Imp. Fie, fie, fie: and[644] you meet me thus at half weapon, one must down.
Fris. She, for my life. [Aside.
Imp. Somebody shall pay for’t.
Fris. He, for my head. [Aside.
Imp. Do not therefore come over me so with cross blows: no, no, no, I shall be sick if my speech be stopt. By my virginity I swear,—and why may not I swear by that I have not, as well as poor musty soldiers do by their honour, brides at four-and-twenty, ha, ha, ha! by their maidenheads, citizens by their faith, and brokers as they hope to be saved?—by my virginity I swear, I dreamed that one brought me a goodly codshead, and in one of the eyes there stuck, methought, the greatest precious stone, the most sparkling diamond: O, fie, fie, fie, fie, fie, that diamonds should make women such fools!
[The cornets sound a lavolta, which the masquers are to dance: Camillo, Hippolito, and other gallants, every one, save Hippolito,[647] with a lady masqued, and zanies with torches,[648] enter suddenly: Curvetto offers to depart.
Imp. No, no, no, if you shrink from me, I will not love you: stay.
Cur. I am conjured, and will keep my circle.
Imp. Fie, fie, fie, by the neat tongue of eloquence, this measure is out of measure; ’tis too hot, too hot. Gallants, be not ashamed to shew your own faces. Ladies, unapparel your dear beauties. So, so, so, so: here is a banquet; sit, sit, sit. Signior Curvetto, thrust in among them. Soft music, there! do, do, do.
Cur. I will first salute the men, close with the women, and last sit.
Hip. But not sit last: a banquet, and have these suckets[649] here! O, I have a crew of angels[650] prisoners in my pocket, and none but a good bale[651] of dice can fetch them out.—Dice, ho!—Come, my little lecherous baboon; by Saint Mark, you shall venture your twenty crowns.
Cur. And have but one.
Hip. I swore first.
Hip. Come.
Cur. But in my t’other hose. [Exit.
Omnes. Curvetto!
Hip. Let him go: I knew what hook would choke him, and therefore baited that for him to nibble upon. An old comb-pecked rascal, that was beaten out a’ th’ cock-pit, when I could not stand a’ high lone[653] without I held by a thing, to come crowing among us! Hang him, lobster. Come, the same oath that your foreman took, take all, and sing.
Laz. Mars armipotent with his court of guard, give sharpness to my toledo! I am beleaguered. O Cupid, grant that my blushing prove not a linstock, and give fire too suddenly to the Roaring Meg[656] of my desires!—Most sanguine-cheeked ladies—
Hip. ’S foot, how now, Don Diego?[657] sanguine-cheeked? dost think their faces have been at cutler’s?[658] out, you roaring, tawney-faced rascal! ’Twere a good deed to beat my hilts about’s coxcomb, and then make him sanguine-cheeked too.
Cam. Nay, good Hippolito.
Imp. Fie, fie, fie, fie, fie; though I hate his company, I would not have my house to abuse his countenance; no, no, no, be not so contagious: I will send him hence with a flea in’s ear.
Hip. Do, or I’ll turn him into a flea, and make him skip under some of your petticoats.
Imp. Signior Lazarillo.
Laz. Most sweet face, you need not hang out your silken tongue as a flag of truce, for I will drop at your feet ere I draw blood in your chamber. Yet I shall hardly drink up this wrong: for your sake I will wipe it out for this time. I would deal with you in secret, so you had a void room, about most deep and serious matters.
Imp. I’ll send these hence.—Fie, fie, fie, I am so choked still with this man of gingerbread, and yet I can never be rid of him! but hark, Hippolito.
Hip. Good; draw the curtains, put out candles; and, girls, to bed.
Laz. Venus, give me suck from thine own most white and tender dugs, that I may batten in love. Dear instrument of many men’s delight, are all these women?
Imp. No, no, no, they are half men and half women.
Laz. You apprehend too fast: I mean by women, wives; for wives are no maids, nor are maids women. If those unbearded gallants keep the doors of their wedlock, those ladies spend their hours of pastime but ill, O most rich armful of beauty! But if you can bring all those females into one ring, into one private place, I will read a lecture of discipline to their most great and honourable ears, wherein I will teach them so to carry their white bodies, either before their husbands or before their lovers, that they shall never fear to have milk thrown in their faces, nor I wine in mine, when I come to sit upon them in courtesy.
Imp. That were excellent: I’ll have them all here at your pleasure.
Laz. I will shew them all the tricks and garbs of Spanish dames; I will study for apt and [e]legant phrase to tickle them with; and when my devise is ready, I will come. Will you inspire into your most divine spirits the most divine soul of tobacco?
Imp. No, no, no; fie, fie, fie, I should be choked up, if your pipe should kiss my underlip.
Laz. Henceforth, most deep stamp of feminine perfection, my pipe shall not be drawn before you but in secret.
Re-enter Hippolito and the rest of the Masquers, as before, dancing: Hippolito takes Imperia; and then exeunt all except Lazarillo.
Fris. The wooden picture you sent her hath set her on fire; and she desires you, as you pity the case of a poor desperate gentlewoman, to serve that Monsieur in at supper to her.
Hip. The Frenchman? Saint Denis, let her carve him up. Stay, here’s Camillo. Now, my fool in fashion, my sage idiot, up with these brims,[661] down with this devil, Melancholy! Are you decayed, concupiscentious innamorato? News, news; Imperia doats on Fontinelle.
Hip. Marry, this, sir. Here’s a yellow-hammer flew to me with thy water; and I cast it, and find that his mistress being given to this new falling sickness, will cure thee. The Frenchman, you see, has a soft marmalady heart, and shall no sooner feel Imperia’s liquorish desire to lick at him, but straight he’ll stick the brooch of her longing in it. Then, sir, may you, sir, come upon my sister, sir, with a fresh charge, sir; sa, sa, sa, sa! once giving back, and thrice coming forward; she yield, and the town of Brest[662] is taken.
Fris. I may be her Mercury, for my running of errands; but troth is, sir, I am Cerberus, for I am porter to hell.
Hip. Hark, swaggerer, there’s a little dapple-coloured rascal; ho, a bona-roba;[663] her name’s Imperia; a gentlewoman, by my faith, of an ancient house, and has goodly rents and comings in of her own; and this ape would fain have thee chained to her in the holy state. Sirrah, she’s fallen in love with thy picture; yes, faith. To her, woo her, and win her; leave my sister, and thy ransom’s paid; all’s paid, gentlemen: by th’ Lord, Imperia is as good a girl as any is in Venice.
Hip. After him, Frisco; enforce thy mistress’s passion. Thou shalt have access to him, to bring him love-tokens: if they prevail not, yet thou shalt still be in presence, be’t but to spite him. In, honest Frisco.
Hip. Come, wilt thou go laugh and lie down?[666] Now sure there be some rebels in thy belly, for thine eyes do nothing but watch and ward: thou’st not slept these three nights.
Hip. You scurvy tit,—’s foot, scurvy any thing! Do you hear, Susanna? you punk, if I geld not your musk-cat! I’ll do’t, by Jesu. Let’s go, Camillo.
True. Lady, Imperia the courtesan’s zany[670] hath brought you this letter from the poor gentleman in the deep dungeon, but would not stay till he had an answer.
ᚤMeet me at the end of the old chapel, next Saint Lorenzo’s monastery. Furnish your company with a friar, that there he may consummate our holy vows. Till midnight, farewell. Thine, Fontinelle.
Enter Frisco in Fontinelle’s apparel, and Fontinelle making himself ready[671] in Frisco’s: they enter suddenly and in fear.
Fris. Play you my part bravely; you must look like a slave: and you shall see I’ll counterfeit the Frenchman most knavishly. My mistress, for your sake, charged me on her blessing to fall to these shifts. I left her at cards: she’ll sit up till you come, because she’ll have you play a game at noddy.[672] You’ll to her presently?
Font. I will, upon mine honour.
Fris. I think she does not greatly care whether you fall to her upon your honour or no. So, all’s fit. Tell my lady that I go in a suit of durance for her sake. That’s your way, and this pit-hole’s mine. If I can ’scape hence, why so; if not, he that’s hanged is nearer to heaven by half a score steps than he that dies in a bed: and so adieu, monsieur. [Exit.
Imp. Is his old rotten aqua-vitæ bottle stopt up? is he gone? Fie, fie, fie, fie, he so smells of ale and onions, and rosa-solis, fie. Bolt the door, stop the keyhole, lest his breath peep in. Burn some perfume. I do not love to handle these dried stockfishes, that ask so much tawing:[678] fie, fie, fie.
First Lady. Nor I, trust me, lady; fie.
Imp. No, no, no, no. Stools and cushions; low stools, low stools; sit, sit, sit, round, ladies, round. [They seat themselves.] So, so, so, so; let your sweet beauties be spread to the full and most moving advantage; for we are fallen into his hands, who, they say, has an A B C for the sticking in of the least white pin in any part of the body.
Second Lady. Madam Imperia, what stuff is he like to draw out before us?
Imp. Nay, nay, nay, ’tis Greek to me, ’tis Greek to me: I never had remnant of his Spanish-leather learning. Here he comes: your ears may now fit themselves out of the whole piece.
Laz. I do first deliver to your most skreet[680] and long-fingered hands this head, or top of all the members, bare and uncombed, to shew how deeply I stand in reverence of your naked female beauties. Bright and unclipt angels,[681] if I were to make a discovery of any new-found land, as Virginia or so, to ladies and courtiers, my speech should hoist up sails fit to bear up such lofty and well-rigged vessels: but because I am to deal only with the civil chitty-matron,[682] I will not lay upon your blushing and delicate cheek[s] any other colours than such as will give lustre to your chitty[683] faces: in and to that purpose, our thesis is taken out of that most plentiful, but most precious book, entitled the Economical Cornucopia.
Most pure and refined plants of nature, I will not, as this distinction enticeth, take up the parts as they lie here in order; as first, to touch your wisdom, it were folly; next, your complaining, ’tis too common; thirdly, your keeping under, ’tis above my capachity;[684] and, lastly, the reins in your own hands, that is the a-per-se[685] of all, the very cream of all, and therefore how to skim off that only, only listen: a wife wise, no matter; apt wit, no matter; complaining, no matter; kept under, no great matter; but to rule the roast is the matter.
Third Lady. That ruling of the roast goes with me.
Fourth Lady. And me.
Fifth Lady. And me; I’ll have a cut of that roast.
Laz. Since, then, a woman’s only desire is to have the reins in her own white hand, your chief practice, the very same day that you are wived, must be to get hold of these reins; and being fully gotten, or wound about, yet to complain, with apt wit, as though you had them not.
Imp. How shall we know, signior, when we have them all or not?
Laz. I will furnish your capable understandings out of my poor Spanish store with the chief implements, and their appurtenances. Observe; it shall be your first and finest praise to sing the note of every new fashion at first sight, and, if you can, to stretch that note above ela.[686]
Omnes. Good.
Laz. The more you pinch your servants’ bellies for this, the smoother will the fashion sit on your back: but if your goodman like not this music, as being too full of crotchets, your only way is, to learn to play upon the virginals,[687] and so nail his ears to your sweet humours. If this be out of time too, yet your labour will quit the cost; for by this means your secret friend may have free and open access to you, under the colour of pricking you lessons. Now, because you may tie your husband’s love in most sweet knots, you shall never give over labouring till out of his purse you have digged a garden;[688] and that garden must stand a pretty distance from the chitty;[689] for by repairing thither, much good fruit may be grafted.
First Lady. Mark that.
Laz. Then, in the afternoon, when you address your sweet perfumed body to walk to this garden, there to gather a nosegay,—sops-in-wine,[690] cowslips, columbines, heart’s-ease, &c.,—the first principle to learn is, that you stick black patches for the rheum on your delicate blue temples, though there be no room for the rheum: black patches are comely in most women, and being well fastened, draw men’s eyes to shoot glances at you. Next, your ruff must stand in print;[691] and for that purpose, get poking-sticks[692] with fair and long handles, lest they scorch your lily sweating hands. Then your hat with a little brim, if you have a little face; if otherwise, otherwise. Besides, you must play the wag with your wanton fan; have your dog,—called Pearl, or Min, or Why ask you, or any other pretty name,—dance along by you; your embroidered muff before you, on your ravishing hands; but take heed who thrusts his fingers into your fur.
Second Lady. We’ll watch for that.
Laz. Once a quarter take state upon you, and be chick.[693] Being chick thus politicly, lie at your garden: your lip-sworn servant may there visit you as a physician; where[694] otherwise, if you languish at home, be sure your husband will look to your water. This chickness[695] may be increased, with giving out that you breed young bones; and to stick flesh upon those bones, it shall not be amiss if you long for peascods at ten groats the cod, and for cherries at a crown the cherry.
First Lady. O dear tutor!
Second Lady. Interrupt him not.
Laz. If, while this pleasing fit of chickness hold you, you be invited forth to supper, whimper and seem unwilling to go; but if your goodman, bestowing the sweet duck and kiss upon your moist lip, entreat, go. Marry, my counsel is, you eat little at table, because it may be said of you, you are no cormorant; yet at your coming home you may counterfeit a qualm, and so devour a posset. Your husband need not have his nose in that posset; no, trust your chambermaid only in this, and scarcely her; for you cannot be too careful into whose hands you commit your secrets.
Omnes. That’s certain.
Laz. If you have daughters capable, marry them by no means to chittizens,[696] but choose for them some smooth-chinned, curled-headed gentlemen;[697] for gentlemen will lift up your daughters to their own content; and to make these curled-pated gallants come off the more roundly, make your husband go to the herald for arms; and let it be your daily care that he have a fair and comely crest; yea, go all the ways yourselves you can to be made ladies, especially if, without danger to his person, or for love or money, you can procure your husband to be dubbed. The goddess of memory lock up these jewels, which I have bestowed upon you, in your sweet brains! Let these be the rules to square out your life by, though you ne’er go level, but tread you[r] shoes awry. If you can get these reins into your lily hand[s], you shall need no coaches, but may drive your husbands. Put it down; and, according to that wise saying of you, be saints in the church, angels in the street, devils in the kitchen, and apes in your bed: upon which leaving you tumbling, pardon me that thus abruptly and openly I take you all up.
First Lady. You have got so far into our books, signior, that you cannot ’scape without a pardon here, if you take us up never so snappishly.
Imp. Music there, to close our stomachs! How do you like him, madonna?