A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 105

TRIN. Welcome, old trusty Trincalo; good farmer, welcome! Give me thy hand; we must not part hereafter. Fie, what a trouble 'tis to be out of a man's self! If gentlemen have no pleasure but what I felt to-day, a team of horses shall not drag me out of my profession. There's nothing amongst them but borrowing, compounding for half their debts, and have their purse cut for the rest; cozened by wh.o.r.es, frighted with husbands, washed in wet hogsheads, cheated of their clothes, and falling in cellars for conclusion.

SCENE IX.

PANDOLFO _at the window_, TRINCALO.

PAN. O precious piece of villany! are you unchang'd?

How confident the rogue dares walk the streets!

TRIN. And then such quarrelling! never a suit I wore to-day but hath been soundly basted: only this faithful country-case 'scaped fist-free; and, be it spoken in a good hour, was never beaten yet, since it came from fulling.

PAN. Base, treacherous villain! [_Beats him._

TRIN. Is this the recompense of my day's work?

PAN. You marry me to patience! there's patience, And that you freeze not, there's warm patience, She's a good bed-fellow: have patience.

TRIN. You'll beat me out on't, sir. How have I wrong'd you?

PAN. So as deserves th' expression of my fury, With th' cruel'st tortures I can execute.

TRIN. You kill me, sir.

PAN. Have patience.

TRIN. Pray you, sir!

PAN. Seek not by humble penitence t' appease me: Nothing can satisfy.

TRIN. Farewell, humility; Now am I beaten sober. [_Takes away_ PANDOLFO's _staff_.

Shall age and weakness master my youth and strength?

Now speak your pleasure: what's my fault?

PAN. Dar'st deny Thy own act, done before so many witnesses, Suborn'd by others, and betray my confidence With such a stony impudence?

TRIN. I have been faithful In all you trusted me.

PAN. To them, not me.

O, what a proem, stuff'd with grave advice And learned counsel, you could show'r upon me Before the thunder of your deadly sentence!

And give away my mistress with a scoff!

TRIN. I give your mistress?

PAN. Didst not thou decree, Contrary t' our compact, against my marriage?

TRIN. Why, when was I your judge?

PAN. Just now here.

TRIN. See your error!

Then was I fast lock'd in Antonio's cellar: Where, making virtue of necessity, I drank stark drunk, and waking, found myself Cloth'd in this farmer's suit, as in the morning.

PAN. Didst not thou swear to enter Antonio's house, And give me Flavia for my wife, and after, Before my own face, gav'st her to my son?

TRIN. Ha, ha, ha!

[_Whilst_ TRINCALO _laughs and lets fall the staff_, PANDOLFO _recovers it, and beats him_.

PAN. Canst thou deny it?

TRIN. Ha, ha, ha!

Have you got Mistress Patience? Ha, ha, ha!

PAN. Is not this true?

TRIN. Ha, ha, ha!

PAN. Answer me.

TRIN. Ha, ha, ha wan!

PAN. Was't not thus?

TRIN. I answer: first, I never was transform'd, But gull'd, as you were, by th' astrologer, And those that called me Antonio. To prove This true, the gentleman you spoke with was Antonio-- The right Antonio, safely return'd from Barbary.

PAN. O me, what's this?

TRIN. Truth itself.

PAN. Was't not thou that gav'st the sentence?

TRIN. Believe me, no such matter: I ne'er was gentleman, nor otherwise Than what I am, unless 'twere when I was drunk.

PAN. How have I been deceiv'd! good Trincalo, Pardon me, I have wrong'd thee.

TRIN. Pardon you?

When you have beaten me to paste, _Good Trincalo, Pardon me!_

PAN. I am sorry for't; excuse me.

TRIN. I am sorry I can't[357] excuse you. But I pardon you.

PAN. Now tell me, where's the plate and cloth of silver, The gold and jewels, that the astrologer Committed to thy keeping?

TRIN. What plate, what jewels?

He gave me none. But, when he went to change me, After a thousand circles and ceremonies, He binds me fast upon a form, and blinds me With a thick table-napkin. Not long after Unbinds my head and feet, and gives me light; And then I plainly saw that I saw nothing: The parlour was clean swept of all was in't.

PAN. O me! O me!