A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 34

[103] [This name, given to one of the _roarers_, is a corruption of _pox_. We often meet with the form in the old plays.]

[104] The _Fortune_ Theatre [in Golden Lane] was built in 1599 by Edward Allen, the founder of Dulwich College, at an expense of 520, and in the Prologue of Middleton and Dekker's "Roaring Girl" it is called "a _vast_ theatre." It was eighty feet square, and was consumed by fire in 1621.

[105] A pottle was half a gallon.

[106] He means that he wishes he had _insured_ his return, as he would as willingly be at the Bermudas, or (as it was then called) "The Isle of Devils." In a note on "the still vexed Barmoothes" ("Tempest," act i. sc. 2), it is shown that _the Bermudas_ was a cant name for the privileged resort of such characters as Wh.o.r.ebang and his companions.

The notions entertained by our ancestors of the Bermudas is distinctly shown in the following extract from Middleton's "Anything for a Quiet Life," 1662, act v.; [Dyce's edit., iv. 499.] _Chamlet_ is troubled with a shrewish wife, and is determined to leave England and go somewhere else. He says--

"The place I speak of has been kept with thunder, With frightful lightnings' amazing noises; But now (the enchantment broke) 'tis the land of peace, Where hogs and tobacco yield fair increase...

Gentlemen, fare you well, I am for the Bermudas."

[107] "The _jack_, properly, is a coat of mail, but it here means a buff _jacket_ or _jerkin_ worn by soldiers or pretended soldiers."

[108] These words have reference, perhaps, to Middleton and Rowley's curious old comedy of manners, "A Faire Quarrel," 1617 and 1622. The second edition contains "new additions of Mr Chaugh, and Trimtram's _roaring_." These two persons, empty pretenders to courage, set up a sort of academy for instruction in the art and mystery of _roaring_ or bullying, and much of the piece is written in ridicule of it and its riotous professors. Wh.o.r.ebang calls these playmakers _observers_, as if suspecting that Welltried and Feesimple came among them for the purpose of making notes for a play. In Webster and Rowley's "Cure for a Cuckold," 1661, act iv. sc. 1, there is another allusion to the "Faire Quarrel," where Compa.s.s uses the words _Tweak_ and _Bronstrops_, adding, "I learnt that name in a play." Chaugh and Trimtram, in the "Faire Quarrel," undertake also to give lessons in the _cant_ and _slang_ of the time. In other respects, excepting as a picture of the manners of the day, that play possesses little to recommend it.

[109] In both the old copies this remark is erroneously given to Tearchaps.

[110] _Patch_ and _fool_ are synonymous in old writers. Feesimple alludes also to the patch on the face of Tearchaps.

[111] That is, his soul _lies in p.a.w.n_ for employing the oath.

[112] [The hero of an early heroic ballad so called. See Hazlitt, in _v_.]

ACT IV., SCENE 1.

_Enter_ WIDOW _undressed, a sword in her hand; and_ BOLD _in his s.h.i.+rt, as started from bed_.

WID. Uncivil man! if I should take thy life, It were not to be weigh'd with thy attempt.

Thou hast for ever lost me.

BOLD. Madam, why?

Can love beget loss? Do I covet you Unlawfully? Am I an unfit man To make a husband of? Send for a priest; First consummate the match, and then to bed Without more trouble.

WID. No, I will not do't.

BOLD. Why, you confess'd to me (as your gentlewoman)[113]

I was the man your heart did most affect; That you did doat upon my mind and body.

WID. So, by the sacred and inviolate knot Of marriage, I do; but will not wed thee.

BOLD. Why, yet enjoy me now. Consider, lady, That little but bless'd time I was in bed, Although I lay as by my sister's side, The world is apt to censure otherwise: So, 'tis necessity that we marry now.

WID. Pis.h.!.+ I regard not at a straw the world.

Fame from the tongues of men doth injury Oft'ner than justice; and as conscience Only makes guilty persons, not report, (For show we clear as springs unto the world, If our own knowledge do not make us so, That is no satisfaction to ourselves), So stand we ne'er so leprous to men's eye, It cannot hurt heart-known integrity.

You have trusted to that fond opinion, This is the way to have a widowhood, By getting to her bed.[114] Alas! young man, Shouldst thou thyself tell thy companions Thou hast dishonour'd me (as you men have tongues Forked and venom'd 'gainst our subject s.e.x); It should not move me, that know 'tis not so: Therefore depart. Truth be my virtuous s.h.i.+eld.

BOLD. Few widows would do thus.

WID. All modest would.

BOLD. To be in bed, and in possession Even of the mark I aim'd at, and go off Foil'd and disgrac'd! Come, come, you'll laugh at me Behind my back; publish I wanted spirit, And mock me to the ladies; call me child, Say you denied me but to try the heat And zeal of my affection toward you, Then clapp'd up with a rhyme; as for example--

_He coldly loves retires for one vain trial, For we are yielding when we make denial._

WID. Servant, I make no question, from this time You'll hold a more reverent opinion Of some that wear long coats; and 'tis my pride To a.s.sure you that there are amongst us good, And with this continency. If you go away, I'll be so far from thinking it defect, That I will hold you worthiest of men.

BOLD. 'Sheart! I am Tantalus: my long'd-for fruit Bobs at my lips, yet still it shrinks from me.

Have not I that, which men say never fails To o'ercome any, opportunity?[115]

Come, come; I am too cold in my a.s.sault.

By all the virtues that yet ever were In man or woman, I with reverence Do love thee, lady, but will be no fool To let occasion slip her foretop from me.

WID. You will fail this way too. Upon my knees I do desire thee to preserve thy virtues, And with my tears my honour: 'tis as bad To lose our worths to them, or to deceive Who have held worthy opinions of us, As to betray trust. All this I implore For thine own sake, not mine: as for myself, If thou be'st violent, by this stupid night And all the mischiefs her dark womb hath bred, I'll raise the house; I'll cry a rape.

BOLD. I hope You will not hang me: that were murder, lady, A greater sin than lying with me, sure.

WID. Come, flatter not yourself with argument.

I will exclaim: the law hangs you, not I; Or if I did, I had rather far confound The dearest body in the world to me, Than that that body should confound my soul.

BOLD. Your soul? alas! mistress, are you so fond To think her general destruction Can be procur'd by such a natural act, Which beasts are born to, and have privilege in?

Fie, fie! if this could be, far happier Are insensitive[116] souls in their creation Than man, the prince of creatures. Think you, heaven Regards such mortal deeds, or punisheth Those acts for which he hath ordained us?

WID. You argue like an atheist: man is never The prince of creatures, as you call him now, But in his reason; fail that, he is worse Than horse, or dog, or beast of wilderness; And 'tis that reason teacheth us to do Our actions unlike them: then, that which you Termed in them a privilege beyond us, The baseness of their being doth express, Compar'd to ours: horses, bulls and swine Do leap their dams; because man does not so, Shall we conclude his making[117] happiless?

BOLD. You put me down--yet will not put me down.

I am too gentle: some of you, I have heard, Love not these words, but force; to have it done, As they sing p.r.i.c.k-song, ev'n at the first sight.

WID. Go to: keep off; by heaven and earth, I'll call else!

BOLD. How, if n.o.body hear you?

WID. If they do not, I'll kill you with mine own hand; never stare: Or failing that, fall on this sword myself.

BOLD. O widow wonderful! if thou be'st not honest, Now G.o.d forgive my mother and my sisters.

Think but how finely, madam, undiscover'd For ever I[118] might live: all day your gentlewoman To do you service, but all night your man To do you service: newness of the trick, If nothing else, might stir ye.

WID. 'Tis a stale one, And was done in the Fleet ten years ago.

Will you begone? the door is open for you.

BOLD. Let me but tarry till the morning, madam, To send for clothes. Shall I go naked home?

WID. 'Tis best time now; it is but one o'clock, And you may go unseen: I swear, by heaven, I would spend all the night to sit and talk w' ye, If I durst trust you: I do love you so.

My blood forsakes my heart now you depart.