A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 06
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 06
English drama
DISSIMULATION.
What, Fraud? well met. Whither travellest thou this way?
FRAUD.
To London, to get entertainment there, if I may,
Of the three ladies Lucre, Love, and Conscience.
I care not whom I serve--the devil, so I may get pence.[149]
SIMPLICITY.
O Fraud! I know thee for a deceitful knave:
And art thou gotten so bonfacion[150] and brave?
I knew thee, when thou dwelledst at a place called Gravesend,
And the guests knew thee too, because thou wast not their friend;
For when thou shouldst bring reckoning to the guests,
Thou would put[151] twice so much, and swear it cost thy dame no less.
So thou didst deceive them and thy dame too;
And because they spied thy knavery, away thou didst go.
Then thou didst go into Hertfordshire, to a place called Ware,
And because horses stood at hay for a penny a night there,
So that thou couldst get nothing that kind of way,
Thou didst grease the horses' teeth, that they should not eat hay:
Then thou wouldst tell the rider his horse no hay would eat.
Then the man would say: Give him some other kind of meat.
Sir, shall I give him oats, vetches, pease, barley, or bread?
But whate'er thou gavest him, thou stolest three quarters,
when he was in bed.
And now thou art so proud with thy filching and cosening art!
But I think one day thou wilt not be proud of the rope and the cart.
Take a wise fellow's counsel, Fraud: leave thy cosening and filching.
FRAUD.
Thou whoreson rascal swad,[152] avaunt! I'll bang thee for thy brawling.
How darest thou defame a gentleman, that hath so large a living?
SIMPLICITY.
A goodly gentleman ostler! I think none of all you will believe him.
FRAUD.
What a clenchpoop[153] drudge is this! I can forbear him no more.
[_Let_ FRAUD _make as though he would strike him,
but let_ DISSIMULATION _step between them_.
DISSIMULATION.
My good friend Fraud, refrain, and care not therefore.
'Tis Simplicity, that patch; he knoweth not good from bad,
And to stand in contention with him I would think you were mad.
But tell me, Fraud, tell me, hast thou been an ostler in thy days?
FRAUD.
Tut, I have proved an hundred such ways;
For when I could not thrive by all other trades,
I became a squire to wait upon jades.[154]
But then was then, and now is now; but let that pass:
I am, as thou seest me; what care I the devil what I was?
DISSIMULATION.
You say, you go to London: in faith, have with you then.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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