Welcome, sweet-heart, and welcome here, Welcome, my [true] love, now to me. This is my love [and my darling dear], And that my husband [soon] must be. And, boy, when thou com'st home thou'lt see Thou art as welcome home as he. GENTLEMAN. Why, how now, sweet Nan! I hope you jest. 70 NAN.[675] No, by my troth, I love the fool the best: And, if you be jealous, God give you good-night! I fear you're a gelding, you caper so light. GENTLEMAN. I thought she had jested and meant but a fable, But now do I see she hath play'[d] with his bable.[676] I wish all my friends by me to take heed, That a fool come not near you when you mean to speed. FOOTNOTES: [670] First printed in _The Alleyn Papers_ (for the Shakespeare Society), p. 8, by Collier, who remarks:--"In the original MS. this dramatic dialogue in verse is written as prose, on one side of a sheet of paper, at the back of which, in a more modern hand, is the name 'Kitt Marlowe.' What connection, if any, he may have had with it, it is impossible to determine, but it was obviously worthy of preservation, as a curious stage-relic of an early date, and unlike anything else of the kind that has come down to us. In consequence of haste or ignorance on the part of the writer of the manuscript, it has been necessary to supply some portions, which are printed within brackets. There are also some obvious errors in the distribution of the dialogue, which it was not easy to correct. The probability is that, when performed, it was accompanied with music." [671] MS. "Jack." [672] MS. "W. Fre."--which Dyce supposed to be an abbreviation for _Wench's Friend_. [673] MS. "Frend." [674] MS. "Wen" (_i.e._ Wench). [675] MS. "Wen." [676] Bauble. APPENDICES. APPENDICES. No. I. THE ATHEIST'S TRAGEDIE.[677] All you that have got eares to heare, Now listen unto mee; Whilst I do tell a tale of feare; A true one it shall bee: A truer storie nere was told, As some alive can showe; 'Tis of a man in crime grown olde, Though age he did not know. This man did his owne God denie And Christ his onelie son, And did all punishment defie, So he his course might run. Both day and night would he blaspheme, And day and night would sweare, As if his life was but a dreame, Not ending in dispaire. A poet was he of repute, And wrote full many a playe, Now strutting in a silken sute, Then begging by the way. He had alsoe a player beene Upon the Curtaine-stage, But brake his leg in one lewd scene, When in his early age. He was a fellow to all those That did God's laws reject, Consorting with the Christians' foes And men of ill aspect. Ruffians and cutpurses hee Had ever at his backe, And led a life most foule and free, To his eternall wracke.