A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
+Sim.+ This was your bargain upon the exchange, sir, and
because you have ever been addicted to old proverbs and pithy
saws, pray let me seal up the mistake with one that will appear
very seasonably.
+Blood.+ And I pray let's hear it, sir.
+Sim.+ You, a new-fangled fowler, came to show your art i' th'
dark; but take this truth, you catched in truth a cuckoo for't.
_Enter +Tim+ and +Sue+._
+Blood.+ Heyday, we are cheated by the rule, i' faith. Now,
sirrah, they say you are to be married too.
+Tim.+ Yes, indeed, father, I am going to the business; and,
gentlemen all, I am come, whether you will or no, to invite
you all to my marriage to this gentlewoman who, though a good
face needs no mask, she's masked, to make a man think she has a
scurvy face, when I know she has a good face. This is sack to
them, and out of their element.
+Blood.+ But, sirrah, setting aside marriages, where's my
hundred marks you went to receive?
+Tim.+ Hum!--upon such a match of mine, talk of a hundred
marks! this is to drink ignoble four-shillings beer. A hundred
marks! why your lawyer there can clear such a trifle in a term,
and his clients ne'er the better.
+Blood.+ Such a match! I pray discover her; what is she?
+Tim.+ What is she! here's my brother knows what she is well
enough. Come hither, Dab, and be it known unto you, her name
is Lindabrides, descended from the Emperor Trebatio of Greece,
and half-niece, some six-and-fifty descents, to the most
unvanquished Clarindiana.
+Alex.+ Who's this? Pox on't! what makes that bawd yonder?
[_Unmasks her._
+Con.+ I am very much deceived if I did not send this
gentlewoman very drunk t'other night to the Compter.
+Tim.+ I tell thee, prattling constable, 'tis a lie:
Lindabrides a drunkard!
+Alex.+ Harkee, brother, where lies her living?
+Tim.+ Where? why, in Greece.
+Alex.+ In grease.
+Sim.+ She looks as if she had sold kitchen-stuff.
+Alex.+ This is a common whore, and you a cheated coxcomb. Come
hither, you rotten hospital, hung round with greasy satin; do
not you know this vermin?
+Mis. Coote.+ I winked at you, Sue, and you could have seen me:
there's one Jarvis, a rope on him, h' has juggled me into the
suds too.
+Con.+ Now I know her name too: do not you pass under the name
of Sue Shortheels, minion?
+Sue.+ Go look, Master Littlewit. Will not any woman thrust
herself upon a good fortune when it is offered her?
+Blood.+ Sir Marmaduke, you are a justice of peace; I charge
you in the king's name, you and Master Ambidexter, to assist me
with the whore and the bawd to Bridewell.
+Sir Mar.+ By my troth, we will, and we shall have an excellent
stomach by that time dinner's ready.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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