SCENE III.

_Venice.--A Street._

_Enter_ ABIGAIL _and_ THAIS _at several doors_.

_Abi._ O partner, I am with child of laughter, and none but you can be my midwife. Was there ever such a game at noddy?[251]

_Tha._ Our husbands think they are foremen of the jury; they hold the heretic point of predestination, and sure they are born to be hanged!

_Abi._ They are like to prove men of judgment; but not for killing of him that's yet alive and well recovered.

_Tha._ As soon as my man saw the watch come up, All his spirit was down. 10

_Abi._ But though they have made us good sport in speech, They did hinder us of good sport in action. O wench! imagination is strong in pleasure!

_Tha._ That's true; for the opinion my good man had of enjoying you made him do wonders.

_Abi._ Why should a weak man, that is so soon satisfied, desire variety?

_Tha._ Their answer is, to feed on pheasants continually would breed a loathing.

_Abi._ Then if we seek for strange flesh that have stomachs at will, 'tis pardonable. 21

_Tha._ Ay, if men had any feeling of it; but they judge us by themselves.

_Abi._ Well, we will bring them to the gallows, and then, like kind virgins,[252] beg their lives; and after live at our pleasures, and this bridle shall still rein them.

_Tha._ Faith, if we were disposed, we might sin[253] as safe as if we had the broad seal to warrant it; but that night's work will stick by me this forty weeks. Come, shall we go visit the discontented Lady Lentulus, whom the Lord Mendoza has confess'd to his chirurgion he would have robb'd? I thought great men would but have robb'd the poor, yet he the rich. 33

_Abi._ He thought that the richer purchase, though with the worse conscience; but we'll to comfort her, and then go hear our husband's lamentations. They say mine has compiled an ungodly volume of satires against women, and calls his book _The Snarl_.

_Tha._ But he's in hope his book will save him.

_Abi._ God defend that it should, or any that snarl in that fashion! 41

_Tha._ Well, wench, if I could be metamorphosed into thy shape, I should have my husband pliant to me in his life, and soon rid of him; for being weary with his continual motion, he'd die of a consumption.

_Abi._ Make much of him, for all our wanton prize; Follow the proverb, "Merry be and wise."

[_Exeunt._

[251] There was a game at cards called noddy.

[252] It was popularly supposed that a virgin might save a man from the gallows by offering to marry him. In _Arden of Feversham_, when the serving-man Michael promises to murder his master, Alice Arden says--"But Michael see you do it cunningly:" to which he replies:-- "Why, say I should be took, I'll ne'er confess That you know anything; and _Susan, being a maid_, May beg me from the gallows of the shrief."

Alice bids him "trust not to that;" but he is convinced that all will be right:-- "You cannot tell me; I have seen it, I."

Many similar passages might be adduced to prove that this extraordinary belief prevailed. I suspect that we must go back to the ancients for an explanation. Plutarch in his life of Numa tells us that a vestal virgin, accidentally meeting a criminal on his way to execution, was entitled by law to give him life and liberty.--The curious Manx custom in regard to rape may be noticed in this connection. The injured woman was presented with a ring, a rope, and a knife. If the offender was a bachelor, the woman might marry him with the ring; if he was a married man, it was left to her discretion whether she should hang him with the rope or castrate him with the knife (an awkward dilemma--for the married man).

[253] Old eds. "seeme."--The correction was made by the editor of 1820.