his praise of rustic sports calls forth from Friar Tuck the well-known diatribe against the ’sourer sort of shepherds,’ in which Jonson vented his bitterness against the hypocritical pretensions of the puritan reformers—­a passage which yields, in biting satire, neither to his own presentation in the Alchemist nor to Quarles’ scathing burlesque quoted on an earlier page.  As they discourse they become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them.  He talks to himself like a madman.

              It will be rare, rare, rare! 
    An exquisite revenge:  but peace, no words! 
    Not for the fairest fleece of all the Flock: 
    If it be knowne afore, ’tis all worth nothing! 
    Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe,
    On every greene sworth, and in every path,
    Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent;
    There will I knock the story in the ground,
    In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round,
    Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown’d;
    And with the plenty of salt teares there shed,
    Quite alter the complexion of the Spring. 
    Or I will get some old, old Grandam thither,
    Whose rigid foot but dip’d into the water,
    Shall strike that sharp and suddaine cold throughout,
    As it shall loose all vertue; and those Nimphs,
    Those treacherous Nimphs pull’d in Earine;
    Shall stand curl’d up, like Images of Ice;
    And never thaw! marke, never! a sharpe Justice. 
    Or stay, a better! when the yeares at hottest,
    And that the Dog-starre fomes, and the streame boiles,
    And curles, and workes, and swells ready to sparkle;
    To fling a fellow with a Fever in,
    To set it all on fire, till it burne,
    Blew as Scamander, ’fore the walls of Troy,
    When Vulcan leap’d in to him, to consume him. (I. v.)

Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring.  At this his distracted fancy breaks out afresh: 

    A Spring, now she is dead:  of what, of thornes? 
    Briars, and Brambles?  Thistles?  Burs, and Docks? 
    Cold Hemlock?  Yewgh? the Mandrake, or the Boxe? 
    These may grow still; but what can spring betide? 
    Did not the whole Earth sicken, when she died? 
    As if there since did fall one drop of dew,
    But what was wept for her! or any stalke
    Did beare a Flower! or any branch a bloome,
    After her wreath was made.  In faith, in faith,
    You doe not faire, to put these things upon me,
    Which can in no sort be:  Earine,
    Who had her very being, and her name,
    With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring,
    Borne with the Primrose, and the Violet,
    Or earliest Roses blowne:  when Cupid smil’d,
    And Venus led the Graces out to dance,
    And all the Flowers, and Sweets