Vulgar words in The Growth of English Drama (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 949 ~ ~ ~
(Ben Jonson's _The Devil is an Ass_.)
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From this point onwards the drama rings with the rough drinking songs, pious hymns, and sweet lyrics of the buffoon, the preacher, and the lover.
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The character of Ralph Roister Doister, 'a vain-glorious, cowardly blockhead', as the list of dramatis personae has it, is thoroughly well done: his heavy love-sighs, his confident elation, his distrust, his gullibility, his ups and downs and contradictions, are all in the best comic vein.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,568 ~ ~ ~
While commonly refining the language, he was not above borrowing thought as well as incident--even for the famous lines by the Bastard, Faulconbridge, closing _King John_.
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[PHILIP (_the_ BASTARD), _fallen into a trance of thought, speaks aside to himself._] _Quo me rapit tempestas?_ What wind of honour blows this fury forth?
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_Samias._ Nay, you are all mass and ass.
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Am I all ass?
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Thus we have such stage-directions as, 'Enter Ver, with his train, overlaid with suits of green moss, representing short grass, singing': 'Enter Harvest, with a scythe on his neck, and all his reapers with sickles, and a great black bowl with a posset in it, borne before him: they come in singing': 'Enter Bacchus, riding upon an ass trapped in ivy, himself dressed in vine leaves, and a garland of grapes on his head; his companions having all jacks in their hands, and ivy garlands on their heads; they come singing.'
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While Bell'-Imperia and Horatio are making love together by night in a garden-bower, Lorenzo, Balthazar and two servants (Serberine and Pedringano) surprise them and hang Horatio to a tree beside the entrance.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,462 ~ ~ ~
The merchant sees to the unloading of his goods at the quay, the boatman urges his ferry to and fro, the apprentice takes down his shutters, the groom makes love to the serving-maid, travellers meeting on the road halt for a chat and part with no more serious word spoken than a hearty invitation to dine; on all sides life is seen flowing in the ordinary current, with nothing worse than a piece of malicious tittle-tattle to disturb the calmness of the surface.
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_Devil is an Ass, The_, 71.