Women

True. Believe it, I told you right. ought to repair the losses time and years have made in 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.

Cler. Oh, you shall have some women, when they laugh, you would think they brayed, it is so rude and

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 them of a friend, or buy them, 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 on 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, lincner, &c. 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

True. Yes; but you must leave to live in your chamber, then, a month together upon Amadis de Gaul, 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 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 judgment. 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. Daup. Yes, and be never the nearer.

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True. Out, heretic! That diffidence makes thee worthy it should be so.

Cler. He says true to you, Dauphine.
Daup. Why?

True. A man should not doubt to overcome any woman. Think he can vanquish them, 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 perséver, 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 them, flatter them, you shall never want eloquence or trust: even the chastest delight to feel themselves that way rubb'd. With praises you must mix kisses too: if they take them, they'll take more-though they strive, they would be

overcome.

Cler. Oh, but a man must beware of force. True. 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 then she seem to thank you, will ever hate you after; and glad in the face, is assuredly sad at the heart.

Cler. But all women are not to be taken all ways.

True. '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 in their own height, their own line; for the contrary makes many,

Let cunning be above cost. Give cherries at time of year, or apricots; and say they were sent you out of the country, though you bought them 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 them by their names (tis but light cost, if you can purchase them 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.3

Daup. On what courtly lap hast thou late slept. to come forth so sudden and absolute a courtling? True. 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 ?

Daup. Yes, by my troth, am I; 'twere ill dissembling before thee.

True. With which of them, I prithee?
Daup. With all the collegiates.

Cler. Out on thee! We'll keep you at home, believe it, in the stable, an you be such a stallion.

True. 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 would'st think it strange, if I should make them all in love with thee afore night!

Daup. I would say, thou hadst the best philtre in the world, and couldst do more than Madam Medea, or Doctor Foreman.

True. If I do not, let me play the mountebank for my meat, while I live, and the bawd of my drink.

Daup. So be it, I say.

1 The sense seems to be:-Though you should really be a brave man, and therefore not naturally inclined to boast of your valour; yet, to please your mistress, you may often make it the subject of your discourse.GIFFORD.

2 barbary-horse.

The greater part of the above is taken from Ovid's Art of Love.

4 This was a poor stupid wretch who pretended to deal with spirits for the recovery of lost spoons, &eGIFFORD.

Ott. Oh lord, gentlemen, how my knights and I have missed you here!

Cler. Why, captain, what service, what service?

Ott. 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 them.

Daup. A good employment.

True. Come on, let's see your course, then. La-F. I am afraid my cousin will be offended, if she come.

Ott. Be afraid of nothing.-Gentlemen, I have placed the drum and the trumpets, and one to give them the sign when you are ready. 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, andLa-F. Pray God my cousin come not. Ott. St. George and St. Andrew, fear no cousins. -Come, sound, sound! [Drum and trumpets sound.] Et rauco strepuerunt cornua cantu. [They drink.] True. Well said, captain, i'faith; well fought

at the bull.

Cler. Well held at the bear. True. Low, low! captain. Daup. Oh, the horse has kick'd off his dog already.

La-F. I cannot drink it, as I am a knight. True. Ods so! Off with his spurs, somebody. La-F. It goes against my conscience. My cousin will be angry with it.

Daw. I have done mine.

True. You fought high and fair, Sir John.
Cler. At the head.

Daup. Like an excellent bear-dog.

Cler. You take no notice of the business, I hope? Daw. Not a word, sir; you see we are jovial. Ott. Sir Amorous, you must not equivocate. It must be pull'd down, for all my cousin.

Cler. '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-F. Not I; I'll both drink and talk then. Ott. You must pull the horse on his knees, Sir Amorous; fear no cousins. Jacta est alea.3

True. Oh, now he's in his vein, and bold. The least hint given him of his wife now, will make him rail desperately.

Cler. Speak to him of her.

True. Do you, and I'll fetch her to the hearing [Exit.

of it.

Daup. Captain He-Otter, your She-Otter is coming, your wife.

Ott. 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. [Fills the cups again.] Wives are nasty, sluttish animals.

Cler. But you must drink and be jovial.
Daw. Yes, give it me.
La-F. And me too.
Daw. Let's be jovial.

La-F. As jovial as you will.

Ott. Agreed. Now you shall have the bear, cousin, and Sir John Daw the horse, and I'll have the bull still. Sound, Tritons of the Thames! [Drum and trumpets sound again.] Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero1

Mor. [above.] Villains, murderers, sons of the earth, and traitors! what do you there?

Cler. Oh, now the trumpets have waked him, we shall have his company.

Ott. A wife is a scurvy clogdogdo, an unlucky thing, a very foresaid bear-whelp, without any good fashion or breeding, mala bestia.

Re-enter TRUEWIT behind, with Mistress OTTER.

Daup. Why did you marry one then, captain? Ott. A pox!-I married with six thousand pound, I. I was in love with that. I have not kissed my Fury these forty weeks.

Cler. The more to blame you, captain. True. Nay, Mistress Otter, hear him a little first.

Ott. She has a breath worse than my grandmother's, profecto.3

Mrs. Ott. Oh treacherous liar! Kiss me, sweet Master Truewit, and prove him a slandering knave.

True. I'll rather believe you, lady.

Ott. And she has a peruke that's like a pound of hemp, made up in shoe-threads.

Mrs. Ott. Oh viper, mandrake!

Ott. A most vile face! and yet she spends me forty pound a year in mercury and hogs-bones. All her teeth were made in the Black-friars, both her eyebrows in the Strand, and her hair in Silver-street. Every part of the town owns a piece of her.

Mrs. Ott. [comes forward.] I cannot hold.

Ott. 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 quartersHave you done me right, gentlemen?

Mrs. Ott. [falls upon him, and beats him.] No, sir, I'll do you right with my quarters, with my quarters.

Ott. Oh, hold, good princess!

True. Sound, sound! [Drum and trumpets sound. Cler. A battle, a battle!

Mrs. Ott. You notorious stinkardly bearward, does my breath smell?

Ott. Under correction, dear princess.-Look to my bear and my horse, gentlemen.

Mrs. Ott. Do I want teeth, and eyebrows, thou bull-dog?

True. Sound, sound still! [They sound again. Ott. No, I protest, under correction

Mrs. Ott. 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—

[Beats him.

Ott. 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 of the way, till my peace be made, for this scandal she has taken. Did you not see my bullhead, gentlemen?

Cler. Is't not on, captain?

True. No; but he may make a new one, by that is on.

Ott. Oh, here it is. An you come over, gentlemen, and ask for Tom Otter, we'll go down to Ratcliff, and have a course i'faith, for all these disasters. There is bona spes left.3 True. Away, captain, get off while you are well. [Exit OTTER. Cler. I am glad we are rid of him. True. 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.

ACT IV.-SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

A long open Gallery in the same. Enter Lady HAUGHTY, Mistress OTTER, MAVIS, DAW, LA-FOOLE, CENTAURE, and EPICENE. Hau. We wonder'd why you shriek'd so, Mistress Otter.

Mrs. Ott. Oh lord, madam, he came down with a huge long naked weapon in both his hands, and look'd so dreadfully! Sure, he's beside himself.

Mav. Why, what made you there, Mistress Otter?

Mrs. Ott. Alas, Mistress Mavis, I was chastising my subject, and thought nothing of him.

Daw. Faith, mistress, you must do so too: learn to chastise. Mistress Otter corrects her husband so, he dares not speak but under correction.

La-F. And with his hat off to her: 'twould do you good to see.

Hau. 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.

Cen. And you'll come to the college, and live with us?

Hau. Make him give milk and honey. Mav. Look how you manage him at first, you shall have him ever after.

Cen. Let him allow you your coach, and four horses, your woman, your chamber-maid, your page, your gentleman-usher, your French cook, and four grooms.

Hau. And go with us to Bedlam, to the Chinahouses, and to the Exchange.

Cen. It will open the gate to your fame. Hau. Here's Centaure has immortalized herself, with taming of her wild male.

Mar. Ay, she has done the miracle of the kingdom.

Enter CLERIMONT and TRUEWIT.

Epi. But, ladies, do you count it lawful to have such plurality of servants, and do them all graces?

Hau. 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 dyers' water, mistress?

La-F. Or a torch for lighting many torches ? True. Well said, La-Foole. What a new one he has got!

Cen. They are empty losses women fear in this kind.

Hau. Besides, ladies should be mindful of the approach of age, and let no time want his due The best of our days pass first.

use.

Mav. We are rivers, that cannot be call'd back, madam. She that now excludes her lovers, may live to lie a forsaken beldame, in a frozen bed.

Cen. '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 playtime, and draw their weapons for our honours? Hau. Not one.

Daw. Nay, my mistress is not altogether unintelligent of these things; here be in presence have tasted of her favours.

Cler. What a neighing hobby-horse is this! Epi. But not with intent to boast them again, servant. And have you those excellent receipts, madam, to keep yourselves from bearing of chil

dren ?

Hau. 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 and DAUPHINE.

Mor. O my cursed angel, that instructed1 me to this fate!

Daup. Why, sir?

Mor. That I should be seduced by so foolish a devil as a barber will make!

Daup. I would I had been worthy, sir, to have partaken your counsel; you should never have

trusted it to such a minister.

Mor. Would I could redeem it with the loss of an eye, nephew, a hand, or other member. any Daup. Marry, God forbid, sir, that you should geld yourself, to anger your wife.

Mor. So it would rid me of her!-and, that I did supererogatory penance in a belfry, at Westminster Hall, in 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.

1 instructed-designed, appointed.

Daup. I hope there shall be no such need, sir. Take patience, good uncle. This is but a day, and 'tis well worn too now.

Mor. Oh, 'twill be so for ever, nephew, I foresee it, for ever. Strife and tumult are the dowry that comes with a wife.

True. I told you so, sir, and you would not believe me.

Mor. 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. Epi. How do you, sir?

Mor. Did you ever hear a more unnecessary question? as if she did not see! Why, I do as you see, empress, empress.

Epi. You are not well, sir; you look very ill: something has distemper'd you.

Mor. Oh, horrible, monstrous impertinencies! Would not one of these have served, do you think, sir? would not one of these have served? True. Yes, sir; but these are but notes of female kindness, sir; certain tokens that she has a voice, sir.

Mor. Oh, is it so! Come, an't be no otherwise. -What say you?

Epi. How do you feel yourself, sir?
Mor. Again that!

True. Nay, look you, sir, you would be friends with your wife upon unconscionable terms; her silence.

Epi. They say you are run mad, sir.

Mor. Not for love, I assure you, of you; do you see?

Epi. 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.

Mor. What! to poison me, that I might die intestate, and leave you possest of all!

Epi. Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes sparkle! He looks green about the temples! do you see what blue spots he has!

Cler. Ay, 'tis melancholy.

Epi. 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-
True. How rarely she holds it up!

Hau. I'll tell you, Morose, you must talk divinity to him altogether, or moral philosophy. La-F. Ay, and there's an excellent book of moral philosophy, madam, of Reynard the Fox, and all the beasts, called Doni's Philosophy.1 Cen. There is indeed, Sir Amorous La-Foole. Mor. Oh misery!

La-F. I have read it, my Lady Centaure, all over, to my cousin here.

Mrs. Ott. 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.

Cler. Why, you discommended them too, today, Sir John.

Daw. Ay, in some cases: but in these they are best, and Aristotle's Ethics.

Mav. Say you so, Sir John? I think you are deceived; you took it upon trust.

Hau. 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.

Mor. I think so.-Nay, gentlemen, I am tame. This is but an exercise, I know a marriage ceremony, which I must endure.

Enter TRUSTY.

Hau. Ay, 'tis very feasible.

Mrs. Ott. My lady call'd for you, Mistress Trusty: you must decide a controversy.

Hau. Oh, Trusty, which was it you said, your father or your mother, that was cured with the Sick Man's Salve?

Trus. My mother, madam, with the Salve. True. Then it was the sick woman's salve? Trus. And my father with the Groat's-worth 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

Epi. To sleep?

Mor. What mean you, gentlemen? Epi. What will you tell me, servant? Daw. The disease in Greek is called pavía,1 in Latin insania, furor, vel ecstasis melancholica,2 that is, egressio,3 when a man ex melancholico evadit fanaticus.*

Mor. 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.

Epi. Ay, that is for the disease, servant; but what is this to the cure? We are sure enough of the disease.

La-F. I can help you with one of them, Mistress Morose, the Groat's-worth of Wit.

Epi. But I shall disfurnish3 you, Sir Amorous: can you spare it?

La-F. Oh yes, for a week, or so. myself to him.

I'll read it

Epi. No, I must do that, sir; that must be my

[Exit with DAUPHINE.

Cler. Alas, poor man! True. You'll make him mad indeed, ladies, if you pursue this.

Hau. No, we'll let him breathe now, a quarter of an hour or so.

Cler. By my faith, a large truce!

Hau. Is that his keeper, that is gone with him?
Daw. It is his nephew, madam.
La-F. Sir Dauphine Eugenie.

Cen. He looks like a very pitiful knightDaw. As can be. This marriage has put him out of all.

La-F. He has not a penny in his purse, madam. Daw. He is ready to cry all this day. La-F. A very shark; he set me in the nick t'other night at primero.

True. How these swabbers talk! Cler. Ay, Otter's wine has swell'd their humours above a spring-tide.

Hau. Good Morose, let's go in again. I like your couches exceeding well; we'll go lie and talk there.

[Exeunt HAU., CEN., MAV., TRUS., LA-FOOLE, and DAW.

Epi. [following them.] I wait on you, madam. True. [stopping her.] Slight, I will have them as silent as signs, and their post too, ere I have done. Do you hear, lady-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 for ever.

Epi. I was about it here. It angered me to the soul to hear them begin to talk so malapert. True. Pray thee perform it, and thou winn'st me an idolater to thee everlasting.

Epi. Will you go in and hear me do't? True. No, I'll stay here. Drive them out of your company, 'tis all I ask; which cannot be any way better done, than by extolling Dauphine, whom they have so slighted.

Epi. I warrant you; you shall expect one of them presently.

[Exit.

Cler. What a cast of kestrils' are these, to hawk after ladies, thus!

True. Ay, and strike at such an eagle as Dauphine.

Cler. He will be mad when we tell him. Here he comes.

Re-enter DAUPHINE.

Cler. Oh sir, you are welcome.
True. Where's thine uncle?

Daup. Run out of doors in his night-caps, to

1 cast of kestrils-cast means couple; a kestril is a base, degenerate hawk.

talk with a casuist about his divorce. It works admirably.

True. Thou wouldst have said so, an thou hadst been here! The ladies have laugh'd at thee most comically, since thou went'st, Dauphine.

Cler. And ask'd, if thou wert thine uncle's keeper.

True. And the brace of baboons answer'd, Yes; and said thou wert a pitiful poor fellow, and did'st live upon posts, and hadst nothing but three suits of apparel, and some few benevolences that the lords gave thee to fool to them, and swagger.

Daup. Let me not live, I'll beat them: I'll bind them both to grand-madam's bedposts, and have them baited with monkeys.

True. Thou shalt not need, they shall be beaten to thy hand, Dauphine. I have an execution to serve upon thee, I warrant them, shall serve; trust my plot.

Daup. Ay, you have many plots! so you had one to make all the wenches in love with me.

True. Why, if I do it 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.

Cler. Fore God, I'll be his witness thou shalt have it, Dauphine: thou shalt be his fool for ever, if thou dost not.

True. 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 tragi-comedy between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Daw and La-Foole. Which of them comes out first, will I seize on; you two shall be the chorus be hind the arras, and whip out between the acts and speak. If I do not make them keep the peace for this remnant of the day, if not of the year, I have failed once. I hear Daw coming: hide [they withdraw], and do not laugh, for God's sake.

Re-enter DAW,

Daw. Which is the way into the garden, trow? True. O 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 have it taken up. Daw. What matter, sir? between whom?

True. 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. [Takes his sword.] The bride has entreated me I will see no blood shed at her bridal: you saw her whisper me erewhile.

Daw. As I hope to finish Tacitus, I intend no murder.

True. Do you not wait for Sir Amorous?
Daw. Not I, by my knighthood.
True. And your scholarship too?
Daw. And my scholarship too.

True. 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.

Daw. No, no; no such thing, I assure you. He and I parted now, as good friends as could be. True. Trust not you to that visor. I saw him