_Another Street._
_Enter_ FUSTIGO _in some fantastic sea-suit, meeting a
Porter._
FUS. How now, porter, will she come?
POR. If I may trust a woman, sir, she will come.
FUS. There’s for thy pains [_gives money_]: God-amercy,
if ever I stand in need of a wench that will come with a
wet finger,[9] porter, thou shalt earn my money before
any clarissimo[’s][10] in Milan: yet so, God sa’ me,
she’s mine own sister, body and soul, as I am a
Christian gentleman: farewell; I’ll ponder till she
come: thou hast been no bawd in fetching this woman, I
assure thee.
POR. No matter if I had, sir; better men than porters
are bawds.
FUS. O God, sir, many that have borne offices. But,
porter, art sure thou went’st into a true house?
POR. I think so, for I met with no thieves.[11]
FUS. Nay, but art sure it was my sister Viola?
POR. I am sure, by all superscriptions, it was the party
you ciphered.
FUS. Not very tall?
POR. Nor very low; a middling woman.
FUS. ’Twas she, faith, ’twas she: a pretty plump cheek,
like mine?
POR. At a blush a little, very much like you.
FUS. Godso, I would not for a ducat she had kicked up
her heels, for I ha’ spent an abomination this voyage;
marry, I did it amongst sailors and gentlemen. There’s a
little modicum more, porter, for making thee stay
[_gives money_]: farewell, honest porter.
POR. I am in your debt, sir; God preserve you.
FUS. Not so neither, good porter. [_Exit porter._] God’s
lid, yonder she comes.
_Enter_ VIOLA.
Sister Viola, I am glad to see you stirring: it’s news
to have me here, is’t not, sister?
VIO. Yes, trust me: I wondered who should be so bold to
send for me. You are welcome to Milan, brother.
FUS. Troth, sister, I heard you were married to a very
rich chuff, and I was very sorry for it that I had no
better clothes, and that made me send; for you know we
Milaners love to strut upon Spanish leather. And how
do[12] all our friends?
VIO. Very well. You ha’ travelled enough now, I trow, to
sow your wild oats.
FUS. A pox on ’em! wild oats? I ha’ not an oat to throw
at a horse. Troth, sister, I ha’ sowed my oats, and
reaped two hundred ducats, if I had ’em here. Marry, I
must entreat you to lend me some thirty or forty till
the ship come: by this hand, I’ll discharge at my day,
by this hand.
VIO. These are your old oaths.
FUS. Why, sister, do you think I’ll forswear my hand?
VIO. Well, well, you shall have them. Put yourself into
better fashion, because I must employ you in a serious
matter.
FUS. I’ll sweat like a horse, if I like the matter.
VIO. You ha’ cast off all your old swaggering humours?
FUS. I had not sailed a league in that great fish-pond,
the sea, but I cast up my very gall.
VIO. I am the more sorry, for I must employ a true
swaggerer.
FUS. Nay, by this iron, sister, they shall find I am
powder and touch-box, if they put fire once into me.
VIO. Then lend me your ears.
FUS. Mine ears are yours, dear sister.
VIO. I am married to a man that has wealth enough and
wit enough.
FUS. A linen-draper, I was told, sister.
VIO. Very true; a grave citizen. I want nothing that a
wife can wish from a husband; but here’s the spite, he
has not all things belonging to a man.
FUS. God’s my life, he’s a very mandrake;[13] or else,
God bless us, one a’ these whiblins,[14] and that’s
worse; and then all the children that he gets lawfully
of your body, sister, are bastards by a statute.
VIO. O, you run over me too fast, brother. I have heard
it often said, that he who cannot be angry is no man: I
am sure my husband is a man in print[15] for all things
else save only in this, no tempest can move him.
FUS. ’Slid, would he had been at sea with us! he should
ha’ been moved and moved again; for I’ll be sworn, la,
our drunken ship reeled like a Dutchman.
VIO. No loss of goods can increase in him a wrinkle; no
crabbed language make his countenance sour; the
stubbornness of no servant shake him: he has no more
gall in him than a dove, no more sting than an ant;
musician will he never be, yet I find much music in him,
but he loves no frets; and is so free from anger, that
many times I am ready to bite off my tongue, because it
wants that virtue which all women’s tongues have, to
anger their husbands: brother, mine can by no thunder
turn him into a sharpness.
FUS. Belike his blood, sister, is well brewed then.
VIO. I protest to thee, Fustigo, I love him most
affectionately; but I know not—I ha’ such a tickling
within me—such a strange longing; nay, verily, I do
long.
FUS. Then you’re with child, sister, by all signs and
tokens: nay, I am partly a physician, and partly
something else; I ha’ read Albertus Magnus[16] and
Aristotle’s Problems.[17]
VIO. You’re wide a’ th’ bow-hand[18] still, brother: my
longings are not wanton, but wayward; I long to have my
patient husband eat up a whole porcupine, to the intent
the bristling quills may stick about his lips like a
Flemish mustachio, and be shot at me: I shall be leaner
than the new moon, unless I can make him horn-mad.
FUS. ’Sfoot, half a quarter of an hour does that; make
him a cuckold.
VIO. Pooh, he would count such a cut no unkindness.
FUS. The honester citizen he. Then make him drunk and
cut off his beard.[19]
VIO. Fie, fie, idle, idle! he’s no Frenchman, to fret at
the loss of a little scald hair.[20] No, brother, thus
it shall be—you must be secret.
FUS. As your midwife, I protest, sister, or a
barber-surgeon.
VIO. Repair to the Tortoise here in St. Christopher’s
street; I will send you money; turn yourself into a
brave[21] man; instead of the arms of your mistress, let
your sword and your military scarf hang about your neck.
FUS. I must have a great horseman’s French feather too,
sister.
VIO. O, by any means, to shew your light head, else your
hat will sit like a coxcomb: to be brief, you must be in
all points a most terrible wide-mouthed swaggerer.
FUS. Nay, for swaggering points let me alone.
VIO. Resort then to our shop, and, in my husband’s
presence, kiss me, snatch rings, jewels, or any thing,
so you give it back again, brother, in secret.
FUS. By this hand, sister.
VIO. Swear as if you came but new from knighting.
FUS. Nay, I’ll swear after 400 a-year.
VIO. Swagger worse than a lieutenant among fresh-water
soldiers; call me your love, your ingle,[22] your
cousin, or so, but sister at no hand.
FUS. No, no, it shall be cousin, or rather coz; that’s
the gulling word between the citizens’ wives and their
madcaps[23] that man ’em to the garden: to call you one
a’ mine aunts,[24] sister, were as good as call you
arrant whore: no, no, let me alone to cozen you rarely.
VIO. Has heard I have a brother, but never saw him;
therefore put on a good face.
FUS. The best in Milan, I warrant.
VIO. Take up wares, but pay nothing; rifle my bosom, my
pocket, my purse, the boxes for money to dice withal;
but, brother, you must give all back again in secret.
FUS. By this welkin[25] that here roars, I will, or else
let me never know what a secret is. Why, sister, do you
think I’ll cony-catch[26] you, when you are my cousin?
God’s my life, then I were a stark ass. If I fret not
his guts, beg me for a fool.[27]
VIO. Be circumspect, and do so then. Farewell.
FUS. The Tortoise, sister! I’ll stay there; forty
ducats!
VIO. Thither I’ll send. [_Exit_ FUSTIGO.] This law can
none deny,
Women must have their longings, or they die. _Exit._