Wit Without Money; A Comedy: The Works of Francis Beaumont and John FletcherFletcher, John
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Wit Without Money; A Comedy: The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
Fletcher, John
Comedy plays; English drama -- 17th century
_Val._ There's your Hangers, you may deserve a strong pair, and a
girdle will hold you without buckles; now I am perfect, and now the
proudest of your worships tell me I am beholding to you.
_Fount._ No such matter.
_Val._ And take heed how you pity me, 'tis dangerous, exceeding
dangerous, to prate of pity; which are the poorer? you are now puppies;
I without you, or you without my knowledge? be Rogues, and so be gone,
be Rogues and reply not, for if you do--
_Bell._ Only thus much, and then we'll leave you: the Air is far
sharper than our anger, Sir, and these you may reserve to rail in
warmer.
_Hare._ Pray have a care, Sir, of your health. [_Ex. Lovers._
_Val._ Yes Hog-hounds, more than you can have of your wits; 'tis
cold, and I am very sensible, extreamly cold too, yet I will not off,
till I have shamed these Rascals; I have indured as ill heats as
another, and every way if one could perish my body, you'll bear the
blame on't; I am colder here, not a poor penny left.
_Enter_ Uncle _with a Bag_.
_Unc._ 'Thas taken rarely, and now he's flead he will be ruled.
_Lan._ To him, tew him, abuse him, and nip him close.
_Unc._. Why how now, Cousin, sunning your self this weather?
_Val._ As you see, Sir, in a hot fit, I thank my friends.
_Unc._ But Cousin, where are your Cloaths man? those are no
inheritance, your scruple may compound with those I take it, this is no
fashion, Cousin.
_Val._ Not much followed, I must confess; yet Uncle I determine to
try what may be done next Term.
_Lance._ How came you thus, Sir, for you are strangely moved.
_Val._ Rags, toys and trifles, fit only for those fools that first
possessed 'em, a[n]d to those Knaves they are rendred. Freemen, Uncle,
ought to appear like innocents, old _Adam_, a fair Fig-leaf sufficient.
_Unc._ Take me with you, were these your friends, that clear'd you
thus?
_Val._ Hang friends, and even reckonings that make friends.
_Unc._ I thought till now, there had been no such living, no such
purchase, for all the rest is labour, as a list of honourable friends;
do such men as you, Sir, in lieu of all your understandings, travels,
and those great gifts of nature, aim at no more than casting off your
Coats? I am strangely cozen'd.
_Lance._ Should not the Town shake at the cold you feel now, and
all the Gentry suffer interdiction, no more sense spoken, all things
_Goth_ and _Vandal_, till you be summed again, Velvets and Scarlets,
anointed with gold Lace, and Cloth of silver turned into _Spanish_
Cottens for a penance, wits blasted with your Bulls and Taverns withered,
as though the Term lay at _St. Albans_?
_Val._ Gentlemen, you have spoken long and level, I beseech you
take breath a while and hear me; you imagine now, by the twirling of
your strings, that I am at the last, as also that my friends are flown
like Swallows after Summer.
_Unc._ Yes, Sir.
_Val._ And that I have no more in this poor Pannier, to raise me up
again above your rents, Uncle.
_Unc._ All this I do believe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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