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Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker

Page 147

by Thomas Dekker


  My dear unkind husband.I protest to thee I have play’d this knavish part only to be witty.

  GREENSHIELD

  That I might be presently turned into a matter more solid then horn, into marble.

  BELLAMONT

  Your husband, gentlewoman!Why, he never was a soldier.

  KATE

  Ay, but a lady got him prick’d for a captain.I warrant you, he will answer to the name of captain, though he be none.Like a lady that will not think scorn to answer to the name of her first husband, though he wear a soap-boiler.

  GREENSHIELD

  Hang of thee, devil; away!

  KATE

  [Sings.] No, no, you fled me t’other day,

  When I was with child you ran away,

  But since I have caught you now…

  GREENSHIELD

  A pox of your wit and your singing!

  BELLAMONT

  Nay, look you, sir, she must sing because we’ll be merry;

  [Sings.]What though you rode not five mile forward,

  You have found that fatal house at Brainford northward.

  O, hone, no, no, na, ne, ro!

  GREENSHIELD

  God refuse me, gentlemen!You may laugh and be merry; but I am a cuckold and I think you knew of it.Who lay i’th’segs with you to-night, wild duck?

  KATE

  Nobody with me, as I shall be saved.But, Master Featherstone came to meet me as far as Royston.

  GREENSHIELD

  Featherstone!

  MAYBERRY

  See, the hawk that first stoop’d my pheasant is kill’d by the spaniel that first sprang all of our side, wife.

  BELLAMONT

  ’Twas a pretty wit of you, sir, to have had him rod into Puckridge with a horn before him, ha, was’t not?

  GREENSHIELD

  Good.

  BELLAMONT

  Or where a citizen keeps his house, you know ’tis not as a gentleman keeps his chamber for debt, but as you said even now very wisely, lest his horns should usher him.

  GREENSHIELD

  Very good.Featherstone, he comes.

  Enter FEATHERSTONE.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Luke Greenshield, Master Mayberry, old poet, Moll, and Kate, most happily encounter’d!Ud’s life! how came you hither?By my life, the man looks pale!

  GREENSHIELD

  You are a villain and I’ll mak’d good upon you.I am no servingman to feed upon your reversion.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Go to the ordinary then.

  BELLAMONT

  This is his ordinary, sir, and in this she is like a London ordinary; her best getting comes by the box.

  GREENSHIELD

  You are a damn’d villain.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Oh, by no means.

  GREENSHIELD

  No, Ud’s life! I’ll go instantly take a purse, be apprehended and hang’d for’t better than be a cuckold!

  FEATHERSTONE

  But first, make your confession, sirrah.

  GREENSHIELD

  ’Tis this:thou hast not used me like a gentleman.

  FEATHERSTONE

  A gentleman!Thou a gentleman!Thou a tailor!

  BELLAMONT

  ‘Ware peaching.

  FEATHERSTONE

  No, sirrah, if you will confess aught, tell how thou hast wronged that virtuous gentlewoman; how thou layest at her two year together to make her dishonest; how thou wouldst send me thither with letters, how duly thou wouldst watch the citizens’ wives vacation, whish is twice a day; namely the exchange time, twelve at noon and six at night, and where she refused thy importunity, and vowed to tell her husband; thou wouldst fall down upon thy knees and entreat her for the love of Heaven, if not to ease thy violent affection, at least to conceal it, to which her pity and simple virtue consented; how thou tookest her wedding ring from her, met these two gentlemen at Ware, fained a quarrel, and the rest is apparent.This only remains:what wrong the poor gentlewoman hast since received by our intolerable lie; I am most heartily sorry for, and to thy bosom will maintain all I have said to be honest.

  MAYBERRY

  Victory, wife; thou art quit by proclamation.

  BELLAMONT

  Sir, you are an honest man; I have known an arrant thief for peaching made an officer.Give me your hand, sir.

  KATE

  Oh filthy, abominable husband!Did you all this?

  MAYBERRY

  Certainly, he is no captain; he blushes.

  WIFE

  Speak, sir, did you ever know me answer your wishes?

  GREENSHIELD

  You are honest, very virtuously honest.

  WIFE

  I will then no longer be a loose woman; I have at my husband’s pleasure ta’en upon me this habit of jealousy.I’m sorry for you.Virtue glories not in the spoil, but in the victory.

  BELLAMONT

  How say you by that goodly sentence; look you, sir, you gallants visit citizen’s houses, as the Spaniard first sailed to the Indies, you pretend buying of wares or selling of lands, but the end proves ’tis nothing but for discovery and conquest of their wives for better maintenance.Why, look you, was he aware of those broken patience when you met him at Ware and possess’d him of the downfall of his wife?You are a cuckold, you have pander’d you own wife to this gentleman; better men have done it; honest Tom (…); we have precedents for’t.Hie you to London.What is more Catholic i’th’ city then for husbands daily for to forgive the nightly sins of their bedfellows.If you like not that course but do intend to be rid of her, rifle her at a tavern where you may swallow down some fifty wiseacres sons and heirs to old tenements and common gardens, like so many raw yolks with muskadine to bedward.

  KATE

  O filthy knave!Dost compare a woman of my carriage to a horse?

  BELLAMONT

  And no disparagement, for a woman to have a high forehead, a quick ear, a full eye, a wide nostril, a sleek skin, a straight back, a round hip, and so forth, is most comely.

  KATE

  But is a great belly comely in a horse, sir?

  BELLAMONT

  No, lady.

  KATE

  And what think you of it in a woman, I pray you?

  BELLAMONT

  Certainly I am put down at my own weapon.I therefore recant the rifling.No, there is a new trade come up for the cast gentlewomen of periwig making.Let your wife set up i’th’ Strand, and yet I doubt whether she may or no, for they say the women have got it to be a corporation; if you can you may make good use of it, for you shall have as good a coming in by hair, though it be but a falling commodity, and by other foolish tiring, as any between Saint Clements and Charing.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Now you have run yourself out of breath.Hear me:I protest the gentlewoman is honest, and since I have wrong’d her reputation in meeting her thus privately, I’ll maintain her.Wilt thou hand at my purse, Kate, like a pair of barbary buttons, to open with ’tis full, and close when ’tis empty?

  KATE

  I’ll be divorc’d by this Christian element, and because thou thinkst thou art a cuckold, lest I should make thee an infidel in causing thee to believe an untruth I’ll make thee a cuckold.

  BELLAMONT

  Excellent wench!

  FEATHERSTONE

  Come, let’s go, sweet.The nag I ride upon bears a double.We’ll to London.

  MAYBERRY

  Do not bite your thumbs, sir.

  KATE

  Bite his thumb!

  [Sings.] I’ll make him do a thing worse than this,

  Come love me where as I lay.

  FEATHERSTONE

  What, Kate!

  KATE

  [Sings.] He shall father a child is none of his,

  O, the clean contrary way!

  FEATHERSTONE

  O, lusty Kate![Exeunt FEATHERSTONE and KATE.

  MAYBERRY

  Methought he said even now you were a tailor.

  GREENSHIELD

  You shall h
ear more of that hereafter.I’ll make Ware and him stink ere he goes; if I be a tailor, the rogue’s naked weapon shall not fright me; I’ll beat him and my wife both out a’ the town with a tailor’s yard![Exit.

  MAYBERRY

  O, valiant Sir Tristram!Room there.

  Enter PHILIP, LEVERPOOL, and CHARTLEY.

  PHILIP

  News, father, most strange news out of the low countries; your good lady and mistress that set you to work upon a dozen of cheese-trenchers is now lighted at the next inn, and the old venerable gentleman her father with her.

  BELLAMONT

  Let the gates of our inn be lock’d up closer than a nobleman’s gate at dinner time.

  OMNES

  Why, sir, why?

  BELLAMONT

  If she enter here the house will be infected; the plague is not half so dangerous as a she-hornet.Philip, this is your shuffling a’ the cards, to turn up her for the bottom card at Ware.

  PHILIP

  No, as I’m virtuous, sir, ask the two gentlemen.

  LEVERPOOL

  No, in troth, sir, she told us that inquiring at London for you or your son your man chalk’d out her way to Ware.

  BELLAMONT

  I would Ware might choke ’em both!Master Mayberry, my horse and I will take our leaves of you.I’ll to Bedlam again rather than stay her.

  MAYBERRY

  Shall a woman make thee fly thy country?Stay, stand to her though she were greater than Pope Joan.What are thy brains conjuring for, my poetical bay leaf eater?

  BELLAMONT

  For a sprite a’ the butt’ry that shall make us all drink with mirth if I can raise it.Stay, the chicken is not fully hatch’d; hit, I beseech thee.So, come, will you be secret, gentlemen, and assisting?

  OMNES

  With brown bills, if you think good.

  BELLAMONT

  What will you say if by some trick we put this little hornet into Featherstone’s bosom and marry ’em together?

  OMNES

  Fuh!’Tis impossible!

  BELLAMONT

  Most possible.I’ll to my trencher woman, let me alone for dealing with her.Featherstone, gentlemen, shall be your patient.

  OMNES

  How?How?

  BELLAMONT

  Thus:I will close with this country peddler, Mistress Dorothy, that travels up and down to exchange pins for cunny-skins, very lovingly; she shall eat nothing but sweetmeats in my company, good words, whose taste when she likes, as I know she will.Then will I play upon her with this Artillery, that a very proper man and a great hare, naming Featherstone, spied her from a window when she lighted at her inn, is extremely in love with her, vows to make her his wife, if it stand to her good liking, even in Ware; but being, as most of your young gentlemen are, somewhat bashful and asham’d to venture upon a woman.

  MAYBERRY

  City and suburbs can justify it, so, sir.

  BELLAMONT

  He sends me, being an old friend, to undermine for him.I’ll so whet the wench’s stomach and make her so hungry that she shall have an appetite to him, fear it not.Greenshield shall have a hand in it too, and to be reveng’d of his partner, will, I know, strike with any weapon.

  LEVERPOOL

  But is Featherstone of any means? else you undo him and her.

  MAYBERRY

  He has land between Foolham and London; he would have made it over to me.To your charge, poet, give you the assault upon her and sent but Featherstone to me; I’ll hang him by the gills.

  BELLAMONT

  He’s not yet horse’d, sure.Philip, go thy ways, give fire to him and send him hither with a powder presently.

  PHILIP

  He’s blown up already[Exit.

  BELLAMONT

  Gentlemen, you’ll stick to the device and look to your plot?

  OMNES

  Most poetically.Away to your quarter.

  BELLAMONT

  I march.I cast my rider, gallants.I hope you see who shall pay for our voyage.[Exit.

  Enter PHILIP and FEATHERSTONE.

  MAYBERRY

  That must he that comes here.Master Featherstone, O Master Featherstone, you may now make your fortunes weigh ten stone of feathers more than ever they did.Leap but into the saddle now that stands empty for you; you are made for ever.

  LEVERPOOL

  [Aside.] An ass, I’ll be sworn.

  FEATHERSTONE

  How, for God’s sake, how?

  MAYBERRY

  I would you had what I could wish you.I love you, and because you shall be sure to know where my love dwells, look you, sir, it hands out at this sign.You shall pray for Ware, when Ware is dead and rotten.Look you, sir, there is as pretty a little pinnace struck sail hereby and come in lately.She’s my kinswoman, my father’s youngest sister; a ward, her portion three thousand; her hopes if her grannam die without issue, better.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Very good, sir.

  MAYBERRY

  Her guardian goes about to marry her to a stone cutter, and rather than she’ll be subject to such a fellow, she’ll die a martyr.Will you have all our?She’s run away, is here at an inn i’th’town.What parts so ever you have play’d with me, I see good parts in you, and if you now will catch time’s hair that’s put into your hand, you shall clap her up presently.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Is she young?And a pretty wench?

  LEVERPOOL

  Few citizens’ wives are like her.

  PHILIP

  Young, why I warrant sixteen hath scarce gone over her.

  FEATHERSTONE

  ‘Sfoot, where is she?If I like her personage as well as I like that which you say belongs to her personage, I’ll stand thrumming of caps no longer, but board your pinnace whilst ’tis hot.

  MAYBERRY

  Away then with these gentlemen with a French gallop and to her; Philip here shall run for a priest and dispatch you.

  FEATHESTONE

  Will you gallants go along? We may be married in a chamber for fear of hue and cry after her and some of the company shall keep the door.

  MAYBERRY

  Assure your soul she will be followed; away therefore!

  [Exeunt FEATHERSTONE, PHILIP, LEVERPOOL, and CHARTLEY.]

  He’s in the Curtian’s gulf and swallowed horse and man.He will have some body keep the door for him, she’ll look to that.I am younger then I was two nights ago for this physic.How now?

  Enter CAPTAIN JENKINS, ALLUM, HANS, and others booted.

  CAPTAIN

  God pless you; is there not an arrant scurvy trab in your company that is a sentlewoman born, sir, and can tawg Welch and Dutch and any tongue in your head?

  MAYBERRY

  How so?Drabs in my company?Do I look like a drab-driver?

  CAPTAIN

  The trab will drive you , if she put you before her, into a pench-hole.

  ALLUM

  Is not a gentleman here, one Master Bellamont, sir, of your company?

  MAYBERRY

  Yes, yes.Come you from London?He’ll be here presently.

  CAPTAIN

  Will he? Tawsone, this’ oman hunts at his tail like your little goats in Wales follow their mother; we have warrants here from master sustice of this shire to show no pity nor mercy to her; her name is Doll.

  MAYBERRY

  Why, sir, what has she committed?I think such a creature is i’th’town.

  CAPTAIN

  What has she committed!‘Ounds! She has committed more then manslaughters for she has committed herself, God pless us to everlasting prison!Lug you, sir, she is a punk, she shifts her lovers, as captains and Welsh gentlemen and such, as she does her trenchers when she has well fed upon’t, and that there is left nothing but pare bones, she calls for a clean one and scraps away the first.

  Enter BELLAMONT and HORNET, with DOLL between them,

  FEATHERSTONE, GREENSHIELD, KATE, MAYBERRY’s Wife,

  PHILIP, LEVERPOOL and CHARTLEY.

  MAYBERRY

  God�
��s so, Master Featherstone, what will you do?Here’s three come from London to fetch away the gentlewoman with a warrant.

  FEATHERSTONE

  All the warrants in Europe shall not fetch her now; she’s mine sure enough.What have you to say to her?She’s my wife.

  CAPTAIN

  Ow!‘Sblood, do you come so far to fish and catch frogs?Your wife is a tilt-boat; any man or ‘oman may go in her for money.She’s a cunny-catcher.Where is my moveable goods call’d a coach, and my two wild peasts.Pogs on you!Would they had trawn you to the gallows.

  ALLUM

  I must borrow fifty pounds of you, Mistress Bride.

  HANS

  Yaw, vro, and you make me de geck, de groet fool, you heb mine gelt, too; war is it?

  DOLL

  Out, you base scums.Come you to disgrace me in my wedding shoes?

  FEATHERSTONE

  Is this your three thousand pound ward?Ye told me, sir, she was your kinswoman.

  MAYBERRY

  Right, one of mine aunts.

  BELLAMONT

  Who pays for the northern voyage now, lads?

  GREENSHIELD

  Why do you not ride before my wife to London now?The woodcock’s i’th’springe.

  KATE

  O, forgive me, dear husband!I will never love a man that is worse than hang’d, as he is.

  MAYBERRY

  Now a man may have a course in your park.

  FEATHERSTONE

  He may, sir.

  DOLL

  Never, I protest.I will be as true to thee as Ware and Wade’s-mill are one to another.

  FEATHERSTONE

  Well, it’s but my fate.Gentlemen, this is my opinion:it’s better to shoot in a bow that has been shot in before and will never start than to draw a fair new one that for every arrow will be warping.Come wench, we are join’d, and all the dogs in France shall not part us.I have some lands, those I’ll turn into money to pay you, and you, and any.I’ll pay all that I can for thee, for I’m sure thou hast paid me.

  OMNES

  God give you joy!

  MAYBERRY

  Come, let’s be merry![To GREENSHIELD.] Lie with your own wife, to be sure she shall not walk in her sleep.A noise of musicians, chamberlain.

  This night let’s banquet freely; come, we’ll dare,

  Our wives to combat i’th’ great bed in Ware.[Exeunt.

  Westward Ho (1607)

  In collaboration with John Webster

  Westward Ho was first published in 1607, although the play would have first been performed by the end of 1604.It was published by the bookseller John Hodgets in quarto form and the opening page states that the play was acted by ‘The Children of Paul’s’; an all-boys company famous during the early 17th century. The work was a collaboration between Webster and Dekker, and it produced such an impact that Ben Jonson, George Chapman and John Marston responded by writing the infamous play Eastward Ho in 1605; this resulted in the imprisonment of Chapman and Jonson due to its anti-Scottish stance. The titles of the plays refer to the shouts of the watermen, who organised water taxis along the Thames River.

 

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