Enter Charino, and servants in blacks. Covering the place with blacks.
Char. Strew all your withered flowers, your Autumn sweets
By the hot Sun ravisht of bud and beauty
Thus round about her Bride-bed, hang those blacks there
The emblemes of her honour lost; all joy
That leads a Virgin to receive her lover,
Keep from this place, all fellow-maids that bless her,
And blushing do unloose her Zone, keep from her:
No merry noise nor lusty songs be heard here,
Nor full cups crown'd with wine make the rooms giddy,
This is no masque of mirth, but murdered honour.
Sing mournfully that sad Epithalamion
I gave thee now: and prethee let thy lute weep.
Song, Dance. Enter Rutilio.
Rut. How now, what livery's this? do you call this a wedding? This is more like a funeral.
Char. It is one,
And my poor Daughter going to her grave,
To his most loath'd embraces that gapes for her.
Make the Earles bed readie, is the marriage done Sir?
Rut. Yes they are knit; but must this slubberdegullion Have her maiden-head now?
[Char.] There's no avoiding it.
Rut. And there's the scaffold where she must lose it.
[Char.] The bed Sir.
Rut. No way to wipe his mouldy chaps?