English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Acu_. Why, ifaith, I must; I can not soothe the World
With velvet words and oyly flatteries,
And kiss the sweatie feet of magnitude
To purchace smiles or a deade mans office;
I cannot holde to see a rib of man,
A moytie of it selfe, commaund the whole;
Bafful and bend to muliebritie.
O[223] female scandal! observe, doe but observe:
Heere one walks ore-growne with weeds of pride,
The earth wants shape to apply a simile,
A body prisoned up with walles of wyer,
With bones of whales; somewhat allyed to fish,
But from the wast declining, more loose doth hang
Then her wanton dangling lascivious locke
Thats whirld and blowne with everie lustfull breath;
Her necke in chaines, all naked lyes her brest,
Her body lighter than the feathered Crest.
Another powtes, and scoules, and hangs the lip,
Even as the banckrout[224] credit of her husband
Cannot equal her with honors liverie.
What does she care if, for to deck her brave,
Hee's carryed from the Gate-house to his grave!
Another in a rayling pulppet key,
Drawes through her nose the accent of her voice,
And in the presence of her good-man Goate
Cries 'fye, now fye, uppon these wicked men
That use such beastly and inhumane talke,'
When being in private all her studies warne
To make him enter into _Capricorn_.
Another as she goes treads a _Canarie_[225] pace,
Jets it so fine and minces so demure
As mistris Bride upon her marriage day;
Her heels are Corke, her body Atlas,
Her Beautie bought, her soule an Atomus.
Another, with a spleene-devoured face,
Her eies as hollow as Anatomy,[226]
Her tung more venome then a Serpents sting,
Which when it wagges within her chap-faln jawes
Is noise more horrid then a cry of hounds
With open mouths pursuing of their game.
Wants she but ritch attire or costly dyet,
With her the Devill can nere live in quiet.
Yet these are weaker vessels, heaven doth knowe;
Lay on them ought but ease, you doe them wrong;
They are as weake as water and indeede as strong,
And then, like mightie ships when pellets sincke,
To them lay more men, sheele never shrinke.
[_Enter[227] Getica and Boss, with a dog_.]
_Boss_. Mistris, that face wants a fresh Glosse.
_Gent_. Prethee, dib it in well, _Bos_.
_Acut_. _Pigmaleon, Pigmaleon_, I coniure thee appeare; to worke, to
worke, make more Marble Ingles. Nature thou art a foole, Art is above
thee; _Belzebub_, paint thy face there's some will love thee.
_Boss_. Rare, Mistris, heeres a cheeke like a Camelion or a blasing
Star, you shall heere me blaze it; heere's two saucers sanguine in a
sable field pomegranet, a pure pendat ready to drop out of the stable, a
pin and web argent in hayre de Roy.
_Grac_. And a fooles head in the Crest.
_Bos_. In the Crest? oh sweete Vermilion mistris, tis pittie the
Vermilion Wormes shoulde eate thee, ile set it with pretious stones and
ye will.
_Gent_. Enough, sweete _Bosse_, throwe a little water to spurt's face
and lets away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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