John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

So charming and so sweet,

  That not a night, but whole eternity,

  Were well employed,

  To love thy each perfection as it ought.

  Alc. [Kissing him.] I ‘ll bribe you with this kiss to stay a while.

  Jup. [Kissing her.] A bribe indeed that soon will bring me back;

  But, to be just, I must restore your bribe.

  How I could dwell for ever on those lips!

  Oh, I could kiss them pale with eagerness!

  So soft, by heaven! and such a juicy sweet,

  That ripened peaches have not half the flavour.

  Alc. Ye niggard gods! you make our lives too long;

  You fill them with diseases, wants, and woes,

  And only dash them with a little love,

  Sprinkled by fits, and with a sparing hand:

  Count all our joys, from childhood even to age,

  They would but make a day of every year.

  Take back your seventy years, the stint of life,

  Or else be kind, and cram the quintessence

  Of seventy years into sweet seventy days;

  For all the rest is flat, insipid being.

  Jup. But yet one scruple pains me at my parting:

  I love so nicely, that I cannot bear

  To owe the sweets of love, which I have tasted,

  To the submissive duty of a wife.

  Tell me, and soothe my passion ere I go,

  That, in the kindest moments of the night,

  When you gave up yourself to love and me,

  You thought not of a husband, but a lover?

  Alc. But tell me first, why you would raise a blush

  Upon my cheeks, by asking such a question?

  Jup. I would owe nothing to a name so dull

  As husband is, but to a lover all.

  Alc. You should have asked me then, when love and night,

  And privacy, had favoured your demand.

  Jup. I ask it now, because my tenderness

  Surpasses that of husbands for their wives.

  O that you loved like me! then you would find

  A thousand, thousand niceties in love.

  The common love of sex to sex is brutal;

  But love refined will fancy to itself

  Millions of gentle cares, and sweet disquiets;

  The being happy is not half the joy;

  The manner of the happiness is all.

  In me, my charming mistress, you behold

  A lover that disdains a lawful title,

  Such as of monarchs to successive thrones;

  The generous lover holds by force of arms,

  And claims his crown by conquest.

  Alc. Methinks you should be pleased; I give you all

  A virtuous and a modest wife can give.

  Jup. No, no; that very name of wife and marriage

  Is poison to the dearest sweets of love:

  To please my niceness, you must separate

  The lover from his mortal foe — the husband.

  Give to the yawning husband your cold virtue;

  But all your vigorous warmth, your melting sighs,

  Your amorous murmurs, be your lover’s part.

  Alc. I comprehend not what you mean, my lord;

  But only love me still, and love me thus,

  And think me such as best may please your thought.

  Jup. There’s mystery of love in all I say. —

  Farewell; and when you see your husband next,

  Think of your lover then.

  [Exeunt Jupiter and Alcmena severally;

  Phædra follows her.

  Merc. [Alone.] Now I should follow him; but love has laid a lime-twig for me, and made a lame god of me. Yet why should I love this Phædra? She’s interessed, and a jilt into the bargain. Three thousand years hence, there will be a whole nation of such women, in a certain country, that will be called France; and there’s a neighbour island, too, where the men of that country will be all interest. O what a precious generation will that be, which the men of the island shall propagate out of the women of the continent! —

  Phædra re-enters.

  And so much for prophecy; for she’s here again, and I must love her, in spite of me. And since I must, I have this comfort, that the greatest wits are commonly the greatest cullies; because neither of the sexes can be wiser than some certain parts about them will give them leave.

  Phæd. Well, Sosia, and how go matters?

  Merc. Our army is victorious.

  Phæd. And my servant, Judge Gripus?

  Merc. A voluptuous gourmand.

  Phæd. But has he gotten wherewithal to be voluptuous; is he wealthy?

  Merc. He sells justice as he uses; fleeces the rich rebels, and hangs up the poor.

  Phæd. Then, while he has money, he may make love to me. Has he sent me no token?

  Merc. Yes, a kiss; and by the same token I am to give it you, as a remembrance from him.

  Phæd. How now, impudence! A beggarly serving-man presume to kiss me?

  Merc. Suppose I were a god, and should make love to you?

  Phæd. I would first be satisfied, whether you were a poor god, or a rich god.

  Merc. Suppose I were Mercury, the god of merchandise?

  Phæd. What! the god of small wares, and fripperies, of peddlers and pilferers?

  Merc. How the gipsy despises me! [Aside.

  Phæd. I had rather you were Plutus, the god of money; or Jupiter, in a golden shower: there was a god for us women! he had the art of making love. Dost thou think that kings, or gods either, get mistresses by their good faces? no, it is the gold, and the presents they can make; there is the prerogative they have over their fair subjects.

  Merc. All this notwithstanding, I must tell you, pretty Phædra, I am desperately in love with you.

  Phæd. And I must tell thee, ugly Sosia, thou hast not wherewithal to be in love.

  Merc. Yes, a poor man may be in love, I hope.

  Phæd. I grant a poor rogue may be in love, but he can never make love. Alas, Sosia, thou hast neither face to invite me, nor youth to please me, nor gold to bribe me; and, besides all this, thou hast a wife, poor miserable Sosia! — What, ho, Bromia!

  Merc. O thou merciless creature, why dost thou conjure up that sprite pf a wife?

  Phæd. To rid myself of that devil of a poor lover. Since you are so lovingly disposed, I ‘ll put you together to exercise your fury upon your own wedlock. — What, Bromia, I say, make haste; here is a vessel of yours, full freighted, that is going off without paying duties.

  Merc. Since thou wilt not let me steal custom, she shall have all the cargo I have gotten in the wars; but thou mightst have lent me a little creek, to smuggle in.

  Phœd. Why, what have you gotten, good gentleman soldier, besides a legion of —

  [Snaps her fingers.

  Merc. When the enemy was routed, I had the plundering of a tent

  Phœd. That is to say, a house of canvas, with movables of straw. — Make haste, Bromia! —

  Merc. But it was the general’s own tent.

  Phœd. You durst not fight, I am certain; and therefore came last in, when the rich plunder was gone beforehand. — Will you come, Bromia?

  Merc. Pr’ythee, do not call so loud: — A great goblet, that holds a gallon.

  Phœd. Of what was that goblet made? answer quickly, for I am just calling very loud — Bro —

  Merc. Of beaten gold. Now, call aloud, if thou dost not like the metal.

  Phœd. Bromia. — [Very softly.

  Merc. That struts in this fashion, with his arms akimbo, like a city magistrate; and a great bouncing belly, like a hostess with child of a kilderkin of wine. Now, what say you to that present, Phaedra?

  Phœd. Why, I am considering —

  Merc. What, I pr’ythee?

  Phœd. Why, how to divide the business equally; to take the gift, and refuse the giver, thou art so damnably ugly, and so old.

  Merc. Now the devil take Jupiter for confini
ng me to this ungodly shape to-day! [Aside.] — But Gripus is as old and as ugly too.

  Phæd. But Gripus is a person of quality, and my lady’s uncle; and if he marries me, I shall take place of my lady. — Hark, your wife! she has sent her tongue before her. I hear the thunderclap already: there is a storm approaching.

  Merc. Yes, of thy brewing; I thank thee for it. Oh, how I should hate thee now, if I could leave loving thee!

  Phæd. Not a word of the dear golden goblet, as you hope for — you know what, Sosia.

  Merc. You give me hope, then —

  Phæd. Not absolutely hope neither; but gold is a great cordial in love matters; and the more you apply of it, the better. — [Aside.] I am honest, that is certain; but when I weigh my honesty against the goblet, I am not quite resolved on which side the scale will turn.

  [Exit Phædra.

  Merc. [Aloud.] Farewell, Phædra; remember me to my wife, and tell her —

  Enter BROMIA.

  Brom. Tell her what, traitor; that you are going away without seeing her?

  Merc. That I am doing my duty, and following my master.

  Brom. ‘Umph! — so brisk, too! your master did his duty to my lady before he parted: he could leave his army in the lurch, and come galloping home at midnight to have a lick at the honey-pot; and steal to bed as quietly as any mouse, I warrant you. My master knew what belonged to a married life; but you, sirrah — you trencher-carrying rascal — you worse than dunghill-cock; that stood clapping your wings, and crowing without-doors, when you should have been at roost, you villain —

  Merc. Hold your peace, dame Partlet, and leave your cackling; my master charged me to stand sentry without-doors.

  Brom. My master! I dare swear thou beliest him; my master is more a gentleman than to lay such an unreasonable command upon a poor distressed married couple, and after such an absence, too. No, there is no comparison between my master and thee, thou sneaksby.

  Merc. No more than there is betwixt my lady and you, Bromia. You and I have had our time in a civil way, spouse, and much good love has been betwixt us; but we have been married fifteen years, I take it; and that hoighty-toighty business ought, in conscience, to be over.

  Brom. Marry come up, my saucy companion! I am neither old nor ugly enough to have that said to me.

  Merc. But will you hear reason, Bromia? my lord and my lady are yet in a manner bride and bridegroom; they are in honeymoon still: do but think, in decency, what a jest it would be to the family to see two venerable old married people lying snug in a bed together, and sighing out fine tender things to one another!

  Brom. How now, traitor, darest thou maintain that I am past the age of having fine things said to me?

  Merc. Not so, my dear; but certainly I am past the age of saying them.

  Brom. Thou deservest not to be yoked with a woman of honour, as I am, thou perjured villain.

  Merc. Ay, you are too much a woman of honour, to my sorrow; many a poor husband would be glad to compound for less honour in his wife, and more quiet. Pr’ythee, be but honest and continent in thy tongue, and do thy worst with everything else about thee.

  Brom. Thou wouldst have a woman of the town, wouldst thou; to be always speaking my husband fair, to make him digest his cuckoldom more easily! wouldst thou be a wittol, with a vengeance to thee? I am resolved I ‘ll scour thy hide for that word. [Holds up her ladle at him.

  Merc. Thou wilt not strike thy lord and husband, wilt thou?

  Brom. Since thou wilt none of the meat, ’tis but justice to give thee the bastings of the ladle. [She courses him about.

  Merc. [Running about.] Was ever poor deity so henpecked as I am! nay, then ’tis time to charm her asleep with my enchanted rod, before I am disgraced or ravished.

  [Plucks out his Caduceus, and strikes her upon the shoulder with it.

  Brom. What, art thou rebelling against thy anointed wife! I’ll make thee — how now — What, has the rogue bewitched me! I grow dull and stupid on the sudden — I can neither stir hand nor foot — I am just like him — I have lost the use of all my — members — [Yawning.] — I can’t so much as wag my tongue — neither, and that’s the last liv — ing part about a — woman —— [Falls down.

  MERCURY alone.

  Merc. Lord, what have I suffered for being a counterfeit married man one day! If ever I come to this house as a husband again — then — and yet that then was a lie too: for, while I am in love with this young gipsy, Phædra, I must return. But lie thou there, thou type of Juno; thou that wantest nothing of her tongue, but the immortality. If Jupiter ever let thee set foot in heaven, Juno will have a rattling second of thee; and there will never be a fair day in heaven or earth after it: For two such tongues will break the poles asunder; And, hourly scolding, make perpetual thunder.

  [Exit MERCURY.

  ACT III.

  SCENE I. — Before Amphitryon’s Palace.

  AMPHITRYON and SOSIA.

  Amph. Now, sirrah, follow me into the house; thou shalt be convinced at thy own cost, villain:

  What horrible lies hast thou told me! such improbabilities, such stuff, such nonsense! — that the monster, with two long horns, that frighted the great king, and the devil at the stone-cutter’s, are truths to these.

  Sos. I am but a slave, and you are master; and a poor man is always to lie when a rich man is pleased to contradict him: but, as sure as this is our house —

  Amph. So sure ’tis thy place of execution. —

  Thou art not made for lying neither

  Sos. That’s certain; for all my neighbours say I have an honest face; or else they would never call me cuckold, as they do.

  Amph. I mean thou hast not wit enough to make a lie that will hang together: thou hast set up a trade that thou hast not stock enough to manage. O that I had but a crab-tree cudgel for thy sake!

  Sos. How, a cudgel, said you! the devil take Jupiter for inventing that hard-hearted, merciless, knobby wood.

  Amph. The bitterness is yet to come: thou hast had but a half dose of it.

  Sos. I was never good at swallowing physic; and my stomach wambles at the very thought of it. But, if I must have a second beating, in conscience let me strip first, that I may show you the black and blue streaks upon my sides and shoulders. I am sure I suffered them in your service.

  Amph. To what purpose wouldst thou show them?

  Sos. Why, to the purpose that you may not strike me upon the sore places; and that, as he beat me the last night cross-ways, so you would please to beat me long-ways, to make clean work on’t, that at least my skin may look like chequerwork.

  Amph. This request is too reasonable to be refused. But, that all things may be done in order, tell me over again the same story, with all the circumstances of thy commission, that a blow may follow in due form for every lie. To repetition, rogue; to repetition.

  Sos. No; it shall be all a lie, if you please; and I’ll eat my words, to save my shoulders.

  Amph. Ay, sirrah, now you find you are to be disproved; but ’tis too late. To repetition, rogue; to repetition.

  Sos. With all my heart, to any repetition but the cudgel. But would you be pleased to answer me one civil question? Am I to use complaisance to you, as to a great person that will have all things said your own way? or am I to tell you the naked truth alone, without the ceremony of a further beating?

  Amph. Nothing but the truth, and the whole truth; so help thee cudgel!

  Sos. That’s a damned conclusion of a sentence: but, since it must be so — back and sides, at your own peril! — I set out from the port in an unlucky hour; the dusky canopy of night enveloping the hemisphere. —

  Amph. [Strikes him.] Imprimis, for fustian: — now, proceed.

  Sos. I stand corrected: In plain prose then, — I went darkling, and whistling to keep myself from being afraid; mumbling curses betwixt my teeth, for being sent at such an unnatural time of night.

  Amph. How, sirrah, cursing and swearing against your lord and master! take —

&nb
sp; [Going to strike.

  Sos. Hold, sir — pray, consider if this be not unreasonable to strike me for telling the whole truth, when you commanded me: I ‘ll fall into my old dog-trot of lying again, if this must come of plain dealing.

  Amph. To avoid impertinences, make an end of your journey, and come to the house; — what found you there, a God’s name?

  Sos. I came thither in no god’s name at all, but in the devil’s name; I found before the door a swinging fellow, with all my shapes and features, and accoutred also in my habit.

  Amph. Who was that fellow?

  Sos. Who should it be, but another Sosia! a certain kind of other me; who knew all my unfortunate commission, precisely to a word, as well as! Sosia; as being sent by yourself from the port upon the same errand to Alcmena.

  Amph. What gross absurdities are these?

  Sos. O Lord, O Lord, what absurdities! — as plain as any packstaff. That other me had posted himself there before me, me. — You won’t give a man leave to speak poetically now; or else I would say, that I was arrived at the door just before I came thither.

  Amph. This must either be a dream, or drunkenness or madness in thee. Leave your buffooning and lying; I am not in humour to bear it, sirrah.

  Sos. I would you should know I scorn a lie, and am a man of honour in everything but just fighting. I tell you once again, in plain sincerity and simplicity of heart, that, before last night, I never took myself but for one single individual Sosia; but, coming to our door, I found myself, I know not how, divided, and, as it were, split into two Sosias.

  Amph. Leave buffooning: I see you would make me laugh, but you play the fool scurvily.

  Sos. That may be; but, if I am a fool, I am not the only fool in this company.

  Amph. How now, impudence! I shall ——

  Sos. Be not in wrath, sir; I meant not you: I cannot possibly be the only fool; for, if I am one fool, I must certainly be two fools; because, as I told you, I am double.

  Amph. That one should be two, is very probable!

  Sos. Have you not seen a sixpence split into two halves, by some ingenious school-boy; which bore on either side the impression of the monarch’s face? Now, as those moieties were two threepences, and yet in effect but one sixpence —

  Amph. No more of your villainous tropes and figures.

  Sos. Nay, if an orator must be disarmed of his similitudes —