Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker

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Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 141

by Thomas Dekker


  This is the end of all whores, to fall into the hands of knaves.Drawer, tie my shoe, pry thee.The new knot, as thou seest this.Philip is a good honest gentleman.I love him because he’ll spend, but when I saw him on his father’s hobby, and a brace of punks following him in a coach, I told him he would run out.Hast done, boy?

  DRAWER

  Yes, forsooth.By my troth, you have a dainty leg.

  DOLL

  How now, Goodman rogue?

  DRAWER

  Nay, sweet Mistress Doll.

  DOLL

  Doll!You reprobate!Out, you bawd, for seven years by the custom of the city!

  DRAWER

  Good Mistress Dorothy, the pox take me if I touch’d your leg but to a good intent!

  DOLL

  Prate you?The rotten tooth’d rascal will for six pence fetch any whore to his master’s customers, and is every one that swims in a taffaty gown lettuce for your lips?Ud’s life, this is rare, that gentlemen and Drawers must suck at one spigot!Do you laugh, you unseasonable puck-fist?Do you grin?

  CHARTLEY

  Away, drawer.Hold pry thee good rogue.Hold my sweet Doll.A pox, this swaggering![Exit Drawer.

  DOLL

  Pox a’ your guts, your kidneys!Mew!Hang ye, rook!I’m as melancholy now as Fleet Street in a long vacation.

  LEVERPOOL

  Melancholy?Come, we’ll have some mull’d sack.

  DOLL

  When begins the term?

  CHARTLEY

  Why?Hast any suits to be tried at Westminster?

  DOLL

  My suits, you base ruffian, have been tried at Westminster already.So soon as ever the term begins, I’ll change my lodging; it stands out a’ the way.I’ll lie about Charing Cross, for if there be any stirrings, there we shall ha’ em; or, if some Dutchman would come from the States.Oh, these Flemmings pay soundly for what they take!

  LEVERPOOL

  If thou’t have a lodging Westward, Doll, I’ll fit thee.

  DOLL

  At Tyburn, will you not?A lodging of your providing?To be call’d a Lieutenant’s or a Captain’s wench?Oh!I scorn to be one of your low country commodities, I!Is this body made to be maintained with provant and dead pay?No, the mercer must be paid, and satin gowns must be ta’en up.

  CHARTLEY

  And gallon pots must be tumbl’d down.

  DOLL

  Stay!I have a plot breeding in my brains.Are the quest-houses broken up?

  LEVERPOOL

  Yes, long since.What then?

  DOLL

  What then?Marry, then is the wind come about, and for those poor wenches that before Christmas fled westward with bag and baggage come now sailing alongst the lee shore with a northerly wind, and we that had warrants to lie without the liberties, come now dropping into the freedom of owl-light sneakingly.

  CHARTLEY

  But, Doll, what’s the plot thou speak’st of?

  DOLL

  Marry this:gentlemen, and tobacco stinkers, and such like, are buzzing where sweetmeats are, like flies, but they make any flesh stink that they blow upon.I will leave those fellows therefore in the hands of their landresses.Silver is the king’s stamp, and a woman is man’s stamp.We are not currant till we pass from one man to another.

  BOTH

  Very good.

  DOLL

  I will therefore take a fair house in the city; no matter though it be a tavern that has blown up his master.It shall be in trade still, for I know diverse taverns i’th’town that have but a wall between them and a hot house.It shall then be given out that I’m a gentlewoman of such a birth, such a wealth, have had such a breeding, and so forth, and of such a carriage, and such qualities, and so forth; to set it off the better, old Jack Hornet shall take upon him to be my father.

  LEVERPOOL

  Excellent, with a chain about his neck, and so forth.

  DOLL

  For that, Saint Martin’s and we will talk.I know we shall have gudgions bite presently.If they do boys, you shall live like knight’s fellows.As occasion serves you shall wear liveries and wait, but when gulls are my windfalls, you shall be gentlemen, and keep them company.Seek out Jack Hornet incontinently.

  LEVERPOOL

  We will.Come Chartley, we’ll play our parts, I warrant.

  DOLL

  Do so.

  The world’s a stage, from which strange shapes we borrow;

  To-day we are honest, and rank knaves to-morrow.[Exeunt.

  Act One, Scene Three

  ENTER MEYBERRY, BELLAMONT, and a Prentice.

  MAYBERRY

  Where is your mistress, villain?When went she abroad?

  PRENTICE

  Abroad, sir?Why, as soon as she was up, sir.

  MAYBERRY

  Up, sir, down, sir, so, sir.Master Bellamont, I will tell you a strange secret in nature.This boy is my wife’s bawd.

  BELLAMONT

  O fie, sir, fie!The boy, he does not look like a bawd, he has no double chin.

  PRENTICE

  No, sir, nor my breath does not stink.I smell not of garlic or aqua vitæ.I use not to be drunk with sack and sugar.I swear not, God damn me, if I know where the party is, when ’tis a lie and I do know.I was never carted, but in harvest, never whip’d but at school, never had the grincoms, never sold one maidenhead ten several times, first to an Englishman, then to a Welshman, then to a Dutchman, then to a pocky Frenchman.I hope, sir, I am no bawd then.

  MAYBERRY

  Thou art a baboon and holdst me with tricks, whilst my wife grafts, grafts.Away, trudge, run, search her out by land, and by water.

  PRENTICE

  Well, sir, the land I’ll ferret, and after that I’ll search her by water, for it may be she’s gone to Brainford.[Exit.

  MAYBERRY

  Inquire at one of mine aunts.

  BELLAMONT

  One of your aunts!Are you mad?

  MAYBERRY

  Yea, as many of the twelve companies are, troubled, troubled.

  BELLAMONT

  I’ll chide you.Go to!I’ll chide you soundly!

  MAYBERRY

  Oh, Master Bellamont!

  BELLAMONT

  Oh Master Mayberry!Before your servant to dance a Lancashire horn-pipe; it shows worse to me then dancing does to a deaf man that sees not the fiddles.Sfoot, you talk like a player.

  MAYBERRY

  If a player talk like a madman, or a fool, or an ass, and knows not what he talks, then I’m one.You are a poet, Master Bellamont.I will bestow a piece of plate upon you to bring my wife upon the stage.Would not her humour please gentlemen?

  BELLAMONT

  I think it would.Yours would make gentlemen as fat as fools.I would give two pieces of plate to have you stand by me, when I were to write a jealous man’s part.Jealous men are either knaves or coxcombs, be you neither; you wear yellow hose without cause.

  MAYBERRY

  Without cause, when my master bears double!Without cause!

  BELLAMONT

  And without wit.

  MAYBERRY

  When two virginal jacks skip up, as the key of my instrument goes down!

  BELLAMONT

  They are two wicked elders.

  MAYBERRY

  When my wife’s ring does smoke for’t.

  BELLAMONT

  Your wife’s ring may deceive you.

  MAYBERRY

  Oh, Master Bellamont, had it not been my wife had made me a cuckold, it should never have grieved me.

  BELLAMONT

  You wrong her, upon my soul.

  MAYBERRY

  No, she wrongs me upon her body.

  Enter a Servingman.

  BELLAMONT

  Now, blue bottle?What flutter you for, sea-pie?

  SERVINGMAN

  Not to catch fish, sir.My young master your son, Master Philip, is taken prisoner.

  BELLAMONT

  By the Dunkirk’s.

  SERVINGMAN

  Worse; by the catch-poles.He’s encountered.
/>   BELLAMONT

  Shall I never see that prodigal come home?

  SERVINGMAN

  Yes, sir, if you’ll fetch him out, you may kill a calf for him.

  BELLAMONT

  For how much lies he?

  SERVINGMAN

  The debt is fourscore pound.Marry, he’ll charge me to tell you it was fourscore and ten, so that he lies only for the odd ten pound.

  BELLAMONT

  His child’s part shall now be paid.This money shall be his last and this vexation the last of mine.If you had such a son, Master Mayberry —

  MAYBERRY

  To such a wife ‘twere an excellent couple.

  BELLAMONT

  Release him, and release me of much sorrow.I will buy a son no more.Go redeem him.[Exit Servingman.

  Enter Prentice and MAYBERRY’s WIFE.

  PRENTICE

  Here’s the party, sir.

  MAYBERRY

  Hence, and lock fast the doors.Now is my prize.

  PRENTICE

  If she beat you not at your own weapon, would her buckler were cleft in two pieces. [Exit.

  BELLAMONT

  I would not have you handle her too roughly.

  MAYBERRY

  No, I will, like a justice of peace, grow to the point.Are not you a whore?Never start!Thou art a cloth-worker, and hast turn’d me.

  WIFE

  How, sir!Into what, sir, have I turn’d you?

  MARBERRY

  Into a civil suit, into a sober beast, a land-rat, a cuckold!Thou art a common bedfellow, art not?Art not?

  WIFE

  Sir, this language to me is strange; I understand it not.

  MAYBERRY

  O!You study the French now!

  WIFE

  Good sir, lend me patience.

  MAYBERRY

  I made a salad of that herb.Dost see these flesh-hooks?I could tear out those false eyes, those cat’s eyes, that can see in the night.Punk, I could!

  BELLAMONT

  Hear her answer for herself.

  WIFE

  Good Master Bellamont,

  Let him not do me violence.Dear sir,

  Should any but yourself shoot out these names,

  I would put off all female modesty

  To be reveng’d on him!

  MAYBERRY

  Know’st thou this ring?There has been old running at the ring since I went.

  WIFE

  Yes, sir, this ring is mine.He was a villain

  That stole it from my hand.He was a villain

  That put it into yours.

  MAYBERRY

  They were no villains

  When they stood stoutly for me, took your part,

  And stead of colours fought under my sheets.

  WIFE

  I know not what you mean.

  MAYBERRY

  They lay with thee.I mean plain dealing.

  WIFE

  With me!If ever I had thought unclean

  In detestation of your nuptial pillow,

  Let sulphur drop from heaven and nail my body

  Dead to this earth.That slave, that damned fury,

  Whose whips are in your tongue to torture me,

  Casting an eye unlawful on my cheek,

  Haunted your threshold daily, and threw forth

  All tempting baits which lust and credulous youth

  Apply to our frail sex.But those being weak,

  The second siege he laid was in sweet words.

  MAYBERRY

  And then the breach was made.

  BELLAMONT

  Nay, nay, hear all.

  WIFE

  At last he takes me sitting at your door

  Seizes my palm, and by the charm of oaths,

  Back to restore it straight, he won my hand,

  To crown his finger with that hoop of gold.

  I did demand it, but he mad with rage

  And with desires unbridled, fled and vow’d

  That ring should me undo, and now belike

  His spells have wrought on you.But, I beseech you,

  To dare him to my face, and in meantime

  Deny me bedroom, drive me from your board,

  Disgrace me in the habit of your slave,

  Lodge me in some discomfortable vault

  Where neither sun nor moon may touch my sight,

  Till the slander I my soul acquit.

  BELLAMONT

  Guiltless, upon my soul.

  MAYBERRY

  Troth, so think I.

  I now draw in your bow, as I before

  Suppos’d they drew in mine; my stream of jealousy

  Ebbs back again, and I that like a horse

  Ran blind-fold in a mill, all in one circle,

  Yet thought I had gone foreright, now spy my error.

  Villains, you have abused me, and I vow

  Sharp vengeance on your heads.Drive in your tears,

  I take your word ya’re honest, which good men,

  Very good men will scarce do to their wives.

  I will bring home these serpents, and allow them

  The heat of mine own bosom.Wife, I charge you

  Set out your haviours towards them in such colours

  As if you had been their whore.I’ll have it so;

  I’ll candy o’er my words, and sleek my brow,

  Entreat ’em that they would not point at me,

  Nor mock my horns, with this arm I’ll embrace ’em,

  And with this — go to.

  WIFE

  Oh, we shall have murder!

  You kill my heart.

  MAYBERRY

  No, I will shed no blood.

  But I will be reveng’d.They that do wrong

  Teach others way to right.I’ll fetch my blow

  Fair and afar off, and as fencers use,

  Though at the foot I strike, the head I’ll bruise.

  Enter PHILIP and Servant.

  BELLAFRONT

  I’ll join with you.Let’s walk.Oh! here’s my son.

  Welcome ashore, sir.From whence come you, pray?

  PHILIP

  From the house of prayer and fasting, the Counter.

  BELLAFRONT

  Art not thou asham’d to be seen come out of a prison?

  PHILIP

  No, God’s my judge, but I was asham’d to go into prison.

  BELLAFRONT

  I am told, sir, that you spend your credit and your coin upon a light woman.

  PHILIP

  I ha’ seen light gold, sir, pass away amongst mercers.

  BELLAFRONT

  And that you have laid thirty or forty pounds upon her back to taffaty gowns, and silk petticoats.

  PHILIP

  None but tailors will say so.I ne’er laid anything upon her back.I confess I took up a petticoat and a rais’d fore-part for her, but who has to do with that?

  MAYBERRY

  Marry, that has every body, Master Philip.

  BELLAFRONT

  Leave her company, or leave me, for she’s a woman of an ill name.

  PHILIP

  Her name is Dorothy, sir.I hope that’s no ill name.

  BELLAFRONT

  What is she?What wilt thou do with her?

  PHILIP

  ‘Sblood, sir, what does he with her?

  BELLEFRONT

  Dost mean to marry her?Of what birth is she?What are her comings in, what does she live upon?

  PHILIP

  Rents, sir, rents, she lives upon her rents, and I can have her.

  BELLAFRONT

  You can.

  PHILIP

  Nay, father, if destiny dog me I must have her.You have often told me the nine muses are all women, and you deal with them; may not I the better be allowed one than you so many?Look you, sir, the northern man loves white meats, the southerly man salads, the Essex man a calf, the Kentishman a wag-tail, the Lancashire man an egg-pie, the Welshman leeks and cheese, and your Londoners raw mutton, so father god-boy, I was born in London.

>   BELLAFRONT

  Stay, look you, sir, as he that lives upon salads without mutton, feeds like an ox, for he eats grass, you know, yet rises as hungry as an ass, and as he that makes a dinner of leeks will have lean cheeks, so, thou foolish Londoner, if nothing but raw mutton can diet thee, look to live like a fool and a slave, and to die like a beggar and a knave.Come, master Mayberry, farewell boy.

  PHILIP

  Farewell, Father Snot.Sir, if I have her, I’ll spend more in mustard and vinegar in a year, then both you in beef.

  BELLAFRONT

  More saucy knave thou.[Exeunt.

  Act Two, Scene One

  ENTER HORNET, DOLL, LEVERPOOL, and CHARTLEY like Servingmen.

  HORNET

  Am I like a fiddler’s base viol new set up in a good case, boys?Is’t neat?Is it terse? Am I handsome, ha?

  OMNES

  Admirable, excellent!

  DOLL

  An under sheriff cannot cover a knave more cunningly.

  LEVERPOOL

  ‘Sfoot, if he should come before a church warden, he would make him a pew fellow with a lord’s steward at least.

  HORNET

  If I had but a staff in my hand, fools would think I were one of Simon and Jude’s gentleman ushers, and that my apparel were hir’d.They say three tailors go to the making up of a man, I’m sure I had four tailors and a half went to the making of me thus.This suit, though it had been canvas’d well, yet ’tis no law-suit, for twice dispatch’d sooner than a posset on a wedding night.

  DOLL

  Why, I tell thee, Jack Hornet, if the devil and all the brokers in long land had rifled their wardrobe, they would ha’ been damn’d before they had fitted thee thus.

  HORNET

  Punk, I shall be a simple father for you.How does my chain show now I walk?

  DOLL

  If thou wert hung in chains, thou couldst not show better.

  CHARTLEY

  But how sit our blue-coats on our backs?

  DOLL

  As they do upon bankrout retainer’s backs at Saint George’s feast in London, but at Westminster, it makes ’em scorn the badge of their occupation.There the baggage velure canioned hobbyhorses prance up and down as if some a’ the tilters had ridden ’em.

  HORNET

  Nay, ‘sfoot, if they be bankrouts, ’tis like some have ridden ’em, and thereupon the citizen’s proverb rises, when he says, “he trusts to a broken staff.”

  DOLL

  Hornet, now you play my father, take heed you be not out of your part, and shame your adopted daughter.

  HORNET

  I will look gravely, Doll.Do you see boys like the foreman of a jury, and speak wisely like a Latin schoolmaster, and be surly and dogged, and proud like the keeper of a prison.

 

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