Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 07 of 10Fletcher, John
General
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 07 of 10
Fletcher, John
English drama
_Lur._ Come Boy.
Come happy child and let me hug thy excellence. [_Exit._
_Enter_ Wildbrain.
_Wild._ What thousand noises pass through all the rooms!
What cryes and hurries! sure the devil's drunk.
And tumbles through the house, my villanies
That never made me apprehend before
Danger or fear, a little now molest me;
My Cosens death sits heavy o'my conscience,
Would I had been half hang'd when I hammer'd it.
I aim'd at a living divorce, not a burial
That _Frank_ might have had some hope: hark still
In every room confusion, they are all mad,
Most certain all stark mad within the house,
A punishment inflicted for my lewdness,
That I might have the more sense of my mischief,
And run the more mad too, my Aunt is hang'd sure,
Sure hang'd her self, or else the fiend has fetch'd her.
I heard a hundred cryes, the Devil, the Devil,
Th[e]n roaring, and then tumbling, all the chambers
Are a meer Babel, or another Bedlam.
What should I think? I shake my self too:
Can the Devil find no time, but when we are merry,
Here's something comes.
_Enter_ Newlove.
_New._ Oh that I had some company,
I care not what they were, to ease my misery,
To comfort me.
_Wild._ Whose that?
_New._ Again? nay then receive--
_Wild._ Hold, hold I am no fury.
The Merchants wife.
_New._ Are ye a man? pray heaven you be.
_Wild._ I am.
_New._ Alass I have met Sir
The strangest things to night.
_Wild._ Why do you stare.
_New._ Pray comfort me, and put your candle out,
For if I see the spirit again I dye for't.
And hold me fast, for I shall shake to pieces else.
_Wild._ I'll warrant you, I'll hold ye,
Hold ye as tenderly; I have put the light out,
Retire into my Chamber, there I'll watch wi'ye,
I'll keep you from all frights.
_New._ And will ye keep me.
_Wild._ Keep you as secure Lady.
_New._ You must not wrong me then, the devil will have us.
_Wild._ No, no, I'll love you, then the devil will fear us.
For he fears all that love, pray come in quickly,
For this is the malicious house he walks in,
The hour he blasts sweet faces, lames the limbs in,
Depraves the senses, now within this half hour
He will have power to turn all Citizens wives
Into strange Creatures, Owles, and long-tail'd Monkeys,
Jayes, Pies, and Parrots, quickly, I smell his brimstone.
_New._ It comes agen I am gone shift for your self Sir. [_Exit._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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