THE BLOODY BROTHER; OR, ROLLO, DUKE OF
NORMANDY.*
DRINK to-day, and drown all sorrow,
You shall perhaps not do it to-morrow:
Best, while you have it, use your breath;
There is no drinking after death.
Wine works the heart up, wakes the wit,
There is no cure 'gainst age but it:
It helps the head-ach, cough, and ptisick,
And is for all diseases physick.
Then let us swill, boys, for our health;
Who drinks well, loves the commonwealth.†
And he that will to bed go sober
Falls with the leaf, still in October.
* The sole authorship of this play by Fletcher is doubtful, although ascribed to him on the title-page of the edition of 1640. Parts of it are supposed, on internal evidence, to have been written by some other dramatist.-Weber suggests either W. Rowley or Middleton.
This defence of drinking is repeated and expanded in a song by Shadwell.
The following well-known catch, or glee, is formed on this song:
'He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,
Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;
But he who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,
Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow.'
SONG OF THE YEOMAN OF THE CELLAR, THE BUTLER, THE COOK, AND PAUL THE PANTLER* GOING TO EXECUTION.
COME, Fortune's a jade, I care not who tell her,
Would offer to strangle a page of the cellar,
That should by his oath, to any man's thinking,
And place, have had a defence for his drinking;
But thus she does still when she pleases to palter,—
Instead of his wages, she gives him a halter.
Three merry boys, and three merry boys,
And three merry boys are we,
As ever did sing in a hempen string
Under the gallows tree!
But I that was so lusty,
And ever kept my bottles,
That neither they were musty,
And seldom less than pottles;
For me to be thus stopped now,
With hemp instead of cork, sir,
And from the gallows lopped now,
Shews that there is a fork, sir,
In death, and this the token;
Man may be two ways killed,
Or like the bottle broken,
Or like the wine be spilled.
Chorus.-Three merry boys, &c.
Oh, yet but look
On the master cook,
The Pantler was the servant who had charge of the pantry.
The glory of the kitchen,
In sewing whose fate,
At so lofty a rate,
No tailor e'er had stitch in;
For, though he made the man,
The cook yet makes the dishes,
The which no tailor can,
Wherein I have my wishes,
That I, who at so many a feast
Have pleased so many tasters,
Should now myself come to be dressed,
A dish for you, my masters.
Chorus.-Three merry boys, &c.
Oh, man or beast,
Or you, at least,
That wears or brow or antler,
Prick up your ears
Unto the tears
Of me, poor Paul the Pantler,
That thus am clipped
Because I chipped
The cursed crust of treason
With loyal knife:
Oh, doleful strife,
To hang thus without reason!
Chorus.-Three merry boys, &c.
TAKE, OH! TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY.
AKE, oh! take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn,
And those eyes, like break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn!
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, though sealed in vain.
Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are yet of those that April wears!
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.*
A WIFE FOR A MONTH.t
ET those complain that feel Love's cruelty,
And in sad legends write their woes;
With roses gently h' has corrected me,
My war is without rage or blows:
My mistress' eyes shine fair on my desires,
And hope springs up inflamed with her new fires.
No more an exile will I dwell,
With folded arms, and sighs all day,
Reckoning the torments of my hell,
And flinging my sweet joys away:
I am called home again to quiet peace;
My mistress smiles, and all my sorrows cease.
*The first stanza of this song is found in Measure for Measure.— See ante, p. 95. The origin of both verses may be traced to the fragment Ad Lydiam, ascribed to Cornelius Gallus. The following are the corresponding passages, which discover a resemblance too close to have been merely accidental:
'Pande, Puella, geneas roseas,
Perfusas rubro purpureæ tyriæ.
Porrige labra, labra corallina ;
Da columbatim mitia basia:
Sugis amentis partem animi.—
Sinus expansa profert cinnama;
Undique surgunt ex te delicia.
Conde papillas, quæ me sauciant
Candore, et luxu nivei pectoris.'
The English version of the second of these passages, by the translator
of Secundus, is still nearer to Fletcher's song.
Yet, what is living in her eye,
Or being blessed with her sweet tongue,
If these no other joys imply?
A golden gyve, a pleasing wrong:
To be your own but one poor month, I'd give
My youth, my fortune, and then leave to live.
THE LOVERS' PROGRESS.*
THE SONG OF THE DEAD HOST.
IS late and cold; stir up the fire;
Sit close, and draw the table nigher;
merry, and drink wine that's old,
A hearty medicine 'gainst a cold:
Your beds of wanton down the best,
Where you shall tumble to your rest;
I could wish you wenches too,
But I am dead, and cannot do.
Call for the best the house may ring,
Sack, white, and claret, let them bring,
And drink apace, while breath you have;
You'll find but cold drink in the grave:
Plover, partridge, for your dinner,
And a capon for the sinner,
You shall find ready when you're up,
And your horse shall have his sup:
Welcome, welcome, shall fly round,
And I shall smile, though under ground.
NEPTUNE COMMANDING STILLNESS ON THE SEA.
DOWN, ye angry waters all!
Ye loud whistling whirlwinds, fall!
Down, ye proud waves! ye storms, cease!
I command ye, be at peace!
* One of the pieces left unfinished by Fletcher, and completed by another writer-supposed to be Shirley, or Massinger.
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