A hall in Katherine’s house
Enter Katherine between two ancient Gentlemen.
KATHERINE
Grave gentlemen, in whose approved bosoms
My deceas’d father did repose much faith,
You’re dearly welcome: pray, sit, command music;
See nothing want to beautify this night,
That holds my election in her peaceful arms;
Feasts, music, hymns, those sweet celestial [charms].
FIRST GENTLEMAN
May you be blest in this election.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
That content may meet perfection.
HYMN
Sound lute, bandora gittern,
Viol, virginals, and cittern;
Voices spring, and lift aloud
Her name that makes the music proud!
This night perfection
Makes her election.
Follow, follow, follow, follow round,
Look you to that, nay, you to that, nay, you to that:
Anon you will be found, anon you will be found, anon you will be found.
Cornets sound: enter the Masque, thus ordered: a torch-bearer, a shield-boy, then a masquer, so throughout; then the shield-boys fall at one end, the torch-bearers at the other; the masquers i’ th’ middle: the torch-bearers are the five gentlemen, the shield-boys the whores in boys’ apparel; the masquers the five gallants: they bow to her; she rises and shows the like: they dance, but first deliver the shields up; she reads. The speech: their action.
KATHERINE
[Reads] “Alienis ecce crumenis!”
[Pursenet bows to her.]
[Reads] “Fratremque patremque.”
[Goldstone bows to her.]
[Reads] “Consumptio victus.”
[Tailby bows to her.]
[Reads] “Occultos vendit honores.”
[Primero bows to her.]
A cuckoo: [reads] “En avis ex avibus!”
[Frippery bows to her.]
Are you all as the speech and shields display you?
GOLDSTONE
We shall prove so.
They go to dance, each unhasps his weapon from his side, and gives it to the torch-bearers. Katherine seems distrustful, but then Fitsgrave whispers to her and falls back. At then end of which, all making an honour, Frippery presents her with the chain of pearl.
KATHERINE
The very chain of pearl was filch’d from me!
[The Boy begins to sneak away.]
FITSGRAVE
Hold! Stop the boy there!
Boy seized. Pursenet stamps.
KATHERINE
Will none lay hands on him?
Frippery seized.
GOLDSTONE
How now?
FRIPPERY
Alas, I’m but a broker! ’Twas pawned to me in my shop.
Fitsgrave, Pyamont, and the others discover themselves.
TAILBY
Ha, Fitsgrave!
PURSENET
Pyamont, and the rest!
GOLDSTONE
Where’s Bouser?
FITSGRAVE
Here.
GOLDSTONE
We are all betrayed!
FITSGRAVE
Betrayed? You’re [not worthy to be] to betrayed, you have not so much worth: nay, struggle not with the net, you are caught for this world.
FIRST COURTESAN
Would we were out!
FITSGRAVE
’Twas I fram’d your device, do you see? ’Twas I!
The whole assembly has took notice of it.
[To Goldstone] That you are a gallant cheater,
So much the pawning of my cloak contains;
[to Pursenet] You a base thief, think of Combe Park; [to Tailby] and tell me
That you’re a hired smockster; here’s her letter,
[to Primero] In which we are certified that you’re a bawd.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
The broker has confessed it.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
So has the boy.
TAILBY
That boy will be hanged; he stole the chain at first,
And has thus long maintained his master’s gallantry
FITSGRAVE
All which we here present, like captive slaves,
Waiting that doom which their presumption craves.
KATHERINE
How easily may our suspectless sex
With fair appearing shadows be deluded!
Dear sir, you have the work so well begun,
That took from you, small glory would be won.
FITSGRAVE
Since ’tis your pleasure to refer to me
The doom of these, I have provided so,
They shall not altogether lose their cost:
See, I have brought wives for ‘em.
[The women of the masque discover themselves.]
GOLDSTONE
Heart, the strumpets! Out, out!
TAILBY
Having assum’d, out of their impudence,
The shape of shield-boys!
FRIPPERY
To heap full confusion!
FIRST COURTESAN
Rather confine us to strict chastity,
A mere impossible task, than to wed these,
Whom we [do] loathe worse than the foul’st disease.
GOLDSTONE
O grant ‘em their requests!
FITSGRAVE
The doom is past; so, since your aim was marriage,
Either embrace it in these courtesans,
Or have your base acts and felonious lives
Proclaim’d to the indignation of the law,
Which will provide a public punishment.
As for the boy, and that infectious bawd,
We put forth those to whipping.
PRIMERO
Whipping? You find not that in the statute to whip satin.
FITSGRAVE
Away with him!
[Primero and Boy led off.]
GOLDSTONE
Since all our shifts are discovered, as far as I can see, ’tis our best course to marry ‘em; we’ll make them get our livings.
PURSENET
He says true.
MISTRESS NEWCUT
You see how we are threatened: by my troth, wenches, be ruled by me; let’s marry ‘em, and it be but to plague ‘em; for when we have husbands we are under covert-baron, and may lie with whom we list! I have tried that in my t’other husband’s days.
ALL THE COURTESANS
A match.
FITSGRAVE
I’ll be no more deferr’d: come, when do you join?
GOLDSTONE
These forc’d marriages do never come to good.
FITSGRAVE
How can they when the[y] come to such as you?
PURSENET
The[y] often prove the ruin of great houses.
[FITSGRAVE]
Nor, virgin, do I in this seek to entice
All glory to myself; these gentlemen,
[Whom] I am bound to love for kind assistance,
Had great affinity in the plot with me.
KATHERINE
To them I give my thanks; myself to thee,
Thrice-worthy Fitsgrave!
FITSGRAVE
I have all my wishes.
KATHERINE
And I presume there’s none but those can frown,
Whose envies, like the rushes, we tread down.
[Exeunt omnes.]