Act V, Scene I — [1064]…

Act V, Scene I — [1064]

MONTSURRY bare, unbraced, pulling TAMYRA in by the hair; Friar. One bearing light, a standish[1065] and paper, which sets a table.

Ta. Oh, help me, father.

Fr. Impious earl, forbear. Take violent hand from her, or by mine order The King shall force thee.

Mont. ’T is not violent; Come you not willingly?

Ta. Yes, good my lord.

Fr. My lord, remember that your soul must seek 5 Her peace, as well as your revengeful blood. You ever to this hour have prov’d yourself A noble, zealous, and obedient son, T’ our holy mother; be not an apostate. Your wife’s offence serves not, were it the worst 10 You can imagine, without greater proofs, To sever your eternal bonds and hearts; Much less to touch her with a bloody hand; Nor is it manly, much less husbandly, To expiate any frailty in your wife 15 With churlish strokes or beastly odds of strength. The stony birth of clouds[1066] will touch no laurel, Nor any sleeper; your wife is your laurel, And sweetest sleeper; do not touch her then; Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour, 20 To her that is more gentle than that rude; In whom kind nature suffer’d one offence But to set off her other excellence.

Mont. Good father, leave us; interrupt no more The course I must run for mine honour sake. 25 Rely on my love to her, which her fault Cannot extinguish. Will she but disclose Who was the secret minister of her love, And through what maze he serv’d it, we are friends.

Fr. It is a damn’d work to pursue those secrets 30 That would ope more sin, and prove springs of slaughter; Nor is ’t a path for Christian feet to tread, But out of all way to the health of souls, A sin impossible to be forgiven; Which he that dares commit—— 35

Mont. Good father, cease your terrors; Tempt not a man distracted; I am apt To outrages that I shall ever rue; I will not pass the verge that bounds a Christian, Nor break the limits of a man nor husband. 40

Fr. Then Heaven inspire you both with thoughts and deeds Worthy his high respect, and your own souls.

Ta. Father!

Fr. I warrant thee, my dearest daughter, He will not touch thee; think’st thou him a pagan? His honour and his soul lies for thy safety. 45 Exit.

Mont. Who shall remove the mountain from my breast? Stand [in][1067] the opening furnace of my thoughts, And set fit outcries for a soul in hell? MONTSURRY turns a key. For now it nothing fits my woes to speak But thunder, or to take into my throat 50 The trump of heaven, with whose determinate[1068] blast The winds shall burst, and the devouring seas Be drunk up in his sounds; that my hot woes (Vented enough) I might convert to vapour, Ascending from my infamy unseen; 55 Shorten the world, preventing[1069] the last breath That kills the living and regenerates death.[1070]

Ta. My lord, my fault (as you may censure[1071] it With too strong arguments) is past your pardon: But how the circumstances may excuse me 60 Heaven knows, and your more temperate mind hereafter May let my penitent miseries make you know.

Mont. Hereafter? ’T is a suppos’d infinite, That from this point will rise eternally. Fame grows in going; in the scapes[1072] of virtue 60 Excuses damn her: they be fires in cities Enrag’d with those winds that less lights extinguish. Come, syren, sing, and dash against my rocks Thy ruffian galley, rigg’d with quench for lust; Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice 70 With which thou drew’st into thy strumpet’s lap The spawn of Venus; and in which ye danc’d; That, in thy lap’s stead, I may dig his tomb, And quit his manhood with a woman’s sleight, Who never is deceiv’d in her deceit. 75 Sing (that is, write), and then take from mine eyes The mists that hide the most inscrutable pander That ever lapt up[1073] an adulterous vomit, That I may see the devil, and survive To be a devil, and then learn to wive; 80 That I may hang him, and then cut him down, Then cut him up, and with my soul’s beams search The cranks and caverns of his brain, and study The errant wilderness of a woman’s face; Where men cannot get out, for[1074] all the comets 85 That have been lighted at it; though they know That adders lie a-sunning in their smiles, That basilisks drink their poison from their eyes, And no way there to coast out to their hearts; Yet still they wander there, and are not stay’d 90 Till they be fetter’d, nor secure before All cares devour them; nor in human consort Till they embrace within their wife’s two breasts All Pelion and Cythaeron with their beasts. 94 Why write you not?

Ta. O good my lord, forbear In wreak[1075] of great faults, to engender greater, And make my love’s corruption generate murder.

Mont. It follows needfully as child and parent; The chain-shot of thy lust is yet aloft, And it must murder; ’tis thine own dear twin: 100 No man can add height to a woman’s sin. Vice never doth her just hate so provoke, As when she rageth under virtue’s cloak. Write! for it must be—by this ruthless steel, By this impartial torture, and the death 105 Thy tyrannies have invented in my entrails, To quicken life in dying, and hold up The spirits in fainting, teaching to preserve, Torments in ashes, that will ever last. 109 Speak! Will you write?

Ta. Sweet lord, enjoin my sin Some other penance than what makes it worse; Hide in some gloomy dungeon my loath’d face, And let condemned murderers let me down (Stopping their noses) my abhorred food: Hang me in chains, and let me eat these arms That have offended; bind me face to face 116 To some dead woman, taken from the cart Of execution, till death and time In grains of dust dissolve me; I’ll endure; Or any torture that your wrath’s invention 120 Can fright all pity from the world withal; But to betray a friend with show of friendship, That is too common for the rare revenge Your rage affecteth. Here then are my breasts, Last night your pillows; here my wretched arms, 125 As late the wished confines of your life; Now break them as you please, and all the bounds Of manhood, noblesse, and religion.

Mont. Where all these have been broken, they are kept, In doing their justice there with any show 130 Of the like cruel cruelty; thine arms have lost Their privilege in lust, and in their torture Thus they must pay it. Stabs her.

Ta. O Lord!

Mont. Till thou writest, I’ll write in wounds (my wrong’s fit characters) Thy right of sufferance. Write.

Ta. Oh, kill me, kill me; 135 Dear husband, be not crueller than death. You have beheld some Gorgon; feel, oh, feel How you are turn’d to stone. With my heart-blood Dissolve yourself again, or you will grow Into the image of all tyranny. 140

Mont. As thou art of adultery; I will ever Prove thee my parallel, being most a monster; Thus I express thee yet. Stabs her again.

Ta. And yet I live.

Mont. Ay, for thy monstrous idol is not done yet; This tool hath wrought enough; now, torture, use 145 Enter Servants. This other engine[1076] on th’ habituate powers Of her thrice-damn’d and whorish fortitude. Use the most madding pains in her that ever Thy venoms soak’d through, making most of death; That she may weigh her wrongs with them, and then 150 Stand vengeance on thy steepest rock, a victor.

Ta. Oh, who is turn’d into my lord and husband? Husband! My lord! None but my lord and husband! Heaven, I ask thee remission of my sins, Not of my pains; husband, oh, help me, husband! 155

Ascendit Friar with a sword drawn.

Fr. What rape of honour and religion— Oh, wrack of nature! Falls and dies.

Ta. Poor man; oh, my father. Father, look up; oh, let me down, my lord, And I will write.

Mont. Author of prodigies! What new flame breaks out of the firmament, 160 That turns up counsels never known before? Now is it true, earth moves, and heaven stands still; Even heaven itself must see and suffer ill. The too huge bias of the world hath sway’d Her back part upwards, and with that she braves 165 This hemisphere, that long her mouth hath mockt; The gravity of her religious face, (Now grown too weighty with her sacrilege, And here discern’d sophisticate enough) Turns to th’ antipodes; and all the forms 170 That her illusions have imprest in her, Have eaten through her back; and now all see, How she is riveted with hypocrisy. Was this the way? Was he the mean betwixt you?

Ta. He was, he was, kind worthy man, he was. 175

Mont. Write, write a word or two.

Ta. I will, I will. I’ll write, but with my blood, that he may see These lines come from my wounds, and not from me. Writes.

Mont. Well might he die for thought; methinks the frame And shaken joints of the whole world should crack 180 To see her parts so disproportionate; And that his[1077] general beauty cannot stand Without these stains in the particular man. Why wander I so far? Here, here was she That was a whole world without spot to me, Though now a world of spots. Oh, what a lightning 185 Is man’s delight in women! What a bubble He builds his state, fame, life on, when he marries! Since all earth’s pleasures are so short and small, The way t’ enjoy it, is t’ abjure it all. 190 Enough! I must be messenger myself, Disguis’d like this strange creature. In, I’ll after, To see what guilty light gives this cave eyes, And to the world sing new impieties.

He puts the Friar in the vault and follows. She wraps herself in the arras. Exeunt [servants].

[SCENE II.][1078]

Enter Monsieur and GUISE.

Mo. Now shall we see that Nature hath no end In her great works responsive to their worths, That she, that makes so many eyes and souls To see and foresee, is stark blind herself; And as illiterate men say Latin prayers 5 By rote of heart and daily iteration, Not knowing what they say,[1079] so Nature lays A deal of stuff together, and by use, Or by the mere necessity of matter, Ends such a work, fills it, or leaves it empty 10 Of strength or virtue, error or clear truth, Not knowing what she does; but usually Gives that which she calls merit to a man, And belief must arrive[1080] him on huge riches, Honour, and happiness, that effects his ruin; 15 Even as in ships of war, whose lasts[1081] of powder Are laid, men think,[1082] to make them last, and guard them, When a disorder’d spark, that powder taking, Blows up with sudden violence and horror Ships that kept empty; had sail’d long, with terror.[1083] 20

Gu. He that observes, but like a worldly man, That which doth oft succeed, and by th’ events Values the worth of things, will think it true That Nature works at random, just with you; But with as much proportion she may make 25 A thing that from the feet up to the throat Hath all the wondrous fabric man should have, And leave it headless, for a perfect man, As give a full man valour, virtue, learning, Without an end more excellent than those, 30 On whom she no such worthy part bestows.

Mo. Yet shall you see it here; here will be one Young, learned, valiant, virtuous, and full mann’d; One on whom Nature spent so rich a hand That with an ominous eye she wept to see 35 So much consum’d her virtuous treasury.[1084] Yet, as the winds sing through a hollow tree, And (since it lets them pass through) lets it stand; But a tree solid (since it gives no way To their wild rage) they rend up by the root; 40 So this whole man, (That will not wind with every crooked way, Trod by the servile world) shall reel and fall Before the frantic puffs of blind-born chance, That pipes through empty men, and makes them dance. 45 Not so the sea raves on the Lybian sands, Tumbling her billows in each other’s neck; Not so the surges of the Euxine sea (Near to the frosty pole, where free Boötes From those dark deep waves turns his radiant team) 50 Swell, being enrag’d even from their inmost drop, As Fortune swings about the restless state Of virtue, now thrown into all men’s hate. Enter MONTSURRY disguis’d with the Murderers. Away, my lord, you are perfectly disguis’d, 54 Leave us to lodge your ambush.

Mont. Speed me, vengeance. Exit.

Mo. Resolve, my masters, you shall meet with one Will try what proofs your privy coats[1085] are made on; When he is ent’red, and you hear us stamp, Approach, and make all sure.

Murd. We will, my lord. Exeunt.

[SCENE III.][1086]

D’AMBOIS with two Pages with tapers.

Bu. Sit up to-night, and watch; I’ll speak with none But the old Friar, who bring to me.

Pa. We will, sir. Exeunt.

Bu. What violent heat is this? Methinks the fire Of twenty lives doth on a sudden flash Through all my faculties; the air goes high 5 In this close chamber, and the frighted earth Thunder. Trembles, and shrinks beneath me; the whole house Nods with his shaken burthen. Enter Umbra Friar. Bless me, heaven!

Um. Note what I want, dear son, and be forewarn’d; O there are bloody deeds past and to come. 10 I cannot stay; a fate doth ravish me; I’ll meet thee in the chamber of thy love. Exit.

Bu. What dismal change is here; the good old Friar Is murder’d; being made known to serve my love; 14 And now his restless spirit would forewarn me Of some plot dangerous and imminent. Note what he wants? He wants his upper weed, He wants his life and body; which of these Should be the want he means, and may supply me 19 With any fit forewarning? This strange vision (Together with the dark prediction Us’d by the Prince of Darkness that was rais’d By this embodied shadow) stir my thoughts With reminiscion[1087] of the spirit’s promise, Who told me that by any invocation 25 I should have power to raise him, though it wanted The powerful words and decent rights of art. Never had my set brain such need of spirit T’ instruct and cheer it; now, then, I will claim Performance of his free and gentle vow 30 T’ appear in greater light, and make more plain His rugged oracle. I long to know How my dear mistress fares, and be inform’d What hand she now holds on the troubled blood Of her incensed lord. Methought the spirit 35 (When he had utter’d his perplext presage) Threw his chang’d countenance headlong into clouds, His forehead bent, as it would hide his face, He knockt his chin against his dark’ned breast, And struck a churlish silence through his powers. 40 Terror of darkness! O, thou king of flames! That with thy music-footed horse dost strike The clear light out of crystal on dark earth, And hurl’st instructive fire about the world, 44 Wake, wake the drowsy and enchanted night, That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle! Or thou great prince of shades, where never sun Sticks his far-darted beams, whose eyes are made To shine in darkness, and see ever best Where men are blindest, open now the heart 50 Of thy abashed oracle, that, for fear Of some ill it includes, would fain lie hid, And rise thou with it in thy greater light. Thunders. Surgit Spiritus cum suis.

Beh. Thus to observe my vow of apparition In greater light, and explicate thy fate, 55 I come; and tell thee that if thou obey The summons that thy mistress next will send thee, Her hand shall be thy death.

Bu. When will she send?

Beh. Soon as I set again, where late I rose. 59

Bu. Is the old Friar slain?

Beh. No, and yet lives not.

Bu. Died he a natural death?

Beh. He did.

Bu. Who then Will my dear mistress send?

Beh. I must not tell thee.

Bu. Who lets[1088] thee?

Beh. Fate.

Bu. Who are fate’s ministers?

Beh. The Guise and Monsieur.

Bu. A fit pair of shears To cut the threads of kings and kingly spirits, And consorts fit to sound forth harmony, 65 Set to the falls of kingdoms: shall the hand Of my kind mistress kill me?

Beh. If thou yield To her next summons, y’are fair-warn’d: farewell! Thunders. Exit.

Bu. I must fare well, however, though I die, My death consenting[1089] with his augury. 71 Should not my powers obey when she commands, My motion must be rebel to my will, My will to life: if, when I have obey’d, Her hand should so reward me, they must arm it, 75 Bind me or force it: or, I lay my life, She rather would convert it many times On her own bosom, even to many deaths; But were there danger of such violence, I know ’tis far from her intent to send; 80 And who she should send is as far from thought, Since he is dead, whose only mean she us’d. Knocks. Who’s there! Look to the door, and let him in, Though politic Monsieur or the violent Guise.

Enter MONTSURRY, like the Friar, with a letter written in blood.

Mont. Hail to my worthy son.

Bu. Oh, lying spirit![1090] To say the Friar was dead; I’ll now believe 86 Nothing of all his forg’d predictions. My kind and honour’d father, well reviv’d, I have been frighted with your death and mine, And told my mistress’ hand should be my death If I obey’d this summons.

Mont. I believ’d 91 Your love had been much clearer than to give Any such doubt a thought, for she is clear, And having freed her husband’s jealousy (Of which her much abus’d hand here is witness) She prays, for urgent cause, your instant presence. 96

Bu. Why, then your prince of spirits may be call’d The prince of liars.

Mont. Holy Writ so calls him.

Bu. What, writ in blood?

Mont. Ay, ’tis the ink of lovers.

Bu. O, ’tis a sacred witness of her love. 100 So much elixir of her blood as this Dropt in the lightest dame, would make her firm As heat to fire; and, like to all the signs,[1091] Commands the life confin’d in all my veins. O, how it multiplies my blood with spirit, 105 And makes me apt t’ encounter death and hell. But come, kind father, you fetch me to heaven, And to that end your holy weed was given. Exeunt.

[SCENE IV.][1092]

Thunder. Intrat Umbra Friar, and discovers TAMYRA.

Um. Up with these stupid thoughts, still loved daughter, And strike away this heartless trance of anguish. Be like the sun, and labour in eclipses; Look to the end of woes: oh, can you sit Mustering the horrors of your servant’s slaughter 5 Before your contemplation, and not study[1093] How to prevent it? Watch when he shall rise, And with a sudden outcry of his murder, Blow[1094] his retreat before he be revenged.

Ta. O father, have my dumb woes wak’d your death? 10 When will our human griefs be at their height? Man is a tree that hath no top in cares, No root in comforts; all his power to live Is given to no end, but t’ have power to grieve.

Um. It is the misery of our creation. 15 Your true friend, Led by your husband, shadowed in my weed, Now enters the dark vault.

Ta. But, my dearest father, Why will not you appear to him yourself, And see that none of these deceits annoy him?

Um. My power is limited; alas! I cannot. 21 All that I can do—See, the cave opens. Exit. D’AMBOIS at the gulf.

Ta. Away, my love, away; thou wilt be murder’d!

Enter Monsieur and GUISE above.

Bu. Murder’d; I know not what that Hebrew means: That word had ne’er been nam’d had all been D’Ambois. 25 Murder’d? By heaven he is my murderer That shows me not a murderer; what such bug[1095] Abhorreth not the very sleep of D’Ambois? Murder’d? Who dares give all the room I see To D’Ambois’ reach? or look with any odds 30 His fight i’ th’ face, upon whose hand sits death; Whose sword hath wings, and every feather pierceth? If I scape Monsieur’s ’pothecary shops, Foutre[1096] for Guise’s shambles! ’T was ill plotted; They should have maul’d me here, 35 When I was rising. I am up and ready. Let in my politic visitants, let them in, Though ent’ring like so many moving armours, Fate is more strong than arms and sly than treason, And I at all parts huckl’d in my fate. 40

Mo.} Why enter not the coward villains? Gu.}

Bu. Dare they not come?

Enter Murderers with Friar at the other door.

Ta. They come.

1 Mur. Come all at once.

Um. Back, coward murderers, back.

Omn. Defend us, heaven. Exeunt all but the first.

1 Mur. Come ye not on?

Bu. No, slave, nor goest thou off. [Strikes at him.] Stand you so firm? Will it not enter here? 45 You have a face yet; so in thy life’s flame I burn the first rites to my mistress’ fame.

Um. Breathe thee, brave son, against the other charge.

Bu. Oh, is it true then that my sense first told me? Is my kind father dead?

Ta. He is, my love. 50 ’T was the Earl, my husband, in his weed that brought thee.

Bu. That was a speeding sleight,[1097] and well resembled. Where is that angry Earl? My lord, come forth And show your own face in your own affair; Take not into your noble veins the blood 55 Of these base villains, nor the light reports Of blister’d tongues for clear and weighty truth: But me against the world, in pure defence Of your rare lady, to whose spotless name I stand here as a bulwark, and project 60 A life to her renown, that ever yet Hath been untainted, even in envy’s eye, And where it would protect a sanctuary. Brave Earl, come forth, and keep your scandal in; ’Tis not our fault if you enforce the spot 65 Nor the wreak[1098] yours if you perform it not.

Enter MONTSURRY, with all the Murderers.

Mont. Cowards, a fiend or spirit beat ye off! They are your own faint spirits that have forg’d The fearful shadows that your eyes deluded. 69 The fiend was in you; cast him out then, thus. D’AMBOIS hath MONT. down.

Ta. Favour my lord, my love, O, favour him!

Bu. I will not touch him: take your life, my lord, And be appeas’d. Pistols shot within. O, then the coward Fates Have maim’d themselves, and ever lost their honour.

Um. What have ye done, slaves? Irreligious lord! 76

Bu. Forbear them, father; ’tis enough for me That Guise and Monsieur, death and destiny, Come behind D’Ambois. Is my body, then, But penetrable flesh? And must my mind Follow my blood? Can my divine part add No aid to th’ earthly in extremity? 81 Then these divines are but for form, not fact.[1099] Man is of two sweet courtly friends compact, A mistress and a servant; let my death Define life nothing but a courtier’s breath. 85 Nothing is made of nought, of all things made, Their abstract being a dream but of a shade. I’ll not complain to earth yet, but to heaven, And, like a man, look upwards even in death. And if Vespasian thought in majesty 90 An emperor might die standing, why not I? She offers to help him. Nay, without help, in which I will exceed him; For he died splinted with his chamber grooms. Prop me, true sword, as thou hast ever done: The equal thought I bear of life and death 95 Shall make me faint on no side; I am up. Here like a Roman statue I will stand Till death hath made me marble. Oh, my fame, Live in despite of murder; take thy wings And haste thee where the grey-ey’d morn perfumes 100 Her rosy chariot with Sabaean spices; Fly, where the evening from th’ Iberian vales, Takes on her swarthy shoulders Hecate, Crown’d with a grove of oaks; fly where men feel The burning axletree; and those that suffer 105 Beneath the chariot of the snowy Bear; And tell them all that D’Ambois now is hasting To the eternal dwellers; that a thunder Of all their sighs together (for their frailties Beheld in me) may quit my worthless fall 110 With a fit volley for my funeral.

Um. Forgive thy murderers.

Bu. I forgive them all; And you, my lord, their fautor;[1100] for true sign Of which unfeign’d remission, take my sword; Take it, and only give it motion, 115 And it shall find the way to victory By his own brightness, and th’ inherent valour My fight hath ’still’d into ’t, with charms of spirit. Now let me pray you that my weighty blood Laid in one scale of your impartial spleen, 120 May sway the forfeit of my worthy love Weigh’d in the other; and be reconcil’d With all forgiveness to your matchless wife.

Ta. Forgive thou me, dear servant, and this hand That led thy life to this unworthy end; 125 Forgive it, for the blood with which ’tis stain’d, In which I writ the summons of thy death; The forced summons, by this bleeding wound, By this here in my bosom; and by this That makes me hold up both my hands imbru’d 130 For thy dear pardon.

Bu. O, my heart is broken. Fate, nor these murderers, Monsieur, nor the Guise, Have any glory in my death, but this, This killing spectacle, this prodigy. My sun is turn’d to blood, in whose red beams Pindus and Ossa, hid in drifts of snow 136 Laid on my heart and liver, from their veins Melt like two hungry torrents, eating rocks Into the ocean of all human life, And make it bitter, only with my blood. 140 O frail condition of strength, valour, virtue, In me (like warning fire upon the top Of some steep beacon on a steeper hill) Made to express it: like a falling star Silently glanc’d, that like a thunderbolt 145 Lookt to have struck[1101] and shook the firmament. Moritur.

Um. [My terrors are struck inward, and no more My penance will allow they shall enforce Earthly afflictions but upon myself.][1102] Farewell, brave relics of a complete man! 150 Look up and see thy spirit made a star, Join flames with Hercules, and when thou sett’st Thy radiant forehead in the firmament, Make the vast crystal crack with thy receipt; Spread to a world of fire; and th’ aged sky 155 Cheer with new sparks of old humanity. [To MONT.] Son of the earth, whom my unrested soul, Rues t’ have begotten in the faith of heaven; [Since thy revengeful spirit hath rejected The charity it commands, and the remission 160 To serve and worship the blind rage of blood][1102] Assay to gratulate[1103] and pacify The soul fled from this worthy by performing The Christian reconcilement he besought 164 Betwixt thee and thy lady. Let her wounds Manlessly[1104] digg’d in her, be eas’d and cur’d With balm of thine own tears; or be assur’d Never to rest free from my haunt and horror.

Mont. See how she merits this, still kneeling by, 169 And mourning his fall more than her own fault.

Um. Remove, dear daughter, and content thy husband; So piety wills thee, and thy servant’s peace.

Ta. O wretched piety, that art so distract In thine own constancy, and in thy right Must be unrighteous. If I right my friend, 175 I wrong my husband; if his wrong I shun, The duty of my friend I leave undone. Ill plays on both sides; here and there it riseth; No place, no good, so good but ill compriseth. [My soul more scruple breeds, than my blood, sin, 180 Virtue imposeth more than any stepdame;][1105] O had I never married but for form, Never vow’d faith but purpos’d to deceive, Never made conscience of any sin. But cloak’d it privately and made it common; Nor never honour’d been in blood or mind, 186 Happy had I been then, as others are Of the like licence; I had then been honour’d; Liv’d without envy; custom had benumb’d All sense of scruple, and all note of frailty; 190 My fame had been untouch’d, my heart unbroken: But (shunning all) I strike on all offence, O husband! Dear friend! O my conscience!

Mo. Come, let’s away; my senses are not proof 194 Against those plaints. Exeunt GUISE, Monsieur: D’AMBOIS is borne off.

Mont. I must not yield to pity, nor to love So servile and so traitorous. Cease, my blood, To wrastle with my honour, fame, and judgment.— Away! Forsake my house; forbear complaints Where thou hast bred them: here all things [are] full 200 Of their own shame and sorrow; leave my house.

Ta. Sweet lord, forgive me, and I will be gone, And till these wounds, that never balm shall close Till death hath enter’d at them, so I love them, Being opened by your hands, by death be cur’d, I never more will grieve you with my sight, 206 Never endure that any roof shall part Mine eyes and heaven; but to the open deserts (Like to a hunted tigress) I will fly, Eating my heart, shunning the steps of men, And look on no side till I be arriv’d. 211

Mont. I do forgive thee, and upon my knees, With hands held up to heaven, wish that mine honour Would suffer reconcilement to my love; But since it will not, honour never serve My love with flourishing object till it sterve:[1106] And as this taper, though it upwards look, 217 Downwards must needs consume, so let our love; As having lost his honey, the sweet taste Runs into savour, and will needs retain 220 A spice of his first parents, till, like life, It sees and dies; so let our love; and lastly, As when the flame is suffer’d to look up, It keeps his lustre, but, being thus turn’d down, (His natural course of useful light inverted), 225 His own stuff puts it out; so let our love. Now turn from me, as here I turn from thee, And may both points of heaven’s straight axletree Conjoin in one, before thyself and me. Exeunt severally.

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Epilogue

With many hands you have seen D’Ambois slain, Yet by your grace he may revive again, And every day grow stronger in his skill To please, as we presume he is in will. The best deserving actors of the time 5 Had their ascents, and by degrees did climb To their full height, a place to study due. To make him tread in their path lies in you; He’ll not forget his makers, but still prove His thankfulness as you increase your love. 10

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR

BY BEN JONSON

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The Persons of the Play

KNOWELL, an old Gentleman. EDWARD KNOWELL, his Son. BRAINWORM, the Father’s Man. [GEORGE] DOWNRIGHT, a plain Squire. WELLBRED, his Half-Brother. KITELY, a Merchant. CAPTAIN BOBADILL, a Paul’s Man.[1107] MASTER STEPHEN, a Country Gull. MASTER MATHEW, the Town Gull. [THOMAS] CASH, Kitely’s Man. [OLIVER] COB, a Water-bearer. JUSTICE CLEMENT, an old merry Magistrate. ROGER FORMAL, his Clerk. [Wellbred’s Servant.]

DAME KITELY, Kitely’s Wife. MISTRESS BRIDGET, his Sister. TIB, Cob’s Wife.

[Servants, etc.]

SCENE.—London.

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Prologue

Though need make many poets, and some such As art and nature have not better’d much; Yet ours for want hath not so lov’d the stage, As he dare serve th’ ill customs of the age, Or purchase your delight at such a rate, 5 As, for it, he himself must justly hate: To make a child now swaddled, to proceed Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed, Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords, And help of some few foot-and-half-foot words, 10 Fight over York and Lancaster’s long jars, And in the tyring-house[1108] bring wounds to scars. He rather prays you will be pleas’d to see One such to-day, as other plays should be; Where neither chorus wafts you o’er the seas, 15 Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please; Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard The gentlewomen; nor roll’d bullet heard To Bay, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come; 20 But deeds, and language, such as men do use, And persons, such as comedy would choose, When she would shew an image of the tunes, And sport with human follies, not with crimes; Except we make ’em such, by loving still 25 Our popular errors, when we know they’re ill. I mean such errors as you’ll all confess, By laughing at them, they deserve no less: Which when you heartily do, there’s hope left then, You, that have so grac’d monsters, may like men. 30

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Act I, Scene I — [1109]

[Enter] KNOWELL, [at the door of his house.]

Know. A goodly day toward, and a fresh morning.— Brainworm! [Enter BRAINWORM.] Call up your young master: bid him rise, sir. Tell him, I have some business to employ him.

Brai. I will, sir, presently.

Know. But hear you, sirrah, If he be at his book, disturb him not. 6

Brai. Well, sir. [Exit.]

Know. How happy yet should I esteem myself, Could I, by any practice, wean the boy From one vain course of study he affects. 10 He is a scholar, if a man may trust The liberal voice of fame in her report, Of good account in both our Universities, Either of which hath favour’d him with graces: But their indulgence must not spring in me 15 A fond[1110] opinion that he cannot err. Myself was once a student, and, indeed, Fed with the self-same humour he is now, Dreaming on nought but idle poetry, That fruitless and unprofitable art, 20 Good unto none, but least to the professors; Which then I thought the mistress of all knowledge; But since, time and the truth have wak’d my judgment, And reason taught me better to distinguish The vain from th’ useful learnings. [Enter MASTER STEPHEN.] Cousin Stephen, 25 What news with you, that you are here so early?

Step. Nothing, but e’en come to see how you do, uncle.

Know. That’s kindly done; you are welcome, coz. 30

Step. Ay, I know that, sir; I would not ha’ come else. How does my cousin Edward, uncle?

Know. O, well, coz; go in and see; I doubt he be scarce stirring yet. 34

Step. Uncle, afore I go in, can you tell me, an he have e’er a book of the sciences of hawking and hunting; I would fain borrow it.

Know. Why, I hope you will not a hawking now, will you? 39

Step. No, wusse;[1111]—but I’ll practise against next year, uncle. I have bought me a hawk, and a hood, and bells, and all; I lack nothing but a book to keep it by.

Know. Oh, most ridiculous!

Step. Nay, look you now, you are angry, (45) uncle.—Why, you know an a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting languages now-a-days, I’ll not give a rush for him: they are more studied than the Greek, or the Latin. (49) He is for no gallant’s company without ’em; and by gadslid[1112] I scorn it, I, so I do, to be a consort for every humdrum: hang ’em, scroyles![1113] there’s nothing in ’em i’ the world. What do you talk on it? Because I dwell at Hogsden.[1114] (54) I shall keep company with none but the archers of Finsbury, or the citizens that come a ducking to Islington ponds! A fine jest, i’ faith! ’Slid,[1112] a gentleman mun[1115] show himself like a gentleman. Uncle, I pray you be not angry; I know what I have to do, I trow, I am no (60) novice.

Know. You are a prodigal, absurd coxcomb, go to! Nay, never look at me, ’tis I that speak; Take’t as you will, sir, I’ll not flatter you. Ha’ you not yet found means enow to waste 65 That which your friends have left you, but you must Go cast away your money on a kite, And know not how to keep it, when you ha’ done? O, it’s comely! This will make you a gentleman! 69 Well, cousin, well, I see you are e’en past hope Of all reclaim.—Ay, so, now you are told on’t, You look another way.

Step. What would you ha’ me do?

Know. What would I have you do? I’ll tell you, kinsman; Learn to be wise, and practise how to thrive; That would I have you do: and not to spend 75 Your coin on every bauble that you fancy, Or every foolish brain that humours you. I would not have you to invade each place, Nor thrust yourself on all societies, Till men’s affections, or your own desert, 80 Should worthily invite you to your rank. He that is so respectless in his courses, Oft sells his reputation at cheap market. Nor would I you should melt away yourself In flashing bravery,[1116] lest, while you affect[1117] 85 To make a blaze of gentry to the world, A little puff of scorn extinguish it; And you be left like an unsavoury snuff, Whose property is only to offend. I’d ha’ you sober, and contain yourself, 90 Not that your sail be bigger than your boat; But moderate your expenses now, at first, As you may keep the same proportion still: Nor stand so much on your gentility, Which is an airy and mere borrow’d thing, 95 From dead men’s dust and bones; and none of yours, Except you make, or hold it. Who comes here?

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Act I, Scene II — [1118]

KNOWELL, STEPHEN. [Enter a] Servant.

Serv. Save you, gentlemen!

Step. Nay, we do not stand much on our gentility, friend; yet you are welcome: and I assure you mine uncle here is a man of a thousand a year, Middlesex land. He has but one son in (5) all the world, I am his next heir, at the common law, master Stephen, as simple as I stand here, if my cousin die, as there’s hope he will. I have a pretty living o’ mine own too, beside, hard by here. 10

Serv. In good time, sir.

Step. In good time, sir! Why, and in very good time, sir! You do not flout, friend, do you?

Serv. Not I, sir.

Step. Not you, sir! you were not best, sir; (15) an you should, here be them can perceive it, and that quickly too; go to: and they can give it again soundly too, an need be.

Serv. Why, sit, let this satisfy you; good faith, I had no such intent. 20

Step. Sir, an I thought you had, I would talk with you, and that presently.[1119]

Serv. Good master Stephen, so you may, sir, at your pleasure.

Step. And so I would, sir, good my saucy (25) companion! An you were out o’ mine uncle’s ground, I can tell you; though I do not stand upon my gentility neither, in ’t.

Know. Cousin, cousin, will this ne’er be left?

Step. Whoreson, base fellow! a mechanical (30) serving-man! By this cudgel, an ’twere not for shame, I would——

Know. What would you do, you peremptory gull?[1120] If you cannot be quiet, get you hence. You see the honest man demeans himself 35 Modestly tow’rds you, giving no reply To your unseason’d, quarrelling, rude fashion; And still you huff[1121] it, with a kind of carriage As void of wit, as of humanity. Go, get you in; ’fore heaven, I am asham’d 40 Thou hast a kinsman’s interest in me. [Exit MASTER STEPHEN.]

Serv. I pray, sir, is this master Knowell’s house?

Know. Yes, marry is it, sir. 44

Serv. I should inquire for a gentleman here, one master Edward Knowell; do you know any such, sir, I pray you?

Know. I should forget myself else, sir.

Serv. Are you the gentleman? Cry you mercy, sir: I was requir’d by a gentleman i’ the (50) city, as I rode out at this end o’ the town, to deliver you this letter, sir.

Know. To me, sir! What do you mean? pray you remember your court’sy.[1122] [Reads.] To his most selected friend, master Edward Knowell. (55) What might the gentleman’s name be, sir, that sent it? Nay, pray you be cover’d.

Serv. One master Wellbred, sir.

Know. Master Wellbred! a young gentleman, is he not? 60

Serv. The same, sir; master Kitely married his sister; the rich merchant i’ the Old Jewry.

Know. You say very true.—Brainworm!

[Enter BRAINWORM.]

Brai. Sir. 64

Know. Make this honest friend drink here: pray you, go in. [Exeunt BRAINWORM and Servant.] This letter is directed to my son; Yet I am Edward Knowell too, and may, With the safe conscience of good manners, use The fellow’s error to my satisfaction. 70 Well, I will break it ope (old men are curious), Be it but for the style’s sake and the phrase, To see if both do answer my son’s praises, Who is almost grown the idolater Of this young Wellbred. What have we here? What’s this? 75

[Reads.] Why, Ned, I beseech thee, hast thou forsworn all thy friends i’ the Old Jewry? or dost thou think us all Jews that inhabit there? Yet, if thou dost, come over, and but see our 79 frippery;[1123] change an old shirt for a whole smock with us: do not conceive that antipathy between us and Hogsden, as was between Jews and hogs-flesh. Leave thy vigilant father alone, to number over his green apricots, evening and (84) morning, o’ the north-west wall. An I had been his son, I had sav’d him the labour long since, if taking in all the young wenches that pass by at the back-door, and coddling[1124] every kernel of the fruit for ’em, would ha’ serv’d. But (89) prithee, come over to me quickly this morning; I have such a present for thee!—our Turkey company never sent the like to the Grand Signior. One is a rhymer, sir, o’ your own batch, your own leaven; but doth think himself poet-major o’ the town, willing to be shown, and (95) worthy to be seen. The other—I will not venture his description with you, till you come, because I would ha’ you make hither with an appetite. If the worst of ’em be not worth your journey, draw your bill fit of charges, as unconscionable (100) as any Guildhall verdict will give it you, and you shall be allow’d your viaticum.[1125]

From the Windmill.[1126] From the Bordello it might come as well, The Spittle, or Pict-hatch.[1127] Is this the man My son hath sung so, for the happiest wit, 105 The choicest brain, the times have sent us forth! I know not what he may be in the arts, Nor what in schools; but, surely, for his manners, I judge him a profane and dissolute wretch; Worse by possession of such great good gifts, 110 Being the master of so loose a spirit. Why, what unhallow’d ruffian would have writ In such a scurrilous manner to a friend! Why should he think I tell[1128] my apricots, Or play the Hesperian dragon with my fruit, 115 To watch it? Well, my son, I’d thought You’d had more judgment t’ have made election Of your companions, than t’ have ta’en on trust Such petulant, jeering gamesters, that can spare No argument or subject from their jest. 120 But I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.—Brainworm!

[Enter BRAINWORM.]

Brai. Sir.

Know. Is the fellow gone that brought this letter?

Brai. Yes, sir, a pretty while since.

Know. And where’s your young master? 125

Brai. In his chamber, sir.

Know. He spake not with the fellow, did he?

Brai. No, sir, he saw him not.

Know. Take you this letter, and deliver it my son; but with no notice that I have open’d it, on your life. 131

Brai. O Lord, sir! that were a jest indeed. [Exit.]

Know. I am resolv’d I will not stop his journey, Nor practise any violent means to stay The unbridled course of youth in him; for that 135 Restrain’d grows more impatient; and in kind Like to the eager, but the generous[1129] greyhound, Who ne’er so little from his game withheld, Turns head, and leaps up at his holder’s throat. There is a way of winning more by love 140 And urging of the modesty, than fear: Force works on servile natures, not the free. He that’s compell’d to goodness, may be good, But ’tis but for that fit; where others, drawn By softness and example, get a habit. 145 Then, if they stray, but warn ’em, and the same They should for virtue ’ve done, they’ll do for shame. [Exit.]

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Act I, Scene III — [1130]

[Enter] E. KNOWELL, [with a letter in his hand, followed by] BRAINWORM.

E. Know. Did he open it, say’st thou?

Brai. Yes, o’ my word, sir, and read the contents.

E. Know. That scarce contents me. What countenance, prithee, made he i’ the reading of it? Was he angry or pleas’d? 6

Brai. Nay, sir, I saw him not read it, nor open it, I assure your worship.

E. Know. No! How know’st thou then that he did either? 10

Brai. Marry, sir, because he charg’d me, on my life, to tell nobody that he open’d it; which, unless he had done, he would never fear to have it reveal’d.

E. Know. That’s true: well, I thank thee, Brainworm. 15

[Enter STEPHEN.]

Step. O, Brainworm, didst thou not see a fellow here in what-sha’-call-him doublet? He brought mine uncle a letter e’en now.

Brai. Yes, master Stephen; what of him? 20

Step. O, I ha’ such a mind to beat him——where is he, canst thou tell?

Brai. Faith, he is not of that mind: he is gone, master Stephen.

Step. Gone! which way? When went he? How long since? 25

Brai. He is rid hence; he took horse at the street-door.

Step. And I staid i’ the fields! Whoreson Scanderbag[1131] rogue! O that I had but a horse to fetch him back again! 31

Brai. Why, you may ha’ my master’s gelding, to save your longing, sir.

Step. But I ha’ no boots, that’s the spite on’t.

Brai. Why, a fine wisp of hay, roll’d hard, master Stephen. 36

Step. No, faith, it’s no boot to follow him now: let him e’en go and hang. Prithee, help to truss[1132] me a little: he does so vex me——

Brai. You’ll be worst vex’d when you are (40) truss’d, master Stephen. Best keep unbrac’d, and walk yourself till you be cold; your choler may founder you else.

Step. By my faith, and so I will, now thou tell’st me on’t. How dost thou like my leg, Brainworm? 46

Brai. A very good leg, master Stephen; but the woollen stocking does not commend it so well. 49

Step. Foh! the stockings be good enough, now summer is coming on, for the dust: I’ll have a pair of silk again’[1133] winter, that I go to dwell in the town. I think my leg would shew in a silk hose—— 54

Brai. Believe me, master Stephen, rarely well.

Step. In sadness,[1134] I think it would; I have a reasonable good leg.

Brai. You have an excellent good leg, master Stephen; but I cannot stay to praise it longer now, and I am very sorry for it. [Exit.] 60

Step. Another time will serve, Brainworm, Gramercy for this.

E. Know. Ha, ha, ha! (Laughs, having read the letter.)

Step. ’Slid, I hope he laughs not at me; an he do—— 65

E. Know. Here was a letter indeed, to be intercepted by a man’s father, and do him good with him! He cannot but think most virtuously, both of me, and the sender, sure, that make the careful costermonger of him in our familiar (70) epistles. Well, if he read this with patience I’ll be gelt, and troll ballads for Master John Trundle[1135] yonder, the rest of my mortality. It is true, and likely, my father may have as much patience as another man, for he takes much (75) physic; and oft taking physic makes a man very patient. But would your packet, Master Wellbred, had arriv’d at him in such a minute of his patience! then we had known the end of it, which now is doubtful, and threatens——[sees MASTER STEPHEN.] What, my wise (81) cousin! Nay, then I’ll furnish our feast with one gull more toward the mess. He writes to me of a brace, and here’s one, that’s three: oh, for a fourth! Fortune, if ever thou’lt use thine eyes, I entreat thee—— 86

Step. Oh, now I see who he laughed at: he laughed at somebody in that letter. By this good light, an he had laughed at me—— 89

E. Know. How now, cousin Stephen, melancholy?

Step. Yes, a little: I thought you had laughed at me, cousin.

E. Know. Why, what an I had, coz? What would you ha’ done? 95

Step. By this light, I would ha’ told mine uncle.

E. Know. Nay, if you would ha’ told your uncle, I did laugh at you, coz.

Step. Did you, indeed? 100

E. Know. Yes, indeed.

Step. Why then——

E. Know. What then?

Step. I am satisfied; it is sufficient. 104

E. Know. Why, be so, gentle coz: and, I pray you, let me entreat a courtesy of you. I am sent for this morning by a friend i’ the Old Jewry, to come to him; it is but crossing over the fields to Moorgate. Will you bear me company? I protest it is not to draw you into bond or any plot against the state, coz. 111

Step. Sir, that’s all one an ’twere; you shall command me twice so far as Moorgate, to do you good in such a matter. Do you think I would leave you? I protest—— 115

E. Know. So, no, you shall not protest, coz.

Step. By my fackings,[1136] but I will, by your leave:—I’ll protest more to my friend, than I’ll speak of at this time.

E. Know. You speak very well, coz. 120

Step. Nay, not so neither, you shall pardon me: but I speak to serve my turn.

E. Know. Your turn, coz! Do you know what you say? A gentleman of your sort,[1137] parts, (124) carriage, and estimation, to talk o’ your turn[1138] i’ this company, and to me alone, like a tankard-bearer at a conduit! fie! A wight that, hitherto, his every step hath left the stamp of a great foot behind him, as every word the (129) savour of a strong spirit, and he! this man! so grac’d, gilded, or, to use a more fit metaphor, so tin-foil’d by nature, as not ten housewives’ pewter again’ a good time,[1139] shows more bright to the world than he! and he! (as I said last, so I say again, and still shall say it) this (135) man! to conceal such real ornaments as these, and shadow their glory, as a milliner’s wife does her wrought stomacher, with a smoky lawn, or a black Cyprus![1140] O, coz! it cannot be answer’d; (139) go not about it. Drake’s old ship[1141] at Deptford may sooner circle the world again. Come, wrong not the quality of your desert, with looking downward, coz; but hold up your head, so: and let the idea of what you are be portrayed i’ your face, that men may read i’ your physnomy, Here within this place is to be seen the true, rare, (145) and accomplished monster, or miracle of nature, which is all one. What think you of this, coz?

Step. Why, I do think of it: and I will be more proud, and melancholy, and gentleman-like, than I have been, I’ll insure you. 151

E. Know. Why, that’s resolute, master Stephen!—[Aside.] Now, if I can but hold him up to his height, as it is happily begun, it will do well for a suburb humour: we may hap have a match with the city, and play him for forty (156) pound.—Come, coz.

Step. I’ll follow you.

E. Know. Follow me! You must go before.

Step. Nay, an I must, I will. Pray you shew me, good cousin. [Exeunt.] 161

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Act I, Scene IV — [1142]

[Enter] MASTER MATHEW.

Mat. I think this be the house. What, ho!

[Enter COB.]

Cob. Who’s there? O, master Mathew! gi’ your worship good morrow.

Mat. What, Cob! how dost thou, good Cob? Dust thou inhabit here, Cob? 5

Cob. Ay, sir. I and my lineage ha’ kept a poor house here, in our days.

Mat. Thy lineage, monsieur Cobb! What lineage, what lineage?

Cob. Why. sir, an ancient lineage, and a (10) princely. Mine ance’try came from a king’s belly no worse man; and yet no man either, by your worship’s leave, I did lie in that, but herring, the king of fish (from his belly I proceed), one o’ the monarchs o’ the world, I assure you. (15) The first red herring that was broil’d in Adam and Eve’s kitchen, do I fetch my pedigree from, by the harrot’s[1143] book. His cob[1144] was my great, great, mighty-great grandfather.

Mat. Why mighty, why mighty, I pray thee? 21

Cob. O, it was a mighty while ago, sir, and a mighty great cob.

Mat. How know’st thou that?

Cob. How know I! why, I smell his ghost ever and anon. 26

Mat. Smell a ghost! O unsavoury jest! and the ghost of a herring cob?

Cob. Ay, sir. With favour of your worship’s nose, master Mathew, why not the ghost of (30) a herring cob, as well as the ghost of Rasher Bacon?

Mat. Roger Bacon, thou would’st say.

Cob. I say Rasher Bacon. They were both broil’d o’ the coals; and a man may smell broil’d meat, I hope! You are a scholar; upsolve 36 me that now.

Mat. O raw ignorance!—Cob, canst thou shew me of a gentleman, one captain Bobadill, where his lodging is? 40

Cob. O, my guest, sir, you mean.

Mat. Thy guest! alas, ha, ha!

Cob. Why do you laugh, sir? Do you not mean captain Bobadill?

Mat. Cob, pray thee advise thyself well; do (45) not wrong the gentleman, and thyself too. I dare be sworn, he scorns thy house; he! he lodge in such a base obscure place as thy house! Tut, I know his disposition so well, he would not lie in thy bed if thou ’dst gi’ it him. 50

Cob. I will not give it him though, sir. Mass, I thought somewhat was in ’t, we could not get him to bed all night. Well, sir, though he lie not o’ my bed, he lies o’ my bench; an ’t please you to go up, sir, you shall find him with two cushions under his head, and his cloak (56) wrapt about him, as though he had neither won nor lost; and yet, I warrant, he ne’er cast[1145] better in his life, than he has done to-night.

Mat. Why, was he drunk? 60

Cob. Drunk, sir! you hear not me say so. Perhaps he swallow’d a tavern-token,[1146] or some such device, sir; I have nothing to do withal. I deal with water and not with wine.—Gi’ me my tankard there, ho!—God b’ wi’ you, sir. It’s six o’clock: I should ha’ carried two (65) turns by this. What ho! my stopple![1147] come.

[Enter TIB with a water-tankard.]

Mat. Lie in a water-bearer’s house! a gentleman of his havings! Well, I’ll tell him my mind. 70

Cob. What, Tib; shew this gentleman up to the captain. [Exit TIB with MASTER MATHEW.] Oh, an my house were the Brazen-head[1148] now! faith it would e’en speak Moe[1149] fools yet. You should have some now would take this Master (75) Mathew to be a gentleman, at the least. His father’s an honest man, a worshipful fishmonger, and so forth; and now does he creep and wriggle into acquaintance with all the brave gallants about the town, such as my guest is (O, my guest is a fine man!), and they flout him (81) invincibly. He useth every day to a merchant’s house where I serve water, one master Kitely’s, i’ the Old Jewry; and here’s the jest, he is in love with my master’s sister, Mrs. Bridget, and calls her “Mistress”; and there he will sit (86) you a whole afternoon sometimes, reading o’ these same abominable, vile (a pox on ’em! I cannot abide them), rascally verses, poyetry, poyetry, and speaking of interludes; ’t will 90 make a man burst to hear him. And the wenches, they do so jeer, and ti-he at him.—Well, should they do so much to me, I’d forswear them all, by the foot of Pharaoh! There’s an oath! How many water-bearers shall you (95) hear swear such an oath? O, I have a guest—he teaches me—he does swear the legiblest of any man christ’ned: By St. George! The foot of Pharaoh! The body of me! As I am a gentleman and a soldier! such dainty oaths! and withal (100) he does take this same filthy roguish tobacco, the finest and cleanliest! It would do a man good to see the fumes come forth at ’s tonnels.[1150]—Well, he owes me forty shillings, my wife lent him out of her purse, by sixpence a time, besides his lodging: I would I had it! I shall ha’ it, he says, the next action. Helter skelter, hang (107) sorrow, care ’ll kill a cat, up-tails all, and a louse for the hangman! [Exit.]

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Act I, Scene V — [1151]

BOBADILL is discovered lying on his bench.

Bob. Hostess, hostess!

[Enter TIB.]

Tib. What say you, sir?

Bob. A cup o’ thy small beer, sweet hostess.

Tib. Sir, there’s a gentleman below would speak with you. 5

Bob. A gentleman! ’odso, I am not within.

Tib. My husband told him you were, sir.

Bob. What a plague—what meant he?

Mat. (below.) Captain Bobadill!

Bob. Who’s there!—Take away the bason, good hostess;—Come up, sir. 11

Tib. He would desire you to come up, sir. You come into a cleanly house, here!

[Enter MATHEW.]

Mat. Save you, sir; save you, captain!

Bob. Gentle master Mathew! Is it you, sir? Please you sit down. 16

Mat. Thank you, good captain; you may see I am somewhat audacious.

Bob. Not so, sir. I was requested to supper last night by a sort[1152] of gallants, where you (20) were wish’d for, and drunk to, I assure you.

Mat. Vouchsafe me, by whom, good captain?

Bob. Marry, by young Wellbred, and others.—Why, hostess, a stool here for this gentleman.

Mat. No haste, sir, ’tis very well. 25

Bob. Body o’ me! it was so late ere we parted last night, I can scarce open my eyes yet; I was but new risen, as you came. How passes the day abroad, sir? you can tell.

Mat. Faith, some half hour to seven. Now, (30) trust me, you have an exceeding fine lodging here, very neat, and private.

Bob. Ay, sir: sit down, I pray you. Master Mathew, in any case possess no gentlemen of our acquaintance with notice of my lodging. 35

Mat. Who? I, sir? No.

Bob. Not that I need to care who know it, for the cabin is convenient; but in regard I would not be too popular, and generally visited, as some are. 40

Mat. True, captain, I conceive you.

Bob. For, do you see, sir, by the heart of valour in me, except it be to some peculiar and choice spirits, to whom I am extraordinarily engag’d, as yourself, or so, I could not extend (45) thus far.

Mat. O Lord, sir! I resolve[1153] so.

Bob. I confess I love a cleanly and quiet privacy, above all the tumult and roar of fortune. What new book ha’ you there? What! “Go (50) by, Hieronymo?”[1154]

Mat. Ay: did you ever see it acted? Is’t not well penn’d?

Bob. Well penn’d! I would fain see all the poets of these times pen such another play (55) as that was: they’ll prate and swagger, and keep a stir of art and devices, when, as I am a gentleman, read ’em, they are the most shallow, pitiful, barren fellows that live upon the face of the earth again. 60

Mat. Indeed here are a number of fine speeches in this book. O eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears! There’s a conceit! Fountains fraught with tears! O life, no life, but lively form of death!—another. O world, no (65) world, but mass of public wrongs!—a third. Confused and fill’d with murder and misdeeds!—a fourth. O, the muses! Is’t not excellent? Is’t not simply the best that ever you heard, captain? Ha! how do you like it? 70

Bob. ’Tis good.

Mat. _To thee, the purest object to my sense, The most refined essence heaven covers, Send I these lines, wherein I do commence The happy state of turtle-billing lovers. 75 If they prove rough, unpolish’d, harsh, and rude, Haste made the waste: thus mildly I conclude._

Bob. Nay, proceed, proceed. Where’s this? BOBADILL is making himself ready all this while.

Mat. This, sir! a toy o’ mine own, in my nonage; the infancy of my muses. But (80) when will you come and see my study? Good faith, I can shew you some very good things I have done of late.—That boot becomes your leg passing well, captain, methinks.

Bob. So, so; it’s the fashion gentlemen (85) now use.

Mat. Troth, captain, and now you speak o’ the fashion, master Wellbred’s elder brother and I are fall’n out exceedingly. This other day, I happ’ned to enter into some discourse (90) of a hanger,[1155] which, I assure you, both for fashion and workmanship, was most peremptory[1156] beautiful and gentlemanlike: yet he condemn’d, and cri’d it down for the most pied[1157] and ridiculous that he ever saw. 95

Bob. Squire Downright, the half-brother, was’t not?

Mat. Ay, sir, he.

Bob. Hang him, rook![1158] he! why he has no more judgment than a malt-horse. By St. (100) George, I wonder you’d lose a thought upon such an animal; the most peremptory[1156] absurd clown of Christendom, this day, he is holden. I protest to you, as I am a gentleman and a soldier, I ne’er chang’d words with his like. 105 By his discourse, he should eat nothing but hay; he was born for the manger, pannier, or packsaddle. He has not so much as a good phrase in his belly, but all old iron and rusty proverbs: a good commodity for some smith to make (110) hob-nails of.

Mat. Ay, and he thinks to carry it away[1159] with his manhood still, where he comes: he brags he will gi’ me the bastinado, as I hear.

Bob. How! he the bastinado! How came (115) he by that word, trow?

Mat. Nay, indeed, he said cudgel me; I term’d it so, for my more grace.

Bob. That may be; for I was sure it was none of his word: but when, when said he so? 120

Mat. Faith, yesterday, they say; a young gallant, a friend of mine, told me so.

Bob. By the foot of Pharaoh, an ’twere my case now, I should send him a chartel[1160] presently. The bastinado! a most proper and sufficient (125) dependence,[1161] warranted by the great Caranza.[1162] Come hither, you shall chartel him; I’ll show you a trick or two you shall kill him with at pleasure; the first stoccata,[1163] if you will, by this air. 130

Mat. Indeed, you have absolute knowledge i’ the mystery, I have heard, sir.

Bob. Of whom, of whom, ha’ you heard it, I beseech you?

Mat. Troth, I have heard it spoken of divers, (135) that you have very rare, and un-in-one-breath-utterable skill, sir.

Bob. By heaven, no, not I; no skill i’ the earth; some small rudiments i’ the science, as to know my time, distance, or so. I have profest (140) it more for noblemen and gentlemen’s use, than mine own practice, I assure you.—Hostess, accommodate us with another bed-staff here quickly. [Enter TIB.] Lend us another bed-staff—the woman does not understand the words (145) of action.—Look you, sir: exalt not your point above this state, at any hand, and let your poniard maintain your defence, thus:—give it the gentleman, and leave us. [Exit TIB.] So, sir. Come on: O, twine your body more about, (150) that you may fall to a more sweet, comely, gentleman-like guard; so! indifferent: hollow your body more, sir, thus: now, stand fast o’ your left leg, note your distance, keep your due proportion of time.—Oh, you disorder your (155) point most irregularly!

Mat. How is the bearing of it now, sir?

Bob. O, out of measure ill. A well experienc’d hand would pass upon you at pleasure.

Mat. How mean you, sir, pass upon me? 160

Bob. Why, thus, sir,—make a thrust at me—[MASTER MATHEW pushes at BOBADILL] come in upon the answer, control your point, and make a full career at the body. The best-practis’d gallants of the time name it the passado; a most desperate thrust, believe it. 166

Mat. Well, come, sir.

Bob. Why, you do not manage your weapon with any facility or grace to invite me. I have no spirit to play with you; your dearth of 170 judgment renders you tedious.

Mat. But one venue,[1164] sir.

Bob. “Venue!” fie; the most gross denomination as ever I heard. O, the “stoccata,” while you live, sir; note that.—Come put 175 on your cloak, and we’ll go to some private place where you are acquainted; some tavern, or so—and have a bit. I’ll send for one of these fencers, and he shall breathe[1165] you, by my direction; and then I will teach you your (180) trick: you shall kill him with it at the first, if you please. Why, I will learn you, by the true judgment of the eye, hand, and foot, to control any enemy’s point i’ the world. Should your adversary confront you with a pistol, ’twere (185) nothing, by this hand! You should, by the same rule, control his bullet, in a line, except it were hail shot, and spread. What money have you about you, master Mathew?

Mat. Faith, I ha’ not past a two shillings (190) or so.

Bob. ’Tis somewhat with the least; but come; we will have a bunch of radish and salt to taste our wine, and a pipe of tobacco to close the orifice of the stomach: and then we’ll (195) call upon young Wellbred. Perhaps we shall meet the Corydon[1166] his brother there, and put him to the question. [Exeunt.]

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Act II, Scene I — [1167]

[Enter] KITELY, CASH, DOWNRIGHT.

Kit. Thomas, come hither. There lies a note within upon my desk; Here take my key: it is no matter neither.— Where is the boy?

Cash. Within, sir, i’ the warehouse.

Kit. Let him tell over straight that Spanish gold, 5 And weigh it, with th’ pieces of eight.[1168] Do you See the delivery of those silver stuffs To Master Lucar: tell him, if he will, He shall ha’ the grograns[1169] at the rate I told him, And I will meet him on the Exchange anon. 10

Cash. Good, sir. [Exit.]

Kit. Do you see that fellow, brother Downright?

Dow. Ay, what of him?

Kit. He is a jewel, brother. I took him of a child up at my door, And christ’ned him, gave him mine own name, Thomas: 15 Since bred him at the Hospital;[1170] where proving A toward imp, I call’d him home, and taught him So much, as I have made him my cashier, And giv’n him, who had none, a surname, Cash: And find him in his place so full of faith, 20 That I durst trust my life into his hands.

Dow. So would not I in any bastard’s, brother, As it is like he is, although I knew Myself his father. But you said you’d somewhat To tell me, gentle brother: what is’t, what is’t?

Kit. Faith, I am very loath to utter it, 25 As fearing it may hurt your patience; But that I know your judgment is of strength, Against the nearness of affection——

Dow. What need this circumstance?[1171] Pray you, be direct. 30

Kit. I will not say how much I do ascribe Unto your friendship, nor in what regard I hold your love; but let my past behaviour, And usage of your sister, [both][1172] confirm How well I’ve been affected to your—— 35

Dow. You are too tedious; come to the matter, the matter.

Kit. Then, without further ceremony, thus. My brother Wellbred, sir, I know not how, Of late is much declin’d in what he was, And greatly alter’d in his disposition. 40 When he came first to lodge here in my house, Ne’er trust me if I were not proud of him: Methought he bare himself in such a fashion, So full of man, and sweetness in his carriage, And what was chief, it show’d not borrowed in him, 45 But all he did became him as his own, And seem’d as perfect, proper, and possest, As breath with life, or colour with the blood. But now, his course is so irregular, So loose, affected, and depriv’d of grace, 50 And he himself withal so far fall’n off From that first place, as scarce no note remains, To tell men’s judgments where he lately stood. He’s grown a stranger to all due respect, Forgetful of his friends; and, not content 55 To stale[1173] himself in all societies, He makes my house here common as a mart, A theatre, a public receptacle For giddy humour, and diseased riot; And here, as in a tavern or a stews, 60 He and his wild associates spend their hours, In repetition of lascivious jests, Swear, leap, drink, dance, and revel night by night, Control my servants; and, indeed, what not?

Dow. ’Sdeins,[1174] I know not what I should (65) say to him, i’ the whole world! He values me at a crack’d three-farthings, for aught I see. It will never out o’ the flesh that’s bred i’ the bone. I have told him enough, one would think, if that would serve; but counsel to him is as good (70) as a shoulder of mutton to a sick horse. Well! he knows what to trust to, for[1175] George: let him spend, and spend, and domineer, till his heart ache; an he think to be reliev’d by me, when he is got into one o’ your city pounds, the (75) counters, he has the wrong sow by the ear, i’ faith; and claps his dish[1176] at the wrong man’s door. I’ll lay my hand o’ my halfpenny, ere I part with ’t to fetch him out, I’ll assure him.

Kit. Nay, good brother, let it not trouble you thus. 80

Dow. ’Sdeath! he mads me: I could eat my very spur-leathers for anger! But, why are you so tame? Why do you not speak to him, and tell him how he disquiets your house?

Kit. O, there are divers reasons to dissuade, brother. 85 But, would yourself vouchsafe to travail in it (Though but with plain and easy circumstance), It would both come much better to his sense, And savour less of stomach,[1177] or of passion. You are his elder brother, and that title 90 Both gives and warrants you authority, Which, by your presence seconded, must breed A kind of duty in him, and regard; Whereas, if I should intimate the least, It would but add contempt to his neglect, 95 Heap worse on ill, make up a pile of hatred, That in the rearing would come tott’ring down, And in the ruin bury all our love. Nay, more than this, brother; if I should speak, He would be ready, from his heat of humour,[1178] And overflowing of the vapour in him, 101 To blow the ears of his familiars With the false breath of telling what disgraces And low disparagements I had put upon him: Whilst they, sir, to relieve him in the fable,[1179] 105 Make their loose comments upon every word, Gesture, or look, I use; mock me all over, From my flat cap[1180] unto my shining shoes;[1180] And, out of their impetuous rioting phant’sies, Beget some slander that shall dwell with me. 110 And what would that be, think you? Marry, this: They would give out, because my wife is fair, Myself but lately married, and my sister Here sojourning a virgin in my house, That I were jealous!—nay, as sure as death, 115 That they would say; and, how that I had quarrell’d My brother purposely, thereby to find An apt pretext to banish them my house.

Dow. Moss, perhaps so; they’re like enough to do it.

Kit. Brother, they would, believe it; so should I, 120 Like one of these penurious quack-salvers, But set the bills up[1181] to mine own disgrace, And try experiments upon myself; Lend scorn and envy opportunity To stab my reputation and good name—— 125

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Act II, Scene II — [1182]

KITELY, DOWNRIGHT. [Enter] MATHEW [struggling with] BOBADILL.

Mat. I will speak to him.

Bob. Speak to him! away! By the foot of Pharaoh, you shall not! you shall not do him that grace.—The time of day to you, gentleman o’ the house. Is master Wellbred stirring?

Dow. How then? What should he do? 6

Bob. Gentleman of the house, it is to you. Is he within, sir?

Kit. He came not to his lodging to-night, sir, I assure you. 10

Dow. Why, do you hear? You!

Bob. The gentleman citizen hath satisfied me; I’ll talk to no scavenger. [Exeunt BOB. and MAT.]

Dow. How! scavenger! Stay, sir, stay!

Kit. Nay, brother Downright. 15

Dow. ’Heart! stand you away, an you love me.

Kit. You shall not follow him now, I pray you, brother, good faith you shall not; I will overrule you.

Dow. Ha! scavenger! Well, go to, I say (20) little; but, by this good day (God forgive me I should swear), if I put it up[1183] so, say I am the rankest cow that ever pist. ’Sdeins, an I swallow this, I’ll ne’er draw my sword in the sight of Fleet-street again while I live; I’ll sit in a (25) barn with madge-howlet, and catch mice first. Scavenger! heart!—and I’ll go near to fill that huge tumbrel-slop[1184] of yours with somewhat, an I have good luck: your Garagantua breech cannot carry it away so. 30

Kit. Oh, do not fret yourself thus; never think on ’t.

Dow. These are my brother’s consorts, these! These are his cam’rades, his walking mates! He’s a gallant, a cavaliero too, right hangman cut! Let me not live, an I could not find in (35) my heart to swinge the whole ging[1185] of ’em, one after another, and begin with him first. I am griev’d it should be said he is my brother, and take these courses. Well, as he brews, so shall he drink, for George, again. Yet he shall (40) hear on ’t, and that tightly too, an I live, i’ faith.

Kit. But, brother, let your reprehension, then, Run in an easy current, not o’er high Carried with rashness, or devouring choler; But rather use the soft persuading way, 45 Whose powers will work more gently, and compose Th’ imperfect thoughts you labour to reclaim; More winning than enforcing the consent.

Dow. Ay, ay, let me alone for that, I warrant you. 49

Kit. How now! (Bell rings.) Oh, the bell rings to breakfast. Brother, I pray you go in, and bear my wife company till I come; I’ll but give order for some despatch of business to my servants. [Exit DOWNRIGHT.]

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Act II, Scene III — [1186]

KITELY, [Enter] COB.

Kit. What, Cob! our maids will have you by the back, i’ faith, for coming so late this morning.

Cob. Perhaps so, sir; take heed somebody have not them by the belly, for walking so late in the evening. 5 He passes by with his tankard.

Kit. Well; yet my troubled spirit’s somewhat eas’d, Though not repos’d in that security As I could wish: but I must be content, Howe’er I set a face on ’t to the world. 10 Would I had lost this finger at a venture, So Wellbred had ne’er lodged within my house. Why ’t cannot be, where there is such resort Of wanton gallants and young revellers, That any woman should be honest long. 15 Is’t like that factious beauty will preserve The public weal of chastity unshaken, When such strong motives muster and make head[1187] Against her single peace? No, no: beware. When mutual appetite doth meet to treat, 20 And spirits of one kind and quality Come once to parley in the pride of blood, It is no slow conspiracy that follows. Well, to be plain, if I but thought the time Had answer’d their affections,[1188] all the world 25 Should not persuade me but I were a cuckold. Marry, I hope they ha’ not got that start; For opportunity hath balk’d ’em yet, And shall do still, while I have eyes and ears To attend the impositions of my heart. 30 My presence shall be as an iron bar ’Twixt the conspiring motions of desire: Yea, every look or glance mine eye ejects Shall check occasion, as one doth his slave, When he forgets the limits of prescription. 35

[Enter DAME KITELY.]

Dame K. Sister Bridget, pray you fetch down the rose-water, above in the closet.—Sweetheart, will you come in to breakfast?

Kit. An she have overheard me now!——

Dame Kit. I pray thee, good muss,[1189] we stay for you. 41

Kit. By heaven, I would not for a thousand angels.[1190]

Dame K. What ail you, sweet-heart? are you not well? Speak, good muss. 46

Kit. Troth my head aches extremely on a sudden.

Dame K. [putting her hand to his forehead.] O, the Lord!

Kit. How now! What? 50

Dame K. Alas, how it burns! Muss, keep you warm; good truth it is this new disease,[1191] there’s a number are troubled withal. For love’s sake, sweet-heart, come in out of the air.

Kit. How simple, and how subtle are her answers! 55 A new disease, and many troubled with it? Why true; she heard me, all the world to nothing.

Dame K. I pray thee, good sweet-heart, come in; the air will do you harm, in troth.

Kit. The air! she has me i’ the wind.[1192]— (60) Sweet-heart, I’ll come to you presently; ’t will away, I hope.

Dame K. Pray Heaven it do. [Exit.]

Kit. A new disease! I know not, new or old, But it may well be call’d poor mortals’ plague; 65 For, like a pestilence, it doth infect The houses of the brain. First it begins Solely to work upon the phantasy, Filling her seat with such pestiferous air As soon corrupts the judgment; and from thence 70 Sends like contagion to the memory: Still each to other giving the infection, Which as a subtle vapour spreads itself Confusedly through every sensive part, Till not a thought or motion in the mind 75 Be free from the black poison of suspect.[1193] Ah! but what misery is it to know this? Or, knowing it, to want the mind’s erection In such extremes? Well, I will once more strive, In spite of this black cloud, myself to be, 80 And shake the fever off that thus shakes me. [Exit.]

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Act II, Scene IV — [1194]

[Enter] BRAINWORM [disguised like a maimed Soldier.]

Brai. ’Slid, I cannot choose but laugh to see myself translated thus, from a poor creature to a creator; for now must I create an intolerable sort[1195] of lies, or my present profession loses the grace: and yet the lie, to a man of my coat, is (5) as ominous a fruit as the fico.[1196] O, sir, it holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, that inwardly is most dear to us: so much for my borrowed shape. Well, the troth is, my old master intends to follow my (10) young master, dry-foot,[1197]; over Moorfields to London, this morning; now, I knowing of this hunting-match, or rather conspiracy, and to insinuate with my young master (for so must we that are blue waiters,[1198] and men of hope and (15) service do, or perhaps we may wear motley at the year’s end, and who wears motley,[1199]—you know), have got me afore in this disguise, determining here to lie in ambuscado, and intercept him in the mid-way. If I can but get his (20) cloak, his purse, and his hat, nay, any thing to cut him off, that is, to stay his journey, Veni, vidi, vici, I may say with Captain Caesar, I am made for ever, i’ faith. Well, now I must practise to get the true garb of one of these lance-knights, (25) my arm here, and my——[Odso! my] young master, and his cousin, master Stephen, as I am true counterfeit man of war, and no soldier! [Exit.]

[Enter E. KNOWELL and STEPHEN.]

E. Know. So, sir! and how then, coz? 30

Step. ’Sfoot! I have lost my purse, I think.

E. Know. How! lost your purse? Where? When had you it?

Step. I cannot tell; stay.

Brai. ’Slid, I am afraid they will know me: would I could get by them! 35

E. Know. What, ha’ you it?

Step. No; I think I was bewitcht, I——[Cries.]

E. Know. Nay, do not weep the loss: hang it, let it go. 40

Step. Oh, it’s here. No, an it had been lost, I had not car’d, but for a jet ring mistress Mary sent me.

E. Know. A jet ring! O the posy, the posy?

Step. Fine, i’ faith.— 45 Though Fancy sleep, My love is deep. Meaning, that though I did not fancy her, yet she loved me dearly.

E. Know. Most excellent! 50

Step. And then I sent her another, and my poesie was, The deeper the sweeter, I’ll be judg’d by St. Peter.

E. Know. How, by St. Peter? I do not (55) conceive that.

Step. Marry, St. Peter, to make up the metre.

E. Know. Well, there the saint was your good patron, he help’d you at your need; thank him, thank him. 60

Re-enter BRAINWORM.

Brai. I cannot take leave on ’em so; I will venture, come what will.—Gentlemen, please you change a few crowns for a very excellent good blade here? I am a poor gentleman, a soldier, one that, in the better state of my fortunes, (65) scorn’d so mean a refuge; but now it is the humour of necessity to have it so. You seem to be gentlemen well affected to martial men, else I should rather die with silence, than live with shame: however, vouchsafe to remember (70) it is my want speaks, not myself; this condition agrees not with my spirit——

E. Know. Where hast thou serv’d?

Brai. May it please you, sir, in all the late wars of Bohemia, Hungary, Dalmatia, Poland,—where (75) not, sir? I have been a poor servitor by sea and land any time this fourteen years, and follow’d the fortunes of the best commanders in Christendom. I was twice shot at the taking of Aleppo, once at the relief (80) of Vienna; I have been at Marseilles, Naples, and the Adriatic gulf, a gentleman-slave in the galleys, thrice; where I was most dangerously shot in the head, through both the thighs; and yet, being thus maim’d, I am void of maintenance, (85) nothing left me but my scars, the noted marks of my resolution.

Step. How will you sell this rapier, friend?

Brai. Generous sir, I refer it to your own judgment; you are a gentleman, give me (90) what you please.

Step. True, I am a gentleman, I know that, friend; but what though? I pray you say, what would you ask?

Brai. I assure you, the blade may become (95) the side or thigh of the best prince in Europe.

E. Know. Ay, with a velvet scabbard, I think.

Step. Nay, an’t be mine, it shall have a velvet scabbard, coz, that’s flat; I’d not wear it, as it is, an you would give me an angel. 100

Brai. At your worship’s pleasure, sir; [STEPHEN examines the blade] nay, ’tis a most pure Toledo.

Step. I had rather it were a Spaniard. But tell me, what shall I give you for it? An it had a silver hilt—— 106

E. Know. Come, come, you shall not buy it. Hold, there’s a shilling, fellow; take thy rapier.

Step. Why, but I will buy it now, because you say so; and there’s another shilling, fellow; I scorn to be out-bidden. What, shall I walk (111) with a cudgel, like Higginbottom, and may have a rapier for money!

E. Know. You may buy one in the city.

Step. Tut! I’ll buy this i’ the field, so I will: I have a mind to ’t, because ’tis a field (116) rapier. Tell me your lowest price.

E. Know. You shall not buy it, I say.

Step. By this money, but I will, though I give more than ’tis worth. 120

E. Know. Come away, you are a fool.

Step. Friend, I am a fool, that’s granted; but I’ll have it, for that word’s sake. Follow me for your money.

Brai. At your service, sir. [Exeunt.] 125

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Act II, Scene V — [1200]

[Enter] KNOWELL.

Know. I cannot lose the thought yet of this letter Sent to my son; nor leave t’ admire[1201] the change Of manners, and the breeding of our youth Within the kingdom, since myself was one.— When I was young, he liv’d not in the stews, 5 Durst have conceiv’d a scorn, and utter’d it, On a gray head; age was authority Against a buffoon, and a man had then A certain reverence paid unto his years, That had none due unto his life: so much 10 The sanctity of some prevail’d for others. But now we all are fall’n; youth, from their fear, And age, from that which bred it, good example. Nay, would ourselves were not the first, e’en parents, 14 That did destroy the hopes in our own children; Or they not learn’d our vices in their cradles, And suck’d in our ill customs with their milk! Ere all their teeth be born, or they can speak, We make their palates cunning; the first words We form their tongues with, are licentious jests: Can it call “whore”? cry “bastard”? O, then, kiss it! 21 A witty child! Can’t swear? The father’s darling! Give it two plums. Nay, rather than ’t shall learn No bawdy song, the mother herself will teach it! But this is in the infancy, the days 25 Of the long coat; when it puts on the breeches, It will put off all this. Ay, it is like, When it is gone into the bone already! No, no; this dye goes deeper than the coat, Or shirt, or skin; it stains into the liver 30 And heart, in some: and, rather than it should not, Note what we fathers do! Look how we live! What mistresses we keep! at what expense! In our sons’ eyes, where they may handle our gifts, Hear our lascivious courtships, see our dalliance, Taste of the same provoking meats with us, 36 To ruin of our states! Nay, when our own Portion is fled, to prey on the remainder, We call them into fellowship of vice; Bait ’em with the young chamber-maid, to seal,[1202] And teach ’em all bad ways to buy affliction. 41 This is one path; but there are millions more, In which we spoil our own, with leading them. Well, I thank heaven, I never yet was he That travell’d with my son, before sixteen, 45 To shew him the Venetian courtesans; Nor read the grammar of cheating I had made, To my sharp boy, at twelve; repeating still The rule, _Get money; still, get money, boy; No matter by what means; money will do 50 More, boy, than my lord’s letter_. Neither have I Drest snails or mushrooms curiously before him, Perfum’d my sauces, and taught him how to make ’em; Preceding still, with my gray gluttony, At all the ord’naries, and only fear’d 55 His palates should degenerate, not his manners. These are the trade of fathers now; however, My son, I hope, hath met within my threshold None of these household precedents, which are strong And swift to rape youth to their precipice. 60 But let the house at home be ne’er so clean Swept, or kept sweet from filth, nay dust and cobwebs, If he will live abroad with his companions, In dung and leystals,[1203] it is worth a fear; Nor is the danger of conversing less 65 Than all that I have mention’d of example.

[Enter BRAINWORM, disguised as before.]

Brai. [Aside.] My master! nay, faith, have at you; I am flesht now, I have sped so well.— Worshipful sir, I beseech you, respect the estate of a poor soldier; I am asham’d of this base (70) course of life,—God’s my comfort—but extremity provokes me to ’t: what remedy?

Know. I have not for you, now.

Brai. By the faith I bear unto truth, gentleman, it is no ordinary custom in me, but (75) only to preserve manhood. I protest to you, a man I have been: a man I may be, by your sweet bounty.

Know. Pray thee, good friend, be satisfied.

Brai. Good sir, by that hand, you may do (80) the part of a kind gentleman, in lending a poor soldier the price of two cans of beer, a matter of small value: the king of heaven shall pay you, and I shall rest thankful. Sweet worship——

Know. Nay, an you be so importunate—— 85

Brai. Oh, tender sir I need will have its course; I was not made to this vile use. Well, the edge of the enemy could not have abated me so much: it’s hard when a man hath serv’d in his prince’s cause, and be thus (Weeps). (90) Honourable worship, let me derive a small piece of silver from you, it shall not be given in the course of time.[1204] By this good ground, I was fain to pawn my rapier last night for a poor supper; I had suck’d the hilts long before, I am a 95 pagan else. Sweet honour——

Know. Believe me, I am taken with some wonder, To think a fellow of thy outward presence, Should, in the frame and fashion of his mind, Be so degenerate, and sordid-base. 100 Art thou a man, and sham’st thou not to beg? To practise such a servile kind of life? Why, were thy education ne’er so mean, Having thy limbs, a thousand fairer courses Offer themselves to thy election. 105 Either the wars might still supply thy wants, Or service of some virtuous gentleman, Or honest labour; nay, what can I name, But would become thee better than to beg: But men of thy condition feed on sloth, 110 As doth the beetle on the dung she breeds in; Nor caring how the metal of your minds Is eaten with the rust of idleness. Now, afore me, whate’er he be, that should Relieve a person of thy quality, 115 While thou insist’st in this loose desperate course, I would esteem the sin not thine, but his.

Brai. Faith, sir, I would gladly find some other course, if so——

Know. Ay, you’d gladly find it, but you will not seek it. 121

Brai. Alas, sir, where should a man seek? In the wars, there’s no ascent by desert in these days; but——and for service, would it were as soon purchas’d,[1205] as wisht for! The air’s my 125 comfort.—[Sighs]—I know what I would say.

Know. What’s thy name?

Brai. Please you, Fitz-Sword, sir.

Know. Fitz-Sword! Say that a man should entertain thee now, 130 Wouldst thou be honest, humble, just, and true?

Brai. Sir, by the place and honour of a soldier——

Know. Nay, nay, I like not these affected oaths. Speak plainly, man, what think’st thou of my words? 135

Brai. Nothing, sir, but wish my fortunes were as happy as my service should be honest.

Know. Well, follow me; I’ll prove thee, if thy deeds Will carry a proportion to thy words. [Exit.]

Brai. Yes, sir, straight; I’ll but garter (140) my hose. Oh that my belly were hoopt now, for I am ready to burst with laughing! never was bottle or hagpipe fuller. ’Slid, was there ever seen a fox in years to betray himself thus! Now shall I be possest of all his counsels; (145) and, by that conduit, my young master. Well, he is resolv’d to prove[1206] my honesty; faith, and I’m resolv’d to prove his patience: oh, I shall abuse[1207] him intolerably. This small piece of service will bring him clean out of love with (150) the soldier for ever. He will never come within the sign of it, the sight of a cassock,[1208] or a musket-rest again. He will hate the musters at Mile-end for it, to his dying day. It’s no matter, let the world think me a bad counterfeit, if I cannot give him the slip[1209] 155 at an instant. Why, this is better than to have staid his journey. Well, I’ll follow him. Oh, how I long to be employed! [Exit.]

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Act III, Scene I — [1210]

[Enter] MASTER MATHEW, WELLBRED, and BOBADILL.

Mat. Yes, faith, sir, we were at your lodging to seek you too.

Wel. Oh, I came not there to-night.

Bob. Your brother delivered us as much.

Wel. Who, my brother Downright? 5

Bob. He. Mr. Wellbred, I know not in what kind you hold me; but let me say to you this: as sure as honour, I esteem it so much out of the sunshine of reputation, to throw the least beam of regard upon such a—— 10

Wel. Sir, I must hear no ill words of my brother.

Bob. I protest to you, as I have a thing to be sav’d about me, I never saw any gentleman-like part—— 15

Wel. Good captain, faces about[1211] to some other discourse.

Bob. With your leave, sir, an there were no more men living upon the face of the earth, I should not fancy him, by St. George! 20

Mat. Troth, nor I; he is of a rustical cut. I know not how: he doth not carry himself like a gentleman of fashion.

Wel. Oh, master Mathew, that’s a grace peculiar but to a few, quos aequus amavit Jupiter. 25

Mat. I understand you, sir.

Wel. No question, you do,—[Aside.] or do you not, sir. Enter E. KNOWELL, [and STEPHEN]. Ned Knowell! by my soul, welcome: how dost thou, sweet spirit, my genius? ’Slid, I shall love Apollo and the mad Thespian girls[1212] the better, (31) while I live, for this, my dear Fury; now I see there’s some love in thee. Sirrah, these be the two I writ to thee of: nay, what a drowsy humour is this now! Why dost thou not speak? 35

E. Know. Oh, you are a fine gallant; you sent me a rare letter.

Wel. Why, was’t not rare?

E. Know. Yes, I’ll be sworn, I was ne’er guilty of reading the like; match it in all (40) Pliny, or Symmachus’s epistles, and I’ll have my judgment burn’d in the ear for a rogue: make much of thy vein, for it is inimitable. But I marle[1213] what camel it was, that had the carriage of it; for, doubtless, he was no ordinary beast that brought it. 46

Wel. Why?

E. Know. “Why?” say’st thou! Why, dost thou think that any reasonable creature, especially in the morning, the sober time of the day too, could have mista’en my father for me? 51

Wel. ’Slid, you jest, I hope.

E. Know. Indeed, the best use we can turn it to, is to make a jest on’t, now: but I’ll assure you, my father had the full view of your 55 flourishing style some hour before I saw it.

Wel. What a dull slave was this! But, sirrah, what said he to it, i’ faith?

E. Know. Nay, I know not what he said; but I have a shrewd guess what he thought. 60

Wel. What, what?

E. Know. Marry, that thou art some strange, dissolute young fellow, and I—a grain or two better, for keeping thee company.

Wel. Tut! that thought is like the moon in (65) her last quarter, ’t will change shortly. But, sirrah, I pray thee be acquainted with my two hang-by’s here; thou wilt take exceeding pleasure in ’em if thou hear’st ’em once go; my wind-instruments; I’ll wind ’em up——But (70) what strange piece of silence is this? The sign of the Dumb Man?

E. Know. Oh, sir, a kinsman of mine, one that may make your music the fuller, an he please; he has his humour, sir. 75

Wel. Oh, what is’t, what is’t?

E. Know. Nay, I’ll neither do your judgment nor his folly that wrong, as to prepare your apprehension; I’ll leave him to the mercy o’ your search; if you can take him, so! 80

Wel. Well, captain Bobadill, master Mathew, pray you know this gentleman here; he is a friend of mine, and one that will deserve your affection.—I know not your name, sir (to (84) STEPHEN), but I shall be glad of any occasion to render me more familiar to you.

Step. My name is master Stephen, sir; I am this gentleman’s own cousin, sir; his father is mine uncle, sir. I am somewhat melancholy, (89) but you shall command me, sir, in whatsoever is incident to a gentleman.

Bob. (to E. KNOWELL.) Sir, I must tell you this, I am no general[1214] man; but for master Wellbred’s sake (you may embrace it at what height of favour you please), I do communicate (95) with you, and conceive you to be a gentleman of some parts; I love few words.

E. Know. And I fewer, sir; I have scarce enough to thank you. 99

Mat. But are you, indeed, sir, so given to it?

Step. Ay, truly, sir, I am mightily given to melancholy.

Mat. Oh, it’s your only fine humour, sir: your true melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself, diver times, sir, and then do I no more but take pen and (106) paper presently, and overflow you half a score, or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting.

E. Know. (Aside.) Sure he utters them then by the gross. 110

Step. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure.

E. Know. I’ faith, better than in measure, I’ll undertake.

Mat. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my study; it’s at your service. 116

Step. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold I warrant you; have you a stool there to be melancholy upon?

Mat. That I have, sir, and some papers (120) there of mine own doing, at idle hours, that you’ll say there’s some sparks of wit in ’em, when you see them.

Wel. [Aside.] Would the sparks would kindle once, and become afire amongst ’em! I (125) might see self-love burnt for her heresy.

Step. Cousin, is it well? Am I melancholy enough?

E. Know. Oh ay, excellent.

Wel. Captain Bobadill, why muse you so? 130

E. Know. He is melancholy too.

Bob. Faith, sir, I was thinking of a most honourable piece of service, was perform’d tomorrow, being St. Mark’s day, shall be some ten years now. 135

E. Know. In what place, captain?

Bob. Why, at the beleag’ring of Strigonium,[1215] where, in less than two hours, seven hundred resolute gentlemen, as any were in Europe, lost their lives upon the breach. I’ll tell you, gentlemen, (140) it was the first, but the best leaguer that ever I beheld with these eyes, except the taking in[1216] of—what do you call it?[1217] last year, by the Genoways;[1218] but that, of all other, was the most fatal and dangerous exploit that ever I was (145) rang’d in, since I first bore arms before the face of the enemy, as I am a gentleman and a soldier!

Step. So! I had as lief as an angel I could swear as well as that gentleman. 150

E. Know. Then, you were a servitor at both, it seems; at Strigonium, and what do you call’t?

Bob. O lord, sir! By St. George, I was the first man that ent’red the breach; and had I not effected it with resolution, I had been slain if I had had a million of lives. 156

E. Know. ’T was pity you had not ten; a cat’s and your own, i’ faith. But, was it possible?

Mat. Pray you mark this discourse, sir.

Step. So I do. 160

Bob. I assure you, upon my reputation, ’tis true, and yourself shall confess.

E. Know. [Aside.] You must bring me to the rack, first. 164

Bob. Observe me judicially, sweet sir: they had planted me three demi-culverins[1219] just in the mouth of the breach; now, sir, as we were to give on,[1220] their master-gunner (a man of no mean skill and mark, you must think), confronts (169) me with his linstock,[1221] ready to give fire; I, spying his intendment, discharg’d my petronel[1222] in his bosom, and with these single arms, my poor rapier, ran violently upon the Moors that guarded the ordnance, and put ’em pell-mell to the sword. 175

Wel. To the sword! To the rapier, captain.

E. Know. Oh, it was a good figure observ’d, sir. But did you all this, captain, without hurting your blade?

Bob. Without any impeach o’ the earth: (180) you shall perceive, sir. [Shews his rapier.] It is the most fortunate weapon that ever rid on poor gentleman’s thigh. Shall I tell you, sir? You talk of Morglay, Excalibur, Durindana,[1223] or so; tut! I lend no credit to that is fabled of ’em. (185) I know the virtue of mine own, and therefore I dare the boldlier maintain it.

Step. I marle whether it be a Toledo or no.

Bob. A most perfect Toledo, I assure you, sir. 190

Step. I have a countryman of his here.

Mat. Pray you, let’s see, sir; yes, faith, it is.

Bob. This a Toledo! Pish!

Step. Why do you pish, captain? 194

Bob. A Fleming, by heaven! I’ll buy them for a guilder a-piece, an I would have a thousand of them.

E. Know. How say you, cousin? I told you thus much. 199

Wel. Where bought you it, master Stephen?

Step. Of a scurvy rogue soldier: a hundred of lice go with him! He swore it was a Toledo.

Bob. A poor provant[1224] rapier, no better.

Mat. Mass, I think it be indeed, now I look on’t better. 206

E. Know. Nay, the longer you look on’t, the worse. Put it up, put it up.

Step. Well, I will put it up: but by—I have forgot the captain’s oath, I thought to ha’ sworn by it—an e’er I meet him—— 210

Wel. O, it is past help now, sir; you must have patience.

Step. Whoreson, coney-catching[1225] rascal! I could eat the very hilts for anger. 214

E. Know. A sign of good digestion; you have an ostrich stomach, cousin.

Step. A stomach! Would I had him here, you should see an I had a stomach.[1226]

Wel. It’s better as ’tis.—Come, gentlemen, shall we go? 220

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Act III, Scene II — [1227]

E. KNOWELL, MASTER STEPHEN, WELLBRED, BOBADILL, MASTER MATHEW.

[Enter] BRAINWORM, [disguised as before.]

E. Know. A miracle, cousin; look here, look here!

Step. Oh—God’s lid. By your leave, do you know me, sir?

Brai. Ay, sir, I know you by sight. 5

Step. You sold me a rapier, did you not?

Brai. Yes, marry, did I, sir.

Step. You said it was a Toledo, ha?

Brai. True, I did so.

Step. But it is none. 10

Brai. No, sir, I confess it; it is none.

Step. Do you confess it? Gentlemen, bear witness, he has confest it:—By God’s will, an you had not confest it——

E. Know. Oh, cousin, forbear, forbear! 15

Step. Nay, I have done, cousin.

Wel. Why, you have done like a gentleman; he has confest it, what would you more?

Step. Yet, by his leave, he is a rascal, under his favour, do you see. 20

E. Know. Ay, by his leave, he is, and under favour: a pretty piece of civility! Sirrah, how dost thou like him?

Wel. Oh, it’s a most precious fool, make much on him. I can compare him to nothing (25) more happily than a drum; for every one may play upon him.

E. Know. No, no, a child’s whistle were far the fitter.

Brai. Shall I entreat a word with you? 30

E. Know. With me, sir? You have not another Toledo to sell, ha’ you?

Brai. You are conceited,[1228] sir. Your name is Master Knowell, as I take it?

E. Know. You are i’ the right; you mean (35) not to proceed in the catechism, do you?

Brai. No, sir; I am none of that coat.

E. Know. Of as bare a coat, though. Well, say, sir. 39

Brai. [taking E. KNOW. aside.] Faith, sir, I am but servant to the drum[1229] extraordinary, and indeed, this smoky varnish being washt off, and three or four patches remov’d, I appear your worship’s in reversion, after the decease of your good father,—Brainworm. 45

E. Know. Brainworm! ’Slight, what breath of a conjurer hath blown thee hither in this shape?

Brai. The breath o’ your letter, sir, this morning; the same that blew you to the Windmill, and your father after you. 51

E. Know. My father!

Brai. Nay, never start, ’tis true; he has follow’d you over the fields by the foot, as you would do a hare i’ the snow. 55

E. Know. Sirrah Wellbred, what shall we do, sirrah? My father is come over after me.

Wel. Thy father! Where is he?

Brai. At justice Clement’s house, in Coleman-street, where he but stays my return; and then—— 61

Wel. Who’s this? Brainworm!

Brai. The same, sir.

Wel. Why how, in the name of wit, com’st thou transmuted thus? 65

Brai. Faith, a device, a device; nay, for the love of reason, gentlemen, and avoiding the danger, stand not here; withdraw, and I’ll tell you all. 69

Wel. But art thou sure he will stay thy return?

Brai. Do I live, sir? What a question is that!

Wel. We’ll prorogue his expectation, then, a little: Brainworm, thou shalt go with us.—Come on, gentlemen.—Nay, I pray thee, 75 sweet Ned, droop not; ’heart, an our wits be so wretchedly dull, that one old plodding brain can outstrip us all, would we were e’en prest[1230] to make porters of, and serve out the remnant of our days in Thames-street, or at Customhouse (80) quay, in a civil war against the carmen!

Brai. Amen, amen, amen, say I. [Exeunt.]

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Act III, Scene III — [1231]

[Enter] KITELY and CASH.

Kit. What says he, Thomas? Did you speak with him?

Cash. He will expect you, sir, within this half hour.

Kit. Has he the money ready, can you tell?

Cash. Yes, sir, the money was brought in last night.

Kit. O, that is well; fetch me my cloak, my cloak!—[Exit CASH.] 5 Stay, let me see, an hour to go and come; Ay, that will be the least; and then ’t will be An hour before I can dispatch with him, Or very near; well, I will say two hours. Two hours! ha! things never dreamt of yet, 10 May be contriv’d, ay, and effected too, In two hours’ absence; well, I will not go. Two hours! No, fleering Opportunity, I will not give your subtilty that scope. Who will not judge him worthy to be robb’d, 15 That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shews the felon where his treasure lies? Again, what earthy spirit but will attempt To taste the fruit of beauty’s golden tree, When leaden sleep seals up the dragon’s eyes? I will not go. Business, go by for once. 21 No, beauty, no; you are of too good caract[1232] To be left so, without a guard, or open. Your lustre, too, ’ll inflame at any distance, Draw courtship to you, as a jet doth straws; 25 Put motion in a stone, strike fire from ice, Nay, make a porter leap you with his burden. You must be then kept up, close, and well watch’d, For, give you opportunity, no quick-sand Devours or swallows swifter! He that lends 30 His wife, if she be fair, or time or place, Compels her to be false. I will not go! The dangers are too many:—and then the dressing Is a most main attractive! Our great heads Within this city never were in safety 35 Since our wives wore these little caps. I’ll change ’em; I’ll change ’em straight in mine: mine shall no more Wear three-piled[1233] acorns, to make my horns ache,[1234] Nor will I go; I am resolv’d for that. [Re-enter CASH with a cloak.] Carry in my cloak again. Yet stay. Yet do, too: I will defer going, on all occasions. 41

Cash. Sir, Snare, your scrivener, will be there with th’ bonds.

Kit. That’s true: fool on me! I had clean forgot it; I must go. What’s a clock?

Cash. Exchange-time,[1235] sir.

Kit. ’Heart, then will Wellbred presently be here too, 45 With one or other of his loose consorts. I am a knave if I know what to say, What course to take, or which way to resolve. My brain, methinks, is like an hour-glass, Wherein my imaginations run like sands, 50 Filling up time; but then are turn’d and turn’d: So that I know not what to stay upon, And less, to put in act.—It shall be so. Nay, I dare build upon his secrecy, He knows not to deceive me.—Thomas!

Cash. Sir. 55

Kit. Yet now I have bethought me, too, I will not.— Thomas, is Cob within?

Cash. I think he be, sir.

Kit. But he’ll prate too, there is no speech of him. No, there were no man o’ the earth to[1236] Thomas, If I durst trust him; there is all the doubt. 60 But should he have a chink in him, I were gone. Lost i’ my fame for ever, talk for th’ Exchange! The manner he hath stood with, till this present, Doth promise no such change: what should I fear then? Well, come what will, I’ll tempt my fortune once. 65 Thomas—you may deceive me, but, I hope— Your love to me is more—

Cash. Sir, if a servant’s Duty, with faith, may be call’d love, you are More than in hope, you are possess’d of it.

Kit. I thank you heartily, Thomas: give me your hand: 70 With all my heart, good Thomas. I have, Thomas, A secret to impart unto you—but, When once you have it, I must seal your lips up; So far I tell you, Thomas.

Cash. Sir, for that——

Kit. Nay, hear me out. Think I esteem you, Thomas, 75 When I will let you in thus to my private. It is a thing sits nearer to my crest, Than thou art ’ware of, Thomas; if thou should’st Reveal it, but——

Cash. How, I reveal it?

Kit. Nay, I do not think thou would’st; but if thou should’st, 80 ’Twere a great weakness.

Cash. A great treachery: Give it no other name.

Kit. Thou wilt not do ’t, then?

Cash. Sir, if I do, mankind disclaim me ever!

Kit. He will not swear, he has some reservation, Some conceal’d purpose, and close[1237] meaning sure; 85 Else, being urg’d so much, how should he choose But lend an oath to all this protestation? He’s no precisian,[1238] that I’m certain of, Nor rigid Roman Catholic: he’ll play At fayles,[1239] and tick-tack;[1239] I have heard him swear. 90 What should I think of it? Urge him again, And by some other way? I will do so. Well, Thomas, thou hast sworn not to disclose:— Yes, you did swear?

Cash. Not yet, sir, but I will, Please you——

Kit. No, Thomas, I dare take thy word, But, if thou wilt swear, do as thou think’st good; 96 I am resolv’d[1240] without it; at thy pleasure.

Cash. By my soul’s safety then, sir, I protest, My tongue shall ne’er take knowledge of a word Deliver’d me in nature of your trust. 100

Kit. It is too much; these ceremonies need not; I know thy faith to be as firm as rock. Thomas, come hither, near; we cannot be Too private in this business. So it is,— [Aside.] Now he has sworn, I dare the safelier venture. 105 I have of late, by divers observations—— [Aside.] But whether his oath can bind him, yea, or no, Being not taken lawfully?[1241] Ha! say you? I will ask council ere I do not proceed:— Thomas, it will be now too long to stay, 110 I’ll spy some fitter time soon, or to-morrow.

Cash. Sir, at your pleasure.

Kit. I will think:—and, Thomas, I pray you search the books ’gainst my return, For the receipts ’twixt me and Traps.

Cash. I will, sir.

Kit. And hear you, if your mistress’ brother, Wellbred, 115 Chance to bring hither any gentlemen Ere I come back, let one straight bring me word.

Cash. Very well, sir.

Kit. To the Exchange, do you hear? Or here in Coleman-street, to justice Clement’s. Forget it not, nor be not out of the way. 120

Cash. I will not, sir.

Kit. I pray you have a care on ’t. Or, whether he come or no, if any other, Stranger, or else; fail not to send me word.

Cash. I shall not, sir.

Kit. Be ’t your special business Now to remember it.

Cash. Sir, I warrant you. 125

Kit. But, Thomas, this is not the secret, Thomas, I told you of.

Cash. No, sir; I do suppose it.

Kit. Believe me, it is not.

Cash. Sir, I do believe you.

Kit. By heaven it is not, that’s enough. But, Thomas, I would not you should utter it, do you see, 130 To any creature living; yet I care not. Well, I must hence. Thomas, conceive thus much; It was a trial of you, when I meant So deep a secret to you; I mean not this, 134 But that I have to tell you; this is nothing, this. But, Thomas, keep this from my wife, I charge you. Lock’d up in silence, midnight, buried here.— No greater hell than to be slave to fear. [Exit.]

Cash. Lock’d up in silence, midnight, buried here! Whence should this flood of passion, trow, take head? ha! 140 Best dream no longer of this running humour, For fear I sink; the violence of the stream Already hath transported me so far, That I can feel no ground at all. But soft— Oh, ’tis our water-bearer: somewhat has crost him now. 145

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Act III, Scene IV — [1242]

CASH. [Enter] COB, [hastily].

Cob. Fasting-days! what tell you me of fasting-days? ’Slid, would they were all on a light fire for me! They say the whole world shall be consum’d with fire one day, but would I had these Ember-weeks and villanous Fridays (5) burnt in the mean time, and then——

Cash. Why, how now, Cob? What moves thee to this choler, ha?

Cob. Collar, master Thomas! I scorn your collar, I, sir; I am none o’ your cart-horse, (10) though I carry and draw water. An you offer to ride me with your collar or halter either, I may hap shew you a jade’s trick, sir.

Cash. O, you’ll slip your head out of the collar? Why, goodman Cob, you mistake me. 15

Cob. Nay, I have my rheum, and I can be angry as well as another, sir.

Cash. Thy rheum, Cob! Thy humour, thy humour—thou mistak’st.[1243]

Cob. Humour! mack,[1244] I think it be so indeed. (20) What is that humour? Some rare thing, I warrant.

Cash. Marry I’ll tell thee, Cob: it is a gentleman-like monster, bred in the special gallantry of our time, by affectation, and fed by folly. 25

Cob. How! must it be fed?

Cash. Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed; didst thou never hear that? It’s a common phrase, Feed my humour.

Cob. I’ll none on it: humour, avaunt! I know you not, be gone! Let who will make hungry (31) meals for your monstership, it shall not be I. Feed you, quoth he! ’Slid. I ha’ much ado to feed myself; especially on these lean rascally days too; an’t had been any other day but a (35) fasting-day—a plague on them all for me! By this light, one might have done the commonwealth good service, and have drown’d them all i’ the flood, two or three hundred thousand years ago. O, I do stomach[1245] them hugely. I (40) have a maw[1246] now, and ’twere for sir Bevis his horse, against ’em.

Cash. I pray thee, good Cob, what makes thee so out of love with fasting days?

Cob. Marry, that which will make any man (45) out of love with ’em, I think; their bad conditions, an you will needs know. First, they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on’t, for they raven up more butter than all the days of the week beside; next, they stink of fish and leek-porridge miserably; thirdly, they’ll keep a man devoutly 51 hungry all day, and at night send him supperless to bed.

Cash. Indeed, these are faults, Cob. 54

Cob. Nay, an this were all, ’twere something; but they are the only known enemies to my generation. A fasting-day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to wrack; poor cobs! they smoke for it, they are made martyrs o’ the gridiron, they melt in passion: and your maids 60 too know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal,[1247] and eat my own flesh and blood. My princely coz (Pulls out a red herring), fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as king Cophetua. O that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt-water (66) enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand of my kin! But I may curse none but these filthy almanacs; for an ’twere not for them, these days of persecution would never (70) be known. I’ll be hang’d an some fishmonger’s son do not make of ’em, and puts in more fasting-days than he should do, because he would utter[1248] his father’s dried stock-fish and stinking conger. 75

Cash. ’Slight, peace! Thou’lt be beaten like a stock-fish else. Here is master Mathew. Now must I look out for a messenger to my master. [Exeunt.]

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Act III, Scene V — [1249]

[Enter] WELLBRED, E. KNOWELL, BRAINWORM, MATHEW, BOBADILL, and STEPHEN.

Wel. Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried!

E. Know. Ay, and our ignorance maintain’d it as well, did it not?

Wel. Yes, faith; but was it possible thou (5) shouldst not know him? I forgive master Stephen, for he is stupidity itself.

E. Know. ’Fore God, not I, an I might have been join’d patten[1250] with one of the seven wise masters for knowing him. He had so writhen[1251] himself into the habit of one of your poor 11 infantry, your decay’d, ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round;[1252] such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your provost and his half-dozen of halberdiers do what (15) they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney-pace to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling.[1253] Into the likeness of one of these reformados[1254] had he moulded himself so perfectly, (20) observing every trick of their action, as, varying the accent, swearing with an emphasis, indeed, all with so special and exquisite a grace, that, hadst thou seen him, thou wouldst have sworn he might have been sergeant-major,[1255] if not lieutenant-colonel to the regiment. 26

Wel. Why, Brainworm, who would have thought thou hadst been such an artificer?

E. Know. An artificer! an architect. Except a man had studied begging all his life time, (30) and been a weaver of language from his infancy for the clothing of it, I never saw his rival.

Wel. Where got’st thou this coat, I marle?[1256]

Brai. Of a Houndsditch man, sir, one of the devil’s near kinsmen, a broker. 35

Wel. That cannot be, if the proverb hold; for A crafty knave needs no broker.

Brai. True, sir; but I did need a broker, ergo——

Wel. Well put off:—no crafty knave, you’ll say. 41

E. Know. Tut, he has more of these shifts.

Brai. And yet, where I have one the broker has ten,[1257] sir.

[Re-enter CASH.]

Cash. Francis! Martin! Ne’er a one to be found now? What a spite’s this! 46

Wel. How now, Thomas? Is my brother Kitely within?

Cash. No, sir, my master went forth e’en now; but master Downright is within.—Cob! what, Cob! Is he gone too? 51

Wel. Whither went your master, Thomas, canst thou tell?

Cash. I know not: to justice Clement’s, I think, sir.—Cob!

E. Know. Justice Clement! what’s he? 55

Wel. Why, dost thou not know him? He is a city-magistrate, a justice here, an excellent good lawyer, and a great scholar; but the only mad, merry old fellow in Europe. I show’d him you the other day. 61

E. Know. Oh, is that he? I remember him now. Good faith, and he is a very strange presence methinks; it shows as if he stood out of the rank from other men: I have heard many (65) of his jests i’ the University. They say he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse.

Wel. Ay, or wearing his cloak on one shoulder, or serving of God; any thing indeed, if it come in the way of his humour. 70 CASH goes in and out calling.

Cash. Gasper! Martin! Cob! ’Heart, where should they be, trow?

Bob. Master Kitely’s man, pray thee vouchsafe us the lighting of this match. 74

Cash. Fire on your match! No time but now to vouchsafe?—Francis! Cob! [Exit.]

Bob. Body o’ me! here’s the remainder of seven pound since yesterday was seven-night. ’Tis your right Trinidado:[1258] did you never take any, master Stephen? 80

Step. No, truly, sir; but I’ll learn to take it now, since you commend it so.

Bob. Sir, believe me upon my relation, for what I tell you, the world shall not reprove. I have been in the Indies, where this herb grows, where neither myself, nor a dozen gentlemen (86) more of my knowledge, have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one-and-twenty weeks, but the fume of this simple[1259] only; therefore it cannot be but ’tis most divine. Further, take it in the nature, (91) in the true kind; so, it makes an antidote, that, had you taken the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy, it should expel it, and clarify you, with as much ease as I speak. And for (95) your green wound,—your Balsamum and your St. John’s wort, are all mere gulleries and trash to it, especially your Trinidado: your Nicotian[1260] is good too. I could say what I know of the virtue of it, for the expulsion of rheums, (100) raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quacksalver. Only thus much; by Hercules, I do hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious (105) weed that ever the earth tend’red to the use of man.

E. Know. This speech would ha’ done decently in a tobacco-trader’s mouth.

[Re-enter CASH with COB.]

Cash. At justice Clement’s he is, in the (110) middle of Coleman-street.

Cob. Oh, oh!

Bob. Where’s the match I gave thee, master Kitely’s man? 114

Cash. Would his match and he, and pipe and all, were at Sancto Domingo! I had forgot it. [Exit.]

Cob. By God’s me, I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco. It’s good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers. (120) There were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them, they say, will ne’er scape it; he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By (125) the stocks, an there were no wiser men than I, I’d have it present whipping, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco pipe. Why, it will stifle them all in the end, as many as use it; it’s little better than ratsbane or rosaker.[1261] 130

BOBADILL beats him with a cudgel.

All. Oh, good captain, hold, hold!

Bob. You base cullion, you!

Re-enter CASH.

Cash. Sir, here ’s your match.—Come, thou must needs be talking too, thou’rt well enough serv’d. 135

Cob. Nay, he will not meddle with his match, I warrant you. Well, it shall be a dear beating, an I live.

Bob. Do you prate, do you murmur? 139

E. Know. Nay, good captain, will you regard the humour of a fool? Away, knave.

Wel. Thomas, get him away. [Exit CASH with COB.]

Bob. A whoreson filthy slave, a dung-worm, an excrement! Body o’ Caesar, but that I scorn to let forth so mean a spirit, I’d have stabb’d him to the earth. 146

Wel. Marry, the law forbid, sir!

Bob. By Pharaoh’s foot, I would have done it.

Step. Oh, he swears most admirably! By Pharaoh’s foot! Body o’ Caesar!—I shall (150) never do it, sure. Upon mine honour, and by St. George!—No, I have not the right grace.

Mat. Master Stephen, will you any? By this air, the most divine tobacco that ever I drunk.[1262] 154

Step. None, I thank you, sir. O, this gentleman does it rarely too: but nothing like the other. By this air! As I am a gentleman! By—— [Exeunt BOB. and MAT.]

Brai. Master, glance, glance! master Wellbred! STEPHEN is practising to the post. 160

Step. As I have somewhat to be saved, I protest—

Wel. You are a fool; it needs no affidavit.

E. Know. Cousin, will you any tobacco?

Step. I, sir! Upon my reputation——

E. Know. How now, cousin! 165

Step. I protest, as I am a gentleman, but no soldier, indeed——

Wel. No, master Stephen! As I remember, your name is ent’red in the artillery-garden. 169

Step. Ay, sir, that’s true. Cousin, may I swear “as I am a soldier” by that?

E. Know. O yes, that you may; it is all you have for your money.

Step. Then, as I am a gentleman and a soldier, it is “divine tobacco!” 175

Wel. But soft, where’s master Mathew? Gone?

Brai. No, sir; they went in here.

Wel. O let’s follow them. Master Mathew is gone to salute his mistress in verse; we shall ha’ the happiness to hear some of his poetry (180) now; he never comes unfurnish’d.—Brainworm!

Step. Brainworm! Where? Is this Brainworm?

E. Know. Ay, cousin; no words of it, upon your gentility. 185

Step. Not I, body o’ me! By this air! St. George! and the foot of Pharaoh!

Wel. Rare! Your cousin’s discourse is simply drawn out with oaths.

E. Know. ’Tis larded with ’em; a kind of French dressing, if you love it. [Exeunt.]

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Act III, Scene VI — [1263]

[Enter] KITELY, COB.

Kit. Ha! how many are there, sayest thou?

Cob. Marry, sir, your brother, master Wellbred——

Kit. Tut, beside him: what strangers are there, man?

Cob. Strangers? let me see, one, two; mass, I know not well, there are so many. 5

Kit. How! so many?

Cob. Ay, there’s some five or six of them at the most.

Kit. [Aside.] A swarm, a swarm! Spite of the devil, how they sting my head With forked stings, thus wide and large!—But, Cob, 10 How long hast thou been coming hither, Cob?

Cob. A little while, sir.

Kit. Didst thou come running?

Cob. No, sir.

Kit. [Aside.] Nay, then I am familiar with thy haste. 15 Bane to my fortunes! what meant I to marry? I, that before was rankt in such content, My mind at rest too, in so soft a peace, Being free master of mine own free thoughts, 19 And now become a slave? What! never sigh, Be of good cheer, man; for thou art a cuckold: ’Tis done, ’tis done! Nay, when such flowing-store, Plenty itself, falls in [to] my wife’s lap, The cornucopiae will be mine, I know.— But, Cob, 25 What entertainment had they? I am sure My sister and my wife would bid them welcome: ha?

Cob. Like enough, sir; yet I heard not a word of it.

Kit. No;— [Aside.] Their lips were seal’d with kisses, and the voice, 30 Drown’d in a flood of joy at their arrival, Had lost her motion, state, and faculty.— Cob, which of them was’t that first kist my wife, My sister, I should say? My wife, alas! I fear not her; ha! who was it say’st thou?

Cob. By my troth, sir, will you have the truth of it?

Kit. Oh, ay, good Cob, I pray thee heartily.

Cob. Then I am a vagabond, and fitter for Bridewell than your worship’s company, if I saw any body to be kist, unless they would (40) have kist the post[1264] in the middle of the ware-house; for there I left them all at their tobacco, with a pox!

Kit. How! were they not gone in then ere thou cam’st!

Cob. O no, sir. 45

Kit. Spite of the devil! what do I stay here then? Cob, follow me. [Exit.]

Cob. Nay, soft and fair; I have eggs on the spit;[1265] I cannot go yet, sir. Now am I, for some five and fifty reasons, hammering, hammering (50) revenge: oh for three or four gallons of vinegar, to sharpen my wits! Revenge, vinegar revenge, vinegar and mustard revenge! Nay, an he had not lien in my house, ’twould never have griev’d me; but being my guest, one that, (55) I’ll be sworn, my wife has lent him her smock off her back, while his own shirt has been at washing; pawn’d her neckerchers for clean bands for him; sold almost all my platters, to buy him tobacco; and he to turn monster of (60) ingratitude, and strike his lawful host! Well, I hope to raise up an host of fury for’t: here comes justice Clement.

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Act III, Scene VII — [1266]

COB. [Enter] JUSTICE CLEMENT, KNOWELL, FORMAL.

Clem. What’s master Kitely gone, Roger?

Form. Ay, sir.

Clem. ’Heart o’ me! what made him leave us so abruptly?—How now, sirrah! what make you here? What would you have, ha? 5

Cob. An’t please your worship, I am a poor neighbour of your worship’s——

Clem. A poor neighbour of mine! Why, speak, poor neighbour.

Cob. I dwell, sir, at the sign of the Water-tankard, (10) hard by the Green Lattice:[1267] I have paid scot and lot[1268] there any time this eighteen years.

Clem. To the Green Lattice?

Cob. No, sir, to the parish. Marry, I have (15) seldom scapt scot-free at the Lattice.

Clem. O, well; what business has my poor neighbour with me?

Cob. An’t like your worship, I am come to crave the peace of your worship. 20

Clem. Of me, knave! Peace of me, knave! Did I ever hurt thee, or threaten thee, or wrong thee, ha?

Cob. No, sir; but your worship’s warrant for one that has wrong’d me, sir. His arms are at (25) too much liberty, I would fain have them bound to a treaty of peace, an my credit could compass it, with your worship.

Clem. Thou goest far enough about for’t, I am sure. 30

Know. Why, dost thou go in danger of thy life for him, friend?

Cob. No, sir; but I go in danger of my death every hour, by his means; an I die within a twelve-month and a day,[1269] I may swear by the law of the land that he kill’d me. 36

Clem. How, how, knave, swear he kill’d thee, and by the law? What pretence, what colour, hast thou for that?

Cob. Marry, an’t please your worship, both black and blue; colour enough, I warrant you. (41) I have it here to shew your worship. [Shows his bruises.]

Clem. What is he that gave you this, sirrah?

Cob. A gentleman and a soldier, he says he is, of the city here. 45

Clem. A soldier o’ the city! What call you him?

Cob. Captain Bobadill.

Clem. Bobadill! and why did he bob[1270] and beat you, sirrah? How began the quarrel betwixt you, ha? Speak truly, knave, I advise you. 50

Cob. Marry, indeed, an’t please your worship, only because I spake against their vagrant tobacco, as I came by ’em when they were taking on’t; for nothing else.

Clem. Ha! you speak against tobacco? Formal, his name. 55

Form. What’s your name, sirrah?

Cob. Oliver, sir, Oliver Cob, sir.

Clem. Tell Oliver Cob he shall go to the jail, Formal. 60

Form. Oliver Cob, my master, justice Clement, says you shall go to the jail.

Cob. O, I beseech your worship, for God’s sake, dear master justice! 64

Clem. God’s precious! an such drunkards and tankards as you are, come to dispute of tobacco once, I have done. Away with him!

Cob. O, good master justice!—Sweet old gentleman! [To KNOWELL.]

Know. “Sweet Oliver,” would I could do (70) thee any good!—Justice Clement, let me intreat you, sir.

Clem. What! a thread-bare rascal, a beggar, a slave that never drunk out of better than piss-pot metal[1271] in his life! and he to deprave and (75) abuse the virtue of an herb so generally receiv’d in the courts of princes, the chambers of nobles, the bowers of sweet ladies, the cabins of soldiers!—Roger, away with him? By God’s precious—I say, go to. 80

Cob. Dear master justice, let me be beaten again, I have deserv’d it: but not the prison, I beseech you.

Know. Alas, poor Oliver!

Clem. Roger, make him a warrant:—he shall not go, I but fear[1272] the knave. 85

Form. Do not stink, sweet Oliver, you shall not go; my master will give you a warrant.

Cob. O, the Lord maintain his worship, his worthy worship! 90

Clem. Away, dispatch him. [Exeunt FORMAL and COB.] —How now, master Knowell, in dumps, in dumps! Come, this becomes not.

Know. Sir, would I could not feel my cares.

Clem. Your cares are nothing: they are (95) like my cap, soon put on, and as soon put off. What! your son is old enough to govern himself; let him run his course, it’s the only way to make him a staid man. If he were an unthrift, a ruffian, a drunkard, or a licentious liver, (100) then you had reason; you had reason to take care: but, being none of these, mirth’s my witness, an I had twice so many cares as you have, I’d drown them all in a cup of sack. Come, come, let’s try it: I muse[1273] your parcel of a (105) soldier returns not all this while. Exeunt.

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Act IV, Scene I — [1274]

[Enter] DOWNRIGHT and DAME KITELY.

Dow. Well, sister, I tell you true; and you’ll find it so in the end.

Dame K. Alas, brother, what would you have me to do? I cannot help it; you see my brother brings ’em in here; they are his friends. 5

Dow. His friends! his fiends! ’Slud! they do nothing but haunt him up and down like a sort of unlucky spirits, and tempt him to all manner of villainy that can be thought of. Well, by this light, a little thing would make me play (10) the devil with some of ’em: an ’twere not more for your husband’s sake than anything else, I’d make the house too hot for the best on ’em; they should say, and swear, hell were broken loose, ere they went hence. But, by God’s will, ’tis nobody’s fault but yours; for an you had (16) done as you might have done, they should have been parboil’d, and bak’d too, every mother’s son, ere they should ha’ come in, e’er a one of ’em. 20

Dame K. God’s my life! did you ever hear the like? What a strange man is this! Could I keep out all them, think you? I should put myself against half a dozen men, should I? Good faith, you’d mad the patient’st body in the (25) world, to hear you talk so, without any sense or reason.

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Act IV, Scene II — [1275]

DOWNRIGHT, DAME KITELY. [Enter] MISTRESS BRIDGET, MASTER MATHEW, and BOBADILL; [followed, at a distance, by] WELLBRED, E. KNOWELL, STEPHEN, and BRAINWORM.

Brid. Servant,[1276] in troth you are too prodigal Of your wit’s treasure, thus to pour it forth Upon so mean a subject as my worth.

Mat. You say well, mistress, and I mean as well.

Dow. Hoy-day, here is stuff! 5

Wel. O, now stand close;[1277] pray Heaven, she can get him to read! He should do it of his own natural impudency.

Brid. Servant, what is this same, I pray you?

Mat. Marry, an elegy, an elegy, an odd toy——

Dow. To mock an ape withal![1278] O, I could (11) sew up his mouth, now.

Dame K. Sister, I pray you let’s hear it.

Dow. Are you rhyme-given too?

Mat. Mistress, I’ll read it, if you please. 15

Brid. Pray you do, servant.

Dow. O, here’s no foppery! Death! I can endure the stocks better. [Exit.]

E. Know. What ails thy brother? Can he not hold his water at reading of a ballad? 20

Wel. O, no; a rhyme to him is worse than cheese, or a bag-pipe; but mark; you lose the protestation.

Mat. Faith, I did it in a humour; I know not how it is; but please you come near, sir. This (25) gentleman has judgment, he knows how to censure of a——pray you, sir, you can judge?

Step. Not I, sir; upon my reputation, and by the foot of Pharaoh!

Wel. O, chide your cousin for swearing. 30

E. Know. Not I, so long as he does not forswear himself.

Bob. Master Mathew, you abuse the expectation of your dear mistress, and her fair sister. Fie! while you live, avoid this prolixity. 35

Mat. I shall, sir, well; incipere dulce.[1279]

E. Know. How, insipere dulce! “a sweet thing to be a fool,” indeed!

Wel. What, do you take incipere in that sense? 40

E. Know. You do not, you! This was your villainy, to gull him with a mot.

Wel. O, the benchers’[1280] phrase: pauca verba, pauca verba!

Mat. [Reads.] _Rare creature, let me speak without offence, 45 Would God my rude words had the influence To rule thy thoughts, as thy fair looks do mine, Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine._

E. Know. This is “Hero and Leander.” 49

Wel. O, ay: peace, we shall have more of this.

Mat. _Be not unkind and fair: misshapen stuff Is of behaviour boisterous and rough._

Wel. How like you that, sir? MASTER STEPHEN answers with shaking his head.

E. Know. ’Slight, he shakes his head like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it. 55

Mat. But observe the catastrophe, now: _And I in duty will exceed all other, As you in beauty do excel Love’s mother._

E. Know. Well, I’ll have him free of the wit-brokers, for he utters nothing but stol’n remnants. 61

Wel. O, forgive it him.

E. Know. A filching[1281] rogue, hang him!—and from the dead! It’s worse than sacrilege. 64 [WELLBRED, E. KNOWELL, and MASTER STEPHEN come forward.]

Wel. Sister, what ha’ you here? Verses? Pray you, let’s see. Who made these verses? They are excellent good.

Mat. O, Master Wellbred, ’tis your disposition to say so, sir. They were good i’ the morning: I made them ex tempore this morning.

Wel. How! ex tempore? 71

Mat. Ay, would I might be hang’d else; ask Captain Bobadill; he saw me write them, at the——pox on it!—the Star, yonder.

Brai. Can he find in his heart to curse the stars so? 76

E. Know. Faith, his are even with him; they ha’ curst him enough already.

Step. Cousin, how do you like this gentleman’s verses? 80

E. Know. O, admirable! the best that ever I heard, coz.

Step. Body o’ Caesar, they are admirable! the best that I ever heard, as I am a soldier! 84

[Re-enter DOWNRIGHT.]

Dow. I am vext, I can hold ne’er a bone of me still. ’Heart, I think they mean to build and breed here.

Wel. Sister, you have a simple servant here, that crowns your beauty with such encomiums (89) and devices; you may see what it is to be the mistress of a wit that can make your perfections so transparent, that every blear eye may look through them, and see him drown’d over head and ears in the deep well of desire. Sister Kitely, I marvel you get you not a servant that can rhyme, and do tricks too. 96

Dow. O monster! impudence itself! tricks!

Dame K. Tricks, brother! what tricks?

Brid. Nay, speak, I pray you, what tricks?

Dame K. Ay, never spare any body here; (100) but say, what tricks?

Brid. Passion of my heart, do tricks!

Wel. ’Slight, here ’s a trick vied and revied![1282] Why, you monkeys, you, what a cater-wauling do you keep! Has he not given you rhymes and verses and tricks? 106

Dow. O, the fiend!

Wel. Nay, you lamp of virginity, that take it in snuff[1283] so, come, and cherish this tame poetical fury in your servant; you’ll be begg’d (110) else shortly for a concealment:[1284] go to, reward his muse. You cannot give him less than a shilling in conscience, for the book he had it out of cost him a teston[1285] at least. How now, gallants! (114) Master Mathew! Captain! what, all sons of silence? No spirit?

Dow. Come, you might practise your ruffian tricks somewhere else, and not here, I wuss;[1286] this is no tavern nor drinking-school, to vent your exploits in. 120

Wel. How now; whose cow has calv’d?

Dow. Marry, that has mine, sir. Nay, boy, never look askance at me for the matter; I ’ll tell you of it, I, sir; you and your companions mend yourselves when I ha’ done. 125

Wel. My companions!

Dow. Yes, sir, your companions, so I say; I am not afraid of you, nor them neither; your hangbyes here. You must have your poets and your potlings,[1287] your soldados and foolados to (130) follow you up and down the city; and here they must come to domineer and swagger.—Sirrah, you ballad-singer, and Slops[1288] your fellow there, get you out, get you home; or by this steel, I ’ll cut off your ears, and that presently. 135

Wel. ’Slight, stay, let ’s see what he dare do; cut off his ears! cut a whetstone. You are an ass, do you see? Touch any man here, and by this hand I ’ll run my rapier to the hilts in you. 140

Dow. Yea, that would I fain see, boy. They all draw, and they of the house make out to part them.

Dame K. O Jesu! murder! Thomas! Gasper!

Brid. Help, help! Thomas!

E. Know. Gentlemen, forbear, I pray you. 144

Bob. Well, sirrah, you Holofernes; by my hand, I will pink your flesh full of holes with my rapier for this; I will, by this good heaven! Nay, let him come, let him come, gentlemen; by the body of St. George, I ’ll not kill him. Offer to fight again, and are parted.

Cash. Hold, hold, good gentlemen. 150

Dow. You whoreson, bragging coystril![1289]

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Act IV, Scene III — [1290]

To them [enter] KITELY.

Kit. Why, how now! what’s the matter, what’s the stir here? Whence springs the quarrel? Thomas! where is he? Put up your weapons, and put off this rage. My wife and sister, they are the cause of this. What, Thomas! where is the knave? 5

Cash. Here, sir.

Wel. Come, let’s go; this is one of my brother’s ancient humours, this.

Step. I am glad nobody was hurt by his ancient humour. 10 [Exeunt WELLBRED, STEPHEN, E. KNOWELL, BOBADILL, and BRAINWORM.]

Kit. Why, how now, brother, who enforc’d this brawl?

Dow. A sort[1291] of lewd rake-hells, that care neither for God nor the devil. And they must come here to read ballads, and roguery, and (15) trash! I ’ll mar the knot of ’em ere I sleep, perhaps; especially Bob there, he that ’s all manner of shapes: and Songs and Sonnets, his fellow.

Brid. Brother, indeed you are too violent, Too sudden in your humour: and you know 20 My brother Wellbred’s temper will not bear Any reproof, chiefly in such a presence, Where every slight disgrace he should receive Might wound him in opinion and respect. 24

Dow. Respect! what talk you of respect among such as ha’ nor spark of manhood nor good manners? ’Sdeins, I am asham’d to hear you! respect! [Exit.]

Brid. Yes, there was one a civil gentleman, And very worthily demean’d himself. 30

Kit. O, that was some love of yours, sister.

Brid. A love of mine! I would it were no worse, brother; You ’d pay my portion sooner than you think for.

Dame K. Indeed he seem’d to be a gentleman (34) of a very exceeding fair disposition, and of excellent good parts. [Exeunt DAME KITELY and BRIDGET.]

Kit. Her love, by heaven! my wife’s minion. Fair disposition! excellent good parts! Death! these phrases are intolerable. Good parts! how should she know his parts? 40 His parts! Well, well, well, well, well, well; It is too plain, too clear: Thomas, come hither. What, are they gone?

Cash. Ay, sir, they went in. My mistress and your sister——

Kit. Are any of the gallants within? 45

Cash. No, sir, they are all gone.

Kit. Art thou sure of it?

Cash. I can assure you, sir.

Kit. What gentleman was that they prais’d so, Thomas?

Cash. One, they call him Master Knowell, (50) a handsome young gentleman, sir.

Kit. Ay, I thought so; my mind gave me as much. I’ll die, but they have hid him i’ the house Somewhere; I’ll go and search; go with me, Thomas: 54 Be true to me, and thou shalt find me a master. [Exeunt.]

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Act IV, Scene IV — [1292]

[Enter] COB.

Cob. [knocks at the door.] What, Tib! Tib, I say!

Tib. [within.] How now, what cuckold is that knocks so hard? Enter TIB. O, husband! is it you? What’s the news? 5

Cob. Nay, you have stunn’d me, i’ faith; you ha’ giv’n me a knock o’ the forehead will stick by me. Cuckold! ’Slid, cuckold!

Tib. Away, you fool! did I know it was you that knockt? Come, come, you may call me as bad when you list. 11

Cob. May I? Tib, you are a whore.

Tib. You lie in your throat, husband.

Cob. How, the lie! and in my throat too! do you long to be stabb’d, ha? 15

Tib. Why, you are no soldier, I hope.

Cob. O, must you be stabb’d by a soldier? Mass, that’s true! When was Bobadill here, your captain? that rogue, that foist,[1293] that fencing Burgullion?[1294] I’ll tickle him, i’ faith.

Tib. Why, what’s the matter, trow? 21

Cob. O, he has basted me rarely, sumptuously! but I have it here in black and white [Pulls out the warrant], for his black and blue shall pay him. O, the justice, the honestest old brave (25) Trojan in London; I do honour the very flea of his dog. A plague on him, though, he put me once in a villanous filthy fear; marry, it vanished away like the smoke of tobacco; but I was smokt[1295] soundly first. I thank the devil, (30) and his good angel, my guest. Well, wife, or Tib, which you will, get you in, and lock the door; I charge you let nobody in to you, wife; nobody in to you; those are my words: not Captain Bob himself, nor the fiend in his (35) likeness. You are a woman, you have flesh and blood enough in you to be tempted; therefore keep the door shut upon all comers.

Tib. I warrant you, there shall nobody enter here without my consent. 40

Cob. Nor with your consent, sweet Tib; and so I leave you.

Tib. It’s more than you know, whether you leave me so.

Cob. How? 45

Tib. Why, sweet.

Cob. Tut, sweet or sour, thou art a flower. Keep close thy door, I ask no more. [Exeunt.]

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Act IV, Scene V — [1296]

[Enter] E. KNOWELL, WELLBRED, STEPHEN, and BRAINWORM, [disguised as before.]

E. Know. Well, Brainworm, perform this business happily, and thou makest a purchase of my love for ever.

Wel. I’ faith, now let thy spirits use their best faculties: but, at any hand, remember (5) the message to my brother; for there’s no other means to start him.

Brai. I warrant you, sir; fear nothing; I have a nimble soul has wakt all forces of my phant’sie by this time, and put ’em in true (10) motion. What you have possest[1297] me withal, I’ll discharge it amply, sir; make it no question. [Exit.]

Wel. Forth, and prosper, Brainworm. Faith, Ned, how dost thou approve of my abilities in this device? 16

E. Know. Troth, well, howsoever; but it will come excellent if it take.

Wel. Take, man! why it cannot choose but take, if the circumstances miscarry not: (20) but, tell me ingenuously, dost thou affect my sister Bridget as thou pretend’st?

E. Know. Friend, am I worth belief?

Wel. Come, do not protest. In faith, she is a maid of good ornament, and much modesty; (25) and, except I conceiv’d very worthily of her, thou should’st not have her.

E. Know. Nay, that, I am afraid, will be a question yet, whether I shall have her, or no.

Wel. ’Slid, thou shalt have her; by this light thou shalt. 31

E. Know. Nay, do not swear.

Wel. By this hand thou shalt have her; I’ll go fetch her presently. ’Point but where to meet, and as I am an honest man I’ll bring her.

E. Know. Hold, hold, be temperate. 36

Wel. Why, by——what shall I swear by? Thou shalt have her, as I am——

E. Know. Pray thee, be at peace, I am satisfied; and do believe thou wilt omit no (40) offered occasion to make my desires complete.

Well. Thou shalt see, and know, I will not. [Exeunt.]

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Act IV, Scene VI — [1298]

[Enter] FORMAL and KNOWELL.

Form. Was your man a soldier, sir?

Know. Ay, a knave; I took him begging o’ the way, this morning, As I came over Moorfields. [Enter BRAINWORM, disguised as before.] O, here he is!—you’ve made fair speed, believe me, Where, i’ the name of sloth, could you be thus? 5

Brai. Marry, peace be my comfort, where I thought I should have had little comfort of your worship’s service.

Know. How so? 9

Brai. O, sir, your coming to the city, your entertainment of me, and your sending me to watch——indeed all the circumstances either of your charge, or my employment, are as open to your son, as to yourself.

Know. How should that be, unless that villain, Brainworm, 15 Have told him of the letter, and discovered All that I strictly charg’d him to conceal? ’Tis so.

Brai. I am partly o’ the faith, ’tis so, indeed.

Know. But, how should he know thee to be my man? 20

Brai. Nay, sir, I cannot tell; unless it be by the black art. Is not your son a scholar, sir?

Know. Yes, but I hope his soul is not allied Unto such hellish practice: if it were, I had just cause to weep my part in him, 25 And curse the time of his creation. But, where didst thou find them, Fitz-Sword?

Brai. You should rather ask where they found me, sir; for I’ll be sworn, I was going along in the street, thinking nothing, when, (30) of a sudden, a voice calls, “Mr. Knowell’s man!” another cries, “Soldier!” and thus half a dozen of ’em, till they had call’d me within a house, where I no sooner came, but they seem’d men, and out flew all their (35) rapiers at my bosom, with some three or four score oaths to accompany them; and all to tell me, I was but a dead man, if I did not confess where you were, and how I was employed, and about what; which when they could not get (40) out of me (as, I protest, they must ha’ dissected, and made an anatomy[1299] o’ me first, and so I told ’em), they lock’d me up into a room i’ the top of a high house, whence by great miracle (having a light heart) I slid down by a (45) bottom[1300] of packthread into the street, and so scapt. But, sir, thus much I can assure you, for I heard it while I was lockt up, there were a great many rich merchants and brave citizens’ wives with ’em at a feast; and your son, (50) master Edward, withdrew with one of ’em, and has ’pointed to meet her anon at one Cob’s house, a water-bearer that dwells by the Wall. Now, there your worship shall be sure to take him, for there he preys, and fail he will not. 56

Know. Nor will I fail to break his match, I doubt not. Go thou along with justice Clement’s man, And stay there for me. At one Cob’s house, say’st thou? 59

Brai. Ay, sir, there you shall have him. [Exit KNOWELL.] Yes—invisible! Much wench, or much son! ’Slight, when he has staid there three or four hours, travailing with the expectation of wonders, and at length be deliver’d of air! O the sport that I should then (65) take to look on him, if I durst! But now, I mean to appear no more afore him in this shape: I have another trick to act yet. O that I were so happy as to light on a nupson[1301] now of this justice’s novice!—Sir, I make you stay somewhat long. 71

Form. Not a whit, sir. Pray you what do you mean, sir?

Bra. I was putting up some papers.

Form. You ha’ been lately in the wars, sir, it seems. 76

Brai. Marry have I, sir, to my loss, and expense of all, almost.

Form. Troth, sir, I would be glad to bestow a bottle of wine o’ you, if it please you to accept it—— 81

Brai. O, sir——

Form. But to hear the manner of your services, and your devices in the wars. They say they be very strange, and not like those (86) a man reads in the Roman histories, or sees at Mile-end.[1302]

Brai. No, I assure you, sir; why at any time when it please you, I shall be ready to discourse to you all I know; [Aside.]—and more too somewhat. 91

Form. No better time than now, sir; we’ll go to the Windmill; there we shall have a cup of neat grist,[1303] we call it. I pray you, sir, let me request you to the Windmill.

Brai. I’ll follow you, sir; [Aside.]—and make grist o’ you, if I have good luck. [Exeunt.] 95

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Act IV, Scene VII — [1304]

[Enter] MATHEW, E. KNOWELL, BOBADILL, STEPHEN.

Mat. Sir, did your eyes ever taste the like clown of him where we were to-day, Mr. Wellbred’s half-brother? I think the whole earth cannot shew his parallel, by this daylight.

E. Know. We were now speaking of him; (5) captain Bobadill tells me he is fall’n foul o’ you too.

Mat. O, ay, sir, he threat’ned me with the bastinado.

Bob. Ay, but I think, I taught you prevention (10) this morning, for that. You shall kill him beyond question, if you be so generously minded.

Mat. Indeed, it is a most excellent trick. [Fences.]

Bob. O, you do not give spirit enough to (15) your motion; you are too tardy, too heavy! O, it must be done like lightning, hay! Practises at a post.

Mat. Rare, captain!

Bob. Tut! ’tis nothing, an’t be not done in a——punto.[1305] 20

E. Know. Captain, did you ever prove yourself upon any of our masters of defence here?

Mat. O good sir! yes, I hope he has.

Bob. I will tell you, sir. Upon my first coming to the city, after my long travel for knowledge (25) in that mystery only, there came three or four of ’em to me, at a gentleman’s house, where it was my chance to be resident at that time, to intreat my presence at their schools: and withal so much importun’d me that, (30) I protest to you as I am a gentleman, I was asham’d of their rude demeanour out of all measure. Well, I told ’em that to come to a public school, they should pardon me, it was opposite, in diameter, to my humour; but if (35) so be they would give their attendance at my lodging, I protested to do them what right or favour I could, as I was a gentleman, and so forth.

E. Know. So, sir! then you tried their skill?

Bob. Alas, soon tried: you shall hear, sir. (41) Within two or three days after, they came; and, by honesty, fair sir, believe me, I grac’d them exceedingly, shew’d them some two or three tricks of prevention have purchas’d (45) ’em since a credit to admiration. They cannot deny this; and yet now they hate me; and why? Because I am excellent; and for no other vile reason on the earth.

E. Know. This is strange and barbarous, (50) as ever I heard.

Bob. Nay, for a more instance of their preposterous natures, but note, sir. They have assaulted me some three, four, five, six of them together, as I have walkt alone in divers skirts i’ the town, as Turnbull, Whitechapel, (56) Shoreditch,[1306] which were then my quarters; and since, upon the Exchange, at my lodging, and at my ordinary: where I have driven them afore me the whole length of a street, in the (60) open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me. Yet all this lenity will not o’ercome their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire,[1307] raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure. By myself, (65) I could have slain them all, but I delight not in murder. I am loth to bear any other than this bastinado for ’em: yet I hold it good polity not to go disarm’d, for though I be skilful, I may be oppress’d with multitudes. 70

E. Know. Ay, believe me, may you, sir: and in my conceit, our whole nation should sustain the loss by it, if it were so.

Bob. Alas, no? what’s a peculiar[1308] man to a nation? Not seen. 75

E. Know. O, but your skill, sir.

Bob. Indeed, that might be some loss; but who respects it? I will tell you, sir, by the way of private, and under seal; I am a gentleman, and live here obscure, and to myself; but (80) were I known to her majesty and the lords,—observe me,—I would undertake, upon this poor head and life, for the public benefit of the state, not only to spare the entire lives of her subjects in general; but to save the one half, (85) nay, three parts of her yearly charge in holding war, and against what enemy soever. And how would I do it, think you?

E. Know. Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive. 90

Bob. Why thus, sir. I would select nineteen more, to myself, throughout the land; gentlemen they should be of good spirit, strong and able constitution; I would choose them by an instinct, a character that I have: and I would teach these nineteen the special rules, as your (96) punto, your reverso, your stoccata, your imbroccato, your passada, your montanto;[1309] till they could all play very near, or altogether, as well as myself. This done, say the enemy were forty thousand strong, we twenty would come into the (101) field the tenth of March, or thereabouts; and we would challenge twenty of the enemy; they could not in their honour refuse us: well, we would kill them; challenge twenty more, kill (105) them; twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them too; and thus would we kill every man his twenty a day, that’s twenty score; twenty score, that’s two hundred;[1310] two hundred a day, five days a thousand: forty thousand; forty times five, five times forty, two hundred 111 days kills them all up by computation. And this will I venture my poor gentleman-like carcass to perform, provided there be no treason practis’d upon us, by fair and discreet manhood; (115) that is, civilly by the sword.

E. Know. Why, are you so sure of your hand, captain, at all times?

Bob. Tut! never miss thrust, upon my reputation with you. 120

E. Know. I would not stand in Downright’s state then, an you meet him, for the wealth of any one street in London.

Bob. Why, sir, you mistake me: if he were here now, by this welkin, I would not draw my weapon on him. Let this gentleman do his (126) mind; but I will bastinado him, by the bright sun, wherever I meet him.

Mat. Faith, and I’ll have a fling at him, at my distance. 130

E. Know. ’God’s so, look where he is! yonder he goes. DOWNRIGHT walks over the stage.

Dow. What peevish luck have I, I cannot meet with these bragging rascals?

Bob. It is not he, is it? 135

E. Know. Yes, faith, it is he.

Mat. I’ll be hang’d, then, if that were he.

E. Know. Sir, keep your hanging good for some greater matter, for I assure you that was he. 140

Step. Upon my reputation, it was he.

Bob. Had I thought it had been he, he must not have gone so: but I can hardly be induc’d to believe it was he yet.

E. Know. That I think, sir. 145 [Re-enter DOWNRIGHT.] But see, he is come again.

Dow. O, Pharaoh’s foot, have I found you? Come, draw, to your tools; draw, gipsy, or I’ll thrash you.

Bob. Gentleman of valour, I do believe in thee; hear me—— 151

Dow. Draw your weapon then.

Bob. Tall[1311] man, I never thought on it till now——body of me, I had a warrant of the peace served on me, even now as I came along, by a water-bearer; this gentleman saw it, (156) Master Mathew.

Dow. ’S death! you will not draw then? Beats and disarms him. MATHEW runs away.

Bob. Hold, hold! under thy favour forbear!

Dow. Prate again, as you like this, you (160) whoreson foist[1312] you! You’ll “control[1313] the point,” you! Your consort is gone; had he staid he had shar’d with you, sir. [Exit.]

Bob. Well, gentlemen, bear witness, I was bound to the peace, by this good day. 165

E. Know. No, faith, it’s an ill day, captain, never reckon it other: but, say you were bound to the peace, the law allows you to defend yourself: that’ll prove but a poor excuse.

Bob. I cannot tell, sir: I desire good construction (170) in fair sort. I never sustain’d the like disgrace, by heaven! Sure I was struck with a planet thence, for I had no power to touch my weapon.

E. Know. Ay, like enough; I have heard of many that have been beaten under a planet: (176) go, get you to a surgeon. ’Slid! an these be your tricks, your passadas, and your montantos, I’ll none of them. [Exit BOBADILL.] O, manners! that this age should bring forth such (180) creatures! that nature should be at leisure to make them! Come, coz.

Step. Mass, I’ll ha’ this cloak.

E. Know. ’Od’s will, ’tis Downright’s.

Step. Nay, it’s mine now, another might have ta’en up as well as I: I’ll wear it, so I will. 186

E. Know. How an he see it? He’ll challenge it, assure yourself.

Step. Ay, but he shall not ha’ it; I’ll say I bought it. 190

E. Know. Take heed you buy it not too dear, coz. [Exeunt.]

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