ACT II. SCENE I. Another part of the island. Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others. Gon. 'Beseech sir, be you, merry: you have cause (So have we all) of joy; for our escape Is much beyond our loss: Our hint of woe Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh Alon. Pr'ythee, peace. Seb. He receives comfort like cold porridge. Ant. The visitor will not give him o'er so. Seb. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike. Gon. Sir, Gon. When every grief is entertain'd, that's offer'd, Comes to the entertainer Seb. A dollar. Gon. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken truer than you purposed. Seb. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should. Gon. Therefore, my lord, Ant. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue! Alon. I pr'ythee, spare. Gon. Well, I have done: But yet— Seb. He will be talking. Ant. Which of them, he, or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow? Seb. The old cock. Ant. The cockrel. Seb. Done: The wager? Ant. A laughter. Seb. A match. Adr. Though this island seem to be desert, Seb. Ha, ha, ha! Ant. So, you've pay'd. Adr. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible,- Adr. Yet Ant. He could not miss it. Adr. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance.3 Ant. Temperance was a delicate wench. Seb. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered. Adr. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. Seb. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones. Ant. Or, as 'twere perfumed by a fen. Gon. Here is every thing advantageous to life. Ant. True; save means to live. Seb. Of that there's none, or little. Gon. How lush4 and lusty the grass looks? how green? 3 Temperature. 4 Rank. Ant. The ground, indeed, is tawny. of green in't. Seb. With an eye Ant. He misses not much. Seb. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. Gon. But the rarity of it is (which is indeed almost beyond credit) Seb. As many vouch'd rarities are. Gon. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness, and glosses; being rather new dy'd, than stain'd with salt water. Ant. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say, he lies? Seb. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report. Gon. Methinks, our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Africk, at the marriage of the king's fair daughter Claribel to the king of Tunis. Seb. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return. Adr. Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen. Gon. Not since widow Dido's time. Ant. Widow? a pox o' that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido! Seb. What if he had said, widower Eneas too? good lord, how you take it! Adr. Widow Dido, said you? you make me study of that she was of Carthage, not of Tunis. Gon. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage, Adr. Carthage? 5 Shade of colour. Gon. I assure you, Carthage. Ant. His word is more than the miraculous harp. next? Seb. I think, he will carry this island home in his pocket, and give it his son for an apple. Ant. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands. Gon. Ay? Ant. Why, in good time. Gon. Sir, we were talking, that our garments seem now as fresh, as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who is now queen. Ant. And the rarest that e'er came there. Seb. 'Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido. Gon. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I wore it? I mean, in a sort. Ant. That sort was well fish'd for. Gon. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage? Alon. You cram these words into mine ears, against The stomach of my sense: 'Would I had never I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir Hath made his meal on thee! Fran. Sir, he may live; 6 Degree or quality. I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, He came alive to land. Alon. No, no, he's gone. Seb. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss; That would not bless our Europe with your daughter, But rather lose her to an African ; Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye, Alon. Pr'ythee, peace. Seb. You were kneel'd to, and impórtun'd otherwise By all of us; and the fair soul herself Weigh'd, between lothness and obedience, at Which end o' the beam she'd bow. We have lost your son, I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have More widows in them of this business' making, Alon. So is the dearest of the loss. Gon. My lord Sebastian, The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness, When you should bring the plaster. Seb. Ant. And most chirurgeonly. Very well, |