Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 10 of 10 — John Shaqi
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 10 of 10Fletcher, John
General
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 10 of 10
Fletcher, John
English drama
_Duke._ Y'are well conceited of your selves to think
I chuse you out to bear me company
In such affairs and business of state:
For am not I a pattern for all Princes,
That break my soft sleep for my subjects good?
Am I not careful? very provident?
_Luc._ Your Grace is careful.
_Arri._ Very provident.
_Duke._ Nay, knew you how my serious working plots,
Concern the whole Estates of all my subjects,
I, and their lives; then _Lucio_ thou wouldst swear,
I were a loving Prince.
_Luc._ I think your Grace intends to walk the publick
streets disguis'd, to see the streets disorders.
_Duke._ It is not so.
_Arri._ You secretly will cross some other states, that do
conspire against you.
_Duke._ Weightier far:
You are my friends, and you shall have the cause;
I break my sleeps thus soon to see a wench.
_Luc._ Y'are wond'rous careful for your subjects good.
_Arri._ You are a very loving Prince indeed.
_Duke._ This care I take for them, when their dull eyes,
Are clos'd with heavy slumbers.
_Arri._ Then you rise to see your wenches?
_Luc._ What _Milan_ beauty hath the power, to charme her
Sovereign eyes, and break his sleeps?
_Duke._ Sister to Count _Valore_, she's a Maid
Would make a Prince forget his throne, and sta[t]e,
And lowly kneel to her: the general fate
Of all mortality, is hers to give;
As she disposeth, so we die and live.
_Luc._ My Lord, the day grows clear, the Court will rise.
_Duk._ We stay too long, is the _Umbranoes_ head as we commanded,
sent to the sad _Gondarino_, our General?
_Arr._ 'Tis sent.
_Duke._ But stay, where shines that light?
_Arri._ 'Tis in the chamber of _Lazarello_.
_Duke. Lazarillo?_ what is he?
_Arri._ A Courtier my Lord, and one that I wonder your Grace knows
not: for he hath followed your Court, and your last predecessors,
from place to place, any time this seven year[e], as faithfully as
your Spits and your Dripping-pans have done, and almost as greasily.
_Duke._ Oh we know him, as we have heard, he keeps a Kalender of
all the [famous] dishes of meat, that have been in the Court, ever
since our great Grandfathers time; and when he can thrust in at no
Table, he makes his meat of that.
_Lucio._ The very same my Lord.
_Duk[e]._ A Courtier call'st thou him?
Believe me _Lucio_, there be many such
About our Court, respected, as they think,
Even by our self; with thee I will be plain:
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