Margaret: Thomas, maids when they come to see the fair Count not to make a cope for dearth of hay; When we have turn’d our butter to the salt, And set our cheese safely upon the racks, Then let our fathers price it as they please. We country sluts of merry Fressingfield Come to buy needless naughts to make us fine, And look that young men should be frank this day, And court us with such fairings as they can. Phoebus is blithe, and frolic looks from heaven. * * * * * In a scene from the Elizabethan dramatist George Peele’s _The Old Wives Tale_, Zantippa is in search of a husband. She and her ugly sister Celanta go to a well for water. A Head, speaking from the well, promises her a love charm, ‘some cockell-bread’: Zantippa: Now for a husband, house, and home: God send a good one or none, I pray God! My father hath sent me to the well for the water of life, and tells me, if I give fair words, I shall have a husband. But here comes Celanta, my sweet sister. I’ll stand by and hear what she says. Enter Celanta, the foul wench, to the well for water with a pot in her hand. Celanta: My father hath sent me to the well for water, and he tells me, if I speak fair, I shall have a husband and none of the worst. Well, though I am black, I am sure all the world will not forsake me; and, as the old proverb is, though I am black, I am not the devil. Zantippa: Marry-gup with a murrain. I know wherefore thou speakest that: but go thy ways home as wise as thou camest, or I’ll set thee home with a wanion. Here she strikes her pitcher against her sister’s, and breaks them both, and then exit. Celanta: I think this be the curstest quean in the world. You see what she is, a little fair, but as proud as the devil, and the veriest vixen that lives upon God’s earth. Well, I’ll let her alone, and go home and get another pitcher, and, for all this, get me to the well for water. Exit. Enter two Furies out of the Conjurer’s cell and lay Huanebango by the Well of Life and then exeunt. Re-enter Zantippa with a pitcher to the well. Zantippa: Once again for a husband; and, in faith, Celanta, I have got the start of you; belike husbands grow by the well-side. Now my father says I must rule my tongue. Why, alas, what am I, then? A woman without a tongue is as a soldier without his weapon. But I’ll have my water, and be gone. Here she offers to dip her pitcher in, and a Head speaks in the well. Head: Gently dip, but not too deep, For fear you make the golden beard to weep. Fair maiden, white and red, Stroke me smooth, and comb my head, And thou shalt have some cockell-bread. * * * * *