That am slave to another, who alone My love, my heart, my all: and pardon me, To mount up to the hill of majesty, On which, the nearer Jove, the nearer lightning. He durst salute him boldly: pray you, apply this; Sup. Well excused. Artem. You may redeem all yet. Diocle. And, that he may Have means and opportunity to do so, In fair Cæsarea. Sap. And here, as yourself, We will obey and serve her. Diocle. Antoninus, So you prove hers, I wish no other heir; [lus; Think on't :-be careful of your charge, Theophi- [Exeunt all but ANTONINUS and MACRINUS. Mac. You are like to those That are ill only, 'cause they are too well; Mac. Sir, you point at Your dotage on the scornful Dorothea : Is she, though fair, the same day to be named The emperor's frown, which, like a mortal plague, Anton. In what thou think'st thou art most Grossly abused, Macrinus, and most foolish. Anton. Go then, Macrinus, To Dorothea; tell her I have worn, In all the battles I have fought, her figure, Anton. Yet poison still is poison, Mac. I am yours: And, if my travail this way be ill spent, ACT II. SCENE I-A Room in DOROTHEA'S House. Enter SPUNGIUS and HIRCIUS. Spun. Turn Christian! Would he that first tempted me to have my shoes walk upon Christian soles, had turn'd me into a capon; for I am sure now, the stones of all my pleasure, in this fleshly life, are cut off. Hir. So then, if any coxcomb has a galloping desire to ride, here's a gelding, if he can but sit him. Spun. I kick, for all that, like a horse ;-look else. Hir. But that is a kickish jade, fellow Spungius. Have not I as much cause to complain as thou hast ? When I was a pagan, there was an infidel punk of mine, would have let me come upon trust for my curvetting: a pox on your Christian cockatrices! they cry, like poulterers' wives :-No money, no coney. Spun. Bacchus, the god of brew'd wine and sugar, grand patron of rob-pots, upsy-freesy tip plers, and super-naculum takers; this Bacchus, who is head warden of Vintners'-hall, ale-conner, mayor of all victualling-houses, the sole liquid benefactor to bawdy-houses; lanceprezade to red noses, and invincible adelantado over the armado of pimpled, deep-scarleted, rubified, and carbuncled faces Hir. What of all this? Spun. This boon Bacchanalian skinker, did I make legs to. Hir. Scurvy ones, when thou wert drunk. Spun. There is no danger of losing a man's ears by making these indentures; he that will not now and then be Calabingo, is worse than a Calamoothe. When I was a pagan, and kneeled to this Bacchus, I durst out-drink a lord; but your Christian lords out-bowl me. I was in hope to lead a sober life, when I was converted; but, now amongst the Christians, I can no sooner stagger out of one alehouse, but I reel into another; they have whole streets of nothing but drinking-rooms, and drabbing-chambers, jumbled together. Hir. Bawdy Priapus, the first schoolmaster that taught butchers how to stick pricks in flesh, and make it swell, thou know'st, was the only ningle that I cared for under the moon; but, since I left him to follow a scurvy lady, what with her praying and our fasting, if now I come to a wench, and offer to use her anything hardly, (telling her, being a Christian, she must endure,) she presently handles me as if I were a clove, and cleaves me with disdain, as if I were a calf's head. Spun. I see no remedy, fellow Hircius, but that thou and I must be half pagans, and half Christians; for we know very fools that are Christians. Hir. Right: the quarters of Christians are good for nothing but to feed crows. Spun. True: Christian brokers, thou know'st, are made up of the quarters of Christians; parboil one of these rogues, and he is not meat for a dog: no, no, I am resolved to have an infidel's heart, though in shew I carry a Christian's face. Hir. Thy last shall serve my foot: so will I. Spun. Our whimpering lady and mistress sent me with two great baskets full of beef, mutton, veal, and goose, fellow Hircius- Hir. And woodcock, fellow Spungius. Spun. Upon the poor lean ass-fellow, on which I ride, to all the almswomen: what think'st thou I have done with all this good cheer? Hir. Eat it; or be choked else. Spun. Would my ass, basket and all, were in thy maw, if I did! No, as I am a demi-pagan, I sold the victuals, and coined the money into pottle pots of wine. Hir. Therein thou shewed'st thyself a perfect demi-christian too, to let the poor beg, starve, and hang, or die of the pip. Our puling, snottynose lady sent me out likewise with a purse of money, to relieve and release prisoners :-Did I so, think you? Spun. Would thy ribs were turned into grates of iron then. Hir. As I am a total pagan, I swore they should be hanged first: for, sirrah Spungius, I lay at my old ward of lechery, and cried, a pox on your twopenny wards! and so I took scurvy common flesh for the money. Spun. And wisely done; for our lady, sending it to prisoners, had bestowed it out upon lousy : knaves and thou, to save that labour, cast'st it away upon rotten whores. Hir. All my fear is of that pink-an-eye jackan-apes boy, her page. Spun. As I am a pagan from my cod-piece downward, that white-faced monkey frights me too. I stole but a dirty pudding, last day, out of an almsbasket, to give my dog when he was hungry, and the peaking chitty-face page hit me in the teeth with it. Hir. With the dirty pudding! so he did me once with a cow-turd, which in knavery I would have crumb'd into one's porridge, who was half a pagan too. The smug dandiprat smells us out, whatsoever we are doing. Spun. Does he? let him take heed I prove not his back-friend: I'll make him curse his smelling what I do. Hir. 'Tis my lady spoils the boy; for he is ever at her tail, and she is never well but in his company. Enter ANGELO with a book, and a taper lighted; seeing him, they counterfeit devotion. Ang. O now your hearts make ladders of Ang. Have you the baskets emptied, which your lady Sent, from her charitable hands, to women Spun. Emptied them! yes; I'd be loth to have my belly so empty: yet, I am sure, I munched not one bit of them neither. Ang. And went your money to the prisoners? Hir. Went! no; I carried it, and with these fingers paid it away. Ang. What way? the devil's way, the way of The way of hot damnation, way of lust? [sin, And you, to wash away the poor man's bread, In bowls of drunkenness? Spun. Drunkenness ! yes, yes, I use to be drunk; our next neighbour's man, called Christopher, hath often seen me drunk, hath he not ? Hir. Or me given so to the flesh: my cheeks speak my doings. Ang. Avaunt, ye thieves, and hollow hypocrites! Your hearts to me lie open like black books, And there I read your doings. Spun. And what do you read in my heart? Hir. Or in mine? come, amiable Angelo, beat the flint of your brains. Spun. And let's see what sparks of wit fly out to kindle your cerebrum. Ang. Your names even brand you; you are And like a spunge, you suck up lickerish wines, Spun. To hell! can any drunkard's legs carry him so far? Ang. For blood of grapes you sold the widows' food. And, starving them, 'tis murder; what's this but hell? Hircius your name, and goatish is your nature; Spun. Shall I cut his throat? Hir. No; better burn him, for I think he is a witch but sooth, sooth him. Spun. Fellow Angelo, true it is, that falling into the company of wicked he-christians, for my part Hir. And she ones, for mine, we have them swim in shoals hard by Spun. We must confess, I took too much out of the pot; and he of t'other hollow commodity. Hir. Yes, indeed, we laid Jill on both of us; we cozen'd the poor; but 'tis a common thing : many a one, that counts himself a better Christian than we two, has done it, by this light! Spun. But pray, sweet Angelo, play not the tell-tale to my lady; and, if you take us creeping into any of these mouse-holes of sin any more, let cats flay off our skins. Hir. And put nothing but the poison'd tails of rats into those skins. Ang. Will you dishonour her sweet charity, Who saved you from the tree of death and shame ? Hir. Would I were hang'd, rather than thus be told of my faults! Spun. She took us, 'tis true, from the gallows; yet I hope she will not bar yeoman sprats to have their swing. Ang. She comes,-beware, and mend. Hir. Let's break his neck, and bid him mend. Enter DOROTHEA, Dor. Have you my messages, sent to the poor, Deliver'd with good hands, not robbing them Of any jot was theirs? Spun. Rob them, lady! I hope neither my fellow nor I am thieves. Hir. Delivered with good hands, madam! else let me never lick my fingers more when I eat butter'd fish. Dor. Who cheat the poor, and from them pluck their alms, Pilfer from heaven; and there are thunderbolts, From thence to beat them ever. Do not lie; Were you both faithful, true distributers ? Spun. Lie, madam! what grief is it to see you turn swaggerer, and give your poor-minded rascally servants the lie! Dor. I'm glad you do not; if those wretched people, Tell you they pine for want of any thing, Whisper but to mine ear, and you shall furnish them. Dor. Thy voice sends forth such music, that Was ravish'd with a more celestial sound. Ang. No, my dear lady, I could weary stars, Dor. Be nigh me still, then : In golden letters down I'll set that day, Methought, was fill'd with no hot wanton fire, Ang. Proud am I, that my lady's modest eye So likes so poor a servant. Theoph. What piece [hence; Of this state-wheel, which winds up Antoninus, Is broke, it runs so jarringly? the man Ingenders such a fry of speckled villainies, That which it hates, the fire. And can this ram, Which printed is in such crabb'd characters, Harp. This Macrinus, The line is, upon which love-errands run Theoph. And what of this? Harp. These are but creeping billows, Not got to shore yet: but if Dorothea Fall on his bosom, and be fired with love, (Your coldest women do so),-had you ink Brew'd from the infernal Styx, not all that blackCan make a thing so foul, as the dishonours, [ness Disgraces, buffetings, and most base affronts Upon the bright Artemia, star o' the court, Great Cæsar's daughter. Theoph. I now conster thee. Theoph. Eats through Cæsarea's heart like liquid poison. Have I invented tortures to tear Christians, To see but which, could all that feel hell's torments Have leave to stand aloof here on earth's stage, In such dire postures, that the very hangman Harp. No :-on; I hug thee, For drilling thy quick brains in this rich plot Of tortures 'gainst these Christians: on; I hug thee ! Theoph. Both hug and holy me: to this DoroFly thou and I in thunder. Harp. Not for kingdoms [thea, Piled upon kingdoms: there's a villain page SCENE III.-A Room in DOROTHEA's House. Ang. Yes, my sweetest mistress. [Exit. A new arithmetic, to sum up the virtues Dor. Sir, he is more indebted To you for praise, than you to him that owes it. Mac. If queens, viewing his presents paid to the whiteness Of your chaste hand alone, should be ambitious Sap. Confusion on thee, Being come in person, shall, I hope, hear from you For playing thus the lying sorceress ! Music more pleasing. Anton. Has your ear, Macrinus, Heard none, then? Mac. None I like. Anton. But can there be In such a noble casket, wherein lie Beauty and chastity in their full perfections, A life that's prostrated beneath your feet? Dor. I am guilty of a shame I yet ne'er knew, Thus to hold parley with you ;-pray, sir, pardon. [Going. Anton. Good sweetness, you now have it, and shall go: Be but so merciful, before your wounding me Dor. If one immodest accent Fly out, I hate you everlastingly. Anton. My true love dares not do it. Enter above, ARTEMIA, SAPRITIUS, THEOPHILUS, Spun. So, now, do you see?--Our work is done; the fish you angle for is nibbling at the hook, and therefore untruss the cod-piece-point of our reward, no matter if the breeches of conscience fall about our heels. Theoph. The gold you earn is here; dam up And no words of it. [your mouths, Hir. No; nor no words from you of too much damning neither. I know women sell themselves daily, and are hacknied out for silver: why may not we, then, betray a scurvy mistress for gold? Spun. She saved us from the gallows, and, only to keep one proverb from breaking his neck, we'll hang her. Theoph. 'Tis well done; go, go, you're my fine white boys. Spun. If your red boys, 'tis well known more ill-favoured faces than ours are painted. Sap. Those fellows trouble us. Anton. Your mocks are great ones; none beneath the sun Will I be servant to.-On my knees I beg it, Sap. I curse thy baseness. Dor. O kneel not, sir, to me. Anton. This knee is emblem of an humbled Artem. Is that the idol, traitor, which thou Trampling upon my beauty? [kneel'st to, Theoph. Sirrah, bandog! Wilt thou in pieces tear our Jupiter For her? our Mars for her? our Sol for her?- Artem. Threaten not, but strike: quick vengeance flies Into my bosom; caitiff! here all love dies. [Exeunt above. Anton. O! I am thunderstruck! We are both o'erwhelm'd Mac. With one high-raging billow. Dor. You a soldier, And sink beneath the violence of a woman! Anton. A woman! a wrong'd princess. From such a star Blazing with fires of hate, what can be look'd for, But tragical events? my life is now The subject of her tyranny. Dor. That fear is base, Of death, when that death doth but life displace Out of her house of earth; you only dread |