Kas. Ay, that's my suster; I'll go thump her. Where is she? [Goes in. Love. And should have married a Spanish count; but he, When he came to't, neglected her so grossly, Good faith, now, she does blame you extremely, and says You swore, and told her you had taken the pains Could prime his powder, and give fire, and hit, Re-enter MAMMON, Mam. The whole nest are fled! Love. What sort of birds were they? Mam. A kind of choughs, Or thievish daws, sir, that have pick'd my purse Of eight score and ten pounds within these five weeks, Beside my first materials; and my goods, Bought with their silver pence. Love. What, those in the cellar, The knight Sir Mammon claims? Ana. I do defy The wicked Mammon, so do all the brethren. Thou profane man! I ask thee with what conscience Thou canst advance that idol against us, That have the seal? were not the shillings number'd, That made the pounds; were not the pounds told out, Upon the second day of the fourth week, In the eighth month, upon the table dormant, Love. Mine earnest vehement botcher, Tri. Be patient, Ananias. Ana. I am strong, That lie in the cellar, which I am glad they And will stand up, well girt, against an host Mam. Ay. Love. By order of law, sir, but not otherwise. Mam. Not mine own stuff! Love. Sir, I can take no knowledge That they are yours, but by public means. If you can bring certificate that you were gull'd of them, Or any formal writ out of a court, That you did cozen yourself, I will not hold them. Mam. I'll rather lose them. Love. That you shall not, sir, By me, in troth: upon these terms, they are yours, What! should they have been, sir, turn'd into gold, all? Mam. No, I cannot tell-It may be they should-What then? Love. What a great loss in hope have you sustain'd! Mam. Not I, the commonwealth has. Face. Ay, he would have built The city new; and made a ditch about it Of silver, should have run with cream from Hogsden; That, every Sunday, in Moorfields, the younkers, And tits and tom-boys should have fed on, gratis. Mam. I will go mount a turnip cart, and preach The end of the world, within these two months. -Surly, What! in a dream? Sur. Must I needs cheat myself With that same foolish vice of honesty! Come, let us go and hearken out the rogues: That Face I'll mark for mine, if e'er I meet him. Face. If I can hear of him, sir, I'll bring you word, Unto your lodging; for, in troth, they were strangers To me, I thought them honest as myself, sir. [Exeunt MAM. and SUR. Re-enter ANANIAS and TRIBULATION. Love. Another too? Drug. Not I, sir, I am no brother. Love [beats him.] Away, you Harry Nicholas!! And satisfy him; tell him all is done: If you can get off the angry child, now, sir Enter KASTRIL, dragging in his sister. Kas. Come on, you ewe, you have match'd most sweetly, have you not? Did not I say, I would never have you tupp'd But by a dubb'd boy, to make you a lady-tom? 'Slight, you are a mammet! Oh, I could touse you now. Death, mun' you marry, with a pox! Love. You lie, boy; As sound as you; and I'm aforehand with you. Kas. Anon! Love. Come, will you quarrel? I will feize3 you, sirrah; Why do you not buckle to your tools? This is a fine old boy as e'er I saw ! Love. What, do you change your copy now? proceed, Here stands my dove: stoop at her, if you dare. 1 Harry Nicholas, a native of Leyden, commonly sup Tri. 'Tis well, the saints shall not lose all yet. posed to be the founder of that turbulent and mischievous Go, And get some carts Love. For what, my zealous friends? sect called the Family of Love.-GIFFORD. 2 mammet a puppet, or owl; dim. of mam. 3 feize-drive, or beat; spelt also pheeze. 4 stoop-fall, or pounce. Kas. 'Slight, I must love him! I cannot choose, i' faith, An I should be hang'd for't! Suster, I protest, I honour thee for this match. Love. Oh, do you so, sir? Kas. Yes, an thou canst take tobacco and drink, old boy, I'll give her five hundred pound more to her marriage, Than her own state. Love. Fill a pipe full, Jeremy. Face. Yes; but go in and take it, sir. I will be ruled by thee in anything, Jeremy. Come, let us in, I pray thee, and take our whiffs. Love. Whiff in with your sister, brother boy. [Exeunt KAS. and Dame P.] That master That had received such happiness by a servant, In such a widow, and with so much wealth, Were very ungrateful, if he would not be A little indulgent to that servant's wit, And help his fortune, though with some small strain Of his own candour.1 [advancing.]—Therefore, gentlemen, And kind spectators, if I have outstript An old man's gravity, or strict canon, think Face. So I will, sir. [advancing to the front of stage.]-Gentlemen, My part a little fell in this last scene, 1 candour-honour, fair reputation. [Exeunt. 2 Yet 'twas decorum, i.e. I have not acted, however, against the decorum the suitableness of the character. -UPTON. EPIC ENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN. A COMEDY. ACTED IN THE YEAR 1609 BY THE CHILDREN OF HER MAJESTY'S REVELS. TO THE TRULY NOBLE BY ALL TITLES, SIR-My hope is not so nourished by example, as it will conclude, this dumb piece should please you, because 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 cen Dramatis Personæ. MOROSE, a Gentleman that loves no noise. SIR JOHN DAW, a Knight. SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE, a Knight also. MUTE, one of MOROSE's Servants. BEN. JONSON. Parson. Page to CLERIMONT, SCENE-London. 1 A learned gentleman, one of Raleigh's club at the Mermaid Tavern. An undertaker, considered a very offensive character, was the name given to certain persons who undertook, through their influence in the House of Commons, in the Parliament of 1614, to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes.-WHALLEY. ACT I.-SCENE I. A Room in CLERIMONT'S House. For he knows, poet never credit gain'd By writing truths, but things, like truths, well If any yet will, with particular sleight 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,1 a [Page sings. Enter CLERIMONT, making himself ready, followed fortnight hence. Sing, sir. by his Page. Cler. Have you got the song yet perfect, I gave you, boy? Page. Yes, sir. Cler. Let me hear it. Page. You shall, sir; but i'faith let nobody else. Page. 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 welcomest thing under a man that comes there. Cler. I think; and above a man too, if the truth were rack'd out of you. Page. No, faith, I'll confess before, sir. The gentlewomen play with me, and throw me on the bed, and carry me in to my lady: and she kisses me with her oil'd face, and puts a peruke on 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. Cler. No marvel if the door be kept shut against 1 Innocent-fool, or simpleton. Still to be neat, still to be drest Enter TRUEWIT. True. Why, here's the man that can melt away his time and never feels it! What between his mistress abroad and his ingle2 at home, high fare, soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle, he thinks the hours have no wings, or the day no post-horse. Well, Sir Gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute, or condemn'd to any capital punishment to-morrow, you would begin then to think, and value every article of your time, esteem it at the true rate, and give all for it. Cler. Why, what should a man do? True. 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; speak aloud, that my lords may hear you; visit my ladies at night, and be able to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. Cler. 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. True. Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! Cler. Why, then 'tis time enough. True. 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. Cler. Nay, thou'lt not leave now Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: t Than all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. True. And I am clearly on 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 them; 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. Cler. How! publicly? True. The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in 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 eye-brows, their nails? You see gilders will not work, but inclosed. 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 True. 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 despatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard our-painted and burnish'd? No; no more should selves? Cler. 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 to me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things; and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. True. Well, sir, if it will not take, I have learn'd 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? Cler. What college? True. As if you knew not! Cler. No, faith, I came but from court yesterday. True. Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in 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 of the time, as they call them: 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. Cler. Who is the president? True. The grave and youthful matron, the Lady Haughty. Cler. A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song (I pray thee hear it) on the subject. [Page sings. Still to be neat, still to be drest, Though art's hid causes are not found, Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; 1 Names of horses of the time. servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. Cler. Well said, my Truewit. True. 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, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. Cler. Oh, prodigy! True. And the unconscionable knave held her in compliment an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. Cler. Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. True. No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? Cler. Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? He is very melancholy, I hear. True. Sick of the uncle, is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head buckled over his ears. Cler. Oh, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. True. 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 fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. Cler. No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. True. Methinks a smith should be ominous. Cler. Or any hammerman. A braisier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once upon a Shrove-Tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. 1 Aldgate, as Stow informs us, 'began to be taken down in 1606, and famously finished in 1609; so that the canvas hung before it about two years.' Love and Charity were figures that graced each side of Aldgate. True. A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. Cler. 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. Page. 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. True. A good wag! How does he for the bells? Cler. Oh, in the queen's time, he was wont to go out of the town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day 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 caulk'd: and there he lives by candle-light. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. 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.2 See, who comes here! Enter Sir DAUPHINE EUGENIE. Daup. How now! What ail you, sirs? Dumb? True. Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. Daup. 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. True. How is that? Daup. 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. True. '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 almanack, get it printed; and then have 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? Daup. Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he Vows, and marry. True. How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? Cler. 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. 1 bearward-the ward or keeper of a bear for bearbaiting. 2 trunk-tube. True. But I trust to God he has found none. Cler. No; but he has heard of one that's lodged in 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. True. Is't possible! Who is his agent in the business? Cier. Marry, a barber, one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. True. Why, you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! Cler. Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack' with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. True. Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? Cler. Yes, that they are. True. I prithee, Dauphine, let's go thither. Daup. I have some business now: I cannot, i' faith. True. 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. Daup. Not I, by any means. I'll give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty; I'll be innocent. True. 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 prithee, Ned, where lies she? Let him be innocent still. Cler. Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where Sir John Daw lies. True. You do not mean to confound me! True. Does he that would marry her know so much? Cler. I cannot tell. True. 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. Cler. Why? True. The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! And he teach her not to speak! -God be wi' you. I have some business too. Cler. Will you not go thither, then? True. Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. Cler. Why, I thought you two had been upon very good terms. True. Yes, of keeping distance. Cler. They say, he is a very good scholar. True. 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! Cler. The world reports him to be very learned. True. I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. Cler. Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. True. You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentlemen. [Exit hastily. Cler. This is very abrupt! Daup. Come, you are a strange open man, to tell everything thus. 1 knack-the knocking or snapping made in clipping. |