The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. IIBrown, Thomas
General
The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. II
Brown, Thomas
English wit and humor -- Early works to 1800; Erotic literature -- Early works to 1800; Latin literature -- Translations into English
_2 Ghost._ I am also an _Italian_; and observing a gentleman often
ogling my wife, which she did not a little encourage, I sent a _bravo_
to dispatch him; (for we _Italians_ do not love to look revenge in the
face ourselves) but the rogue of a _bravo_, won by my wife, and by a
great sum of money of my adversary’s, comes back to me, and cuts my
throat. And this, most noble signor, is most of our cases; our wives
have given us the casting throw for damnation.
_Lucif._ You, the rest of the malignant train, is this true, that your
wives have sent you hither?
_Omnes._ Yes, yes; we have all had wives.---- All the plagues of _Egypt_
let us undergo, but no wives, we most humbly beseech your most noble
devilship.
_Lucif._ Prayers are in vain; transgressions are to be punish’d by the
same way they are committed; nor must you be your own carvers here in
hell, gentlemen. Away with ’em, down into cuckolds-cave, ten thousand
fathom deeper than the whore-masters, and next the keeping-cullies, _and
let each have two wives to torment him_.
_Omnes._ O wives! wives!
[_They are removed off, and others brought on._
_Lucif._ Proceed to the next band.
Say, what were you in the world, and what dear sin brought you to this
place?
_Spanish Ghost._ Great prince of darkness, and lord of the greatest part
of mankind, may it please your catholick majesty, I was, by my worldly
state and condition, a _Spanish_ grandee, of the first magnitude, rich
as fortune and an indulgent prince well could make me, (for your
devilship must know, our king is but a sheep for us to fleece when we
please, which we do in all places, letting his soldiers and inferior
servants starve) happy, ’till too much success was my undoing; for by
that I gain’d the lady I lov’d, and so in one unhappy word was married.
’Tis tedious to repeat the injuries I receiv’d from the ungrateful fair,
who, after all, to make room for another, sent me away (like an
_Italian_ as she was) in all my sins, with a poisonous draught.
_Lucif._ Is the same your fate, you, the rest of this besotted crew,
that have met with just punishment from one part of yourselves, for
preferring your private grandeur before the service of your king and
honour of your country?
_Omnes._ Yes, yes; thirst of honour and wealth made us cheat the king;
and drew down the judgment of wedlock; and that brought us to this long
home and fiend of matrimony.
_Lucif._ Away with these, and drive ’em out of their snails pace.
[_A tatter’d Ghost comes forward._
_Ghost._ Just may be their punishment, most noble devil; but why should
I be condemn’d to wincing, who was so far from cheating the king, that I
could never get my due of him, and being a gentleman born, never did
any thing below my extraction, and have gone without a meal, many a
time, rather than degrade myself to get one? And tho’ I could arrive to
it no other ways, yet kept up my part still in stately walk, and my
wallet, tho’ I had no bread for either, or a shirt to my back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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