A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 15Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 15
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
If they should hear how their legacies [_Laughs aside._
Are to be paid, how they'd fall a-drumming on
His coffin!
Item, I leave to Master Pinguister,
A very fat man.--
+Ping.+ I am so.
+Mir.+ An infallible
Receipt to make him lean.
+Ping.+ So I hope the
Dead may do what the living cannot.
+Mir.+ I leave to a certain lean gentleman,
Whom I have seen in my cousin Mirida's
Company, a sure receipt to make him fat.
+Lean.+ I find he knew I was to marry his cousin.
+Mir.+ I desire my body to be carried to the
Grave by the six aforesaid gentlewomen.--
So, ladies, now you have heard his will,
Be pleased to take up the body: nurses,
You are to follow next; now which o' you
Will lead me?
+Ping.+ I will, madam.
+Lean.+ By my bones, but you shan't.
+Ping.+ By my fat, but I will, sir.
+Mir.+ Nay, gentlemen, pray, fall not out. Well, one
Of you lead me one half of the way. [_Exeunt._
+Ping.+ Agreed,
Sir, take you her hand first,
A very timely proposition, for my purge
Works again. Save me!
Whereabouts is the closet? [_Goes out, and comes in again._
What a loose must I run to overtake them
Now! else I shall not lead my mistress the last
Half-way. Deliver me from love and purges!
_Enter all again with a coffin; +Philidor+ and
+Mirida+ shut them into the vault._
+Phil.+ So, there let 'em converse with the dead a
While; I would rather have 'em there than above
Ground: here will I keep 'em till they have
All quitted me under their hands and seals.
+Mir.+ O, the sport that we shall have by-and-by!
Well, but I must go home a little, my
Father will miss me: where shall we meet
Again?
+Phil.+ Just here.
+Mir.+ I will not fail. [_Exeunt._
_Enter +Amarissa+ just arrived._
+Ama.+ I'm come too late, and yet too soon am here,
Since dear Zoranzo's death is now so near.
On the same block with him I'll lay my head,
That our two bodies may have but one bed.
Thus are our nuptial joys decreed by fate,
Our wedding and our burial bear one date.
Sure, I'm the first of maids that ever gave
Her body to her lover in a grave.
Alas! in cold embraces we must meet,
With icy kisses in a winding-sheet.
Yet though this life denies us time to love,
The other life will not so cruel prove;
Our souls so fast in lovers' knots we'll tie,
That when the headsman strikes, they both shall fly,
Twined in one another through the air,
And be at rest, whilst other souls despair.
_Enter +Jailor+._
This is the prison,
And here's the jailor, I believe. Pray, sir,
Do you belong unto the prison?
+Jailor.+ Belong!
Yes, I am the keeper of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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