Heads thick of hair are good, but bald the best.
Whilst this paradox is in speaking, TUCCA, enters with SIR VAUGHAN at one door, and secretly placeth him; then exit and brings in, at the other door, HORACE muffled, placing him.TUCCA sits among them.
TUCCA
Th’art within a hair of it, my sweet wit, whether wilt thou.My delicate poetical fury, th’ast hit it to a hair.
SIR VAUGHAN
[Stepping out.] By your favour, Master Tucky, his bald reasons are wide aove two hairs.I besees you pardon me, ladies, that I thrust in so malepartly among you, for I did but mich here, and see how this cruel poet did handle bald heads.
SIR ADAM
He gave them but their due, Sir Vaughan.Widow, did he not?
MINIVER
By my faith, he made more of a bald head than ever i shall be able.He have them their due truly.
SIR VAUGHAN
Nay, ‘uds blood, their due is to be a’ the right hair as I am, and that was not in his fingers to give, but in God’a’mighties.Well, I will hire that humourous and fantastical poet, Master Horace, to break your bald pate, Sir Adam.
SIR ADAM
Break my bald pate?
TUCCA
Dost hear my worshipful block-head?
SIR VAUGHAN
Patience, Captain Tucky, let me absolve him.I mean he shall prick, prick your head or sconce a little with his goose-quills, for he shall make another thalimum or cross-sticks, or some palinodes, with a few nappy-grams in them that shall lift up hair, and set it an end, with his learned and hearty commendations.
HORACE
This is excellent, all will come out now.
DICACHE
That same Horace methinks has the most ungodly face, by my fan.It looks for all the world like a rotten russet apple when ’tis bruis’d.It’s better than a spoonful of cinnamon water next to heart for me to hearhim speak.He sounds it so i’th’nose, and talks and rands for all the world like the poor fellow under Ludgate.Oh, fie upon him!
MINIVER
By my troth, Sweet ladies, it’s cake and pudding to me to see his face make faces when he reads his songs and sonnets.
HORACE
I’ll face some of you for this when you shall not budge.
TUCCA
It’s the stinking’st dung-farmer.Foh upon him!
SIR VAUGHAN
Foh?Ouncles, you make him urse than old herring.Foh?By Sesu, I think he’s as tidy, and as tall a poet as ever drew out a long verse.
TUCCA
The best verse that ever I knew him hack out was his white neck-verse.Noble Ap Rees, thou wouldst scorn to lay thy lips to his commendations and thou smeld’st him out as I do; he calls the the Burning Knight of the Salamander.
SIR VAUGHAN
Right.Peter is my Salamander.What of him?But Peter is never burnt.How now?So, go to, now.
TUCCA
And says because thou clipst the king’s English —
SIR VAUGHAN
‘Ounds me?That’s treason. Clip?Horrible treasons.Sesu, hold my hands.Clip?He baits mouse-traps for my life.
TUCCA
Right, little Twinkler, right.He says because thou speaks no better, thou canst not keep a good tongue in thy head.
SIR VAUGHAN
By God, ’tis the best tongue I can buy for love or money.
TUCCA
He shoots at thee too, Adam Bell, and his arrows sticks here.He calle thee bald-pate.
SIR VAUGHAN
‘Ounds, make him prove these intolerabilities.
TUCCA
And asks who shall carry the vinegar bottle?And then he rhymes too’d and says Prickshaft.Nay, Miniver, he cromples thy cap too, and —
CRISPINUS
Come, Tucca, come, no more.The man’s well known; thou needst not paint him.Whom does he not wrong?
TUCCA
Marry, himself, the ugly Pope Boniface pardons himself, and therefore my judgement is that presently he be had from hence to his place of execution, and there be stabb’d, stabb’d, stabb’d.[He stabs at HORACE.
HORACE
Oh, gentlemen, I am slain. Oh, slave art hir’d to murder me to murder me, to murder me?
LADIES
Oh God!
SIR VAUGHAN
‘Ounds, Captain, you have put all poetry to the dind of sword, blow wind about him. Ladies, for our lord’s sake, you that have smocks, tear off pieces to shoot through his ‘ounds.Is he dead and buried?Is he?Pull his nose, pinch, rub, rub, rub, rub.
TUCCA
If he be not dead, look here.I ha’ the stab and pippin for him.If I had kill’d him, I could ha’ pleas’d the great fool with an apple.
CRISPINUS
How now?Be well, good Horace, here’s no wound.
Y’are slain by your own fears.How dost thou, man?
Come, put thy heart into his place again.
Thy outside’s neither pierc’d, nor inside slain.
SIR VAUGHAN
I am glad, Master Horace, to see you walking.
HORACE
Gentlemen, I am black and blue the breadth of a groat.
TUCCA
Breadth of a groat?There a teston.Hide thy infirmities, my scurvy Lazarus; do, hide it, lest it prove a scab in time.hang thee, desperation, hang thee.Thou knowst I cannot be sharp set against thee.Look, feel my light-uptails of all, feel my weapon.
MINIVER
Oh, most pitiful!As blunt as my great thumb.
SIR VAUGHAN
By Sesu, as blunt as a Welsh bag-pudding.
TUCCA
As blunt as the top of Pauls.’Tis not like thy aloe, cicatine tongue, butter.No, ’tis not stabber, but like thy goodly and glorious nose, blunt, blunt, blunt.Dost roar?Th’ast a good rouncival voice to cry lantern and candlelight.
SIR VAUGHAN
Two ‘ords, Horace, about your ears.How chance it passes that you bid God bow to an honest trade of building chimneys and laying down bricks, for a worse handicratness, to make nothing gbut rails.Your muse leans upon nothing but filthy torren rails, such as sand on Paul’s head.How chance.?
HORACE
Sir Vaughan.
SIR VAUGHAN
You lie, sir varlet, sir villainy.I am Sir Salamanders.Ounds, is my man Master Peter Salamander’s face as orse an mine?Sentlemen all, and ladies, and you say once or twice “amen,” I will lap this little sild, this booby in his blankets again.
OMNES
Agreed, agreed.
TUCCA
A blanket, these crack’d Venice glasses shall fill him out; they shall toss him, hold him fast wag-tails.So, come in, take this bandy with the racket of patience.Why when?Dost stamp, Man Tamberlain, dost stamp?Thou thinkst th’ast morter under thy feet, dost?
LADIES
Come, a bandy, ho!
HORACE
O, hold, most sacred beauties!
SIR VAUGHAN
Hold, silence, the puppet-teacher speaks.
HORACE
Sir Vaughan, noble Captain, gentlemen,
Crispinus, dear Demetrius, oh redeem me
Out of this infamous.By God, Jesu —
CRISPINUS
Nay, swear not so good, Horace. Now, these ladies
Are made your executioners.Prepare
To suffer like a gallant, not a coward.
I’ll try t’unloose their hands; impossible.
Nay women’s vengeance are implacable.
HORACE
Why would you make me thus the ball of scorn?
TUCCA
I’ll tell thee why:because th’ast entered actions of assault and battery against a company of honourable and worshipful fathers of the law.You wrangling rascal, law is one of the pillers a’th’land, and if thou beest bound to’t, as I hope thou shalt be, thou’t prove a skip-jack, thou’t be whipp’d.I’ll tell thee why:because thy sputtering chaps yelp, that arrogance and impudence and ignorance are the essential parts of a courtier.
SIR VAUGHAN
You remember, Ho
race, they will punk and pink and pump you, and they catch you by the coxcomb.On, I pray, one lash; a little more.
TUCCA
I’ll tell thee why:because thou criest “ptrooh!” at worshipful citizens and callst them flat-caps, cuckolds, and bankrupts and modest and virtuous wives punks and cockatrices.I’ll tell thee why:because th’ast arraigned two poets against all law and conscience, and not content with that, hast turn’d them amongst a company of horrible black friars.
SIR VAUGHAN
The same hand still; it is your own another day, Master Horace, admonitions is good meat.
TUCCA
Thou art the true arraign’d poet and shouldst have been hang’d but for one of these partakers, these charitable copper-lac’d Christians that fetch’d thee our of purgatory, players I mean, theaterians putch-mouth, stage-walkers; for this poet, for this, thou must lie with these four wenches in that blanket for this —
HORACE
What could I do, out of a just revenge,
But bring them to the stage?They envy me
Because I hold more worthy company.
DEMETRIUS
Good Horace, no; my cheeks do blush for thine
As often as thou speaks so, where one true
And nobly-virtuous spirit, for thy best part
Loves thee, I wish one ten, even from my heart.
I make account I put up as deep share
In any good man’s love, which thy worth earns
As thou thyself.We envy not to see
Thy friends with bays to crown thy poesy.
No, here the gall lies:we that know what stuff
Thy very heart is made of, how the stalk
On which thy learning grows, and can give life
To thy, once dying, baseness; yet must we
Dance antics on your paper.
HORACE
Fannius.
CRISPINUS
This makes us angry, but not envious;
No, were thy warp’d soul put in a new mold
I’d wear thee as a jewel set in gold.
SIR VAUGHAN
And jewels, Master Horace, must be hang’d, you know.
TUCCA
Good pagans, well said; they have sowed up that broken seam-rent lie of thine, that Demetrius is out at elbows, and Crispinus is fal’n out with satin here, they have; but bloat-herring, dost hear?
HORACE
Yes, honour’d Captain; I have ears as well.
TUCCA
Ist not better be out at elbows, then to be a bond-slave and to go all in parchment as thou dost?
HORACE
Parchment, Captain?’Tis perpetuana, I assure you.
TUCCA
My perpetual pantaloon, true, but ’tis wax’d over.Th’art made out of wax; thou must answer for this one day; thy muse is a haggler and wears clothes upon best-be-trust.Th’art great in somebody’s books for this, thou knowest where; thou wouldst be out at elbows and out at heels too, but that thou layest about thee with a bill for this, a bill —
HORACE
I confess, Captain, I followed this suit hard.
TUCCA
I know thou didst, and therefore whilst we have Hiren here, speak, my little dish-washers, a verdit piss-kitchens.
OMNES
Blanket.
SIR VAUGHAN
Hold, I pray, hold.By Sesu, I have put upon my head a fine device to make you laugh;’tis not your fool’s cap, Master Horace, which you cover’d your poetasters in, but a fine trick, ha, ha, is jumbling in my brain.
TUCCA
I’ll beat out thy brains, my whoreson hansom devil, but I’ll have it out of thee.
OMNES
What is it, good Sir Vaughan?
SIR VAUGHAN
To conclude, ’tis after this manners, because Master Horace is ambition and does conspire to be more high and tall, as God a’mighty made him, we’ll carry his terrible person to court and there before his Majesty Dub, or what you call it, dip his muse in some liquor and christen him or dye him into colours of a poet.
OMNES
Excellent.
TUCCA
Super super excellent.Revellers, go, proceed you, masters of art in kissing these wenches and in dances bring you the quivering bride to court in a mask;come Grumboll, thou shalt mum with us; come dog me sneaks-bill.
HORACE
Oh, thou, my muse!
SIR VAUGHAN
Call upon God a’mighty, and no muses.Your muse, I warrant, is otherwise occupied; there is no dealing with your muse now.Therefore I pray, marse, marse, marse, ‘ounds your moose. [Exeunt HORACE, SIR VAUGHAN and TUCCA.
CRISPINUS
We shall have sport to see them.Come, bright beauties,
The sun stoops low, and whispers in our ears
To hasten on our mask. Let’s crown this night
With choice composed wreathes of sweet delights.[Exeunt.
Act Five, Scene One
ENTER AT SEVERAL doors TERILL and CÆLESTINE sadly, SIR QUINTILLIAN stirring and mingling a cup of wine.CÆLESTINE and TERILL stay aloof.
TERILL
And like a cloth of clouds dost stretch thy limbs
Upon the winder tenters of the air.
O thou that hangst upon the back of day
Like a long mourning gown; thou that art made
Without an eye because thou shouldst not see
A lover’s revels; nor participate
The bridegroom’s heaven.O heaven, to me a hell.
I have a hell in heaven, a blessed curse.
All other bridegrooms long for night and tax
The day of lazy sloth, call time a cripple,
And say the hours limp after him; but I
Wish night forever banish’d from the sky,
Or that the day would never sleep, or time
Were in a swound; and all his little hours
Could never lift him up with their poor powers.
Enter CÆLESTINE.
But backward runs the course of my delight.
The day hath turn’d his back, and it is night.
This night will make us odd; day made us even.
All else are damn’d in hell, but I in heaven.
CÆLESTINE
Let loose thy oath, so shall we still be even.
TERILL
Then am I damn’d in hell, and not in heaven.
CÆLESTINE
Must I then go?’Tis easy to say “no.”
“Must” is the king himself, and I must go.
Shall I then go?That word is thine.I “shall,”
Is they command.I go because I “shall.”
Will I then go?I ask myself, O ill
King, says I “must;” you, I “shall;” I, I “will.”
TERILL
Had I not sworn.
CÆLESTINE
Why didst thou swear?
TERILL
The king
Sat heavy on my resolution,
Till, out of breath, it panted out an oath.
CÆLESTINE
An oath?Why, what’s an oath?’Tis but the smoke
Of flame and blood, the blister of the spirit
Which riseth from the steam of rage, the bubble
That shoots up to the tongue and scalds the voice,
For oaths are burning words, thou sworst but one,
’Tis frozen long ago.If one be number’d
What countrymen are they?Where do they dwell
That speak naught else but oaths?
TERILL
They’re men of hell.
An oath?Why ’tis the traffic of the soul;
’Tis law within a man; the seal of faith;
The bond of every conscience unto whom
We set our thoughts like hands; yea, such a one
I swore, and to the king;a king contains
A thousand thousand.When I swore to him
I swore to them; the very hairs that guard
His head will rise up like sharp witnesses
Against my faith and loyalty. His eye
Would straight condemn me.Argue oaths no more.
My oath is high for to the king I swore.
Enter SIR QUINTILIAN with the cup.
CÆLESTINE
Must I betray my chastity, so long
Clean from the treason of rebelling lust?
Oh, husband!Oh, my father!If poor I
Must not live chaste, then let me chastely die.
SIR QUINTILIAN
Ay, here’s a charm shall keep thee chaste.Come, come;
Old time hath left us but an hour to play
Our parts.Begin the scene; who shall speak first?
Oh, I; I play the king, and kings speak first.
Daughter, stand thou here, and son Terill there.
Oh, thou standst well, thou leanst against a post,
For thou’t be posted off, I warrant thee.
The king will hang a horn about thy neck
And make a post of thee.You stand well both.
We need no Prologue, the king entering first;
He’s a most gracious Prologue.Marry then,
For the catastrophy, or Epilogue.
There one in cloth of silver, which no doubt
Will please the hearers well when he steps out.
His mouth is fill’d with words; see where he stands;
He’ll make them clap their eyes besides their hands.
But to my part:suppose who enters now,
A king, whose eyes are set in silver; one
That blusheth gold, speaks music, dancing walkers,
Now gathers nearer, takes thee by the hand
When straight thou thinkst, the very orb of heaven
Mooves round about thy fingers, then he speaks,
Thus — thus — I know not how.
CÆLESTINE
Nor I to answer him.
SIR QUINTILIAN
No, girl?Knowst thou not how to answer him?
Why then the field is lost, and he rides home
Like a great conqueror.Not answer him?
Out of thy part already? Fold the scene?
Disrank’d the lines?Disarm’d the action?
TERILL
Yes, yes, true chastity is tongue’d so weak,
’Tis ever overcome ere it know how to speak.
SIR QUINTILIAN
Come, come thou happy close of every wrong,
’Tis thou that canst dissolve the hardest doubt;
’Tis time for thee to speak, we are all out.
Daughter, and you the man whom I call son,
I must confess I made a deed of gift
To heaven and you and gave my child to both;
When on my blessing I did charm her soul
In the white circle of true chastity,
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 100