Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 09 of 10Fletcher, John
General
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 09 of 10
Fletcher, John
English drama
_Tim._ Oh noble, Sir, your honest eyes perceive not
The dangers you are led to; shame upon her,
And what fell miseries the gods can think on
Shower down upon her wicked head, she has plotted
I know too well your death: would my poor life
Or thousand[s] such as mine is, might be offer'd
Like sacrifices up for your preserving,
What free oblations would she have to glut her,
But she is merciless, and bent to ruin;
If heaven and good men step not to your rescue,
And timely, very timely: Oh this Dukedom!
I weep, I weep for the poor Orphans i'th' Countrey
Left with but Friends or Parents.
_Leu._ Now _Ismenus_, what think you of this fellow?
This was a lying knave, a flatterer,
Does not this Love still shew him so.
_Ism._ This Love? this Halter: if he prove not yet
The cunning'st rankest rogue that ever Canted,
I'll never see man again: I know him to bring,
And can interpret every new face he makes;
Look how he wrings like a good stool for a tear:
Take heed, Children and Fools
First feel the smart, Then weep.
_Leu._ Away, away, such an unkind distrust,
Is worse than a dissembling, if it be one,
And sooner leads to mischief, I believe it,
And him an honest man: he could not carry
Under an evil cause, so true a sorrow.
_Ism._ Take heed, this is your Mothers scorpion,
That carries stings even in his tears,
Whose soul is a rank poison through: Touch
Not at him, if you do, you are gone, if you had twenty
Lives: I knew him for a Roguish boy, when
He would poison Dogs, and keep tame Toads,
He lay with his Mother, and infected her, and now
She begs i'th' Hospital, with a patch of Velvet,
Where her Nose stood: like the Queen of Spades.
And all her teeth in her purse, the Devil and this
Fellow are so near, 'Tis not yet known which is the eviler Angel.
_Leu._ Nay, then I see 'tis spite: Come hither friend.
Hast thou not heard the cause yet that incens'd my Mother
to my death, for I protest I feel none in my self?
_Tim._ Her Will Sir, and Ambition, as I think,
Are the provokers of it, as in Women,
Those two are ever powerful to destruction,
Beside a hate of your still growing virtues,
She being only wicked.
_Leu._ Heavens defend me as I am innocent,
And ever have been from all immoderate thoughts and
Actions, that carry such rewards along w[i]th 'em.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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