In rational souls be check’d by erring sense?
Or why should mutual love, confirm’d by heaven,
B’ infring’d by men? Methinks ’tis most uneven.
GERARDINE
Thou argu’st well, Maria; and this withal,
That brutes nor animals do prove a thrall
To such servility: souls that are wards
To gold, opinion, or th’ undue regards
Of broking men, wolves that in sheepskin bands
Prey on the hearts to join th’ unwilling hands,
Ruin fair stocks, when generous houses die,
Or propagate their name with bastardy.
MARIA
Sterility and barrenness ensue
Such forced love; nor shall erroneous men
Pervert my settled thoughts, or turn mine eye
From thy fair object, which I will pursue,
Rich in thy love, proud of this interview.
GERARDINE
I’ll suck these accents; let our breaths engender
A generation of such pleasing sounds,
To interchange delights. O, my blood’s on fire!
Sweet, let me give more scope to true desire.
MARIA
What wouldst thou more than our minds’ firm contract?
GERARDINE
Tut, words are wind; thought unreduced to [act]
Is but an embryon in the truest sense.
MARIA
I am [beleaguer’d], I had need of sense;
You make me blush: play fair, yet above board.
GERARDINE
Hear me exemplify love’s Latin word
Together with thyself,
As thus: hearts join’d, Amore; take A from thence,
Then more is the perfect moral sense:
Plural in manners, which in thee do shine
Saint-like, immortal, spotless and divine.
Take M away, ore in beauty’s name
Craves an eternal trophy to thy fame.
Lastly, take O, in re stands all my rest,
Which I in Chaucer-style do term a jest.
MARIA
You break all modest bounds; away, away!
GERARDINE
So when men come behind do women say.
MARIA
Come, come, I say —
GERARDINE
Ay, that’s the word indeed;
Men that come bold before are like to speed.
Enter Lipsalve [disguised as Gerardine,] with Shrimp, his page.
But who comes here? Monstrum horrendum! My nostrils have the rank scent of knavery. Maria, let’s remove ourselves to the window, and observe this piece of man’s flesh.
Exit with Maria.
LIPSALVE
Now Mistress Maria, ward yourself; if my strong hope fail not, I shall be with you to bring —
SHRIMP
To bring what, sir? Some more o’ your kind?
LIPSALVE
Faith, boy, that’s mine aim.
SHRIMP
I’ll be sworn, sir, you have a good loose; you let fly at ’em apace.
LIPSALVE
I have shot fair and far off; but now I hope to hit the mark indeed.
SHRIMP
God save it.
LIPSALVE
But where’s the sign?
SHRIMP
Why, there.
LIPSALVE
That’s a special thing to be observed.
SHRIMP
I have heard talk of the Gemini; methinks that should be a star favourable to your proceeding.
LIPSALVE
The Gemini? O, I apprehend thee: that’s because I am so like Gerardine; ha, is’t not so, boy?
SHRIMP
As if you were spit out on’s mouth, sir; you must needs be like him, for you are both cut out of a piece. But lord, sir, how you hunt this chase of love; are you not weary?
LIPSALVE
Indefatigable, boy, indefatigable.
SHRIMP
Fatigable, quoth you? You may call it leanable well enough, for I am sure it is able to make a man lean.
LIPSALVE
’Tis my vocation, boy; we must never be weary of well-doing: love’s as proper to a courtier as preciseness to a puritan.
Enter Gerardine and Maria above.
SHRIMP
[Aside] Love, subaudi lust; a punk in this place subintelligitur.
LIPSALVE
Boy, I have spied my saint.
SHRIMP
Then down on your knees.
LIPSALVE
Fly off, lest she take thee for my familiar.
[Shrimp hides himself.]
Save thee, sweet Maria!
Nay wonder not (for thou thyself art wonder)
To see this unexpected gratulation.
MARIA
Whom do I see? O, how my senses wander!
Am not I Hero? Art not thou Leander?
GERARDINE
[Aside] Th’ art in the right, sweet wench; more of that vein.
LIPSALVE
[Aside to Shrimp] Her passion overcomes her; ’tis the kindest soul! O excellent device; it works, it works, boy.
SHRIMP
It does indeed, sir, like the suds of an ale-fat or a washing-bowl.
LIPSALVE
Joy not too much; extremes are perilous.
MARIA
O weather-beaten love! Cisley, go make a fire;
Go fetch my ladder of ropes, Leander’s come.
LIPSALVE
[Aside] Mark, how prettily in her rapture she harps upon Gerardine’s travel. — Let th’ ecstasy have end, for I am Gerardine.
GERARDINE
[Aside] The devil you are.
MARIA
Ha? let me see; my love so soon return’d?
LIPSALVE
I never travell’d farther than thine eyes;
My bruited journey was a happy project
To cast a mist before thy jealous guardian,
Who now suspectless gives some hope t’ attain
My wish’d delight, before pursu’d in vain.
GERARDINE
[Aside to Maria] Ask if he strain’d not hard for that same project.
MARIA
Has not that project overrack’d thy brain,
And spent more wit than thou hast left behind?
SHRIMP
[Aside] By this light, she flouts him.
LIPSALVE
No, wit is infinite: I spent some brain;
Thy love did stretch my wit upon the tenters.
GERARDINE
[Aside to Maria] Then is’t like to shrink in the wetting.
MARIA
It cottons well; it cannot choose but bear
A pretty nap. I tender thy capacity;
A comfortable caudle cherish it.
But where’s my favour that I bid thee wear
As pledge of love?
GERARDINE
[Aside] Now dost thou put him to’t;
More tenters for his wit; he’s non plus quite.
LIPSALVE
I wear it, sweet Maria, but on high days,
Preserve it from the tainting of the air —
[Aside] What should I say?— ’Tis in my t’other hose.
MARIA
How? In your t’other hose? He that I love
Shall wear my favour in those hose he has on.
LIPSALVE
[Aside] Fiends and furies! Block that I am!
SHRIMP
[Aside to Lipsalve] In your t’other hose? [Aside] She talked of a ladder of ropes; if she would let it down, for my life he would hang himself in’t. — In your t’other hose? Why, those hose are in lavender; besides, they have never a codpiece: but indeed there needs no ivy where the wine is good. In your t’other hose?
MARIA
I said you were too prodigal of wit.
LIPSALVE
Expostulate no more; grant me access,
Or else I’ll travel to the wilderness.
MARIA
Your only way. Go, travel till you tire;
Be rid, and let a gull discharge the hire.
SHRIMP
Master, the doctor, the doctor!
LIPSALVE
Where? Which way?
SHRIMP
This way, that way, some way I heard him coming.
LIPSALVE
O boy, I am abused, gulled, disgraced; my credit’s cracked.
SHRIMP
You know that’s nothing for a new courtier.
LIPSALVE
O, I shall run beside myself.
SHRIMP
No sir, that’s my office; I’ll run by your side.
LIPSALVE
My brain is out of temper; what shall I do?
SHRIMP
Take her counsel, sir; get a cullis to your capacity, a restorative to your reason, and a warming-pan to your wit. He comes, he comes!
LIPSALVE
Follow close, boy; let him not see us.
Exeunt Lipsalve and Shrimp. Enter Glister.
GLISTER
What, more flatterers about my carrion? More battery to my walls? Shall I never be rid of these Petronel Flashes? As for my friend Gerardine, the wind of my rage has blown him to discover countries; and let the sea purge his love away and him together, I care not. Young wenches now are all o’ the hoigh. We that are guardians must respect more besides titles, gold lace, person, or parts; we must have lordships and manors elsewhere as well as in the man. Wealth commands all; and wealth I’ll have, or else my minion shall lead apes in hell. I must after this gallant too; I’ll know his rendezvous, and what company he keeps.
Exit.
MARIA
Now must we be abrupt; retire, sweet friend,
To thy small-ease. What more remains to do
We’ll consummate at our next interview.
GERARDINE
So shall I bear my prisonment with pleasure;
Look thou but big, [our] cruel foe will yield,
And give to Hymen th’ honour of the field.
Exeunt.
Act III Scene 2.
A STREET BEFORE the meeting-house of the Family of Love.
Enter Mistress Purge and Club before her with a link.
MISTRESS PURGE
Fie, fie, Club, go a’ t’other side the way, thou collowest me and my ruff; thou wilt make me an unclean member i’ the congregation.
CLUB
If you be unclean, mistress, you may pure yourself; you have my master’s ware at your commandment; but what am I then, that does all the drudgery in your house?
MISTRESS PURGE
Th’ art born to’t; why, boy, I can show thy indentures; thou givest no other milk. We know how to use all i’ their kind.
CLUB
You’re my better in bark and rine, but in pith and substance I may compare with you. You’re above me in flesh, mistress, and there’s your boast; but in my t’other part we are all one before God.
Enter Dryfat.
MISTRESS PURGE
All one with me? Dost thou swear too? Why then, up and ride!
DRYFAT
Whither away, Mistress Purge?
MISTRESS PURGE
To the Family, Master Dryfat, to our exercise.
DRYFAT
What, by night?
MISTRESS PURGE
O Lord, ay, sir, with the candles out too; we fructify best i’ th’ dark. The glance of the eye is a great matter; it leads us to other objects besides the right.
DRYFAT
Indeed, I think we perform those functions best when we are not thrall to the fetters of the body.
MISTRESS PURGE
The fetters of the body? What call you them?
DRYFAT
The organs of the body, as some term them.
MISTRESS PURGE
Organs? Fie, fie, they have a most abominable squeaking sound in mine ears; they edify not a whit, I detest ’em. I hope my body has no organs.
DRYFAT
To speak more familiarly, Mistress Purge, they are the senses: the sight, hearing, smelling, taste and feeling.
MISTRESS PURGE
Ay, marry. Marry, said I? Lord, what a word’s that in my mouth. You speak now, Master Dryfat, but yet let me tell you where you err too: this feeling I will prove to be neither organ nor fetter; it is a thing — a sense did you call it?
DRYFAT
Ay, a sense.
MISTRESS PURGE
Why then, a sense let it be. I say it is that we cannot be without: for, as I take it, it is a part belonging to understanding; understanding, you know, lifteth up the mind from earth; if the mind be lift up, you know the body goes with it. Also it descends into the conscience, and there tickles us with our works and doings, so that we make singular use of feeling.
DRYFAT
And not of the rest?
MISTRESS PURGE
Not at that time; therefore we hold it not amiss to put out the candles, for the soul sees best i’ th’ dark.
DRYFAT
You come to me now, Mistress Purge.
[Enter Purge, who overhears them.]
MISTRESS PURGE
Nay, I will come to you else, Master Dryfat. These senses, as you term them, are of much efficacy in carnal mixtures; that is, when we crowd and thrust a man and a woman together.
PURGE
[Aside] What, so close at it? I thought this was one end of your exercise. Byrlady, I think there is small profit in this. I’ll wink no more, for I am now tickled with a conceit that it is a scurvy thing to be a cuckold .
DRYFAT
I commend this zeal in you, Mistress Purge; I desire much to be of your society.
MISTRESS PURGE
Do you indeed? Blessing on your heart. Are you upright in your dealings?
DRYFAT
Yes, I do love to stand to any thing I do, though I lose by it; in truth, I deal but too truly for this world. You shall hear how far I am entered in the right way already. First, I live in charity and give small alms to such as be not of the right sect; I take under twenty i’ th’ hundred, nor no forfeiture of bonds unless the law tell my conscience I may do’t; I set no pot on a’ Sundays, but feed on cold meat dressed a’ Saturdays; I keep no holydays nor fasts, but eat most flesh o’ Fridays of all days i’ the week; I do use to say inspired graces able to starve a wicked man with length; I have Aminadabs and Abrahams to my godsons, and I chide them when they ask me blessing; and I do hate the red letter more than I follow the written verity.
PURGE
[Aside] Here’s clergy.
MISTRESS PURGE
These are the rudiments indeed, Master Dryfat.
DRYFAT
Nay, I can tell you I am, or will be, of the right stamp.
PURGE
[Aside] A pox o’ your stamp.
MISTRESS PURGE
Then learn the word for your admittance, and you will be much made on by the congregation.
DRYFAT
Ay, the word, good Mistress Purge.
MISTRESS PURGE
A Brother in the Family.
DRYFAT
Enough, I have my lesson.
PURGE
[Aside] So have I mine: a Brother in the Family; I must be a Familist today. I’ll follow this gear while ’tis on foot, i’faith.
MISTRESS PURGE
Then shore up your eyes, and lead the way to the goodliest people that ever turned up the white o’ th’ eye. Give me my book, Club, put out thy link, and come behind us.
They knock.
ANSWER WITHIN
Who’s there?
DRYFAT
Two Brothers and a Sister in the Family.
They are let in. Purge knocks.
WITHIN
Who’s there?
PURGE
A Familiar Brother.
[WITHIN]
Here’s no room for you nor your familiarity.
PURGE
How? No room for me nor my familiarity?
Why, what’s the difference between a Familiar Brother and a Brother in the Family? O, I know: I made ellipsis of “in” in this place where it should have been expressed, so that the want of “in” put me clean out; or, let me see: may it not be some mystery drawn from arithmetic? For my life, these Familists love no subtraction, take nothing away, but put in and add as much as you will; and after addition follows multiplication of a most Pharasithypocritical crew. Well, for my part I like not this Family, nor indeed some kind of private lecturing that women use. Look to’t, you that have such gadders to your wives: self-willed they are as children, and, i’faith, capable of not much more than they, peevish by custom, naturally fools. I remember a pretty wooden sentence in a preamble to an exercise, where the reader prayed that men of his coat might grow up like cedars to make good wainscot in the House of Sincerity; would not this wainscot phrase be writ in brass, to publish him that spake it for an animal? Why, such wooden pellets out of earthen trunks do strike these females into admiration, hits ’em home; sometimes, perhaps, in at one ear and out at t’other; and then they depart, in opinion wiser than their neighbours, fraught with matter able to take down and mortify their husbands. Well, I’ll home now, and bring the true word next time. I shall expect my wife anon, red-hot with zeal and big with melting tears; and this night do I expect, as her manner is, she will weep me a whole chamber-pot full. Loquor lapides? Do I cast pills abroad? ’Tis no matter what I say; I talk like a pothecary, as I am; I have only purged myself of a little choler and passion, and am now armed with a patient resolution. But how? To put my horns in my pocket? No:
What wise men bear is not for me to scorn;
’Tis a[n] honourable thing to wear the horn.
Exit.
Act III Scene 3.
LIPSALVE’S CHAMBER, AND outside.
Enter Lipsalve[, undoubletted,] with his whip.
LIPSALVE
Fortune, devil’s turd i’ thy teeth! I’ll turn no more o’ thy wheel; art is above thy might. What though my project with Mistress Maria failed? More ways to the wood than one: there’s variety in love. It is believed I am out of town; my door is open, the hour is at hand; all things squared by the doctor’s rule; and now I look for the spirit to bring me warm comfort to clothe my nakedness, and that is Mistress Purge, the cordial of a Familist; and come quickly, good spirit, or else my teeth will chatter for thee.
Enter Gudgeon[,undoubletted,] with his [whip, outside the chamber].
GUDGEON
O the naked pastimes of love, the scourge of dullness, the purifier of uncleanness, and the hot-house of humanity! I have taken physic of Master Purge any time this twelve months to purge my humour upon’s wife, and I have ever found her so fugitive, from exercise to exercise, and from Family to Family, that I could never yet open the closestool of my mind to her; so that I may well say with Ovid, “Hei mihi, quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis.” Now am I driven to prove the violent virtue of conjuration; if it hit, and that I yerk my Familist out of the spirit, I’ll hang up my scourge-stick for a trophy, and emparadize my thoughts; though the doctor go to the devil, ’tis no matter. Ha, let me see: Lipsalve’s door open, and himself out of town? Excellent doctor, soothsaying doctor, oraculous doctor!
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 135