. Why. this is better than I could have wish'd it;
Fortune, I think, is fallen in love with me,
Answering so right my expectation.
By this time Appetite is at the table,
And with a lowly cringe presents the wine
To his old master Gustus; now he takes it,
And drinks, perchance, to Lingua; she craftily
Kisses the cup, but lets not down a drop,
And gives it to the rest: 'tis sweet, they'll swallow it:
But when 'tis once descended to the stomach,
And sends up noisome vapours to the brain,
'Twill make them swagger gallantly; they'll rage
Most strangely, or Acrasia's art deceives her;
When if my lady stir her nimble tongue,
And closely sow contentious words amongst them,
O, what a stabbing there will be! what bleeding!

SCAENA QUARTA.

LINGUA, MENDACIO.

LIN. What, art thou there, Mendacio? pretty rascal!
Come let me kiss thee for thy good deserts.

MEN. Madam, does't take? Have they all tasted it?

LIN. All, all, and all are well-nigh mad already.
O, how they stare and swear, and fume, and brawl!
Wrath gives them weapons; pots and candlesticks,
Joint stools and trenchers, fly about the room,
Like to the bloody banquet of the centaurs.
But all the sport's to see what several thoughts
The potion works in their imaginations.
For Visus thinks himself a ----, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

SCAENA QUINTA.

APPETITUS, MENDACIO, LINGUA.

APP. So ho, Mendacio! so ho, so ho!

MEN. Madam, I doubt they come; yonder is Appetitus. You had best be
gone, lest in their outrage they should injure you. [_Exit_ LINGUA.]
How now, Hunger? How dost thou, my fine maypole, ha?

APP. I may well be called a maypole, for the Senses do nothing but dance
a morrice about me.

MEN. Why, what ails them? Are they not (as I promised thee) friends with
thee?

APP. Friends with me! nay, rather frenzy. I never knew them in such a
case in all my life.

MEN. Sure, they drank too much, and are mad for love of thee.

APP. They want Common Sense amongst them. There's such a hurlyburly.
Auditus is stark deaf, and wonders why men speak so softly that he
cannot hear them. Visus hath drunk himself stark blind, and therefore
imagineth himself to be Polyphemus. Tactus is raging mad, and cannot be
otherwise persuaded but he is Hercules _furens_. There's such conceits
amongst them.

SCAENA SEXTA.

VISUS, APPETITUS, MENDACIO.

VIS. O, that I could but find the villain Outis[302],
Outis the villain, that thus blinded me!