The Merry Devil of Edmonton

by Shakespeare

SCENE III. The same.

[Peter Fabell, solus.]

FABELL.
Good old Mounchensey, is thy hap so ill,
That for thy bounty and thy royall parts
Thy kind alliance should be held in scorn,
And after all these promises by Clare
Refuse to give his daughter to thy son,
Only because thy Revenues cannot reach
To make her dowage of so rich a jointure
As can the heir of wealthy Jerningham?
And therefore is the false fox now in hand
To strike a match betwixt her and th’ other;
And the old gray-beards now are close together,
Plotting it in the garden. Is’t even so?
Raymond Mounchensey, boy, have thou and I
Thus long at Cambridge read the liberall Arts,
The Metaphysickes, Magicke, and those parts
Of the most secret deep philosophy?
Have I so many melancholy nights
Watch’d on the top of Peter-house highest Tower?
And come we back unto our native home,
For want of skill to lose the wench thou lov’st?
We’ll first hang Envill in such rings of mist
As never rose from any dampish fen:
I’ll make the brind sea to rise at Ware,
And drown the marshes unto Stratford bridge;
I’ll drive the Deer from Waltham in their walks,
And scatter them like sheep in every field.
We may perhaps be crost, but, if we be,
He shall cross the devil, that but crosses me.

[Enter Raymond and young Jerningham and young Clare.]

But here comes Raymond, disconsolate and sad,
And here’s the gallant that must have the wench.

JERNINGHAM.
I pri’thee, Raymond, leave these solemn dumps:
Revive thy spirits, thou that before hast been
More watchful then the day-proclaiming cock,
As sportive as a Kid, as frank and merry
As mirth herself.
If ought in me may thy content procure,
It is thine own, thou mayst thy self assure.

RAYMOND.
Ha, Jerningham, if any but thy self
Had spoke that word, it would have come as cold
As the bleak Northern winds upon the face
Of winter.
From thee they have some power upon my blood;
Yet being from thee, had but that hollow sound
Come from the lips of any living man,
It might have won the credit of mine ear;
From thee it cannot.

JERNINGHAM.
If I understand thee, I am a villain:
What, dost thou speak in parables to thy friends?

CLARE.
Come, boy, and make me this same groning love,
Troubled with stitches and the cough a’th lungs,
That wept his eyes out when he was a child,
And ever since hath shot at hudman-blind,
Make him leap, caper, jerk, and laugh, and sing,
And play me horse-tricks;
Make Cupid wanton as his mother’s dove:
But in this sort, boy, I would have thee love.

FABELL.
Why, how now, mad-cap? What, my lusty Franke,
So near a wife, and will not tell a friend?
But you will to this geere in hugger-mugger;
Art thou turned miser, Rascall, in thy loves?

JERNINGHAM. Who, I? z’blood, what should all you see in me, that I should look like a married man, ha? Am I bald? are my legs too little for my hose? If I feel any thing in my forehead, I am a villain: do I wear a night-cap? Do I bend in the hams? What dost thou see in me, that I should be towards marriage, ha?

CLARE. What, thou married? let me look upon thee, Rogue; who has given out this of thee? how camst thou into this ill name? What company hast thou been in, Rascall?

FABELL.
You are the man, sir, must have Millescent:
The match is making in the garden now;
Her jointure is agreed on, and th’ old men,
Your fathers, mean to lanch their busy bags;
But in mean time to thrust Mountchensey off,
For colour of this new intended match,
Fair Millescent to Cheston must be sent,
To take the approbation for a Nun.
Ne’er look upon me, lad, the match is done.

JERNINGHAM.
Raymond Mountchensey, now I touch thy grief
With the true feeling of a zealous friend.
And as for fair and beauteous Millescent,
With my vain breath I will not seek to slubber
Her angel like perfections; but thou know’st
That Essex hath the Saint that I adore.
Where ere did we meet thee and wanton springs,
That like a wag thou hast not laught at me,
And with regardless jesting mockt my love?
How many a sad and weary summer night
My sighs have drunk the dew from off the earth,
And I have taught the Niting-gale to wake,
And from the meadows spring the early Lark
An hour before she should have list to sing:
I have loaded the poor minutes with my moans,
That I have made the heavy slow passed hours
To hang like heavy clogs upon the day.
But, dear Mountchensey, had not my affection
Seased on the beauty of another dame,
Before I would wrong the chase, and overgive love
Of one so worthy and so true a friend,
I will abjure both beauty and her sight,
And will in love become a counterfeit.

MOUNTCHENSEY.
Dear Jerningham, thou hast begot my life,
And from the mouth of hell, where now I sate,
I feel my spirit rebound against the stars:
Thou hast conquerd me, dear friend, in my free soul;
Their time nor death can by their power controul.

FABELL.
Franke Jerningham, thou art a gallant boy;
And were he not my pupil, I would say
He were as fine a mettled gentleman,
Of as free spirit, and of as fine a temper
As is in England; and he is a man
That very richly may deserve thy love.
But, noble Clare, this while of our discourse,
What may Mounchensey’s honour to thy self
Exact upon the measure of thy grace?

CLARE.
Raymond Mounchensey, I would have thee know,
He does not breath this air,
Whose love I cherish, and whose soul I love
More than Mounchensey’s:
Nor ever in my life did see the man
Whom, for his wit and many vertuous parts,
I think more worthy of my sister’s love.
But since the matter grows unto this pass,
I must not seem to cross my Father’s will;
But when thou list to visit her by night,
My horses sadled, and the stable door
Stands ready for thee; use them at thy pleasure.
In honest marriage wed her frankly, boy,
And if thou getst her, lad, God give thee joy!

MOUNTCHENSEY.
Then, care, away! let fates my fall pretend,
Backt with the favours of so true a friend!

FABELL.
Let us alone, to bussell for the set;
For age and craft with wit and Art have met.
I’ll make my spirits to dance such nightly jigs
Along the way twixt this and Totnam cross,
The Carriers jades shall cast their heavy packs,
And the strong hedges scarse shall keep them in:
The Milk-maids Cuts shall turn the wenches off,
And lay the Dossers tumbling in the dust:
The frank and merry London prentises,
That come for cream and lusty country cheer,
Shall lose their way; and, scrambling in the ditches,
All night shall whoop and hollow, cry and call,
Yet none to other find the way at all.

MOUNTCHENSEY.
Pursue the project, scholler: what we can do
To help indeavour, join our lives thereto!

[Exeunt.]