3D CITIZEN.
Ah! by God's leave, not so;
If the knave show us his peeled onion's head
And that damned flagging jowl of his—
2D CITIZEN.
Nay, sirs,
Take heed of words; moreover, please it you,
This man hath no pope's part in him.
3D CITIZEN.
I say
That if priest whore's friend with the lewd thief's cheek
Show his foul blinking face to shame all ours,
It goes back fouler; well, one day hell's fire
Will burn him black indeed.
A WOMAN.
What kind of man?
'T is yet great pity of him if he be
Goodly enow for this queen's paramour.
A French lord overseas? what doth he here,
With Scotch folk here?
1ST CITIZEN.
Fair mistress, I think well
He doth so at some times that I were fain
To do as well.
THE WOMAN.
Nay, then he will not die.
1ST CITIZEN.
Why, see you, if one eat a piece of bread
Baked as it were a certain prophet's way,
Not upon coals, now—you shall apprehend—
If defiled bread be given a man to eat,
Being thrust into his mouth, why he shall eat,
And with good hap shall eat; but if now, say,
One steal this, bread and beastliness and all,
When scarcely for pure hunger flesh and bone
Cleave one to other—why, if he steal to eat,
Be it even the filthiest feeding-though the man
Be famine-flayed of flesh and skin, I say
He shall be hanged.
3D CITIZEN.
Nay, stolen said you, sir?
See, God bade eat abominable bread,
And freely was it eaten—for a sign
This, for a sign—and doubtless as did God,
So may the devil; bid one eat freely and live,
Not for a sign.
2D CITIZEN.
Will you think thus of her?
But wherefore should they get this fellow slain
If he be clear toward her?
3D CITIZEN.
Sir, one must see
The day comes when a woman sheds her sin
As a bird moults; and she being shifted so,
The old mate of her old feather pecks at her
To get the right bird back; then she being stronger
Picks out his eyes-eh?