Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker

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Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 136

by Thomas Dekker


  Enter Glister above.

  GLISTER

  [Aside] I have taken up this standing to see my gallants play at barriers with scourge-sticks, for the honour of my punk. And in good time I see my brave spirits shining in bright armour, nakedly burning in the hell-fire of lechery, and ready for the hot encounter. Sound trumpets, the combatants are mounted.

  Enter Gudgeon [into the chamber].

  GUDGEON

  The apparition! Mistress Purge peers through him; I see her.

  LIPSALVE

  The spirit appears! But he might have come sooner: I am numbed with cold, a shivering ague hath taken away my courage.

  GLISTER

  [Aside] They are afraid one of another; look how they tremble; the flesh and the devil strengthen ’em! Ha, ha, ha!

  GUDGEON

  Has ‘a no cloven feet? What a laxative fever shakes me.

  LIPSALVE

  Will ‘a not carry me with him to hell? Well, I must venture: Clogmathos.

  GUDGEON

  My cue: Clogmathathos.

  LIPSALVE

  My cue: Garrazin.

  GUDGEON

  Garragas.

  LIPSALVE

  Garrazinos.

  GUDGEON

  Ton tetuphon.

  LIPSALVE

  Tes tetuphes.

  BOTH

  With a whirly twinos.

  They lash one another.

  Hold, hold, hold!

  Gogs nowns, gogs blood!

  A pox, a plague, the devil take you!

  Truce, truce, I smart, I smart.

  GLISTER

  [Aside] Ha, ha, ha! O, for one of the hoops of my Cornelius’ tub!

  I must needs be gone, I shall burst myself with laughing else.

  Magic hath no such rule; men cannot find

  Lust ever better handled in his kind.

  Exit.

  GUDGEON

  What art thou? With the name of Jove I conjure thee!

  LIPSALVE

  With any name, saving the whip; I’ll no more of that conjuration, a plague on’t!

  GUDGEON

  Speak, art not a spirit in the likeness of my friend Lipsalve, that should transform thyself to Mistress Purge?

  LIPSALVE

  How, a spirit? I hope spirits have no flesh and blood; and I am sure thou hast drawn blood out of my flesh with the spirit of thy whip.

  GUDGEON

  Then shall we prove to be honest gulls, and the doctor an errant knave.

  LIPSALVE

  A plague upon him for a Glister! He has given our loves a suppositor with a recumbentibus. I’ll tell thee, sirrah —

  GUDGEON

  Tell not me, let me prevent thee; the wind shall not take the breath of our gross abuse; we feel the gullery. Therefore let us swear by our naked truths, and by the hilts of these our blades, our flesh-tamers, to be revenged upon that paraperopandentical doctor, that pocky doctor.

  LlPSALVE

  Agreed; we’ll cuckold him, that he shall not be able to put his head in at’s doors; and make his precise, puritanical and peculiar punk, his pothecary’s drug there, a known cockatrice to the world.

  GUDGEON

  If report catch this knavery, we have lost our reputations for ever; wherefore let’s be secret.

  Ill tax we women of credulity,

  When men are gull’d with such gross foppery.

  LIPSALVE

  Come, let us in and cover both our shames.

  This conjuration to the world’s a novelty;

  Gallants turn’d spirits and whipped for lechery.

  Exeunt.

  Act III Scene 4.

  Maria’s room.

  Enter Maria.

  MARIA

  Gerardine, come forth, Maria calls!

  Enter Gerardine out of the trunk.

  Those ribs shall not enfold thy buxom limbs

  One minute longer: the cincture of mine arms

  Shall more securely keep thy soul from harms.

  GERARDINE

  What heavenly breath of Phitonessa’s power,

  That raised the dead corpse of her friend to life,

  Prevails no less on me; for even this urn,

  The figure of my sadder requiem,

  Gives up my bones, my love, my life, and all,

  To her that gives me freedom in my thrall.

  MARIA

  Be brief, sweet friend, salute and part in one;

  For niggard time now threats with imminent danger

  Our late joy’d scope. Thy earnest, then, of love,

  Ere Sol have compass’d half the signs, I fear

  Will show a blushing fault; but ’twas thine aim,

  T’ enforce consent in him that bars thy claim.

  GERARDINE

  Love salves that fault; let time our guilt reveal,

  I’ll ne’er deny my deed, my hand and seal.

  The elements shall lose their ancient force,

  Water and earth suppress the fire and air,

  Nature in all use a preposterous course,

  Each kind forget his likeness to repair,

  Before I’ll falsify my faith to thee.

  MARIA

  The humorous body’s elemental kind

  Shall sooner lose th’ innated heat of love,

  The soul in nature’s bounds shall be confin’d,

  Heaven’s course shall retrograde and leave to move,

  Ere I surcease to cherish mutual fire,

  With thoughts refin’d in flames of true desire.

  GERARDINE

  These words are odours in the sacred shrine

  Of love’s best deity. The marriage-god

  Longs to perform these ceremonious rites

  Which terminate our hopes; till mine grow full,

  I’ll use that intercourse amongst my friends

  That erst I did. Then in the height of joy,

  I’ll come to challenge interest in my boy.

  Till then, farewell.

  MARIA

  You’ll come upon your cue?

  GERARDINE

  Doubt not of that.

  MARIA

  Then twenty times adieu.

  Exeunt.

  Act IV Scene 1.

  A STREET BEFORE the meeting-house of the Family of Love.

  Enter Lipsalve and Gudgeon, Shrimp and Periwinkle.

  GUDGEON

  Come boys, our clothes, boys; and what is the most current news, Periwinkle?

  PERIWINKLE

  Faith, sir, fortune hath favoured us with no news but what the pedlar brought from Norfolk.

  LIPSALVE

  Is there nothing stirring at court, Shrimp?

  SHRIMP

  Faith, there is, sir, but nothing new.

  LIPSALVE

  [To Gudgeon] Good wag, faith, thou smellest somewhat of a courtier, though thy mother was a citizen’s wife. Off with that filthy great band, nay, quick; on with your robe of sanctity, nay, suddenly, man.

  [Lipsalve and Gudgeon don Puritanical robes.]

  GUDGEON

  And why must we shift ourselves into this demure habit, if impossible to be of the Family and keep our own fashion?

  LIPSALVE

  Tut, man, the name of a gallant is more hateful to them than the sight of a corner-cap. Hadst thou heard the protestations the wife of a bellows-mender made but yesternight against gallants, thou hadst for ever abjured crimson breeches. She swore that all gallants were persons inferior to bellows-menders, for the trade of bellows-making was very aerial and high; and what were men and women but bellows, for they take wind in at one place and do evaporate at another; evaporate was her very phrase.

  GUDGEON

  Methinks, her phrase flew with somewhat too strong a vapour.

  LIPSALVE

  Nay, she proves farther, that all men receive their being chiefly from bellows, without which the fire burns not; without fire the pot seethes not; the pot not seething, powdered beef is not to be eaten; of which she then averred our
nation was a great devourer, and without which they could neither fight for their country abroad, nor get children at home; for, said she, powdered beef is a great joiner of nerves together.

  GUDGEON

  What answer madest thou?

  LIPSALVE

  Marry, that I thought a bawd was a greater joiner of nerves together than powdered beef; with that she protested that a bawd was an instrument of the devil, and as she had proved that bellows-makers were of God’s trade, so bawds were of the devil’s trade: for (and thereupon she blew her nose) the devil and bawds did both live by the sins of the people.

  Enter Club and Mistress Purge.

  GUDGEON

  No more; Mistress Purge is at hand.

  LIPSALVE

  Vanish boys, away. Make haste; before Jove, she’ll be with us ere we can be provided for her.

  [Exeunt Shrimp and Periwinkle.] Lipsalve and Gudgeon retire.

  MISTRESS PURGE

  Advance your link, Club. At what time wert thou bound, Club? At Guttide, Hollantide or Candletide?

  CLUB

  I was bound indeed about midsummer.

  MISTRESS PURGE

  And when hath thy prenticeship end? At Michaeltide next?

  CLUB

  So I take it.

  MISTRESS PURGE

  They say, Club, you fall very heavy on such you love not; you never learnt that of me.

  CLUB

  Indeed, mistress, I must confess my falling is rustic, gross and butcher-like; marry, yours is a pretty, foolish, light, [courtlike] falling. Yet believe me, my master smells somewhat too gross of the purgation; he wants tutoring.

  MISTRESS PURGE

  And why, I pray?

  CLUB

  My master being set last night in his shop, comes Master Doctor Glister, as his manner is, squirting in suddenly; and after some conference, tells my master that by his own knowledge you were young with child; to which my master replied: “Why, Master Doctor, will you put me to more charges yet?”

  MISTRESS PURGE

  Thou art a fool, in that my husband spake as wisely as if the master of his company had spoke. He knows doctors have receipts for women, which makes them most apt to conceive; and he promising a’ had ministered the same lately to me, thereupon spake it. Lead on with your link.

  LIPSALVE

  [To Gudgeon] Art ready ?

  GUDGEON

  [To Lipsalve] Ready.

  LIPSALVE

  [To Gudgeon] Then speak pitifully, look scurvily, and dissemble cunningly, and we shall quickly prove two of the Fraternity. — Benediction and sanctity, love and charity fall on Mistress Purge, Sister of the Family.

  MISTRESS PURGE

  And what, I pray, be you two?

  LIPSALVE

  Two newly converted from the rags of Christianity to become good members in the house of the Family.

  MISTRESS PURGE

  Who, I pray, converted you?

  [GUDGEON]

  Master Dryfat the merchant.

  MISTRESS PURGE

  And from what sins hath he converted you?

  LIPSALVE

  From two very notorious crimes; the first was from eating fish on Fridays, and the second from speaking reverently of the clergy. But a’ resolved us your talent in edifying young men went far beyond his.

  Enter Purge[, hiding himself].

  MISTRESS PURGE

  A talent I have therein, I must confess, nor am I very nice at fit times to show it; for your better instructions, therefore, you must never hereafter frequent taverns nor tap-houses, no masques nor mummeries, no pastimes nor playhouses.

  GUDGEON

  Must we have no recreation?

  MISTRESS PURGE

  Yes, on the days which profane lips call holydays, you may take your spaniel and spend some hours at the ducking-pond.

  LIPSALVE

  What are we bound unto during the time we remain in the Family?

  MISTRESS PURGE

  During the light of the candle you are to be very attentive; which being extinguished, how to behave yourselves I will deliver in private whisper.

  PURGE

  [Aside] ’Tis now come to a whisper. What young Familists be these? I’faith, I’ll make one; I’ll trip you, wife; I scent your footing, wife.

  For [Galen] writes, Paracelsus can tell,

  Pothecaries have brains and noses eke to smell.

  LIPSALVE

  We shall with much diligence observe it.

  PURGE

  [Aside] I fear I shall have small cause to thank that diligence; but do your worst:

  He that hath read [five] herbals in one year

  Can find a trick which shall prevent this gear.

  They are going; follow, Purge, close, close and softly, like a horsekeeper in a lady’s matted chamber at midnight.

  Mistress Purge knocks.

  WITHIN

  Who knocks?

  MISTRESS PURGE

  Brethren and a Sister in the Family.

  WITHIN

  Enter in peace.

  Exeunt Gudgeon, Lipsalve and Mistress Purge [and Club].

  PURGE

  Brethren and a Sister; that’s the word. How beastly was I mistaken last day: I should have said “A Brother in the Family” and I said “A Familiar Brother”; for which I and my family were thrust out of doors. But as Titus Silus of Holborn Bridge most learnedly was wont to say, “Q.d.”

  He knocks.

  WITHIN

  Who’s there?

  PURGE

  A Brother in the Family.

  WITHIN

  Enter, and welcome.

  Exit Purge.

  Act IV Scene 2.

  A STREET.

  Enter Gerardine disguised [as a porter].

  GERARDINE

  Thou sacred deity, Love!

  Thou power predominate, more to be admir’d

  Than able to be express’d, whose orb includes

  All terrene joys which are, all states which be,

  Pay to thy sacred throne, as tribute-fee,

  Their thoughts and lives. Like Jove’s, so must thy acts

  Endure no question; why, thy hidden facts

  The gods themselves obey; heaven-synod holds

  No gods but what thy awful power controls.

  The Delphian archer proud with Python’s spoil,

  At Cupid’s hand was forc’d to take the foil;

  Nor Mars his warlike adamantine targe

  Could free his warlike breast at Cupid’s charge;

  And Jove, whose frown all mortal lives bereaves,

  [His] marble throne and ivory sceptre leaves,

  And in the likeness of a bull was seen,

  As forc’d by him to bear the Tyrian queen

  Through Neptune’s watery kingdom. If these submit,

  My metamorphose is not held unfit.

  And see, in most wished occasion, Dryfat the merchant presents himself. Sir, in the best of hours met; my thoughts had marked you out for a man most apt to do them the fairest of offices.

  DRYFAT

  What! Art thou a Welsh carrier or a northern landlord, th’ art so saucy?

  GERARDINE

  ls’t possible, sir, my disguise should so much fool your knowledge? How? A northern landlord? Can you think I get my living by a bell and a clack-dish?

  DRYFAT

  By a bell and a clack-dish? How’s that?

  GERARDINE

  Why, by begging, sir. Know you me now?

  DRYFAT

  Master Gerardine, disguised and ashore! Nay, then I smell a rat.

  GERARDINE

  Master Dryfat, shall I repose some trust in you? Will you lay by awhile your city’s precise humour? Will you not deceive me?

  DRYFAT

  If I deceive your trust, the general plague seize me; that is, may I die a cuckold.

  GERARDINE

  And I say thou shall die a true citizen, if thou conceal it. And thus in brief: it stands with thy knowledge how seriously I h
ave and do still affect Maria. Now, sir, I have so wrought it, that if thou couldst procure me a fellow that could serve instead of a crier, I myself would play Placket the paritor, and summon Doctor Glister and Maria to appear at thy house; and as [I play] the paritor, so wouldst thou but assume the shape of a proctor, I should have the wench, thou the credit, and the whole city occasion of discourse this nine days.

  DRYFAT

  How’s this, how’s this? I should procure a fellow to play the [crier] and I myself should play the proctor? But upon what occasion should they be summoned?

  GERARDINE

  Upon an accusation that Doctor Glister should get Maria his niece with child, and have bastards in the country, which I have a trick to make probable.

  DRYFAT

  And now I recall it to memory, I heard somewhat to that effect last night in Master Beardbush the barber’s shop; but how will this sort? Who shall accuse him?

  GERARDINE

  Refer that to me, I say, be that my care; all shall end in merriment, and no disgrace touch either of their reputations.

  DRYFAT

  Then take both word and hand, ’tis done; Club, Mistress Purge’s prentice, shall be the [crier].

  GERARDINE

  O my most precious Dryfat, may none of thy daughters prove vessels with foul bungholes, or none of thy sons hogsheads, but all true and honourable Dryfats like thyself.

  DRYFAT

  Well, Master Gerardine, I hope to see you a Familist before I die.

  GERARDINE

  That’s most likely, for I hold most of their principles already. I never rail nor calumniate any man but in love and charity; I never cozen any man for any ill will I bear him, but in love and charity to myself; I never make my neighbour a cuckold for any hate or malice I bear him, but in love and charity to his wife.

  DRYFAT

  And may those principles fructify in your weak members. I’ll be gone, and with most quick dexterity provide you a crier. Tomorrow at my house, said you, they should appear?

  GERARDINE

  Be that the time, most honoured Dryfat; but be this known to none, most loved sir, save Club, or to some other whom your judgment shall select as a fit person for our project.

 

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