There was likewise a merry song made, which, (to make their Revells more fashionable,) was sung with a Corus, every man bearing his part; which they performed in a daunce, hand in hand about the Maypole, whiles one of the Company sung and filled out the good liquor, like gammedes and Iupiter.
_Cor. Drinke and be merry, merry, merry boyes; Let all your delight be in the Hymens ioyes; Jô to Hymen, now the day is come, About the merry Maypole take Roome. Make greene garlons, bring bottles out And fill sweet Nectar freely about. { 135} Vncover thy head and feare no harme For hers good liquor to keepe it warme. Then drinke and be merry, &c. Iô to Hymen, &c. Nectar is a thing assign’d By the Deities owne minde To cure the hart opprest with greife, And of good liquors is the cheife. Then drinke, &c. Iô to Hymen, &c._
_Give to the Mellancolly man A cup or two of ’t now and than; This physick will soone revive his bloud, And make him be of a merrier moode. Then drinke, &c. Iô to Hymen, &c. Give to the Nymphe thats free from scorne No Irish stuff nor Scotch over worne. Lasses in beaver coast come away, Yee shall be welcome to us night and day. To drinke and be merry &c. Jô to Hymen, &c._
This harmeles mirth made by younge men, (that lived in hope to have wifes brought over to them, that would save them a laboure to make a voyage to fetch any over,) was much distasted of the precise Seperatists, that keepe much a doe about the tyth of Muit and Cummin, troubling their braines more then reason would require about things that are indifferent: and from that time sought occasion against my { 136} honest Host of Ma-re Mount, to overthrow his ondertakings and to destroy his plantation quite and cleane. But because they presumed with their imaginary gifts, (which they have out of Phaos box,[487]) they could expound hidden misteries, to convince them of blindnes, as well in this as in other matters of more consequence, I will illustrate the poem, according to the true intent of the authors of these Revells, so much distasted by those Moles.
Oedipus is generally receaved for the absolute reader of riddles, who is invoaked: Silla and Caribdis are two dangerous places for seamen to incounter, neere unto Vennice; and have bin by poets formerly resembled to man and wife. The like licence the author challenged for a paire of his nomination, the one lamenting for the losse of the other as Niobe for her children. Amphitrite is an arme of the Sea, by which the newes was carried up and downe of a rich widow, now to be tane up or laid downe. By Triton is the fame spread that caused the Suters to muster, (as it had bin to Penellope of Greece;) and, the Coast lying circuler, all our passage to and froe is made more convenient by Sea then Land. Many aimed at this marke; but hee that played Proteus best and could comply with her humor must be the man that would carry her; and hee had need have Sampsons strenght to deale with a Dallila, and as much patience as Iob that should come there, for a thing that I did observe in the life-time of the former.