Scene changes to an Open Country.
Enter two COUNTRYMEN.
1 COUNTRYMAN. Is it day yet, neighbour?
2 COUNTRYMAN. Faith, neighbour, I can’t tell whether it is or no. It is a cursed nasty morning; I wish we have not wet weather.
1 COUNTRYMAN. It begins to grow a little lighter though now. [Aurora crosses the stage, with two or three girls carrying farthing candles.
FUSTIAN. Pray, sir, what do those children represent?
MACHINE. Sir, those children are all stars; and you shall see presently, as the Sun rises, the candles will go out, which represents the disappearing of the stars.
FUSTIAN. O the devil! the devil!
MACHINE. Dear sir, don’t be angry. Why will you not allow me the same latitude that is allowed to all other composers of entertainments? Does not a dragon descend from hell in Doctor Faustus? And people go up to hell in Pluto and Proserpine? Does not a squib represent a thunderbolt in the rape of Proserpine? And what are all the suns, sir, that have ever shone upon the stage, but candles? And if they represent the Sun, I think they may very well represent the stars.
FUSTIAN. Sir, I ask your pardon. But, sir, —
MACHINE. Pray, sir, be quiet, or the candles will be gone out before they should, and burn the girls’ fingers before the Sun can rise.
1 COUNTRYMAN. I’ll e’en go saddle my horses.
2 COUNTRYMAN. Odso! methinks ‘tis woundy light all of a sudden; the Sun rises devilish fast to-day, methinks.
1 COUNTRYMAN. Mayhap he’s going a fox-hunting to-day, but he takes devilish large leaps.
2 COUNTRYMAN. Leaps, quotha! I’cod he’ll leap upon us, I believe. It’s woundy hot, the skin is almost burnt off my face; I warrant I’m as black as a blackmoor.
[Phaeton falls, and the lanthorn hangs hovering in the air.
Enter 3rd COUNTRYMAN.
3 COUNTRYMAN. Oh, neighbours! the world is at an end: call up the parson of the parish: I am but just got up from my neighbour’s wife, and have not had time to say my prayers since.
1 COUNTRYMAN. The world at an end! No, no, if this hot weather continues, we shall have harvest in May. Odso though, ‘tis damned hot! I’cod, I wish I had left my clothes at home.
2 COUNTRYMAN. ‘Sbud, I sweat as if I had been at a hard day’s work.
1 COUNTRYMAN. Oh, I’m scorched!
2 COUNTRYMAN. Oh, I’m burnt!
3 COUNTRYMAN. I’m on fire. [Exeunt, crying fire.
NEPTUNE descends.
NEPTUNE. I am the mighty emperor of the sea.
FUSTIAN. I am mighty glad you tell us so, else we should, have taken you for the emperor of the air.
MACHINE. Sir, he has been making a visit to Jupiter. Besides, sir, it is here introduced with great beauty: for we may very naturally suppose, that the Sun being drove by Phaeton so near the earth, had exhaled all the sea up into the air.
FUSTIAN. But methinks Neptune is oddly dressed for a god?
MACHINE. Sir, I must dress my characters somewhat like what people have seen; and as I presume few of my audience have been nearer the sea than Gravesend, so I dressed him e’en like a waterman.
SNEERWELL. So that he is more properly the god of the Thames, than the god of the sea.
MACHINE. Pray, let Mr. Neptune go on.
NEPTUNE. Was it well done, O Jupiter! whilst I
Paid you a civil visit in the sky,
To send your Sun my waters to dry up,
Nor leave my fish one comfortable sup?
MACHINE. Come, enter the goddess of the earth, and a dancing-master, and dance the White-Joke.
They enter and dance.
NEPTUNE. What can the earth with frolics thus inspire?
To dance, when all her kingdom is on fire?
TERRA. Though all the earth was one continual smoke,
‘Twould not prevent my dancing the White Joke.
SNEERWELL. Upon my word, the goddess is a great lover of dancing.
MACHINE. Come, enter Jupiter with a pair of bellows, and blow out the candle of the Sun.
JUPITER enters, as above.
TERRA. But ha! great Jupiter has heard our rout,
And blown the candle of the sun quite out.
MACHINE. Come now, Neptune and Terra, dance a minuet by way of thanksgiving.
FUSTIAN. But pray how is Phaeton fallen all this time?
MACHINE Why, you saw him fall, did not you? And there he lies; and I think it’s the first time I ever saw him fall upon any stage. But I fancy he has lain there so long, that he would be glad to get up again by this time; so pray draw the first flat over him. Come, enter Clymene.
CLYMENE. Are thou, my Phaey, dead? O foolish elf
To find your father, and to lose yourself.
What shall I do to get another son?
For now, alas! my teeming-time is done.
AIR IV.
Thus when the wretched owl has found
Her young owls dead as mice,
O’er the sad spoil she hovers round,
And views ‘em once or twice:
Then to some hollow tree she flies,
To hollow, hoot, and howl,
Till every boy that passes, cries,
The devil’s in the owl!
MACHINE. Come, enter Old Phaeton.
FUSTIAN. Pray, sir, who is Old Phaeton? for neither Ovid nor Mr. Pritchard make any mention of him.
MACHINE. He is the husband of Clymene, and might have been the father of Phaeton if his wife would have let him.
Enter OLD PHAETON.
OLD PHAETON. What is the reason, wife, through all the town
You publish me a cuckold up and down?
It’s not enough, as other women do,
To cuckold me, but you must tell it too?
CLYMENE. Good cobbler, do not thus indulge your rage,
But, like your brighter brethren of the age,
Think it enough your betters do the deed,
And that by homing you I mend the breed.
OLD PHAETON. Madam, if horns I on my head must wear,
‘Tis equal to me who shall graft them there.
CLYMENE. To London go, thou out-of-fashion fool,
And thou wilt learn in that great cuckold’s school,
That every man who wears the marriage-fetters,
Is glad to be the cuckold of his betters;
Therefore, no longer at your fate repine,
For in your stall the Sun shall ever shine.
OLD PHAETON. I had rather have burnt candle all my life,
Than to the Sun have yielded up my wife.
But since ‘Tis past I must my fortune bear;
‘Tis well you did not do it with a star.
CLYMENE. When neighbours see the sunshine in your stall,
Your fate will be the envy of them all;
And each poor clouded man will wish the Sun
Would do to his wife, what to your wife has done.
[Exeunt arm in arm.
MACHINE. There, sir, is a scene in heroics between a cobbler and his wife; now you shall have a scene in mere prose between several gods.
FUSTIAN. I should have thought it more natural for the gods to have talked in heroics, and the cobbler and his wife in prose.
MACHINE. You think it would have been more natural; so do I, and for that very reason have avoided it; for the chief beauty of an entertainment, sir, is to be unnatural. Come, where are the gods?
Enter JUPITER, NEPTUNE, and PHOEBUS.
JUPITER. Harkye, you Phoebus, will you take up your lanthorn and set out, sir, or no? For by Styx! I’ll put somebody else in your place, if you do not; I will not have the world left in darkness, because you are out of humour.
PHOEBUS. Have I not reason to be out of humour, when you have destroyed my favourite child?
JUPITER. ‘Twas your own fault; why did you trust him with your lanthorn?
PHOEBUS. I had promised by Styx, an oath which you know was not in my power to break.
JUPITER
. I shall dispute with you here no longer; so either take up your lanthorn, and mind your business, or I’ll dispose of it to somebody else. I would not have you think I want suns, for there were two very fine ones that shone together at Drury Lane play-house; I myself saw ‘em, for I was in the same entertainment.
PHOEBUS. I saw ‘em too, but they were more like moons than suns; and as like any thing else as either. You had better send for the sun from Covent Garden house, there’s a sun that hatches an egg there, and produces a Harlequin.
JUPITER. Yes, I remember that; but do you know what animal laid that egg.
PHOEBUS. Not I.
JUPITER. Sir, that egg was laid by an ass.
NEPTUNE. Faith, that sun of the egg of an ass is a most prodigious animal; I have wondered how you came to give him so much power over us, for he makes gods and devils dance jigs together whenever he pleases.
JUPITER. You must know he is the grand-child of my daughter Fortune by an ass; and at her request I settled all that power upon him; but he plays such damned pranks with it, that I believe I shall shortly revoke my grant. He has turned all nature topsy turvy, and not content with that, in one of his entertainments he was bringing all the devils in hell up to heaven by a machine, but I happened to perceive him, and stopt him by the way.
PHOEBUS. I wonder you did not damn him for it.
JUPITER. Sir he has been damned a thousand times over; but he values it not a rush; the devils themselves are afraid of him; he makes them sing and dance whenever he pleases. But come, ‘tis time for you to set out.
PHOEBUS. Well, if I must, I must; and since you have destroyed my son, I must find out some handsome wench and get another. [Exit.
JUPITER. Come, Neptune, ‘Tis too late to bed to go,
What shall we do to pass an hour or so?
NEPTUNE. E’en what you please — Will you along with me,
And take a little dip into the sea?
JUPITER. No, faith, though I’ve a heat I want to quench,
Dear Neptune, canst thou find me out a wench?
NEPTUNE. What sayst thou to Dame Thetis? she’s a prude,
But yet I know with Jupiter she would.
JUPITER. I ne’er was more transported in my life:
While the Sun’s out at work, I’ll have his wife;
Neptune, this service merits my regard,
For all great men should still their pimps reward. [Exeunt.
MACHINE. Thus, sir, ends my second and last serious; and now for my second comic. Come, draw the scene, and discover the two play-houses side by side.
SNEERWELL. You have brought these two play-houses in a very friendly manner together.
MACHINE. Why should they quarrel, sir? for you observe, both their doors are shut up. Come, enter Tragedy King and
Queen, to be hired.
Enter Tragedy King and Queen, and knock at Covent Garden play-house door; the Manager comes out; the Tragedy King repeats a speech out of a play; the Manager and he quarrel about an emphasis. He knocks at Drury Lane door; the Manager enters with his man Pistol bearing a sack-load of players’ articles.
FUSTIAN. Pray, sir, what is contained in that sack?
MACHINE. Sir, in that sack are contained articles for players, from ten shillings a week, and no benefit, to five hundred a year, and a benefit clear.
FUSTIAN. Sir, I suppose you intend this as a joke? but I can’t see why a player of our own country, and in our own language, should not deserve five hundred, sooner than a saucy
Italian singer twelve.
MACHINE. Five hundred a year, sir! Why, sir, for a little more money I’ll get you one of the best harlequins in France; and you’ll see the managers are of my opinion.
Enter Harlequin and Columbine. Both Managers run to them, and caress them; and while they are bidding for them, enter a Dog in a Harlequin’s dress; they bid for him. Enter the Justice and his Clerk; Harlequin and Columbine run off. Covent Garden Manager runs away with the Dog in his arms. The scene changes to a Cartload of Players. The Justice pulls out the Act of the 12th of the Queen and threatens to commit them as Vagrants; the Manager offers the Justice two hundred a year if he will commence a player; the Justice accepts it, is turned into a Harlequin; he and his Clerk mount the Cart, and all sing the following Chorus.
CHORUS.
AIR V. Abbot of Canterbury.
You wonder, perhaps, at the tricks of the stage,
Or that Pantomime miracles take with the age;
But if you examine court, country, and town,
There’s nothing but Harlequin feats will go down.
Derry down, &c.
From Fleet Street to Limehouse the city’s his range,
He’s a saint in his shop, and a knave on the ‘Change;
At an oath, or a jest, like a censor he’ll frown,
But a lie or a cheat slip currently down.
Derry down, &c.
In the country he burns with a politic zeal,
And boasts, like knight-errant, to serve commonweal;
But once returned member, he alters his tone,
For, as long as he rises, no matter who’s down.
Derry down, &c.
At court, ‘Tis as hard to confine him as air,
Like a troublesome spirit, he’s here and he’s there;
All shapes and disguises at pleasure put6 on,
And defies all the nation to conjure him down.
Derry down, &c.
EURYDICE, A FARC E
CONTENTS
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
EURYDICE
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
PLUTO
EURYDICE.
ORPHEUS.
CHARON.
PROSERPINE.
GHOSTS, &C.
EURYDICE
[The music hell rings.]
Enter the AUTHOR in a hurry. A CRITIC following.
AUTHOR. Hold, hold, Mr. Chetwood; don’t ring for the overture yet, the devil is not dressed. He has but just put on his cloven foot.
CRITIC. Well, sir, how do you find yourself? In what state are your spirits?
AUTHOR. Oh! never better. If the audience are but in half so good a humour, I warrant for the success of my farce.
CRITIC. I wish it may succeed; but as it is built (you say) on so ancient a story as that of Orpheus and Eurydice, I fear some part of the audience may not be acquainted with it. Would it not have been advisable to have writ a sheet or two by a friend, addressed to the spectators of Eurydice, and let them a little into the matter?
AUTHOR. No, no; any man may know as much of the story as myself, only by looking at the end of Littleton’s dictionary, whence I took it. Besides, sir, the story is vulgarly known. Who has not heard that Orpheus went down to the shades after his wife who was dead, and so enchanted Prosperpine with his music, that she consented he should carry her back, with a proviso he never turned to look on her in his way, which he could not refrain from, and so lost her? — Dear sir, every schoolboy knows it.
CRITIC. But for the instruction of those beaus who never were at school.
AUTHOR. They may learn it from those who have. If you will secure me from the critics, I don’t fear the beaus.
CRITIC. Why, sir, half the beaus are critics.
AUTHOR. Ay! s’gad, I should as soon have suspected half the Dutchmen to be dancing-masters. If I had known this, I would have spared them a little. I must leave out the first scene, I believe.
CRITIC. Why that?
AUTHOR. Why, it is the scene between the ghosts of two beaus. And if the substance of a beau be such an unsubstantial thing as we see it, what must the shadow of that substance be?
CRITIC. Ha, ha, ha! Ridiculous.
AUTHOR. Ay, I think so. I think we do come up to the ridiculous in our farce, and that is what a farce ought to be, and all it ought to be: for, as your beaus set up for critics, so these critics on farces may set up for beaus. But come, I believe by this, the devil and the ghosts are ready, so now, Mr. Chetwood, you may r
ing away. Sir, if you please to sit down with me between the scenes, I shall be glad of your opinion of my piece.
(They sit: the Overture is played.)
CRITIC. Pray, sir, who are these two gentlemen that stand ready to rush on the stage? Are they the two ghosts you mention?
AUTHOR. Yes, sir, they are. Mr. Spindle and Captain Weazel, the one belongs to the court, the other to the army; and they are the representatives of their several bodies. You must know, farther, the one has been dead some time, the other but just departed: but hush, they are gone on.
Enter Captain Weazel, Mr. Spindle.
CAPTAIN WEAZEL. Mr. Spindle, your very humble servant. You are welcome, sir, on this side the river Styx. I am glad to see you dead, with all my heart.
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 338