do not you know my pretty soul? I know you: Is not your name
Matheo?
_Mat._ Yes, lamb.
_Bell._ Baa lamb! there you lie, for I am mutton.[226]--Look,
fine man! he was mad for me once, and I was mad for him once,
and he was mad for her once, and were you never mad? Yes, I
warrant; I had a fine jewel once, a very fine jewel, and that
naughty man stole it away from me,--a very fine and a rich jewel.
[226] _i.e._ A wench, a prostitute.
_Duke._ What jewel, pretty maid?
_Bell._ Maid? nay, that’s a lie: O, ’twas a very rich jewel,
called a maidenhead, and had not you it, leerer?
_Mat._ Out, you mad ass! away.
_Duke._ Had he thy maidenhead?
He shall make thee amends, and marry thee.
_Bell._ Shall he? O brave Arthur of Bradley[227] then?
[227] An allusion to a ballad of that name.
_Duke._ And if he bear the mind of a gentleman,
I know he will.
_Mat._ I think I rifled her of some such paltry jewel.
_Duke._ Did you? Then marry her; you see the wrong
Has led her spirits into a lunacy.
_Mat._ How? marry her, my lord? ’Sfoot, marry a madwoman? Let
a man get the tamest wife he can come by, she’ll be mad enough
afterward, do what he can.
_Duke._ Nay then, Father Anselmo here shall do his best,
To bring her to her wits; and will you then?
_Mat._ I cannot tell, I may choose.
_Duke._ Nay, then, law shall compel: I tell you, sir,
So much her hard fate moves me, you should not breathe
Under this air, unless you married her.
_Mat._ Well, then, when her wits stand in their right place,
I’ll marry her.
_Bell._ I thank your grace.--Matheo, thou art mine:
I am not mad, but put on this disguise,
Only for you, my lord; for you can tell
Much wonder of me, but you are gone: farewell.
Matheo, thou didst first turn my soul black,
Now make it white again: I do protest,
I’m pure as fire now, chaste as Cynthia’s breast.
_Hip._ I durst be sworn, Matheo, she’s indeed.
_Mat._ Cony-catched, gulled, must I sail in your fly-boat,
Because I helped to rear your main-mast first?
Plague ’found[228] you for’t, ’tis well.
The cuckold’s stamp goes current in all nations,
Some men ha’ horns giv’n them at their creations,
If I be one of those, why so: ’tis better
To take a common wench, and make her good,
Than one that simpers, and at first will scarce
Be tempted forth over the threshold door,
Yet in one se’nnight, zounds, turns arrant whore!
Come wench, thou shalt be mine, give me thy golls,[229]
We’ll talk of legs hereafter.--See, my lord,
God give us joy!
[228] _i.e._ Confound.
[229] Hands.
_All._ God give you joy!
_Enter_ VIOLA _and_ GEORGE.
_Geo._ Come mistress, we are in Bedlam now; mass and see, we
come in pudding-time, for here’s the duke.
_Vio._ My husband, good my lord.
_Duke._ Have I thy husband?
_Cast._ It’s Candido, my lord, he’s here among the lunatics:
Father Anselmo, pray fetch him forth. [_Exit_ ANSELMO.]
This mad woman is his wife, and though she were not with child,
yet did she long most spitefully to have her husband mad: and
because she would be sure he should turn Jew, she placed him
here in Bethlem. Yonder he comes.
_Enter_ ANSELMO _with_ CANDIDO.
_Duke._ Come hither, signor; are you mad?
_Cand._ You are not mad.
_Duke._ Why, I know that.
_Cand._ Then may you know I am not mad, that know
You are not mad, and that you are the duke:
None is mad here but one.--How do you, wife?
What do you long for now?--Pardon, my lord:
She had lost her child’s nose else: I did cut out
Pennyworths of lawn, the lawn was yet mine own:
A carpet was my gown, yet ’twas mine own:
I wore my man’s coat, yet the cloth mine own:
Had a cracked crown, the crown was yet mine own.
She says for this I’m mad: were her words true,
I should be mad indeed: O foolish skill![230]
Is patience madness? I’ll be a madman still.
[230] _i.e._ Reason.
_Vio._ Forgive me, and I’ll vex your spirit no more. [_Kneels._
_Duke._ Come, come, we’ll have you friends; join hearts, join
hands.
_Cand._ See, my lord, we are even,--
Nay rise, for ill deeds kneel unto none but Heaven.
_Duke._ Signor, methinks patience has laid on you
Such heavy weight, that you should loathe it----
_Cand._ Loathe it!
_Duke._ For he whose breast is tender, blood so cool,
That no wrongs heat it, is a patient fool:
What comfort do you find in being so calm?
_Cand._ That which green wounds receive from sovereign balm,
Patience, my lord! why, ’tis the soul of peace;
Of all the virtues, ’tis nearest kin to Heaven.
It makes men look like gods. The best of men
That e’er wore earth about him, was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
The stock of patience then cannot be poor;
All it desires, it has; what monarch more?
It is the greatest enemy to law
That can be; for it doth embrace all wrongs,
And so chains up lawyers and women’s tongues.
’Tis the perpetual prisoner’s liberty,
His walks and orchards: ’tis the bond slave’s freedom,
And makes him seem proud of each iron chain,
As though he wore it more for state than pain:
It is the beggars’ music, and thus sings,
Although their bodies beg, their souls are kings.
O my dread liege! It is the sap of bliss
Rears us aloft, makes men and angels kiss.
And last of all, to end a household strife,
It is the honey ’gainst a waspish wife.
_Duke._ Thou giv’st it lively colours: who dare say
He’s mad, whose words march in so good array?
’Twere sin all women should such husbands have,
For every man must then be his wife’s slave.
Come, therefore, you shall teach our court to shine,
So calm a spirit is worth a golden mine,
Wives with meek husbands that to vex them long,
In Bedlam must they dwell, else dwell they wrong. [_Exeunt omnes._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_THE HONEST WHORE._
[Illustration]
_PART THE SECOND._
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _DRAMATIS PERSONÆ._]
GASPARO TREBAZZI, Duke of Milan.
HIPPOLITO, a Count, Husband of INFELICE.
ORLANDO FRISCOBALDO, Father of BELLAFRONT.
MATHEO, Husband of BELLAFRONT.
CANDIDO, a Linen Draper.
LODOVICO SFORZA.
BERALDO.
CAROLO.
FONTINELL.
ASTOLFO.
ANTONIO GEORGIO, a poor Scholar.
BRYAN, an Irish Footman.
BOTS, a Pander.
Masters of Bridewell, Prentices, Servants, &c.
INFELICE, Wife of HIPPOLITO.
BELLAFRONT, Wife of MATHEO.
CANDIDO’S Bride.
Mistress HORSELEECH, a Bawd.
DOROTHEA TARGET, }
PENELOPE WHOREHOUND, } Harlots.
CATHARINA BOUNTINALL, }
SCENE--MILAN.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_THE HONEST WHORE._
_PART THE SECOND._
ACT THE FIRST.
SCENE I.--_A Hall in_ HIPPOLITO’S _House_.
_On one side enter_ BERALDO, CAROLO, FONTINELL, _and_ ASTOLFO, _with
~Serving-men~, or ~Pages~, attending on them; on the other side enter_
LODOVICO.
LOD. Good day, gallants.
_All._ Good morrow, sweet Lodovico.
_Lod._ How dost thou, Carolo?
_Car._ Faith, as the physicians do in a plague, see the world
sick, and am well myself.
_Fon._ Here’s a sweet morning, gentlemen.
_Lod._ Oh, a morning to tempt Jove from his ningle,[231]
Ganymede; which is but to give dairy-wenches green gowns as they
are going a-milking. What, is thy lord stirring yet?
[231] Favourite.
_Ast._ Yes, he will not be horsed this hour, sure.
_Ber._ My lady swears he shall, for she longs to be at court.
_Car._ Oh, we shall ride switch and spur; would we were there
once.
_Enter_ BRYAN.
_Lod._ How now, is thy lord ready?
_Bry._ No, so crees sa’ me, my lady will have some little ting
in her pelly first.
_Car._ Oh, then they’ll to breakfast.
_Lod._ Footman, does my lord ride i’th’ coach with my lady, or
on horseback?
_Bry._ No, foot, la, my lady will have me lord sheet wid her, my
lord will sheet in de one side, and my lady sheet in de toder
side. [_Exit._
_Lod._ My lady sheet in de toder side! Did you ever hear a
rascal talk so like a pagan? Is’t not strange that a fellow of
his star, should be seen here so long in Italy, yet speak so
from a Christian?
_Enter_ ANTONIO, _with a book_.
_Ast._ An Irishman in Italy! that so strange! why, the nation
have running heads. [_They walk up and down._
_Lod._ Nay, Carolo, this is more strange, I ha’ been in France,
there’s few of them. Marry, England they count a warm chimney
corner, and there they swarm like crickets to the crevice of a
brew-house; but sir, in England I have noted one thing.
_Ast._, _Ber._, _&c._ What’s that, what’s that of England?
_Lod._ Marry this, sir,--what’s he yonder?
_Ber._ A poor fellow would speak with my lord.
_Lod._ In England, sir,--troth, I ever laugh when I think on’t:
to see a whole nation should be marked i’th’ forehead, as a man
may say, with one iron: why, sir, there all costermongers are
Irishmen.
_Car._ Oh, that’s to show their antiquity, as coming from Eve,
who was an apple-wife, and they take after the mother.
_Ast._, _Ber._, _&c._ Good, good! ha, ha!
_Lod._ Why, then, should all your chimney-sweepers likewise be
Irishmen? answer that now; come, your wit.
_Car._ Faith, that’s soon answered, for St. Patrick, you know,
keeps purgatory; he makes the fire, and his countrymen could do
nothing, if they cannot sweep the chimneys.
_Ast._, _Ber._, _&c._ Good again.
_Lod._ Then, sir, have you many of them, like this fellow,
especially those of his hair, footmen to noblemen and
others,[232] and the knaves are very faithful where they love.
By my faith, very proper men many of them, and as active as the
clouds,--whirr, hah!
[232] The running footmen of those days were generally Irishmen.
_Ast._, _Ber._, _&c._ Are they so?
_Lod._ And stout! exceeding stout; why, I warrant, this precious
wild villain, if he were put to’t, would fight more desperately
than sixteen Dunkirks.[233]
[233] Meaning Dunkirk privateers.
_Ast._ The women, they say, are very fair.
_Lod._ No, no, our country _buona-robas_,[234] oh! are the
sugarest, delicious rogues!
[234] _Buona roba_ is an Italian phrase for a courtesan.
_Ast._ Oh, look, he has a feeling of them!
_Lod._ Not I, I protest. There’s a saying when they commend
nations. It goes, the Irishman for his hand, the Welshman for a
leg, the Englishman for a face, the Dutchman for a beard.
_Fon._ I’faith, they may make swabbers of them.
_Lod._ The Spaniard,--let me see,--for a little foot, I take it;
the Frenchman,--what a pox hath he? and so of the rest. Are they
at breakfast yet? come walk.
_Ast._ This Lodovico is a notable tongued fellow.
_Fon._ Discourses well.
_Ber._ And a very honest gentleman.
_Ast._ Oh! he’s well valued by my lord.
_Enter_ BELLAFRONT, _with a petition_.
_Fon._ How now, how now, what’s she?
_Ber._ Let’s make towards her.
_Bell._ Will it be long, sir, ere my lord come forth?
_Ast._ Would you speak with my lord?
_Lod._ How now, what’s this, a nurse’s bill? hath any here got
thee with child and now will not keep it?
_Bell._ No, sir, my business is unto my lord.
_Lod._ He’s about his own wife’s now, he’ll hardly dispatch two
causes in a morning.
_Ast._ No matter what he says, fair lady; he’s a knight, there’s
no hold to be taken at his words.
_Fon._ My lord will pass this way presently.
_Ber._ A pretty, plump rogue.
_Ast._ A good lusty, bouncing baggage.
_Ber._ Do you know her?
_Lod._ A pox on her, I was sure her name was in my table-book
once; I know not of what cut her die is now, but she has been
more common than tobacco: this is she that had the name of the
Honest Whore.
_Ast._, _Ber._, _&c._ Is this she?
_Lod._ This is the blackamoor that by washing was turned white:
this is the birding-piece new scoured: this is she that, if any
of her religion can be saved, was saved by my lord Hippolito.
_Ast._ She has been a goodly creature.
_Lod._ She has been! that’s the epitaph of all whores. I’m well
acquainted with the poor gentleman her husband. Lord! what
fortunes that man has overreached! She knows not me, yet I
have been in her company; I scarce know her, for the beauty of
her cheek hath, like the moon, suffered strange eclipses since
I beheld it: but women are like medlars,--no sooner ripe but
rotten:
A woman last was made, but is spent first.
Yet man is oft proved in performance worst.
_Ast._, _Ber._, _&c._ My lord is come.
_Enter_ HIPPOLITO, INFELICE, _and two
~Waiting-women~_.
_Hip._ We ha’ wasted half this morning. Morrow, Lodovico.
_Lod._ Morrow, madam.
_Hip._ Let’s away to horse.
_Lod._, _Ast._, _&c._ Ay, ay, to horse, to horse.
_Bell._ I do beseech your lordship, let your eye read o’er this
wretched paper.
_Hip._ I’m in haste, pray thee, good woman, take some apter time.
_Inf._ Good woman, do.
_Bell._ Oh ’las! it does concern a poor man’s life.
_Hip._ Life! sweetheart?--Seat yourself, I’ll but read this and
come.
_Lod._ What stockings have you put on this morning, madam? if
they be not yellow,[235] change them; that paper is a letter
from some wench to your husband.
[235] Yellow was typical of jealousy.
_Inf._ Oh sir, that cannot make me jealous.
[_Exeunt all except_ HIPPOLITO, BELLAFRONT,
_and_ ANTONIO.
_Hip._ Your business, sir? to me?
_Ant._ Yes, my good lord.
_Hip._ Presently, sir.--Are you Matheo’s wife?
_Bell._ That most unfortunate woman.
_Hip._ I’m sorry these storms are fallen on him; I love Matheo,
And any good shall do him; he and I
Have sealed two bonds of friendship, which are strong
In me, however fortune does him wrong.
He speaks here he’s condemned. Is’t so?
_Bell._ Too true.
_Hip._ What was he whom he killed? Oh, his name’s here;
Old Giacomo, son to the Florentine;
Giacomo, a dog, that to meet profit,
Would to the very eyelids wade in blood
Of his own children. Tell Matheo,
The duke, my father, hardly shall deny
His signèd pardon; ’twas fair fight, yes,
If rumour’s tongue go true; so writes he here.--
To-morrow morning I return from court,
Pray be you here then.--I’ll have done, sir, straight:-- [_To_ ANTONIO.
But in troth say, are you Matheo’s wife?
You have forgot me.
_Bell._ No, my lord.
_Hip._ Your turner,
That made you smooth to run an even bias,
You know I loved you when your very soul
Was full of discord: art not a good wench still?
_Bell._ Umph, when I had lost my way to Heaven, you showed it:
I was new born that day.
_Re-enter_ LODOVICO.
_Lod._ ’Sfoot, my lord, your lady asks if you have not left your
wench yet? When you get in once, you never have done. Come,
come, come, pay your old score, and send her packing; come.
_Hip._ Ride softly on before, I’ll o’ertake you.
_Lod._ Your lady swears she’ll have no riding on before, without
ye.
_Hip._ Prithee, good Lodovico.
_Lod_. My lord, pray hasten.
_Hip._ I come. [_Exit_ LODOVICO.
To-morrow let me see you, fare you well;
Commend me to Matheo. Pray one word more:
Does not your father live about the court?
_Bell._ I think he does, but such rude spots of shame
Stick on my cheek, that he scarce knows my name.
_Hip._ Orlando Friscobaldo, is’t not?
_Bell._ Yes, my lord.
_Hip._ What does he for you?
_Bell._ All he should: when children
From duty start, parents from love may swerve;
He nothing does: for nothing I deserve.
_Hip._ Shall I join him unto you, and restore you to wonted
grace?
_Bell._ It is impossible.
_Hip._ It shall be put to trial: fare you well. [_Exit_ BELLAFRONT.
The face I would not look on! Sure then ’twas rare,
When in despite of grief, ’tis still thus fair.
Now, sir, your business with me.
_Ant._ I am bold
T’express my love and duty to your lordship
In these few leaves.
_Hip._ A book!
_Ant._ Yes, my good lord.
_Hip._ Are you a scholar?
_Ant._ Yes, my lord, a poor one.
_Hip._ Sir, you honour me.
Kings may be scholars’ patrons, but, faith, tell me,
To how many hands besides hath this bird flown,
How many partners share with me?
_Ant._ Not one,
In troth, not one: your name I held more dear;
I’m not, my lord, of that low character.
_Hip._ Your name I pray?
_Ant._ Antonio Georgio.
_Hip._ Of Milan?
_Ant._ Yes, my lord.
_Hip._ I’ll borrow leave
To read you o’er, and then we’ll talk: till then
Drink up this gold; good wits should love good wine;
This of your loves, the earnest that of mine.-- [_Gives money._
_Re-enter_ BRYAN.
How now, sir, where’s your lady? not gone yet?
_Bry._ I fart di lady is run away from dee, a mighty deal of
ground, she sent me back for dine own sweet face, I pray dee
come, my lord, away, wu’t tow go now?
_Hip._ Is the coach gone? Saddle my horse, the sorrel.
_Bry._ A pox a’ de horse’s nose, he is a lousy rascally fellow,
when I came to gird his belly, his scurvy guts rumbled; di horse
farted in my face, and dow knowest, an Irishman cannot abide a
fart. But I have saddled de hobby-horse, di fine hobby is ready,
I pray dee my good sweet lord, wi’t tow go now, and I will run
to de devil before dee?
_Hip._ Well, sir,--I pray let’s see you, master scholar.
_Bry._ Come, I pray dee, wu’t come, sweet face? Go. [_Exeunt._
[Illustration]
SCENE II.--_An Apartment in the_ DUKE’S _Palace_.
_Enter_ LODOVICO, CAROLO, ASTOLFO,
_and_ BERALDO.
_Lod._ Godso’, gentlemen, what do we forget?
_Car._, _Ast._, _Ber._ What?
_Lod._ Are not we all enjoined as this day.--Thursday is’t not?
Ay, as this day to be at the linen-draper’s house at dinner?
_Car._ Signor Candido, the patient man.
_Ast._ Afore Jove, true, upon this day he’s married.
_Ber._ I wonder, that being so stung with a wasp before, he
dares venture again to come about the eaves amongst bees.
_Lod._ Oh ’tis rare sucking a sweet honey comb! pray Heaven his
old wife be buried deep enough, that she rise not up to call
for her dance! The poor fiddlers’ instruments would crack for
it, she’d tickle them. At any hand let’s try what mettle is in
his new bride; if there be none, we’ll put in some. Troth, it’s
a very noble citizen, I pity he should marry again; I’ll walk
along, for it is a good old fellow.
_Car._ I warrant the wives of Milan would give any fellow twenty
thousand ducats, that could but have the face to beg of the
duke, that all the citizens in Milan might be bound to the peace
of patience, as the linen-draper is.
_Lod._ Oh, fie upon’t! ’twould undo all us that are courtiers,
we should have no whoop! with the wenches then.
_Enter_ HIPPOLITO.
_Car._, _Ast._, _Ber._ My lord’s come.
_Hip._ How now, what news?
_Car._, _Ast._, _Ber._ None.
_Lod._ Your lady is with the duke, her father.
_Hip._ And we’ll to them both presently--
_Enter_ ORLANDO FRISCOBALDO.
Who’s that!
_Car._, _Ast._, _Ber._ Signor Friscobaldo.
_Hip._ Friscobaldo, oh! pray call him, and leave me, we two have
business.
_Car._ Ho Signor! Signor Friscobaldo! The Lord Hippolito.
[_Exeunt all but_ HIPPOLITO _and_ FRISCOBALDO.
_Orl._ My noble lord: my Lord Hippolito! the duke’s son! his
brave daughter’s brave husband! how does your honoured lordship!
does your nobility remember so poor a gentleman as Signor
Orlando Friscobaldo! old mad Orlando!
_Hip._ Oh, sir, our friends! they ought to be unto us as our
jewels, as dearly valued, being locked up, and unseen, as when
we wear them in our hands. I see, Friscobaldo, age hath not
command of your blood, for all Time’s sickle has gone over you,
you are Orlando still.
_Orl._ Why, my lord, are not the fields mown and cut down, and
stripped bare, and yet wear they not pied coats again? Though my
head be like a leek, white, may not my heart be like the blade,
green?
_Hip._ Scarce can I read the stories on your brow,
Which age hath writ there; you look youthful still.
_Orl._ I eat snakes,[236] my lord, I eat snakes.
[236] A supposed recipe for restoring youth.--_Dyce._
My heart shall never have a wrinkle in it, so long as I can cry
“Hem,” with a clear voice.
_Hip._ You are the happier man, sir.
_Orl._ Happy man? I’ll give you, my lord, the true picture of a
happy man; I was turning leaves over this morning, and found it;
an excellent Italian painter drew it; if I have it in the right
colours, I’ll bestow it on your lordship.
_Hip._ I stay for it.
_Orl._ He that makes gold his wife, but not his whore,
He that at noon-day walks by a prison door,
He that i’th’ sun is neither beam nor mote,
He that’s not mad after a petticoat,
He for whom poor men’s curses dig no grave,
He that is neither lord’s nor lawyer’s slave,
He that makes this his sea, and that his shore,
He that in’s coffin is richer than before,
He that counts youth his sword, and age his staff,
He whose right hand carves his own epitaph,
He that upon his deathbed is a swan,
And dead, no crow--he is a happy man.
_Hip._ It’s very well; I thank you for this picture.
_Orl._ After this picture, my lord, do I strive to have my face
drawn: for I am not covetous, am not in debt; sit neither at the
duke’s side, nor lie at his feet. Wenching and I have done; no
man I wrong, no man I fear, no man I fee; I take heed how far I
walk, because I know yonder’s my home; I would not die like a
rich man, to carry nothing away save a winding sheet: but like
a good man, to leave Orlando behind me. I sowed leaves in my
youth, and I reap now books in my age. I fill this hand, and
empty this; and when the bell shall toll for me, if I prove a
swan, and go singing to my nest, why so! If a crow! throw me out
for carrion, and pick out mine eyes. May not old Friscobaldo, my
lord, be merry now! ha?
_Hip._ You may; would I were partner in your mirth.
_Orl._ I have a little, have all things. I have nothing; I have
no wife, I have no child, have no chick; and why should not I be
in my jocundare?
_Hip._ Is your wife then departed?
_Orl._ She’s an old dweller in those high countries, yet not
from me. Here, she’s here: but before me, when a knave and a
quean are married, they commonly walk like serjeants together:
but a good couple are seldom parted.
_Hip._ You had a daughter too, sir, had you not?
_Orl._ O my lord! this old tree had one branch, and but one
branch growing out of it. It was young, it was fair, it was
straight; I pruned it daily, dressed it carefully, kept it
from the wind, helped it to the sun, yet for all my skill in
planting, it grew crooked, it bore crabs; I hewed it down;
what’s become of it, I neither know, nor care.
_Hip._ Then I can tell you what’s become of it;
That branch is withered.
_Orl._ So ’twas long ago.
_Hip._ Her name I think was Bellafront, she’s dead.
_Orl._ Ha? dead?
_Hip._ Yes; what of her was left, not worth the keeping,
Even in my sight was thrown into a grave.
_Orl._ Dead! my last and best peace go with her! I see Death’s a
good trencherman, he can eat coarse homely meat, as well as the
daintiest.
_Hip._ Why, Friscobaldo, was she homely?
_Orl._ O my lord! a strumpet is one of the devil’s vines; all
the sins, like so many poles, are stuck upright out of hell,
to be her props, that she may spread upon them. And when she’s
ripe, every slave has a pull at her, then must she be pressed.
The young beautiful grape sets the teeth of lust on edge, yet to
taste that liquorish wine, is to drink a man’s own damnation. Is
she dead?
_Hip._ She’s turned to earth.
_Orl._ Would she were turned to Heaven! Umph, is she dead? I am
glad the world has lost one of his idols; no whoremonger will at
midnight beat at the doors. In her grave sleep all my shame, and
her own; and all my sorrows, and all her sins!
_Hip._ I’m glad you’re wax, not marble; you are made
Of man’s best temper; there are now good hopes
That all these heaps of ice about your heart,
By which a father’s love was frozen up,
Are thawed in these sweet showers, fetched from your eyes;
We are ne’er like angels till our passion dies.
She is not dead, but lives under worse fate;
I think she’s poor; and more to clip her wings,
Her husband at this hour lies in the jail,
For killing of a man. To save his blood,
Join all your force with mine: mine shall be shown:
The getting of his life preserves your own.
_Orl._ In my daughter, you will say! does she live then? I am
sorry I wasted tears upon a harlot; but the best is I have a
handkercher to drink them up, soap can wash them all out again.
Is she poor?
_Hip._ Trust me, I think she is.
_Orl._ Then she’s a right strumpet; I ne’er knew any of their
trade rich two years together; sieves can hold no water, nor
harlots hoard up money; they have too many vents, too many
sluices to let it out; taverns, tailors, bawds, panders,
fiddlers, swaggerers, fools and knaves do all wait upon a common
harlot’s trencher: she is the gallipot to which these drones
fly, not for love to the pot, but for the sweet sucket[237]
within it, her money, her money.
[237] Preserve.
_Hip._ I almost dare pawn my word, her bosom
Gives warmth to no such snakes. When did you see her?
_Orl._ Not seventeen summers.
_Hip._ Is your hate so old?
_Orl._ Older; it has a white head, and shall never die till she
be buried: her wrongs shall be my bedfellow.
_Hip._ Work yet his life, since in it lives her fame.
_Orl._ No, let him hang, and half her infamy departs out of the
world: I hate him for her; he taught her first to taste poison;
I hate her for herself, because she refused my physic.
_Hip._ Nay, but Friscobaldo!--
_Orl._ I detest her, I defy[238] both, she’s not mine, she’s--
[238] Renounce.
_Hip._ Hear her but speak.
_Orl._ I love no mermaids, I’ll not be caught with a
quail-pipe.[239]
[239] Made use of by fowlers to allure quails.
_Hip._ You’re now beyond all reason.
_Orl._ I am then a beast. Sir, I had rather be a beast, and not
dishonour my creation, than be a doting father, and like Time,
be the destruction of mine own brood.
_Hip._ Is’t dotage to relieve your child, being poor?
_Orl._ Is’t fit for an old man to keep a whore?
_Hip._ ’Tis charity too.
_Orl._ ’Tis foolery; relieve her!
Were her cold limbs stretched out upon a bier,
I would not sell this dirt under my nails
To buy her an hour’s breath, nor give this hair,
Unless it were to choke her.
_Hip._ Fare you well, for I’ll trouble you no more.
_Orl._ And fare you well, sir. [_Exit_ HIPPOLITO.] Go
thy ways; we have few lords of thy making, that love wenches
for their honesty. ’Las my girl! art thou poor? poverty dwells
next door to despair, there’s but a wall between them; despair
is one of hell’s catch-poles; and lest that devil arrest her,
I’ll to her. Yet she shall not know me; she shall drink of my
wealth, as beggars do of running water, freely, yet never know
from what fountain’s head it flows. Shall a silly bird pick her
own breast to nourish her young ones, and can a father see his
child starve? That were hard; the pelican does it, and shall
not I? Yes, I will victual the camp for her, but it shall be by
some stratagem. That knave there, her husband, will be hanged, I
fear; I’ll keep his neck out of the noose if I can, he shall not
know how.
_Enter two ~Serving-men~._
How now, knaves? whither wander you?
_1st Ser._ To seek your worship.
_Orl._ Stay, which of you has my purse? what money have you
about you?
_2nd Ser._ Some fifteen or sixteen pounds, sir.
_Orl._ Give it me.--[_Takes purse._]--I think I have some gold
about me; yes, it’s well. Leave my lodging at court, and get you
home. Come, sir, though I never turned any man out of doors, yet
I’ll be so bold as to pull your coat over your ears.
[ORLANDO _puts on the coat of ~1st Serving-man~, and
gives him in exchange his cloak_.
_1st Ser._ What do you mean to do, sir?
_Orl._ Hold thy tongue, knave, take thou my cloak. I hope I play
not the paltry merchant in this bart’ring; bid the steward of
my house sleep with open eyes in my absence, and to look to all
things. Whatsoever I command by letters to be done by you, see
it done. So, does it sit well?
_2nd Ser._ As if it were made for your worship.
_Orl._ You proud varlets, you need not be ashamed to wear
blue,[240] when your master is one of your fellows. Away! do not
see me.
[240] The common livery of the time.
_Both._ This is excellent. [_Exeunt ~Serving-men~._
_Orl._ I should put on a worse suit, too; perhaps I will. My
vizard is on; now to this masque. Say I should shave off this
honour of an old man, or tie it up shorter.
Well, I will spoil a good face for once.
My beard being off, how should I look? even like
A winter cuckoo, or unfeathered owl;
Yet better lose this hair, than lose her soul. [_Exit._
[Illustration]
SCENE III.--_A Room in_ CANDIDO’S _House_. CANDIDO, _the ~Bride~ and
~Guests~ discovered at dinner; ~Prentices~ waiting on them_.
_Enter_ LODOVICO, CAROLO, _and_
ASTOLFO.
_Cand._ O gentlemen, so late, you are very welcome, pray sit
down.
_Lod._ Carolo, did’st e’er see such a nest of caps?[241]
[241] In allusion to the caps worn both by traders and their
apprentices.
_Ast._ Methinks it’s a most civil and most comely sight.
_Lod._ What does he i’th’ middle look like?
_Ast._ Troth, like a spire steeple in a country village
overpeering so many thatched houses.
_Lod._ It’s rather a long pike-staff against so many bucklers
without pikes;[242] they sit for all the world like a pair of
organs, and he’s the tall great roaring pipe i’ th’ midst.
[242] Bucklers formerly had long spikes in their centre.
_Ast._ Ha, ha, ha, ha!
_Cand._ What’s that you laugh at, signors?
_Lod._ Troth, shall I tell you, and aloud I’ll tell it;
We laugh to see, yet laugh we not in scorn,
Amongst so many caps that long hat worn.
_1st Guest._ Mine is as tall a felt as any is this day in Milan,
and therefore I love it, for the block[243] was cleft out for my
head, and fits me to a hair.
[243] The model for the hat.
_Cand._ Indeed you’re good observers; it shows strange:
But gentlemen, I pray neither contemn,
Nor yet deride a civil ornament;
I could build so much in the round cap’s praise,
That ’bove this high roof, I this flat would raise.
_Lod._ Prithee, sweet bridegroom, do’t.
_Cand._ So all these guests will pardon me, I’ll do’t.
_Guests._ With all our hearts.
_Cand._ Thus, then, in the cap’s honour.
To every sex, and state, both nature, time,
The country’s laws, yea, and the very clime
Do allot distinct habits; the spruce courtier
Jets[244] up and down in silk: the warrior
Marches in buff, the clown plods on in gray:
But for these upper garments thus I say,
The seaman has his cap, pared without brim;
The gallant’s head is feathered, that fits him;
The soldier has his morion, women ha’ tires;
Beasts have their head-pieces, and men ha’ theirs.
[244] Struts.
_Lod._ Proceed.
_Cand._ Each degree has his fashion, it’s fit then,
One should be laid by for the citizen,
And that’s the cap which you see swells not high,
For caps are emblems of humility.
It is a citizen’s badge, and first was worn
By th’ Romans; for when any bondman’s turn
Came to be made a freeman, thus ’twas said,
He to the cap was called, that is, was made
Of Rome a freeman; but was first close shorn:
And so a citizen’s hair is still short worn.
_Lod._ That close shaving made barbers a company,
And now every citizen uses it.
_Cand._ Of geometric figures the most rare,
And perfect’st, are the circle and the square;
The city and the school much build upon
These figures, for both love proportion.
The city-cap is round, the scholar’s square,
To show that government and learning are
The perfect’st limbs i’ th’ body of a state:
For without them, all’s disproportionate.
If the cap had no honour, this might rear it,
The reverend fathers of the law do wear it.
It’s light for summer, and in cold it sits
Close to the skull, a warm house for the wits;
It shows the whole face boldly, ’tis not made
As if a man to look on’t were afraid,
Nor like a draper’s shop with broad dark shed,
For he’s no citizen that hides his head.
Flat caps as proper are to city gowns,
As to armours helmets, or to kings their crowns.
Let then the city-cap by none be scorned,
Since with it princes’ heads have been adorned.
If more the round cap’s honour you would know,
How would this long gown with this steeple[245] show?
[245] A tall pointed hat satirized by Stubbes in his _Anatomie
of Abuses_ (1538). Probably at this point Candido takes the
steeple-like hat worn by the 1st Guest, and puts it on his own
head.
_All._ Ha, ha, ha! most vile, most ugly.
_Cand._ Pray, signor, pardon me, ’twas done in jest.
_Bride._ A cup of claret wine there.
_1st Pren._ Wine? yes, forsooth, wine for the bride.
_Car._ You ha’ well set out the cap, sir.
_Lod._ Nay, that’s flat.
_Cand._ A health!
_Lod._ Since his cap’s round, that shall go round. Be bare,
For in the cap’s praise all of you have share.
[_They bare their heads and drink. As ~1st Prentice~ offers the
wine to the ~Bride~, she hits him on the lips, breaking the
glass._
The bride’s at cuffs.
_Cand._ Oh, peace, I pray thee, thus far off I stand,
I spied the error of my servants;
She called for claret, and you filled out sack;
That cup give me, ’tis for an old man’s back,
And not for hers. Indeed, ’twas but mistaken;
Ask all these else.
_Guests._ No faith, ’twas but mistaken.
_1st Pren._ Nay, she took it right enough.
_Cand._ Good Luke, reach her that glass of claret.
Here mistress bride, pledge me there.
_Bride._ Now I’ll none. [_Exit._
_Cand._ How now?
_Lod._ Look what your mistress ails.
_1st Pren._ Nothing, sir, but about filling a wrong glass,--a
scurvy trick.
_Cand._ I pray you, hold your tongue.--My servant there tells me
she is not well.
_Guests._ Step to her, step to her.
_Lod._ A word with you: do ye hear? This wench, your new wife,
will take you down in your wedding shoes, unless you hang her up
in her wedding garters.
_Cand._ How, hang her in her garters?
_Lod._ Will you be a tame pigeon still? Shall your back be like
a tortoise shell, to let carts go over it, yet not to break?
This she-cat will have more lives than your last puss had, and
will scratch worse, and mouse you worse: look to’t.
_Cand._ What would you have me do, sir?
_Lod._ What would I have you do? Swear, swagger, brawl, fling!
for fighting it’s no matter, we ha’ had knocking pusses enow
already; you know, that a woman was made of the rib of a man,
and that rib was crooked. The moral of which is, that a man
must, from his beginning be crooked to his wife; be you like an
orange to her, let her cut you never so fair, be you sour as
vinegar. Will you be ruled by me?
_Cand._ In any thing that’s civil, honest, and just.
_Lod._ Have you ever a prentice’s suit will fit me?
_Cand._ I have the very same which myself wore.
_Lod._ I’ll send my man for’t within this half hour, and within
this two hour I’ll be your prentice. The hen shall not overcrow
the cock; I’ll sharpen your spurs.
_Cand._ It will be but some jest, sir?
_Lod._ Only a jest: farewell, come, Carolo. [_Exeunt_
LODOVICO, CAROLO, _and_ ASTOLFO.
_Guests._ We’ll take our leaves, sir, too.
_Cand._ Pray conceit not ill
Of my wife’s sudden rising. This young knight,
Sir Lodovico, is deep seen in physic,
And he tells me, the disease called the mother,[246]
Hangs on my wife, it is a vehement heaving
And beating of the stomach, and that swelling
Did with the pain thereof cramp up her arm,
That hit his lips, and brake the glass,--no harm,
It was no harm!
[246] Hysteria.
_Guests._ No, signor, none at all.
_Cand._ The straightest arrow may fly wide by chance.
But come, we’ll close this brawl up in some dance. [_Exeunt._
[Illustration]
ACT THE SECOND.
SCENE I.--_A Room in_ MATHEO’S _House_.
_Enter_ BELLAFRONT _and_ MATHEO.
BELL. O my sweet husband! wert thou in thy grave and art alive
again? Oh welcome, welcome!
_Mat._ Dost know me? my cloak, prithee, lay’t up. Yes, faith,
my winding-sheet was taken out of lavender, to be stuck with
rosemary[247]: I lacked but the knot here, or here; yet if I
had had it, I should ha’ made a wry mouth at the world like a
plaice[248]: but sweetest villain, I am here now and I will talk
with thee soon.
[247] Rosemary was used as an emblem of remembrance at both
funerals and weddings.
[248] A favourite simile with the writers of the time.
_Bell._ And glad am I thou art here.
_Mat._ Did these heels caper in shackles? Ah! my little
plump rogue. I’ll bear up for all this, and fly high. _Catso
catso._[249]
[249] _Ital._ A term of abuse or contempt.
_Bell._ Matheo?
_Mat._ What sayest, what sayest? O brave fresh air! a pox on
these grates and gingling of keys, and rattling of iron. I’ll
bear up, I’ll fly high, wench, hang toff.
_Bell._ Matheo, prithee, make thy prison thy glass,
And in it view the wrinkles, and the scars,
By which thou wert disfigured; viewing them, mend them.
_Mat._ I’ll go visit all the mad rogues now, and the good
roaring boys.[250]
[250] Roystering young gallants. A highly favourable female
version of the type is given in Dekker and Middleton’s comedy,
_The Roaring Girl_.
_Bell._ Thou dost not hear me?
_Mat._ Yes, faith, do I.
_Bell._ Thou has been in the hands of misery, and ta’en strong
physic; prithee now be sound.
_Mat._ Yes. ’Sfoot, I wonder how the inside of a tavern looks
now. Oh, when shall I bizzle, bizzle?[251]
[251] _i.e._ Get a chance of drinking to excess.
_Bell._ Nay, see, thou’rt thirsty still for poison! Come, I will
not have thee swagger.
_Mat._ Honest ape’s face!
_Bell._ ’Tis that sharpened an axe to cut thy throat.
Good love, I would not have thee sell thy substance
And time, worth all, in those damned shops of hell;
Those dicing houses, that stand never well,
But when they stand most ill; that four-squared sin
Has almost lodged us in the beggar’s inn.
Besides, to speak which even my soul does grieve,
A sort of ravens have hung upon thy sleeve,
And fed upon thee: good Mat, if you please,
Scorn to spread wing amongst so base as these;
By them thy fame is speckled, yet it shows
Clear amongst them; so crows are fair with crows.
Custom in sin, gives sin a lovely dye;
Blackness in Moors is no deformity.
_Mat._ Bellafront, Bellafront, I protest to thee, I swear, as
I hope for my soul, I will turn over a new leaf. The prison I
confess has bit me; the best man that sails in such a ship, may
be lousy. [_Knocking within._
_Bell._ One knocks at door.
_Mat._ I’ll be the porter: they shall see a jail cannot hold a
brave spirit, I’ll fly high. [_Exit._
_Bell._ How wild is his behaviour! Oh, I fear
He’s spoiled by prison, he’s half damned comes there,
But I must sit all storms: when a full sail
His fortunes spread, he loved me: being now poor,
I’ll beg for him, and no wife can do more.
_Re-enter_ MATHEO, _with_ ORLANDO _disguised
as a ~Serving-man~_.
_Mat._ Come in, pray! would you speak with me, sir?
_Orl._ Is your name Signor Matheo?
_Mat._ My name is Signor Matheo.
_Orl._ Is this gentlewoman your wife, sir?
_Mat._ This gentlewoman is my wife, sir.
_Orl._ The Destinies spin a strong and even thread of both your
loves!--The mother’s own face, I ha’ not forgot that. [_Aside._]
I’m an old man, sir, and am troubled with a whoreson salt rheum,
that I cannot hold my water.--Gentlewoman, the last man I served
was your father.
_Bell._ My father? any tongue that sounds his name,
Speaks music to me; welcome, good old man!
How does my father? lives he? has he health?
How does my father?--I so much do shame him,
So much do wound him, that I scarce dare name him. [_Aside._
_Orl._ I can speak no more.
_Mat._ How now, old lad, what dost cry?
_Orl._ The rheum still, sir, nothing else; I should be well
seasoned, for mine eyes lie in brine. Look you, sir, I have a
suit to you.
_Mat._ What is’t, my little white-pate?
_Orl._ Troth, sir, I have a mind to serve your worship.
_Mat._ To serve me? Troth, my friend, my fortunes are, as a man
may say--
_Orl._ Nay, look you, sir, I know, when all sins are old in us,
and go upon crutches, that covetousness does but then lie in
her cradle; ’tis not so with me. Lechery loves to dwell in the
fairest lodging, and covetousness in the oldest buildings, that
are ready to fall: but my white head, sir, is no inn for such a
gossip. If a serving-man at my years, that has sailed about the
world, be not stored with biscuit enough to serve him the voyage
out of his life, and to bring him East home, ill pity but all
his days should be fasting days. I care not so much for wages,
for I have scraped a handful of gold together. I have a little
money, sir, which I would put into your worship’s hands, not so
much to make it more--
_Mat._ No, no, you say well, thou sayest well; but I must tell
you,--how much is the money, sayest thou?
_Orl._ About twenty pound, sir.
_Mat._ Twenty pound? Let me see: that shall bring thee in, after
ten _per centum per annum_.
_Orl._ No, no, no, sir, no: I cannot abide to have money
engender: fie upon this silver lechery, fie; if I may have meat
to my mouth, and rags to my back, and a flock-bed to snort upon
when I die, the longer liver take all.
_Mat._ A good old boy, i’faith! If thou servest me, thou shall
eat as _I_ eat, drink as _I_ drink, lie as _I_ lie, and ride as
_I_ ride.
_Orl._ That’s if you have money to hire horses. [_Aside._
_Mat._ Front, what dost thou think on’t? This good old lad here
shall serve me.
_Bell._ Alas, Matheo, wilt thou load a back
That is already broke?
_Mat._ Peace, pox on you, peace. There’s a trick in’t, I fly
high, it shall be so, Front, as I tell you: give me thy hand,
thou shalt serve me i’faith: welcome: as for your money--
_Orl._ Nay, look you, sir, I have it here.
_Mat._ Pish, keep it thyself, man, and then thou’rt sure ’tis
safe.
_Orl._ Safe! an’ twere ten thousand ducats, your worship should
be my cash-keeper; I have heard what your worship is, an
excellent dunghill cock, to scatter all abroad; but I’ll venture
twenty pounds on’s head. [_Gives money to_ MATHEO.
_Mat._ And didst thou serve my worshipful father-in-law, Signor
Orlando Friscobaldo, that madman, once?
_Orl._ I served him so long, till he turned me out of doors.
_Mat._ It’s a notable chuff[252]: I ha’ not seen him many a day.
[252] See note _ante_, p. 99.
_Orl._ No matter an you ne’er see him; it’s an arrant grandee, a
churl, and as damned a cut-throat.
_Bell._ Thou villain, curb thy tongue! thou art a Judas,
To sell thy master’s name to slander thus.
_Mat._ Away, ass! He speaks but truth, thy father is a--
_Bell._ Gentleman.
_Mat._ And an old knave. There’s more deceit in him than in
sixteen ’pothecaries: it’s a devil; thou mayest beg, starve,
hang, damn! does he send thee so much as a cheese?
_Orl._ Or so much as a gammon of bacon,
He’ll give it his dogs first.
_Mat._ A jail, a jail.
_Orl._ A Jew, a Jew, sir.
_Mat._ A dog!
_Orl._ An English mastiff, sir.
_Mat._ Pox rot out his old stinking garbage!
_Bell._ Art not ashamed to strike an absent man thus?
Art not ashamed to let this vile dog bark,
And bite my father thus? I’ll not endure it.
Out of my doors, base slave!
_Mat._ Your doors? a vengeance! I shall live to cut that old
rogue’s throat, for all you take his part thus.
_Orl._ He shall live to see thee hanged first. [_Aside._
_Enter_ HIPPOLITO.
_Mat._ God’s-so, my lord, your lordship is most welcome,
I’m proud of this, my lord.
_Hip._ Was bold to see you.
Is that your wife?
_Mat._ Yes, sir.
_Hip._ I’ll borrow her lip. [_Kisses_ BELLAFRONT.
_Mat._ With all my heart, my lord.
_Orl._ Who’s this, I pray, sir.
_Mat._ My Lord Hippolito: what’s thy name?
_Orl._ Pacheco.
_Mat._ Pacheco, fine name; thou seest, Pacheco, I keep company
with no scoundrels, nor base fellows.
_Hip._ Came not my footman to you?
_Bell._ Yes, my lord.
_Hip._ I sent by him a diamond and a letter,
Did you receive them?
_Bell._ Yes, my lord, I did.
_Hip._ Read you the letter?
_Bell._ O’er and o’er ’tis read.
_Hip._ And, faith, your answer?
_Bell._ Now the time’s not fit,
You see, my husband’s here.
_Hip._ I’ll now then leave you,
And choose mine hour; but ere I part away,
Hark you, remember I must have no nay--
Matheo, I will leave you.
_Mat._ A glass of wine.
_Hip._ Not now, I’ll visit you at other times.
You’re come off well, then?
_Mat._ Excellent well. I thank your lordship: I owe you my life,
my lord; and will pay my best blood in any service of yours.
_Hip._ I’ll take no such dear payment. Hark you, Matheo, I know
the prison is a gulf. If money run low with you, my purse is
your’s: call for it.
_Mat._ Faith, my lord, I thank my stars, they send me down some;
I cannot sink, so long these bladders hold.
_Hip._ I will not see your fortunes ebb, pray, try.
To starve in full barns were fond[253] modesty.
[253] Foolish.
_Mat._ Open the door, sirrah.
_Hip._ Drink this, and anon, I pray thee, give thy mistress this.
[_Gives to_ FRISCOBALDO, _who opens the door, first
money, then a purse, and exit_.
_Orl._ O noble spirit, if no worse guests here dwell,
My blue coat sits on my old shoulders well.
_Mat._ The only royal fellow, he’s bounteous as the Indies,
what’s that he said to thee, Bellafront?
_Bell._ Nothing.
_Mat._ I prithee, good girl?
_Bell._ Why, I tell you, nothing.
_Mat._ Nothing? it’s well: tricks! that I must be beholden to
a scald hot-livered goatish gallant, to stand with my cap in
my hand, and vail bonnet, when I ha’ spread as lofty sails as
himself. Would I had been hanged. Nothing? Pacheco, brush my
cloak.
_Orl._ Where is’t, sir?
_Mat._ Come, we’ll fly high.
Nothing? There is a whore still in thy eye. [_Exit._
_Orl._ My twenty pounds fly high, O wretched woman!
This varlet’s able to make Lucrece common. [_Aside._
How now, mistress? has my master dyed you into this sad colour?
_Bell._ Fellow, begone I pray thee; if thy tongue
Itch after talk so much, seek out thy master.
Thou’rt a fit instrument for him.
_Orl._ Zounds, I hope he will not play upon me!
_Bell._ Play on thee? no, you two will fly together,
Because you’re roving arrows of one feather.
Would thou wouldst leave my house, thou ne’er shalt please me!
Weave thy nets ne’er so high,
Thou shalt be but a spider in mine eye.
Thou’rt rank with poison, poison tempered well
Is food for health; but thy black tongue doth swell
With venom, to hurt him that gave thee bread:
To wrong men absent, is to spurn the dead.
And so did’st thou my master, and my father.
_Orl._ You have small reason to take his part; for I have heard
him say five hundred times, you were as arrant a whore as ever
stiffened tiffany neckcloths in water-starch upon a Saturday i’
th’ afternoon.
_Bell._ Let him say worse, when for the earth’s offence
Hot vengeance through the marble clouds is driven,
Is’t fit earth shoot again those darts at heaven?
_Orl._ And so if your father call you whore you’ll not call him
old knave:--Friscobaldo, she carries thy mind up and down; she’s
thine own flesh, blood, and bone. [_Aside_] Troth, mistress, to
tell you true, the fireworks that ran from me upon lines against
my good old master, your father, were but to try how my young
master, your husband, loved such squibs: but it’s well known, I
love your father as myself; I’ll ride for him at mid-night, run
for you by owl-light; I’ll die for him, drudge for you; I’ll fly
low, and I’ll fly high, as my master says, to do you good, if
you’ll forgive me.
_Bell._ I am not made of marble; I forgive thee.
_Orl._ Nay, if you were made of marble, a good stone-cutter
might cut you. I hope the twenty pound I delivered to my master,
is in a sure hand.
_Bell._ In a sure hand, I warrant thee, for spending.
_Orl._ I see my young master is a mad-cap, and a _bonus socius_.
I love him well, mistress: yet as well as I love him, I’ll
not play the knave with you; look you, I could cheat you of
this purse full of money; but I am an old lad, and I scorn
to cony-catch[254]: yet I ha’ been dog at a cony in my time.
[_Gives purse._
[254] Cheat.
_Bell._ A purse? where hadst it?
_Orl._ The gentleman that went away, whispered in mine ear, and
charged me to give it you.
_Bell._ The Lord Hippolito?
_Orl._ Yes, if he be a lord, he gave it me.
_Bell._ ’Tis all gold.
_Orl._ ’Tis like so: it may be, he thinks you want money, and
therefore bestows his alms bravely, like a lord.
_Bell._ He thinks a silver net can catch the poor;
Here’s bait to choke a nun, and turn her whore.
Wilt thou be honest to me?
_Orl._ As your nails to your fingers, which I think never
deceived you.
_Bell._ Thou to this lord shalt go, commend me to him,
And tell him this, the town has held out long,
Because within ’twas rather true than strong.
To sell it now were base; Say ’tis no hold
Built of weak stuff, to be blown up with gold.
He shall believe thee by this token, or this;
If not, by this. [_Giving purse, ring and letters._
_Orl._ Is this all?
_Bell._ This is all.
_Orl._ Mine own girl still! [_Aside._
_Bell._ A star may shoot, not fall. [_Exit._
_Orl._ A star? nay, thou art more than the moon, for thou hast
neither changing quarters, nor a man standing in thy circle with
a bush of thorns. Is’t possible the Lord Hippolito, whose face
is as civil as the outside of a dedicatory book, should be a
muttonmonger?[255] A poor man has but one ewe, and this grandee
sheep-biter leaves whole flocks of fat wethers, whom he may
knock down, to devour this. I’ll trust neither lord nor butcher
with quick flesh for this trick; the cuckoo, I see now, sings
all the year, though every man cannot hear him; but I’ll spoil
his notes. Can neither love-letters, nor the devil’s common
pick-locks, gold, nor precious stones make my girl draw up her
percullis?[256] Hold out still, wench.
[255] Whoremonger.
[256] Portcullis.
All are not bawds, I see now, that keep doors,
Nor all good wenches that are marked for whores. [_Exit._
SCENE II.--_Before_ CANDIDO’S _Shop_.
_Enter_ CANDIDO, _and_ LODOVICO _disguised as
a ~Prentice~_.
_Lod._ Come, come, come, what do ye lack, sir? what do ye lack,
sir? what is’t ye lack, sir? Is not my worship well suited? did
you ever see a gentleman better disguised?
_Cand._ Never, believe me, signor.
_Lod._ Yes, but when he has been drunk. There be prentices
would make mad gallants, for they would spend all, and drink,
and whore, and so forth; and I see we gallants could make mad
prentices. How does thy wife like me? Nay, I must not be so
saucy, then I spoil all: pray you how does my mistress like me?
_Cand._ Well; for she takes you for a very simple fellow.
_Lod._ And they that are taken for such are commonly the
arrantest knaves: but to our comedy, come.
_Cand._ I shall not act it; chide, you say, and fret,
And grow impatient: I shall never do’t.
_Lod._ ’Sblood, cannot you do as all the world does, counterfeit?
_Cand._ Were I a painter, that should live by drawing
Nothing but pictures of an angry man,
I should not earn my colours; I cannot do’t.
_Lod._ Remember you’re a linen-draper, and that if you give
your wife a yard, she’ll take an ell: give her not therefore a
quarter of your yard, not a nail.
_Cand._ Say I should turn to ice, and nip her love
Now ’tis but in the bud.
_Lod._ Well, say she’s nipt.
_Cand._ It will so overcharge her heart with grief,
That like a cannon, when her sighs go off,
She in her duty either will recoil,
Or break in pieces and so die: her death,
By my unkindness might be counted murder.
_Lod._ Die? never, never. I do not bid you beat her, nor give
her black eyes, nor pinch her sides; but cross her humours. Are
not baker’s arms the scales of justice? yet is not their bread
light? and may not you, I pray, bridle her with a sharp bit, yet
ride her gently?
_Cand._ Well, I will try your pills,
Do you your faithful service, and be ready
Still at a pinch to help me in this part,
Or else I shall be out clean.
_Lod._ Come, come, I’ll prompt you.
_Cand._ I’ll call her forth now, shall I?
_Lod._ Do, do, bravely.
_Cand._ Luke, I pray, bid your mistress to come hither.
_Lod._ Luke, I pray, bid your mistress to come hither.
_Cand._ Sirrah, bid my wife come to me: why, when?[257]
[257] An expression signifying impatience.
_1st Pren._ [_Within_] Presently, sir, she comes.
_Lod._ La, you, there’s the echo! she comes.
_Enter ~Bride~._
_Bride._ What is your pleasure with me?
_Cand._ Marry, wife,
I have intent; and you see this stripling here,
He bears good will and liking to my trade,
And means to deal in linen.
_Lod._ Yes, indeed, sir, I would deal in linen, if my mistress
like me so well as I like her.
_Cand._ I hope to find him honest, pray; good wife, look that
his bed and chamber be made ready.
_Bride._ You’re best to let him hire me for his maid.
I look to his bed? look to’t yourself.
_Cand._ Even so?
I swear to you a great oath--
_Lod._ Swear, cry Zounds!--
_Cand._ I will not--go to, wife--I will not--
_Lod._ That your great oath?
_Cand._ Swallow these gudgeons!
_Lod._ Well said!
_Bride._ Then fast, then you may choose.
_Cand._ You know at table
What tricks you played, swaggered, broke glasses, fie!
Fie, fie, fie! and now before my prentice here,
You make an ass of me, thou--what shall I call thee?
_Bride._ Even what you will.
_Lod._ Call her arrant whore.
_Cand._ Oh fie, by no means! then she’ll call me cuckold.
Sirrah, go look to th’ shop. How does this show?
_Lod._ Excellent well--I’ll go look to the shop, sir.
Fine cambrics, lawns; what do you lack? [_Goes into the shop._
_Cand._ A curst cow’s milk I ha’ drunk once before,
And ’twas so rank in taste, I’ll drink no more.
Wife, I’ll tame you.
_Bride._ You may, sir, if you can,
But at a wrestling I have seen a fellow
Limbed like an ox, thrown by a little man.
_Cand._ And so you’ll throw me?--Reach me, knaves, a yard!
_Lod._ A yard for my master.
[LODOVICO _returns from the shop with a yard-wand and
followed by ~Prentices~_.
_1st Pren._ My master is grown valiant.
_Cand._ I’ll teach you fencing tricks.
_Prentices._ Rare, rare! a prize![258]
[258] A fencing contest. See note _ante_, p. 160.
_Lod._ What will you do, sir?
_Cand._ Marry, my good prentice, nothing but breathe my wife.
_Bride._ Breathe me with your yard?
_Lod._ No, he’ll but measure you out, forsooth.
_Bride._ Since you’ll needs fence, handle your weapon well,
For if you take a yard, I’ll take an ell.
Reach me an ell!
_Lod._ An ell for my mistress! [_Brings an ell wand from the
shop._ Keep the laws of the noble science, sir, and measure
weapons with her; your yard is a plain heathenish weapon; ’tis
too short, she may give you a handful, and yet you’ll not reach
her.
_Cand._ Yet I ha’ the longer arm.--Come fall to’t roundly,
And spare not me, wife, for I’ll lay’t on soundly:
If o’er husbands their wives will needs be masters,
We men will have a law to win’t at wasters.[259]
[259] Cudgels.
_Lod._ ’Tis for the breeches, is’t not?
_Cand._ For the breeches!
_Bride._ Husband, I’m for you, I’ll not strike in jest.
_Cand._ Nor I.
_Bride._ But will you sign to one request?
_Cand._ What’s that?
_Bride._ Let me give the first blow.
_Cand._ The first blow, wife? shall I?
_Lod._ Let her ha’t:
If she strike hard, in to her, and break her pate.
_Cand._ A bargain: strike!
_Bride._ Then guard you from this blow,
For I play all at legs, but ’tis thus low. [_Kneels._
Behold, I’m such a cunning fencer grown,
I keep my ground, yet down I will be thrown
With the least blow you give me: I disdain
The wife that is her husband’s sovereign.
She that upon your pillow first did rest,
They say, the breeches wore, which I detest:
The tax which she imposed on you, I abate you;
If me you make your master, I shall hate you.
The world shall judge who offers fairest play;
You win the breeches, but I win the day.
_Cand._ Thou win’st the day indeed, give me thy hand;
I’ll challenge thee no more: my patient breast
Played thus the rebel, only for a jest:
Here’s the rank rider, that breaks colts; ’tis he
Can tame the mad folks, and curst wives easily.
_Bride._ Who? your man?
_Cand._ My man? my master, though his head be bare,
But he’s so courteous, he’ll put off his hair.
_Lod._ Nay, if your service be so hot a man cannot keep his hair
on, I’ll serve you no longer. [_Takes off his false hair._
_Bride._ Is this your schoolmaster?
_Lod._ Yes, faith, wench, I taught him to take thee down: I hope
thou canst take him down without teaching;
You ha’ got the conquest, and you both are friends.
_Cand._ Bear witness else.
_Lod._ My prenticeship then ends.
_Cand._ For the good service you to me have done,
I give you all your years.
_Lod._ I thank you, master.
I’ll kiss my mistress now, that she may say,
My man was bound, and free all in one day. [_Exeunt._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ACT THE THIRD.
SCENE I.--_An Apartment in_ HIPPOLITO’S _House_.
_Enter_ INFELICE, _and_ ORLANDO _disguised as
a ~Serving-man~_.
INF. From whom sayst thou?
_Orl._ From a poor gentlewoman, madam, whom I serve.
_Inf._ And what’s your business?
_Orl._ This madam: my poor mistress has a waste piece of ground,
which is her own by inheritance, and left to her by her mother.
There’s a lord now that goes about not to take it clean from
her, but to enclose it to himself, and to join it to a piece of
his lordship’s.
_Inf._ What would she have me do in this?
_Orl._ No more, madam, but what one woman should do for another
in such a case. My honourable lord your husband, would do any
thing in her behalf, but she had rather put herself into your
hands, because you, a woman, may do more with the duke, your
father.
_Inf._ Where lies this land?
_Orl._ Within a stone’s cast of this place; my mistress, I
think, would be content to let him enjoy it after her decease,
if that would serve his turn, so my master would yield too; but
she cannot abide to hear that the lord should meddle with it in
her lifetime.
_Inf._ Is she then married? why stirs not her husband in it?
_Orl._ Her husband stirs in it underhand: but because the other
is a great rich man, my master is loath to be seen in it too
much.
_Inf._ Let her in writing draw the cause at large:
And I will move the duke.
_Orl._ ’Tis set down, madam, here in black and white already:
work it so madam, that she may keep her own without disturbance,
grievance, molestation, or meddling of any other; and she
bestows this purse of gold on your ladyship.
_Inf._ Old man, I’ll plead for her, but take no fees:
Give lawyers them, I swim not in that flood;
I’ll touch no gold, till I have done her good.
_Orl._ I would all proctors’ clerks were of your mind, I should
law more amongst them than I do then; here, madam, is the
survey, not only of the manor itself, but of the grange-house,
with every meadow, pasture, plough-land, cony-burrow, fish-pond,
hedge, ditch, and bush, that stands in it. [_Gives a letter._
_Inf._ My husband’s name, and hand and seal at arms
To a love letter? Where hadst thou this writing?
_Orl._ From the foresaid party, madam, that would keep the
foresaid land out of the foresaid lord’s fingers.
_Inf._ My lord turned ranger now?
_Orl._ You’re a good huntress, lady; you ha’ found your game
already: your lord would fain be a ranger, but my mistress
requests you to let him run a course in your own park. If you’ll
not do’t for love, then do’t for money! she has no white money,
but there’s gold; or else she prays you to ring him by this
token, and so you shall be sure his nose will not be rooting
other men’s pastures. [_Gives purse and ring._
_Inf._ This very purse was woven with mine own hands;
This diamond on that very night, when he
Untied my virgin girdle, gave I him:
And must a common harlot share in mine?
Old man, to quit thy pains, take thou the gold.
_Orl._ Not I, madam, old serving-men want no money.
_Inf._ Cupid himself was sure his secretary;
These lines are even the arrows love let flies,
The very ink dropt out of Venus’ eyes.
_Orl._ I do not think, madam, but he fetched off some poet or
other for those lines, for they are parlous hawks to fly at
wenches.
_Inf._ Here’s honied poison! To me he ne’er thus writ;
But lust can set a double edge on wit.
_Orl._ Nay, that’s true, madam, a wench will whet any thing, if
it be not too dull.
_Inf._ Oaths, promises, preferments, jewels, gold,
What snares should break, if all these cannot hold?
What creature is thy mistress?
_Orl._ One of those creatures that are contrary to man; a woman.
_Inf._ What manner of woman?
_Orl._ A little tiny woman, lower than your ladyship by head and
shoulders, but as mad a wench as ever unlaced a petticoat: these
things should I indeed have delivered to my lord, your husband.
_Inf._ They are delivered better: why should she
Send back these things?
_Orl._ ’Ware, ’ware, there’s knavery.
_Inf._ Strumpets, like cheating gamesters, will not win
At first: these are but baits to draw him in.
How might I learn his hunting hours?
_Orl._ The Irish footman can tell you all his hunting hours,
the park he hunts in, the doe he would strike; that Irish
shackatory[260] beats the bush for him, and knows all; he
brought that letter, and that ring; he is the carrier.
[260] A hound,--derived from “Shake a Tory.”
_Inf._ Knowest thou what other gifts have passed between them?
_Orl._ Little Saint Patrick knows all.
_Inf._ Him I’ll examine presently.
_Orl._ Not whilst I am here, sweet madam.
_Inf._ Be gone then, and what lies in me command. [_Exit_
ORLANDO.
_Enter_ BRYAN.
_Inf._ How much cost those satins,
And cloth of silver, which my husband sent by you
To a low gentlewoman yonder?
_Bry._ Faat satins? faat silvers, faat low gentlefolks? dow
pratest dow knowest not what, i’faat, la.
_Inf._ She there, to whom you carried letters.
_Bry._ By dis hand and bod dow saist true, if I did so, oh how?
I know not a letter a’ de book i’faat, la.
_Inf._ Did your lord never send you with a ring, sir,
Set with a diamond?
_Bry._ Never, sa _crees_[261] fa’ me, never! he may run at a
towsand rings i’faat, and I never hold his stirrup, till he
leap into de saddle. By Saint Patrick, madam, I never touch my
lord’s diamond, nor ever had to do, i’faat, la, with any of his
precious stones.
[261] _Críosd_--Christ.
_Enter_ HIPPOLITO.
_Inf._ Are you so close, you bawd, you pandering slave?
[_Strikes_ BRYAN.
_Hip._ How now? why, Infelice; what’s your quarrel?
_Inf._ Out of my sight, base varlet! get thee gone.
_Hip._ Away, you rogue!
_Bry._ _Slawne loot_,[262] fare de well, fare de well. _Ah
marragh frofat boddah breen!_[263] [_Exit._
[262] Irish: _Slán lúitheach_--A joyous farewell(?).
[263] Irish: _As a márach frómhadh bodach bréan_--On the morrow
of a feast, a clown is a beast.
_Hip._ What, grown a fighter? prithee, what’s the matter?
_Inf._ If you’ll needs know, it was about the clock:
How works the day, my lord, pray, by your watch?
_Hip._ Lest you cuff me, I’ll tell you presently: I am near two.
_Inf._ How, two? I’m scarce at one.
_Hip._ One of us then goes false.
_Inf._ Then sure ’tis you,
Mine goes by heaven’s dial, the sun, and it goes true.
_Hip._ I think, indeed, mine runs somewhat too fast.
_Inf._ Set it to mine at one then.
_Hip._ One? ’tis past:
’Tis past one by the sun.
_Inf._ Faith, then, belike,
Neither your clock nor mine does truly strike;
And since it is uncertain which goes true,
Better be false at one, than false at two.
_Hip._ You’re very pleasant, madam.
_Inf._ Yet not merry.
_Hip._ Why, Infelice, what should make you sad?
_Inf._ Nothing, my lord, but my false watch: pray, tell me,--
You see, my clock or yours is out of frame,
Must we upon the workmen lay the blame,
Or on ourselves that keep them?
_Hip._ Faith on both.
He may by knavery spoil them, we by sloth.
But why talk you all riddle thus? I read
Strange comments in those margins of your looks:
Your cheeks of late are like bad printed books,
So dimly charactered, I scarce can spell
One line of love in them. Sure all’s not well.
_Inf._ All is not well indeed, my dearest lord;
Lock up thy gates of hearing, that no sound
Of what I speak may enter.
_Hip._ What means this?
_Inf._ Or if my own tongue must myself betray,
Count it a dream, or turn thine eyes away,
And think me not thy wife. [_Kneels._
_Hip._ Why do you kneel?
_Inf._ Earth is sin’s cushion: when the sick soul feels
Herself growing poor, then she turns beggar, cries,
And kneels for help: Hippolito, for husband
I dare not call thee, I have stolen that jewel
Of my chaste honour, which was only thine,
And given it to a slave.
_Hip._ Ha?
_Inf._ On thy pillow
Adultery and lust have slept, thy groom
Hath climbed the unlawful tree, and plucked the sweets,
A villain hath usurped a husband’s sheets.
_Hip._ S’death, who?--a cuckold!--who?
_Inf._ This Irish footman.
_Hip._ Worse than damnation! a wild kerne,[264] a frog,
A dog: whom I’ll scarce spurn. Longed you for shamrock?
Were it my father’s father, heart, I’ll kill him,
Although I take him on his death-bed gasping
’Twixt Heaven and hell! a shag-haired cur! Bold strumpet,
Why hang’st thou on me? think’st I’ll be a bawd
To a whore, because she’s noble?
[264] A rough sturdy fellow. Irish: _Ceithearneach_--A soldier.
_Inf._ I beg but this,
Set not my shame out to the world’s broad eye,
Yet let thy vengeance, like my fault, soar high,
So it be in darkened clouds.
_Hip._ Darkened! my horns
Cannot be darkened, nor shall my revenge.
A harlot to my slave? the act is base,
Common, but foul, so shall not thy disgrace.
Could not I feed your appetite? O women
You were created angels, pure and fair;
But since the first fell, tempting devils you are,
You should be men’s bliss, but you prove their rods:
Were there no women, men might live like gods;
You ha’ been too much down already; rise,
Get from my sight, and henceforth shun my bed;
I’ll with no strumpet’s breath be poisonèd.
As for your Irish lubrican, that spirit
Whom by preposterous charms thy lust hath raised
In a wrong circle, him I’ll damn more black
Then any tyrant’s soul.
_Inf._ Hippolito!
_Hip._ Tell me, didst thou bait hooks to draw him to thee,
Or did he bewitch thee?
_Inf._ The slave did woo me.
_Hip._ Tu-whoos in that screech-owl’s language. Oh, who’d trust
Your cork-heeled sex? I think to sate your lust,
You’d love a horse, a bear, a croaking toad,
So your hot itching veins might have their bound:
Then the wild Irish dart[265] was thrown? Come, how?
The manner of this fight?
[265] An allusion to the darts carried by the Irish running
footmen.--_Dyce._
_Inf._ ’Twas thus, he gave me this battery first.--Oh, I
Mistake--believe me, all this in beaten gold;
Yet I held out, but at length thus was charmed. [_Gives
letter, purse and ring._
What? change your diamond, wench, the act is base,
Common, but foul, so shall not your disgrace:
Could not I feed your appetite? O men,
You were created angels, pure and fair,
But since the first fell, worse than devils you are.
You should our shields be, but you prove our rods.
Were there no men, women might live like gods.
Guilty, my lord?
_Hip._ Yes, guilty my good lady.
_Inf._ Nay, you may laugh, but henceforth shun my bed,
With no whore’s leavings I’ll be poisonèd. [_Exit._
_Hip._ O’er-reached so finely? ’Tis the very diamond
And letter which I sent: this villany
Some spider closely weaves, whose poisonèd bulk
I must let forth. Who’s there without?
_Ser._ [_Within._] My lord calls?
_Hip._ Send me the footman.
_Ser._ [_Within._] Call the footman to my lord,--Bryan,
Bryan!
_Hip._ It can be no man else, that Irish Judas,
Bred in a country where no venom prospers
But in the nation’s blood, hath thus betrayed me.
_Re-enter_ BRYAN.
Slave, get you from your service.
_Bry._ Faat meanest thou by this now?
_Hip._ Question me not, nor tempt my fury, villain
Couldst thou turn all the mountains in the land,
To hills of gold, and give me: here thou stayest not.
_Bry._ I’faat, I care not.
_Hip._ Prate not, but get thee gone, I shall send else.
_Bry._ Ay, do predy, I had rather have thee make a scabbard of
my guts, and let out all de Irish puddings in my poor belly, den
to be a false knave to de, i’faat! I will never see dine own
sweet face more. _A mawhid deer a gra_,[266] fare dee well, fare
dee well; I will go steal cows again in Ireland. [_Exit._
[266] Irish: _Maighisdir mo grádh_--Master of my love.
_Hip._ He’s damned that raised this whirlwind, which hath blown
Into her eyes this jealousy: yet I’ll on,
I’ll on, stood armed devils staring in my face,
To be pursued in flight, quickens the race,
Shall my blood-streams by a wife’s lust be barred?
Fond[267] woman, no: iron grows by strokes more hard;
Lawless desires are seas scorning all bounds,
Or sulphur, which being rammed up, more confounds,
Struggling with madmen madness nothing tames,
Winds wrestling with great fires incense the flames. [_Exit._
[267] Foolish.
[Illustration]
SCENE II.--_A Room in Matheo’s House._
_Enter_ BELLAFRONT, _and_ ORLANDO _disguised as a ~Serving-man~_.
_Bell._ How now, what ails your master?
_Orl._ Has taken a younger brother’s purge, forsooth, and that
works with him.
_Bell._ Where is his cloak and rapier?
_Orl._ He has given up his cloak, and his rapier is bound to the
peace: If you look a little higher, you may see that another
hath entered into hatband for him too. Six and four have put him
into this sweat.
_Bell._ Where’s all his money?
_Orl._ ’Tis put over by exchange; his doublet was going to be
translated, but for me. If any man would ha’ lent but half
a ducat on his beard, the hair of it had stuffed a pair of
breeches by this time; I had but one poor penny, and that I was
glad to niggle out, and buy a holly-wand to grace him through
the street. As hap was, his boots were on, and them I dustied,
to make people think he had been riding, and I had run by him.
_Bell._ Oh me!
_Enter_ MATHEO.
How does my sweet Matheo?
_Mat._ Oh rogue, of what devilish stuff are these dice made
of,--the parings of the devil’s corns of his toes, that they run
thus damnably?
_Bell._ I prithee, vex not.
_Mat._ If any handicraft’s-man was ever suffered to keep shop in
hell, it will be a dice-maker; he’s able to undo more souls than
the devil; I played with mine own dice, yet lost. Ha’ you any
money?
_Bell._ ’Las, I ha’ none.
_Mat._ Must have money, must have some, must have a cloak, and
rapier, and things. Will you go set your lime-twigs, and get me
some birds, some money?
_Bell._ What lime-twigs should I set?
_Mat._ You will not then? Must have cash and pictures, do ye
hear, frailty? shall I walk in a Plymouth cloak,[268] that’s to
say, like a rogue, in my hose and doublet, and a crabtree cudgel
in my hand, and you swim in your satins? Must have money, come!
[_Taking off her gown._
[268] _i.e._ With a staff.
_Orl._ Is’t bed-time, master, that you undo my mistress?
_Bell._ Undo me? Yes, yes, at these riflings I
Have been too often.
_Mat._ Help to flay, Pacheco.
_Orl._ Flaying call you it?
_Mat._ I’ll pawn you, by th’ lord, to your very eyebrows.
_Bell._ With all my heart, since Heaven will have me poor,
As good be drowned at sea, as drowned at shore.
_Orl._ Why, hear you, sir? i’faith do not make away her gown.
_Mat._ Oh! it’s summer, it’s summer; your only fashion for a
woman now is to be light, to be light.
_Orl._ Why, pray sir, employ some of that money you have of mine.
_Mat._ Thine? I’ll starve first, I’ll beg first; when I touch a
penny of that, let these fingers’ ends rot.
_Orl._ So they may, for that’s past touching. I saw my twenty
pounds fly high. [_Aside._
_Mat._ Knowest thou never a damned broker about the city?
_Orl._ Damned broker? yes, five hundred.
_Mat._ The gown stood me in above twenty ducats, borrow ten of
it. Cannot live without silver.
_Orl._ I’ll make what I can of it, sir, I’ll be your broker,--
But not your damned broker: Oh thou scurvy knave!
What makes a wife turn whore, but such a slave? [_Aside and
exit with_ BELLAFRONT’S _gown_.
_Mat._ How now, little chick, what ailest, weeping for a handful
of tailor’s shreds? pox on them, are there not silks enow at
mercer’s?
_Bell._ I care not for gay feathers, I.
_Mat._ What dost care for then? why dost grieve?
_Bell._ Why do I grieve? A thousand sorrows strike
At one poor heart, and yet it lives. Matheo,
Thou art a gamester, prithee, throw at all,
Set all upon one cast. We kneel and pray,
And struggle for life, yet must be cast away.
Meet misery quickly then, split all, sell all,
And when thou’st sold all, spend it; but I beseech thee
Build not thy mind on me to coin thee more,
To get it wouldst thou have me play the whore?
_Mat._ ’Twas your profession before I married you.
_Bell._ Umh? it was indeed: if all men should be branded
For sins long since laid up, who could be saved?
The quarter-day’s at hand, how will you do
To pay the rent, Matheo?
_Mat._ Why? do as all of our occupation do against quarter-days:
break up house, remove, shift your lodgings: pox a’ your
quarters!
_Enter_ LODOVICO.
_Lod._ Where’s this gallant?
_Mat._ Signor Lodovico? how does my little Mirror of
Knighthood?[269] this is kindly done i’faith: welcome, by my
troth.
[269] An allusion to the well-known romance of this name, from
the Spanish.
_Lod._ And how dost, frolic?--Save you fair lady.--
Thou lookest smug and bravely, noble Mat.
_Mat._ Drink and feed, laugh and lie warm.
_Lod._ Is this thy wife?
_Mat._ A poor gentlewoman, sir, whom I make use of a’nights.
_Lod._ Pay custom to your lips, sweet lady. [_Kisses her._
_Mat._ Borrow some shells[270] of him--some wine, sweetheart.
[270] A cant term for money.
_Lod._ I’ll send for’t then, i’faith.
_Mat._ You send for’t?--Some wine, I prithee.
_Bell._ I ha’ no money.
_Mat._ ’Sblood, nor I.--What wine love you, signor?
_Lod._ Here! (_Offering money_,) or I’ll not stay, I
protest; trouble the gentlewoman too much? [_Gives money to_
BELLAFRONT, _who goes out_.
And what news flies abroad, Matheo?
_Mat._ Troth, none. Oh signor, we ha’ been merry in our days.
_Lod._ And no doubt shall again.
The divine powers never shoot darts at men
Mortal, to kill them.
_Mat._ You say true.
_Lod._ Why should we grieve at want? Say the world made thee
Her minion, that thy head lay in her lap,
And that she danced thee on her wanton knee,
She could but give thee a whole world: that’s all,
And that all’s nothing; the world’s greatest part
Cannot fill up one corner of thy heart.
Say three corners were all filled, alas!
Of what art thou possessed, a thin blown glass:
Such as is by boys puffed into the air.
Were twenty kingdoms thine, thou’dst live in care:
Thou couldst not sleep the better, nor live longer,
Nor merrier be, nor healthfuller, nor stronger.
If, then, thou want’st, thus make that want thy pleasure,
No man wants all things, nor has all in measure.
_Mat._ I am the most wretched fellow: sure some left-handed
priest hath christened me, I am so unlucky; I am never out of
one puddle or another; still falling.
_Re-enter_ BELLAFRONT _with wine_.
Fill out wine to my little finger.
With my heart, i’faith. [_Drinks._
_Lod._ Thanks, good Matheo.
To your own sweet self. [_Drinks._
_Re-enter_ ORLANDO.
_Orl._ All the brokers’ hearts, sir, are made of flint. I can
with all my knocking strike but six sparks of fire out of them;
here’s six ducats, if you’ll take them.
_Mat._ Give me them! [_Taking money._] An evil conscience gnaw
them all! moths and plagues hang upon their lousy wardrobes!
_Lod._ Is this your man, Matheo?
_Mat._ An old serving-man.
_Orl._ You may give me t’other half too, sir, that’s the beggar.
_Lod._ What hast there,--gold?
_Mat._ A sort of rascals are in my debt, God knows what, and
they feed me with bits, with crumbs, a pox choke them.
_Lod._ A word, Matheo; be not angry with me;
Believe it that I know the touch of time,
And can part copper though it be gilded o’er,
From the true gold: the sails which thou dost spread,
Would show well if they were not borrowèd.
The sound of thy low fortunes drew me hither,
I give my self unto thee; prithee, use me,
I will bestow on you a suit of satin,
And all things else to fit a gentleman,
Because I love you.
_Mat._ Thanks, good, noble knight!
_Lod._ Call on me when you please; till then farewell. [_Exit._
_Mat._ Hast angled? hast cut up this fresh salmon?
_Bell._ Wouldst have me be so base?
_Mat._ It’s base to steal, its base to be a whore:
Thou’lt be more base, I’ll make thee keep a door.[271] [_Exit._
[271] _i.e._ Turn bawd.
_Orl._ I hope he will not sneak away with all the money, will
he?
_Bell._ Thou sees’t he does.
_Orl._ Nay then, it’s well. I set my brains upon an upright
last; though my wits be old, yet they are like a withered
pippin, wholesome. Look you, mistress, I told him I had but six
ducats of the knave broker, but I had eight, and kept these two
for you.
_Bell._ Thou should’st have given him all.
_Orl._ What, to fly high?
_Bell._ Like waves, my misery drives on misery. [_Exit._
_Orl._ Sell his wife’s clothes from her back? does any
poulterer’s wife pull chickens alive? He riots all abroad,
wants all at home: he dices, whores, swaggers, swears, cheats,
borrows, pawns: I’ll give him hook and line, a little more for
all this;
Yet sure i’th end he’ll delude all my hopes,
And show me a French trick danced on the ropes. [_Exit._
[Illustration]
SCENE III.--_Before_ CANDIDO’S _Shop_. CANDIDO _and his ~Bride~
discovered in the Shop_.
_Enter at one side_ LODOVICO _and_ CAROLO; _at another_ BOTS, _and_
Mistress HORSELEECH.
_Lod._ Hist, hist, Lieutenant Bots, how dost, man?
_Car._ Whither are you ambling, Madam Horseleech?
_Mis. H._ About worldly profit, sir: how do your worships?
_Bots._ We want tools, gentlemen, to furnish the trade: they
wear out day and night, they wear out till no metal be left in
their back. We hear of two or three new wenches are come up with
a carrier, and your old goshawk here is flying at them.
_Lod._ And, faith, what flesh have you at home?
_Mis. H._ Ordinary dishes; by my troth, sweet men, there’s few
good i’ th’ city; I am as well furnished as any, and, though I
say it, as well customed.
_Bots._ We have meats of all sorts of dressing; we have stewed
meat for your Frenchman, pretty light picking meat for your
Italian, and that which is rotten roasted for Don Spaniardo.
_Lod._ A pox on’t.
_Bots._ We have poulterer’s ware for your sweet bloods, as dove,
chicken, duck, teal, woodcock, and so forth; and butcher’s meat
for the citizen: yet muttons[272] fall very bad this year.
[272] Prostitutes.
_Lod._ Stay, is not that my patient linen-draper yonder, and my
fine young smug mistress, his wife?
_Car._ Sirrah,[273] grannam, I’ll give thee for thy fee twenty
crowns, if thou canst but procure me the wearing of yon velvet
cap.
[273] See note _ante_, p. 124.
_Mis. H._ You’d wear another thing besides the cap. You’re a wag.
_Bots._ Twenty crowns? we’ll share, and I’ll be your pully to
draw her on.
_Lod._ Do’t presently; we’ll ha’ some sport.
_Mis. H._ Wheel you about, sweet men: do you see? I’ll cheapen
wares of the man, whilst Bots is doing with his wife.
_Lod._ To’t: if we come into the shop to do you grace, we’ll
call you madam.
_Bots._ Pox a’ your old face, give it the badge of all scurvy
faces, a mask.
[MISTRESS HORSELEECH _puts on a mask_.
_Cand._ What is’t you lack, gentlewoman? Cambric or lawns, or
fine hollands? Pray draw near, I can sell you a pennyworth.
_Bots._ Some cambric for my old lady.
_Cand._ Cambric? you shall, the purest thread in Milan.
_Car._ Save you, Signor Candido.
_Lod._ How does my noble master? how my fair mistress?
_Cand._ My worshipful good servant.--View it well, for ’tis both
fine and even. [_Shows cambric._
_Car._ Cry you mercy, madam; though masked, I thought it should
be you by your man.--Pray, signor, show her the best, for she
commonly deals for good ware.
_Cand._ Then this shall fit her.--This is for your ladyship.
_Bots._ A word, I pray; there is a waiting gentlewoman of my
lady’s: her name is Ruyna, says she’s your kinswoman, and that
you should be one of her aunts.
_Bride._ One of her aunts? troth, sir, I know her not.
_Bots._ If it please you to bestow the poor labour of your legs
at any time, I will be your convoy thither?
_Bride._ I am a snail, sir, seldom leave my house. If’t please
her to visit me, she shall be welcome.
_Bots._ Do you hear? the naked truth is; my lady hath a young
knight, her son, who loves you, you’re made, if you lay hold
upon’t; this jewel he sends you. [_Offers jewel._
_Bride._ Sir, I return his love and jewel with scorn; let go
my hand, or I shall call my husband. You are an arrant knave.
[_Exit._
_Lod._ What will she do?
_Bots._ Do? They shall all do if Bots sets upon them once: she
was as if she had professed the trade, squeamish at first; at
last I showed her this jewel, said a knight sent it her.
_Lod._ Is’t gold, and right stones?
_Bots._ Copper, copper, I go a fishing with these baits.
She nibbled, but would not swallow the hook, because the
conger-head, her husband, was by; but she bids the gentleman
name any afternoon, and she’ll meet him at her garden
house,[274] which I know.
[274] Gardens with summer-houses were very common in the
suburbs of London at the time, and were often used as places of
intrigue.--_Dyce._
_Lod._ Is this no lie now?
_Bots._ Damme, if--
_Lod._ Oh, prithee stay there.
_Bots._ The twenty crowns, sir.
_Lod._ Before he has his work done? but on my knightly word he
shall pay’t thee.
_Enter_ ASTOLFO, BERALDO, FONTINELL,
_and_ BRYAN.
_Ast._ I thought thou hadst been gone into thine own country.
_Bry._ No, faat, la, I cannot go dis four or tree days.
_Ber._ Look thee, yonder’s the shop, and that’s the man himself.
_Fon._ Thou shalt but cheapen, and do as we told thee, to put a
jest upon him, to abuse his patience.
_Bry._ I’faat, I doubt my pate shall be knocked: but, sa crees
sa’ me, for your shakes, I will run to any linen-draper in hell:
come predee.
_Ast._, _Ber._, _Fon._ Save you, gallants.
_Lod._, _Car._ Oh, well met!
_Cand._ You’ll give no more, you say? I cannot take it.
_Mis. H._ Truly I’ll give no more.
_Cand._ It must not fetch it.
What would you have, sweet gentlemen.
_Ast._ Nay, here’s the customer.
[_Exeunt_ BOTS _and_ Mistress HORSELEECH.
_Lod._ The garden-house, you say? we’ll bolt[275] out your
roguery.
[275] Sift.
_Cand._ I will but lay these parcels by--my men
Are all at the custom house unloading wares,
If cambric you would deal in, there’s the best,
All Milan cannot sample it.
_Lod._ Do your hear it? one, two, three,--’Sfoot, there came in
four gallants! Sure your wife is slipt up, and the fourth man, I
hold my life, is grafting your warden tree.[276]
[276] Pear-tree.
_Cand._ Ha, ha, ha! you gentlemen are full of jest.
If she be up, she’s gone some wares to show;
I have above as good wares as below.
_Lod._ Have you so? nay, then--
_Cand._ Now, gentlemen, is’t cambrics?
_Bry._ I predee now let me have de best waures.
_Cand._ What’s that he says, pray, gentlemen?
_Lod._ Marry, he says we are like to have the best wars.
_Cand._ The best wars? all are bad, yet wars do good,
And, like to surgeons, let sick kingdom’s blood.
_Bry._ Faat a devil pratest tow so? a pox on dee! I preddee, let
me see some hollen, to make linen shirts, for fear my body be
lousy.
_Cand._ Indeed, I understand no word he speaks.
_Car._ Marry, he says that at the siege in Holland
There was much bawdry used among the soldiers,
Though they were lousy.
_Cand._ It may be so, that likely; true, indeed,
In every garden, sir, does grow that weed.
_Bry._ Pox on de gardens, and de weeds, and de fool’s cap dere,
and de clouts! hear? dost make a hobby-horse of me? [_Tearing
the cambric._
_All._ Oh, fie! he has torn the cambric.
_Cand._ ’Tis no matter.
_Ast._ It frets me to the soul.
_Cand._ So does’t not me.
My customers do oft for remnants call,
These are two remnants, now, no loss at all.
But let me tell you, were my servants here,
It would ha’ cost more.--Thank you, gentlemen,
I use you well, pray know my shop again.
_All._ Ha, ha, ha! come, come, let’s go, let’s go. [_Exeunt._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ACT THE FOURTH.
SCENE I.--_A Room in_ MATHEO’S _House_.
_Enter_ MATHEO _brave,[277] and_ BELLAFRONT.
[277] Finely attired.
MAT. How am I suited, Front? am I not gallant, ha?
_Bell._ Yes, sir, you are suited well.
_Mat._ Exceeding passing well, and to the time.
_Bell._ The tailor has played his part with you.
_Mat._ And I have played a gentleman’s part with my tailor, for
I owe him for the making of it.
_Bell._ And why did you so, sir?
_Mat._ To keep the fashion; it’s your only fashion now, of your
best rank of gallants, to make their tailors wait for their
money; neither were it wisdom indeed to pay them upon the first
edition of a new suit; for commonly the suit is owing for, when
the linings are worn out, and there’s no reason, then, that the
tailor should be paid before the mercer.
_Bell._ Is this the suit the knight bestowed upon you?
_Mat._ This is the suit, and I need not shame to wear it, for
better men than I would be glad to have suits bestowed on them.
It’s a generous fellow,--but--pox on him--we whose pericranions
are the very limbecks and stillatories of good wit and fly high,
must drive liquor out of stale gaping oysters--shallow knight,
poor squire Tinacheo: I’ll make a wild Cataian[278] of forty
such: hang him, he’s an ass, he’s always sober.
[278] A Cataian came to signify a sharper because the
people of Cataia (China) were famous for their thieving
propensities.--_Dyce._
_Bell._ This is your fault to wound your friends still.
_Mat._ No, faith, Front, Lodovico is a noble Slavonian: it’s
more rare to see him in a woman’s company, than for a Spaniard
to go into England, and to challenge the English fencers
there.--[_Knocking within._] One knocks,--see.--[_Exit_
BELLAFRONT.]--La, fa, fol, la, fa, la, [_Sings_] rustle
in silks and satins! there’s music in this, and a taffeta
petticoat, it makes both fly high. _Catso._
_Re-enter_ BELLAFRONT _with_ ORLANDO _in his
own dress, and four ~Servants~_.
_Bell._ Matheo! ’tis my father.
_Mat._ Ha! father? It’s no matter, he finds no tattered
prodigals here.
_Orl._ Is not the door good enough to hold your blue coats?[279]
away, knaves, Wear not your clothes threadbare at knees for me;
beg Heaven’s blessing, not mine.--[_Exeunt ~Servants~._]--Oh
cry your worship mercy, sir; was somewhat bold to talk to this
gentlewoman, your wife here.
[279] Serving-men’s livery at this time was usually blue.
_Mat._ A poor gentlewoman, sir.
_Orl._ Stand not, sir, bare to me; I ha’ read oft
That serpents who creep low, belch ranker poison
Than wingèd dragons do that fly aloft.
_Mat._ If it offend you, sir, ’tis for my pleasure.
_Orl._ Your pleasure be’t, sir. Umh, is this your palace?
_Bell._ Yes, and our kingdom, for ’tis our content.
_Orl._ It’s a very poor kingdom then; what, are all your
subjects gone a sheep-shearing? not a maid? not a man? not so
much as a cat? You keep a good house belike, just like one of
your profession, every room with bare walls, and a half-headed
bed to vault upon, as all your bawdy-houses are. Pray who are
your upholsters? Oh, the spiders, I see, they bestow hangings
upon you.
_Mat._ Bawdy-house? Zounds, sir--
_Bell._ Oh sweet Matheo, peace. Upon my knees
I do beseech you, sir, not to arraign me
For sins, which Heaven, I hope, long since hath pardoned!
Those flames, like lightning flashes, are so spent,
The heat no more remains, than where ships went,
Or where birds cut the air, the print remains.
_Mat._ Pox on him, kneel to a dog.
_Bell._ She that’s a whore,
Lives gallant, fares well, is not, like me, poor.
I ha’ now as small acquaintance with that sin,
As if I had never known’t, t’ had never been.
_Orl._ No acquaintance with it? what maintains thee then? how
dost live then? Has thy husband any lands? any rents coming in,
any stock going, any ploughs jogging, any ships sailing? hast
thou any wares to turn, so much as to get a single penny by?
Yes thou hast ware to sell,
Knaves are thy chapmen, and thy shop is hell.
_Mat._ Do you hear, sir?
_Orl._ So, sir, I do hear, sir, more of you than you dream I do.
_Mat._ You fly a little too high, sir.
_Orl._ Why, sir, too high?
_Mat._ I ha’ suffered your tongue, like a bard cater-tray,[280]
to run all this while, and ha’ not stopt it.
[280] A kind of false dice.
_Orl._ Well, sir, you talk like a gamester.
_Mat._ If you come to bark at her, because she’s a poor rogue,
look you, here’s a fine path, sir, and there, there’s the door.
_Bell._ Matheo?
_Mat._ Your blue coats stay for you, sir. I love a good honest
roaring boy, and so--
_Orl._ That’s the devil.
_Mat._ Sir, sir, I’ll ha’ no Joves in my house to thunder
avaunt: she shall live and be maintained when you, like a keg of
musty sturgeon, shall stink; where? in your coffin--how? be a
musty fellow, and lousy.
_Orl._ I know she shall be maintained, but how? she like a
quean, thou like a knave; she like a whore, thou like a thief.
_Mat._ Thief? Zounds! Thief?
_Bell._ Good, dearest Mat!--Father!
_Mat._ Pox on you both! I’ll not be braved. New satin scorns to
be put down with bare bawdy velvet. Thief?
_Orl._ Ay, thief, th’art a murderer, a cheater, a whoremonger, a
pot-hunter, a borrower a beggar--
_Bell._ Dear father--
_Mat._ An old ass, a dog, a churl, a chuff, an usurer, a
villain, a moth, a mangy mule, with an old velvet foot-cloth on
his back, sir.
_Bell._ Oh me!
_Orl._ Varlet, for this I’ll hang thee.
_Mat._ Ha, ha, alas!
_Orl._ Thou keepest a man of mine here, under my nose--
_Mat._ Under thy beard.
_Orl._ As arrant a smell-smock, for an old muttonmonger[281] as
thyself.
[281] Whoremonger.
_Mat._ No, as yourself.
_Orl._ As arrant a purse-taker as ever cried, Stand! yet a good
fellow I confess, and valiant; but he’ll bring thee to th’
gallows; you both have robbed of late two poor country pedlars.
_Mat._ How’s this? how’s this? dost thou fly high? rob
pedlars?--bear witness, Front--rob pedlars? my man and I a thief?
_Bell._ Oh, sir, no more.
_Orl._ Ay, knave, two pedlars; hue and cry is up; warrants are
out, and I shall see thee climb a ladder.
_Mat._ And come down again as well as a bricklayer or a tiler.
How the vengeance knows he this? If I be hanged, I’ll tell the
people I married old Friscobaldo’s daughter; I’ll frisco you,
and your old carcass.
_Orl._ Tell what you canst; if I stay here longer, I shall be
hanged too, for being in thy company; therefore, as I found you,
I leave you--
_Mat._ Kneel, and get money of him.
_Orl._ A knave and a quean, a thief and a strumpet, a couple of
beggars, a brace of baggages.
_Mat._ Hang upon him--Ay, ay, sir, farewell; we are--follow
close--we are beggars--in satin--to him.
_Bell._ Is this your comfort, when so many years
You ha’ left me frozen to death?
_Orl._ Freeze still, starve still!
_Bell._ Yes, so I shall: I must: I must and will.
If as you say I’m poor, relieve me then,
Let me not sell my body to base men.
You call me strumpet, Heaven knows I am none:
Your cruelty may drive me to be one:
Let not that sin be yours; let not the shame
Of common whore live longer than my name.
That cunning bawd, necessity, night and day
Plots to undo me; drive that hag away,
Lest being at lowest ebb, as now I am,
I sink for ever.
_Orl._ Lowest ebb, what ebb?
_Bell._ So poor, that, though to tell it be my shame,
I am not worth a dish to hold my meat;
I am yet poorer, I want bread to eat.
_Orl._ It’s not seen by your cheeks.
_Mat._ I think she has read an homily to tickle the old rogue.
[_Aside._
_Orl._ Want bread! there’s satin: bake that.
_Mat._ ’Sblood, make pasties of my clothes?
_Orl._ A fair new cloak, stew that; an excellent gilt rapier.
_Mat._ Will you eat that, sir?
_Orl._ I could feast ten good fellows with these hangers.[282]
[282] The loops or straps appended to the girdle in which the
dagger or small sword usually hung.--_Halliwell._
_Mat._ The pox, you shall!
_Orl._ I shall not, till thou begg’st, think thou art poor;
And when thou begg’st I’ll feed thee at my door,
As I feed dogs, with bones; till then beg, borrow,
Pawn, steal, and hang, turn bawd, when th’art whore.--
My heart-strings sure would crack, were they strained
more. [_Aside, and exit._
_Mat._ This is your father, your damned--Confusion light upon
all the generation of you; he can come bragging hither with four
white herrings at’s tail in blue coats, without roes in their
bellies, but I may starve ere he give me so much as a cob.[283]
[283] Means both a herring and a piece of money.
_Bell._ What tell you me of this? alas!
_Mat._ Go, trot after your dad, do you capitulate; I’ll pawn not
for you; I’ll not steal to be hanged for such an hypocritical,
close, common harlot: away, you dog!--Brave i’faith! Udsfoot,
give me some meat.
_Bell._ Yes, sir. [_Exit._
_Mat._ Goodman slave, my man too, is galloped to the devil
a’ t’other side: Pacheco, I’ll checo you. Is this your dad’s
day? England, they say, is the only hell for horses, and only
paradise for women: pray get you to that paradise, because
you’re called an honest whore; there they live none but honest
whores with a pox. Marry here in our city, all your sex are but
foot-cloth nags,[284] the master no sooner lights but the man
leaps into the saddle.
[284] Horses with long housings.
_Re-enter_ BELLAFRONT _with meat and drink_.
_Bell._ Will you sit down I pray, sir?
_Mat._ [_Sitting down._] I could tear, by th’ Lord, his flesh,
and eat his midriff in salt, as I eat this:--must I choke--my
father Friscobaldo, I shall make a pitiful hog-louse of you,
Orlando, if you fall once into my fingers--Here’s the savourest
meat! I ha’ got a stomach with chafing. What rogue should tell
him of those two pedlars? A plague choke him, and gnaw him to
the bare bones!--Come fill.
_Bell._ Thou sweatest with very anger, good sweet, vex not, as
’tis no fault of mine.
_Mat._ Where didst buy this mutton? I never felt better ribs.
_Bell._ A neighbour sent it me.
_Re-enter_ ORLANDO _disguised as a ~Serving-man~_.
_Mat._ Hah, neighbour? foh, my mouth stinks,--You whore, do you
beg victuals for me? Is this satin doublet to be bombasted[285]
with broken meat? [_Takes up the stool._
[285] Stuffed out.
_Orl._ What will you do, sir?
_Mat._ Beat out the brains of a beggarly--
_Orl._ Beat out an ass’s head of your own--Away, Mistress
[_Exit_ BELLAFRONT.] Zounds, do but touch one hair of
her, and I’ll so quilt your cap with old iron, that your coxcomb
shall ache like a roasted rabbit, that you must have the head
for the brains?
_Mat._ Ha, ha! go out of my doors, you rogue, away, four marks;
trudge.
_Orl._ Four marks? no, sir, my twenty pound that you ha’ made
fly high, and I am gone.
_Mat._ Must I be fed with chippings? you’re best
get a clapdish,[286] and say you’re proctor to some
spittle-house.[287] Where hast thou been, Pacheco? Come hither
my little turkey-cock.
[286] The clap or clack-dish was properly a box carried by
beggars, the lid of which they used to rattle to attract notice
and bring people to their doors.
[287] Hospital.
_Orl._ I cannot abide, sir, to see a woman wronged, not I.
_Mat._ Sirrah, here was my father-in-law to day.
_Orl._ Pish, then you’re full of crowns.
_Mat._ Hang him! he would ha’ thrust crowns upon me, to have
fallen in again, but I scorn cast clothes, or any man’s gold.
_Orl._ But mine; [_Aside._]--How did he brook that, sir?
_Mat._ Oh, swore like a dozen of drunken tinkers; at last
growing foul in words, he and four of his men drew upon me, sir.
_Orl._ In your house? would I had been by!
_Mat._ I made no more ado, but fell to my old lock, and so
thrashed my blue-coats and old crab-tree-face my father-in-law,
and then walked like a lion in my grate.
_Orl._ O noble master!
_Mat._ Sirrah, he could tell me of the robbing the two pedlars,
and that warrants are out for us both.
_Orl._ Good sir, I like not those crackers.
_Mat._ Crackhalter, wou’t set thy foot to mine?
_Orl._ How, sir? at drinking.
_Mat._ We’ll pull that old crow my father: rob thy master. I
know the house, thou the servants: the purchase[288] is rich,
the plot to get it is easy, the dog will not part from a bone.
[288] Booty.
_Orl._ Pluck’t out of his throat, then: I’ll snarl for one, if
this[289] can bite.
[289] Meaning his sword.
_Mat._ Say no more, say no more, old coal, meet me anon at the
sign of the Shipwreck.
_Orl._ Yes, sir.
_Mat._ And dost hear, man?--the Shipwreck. [_Exit._
_Orl._ Th’art at the shipwreck now, and like a swimmer,
Bold, but inexpert, with those waves dost play,
Whose dalliance, whorelike, is to cast thee away.
_Enter_ HIPPOLITO _and_ BELLAFRONT.
And here’s another vessel, better fraught,
But as ill-manned her sinking will be wrought,
If rescue come not: like a man of war
I’ll therefore bravely out; somewhat I’ll do,
And either save them both, or perish too. [_Exit._
_Hip._ ’Tis my fate to be bewitched by those eyes.
_Bell._ Fate? your folly.
Why should my face thus mad you? ’Las, those colours
Are wound up long ago, which beauty spread;
The flowers that once grew here, are witherèd.
You turned my black soul white, made it look new,
And should I sin, it ne’er should be with you.
_Hip._ Your hand, I’ll offer you fair play: When first
We met i’th ’lists together, you remember
You were a common rebel; with one parley
I won you to come in.
_Bell._ You did.
_Hip._ I’ll try
If now I can beat down this chastity
With the same ordnance; will you yield this fort,
If the power of argument now, as then,
I get of you the conquest: as before
I turned you honest, now to turn you whore,
By force of strong persuasion?
_Bell._ If you can,
I yield.
_Hip._ The alarum’s struck up; I’m your man.
_Bell._ A woman gives defiance.
_Hip._ Sit. [_They seat themselves._
_Bell._ Begin:
’Tis a brave battle to encounter sin.
_Hip._ You men that are to fight in the same war
To which I’m prest, and plead at the same bar,
To win a woman, if you’d have me speed,
Send all your wishes!
_Bell._ No doubt you’re heard; proceed.
_Hip._ To be a harlot, that you stand upon,
The very name’s a charm to make you one.
Harlotta was a dame of so divine
And ravishing touch, that she was concubine
To an English king;[290] her sweet bewitching eye
Did the king’s heart-strings in such love-knots tie,
That even the coyest was proud when she could hear
Men say, “behold, another harlot there!”
And after her all women that were fair
Were harlots called as to this day some are:
Besides, her dalliance she so well does mix,
That she’s in Latin called the _Meretrix_.
Thus for the name; for the profession, this,
Who lives in bondage, lives laced; the chief bliss
This world below can yield, is liberty:
And who, than whores, with looser wings dare fly?
As Juno’s proud bird spreads the fairest tail,
So does a strumpet hoist the loftiest sail,
She’s no man’s slave; men are her slaves; her eye
Moves not on wheels screwed up with jealousy.
She, horsed or coached, does merry journeys make,
Free as the sun in his gilt zodiac:
As bravely does she shine, as fast she’s driven,
But stays not long in any house of heaven;
But shifts from sign to sign, her amorous prizes
More rich being when she’s down, than when she rises.
In brief, gentlemen hunt them, soldiers fight for them,
Few men but know them, few or none abhor them:
Thus for sport’s sake speak I, as to a woman,
Whom, as the worst ground, I would turn to common:
But you I would enclose for mine own bed.
[290] Steevens pointed out that Arlotte was not the concubine of
an English king but was the mistress of the father of William
the Conqueror.
_Bell._ So should a husband be dishonourèd.
_Hip._ Dishonoured? not a whit: to fall to one
Besides your husband is to fall to none,
For one no number is.
_Bell._ Faith, should you take
One in your bed, would you that reckoning make?
’Tis time you found retreat.
_Hip._ Say, have I won,
Is the day ours?
_Bell._ The battle’s but half done,
None but yourself have yet sounded alarms,
Let us strike too, else you dishonour arms.
_Hip._ If you can win the day, the glory’s yours.
_Bell._ To prove a woman should not be a whore,
When she was made, she had one man, no more;
Yet she was tied to laws then, for even than,[291]
’Tis said, she was not made for men, but man.
Anon, t’increase earth’s brood, the law was varied,
Men should take many wives: and though they married
According to that act, yet ’tis not known
But that those wives were only tied to one.
New parliaments were since: for now one woman
Is shared between three hundred, nay she’s common,
Common as spotted leopards, whom for sport
Men hunt to get the flesh, but care not for’t.
So spread they nets of gold, and tune their calls,
To enchant silly women to take falls;
Swearing they’re angels, which that they may win
They’ll hire the devil to come with false dice in.
Oh Sirens’ subtle tunes! yourselves you flatter,
And our weak sex betray: so men love water;
It serves to wash their hands, but being once foul,
The water down is poured, cast out of doors,
And even of such base use do men make whores.
A harlot, like a hen more sweetness reaps,
To pick men one by one up, than in heaps:
Yet all feeds but confounding. Say you should taste me,
I serve but for the time, and when the day
Of war is done, am cashiered out of pay:
If like lame soldiers I could beg, that’s all,
And there’s lust’s rendezvous, an hospital.
Who then would be a man’s slave, a man’s woman?
She’s half starved the first day that feeds in common.
[291] _i.e._ Then.
_Hip._ You should not feed so, but with me alone.
_Bell._ If I drink poison by stealth, is’t not all one?
Is’t not rank poison still with you alone?
Nay, say you spied a courtesan, whose soft side
To touch you’d sell your birth-right, for one kiss
Be racked; she’s won, you’re sated: what follows this?
Oh, then you curse that bawd that tolled you in;
The night you curse your lust, you loathe the sin,
You loathe her very sight, and ere the day
Arise, you rise glad when you’re stol’n away.
Even then when you are drunk with all her sweets,
There’s no true pleasure in a strumpet’s sheets.
Women whom lust so prostitutes to sale,
Like dancers upon ropes, once seen, are stale.
_Hip._ If all the threads of harlot’s lives are spun,
So coarse as you would make them, tell me why
You so long loved the trade?
_Bell._ If all the threads
Of harlot’s lives be fine as you would make them,
Why do not you persuade your wife turn whore,
And all dames else to fall before that sin?
Like an ill husband, though I knew the same
To be my undoing, followed I that game.
Oh, when the work of lust had earned my bread,
To taste it how I trembled, lest each bit,
Ere it went down, should choke me chewing it!
My bed seemed like a cabin hung in hell,
The bawd, hell’s porter, and the liquorish wine
The pander fetched, was like an easy fine,
For which, methought, I leased away my soul,
And oftentimes, even in my quaffing bowl,
Thus said I to myself, I am a whore,
And have drunk down thus much confusion more.
_Hip._ It is a common rule, and ’tis most true,
Two of one trade ne’er love: no more do you.
Why are you sharp ’gainst that you once professed?