_Abigal._ Alas poor Gentlewoman, to what a misery hath Age brought thee:
to what a scurvy Fortune! Thou that hast been a Companion for Noblemen,
and at the worst of those times for Gentlemen: now like a broken
Servingman, must beg for favour to those, that would have crawl'd like
Pilgrims to my Chamber but for an Apparition of me. You that be coming on,
make much of fifteen, and so till five and twenty: use your time with
reverence, that your profits may arise: it will not tarry with you, _Ecce
signum_: here was a face, but time that like a surfeit eats our youth,
plague of his iron teeth, and draw 'em for't, has been a little bolder
here than welcome: and now to say the truth, I am fit for no man. Old men
i'th' house of fifty, call me Granum; and when they are drunk, e'ne then,
when _Jone_ and my Lady are all one, not one will do me reason. My little
Levite hath forsaken me, his silver sound of Cittern quite abolish[t],
[h]is doleful _hymns_ under my Chamber window, digested into tedious
learning: well fool, you leapt a Haddock when you left him: he's a clean
man, and a good edifier, and twenty nobles is his state _de claro_,
besides his pigs in _posse_. To this good _Homilist_ I have been ever
stubborn, which God forgive me for, and mend my manners: and Love, if ever
thou hadst care of forty, of such a piece of lape ground, hear my prayer,
and fire his zeal so far forth that my faults in this renued impression of
my love may shew corrected to our gentle reader.
_Enter_ Roger.
See how negligently he passes by me: with what an Equipage Canonical, as
though he had broken the heart of _Bellarmine_, or added something to the
singing Brethren. 'Tis scorn, I know it, and deserve it, Mr. _Roger_.
_Rog._ Fair Gentlewoman, my name is _Roger_.
_Abig_. Then gentle _Roger_?
_Rog_. Ungentle _Abigal_.
_Abig_. Why M'r _Roger_ will you set your wit to a weak womans?
_Rog_. You are weak indeed: for so the Poet sings.
_Abig_. I do confess my weakness, sweet Sir _Roger_.
_Rog_. Good my Ladies Gentlewoman, or my good Ladies Gentlewoman (this
trope is lost to you now) leave your prating, you have a season of your
first mother in ye: and surely had the Devil been in love, he had been
abused too: go _Dalilah_, you make men fools, and wear Fig-breeches.
_Abi_. Well, well, hard hearted man; dilate upon the weak infirmities of
women: these are fit texts, but once there was a time, would I had never
seen those eyes, those eyes, those orient eyes.
_Rog_. I they were pearls once with you.
_Abi_. Saving your reverence Sir, so they are still.
_Rog_. Nay, nay, I do beseech you leave your cogging, what they are, they
are, they serve me without Spectacles I thank 'em.
_Abig_. O will you kill me?
_Rog_. I do not think I can,
Y'are like a Copy-hold with nine lives in't.
_Abig_. You were wont to bear a Christian fear about you:
For your own worships sake.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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