Lucif. Since thy own folly made thee marry, ’tis now too late to prate, you must away with the rest.
[They are carry’d off, and others brought on.
Bring the next to the bar: declare the cause of your deserv’d damnation. My life on’t these dapper sparks are in for cakes and ale too; the very air of their faces speaks them cuckolds.
French Ghost. Sire, may it please your most victorious majesty, Vostre Esclaro is a Frenchman by birth, and a leader of the most christian king’s most magnanimous forces; and whilst I, with my commilitones, was reaping lawrels in the field of renown, and engaging the enemy abroad, my lady wife (as most of our French wives will, for having once tasted the sweets of love, they’ll ne’er have done ’till they have undone us one way or other) my lady wife, I say, was engaging with a friend at home, who very genteely gave her the pox, which I, at my return, like a gay cavalier of a husband, receiv’d of her as genteely without rebuke, it being no matter of scandal with us. But madamoiselle’s pox proving a very virago, gave me damn’d thrust in quarto, and sent me hither in decimo sexto, monseigneur.
Lucif. You, the rest, speak.
Omnes. We are all Frenchmen, and therefore you need not doubt the cause, the pox and our wives, ma foy.
Lucif. Away with them: they’ll make a fire by themselves, or will serve instead of small-coal to kindle others; for they are half burnt out already. Place ’em next the Spaniards. The next there speak.
[They are carry’d off, more brought on.
German Ghost. I am, by nation, a German, and, by damnation, a husband, a cuckold, or what you please; for I hate to mince the matter with a long preamble, when a word to the wise is enough.
Lucif. Very well; you, the rest, speak.