Works of John Lyly
Endimion – The Man in the Moone,1591

Modern Spelling – Transcript by B.F. – copyright © 2002
Items discussed in the glossary are underlined.
Run on lines (closing open endings) are indicated by ~~~.

E N D I M I O N,
The Man in the
Moone
Playd before the Queenes Ma-
ieftie at Greenewich on Candlemas Day
at night, by the Chyldren of
Paules
AT LONDON,
Printed by I. Charlewood, for
the widdowe Broome.
1591.

Dramatis Personae
Endymion, a young man
Samias, his page
Eumenides, friend of Endymion
Dares, his page
Cynthia, the Moon-Queen
Floscula, her servant
Ladies-in-waiting at Cynthia’s Court:
Tellus, spurned by Endymion
Semele
Attendants at Cynthia’s Court
Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher
Gyptes, an Egyptian soothsayer
Lords at Cynthia’s court
Panelion, Zontes
Sir Tophas, a braggart
Epiton, his page
Dipsas, an aged sorceress
Bagoa, a sorceress, assistant to Dipsas
Geron, a wise old man, estranged husband of Dipsas
Servant girls
Scintilla, Favilla
Three ladies and an ancient man, in a dumb show
Corsites, a captain
Two Watchmen and a Constable
Four Fairies
Scene: At or near the Court of Cynthia

[The date alluded to on the title page (above) is February 2, 1588]

PROLOGUE

Most high and happy princess,
we must tell you a tale of the Man in the Moon,
which if it seem ridiculous for the method,
or superfluous for the matter, or for the means incredible,
for three faults we can make but one excuse:
it is a tale of the Man in the Moon.

It was forbidden in old time to dispute of chimaera,
because it was a fiction. We hope in our times
none will apply pastimes, because they are fancies;
for there liveth none under the sun
that knows what to make of the Man in the Moon.
We present neither comedy, nor tragedy,
nor story, nor anything, but …
that whosoever heareth may say this:
‘Why, here is a tale of the Man in the Moon’.

ACT I

Scene I. 1
[Enter Endymion and Eumenides.]

ENDYMION: I find, Eumenides, in all things both variety to
content and satiety to glut, saving only in my affections,
which are so stayed, and withal so stately, that I can
neither satisfy my heart with love nor mine eyes with
wonder. My thoughts, Eumenides, are stitched to the
stars, which being as high as I can see, thou may’st
imagine how much higher they are than I can reach.

EUMENIDES: If you be enamored of anything above the
moon, your thoughts are ridiculous; for that things immortal
are not subject to affections. If allured or enchanted with … [I.1.10]
these transitory things under the moon, you show yourself
yourself senseless to attribute such lofty titles to such low
trifles.

ENDYMION: My love is placed neither under the moon nor
above.

EUMENIDES: I hope you be not sotted upon the Man in the
Moon.

ENDYMION: No, but settled either to die or possess the moon
herself.

EUMENIDES: Is Endymion mad, or do I mistake? Do you love … [I.1.20]
the moon, Endymion?

ENDYMION: Eumenides, the moon.

EUMENIDES: There was never any so peevish to imagine
the moon either capable of affection or shape of a mistress;
for as impossible it is to make love fit to her humor, which
no man knoweth, as a coat to her form, which continueth
not in one bigness whilst she is measuring. Cease off,
Endymion, to feed so much upon fancies. That melancholy
blood must be purged which draweth you to a dotage no less
miserable than monstrous. … [I.1.30]

ENDYMION: My thoughts have no veins, and yet, unless
they be let blood, I shall perish.

EUMENIDES: But they have vanities which, being
reformed, you may be restored.

ENDYMION: O fair Cynthia, why do others term thee
unconstant whom I have ever found unmovable?
Injurious time, corrupt manners, unkind men, who,
finding a constancy not to be matched in my sweet
mistress, have christened her with the name of wavering,
waxing, and waning! Is she inconstant that keepeth a … [I.1.40]
settled course, which since her first creation altereth not
one minute in her moving? There is nothing thought more
admirable or commendable in the sea than the ebbing and
flowing; and shall the moon, from whom the sea taketh
this virtue, be accounted fickle for increasing and
decreasing? Flowers in their buds are nothing worth till
they be blown, nor blossoms accounted till they be ripe fruit;
and shall we then say they be changeable for that they
grow from seeds to leaves, from leaves to buds, from buds
to their perfection? Then why be not twigs that become … [I.1.50]
trees, children that become men, and mornings that grow
to evenings termed wavering, for that they continue not
at one stay? Ay, but Cynthia, being in her fullness,
decayeth, as not delighting in her greatest beauty, or
withering when she should be most honored. When malice
cannot object anything, folly will, making that a vice
which is the greatest virtue. What thing (my mistress
excepted) being in the pride of her beauty and latter
minute of her age, that waxeth young again? Tell me,
Eumenides, what is he that, having a mistress of ripe … [I.1.60]
years and infinite virtues, great honors and unspeakable
beauty; but would wish that she might grow tender
again, getting youth by years and never-decaying
beauty by time, whose fair face neither the summer’s
blaze can scorch nor winter’s blast chap, nor the numbering
of years breed altering of colors? Such is my sweet Cynthia,
whom time cannot touch because she is divine nor will
offend because she is delicate. O Cynthia, if thou shouldst
always continue at thy fullness, both gods and men would
conspire to ravish thee. But thou, to abate the pride of our … [I.1.70]
affections, dost detract from thy perfections, thinking it
sufficient if once in a month we enjoy a glimpse of thy
majesty; and then, to increase our griefs, thou dost decrease
thy gleams, coming out of thy royal robes, wherewith thou
dazzlest our eyes down into thy swath clouts, beguiling
our eyes. And then —

EUMENIDES: Stay there, Endymion. Thou that committest
idolatry wilt straight blaspheme if thou be suffered. Sleep
would do thee more good than speech. The moon heareth
thee not; or if she do, regardeth thee not. [I.1.80]

ENDYMION: Vain Eumenides, whose thoughts never grow
higher than the crown of thy head! Why troublest thou
me, having neither head to conceive the cause of my love
or a heart to receive the impressions? Follow thou thine
own fortunes, which creep upon the earth, and suffer me
to fly to mine, whose fall, though it be desperate, yet shall
it come by daring. Farewell. [Exit.]

EUMENIDES: Without doubt Endymion is bewitched;
otherwise in a man of such rare virtues there could not
harbor a mind of such extreme madness. I will follow him,
lest in this fancy of the moon he deprive himself of the sight
of the sun. [Exit.]

Scene I. 2
[Enter Tellus and Floscula.]

TELLUS: Treacherous and most perjured Endymion, is
Cynthia the sweetness of thy life and the bitterness of my
death? What revenge may be devised so full of shame as my
thoughts are replenished with malice? Tell me, Floscula, if
falseness in love can possibly be punished with extremity of
hate. As long as sword, fire or poison may be hired, no traitor
to my love shall live unrevenged. Were thy oaths without
number, thy kisses without measure, thy sighs without end,
forged to deceive a poor credulous virgin whose simplicity had
been worth thy favor and better fortune? If the gods sit … [I.2.10]
unequal beholders of injuries or laughers at lovers’ deceits,
then let mischief be as well forgiven in women as perjury
winked at in men.

FLOSCULA: Madam, if you would compare the state of
Cynthia with your own, and the height of Endymion his
thoughts with the meanness of your fortune, you would rather
rather yield than contend, being between you and her no com-
parison, and rather wonder than rage at the greatness of his
mind, being affected with a thing more than mortal.

TELLUS: No comparison, Floscula? And why so? Is not my … [I.2.20]
beauty divine, whose body is decked with fair flowers, and
veins are vines, yielding sweet liquor to the dullest spirits,
Whose ears are corn to bring strength, and whose hairs are
grass to bring abundance? Doth not frankincense and
myrrh breathe out of my nostrils, and all the sacrifice of
the gods breed in my bowels? Infinite are my creatures,
without which neither thou nor Endymion nor any could
love or live.

FLOSCULA: But know you not, fair lady, that Cynthia
governeth all things? Your grapes would be but dry husks, … [I.2.30]
your corn but chaff, and all your virtues vain were it not
Cynthia that preserveth the one in the bud and nourisheth
the other in the blade, and by her influence both comforteth
all things and by her authority commandeth all creatures.
Suffer then Endymion to follow his affections, though to
obtain her be impossible, and let him flatter himself in his
own imaginations, because they are immortal.

TELLUS: Loath I am, Endymion, that thou shouldst die,
because I love thee well, and that thou shouldst live it
grieveth me, because thou lovest Cynthia too well. In these … [I.2.40]
extremities what shall I do? Floscula, no more words. I am
resolved: he shall neither live nor die.

FLOSCULA: A strange practice, if it be possible.

TELLUS: Yes. I will entangle him in such a sweet net that
he shall neither find the means to come out nor desire it.
All allurements of pleasure will I cast before his eyes,
insomuch that he shall slake that love which he now
voweth to Cynthia and burn in mine, of which he seemeth
careless. In this languishing between my amorous
devices and his own loose desires, there shall such dissolute … [I.2.50]
thoughts take root in his head, and over his heart grow so
thick a skin, that neither hope of preferment nor fear of
punishment, nor counsel of the wisest nor company of
the worthiest shall alter his humor, nor make him once
think of his honor.

FLOSCULA: A revenge incredible, and if it may be, unnatural.

TELLUS: He shall know the malice of a woman to have neither
mean nor end, and of a woman deluded in love to have
neither rule nor reason. I can do it, I must; I will. All his
virtues will I shadow with vices; his person — ah, sweet … [I.2.60]
person! — shall he deck with such rich robes as he shall
forget it is his own person; his sharp wit — ah, wit too sharp,
that hath cut off all my joys! — shall he use in flattering
of my face and devising sonnets in my favor. The prime
of his youth and pride of his time shall be spent in melan-
choly passions, careless behavior, untamed thoughts, and
unbridled affections.

FLOSCULA: When this is done, what then? Shall it continue
till his death, or shall he dote forever in this delight?

TELLUS: Ah, Floscula, thou rendest my heart in sunder, … [I.2.70]
in putting me in remembrance of the end.

FLOSCULA: Why, if this be not the end, all the rest is to no end.

TELLUS: Yet suffer me to imitate Juno, who would turn
Jupiter’s lovers to beasts on the earth, though she knew
afterwards they should be stars in heaven.

FLOSCULA: Affection that is bred by enchantment is like a
flower that is wrought in silk: in color and form most like,
but nothing at all in substance or savor.

TELLUS: It shall suffice me, if the world talk, that I am
favored of Endymion. … [I.2.80]

FLOSCULA: Well, use your own will, but you shall find that
love gotten with witchcraft is as unpleasant as fish taken
with medicines unwholesome.

TELLUS: Floscula, they that be so poor that they have
neither net nor hook will rather poison dough than pine
with hunger; and she that is so oppressed with love that
she is neither able with beauty nor wit to obtain her
friend will rather use unlawful means than try untolerable
pains. I will do it. [Exit.]

FLOSCULA: Then about it. Poor Endymion, what traps are … [I.2.90]
laid for thee because thou honorest one that all the world
wondereth at! And what plots are cast to make thee
unfortunate that studies of all men to be the faithfullest! [Exit.]

Scene I.3
[Enter Dares and Samias.]

DARES: Now our masters are in love up to the ears, what
have we to do but to be in knavery up to the crowns?

SAMIAS: O, that we had Sir Tophas, that brave squire, in
the midst of our mirth — and ecce autem, will you see the devil!
[Enter Sir Tophas and Epiton.]

TOPHAS: Epi?

EPITON: ~~~ Here sir.

TOPHAS: I brook not this idle humor of love. It tickleth
not my liver, from whence the love-mongers in former
ages seemed to infer it should proceed.

EPITON: Love, sir, may lie in your lungs, and I think it
doth; and that is the cause you blow and are so pursy. … [I.3.10]

TOPHAS: Tush, boy, I think it but some device of the poet
to get money.

EPITON: A poet? What’s that?

TOPHAS: Dost thou not know what a poet is?

EPITON: ~~~ No.

TOPHAS: Why fool, a poet is as much as one should say,
a poet. [Discovering Samias and Dares.] But soft, yonder
be two wrens. Shall I shoot at them?

EPITON: They are two lads.

TOPHAS: Larks or wrens, I will kill them.

EPITON: Larks? Are you blind? They are two little boys. … [I.3.20]

TOPHAS: Birds or boys, they are both but a pittance
for my breakfast. Therefore have at them, for their brains
must, as it were, embroider my bolts.
[He takes aim at Samias and Dares.]

SAMIAS: [To Sir Tophas.] Stay your courage, valiant
knight, for your wisdom is so weary that it stayeth itself.

DARES: Why, Sir Tophas, have you forgotten your old friends?

TOPHAS: Friends? Nego argumentum.

SAMIAS: And why not friends?

TOPHAS: Because, amicitia, as in old annals we find, is
inter pares. Now my pretty companions, you shall see … [I.3.30]
how unequal you be to me. But I will not cut you quite off;
you shall be my half-friends, for reaching to my middle.
So far as from the ground to the waist, I will be your friend.

DARES: Learnedly. But what shall become of the rest of
your body, from the waist to the crown?

TOPHAS: My children, quod supra vos nihil ad vos, you
must think the rest immortal because you cannot reach it.

EPITON: [To Samias and Dares.] Nay, I tell ye, my master
is more than a man.

DARES: [To Epiton.] And thou less than a mouse. … [I.3.40]

TOPHAS: But what be you two?

SAMIAS: I am Samias, page to Endymion.

DARES: And I Dares, page to Eumenides.

TOPHAS: Of what occupation are your masters?

DARES: Occupation, you clown? Why, they are
honorable, and warriors.

TOPHAS: Then they are my prentices.

DARES: Thine? And why so?

TOPHAS: I was the first that ever devised war, and there-
fore by Mars himself given me for my arms a whole … [I.3.50]
armory, and thus I go as you see, clothed with artillery.
It is not silks (milksops), nor tissues, nor the fine wool of
Seres, but iron, steel, swords, flame, shot, terror, clamor,
blood, and ruin, that rocks asleep my thoughts, which
never had any other cradle but cruelty. Let me see, do
you not bleed?

DARES: Why so?

TOPHAS: Commonly my words wound.

SAMIAS: What then do your blows?

TOPHAS: Not only wound, but also confound. [I.3.60]

SAMIAS: [To Epiton.]How darest thou come so near
thy master, Epi? [To Sir Tophas.] Sir Tophas, spare us.

TOPHAS: You shall live. You, Samias because you are
little; you, Dares because you are no bigger; and both
of you, because you are but two; for commonly I kill
by the dozen, and have for every particular adversary
a peculiar weapon. [He displays his armory.]

SAMIAS: May we know the use, for our better skill in war?

TOPHAS: You shall. Here is bird-bolt for the ugly beast,
the blackbird. … [I.3.70]

DARES: A cruel sight.

TOPHAS: Here is the musket for the untamed, or
(as the vulgar sort term it) the wild mallard.
[He demonstrates, not heeding their talk.]

SAMIAS: O desperate attempt!

EPITON: Nay, my master will match them.

DARES: Ay, if he catch them.

TOPHAS: Here is spear and shield, and both necessary:
the one to conquer, the other to subdue or overcome the
terrible trout, which, although he be under the water, yet
tying a string to the top of my spear and an engine of iron … [I.3.80]
to the end of my line, I overthrow him, and then herein I
put him. [He shows his gear and struts about, oblivious to their talk.]

SAMIAS: O wonderful war! [Aside.] Dares, didst thou
ever hear such a dolt?

DARES: [Aside.] All the better. We shall have good sport
hereafter if we can get leisure.

SAMIAS: [Aside.] Leisure! I will rather lose my master’s
service then his company. Look how he struts.
[To Sir Tophas.] But what is this; call you it your sword?

TOPHAS: No, it is my scimitar, which I, by construction … [I.3.90]
often studying to be compendious, call my smiter.

DARES: What — are you also learned, sir?

TOPHAS: Learned? I am all Mars and Ars.

SAMIAS: Nay, you are all mass and ass.

TOPHAS: Mock you me? You shall both suffer; yet with
such weapons as you shall make choice of the weapon
wherewith you shall perish. Am I all a mass or lump; is
there no proportion in me? Am I all ass; is there no wit in
me? — Epi, prepare them to the slaughter.

SAMIAS: I pray sir, hear us speak. We call you ‘mass’, … [I.3.100]
which your learning doth well understand is all ‘man’,
for mas, maris, is a man. Then ‘as’, as you know, is a
weight; and we for your virtues account you a weight.

TOPHAS: The Latin hath saved your lives, the which a
world of silver could not have ransomed. I understand
you and pardon you.

DARES: Well Sir Tophas, we bid you farewell; and at our
next meeting we will be ready to do you service.

TOPHAS: Samias, I thank you; Dares, I thank you.
But especially I thank you both. … [I.3.110]

SAMIAS: Wisely. [Aside.] Come, next time we’ll have
some pretty gentlewomen with us to walk, for without
doubt with them he will be very dainty.

DARES: [To Samias.] Come, let us see what our masters
do; it is high time. [Exeunt Dares and Samias.]

TOPHAS: Now will I march into the field, where, if I
cannot encounter with my foul enemies, I will withdraw
myself to the river and there fortify for fish; for there
resteth no minute free from fight.
[Exeunt Sir Tophas and Epiton.]

Scene I.4
[Enter Tellus and Floscula at one door; enter Dipsas at another.]

TELLUS: Behold, Floscula, we have met with the woman
by chance that we sought for by travel. I will break my
mind to her without ceremony or circumstance, lest we
lose that time in advice that should be spent in execution.

FLOSCULA: Use your discretion. I will in this case neither
give counsel nor consent; for there cannot be a thing more
monstrous than to force affection by sorcery, neither do I
imagine anything more impossible.

TELLUS: Tush, Floscula, in obtaining of love what impos-
sibilities will I not try? And for the winning of Endymion, … [I.4.10]
what impieties will I not practice? [Crossing to Dipsas.]
Dipsas, whom as many honor for age as wonder at for
cunning, listen in few words to my tale and answer in one
word to the purpose, for that neither my burning desire can
afford long speech nor the short time I have to stay, many
delays. Is it possible by herbs, stones, spells, incantation,
enchantment, exorcisms, fire, metals, planets or any practice,
to plant affection where it is not and to supplant it where it is?

DIPSAS: Fair lady, you may imagine that these hoary hairs
are not void of experience, nor the great name that goeth of … [I.4.20]
my cunning to be without cause. I can darken the sun by
my skill and remove the moon out of her course; I can
restore youth to the aged and make hills without bottoms.
There is nothing I cannot do but that only which you
would have me do, and therein I differ from the gods,
that I am not able to rule hearts; for, were it in my power
to place affection by appointment, I would make such evil
appetites, such inordinate lusts, such cursed desires as all
the world should be filled both with superstitious heats and
extreme love. … [I.4.30]

TELLUS: Unhappy Tellus, whose desires are so desperate that
they are neither to be conceived of any creature nor to be
cured by any art!

DIPSAS: This I can: breed slackness in love though never
root it out. What is he whom you love, and what she that
he honoreth?

TELLUS: Endymion, sweet Endymion, is he that hath my
heart; and Cynthia, too too fair Cynthia, the miracle of
nature, of time, of fortune, is the lady that he delights in,
and dotes on every day and dies for ten thousand times a day. … [I.4.40]

DIPSAS: Would you have his love either by absence or sick-
ness, aslaked? Would you that Cynthia should mistrust
him, or be jealous of him without color?

TELLUS: It is the only thing I crave, that seeing my love
to Endymion, unspotted, cannot be accepted, his truth to
Cynthia, though it be unspeakable, may be suspected.

DIPSAS: I will undertake it and overtake him, that all his
love shall be doubted of and therefore become desperate.
But this will wear out with time, that treadeth all things
down but truth. … [I.4.50]

TELLUS: Let us go.

DIPSAS: I follow. [Exeunt all.]

ACT II

Scene II.1
[Enter Endymion.]

ENDYMION: O fair Cynthia; oh unfortunate Endymion!
Why was not thy birth as high as thy thoughts, or her
beauty less than heavenly? Or why are not thine honors as
rare as her beauty or thy fortunes as great as thy deserts?
Sweet Cynthia, how wouldst thou be pleased, how
possessed? Will labors, patient of all extremities, obtain
thy love? There is no mountain so steep that I will not
climb, no monster so cruel that I will not tame, no action
so desperate that I will not attempt. Desirest thou the
passions of love, the sad and melancholy moods of … [II.1.10]
perplexed minds, the not-to-be-expressed torments of
racked thoughts? Behold my sad tears, my deep sighs, my
hollow eyes, my broken sleeps, my heavy countenance.
Wouldst thou have me vowed only to thy beauty and
consume every minute of time in thy service? Remember
my solitary life, almost these seven years. Whom have I
entertained but mine own thoughts and thy virtues? What
company have I used but contemplation? Whom have I
wondered at but thee? Nay, whom have I not contemned
for thee? Have I not crept to those on whom I might have … [II.1.20]
trodden, only because thou didst shine upon them? Have
not injuries been sweet to me if thou vouchsafest I should
bear them? Have I not spent my golden years in hopes,
waxing old with wishing, yet wishing nothing but thy love?
With Tellus, fair Tellus, have I dissembled, using her but
as a cloak for mine affections, that others, seeing my
mangled and disordered mind, might think it were for
one that loveth me, not for Cynthia, whose perfection
alloweth no companion nor comparison.
In the midst of these distempered thoughts of mine, thou … [II.1.30]
art not only jealous of my truth, but careless, suspicious,
and secure, which strange humor maketh my mind as
desperate as thy conceits are doubtful. I am none of those
wolves that bark most when thou shinest brightest, but that
fish — thy fish, Cynthia, in the flood Araris — which at thy
waxing is as white as the driven snow and at thy waning
as black as deepest darkness. I am that Endymion, sweet
Cynthia, that have carried my thoughts in equal balance
with my actions, being always as free from imagining ill
as enterprising: that Endymion whose eyes never esteemed … [II.1.40]
anything fair but thy face, whose tongue termed nothing
rare but thy virtues, and whose heart imagined nothing
miraculous but thy government; yea, that Endymion
who, divorcing himself from the amiableness of all ladies,
the bravery of all courts, the company of all men, hath
chosen in a solitary cell to live only by feeding on thy favor,
accounting in the world, but thyself, nothing excellent,
nothing immortal. Thus mayest thou see every vein, sinew,
muscle, and artery of my love, in which there is no flattery
nor deceit, error nor art. But soft, here cometh Tellus. I … [II.1.50]
must turn my other face to her like Janus, lest she be as
suspicious as Juno. [Enter Tellus, Floscula and Dipsas.]

TELLUS: Yonder I espy Endymion. I will seem to suspect
nothing, but soothe him, that seeing I cannot obtain the depth
of his love, I may learn the height of his dissembling. Floscula
and Dipsas, withdraw yourselves out of our sight, yet be within
the hearing of our saluting. Floscula and Dipsas withdraw.]
How now Endymion, always solitary? No company but your
own thoughts; no friend but melancholy fancies?

ENDYMION: You know, fair Tellus, that the sweet … [II.1.60]
remembrance of your love is the only companion of my
life, and thy presence my paradise, so that I am not
alone when nobody is with me and in heaven itself when
thou art with me.

TELLUS: Then you love me, Endymion?

ENDYMION: Or else I live not, Tellus.

TELLUS: Is it not possible for you, Endymion, to dissemble?

ENDYMION: Not, Tellus, unless I could make me a woman.

TELLUS: Why, is dissembling joined to their sex inseparable,
as heat to fire, heaviness to earth, moisture to water, … [II.1.70]
thinness to air?

ENDYMION: No, but found in their sex as common as spots
upon doves, moles upon faces, caterpillars upon sweet
apples, cobwebs upon fair windows.

TELLUS: Do they all dissemble?

ENDYMION: All but one.

TELLUS: Who is that?

ENDYMION: I dare not tell. For if I should say you, then
would you imagine my flattery to be extreme; if another,
then would you think my love to be but indifferent. … [II.1.80]

TELLUS: You will be sure I shall take no vantage of your
words. But in sooth, Endymion, without more ceremonies:
is it not Cynthia?

ENDYMION: You know, Tellus, that of the gods we are
forbidden to dispute, because their deities come not
within the compass of our reasons; and of Cynthia we are
allowed not to talk but to wonder, because her virtues are
not within the reach of our capacities.

TELLUS: Why, she is but a woman.

ENDYMION: No more was Venus. … [II.1.90]

TELLUS: She is but a virgin.

ENDYMION: No more was Vesta.

TELLUS: She shall have an end.

ENDYMION: So shall the world.

TELLUS: Is not her beauty subject to time?

ENDYMION: No more than time is to standing still.

TELLUS: Wilt thou make her immortal?

ENDYMION: No, but incomparable.

TELLUS: Take heed Endymion, lest like the wrestler in
Olympia that, striving to lift an impossible weight, catched … [II.1.100]
an incurable strain, thou by fixing thy thoughts above thy
reach fall into a disease without all recure. But I see thou
art now in love with Cynthia.

ENDYMION: No Tellus, thou knowest that the stately cedar,
whose top reacheth unto the clouds, never boweth his head
to the shrubs that grow in the valley; nor ivy, that climbeth
up by the elm can ever get hold of the beams of the sun.
Cynthia I honor in all humility, whom none ought or dare
adventure to love, whose affections are immortal and
virtues infinite. Suffer me, therefore, to gaze on the moon, … [II.1.110]
at whom, were it not for thyself, I would die with wondering.
[Exeunt.]

Scene II.2
[Enter Dares, Samias, Scintilla and Favilla.]

DARES: Come, Samias, didst thou ever hear such a sighing,
the one for Cynthia, the other for Semele, and both for
moonshine in the water?

SAMIAS: Let them sigh, and let us sing. — How say you,
gentlewomen, are not our masters too far in love?

SCINTILLA: Their tongues haply are dipped to the root
in amorous words and sweet discourses, but I think their
hearts are scarce tipped on the side with constant desires.

DARES: How say you Favilla, is not love a lurcher, that
taketh men’s stomachs away that they cannot eat, their … [II.2.10]
spleen that they cannot laugh, their hearts that they
cannot fight, their eyes that they cannot sleep; and
leaveth nothing but livers to make nothing but lovers?

FAVILLA: Away, peevish boy. A rod were better under
thy girdle than love in thy mouth. It will be a forward
cock that croweth in the shell.

DARES: Alas, good old gentlewoman, how it becometh
you to be grave!

SCINTILLA: Favilla, though she be but a spark, yet is she fire.

FAVILLA: And you Scintilla, be not much more than a spark, … [II.2.10]
though you would be esteemed a flame.

SAMIAS: [Aside to Dares.] It were good sport to see the fight
between two sparks.

DARES: [Aside to Samias.] Let them to it, and we will warm us
by their words.

SCINTILLA: You are not angry, Favilla?

FAVILLA: That is, Scintilla, as you list to take it.

SAMIAS: That, that!

SCINTILLA: This it is to be matched with girls, who,
coming but yesterday from making of babies, would … [II.2.30]
before tomorrow be accounted matrons.

FAVILLA: I cry your matronship mercy. Because your
pantofles be higher with cork, therefore your feet must
needs be higher in the insteps. You will be mine elder
because you stand upon a stool and I on the floor.

SAMIAS: Good, good.

DARES: [Aside to Samias.] Let them alone, and see with what
countenance they will become friends.

SCINTILLA: [To Favilla.] Nay, you think to be the wiser,
because you mean to have the last word. [II.2.40]
[The women threaten each other.]

SAMIAS: [To Dares.] Step between them lest they scratch.
[To Scintilla and Favilla.] In faith, gentlewomen, seeing we
came out to be merry, let not your jarring mar our jests.
Be friends. How say you?

SCINTILLA: I am not angry, but it spited me to see how
short she was.

FAVILLA: I meant nothing till she would needs cross me.

DARES: Then so let it rest.

SCINTILLA: I am agreed.

FAVILLA: [Weeping.] And I, yet I never took anything so … [II.2.50]
unkindly in all my life.

SCINTILLA: [Weeping.] ‘Tis I have the cause, that never
offered the occasion.

DARES: Excellent, and right like a woman.

SAMIAS: A strange sight, to see water come out of fire.

DARES: It is their property to carry in their eyes fire and
water, tears and torches, and in their mouths, honey and gall.

SCINTILLA: You will be a good one if you live. But what is
yonder formal fellow? [Enter Sir Tophas and Epiton.]

DARES: [Aside, to his friends.] Sir Tophas, Sir Tophas of … [II.2.60]
whom we told you. If you be good wenches, make as thou
you love him and wonder at him.

FAVILLA: We will do our parts.

DARES: But first let us stand aside and let him use his garb,
for all consisteth in his gracing.
[The pages and maids-in-waiting stand aside.]

TOPHAS: Epi!

EPITON: ~~~ At hand, sir.

TOPHAS: How likest thou this martial life, where nothing
but blood besprinkleth our bosoms? Let me see, be our
enemies fat?

EPITON: Passing fat. And I would not change this life to … [II.2.70]
be a lord, and yourself passeth all comparison; for other
captains kill and beat, and there is nothing you kill but
you also eat.

TOPHAS: I will draw out their guts out of their bellies, and
tear the flesh with my teeth, so mortal is my hate and so
eager my unstaunched stomach.

EPITON: [Aside.] My master thinks himself the valiantest
man in the world if he kill a wren, so warlike a thing he
accounteth to take away life, though it be from a lark.

TOPHAS: Epi, I find my thoughts to swell and my spirit to … [II.2.80]
take wings, insomuch that I cannot continue within the
compass of so slender combats.

FAVILLA: [Aside.] This passeth!

SCINTILLA: [Aside.] Why, is he not mad?

SAMIAS: [Aside.] No, but a little vainglorious.

TOPHAS: Epi!

EPITON: ~~~ Sir?

TOPHAS: I will encounter that black and cruel enemy that
beareth rough and untewed locks upon his body, whose
sire throweth down the strongest walls, whose legs are as
many as both ours, on whose head are placed most horrible … [II.2.90]
horns by nature as a defense from all harms.

EPITON: What mean you, master, to be so desperate?

TOPHAS: Honor inciteth me, and very hunger compelleth
me.

EPITON: What is that monster?

TOPHAS: The monster ovis. I have said: let thy wits work.

EPITON: I cannot imagine it. Yet let me see. A black
enemy with rough locks — it may be a sheep, and ovis is a
sheep. His sire so strong — a ram is a sheep’s sire, that being
also an engine of war. Horns he hath, and four legs — so hath … [II.2.100]
a sheep. Without doubt this monster is a black sheep. Is it
not a sheep that you mean?

TOPHAS: Thou has hit it; that monster will I kill and sup with.

SAMIAS: [To his friends.] Come, let us take him off.
[The pages and maids come forward.]
[To Sir Tophas.] Sir Tophas, all hail!

TOPHAS: Welcome children. I seldom cast mine eyes so low
as to the crowns of your heads, and therefore pardon me
that I spake not all this while.

DARES: No harm done. Here be fair ladies come to wonder at
your person, your valor, your wit, the report whereof … [II.2.110]
hath made them careless of their own honors, to glut their
eyes and hearts upon yours.

TOPHAS: Report cannot but injure me, for that, not knowing
fully what I am, I fear she hath been a niggard in her praises.

SCINTILLA: No, gentle knight. Report hath been prodigal,
for she hath left you no equal, nor herself credit. So much
hath she told, yet no more than we now see.

DARES: [Aside.]A good wench.

FAVILLA: If there remain as much pity toward women as
there is in you courage against your enemies, then shall we … [II.2.120]
be happy, who, hearing of your person, came to see it; and
seeing it, are now in love with it.

TOPHAS: Love me, ladies? I easily believe it, but my tough
heart receiveth no impression with sweet words. Mars may
pierce it; Venus shall not paint on it.

FAVILLA: A cruel saying.

SAMIAS: [Aside.] There’s a girl.

DARES: [To Sir Tophas.] Will you cast these ladies away,
and all for a little love? Do but speak kindly.

TOPHAS: There cometh no soft syllable within my lips. … [II.2.130]
Custom hath made my words bloody and my heart
barbarous. That pelting word ‘love’, how waterish it is
in my mouth! It carrieth no sound. Hate, horror, death are
speeches that nourish my spirits. I like honey, but I care not
for the bees; I delight in music, but I love not to play on the
bagpipes; I can vouchsafe to hear the voice of women, but
to touch their bodies I disdain it as a thing childish and fit
for such men as can disgest nothing but milk.

SCINTILLA: A hard heart. Shall we die for your love and find
no remedy? … [II.2.140]

TOPHAS: I have already taken a surfeit.

EPITON: Good master, pity them.

TOPHAS: Pity them, Epi? No, I do not think that this breast
shall be pestered with such a foolish passion. What is that the
gentlewoman carrieth in a chain?

EPITON: Why, it is a squirrel.

TOPHAS: A squirrel? O gods, what things are made for money!
[The pages and maids speak confidentially to each other.]

DARES: Is not this gentleman over-wise?

FAVILLA: I could stay all day with him if I feared not to be
shent. … [II.2.150]

SCINTILLA: Is it not possible to meet again?

DARES: ~~~ Yes, at any time.

FAVILLA: Then let us hasten home.

SCINTILLA: [Aloud.] Sir Tophas, the god of war deal better
with you than you do with the god of love.

FAVILLA: Our love we may dissemble; disgest we cannot;
but I doubt not but time will hamper you and help us.

TOPHAS: I defy time, who hath no interest in my heart. —
Come, Epi, let me to the battle with that hideous beast. Love
is pap, and hath no relish in my taste because it is not terrible.
[Exeunt Sir Tophas and Epiton.]

DARES: Indeed, a black sheep is a perilous beast. But … [II.2.160]
let us till another time.

FAVILLA: I shall long for that time. [Exeunt all.]

Scene II.3
[Enter Endymion, near the lunary bank, and (unseen by him) Dipsas and Bagoa.]

ENDYMION: No rest, Endymion? Still uncertain how to settle
thy steps by day or thy thoughts by night? Thy truth is
measured by thy fortune, and thou art judged unfaithful
because thou art unhappy. I will see if I can beguile myself
with sleep; and, if no slumber will take hold in my eyes, yet
will I embrace the golden thoughts in my head and wish to
melt by musing, that as ebony, which no fire can scorch, is
yet consumed with sweet savors, so my heart, which cannot
be bent by the hardness of fortune, may be bruised by … [II.3.10]
amorous desires. On yonder bank never grew anything
but lunary, and hereafter I will never have any bed but
that bank. O Endymion, Tellus was fair! But what availeth
beauty without wisdom? Nay, Endymion, she was wise. But
what availeth wisdom without honor? She was honorable,
Endymion, belie her not. Ay, but how obscure is honor
without fortune? Was she not fortunate whom so many
followed? Yes, yes, but base is fortune without majesty. Thy
majesty, Cynthia, all the world knoweth and wondereth at,
but not one in the world that can imitate it or comprehend
it. No more, Endymion. Sleep or die. Nay, die, for to sleep it … [II.3.20]
is impossible; and yet (I know not how it cometh to pass) I
feel such a heaviness both in mine eyes and heart that I
am suddenly benumbed, yea, in every joint. It may be
weariness, for when did I rest? It may be deep melancholy,
for when did I not sigh? Cynthia, ay so, I say Cynthia!
[He falls asleep.]

DIPSAS: [Advancing.] Little dost thou know, Endymion,
when thou shalt wake, for, hadst placed thy heart as low in
love as thy head lieth now in sleep, thou mightest have
commanded Tellus, whom now instead of a mistress thou
shalt find a tomb. These eyes must I seal up by art, not … [II.3.30]
nature, which are to be opened neither by art nor nature.
Thou that layest down with golden locks shalt not wake until
they be turned to silver hairs; and that chin, on which
scarcely appeareth soft down, shall be filled with bristles as
hard as broom. Thou shalt sleep out thy youth and flowering
time and become dry hay before thou knowest thyself green
grass, and ready by age to step into the grave when thou
wakest, that was youthful in the court when thou laidst thee
down to sleep. The malice of Tellus hath brought this to pass,
which if she could not have entreated of me by fair means, … [II.3.40]
she would have commanded by menacing; for from her
gather we all our simples to maintain our sorceries.
[To Bagoa.] Fan with this hemlock over his face and sing
the enchantment for sleep, whilst I go and finish those
ceremonies that are required in our art. Take heed ye
touch not his face, for the fan is so seasoned that whoso it
toucheth with a leaf shall presently die. and over whom
the wind of it breatheth, he shall sleep forever. [Exit.]

BAGOA: Let me alone, I will be careful.
[She fans Endymion as she sings.]
What hap hadst thou, Endymion, to come under the hands … [II.3.50]
of Dipsas? O fair Endymion, how it grieveth me that that
fair face must be turned to a withered skin and taste the
pains of death before it feel the reward of love! I fear Tellus
will repent that which the heavens themselves seemed to
rue. — But I hear Dipsas coming. I dare not repine, lest she
make me pine, and rock me into such a deep sleep that I shall
not awake to my marriage. [Enter Dipsas.]

DIPSAS: How now; have you finished?

BAGOA: ~~~ Yea.

DIPSAS: Well, then, let us in, and see that you do not so much
as whisper that I did this; for if you do, I will turn thy hairs … [II.3.60]
to adders and all thy teeth in thy head to tongues. Come
away, come away. Exeunt. (leaving Endymion).]

A Dumb Show

Music sounds. Three Ladies enter, one with a knife and a
looking glass who, by the procurement of one of the other two,
offers to stab Endymion as he sleeps, but the third wrings her
hands, lamenteth, offering still to prevent it, but dares not. At
last the first lady, looking in the glass, casts down the knife.
Exeunt the ladies. Enters an ancient man with books with three
leaves. Offers the same twice. Endymion refuseth. (The old man)
rendeth two and offers the third, where he stands a while, and
then Endymion offers to take it. Exit the man; Endymion remains
sleeping on the lunary bank, curtained off from view.

ACT III

Scene III.1
[Enter Cynthia, Tellus, Semele, Eumenides, Corsites, Panelion and Zontes.]

CYNTHIA: Is the report true that Endymion is stricken into
such a dead sleep that nothing can either wake him or move him?

EUMENIDES: Too true madam, and as much to be pitied as
wondered at.

TELLUS: As good sleep and do no harm as wake and do no good.

CYNTHIA: What maketh you, Tellus, to be so short? The
time was, Endymion only was.

EUMENIDES: It is an old saying madam, that a waking dog
doth afar off bark at a sleeping lion.

SEMELE: It were good, Eumenides, that you took a nap … [III.1.10]
with your friend, for your speech beginneth to be heavy.

EUMENIDES: Contrary to your nature, Semele, which hath
been always accounted light.

CYNTHIA: What, hath we here before my face these unseemly
and malapert overthwarts? I will tame your tongues and
your thoughts, and make your speeches answerable to your
duties and your conceits fit for my dignity; else will I banish
you both my person and the world.

EUMENIDES: Pardon I humbly ask; but such is my unspotted
faith to Endymion that whatsoever seemeth a needle to … [III.1.20]
prick his finger is a dagger to wound my heart.

CYNTHIA: If you be so dear to him, how happeneth it you
neither go to see him nor search for remedy for him?

EUMENIDES: I have seen him, to my grief, and sought recure
with despair, for that I cannot imagine who should restore
him that is the wonder to all men. Your Highness, on whose
hands the compass of the earth is at command (though not
in possession), may show yourself both worthy your sex,
your nature and your favor, if you redeem that honorable
Endymion, whose ripe years foretell rare virtues and whose … [III.1.30]
unmellowed conceits promise ripe counsel.

CYNTHIA: I have had trial of Endymion and conceive greater
assurance of his age than I could hope of his youth.

TELLUS: But timely, madam, crooks that tree that will be
a cammock, and young it pricks that will be a thorn; and
therefore he that began without care to settle his life, it is a
sign without amendment he will end it.

CYNTHIA: Presumptuous girl, I will make thy tongue an
example of unrecoverable displeasure. — Corsites, carry her
to the castle in the desert, there to remain and weave. … [III.1.40]

CORSITES: Shall she work stories, or poetries?

CYNTHIA: It skilleth not which. Go to, in both; for she shall
find examples infinite in either, what punishment long
tongues have. [Exeunt Corsites and Tellus.] Eumenides, if
either the soothsayers in Egypt, or the enchanters in
Thessaly, or the philosophers in Greece or all the sages of
the world can find remedy, I will procure it. Therefore
dispatch will all speed: you, Eumenides, into Thessaly; you,
Zontes into Greece (because you are acquainted in Athens);
you, Panelion, to Egypt, saying that Cynthia sendeth and, … [III.1.50]
if you will, commandeth.

EUMENIDES: On bowed knee I give thanks, and with wings
on my legs I fly for remedy.

ZONTES: We are ready at Your Highness’ command, and
hope to return to your full content.

CYNTHIA: It shall never be said that Cynthia, whose mercy
and goodness filleth the heavens with joys and the world
with marvels, will suffer either Endymion or any to perish
if he may be protected.

EUMENIDES: Your Majesty’s words have been always deeds, … [III.1.60]
and your deeds virtues. [Exeunt.]

Scene III.2
[Enter Corsites and Tellus.]

CORSITES: Here is the castle, fair Tellus, in which you must
weave till either time end your days or Cynthia her
displeasure. I am sorry so fair a face should be subject to so
hard a fortune, and that the flower of beauty, which is
honored in courts, should here wither in prison.

TELLUS: Corsites, Cynthia may restrain the liberty of my
body; of my thoughts she cannot. And therefore do I esteem
myself most free, though I am in greatest bondage.

CORSITES: Can you then feed on fancy, and subdue the
malice of envy by the sweetness of imagination? … [III.2.10]

TELLUS: Corsites, there is no sweeter music to the miserable
than despair; and therefore the more bitterness I feel, the
more sweetness I find. For so vain were liberty. and so
unwelcome the following of higher fortune, that I choose
rather to pine in this castle than to be a prince in any other
court.

CORSITES: A humor contrary to your years and nothing
agreeable to your sex, the one commonly allured with
delights, the other always with sovereignty.

TELLUS: I marvel, Corsites, that you, being a captain, who … [III.2.20]
should sound nothing but terror and suck nothing but blood,
can find in your heart to talk such smooth words, for that it
agreeth not with your calling to use words so soft as that of
love.

CORSITES: Lady, it were unfit of wars to discourse with
women, into whose minds nothing can sink but smoothness.
Besides, you must not think that soldiers be so rough-hewn or
of such knotty metal that beauty cannot allure, and you,
being beyond perfection, enchant.

TELLUS: Good Corsites, talk not of love. but let me to my … [III.2.30]
labor. The little beauty I have shall be bestowed on my loom,
which I now mean to make my lover.

CORSITES: Let us in, and what favor Corsites can show,
Tellus can command.

TELLUS: The only favour I desire is now and then to walk. [Exeunt.]

Scene III.3
[Enter Sir Tophas (armed as before) and Epiton (with a gown and other paraphernalia.]

TOPHAS: Epi!

EPITON: ~~~ Here sir.

TOPHAS: Unrig me. Heighho!

EPITON: ~~~ What’s that?

TOPHAS: An interjection, whereof some are of mourning,
as eho, yah.

EPITON: I understand you not.

TOPHAS: Thou seest me

EPITON: ~~~ Ay.

TOPHAS: Thou hearst me.

EPITON: ~~~ Ay.

TOPHAS: Thou feelest me.

EPITON: ~~~ Ay.

TOPHAS: And not understandst me?

EPITON: ~~~ No. … [III.3.10]

TOPHAS: Then I am but three quarters of a noun substantive.
But alas, Epi, to tell thee the truth, I am a noun adjective.

EPITON: Why?

TOPHAS: Because I cannot stand without another.

EPITON: Who is that?

TOPHAS: Dipsas.

EPITON: Are you in love?

TOPHAS: No, but love hath, as it were, milked my thoughts
and drained from my heart the very substance of my
accustomed courage. It worketh in my head like new wine, … [III.3.20]
so as I must hoop my sconce with iron lest my head break,
and so I bewray my brains; but I pray thee, first discover
me in all parts, that I may be like a lover, and then will I sigh
and die. Take my gun, and give me a gown. Cedant arma togae.

EPITON: [Helping Sir Tophas to disarm.] Here.

TOPHAS: Take my sword and shield. and give me beard-brush
and scissors. Bella gerant alii; tu, Pari, semper ama.

EPITON: Will you be trimmed, sir?

TOPHAS: Not yet, for I feel a contention within me whether
I shall frame the bodkin beard or the bush. But take my … [III.3.30]
pike and give me pen. Dicere quae puduit, scribere jussit amor.

EPITON: I will furnish you, sir.

TOPHAS: Now for my bow and bolts, give me ink and paper;
for my smiter, a penknife. For scalpellum, calami,
atramentum, charta, libelli, sint semper studiis arma parata
meis.

EPITON: Sir, will you give over wars and play with that
bauble called love?

TOPHAS: Give over wars? No Epi. Militat omnis amans, et
habet sua castra Cupido. … [III.3.40]

EPITON: Love hath made you very eloquent, but your face
is nothing fair.

TOPHAS: Non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulysses.

EPITON: Nay, I must seek a new master if you can speak
nothing but verses.

TOPHAS: Quicquid conabar dicere versus erat. Epi, I feel all
Ovid de Arte Amandi lie as heavy at my heart as a load of
logs. O what a fine thin hair hath Dipsas! What a pretty
low forehead! What a tall and stately nose! What little
hollow eyes! What great and goodly lips! How harmless she … [III.3.50]
is, being toothless! Her fingers fat and short, adorned with
long nails like a bittern! In how sweet a proportion her cheeks
hang down to her breasts like dug, and her paps to her waist
like bags! What a low stature she is, and yet what a great
foot she carrieth! How thrifty must she be in whom there is
no waste! How virtuous she is like to be, over whom no man
can be jealous!

EPITON: Stay, master, you forget yourself.

TOPHAS: O, Epi, even as a dish melteth by the fire, so doth
my wit increase by love. [[[ III.3.60]

EPITON: Pithily, and to the purpose. But what, begin you
to nod?

TOPHAS: Good Epi, let me take a nap. For as some man may
better steal a horse than another look over the hedge, so
divers shall be sleepy when they would fainest take rest.
[He sleeps.]

EPITON: Who ever saw such a woodcock? Love Dipsas?
Without doubt all the world will now account him valiant,
that ventureth on her whom none durst undertake. But here
cometh two wags. [Enter Samias and Dares.]

SAMIAS: [To Dares.] Thy master hath slept his share. … [III.3.70]

DARES: [To Samias.] I think he doth it because he would
not pay me my board wages.

SAMIAS: It is a thing most strange, and I think mine will
never return; so that we must both seek new masters, for we
shall never live by our manners.

EPITON: [To Samias and Dares.] If you want manners, join
with me and serve Sir Tophas, who must needs keep more
men because he is toward marriage.

SAMIAS: What, Epi, where’s thy master?

EPITON: Yonder sleeping in love. … [III.3.80]

DARES: Is it possible?

EPITON: He hath taken his thoughts a hole lower and saith,
seeing it is the fashion of the world, he will vail bonnet to
beauty.

SAMIAS: How is he attired?

EPITON: ~~~ Lovely.

DARES: Whom loveth this amorous knight?

EPITON: ~~~ Dipsas.

SAMIAS: That ugly creature? Why, she is a fool, a scold, fat,
without fashion, and quite without favor.

EPITON: Tush, you be simple. My master hath a good
marriage. … [III.3.90]

DARES: Good? As how?

EPITON: Why, in marrying Dipsas, he shall have every day
twelve dishes of meat to his dinner, though there be none
but Dipsas with him. Four of flesh, four of fish, four of fruit.

SAMIAS: As how, Epi?

EPITON: For flesh, these: woodcock, goose, bittern, and rail.

DARES: Indeed, he shall not miss if Dipsas be there.

EPITON: For fish, these: crab, carp, lump and pouting.

SAMIAS: Excellent! For, of my word, she is both crabbish,
lumpish and carping. … [III.3.100]

EPITON: For fruit these: fritters, medlars, heart-i-chokes,
and lady-longings. Thus you see he shall fare like a king,
though he be but a beggar.

DARES: Well, Epi, dine thou with him, for I had rather fast
than see her face. But see, thy master is asleep. Let us have a
song to wake this amorous knight.

EPITON: Agreed.

SAMIAS: Content.

[Song.]

EPITON: Here snores Tophas,.
That amorous ass, … [III.3.110]
Who loves Dipsas,
With face so sweet.
Nose and chin meet.

ALL THREE: At sight of her each Fury skips
And flings into her lap their whips.

DARES: Holla, holla in his ear.

SAMIAS: The witch sure thrust her fingers there.

EPITON: Cramp him, or wring the fool by th’ nose.

DARES: Or clap some burning flax to his toes.

SAMIAS: What music’s best to wake him? … [III.3.120]

EPITON: Bow-wow. Let bandogs shake him.

DARES: Let adders hiss in’s ear.

SAMIAS: Else earwigs wriggle there.

EPITON: No, let him batten; when his tongue
Once goes, a cat is not worse strung.

ALL THREE: But if he ope nor mouth nor eyes,
He may in time sleep himself wise.

TOPHAS: [To himself, as he awakens.] Sleep is a binding of
the senses, love a loosing.

EPITON: [Aside, to Samias and Dares.]
Let us hear him awhile. … [III.3.130]

TOPHAS: There appeared in my sleep a goodly owl, who,
sitting on my shoulder, cried ‘Twit, twit,’ and before mine
eyes presented herself the express image of Dipsas. I
marveled what the owl said, till at the last I perceived
‘Twit, twit,’ ‘To it, to it,’ only by contraction admonished by
this vision to make account of my sweet Venus.

SAMIAS: Sir Tophas, you have overslept yourself.

TOPHAS: No, youth, I have but slept over my love.

DARES: Love? Why, it is impossible that into so noble and
unconquered a courage, love should creep, having first a … [III.3.140]
head as hard to pierce as steel, then to pass to a heart
armed with a shirt of mail.

EPITON: [Aside, to Samias and Dares.] Ay, but my master
yawning one day in the sun, love crept into his mouth
before he could close it, and there kept such a tumbling in
his body that he was glad to untruss the points of his heart
and entertain Love as a stranger.

TOPHAS: If there remain any pity in you, plead for me to
Dipsas.

DARES: Plead? Nay, we will press her to it. [Aside to Samias.] … [III.3.150]
Let us go with him to Dipsas, and there shall we have good
sport. — But Sir Tophas, when shall we go? For I find my
tongue voluble and my heart venturous, and all myself
like myself.

SAMIAS: [Aside to Dares.] Come, Dares, let us not lose him
till we find our masters, for as long as he liveth, we shall lack
neither mirth nor meat.

EPITON: We will traverse. — Will you go, sir?

TOPHAS: I prae: sequar. [Exeunt.]

Scene III.4
[Enter Eumenides and Geron.]

EUMENIDES: Father, your sad music, being tuned on the
same key that my hard fortune is, hath so melted my mind
that I wish to hang at your mouth’s end till my life end.

GERON: These tunes, gentleman, have I been accustomed
with these fifty winters, having no other house to shroud
myself but the broad heavens; and so familiar with me hath
use made misery that I esteem sorrow my chiefest solace.
And welcomest is that guest to me that can rehearse the
saddest tale or the bloodiest tragedy.

EUMENIDES: A strange humor. Might I inquire the cause? … [III.4.10]

GERON: You must pardon me if I deny to tell it, for, knowing
that the revealing of griefs is, as it were, a renewing of sorrow,
I have vowed therefore to conceal them, that I might not only
feel the depth of everlasting discontentment, but despair of
remedy. But whence are you? What fortune hath thrust you
to this distress?

EUMENIDES: I am going to Thessaly to seek remedy for
Endymion, my dearest friend, who hath been cast into a dead
sleep almost these twenty years, waxing old and ready for
the grave, being almost but newly come forth of the cradle. … [III.4.20]

GERON: You need not for recure travel far, for whoso can
clearly see the bottom of this fountain shall have remedy
for anything.

EUMENIDES: That, methinketh, is unpossible. Why, what
virtue can there be in water?

GERON: Yes, whosoever can shed the tears of a faithful lover
shall obtain anything he would. Read these words engraven
about the brim.

EUMENIDES: [Reading.] Have you known this by experience,
or is it placed here of purpose to delude men? … [III.4.30]

GERON: I only would have experience of it, and then should
there be an end of my misery. And then would I tell the
strangest discourse that ever yet was heard.

EUMENIDES: [To himself.] Ah, Eumenides!

GERON: What lack you, gentleman; are you not well?

EUMENIDES: Yes, father, but a qualm that often cometh
over my heart doth now take hold of me. But did never any
lovers come hither?

GERON: Lusters, but not lovers. For often have I seen them
weep, but never could I hear they saw the bottom. … [III.4.40]

EUMENIDES: Came there women also?

GERON: Some.

EUMENIDES: What did they see?

GERON: They all wept, that the fountain overflowed with
tears, but so thick became the water with their tears that I
could scarce discern the brim, much less behold the bottom.

EUMENIDES: Be faithful lovers so scant?

GERON: It seemeth so, for yet heard I never of any.

EUMENIDES: Ah Eumenides, how art thou perplexed! Call to
mind the beauty of thy sweet mistress and the depth of thy … [III.4.50]
never-dying affections. How oft hast thou honored her, not
only without spot but suspicion of falsehood! And how hardly
hath she rewarded thee without cause or color of despite!
How secret hast thou been these seven years, that hast not,
nor once darest not, to name her for discontenting her.
Unhappy Eumenides!

GERON: Why, gentleman, did you once love?

EUMENIDES: Once? Ay, father, and ever shall.

GERON: Was she unkind and you faithful?

EUMENIDES: She of all women the most froward, and I of … [III.4.60]
all creatures the most fond.

GERON: You doted then, not loved. For affection is grounded
on virtue and virtue is never peevish, or on beauty, and
beauty loveth to be praised.

EUMENIDES: Ay, but if all virtuous ladies should yield to all
that be loving, or all amiable gentlewomen entertain all that
be amorous, their virtues would be accounted vices and their
beauties deformities, for that love can be but between two,
and that not proceeding of him that is most faithful, but
most fortunate. … [III.4.70]

GERON: I would you were so faithful that your tears might
make you fortunate.

EUMENIDES: Yea, father, if that my tears clear not this
fountain, then may you swear it is but a mere mockery.

GERON: So, ‘faith, everyone yet that wept.

EUMENIDES: [Looking into the fountain.] Ah, I faint, I die!
Ah, sweet Semele, let me alone, and dissolve by weeping
into water!

GERON: [Aside.] This affection seemeth strange. If he see
nothing, without doubt this dissembling passeth, for nothing … [III.4.80]
shall draw me from the belief.

EUMENIDES: Father, I plainly see the bottom, and there in
white marble engraven these words: ‘Ask one for all, and
but one thing at all.’

GERON: O fortunate Eumenides (for so have I heard thee call
thyself), let me see. [He looks into the fountain.] I cannot
discern any such thing. I think thou dreamest.

EUMENIDES: Ah, father, thou art not a faithful lover and
therefore canst not behold it.

GERON: Then ask, that I may be satisfied by the event, … [III.4.90]
and thyself blessed.

EUMENIDES: Ask? So I will. And what shall I do but ask, and
whom should I ask but Semele, the possessing of whose person
is a pleasure that cannot come within the compass of
comparison, whose golden locks seem most curious when they
seem most careless, whose sweet looks seem most alluring
when they are most chaste, and whose words the more
virtuous they are, the more amorous they be accounted. I
pray thee, Fortune, when I shall first meet with fair Semele,
dash my delight with some light disgrace lest embracing … [III.4.100]
sweetness beyond measure, I take surfeit without a recure.
Let her practice her accustomed coyness, that I may diet
myself upon my desires; otherwise the fullness of my joys
will diminish the sweetness, and I shall perish by them before
I possess them.
Why do I trifle the time in words? The least minute being
spent in the getting of Semele is more worth than the whole
world; therefore let me ask. — What now, Eumenides? whither
art thou drawn? Hast thou forgotten both friendship and
duty, care of Endymion and the commandment of Cynthia? … [III.4.100]
Shall he die in a leaden sleep because thou sleepest in a golden
dream? — Ay, let him sleep ever, so I slumber but one minute
with Semele. Love knoweth neither friendship nor kindred.
Shall I not hazard the loss of a friend, for the obtaining of
her for whom I would often lose myself? — Fond Eumenides,
shall the enticing beauty of a most disdainful lady be of more
force than the rare fidelity of a tried friend? The love of men
to women is a thing common, and of course; the friendship of
man to man infinite, and immortal. — Tush, Semele doth possess
my love. — Ay, but Endymion hath deserved it. I will help … [III.4.120]
Endymion; I found Endymion unspotted in his truth. — Ay, but
I shall find Semele constant in her love. I will have Semele. —
What shall I do? Father, thy gray hairs are ambassadors of
experience. Which shall I ask?

GERON: Eumenides, release Endymion; for all things,
friendship excepted, are subject to fortune. Love is but an
eye-worm, which only tickleth the head with hopes and
wishes; friendship the image of eternity, in which there is
nothing movable, nothing mischievous. As much difference
as there is between beauty and virtue, bodies and shadows, … [III.4.130]
colors and life, so great odds is there between love and
friendship. Love is a chameleon, which draweth nothing
into the mouth but air and nourisheth nothing in the body
but lungs. Believe me, Eumenides, desire dies in the same
moment that beauty sickens, and beauty fadeth in the same
instant that it flourisheth. When adversities flow, then
love ebbs, but friendship standeth stiffly in storms. Time
draweth wrinkles in a fair face but addeth fresh colors to a
fast friend, which neither heat, nor cold, nor misery, nor place,
place, nor destiny can alter or diminish. O friendship, … [III.4.140]
of all things the most rare, and therefore most rare because
most excellent, whose comforts in misery is always sweet
and whose counsels in prosperity are ever fortunate! Vain
love, that only coming near to friendship in name, would
seem to be the same, or better, in nature!

EUMENIDES: Father, I allow your reasons and will therefore
conquer mine own. Virtue shall subdue affections, wisdom
lust, friendship beauty. Mistresses are in every place, and
as common as hares in Athos, bees in Hybla, fowls in the air;
but friends to be found are like the phoenix in Arabia, but … [III.4.150]
one, or the philadelphi in Arays, never above two. I will have
Endymion. [He looks into the fountain again.] Sacred fountain,
in whose bowels are hidden divine secrets, I have increased
your waters with the tears of unspotted thoughts, and there-
fore let me receive the reward you promise. Endymion,
the truest friend to me, and faithfullest lover to Cynthia, is in
such a dead sleep that nothing can wake or move him.

GERON: Dost thou see anything?

EUMENIDES: I see in the same pillar these words: ‘When
she, whose figure of all is the perfectest and never to be … [III.4.160]
measured, always one yet never the same, still inconstant
yet never wavering, shall come and kiss Endymion in his
sleep, he shall then rise; else never.’ This is strange.

GERON: What see you else?

ENDYMION: There cometh over mine eyes either a dark mist,
or upon the fountain a deep thickness, for I can perceive
nothing. But how am I deluded? Or what difficult, nay
impossible, thing is this?

GERON: Methinketh it easy.

EUMENIDES: Good father, and how? … [III.4.170]

GERON: Is not a circle of all figures the perfectest?

EUMENIDES: Yes.

GERON: And is not Cynthia of all circles the most absolute?

EUMENIDES: Yes.

GERON: Is it not impossible to measure her, who still worketh
by her influence, never standing at one stay?

EUMENIDES: Yes.

GERON: Is she not always Cynthia, yet seldom in the same
bigness, always wavering in her waxing or waning, that
our bodies might the better be governed, our seasons the … [III.4.180]
daylier give their increase, yet never to be removed from
her course as long as the heavens continue theirs?

EUMENIDES: Yes.

GERON: Then who can it be but Cynthia, whose virtues
being all divine, must needs bring things to pass that be
miraculous? Go humble thyself to Cynthia; tell her the
success, of which myself shall be a witness. And this assure
thyself: that she that sent to find means for his safety will
now work her cunning.

EUMENIDES: How fortunate am I, if Cynthia be she that … [III.4.190]
may do it!

GERON: How fond art thou if you do not believe it!

EUMENIDES: I will hasten thither, that I may entreat on my
knees for succor, and embrace in mine arms my friend.

GERON: I will go with thee, for unto Cynthia must I discover
all my sorrows, who also must work in me a contentment.

EUMENIDES: May I now know the cause?

GERON: That shall be as we walk, and I doubt not but the
strangeness of my tale will take away the tediousness of our
journey. … [III.4.200]

EUMENIDES: Let us go.

GERON: I follow. [Exeunt.]

ACT IV

Scene IV.1
[Enter Tellus.]

TELLUS: I marvel Corsites giveth me so much liberty, all the
world knowing his charge to be so high and his nature to be
most strange, who hath so ill entreated ladies of great honor
that he hath not suffered them to look out of windows, much
less to walk abroad. It may be he is in love with me, for,
Endymion, hardhearted Endymion excepted, what is he
that is not enamored of my beauty? But what respectest thou
the love of all the world? Endymion hates thee. Alas, poor
Endymion, my malice hath exceeded my love, and thy faith
to Cynthia quenched my affections. Quenched, Tellus? Nay, … [IV.1.10]
kindled them afresh, insomuch that I find scorching flames
for dead embers, and cruel encounters of war in my thoughts
instead of sweet parleys. Ah, that I might once again see
Endymion! Accursed girl, what hope hast thou to see
Endymion, on whose head already are grown gray hairs,
and whose life must yield to nature before Cynthia end her
displeasure? Wicked Dipsas, and most devilish Tellus, the one
for cunning too exquisite, the other for hate too intolerable!
Thou wast commanded to weave the stories and poetries
wherein were showed both examples and punishments of … [IV.1.20]
tattling tongues, and thou hast only embroidered the sweet
face of Endymion, devices of love, melancholy imaginations,
and what not out of thy work, that thou shouldst study to
pick out of thy mind. But here cometh Corsites. I must seem
yielding and stout, full of mildness yet tempered with a
majesty. For if I be too flexible, I shall give him more hope
than I mean; if too froward, enjoy less liberty than I would.
Love him I cannot, and therefore will practice that which
is most contrary to our sex, to dissemble. [Enter Corsites.]

CORSITES: Fair Tellus, I perceive you rise with the lark, … [IV.1.30]
and to yourself sing with the nightingale.

TELLUS: My lord, I have no playfellow but fancy. Being
barred of all company, I must question with myself and
make my thoughts my friends.

CORSITES: I would you would account my thoughts also your
friends, for they be such as are only busied in wondering at
your beauty and wisdom, and some such as have esteemed
your fortune too hard, and divers of that kind that offer to set
you free if you will set them free.

TELLUS: There are no colors so contrary as white and black, … [IV.1.40]
nor elements so disagreeing as fire and water, nor anything
so opposite as men’s thoughts and their words.

CORSITES: He that gave Cassandra the gift of prophesying,
with the curse that, spake she never so true, she should never
be believed, hath I think, poisoned the fortune of men, that,
uttering the extremities of their inward passions, are always
suspected of outward perjuries.

TELLUS: Well, Corsites, I will flatter myself and believe you.
What would you do to enjoy my love?

CORSITES: Set all the ladies of the castle free and make you … [IV.1.50]
the pleasure of my life. More I cannot do; less I will not.

TELLUS: These be great words, and fit your calling, for
captains must promise things impossible. But will you do one
thing for all?

CORSITES: Anything, sweet Tellus, that am ready for all.

TELLUS: You know that on the lunary bank sleepeth
Endymion.

CORSITES: I know it.

TELLUS: If you will remove him from that place by force and
convey him into some obscure cave by policy, I give you … [IV.1.60]
here the faith of an unspotted virgin that you only shall
possess me as a lover and, in spite of malice, have me for a
wife.

CORSITES: Remove him, Tellus? Yes Tellus, he shall be
removed, and that so soon as thou shalt as much commend
my diligence as my force. I go. [He starts to leave.]

TELLUS: Stay. Will yourself attempt it?

CORSITES: Ay, Tellus. As I would have none partaker of my
sweet love, so shall none be partners of my labors. But I pray
thee go at your best leisure, for Cynthia beginneth to rise, … [IV.1.70]
and if she discover our love we both perish, for nothing
pleaseth her but the fairness of virginity. All things must
be not only without lust but without suspicion of lightness.

TELLUS: I will depart, and go you to Endymion.

CORSITES: I fly, Tellus, being of all men the most fortunate. [Exit.]

TELLUS: Simple Corsites! I have set thee about a task, being
but a man, that the gods themselves cannot perform. For little
dost thou know how heavy his head lies, how hard his fortune.
But such shifts must women have to deceive men, and, under
color of things easy, entreat that which is impossible. … [IV.1.80]
Otherwise we should be cumbered with importunities, oaths,
sighs, letters, and all implements of love, which to one
resolved to the contrary, are most loathsome. I will in and
laugh with the other ladies at Corsites’ sweating. [Exit.]

Scene IV.2
[Enter Samias and Dares.]

SAMIAS: Will thy master never awake?

DARES: No, I think he sleeps for a wager. But how shall we
spend the time? Sir Tophas is so far in love that he pineth
in his bed and cometh not abroad.

SAMIAS: But here cometh Epi, in a pelting chafe.
[Enter Epiton.]

EPITON: A pox of all false proverbs! And, were a proverb a
page, I would have him by the ears.

SAMIAS: Why art thou angry?

EPITON: Why? You know it is said, the tide tarrieth no man.

SAMIAS: True. … [IV.2.10]

EPITON: A monstrous lie; for I was tied two hours, and
tarried for one to unloose me.

DARES: Alas, poor Epi!

EPITON: Poor? No, no, you base-conceited slaves, I am a
most complete gentleman, although I be in disgrace with
Sir Tophas.

DARES: Art thou out with him?

EPITON: Ay, because I cannot get him a lodging with
Endymion. He would fain take a nap for forty or fifty years.

DARES: A short sleep, considering our long life. … [IV.2.20]

SAMIAS: Is he still in love?

EPITON: In love? Why, he doth nothing but make sonnets.

SAMIAS: Canst thou remember any one of his poems?

EPITON: Ay, this is one:
The beggar Love that knows not where to lodge,
At last within my heart when I slept,
He crept.
I waked, and so my fancies began to fodge.

SAMIAS: That’s a very long verse.

EPITON: Why, the other was short. The first is called from … [IV.2.30]
the thumb to the little finger, the second from the little
finger to the elbow, and some he hath made to reach to the
crown of his head and down again to the sole of his foot. It is
set to the tune of the Black Saunce, ratio est, because Dipsas
is a black saint.

DARES: Very wisely. But pray thee, Epi, how art thou
complete? And, being from thy master, what occupation
wilt thou take?

EPITON: Know my hearts, I am an absolute microcosmos, a
petty world of myself. My library is my head, for I have no … [IV.2.40]
other books but my brains; my wardrobe on my back, for I
have no more apparel than is on my body; my armory at
my fingers’ ends, for I use no other artillery than my nails;
my treasure in my purse. Sic omnia mea mecum porto.

DARES: Good.

EPITON: Now, sirs, my palace is paved with grass and tiled
with stars, for caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam: he that
hath no house must lie in the yard.

SAMIAS: A brave resolution. But how wilt thou spend thy
time? … [IV.2.50]

EPITON: Not in any melancholy sort. For mine exercise I will
walk horses.

DARES: Too bad.

EPITON: Why, is it not said: ‘It is good walking when one
hath his horse in his hand?’

SAMIAS: Worse and worse. But how wilt thou live?

EPITON: By angling. O, ’tis a stately occupation to stand
four hours in a cold morning and to have his nose bitten with
frost before his bait be mumbled with a fish.

DARES: A rare attempt. But wilt thou never travel? … [IV.2.60]

EPITON: Yes, in a western barge, when, with a good wind
and lusty pugs, one may go ten miles in two days.

SAMIAS: Thou art excellent at thy choice. But what pastime
wilt thou use? None?

EPITON: Yes, the quickest of all.

SAMIAS: What, dice?

EPITON: No. When I am in haste, one-and-twenty games at
chess, to pass a few minutes.

DARES: A life for a little lord, and full of quickness.

EPITON: Tush, let me alone. But I must needs see if I can find … [IV.2.70]
where Endymion lieth, and then go to a certain fountain
hard by, where they say faithful lovers shall have all things
they will ask. If I can find out any of these, ego et magister
meus erimus in tuto, I and my master shall be friends. He is
resolved to weep some three or four pailfuls to avoid the
rheum of love that wambleth in his stomach.
[Enter two Watchmen and the Constable.]

SAMIAS: Shall we never see thy master, Dares?

DARES: Yes, let us go now, for tomorrow Cynthia will be there.

EPITON: I will go with you. But how shall we see for the watch?

SAMIAS: Tush, let me alone. I’ll begin to them. Masters, God … [IV.2.80]
speed you.

1 WATCHMAN: Sir boy, we are all sped already.

EPITON: [Aside, to Samias and Dares.] So methinks, for they
smell all of drink like a beggar’s beard.

DARES: But I pray, sirs, may we see Endymion?

2 WATCHMAN: No, we are commanded in Cynthia’s name
that no man shall see him.

SAMIAS: No man? Why, we are but boys.

1 WATCHMAN: [To his fellow Watchmen.] Mass, neighbors,
he says true. For if I swear I will never drink my liquor by … [IV.2.90]
the quart, and yet call for two pints, I think with a safe
conscience I may carouse both.

DARES: [Aside to Samias and Epiton.] Pithily, and to the
purpose.

2 WATCHMAN: [To his fellow Watchmen.] Tush, tush,
neighbors, take me with you.

SAMIAS: [Aside to Dares and Epiton.] This will grow hot.

DARES: [Aside to Samias and Epiton.] Let them alone.

2 WATCHMAN: [To his fellow Watchmen.] If I say to my
wife, ‘Wife, I will have no raisins in my pudding’, she puts … [IV.2.100]
in currants. Small raisins are raisins, and boys are men.
Even as my wife should have put no raisins in my pudding,
so shall there no boys see Endymion.

DARES: [Aside.] Learnedly.

EPITON: Let Master Constable speak; I think he is the wisest
among you.

CONSTABLE: You know, neighbors, ’tis an old-said saw,
‘Children and fools speak true.’

ALL: True.

CONSTABLE: Well, there you see the men be the fools, … [IV.2.110]
because it is provided from the children.

DARES: Good.

CONSTABLE: Then say I, neighbors, that children must not
see Endymion, because children and fools speak true.

EPITON: O, wicked application!

SAMIAS: Scurvily brought about.

1 WATCHMAN: Nay, he says true; and therefore till
Cynthia have been here, he shall not be uncovered.
Therefore away.

DARES: [Aside to Samias and Epiton.] A watch, quoth you? … [IV.2.120]
A man may watch seven years for a wise word and yet go
without it. Their wits are all as rusty as their bills. —
But come on, Master Constable, shall we have a song before
we go?

CONSTABLE: With all my heart.
[Song.]

WATCHMEN: Stand, who goes there?
We charge you appear
‘Fore our constable here.
In the name of the Man in the Moon, … [IV.2.130]
To us billmen relate
Why you stagger so late,
And how you come drunk so soon.

PAGES: What are ye, scabs?

WATCHMEN: ~~~ The Watch.
This is the Constable.

PAGES: ~~~ A patch.

CONSTABLE: Knock ’em down unless they all stand.
If any run away,
‘Tis the old watchman’s play
To reach him a bill of his hand. … [IV.2.140]

PAGES: O gentlemen, hold.
Your gowns freeze with cold,
And your rotten teeth dance in your head.

EPITON: Wine nothing shall cost ye,

SAMIAS: Nor huge fires to roast ye.

DARES: Then soberly let us be led.

CONSTABLE: Come, my brown bills, we’ll roar,
Bounce loud at tavern door,

ALL: And i’th’morning steal all to bed. [Exeunt.]

Scene IV.3
[Enter Corsites. Endymion lies asleep on the lunary bank.]

CORSITES: I am come in sight of the lunary bank. Without
doubt Tellus doteth upon me; and cunningly, that I might
not perceive her love, she hath set me to a task that is done
before it is begun. Endymion, you must change your pillow,
and if you be not weary of sleep, I will carry you where at
ease you shall sleep your fill. It were good that without more
ceremonies I took him, lest being espied, I be entrapped and
so incur the displeasure of Cynthia, who commonly setteth
watch that Endymion have no wrong. [He tries to lift Endymion.]
What now, is your mastership so heavy? Or are you nailed … [IV.3.10]
to the ground? Not stir one whit? — Then use all thy force,
though he feel it and wake. — What, stone still? Turned, I
think, to earth, with lying so long on the earth. Didst not
thou, Corsites, before Cynthia pull up a tree that forty years
was fastened with roots and wreathed in knots to the ground?
Didst not thou with main force pull upon the iron gates
which no ram or engine could move? Have my weak
thoughts made brawn-fallen my strong arms? Or is it the
nature of love or the quintessence of the mind to breed
numbness, or litherness, or I know not what languishing in … [IV.3.20]
my joints and sinews, being but the base strings of my body?
Or doth the remembrance of Tellus so refine my spirits into a
matter so subtle and divine that the other fleshy parts cannot
work whilst they muse? Rest thyself, rest thyself; nay, rend
thyself in pieces, Corsites, and strive, in spite of love, fortune,
and nature, to lift up this dulled body, heavier than dead and
more senseless than death. [Enter Fairies.] But what are these
so fair fiends that cause my hairs to stand upright and spirits
to fall down? Hags — out, alas! Nymphs, I crave pardon. Ay
me, out! What do I here … [IV.3.30]
[The Fairies dance, and with a song pinch him, and he falleth asleep.]

[Song.]

ALL: Pinch him, pinch him, black and blue.
Saucy mortals must not view
What the Queen of Stars is doing,
Nor pry into our Fairy wooing.

1 FAIRY: Pinch him blue

2 FAIRY: And pinch him black.

3 FAIRY: Let him not lack
Sharp nails to pinch him blue and red,
Till sleep has rocked his addle-head. … [IV.3.40]

4 FAIRY: For the trespass he hath done,
Spots o’er all his flesh shall run.
Kiss Endymion, kiss his eyes;
Then to our midnight hay-de-guise.
[They kiss Endymion and Depart, leaving him and Corsites asleep.
Enter Cynthia, Floscula, Semele, Panelion, Zontes, Pythagoras, and Gyptes.]

CYNTHIA: You see, Pythagoras, what ridiculous opinions
you hold, and I doubt not but you are now of another mind.

PYTHAGORAS: Madam, I plainly perceive that the perfection
of your brightness hath pierced through the thickness that
covered my mind, insomuch that I am no less glad to be
reformed than ashamed to remember my grossness. … [IV.3.50]

GYPTES: They are thrice fortunate that live in your palace,
where truth is not in colors but life, virtues not in imagination
but execution.

CYNTHIA: I have always studied to have rather living virtues
than painted gods, the body of truth than the tomb. But let us
walk to Endymion, it may be it lieth in your arts to deliver
him. As for Eumenides, I fear he is dead.

PYTHAGORAS: I have alleged all the natural reasons I can
for such a long sleep.

GYPTES: I can do nothing till I see him. … [IV.3.60]

CYNTHIA: Come, Floscula, I am sure you are glad that you
shall behold Endymion.

FLOSCULA: I were blessed if I might have him recovered.

CYNTHIA: Are you in love with his person?

FLOSCULA: No, but with his virtue.

CYNTHIA: What say you, Semele?

SEMELE: Madam, I dare say nothing for fear I offend.

CYNTHIA: Belike you cannot speak except you be spiteful.
But as good be silent as saucy. Panelion, what punishment
were fit for Semele, in whose speech and thoughts is only … [IV.3.70]
contempt and sourness?

PANELION: I love not, madam, to give any judgment. Yet sith
your Highness commandeth: I think, to commit her tongue
close prisoner to her mouth.

CYNTHIA: Agreed. Semele, if thou speak this twelve-month,
thou shalt forfeit thy tongue. — Behold Endymion. Alas,
poor gentleman, hast thou spent thy youth in sleep, that once
vowed all to my service? Hollow eyes? Grey hairs? Wrinkled
cheeks? And decayed limbs? Is it destiny or deceit that hath
bought this to pass? If the first, who could prevent thy … [IV.3.80]
wretched stars? If the latter, I would I might know thy cruel
enemy. I favored thee, Endymion, for thy honor, thy virtues,
thy affections; but to bring thy thoughts within the compass of
thy fortunes, I have seemed strange, that I might have thee
stayed. And now are thy days ended before my favor begin.
But whom have we here? Is it not Corsites?

ZONTES: It is, but more like a leopard than a man.

CYNTHIA: Awake him. [Corsites is awakened.] How now,
Corsites, what make you here? How came you deformed? Look
on thy hands, and then thou seest the picture of thy face. … [IV.3.90]

CORSITES: Miserable wretch, and accursed! How am I
deluded? Madam, I ask pardon for my offense, and you see
my fortune deserveth pity.

CYNTHIA: Speak on. Thy offense cannot deserve greater
punishment; but see thou rehearse the truth, else shalt
thou not find me as thou wishest me.

CORSITES: Madam, as it is no offense to be in love, being a man
mortal, so I hope can it be no shame to tell with whom, my
lady being heavenly. Your Majesty committed to my charge
the fair Tellus, whose beauty in the same moment took my … [IV.3.100]
heart captive that I undertook to carry her body prisoner.
Since that time have I found such combats in my thoughts
between love and duty, reverence and affection, that I could
neither endure the conflict nor hope for the conquest.

CYNTHIA: In love? A thing far unfitting the name of a
captain and, as I thought, the tough and unsmoothed nature
of Corsites. But forth.

CORSITES: Feeling this continual war, I thought rather by
parley to yield than by certain danger to perish. I unfolded to
Tellus the depth of my affections and framed my tongue to … [IV.3.110]
utter a sweet tale of love, that was wont to sound nothing but
threats of war. She, too fair to be true and too false for one so
fair, after a nice denial practiced a notable deceit, commanding
me to remove Endymion from this cabin and carry him to some
dark cave, which I, seeking to accomplish, found impossible,
and so by fairies or fiends have been thus handled.

CYNTHIA: How say you, my lords, is not Tellus always
practicing of some deceits?– In sooth, Corsites, thy face is now
too foul for a lover and thine heart too fond for a soldier.
You may see, when warriors become wantons, how their … [IV.3.120]
manners alter with their faces. Is it not a shame, Corsites,
that, having lived so long in Mars his camp, thou shouldst
now be rocked in Venus’ cradle? Dost thou wear Cupid’s quiver
at thy girdle, and make lances of looks? Well Corsites, rouse
thyself and be as thou hast been, and let Tellus, who is made
all of love, melt herself in her own looseness.

CORSITES: Madam, I doubt not but to recover my former
state, for Tellus’ beauty never wrought such love in my
mind as now her deceit hath despite; and yet to be revenged
of a woman were a thing than love itself more womanish. … [IV.3.130]

GYPTES: These spots, gentleman, are to be worn out if you
rub them over with this lunary, so that in place where you
received this maim you shall find a medicine.

CORSITES: I thank you for that. The gods bless me from love
and these pretty ladies that haunt this green!

FLOSCULA: Corsites, I would Tellus saw your amiable face.
[Corsites rubs out his spots with lunary from the bank.
Semele laughs.]

ZONTES: How spitefully Semele laugheth, that dare not
speak!

CYNTHIA: Could you not stir Endymion with that doubled
strength of yours? … [IV.3.140]

CORSITES: Not so much as his finger with all my force.

CYNTHIA: Pythagoras and Gyptes, what think you of
Endymion? What reason is to be given, what remedy?

PYTHAGORAS: Madam, it is impossible to yield reason for
things that happen not in compass of nature. It is most
certain that some strange enchantment hath bound all
his senses.

CYNTHIA: What say you, Gyptes?

GYPTES: With Pythagoras, that it is enchantment, and
that so strange that no art can undo it, for that heaviness … [IV.3.150]
argueth a malice unremovable in the enchantress, and that
no power can end it till she die that did it, or the heavens
show some means more than miraculous.

FLOSCULA: O Endymion, could spite itself devise a mischief
so monstrous as to make thee dead with life, and living being
altogether dead? Where others number their years, their
hours, their minutes, and step to age by stairs, thou only
hast thy years and times in a cluster, being old before thou
rememberest thou wast young.

CYNTHIA: No more, Floscula; pity doth him no good. I would … [IV.3.160]
anything else might, and I vow by the unspotted honor of a
lady he should not miss it. But is this all, Gyptes, that is to
be done?

GYPTES: All as yet. It may be that either the enchantress
shall die or else be discovered. If either happen, I will then
practice the utmost of my art. In the mean season, about this
grove would I have a watch, and the first living thing that
toucheth Endymion to be taken.

CYNTHIA: Corsites, what say you: will you undertake this?

CORSITES: Good madam, pardon me; I was overtaken too … [IV.3.170]
late. I should rather break into the midst of a main battle
than again fall into the hands of those fair babies.

CYNTHIA: Well, I will provide others. Pythagoras and Gyptes,
you shall yet remain in my court till I hear what may be
done in this matter.

PYTHAGORAS: We attend.

CYNTHIA: Let us go in. [Exeunt. Endymion continues asleep
on his lunary bank, near a tree, but perhaps curtained off during
the entr’acte music.]

ACT V

Scene V.1
[Enter Samias and Dares.]

SAMIAS: Eumenides hath told such strange tales as I may
well wonder at them but never believe them.

DARES: The other old man, what a sad speech used he, that
caused us almost all to weep. Cynthia is so desirous to know
the experiment of her own virtue, and so willing to ease
Endymion’s hard fortune, that she no sooner heard the
discourse but she made herself in a readiness to try the event.

SAMIAS: We will also see the event. But whist! here cometh
Cynthia with all her train. Let us sneak in amongst them.
[Enter Cynthia, Floscula, Semele, Panelion, etc. Eumenides, Zontes,
Gyptes, and Pythagoras. Samias and Dares join the throng.]

CYNTHIA: Eumenides, it cannot sink into my head that I … [V.1.10]
should be signified by that sacred fountain, for many things
are there in the world to which those words may be applied.

EUMENIDES: Good madam, vouchsafe but to try, else shall I
think myself most unhappy that I asked not my sweet mistress.

CYNTHIA: Will you not yet tell me her name?

EUMENIDES: Pardon me, good madam, for if Endymion awake,
he shall. Myself have sworn never to reveal it.

CYNTHIA: Well, let us to Endymion. [They approach the
sleeping Endymion.] I will not be so stately, good Endymion,
not to stoop to do thee good; and if thy liberty consist in a … [V.1.20]
kiss from me, thou shalt have it. And although my mouth
hath been heretofore as untouched as my thoughts, yet now
to recover thy life (though to restore thy youth it be impos-
sible), I will do that to Endymion which yet never mortal man
could boast of heretofore, nor shall ever hope for hereafter.
[She kisses him.]

EUMENIDES: Madam, he beginneth to stir.

CYNTHIA: Soft, Eumenides. Stand still.

EUMENIDES: Ah, I see his eyes almost open.

CYNTHIA: I command thee once again, stir not. I will stand
before him. … [V.1.30]

PANELION: What do I see, Endymion almost awake?

EUMENIDES: Endymion, Endymion, art thou deaf or dumb?
Or hath this long sleep taken away thy memory? Ah, my
sweet Endymion, seest thou not Eumenides, thy faithful
friend, thy faithful Eumenides, who for thy safety hath been
careless of his own content? Speak, Endymion, Endymion,
Endymion!

ENDYMION: Endymion? I call to mind such a name.

EUMENIDES: Hast thou forgotten thyself, Endymion? Then
do I not marvel thou rememberest not thy friend. I tell thee … [V.1.40]
thou art Endymion and I Eumenides. Behold also Cynthia, by
whose favor thou art awaked, and by whose virtue thou
shalt continue thy natural course.

CYNTHIA: Endymion, speak sweet Endymion. Knowest thou
not Cynthia?

ENDYMION: O heavens, whom do I behold? Fair Cynthia,
divine Cynthia?

CYNTHIA: I am Cynthia, and thou Endymion.

ENDYMION: Endymion? What do I here? What, a gray beard?
Hollow eyes? Withered body? Decayed limbs? And all in … [V.1.50]
one night?

EUMENIDES: One night? Thou hast here slept forty years, by
what enchantress as yet it is not known. And behold, the
twig to which thou laidst thy head is now become a tree.
Callest thou not Eumenides to remembrance?

ENDYMION: Thy name I do remember by the sound, but thy
favor I do not yet call to mind. Only divine Cynthia, to whom
time, fortune, destiny, and death are subject, I see and
remember, and in all humility I regard and reverence.

CYNTHIA: You have good cause to remember Eumenides, … [V.1.60]
who hath for thy safety forsaken his own solace.

ENDYMION: Am I that Endymion who was wont in court to
lead my life, and in jousts, tourneys, and arms to exercise my
youth? Am I that Endymion?

EUMENIDES: Thou art that Endymion and I Eumenides.
Wilt thou not yet call me to remembrance?

ENDYMION: Ah, sweet Eumenides, I now perceive thou art he,
and that myself have the name of Endymion. But that this
should be my body I doubt; for how could my curled locks
be turned to gray hairs and my strong body to a dying … [V.1.70]
weakness, having waxed old and not knowing it?

CYNTHIA: Well, Endymion, arise. A while sit down, for that
thy limbs are stiff and not able to stay thee, and tell what
hast thou seen in thy sleep all this while? What dreams,
visions, thoughts, and fortunes? For it is impossible but in so
long time thou shouldst see things strange.

ENDYMION: Fair Cynthia, I will rehearse what I have seen,
humbly desiring that when I exceed in length, you give me
warning that I may end. For to utter all I have to speak would
be troublesome, although haply the strangeness may … [V.1.80]
somewhat abate the tediousness

CYNTHIA: Well, Endymion, begin.

ENDYMION: Methought I saw a lady passing fair but very
mischievous, who in the one hand carried a knife with which
she offered to cut my throat, and in the other a looking glass,
wherein seeing how ill anger became ladies, she refrained
from intended violence. She was accompanied with other
damsels, one of which, with a stern countenance, and as it
were with a settled malice engraven in her eyes, provoked her
to execute mischief. Another with visage sad, and constant … [V.1.90]
only in sorrow, with her arms crossed and watery eyes,
seemed to lament my fortune, but durst not offer to prevent
the force. I started in my sleep, feeling my very veins to swell
and my sinews to stretch with fear, and such a cold sweat
bedewed all my body that death itself could not be so terrible
as the vision.

CYNTHIA: A strange sight. Gyptes at our better leisure shall
expound it.

ENDYMION: After long debating with herself, mercy overcame
anger, and there appeared in her heavenly face such a divine … [V.1.100]
majesty, mingled with a sweet mildness, that I was ravished
with the sight above measure, and wished that I might have
enjoyed the sight without end. And so she departed with the
other ladies, of which the one retained still an unmovable
cruelty, the other a constant pity.

CYNTHIA: Poor Endymion, how wast thou affrighted!
What else?

ENDYMION: After her immediately appeared an aged man
with a beard as white as snow, carrying in his hand a book
with three leaves, and speaking, as I remember these … [V.1.110]
words: ‘Endymion, receive this book with three leaves, in
which are contained counsels, policies, and pictures.’ And
with that, he offered me the book, which I rejected; where-
with moved with a disdainful pity, he rent the first leaf in a
thousand shivers. The second time he offered it, which I
refused also; at which, bending his brows and pitching his
eyes fast to the ground as though they were fixed to the
earth and not again to be removed, then suddenly casting
them up to the heavens, he tore in a rage the second leaf
and offered the book only with one leaf. I know not whether … [V.1.120]
fear to offend or desire to know some strange thing moved
me; I took the book, and so the old man vanished.

CYNTHIA: What didst thou imagine was in the last leaf?

ENDYMION: There — ay, portrayed to life — with a cold
quaking in every joint, I beheld many wolves barking at
thee, Cynthia, who, having ground their teeth to bite, did
with striving bleed themselves to death. There might I see
Ingratitude with an hundred eyes, gazing for benefits, and
with a thousand teeth gnawing on the bowels wherein she
was bred. Treachery stood all clothed in white, with a … [V.1.130]
smiling countenance but both her hands bathed in blood.
Envy, with a pale and meager face, whose body was so lean
that one might tell all her bones, and whose garment was so
tattered that it was easy to number every thread, stood
shooting at stars. whose darts fell down again on her own
face. There might I behold drones, or beetles, I know not how
to term them, creeping under the wings of a princely eagle,
who, being carried into her nest, sought there to suck that
vein that would have killed the eagle. I mused that things so
base should attempt a fact so barbarous or durst imagine a … [V.1.140]
thing so bloody. And many other things, madam, the
repetition whereof may at your better leisure seem more
pleasing. for bees surfeit sometimes with honey, and the
gods are glutted with harmony, and Your Highness may
be dulled with delight.

CYNTHIA: I am content to be dieted; therefore let us in.
Eumenides, see that Endymion be well tended, lest, either
eating immoderately or sleeping again too long, he fall
into a deadly surfeit or into his former sleep. See this also
be proclaimed: that whosoever will discover this practice … [V.1.150]
shall have of Cynthia infinite thanks and no small rewards.
[Exit, attended by her courtly entourage. Floscula, Endymion,
and Eumenides remain.]

FLOSCULA: Ah, Endymion, none so joyful as Floscula of thy
restoring!

EUMENIDES: Yes, Floscula, let Eumenides be somewhat
gladder, and do not that wrong to the settled friendship of a
man as to compare it with the light affection of a woman. —
Ah, my dear friend Endymion, suffer me to die with gazing
at thee!

ENDYMION: Eumenides, thy friendship is immortal and not
to be conceived, and thy good will, Floscula, better than I … [V.1.160]
have deserved. But let us all wait on Cynthia. I marvel
Semele speaketh not a word.

EUMENIDES: Because if she do she loseth her tongue.

ENDYMION: But how prospereth your love?

EUMENIDES: I never yet spake word since your sleep.

ENDYMION: I doubt not but your affection is old and your
appetite cold.

EUMENIDES: No, Endymion, thine hath made it stronger, and
now are my sparks grown to flames and my fancies almost to
frenzies. But let us follow, and within we will debate all this … [V.1.170]
matter at large. [Exeunt.]

Scene V.2
[Enter Sir Tophas and Epiton.]

TOPHAS: Epi, love hath jostled my liberty from the wall and
taken the upper hand of my reason.

EPITON: Let me then trip up the heels of your affection and
thrust your good will into the gutter.

TOPHAS: No, Epi, love is a lord of misrule, and keepeth
Christmas in my corpse.

EPITON: No doubt there is good cheer. What dishes of delight
doth his lordship feast you withal?

TOPHAS: First, with a great platter of plum-porridge of
pleasure, wherein is stewed the mutton of mistrust. … [V.2.10]

EPITON: Excellent love-lap!

TOPHAS: Then cometh a pie of patience, a hen of honey, a
goose of gall, a capon of care, and many other viands, some
sweet and some sour, which proveth love to be as it was said
of in old years: dulce venenum.

EPITON: A brave banquet!

TOPHAS: But Epi, I pray thee feel on my chin; something
pricketh me. What dost thou feel or see?

EPITON: [Examining his chin.] There are three or four
little hairs. … [V.2.20]

TOPHAS: I pray thee call it my beard. How shall I be
troubled when this young spring shall grow to a great
wood!

EPITON: O, sir, your chin is but a quiller yet. You will be
most majestical when it is full fledge. But I marvel that you
love Dipsas, that old crone.

TOPHAS: Agnosco veteris vestigia flamma: I love the smoke
of an old fire.

EPITON: Why, she is so cold that no fire can thaw her thoughts.

TOPHAS: It is an old goose, Epi, that will eat no oats; old … [V.2.30]
kine will kick, old rats gnaw cheese, and old sacks will have
much patching. I prefer an old cony before a rabbit-sucker
and an ancient hen before a young chicken peeper.

EPITON: Argumentum ab antiquitate. [Aside.] My master
loveth antique work.

TOPHAS: Give me a pippin that is withered like an old wife.

EPITON: Good, sir.

TOPHAS: Then a contrario sequitur argumentum. Give me a
wife that looks like an old pippin.

EPITON: [Aside.] Nothing hath made my master a fool … [V.2.40]
but flat scholarship.

TOPHAS: Knowest thou not that old wine is best?

EPITON: ~~~ Yes.

TOPHAS: And thou knowest that like will to like?

EPITON: ~~~ Ay.

TOPHAS: And thou knowest that Venus loved the best wine?

EPITON: ~~~ So.

TOPHAS: Then I conclude that Venus was an old woman in
an old cup of wine. For, est Venus in vinis, ignis in igne fuit.

EPITON: O lepidum caput, O madcap master! You were
worthy to win Dipsas, were she as old again, for in your love
you have worn the nap of your wit quite off and made it
threadbare. But soft, who comes here? … [V.2.50]
[Enter Samias and Dares.]

TOPHAS: My solicitors.

SAMIAS: All hail, Sir Tophas! how feel you yourself?

TOPHAS: Stately in every joint, which the common people
term stiffness. Doth Dipsas stoop? Will she yield? Will she
bend?

DARES: O, sir, as much as you would wish, for her chin
almost toucheth her knees.

EPITON: Master, she is bent, I warrant you.

TOPHAS: What conditions doth she ask?

SAMIAS: She hath vowed she will never love any that hath
not a tooth in his head less than she.

TOPHAS: How many hath she?

DARES: One.

EPITON: That goeth hard, master, for then you must have
none.

TOPHAS: A small request, and agreeable to the gravity of her
years. What should a wise man do with his mouth full of
bones like a charnel house? The turtle true hath ne’er a
tooth.

SAMIAS: [Aside to Epiton.] Thy master is in a notable vein, … [V.2.70]
that will lose his teeth to be like a turtle.

EPITON: [Aside to Samias.] Let him lose his tongue too,
I care not.

DARES: Nay, you must also have no nails, for she long since
hath cast hers.

TOPHAS: That I yield to. What a quiet life shall Dipsas and
I lead, when we can neither bite nor scratch! You may see,
youths, how age provides for peace.

SAMIAS: [Aside to Epiton and Dares.] How shall we do to
make him leave his love? For we never spake to her? … [V.2.80]

DARES: [Aside to Samias.] Let me alone.
[To Sir Tophas.] She is a notable witch, and hath turned
her maid Bagoa to an aspen tree for betraying her secrets.

TOPHAS: I honor her for her cunning, for now, when I am
weary of walking on two legs, what a pleasure may she do
me to turn me to some goodly ass and help me to four!

DARES: Nay then, I must tell you the truth: her husband
Geron is come home, who this fifty years hath had her to wife.

TOPHAS: What do I hear? Hath she a husband? Go to the
sexton and tell him Desire is dead, and will him to dig … [V.2.90]
his grave. Oh heavens, an husband? What death is
agreeable to my fortune?

SAMIAS: Be not desperate, and we will help you to find a
young lady.

TOPHAS: I love no Grissels; they are so brittle they will
crack like glass, or so dainty that if they be touched, they
are straight of the fashion of wax. Animus maioribus instat;
I desire old matrons. What a sight would it be to embrace one
whose hair were as orient as the pearl, whose teeth shall be so
pure a watchet that they shall stain the truest turquoise, … [V.2.100]
whose nose shall throw more beams from it than the fiery
carbuncle, whose eyes shall be environed about with redness
exceeding the deepest coral, and whose lips might compare
with silver for the paleness! Such a one if you can help me
to, I will by piecemeal curtail my affections towards Dipsas
and walk my swelling thoughts till they be cold.

EPITON: Wisely provided. How say you, my friends, will you
angle for my master’s cause?

SAMIAS: Most willingly.

DARES: If we speed him not shortly, I will burn my cap. We
will serve him of the spades, and dig an old wife out of the
grave that shall be answerable to his gravity.

TOPHAS: Youths, adieu. He that bringeth me first news
shall possess mine inheritance. [Exit.]

DARES: [To Epiton.] What, is thy master landed?

EPITON: Know you not that my master is liber tenens?

SAMIAS: What’s that?

EPITON: A freeholder. But I will after him.

SAMIAS: And we to hear what news of Endymion for the
conclusion. [Exeunt.]

Scene V.3
[Enter Panelion and Zontes.]

PANELION: Who would have thought that Tellus, being so
fair by nature, so honorable by birth, so wise by education,
would have entered into a mischief to the gods so odious, to
men so detestable, and to her friend so malicious?

ZONTES: If Bagoa had not bewrayed it, how then should it
have come to light? But we see that gold and fair words are of
force to corrupt the strongest men, and therefore able to
work silly women like wax.

PANELION: I marvel what Cynthia will determine in
this cause. … [V.3.10]

ZONTES: I fear as in all causes: hear of it in justice and then
judge of it in mercy. For how can it be that she that is
unwilling to punish her deadliest foes with disgrace will
revenge injuries of her train with death?

PANELION: That old witch Dipsas, in a rage, having under-
stood her practice to be discovered, turned poor Bagoa to
an aspen tree. But let us make haste and bring Tellus before
Cynthia, for she was coming out after us.

ZONTES: Let us go. [Exeunt.]

Scene V.4
[Enter Cynthia, Semele, Floscula, Dipsas, Endymion, Eumenides, Geron,
Pythagoras, Gyptes, and Sir Tophas. A tree stands by the lunary bank.]

CYNTHIA: Dipsas, thy years are not so many as thy vices, yet
more in number than commonly nature doth afford or
justice should permit. Hast thou almost these fifty years
practiced that detested wickedness of witchcraft? Wast thou
so simple as not to know the nature of simples, of all creatures
to be most sinful? Thou hast threatened to turn my course
awry and alter by thy damnable art the government that I
now possess by the eternal gods. But know thou, Dipsas, and
let all the enchanters know, that Cynthia, being placed for
light on earth, is also protected by the powers of heaven. … [V.4.10]
Breathe out thou mayst words, gather thou mayst herbs,
find out thou mayst stones agreeable to thine art, yet of no
force to appall my heart, in which courage is so rooted, and
constant persuasion of the mercy of the gods so grounded,
that all thy witchcraft I esteem as weak as the world doth
thy case wretched. This noble gentleman Geron, once thy
husband but now thy mortal hate, didst thou procure to live
in a desert, almost desperate. Endymion, the flower of my
court and the hope of succeeding time, hast thou bewitched
by art before thou wouldst suffer him to flourish by nature. … [V.4.20]

DIPSAS: Madam, things past may be repented, not recalled.
There is nothing so wicked that I have not done, nor any-
thing so wished-for as death. Yet among all the things that
I committed, there is nothing so much tormenteth my rented
and ransacked thoughts as that in the prime of my husband’s
youth I divorced him by my devilish art, for which, if to die
might be amends, I would not live till tomorrow. If to live
and still be more miserable would better content him, I would
wish of all creatures to be the oldest and ugliest.

GERON: Dipsas, thou hast made this difference between me … [V.4.30]
and Endymion, that, both being young, thou hast caused me
to wake in melancholy, losing the joys of my youth, and
him to sleep, not remembering youth.

CYNTHIA: Stay, here cometh Tellus. We shall now know all.
[Enter Corsites and Tellus, with Panelion and Zontes.]

CORSITES: [To Tellus.] I would to Cynthia thou couldst make
as good an excuse in truth as to me thou hast done by wit.

TELLUS: Truth shall be mine answer, and therefore I will
not study for an excuse.

CYNTHIA: Is it possible, Tellus, that so few years should
harbor so many mischiefs? Thy swelling pride have I borne … [V.5.40]
because it is a thing that beauty maketh blameless, which,
the more it exceedeth fairness in measure, the more it
stretcheth itself in disdain. Thy devices against Corsites I
smile at, for that wits the sharper they are, the shrewder
they are. But this unacquainted and most unnatural practice
with a vile enchantress against so noble a gentleman as
Endymion I abhor as a thing most malicious, and will
revenge as a deed most monstrous. And as for you, Dipsas, I
will send you into the desert amongst wild beasts, and try
whether you can cast lions, tigers, boars, and bears into as … [V.4.50]
dead a sleep as you did Endymion, or turn them to trees as
you have done Bagoa. But tell me, Tellus, what was the cause
of this cruel part, far unfitting thy sex, in which nothing
should be but simpleness, and much disagreeing from thy
face, in which nothing seemed to be but softness?

TELLUS: Divine Cynthia, by whom I receive my life and am
content to end it, I can neither excuse my fault without lying
nor confess it without shame. Yet were it possible that in so
heavenly thoughts as yours there could fall such earthly
motions as mine, I would then hope, if not to be pardoned … [V.4.60]
without extreme punishment, yet to be heard without
great marvel.

CYNTHIA: Say on Tellus. I cannot imagine anything that
can color such a cruelty.

TELLUS: Endymion, that Endymion, in the prime of his
youth so ravished my heart with love that to obtain my
desires I could not find means, nor to resist them reason.
What was she that favored not Endymion, being young, wise,
honorable and virtuous? Besides, what metal was she made of,
be she mortal, that is not affected with the spice, nay infected … [V.4.70]
with the poison of that not-to-be-expressed yet always to be
felt love, which breaketh the brains and never bruiseth the
brow, consumeth the heart and never toucheth the skin, and
maketh a deep wound to be felt before any scar at all be
seen? My heart, too tender to withstand such a divine fury,
yielded to love — madam, I not without blushing confess,
yielded to love.

CYNTHIA: A strange effect of love, to work such an extreme
hate. How say you, Endymion, all this was for love?

ENDYMION: I say, madam, then the gods send me a … [V.4.80]
woman’s hate.

CYNTHIA: That were as bad, for then by contrary, you
should never sleep. But on, Tellus: let us hear the end.

TELLUS: Feeling a continual burning in all my bowels and
a bursting almost in every vein, I could not smother the
inward fire but it must needs be perceived by the outward
smoke; and by the flying abroad of divers sparks, divers
judged of my scalding flames. Endymion, as full of art as wit,
marking mine eyes (in which he might see almost his own),
my sighs (by which he might ever hear his name sounded), … [V.4.90]
aimed at my heart (in which he was assured his person was
imprinted), and by questions wrung out that which was
ready to burst out. When he saw the depth of my affections,
he swore that mine in respect of his were as fumes to Etna,
valleys to Alps, ants to eagles, and nothing could be compared
to my beauty but his love and eternity. Thus drawing a
smooth shoe upon a crooked foot, he made me believe that
(which all of our sex willingly acknowledge) I was beautiful,
and to wonder (which indeed is a thing miraculous) that
any of his sex should be faithful. … [V.4.100]

CYNTHIA: Endymion, how will you clear yourself?

ENDYMION: Madam, by mine own accuser.

CYNTHIA: Well, Tellus, proceed, but briefly, lest, taking
delight in uttering thy love, thou offend us with the length of it.

TELLUS: I will, madam, quickly make an end of my love
and my tale. Finding continual increase of my tormenting
thoughts, and that the enjoying of my love made deeper
wounds than the entering into it, I could find no means to
ease my grief but to follow Endymion, and continually to
have him in the object of mine eyes, who had me slave and … [V.4.110]
subject to his love. But in the moment that I feared his
falsehood, and fried myself most in mine affections, I found
(ah grief, even then I lost myself), I found him in most
melancholy and desperate terms, cursing his stars, his
state, the earth, the heavens, the world, and all for love of —

CYNTHIA: Of whom? Tellus, speak boldly.

TELLUS: Madam, I dare not utter for fear to offend.

CYNTHIA: Speak, I say. Who dare take offense if thou be
commanded by Cynthia?

TELLUS: For the love of Cynthia. … [V.4.120]

CYNTHIA: For my love, Tellus? That were strange.
Endymion, is it true?

ENDYMION: In all things, madam. Tellus doth not speak
false.

CYNTHIA: What will this breed to in the end? Well,
Endymion, we shall hear all.

TELLUS: I, seeing my hopes turned to mishaps and a settled
dissembling towards me, and an unmovable desire to
Cynthia, forgetting both myself and my sex, fell unto this
unnatural hate. For knowing your virtues, Cynthia, to be … [V.4.130]
immortal, I could not have an imagination to withdraw him;
and finding mine own affections unquenchable, I could not
carry the mind that any else should possess what I had
pursued. For though in majesty, beauty, virtue, and dignity,
I always humbled and yielded myself to Cynthia, yet in
affections I esteemed myself equal with the goddesses and all
other creatures, according to their states, with myself. For
stars to their bigness have their lights, and the sun hath no
more. And little pitchers, when they can hold no more, are as
full as great vessels that run over. Thus, madam, in all … [V.4.140]
truth have I uttered the unhappiness of my love and the
cause of my hate, yielding wholly to that divine judgment
which never erred for want of wisdom or envied for too much
partiality.

CYNTHIA: How say you, my lords, to this matter? But what
say you, Endymion, hath Tellus told truth?

ENDYMION: Madam, in all things but in that she said I
loved her and swore to honor her.

CYNTHIA: Was there such a time when as for my love thou
didst vow thyself to death, and in respect of it loathed thy … [V.4.150]
life? Speak, Endymion. I will not revenge it with hate.

ENDYMION: The time was, madam, and is, and ever shall be,
that I honored Your Highness above all the world; but to
stretch it so far as to call it love, I never durst. There hath
none pleased mine eye but Cynthia, none delighted mine
ears but Cynthia, none possessed my heart but Cynthia. I
have forsaken all other fortunes to follow Cynthia, and here
I stand ready to die if it please Cynthia. Such a difference
hath the gods set between our states that all must be duty,
loyalty, and reverence; nothing, without it vouchsafe Your … [V.4.160]
Highness, be termed love. My unspotted thoughts, my
languishing body, my discontented life, let them obtain
by princely favor that which to challenge they must not
presume, only wishing of impossibilities; with imagination
of which I will spend my spirits, and to myself, that no
creature may hear, softly call it love. And if any urge to
utter what I whisper, then will I name it honor. From this
sweet contemplation if I be not driven, I shall live of all men
the most content, taking more pleasure in mine aged
thoughts than ever I did in my youthful actions. … [V.4.170]

CYNTHIA: Endymion, this honorable respect of thine shall
be christened love in thee, and my reward for it favor.
Persevere, Endymion, in loving me, and I account more
strength in a true heart than in a walled city. I have labored
to win all, and study to keep such as I have won; but those
that neither my favor can move to continue constant, nor my
offered benefits get to be faithful, the gods shall either reduce
to truth or revenge their treacheries with justice. Endymion,
continue as thou hast begun, and thou shalt find that Cynthia
shineth not on thee in vain. … [V.4.180]
[Endymion’s youthful looks are restored to him.]

ENDYMION: Your Highness hath blessed me, and your words
have again restored my youth. Methinks I feel my joints
strong, and these moldy hairs to molt, and all by your
virtue, Cynthia, into whose hands the balance that weigheth
time and fortune are committed.

CYNTHIA: What, young again? Then it is pity to punish Tellus.

TELLUS: Ah Endymion, now I know thee and ask pardon of
thee. Suffer me still to wish thee well.

ENDYMION: Tellus, Cynthia must command what she will.

FLOSCULA: Endymion, I rejoice to see thee in thy former
estate.

ENDYMION: Good Floscula, to thee also am I in my former
affections.

EUMENIDES: Endymion, the comfort of my life, how am I
ravished with a joy matchless, saving only the enjoying of
my mistress!

CYNTHIA: Endymion, you must now tell who Eumenides
shrineth for his saint.

ENDYMION: Semele, madam.

CYNTHIA: Semele, Eumenides? Is it Semele? The very wasp … [V.4.200]
of all women, whose tongue stingeth as much as an adder’s tooth?

EUMENIDES: It is Semele, Cynthia, the possessing of whose
love must only prolong my life.

CYNTHIA: Nay, sith Endymion is restored, we will have all
parties pleased. Semele, are you content after so long trial
of his faith, such rare secrecy, such unspotted love, to take
Eumenides? — Why speak you not? Not a word?

ENDYMION: Silence, madam, consents. That is most true.

CYNTHIA: It is true, Endymion. Eumenides, take Semele.
Take her, I say. … [V.4.210]

EUMENIDES: Humble thanks, madam. Now only do I begin
to live.

SEMELE: A hard choice, madam, either to be married if I say
nothing, or to lose my tongue if I speak a word. Yet do I
rather choose to have my tongue cut out than my heart
distempered. I will not have him.

CYNTHIA: Speaks the parrot? She shall nod hereafter with
signs. Cut off her tongue; nay, her head, that, having a
servant of honorable birth, honest manners, and true love,
will not be persuaded! … [V.4.220]

SEMELE: He is no faithful lover, madam, for then would he
have asked his mistress.

GERON: Had he not been faithful, he had never seen into
the fountain, and so lost his friend and mistress.

EUMENIDES: Thine own thoughts, sweet Semele, witness
against thy words, for what hast thou found in my life but
love? And as yet what have I found in my love but bitterness?
Madam, pardon Semele, and let my tongue ransom hers.

CYNTHIA: Thy tongue, Eumenides? What shouldst thou
live, wanting a tongue to blaze the beauty of Semele? Well, … [V.4.230]
Semele, I will not command love, for it cannot be enforced.
Let me entreat it.

SEMELE: I am content Your Highness shall command, for
now only do I think Eumenides faithful, that is willing to
lose his tongue for my sake; yet loath, because it should do
me better service. Madam, I accept of Eumenides.

CYNTHIA: I thank you, Semele.

EUMENIDES: Ah, happy Eumenides, that has a friend so
faithful and a mistress so fair! With what sudden mischief … [V.4.240]
will the gods daunt this excess of joy? Sweet Semele, I live or
die as thou wilt.

CYNTHIA: What shall become of Tellus? Tellus, you know
Endymion is vowed to a service from which death cannot
remove him. Corsites casteth still a lovely look towards you.
How say you: will you have your Corsites and so receive
pardon for all that is past?

TELLUS: Madam, most willingly.

CYNTHIA: But I cannot tell whether Corsites be agreed.

CORSITES: Ay madam, more happy to enjoy Tellus than the
monarchy of the world.

EUMENIDES: Why, she caused you to be pinched with fairies.

CORSITES: Ay, but her fairness hath pinched my heart
more deeply.

CYNTHIA: Well, enjoy thy love. But what have you wrought
in the castle, Tellus?

TELLUS: Only the picture of Endymion.

CYNTHIA: Then so much of Endymion as his picture cometh
to, possess and play withal.

CORSITES: Ah, my sweet Tellus, my love shall be as thy
beauty is: matchless. … [V.4.260]

CYNTHIA: Now it resteth, Dipsas, that if thou wilt forswear
that vile art of enchanting, Geron hath promised again to
receive thee; otherwise if thou be wedded to that wickedness,
I must and will see it punished to the uttermost.

DIPSAS: Madam, I renounce both substance and shadow of
that most horrible and hateful trade, vowing to the gods
continual penance, and to Your Highness obedience.

CYNTHIA: How say you, Geron, will you admit her to
your wife?

GERON: Ay, with more joy than I did the first day; for … [V.4.270]
nothing could happen to make me happy but only her
forsaking that lewd and detestable course. Dipsas, I
embrace thee.

DIPSAS: And I thee, Geron, to whom I will hereafter recite
the cause of these my first follies. [They embrace.]

CYNTHIA: Well, Endymion, nothing resteth now but that we
depart. Thou has my favor, Tellus her friend, Eumenides in
paradise with his Semele, Geron contented with Dipsas.

TOPHAS: Nay, soft. I cannot handsomely go to bed without
Bagoa. … [V.4.280]

CYNTHIA: Well, Sir Tophas, it may be there are more virtues
in me than myself knoweth of, for Endymion I awaked, and
at my words he waxed young. I will try whether I can turn
this tree again to thy true love.

TOPHAS: Turn her to a true love or false, so she be a wench
I care not.

CYNTHIA: Bagoa, Cynthia putteth an end to thy hard
fortunes, for being turned to a tree for revealing a truth, I
will recover thee again if in my power be the effect of truth.
[The aspen tree is transformed back into Bagoa.]

TOPHAS: Bagoa? A bots upon thee! … [V.4.290]

CYNTHIA: Come my lords, let us in. You, Gyptes and
Pythagoras, if you cannot content yourselves in our court
to fall from vain follies of philosophers to such virtues as are
here practiced, you shall be entertained according to your
deserts; for Cynthia is no stepmother to strangers.

PYTHAGORAS: I had rather in Cynthia’s court spend ten
years than in Greece one hour.

GYPTES: And I choose rather to live by the sight of Cynthia
than by the possessing of all Egypt.

CYNTHIA: Then follow.

EUMENIDES: We all attend. [Exeunt.]

EPILOGUE
A man walking abroad, the wind and sun strove for
sovereignty: the one with his blast, the other with his
beams. The wind blew hard; the man wrapped his
garment about him harder. It blustered more strongly; he
then girt it fast to him. ‘I cannot prevail’, said the wind. The
sun, casting her crystal beams, began to warm the man; he
unloosed his gown. Yet it shined brighter; he then put it off.
‘I yield’, said the wind, ‘for if thou continue shining, he will
also put off his coat’.
Dread sovereign, the malicious that seek to overthrow us
with threats do but stiffen our thoughts and make them
sturdier in storms. But if Your Highness vouchsafe with
your favorable beams to glance upon us, we shall not only
stoop, but with all humility lay both our hands and hearts
at Your Majesty’s feet.

Glossary & Appendices

APPENDIX I – Glossary    
[FS means found in Shakespeare; NFS means not found in Shakespeare.]

Arabian bird (n): phoenix, a rare specimen. FS (2-A&C, Cymb) Watson Hek; Lyly Endymion, Woman/Moon.

Araris (n): that fish in the flood Araris — which at thy waxing is as white as the driven snow and at thy waning as black as deepest darkness. Cf. Euphues ‘the fish Scolopidus in the flood Araris’, which ‘at the waxing of the moon is as white as the driven snow.’ Apparently derived from the Pseudo-plutarchea — De Fluviis (see Bond). These charming dissertations on the habits of incredible flora and fauna are to be found throughout Lyly’s work. Cf. Lyly Euphues, Endymion.

bandog (n): dog tied or chained up on account of its ferocity — usually a mastiff or bloodhound. (1-2H6); Lyly Endymion; Pasquil Countercuff; Nashe Summers. OED contemp citations: 1560 Thersites in Hazl. Dodsl. I. 399 The bandog Cerberus from hell … 1577 Harrison England.

bewray (v): reveal. FS (7); Golding Ovid; Lyly Campaspe, Gallathea, Endymion, Midas, Bombie, Whip; many others

bill [broad brown] (n): halberd (a kind of combination of spear and battle-axe, consisting of a sharp-edged blade ending in a point, and a spear-head, mounted on a handle five-to seven-feet long.) FS (Ado); Golding Ovid; Lyly Sapho, Endymion.

bird-bolt (n): blunt-headed arrow used for shooting birds. FS (2-LLL, 12th, Ado); Udall Royster; (anon.) Locrine; Lyly Endymion.

bodkin (n): pin or pin-shaped ornament used to fasten women’s hair. NFS. Cf. Golding Ovid; Lyly Sapho, Endymion, Midas, Bombie, Pappe; Nashe Absurdity; (anon.) Arden; Marston, Chapman, Jonson Eastward Ho.

bolt (n): arrow. FS (3-MND, MWW, H5, AsYou, MM, Cymb); Edwards Dam&Pith; Lyly Endymion, Pappe; Harvey 4 Letters; (disp.) Greene’s Groat. See also ‘bird-bolt’.

bots (n): horse-disease, caused by parasitical flies or maggots. (3-1H4, Shrew, Pericles); Lyly Endymion; Midas, Bombie; (anon.) Mucedorus, Fam Vic; (disp.) Oldcastle.

break/brake [one’s mind] (v): discuss, disclose, reveal. FS (5-1H6, Errors, Ado, T&C, Mac); Golding Ovid; Oxford letter; Lyly Endymion, Bombie; Kyd Sp Tr; (anon.) Arden, Willobie; (disp.) Cromwell.

cammock (a): crooked stick or piece of wood. NFS. Cf. Lyly Euphues, Sapho, Endymion, Bombie.

chafe (n): temper, rage. FS (A&C); Lyly Endymion (OED missed 3d citation); Sidney Astrophel.

chain (n): receptacle of some sort?, probably carried at the end of a chain belt or necklace. Unless possibly a misprint of ‘in’ for ‘on’. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion. Not in OED.

chimaera (n): fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail (or according to others with the heads of a lion, a goat, and a serpent), killed by Bellerophon.NFS. Cf. Golding Ovid; Lyly Endymion.

clout (n): cloth. FS (4-R&J, Lear, Hamlet, A&C); Golding Ovid; Lyly Campaspe, Gallathea, Sapho, Bombie, Endymion; Greene Orl Fur, James IV; Nashe Summers.

favor (n): appearance, features. FS (29 -2H4, LLL, John, MND, Ado, AsYou, 12th, T&C, MM, AWEW, WT, Cymb, JC, Ham, Oth, Mac, Corio, V&A, Sonnet 113); Golding Ovid; Brooke Romeus; Lyly Campaspe, Sapho, Endymion, Bombie; Greene Cony; Kyd Sp Tr; (anon.) Arden, Weakest; (disp.) Oldcastle; Nashe Summers; Chapman Revenge.

fadge/fodge (v): fit; suit. FS (2-LLL, 12th); Lyly Endymion (as fodge)Bombie; (anon.) Ironside. 1st OED citations: 1578 Whetstone Promos & Cass; 1599 Marston Sco. Villanie.

froward (a): perverse, forward. FS (13); Golding Ovid; Lyly Endymion; many others.

grissel (n): young girl (based on Chaucer’s Griselda, the patient wife) FS (1-Shrew); Lyly Endymion; Nashe Valentines.

hay-de-guise: A dance. Cf. Lyly Endymion

hole [take a hole lower] (v): abase, humiliate. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion (1st OED citation).

lithe/lither (a): (1) yielding, soft, pliant. FS (1-1H6); Golding Ovid. OED contemp citation:
Cooper Thesaurus, s.v. Brachium, Cerea brachia, Nice and liether arms. (2) weak, meek, also calm, sluggish, lazy. NFS. Cf. Golding Ovid. litherness (laziness) found in Lyly Endymion.

love-lap (n): thin gruel. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

lump (n): spiny-finned fish of a leaden-blue colour and uncouth appearance, characterized by a suctorial disk on its belly with which it adheres to objects with great force. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion (2d OED citation).

lunary (n) : moonwort, a fern; by many believed to have magical powers (see Sapho). NFS. Cf. Lyly Gallathea, Sapho, Endymion. OED missed all uses.

lurcher (n): petty thief. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

malapert (a): presumptuous, saucy. FS (3-3H6, Rich3, 12th); Lyly Endymion, Woman/Moon; (anon.) Ironside, Dodypoll. OED contemp citation: (1567) Drant Horace.

medlar (n): (1) small brown fruit, similar to the apple but soft when ripe. FS (AsYou); Lyly Sapho, Endymion. (2) ‘prostitute’ in slang sense. FS (R&J).

mumble (v): bite with toothless gums. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion (1st OED citation).

mutton (n): cant name for loose woman, prostitute. FS (2-TGV); Lyly Endymion; Greene Fr Bac; Marlowe Faustus.
noun adjective: Daniel points out that the noun substantive must be able to be seen, heard, felt and understood, according to the standard grammar by Lyly’s grandfather William. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

orient (adj): shining [used with pearl]. FS (4-Rich3, MND, V&A, Sonnet 10); Watson Hek; Lyly Endymion; (anon.) Dodypoll.

overthwarts (n): (1) obstructionists. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

ovis (n): sheep. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

pantofle (n): slipper. NFS. Cf. Lyly Sapho, Greene Fr Bac; (anon.) Arden, News/Heaven&Hell; Nashe Almond. Common.

patch (n): domestic fool; foolish person; clown, dolt, booby. FS (5-Errors, LLL, MND, Temp, Pericles); Lyly Endymion, Midas; Marprelate Epistle; Nashe Almond.

peevish (a): small, mean. FS (many); Golding Ovid; Lyly Endymion, Bombie, Love’s Met; many others.

pelting (a): paltry. FS (7-Rich2, MND, T&C, MM, Lear, TNK); Golding Ovid; Lyly Campaspe, Gallathea, Endymion, Midas, Bombie; (anon.) Woodstock, Willobie; Harvey 4 Letters; Chettle Kind Hart.

pippin (n): variety of apple. FS (2-2H4, MWW); Lyly Euphues, Endymion.

poison dough: poisoned bait. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

pine, pine away (v): starve, waste away. FS (10+); Golding Ovid; Oxford poems; many others.

policy (n): trickery, cunning. FS (many); Golding Ovid; Gascoigne Supposes; Lyly Campaspe, Sapho, Endymion, Bombie; Kyd Sp Tr, Sol&Per; (anon.) Woodstock, Locrine, Fam Vic, Ironside, Nobody, Leic Gh; Chettle Kind Hart. Wide contemp use. A major Shakespeare preoccupation, i.e.: 1H4: Never did base and rotten Policy / Colour her working with such deadly wounds.

pouting (n): small fish; small whiting, a whiting-pout. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

pug (n): (Thames) bargeman. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion (1st OED citation). Greene Disput. C ; 1603 Dekker Wonderful Year.

pursy (a): fat; huffing and puffing, short-winded. FS (2-Ham, Tim); Lyly Endymion; Nashe Penniless.

quiller (n): young, unfledged bird. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion (only OED citation).

reach [me, etc] (v): hold out to. FS (1-Titus); Golding Ovid; Lyly Campaspe, Endymion; (anon.) Mucedorus, Woodstock; (disp.) Greene’s Groat.

relish (n): pleasing flavor. FS (3-Ham, Corio, Cymb, T&C); Lyly Endymion; (disp.) Maiden’s. 1st OED citation 1665.

sconce (n): small fort or earthwork; esp. one built to defend a ford, pass, castle-gate, etc., or erected as a counter-fort. FS (1-H5; also Errors as a verb); Lyly Endymion (dbl meaning with sconce, below); Greene Orl Fur; Munday (More); (anon.) Arden, Leic. Gh.

sconce (n): (1) head, skull; (2) ability, wit. FS (6-Errors, Ham, Corio); Cf. Edwards Dam&Pith; Lyly Endymion, Bombie (OED missed citation); Greene Cony; G. Harvey New Let. OED contemp citation: 1586 A. Day Eng. Secretary (1625) Master B. found Socrates in my Letter,and sent to seeke out your well reputed skonce to expound it.

Seres: an area in eastern Asia, possibly China. The wool of Seres is probably made from the filament cocoons left behind by silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves [Bevington].

shent (a): disgraced. FS (5-MWW, 12th, T&C, Ham, Corio); Golding Ovid; Brooke Romeus, Edwards Dam&Pith; Lyly Endymion; (anon.) Penelope.

shiver (n, v): splinter. FS (3-Rich2, Lear, Troilus); Golding Ovid; Gascoigne Jocasta; Watson Hek, Tears; Lyly Campaspe, Endymion; Nashe Astrophel.

simples (n): medicine or medicament concocted of only one constituent, esp. of one herb or plant; hence, a plant or herb employed for medical purposes. In common use from c 1580 to 1750, chiefly in pl. FS (4-R&J, AsYou, Ham, Lear); Lyly Sapho, Endymion (OED missed citation); Harvey Pierce’s Super; Chettle Kind Hart. OED contemp citations: 1539 Elyot Cast. Helthe; 1563 T. Gale Antidot. 1588 Greene Perimedes Wks. (Grosart) VII. 15 Their stomacks bee made a verie Apotecaries shoppe, by receiuing a multitude of simples and drugges.

skills (v): matters, cares. FS (3-Shrew, 12th, 2H6); Golding Ovid; Lyly Campaspe, Endymion, Love’s Met, Gallathea; Greene Fr Bac; Chettle Kind Hart; (anon.) Fam Vic, Ironside, Leic Gh; (disp.) Greene’s Groat.

smiter (n): scimitar.

sooth (n): truth, sometimes flattery. FS (Rich2, Pericles); Lyly Endymion, Woman/Moon; many others.

squirrel (n): cant expression for prostitute. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

stew (n): cant name for whorehouse. FS (2H4); Lyly Endymion. mutton (n): cant name for loose woman, prostitute. FS (2-TGV); Lyly Endymion; Greene Fr Bac; Marlowe Faustus.

stomach (n): temper, pride. FS (2-Shrew, H8); Golding Ovid; Lyly Endymion; Greene G a G; Alphonsus; (anon.) Marprelate, Ironside, Weakest; Spenser FQ; Harvey Pierce’s Super; Sidney Antony. disposition. FS (Lear, Ado).

untewed (a): uncombed. Cf. Lyly Endymion

vail (v): (1) doff, take off (hat, crown, other head-dress), esp. out of respect or as a sign of submission. Also const. to or unto (a person, etc.). FS (many); Lodge Wounds; Lyly Endymion; Marlowe T1, Edw2; Greene G a G; Pasquil Apology.

wamble (v): rumbles, rolls around. NFS. Not found in OED. Cf. Lyly Endymion.

watchet (a): light blue. NFS. Cf. Lyly Endymion; (anon.) Arden. (OED 1st citation in 1609).

whist (v): hush (v). FS (1-Temp); Golding Ovid; Lyly Gallathea, Endymion; Greene Pandosto, Never Too Late; Nashe Penniless; Harvey Pierce’s Super.

woodcock (n): fool. FS (4-Shrew, LLL, AWEW, Ham); Lyly Endymion; Whip; (anon.) Marprelate, Penelope; Nashe Penniless; (disp.) Greene’s Groat; Dekker Hornbook.

Latin Translations

Scene I.3.
amicitia inter pares: friendship among equals.
ecce autem: lo and behold.
nego argumentum: I reject your argument.
quod supra vos nihil ad vos: what is higher than you is nothing to you. Note that this line is quoted exactly in lines 190-193 of Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay.

Scene III.3.
eho, ah: Latin interjections.
cedant arma togae: let arms yield to the toga (Cicero).
bella gerant alii; tu, Pari, semper ama: let others fight; you Paris, will always love (Ovid).
dicere quae puduit, scribere jussit amor: love makes one write of things he cannot discuss (Ovid).
scalpellum, calami, atramentum, charta, libelli, sint semper studiis arma parata meis: may penknife, pens, ink, papers, books always be ready for action (from William Lyly grammar).
militat omnis amans, et habet sua castea cupido: all lovers are warriors; and Cupid has his own camp (Ovid).
non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulysses: Ulysses was not handsome, but eloquent (Ovid).
quicquid conabar dicere versus erat: I was trying to speak only poetry (Ovid).
I prae: sequar: lead: I will follow.

Scene IV.2.
sic omnia mea mecum porto: thus I carry with me everything I own (Cicero).
caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam: he who has no burial urn rests under the stars (Lucan).

Scene V.2.
dulce venenum: sweet poison.
agnosco veteris vestigia flamma: I see the traces of an old flame (Vergil).
argumentum ab antiguitate: an argument for antiquity.
a contrario sequitur argumentum: a contrary argument applies.
est Venus in vinis, ignis in igne fuit: Venus is in wine as surely as fire in fire (Ovid).
O lepidum caput: Oh witty mind.
animus maioribus instat: my spirit ventures greater themes (Ovid).

Sources

The Myth of Endymion, as related by Robert Graves in The Greek Myths (64). Mt. Kisco, New York: Moyer Bell Ltd., 1988.

Endymion was the handsome son of Zeus and the Nymph Calyce, an Aelian by race though Carian by origin, and ousted by Clymenus from the kingdom of Elis. His wife, known by many different names, such as Iphinianassa, Hyperippe, Chromia, and Neis, bore him four sons; he also fathered fifty daughters on Selene, who had fallen desperately in love with him.

Endymion was lying asleep in a cave on Carian Mount Latmus one still night when Selene first saw him, lay down by his side, and gently kissed his closed eyes. Afterwards, some say, he returned to the same cave and fell into a dreamless sleep. This sleep, from which he has never yet awakened, came upon him either at his own request, because he hated the approach of old age; or because Zeus suspected him of an intrigue with Hera; or because Selene found that she preferred gently kissing him to being the object of his too fertile passion. In any case, he has never grown a day older, and preserves the bloom of youth on his cheeks. But others way that he lies buried at Olympia, where his four sons ran a race for the vacant throne, which Epeius won.

1. This myth records how an Aeolian chief invaded Elis, and accepted the consequences of marrying the Pelasgian Moon-goddess Hera’s representative — the names of Endymion’s wives are all moon-titles Ñ head of a college of fifty water-priestesses. When his reign ended he was duly sacrificed and awarded a hero shrine at Olympia. Pisa, the city to which Olympia belonged, is said to have meant in the Lydian (or Cretan) language ‘private resting place’; namely, of the Moon.

2. The name ‘Endymion’, from enduein (Latin: inducere), refers to the Moon’s seduction of the king, as thou she were one of the Empusae; but the ancients explain it as referring to somnum ei inductum, ‘the sleep put upon him.’

The myth of Endymion recurs throughout the ancient writers.

The short summary by Robert Graves, quoted above, cites the following: Appollodorus i.7.5-6; Pausanias v.8.I and I.2.

Length: 18,990 words

Allegory, Political Meaning

Queen Elizabeth as Cynthia; Oxford or Leicester as Endymion

In Act III, Scene 4, note in Eumenides’ speech, the prophecy: ‘When she, whose figure of all is the perfectest and never to be measured, always one yet never the same, still inconstant yet never wavering, shall come and kiss Endymion in his sleep, he shall then rise; else never.’ This speech refers unmistakably to Queen Elizabeth’s motto: semper eadem. Whatever the differing interpretations of this play (and there are many), there can be little doubt that this is an allusion to the Queen.

Writers have associated Endymion with both the Earl of Leicester (especially earlier commentators) and the Earl of Oxford. Each had incurred the displeasure of the Queen through nonmarital sexual affairs.
Leicester (1) through his sexual relationship/sham marriage with Lady Sheffield, resulting in the birth of an illegitimate son and (2) through his marriage to the pregnant Lettice Knollys, the Queen’s hated cousin. In each case the Queen’s fury was deep; her punishment rather lenient.

Later commentators seem to favor the attribution to the Earl of Oxford. Oxford, a married man, had a sexual relationship with Anne Vavasour, with whom he had a son. Both Oxford and the pregnant Anne were confined to the Tower of London, Oxford (whose cause was complicated by a dispute involving counter-charges of disloyalty) was then sent from court for several years. His son, named Edward Vere, was well provided for, educated abroad, and was closely supported by and allied to the Vere interests throughout his life. Anne Vavasour entered the household of the famous soldier Sir Sidney Lee, who had been her nominal guardian during her stay in the Tower. The severity of the Queen’s punishment is puzzling; even more so is her conduct in seeming to favor attacks on Oxford and his followers by members of Anne Vavasour’s family and their followers. In the first of these attacks Oxford was severely wounded in the leg.

If there is an analogy to figures in the court, the parallel to Lyly’s employer Oxford certainly seems the strongest. It strains credulity that Lyly, Oxford’s protege, would have written a panegyric to Leicester. Tellus, Endymion’s nemesis did receive the protection of her keeper; Oxford’s life was indeed put at risk through withdrawal of the Queen’s favour, exacerbated by slanders of his enemies (relatives and once allies) the Howards. As Tellus was allowed to keep an image of Endymion that she had created, her child Edward would indeed have been the mirror of Oxford born to Anne Vavasour; on the other hand, Lettice Knolly’s son by Leicester died.

Acknowledgement of this probable courtly allusion, of course, would cast no evidentiary light whatsoever on the question of Shakespearian authorship.

The Meaning of ‘The Dumb Show’

Lines from Act V, Scene I, expand upon the dumb show presented at the end of Act II.

ENDYMION: Methought I saw a lady passing fair but very mischievous, who in the one hand carried a knife with which she offered to cut my throat and in the other a looking glass; wherein seeing how ill anger became ladies, she refrained from intended violence. She was accompanied with other damsels, one of which with a stern countenance and as it were with a settled malice engraven in her eyes, provoked her to execute mischief. Another with visage sad, and constant only in sorrow, with her arms crossed and watery eyes, seemed to lament my fortune but durst not offer to prevent the force. I started in my sleep, feeling my very veins to swell and my sinews to stretch with fear, and such a cold sweat bedewed all my body that death itself could not be so terrible as the vision.

CYNTHIA: A strange sight. Gyptes at our better leisure shall expound it.

ENDYMION: After long debating with herself, mercy overcame anger; and there appeared in her heavenly face such a divine majesty, mingled with a sweet mildness, that I was ravished with the sight above measure and wished that I might have enjoyed the sight without end. And so she departed with the other ladies, of which the one retained still an unmovable cruelty, the other a constant pity.

CYNTHIA: Poor Endymion, how wast thou affrighted! What else?

ENDYMION: After her, immediately appeared an aged man with a beard as white as snow, carrying in his hand a book with three leaves and speaking, as I remember these words: ‘Endymion, receive this book with three leaves, in which are contained counsels, policies and pictures.’ And with that he offered me the book, which I rejected; wherewith moved with a disdainful pity, he rent the first leaf in a thousand shivers. The second time he offered it, which I refused also, at which bending his brows and pitching his eyes fast to the ground as though they were fixed to the earth and not again to be removed, then suddenly casting them up to the heavens, he tore in a rage the second leaf and offered the book only with one leaf. I know not whether fear to offend or desire to know some strange thing moved me: I took the book, and so the old man vanished.

CYNTHIA: What did’st thou imagine was in the last leaf?

ENDYMION: There, portrayed to life, with a cold quaking in every joint, I beheld many wolves barking at thee, Cynthia, who having ground their teeth to bite, did with striving bleed themselves to death. There might I see ingratitude with an hundred eyes, gazing for benefits, and with a thousand teeth gnawing on the bowels wherein she was bred. Treachery stood all clothed in white, with a smiling countenance but both her hands bathed in blood. Envy with a pale and meager face, whose body was so lean that one might tell all her bones and whose garment was so tattered that it was easy to number every thread, stood shooting at stars whose darts fell down again on her own face. There might I behold drones or beetles, I know not how to term them, creeping under the wings of a princely eagle who, being carried into her nest, sought there to suck that vein that would have killed the eagle. I mused that things so base should attempt a fact so barbarous or durst imagine a thing so bloody. And many other things madam, the repetition whereof may at your better leisure seem more pleasing; for bees surfeit sometimes with honey and the gods are glutted with harmony and your highness may be dulled with delight.

Accepting the identification of Oxford with Endymion, and the allegorical nature of this play, especially the dumb show, which certainly is meant to present the hidden meaning of the play, Elizabeth can be identified as the lady who is at first cruel, then merciful. The three leaves represent the roles of state that Oxford might have played. The first two, which he rejected, were counsel as advisor and policy as administrator The third leaf, picture, is the role that he eventually assumed, having chosen to present through his art the condition of the throne and the kingdom as he saw it: its perils and opportunities. Lyly would be saying that in choosing this role, Oxford was using his greatest gift to protect the endangered Queen by speaking honestly to her through his art.

Sir Tophas and Falstaff:

The ridiculous Sir Tophas, a great comic figure, is considered by many to be a model for Armado in the early Loves Labour’s Lost and for Sir Jophn Falstaff in the Henry IV plays and Merry Wives of Windsor (see song, below), although the Falstaff prototype Jockey of Famous Victories (latest date 1588; i.e., about the same date as Endymion) seems to owe much less to Sir Tophas.

An even closer match might be found in the characters of Sir Tophas and Don Quixote. Each lives in a world created by his own imagination, emotionally centered on some chivalric ideal. Don Quixote lives in a material world completely transformed by his gallant and mystical vision. In Endymion Lyly has brought together the metaphysical, transitory world of ancient Greek legend and the courtly, earthbound world of Elizabethan England, creating an operational central reality. Into this setting he placed Sir Tophas, grounded in dreams of knightly valor and seeking a love-object of peculiar sexual allure. The transformation of a placid farm animal into a fearsome beast or of a hideous old hag into an object of desire corresponds on a dramatic level with Don Quixote’s equally irrational perceptions, and in both cases the audience, or reader, is well aware of the character’s neurotic displacement. Both evoke humor; both are emotional children. Don Quixote, however, also arouses a certain reverence for the purity of his vision, whereas Sir Tophas seems to be driven solely by braggadocio. Both are sublime fictional inventions: only Don Quixote could joust with a windmill; only Sir Tophas could agree to marry a tree.

Endymion as Political and Philosophic Allegory

The editor David Bevington proffers a schemata of Endymion as political allegory, accepting the attribution of the Earl of Oxford as Endymion. In the early 1580’s Oxford (who admitted that he had renounced personal Catholic leanings) accused his Howard relatives and associates of plotting the overthrow of Elizabeth in favor of the Catholic Mary of Scotland. Oxford himself was the object of counter-accusations; and at the time of the writing of Endymion Bevington suggests that he was still tainted by a suspicion of disloyalty. Bevington suggests that Lyly was denying that attraction to the old faith by no means mandated personal disloyalty to Queen Elizabeth. In this interpretation Tellus personifies Mary; while Dipsas represents a corrupt and sinister aspect of Roman Catholicism. The dumb show in which Endymion is offered the three leaves explains Oxfords rejection of politically occult material in the Three Books of Prophecies, which the Howards had accused Oxford of possessing.

Others have seen Endymion as a reconciliation of neo-Platonic ideas with the unsettling aspect of male subjugation to Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen whose persona borrowed from the iconic vision of the Virgin Mary. In this interpretation Endymion struggles between his earthly and spiritual needs, achieving reconciliation by a retreat into passive submission that was the only role open to Elizabethan courtiers. This reading offers the over-riding Lyly theme of an ordered universe punctured by misplaced love, lust, desire; balance between competing needs is achieved when couples unite, or renounce, or reconcile, and metaphysical order restored by the suitable management of earthly needs.

Suggested Reading

Bevington, David, ed. Endymion. Manchester, Eng.: University Press, 1996.
Bond, R. W., Complete Works of John Lyly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1902.
Daniel, Carter A. ed., The Plays of John Lyly. Lewisburg, N.J.: Bucknell University Press, 1988
Houppert, J. W. John Lyly. (Twaine’s English Author Series). New York: 1975
Hunter, G. K. John Lyly: The Humanist as Courtier. London: Routledge, 1962.
Saccio, Peter. The Court Comedies of John Lyly. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

APPENDIX II: Connections

Man-in-the-Moon
Shakespeare and the anonymous author of Arden seem to be indulging in a small joke at Lyly’s expense: contrast with the romanticism of the concept in Lyly’s Endymion: The Man in the Moon.
Anon. Arden (IV.2.22-29): FERRYMAN: Then for this once let it be . midsummermoon,
but yet my wife has another moon.
FRANKLIN: Another moon?
FERRYMAN: Aye, and it has influences and eclipses.
ARDEN: Why then, by this reckoning you sometimes play the man / in the moon.
FERRYMAN: Aye, but you had not best to meddle with that moon
lest I scratch you by the face with my bramble-bush.
Shakes MND: (V.1.250-252) MOON: All that I have to say, is,
to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man i’ the moon;
this thornbush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.
Nashe Summers (861-62) HARVEST: … But to say that I impoverish
the earth, that I rob the man in the moon,
Munday Huntington (VIII.173-74) FITZ: By this construction,
she should be the Moon, / And you would be the man within the Moon.

End … Life
Brooke Romeus (2026: Will bring the end of all her cares by ending careful life.
Ovid Ovid Met. (XIV.156: Eternal and of worldly life I should none end have seen,
Gascoigne Jocasta (III.1.262) MENECEUS: Brings quiet end to this unquiet life.
(V.2.27) CREON: What hapless end thy life alas hath hent. / I loathe not life, nor dread my end.
Oxford poetry (My mind to me a kingdom is): I loathe not life, nor dread my end.
Watson Hek (XXXVI, comment): abandoning all further desire of life,
hath in request untimely death, as the only end of his infelicity.
Lyly Endymion (I.2.70-71) TELLUS: Ah Floscula, thou rendest my heart in sunder,
in putting me in remembrance of the end.
FLOSCULA: Why, if this be not the end, all the rest is to no end.
(II.1.93-94) TELLUS: She shall have an end.
ENDYMION: So shall the world.
Kyd Sp Tr (III.13.8-11) HIERONIMO: For evils unto ills conductors be,
And death’s the worst of resolution. / For he that thinks with patience to contend
To quiet life, his life shall easily end.
Sol&Per (V.2.120) SOLIMAN: So let their treasons with their lives have end.
Shakes Lucrece (1208): My life’s foul deed, my life’s fair end shall free it.
Anon. Willobie (III.4): That is to lead a filthy life, / Whereon attends a fearful end:
Geneva Bible Wisdom 5.4 We fools thought his life madness, and his end without honor;
Ecclus. 11.27: In a man’s end, his works are discovered; Job 34.36

Reason’s rule
Golding Ovid Met (Ep.60): Of reason’s rule continually do live in virtue’s law:
Brooke Romeus (1248): With reason’s reign to rule the thoughts that rage within her breast.
Gascoigne … Jocasta (II.1.303) JOCASTA: To tell what reason first his mind did rule,
(II.1.337) POLYNICES: Without respect that reason ought to rule,
Watson Hek (46): That Reason rule the roast and love relent;
(88): I Long maintained war gainst Reason’s rule,
Lyly Campaspe (I.3.85-86) ALEX: instruct the young with rules, confirm the old with reasons.
Endymion (I.2.59) TELLUS: … and of a woman deluded in love to have neither rule nor reason.
Shakes Pass Pil (19): Let reason rule things worthy blame,
Anon. Fountain of my Tears: Good reason thou the ruler be.
Willobie (XLVI.5) No reason rules, where sorrows plant,
(LVII.5) Can reason rule, where folly bides?
(LXVIII.text): and not able by reason to rule the raging fume of this fantastical fury
Leic. Gh. (1847): That ruleth, not by reason, but by lust,
(2060): Nor ruled so much by reason as by passion,

Cry … Mercy
Brooke Romeus (2661): With stretched hands to thee for mercy now I cry,
Golding Abraham (816) ISAAC: Alas my father, mercy I cry you.
Lyly Sapho (V.2.78) VENUS: or lady I cry you mercy, I think you would be called a goddess
Endymion (II.2.32) FAVILLA: I cry your matronship mercy.
MB (IV.2) SILENA: I cry you mercy; I took you for a joined stool.
SILENA: I cry you mercy; I have killed your cushion.
(V.3) SYNIS: I cry you mercy, sir. I think it was Memphio’s son that was married.
Munday Huntington (IV.66) PRIOR: I cry your worship mercy, mistress Warman.
Shakespeare uses the phrase ‘cry … mercy’ 22 times.
Anon. Locrine (II.2) STRUMBO: King Nactaball! I cry God mercy! what have we to do
(II.3.49) STRUMBO: Place! I cry God mercy: why, do you think that such
(II.3.80) STRUMBO: Gate! I cry God mercy!
Woodstock (I.1.99) NIMBLE: if ever / ye cry, Lord have mercy upon me, I shall hang for it, …!
(III.2) WOOD: cry ye mercy, I did not understand your worship’s calling.
(III.2) WOOD: cry ye mercy, have you a message to me?
Arden (IV.4.128) ALICE: And cried him mercy whom thou hast misdone;
Dodypoll (V.2.166): My Lord, I kindly cry you mercy now.
Penelope: XLVIII.2: Amphimedon for mercy cries,
L Gh. (2151): For mercy now I call, I plead, I cry,
Oldcastle (V.10.39) JUDGE: We cry your honor mercy, good my Lord,
Cromwell (I.1) OLD CROM: I cry you mercy! is your ears so fine?

Discourse … Sweet
Lyly Endymion (II.2.8) SCINTILLA: … amorous words and sweet discourse.
Marlowe T1 (V.1.423) ARABIA: To make discourse of some sweet accidents
T2 (IV.2.46) THERIDAMAS: Spending my life in sweet discourse of love.
Shakes Rich3 (V.3) DERBY: Vows of love and ample interchange of sweet discourse.
TGV (I.3) PANTH: … hear sweet discourse
LLL (II.1) ROS: So sweet and voluble in his discourse.
R&J (III.5) ROMEO: All these woes shall serve for sweet discourse.
Nashe Penniless: they cannot sweeten a discourse
Anon. Dodypoll (I.2.41): For his behavior, for his sweet discourse.

All hail … Sovereign
Lyly Campaspe (II.1.5) PSYLLUS: All hail, Diogenes, to your proper person.
Endymion (II.2.104) SAMIAS: Sir Tophas, all hail!
(V.2,52) SAMIAS: All hail, Sir Tophas, how feel you yourself?
Kyd Sol&Per (II.1.30) BASILISCO: All hail, brave cavalier.
Shakes 3H6 (V.7) GLOUC: … And cried ‘all hail!’ when as he meant / all harm.
Rich2 (IV.1) KING RICH: Did they not sometime cry, ‘all hail!’ to me? …
TNK (III.5.102) SCHOOLMASTER Thou doughty Duke, all hail! ~~~ All hail, sweet ladies.
Nashe Summers (305-06): SOLS: All hail to Summer, my dread / sovereign Lord.
Anon. Mucedorus (III.5.6-7) MESS: All hail, worthy shepherd.
MOUSE: All reign, lowly shepherd.
Ironside (V.1.25-29) EDRICUS: All hail unto my gracious sovereign!
STITCH: Master, you’ll bewray yourself, do you say
‘all hail’ and yet bear your arm in a scarf? That’s hale indeed.
EDRICUS: All hail unto my gracious sovereign!
Leic. Gh. (1935): Even they betrayed my life that cried, ‘All hail!’
Note: Shaheen points out that no English Bible translation uses the phrase ‘all hail’ and that Shakespeare seems to derive the phrase from the medieval play The Agony and the Betrayal.
Note that if Mucedorus and Lyly use this phrase deliberately, it is with supreme irony; whereas the Leicester’s Ghost phrase is very obviously meant to relate to the Biblical narration, but also with ironic overtones.

Astrological signs (possible): Crab (excepting crabs as food or as part of crab-apple)
Golding Ovid Met. (II.111): [II.111): And eke the Crab that casteth forth his crooked clees awry,
(IV.768): Three times the chilling Bears, three times the Crabs fell cleas he saw:
(XV.406): Go pull away the cleas from crabs that in the Sea do breed,
Lyly Campaspe (III.5.36-37) APELLES: … thou may’st swim against the stream with the crab,
Endymion (III.3.98) EPITON: For fish, these: crab, carp, lump, and pouting.
SAMIAS: Excellent! For of my word, she is both crabbish, lumpish, and carping.
MB (III.4) LUCIO: It was crabs she stamped, and stole away one to make her a face.
Shakes: The word, or idea of a crab, is almost obsessively interesting to Shakespeare. The word evokes both the astrological sign of Cancer (June 21-July 22) and a mental image. Whether Shakespeare’s interest centered on both ideas or on the mental image only is unknown. A study of the astrological signs of Elizabethan courtiers would be interesting in this context, as certain other signs also seem to convey a special meaning to Shakespeare. i.e., would acquaintances, members of the court, be a Cancer?
TGV (II.3) LAUNCE: … I think crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured
LAUNCE: Why, he that’s tied here, crab, my dog.
(IV.4) LAUNCE … I, having been acquainted with the smell before knew it was crab, and goes me to the fellow that … note Crab, a very ill-bred dog, of course, is bark/barc spelled backward.
Shrew (II.1) KATHERINE: It is my fashion, when I see a crab. …
PETRUCHIO: Why, here’s no crab; and therefore look not sour. ?
LLL (IV.2) HOLOFERNES: and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra, …
MND (II.1) PUCK: And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, / In very likeness of a roasted crab, …
Hamlet (II.2) HAMLET [to Polonius]: for / yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab / you could go backward.
Lear (I.5) FOOL: for though she’s as like this as a crab’s like an … She will taste as like this as a crab does to a …
Anon. Nobody (1505) CLOWN: Oh rare! Now shall I find out crab, some notable knavery.
[refers to Sycophant, who crawls, both forward and backward.]

Time … Trifle
Lyly Endymion (III.4.96) EUM: Why do I trifle the time in words?
Shakes MV (IV.1) SHYLOCK: We trifle time: I pray thee, pursue sentence.
Pericles (II.3) SIMONIDES: Come, gentlemen, we sit too long on trifles,
And waste the time, which looks for other revels.
H8 (V.3) KING HENRY: … Come, lords, we trifle time away; …

Outward/Inward
Brooke Romeus (52): And each with outward friendly show doth hide his inward hate,
(360): Yet with an outward show of joy she cloaked inward smart;
(1324): His outward dreary cheer bewrayd his store of inward smart.
(2315-16): That by her outward look no living wight could guess
Her inward woe, and yet anew renewed is her distress.
(2893-94): My conscience inwardly should more torment me thrice,
Than all the outward deadly pain that all you could devise.
Golding Abraham (648) SARA: Both outwardly and inwardly alway,
Lyly Gallathea (V.2) HAEBE: your inward thoughts, the pomp of your outward shows.
Endy (IV.1) COR: the extremities of their inward passions are always suspected of outward perjuries.
(IV.3) TELLUS: not smother the inward fire but it must needs be perceived by the outward smoke;
Sapho (Pro.): Our intent was at this time to move inward delight, not outward lightness;
Marlowe T1 (I.2.163) TAMB: If outward habit judge the inward man.;
Shakes Rich3 (I.4) BRAK: An outward honour for an inward toil;
King John (I.1) BASTARD: Exterior form, outward accouterment,
But from the inward motion to deliver
Pericles (II.2) SIM: The outward habit by the inward man.
A&C (III.13) ENO: A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
V&A (71): Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love / That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move …
Lucrece (13): Whose inward ill no outward harm express’d:
(221) With outward honesty, but yet defiled / With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish,
Sonnet (16): Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
Sonnet (46): As thus; mine eye’s due is thy outward part,
And my heart’s right thy inward love of heart.
Anon. Ironside (I.3.45) EDM: thank not thy outward foe but inward friend;
Dodypoll (V.2): Of outward show doth sap the inward stock in substance and of worth …
L Gh. (364-65): To entertain all men (to outward show)
With inward love, for few my heart did know,
Geneva Bible 1 Sam. 16.7 For God seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord beholdeth the heart.
2 Sam.Arg … who came of David according to the flesh, and was persecuted on every side with outward and inward enemies …

Pinch him, pinch him
Lyly Endymion (IV.3.31) FAIRIES [dancing around Corsites]:
ALL: Pinch him, pinch him, black and blue.
Saucy mortals must not view
What the Queen of Stars is doing,
Nor pry into our Fairy wooing.
1 FAIRY: Pinch him blue
2 FAIRY: And pinch him black.
3 FAIRY: Let him not lack
Sharp nails to pinch him blue and red,
Till sleep has rocked his addle-head.
4 FAIRY: For the trespass he hath done,
Spots o’er all his flesh shall run.
Kiss Endymion, kiss his eyes;
Then to our midnight hay-de-guise.
Shakes MWW (V.5.92): FAIRIES [Dancing around the sleeping Falstaff]:
Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,
As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually.
Pinch him for his villainy.
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.

Honey … Surfeit
Lyly Sapho (Pro.): and in Hybla (being cloyed with honey) they account it dainty to feed on wax.
Endymion (V.1.143) ENDY: for bees surfeit sometimes with honey and the gods are glutted …
Shakes 1H4 (3.2.71-73): They surfeited with honey and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little / More than a little is by much too much.
Anon Ironside (V.2.253-59) CANUTUS: How pleasant are these speeches to my ears,
Aeolian music to my dancing heart, / Ambrosian dainties to my starved maw,
sweet-passing Nectar to my thirsty throat, / rare cullises to my sick-glutted mind,
refreshing ointments to my wearied limbs, / and heavenly physic to my earth-sick soul,
which erst was surfeited with woe and war.
Geneva Bible Prov. 25.16 … eat (honey) that is sufficient for thee, lest thou be over-full, and vomit it.

Legal term: Trial of faith
Lyly Endymion (V.3.205-06) CYNTHIA: are you content after so long trial of his faith,
Woman/Moon (II.1.146) PANDORA: Yet will I make some trial of your faith
(III.1.74) STESIAS: And blessed thou, that having tried my faith,
Anon. Willobie (XXXVIII.2): But rather take a farther day, / For further trial of my faith,
And rather make some wise delay / To see and take some farther breath;
He may too rashly be denied, / Whose faithful heart was never tried.
(XL.11): Lest tried faith for ten years’ space,
(XLV.4): If I a friend, whose faith is tried,
Geneva Bible Rev. 2.10 … the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto the death, and I will give thee the crown of life. . 1 Pet. 1.7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perisheth (though it be tried with fire) might be found unto your praise, & honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Heb. 11.17 By faith Abraham offered up Isaac, when he was tried, … James 1.3 Knowing that the trying of your faith bringeth forth patience.

Vulgar sort
Golding Ovid (Ep. 338-341): And yet there are (and those not of the rude and vulgar sort,
But such as have of godliness and learning good report)
That think the Poets took their first occasion of these things
From holy writ as from the well from whence all wisdom springs.
Watson Hek (Comments, #LXI): That the vulgar sort may the better
understand this Passion, I will briefly touch those, whom the Author / nameth herein, …
Gascoigne … Jocasta (I.1.487) CHORUS: The vulgar sort would seem for to prefer,
If glorious PhÏbe withhold his glistring rays, / From such a peer as crown and scepter sways,
Lyly Endymion (I.3.72-73) TOPHAS: Here is the musket for the untamed
or (as the vulgar sort term it) the wild mallard.
Shakes 1H6 (III.2) JOAN: These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,
Through which our policy must make a breach: / Take heed, be wary how you place your words;
Talk like the vulgar sort of market men / That come to gather money for their corn.
Nashe Pierce Penniless: Thus I answer First and foremost, they have cleansed our language from barbarism and made the vulgar sort here in London (which is the fountain whose rivers flow round about England) to aspire to a richer purity of speech, than is communicated with the Commonality of any Nation under heaven.
Anon. Willobie (VIII.6) Let not the idle vulgar voice / Of feigned credit witch thee so.
Oldcastle (I.1.112) JUDGE: When the vulgar sort
Sit on their Ale-bench, with their cups and …
Leic Gh (829-833): But flattering parasites are grown so bold
That they of princes’ matters make a sport / To please the humors of the vulgar sort,
And that poor peevish giddy headed crew, / Are prone to credit any tale untrue.
Note: Shakespeare himself was one of the ‘vulgar sort,’ or market men, that come to gather money for their corn; and a very successful one at that, reaping large profits from holding back stores of grain and then selling at a huge profit during the grain shortages of the early 1600’s, while writing Coriolanus, inveighing against that very practice. Shakespeare (through denial or ignorance of his own class) gives this speech to the highly inappropriate person of Saint Joan, the last person by birth, upbringing or temperament to harbor such thoughts. In the other works shown above, the speech is assigned to an appropriate character.

Spotless … Name
Brooke Romeus (109): Thy tears, thy wretched life, ne thine unspotted truth,
(1663): So shall no slander’s blot thy spotless life destain,
Golding Ovid (XIV.750-51): … Hail, lady mine, the flowerof pure maidenhood in all the world this hour.
Gascoigne et al Jocasta (I.1.451-52) BAILO: The voice that goeth of your unspotted fame,
Lyly Endymion (I.4) TELLUS: … seeing my love to Endymion (unspotted) be accepted, his truth to Cynthia (though it be unspeakable) may be suspected.
Shakes Rich2 (I.1) MOWBRAY: The purest treasure mortal times afford / Is spotless reputation: …(II.1) First Lord: Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless(III.3.155) Good name … / Is the immediate jewel.’ the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean, / In this which you accuse her.(III.2) WOLSEY: So much fairer / And spotless shall mine innocence arise, …(III.6.196) EMILIA: By your own spotless honor?
Munday Huntington (XI.67-68) ROBIN: Why? She is called Maid Marian, honest friend,
she lives a spotless maiden life,
Anon. Ironside (II.3.775) EDRICUS: But as for this flea-spot of dishonor,
(IV.1.1282) EDMUND: that you were doubtful of my spotless truth(gentle/courteous …):
The glory and praise that commends a spotless life
… she stands unspotted and unconqueredEmet (commendation of … ):
The glory of your Princely sex, the spotless name:
(I.4): Afflicted Susan’s spotless thought;
(I.24): And yet she holds a spotless fame.
(XXXV.5): With spotless fame that I have held, (LIV.2): A spotless name is more to me,(XIII.3): Shall hateful slander spot my name?
Geneva Bible Ecclus 41.12 Have regard to thy name; for that shall continue with thee above a thousand treasures of gold. Prov. 22.1 A good name is to be chosen above great riches … 1 Peter 1.19 But as the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb, / undefiled and without spot

Shadow … Substance
Plato ‘Fable of the Cave’ (The men at the back of the cave, see only shadows and think they are real)
Oxford (to Burghley) and Queen Elizabeth (to James I and VI) use the ‘Neo-Platonic ‘ reference in their letters. James I (and VI) Neo-Platonism was a major influence on 16th c. thought.
Oxford letter July 1581 to Lord Burghley (#18): But the world is so cunning, as of a shadow they can make a substance, and of a likelihood a truth.
Lyly Campaspe (IV.4) APELLES: will cause me to embrace thy shadow continually in mine arms, of the which by strong imagination I will make a substance.
Gallathea (III.4) DIANA: embrace clouds for Juno, the shadows of virtue instead of the substance.
Sapho (I.3.1.2.22) MOLUS: raw wordlings in matters of substance, passing wranglers about shadows.
Endymion (V.3.275-76) DIPSAS: I renounce both substance and shadow of that most horrible and hateful trade,
Woman/Moon (Pro.12-23) This, but the shadow of our author’s dream,
Argues the substance to be near at hand;
Greene Geo a Greene (III.2.119-20) GEORGE: Is this my love? Or is it but a shadow.
JENKIN: Aye, this is the shadow, but here is the substance.
Fr Bac (II.3.129) PRINCE. Made me think the shadows substances.note: within the looking glass: shown in the looking glass (a tool of necromancy) is a reflection of reality but also a warning or prophecy, that Bacon can then try to alter. Richard II deals extensively with this mirror/reality image, especially in a magnificent soliloquy by Richard. The sonnets also dwell on this as aspect of perception, as do many other works by Shakespeare.
Shakes 2H6 (I.1) SUFFOLK: To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
Of that great shadow I did represent;
MV (III.2) BASSANIO: Yet look, how far / The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprizing it, so far this shadow / Doth limp behind the substance. …
Rich2 (II.2.14-15) BUSHY: Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;
(IV.1.298-304) RICHARD: Say that again.
The shadow of my sorrow! ha! let’s see: / ‘Tis very true, my grief lies all within;
And these external manners of laments / Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul; / There lies the substance:
MWW (II.2) FORD: ‘Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Sonnet 37: Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am sufficed / And by a part of all thy glory live.
Nashe Absurdity: Young men are not so much delighted with solid substances as with painted shadows,
Anon. Nobody (560) LADY: She’s shadow;
We the true substance are: follow her those / That to our greatness dare themselves oppose.
L Gh (132-33): Under the shadow of my countenance;
The substance of the earth did make them rich;
(1529): No shadow, but the substance we embrace.
Bible: possible origin: The thoughts expressed above, with use of the word ‘shadow’ are rife in the Bible but certainly could not be attributed to any particular quotation. A very close analogy to MV and MWW, for instance, can be found in Ecclus 34.2 Who so regardeth dreams, is like him that will take hold of a shadow, and follow after the wind.

Weigh … Balance, Death, Scales
Brooke Romeus: (524-25): For pity and for dread well nigh to yield up breath.
In even balance paced are my life and eke my death,
Lyly Endymion (V.3.184-85) ENDY: Cynthia, into whose hands the balance that weigheth time and fortune are committed.
Midas (I.1) MELLA: The balance she holdeth are not to weigh the right of the cause, but the weight of the bribe.
Love’s Met. (III.2): make amends I cannot, for the gods holding the balance / in their hands,
what recompense can equally weigh with their punishments?
Marlowe T1 (V.1.41-42) GOVERNOR: Your honors, liberties and lives were weighed
In equal care and balance with our own,
Shakes Rich3 (V.3): And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!
Corio (I.6): If any think brave death outweighs bad life
2H6 (II.2.200-201): in justice equal scales, … whose rightful cause
Similar phrases in TA; John; MND (3.2.131-33), Ado; 2H4; Ham; AWEW; MM
Greene Fr Bac. (III.1.95-98) MARG: … that Margaret’s love
Hangs in th’uncertain balance of proud time; / That death shall make a discord of our thoughts?
Nashe Summers (40): Their censures we weigh not, whose / senses are not yet unswaddled.
(388-93): I like thy moderation wondrous well;
And this thy balance, weighing the white glass
And black with equal poise and steadfast hand,
A pattern is to Princes and great men, / How to weigh all estates indifferently.
Oxford Letter (July 1600, to Rbt. Cecil): … ought in equal balance, to weigh lighter than myself .
Anon. Willobie (VIII.8): I weigh not death, I fear not hell,
Geneva Bible Job 31.6 Let God weigh me in the just balance

APPENDIX III: Vocabulary, Word Formation

Compound Words: (*surely unusual): 27 words (15 nouns, 11 adj, 1 inter).
addle-head (n), base-conceited (a), beard-brush (n), bird-bolt (n), bow-wow (inter), brawn-fallen (a), chicken-peeper (n), ever-lasting (a), eye-worm (n), half-friends (n), hay-de-guise (n), heart-i-chokes (n), love-lap* (n), lady-longings* (n), love-mongers* (n), maid-in-waiting (n), never-decaying (a), never-dying (a), not-to-be-expressed (a), old-said (a), one-and-twenty (a), over-wise (a), plum-porridge (n), rabbit-sucker (n), rough-hewn (a), twelve-month (n), wished-for (a)

Words beginning with ‘con’: 36 words (16 verbs, 16 nouns, 5 adj, 1 adv).
conceal (v), conceit (n), conceited (a), conceive (v), conclude (v), conclusion (n), conditions (n), confess (v), conflict (n), confound (v), conquer (v), conquest (n), conscience (n), consent (n), consider (v), consist (v), conspire (v), constable (n), constancy (n), constant (a), construction (n), consume (v), contain (v), contemned (v), contemplation (n), contempt (n), contend (v), content (v, n, a), contention (n), contentment (n), continual (a), continually (adv), continue (v), contraction (n), contrary (a), convey (v)

Words beginning with ‘dis’: 23 words (11 verbs, 9 nouns, 5 adj)
disagreeing (v), discern (v), discontent (v), discontented (a), discontentment (n), discourse (n, v), discover (v), discretion (n), disdain (v, n), disdainful (a), disease (n), disgest (v), disgrace (n), disordered (a), dispatch (v), displeasure (n), dispute (v), dissemble (v), dissembling (n), dissolute (a), dissolve (v), distempered (a), distress (n)
Words beginning with ‘mis’: 9 words (2 verbs, 5 nouns, 2 adj).mischief (n), mischievous (a), miserable (a), misery (n), mishap (n), misrule (n), mistake (v), mistress (n), mistrust (v)

Words beginning with ‘over’: 7 words (5 verbs, 1 noun, 1 adj).
overcome (v), overflow (v), overslept (v), overtake (v), overthrow (v), overthwarts (n), over-wise (a)

Words beginning with ‘pre’: 11 words.(7 verbs, 2 noun, 1 adj, 1 adv).
prefer (v), preferment (n), prepare (v), presence (n), present (v), presently (adv), preserve (v), presume (v), presumptuous (a), prevail (v), prevent (v)

Words beginning with ‘re’: 47 words (34 verbs, 15 nouns, 1 adj).
recall (v), receive (v), recite (v), recover (v), recoverable (a), recure (n), redeem (v), reduce (v), refine (v), reform (v), refrain (v), refuse (v), regard (v), rehearse (v), reject (v), rejoice (v), relate (v), release (v), relish (n), remain (v), remedy (n), remember (v), remembrance (n), remove (v), renewing (n), renounce (v), repent (v), repetition (n), repine (v), replenish (v), report (n), request (n), require (v), resist (v), resolution (n), resolve (v), respect (v, n), restore (v), restoring (n), restrain (v), retain (v), return (v), reveal (v), revealing (n), revenge (n, v), reverence (n, v), reward (n)

Words beginning with ‘un’,’in’: 79 words 33/43/3.
(15 verbs, 11 nouns, 44 adj, 2 adv, 4 prep, 3 conj).
incantation (n), incite (v), incomparable (a), inconstant (a), increase (v), increasing (n), incredible (a), incur (v), uncurable (a), indeed (conj), indifferent (a), infected (a), infer (v), infinite (a), influence (n), ingratitude (n), inheritance (n), injure (v), injurious (a), injury (n), inordinate (a), inquire (v), inseparable (a), insomuch (conj), instant (n), instead (adv), instep (n), intended (a), interest (n), interjection (n), into (prep), intolerable (a), inward (a),
unacquainted (a), unbridled (a), uncertain (a), unconquered (a), unconstant (a), uncover (v), undo (v), unequal (a), unfaithful (a), unfit/unfitting (a), unfold (v), unfortunate (a), unhappiness (n), unhappy (a), unkind (a), unkindly (adv), unlawful (a), unless (conj), unloose (v), unmellowed (a), unmovable (a), unnatural (a), unpleasant (a), unpossible (a), unquenchable (a), unrecoverable (a), unremovable (v), unrevenged (a), unrig (v), unseemly (a), unsmoothed (a), unspeakable (a), unspotted (a), unstaunched (a), untamed (a), until (prep), unto (prep), untolerable (a), untouched (a), untruss (v), unwelcome (a), unwholesome (a), unwilling (a)
under (prep), undertook (v), understood (v)

Words ending with ‘able’: 23 words (1 noun, 22 adj).
admirable (a), agreeable (a), amiable (a), answerable (a), changeable (a), commendable (a), damnable (a), detestable (a), favorable (a), honorable (a), incurable (a), inseparable (a), intolerable (a), miserable (a), movable (a), notable (a), syllable (n), unmovable (a), unquenchable (a), unrecoverable (a), unremovable (a), unspeakable (a), untolerable (a)

Words ending with ‘less’: 7 words (6 adj, 1 conj).
blameless (a), careless (a), harmless (a), matchless (s), senseless (a), toothless (a), unless (conj)

Words ending with ‘ness’ (*surely unusual): 47 words (47 nouns).
amiableness (n), bigness (a), bitterness (n), brightness (n), coyness (n), darkness (n), fairness (n), falseness (n), fullness (n), goodness (n), greatness (n), grossness (n), hardness (n), heaviness (n), highness (n), lightness (n), litherness* (n), looseness (n), madness (n), meanness (n), mildness (n), numbness (n), paleness (n), quickness (n), readiness (n), redness (n), sickness (n), simpleness (n), slackness (n), smoothness (n), softness (n), sourness (n), stiffness (n), strangeness (n), sweetness (n), tediousness (n), thickness (n), thinness (n), weakness (n), weariness (n), wickedness (n), strangeness (n), sweetness (n), tediousness* (n), unhappiness (n), wickedness (n), witness (n)