HUNCAMUNCA, CLEORA, MUSTACHA.
_Hunc._ Give me some music--see that it be sad.[118]
CLEORA _sings_.
Cupid, ease a love-sick maid,
Bring thy quiver to her aid;
With equal ardour wound the swain;
Beauty should never sigh in vain.
Let him feel the pleasing smart,
Drive the arrow through his heart:
When one you wound, you then destroy;
When both you kill, you kill with joy.
_Hunc._ O Tom Thumb! Tom Thumb! wherefore art thou Tom Thumb?[119]
Why hadst thou not been born of royal race?
Why had not mighty Bantam been thy father?
Or else the King of Brentford, old or new!
_Must._ I am surprised that your highness can give yourself a moment's
uneasiness about that little insignificant fellow, Tom Thumb the
Great[120]--one properer for a plaything than a husband. Were he my
husband his horns should be as long as his body. If you had fallen in
love with a grenadier, I should not have wondered at it. If you had
fallen in love with something; but to fall in love with nothing!
_Hunc._ Cease, my Mustacha, on thy duty cease.
The zephyr, when in flowery vales it plays,
Is not so soft, so sweet as Thummy's breath.
The dove is not so gentle to its mate.
_Must._ The dove is every bit as proper for a husband.--Alas! madam,
there's not a beau about the court looks so little like a man. He is a
perfect butterfly, a thing without substance, and almost without shadow
too.
_Hunc._ This rudeness is unseasonable: desist;
Or I shall think this railing comes from love.
Tom Thumb's a creature of that charming form,
That no one can abuse, unless they love him.
_Must._ Madam, the king.