THE ROARING GIRL.

Man Smoking Pipe

The Roaring Girle. Or Moll Cut-Purse. As it hath lately beene Acted on the Fortune-stage by the Prince his Players. Written by T. Middleton and T. Dekkar. Printed at London for Thomas Archer, and are to be sold at his shop in Popes head-pallace, neere the Royall Exchange. 1611. 4to. On the title-page is the woodcut, a fac-simile of which is now given, representing Moll in her male dress, with these words running along the inner margin,—“My case is alter’d, I must worke for my liuing.”

This drama has been reprinted in the sixth vol. of the last two editions of Dodsley’s Old Plays.

Roaring Boys was a cant term for the riotous, quarrelsome blades of the time, who abounded in London, and took pleasure in annoying its quieter inhabitants. Of Roaring Girls, the heroine of the present play was the choicest specimen. Her real name was Mary Frith, though she was most commonly known by that of Moll Cutpurse. According to the author of her Life,[938] “she was born A.D. 1589, in Barbican, at the upper end of Aldersgate Street,” p. 3; but Malone,[939] more correctly it should seem, has fixed her birth in 1584. “From the first entrance into a competency of age,” she assumed the doublet, “and to her dying day she would not leave it off, till the infirmity and weaknesse of nature had brought her a-bed to her last travail, changed it for a wastcoat, and her pettycoats for a winding-sheet,” Life, p. 18. She was distinguished in the different characters of bully, prostitute, procuress, fortune-teller, thief, pickpocket, receiver of stolen goods, and forger of writings. A letter from John Chamberlain to Mr. Carleton, dated Feb. 11, 1611-12, gives the following account of her doing penance: “The last Sunday Moll Cutpurse, a notorious baggage that used to go in man’s apparel, and challenged the field of diverse gallants; was brought to the same place [Paul’s Cross], where she wept bitterly, and seemed very penitent; but it is since doubted she was maudlin drunk, being discovered to have tippel’d of three quarts of sack before she came to her penance. She had the daintiest preacher or ghostly father that ever I saw in the pulpit, one Radcliffe of Brazen-Nose College in Oxford, a likelier man to have led the revels in some inn of court, than to be where he was. But the best is, he did extreme badly, and so wearied the audience, that the best part went away, and the rest tarried rather to hear Moll Cutpurse than him.”[940] With the preceding extract let us compare what the “fair penitent” is made to say in the Life already quoted: “Some promooting Apparitor, set on by an adversary of mine, whom I could never punctually know, cited me to appear in the Court of the Arches, where was an Accusation exhibited against me for wearing undecent and manly apparel. I was advised by my Proctor to demur to the Jurisdiction of the Court, as for a Crime, if such, not cognizable there or elsewhere; but he did it to spin out my Cause, and get my Mony; for in the conclusion, I was sentenced there to stand and do Penance in a White Sheet at Paul’s Cross, during morning Sermon on a Sunday,” p. 69.

We are told that she robbed General Fairfax of 250 Jacobuses upon Hounslow Heath, shot him through the arm, and killed two horses on which a couple of his servants rode; and that being closely pursued by some Parliamentarian officers quartered at Hounslow, to whom Fairfax told the adventure, and her horse failing her at Turnham Green, she was apprehended and carried to Newgate, after which she was condemned, but procured her pardon by giving her adversary 2000 pounds![941] The story seems to be not a little exaggerated.

Nor is the reader bound to believe the subjoined anecdote; but, as Moll had a house of her own “within 2 doors of the Globe Tavern in Fleet Street, over against the Conduit,” Life, p. 47, and appears to have acquired considerable property by her various rogueries, the circumstance of her supplying the wine is by no means improbable: “After that unnatural and detestable Rebellion of the Scots in 1638, upon his Majesties return home to London, where preparation was made for his Magnificent Entry, I was also resolved to show my Loyal and Dutiful Respects to the King in as ample manner as I could or might be permitted.... I was resolved in my own account to beare a part in the charge of this Solemnity; and therefore undertook to supply Fleetstreet Conduit adjacent to my House with Wine, to run continually for that triumphal Day, which I performed with no less Expence then Credit and delight, and the satisfaction of all Comers and Spectators. And as the King passed by me, I put out my Hand and caught Him by His, and grasped it very hard, saying, Welcome Home Charles! His Majesty smiled, and I beleeve took me for some Mad Bold Beatrice or other, while the people shouted and made a noyse, in part at my Confidence and presumption, and in part for joy of the King’s Return. The rest of that Day I spent in jollity and carousing, and concluded the night with Fireworks and Drink. This celebrated Action of mine, it being the Town talk, made people look upon me at another rate then formerly.” Life, pp. 95-98.

A dropsy, from which she had long been suffering, and which, it is said, would probably have carried her off sooner if she had not indulged greatly in the use of tobacco—(for she gloried in being the first female smoker)—at last proved fatal to the Roaring Girl. In the Memoir above cited, she is represented as bidding adieu to the world “this three score and fourteenth year of my age,” p. 169. A MS.[942] states that she died at her house in Fleet Street, July 26, 1659; that she was buried in the church of Saint Bridget’s; and that she left twenty pounds by will, that the Conduit might run with wine when King Charles the Second should return. Granger says,[943] that her death took place in her 75th year.

She is supposed to be the person alluded to in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, where Sir Toby exclaims, “Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like mistress Mall’s picture?” Act i. sc. 3.

On the books of the Stationers’ Company, August 1610, is entered “A Booke called the Madde Prancks of Merry Mall of the Bankside, with her Walks in Man’s Apparel, and to what Purpose. Written by John Day.”[944]

In Rubbe and A great Cast. Epigrams. By Thomas Freeman, Gent., 1614, 4to, is

“Epigram 90.
Of Moll Cutpurse disguised going.
“They say Mol’s honest, and it may bee so,
But yet it is a shrewd presumption no:
To touch but pitch, ’tis knowne it will defile;
Moll weares the breech, what may she be the while?
Sure shee that doth the shadow so much grace,
What will shee when the substance comes in place?”

She figures in act ii. sc. 1 of Field’s Amends for Ladies,[945] 1618, where she is thus addressed:

——“Hence, lewd impudent!
I know not what to term thee, man or woman,
For Nature, shaming to acknowledge thee
For either, hath produc’d thee to the world
Without a sex: some say thou art a woman,
Others, a man; and many, thou art both
Woman and man; but I think rather, neither;
Or man and horse, as the old Centaurs were feign’d.”

In The Water-cormorant his Complaint against a Brood of Land-cormorants (first printed, I believe, in 1622), Taylor says,

“That if our Grand-fathers and Grand-dams should
Rise from the dead, and these mad times behold,
Amazed they halfe madly would admire
At our fantasticke gestures and attire;
And they would thinke that England in conclusion
Were a meere bable Babell of confusion;
That Muld-sack[946] for his most vnfashion’d fashions
Is the fit patterne of their transformations;
And Mary Frith doth teach them modesty,
For she doth keepe one fashion constantly,
And therefore she deserues a Matrons praise,
In these inconstant Moon-like changing dayes.”dayes.”
p. 6.—Works, ed. 1630.

From The Witch of Edmonton (by W. Rowley, Dekker, and Ford, acted about 1623), we learn that a certain dog, used in baiting bulls and bears, was called Moll Cutpurse, after our heroine: act v. sc. 1. Ford’s Works, by Gifford, vol. ii. p. 547.

She is thus mentioned in Brome’s Court Beggar, acted 1632;

"Cit. Sprecious! How now! my fob has been fubd to-day of six pieces, and a dozen shillings at least.... My watch is gone out of my pocket too o’ th’ right side.... Ile go to honest Moll about it presently." Act ii. sc. 1. Five New Playes, 1653.

In the following couplet of Butler (the second line of which Swift has transferred, with a slight alteration, into his Baucis and Philemon), the allusion is most probably to Moll Cutpurse, and not, as Grey thinks, to Mary Carlton;

“A bold Virago, stout and tall,
As Joan of France, or English Mall.”
Hudibras, Part i. c. ii. 367.

With a quotation from a play called The Feigned Astrologer, 1668, I conclude this notice of Mary Frith;

“We cannot do that neither in quiet,
So many have found his lodging out:
And now, Moll Cut-purse, that oracle of felonie
Is dead, there’s not a pocket pickt,
But hee’s acquainted with it.” Act iv. sc. 2, p. 62.

Thomas Dekker, whose name is coupled with Middleton’s on the title-page of The Roaring Girl, was (as perhaps few readers require to be told) a very prolific and popular dramatist: many of his plays have perished.

TO THE COMIC PLAY-READERS, VENERY
AND LAUGHTER.

The fashion of play-making I can properly compare to nothing so naturally as the alteration in apparel; for in the time of the great crop-doublet, your huge bombasted plays, quilted with mighty words to lean purpose, were[947] only then in fashion: and as the doublet fell, neater inventions began to set up. Now, in the time of spruceness, our plays follow the niceness of our garments; single plots, quaint conceits, lecherous jests, drest up in hanging sleeves: and those are fit for the times and the termers.[948] Such a kind of light-colour summer stuff, mingled with divers colours, you shall find this published comedy; good to keep you in an afternoon from dice at home in your chambers: and for venery, you shall find enough for sixpence,[949] but well couched and[950] you mark it; for Venus, being a woman, passes through the play in doublet and breeches; a brave disguise and a safe one, if the statute untie not her codpiece point. The book I make no question but is fit for many of your companies, as well as the person itself, and may be allowed both gallery-room at the playhouse, and chamber-room at your lodging. Worse things, I must needs confess, the world has taxed her for than has been written of her; but ’tis the excellency of a writer to leave things better than he finds ’em; though some obscene fellow, that cares not what he writes against others, yet keeps a mystical bawdyhouse himself, and entertains drunkards, to make use of their pockets and vent his private bottle-ale at midnight,—though such a one would have ript up the most nasty vice that ever hell belched forth, and presented it to a modest assembly, yet we rather wish in such discoveries, where reputation lies bleeding, a slackness of truth than fulness of slander.

THOMAS MIDDLETON.

PROLOGUE.

A play expected long makes the audience look
For wonders; that each scene should be a book,
Compos’d to all perfection: each one comes
And brings a play in’s head with him; up he sums
What he would of a roaring girl have writ;
If that he finds not here, he mews at it.
Only we [do] entreat you think our scene
Cannot speak high, the subject being but mean;
A roaring girl, whose notes till now ne’er were,
Shall fill with laughter our vast theatre.[951]
That’s all which I dare promise: tragic passion,
And such grave stuff, is this day out of fashion.
I see Attention sets wide ope her gates
Of hearing, and with covetous listening waits,
To know what girl this roaring girl should be,
For of that tribe are many. One is she
That roars at midnight in deep tavern-bowls,
That beats the watch, and constables controls;
Another roars i’ th’ daytime, swears, stabs, gives braves,
Yet sells her soul to the lust of fools and slaves:
Both these are suburb-roarers. Then there’s beside[952]
A civil city-roaring girl, whose pride,
Feasting, and riding, shakes her husband’s state,
And leaves him roaring through an iron grate.
None of these roaring girls is ours; she flies
With wings more lofty; thus her character lies—
Yet what need characters, when to give a guess
Is better than the person to express?
But would you know who ’tis? would you hear her name?
She’s call’d mad Moll; her life our acts proclaim.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
Scene, London.
THE ROARING GIRL.

ACT I. SCENE I.

A Room in Sir Alexander Wengrave’s House.

Enter Mary Fitzallard disguised like a sempster, with a case for bands, and Neatfoot with her, a napkin on his shoulder, and a trencher[953] in his hand, as from table.

Neat. The young gentleman, our young master, sir Alexander’s son, is it into his ears, sweet damsel, emblem of fragility, you desire to have a message transported, or to be transcendent?

Mary. A private word or two, sir; nothing else.

Neat. You shall fructify in that which you come for; your pleasure shall be satisfied to your full contentation. I will, fairest tree of generation, watch when our young master is erected, that is to say, up, and deliver him to this your most white hand.

Mary. Thanks, sir.

Neat. And withal certify him, that I have culled out for him, now his belly is replenished, a daintier bit or modicum than any lay upon his trencher at dinner. Hath he notion of your name, I beseech your chastity?

Mary. One, sir, of whom he bespake falling bands.[954]

Neat. Falling bands? it shall so be given him. If you please to venture your modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude serving-men, and take such as they can set before you, you shall be most seriously and ingeniously[955] welcome.

Mary. I have dined[956] indeed already, sir.

Neat. Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a cup of rich Orleans in the buttery amongst our waiting-women?

Mary. Not now, in truth, sir.

Neat. Our young master shall then have a feeling of your being here; presently it shall so be given him.

Mary. I humbly thank you, sir. [Exit Neatfoot.] But that my bosom
Is full of bitter sorrows, I could smile
To see this formal ape play antic tricks;
But in my breast a poison’d arrow sticks,
And smiles cannot become me. Love woven slightly,
Such as thy false heart makes, wears out as lightly;
But love being truly bred i’ th’ soul, like mine,
Bleeds even to death at the least wound it takes,—
The more we quench this [fire], the less it slakes:
O me!
Enter Sebastian Wengrave with Neatfoot.

Seb. A sempster speak with me, sayest thou?

Neat. Yes, sir; she’s there, viva voce to deliver her auricular confession.

Seb. With me, sweetheart? what is’t?

Mary. I have brought home your bands, sir.

Seb. Bands?—Neatfoot.

Neat. Sir?

Seb. Prithee, look in; for all the gentlemen are upon rising.

Neat. Yes, sir; a most methodical attendance shall be given.

Seb. And dost hear? if my father call for me, say I am busy with a sempster.

Neat. Yes, sir; he shall know it that you are busied with a needle-woman.

Seb. In’s ear, good Neatfoot.

Neat. It shall be so given him. [Exit.

Seb. Bands? you’re mistaken, sweetheart, I bespake none:
When, where, I prithee? what bands? let me see them.
Mary. Yes, sir; a bond[957] fast seal’d with solemn oaths,
Subscrib’d unto, as I thought, with your soul;
Deliver’d as your deed in sight of heaven:
Is this bond cancellèd? have you forgot me?
Seb. Ha! life of my life, sir Guy Fitzallard’s daughter?
What has transform’d my love to this strange shape?
Stay; make all sure [shuts the door]; so: now speak and be brief,
Because the wolf’s at door that lies in wait
To prey upon us both. Albeit mine eyes
Are blest by thine, yet this so strange disguise
Holds me with fear and wonder.
Mary. Mine’s a loath’d sight;
Why from it are you banish’d else so long?
Seb. I must cut short my speech: in broken language
Thus much, sweet Moll; I must thy company shun;
I court another Moll: my thoughts must run
As a horse runs that’s blind round in a mill,
Out every step, yet keeping one path still.
Mary. Umph! must you shun my company? in one knot
Have both our hands by th’ hands of heaven been tied,
Now to be broke? I thought me once your bride;
Our fathers did agree on the time when:
And must another bedfellow fill my room?
Seb. Sweet maid, let’s lose no time; ’tis in heaven’s book
Set down, that I must have thee; an oath we took
To keep our vows: but when the knight your father
Was from mine parted, storms began to sit
Upon my covetous father’s brow[s], which fell
From them on me. He reckon’d up what gold
This marriage would draw from him; at which he swore,
To lose so much blood could not grieve him more:
He then dissuades me from thee, call’d thee not fair,
And ask’d what is she but a beggar’s heir?
He scorn’d thy dowry of five thousand marks.[958]
If such a sum of money could be found,
And I would match with that, he’d not undo it,
Provided his bags might add nothing to it;
But vow’d, if I took thee, nay, more, did swear it,
Save birth, from him I nothing should inherit.
Mary. What follows then? my shipwreck?
Seb. Dearest, no:
Though wildly in a labyrinth I go,
My end is to meet thee: with a side-wind
Must I now sail, else I no haven can find,
But both must sink for ever. There’s a wench
Call’d Moll, mad Moll, or merry Moll; a creature
So strange in quality, a whole city takes
Note of her name and person: all that affection
I owe to thee, on her in counterfeit passion
I spend, to mad my father: he believes
I doat upon this Roaring Girl, and grieves
As it becomes a father for a son
That could be so bewitch’d: yet I’ll go on
This crooked way, sigh still for her, feign dreams
In which I’ll talk only of her: these streams
Shall, I hope, force my father to consent
That here I anchor, rather than be rent
Upon a rock so dangerous. Art thou pleas’d,
Because thou seest we’re waylaid, that I take
A path that’s safe, though it be far about?
Mary. My prayers with heaven guide thee!
Seb. Then I will on:
My father is at hand; kiss, and begone!
Hours shall be watch’d for meetings: I must now,
As men for fear, to a strange idol bow.
Mary. Farewell!
Seb. I’ll guide thee forth: when next we meet,
A story of Moll shall make our mirth more sweet.
[Exeunt.

Enter Sir Alex. Wengrave, Sir Davy Dapper, Sir Adam Appleton, Goshawk, Laxton, and Gentlemen.

All. Thanks, good sir Alexander, for our bounteous cheer!
S. Alex. Fie, fie, in giving thanks you pay too dear.
S. Davy. When bounty spreads the table, faith, ’twere sin,
At going off if thanks should not step in.
S. Alex. No more of thanks, no more. Ay, marry, sir,
Th’ inner room was too close: how do you like
This parlour, gentlemen?
All. O, passing well!
S. Adam. What a sweet breath the air casts here, so cool!
Gos. I like the prospect best.
Lax. See how ’tis furnish’d!
S. Davy. A very fair sweet room.
S. Alex. Sir Davy Dapper,
The furniture that doth adorn this room
Cost many a fair grey groat ere it came here;
But good things are most cheap when they’re most dear.
Nay, when you look into my galleries,
How bravely they’re trimm’d up, you all shall swear
You’re highly pleas’d to see what’s set down there:
Stories of men and women, mix’d together
Fair ones with foul, like sunshine in wet weather;
Within one square a thousand heads are laid,
So close that all of heads the room seems made;
As many faces there, fill’d with blithe looks,
Shew like the promising titles of new books
Writ merrily, the readers being their own eyes,
Which seem to move and to give plaudities;
And here and there, whilst with obsequious ears
Throng’d heaps do listen, a cut-purse thrusts and leers
With hawk’s eyes for his prey; I need not shew him;
By a hanging, villanous look yourselves may know him,
The face is drawn so rarely: then, sir, below,
The very floor, as ’twere, waves to and fro,
And, like a floating island, seems to move
Upon a sea bound in with shores above.
All. These sights are excellent!
S. Alex. I’ll shew you all:
Since we are met, make our parting comical.
Re-enter Sebastian Wengrave with Greenwit.
Seb. This gentleman, my friend, will take his leave, sir.
S. Alex. Ha! take his leave, Sebastian, who?
Seb. This gentleman.
S. Alex. Your love, sir, has already given me some time,
And if you please to trust my age with more,
It shall pay double interest: good sir, stay.
Green. I have been too bold.
S. Alex. Not so, sir: a merry day
’Mongst friends being spent, is better than gold sav’d.—
Some wine, some wine! Where be these knaves I keep?
Re-enter Neatfoot with several Servants.
Neat. At your worshipful elbow, sir.
S. Alex. You’re kissing my maids, drinking, or fast asleep.
Neat. Your worship has given it us right.
S. Alex. You varlets, stir!
Chairs, stools, and cushions!—
[Servants bring in wine, and place chairs, &c.
Prithee, sir Davy Dapper,
Make that chair thine.
S. Davy. ’Tis but an easy gift;
And yet I thank you for it, sir: I’ll take it.
S. Alex. A chair for old sir Adam Appleton!
Neat. A back friend to your worship.
S. Adam. Marry, good Neatfoot,
I thank thee for’t; back friends sometimes are good.
S. Alex. Pray, make that stool your perch, good master Goshawk.
Gos. I stoop to your lure, sir.
S. Alex. Son Sebastian,
Take master Greenwit to you.
Seb. Sit, dear friend.
S. Alex. Nay, master Laxton—furnish master Laxton
With what he wants, a stone,—a stool, I would say,
A stool.
Lax. I had rather stand, sir.
S. Alex. I know you had, good master Laxton: so, so.
[Exeunt Neatfoot and Servants.
Now here’s a mess of friends; and, gentlemen,
Because time’s glass shall not be running long,
I’ll quicken it with a pretty tale.
S. Davy. Good tales do well
In these bad days, where vice does so excel.
S. Adam. Begin, sir Alexander.
S. Alex. Last day I met
An aged man, upon whose head was scor’d
A debt of just so many years as these
Which I owe to my grave: the man you all know.
All. His name, I pray you, sir.
S. Alex. Nay, you shall pardon me:
But when he saw me, with a sigh that brake,
Or seem’d to break, his heart-strings, thus he spake:
O my good knight, says he, (and then his eyes
Were richer even by that which made them poor,
They’d spent so many tears they had no more),
O sir, says he, you know it! for you ha’ seen
Blessings to rain upon mine house and me:
Fortune, who slaves men, was my slave; her wheel
Hath spun me golden threads; for, I thank heaven,
I ne’er had but one cause to curse my stars.
I ask’d him then what that one caue might be.
All. So, sir.
S. Alex. He paus’d: and as we often see
A sea so much becalm’d, there can be found
No wrinkle on his brow, his waves being drown’d
In their own rage; but when th’ imperious wind[s]
Use strange invisible tyranny to shake
Both heaven’s and earth’s foundation at their noise,
The seas, swelling with wrath to part that fray,
Rise up, and are more wild, more mad than they;
Even so this good old man was by my question
Stirr’d up to roughness; you might see his gall
Flow even in’s eyes; then grew he fantastical.
S. Davy. Fantastical? ha, ha!
S. Alex. Yes; and talk[’d] oddly.
S. Adam. Pray, sir, proceed:
How did this old man end?
S. Alex. Marry, sir, thus:
He left his wild fit to read o’er his cards;
Yet then, though age cast snow on all his hairs,
He joy’d, because, says he, the god of gold
Has been to me no niggard; that disease,
Of which all old men sicken, avarice,
Never infected me——
Lax. He means not himself, I’m sure. [Aside.
S. Alex. For, like a lamp
Fed with continual oil, I spend and throw
My light to all that need it, yet have still
Enough to serve myself: O but, quoth he,
Though heaven’s dew fall thus on this aged tree,
I have a son that,[959] like a wedge, doth cleave
My very heart-root!
S. Davy. Had he such a son?
Seb. Now I do smell a fox strongly. [Aside.
S. Alex. Let’s see: no, master Greenwit is not yet
So mellow in years as he; but as like Sebastian,
Just like my son Sebastian, such another.
Seb. How finely, like a fencer,
My father fetches his by-blows to hit me!
But if I beat you not at your own weapon
Of subtilty—— [Aside.
S. Alex. This son, saith he, that should be
The column and main arch unto my house,
The crutch unto my age, becomes a whirlwind
Shaking the firm foundation.
S. Adam. ’Tis some prodigal.
Seb. Well shot, old Adam Bell![960] [Aside.
S. Alex. No city-monster neither, no prodigal,
But sparing, wary, civil, and, though wifeless,
An excellent husband; and such a traveller,
He has more tongues in his head than some have teeth.
S. Davy. I have but two in mine.
Gos. So sparing and so wary?
What, then, could vex his father so?
S. Alex. O, a woman!
Seb. A flesh-fly, that can vex any man.
S. Alex. A scurvy woman,
On whom the passionate old man swore he doated;
A creature, saith he, nature hath brought forth
To mock the sex of woman. It is a thing
One knows not how to name: her birth began
Ere she was all made: ’tis woman more than man,
Man more than woman; and, which to none can hap,
The sun gives her two shadows to one shape;
Nay, more, let this strange thing walk, stand, or sit,
No blazing star draws more eyes after it.
S. Davy. A monster! ’tis some monster!
S. Alex. She’s a varlet.
Seb. Now is my cue to bristle. [Aside.
S. Alex. A naughty pack.[961]
Seb. ’Tis false!
S. Alex. Ha, boy?
Seb. ’Tis false!
S. Alex. What’s false? I say she’s naught.
Seb. I say, that tongue
That dares speak so, but yours, sticks in the throat
Of a rank villain: set yourself aside——
S. Alex. So, sir, what then?
Seb. Any here else had lied.—
I think I shall fit you. [Aside.
S. Alex. Lie?
Seb. Yes.
S. Davy. Doth this concern him?
S. Alex. Ah, sirrah-boy,
Is your blood heated? boils it? are you stung?
I’ll pierce you deeper yet.—O my dear friends,
I am that wretched father! this that son,
That sees his ruin, yet headlong on doth run.
S. Adam. Will you love such a poison?
S. Davy. Fie, fie.
Seb. You’re all mad.
S. Alex. Thou’rt sick at heart, yet feel’st it not: of all these,
What gentleman but thou, knowing his disease
Mortal, would shun the cure!—O master Greenwit,
Would you to such an idol bow?
Green. Not I, sir.
S. Alex. Here’s master Laxton; has he mind to a woman
As thou hast?
Lax. No, not I, sir.
S. Alex. Sir, I know it.
Lax. Their good parts are so rare, their bad so common,
I will have nought to do with any woman.
S. Davy. ’Tis well done, master Laxton.
S. Alex. O thou cruel boy,
Thou wouldst with lust an old man’s life destroy!
Because thou see’st I’m half-way in my grave,
Thou shovel’st dust upon me: would thou might’st have
Thy wish, most wicked, most unnatural!
S. Davy. Why, sir, ’tis thought sir Guy Fitzallard’s daughter
Shall wed your son Sebastian.
S. Alex. Sir Davy Dapper,
I have upon my knees woo’d this fond[962] boy
To take that virtuous maiden.
Seb. Hark you; a word, sir.
You on your knees have curs’d that virtuous maiden,
And me for loving her; yet do you now
Thus baffle[963] me to my face: wear not your knees
In such entreats; give me Fitzallard’s daughter.
S. Alex. I’ll give thee rats-bane rather.
Seb. Well, then, you know
What dish I mean to feed upon.
S. Alex. Hark, gentlemen! he swears
To have this cut-purse drab, to spite my gall.
All. Master Sebastian——
Seb. I am deaf to you all.
I’m so bewitch’d, so bound to my desires,
Tears, prayers, threats, nothing can quench out those fires
That burn within me. [Exit.
S. Alex. Her blood shall quench it, then.— [Aside.
Lose him not; O dissuade him, gentlemen!
S. Davy. He shall be wean’d, I warrant you.
S. Alex. Before his eyes
Lay down his shame, my grief, his miseries.
All. No more, no more; away!