Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker

by Thomas Dekker

  O may that fire ne’er die; nor let your favours

  Depart from us: give countenance to their labours

  Propos’d a sacrifice, which may no less

  Their strong desires than our true zeals express.

  Exeunt.

  Northward Ho (1607)

  In collaboration with John Webster

  Northward Ho is another collaborative effort between John Webster and Dekker and it served as a response to the Jonson, Chapman and Marston play Eastward Ho, which had been crafted by its authors as a retort to Westward Ho. It is likely the play was first staged in the latter part of 1605, although the precise date of the first performance is unknown. The play must have been staged after Eastward Ho, which was known to exist in September 1605, but before February 1606, when John Day’s The Isle of Gulls was staged: Day’s work makes a reference to Webster’s and Dekker’s play. It was first published in the quarto form by George Eld in late 1607. Eld was a prominent Jacobean printer and publisher, who released works by some of the most significant playwrights of the period, including Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare. Eld’s most important work in relation to Shakespeare was the first edition printing of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in 1609. Northward Ho, like its predecessor Westward Ho, was originally performed by the all-boy troupe the ‘Children of Paul’s’. There has been much discussion about the primary author of the work and the contribution of each playwright to the text. It has been largely agreed upon by scholars that Dekker is responsible for the majority of the play, although the degree of Webster’s contribution has been disputed, with some claiming he wrote as much as forty percent of the work while others believe that he was responsible for composing far less of the play.

  Northward Ho opens by introducing two ‘gallants’, Featherstone and Greenshield, who have unsuccessfully been attempting to seduce Mistress Mayberry. They are frustrated by her refusal to acquiesce to their desires so they determine to seek revenge by informing her husband that she had been unfaithful to him, pretending to provide evidence of her betrayal. Mayberry’s friend Bellamont convinces him that he is being deceived by the gallants and Mayberry decides to avenge the wrong done against him. Another plot, which later converges with the first one, is the escapades of Bellamont’s son Philip, and his associates, who attempt to dupe wealthy men into believing that Doll, a prostitute, is a rich young woman and a great catch for marriage. The work is another amusing satire, which resolves everything according to the prevailing morality of the period, without striking a didactic or patronising tone. It can be argued that Northward Ho creates far more distinctive, albeit stock, characters than Westward Ho, and that this work allows for the characters to exhibit wider and more diverse traits and values.

  1607 quarto version

  CONTENTS

  Dramatis Personæ

  Act One, Scene One

  Act One, Scene Two

  Act One, Scene Three

  Act Two, Scene One

  Act Two, Scene Two

  Act Three, Scene One

  Act Three, Scene Two

  Act Four, Scene One

  Act Four, Scene Two

  Act Four, Scene Three

  Act Five, Scene One

  Playwright George Chapman (c. 1559-1634)

  Dramatis Personæ

  MAYBERRY.

  BELLAMONT.

  PHILIP BELLAMONT, his son.

  LUKE GREENSHIELD.

  FEATHERSTONE.

  LEVERPOOL.

  CHARTLEY.

  JACK HORNET.

  HANS VAN BELCH.

  ALLUM.

  CAPTAIN JENKINS.

  LEAPFROG.

  SQUIRREL.

  Prentice.

  FULL-MOON

  Chamberlain.

  Tailor.

  Drawer.

  MISTRESS MABEL MAYBERRY.

  KATE GREENSHIELD.

  DOLL.

  Hostess.

  Servants, Fiddlers, Sergeants, Bedlamites, Musician, Bawd.

  Act One, Scene One

  ENTER GREENSHIELD WITH FEATHERSTONE, booted.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Art sure old Mayberry inns here to-night?

  GREENSHIELD

  ’Tis certain; the honest knave chamberlain that hath been my informer, my bawd, ever since I knew Ware assures me of it, and more, being a Londoner though altogether unacquainted, I have requested his company at supper.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Excellent occasion.How we shall carry ourselves in this business is only to be thought upon.

  GREENSHIELD

  Be that my undertaking; if I do not take a full revenge of his wife’s puritanical coyness.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Suppose it she should be chaste?

  GREENSHIELD

  Oh, hang her!This art of seeming honest makes many of our young sons and heirs in the city look so like our prentices.Chamberlain!

  Enter Chamberlain.

  CHAMBERLAIN

  Here, sir.

  GREENSHIELD

  This honest knave is call’d Innocence; is’t not a good name for a chamberlain?He dwelt at Dunstable not long since and hath brought me and the two butcher’s daughters there to interview twenty times and not so little I protest.How chance you left Dunstable, sirrah?

  CHAMBERLAIN

  Faith, sir, the town droop’d ever since the peace in Ireland.Your captains were wont to take their leaves of their London polecats, their wenches I mean, sir, at Dunstable.The next morning when they had broke their fast together the wenches brought them to Hockley ‘i’th’hole, and so the one for London, the other for Westchester, your only road now, sir, is York; York, sir.

  GREENSHIELD

  True, but yet it comes scant of the prophesy:Lincoln was, London is, and York shall be.

  CHAMBERLAIN

  Yes, sir, ’tis fulfill’d.York shall be; that is, it shall be York still.Surely it was the meaning of the prophet.Will you have some crayfish and a spitchcock?

  Enter MAYBERRY with BELLAMONT.

  FEATHERSTONE

  And a fat trout.

  CHAMBERLAIN

  You shall, sir.The Londoners you wot of —

  GREENSHIELD

  Most kindly welcome!I beseech you hold our boldness excused, sir.

  [Exit Chamberlain.

  BELLAMONT

  Sir, it is the health of travellers to enjoy good company.Will you walk?

  FEATHERSTONE

  Whither travel you, I beseech you?

  MAYBERRY

  To London, sir.We came from Sturbridge.

  BELLAMONT

  I tell you, gentlemen, I have observ’d very much with being at Sturbridge.It hath afforded me mirth beyond the length of five Latin comedies.Here should you meet a Norfolk yeoman full-butt, with his head able to overturn you, and his pretty wife that followed him, ready to excuse the ignorant hardness of her husband’s forehead.In the goose market number of freshmen, stuck here and there, with a graduate, like cloves with great heads in a gammon of bacon; here two gentlemen making a marriage between their heirs over a wool-pack; there a minister’s wife that could speak false Latin very lispingly; here two in one corner of a shop; Londoners selling their wares, and other gentlemen courting their wives.Where they take up petticoats you should find scholars and townsmen’s wives crowding together while their husbands wear in another market busy amongst the oxen.’Twas like a camp, for in other countries so many punks do not follow an army.I could make an excellent description of it in a comedy.But whither are you travelling, gentlemen?

  FEATHERSTONE

  Faith, sir, we purposed a dangerous voyage, but upon better consideration we altered our course.

  MAYBERRY

  May we, without offence, partake the ground of it?

  GREENSHIELD

  ’Tis altogether trivial in sooth, but to pass away the time till supper, I’ll deliver it to you, with protestation before hand.I seek not to publish every gentlewoman’s dishonour, only by the passage of my dis
course to have to censure the state of our quarrel.

  BELLAMONT

  Forth, sir.

  GREENSHIELD

  Frequenting the company of many merchants’ wives in the city, my heart by chance leapt into mine eye to affect the fairest but withal the falsest creature that ever affection stoop’d to.

  MAYBERRY

  Of what rank was she, I beseech you?

  FEATHERSTONE

  Upon your promise of secrecy.

  BELLAMONT

  You shall close it up like treasure of your own, and yourself shall keep the key of it.

  GREENSHIELD

  She was, and by report still is, wife to a most grave and well-reputed citizen.

  MAYBERRY

  And entertained your love?

  GREENSHIELD

  As meadows do April.The violence as it seemed of her affection — but alas, it proved her dissembling; would at my coming and departed bedew her eyes with love drops.Oh she could the art of woman most feelingly!

  BELLAMONT

  Most feelingly.

  MAYBERRY

  I should not have liked that feelingly had she been my wife.Give us some sack here and in faith; we are all friends, and in private — what was her husband’s name? I’ll give you a carouse by and by.

  GREENSHIELD

  Oh, you shall pardon me his name.It seems you are a citizen.It would be discourse enough for you upon the exchange this fortnight should I tell his name.

  BELLAMONT

  Your modesty in this wife’s commendation.On, sir.

  GREENSHIELDS

  In the passage of our loves, amongst other favours of greater value, she bestowed upon me this ring, which she protested was her husband’s gift.

  MAYBERRY

  The poesy, the poesy!Oh, my heart, that ring, good, in faith?

  GREENSHIELD

  Not many night’s coming to her and being familiar with her —

  MAYBERRY

  Kissing, and so forth.

  GREENSHIELD

  Ay, sir.

  MAYBERRY

  And talking to her feelingly.

  GREENSHIELD

  Pox on’t!I lay with her.

  MAYBERRY

  Good, in faith; you are of a good complexion.

  GREENSHIELD

  Lying with her, as I say, and rising somewhat early from her in the morning, I lost that ring in her bed.

  MAYBERRY

  In my wife’s bed!

  FEATHERSTONE

  How do you, sir?

  MAYBERRY

  Nothing.Let’s have a fire chamberlain.I think my boots have taken water.I have such a shuddering.I’th bed, you say?

  FEATHERSTONE

  Right, sir, in Mistress Mayberry’s sheets.

  MAYBERRY

  Was her name Mayberry?

  GREENSHIELD

  Beshrew my tongue for blabbing.I presume upon your secrecy?

  MAYBERRY

  Oh, God, sir, but where did you find your loosing?

  GREENSHIELD

  Where I found her falseness, with this, gentlemen, who by his own confession partaking the like enjoyment, found this ring the same morning on her pillow, and sham’d not in my sight to wear it.

  MAYBERRY

  What, did she talk feeling to him too?I warrant her husband was forth a town all this while, and he, poor, man travelled with hard eggs in’s pocket, to save the charge of a bait, whilst she was at home with her plovers, turkeys, chickens!Do you know that Mayberry?

  FEATHERSTONE

  No more than by name.

  MAYBERRY

  He’s a wondrous honest man.Let’s be merry.Will not your mistress?Gentlemen, you are tenants in common, I take it?

  FEATHERSTONE & GREENSHIELD

  Yes.

  MAYBERRY

  Will not your mistress make much of her husband when he comes home, as if no such legerdemain had been acted?

  GREENSHIELD

  Yes, she hath reason for’t, for in some countries, where men and women have good travelling stomachs, they begin with porridge; then they fall to capon or so forth.But if capon come short of filling their bellies, to their porridge again.’Tis their only course, so for our women in England.

  MAYBERRY

  [Aside.] This wit taking of long journeys!Kindred that comes in o’er the hatch, and sailing to Westminster makes a number of cuckolds.

  BELLAMONT

  Fie, what an idle quarrel is this!Was this her ring?

  GREENSHIELD

  Her ring, sir.

  MAYBERRY

  A pretty idle toy.Would you take money for’t?

  FEATHERSTONE & GREENSHIELD

  Money, sir!

  MAYBERRY

  The more I look on’t, the more I like it.

  BELLAMONT

  Troth, ’tis of no great value, and considering the loss, and finding of this ring made breach into your friendship, gentlemen, with this trifle purchase his love; I can tell you he keeps a good table.

  GREENSHIELD

  What, my mistress gift?

  FEATHERSTONE

  Faith, you are a merry old gentleman.I’ll give you my part in’t.

  GREENSHIELD

  Troth, and mine, with your promise to conceal it from her husband.

  MAYBERRY

  Doth he know of it yet?

  GREENSHIELD

  No, sir.

  MAYBERRY

  He shall never then, I protest.Look you, this ring doth fit me passing well.

  FEATHERSTONE

  I am glad we have fitted you.

  MAYBERRY

  This walking is wholesome, I was a-cold even now, now I swear for’t.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Shall’s walk into the garden, Luke?Gentlemen, we’ll down and hasten supper.

  MAYBERRY

  Look you, we must be better acquainted, that’s all.

  GREENSHIELD

  Most willingly.[Aside to FEATHERSTONE.] Excellent!He’s heat to the proof.Let’s withdraw, and give him leave to rave a little.

  [Exeunt GREENSHIELD and FEATHERSTONE.

  MAYBERRY

  Chamberlain, give us a clean towel.

  Enter Chamberlain.

  BELLAMONT

  How now, man?

  MAYBERRY

  I am foolish old Mayberry, and yet I can be wise Mayberry too;I’ll to London presently.Begone, sir![Exit Chamberlain.

  BELLAMONT

  How now?

  MAYBERRY

  Nay, nay, God’s precious!You do mistake me, Master Bellamont.I am not distempered, for to know a man’s wife is a whore, is to be resolv’d of it, and to be resolved of it, is to make no question of it, and when a case is out of question– What was I saying?

  BELLAMONT

  Why, look you.What a distraction are you fall’n into?

  MAYBERRY

  If a man be devorc’d, do you see, divorc’d forma juris, whether may he have an action or no gainst those that make horns at him?

  BELLAMONT

  O madness!That the frailty of a woman should make a wise man thus idle!Yet, I protest, to my understanding this report seems as far from truth as you from patience.

  MAYBERRY

  Then am I a fool, yet I can be wise and I list too.What says my wedding ring?

  BELLAMONT

  Indeed, that breeds some suspicion, for the rest most gross and open; for two men, both to love your wife, both to enjoy her bed, and to meet you as if by miracle, and not knowing you, upon no occasion in the world, to thrust upon you a discourse of a quarrel, with circumstance so dishonest, that not any gentleman but of this country, blushing would have publish’d.Ay, and to name you!Do you know them?

  MAYBERRY

  Faith, now I remember, I have seen them walk muffled by my shop.

  BELLAMONT

  Like enough.Pray God they do not borrow money of us twixt Ware and London!Come, strive to blow over these clouds.

  MAYBERRY

  Not a cloud.You shall have clean moonshine, the
y have good smooth looks, the fellows.

  BELLAMONT

  As jet.They will take up, I warrant you, where they may be trusted.Will you be merry?

  MAYBERRY

  Wondrous merry!Let’s have some sack to drown this cuckold.Down with him!Wondrous merry!One word and no more; I am but a foolish tradesman, and yet, I’ll be a wise tradesman.[Exeunt.

  Act One, Scene Two

  Enter DOLL led between LEVERPOOL, and CHARTLEY,

  after them PHILIP arrested by two Sergeants.

  PHILIP

  Arrest me?At whose suit?Tom Chartley, Dick Leverpool, stay!I’m arrested!

  OMNES

  Arrested?

  FIRST SERGEANT

  Gentlemen, break not the head of the peace.It’s to no purpose, for he’s in the law’s clutches.You see he’s fang’d.

  DOLL

  Ud’s life!Do you stand with your naked weapons in your hand, and do nothing with ’em?Put one of ’em into my fingers.I’ll tickle the pimple-faced varlets!

  PHILIP

  Hold, Doll, thrust not a weapon upon a mad woman.Officers, step back into the tavern.You might ha’ ta’en me in the street, and not i’th’tavern entry, you cannibals.

  SECOND SERGEANT

  We did it for your credit, sir.

  CHARTLEY

  How much is the debt?Drawer, some wine.

  Enter Drawer.

  FIRST SERGEANT

  Fourscore pound.Can you send for bail, sir?Or what will you do?We cannot stay.

  DOLL

  You cannot, you pasty-footed rascals!You will stay one day in hell.

  PHILIP

  Fourscore pounds draws deep.Farewell, Doll.Come, sergeants, I’ll step to mine uncle not far off, hereby in Pudding Lane, and he shall bail me; if not, Chartley, you shall find me playing at Span-counter, and so farewell.Send me some tobacco.

  FIRST SERGEANT

  Have an eye to his hands.

  SECOND SERGEANT

  Have an eye to his legs.[Exeunt PHILIP led by the two Sergeants.

  DOLL

  I’m as melancholy now?

  CHARTLEY

  Villainous spiteful luck!I’ll hold my life some of these saucy drawers betray’d him.

  DRAWER

  We, sir!No, by Gad, sir!We scorn to have a Judas in our company.

  LEVERPOOL

  No, no, he was dogg’d in.This is the end of all dicing.

  DOLL