_Enter_ NANCY CURDWELL.
CURD. I have fresh cheese and cream; I have fresh cheese
and cream. Heigho! But one suitor yet? Must my sheets lie
smooth till I am wrinkled? Nay, then, I see beauty is not a
cable-rope, to draw men's hearts after it, nor our mouths a
mouse-trap, our tongues a lure, and lips a gin; our hairs are
not fishing-lines, nor our noses hooks. These gudgeons will not
swallow the bait that hangs there. Nay, we cannot catch these
mermen, though our smocks were made of network, and we hung all
o'er with looking-glasses. No, no; I see, when these buzzards
look after mates, they wink and choose. I think I must have my
nose turned into a bill, and write upon it, _Here is a house
to be let._ I am but six-and-twenty years old, and that's young
enough to play with a baby. O, how like the picture of Charity
should I look with two sucklings at my breast!
_Enter_ BUDGET, _a tinker_.
BUD. Have you any work for a tinker? Old brass, old pots, old
kettles. I'll mend them all with a tara-tink, and never hurt
your metal.--Here she is! Methinks she looks very smug upon me.
Now to my 'ration. Most beautiful, fair and virtuous mistress,
whose face is a burning-glass, and hath set me on fire. My
sugar-plum and stewed-prune lady, whose fine sharp nose, like
Cupid's darts, hath pricked me to the heart! Whiter than the
curds thou sell'st, softer than the silk thou wearest, milder
than the four-shilling beer thou drink'st! Venus, I believe,
was a fresh cheese and cream woman, and, letting fall her pail,
made the Milky Way, but yet came as far short of thee, my
sweet, honey Nancy, as whey of butter-milk or skimmed milk of
cream! O, that I were a worm to crawl on that face of thine, or
a flea------
CURD. He'd bite me, sure?
BUD. To slip about thy neck. Do not, I pray, tread on me with
the foot of disdain, lest thou crush my heart as flat as a
pancake.
CURDS. Pray, leave off your suit; I have no mind to marry; I'll
always live a virgin.
BUD. What, and lead apes in hell? What pity would it be to see
you chained to a monkey!
CURDS. Or tied to you! [_Aside._
BUD. O, do not frown! Each wrinkle is a grave to me, and angry
look a death's-head. Do not despise me 'cause I am black and
you so white; the moon wears beauty-spots, and the fairest
ladies black patches. White petticoats are wrought with black
silk, and we put black plums into white puddings.
CURD. But black-and-white ribbons are worn only at burials,
never at weddings: and I would be loth my wedding-sheet should
be my shroud, and my bed a grave. Therefore, pray, be gone, and
come when I send for you.
BUD. Sweet sugar-candy mistress, grant me one thing before you
go.
CURD. What is't?
BUD. Give me leave to vouchsafe one kiss on those sweet silken
parchment-lips.
CURD. Take your farewell, you shall never kiss 'um again.
[_Kisses her_, _and blacks her mouth_.
BUD. Thanks, pudding-pie Nancy. [_Exit._
CURD. Faugh, how he stinks of smoke! Does he think I'll be his
trull, and that he shall smutch my face thus with his charcoal
nose? No, I'll see him burnt first! Out upon him, beggar,
burnt-arse rogue, devil-tinker! I am afraid his ugly looks have
soured my cream, and made all my cheese run to whey; but if he
come to me again thus, I'll make him blue as well as black.
_Enter_ HANNA JENNITING.
JEN. Come, buy my pearmains, curious John apples, dainty
pippins; come, who buys? who buys?
CURD. O sister Hanna, I wanted you just now; here was a tinker
had like to have run away with me in his budget; a copper-nosed
rogue, brazen-faced rascal!
JEN. But you were even with him? Nay, you are a whisket! I'
faith, I see beards are infectious as well as scabbed lips.
Salute your apron, and 'twill tell you who you kissed last.
CURD. He has printed a kiss indeed.
JEN. Was he a suitor? Did he woo you with posnets and skillets,
and promise you a kettle next Bartholomew fair? And how did
you answer him? Did you say, Fly, brass, the devil's a tinker?
Or more mildly tell him you could not settle your affections
on him? But come, look sprightly. Somebody will stare so long
upon the bright sun of our beauties, till they are blinded
with beams. Thou knowest, when my mother died, she left us,
beside some stringed pence and a granam's groat, seven suitors,
whereof all have forsaken us but Graftwell the gardener; and my
mother indeed used to say that I was born to be a gardener's
wife, as soon as ever I was taken out of her parsley-bed. But
'tis no matter; let 'um go.
CURD. But I wonder, Hanna, that you, having been an apple-woman
so long, cannot get a customer for yourself. You might go off
for a queen-apple! Come along; the next chapman shall have us
at an easy rate. I have fresh cheese, &c.
JEN. Come, buy pippins. [_Exeunt crying._