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DAUP: Withdrawn with the bride in private.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
served?
TRUE: Yes, sir, but these are but notes of female kindness, sir;
certain tokens that she has a voice, sir.
MOR: O, is it so? Come, an't be no otherwise—What say you?
EPI: How do you feel yourself, sir?
MOR: Again that!
TRUE: Nay, look you, sir: you would be friends with your wife upon
unconscionable terms; her silence—
EPI: They say you are run mad, sir.
MOR: Not for love, I assure you, of you; do you see?
EPI: O lord, gentlemen! lay hold on him, for God's sake. What
shall I do? who's his physician, can you tell, that knows the
state of his body best, that I might send for him? Good sir,
speak; I'll send for one of my doctors else.
MOR: What, to poison me, that I might die intestate, and leave
you possest of all?
EPI: Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes sparkle! he looks
green about the temples! do you see what blue spots he has?
TRUE: Ay, 'tis melancholy.
EPI: Gentlemen, for Heaven's sake, counsel me. Ladies;—servant,
you have read Pliny and Paracelsus; ne'er a word now to comfort a
poor gentlewoman? Ay me, what fortune had I, to marry a distracted
man!
DAW: I will tell you, mistress—
TRUE: How rarely she holds it up!
[ASIDE TO CLER.]
MOR: What mean you, gentlemen?
EPI: What will you tell me, servant?
DAW: The disease in Greek is called mania, in Latin insania,
furor, vel ecstasis melancholica, that is, egressio, when a
man ex melancholico evadit fanaticus.
MOR: Shall I have a lecture read upon me alive?
DAW: But he may be but phreneticus yet, mistress? and phrenetis
is only delirium, or so.
EPI: Ay, that is for the disease, servant: but what is this to
the cure? we are sure enough of the disease.
MOR: Let me go.
TRUE: Why, we'll entreat her to hold her peace, sir.
MOR: O no, labour not to stop her. She is like a conduit-pipe,
that will gush out with more force when she opens again.
HAU: I will tell you, Morose, you must talk divinity to him
altogether, or moral philosophy.
LA-F: Ay, and there's an excellent book of moral philosophy,
madam, of Raynard the fox, and all the beasts, called Doni's
Philosophy.
CEN: There is, indeed, sir Amorous La-Foole.
MOR: O misery!
LA-F: I have read it, my lady Centaure, all over, to my cousin,
here.
MRS. OTT: Ay, and 'tis a very good book as any is, of the moderns.
DAW: Tut, he must have Seneca read to him, and Plutarch, and the
ancients; the moderns are not for this disease.
CLER: Why, you discommended them too, to-day, sir John.
DAW: Ay, in some cases: but in these they are best, and Aristotle's
ethics.
MAV: Say you so sir John? I think you are decived: you took it upon
trust.
HAU: Where's Trusty, my woman? I'll end this difference. I prithee,
Otter, call her. Her father and mother were both mad, when they put
her to me.
MOR: I think so. Nay, gentlemen, I am tame. This is but an exercise,
I know, a marriage ceremony, which I must endure.
HAU: And one of them, I know not which, was cur'd with the Sick
Man's Salve; and the other with Green's Groat's-worth of Wit.
TRUE: A very cheap cure, madam.
[ENTER TRUSTY.]
HAU: Ay, 'tis very feasible.
MRS. OTT: My lady call'd for you, mistress Trusty: you must decide a
controversy.
HAU: O, Trusty, which was it you said, your father, or your mother,
that was cured with the Sick Man's Salve?
TRUS: My mother, madam, with the Salve.
TRUE: Then it was the sick woman's salve?
TRUS: And my father with the Groat's-worth of Wit. But there was
other means used: we had a preacher that would preach folk asleep
still; and so they were prescribed to go to church, by an old woman
that was their physician, thrice a week—
EPI: To sleep?
TRUS: Yes, forsooth: and every night they read themselves asleep on
those books.
EPI: Good faith, it stands with great reason. I would I knew where
to procure those books.
MOR: Oh!
LA-F: I can help you with one of them, mistress Morose, the
Groat's-worth of Wit.
EPI: But I shall disfurnish you, sir Amorous: can you spare it?
LA-F: O, yes, for a week, or so; I'll read it myself to him.
EPI: No, I must do that, sir: that must be my office.
MOR: Oh, oh!
EPI: Sure he would do well enough, if he could sleep.
MOR: No, I should do well enough, if you could sleep. Have I no
friend that will make her drunk? or give her a little laudanum?
or opium?
TRUE: Why, sir, she talks ten times worse in her sleep.
MOR: How!
CLER: Do you not know that, sir? never ceases all night.
TRUE: And snores like a porpoise.
MOR: O, redeem me, fate; redeem me, fate! For how many causes may
a man be divorced, nephew?
DAUP: I know not, truly, sir.
TRUE: Some divine must resolve you in that, sir, or canon-lawyer.
MOR: I will not rest, I will not think of any other hope or comfort,
till I know.
[EXIT WITH DAUPHINE.]
CLER: Alas, poor man!
TRUE: You'll make him mad indeed, ladies, if you pursue this.
HAU: No, we'll let him breathe now, a quarter of an hour or so.
CLER: By my faith, a large truce!
HAU: Is that his keeper, that is gone with him?
DAW: It is his nephew, madam.
LA-F: Sir Dauphine Eugenie.
HAU: He looks like a very pitiful knight—
DAW: As can be. This marriage has put him out of all.
LA-F: He has not a penny in his purse, madam.
DAW: He is ready to cry all this day.
LA-F: A very shark; he set me in the nick t'other night at
Primero.
TRUE: How these swabbers talk!
CLER: Ay, Otter's wine has swell'd their humours above a spring-tide.
HAU: Good Morose, let us go in again. I like your couches exceeding
well; we will go lie and talk there.
[EXEUNT HAU., CEN., MAV., TRUS., LA-FOOLE, AND DAW.]
EPI [FOLLOWING THEM.]: I wait on you, madam.
TRUE [STOPPING HER.]: 'Slight, I will have them as silent as
signs, and their post too, ere I have done. Do you hear, lady-bride?
I pray thee now, as thou art a noble wench, continue this discourse
of Dauphine within; but praise him exceedingly: magnify him with all
the height of affection thou canst;—I have some purpose in't: and
but beat off these two rooks, Jack Daw and his fellow, with any
discontentment, hither, and I'll honour thee for ever.
EPI: I was about it here. It angered me to the soul, to hear them
begin to talk so malepert.
TRUE: Pray thee perform it, and thou winn'st me an idolater to
thee everlasting.
EPI: Will you go in and hear me do't?
TRUE: No, I'll stay here. Drive them out of your company, 'tis all
I ask; which cannot be any way better done, than by extolling
Dauphine, whom they have so slighted.
EPI: I warrant you; you shall expect one of them presently.
[EXIT.]
CLER: What a cast of kestrils are these, to hawk after ladies,
thus!
TRUE: Ay, and strike at such an eagle as Dauphine.
CLER: He will be mad when we tell him. Here he comes.
[RE-ENTER DAUPHINE.]
CLER: O sir, you are welcome.
TRUE: Where's thine uncle?
DAUP: Run out of doors in his night-caps, to talk with a casuist
about his divorce. It works admirably.
TRUE: Thou wouldst have said so, if thou hadst been here! The
ladies have laugh'd at thee most comically, since thou went'st,
Dauphine.
CLER: And ask'd, if thou wert thine uncle's keeper.
TRUE: And the brace of baboons answer'd, Yes; and said thou wert
a pitiful poor fellow, and didst live upon posts: and hadst
nothing but three suits of apparel, and some few benevolences that
lords gave thee to fool to them, and swagger.
DAUP: Let me not live, I will beat them: I'll bind them both to
grand-madam's bed-posts, and have them baited with monkies.
TRUE: Thou shalt not need, they shall be beaten to thy hand,
Dauphine. I have an execution to serve upon them, I warrant thee,
shall serve; trust my plot.
DAUP: Ay, you have many plots! so you had one to make all the
wenches in love with me.
TRUE: Why, if I do not yet afore night, as near as 'tis; and
that they do not every one invite thee, and be ready to scratch
for thee, take the mortgage of my wit.
CLER: 'Fore God, I'll be his witness thou shalt have it,
Dauphine: thou shalt be his fool for ever, if thou doest not.
TRUE: Agreed. Perhaps 'twill be the better estate. Do you observe
this gallery, or rather lobby, indeed? Here are a couple of
studies, at each end one: here will I act such a tragi-comedy
between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Daw and La-Foole—which
of them comes out first, will I seize on:—you two shall be the
chorus behind the arras, and whip out between the acts and
speak—If I do not make them keep the peace for this remnant of
the day, if not of the year, I have failed once—I hear Daw
coming: hide,
[THEY WITHDRAW]
and do not laugh, for God's sake.
[RE-ENTER DAW.]
DAW: Which is the way into the garden trow?
TRUE: O, Jack Daw! I am glad I have met with you. In good faith,
I must have this matter go no further between you. I must have it
taken up.
DAW: What matter, sir? between whom?
TRUE: Come, you disguise it: sir Amorous and you. If you love me,
Jack, you shall make use of your philosophy now, for this once,
and deliver me your sword. This is not the wedding the Centaurs
were at, though there be a she one here.
[TAKES HIS SWORD.]
The bride has entreated me I will see no blood shed at her bridal,
you saw her whisper me erewhile.
DAW: As I hope to finish Tacitus, I intend no murder.
TRUE: Do you not wait for sir Amorous?
DAW: Not I, by my knighthood.
TRUE: And your scholarship too?
DAW: And my scholarship too.
TRUE: Go to, then I return you your sword, and ask you mercy; but
put it not up, for you will be assaulted. I understood that you
had apprehended it, and walked here to brave him: and that you
had held your life contemptible, in regard of your honour.
DAW: No, no; no such thing, I assure you. He and I parted now,
as good friends as could be.
TRUE: Trust not you to that visor. I saw him since dinner with
another face: I have known many men in my time vex'd with losses,
with deaths, and with abuses; but so offended a wight as sir
Amorous, did I never see, or read of. For taking away his guests,
sir, to-day, that's the cause: and he declares it behind your back
with such threatenings and contempts—He said to Dauphine, you
were the arrant'st ass—
DAW: Ay, he may say his pleasure.
TRUE: And swears you are so protested a coward, that he knows you
will never do him any manly or single right, and therefore he will
take his course.
DAW: I'll give him any satisfaction, sir—but fighting.
TRUE: Ay, sir: but who knows what satisfaction he'll take? blood
he thirsts for, and blood he will have: and whereabouts on you he
will have it, who knows but himself?
DAW: I pray you, master Truewit, be you a mediator.
TRUE: Well, sir, conceal yourself then in this study till I
return.
[PUTS HIM INTO THE STUDY.]
Nay, you must be content to be lock'd in: for, for mine own
reputation, I would not have you seen to receive a public
disgrace, while I have the matter in managing. Ods so, here he
comes; keep your breath close, that he do not hear you sigh.
In good faith, sir Amorous, he is not this way; I pray you be
merciful, do not murder him; he is a Christian, as good as you:
you are arm'd as if you sought revenge on all his race. Good
Dauphine, get him away from this place. I never knew a man's
choler so high, but he would speak to his friends, he would hear
reason.—Jack Daw, Jack! asleep!
DAW [within]: Is he gone, master Truewit?
TRUE: Ay; did you hear him?
DAW: O lord! yes.
TRUE: What a quick ear fear has!
DAW [COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET.]: But is he so arm'd, as you say?
TRUE: Arm'd? did you ever see a fellow set out to take possession?
DAW: Ay, sir.
TRUE: That may give you some light to conceive of him: but 'tis
nothing to the principal. Some false brother in the house has
furnish'd him strangely; or, if it were out of the house, it was
Tom Otter.
DAW: Indeed he's a captain, and his wife is his kinswoman.
TRUE: He has got some body's old two-hand sword, to mow you off
at the knees; and that sword hath spawn'd such a dagger!—But
then he is so hung with pikes, halberds, petronels, calivers and
muskets, that he looks like a justice of peace's hall: a man of
two thousand a-year, is not cess'd at so many weapons as he has on.
There was never fencer challenged at so many several foils. You
would think he meant to murder all Saint Pulchre parish. If he
could but victual himself for half a year in his breeches, he is
sufficiently arm'd to over-run a country.
DAW: Good lord! what means he, sir? I pray you, master Truewit, be
you a mediator.
TRUE: Well, I 'll try if he will be appeased with a leg or an arm;
if not you must die once.
DAW: I would be loth to lose my right arm, for writing madrigals.
TRUE: Why, if he will be satisfied with a thumb or a little finger,
all's one to me. You must think, I will do my best.
[SHUTS HIM UP AGAIN.]
DAW: Good sir, do.
[CLERIMONT AND DAUPHINE COME FORWARD.]
CLER: What hast thou done?
TRUE: He will let me do nothing, he does all afore; he offers
his left arm.
CLER: His left wing for a Jack Daw.
DAUP: Take it, by all means.
TRUE: How! maim a man for ever, for a jest? What a conscience hast
thou!
DAUP: 'Tis no loss to him; he has no employment for his arms, but
to eat spoon-meat. Beside, as good maim his body as his reputation.
TRUE: He is a scholar, and a wit, and yet he does not think so.
But he loses no reputation with us; for we all resolved him an ass
before. To your places again.
CLER: I pray thee, let me be in at the other a little.
TRUE: Look, you'll spoil all: these be ever your tricks.
CLER: No, but I could hit of some things that thou wilt miss, and
thou wilt say are good ones.
TRUE: I warrant you. I pray forbear, I will leave it off, else.
DAUP: Come away, Clerimont.
[DAUP. AND CLER. WITHDRAW AS BEFORE.]
[ENTER LA-FOOLE.]
TRUE: Sir Amorous!
LA-F: Master Truewit.
TRUE: Whither were you going?
LA-F: Down into the court to make water.
TRUE: By no means, sir; you shall rather tempt your breeches.
LA-F: Why, sir?
TRUE: Enter here, if you love your life.
[OPENING THE DOOR OF THE OTHER STUDY.]
LA-F: Why? why?
TRUE: Question till you throat be cut, do: dally till the enraged
soul find you.
LA-F: Who is that?
TRUE: Daw it is: will you in?
LA-F: Ay, ay, I will in: what's the matter?
TRUE: Nay, if he had been cool enough to tell us that, there had
been some hope to atone you, but he seems so implacably enraged!
LA-F: 'Slight, let him rage! I'll hide myself.
TRUE: Do, good sir. But what have you done to him within, that
should provoke him thus? You have broke some jest upon him, afore
the ladies.
LA-F: Not I, never in my life, broke jest upon any man. The bride
was praising sir Dauphine, and he went away in snuff, and I
followed him, unless he took offence at me in his drink erewhile,
that I would not pledge all the horse full.
TRUE: By my faith, and that may be, you remember well: but he walks
the round up and down, through every room o' the house, with a
towel in his hand, crying, Where's La-Foole? Who saw La-Foole?
and when Dauphine and I demanded the cause, we can force no
answer from him, but—O revenge, how sweet art thou! I will
strangle him in this towel—which leads us to conjecture that the
main cause of his fury is, for bringing your meat to-day, with a
towel about you, to his discredit.
LA-F: Like enough. Why, if he be angry for that, I'll stay here
till his anger be blown over.
TRUE: A good becoming resolution, sir; if you can put it on o'
the sudden.
LA-F: Yes, I can put it on: or, I'll away into the country
presently.
TRUE: How will you get out of the house, sir? he knows you are in
the house, and he will watch you this se'ennight, but he'll have
you. He'll outwait a serjeant for you.
LA-F: Why, then I'll stay here.
TRUE: You must think how to victual yourself in time then.
LA-F: Why, sweet master Truewit, will you entreat my cousin Otter
to send me a cold venison pasty, a bottle or two of wine, and a
chamber-pot?
TRUE: A stool were better, sir, of sir Ajax his invention.
LA-F: Ay, that will be better, indeed; and a pallet to lie on.
TRUE: O, I would not advise you to sleep by any means.
LA-F: Would you not, sir? why, then I will not.
TRUE: Yet, there's another fear—
LA-F: Is there! what is't?
TRUE: No, he cannot break open this door with his foot, sure.
LA-F: I'll set my back against it, sir. I have a good back.
TRUE: But then if he should batter.
LA-F: Batter! if he dare, I'll have an action of battery against
him.
TRUE: Cast you the worst. He has sent for powder already, and what
he will do with it, no man knows: perhaps blow up the corner of
the house where he suspects you are. Here he comes; in quickly.
[THRUSTS IN LA-FOOLE AND SHUTS THE DOOR.]
I protest, sir John Daw, he is not this way: what will you do?
before God, you shall hang no petard here. I'll die rather. Will
you not take my word? I never knew one but would be satisfied.—
Sir Amorous,
[SPEAKS THROUGH THE KEY-HOLE,]
there's no standing out: He has made a petard of an old brass
pot, to force your door. Think upon some satisfaction, or terms
to offer him.
LA-F [WITHIN.]: Sir, I will give him any satisfaction: I dare
give any terms.
TRUE: You'll leave it to me, then?
LA-F: Ay, sir. I'll stand to any conditions.
TRUE [BECKONING FORWARD CLERIMONT AND DAUPHINE.]: How now, what
think you, sirs? were't not a difficult thing to determine
which of these two fear'd most.
CLER: Yes, but this fears the bravest: the other a whiniling
dastard, Jack Daw! But La-Foole, a brave heroic coward! and is
afraid in a great look and a stout accent; I like him rarely.
TRUE: Had it not been pity these two should have been concealed?
CLER: Shall I make a motion?
TRUE: Briefly: For I must strike while 'tis hot.
CLER: Shall I go fetch the ladies to the catastrophe?
TRUE: Umph! ay, by my troth.
DAUP: By no mortal means. Let them continue in the state of
ignorance, and err still; think them wits and fine fellows, as
they have done. 'Twere sin to reform them.
TRUE: Well, I will have them fetch'd, now I think on't, for a
private purpose of mine: do, Clerimont, fetch them, and discourse
to them all that's past, and bring them into the gallery here.
DAUP: This is thy extreme vanity, now: thou think'st thou wert
undone, if every jest thou mak'st were not publish'd.
TRUE: Thou shalt see how unjust thou art presently. Clerimont, say
it was Dauphine's plot.
[EXIT CLERIMONT.]
Trust me not, if the whole drift be not for thy good. There is a
carpet in the next room, put it on, with this scarf over thy face,
and a cushion on thy head, and be ready when I call Amorous.
Away!
[EXIT DAUP.]
John Daw!
[GOES TO DAW'S CLOSET AND BRINGS HIM OUT.]
DAW: What good news, sir?
TRUE: Faith, I have followed and argued with him hard for you. I
told him you were a knight, and a scholar, and that you knew
fortitude did consist magis patiendo quam faciendo, magis ferendo
quam feriendo.
DAW: It doth so indeed, sir.
TRUE: And that you would suffer, I told him: so at first he
demanded by my troth, in my conceit, too much.
DAW: What was it, sir.
TRUE: Your upper lip, and six of your fore-teeth.
DAW: 'Twas unreasonable.
TRUE: Nay, I told him plainly, you could not spare them all.
So after long argument pro et con as you know, I brought him
down to your two butter-teeth, and them he would have.
DAW: O, did you so? Why, he shall have them.
TRUE: But he shall not, sir, by your leave. The conclusion is this,
sir: because you shall be very good friends hereafter, and this
never to be remembered or upbraided; besides, that he may not
boast he has done any such thing to you in his own person: he is
to come here in disguise, give you five kicks in private, sir, take
your sword from you, and lock you up in that study during pleasure:
which will be but a little while, we'll get it released presently.
DAW: Five kicks! he shall have six, sir, to be friends.
TRUE: Believe me, you shall not over-shoot yourself, to send him
that word by me.
DAW: Deliver it, sir: he shall have it with all my heart, to be
friends.
TRUE: Friends! Nay, an he should not be so, and heartily too, upon
these terms, he shall have me to enemy while I live. Come, sir, bear
it bravely.
DAW: O lord, sir, 'tis nothing.
TRUE: True: what's six kicks to a man that reads Seneca?
DAW: I have had a hundred, sir.
TRUE: Sir Amorous!
[RE-ENTER DAUPHINE, DISGUISED.]
No speaking one to another, or rehearsing old matters.
DAW [AS DAUPHINE KICKS HIM.]: One, two, three, four, five. I
protest, sir Amorous, you shall have six.
TRUE: Nay, I told you, you should not talk. Come give him six,
an he will needs.
[DAUPHINE KICKS HIM AGAIN.]
—Your sword.
[TAKES HIS SWORD.]
Now return to your safe custody: you shall presently meet
afore the ladies, and be the dearest friends one to another.
[PUTS DAW INTO THE STUDY.]
—Give me the scarf now, thou shalt beat the other bare-faced.
Stand by:
[DAUPHINE RETIRES, AND TRUEWIT GOES TO THE OTHER CLOSET, AND
RELEASES LA-FOOLE.]
—Sir Amorous!
LA-F: What's here? A sword?
TRUE: I cannot help it, without I should take the quarrel upon
myself. Here he has sent you his sword—
LA-F: I will receive none on't.
TRUE: And he wills you to fasten it against a wall, and break
your head in some few several places against the hilts.
LA-F: I will not: tell him roundly. I cannot endure to shed my
own blood.
TRUE: Will you not?
LA-F: No. I'll beat it against a fair flat wall, if that will
satisfy him: if not, he shall beat it himself, for Amorous.
TRUE: Why, this is strange starting off, when a man undertakes
for you! I offer'd him another condition; will you stand to that?
LA-F: Ay, what is't.
TRUE: That you will be beaten in private.
LA-F: Yes, I am content, at the blunt.
[ENTER, ABOVE, HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER,
EPICOENE, AND TRUSTY.]
TRUE: Then you must submit yourself to be hoodwinked in this
scarf, and be led to him, where he will take your sword from
you, and make you bear a blow over the mouth, gules, and tweaks
by the nose, sans nombre.
LA-F: I am content. But why must I be blinded?
TRUE: That's for your good, sir: because, if he should grow
insolent upon this, and publish it hereafter to your disgrace,
(which I hope he will not do,) you might swear safely, and
protest, he never beat you, to your knowledge.
LA-F: O, I conceive.
TRUE: I do not doubt but you will be perfect good friends upon't,
and not dare to utter an ill thought one of another in future.
LA-F: Not I, as God help me, of him.
TRUE: Nor he of you, sir. If he should
[BLINDS HIS EYES.]
—Come, sir.
[LEADS HIM FORWARD.]
—All hid, sir John.
[ENTER DAUPHINE, AND TWEAKS HIM BY THE NOSE.]
LA-F: O, sir John, sir John! Oh, o—o—o—o—o—Oh—
TRUE: Good, sir John, leave tweaking, you'll blow his nose off.
'Tis sir John's pleasure, you should retire into the study.
[PUTS HIM UP AGAIN.]
—Why, now you are friends. All bitterness between you, I hope,
is buried; you shall come forth by and by, Damon and Pythias
upon't, and embrace with all the rankness of friendship that can
be. I trust, we shall have them tamer in their language hereafter.
Dauphine, I worship thee.—Gods will the ladies have surprised us!
[ENTER HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE,
AND TRUSTY, BEHIND.]
HAU: Centaure, how our judgments were imposed on by these
adulterate knights!
Nay, madam, Mavis was more deceived than we, 'twas her
commendation utter'd them in the college.
MAV: I commended but their wits, madam, and their braveries.
I never look'd toward their valours.
HAU: Sir Dauphine is valiant, and a wit too, it seems.
MAV: And a bravery too.
HAU: Was this his project?
MRS. OTT: So master Clerimont intimates, madam.
HAU: Good Morose, when you come to the college, will you bring
him with you? he seems a very perfect gentleman.
EPI: He is so, madam, believe it.
CEN: But when will you come, Morose?
EPI: Three or four days hence, madam, when I have got me a coach
and horses.
HAU: No, to-morrow, good Morose; Centaure shall send you her coach.
MAV: Yes faith, do, and bring sir Dauphine with you.
HAU: She has promised that, Mavis.
MAV: He is a very worthy gentleman in his exteriors, madam.
HAU: Ay, he shews he is judicial in his clothes.
CEN: And yet not so superlatively neat as some, madam, that have
their faces set in a brake.
HAU: Ay, and have every hair in form!
MAV: That wear purer linen then ourselves, and profess more
neatness than the French hermaphrodite!
EPI: Ay, ladies, they, what they tell one of us, have told a
thousand; and are the only thieves of our fame: that think to
take us with that perfume, or with that lace, and laugh at us
unconscionably when they have done.
HAU: But, sir Dauphine's carelessness becomes him.
CEN: I could love a man for such a nose.
MAV: Or such a leg!
CEN: He has an exceeding good eye, madam.
MAV: And a very good lock.
CEN: Good Morose, bring him to my chamber first.
MRS. OTT: Please your honours to meet at my house, madam.
TRUE: See how they eye thee, man! they are taken, I warrant thee.
[HAUGHTY COMES FORWARD.]
HAU: You have unbraced our brace of knights here, master Truewit.
TRUE: Not I, madam; it was sir Dauphine's ingine: who, if he have
disfurnish'd your ladyship of any guard or service by it, is able
to make the place good again, in himself.
HAU: There is no suspicion of that, sir.
CEN: God so, Mavis, Haughty is kissing.
MAV: Let us go too, and take part.
[THEY COME FORWARD.]
HAU: But I am glad of the fortune (beside the discovery of two
such empty caskets) to gain the knowledge of so rich a mine of
virtue as sir Dauphine.
CEN: We would be all glad to style him of our friendship, and see
him at the college.
MAV: He cannot mix with a sweeter society, I'll prophesy; and
I hope he himself will think so.
DAUP: I should be rude to imagine otherwise, lady.
TRUE: Did not I tell thee, Dauphine? Why, all their actions are
governed by crude opinion, without reason or cause; they know not
why they do any thing: but, as they are inform'd, believe, judge,
praise, condemn, love, hate, and in emulation one of another, do
all these things alike. Only they have a natural inclination sways
them generally to the worst, when they are left to themselves.
But pursue it, now thou hast them.
HAU: Shall we go in again, Morose?
EPI: Yes, madam.
CEN: We'll entreat sir Dauphine's company.
TRUE: Stay, good madam, the interview of the two friends, Pylades
and Orestes: I'll fetch them out to you straight.
HAU: Will you, master Truewit?
DAUP: Ay, but noble ladies, do not confess in your countenance,
or outward bearing to them, any discovery of their follies, that
we may see how they will bear up again, with what assurance and
erection.
HAU: We will not, sir Dauphine.
CEN. MAV: Upon our honours, sir Dauphine.
TRUE [GOES TO THE FIRST CLOSET.]: Sir Amorous, sir Amorous!
The ladies are here.
LA-F [WITHIN.]: Are they?
TRUE: Yes; but slip out by and by, as their backs are turn'd,
and meet sir John here, as by chance, when I call you.
[goes to the other.]
—Jack Daw.
DAW: What say you, sir?
TRUE: Whip out behind me suddenly, and no anger in your looks to
your adversary. Now, now!
[LA-FOOLE AND DAW SLIP OUT OF THEIR RESPECTIVE CLOSETS, AND
SALUTE EACH OTHER.]
LA-F: Noble sir John Daw, where have you been?
DAW: To seek you, sir Amorous.
LA-F: Me! I honour you.
DAW: I prevent you, sir.
CLER: They have forgot their rapiers.
TRUE: O, they meet in peace, man.
DAUP: Where's your sword, sir John?
CLER: And yours, sir Amorous?
DAW: Mine! my boy had it forth to mend the handle, e'en now.
LA-F: And my gold handle was broke too, and my boy had it forth.
DAUP: Indeed, sir!—How their excuses meet!
CLER: What a consent there is in the handles!
TRUE: Nay, there is so in the points too, I warrant you.
[ENTER MOROSE, WITH THE TWO SWORDS, DRAWN IN HIS HANDS.]
MRS. OTT: O me! madam, he comes again, the madman! Away!
[LADIES, DAW, AND LA-FOOLE, RUN OFF.]
MOR: What make these naked weapons here, gentlemen?
TRUE: O sir! here hath like to have been murder since you went;
a couple of knights fallen out about the bride's favours! We were
fain to take away their weapons; your house had been begg'd by
this time else.
MOR: For what?
CLER: For manslaughter, sir, as being accessary.
MOR: And for her favours?
TRUE: Ay, sir, heretofore, not present—Clerimont, carry them
their swords, now. They have done all the hurt they will do.
[EXIT CLER. WITH THE TWO SWORDS.]
DAUP: Have you spoke with the lawyer, sir?
MOR: O, no! there is such a noise in the court, that they have
frighted me home with more violence then I went! such speaking
and counter-speaking, with their several voices of citations,
appellations, allegations, certificates, attachments,
intergatories, references, convictions, and afflictions indeed,
among the doctors and proctors, that the noise here is silence
to't! a kind of calm midnight!
TRUE: Why, sir, if you would be resolved indeed, I can bring you
hither a very sufficient lawyer, and a learned divine, that shall
enquire into every least scruple for you.
MOR: Can you, master Truewit?
TRUE: Yes, and are very sober, grave persons, that will dispatch
it in a chamber, with a whisper or two.
MOR: Good sir, shall I hope this benefit from you, and trust myself
into your hands?
TRUE: Alas, sir! your nephew and I have been ashamed and oft-times
mad, since you went, to think how you are abused. Go in, good sir,
and lock yourself up till we call you; we'll tell you more anon,
sir.
MOR: Do your pleasure with me gentlemen; I believe in you: and that
deserves no delusion.
[EXIT.]
TRUE: You shall find none, sir: but heap'd, heap'd plenty of
vexation.
DAUP: What wilt thou do now, Wit?
TRUE: Recover me hither Otter and the barber, if you can, by any
means, presently.
DAUP: Why? to what purpose?
TRUE: O, I'll make the deepest divine, and gravest lawyer, out
of them two for him—
DAUP: Thou canst not, man; these are waking dreams.
TRUE: Do not fear me. Clap but a civil gown with a welt on the
one; and a canonical cloak with sleeves on the other: and give
them a few terms in their mouths, if there come not forth as able
a doctor, and complete a parson, for this turn, as may be wish'd,
trust not my election: and, I hope, without wronging the dignity
of either profession, since they are but persons put on, and for
mirth's sake, to torment him. The barber smatters Latin, I
remember.
DAUP: Yes, and Otter too.
TRUE: Well then, if I make them not wrangle out this case to his
no comfort, let me be thought a Jack Daw or La-Foole or anything
worse. Go you to your ladies, but first send for them.
DAUP: I will.
[EXEUNT.]
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