Outside a sheepcote
Enter Clown and two Shepherds.
FIRST SHEPHERD
Come, fellow clown, are the pits digg’d?
CLOWN
Ay, and as deep as an usurer’s conscience, I warrant thee.
SECOND SHEPHERD
Mass, and that’s deep enough; ‘twill devour a widow and three orphans at a breakfast. Soft, is this it?
FIRST SHEPHERD
Ay, ay, this is it.
CLOWN
Nay, for the deepness I’ll be sworn; but come, my masters, and lay these boughs cross over. So, so, artificially, and may all those whoreson muttonmongers, the wolves, hole here, which eat our sheep.
SECOND SHEPHERD
I wonder what wolves those are which eat our sheep,
Whether they be he-wolves or she-wolves?
CLOWN
They should be he-wolves by their loving mutton,
But by their greediness they should be she-wolves,
For the belly of a she-wolf is never satisfied till it be damm’d up.
FIRST SHEPHERD
Why, are the she-wolves worse than the hes?
CLOWN
Why, is not the dam worse than the devil, pray?
FIRST SHEPHERD
You have answered me there indeed.
CLOWN
Why, man, if all the earth were a parchment, the sea ink, every stick a pen, and every knave a scrivener, they were not all able to write down the knaveries of she-wolves.
SECOND SHEPHERD
A murrain on them, hes or shes: they suck the blood of none but our lambs.
CLOWN
Oh, always the weakest goes to the wall, as for example: knock down a sheep and he tumbles forwards; knock down a woman and she tumbles backwards.
FIRST SHEPHERD
Sirrah, I wonder how many sorts of wolves there be.
CLOWN
Marry, just as many sorts as there be knaves in the cards.
SECOND SHEPHERD
Why, that’s four.
CLOWN
First there are your court wolves, and those be foul eaters and clean drinkers.
SECOND SHEPHERD
And why clean drinkers?
CLOWN
Why, because when they be drunk, they commonly cast up all, and so make cleaning [work] of’t.
SECOND SHEPHERD
So, sir, those are clean drinkers indeed.
CLOWN
The next are your country wolves: nothing chokes them but plenty; they sing like sirens when corn goes out by shipfuls, and dance after no tune but after an angel a bushel.
FIRST SHEPHERD
The halter take such corn-cutters!
SECOND SHEPHERD
Are there no city wolves?
CLOWN
A rope on them, yes, huge routs; you shall have Long Lane full of them: they’ll feed upon any whore-carrion, these, or anything.
FIRST SHEPHERD
Have they such maws?
CLOWN
Maws? Why, man, fiddlers have no better stomachs; I have known some of them eat up a lord at three bits.
SECOND SHEPHERD
Three bonds, you mean.
CLOWN
A knight is nobody with them; a young gentleman is swallowed whole like a gudgeon.
FIRST SHEPHERD
I wonder that gudgeon does not choke him.
CLOWN
A gudgeon choke him if the throat of his conscience be found; he’ll gulp down anything. Five of your silken gallants are swallowed easier than a damask prune, for our city wolves do so rule my young prodigal first in wax, which is soft, till he look like a gilded pill; and then so finely wrap him up in satin, which is sleek, that he goes down without chewing: and thereupon they are called slippery gallants.
FIRST SHEPHERD
I’ll be no gentleman for that trick.
CLOWN
The last is your sea wolf, a horrible ravener too: he has a belly as big as a ship, and devours as much silk at a gulp as would serve forty dozen tailors against a Christmas day or a running at tilt.
FIRST SHEPHERD
Well, well, now our trap is set, what shall we do with the wolves we catch?
CLOWN
Why, those that are great ones and more than our matches we’ll let go, and the lesser wolves we’ll hang. Shall it be so?
BOTH
Ay, ay; each man to his stand.
Exeunt. Enter Lapyrus, solus.
LAPYRUS
Foul monster-monger, who must live by that
Which is thy own destruction! Why should men
Be nature’s bondslaves? Every creature else
Comes freely to the table of the earth,
That, which for man alone doth all things bear,
Scarce gives him his true diet anywhere.
What spiteful winds breath here, that not a tree
Spreads forth a friendly arm? Distressed queen
And most accursed babes, the earth that bears you
Like a proud mother scorns to give you food. Ha!
Thanks, fates; I now defy thee, starveling hunger!
Bless’d tree, four lives grow in thy fruit; run, taste it then:
Wise men serve first themselves than other men.
He falls into the pit.
Oh me, accursed and most miserable!
Help, help! Some angel lay a list’ning ear
To draw my cry up! None to lend help? Oh,
Then pine and die!
Enter Clown.
CLOWN
A wolf caught, a wolf caught!
LAPYRUS
Oh, help! I am no wolf, good friend.
CLOWN
No? What art thou then?
LAPYRUS
A miserable wretch.
CLOWN
An usurer?
LAPYRUS
No, no.
CLOWN
A broker then?
LAPYRUS
Mock not a man in woe, in a green wound:
Pour balsam and not physic.
CLOWN
‘Snails, he talks like a surgeon! If you be one, why do you not help yourself, sir?
LAPYRUS
I am no surgeon, friend; my name’s Lapyrus.
CLOWN
How! A wolf caught, ho! Lap, what, Lap, ho!
LAPYRUS
Lapyrus is my name; dost thou not know me?
CLOWN
Yes, for a wolfish rascal that would have worried his own country.
LAPYRUS
Torture me not, I prithee; I am that wretch.
A villain I was once, but I am now —
CLOWN
The devil in the vault! You, sirrah, that betray’d your country, and the old king your uncle, there lie till one wolf devour another, thou treacherous rascal!
Exit.
LAPYRUS
Oh me, most miserable and wretched creature!
I now do find there’s a revenging fate
That dooms bad men to be unfortunate.