Avarice' talons, and the fire of hate,
Would poison, wound, distract, and soon consume
The heart, the liver, life, and mind of man.
The sturdy mower, that with brawny arms
Wieldeth the crooked scythe, in many a swath
Cutting the flowery pride on velvet plain,
Lies down at night, and in the weird[316] folds
Of his wife's arms forgets his labour past.
The painful mariner and careful smith,
The toiling ploughman, all artificers,
Most humbly yield to my dominion:
Without due rest nothing is durable.
Lo, thus doth Somnus conquer all the world
With his most awful wand, and half the year
Reigns o'er the best and proudest emperors.
Only the nurslings of the Sisters nine
Rebel against me, scorn my great command;
And when dark night from her bedewed[317] wings
Drops sleepy silence to the eyes of all,
They only wake, and with unwearied toil
Labour to find the _Via Lactea_,
That leads to the heaven of immortality;
And by the lofty towering of their minds,
Fledg'd with the feathers of a learned muse,
They raise themselves unto the highest pitch,
Marrying base earth and heaven in a thought.
But thus I punish their rebellion:
Their industry was never yet rewarded:
Better to sleep, than wake and toil for nothing.

[_Exeunt_ SOMNUS _and_ CRAPULA.

SCAENA DECIMA SEPTIMA.

_The five Senses_, LINGUA, APPETITUS, _all asleep
and dreaming_; PHANTASTES, HEURESIS.

AUD. So ho, Rockwood;[318] so ho, Rockwood; Rockwood, your organ: eh,
Chanter, Chanter; by Acteon's head-tire, it's a very deep-mouthed dog,
a most admirable cry of hounds. Look here, again, again: there, there,
there! ah, ware counter![319]

VIS. Do you see the full moon yonder, and not the man in it? why,
methinks 'tis too-too evident: I see his dog very plain, and look you,
just under his tail is a thorn-bush of furze.

GUS. 'Twill make a fine toothpick, that lark's heel there: O, do not
burn it.

PHA. Boy Heuresis, what think'st thou I think, when I think nothing?

HEU. And it please you, sir, I think you are devising how to answer a
man that asks you nothing.

PHA. Well-guessed, boy; but yet thou mistook'st it, for I was thinking
of the constancy of women[320]. [APPETITUS _snores aloud_.] Beware,
sirrah, take heed; I doubt me there's some wild boar lodged hereabout.
How now? methinks these be the Senses; ha? in my conceit the elder
brother of death has kissed them.

TAC. O, O, O, I am stabbed, I am stabbed; hold your hand, O,