A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 10
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 10
English drama
FRIS. Ha! sirrah, I have left my fat Dutchman, and run myself
almost out of breath too. Now to my young mistresses go I;
somebody cast an old shoe after me.[527] But soft: how shall I
do to counterfeit the Dutchman, because I speak English so like
a natural? Tush, take you no thought for that; let me alone for
_squintum squantum_. Soft, here's my master's house.
HEIGH. Who's there?
FRIS. Who's there, why, sir, here is--nay, that's too good
English. Why, here be the growte Dutchman.
HEIGH. Then, there's not only a growte head, but an ass also.
FRIS. What be you? you be an English ox to call a gentilemoan
ass.
HAR. Hark, Ned; yonder's good greeting.
FRIS. But you, and you be Master Mouse that dwell here, tell
your Matressa Laurentia dat her sweetheart, Master Vandal,
would speak with her.
HEIGH. Master Mendall, get you gone, lest you get a broken
pate, and so mar all. Here's no entrance for Mistress
Laurentia's sweetheart.
FRIS. God's sacren, wat is de luck now? Shall not I come to my
friend Master Pisar hoose?
HEIGH. Yes, and to Master Pisaro's shoes too,[528] if he or
they were here.
FRIS. Why, my growte friend, Master Pisaro, doth dwell here.
HEIGH. Sirrah, you lie; here dwells nobody but I, that have
dwelt here this one and forty years, and sold glasses.
WAL. Lie farther: one and fifty at the least.
[_Aside._
FRIS. Hoo, hoo, hoo? Do you give the gentleman the lie?
HAR. Ay, sir, and will give you a lick of my cudgel, if ye stay
long and trouble the whole street with your bawling. Hence,
dolt, and go seek Master Pisaro's house.
FRIS. Go seek Master Pisaro's house! Where shall I go seek it?
HEIGH. Why, you shall go seek it where it is.
FRIS. That is here, in Crutched Friars?
HEIGH. How, loggerhead, is Crutched Friars here? I thought you
were some such drunken ass, that come to seek Crutched Friars
in Tower Street. But get you along on your left hand, and be
hanged! You have kept me out of my bed with your bangling a
good while longer than I would have been.
FRIS. Ah, ah! How is this? Is not this Crutched Friars? Tell
me. I'll hold a crown they gave me so much wine at the tavern,
that I am drunk, and know not on't. [_Aside._
HAR. My Dutchman's out his compass and his card;
He's reck'ning what wind hath drove him hither.
I'll swear he thinks never to see Pisaro's.
FRIS. Nay, 'tis so; I am sure drunk. Soft, let me see, what was
I about? O, now I have it: I must go to my master's house and
counterfeit the Dutchman, and get my young mistress. Well, and
I must turn on my left hand, for I have forgot the way quite
and clean, [_Aside._] Fare de well, good friend; I am a simple
Dutchman, I. [_Exit_ FRISCO.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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