SCENE II.

_Enter_ JUPITER, _leading_ ALCMENA, _followed by_ PHÆDRA. _Pages with Torches before them._

_Jup._ [_To the Pages._] Those torches are offensive; stand aloof; For, though they bless me with thy heavenly sight, [_To her._ They may disclose the secret I would hide. The Thebans must not know I have been here; Detracting crowds would blame me, that I robbed These happy moments from my public charge, To consecrate to thy desired embrace; And I could wish no witness but thyself, For thou thyself art all I wish to please.

_Alcm._ So long an absence, and so short a stay! What, but one night! one night of joy and love Could only pay one night of cares and fears, And all the rest are an uncancelled sum!-- Curse on this honour, and this public fame; Would you had less of both, and more of love!

_Jup._ Alcmena, I must go.

_Alcm._ Not yet, my lord.

_Jup._ Indeed I must.

_Alcm._ Indeed you shall not go.

_Jup._ Behold the ruddy streaks o'er yonder hill; Those are the blushes of the breaking morn, That kindle day-light to this nether world.

_Alcm._ No matter for the day; it was but made To number out the hours of busy men. Let them be busy still, and still be wretched, And take their fill of anxious drudging day; But you and I will draw our curtains close, Extinguish day-light, and put out the sun. Come back, my lord; in faith you shall retire; You have not yet lain long enough in bed, To warm your widowed side.

_Phæd._ [_Aside._] I find my lord is an excellent school-master, my lady is so willing to repeat her lesson.

_Merc._ [_Aside._] That's a plaguy little devil; what a roguish eye she has! I begin to like her strangely. She's the perquisite of my place too; for my lady's waiting-woman is the proper fees of my lord's chief gentleman. I have the privilege of a god too; I can view her naked through all her clothes. Let me see, let me see;--I have discovered something, that pleases me already.

_Jup._ Let me not live, but thou art all enjoyment! So charming and so sweet, That not a night, but whole eternity, Were well employed, To love thy each perfection as it ought.

_Alcm._ [_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! O, I could kiss them pale with eagerness! So soft, by heaven! and such a juicy sweet, That ripened peaches have not half the flavour.

_Alcm._ 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 sooth 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?

_Alcm._ 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.

_Alcm._ 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 their 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.

_Alcm._ Methinks you should be pleased; I give you all A virtuous and 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.

_Alcm._ 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_ JUP. _and_ ALCM. _severally_; PHÆD. _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 interested, 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 gormand.

_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 pedlers 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 of 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.

_Phæd._ 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.

_Phæd._ That is to say, a house of canvas, with moveables of straw.--Make haste, Bromia!----

_Merc._ But it was the general's own tent.

_Phæd._ 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.

_Phæd._ 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.

_Phæd._ Bromia. [_Very softly._

_Merc._ That struts in this fashion, with his arms a-kimbo, 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, Phædra?

_Phæd._ Why, I am considering----

_Merc._ What, I pr'ythee?

_Phæd._ 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 confining 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. O 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_ PHÆD.

_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 centry 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 honey-moon 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 every thing 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 hen-pecked 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_.

Lord, what have I suffered for being but 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.