Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker
Page 169
Draw out his sword.
GOSHAWK
What do you mean, sir?
OPENWORK
Keep off, and if the devil can give a name
To this new fury, holla it through my ear,
Or wrap it up in some hid character.
I’ll ride to Oxford and watch out mine eyes,
But I’ll hear the brazen head speak; or else
Show me but one hair of his head or beard,
That I may sample it. If the fiend I meet
In mine own house, I’ll kill him, [in] the street,
Or at the church door: there, ‘cause he seeks to untie
The knot God fastens, he deserves to die.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
My husband titles him.
OPENWORK
Master Goshawk, pray, sir,
Swear to me that you know him or know him not.
Who makes me at Brainford to take up a petticoat
Beside my wife’s?
GOSHAWK
By heaven that man I know not!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Come, come, you lie.
GOSHAWK
[Aside to her] Will you not have all out?
By heaven I know no man beneath the moon
Should do you wrong, but if I had his name,
I’d print it in text letters.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Print thine own then:
Didst not thou swear to me he kept his whore?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
And that in sinful Brainford they would commit
That which our lips did water at, sir, ha?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Thou spider, that hast woven thy cunning web
In mine own house t’ ensnare me! Hast not thou
Suck’d nourishment even underneath this roof
And turn’d it all to poison? Spitting it
On thy friend’s face, my husband, he as ‘twere sleeping?
Only to leave him ugly to mine eyes
That they might glance on thee?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Speak: are these lies?
GOSHAWK
Mine own shame me confounds.
OPENWORK
No more; he’s stung.
Who’d think that in one body there could dwell
Deformity and beauty, heaven and hell?
Goodness I see is but outside: we all set
In rings of gold stones that be [counterfeit].
I thought you none.
GOSHAWK
Pardon me.
OPENWORK
Truth, I do.
This blemish grows in nature not in you,
For man’s creation stick[s] even moles in scorn
On fairest cheeks. Wife, nothing is perfect born.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
I thought you had been born perfect.
OPENWORK
What’s this whole world but a gilt, rotten pill?
For at the heart lies the old chore still.
I’ll tell you, Master Goshawk, in your eye
I have seen wanton fire, and then to try
The soundness of my judgment, I told you
I kept a whore, made you believe ’twas true,
Only to feel how your pulse beat, but find
The world can hardly yield a perfect friend.
Come, come, a trick of youth, and ’tis forgiven;
This rub put by, our love shall run more even.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
You’ll deal upon men’s wives no more?
GOSHAWK
No, you teach me
A trick for that.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Troth, do not, they’ll o’erreach thee.
OPENWORK
Make my house yours, sir, still.
GOSHAWK
No.
OPENWORK
I say you shall:
Seeing thus besieg’d it holds out, ‘twill never fall.
Enter Master Gallipot, and Greenwit like a sumner, Laxton muffled aloof off.
OMNES
How now?
GALLIPOT
With me, sir?
GREENWIT
You, sir. I have gone snaffling up and down by your door this hour to watch for you.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What’s the matter, husband?
GREENWIT
I have caught a cold in my head, sir, by sitting up late in the Rose Tavern, but I hope you understand my speech.
GALLIPOT
So, sir.
GREENWIT
I cite you by the name of Hippocrates Gallipot, and you by the name of Prudence Gallipot, to appear upon Crastino, do you see, Crastino sancti Dunstani this Easter Term in Bow Church.
GALLIPOT
Where sir? What says he?
GREENWIT
Bow, Bow Church, to answer to a libel of precontract on the part and behalf of the said Prudence and another. Y’are best, sir, take a copy of the citation; ’tis but twelvepence.
OMNES
A citation?
GALLIPOT
You pocky-nosed rascal, what slave fees you to this?
LAXTON
Slave? I ha’ nothing to do with you, do you hear, sir?
GOSHAWK
Laxton, is’t not? What fagary is this?
GALLIPOT
Trust me, I thought, sir, this storm long ago
Had been full laid when, if you be rememb’red,
I paid you the last fifteen pound, besides
The thirty you had first, for then you swore.
LAXTON
Tush, tush, sir, oaths!
Truth, yet I’m loath to vex you, tell you what:
Make up the money I had an hundred pound
And take your belly full of her.
GALLIPOT
An hundred pound?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What, a hundred pound? He gets none: what, a hundred pound!
GALLIPOT
Sweet Pru, be calm, the gentleman offers thus,
If I will make the moneys that are past
A hundred pound, he will discharge all courts
And give his bond never to vex us more.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
A hundred pound! ‘Las! Take, sir, but threescore.
Do you seek my undoing?
LAXTON
I’ll not bate one sixpence.
I’ll maul you, puss, for spitting.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Do thy worst!
Will fourscore stop thy mouth?
LAXTON
No.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Y’are a slave!
Thou cheat, I’ll now tear money from thy throat!
Husband, lay hold on yonder tawny-coat.
GREENWIT
Nay, gentlemen, seeing your women are so hot,
I must lose my hair in their company, I see.
[Removes his wig.]
MISTRESS OPENWORK
His hair sheds off, and yet he speaks not so much in the nose as he did before.
GOSHAWK
He has had the better chirurgeon. Master Greenwit, is your wit so raw as to play no better a part than a sumner’s?
GALLIPOT
I pray who plays a knack to know an honest man in this company?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Dear husband, pardon me, I did dissemble,
Told thee I was his precontracted wife,
When letters came from him for thirty pound;
I had no shift but that.
GALLIPOT
A very clean shift,
But able to make me lousy. On.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Husband, I pluck’d,
When he had tempted me to think well of him,
[Gelt] feathers from thy wings to make him fly
More lofty.
GALLIPOT
A’ the top of you, wife. On.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
> He, having wasted them, comes now for more,
Using me as a ruffian doth his whore,
Whose sin keeps him in breath. By heaven I vow
Thy bed he never wrong’d, more than he does now.
GALLIPOT
My bed? Ha, ha, like enough: a shop-board will serve
To have a cuckold’s coat cut out upon.
Of that we’ll talk hereafter. Y’are a villain.
LAXTON
Hear me but speak, sir, you shall find me none.
OMNES
Pray, sir, be patient and hear him.
GALLIPOT
I am muzzled
For biting, sir; use me how you will.
LAXTON
The first hour that your wife was in my eye,
Myself with other gentlemen sitting by
In your shop tasting smoke, and speech being used,
That men who have fairest wives are most abused
And hardly scap’d the horn, your wife maintain’d
That only such spots in city dames were stain’d,
Justly, but by men’s slanders: for her own part,
She vow’d that you had so much of her heart;
No man by all his wit, by any wile
Never so fine spun, should yourself beguile
Of what in her was yours.
GALLIPOT
Yet Pru, ’tis well.
Play out your game at Irish, sir. Who wins?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
The trial is when she comes to bearing.
LAXTON
I scorn’d one woman thus should brave all men
And, which more vex’d me, a she-citizen.
Therefore I laid siege to her; out she held,
Gave many a brave repulse, and me compell’d
With shame to sound retreat to my hot lust.
Then seeing all base desires rak’d up in dust,
And that to tempt her modest ears, I swore
Ne’er to presume again. She said her eye
Would ever give me welcome honestly,
And since I was a gentleman, if it run low,
She would my state relieve, not to o’erthrow
Your own and hers; did so. Then seeing I wrought
Upon her meekness, me she set at nought,
And yet to try if I could turn that tide,
You see what stream I strove with. But, sir, I swear
By heaven, and by those hopes men lay up there,
I neither have nor had a base intent
To wrong your bed; what’s done is merriment.
Your gold I pay back with this interest:
When I had most power to do’t, I wrong’d you least.
GALLIPOT
If this no gullery be, sir —
OMNES
No, no, on my life!
GALLIPOT
Then, sir, I am beholden not to you, wife,
But, Master Laxton, to your want of doing ill,
Which it seems you have not. Gentlemen,
Tarry and dine here all.
OPENWORK
Brother, we have a jest
As good as yours to furnish out a feast.
GALLIPOT
We’ll crown our table with it. Wife, brag no more
Of holding out: who most brags is most whore.
Exeunt omnes.
Act V Scene 1.
A STREET
Enter Jack Dapper, Moll, Sir Beauteous Ganymede, and Sir Thomas Long.
JACK
But prithee, Master Captain Jack, be plain and perspicuous with me: was it your Meg of Westminster’s courage that rescued me from the Poultry puttocks indeed?
MOLL
The valour of my wit, I ensure you, sir, fetch’d you off bravely when you were i’ the forlorn hope among those desperates. Sir Beauteous Ganymede here and Sir Thomas Long heard that cuckoo, my man Trapdoor, sing the note of your ransom from captivity.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
‘Uds so, Moll, where’s that Trapdoor?
MOLL
Hang’d I think by this time: a justice in this town that speaks nothing but “make a mittimus, away with him to Newgate” used that rogue like a firework to run upon a line betwixt him and me.
OMNES
How, how?
MOLL
Marry, to lay trains of villainy to blow up my life; I smelt the powder, spied what linstock gave fire to shoot against the poor captain of the galley-foist, and away slid I my man, like a shovel-board shilling. He struts up and down the suburbs, I think, and eats up whores, feeds upon a bawd’s garbage.
SIR THOMAS
Sirrah Jack Dapper.
JACK
What sayst Tom Long?
SIR THOMAS
Thou hadst a sweet-fac’d boy, hail-fellow with thee to your little Gull. How is he spent?
JACK
Troth, I whistled the poor little buzzard off a’ my fist, because when he waited upon me at the ordinaries, the gallants hit me i’ the teeth still, and said I look’d like a painted alderman’s tomb, and the boy at my elbow like a death’s head. Sirrah Jack, Moll.
MOLL
What says my little Dapper?
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Come, come, walk and talk, walk and talk.
JACK
Moll and I’ll be i’ the midst.
MOLL
These knights shall have squires’ places, belike then. Well, Dapper, what say you?
JACK
Sirrah Captain Mad Mary, the gull my own father, Dapper Sir Davy, laid these London boot-halers, the catchpoles, in ambush to set upon me.
OMNES
Your father? Away, Jack!
JACK
By the tassels of this handkercher, ’tis true. And what was his warlike stratagem, think you? He thought because a wicker cage tames a nightingale, a lousy prison could make an ass of me.
OMNES
A nasty plot.
JACK
Ay, as though a counter, which is a park in which all the wild beasts of the city run head by head, could tame me.
Enter the Lord Noland.
MOLL
Yonder comes my Lord Noland.
OMNES
Save you, my lord.
LORD NOLAND
Well met gentlemen all, good Sir Beauteous Ganymede, Sir Thomas Long. And how does Master Dapper?
JACK
Thanks, my lord.
MOLL
No tobacco, my lord?
LORD NOLAND
No, faith, Jack.
JACK
My Lord Noland, will you go to Pimlico with us? We are making a boon voyage to that nappy land of spice-cakes.
LORD NOLAND
Here’s such a merry ging, I could find in my heart to sail to the world’s end with such company. Come, gentlemen, let’s on.
JACK
Here’s most amorous weather, my lord.
OMNES
Amorous weather?
They walk.
JACK
Is not amorous a good word?
Enter Trapdoor like a poor soldier with a patch o’er one eye, and Tearcat with him, all tatters.
TRAPDOOR
Shall we set upon the infantry, these troops of foot? Zounds, yonder comes Moll, my whorish master and mistress! Would I had her kidneys between my teeth.
TEARCAT
I had rather have a cow-heel.
TRAPDOOR
Zounds, I am so patch’d up, she cannot discover me; we’ll on.
TEARCAT
Alla corago then.
TRAPDOOR
Good your honours and worships, enlarge the ears of commiseration and let the sound of a hoarse military organ-pipe, penetrate your pitiful bowels to extract out of them so many small drops of silver, as may give a hard straw-bed lodging to a couple of maim’d soldiers.
JACK
Where are you maim’d?
TEARCAT
In both our nether limbs.
MOLL
Come, come, Dapper, le
t’s give ’em something. ‘Las, poor men, what money have you? By my troth, I love a soldier with my soul.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Stay, stay, where have you serv’d?
SIR THOMAS
In any part of the Low Countries?
TRAPDOOR
Not in the Low Countries, if it please your manhood, but in Hungary against the Turk at the siege of Belgrade.
LORD NOLAND
Who serv’d there with you, sirrah?
TRAPDOOR
Many Hungarians, Moldavians, Walachians, and Transylvanians, with some Sclavonians, and retiring home, sir, the Venetian galleys took us prisoners, yet freed us and suffered us to beg up and down the country.
JACK
You have ambled all over Italy then?
TRAPDOOR
Oh, sir, from Venice to Roma, Vecchio, Bononia, Romania, Bolonia, Modena, Piacenza, and Tuscana with all her cities, as Pistoia, Valteria, Mountepulchena, Arezzo with the Siennois, and diverse others.
MOLL
Mere rogues: put spurs to ’em once more.
JACK
Thou look’st like a strange creature, a fat butter-box, yet speak’st English. What are thou?
TEARCAT
Ick, mine here? Ick bin den ruffling Tearcat, den brave soldado; ick bin dorick all Dutchlant gueresen: der shellum das meere ine beasa ine woert gaeb. Ick slaag um stroakes on tom cop: dastick den hundred touzun divell halle frollick, mine here.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Here, here, let’s be rid of their jobbering.
MOLL
Not a cross, Sir Beauteous. You base rogues, I have taken measure of you better than a tailor can, and I’ll fit you as you, monster with one eye, have fitted me.
TRAPDOOR
Your worship will not abuse a soldier?
MOLL
Soldier? Thou deserv’st to be hang’d up by that tongue which dishonours so noble a profession. Soldier, you skeldering varlet? Hold, stand, there should be a trapdoor hereabouts.
Pull off his patch.
TRAPDOOR
The balls of these glaziers of mine, mine eyes, shall be shot up and down in any hot piece of service for my invincible mistress.
JACK
I did not think there had been such knavery in black patches, as now I see.
MOLL
Oh, sir, he hath been brought up in the Isle of Dogs, and can both fawn like a spaniel and bite like a mastiff as he finds occasion.
LORD NOLAND
What are you, sirrah? A bird of this feather too?
TEARCAT
A man beat’n from the wars, sir.
SIR THOMAS
I think so, for you never stood to fight.
DAPPER
What’s thy name, fellow soldier?
TEARCAT
I am call’d by those that have seen my valour, Tearcat.
OMNES
Tearcat?
MOLL
A mere whip-jack, and that is, in the commonwealth of rogues, a slave that can talk of sea-fight, name all your chief pirates, discover more countries to you than either the Dutch, Spanish, French, or English ever found out, yet indeed all his service is by land, and that is to rob a fair or some such venturous exploit. Tearcat! Foot, sirrah, I have your name now! I remember me in my book of horners horns for the thumb, you know how.