John Lyly

“ 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.
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. ”

“ 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 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? ”

“ Thus, madam, in all the 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 life? Speak, Endymion. I will not revenge it with hate. ”

“ Hast thou forgotten both friendship and duty, care of Endymion and the commandment of Cynthia? 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 the men to the women is a thing common, and of course ”

“ 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 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 melancholy passions, careless behavior, untamed thoughts, and unbridled affections. ”

“ 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 Highness, be termed love. ”

“ GERON: Eumenides, release Endymion; for all the things, friendship is being excepted, are the subject to fortune. Love is but an eye-worm, which only tickleth the head with the hopes and the 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, colors and life, so the 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ CYNTHIA: Is it possible, Tellus, that so few years should harbor so many mischiefs? Thy swelling pride have I borne 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 the 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. [Turning to Dipsas.] ”

“ Tell me, Eumenides, what is he that, having a mistress of ripe 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. ”

“ ENDYMION: [Kneeling happily on the ground with jeweled hands clasped in a prayer while gazing loving upon the Moon.] 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. ”

“ 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 the other creatures, according to their states, with myself. For the 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 the vessels that run over. ”

“ 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. ”

“ FLOSCULA: Corsites, I would Tellus saw your amiable face.
[Corsites rubs out his spots with lunary from the bank. Semele laughs.]
ZONTES: [Pointing his finger at her.] How spitefully Semele laugheth, that dare not speak!
CYNTHIA: Could you not stir Endymion with that doubled strength of yours?
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. ”

“ TELLUS: No comparison, Floscula? And why so? Is not my 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? ”

“ 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 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? ”

“ 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? ”

“ But know thou, Dipsas, and let all the enchanters know, that Cynthia, being placed for the light on earth, is also protected by the powers of heaven. 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ GYPTES: With Pythagoras, that it is enchantment, and that so strange that no art can undo it, for that heaviness argueth a malice unremovable in the enchantress, and that no power can end it until 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. ”

“ Tell me, Floscula, if falseness in love can possibly be punished with extremity of hate. As long as a 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 unequal beholders of injuries or laughers at lovers' deceits, then let mischief be as well forgiven in women as perjury winked at in men. ”

“ EPITON: Stay, Master, you forget yourself.
TOPHAS: O, Epiton, even as a dish melteth by the fire, so doth my wit increase by love.
EPITON: Pithily, and to the purpose. But what, begin you to nod?
TOPHAS: Good Epiton, 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. ”

“ EUMENIDES: Be the 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 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, so that hast not, nor once darest not, to name her for discontenting her. Unhappy Eumenides! ”