A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 06

by Unknown

PENULO. Thy love, with a wanion![102] are you in love, sir, then, with your leave?

LENTULO.
What an ass art thou: couldst thou not all this time perceive,
That I never sleep but when I am not awake,
And I eat and I eat till my belly would ache?
And I fall away like a gammon of bacon.
Am I not in love when I am in this tacon?[103]
Call'st thou this the court? would I had ne'er come thither
To be caught in Cupido. I faint, I faint! O, gather me, gather me!
[Pretends to swoon.

PENULO.
Come up, and be hang'd. Alack, poor Lentulo! [Aside.
Tell me with whom thou art in love so.

LENTULO.
You kill me, and you make me tell her name. No, no.
O terrible torments, that trounce in my toe!
Love, my masters, is a parlous matter! how it runs out of my nose!
It's now in my back, now in my belly; O, now in the bottom of my hose.

PENULO.
The pestilence! there, what is she, my boy?
I'll make her love thee again, be she never so coy.

LENTULO.
Wilt thou so? O gods of love! that word plucks up my heart,
I'll tell thee, sirrah—even as we two at the court-gate did wait,
Did'st thou not mark a goodly lady, O lady, lady![104]
Why should not I as well as he, my dear lady?
Did'st thou not see her come in with a golden lock?
She had a fine gown on her back, and a passing nether-stock.

PENULO.
Well, sir, proceed: I remember her very well.
It's the Duke's daughter the sot means, I can tell. [Aside.

LENTULO.
Now, sirrah, there was a little dappard[105] ass with her,
that went before:
When I saw him, I came in sneaking more and more.
To have heard them talk; ah! crouching on is good;
For when he had talk['d] awhile, I had come in with, ay forsooth, no
forsooth, that I would,
And she would have look'd upon me: then more 'quaintance we should have.

PENULO.
An excellent device. Ah, sirrah! you are an excellent knave.

LENTULO. Tu autem, tu[106] autem: I have it in me. But, sirrah, wott'st thou what now? As God juggle me, when I came near them, I tell thee true, The same squall[107] did nothing but thus: I know what's what; And I ran before him, and did thus too. [Strikes PENULO.