Love for such a cherry lip
Would be glad to pawn his arrows;
Venus here to take a sip
Would sell her doves and team of sparrows.
But they shall not so;
Hey nonny, nonny no!
None but I this lip must owe;[764]
Hey nonny, nonny no!

Font. Your voice does teach the music.

Imp. No, no, no.

Font. Again, dear love.

Imp. Hey nonny, nonny no!

Did Jove see this wanton eye,
Ganymede must wait no longer;
Did Phœbe here one night lie,[765]
Would change her face and look much younger.
But they shall not so;
Hey nonny, nonny no!
None but I this lip must owe;
Hey nonny, nonny no!
Enter Frisco, Trivia, and Simperina, running.

Fris. O madonna!

Triv. Mistress!

Sim. Madonna!

Fris. Case up this gentleman: there’s rapping at door; and one, in a small voice, says there’s Camillo and Hippolito.

Sim. And they will come in.

Font. Upon their deaths they shall, for they seek mine.

Imp. No, no, no: lock the doors fast; Trivia, Simperina, stir.

Triv. and Sim. Alas!

Font. Come they in shape of devils, this angel by, I’m[766] arm’d; let them come in; ud’s foot, they die.

Imp. Fie, fie, fie; I will not have thy white body——

Viol. [within] What ho, madonna! [Knocking within.

Imp. O hark! Not hurt for the Rialto! go, go, go, put up;[767] by my virginity, you shall put up.

Viol. [within] Here are Camillo and Hippolito.

Imp. Into that little room; you are there as safe as in France or the Low Countries.

Font. O God! [Exit.

Imp. So, so, so; let them enter. Trivia, Simperina, smooth my gown, tread down the rushes;[768] let them enter; do, do, do. [Exit Frisco.]—No words, pretty darling.—La, la, la, hey nonny, nonny no! [Singing.

Re-enter Frisco with Violetta.

Fris. Are two men transformed into one woman?

Imp. How now? what motion’s this?[769]

Viol. By your leave, sweet beauty, pardon my excuse, which, under the mask of Camillo’s and my brother’s names, sought entrance into this house. Good sweetness, have you not a property here improper to your house, my husband?

Imp. Hah! your husband here?

Viol. Nay, be as you seem to be, white dove, without gall.

Imp. Gall? your husband? ha, ha, ha! by my ventoy,[770] yellow[771] lady, you take your mark improper; no, no, no, my sugar-candy mistress, your goodman is not here, I assure you: here? ha, ha!

Triv. and Sim. Here?

Fris. Much husbands here![772]

Viol. Do not mock me, fairest Venetian; come, I know he’s here. Good faith, I do not blame him; for your beauty gilds[773] over his error. Troth, I am right glad that you, my countrywoman, have received the pawn of my affections: you cannot be hard-hearted, loving him; nor hate me, for I love him too. Since we both love him, let us not leave him, till we have called home the ill husbandry of a sweet straggler. Prithee, good wench, use him well.

Imp. So, so, so!

Viol. If he deserve not to be used well (as I’d be loath he should deserve it), I’ll engage myself, dear beauty, to thine honest heart: give me leave to love him, and I’ll give him a kind of leave to love thee. I know he hears me: I prithee, try mine eyes if they know him, that have almost drowned themselves in their own salt water, because they cannot see him. In troth, I’ll not chide him: if I speak words rougher than soft kisses, my penance shall be to see him kiss thee, yet to hold my peace.

Fris. And that’s torment enough: alas, poor wench!

Sim. She’s an ass, by the crown of my maidenhead: I’d scratch her eyes out, if my man[774] stood in her tables.

Viol. Good partner, lodge me in thy private bed,
Where, in supposed folly, he may end
Determin’d sin. Thou smil’st: I know thou wilt.
What looseness may term dotage, truly read,
Is love ripe-gather’d, not soon withered.

Imp. Good troth, pretty wedlock, thou makest my little eyes smart with washing themselves in brine. I keep your cock from his own roost, and mar such a sweet face, and wipe off that dainty red, and make Cupid toll the bell for your love-sick heart? no, no, no; if he were Jove’s own ingle,[775] Ganymede: fie, fie, fie, I’ll none. Your chamber-fellow is within: thou shalt enjoy my bed and thine own pleasure this night.—Simperina, conduct in this lady.—Frisco, silence. Ha, ha, ha! I am sorry to see a woman so tame a fool. Come, come, come.

Viol. Star of Venetian beauty, thanks.—O, who
Can bear this wrong, and be a woman too? [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

A Street; before Imperia’s House.

Enter, on one side, Camillo, Hippolito, Virgilio, Asorino, Baptista, Bentivoglio, Doyt, and Dandyprat; on the other, the Duke and Gentlemen, and Blurt and his Watch with torches.

Omnes.[776] We are dishonour’d; give us way; he dies,
He dies——
Duke. I charge you, by your duties to
The state, and love to gentry, sheathe your weapons.

Blurt. Stand: I charge you, put up your naked weapons, and we’ll put up our rusty bills.[777]

Cam. Up to the hilts we will in his French body:
My lord, we charge you, by the ravish’d honour
Of an Italian lady, by our wrongs,
By that eternal blot, which, if this slave
Pass free without revenge, like leprosy
Will run o’er[778] all the body of our fames;
Give open way to our just wrath, lest, barr’d——
Duke. Gentlemen——
Cam. Breaking the bonds of honour and of duty,
We cut a passage through you with our swords.
Omnes. He that withstands us, run him through.

Blurt. I charge you, i’ th’ duke’s name, before his own face, to keep the peace.

Cam. Keep thou the peace, that hast a peasant’s heart.
Watch. Peasant?
Cam. Our peace must have her cheeks painted with blood.
Omnes. Away through——

Blurt. Sweet gentlemen, though you have called the duke’s own ghost peasant, for I walk for him i’ th’ night—Kilderkin and Piss-breech hold out—yet hear me, dear bloods. The duke here, for fault of a better, and myself—Cuckoo, fly not hence—for fault of a better, are to lay you by the heels, if you go thus with fire and sword; for the duke is the head, and I, Blurt, am the purtenance.—Woodcock, keep by my side.—Now, sir[s]——

Omnes. A plague upon this Woodcock! kill the watch.
Duke. Now, in the name of manhood, I conjure ye,
Appear in your true shapes, Italians;
You kill your honours more in this revenge
Than in his murder. Stay, stand; here’s the house.

Blurt. Right, sir, this is the whore-house; here he calls and sets in his staff.

Duke. Sheathe all your weapons, worthy gentlemen;
And by my life I swear, if Fontinelle
Have stain’d the honour of your sister’s bed,
The fact being death, I’ll pay you his proud head.
Cam. Arrest him then before our eyes; and see,
Our fury sleeps.
Duke. This honest officer——
Blurt. Blurt, sir——
Duke. Shall fetch him forth.—Go, sirrah, in our name
Attach the French lord.
Blurt. Garlic, and the rest, follow strongly.
[Exit with Watch.
Duke. O what a scandal were it to a state,
To have a stranger, and a prisoner,
Murder’d by such a troop! Besides, through Venice
Are numbers of his countrymen dispers’d,
Whose rage meeting with yours, none can prevent
The mischief of a bloody consequent.
Re-enter Blurt and Watch, holding Fontinelle and his weapons.

Blurt. The duke is within an inch of your nose, and therefore I dare play with it, if you put not up; deliver, I advise you.

Font. Yield up my weapons, and my foe[s] so nigh!
Myself and weapons shall together yield:
Come any one, come all.
Omnes. Kill, kill the Frenchman! kill him!
Duke. Be satisfied, my noble countrymen:
I’ll trust you with his life, so you will pawn
The faiths of gentlemen, no desperate hand
Shall rob him of it; otherwise, he runs
Upon this dangerous point, that dares appose[779]
His rage ’gainst our authority.—French lord,
Yield up this strength; our word shall be your guard.
Font. Who defies death, needs none; he’s well prepar’d.
Duke. My honest fellow, with a good defence,
Enter again; fetch out the courtesan,
And all that are within.

Blurt. I’ll tickle her: it shall ne’er be said that a brown bill[780] looked pale. [Exit with Watch.

Cam. Frenchman, thou art indebted to our duke.
Font. For what?
Cam. Thy life; for, but for him, thy soul
Had long ere this hung trembling in the air,
Being frighted from thy bosom with our swords.
Font. I do not thank your duke; yet, if you will,
Turn bloody executioners: who dies
For so bright beauty ’s a bright sacrifice.
Duke. The beauty you adore so is profane;
The breach of wedlock, by our law, is death.
Font. Law, give me law.
Duke. With all severity.
Font. In my love’s eyes immortal joys do dwell;
She is my heaven; she from me, I’m[781] in hell:
Therefore your law, your law.
Duke. Make way, she comes.
Re-enter Blurt leading Imperia, the rest of the Watch with Violetta masqued.

Imp. Fie, fie, fie.

Blurt. Your fie, fie, fie, nor your foh, foh, foh, cannot serve your turn; you must now bear it off with head and shoulders.

Duke. Now fetch Curvetto and the Spaniard hither;
Their punishments shall lie under one doom.
What is she masqu’d?
Blurt. A punk too.—Follow, fellows: Slubber, afore.
[Exit with Watch.
Viol. She that is masqu’d is leader of this masque.
What’s here? bows, bills, and guns! Noble Camillo,
[Unmasquing.
I’m sure you’re lord of this misrule:[782] I pray,
For whose sake do you make this swaggering fray?
Cam. For yours, and for our[783] own; we come resolv’d
To murder him that poisons your chaste bed,
To take revenge on you for your false heart;
And, wanton dame, our wrath here must not sleep;
Your sin being deep’st, your share shall be most deep.
Viol. With pardon of your grace, myself to you all,
At your own weapons, thus do answer all.
For paying away my heart, that was my own;
Fight not to win that, in good troth, ’tis gone.
For my dear love’s abusing my chaste bed,
And her[784] sweet theft, alack, you are misled!
This was a plot of mine, only to try
Your love’s strange temper; sooth, I do not lie.
My Fontinelle ne’er dallied in her arms;
She never bound his heart with amorous charms:
My Fontinelle ne’er loath’d my sweet embrace;
She never drew love’s picture by his face:
When he from her white hand would strive to go,
She never cried, fie, fie, nor no, no, no.
With prayers and bribes we hir’d her, both to lie
Under that roof: for this must my love die?
Who dare be so hard-hearted? Look you, we kiss,
And if he loathe his Violet,[785] judge by this.
[Kissing him.
Font. O sweetest Violet! I blush——
Viol. Good figure,
Wear still that maiden blush, but still be mine.
Font. I seal myself thine own with both my hands,
In this true deed of gift. Gallants, here stands
This lady’s champion: at his foot I’ll lie[786]
That dares touch her: who taints my constancy,
I am no man for him; fight he with her,
And yield, for she’s a noble conqueror.
Duke. This combat shall not need; for see, asham’d
Of their rash vows, these gentlemen here break
This storm, and do with hands what tongues should speak.
Omnes. All friends, all friends!
Hip. Punk, you may laugh at this:
Here’s tricks! but, mouth, I’ll stop you with a kiss.
Enter Curvetto and Lazarillo, led by Blurt and the Watch.
Blurt. Room; keep all the scabs back, for here comes Lazarus.
Duke. O, here’s our other spirits that walk i’ th’ night!
Signior Curvetto, by complaint from her,
And by your writing here, I reach the depth
Of your offence. They charge your climbing up
To be to rob her: if so, then by law
You are to die, unless she marry you.
Imp. I? fie, fie, fie, I will be burnt to ashes first.
Cur. How, die, or marry her? then call me daw:[787]
Marry her—she’s more common than the law—
For boys to call me ox? no, I’m[788] not drunk;
I’ll play with her, but, hang her! wed no punk.
I shall be a hoary courtier then indeed,
And have a perilous[789] head; then I were best
Lie close, lie close, to hide my forked crest.
No, fie, fie, fie; hang me before the door
Where I was drown’d, ere I marry with a whore.
Duke. Well, signior, for we rightly understand,
From your accusers, how you stood her guest,
We pardon you, and pass it as a jest:
And for the Spaniard sped so hardly too,
Discharge him, Blurt: signior, we pardon you.

Blurt. Sir, he’s not to be discharged, nor so to be shot off: I have put him into a new suit, and have entered into him with an action; he owes me two-and-thirty shillings.

Laz. It is thy honour to have me die in thy debt.

Blurt. It would be more honour to thee to pay me before thou diest: twenty shillings of this debt came out of his nose.

Laz. Bear witness, great duke, he’s paid twenty shillings.

Blurt. Signior, no, you cannot smoke me so. He took twenty shillings of it in a fume,[790] and the rest I charge him with for his lying.

Laz. My lying, most pitiful prince, was abominable.

Blurt. He did lie, for the time, as well as any knight of the post[791] did ever lie.

Laz. I do here put off thy suit, and appeal: I warn thee to the court of conscience, and will pay thee by twopence a-week, which I will rake out of the hot embers of tobacco-ashes, and then travel on foot to the Indies for more gold, whose red cheeks I will kiss, and beat thee, Blurt, if thou watch for me.

Hip. There be many of your countrymen in Ireland, signior; travel to them.

Laz. No, I will fall no more into bogs.

Duke. Sirrah, his debt ourself will satisfy.

Blurt. Blurt, my lord, dare take your word for as much more.

Duke. And since this heat of fury is all spent,
And tragic shapes meet comical event,
Let this bright morning merrily be crown’d
With dances, banquets, and choice music’s sound.
[Exeunt omnes.