A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 12Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 12
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
HEATH. I'll be thy squire, though I fare no better than Sanch
Pancha, and am tossed in a blanket.
BRIS. Come, follow me. [_Exeunt._
SCENE II.
_Enter_ NANCY CURDWELL.
CURD. I have fresh cheese and cream; I have fresh cheese
and cream. Heigho! But one suitor yet? Must my sheets lie
smooth till I am wrinkled? Nay, then, I see beauty is not a
cable-rope, to draw men's hearts after it, nor our mouths a
mouse-trap, our tongues a lure, and lips a gin; our hairs are
not fishing-lines, nor our noses hooks. These gudgeons will not
swallow the bait that hangs there. Nay, we cannot catch these
mermen, though our smocks were made of network, and we hung all
o'er with looking-glasses. No, no; I see, when these buzzards
look after mates, they wink and choose. I think I must have my
nose turned into a bill, and write upon it, _Here is a house
to be let._ I am but six-and-twenty years old, and that's young
enough to play with a baby. O, how like the picture of Charity
should I look with two sucklings at my breast!
_Enter_ BUDGET, _a tinker_.
BUD. Have you any work for a tinker? Old brass, old pots, old
kettles. I'll mend them all with a tara-tink, and never hurt
your metal.--Here she is! Methinks she looks very smug upon me.
Now to my 'ration. Most beautiful, fair and virtuous mistress,
whose face is a burning-glass, and hath set me on fire. My
sugar-plum and stewed-prune lady, whose fine sharp nose, like
Cupid's darts, hath pricked me to the heart! Whiter than the
curds thou sell'st, softer than the silk thou wearest, milder
than the four-shilling beer thou drink'st! Venus, I believe,
was a fresh cheese and cream woman, and, letting fall her pail,
made the Milky Way, but yet came as far short of thee, my
sweet, honey Nancy, as whey of butter-milk or skimmed milk of
cream! O, that I were a worm to crawl on that face of thine, or
a flea------
CURD. He'd bite me, sure?
BUD. To slip about thy neck. Do not, I pray, tread on me with
the foot of disdain, lest thou crush my heart as flat as a
pancake.
CURDS. Pray, leave off your suit; I have no mind to marry; I'll
always live a virgin.
BUD. What, and lead apes in hell? What pity would it be to see
you chained to a monkey!
CURDS. Or tied to you! [_Aside._
BUD. O, do not frown! Each wrinkle is a grave to me, and angry
look a death's-head. Do not despise me 'cause I am black and
you so white; the moon wears beauty-spots, and the fairest
ladies black patches. White petticoats are wrought with black
silk, and we put black plums into white puddings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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