Enter Sancho and Soto disguised as gipsies.
San. Soto, how do I shew?
Soto. Like a rusty armour new scoured; but,
master, how shew I?
San. Like an ass with a new piebald saddle on
his back.
Soto. If the devil were a tailor, he would scarce
know us in these gaberdines.[262]
San. If a tailor were the devil, I'd not give a
louse for him, if he should bring up this fashion
amongst gentlemen, and make it common.
Rod. The freshness of the morning be upon you
both!
San. The saltness of the evening be upon you
single!
Rod. Be not displeas’d, that I abruptly thus
Break in upon your favours; your strange habits
Invite me with desire to understand
Both what you are and whence, because no country—
And I have measur’d some—shew[s] me your like.
Soto. Our like? no, we should be sorry we or
our clothes should be like fish, new, stale, and
stinking in three days.
San. If you ask whence we are, we are Egyptian
Spaniards; if what we are, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, jugglers,
tumblers, any thing, any where, every where.
Rod. A good fate hither leads me by the hand.—
[Aside.
Your quality I love; the scenical school
Has been my tutor long in Italy,
For that’s my country; there have I put on
Sometimes the shape of a comedian,
And now and then some other.
San. A player! a brother of the tiring-house![263]
Soto. A bird of the same feather!
San. Welcome! wu’t turn gipsy?
Rod. I can nor dance nor sing; but if my pen
From my invention can strike music-tunes,
My head and brains are yours.
Soto. A calf’s head and brains were better for
my stomach.
San. A rib of poetry!
Soto. A modicum of the Muses! a horse-shoe of
Helicon!
San. A magpie of Parnassus! welcome again!
I am a firebrand of Phœbus myself; we’ll invoke
together, so you will not steal my plot.
Rod. ’Tis not my fashion.
San. But now-a-days ’tis all the fashion.
Soto. What was the last thing you writ? a
comedy?
Rod. No; ’twas a sad, too sad a tragedy.
Under these eaves I'll shelter me.
San. See, here comes our company; do our tops[264]
spin as you would have ’em?
Soto. If not, whip us round.
Enter Alvarez, Guiamara, Constanza, Christiana, Carlo, Antonio, and others, disguised as before.
San. I sent you a letter to tell you we were upon
a march.
Alv. And you are welcome.—Yet these fools will trouble us!
[Aside.
Gui. Rich fools shall buy our trouble.
San. Hang lands! it’s nothing but trees, stones,
and dirt. Old father, I have gold to keep up our
stock. Precious Pretiosa, for whose sake I have
thus transformed myself out of a gentleman into a
gipsy, thou shalt not want sweet rhymes, my little
musk-cat; for besides myself, here’s an Italian poet,
on whom I pray throw your welcomes.
Alv.
Gui., &c.[265] bracket He’s welcome!
Const. Sir, you’re most welcome; I love a poet,
So he writes chastely; if your pen can sell me
Any smooth quaint romances, which I may sing,
You shall have bays and silver.
Rod. Pretty heart, no selling;
What comes from me is free.
San. And me too.
Alv. We shall be glad to use you, sir: our sports
Must be an orchard, bearing several trees,
And fruits of several taste; one pleasure dulls.
A time may come when we, besides these pastimes,
May from the grandees
[266] and the dons of Spain
Have leave to try our skill even on the stage,
And then your wits may help us.
San. And mine too.
Rod. They are your servants.
Const. Trip softly through the streets till we arrive,
You know at whose house, father.
San. [sings[267]]
Trip it, gipsies, trip it fine,
Shew tricks and lofty capers;
At threading-needles[268] we repine,
And leaping over rapiers:
Pindy pandy rascal toys!
We scorn cutting purses;
Though we live by making noise,
For cheating none can curse us.
Over high ways, over low,
And over stones and gravel,
Though we trip it on the toe,
And thus for silver travel;
Though our dances waste our backs,
At night fat capons mend them,
Eggs well brew’d in butter’d sack
Our wenches say befriend them.
O that all the world were mad!
Then should we have fine dancing;
Hobby-horses would be had,
And brave girls keep a-prancing;
Beggars would on cock-horse ride,
And boobies fall a-roaring,
And cuckolds, though no horns be spied,
Be one another goring.
Welcome, poet, to our ging![269]
Make rhymes, we’ll give thee reason,
Canary bees thy brains shall sting,
Mull-sack[270] did ne’er speak treason;
And malaga glasses fox[273] thee;
If, poet, thou toss not bowl for bowl,
Thou shalt not kiss a doxy. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.
A garden[274] belonging to Francisco’s house.
Enter Fernando, Francisco, John, Pedro, Maria, Louis and Diego.
Fer. Louis de Castro, since you circled are
In such a golden ring of worthy friends,
Pray, let me question you about that business
You and I last conferr’d on.
Louis. My lord, I wish it.
Fer. Then, gentlemen, though you all know this man,
Yet now look on him well, and you shall find
Such mines of Spanish honour in his bosom
As but in few are treasur’d.
Louis. O, my good lord——
Fer. He’s son to that De Castro o’er whose tomb
Fame stands writing a book, which will take up
The age of time to fill it with the stories
Of his great acts, and that his honour’d father
Fell in the quarrel of those families,
His own and Don Alvarez de Castilla['s].
Fran. The volume of those quarrels
[275] is too large
And too wide printed in our memory.
Louis. Would it had ne’er come forth!
Fran.
Ped., &c. bracket So wish we all.
Fer. But here’s a son as matchless as the father,
For his
[276] mind’s bravery; he lets blood his spleen,
Tears out the leaf in which the picture stands
Of slain De Castro, casts a hill of sand
On all revenge, and stifles it.
Fran.
Ped., &c. bracket ’Tis done nobly!
Fer. For I by him am courted to solicit
The king for the repeal of poor Alvarez,
Who lives a banish’d man, some say, in Naples.
Ped. Some say in Arragon.
Louis. No matter where;
That paper folds in it my hand and heart,
Petitioning the royalty of Spain
To free the good old man, and call him home:
But what hope hath your lordship that these beams
Of grace shall shine upon me?
Fer. The word royal.
Fran.
Ped., &c. bracket And that’s enough.
Louis. Then since this sluice is drawn up to increase
The stream, with pardon of these honour’d friends
Let me set ope another, and that’s this;
That you, my lord don Pedro, and this lady
Your noble wife, would in this fair assembly,
If still you hold me tenant to your favour,
Repeat the promise you so oft have made me,
Touching the beauteous Clara for my wife.
Ped. What I possess in her, before these lords
I freely once more give you.
Mar.[277] And what’s mine,
To you, as right heir to it, I resign.
Fer.
Fran., &c. bracket What would you more?
Louis. What would I more? the tree bows down his head
Gently to have me touch it, but when I offer
To pluck the fruit, the top branch grows so high,
To mock my reaching hand, up it does fly;
I have the mother’s smile, the daughter’s frown.
Fran.
Ped., &c. bracket O, you must woo hard!
Fer. Woo her well, she’s thine own.
John. That law holds not ’mongst gipsies; I shoot hard,
And am wide off from the mark. [Aside.
[Flourish within.
Fer. Is this, my lord, your music?
Fran. None of mine.
Enter Soto disguised as before, with a cornet in his hand.
Soto. A crew of gipsies with desire
To shew their sports are at your gates a-fire.
Fran. How, how, my gates a-fire, knave?
John. Art panting? I am a-fire I'm sure! [Aside.
Fer. What are the things they do?
Soto. They frisk, they caper, dance and sing,
Tell fortunes too, which is a very fine thing;
They tumble—how? not up and down,
As tumblers do, but from town to town:
Antics they have and gipsy-masquing,
And toys which you may have for asking:
They come to devour nor wine nor good cheer,
But to earn money, if any be here;
But being ask’d, as I suppose,
Your answer will be, in your t’other hose;
[278]For there’s not a gipsy amongst ’em that begs,
But gets his living by his tongue and legs.
If therefore you please, dons, they shall come in:
Now I have ended, let them begin.
Fer.
Ped. &c. bracket Ay, ay, by any means.
Fran. But, fellow, bring you music along with you too?
Soto. Yes, my lord, both loud music and still
music; the loud is that which you have heard, and
the still is that which no man can hear. [Exit.
Fer. A fine knave!
Fran. There’s report
[279] of a fair gipsy,
A pretty little toy, whom all our gallants
In Madrill
[280] flock to look on: this she, trow;
[281]John. Yes, sure
[282] ’tis she—I should be sorry else.
[Aside.
Enter Alvarez, Guiamara, Constanza, Christiana, Carlo, Antonio, Roderigo, Sancho, Soto, and others, disguised as before, with the following
Come, follow your leader, follow,
Our convoy be Mars and Apollo!
The van comes brave up here;
As hotly[283] comes the rear:
Our knackers are the fifes and drums,
Sa, sa, the gipsies' army comes!
Horsemen we need not fear,
There’s none but footmen here;
The horse sure charge without;
Or if they wheel about,
Our knackers are the shot that fly,
Pit-a-pat rattling in the sky.
If once the great ordnance play,
That’s laughing, yet run not away,
But stand the push of pike,
Scorn can but basely strike;
Then let our armies join and sing,
And pit-a-pat make our knackers ring.
Arm, arm! what bands are those?
They cannot be sure our foes;
We’ll not draw up our force,
Nor muster any horse;
For since they pleas’d to view our sight,
Let’s this way, this way give delight.
A council of war let’s call,
Look either to stand or fall;
If our weak army stands,
Thank all these noble hands;
Whose gates of love being open thrown,
We enter, and then the town’s our own.
Fer. A very dainty thing!
Fran. A handsome creature!
Ped.[284] Look what a pretty pit there’s in her chin!
John. Pit? ’tis a grave to bury lovers in.
Rod. My father?[285] disguise guard me! [Aside.
San. Soto, there’s De Cortes my guardian, but
he smells not us.
Soto. Peace, brother gipsy.—Would any one
here know his fortune?
Fer.
Fran., &c. bracket Good fortunes all of us!
Ped. ’Tis I, sir, need[286] a good one: come, sir,
what’s mine?
Mar. Mine and my husband’s fortunes keep together;
Who is’t tells mine?
San. I, I; hold up, madam; fear not your
pocket, for I ha' but two hands. [Examining her hands.
You are sad, or mad, or glad,
For a couple of cocks that cannot be had;
Yet when abroad they have pick’d store of grain,
Doodle-doo they will cry on your dunghills again.
Mar. Indeed I miss an idle gentleman,
And a thing of his a fool, but neither sad
Nor mad for them: would that were all the lead
Lying at my heart!
Ped. [while Soto examines his hand] What look’st thou on so long?
Soto. So long! do you think good fortunes are
fresh herrings, to come in shoals? bad fortunes are
like mackerel at midsummer: you have had a sore
loss of late.
Ped. I have indeed; what is’t?
Soto. I wonder it makes you not mad, for—
Through a gap in your ground thence late have
[287] been stole
A very fine ass and a very fine foal:
Take heed, for I speak not by habs and by nabs,
Ere long you’ll be horribly troubled with scabs.
Ped. I am now so; go, silly fool.
Soto. I ha' gi’n't him. [Aside.
San. O Soto, that ass and foal fattens me!
Fer. The mother of the gipsies, what can she do?
I'll have a bout with her.
John. I with the gipsy daughter.
Fran. To her, boy!
Gui. [examining Fernando’s hand]
From you went a dove away,
Which ere this had been more white
Than the silver robe of day;
Her eyes, the moon has none so bright.
Sate she now upon your hand,
Not the crown of Spain could buy it;
But ’tis flown to such a land,
Never more shall you come nigh it:
Ha! yes, if palmistry tell true,
This dove again may fly to you.
Fer. Thou art a lying witch; I'll hear no more.
San. If you be so hot, sir, we can cool you with
a song.
Soto. And when that song’s done, we’ll heat you
again with a dance.
Louis. Stay, dear sir; send for Clara, let her know
Her fortune.
Mar. ’Tis too well known.
Louis. ’Twill make her
Merry to be in this brave company.
Ped. Good Diego, fetch her. [Exit Diego.
Fran. What’s that old man? has he cunning too?
Gui.
Car., &c.[288] bracket More than all we!
Louis. Has he? I'll try his spectacles.
Fer. Ha! Roderigo there? the scholar
That went to Salamanca, takes he degrees
I' th' school of gipsies? let the fish alone,
Give him line: this is the dove,—the dove?—the raven
That beldam mock’d me with. [Aside.
Louis. [while Alvarez examines his hand] What
worms pick you out there now?
Alv. This:
When this line the other crosses,
Art tells me ’tis a book of losses:—
Bend your hand thus:—O, here I find
You have lost a ship in a great wind.
Louis. Lying rogue, I ne’er had any.
Alv. Hark, as I gather,
That great ship was De Castro call’d, your father.
Louis. And I must hew that rock that split him.
Alv. Nay, and
[289] you threaten——
[Retires.
Fran. And what’s, Don John, thy fortune?
Thou’rt long fumbling at it.
John. She tells me tales of the moon, sir.
Consti. And now ’tis come to the sun, sir.
[To Fran.] Your son would ride, the youth would run,
The youth would sail, the youth would fly;
He’s tying a knot will ne’er be done,
He shoots, and yet has ne’er an eye:
You have two, ’twere good you lent him one,
And a heart too, for he has none.
Fran. Hoyday! lend one of mine eyes?
San. They give us nothing; we’d[290] best put on a
bold face and ask it. [Sings.
Now that from the hive
You gather’d have the honey,
Our bees but poorly thrive
Unless the banks be sunny;
Then let your sun and moon,
Your gold and silver shine,
My thanks shall humming fly to you,
Chorus.
And mine, and mine, and mine.
[Fran., Fer., &c. give money.
Alv. [sings.]
See, see, your[291] gipsy-toys,
You mad girls, you merry boys,
A boon voyage we have made,
Loud peals must then be had;
If I a gipsy be,
A crack-rope I'm for thee:
O, here’s a golden ring!
Such clappers please a king,
Chorus.
Such clappers please a king.
Alv. [sings.]
You pleas’d may pass away;
Then let your bell-ropes stay;
Now chime, ’tis holyday,
Chorus.
Now chime, ’tis holyday.
Const. No more of this, pray, father; fall to your dancing. [Const., Car., &c. dance.
Louis. Clara will come too late now.
Fer. ’Tis great pity,
Besides your songs, dances, and other pastimes,
You do not, as our Spanish actors do,
Make trial of a stage.
Alv. We are, sir, about it;
So please your high authority to sign us
Some warrant to confirm us.
Fer. My hand shall do’t,
And bring the best in Spain to see your sports.
Alv. Which to set off, this gentleman, a scholar——
Rod. Pox on you! [Aside.
Alv. Will write for us.
Fer. A Spaniard, sir?
Rod. No, my lord, an Italian.
Fer. Denies
His country too? my son sings gipsy-ballads! [Aside.
Keep as you are, we’ll see your poet’s vein,
And your’s for playing: time is not ill spent
That’s thus laid out in harmless merriment.
[Exeunt. Alvarez, Guiamara, Constanza,
Christiana, Carlo, Antonio, Roderigo,
Sancho, Soto, and others, dancing.
Ped. My lord of Carcomo, for this entertainment
You shall command our loves.
Fran. You’re nobly welcome.
Ped. The evening grows upon us: lords, to all
A happy time of day.
Fer. The like to you, Don Pedro.
Louis. To my heart’s sole lady
Pray let my service humbly be remember’d;
We only miss’d her presence.
Mar. I shall truly
Report your worthy love. [Exeunt. Pedro and Maria.
Fer. You shall no further;
Indeed, my lords, you shall not.
Fran. With your favour,
We will attend you home.
Diego. Where’s Don Pedro?—O sir!
Louis. Why, what’s the matter?
Diego. The lady Clara,
Passing near to my lord corregidor’s house,
Met with a strange mischance.
Fer. How? what mischance?
Diego. The jester that so late arriv’d at court,
And there was welcome for his country’s sake,
By importunity of some friends, it seems,
Had borrow’d from the gentleman of your horse
The backing of your mettled Barbary;
On which being mounted, whilst a number gaz’d
To hear what jests he could perform on horseback,
The headstrong beast, unus’d to such a rider,
Bears the press of people [on] before him;
With which throng the lady Clara meeting,
Fainted, and there fell down, not bruis’d, I hope,
But frighted and entranc’d.
Louis. Ill-destin’d mischief!
Fer. Where have you left her?
Diego. At your house, my lord;
A servant coming forth, and knowing who
The lady was, convey’d her to a chamber;
A surgeon, too, is sent for.
Fer. Had she been my daughter,
My care could not be greater than it shall be
For her recure.
Louis. But if she miscarry,
I am the most unhappy man that lives. [Exit.
Fer. Diego, [straightway
[292]] coast about the fields,
And overtake Don Pedro and his wife;
They newly parted from us.
Diego. I'll run speedily. [Exit.
Fer. A strange mischance: but what I have, my lord
Francisco, this day noted, I may tell you;
An accident of merriment and wonder.
Fran. Indeed, my lord!
Fer. I have not thoughts enough
About me to imagine what th' event
Can come to; ’tis indeed about my son;
Hereafter you may counsel me.
Fran. Most gladly.—