Every Man in His Humour Part 17

BOB. Signior, you abuse the excellency of your mistress and her fair sister. Fie, while you live avoid this prolixity.

MAT. I shall, sir; well, incipere dulce.

LOR. JU. How, incipere dulce? a sweet thing to be a fool indeed.

PROS. What, do you take incipere in that sense?

LOR. JU. You do not, you? 'Sblood, this was your villainy to gull him with a motte.

PROS. Oh, the benchers' phrase: pauca verba, pauca verba.

MAT. "Rare creature, let me speak without offence, Would G.o.d my rude words had the influence To rule thy thoughts, as thy fair looks do mine, Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine."

LOR. JU. 'Sheart, this is in Hero and Leander!

PROS. Oh ay: peace, we shall have more of this.

MAT. "Be not unkind and fair: misshapen stuff Is of behaviour boisterous and rough": How like you that, Signior? 'sblood, he shakes his head like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it.

MAT. But observe the catastrophe now, "And I in duty will exceed all other, As you in beauty do excel love's mother."

LOR. JU. Well, I'll have him free of the brokers, for he utters nothing but stolen remnants.

PROS. Nay, good critic, forbear.

LOR. JU. A pox on him, hang him, filching rogue, steal from the dead? it's worse than sacrilege.

PROS. Sister, what have you here? verses? I pray you let's see.

BIA. Do you let them go so lightly, sister?

HES. Yes, faith, when they come lightly.

BIA. Ay, but if your servant should hear you, he would take it heavily.

HES. No matter, he is able to bear.

BIA. So are a.s.ses.

HES. So is he.

PROS. Signior Matheo, who made these verses? they are excellent good.

MAT. O G.o.d, sir, it's your pleasure to say so, sir.

Faith, I made them extempore this morning.

PROS. How extempore?

MAT. Ay, would I might be d.a.m.n'd else; ask Signior Bobadilla.

He saw me write them, at the -- (pox on it) the Mitre yonder.

MUS. Well, an the Pope knew he cursed the Mitre it were enough to have him excommunicated all the taverns in the town.

STEP. Cousin, how do you like this gentleman's verses?

LOR. JU. Oh, admirable, the best that ever I heard.

STEP. By this fair heavens, they are admirable, The best that ever I heard.

[ENTER GIULIANO.]

GIU. I am vext I can hold never a bone of me still, 'Sblood, I think they mean to build a Tabernacle here, well?

PROS. Sister, you have a simple servant here, that crowns your beauty with such encomiums and devices, you may see what it is to be the mistress of a wit that can make your perfections so transparent, that every blear eye may look through them, and see him drowned over head and ears in the deep well of desire. Sister Biancha, I marvel you get you not a servant that can rhyme and do tricks too.

GIU. O monster! impudence itself! tricks!

BIA. Tricks, brother? what tricks?

HES. Nay, speak, I pray you, what tricks?

BIA. Ay, never spare any body here: but say, what tricks?

HES. Pa.s.sion of my heart! do tricks?

PROS. 'Sblood, here's a trick vied, and revied: why, you monkeys, you! what a cater-wauling do you keep! has he not given you rhymes, and verses, and tricks?

GIU. Oh, see the devil!

PROS. Nay, you lamp of virginity, that take it in snuff so: come and cherish this tame poetical fury in your servant, you'll be begg'd else shortly for a concealment: go to, reward his muse, you cannot give him less than a shilling in conscience, for the book he had it out of cost him a teston at the least. How now gallants, Lorenzo, Signior Bobadilla!

what, all sons of silence? no spirit.

GIU. Come, you might practise your ruffian tricks somewhere else, and not here, I wiss: this is no tavern, nor no place for such exploits.

PROS. 'Sheart, how now!

GIU. Nay, boy, never look askance at me for the matter; I'll tell you of it, by G.o.d's bread, ay, and you and your companions mend yourselves when I have done.

PROS. My companions?

GIU. Ay, your companions, sir, so I say! 'Sblood, I am not afraid of you nor them neither, you must have your poets, and your cavaliers, and your fools follow you up and down the city, and here they must come to domineer and swagger?

sirrah, you ballad-singer, and slops, your fellow there, get you out; get you out: or (by the will of G.o.d) I'll cut off your ears, go to.

PROS. 'Sblood, stay, let's see what he dare do: cut off his ears; you are an a.s.s, touch any man here, and by the Lord I'll run my rapier to the hilts in thee.

GIU. Yea, that would I fain see, boy.

BIA. O Jesu! Piso! Matheo! murder!