[Here the Son goeth out, and the Rich Man tarrieth behind alone.
THE FATHER.
Now at the last I do myself consider,
How great grief it is and heaviness
To every man that is a father,
To suffer his child to follow wantonness:
If I might live a hundred years longer,
And should have sons and daughters many,
Yet for this boy's sake I will not suffer
One of them all at home with me to tarry;
They should not be kept thus under my wing,
And have all that which they desire;
For why it is but their only undoing,
And, after the proverb, we put oil to the fire.[317]
Wherefore we parents must have a regard
Our children in time for to subdue,
Or else we shall have them ever untoward,
Yea, spiteful, disdainful, naught and untrue.
And let us them thrust alway to the school,
Whereby at their books they may be kept under:
And so we shall shortly their courage cool,
And bring them to honesty, virtue and nurture.
But, alas, now-a-days (the more is the pity),
Science and learning is so little regarded,
That none of us doth muse or study
To see our children well taught and instructed.
We deck them, we trim them with gorgeous array,
We pamper and feed them, and keep them so gay,
That in the end of all this they be our foes.
We bass them, [we] kiss them, we look round about;
We marvel and wonder to see them so lean;
We ever anon do invent and seek out
To make them go tricksy,[318] gallant, and clean:
Which is nothing else but the very provoking
To all unthriftiness, vice, and iniquity;
It puffeth them up, it is an alluring
Their fathers and mothers at length to defy.
Which thing mine own son doth plainly declare,
Whom I always entirely have loved;
He was so my joy, he was so my care,
That now of the same I am despised.
And how he is hence from me departed,
He hath no delight with me to dwell;
He is not merry, until he be married,
He hath of knavery took such a smell.[319]
But yet seeing that he is my son,
He doth me constrain bitterly to weep,
I am not (methink) well till I be gone;
For this place I can no longer keep.
[Here the Rich Man goeth out, and the two Cooks
cometh in; first the one, and then the other.
THE MAN-COOK.
Make haste, Blanche, blab it out, and come away,
For we have enough to do all this whole day;
Why, Blanche, blab it out, wilt thou not come,
And knowest what business there is to be done?
If thou may be set with the pot at thy nose,
Thou carest not how other matters goes;
Come away, I bid thee, and tarry no longer,
To trust to thy help I am much the better!
THE MAID-COOK.
What a murrain, I say, what a noise dost thou make!
I think that thou be not well in thy wits!
I never heard man on this sort to take,
With such angry words and hasty fits.
MAN. Why, dost thou remember what is to be bought
For the great bridal against to-morrow?
The market must be in every place sought
For all kinds of meats, God give thee sorrow!
MAID. What banging, what cursing, Long-tongue, is with thee!
I made as much speed as I could possibly;
I-wis thou mightest have tarried for me,
Until in all points I had been ready;
I have for thee looked full oft heretofore,
And yet for all that said never the more.
MAN. Well, for this once I am with thee content,
So that hereafter thou make more haste;
Or else, I tell thee, thou wilt it repent,
To loiter so long, till the market be past.
For there must be bought beef, veal and mutton,
And that even such as is good and fat,
With pig, geese, conies, and capon;
How sayest thou, Blanche? blab it out unto that?
MAID. I cannot tell, Long-tongue, what I should say;
Of such good cheer I am so glad,
That if I would not eat at all that day,
My belly to fill I were very mad!
MAN. There must be also pheasant and swan;
There must be heronsew, partridge, and quail;
And therefore I must do what I can,
That none of all these the gentleman fail.
I dare say he looks for many things mo,
To be prepared against to-morn;
Wherefore, I say, hence let us go:
My feet do stand upon a thorn.