A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 11 — John Shaqi
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 11
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 11
English drama
_Enter_ COUNT FREDERICK, _a tailor trussing him; attended by a page_.
C. FRED. Is Sir John Worldly up, boy?
BOY. No, my Lord.
C. FRED. Is my bride up yet?
BOY. No.
C. FRED. No! and the morn so fair?
_Enter_ PENDANT.
PEN. Good morrow, my thrice honoured and heroic lord.
BOY. Good morrow, your lord and master, you might say, for brevity sake.
[_Aside._
C. FRED. Thou'st a good tailor, and art very fine.
PEN. I thank your lordship.
BOY. Ay, you may thank his lordship indeed. [_Aside._
PEN. 'Fore God, this doublet sets in print, my lord;
And the hose excellent; the pickadel[15] rare.
BOY. He'll praise himself in trust with my lord's tailor.
For the next St George's suit.
C. FRED. O, good morrow, tailor;
I abhor bills in a morning.
PEN. Your honour says true:
Their knavery will be discern'd by daylight;
But thou may'st watch at night with bill in hand,
And no man dares find fault with it.
TAILOR. A good jest, i' faith. Good morrow to your lordship. A very
good jest.
[_Exit_ TAILOR.
C. FRED. I wonder my invited guests are so tardy. What's o'clock?
PEN. Scarce seven, my lord.
C. FRED. And what news, Pendant?
What think'st thou of my present marriage?
How shows the beauty to thee I shall wed?
PEN. Why, to all women like Diana among her nymphs.
BOY. There's all his reading. [_Aside._
PEN. A beauty of that pureness and delight,
That none is worthy of her but my lord,
My honourable lord.
C. FRED. But then her fortune,
Match'd with her beauty, makes her up a match.
PEN. By heaven, unmatchable!--for none fit but lords,
And yet for no lord fit but my good lord.
C. FRED. And that her sister, then, should love me too,
Is it not strange?
PEN. Strange? no, not strange at all.
By Cupid, there's no woman in the world
But must needs love you, doat, go mad for you.
If you vouchsafe reflection, 'tis a thing
That does it home: thus much reflection
Catches 'em up by dozens like wild fowl.
BOY. Now, ye shall taste the means, by which he eats. [_Aside._
PEN. Nature herself, having made you, fell sick
In love with her own work, and can no more
Make man so lovely, being diseas'd with love.
You are the world's minion, of a little man.
I'll say no more: I would not be a woman
For all has been got by them.
C. FRED. Why, man, why?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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