A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 01
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 01
English drama
COUSIN.
What, to go thither? Is that the matter?
Nay, Everyman, I had liever fast bread and water,
All this five year and more.
EVERYMAN.
Alas, that ever I was bore!
For now shall I never be merry,
If that you forsake me.
KINDRED.
Ah, sir! what, ye be a merry man!
Take good heart to you, and make no moan.
But one thing I warn you, by Saint Anne,
As for me ye shall go alone.
EVERYMAN.
My cousin, will you not with me go?
COUSIN.
No, by our lady, I have the cramp in my toe:
Trust not to me; for, so God me speed,
I will[85] deceive you in your most need.
KINDRED.
It availeth not us to tice:[86]
Ye shall have my maid with all my heart;
She loveth to go to feasts, there to be nice,
And to dance, and abroad to start:
I will give her leave to help you in that journey,
If that you and she may agree.
EVERYMAN.
No, show me the very effect of your mind;
Will you go with me, or abide behind?
KINDRED.
Abide behind! yea, that will I, and I may;
Therefore farewell till another day.
EVERYMAN.
How should I be merry or glad?
For fair promises men to me make;
But, when I have most need, they me forsake;
I am deceived, that maketh me sad.
COUSIN.
Cousin Everyman, farewell now;
For verily I will not go with you:
Also of mine own life an unready reckoning
I have to account, therefore I make tarrying;
Now God keep thee, for now I go.
EVERYMAN.
Ah, Jesu, is all come hereto?
Lo, fair words maketh fools fain;[87]
They promise, and nothing will do certain.
My kinsmen promised me faithfully,
For to abide with me steadfastly;
And now fast away do they flee:
Even so Fellowship promised me.
What friend were best me of to provide?
I lose my time here longer to abide;
Yet in my mind a thing there is:
All my life I have loved riches;
If that my Good now help me might,
It would make my heart full light:
I will speak to him in this distress:
Where art thou, my Goods and Riches?
GOODS.
Who calleth me? Everyman? what, hast thou haste?
I lie here in corners trussed and piled so high,
And in chests I am locked so fast,
Also sacked in bags, thou mayest see with thine eye,
I cannot stir; in packs, lo, where I lie!
What would ye have, lightly me say.
EVERYMAN.
Come hither, Good, in all the haste thou may;
For of counsel I must desire thee.
GOODS.
Sir, and ye in the world have sorrow or adversity,
That can I help you to remedy shortly.
EVERYMAN.
It is another disease that grieveth me;
In this world it is not, I tell thee so,
I am sent for another way to go,
To give a strait account general
Before the highest Jupiter of all:
And all my life I have had my pleasure in thee,
Therefore I pray thee now go with me;
For, peraventure, thou mayest before God Almighty
My reckoning help to clean and purify,
For it is said ever among,
That money maketh all right that is wrong.
GOODS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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