ACT II. SCENE I.

_A Street._[592]

_Enter_ FONTINELLE _from tennis, and_ TRUEPENNY.

FONT. Am I so happy then? TRUE. Nay, sweet monsieur— FONT. O, boy, thou hast new-wing’d my captiv’d soul! Now to my fortune all the Fates may yield, For I have won where first I lost the field. TRUE. Why, sir, did my mistress prick you with the Spanish needle[593] of her love, before I summoned you from her to this parley? FONT. Doubt’s[t] thou that, boy? TRUE. Of mine honesty, I doubt extremely, for I cannot see the little god’s tokens upon you: there is as much difference between you and a lover, as between a cuckold and a unicorn. FONT. Why, boy? TRUE. For you do not wear a pair of ruffled, frowning, ungartered stockings, like a gallant that hides his small-timbered legs with a quail-pipe boot:[594] your hose stands upon too many points,[595] and are not troubled with that falling sickness which follows pale, meagre, miserable, melancholy lovers: your hands are not groping continually— FONT. Where, my little observer? TRUE. In your greasy pocket, sir, like one that wants a cloak for the rain, and yet is still weatherbeaten: your hat nor head are not of the true heigh-ho block, for it should be broad-brimmed, limber like the skin of a white pudding when the meat is out, the facing fatty, the felt dusty, and not entered into any band;[596] but your hat is of the nature of a loose, light, heavy-swelling wench, too strait-laced. I tell you, monsieur, a lover should be all loose from the sole of the foot rising upward, and from the bases or confines of the slop[597] falling downwards. If you were in my mistress’s chamber, you should find othergates[598] privy signs of love hanging out there. FONT. Have your little eyes watched so narrowly? TRUE. O, sir, a page must have a cat’s eye, a spaniel’s leg, a whore’s tongue (a little tasting of the cog[599]), a catchpoll’s hand,—what he gripes is his own; and a little, little bawdy.[600] FONT. Fair Violetta, I will wear thy love, Like this French order, near unto my heart. _Via_[601] for fate! Fortune, lo, this is all, At grief’s rebound I’ll mount, although I fall!

_Enter_ CAMILLO _and_ HIPPOLITO _from tennis_; DOYT _and_ DANDYPRAT _with their cloaks and rapiers_.

CAM. Now, by Saint Mark, he’s a most treacherous villain. Dare the base Frenchman’s eye gaze on my love? HIP. Nay, sweet rogue, why wouldst thou make his face a vizard, to have two loopholes only? When he comes to a good face, may he not do with his eyes what he will? ’S foot, if I were as he, I’d pull them out, and if I wist[602] they would anger thee. CAM. Thou add’st heat to my rage. Away, stand back, Dishonour’d slave, more treacherous than base! This is the instance of my scorn’d disgrace. FONT. Thou ill-advis’d Italian, whence proceeds This sudden fury? CAM. Villain, from thee. HIP. Hercules, stand between them! FONT. Villain? by my blood, I am as free-born as your Venice duke! Villain? Saint Denis and my life to boot, Thy lips shall kiss this pavement or my foot. HIP. Your foot, with a pox! I hope you’re no pope, sir: his lips shall kiss my sister’s soft lip, and thine the tough lips of this. Nay, sir, I do but shew you that I have a tool. Do you hear, Saint Denis? but that we both stand upon the narrow bridge of honour, I should cut your throat now, for pure love you bear to my sister, but that I know you would set out a throat. CAM. Wilt thou not stab the peasant That thus dishonours both thyself and me? HIP. Saint Mark set his marks upon me then! Stab? I’ll have my shins broken, ere I’ll scratch so much as the skin off a’ the law of arms. Shall I make a Frenchman cry O! before the fall of the leaf? not I, by the cross of this Dandyprat.[603] DANDY. If you will, sir, you shall coin me into a shilling. HIP. I shall lay too heavy a cross upon thee then. CAM. Is this a time to jest? Boy, call my servants. DOYT. Gentlemen, to the dresser![604] CAM. You rogue, what dresser?

_Enter Servingmen._

Seize on Fontinelle, And lodge him in a dungeon presently. FONT. He steps upon his death that stirs a foot. CAM. That shall I try: as in the field before I made thee stoop, so here I’ll make thee bow. FONT. Thou play’dst the soldier then, the villain now. [CAMILLO _and his men set upon him, get him down, disweapon him, and hold him fast_. FONT. Treacherous Italians! CAM. Hale him to a dungeon.— There, if your thoughts can apprehend the form Of Violetta, doat on her rare feature; Or if your proud flesh, with a sparing diet, Can still retain her swelling sprightfulness, Then court, instead of her, the croaking vermin That people that most solitary vault. HIP. But, sirrah Camillo, wilt thou play the wise and venerable bearded master-constable, and commit him indeed, because he would be meddling in thy precinct, and will not put off the cap of his love to the brown- bill[605] of thy desires? Well, thou hast given the law of arms a broken pate already; therefore, if thou wilt needs turn broker,[606] and be a cut-throat too, do. For my part, I’ll go get a sweet ball, and wash my hands of it. CAM. Away with him! my life shall answer it. FONT. To prison must I then? Well, I will go, And with a light-wing’d spirit insult o’er woe; For in the darkest hell on earth I’ll find Her fair idea to content my mind. Yet France and Italy with blister’d tongue Shall publish thy dishonour in my wrong. O, now how happy wert thou, could’st thou lodge me Where I could leave to love her! CAM. By heaven, I can. FONT. Thou canst? O, happy man! This [is] a kind of new-invented law, First feed the axe, after produce the saw. Her heart no doubt will thy affections feel, For thou’lt plead sighs in blood and tears in steel. Boy, tell my love her love thus sighing spake, I’ll vail[607] my crest to death for her dear sake. [_Exit, guarded by the Servingmen._ CAM. Boy? what boy is that? HIP. Is’t you, Sir Pandarus, the broking[608] knight of Troy? Are your two legs the pair of tressels for the Frenchman to get up upon my sister? TRUE. By the Nine Worthies, worthy gallants, not I: I a gentleman for conveyance? I Sir Pandarus? Would Troy, then, were in my breeches, and I burnt worse than poor Troy! Sweet signior, you know, I know, and all Venice knows, that my mistress scorns double-dealing with her heels. HIP. With her heels? O, here’s a sure pocket dag![609] and my sister shoots him off, snip-snap, at her pleasure. Sirrah Mephostophilis,[610] did not you bring letters from my sister to the Frenchman? TRUE. Signior, no. CAM. Did not you fetch him out of the tennis court? TRUE. No, _point, par ma foi_: you see I have many tongues speak for me. HIP. Did not he follow your crackship[611] at a beck given? TRUE. _Ita_, true, certes, he spied, and I spitting thus, went thus. HIP. But were stayed thus. TRUE. You hold a’ my side, and therefore I must needs stick to you; ’tis true: I going, he followed, and following fingered me, just as your worship does now; but I struggled and straggled, and wriggled and wraggled, and at last cried _vale, valete_, as I do now, with this fragment of a rhyme, My lady is grossly fall’n in love, and yet her waist is slender; Had I not slipt away, you would have made my buttocks tender. [_Exit._

DANDY. Shall Doyt and I play the bloodhounds, and after him? CAM. No, let him run. HIP. Not for this wager of my sister’s love; run! away, Dandyprat, catch Truepenny, and hold him; thyself shall pass more current.[612] DANDY. I fly, sir; your Dandyprat is as light as a clipt angel.[613] [_Exit._ HIP. Nay, God’s lid, after him, Camillo; reply not, but away. CAM. Content; you know where to meet. [_Exit._ HIP. For I know that the only way to win a wench is not to woo her; the only way to have her fast is to have her loose; the only way to triumph over her is to make her fall; and the way to make her fall,— DOYT. Is to throw her down. HIP. Are you so cunning, sir? DOYT. O Lord, sir, and have so perfect a master? HIP. Well, sir, you know the gentlewoman that dwells in the midst of Saint Mark’s Street? DOYT. Midst of Saint Mark’s Street, sir? HIP. A pox on you! the flea-bitten-faced lady. DOYT. O, sir, the freckle-cheeke[d] Madonna; I know her, signior, as well— HIP. Not as I do, I hope, sir. DOYT. No, sir, I’d be loath to have such inward acquaintance with her as you have. HIP. Well, sir, slip, go presently to her, and from me deliver to her own white hands Fontinelle’s picture. DOYT. Indeed, sir, she loves to have her chamber hung with the pictures of men. HIP. She does. I’ll keep my sister’s eyes and his painted face asunder. Tell her, besides, the masque holds, and this the night, and nine the hour: say we are all for her: away. DOYT. And she’s for you all, were you an army. [_Exeunt severally._