and Cataplasmata;84

  Their gargarisms,85 clysters,86 and pitched cloths,87

  Their perfumes, syrups, and their triacles,88

  Refrain to poison the sick patients,

  And dare not minister till I be out.

  Then none will bathe, and so are fewer drown’d;

  All lust is perilsome, therefore less us’d.

  In brief, the year without me cannot stand:

  Summer, I am thy staff and thy right hand.

  SUMMER: A broken staff, a lame right hand I had,

  If thou wert all the stay that held me up.

  Nihil violentum perpetuum:89

  ‘No violence that liveth to old age.’

  Ill-governed star, that never bod’st good luck,

  I banish thee a twelve-month and a day,

  Forth of my presence. Come not in my sight,

  Nor show thy head, so much as in the night.

  ORION: I am content, though hunting be not out;

  We will go hunt in hell for better hap.

  One parting blow, my hearts, unto our friends,

  To bid the fields and huntsmen all farewell.

  Toss up your bugle horns unto the stars:

  Toil findeth ease: peace follows after wars. [Exit]

  [Here they go out, blowing their horns and hallooing, as they came in.]

  WILL SUMMERS: Faith, this scene of Orion is right prandium caninum, ‘a dog’s dinner’, which as it is without wine, so here’s a coil about dogs without wit. If I had thought the Ship of Fools90 would have stayed to take in fresh water at the Isle of Dogs, I would have furnished it with a whole kennel of collections to the purpose. I have had a dog myself, that would dream and talk in his sleep, turn round like Ned Fool,91 and sleep all night in a porridge-pot. Mark but the skirmish between Sixpence92 and the fox, and it is miraculous how they overcome one another in honourable courtesy. The fox, though he wears a chain, runs as though he were free, mocking us (as it is a crafty beast) because we, having a lord and master to attend on, run about at our pleasures, like masterless men. Young Sixpence, the best page his master hath, plays a little and retires. I warrant he will not be far out of the way when his master goes to dinner. Learn of him, you diminutive urchins, how to behave yourselves in your vocation. Take not up your standings in a nut-tree, when you should be waiting on my lord’s trencher. Shoot but a bit at butts; play but a span at points.93 Whatever you do, memento mori: remember to rise betimes in the morning.

  SUMMER: Vertumnus, call Harvest.

  VERTUMNUS: Harvest, by west, and by north, by south and southeast,

  Show thyself like a beast.

  Goodman Harvest, yeoman, come in and say what you can.

  Room for the scythe and the sickles there!

  [Enter Harvest with a scythe on his neck, and all his reapers with sickles, and a great black bowl with a posset in it borne before him. They come in singing.]

  THE SONG

  Merry, merry, merry, cherry, cherry, cherry,

  Trow
l the black bowl to me.

  Hey derry, derry, with a poop and a lerry,

  I’ll trowl it again to thee.

  Hooky, hooky, we have shorn,

  And we have bound,

  And we have brought Harvest

  Home to town.

  SUMMER: Harvest, the bailie of my husbandry,

  What plenty hast thou heap’d into our barns?

  I hope thou hast sped well, thou art so blithe.

  HARVEST: Sped well or ill, sir, I drink to you on the same.

  Is your throat clear to help us to sing ‘Hooky, hooky’?

  [Here they all sing after him.]

  Hooky, hooky, we have shorn,

  And we have bound,

  And we have brought Harvest

  Home to town.

  AUTUMN: Thou Corydon, why answer’st not direct?

  HARVEST: Answer? Why, friend, I am no tapster, to say ‘Anon, anon, sir’. But leave you to molest me, goodman tawny leaves, for fear (as the proverb says, ‘leave is light’) so I mow off all your leaves with my scythe.

  WINTER: Mock not and mow not too long, you were best, For fear we whet not your scythe upon your pate.

  SUMMER: Since thou art so perverse in answering,

  Harvest, hear what complaints are brought to me.

  Thou art accused by the public voice,

  For an engrosser94 of the common store:

  A carl,95 thou hast no conscience, nor remorse,

  But dost impoverish the fruitful earth,

  To make thy garners rise up to the heavens.

  To whom givest thou? Who feedeth at thy board?

  No almës, but unreasonable gain,

  Digests what thy huge iron teeth devour:

  ‘Small beer, coarse bread’, the hinds and beggars cry,

  Whilst thou withholdest both the malt and flour,

  And giv’st us bran and water, fit for dogs.

  HARVEST: Hooky, hooky! If you were not my lord, I would say you lie. First and foremost, you say I am a grocer. A grocer is a citizen, I am no citizen, therefore no grocer. A hoarder-up of grain: that’s false, for not so much but my elbows eat wheat every time I lean on them. A carl: that is as much to say as a coney-catcher of good fellowship. For that one word you shall pledge me a carouse; eat a spoonful of the curd to allay your choler. My mates and fellows, sing no more ‘Merry, merry’, but weep out a lamentable ‘Hooky, Hooky’, and let your sickles cry:

  Sick, sick, and very sick,

  And sick, and for the time;

  For Harvest your master is

  Abus’d without reason or rhyme.

  I have no conscience, I? I’ll come nearer to you, and yet I am no scab, nor a louse. Can you make proof wherever I sold away my conscience, or pawned it? I think I have given you the pose:96 blow your nose, Master Constable. But to say that I impoverish the earth, that I rob the man in the moon, that I take a purse on the top of Paul’s steeple: by this straw and thread, I swear you are no gentleman, no proper man, no honest man, to make me sing ‘Oh man in desperation’.97