Franklin. Why, what is he?
Arden. A botcher, and no better at the first;
Who, by base brokage getting some small stock,
Crept into service of a nobleman,
And by his servile flattery and fawning
Is now become the steward of his house,
And bravely jets it in his silken gown. 30
Franklin. No nobleman will countenance such a peasant.
Arden. Yes, the Lord Clifford, he that loves not me.
But through his favour let him not grow proud;
For were he by the Lord Protector backed,
He should not make me to be pointed at.
I am by birth a gentleman of blood,
And that injurious ribald, that attempts
To violate my dear wife’s chastity
(For dear I hold her love, as dear as heaven)
Shall on the bed which he thinks to defile 40
See his dissevered joints and sinews torn,
Whilst on the planchers pants his weary body,
Smeared in the channels of his lustful blood.
Franklin. Be patient, gentle friend, and learn of me
To ease thy grief and save her chastity:
Intreat her fair; sweet words are fittest engines
To race the flint walls of a woman’s breast.
In any case be not too jealous,
Nor make no question of her love to thee;
But, as securely, presently take horse, 50
And lie with me at London all this term;
For women, when they may, will not,
But, being kept back, straight grow outrageous.
Arden. Though this abhors from reason, yet I’ll try it,
And call her forth and presently take leave.
How! Alice!
Here enters Alice.
Alice. Husband, what mean you to get up so early?
Summer-nights are short, and yet you rise ere day.
Had I been wake, you had not risen so soon.
Arden. Sweet love, thou knowest that we two, Ovid-like, 60
Have often chid the morning when it ’gan to peep,
And often wished that dark night’s purblind steeds
Would pull her by the purple mantle back,
And cast her in the ocean to her love.
But this night, sweet Alice, thou hast killed my heart:
I heard thee call on Mosbie in thy sleep.
Alice. ’Tis like I was asleep when I named him,
For being awake he comes not in my thoughts.