GERARDINE
If you fail your appearance, the penalty must fall heavy.
MISTRESS PURGE
If it fall never so heavy, I am able to bear it; and so set forward, Club.
Exeunt Club and Mistress Purge.
LIPSALVE
Excellent, i’faith. After your wife, Purge. Read, Placket, thy quorum nomina, my noble groat-monger.
Exit Purge.
GERARDINE
Silence. The first that marcheth in this fair rank is Th[r]um the feltmaker, for getting his maid with child and sending his prentice to Bridewell for the fact; Whip the beadle, for letting a punk escape for a night’s lodging and bribe of ten groats; Bat the bellman, for lying with a wench in a tailor’s stall at midnight, when ‘a should be performing his office.
GUDGEON
And Tipple the tapster, for deflowering a virgin in his cellar; Doctor Glister, his wife, Maria, Mistress Purge. These be the complete number.
LIPSALVE
Now dissolve, and each to his occasion till tomorrow morning.
Exeunt.
Act V Scene 1.
A ROOM IN Glister’s house.
Enter Doctor Glister and Mistress Glister.
MISTRESS GLISTER
This was your colour to keep her close, but what cloak ha’ you for her’s and your own shame? What, your own niece, your brother’s daughter, besides your bastard in the country!
GLISTER
Wife, range not too far, I would advise you! Come home in time; vex me not beyond sufferance. The two-edged sword of thy tongue hath drawn blood o’ me. Patience, I say; thou art all this while in an error.
MISTRESS GLISTER
No, thou hast been all this while in an urinal; thou hast gone out of thy compass in women’s waters; you’re a conjuror, forsooth, and can rouse your spirits into circles. Ah, you old fornicator, that ever I saw that red beard of thine! Now could I rail against thy complexion. I think, in my conscience, the traces and caparison of Venus’ coach are made o’ red hairs, which may be a true emblem that no flaxen stuff or tanned white leather draws love like ’em; I think thou manuredest thy chin with the droppings of eggs and muskadine before it bristled. A shame take thee and thy loadstone. But ’tis no matter; Master Placket the paritor has cited you, and you shall answer it.
GLISTER
O, the raging jealousy of a woman! Do you hear, wife? I will show myself a man of sense, and answer you with silence; or like a man of wisdom, speak in brief. I say you are a scold, and beware the cucking-stool.
[Retires.]
MISTRESS GLISTER
I say you are a ninnihammer, and beware the cuckoo: for as sure as I have ware, I’ll traffic with the next merchant venturer; and in good time here comes gallants of the right trade.
Enter Lipsalve and Gudgeon.
LIPSALVE
All alone, Mistress Glister? Meditating who shall be your next child’s father?
GUDGEON
Indeed, methinks that should be one end of her thought, an’t be but to cry quittance with her husband, of whose abuse the town rings.
GLISTER
[Aside] Flax and fire, flax and fire; here are fellows come in the nick, to light their matches at my tinder.
LIPSALVE
He tells you true, Mistress Glister; the doctor hath made you ordinary in our ordinaries; satires whet their tooths, and steep rods in piss; epigrams lie in poetry’s pickle, and we shall have rhyme out of all reason against you.
GUDGEON
Ere long he will take up his station at a stationer’s, where we shall see him do penance in a sheet at least.
MISTRESS GLISTER
O, I am nettled! My patience is so provoked that I must doff my modesty. What shall I do? If ye be honest gentlemen, counsel me in my revenge, teach me what to do, make my case your own.
LIPSALVE
Why, you are in the common road of revenge, take which hand you will, you cannot go out o’ your way; ’tis as soon taken as time by his forepart.
GUDGEON
Faith, since he has strook with the sword, strike you with the scabbard; in plain terms, cuckold him. You may as easily do’t as lie down o’ your bed.
GLISTER
[Aside] This gear cottons, i’faith.
MISTRESS GLISTER
I apprehend you, gentlemen. Lord, how much better are two heads than one to make one large head!
LIPSALVE
You say true, Mistress Glister: there’s help required in grafting; and how happily we come to tender our service. Let our pretence be to take physic of the doctor; and that he may with as much ease minister to us as we to you, we’ll take a lodging in his house.
GUDGEON
How say you to this? Is the colour good? Does’t like you?
MISTRESS GLISTER
Passing well; the colour is so good, that you shall wear my favour out o’ the same piece.
LIPSALVE
Excellent, excellent; now shall we be revenged for the whipping. Mistress Glister, let me be your first man.
GUDGEON
Nay, soft, sir, I plied her as soon as you.
GLISTER
[Aside] I should have an oar in her boat too by right.
LIPSALVE
How ill-advised were you to marry one with a red beard!
MISTRESS GLISTER
O Master Lipsalve, I am not the first that has fallen under that ensign. There’s no complexion more attractive in this time for women than gold and red beards: such men are all liver.
GUDGEON
Ay, but small heart, and less honesty.
LIPSALVE
Yes, they are honest too in some kind, for they’ll beg before they’ll steal.
GUDGEON
That’s true; for, for one that holds up his hand at the sessions, you shall have ten come into the bawdy court.
GLISTER
[Aside] Was ever beard so back-bitten? This were enough to make red beards turn medley, and dash ’em clean out of countenance; but I hope, like mine, they fear no colours. And you were ten courtiers, I’ll front you; I must give you physic, with a pox. Well, if I pepper ye not, call me Doctor Doddipoll. — [Comes forward] Master Lipsalve and Master Gudgeon, you are heartily welcome; I am very glad to see you well.
LIPSALVE
O Master Doctor, your salutation is very suspicious!
GLISTER
Why, Master Lipsalve?
LIPSALVE
It can scarce be hearty, for physicians are rather glad to see men ill than well.
GLISTER
Not so, sir; you must distinguish of men; though this I know, virtue is not the end of all science, which commonly keeps the professor poor; some study questuary and gainful arts, and every one would thrive in’s calling. But, i’faith, gentlemen, what wind drives you hither?
GUDGEON
The wind-colic, Master Doctor, or some such disease.
GLISTER
But not the stone-colic?
LIPSALVE
O no, sir, we have no obstructions in those parts; we are loose enough there.
GLISTER
If you were troubled with that, my wife can tell you of an excellent remedy.
GUDGEON
We need it not, we need it not. But indeed, Master Doctor, for some private infirmities, which our waters shall make known to you, we desire to take some physic of you for a few days; and to that end we would take a lodging in your house during the time.
LIPSALVE
Shall we entreat your favour?
GLISTER
No entreaty, gentlemen; you shall command me to search the very profundity of my skill for you. Have them in, wife, and show them their lodging. I will think upon another receipt, and follow you immediately.
GUDGEON
And i’faith we shall requite your pains to the full.
Exeunt Lipsalve, Gudgeon, Mistress Glister.
GLISTER
To the fool, you mean. I know you ha’ the horn of plenty for me, which you
would derive unto me from the liberality of your bawdies, not your minds. Here are lords that, having learned the O P Q of courtship, travel up and down among citizens’ wives to show their learning and bringing up; as if the city were not already a good proficient in the court horn-book. Yes, I warrant they have heads as capable as other men; ay, and some of them can wisely say with the philosopher, that in knowing all they know nothing. Well, because I am of the livery, and pay scot and lot amongst you, do but observe how I’ll fetch over my gallants for your sakes. They say I am of the right hair; and indeed they may stand to’t, and hold the position good, saving with my wife. Soft; are they not at pro and contra already? I know they are hot-spurs, and I must have an eye to the main. They have been whipped already for lechery and yet the pride of the flesh pricks ’em.
Well, I must in; I have given them such a pill
Shall take ’em down, for lust must have his fill.
Exit.
Act V Scene 2.
A STREET BEFORE Glister’s house.
Enter Maria above.
MARIA
Now nature’s pencil and the hand of time
Gives life and limb to generation’s act,
My shame and guilt in wordless notes appear,
The argument of scorn. O now I stand
The theme and comment to each liberal tongue,
Whilst hope breeds comfort, and fear threats my wrong.
O Gerardine, how oft thy lively figure,
[Deeply] impressed in my yielding temper,
Assures me thou art mine! How fancy paints
Thy true proportion in my troubled sleep,
Because sole subject of my daily thoughts.
O, if thy vows prove feign’d and thou unjust,
I say and swear in men there is no trust.
Enter Gerardine.
GERARDINE
Thus have I passed the round and court of guard,
Without the word: either conceit is strong,
Or else the body where true love’s confin’d
Walks as a spirit and doth force his way
Through greatest dangers, frightful to those eyes
That wait to intercept him. Maria!
How like to Cynthia in her silver orb
She seems to me, attended by love’s lamp,
Whose mutual influence and soul’s sympathy
Doth show heaven’s model in mortality.
MARIA
Gerardine!
Aurora [nor] the blushing sun’s approach
Dart not more comfort to this universe
Than thou to me. Most acceptably come;
The art of number cannot count the hours
Thou hast been absent.
GERARDINE
Infinity of love
Holds no proportion with arithmetic.
Think not, Maria, but my heart retains
A deep impression of such thoughts as these.
I have been forging of a mirthful plot
To celebrate our wish’d conjunction;
Which now digested, come to summon thee
To be an actress in the comedy.
MARIA
How, where, when? Speak, mine ears are quick to hear;
I stand on thorns already to be there.
GERARDINE
At Dryfat’s house, the merchant, there’s our scene,
Whose sequel, if I fail not in intent,
Shall answer our desires and each content.
But when sawest thou Lipsalve and Gudgeon, our two gallants?
MARIA
They are here in the house, so handled by mine uncle that they are the pitifullest patients that ever you beheld.
GERARDINE
No matter, he serves them in their kind; they were infamous in the court and now are grown as notorious in the city. They may happily prove particles in our sport, and fit subjects for laughter.
Time calls me hence: adieu; prepare to meet.
MARIA
I shall outstrip the nimblest in my feet.
Exeunt.
Act V Scene 3.
A ROOM IN Dryfat’s house.
Enter Dryfat and Club disguised [as a proctor and a crier, respectively].
DRYFAT
Come Club, come, there’s a merry fray towards; we shall see the death of melancholy; wherein thou and I must call a grand jury of jests together, and pass upon them with the club law.
CLUB
Now as I am O the crier, and yet but a young club, I have not yet practised that law; you have a whole dryfat on’t; I pray you instruct me.
DRYFAT
Why, ’tis a law enacted, by the common council of statute-caps, to qualify the rage of the time, to follow, to call back, and sometimes to encounter gentlemen when they run in arrearages; I tell thee there’s no averment against our book-cases. ’Tis the law called make-peace; it makes them even when they are at odds; it shows ’em a flat case as plain as a pack-staff, that is, knocks ’em down without circumstance.
CLUB
Ay, marry, I like that law well; ’tis studied with the turning of a hand. There’s no quiddits nor pedlar’s French in’t; there needs no book for th’ exposition o’ th’ terms; ’tis as easily learned as the felling of wood and getting of children; all is but laying on load the downright blow.
DRYFAT
Ay, and by the way of exhortation it prints this moral sentence on their costards, in capital letters, “Agree, for the law is costly”.
CLUB
Good, good. But all this while there’s no doctor thought on; we must have one to arbitrate.
DRYFAT
Why, Master Gerardine, man, has his name for the purpose; he shall be called Doctor Stickler; lupus est in fabula, here he comes.
Enter Gerardine.
GERARDINE
How now, lads, does our conceit cotton? Ha’ you summoned your wits from wool-gathering? Are you fraught with matter for this merriment?
DRYFAT
Full, full; we are in labour, man, and we shall die without midwifery.
CLUB
We are ravished with delight, like the wench that was got with child against her stomach. O, but if we could wrest this smock law now in hand to our club law, it were excellent.
DRYFAT
Easily, easily; all shall be called the club law.
GERARDINE
As how?
DRYFAT
Why, thus. Club is the crier, I am [Poppin] the proctor and you Stickler the doctor; he calls them to appear, I must be of their counsel and you must attone them, put ’em together. We may know their cases and be in their elements, mark you me, but they cannot be in ours. Tut, none knows our secrets; we can speak fustian above their understanding, and make asses’ ears attentive. I’ll play Ambodexter, tell ’em ’tis a plain case and put ’em down with the club law; so that, as Club said well e’en now, our knavery is as near allied as felling of wood and getting of children.
GERARDINE
Excellent, excellent. By this they are at hand: let’s bear these things like ourselves; I’ll withdraw and put on my habiliments, and then enter for the doctor.
DRYFAT
Do so; they come, they come!
Exit Gerardine. Enter Glister and Purge.
Welcome, Master Doctor Glister and Master Purge; there’s a commission to be sat upon this day, to open a passage for imprisoned truth, concerning acts yet in tenebris.
GLISTER
True; I am brought hither by the malice of my wife.
PURGE
And I have a just appeal against my wife.
GLISTER
Master [Poppin], so I think you are called, I understand you have the law at your fingers’ ends.
DRYFAT
I can box cases, and scold and scratch it out amongst them.
GLISTER
Indeed, fame reports you to be a good trumpeter of causes; I must retain you, sir, to sound mine.
DRYFAT
My sackbut shall do it most pathetical
ly; tell me, in brief, the nature of your case.
GLISTER
Faith, sir, a scandalous letter devised to wrong my reputation, about a bastard in the country which should be mine.
DRYFAT
About a bastard in the country which should be yours? Hum; ’tis very like you then, it should seem.
GLISTER
O no, sir, understand me, only fathered upon me.
DRYFAT
Only fathered upon you cum nemini obtrudi potest. I understand you, and like you well too, you do not flatter yourself in your own case, no, ’tis not good; well, what more?
GLISTER
And about my niece, got with child in my own house.
DRYFAT
Byrlady, burdens of some weight, which you make light of! You deny?
GLISTER
What else, sir? I have reason.
DRYFAT
I know it well, I take you for no beast. Believe me, Master Doctor, denial and reason are two main grounds; stand upon them, and you cannot err. Your case, Master Purge?
PURGE
First take your fee, Master [Poppin], that you may have the more feeling, and urge it home when you come to’t. Mine is a discovery of my wife’s iniquity at the Family of Love.
DRYFAT
Otherwise called the House of Venery, where they hunger and thirst for’t.
PURGE
True, sir; you have heard of the Hole in the Wall, where they assemble together in the day-time, like so many bees under a hive?
DRYFAT
Come home crura thymo plena, and lodge among hornets, is’t not so?
PURGE
I cannot tell, sir; but for my part, I am much noted as I go.
DRYFAT
No doubt of that, sir; your wife can furnish you with notes out of her cotations.
CLUB
Ay, and give him a two-tagged point to tie ’em together.
DRYFAT
But how came you to detect her?
PURGE
Why, thus, sir: getting the word, I dogged her to the Family where, closing with her, I whispered so pleasing a tale in her ear that I got from her her wedding ring; and here ’tis.
DRYFAT
Well, out of that ring we will wring matter that shall carry meat i’ th’ mouth. But what witness or proof can you produce to make good your wife’s iniquity and your own cuckoldry?
PURGE
Master Lipsalve and Master Gudgeon, who were her companions at that same time.
DRYFAT
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 138