ACADEMICO.
Go happily; I wish thee store of gall
Sharply to wound the guilty world withal.
PHILOMUSUS.
But say, what shall become of Furor and Phantasma?
INGENIOSO.
These my companions still with me must wend.
ACADEMICO.
Fury and Fancy on good wits attend.
FUROR.
When I arrive within the Isle of Dogs,
Dan Phoebus, I will make thee kiss the pump.
Thy one eye pries in every draper’s stall,
Yet never thinks on poet Furor’s need.
Furor is lousy, great Furor lousy is;
I’ll make thee rue[135] this lousy case, i-wis.
And thou, my sluttish[136] laundress, Cynthia,
Ne’er think’st on Furor’s linen,
Furor’s shirt.
Thou and thy squirting boy Endymion
Lies slav’ring still upon a lawless couch.
Furor will have thee carted through the dirt,
That mak’st great poet Furor want his shirt.
INGENIOSO.
Is not here a trusty[137] dog, that dare bark so boldly
at the moon?
PHILOMUSUS.
Exclaiming want, and needy care and cark,
Would make the mildest sprite to bite and bark.
PHANTASMA. Canes timidi vehementius latrant. There are certain burrs in the Isle of Dogs called, in our English tongue, men of worship; certain briars, as the Indians call them; as we say, certain lawyers; certain great lumps of earth, as the Arabians call them; certain grocers, as we term them. Quos ego—sed motos praestat componere fluctus.
INGENIOSO.
We three unto the snarling island haste,
And there our vexed breath in snarling waste.
PHILOMUSUS.
We will be gone unto the downs of Kent,
Sure footing we shall find in humble dale;
Our fleecy flock we’ll learn to watch and ward,
In July’s heat, and cold of January.
We’ll chant our woes upon an oaten reed,
Whiles bleating flock upon their supper feed.
STUDIOSO.
So shall we shun the company of men,
That grows more hateful, as the world grows old.
We’ll teach the murm’ring brooks in tears
to flow,
And steepy rock to wail our passed woe.
ACADEMICO.
Adieu, you gentle spirits, long adieu;
Your wits I love, and your ill-fortunes rue.
I’ll haste me to my Cambridge cell again;
My fortunes cannot wax, but they may wain.
INGENIOSO.
Adieu, good shepherds; happy may you live.
And if hereafter in some secret shade
You shall recount poor scholars’ miseries,
Vouchsafe to mention with tear-swelling eyes
Ingenioso’s thwarting destinies.
And thou, still happy Academico,
That still may’st rest upon the muses’
bed,
Enjoying there a quiet slumbering,
When thou repair’st[138] unto thy Granta’s
stream,
Wonder at thine own bliss, pity our case,
That still doth tread ill-fortune’s endless
maze;
Wish them, that are preferment’s almoners,
To cherish gentle wits in their green bud;
For had not Cambridge been to me unkind,
I had not turn’d to gall a milky mind.