Epicoene: Or, The Silent Woman
by
Ben Jonson
Part 2 out of 5
DAUP: Why that will follow.
CLER: I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of such a
servant.
DAW: 'Tis her virtue, sir. I have written somewhat of her silence
too.
DAUP: In verse, sir John?
CLER: What else?
DAUP: Why? how can you justify your own being of a poet, that so
slight all the old poets?
DAW: Why? every man that writes in verse is not a poet; you have of
the wits that write verses, and yet are no poets: they are poets
that live by it, the poor fellows that live by it.
DAUP: Why, would not you live by your verses, sir John?
CLER: No, 'twere pity he should. A knight live by his verses? he
did not make them to that end, I hope.
DAUP: And yet the noble Sidney lives by his, and the noble family
not ashamed.
CLER: Ay, he profest himself; but sir John Daw has more caution:
he'll not hinder his own rising in the state so much. Do you
think he will? Your verses, good sir John, and no poems.
DAW: Silence in woman, is like speech in man,
Deny't who can.
DAUP: Not I, believe it: your reason, sir.
DAW: Nor, is't a tale,
That female vice should be a virtue male,
Or masculine vice a female virtue be:
You shall it see
Prov'd with increase;
I know to speak, and she to hold her peace.
Do you conceive me, gentlemen?
DAUP: No, faith; how mean you "with increase," sir John?
DAW: Why, with increase is, when I court her for the common cause of
mankind; and she says nothing, but "consentire videtur": and in
time is gravida.
DAUP: Then this is a ballad of procreation?
CLER: A madrigal of procreation; you mistake.
EPI: 'Pray give me my verses again, servant.
DAW: If you'll ask them aloud, you shall.
[WALKS ASIDE WITH THE PAPERS.]
[ENTER TRUEWIT WITH HIS HORN.]
CLER: See, here's Truewit again!--Where hast thou been, in the
name of madness! thus accoutred with thy horn?
TRUE: Where the sound of it might have pierced your sense with
gladness, had you been in ear-reach of it. Dauphine, fall down
and worship me: I have forbid the bans, lad: I have been with thy
virtuous uncle, and have broke the match.
DAUP: You have not, I hope.
TRUE: Yes faith; if thou shouldst hope otherwise, I should repent me:
this horn got me entrance; kiss it. I had no other way to get in,
but by faining to be a post; but when I got in once, I proved none,
but rather the contrary, turn'd him into a post, or a stone, or
what is stiffer, with thundering into him the incommodities of a
wife, and the miseries of marriage. If ever Gorgon were seen in
the shape of a woman, he hath seen her in my description: I have
put him off o' that scent for ever.--Why do you not applaud and
adore me, sirs? why stand you mute? are you stupid? You are not
worthy of the benefit.
DAUP: Did not I tell you? Mischief!--
CLER: I would you had placed this benefit somewhere else.
TRUE: Why so?
CLER: 'Slight, you have done the most inconsiderate, rash, weak
thing, that ever man did to his friend.
DAUP: Friend! if the most malicious enemy I have, had studied to
inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater.
TRUE: Wherein, for Gods-sake? Gentlemen, come to yourselves again.
DAUP: But I presaged thus much afore to you.
CLER: Would my lips had been solder'd when I spake on't. Slight,
what moved you to be thus impertinent?
TRUE: My masters, do not put on this strange face to pay my
courtesy; off with this visor. Have good turns done you, and thank
'em this way!
DAUP: 'Fore heav'n, you have undone me. That which I have plotted
for, and been maturing now these four months, you have blasted in a
minute: Now I am lost, I may speak. This gentlewoman was lodged
here by me o' purpose, and, to be put upon my uncle, hath profest
this obstinate silence for my sake; being my entire friend, and
one that for the requital of such a fortune as to marry him,
would have made me very ample conditions: where now, all my hopes
are utterly miscarried by this unlucky accident.
CLER: Thus 'tis when a man will be ignorantly officious, do
services, and not know his why; I wonder what courteous itch
possest you. You never did absurder part in your life, nor a
greater trespass to friendship or humanity.
DAUP: Faith, you may forgive it best: 'twas your cause principally.
CLER: I know it, would it had not.
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
DAUP: How now, Cutbeard! what news?
CUT: The best, the happiest that ever was, sir. There has been a
mad gentleman with your uncle, this morning,
[SEEING TRUEWIT.]
--I think this be the gentleman--that has almost talk'd him out
of his wits, with threatening him from marriage--
DAUP: On, I prithee.
CUT: And your uncle, sir, he thinks 'twas done by your procurement;
therefore he will see the party you wot of presently: and if he
like her, he says, and that she be so inclining to dumb as I
have told him, he swears he will marry her, to-day, instantly,
and not defer it a minute longer.
DAUP: Excellent! beyond our expectation!
TRUE: Beyond our expectation! By this light, I knew it would be
thus.
DAUP: Nay, sweet Truewit, forgive me.
TRUE: No, I was ignorantly officious, impertinent: this was the
absurd, weak part.
CLER: Wilt thou ascribe that to merit now, was mere fortune?
TRUE: Fortune! mere providence. Fortune had not a finger in't. I saw
it must necessarily in nature fall out so: my genius is never false
to me in these things. Shew me how it could be otherwise.
DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, contend not, 'tis well now.
TRUE: Alas, I let him go on with inconsiderate, and rash, and what
he pleas'd.
CLER: Away, thou strange justifier of thyself, to be wiser than thou
wert, by the event!
TRUE: Event! by this light, thou shalt never persuade me, but I
foresaw it as well as the stars themselves.
DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, 'tis well now. Do you two entertain sir John
Daw with discourse, while I send her away with instructions.
TRUE: I will be acquainted with her first, by your favour.
CLER: Master True-wit, lady, a friend of ours.
TRUE: I am sorry I have not known you sooner, lady, to celebrate
this rare virtue of your silence.
[EXEUNT DAUP., EPI., AND CUTBEARD.]
CLER: Faith, an you had come sooner, you should have seen and
heard her well celebrated in sir John Daw's madrigals.
TRUE [ADVANCES TO DAW.]: Jack Daw, God save you! when saw you
La-Foole?
DAW: Not since last night, master Truewit.
TRUE: That's a miracle! I thought you two had been inseparable.
DAW: He is gone to invite his guests.
TRUE: 'Odso! 'tis true! What a false memory have I towards that
man! I am one: I met him even now, upon that he calls his delicate
fine black horse, rid into a foam, with posting from place to
place, and person to person, to give them the cue--
CLER: Lest they should forget?
TRUE: Yes: There was never poor captain took more pains at a
muster to shew men, than he, at this meal, to shew friends.
DAW: It is his quarter-feast, sir.
CLER: What! do you say so, sir John?
TRUE: Nay, Jack Daw will not be out, at the best friends he has,
to the talent of his wit: Where's his mistress, to hear and applaud
him? is she gone?
DAW: Is mistress Epicoene gone?
CLER: Gone afore, with sir Dauphine, I warrant, to the place.
TRUE: Gone afore! that were a manifest injury; a disgrace and a
half: to refuse him at such a festival-time as this, being a
bravery, and a wit too!
CLER: Tut, he'll swallow it like cream: he's better read in Jure
civili, than to esteem any thing a disgrace, is offer'd him from
a mistress.
DAW: Nay, let her e'en go; she shall sit alone, and be dumb in her
chamber a week together, for John Daw, I warrant her. Does she
refuse me?
CLER: No, sir, do not take it so to heart; she does not refuse you,
but a little neglects you. Good faith, Truewit, you were to blame,
to put it into his head, that she does refuse him.
TRUE: Sir, she does refuse him palpably, however you mince it. An I
were as he, I would swear to speak ne'er a word to her to-day
for't.
DAW: By this light, no more I will not.
TRUE: Nor to any body else, sir.
DAW: Nay, I will not say so, gentlemen.
CLER: It had been an excellent happy condition for the company, if
you could have drawn him to it. [ASIDE.]
DAW: I'll be very melancholY, i'faith.
CLER: As a dog, if I were as you, sir John.
TRUE: Or a snail, or a hog-louse: I would roll myself up for this
day, in troth, they should not unwind me.
DAW: By this pick-tooth, so I will.
CLER: 'Tis well done: He begins already to be angry with his teeth.
DAW: Will you go, gentlemen?
CLER: Nay, you must walk alone, if you be right melancholy, sir
John.
TRUE: Yes, sir, we'll dog you, we'll follow you afar off.
[EXIT DAW.]
CLER: Was there ever such a two yards of knighthood measured out by
time, to be sold to laughter?
TRUE: A mere talking mole, hang him! no mushroom was ever so fresh.
A fellow so utterly nothing, as he knows not what he would be.
CLER: Let's follow him: but first, let's go to Dauphine, he's
hovering about the house to hear what news.
TRUE: Content.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 2.3.
A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER MOROSE AND MUTE, FOLLOWED BY CUTBEARD WITH EPICOENE.
MOR: Welcome Cutbeard! draw near with your fair charge: and in her
ear softly entreat her to unmasthey.
[EPI. TAKES OFF HER MASK.]
--So! Is the door shut?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
--Enough. Now, Cutbeard, with the same discipline I use to my
family, I will question you. As I conceive, Cutbeard, this
gentlewoman is she you have provided, and brought, in hope she
will fit me in the place and person of a wife? Answer me not, but
with your leg, unless it be otherwise:
[CUT. MAKES A LEG.]
--Very well done, Cutbeard. I conceive, besides, Cutbeard, you
have been pre-acquainted with her birth, education, and qualities,
or else you would not prefer her to my acceptance, in the weighty
consequence of marriage.
[CUT. MAKES A LEG.]
--This I conceive, Cutbeard. Answer me not but with your leg, unless
it be otherwise.
[CUT. BOWS AGAIN.]
--Very well done, Cutbeard. Give aside now a little, and leave me to
examine her condition, and aptitude to my affection.
[HE GOES ABOUT HER, AND VIEWS HER.]
--She is exceeding fair, and of a special good favour; a sweet
composition or harmony of limbs: her temper of beauty has the
true height of my blood. The knave hath exceedingly well fitted me
without: I will now try her within. Come near, fair gentlewoman:
let not my behaviour seem rude, though unto you, being rare, it
may haply appear strange.
[EPICOENE CURTSIES.]
--Nay, lady, you may speak, though Cutbeard and my man, might not;
for, of all sounds, only the sweet voice of a fair lady has the
just length of mine ears. I beseech you, say, lady; out of the
first fire of meeting eyes, they say, love is stricken: do you
feel any such motion suddenly shot into you, from any part you see
in me? ha, lady?
[EPICOENE CURTSIES.]
--Alas, lady, these answers by silent curtsies from you are too
courtless and simple. I have ever had my breeding in court: and
she that shall be my wife, must be accomplished with courtly and
audacious ornaments. Can you speak, lady?
EPI: [softly.] Judge you, forsooth.
MOR: What say you, lady? speak out, I beseech you.
EPI: Judge you, forsooth.
MOR: On my judgment, a divine softness! But can you naturally,
lady, as I enjoin these by doctrine and industry, refer yourself
to the search of my judgment, and, not taking pleasure in your
tongue, which is a woman's chiefest pleasure, think it plausible
to answer me by silent gestures, so long as my speeches jump
right with what you conceive?
[EPI. CURTSIES.]
--Excellent! divine! if it were possible she should hold out thus!
Peace, Cutbeard, thou art made for ever, as thou hast made me, if
this felicity have lasting: but I will try her further. Dear lady,
I am courtly, I tell you, and I must have mine ears banqueted with
pleasant and witty conferences, pretty girls, scoffs, and
dalliance in her that I mean to choose for my bed-phere. The
ladies in court think it a most desperate impair to their
quickness of wit, and good carriage, if they cannot give
occasion for a man to court 'em; and when an amorous discourse is
set on foot, minister as good matter to continue it, as himself:
And do you alone so much differ from all them, that what they,
with so much circumstance, affect and toil for, to seem
learn'd, to seem judicious, to seem sharp and conceited, you
can bury in yourself with silence, and rather trust your graces
to the fair conscience of virtue, than to the world's or your own
proclamation?
EPI [SOFTLY]: I should be sorry else.
MOR: What say you lady? good lady, speak out.
EPI: I should be sorry else.
MOR: That sorrow doth fill me with gladness. O Morose, thou art
happy above mankind! pray that thou mayest contain thyself. I
will only put her to it once more, and it shall be with the utmost
touch and test of their sex. But hear me, fair lady; I do also
love to see her whom I shall choose for my heifer, to be the
first and principal in all fashions; precede all the dames at
court by a fortnight; have council of tailors, lineners,
lace-women, embroiderers, and sit with them sometimes twice a day
upon French intelligences; and then come forth varied like
nature, or oftener than she, and better by the help of art, her
emulous servant. This do I affect: and how will you be able, lady,
with this frugality of speech, to give the manifold but
necessary instructions, for that bodice, these sleeves, those
skirts, this cut, that stitch, this embroidery, that lace, this
wire, those knots, that ruff, those roses, this girdle, that
fanne, the t'other scarf, these gloves? Ha! what say you, lady?
EPI [SOFTLY]: I'll leave it to you, sir.
MOR: How, lady? pray you rise a note.
EPI: I leave it to wisdom and you, sir.
MOR: Admirable creature! I will trouble you no more: I will not
sin against so sweet a simplicity. Let me now be bold to print on
those divine lips the seal of being mine.--Cutbeard, I give thee
the lease of thy house free: thank me not but with thy leg
[CUTBEARD SHAKES HIS HEAD.]
--I know what thou wouldst say, she's poor, and her friends
deceased. She has brought a wealthy dowry in her silence, Cutbeard;
and in respect of her poverty, Cutbeard, I shall have her more
loving and obedient, Cutbeard. Go thy ways, and get me a minister
presently, with a soft low voice, to marry us; and pray him he will
not be impertinent, but brief as he can; away: softly,
[EXIT CUTBEARD.]
--Sirrah, conduct your mistress into the dining-room, your now
mistress.
[EXIT MUTE, FOLLOWED BY EPI.]
--O my felicity! how I shall be revenged on mine insolent kinsman,
and his plots to fright me from marrying! This night I will get an
heir, and thrust him out of my blood, like a stranger; he would be
knighted, forsooth, and thought by that means to reign over me;
his title must do it: No, kinsman, I will now make you bring me
the tenth lord's and the sixteenth lady's letter, kinsman; and it
shall do you no good, kinsman. Your knighthood itself shall come
on its knees, and it shall be rejected; it shall be sued for its
fees to execution, and not be redeem'd; it shall cheat at the
twelvepenny ordinary, it knighthood, for its diet, all the term-
time, and tell tales for it in the vacation to the hostess; or it
knighthood shall do worse, take sanctuary in Cole-harbour, and fast.
It shall fright all its friends with borrowing letters; and when
one of the fourscore hath brought it knighthood ten shillings, it
knighthood shall go to the Cranes, or the Bear at the Bridge-foot,
and be drunk in fear: it shall not have money to discharge one
tavern-reckoning, to invite the old creditors to forbear it
knighthood, or the new, that should be, to trust it knighthood. It
shall be the tenth name in the bond to take up the commodity of
pipkins and stone jugs: and the part thereof shall not furnish it
knighthood forth for the attempting of a baker's widow, a brown
baker's widow. It shall give it knighthood's name, for a stallion,
to all gamesome citizens' wives, and be refused; when the master
of a dancing school, or how do you call him, the worst reveller in
the town is taken: it shall want clothes, and by reason of that,
wit, to fool to lawyers. It shall not have hope to repair itself by Constantinople, Ireland, or Virginia; but the best and last fortune
to it knighthood shall be to make Dol Tear-Sheet, or Kate Common a
lady: and so it knighthood may eat.
[EXIT.]
SCENE 2.4.
A LANE, NEAR MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER TRUEWIT, DAUPHINE,AND CLERIMONT.
TRUE: Are you sure he is not gone by?
DAUP: No, I staid in the shop ever since.
CLER: But he may take the other end of the lane.
DAUP: No, I told him I would be here at this end: I appointed him
hither.
TRUE: What a barbarian it is to stay then!
DAUP: Yonder he comes.
CLER: And his charge left behind him, which is a very good sign,
Dauphine.
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
DAUP: How now Cutbeard! succeeds it, or no?
CUT: Past imagination, sir, omnia secunda; you could not have
pray'd to have had it so well. Saltat senex, as it is in the
proverb; he does triumph in his felicity, admires the party! he
has given me the lease of my house too! and I am now going for a
silent minister to marry them, and away.
TRUE: 'Slight, get one of the silenced ministers, a zealous brother
would torment him purely.
CUT: Cum privilegio, sir.
DAUP: O, by no means, let's do nothing to hinder it now: when it
is done and finished, I am for you, for any device of vexation.
CUT: And that shall be within this half hour, upon my dexterity,
gentlemen. Contrive what you can in the mean time, bonis avibus.
[EXIT.]
CLER: How the slave doth Latin it!
TRUE: It would be made a jest to posterity, sirs, this day's mirth,
if ye will.
CLER: Beshrew his heart that will not, I pronounce.
DAUP: And for my part. What is it?
TRUE: To translate all La-Foole's company, and his feast thither,
to-day, to celebrate this bride-ale.
DAUP: Ay marry; but how will't be done?
TRUE: I'll undertake the directing of all the lady-guests thither,
and then the meat must follow.
CLER: For God's sake, let's effect it: it will be an excellent comedy
of affliction, so many several noises.
DAUP: But are they not at the other place already, think you?
TRUE: I'll warrant you for the college-honours: one of their faces
has not the priming colour laid on yet, nor the other her smock
sleek'd.
CLER: O, but they'll rise earlier then ordinary, to a feast.
TRUE: Best go see, and assure ourselves.
CLER: Who knows the house?
TRUE: I will lead you: Were you never there yet?
DAUP: Not I.
CLER: Nor I.
TRUE: Where have you lived then? not know Tom Otter!
CLER: No: for God's sake, what is he?
TRUE: An excellent animal, equal with your Daw or La-Foole, if not
transcendant; and does Latin it as much as your barber: He is his
wife's subject, he calls her princess, and at such times as these
follows her up and down the house like a page, with his hat off,
partly for heat, partly for reverence. At this instant he is
marshalling of his bull, bear, and horse.
DAUP: What be those, in the name of Sphynx?
TRUE: Why, sir, he has been a great man at the Bear-garden in his
time; and from that subtle sport, has ta'en the witty denomination
of his chief carousing cups. One he calls his bull, another his
bear, another his horse. And then he has his lesser glasses, that
he calls his deer and his ape; and several degrees of them too;
and never is well, nor thinks any entertainment perfect, till
these be brought out, and set on the cupboard.
CLER: For God's love!--we should miss this, if we should not go.
TRUE: Nay, he has a thousand things as good, that will speak him
all day. He will rail on his wife, with certain common places,
behind her back; and to her face--
DAUP: No more of him. Let's go see him, I petition you.
[EXEUNT.]
ACT 3. SCENE 3.1.
A ROOM IN OTTER'S HOUSE.
ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER WITH HIS CUPS, AND MISTRESS OTTER.
OTT: Nay, good princess, hear me pauca verba.
MRS. OTT: By that light, I'll have you chain'd up, with your
bull-dogs, and bear-dogs, if you be not civil the sooner. I will
send you to kennel, i'faith. You were best bait me with your bull,
bear, and horse! Never a time that the courtiers or collegiates
come to the house, but you make it a Shrove-tuesday! I would have
you get your Whitsuntide velvet cap, and your staff in your hand,
to entertain them: yes, in troth, do.
OTT: Not so, princess, neither; but under correction, sweet
princess, give me leave.--These things I am known to the courtiers
by: It is reported to them for my humour, and they receive it so,
and do expect it. Tom Otter's bull, bear, and horse is known all
over England, in rerum natura.
MRS. OTT: 'Fore me, I will na-ture them over to Paris-garden, and
na-ture you thither too, if you pronounce them again. Is a bear a
fit beast, or a bull, to mix in society with great ladies? think in
your discretion, in any good policy.
OTT: The horse then, good princess.
MRS. OTT: Well, I am contented for the horse: they love to be
well horsed, I know. I love it myself.
OTT: And it is a delicate fine horse this. Poetarum Pegasus. Under
correction, princess, Jupiter did turn himself into a--taurus,
or bull, under correction, good princess.
[ENTER TRUEWIT, CLERIMONT, AND DAUPHINE, BEHIND.]
MRS. OTT: By my integrity, I will send you over to the Bank-side,
I will commit you to the master of the Garden, if I hear but a
syllable more. Must my house or my roof be polluted with the
scent of bears and bulls, when it is perfumed for great ladies?
Is this according to the instrument, when I married you? that I
would be princess, and reign in mine own house: and you would be my
subject, and obey me? What did you bring me, should make you thus
peremptory? do I allow you your half-crown a day, to spend where
you will, among your gamsters, to vex and torment me at such
times as these? Who gives you your maintenance, I pray you? who
allows you your horse-meat and man's meat? your three suits of
apparel a year? your four pair of stockings, one silk, three
worsted? your clean linen, your bands and cuffs, when I can get
you to wear them?--'tis marle you have them on now.--Who graces you
with courtiers or great personages, to speak to you out of their
coaches, and come home to your house? Were you ever so much as
look'd upon by a lord or a lady, before I married you, but on the
Easter or Whitsun-holidays? and then out at the banquetting-house
window, when Ned Whiting or George Stone were at the stake?
TRUE: For Gods sake, let's go stave her off him.
MRS. OTT: Answer me to that. And did not I take you up from thence,
in an old greasy buff-doublet, with points, and green velvet
sleeves, out at the elbows? you forget this.
TRUE: She'll worry him, if we help not in time.
[THEY COME FORWARD.]
MRS. OTT: O, here are some of the gallants! Go to, behave yourself
distinctly, and with good morality: or, I protest, I will take
away your exhibition.
TRUE: By your leave, fair mistress Otter, I will be bold to enter
these gentlemen in your acquaintance.
MRS. OTT: It shall not be obnoxious, or difficil, sir.
TRUE: How does my noble captain? is the bull, bear, and horse in
rerum natura still?
OTT: Sir, sic visum superis.
MRS. OTT: I would you would but intimate them, do. Go your ways
in, and get toasts and butter made for the woodcocks. That's a fit
province for you.
[DRIVES HIM OFF.]
CLER: Alas, what a tyranny is this poor fellow married to!
TRUE: O, but the sport will be anon, when we get him loose.
DAUP: Dares he ever speak?
TRUE: No Anabaptist ever rail'd with the like license: but mark
her language in the mean time, I beseech you.
MRS. OTT: Gentlemen, you are very aptly come. My cousin, sir
Amorous, will be here briefly.
TRUE: In good time lady. Was not sir John Daw here, to ask for
him, and the company?
MRS. OTT: I cannot assure you, master Truewit. Here was a very
melancholy knight in a ruff, that demanded my subject for somebody,
a gentleman, I think.
CLER: Ay, that was he, lady.
MRS. OTT: But he departed straight, I can resolve you.
DAUP: What an excellent choice phrase this lady expresses in.
TRUE: O, sir, she is the only authentical courtier, that is not
naturally bred one, in the city.
MRS. OTT: You have taken that report upon trust, gentlemen.
TRUE: No, I assure you, the court governs it so, lady, in your
behalf.
MRS. OTT: I am the servant of the court and courtiers, sir.
TRUE: They are rather your idolaters.
MRS. OTT: Not so, sir.
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
DAUP: How now, Cutbeard? any cross?
CUT: O, no, sir, omnia bene. 'Twas never better on the hinges;
all's sure. I have so pleased him with a curate, that he's gone
to't almost with the delight he hopes for soon.
DAUP: What is he for a vicar?
CUT: One that has catch'd a cold, sir, and can scarce be heard six
inches off; as if he spoke out of a bulrush that were not pick'd,
or his throat were full of pith: a fine quick fellow, and an
excellent barber of prayers. I came to tell you, sir, that you
might omnem movere lapidem, as they say, be ready with your
vexation.
DAUP: Gramercy, honest Cutbeard! be thereabouts with thy key,
to let us in.
CUT: I will not fail you, sir: ad manum.
[EXIT.]
TRUE: Well, I'll go watch my coaches.
CLER: Do; and we'll send Daw to you, if you meet him not.
[EXIT TRUEWIT.]
MRS. OTT: Is master Truewit gone?
DAUP: Yes, lady, there is some unfortunate business fallen out.
MRS. OTT: So I adjudged by the physiognomy of the fellow that came
in; and I had a dream last night too of a new pageant, and my lady
mayoress, which is always very ominous to me. I told it my lady
Haughty t'other day; when her honour came hither to see some
China stuffs: and she expounded it out of Artemidorus, and I have
found it since very true. It has done me many affronts.
CLER: Your dream, lady?
MRS. OTT: Yes, sir, any thing I do but dream of the city. It
stain'd me a damasque table-cloth, cost me eighteen pound, at one
time; and burnt me a black satin gown, as I stood by the fire,
at my lady Centaure's chamber in the college, another time. A
third time, at the lord's masque, it dropt all my wire and my
ruff with wax candle, that I could not go up to the banquet. A
fourth time, as I was taking coach to go to Ware, to meet a
friend, it dash'd me a new suit all over (a crimson satin
doublet, and black velvet skirts) with a brewer's horse, that
I was fain to go in and shift me, and kept my chamber a leash
of days for the anguish of it.
DAUP: These were dire mischances, lady.
CLER: I would not dwell in the city, an 'twere so fatal to me.
MRS. OTT: Yes sir, but I do take advice of my doctor to dream
of it as little as I can.
DAUP: You do well, mistress Otter.
MRS. OTT: Will it please you to enter the house farther,
gentlemen?
DAUP: And your favour, lady: but we stay to speak with a knight,
sir John Daw, who is here come. We shall follow you, lady.
MRS. OTT: At your own time, sir. It is my cousin sir Amorous his
feast--
DAUP: I know it, lady.
MRS. OTT: And mine together. But it is for his honour, and
therefore I take no name of it, more than of the place.
DAUP: You are a bounteous kinswoman.
MRS. OTT: Your servant, sir.
[EXIT.]
CLER [COMING FORWARD WITH DAW.]: Why, do not you know it, sir
John Daw?
DAW: No, I am a rook if I do.
CLER: I'll tell you then, she's married by this time. And, whereas
you were put in the head, that she was gone with sir Dauphine, I
assure you, sir Dauphine has been the noblest, honestest friend to
you, that ever gentleman of your quality could boast of. He has
discover'd the whole plot, and made your mistress so acknowledging,
and indeed so ashamed of her injury to you, that she desires you
to forgive her, and but grace her wedding with your presence
to-day--She is to be married to a very good fortune, she says, his
uncle, old Morose: and she will'd me in private to tell you, that
she shall be able to do you more favours, and with more security
now, than before.
DAW: Did she say so, i'faith?
CLER: Why, what do you think of me, sir John? ask sir Dauphine.
DAUP: Nay, I believe you.--Good sir Dauphine, did she desire me to
forgive her?
CLER: I assure you, sir John, she did.
DAW: Nay, then, I do with all my heart, and I'll be jovial.
CLER: Yes, for look you, sir, this was the injury to you. La-Foole
intended this feast to honour her bridal day, and made you the
property to invite the college ladies, and promise to bring her:
and then at the time she should have appear'd, as his friend, to
have given you the dor. Whereas now, Sir Dauphine has brought her
to a feeling of it, with this kind of satisfaction, that you shall
bring all the ladies to the place where she is, and be very
jovial; and there, she will have a dinner, which shall be in your
name: and so disappoint La-Foole, to make you good again, and, as
it were, a saver in the main.
DAW: As I am a knight, I honour her; and forgive her heartily.
CLER: About it then presently. Truewit is gone before to confront
the coaches, and to acquaint you with so much, if he meet you.
Join with him, and 'tis well.--
[ENTER SIR AMOROUS LAFOOLE.]
See; here comes your antagonist, but take you no notice, but be
very jovial.
LA-F: Are the ladies come, sir John Daw, and your mistress?
[EXIT DAW.]
--Sir Dauphine! you are exceeding welcome, and honest master
Clerimont. Where's my cousin? did you see no collegiates, gentlemen?
DAUP: Collegiates! do you not hear, sir Amorous, how you are abus'd?
LA-F: How, sir!
CLER: Will you speak so kindly to sir John Daw, that has done you
such an affront?
LA-F: Wherein, gentlemen? let me be a suitor to you to know, I
beseech you!
CLER: Why, sir, his mistress is married to-day to sir Dauphine's
uncle, your cousin's neighbour, and he has diverted all the ladies,
and all your company thither, to frustrate your provision, and stick
a disgrace upon you. He was here now to have enticed us away from
you too: but we told him his own, I think.
LA-F: Has sir John Daw wrong'd me so inhumanly?
DAUP: He has done it, sir Amorous, most maliciously and
treacherously: but, if youll be ruled by us, you shall quit him,
i'faith.
LA-F: Good gentlemen, I'll make one, believe it. How, I pray?
DAUP: Marry sir, get me your pheasants, and your godwits, and your
best meat, and dish it in silver dishes of your cousin's presently,
and say nothing, but clap me a clean towel about you, like a sewer;
and bare-headed, march afore it with a good confidence, ('tis but
over the way, hard by,) and we'll second you, where you shall set
it on the board, and bid them welcome to't, which shall shew 'tis
yours, and disgrace his preparation utterly: and, for your cousin,
whereas she should be troubled here at home with care of making and
giving welcome, she shall transfer all that labour thither, and be
a principal guest herself, sit rank'd with the college-honours, and
be honour'd, and have her health drunk as often, as bare and as
loud as the best of them.
LA-F: I'll go tell her presently. It shall be done, that's
resolved.
[EXIT.]
CLER: I thought he would not hear it out, but 'twould take him.
DAUP: Well, there be guests and meat now; how shall we do for
music?
CLER: The smell of the venison, going through the street, will
invite one noise of fiddlers or other.
DAUP: I would it would call the trumpeters hither!
CLER: Faith, there is hope: they have intelligence of all feasts.
There's good correspondence betwixt them and the London cooks:
'tis twenty to one but we have them.
DAUP: 'Twill be a most solemn day for my uncle, and an excellent
fit of mirth for us.
CLER: Ay, if we can hold up the emulation betwixt Foole and Daw,
and never bring them to expostulate.
DAUP: Tut, flatter them both, as Truewit says, and you may take
their understandings in a purse-net. They'll believe themselves
to be just such men as we make them, neither more nor less. They
have nothing, not the use of their senses, but by tradition.
[RE-ENTER LA-FOOLE, LIKE A SEWER.]
CLER: See! sir Amorous has his towel on already. Have you persuaded
your cousin?
LA-F: Yes, 'tis very feasible: she'll do any thing she says, rather
than the La-Fooles shall be disgraced.
DAUP: She is a noble kinswoman. It will be such a pestling device,
sir Amorous; it will pound all your enemy's practices to powder,
and blow him up with his own mine, his own train.
LA-F: Nay, we'll give fire, I warrant you.
CLER: But you must carry it privately, without any noise, and take
no notice by any means--
[RE-ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER.]
OTT: Gentlemen, my princess says you shall have all her silver
dishes, festinate: and she's gone to alter her tire a little,
and go with you--
CLER: And yourself too, captain Otter?
DAUP: By any means, sir.
OTT: Yes, sir, I do mean it: but I would entreat my cousin sir
Amorous, and you, gentlemen, to be suitors to my princess, that I
may carry my bull and my bear, as well as my horse.
CLER: That you shall do, captain Otter.
LA-F: My cousin will never consent, gentlemen.
DAUP: She must consent, sir Amorous, to reason.
LA-F: Why, she says they are no decorum among ladies.
OTT: But they are decora, and that's better, sir.
CLER: Ay, she must hear argument. Did not Pasiphae, who was a
queen, love a bull? and was not Calisto, the mother of Arcas,
turn'd into a bear, and made a star, mistress Ursula, in the
heavens?
OTT: O lord! that I could have said as much! I will have these
stories painted in the Bear-garden, ex Ovidii metamorphosi.
DAUP: Where is your princess, captain? pray, be our leader.
OTT: That I shall, sir.
CLER: Make haste, good sir Amorous.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 3.2.
A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER MOROSE, EPICOENE, PARSON, AND CUTBEARD.
MOR: Sir, there is an angel for yourself, and a brace of angels
for your cold. Muse not at this manage of my bounty. It is fit we
should thank fortune, double to nature, for any benefit she
confers upon us; besides, it is your imperfection, but my solace.
PAR [SPEAKS AS HAVING A COLD.] I thank your worship; so is it
mine, now.
MOR: What says he, Cutbeard?
CUT: He says, praesto, sir, whensoever your worship needs him, he
can be ready with the like. He got this cold with sitting up late,
and singing catches with cloth-workers.
MOR: No more. I thank him.
PAR: God keep your worship, and give you much joy with your fair
spouse.--[COUGHS.] uh! uh! uh!
MOR: O, O! stay Cutbeard! let him give me five shillings of my
money back. As it is bounty to reward benefits, so is it equity
to mulct injuries. I will have it. What says he?
CUT: He cannot change it, sir.
MOR: It must be changed.
CUT [ASIDE TO PARSON.]: Cough again.
MOR: What says he?
CUT: He will cough out the rest, sir.
PAR: Uh, uh, uh!
MOR: Away, away with him! stop his mouth! away! I forgive it.--
[EXIT CUT. THRUSTING OUT THE PAR.]
EPI: Fie, master Morose, that you will use this violence to a man
of the church.
MOR: How!
EPI: It does not become your gravity, or breeding, as you pretend,
in court, to have offer'd this outrage on a waterman, or any more
boisterous creature, much less on a man of his civil coat.
MOR: You can speak then!
EPI: Yes, sir.
MOR: Speak out, I mean.
EPI: Ay, sir. Why, did you think you had married a statue, or a
motion, only? one of the French puppets, with the eyes turn'd with
a wire? or some innocent out of the hospital, that would stand
with her hands thus, and a plaise mouth, and look upon you?
MOR: O immodesty! a manifest woman! What, Cutbeard!
EPI: Nay, never quarrel with Cutbeard, sir; it is too late now. I
confess it doth bate somewhat of the modesty I had, when I writ
simply maid: but I hope, I shall make it a stock still competent
to the estate and dignity of your wife.
MOR: She can talk!
EPI: Yes, indeed, sir.
[ENTER MUTE.]
MOR: What sirrah! None of my knaves there? where is this impostor,
Cutbeard?
[MUTE MAKES SIGNS.]
EPI: Speak to him, fellow, speak to him! I'll have none of this
coacted, unnatural dumbness in my house, in a family where I
govern.
[EXIT MUTE.]
MOR: She is my regent already! I have married a Penthesilea, a
Semiramis, sold my liberty to a distaff.
[ENTER TRUEWIT.]
TRUE: Where's master Morose?
MOR: Is he come again! Lord have mercy upon me!
TRUE: I wish you all joy, mistress Epicoene, with your grave and
honourable match.
EPI: I return you the thanks, master Truewit, so friendly a wish
deserves.
MOR: She has acquaintance, too!
TRUE: God save you, sir, and give you all contentment in your fair
choice, here! Before, I was the bird of night to you, the owl; but
now I am the messenger of peace, a dove, and bring you the glad
wishes of many friends to the celebration of this good hour.
MOR: What hour, sir?
TRUE: Your marriage hour, sir. I commend your resolution, that,
notwithstanding all the dangers I laid afore you, in the voice of
a night-crow, would yet go on, and be yourself. It shews you are
a man constant to your own ends, and upright to your purposes,
that would not be put off with left-handed cries.
MOR: How should you arrive at the knowledge of so much!
TRUE: Why, did you ever hope, sir, committing the secrecy of it to
a barber, that less then the whole town should know it? you might
as well have told it the conduit, or the bake-house, or the
infantry that follow the court, and with more security. Could
your gravity forget so old and noted a remnant, as lippis et
tonsoribus notum? Well, sir, forgive it yourself now, the fault,
and be communicable with your friends. Here will be three or four
fashionable ladies from the college to visit you presently, and
their train of minions and followers.
MOR: Bar my doors! bar my doors! Where are all my eaters? my
mouths now?--
[ENTER SERVANTS.]
Bar up my doors, you varlets!
EPI: He is a varlet that stirs to such an office. Let them stand
open. I would see him that dares move his eyes toward it. Shall I
have a barricado made against my friends, to be barr'd of any
pleasure they can bring in to me with their honourable
visitation?
[EXEUNT SER.]
MOR: O Amazonian impudence!
TRUE: Nay, faith, in this, sir, she speaks but reason: and,
methinks, is more continent than you. Would you go to bed so
presently, sir, afore noon? a man of your head and hair should
owe more to that reverend ceremony, and not mount the marriage-bed
like a town-bull, or a mountain-goat; but stay the due season; and
ascend it then with religion and fear. Those delights are to be
steeped in the humour and silence of the night; and give the day
to other open pleasures, and jollities of feasting, of music, of
revels, of discourse: we'll have all, sir, that may make your
Hymen high and happy.
MOR: O, my torment, my torment!
TRUE: Nay, if you endure the first half hour, sir, so tediously,
and with this irksomness; what comfort or hope can this fair
gentlewoman make to herself hereafter, in the consideration of so
many years as are to come--
MOR: Of my affliction. Good sir, depart, and let her do it alone.
TRUE: I have done, sir.
MOR: That cursed barber.
TRUE: Yes, faith, a cursed wretch indeed, sir.
MOR: I have married his cittern, that's common to all men. Some
plague above the plague--
TRUE: All Egypt's ten plagues.
MOR: Revenge me on him!
TRUE: 'Tis very well, sir. If you laid on a curse or two more,
I'll assure you he'll bear them. As, that he may get the pox
with seeking to cure it, sir; or, that while he is curling another
man's hair, his own may drop off; or, for burning some male-bawd's
lock, he may have his brain beat out with the curling-iron.
MOR: No, let the wretch live wretched. May he get the itch, and his
shop so lousy, as no man dare come at him, nor he come at no man!
TRUE: Ay, and if he would swallow all his balls for pills, let not
them purge him.
MOR: Let his warming pan be ever cold.
TRUE: A perpetual frost underneath it, sir.
MOR: Let him never hope to see fire again.
TRUE: But in hell, sir.
MOR: His chairs be always empty, his scissors rust, and his combs
mould in their cases.
TRUE: Very dreadful that! And may he lose the invention, sir, of
carving lanterns in paper.
MOR: Let there be no bawd carted that year, to employ a bason of
his: but let him be glad to eat his sponge for bread.
TRUE: And drink lotium to it, and much good do him.
MOR: Or, for want of bread--
TRUE: Eat ear-wax, sir. I'll help you. Or, draw his own teeth,
and add them to the lute-string.
MOR: No, beat the old ones to powder, and make bread of them.
TRUE: Yes, make meal of the mill-stones.
MOR: May all the botches and burns that he has cured on others
break out upon him.
TRUE: And he now forget the cure of them in himself, sir: or, if
he do remember it, let him have scraped all his linen into lint
for't, and have not a rag left him to set up with.
MOR: Let him never set up again, but have the gout in his hands
for ever! Now, no more, sir.
TRUE: O, that last was too high set; you might go less with him,
i'faith, and be revenged enough: as, that he be never able to
new-paint his pole--
MOR: Good sir, no more, I forgot myself.
TRUE: Or, want credit to take up with a comb-maker--
MOR: No more, sir.
TRUE: Or, having broken his glass in a former despair, fall now
into a much greater, of ever getting another--
MOR: I beseech you, no more.
TRUE: Or, that he never be trusted with trimming of any but
chimney-sweepers--
MOR: Sir--
TRUE: Or, may he cut a collier's throat with his razor, by
chance-medley, and yet be hanged for't.
MOR: I will forgive him, rather than hear any more. I beseech you,
sir.
[ENTER DAW, INTRODUCING LADY HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS,
AND TRUSTY.]
DAW: This way, madam.
MOR: O, the sea breaks in upon me! another flood! an inundation!
I shall be overwhelmed with noise. It beats already at my shores.
I feel an earthquake in my self for't.
DAW: 'Give you joy, mistress.
MOR: Has she servants too!
DAW: I have brought some ladies here to see and know you.
My lady Haughty--
[AS HE PRESENTS THEM SEVERALLY, EPI. KISSES THEM.]
this my lady Centaure--mistress Dol Mavis--mistress Trusty,
my lady Haughty's woman. Where's your husband? let's see him:
can he endure no noise? let me come to him.
MOR: What nomenclator is this!
TRUE: Sir John Daw, sir, your wife's servant, this.
MOR: A Daw, and her servant! O, 'tis decreed, 'tis decreed of me,
an she have such servants.
TRUE: Nay sir, you must kiss the ladies; you must not go away, now:
they come toward you to seek you out.
HAU: I'faith, master Morose, would you steal a marriage thus, in
the midst of so many friends, and not acquaint us? Well, I'll kiss
you, notwithstanding the justice of my quarrel: you shall give me
leave, mistress, to use a becoming familiarity with your husband.
EPI: Your ladyship does me an honour in it, to let me know he is
so worthy your favour: as you have done both him and me grace to
visit so unprepared a pair to entertain you.
MOR: Compliment! compliment!
EPI: But I must lay the burden of that upon my servant here.
HAU: It shall not need, mistress Morose, we will all bear, rather
than one shall be opprest.
MOR: I know it: and you will teach her the faculty, if she be to
learn it.
[WALKS ASIDE WHILE THE REST TALK APART.]
HAU: Is this the silent woman?
CEN: Nay, she has found her tongue since she was married, master
Truewit says.
HAU: O, master Truewit! 'save you. What kind of creature is your
bride here? she speaks, methinks!
TRUE: Yes, madam, believe it, she is a gentlewoman of very absolute
behaviour, and of a good race.
HAU: And Jack Daw told us she could not speak!
TRUE: So it was carried in plot, madam, to put her upon this old
fellow, by sir Dauphine, his nephew, and one or two more of us:
but she is a woman of an excellent assurance, and an extraordinary
happy wit and tongue. You shall see her make rare sport with Daw
ere night.
HAU: And he brought us to laugh at her!
TRUE: That falls out often, madam, that he that thinks himself
the master-wit, is the master-fool. I assure your ladyship, ye
cannot laugh at her.
HAU: No, we'll have her to the college: An she have wit, she
shall be one of us, shall she not Centaure? we'll make her a
collegiate.
CEN: Yes faith, madam, and mistress Mavis and she will set up a
side.
TRUE: Believe it, madam, and mistress Mavis she will sustain her
part.
MAV: I'll tell you that, when I have talk'd with her, and tried
her.
HAU: Use her very civilly, Mavis.
MAV: So I will, madam.
[WHISPERS HER.]
MOR: Blessed minute! that they would whisper thus ever!
[ASIDE.]
TRUE: In the mean time, madam, would but your ladyship help to vex
him a little: you know his disease, talk to him about the wedding
ceremonies, or call for your gloves, or--
HAU: Let me alone. Centaure, help me. Master bridegroom, where are
you?
MOR: O, it was too miraculously good to last!
[ASIDE.]
HAU: We see no ensigns of a wedding here; no character of a
bride-ale: where be our scarves and our gloves? I pray you, give
them us. Let us know your bride's colours, and yours at least.
CEN: Alas, madam, he has provided none.
MOR: Had I known your ladyship's painter, I would.
HAU: He has given it you, Centaure, i'faith. But do you hear,
master Morose? a jest will not absolve you in this manner. You
that have suck'd the milk of the court, and from thence have
been brought up to the very strong meats and wine, of it; been
a courtier from the biggen to the night-cap, as we may say, and
you to offend in such a high point of ceremony as this, and let
your nuptials want all marks of solemnity! How much plate have
you lost to-day, (if you had but regarded your profit,) what
gifts, what friends, through your mere rusticity!
MOR: Madam--
HAU: Pardon me, sir, I must insinuate your errors to you; no
gloves? no garters? no scarves? no epithalamium? no masque?
DAW: Yes, madam, I'll make an epithalamium, I promise my mistress;
I have begun it already: will you ladyship hear it?
HAU: Ay, good Jack Daw.
MOR: Will it please your ladyship command a chamber, and be private
with your friend? you shall have your choice of rooms to retire
to after: my whole house is yours. I know it hath been your
ladyship's errand into the city at other times, however now you
have been unhappily diverted upon me: but I shall be loth to
break any honourable custom of your ladyship's. And therefore, good
madam--
EPI: Come, you are a rude bridegroom, to entertain ladies of
honour in this fashion.
CEN: He is a rude groom indeed.
TRUE: By that light you deserve to be grafted, and have your horns
reach from one side of the island, to the other. Do not mistake me,
sir; I but speak this to give the ladies some heart again, not
for any malice to you.
MOR: Is this your bravo, ladies?
TRUE: As God [shall] help me, if you utter such another word,
I'll take mistress bride in, and begin to you in a very sad cup;
do you see? Go to, know your friends, and such as love you.
[ENTER CLERIMONT, FOLLOWED BY A NUMBER OF MUSICIANS.]
CLER: By your leave, ladies. Do you want any music? I have brought
you variety of noises. Play, sirs, all of you.
[ASIDE TO THE MUSICIANS, WHO STRIKE UP ALL TOGETHER.]
MOR: O, a plot, a plot, a plot, a plot, upon me! this day I shall
be their anvil to work on, they will grate me asunder. 'Tis worse
then the noise of a saw.
CLER: No, they are hair, rosin, and guts. I can give you the
receipt.
TRUE: Peace, boys!
CLER: Play! I say.
TRUE: Peace, rascals! You see who's your friend now, sir: take
courage, put on a martyr's resolution. Mock down all their
attemptings with patience: 'tis but a day, and I would suffer
heroically. Should an ass exceed me in fortitude? no. You betray
your infirmity with your hanging dull ears, and make them insult:
bear up bravely, and constantly.
[LA-FOOLE PASSES OVER THE STAGE AS A SEWER, FOLLOWED BY SERVANTS
CARRYING DISHES, AND MISTRESS OTTER.]
--Look you here, sir, what honour is done you unexpected, by your
nephew; a wedding-dinner come, and a knight-sewer before it, for
the more reputation: and fine mistress Otter, your neighbour, in
the rump, or tail of it.
MOR: Is that Gorgon, that Medusa come! hide me, hide me.
TRUE: I warrant you, sir, she will not transform you. Look upon
her with a good courage. Pray you entertain her, and conduct your
guests in. No!--Mistress bride, will you entreat in the ladies?
your bride-groom is so shame-faced, here.
EPI: Will it please your ladyship, madam?
HAU: With the benefit of your company, mistress.
EPI: Servant, pray you perform your duties.
DAW: And glad to be commanded, mistress.
CEN: How like you her wit, Mavis?
MAV: Very prettily, absolutely well.
MRS. OTT: 'Tis my place.
MAV: You shall pardon me, mistress Otter.
MRS. OTT: Why, I am a collegiate.
MAV: But not in ordinary.
MRS. OTT: But I am.
MAV: We'll dispute that within.
[EXEUNT LADIES.]
CLER: Would this had lasted a little longer.
TRUE: And that they had sent for the heralds.
[ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER.]
--Captain Otter! what news?
OTT: I have brought my bull, bear, and horse, in private, and
yonder are the trumpeters without, and the drum, gentlemen.
[THE DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND WITHIN.]
MOR: O, O, O!
OTT: And we will have a rouse in each of them, anon, for bold
Britons, i'faith.
[THEY SOUND AGAIN.]
MOR: O, O, O!
[EXIT HASTILY.]
OMNES: Follow, follow, follow!
ACT 4. SCENE 4.1.
A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER TRUEWIT AND CLERIMONT.
TRUE: Was there ever poor bridegroom so tormented? or man,
indeed?
CLER: I have not read of the like in the chronicles of the land.
TRUE: Sure, he cannot but go to a place of rest, after all this
purgatory.
CLER: He may presume it, I think.
TRUE: The spitting, the coughing, the laughter, the neezing, the
farting, dancing, noise of the music, and her masculine and
loud commanding, and urging the whole family, makes him think he
has married a fury.
CLER: And she carries it up bravely.
TRUE: Ay, she takes any occasion to speak: that is the height on't.
CLER: And how soberly Dauphine labours to satisfy him, that it was
none of his plot!
TRUE: And has almost brought him to the faith, in the article.
Here he comes.
[ENTER SIR DAUPHINE.]
--Where is he now? what's become of him, Dauphine?
DAUP: O, hold me up a little, I shall go away in the jest else. He
has got on his whole nest of night-caps, and lock'd himself up in
the top of the house, as high as ever he can climb from the noise.
I peep'd in at a cranny, and saw him sitting over a cross-beam of
the roof, like him on the sadler's horse in Fleet-street, upright:
and he will sleep there.
CLER: But where are your collegiates?
DAUP: Withdrawn with the bride in private.
TRUE: O, they are instructing her in the college-grammar. If
she have grace with them, she knows all their secrets instantly.
CLER: Methinks the lady Haughty looks well to-day, for all my
dispraise of her in the morning. I think, I shall come about to
thee again, Truewit.
TRUE: Believe it, I told you right. Women ought to repair the
losses time and years have made in their features, with dressings.
And an intelligent woman, if she know by herself the least defect,
will be most curious to hide it: and it becomes her. If she be
short, let her sit much, lest, when she stands, she be thought to
sit. If she have an ill foot, let her wear her gown the longer,
and her shoe the thinner. If a fat hand, and scald nails, let her
carve the less, and act in gloves. If a sour breath, let her never
discourse fasting, and always talk at her distance. If she have
black and rugged teeth, let her offer the less at laughter,
especially if she laugh wide and open.
CLER: O, you shall have some women, when they laugh, you would
think they brayed, it is so rude, and--
TRUE: Ay, and others, that will stalk in their gait like an estrich,
and take huge strides. I cannot endure such a sight. I love measure
in the feet, and number in the voice: they are gentlenesses, that
oftentimes draw no less than the face.
DAUP: How camest thou to study these creatures so exactly? I would
thou would'st make me a proficient.
TRUE: Yes, but you must leave to live in your chamber, then, a
month together upon Amadis de Gaul, or Don Quixote, as you are
wont; and come abroad where the matter is frequent, to court, to
tiltings, public shows and feasts, to plays, and church sometimes:
thither they come to shew their new tires too, to see, and to be
seen. In these places a man shall find whom to love, whom to play
with, whom to touch once, whom to hold ever. The variety arrests
his judgment. A wench to please a man comes not down dropping
from the ceiling, as he lies on his back droning a tobacco pipe.
He must go where she is.
DAUP: Yes, and be never the nearer.
TRUE: Out, heretic! That diffidence makes thee worthy it should
be so.
CLER: He says true to you, Dauphine.
DAUP: Why?
TRUE: A man should not doubt to overcome any woman. Think he can
vanquish them, and he shall: for though they deny, their desire
is to be tempted. Penelope herself cannot hold out long. Ostend,
you saw, was taken at last. You must persever, and hold to your
purpose. They would solicit us, but that they are afraid.
Howsoever, they wish in their hearts we should solicit them.
Praise them, flatter them, you shall never want eloquence or
trust: even the chastest delight to feel themselves that way
rubb'd. With praises you must mix kisses too: if they take them,
they'll take more--though they strive, they would be overcome.
CLER: O, but a man must beware of force.
TRUE: It is to them an acceptable violence, and has oft-times the
place of the greatest courtesy. She that might have been forced,
and you let her go free without touching, though then she seem to
thank you, will ever hate you after; and glad in the face, is
assuredly sad at the heart.
CLER: But all women are not to be taken all ways.
TRUE: 'Tis true; no more than all birds, or all fishes. If you
appear learned to an ignorant wench, or jocund to a sad, or witty
to a foolish, why she presently begins to mistrust herself. You
must approach them in their own height, their own line: for the
contrary makes many, that fear to commit themselves to noble and
worthy fellows, run into the embraces of a rascal. If she love
wit, give verses, though you borrow them of a friend, or buy them,
to have good. If valour, talk of your sword, and be frequent in
the mention of quarrels, though you be staunch in fighting. If
activity, be seen on your barbary often, or leaping over stools,
for the credit of your back. If she love good clothes or dressing,
have your learned council about you every morning, your French
tailor, barber, linener, etc. Let your powder, your glass, and
your comb be your dearest acquaintance. Take more care for the
ornament of your head, than the safety: and wish the commonwealth
rather troubled, than a hair about you. That will take her. Then,
if she be covetous and craving, do you promise any thing, and
perform sparingly; so shall you keep her in appetite still. Seem
as you would give, but be like a barren field, that yields little,
or unlucky dice to foolish and hoping gamesters. Let your gifts
be slight and dainty, rather than precious. Let cunning be above
cost. Give cherries at time of year, or apricots; and say they
were sent you out of the country, though you bought them in
Cheapside. Admire her tires: like her in all fashions; compare her
in every habit to some deity; invent excellent dreams to flatter
her, and riddles; or, if she be a great one, perform always the
second parts to her: like what she likes, praise whom she praises,
and fail not to make the household and servants yours, yea the
whole family, and salute them by their names: ('tis but light cost
if you can purchase them so,) and make her physician your
pensioner, and her chief woman. Nor will it be out of your gain to
make love to her too, so she follow, not usher her lady's
pleasure. All blabbing is taken away, when she comes to be a part
of the crime.
DAUP: On what courtly lap hast thou late slept, to come forth so
sudden and absolute a courtling?
TRUE: Good faith, I should rather question you, that are so
harkening after these mysteries. I begin to suspect your
diligence, Dauphine. Speak, art thou in love in earnest?
DAUP: Yes, by my troth am I: 'twere ill dissembling before thee.
TRUE: With which of them, I prithee?
DAUP: With all the collegiates.
CLER: Out on thee! We'll keep you at home, believe it, in the
stable, if you be such a stallion.
TRUE: No; I like him well. Men should love wisely, and all women;
some one for the face, and let her please the eye; another for
the skin, and let her please the touch; a third for the voice, and
let her please the ear; and where the objects mix, let the senses
so too. Thou would'st think it strange, if I should make them all
in love with thee afore night!
DAUP: I would say, thou had'st the best philtre in the world, and
couldst do more than madam Medea, or doctor Foreman.
TRUE: If I do not, let me play the mountebank for my meat, while I
live, and the bawd for my drink.
DAUP: So be it, I say.
[ENTER OTTER, WITH HIS THREE CUPS, DAW, AND LA-FOOLE.]
OTT: O Lord, gentlemen, how my knights and I have mist you here!
CLER: Why, captain, what service? what service?
OTT: To see me bring up my bull, bear, and horse to fight.
DAW: Yes, faith, the captain says we shall be his dogs to bait
them.
DAUP: A good employment.
TRUE: Come on, let's see a course, then.
LA-F: I am afraid my cousin will be offended, if she come.
OTT: Be afraid of nothing. Gentlemen, I have placed the drum and
the trumpets, and one to give them the sign when you are ready.
Here's my bull for myself, and my bear for sir John Daw, and my
horse for sir Amorous. Now set your foot to mine, and yours to
his, and--
LA-F: Pray God my cousin come not.
OTT: Saint George, and saint Andrew, fear no cousins. Come,
sound, sound.
[DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND.]
Et rauco strepuerunt cornua cantu.
[THEY DRINK.]
TRUE: Well said, captain, i'faith: well fought at the bull.
CLER: Well held at the bear.
TRUE: Low, low! captain.
DAUP: O, the horse has kick'd off his dog already.
LA-F: I cannot drink it, as I am a knight.
TRUE: Ods so! off with his spurs, somebody.
LA-F: It goes against my conscience. My cousin will be angry with it.
DAW: I have done mine.
TRUE: You fought high and fair, sir John.
CLER: At the head.
DAUP: Like an excellent bear-dog.
CLER: You take no notice of the business, I hope?
DAW: Not a word, sir; you see we are jovial.
OTT: Sir Amorous, you must not equivocate.
It must be pull'd down, for all my cousin.
CLER: 'Sfoot, if you take not your drink, they will think you are
discontented with something: you'll betray all, if you take the
least notice.
LA-F: Not I; I'll both drink and talk then.
OTT: You must pull the horse on his knees, sir Amorous: fear no
cousins. Jacta est alea.
TRUE: O, now he's in his vein, and bold. The least hint given him
of his wife now, will make him rail desperately.
CLER: Speak to him of her.
TRUE: Do you, and I will fetch her to the hearing of it.
[EXIT.]
DAUP: Captain He-Otter, your She-Otter is coming, your wife.
OTT: Wife! buz! titivilitium! There's no such thing in nature.
I confess, gentlemen, I have a cook, a laundress, a house-drudge,
that serves my necessary turns, and goes under that title: but
he's an ass that will be so uxorious to tie his affections to one
circle. Come, the name dulls appetite. Here, replenish again:
another bout.
[FILLS THE CUPS AGAIN.]
Wives are nasty sluttish animalls.
DAUP: O, captain.
OTT: As ever the earth bare, tribus verbis. Where's master
Truewit?
DAW: He's slipt aside, sir.
CLER: But you must drink, and be jovial.
DAW: Yes, give it me.
LA-F: And me too.
DAW: Let's be jovial.
LA-F: As jovial as you will.
OTT: Agreed. Now you shall have the bear, cousin, and sir John
Daw the horse, and I will have the bull still. Sound, Tritons of
the Thames.
[DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND AGAIN.]
Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero--
MOR [ABOVE]: Villains, murderers, sons of the earth, and traitors,
what do you there?
CLER: O, now the trumpets have waked him, we shall have his
company.
OTT: A wife is a scurvy clogdogdo, an unlucky thing, a very
foresaid bear-whelp, without any good fashion or breeding: mala
bestia.
[RE-ENTER TRUEWIT BEHIND, WITH MISTRESS OTTER.]
DAUP: Why did you marry one then, captain?
OTT: A pox!--I married with six thousand pound, I. I was in love
with that. I have not kissed my Fury these forty weeks.
CLER: The more to blame you, captain.
TRUE: Nay, mistress Otter, hear him a little first.
OTT: She has a breath worse than my grandmother's, profecto.
MRS. OTT: O treacherous liar! kiss me, sweet master Truewit, and
prove him a slandering knave.
TRUE: I will rather believe you, lady.
OTT: And she has a peruke that's like a pound of hemp, made up in
shoe-threads.
MRS. OTT: O viper, mandrake!
OTT: A most vile face! and yet she spends me forty pound a year
in mercury and hogs-bones. All her teeth were made in the
Black-Friars, both her eyebrows in the Strand, and her hair in
Silver-street. Every part of the town owns a piece of her.
MRS. OTT [COMES FORWARD.]: I cannot hold.
OTT: She takes herself asunder still when she goes to bed, into
some twenty boxes; and about next day noon is put together again,
like a great German clock: and so comes forth, and rings a tedious
larum to the whole house, and then is quiet again for an hour,
but for her quarters. Have you done me right, gentlemen?
MRS. OTT [FALLS UPON HIM, AND BEATS HIM.]: No, sir, I will do you
right with my quarters, with my quarters.
OTT: O, hold, good princess.
TRUE: Sound, sound!
[DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND.]
CLER: A battle, a battle!
MRS. OTT: You notorious stinkardly bearward, does my breath smell?
OTT: Under correction, dear princess: look to my bear, and my
horse, gentlemen.
MRS. OTT: Do I want teeth, and eyebrows, thou bull-dog?
TRUE: Sound, sound still.
[THEY SOUND AGAIN.]
OTT: No, I protest, under correction--
MRS. OTT: Ay, now you are under correction, you protest: but you
did not protest before correction, sir. Thou Judas, to offer to
betray thy princess! I will make thee an example--
[BEATS HIM.]
[ENTER MOROSE WITH HIS LONG SWORD.]
MOR: I will have no such examples in my house, lady Otter.
MRS. OTT: Ah!--
[MRS. OTTER, DAW, AND LA-FOOLE RUN OFF.]
OTT: Mistress Mary Ambree, your examples are dangerous. Rogues,
hell-hounds, Stentors! out of my doors, you sons of noise and
tumult, begot on an ill May-day, or when the galley-foist is
afloat to Westminster!
[DRIVES OUT THE MUSICIANS.]
A trumpeter could not be conceived but then!
DAUP: What ails you, sir?
MOR: They have rent my roof, walls, and all my windows asunder,
with their brazen throats.
[EXIT.]
TRUE: Best follow him, Dauphine.
DAUP: So I will.
[EXIT.]
CLER: Where's Daw and La-Foole?
OTT: They are both run away, sir. Good gentlemen, help to pacify
my princess, and speak to the great ladies for me. Now must I go
lie with the bears this fortnight, and keep out of the way, till
my peace be made, for this scandal she has taken. Did you not see
my bull-head, gentlemen?
CLER: Is't not on, captain?
TRUE: No; but he may make a new one, by that is on.
OTT: O, here it is. An you come over, gentlemen, and ask for Tom
Otter, we'll go down to Ratcliff, and have a course i'faith,
for all these disasters. There is bona spes left.
TRUE: Away, captain, get off while you are well.
[EXIT OTTER.]
CLER: I am glad we are rid of him.
TRUE: You had never been, unless we had put his wife upon him.
His humour is as tedious at last, as it was ridiculous at first.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 4.2.
A LONG OPEN GALLERY IN THE SAME.
ENTER LADY HAUGHTY, MISTRESS OTTER, MAVIS, DAW, LAFOOLE,
CENTAURE, AND EPICOENE.
HAU: We wonder'd why you shriek'd so, mistress Otter?
MRS. OTT: O lord, madam, he came down with a huge long naked
weapon in both his hands, and look'd so dreadfully! sure he's
beside himself.
HAU: Why, what made you there, mistress Otter?
MRS. OTT: Alas, mistress Mavis, I was chastising my subject,
and thought nothing of him.
DAW: Faith, mistress, you must do so too: learn to chastise.
Mistress Otter corrects her husband so, he dares not speak but
under correction.
LA-F: And with his hat off to her: 'twould do you good to see.
HAU: In sadness, 'tis good and mature counsel: practise it,
Morose. I'll call you Morose still now, as I call Centaure and
Mavis; we four will be all one.
CEN: And you will come to the college, and live with us?
HAU: Make him give milk and honey.
MAV: Look how you manage him at first, you shall have him ever
after.
CEN: Let him allow you your coach, and four horses, your woman,
your chamber-maid, your page, your gentleman-usher, your French
cook, and four grooms.
HAU: And go with us to Bedlam, to the china-houses, and to the
Exchange.
CEN: It will open the gate to your fame.
HAU: Here's Centaure has immortalised herself, with taming of her
wild male.
MAV: Ay, she has done the miracle of the kingdom.
[ENTER CLERIMONT AND TRUEWIT.]
EPI: But, ladies, do you count it lawful to have such plurality
of servants, and do them all graces?
HAU: Why not? why should women deny their favours to men? are
they the poorer or the worse?
DAW: Is the Thames the less for the dyer's water, mistress?
LA-F: Or a torch for lighting many torches?
TRUE: Well said, La-Foole; what a new one he has got!
CEN: They are empty losses women fear in this kind.
HAU: Besides, ladies should be mindful of the approach of age,
and let no time want his due use. The best of our days pass
first.
MAV: We are rivers, that cannot be call'd back, madam: she that
now excludes her lovers, may live to lie a forsaken beldame, in
a frozen bed.
CEN: 'Tis true, Mavis: and who will wait on us to coach then?
or write, or tell us the news then, make anagrams of our names,
and invite us to the Cockpit, and kiss our hands all the play-time,
and draw their weapons for our honours?
HAU: Not one.
DAW: Nay, my mistress is not altogether unintelligent of these
things; here be in presence have tasted of her favours.
CLER: What a neighing hobby-horse is this!
EPI: But not with intent to boast them again, servant. And have
you those excellent receipts, madam, to keep yourselves from
bearing of children?
HAU: O yes, Morose: how should we maintain our youth and beauty
else? Many births of a woman make her old, as many crops make the
earth barren.
[ENTER MOROSE AND DAUPHINE.]
MOR: O my cursed angel, that instructed me to this fate!
DAUP: Why, sir?
MOR: That I should be seduced by so foolish a devil as a barber
will make!
DAUP: I would I had been worthy, sir, to have partaken your
counsel; you should never have trusted it to such a minister.
MOR: Would I could redeem it with the loss of an eye, nephew, a
hand, or any other member.
DAUP: Marry, God forbid, sir, that you should geld yourself, to
anger your wife.
MOR: So it would rid me of her! and, that I did supererogatory
penance in a belfry, at Westminster-hall, in the Cock-pit, at the
fall of a stag; the Tower-wharf (what place is there else?)--
London-bridge, Paris-garden, Billinsgate, when the noises are at
their height, and loudest. Nay, I would sit out a play, that were
nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet, and target.
DAUP: I hope there shall be no such need, sir. Take patience, good
uncle. This is but a day, and 'tis well worn too now.
MOR: O, 'twill be so for ever, nephew, I foresee it, for ever.
Strife and tumult are the dowry that comes with a wife.
TRUE: I told you so, sir, and you would not believe me.
MOR: Alas, do not rub those wounds, master Truewit, to blood again:
'twas my negligence. Add not affliction to affliction. I have
perceived the effect of it, too late, in madam Otter.
EPI: How do you, sir?
MOR: Did you ever hear a more unnecessary question? as if she did
not see! Why, I do as you see, empress, empress.
EPI: You are not well, sir; you look very ill; something has
distemper'd you.
MOR: O horrible, monstrous impertinencies! would not one of these
have served, do you think, sir? would not one of these have
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