A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
+Dor.+ Faith, I've told you all,
Both why I left my schoolmistress, who taught me
To confute curling-irons, and why I put
Myself on this adventure.
+Aur.+ Well, wench, my brother
Has had his plots on me, and I'll contribute
My help to work thy honest ones on him:
Do but perform thy task well, and thou winn'st
him.
+Dor.+ Let me alone; never was man so fitted
With a chaste bride, as I will fit his uncle.
_Enter +Footman+._
+Foot.+ Madam, your knight doth call most fiercely for you. [_Exit._
+Aur.+ [+to Dorc.+] Prythee, go tell him some business keeps me yet,
And bid him stay himself with this kiss.
SCENE VII.
_As they kiss, enter +Bright+, +Newcut+._
+Bright.+ By your leave, madam! What, for practice' sake,
Kissing your woman? Lord, how a lady's lips
Hate idleness, and will be busied when
The rest lies fallow! and rather than want action,
Be kind within themselves, an't be t' enjoy
But the poor pleasure of contemplation.
+New.+ And how do you find her, madam?
+Aur.+ Stay, wench.
+New.+ Lord!
Does it not grieve you now, and make you sigh,
And very passionately accuse nature,
And say she was too hard to make your woman
Able to kiss you only, and do no more?
+Bright.+ Is it not pity, but, besides the gift
Of making caudles, and using of her pencil,
She had the trick o' th' other sex?
+Aur.+ Methinks
Your own good breeding might instruct you that
My house is not a new foundation, where
You might, paying the rate, approach, be rude,
Give freedom to your unwash'd mouths.
+Dor.+ My lady
Keeps no poor nuns, that sin for victuals, for you,
With whom this dead vacation[250] you may trade
For old silk stockings and half-shirts. They say
You do offend o' th' score, and sin in chalk,[251]
And the dumb walls complain you are behind
In pension;[252] so that your distressed vestals
Are fain to foot their stockings, pay the brewer
And landlord's rent in woman-kind, and long
More earnestly for the term than Norfolk lawyers.
+Bright.+ Why, you have got a second, lady: your woman
Doth speak good country language.
+New.+ Offers at wit, and shows teeth for a jest.
+Bright.+ We hear you are to marry an old citizen.
+Aur.+ Then surely you were not deaf.
+New.+ And do you mean his age--
Which hath seen all the kingdom buried thrice,
To whom the heat of August is December. [_Exit +Dorcas+._
Who, were he but in Italy, would save
The charge of marble vaults, and cool the air
Better than ventiducts--shall freeze between
Your melting arms? Do but consider, he
But marries you as he would do his furs,
To keep him warm.
+Aur.+ But he is rich, sir.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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