A princess are, and a king’s daughter, too;
But love no meanness scorns, no grandeur fears;
Love often lords into the cellar bears,
And bids the sturdy porter come up stairs.
For what’s too high for love, or what’s too low?
Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!
Hunc. But, granting all you say of love were true,
My love, alas! is to another due.
In vain to me a suitoring you come,
For I’m already promised to Tom Thumb.
Griz. And can my princess such a durgen wed?
One fitter for your pocket than your bed!
Advised by me, the worthless baby shun,
Or you will ne’er be brought to bed of one.
Oh take me to thy arms, and never flinch,
Who am a man, by Jupiter! every inch.
Then, while in joys together lost we lie,
I’ll press thy soul while gods stand wishing by.
[Footnote 1:
Traverse the glitt’ring chambers of the sky,
Borne on a cloud in view of fate I’ll lie,
And press her soul while gods stand wishing by.
— Hannibal.
]
Hunc. If, sir, what you insinuate you prove,
All obstacles of promise you remove;
For all engagements to a man must fall,
Whene’er that man is proved no man at all.
Griz. Oh! let him seek some dwarf, some fairy miss,
Where no joint-stool must lift him to the kiss!
But, by the stars and glory! you appear
Much fitter for a Prussian grenadier;
One globe alone on Atlas’ shoulders rests,
Two globes are less than Huncamunca’s breasts;
The milky way is not so white, that’s flat,
And sure thy breasts are full as large as that.
Hunc. Oh, sir, so strong your eloquence I find,
It is impossible to be unkind.
Griz. Ah! speak that o’er again, and let the sound
From one pole to another pole rebound;
The earth and sky each be a battledore,
And keep the sound, that shuttlecock, up an hour:
To Doctors’ Commons for a licence I
Swift as an arrow from a bow will fly.
[Footnote 1:
Let the four winds from distant corners meet,
And on their wings first bear it into France;
Then back again to Edina’s proud walls,
Till victim to the sound th’ aspiring city falls.
— Albion Queens.
]
Hunc. Oh, no! lest some disaster we should meet
‘Twere better to be married at the Fleet.
Griz. Forbid it, all ye powers, a princess should
By that vile place contaminate her blood;
My quick return shall to my charmer prove
I travel on the post-horses of love.
[Footnote 1: I do not remember any metaphors so frequent in the tragic poets as those borrowed from riding post:
The gods and opportunity ride post. — Hannibal.
—— Let’s rush together,
For death rides post! — Duke of Guise.
Destruction gallops to thy murder post. — Gloriana.
]
Hunc. Those post-horses to me will seem too slow Though they should fly swift as the gods, when they Ride on behind that post-boy, Opportunity.
SCENE VI. — TOM THUMB, HUNCAMUNCA.
Thumb. Where is my princess? where’s my Huncamunca? Where are those eyes, those cardmatches of Jove, That light up all with love my waxen soul? Where is that face which artful nature made In the same moulds where Venus’ self was cast?
[Footnote 1: This image, too, very often occurs:
— Bright as when thy eye
First lighted up our loves. — Aurengzebe.
‘Tis not a crown alone lights up my name. — Busiris.
]
[Footnote 2: There is great dissension among the poets concerning the method of making man. One tells his mistress that the mould she was made in being lost, Heaven cannot form such another. Lucifer, in Dryden, gives a merry description of his own formation:
Whom heaven, neglecting, made and scarce design’d,
But threw me in for number to the rest . — State of Innocence.
In one place the same poet supposes man to be made of metal:
I was form’d
Of that coarse metal which, when she was made
The gods threw by for rubbish. — All for Love.
In another of dough:
When the gods moulded up the paste of man,
Some of their clay was left upon their hands,
And so they made Egyptians. — Cleomenes.
In another of clay:
— Rubbish of remaining clay. — Sebastian.
One makes the soul of wax:
Her waxen soul begins to melt apace. — Anna Bullen.
Another of flint:
Sure our two souls have somewhere been acquainted
In former beings, or, struck out together,
One spark to Africk flew, and one to Portugal. — Sebastian.
To omit the great quantities of iron, brazen, and leaden souls, which are so plenty in modern authors — I cannot omit the dress of a soul as we find it in Dryden:
Souls shirted but with air. — King Arthur.
Nor can I pass by a particular sort of soul in a particular sort of description in the New Sophonisba:
Ye mysterious powers,
— Whether thro’ your gloomy depths I wander,
Or on the mountains walk, give me the calm,
The steady smiling soul, where wisdom sheds
Eternal sunshine, and eternal joy.
]
Hunc. Oh! what is music to the ear that’s deaf,
Or a goose-pie to him that has no taste?
What are these praises now to me, since I
Am promised to another?
[Footnote 1: This line Mr Banks has plunder’d entire in his Anna
Bullen.]
Thumb. Ha! promised?
Hunc. Too sure; ‘tis written in the book of fate.
Thumb. Then I will tear away the leaf
Wherein it’s writ; or, if fate won’t allow
So large a gap within its journal-book,
I’ll blot it out at least.
[Footnote 1:
Good Heaven! the book of fate before me lay,
But to tear out the journal of that day.
Or, if the order of the world below
Will not the gap of one whole day allow,
Give me that minute when she made her vow.
— Conquest of Granada.
]
SCENE VII. — GLUMDALCA, TOM THUMB, HUNCAMUNCA
Glum. I need not ask if you are Huncamunca. Your brandy-nose proclaims ——
[Footnote 1: I know some of the commentators have imagined that Mr Dryden, in the altercative scene between Cleopatra and Octavia, a scene which Mr Addison inveighs against with great bitterness, is much beholden to our author. How just this their observation is I will not presume to determine.]
Hunc. I am a princess; Nor need I ask who you are.
Glum. A giantess; The queen of those who made and unmade queens.
Hunc. The man whose chief ambition is to be My sweetheart hath destroy’d these mighty giants.
Glum. Your sweetheart? Dost thou think the man who once Hath worn my easy chains will e’er wear thine?
Hunc. Well may your chains be easy, since, if fame Says true, they have been tried on twenty husbands. The glove or boot, so many times pull’d on, May well sit easy on the hand or foot.
[Footnote 1: “A cobling poet indeed,” says Mr D.; and yet I believe we may find as monstrous images in the tragick authors: I’ll put down one:
Untie your folded thoughts, and let them dangle loose
as a bride’s hair. — Injured Love.
Which line seems to have as much title to a milliner’s shop as our author’s to a shoemaker’s.]
Glum. I glory in the number, and when I Sit poorly down, like thee, content with one, Heaven change this face for one as bad as thine.
Hunc. Let me see nearer what this beauty is That captivates the heart of men by scores. [Holds a candle to her face. Oh! Heaven, thou art as ugly as the devil.
Glum. You’d give the best of shoes within your shop To be but half so handsome.
Hunc. Since you come To that, I’ll put my beauty to the test: Tom Thumb, I’m yours, if you with me will go.
[Footnote 1: Mr L —— takes occasion in this place to commend the great care of our author to preserve the metre of blank verse, in which Shakspeare, Jonson, and Fletcher, were so notoriously negligent; and the moderns, in imitation of our author, so laudably observant:
Then does
Your majesty believe that he can be
A traitor? — Earl of Essex.
Every page of Sophonisba gives us instances of this excellence. ]
Glum. Oh! stay, Tom Thumb, and you alone shall fill That bed where twenty giants used to lie.
Thumb. In the balcony that o’erhangs the stage,
I’ve seen a whore two ‘prentices engage;
One half-a-crown does in his fingers hold,
The other shews a little piece of gold;
She the half-guinea wisely does purloin,
And leaves the larger and the baser coin.
Glum. Left, scorn’d, and loathed for such a chit as this; I feel the storm that’s rising in my mind, Tempests and whirlwinds rise, and roll, and roar. I’m all within a hurricane, as if The world’s four winds were pent within my carcase. Confusion, horror, murder, guts, and death!
[Footnote 1: Love mounts and rolls about my stormy mind.
— Aurengzebe.
Tempests and whirlwinds thro’ my bosom move.
— Cleomenes.
]
[Footnote 2:
With such a furious tempest on his brow,
As if the world’s four winds were pent within
His blustering carcase. — Anna Bullen.
]
[Footnote 3: Verba Tragica.]
SCENE VIII. — KING, GLUMDALCA.
King. Sure never was so sad a king as I! My life is worn as ragged as a coat A beggar wears; a prince should put it off. To love a captive and a giantess! Oh love! oh love! how great a king art thou! My tongue’s thy trumpet, and thou trumpetest, Unknown to me, within me. Oh, Glumdalca! Heaven thee designed a giantess to make, But an angelick soul was shuffled in. I am a multitude of walking griefs, And only on her lips the balm is found To spread a plaster that might cure them all.
[Footnote 1: This speech has been terribly mauled by the poet.]
[Footnote 2:
—— My life is worn to rags,
Not worth a prince’s wearing. — Love Triumphant.
]
[Footnote 3:
Must I beg the pity of my slave?
Must a king beg? But love’s a greater king,
A tyrant, nay, a devil, that possesses me.
He tunes the organ of my voice and speaks,
Unknown to me, within me. — Sebastian.
]
[Footnote 4:
When thou wert form’d, heaven did a man begin;
But a brute soul by chance was shuffled in. — Aurengzebe.
]
[Footnote 5:
I am a multitude
Of walking griefs. — New Sophonisba.
]
[Footnote 6:
I will take thy scorpion blood,
And lay it to my grief till I have ease. — Anna Bullen.
]
Glum. What do I hear? King. What do I see? Glum. Oh! King. Ah! Glum. Ah! wretched queen! King. Oh! wretched king! Glum. Ah! King. Oh!
[Footnote 1: Our author, who everywhere shews his great penetration into human nature, here outdoes himself: where a less judicious poet would have raised a long scene of whining love, he, who understood the passions better, and that so violent an affection as this must be too big for utterance, chuses rather to send his characters off in this sullen and doleful manner, in which admirable conduct he is imitated by the author of the justly celebrated Eurydice. Dr Young seems to point at this violence of passion:
— Passion choaks
Their words, and they’re the statues of despair.
And Seneca tells us, “Curse leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.” The story of the Egyptian king in Herodotus is too well known to need to be inserted; I refer the more curious reader to the excellent Montaigne, who hath written an essay on this subject.]
[Footnote 2:
To part is death.
Tis death to part.
Ah!
Oh — Don Carlos.
]
SCENE IX. — TOM THUMB, HUNCAMUNCA, Parson.
Par. Happy’s the wooing that’s not long a doing; For, if I guess right, Tom Thumb this night Shall give a being to a new Tom Thumb.
Thumb. It shall be my endeavour so to do.
Hunc. Oh! fie upon you, sir, you make me blush.
Thumb. It is the virgin’s sign, and suits you well: I know not where, nor how, nor what I am; I am so transported, I have lost myself.
[Footnote 1:
Nor know I whether
What am I, who, or where. — Busiris.
I was I know not what, and am I know not how.
— Gloriana.
]
[Footnote 2: To understand sufficiently the beauty of this passage, it will be necessary that we comprehend every man to contain two selfs. I shall not attempt to prove this from philosophy, which the poets make so plainly evident.
One runs away from the other:
—— Let me demand your majesty,
Why fly you from yourself? — Duke of Guise.
In a second, one self is a guardian to the other:
Leave me the care of me. — Conquest of Granada.
Again:
Myself am to myself less near. — Ibid.
In the same, the first self is proud of the second:
I myself am proud of me. — State of Innocence.
In a third, distrustful of him:
Fain I would tell, but whisper it in my ear,
That none besides might hear, nay, not myself.
— Earl of Essex.
In a fourth, honours him:
I honour Rome,
And honour too myself. — Sophonisba.
In a fifth, at variance with him:
Leave me not thus at variance with myself. — Busiris.
Again, in a sixth:
I find myself divided from myself. — Medea.
She seemed the sad effigies of herself. — Banks.
Assist me, Zulema, if thou would’st be
The friend thou seem’st, assist me against me.
— Albion Queens.
From all which it appears that there are two selfs; and therefore Tom Thumb’s losing himself is no such solecism as it hath been represented by men rather ambitious of criticising than qualified to criticise. ]
Hunc. Forbid it, all ye stars, for you’re so small.
That were you lost, you’d find yourself no more.
So the unhappy sempstress once, they say,
Her needle in a pottle, lost, of hay;
In vain she look’d, and look’d, and made her moan,
For ah, the needle was forever gone.
Par. Long may they live, and love, and propagate, Till the whole land be peopled with Tom Thumbs! So, when the Cheshire cheese a maggot breeds, Another and another still succeeds: By thousands and ten thousands they increase, Till one continued maggot fills the rotten cheese.
[Footnote 1: Mr F —— imagines this parson to have been a Welsh one from his simile.]
SCENE X. — NOODLE, and then GRIZZLE.
Nood. Sure, Nature means
to break her solid chain,
Or else unfix the world, and in a rage
To hurl it from its axletree and hinges;
All things are so confused, the king’s in love,
The queen is drunk, the princess married is.
[Footnote 1: Our author hath been plundered here, according to custom
Great nature, break thy chain that links together
The fabrick of the world, and make a chaos
Like that within my soul. — Love Triumphant.
—— Startle Nature, unfix the globe,
And hurl it from its axletree and hinges.
— Albion Queens.
The tott’ring earth seems sliding off its props.
]
Griz. Oh, Noodle! Hast thou Huncamunca seen?
Nood. I have seen a thousand sights this day, where none Are by the wonderful bitch herself outdone. The king, the queen, and all the court, are sights.
Griz. D — n your delay, you trifler! are you drunk, ha! I will not hear one word but Huncamunca.
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 255