SCENE VI
Queen (sola). And whither shall I go? – Alack a day!
I love Tom Thumb – but must not tell him so;
For what's a woman when her virtue's gone?
A coat without its lace; wig out of buckle;
A stocking with a hole in't – I can't live
Without my virtue, or without Tom Thumb.
[1] Then let me weigh them in two equal scales;
In this scale put my virtue, that Tom Thumb.
Alas! Tom Thumb is heavier than my virtue.
But hold! – perhaps I may be left a widow:
This match prevented, then Tom Thumb is mine;
In that dear hope I will forget my pain.
So, when some wench to Tothill Bridewell's sent,
With beating hemp and flogging she's content;
She hopes in time to ease her present pain,
At length is free, and walks the streets again.
[Footnote 1: We meet with such another pair of scales in Dryden's King
Arthur:
Arthur and Oswald, and their different fates,
Are weighing now within the scales of heaven.
Also in Sebastian:
This hour my lot is weighing in the scales. ]
ACT II
SCENE I. —The street. Bailiff, Follower
[Footnote: Mr Rowe is generally imagined to have taken some hints from this scene in his character of Bajazet; but as he, of all the tragick writers, bears the least resemblance to our author in his diction, I am unwilling to imagine he would condescend to copy him in this particular.]
Bail. Come on, my trusty follower, come on;
This day discharge thy duty, and at night
A double mug of beer, and beer shall glad thee.
Stand here by me, this way must Noodle pass.
Fol. No more, no more, oh Bailiff! every word
Inspires my soul with virtue. Oh! I long
To meet the enemy in the street – and nab him:
To lay arresting hands upon his back,
And drag him trembling to the spunging-house.
Bail. There when I have him, I will spunge upon him.
Oh! glorious thought! by the sun, moon, and stars,
I will enjoy it, though it be in thought!
Yes, yes, my follower, I will enjoy it.
Fol. Enjoy it then some other time, for now Our prey approaches.
Bail. Let us retire.
SCENE II. – TOM THUMB, NOODLE, Bailiff, Follower
Thumb. Trust me, my Noodle, I am wondrous sick;
For, though I love the gentle Huncamunca,
Yet at the thought of marriage I grow pale:
For, oh! – [1] but swear thou'lt keep it ever secret,
I will unfold a tale will make thee stare.
[Footnote 1: This method of surprizing an audience, by raising their expectation to the highest pitch, and then baulking it, hath been practised with great success by most of our tragical authors]
Nood. I swear by lovely Huncamunca's charms.
Thumb. Then know – [1] my grandmamma hath often said, Tom Thumb, beware of marriage.
[Footnote: Almeyda, in Sebastian, is in the same distress:
Sometimes methinks I hear the groan of ghosts,
This hollow sounds and lamentable screams;
Then, like a dying echo from afar,
My mother's voice that cries, Wed not, Almeyda;
Forewarn'd, Almeyda, marriage is thy crime.
]
Nood. Sir, I blush
To think a warrior, great in arms as you,
Should be affrighted by his grandmamma.
Can an old woman's empty dreams deter
The blooming hero from the virgin's arms?
Think of the joy that will your soul alarm,
When in her fond embraces clasp'd you lie,
While on her panting breast, dissolved in bliss,
You pour out all Tom Thumb in every kiss.
Thumb. Oh! Noodle, thou hast fired my eager soul; Spite of my grandmother she shall be mine; I'll hug, caress, I'll eat her up with love: Whole days, and nights, and years shall be too short For our enjoyment; every sun shall rise [1] Blushing to see us in our bed together.
[Footnote: "As very well he may, if he hath any modesty in him," says Mr D – s. The author of Busiris is extremely zealous to prevent the sun's blushing at any indecent object; and therefore on all such occasions he addresses himself to the sun, and desires him to keep out of the way.
Rise never more, O sun! let night prevail,
Eternal darkness close the world's wide scene. —Busiris.
Sun, hide thy face, and put the world in mourning. —Ibid.
Mr Banks makes the sun perform the office of Hymen, and therefore not likely to be disgusted at such a sight:
The sun sets forth like a gay brideman with you.
– Mary Queen of Scots.
]
Nood. Oh, sir! this purpose of your soul pursue.
Bail. Oh! sir! I have an action against you.
Nood. At whose suit is it?
Bail. At your taylor's, sir. Your taylor put this warrant in my hands, And I arrest you, sir, at his commands.
Thumb. Ha! dogs! Arrest my friend before my face! Think you Tom Thumb will suffer this disgrace? But let vain cowards threaten by their word, Tom Thumb shall shew his anger by his sword. [Kills Bailiff and Follower.
Bail. Oh, I am slain!
Fol. I am murdered also, And to the shades, the dismal shades below, My bailiff's faithful follower I go.
Nood. [1]Go then to hell, like rascals as you are, And give our service to the bailiffs there.
[Footnote 1: Nourmahal sends the same message to heaven;
For I would have you, when you upwards move,
Speak kindly of us to our friends above. —Aurengzebe
We find another to hell, in the Persian Princess:
Villain, get thee down
To hell, and tell them that the fray's begun.
]
Thumb. Thus perish all the bailiffs in the land, Till debtors at noon-day shall walk the streets, And no one fear a bailiff or his writ.
SCENE III. – _The Princess Huncamunca's Apartment_. Huncamunca, Cleora, Mustacha
Hunc. [1]Give me some music – see that it be sad.
[Footnote 1: Anthony gave the same command in the same words.]
CLEORA sings.
Cupid, ease a love-sick maid,
Bring thy quiver to her aid;
With equal ardour wound the swain,
Beauty should never sigh in vain.
Let him feel the pleasing smart,
Drive the arrow through his heart:
When one you wound, you then destroy;
When both you kill, you kill with joy.
Hunc. [1]O Tom Thumb! Tom Thumb! wherefore art thou Tom Thumb?
Why hadst thou not been born of royal race?
Why had not mighty Bantam been thy father?
Or else the king of Brentford, Old or New?
[Footnote 1: Oh! Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou Marius? —Olway's Marius. ]
Must. I am surprised that your highness can give yourself a moment's uneasiness about that little insignificant fellow,[1] Tom Thumb the Great – one properer for a plaything than a husband. Were he my husband his horns should be as long as his body. If you had fallen in love with a grenadier, I should not have wondered at it. If you had fallen in love with something; but to fall in love with nothing!
[Footnote 1: Nothing is more common than these seeming contradictions; such as,
Haughty weakness. —Victim
Great small world. —Noah's Flood
]
Hunc. Cease, my Mustacha, on thy duty cease.
The zephyr, when in flowery vales it plays,
Is not so soft, so sweet as Thummy's breath.
The dove is not so gentle to its mate.
Must. The dove is every bit as proper for a husband. – Alas! Madam, there's not a beau about the court looks so little like a man. He is a perfect butterfly, a thing without substance, and almost without shadow too.
Hunc. This rudeness is unseasonable: desist;
Or I shall think this railing comes from love.
Tom Thumb's a creature of that charming form,
That no one can abuse, unless they love him.
Must. Madam, the king.
SCENE IV. – KING, HUNCAMUNCA
King. Let all but Huncamunca leave the room.
[Exeunt CLEORA and MUSTACHA.
Daughter, I have observed of late some grief.
Unusual in your countenance: your eyes!
[1]That, like two open windows, used to shew
The lovely beauty of the rooms within,
Have now two blinds before them. What is the cause?
Say, have you not enough of meat and drink?
We've given strict orders not to have you stinted.
[Footnote 1: Lee hath improved this metaphor:
Dost thou not view joy peeping from my eyes,
The casements open'd wide to gaze on thee?
So Rome's glad citizens to windows rise,
When they some young triumpher fain would see.
– Gloriana.
]
Hunc. Alas! my lord, I value not myself That once I eat two fowls and half a pig; [1]Small is that praise! but oh! a maid may want What she can neither eat nor drink.
[Footnote 1: Almahide hath the same contempt for these appetites:
To eat and drink can no perfection be.
– Conquest of Granada.
The earl of Essex is of a different opinion, and seems to place the chief happiness of a general therein:
Were but commanders half so well rewarded,
Then they might eat. —Banks's Earl of Essex.
But, if we may believe one who knows more than either, the devil himself, we shall find eating to be an affair of more moment than is generally imagined:
Gods are immortal only by their food.
– Lucifer; in the State of Innocence.
]
King. What's that?
Hunc. O[1] spare my blushes; but I mean a husband.
[Footnote 1: "This expression is enough of itself," says Mr D., "utterly to destroy the character of Huncamunca!" Yet we find a woman of no abandoned character in Dryden adventuring farther, and thus excusing herself:
To speak our wishes first, forbid it pride,
Forbid it modesty; true, they forbid it,
But Nature does not. When we are athirst,
Or hungry, will imperious Nature stay,
Nor eat, nor drink, before 'tis bid fall on? —Cleomenes.
Cassandra speaks before she is asked: Huncamunca afterwards.
Cassandra speaks her wishes to her lover: Huncamunca only to her father.
]
King. If that be all, I have provided one,
A husband great in arms, whose warlike sword
Streams with the yellow blood of slaughter'd giants,
Whose name in Terra Incognita is known,
Whose valour, wisdom, virtue make a noise
Great as the kettle-drums of twenty armies.
Hunc. Whom does my royal father mean?
King. Tom Thumb.
Hunc. Is it possible?
King. Ha! the window-blinds are gone; [1]A country-dance of joy is in your face. Your eyes spit fire, your cheeks grow red as beef.
[Footnote 1:
Her eyes resistless magick bear;
Angels, I see, and gods, are dancing there
– Lee's Sophonisba.
]
Hunc. O, there's a magick-musick in that sound,
Enough to turn me into beef indeed!
Yes, I will own, since licensed by your word,
I'll own Tom Thumb the cause of all my grief.
For him I've sigh'd, I've wept, I've gnaw'd my sheets.
King. Oh! thou shalt gnaw thy tender sheets no more. A husband thou shalt have to mumble now.
Hunc. Oh! happy sound! henceforth let no one tell That Huncamunca shall lead apes in hell. Oh! I am overjoy'd!
King. I see thou art. [1] Joy lightens in thy eyes, and thunders from thy brows; Transports, like lightning, dart along thy soul, As small-shot through a hedge.
[Footnote 1: Mr Dennis, in that excellent tragedy called Liberty
Asserted, which is thought to have given so great a stroke to the late
French king, hath frequent imitations of this beautiful speech of king
Arthur:
Conquest light'ning in his eyes, and thund'ring in his arm,
Joy lighten'd in her eyes.
Joys like lightning dart along my soul.
]
Hunc. Oh! say not small.
King. This happy news shall on our tongue ride post,
Ourself we bear the happy news to Thumb.
Yet think not, daughter, that your powerful charms
Must still detain the hero from his arms;
Various his duty, various his delight;
Now in his turn to kiss, and now to fight,
And now to kiss again. So, mighty[1] Jove,
When with excessive thund'ring tired above,
Comes down to earth, and takes a bit – and then
Flies to his trade of thund'ring back again.
[Footnote 1:
Jove, with excessive thund'ring tired above,
Comes down for ease, enjoys a nymph, and then
Mounts dreadful, and to thund'ring goes again. —Gloriana.
]
SCENE V. – GRIZZLE, HUNCAMUNCA
[1]Griz. Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!
Thy pouting breasts, like kettle-drums of brass,
Beat everlasting loud alarms of joy;
As bright as brass they are, and oh, as hard.
Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!
[Footnote 1: This beautiful line, which ought, says Mr W – , to be written in gold, is imitated in the New Sophonisba:
Oh! Sophonisba; Sophonisba, oh!
Oh! Narva; Narva, oh!
The author of a song called Duke upon Duke hath improved it:
Alas! O Nick! O Nick, alas!
Where, by the help of a little false spelling, you have two meanings in the repeated words. ]
Hunc. Ha! dost thou know me, princess as I am, [1]That thus of me you dare to make your game?
[Footnote 1: Edith, in the Bloody Brother, speaks to her lover in the same familiar language:
Your grace is full of game.
]
Griz. Oh! Huncamunca, well I know that you
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.
[1]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[1] 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 [1]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[1] light up all with love my waxen soul? Where is that face which artful nature made [2] 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. [1]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. [1]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. [1]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. [1]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 [1]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; [1] 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 [2] The world's four winds were pent within my carcase. [3] 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.]