Thomas Otway: The Best Plays of the Old DramatistsOtway, Thomas
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Thomas Otway: The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists
Otway, Thomas
English drama -- 17th century; Otway, Thomas, 1652-1685
_Cour._ Why, then we will have a bottle, Sir Jolly.
_Sir Jol._ Will? we'll have dozens, and drink till we are wise,
and speak well of nobody; till we are lewder than midnight
whores, and out-rail disbanded officers.
_Beau._ Only one thing more, my noble knight, and then we are
entirely at thy disposal.
_Sir Jol._ Well, and what's that? What's the business?
_Beau._ This friend of mine here stands in need of thy
assistance; he's damnably in love, Sir Jolly.
_Sir Jol._ In love! is he so? In love! odds my life! Is she?
what's her name? where does she live? I warrant you I know her:
she's in my table-book, I'll warrant you: virgin, wife, or
widow? [_Pulls out a table-book._
_Cour._ In troth, Sir Jolly, that's something of a difficult
question; but, as virgins go now, she may pass for one of them.
_Sir Jol._ Virgin, very good: let me see; virgin, virgin,
virgin; oh, here are the virgins; truly, I meet with the
fewest of this sort of any. Well, and the first letter of her
name now? for a wager I guess her.
_Cour._ Then you must know, Sir Jolly, that I love my love with
an S.
_Sir Jol._ S, S, S, oh, here are the Esses; let me consider
now--Sappho?
_Cour._ No, sir.
_Sir Jol._ Selinda?
_Cour._ Neither.
_Sir Jol._ Sophronia?
_Cour._ You must guess again, I assure you.
_Sir Jol._ Sylvia?
_Cour._ Ay, ay, Sir Jolly, that's the fatal name; Sylvia the
fair, the witty, the ill-natured; do you know her, my friend?
_Sir Jol._ Know her! why, she is my daughter, and I have
adopted her these seven years. Sylvia! let me look. [_Reads._]
"Light brown hair, her face oval, and nose Roman, quick
sparkling eyes, plump, pregnant, ruby lips, with a mole on her
breast, and the perfect likeness of a heart-cherry on her left
knee." Ah, villain! ah, sly-cap! have I caught you? are you
there, i'faith? well, and what says she? Is she coming? do her
eyes betray her? does her heart beat, and her bubbies rise,
when you talk to her, ha?
_Beau._ Look you, Sir Jolly, all things considered, it may make
a shift to come to a marriage in time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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