BIA. Oh, sir, have I forestall'd your honest market?
Found your close walks? you stand amazed now, do you?
I'faith (I am glad) I have smoked you yet at last;
What's your jewel, trow? In: come, let's see her;
Fetch forth your housewife, dame; if she be fairer
In any honest judgment than myself,
I'll be content with it: but she is change,
She feeds you fat; she soothes your appetite,
And you are well: your wife, an honest woman,
Is meat twice sod to you, sir; Oh, you treachour.
LOR. SE. She cannot counterfeit this palpably.
THO. Out on thee, more than strumpet's impudency,
Steal'st thou thus to thy haunts? and have I taken
Thy bawd and thee, and thy companion,
This hoary-headed letcher, this old goat,
Close at your villainy, and would'st thou 'scuse it,
With this stale harlot's jest, accusing me?
Oh, old incontinent, dost thou not shame,
When all thy powers in chastity are spent,
To have a mind so hot? and to entice
And feed the enticements of a lustful woman?
BIA. Out, I defy thee, I, dissembling wretch?
THO. Defy me, strumpet? ask thy pander here,
Can he deny it? or that wicked elder.
LOR. SE. Why, hear you, Signior?
THO. Tut, tut, never speak,
Thy guilty conscience will discover thee.
LOR. SE. What lunacy is this that haunts this man?
[ENTER GIU.]
GIU. Oh, sister, did you see my cloak?
BIA. Not I, I see none.
GIU. God's life, I have lost it then, saw you Hesperida?
THO. Hesperida? Is she not at home?
GIU. No, she is gone abroad, and nobody can tell me of it
at home.
[EXIT.]
THO. O heaven! abroad? what light! a harlot too!
Why? why? hark you, hath she, hath she not a brother?
A brother's house to keep, to look unto?
But she must fling abroad, my wife hath spoil'd her,
She takes right after her, she does, she does,
Well, you goody bawd and --
[ENTER COB.]
That make your husband such a hoddy-doddy;
And you, young apple squire, and old cuckold-maker,
I'll have you every one before the Doctor,
Nay, you shall answer it, I charge you go.
LOR. SE. Marry, with all my heart, I'll go willingly:
how have I wrong'd myself in coming here.
BIA. Go with thee? I'll go with thee to thy shame,
I warrant thee.
COB. Why, what's the matter? what's here to do?
THO. What, Cob, art thou here? oh, I am abused,
And in thy house, was never man so wrong'd.
COB. 'Slid, in my house? who wrong'd you in my house?
THO. Marry, young lust in old, and old in young here,
Thy wife's their bawd, here have I taken them.
COB. Do you hear? did I not charge you keep your doors shut
here, and do you let them lie open for all comers, do you
scratch?
[COB BEATS HIS WIFE.]
LOR. SE. Friend, have patience; if she have done wrong in
this, let her answer it afore the Magistrate.
COB. Ay, come, you shall go afore the Doctor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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