redress.
BAILY. God bless you, Gammer Gurton.
GAMMER. God 'eild[295] ye, master mine.
BAILY. Thou hast a knave within thy house, Hodge, a servant of thine.
They tell me that busy knave is such a filching one,
That hen, pig, goose, or capon, thy neighbour can have none.
GAMMER. By God, cham much a-meved to hear any such report:
Hodge was not wont, ich trow, to have him in that sort.
CHAT. A thievisher knave is not on-live, more filching nor more false;
Many a truer man than he has hanged up by the halse.[296]
And thou his dame of all his theft thou art the sole receiver;
For Hodge to catch, and thou to keep, I never new none better.
GAMMER. Sir reverence of your masterdom, and you were out a-door,
Chould be so bold, for all her brags, to call her arrant whore.
And ich knew Hodge as bad as t' ou, ich wish me endless sorrow,
And chould not take the pains to hang him up before to-morrow.
CHAT. What have I stolen from thee or thine, thou ill-favor'd old trot?
GAMMER. A great deal more (by God's blest) than chever by thee got,
That thou knowest well, I need not say it.
BAILY. Stop there, I say,
And tell me here, I pray you, this matter by the way:
How chance Hodge is not here? him would I fain have had.
GAMMER. Alas, sir, he'll be here anon; a' be handled too bad.
CHAT. Master Baily, sir, ye be not such a fool, well I know,
But ye perceive by this lingering there is a pad in the straw.
[_Thinking that Hodge his head was broke, and that
Gammer would not let him come before them._
GAMMER. Chill show you his face, ich warrant thee----lo, now where
he is!
BAILY. Come on, fellow; it is told me thou art a shrew,[297] i-wis;
Thy neighbour's hens thou takest, and plays the two-legged fox;
Their chickens and their capons too, and now and then their cocks.
HODGE. Ich defy them all that dare it say; cham as true as the best.
BAILY. Wert not thou take within this hour in dame Chat's hens'-nest?
HODGE. Take there! no, master, chould not do't for a house full of
gold.
CHAT. Thou, or the devil in thy coat; swear this I dare be bold.
DOCTOR RAT. Swear me no swearing, quean; the devil he give thee sorrow:
All is not worth a gnat, thou canst swear till to-morrow.
Where is the harm he hath? show it, by God's bread,
Ye beat him with a witness, but the stripes light on my head.
HODGE. Beat me! Gog's blessed body, chould first, ich trow, have burst
thee:
Ich think, and chad my hands loose, callet, chould have crust[298]
thee.
CHAT. Thou shitten knave, I trow, thou knowest the full weight of
my fist.
I am foully deceived, unless thy head and my door-bar kissed.
HODGE. Hold thy chat, whore; thou criest so loud, can no man else
be heard?
CHAT. Well, knave, and I had thee alone, I would surely rap thy
costard.[299]
BAILY. Sir, answer me to this, Is thy head whole or broken?
CHAT. Yea, Master Baily, blest be every good token.
HODGE. Is my head whole? ich warrant you, 'tis neither scurvy nor
scald:
What, you foul beast, does think 'tis either pild or bald?[300]
Nay, ich thank God, chill not for all that thou may'st spend,
That chad one scab on my narse as broad as thy finger's end.
BAILY. Come nearer here.
HODGE. Yes, that ich dare.
BAILY. By our lady, here is no harm:
Hodge's head is whole enough, for all dame Chat's charm.
CHAT. By Gog's blest,[301] however the thing he cloaks or smolders,
I know the blows he bare away either with head or shoulders.
Camest thou not, knave, within this hour, creeping into my pens,
And there was caught within my house, groping among my hens?
HODGE. A plague both on thy hens and thee! a cart, whore, a cart!
Chould I were hanged as high as a tree, and ich were as false as
thou art.
Give my gammer again her washical[302] thou stole away in thy lap.
GAMMER. Yea, Master Baily, there is a thing you know not on, mayhap:
This drab she keeps away my good (the devil he might her snare):
Ich pray you, that ich might have a right action on her.
CHAT. Have I thy good, old filth, or any such old sow's?
I am as true, I would thou knew, as [the] skin between thy brows.[303]
GAMMER. Many a truer hath been hanged, though you escape the danger.
CHAT. Thou shalt answer (by God's pity) for this thy foul slander.
BAILY. Why, what can you charge her withal? to say so ye do not well.
GAMMER. Marry, a vengeance to her heart, the whore has stol'n my
nee'le.
CHAT. Thy needle, old witch! how so? it were alms thy soul to knock;
So didst thou say the other day, that I had stol'n thy cock.
And roasted him to my breakfast, which shall not be forgotten:
The devil pull out thy lying tongue, and teeth that be so rotten.
GAMMER. Give me my nee'le; as for my cock, chould be very loth,
That chould here tell he should hang on thy false faith and troth.
BAILY. Your talk is such, I can scarce learn who should be most in
fault.
GAMMER. Yet shall ye find no other wight, save she, by bread and salt.
BAILY. Keep ye content a while, see that your tongues ye hold;
Methinks you should remember, this is no place to scold.
How knowest thou, Gammer Gurton, dame Chat thy needle had?
GAMMER. To name you, sir, the party, chould not be very glad.
BAILY. Yea, but we must needs hear it, and therefore say it boldly.
GAMMER. Such one as told the tale full soberly and coldly,
Even he that looked on, will swear on a book,
What time this drunken gossip my fair long nee'le up took:
Diccon (Master) the bedlam, cham very sure ye know him.
BAILY. A false knave, by God's pity! ye were but a fool to trow him.
I durst aventure well the price of my best cap,
That when the end is known, all will turn to a jape.[304]
Told he not you that besides she stole your cock that tide?
GAMMER. No, master, no indeed, for then he should have lied;
My cock is, I thank Christ, safe and well a-fine.
CHAT. Yea, but that rugged colt, that whore, that Tib of thine,
Said plainly thy cock was stol'n, and in my house was eaten;
That lying cut is lost, that she is not swinged and beaten.
And yet for all my good name it were a small amends;
I pick not this gear (hear'st thou) out of my fingers' ends.
But he that heard it told me, who thou of late didst name:
Diccon, whom all men knows, it was the very same.
BAILY. This is the case; you lost your nee'le about the doors;
And she answers again, she hase no cock of yours;
Thus in your talk and action, from that you do intend,
She is whole five mile wide from that she doth defend.
Will you say she hath your cock?
GAMMER. No, marry, sir, that chill not.
BAILY. Will you confess her nee'le?
CHAT. Will I? no, sir, will I not.
BAILY. Then there lieth all the matter.
GAMMER. Soft, master, by the way,
Ye know she could do little, and she could not say nay.
BAILY. Yea, but he that made one lie about your cock-stealing,
Will not stick to make another, what time lies be in dealing.
I ween the end will prove this brawl did first arise
Upon no other ground but only Diccon's lies.
CHAT. Though some be lies, as you belike have espied them:
Yet other some be true, by proof I have well tried them.
BAILY. What other thing beside this, dame Chat?
CHAT. Marry, sir, even this,
The tale I told before, the self-same tale it was his;
He gave me, like a friend, warning against my loss,
Else had my hens be stol'n each one, by God's cross.
He told me Hodge would come, and in he came indeed;
But as the matter chanced, with greater haste than speed.
This truth was said, and true was found, as truly I report.
BAILY. If Doctor Rat be not deceived, it was of another sort.
DOCTOR RAT. By God's mother, thou and he be a couple of subtle foxes;
Between you and Hodge I bear away the boxes.
Did not Diccon appoint the place, where thou should'st stand to meet
him?
CHAT. Yes, by the mass; and, if he came, bad me not stick to spite him.
DOCTOR RAT. God's sacrament! the villain knave hath dress'd us round
about;
He is the cause of all this brawl, that dirty shitten lout,
When Gammer Gurton here complained, and made a rueful moan,
I heard him swear that you had gotten her needle that was gone.
And this to try, he further said, he was full loth: howbeit
He was content with small ado to bring me where to see it.
And where he sat, he said, full certain, if I would follow his reed,
Into your house a privy way he would me guide and lead,
And where ye had it in your hands, sewing about a clout,
And set me in the back-hole, thereby to find you out:
And whiles I sought a quietness, creeping upon my knees,
I found the weight of your door-bar for my reward and fees.
Such is the luck that some men gets, while they begin to mell,[305]
In setting at one such as were out, minding to make all well.
HODGE. Was not well blest, gammer, to 'scape that scour? And chad
been there,
Then chad been dress'd, belike, as ill (by the mass) as Gaffer Vicar.
BAILY. Marry, sir, here is a sport alone; I looked for such an end;
If Diccon had not play'd the knave, this had been soon amend.
My gammer here he made a fool, and dress'd her as she was;
And goodwife Chat he set to scold,[306] till both parts[307] cried,
alas!
And Doctor Rat was not behind, whiles Chat his crown did pare;
I would the knave had been stark blind, if Hodge had not his share.
HODGE. Cham meetly well-sped already among's, cham dress'd like a colt;
And chad not had the better wit, chad been made a dolt.
BAILY. Sir knave, make haste Diccon were here; fetch him, wherever
he be.
CHAT. Fie on the villain, fie, fie, that makes us thus agree!
GAMMER. Fie on him, knave, with all my heart, now fie, and fie again!
DOCTOR RAT. Now fie on him, may I best say, whom he hath almost slain.
BAILY. Lo, where he cometh at hand, belike he was not far.
Diccon, here be two or three thy company cannot spare.
DICCON. God bless you, and you may be bless'd, so many all at once!
CHAT. Come, knave, it were a good deed to geld thee, by Cock's bones.
Seest not thy handiwork? sir Rat, can ye forbear him?
DICCON. A vengeance on those hands light, for my hands came not near
him.
The whoreson priest hath lift the pot in some of these alewives'
chairs,
That his head would not serve him, belike, to come down the stairs.
BAILY. Nay, soft, thou may'st not play the knave, and have this
language too;
If thou thy tongue bridle a while, the better may'st thou do.
Confess the truth as I shall ask, and cease a while to fable,
And for thy fault, I promise thee, thy handling shall be reasonable.
Hast thou not made a lie or two, to set these two by the ears?
DICCON. What, if I have? five hundred such have I seen within these
seven years:
I am sorry for nothing else, but that I see not the sport,
Which was between them when they met, as they themselves report.
BAILY. The greatest thing, Master Rat, ye see how he is dress'd.
DICCON. What devil, need he be groping so deep in goodwife Chat's
hens' nest?
BAILY. Yea, but it was thy drift to bring him into the briars.
DICCON. God's bread! hath not such an old fool wit to save his ears?
He showeth himself herein, ye see, so very a cox,[308]
The cat was not so madly allured by the fox,[309]
To run in the snares was set for him doubtless;
For he leapt in for mice, and this sir John for madness.
DOCTOR RAT. Well, and ye shift no better, ye losel lither[310]
and lazy,
I will go near for this to make ye leap at a daisy.[311]
In the king's name, Master Baily, I charge you set him fast.
DICCON. What! fast at cards or fast on sleep? it is the thing
I did last.
DOCTOR RAT. Nay, fast in fetters, false varlet, according to thy
deeds.
BAILY. Master Doctor, there is no remedy, I must entreat you needs
Some other kind of punishment.
DOCTOR RAT. Nay, by All-Hallows,
His punishment, if I may judge, shall be nought else but the gallows.
BAILY. That were too sore; a spiritual man to be so extreme!
DOCTOR RAT. Is he worthy any better, sir? how do you judge and deem?
BAILY. I grant him worthy punishment, but in no wise so great.
GAMMER. It is a shame, ich tell you plain, for such false knaves
entreat.
He has almost undone us all, that is as true as steel.
And yet for all this great ado, cham never the near my nee'le.
BAILY. Can'st thou not say anything to that, Diccon, with least or
most?
DICCON. Yea, marry, sir, thus much I can say well, the nee'le is lost.
BAILY. Nay, canst not thou tell which way that needle may be found?
DICCON. No, by my fay, sir, though I might have an hundred pound.
HODGE. Thou liar lickdish, didst not say the nee'le would be gotten?
DICCON. No, Hodge; by the same token you were that time beshitten,
For fear of hobgoblin--you wot well what I mean,
As long as it is since, I fear me yet ye be scarce clean.
BAILY. Well, Master Rat, you must both learn and teach us to forgive,
Since Diccon hath confession made, and is so clean shreve:
If ye to me consent to amend this heavy chance,
I will enjoin him here some open kind of penance:
Of this condition--where ye know my fee is twenty pence
For the bloodshed, I am agreed with you here to dispense;
Ye shall go quit, so that ye grant the matter now to run,
To end with mirth among us all, even as it was begun.
CHAT. Say yea, Master Vicar, and he shall sure confess to be your
debtor,
And all we that be here present will love you much the better.
DOCTOR RAT. My part is the worst; but since you all hereon agree,
Go even to, Master Baily, let it be so for me.
BAILY. How say'st thou, Diccon, art content this shall on me depend?
DICCON. Go to, Master Baily, say on your mind, I know ye are my friend.
BAILY. Then mark ye well; to recompense this thy former action,
Because thou hast offended all, to make them satisfaction,
Before their faces here kneel down, and as I shall thee teach,
For thou shalt take an oath of Hodge's leather breech;
First for Master Doctor, upon pain of his curse,
Where he will pay for all, thou never draw thy purse:
And when ye meet at one pot, he shall have the first pull;
And thou shalt never offer him the cup, but it be full.
To goodwife Chat thou shalt be sworn, even on the same wise,
If she refuse thy money once, never to offer it twice.
Thou shalt be bound by the same here, as thou dost take it:
When thou may'st drink of free cost, thou never forsake it.
For Gammer Gurton's sake, again sworn shalt thou be,
To help her to her needle again, if it do lie in thee;
And likewise be bound, by the virtue of that,
To be of good a-bearing to Gib her great cat.
Last of all for Hodge, the oath to scan,
Thou shalt never take him for fine gentleman.
HODGE. Come on, fellow Diccon, chall be even with thee now.
BAILY. Thou wilt not stick to do this, Diccon, I trow?
DICCON. No, by my father's skin, my hand down I lay it;
Look, as I have promised, I will not denay it;
But, Hodge, take good heed now, thou do not beshit me.
[_And give him a good blow on the buttock._
HODGE. Gog's heart, thou false villain, dost thou bite me?
BAILY. What, Hodge, doth he hurt thee, ere ever he be begin?
HODGE. He thrust me into the buttock with a bodkin or a pin,
[_He discovers the needle._
I say, gammer, gammer!
GAMMER. How now, Hodge, how now!
HODGE. God's malt, gammer Gurton----
GAMMER. Thou art mad, ich trow.
HODGE. Will you see the devil, gammer?
GAMMER. The devil, son! God bless us.
HODGE. Chould, [if] ich were hanged, gammer.
GAMMER. Marry, see, ye might dress us.
HODGE. Chave it, by the mass, gammer.
GAMMER. What, not my nee'le, Hodge?
HODGE. Your nee'le, gammer, your nee'le.
GAMMER. No, fie, dost but dodge.
HODGE. Ch' a found your nee'le, gammer, here in my hand be it.
GAMMER. For all the loves on earth,[312] Hodge, let me see it.
HODGE. Soft, gammer.
GAMMER. Good Hodge.
HODGE. Soft, ich say, tarry a while.
GAMMER. Nay, sweet Hodge, say truth, and not me beguile.
HODGE. Cham sure on it; ich warrant you, it goes no more astray.
GAMMER. Hodge, when I speak so fair, wilt still say me nay?
HODGE. Go near the light, gammer, 'tis well in faith, good luck:
Ch' was almost undone, 'twas so far in my buttock.
GAMMER. 'Tis mine own dear nee'le, Hodge, sikerly[313] I wot.
HODGE. Cham I not a good son, gammer, cham I not?
GAMMER. Christ's blessing light on thee, hast made me for ever.
HODGE. Ich knew that ich must find it, else chould a' had it never.
CHAT. By my troth, gossip Gurton, I am even as glad,
As though I mine own self as good a turn had.
BAILY. And I by my conscience, to see it so come forth,
Rejoice so much at it, as three needles be worth.
DOCTOR RAT. I am no whit sorry to see you so rejoice.
Diccon. Nor I much the gladder for all this noise.
Yet say, gramercy, Diccon, for springing of the game.
GAMMER. Gramercy, Diccon, twenty times! O, how glad cham!
If that chould do so much, your masterdom to come hither,
Master Rat, goodwife Chat, and Diccon together;
Cha but one halfpenny, as far as ich know it,
And chill not rest this night, till ich bestow it.
If ever ye love me, let us go in and drink.
BAILY. I am content, if the rest think as I think.
Master Rat, it shall be best for you if we so do,
Then shall you warm you and dress yourself too.
DICCON. Soft, sirs, take us with you, the company shall be the more;
As proud comes behind, they say, as any goes before.
But now, my good masters, since we must be gone,
And leave you behind us here all alone:
Since at our last ending thus merry we be,
For Gammer Gurton's needle sake, let us have a plaudite.
FINIS
FOOTNOTES:
[287] Orig. _you would_.
[288] Orig. _you_.
[289] [Orig. _of_.]
[290] Orig. _kockes_.
[291] Original, _you_.
[292] [Beaten. Here was a note of half a page to explain and
illustrate the meaning of the very common word _wot_!]
[293] Poultry. So in Fitzherbert's "Boke of Husbandry": "Gyve thy
_poleyn_--meate in the morning," &c. Again, in "Your five Gallants,"
by Middleton: "And to see how pitifully the _pullen_ will looke, it
makes me after relent, and turne my anger into a quick fire to roast
them."
[294] A base, contemptible fellow. So, in "Tom Tyler and his Wife,"
1661, p. 19--
"It is an old saying, praise at the parting,
I think I have made _the cullion_ to wring.
I was not beaten so black and blew,
But I am sure he has as many new."
In "Wily Beguiled:" "But to say the truth, she had little reason to
take a _cullion_ lug loaf, milksop slave, when she may have a lawyer,
a gentleman that stands upon his reputation in the country;" in
Massinger's "Guardian," act. ii., sc. 4--
"Love live Severino,
And perish all such _cullions_ as repine
At his new monarchy."
And Bobadil, in Ben Jonson's "Every Man to his Humour," act. iii., sc.
5, when beating Cob, exclaims:
"You base _cullion_, you."
[295] [Original, _Dylde_; the compositor having repeated the _d_ of
_God_ at the beginning of the following word. This is not an uncommon
misprint.]
[296] _Hals_, in the Glossary to Douglas's _Æneid_, is thus explained:
"The hawse, the throat, or neck. A-S. and Isl. _Hals_, collum, thence,
_to hals_ or _hawse_, to embrace, _collo dare brachia circum_."
[297] The word _shrew_ at present is wholly confined to the female
sex. It here appears to have been equally applied to the male, and
signifies _naught_ or _wicked_. See Baret's "Alvearie," _v. Shrewd_.
[298] [Crushed.]
[299] The head. So, in "Hickscorner"--
"I will rap you on the _costard_ with my horn."
--Mr Steevens's Note on _Love's Labour's Lost_, act iii., sc. 1.
Again, in Ben Jonson's "Tale of a Tub," act ii., sc. 2--
"Do you mutter! sir, snorle this way,
That I may hear and answer what you say,
With my school dagger 'bout your _costard_, sir."
[300] See Note on "King Henry VI.," Part I. Shakspeare, 1778, vol.
vi., p. 192.--_S._
[301] Bliss.
[302] A corruption of _what do you call it_.--_S._
[303] A proverbial phrase, used also by Dogberry in "Much ado about
Nothing." Shakspeare, 1778, vol. ii., p. 326.--_S._
[304] _Jape_ is generally used in an obscene sense, as in the Prologue
to "Grim the Collier of Croydon," and in Skelton's Song in Sir John
Hawkins's "History of Music," vol. iii., p. 6. It here signifies a
_jest_ or _joke_. So in the Prologue to Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales,"
l. 705--
"Upon a day he gat him more moneie
Than that the persone gat in monthes tweie.
And thus with fained flattering and _japes_,
He made the persone and the peple his apes."
And in "Batman upon Bartholome," 1535, as quoted by Sir John Hawkins,
in his "History of Music," vol. ii., p. 125: "They kepe no counseyll,
but they telle all that they here: sodeinly they laugh, and sodenly
they wepe: alwaye they crye, jangle, and _jape_, uneth they ben stylle
whyle they slepe."
"Nay, _iape_ not with hym, he is no smal fole.
It is a solemnpne syre and solayne."
--Skelton's Works, [1843, vol. i., p. 17.]
[305] _i.e._, To meddle.--_S._
[306] Old copy, _Scole_.
[307] [Parties.]
[308] Minsheu, in his Dictionary, 1627 (as quoted by Mr Tollet, in his
"Notes on Shakspeare," vol. v. p. 433, says: "Natural ideots and fools
have and still do accustome themselves to weare in their cappes cockes
feathers, or a hat with a necke and head of a cock on the top," &c.
From this circumstance Diccon probably calls Dr Rat _a cox_; that is,
_a coxcomb_, _an idiot_.)
[309] See the "History of Reynard the Fox," chap, vii., edit.
1701.--_S._
[310] [Wicked.] _Lither_ is used sometimes for _weak_ or _limber_, at
other times _lean_ or _pale_. Several examples of the former are
collected by Mr Steevens ("Notes on Shakspeare," vol. vi., p. 263).
Again, in "Euphues and his England," 1582, p. 24: "For as they that
angle for the tortoys, having once caught him, are driven into such a
_lythernesse_, that they loose all their spirites, being benummed so,"
&c. Of the latter, the following will serve as a proof (Erasmus's
"Praise of Folie," Chaloner's translation, 1549, sig. F 2): "Or at
lest hyre some younge Phaon for mede to dooe the thyng, still daube
theyr _lither_ chekes with peintyng," &c.
[311] [An apparent reference to the story told in one of the early
jest-books of a fellow who was led to execution, and who, when on the
gallows, instead of a neck-verse, cried out, "Have at you daisy that
grows yonder!" and leapt off the ladder. See "Pasquil's Jests," 1604,
repr. Hazlitt, p. 48.]
[312] For the love of God, of heaven, or anything sacred, are
adjurations frequently used at this day, and appear likewise to have
been so at the time this play was written. From the indiscriminate use
of them, it became customary on very earnest occasions to request _of
all loves_, or _for all the loves on earth_. Of these modes of
expression, Mr Steevens hath produced the following examples:
"Conjuring his wife _of all loves_ to prepare cheer fitting."--"Honest
Whore," part 1.
"Desire him _of all loves_ to come over quickly."
--Plautus's _Menæchmi_, 1595.
"I pray thee _for all loves_ be thou my mynde sens I am thyne."
--_Acolastus_, 1540.
"Mrs Arden desired him _of all loves_ to come back
againe."--Holinshed's _Chronicle_, p. 1064.--"Notes on Shakspeare,"
vol. i., p. 279.
Again--
"Speak _of all loves_."
--_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act. ii., sc. 3.
[313] Securely or certainly. So in Chaucer's "Troilus and Cressida,"
Book iii., l. 833--
"The drede of lesing makith him, that he
May in no parfite _sikernesse_ ybe."
THE TRIAL OF TREASURE
_EDITION._
_A New and Mery Enterlude called the Triall of Treasure, newly set
foorth, and neuer before this tyme imprinted._
THE NAMES OF THE PLAYERS.
First, STURDINESS, CONTENTATION, VISITATION, TIME.
The Second, LUST, SAPIENCE, CONSOLATION.
The Third, the PREFACE, JUST, PLEASURE, GREEDY-GUT.
The Fourth, ELATION; TRUST, a Woman; and TREASURE, a Woman.
The Fifth, INCLINATION, the Vice.
* * * * *
Imprinted at Londǒ in Paules Churcheyarde, at the signe of the Lucrece,
by Thomas Purfoote. 1567. 4º. Black letter.
MR HALLIWELL'S PREFACE.[314]
The interlude, presented to the modern reader for the first time in the
following pages, was printed from a copy formerly in the possession of
Steevens, the eminent Shakspearian critic, before it was noticed that a
copy in the British Museum contained several variations and superior
readings.[315] These were the more important, settling in some places
the distribution of the speeches with greater accuracy than they were
arranged in the exemplar we used. Perhaps, indeed, this may in some
measure have arisen from the one last mentioned having been what
booksellers technically term "cropped," but we have noticed all
variations of importance in the notes, and some of them seem
incompatible with any supposition, except that there were two different
impressions in the same year,[316] or that the Museum copy had been
corrected while the work was in the press.