Ben Jonson

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THE oMETi^cAI'D SERIES

The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists

BEN JONSON

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RICIIA/iD SrRBABGJS .

The best plays of the Old Dramatists

BEN JONSON

' I lie and dream of your full Mermaid wine." — Beaumont

In Three Volumes

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LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1894 7-.

Contents

PAt.E

Bartholomew Fair i

Cynthia's Revels ; or, The Fountain of Self-

Scene I.] Bartholomew Fair. 17

Winw. What ?

Lit. He is the more mad-cap of the two. You do not apprehend me.

Mrs. Lit. You have a hot coal in your mouth now, you cannot hold.

Lit. Let me out with it, dear Win.

Mrs. Lit. I'll tell him myself.

Lit. Do, and take all the thanks, and much good do thy pretty heart, Win.

^ Mrs. Lit. Sir, my mother has had her nativitywater cast lately by the cunning-men in Cow-lane, and they have told her her fortune, and do ensure her, she shall never have happy hour, unless she marry within this sen'night ; and when it is, it must be a madman, they say.

Lit. Ay, but it must be a gentleman madman.

Mrs. Lit. Yes, so the t'other man of Moor-fields says.

Winw. But does she believe them ?

Lit. Yes, and has been at Bedlam twice since every day, to inquire if any gentleman be there, or to come there mad.

Winw. Why, this is a confederacy, a mere piece of practice upon her by these impostors.

Lit. I tell her so ; or else, say I, that they mean some young madcap gentleman ; for the devil can equivocate as well as a shopkeeper : and therefore would I advise you to be a little madder than Master Quarlous hereafter.

Winw. Where is she, stirring yet ?

Lit. Stirring ! yes, and studying an old elder come

from Banbury, a suitor that puts in here at meal tide,

to praise the painful brethren, or pray that the sweet

singers may be restored ; says a grace as long as his

Jon. II. c change, in a summer evening, with a lace to boot, as this has. Dear Win, let Master Winwife kiss you. He comes a-wooing to our mother. Win, and may be our father perhaps. Win. There's no harm in him. Win.

Winw. None in the earth, Master Littlewit.

\Kisses her.

Lit. I envy no man my delicates, sir.

Winw. Alas, you have the garden where they grow still ! A wife here with a strawberry breath, cherrylips, apricot cheeks, and a soft velvet head, like a melicotton.

Lit. Good, i' faith ! now dulness upon me, that I had not that before him, that I should not light on't as well as he ! velvet head !

Winw. But my taste, Master Littlewit, tends to fruit of a later kind ; the sober matron, your wife's mother.

Lit. Ay, we know you are a suitor, sir ; Win and I both wish you well. By this licence here, would you had her, that your two names were as fast in it as here are a couple ! Win would fain have a fine young father i' law, with a feather ; that her mother mighl hood it and chain it with Mistress Overdo. But you do not take the right course. Master Winwife.

Winw. No, Master Littlewit, why ?

Lit. You are not mad enough.

Winw. How ! is madness a right course ?

Lit. I say nothing, but I wink upon Win. You have a friend, one Master Quarlous, comes here sometimes.

Winw. Why, he makes no love to her, does he ?

Lit. Not a tokenworth that ever 1 saw, I assure you : but

SCENE I.] BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 17

Winw. What ?

Lit. He is the more mad-cap of the two. You do not apprehend me.

Mrs. Lit. You have a hot coal in your mouth now, you cannot hold.

Lit. Let me out with it, dear Win.

Mrs. Lit. I'll tell him myself.

Lit. Do, and take all the thanks, and much good do thy pretty heart. Win.

-^ Mrs. Lit. Sir, my mother has had her nativitywater cast lately by the cunning-men in Cow-lane, and they have told her her fortune, and do ensure her, she shall never have happy hour, unless she marry within this sen'night ; and when it is, it must be a madman, they say.

Lit. Ay, but it must be a gentleman madman.

Mrs. Lit. Yes, so the t'other man of Moor-fields says.

Winw. But does she believe them ?

Lit. Yes, and has been at Bedlam twice since every day, to inquire if any gentleman be there, or to come there mad.

Winw. Why, this is a confederacy, a mere piece of practice upon her by these impostors.

Lit. I tell her so ; or else, say I, that they mean some young madcap gentleman ; for the devil can equivocate as well as a shopkeeper : and therefore would I advise you to be a little madder than Master Quarlous hereafter.

Winw. Where is she, stirring yet ?

Lit. Stirring ! yes, and studying an old elder come

from Banbury, a suitor that puts in here at meal tide,

to praise the painful brethren, or pray that the sweet

singers may be restored ; says a grace as long as his

Jon. II. c i8 BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. [act i.

breath lasts him ! Sometime the spirit is so strong with him, it gets quite out of him, and then my mother, or Win, are fain to fetch it again with malmsey or aqua coelestis.

Mrs. Lit. Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious life with him for his diet, and his clothes too ! he breaks his buttons, and cracks seams at every saying he sobs out.

Lit. He cannot abide my vocation, he says.

Mrs. Lit. No ; he told my mother, a proctor was a claw of the beast, and that she had little less than committed abomination in marrying me so as she has done.

Lit. Every line, he says, that a proctor writes, when it comes to be read in the bishop's court, is a long black hair, kembed out of the tail of Antichrist.

Winw. When came this proselyte ?

Lit. Some three days since.

Enter Quarlous.

Qiiar. O, sir, have you ta'en soil here ? It's well a man may reach you after three hours running yet ! What an unmerciful companion art thou, to quit thy lodging at such ungentlemanly hours ! none but a scattered covey of fiddlers, or one of these rag-rakers in dunghills, or some marrow-bone man at most, would have been up Avhen thou wert gone abroad, by all description. I pray thee what ailest thou, thou canst not sleep ? hast thou thorns in thy eyelids, or thistles in thy bed ?

Wiivw. I cannot tell : it seems you had neither in your feet, that took this pain to find me.

Q,uar. No, an I had, all the lime hounds o' the city

SCENE I.] BARTHOLOMEW FAIR.

ig should have drawn after you by the scent rather.

Master John Littlewit ! God save you, sir. 'Twas a hot night with some of us, last night, John : shall we pluck a hair of the same wolf to-day,' Proctor John ?

Lit. Do you remember, Master Quarlous, what we discoursed on last night ?

Quar. Not I, John, nothing that I either discourse or do ; at those times I forfeit all to forgetfulness.

Lt't. No ! not concerning Win ? look you, there she is, and drest, as I told you she should be ; hark you, sir, [whispers him.] had you forgot ?

Quar. By this head I'll beware how I keep you company, John when I drink, an you have this dangerous memory : that's certain.

Lit. . Why, sir ?

<^m. Why ! we were all a little stained last night, sprinkled with a cup or two, and I agreed with Proctor John here, to come and do somewhat with Win (I know not what 'twas) to-day ; and he puts me in mind on't now ; he says he was coming to fetch me. Before truth, if you have that fearful quality, John, to remember when you are sober, John, what you pi'omise drunk, John ; I shall take heed of you, John. For this once I am content to wink at you. Where's your wife ? come hither, Win. [Kisses her.

Mrs. Lit. Why, John ! do you see this, John ? look you ! help me, John.

Lit. Q Win, fie, what do you mean. Win? be womanly. Win ; make an outcry to your mother. Win ! Master Quarlous is an honest gentleman, and our worshipful good friend, Win ; and he is Master Winwife's friend too ; and Master Winwife comes a

' A proverbial phrase for getting intoxicated again with the same liquor.

BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. [act i.

suitor to your mother, Win ; as I told you before, Win, and may perhaps be our father. Win : they'll do do you no harm. Win ; they are both our worshipful good friends. Master Quarlous ! you must know Master Quarlous, Win ; you must not quarrel with Master Quarlous, Win.

Quar. No, we'll kiss again, and fall in.

\Kisses her again.

Lit. Yes, do, good Win.

Mrs. Lit. In faith, you are a fool, John.

Lit. A fool- John, she calls me ; do you mark that, gentlemen ? pretty Littlewit of velvet ! a fool- John.

Qiiar. She may call you an apple- John,^ if you use this. [Aside.'] [Ji'isses her again.

Wimv. Pray thee forbear, for my respect, somewhat.

Quar. Hoy-day ! how respective you are become o' the sudden ! I fear this family will turn you reformed too ; pray you come about again. Because she is in possibility to be your daughter-in-law, and may ask you blessing hereafter, when she courts it to Totenham to eat cream ! Well, I will forbear, sir ; but, i' faith, would thou wouldst leave thy exercise of widow-hunting once ; this drawing after an old reverend smock by the splay-foot ! There cannot be an ancient tripe or trillibub in the town, but thou art straight nosing it, and 'tis a fine occupation thou'lt confine thyself to when thou hast got one ; scrubbing a piece of buff, as if thou hadst the perpetuity of Pannier-alley to stink in ; or perhaps worse, currying a carcass that thou hast bound thyself to alive. I'll be sworn, some of them that thou art, or hast been a suitor to, are so old as no chaste or married pleasure can ever become

' A punning allusion to apple-squire : i.e., pimp or procurer.

SCENE I.] BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 21

them ; the honest instrument of procreation has forty years since left to belong to them ; thou must visit them as thou wouldst do a tomb, with a torch or three handfuls of link, flaming hot, and so thou mayst hap to make them feel thee, and after come to inherit according to thy inches. A sweet course for a man to waste the brand of life for, to be still raking himself a fortune in the old woman's embers ! We shall have thee, after thou hast been but a month married to one of them, look like the quartan ague and the black jaundice met in a face, and walk as if thou hadst borrowed legs of a spinner and voice of a cricket. I would endure to hear fifteen sermons a week for her, and such coarse and loud ones as some of them must be ! I would e'en desire of fate, I might dwell in a drum and take in my sustenance with an old broken tobacco-pipe and a straw. Dost thou ever think to bring thine ears or stomach to the patience of a dry grace as long as thy table-cloth ; and droned out by thy son here (that might be thy father) till all the meat on thy board has forgot it was that day in the kitchen ? or to brook the noise made in a question of predestination by the good labourers and painful eaters assembled together, put to them by the matron your spouse ; who moderates with a cup of wine ever and anon, and a sentence out of Knox between ? Or the perpetual spitting before and after a sober-drawn exhortation of six hours, whose better part was the humh a-hum ? or to hear prayers groaned out over thy iron chests, as if they were charms to break them ? And all this for the hope of two apostle-spoons, to suffer ! and a cup to eat a caudle in ! for that will be thy legacy. She'll have conveyed her state safe enough from thee, an she be a right widow.

22 BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. [act 1.

Winw. Alas, I am quite oiF that scent now. Qtcar. How so ?

Wr/«nv. Put off by a brother of Banbury, one that, they say, is come here, and governs all already.

Quar. What .do you call him ? I knew divers of those Banburians when I was in Oxford. Wtnw. Master Littlewit can tell us. Lit. Sir ! — Good Win, go in, and if Master Bartholomew Cokes his man come for the licence (the little old fellow), let him speak with me. \_Exit Mrs. Littlewit.] What say you, gentlemen ?

Wimv. What call you the reverend elder you told me of, your Banbury man ?

Lit. Rabbi Busy, sir ; he is more than an elder, he is a prophet, sir.

Qiiai'. O, I know him ! a baker, is he not ? Lit. He was a baker, sir, but he does dream now and see visions ; he has given over his trade.

Qua]'. I remember that too ; out of a scruple he took that, in spiced conscience, those cakes he made, were served to bridales, maypoles, morrices, and such profane feasts and meetings. His christian name is Zeal-of-the-land.

Lit. Yes, sir ; Zeal-of-the-land Busy. Winw. How ! what a name'^ there !

Lit. O, they have all such names, sir ; he was witness for Win here,— they will not be called godfathers —and named her Win-the-fight ; you thoughfher name had been Winnifred, did you not ? Winw. I did indeed.

Lit. He would have thought himself a stark reprobate if it had.

Quar. Ay, for there was a blue-starch woman of the name at the same time. A notable hypocritical

SCENE I.] BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 23

vermin it is ; I know him. One that stands upbn his face more than his faith at all times : ever in seditious motion and reproving for vainglory ; of a most lunatic conscience and spleen, and affects the violence of singularity in all he does : he has undone a grocer here in Newgate-market, that broke with him, trusted him with currants, as arrant a zeal as he, that's by the way. By his profession he will ever be in the state of innocence though, and childhood ; derides all antiquity, defies any other learning than inspiration ; and what discretion soever years should aflford him, it is all prevented in his original ignorance : have not to do with him, for he is a fellow of a most arrogant and invincible dulness, I assure you. — Who is this ?

Re-enter Mrs. Littlewit with Waspe.

Waspe. By your leave, gentlemen, with all my heart to you ; and God you good morrow ! Master Littlewit, my business is to you : is this licence ready ?

Lit. Here, I have it for you in my hand. Master Humphrey.

Waspe. That's well ; nay, never open or read it to me, it's labour in vain, you know. I am no clerk, I scorn to be saved by my book, i' faith, I'll hang first ; fold it up on your word, and give it me. What must you have for it ?

Lit. We'll talk of that anon. Master Humphrey.

Waspe. Now, or not at all, good Master Proctor ; I am for no anons, I assure you.

Lit. Sweet Win, bid Solomon send me the little black box within in my study.

Waspe. Ay, quickly, good mistress, I pray you ; for I have bpth eggs on the spit, and iron in the' fire.

\_Extt Mrs. Littlewit.] Say what you must have, good Master Littlewit.

Lit. Why, you know the price. Master Numps.

Waspe. I know ! I know nothing, I : when tell you me of knowing ? Now I am in haste, sir, I do not know, and I will not know, and I scorn to know, and yet, now I think on't, I will, and do know as well as another ; you must have a mark for your thing here, and eightpence for the box ; I could have saved twopence in that, an I had bought it myself ; but here's fourteen shillings for you. Good Lord, how long your little wife stays ! pray God, Solomon, your clerk, be not looking in the wrong box. Master Proctor.

Lit. Good i' faith ! no, I warrant you, Solomon is wiser than so, sir.

Waspe. Fie, fie, fie, by your leave, Master Littlewit, this is scurvy, idle, foolish, and abominable, with all my heart ; I do not like it. [ Walks aside.

Wi'nw. Do you hear ! Jack Littlewit, what business ^does thy pretty head think this fellow may have, that he keeps such a coil with ?

Quar. More than buying of gingerbread in the cloister here, for that we allow him, or a gilt pouch in the Fair ?

Lit. Master Quarlous, do not mistake him ; he is his master's both-hands, 1 assure you.

Qt£ar. What ! to pull on his boots a-mornings, or his stockings, does he ?

Lit. Sir, if you have a mind to mock him ; mock him softly, and look t'other way : for if he apprehend you fiout him once, he will fly at you presently. A terrible testy old fellow, and his name is Waspe too.

Quar. Pretty insect ! make much on him.

SCENE I.] BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 25

Waspe. A plague o' this box, and the pox too, and on him that made it, and her that went for't, and all that should have sought it, sent it, or brought it ! do you see, sir.

Lit. Nay, good Master Waspe.

Waspe. Good Master Hornet, t — in your teeth, hold you your tongue : do not I know you ? your father was a 'pothecary, and sold clysters, more than he gave, I wusse ; and t — in your little wife's teeth too- — here she comes —

Re-enter Mrs. Littlewit with the box.

'twill make her spit, as fine as she is, for all her velvet custard on her head, sir.

Lit. O, be civil, Master Numps.

Waspe. Why, say I have a humour not to be civil ; how then ? who shall compel me, you ?

Lit. Here is the box now.

Waspe. Why, a pox o' your box, once again ! let your little wife stale in it, an she will. Sir, I would have you to understand, and these gentlemen too, if they please

Winw. With all our hearts, sir.

Waspe. That I have a charge, gentlemen.

Lit. They do apprehend, sir.

Waspe. Pardon me, sir, neither they nor you can apprehend me yet. You are an ass. I have a young master, he is now upon his making and marring ; the whole care of his well-doing is now mine. His foolish schoolmasters have done nothing but run up and down the country with him to beg puddings and cakebread of his tenants, and almost spoiled him ; he has learned nothing but to sing catches and repeat Rattle bladder, rattle ! and 0, Madge ! I dare not let him walk alone for fear of learning of vile tunes, which he will sing at supper, and in the sermon-times ! If he meet but a carman in the street, and I find him not talk to keep him off on him, he will whistle him and all his tunes over at night in his sleep ! He has a head full of bees ! I am fain now, for this little time I am absent, to leave him in charge with a gentlewoman : 'tis true, she is a justice of peace his wife, and a gentlewoman of the hood, and his natural sister ; but what may happen under a woman's government, there's the doubt. Gentlemen, you do not know him ; he is another manner of piece than you think for : but nineteen years old, and yet he is taller than either of you by the head, God bless him !

Quar. Well, methinks this is a fine fellow.

Winw. He has made his master a finer by this description, I should think.

Quar. 'Faith, much about one, it is cross and pile, whether for a new farthing.

Waspe. I'll tell you, gentlemen

Ltt. Will't please you drink, Master Waspe.

Waspe. Why, I have not talked so long to be dry, sir. You see no dust or cobwebs come out o' my mouth, do you ? you'd have me gone, would you ?

Lit. No, but you were in haste e'en now, Master Numps.

Waspe. What an I were ! so I am still, and yet I will stay too ; meddle you with your match, your Win there, she has as Httle wit as her husband, it seems : I have others to talk to.

Lit. She's my match indeed, and as little wit as I, good !

Waspe. We have been but a day and a half in town, gentlemen, 'tis true ; and yesterday in the afternoon

SCENE I.] BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 27

we walked London, to show the city to the gentlewoman he shall marry, Mistress Grace ; but afore I will endure such another half day with him, I'll be drawn with a good gib-cat through the great pond at home, as his uncle Hodge was. Why, we could not meet that heathen thing all the day, but staid him : he would name you all the signs over, as he went, aloud : and where he spied a parrot or a monkey, there he was pitched, with all the little long coats about him, male and female ; no getting him away ! I thought he would have run mad o' the black boy in Bucklersbury, that takes the scurvy, roguy tobacco there.

Lit. You say true. Master Numps ; there's such a one indeed.

Waspe. It's no matter whether there be or no, what's that to you ?

Quar. He will not allow of John's reading at any hand.

Enter Cokes, Mistress Overdo, and Grace.

Cokes, O, Numps ! are you here, Numps ? look where I am, Numps, and Mistress Grace too ! Nay, do not look angerly, Numps : my sister is here and all, I do not come without her.

Waspe. What the mischief do you come with her ? or she with you ?

Cokes. We come all to seek you, Numps.

Waspe. To seek me ! why, did you all think I was lost, or run away with your fourteen shillings worth of small ware here ? or that I had changed it in the Fair for hobby-horses ? 'Sprecious to seek me !

Mrs. Over. Nay, good Master Numps, do you show discretion, though he be exorbitant, as Master Overdo says, and it be but for conservation o' the peace.

Waspe. Marry gip, goody She-justice, Mistress Frenchhood ! t— in your teeth, and t— in your Frenchhood's teeth too, to do you service, do you see ! Must you quote your Adam to me ! you think you are Madam Regent still. Mistress Overdo, when I am in place ; no such matter, I assure you, your reign is out, when I am in, dame.

Mrs. Over. I am content to be in abeyance, sir, and be governed by you ; so should he too, if he did well ; but 'twill be expected you should also govern your passions.

Waspe. Will it so, forsooth ! good Lord, how sharp you are, with being at Bedlam yesterday ! Whetstone has set an edge upon you, has he ?

Mrs. Over. Nay, if you know not what belongs to your dignity, I do yet to mine.

Waspe. Very well then.

Cokes. Is this the licence, Numps ? for love's sake let me see't ; I never saw a licence.

Waspe. Did you not so ? why, you shall not see't then.

Cokes. An you love me, good Numps.

Waspe. Sir, I love you, and yet I do not love you in these fooleries : set your heart at rest, there's nothing in it but hard words ; and what would you see it for ?

Cokes. I would see the length and the breadth on't, that's all ; and I will see it now, so I will.

Waspe. You shall not see it here.

Cokes. Then I'll see it at home, and I'll look upon the case here.

Waspe. Why, do so ; a man must give way to him a little in trifles, gentlemen. These are errors, diseases of youth ; which he will mend when he comes to

SCENE I.] BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 29

judgment and knowledge of matters. I pray you conceive so, and I thank you : and I pray you pardon him, and I thank you again.

Quar. Well , this dry nurse, I say still, is a delicate man . Mrs. Lit. And I am for the cosset his charge : ^ did you ever see a fellow's face more accuse him for an ass ?

Qtiar. Accuse him ! it confesses him one without accusing. What pity 'tis yonder wench should marry such a Cokes !

Winw. 'Tis true.

Quar. She seems to be discreet, and as sober as she is handsome.

Winw. Ay, and if you mark her, what a restrained scorn she casts upon all his behaviour and speeches ? Cokes. Well, Numps, I am now for another piece

of business more, the Fair, Numps, and then

Waspe. Bless me ! deliver me ! help, hold me ! the Fair !

Cokes. Nay, never fidge up and down, Numps, and vex itself. I am resolute Bartholomew in this ; I'll make no suit on't to you : 'twas all the end of my journey indeed, to show Mistress Grace my Fair. I call it my Fair, because of Bartholomew : you know my name is Bartholomew, and Bartholomew Fair.

Lit. That was mine afore, gentlemen ; this morning. I had that, i' faith, upon his licence, believe me, there he comes after me.

Quar. Come, John, this ambitious wit of yours, I am afraid, will do you no good in the end. Lit. No ! why, sir ?

Quar. You grow so insolent with it, and overdoing, John, that if you look not to it, and tie it up, it will " A cosset is a lamb, colt, &c., brought up by hand.

bring you to some obscure place in time, and there 'twill leave you.

Winw. Do not trust it too much, John, be more sparing, and use it but now and then ; a wit is a dangerous thing in this age ; do not over-buy it.

Lit. Think you so, gentlemen ? I'll take heed on't hereafter.

Mm. Lit. Yes, do, John.

Cokes. A pretty little soul, this same Mistress Littlewit, would I might marry her !

Grace. So would I ; or anybody else, so I might scape you. \Aside.

Cokes. Numps, I will see it, Numps, 'tis decreed : never be melancholy for the matter.

Waspe. Why, see it, sir, see it, do see it : who hinders you ? why do you not go see it ? 'slid, see it.

Cokes. The Fair, Numps, the Fair.

Waspe. Would the Fair, and all the drums and rattles in it, were in your belly for me ! they are already in your brain. He that had the means to travel your head now, should meet finer sights than any are in the Fair, and make a finer voyage on't ; to see it all hung with cockleshells, pebbles, fine wheat straws, and here and there a chicken's feather, and a cobweb.