A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 02
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 02
English drama
CAREAWAY.
Never man suffered so much wrong as I had;
But, mistress, I should say a thing to you:
Tarry, it woll come to my remembrance even now
I must needs use a substantial premeditation;
For the matter lieth greatly me upon.
I beseech your mistress-ship of pardon and forgiveness,
Desiring you to impute it to my simple and rude dulness:
I have forgotten what I had[199] thought to have said
And am thereof full ill-afraid;
But when I lost myself, I knew very well,
I lost also that I should you tell.
DAME COY.
Why, thou wretched villain, doest thou me scorn and mock,
To make me to these folk a laughing-stock?
Ere thou go out of my hands, thou shalt have something;
And I woll reckon better in the morning.
CAREAWAY.
And if you beat me, mistress, avise you;
For I am none of your servants now.
That other I is now your page,
And I am no longer in your bondage.
DAME COY.
Now walk, precious thief, get thee out of my sight!
And I charge thee come in my presence no more this night:
Get thee hence, and wait on thy master at once.
CAREAWAY.
Marry, sir, this is handling for the nonce:
I would I had been hanged, before that I was lost;
I was never this[200] canvassed and tossed:
That if my master, on his part also,
Handle me, as my mistress and the other I[201] do,
I shall surely be killed between them three,
And all the devils in hell shall not save me.
But yet, if the other I might have with me part,
All this would never grieve my heart.
[_Enter Jack Juggler_.
JACK JUGGLER.
How say you, masters, I pray you tell,
Have not I requited my merchant well?
Have not I handled him after a good sort?
Had it not been pity to have lost this sport?
Anon his master, on his behalf,
You shall see how he woll handle the calf!
If he throughly angered be,
He woll make him smart, so mot I the.
I would not for a price of a new pair of shone,
That any part of this had been undone;
But now I have revenged my quarrel,
I woll go do off this mine apparel,
And now let Careaway be Careaway again;
I have done with that name now, certain,
Except peraventure I shall take the self-same weed
Some other time again for a like cause and need.
[_Enter Bongrace and Careaway_.
BONGRACE.
Why, then, darest thou to presume to tell me,
That I know is no wise possible for to be?
CAREAWAY.
Now, by my truth, master, I have told you no lie;
And all these folks knoweth as well as I,
I had no sooner knocked at the gate,
But straightway he had me by the pate;
Therefore, if you beat me, till I fart and shit again,
You shall not cause me for any pain;
But I woll affirm, as I said before,
That when I came near, another stood at the door.
BONGRACE.
Why, thou naughty villain, darest thou affirm to me
That which was never seen nor hereafter shall be?
That one man may have two bodies and two faces,
And that one man at one time may be in two places?
Tell me, drankest thou anywhere by the way?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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