English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600; Heywood, Thomas, approximately 1574-1641
Clown.
I’ll stand to’t, that in good hospitality there can be nothing
found that’s ill: he that’s a good house-keeper keeps a good table,
a good table is never without good stools, good stools seldom
without good guests, good guests never without good cheer, good
cheer cannot be without good stomachs, good stomachs without good
digestion, good digestion keeps men in good health; and therefore,
all good people that bear good minds, as you love goodness, be sure
to keep good meat and drink in your houses, and so you shall be
called good men, and nothing can come on’t but good, I warrant you.
[_Exit_.
SCENE II.--_A Room in_ Old Lionel’s _House_.
_Enter_ Reignald _and_ Robin, _two_ Serving-men.
Reignald.
Away, you Corydon!
Robin.
Shall I be beat out of my master’s house thus?
Reignald.
Thy master! we are lords amongst ourselves,
And here we live and reign. Two years already
Are past of our great empire, and we now
Write _anno tertio_.
Robin.
But the old man lives
That shortly will depose you.
Reignald.
I’ the meantime,
I, as the mighty lord and seneschal
Of this great house and castle, banish thee
The very smell o’ the kitchen; be it death
To appear before the dresser.
Robin.
And why so?
Reignald.
Because thou stink’st of garlick. Is that breath
Agreeing with our palace, where each room
Smells with musk, civet, and rich ambergris,
Aloes, cassia, aromatic gums,
Perfumes, and powders? One whose very garments
Scent of the fowls and stables! Oh, fie, fie!
What a base nasty rogue ’tis!
Robin.
Yet your fellow.
Reignald.
Then let us put a cart-horse in rich trappings,
And bring him to the tilt-yard.
Robin.
Prank it, do;
Waste, riot, and consume, misspend your hours
In drunken surfeits, lose your days in sleep,
And burn the nights in revels, drink and drab,
Keep Christmas all year long, and blot lean Lent
Out of the calendar; all that mass of wealth
Got by my master’s sweat and thrifty care,
Havoc in prodigal uses; make all fly,
Pour’t down your oily throats, or send it smoking
Out at the tops of chimneys. At his departure,
Was it the old man’s charge to have his windows
Glister all night with stars? his modest house
Turned to a common stews? his beds to pallets
Of lusts and prostitutions? his buttery hatch[3.06]
Now made more common than a tavern’s bar?
His stools, that welcomed none but civil guests,
Now only free for pandars, whores and bawds,
Strumpets, and such?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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