A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
English drama
PHILOMUSUS.
Ah, but this patience is a page of ruth,
A tired lackey to our wand'ring youth!
ACTUS II., SCAENA 2.
ACADEMICO, _solus_.
Fain would I have a living, if I could tell how
to come by it. _Echo_. Buy it.
Buy it, fond Echo? why, thou dost greatly
mistake it. _Echo_. Stake it.
Stake it? what should I stake at this game of
simony? _Echo_. Money.
What, is the world a game? are livings gotten
by paying?[82] _Echo_. Paying.
Paying? But say, what's the nearest way to
come by a living? _Echo_. Giving.
Must his worship's fists be needs then oiled with
angels? _Echo_. Angels.
Ought his gouty fists then first with gold to be
greased? _Echo_. Eased.
And is it then such an ease for his ass's back to
carry money? _Echo_. Ay.
Will, then, this golden ass bestow a vicarage
gilded? _Echo_. Gelded.
What shall I say to good Sir Raderic, that have
no[83] gold here? _Echo_. Cold cheer.
I'll make it my lone request, that he would be
good to a scholar. _Echo_. Choler.
Yea, will he be choleric to hear of an art or a
science? _Echo_. Hence.
Hence with liberal arts? What, then, will he
do with his chancel? _Echo_. Sell.
Sell it? and must a simple clerk be fain to compound
then? _Echo_. Pounds then.
What, if I have no pounds? must then my suit
be prorogued? _Echo_. Rogued.
Yea? given to a rogue? Shall an ass this
vicarage compass? _Echo_. Ass.
What is the reason that I should not be as fortunate
as he? _Echo_. Ass he.
Yet, for all this, with a penniless purse will I
trudge to his worship. _Echo_. Words cheap.
Well, if he give me good words, it's more than I
have from an Echo. _Echo_. Go.
[_Exit_.
ACTUS II, SCAENA 3.
AMORETTO _with an Ovid in his hand_, IMMERITO.
AMORETTO.
Take it on the word of a gentleman, thou cannot have it a penny under;
think on it, think on it, while I meditate on my fair mistress--
_Nunc sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum_.
Whate'er become of this dull, threadbare clerk,
I must be costly in my mistress' eye:
Ladies regard not ragged company.
I will with the revenues of my chaffer'd church
First buy an ambling hobby for my fair,
Whose measur'd pace may teach the world to dance,
Proud of his burden, when he 'gins to prance.
Then must I buy a jewel for her ear,
A kirtle of some hundred crowns or more.
With these fair gifts when I accompani'd go,
She'll give Jove's breakfast; Sidney terms it so.
I am her needle, she is my adamant,
She is my fair rose, I her unworthy prick.
ACADEMICO.
Is there nobody here will take the pains to geld his mouth? [_Aside_.
AMORETTO.
She's Cleopatra, I Mark Antony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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