SIR SAMP. Sirrah, you’ll be hanged; I shall live to see you go up
Holborn Hill. Has he not a rogue’s face? Speak brother, you understand
physiognomy, a hanging look to me—of all my boys the most unlike me; he
has a damned Tyburn face, without the benefit o’ the clergy.
FORE. Hum—truly I don’t care to discourage a young man,—he has a violent
death in his face; but I hope no danger of hanging.
VAL. Sir, is this usage for your son?—For that old weather-headed fool,
I know how to laugh at him; but you, sir—
SIR SAMP. You, sir; and you, sir: why, who are you, sir?
VAL. Your son, sir.
SIR SAMP. That’s more than I know, sir, and I believe not.
VAL. Faith, I hope not.
SIR SAMP. What, would you have your mother a whore? Did you ever hear
the like? Did you ever hear the like? Body o’ me—
VAL. I would have an excuse for your barbarity and unnatural usage.
SIR SAMP. Excuse! Impudence! Why, sirrah, mayn’t I do what I please?
Are not you my slave? Did not I beget you? And might not I have chosen
whether I would have begot you or no? ’Oons, who are you? Whence came
you? What brought you into the world? How came you here, sir? Here, to
stand here, upon those two legs, and look erect with that audacious face,
ha? Answer me that! Did you come a volunteer into the world? Or did I,
with the lawful authority of a parent, press you to the service?
VAL. I know no more why I came than you do why you called me. But here
I am, and if you don’t mean to provide for me, I desire you would leave
me as you found me.
SIR SAMP. With all my heart: come, uncase, strip, and go naked out of
the world as you came into ’t.
VAL. My clothes are soon put off. But you must also divest me of
reason, thought, passions, inclinations, affections, appetites, senses,
and the huge train of attendants that you begot along with me.
SIR SAMP. Body o’ me, what a manyheaded monster have I propagated!
VAL. I am of myself, a plain, easy, simple creature, and to be kept at
small expense; but the retinue that you gave me are craving and
invincible; they are so many devils that you have raised, and will have
employment.
SIR SAMP. ’Oons, what had I to do to get children,—can’t a private man
be born without all these followers? Why, nothing under an emperor
should be born with appetites. Why, at this rate, a fellow that has but
a groat in his pocket may have a stomach capable of a ten shilling
ordinary.
JERE. Nay, that’s as clear as the sun; I’ll make oath of it before any
justice in Middlesex.
SIR SAMP. Here’s a cormorant too. ’S’heart this fellow was not born
with you? I did not beget him, did I?
JERE. By the provision that’s made for me, you might have begot me too.
Nay, and to tell your worship another truth, I believe you did, for I
find I was born with those same whoreson appetites too, that my master
speaks of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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