Act V. Scene V.
ARETE, CRITES.
CRITES, you must prouide strait for a masque,
'Tis CYNTHIAS pleasure.
CRI.
How, bright ARETE!
Why, 'twere a labour more for HERCVLES.
Better, and sooner durst I vnder-take
To make the different seasons of the yeere,
The windes, or elements to sympathize,
Then their vnmeasurable vanitie
Dance truely in a measure. They agree?
What though all concord's borne of contraries?
So many follies will confusion proue,
And like a sort of jarring instruments,
All out of time: because (indeede) we see
There is not that analogie, twixt discords,
As betweene things but meerely opposite.
ARE.
There is your error. For as HERMES wand
Charmes the disorders of tumultuous ghosts,
And as the strife of Chaos then did cease,
When better light then Natures did arriue:
So, what could neuer in it selfe agree,
Forgetteth the eccentrike propertie,
And at her sight, turnes forth-with regular,
Whose scepter guides the flowing Ocean.
And though it did not, yet the most of them
(Being either courtiers, or not wholy rude)
Respect of maiestie, the place, and presence,
Will keepe them within ring; especially
When they are not presented as themselues,
But masqu'd like others. For (in troth) not so
T'incorporate them, could be nothing else,
Then like a state vngouern'd without lawes;
Or body made of nothing but diseases:
The one, through impotency poore, and wretched,
The other, for the anarchie absurd.
CRI.
But, ladie, for the reuellers themselues,
It would be better (in my poore conceit)
That others were imploid: for such as are
Vnfit to be in CYNTHIAES court, can seeme
No lesse vnfit to be in CYNTHIAES sports.