We are beholding unto such beholders.
The time was lords, when you did flock amain
To see her crown’d, but now to kill my Jane.
The world like to a sickle bends itself:
Men run their course of lives as in a maze:
Our office is to die, yours but to gaze.
Jane. Patience, my Guildford.
Guild. Patience, my lovely Jane!
Patience has blanch’d thy soul as white as snow,
But who shall answer for thy death? This know,
An innocent to die, what is it less
But to add angels to heaven’s happiness?
The guilty dying do applaud the law,
But when the innocent creature stoops his neck
To an unjust doom, upon the judge they check.
Lives are, like souls, requir’d of their neglectors,
Then ours of you that should be our protectors.
Win. Bail not against the law.
Guild. No, God forbid!
My lord of Winchester is made of law
And should I rail against it, ‘twere against you.
If I forget not, you rejoic’d to see
The fall of Cromwell: joy you now at me?
Oft dying men are fill’d with prophecies!
But I’ll not be a prophet of your ill.
Yet know, my lords, they that behold us now,
May to the axe of justice one day bow,
And in that plot of ground, where we must die,
Sprinkle their bloods, though I know no cause why.
Norf. Speak you to me, Lord Guildford?
Guild. Norfolk, no:
I speak to
Norf To whom?
Guild. Alas, I do not know! —
Which of us two dies first?
Win. The better part.
Guild. O, rather kill the worst!
Jane. ’Tis I, sweet love, that first must kiss the block.
Guild. I am a man; men better brook the shock
Of threatening death: your sex are ever weak;
The thoughts of death a woman’s heart will break.
Jane. But I am arm’d to die.
Guild. Likelier to live;
Death to the unwilling doth his presence give:
He dares not look the bold man in the face,
But on the fearful lays his killing mace.
Win. It is the pleasure of the queen
That the Lady Jane must first suffer death.
Jane. I thank her highness,
That I shall first depart this hapless world,
And not survive to see my dear love dead.
Guild. She dying first, I three times lose my head!
Enter the HEADSMAN.
Heads. Forgive me, lady, I pray, your death.
Guild. Ha! hast thou the heart to kill a face so fair?
Win. It is her headsman.
Guild. And demands a pardon
Only of her, for taking off her head?
Jane. Ay, gentle Guildford, and I pardon him.
Guild. But I’ll not pardon him: thou art my wife,
And he shall ask me pardon for thy life.
Heads. Pardon me, my lord.
Guild. Rise, do not kneel;
Though thou submitt’st, thou hast a lowering steel,
Whose fatal declination brings our death:
Good man of earth, make haste to make us earth.
Heads. Pleaseth the Lady Jane, I’ll help her off with her night-gown.
Jane. Thanks, gentle friend,
But I have other waiting-women to ‘tend me.
Good Mistress Ellin, lend me a helping hand
To strip me of these worldly ornaments.
Off with these robes, O, tear them from my side!
Such silken covers are the guilt of pride.
Instead of gowns, my coverture be earth,
My worldly death, or new celestial breath.
What, is it off?
Lady. Madam, almost.
Jane. Not yet? O God, how hardly
Can we shake off this world’s pomp,
That cleaves unto us like our bodies’ skin!
Yet thus, O God, shake off thy servant’s sin!
Lady. Here is a scarf to blind your eyes.
Jane. From all the world but from my Guildford’s sight:
Before I fasten this beneath my brow,
Let me behold him with a constant look.
Guild. O do not kill me with that piteous eye!
Jane. ’Tis my last farewell, take it patiently:
My dearest Guildford, let us kiss and part.
Now blind mine eyes never to see the sky:
Blindfold thus lead me to the block to die.
[Exit with Headsman, &c.
Guild. O! [He falls in a trance.]
Norf. How fares my lord?
Arun. He’s fallen into a trance.
Norf. Wake him not, until he wake himself.
O happy Guildford, if thou die in this,
Thy soul will be the first in heavenly bliss!
Enter HEADSMAN, with JANE’S head.
Win. Here comes the headsman with the head of Jane.
Guild. Who spake of Jane? who nam’d my lovely Jane?
Win. Behold her head.
Guild. O, I shall faint again!
Yet let me bear this sight unto my grave,
My sweet Jane’s head.
Look, Norfolk, Arundel, “Winchester,
Do malefactors look thus when they die;
A ruddy lip, a clear reflecting eye,
Cheeks purer than the maiden orient pearl,
That sprinkles bashfulness through the clouds?
Her innocence has given her this look:
The like for me to show so well, being dead,
How willingly would Guildford lose his head!
Win. My lord, the time runs on.
Guild. So does our death:
Here’s one has run so fast, she’s out of breath.
But the time goes on, and my fair Jane’s
White soul will be in heaven before me,
If I do stay:
Stay, gentle wife, thy Guildford follows thee:
Though on the earth we part by adverse fate,
Our souls shall knock together at heaven’s gate.
The sky is calm, our deaths have a fair day,
And we shall pass the smoother on our way.
My lords, farewell, ay, once farewell to all:
The father’s pride has caus’d the children’s fall.
[Exit Guildford to death.
Norf. Thus have we seen her highness? will perform’d
And now their heads and bodies shall be join’d
And buried in one grave, as fits their loves.
Thus much I’ll say in their behalfs now dead,
Their father’s pride their lives hath severed.
FINIS.
The Roaring Girl (1610)
In collaboration with Thomas Middleton
CONTENTS
Dramatis Personæ
To the Comic Play-Readers, Venery and Laughter
Prologus
Act I Scene 1.
Act I Scene 2.
Act II Scene 1.
Act II Scene 2.
Act III Scene 1.
Act III Scene 2.
Act III Scene 3.
Act IV Scene 1.
Act IV Scene 2.
Act V Scene 1.
Act V Scene 2.
Epilogue
Dramatis Personæ
SIR ALEXANDER Wengrave, and NEATFOOT his man
SIR ADAM Appleton
SIR DAVY Dapper
SIR BEAUTEOUS Ganymede
[SIR THOMAS Long]
LORD NOLAND
Young [SEBASTIAN] Wengrave
JACK Dapper, [son to Sir Davy,] and GULL his page
GOSHAWK
GREENWIT
LAXTON
TILTYARD [a feather-seller]
>
[MISTRESS TILTYARD]
OPENWORK [a sempster]
[MISTRESS Rosamond OPENWORK]
[Hippocrates] GALLIPOT [an apothecary]
[MISTRESS Prudence GALLIPOT]
MOLL, the Roaring Girl
[Ralph] TRAPDOOR
[TEARCAT]
SIR GUY Fitzallard
MARY Fitzallard, his daughter
CURTILAX, a sergeant, and
HANGER, his yeoman
MINISTRI
[COACHMAN]
[PORTER]
[TAILOR]
[Gentlemen]
[CUTPURSES]
[FELLOW]
To the Comic Play-Readers, Venery and Laughter
THE FASHION OF play-making I can properly compare to nothing so naturally as the alteration in apparel: for in the time of the great crop-doublet, your huge bombasted plays, quilted with mighty words to lean purposes, was only then in fashion. And as the doublet fell, neater inventions began to set up. Now in the time of spruceness, our plays follow the niceness of our garments: single plots, quaint conceits, lecherous jests, dressed up in hanging sleeves, and those are fit for the times and the termers. Such a kind of light-colour summer stuff, mingled with diverse colours, you shall find this published comedy, good to keep you in an afternoon from dice, at home in your chambers; and for venery you shall find enough for sixpence, but well couched and you mark it, for Venus being a woman passes through the play in doublet in breeches, a brave disguise and a safe one if the statute untie not her codpiece point. The book I make no question but is fit for many of your companies, as well as the person itself, and may be allowed both galley room at the playhouse, and chamber room at your lodging. Worse things I must needs confess the world has taxed her for than has been written of her; but ’tis the excellency of a writer to leave things better than he finds ’em; though some obscene fellow (that cares not what he writes against others, yet keeps a mystical bawdy-house himself, and entertains drunkards to make use of their pockets and vent his private bottle-ale at midnight), though such a one would have ripped up the most nasty vice that ever hell belched forth and presented it to a modest assembly, yet we rather wish in such discoveries, where reputation lies bleeding, a slackness of truth than a fullness of slander.
Thomas Middleton
Prologus
A play expected long makes the audience look
For wonders, that each scene should be a book,
Compos’d to all perfection; each one comes
And brings a play in’s head with him: up he sums
What he would of a roaring girl have writ;
If that he finds not here, he mews at it.
Only we entreat you think our scene
Cannot speak high, the subject being but mean:
A roaring girl whose notes till now never were
Shall fill with laughter our vast theatre;
That’s all which I dare promise: tragic passion,
And such grave stuff, is this day out of fashion.
I see attention sets wide ope her gates
Of hearing, and with covetous list’ning waits,
To know what girl this roaring girl should be,
For of that tribe are many. One is she
That roars at midnight in deep tavern bowls,
That beats the watch, and constables controls;
Another roars i’ th’ daytime, swears, stabs, gives braves,
Yet sells her soul to the lust of fools and slaves.
Both these are suburb roarers. Then there’s beside
A civil city roaring girl, whose pride,
Feasting, and riding, shakes her husband’s state,
And leaves him roaring through an iron grate.
None of these roaring girls is ours: she flies
With wings more lofty. Thus her character lies;
Yet what need characters, when to give a guess
Is better than the person to express?
But would you know who ’tis? Would you hear her name?
She is call’d mad Moll; her life, our acts proclaim.
Act I Scene 1.
SEBASTIAN’S CHAMBERS IN Sir Alexander’s house
Enter Mary Fitzallard disguised like a sempster with a case for bands, and Neatfoot a serving-man with her, with a napkin on his shoulder and a trencher in his hand as from table.
NEATFOOT
The young gentleman our young master, Sir Alexander’s son, is it into his ears, sweet damsel emblem of fragility, you desire to have a message transported, or to be transcendent?
MARY
A private word or two, sir, nothing else.
NEATFOOT
You shall fructify in that which you come for: your pleasure shall be satisfied to your full contentation. I will, fairest tree of generation, watch when our young master is erected, that is to say, up, and deliver him to this your most white hand.
MARY
Thanks, sir.
NEATFOOT
And withal certify him that I have culled out for him, now his belly is replenished, a daintier bit or modicum than any lay upon his trencher at dinner. Hath he notion of your name, I beseech your chastity?
MARY
One, sir, of whom he bespake falling bands.
NEATFOOT
Falling bands: it shall so be given him. If you please to venture your modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude serving-men, and take such as they can set before you, you shall be most seriously and ingeniously welcome.
MARY
I have [dined] indeed already, sir.
NEATFOOT
Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a cup of rich Orleans in the buttery amongst our waiting-women?
MARY
Not now in truth, sir.
NEATFOOT
Our young master shall then have a feeling of your being here; presently it shall so be given him.
MARY
I humbly thank you, sir.
Exit Neatfoot.
But that my bosom
Is full of bitter sorrows, I could smile
To see this formal ape play antic tricks:
But in my breast a poisoned arrow sticks,
And smiles cannot become me. Love woven slightly,
Such as thy false heart makes, wears out as lightly,
But love being truly bred i’ th’ the soul like mine
Bleeds even to death at the least wound it takes:
The more we quench this [fire], the less it slakes.
Oh, me!
Enter Sebastian Wengrave with Neatfoot.
SEBASTIAN
A sempster speak with me, sayst thou?
NEATFOOT
Yes, sir, she’s there, viva voce, to deliver her auricular confession.
SEBASTIAN
With me, sweet heart? What is’t?
MARY
I have brought home your bands, sir.
SEBASTIAN
Bands? Neatfoot.
NEATFOOT
Sir.
SEBASTIAN
Prithee look in, for all the gentlemen are upon rising.
NEATFOOT
Yes, sir, a most methodical attendance shall be given.
SEBASTIAN
And dost hear? If my father call for me, say I am busy with a sempster.
NEATFOOT
Yes, sir, he shall know it that you are busied with a needlewoman.
SEBASTIAN
In’s ear, good Neatfoot.
NEATFOOT
It shall be so given him.
Exit Neatfoot.
SEBASTIAN
Bands? Y’are mistaken, sweet heart, I bespake none. When, where? I prithee, what bands? Let me see them.
MARY
Yes, sir, a bond fast sealed with solemn oaths,
Subscribed unto as I thought with your soul,
Delivered as your deed in sight of heaven.
Is this bond cancell’d? Have you forgot me?
[She removes her disguise.]
SEBA
STIAN
Ha! Life of my life: Sir Guy Fitzallard’s daughter!
What has transform’d my love to this strange shape?
Stay, make all sure. So, now speak and be brief,
Because the wolf’s at door that lies in wait
To prey upon us both. Albeit mine eyes
Are bless’d by thine, yet this so strange disguise
Holds me with fear and wonder.
MARY
Mine’s a loathed sight.
Why from it are you banish’d else so long?
SEBASTIAN
I must cut short my speech. In broken language,
Thus much: sweet Moll, I must thy company shun;
I court another Moll. My thoughts must run
As a horse runs that’s blind round in a mill,
Out every step yet keeping one path still.
MARY
Umh! Must you shun my company? In one knot
Have both our hands by th’ hands of heaven been tied,
Now to be broke? I thought me once your bride:
Our fathers did agree on the time when,
And must another bedfellow fill my room?
SEBASTIAN
Sweet maid, let’s lose no time. ’Tis in heaven’s book
Set down that I must have thee. An oath we took
To keep our vows, but when the knight your father
Was from mine parted, storms began to sit
Upon my covetous father’s brow, which fell
From them on me. He reckon’d up what gold
This marriage would draw from him, at which he swore
To lose so much blood could not grieve him more.
He then dissuades me from thee, call’d thee not fair,
And ask’d what is she but a beggar’s heir?
He scorn’d thy dowry of five thousand marks.
If such a sum of money could be found,
And I would match with that, he’d not undo it,
Provided his bags might add nothing to it,
But vow’d, if I took thee, nay, more, did swear it,
Save birth from him I nothing should inherit.
MARY
What follows then, my shipwreck?
SEBASTIAN
Dear’st, no:
Tho’ wildly in a labyrinth I go,
My end is to meet thee; with a side wind
Must I now sail, else I no haven can find
But both must sink forever. There’s a wench
Call’d Moll, mad Moll or merry Moll, a creature
So strange in quality a whole city takes
Note of her name and person. All that affection
I owe to thee on her in counterfeit passion
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 161