A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09

JUS. Why, so I do; I think upon them both; But can do neither of you good; For he that lives must die, and she that's dead Cannot be revived.

ILF. Ho, sirrah, who would have thought it? I perceive now a woman may be a maid, be married, and lose her maidenhead, and all in half an hour. And how dost like me now, wench?

[181] A _fool's bauble_, in its _literal_ meaning, is the carved truncheon which the licensed fools or jesters anciently carried in their hands. See notes on "All's Well that En...

BOY. I am not so well acquainted with his wardrobe, sir; but I saw a lean fellow, with sunk eyes and shamble legs, sigh pitifully at his chamber door, and entreat his man to put...

BUT. A man had better line a good handsome pair of gallows before his time, than be born to do these sucklings good, their mother's milk not wrung out of their nose yet; they kn...

BAR. Withal, I have provided Master Gripe the usurer, who upon the instant will be ready to step in, charge the serjeants to keep thee fast, and that now he will have his five h...

MRS ART. Come, spread the table; is the hall well rubb'd? The cushions in the windows neatly laid? The cupboard of plate set out? the casements stuck With rosemary and flowers?...

FUL. That thou shalt. My mistress in a humour had protested, That above all the world she lov'd me best; Saying with suitors she was oft molested, And she had lodg'd her heart w...

ANS. Like one that strives to shun a little plash Of shallow water, and (avoiding it) Plunges into a river past his depth: Like one that from a small spark steps aside, And fall...

PIP. The maid gave me not my supper yesternight, so that indeed my belly wambled, and standing near the great sea-coal fire in the hall, and not being full, on the sudden I crac...

BRA. Ha, ha! to see the world! we swaggerers, That live by oaths and big-mouth'd menaces, Are now reputed for the tallest men: He that hath now a black moustachio, Reaching from...

MRS ART. O, what are the vain pleasures of the world, That in their actions we affect them so? Had I been born a servant, my low life Had steady stood from all these miseries. T...

O. ART. And, as I told you, my unruly son, Once having bid his wife home to my house, There took occasion to be much aggriev'd About some household matters of his own, And, in p...

MRS MA. Not have my will! yes, I will have my will; Shall I not go abroad but when you please? Can I not now and then meet with my friends, But, at my coming home, you will cont...

Y. ART. I tell you true, sir; but to every man I would not be so lavish of my speech: Only to you, my dear and private friend, Although my wife in every eye be held Of beauty an...

ANS. What frantic humour doth thus haunt my sense, Striving to breed destruction in my spirit? When I would sleep, the ghost of my sweet love Appears unto me in an angel's shape...

AMIN. _Quae caceris chartis deseruisse decet_. Torn from your book! I'll tear it from your breech. How say you, Mistress Virga, will you suffer _Hic puer bonae[11] indolis_ to t...

ANS. 'Tis true, as I relate the circumstance, And she is with my mother safe at home; But yet, for all the hate I can allege Against her husband, nor for all the love That on my...

BRA. Mistress, I long have serv'd you, even since These bristled hairs upon my grave-like chin Were all unborn; when I first came to you, These infant feathers of these ravens'...

PIP. Marry, when he was in my sight, and that was yesterday; since when I saw not my master, nor looked on my master, nor beheld my master, nor had any sight of my master.