Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman Part 13

CLER: Will you speak so kindly to sir John Daw, that has done you such an affront?

LA-F: Wherein, gentlemen? let me be a suitor to you to know, I beseech you!

CLER: Why, sir, his mistress is married to-day to sir Dauphine's uncle, your cousin's neighbour, and he has diverted all the ladies, and all your company thither, to frustrate your provision, and stick a disgrace upon you. He was here now to have enticed us away from you too: but we told him his own, I think.

LA-F: Has sir John Daw wrong'd me so inhumanly?

DAUP: He has done it, sir Amorous, most maliciously and treacherously: but, if youll be ruled by us, you shall quit him, i'faith.

LA-F: Good gentlemen, I'll make one, believe it. How, I pray?

DAUP: Marry sir, get me your pheasants, and your G.o.dwits, and your best meat, and dish it in silver dishes of your cousin's presently, and say nothing, but clap me a clean towel about you, like a sewer; and bare-headed, march afore it with a good confidence, ('tis but over the way, hard by,) and we'll second you, where you shall set it on the board, and bid them welcome to't, which shall shew 'tis yours, and disgrace his preparation utterly: and, for your cousin, whereas she should be troubled here at home with care of making and giving welcome, she shall transfer all that labour thither, and be a princ.i.p.al guest herself, sit rank'd with the college-honours, and be honour'd, and have her health drunk as often, as bare and as loud as the best of them.

LA-F: I'll go tell her presently. It shall be done, that's resolved.

[EXIT.]

CLER: I thought he would not hear it out, but 'twould take him.

DAUP: Well, there be guests and meat now; how shall we do for music?

CLER: The smell of the venison, going through the street, will invite one noise of fiddlers or other.

DAUP: I would it would call the trumpeters. .h.i.ther!

CLER: Faith, there is hope: they have intelligence of all feasts.

There's good correspondence betwixt them and the London cooks: 'tis twenty to one but we have them.

DAUP: 'Twill be a most solemn day for my uncle, and an excellent fit of mirth for us.

CLER: Ay, if we can hold up the emulation betwixt Foole and Daw, and never bring them to expostulate.

DAUP: Tut, flatter them both, as Truewit says, and you may take their understandings in a purse-net. They'll believe themselves to be just such men as we make them, neither more nor less. They have nothing, not the use of their senses, but by tradition.

[RE-ENTER LA-FOOLE, LIKE A SEWER.]

CLER: See! sir Amorous has his towel on already. Have you persuaded your cousin?

LA-F: Yes, 'tis very feasible: she'll do any thing she says, rather than the La-Fooles shall be disgraced.

DAUP: She is a n.o.ble kinswoman. It will be such a pestling device, sir Amorous; it will pound all your enemy's practices to powder, and blow him up with his own mine, his own train.

LA-F: Nay, we'll give fire, I warrant you.

CLER: But you must carry it privately, without any noise, and take no notice by any means--

[RE-ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER.]

OTT: Gentlemen, my princess says you shall have all her silver dishes, festinate: and she's gone to alter her tire a little, and go with you--

CLER: And yourself too, captain Otter?

DAUP: By any means, sir.

OTT: Yes, sir, I do mean it: but I would entreat my cousin sir Amorous, and you, gentlemen, to be suitors to my princess, that I may carry my bull and my bear, as well as my horse.

CLER: That you shall do, captain Otter.

LA-F: My cousin will never consent, gentlemen.

DAUP: She must consent, sir Amorous, to reason.

LA-F: Why, she says they are no decorum among ladies.

OTT: But they are decora, and that's better, sir.

CLER: Ay, she must hear argument. Did not Pasiphae, who was a queen, love a bull? and was not Calisto, the mother of Arcas, turn'd into a bear, and made a star, mistress Ursula, in the heavens?

OTT: O lord! that I could have said as much! I will have these stories painted in the Bear-garden, ex Ovidii metamorphosi.

DAUP: Where is your princess, captain? pray, be our leader.

OTT: That I shall, sir.

CLER: Make haste, good sir Amorous.

[EXEUNT.]

SCENE 3.2.

A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.

ENTER MOROSE, EPICOENE, PARSON, AND CUTBEARD.

MOR: Sir, there is an angel for yourself, and a brace of angels for your cold. Muse not at this manage of my bounty. It is fit we should thank fortune, double to nature, for any benefit she confers upon us; besides, it is your imperfection, but my solace.

PAR [SPEAKS AS HAVING A COLD.] I thank your worship; so is it mine, now.

MOR: What says he, Cutbeard?

CUT: He says, praesto, sir, whensoever your worship needs him, he can be ready with the like. He got this cold with sitting up late, and singing catches with cloth-workers.

MOR: No more. I thank him.

PAR: G.o.d keep your worship, and give you much joy with your fair spouse.--[COUGHS.] uh! uh! uh!

MOR: O, O! stay Cutbeard! let him give me five shillings of my money back. As it is bounty to reward benefits, so is it equity to mulct injuries. I will have it. What says he?

CUT: He cannot change it, sir.