O Nature, green, unatural mother

Libretto/Lyrics/Text/Testo:

Recitative

Oh, nature,
green unnatural mother,
how I have followed
where you led.
Is it for this I left the country?
No ploughman is more a slave
to sun, moon, and season
than a gentleman to the clock of fashion.
City!
What Caesar could have imagined
the curious viands I have tasted!.
They choke me.
Let Oporto and Provence
keep all their precious wines.
I would as soon be dry
and wrinkled as a raisin
as ever taste another.
Cards! Living pictures!
And, dear God, the matrons
with marriageable girls!.
Cover their charms a little,
you well-bred bawds,
or your goods will catch their death
of the rheum long before they learn
of the green sickness.
The others, too,
with their more candid charms.
Pah!
Who's honest, chaste, or kind?
One, only one, and of her I dare not think.

(He stands up)

Up, nature, up!
The hunt is on,
thy pack is in full cry!
They smell the blood upon the bracing air.
On, on, on!
Through every street and mansion,
for every candle in this capital of light
attends thy appetising progress
and burns in honour at thy shrine.