The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (19 page)

VER
: If that be all, we will not disagree:
A clean trencher and a napkin you shall have presently.

WILL SUMMERS
: The truth is, this fellow hath been a tapster in his days.

[
Ver goes in and fetcheth out the hobby-horse and the morris-dance, who dance about
.]

SUMMER
: How now? Is this the reckoning we shall have?

WINTER
: My lord, he doth abuse you: brook it not.

AUTUMN
:
Summa totalis
,
³⁷
I fear, will prove him but a fool.

VER
: About, about, lively! Put your horse to it, rein him harder, jerk him wint your wand! Sit fast, sit fast, man! Fool, hold up your bable
³⁸
there!

WILL SUMMERS
: Oh, brave Hall!
³⁹
Oh, well said, Butcher! Now for the credit of Worcestershire.
⁴⁰
The finest set of morris-dancers that is between this and Streatham. Marry, methinks there is one of them danceth like a cloyther's
⁴¹
horse, with a wool-pack on his back. You, friend, with the hobby-horse, go not too fast, for fear of wearing out my lord's tile-stones with your hobnails.

VER
: So, so, so; trot the ring twice over, and away. May it please my lord, this is the grand capital sum; but there are certain parcels
⁴²
behind, as you shall see.

SUMMER
: Nay nay, no more; for this is all too much.

VER
: Content yourself, we'll have variety.

[
Here enter three clowns and three maids, singing this song, dancing
.]

Trip and go, heave and ho,
Up and down, to and fro,
From the town to the grove,
Two and two let us rove
A-maying, a-playing:
Love hath no gainsaying:
So merrily trip and go.

WILL SUMMERS
: Beshrew my heart, of a number of ill legs I never saw worse dancers! How blest are you, that the wenches of the parish do not see you!

SUMMER
: Presumptuous Ver, uncivil-nurtured boy,
Think'st I will be derided thus of thee?
Is this th'account and reckoning that thou mak'st?

VER
: Troth, my lord, to tell you plain, I can give you no other account:
nam quae habui, perdidi
⁴³
what I had, I have spent on good fellows; in these sports you have seen, which are proper to the spring, and others of like sort (as giving wenches green gowns,
⁴⁴
making garlands for fencers, and tricking up children gay) have I bestowed all my flowery treasure and flower of my youth.

WILL SUMMERS
: A small matter. I know one spent, in less than a year, eight and fifty pounds in mustard, and another that ran in debt in the space of four or five year above fourteen thousand pound in lute strings
⁴⁵
and grey paper.

SUMMER
: Oh monstrous unthrift, who e'er heard the like?
The sea's vast throat, in so short tract of time,
Devoureth nor consumeth half so much.

How well mightst thou have liv'd within thy bounds!

VER
: What talk you to me of living within my bounds? I tell you, none but asses live within their bounds: the silly beasts, if they be put in a pasture that is eaten bare to the very earth and where there is nothing to be had but thistles, will rather fall soberly to those thistles and be hunger-starved, than they will offer to break their bounds; whereas the lusty courser, if he be in a barren plot and spy better grass in some pasture near adjoining, breaks over hedge and ditch, and to go, ere he will be pent in, and not have his belly full. Peradventure the horses lately sworn to be stolen
⁴⁶
carried that youthful mind, who, if they had been asses, would have been yet extant.

WILL SUMMER
: Thus we may see, the longer we live, the more we shall learn. I ne'er thought honesty an ass till this day.

VER
: This world is transitory; it was made of nothing, and it must to nothing. Wherefore, if we will do the will of our high Creator, whose will it is that it pass to nothing, we must help to consume it to nothing. Gold is more vile than men. Men die in thousands, and ten thousands, yea, many times in hundred thousands, in one battle. If then the best husband be so liberal of his best handiwork, to what end should we make much of a glittering excrement, or doubt to spend at a banquet as many pounds as He spends men at a battle? Methinks I honour Geta, the Roman Emperor, for a brave-minded fellow, for he commanded a banquet to be made him of all meats under the sun, which were served in after the order of the alphabet, and the clerk of the kitchen following the last dish, which was two mile off from the foremost, brought him an index of their several names; neither did he pingle
⁴⁷
when it was set on the board, but for the space of three days and three nights never rose from the table.

WILL SUMMERS
: Oh intolerable lying villain, that was never begotten without the consent of a whetstone!

SUMMER
: Ungracious man, how fondly
⁴⁸
he argueth!

VER
: Tell me, I pray, wherefore was gold laid under our feet in the veins of the earth, but that we should contemn it and tread upon it, and so consequently tread thrift under our feet? It was not known till the Iron Age,
donec facinus invasit mortales
,
⁴⁹
as the poet says, and the Scythians always detested it. I will prove it, that an un-thrift of any comes nearest a happy man insomuch as he comes nearest to beggary. Cicero saith
summum bonum
consists in
omnium rerum vacatione
, that it is the chiefest felicity that may be to rest from all labours. Now, who
doeth so much
vacate a rebus?
Who rests so much? Who hath so little to do, as the beggar?

Who can sing so merry a note,

As he that cannot change a groat?

Cui nil est, nil deest
:
⁵⁰
‘he that hath nothing, wants nothing.' On the other side, it is said of the carl
⁵¹
Omnia habeo, nec quicquam habeo
: ‘I have all things, yet want everything.'
Multi mihi vitio vertunt, quia egeo
, saith Marcus Cato in Aulus Gellius,
at ego illis, quia nequeunt egere
: ‘Many upbraid me,' saith he, ‘because I am poor; but I upbraid them because they cannot live if they were poor.' It is a common proverb
divesque miserque
(‘a rich man, and a miserable'):
nam natura paucis contenta
(‘none so contented as the poor man'). Admit that the chiefest happiness were not rest or ease, but knowledge, as Herillus, Alcidamas and many of Socrates' followers affirm. Why,
paupertas omnes perdocet artes
: ‘poverty instructs a man in all arts', it makes a man hardy and venturous, and therefore it is called of the poets
Paupertas audax
,
⁵²
‘valiant poverty'. It is not so much subject to inordinate desires as wealth or prosperity.
Non habet unde suum paupertas pascat amor em
:
⁵³
‘poverty hath not wherewithal to feed lust' All the poets were beggars. All alchemists and all philosophers are beggars:
Omnia mea mecum porto
,
⁵⁴
quoth Bias, when he had nothing but bread and cheese in a leathern bag, and two or three books in his bosom. Saint Francis: a holy saint, and never had any money. It is madness to dote upon muck. That young man of Athens (Aelianus makes mention of) may be an example to us, who doted so extremely on the image of fortune, that, when he might not enjoy it, he died for sorrow. The earth yields all her fruits together,
and why should not we spend them together? I thank heavens on my knees, that have made me an unthrift.

SUMMER
: Oh vanity itself! Oh wit ill-spent!
So study thousands not to mend their lives,
But to maintain the sin they most affect,
To be hell's advocates gainst their own souls.
Ver, since thou giv'st such praise to beggary,
And hast defended it so valiantly,
This be thy penance: thou shalt ne'er appear,
Or come abroad, but Lent shall wait on thee;
His scarcity may countervail thy waste.
Riot may flourish, but finds want at last
Take him away, that knoweth no good way,
And lead him the next way to woe and want [
Exit Ver
.]
Thus in the paths of knowledge many stray,
And from the means of life fetch their decay.

WILL SUMMERS
: Heigh ho! Here is a coil
⁵⁵
indeed to bring beggars to stocks. I promise you truly, I was almost asleep; I thought I had been at a sermon. Well, for this one night's exhortation, I vow (by God's grace) never to be good husband while I live. But what is this to the purpose? ‘Hur come to Powl,' as the Welshman says, ‘and hur pay an halfpenny for hur seat, and hur hear the preacher talge, and a talge very well, by gis; but yet a cannot make hur laugh. Go ae theatre and hear a Queen's Fice, and he make hur laugh, and laugh hur belly-full.' So we came hither to laugh and be merry, and we hear a filthy beggarly oration in the praise of beggary. It is a beggarly poet that writ it; and that makes him so much commend it, because he knows not how to mend himself. Well, rather than he shall have no employment but lick dishes, I will set him a-work myself, to write in praise of the art of stooping, and how there was never any famous thresher, porter, brewer, pioneer, or carpenter, that had straight back. Repair to my chamber, poor fellow, when the play is done, and thou shalt see what I will say to thee.

SUMMER
: Vertumnus, call Solstitium.

VERTUMNUS
: Solstitium, come into the court.

[
without
⁵⁶
]: Peace there below, make room for master Solstitium!

[
Enter Solstitium like an aged hermit, carrying a pair of balances with an hour-glass in either of them; one hourglass white, the other black. He is brought in by a number of shepherds playing upon recorders
.]

SOLSTITIUM
: All hail to Summer, my dread sovereign lord

SUMMER
: Welcome, Solstitium. Thou art one of them
To whose good husbandry we have referred
Part of those small revenues that we have.
What hast thou gain'd us? What hast thou brought in?

SOLSTITIUM
: Alas, my lord, what gave you me to keep,
But a few days' eyes in my prime of youth?
And those I have converted to white hairs.
I never lov'd ambitiously to climb,
Or thrust my hand too far into the fire.
To be in heaven, sure, is a blessed thing;
But, Atlas-like, to prop heaven on one's back
Cannot but be more labour than delight
Such is the state of men in honour plac'd:
They are gold vessels made for servile uses,
High trees that keep the weather from low houses
But cannot shield the tempest from themselves.
I love to dwell betwixt the hills and dales;
Neither to be so great to be envied,
Nor yet so poor the world should pity me.
Inter utrumque tene, medio tutissimus ibis
.
⁵⁷

SUMMER
: What dost thou with those balances thou bear'st?

SOLSTITIUM
: In them I weigh the day and night alike.
This white glass is the hour-glass of the day,
This black one the just measure of the night.
One more than other holdeth not a grain:
Both serve time's just proportion to maintain.

SUMMER
: I like thy moderation wondrous well;
And this thou balance, weighing the white glass
And black with equal poise and steadfast hand,
A pattern is to princes and great men,
How to weigh all estates indifferently,
The Spiritualty and Temporalty alike:
Neither to be too prodigal of smiles,
Nor too severe in frowning without cause.
If you be wise, you monarchs of the earth,
Have two such glasses still before your eyes;
Think, as you have a white glass running on,
Good days, friends' favour, and all things at beck,
So, this white glass run out (as out it will),
The black comes next; your downfall is at hand.
Take this of me, for somewhat I have tried:
A mighty ebb follows a mighty tide.
But say, Solstitium, hadst thou nought besides?
Nought but days' eyes and fair looks gave I thee?

SOLSTITIUM
: Nothing, my lord, nor aught more did I ask.

SUMMER
: But hadst thou always kept thee in my sight,

Thy good deserts, though silent, would have asked.

SOLSTITIUM
: Deserts, my lord, of ancient servitors

Are like old sores, which may not be ripp'd up.

Such use these times have got, that none must beg,

But those that have young limbs to lavish fast.

SUMMER
: I grieve no more regard we had of thee.
A little sooner hadst thou spoke to me,
Thou hadst been heard, but now the time is past:
Death waiteth at the door for thee and me.
Let us go measure out our beds in clay:
Nought but good deeds hence shall we bear away.
Be, as thou wert, best steward of my hours,
And so return unto thy country bowers.

[
Here Solstitium goes out with his music, as he comes in
.]

WILL SUMMERS
: Fie, fie, of honesty, fie! Solstitium is an

ass, perdyl This play is a gallimaufry.
⁵⁸
Fetch me some
drink, somebody. What cheer, what cheer, my hearts? Are you not thirsty with listening to this dry sport? What have we to do with scales
⁵⁹
and hour-glasses, except we were bakers or clock-keepers? I cannot tell how other men are addicted, but it is against my profession to use any scales but such as we play at with a bowl, or keep any hours but dinner or supper. It is a pedantical thing to respect times and seasons. If a man be drinking with good fellows late, he must come home, for fear the gates be shut. When I am in my warm bed, I must rise to prayers, because the bell rings. I like no such foolish customs. Actors, bring now a black jack, and a rundlet
⁶⁰
of Rhenish wine, disputing of the antiquity of red noses. Let the prodigal child come out in his doublet and hose all greasy, his shirt hanging forth, and ne'er a penny in his purse, and talk what a fine thing it is to walk summerly, or sit whistling under a hedge and keep hogs. Go forward in grace and virtue to proceed; but let us have no more of these grave matters.