Master Russell’s house
Enter Physician, Jane as a bride.
PHYSICIAN
Will you be obstinate?
JANE
Torment me not,
Thou ling’ring executioner to death,
Greatest disease to nature, that striv’st by art
To make men long a-dying! Your practice is
Upon men’s bodies; as men pull roses
For their own relish, but to kill the flower,
So you maintain your lives by others’ deaths:
What eat you then [but] carrion?
PHYSICIAN
Fie, bitterness;
Y’ad need to candy o’er your tongue a little,
Your words will hardly be digested else.
JANE
You can give yourself a vomit to return ‘em
If they offend your stomach.
PHYSICIAN
Hear my vow:
You are to be married today —
JANE
A second torment,
Worse than the first, ‘cause unavoidable.
I would I could as soon annihilate
My father’s will in that as forbid thy lust!
PHYSICIAN
If you then tender an unwilling hand
Meet it with revenge: marry a cuckold.
JANE
If thou wilt marry me, I’ll make that vow,
And give my body for satisfaction
To him that should enjoy me for his wife.
PHYSICIAN
Go to, I’ll mar your marriage.
JANE
Do, plague me so:
I’ll rather bear the brand of all that’s past
In capital characters upon my brow,
Than think to be thy whore or marry him.
PHYSICIAN
I will defame thee ever.
JANE
Spare me not.
PHYSICIAN
I will produce thy bastard,
Bring thee to public penance.
JANE
No matter, I care not:
I shall then have a clean sheet; I’ll wear twenty
Rather than one defiled with thee.
PHYSICIAN
Look for revenge!
JANE
Pursue it fully then. [Aside] Out of his hate
I shall [escape], I hope, a loathed fate.
Exit Jane.
PHYSICIAN
Am I rejected, all my baits nibbled off,
And not the fish caught? I’ll trouble the whole stream,
And choke it in the mud: since hooks not take,
I’ll throw in nets that shall or kill or break.
This is the bridegroom’s man.
Enter Trimtram with rosemary.
Hark, sir, a word.
TRIMTRAM
’Tis a busy day, sir, nor I need no physic;
You see I scour about my business.
PHYSICIAN
Pray you a word, sir. Your master is to be married today?
TRIMTRAM
Else all this rosemary’s lost.
PHYSICIAN
I would speak with your master, sir.
TRIMTRAM
My master, sir, is to be married this morning, and cannot be within while soon at night.
PHYSICIAN
If you will do your master the best service
That e’er you did him, if he shall not curse
Your negligence hereafter slacking it,
If he shall bless me for the dearest friend
That ever his acquaintance met withal,
Let me speak with him ere he go to church.
TRIMTRAM
A right physician! You would have none go to the church nor churchyard till you send them thither: well, if death do not spare you yourselves he deals hardly with you, for you are better benefactors and send more to him than all diseases besides.
CHOUGH within
What, Trimtram, Trimtram!
TRIMTRAM
I come, sir. Hark you, you may hear him: he’s upon the spur, and would fain mount the saddle of matrimony; but, if I can, I’ll persuade him to come to you.
PHYSICIAN
Pray you do, sir.
Exit Trimtram.
I’ll teach all peevish niceness
To beware the strong advantage of revenge.
Enter Chough.
CHOUGH
Who’s that would speak with me?
PHYSICIAN
None but a friend, sir;
I would speak with you.
CHOUGH
Why, sir, and I dare speak with any man under the universe. Can you roar, sir?
PHYSICIAN
No, in faith, sir;
I come to tell you mildly for your good,
If you please to hear me. You are upon marriage?
CHOUGH
No, sir, I [am] towards it, but not upon it yet.
PHYSICIAN
Do you know what to do?
CHOUGH
Yes, sir, I have practised what to do before now; I would be ashamed to be married else: I have seen a bronstrops in my time, and a hippocrene, and a tweak too.
PHYSICIAN
Take fair heed, sir; the wife that you would marry
Is not fit for you.
CHOUGH
Why, sir, have you tried her?
PHYSICIAN
Not I, believe it, sir; but believe withal
She has been tried.
CHOUGH
Why, sir, is she a fructifer, or a fucus?
PHYSICIAN
All that I speak, sir, is in love to you:
Your bride that may be has not that portion
That a bride should have.
CHOUGH
Why, sir, she has a thousand and a better penny.
PHYSICIAN
I do not speak of rubbish, dross, and ore,
But the refined metal, honour, sir.
CHOUGH
What she wants in honour shall be made up in worship, sir; money will purchase both.
PHYSICIAN
To be plain with you, she’s naught.
Draws his sword.
CHOUGH
If thou canst not roar, th’art a dead man! My bride naught?
PHYSICIAN
Sir, I do not fear you that way; what I speak
My life shall maintain: I say she’s naught.
CHOUGH
Dost thou not fear me?
PHYSICIAN
Indeed I do not, sir.
CHOUGH
I’ll never draw upon thee while I live for that trick. Put up and speak freely.
PHYSICIAN
Your intended bride is a whore; that’s freely, sir.
CHOUGH
Yes, faith, a whore’s free enough, and she hath a conscience. Is she a whore? Foot, I warrant she has the pox then!
PHYSICIAN
Worse, the plague; ’tis more incurable.
CHOUGH
A plaguy whore? A pox on her, I’ll none of her!
PHYSICIAN
Mine accusation shall have firm evidence;
I will produce an unavoided witness,
A bastard of her bearing.
CHOUGH
A bastard? ‘Snails, there’s great suspicion she’s a whore then! I’ll wrestle a fall with her father for putting this trick upon me, as I am a gentleman.
PHYSICIAN
Good sir, mistake me not; I do not speak
To break the contract of united hearts:
I will not pull that curse upon my head,
To separate the husband and the wife;
But this, in love, I thought fit to reveal
As the due office betwixt man and man,
That you might not be ignorant of your ills.
Consider now of my premonishment
As yourself shall please.
CHOUGH
I’ll burn all the rosemary to sweeten the house, for in my conscience ’tis infected. Has she drunk bastard? If she would piss me wine vinegar now nine times a day, I’d never have her, and I thank you too.
Enter Trimtram.
TRIMTRAM
Come, will you come away, sir? They have all rosemary, and stay for you to lead the way.
CHOUGH
I’ll not be married today, Trimtram. Hast e’er an almanac about thee? This is the nineteenth of August: look what day of the month ’tis.
TRIMTRAM looks in an almanac
’Tis tenty-nine indeed, sir.
CHOUGH
What’s the word? What says Bretnor?
TRIMTRAM
The word is, sir, ‘There’s a hole in her coat’.
CHOUGH
I thought so: the physician agrees with him; I’ll not marry today.
TRIMTRAM
I pray you, sir, there will be charges for new rosemary else; this will be withered by tomorrow.
CHOUGH
Make a bonfire on’t to sweeten Rosemary Lane. Prithee, Trim, entreat my father-in-law that might have been to come and speak with me.
TRIMTRAM
The bride cries already and looks t’other way; and you be so backward too, we shall have a fine arseward wedding on’t.
Exit Trimtram.
CHOUGH
You’ll stand to your words, sir?
PHYSICIAN
I’ll not fly the house, sir; when you have need, call me to evidence.
CHOUGH
If you’ll prove she has borne a bastard, I’ll stand to’t she’s a whore.
Exit Physician. Enter Russell and Trimtram.
RUSSELL
Why, how now, son? What causeth these delays?
All stay for your leading.
CHOUGH
Came I from the Mount to be confronted?
RUSSELL
How’s that, sir?
CHOUGH
Canst thou roar, old man?
RUSSELL
Roar? How mean you, sir?
CHOUGH
Why then, I’ll tell thee plainly, thy daughter [is] a bronstrop.
RUSSELL
A bronstrop? What’s that, sir?
TRIMTRAM
Sir, if she be so, she is a hippocrene.
CHOUGH
Nay, worse, she is a fructifer.
TRIMTRAM
Nay then, she is a fucus, a minotaur, and a tweak.
RUSSELL
Pray you speak to my understanding, sir.
CHOUGH
If thou wilt have it in plain terms, she is a calicut and a panagron.
TRIMTRAM
Nay then, she is a duplar and a sindicus.
RUSSELL
Good sir, speak English to me.
CHOUGH
All this is Cornish to thee; I say thy daughter has drunk bastard in her time.
RUSSELL
Bastard? You do not mean to make her a whore?
CHOUGH
Yes, but I do; if she make a fool of me, I’ll ne’er make her my wife till she have her maidenhead again.
RUSSELL
A whore? I do defy this calumny.
CHOUGH
Dost thou? I defy thee then.
TRIMTRAM
Do you, sir? Then I defy thee too: fight with us both at once in this quarrel, if thou darest!
CHOUGH
I could have had a whore at Plymouth.
TRIMTRAM
Ay, or at Pe’ryn.
CHOUGH
Ay, or under the Mount.
TRIMTRAM
Or as you came, at Evil.
CHOUGH
Or at Hockey Hole in Somersetshire.
TRIMTRAM
Or at the Hanging Stones in Wiltshire.
CHOUGH
Or at Maidenhead in Berkshire. And did I come in by Maidenhead to go out by Staines? Oh, that man, woman, or child would wrestle with me for a pound of patience!
RUSSELL
Some thief has put in poison at your ears
To steal the good name of my child from me;
Or if it be a malice of your own,
Be sure I will enforce a proof from you.
CHOUGH
He’s a goose and a woodcock that says I will not prove any word that I speak.
TRIMTRAM
Ay, either goose or woodcock; he shall, sir, with any man.
CHOUGH
Phy-si-ci-an! Mauz avez, physician!
[Enter Physician.]
RUSSELL
Is he the author?
PHYSICIAN
Sir, with much sorrow for your sorrow’s sake,
I must deliver this most certain truth:
Your daughter is an honour-stained bride,
Indeed she is the mother to a child
Before the lawful wife unto a husband.
CHOUGH
Law, that’s worse than I told thee; I said she had borne a bastard, and he says she was the mother on’t too.
RUSSELL
I’m yet an infidel against all this,
And will believe the sun is made of brass,
The stars of amber —
CHOUGH
And the moon of a Holland cheese.
RUSSELL
Rather than this impossibility.
Enter Jane and Anne.
Oh, here she comes.
Nay, come, daughter, stand at the bar of shame;
Either now quit thyself, or kill me ever:
Your marriage-day is spoiled if all be true.
JANE
A happy misery! Who’s my accuser?
PHYSICIAN
I am, that knows it true I speak.
CHOUGH
Yes, and I’m his witness.
TRIMTRAM
And I.
CHOUGH
And I again.
TRIMTRAM
And I again too. There’s four; that’s enough, l hope.
RUSSELL
How can you witness, sir, that nothing know
But what you have received from his report?
CHOUGH
Must we not believe our physicians? Pray you, think I know as much as every fool does.
TRIMTRAM
Let me be Trimtram: I pray you too, sir.
JANE
Sir, if this bad man have laid a blemish
On my white name, he is a most false one,
Defaming me for the just denial
Of his foul lust. [To Physician] Nay, now you shall be known, sir.
ANNE
Sir, I’m his sister, and do better know him
Than all of you: give not too much belief
To his wild words; he’s oftentimes mad, sir.
PHYSICIAN
I thank you, good sister.
ANNE
[Aside to Physician] Are you not mad to do this office?
Fie upon your malice!
PHYSICIAN
I’ll presently produce both nurse and child,
Whose very eyes shall call her mother before it speaks.
[Exit.]
CHOUGH
Ha, ha, ha, ha! By my troth, I’d spend a shilling on that condition to hear that. I think in my conscience I shall take the physician in a lie: if the child call her mother before it can speak, I’ll never wrestle while I live again.
TRIMTRAM
It must be a she child if it do, sir; and those speak the soonest of any living creatures, they say.
CHOUGH
Baw, waw! A dog will bark a month sooner; he’s a very puppy else.
RUSSELL
[Aside to Jane] Come, tell truth ‘twixt ourselves; here’s none but friends.
One spot a father’s love will soon wipe off;
The truth, and [thereby] try my love abundant:
I’ll cover it with all the care I have,
And yet, perhaps, make up a marriage-day.
JANE
[Aside to Russell] Then it’s true, sir, I have [a] child.
RUSSELL
Hast thou?
Well, wipe thine eyes, I’m a grandfather then;
If all bastards were banished, the city would be thin
In the thickest term-time. Well now, let me alone,
I’ll try my wits for thee. Richard, Francis, Andrew!
None of my knaves within?
Enter his servant [Dick].
[DICK]
Here’s one of ‘em, sir: the guests come in apace.
RUSSELL
Do they, Dick? Let ‘em have wine and sugar; we’ll be for ‘em presently. But hark, Dick. [Whispers to him.]
CHOUGH
I long to hear this child speak, i’faith, Trim; I would this foolish physician would come [at] once.
TRIMTRAM
If it calls her mother, I hope it shall never call you father.
CHOUGH
No; and it do, I’ll whip it, i’faith, and give thee leave to whip me.
RUSSELL
Run on thy best legs, Dick.
[DICK]
I’ll be here in a twinkling, sir.
Exit [Dick]. Enter Physician, Nurse with the child.
PHYSICIAN
Now, gentlemen, believe your eyes if not my tongue.
Do not you call this your child?
CHOUGH
Phew, that’s not the point: you promised us the child should call her mother; if it does this month, I’ll ne’er go to the roaring-school again.
RUSSELL
Whose child is this, nurse?
NURSE
Dis gentleman’s, so he to me readen.
Points to the Physician.
CHOUGH
‘Snails, she’s the physician’s bronstrops, Trim!
TRIMTRAM
His fucus, his very tweak, i’faith!
CHOUGH
A glister in his teeth! Let him take her with a purgation to him!
RUSSELL
’Tis as your sister said, you are stark mad, sir;
This much confirms it. You have defamed
Mine honest daughter; I’ll have you punished for’t,
Besides the civil penance of your sin
And keeping of your bastard.
PHYSICIAN
This is fine!
All your wit and wealth must not thus carry it.
RUSSELL
[Taking Chough and Trimtram aside] Sir Chough, a word with you.
CHOUGH
I’ll not have her, i’faith, sir; if Trimtram will have her, and he will, let him.
TRIMTRAM
Who, I, sir? I scorn it. If you’ll have her, I’ll have her too; I’ll do as you do, and no otherwise.
RUSSELL
I do not mean ‘t to either; this only, sir,
That whatsoe’er y’ave seen, you would be silent:
Hinder not my child of another husband,
Though you forsake her.
CHOUGH
I’ll not speak a word, i’faith.
RUSSELL
As you are a gentleman?
CHOUGH
By these basket-hilts, as I am a youth,
A gentleman, a roarer.
RUSSELL
Charm your man, I beseech you, too.
CHOUGH
I warrant you, sir, he shall do nothing but what I do before him.
RUSSELL
I shall most dearly thank you.
Enter [Dick] with Fitzallen.
Oh, are you come?
Welcome, son-in-law! This was beyond your hope:
We old men have pretty conceits sometimes;
Your wedding-day’s prepared, and this is it.
How think you of it?
FITZALLEN
As of the joyfull’st
That ever welcomed me! You show yourself now
A pattern to all kind fathers. My sweetest Jane!
RUSSELL
Your capacity I meant but as a sauce
Unto your wedding-dinner; now I’m sure
’Tis far more welcome in this short restraint
Than had it freely come.
FITZALLEN
A thousandfold.
JANE
I like this well.
CHOUGH
[Taking Trimtram aside] I have not the heart to see this gentleman gulled so; I will reveal. I make it mine own case: ’tis a foul case.
TRIMTRAM
Remember you have sworn by your hilts.
CHOUGH
I’ll break my hilts rather than conceal. I have a trick: do thou follow me; I will reveal it, and yet not speak it neither.
TRIMTRAM
’Tis my duty to follow you, sir.
CHOUGH sings
Take heed in time, oh, man, unto thy head.
TRIMTRAM sings
All is not gold that glistereth in bed.
RUSSELL
Why, sir! Why, sir!
CHOUGH
[Singing] Look to’t, I say, thy bride’s a bronstrops.
TRIMTRAM
[Singing] And knows the thing that men wear in their slops.
FITZALLEN
How’s this, sir?
CHOUGH
[Singing] A hippocrene, a tweak, for and a fucus.
TRIMTRAM
[Singing] Let not fond love with foretops so rebuke us.
RUSSELL
Good sir!
CHOUGH
[Singing] Behold a baby of this maid’s begetting.
TRIMTRAM
[Singing] A deed of darkness after the sunsetting.
RUSSELL
Your oath, sir!
CHOUGH
[Singing] I swear and sing thy bride has taken physic.
TRIMTRAM
[Singing] This was the doctor cured her of that phthisic.
CHOUGH
[Singing] If you’ll believe me, I will say no more.
TRIMTRAM
[Singing] Thy bride’s a tweak, as we do say that roar.
CHOUGH
Bear witness, gentlemen, I have not spoke a word:
My hilts are whole still.
FITZALLEN
This is a sweet epithalamium
Unto the marriage-bed, a musical,
Harmonious Io! Sir, y’ave wronged me
And basely wronged me. Was this your cunning fetch,
To fetch me out of prison, forever
To marry me unto a strumpet?
RUSSELL
None of those words, good sir;
’Tis but a fault, and ’tis a sweet one too.
Come, sir, your means is short, lengthen your fortunes
With a fair proffer: I’ll put a thousand pieces
Into the scale, to help her to weigh it up,
Above the first dowry.
FITZALLEN
Ha? You say well,
Shame may be bought out at a dear rate;
A thousand pieces added to her dowry!
RUSSELL
[Giving him money] There’s five hundred of ‘em to make the bargain.
I have worthy guests coming, and would not delude ‘em;
Say: speak like a son to me.
FITZALLEN
Your blessing, sir,
We are both yours. Witness, gentlemen,
These must be made up a thousand pieces,
Added to a first thousand for her dowry,
To father that child.
PHYSICIAN
Oh, is it out now?
CHOUGH
For t’other thousand I’ll do’t myself yet.
TRIMTRAM
Or I, if my master will.
FITZALLEN
The bargain’s made, sir, I have the tender
And possession both, and will keep my purchase.
CHOUGH
Take her e’en to you with all her moveables; I’ll wear my bachelors’ buttons still.
TRIMTRAM
So will I, i’faith; they are the best flowers in any man’s garden, next to heart’s-ease.
FITZALLEN
[Taking up the child] This is as welcome as the other, sir,
And both as the best bliss that e’er on earth
I shall enjoy. Sir, this is mine own child,
You could not have found out a fitter father;
Nor is it basely bred, as you imagine,
For we were wedded by the hand of heaven
Ere this work was begun.
CHOUGH
At Pancridge, I’ll lay my life on’t.
TRIMTRAM
I’ll lay my life on’t too, ’twas there.
FITZALLEN
Somewhere it was, sir.
RUSSELL
Was’t so, i’faith, son?
JANE
And that I must have revealed to you, sir,
Ere I had gone to church with this fair groom;
But thank this gentleman, he prevented me.
[To Physician] I am much bound unto your malice, sir.
PHYSICIAN
I am ashamed.
JANE
Shame to amendment then.
RUSSELL
Now get you together for a couple of cunning ones!
But son, a word: the latter thousand pieces
Is now more than bargain.
FITZALLEN
No, by my faith, sir,
Here’s witness enough on’t: must serve to pay my fees;
Imprisonment is costly.
CHOUGH
By my troth, the old man has gulled himself finely! Well, sir, I’ll bid myself a guest, though not a groom; I’ll dine and dance, and roar at the wedding for all this.
TRIMTRAM
So will I, sir, if my master does.
RUSSELL
Well, sir, you are welcome; but now no more words on’t
Till we be set at dinner, for there will mirth
Be the most useful for digestion.
Enter Captain Ager, Surgeon, Lady Ager, Colonel’s Sister, [Captain Ager’s] two Friends.
See, my best guests are coming.
CAPTAIN AGER
Recovered, say’st thou?
SURGEON
May I be excluded quite out of Surgeons’ Hall else! Marry, I must tell you the wound was fain to be twice corroded; ’twas a plain [gastrorrhaphy], and a deep one; but I closed the lips on’t with bandages and sutures, which is a kind conjunction of the parts separated against the course of nature.
CAPTAIN AGER
Well, sir, he is well.
SURGEON
I feared him, I assure you, Captain; before the suture in the belly, it grew almost to a convulsion, and there was like to be a bloody issue from the hollow vessels of the kidneys.
CAPTAIN AGER
There’s that, to thank thy news and thy art together.
Gives him money.
SURGEON
And if your worship at any time stand in need of incision, if it be your fortune to light into my hands, I’ll give you the best.
CAPTAIN AGER
Uncle, the noble colonel’s recovered.
RUSSELL
Recovered?
Then honour is not dead in all parts, coz.
Enter Colonel with his two Friends.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Behold him yonder, sir.
CAPTAIN AGER
My much unworthiness is now found out;
Th’ast not a face to fit it.
FIRST FRIEND OF THE COLONEL
Sir, yonder’s Captain Ager.
COLONEL
Oh, lieutenant, the wrong I have done his fame
Puts me to silence; shame so confounds me
That I dare not see him.
CAPTAIN AGER
I never knew how poor my deserts were
Till he appeared. No way to give requital!
Here, shame me lastingly, do’t with his own;
Return this to him, tell him I have riches
In that abundance in his sister’s love:
These come but to oppress me and confound
All my deservings everlastingly;
I never shall requite my wealth in her, say.
[He gives the will to his First Friend, who takes it to the Colonel.]
How soon from virtue and an honoured spirit
May man receive what he may never merit!
COLONEL
This comes most happily to express me better,
For since this will was made there fell to me
The manor of Fitzdale; give [‘em] that too.
[Returns the will with other papers.]
He’s like to have charge:
There’s fair hope of my sister’s fruitfulness;
For me, I never mean to change my mistress,
And war is able to maintain her servant.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Read there, a fair increase, sir, by my faith;
He hath sent it back, sir, with new additions.
CAPTAIN AGER
How miserable he makes me! This enforces me
To break through all the passages of shame,
And headlong fall.
COLONEL
Into my arms, dear worthy!
CAPTAIN AGER
You have a goodness
Has put me past my answers; you may speak
What you please now, I must be silent ever.
COLONEL
This day has shown me joy’s unvalued treasure;
I would not change this brotherhood with a monarch,
Into which blessed alliance sacred heaven
Has placed my kinsman, and given him his ends:
Fair be that quarrel makes such happy friends.
Exeunt omnes.
FINIS