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Pip. I pray let me have the odd ends. I fear nothing so much as to be tonguetied.

Lic. Thou shalt have all the shavings, and then a woman's tongue imped with a barber's, will prove a razor or a raser *.

Pet. How now, Motto, what all amort †?
Mot. I am as melancholy as a cat.

Lic. Melancholy? marry gup, is melancholy a word for a barber's mouth? thou shouldst say, heavy, dull, and doltish: melancholy is the crest of courtiers' arms, and now every base companion being in his muble fubles, says he is melancholy.

Pet. Motto, thou shouldst say thou art lumpish. If thou encroach upon our courtly terms, we'll trounce thee: belike if thou shouldst spit often, thou wouldst call it rheum. Motto, in men of

* The meaning of the passage is this: Pipenetta, who loved to talk, wishes that the parts which were cut off from the barber's tongue (which she calls the odd ends) might be given to her to piece out or mend her own with: and Licio promises that these pieces (which, in allusion to the trade of Motto, he calls shavings) should be given to her; and then satirically observes, that when a woman's tongue was lengthened or pieced out with a barber's, it would prove keen enough to cut away every thing before it. Many instances may be produced of imp being used in this sense: so in " Richard II."

"If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,

Imp out our drooping country's broken wing.”

And Stevens observes," When the wing-feathers of a hawk were dropped, or forced out by accident, it was usual to supply as many as were deficient: this operation was called to imp a hawk." He produced other instances, and adds, that "Turbervile has a whole chapter on the Way and Manner howe to ympe a Hawke's Feather, how-soever it be broken or broosed"."

+ "All amort," dull, heavy, melancholy: it is a common phrase.

reputation and credit, it is the rheum; in such mechanical mushrooms, it is a catarrh, a pose, You were best wear a velvet

the water evil.

patch on your temple too.

Mot. What a world it is to see eggs forwarder than cocks these infants are as cunning in diseases, as I that have run them all over, backward and forward. I tell you, boys, it is melancholy that now troubleth me.

Del. My master could tickle you with diseases, and that old ones, that have continued in his ancestors' bones these three hundred years. He is the last of the family that is left uneaten. Mot. What meanest thou, Dello?

Pet. He means you are the last of the stock alive; the rest worms have eaten.

Del. A pox of those saucy worms, that eat men before they be dead.

Pet. But tell us, Motto, why art thou sad?
Mot. Because all the court is sad.

Lic. Why are they sad in court?

Mot. Because the king hath a pain in his ears. Pet. Belike it is the wens.

Mot. It may be, for his ears are swollen very big.

Pet. (to Lic.) Ten to one Motto knows of the ass's ears.

Lic. If he know it, we shall; for it is as hard for a barber to keep a secret in his mouth, as a burning coal in his hand: thou shalt see me wring it out by wit. Motto, 'twas told me that the king will discharge you of your office, because you cut his ear when you last trimmed him.

Mot. 'Tis a lie; and yet if I had he might well spare an inch or two.

Pet. It will out, I feel him coming.

Del. (Aside to Mot.) Master, take heed, you will blab all anon, these wags are crafty.

Mot. Let me alone.

Lic. Why, Motto, what difference between the king's ears and thine?

Mot. As much as between an ass's ears and mine.

Pet. Oh, Motto is modest; to mitigate the matter, he calls his own ears ass's ears.

Mot. Nay, I mean the king's are ass's ears.
Lic. Treason! treason!

Del. I told you, master; you have made a fair hand; for now you have made your lips scissars to cut off your ears.

Mot. Perii *, unless you pity me, Motto is in a pit.

Pet. Nay, Motto, treason is a worse pain than toothake.

Lic. Now, Motto, thou knowest thine ears are ours to command.

Mot. Your servants or handmaids.

Pet. Then will I lead my maids by the hand. [He pulls him by the ears. Mot. Out, villain! thou wringest too hard. Del. Not so hard as he bit me.

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Mot. Thou seest, boy, we are both mortal. I enjoy mine ears, but durante placito; nor thou thy finger, but favente dente.

Pet. Yea, Motto, hast thou Latin?

* C Perii," i. e. I am undone.

Mot. Alas, he that hath drawn so many teeth, and never asked Latin for a tooth, is ill brought up.

Lic. Well, Motto, let us have the beard, without covin*, fraud, or delay, at one entire payment, and thou shalt scape a payment.

Mot. I protest by scissars, brush and comb, bason, ball and apron, by razor, earpick and rubbing cloths, and all the tria sequuntur triaes in our secret occupation (for you know it is no blabbing art), that you shall have the beard, in manner and form following. Not only the golden beard and every hair (though it be not hair), but a dozen of beards, to stuff two dozen of cushions.

Lic. Then they be big ones.

Del. They be half a yard broad, and a nail three quarters long, and a foot thick; so, sir, shall you find them stuft enough, and soft enough. All my mistress' lines that she dries her clothes on, are made only of mustachio stuff. And, if I durst tell the truth, as lusty as I am here, I lie upon a bed of beards ; a bots of their bristles, and they that own them, they are harder than flocks.

Pet. A fine discourse. Well, Motto, we give thee mercy, but we will not lose the beard. Remember now our inventory. Item, we will not let thee go out of our hands, till we have the beard in our hands.

Mot. Then follow.

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[Exeunt.

Covin," is a term in law, denoting a fraudulent agreement. †The lines on which clothes are hung are now sometimes made of hair: though not of "mustachio stuff," I confess.

SCENE III.

MIDAS, SOPHRONIA, MELLACRITES, and MAR

TIUS.

Mid. This is Delphos. Sacred Apollo, whose oracles be all divine, though doubtful; answer poor Midas, and pity him.

Sop. I marvel there is no answer.

Mid. Fond Midas, how canst thou ask pity of him whom thou hast so much abused; or why dost thou abuse the world, both to seem ignorant in not acknowledging an offence, and impudent so openly to crave pardon? Apollo will not answer, but Midas must not cease. Apollo, divine Apollo, Midas hath ass's ears; yet let pity sink into thine ears, and tell when he shall be free from this shame, or what may mitigate his sin?

Mart. Tush, Apollo is tuning his pipes; or at barley-break* with Daphne, or assaying on some shepherd's coat, or taking measure of a serpent's skin. Were I Midas, I would rather cut these ears off close from my head, than stand whimpering before such a blind god ‡.

Barley-break" was a rural sport amongst young persons. See note on the "Scornful Lady" of Beaumont and Fletcher. + "Whimpering," sobbing. All may recollect the lamentation of Glumdalclitch:

"In peals of thunder now she roars, and now

She gently whimpers like a lowing cow."

It will not be impertinent here, I hope, to notice that "Apollo is tuning his pipes," alludes to his being the god of music; "or at barley-break with Daphne," to his celebrated affection for Daphne; "or assaying on some shepherd's coat," to

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