What’s here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?
Second Huntsman
He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm’d with ale,
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.
Lord
O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
What think you, if he were convey’d to bed,
Wrapp’d in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?
First Huntsman
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.
Second Huntsman
It would seem strange unto him when he waked.
Lord
Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.
Then take him up and manage well the jest:
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber
And hang it round with all my wanton pictures:
Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters
And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet:
Procure me music ready when he wakes,
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;
And if he chance to speak, be ready straight
And with a low submissive reverence
Say ‘What is it your honour will command?’
Let one attend him with a silver basin
Full of rose-water and bestrew’d with flowers,
Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,
And say ‘Will’t please your lordship cool your hands?’
Some one be ready with a costly suit
And ask him what apparel he will wear;
Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
And that his lady mourns at his disease:
Persuade him that he hath been lunatic;
And when he says he is, say that he dreams,
For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
This do and do it kindly, gentle sirs:
It will be pastime passing excellent,
If it be husbanded with modesty.
First Huntsman
My lord, I warrant you we will play our part,
As he shall think by our true diligence
He is no less than what we say he is.
Lord
Take him up gently and to bed with him;
And each one to his office when he wakes.
Some bear out Sly. A trumpet sounds
Sirrah, go see what trumpet ’tis that sounds:
Exit Servingman
Belike, some noble gentleman that means,
Travelling some journey, to repose him here.
Re-enter Servingman
How now! who is it?
Servant
An’t please your honour, players
That offer service to your lordship.
Lord
Bid them come near.
Enter Players
Now, fellows, you are welcome.
Players
We thank your honour.
Lord
Do you intend to stay with me tonight?
A Player
So please your lordship to accept our duty.
Lord
With all my heart. This fellow I remember,
Since once he play’d a farmer’s eldest son:
’Twas where you woo’d the gentlewoman so well:
I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally perform’d.
A Player
I think ’twas Soto that your honour means.
Lord
’Tis very true: thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in a happy time;
The rather for I have some sport in hand
Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play to-night:
But I am doubtful of your modesties;
Lest over-eyeing of his odd behavior,—
For yet his honour never heard a play —
You break into some merry passion
And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile he grows impatient.
A Player
Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves,
Were he the veriest antic in the world.
Lord
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
And give them friendly welcome every one:
Let them want nothing that my house affords.
Exit one with the Players
Sirrah, go you to Barthol’mew my page,
And see him dress’d in all suits like a lady:
That done, conduct him to the drunkard’s chamber;
And call him ‘madam,’ do him obeisance.
Tell him from me, as he will win my love,
He bear himself with honourable action,
Such as he hath observed in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplished:
Such duty to the drunkard let him do
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say ‘What is’t your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?’
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy’d
To see her noble lord restored to health,
Who for this seven years hath esteem’d him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar:
And if the boy have not a woman’s gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which in a napkin being close convey’d
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst:
Anon I’ll give thee more instructions.
Exit a Servingman
I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait and action of a gentlewoman:
I long to hear him call the drunkard husband,
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I’ll in to counsel them; haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
Exeunt
SCENE II. A BEDCHAMBER IN THE LORD’S HOUSE.
Enter aloft Sly, with Attendants; some with apparel, others with basin and ewer and appurtenances; and Lord
Sly
For God’s sake, a pot of small ale.
First Servant
Will’t please your lordship drink a cup of sack?
Second Servant
Will’t please your honour taste of these conserves?
Third Servant
What raiment will your honour wear to-day?
Sly
I am Christophero Sly; call not me ‘honour’ nor ‘lordship:’ I ne’er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef: ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear; for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay, sometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the over-leather.
Lord
Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!
Sly
What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son of Burtonheath, by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, th
e fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught: here’s —
Third Servant
O, this it is that makes your lady mourn!
Second Servant
O, this is it that makes your servants droop!
Lord
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays,
Music
And twenty caged nightingales do sing:
Or wilt thou sleep? we’ll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimm’d up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground:
Or wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp’d,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
First Servant
Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.
Second Servant
Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
Lord
We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid,
And how she was beguiled and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.
Third Servant
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
Lord
Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.
First Servant
And till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
And yet she is inferior to none.
Sly
Am I a lord? and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? or have I dream’d till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;
I smell sweet savours and I feel soft things:
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed
And not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o’ the smallest ale.
Second Servant
Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?
O, how we joy to see your wit restored!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream;
Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept.
Sly
These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?
First Servant
O, yes, my lord, but very idle words:
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;
And rail upon the hostess of the house;
And say you would present her at the leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal’d quarts:
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.
Sly
Ay, the woman’s maid of the house.
Third Servant
Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,
Nor no such men as you have reckon’d up,
As Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece
And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell
And twenty more such names and men as these
Which never were nor no man ever saw.
Sly
Now Lord be thanked for my good amends!
All
Amen.
Sly
I thank thee: thou shalt not lose by it.
Enter the Page as a lady, with attendants
Page
How fares my noble lord?
Sly
Marry, I fare well for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?
Page
Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her?
Sly
Are you my wife and will not call me husband?
My men should call me ‘lord:’ I am your goodman.
Page
My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
I am your wife in all obedience.
Sly
I know it well. What must I call her?
Lord
Madam.
Sly
Al’ce madam, or Joan madam?
Lord
‘Madam,’ and nothing else: so lords call ladies.
Sly
Madam wife, they say that I have dream’d
And slept above some fifteen year or more.
Page
Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon’d from your bed.
Sly
’Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you and come now to bed.
Page
Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two,
Or, if not so, until the sun be set:
For your physicians have expressly charged,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed:
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.
Sly
Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into my dreams again: I will therefore tarry in despite of the flesh and the blood.
Enter a Messenger
Messenger
Your honour’s players, heating your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
Sly
Marry, I will, let them play it. Is not a comondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?
Page
No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.
Sly
What, household stuff?
Page
It is a kind of history.
Sly
Well, well see’t. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger.
Flourish
ACT I
SCENE I. PADUA. A PUBLIC PLACE.
Enter Lucentio and his man Tranio
Lucentio
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy;
And by my father’s love and leave am arm’d
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant, well approved in all,
&nb
sp; Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renown’d for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincetino come of Bentivolii.
Vincetino’s son brought up in Florence
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.
Tranio
Mi perdonato, gentle master mine,
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle’s cheques
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en:
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
Lucentio
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
But stay a while: what company is this?
Tranio
Master, some show to welcome us to town.
Enter Baptista, Katharina, Bianca, Gremio, and Hortensio. Lucentio and Tranio stand by
Baptista
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolved you know;
That is, not bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder:
If either of you both love Katharina,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.
Gremio
[Aside] To cart her rather: she’s too rough for me.
There, There, Hortensio, will you any wife?
Katharina
I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?
Hortensio
Mates, maid! how mean you that? no mates for you,
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.
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