English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Ga_. The livery of my griefe: my fathers dead
And mee hath made his poore executor.
_Jou_. What? ought hee ten thousand duckets?
Thy fathers face fixt in thy front
Should be the paymaster tho from my hand.
_Ga_. I doe not come to borrow: please yee read.
_Jou_. Read? and with good regard, for sorrow paies noe debts.
_Ga_. The summes soe great I feare, once read by him,
My seeming frend will prove my enemy.
_Jac_. Faith, if he doe, hee proves like your French
galloshes that promise faire to the feet, yet twice a day
leave a man in the durt.
_Jou_. Was this your fathers pleasure?
_Ga_. It was his hand.
_Jou_. It was his writing, I know it as my owne,
Wherein hee has wronged mee beyond measure?
_Ga_. How? my father wrongd yee? I'm his sonn.
_Jou_. Wert thou his father I'm wrongd,--
Iniurd, calumniated, baffled to my teeth;
And were it not that these gray haires of mine
Were priviledgd ane enemy to vallour,
I have a heart could see your fathers wrong--
_Ga_. What? raile you, sir?
_Jac_. Challenge a half pint pot.
_Jou_. There in a sawpitt, knave, to quitt my self
Of such an inury.--Hee writes mee here
That I should pay to you tenn thousand crownes.
_Ga_. As being due to him.
_Jou_. But thatts not my quarrell, sir; for I did owe to him
Millions of Crownes, millions of my love;--
And but to send a note here for his owne!
Ist not a quarrell for an honest man?
_Jac_. With very few, I thinke.
_Jou_. Why, looke yee, sir:
When after many a storme and dreadfull blow
Strooke from fire-belching clouds, bankrupt of life
I have home return'd; when all my frends denide
Their thresholds to mee, and my creditors
Desir'd to sinke mee in a prisoners grave,
Hee gave mee dying life, his helpefull hand
Sent mee to sea and kept mee safe on land.
Ist not a quarrell then to seeke butts owne?
_Ga_. Oh, pray, sir--
_Jou_. When all the talents of oppression
Of usurers, lawyers and my creditors
Had fangd upon my wife and family,
Hee gave mee dying life, his helpfull hand
Sent mee to sea and kept mee safe on land.
Ist not a quarrell then to seeke but's owne?
_Ga_. Good sir--
_Jou_. Come in, sir, where I will pay all that you can demand:
Noe other quarrell, sir, shall passe your hand.
_Ga_. If every [one] should pay as well as you
The world were good, wee should have bankrupts few.
_Jac_. I'm of your mind for that. [_Exeunt_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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