HUSBAND. If marriage be honourable, then Cuckolds are honourable, for they cannot be made without marriage. Fool! what meant I to marry to get beggars? now must my eldest son be a knave or nothing; he cannot live uppot’h fool, for he will have no land to maintain him: that mortgage sits like a snaffle upon mine inheritance, and makes me chaw upon Iron. My second son must be a promoter, and my third a thief, or an underputter, a slave pander. Oh beggery, beggery, to what base uses dost thou put a man! I think the Devil scorns to be a bawd. He bears himself more proudly, has more care on’s credit. Base, slavish, abject, filthy poverty!
WIFE.
Good sir, by all our vows I do beseech you,
Show me the true cause of your discontent.
HUSBAND.
Money, money, money, and thou must supply me.
WIFE.
Alas, I am the lest cause of your discontent,
Yet what is mine, either in rings or Jewels,
Use to your own desire, but I beseech you,
As y’are a gentleman by many bloods,
Though I my self be out of your respect,
Think on the state of these three lovely boys
You have been father to.
HUSBAND. Puh! Bastards, bastards, bastards; begot in tricks, begot in tricks.
WIFE.
Heaven knows how those words wrong me, but I may
Endure these griefs among a thousand more.
Oh, call to mind your lands already mortgage,
Your self wound with debts, your hopeful brother
At the university in bonds for you,
Like to be ceasd upon; And—
HUSBAND.
Ha done, thou harlot,
Whom, though for fashion sake I married,
I never could abide; thinkst thou thy words
Shall kill my pleasures? Fall off to thy friends,
Thou and thy bastards beg: I will not bate
A whit in humor! midnight, still I love you,
And revel in your Company. Curbd in,
Shall it be said in all societies,
That I broke custom, that I flagd in money?
No, those thy jewels I will play as freely
As when my state was fullest.
WIFE.
Be it so.
HUSBAND.
Nay I protest, and take that for an earnest,
[spurns her]