Just. Is the name of witch so pleasing to thine ear?
Sir Arth. Pray, sir, give way, and let her tongue gallop on.
M. Saw. A witch! who is not?
Hold not that universal name in scorn, then.
What are your painted things in princes’ courts,
Upon whose eyelids lust sits, blowing fires
To burn men’s souls in sensual hot desires,
Upon whose naked paps a lecher’s thought
Acts sin in fouler shapes than can be wrought?
Just. But those work not as you do.
M. Saw. No, but far worse
These by enchantments can whole lordships change
To trunks of rich attire, turn ploughs and teams
To Flanders mares and coaches, and huge trains
Of servitors to a French butterfly.
Have you not city-witches who can turn
Their husbands’ wares, whole standing shops of wares,
To sumptuous tables, gardens of stolen sin;
In one year wasting what scarce twenty win?
Are not these witches?
Just. Yes, yes; but the law
Casts not an eye on these.
M. Saw. Why, then, on me,
Or any lean old beldam? Reverence once
Had wont to wait on age; now an old woman,
Ill-favoured grown with years, if she be poor,
Must be called bawd or witch. Such so abused
Are the coarse witches; t’other are the fine,
Spun for the devil’s own wearing.
Sir Arth. And so is thine.
M. Saw. She on whose tongue a whirlwind sits to blow
A man out of himself, from his soft pillow
To lean his head on rocks and fighting waves,
Is not that scold a witch? The man of law
Whose honeyed hopes the credulous client draw—
As bees by tinkling basins—to swarm to him
From his own hive to work the wax in his;
He is no witch, not he!