A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
English drama
PEG.
Ay, farewell; fair weather after you. Your blessing, quotha? I'll not
give a single halfpenny for't. Who would live under a mother's nose and
a granam's tongue? A maid cannot love, or catch a lip-clip or a
lap-clap, but here's such tittle-tattle, and _Do not so_, and _Be not so
light_, and _Be not so fond_, and _Do not kiss_, and _Do not love_, and
I cannot tell what; and I must love, an I hang for't.
[_She sings_.
_A sweet thing is love,
That rules both heart and mind:
There is no comfort in the world
To women that are kind_.
Well. I'll not stay with her; stay, quotha? To be yawled and jawled at,
and tumbled and thumbled, and tossed and turned, as I am by an old hag,
I will not: no, I will not, i' faith.
_Enter_ WILL CRICKET.
But stay, I must put on my smirking looks and smiling countenance, for
here comes one makes 'bomination suit to be my sprused husband.
WILL CRICKET.
Lord, that my heart would serve me to speak to her, now she talks of her
sprused husband! Well, I'll set a good face on't. Now I'll clap me as
close to her as Jone's buttocks of a close-stool, and come over her with
my rolling, rattling, rumbling eloquence. Sweet Peg, honey Peg, fine
Peg, dainty Peg, brave Peg, kind Peg, comely Peg; my nutting, my
sweeting, my love, my dove, my honey, my bunny, my duck, my dear, and my
darling:
Grace me with thy pleasant eyes,
And love without delay;
And cast not with thy crabbed looks
A proper man away.
PEG.
Why, William, what's the matter?
WILL CRICKET.
What's the matter, quotha? Faith, I ha' been in a fair taking for you, a
bots on you! for t'other day, after I had seen you, presently my belly
began to rumble. What's the matter, thought I. With that I bethought
myself, and the sweet comportance of that same sweet round face of thine
came into my mind. Out went I, and, I'll be sworn, I was so near taken,
that I was fain to cut all my points. And dost hear, Peg? if thou dost
not grant me thy goodwill in the way of marriage, first and foremost
I'll run out of my clothes, and then out of my wits for thee.
PEG.
Nay, William, I would be loth you should do so for me.
WILL CRICKET.
Will you look merrily on me, and love me then?
PEG.
Faith, I care not greatly if I do.
WILL CRICKET.
Care not greatly if I do? What an answer's that? If thou wilt say, I,
Peg, take thee, William, to my spruse husband--
PEG.
Why, so I will. But we must have more company for witnesses first.
[_Enter Dancers and Piper_.]
WILL CRICKET.
That needs not. Here's good store of young men and maids here.
PEG.
Why, then, here's my hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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