A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
English drama
RECORDER.
This scorn of knights is too egregious:
But how should these young colts prove amblers,
When the old, heavy, galled jades do trot?
There shall you see a puny boy start up,
And make a theme against common lawyers;
Then the old, unwieldy camels 'gin to dance,
This fiddling boy playing a fit of mirth;
The greybeards scrub, and laugh, and cry, _Good, good!
To them again, boy; scourge the barbarians_.
But we may give the losers leave to talk;
We have the coin, then tell them laugh for me.
Yet knights and lawyers hope to see the day,
When we may share here their possessions,
And make indentures of their chaffer'd skins,
Dice of their bones to throw in merriment.
SIR RADERIC.
O, good faith, Master Recorder, if I could see that day once?
RECORDER.
Well, remember another day what I say: scholars are pryed into of late,
and are found to be busy fellows, disturbers of the peace. I'll say no
more; guess at my meaning. I smell a rat.
SIR RADERIC.
I hope at length England will be wise enough, I hope so, i'faith; then
an old knight may have his wench in a corner without any satires or
epigrams. But the day is far spent, Master Recorder; and I fear by this
time the unthrift is arrived at the place appointed in Moorfields. Let
us hasten to him. [_He looks on his watch_.
RECORDER.
Indeed, this day's subject transported us too late: [but] I think we
shall not come much too late.
[_Exeunt_.
ACTUS III., SCAENA 3.
_Enter_ AMORETTO, _and his Page_, IMMERITO _booted_.
AMORETTO.
Master Immerito, deliver this letter to the poser in my father's name.
Marry, withal some sprinkling, some sprinkling; _verbum sapienti sat
est_. Farewell, Master Immerito.
IMMERITO.
I thank your worship most heartily.
PAGE.
Is it not a shame to see this old dunce learning his induction at these
years? But let him go, I lose nothing by him; for I'll be sworn, but for
the booty of selling the parsonage, I should have gone in mine old
clothes this Christmas. A dunce, I see, is a neighbour-like brute beast:
a man may live by him. [_Aside_.
[_AMORETTO seems to make verse_.
AMORETTO.
A pox on it, my muse is not so witty as she was wont to be: ---- _Her
nose is like_ ---- not yet; plague on these mathematics! they have
spoiled my brain in making a verse.
PAGE.
Hang me, if he hath any more mathematics than will serve to count the
clock, or tell the meridian hour by rumbling of his paunch.
[_Aside_.
AMORETTO.
_Her nose is like_ ----
PAGE.
A cobbler's shoeing-horn.
AMORETTO.
_Her nose is like a beauteous maribone_. [_Aside_.
PAGE.
Marry, a sweet snotty mistress! [_Aside_.
AMORETTO.
Faith, I do not like it yet. Ass as I was, to read a piece of Aristotle
in Greek yesternight; it hath put me out of my English vein quite.
PAGE.
O monstrous lie! let me be a point-trusser, while I live, if he
understands any tongue but English. [_Aside_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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