English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Enter_[293] _Host. Prentices pass over the stage_.
_Host_. There, there my little lackey boyes, give the word as ye passe,
look about to my guests there; score up at the Bar there; again, agen,
my fine Mercuries; if youle live in the facultie, be rulde by
instructions, you must be eyed like a Serjeant, an eare like a
Belfounder, your conscience a Schoolemaister, a knee like a Courtier,
a foote[294] like a Lackey, and a tongue like a Lawyere. Away, away, my
brave bullies! welcome, sweete Signior, I cannot bow to thy knee, I'me
as stout & as stiff as a new made knight, but if I say the word, mine
Host bids the Cobler--
_Gra_. May I crave a word of you, mine Host?
_Host_. Thou shalt whisper in mine eare, I will see and say little; what
I say duns[295] the mouse and welcom, my bullies.
_Enter Scillicet and Getica_.
_Scil_. By the torrid zone (sweet heart) I have thought well of you ever
since I loved ye, as a man wold say, like a young dancer, out of all
measure; if it please you yfaith anything I have promised you ile
performe it to a haire, ere to morrow night.
_Get_. I wounder [_sic_] I can heare no newes of my man and my puppie.
_Scil_. Doe you thinke, sweet heart, to be maried by day light or by
torch-light?
_Get_. By night is more Lady-like. Ile have a cryer to cry my puppie
sure.
_Scil_. What thinke ye if we had an offering?
_Get_. That were most base yfaith.
_Scil_. Base, slid, I cannot tel if it were as base as a sagbut, ile be
sworne tis as common as a whore, tis even as common to see a Bason at a
Church doore, as a Box at a Playhouse.
_Get_. It greeves me not so much for my man as for my puppie; my man can
shift for himself, but my poore puppie! truely I thinke I must take
Phisicke even for feare, sweetheart.
_Host_. Tut, tut, ile warrant thee ile be as close as a bawd, ile keepe
mine owne counsell, be merrie and close;[296] merrie hart lives long,
let my guests take no wrong, & welcome, my bullie. [_Exit_.
_Grac_. There's none ment, beleeve it, sir.
_Scil_. Signor, by the welkin, well met, what all three so luckely?
_Enter Servulus_.
_Ser_. Gallants, saving the Ceremonie,
Stroke your haire up and admire, forsweare sacke.
_Scil_. Foresweare Sacke! slid, not for the spending of two farmes more,
if they were come into my hands once.
_Ser_. I say be astonisht and forsweare sacke, for by the combustion
influence of sacke five men lye breathlesse ready to be folded in the
terrestiall element.
_Grac_. Five slaine with Sacke! ist possible?
_Ser_. These eyes are testators.
_Scil_. Nay, then tis so.
_Getica_. Sir, you have not heard of a puppie in your travels?
_Grac_. No indeede, Gentlewoman.
_Ser_. Five, beleeve me, Sir.
_Acu_. Five of one, oh devil!
What limme of him but a complete Villaine!
A tongue prophaner then Idolatrie,
His eye a beacon fixed in his place
Discovering illes, but hood-winked unto grace;
His heart a nest of vice kept by the Devill,
His good is none at all, his all is evill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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