STRUMBO. How do you, masters, how do you? how have you scaped hanging this long time? Yfaith, I have scaped many a scouring this year; but I thank God I have past them all with a good couragio, couragio, & my wife & I are in great love and charity now, I thank my manhood & my strength. For I will tell you, masters: upon a certain day at night I came home, to say the very truth, with my stomach full of wine, and ran up into the chamber where my wife soberly sat rocking my little baby, leaning her back against the bed, singing lullaby. Now, when she saw me come with my nose foremost, thinking that I had been drunk, as I was indeed, she snatched up a faggot stick in her hand, and came furiously marching towards me with a big face, as though she would have eaten me at a bit; thundering out these words unto me: Thou drunken knave, where hast thou been so long? I shall teach thee how to beknight me an other time; and so she began to play knaves’ trumps. Now, although I trembled, fearing she would set her ten commandments in my face, I ran within her, and taking her lustily by the middle, I carried her valiantly to the bed, and flinging her upon it, flung myself upon her; and there I delighted her so with the sport I made, that ever after she would call me sweet husband, and so banished brawling for ever. And to see the good will of the wench! she bought with her portion a yard of land, and by that I am now become one of the richest men in our parish. Well, masters, what’s a clock? is it now breakfast time; you shall see what meat I have here for my breakfast. [_Let him sit down and pull out his vittails._] HUMBER. Was ever land so fruitless as this land? Was ever grove so graceless as this grove? Was ever soil so barren as this soil? Oh no: the land where hungry Fames dwelt May no wise equalize this cursed land; No, even the climate of the torrid zone Brings forth more fruit than this accursed grove. Ne’er came sweet Ceres, ne’er came Venus here; Triptolemus, the god of husbandmen, Ne’er sowed his seed in this foul wilderness. The hunger-bitten dogs of Acheron, Chased from the ninefold Puriflegiton, Have set their footsteps in this damned ground. The iron hearted Furies, armed with snakes, Scattered huge Hydras over all the plains, Which have consumed the grass, the herbs, the trees; Which have drunk up the flowing water springs. [_Strumbo, hearing his voice, shall start up and put meat in his pocket, seeking to hide himself._] Thou great commander of the starry sky, That guidest the life of every mortal wight, From the inclosures of the fleeting clouds Fain down some food, or else I faint and die: Pour down some drink, or else I faint and die. O Jupiter, hast thou sent Mercury In clownish shape to minister some food? Some meat! some meat! some meat! STRUMBO. O, alas, sir, ye are deceived. I am not Mercury; I am Strumbo.