A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 36

PHILOMUSUS.

And canst thou sport at our calamities, And count'st us happy to 'scape prisonment?

Why, the wide world, that blesseth some with weal,[106]

Is to our chained thoughts a darksome jail.

STUDIOSO.

Nay, prythee, friend, these wonted terms forego; He doubles grief, that comments on a woe.

PHILOMUSUS.

Why do fond men term it impiety To send a wearisome, sad, grudging ghost Unto his home, his long-long, lasting home?

Or let them make our life less grievous be, Or suffer us to end our misery.

STUDIOSO.

O no; the sentinel his watch must keep, Until his lord do licence him to sleep.

PHILOMUSUS.

It's time to sleep within our hollow graves, And rest us in the darksome womb of earth: Dead things are grav'd, our[107] bodies are no less Pin'd and forlorn, like ghostly carcases.

STUDIOSO.

Not long this tap of loathed life can run; Soon cometh death, and then our woe is done: Meantime, good Philomusus, be content; Let's spend our days in hopeful merriment.

PHILOMUSUS.

Curs'd be our thoughts, whene'er they dream of hope, Bann'd be those haps, that henceforth flatter us, When mischief dogs us still and still for ay, From our first birth until our burying day: In our first gamesome age, our doting sires Carked and cared to have us lettered, Sent us to Cambridge, where our oil is spent; Us our kind college from the teat did tear,[108]

And forc'd us walk, before we weaned were.

From that time since wandered have we still In the wide world, urg'd by our forced will, Nor ever have we happy fortune tried; Then why should hope with our rent state abide?

Nay, let us run unto the baseful cave, Pight in the hollow ribs of craggy cliff, Where dreary owls do shriek the live-long night, Chasing away the birds of cheerful light; Where yawning ghosts do howl in ghastly wise, Where that dull, hollow-eyed, that staring sire, Yclep'd Despair, hath his sad mansion: Him let us find, and by his counsel we Will end our too much irked misery.

STUDIOSO.

To wail thy haps, argues a dastard mind.

PHILOMUSUS.

To bear[109] too long, argues an a.s.s's kind.

STUDIOSO.

Long since the worst chance of the die was cast.

PHILOMUSUS.

But why should that word _worst_ so long time last?

STUDIOSO.

Why dost thou now these sleepy plaints commence?

PHILOMUSUS.

Why should I e'er be dull'd with patience?

STUDIOSO.

Wise folk do bear with, struggling cannot mend.

PHILOMUSUS.

Good spirits must with thwarting fates contend.

STUDIOSO.

Some hope is left our fortunes to redress.

PHILOMUSUS.

No hope but this--e'er to be comfortless.

STUDIOSO.

Our life's remainder gentler hearts may find.

PHILOMUSUS.

The gentlest hearts to us will prove unkind.

ACTUS IV., SCAENA 1.

SIR RADERIC _and_ PRODIGO _at one corner of the stage_; RECORDER _and_ AMORETTO _at the other: two_ PAGES _scouring of tobacco-pipes_.

SIR RADERIC.

Master Prodigo, Master Recorder hath told you law--your land is forfeited; and for me not to take the forfeiture were to break the Queen's law. For mark you, it's law to take the forfeiture; therefore not to take[110] it is to break the Queen's law; and to break the Queen's law is not to be a good subject, and I mean to be a good subject. Besides, I am a justice of the peace; and, being justice of the peace, I must do justice--that is, law--that is, to take the forfeiture, especially having taken notice of it. Marry, Master Prodigo, here are a few s.h.i.+llings over and besides the bargain.

PRODIGO.

Pox on your s.h.i.+llings! 'Sblood, a while ago, before he had me in the lurch, who but my cousin Prodigo? You are welcome, my cousin Prodigo.

Take my cousin Prodigo's horse. A cup of wine for my cousin Prodigo.

Good faith, you shall sit here, good cousin Prodigo. A clean trencher for my cousin Prodigo. Have a special care of my cousin Prodigo's lodging. Now, Master Prodigo with a pox, and a few s.h.i.+llings for a vantage. A plague on your s.h.i.+llings! Pox on your s.h.i.+llings! If it were not for the sergeant, which dogs me at my heels, a plague on your s.h.i.+llings! pox on your s.h.i.+llings! pox on yourself and your s.h.i.+llings!

pox on your wors.h.i.+p! If I catch thee at Ostend--I dare not stay for the sergeant. [_Exit_.

SIR RADERIC'S PAGE.

Good faith, Master Prodigo is an excellent fellow. He takes the Gulan Ebullitio so excellently.

AMORETTO'S PAGE.

He is a good liberal gentleman: he hath bestowed an ounce of tobacco upon us; and, as long as it lasts, come cut and long tail, we'll spend it as liberally for his sake.

SIR RADERIC'S PAGE.

Come, fill the pipe quickly, while my master is in his melancholy humour; it's just the melancholy of a collier's horse.

AMORETTO'S PAGE.

If you cough, Jack, after your tobacco, for a punishment you shall kiss the pantofle.

SIR RADERIC.

It's a foul oversight, that a man of wors.h.i.+p cannot keep a wench in his house, but there must be muttering and surmising. It was the wisest saying that my father ever uttered, that a wife was the name of necessity, not of pleasure; for what do men marry for, but to stock their ground, and to have one to look to the linen, sit at the upper end of the table, and carve up a capon; one that can wear a hood like a hawk, and cover her foul face with a fan. But there's no pleasure always to be tied to a piece of mutton; sometimes a mess of stewed broth will do well, and an unlaced rabbit is best of all. Well, for mine own part, I have no great cause to complain, for I am well-provided of three bouncing wenches, that are mine own fee-simple; one of them I am presently to visit, if I can rid myself cleanly of this company. Let me see how the day goes [_he pulls his watch out_]. Precious coals! the time is at hand; I must meditate on an excuse to be gone.

RECORDER.

The which, I say, is grounded on the statute I spake of before, enacted in the reign of Henry VI.

AMORETTO.