English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Fryer_. _In nomine Domini_ I thee charge,
_Responde mihi_, heere at large,
_Cujum pecus_, whence thou art,
_Et quamobrem_ thou makest us start
_In spiritus_ of the gloomy night?
_Qui Venis huc_ us to affright,
_Per trinitatem_ I there charge thee,
_Quid tu vis hic_ to tell to me.
_Phy_. Why, Gentles, I am a living man, _Philautus_.[308] What instance
shall I give ye? heare me I have sight, understanding, I know mine
hostes, I see that Gentlewoman, I can feele.
_Scil_. Feele this Gentlewoman! s'lid if yee were ten Ghosts, ile not
indure it.
_Acut_. Spirit, thou deludest us.
_Phy_. Why what should I say? will ye heare my voice, heeres not but--
_Scil_. Nay, that's a lye, then tis a living spirit, ile have a bout
with him.
_Accut_. Oh sir, meddle not with shadowes. Spirit, thou lyest;
I saw thee dead, [and] so did many moe.[309]
We know ye wandring dwellers in the dark
Have power to shape you like mortallitie
To beguile the simple & deceve their soules.
Thou art a Devill.
_Phy_. Sweet Gent, beholde I am flesh and blood; heeres my flesh, feele
it.
_Cittie wife_. By my troth, methinkes hee should be alive. I could finde
in my heart to feele his flesh.
_Grac_. Trie with your Rapier, _Accutus_; if he bleede he lives.
_Phy_. If I bleede I die; sweet Gentlemen, draw no blood.
_Accu_. How shall wee knowe thou art flesh and blood then?
_Grac_. Take heede, _Accutus_, heele blast thee.
_Phy_. What instance shall I give ye? I am _Phylautus_,[310] he that
must needes confesse, he was drunk in your companies last day; sweet
Gentlemen, conceive me aright.
_Accut_. Why true, true, that we know and[311] those swilling bowels.
Death did arrest thee, many saw thee deade,
Else needles were these rites of funeralls.
And since that time, till now, no breath was knowne
Flye from you; and twentie times the houre-glasse
Hath turned his upside downe; and twenty times,
The nimble current sand hath left his upper roome.
To ly beneath, since sparke of life appeard;
In all which time my care imploide it self
To give the[e] rights of buriall: now, if you live,
Who so glad as I?
_Phy_. Sir, your love has showne it selfe aboundant, but the cold aire
is a meanes to devorce me from your companies: mine host, let me crave
passage to my chamber.
_Host_. Out of my dores, knave; thou enterest not my dores, I have no
chalke in my house, my posts shall not be garded with a little sing
song, _Si nihil attuleris, ibis, Homere, foras_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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