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 fellowLimbed 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.
[Lodovicoreturns from the shop with a yard-wand and followed byPrentices.
1st Pren.My master is grown valiant.
Cand.I’ll teach you fencing tricks.
Prentices.Rare, rare! a prize![258]
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]
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 thrownWith the least blow you give me: I disdainThe 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 breastPlayed thus the rebel, only for a jest:Here’s the rank rider, that breaks colts; ’tis heCan 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.
EnterInfelice,andOrlandodisguised as aServing-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 armsTo 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 heUntied 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 sheSend back these things?
Orl.’Ware, ’ware, there’s knavery.
Inf.Strumpets, like cheating gamesters, will not winAt 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.
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.[ExitOrlando.
EnterBryan.
Inf.How much cost those satins,And cloth of silver, which my husband sent by youTo 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, sacrees[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.
EnterHippolito.
Inf.Are you so close, you bawd, you pandering slave?[StrikesBryan.
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.
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 readStrange comments in those margins of your looks:Your cheeks of late are like bad printed books,So dimly charactered, I scarce can spellOne 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 soundOf 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 feelsHerself growing poor, then she turns beggar, cries,And kneels for help: Hippolito, for husbandI dare not call thee, I have stolen that jewelOf my chaste honour, which was only thine,And given it to a slave.
Hip.Ha?
Inf.On thy pillowAdultery and lust have slept, thy groomHath 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 bawdTo a whore, because she’s noble?
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 hornsCannot 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 womenYou 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 spiritWhom by preposterous charms thy lust hath raisedIn a wrong circle, him I’ll damn more blackThen 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 trustYour 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?
Inf.’Twas thus, he gave me this battery first.—Oh, IMistake—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 diamondAnd letter which I sent: this villanySome spider closely weaves, whose poisonèd bulkI 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 prospersBut in the nation’s blood, hath thus betrayed me.
Re-enterBryan.
Slave, get you from your service.
Bry.Faat meanest thou by this now?
Hip.Question me not, nor tempt my fury, villainCouldst 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.
Hip.He’s damned that raised this whirlwind, which hath blownInto 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.
EnterBellafront,andOrlandodisguised as aServing-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!
EnterMatheo.
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.
Orl.Is’t bed-time, master, that you undo my mistress?
Bell.Undo me? Yes, yes, at these riflings IHave 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 withBellafront’sgown.
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 strikeAt 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 theeBuild 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 brandedFor sins long since laid up, who could be saved?The quarter-day’s at hand, how will you doTo 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!
EnterLodovico.
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.
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.
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 toBellafront,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 menMortal, to kill them.
Mat.You say true.
Lod.Why should we grieve at want? Say the world made theeHer 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 partCannot 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-enterBellafrontwith 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-enterOrlando.
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.
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;