English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Clown_. A packe of the bravest _Spartan_ Dogges in the world; if they
do but once open and spend[151] there gabble, gabble, gabble it will
make the Forest ecchoe as if a Ring of Bells were in it; admirably
flewd[152], by their eares you would take 'em to be singing boyes; and
for Dewlaps they are as bigge as Vintners bags in which they straine
Ipocras.
_Omnes_. There, boy.
_Clown_. And hunt so close and so round together that you may cover
'em all with a sheete.
2 _Hunt_. If it be wide enough.
_Clown_. Why, as wide as some four or five Acres, that's all.
1 _Hunt_. And what's the game to day?
_Clown_. The wilde Boare.
1 _Hunt_. Which of 'em? the greatest? I have not seene him.
_Clown_. Not seene him? he is as big as an Elephant.
2 _Hunt_. Now will he build a whole Castle full of lies.
_Clown_. Not seen him? I have.
_Omnes_. No, no; seene him? as big as an Elephant?
_Clown_. The backe of him is as broad--let me see--as a pretty Lighter.
1 _Hun_. A Lighter?
_Clown_. Yes; and what do you think the Brissells are worth?
2 _Hunt_. Nothing.
_Clown_. Nothing? one Shoemaker offer'd to finde me and the Heire-male
of my body 22 yeeres, but to have them for his owne ends.
2 _Hunt_. He would put Sparabiles[153] into the soales then?
_Clown_. Not a Bill, not a Sparrow. The Boares head is so huge that a
Vintner but drawing that picture and hanging it up for a Signe it fell
down and broke him.
1 _Hunt_. Oh horrible!
_Clown_. He has two stones so bigge, let me see (a Poxe), thy head is but
a Cherry-stone to the least of' em.
2 _Hunt_. How long are his Tuskes?
_Clown_. Each of them as crooked and as long as a Mowers sith.
1 _Hunt_. There's a Cutter.
_Clown_. And when he whets his Tuskes you would sweare there were a sea
in's belly, and that his chops were the shore to which the Foame was
beaten: if his Foame were frothy Yest 'twere worth tenne groats a paile
for Bakers.
1 _Hunt_. What will the King do with him if he kill him?
_Clown_. Bake him, and if they put him in one Pasty a new Oven must be
made, with a mouth as wide as the gates of the City. (_Horne_.)
_Omnes_. There boy, there boy.
_Hornes and Noise within: Enter Antony meeting Damianus_.
_Ant_. _Cosmo_ had like beene kild; the Boare receiving[154]
A Speare full in the Flanke from _Cosmo's_ hand,
Foaming with rage he ranne at him, unhorst him
And had, but that he fell behinde an Oake
Of admirable greatnesse, torne out his bowels;
His very Tuskes, striking into the tree,
Made the old Champion[155] shake.
[_Enter Cosmo_.
_Dam_. Where are the Dogges?
_Cosmo_. No matter for the Curres:
I scapt well, but cannot finde the King.
_Anton_. When did you see him?
_Cosmo_. Not since the Boare tos'd up
Both horse and rider.
_Enter Epidophorus and all the Huntsmen in a hurry_.
_Epi_. A Liter for the King; the King is hurt.
_Ant_. How?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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