A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 14
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 14
English drama
LOVE. Peace, wench, I scorn their slander, it cannot shake my
honour: 'tis too weighty and too fixed for their calumny.
JOLLY. I'll be sworn for my part on't; I think it is a great
honour: I am sure I had as much as I could carry away in ten
nights, and yet there was no miss on't.
CAPT. You! I think so; there's no mark of my work, you see, and
yet I came after thee, and brought away loads would have sunk a
sedan-man.
WILD. By this relation she should be a woman of a great fame.
CARE. Let that consideration, with her condition and her age,
move some reverence, at least to what she was. Madam, I am sorry
I cannot serve you in this particular.
[_Exeunt_ JOLLY _and_ CARELESS.
LOVE. I see all your mean baseness: pursue your scorn. Come,
let's go, wench, I shall find some to right my fame; and though I
have lost my opinion, I have gained a knowledge how to
distinguish of love hereafter; and I shall scorn you and all your
sex, that have not soul enough to value a noble friendship.
WILD. Pray, madam, let me speak with you.
CAPT. We'll have no whispering: I said it, and I'll maintain it
with my sword.
_Enter_ DRAWER.
DRAW. Sir, there's one without would speak with you.
CAPT. With me?
DRAW. No, sir, with Master Wild.
WILD. Madam, I'll wait upon you presently.
[_Exit_ WILD.
CAPT. Madam, I know my company is displeasing to you, therefore
I'll take my leave. Drawer, show me another room.
[_The_ CAPTAIN _makes a turn or two; they look at each other,
then he goes out_.
LOVE. O Faithful, Faithful! I am most miserably abused, and can
find no way to my revenge.
FAITH. Madam, I'll give them ratsbane, and speedily too, ere they
can tell; for that rascal the captain has a tongue else will
proclaim you, and undo your fame for ever.
LOVE. Ay, ay, my fame, my fame, Faithful: and if it were not for
mine honour, which I have kept unstained to this minute, I would
not care.
FAITH. This it is: you will set your affection upon every young
thing: I could but tell you on't.
LOVE. Who could have suspected they would have been so false in
their loves to me, that have been so faithful to them?
_Enter_ DRAWER.
Honest friend, where is Master Wild?
DRAW. The other gentlemen carried him away with them.
LOVE. Are they all gone then?
DRAW. Yes, by this hand. These gentlemen are quickly satisfied:
what an ugly whore they have got! how she states it.[253]
[_Aside._
LOVE. Come, let's go, wench.
[_She offers to go._
DRAW. Mistress, who pays the reckoning?
LOVE. What says he?
FAITH. He asks me who pays the reckoning?
LOVE. Who pays the reckoning! Why, what have we to do with the
reckoning?
DRAW. Shut the door, Dick. [_To_ LOVEALL.] We'll have the
reckoning before you go.
FAITH. Why, goodman sauce-box, you will not make my lady pay for
their reckoning, will you?
DRAW. My lady! a pox of her title, she'd need of something to
make her pass.
FAITH. What do you say, sirrah?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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