Shr. Love, subaudi lust; a punk in this place subintelligitur. [Aside.
Lip. Boy, I have spied my saint.
Shr. Then down on your knees.
Shr. In your t’other hose?—She talked of a ladder of ropes: if she would let it down, for my life, he would hang himself in’t. [Aside.]—In your t’other hose? why, those hose are in lavender:[279] besides, they have never a codpiece; but, indeed, there needs no ivy where the wine is good: in your t’other hose?
Lip. O boy, I am abused, gulled, disgraced! my credit’s cracked.
Shr. You know that’s nothing new for a[280] courtier.
Lip. O, I shall run beside myself!
Shr. No, sir, that’s my office; I’ll run by your side.
Lip. My brain is out of temper! what shall I do?
Shr. Take her counsel, sir; get a cullis[281] to your capacity, a restorative to your reason, and a warming-pan to your wit: he comes, he comes!
Lip. Follow close, boy; let him not see us.
Gli. What, more flutterers[282] about my carrion? more battery to my walls? shall I never be rid of these petronel-flashes?[283] As for my friend Gerardine, the wind of my rage has blown him to discover countries; and let the sea purge his love away and him together,—I care not. Young wenches now are all o’ the hoigh: we that are guardians must respect more besides titles, gold lace, person, or parts; we must have lordships and manors elsewhere as well as in the man: wealth commands all; and wealth I’ll have, or else my minion shall lead apes in hell. I must after this gallant too: I’ll know his rendezvous, and what company he keeps. [Exit.
SCENE III.
Mis. P. Fie, fie, Club, go a’ t’other side the way, thou collowest[287] me and my ruff; thou wilt make me an unclean member i’ the congregation.
Club. If you be unclean, mistress, you may pure yourself; you have my master’s ware at your commandment: but what am I then, that does all the drudgery in your house?
Mis. P. Thou’rt born to’t: why, boy, I can shew thy indentures; thou givest no other milk: we know how to use all i’ their kind.
Club. You’re my better in bark and rine,[288] but in pith and substance I may compare with you: you’re above me in flesh, mistress, and there’s your boast; but in my t’other part we are all one before God.
Mis. P. All one with me? dost thou swear too? why then, up and ride!
Dry. Whither away, mistress Purge?
Mis. P. To the Family, master Dryfat, to our exercise.[289]
Dry. What, by night?
Mis. P. O Lord, ay, sir, with the candles out too: we fructify best i’ th’ dark: the glance of the eye is a great matter; it leads us to other objects besides the right.
Dry. Indeed I think we perform those functions best when we are not thrall to the fetters of the body.
Mis. P. The fetters of the body? what call you them?
Dry. The organs of the body, as some term them.
Mis. P. Organs? fie, fie, they have a most abominable squeaking sound in mine ears; they edify not a whit; I detest ’em: I hope my body has no organs.[290]
Dry. To speak more familiarly, mistress Purge, they are the senses, the sight, hearing, smelling, taste, and feeling.
Mis. P. Ay, marry—marry, said I? Lord, what a word’s that in my mouth!—you speak now, master Dryfat; but yet let me tell you where you err too: this feeling I will prove to be neither organ nor fetter; it is a thing—a sense did you call it?
Dry. Ay, a sense.
Mis. P. Why, then, a sense let it be,—I say it is that we cannot be without; for, as I take it, it is a part belonging to understanding: understanding, you know, lifteth up the mind from earth: if the mind be lift up, you know, the body goes with it: also it descends into the conscience, and there tickles us with our works and doings: so that we make singular use of feeling.
Dry. And not of the rest?
Mis. P. Not at that time; therefore we hold it not amiss to put out the candles, for the soul sees best i’ th’ dark.
Dry. You come to me now, mistress Purge.
Mis. P. Nay, I will come to you else, master Dryfat: these senses, as you term them, are of much efficacy in carnal mixtures; that is, when we crowd and thrust a man and a woman together.
Pur. What, so close at it? I thought this was one end of your exercise:[291] byrlady,[292] I think there is small profit in this. I’ll wink no more; for I am now tickled with a conceit that it is a scurvy thing to be a cuckold. [Aside.
Dry. I commend this zeal in you, mistress Purge; I desire much to be of your society.
Mis. P. Do you indeed? blessing on your heart! are you upright in your dealings?
Dry. Yes, I do love to stand to any thing I do, though I lose by it: in truth, I deal but too truly for this world. You shall hear how far I am entered in the right way already. First, I live in charity, and give small alms to such as be not of the right sect; I take under twenty i’ th’ hundred, nor no forfeiture of bonds unless the law tell my conscience I may do’t; I set no pot on a’ Sundays, but feed on cold meat drest a’ Saturdays; I keep no holydays nor fasts, but eat most flesh o’ Fridays of all days i’ the week; I do use to say inspired graces, able to starve a wicked man with length; I have Aminadabs and Abrahams to my godsons, and I chide them when they ask me blessing; and I do hate the red letter[293] more than I follow the written verity.
Pur. Here’s clergy![294] [Aside.
Mis. P. These are the rudiments indeed, master Dryfat.
Dry. Nay, I can tell you I am, or will be, of the right stamp.
Pur. A pox o’ your stamp! [Aside.
Mis. P. Then learn the word for your admittance, and you will be much made on by the congregation.
Dry. Ay, the word, good mistress Purge?
Mis. P. A Brother in the Family.
Dry. Enough, I have my lesson.
Pur. So have I mine. A Brother in the Family! I must be a Familist to-day: I’ll follow this gear[295] while ’tis on foot, i’faith. [Aside.
Mis. P. Then shore up your eyes, and lead the way to the goodliest people that ever turned up the white o’ th’ eye.—Give me my book, Club, put out thy link, and come behind us.
[Within]. Who’s there?
Dry. Two Brothers and a Sister in the Family.[296]
[Mistress Purge, Dryfat, and Club, enter the House: then Purge knocks at the door.
[Within]. Who’s there?
Pur. A Familiar Brother.
[Within]. Here’s no room for you nor your familiarity.
Pur. How? no room for me nor my familiarity? why, what’s the difference between a Familiar Brother and a Brother in the Family? O, I know! I made ellipsis of in in this place, where it should have been expressed, so that the want of in put me clean out; or, let me see,—may it not be some mystery drawn from arithmetic? for my life, these Familists love no substraction, take nothing away, but put in and add as much as you will; and after addition follows multiplication of a most Pharasit-hypocritical crew. Well, for my part I like not this Family, nor, indeed, some kind of private lecturing that women use. Look too’t, you that have such gadders to your wives! self-willed they are as children, and, i’faith, capable of not much more than they, peevish[297] by custom, naturally fools. I remember a pretty wooden sentence in a preamble to an exercise,[298] where the reader prayed that men of his coat might grow up like cedars to make good wainscot in the House of Sincerity: would not this wainscot phrase be writ in brass, to publish him that spake it for an animal? Why, such wooden pellets out of earthen trunks[299] do strike these females into admiration, hit[300] ’em home; sometimes, perhaps, in at one ear and out at t’other, and then they depart, in opinion wiser than their neighbours, fraught with matter able to take down and mortify their husbands. Well, I’ll home now, and bring the true word next time. I shall expect my wife anon, red-hot with zeal, and big with melting tears; and this night do I expect, as her manner is, she will weep me a whole chamber-pot full. Loquor lapides? do I cast pills abroad? ’Tis no matter what I say; I talk like a ’pothecary, as I am: I have only purged myself of a little choler and passion, and am now armed with a patient resolution. But how? to put my horns in my pocket? no:
SCENE IV.
Lip. Fortune, devil’s turd i’ thy teeth! I’ll turn no more o’ thy wheel: art is above thy might. What though my project with mistress Maria failed? more ways to the wood than one; there’s variety in love. It is believed I am out of town; my door is open: the hour is at hand; all things squared by the doctor’s rule; and now I look for the spirit to bring me warm comfort to clothe my nakedness, and that is mistress Purge, the cordial of a Familist; and come quickly, good spirit, or else my teeth will chatter for thee. [Scene shuts.
SCENE V.[301]
ᚨGud. O the naked pastimes of love, the scourge of dulness, the purifier of uncleanness, and the hot-house of humanity! I have taken physic of master Purge any time this twelvemonths to purge my humour upon’s wife, and I have ever found her so fugitive, from exercise[302] to exercise, and from Family to Family, that I could never yet open the close-stool of my mind to her; so that I may well say with Ovid, Hei mihi,[303] quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis! Now am I driven to prove the violent virtue of conjuration: if it hit, and that I yerk my Familist out of the spirit, I’ll hang up my scourge-stick for a trophy, and emparadize my thoughts: though the doctor go to the devil, ’tis no matter. Ha, let me see: Lipsalve’s door open, and himself out of town? Excellent doctor, soothsaying doctor, oraculous doctor!
SCENE VI.
Gli. I have taken up this standing to see my gallants play at barriers[304] with scourge-sticks, for the honour of my punk:
and in good time I see my brave spirits shining in bright armour, nakedly burning in the hell-fire of lechery, and ready for the hot encounter: sound trumpets, the combatants are mounted! [Aside.
Gud. The apparition! mistress Purge peers through him; I see her.
Lip. The spirit appears! but he might have come sooner: I am numbed with cold, a shivering ague hath taken away my courage.
Gli. They are afraid one of another: look, how they tremble! the flesh and the devil strengthen ’em! ha, ha, ha! [Aside.
Gud. Has ’a no cloven feet? what a laxative fever shakes me!
Lip. Will ’a not carry me with him to hell? well, I must venture.—Clogmathos.
Gud. My cue.—Clogmathathos.
Lip. My cue.—Garrazin.
Gud. Garragas.
Lip. Garrazinos.
Gud. Ton tetuphon.
Lip. Tes tetuphes.
Both. With a whirly twinos.
Lip. Hold,[305] hold, hold!
Gud. Gogs nowns, gogs blood!
Lip. A pox, a plague, the devil take you!
Gud. Truce, truce, I smart, I smart.
Gli. Ha, ha, ha! O, for one of the hoops of my Cornelius’ tub![306] I must needs be gone, I shall burst myself with laughing else.
Gud. What art thou? with the name of Jove I conjure thee!
Lip. With any name, saving the whip; I’ll no more of that conjuration, a plague on’t!
Gud. Speak, art not a spirit in the likeness of my friend Lipsalve, that should transform thyself to mistress Purge?
Lip. How, a spirit? I hope spirits have no flesh and blood; and I am sure thou hast drawn blood out of my flesh with the spirit of thy whip.
Gud. Then shall we prove to be honest gulls, and the doctor an arrant knave.
Lip. A plague upon him for a Glister! he has given our loves a suppositor[307] with a recumbentibus. I’ll tell thee, sirrah,——
Gud. Tell not me, let me prevent thee; the wind shall not take the breath of our gross abuse: we feel the gullery, therefore let us swear by our naked truths, and by the hilts of these our blades, our flesh-tamers, to be revenged upon that paraperopandentical doctor, that pocky doctor.
Lip. Agreed: we’ll cuckold him, that he shall not be able to put his head in at’s doors; and make his precise, puritanical, and peculiar punk, his ’pothecary’s drug there, a known cockatrice[308] to the world.
Gud. If report catch this knavery, we have lost our reputations for ever: wherefore let’s be secret.
SCENE VII.
ACT IV. SCENE I.
Gud. Come, boys, our clothes,[315] boys: and what is the most current news, Periwinkle?
Per. Faith, sir, fortune hath favoured us with no news but what the pedlar brought from Norfolk.
Lip. Is there nothing stirring at court, Shrimp?
Shr. Faith, there is, sir, but nothing new.
Lip. Good wag, faith! thou smellest somewhat of a courtier, though thy mother was a citizen’s wife.—Off with that filthy great band, nay, quick; on with your robe of sanctity, nay, suddenly, man.
Gud. And why must we shift ourselves into this demure habit, if impossible to be of the Family and keep our own fashion?
Lip. Tut, man, the name of a gallant is more hateful to them than the sight of a corner-cap. Hadst thou heard the protestations the wife of a bellows-mender made but yesternight against gallants, thou hadst for ever abjured crimson breeches. She swore that all gallants were persons inferior to bellows-menders, for the trade of bellows-making was very aerial and high; and what were men and women but bellows, for they take wind in at one place and do evaporate at another;—evaporate was her very phrase.
Gud. Methinks, her phrase flew with somewhat too strong a vapour.
Lip. Nay, she proves farther, that all men receive their being chiefly from bellows, without which the fire burns not; without fire the pot seethes not; the pot not seething, powdered beef is not to be eaten; of which, she then averred our nation was a great devourer, and without which they could neither fight for their country abroad, nor get children at home; for, said she, powdered beef is a great joiner of nerves together.
Gud. What answer madest thou?
Lip. Marry, that I thought a bawd was a greater joiner of nerves together than powdered beef: with that she protested that a bawd was an instrument of the devil, and as she had proved that bellows-makers were of God’s trade, so bawds were of the devil’s trade; for (and thereupon she blew her nose) the devil and bawds did both live by the sins of the people.
Gud. No more: mistress Purge is at hand.
Lip. Vanish, boys, away. [Exeunt Shrimp and Periwinkle.]— Make haste: before Jove, she’ll be with us ere we can be provided for her. [They retire.
Mis. P. Advance your link, Club. At what time wert thou bound, Club? at Guttide,[316] Hollantide,[317] or Candletide?
Club. I was bound, indeed, about midsummer.
Mis. P. And when hath thy ’prenticeship end? at Michaeltide next?
Club. So I take it.
Mis. P. They say, Club, you fall very heavy on such you love not: you never learnt that of me.
Club. Indeed, mistress, I must confess my falling is rustic, gross, and butcher-like: marry, yours is a pretty, foolish, light, courtlike[318] falling: yet, believe me, my master smells somewhat too gross of the purgation; he wants tutoring.
Mis. P. And why, I pray?
Club. My master being set last night in his shop, comes master doctor Glister, as his manner is, squirting in suddenly; and after some conference, tells my master that, by his own knowledge, you were young with child: to which my master replied, Why, master doctor, will you put me to more charges yet?
Mis. P. Thou art a fool: in that my husband spake as wisely as if the master of his company had spoke. He knows doctors have receipts for women, which make[319] them most apt to conceive; and he promising ’a had ministered the same lately to me, thereupon spake it. Lead on with your link.
Lip. Art ready?
Gud. Ready.
Lip. Then speak pitifully, look scurvily, and dissemble cunningly, and we shall quickly prove two of the Fraternity. [Advancing with Gudgeon.]—Benediction and sanctity, love and charity fall on mistress Purge, sister of the Family!
Mis. P. And what, I pray, be you two?
Lip.[320] Two newly converted from the rags of Christianity to become good members in the house of the Family.
Mis. P. Who, I pray, converted you?
Gud. Master[321] Dryfat, the merchant.
Mis. P. And from what sins hath he converted you?
Lip. From two very notorious crimes; the first was from eating fish on Fridays, and the second from speaking reverently of the clergy: but ’a resolved[322] us your talent in edifying young men went far beyond his.
Mis. P. A talent I have therein, I must confess, nor am I very nice[323] at fit times to shew it: for your better instructions, therefore, you must never hereafter frequent taverns nor tap-houses, no masques nor mummeries, no pastimes nor playhouses.
Gud. Must we have no recreation?
Mis. P. Yes, on the days which profane lips call holydays, you may take your spaniel and spend some hours at the ducking-pond.
Lip. What are we bound unto during the time we remain in the Family?
Mis. P. During the light of the candle you are to be very attentive; which being extinguished, how to behave yourselves I will deliver in private.