Rog. O whore, I little thought to see you in this taking! I am governor of this castle of cornets; my grave will be stumbled at, thou adult’rate whore! I might have lived like a merchant.
Abi. So you may still, husband. 50
Rog. Peace! thou art very quick with me.
Abi. Ay, by my faith, and so I am, husband; belike you know I am with child.
Rog. A bastard, a bastard, a bastard! I might have lived like a gentleman, and now I must die like a hanger on, show tricks upon a wooden horse, and run through an alphabet of scurvy faces! Do not expect a good look from me.
Abi. O me unfortunate! 59
Cla. O to think, whilst we are singing the last hymn, and ready to be turn’d off, some new tune is inventing by some metremonger, to a scurvy ballad of our death!
Again, at our funeral sermons, to have the divine divide his text into fair branches! O, flesh and blood cannot endure it! Yet I will take it patiently like a grave man. Hangman, tie not my halter of a true lover’s knot: I burst it if thou dost.
Tha. Husband, I do beseech you on my knees,
I may but speak with you. I’ll win your pardon,
Or with tears, like Niobe, bedew a— 70
Cla. Hold thy water, crocodile, and say I am bound to do thee no harm; were I free, yet I could not be looser than thou; for thou art a whore! Agamemnon’s daughter, that was sacrificed for a good wind, felt but a blast of the torments thou should’st endure; I’d make thee swound oftener than that fellow that by his continual practice hopes to become drum-major. What sayst thou to tickling to death with bodkins? But thou hast laugh’d too much at me already, whore! Justice, O duke! and let me not hang in suspense. 80