A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 14
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 14
English drama
CARE. She has excellent flesh and a fine face. By this light, we
must depose the captain from his reign here.
[_They whisper this._
WILD. I like her shrewdly; I hate a wench that is all whore and
no company; this is a comedy all day and a fair[256] at night.
CARE. I hope to exalt the parson's horn here.
CAPT. And what think you? is it not a sweet sin, this lying with
another man's wife?
WAN. Is Jolly come?
[WANTON _above_.
CAPT. No, but he'll be here instantly.
WILD. Is he abed?
WAN. Yes, yes; and he sleeps as if he had been put to bed by his
sexton, with _dust to dust_, and _ashes to ashes_.
CAPT. And we'll wake him with that shall be as terrible to him as
the latter day.
WAN. Let him sleep awhile, that he may be fresh, else the jest is
spoiled; for it is his sense of his disgrace must work my ends.
WILD. I'll go home then, and get supper ready, and expect you.
CAPT. Do; our scene lies here.
[_Enter_ JOLLY.]
Who's there? Jolly?
JOLLY. Yes.
CAPT. Are you fitted?
JOLLY. Yes, I have got the Blackfriars music. I was fain to stay
till the last act. And who do you think I saw there?
WILD. I know not.
JOLLY. Guess.
WILD. Prythee: I cannot guess.
JOLLY. Your aunt and Mistress Pleasant, and trusty Secret.
WILD. What, man?
JOLLY. The lovers only, so close in a box!
CAPT. It will be a match, and there's an end. Prythee, let them
go to't: what is't to us? Let's mind our business now, and think
on them hereafter.
WAN. A pox upon them, for a couple of stalk-hounds. Have they
killed at last? Why, this is fool's fortune.[257] It would be
long enough ere one that has wit got such a wife!
CAPT. No more of this now. Have you borrowed the watchmen's
coats?
JOLLY. Yes, and bills, beards, and constable's staff and lantern;
and let me alone to fit him for the sumner. But when this is
done, I expect my fee, a tithe-night at least. Wanton, I will lie
with thee for thy roguery. What! are you dumb? You will not
refuse me, I hope?
WAN. Not if I thought you desiredst it; but I hate to have it
desired indifferently, and but so-so done neither, when 'tis
done.
JOLLY. I hope you will not disgrace my work, will you?
WAN. Faith, they say, thy pleasure lies in thy tongue, and
therefore, though I do not give thee leave to lie with me, yet I
will give thee as good a thing that will please thee as well.
JOLLY. Some [such] roguery I expected.
WAN. No, faith, I am serious: and because I will please you both,
Master Wild shall lie here, and you shall have leave to say you
do, which will please you as well.
JOLLY. Faith, and my part is some pleasure; else _I have loved,
enjoyed, and told_, is mistook.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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