In many ways, Epicoene, or The Silent Woman works with the most familiar of comic raw materials. In Dauphine Eugenie’s plot against his uncle, Morose, we see the struggle of youth versus age; in the manoeuvres of Sir John Daw and Sir Amorous La Foole, Tom Otter and his wife, and the collegiate ladies, the play offers the customary comic battle of women versus men; and in the play’s setting, in Jacobean London, we have a sense of the contest between a new kind of urban social order and an older, less commercialised one. Throughout, too, the recourse to dissembling and disguise, in particular to cross-dressing, and the dependence on characters’ foibles, distortions or excesses as a source of humour and a trigger of the comic action indicate that we are in recognisable Renaissance comic territory. These staples, however, do not bring with them the usual reassurances or affirmations offered by such comedy. The end of the play, for example, is neither reintegrative nor restitutive. Although the young gallant, Dauphine, outwits Morose and secures his inheritance, thereby ensuring the triumph of youth over age (as comedy suggests it must), this is no natural succession and it is marked by no honouring of the generation on the wane. Instead, Dauphine revels in his success with a gratuitous and chilling cruelty, telling Morose that ‘I’ll not trouble you till you trouble me with your funeral, which I care not how soon it come’ (V.iv.232-3).
Such relentlessness and remorselessness are fundamental to the play as a whole. There is no relief from, and no alternative to, the parade of buffoons, dandies and viragos that rolls across the stage, no one whose values offer a secure point of anchorage to the spectator/reader tossed between one set of follies, perversions or vices and another. The confusion or blurring of gender roles, for example, is all but total: the women are masculine and emasculating; the men are effeminate, ineffectual, or both. The misogyny of the characters is similarly unremitting, varied and vigorous (see, for example Truewit’s attempt to dissuade Morose from marriage in II.ii), and is unalleviated by the more general but less acid misanthropy that also, undoubtedly, informs the play. Likewise, disguise and dissembling proliferate: Truewit pretends to be a messenger, Daw to be scholarly, La Foole to be a servant, Morose to be impotent, Otter and Cutbeard to be lawyer and parson, and Epicoene to be a woman. No counterweight of ‘reality’ underlies these pretences. Beneath is either absence: Truewit says of Daw, ‘A fellow so utterly nothing, as he knows not what he would be’ (II.iv.164-5), or more pretence: the boy who has played Epicoene, Truewit assures us, will continue to dissemble in the post-play world (V.iv.269-70). In this ‘comedy of affliction’ (II.vi.38), all are afflicted; none is immune.
If anything mitigates the harshness of this diagnosis, it is the sense that these ills are not the timeless and universal results of a fallen human nature, but are socially produced. This is a city comedy, a play rooted in its urban setting and the lives and mores of its citizens (see Gibbons 1980). Characteristically for plays of this kind, the excesses of the characters are represented, as Tom Otter’s tirade against his wife suggests, as those of the city itself:
All her teeth were made i’ the Blackfriars, both her eyebrows i’ the Strand, and her hair in Silver Street. Every part o’ the town owns a piece of her … She takes herself a sunder still when she goes to bed, into some twenty boxes.
(IV.ii.84-9)
Mistress Otter is, quite literally, the product (and indeed the property) of the newly burgeoning consumer markets of Jacobean London, with their energy, clamour and glamour. Whilst the play invites criticism of the superficiality and triviality of this consumerist playground, we also need to beware of assuming our own immunity to its appeal, for it is this very energy, with its noise, inventiveness and exuberance, that drives the plot, generates the wit, and thereby constitutes the pleasure, of this play.
The topicality of Epicoene is, paradoxically, as much a result of its classicism as of its devotion to contemporary detail. As the notes to the text make clear, Jonson, as was his custom, drew on and adapted the work of a wide range of classical authors-here, in particular the Greek rhetorician Libanius (AD 314-393), the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-AD 18) and the satirist Juvenal (c. AD 60-c. 130). These models, however, far from rendering Jonson’s work archaic or obscure, give the playwright much of his caustic rhetorical arsenal. Indeed, those passages that offer a real sense of the texture of life in, and social mores of, Jacobean London (such as Truewit’s diatribe against women (II.ii), or Morose’s railing against noise (III.vi, IV.iv) are, more likely than not, those that are drawn most directly from their sources.
Epicoene was first staged in December 1609 or January 1610, by one of the boys’ acting companies, at the Whitefriars, a private theatre. It was Jonson’s first play for the public stage since Volpone, four years before, as he had concentrated on writing court masques in the intervening years. The new play was a success but was nonetheless closed in February 1610, owing to a complaint made by the king’s cousin, Arbella Stuart, who detected in it a scurrilous reference to herself (see V.i.26n, the Dedication, and Jonson’s defence in the second Prologue). The play was later revived at court in 1636 and, significantly, was the first play to be staged on the reopening of the theatres in 1660, after the accession of Charles II to the throne. It was much admired, by critics as diverse as Samuel Pepys and John Dryden, and proved to be the model for Restoration comic dramatists such as Etherage, Wycherley and Congreve. Its popularity declined after the mid-eighteenth century, however, and it was only in the late twentieth century, with its concern with questions of the cultural construction of gender and sexuality, that the critical gaze fell on the play again. It shows, as yet, no sign of being diverted.
The copytext for this edition is Jonson’s 1616 folio, The Workes of Benjamin Jonson.
Adams, Robert M. (ed.) (1979) Ben Jonson’s Plays and Masques: Texts of the Plays and Masques, Jonson on his Work, Contemporary Readers on Jonson Criticism, New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company.
Beaurline, L. A. (ed.) (1966) Ben Jonson: Epicoene, or The Silent Woman, Regents Renaissance Drama Series, London: Edward Arnold.
Dutton, Richard (ed.) (2003) Epicoene, or The Silent Woman, The Revels Plays, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Gifford, W. (ed.) (1875) The Works of Ben Jonson, vol. 111, notes by Francis Cunningham, London: Bickers and Son, Henry Sotheran and Co.
Herford, C. H. and Simpson, Percy (eds) (1954) Ben Jonson, vol. v (corrected version of 1937 edition), Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Heyward Brock, D. (ed.) (1976) The Workes of Benjamin Jonson, facsimile edition, London: Scalar Press.
Holdsworth, R. V. (ed.) (r979) Epicoene, or The Silent Woman, The New Mermaids, London: A. & C. Black.
Ostovich, Helen (ed.) (1997) Ben Jonson: Four Comedies, London and New York, NY: Longman.
Partridge, Edward (ed.) (1971) Ben Jonson: Epicoene, The Yale Ben Jonson, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.
Procter, Johanna (ed.) (1989) The Selected Plays of Ben Jonson, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schelling, Felix (ed.) (1910) The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson, vol. 1, Everyman’s Library, London:]. M. Dent and Sons.
Wilkes, G. A. (ed.) (r982) The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson, vol. 111, Oxford: Clarendon Press (based on Herford and Simpson’s edition).
Ayers, P. K. (1987) ‘Dreams of the City: The Urban and the Urbane in Jonson’s Epicoene’, Philological Quarterly, 66, 1: 73-86.
Barish, Jonas A. (1960) Ben Jonson and the Language of Prose Comedy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Barton, Anne (1984) Ben Jonson, Dramatist, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boehrer, Bruce T. (1994) ‘Epicoene, Charivari, Skimmington’, English Studies, 75, 1: 17-33
Donaldson, Ian (1970) The World Upside Down: Comedy from
Jonson to Fielding, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
—— (ed.) (1985) Ben Jonson, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dutton, Richard (1984) Ben Jonson: To the First Folio, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gibbons, Brian (1980) Jacobean City Comedy, 2nd edition, London: Methuen.
Jones, Emrys (1982) ‘The First West End Comedy’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 48: 215-58.
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Knights, L. C. (1937) Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson, London: Chatto and Windus.
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Mirabelli, Philip (1989) ‘Silence, Wit, and Wisdom in The Silent Woman’, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 29, 2: 309-36.
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Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour (1598)
Henry Porter, The Two Angry Women of Abington (1598)
Thomas Dekker, Satiromastix (1601)
John Marston, The Dutch Courtesan (1604)
Thomas Middleton, A Trick to Catch the Old One (1605)
Ben Jonson, Volpone (1606)
Ben Jonson, The Alchemist (1610)
Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girl (1611)
Thomas Middleton, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613)
Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614)
Philip Massinger, The City Madam (1632)
Sir,
My hope is not so nourished by example, as it will conclude this dumb piece should please you by cause it hath pleased others before, but by trust, that when you have read it, you will find it worthy to have displeased none. This makes that I now number you not only in the names of favour, but the names of justice, to what I write; and do, presently, call you to the exercise of that noblest and manliest virtue: as coveting rather to be freed in my fame by the authority of a judge than the credit of an undertaker. Read therefore, I pray you, and censure. There is not a line or syllable in it changed from the simplicity of the first copy. And when you shall consider, through the certain hatred of some, how much a man’s innocency may be endangered by an uncertain accusation, you will, I doubt not, so begin to hate the iniquity of such natures as I shall love the contumely done me, whose end was so honourable as to be wiped off by your sentence.
Your unprofitable but true lover,
20
BEN. JONSON
MADAME HAUGHTY
MADAME CENTAURE
MISTRESS MAVIS} ladies collegiates
LONDON
Truth says, of old, the art of making plays
Was to content the people, and their praise
Was to the poet money, wine, and bays.
But in this age a sect of writers are,
That only for particular likings care,
And will taste nothing that is popular.
With such we mingle neither brains nor breasts;
Our wishes, like to those make public feasts
Are not to please the cooks’ tastes, but the guests’.
Yet if those cunning palates hither come, 10
They shall find guests’ entreaty and good room;
And though all relish not, sure, there will be some
That, when they leave their seats, shall make ‘em say,
Who wrote that piece could so have wrote a play,
But that he knew this was the better way.
For to present all custard or all tart
And have no other meats to bear a part,
Or to want bread and salt, were but coarse art.
The poet prays you, then, with better thought
To sit, and when his cates are all in brought, 20
Though there be none far-fet, there will dear-bought
Be fit for ladies; some for lords, knights, squires,
Some for your waiting-wench and city-wires,
Some for your men and daughters of Whitefriars.
Nor is it only while you keep your seat
Here that his feast will last, but you shall eat
A week at ord’naries on his broken meat:
If his muse be true,
Who commends her to you.
The ends of all who for the scene do write
Are, or should be, to profit and delight.
And still’t hath been the praise of all best times,
So persons were not touched, to tax the crimes.
Then, in this play, which we present tonight,
And make the object of your ear and sight,
On forfeit of yourselves, think nothing true,
Lest so you make the maker to judge you.
For he knows, poet never credit gained
By writing truths, but things (like truths) well feigned. 10
If any yet will (with particular sleight Of application) wrest what he doth write,
And that he meant or him or her will say,
They make a libel which he made a play.
Enter CLERIMONT. He comes out making himself ready, followed by BOY
CLERIMONT Ha’ you got the song yet perfect I ga’ you, boy?
BOY Yes, sir.
CLERIMONT Let me hear it.
BOY You shall, sir, but i’ faith let nobody else.
CLERIMONT Why, I pray?
BOY It will get you the dangerous name of a poet in town, sir, besides me a perfect deal of ill will at the mansion you wot of, whose lady is the argument of it, where now I am the welcom’st thing under a man that comes there. 11
CLERIMONT I think, and above a man too, if the truth were racked out of you.
BOY No, faith, I’ll confess before, sir. The gendewomen play with me and throw me o’ the bed, and carry me in to my lady; and she kisses me with her oiled face, and puts a peruke o’ my head, and asks me an’ I will wear her gown, and I say no; and then she hits me a blow o’ the ear and calls me innocent, and lets me go. 19
CLERIMONT No marvel if the door be kept shut against your master, when the entrance is so easy to you—well, sir, you shall go there no more, lest I be fain to seek your voice in my lady’s rushes a fortnight hence. Sing, sir. BOY sings
Enter TRUEWIT
TRUEWIT Why, here’s the man that can melt away his time, and never feels it! What, between his mistress abroad and his ingle at home, high fare, soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle, he thinks the hours ha’ no wings or the day no post-horse. Well, sir gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute, or condemned to any capital punishment tomorrow, you would begin then to think, and value every article o’ your time, esteem it at the true rate, and give all for’t. 34
CLERIMONT Why, what should a man do?
TRUEWIT Why, nothing, or that which, when ‘tis done, is as idle. Hearken after the next horse-race, or hunting-match; lay wagers, praise Puppy, or Peppercorn, Whitefoot, Franklin; swear upon Whitemane’s party; spend aloud that my lords may hear you; visit my ladies at night, and be able to give ‘em the character of every bowler or bettor o’ the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. 44
CLERIMONT Nay, if I have thy authority, I’ll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations when we come to have grey heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We’ll think on ‘em then; then we’ll pray and fast.
TRUEWIT Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil? 52
CLERIMONT Why then ‘tis time enough.
TRUEWIT Yes: as if a man should sleep all the term and think to effect his business the last day. Oh, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed; not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still 60
CLERIMONT Nay, thou’lt not leave now–
TRUEWIT See but our common disease! With what justice can we complain that great men will not look upon us nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves, nor hear nor regard ourselves.
CLERIMONT Foh, thou hast read Plutarch’s Morals now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shows so vilely with thee, ‘fore God, ‘twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things, and leave this stoicity alone till thou mak’st sermons. 72
TRUEWIT Well, sir. If it will not take, I have learned to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I’ll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college?
CLERIMONT What college?
TRUEWIT As if you knew not!
CLERIMONT No, faith, I came but from court yesterday. 80
TRUEWIT Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here i’ the town, of ladies that call themselves the Collegiates, an order between courtiers and country madams, that live from their husbands, and give entertainment to all the Wits and Braveries o’ the time, as they call ‘em; cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. 90
CLERIMONT Who is the president?
TRUEWIT The grave and youthful matron, the Lady Haughty.
CLERIMONT A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty: there’s no man can be admitted till she be ready, nowadays, till she has painted, and perfumed, and washed, and scoured, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oiled lips upon like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, o’ the subject.
BOY sings
SONG
Still to be neat, still to be dressed, 100
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art’s hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th’ adulteries of art. 110
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
TRUEWIT And I am, clearly, o’ the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o’ the world. Oh, a woman is, then, like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it: she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, show‘em; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eyebrows, paint, and profess it. 120
CLERIMONT How? Publicly?
TRUEWIT The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul i’ the doing, do please, done. A lady should indeed study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be inquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eyebrows, their nails? You see gilders will not work but enclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city’s Love and Charity while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnished? No. No more should servants approach their mistresses but when they are complete, and finished. 136
CLERIMONT Well said, my Truewit.
TRUEWIT And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatched at her peruke to cover her baldness and put it on the wrong way.
CLERIMONT Oh prodigy! 144
TRUEWIT And the unconscionable knave held her in compliment an hour, with that reversed face, when I still looked when she should talk from the tother side.
CLERIMONT Why thou shouldst ha’ relieved her.
TRUEWIT No, faith, I let her alone, as we’ll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? 152
CLERIMONT Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? He is very melancholic, I hear.
TRUEWIT Sick o’ the uncle, is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of nightcaps on his head, buckled over his ears.
CLERIMONT Oh, that’s his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. 160
TRUEWIT So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fishwives and orangewomen, and articles propounded between them. Marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in.
CLERIMONT No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costardmonger, he swoons if he hears one.
TRUEWIT Methinks a smith should be ominous. 168
CLERIMONT Or any hammerman. A brazier is not suffered to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hanged a pewterer’s ‘prentice once upon a Shrove Tuesday’s riot for being o’ that trade, when the rest were quit.
TRUEWIT A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys?
CLERIMONT Out of his senses. The waits of the city have a pension of him, not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him, one night, like the bellman, and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long sword, and there left him flourishing with the air. 181
BOY Why, sir! He hath chosen a street to lie in, so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises; and therefore we that love him devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease. His virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did, and cried his games under Master Morose’s window, till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer, marching to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way, at my request. 196
TRUEWIT A good wag. How does he for the bells?
CLERIMONT Oh, i’ the queen’s time he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o’clock, or on holiday eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room with double walls, and treble ceilings, the windows close shut, and caulked; and there he lives by candlelight. He turned away a man last week for having a pair of new shoes that creaked. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool; and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here. 208
Enter DAUPHINE
DAUPHINE How now! What ail you, sirs? Dumb?
TRUEWIT Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales
o’ thine uncle! There was never such a prodigy heard of.
DAUPHINE I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are that have brought me into that predicament I am with him.
TRUEWIT How is that?
DAUPHINE Marry, that he will disinherit me, no more. He thinks I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous acts and monuments are told of him. 11
TRUEWIT ‘Slid, I would be the author of more, to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I’ll tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanac; get it printed; and then ha’ him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower Wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance.
Disinherit thee! He cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister’s son?
DAUPHINE Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. 21
TRUEWIT How! That’s a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife?
CLERIMONT Yes. Why, thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick yet. He has employed a fellow this half year, all over England, to hearken him out a dumb woman, be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says.
TRUEWIT But I trust to God he has found none. 30
CLERIMONT No, but he has heard of one that’s lodged i’ the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he’s about now, and shall have her.
TRUEWIT Is’t possible! Who is his agent i’ the business?
CLERIMONT Marry, a barber, one Cutbeard, an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here.
TRUEWIT Why, you oppress me with wonder! A woman, and a barber, and love no noise! 39
CLERIMONT Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently and has not the knack with his shears or his fingers; and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. 43
TRUEWIT Is the barber to be seen? Or the wench?
CLERIMONT Yes, that they are.
TRUEWIT I pray thee, Dauphine, let’s go thither.
DAUPHINE I have some business now; I cannot i’ faith.
TRUEWIT You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir. We’ll make her talk, believe it; or if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty. We will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. 53
DAUPHINE Not I, by any means. I’ll give no suffrage to’t. He shall never ha’ that plea against me, that I opposed the least fant’sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I’ll be innocent.
TRUEWIT Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent, when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent! I pray thee, Ned, where lies she? Let him be innocent still. 61
CLERIMONT Why, right over against the barber’s, in the house where Sir John Daw lies.
TRUEWIT You do not mean to confound me!
CLERIMONT Why?
TRUEWIT Does he that would marry her know so much?
CLERIMONT I cannot tell.
TRUEWIT ‘Twere enough of imputation to her, with him. 70
CLERIMONT Why?
TRUEWIT The only talking sir i’th’town! Jack Daw!
And he teach her not to speak–God b’w’you. I have some business too.
CLERIMONT Will you not go thither then?
TRUEWIT Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears.
CLERIMONT Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms.
TRUEWIT Yes, of keeping distance. 80
CLERIMONT They say he is a vety good scholar.
TRUEWIT Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him.
CLERIMONT The world reports him to be vety learned.
TRUEWIT I am sorty the world should so conspire to belie him.
CLERIMONT Good faith, I have heard vety good things come from him. 89
TRUEWIT You may. There’s none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own. God b’w’you, gentlemen.
Exit
CLERIMONT This is vety abrupt!
DAUPHINE Come, you are a strange open man to tell evetything thus.
CLERIMONT Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit’s a vety honest fellow.
DAUPHINE I think no other, but this frank nature of his is not for secrets.
CLERIMONT Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine; I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust vety truly and heartily. 9
DAUPHINE I contend not, Ned, but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you’ll go thither, I am for you.
CLERIMONT When were you there?
DAUPHINE Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out. Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk, and be free, and commends her silence in verses, which he reads and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines why he is not made a councillor and called to affairs of state. 22
CLERIMONT I pray thee, let’s go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy.
Exit BOY
DAUPHINE We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, Sir La Foole.
CLERIMONT Oh, that’s a precious manikin!
DAUPHINE Do you know him? 28
CLERIMONT Ay, and he will know you too, if e’er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the Braveries, though he be none o’ the Wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to ‘em aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose, or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet ‘em by chance and give ‘em presents, some two or three hundred pounds’ worth of toys, to be laughed at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweetmeats in his chamber, for their women to alight at and come up to, for a bait. 44
DAUPHINE Excellent! He was a fine youth last night, but now he is much finer! What is his christen name? I ha’ forgot.
Enter BOY
CLERIMONT Sir Amorous La Foole.
BOY The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLERIMONT ‘Heart, he’s come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. 51
DAUPHINE Like enough. Pray thee, let’s ha’ him up.
CLERIMONT Boy, marshal him.
BOY With a truncheon, sir?
CLERIMONT Away, I beseech you. (Exit BOY) I’ll make him tell us his pedigree now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes, with a breath.
Enter LA FOOLE
LA FOOLE ‘Save, dear Sir Dauphine, honoured Master Clerimont.
CLERIMONT Sir Amorous! You have very much honested my lodging with your presence.
LA FOOLE Good faith, it is a fine lodging! Almost as delicate a lodging as mine.
CLERIMONT Not so, sir.
LA FOOLE Excuse me, sir, if it were i’ the Strand, I assure you. I am come, Master Clerimont, to entreat you wait upon two or three ladies to dinner today. 10
CLERIMONT How, sir! Wait upon ‘em? Did you ever see me carry dishes?
LA FOOLE No, sir, dispense with me; I meant to bear ‘em company.
CLERIMONT Oh, that I will, sir. The doubtfulness o’ your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour with the terrible boys, if you should but keep ‘em fellowship a day.
LA FOOLE It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. 20
CLERIMONT I believe it, sir. Where hold you your feast?
LA FOOLE At Tom Otter’s, sir.
DAUPHINE Tom Otter? What’s he?
LA FOOLE Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command, both by sea and by land.
DAUPHINE Oh, then he is animal amphibium?
LA FOOLE Ay, sir. His wife was the rich china-woman that the courtiers visited so often, that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home.
CLERIMONT Then she is Captain Otter? 30
LA FOOLE You say very well, sir. She is my kinswoman, a La Foole by the mother side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake.
DAUPHINE Not of the La Fooles of Essex?
LA FOOLE No, sir, the La Fooles of London.
CLERIMONT (Aside to DAUPHINE) Now h’is in. 36
LA FOOLE They all come out of our house, the La Fooles o’ the north, the La Fooles of the west, the La Fooles of the east and south—we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe—but I myself am descended lineally of the French La Fooles—and we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checkered azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house—but let that go, antiquity is not respected now—I had a brace of fat does sent me, gendemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of god wits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten while they are good, and in good company—there will be a great lady or two, my Lady Haughty, my Lady Centaure, Mistress Dol Mavis—and they come a’ purpose to see the silent gendewoman, Mistress Epicoene, that honest Sir John Daw has promised to bring thither—and then Mistress Trusty, my Lady’s woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, Sir Dauphine, with yourself, Master Clerimont—and we’ll be very merry, and have fiddlers, and dance—I have been a mad wag, in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court to my Lord Lofty, and after my Lady’s gendeman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die—I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day as any was worn in the Island Voyage, or at Caliz, none dispraised, and I came over in it hither, showed myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants, in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o’ the land here, upon ladies—and now I can take up at my pleasure. 70
DAUPHINE Can you take up ladies, sir?
CLERIMONT Oh, let him breathe, he has not recovered.
DAUPHINE Would I were your half, in that commodity—
LA FOOLE No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up anything. I have another guest or two to invite and say as much to, gentlemen. I’ll take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail—Your servant.
Exit
DAUPHINE We will not fail you, sir precious La Foole; but she shall that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore Sir Daw. 82
CLERIMONT Did you ever hear such a wind-fucker as this?
DAUPHINE Or such a rook as the other, that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, ‘tis time we prevented it.
CLERIMONT Go.
Exeunt
Enter MOROSE, MUTE
MOROSE Cannot I yet find out a more compendious method than by this trunk to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see. All discourses but mine own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible that thou shouldst answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? Answer me not by speech, but by silence, unless it be otherwise. (At the breaches, still the fellow makes legs, or signs) Very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brickbats, they can make no noise? But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise.—Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard, the barber, to have him come to me?—Good. And he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise; if it be otherwise, shake your head or shrug.—(MUTE makes a leg) So. Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these! And it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be, ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand; if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one.—(MUTE holds up one finger bent) Good; half a quarter? ‘Tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking?—Good. And is the lock oiled, and the hinges, today?—Good. And the quilting of the stairs nowhere worn out, and bare?—Very good. I see by much doctrine and impulsion, it may be effected. Stand by. The Turk in this divine discipline is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes, and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war (as I have heard) and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! And I am heartily ashamed and angry of tentimes that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend ‘em in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. (One winds a horn without) How now? Oh! Oh! What villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? Look. (Exit MUTE. Horn sounds again)—Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! What murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? 46
Enter MUTE
MUTE It is a post from the court—
MOROSE Out, rogue! And must thou blow thy horn too?
MUTE Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says he must speak with you, pain of death—
MOROSE Pain of thy life, be silent!
Enter TRUEWIT with a post-horn and halter
TRUEWIT By your leave, sir (I am a stranger here), is your name Master Morose? Is your name Master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange! What say you, sir, nothing? Has Harpocrates been here, with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man, at this time; I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend ‘em to you, sir—
MOROSE (Aside) Oh men! Oh manners! Was there ever such an impudence? 10
TRUEWIT And are extremely solicitous for you, sir.
MOROSE Whose knave are you?
TRUEWIT Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir.
MOROSE Fetch me my sword—
TRUEWIT You shall taste the one half of my dagger if you do, groom, and you the other if you stir, sir; be patient, I charge you, in the king’s name, and hear me without insurrection. They say you are to marry? To marry! Do you mark, sir?
MOROSE How then, rude companion! 20
TRUEWIT Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown so handsomely; or London Bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or such a delicate steeple i’ the town, as Bow, to vault from; or a braver height, as Paul’s; or if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret window into the street; or a beam in the said garret, with this halter (he shows him a halter), which they have sent, and desire that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat, or a fly (as one said) with a straw i’ your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife, in these times? Now? When there are so many masques, plays, puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in King Etheldred’s time, sir, or Edward the Confessor’s, you might, perhaps, have found in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench would have been contented with one man; now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I’ll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife.
MOROSE Good sir! Have I ever cozened any friends of yours of their land? Bought their possessions? Taken forfeit of their mortgage? Begged a reversion from ‘em? Bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? 50
TRUEWIT Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage.
MOROSE Why, if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters—
TRUEWIT I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had.
MOROSE Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do— 59
TRUEWIT Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul’s health, sir, and would have you know the danger (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir). If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon, why, it is not their fault; they have discharged their consciences when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiandy, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young, and vegetous, no sweetmeats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses i’ the town will be there. If foul, and crooked, she’ll be with them and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich and that you marry her dowry, not her, she’ll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour, though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family or wood of’ em; and hear long-winded exercises, singings, and catechizings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for, to please the zealous matron your wife, who, for the holy cause, will cozen you over and above. You begin to sweat, sir? But this is not half, i’ faith; you may do your pleasure notwithstanding, as I said before, I come not to persuade you. (The MUTE is stealing away) Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. 97
MOROSE Oh, what is my sin, what is my sin?
TRUEWIT Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir, oh, how she’ll torture you, and take pleasure i’ your torments! You shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does; every half hour’s pleasure must be bought anew, and with the same pain and charge you wooed her at first. Then, you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her licence; and him she loves most she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or feign to be jealous of you first, and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber filled with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers, besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; while she feels not how the land drops away, nor the acres melt, nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her pride costs, sir, so she may kiss a page or a smooth chin that has the despair of a beard; be a stateswoman, know all the news, what was done at Salisbury, what at the Bath, what at court, what in progress; or so she may censure poets, and authors, and styles, and compare ‘em, Daniel with Spenser, Jonson with the tother youth, and so forth; or be thought cunning in controversies, or the very knots of divinity; and have often in her mouth the state of the question, and then skip to the mathematics and demonstration, and answer in religion to one, in state to another, in bawdry to a third. 134
TRUEWIT All this is very true, sir. And then her going in disguise to that conjuror, and this cunning woman: where the first question is, how soon you shall die? Next, if her present servant love her? Next that, if she shall have a new servant? And how many? Which of her family would make the best bawd, male or female? What precedence she shall have by her next match? And sets down the answers, and believes ‘em above the scriptures. Nay, perhaps she’ll study the art. 145
MOROSE Gentle sir, ha’ you done? Ha’ you had your pleasure o’ me? I’ll think of these things.
TRUEWIT Yes, sir; and then comes reeking home of vapour and sweat with going afoot, and lies in a month of a new face, all oil and birdlime; and rises in asses’ milk, and is cleansed with a new fucus. God b’w’you, sir. One thing more (which I had almost forgot). This too, with whom you are to marry, may have made a conveyance of her virginity aforehand, as your wise widows do of their states, before they marry, in trust to some friend, sir: who can tell? Or if she have not done it yet, she may do, upon the wedding day, or the night before, and antedate you cuckold. The like has been heard of, in nature. ‘Tis no devised, impossible thing, sir. God b’w’you. I’ll be bold to leave this rope with you, sir, for a remembrance. Farewell, Mute.
Exit
MOROSE Come, ha’ me to my chamber; but first shut the door. (The horn again) Oh, shut the door, shut the door. Is he come again? 165
Enter CUTBEARD
CUTBEARD ‘Tis I, sir, your barber.
MOROSE Oh, Cutbeard, Cutbeard, Cutbeard! Here has been a cut-throat with me: help me in to my bed, and give me physic with thy counsel.
Exeunt
Enter DAW, CLERIMONT, DAUPHINE, EPICOENE
DAW Nay, and she will, let her refuse at her own charges; ‘tis nothing to me, gentlemen. But she will not be invited to the like feasts or guests every day.
CLERIMONT Oh, by no means, she may not refuse—(they dissuade her privately) to stay at home if you love your reputation. ‘Slight, you are invited thither o’ purpose to be seen, and laughed at by the lady of the college, and her shadows. This trumpeter hath proclaimed you. 9
DAUPHINE You shall not go; let him be laughed at in your stead, for not bringing you; and put him to his extemporal faculty of fooling, and talking loud to satisfy the company.
CLERIMONT He will suspect us, talk aloud.—Pray, Mistress Epicoene, let’s see your verse; we have Sir John Daw’s leave: do not conceal your servant’s merit and your own glories.
EPICOENE They’ll prove my servant’s glories, if you have his leave so soon. 19
DAUPHINE (Aside to EPICOENE) His vainglories, lady!
DAW Show ‘em, show ‘em, mistress, I dare own ‘em.
EPICOENE Judge you what glories!
DAW Nay, I’ll read ‘em myself too: an author must recite his own works. It is a madrigal of modesty.
‘Modest and fair, for fair and good are near Neighbours, howe’er-’
DAUPHINE Very good.
CLERIMONT Ay, is’t not?
DAW ‘No noble virtue ever was alone
But two in one.’ 30
DAUPHINE Excellent!
CLERIMONT That again, I pray, Sir John.
DAUPHINE It has something in’t like rare wit, and sense.
CLERIMONT Peace.
DAW ‘No noble virtue ever was alone
Then, when I praise sweet modesty, I praise
Bright beauty’s rays:
And having praised both beauty’ and modesty,
I have praised thee.’ 40
DAUPHINE Admirable!
CLERIMONT How it chimes, and cries tink i’ the close, divinely!
DAUPHINE Ay, ‘tis Seneca.
CLERIMONT No, I think ‘tis Plutarch.
DAW The dor on Plutarch, and Seneca, I hate it: they are mine own imaginations, by that light. I wonder those fellows have such credit with gentlemen!
CLERIMONT They are very grave authors. 49
DAW Grave asses! Mere essayists! A few loose sentences, and that’s all. A man would talk so his whole age; I do utter as good things every hour, if they were collected and observed, as either of’em.
DAUPHINE Indeed, Sir John!
CLERIMONT He must needs, living among the Wits and Braveries too.
DAUPHINE Ay, and being president of’em as he is.
DAW There’s Aristotle, a mere commonplace fellow; Plato, a discourser; Thucydides and Livy, tedious and dry; Tacitus, an entire knot, sometimes worth the untying, very seldom. 61
CLERIMONT What do you think of the poets, Sir John?
DAW Not worthy to be named for authors. Homer, an old tedious prolix ass, talks of curriers, and chines of beef; Virgil, of dunging of land, and bees; Horace, of I know not what.
CLERIMONT I think so.
DAW And so Pindarus, Lycophron, Anacreon, Catullus, Seneca the tragedian, Lucan, Propertius, Tibullus, Martial, Juvenal, Ausonius, Statius, Politian, Valerius Flaccus, and the rest— 71
CLERIMONT What a sackful of their names he has got!
DAUPHINE And how he pours ‘em out! Politian with Valerius Flaccus!
CLERIMONT Was not the character right of him?
DAUPHINE As could be made, i’ faith.
DAW And Persius, a crabbed coxcomb, not to be endured.
DAUPHINE Why, whom do you account for authors, Sir John Daw? 80
DAW Syntagma juris civilis, Corpus juris civilis, Corpus juris canonici, the King of Spain’s Bible.
DAUPHINE Is the King of Spain’s Bible an author?
CLERIMONT Yes, and Syntagma.
DAUPHINE What was that Syntagma, sir?
DAW A civil lawyer, a Spaniard.
DAUPHINE Sure, Corpus was a Dutchman.
CLERIMONT Ay, both the Corpuses, I knew ‘em: they were very corpulent authors.
DAW And then there’s Vatablus, Pomponatius, Symancha; the other are not to be received within the thought of a scholar. 92
DAUPHINE ‘Fore God, you have a simple learned servant, lady, in titles.
CLERIMONT I wonder that he is not called to the helm, and made a councillor!
DAUPHINE He is one extraordinary.
CLERIMONT Nay, but in ordinary! To say truth, the state wants such.
DAUPHINE Why, that will follow. 100
CLERIMONT I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of such a servant.
DAW Tis her virtue, sir. I have written somewhat of her silence too.
DAUPHINE In verse, Sir John?
CLERIMONT What else?
DAUPHINE Why, how can you justify your own being of a poet, that so slight all the old poets?
DAW Why, every man that writes in verse is not a poet; you have of the Wits that write verses, and yet are no poets: they are poets that live by it, the poor fellows that live by it. 112
DAUPHINE Why, would not you live by your verses, Sir John?
CLERIMONT No, ‘twere pity he should. A knight live by his verses? He did not make ‘em to that end, I hope.
DAUPHINE And yet the noble Sidney lives by his, and the noble family not ashamed.
CLERIMONT Ay, he professed himself; but Sir John Daw has more caution: he’ll not hinder his own rising i’ the state so much! Do you think he will? Your verses, good Sir John, and no poems. 122
DAW ‘Silence in woman is like speech in man, Deny’t who can.’
DAUPHINE Not I, believe it; your reason, sir.
DAW ‘Nor is’t a tale
That female vice should be a virtue male,
Or masculine vice, a female virtue be:
You shall it see
Proved with increase, 130
I know to speak, and she to hold her peace.’
Do you conceive me, gendemen?
DAUPHINE No, faith; how mean you ‘with increase’, Sir John?
DAW Why, ‘with increase’ is when I court her for the common cause of mankind; and she says nothing, but consentire videtur: and in time is gravida.
DAUPHINE Then this is a ballad of procreation?
CLERIMONT A madrigal of procreation; you mistake.
EPICOENE Pray give me my verses again, servant. 140
DAW If you’ll ask ‘em aloud, you shall.
Walks apart with EPICOENE
CLERIMONT See, here’s Truewit again!
Enter TRUEWIT with his post-horn
CLERIMONT Where hast thou been, in the name of madness, thus accoutred with thy horn?
TRUEWIT Where the sound of it might have pierced your senses with gladness had you been in ear-reach of it. Dauphine, fall down and worship me: I have forbid the banns, lad. I have been with thy virtuous uncle and have broke the match.
DAUPHINE You ha’ not, I hope. 8
TRUEWIT Yes, faith; and thou shouldst hope otherwise,
I should repent me; this horn got me entrance, kiss it.
I had no other way to get in, but by feigning to be a post; but when I got in once, I proved none, but rather the contrary, turned him into a post, or a stone, or what is stiffer, with thund’ring into him the incommodities of a wife, and the miseries of marriage. If ever Gorgon were seen in the shape of a woman, he hath seen her in my description. I have put him off o’ that scent forever. Why do you not applaud, and adore me, sirs? Why stand you mute?
Are you stupid? You are not worthy o’ the benefit. 20
DAUPHINE Did not I tell you? Mischief!—
CLERIMONT I would you had placed this benefit somewhere else.
TRUEWIT Why so?
CLERIMONT ‘Slight, you have done the most inconsiderate, rash, weak thing that ever man did to his friend.
DAUPHINE Friend! If the most malicious enemy I have had studied to inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater. 30
TRUEWIT Wherein, for God’s sake? Gendemen, come to yourselves again.
DAUPHINE But I presaged thus much afore to you.
CLERIMONT Would my lips had been soldered, when I spake on’t. ‘Slight, what moved you to be thus impertinent?
TRUEWIT My masters, do not put on this strange face to pay my courtesy: off with this visor. Have good turns done you and thank ‘em this way? 39
DAUPHINE ‘Fore heav’n, you have undone me. That which I have plotted for, and been maturing now these four months, you have blasted in a minute; now I am lost, I may speak. This gendewoman was lodged here by me o’ purpose, and, to be put upon my uncle, hath professed this obstinate silence for my sake, being my entire friend; and one that for the requital of such a fortune as to marry him, would have made me very ample conditions; where now all my hopes are utterly miscarried by this unlucky accident. 49
CLERIMONT Thus ‘tis when a man will be ignorantly officious; do services and not know his why; I wonder what courteous itch possessed you! You never did absurder part i’ your life, nor a greater trespass to friendship, to humanity.
DAUPHINE Faith, you may forgive it best: ‘twas your cause principally.
CLERIMONT I know it; would it had not.
Enter CUTBEARD
DAUPHINE How now, Cutbeard, what news? 58
CUTBEARD The best, the happiest that ever was, sir.
There has been a mad gendeman with your uncle this morning—(seeing TRUEWIT) I think this be the gentleman—that has almost talked him out of his wits, with threat’ning him from marriage—
DAUPHINE On, I pray thee.
CUTBEARD And your uncle, sir, he thinks ‘twas done by your procurement; therefore he will see the party you wot of, presently; and if he like her, he says, and that she be so inclining to dumb as I have told him, he swears he will marry her today, instantly, and not defer it a minute longer. 70
DAUPHINE Excellent! Beyond our expectation!
TRUEWIT Beyond your expectation? By this light, I knew it would be thus.
DAUPHINE Nay, sweet Truewit, forgive me.
TRUEWIT No, I was ‘ignorandy officious, impertinent’; this was the ‘absurd, weak part’.
CLERIMONT Wilt thou ascribe that to merit now, was mere fortune?
TRUEWIT Fortune? Mere providence. Fortune had not a finger in’t. I saw it must necessarily in nature fall out so: my genius is never false to me in these things. Show me how it could be otherwise. 82
DAUPHINE Nay, gendemen, contend not; ‘tis well now.
TRUEWIT Alas, I let him go on with ‘inconsiderate’, and ‘rash’, and what he pleased.
CLERIMONT Away, thou strange justifier of thyself, to be wiser than thou wert by the event.
TRUEWIT Event! By this light, thou shalt never persuade me but I foresaw it as well as the stars themselves. 90
DAUPHINE Nay, gendemen, ‘tis well now; do you two entertain Sir John Daw with discourse while I send her away with instructions.
TRUEWIT I’ll be acquainted with her first, by your favour.They approach EPICOENE and DAW
CLERIMONT Master Truewit, lady, a friend of ours.
TRUEWIT I am sorry I have not known you sooner, lady, to celebrate this rare virtue of your silence.
CLERIMONT Faith, an’ you had come sooner, you should ha’ seen and heard her well celebrated in Sir John Daw’s madrigals. 101
Exeunt DAUPHINE, EPICOENE, and CUTBEARD
TRUEWIT Jack Daw, God save you; when saw you La Foole?
DAW Not since last night, Master Truewit.
TRUEWIT That’s miracle! I thought you two had been inseparable.
DAW He’s gone to invite his guests.
TRUEWIT Gods so, ‘tis true! What a false memory have I towards that man! I am one: I met him e’en now, upon that he calls his delicate fine black horse, rid into a foam with posting from place to place, and person to person, to give ‘em the cue— 112
CLERIMONT Lest they should forget?
TRUEWIT Yes; there was never poor captain took more pains at a muster to show men, than he at this meal to show friends.
DAW It is his quarter-feast, sir.
CLERIMONT What! Do you say so, Sir John?
TRUEWIT Nay, Jack Daw will not be out, at the best friends he has, to the talent of his wit. Where’s his mistress, to hear and applaud him? Is she gone? 121
DAW Is Mistress Epicoene gone?
CLERIMONT Gone afore with Sir Dauphine, I warrant, to the place.
TREWIT Gone afore! That were a manifest injmy, a disgrace and a half, to refuse him at such a festival time as this, being a Bravery, and a Wit too.
CLERIMONT Tut, he’ll swallow it like cream: he’s better read in jure civili than to esteem anything a disgrace is offered him from a mistress. 130
DAW Nay, let her e’en go; she shall sit alone and be dumb in her chamber a week together, for Sir John Daw, I warrant her. Does she refuse me?
CLERIMONT No, sir, do not take it so to heart: she does not re se you, but a little neglect you. Good faith, Truewit, you were to blame to put it into his head that she does refuse him.
TRUEWIT She does refuse him, sir, palpably, however you mince it. An’ I were as he, I would swear to speak ne’er a word to her today for’t. 140
DAW By this light, no more I will not.
TRUEWIT Nor to anybody else, sir.
DAW Nay, I will not say so, gentlemen.
CLERIMONT (Aside to TRUEWIT) It had been an excellent happy condition for the company, if you could have drawn him to it.
DAW I’ll be very melancholic, i’ faith.
CLERIMONT As a dog, if I were as you, Sir John.
TRUEWIT Or a snail, or a hog-louse: I would roll myself up for this day, in troth, they should not unwind me. 150
DAW By this picktooth, so I will.
CLERIMONT (Aside to TRUEWIT) ‘Tis well done: he begins already to be angry with his teeth.
DAW Will you go, gentlemen?
CLERIMONT Nay, you must walk alone if you be right melancholic, Sir John.
TRUEWIT Yes, sir, we’ll dog you, we’ll follow you afar off.Exit DAW
CLERIMONT Was there ever such a two yards of kmghthood, measured out by time, to be sold to laughter? 162
TRUEWIT A mere talking mole! Hang him, no mushroom was ever so fresh. A fellow so utterly nothing, as he knows not what he would be.
CLERIMONT Let’s follow him; but first let’s go to Dauphine; he’s hovering about the house to hear what news.
TRUEWIT Content.
Exeunt
Enter MOROSE, EPICOENE, CUTBEARD, MUTE
MOROSE Welcome, Cutbeard; draw near with your fair charge; and in her ear softly entreat her to unmask. (EPICOENE unmasks) So. Is the door shut? (MUTE makes a leg) Enough. Now, Cutbeard, with the same discipline I use to my family, I will question you. As I conceive, Cutbeard, this gentlewoman is she you have provided, and brought, in hope she will fit me in the place and person of a wife? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise.—Very well done, Cutbeard. I conceive besides, Cutbeard, you have been pre-acquainted with her birth, education, and qualities, or else you would not prefer her to my acceptance, in the weighty consequence of marriage.—This I conceive, Cutbeard. Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise.—Very well done, Cutbeard. Give aside now a little, and leave me to examine her condition and aptitude to my affection. (He goes about her and views her) She is exceeding fair, and of a special good favour; a sweet composition or harmony of limbs; her temper of beauty has the true height of my blood. The knave hath exceedingly well fitted me without: I will now try her within.—Come near, fair gentlewoman; let not my behaviour seem rude, though unto you, being rare, it may haply appear strange. (She curtsies) Nay, lady, you may speak, though Cutbeard, and my man, might not: for of all sounds, only the sweet voice of a fair lady has the just length of mine ears. I beseech you, say, lady, out of the first fire of meeting eyes (they say) love is stricken: do you feel any such motion, suddenly shot into you, from any part you see in me? Ha, lady? (Curtsy) Alas, lady, these answers by silent curtsies from you are too courtless and simple. I have ever had my breeding in court; and she that shall be my wife must be accomplished with courtly and audacious ornaments. Can you speak, lady?
EPICOENE (She speaks softly) Judge you, forsooth. 36
MOROSE What say you, lady? Speak out, I beseech you.
EPICOENE Judge you, forsooth.
MOROSE O’ my judgement, a divine softness! But can you naturally, lady, as I enjoin these by doctrine and industry, refer yourself to the search of my judgement, and (not taking pleasure in your tongue, which is a woman’s chiefest pleasure) think it plausible to answer me by silent gestures, so long as my speeches jump right with what you conceive? (Curtsy) Excellent! Divine! If it were possible she should hold out thus! Peace, Cutbeard, thou art made forever, as thou hast made me, if this felicity have lasting; but I will try her further. Dear lady, I am courdy, I tell you, and I must have mine ears banqueted with pleasant and witty conferences, pretty girds, scoffs, and dalliance in her that I mean to choose for my bed-fere. The ladies in court think it a most desperate impair to their quickness of wit and good carriage, if they cannot give occasion for a man to court ‘em, and when an amorous discourse is set on foot, minister as good matter to continue it as himself; and do you alone so much differ from all them, that what they (with so much circumstance) affect, and toil for, to seem learned, to seem judicious, to seem sharp, and conceited, you can bury in yourself, with silence, and rather trust your graces to the fair conscience of virtue, than to the world’s or your own proclamation? 64
EPICOENE I should be sorry else.
MOROSE What say you, lady? Good lady, speak out.
EPICOENE I should be sorry, else.
MOROSE That sorrow doth fill me with gladness! Oh, Morose! Thou art happy above mankind! Pray that thou mayst contain thyself. I will only put her to it once more, and it shall be with the utmost touch and test of their sex.—But hear me, fair lady, I do also love to see her whom I shall choose for my heifer to be the first and principal in all fashions; precede all the dames at court, by a fortnight; have her council of tailors, lineners, lace-women, embroiderers, and sit with ‘em sometimes twice a day, upon French intelligences; and then come forth varied like Nature, or oft’ner than she, and better, by the help of Art, her emulous servant. This do I affect. And how will you be able, lady, with this frugality of speech, to give the manifold (but necessary) instructions for that bodice, these sleeves, those skirts, this cut, that stitch, this embroidery, that lace, this wire, those knots, that ruff, those roses, this girdle, that fan, the tother scarf, these gloves? Ha? What say you, lady? 86
EPICOENE I’ll leave it to you, sir.
MOROSE How, lady? Pray you, rise a note.
EPICOENE I leave it to wisdom, and you, sir.
MOROSE Admirable creature! I will trouble you no more; I will not sin against so sweet a simplicity. Let me now be bold to print, on those divine lips, the seal of being mine. (Kisses her) Cutbeard, I give thee the lease of thy house free; thank me not, but with thy leg.—I know what thou wouldst say, she’s poor, and her friends deceased: she has brought a wealthy dowry in her silence, Cutbeard; and in respect of her poverty, Cutbeard, I shall have her more loving, and obedient, Cutbeard. Go thy ways, and get me a minister presently, with a soft, low voice, to marry us, and pray him he will not be impertinent, but brief as he can; away; sofdy, Cutbeard. (Exit CUTBEARD) Sirrah, conduct your mistress into the dining room, your now-mistress. (Exeunt MUTE and EPICOENE) Oh my felicity! How I shall be revenged on mine insolent kinsman, and his plots to fright me from marrying! This night I will get an heir, and thrust him out of my blood like a stranger. He would be knighted, forsooth, and thought by that means to reign over me, his tide must do it: no, kinsman, I will now make you bring me the tenth lord’s and the sixteenth lady’s letter, kinsman; and it shall do you no good, kinsman. Your knighthood itself shall come on its knees, and it shall be rejected; it shall be sued for its fees to execution, and not be redeemed; it shall cheat at the twelvepenny ordinary, it knighthood, for its diet all the term time, and tell tales for it in the vacation, to the hostess; or it knighthood shall do worse, take sanctuary in Coleharbour, and fast. It shall fright all it friends with borrowing letters; and when one of the fourscore hath brought it knighthood ten shillings, it knighthood shall go to the Cranes, or the Bear at the Bridgefoot, and be drunk in fear; it shall not have money to discharge one tavern reckoning, to invite the old creditors to forbear it knighthood, or the new that should be, to trust it knighthood. It shall be the tenth name in the bond, to take up the commodity of pipkins and stone jugs; and the part thereof shall not furnish it knighthood forth for the attempting of a baker’s widow, a brown baker’s widow. It shall give it knighthood’s name for a stallion to all gamesome citizens’ wives, and be refused, when the master of a dancing school or (how do you call him?) the worst reveller in the town is taken; it shall want clothes, and by reason of that, wit, to fool to lawyers. It shall not have hope to repair itself by Constantinople, Ireland, or Virginia; but the best and last fortune to it knighthood shall be to make Dol Tearsheet, or Kate Common, a lady, and so it knighthood may eat. 139
Exit
Enter TRUEWIT, DAUPHINE, CLERIMONT
TRUEWIT Are you sure he is not gone by?
DAUPHINE No, I stayed in the shop ever since.
CLERIMONT But he may take the other end of the lane.
DAUPHINE No, I told him I would be here at this end;
TRUEWIT What a barbarian it is to stay then!
Enter CUTBEARD
DAUPHINE Yonder he comes.
CLERIMONT And his charge left behind him, which is a very good sign, Dauphine.
DAUPHINE How now, Cutbeard, succeeds it, or no? 10
CUTBEARD Past imagination, sir, omnia secunda; you could not have prayed to have had it so well: saltat senex, as it is i’ the proverb, he does triumph in his felicity; admires the party! He has given me the lease of my house too! And I am now going for a silent minister to marry ‘em, and away.
TRUEWIT ‘Slight, get one o’ the silenced ministers, a zealous brother would torment him purely.
CUTBEARD Cum privilegio, sir.
DAUPHINE Oh, by no means; let’s do nothing to hinder it now; when ‘tis done and finished, I am for you, for any device of vexation. 22
CUTBEARD And that shall be within this half hour, upon my dexterity, gentlemen. Contrive what you can in the meantime, bonis avibus.
Exit
CLERIMONT How the slave doth Latin it!
TRUEWIT It would be made a jest to posterity, sirs, this day’s mirth, if ye will.
CLERIMONT Be shrew his heart that will not, I pronounce. 30
DAUPHINE And for my part. What is’t?
TRUEWIT To translate all La Foole’s company and his feast hither today to celebrate this bride-ale.
DAUPHINE Ay, marry, but how will’t be done?
TRUEWIT I’ll undertake the directing of all the lady guests thither, and then the meat must follow.
CLERIMONT For God’s sake, let’s effect it; it will be an excellent comedy of affliction, so many several noises.
DAUPHINE But are they not at the other place already, think you? 40
TRUEWIT I’ll warrant you for the college-honours: one o’ their faces has not the priming colour laid on yet, nor the other her smock sleeked.
CLERIMONT Oh, but they’ll rise earlier than ordinary to a feast.
TRUEWIT Best go see, and assure ourselves. CLERIMONT Who knows the house?
TRUEWIT I’ll lead you; were you never there yet?
DAUPHINE Not I.
CLERIMONT Nor I. 50
TRUEWIT Where ha’ you lived then? Not know Tom Otter!
CLERIMONT No. For God’s sake, what is he?
TRUEWIT An excellent animal, equal with your Daw or La Foole, if not transcendent; and does Latin it as much as your barber. He is his wife’s subject, he calls her princess, and at such times as these, follows her up and down the house like a page, with his hat off, partly for heat, partly for reverence. At this instant, he is marshalling of his bull, bear, and horse. 60
DAUPHINE What be those, in the name of Sphinx?
TRUEWIT Why, sir, he has been a great man at the
Bear Garden in his time; and from that subtle sport, has ta’en the witty denomination of his chief carousing cups. One he calls his bull, another his bear, another his horse. And then he has his lesser glasses, that he calls his deer, and his ape, and several degrees of ‘em too; and never is well, nor thinks any entertainment perfect, till these be brought out, and set o’ the cupboard. 70
CLERIMONT For God’s love! We should miss this if we should not go.
TRUEWIT Nay, he has a thousand things as good, that will speak him all day. He will rail on his wife, with certain commonplaces, behind her back; and to her face—
DAUPHINE No more of him. Let’s go see him, I petition you.
Exeunt
Enter OTTER, MISTRESS OTTER. TRUEWIT, CLERIMONT, DAUPHINE presently follow, unobserved
OTTER Nay, good princess, hear me pauca verba.
MISTRESS OTTER By that light, I’ll ha’ you chained up with your bull-dogs and bear-dogs, if you be not civil the sooner. I’ll send you to kennel, i’ faith. You were best bait me with your bull, bear, and horse! Never a time that the courtiers or collegiates come to the house, but you make it a Shrove Tuesday! I would have you get your Whitsuntide velvet cap, and your staff i’ your hand, to entertain ‘em; yes, in troth, do.
OTTER Not so, princess, neither, but under correction, sweet princess, gi’ me leave—these things I am known to the courtiers by. It is reported to them for my humour, and they receive it so, and do expect it. Tom Otter’s bull, bear, and horse is known all over England, in rerum natura. 15
MISTRESS OTTER ‘Fore me, I will ‘na-ture’ ‘em over to
Paris Garden and ‘na-ture’ you thither too, if you pronounce ‘em again. Is a bear a fit beast, or a bull, to mix in society with great ladies? Think i’ your discretion, in any good polity? 20
OTTER The horse then, good princess.
MISTRESS OTTER Well, I am contented for the horse: they love to be well horsed, I know. I love it myself.
OTTER And it is a delicate fine horse this. Poetarum Pegasus. Under correction, princess, Jupiter did turn himself into a—taurus, or bull, under correction, good princess. 27
MISTRESS OTTER By my integrity, I’ll send you over to the Bankside, I’ll commit you to the master of the Garden, if I hear but a syllable more. Must my house, or my roof, be polluted with the scent of bears, and bulls, when it is perfumed for great ladies? Is this according to the instrument, when I married you? That I would be princess, and reign in mine own house; and you would be my subject, and obey me? What did you bring me, should make you thus peremptory? Do I allow you your half-crown a day, to spend where you will among your gamesters, to vex and torment me at such times as these? Who gives you your maintenance, I pray you? Who allows you your horse-meat and man’s meat? Your three suits of apparel a year? Your four pair of stockings, one silk, three worsted? Your clean linen, your bands, and cuffs when I can get you to wear ‘em? ‘Tis mar’l you ha’ ‘em on now. Who graces you with courtiers, or great personages, to speak to you out of their coaches, and come home to your house? Were you ever so much as looked upon by a lord, or a lady, before I married you, but on the Easter or Whitsun holidays, and then out at the Banqueting House window, when Ned Whiting, or George Stone, were at the stake? 52
TRUEWIT (Aside) For God’s sake, let’s go stave her off him.
MISTRESS OTTER Answer me to that. And did not I take you up from thence, in an old greasy buff-doublet, with points; and green velvet sleeves, out at the elbows? You forget this.
TRUEWIT (Aside) She’ll worry him, if we help not in time.They come forward
MISTRESS OTTER Oh, here are some o’ the gallants! Go to, behave yourself distinctly, and with good morality; or I protest, I’ll take away your exhibition.
TRUEWIT By your leave, fair Mistress Otter, I’ll be bold to enter these gentlemen in your acquaintance.
MISTRESS OTTER It shall not be obnoxious, or difficil, sir.
TRUEWIT How does my noble captain? Is the bull, bear, and horse in rerum natura still?
OTTER Sir, sic visum superis.
MISTRESS OTTER I would you would but intimate ‘em, do. Go your ways in, and get toasts and butter made for the woodcocks. That’s a fit province for you. 10
Exit OTTER
CLERIMONT (Aside to TRUEWIT and DAUPHINE) Alas, what a tyranny is this poor fellow married to!
TRUEWIT Oh, but the sport will be anon, when we get him loose.
DAUPHINE Dares he ever speak?
TRUEWIT No Anabaptist ever railed with the like licence: but mark her language in the meantime I beseech you.
MISTRESS OTTER Gentlemen, you are very aptly come.
My cousin, Sir Amorous, will be here briefly. 20
TRUEWIT In good time, lady. Was not Sir John Daw here, to ask for him and the company?
MISTRESS OTTER I cannot assure you, Master Truewit. Here was a very melancholy knight in a ruff, that demanded my subject for somebody, a gentleman, I think.
CLERIMONT Ay, that was he, lady.
MISTRESS OTTER But he departed straight, I can resolve you.
DAUPHINE What an excellent choice phrase this lady expresses in! 31
TRUEWIT Oh, sir, she is the only authentical courtier, that is not naturally bred one, in the city.
MISTRESS OTTER You have taken that report upon trust, gentlemen.
TRUEWIT No, I assure you, the court governs it so, lady, in your behalf.
MISTRESS OTTER I am the servant of the court, and courtiers, sir.
TRUEWIT They are rather your idolaters. 40
MISTRESS OTTER Not so, sir.
Enter CUTBEARD. DAUPHINE, TRUEWIT and CLERIMONT talk with him apart
DAUPHINE How now, Cut beard? Any cross?
CUTBEARD Oh, no, sir, omnia bene. ‘Twas never better o’ the hinges, all’s sure. I have so pleased him with a curate that he’s gone to’t almost with the delight he hopes for soon.
DAUPHINE What is he, for a vicar? 47
CUTBEARD One that has catched a cold, sir, and can scarce be heard six inches off; as if he spoke out of a bulrush that were not picked, or his throat were full of pith; a fine quick fellow and an excellent barber of prayers. I came to tell you, sir, that you might omnem movere lap idem (as they say), be ready with your vexation.
DAUPHINE Gramercy, honest Cutbeard; be thereabouts with thy key to let us in.
CUTBEARD I will not fail you, sir: ad manum.
Exit
TRUEWIT Well, I’ll go watch my coaches.
CLERIMONT Do, and we’ll send Daw to you, if you meet him not. Exit TRUEWIT
MISTRESS OTTER Is Master Truewit gone? 61
DAUPHINE Yes, lady, there is some unfortunate business fallen out.
MISTRESS OTTER So I judged by the physiognomy of the fellow that came in; and I had a dream last night too of the new pageant, and my Lady Mayoress, which is always very ominous to me. I told it my Lady Haughty t’other day, when her honour came hither to see some China stuffs; and she expounded it out of Artemidorus, and I have found it since very true. It has done me many affronts. 71
CLERIMONT Your dream, lady?
MISTRESS OTTER Yes, sir, anything I do but dream o’ the city. It stained me a damask table-cloth, cost me eighteen pound at one time; and burnt me a black satin gown, as I stood by the fire at my Lady Centaure’s chamber in the college, another time. A third time, at the lord’s masque, it dropped all my wire and my ruff with wax candle, that I could not go up to the banquet. A fourth time, as I was taking coach to go to Ware to meet a friend, it dashed me a new suit all over (a crimson satin doublet, and black velvet skirts) with a brewer’s horse, that I was fain to go in and shift me, and kept my chamber a leash of days for the anguish of it. 85
DAUPHINE These were dire mischances, lady.
CLERIMONT I would not dwell in the city, and ‘twere so fatal to me.
MISTRESS OTTER Yes, sir, but I do take advice of my doctor, to dream of it as little as I can. 90
DAUPHINE You do well, Mistress Otter.
Enter DAW; CLERIMONT takes him aside
MISTRESS OTTER Will it please you to enter the house farther, gentlemen?
DAUPHINE And your favour, lady; but we stay to speak with a knight, Sir John Daw, who is here come. We shall follow you, lady.
MISTRESS OTTER At your own time, sir. It is my cousin Sir Amorous his feast–
DAUPHINE I know it, lady. 99
MISTRESS OTTER And mine together. But it is for his honour; and therefore I take no name of it, more than of the place.
DAUPHINE You are a bounteous kinswoman.
MISTRESS OTTER Your servant, sir.
Exit
CLERIMONT comes forward with DAW
CLERIMONT Why, do not you know it, Sir John Daw?
DAW No, I am a rook if I do.
CLERIMONT I’ll tell you then: she’s married by this time! And whereas you were put i’ the head that she was gone with Sir Dauphine, I assure you Sir Dauphine has been the noblest, honestest friend to you, that ever gentleman of your quality could boast of. He has discovered the whole plot, and made your mistress so acknowledging, and indeed so ashamed of her injury to you, that she desires you to forgive her, and but grace her wedding with your presence today–she is to be married to a very good fortune, she says, his uncle, old Morose; and she willed me in private to tell you, that she shall be able to do you more favours, and with more security now, than before. 15
DAW Did she say so, i’ faith?
CLERIMONT Why, what do you think of me, Sir John!
Ask Sir Dauphine.
DAW Nay, I believe you. Good Sir Dauphine, did she desire me to forgive her? 20
DAUPHINE I assure you, Sir John, she did.
DAW Nay, then, I do with all my heart, and I’ll be jovial.
CLERIMONT Yes, for look you, sir, this was the injury to you. La Foole intended this feast to honour her bridal day, and made you the property to invite the college ladies, and promise to bring her; and then at the time she should have appeared (as his friend) to have given you the dor. Whereas now, Sir Dauphine has brought her to a feeling of it, with this kind of satisfaction, that you shall bring all the ladies to the place where she is, and be very jovial; and there she will have a dinner which shall be in your name, and so disappoint La Foole, to make you good again and, as it were, a saver i’ the man. 34
DAW As I am a knight, I honour her, and forgive her heartily.
CLERIMONT About it then presendy. Truewit is gone before to confront the coaches, and to acquaint you with so much if he meet you. Join with him, and ‘tis well. (Enter LA FOOLE) See, here comes your antagonist, but take you no notice, but be very jovial.
LA FOOLE Are the ladies come, Sir John Daw, and your mistress? (EXIT DAW) Sir Dauphine! You are exceeding welcome, and honest Master Clerimont. Where’s my cousin? Did you see no collegiates, gendemen? 45
DAUPHINE Collegiates! Do you not hear, Sir Amorous, how you are abused?
LA FOOLE How, sir!
CLERIMONT Will you speak so kindly to Sir John Daw, that has done you such an affront? 50
LA FOOLE Wherein, gendemen? Let me be a suitor to you to know, I beseech you!
CLERIMONT Why, sir, his mistress is married today to Sir Dauphine’s uncle, your cousin’s neighbour, and he has diverted all the ladies and all your company thither, to frustrate your provision, and stick a disgrace upon you. He was here now to have enticed us away from you too; but we told him his own, I think.
LA FOOLE Has Sir John Daw wronged me so inhumanly?
DAUPHINE He has done it, Sir Amorous, most maliciously, and treacherously; but if you’ll be ruled by us, you shall quit him, i’ faith. 62
LA FOOLE Good gendemen, I’ll make one, believe it!
How, I pray?
DAUPHINE Marry, sir, get me your pheasants, and your godwits, and your best meat, and dish it in silver dishes of your cousin’s presendy, and say nothing, but clap me a clean towel about you, like a sewer; and bare-headed, march afore it with a good confidence (‘tis but over the way, hard by) and we’ll second you, where you shall set it o’ the board, and bid ‘em welcome to’t, which shall show ‘tis yours, and disgrace his preparation utterly; and for your cousin, whereas she should be troubled here at home with care of making and giving welcome, she shall transfer all that labour thither, and be a principal guest herself, sit ranked with the college-honours, and be honoured, and have her health drunk as often, as bare, and as loud as the best of’em. 79
LA FOOLE I’ll go tell her presently. It shall be done, that’s resolved.
Exit
CLERIMONT I thought he would not hear it out, but ‘twould take him.
DAUPHINE Well, there be guests and meat now; how shall we do for music?
CLERIMONT The smell of the venison going through the street will invite one noise of fiddlers or other.
DAUPHINE I would it would call the trumpeters thither.
CLERIMONT Faith, there is hope; they have intelligence of all feasts. There’s good correspondence betwixt them and the London cooks. Tis twenty to one but we have ‘em. 92
DAUPHINE ‘Twill be a most solemn day for my uncle, and an excellent fit of mirth for us.
CLERIMONT Ay, if we can hold up the emulation betwixt Foole and Daw, and never bring them to expostulate.
DAUPHINE Tut, flatter ‘em both (as Truewit says) and you may take their understandings in a purse-net.
They’ll believe themselves to be just such men as we make ‘em, neither more nor less. They have nothing, not the use of their senses, but by tradition. 102
LA FOOLE enters like a sewer
CLERIMONT See! Sir Amorous has his towel on already.
Have you persuaded your cousin?
LA FOOLE Yes, ‘tis very feasible: she’ll do anything, she says, rather than the La Fooles shall be disgraced.
DAUPHINE She is a noble kinswoman. It will be such a pestling device, Sir Amorous! It will pound all your enemy’s practices to powder, and blow him up with his own mine, his own train. 110
LA FOOLE Nay, we’ll give fire, I warrant you.
CLERIMONT But you must carry it privately, without any noise, and take no notice by any means–
Enter OTTER
OTTER Gendemen, my princess says you shall have all her silver dishes, festinate; and she’s gone to alter her tire a little and go with you–
CLERIMONT And yourself too, Captain Otter.
DAUPHINE By any means, sir.
OTTER Yes, sir, I do mean it; but I would entreat my cousin Sir Amorous, and you gentlemen, to be suitors to my princess, that I may carry my bull, and my bear, as well as my horse. 122
CLERIMONT That you shall do, Captain Otter.
LA FOOLE My cousin will never consent, gendemen.
DAUPHINE She must consent, Sir Amorous, to reason.
LA FOOLE Why, she says they are no decorum among ladies.
OTTER But they are decora, and that’s better, sir.
CLERIMONT Ay, she must hear argument. Did not
Pasiphae, who was a queen, love a bull? And was not
Callisto, the mother of Areas, turned into a bear, and made a star, Mistress Ursula, i’ the heavens? 132
OTTER Oh God! That I could ha’ said as much! I will have these stories painted i’ the Bear Garden, ex Ovidii Metamorphosi.
DAUPHINE Where is your princess, captain? Pray be our leader.
OTTER That I shall, sir.
CLERIMONT Make haste, good Sir Amorous.
Exeunt
Enter MOROSE, EPICOENE, PARSON, CUTBEARD
MOROSE Sir, there’s an angel for yourself, and a brace of angels for your cold. Muse not at this manage of my bounty. It is fit we should thank fortune double to nature, for any benefit she confers upon us; besides, it is your imperfection, but my solace.
PARSON I thank your worship, so is it mine now.
The PARSON speaks as having a cold
MOROSE What says he, Cutbeard?
CUTBEARD He says praesto, sir: whensoever your worship needs him, he can be ready with the like. He got this cold with sitting up late, and singing catches with cloth-workers. 11
MOROSE No more. I thank him.
PARSON God keep your worship and give you much joy with your fair spouse. Umh, umh.
He coughs
MOROSE Oh, oh! Stay, Cutbeard! Let him give me five shillings of my money back. As it is bounty to reward benefits, so is it equity to mulct injuries. I will have it.
What says he?
CUTBEARD He cannot change it, sir.
MOROSE It must be changed. 20
CUTBEARD (Aside to PARSON) Cough again.
MOROSE What says he?
CUTBEARD He will cough out the rest, sir.
PARSON Umh, umh, umh.
Coughs again
MOROSE Away, away with him, stop his mouth, away, I forgive it—
Exit CUTBEARD with PARSON
EPICOENE Fie, Master Morose, that you will use this violence to a man of the church.
MOROSE How! 29
EPICOENE It does not become your gravity or breeding (as you pretend in court) to have offered this outrage on a waterman, or any more boisterous creature, much less on a man of his civil coat.
MOROSE You can speak then!
EPICOENE Yes, sir.
MOROSE Speak out, I mean.
EPICOENE Ay, sir. Why, did you think you had married a statue? Or a motion only? One of the French puppets, with the eyes turned with a wire? Or some innocent out of the hospital, that would stand with her hands thus, and a plaice mouth, and look upon you? 42
MOROSE Oh immodesty! A manifest woman! What, Cutbeard!
EPICOENE Nay, never quarrel with Cutbeard, sir, it is too late now. I confess it doth bate somewhat of the modesty I had, when I writ simply maid; but I hope I shall make it a stock still competent to the estate and dignity of your wife.
MOROSE She can talk! 50
EPICOENE Yes, indeed, sir.
MOROSE What sirrah! None of my knaves there? (Enter MUTE) Where is this impostor, Cutbeard?
MUTE makes signs
EPICOENE Speak to him, fellow, speak to him. I’ll have none of this coacted, unnatural dumbness in my house, in a family where I govern.
Exit MUTE
MOROSE She is my regent already! I have married a Penthesilea, a Semiramis, sold my liberty to a distaff!
Enter TRUEWIT
TRUEWIT Where’s Master Morose?
MOROSE Is he come again? Lord have mercy upon me.
TRUEWIT I wish you all joy, Mistress Epicoene, with your grave and honourable match.
EPICOENE I return you the thanks, Master Truewit, so friendly a wish deserves.
MOROSE She has acquaintance, too! 7
TRUEWIT God save you, sir, and give you all contentment in your fair choice here. Before I was the bird of night to you, the owl, but now I am the messenger of peace, a dove, and bring you the glad wishes of many friends, to the celebration of this good hour.
MOROSE What hour, sir?
TRUEWIT Your marriage hour, sir. I commend your resolution, that (notwithstanding all the dangers I laid afore you, in the voice of a night-crow) would yet go on, and be yourself. It shows you are a man constant to your own ends, and upright to your prposes, that would not be put off with left-handed cnes. 21
MOROSE How should you arrive at the knowledge of so much?
TRUEWIT Why, did you ever hope, sir, committing the secrecy of it to a barber, that less than the whole town should know it? You might as well ha’ told it the conduit, or the bakehouse, or the infantry that follow the court, and with more security. Could your gravity forget so old and noted a remnant as lippis et tonsoribus notum? Well, sir, forgive it yourself now, the fault, and be communicable with your friends. Here will be three or four fashionable ladies, from the college, to visit you presently, and their train of minions and followers. 34
MOROSE Bar my doors! Bar my doors! Where are all my eaters, my mouths now? (Enter SERVANTS) Bar up my doors, you varlets!
EPICOENE He is a varlet that stirs to such an office. Let ‘em stand open. I would see him that dares move his eyes toward it. Shall I have a barricado made against my friends, to be barred of any pleasure they can bring in to me with honourable visitation? 42
Exit SERVANTS
MOROSE Oh, Amazonian impudence!
TRUEWIT Nay, faith, in this, sir, she speaks but reason, and methinks is more continent than you. Would you go to bed so presently, sir, afore noon? A man of your head and hair should owe more to that reverend ceremony, and not mount the marriage-bed like a town bull, or a mountain goat, but stay the due season; and ascend it then with religion, and fear. Those delights are to be steeped in the humour and silence of the night; and give the day to other open pleasures, and jollities of feast, of music, of revels, of discourse: we’ll have all, sir, that may make your hymen high and happy. 55
MOROSE Oh, my torment, my torment!
TRUEWIT Nay, if you endure the first half hour, sir, so tediously, and with this irksomeness, what comfort, or hope, can this fair gentlewoman make to herself hereafter, in the consideration of so many years as are to come— 61
MOROSE Of my affliction. Good sir, depart, and let her do it alone.
TRUEWIT I have done, sir.
MOROSE That cursed barber!
TRUEWIT (Yes, faith, a cursed wretch indeed, sir.)
MOROSE I have married his cittern, that’s common to all men. Some plague above the plague—
TRUEWIT (All Egypt’s ten plagues—)
MOROSE Revenge me on him. 70
TRUEWIT ‘Tis very well, sir. If you laid on a curse or two more, I’ll assure you he’ll bear ‘em. As, that he may get the pox with seeking to cure it, sir? Or, that while he is curling another man’s hair, his own may drop off? Or, for burning some male bawd’s lock, he may have his brain beat out with the curling-iron?
MOROSE No, let the wretch live wretched. May he get the itch, and his shop so lousy as no man dare come at him, nor he come at no man.
TRUEWIT (Ay, and if he would swallow all his balls for pills, let not them purge him.) 81
MOROSE Let his warming-pan be ever cold.
TRUEWIT (A perpetual frost underneath it, sir.)
MOROSE Let him never hope to see fire again.
TRUEWIT (But in hell, sir.)
MOROSE His chairs be always empty, his scissors rust, and his combs mould in their cases.
TRUEWIT Very dreadful that! (And may he lose the invention, sir, of carving lanterns in paper.)
MOROSE Let there be no bawd carted that year to employ a basin of his; but let him be glad to eat his sponge for bread. 92
TRUEWIT And drink latiusm to it, and much good do him.
MOROSE Or, for want of bread—
TRUEWIT Eat ear-wax, sir. I’ll help you. Or, draw his own teeth and add them to the lute-string.
MOROSE No, beat the old ones to powder, and make bread of them.
TRUEWIT (Yes, make meal o’ the millstones.) 100
MOROSE May all the botches, and burns, that he has cured on others break out upon him.
TRUEWIT And he now forget the cure of’em in himself, sir; or, if he do remember it, let him ha’ scraped all his linen into lint for’t, and have not a rag left him to set up with.
MOROSE Let him never set up again, but have the gout in his hands forever. Now no more, sir.
TRUEWIT Oh, that last was too high set! You might go less with him, i’ faith, and be revenged enough; as, that he be never able to new-paint his pole— 111
MOROSE Good sir, no more. I forgot myself.
TRUEWIT Or, want credit to take up with a combmaker—
TRUEWIT Or, having broken his glass in a former despair, fall now into a much greater, of ever getting another—
MOROSE I beseech you, no more.
TRUEWIT Or, that he never be trusted with trimming of any but chimney-sweepers—
MOROSE Sir—
TRUEWIT Or, may he cut a collier’s throat with his razor by chance-medley, and yet hang for’t.
MOROSE I will forgive him, rather than hear any more.
I beseech you, sir.
Enter DAW, HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, TRUSTY
DAW This way, madam.
MOROSE Oh, the sea breaks in upon me! Another flood! An inundation! I shall be o’erwhelmed with noise. It beats already at my shores. I feel an earthquake in myself for’t.
DAW Give you joy, mistress.
MOROSE Has she servants too!
DAW I have brought some ladies here to see and know you. (She kisses them severally as he presents them) My Lady Haughty, this my Lady Centaure, Mistress Dol Mavis, Mistress Trusty, my Lady Haughty’s woman. Where’s your husband? Let’s see him: can he endure no noise? Let me come to him. 13
MOROSE What nomenclator is this!
TRUEWIT Sir John Daw, sir, your wife’s servant, this.
MOROSE A Daw, and her servant! Oh, ‘tis decreed, ‘tis decreed of me, and she have such servants.
Attempts to leave
TRUEWIT Nay, sir, you must kiss the ladies, you must not go away now; they come toward you to seek you out. 20
HAUGHTY I’ faith, Master Morose, would you steal a marriage thus, in the midst of so many friends, and not acquaint us? Well, I’ll kiss you, notwithstanding the justice of my quarrel. You shall give me leave, mistress, to use a becoming familiarity with your husband.
EPICOENE Your ladyship does me an honour in it, to let me know he is so worthy your favour; as you have done both him and me grace to visit so unprepared a pair to entertain you. 30
MOROSE Compliment! Compliment!
EPICOENE But I must lay the burden of that upon my servant here.
HAUGHTY It shall not need, Mistress Morose; we will all bear, rather than one shall be oppressed.
MOROSE I know it; and you will teach her the faculty, if she be to learn it.
The collegiates talk apart with TRUEWIT
HAUGHTY Is this the silent woman?
CENTAURE Nay! She has found her tongue since she was married, Master Truewit says. 40
HAUGHTY Oh, Master Truewit! Save you. What kind of creature is your bride here? She speaks, methinks!
TRUEWIT Yes, madam, believe it, she is a gentlewoman of very absolute behaviour, and of a good race.
HAUGHTY And Jack Daw told us she could not speak.
TRUEWIT So it was carried in plot, madam, to put her upon this old fellow, by Sir Dauphine, his nephew, and one or two more of us; but she is a woman of an excellent assurance, and an extraordinary happy wit and tongue. You shall see her make rare sport with Daw ere night. 51
HAUGHTY And he brought us to laugh at her!
TRUEWIT That falls out often, madam, that he that thinks himself the master-wit is the master-fool. I assure your ladyship, ye cannot laugh at her.
HAUGHTY No, we’ll have her to the college: and she have wit, she shall be one of us! Shall she not, Centaure? We’ll make her a collegiate.
CENTAURE Yes, faith, madam, and Mavis and she will set up a side. 60
TRUEWIT Believe it, madam, and Mistress Mavis, she will sustain her part.
MAVIS I’ll tell you that when I have talked with her, and tried her.
HAUGHTY Use her very civilly, Mavis.
MAVIS So I will, madam.
MAVIS walks apart with EPICOENE
MOROSE Blessed minute, that they would whisper thus ever.
TRUEWIT In the meantime, madam, would but your ladyship help to vex him a little: you know his disease, talk to him about the wedding-ceremonies, or call for your gloves, or— 72
HAUGHTY Let me alone. Centaure, help me. Master bridegroom, where are you?
MOROSE Oh, it was too miraculously good to last!
HAUGHTY We see no ensigns of a wedding here, no character of a bride-ale: where be our scarfs, and our gloves? I pray you give ‘em us. Let’s know your bride’s colours, and yours, at least.
CENTAURE Alas, madam, he has provided none. 80
MOROSE Had I known your ladyship’s painter, I would.
HAUGHTY He has given it you, Centaure, i’ faith. But do you hear, Master Morose, a jest will not absolve you in this manner. You that have sucked the milk of the court, and from thence have been brought up to the very strong meats and wine of it; been a courtier from the biggen to the night-cap (as we may say); and you to offend in such a high point of ceremony as this, and let your nuptials want all marks of solemnity! How much plate have you lost today (if you had but regarded your profit), what gifts, what friends, through your mere rusticity? 92
MOROSE Madam–
HAUGHTY Pardon me, sir, I must insinuate your errors to you. No gloves? No garters? No scarfs? No epithalamium? No masque?
DAW Yes, madam, I’ll make an epithalamium, I promised my mistress, I have begun it already: will your ladyship hear it?
HAUGHTY Ay, good Jack Daw. 100
MOROSE Will it please your ladyship command a chamber and be private with your friend? You shall have your choice of rooms to retire to after: my whole house is yours. I know it hath been your ladyship’s errand into the city at other times, however now you have been unhappily diverted upon me; but I shall be loth to break any honourable custom of your ladyship’s. And therefore, good madam—
EPICOENE Come, you are a rude bridegroom, to entertain ladies of honour in this fashion. 110
CENTAURE He is a rude groom indeed.
TRUEWIT By that light, you deserve to be grafted, and have your horns reach from one side of the island to the other.-(Aside to MOROSE) Do not mistake me, sir; I but speak this to give the ladies some heart again, not for any malice to you.
MOROSE Is this your bravo, ladies?
TRUEWIT As God help me, if you utter such another word, I’ll take mistress bride in and begin to you in a very sad cup, do you see? Go to, know your friends and such as love you. 121
Enter CLERIMONT with MUSICIANS
CLERIMONT By your leave, ladies. Do you want any music? I have brought you variety of noises. Play, sirs, all of you.
Music of all sorts
MOROSE Oh, a plot, a plot, a plot, a plot upon me! This day I shall be their anvil to work on, they will grate me asunder. ‘Tis worse than the noise of a saw.
CLERIMONT No, they are hair, rosin, and guts. I can give you the receipt.
TRUEWIT Peace, boys.
CLERIMONT Play, I say. 10
TRUEWIT Peace, rascals. (To MOROSE) You see who’s your friend now, sir? Take courage, put on a martyr’s resolution. Mock down all their attemptings with patience. ‘Tis but a day, and I would suffer heroically. Should an ass exceed me in fortitude? No. You betray your infirmity with your hanging dull ears, and make them insult: bear up bravely, and constandy. (LA FOOLE with SERVANTS passes over sewing the meat, followed by MISTESS OTTER) Look you here, sir, what honour is done you unexpected by your nephew; a wedding-dinner come, and a knight-sewer before it, for the more reputation, and fine Mistress Otter, your neighbour, in the rump, or tail of it. 22
MOROSE Is that Gorgon, that Medusa come? Hide me, hide me!
TRUEWIT I warrant you, sir, she will not transform you. Look upon her with a good courage. Pray you entertain her and conduct your guests in. No? Mistress bride, will you entreat in the ladies? Your bridegroom is so shamefaced here–
EPICOENE Will it please your ladyship, madam? 30
HAUGHTY With the benefit of your company, mistress.
EPICOENE Servant, pray you perform your duties.
DAW And glad to be commanded, mistress.
CENTAURE How like you her wit, Mavis?
MAVIS Very prettily, absolutely well.
MISTRESS OTTER (Trying to take precedence) ‘Tis my place.
MAVIS You shall pardon me, Mistress Otter.
MISTRESS OTTER Why, I am a collegiate.
MAVIS But not in ordinary. 40
MISTRESS OTTER But I am.
MAVIS We’ll dispute that within.
Exit ladies with DAW
CLERIMONT Would this had lasted a little longer.
TRUEWIT And that they had sent for the heralds. (Enter OTTER) Captain Otter, what news?
OTTER I have brought my bull, bear, and horse, in private, and yonder are the trumpeters without, and the drum, gentlemen. The drum and trumpets sound
MOROSE Oh, oh, oh! 49
OTTER And we will have a rouse in each of’em, anon, for bold Britons, i’ faith.
They sound again
MOROSE Oh, oh, oh!
Exit MOROSE
ALL Follow, follow, follow!
Exeunt
Enter TRUEWIT, CLERIMONT
TRUEWIT Was there ever poor bridegroom so tormented? Or man, indeed?
CLERIMONT I have not read of the like in the chronicles of the land.
TRUEWIT Sure, he cannot but go to a place of rest, after all this purgatory.
CLERIMONT He may presume it, I think.
TRUEWIT The spitting, the coughing, the laughter, the neezing, the farting, dancing, noise of the music, and her masculine and loud commanding, and urging the whole family, makes him think he has married a Fury.
CLERIMONT And she carries it up bravely.
TRUEWIT Ay, she takes any occasion to speak: that’s the height on’t.
CLERIMONT And how soberly Dauphine labours to satisfy him that it was none of his plot! 16
TRUEWIT And has almost brought him to the faith i’ the article. (Enter DAUPHINE) Here he comes.–
Where is he now? What’s become of him, Dauphine?
DAUPHINE Oh, hold me up a little, I shall go away i’ the just else. He has got on his whole nest of nightcaps, and locked himself up i’ the top o’ the house, as high as ever he can climb from the noise. I peeped in at a cranny, and saw him sitting over a cross-beam o’ the roof, like him o’ the saddler’s horse in Fleet Street, upright; and he will sleep there. 16
CLERIMONT But where are your collegiates?
DAUPHINE Withdrawn with the bride in private.
TRUEWIT Oh, they are instructing her i’ the college grammar. If she have grace with them, she knows all their secrets instantly.
CLERIMONT Methinks the Lady Haughty looks well today, for all my dispraise of her i’ the morning. I think I shall come about to thee again, Truewit. 34
TRUEWIT Believe it, I told you right. Women ought to repair the losses time and years have made i’ their features with dressings. And an intelligent woman, if she know by herself the least defect, will be most curious to hide it; and it becomes her. If she be short, let her sit much, lest when she stands, she be thought to sit. If she have an ill foot, let her wear her gown the longer, and her shoe the thinner. If a fat hand, and scald nails, let her carve the less, and act in gloves. If a sour breath, let her never discourse fasting, and always talk at her distance. If she have black and rugged teeth, let her offer the less at laughter, especially if she laugh wide, and open. 47
CLERIMONT Oh, you shall have some women, when they laugh, you would think they brayed, it is so rude, and—
TRUEWIT Ay, and others that will stalk i’ their gait like an estrich, and take huge strides. I cannot endure such a sight. I love measure i’ the feet and number i’ the voice: they are gentlenesses that oft-times draw no less than the face. 55
DAUPHINE How cam’st thou to study these creatures so exactly? I would thou wouldst make me a proficient.
TRUEWIT Yes, but you must leave to live i’ your chamber then a month together upon Amadis de Gaule, or Don Quixote, as you are wont; and come abroad where the matter is frequent, to court, to tiltings, public shows, and feasts, to plays, and church sometimes: thither they come to show their new tires too, to see, and to be seen. In these places a man shall find whom to love, whom to play with, whom to touch once, whom to hold ever. The variety arrests his judgement. A wench to please a man comes not down dropping from the ceiling, as he lies on his back droning a tobacco-pipe. He must go where she is. 70
DAUPHINE Yes, and be never the near.
TRUEWIT Out, heretic! That diffidence makes thee worthy it should be so.
CLERIMONT He says true to you, Dauphine.
DAUPHINE Why?
TRUEWIT A man should not doubt to overcome any woman. Think he can vanquish ‘em, and he shall; for though they deny, their desire is to be tempted. Penelope herself cannot hold out long. Ostend, you saw, was taken at last. You must persever, and hold to your purpose. They would solicit us, but that they are afraid. Howsoever, they wish in their hearts we should solicit them. Praise ‘em, flatter ‘em, you shall never want eloquence, or trust; even the chastest delight to feel themselves that way rubbed. With praises you must mix kisses too. If they take them, they’ll take more. Though they strive, they would be overcome. 88
CLERIMONT Oh, but a man must beware of force.
TRUEWIT It is to them an acceptable violence, and has oft-times the place of the greatest courtesy. She that might have been forced, and you let her go free without touching, though she then seem to thank you, will ever hate you after; and glad i’ the face, is assuredly sad at the heart.
CLERIMONT But all women are not to be taken all ways. 97
TRUEWIT ‘Tis true. No more than all birds, or all fishes. If you appear learned to an ignorant wench, or jocund to a sad, or witty to a foolish, why, she presently begins to mistrust herself. You must approach them i’ their own height, their own line: for the contrary makes many that fear to commit themselves to noble and worthy fellows, run into the embraces of a rascal. If she love wit, give verses, though you borrow ‘em of a friend, or buy ‘em, to have good. If valour, talk of your sword, and be frequent in the mention of quarrels, though you be staunch in fighting. If activity, be seen o’ your barbary often, or leaping over stools, for the credit of your back. If she love good clothes or dressing, have your learned council about you every morning, your French tailor, barber, linener, et cetera. Let your powder, your glass, and your comb be your dearest acquaintance. Take more care for the ornament of your head, than the safety; and wish the commonwealth rather troubled, than a hair about you. That will take her. Then if she be covetous and craving, do you promise anything, and perform sparingly; so shall you keep her in appetite still. Seem as you would give, but be like a barren field that yields little, or unlucky dice to foolish and hoping gamesters. Let your gifts be slight, and dainty, rather than precious. Let cunning be above cost. Give cherries at time of year, or apricots; and say they were sent you out o’ the country, though you bought ‘em in Cheapside. Admire her tires; like her in all fashions; compare her in every habit to some deity; invent excellent dreams to flatter her, and riddles; or, if she be a great one, perform always the second parts to her: like what she likes, praise whom she praises; and fail not to make the household and servants yours, yea, the whole family, and salute ‘em by their names (‘tis but light cost if you can purchase ‘em so) and make her physician your pensioner, and her chief woman. Nor will it be out of your gain. .to make love to her too, so she follow, not usher, her lady’s pleasure. All blabbing is taken away when she comes to be a part of the crime. 139
DAUPHINE On what courtly lap hast thou late slept, to come forth so sudden and absolute a courtling?
TRUEWIT Good faith, I should rather question you, that are so hearkening after these mysteries. I begin to suspect your diligence, Dauphine. Speak, art thou in love in earnest?
DAUPHINE Yes, by my troth, am I; ‘twere ill dissembling before thee.
TRUEWIT With which of’em, I pray thee?
DAUPHINE With all the collegiates.
CLERIMONT Out on thee! We’ll keep you at home, believe it, i’ the stable, and you be such a stallion. 151
TRUEWIT No. I like him well. Men should love wisely, and all women: some one for the face, and let her please the eye; another for the skin, and let her please the touch; a third for the voice, and let her please the ear; and where the objects mix, let the senses so too. Thou wouldst think it strange, if I should make ‘em all in love with thee afore night!
DAUPHINE I would say thou hadst the best philtre i’ the world, and couldst do more than Madam Medea, or Doctor Forman. 161
TRUEWIT If I do not, let me play the mountebank for my meat while I live, and the bawd for my drink.
DAUPHINE So be it, I say.
Enter OTTER, DAW, LA FOOLE
OTTER Oh lord, gentlemen, how my knights and I have missed you here!
CLERIMONT Why, captain, what service, what service?
OTTER To see me bring up my bull, bear, and horse to fight.
DAW Yes, faith, the captain says we shall be his dogs to bait ‘em.
DAUPHINE A good employment.
TRUEWIT Come on, let’s see a course then.
LA FOOLE I am afraid my cousin will be offended if she come. 11
OTTER Be afraid of nothing. Gentlemen, I have placed the drum and the trumpets, and one to give ‘em the sign when you are ready. (Brings out the cups) Here’s my bull for myself, and my bear for Sir John Daw, and my horse for Sir Amorous. Now, set your foot to mine, and yours to his, and—
LA FOOLE Pray God my cousin come not.
OTTER Saint George and Saint Andrew, fear no cousins. Come, sound, sound! Et rauco strepuerunt cornua cantu. 21
Drum and trumpets sound. They drink
TRUEWIT Well said, captain, i’ faith; well fought at the bull.
CLERIMONT Well held at the bear.
TRUEWIT ‘Low, ‘low, captain!
DAUPHINE Oh, the horse has kicked off his dog already.
LA FOOLE I cannot drink it, as I am a knight.
TRUEWIT Gods so! Off with his spurs, somebody.
LA FOOLE It goes again my conscience. My cousin will be angry with it. 31
DAW I ha’ done mine.
TRUEWIT You fought high and fair, Sir John.
CLERIMONT At the head.
DAUPHINE Like an excellent bear-dog.
CLERIMONT (Aside to DAW) You take no notice of the business, I hope.
DAW (Aside to CLERIMONT) Not a word, sir, you see we are jovial.
OTTER Sir Amorous, you must not equivocate. It must be pulled down, for all my cousin. 41
CLERIMONT (Aside to LA FOOLE) ‘Sfoot, if you take not your drink, they’ll think you are discontented with something; you’ll betray all, if you take the least notice.
LA FOOLE (Aside to CLERIMONT) Not I, I’ll both drink and talk then.
OTTER You must pull the horse on his knees, Sir Amorous. Fear no cousins. Jacta est alea.
TRUEWIT (Aside to DAUPHINE and CLERIMONT) Oh, now he’s in his vein, and bold. The least hint given him of his wife now will make him rail desperately. 52
CLERIMONT Speak to him of her.
TRUEWIT Do you, and I’ll fetch her to the hearing of it.
Exit
DAUPHINE Captain he-Otter, your she-Otter is coming, your wife.
OTTER Wife! Buz. Titivilitium. There’s no such thing in nature. I confess, gentlemen, I have a cook, a laundress, a house-drudge, that serves my necessary turns, and goes under that title; but he’s an ass that will be so uxorious to tie his affections to one circle. Come, the name dulls appetite. Here, replenish again: another bout. Wives are nasty, sluttish animals.Fills the cups
DAUPHINE Oh, captain! 65
OTTER As ever the earth bare, tribus verbis. Where’s Master Truewit?
DAW He’s slipped aside, sir.
CLERIMONT But you must drink and be jovial.
DAW Yes, give it me. 70
LA FOOLE And me too.
DAW Let’s be jovial.
LA FOOLE As jovial as you will.
OTTER Agreed. Now you shall ha’ the bear, cousin, and Sir John Daw the horse, and I’ll ha’ the bull still. Sound, Tritons o’ the Thames. Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero.—
MOROSE speaks from above, the trumpets sounding
MOROSE Villains, murderers, sons of the earth, and traitors, what do you there?
CLERIMONT Oh, now the trumpets have waked him, we shall have his company. 81
OTTER A wife is a scurvy clogdogdo; an unlucky thing, a very foresaid bear-whelp, without any good fashion or breeding: mala bestia.
His wife is brought out to hear him by TRUEWIT
DAUPHINE Why did you marry one then, captain?
OTTER A pox—I married with six thousand pound, I. I was in love with that. I ha’ not kissed my Fury these forty weeks.
CLERIMONT The more to blame you, captain.
TRUEWIT Nay, Mistress Otter, hear him a little first. 90
OTTER She has a breath worse than my grandmother’s, profecto.
MISTRESS OTTER Oh treacherous liar! Kiss me, sweet Master Truewit, and prove him a slandering knave.
TRUEWIT I’ll rather believe you, lady.
OTTER And she has a peruke that’s like a pound of hemp made up in shoe-threads.
MISTRESS OTTER Oh viper, mandrake!
OTTER A most vile face! And yet she spends me forty pound a year in mercury and hogs’ bones. All her teeth were made i’ the Blackfriars, both her eyebrows i’ the Strand, and her hair in Silver Street. Every part o’ the town owns a piece of her. 103
MISTRESS OTTER I cannot hold.
OTTER She takes herself asunder still when she goes to bed, into some twenty boxes; and about next day noon is put together again, like a great German clock; and so comes forth and rings a tedious larum to the whole house, and then is quiet again for an hour, but for her quarters. Ha’ you done me right, gentlemen? 111
MISTRESS OTTER No, sir, I’ll do you right with my quarters, with my quarters.
She falls upon him and beats him
OTTER Oh hold, good princess!
TRUEWIT Sound, sound.Drum and trumpets sound
CLERIMONT A battle, a battle.
MISTRESS OTTER You notorious stinkardly bearward, does my breath smell?
OTTER Under correction, dear princess. Look to my bear, and my horse, gentlemen. 120
MISTRESS OTTER Do I want teeth, and eyebrows, thou bull-dog?
TRUEWIT Sound, sound still.
They sound again
OTTER No, I protest, under correction—
MISTRESS OTTER Ay, now you are under correction, you protest; but you did not protest before correction, sir. Thou Judas, to offer to betray thy princess! I’ll make thee an example—
MOROSE descends with a long sword
MOROSE I will have no such examples in my house, Lady Otter. 130
MISTRESS OTTER Ah—
MOROSE Mistress Mary Ambree, your examples are dangerous. (She runs off, followed by DAW and LA FOOLE) Rogues, hell-hounds, Stentors, out of my doors, you sons of noise and tumult, begot on an ill May Day, or when the galley-foist is afloat to Westminster! (Drives out the MUSICIANS) A trumpeter could not be conceived but then!
DAUPHINE What ails you, sir? 139
MOROSE They have rent my roof, walls, and all my windows asunder, with their brazen throats.
Exit
TRUEWIT Best follow him, Dauphine.
DAUPHINE So I will.
Exit
CLERIMONT Where’s Daw and La Foole?
OTTER They are both run away, sir. Good gentlemen, help to pacify my princess, and speak to the great ladies for me. Now must I go lie with the bears this fortnight, and keep out o’ the way, till my peace be made, for this scandal she has taken. Did you not see my bull-head, gentlemen? 150
CLERIMONT Is’t not on, captain?
TRUEWIT No:—(Aside to CLERIMONT) but he may make a new one, by that is on.
OTTER Oh, here ‘tis. And you come over, gentlemen, and ask for Tom Otter, we’ll go down to Ratcliffe, and have a course i’ faith, for all these disasters.
There’s bona spes left.
TRUEWIT Away, captain, get off while you are well.
Exit OTTER
CLERIMONT I am glad we are rid of him. 159
TRUEWIT You had never been, unless we had put his wife upon him. His humour is as tedious at last, as it was ridiculous at first.
Enter HAUGHTY, MISTRESS OTTER, MAVIS, DAW, LA FOOLE, CENTAURE, EPICOENE. TRUEWIT and CLERIMONT move aside and observe
HAUGHTY We wondered why you shrieked so, Mistress Otter.
MISTRESS OTTER Oh God, madam, he came down with a huge long naked weapon in both his hands, and looked so dreadfully! Sure he’s beside himself.
MAVIS Why, what made you there, Mistress Otter?
MISTRESS OTTER Alas, Mistress Mavis, I was chastising my subject, and thought nothing of him.
DAW (To EPICOENE) Faith, mistress, you must do so too. Learn to chastise. Mistress Otter corrects her husband so, he dares not speak but under correction.
LA FOOLE And with his hat off to her: ‘twould do you good to see. 13
HAUGHTY In sadness, ‘tis good and mature counsel: practise it, Morose. I’ll call you Morose still now, as I call Centaure and Mavis: we four will be all one.
CENTAURE And you’ll come to the college and live with us?
HAUGHTY Make him give milk and honey.
MAVIS Look how you manage him at first, you shall have him ever after. 21
CENTAURE Let him allow you your coach and four horses, your woman, your chambermaid, your page, your gentleman-usher, your French cook, and four grooms.
HAUGHTY And go with us to Bedlam, to the china-houses, and to the Exchange.
CENTAURE It will open the gate to your fame.
HAUGHTY Here’s Centaure has immortalized herself, with taming of her wild male. 30
MAVIS Ay, she has done the miracle of the kingdom.
EPICOENE But ladies, do you count it lawful to have such plurality of servants, and do ‘em all graces?
HAUGHTY Why not? Why should women deny their favours to men? Are they the poorer, or the worse?
DAW Is the Thames the less for the dyer’s water, mistress?
LA FOOLE Or a torch, for lighting many torches?
TRUEWIT (Aside) Well said, La Foole; what a new one he has got! 40
CENTAURE They are empty losses women fear in this kind.
HAUGHTY Besides, ladies should be mindful of the approach of age, and let no time want his due use. The best of our days pass first.
MAVIS We are rivers that cannot be called back, madam: she that now excludes her lovers may live to lie a forsaken beldame, in a frozen bed.
CENTAURE ‘Tis true, Mavis; and who will wait on us to coach then? Or write, or tell us the news then? Make anagrams of our names, and invite us to the cockpit, and kiss our hands all the play-time, and draw their weapons for our honours? 53
HAUGHTY Not one.
DAW Nay, my mistress is not altogether unintelligent of these things; here be in presence have tasted of her favours.
CLERIMONT (Aside) What a neighing hobby-horse is this!
EPICOENE But not with intent to boast ‘em again, servant. And have you those excellent receipts, madam, to keep yourselves from bearing of children?
HAUGHTY Oh yes, Morose. How should we maintain our youth and beauty else? Many births of a woman make her old, as many crops make the earth barren.
Enter MOROSE, DAUPHINE; they speak apart
MOROSE Oh my cursed angel, that instructed me to this fate!
DAUPHINE Why, sir?
MOROSE That I should be seduced by so foolish a devil as a barber will make!
DAUPHINE I would I had been worthy, sir, to have partaken your counsel; you should never have trusted it to such a minister.
MOROSE Would I could redeem it with the loss of an eye, nephew, a hand, or any other member. 10
DAUPHINE Marry, God forbid, sir, that you should geld yourself, to anger your wife.
MOROSE So it would rid me of her! And that I did supererogatory penance, in a belfry, at Westminster Hall, i’ the cockpit, at the fall of a stag, the Tower Wharf (what place is there else?), London Bridge, Paris Garden, Billingsgate, when the noises are at their height and loudest. Nay, I would sit out a play that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet, and target! 20
DAUPHINE I hope there shall be no such need, sir. Take patience, good uncle. This is but a day, and ‘tis well worn too now.
MOROSE Oh, ‘twill be so forever, nephew, I foresee it, forever. Strife and tumult are the dowry that comes with a wife.
TRUEWIT I told you so, sir, and you would not believe me.
MOROSE Alas, do not rub those wounds, Master Truewit, to blood again; ‘twas my negligence. Add not affliction to affliction. I have perceived the effect of it, too late, in Madam Otter. 32
EPICOENE (Coming forward) How do you, sir?
MOROSE Did you ever hear a more unnecessary question? As if she did not see! Why, I do as you see, empress, empress.
EPICOENE You are not well, sir! You look very ill!
Something has distempered you.
MOROSE Oh horrible, monstrous impertinencies! Would not one of these have served? Do you think, sir? Would not one of these have served? 41
TRUEWIT Yes, sir, but these are but notes of female kindness, sir; certain tokens that she has a voice, sir.
MOROSE Oh, is’t so? Come, and’t be no otherwise—what say you?
EPICOENE How do you feel yourself, sir?
MOROSE Again that!
TRUEWIT Nay, look you, sir: you would be friends with your wife upon unconscionable terms, her silence—
EPICOENE They say you are run mad, sir. 50
MOROSE Not for love, I assure you, of you; do you see?
EPICOENE Oh lord, gentlemen! Lay hold on him for God’s sake. What shall I do? Who’s his physician (can you tell?) that knows the state of his body best, that I might send for him? Good sir, speak. I’ll send for one of my doctors else.
MOROSE What, to poison me, that I might die intestate and leave you possessed of all?
EPICOENE Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes sparkle! He looks green about the temples! Do you see what blue spots he has? 61
CLERIMONT Ay, it’s melancholy.
EPICOENE Gentlemen, for heaven’s sake counsel me. Ladies! Servant, you have read Pliny and Paracelsus: ne’er a word now to comfort a poor gentlewoman? Ay me! What fortune had I to marry a distracted man?
DAW I’ll tell you, mistress—
TRUEWIT (Aside) How rarely she holds it up!
MOROSE What mean you, gentlemen?
EPICOENE What will you tell me, servant? 70
DAW The disease in Greek is called μανια, in Latin insania, furor, vel ecstasis melancholica, that is, egressio, when a man ex melancholico evadit fanaticus.
MOROSE Shall I have a lecture read upon me alive?
DAW But he may be but phreneticus yet, mistress, and phrenetis is only delirium, or so—
EPICOENE Ay, that is for the disease, servant; but what is this to the cure? We are sure enough of the disease.
MOROSE Let me go! 79
TRUEWIT Why, we’ll entreat her to hold her peace, sir.
MOROSE Oh no. Labour not to stop her. She is like a conduit-pipe, that will gush out with more force when she opens again.
HAUGHTY I’ll tell you, Morose, you must talk divinity to him altogether, or moral philosophy.
LA FOOLE Ay, and there’s an excellent book of moral philosophy, madam, of Reynard the Fox, and all the beasts, called Doni’s Philosophy.
CENTAURE There is, indeed, Sir Amorous La Foole.
MOROSE Oh misery! 90
LA FOOLE I have read it, my Lady Centaure, all over to my cousin here.
MISTRESS OTTER Ay, and ‘tis a very good book as any is, of the moderns.
DAW Tut, he must have Seneca read to him, and Plutarch and the ancients; the moderns are not for this disease.
CLERIMONT Why, you discommended them too today, Sir John.
DAW Ay, in some cases; but in these they are best, and Aristotle’s Ethics. 101
MAVIS Say you so, Sir John? I think you are deceived: you took it upon trust.
HAUGHTY Where’s Trusty, my woman? I’ll end this difference. I prithee, Otter, call her. Her father and mother were both mad when they put her to me.
Exit MISTRESS OTTER
MOROSE I think so.—Nay, gentlemen, I am tame. This is but an exercise, I know, a marriage ceremony, which I must endure.
HAUGHTY And one of’em (I know not which) was cured with The Sick Man’s Salve; and the other with Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit. 112
TRUEWIT A very cheap cure, madam.
HAUGHTY Ay, it’s very feasible.
Enter MISTRESS OTTER. with TRUSTY
MISTRESS OTTER My lady called for you, Mistress Trusty; you must decide a controversy.
HAUGHTY Oh, Trusty, which was it you said, your father or your mother, that was cured with The Sick Mans Salve?
TRUSTY My mother, madam, with the Salve. 120
TRUEWIT Then it was The Sick Woman’s Salve. TRUSTY And my father with the Groatsworth of Wit.
But there was other means used: we had a preacher that would preach folk asleep still.; and so they were prescribed to go to church, by an old woman that was their physician, thrice a week—
EPICOENE To sleep?
TRUSTY Yes, forsooth; and every night they read themselves asleep on those books.
EPICOENE Good faith, it stands with great reason.
I would I knew where to procure those books. 131
MOROSE Oh.
LA FOOLE I can help you with one of’em, Mistress Morose, the Groatsworth of Wit.
EPICOENE But I shall disfumish you, Sir Amorous; can you spare it?
LA FOOLE Oh, yes, for a week or so; I’ll read it myself to him.
EPICOENE No, I must do that, sir; that must be my office. 140
MOROSE Oh, oh!
EPICOENE Sure, he would do well enough, if he could sleep.
MOROSE No, I should do well enough if you could sleep. Have I no friend that will make her drunk? Or give her a little laudanum, or opium?
TRUEWIT Why, sir, she talks ten times worse in her sleep.
MOROSE How!
CLERIMONT Do you not know that, sir? Never ceases all night. 150
TRUEWIT And snores like a porcpisce.
MOROSE Oh, redeem me, fate, redeem me, fate! For how many causes may a man be divorced, nephew?
DAUPHINE I know not truly, sir.
TRUEWIT Some divine must resolve you in that, sir, or canon lawyer.
MOROSE I will not rest, I will not think of any other hope or comfort, till I know.
Exeunt MOROSE and DAUPHINE
CLERIMONT Alas, poor man.
TRUEWIT You’ll make him mad indeed, ladies, if you pursue this. 161
HAUGHTY No, we’ll let him breathe, now, a quarter of an hour or so.
CLERIMONT By my faith, a large truce.
HAUGHTY Is that his keeper, that is gone with him?
DAW It is his nephew, madam.
LA FOOLE Sir Dauphine Eugenie.
CENTAURE He looks like a very pitiful knight—
DAW As can be. This marriage has put him out of all.
LA FOOLE He has not a penny in his purse, madam—
DAW He is ready to cry all this day. 171
LA FOOLE A very shark, he set me i’ the nick t’other night at primero.
TRUEWIT (Aside) How these swabbers talk!
CLERIMONT (Aside) Ay, Otter’s wine has swelled their humours above a spring-tide.
HAUGHTY Good Morose, let’s go in again. I like your couches exceeding well: we’ll go lie, and talk there.
EPICOENE I wait on you, madam. 179
Exeunt all but EPICOENE, TRUEWIT, CLERIMONT
TRUEWIT ‘Slight, I will have ‘em as silent as signs and their posts too, ere I ha’ done. Do you hear lad bride? I pray thee now, as thou art a noble wench, continue this discourse of Dauphine within; but praise him exceedingly. Magnify him with all the height of affection thou canst (I have some purpose in’t) and but beat off these two rooks, Jack Daw and his fellow, with any discontentment hither, and I’ll honour thee forever.
EPICOENE I was about it, here. It angered me to the soul to hear ‘em begin to talk so malapert. 190
TRUEWIT Pray thee perform it, and thou winn’st me an idolater to thee everlasting.
EPICOENE Will you go in, and hear me do it?
TRUEWIT No, I’ll stay here. Drive ‘em out of your company, ‘tis all I ask; which cannot be any way better done than by extolling Dauphine, whom they have so shghted.
EPICOENE I warrant you: you shall expect one of ‘em presently.
Exit
CLERIMONT What a cast of kastrils are these to hawk after ladies thus? 201
TRUEWIT Ay, and strike at such an eagle as Dauphine.
CLERIMONT He will be mad when we tell him. Here he comes.
Enter DAUPHINE
CLERIMONT Oh sir, you are welcome.
TRUEWIT Where’s thine uncle?
DAUPHINE Run out o’ doors in’s night-caps, to talk with a casuist about his divorce. It works admirably.
TRUEWIT Thou wouldst ha’ said so, and thou hadst been here! The ladies have laughed at thee, most comically, since thou went’st, Dauphine.
CLERIMONT And asked if thou wert thine uncle’s keeper? 9
TRUEWIT And the brace of baboons answered yes, and said thou wert a pitiful poor fellow, and didst live upon posts; and hadst nothing but three suits of apparel, and some few benevolences that lords ga’ thee to fool to ‘em, and swagger.
DAUPHINE Let me not live, I’ll beat ‘em. I’ll bind ‘em both to grand madam’s bed-posts and have ‘em baited with monkeys.
TRUEWIT Thou shalt not need, they shall be beaten to thy hand, Dauphine. I have an execution to serve upon ‘em, I warrant thee, shall serve; trust my plot. 20
DAUPHINE Ay, you have many plots! So you had one, to make all the wenches in love with me.
TRUEWIT Why, if I do not yet afore night, as near as ‘tis; and that they do not every one invite thee, and be ready to scratch for thee, take the mortgage of my wit.
CLERIMONT ‘Fore God, I’ll be his witness; thou shalt have it, Dauphine; thou shalt be his fool forever if thou dost not.
TRUEWIT Agreed. Perhaps ‘twill be the better estate.
Do you observe this gallery, or rather lobby, indeed?
Here are a couple of studies, at each end one: here will I act such a tragicomedy between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Daw and La Foole-which of ‘em comes out first will I seize on (you two shall be the chorus behind the arras, and whip out between the acts and speak). If I do not make ‘em keep the peace for this remnant of the day, if not of the year, I have failed once—I hear Daw coming: hide, and do not laugh, for God’s sake. 40
DAUPHINE and CLERIMONT hide
Enter DAW
DAW Which is the way into the garden, trow?
TRUEWIT Oh, Jack Daw! I am glad I have met with you. In good faith, I must have this matter go no further between you. I must ha’ it taken up.
DAW What matter, sir? Between whom?
TRUEWIT Come, you disguise it—Sir Amorous and you. If you love me, Jack, you shall make use of your philosophy now, for this once, and deliver me your sword. This is not the wedding the centaurs were at, though there be a she-one here. The bride has entreated me I will see no blood shed at her bridal; you saw her whisper me erewhile.Takes his sword
DAW As I hope to finish Tacitus, I intend no murder. 53
TRUEWIT Do you not wait for Sir Amorous?
DAW Not I, by my knighthood.
TRUEWIT And your scholarship too?
DAW And my scholarship too.
TRUEWIT Go to, then I return you your sword, and ask you mercy; but put it not up, for you will be assaulted. I understood that you had apprehended it, and walked here to brave him; and that you had held your life contemptible, in regard of your honour. 62
DAW No, no, no such thing, I assure you. He and I parted now as good friends as could be.
TRUEWIT Trust not you to that visor. I saw him since dinner with another face: I have known many men in my time vexed with losses, with deaths, and with abuses, but so offended a wight as Sir Amorous did I never see, or read of. For taking away his guests, sir, today, that’s the cause; and he declares it behind your back, with such threat’nings and contempts—he said to Dauphine you were the arrant’st ass— 72
DAW Ay, he may say his pleasure.
TRUEWIT And swears you are so protested a coward that he knows you will never do him any manly or single right, and therefore he will take his course.
DAW I’ll give him any satisfaction, sir—but fighting.
TRUEWIT Ay, sir, but who knows what satisfaction he’ll take? Blood he thirsts for, and blood he will have; and whereabouts on you he will have it, who knows, but himself? 81
DAW I pray you, Master Truewit, be you a mediator.
TRUEWIT Well, sir, conceal yourself then in this study till I return. (He puts him up behind a door) Nay, you must be content to be locked in; for, for mine own reputation, I would not have you seen to receive a public disgrace, while I have the matter in managing. Gods so, here he comes: keep your breath dose, that he do not hear you sigh.—In good faith, Sir Amorous, he is not this way; I pray you be merciful, do not murder him; he is a Christian as good as you; you are armed as if you sought a revenge on all his race. Good Dauphine, get him away from this place. I never knew a man’s choler so high but he would speak to his friends, he would hear reason.—Jack Daw. Jack Daw! Asleep? 96
DAW Is he gone, Master Truewit?
TRUEWIT Ay, did you hear him?
DAW Oh God, yes.
TRUEWIT (Aside) What a quick ear fear has! 100
DAW (Coming out) But is he so armed, as you say?
TRUEWIT Armed? Did you ever see a fellow set out to take possession?
DAW Ay, sir.
TRUEWIT That may give you some light to conceive of him; but ‘tis nothing to the principal. Some false brother i’ the house has furnished him strangely. Or, if it were out o’ the house, it was Tom Otter.
DAW Indeed, he’s a captain, and his wife is his kinswoman. 110
TRUEWIT He has got somebody’s old two-hand sword, to mow you off at the knees. And that sword hath spawned such a dagger!—But then he is so hung with pikes, halberds, petronels, calivers, and muskets, that he looks like a justice of peace’s hall; a man of two thousand a year is not sessed at so many weapons as he has on. There was never fencer challenged at so many several foils. You would think he meant to murder all Saint Pulchre’s parish. If he could but victual himself for half a year in his breeches, he is sufficiently armed to overrun a country. 121
DAW Good lord, what means he, sir! I pray you, Master Truewit, be you a mediator.
TRUEWIT Well, I’ll try if he will be appeased with a leg or an arm; if not, you must die once.
DAW I would be loth to lose my right arm, for writing madrigals.
TRUEWIT Why, if he will be satisfied with a thumb, or a little finger, all’s one to me. You must think I’ll do mybest. 130
DAW Good sir, do.
He puts him up again, and then DAUPHINE and CLERIMONT come forth
CLERIMONT What hast thou done?
TRUEWIT He will let me do nothing, man, he does all afore me; he offers his left arm.
CLERIMONT His left wing, for a Jack Daw.
DAUPHINE Take it, by all means.
TRUEWIT How! Maim a man forever, for a jest? What a conscience hast thou?
DAUPHINE ’Tis no loss to him: he has no employment for his arms but to eat spoon-meat. Beside, as good maim his body as his reputation. 141
TRUEWIT He is a scholar, and a wit, and yet he does not think so. But he loses no reputation with us, for we all resolved him an ass before. To your places again.
CLERIMONT I pray thee, let me be in at the other a little.
TRUEWIT Look, you’ll spoil all: these be ever your tricks.
CLERIMONT No, but I could hit of some things that thou wilt miss, and thou wilt say are good ones. 151
TRUEWIT I warrant you. I pray forbear, I’ll leave it off else.
DAUPHINE Come away, Clerimont.They hide
Enter LA FOOLE
TRUEWIT Sir Amorous!
TRUEWIT Whither were you going?
LA FOOLE Down into the court, to make water.
TRUEWIT By no means, sir; you shall rather tempt your breeches. 160
LA FOOLE Why, sir?
TRUEWIT (Opening the other door) Enter here, if you love your life.
LA FOOLE Why? Why?
TRUEWIT Question till your throat be cut, do; dally till the enraged soul find you.
LA FOOLE Who’s that?
TRUEWIT Daw it is; will you in?
LA FOOLE Ay, ay, I’ll in; what’s the matter?
TRUEWIT Nay, if he had been cool enough to tell us that, there had been some hope to atone you, but he seems so implacably enraged. 172
LA FOOLE ’Slight, let him rage. I’ll hide myself.
TRUEWIT Do, good sir. But what have you done to him within, that should provoke him thus? You have broke some jest upon him afore the ladies—
LA FOOLE Not I, never in my life broke jest upon any man. The bride was praising Sir Dauphine, and he went away in snuff, and I followed him, unless he took offence at me in his drink erewhile, that I would not pledge all the horse-full. 181
TRUEWIT By my faith, and that may be, you remember well; but he walks the round up and down, through every room o’ the house, with a towel in his hand, crying, ‘Where’s La Foole? Who saw La Foole?’ and when Dauphine and I demanded the cause, we can force no answer from him but ‘Oh revenge, how sweet art thou! I will strangle him in this towel’— which leads us to conjecture that the main cause of his fury is for bringing your meat today, with a towel about you, to his discredit. 191
LA FOOLE Like enough. Why, and he be angry for that,
I’ll stay here, till his anger be blown over.
TRUEWIT A good becoming resolution, sir. If you can put it on o’ the sudden.
LA FOOLE Yes, I can put it on. Or I’ll away into the country presently.
TRUEWIT How will you get out o’ the house, sir? He knows you are i’ the house, and he’ll watch you this se’en-night but he’ll have you. He’ll outwait a sergeant for you. 201
LA FOOLE Why, then I’ll stay here.
TRUEWIT You must think how to victual yourself in time, then.
LA FOOLE Why, sweet Master Truewit, will you entreat my cousin Otter to send me a cold venison pasty, a bottle or two of wine, and a chamber-pot?
TRUEWIT A stool were better, sir, of Sir A-jax his invention.
LA FOOLE Ay, that will be better indeed; and a pallet to lie on. 211
TRUEWIT Oh, I would not advise you to sleep by any means.
LA FOOLE Would you not, sir? Why, then I will not.
TRUEWIT Yet there’s another fear—
LA FOOLE Is there, sir? What is’t?
TRUEWIT No, he cannot break open this door with his foot, sure.
LA FOOLE I’ll set my back against it, sir. I have a good back. 220
TRUEWIT But then if he should batter.
LA FOOLE Batter! If he dare, I’ll have an action of battery against him.
TRUEWIT Cast you the worst. He has sent for powder already, and what he will do with it, no man knows: perhaps blow up the comer o’ the house where he suspects you are. Here he comes! In, quickly. (He feigns as if one were present, to fright the other, who is run in to hide himself) I protest, Sir John Daw, he is not this way. What will you do? Before God, you shall hang no petard here. I’ll die rather. Will you not take my word? I never knew one but would be satisfied.—Sir Amorous, there’s no standing out. He has made a petard of an old brass pot, to force your door. Think upon some satisfaction, or terms, to offer him. 236
LA FOOLE (Within) Sir, I’ll give him any satisfaction. I dare give any terms.
TRUEWIT You’ll leave it to me then?
LA FOOLE Ay, sir. I’ll stand to any conditions.
TRUEWIT calls forth CLERIMONT and DAUPHINE
TRUEWIT How now, what think you, sirs? Were’t not a difficult thing to determine which of these two feared most?
CLERIMONT Yes, but this fears the bravest; the other a whiniling dastard, Jack Daw! But La Foole, a brave heroic coward! And is afraid in a great look and a stout accent. I like him rarely.
TRUEWIT Had it not been pity these two should ha’ been concealed?
CLERIMONT Shall I make a motion? 250
TRUEWIT Briefly. For I must strike while ‘tis hot.
CLERIMONT Shall I go fetch the ladies to the catastrophe?
TRUEWIT Umh? Ay, by my troth.
DAUPHINE By no mortal means. Let them continue in the state of ignorance, and err still: think ‘em wits and fine fellows, as they have done. ‘Twere sin to reform them.
TRUEWIT Well, I will have ‘em fetched, now I think on’t, for a private purpose of mine; do, Clerimont, fetch ‘em, and discourse to ‘em all that’s past and bring ‘em into the gallery here. 262
DAUPHINE This is thy extreme vamty, now, thou think’st thou wert undone, if every jest thou mak’st were not published.
TRUEWIT Thou shalt see how unjust thou art presently.
Clerimont, say it was Dauphine’s plot. (Exit CLERIMONT) Trust me not if the whole drift be not for thy good. There’s a carpet i’ the next room; put It on, with this scarf over thy face and a cushion o’ thy head, and be ready when I call Amorous. Away— (Exit DAUPHINE) John Daw! 272
Brings DAW out of study
DAW What good news, sir?
TRUEWIT Faith, I have followed, and argued with him hard for you. I told him you were a knight, and a scholar; and that you knew fortitude did consist magis patiendo quam faciendo, magis ferendo quam ferundo.
DAW It doth so indeed, sir.
TRUEWIT And that you would suffer, I told him: so at first he demanded, by my troth, in my conceit too much. 281
DAW What was it, sir?
TRUEWIT Your upper lip, and six o’ your fore-teeth.
DAW ’Twas unreasonable.
TRUEWIT Nay, I told him plainly, you could not spare ‘em all. So after long argument (pro et con, as you know) I brought him down to your two butter-teeth, and them he would have.
DAW Oh, did you so? Why, he shall have ‘em.
Enter above HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE, TRUSTY, and CLERIMONT
TRUEWIT But he shall not, sir, by your leave. The conclusion is this, sir, because you shall be very good friends hereafter, and this never to be remembered, or upbraided; besides, that he may not boast he has done any such thing to you in his own person, he is to come here in disguise, give you five kicks private, sir, take your sword from you, and lock you up in that study, during pleasure. Which will be but a little while, we’ll get it released presently. 298
DAW Five kicks? He shall have six, sir, to be friends.
TRUEWIT Believe me, you shall not overshoot yourself to send him that word by me.
DAW Deliver it, sir. He shall have it with all my heart, to be friends.
TRUEWIT Friends? Nay, and he should not be so, and heartily too, upon these terms, he shall have me to enemy while I live. Come, sir, bear it bravely.
DAW Oh God, sir, ‘tis nothing.
TRUEWIT True. What’s six kicks to a man that reads Seneca?
DAW I have had a hundred, sir. 310
TRUEWIT Sir Amorous! No speaking one to another, or rehearsing old matters.
DAUPHINE comes forth and kicks him
DAW One, two, three, four, five. I protest, Sir Amorous, you shall have six.
TRUEWIT Nay, I told you you should not talk. om give him six, and he will neeeds. (DAUPHIN kicks him again) Your sword. (DAW gives TRUEWIT his sword) Now return to your safe custody: you shall presently meet afore the ladies, and be the dearest friends one to another—(DAW goes into his study). Give me the scarf, now, thou shalt beat the other barefaced. Stand by—(Exit DAUPHINE). Sir Amorous! 321
Brings out LA FOOLE
LA FOOLE What’s here? A sword!
TRUEWIT I cannot help it, without I should take the quarrel upon myself; here he has sent you his sword—
LA FOOLE I’ll receive none on’t.
TRUEWIT And he wills you to fasten it against a wall, and break your head in some few several places against the hilts.
LA FOOLE I will not: tell him roundly. I cannot endure to shed my own blood. 330
TRUEWIT Will you not?
LA FOOLE No. I’ll beat it against a fair flat wall, if that will satisfy him; if not, he shall beat it himself, for Amorous.
TRUEWIT Why, this is strange starting off, when a man undertakes for you! I offered him another condition: will you stand to that?
LA FOOLE Ay, what is’t?
TRUEWIT That you will be beaten in private. 340
LA FOOLE Yes. I am content, at the blunt.
TRUEWIT Then you must submit yourself to be hoodwinked in this scarf, and be led to him, where he will take your sword from you, and make you bear a blow over the mouth, gules, and tweaks by the nose, sans nombre.
LA FOOLE I am content. But why must I be blinded?
TRUEWIT That’s for your good, sir: because if he should grow insolent upon this and publish it hereafter to your disgrace (which I hope he will not do) you might swear safely and protest he never beat you, to your knowledge. 352
LA FOOLE Oh, I conceive.
TRUEWIT I do not doubt but you’ll be perfect good friends upon’t, and not dare to utter an ill thought one of another, in future.
LA FOOLE Not I, as God help me, of him.
TRUEWIT Nor he of you, sir. If he should—Come, sir. (Blindfolds him) All hid, Sir John.
DAUPHINE enters to tweak him
LA FOOLE Oh, Sir John, Sir John! Oh, o-o-o-o-o-
Oh— 361
TRUEWIT Good Sir John, leave tweaking, you’ll blow his nose off. ‘Tis Sir John’s pleasure you should retire into the study. Why, now you are friends. All bitterness between you, I hope, is buried; you shall come forth by and by, Damon and Pythias upon’t; and embrace with all the rankness of friendship that can be. (Exit LA FOOLE) I trust we shall have ‘em tamer i’ their language hereafter. Dauphine, I worship thee. God’s will, the ladies have surprised us!
Enter from above HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE, TRUSTY, and CLERIMONT, having discovered part of the past scene above
HAUGHTY Centaure, how our judgements were imposed on by these adulterate knights!
CENTAURE Nay, madam, Mavis was more deceived than we, ‘twas her commendation uttered ‘em in the college.
MAVIS I commended but their wits, madam, and their braveries. I never looked toward their valours.
HAUGHTY Sir Dauphine is valiant, and a Wit too, it seems?
MAVIS And a Bravery too. 10
HAUGHTY Was this his project?
MISTRESS OTTER So Master Clerimont intimates, madam.
HAUGHTY Good Morose, when you come to the college, will you bring him with you? He seems a very perfect gentleman.
EPICOENE He is so, madam, believe it.
CENTAURE But when will you come, Morose?
EPICOENE Three or four days hence, madam, when I have got me a coach, and horses. 20
HAUGHTY No, tomorrow, good Morose, Centaure shall send you her coach.
MAVIS Yes, faith, do, and bring Sir Dauphine with you.
HAUGHTY She has promised that, Mavis.
MAVIS He is a very worthy gentleman in his exteriors, madam.
HAUGHTY Ay, he shows he is judicial in his clothes.
CENTAURE And yet not so superlatively neat as some, madam, that have their faces set in a brake!
HAUGHTY Ay, and have every hair in form! 30
MAVIS That wear purer linen than ourselves, and profess more neatness than the French hermaphrodite!
EPICOENE Ay, ladies, they, what they tell one of us, have told a thousand, and are the only thieves of our fame; that think to take us with that perfume, or with that lace, and laugh at us unconscionably when they have done.
HAUGHTY But Sir Dauphine’s carelessness becomes him.
CENTAURE I could love a man for such a nose!
MAVIS Or such a leg!
CENTAURE He has an exceeding good eye, madam!
MAVIS And a very good lock!
CENTAURE Good Morose, bring him to my chamber first.
MISTRESS OTTER Please your honours to meet at my house, madam?
TRUEWIT (Aside to DAUPHINE) See how they eye thee, man! They are taken, I warrant thee. 50
HAUGHTY You have unbraced our brace of knights here, Master Truewit.
TRUEWIT Not I, madam, it was Sir Dauphine’s engine; who, if he have dis furnished your ladyship of any guard or service by it, is able to make the place good again, in himself.
HAUGHTY There’s no suspicion of that, sir.
CENTAURE God so, Mavis, Haughty is kissing.
MAVIS Let us go too and take part. 59
HAUGHTY But I am glad of the fortune (beside the discovery of two such empty caskets) to gain the knowledge of so rich a mine of virtue as Sir Dauphine.
CENTAURE We would be all glad to style him of our friendship, and see him at the college.
MAVIS He cannot mix with a sweeter society, I’ll prophesy, and I hope he himself will think so. 67
DAUPHINE I should be rude to imagine otherwise, lady.
TRUEWIT (Aside to DAUPHINE) Did not I tell thee, Dauphine? Why, all their actions are governed by crude opinion, without reason or cause; they know not why they do anything; but as they are informed, believe, judge, praise, condemn, love, hate, and in emulation one of another, do all these things alike. Only, they have a natural inclination sways ‘em generally to the worst, when they are left to themselves. But pursue it, now thou hast ‘em. 77
HAUGHTY Shall we go in again, Morose?
EPICOENE Yes, madam.
CENTAURE We’ll entreat Sir Dauphine’s company.
TRUEWIT Stay, good madam, the interview of the two friends, Pylades and Orestes: I’ll fetch ‘em out to you straight.
HAUGHTY Will you, Master Truewit?
DAUPHINE Ay, but, noble ladies, do not confess in your countenance or outward bearing to ‘em any discovery of their follies, that we may see how they will bear up again, with what assurance, and erection.
HAUGHTY We will not, Sir Dauphine.
CENTAURE and MAVIS Upon our honours, Sir Dauphine. 91
TRUEWIT Sir Amorous, Sir Amorous! The ladies are here.
LA FOOLE (Within) Are they?
TRUEWIT Yes, but slip out by and by, as their backs are turned, and meet Sir John here, as by chance, when I call you.—Jack Daw!
DAW (Within) What say you, sir?
TRUEWIT Whip out behind me suddenly; and no anger i’ your looks to your adversary. Now, now! 100
LA FOOLE and DAW come out of their studies and salute each other
LA FOOLE Noble Sir John Daw! Where ha’ you been?
DAW To seek you, Sir Amorous.
LA FOOLE Me! I honour you.
DAW I prevent you, sir.
CLERIMONT They have forgot their rapiers!
TRUEWIT Oh, they meet in peace, man.
DAUPHINE Where’s your sword, Sir John?
CLERIMONT And yours, Sir Amorous?
DAW Mine? My boy had it forth to mend the handle, e’en now. 110
LA FOOLE And my gold handle was broke too, and my boy had it forth.
DAUPHINE Indeed, sir? How their excuses meet!
CLERIMONT What a consent there is, i’ the handles!
TRUEWIT Nay, there is so i’ the points too, I warrant you.
MISTRESS OTTER Oh me! Madam, he comes again, the madman; away!
Exeunt LADIES, DAW and LA FOOLE
Enter MOROSE: he had found the two swords drawn within
MOROSE What make these naked weapons here, gentlemen?
TRUEWIT Oh, sir! Here hath like to been murder since you went! A couple of knights fallen out about the bride’s favours: we were fain to take away their weapons; your house had been begged by this time —
MOROSE For what?
CLERIMONT For manslaughter, sir, as being accessary.
MOROSE And for her favours? 10
TRUEWIT Ay, sir, heretofore, not present. Clerimont, carry ‘em their swords now. They have done all the hurt they will do.Exit CLERIMONT with the swords
DAUPHINE Ha’ you spoke with a lawyer, sir?
MOROSE Oh no! There is such a noise i’ the court, that they have frighted me home with more violence than I went! Such speaking, and counter-speaking, with their several voices of citations, appellations, allegations, certificates, attachments, intergatories, references, convictions, and afflictions indeed, among the doctors and proctors, that the noise here is silence to’t! A kind of calm midnight! 22
TRUEWIT Why, sir, if you would be resolved indeed, I can bring you hither a very sufficient lawyer and a learned divine, that shall enquire into every least scruple for you.
MOROSE Can you, Master Truewit?
TRUEWIT Yes, and are very sober grave persons, that will dispatch it in a chamber, with a whisper or two.
MOROSE Good sir, shall I hope this benefit from you, and trust myself into your hands? 31
TRUEWIT Alas, sir! Your nephew and I have been ashamed, and oft-times mad, since you went, to think how you are abused. Go in, good sir, and lock yourself up till we call you; we’ll tell you more anon, sir.
MOROSE Do your pleasure with me, gentlemen; I believe in you, and that deserves no delusion—
Exit
TRUEWIT You shall find none, sir—but heaped, heaped plenty of vexation. 40
DAUPHINE What wilt thou do now, Wit?
TRUEWIT Recover me hither Otter, and the barber, if you can by any means, presently.
DAUPHINE Why? To what purpose?
TRUEWIT Oh, I’ll make the deepest divine, and gravest lawyer, out o’ them two for him—
DAUPHINE Thou canst not, man, these are waking dreams. 48
TRUEWIT Do not fear me. Clap but a civil gown with a welt o’ the one, and a canonical cloak with sleeves o’ the other, and give ‘em a few terms i’ their mouths; if there come not forth as able a doctor and complete a parson for this turn as may be wished, trust not my election. And, I hope, without wronging the dignity of either profession, since they are but persons put on, and for mirth’s sake, to torment him. The barber smatters Latin, I remember. 57
DAUPHINE Yes, and Otter too.
TRUEWIT Well then, if I make ‘em not wrangle out this case, to his no comfort, let me be thought a Jack Daw, or La Foole, or anything worse. Go you to your ladies, but first send for them. 62
DAUPHINE I will.
EXEUNT
Enter LA FOOLE, CLERIMONT, DAW
LA FOOLE Where had you our swords, Master Clerimont?
CLERIMONT Why, Dauphine took ‘em from the madman.
LA FOOLE And he took ‘em from our boys, I warrant you?
CLERIMONT Very like, sir.
LA FOOLE Thank you, good Master Clerimont. Sir John Daw and I are both beholden to you.
CLERIMONT Would I knew how to make you so, gentlemen. 11
DAW Sir Amorous and I are your servants, sir.
Enter MAVIS
MAVIS Gentlemen, have any of you a pen and ink? I would fain write out a riddle in Italian, for Sir Dauphine to translate.
CLERIMONT Not I, in troth, lady, I am no scrivener.
DAW I can furnish you, I think, lady.
Exeunt DAW and MAVIS
CLERIMONT He has it in the haft of a knife, I believe!
LA FOOLE No, he has his box of instruments.
CLERIMONT Like a surgeon! 20
LA FOOLE For the mathematics: his squire, his compasses, his brass pens, and black lead, to draw maps of every place and person where he comes.
CLERIMONT How, maps of persons!
LA FOOLE Yes, sir, of Nomentack, when he was here, and of the Prince of Moldavia, and of his mistress, Mistress Epicoene.
CLERIMONT Away! He has not found out her latitude, I hope.
LA FOOLE You are a pleasant gentleman, sir. 30
Enter DAW
CLERIMONT Faith, now we are in private, let’s wanton it a little, and talk waggishly. Sir John, I am telling Sir Amorous here that you two govern the ladies; where’er you come, you carry the feminine gender afore you.
DAW They shall rather carry us afore them, if they will, sir.
CLERIMONT Nay, I believe that they do, withal; but that you are the prime men in their affections, and direct all their actions—
DAW Not I; Sir Amorous is.
LA FOOLE I protest, Sir John is.
DAW As I hope to rise i’ the state, Sir Amorous, you ha’ the person.
LA FOOLE Sir John, you ha’ the person, and the discourse too.
DAW Not I, sir. I have no discourse—and then you have activity beside.
LA FOOLE I protest, Sir John, you come as high from Tripoli as I do every whit, and lift as many joined stools and leap over ‘em, if you would use it— 51
CLERIMONT Well, agree on’t together, knights; for between you, you divide the kingdom, or commonwealth of ladies’ affections: I see it, and can perceive a little how they observe you, and fear you, indeed. You could tell strange stories, my masters, if you would, I know.
DAW Faith, we have seen somewhat, sir.
LA FOOLE That we have—velvet petticoats, and wrought smocks, or so. 60
DAW Ay, and—
CLERIMONT Nay, out with it, Sir John; do not envy your friend the pleasure of hearing, when you have had the delight of tasting.
DAW Why—a—do you speak, Sir Amorous.
LA FOOLE No, do you, Sir John Daw.
DAW I’ faith, you shall.
LA FOOLE I’ faith, you shall.
DAW Why, we have been—
LA FOOLE In the Great Bed at Ware together in our time. On, Sir John. 71
DAW Nay, do you, Sir Amorous.
CLERIMONT And these ladies with you, knights?
LA FOOLE No, excuse us, sir.
DAW We must not wound reputation.
LA FOOLE No matter—they were these, or others. Our bath cost us fifteen pound, when we came home.
CLERIMONT Do you hear, Sir John, you shall tell me but one thing truly, as you love me.
DAW If I can, I will, sir. 80
CLERIMONT You lay in the same house with the bride here?
DAW Yes, and conversed with her hourly, sir.
CLERIMONT And what humour is she of? Is she coming, and open, free?
DAW Oh, exceeding open, sir. I was her servant, and Sir Amorous was to be.
CLERIMONT Come, you have both had favours from her? I know and have heard so much.
DAW Oh no, sir. 90
LA FOOLE You shall excuse us, sir: we must not wound reputation.
CLERIMONT Tut, she is married now, and you cannot hurt her with any report, and therefore speak plainly: how many times, i’ faith? Which of you led first? Ha?
LA FOOLE Sir John had her maidenhead, indeed.
DAW Oh, it pleases him to say so, sir, but Sir Amorous knows what’s what as well.
CLERIMONT Dost thou i’ faith, Amorous?
LA FOOLE In a manner, sir. 100
CLERIMONT Why, I commend you, lads. Little knows Don Bridegroom of this. Nor shall he, for me.
CLERIMONT Speak softly: here comes his nephew, with the Lady Haughty. He’ll get the ladies from you, sirs, if you look not to him in time.
LA FOOLE Why, if he do, we’ll fetch ‘em home again, I warrant you.
Exeunt
Enter HAUGHTY, DAUPHINE
HAUGHTY I assure you, Sir Dauphine, it is the price and estimation of your virtue only that hath embarked me to this adventure, and I could not but make out to tell you so; nor can I repent me of the act, since it is always an argument of some virtue in ourselves, that we love and affect it so in others.
DAUPHINE Your ladyship sets too high a price on my weakness.
HAUGHTY Sir, I can distinguish gems from pebbles—
DAUPHINE (Aside) Are you so skilful in stones? 10
HAUGHTY And howsoever I may suffer in such a judgement as yours, by admitting equality of rank, or society, with Centaure, or Mavis—
DAUPHINE You do not, madam; I perceive they are your mere foils.
HAUGHTY Then are you a friend to truth, sir. It makes me love you the more. It is not the outward, but the inward man that I affect. They are not apprehensive of an eminent perfection, but love flat and dully. 19
CENTAURE (Within) Where are you, my Lady Haughty?
HAUGHTY I come presently, Centaure.—My chamber, sir, my page shall show you; and Trusty, my woman, shall be ever awake for you; you need not fear to communicate anything with her, for she is a Fidelia. I pray you wear this jewel for my sake, Sir Dauphine. (Enter CENTAURE) Where’s Mavis, Centaure?
CENTAURE Within, madam, a-writing. I’ll follow you presently. I’ll but speak a word with Sir Dauphine.
Exit HAUGHTY
DAUPHINE With me, madam? 29
CENTAURE Good Sir Dauphine, do not trust Haughty, nor make any credit to her, whatever you do besides. Sir Dauphine, I give you this caution, she is a perfect courtier, and loves nobody but for her uses; and for her uses, she loves all. Besides, her physicians give her out to be none o’ the clearest; whether she pay ‘em or no, heaven knows; and she’s above fifty too, and pargets! See her in a forenoon. Here comes Mavis, a worse face than she! You would not like this by candlelight. If you’ll come to my chamber one o’ these mornings early, or late in an evening, I’ll tell you more. (Enter MAVIS) Where’s Haughty, Mavis?
MAVIS Within, Centaure. 42
CENTAURE What ha’ you there?
MAVIS An Italian riddle for Sir Dauphine (you shall not see it i’ faith, Centaure). Good Sir Dauphine, solve it for me. I’ll call for it anon.
Exeunt MAVIS and CENTAURE
Enter CLERIMONT
CLERIMONT How now, Dauphine? How dost thou quit thyself of these females?
DAUPHINE ’Slight, they haunt me like fairies, and give me jewels here; I cannot be rid of’em. 50
CLERIMONT Oh, you must not tell, though.
DAUPHINE Mass, I forgot that; I was never so assaulted. One loves for virtue, and bribes me for this. Another loves me with caution, and so would possess me. A third brings me a riddle here; and all are jealous, and rail each at other.
CLERIMONT A riddle? Pray le’me see’t? (He reads the paper) ‘Sir Dauphine, I chose this way of intimation for privacy. The ladies here, I know, have both hope, and purpose, to make a collegiate and servant of you. If I might be so honoured as to appear at any end of so noble a work, I would enter into a fame of taking physic tomorrow, and continue it four or five days, or longer, for your visitation. Mavis.’—By my faith, a subde one! Call you this a riddle? What’s their plain dealing, trow? 66
DAUPHINE We lack Truewit to tell us that.
CLERIMONT We lack him for somewhat else too: his knights reformados are wound up as high, and insolent, as ever they were.
DAUPHINE You jest.
CLERIMONT No drunkards, either with wine or vanity, ever confessed such stories of themselves. I would not give a fly’s leg in balance against all the women’s reputations here, if they could be but thought to speak truth; and for the bride, they have made their affidavit against her directly—
DAUPHINE What, that they have lien with her?
CLERIMONT Yes, and tell times, and circumstances, with the cause why, and the place where. I had almost brought ‘em to affirm that they had done it today.
DAUPHINE Not both of’em.
CLERIMONT Yes, faith; with a sooth or two more I had effected it. They would ha’ set it down under their hands.
DAUPHINE Why, they will be our sport, I see, still!
Whether we will or no.
Enter TRUEWIT
TRUEWIT Oh, are you here? Come, Dauphine. Go, call your uncle presently. I have fitted my divine and my canonist, dyed their beards and all; the knaves do not know themselves, they are so exalted and altered. Preferment changes any man. Thou shalt keep one door, and I another, and then Clerimont in the midst, that he may have no means of escape from their cavilling, when they grow hot once. And then the women (as I have given the bride her instructions) to break in upon him, i’ the l’envoy. Oh, ‘twill be full and twanging! Away, fetch him. (Exit DAUPHINE) (Enter CUTBEARD disguised as a canon lawyer, OTTER as a divine) Come, master doctor, and master parson, look to your parts now, and discharge ‘em bravely; you are well set forth, perform it as well. If you chance to be out, do not confess it with standing still, or humming, or gaping one at another; but go on, and talk aloud and eagerly, use vehement action, and only remember your terms, and you are safe. Let the matter go where it will: you have many will do so. But at first, be very solemn and grave like your garments, though you loose yourselves after, and skip out like a brace of jugglers on a table. Here he comes! Set your faces, and look superciliously while I present you. 24
Enter DAUPHINE and MOROSE
MOROSE Are these the two learned men?
TRUEWIT Yes, sir; please you salute ‘em?
MOROSE Salute ‘em? I had rather do anything than wear out time so unfruitfully, sir. I wonder how these common forms, as ‘God save you’ and ‘You are welcome’, are come to be a habit in our lives! Or ‘I am glad to see you!’ when I cannot see what the profit can be of these words, so long as it is no whit better with him whose affairs are sad and grievous, that he hears this salutation. 34
TRUEWIT ’Tis true, sir; we’ll go to the matter then. Gentlemen, master doctor and master parson, I have acquainted you sufficiently with the business for which you are come hither. And you are not now to inform yourselves in the state of the question, I know. This is the gentleman who expects your resolution, and therefore, when you please, begin.
OTTER Please you, master doctor. 42
CUTBEARD Please you, good master parson.
OTTER I would hear the canon law speak first.
CUTBEARD It must give place to positive divinity, sir.
MOROSE Nay, good gentlemen, do not throw me into circumstances. Let your comforts arrive quickly at me, those that are. Be swift in affording me my peace, if so I shall hope any. I love not your disputations, or your court tumults. And that it be not strange to you, I will tell you. My father, in my education, was wont to advise me that I should always collect and contain my mind, not suff’ring it to flow loosely; that I should look to what things were necessary to the carriage of my life, and what not; embracing the one and eschewing the other. In short, that I should endear myself to rest, and avoid turmoil; which now is grown to be another nature to me. So that I come not to your public pleadings, or your places of noise; not that I neglect those things that make for the dignity of the commonwealth, but for the mere avoiding of clamours and impertinencies of orators, that know not how to be silent. And for the cause of noise am I now a suitor to you. You do not know in what a misery I have been exercised this day, what a torrent of evil! My very house turns round with the tumult! I dwell in a windmill! The perpetual motion is here, and not at Eltham. 68
TRUEWIT Well, good master doctor, will you break the ice? Master parson will wade after.
CUTBEARD Sir, though unworthy, and the weaker, I will presume.
OTTER ’Tis no presumption, domine doctor.
MOROSE Yet again!
CUTBEARD Your question is, for how many causes a man may have divortium legitimum, a lawful divorce. First, you must understand the nature of the word divorce, a divertendo—
MOROSE No excursions upon words, good doctor; to the question briefly. 80
CUTBEARD I answer then, the canon law affords divorce but in few cases, and the principal is in the common case, the adulterous case. But there are duodecim impedimenta, twelve impediments (as we call ‘em) all which do not dirimire contractum, but irritum reddere matrimonium, as we say in the canon law, not take away the bond, but cause a nullity therein.
MOROSE I understood you before; good sir, avoid your impertinency of translation.
OTTER He cannot open this too much, sir, by your favour. 91
MOROSE Yet more!
TRUEWIT Oh, you must give the learned men leave, sir.
To your impediments, master doctor.
CUTBEARD The first is impedimentum erroris.
OTTER Of which there are several species.
CUTBEARD Ay, as error personae.
OTTER If you contract yourself to one person, thinking her another.
CUTBEARD Then, error fortunae. 100
OTTER If she be a beggar, and you thought her rich.
CUTBEARD Then, error qualitatis.
OTTER If she prove stubborn, or headstrong, that you thought obedient.
MOROSE How? Is that, sir, a lawful impediment? One at once, I pray you, gendemen.
OTTER Ay, ante copulam, but not post copulam, sir.
CUTBEARD Master parson says right. Nec post nu ptiarum benedictionem. It doth indeed but irrita reddere sponsalia, annul the contract; after marriage it is of no obstancy. 110
TRUEWIT Alas, sir, what a hope are we fall’n from, by this time!
CUTBEARD The next is conditio: if you thought her free-born, and she prove a bondwoman, there is impediment of estate and condition.
OTTER Ay, but master doctor, those servitudes are sublatae now, among us Christians.
CUTBEARD By your favour, master parson—
OTTER You shall give me leave, master doctor. 120
MOROSE Nay, gendemen, quarrel not in that question; it concerns not my case: pass to the third.
CUTBEARD Well then, the third is votum. If either party have made a vow of chastity. But that practice, as master parson said of the other, is taken away among us, thanks be to discipline. The fourth is cognatio: if the persons be of kin, within the degrees.
OTTER Ay: do you know what the degrees are, sir?
MOROSE No, nor I care not, sir: they offer me no comfort in the question, I am sure. 131
CUTBEARD But there is a branch of this impediment may, which is cognatio spiritualis. If you were her godfather, sir, then the marriage is incestuous.
OTTER That comment is absurd, and superstitious, master doctor. I cannot endure it. Are we not all brothers and sisters, and as much akin in that, as godfathers, and goddaughters?
MOROSE Oh me! To end the controversy, I never was a godfather, I never was a godfather in my life, sir. Pass to the next. 141
CUTBEARD The fifth is crimen adulterii: the known case. The sixth cultus disparitas, difference of religion: have you ever examined her what religion she is of?
MOROSE No, I would rather she were of none, than be put to the trouble of it!
OTTER You may have it done for you, sir.
MOROSE By no means, good sir; on, to the rest. Shall you ever come to an end, think you?
TRUEWIT Yes, he has done half, sir. (On, to the rest.) Be patient and expect, sir. 151
CUTBEARD The seventh is vis: if it were upon compulsion, or force.
MOROSE Oh no, it was too voluntary, mine; too voluntary.
CUTBEARD The eighth is ordo: if ever she have taken holy orders.
OTTER That’s superstitious too.
MOROSE No matter, master parson: would she would go into a nunnery yet. 160
CUTBEARD The ninth is ligamen: if you were bound, sir, to any other before.
MOROSE I thrust myself too soon into these fetters.
CUTBEARD The tenth is publica honestas, which is inchoata quaedam affinitas.
OTTER Ay, or affinitas orta ex sponsalibus, and is but leve impedimentum.
MOROSE I feel no air of comfort blowing to me, in all this.
CUTBEARD The eleventh is affinitas ex fornicatione. 170
OTTER Which is no less vera affinitas than the other, master doctor.
CUTBEARD True, quae oritur ex legitimo matrimonio.
OTTER You say right, venerable doctor. And nascitur ex eo, quod per conjugium duae personae efficiuntur una caro—
MOROSE Heyday, now they begin!
CUTBEARD I conceive you, master parson. Ita per fornicationem aeque est verus pater, qui sic generat—
OTTER Et vere filius qui sic generatu,— 180
MOROSE What’s all this to me?
CLERIMONT (Aside) Now it grows warm.
CUTBEARD The twelfth and last is si forte coire nequibis.
OTTER Ay, that is impedimentum gravissimum. It doth utterly annul and annihilate, that. If you have manifestam frigiditatem, you are well, sir.
TRUEWIT Why, there is comfort come at length, sir.
Confess yourself but a man unable, and she will sue to be divorced first.
OTTER Ay, or if there be morbus perpetuus et insanabilis, as paralysis, elephantiasis, or so— 191
DAUPHINE Oh, but frigiditas is the fairer way, gentlemen.
OTTER You say troth, sir, and as it is in the canon, master doctor.
CUTBEARD I conceive you, sir.
CLERIMONT (Aside) Before he speaks.
OTTER That ‘a boy or child under years is not fit for marriage because he cannot reddere debitum’. So your omnipotentes—
TRUEWIT (Aside to OTTER) Your impotentes, you whoreson lobster. 201
OTTER Your impotentes, I should say, are minime apti ad contrahenda matrimonium.
TRUEWIT (Aside to OTTER) Matrimonium? We shall have most unmatrimonial Latin with you: matrimonia, and be hanged.
DAUPHINE (Aside to TRUEWIT) You put ‘em out, man.
CUTBEARD But then there will arise a doubt, master parson, in our case, post matrimonium: that frigiditate praeditus—do you conceive me, sir? 210
OTTER Very well, sir.
CUTBEARD Who cannot uti uxore pro uxore, may habere eam pro sorore.
OTTER Absurd, absurd, absurd, and merely apostatical.
CUTBEARD You shall pardon me, master parson, I can prove it.
OTTER You can prove a will, master doctor, you can prove nothing else. Does not the verse of your own canon say, Haec socianda vetant conubia, facta retractant— 221
CUTBEARD I grant you, but how do they retractare, master parson?
MOROSE (Oh, this was it I feared.)
OTTER In aeternum, sir.
CUTBEARD That’s false in divinity, by your favour.
OTTER ’Tis false in humanity to say so. Is he not prorsus inutilis ad thorum? Can he praestare jidem datam? I would fain know.
CUTBEARD Yes: how if he do convalere? 230
OTTER He cannot convalere, it is impossible.
TRUEWIT (To MOROSE) Nay, good sir, attend the learned men, they’ll think you neglect ‘em else.
CUTBEARD Or if he do simulare himselffrigidum, odio uxoris, or so?
OTTER I say he is adulter manifestus then.
DAUPHINE (They dispute it very learnedly, i’ faith.)
OTTER And prostitutor uxoris, and this is positive.
MOROSE Good sir, let me escape.
TRUEWIT You will not do me that wrong, sir? 240
OTTER And therefore, if he be manifeste frigidus, sir—
CUTBEARD Ay, if he be manifeste frigidus, I grant you—
OTTER Why, that was my conclusion.
CUTBEARD And mine too.
TRUEWIT Nay, hear the conclusion, sir.
OTTER Then frigiditatis causa—
CUTBEARD Yes, causa frigiditatis—
MOROSE Oh, mine ears!
OTTER She may have libellum divortii against you.
CUTBEARD Ay, divortii libellum she will sure have. 250
MOROSE Good echoes, forbear.
OTTER If you confess it.
CUTBEARD Which I would do, sir—
MOROSE I will do anything—
OTTER And clear myself in foro conscientiae—
CUTBEARD Because you want indeed—
MOROSE Yet more?
OTTER Exercendi potestate.
Enter EPICOENE, HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, DAW, LA FOOLE
EPICOENE I will not endure it any longer. Ladies, I beseech you help me. This is such a wrong as never was offered to poor bride before. Upon her marriage-day, to have her husband conspire against her, and a couple of mercenary companions to be brought in for form’s sake, to persuade a separation! If you had blood or virtue in you, gentlemen, you would not suffer such earwigs about a husband, or scorpions to creep between man and wife—
MOROSE Oh the variety and changes of my torment! 10
HAUGHTY Let ‘em be cudgelled out of doors by our grooms.
CENTAURE I’ll lend you my footman.
MAVIS We’ll have our men blanket ‘em i’ the hall.
MISTRESS OTTER As there was one at our house, madam, for peeping in at the door.
DAW Content, i’ faith.
TRUEWIT Stay, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll hear before you proceed?
MAVIS I’d ha’ the bridegroom blanketed too. 20
CENTAURE Begin with him first.
HAUGHTY Yes, by my troth.
MOROSE Oh mankind generation!
DAUPHINE Ladies, for my sake forbear.
HAUGHTY Yes, for Sir Dauphine’s sake.
CENTAURE He shall command us.
LA FOOLE He is as fine a gentleman of his inches, madam, as any is about the town, and wears as good colours when he list. 29
TRUEWIT (Aside to MOROSE) Be brief, sir, and confess your infirmity, she’ll be afire to be quit of you; if she but hear that named once, you shall not entreat her to stay. She’ll fly you like one that had the marks upon him.
MOROSE Ladies, I must crave all your pardons—
TRUEWIT Silence, ladies.
MOROSE For a wrong I have done to your whole sex, in marrying this fair and virtuous gentlewoman—
CLERIMONT Hear him, good ladies. 39
MOROSE Being guilty of an infirmity which, before I conferred with these learned men, I thought I might have concealed—
TRUEWIT But now being better informed in his conscience by them, he is to declare it, and give satisfaction, by asking your public forgiveness.
ALL How!
MOROSE Utterly unabled in nature, by reason of frigidity, to perform the duties, or any the least office of a husband. 50
MAVIS Now, out upon him, prodigious creature!
CENTAURE Bridegroom uncarnate.
HAUGHTY And would you offer it, to a young gentlewoman?
MISTRESS OTTER A lady of her longings?
EPICOENE Tut, a device, a device, this, it smells rankly, ladies. A mere comment of his own.
TRUEWIT Why, if you suspect that, ladies, you may have him searched.
DAW As the custom is, by a jury of physicians. 60
LA FOOLE Yes, faith, ‘twill be brave.
MOROSE Oh me, must I undergo that!
MISTRESS OTTER No, let women search him, madam: we can do it ourselves.
MOROSE Out on me, worse!
EPICOENE No, ladies, you shall not need, I’ll take him with all his faults.
MOROSE Worst of all!
CLERIMONT Why, then ‘tis no divorce, doctor, if she consent not? 70
CUTBEARD No, if the man be frigidus, it is de parte uxoris that we grant libellum divortii, in the law.
OTTER Ay, it is the same in theology.
MOROSE Worse, worse than worst!
TRUEWIT Nay, sir, be not utterly disheartened, we have yet a small relic of hope left, as near as our comfort is blown out. Clerimont, produce your brace of knights. What was that, master parson, you told me in errore qualitatis, e’en now? (Aside to DAUPHINE) Dauphine, whisper the bride that she carry it as if she were guilty and ashamed. 81
OTTER Marry, sir, in errore qualitatis (which master doctor did forbear to urge) if she be found corrupta, that is, vitiated or broken up, that was pro virgine desponsa, espoused for a maid—
MOROSE What then, sir?
OTTER It doth dirimere contractum and irritum reddere too.
TRUEWIT If this be true, we are happy again, sir, once more. Here are an honourable brace of knights that shall affirm so much. 91
DAW Pardon us, good Master Clerimont.
LA FOOLE You shall excuse us, Master Clerimont.
CLERIMONT Nay, you must make it good now, knights, there is no remedy; I’ll eat no words for you, nor no men: you know you spoke it to me?
DAW Is this gentleman-like, sir?
TRUEWIT (Aside to DAW) Jack Daw, he’s worse than Sir Amorous: fiercer a great deal. (Aside to LA FOOLE) Sir Amorous, beware, there be ten Daws in this Clerimont. 101
LA FOOLE I’ll confess it, sir.
DAW Will you, Sir Amorous? Will you wound reputation?
LA FOOLE I am resolved.
TRUEWIT So should you be too, Jack Daw: what should keep you off? She is but a woman, and in disgrace.
He’ll be glad on’t.
DAW Will he? I thought he would ha’ been angry.
CLERIMONT You will dispatch, knights; it must be done, i’ faith. 111
TRUEWIT Why, an’ it must, it shall, sir, they say.
They’ll ne’er go back. (Aside to DAW and LA FOOLE)
Do not tempt his patience.
DAW It is true indeed, sir.
LA FOOLE Yes, I assure you, sir.
MOROSE What is true, gentlemen? What do you assure me?
DAW That we have known your bride, sir—
LA FOOLE In good fashion. She was our mistress, or so—
CLERIMONT Nay, you must be plain, knights, as you were to me. 122
OTTER Ay, the question is, if you have camaliter or no.
LA FOOLE Carnaliter? What else, sir?
OTTER It is enough: a plain nullity.
EPICOENE I am undone, I am undone!
MOROSE Oh, let me worship and adore you, gentlemen!
EPICOENE I am undone!
MOROSE Yes, to my hand, I thank these knights; master parson, let me thank you otherwise. 130
Gives OTTER money
CENTAURE And ha’ they confessed?
MAVIS Now out upon ‘em, informers!
TRUEWIT You see what creatures you may bestow your favours on, madams.
HAUGHTY I would except against ‘em as beaten knights, wench, and not good witnesses in law.
MISTRESS OTTER Poor gentlewoman, how she takes it!
HAUGHTY Be comforted, Morose, I love you the better for’t.
CENTAURE So do I, I protest. 140
CUTBEARD But, gentlemen, you have not known her since matrimonium?
DAW Not today, master doctor.
LA FOOLE No, sir, not today.
CUTBEARD Why, then I say, for any act before, the matrimonium is good and perfect, unless the worshipful bridegroom did precisely, before witness, demand if she were virgo ante nuptias.
EPICOENE No, that he did not, I assure you, master doctor. 150
CUTBEARD If he cannot prove that, it is ratum conjugium, notwithstanding the premises. And they do no way impedire. And this is my sentence, this I pronounce.
OTTER I am of master doctor’s resolution too, sir, if you made not that demand, ante nuptias.
MOROSE Oh my heart! Wilt thou break? Wilt thou break? This is worst of all worst worsts, that hell could have devised! Marry a whore! And so much noise! 160
DAUPHINE Come, I see now plain confederacy in this doctor and this parson, to abuse a gentleman. You study his affliction. I pray be gone, companions. And gentlemen, I begin to suspect you for having parts with ‘em. Sir, will it please you hear me?
MOROSE Oh, do not talk to me, take not from me the pleasure of dying in silence, nephew.
DAUPHINE Sir, I must speak to you. I have been long your poor despised kinsman, and many a hard thought has strengthened you against me; but now it shall appear if either I love you or your peace, and prefer them to all the world beside. I will not be long or grievous to you, sir. If I free you of this unhappy match absolutely and instantly after all this trouble, and almost in your despair, now— 175
MOROSE (It cannot be.)
DAUPHINE Sir, that you be never troubled with a murmur of it more, what shall I hope for, or deserve of you?
MOROSE Oh, what thou wilt, nephew! Thou shalt deserve me and have me. 180
DAUPHINE Shall I have your favour perfect to me, and love hereafter?
MOROSE That and anything beside. Make thine own conditions. My whole estate is thine. Manage it, I will become thy ward.
DAUPHINE Nay, sir, I will not be so unreasonable.
EPICOENE Will Sir Dauphine be mine enemy too?
DAUPHINE You know I have been long a suitor to you, uncle, that out of your estate, which is fifteen hundred a year, you would allow me but five hundred during life, and assure the rest upon me after: to which I have often by myself and friends tendered you a writing to sign, which you would never consent, or incline to. If you please but to effect it now— 195
MOROSE Thou shalt have it, nephew. I will do it, and more.
DAUPHINE If I quit you not presently and forever of this cumber, you shall have power instantly, afore all these, to revoke your act, and I will become whose slave you will give me to, forever. 201
MOROSE Where is the writing? I will seal to it, that, or to a blank, and write thine own conditions.
EPICOENE Oh me, most unfortunate wretched gentlewoman!
HAUGHTY Will Sir Dauphine do this?
EPICOENE Good sir, have some compassion on me.
MOROSE Oh, my nephew knows you belike; away, crocodile! 209
CENTAURE He does it not, sure, without good ground.
DAUPHINE Here, sir.Gives him papers
MOROSE Come, nephew; give me the pen. I will subscribe to anything, and seal to what thou wilt, for my deliverance. Thou art my restorer. Here, I deliver it thee as my deed. If there be a word in it lacking, or writ with false orthography, I protest before—I will not take the advantage.Returns papers
DAUPHINE Then here is your release, sir: (he takes off EPICOENE’s peruke) you have married a boy: a gentleman’s son that I have brought up this half year, at my great charges, and for this composition which I have now made with you. What say you, master doctor? This is justum impedimentum, I hope, error personae? 224
OTTER Yes, sir, in primo gradu.
CUTBEARD In primo gradu.
DAUPHINE I thank you, good Doctor Cutbeard, and Parson Otter. (He pulls off their beards and disguise) You are beholden to ‘em, sir, that have taken this pains for you; and my friend, Master Truewit, who enabled ‘em for the business. Now you may go in and rest, be as private as you will, sir. I’ll not trouble you, till you trouble me with your funeral, which I care not how soon it come. (Exit MOROSE) Cutbeard, I’ll make your lease good. Thank me not, but with your leg, Cutbeard. And Tom Otter, your princess shall be reconciled to you. How now, gentlemen! Do you look at me? 238
CLERIMONT A boy.
DAUPHINE Yes, Mistress Epicoene.
TRUEWIT Well, Dauphine, you have lurched your friends of the better half of the garland, by concealing this part of the plot! But much good do it thee, thou deserv’st it, lad. And Clerimont, for thy unexpected bringing in these two to confession, wear my part of it freely. Nay, Sir Daw and Sir La Foole, you see the gentlewoman that has done you the favours! We are all thankful to you, and so should the womankind here, specially for lying on her, though not with her! You meant so, I am sure? But that we have stuck it upon you today, in your own imagined persons, and so lately, this Amazon, the champion of the sex, should beat you now thriftily for the common slanders which ladies receive from such cuckoos as you are. You are they that, when no merit or fortune can make you hope to enjoy their bodies, will yet lie with their reputations, and make their fame suffer. Away, you common moths of these and all ladies’ honours. Go, travail to make legs and faces, and come home with some new matter to be laughed at: you deserve to live in an air as corrupted as that wherewith you feed rumour. (Exeunt DAW and LA FOOLE) Madams, you are mute upon this new metamorphosis! But here stands she that has vindicated your fames. Take heed of such insectae hereafter. And let it not trouble you that you have discovered any mysteries to this young gentleman. He is (a’ most) of years, and will make a good visitant within this twelvemonth. In the meantime we’ll all undertake for his secrecy, that can speak so well of his silence. (Coming forward) Spectators, if you like this comedy, rise cheerfully, and now Morose is gone in, clap your hands. It may be that noise will cure him, at least please him. 274
Exeunt
THE END
This comedy was first
acted in the year
1609
By the Children of her Majesty’s
Revels
The principal comedians were
| Nathan Field | William Barksted | |
| Giles Carey | William Penn | |
| Hugh Attawell | Richard Allin | |
| John Smith | John Blaney |
With the allowance of the Master of Revels
Title page woodcut of the first edition of The Roaring Girl (1611) reproduced with permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Shelfmark Mal 246 (1)
Sir Francis Stuart: ‘a learned gentleman’, one of the fashionable ‘heroes and wits’ (John Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898) II.239) who met at the Mermaid tavern; he was grandson of Mary, Qyeen of Scots’s half-brother, James
2 example: i.e. comparative instances from the past
3 dumb piece: a) silent play (because its performance had been suppressed by the authorities); b) silent woman (depreciatory: ‘piece’ suggests a woman as a sexual object). by cause: because
6 makes: means
8 presently: now
10 fame: reputation
11 undertaker: guarantor; also, political ‘fixer’
12 censure: judge
13 simplicity: straightforwardness
16 accusation: i.e. that Epicoene contained an allusion to the engagement that the bogus Prince of Moldavia claimed he had entered into with Lady Arbella Stuart, James I’s cousin; see second prologue, below, and V.i.26n
1 MOROSE: peevish, stubborn, fretful (from Latin morosus)
2 DAUPHINE EUGENIE: ‘well-born heir’, from Greek (ευγενιος: well-born), and dauphin (title of king of France’s eldest son). The feminising of ‘dauphin’ by the addition of the final ‘e’ is indicative of the ‘epicene’ nature of this character, the same can be said of both La Foole’s and Madame Centaure’s names. ‘Eugenie’ also suggests French génie (wit). The connection with the French is significant, as this indicates both fashion and sexual unnaturalness in the play
3 CLERIMONT: echoes French clairement (clearly, plainly)
5 EPICOENE: having the characteristics of both sexes
6 JOHN DAW: i.e. jackdaw, a bird known for its ‘loquacity and thievish propensities’ (OED); ‘daw’ also meant a simpleton or fool
servant: lover devoted to his mistress
7 LA FOOLE: the feminine form of the name; see note to 1. 2 above
8 OTTER: amphibious animal (see I.iv.26), creature of two elements; thus suggestive of indeterminacy
12 CENTAURE: mythical creature, half man, half horse; suggestive of wildness and animal lustfulness collegiates: belonging to a college, i.e. a dub or society
13 MAVIS: a song thrush; eds also cite sense from John Florio’s A World of Words (1598): ‘an ill face’
14-15 pretenders: claimants, aspirants (to membership of the ladies’ college)
1-2 the art … people: echoing the opening lines of the prologue to Andria by the Roman comic poet Terence
3 bays: fame (from wreath of bay laurel given to poets)
4-5 sect … particular likings: perhaps an allusion to playwrights (such as Marston and Chapman) who wrote only for the ‘particular likings’ (special tastes) of the private theatre audiences; Jonson himself wrote for both private and public playhouses; see Introduction
8 those make: those who make
10 cunning: learned, expert
11 entreaty: entertainment
12 all relish not: not everything is to their taste
16 custard: open pie of fruit or meat, covered with a spiced and sweetened mixture of broth or milk and eggs
17 meats: dishes
20 cates: food, especially delicacies
21-2 none … ladies: proverbial: ‘dear bought and far fetched are dainties for ladies’ (Tilley 1950: 138; D12)
23 city-wires: fashionable city women; wires were used to support their ruffs and hair
24 Whitefriars: a reference to the theatre in which Epicoene was performed; also the area in which the theatre was located, notorious as a refuge for thieves and prostitutes since it was outside the jurisdiction of the city authorities
27 ordinaries: eating houses
broken meat: fragments of food left after a meal
29 her: i.e. herself
occasioned … exception: see Dedication, 1. 16n
1 scene: stage
1-2 The ends … delight: famous Horatian maxim (Ars Poetica, 343-4)
3 still: always
4 So: as long as
touched: accused
So … crimes: maxim from Martial, Epigrams, X.xxxiii
7 true: real, relating to an actual event
8 maker: poet (literal meaning of Greek ποιητης)
9-10 poet … feigned: from Horace, Ars Poetica, 338
12 application: interpreting play or literary text as referring to real contemporary events and people; a popular pastime of London audiences
13 or … or: either … or
SD making … ready: dressing
1 perfect: i.e. perfectly memorised
7 dangerous … poet: because poets (including playwrights) satirised their follies, they were regarded with scorn: ‘He is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were a most contemptible nickname’ (Jonson, Discoveries,11. 284-5, p. 529, in Donaldson 1985)
9 wot: know
argument: subject
10 under: less than (with sexual pun; see ‘ingle’, 1. 27)
17 an’: if
19 innocent: simpleton; also, child
22 fain: obliged
22-3 lest I … rushes: i.e. in case you gain sexual maturity too early. Clerimont suggests this by referring to the breaking (and thus lowering) of the boy’s voice, when it would be found ‘in my lady’s rushes’, i.e. at floor level (rushes were used as a floor covering). His voice is significant because he sings, and Clerimont does not wish him to lose his treble. The phrase also has obvious sexual connotations
27 abroad: away from home
ingle: boy kept for homosexual purposes, catamite
33 article o’ your time: moment
37 idle: vain, useless
Hearken: inquire
38-40 Puppy … Whitemane: ‘horses o’ the time’ (Jonson’s marginal note)
40 spend aloud: talk noisily; Holdsworth suggests ‘spend ostentatiously’
45 leave: leave off
54 term: when the law courts were in session
58 fineliest: most perfectly or ingeniously
60 still: continually
62 disease: i.e. discontent, caused by lack of patronage
67 Plutarch’s Morals: the Moralia, widely read in the Renaissance
68 some … fellow: Seneca, the Roman stoic philosopher, to whose De Brevitate Vitae Truewit has been alluding
70 pins … feathers … rushes: trivialities; ‘ladies’ are also included in this category
71 stoicity: stoicism (Clerimont’s coinage)
73 take: succeed
85-6 Wits and Braveries: gallants, noted respectively for witry talk and fashionable dress
86-7 cry down, or up: decry or applaud
94 pieced: a) patched; b) pieced together
100-11 Still … heart: translation of anonymous lyric, Semper munditias, semper, Basilissa, decores, in the Anthologia Latina, first published 1572
100 Still: always
107 simplicity: lack of adornment
109 taketh: captivates
110 adulteries: adulterations
113 dressing: adornment
118 discover: reveal, as also in I.i.130
120 profess: declare
122-48 derived from Ovid, Ars Amatoria, III, 11. 209-47
131-4 How … burnished: Aldgate, the main eastern gate to the city of London, was rebuilt in 1609. The new gate had a statue on each side, one representing Peace, the other Charity
135 servants: lovers
144 prodigy: monstrous thing
155 Sick o’ the uncle: pun on ‘sick of the mother’ (hysteria)
161 made: made out to be
been: entered
161-73 derived from Libanius, Dedamation XXVI, sections 8 and 36
162-3 fishwives and orangewomen: notoriously noisy street-vendors
articles: terms and conditions
165 broom-men: either street-sweepers or broom-sellers
166 stiffly: resolutely
costardmonger: fruit-seller
169 hammerman: metal-worker
brazier: worker in brass
172 Shrove Tuesday’s riot: traditionally the time that apprentices went on the rampage, wrecking theatres and brothels
173 quit: acquitted
175 hautboys: oboes (French hautbois)
176 waits: bands of street musicians, maintained at the public charge
177 ward: district of the city
178 This youth: i.e. Clerimont’s boy
practised: played a trick
179 bellman: night-watchman, who called the hours, ringing a bell
182 lie: live
187 breathe: exercise briskly (usually used of horses) resty: sluggish (used of horses)
188 virtue: special quality (i.e. obsession with noise); also ‘vigoue
189 bearward: keeper of bears for baiting
191 cried his games: announced the bear-baiting
194 prize: fencing-match
197 wag: mischievous boy
200 sickness: plague, particularly virulent in 1609 (the year Epicoene was written)
201 perpetuity of ringing: a reference to the tolling of bells for those dead of the plague
204 turned … man: dismissed a servant
208 trunk: speaking-tube
3 prodigy: monster
4 once: once and for all
11 acts and monuments: the first edition (1563) of john Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was entided Acts and Monuments. This anti-Catholic history of the Christian church made special reference to the Protestant martyrs of Mary Tudor’s reign (1553-8) and proved very popular, going into four editions during the author’s lifetime (1516-87) alone
12 ‘Slid: God’s (eye)lid; a common oath
13 that purpose: i.e. Morose’s plan to disinherit Dauphine. gives thee law: authorises you
16 Tower Wharf: where guns fired a salute on the anniversary of James VI of Scodand’s coronation as James I of England
22 more: greater
26 hearken him out: search out
27 quality: rank
38 oppress: overwhelm
39 woman … barber: both traditionally noted for being talkative
41 knack: snapping or clicking noise
43 chief of his counsel: his main confidant
50 give out: put about
51 treaty: negotiation
54 suffrage: consent
56 fant’sy: ‘fancy, imagination; also, fantasy-whim, desire, delusion’ (Procter)
lie upon: be ordained by
58 innocent: fool, simpleton
59 groom: servant
got: begot
64 confound: dumbfound, amaze
69 to her: against her
72 only: pre-eminent
83 pretends only to: makes a claim to
9 heartily: sincerely
10 contend: dispute
12 thither: i.e. to visit Epicoene
14 Decameron of sport: ‘masterpiece of fun’ (Herford and Simpson). The Duameron (1349-51), a collection of one hundred tales written by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), is much concerned with the intrigues and follies of romantic love. The Decameron had great influence on English authors, and translations of many of the tales had appeared in William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1566-7), a volume on which many contemporary dramatists drew
fallen out: happened
18 free: uninhibited in her speech, and sexually
21 mutines why: rebels because
24 Some water: some eds gloss this as a call for a boat to carry them on the river (a common form of travel); however, since Clerimont entered in l.i ‘making himself ready’, the call for water could also relate to these doubtless elaborate rituals of washing and dressing
27 manikin: little man, puppet
35-6 give plays: pays for private performances by professional theatre companies (eds)
38 Strand: street in central London where many of the gentry lived
39 china-houses: shops selling goods from China and other eastern countries; fashionable meeting places at this time
40 Exchange: the New Exchange, with its many fashionable milliners’ and jewellers’shops, was situated in the Strand and opened in 1609
42 toys: trifles, trumpery
banquet: course of sweetmeats, fruit and wine
43-4 their women: serving-women of the ladies
44 bait: a) refreshment, snack; b) food as a lure (using the women to catch the ladies) (Holdsworth)
46 christen: Christian
53 marshal: usher
54 truncheon: a) marshal’s baton; b) cudgel
56 meat: food
58 with a breath: all in one breath
1 ‘Save: God save you
4 honested: honoured
13 dispense with me: excuse me (affectedly), though Clerimont’s reponse plays with the sense of ‘do without me’
17 terrible boys: ‘roaring boys’ were gangs of swaggering young men ready to fight at the least provocation
24 gamester: player of a game; in this case, bear-baiting
27 china-woman: owner of a china-house
28 rare: pun on a) excellent and b) infrequent
36 in: ‘underway’ (Holdsworth)
42 coat: coat of arms (though also suggests the motley coat of a jester)
42-3 or … azure … gules: heraldic terms for gold, blue and red
44 noted: celebrated
sometimes: in former times (as well as the usual meaning)
48 god wits: marsh birds, seen as a delicacy
61 after: i.e. after that, I was
62 gentleman-usher: gentleman who serves a person of higher rank
Ireland: Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1566-1601), had created so many knights in his 1599 campaign to subjugate Ireland that he was accused of cheapening the title. A group of these newly created knights formed Essex’s escort on his unauthorised return to England in September 1599, after which Elizabeth held him in detention
65 Island Voyage: Essex’s expedition to the Azores in 1597, which aimed to defeat Spain’s Irish Armada, ended in failure and recrimination
Caliz: Cadiz, captured from the Spanish by Essex and the English fleet in 1596
69 eye o’ the land: i.e. London
70 take up: borrow money (with interest on the loan)
73 half: partner
74 commodity: ‘the practice by which borrowers had to receive part of a loan in worthless goods, which were bought back by the moneylender at a much lower price’ (Procter)
76 take up: buy
81-2 have credit afore: take precedence to
83 wind-fucker: kestrel; used as a term of opprobrium
85 rook: simpleton
1 compendious: expeditious, direct
2 trunk: speaking-tube
5 impertinent: irrelevant
8 ring: door-knocker
SD breaches: breaks in the text
still: always
makes legs: bows
14 brickbats: pieces of brick
15 But: only
17 state: dignified behaviour
discretion: judgement
20 presently: immediately
32 doctrine: teaching
impulsion: instigation, prompting
33 stand by: stand aside
35 still: always
SD winds: blows
44 prodigy: monster
50 post: express messenger
3 Fishes: i.e. as dumb as fishes Pythagoreans: an ascetic brotherhood, following the philosophy of the 6th-century BC Greek philospher, Pythagoras. On joining the sect, a vow of silence was taken (to last for five years) for the purpose of self-examination
4 Harpocrates: god of silence; the club was, through a confusion, acquired from Hercules
6-7 venture upon: hazard an approach to
9 Oh men! Oh manners!: echo of Cicero’s exclamation in In Catilinam, I.z, ‘O tempora, O mores’ (O times! O manners’)
10 impudence: shamelessness
13 compeer: equal
18-45, 119-51 much of Truewit’s diatribe against women and marriage is adapted from Juvenal’s Satires, VI
20 companion: fellow (contemptuous)
23 fall: ebb-tide
25 Bow: St Mary-le-Bow, in Cheapside
26 braver: more splendid Paul’s: the old St Paul’s Cathedral, later destroyed by fire in 1666
32 sublimate: mercuric chloride, used as rat poison
33-4 fly … arse: in spider and fly fights, a popular pastime, a straw was thrust into the fly’s tail
37 mad folks: Bedlam (derivative of Bethlehem) hospital for the insane was visited for entertainment
39 Etheldred: Ethelred the Unready (978-1016), the father of Edward the Confessor (1042-66)
46 cozened: cheated
48 reversion from: right of succession to an estate or office away from
49 Bastarded: rendered illegitimate
51 itch of: hankering after
53 made … upon: murdered
54 vitiated: corrupted
58 facinorous: wicked, criminal
65-7 vaulter … jig … weapon: with sexual innuendoes
71 obnoxious: liable
72 vegetous: lively
73 roses: rosettes decorating the shoe
74-5 be … buy: ‘seek their company and pay for’ (Holdsworth)
78 proud: a) arrogant; b) spirited; c) lascivious
humorous: capricious
82 parrot: see, for example, the learned Lady Wouldbe, wife of Sir Pol, in Jonson’s Volpone (1606)
86 precise: puritanical
87 silenced brethren: Puritan clergy who lost their licences to preach in 1604, after the Hampton Court conference, which was convened to try to settle points of dispute between the Church party and the Puritans; see Jonson’s The Alchemist (1610) III.i.38
88 wood: crowd (from Latin silva, crowd or collection); punning on ‘wood’ meaning ‘mad’
89 exercises: religious devotions
105 charge: expense
109 eagerliest: most fiercely
decline: avert
111 she-friend, or cousin: ‘both terms could mean “mistress” or “strumpet”, and cousin was also a euphemism for lover’ (Holdsworth)
118 tire-women: dressmakers
sempsters: tailors (male or female)
119 feathermen: sellers of feathers (such as Tiltyard in The Roaring Girl)
121 mercer: dealer in costly fabrics
122 so: as long as
124 stateswoman: ‘pretender to knowledge of affairs of state’ (Procter)
125 Salisbury: where fashionable race-meetings were held
Bath: fashionable for its medicinal baths
progress: monarch’s state visit to different regions of the kingdom
126 censure: judge
127-8 Daniel with Spenser: Samuel Daniel was an Elizabethan poet sometimes compared with Edmund Spenser by his contemporaries; Jonson himself did so, to the detriment of Daniel; see Herford and Simpson I.132
tother youth: most eds take this to be Shakespeare, though other suggestions have been Samuel Daniel, Thomas Dekker, or John Marston
129 cunning: skilful
130 knots: intricate problems
131 state: main issue
133 state: politics
137 conjuror: astrologer cunning woman: wise woman, fortune-teller
139 servant: lover
142 precedence: ‘right of preceding others at formal social occasions’ (Holdsworth)
145 art: i.e. fortune-telling
148 reeking: steaming (from exertion)
149 lies in: is in labour (as in childbirth)
150 birdlime: sticky substance used to snare birds; here, used of cosmetic ingredient
rises: some eds emend to ‘rinses’, on the bas is that this is closer to the sense in Juvenal; most, however, agree that ‘rises’ is as suggestive, and has the advantage of introducing an ironic parallel with ‘lies in’
151 fucus: cosmetic face-wash
154 conveyance: legal trans fer of property from one person to another (in this example, to prevent it becoming the property of the new husband)
155 states: estates
156 friend: lover
160 devised: contrived
169 give me physic: many barbers were also surgeons and medical practitioners
1 and: if
2 charges: cost
8 shadows: parasites, toadies
This trumpeter: i.e. Daw
12 fooling: acting foolishly
17 glories: a) triumphs; b) boasts (Holdsworth)
24 madrigal: love lyric
25-40 Daw’s lyric comprises Renaissance platitudes; compare Pierre Charron’s Of Wisdom, trans. S. Lennard (1612) and Anon., England’s Parnassus (1600) (eds)
33 rare: pun on a) fine, and b) infrequent; see I.iv.28n
39 beauty’: the apostrophe indicates the elision of the second syllable
42 chimes: jingles
cries tink: tinkles
close: conclusion of a musical phrase
46 The dar on: a scoff: i.e ‘a fig for’ (with a pun on his own name)
Plutarch, and Seneca: see I.i.67-8n
50 essayists: Jonson himself had a low opinion of essayists; see his Timber, or Discoveries (1640) 719ff
sentences: maxims
58-61 Aristotle … seldom: Partridge notes that, ironically, Daw’s comments are true in ways of which he himself is unaware; see pp. 181-2 of his edition
58 commonplace: trivial; but also, through Latin locus communis, a universal truth
59 discourser: talker (pejoratively); but also a writer, like Plato, of dis courses
Thucydides: c. 460-c. 400 BC; greatest Greek historian
Livy: 59 BC-AD 17; Roman historian. His name suggests ‘livid’ (Latin liveo), blue or black, the colour of melancholy, the dry humour (Partridge)
60 Tacitus: c. AD 55-c. 117; Roman historian. His name means ‘secret, hidden’
64 curriers: groomers of horses
chines: backbones. In The Iliad, VII.321, Ajax is given the whole chine of an ox by Agamemnon
65 dunging … bees: reference to Virgil’s poem on agriculture and animal husbandry, The Georgics, I.79-81 and IV
68-71 Pindarus … the rest: a random jumble of major and more obscure Greek and Latin poets, together with an Italian humanist (Politian)
75 character: character sketch (at I.ii.72-91)
81-2 Syntagma … Bible: titles of books that Daw takes to be authors’ names. The first two titles are the same book, collections of Roman law; the third is the collection of canon law; the fourth the polyglot Bible sponsored by Philip II of Spain
87 Dutchman: the English thought of the Dutch as fat, owing to their liking of butter and alcohol
90-1 Vatablus, Pomponatius, Symancha: minor sixteenth-century scholars
93 simple: absolutely (with pun)
97 extraordinary: outside the regular staff (with pun)
98 in ordinary: full-time (with pun on ‘undistinguished’)
99 wants: requires (with pun on ‘lacks’)
102 dotes: natural endowments; also, follies
113 live by: earn their living by; not considered appropriate behaviour for a gentleman. Dauphine then alludes to the other meaning: ‘gain immortality by’
117 Sidney: Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), soldier and scholar. Author of Arcadia (1590), Astrophil and Stella (1591) and An Apology for Poetry (1595). His works (published posthumously by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke) were highly influential
119 professed: declared
132 conceive: understand (with pun on procreation)
136 common cause of mankind: ‘procreation’ (Procter)
137 consentire videtur: she seems to consent
gravida: pregnant
6 forbid the banns: formally objected to the proposed marrtage
12 post: messenger
none: i.e. not a post (or block of wood, and thus silent)
15 incommodities: disadvantages
16 Gorgon: one of three female monsters of Greek myth whose gaze turned people to stone
20 stupid: stupefied; also, slow-witted
33 presaged: gave warning of (see I.iii.1-11)
42-3 now … speak: proverbial
44 put upon: a) imposed on; b) trick
46-7 for the requital of: in return for
48 conditions: provision
52 did: played
56 cause: fault
67 wot: know
presently: immediately
77 was: which was
79 Mere: sheer
providence: foresight
81 genius: attendant spirit
87 event: outcome
110 delicate: exquisite
117 quarter-feast: ‘feast given every quarter-day when La Foole’s rents have been paid in; or feast given every quarter sessions, during the town’s social season’ (Procter)
119-20 out … wit: ‘lose his jest which reveals the natural capacity of his wit to the full, even at the expense of his best friends’ (Procter)
129 jure civili: civil law (see II.iii.81)
132-3 for Sir John Daw: for all Sir John Daw cares
139 mince: minimise
148 dog: proverbially melancholy; also, a term of abuse
149 hog-louse: wood-louse
152 picktooth: toothpick; a fashionable accessory
163 mere: absolute
mole: proverbially blind
164 mushroom: upstart
5 family: household
12 prefer: recommend
17 condition: disposition
19 favour: beauty
20 her temper … blood: i.e. her kind of beauty suits my passions exactly
21 without: in external appearance
22 try her within: test her character (with sexual innuendo)
24 rare: of uncommon excellence
27 just length of: ‘exact attunement to’ (Procter)
30 motion: emotion (with innuendo)
32 courtless: uncourtly
35 audacious: spirited; but also suggesting ‘shameless’
40 these: i.e. Cutbeard and Mute
doctrine: instruction
44 plausible: agreeable
45 jump right: tally
52 girds: gibes
53 bed-fere: bedfellow
54 impair: injury
55 carriage: behaviour
59 circumstance: ado
60 affect: aim at
61 conceited: witty
63 conscience: inward knowledge
69 happy: fortunate
71 touch: trial
73 heifer: bride (literally, a cow that has not yet calfed); see Judges 14.18: ‘And he said unto them, If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle’
76 lineners: drapers
77-8 French intelligences: news from France (of the latest fashions)
80 affect: like
83 cut: decorative slash in sleeve to reveal lining beneath
84 wire: to support hair or ruff
knots: bows
85 roses: see II.ii.73n
100 presently: immediately
101 impertinent: irrelevant
111 letter: i.e. of commendation
114 to execution: ‘as far as seizure by writ of possession (for debt)’ (Procter)
115 twelvepenny ordinary: one of the more expensive eating-houses
it: archaic form of its or his, used in baby talk; in this passage, used contemptuously
118 Coleharbour: or Coldharborough, a seedy area that had become a sanctuary for debtors and vagrants
119 borrowing: begging
122 Cranes … Bear: the Three Cranes on Upper Thames Street, and the Bear at the southern end of London
Bridge: popular taverns
125 forbear: to abstain from enforcing the payment of money after it has become due
126 tenth name: ‘tenth man to be paid off (who therefore gets very litde)’ (Procter)
127 commodity: worthless goods borrowers obliged to take as part of loan; see I.iv.74n pipkins: small earthenware jugs
129 brown: a) coarse bread; b) dark complexioned; both seen as inferior options
132 how: pun on name of Edmund Howe, the public chronicler
134 fool to: trick; Holdsworth suggests ‘play the fool in front of
136 Constantinople, Ireland, or Virginia: places in which people tried to recoup lost fortunes or escape the law
137-8 Dol Tearsheet, or Kate Common: prostitutes. Dol Tearsheet is in 2 Henry IV; compare Dol Common in The Alchemist
5 appointed him hither: arranged to meet him here
6 it: i.e. he
11-13 omnia secunda … saltat senex: Latin proverb: ‘All’s well; the old boy is cutting capers’ (Herford and Simpson)
15-16 silenced ministers: see II.ii.87n
18 purely: perfecdy; also, ‘in the Puritan manner’
19 Cum privilegio: with authority
25 bonis avibus: the omens being favourable
26 Latin: since many barbers were also surgeons, such an affectation was not unlikely
32 translate: transfer
33 bride-ale: wedding feast
36 meat: food
38 several: different
39 the other place: i.e. Otter’s house
41 I’ll … for: I can guarantee you about college honours: i.e. the collegiates (see III.iii.77)
43 sleeked: ironed, smoothed
61 Sphinx: asker of riddles
63 Bear Garden: bear- and bull-baiting arena on Bankside, next to Paris Garden; see Introduction
65 cups: their lids were shaped like these animals’ heads
68 degrees: sizes
74 speak: reveal things about
1 pauca verba: few words
4-5 were best: had best
5 with: along with
7 Shrove Tuesday: see I.i.172n
8 velvet cap: worn for a holiday, such as Whitsun
10 under correction: subject to correction; used to suggest deference
13 humour: characteristic oddity; here an affectation of a humour, according to Jonson’s own criteria (see Jonson, Every Man Out of His Humour (1599), Induction, ll. 88-117)
15 rerum natura: here, ‘the natural order of things’; more usually (as at III.ii.6) ‘the world’
16 ‘Fore me: before me (a common asseveration)
20 discretion: judgement
good polity: well-ordered society
23 horsed: with sexual innuendo (‘mount’, ‘ride’)
24-5 Poetarum Pegasus: the poets’ Pegasus
25-6 Jupiter … bull: Jupiter assumed the shape of a bull when he carried off Europa, with whom he was enamoured
33 instrument: formal legal agreement
37 peremptory: self-willed
41 horse-meat: horse fodder
41-2 three suits: a servant’s allowance; see King Lear II.ii.14-15; III.iv.124-5
43 bands: collars
44 mar’l: marvel
50 Banqueting House: at Whitehall, where bull- and bear-baits were sometimes held
51 Ned Whiting, or George Stone: champion bears
53, 59 stave her off … worry: terms from bear-baiting
56-7 buff-doublet: leather jacket, as worn by ordinary soldiers
57 points: laces
62 distinctly, and with good morality: affected ways of saying ‘well’, ‘properly’
63 exhibition: allowance
3 obnoxious, or difficil: offensive or troublesome (affectedly)
6 rerum natura: see III.i.15n
7 sic visum superis: as those above decree
8 intimate: ‘either “get intimate with”, an affected way of saying “go and join (your animals)”; or, threateningly, “start that topic again …” (“Intimare, to intimate … to proclaim, set abroach”, Florio, 1611)’ (Procter)
9 toasts and butter: the correct food to serve with woodcock; but also meant milksop
10 woodcocks: the birds, but ‘woodcock’ also meant fool
16 Anabaptist: here, loosely, ‘puritan’; more strictly, a Puritan sect which rejected infant baptism, in favour of voluntary adult baptism
20 briefly: shortly
25 my subject: i.e. Otter
29 resolve: assure (affectedly)
36 governs: determines
42 cross: hindrance
43 omnia bene: all’s well
43-4 Twas … hinges: things have never run more smoothly
47 What … vicar?: what sort of vicar is he?
49-50 as … picked: ‘i.e. huskily; picked cleaned out, cleared’ (Procter)
52-3 omnem … lapidem: leave no stone unturned
55 Gramercy: thanks
57 ad manum: at hand
66 pageant: procession at the installation of the new Lord Mayor
70 Artemidorus: second-century Greek author of a treatise on the meaning of dreams
81 Ware: 20 miles north of London; notorious for amorous assignations
82-3 crimson satin … velvet: fashionable and expensive fabrics, usually associated with the nobility doublet: normally a man’s garment
84 shift me: change my clothes
leash: three (hunting term)
87 and: if
88 fatal: ominous
101 name: credit
of the place: for providing the place
4 put i’ the head: made to think
22 jovial: cheerful
25 property: tool, means
28 the dor: a snub; see II.iii-46n
29 feeling of: sensitivity to
33 make … again: ‘recoup your losses (as in gambling)’ (Procter)
34 saver: ‘a gambling term, “one who escapes loss, though without gain” (Dr Johnson)’ (Procter)
i’ the man: of your manhood; with pun on ‘main’, meaning ‘main point, turning the tables on La Foole; also, fixed score in the dice game, hazard, which if thrown by the caster enabled the other players to regain their stake money’ (Procter)
56 provision: preparations
58 his own: his true character
62 quit: repay
63 make one: join in
68 sewer: chief attendant at a meal who supervised the setting of the table, the seating of the guests and the serving of the dishes
69 bare-headed: i.e. like a servant
70 second: follow
79 bare: bare-headed
87 noise: band
93 solemn: a) ceremonious; b) gloomy
95 emulation: contention, rivalry
97 expostulate: declare their grievances
99 purse-net: bag-shaped net with draw-string opening, used for catching rabbits
102 tradition: i.e. handing over
108 pestling: crushing (as with pestle)
109 practices: plots
110 train: line of gunpowder, laid to detonate a mine; also, a snare or trick
112 carry: manage
115 festinate: quickly
116 tire: headdress
126 no decorum: unseemly
128 decora: beautiful
130 Pasiphae … bull: Pasiphae was married to Minos, king of Crete. When he refused to sacrifice a bull to Neptune, the god punished him by making Pasiphae fall in love with the bull. Their offspring was the Minotaur
131 Callisto: loved by Jupiter (by whom she had a son, Areas); changed by Juno into a bear, and after her death into a constellation (the Great Bear) by Jupiter. The story is recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, II-401-507
134-5 ex … Metamorphosi: out of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; the story of Pasiphae in fact comes from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, I.195-326
1 angel: gold coin, worth about ten shillings
2 manage: management
3-4 double to: twice as much as
8 praesto: at your service
10 catches: part-songs, rounds
11 cloth-workers: who customarily sang whilst working
17 mulct: fine
30 gravity: dignity
31 pretend: claim
33 civil coat: sober profession
38 motion: puppet
40 innocent: half-wit
hospital: i.e. Bedlam; see II.ii.37n
41 hands thus: probably loosely crossed in front, indicating obedience or idiocy (eds)
plaice mouth: small, puckered mouth, like a fish’s
43 A manifest woman: i.e. manifestly a woman
46 bate: lessen
47 writ: designated myself
48 stock: fund, or capital sum; also, dowry
competent: appropriate, sufficient
estate: status
52 knaves: servants
55 coacted: compulsory
56 family: household
58 Penthesilea: queen of the Amazons, who fought against the Greeks at Troy; see III.v.43
Semiramis: Assyrian warrior-queen. After her husband’s death, she dressed in men’s clothes to govern
distaff: staff on which thread is made; this was traditionally women’s work, and hence the word came to stand metonymically for ‘woman’
10,17 owl … night-crow: bearers of evil omen, the latter not denoting a specific bird
20 left-handed: sinister, ill-omened (Latin sinister means ‘left’)
27 conduit: place from which fresh water was collected; a place where gossip was exchanged, as was the bakehouse. infantry … court: the ‘blackguard’ or most menial servants employed by the court; they brought up the rear on royal progresses
29 remnant: scrap of quotation
29-30 lippis et tonsoribus notum: ‘known to the bleary-eyed and to barbers’ (Horace, Satires, I.vii.3)
31 communicable: affable
47 head and hair: judgement and character (with ironic allusion to Morose’s appearance)
49 stay: wait
50 religion, and fear: awe and dread (of the solemnity of marriage)
51 humour: a) moisture (see ‘steeped’); b) inclination, fancy (Holdsworth)
55 hymen: wedding
high: dignified
58 tediously: a) irritatedly; b) tiresomely (Holdsworth)
66 (Yes … sir.): eds vary in how they interpret the enclosing of Truewit’s words in parentheses. Procter takes them to indicate his ‘choric role’, building on and then taking over Morose’s curses, whilst Beaurline takes them to show that the words are spoken sotto voce
67 cittern: a lute-like instrument kept in barber’s shops for customers to play on to pass the time
69 ten plagues: sent by God to to persuade Pharaoh to release the Israelites (Exodus 7-12)
73 pox: syphilis. Barbers, also surgeons/medical practitioners at this time, would have treated this
75 lock: love-lock
78 the itch: contagious skin disease, scabies
80 balls: of soap
89 lanterns in paper: barbers cut out lanterns from oiled paper, and sold them
91 basin: barbers hired out metal basins for people in the crowd to beat when bawds (procuresses or pimps) were carted through the streets as a punishment
93 latium: stale urine, used by barbers to dress hair
96 ear-wax … teeth: barbers also cleaned ears and pulled teeth, which were then hung on strings in the shops
100 millstones: ‘"grinders", teeth’ (Procter)
101 botches: boils
105 scraped … lint: lint, a soft material used to dress wounds, was made by scaping linen cloth
106-7 set up with … set up: set up in business with … set hair
109 too high set: went too far (gambling term)
go less: go for lower stakes (from gambling)
113 want credit … with: be unable to get goods on credit from
123, 123 chimney-sweepers … colliers: the least desirable customers, because probably the dirtiest
124 chance-medley: manslaughter, homicide by misadventure
2-3 Another flood: ‘another may mean “second”, the first being the flood of Genesis, vii’ (Holdsworth)
SD severally: in turn
14 nomenclator: announcer of guests’ names (with pun on ‘clatter’)
16-17 ‘tis decreed of me: judgement is passed on me and: if
21-2 steal a marriage: get married secretly
36-7 faculty … it: ‘ability (to bear [sexual] burdens) if she has not learnt it already; taking up the sexual sense of oppressed, “ravished” (Latin opprimere)’ (Holdsworth)
44 absolute: perfect
race: family
60 a side: a partnership in cards
73 Let me alone: i.e. leave it to me
76 ensigns: signs
77-8 scarfs … gloves: given to guests at weddings
79 colours: of the bride and groom, worn by their respective friends (eds)
81 painter: cosmetician
82 given it you: i.e scored a point over you
86 strong meats: solid food
87 biggen: baby’s bonnet
90 solemnity: ceremoniousness
92 mere rusticity: sheer uncouthness
95 garters: the bride’s garters were competed for by the young men and bridesmaids
96 epithalamium: wedding song in honour of bride and groom
104 it: i.e. such an assignation
111 groom: a) bridegroom; b) servant
112 grafted: i.e. to have cuckold’s horns grafted on to your head
117 bravo: hired bully
119-20 begin … cup: ‘drink your health in a way most unpleasant to you (cuckold you)’ (Procter)
2 noises: bands of musicians (with suggestion of usual sense); see II.vi.38
5 grate: grind; also, harass, irritate
7 hair … guts: to produce the sound from a violin: horsehair for the bow, rosin to rub on it, and gut for the strings
8 receipt: formula
15 ass: proverbial beast of endurance; also of stupidity
16 infirmity: weakness
17 insult: exult
SD sewing the meat: directing the serving of the dishes
23 Medusa: the most fearsome of the Gorgons
25 transform: i.e. to stone (see II.iv.16n)
29 shamefaced: bashful
40 in ordinary: see Il.iii.98n
44 heralds: who decided questions of precedence
56 rouse: deep drink
9 neezmg: sneezmg
11 Fury: avenging female deity
12 carries … bravely: ‘keeps it up splendidly’ (Holdsworth)
14 height on’t: best of it
17-18 faith … article: reference to Articles of Faith, the statements to which ministers of the Church of England have to subscribe
20-1 go … jest: die laughing
21 nest: set, in which the smaller fit inside the larger
25 saddler’s horse: model horse and rider, outside a saddler’s shop
30 have … them: in favour with them
34 come … thee: come round to your opinion
35-139 Truewit’s comments on women derive from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, I, II and III
38 by: about
39 curious: careful
43 scald: scaly, scabbed
carve … act: both words meant ‘gesture’
46 offer: attempt
52 estrich: ostrich
53 measure: grace (in dancing)
number: rhythm
54 gen denesses: elegancies
draw: attract
57 proficient: learner
58 leave: cease
59-60 Amadis … Quixote: chivalric romances despised as frivolous by Jonson
61 matter is frequent: material is plentiful
62 tiltings: jousts (by now, mock-combats staged for courtly entertainment)
69 droning: sucking (as on a bagpipe)
71 near: nearer
78 deny: refuse
79 Penelope: wife of Odysseus, who resisted her suitors for twenty years until her husband returned
Ostend: captured by the Spanish in 1604 after a three-year stege
80 persever: persevere
84 want … trust: i.e. lack eloquence, or lack trust from your audience
85 rubbed: annoyed
87 strive: struggle
would be: wish to be
92 and: if
101 presently: immediately
102 height … line: high and low parries (in fencing)
109 staunch: cautious
activity: exercise
barbary: horse
111 back: ‘a “good back” implies sexual prowess’ (Holdsworth)
116 safety: i.e. of your head
123-4 Let … cost: let your ingenuity be greater than your expense
125 at time of year: in season
128 habit: outfit
130 a great one: of high rank
second parts: supporting roles
135 physician your pensioner: ‘i.e. buy his support’ (Holdsworth)
136 woman: maidservant
out of your gain: outside your interests
141 courding: courtier
143 hearkening: enquiring
159 philtre: love potion
160 Medea: magician, who helped Jason win the Golden Fleece, and restored youth to his father, Aeson
161 Doctor Forman: Simon Forman (rssz-r6rr) was a noted London astrologer, quack and supplier of love potions
3 service: ‘in the military sense: operation’ (Holdsworth)
4-84 the metaphors here are drawn from bull- and bear-baiting
9 course: a) drinking round; b) bout between dogs and baited animals
16-17 set … mine: stance taken in drinking bouts
19-20 fear no cousins: adapting the proverb ‘Fear no colours’
20-1 Et … cantu: ‘And the trumpets sounded with hoarse note’ (Virgil, Aeneid, VIII, 2)
22 Well said: well done
25 ‘Low: a cry to urge on dogs
19 Off … spurs: i.e. strip him of his knighthood
49 Jacta est alea: ‘The die is cast’: Caesar’s words on crossing the Rubicon
57 Buz: exclamation of impatience
Titivilitium: a vile thing of no value (from Plautus, Casina, 347)
60-1 ass … circle: ‘like a donkey driving a rotary mill’ (Holdsworth); with pun on ‘circle’ meaning female genitalia
66 tribus verbis: in three words; i.e. briefly
76 Tritons: classical sea gods who blew shell-trumpets
76-7 Nunc … Iibera: ‘Now is the time for drinking, now with free foot …’ (Horace, Odes, I.xxxvii.1)
78 sons of earth: bastards (Latin terrae filii); base-born
82 clogdogdo: obscure; some eds suggest ‘clog fit for a dog’ (‘clog’ meaning weight placed around dog’s neck when training it)
83 very foresaid: truly predictable (eds)
84 mala bestia: evil beast
92 profecto: truly
98 mandrake: poisonous plant whose root was said to resemble a human form; a common term of abuse
100 mercury and hogs’ bones: used in cosmetics
100-8 derived from Martial, Epigrams, IX.xxxvii.1-6
107-8 German clock: i.e. always in need of repair; the comparison is made frequently in Jacobean drama
108 larum: alarm
110 quarters: a) quarter hours, b) living quarters done me right: ‘matched me drink for drink (a set phrase)’ (Holdsworth)
113 quarters: blows (in fencing)
119 Under correction: see III.i.10n
124 protest: avow
132 Mary Amb ree: according to a ballad, she disguised herself as a soldier and took part in the siege of Ghent in 1584
134 Stentors: Stentor was a Greek warrior in the Trojan War, whose voice was as powerful as those of fifty men
135-6 ill May Day: reference to the May Day riot of 1517, though any May Day, with its noisy festivities, would have been a torment to Morose
136 galley-foist: state barge which annually took the Lord Mayor to Westminster to be sworn in; again accompanied by noisy celebrations
149 scandal: offence
150 bull-head: cover for the cup
153 by that: by copying the one that is on: i.e. Otter’s own head, with its cuckold’s horns, would provide an apt model for a replacement
155 Ratcliffe: suburb of London outside the jurisdiction of the city authorities; hence, a refuge for rogues
156 course: see IV.ii.9n
157 bona spes: good hope
6 made you: were you doing
14 In sadness: seriously
15 Morose: i.e. the masculine form of address
19 milk and honey: as found in the Promised Land; i.e. everything you could want
20 manage: handle (as of horses)
26-7 china-houses … Exchange: see I.iii.35n, 40n
32-64 derived from Ovid, Ars Amatoria, III
36-8 Is the … torches: clichés, here with sexual connotations (‘in sexual slang water meant semen, torch penis, and burn infect with venereal disease’ (Holdsworth))
39 new one: i.e. original turn of phrase
48 beldame: hag
51 cockpit: probably the Cockpit, a small private theatre in Whitehall, where cock-fights as well as plays were staged (see Introduction); with a sexual innuendo
58 hobby-horse: buffoon
60 receipts: formulas, prescriptions
1 instructed: directed
14 supererogatory: beyond the call of duty
14-15 Westminster Hall: had shops and law courts, and therefore crowds
15 cockpit: see IV.iii.51n
fall of a stag: accompanied by barking of hounds and sounding of horns
15-16 Tower Wharf: see I.ii.16n
17 Paris Garden: a baiting house
Billingsgate: food market; its fishwives made it a byword for raucousness
18-19 play … sea: e.g. Heywood and Rowley’s Fortune by Land and Sea (1609), a romance drama of the kind despised by Jonson
20 target: shield
38 distempered: upset; also, ‘unbalanced’ (with regard to the humours, or fluids, of which the body was taken to be composed)
39 impertinencies: irrelevances
42 notes: signs
43 kindness: a) concern b) behaviour natural to her kind (i.e. women)
49 unconscionable: unreasonable, unjust
59-61 how idly … he has: ‘symptoms of madness comically ascribed to Menaechmus of Epidamnus in Plautus’s Menaechmi, 829-30’ (Procter)
62 melancholy: irritability; also, in original Greek sense, frenzy, madness (eds)
64 Pliny: AD 23-79; a Roman, author of Historia Naturalis
Paracelsus: 1493-154; Swiss scientist and authority on medicine
71 μανια: mania, madness
72-3 insania … fanaticus: ‘madness … insanity, frenzy, or melancholic ecstasy …. a going out of one’s mind… from a state of melancholy becomes mad’
74 Shall I … alive?: i.e. shall I be treated like a cadaver in an anatomy class whilst I’m still alive?
75 phreneticus: suffering from phrenitis: inflammation of the brain
76 delirium: temporary mental disturbance
85 altogether: uninterruptedly
88 Doni’s Philosophy: collection of oriental beast fables, translated from Antonio Francesco Doni’s Italian version into English by Sir Thomas North as The Moral Philosophy of Doni (1570); the fable of Reynard the Fox is not included
106 put her to me: put her in my charge
108 exercise: a) test, trial, as of saint or martyr; b) performance of a ceremony; c) training, as of an animal
111 The Sick Man’s Salve: popular religious tract by Thomas Becon, urging patience and humility in times of illness; seventeen editions appeared between 1561 and 1632
112 Greene’s … Wit: dramatist Robert Greene’s popular confessional and admonitory pamphlet of 1592, written on his death-bed
113 cheap: ‘a groat (the cost of the pamphlet) = fourpence’ (Procter)
124 still: always
135 disfurnish: deprive
151 porcpisce: porpoise (Latin porcus piscis, pig fish)
156 canon lawyer: specialises in ecclesiastical law
165 keeper: as if he were a lunatic
172 shark: cheat set … nick: unclear; Holdsworth suggests it means ‘cleaned me out’, with La Foole muddling terms from Primero (a card game) with hazard (a dice game): with ‘set’ meaning bet against, and ‘nick’ being the winning score in hazard
174 swabbers: low fellows
187 discontentment: annoyance
190 malapert: impudently
200 cast of kastrils: pair of kestrils. ‘Kastril’ was a term of contempt; see I.iv.83n
4 casuist: theologian who resolves cases of conscience
7 comically: derisively; also, in a comical manner
12 upon posts: by running errands
three suits: see III.i.41-2n
18-19 to thy hand: for you
19 execution: legal writ
25 scratch: fight
33 tragicomedy: Holdsworth notes that this was a new form of drama, introduced by Beaumont and Fletcher at around this time; the suggestion is that such a hybrid, unclassical form deserves principal actors like Daw and La Foole
33-4 Guelphs … Ghibellines: rival political factions in medieval Italy
36 arras: thick tapestry, hanging across a recess at the back of the stage
41 trow: do you think
42-3 compare the ensuing trick on Daw and La Foole with the duel engineered by Sir Toby Belch between the reluctant antagonists Viola and Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (1601), III.ii and III.iv
44 taken up: made up
49 This … at: at the marriage of Peirithous and Hippodamia, a drunken centaur’s attempt to rape the bride resulted in a bloody batde
50 she-one: there were no female centaurs in classical myth
53 Tacitus: prolific Roman historian
59 put it not up: do not sheathe it
65 visor: mask
68 wight: man (archaic)
70 cause: subject of the dispute
74 protested: declared
75-6 do… right: ‘grant him the right to meet you man-toman in an honourable duel’ (Holdsworth)
103 take possession: of his property, when ownership was in dispute; this often required force, or the threat of it
106 principal: original
107 brother: associate
114 halberds: spears-cum-battle-axes
petronels: large pistols
calivers: light muskets
116 sessed: assessed (for provision of weapons to the monarch)
117-18 at… foils: to fight with so many different kinds of sword
119 Saint Pulchre’s: St Sepulchre’s was a large and crowded London parish
120 breeches: known as ‘slops’, it was the fashion at the time for these to be voluminous
125 once: once for all
140 spoon-meat: baby food
143 so: i.e. ‘that his body might as well be maimed’ (Holdsworth)
144 resolved him: decided he was
159-60 tempt your breeches: ‘test (the capacity of) your breeches’ (Procter)
171 atone: reconcile
176 broke… him: made some joke about him
179 in snuff: indignandy
181 pledge: take my turn and drink: see IV.ii.28
183 walks the round: a military metaphor from the patrol which goes round a camp or fortress to check that the sentries are vigilant (eds)
195 put it on: a) adopt; b) feign, assume
199 watch: watch out for
201 sergeant: officer with power of arrest
208 A-jax: reference to Sir John Harington’s treatise on the flushing toilet, The Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596), with its pun on ‘a jakes’ (a privy)
210 pallet: straw mattress
224 Cast: forecast, anticipate
231 petard: small bomb, mine
233 standing out: resisting, withstanding
245 whiniling: whimpering, whining
250 motion: proposal
253 catastrophe: denouement (of a play)
265 published: made widely known
269 carpet: tablecloth of tapestry or thick wool
276-7 magis firiendo: ‘more in suffering than doing, more in enduring than in striking’
280 conceit: opinion
287 butter-teeth: front teeth
297 during pleasure: for as long as he pleases
300 overshoot: overreach
321 by: to one side
323 without: unless
328 several: different
330 roundly: plainly
336 starting off swerving (said of horses)
337 undertakes: stands surety
341 at the blunt: with the fiat of the sword
343 hoodwinked: a) blindfolded; b) fooled
345 gules: red; i.e. a bloody mouth; an ironic reference to I.iv–43
346 sans nombre: numberless
359 All hid: the cry in hide-and-seek
366 Damon and Pythias: a type of loyal friendship, each offering to die in the place of the other. They were the subject of an eponymous play, by Richard Edwards, published in 1571
367 rankness: a) abundance; b) foulness (Holdsworth)
2 adulterate: counterfeit
4 uttered: made known; also, put into circulation (as is false currency)
7 braveries: fine clothes
10 Bravery: see I.i.85-6n
29 set in a brake: assume a fixed expression. A brake was a frame in which a horse’s hoof was secured whilst being shod
32-3 French hermaphrodite: perhaps indicative only of an assumed general French effeminacy; or perhaps a reference to a current side-show attraction (see The Knight of the Burning Pestle III.288), or to Henri III of France (d. 1589), a notorious transvestite
36 fame: reputation
44 lock: see III.v.75n
51 unbraced: exposed
53 engine: contrivance, device
57 suspicion: doubt
82 Pylades and Orestes: another type of loyal friendship. Pylades helped Orestes avenge the killing of his father, Agamemnon
88 erection: ‘high spirits. The sexual pun is appropriate after the ritual castration’ (Beaurline)
104 prevent: anticipate
109 handle: with pun on ‘handle’ meaning ‘excuse’
115 points: a) sword-points, which both have been afraid to use; b) various points of their excuses (Holdsworth)
5 fain: obliged
6 begged: begged for in anticipation of the confiscation of Morose’s property as that of a criminal (eds)
15-22 derived from Libanius, Declamation XXVI, sections 3-6
19 attachments: writs of arrest intergatories: interrogatories
21 doctors… proctors: barristers… attorneys
26 scruple: uncertainty
49 fear: doubt
50 welt: border (here, of fur)
54 election: judgement, ability to make choices
54-6 without… him: Jonson had offended the legal profession with some of his earlier writings; Truewit’s disclaimer is thus a precaution against further trouble
16 scrivener: professional scribe
18 haft: handle
21 squire: square
25 Nomentack: native American from Virginia, brought to England in 1608 as a hostage, and sent back in 1609; he was murdered in Bermuda on the return voyage
26 Prince of Moldavia… his mistress: see Dedicatory Episde, 1. 16n. Lady Arbella Stuart, James VIII’s cousin, took this to be a reference to her supposed engagement to Stephen Janiculo, the (bogus) Prince of Moldavia. As a result of her objection, the play was closed in February 1610. La Foole is, of course, referring to Daw’s mistress, ‘Mistress Epicoene’, but his confused syntax results, deliberately or otherwise, in this ambiguity
28 latitude: locality; with pun on ‘laxity of conduct’
30 pleasant: witty, humorous
34-5 you… afore you: a jibe at their own effeminacy
44 person: attractiveness
49-50 come… Tripoli: vault and tumble
50 use: practise
54 commonwealth: ‘implying that Daw and La Foole’s women are shared by everyone’ (Holdsworth)
59-60 velvet… smocks: worn by courtly ladies and high-class prostitutes
70 Great Bed at Ware: famous bed, eleven feet square and capable of sleeping twelve people, originally at the Saracen’s Head in Ware, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
77 bath: probably medicinal, to treat venereal disease
84 humour: temperament, disposition
85 coming… free: eager, compliant (with sexual connotations)
103 ox: fool; also suggests ‘cuckold’ because of its horns
1 price: worth
4 make out: contrive, manage
6 affect: seek
10 stones: a) gems; b) testicles
15 foils: a) settings for jewels; b) contrasts, which show one off to advantage
19 eminent: distinguished, prominent (with sexual pun)
24 Fidelia: Latin for ‘trusty’; also a common name for the heroines of popular romances
31 make… to: put any faith in
35 dearest: a) most innocent; b) most free from disease
37 pargets: plasters (herself with make-up)
39 by candlelight: i.e. even by candlelight (the most flattering kind of light)
51 you… tell: revelation of a fairy’s gift rendered it void and brought bad luck (eds)
54 this: i.e. this jewel
caution: warnings
62 enter… fame: begin a rumour
63 physic: medical treatment (as an excuse for staying in)
69 reformados: disbanded soldiers who kept their rank; with pun on ‘reformed’
78 lien: lain
84 sooth: exclamation (e.g. ‘really!’, ‘indeed!’)
5 keep: guard
10 l’envoy: conclusion
11 twanging: exceptionally fine (with pun on ‘noisy’)
16 be out: forget your words
18 action: gestures
27-34 derived from Libanius, Declamation XXVI, section 7
38 are not now: do not need now
45 positive: practical (as opposed to theoretical or speculative)
47 circumstances: circumstantialities
51-63 derived from Libanius, Declamation XXVI, section 6
60 neglect: do not care about
62 impertinencies: irrelevances
68 perpetual… Eltham: a Dutch scientist, Cornelius Drebbel, demonstrated his perpetual motion machine at Eltham Palace in 1609-10; it was much visited
73 domine: master
78 a divertendo: derived from ‘separating’
84 twelve impediments: the twelve impediments are taken from St Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae
90 open: expound
95 impedimentum erroris: impediment arising from error
97 error personae: mistaken identity
100 error fortunae: error as to fortune
102 error qualitatis: mistake as to disposition
105-6 One at once: one at a time
107 ante copulam… post copulam: before the union… after the union
108-9 Nec… benedictionem: not after the sacrament of marnage
110 contract: betrothal
111 obstancy: judicial opposition
113 time: i.e. timing (Holdsworth)
114 conditio: social rank
118 sublatae: abolished
123 votum: vow
126 discipline: the church system (under Protestantism)
127 cognatio: (blood) relationship
128 degrees: i.e. of kinship within which marriage is forbidden
142 crimen adulterii: the crime of adultery
143 case: a) instance; b) vagina (a common pun) (Holdsworth)
161 ligamen: bond
164 publica honestas: public reputation
165 inchoata… affinitas: (previous) unconsummated marnage
166 affinitas… sponsalibus: relationship arising from a betrothal leve: slight
170 affinitas ex fornicatione: relationship arising from fornication
171 vera affinitas: true relationship
173 quae… matrimonio: (than that) which comes from legal marnage
174-6 nascitur… caro: it follows from this, that through physical union two people are made one flesh
178-9 Ita… general: thus he is equally a true father who begets through fornication
180 Et… generatur: and he truly a son who is thus begotten
183 si… nequibis: if by chance you are unable to copulate
184 gravissimum: very weighty
186 manifestam frigiditatem: evident frigidity
190 morbus… insanabilis: a chronic and incurable disease
198 reddere debitum: render his obligation
199 omnipotentes: omnipotent men
200 impotentes: impotent men
202-3 minime… matrimonium: least suited to contracting marriages
205 unmatrimonial Latin: because Otter’s errors disrupt the grammatical agreement or ‘marriage’ of words
207 put ‘em out: make them forget their words
209 post matrimonium: after marriage
209-10 frigiditate praeditus: one who is frigid
212-13 uti… sorore: use a wife as a wife, may keep her as a sister
214-15 merely apostatical: absolutely heretical
220-1 Haec… retractant: these things forbid uniting in marriage, and after marriages have been made to annul them
225 In aetemum: forever
227 humanity: secular learning
227-8 prorsus… thorum: utterly useless in bed. ‘Otter’s mistake of tho rum for to rum (Latin torus = bed) gives a pun on thoros (Greek θορος = semen)’ (Procter)
228 praestare… datam: fulfil the pro mise given
231 convalere: recover
234-5 simulare… uxoris: pretend to be frigid, out of hatred for his wife
236 adulter manifestus: a manifest adulterer
238 prostitutor uxoris: the prostitutor of his wife
241 manifeste: manifestly
246 frigiditatis causa: on the ground of frigidity
249 libellum divortii: a petition for divorce
255 in foro conscientiae: at the bar of conscience (a legal proverb)
256 want: lack
258 Exercendi potestate: the power of putting to use (i.e. of consummation)
5 companions: fellows (contemptuous)
8 earwigs: ear whisperers, parasites
14 blanket: toss in a blanket
23 mankind: masculine, virago-like; also furious, savage (related to ‘mankeen’; used of animals inclined to attack people)
27 of his inches: brave (with sexual pun)
29 colours: a knight’s heraldic colours list: wishes
33 marks: of the plague
51 prodigious: monstrous
52 uncarnate: not of flesh and blood (Centaure’s coinage, from ‘incarnate’)
53 offer it: attempt to do such a thing
55 longings: a) wealth, belongings; b) sexual longings
57 comment: invention
59 searched: examined
71-2 de… uxoris: on the wife’s behalf
80 carry it: behave
84 vitiated: deflowered
86 dirimere… reddere: cancel the contract and render it null and void
123 camaliter: carnally
129 to my hand: see IV.v.18-19n
135 except against: object to
135-6 beaten knights: cowardly, and therefore not admissible as witnesses or jurymen
147 precisely: expressly
148 virgo… nuptias: a virgin before marriage
151-2 ratum conjugium: a valid marriage
152 premises: previous events
161 confederacy: conspiracy
163 study: seek, aim at
182 perfect to me: entirely for myself
199 cumber: encumbrance
208 belike: very likely
209 crocodile: believed to weep as it took its prey; hence, one who weeps false tears
216 protest before: most eds take the dash to indicate an omitted oath (’God’, or ‘heaven’); however, Holdsworth argues (persuasively) that there are many instances of oaths in the text, and that the phrase is complete as it stands, and means ‘declare in advance’
219 you have married a boy: the source for this trick of disguising a boy as a bride is principally Pietro Aretina’s Il Marescalco (1533), but also Machiavelli’s Clizia (1525) and Plautus’ Casina
221 composition: settlement
223 justum impedimentum: just impediment
225 in… gradu: in the first degree
235 make… good: see Morose’s promise, II.v.93-4
241 lurched: cheated
242 garland: wreath, given to mark a triumph; hence, ‘glory’.
Possibly an allusion to Coriolanus, II.ii.97
249 on: about
251-2 stuck it upon: cheated
252 this Amazon: Mistress Otter
253 thriftily: soundly
259 travail: travel and lab our make legs and faces: bow and smirk
265 insectae: insects; the incorrect feminine form (in place of the correct neuter) highlights the knights’ effeminacy
267 discovered: revealed
268 of years: adult
273 noise: i.e. of clapping
Master of Revels: who licensed plays for performance; at this time, Sir George Buc