A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
English drama
ILF. You may chance be deceived, old greybeards; here's he will spend
some of it; thanks, thanks, honest butler! Now do I see the happiness of
my future estate. I walk me as to-morrow, being the day after my
marriage, with my fourteen men in livery-cloaks after me, and step to
the wall in some chief streets of the city, though I have no occasion to
use it, that the shopkeepers may take notice how many followers stand
bare to me. And yet in this latter age, the keeping of men being not in
request, I will turn my aforesaid fourteen into two pages and two
coaches. I will get myself into grace at court, run headlong into debt,
and then look scurvily upon the city. I will walk you into the presence
in the afternoon, having put on a richer suit than I wore in the
morning, and call, boy or sirrah. I will have the grace of some great
lady, though I pay for't, and at the next triumphs run a-tilt, that when
I run my course, though I break not my lance, she may whisper to
herself, looking upon my jewel: well-run, my knight. I will now keep
great horses, scorning to have a queen to keep me; indeed I will
practise all the gallantry in use; for by a wife comes all my happiness.
_Enter_ BUTLER.
BUT. Now, sir, you have heard her uncles, and how do you like them?
ILF. O butler, they have made good thy words, and I am ravished with
them.
BUT. And having seen and kissed the gentlewoman, how do you like her?
ILF. O butler, beyond discourse, beyond any element; she's a paragon for
a prince, rather than a fit implement for a gentleman.[414]
BUT. Well then, since you like her, and by my means, she shall like you,
nothing rests now, but to have you married.
ILF. True, butler, but withal to have her portion!
BUT. Tut, that's sure yours, when you are married once, for 'tis hers by
inheritance; but do you love her?
ILF. O, with my soul.
BUT. Have you sworn as much?
ILF. To thee, to her; and have called heaven to witness.
BUT. How shall I know that?
ILF. Butler, here I protest, make vows irrevocable.
BUT. Upon your knees?
ILF. Upon my knees, with my heart and soul I love her.
BUT. Will live with her?
ILF. Will live with her.
BUT. Marry her and maintain her?
ILF. Marry her and maintain her.
BUT. For her forsake all other women?
ILF. Nay, for her forswear all other women.
BUT. In all degrees of love?
ILF. In all degrees of love, either to court, kiss, give private
favours, or use private means. I'll do nothing that married men, being
close whoremasters, do, so I may have her.
BUT. And yet you, having been an open whoremaster, I will not believe
you till I hear you swear as much in the way of contract to herself,
and call me to be a witness.
ILF. By heaven, by earth, by hell, by all that man can swear, I will, so
I may have her.
BUT. Enough.
Thus at first sight rash men to women swear,
When, such oaths broke, heaven grieves and sheds a tear.
But she's come; ply her, ply her.
_Enter_ SCARBOROW'S SISTER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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