huge store of veal and fresh beef, blown up their flesh, held them from exercise, rolled them in feathers, and most surely seen them drunk once a day; then would they at their best have begotten but wenches, and in short their generation enfeebled to nothing. 172
Sir Amor. O, divine Faunus, where might a man take up forty pound in a commodity of garlic and onions? Nymphadoro, thine ear.
Herc. Come, what are you fleering at? There’s some weakness in your brother you wrinkle at thus; come, prithee, impart; what? we are mutually incorporated, turn’d one into another, brued [sic] together. Come, I believe you are familiar with your sister, and it were known.
Herod. Witch, Faunus, witch! Why, how dost dream I live? Is’t four score a year, think’st thou, maintains my geldings, my pages, foot-cloths, my best feeding, high play, and excellent company? No, ’tis from hence, from hence, I mint some four hundred pound a year. 185
Herc. Dost thou live like a porter, by the[172] back, boy?
Herod. As for my weak-rein’d brother, hang him! He has sore shins. Damn him, heteroclite! his brain’s perished! His youth spent his fodder so fast on others’ cattle, that he now wants for his own winter. I am fain to supply, Fawn, for which I am supplied.
Herc. Dost thou branch him, boy?
Herod. What else, Fawn? 193
Herc. What else? Nay, ’tis enough. Why, many men corrupt other men’s wives, some their maids, others their
neighbours’ daughters; but to lie with one’s brother’s wedlock,[173] O, my dear Herod, ’tis vile[174] and uncommon lust.