ACT 2.
SCENE 2.1.
A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE.
MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by
this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine
ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my
own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is
it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I
apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have
taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me
not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed,
on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their
daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?—But with
your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise,
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good
state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard
the barber, to have him come to me?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your
leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your
head, or shrug.
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a
frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come?
Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two
fingers; if a quarter, one;
[MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.]
—Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key,
to come in without knocking?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and
bare?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be
effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is
admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited
on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the
war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges
and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite
art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the
princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend
them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter.
[A HORN WINDED WITHIN.]
—How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that?
look.
[EXIT MUTE.]
—[HORN AGAIN.]
—Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound,
devil can this be?
[RE-ENTER MUTE.]
MUTE: It is a post from the court—
MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too?
MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must
speak with you, pain of death—
MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent!
[ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.]
TRUE: By your leave, sir;—I am a stranger here:—Is your name
master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans
all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates
been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you
to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your
friends at court commend them to you, sir—
MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence?
TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir.
MOR: Whose knave are you?
TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir.
MOR: Fetch me my sword—
TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom;
and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you,
in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you
are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir?
MOR: How then, rude companion!
TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near,
wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low
fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a
delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver
height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a
shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a
beam in the said garret, with this halter
[HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]—
which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your
grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a
little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly,
as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to
follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to
find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many
masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange
sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived
in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might,
perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull
frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they
will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you,
sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife.
MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their
land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage?
begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I
done, that may deserve this?
TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage.
MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated
your mother, ravished your sisters—
TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had.
MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple,
for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do.
TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you
must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's
health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do
your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are
married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman
that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer
for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have
discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay,
suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that
you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet-
meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great
roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be
with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and
that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house
as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your
tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she
must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every
hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned,
there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too
little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak
Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages
too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the
silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters;
entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded
exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to,
and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who
for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to
sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your
pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade
you.
[MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.]
—Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat
you.
MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin!
TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how
she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall
lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her
complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she
does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the
same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must
keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend
must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she
will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign
to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her
she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all
the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming
spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a
new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver;
have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen,
ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers,
tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not
how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the
change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never
weighs what her pride costs, sir: so she may kiss a page, or a
smooth chin, that has the despair of a beard; be a stateswoman,
know all the news, what was done at Salisbury, what at the Bath,
what at court, what in progress; or, so she may censure poets, and
authors, and styles, and compare them, Daniel with Spenser, Jonson
with the t'other youth, and so forth: or be thought cunning in
controversies, or the very knots of divinity; and have often in
her mouth the state of the question: and then skip to the
mathematics, and demonstration: and answer in religion to one,
in state to another, in bawdry to a third.
MOR: O, O!
TRUE: All this is very true, sir. And then her going in disguise to
that conjurer, and this cunning woman: where the first question is,
how soon you shall die? next, if her present servant love her?
next, if she shall have a new servant? and how many? which of her
family would make the best bawd, male, or female? what precedence
she shall have by her next match? and sets down the answers, and
believes them above the scriptures. Nay, perhaps she will study the
art.
MOR: Gentle sir, have you done? have you had your pleasure of me?
I'll think of these things.
TRUE: Yes sir: and then comes reeking home of vapour and sweat,
with going a foot, and lies in a month of a new face, all oil and
birdlime; and rises in asses' milk, and is cleansed with a new
fucus: God be wi' you, sir. One thing more, which I had almost
forgot. This too, with whom you are to marry, may have made a
conveyance of her virginity afore hand, as your wise widows do of
their states, before they marry, in trust to some friend, sir: who
can tell? Or if she have not done it yet, she may do, upon the
wedding-day, or the night before, and antedate you cuckold. The
like has been heard of in nature. 'Tis no devised, impossible
thing, sir. God be wi' you: I'll be bold to leave this rope with
you, sir, for a remembrance. Farewell, Mute!
[EXIT.]
MOR: Come, have me to my chamber: but first shut the door.
[TRUEWIT WINDS THE HORN WITHOUT.]
O, shut the door, shut the door! is he come again?
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
CUT: 'tis I, sir, your barber.
MOR: O, Cutbeard, Cutbeard, Cutbeard! here has been a cut-throat
with me: help me in to my bed, and give me physic with thy counsel.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 2.2.
A ROOM IN SIR JOHN DAW'S HOUSE.
ENTER DAW, CLERIMONT, DAUPHINE, AND EPICOENE.
DAW: Nay, an she will, let her refuse at her own charges: 'tis
nothing to me, gentlemen: but she will not be invited to the like
feasts or guests every day.
CLER: O, by no means, she may not refuse—to stay at home, if you
love your reputation: 'Slight, you are invited thither o' purpose
to be seen, and laughed at by the lady of the college, and her
shadows. This trumpeter hath proclaim'd you.
[ASIDE TO EPICOENE.]
DAUP: You shall not go; let him be laugh'd at in your stead, for
not bringing you: and put him to his extemporal faculty of fooling
and talking loud, to satisfy the company.
[ASIDE TO EPICOENE.]
CLER: He will suspect us, talk aloud.—'Pray, mistress Epicoene,
let us see your verses; we have sir John Daw's leave: do not
conceal your servant's merit, and your own glories.
EPI: They'll prove my servant's glories, if you have his leave so
soon.
DAUP: His vain-glories, lady!
DAW: Shew them, shew them, mistress, I dare own them.
EPI: Judge you, what glories.
DAW: Nay, I'll read them myself too: an author must recite his
own works. It is a madrigal of Modesty.
Modest, and fair, for fair and good are near
Neighbours, howe'er.—
DAUP: Very good.
CLER: Ay, is't not?
DAW: No noble virtue ever was alone,
But two in one.
DAUP: Excellent!
CLER: That again, I pray, sir John.
DAUP: It has something in't like rare wit and sense.
CLER: Peace.
DAW: No noble virtue ever was alone,
But two in one.
Then, when I praise sweet modesty, I praise
Bright beauty's rays:
And having praised both beauty and modesty,
I have praised thee.
DAUP: Admirable!
CLER: How it chimes, and cries tink in the close, divinely!
DAUP: Ay, 'tis Seneca.
CLER: No, I think 'tis Plutarch.
DAW: The dor on Plutarch, and Seneca! I hate it: they are mine own
imaginations, by that light. I wonder those fellows have such
credit with gentlemen.
CLER: They are very grave authors.
DAW: Grave asses! mere essayists: a few loose sentences, and that's
all. A man would talk so, his whole age: I do utter as good things
every hour, if they were collected and observed, as either of
them.
DAUP: Indeed, sir John!
CLER: He must needs; living among the wits and braveries too.
DAUP: Ay, and being president of them, as he is.
DAW: There's Aristotle, a mere common-place fellow; Plato, a
discourser; Thucydides and Livy, tedious and dry; Tacitus, an
entire knot: sometimes worth the untying, very seldom.
CLER: What do you think of the poets, sir John?
DAW: Not worthy to be named for authors. Homer, an old tedious,
prolix ass, talks of curriers, and chines of beef. Virgil of
dunging of land, and bees. Horace, of I know not what.
CLER: I think so.
DAW: And so Pindarus, Lycophron, Anacreon, Catullus, Seneca the
tragedian, Lucan, Propertius, Tibullus, Martial, Juvenal,
Ausonius, Statius, Politian, Valerius Flaccus, and the rest—
CLER: What a sack full of their names he has got!
DAUP: And how he pours them out! Politian with Valerius Flaccus!
CLER: Was not the character right of him?
DAUP: As could be made, i'faith.
DAW: And Persius, a crabbed coxcomb, not to be endured.
DAUP: Why, whom do you account for authors, sir John Daw?
DAW: Syntagma juris civilis; Corpus juris civilis; Corpus juris
canonici; the king of Spain's bible—
DAUP: Is the king of Spain's bible an author?
CLER: Yes, and Syntagma.
DAUP: What was that Syntagma, sir?
DAW: A civil lawyer, a Spaniard.
DAUP: Sure, Corpus was a Dutchman.
CLER: Ay, both the Corpuses, I knew 'em: they were very corpulent
authors.
DAW: And, then there's Vatablus, Pomponatius, Symancha: the other
are not to be received, within the thought of a scholar.
DAUP: 'Fore God, you have a simple learned servant, lady,—
in titles. [ASIDE.]
CLER: I wonder that he is not called to the helm, and made a
counsellor!
DAUP: He is one extraordinary.
CLER: Nay, but in ordinary: to say truth, the state wants such.
DAUP: Why that will follow.
CLER: I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of such a
servant.
DAW: 'Tis her virtue, sir. I have written somewhat of her silence
too.
DAUP: In verse, sir John?
CLER: What else?
DAUP: Why? how can you justify your own being of a poet, that so
slight all the old poets?
DAW: Why? every man that writes in verse is not a poet; you have of
the wits that write verses, and yet are no poets: they are poets
that live by it, the poor fellows that live by it.
DAUP: Why, would not you live by your verses, sir John?
CLER: No, 'twere pity he should. A knight live by his verses? he
did not make them to that end, I hope.
DAUP: And yet the noble Sidney lives by his, and the noble family
not ashamed.
CLER: Ay, he profest himself; but sir John Daw has more caution:
he'll not hinder his own rising in the state so much. Do you
think he will? Your verses, good sir John, and no poems.
DAW: Silence in woman, is like speech in man,
Deny't who can.
DAUP: Not I, believe it: your reason, sir.
DAW: Nor, is't a tale,
That female vice should be a virtue male,
Or masculine vice a female virtue be:
You shall it see
Prov'd with increase;
I know to speak, and she to hold her peace.
Do you conceive me, gentlemen?
DAUP: No, faith; how mean you "with increase," sir John?
DAW: Why, with increase is, when I court her for the common cause of
mankind; and she says nothing, but "consentire videtur": and in
time is gravida.
DAUP: Then this is a ballad of procreation?
CLER: A madrigal of procreation; you mistake.
EPI: 'Pray give me my verses again, servant.
DAW: If you'll ask them aloud, you shall.
[WALKS ASIDE WITH THE PAPERS.]
[ENTER TRUEWIT WITH HIS HORN.]
CLER: See, here's Truewit again!—Where hast thou been, in the
name of madness! thus accoutred with thy horn?
TRUE: Where the sound of it might have pierced your sense with
gladness, had you been in ear-reach of it. Dauphine, fall down
and worship me: I have forbid the bans, lad: I have been with thy
virtuous uncle, and have broke the match.
DAUP: You have not, I hope.
TRUE: Yes faith; if thou shouldst hope otherwise, I should repent me:
this horn got me entrance; kiss it. I had no other way to get in,
but by faining to be a post; but when I got in once, I proved none,
but rather the contrary, turn'd him into a post, or a stone, or
what is stiffer, with thundering into him the incommodities of a
wife, and the miseries of marriage. If ever Gorgon were seen in
the shape of a woman, he hath seen her in my description: I have
put him off o' that scent for ever.—Why do you not applaud and
adore me, sirs? why stand you mute? are you stupid? You are not
worthy of the benefit.
DAUP: Did not I tell you? Mischief!—
CLER: I would you had placed this benefit somewhere else.
TRUE: Why so?
CLER: 'Slight, you have done the most inconsiderate, rash, weak
thing, that ever man did to his friend.
DAUP: Friend! if the most malicious enemy I have, had studied to
inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater.
TRUE: Wherein, for Gods-sake? Gentlemen, come to yourselves again.
DAUP: But I presaged thus much afore to you.
CLER: Would my lips had been solder'd when I spake on't. Slight,
what moved you to be thus impertinent?
TRUE: My masters, do not put on this strange face to pay my
courtesy; off with this visor. Have good turns done you, and thank
'em this way!
DAUP: 'Fore heav'n, you have undone me. That which I have plotted
for, and been maturing now these four months, you have blasted in a
minute: Now I am lost, I may speak. This gentlewoman was lodged
here by me o' purpose, and, to be put upon my uncle, hath profest
this obstinate silence for my sake; being my entire friend, and
one that for the requital of such a fortune as to marry him,
would have made me very ample conditions: where now, all my hopes
are utterly miscarried by this unlucky accident.
CLER: Thus 'tis when a man will be ignorantly officious, do
services, and not know his why; I wonder what courteous itch
possest you. You never did absurder part in your life, nor a
greater trespass to friendship or humanity.
DAUP: Faith, you may forgive it best: 'twas your cause principally.
CLER: I know it, would it had not.
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
DAUP: How now, Cutbeard! what news?
CUT: The best, the happiest that ever was, sir. There has been a
mad gentleman with your uncle, this morning,
[SEEING TRUEWIT.]
—I think this be the gentleman—that has almost talk'd him out
of his wits, with threatening him from marriage—
DAUP: On, I prithee.
CUT: And your uncle, sir, he thinks 'twas done by your procurement;
therefore he will see the party you wot of presently: and if he
like her, he says, and that she be so inclining to dumb as I
have told him, he swears he will marry her, to-day, instantly,
and not defer it a minute longer.
DAUP: Excellent! beyond our expectation!
TRUE: Beyond our expectation! By this light, I knew it would be
thus.
DAUP: Nay, sweet Truewit, forgive me.
TRUE: No, I was ignorantly officious, impertinent: this was the
absurd, weak part.
CLER: Wilt thou ascribe that to merit now, was mere fortune?
TRUE: Fortune! mere providence. Fortune had not a finger in't. I saw
it must necessarily in nature fall out so: my genius is never false
to me in these things. Shew me how it could be otherwise.
DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, contend not, 'tis well now.
TRUE: Alas, I let him go on with inconsiderate, and rash, and what
he pleas'd.
CLER: Away, thou strange justifier of thyself, to be wiser than thou
wert, by the event!
TRUE: Event! by this light, thou shalt never persuade me, but I
foresaw it as well as the stars themselves.
DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, 'tis well now. Do you two entertain sir John
Daw with discourse, while I send her away with instructions.
TRUE: I will be acquainted with her first, by your favour.
CLER: Master True-wit, lady, a friend of ours.
TRUE: I am sorry I have not known you sooner, lady, to celebrate
this rare virtue of your silence.
[EXEUNT DAUP., EPI., AND CUTBEARD.]
CLER: Faith, an you had come sooner, you should have seen and
heard her well celebrated in sir John Daw's madrigals.
TRUE [ADVANCES TO DAW.]: Jack Daw, God save you! when saw you
La-Foole?
DAW: Not since last night, master Truewit.
TRUE: That's a miracle! I thought you two had been inseparable.
DAW: He is gone to invite his guests.
TRUE: 'Odso! 'tis true! What a false memory have I towards that
man! I am one: I met him even now, upon that he calls his delicate
fine black horse, rid into a foam, with posting from place to
place, and person to person, to give them the cue—
CLER: Lest they should forget?
TRUE: Yes: There was never poor captain took more pains at a
muster to shew men, than he, at this meal, to shew friends.
DAW: It is his quarter-feast, sir.
CLER: What! do you say so, sir John?
TRUE: Nay, Jack Daw will not be out, at the best friends he has,
to the talent of his wit: Where's his mistress, to hear and applaud
him? is she gone?
DAW: Is mistress Epicoene gone?
CLER: Gone afore, with sir Dauphine, I warrant, to the place.
TRUE: Gone afore! that were a manifest injury; a disgrace and a
half: to refuse him at such a festival-time as this, being a
bravery, and a wit too!
CLER: Tut, he'll swallow it like cream: he's better read in Jure
civili, than to esteem any thing a disgrace, is offer'd him from
a mistress.
DAW: Nay, let her e'en go; she shall sit alone, and be dumb in her
chamber a week together, for John Daw, I warrant her. Does she
refuse me?
CLER: No, sir, do not take it so to heart; she does not refuse you,
but a little neglects you. Good faith, Truewit, you were to blame,
to put it into his head, that she does refuse him.
TRUE: Sir, she does refuse him palpably, however you mince it. An I
were as he, I would swear to speak ne'er a word to her to-day
for't.
DAW: By this light, no more I will not.
TRUE: Nor to any body else, sir.
DAW: Nay, I will not say so, gentlemen.
CLER: It had been an excellent happy condition for the company, if
you could have drawn him to it. [ASIDE.]
DAW: I'll be very melancholY, i'faith.
CLER: As a dog, if I were as you, sir John.
TRUE: Or a snail, or a hog-louse: I would roll myself up for this
day, in troth, they should not unwind me.
DAW: By this pick-tooth, so I will.
CLER: 'Tis well done: He begins already to be angry with his teeth.
DAW: Will you go, gentlemen?
CLER: Nay, you must walk alone, if you be right melancholy, sir
John.
TRUE: Yes, sir, we'll dog you, we'll follow you afar off.
[EXIT DAW.]
CLER: Was there ever such a two yards of knighthood measured out by
time, to be sold to laughter?
TRUE: A mere talking mole, hang him! no mushroom was ever so fresh.
A fellow so utterly nothing, as he knows not what he would be.
CLER: Let's follow him: but first, let's go to Dauphine, he's
hovering about the house to hear what news.
TRUE: Content.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 2.3.
A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER MOROSE AND MUTE, FOLLOWED BY CUTBEARD WITH EPICOENE.
MOR: Welcome Cutbeard! draw near with your fair charge: and in her
ear softly entreat her to unmasthey.
[EPI. TAKES OFF HER MASK.]
—So! Is the door shut?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Enough. Now, Cutbeard, with the same discipline I use to my
family, I will question you. As I conceive, Cutbeard, this
gentlewoman is she you have provided, and brought, in hope she
will fit me in the place and person of a wife? Answer me not, but
with your leg, unless it be otherwise:
[CUT. MAKES A LEG.]
—Very well done, Cutbeard. I conceive, besides, Cutbeard, you
have been pre-acquainted with her birth, education, and qualities,
or else you would not prefer her to my acceptance, in the weighty
consequence of marriage.
[CUT. MAKES A LEG.]
—This I conceive, Cutbeard. Answer me not but with your leg, unless
it be otherwise.
[CUT. BOWS AGAIN.]
—Very well done, Cutbeard. Give aside now a little, and leave me to
examine her condition, and aptitude to my affection.
[HE GOES ABOUT HER, AND VIEWS HER.]
—She is exceeding fair, and of a special good favour; a sweet
composition or harmony of limbs: her temper of beauty has the
true height of my blood. The knave hath exceedingly well fitted me
without: I will now try her within. Come near, fair gentlewoman:
let not my behaviour seem rude, though unto you, being rare, it
may haply appear strange.
[EPICOENE CURTSIES.]
—Nay, lady, you may speak, though Cutbeard and my man, might not;
for, of all sounds, only the sweet voice of a fair lady has the
just length of mine ears. I beseech you, say, lady; out of the
first fire of meeting eyes, they say, love is stricken: do you
feel any such motion suddenly shot into you, from any part you see
in me? ha, lady?
[EPICOENE CURTSIES.]
—Alas, lady, these answers by silent curtsies from you are too
courtless and simple. I have ever had my breeding in court: and
she that shall be my wife, must be accomplished with courtly and
audacious ornaments. Can you speak, lady?
EPI: [softly.] Judge you, forsooth.
MOR: What say you, lady? speak out, I beseech you.
EPI: Judge you, forsooth.
MOR: On my judgment, a divine softness! But can you naturally,
lady, as I enjoin these by doctrine and industry, refer yourself
to the search of my judgment, and, not taking pleasure in your
tongue, which is a woman's chiefest pleasure, think it plausible
to answer me by silent gestures, so long as my speeches jump
right with what you conceive?
[EPI. CURTSIES.]
—Excellent! divine! if it were possible she should hold out thus!
Peace, Cutbeard, thou art made for ever, as thou hast made me, if
this felicity have lasting: but I will try her further. Dear lady,
I am courtly, I tell you, and I must have mine ears banqueted with
pleasant and witty conferences, pretty girls, scoffs, and
dalliance in her that I mean to choose for my bed-phere. The
ladies in court think it a most desperate impair to their
quickness of wit, and good carriage, if they cannot give
occasion for a man to court 'em; and when an amorous discourse is
set on foot, minister as good matter to continue it, as himself:
And do you alone so much differ from all them, that what they,
with so much circumstance, affect and toil for, to seem
learn'd, to seem judicious, to seem sharp and conceited, you
can bury in yourself with silence, and rather trust your graces
to the fair conscience of virtue, than to the world's or your own
proclamation?
EPI [SOFTLY]: I should be sorry else.
MOR: What say you lady? good lady, speak out.
EPI: I should be sorry else.
MOR: That sorrow doth fill me with gladness. O Morose, thou art
happy above mankind! pray that thou mayest contain thyself. I
will only put her to it once more, and it shall be with the utmost
touch and test of their sex. But hear me, fair lady; I do also
love to see her whom I shall choose for my heifer, to be the
first and principal in all fashions; precede all the dames at
court by a fortnight; have council of tailors, lineners,
lace-women, embroiderers, and sit with them sometimes twice a day
upon French intelligences; and then come forth varied like
nature, or oftener than she, and better by the help of art, her
emulous servant. This do I affect: and how will you be able, lady,
with this frugality of speech, to give the manifold but
necessary instructions, for that bodice, these sleeves, those
skirts, this cut, that stitch, this embroidery, that lace, this
wire, those knots, that ruff, those roses, this girdle, that
fanne, the t'other scarf, these gloves? Ha! what say you, lady?
EPI [SOFTLY]: I'll leave it to you, sir.
MOR: How, lady? pray you rise a note.
EPI: I leave it to wisdom and you, sir.
MOR: Admirable creature! I will trouble you no more: I will not
sin against so sweet a simplicity. Let me now be bold to print on
those divine lips the seal of being mine.—Cutbeard, I give thee
the lease of thy house free: thank me not but with thy leg
[CUTBEARD SHAKES HIS HEAD.]
—I know what thou wouldst say, she's poor, and her friends
deceased. She has brought a wealthy dowry in her silence, Cutbeard;
and in respect of her poverty, Cutbeard, I shall have her more
loving and obedient, Cutbeard. Go thy ways, and get me a minister
presently, with a soft low voice, to marry us; and pray him he will
not be impertinent, but brief as he can; away: softly,
[EXIT CUTBEARD.]
—Sirrah, conduct your mistress into the dining-room, your now
mistress.
[EXIT MUTE, FOLLOWED BY EPI.]
—O my felicity! how I shall be revenged on mine insolent kinsman,
and his plots to fright me from marrying! This night I will get an
heir, and thrust him out of my blood, like a stranger; he would be
knighted, forsooth, and thought by that means to reign over me;
his title must do it: No, kinsman, I will now make you bring me
the tenth lord's and the sixteenth lady's letter, kinsman; and it
shall do you no good, kinsman. Your knighthood itself shall come
on its knees, and it shall be rejected; it shall be sued for its
fees to execution, and not be redeem'd; it shall cheat at the
twelvepenny ordinary, it knighthood, for its diet, all the term-
time, and tell tales for it in the vacation to the hostess; or it
knighthood shall do worse, take sanctuary in Cole-harbour, and fast.
It shall fright all its friends with borrowing letters; and when
one of the fourscore hath brought it knighthood ten shillings, it
knighthood shall go to the Cranes, or the Bear at the Bridge-foot,
and be drunk in fear: it shall not have money to discharge one
tavern-reckoning, to invite the old creditors to forbear it
knighthood, or the new, that should be, to trust it knighthood. It
shall be the tenth name in the bond to take up the commodity of
pipkins and stone jugs: and the part thereof shall not furnish it
knighthood forth for the attempting of a baker's widow, a brown
baker's widow. It shall give it knighthood's name, for a stallion,
to all gamesome citizens' wives, and be refused; when the master
of a dancing school, or how do you call him, the worst reveller in
the town is taken: it shall want clothes, and by reason of that,
wit, to fool to lawyers. It shall not have hope to repair itself
by Constantinople, Ireland, or Virginia; but the best and last fortune
to it knighthood shall be to make Dol Tear-Sheet, or Kate Common a
lady: and so it knighthood may eat.
[EXIT.]
SCENE 2.4.
A LANE, NEAR MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER TRUEWIT, DAUPHINE,AND CLERIMONT.
TRUE: Are you sure he is not gone by?
DAUP: No, I staid in the shop ever since.
CLER: But he may take the other end of the lane.
DAUP: No, I told him I would be here at this end: I appointed him
hither.
TRUE: What a barbarian it is to stay then!
DAUP: Yonder he comes.
CLER: And his charge left behind him, which is a very good sign,
Dauphine.
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
DAUP: How now Cutbeard! succeeds it, or no?
CUT: Past imagination, sir, omnia secunda; you could not have
pray'd to have had it so well. Saltat senex, as it is in the
proverb; he does triumph in his felicity, admires the party! he
has given me the lease of my house too! and I am now going for a
silent minister to marry them, and away.
TRUE: 'Slight, get one of the silenced ministers, a zealous brother
would torment him purely.
CUT: Cum privilegio, sir.
DAUP: O, by no means, let's do nothing to hinder it now: when it
is done and finished, I am for you, for any device of vexation.
CUT: And that shall be within this half hour, upon my dexterity,
gentlemen. Contrive what you can in the mean time, bonis avibus.
[EXIT.]
CLER: How the slave doth Latin it!
TRUE: It would be made a jest to posterity, sirs, this day's mirth,
if ye will.
CLER: Beshrew his heart that will not, I pronounce.
DAUP: And for my part. What is it?
TRUE: To translate all La-Foole's company, and his feast thither,
to-day, to celebrate this bride-ale.
DAUP: Ay marry; but how will't be done?
TRUE: I'll undertake the directing of all the lady-guests thither,
and then the meat must follow.
CLER: For God's sake, let's effect it: it will be an excellent comedy
of affliction, so many several noises.
DAUP: But are they not at the other place already, think you?
TRUE: I'll warrant you for the college-honours: one of their faces
has not the priming colour laid on yet, nor the other her smock
sleek'd.
CLER: O, but they'll rise earlier then ordinary, to a feast.
TRUE: Best go see, and assure ourselves.
CLER: Who knows the house?
TRUE: I will lead you: Were you never there yet?
DAUP: Not I.
CLER: Nor I.
TRUE: Where have you lived then? not know Tom Otter!
CLER: No: for God's sake, what is he?
TRUE: An excellent animal, equal with your Daw or La-Foole, if not
transcendant; and does Latin it as much as your barber: He is his
wife's subject, he calls her princess, and at such times as these
follows her up and down the house like a page, with his hat off,
partly for heat, partly for reverence. At this instant he is
marshalling of his bull, bear, and horse.
DAUP: What be those, in the name of Sphynx?
TRUE: Why, sir, he has been a great man at the Bear-garden in his
time; and from that subtle sport, has ta'en the witty denomination
of his chief carousing cups. One he calls his bull, another his
bear, another his horse. And then he has his lesser glasses, that
he calls his deer and his ape; and several degrees of them too;
and never is well, nor thinks any entertainment perfect, till
these be brought out, and set on the cupboard.
CLER: For God's love!—we should miss this, if we should not go.
TRUE: Nay, he has a thousand things as good, that will speak him
all day. He will rail on his wife, with certain common places,
behind her back; and to her face—
DAUP: No more of him. Let's go see him, I petition you.
[EXEUNT.]