Outside the Husband’s house, near Yorkshire
Enter Wife.
WIFE
What will become of us? All will away.
My husband never ceases in expense,
Both to consume his credit and his house.
And ’tis set down by Heaven’s just decree,
That riot’s child must needs be beggary.
Are these the virtues that his youth did promise:
Dice, and voluptuous meetings, midnight revels,
Taking his bed with surfeits, ill-beseeming
The ancient honour of his house and name?
And this not all: but that which kills me most,
When he recounts his losses and false fortunes,
The weakness of his state so much dejected,
Not as a man repentant, but half mad.
His fortunes cannot answer his expense.
He sits and sullenly locks up his arms,
Forgetting Heaven looks downward, which makes him
Appear so dreadful, that he frights my heart;
Walks heavily, as if his soul were on earth,
Not penitent for those his sins are past,
But vex’d his money cannot make them last:
A fearful melancholy, ungodly sorrow.
Oh, yonder he comes; now in despite of ills,
I’ll speak to him, and I will hear him speak,
And do my best to drive it from his heart.
Enter Husband.
HUSBAND
Pox o’ th’ last throw, it made
Five hundred angels vanish from my sight!
I’m damn’d, I’m damn’d: the angels have forsook me!
Nay, ’tis certainly true, for he that has no coin
Is damn’d in this world: he’s gone, he’s gone.
WIFE
Dear husband.
HUSBAND
Oh, most punishment of all, I have a wife!
WIFE
I do entreat you as you love your soul,
Tell me the cause of this your discontent.
HUSBAND
A vengeance strip thee naked, thou art cause,
Effect, quality, property, thou, thou, thou!
Exit Husband.
WIFE
Bad turn’d to worse? Both beggary of the soul,
As of the body; and so much unlike
Himself at first, as if some vexed spirit
Had got his form upon him.
Enter Husband.
[Aside] He comes again.
He says I am the cause: I never yet
Spoke less than words of duty and of love.
HUSBAND
[Aside] If marriage be honourable, then cuckolds are honourable, for they cannot be made without marriage. Fool! What meant I to marry to get beggars? Now must my eldest son be a knave or nothing. He cannot live [upon the soil], for he will have no land to maintain him: that mortgage sits like a snaffle upon mine inheritance, and makes me chew upon iron. My second son must be a promoter, and my third a thief, or an underputter, a slave pander. Oh beggary, beggary, to what base uses does thou put a man!
I think the devil scorns to be a bawd:
He bears himself more proudly, has more care on’s credit.
Base, slavish, abject, filthy poverty!
WIFE
Good sir, by all our vows I do beseech you,
Show me the true cause of your discontent.
HUSBAND
Money, money, money, and thou must supply me!
WIFE
Alas, I am the [least] cause of your discontent;
Yet what is mine, either in rings or jewels,
Use to your own desire. But I beseech you,
As y’are a gentleman by many bloods,
Though I myself be out of your respect,
Think on the state of these three lovely boys
You have been father to.
HUSBAND
Puh! Bastards, bastards,
Bastards, begot in tricks, begot in tricks!
WIFE
Heaven knows how those words wrong me! But I may
Endure these griefs among a thousand more.
Oh, call to mind your lands already [mortgaged],
Yourself wound into debts, your hopeful brother
At the university in bonds for you,
Like to be [seiz’d] upon. And —
HUSBAND
Ha’ done, thou harlot,
Whom though for fashion sake I married,
I never could abide? Thinkst thou thy words
Shall kill my pleasures? Fall off to thy friends,
Thou and thy bastards beg: I will not bate
A whit in humour. — Midnight, still I love you
And revel in your company. Curb’d in,
Shall it be said in all societies
That I broke custom, that I flagg’d in money?
No, those thy jewels I will play as freely
As when my state was fullest.
WIFE
Be it so.
HUSBAND
Nay, I protest, and take that for an earnest!
Spurns her.
I will forever hold thee in contempt,
And never touch the sheets that cover thee;
But be divorc’d in bed till thou consent
Thy dowry shall be sold to give new life
Unto those pleasures which I most affect.
WIFE
Sir, do but turn a gentle eye on me,
And what the law shall give me leave to do
You shall command.
HUSBAND
Look it be done.
Holding his hands in his pockets.
Shall I want dust and like a slave
Wear nothing in my pockets but my hands
To fill them up with nails?
Oh, much against my blood! Let it be done;
I was never made to be a looker on.
A bawd to dice? I’ll shake the drabs myself
And make ‘em yield. I say, look it be done!
WIFE
I take my leave; it shall.
HUSBAND
Speedily, speedily!
Exit Wife.
I hate the very hour I chose a wife, a trouble, trouble, three children like three evils hang upon me! Fie, fie, fie, strumpet and bastards, strumpet and bastards!
Enter three Gentlemen hearing him.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Still do those loathsome thoughts jar on your tongue,
Yourself to stain the honour of your wife,
Nobly descended. Those whom men call mad
Endanger others, but he’s more than mad
That wounds himself, whose own words do proclaim
Scandals unjust, to foil his better name:
It is not fit. I pray, forsake it.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
Good sir, let modesty reprove you.
THIRD GENTLEMAN
Let honest kindness sway so much with you.
HUSBAND
God-den, I thank you, sir. How do you? Adieu. I’m glad to see you. Farewell.
Exit Gentlemen.
Instructions! Admonitions!
Enter Servant.
How now, sirrah, what would you?
SERVANT
Only to certify to you, sir, that my mistress was met by the way, by these who were sent for her to London by her honourable uncle, your worship’s late guardian.
HUSBAND
So, sir, then she is gone and so may you be.
But let her look that the thing be done she wots of,
Or Hell will stand more pleasant than her house at home.
[Exit Servant.] Enter a [Fourth] Gentleman.
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Well or ill met, I care not.
HUSBAND
No, nor I.
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
I am come with confidence to chide you.
HUSBAND
Who, me? Chide me? Do’t finely, then: let it not move me, for if thou chid’st me, angry I shall strike.
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Strike thine own [follies], for it is they
Deserve to be well beaten. We are now in private;
There’s none but thou and I. Thou’rt fond and peevish,
An unclean rioter, thy lands and credit
Lie now both sick of a consumption.
I am sorry for thee: that man spends with shame
That with his riches does consume his name,
And such art thou.
HUSBAND
Peace!
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
No, thou shalt hear me further.
Thy father’s and forefathers’ worthy honours,
Which were our [country’s] monuments, our grace,
Follies in thee begin now to deface.
The springtime of thy youth did fairly promise
Such a most fruitful summer to thy friends,
It scarce can enter into men’s beliefs
Such dearth should hang on thee. We that see it
Are sorry to believe it. In thy change
This voice into all places will be hurl’d:
Thou and the devil [have] deceived the world.
HUSBAND
I’ll not endure thee!
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
But of all the worst:
Thy virtuous wife, right honourably allied,
Thou hast proclaimed a strumpet.
HUSBAND
Nay, then, I know thee:
Thou art her champion, thou, her private friend,
The party you wot on.
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Oh, ignoble thought!
I am past my patient blood. Shall I stand idle
And see my reputation touch’d to death?
HUSBAND
‘T’as gall’d you this, has it?
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
No, monster, I will prove
My thoughts did only tend to virtuous love.
[HUSBAND]
Love of her virtues? There it goes!
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Base spirit,
To lay thy hate upon the fruitful honour
Of thine own bed!
They [draw their swords and] fight, and the Husband’s hurt.
HUSBAND
Oh!
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Woult thou yield it yet?
HUSBAND
Sir, sir, I have not done with you.
GENTLEMAN
I hope, nor ne’er shall do.
Fight again.
HUSBAND
Have you got tricks?
Are you in cunning with me?
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
No, plain and right.
He needs no cunning that for truth doth fight.
Husband [is wounded and] falls down.
HUSBAND
Hard fortune, am I leveled with the ground?
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Now, sir, you lie at mercy.
HUSBAND
Ay, you slave!
FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Alas, that hate should bring us to our grave!
You see my sword’s not thirsty for your life.
I am sorrier for your wound than yourself.
Y’are of a virtuous house: show virtuous deeds;
’Tis not your honour, ’tis your folly bleeds.
Much good has been expected in your life:
Cancel not all men’s hopes. You have a wife
Kind and obedient: heap not wrongful shame
On her, your posterity. Let only sin be sore,
And by this fall, rise never to fall more.
And so I leave you.
Exit Gentleman.
HUSBAND
Has the dog left me then
After his tooth hath left me? Oh, my heart
Would fain leap after him; revenge, I say!
I’m mad to be reveng’d! My strumpet wife,
It is thy quarrel that rips thus my flesh,
And makes my breast spit blood! But thou shalt bleed.
Vanquish’d? Got down? Unable e’en to speak?
Surely ’tis want of money makes men weak.
Ay, ’twas that o’erthrew me; I’d ne’er been down else.