by Ben Jonson
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT: Yes indeed, we have such a tedious life with him for his diet, and his clothes too; he breaks his buttons and cracks seams at every saying he sobs out.
70 LITTLEWIT: He cannot abide my vocation, he says.
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT: No, he told my mother a Proctor was a claw of the Beast, and that she had little less than committed abomination in marrying me so as she has done.
LITTLEWIT: Every line, he says, that a Proctor writes, when it comes to be read in the Bishop’s court, is a long black hair, kembed out of the tail of Antichrist.
WINWIFE: When came this proselyte?
LITTLEWIT: Some three days since.
i,iii[Enter TOM QUARLOUS.]
[QUARLOUS:] O sir, ha’ you ta’ en soil here? It’s well a man may reach you after three hours running, yet! What an unmerciful companion art thou, to quit thy lodging at such ungentlemanly hours! None but a scattered covey of fiddlers, or one of these rag-rakers in dunghills, or some marrow-bone man at most, would have been up when thou wert gone abroad, by all description. I pray thee what ailest thou, thou canst not sleep? Hast thou thorns i’ thy eyelids, or thistles i’ thy bed?
WINWIFE: I cannot tell. It seems you had neither i’ your feet, that took this pain to find me.
10 QUARLOUS: No, an’ I had, all the lyam-hounds o’ the City should have drawn after you by the scent rather. Master John Littlewit! God save you, sir. ’Twas a hot night with some of us, last night, John. Shall we pluck a hair o’ the same wolf today, Proctor John?
LITTLEWIT: Do you remember, Master Quarlous, what we discoursed on last night?
QUARLOUS: Not I, John. Nothing that I either discourse or do; at those times I forfeit all to forgetfulness.
LITTLEWIT: No? not concerning Win? Look you, there she is
20 and dressed as I told you she should be. Hark you, sir, had you forgot?
QUARLOUS: By this head, I’ ll beware how I keep your company, John, when I am drunk, an’ you have this dangerous memory! That’s certain.
LITTLEWIT: Why sir?
QUARLOUS: Why? We were all a little stained last night, sprinkled with a cup or two, and I agreed with Proctor John here to come and do somewhat with Win (I know not what ’twas) today; and he puts me in mind on’t, now; he says he was coming to
30 fetch me. – Before truth, if you have that fearful quality, John, to remember, when you are sober, John, what you promise drunk, John, I shall take heed of you, John. For this once, I am content to wink at you. Where’s your wife? Come hither, Win.
He kisseth her.
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT: Why, John! do you see this, John? Look you! help me, John.
LITTLEWIT: O Win, fie, what do you mean, Win? Be womanly, Win? make an outcry to your mother, Win? Master Quarlous
40 is an honest gentleman, and our worshipful good friend, Win; and he is Master Winwife’s friend, too. And Master Winwife comes a suitor to your mother, Win, as I told you before, Win, and may perhaps be our father, win. They’ ll do you no harm, Win; they are both our worshipful good friends. Master Quarlous! You must know Master Quarlous, Win; you must not quarrel with Master Quarlous, Win.
QUARLOUS: No, we’ ll kiss again, and fall in.
LITTLEWIT: Yes, do, good Win.
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT: I’ faith you are a fool, John.
50 LITTLEWIT: A fool-John she calls me, do you mark that, gentlemen? Pretty littlewit of velvet! A fool-John!
QUARLOUS: She may call you an apple-John, if you use this.
WINWIFE: Pray thee forbear, for my respect somewhat.
QUARLOUS: Hoy-day! How respective you are become o’ the sudden! I fear this family will turn you reformed too; pray you come about again. Because she is in possibility to be your daughter-in-law, and may ask your blessing hereafter, when she courts it to Tottenham to eat cream – well, I will forbear, sir; but i’ faith, would thou wouldst leave thy exercise of widow-hunting
60 once, this drawing after an old reverend smock by the splay-foot! There cannot be an ancient tripe or trillibub i’ the town, but thou art straight nosing it; and ’tis a fine occupation thou’ lt confine thyself to, when thou hast got one – scrubbing a piece of buff, as if thou hadst the perpetuity of Pannyer Alley to stink in; or perhaps, worse, currying a carcass that thou hast bound thyself to alive. I’ ll be sworn, some of them, that thou art or hast been a suitor to, are so old as no chaste or married pleasure can ever become ’ em. The honest instrument of procreation has, forty years since, left to belong to ’ em. Thou must visit ’ em as thou wouldst do a tomb, with a torch, or three
70 handfuls of link, flaming hot, and so thou mayst hap to make ’ em feel thee, and after, come to inherit according to thy inches. A sweet course for a man to waste the brand of life for, to be still raking himself a fortune in an old woman’s embers; we shall ha’ thee, after thou hast been but a month married to one of ’ em, look like the quartan ague and the black jaundice met in a face, and walk as if thou hadst borrowed legs of a spinner, and voice of a cricket. I would endure to hear fifteen sermons a week ’ fore her, and such coarse and loud ones as some of ’ em must be; I would e’ en desire of Fate I might dwell in a drum,
80 and take in my sustenance with an old broken tobacco-pipe and a straw. Dost thou ever think to bring thine ears or stomach to the patience of a dry grace as long as thy tablecloth, and droned out by thy son here, that might be thy father, till all the meat o’ thy board has forgot it was that day i’ the kitchen? Or to brook the noise made in a question of predestination, by the good labourers and painful eaters assembled together, put to ’ em by the matron, your spouse, who moderates with a cup of wine, ever and anon, and a sentence out of Knox between? Or the perpetual spitting, before and after a sober drawn exhortation
90 of six hours, whose better part was the hum-ha-hum? Or to hear prayers groaned out over thy iron-chests, as if they were charms to break ’ em? And all this, for the hope of two apostle-spoons, to suffer! And a cup to eat a caudle in! For that will be thy legacy. She’ ll ha’ conveyed her state, safe enougn from thee, an’ she be a right widow.
WINWIFE: Alas, I am quite off that scent now.
QUARLOUS: How so?
WINWIFE: Put off by a brother of Banbury, one that, they say, is
100 come here and governs all, already.
QUARLOUS: What do you call him? I knew divers of those Banburians when I was in Oxford.
WINWIFE: Master Littlewit can tell us.
LITTLEWIT: Sir! Good Win, go in, and if Master Barthol’ mew Cokes’s man come for the licence (the little old fellow), let him speak with me.
[Exit MISTRESS LITTLEWIT.]
What say you, gentlemen?
WINWIFE: What call you the reverend elder you told me of, your Banbury man?
110 LITTLEWIT: Rabbi Busy, sir. He is more than an elder, he is a prophet, sir.
QUARLOUS: O, I know him! A baker, is he not?
LITTLEWIT: He was a baker, sir, but he does dream now, and see visions; he has given over his trade.
QUARLOUS: I remember that, too – out of a scruple he took, that (in spiced conscience) those cakes he made were served to bridals, may-poles, morrises, and such profane feasts and meetings. His Christian name is Zeal-of-the-Land.
LITTLEWIT: Yes, sir, Zeal-of-the-Land Busy.
120 WINWIFE: How, what a name’s there!
LITTLEWIT: O, they have all such names, sir. He was witness for Win here (they will not be called godfathers), and named her Win-the-Fight. You thought her name had been Winifred, did you not?
WINWIFE: I did indeed.
LITTLEWIT: He would ha’ thought himself a stark reprobate, if it had.
QUARLOUS: Ay, for there was a blue-starch-woman o’ the name, at the same time. A notable hypocritical vermin it is; I know him. One that stands upon his face more than his faith, at all
130 times; ever in seditious motion, and reproving for vain-glory; of a most lunatic conscience and spleen, and affects the violence of singularity in all he does. (He has und
one a grocer here, in Newgate-market, that broke with him, trusted him with currants, as arrant a zeal as he, that’s by the way.) By his profession he will ever be i’ the state of innocence, though, and childhood; derides all antiquity; defies any other learning than inspiration; and what discretion soever years should afford him, it is all prevented in his original ignorance. Ha’ not to do with him; for he is a fellow of a most arrogant and invincible dullness, I assure
140 you. Who is this?
i,iv [Re-enter MISTRESS LITTLEWIT with HUMPHREY WASP.]
[WASP:] By your leave, gentlemen, with all my heart to you, and God you good morrow. Master Littlewit, my business is to you. Is this licence ready?
LITTLEWIT: Here, I ha’ it for you in my hand, Master Humphrey.
WASP: That’s well Nay, never open or read it to me; it’s labour in vain, you know. I am no clerk, I scorn to be saved by my book, i’ faith I’ ll hang first. Fold it up o’ your word and gi’ it me. What must you ha’ for’t?
LITTLEWIT: We’ ll talk of that anon, Master Humphrey.
WASP: Now, or not at all good Master Proctor; I am for no
10 anons, I assure you.
LITTLEWIT: Sweet Win, bid Solomon send me the little black box within, in my study.
WASP: Ay, quickly, good mistress, I pray you; for I have both eggs o’ the spit, and iron i’ the fire. Say what you must have, good Master Littlewit.
[Exit MISTRESS LITTLEWIT.]
LITTLEWIT: Why, you know the price, Master Numps.
WASP: I know? I know nothing, I. What tell you me of knowing? Now I am in haste, sir, I do not know, and I will not know, and I scorn to know,
20 and yet (now I think on’t) I will and do know as well as another; you must have a mark for your thing here, and eightpence for the box. I could ha’ saved twopence i’ that, an’ I had bought it myself, but here’s fourteen shillings for you. Good Lord, how long your little wife stays! Pray God, Solomon, your clerk, be not looking i’ the wrong box, Master Proctor.
LITTLEWIT: Good i’ faith! No. I warrant you, Solomon is wiser than so, sir.
WASP: Fie, fie, fie, by your leave, Master Littlewit, this is scurvy,
30 idle, foolish, and abominable; with all my heart, I do not like it.
WINWIFE: Do you hear? Jack Littlewit, what business does thy pretty head think this fellow may have, that he keeps such a coil with?
QUARLOUS: More than buying of gingerbread i’ the Cloister, here (for that we allow him), or a gilt pouch i’ the Fair?
LITTLEWIT: Master Quarlous, do not mistake him. He is hismaster’s both-hands, I assure you.
QUARLOUS: What? to pull on his boots, a mornings, or his stockings, does he?
40 LITTLEWIT: Sir, if you have a mind to mock him, mock him softly, and look t’ other way; for if he apprehend you flout him once, he will fly at you presently. A terrible testy old fellow, and his name is Wasp too.
QUARLOUS: Pretty insect! make much on him.
WASP: A plague o’ this box, and the pox too, and on him that made it, and her that went for’t, and all that should ha’ sought it, sent it, or brought it! Do you see, sir?
LITTLEWIT: Nay, good Master Wasp.
WASP: Good Master Hornet, turd i’ your teeth, hold you your tongue! Do not I know you? Your father was a ’ pothecary, and
50 sold glisters, more than he gave, I wusse. And turd i’ your little wife’s teeth too – here she comes – ’twill make her spit, as fine as she is, for all her velvet-custard on her head, sir.
[Re-enter MISTRESS LITTLEWIT with the box.]
LITTLEWIT: O! be civil, Master Numps.
WASP: Why, Say I have a humour not to be civil; how then? Who shall compel me? You?
LITTLEWIT: Here is the box now.
WASP: Why a pox o’ your box, once again. Let your little wife stale in it, an’ she will. Sir, I would have you to understand, and these gentlemen too, if they please –
60 WINWIFE: With all our hearts, sir.
WASP: That I have a charge, gentlemen.
LITTLEWIT: They do apprehend, sir.
WASP: Pardon me, sir, neither they nor you can apprehend me yet. (You are an ass.) I have a young master, he is now upon his making and marring; the whole care of his well-doing is now mine. His foolish schoolmasters have done nothing but run up and down the country with him to beg puddings and cake-bread of his tenants, and almost spoiled him; he has learned nothing but to sing catches and repeat
70 ‘Rattle bladder rattle’ and ‘O Madge’. I dare not let him walk alone for fear of learning of vile tunes, which he will sing at supper and in the sermontimes! If he meet but a carman i’ the street, and I find him not talk to keep him off on him, he will whistle him and all his tunes over at night in his sleep! He has a head full of bees! I am fain now, for this little time I am absent, to leave him in charge with a gentlewoman. ’Tis true, she is a Justice of Peace’s wife, and a gentlewoman o’ the hood, and his natural sister; but what may happen under a woman’s government, there’s the doubt.
80 Gentlemen, you do not know him. He is another manner of piece than you think for – but nineteen year old, and yet he is taller than either of you, by the head, God bless him.
QUARLOUS: Well, methinks this is a fine fellow!
WINWIFE: He has made his master a finer by this description, I should think.
QUARLOUS: ‘Faith, much about one; it’s cross and pile whether, for a new farthing.
WASP: I’ ll tell you, gentlemen –
LITTLEWIT: Will’t please you drink, Master Wasp?
90 WASP: Why, I ha’ not talked so long to be dry, sir. You see no dust or cobwebs come out o’ my mouth, do you? You’ d ha’ me gone, would you?
LITTLEWIT: No, but you were in haste e’ en now, Master Numps.
WASP: What an’ I were? So I am still, And Yet I will stay, too. Meddle you with your match, your Win, there; she has as little wit as her husband, it seems. I have others to talk to.
LITTLEWIT: She’s match indeed, and as litle wit as I, good!
WASP: We ha’ been but a day and a half in town, gentlemen, ’tis true; and yesterday i’ the afternoon we walked London to show
100 the City to the gentlewoman he shall marry, Mistress Grace; but afore I will endure such another half day with him I’ ll be drawn with a good gib-cat through the great pond at home, as his Uncle Hodge was! Why, we could not meet that heathen thing all day, but stayed him. He would name you all the signs over, as he went, aloud; and where he spied a parrot or a monkey, there he was pitched with all the litle long-coats about
him! I thought he would ha’ run mad o’ the black boy in Bucklersbury that takes the scurvy, roguy tobacco there.
LITTLEWIT: You say true, Master Numps; there’s such a one indeed.
110 WASP: It’s no matter whether there be or no. What’s that to you?
QUARLOUS: He will not allow of John’s reading at any hand.
I, v [Enter BARTHOLOMEW COKES, MISTRESS OVERDO, and GRACE WELLBORN.]
COKES: O Numps! are you here, Numps? Look where I am, Numps! And Mistress Grace, too! Nay, do not look angerly,
Numps: my sister is here, and all; I do not come without her.
WASP: What the mischief, do you come with her? Or she with you?
COKES: We came all to seek you, Numps.
WASP: To seek me? Why, did you all think I was lost? Or runaway wim your fourteen shillings worth of small ware here? Or that I had changed it i’ the Fair for hobby-horses? ’ Sprecious–
10 to seek me!
MISTRESS OVERDO: Nay, good Master Numps, do you show discretion, though he be exorbitant, as Master Overdo says, an’t be but for conservation of the peace.
WASP: Marry gip, Goody she-Justice, Mistress French-hood! Turd i’ your teeth; and turd i’ your French-hood’s teeth, too, to do you service, do you see? Must you quote your Adam to me? You think you are Madam Regent still, Mistress Overdo, when I am in place? No such matter, I assure you; your reign is out when I am in, dame.
&nbs
p; MISTRESS OVERDO: I am content to be in abeyance, sir, and be
20 governed by you; so should he too, if he did well; but’twill be expected you should also govern your passions.
WASP: Will’t so forsooth? Good Lord! How sharp you are with being at Bedlam yesterday? Whetstone has set an edge upon you, has he?
MISTRESS OVERDO: Nay, if you know not what belongs to your dignity, I do, yet, to mine.
WASP: Very well, then.
COKES: Is this the licence, Numps? For love’s sake, let me see’t.
30 I never saw a licence.
WASP: Did you not so? Why, you shall not see’t, then.
COKES: An you love me, good Numps.
WASP: Sir, I love you, and yet I do not love you, i’ these fooleries; set your heart at rest; there’s nothing in’t but hard words; and what would you see’t for?
COKES: I would see the length and the breadth on’t, that’s all; and I will see’t now, so I will.
WASP: You sha’ not see it here.
COKES: Then I’ ll see’t at home, and I’ ll look upo’ the case here.
40 WASP: Why, do so. [He shows him the box.] A man must give way to him a little in trifles, gentlemen. These are errors, diseases of youth, which he will mend when he comes to judgement and knowledge of matters. I pray you conceive so, and I thank you. And I pray you pardon him, and I thank you again.
QUARLOUS: Well, this dry nurse, I say still, is a delicate man.
WINWIFE: And I am for the cosset, his charge! Did you ever see a fellow’s face more accuse him for an ass?
QUARLOUS: Accuse him? It confesses him one without accusing. What pity ’tis yonder wench should marry such a cokes!
50 WINWIFE: ’THIS TRUE.
QUARLOUS: She seems to be discreet, and as sober as she is handsome.
WINWIFB: Ay, and if you mark her, what a restrained scorn she casts upon all his behaviour and speeches!
COKES: Well, Numps, I am now for another piece of business more, the Fair, Numps, and then –
WASP: Bless me! deliver me, help, hold me! the Fair!
COKES: Nay, never fidge up and down, Numps, and vex itself. I am resolute Barthol’ mew, in this; I’ ll make no suit on’t to you; ’twas all the end of my journey, indeed, to show Mistress Grace my Fair.