SCENE I.

_Room in_ Sir HUBERT SUBBOYS' _house_.

_Enter_ Sir HUBERT SUBBOYS, Sir LIONEL FREEVILL, CRISPINELLA; _servants with lights_.

_Sir Hub._ More lights! Welcome, Sir Lionel Freevill! brother Freevill, shortly. Look to your lights!

_Serv._ The masquers are at hand.

_Sir Lio._ Call down our daughter. Hark! they are at hand: rank handsomely.

_Enter the Masquers; they dance._ _Enter_ BEATRICE, FREEVILL, _and_ MALHEUREUX. MALHEUREUX _takes_ BEATRICE _from_ FREEVILL: _they draw_.

_Free._ Know, sir, I have the advantage of the place; You are not safe: I would deal even with you.

_Mal._ So.

[_They exchange gloves as pledges._

_Free._ So.

_Bea._ I do beseech you, sweet, do not for me provoke your fortune. 11

_Sir Lio._ What sudden flaw is risen?

_Sir Hub._ From whence comes this?

_Free._ An ulcer, long time lurking, now is burst.

_Sir Hub._ Good sir, the time and your designs are soft.

_Bea._ Ay, dear sir, counsel him, advise him; 'twill relish well From your carving. Good my sweet, rest safe.

_Free._ All's well! all's well!--this shall be ended straight.

_Sir Hub._ The banquet stays;--there we'll discourse more large.

_Free._ Marriage must not make men cowards.

_Sir Lio._ Nor rage fools. 19

_Sir Hub._ 'Tis valour not where heat but reason rules.

[_Exeunt; only_ TYSEFEW _and_ CRISPINELLA _stay_.

_Tyse._ But do you hear, lady?--you proud ape, you! What was the jest you brake of me even now?

_Cris._ Nothing. I only said you were all mettle;--that you had a brazen face, a leaden brain, and a copper beard.

_Tyse._ Quicksilver,--thou little more than a dwarf, and something less than a woman.

_Cris._ A wisp! a wisp! a wisp!--will you go to the banquet?

_Tyse._ By the Lord, I think thou wilt marry shortly too; thou growest somewhat foolish already. 31

_Cris._ O, i'faith, 'tis a fair thing to be married, and a necessary. To hear this word _must_! If our husbands be proud, we must bear his contempt; if noisome, we must bear with the goat under his armholes; if a fool, we must bear his bable;[76] and, which is worse, if a loose liver, we must live upon unwholesome reversions; where, on the contrary side, our husbands--because they may, and we must--care not for us. Things hoped with fear, and got with strugglings, are men's high pleasures, when duty palls and flats their appetite. 41

_Tyse._ What a tart monkey is this! By heaven! if thou hadst not so much wit, I could find in my heart to marry thee. Faith, bear with me for all this!

_Cris._ Bear with thee? I wonder how thy mother could bear thee ten months in her belly, when I cannot endure thee two hours in mine eye.

_Tyse._ Alas, for your sweet soul! By the Lord, you are grown a proud, scurvy, apish, idle, disdainful, scoffing--God's foot! because you have read _Euphues and his England_,[77] _Palmerin de Oliva_,[78] and the _Legend of Lies_![79] 52

_Cris._ Why, i'faith, yet, servant, you of all others should bear with my known unmalicious humours: I have always in my heart given you your due respect. And Heaven may be sworn, I have privately given fair speech of you, and protested----

_Tyse._ Nay, look you; for my own part, if I have not as religiously vow'd my heart to you,--been drunk to your health, swallowed flap-dragons,[80] ate glasses, drunk urine,[81] stabb'd arms,[82] and done all the offices of protested gallantry for your sake; and yet you tell me I have a brazen face, a leaden brain, and a copper beard! Come, yet, and it please you. 64

_Cris._ No, no;--you do not love me.

_Tyse._ By ---- but I do now; and whosoever dares say that I do not love you, nay, honour you, and if you would vouchsafe to marry----

_Cris._ Nay, as for that, think on't as you will, but God's my record,--and my sister knows I have taken drink and slept upon't,--that if ever I marry, it shall be you; and I will marry, and yet I hope I do not say it shall be you neither. 73

_Tyse._ By Heaven, I shall be as soon weary of health as of your enjoying!--Will you cast a smooth cheek upon me?

_Cris._ I cannot tell. I have no crump'd shoulders, my back needs no mantle, and yet marriage is honourable. Do you think ye shall prove a cuckold?

_Tyse._ No, by the Lord, not I! 80

_Cris._ Why, I thank you, i'faith. Heigho! I slept on my back this morning, and dreamt the strangest dreams. Good Lord! How things will come to pass! Will you go to the banquet?

_Tyse._ If you will be mine, you shall be your own:--my purse, my body, my heart, is yours,--only be silent in my house, modest at my table, and wanton in my bed;--and the Empress of Europe cannot content, and shall not be contented, better. 89

_Cris._ Can any kind heart speak more discreetly affectionately? My father's consent; and as for mine----

_Tyse._ Then thus, and thus, so Hymen should begin; Sometimes a falling out proves falling in.

[_Exeunt._

[76] The word is used in the double sense of (1) babble, (2) bauble (which was frequently written _bable_).

[77] _Euphues and his England_ is the title of the second part (first published in 1580) of John Lyly's famous and tedious romance.

[78] One of the romances published in the series that bears the general title of _The Mirrour of Knighthood_.

[79] The _Legend of Lies_ is, of course, a fictitious book.

[80] Candle-ends floating in lighted brandy.

[81] This nasty feat of gallantry is mentioned by Middleton, ii. 351.

[82] It appears (from passages in Ben Jonson, Middleton, &c.) that gallants were accustomed to puncture their arms, and letting the blood drip into the wine, drink off the mixture to their mistress' health.