Every Man in His Humour Part 13

PIS. Piso, remember, silence, buried here: When should this flow of pa.s.sion (trow) take head? ha!

Faith, I'll dream no longer of this running humour, For fear I sink, the violence of the stream Already hath transported me so far That I can feel no ground at all: but soft, [ENTER COB.]

Oh, it's our water-bearer: somewhat has crost him now.

COB. Fasting days: what tell you me of your fasting days?

would they were all on a light fire for me: they say the world shall be consumed with fire and brimstone in the latter day: but I would we had these ember weeks and these villainous Fridays burnt in the mean time, and then --

PIS. Why, how now, Cob! what moves thee to this choler, ha?

COB. Collar, sir? 'swounds, I scorn your collar, I, sir, am no collier's horse, sir, never ride me with your collar, an you do, I'll shew you a jade's trick.

PIS. Oh, you'll slip your head out of the collar: why, Cob, you mistake me.

COB. Nay, I have my rheum, and I be angry as well as another, sir.

PIE. Thy rheum? thy humour, man, thou mistakest.

COB. Humour? mack, I think it be so indeed: what is this humour? it's some rare thing, I warrant.

PIS. Marry, I'll tell thee what it is (as 'tis generally received in these days): it is a monster bred in a man by self-love and affectation, and fed by folly.

COB. How? must it be fed?

PIS. Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed, why, didst thou never hear of that? it's a common phrase, "Feed my humour."

COB. I'll none on it: humour, avaunt, I know you not, be gone. Let who will make hungry meals for you, it shall not be I: Feed you, quoth he? 'sblood, I have much ado to feed myself, especially on these lean rascal days too, an't had been any other day but a fasting day: a plague on them all for me: by this light, one might have done G.o.d good service and have drown'd them all in the flood two or three hundred thousand years ago, oh, I do stomach them hugely: I have a maw now, an't were for Sir Bevis's horse.

PIS. Nay, but I pray thee, Cob, what makes thee so out of love with fasting days?

COB. Marry, that that will make any man out of love with them, I think: their bad conditions, an you will needs know: First, they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on't, for they raven up more b.u.t.ter than all the days of the week beside: next, they stink of fish miserably: thirdly, they'll keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night send him supperless to bed.

PIS. Indeed, these are faults, Cob.

COB. Nay, an this were all, 'twere something, but they are the only known enemies to my generation. A fasting day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to rack, poor Cobs, they smoke for it, they melt in pa.s.sion, and your maids too know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal, and eat my own fish and blood: my princely coz, [PULLS OUT A RED HERRING.] fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as Golias: oh, that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt water enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand of my kin: but I may curse none but these filthy Almanacks, for an 'twere not for them, these days of persecution would ne'er be known. I'll be hang'd an some fishmonger's son do not make on them, and puts in more fasting days than he should do, because he would utter his father's dried stockfish.

PIS. 'Soul, peace, thou'lt be beaten like a stockfish else: here is Signior Matheo.

[ENTER MATHEO, PROSPERO, LORENZO JUNIOR, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, MUSCO.]

Now must I look out for a messenger to my master.

[EXEUNT COB AND PISO.]

ACT III. SCENE II.

PROS. Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried.

LOR. JU. Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well, did it not?

PROS. Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not know him?

LOR. JU. 'Fore G.o.d, not I, an I might have been join'd patten with one of the nine worthies for knowing him.

'Sblood, man, he had so writhen himself into the habit of one of your poor Disparview's here, your decayed, ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round: such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing with an emphasis. Indeed, all with so special and exquisite a grace, that (hadst thou seen him) thou would'st have sworn he might have been the Tamberlane, or the Agamemnon on the rout.

PROS. Why, Musco, who would have thought thou hadst been such a gallant?

LOR. JU. I cannot tell, but (unless a man had juggled begging all his life time, and been a weaver of phrases from his infancy, for the apparelling of it) I think the world cannot produce his rival.

PROS. Where got'st thou this coat, I marle?

MUS. Faith, sir, I had it of one of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker.

PROS. That cannot be, if the proverb hold, a crafty knave needs no broker.

MUS. True, sir, but I need a broker, ergo, no crafty knave.

PROS. Well put off, well put off.

LOR. JU. Tut, he has more of these shifts.

MUS. And yet where I have one, the broker has ten, sir.

[ENTER PIS.]

PIS. Francisco, Martino, ne'er a one to be found now: what a spite's this?

PROS. How now, Piso? is my brother within?

PIS. No, sir, my master went forth e'en now, but Signior Giuliano is within. Cob, what, Cob! Is he gone too?

PROS. Whither went thy master? Piso, canst thou tell?

PIS. I know not, to Doctor Clement's, I think, sir. Cob.

[EXIT PIS.]

LOR. JU. Doctor Clement, what's he? I have heard much speech of him.

PROS. Why, dost thou not know him? he is the Gonfaloniere of the state here, an excellent rare civilian, and a great scholar, but the only mad merry old fellow in Europe: I shewed him you the other day.

LOR. JU. Oh, I remember him now; Good faith, and he hath a very strange presence, methinks, it shews as if he stood out of the rank from other men. I have heard many of his jests in Padua; they say he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse.

PROS. Ay, or wearing his cloak on one shoulder, or any thing indeed, if it come in the way of his humour.

PIS. Gaspar, Martino, Cob: 'Sheart, where should they be, trow?

[ENTER PISO.]

BOB. Signior Th.o.r.ello's man, I pray thee vouchsafe us the lighting of this match.