_Ros._ What was thy thought, good servant?
_Bal._ Marry forsooth, how many strike of pease would
feed a hog fat against Christtide.
_Ros._ Paugh! [_she spits_] servant,[89] rub out my rheum, it
soils the presence.
_Cast._ By my wealthiest thought, you grace my shoe
with an unmeasured honour: I will preserve the sole of
it, as a most sacred relic for this service. 92
_Ros._ I'll spit in thy mouth, and thou wilt, to grace thee.
_Feli._ [_Aside._] O that the stomach of this queasy age
Digests, or brooks such raw unseasoned gobs,
And vomits not them forth! O! slavish sots!
Servant, quoth you? faugh! if a dog should crave
And beg her service, he should have it straight:
She'd give him favours too, to lick her feet,
Or fetch her fan, or some such drudgery: 100
A good dog's office, which these amorists
Triumph of: 'tis rare, well give her more ass,
More sot, as long as dropping of her nose
Is sworn rich pearl by such low slaves as those.
_Ros._ Flavia, attend me to attire me.
[_Exeunt_ ROSSALINE _and_ FLAVIA.
_Bal._ In sad good earnest, sir, you have touched the
very bare of naked truth; my silk stocking hath a good
gloss, and I thank my planets, my leg is not altogether
unpropitiously shaped. There's a word: unpropitiously?
I think I shall speak unpropitiously as well as any courtier
in Italy. 111
_Foro._ So help me your sweet bounty, you have the
most graceful presence, applausive elecuty, amazing volubility,
polish'd adornation, delicious affability.
_Feli._ Whoop: fut, how he tickles yon trout under the
gills! you shall see him take him by and by with groping
flattery.
_Foro._ That ever ravish'd the ear of wonder. By your
sweet self, than whom I know not a more exquisite, illustrate,
accomplished, pure, respected, adored, observed,
precious, real,[90] magnanimous, bounteous--if you have
an idle rich cast jerkin, or so, it shall not be cast away,
if--ha! here's a forehead, an eye, a head, a hair, that
would make a--: or if you have any spare pair of silver
spurs, I'll do you as much right in all kind offices--
_Feli._ [_Aside._] Of a kind parasite.
_Foro._ As any of my mean fortunes shall be able to.
_Bal._ As I am true Christian now, thou hast won the
spurs.
_Feli._ [_Aside._] For flattery. 130
O how I hate that same Egyptian louse,
A rotten maggot, that lives by stinking filth
Of tainted spirits! vengeance to such dogs,
That sprout by gnawing senseless carrion!
_Enter_ ALBERTO.
_Alb._ Gallants, saw you my mistress, the lady Rossaline?
_Foro._ My mistress, the lady Rossaline, left the presence
even now.
_Cast._ My mistress, the lady Rossaline, withdrew her
gracious aspect even now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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