SCENE I.--_The Front of the Nunnery.

ASCANIO, _and_ HIPPOLITA, _at the Grate._

_Hip._ I see you have kept touch, brother.

_Asca._ As a man of honour ought, sister, when he is challenged. And now, according to the laws of duel, the next thing is to strip, and, instead of seconds, to search one another.

_Hip._ We will strip our hands, if you please, brother; for they are the only weapons we must use.

_Asca._ That were to invite me to my loss, sister; I could have made a full meal in the world, and you would have me take up with hungry commons in the cloyster. Pray mend my fare, or I am gone.

_Hip._ O, brother, a hand in a cloyster is fare like flesh in Spain; 'tis delicate, because 'tis scarce. You may be satisfied with a hand, as well as I am pleased with the courtship of a boy.

_Asca._ You may begin with me, sister, as Milo did; by carrying a calf first, you may learn to carry an ox hereafter. In the mean time produce your hand, I understand nun's flesh better than you imagine: Give it me, you shall see how I will worry it. [_She gives her hand._] Now could not we thrust out our lips, and contrive a kiss too?

_Hip._ Yes, we may; but I have had the experience of it: It will be but half flesh, half iron.

_Asca._ Let's try, however.

_Hip._ Hold, Lucretia's here.

_Asca._ Nay, If you come with odds upon me, 'tis time to call seconds. [ASCANIO _hems._

_The Prince and_ LUCRETIA _appear._

_Luc._ Sir, though your song was pleasant, yet there was one thing amiss in it,--that was, your rallying of religion.

_Fred._ Do you speak well of my friend Love, and I'll try to speak well of your friend Devotion.

_Luc._ I can never speak well of love: 'Twas to avoid it that I entered here.

_Fred._ Then, madam, you have met your man; for, to confess the truth to you, I have but counterfeited love, to try you; for I never yet could love any woman: and, since I have seen you, and do not, I am certain now I shall 'scape for ever.

_Luc._ You are the best man in the world, if you continue this resolution. Pray, then, let us vow solemnly these two things: the first, to esteem each other better than we do all the world besides; the next, never to change our amity to love.

_Fred._ Agreed, madam. Shall I kiss your hand on it?

_Luc._ That is too like a lover; or if it were not, the narrowness of the grate will excuse the ceremony.

_Hip._ No, but it will not, to my knowledge: I have tried every bar many a fair time over; and at last have found out one, where a hand may get through, and be gallanted.

_Luc._ [_giving her hand._] There, sir, 'tis a true one.

_Fred._ [_kissing it._] This, then, is a seal to our perpetual friendship, and defiance to all love.

_Luc._ That seducer of virtue.

_Fred._ That disturber of quiet.

_Luc._ That madness of youth.

_Fred._ That dotage of old age.

_Luc._ That enemy to good humour.

_Fred._ And, to conclude all, that reason of all unreasonable actions.

_Asca._ This doctrine is abominable; do not believe it, sister.

_Hip._ No; if I do, brother, may I never have comfort from sweet youth at my extremity.

_Luc._ But remember one article of our friendship, that though we banish love, we do not mirth, nor gallantly; for I declare, I am for all extravagancies, but just loving.

_Fred._ Just my own humour; for I hate gravity and melancholy next to love.

_Asca._ Now it comes into my head, the duke of Mantua makes an entertainment to night in masquerade: If you love extravagancy so well, madam, I'll put you into the head of one; lay by your nunship for an hour or two, and come amongst us in disguise.

_Fred._ My boy is in the right, madam. Will you venture? I'll furnish you with masking-habits.

_Hip._ O my dear sister, never refuse it; I keep the keys, you know: I'll warrant you we will return before we are missed. I do so long to have one fling into the sweet world again, before I die. Hang it, at worst, it is but one sin more, and then we will repent for all together.

_Asca._ But if I catch you in the world, sister, I'll make you have a better opinion of the flesh and the devil for ever after.

_Luc._ If it were known, I were lost for ever.

_Fred._ How should it be known? You have her on your side, there, that keeps the keys: And, put the worst, that you are taken in the world, the world is a good world to stay in; and there are certain occasions of waking in a morning, that may be more pleasant to you than your matins.

_Luc._ Fye, friend, these extravagancies are a breach of articles in our friendship. But well, for once, I'll venture to go out: Dancing and singing are but petty transgressions.

_Asca._ My lord, here is company approaching; we shall be discovered.

_Fred._ Adieu, then, _jusqu' a revoir_; Ascanio shall be with you immediately, to conduct you.

_Asca._ How will you disguise, sister? Will you be a man or a woman?

_Hip._ A woman, brother page, for life: I should have the strangest thoughts if I once wore breeches.

_Asca._ A woman, say you? Here is my hand, if I meet you in place convenient, I'll do my best to make you one. [_Exeunt._

_Enter_ AURELIAN _and_ CAMILLO.

_Cam._ But why thus melancholy, with hat pulled down, and the hand on the region of the heart, just the reverse of my friend Aurelian, of happy memory?

_Aur._ Faith, Camillo, I am ashamed of it, but cannot help it.

_Cam._ But to be in love with a waiting-woman! with an eater of fragments, a simperer at lower end of a table, with mighty golls, rough-grained, and red with starching, those discouragers and abaters of elevated love!

_Aur._ I could love deformity itself, with that good humour. She, who is armed with gaiety and wit, needs no other weapon to conquer me.

_Cam._ We lovers are the great creators of wit in our mistresses. For Beatrix, she is a mere utterer of yes and no, and has no more sense than what will just dignify her to be an arrant waiting-woman; that is, to lie for her lady, and take your money.

_Aur._ It may be, then, I found her in the exaltation of her wit; for certainly women have their good and ill days of talking, as they have of looking.

_Cam._ But, however, she has done you the courtesy to drive out Laura; and so one poison has expelled the other.

_Aur._ Troth, not absolutely neither; for I dote on Laura's beauty, and on Beatrix's wit: I am wounded with a forked arrow, which will not easily be got out.

_Cam._ Not to lose time in fruitless complaints, let us pursue our new contrivance, that you may see your two mistresses, and I my one.

_Aur._ That will not now be difficult: This plot's so laid, that I defy the devil to make it miss. The woman of the house, by which they are to pass to church, is bribed; the ladies are by her acquainted with the design; and we need only to be there before them, and expect the prey, which will undoubtedly fall into the net.

_Cam._ Your man is made safe, I hope, from doing us any mischief?

_Aur._ He has disposed of himself, I thank him, for an hour or two: The fop would make me believe, that an unknown lady is in love with him, and has made him an assignation.

_Cam._ If he should succeed now, I should have the worse opinion of the sex for his sake.

_Aur._ Never doubt but he will succeed: Your brisk fool, that can make a leg, is ever a fine gentleman among the ladies, because he is just of their talent, and they understand him better than a wit.

_Cam._ Peace, the ladies are coming this way to the chapel, and their jailor with them: Let them go by without saluting, to avoid suspicion; and let us go off to prepare our engine.

_Enter_ MARIO, LAURA, _and_ VIOLETTA.

_Aur._ I must have a look before we go. Ah, you little divine rogue! I'll be with you immediately. [_Exeunt_ AURELIAN _and_ CAMILLO.

_Vio._ Look you, sister, there are our friends, but take no notice.

_Lau._ I saw them. Was not that Aurelian with Camillo?

_Vio._ Yes.

_Lau._ I like him strangely. If his person were joined with Benito's wit, I know not what would become of my poor heart.

_Enter_ FABIO, _and whispers with_ MARIO.

_Mar._ Stay, nieces, I'll but speak a word with Fabio, and go with you immediately.

_Vio._ I see, sister, you are infinitely taken with Benito's wit; but I have heard he is a very conceited coxcomb.

_Lau._ They, who told you so, were horribly mistaken. You shall be judge yourself, Violetta; for, to confess frankly to you, I have made him a kind of an appointment.

_Vio._ How! have you made an assignation to Benito? A serving-man! a trencher-carrying rascal!

_Lau._ Good words, Violetta! I only sent to him from an unknown lady near this chapel, that I might view him in passing by, and see if his person were answerable to his conversation.

_Vio._ But how will you get rid of my uncle?

_Lau._ You see my project; his man Fabio is bribed by me, to hold him in discourse.

_Enter_ BENITO, _looking about him._

_Vio._ In my conscience this is he. Lord, what a monster of a man is there! with such a workiday rough-hewn face too! for, faith, heaven has not bestowed the finishing upon it.

_Lau._ It is impossible this should be Benito; yet he stalks this way. From such a piece of animated timber, sweet heaven deliver me!

_Ben._ [_Aside._] This must of necessity be the lady who is in love with me. See, how she surveys my person! certainly one wit knows another by instinct. By that old gentleman, it should be the lady Laura too. Hum! Benito, thou art made for ever.

_Lau._ He has the most unpromising face, for a wit, I ever saw; and yet he had need have a very good one, to make amends for his face. I am half cured of him already.

_Ben._ What means all this surveying, madam? You bristle up to me, and wheel about me, like a turkey-cock that is making love: Faith, how do you like my person, ha?

_Lau._ I dare not praise it, for fear of the old compliment, that you should tell me, it is at my service. But, pray, is your name Benito?

_Ben._ Signior Benito, at your service, madam.

_Lau._ And have you no brother, or any other of your name; one that is a wit, attending on signior Aurelian?

_Ben._ No, I can assure your ladyship; I myself am the only wit, who does him the honour,--not to attend him, but--to bear him company.

_Lau._ But sure it was another you, that waited on Camillo in the garden, last night?

_Ben._ It was no other me, but me signior Benito.

_Lau._ 'Tis impossible.

_Ben._ 'Tis most certain.

_Lau._ Then I would advise you to go thither again, and look for the wit which you have left there, for you have brought very little along with you. Your voice, methinks, too, is much altered.

_Ben._ Only a little overstrained, or so, with singing.

_Lau._ How slept you, after your adventure?

_Ben._ Faith, lady, I could not sleep one wink, for dreaming of you.

_Lau._ Not sleep for dreaming? When the place falls, you shall be bull-master-general at court.

Ben. _Et tu, Brute!_ Do you mistake me for a fool too? Then, I find there's one more of that opinion besides my master.

_Vio._ Sister, look to yourself, my uncle is returning.

_Lau._ I am glad on't: He has done my business: He has absolutely cured me. Lord, that I could be so mistaken!

_Vio._ I told you what he was.

_Lau._ He was quite another thing last night: Never was man so altered in four-and-twenty hours. A pure clown, mere elementary earth, without the least spark of soul in him!

_Ben._ But, tell me truly, are not you in love with me? Confess the truth: I love plain-dealing: You shall not find me refractory.

_Lau._ Away, thou animal! I have found thee out for a high and mighty fool, and so I leave thee.

_Mar._ Come, now I am ready for you; as little devotion, and as much good huswifery as you please. Take example by me: I assure you, nobody debauches me to church, except it be in your company. [_Exeunt._

_Manet_ BENITO.

_Ben._ I am undone for ever; What shall I do with myself? I'll run into some desart, and there I'll hide my opprobrious head. No, hang it, I wont neither; all wits have their failings sometimes, and have the fortune to be thought fools once in their lives. Sure this is but a copy of her countenance; for my heart is true to me, and whispers to me, she loves me still. Well, I'll trust in my own merits, and be confident. [_A noise of throwing down water within._

_Enter_ MARIO, FABIO, LAURA, _and_ VIOLETTA.

_Lau._ [_Shaking her clothes._] O, sir, I am wet quite through my clothes, and am not able to endure it.

_Vio._ Was there ever such an insolence?

_Mar._ Send in to see who lives there: I'll make an example of them.

_Enter_ FRONTONA.

_Fab._ Here is the woman of the house herself, sir.

_Fron._ Sir, I submit, most willingly, to any punishment you shall inflict upon me: For, though I intended nothing of an affront to these sweet ladies, yet I can never forgive myself the misfortune, of which I was the innocent occasion.

_Vio._ O, I am ready to faint away!

_Fron._ Alas, poor sweet lady, she's young and tender, sir. I beseech you, give me leave to repair my offence, with offering myself, and poor house, for her accommodation.

_Ben._ I know that woman: There's some villanous plot in this, I'll lay my life on't. Now, Benito, cast about for thy credit, and recover all again.

_Mar._ Go into the coach, nieces, and bid the coachman drive apace. As for you, mistress, your smooth tongue shall not excuse you.

_Lau._ By your favour, sir, I'll accept of the gentlewoman's civility; I cannot stir a step farther.

_Fron._ Come in, sweet buds of beauty, you shall have a fire in an inner chamber; and if you please to repose yourself a while, sir, in another room, they shall come out, and wait on you immediately.

_Mar._ Well, it must be so.

_Fron_. [_Whispering the Ladies._] Your friends are ready in the garden, and will be with you as soon as we have shaken off your uncle.

_Ben._ A cheat, a cheat! a rank one! I smell it, old sir, I smell it.

_Mar._ What's the matter with the fellow? Is he distracted?

_Ben._ No, 'tis you are more likely to be distracted but that there goes some wit to the being mad; and you have not the least grain of wit, to be gulled thus grossly.

_Fron._ What does the fellow mean?

_Ben._ The fellow means to detect your villany, and to recover his lost reputation of a wit.

_Fron._ Why, friend, what villany? I hope my house is a civil house.

_Ben._ Yes, a very civil one; for my master lay in of his last clap there, and was treated very civilly, to my knowledge.

_Mar._ How's this, how's this?

_Fron._ Come, you are a dirty fellow, and I am known to be a person that--

_Ben._ Yes, you are known to be a person that--

_Fron._ Speak your worst of me; what person am I known to be?

_Ben._ Why, if you will have it, you are little better than a procuress: You carry messages betwixt party and party:--And, in one word, sir, she's as arrant a fruit-woman as any is about Rome.

_Mar._ Nay, if she be a fruit-woman, my nieces shall not enter her doors.

_Ben._ You had best let them enter, you do not know how they may fructify in her house: For I heard her, with these ears, whisper to them, that their friends were within call.

_Mar._ This is palpable, this is manifest; I shall remember you, lady fruiterer; I shall have your baskets searched when you bring oranges again.--Come away, nieces; and thanks, honest fellow, for thy discovery. [_Exeunt_ MARIO _and Women._

Ben. _Hah couragio! Il diavolo e morto:_ Now, I think I have tickled it; this discovery has reinstated me into the empire of my wit again. Now, in the pomp of this achievement, will I present myself before madam Laura, with a--Behold, madam, the happy restoration of Benito!

_Enter_ AURELIAN, CAMILLO, _and_ FRONTONA, _over-hearing him,_

Oh, now, that I had the mirror, to behold myself in the fulness of my glory! and, oh, that the domineering fop, my master, were in presence, that I might triumph over him! that I might even contemn the wretched wight, the mortal of a grovelling soul, and of a debased understanding. [_He looks about him, and sees his master._] How the devil came these three together? Nothing vexes me, but that I must stand bare to him, after such an enterprise as this is.

_Aur._ Nay, put on, put on again, sweet sir; why should you be uncovered before the fop your master, the wretched wight, the mortal of a grovelling soul?

_Ben._ Ay, sir, you may make bold with yourself at your own pleasure: But, for all that, a little bidding would make me take your counsel, and be covered, as affairs go now.

_Aur._ If it be lawful for a man of a debased understanding to confer with such an exalted wit, pray what was that glorious achievement, which wrapt you into such an ecstasy?

_Ben._ 'Tis a sign you know well how matters go, by your asking me so impertinent a question.

_Aur._ [_Putting off his hat to him._] Sir, I beg of you, as your most humble master, to be satisfied.

_Ben._ Your servant, sir; at present I am not at leisure for conference. But hark you, sir, by the way of friendly advice, one word: Henceforward, tell me no more of the adventure of the garden, nor of the great looking-glass.

_Aur._ You mean the mirror.

_Ben._ Yes, the mirror; tell me no more of that, except you could behold in it a better, a more discreet, or a more able face for stratagem, than I can, when I look there.

_Aur._ But, to the business; What is this famous enterprise?

_Ben._ Be satisfied, without troubling me farther, the business is done, the rogues are defeated, and your mistress is secured: If you would know more, demand it of that criminal [_Pointing to_ FRON.], and ask her, how she dares appear before you, after such a signal treachery, or before me, after such an overthrow?

_Fron._ I know nothing, but only that, by your master's order, I was to receive the two ladies into my house, and you prevented it.

_Ben._ By my master's order? I'll never believe it. This is your stratagem, to free yourself, and deprive me of my reward.

_Cam._ I'll witness what she says is true.

_Ben._ I am deaf to all asseverations, that make against my honour.

_Aur._ I'll swear it then. We two were the two rogues, and you the discoverer of our villany.

_Ben._ Then, woe, woe, to poor Benito! I find my abundance of wit has ruined me.

_Aur._ But come a little nearer: I would not receive a good office from a servant, but I would reward him for his diligence.

_Ben._ Virtue, sir, is its own reward: I expect none from you.

_Aur._ Since it is so, sir, you shall lose no further time in my service: Henceforward, pray know me for your humble servant; for your master I am resolved to be no longer.

_Ben._ Nay, rather than so, sir, I beseech you let a good, honest, sufficient beating atone the difference.

_Aur._ 'Tis in vain.

_Ben._ I am loth to leave you without a guide.

_Aur._ He's at it again! do you hear, Camillo?

_Cam._ Pr'ythee, Aurelian, be mollified, and beat him.

_Fron._ Pray, sir, hear reason, and lay it on, for my sake.

_Aur._ I am obdurate.

_Cam._ But what will your father say, if you part with him?

_Aur._ I care not.

_Ben._ Well, sir, since you are so peremptory, remember I have offered you satisfaction, and so long my conscience is at ease. What a devil, before I'll offer myself twice to be beaten, by any master in Christendom, I'll starve, and that is my resolution; and so your servant that was, sir. [_Exit._

_Aur._ I am glad I am rid of him; he was my evil genius, and was always appearing to me, to blast my undertakings: Let me send him never so far off, the devil would be sure to put him in my way, when I had any thing to execute. Come, Camillo, now we have changed the dice, it may be we shall have better fortune. [_Exeunt._