Re-enter Camillo.[20]
How now, brother!
What, travelling to bed to your kind wife?
Cam. I assure you, brother, no; my voyage lies
More northerly, in a far colder clime:
I do not well remember, I protest,
When I last lay with her.
Flam. Strange you should lose your count.
Cam. We never lay together, but ere morning
There grew a flaw[21] between us.
Flam. 'Thad been your part
To have made up that flaw.
Cam. True, but she loathes
I should be seen in't.
Flam. Why, sir, what's the matter?
Cam. The duke, your master, visits me, I thank him;
And I perceive how, like an earnest bowler,
He very passionately leans that way
He should have his bowl run.
Flam. I hope you do not think—
Cam. That noblemen bowl booty?[22] faith, his cheek
Hath a most excellent bias; it would fain
Jump with my mistress.[23]
Flam. Will you be an ass,
Despite your Aristotle? or a cuckold,
Contrary to your Ephemerides,
Which shows you under what a smiling planet
You were first swaddled?
Cam. Pew-wew, sir, tell not me
Of planets nor of Ephemerides:
A man may be made a cuckold in the day-time,
When the stars' eyes are out.
Flam. Sir, God b' wi' you;
I do commit you to your pitiful pillow
Stuffed with horn-shavings.
Cam. Brother,—
Flam. God refuse me,
Might I advise you now, your only course
Were to lock up your wife.
Cam. 'Twere very good.
Flam. Bar her the sight of revels.
Cam. Excellent.
Flam. Let her not go to church, but like a hound
In lyam[24] at your heels.
Cam. 'Twere for her honour.
Flam. And so you should be certain in one fortnight
Despite her chastity or innocence,
To be cuckolded, which yet is in suspense:
This is my counsel, and I ask no fee for't.
Cam. Come, you know not where my night-cap wrings me.
Flam. Wear it o' the old fashion; let your large ears come through, it will be more easy:—nay, I will be bitter:—bar your wife of her entertainment: women are more willingly and more gloriously chaste when they are least restrained of their liberty. It seems you would be a fine capricious mathematically jealous coxcomb; take the height of your own horns with a Jacob's staff[25] afore they are up. These politic inclosures for paltry mutton make more rebellion in the flesh than all the provocative electuaries doctors have uttered[26] since last jubilee.
Cam. This doth not physic me.
Flam. It seems you are jealous: I'll show you the error of it by a familiar example. I have seen a pair of spectacles fashioned with such perspective art, that, lay down but one twelve pence o' the board, 'twill appear as if there were twenty; now, should you wear a pair of these spectacles, and see your wife tying her shoe, you would imagine twenty hands were taking up of your wife's clothes, and this would put you into a horrible causeless fury.
Cam. The fault there, sir, is not in the eyesight.
Flam. True; but they that have the yellow jaundice think all objects they look on to be yellow. Jealousy is worser; her fits present to a man, like so many bubbles in a bason of water, twenty several crabbed faces; many times makes his own shadow his cuckold-maker. See, she comes.
Re-enter Vittoria Corombona.
What reason have you to be jealous of this creature? what an ignorant ass or flattering knave might he be counted, that should write sonnets to her eyes, or call her brow the snow of Ida or ivory of Corinth, or compare her hair to the blackbird's bill, when 'tis liker the blackbird's feather! This is all; be wise, I will make you friends; and you shall go to bed together. Marry, look you, it shall not be your seeking; do you stand upon that by any means: walk you aloof; I would not have you seen in't. [Camillo retires.] Sister, my lord attends you in the banqueting-house. Your husband is wondrous discontented.
Vit. Cor. I did nothing to displease him: I carved to him at supper-time.[27]