Vio. I’ll to the monastery: I shall be mad till I enjoy him, I shall be sick until I see him; yet when I do see him, I shall weep out mine eyes.
Geo. I’d fain see a woman weep out her eyes, that’s as true as to say, a man’s cloak burns, when it hangs in the water: I know you’ll weep, mistress, but what says the painted cloth?[206]
Trust not a woman when she cries,
For she’ll pump water from her eyes
With a wet finger,[207] and in faster showers,
Than April when he rains down flowers.
Vio. Ay, but George, that painted cloth is worthy to be hanged up for lying; all women have not tears at will, unless they have good cause.
Geo. Ay, but mistress, how easily will they find a cause, and as one of our cheese-trenchers[208] says very learnedly,
As out of wormwood bees suck honey,
As from poor clients lawyers firk money,
As parsley from a roasted cony:
So, though the day be ne’er so funny,
If wives will have it rain, down then it drives,
The calmest husbands make the stormiest wives—
Vio. —Tame, George. But I ha’ done storming now.
Geo. Why that’s well done: good mistress, throw aside this fashion of your humour, be not so fantastical in wearing it: storm no more, long no more. This longing has made you come short of many a good thing that you might have had from my master: Here comes the duke.
Enter Duke, Fluello, Pioratto, and Sinezi.