MOPSA.
Is it true, think you?
AUTOLYCUS.
Very true, and but a month old.
DORCAS.
Bless me from marrying a usurer!
AUTOLYCUS.
Here’s the midwife’s name to’t, one Mistress Taleporter, and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?
MOPSA.
Pray you now, buy it.
CLOWN.
Come on, lay it by; and let’s first see more ballads. We’ll buy the other things anon.
AUTOLYCUS.
Here’s another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids. It was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.
DORCAS.
Is it true too, think you?
AUTOLYCUS.
Five justices’ hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold.
CLOWN.
Lay it by too: another.