Hip. Indeed, I'll ha' none: indeed I will not. Pretty fine lodging. I perceive my friend Bel. Troth, sir, he comes As other gentlemen, to spend spare hours: Bel. Such as my present fortunes can afford. Hip. Why, embrace you; dally with you; kiss. You're free for any man: if any, me. Hip. Why sigh you, lady? may I know? I would have been as true unto his pleasures, Hip. This were well, now, to one but newly And scarce a day old in this subtle world: Bel. Indeed, not any. Hip. Indeed! in truth!-how warily you swear? 'Tis well, if ill it be not: yet had I The ruffian in me, and were drawn before you But in right colours, I do know indeed, You could not swear indeed, but thunder oaths That should shake heaven, drown the harmonious spheres, And pierce a soul (that loved her Maker's honour) With horror and amazement. Bel. Shall I swear? Will you believe me then? Hip. Worst then of all: Our sins by custom seem at last but small. Thrown out to the full length. Why, let me tell you, I've seen letters sent from that white hand, Bel. Matheo! that's true; but believe it, I Hip. Oh! you cannot feign with me. Why, I know, lady, This is the common passion of you all, Bel. O, by my soul, Not I: therein I'll prove an honest whore, Hip. If any be disposed to trust your oath, Bel. I am content; I would fain loath myself, If you not love me. Hip. Then if your gracious blood Is like the common-shore, that still receives And with their spaces reach from hence to hell. Nay, should I urge it more, there have been known, As many by one harlot maimed and dismembered, Rank, stinking, and most loathsome misery. From fools you get, and spend it upon slaves: All base and damned works they list set you to: And held it up to whose intemperate bosom, When several nations have gone over her; Did live well there, and might have died unknown, Her pride should end there where it first began. What, do you weep to hear your story read? Nay, if you spoil your cheeks, I'll read no more. Bel. O, yes, I pray proceed; Indeed, 'twill do me good to weep, indeed! Hip. To give those tears a relish, this I add: You're like the Jews, scattered; in no place certain; Your days are tedious, your hours burthensome; A long-tailed officer: Are you now not slaves? Bel. O, I pray stay. Hip. See, Matheo comes not: time hath barred me. Would all the harlots in the town had heard me! [Exit. Bel. Stay yet a little longer!-no; quite gone. Enjoying but mine eyes at prodigal feasts! To let forth all the poison of my flesh! 39 Out of their dagger'd arms.-To drink a mistress's health in wine mingled with one's own blood was antiently regarded as an act of gallantry. So, in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605 :-"Have I not been drunk to your health, swallowed flag dragons, eat glasses, drunk urine, stabb'd arms, and done all the offices of protested gallantry, for your sake?" S. What is't you lack? Fust. 'Stoot, I lack'em all; nay, more, I lack money to buy'em. Let me see, let me look again; 'mass this is the shop-What, cuz! sweet cuz! how do'st, i'faith, since last night after candlelight? We had good sport, faith; had we not? And when shall's laugh again? Wife. When you will, cousin. Fust. Spoke like a kind Lacedemonian. I see yonder's thy husband. Wife. Aye, there's the sweet youth, God bless him. Fust. And how is't, cousin? and how, how is't, thou squall? Wife. Well, cousin, how fare you? Fust. How fare I? troth, for sixpence a meal, wench, as well as heart can wish, with calves' 40 chaldrons and chitterlings; besides, I have a punk after supper, as good as a roasted apple. Can. Are you my wife's cousin? Fust. I am, sir; what hast thou to do with that? Can. O nothing, but you're welcome. Fust. The devil's dung in thy teeth! I'll be welcome whether thou wilt or no: aye, what ring's this, cuz? very pretty and fantastical i'faith, let's see it. Wife. Puh! nay, you wrench my finger. Fust. I ha' sworn I'll ha' it, and I hope you will not let my oaths be 4 cracked in the ring, will you? I hope, sir, you are not melancholy at this for all your great looks, are you angry? Can. Angry! not I, sir: nay, if she can part So easily with her ring, 'tis with my heart. George. Suffer this, sir, and suffer all; a whoreson gull to Can. Peace, George; when she has reaped what I have sown, She'll say, one grain tastes better of her own, Than whole sheaves gathered from another's land; Wit's never good till bought at a dear hand. George. But in the mean time she makes an ass of somebody. 2 'Pren. See, see, see, sir, as you turn your back, they do nothing but kiss. Can. No matter, let 'em : 42 when I touch her lip, I shall not feel his kisses, no nor miss; Fust. Troth, cuz, and well remembered! I would thou wouldst give me five yards of lawn, to make my punck some falling bands of the fashion, three falling one upon another; for that's the new edition now; she's out of linen horribly too; troth, she's never a good smock to her back neither, but one that has a great many patches in't, and that I'm fain to wear myself for want of shift too; pr'ythee put me into some wholesome napery, 43 and bestow some clean commodities upon us. 4° Chaldron.—Or, as it is oftener spelt, chawdron, i. e. says Mr Steevens, (Note on Macbeth, A. 4. S. 1.) "Entrails; a word formerly in common use in the books of cookery, in one of which, printed in 1591, I meet with a receipt to make a pudding of a calf's chaldron. At the coronation feast of Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII. among other dishes, one was, "swan with a chawdron,” meaning, I suppose, roasted with entrails in it, or undrawn." See Ives's Select Papers, No. 3. p. 141. 41 Crack'd in the ring. This phrase occurs in Hamlet, A. 2. S. 2. and Dr Johnson explains it to be crack'd too much for use. See instances produced by Mr Steevens. Again, in Your five Gallants, by Middleton, Sign D. 2: "Here's Mistresse Rose noble has lost her maidenhead, crackt in the ring, shee's good enough for gaimsters," &c. 42 When I touch her lip, I shall not feel his kisses.-Imitated by Shakespeare in Othello, A. 3. S. 3. "I slept the next night well, was free and merry; I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips." 43 Napery.-Napery signifies linen in general. So, in Dekker's Belman of London, Sign. G 4: "— At which time they lift away Goblets or other pieces of plate, nappery, or any thing worth ventring for." See also Mr Steevens's Note on Othello, A. 3. S. 3. Wife. Reach me those cambricks and the lawns hither. Can. What to do, wife? to lavish out my goods upon a fool? Fust. Fool! Snails eat the fool, or I'll so batter your crown, that it shall scarce go for five shillings. 2 Pren. Do you hear, sir? y'are best be quiet, and say a fool tells you so. Fust. Nails, I think so, for thou tellest me. Trust me, you are not wise, in mine own house 2 Pren. Sirrah, George, I have thought upon a device how to break his pate, beat him soundly, and ship him away. George. Do it. 2 Pren. I'll go in, pass through the house, give some of our fellow-prentices the watch-word when they shall enter, then come and fetch my master in by a while, and place one in the hall to hold him in conference, whilst we cudgel the cull out of his coxcomb. George, Do't; away, do't. Wife. Must I call twice for these cambricks and lawns? Can. Nay see, you anger her; George, pr'ythee dispatch. 2 Pren. Two of the choicest pieces are in the warehouse, sir. Can. Go fetch them presently. [Exit 1 Prentice. Fust. Stranger! no, sir, I am a natural Milaner born. Can. I perceive still it is your natural guise to mistake me; but you are welcome, sir, I much wish your acquaintance. Fust. My acquaintance! I scorn that i'faith. I hope my acquaintance goes in chains of gold three and fifty times double; you know who I mean, cuz; 44 the posts of his gate are a painting too. Enter the Second Prentice. 2 Pren. Signor Pandulfo, the merchant, desires conference with you. Can. Signor Pandulfo ? I'll be with him straight. Fust. Come, sirrah, you 45 flat cap, where be George. Flat-cap? hark in your ear, sir, you're a flat fool, an ass, a gull, and I'll thrumb you; do you see this cambrick, sir? 44 The posts of his gate are a painting too.-i. e. He will soon be sheriff. At the door of that officer large posts, on which it was customary to stick proclamations, were always set up. So, in 4 Woman never vea'd, by Rowley, 1632: "If e'er I live to see thee Sheriff of London, Again, in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, A. 3. S. 9: "How long should I be, ere I should put off To the Lord Chancellor's tomb, or the sheriff's posts ?" Mr Whalley observes, that it was usual, out of respect, to read the proclamations fastened on the sheriff's posts bare-headed. 45 Flat-cap.-Flat-caps, like those now worn by the children belonging to Christ-Church Hospital, and to the apprentices of Bridewell, were, I apprehend, formerly part of the dress particularly confined to the Citizens of London. They are mentioned as such in several contemporary writers. As Ben Jonson, in Every Man in his Humour, A. 2. S. 1: "Make their loose comments upon every word, Gesture, or look I use; mock me all over, Marston's Dutch Curtezan, A. 2. S. 1: "-Who helped thee to thy custome, not of swaggering Ireland Captains, nor of 2s. Innes-a-court men, but with honest art caps, wealthy flat-caps, that pay for their pleasure the best of any men in Europe." Dekker's Wonderful Yeare, 1603: "For those misbelieving Pagans, the Plough-drivers, those worse than infidels, that (like their swine) never looke up so high as heaven, when citizens borded them, they wrung their hands, and wisht rather they had fallne into the hands of Spaniards: for the sight of a flatcap was more dreadful to a Lob, than the discharging of a caliver." Dekker's Newes from Hell, 1606: "-You may eyther meete him at dicing ordinaries like a captayne, at cocke-pits like a young countrey gentleman; or else at a bowling-ally in a flat-cap like a Shopkeeper." 3 Y VOL. I. Fust. 'Sfoot, cuz, a good jest, did you hear him? he told me in my ear, I was a flat fool, an ass, a gull, and I'll thrumb you; do you see this cambrick, sir? Wife. What, not my men, I hope? Fust. No, not your men, but one of your men, i'faith. 1 Pren. I pray, sir, come hither; what say you to this? here's an excellent good one. Fust. Aye marry, this likes me well; cut me off some half score yards. 2 Pren. Let your whores cut; you're an impudent coxcomb, you get none, and yet I'll thrumb you. A very good cambrick, sir. Fust. Again, again, as God judge me: 'sfoot, cuz, they stand thrumming here with me all day, and yet I get nothing. 1 Pren. A word I pray, sir; you must not be angry, prentices have hot bloods, young fellows. What say you to this piece? look you, 'tis so delicate, so soft, so even, so fine a thread, that a lady may wear it. Fust. 'Sfoot I think so, if a knight marry my punk, a lady shall wear it; cut me off twenty yards; thou art an honest lad. 1 Pren. Not without money, gull, and I'll thrumb you too. Omnes. Gull, we'll thrumb you. Fust. O lord, sister, did you not hear something cry thrumb? zounds! your men here make a plain ass of me. Wife. What, to my face so impudent? I not? Can. Sister, and brother! brother to my wife? Fust. If you have any skill in heraldry, you may soon kuow that; break but her pate, and you shall see her blood aud mine is all one. Can. A surgeon! run, a surgeon! Why then wore you that forged name of cousin? Fust. Because its a common thing to call cuz, and mingle now a-days all the world over. Can. Cousin! a name of much deceit, folly, For under that common abused word, Fust. Troth, brother, my sister would needs have me take upon me to gull your patience a little; but it has made double 46 gules on my coxcomb. Wife. What, playing the woman? blabbing now, you fool? Can. O, my wife did but exercise a jest upon your wit. Fust. 'Sfoot, my wit bleeds for't, methinks. Can. Then let this warning more of sense afford; George. Aye, in a cause so honest; we'll not The name of cousin is a bloody word. suffer Our master's goods to vanish moneyless. Wife. You will not suffer them! 2 Pren. No, and you may blush, In going about to vex so mild a breast, Wife. Take away those pieces, Fust. Mass, and I'll take them as freely. Omnes. We'll make you lay them down again more freely. Wife. Help! Help! my brother will be murdered. Fust. I'll ne'er call cuz again whilst I live, to have such a coil about it; this should be a coronation-day; for my head runs claret lustily. Enter an Officer. [Erit. 46 Gules.-Gulls in the Editions of 1615, 1616, 1635. 47 Go, wish the surgeon, &c.-To wish, was, in the language of the times, to recommend, or desire. So, in The City Night Cap, vol. xi. p. 305: "She looks for one, they call father Antony, sir; and he's wish'd to her by Madona Lussuriosa." |