A Select Collection of Old English Plays: Originally Published by Robert Dodsley in the year 1744
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays: Originally Published by Robert Dodsley in the year 1744
English drama
Lay to your hand, away him to bring.
[_Exeunt._
_Enter_ AMBIDEXTER.
AMBIDEXTER.
O’ the passion of God, yonder is a heavy court:
Some weeps, some wails, and some make great sport.
Lord Smirdis by Cruelty and Murder is slain;
But, Jesus! for want of him, how some do complain!
If I should have had a thousand pound, I could not forbear weeping.
Now Jesus have his blessed soul in keeping!
Ah good lord to think on him, how it doth me grieve!
I cannot forbear weeping, ye may me believe.
[_Weep._
O my heart! how my pulses do beat:
With sorrowful lamentations I am in such a heat.
Ah my heart! how for him it doth sorrow!
Nay, I have done in faith now, and God give you good morrow!
Ha, ha, weep! nay, laugh, with both hands to play;
The king through his cruelty hath made him away.
But hath not he wrought a most wicked deed?
Because king after him he should not proceed,
His own natural brother, and having no more,
To procure his death by violence sore;
In spite because his brother should never be king,
His heart being wicked consented to this thing.
Now he hath no more brothers nor kindred alive:
If the king use this gear still, he cannot long thrive.
_Enter_ HOB _and_ LOB.
HOB.
God’s hat, neighbours, come away; it’s time to market to go.
LOB.
God’s vast, neighbour, zay ye zo?
The clock hath stricken vive, ich think, by lakin:[242]
Bum vay,[243] vrom sleep cham not very well waken.
But, neighbour Hob, neighbour Hob, what have ye to zell?
HOB.
Bum troth, neighbour Lob, to you I chil tell:
Chave two goslings and a chine of good pork;
There is no vatter between this and York.
Chave a pot of strawberries and a calf’s head,
A zennight zince to-morrow it hath been dead.
LOB.
Chave a score of eggs and of butter a pound:
Yesterday a nest of goodly young rabbits I vound.
Chave forty things mo, of more and of less;
My brain is not very good them to express.
But God’s hat, neighbour, wot’st what?
HOB.
No, not well, neighbour, what’s that?
LOB.
Bum vay, neighbour, master king is a zhrode lad;
Zo God help me and holidam, I think the vool be mad:
Zome zay he deal cruelly, his brother he did kill;
And also a goodly young lad’s heart-blood he did spill.
HOB.
Vorbod of God, neighbour, has he played such a voolish deed?
AMBIDEXTER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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