Dione. A Pastoral Tragedy - Act 4, Scene 5

SCENE V.

LYCIDAS.

My troubled heart what dire disasters rend!
A scornful mistress, and a treach'rous friend!
Would ye be cozen'd, more than woman can;
Unlock your bosom to perfidious man.
One faithful woman have these eyes beheld,
And against her this perjur'd heart rebell'd:
But search as far as earth's wide bounds extend,
Where shall the wretched find one faithful friend?

I have a lot to say about myself,
Anent low matters centering in pelf?
" Must you remind us that all art is trade?
What has the artist's self to do with what he has made?"
Upon that you may be enlightened on the spot.
No artist can " be himself" and boil-the-pot.
Withhold from him all sources of supply
Infallibly that art-man comes to die.
If, subtler than that, you sabotage
His efforts to expand himself at large
And hold him back from markets and from men,
Abroad, you've got him screwed down in his pen.
It's no joke if the New York market's blocked,
Aside from fame, if that big door is locked,
And Germans dissuaded too from making me
An english author " known in Germany",
That is a shrewd ill-turn to say the least.
The excuse is I'm a sort of savage beast —
Too easy is that explanation though.
Nor will the pure-commerce cry exactly do.
(There is no pure-commerce as there is no " pure art".
Romance unbleakens the most hard-boiled heart.)
There are more things in heaven and earth than these,
But do not ask me to describe them please.
It is enough that no man you can name
Has had so much to huckster for mere fame.
So I'm driven to conclude there's something else.
But what it is I cannot guess — it smells
Extremely like a rat, but what's the use
Of hunting this fishy rodent where it chews!
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