Act I, Scene I

Enter a Gentleman, disheveled, before his looking glass

Gentleman (soliloquy): What fool was I, in morning’s hasty light,
To reach with bleary eyes toward my shelf,
And seize what seemed to promise coiffure bright—
Yet served instead to medicine myself!

O treacherous jar! O pot of minty woe!
That masqueraded as pomade most fine,
When ’twas but balm for congestion’s flow,
Meant not for locks but lungs of mortal design.

My scalp doth tingle with medicinal fire,
Each follicle stands sentinel and straight,
As if my very hair doth now aspire
To clear the passages of breathing’s gate.

Behold! Though sinuses remain unstirred,
My nose-hair stands in ranks, all neatly groomed—
A forest trim’d by error’s willing word,
Where vanity and vapor have consumed!

What strange alchemy is this,
that in mistake I’ve found a beauty treatment most divine? Though lungs stay stopped, my nostril-mane doth wake
To splendor that would make the gods repine!

[Aside to audience] 
Thus learn we all:
when Fortune plays her jest,
Sometimes ’tis folly that
serves beauty best!

FINIS

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“Wherein a simple error doth transform both appearance and understanding, proving that even in confusion may be found unexpected grace.”