Athens (Greece) -- Drama; Knights and knighthood -- Drama; Tragicomedy
2. FRIEND.
But there be new conditions, which you’l heare of
At better time.
IAILOR.
I hope they are good.
2. FRIEND.
They are honourable,
How good they’l prove, I know not.
[Enter Wooer.]
1. FRIEND.
T’will be knowne.
WOOER.
Alas, Sir, wher’s your Daughter?
IAILOR.
Why doe you aske?
WOOER.
O, Sir, when did you see her?
2. FRIEND.
How he lookes?
IAILOR.
This morning.
WOOER.
Was she well? was she in health, Sir?
When did she sleepe?
1. FRIEND.
These are strange Questions.
IAILOR.
I doe not thinke she was very well, for now
You make me minde her, but this very day
I ask’d her questions, and she answered me
So farre from what she was, so childishly,
So sillily, as if she were a foole,
An Inocent, and I was very angry.
But what of her, Sir?
WOOER.
Nothing but my pitty;
But you must know it, and as good by me
As by an other that lesse loves her—
IAILOR.
Well, Sir.
1. FRIEND.
Not right?
2. FRIEND.
Not well?
WOOER.
No, Sir, not well.
Tis too true, she is mad.
1. FRIEND.
It cannot be.
WOOER.
Beleeve, you’l finde it so.
IAILOR.
I halfe suspected
What you (have) told me: the gods comfort her:
Either this was her love to Palamon,
Or feare of my miscarrying on his scape,
Or both.
WOOER.
Tis likely.
IAILOR.
But why all this haste, Sir?
WOOER.
Ile tell you quickly. As I late was angling
In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace,
From the far shore, thicke set with reedes and Sedges,
As patiently I was attending sport,
I heard a voyce, a shrill one, and attentive
I gave my eare, when I might well perceive
T’was one that sung, and by the smallnesse of it
A boy or woman. I then left my angle
To his owne skill, came neere, but yet perceivd not
Who made the sound, the rushes and the Reeds
Had so encompast it: I laide me downe
And listned to the words she sung, for then,
Through a small glade cut by the Fisher men,
I saw it was your Daughter.
IAILOR.
Pray, goe on, Sir?
WOOER.
She sung much, but no sence; onely I heard her
Repeat this often: ‘Palamon is gone,
Is gone to’th wood to gather Mulberies;
Ile finde him out to morrow.’
1. FRIEND.
Pretty soule.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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