Weatherwise’s house
Enter Weatherwise, the gull, meeting [Pickadille and] two or three [servants] bringing out a table.
WEATHERWISE
So, set the table ready. The widow’s i’ th’ next room, looking upon my clock with the days and the months and the change of the moon; I’ll fetch her in presently.
[Exit.]
PICKADILLE
She’s not so mad to be fetch’d in with the moon, I warrant you. A man must go roundlier to work with a widow than to woo her with the hand of a dial, or stir up her blood with the striking part of a clock; I should ne’er stand to show her such things in chamber.
Exeunt [Servants]. Enter Weatherwise with the widow [Lady Goldenfleece], Sir Gilbert Lambston, Master Pepperton, Master Overdon.
WEATHERWISE
Welcome, sweet widow, to a bachelor’s house here; a single man I, but for two or three maids that I keep.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Why, are you double with them then?
WEATHERWISE
An exceeding good mourning wit! Women are wiser than ever they were since they wore doublets. You must think, sweet widow, if a man keep maids, they’re under his subjection.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
That’s most true, sir.
WEATHERWISE
They have no reason to have a lock but the master must have a key to’t.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
To him, Sir Gilbert. He fights with me at a wrong weapon now.
WEATHERWISE
[Aside] Nay, and Sir Gilbert strike, my weapon falls;
I fear no thrust but his. Here are more shooters,
But they have shot two arrows without heads;
They cannot stick i’ th’ butt yet. Hold out, knight,
And I’ll cleave the black pin i’ th’ midst o’ th’ white.
Exit.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Nay, and he led me into a closet, sir, where he showed me diet drinks for several months, as scurvigrass for April, clarified whey for June, and the like.
SIR GILBERT
Oh, madam, he is a most necessary property, an’t be but to save our credit, ten pound in a banquet.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Go, y’are a wag, Sir Gilbert.
SIR GILBERT
How many there be in the world of his fortunes that prick their own calves with briers to make an easy passage for others, or like a toiling usurer sets his son a-horseback in cloth-of-gold breeches while he himself goes t’ th’ devil afoot in a pair of old strossers.
But shall I give a more familiar sign?
His are the sweetmeats, but the kisses mine. [Kisses her.]
OVERDON
Excellent. [Aside] A pox o’ your fortune!
PEPPERTON
[Taking Overdon aside] Saucy courting has brought all modest wooing clean out of fashion. You shall have few maids nowadays got without rough handling; all the town’s so us’d to’t, and most commonly too they’re join’d before they’re married because they’ll be sure to be fast enough.
OVERDON
Sir, since he strives t’ oppose himself against us,
Let’s so combine our friendships in our straits
By all means graceful to assist each other.
For I protest it shall as much glad me
To see your happiness and his disgrace,
As if the wealth were mine, the love, the place.
PEPPERTON
And with the like faith I reward your friendship.
I’ll break the bawdy ranks of his discourse
And scatter his libidinous whispers straight. —
Madam.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
How cheer you, gentlemen?
SIR GILBERT
[Aside] Pox on ‘em!
They wak’d me out of a fine sleep; three minutes
Had fasten’d all the treasure in mine arms.
PEPPERTON
[Showing her the trenchers] You took no note of this conceit, it seems, madam.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Twelve trenchers, upon every one a month.
January, February, March, April —
PEPPERTON
Ay, and their posies under ‘em.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Pray, what says May? She’s the spring lady.
[PEPPERTON]
“Now gallant May in her array,
Doth make the field pleasant and gay.”
OVERDON
“This month of June use clarified whey,
Boil’d with cold herbs, and drink alway.”
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Drink’t all away, he should say.
PEPPERTON
‘Twere much better indeed, and wholesomer for his liver.
SIR GILBERT
September’s a good one here, madam.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Oh, have you chose your month? Let’s hear’t, Sir Gilbert.
SIR GILBERT
“Now mayst thou physics safely take,
And bleed, and bathe for thy health’s sake.
Eat figs and grapes and spicery
For to refresh thy members dry.”
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Thus it is still when a man’s simple meaning lights among wantons. How many honest words have suffered corruption since Chaucer’s days? A virgin would speak those words then that a very midwife would blush to hear now, if she have but so much blood left to make up an ounce of grace. And who is this long on but such wags as you that use your words like your wenches? You cannot let ‘em pass honestly by you, but you must still have a flirt at ‘em.
PEPPERTON
You have paid some of us home, madam.
Enter Weatherwise.
WEATHERWISE
[Aside] If conceit will strike this stroke, have at the widow’s plumtree. I’ll put ‘em down all for a banquet. — Widow and gentlemen, my friends and servants, I make you wait long here for a bachelor’s pittance.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Oh, sir, y’are pleas’d to be modest.
WEATHERWISE
No, by my troth, widow. You shall find it otherwise.
Strike music. Enter banquet and six of his tenants with the twelve signs made like banqueting-stuff: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
What, the twelve signs?
WEATHERWISE
These are the signs of my love, widow.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Worse meat would have serv’d us, sir. By my faith,
I’m sorry you should be at such charges, sir,
To feast us a whole month together here.
WEATHERWISE
Widow, thou’rt welcome a whole month, and ever.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
And what be those, sir, that brought in the banquet?
WEATHERWISE
Those are my tenants; they stand for fasting days.
SIR GILBERT
Or the six weeks in Lent.
WEATHERWISE
Y’are i’ th’ right, Sir Gilbert.
Sweet widow, take your place at Aries here;
That’s the head sign. A widow is the head
Till she be married.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
What is she then?
WEATHERWISE
The middle.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
[Sitting] ’Tis happy she’s no worse.
WEATHERWISE
Taurus, Sir Gilbert Lambston, that’s for you.
They say you’re a good town-bull.
SIR GILBERT
[Sitting] Oh, spare your friends, sir.
WEATHERWISE
And Gemini for Master Pepperton.
He had two boys at once by his last wife.
PEPPERTON
[Sitting] I hear the widow[s] find no fault with that, sir.
WEATHERWISE
Cancer the Crab for Master Overdon,
For when a thing’s past fifty, it grows crooked.
[Overdon sits.]
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Now for yourself, sir.
WEATHERWISE
Take no care for me,
Widow: I can be anywhere. Here’s Leo,
Heart and back; Virgo, guts and belly.
I can go lower yet, and yet fare better,
Since Sagittarius fits me the thighs;
[Sitting] I care not if I be about the thighs,
I shall find meat enough.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
But under pardon, sir.
Though you be lord o’ th’ feast and the conceit both,
Methinks it had been proper for the banquet
To have had the signs all fill’d and no one idle.
WEATHERWISE
I know it had, but whose fault’s that, widow?
You should have got you more suitors to have stopp’d
The gaps.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Nay, sure, they should get us, and not
We them. There be your tenants, sir; we are
Not proud; you may bid them sit down.
WEATHERWISE
By th’ mass,
It’s true too. Then sit down, tenants,
Once with your hats on, but spare the meat, I charge you,
As you hope for new leases. I must make
My signs draw out a month yet, with a bit
Every morning to breakfast, and at
Full moon with a whole one; that’s restorative.
Sit round, sit round, and do not speak, sweet tenants.
You may be bold enough, so you eat but little.
[Tenants sit.]
How like you this now, widow?
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
It shows well, sir;
And like the good old hospitable fashion.
PICKADILLE
[Aside] How! Like a good old hospital! My mistress makes an arrant gull on him.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
But yet methinks there wants clothes for the feet.
WEATHERWISE
That part’s uncovered yet. Push, no matter for the feet.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Yes, if the feet catch cold, the head will feel it.
WEATHERWISE
Why then you may draw up your legs, and lie
Rounder together.
SIR GILBERT
H’as answered you well, madam.
WEATHERWISE
And you draw up your legs too, widow, my tenant
Will feel you there, for he’s one of the calves.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Better and better, sir; your wit fattens as he feeds.
PICKADILLE
[Aside] Sh’as took the calf from his tenant and put it upon his ground now.
[Enter Servant.]
WEATHERWISE
How now, my lady’s man, what’s the news, sir?
SERVANT
Madam, there’s a young gentleman below;
H’as earnest business to your ladyship.
WEATHERWISE
Another suitor, I hold my life, widow.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
What is he, sir?
SERVANT
He seems a gentleman,
That’s the least of him, and yet more I know not.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Under the leave o’ th’ master of the house here,
I would he were admitted.
WEATHERWISE
With all my heart, widow; I fear him not.
Come cut and long tail!
SIR GILBERT
[Aside] I have the least fear
And the most firmness; nothing can shake me.
[Exit Servant.]
WEATHERWISE
If he be a gentleman, he’s welcome;
There’s a sign does nothing, and that’s fit
For a gentleman. The feet will be kept warm
Enough now for you, widow, for if he be
A right gentleman, he has his stockings warm’d
And he wears socks beside, partly for warmth,
Partly for cleanliness; and if he observe
Fridays too, he comes excellent well.
Pisces will be a fine fish dinner for him.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Why then you mean, sir, he shall sit as he comes?
WEATHERWISE
Ay, and he were a lord, he shall not sit
Above my tenants. I’ll not have two lords
To them, so I may go look my rent
In another man’s breeches. I was
Not brought up to be so unmannerly.
Enter Mistress Low-water as a gallant gentleman, her husband [Low-water] like a serving-man after her.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
[Aside] I have pick’d out a bold time. — Much good do you,
Gentlemen.
WEATHERWISE
Y’are welcome as I may say, sir.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Pardon my rudeness, madam.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
No such fault, sir;
You’re too severe to yourself; our judgment quits you.
Please you to do as we do.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Thanks, good madam.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Make room, gentlemen.
WEATHERWISE
Sit still, tenants.
I’ll call in all your old leases and rack you else.
ALL TENANTS
Oh, sweet landlord!
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Take my cloak, sirrah.
[She gives her cloak to Low-water.]
If any be disturb’d, I’ll not sit, gentlemen.
I see my place.
WEATHERWISE
[Aside] A proper woman turn’d gallant!
If the widow refuse me, I care not
If I be a suitor to him. I have known
Those who have been as mad, and given half
Their living for a male companion.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
How, Pisces! Is that mine? [Sitting] ’Tis a conceited banquet.
WEATHERWISE
If you love any fish, pray fall to, sir.
If you had come sooner, you might have happened
Among some of the flesh signs, but now they’re all taken up;
Virgo had been a good dish for you, had not
One of my tenants been somewhat busy with her.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Pray let him keep her, sir; give me meat fresh:
I’d rather have whole fish than broken flesh.
SIR GILBERT
What say you to a bit of Taurus?
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
No, I thank you, sir;
The bull’s too rank for me.
SIR GILBERT
How, sir?
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Too rank, sir.
SIR GILBERT
Fie, I shall strike you dumb like all your fellows.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
What, with your heels or horns?
SIR GILBERT
Perhaps with both.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
It must be at dead [low water], when I’m dead then.
LOW-WATER
[Aside] ’Tis brave, Kate, and nobly spoke of thee.
WEATHERWISE
This quarrel must be drown’d. Pickadille, my lady’s fool!
PICKADILLE
You’re your own man, sir.
WEATHERWISE
Prithee, step in to one o’ th’ maids.
PICKADILLE
That I will, sir, and thank you, too.
WEATHERWISE
Nay, hark you, sir: call for my sun-cup presently; I’d forgot it.
PICKADILLE
How, your sun-cup? [Aside] Some cup, I warrant, that he stole out o’ th’ Sun Tavern.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
[Aside] The more I look on him, the more I thirst for’t.
Methinks his beauty does so far transcend,
Turns the signs back, makes that the upper end.
WEATHERWISE
How cheer you, widow? Gentlemen, how cheer you?
Fair weather in all quarters!
The sun will peep anon; I have sent one for him.
In the meantime I’ll tell you a tale of these.
This Libra here that keeps the scale so even
Was i’ th’ old time an honest chandler’s widow
And had one daughter which was called Virgo,
Which now my hungry tenant has deflower’d.
This Virgo, passing for a maid, was sued to
By Sagittarius there, a gallant shooter,
And Aries, his head rival; but her old crabbed
Uncle Cancer here, dwelling in Crooked Lane,
Still cross’d the marriage, minding to bestow her
Upon one Scorpio, a rich usurer.
The girl, loathing that match, fell into folly
With one Taurus, a gentleman in Townbull Street,
By whom she had two twins, those Gemini there,
Of which two brats she was brought abed in Leo
At the Red Lion about Tower Hill.
Being in this distress, one Capricorn,
An honest citizen, pitied her case and married her
To Aquarius, an old water-bearer,
And Pisces was her living ever after;
At Standard she sold fish where he drew water.
ALL
It shall be yours, sir.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Meat and mirth too! Y’are lavish;
Your purse and tongue has been at cost today, sir.
SIR GILBERT
You may challenge all comers at these twelve weapons, I warrant you.
Enter clown [Pickadille with the sun-cup, wearing a veil but no doublet].
PICKADILLE
Your sun-cup call you it! ’Tis a simple voyage that I have made here. I have left my doublet within for fear I should sweat through my jerkin, and thrown a cypress over my face for fear of sun burning.
WEATHERWISE
How now, [who’s] this? Why, sirrah!
PICKADILLE
Can you endure it, mistress?
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Endure what, fool?
WEATHERWISE
Fill the cup, coxcomb.
PICKADILLE.
Nay, an’t be no hotter, I’ll go put on my doublet again.
Exit.
WEATHERWISE
What a whoreson sot is this! [Giving the cup to Low-water] Prithee, fill the cup, fellow, and give’t the widow.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Sirrah, how stand you? Bestow your service there
Upon her ladyship.
[He gives the cup to Lady Goldenfleece.]
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
What’s here? A sun?
WEATHERWISE
It does betoken, madam, a cheerful day
To somebody.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
[Aside] It rises full in the face of [yon]
Fair sign, and yet by course he is the last
Must feel the heat. — Here, gentlemen, to you all,
For you know the sun must go through the twelve signs.
[Drinks.]
WEATHERWISE
Most wittily, widow: you jump with my conceit right;
There’s not a hair between us.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Give it Sir Gilbert.
SIR GILBERT
I am the next through whom the golden flame
Shines when ’tis spent in thy celestial ram;
The poor feet there must wait and cool a while.
[Drinks.]
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
We have our time, sir; joy and we shall meet:
I have known the proud neck lie between the feet.
WEATHERWISE
So round it goes.
[Each drinks in turn.] Enter clown [Pickadille].
PICKADILLE
I like this drinking world well.
WEATHERWISE
So fill’t him again.
PEPPERTON
Fill’t me? Why, I drunk last, sir.
WEATHERWISE
I know you did, but Gemini must drink twice,
Unless you mean that one of them shall be chok’d.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
[Aside] Fly from my heart all variable thoughts!
She that’s entic’d by every pleasing object
Shall find small pleasure, and as little rest.
This knave hath lov’d me long; he’s best and worthiest,
I cannot but in honour see him requited. —
Sir Gilbert Lambston!
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
How! Pardon me, sweet lady,
That with a bold tongue I strike by your words:
Sir Gilbert Lambston?
SIR GILBERT
Yes, sir, that’s my name.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
There should be a rank villain of that name;
Came you out of that house?
SIR GILBERT
How, sir slave!
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Fall to your bull; leave roaring till anon.
WEATHERWISE
Yet again! And you love me, gentlemen,
Let’s have no roaring here. If I had thought that,
I’d have sent my bull to the bear garden.
PEPPERTON
Why, so you should have wanted one of your signs.
WEATHERWISE
But I may chance want two now, and they fall
Together by the ears.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
What’s the strange fire
That works in these two creatures? Cold signs both,
Yet more hot than all their fellows.
WEATHERWISE
Ho, Sol in Pisces!
The sun’s in New Fish Street. Here’s an end of this course.
PICKADILLE
Madam, I am bold to remember your worship for a year’s wages and an livery cloak.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
How, will you shame me? Had you not both last week, fool?
PICKADILLE
Ay, but there’s another year past since that.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Would all your wit could make that good, sir.
PICKADILLE
I am sure the sun has run through all the twelve signs since, and that’s a year; [these] gentlemen can witness.
WEATHERWISE
The fool will live, madam.
PICKADILLE
[Aside] Ay, as long as your eyes are open, I warrant him.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Sirrah!
LOW-WATER
Does your worship call?
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
[Giving him a letter] Commend my love and service to the widow;
Desire her ladyship to taste that morsel.
LOW-WATER
[Aside] This is the bit I watch’d for all this while,
But it comes duly.
SIR GILBERT
And wherein has this name of mine offended,
That y’are so liberal of your infamous titles,
I, but a stranger to thee? It must be known, sir,
Ere we two part.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Marry, and reason, good sir.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Oh, strike me cold! This should be your hand, Sir Gilbert?
SIR GILBERT
Why, make you question of that, madam? ’Tis one of the letters I sent you.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
[Rising to leave] Much good do you, gentlemen.
ALL
How now? What’s the matter?
WEATHERWISE
Look to the widow; she paints white! Some aqua coelistis for my lady! Run, villain!
PICKADILLE
Aqua solister! Can nobody help her case but a lawyer, and so many suitors here?
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Oh, treachery unmatch’d, unheard of!
SIR GILBERT
How do you, madam?
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Oh, impudence as foul! Does my disease
Ask how I do? Can it torment my heart
And look with a fresh colour in my face?
SIR GILBERT
What’s this? What’s this?
WEATHERWISE
I am sorry for this qualm, widow.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
He that would know a villain when he meets him,
Let him ne’er go to a conjurer: here’s a glass
Will show him without money, and far truer!
Preserver of my state, pray tell me, sir,
That I may pay you all my thanks together,
What bless’d hap brought that letter to your hand
From me, so fast lock’d in mine enemy’s power?
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
I will resolve you, madam. I have a kinsman
Somewhat infected with that wanton pity
Which men bestow on the distress of women,
Especially if they be fair and poor;
With such hot charity, which indeed is lust,
He sought t’ entice, as his repentance told me,
Her whom you call your enemy, the wife
To a poor gentleman, one Low-water —
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Right, right, the same.
LOW-WATER
[Aside] Had it been right, ‘t ‘ad now been.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
And, according to the common rate of sinners,
Offer’d large maintenance, which with her seem’d nothing:
For if she would consent, she told him roundly,
There was a knight had bid more at one minute
Than all his wealth could compass, and withal
Pluck’d out that letter as it were in scorn;
Which, by good fortune, he put up in jest
With promise that the writ should be returnable
The next hour of his meeting. But, sweet madam,
Out of my love and zeal, I did so practice
The part upon him of an urgent wooer
That neither he nor that return’d more to her.
SIR GILBERT
[Aside] Plague o’ that kinsman!
WEATHERWISE
Here’s a gallant rascal!
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Sir, you have appear’d so noble in this action,
So full of worth and goodness, that my thanks
Will rather shame the bounty of my mind
Than do it honour. Oh, thou treacherous villain!
Does thy faith bear such fruit?
Are these the blossoms of a hundred oaths
Shot from thy bosom? Was thy love so spiteful
It could not be content to mock my heart,
Which is in love a misery too much,
But must extend so far to the quick ruin
Of what was painfully got, carefully left me;
And, ‘mongst a world of yielding, needy women,
Choose no one to make merry with my sorrows
And spend my wealth on in adulterous surfeits
But my most mortal enemy? Oh, despiteful!
Is this thy practice? Follow it, ‘twill advance thee!
Go, beguile on! Have I so happily found
What many a widow has with sorrow tasted,
Even when my lip touch’d the contracting cup,
Even then to see the spider? ’Twas miraculous!
Crawl with thy poisons hence, and for thy sake
I’ll never covet titles and more riches,
To fall into a gulf of hate and laughter.
I’ll marry love hereafter; I’ve enough,
And wanting that, I have nothing. There’s thy way.
OVERDON
Do you hear, sir? You must walk.
PEPPERTON
Hear’t! Thrust him down stairs!
WEATHERWISE
Out of my house, you treacherous, lecherous rascal!
SIR GILBERT
All curses scatter you!
WEATHERWISE
Life, do you thunder here? If you had stayed a little longer, I’d have ripp’d out some of my bull out of your belly again.
PEPPERTON
’Twas a most noble discovery; we must love you forever for’t.
LADY GOLDENFLEECE
Sir, for your banquet and your mirth, we thank you;
You, gentlemen, for your kind company;
But, you, for all my merry days to come,
Or this had been the last else.
MISTRESS LOW-WATER
Love and fortune
Had more care of your safety, peace, and state, madam.
WEATHERWISE
[Aside] Now will I thrust in for’t.
PEPPERTON
[Aside] I’m for myself now.
OVERDON
[Aside] What’s fifty years? ’Tis man’s best time and season.
Now the [knight’s] gone, the widow will hear reason.
LOW-WATER
[Aside] Now, now! The suitors flatter; hold on, Kate:
The hen may pick the meat while the cocks prate.
Exeunt.