MRS GOUR. What am I?
MRS BAR. Why, that's as you will be ever.
MRS GOUR. That's every day as good as Barnes's wife.
MRS BAR. And better too: then, what needs all this trouble?
A single horse is worse than that bears double.
MR BAR. Wife, go to, have regard to what you say;
Let not your words pass forth the verge of reason,
But keep within the bounds of modesty;
For ill-report doth like a bailiff stand,
To pound the straying and the wit-lost tongue,
And makes it forfeit into folly's hands.
Well, wife, you know it is no honest part
To entertain such guests with jests and wrongs:
What will the neighbouring country vulgar say,
When as they hear that you fell out at dinner?
Forsooth, they'll call it a pot-quarrel straight;
The best they'll name it is a woman's jangling.
Go to, be rul'd, be rul'd.
MRS BAR. God's Lord, be rul'd, be rul'd!
What, think ye I have such a baby's wit,
To have a rod's correction for my tongue?
School infancy! I am of age to speak,
And I know when to speak: shall I be chid
For such a—
MRS GOUR. What-a? nay, mistress, speak it out;
I scorn your stopp'd compares: compare not me
To any but your equals, Mistress Barnes.
MR GOUR. Peace, wife, be quiet.
MR BAR. O, persuade, persuade!
Wife, Mistress Goursey, shall I win your thoughts
To composition of some kind effects?
Wife, if you love your credit, leave this strife,
And come shake hands with Mistress Goursey here.
MRS BAR. Shall I shake hands? let her go shake her heels;
She gets nor hands nor friendship at my hands:
And so, sir, while I live, I will take heed,
What guests I bid again unto my house.