A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 15

[_Exit_ MRS MARY _escorted by_ AMINADAB.

Y. ART. Come, wife, this meeting was all for our sakes: I long to see the force my poison takes. [_Aside_.

MRS ART. My dear-dear husband, in exchange of hate, My love and heart shall on your service wait.

[_Exeunt_ Y. ART., MRS ART., _and_ PIPKIN.

ANS. So doth my love on thee; but long no more; To her rich love thy service is too poor.

FUL. For shame, no more! you had best expostulate Your love with every stranger; leave these sighs, And change them to familiar conference.

Y. LUS. Trust me, the virtues of young Arthur's wife, Her constancy, modest humility, Her patience, and admired temperance, Have made me love all womankind the better.

_Re-enter_ PIPKIN.

PIP. O, my mistress! my mistress! she's dead!

She's gone! she's dead! she's gone!

ANS. What's that he says?

PIP. Out of my way! stand back, I say!

All joy from earth has fled!

She is this day as cold as clay; My mistress she is dead!

O Lord, my mistress! my mistress! [_Exit_.

ANS. What, Mistress Arthur dead? my soul is vanish'd, And the world's wonder from the world quite banish'd.

O, I am sick, my pain grows worse and worse; I am quite struck through with this late discourse.

FUL. What! faint'st thou, man? I'll lead thee hence; for shame!

Swoon at the tidings of a woman's death!

Intolerable, and beyond all thought!

Come, my love's fool, give me thy hand to lead; This day one body and two hearts are dead.

[_Exeunt_ ANSELM _and_ FULLER.

Y. LUS. But now she was as well as well might be, And on the sudden dead; joy in excess Hath overrun her poor disturbed soul.

I'll after, and see how Master Arthur takes it; His former hate far more suspicious makes it.

[_Exit_.

_Enter_ HUGH, _and after him_, PIPKIN.

HUGH. My master hath left his gloves behind where he sat in his chair, and hath sent me to fetch them; it is such an old snudge, he'll not lose the droppings of his nose.

PIP. O mistress! O Hugh! O Hugh! O mistress!

Hugh, I must needs beat thee; I am mad!

I am lunatic! I must fall upon thee: my mistress is dead!

[_Beats_ HUGH.

HUGH. O Master Pipkin, what do you mean? what do you mean, Master Pipkin?

PIP. O Hugh! O mistress! O mistress! O Hugh!

HUGH. O Pipkin! O G.o.d! O G.o.d! O Pipkin!

Pip. O Hugh, I am mad! bear with me, I cannot choose: O death!

O mistress! O mistress! O death! [_Exit_.

HUGH. Death, quotha? he hath almost made me dead with beating.

_Re-enter_ JUSTICE REASON, OLD MASTER ARTHUR, _and_ OLD MASTER LUSAM.

JUS. I wonder why the knave, my man, stays thus, And comes not back: see where the villain loiters.

_Re-enter_ PIPKIN.

PIP. O Master Justice! Master Arthur! Master Lusam! wonder not why I thus blow and bl.u.s.ter; my mistress is dead! dead is my mistress! and therefore hang yourselves. O, my mistress, my mistress!

[_Exit_.

O. ART. My son's wife dead!

O. LUS. My daughter!

_Enter_ YOUNG MASTER ARTHUR, _mourning_.

JUS. Mistress Arthur! Here comes her husband.

Y. ART. O, here the woful'st husband comes alive, No husband now; the wight, that did uphold That name of husband, is now quite o'erthrown, And I am left a hapless widower.

O. ART. Fain would I speak, if grief would suffer me.

O. LUS. As Master Arthur says, so say I; If grief would let me, I would weeping die.

To be thus hapless in my aged years!

O, I would speak; but my words melt to tears.

Y. ART. Go in, go in, and view the sweetest corpse That e'er was laid upon a mournful room; You cannot speak for weeping sorrow's doom: Bad news are rife, good tidings seldom come.

[_Exeunt_.

ACT IV., SCENE I.

_A Street_.

_Enter_ ANSELM.