gentility. Ho! I will so tickle the sense of bella gratiosa madonna with the titillation of hyperbolical praise, that I’ll strike it in the nick, in the very nick, chuck.
Feli. Thou promisest more than I hope any spectator gives faith of performance; but why look you so dusky, ha?
[To Antonio.
Ant. I was never worse fitted since the nativity of my actorship; I shall be hiss’d at, on my life now. 70
Feli. Why, what must you play?
Ant. Faith, I know not what; an hermaphrodite, two parts in one; my true person being Antonio, son to the Duke of Genoa; though for the love of Mellida, Piero’s daughter, I take this feigned presence of an Amazon, calling myself Florizell, and I know not what. I a voice to play a lady! I shall ne’er do it.
Alb. O! an Amazon should have such a voice, virago-like. Not play two parts in one? away, away, ’tis common fashion. Nay, if you cannot bear two subtle fronts under one hood, idiot, go by, go by, off this world’s stage! O time’s impurity! 82
Ant. Ay, but when use hath taught me action
To hit the right point of a lady’s part,
I shall grow ignorant, when I must turn
Young prince again, how but to truss[41] my hose.
Feli. Tush, never put them off; for women wear the breeches still.
Mat. By the bright honour of a Milanoise,
And the resplendent fulgor of this steel, 90