The Husband’s house
Enter the Husband with the Master of the College.
HUSBAND
Pray you draw near, sir, y’are exceeding welcome.
MASTER
That’s my doubt, I fear; I come not to be welcome.
HUSBAND
Yes, howsoever.
MASTER
’Tis not my fashion, sir, to dwell in long circumstance, but to be plain and effectual, therefore to the purpose. The cause of my setting forth was piteous and lamentable. That hopeful young gentleman, your brother, whose virtues we all love dearly through your default and unnatural negligence, lies in bond executed for your debt, a prisoner, all his studies amazed, his hope strook dead, and the pride of his youth muffled in these dark clouds of oppression.
HUSBAND
Hum, um, um.
MASTER
Oh, you have killed the towardest hope of all our university! Wherefore without repentance and amends, expect [ponderous] and sudden judgments to fall grievously upon you. Your brother, a man who profited in his divine employments, might have made ten thousand souls fit for Heaven, now by your careless courses cast in prison which you must answer for; and assure your spirit it will come home at length.
HUSBAND
Oh, God, oh.
MASTER
Wifmen think ill of you, others speak ill of you, no man loves you; nay, even those whom honesty condemns, condemn you. And take this from the virtuous affection I bear your brother, never look for prosperous hour, good thought, quiet sleeps, contented walks, nor anything that makes man perfect till you redeem him. What is your answer? How will you bestow him? Upon desperate misery, or better hopes? I suffer till I hear your answer.
HUSBAND
Sir, you have much wrought with me. I feel you in my soul; you are your arts’ master. I never had sense till now; your syllables have cleft me. Both for your words and pains I thank you: I cannot but acknowledge grievous wrongs done to my brother, mighty, mighty, mighty wrongs. Within there?
Enter a serving-man.
[SERVANT]
Sir.
HUSBAND
Fill me a bowl of wine.
Exit Servant for wine.
Alas, poor brother,
Bruis’d with an execution for my sake!
MASTER
A bruise indeed makes many a mortal
Sore till the grave cure ‘em.
Enter [Servant] with wine.
HUSBAND
Sir, I begin to you; y’have chid your welcome.
MASTER
I could have wish’d it better for your sake.
I pledge you, sir, to the kind man in prison.
HUSBAND
Let it be so.
Drink both.
Now, sir, if you please to spend but a few minutes in a walk about my grounds below, my man shall attend you. I doubt not but by that time to be furnish’d of a sufficient answer, and therein my brother fully satisfied.
MASTER
Good sir, in that the angels would be pleas’d, and the world’s murmurs calm’d, and I should say I set forth then upon a lucky day.
Exit Master [with Servant].
HUSBAND
Oh thou confused man, thy pleasant sins have undone thee, thy damnation has beggar’d thee! That Heaven should say we must not sin, and yet made women, gives our senses way to find pleasure, which being found, confounds us. Why should we know those things so much misuse us? Oh, would virtue had been forbidden, we should then have proved all virtuous, for ’tis our blood to love what we are forbidden! Had not drunkenness been forbidden, what man would have been fool to a beast, and zany to a swine to show tricks in the mire? What is there in three dice to make a man draw thrice three thousand acres into the compass of a round little table, and with the gentleman’s palsy in the hand, shake out his posterity? Thieves or beggars; ’tis done, I ha’ done’t, i’faith! Terrible, horrible misery! How well was I left, very well, very well! My lands showed like a full moon about me, but now the moon’s i’ th’ last quarter, waning, waning. And I am mad to think that moon was mine: mine and my father’s, and my forefathers’, generations, generations. Down goes the house of us, down, down, it sinks. Now is the name a beggar, begs in me that name which hundreds of years has made this shire famous: in me, and my posterity runs out. In my seed five are made miserable besides myself. My riot is now my brother’s jailer, my wife’s sighing, my three boys’ penury, and mine own confusion.
Tears his hair.
Why sit my hairs upon my cursed head?
Will not this poison scatter them? Oh, my brother’s
In execution among devils
That stretch him and make him give. And I in want,
Not able for to live, nor to redeem him.
Divines and dying men may talk of Hell,
But in my heart her several torments dwell.
Slavery and misery! Who in this case
Would not take up money upon his soul,
Pawn his salvation, live at interest?
I that did ever in abundance dwell,
For me to want, exceeds the throes of Hell!
Enters his little Son with a top and a scourge.
SON
What ails you, father? Are you not well? I cannot scourge my top as long as you stand so: you take up all the room with your wide legs. Puh, you cannot make me afear’d with this; I fear no vizards, nor bugbears.
Husband takes up the child by the skirts of his long coat in one hand and draws his dagger with th’ other.
HUSBAND
Up, sir, for here thou hast no inheritance left!
SON
Oh, what will you do, father? I am your white boy.
HUSBAND
Thou shalt be my red boy; take that!
Strikes him.
SON
Oh, you hurt me, father!
HUSBAND
My eldest beggar, thou shalt not live to ask an usurer bread, to cry at a great man’s gate, or follow “Good your honour!” by a coach; no, nor your brother. ’Tis charity to brain you.
SON
How shall I learn now my head’s broke?
[The Husband] stabs him.
HUSBAND
Bleed, bleed, rather than beg, beg;
Be not thy name’s disgrace.
Spurn thou thy fortunes first if they be base.
Come view thy second brother. Fates,
My children’s blood shall spin into your faces!
You shall see
How confidently we scorn beggary!