Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker
Page 98
MINIVER
Nay, truly, Captain, you shall be my leader.
TUCCA
I say, Mary Ambree, thou shalt march formost, beause I’ll mark how broad th’art in the heels.
MINIVER
Perdy, I will be set a’th’last for this time.
TUCCA
Why then, come, we’ll walk arm in arm, as though we were leading one another to Newgate.
Enter BLUNT, CRISPINUS, and DEMETRIUS, with papers, laughing.
CRISPINUS
Mine’s of a fashion, cut out and quite from yours.
DEMETRIUS
Mine has the sharpest tooth.Yonder he is.
BLUNT
Captain Tucca. [All hold up papers.
TUCCA
How now?I cannot stand to read supplications now.
CRISPINUS
They’re bitter epigrams compos’d on you by Horace.
DEMETRIUS
And dispers’d amongst the gallants in several copies, by Asinius Bubo.
TUCCA
By that live eel?Read, Leg Legito, read, thou Jack.
BLUNT
[Reads.] Tucca’s grown monstrous.How?Rich?That I fear
He’s to be seen for money everywhere.
TUCCA
Why, true, shall not I get in my debts?Nay and the rogue write no better I care not.Farewell, black Jack, farewell.
CRISPINUS
But, Captain, here’s a nettle.
TUCCA
Sting me, do.
CRISPINIUS
[Reads.] Tucca’s exceeding tall and yet not high,
He fights with skill, but does most vile lie.
TUCCA
Right, for here I lie now.Open, open, to make my adversary come one; and then, sir, here am I in’s bosom.Nay and this be the worst, I shall hug the poor honest face-maker.I’ve love the little atheist when he writes after my commendation.Another whip?Come, yerk me.
DEMETRIUS
[Reads.] Tucca will bite.How?Grown satirical?
No, he bites tables, for he feeds on all.
TUCCA
The whoreson cloven-foot devil in man’s apparel lies there stood above forty dishes before me today, that I ne’er touch’d because they were empty.
MINIVER
I am witness, young gentlemen, to that.
TUCCA
Farewell, stinkers.I smell they meaning, screech-owl, I do, though I stop my nose; and sirrah poet, we’ll have thee untruss’d for this.Come, mother Mum-Pudding, come. [Exeunt.
Act Three, Scene Two
TRUMPETS SOUND A flourish, and then a sennet.Enter KING,with CÆLESTINE, SIR WALTER TERILL, SIR QUINTILIAN, SIR ADAM, BLUNT, and other Ladies, DICACHE, PHILOCALIA, PETULA, and Attendants; whilst the trumpets sound, the KING takes his leave of the Bridegroom,and SIR QUINTILIAN and last of the Bride.
KING
My song of parting, doth this burden bear.
A kiss the ditty, and I sing it here.
Your lips are well in tune, strung with delight,
By this fair bride remember soon at night.
Sir Walter.
TERILL
My liege lord, we all attend,
The time and place.
KING
Till then, my leave commend.[They bring him to the door.
Enter at another door, SIR VAUGHAN.
SIR VAUGHAN
Ladies, I am to put a very easy suit upon you all, and to desire you to fill you little pellies at a dinner of plums behind no one.There be suckets and marmalades, and marchants, and other long white plums that fain would kiss your delicate and sweet lips.I indict you all together, and you especially, my lady pride.What do you say for yoursells?For I indict you all.
CÆLESTINE
I thank you, good Sir Vaughan, I will come.
SIR VAUGHAN
Say, sentlewomen, will you stand to me too?
ALL
We’ll sit with you, sweet Sir Vaughan.
SIR VAUGHAN
God a’ mighty, pless your faces, and make your peauties last, when we are all dead and rotten.You will all come?
FIRST LADY
All will come.
SIR VAUGHAN
Pray God that Horace be in his right wits to rail now.[Exit.
CRISPINUS
Come, lady, you shall be my dancine guest
To treat the maze of music with the rest.
DEMETRIUS
I’ll lead you in.
DICACHE
A maze is like a doubt,
’Tis easy to go in, hard to get out.
BLUNT
We follow close behind.
PHILOCALIA
That measure’s best.
Now none marks us, but we mark all the rest.
[Exeunt all saving SIR QUINTILIAN, CÆLESTINE, andSIR WALTER TERILL.
TERILL
Father, and you my bride; that name today;
Wife comes not till tomorrow; but omitting
This interchange of language, let us think
Upon the king and night, and call out spirits
To a true reckoning.First, to arm our wits
With complete steel of judgement, and out tongues
With sound artillery of phrases; then
Our bodies must be motions; moving first
What we speak; afterwards, our very knees
Must humbly seem to talk, and suit our speech,
For a true furnish’d courtier hath such force;
Though his tongue faints, his very legs discourse.
SIR QUINTILIAN
Son Terill, thou hast drawn his picture right,
For he’s no full-made courtier, nor well strung
That hath not every joint struck with a tongue.
Daughter, if ladies say, that is the bride, that’s she,
Gaze thou at none, for all will gaze at thee.
CÆLESTINE
Then, O my father, must I go?O my husband,
Shall I then go?O, myself, will I go?
SIR QUINTILIAN
You must.
TERILL
You shall.
CÆLESTINE
I will, but give me leave
To say I may not, nor I ought not, say not
Still, I must go, let me entreat I may not.
TERILL
You must and shall; I made a deed of give,
And gave my oath unto the king; I swore
By thy true constancy.
CÆLESTINE
Then keep that word
To swear by.O, let me be constant still.
TERILL
What shall I cancel faith, and break my oath?
CÆLESTINE
If breaking constancy, thou breakst them both.
TERILL
Thy constancy no evil can pursue.
CÆLESTINE
Imay be constant still, and yet not true.
TERILL
As how?
CÆLESTINE
As thus:violence detain’d,
They may be constant still, that are constrain’d.
TERILL
Constrain’d?That word weighs heavy, yet my oath
Weighs down that word; the king’s thoughts are at odds;
They are not even balanced in his breast.
The king may play the man with me; nay more,
Kings may usurp; my wife’s a woman, yet
’Tis more then I know yet, that know not her.
If she should prove mankind, ‘twere rare, fie, fie!
See how I lose myself amongst my thoughts
Thinking to find myself?My oath, my oath!
SIR QUINTILIAN
I swear another, let me see, by what?
By my long stocking, and my narrow skirts,
Not made to sit upon; she shall to court.
I have a trick, a charm, that shall lay down
The spirit of lust, and keep thee undeflowered.
Thy husband’s honour sav’d, and the hot king
Shall
have enough too.Come, a trick, a charm.[Exit.
CÆLESTINE
God keep thy honour safe, my blood from harm.
TERILL
Come, my sick-minded bride, I’ll teach thee how
To relish health a little.Taste this thought:
That when mine eyes serv’d love’s commission
Upon thy beauties, I did seize on them
To a king’s use; cure all thy grief with this:
That his great seal was graven upon this ring,
And that I was but steward to a king.[Exeunt.
Act Four, Scene One
A BANQUET SET out; enter SIR VAUGHAN, HORACE, ASINIUS BUBO, LADY PETULA, DICACHE, PHILOCALIA, MISTRESS MINIVER and PETER FLUSH.
SIR VAUGHAN
Ladies and sentlemen, you are almost all welcome to this sweet nuncions of plums.
DICACHE
Almast all, Sir Vaughan?Why, to which of us are you so niggardly that you cut her out but a piece of welcome?
SIR VAUGHAN
My interpretations is that almost all are welcome, because I indicted a brace or two more that is not come, I am sorry, my Lady Pride is not among you.
ASINIUS
‘Slid, he makes hounds of us, Ningle.A brace, quoth a’?
SIR VAUGHAN
Peter Salamanders draw out the pictures of all the joint stools, and ladies sit down upon their wooden faces.
FLASH
I warrant, sir, I’ll give every one of them a good stool.
SIR VAUGHAN
Master Horace, Master Horace, when I pray to God and desire in hypocritnes that bald Sir Adams were here, then, then, then begin to make your rails at the poverty and beggarly want of hair.
HORACE
Leave it to my judgement.
SIR VAUGHAN
Master Bubo, sit there; you and I will think upon our ends at the tables.Master Horace, put your learned body into the midst of these ladies; so, ’tis no matter to speak graces at nuncions, because we are all past grace since dinner.
ASINIUS
Mass, I thank my destiny I am not past grace, for by this hand full of caraways, I could never abide to say grace.
DICACHE
Mistress Miniver, is not that innocent gentleman a kind of fool?
MINIVER
Why do you ask, madam?
DICACHE
Nay for no harm.I ask because I thought you two had been of acquaintance.
MINIVER
I think he’s within an inch of a fool.
DICACHE
Madam Philocalia, you sit next that spare gentleman.Would you heard what Mistress Miniver says of you.
PHILOCALIA
Why, what says she, Madam Dicache?
DICACHE
Nay nothing, but wishes you were married to that small timber’d gallant.
PHILOCALIA
You wish and mine are twins.I wish so too, for then I should be sure to lead a merry life.
ASINIUS
Yes, faith, lady.I’d make you laugh; my bolts now and then should be some shot; by these combits we’d let all slide.
PETULA
He takes the sweetest oaths that ever I heard a gallant of his pitch swear.By these comfits, and these caraways, I warrant it does him good to swear.
ASINIUS
Yes, faith, ’tis meat and drink to me.I am glad, Lady Petula, by this apple, that they please you.
SIR VAUGHAN
Peter Salamander’s wine.I beseech you, Master Asinius Bubo, not to swear do deeply for there comes no fruit of.Here, ladies, Iput you all into one corners together; you shall all drink of one cup.
ASINIUS
Peter, I prithee, fill me out one too.
FLASH
I’d fling you out too and I might ha’ my will; a pox of all fools.
SIR VAUGHAN
Mistress Minivers, pray be lusty.Would Sir Adams Prickshaft stuck by you.
HORACE
Who, the bald knight, Sir Vaughan?
SIR VAUGHAN
The same, Master Horace.He that has but a remnant or parcel of hair; his crown is clipp’d and par’d away.Methinks ’tis an excellent quality to be bald; for and there stuck a nose and two nyes in his pate, he might wear two faces under one hood.
ASINIUS
As God save me la, if i might ha’ my will, I’d rather be a bald gentleman then a hairy, for I am sure the best and tallest yeomen in England have bald heads.Methinks hair is a scurvy lousy commodity.
HORACE
Bubo, herein you blaze your ignorance.
SIR VAUGHAN
Pray, stop and fill your mouths, and give Master Horace all your ears.
HORACE
For, if of all the body’s parts, the head
Be the most royal; if discourse, wit, judgement,
And all our understanding faculties
Sit there in their high court of parliament,
Enacting laws to sway this humorous world;
This little Isle of Man; needs must that crown
Which stands upon this supreme head be fair
And held invaluable, and that crown’s the hair;
The head that wants this honour stands awry;
Is bare in name and in authority.
SIR VAUGHAN
He means bald pates, Mistress Minivers.
HORACE
Hair, ’tis the robe which curious Nature weaves,
To hang upon the head, and does adorn
Our bodies in the first hour we are born.
God does bestow that garment; when we die,
That, like a soft and silken canopy,
Is still spread over us.In spite of death,
Our hair grows in our grave, and that alone
Looks fresh, when all our other beauty’s gone.
The excellence of hair in this shines clear:
That the four elements take pride to wear
The fashion of it; when fire most bright does burn,
The flames to golden locks do strive to turn;
When her lascivious arms the water hurls
About the shore’s waist, her sleek head she curls;
And rorid clouds being suck’d into the air
When down they melt, hangs like fine silver hair;
You see the earth, whose head so oft is shorn,
Frighted to feel her locks so rudely torn,
Stands with her hair an end, and, thus afraid,
Turns every hair to a green naked blade.
Besides, when, struck with grief, we long to die,
We spoil that most, which most does beautify;
We rend this head-tire off.I thus conclude,
Colours set colours out; our eyes judge right,
Of vice or virtue by their opposite;
So, if fair hair to beauty add such grace,
Baldness must needs be ugly, vile and base.
SIR VAUGHAN
True, Master Horace, for a bald reason is a reson that has no hairs upon’t; a scurvy scalded reason.
MINIVER
By my truly, I never thought you could ha’ pick’d such strange things out of hair before.
ASINIUS
Nay, my Ningle can tickle it when he comes to’t.
MINIVER
Troth, I shall never be enamel’d of a bare-headed man for this, what shift so ever I make.
SIR VAUGHAN
Then, Mistress Miniver, Sir Adams Prickshaft must not hit you.Peter, take up all the clothes at the table and the plums.
Enter TUCCA and his Boy.
TUCCA
Save thee, my little worshipful harper; how do ye my little cracknels?How do you?
SIR VAUGHAN
Welcome, Master Tucca.Sit and shoot into your belly some sugar pellets.
TUCCA
No, Godamercy, Cadwallader.How do you, Horace?
HORACE
Thanks, good Captain.
TUCCA
Where’s the string thou carriest about thee?O, have I found thee my scowring-stick
?What’s my name, Bubo?
ASINIUS
Would I were hang’d if I can call you any names but Captain and Tucca.
TUCCA
No, Fie’st,My name’s Hamlet’s Revenge.Thou hast been at Paris garden, hast not?
HORACE
Yes, Captain, I ha’ play’d Zulziman there.
SIR VAUGHAN
Then, Master Horace, you play’d the part of an honest man.
TUCCA
Death of Hercules; he could never play that part well in’s life.No, Fulkes, you could not.Thou callst Demetrius’ journeyman poet, but thou putst up a supplication to be a poor journeyman player and hadst been still so but that thou couldst not set a good face upon’t.; thou hast forgot how thou amblest, in leather pilch, by a play-wagon in the highway, and tookst mad Jeronimoes part, to get service among the mimics; and when the stagerites hanish’d thee into the Ile of Dogs, thou turndst ban-dog, villainous Guy, and ever since bitest; therefore I ask if th’ast been at Paris Garden, because thou hast such a good mouth, thou baitst well.Read, lege, save thyself and read.
HORACE
Why, Captain, these are epigrams compos’d to you.
TUCCA
Go not out, farding candle, go not out, for trusty D’Amboys now the deed is done.I’ll pledge this epigram in wine; I’ll swallow it, I, yes.
SIR VAUGHAN
God bless us, will he be drunk with nittigrams now.
TUCCA
So, now arise, sprite a’th’butt’ry; no herring-bone, I’ll not pull thee out; but arise, dear Echo, rise, rise devil or I’ll conjure thee up.
MINIVER
Good Master Tucca, let’s ha’ no conjuring here.
SIR VAUGHAN
‘Ud’s blood, you scald gouty Captain!Why come you to set encumbrances here between the ladies?
TUCCA
Be not so tart, my precious metheglin, be not, my old whore a’ Babylon.Sit fast.
MINIVER
O Jesu!If I know whereabouts in London Babylon stands.
TUCCA
Feed and be fat, my fair Calypolis; stir not beauteous wriggle-tails.I’ll disease none of you.I’ll take none of you up, but only this table-man.I must enter him into some filthy sink-point, I must.
HORACE
Captain, you do me wrong thus to disgrace me.
TUCCA
Thou thinkst thou mayst be as saucy with me as my buff jerkin, to sit upon me, dost?
HORACE
Damn me, if ever I traduc’d your name,
What imputation can you charge me with?
SIR VAUGHAN
‘Sblood, ay, what computations can you lay to his sarge?Answer, or by Sesu, I’ll canvas your coxcomb, Tucky!