SCENE I.--_A Room in_ MATHEO’S _House_.

_Enter_ MATHEO _brave,[277] and_ BELLAFRONT.

[277] Finely attired.

MAT. How am I suited, Front? am I not gallant, ha?

_Bell._ Yes, sir, you are suited well.

_Mat._ Exceeding passing well, and to the time.

_Bell._ The tailor has played his part with you.

_Mat._ And I have played a gentleman’s part with my tailor, for I owe him for the making of it.

_Bell._ And why did you so, sir?

_Mat._ To keep the fashion; it’s your only fashion now, of your best rank of gallants, to make their tailors wait for their money; neither were it wisdom indeed to pay them upon the first edition of a new suit; for commonly the suit is owing for, when the linings are worn out, and there’s no reason, then, that the tailor should be paid before the mercer.

_Bell._ Is this the suit the knight bestowed upon you?

_Mat._ This is the suit, and I need not shame to wear it, for better men than I would be glad to have suits bestowed on them. It’s a generous fellow,--but--pox on him--we whose pericranions are the very limbecks and stillatories of good wit and fly high, must drive liquor out of stale gaping oysters--shallow knight, poor squire Tinacheo: I’ll make a wild Cataian[278] of forty such: hang him, he’s an ass, he’s always sober.

[278] A Cataian came to signify a sharper because the people of Cataia (China) were famous for their thieving propensities.--_Dyce._

_Bell._ This is your fault to wound your friends still.

_Mat._ No, faith, Front, Lodovico is a noble Slavonian: it’s more rare to see him in a woman’s company, than for a Spaniard to go into England, and to challenge the English fencers there.--[_Knocking within._] One knocks,--see.--[_Exit_ BELLAFRONT.]--La, fa, fol, la, fa, la, [_Sings_] rustle in silks and satins! there’s music in this, and a taffeta petticoat, it makes both fly high. _Catso._

_Re-enter_ BELLAFRONT _with_ ORLANDO _in his own dress, and four ~Servants~_.

_Bell._ Matheo! ’tis my father.

_Mat._ Ha! father? It’s no matter, he finds no tattered prodigals here.

_Orl._ Is not the door good enough to hold your blue coats?[279] away, knaves, Wear not your clothes threadbare at knees for me; beg Heaven’s blessing, not mine.--[_Exeunt ~Servants~._]--Oh cry your worship mercy, sir; was somewhat bold to talk to this gentlewoman, your wife here.

[279] Serving-men’s livery at this time was usually blue.

_Mat._ A poor gentlewoman, sir.

_Orl._ Stand not, sir, bare to me; I ha’ read oft That serpents who creep low, belch ranker poison Than wingèd dragons do that fly aloft.

_Mat._ If it offend you, sir, ’tis for my pleasure.

_Orl._ Your pleasure be’t, sir. Umh, is this your palace?

_Bell._ Yes, and our kingdom, for ’tis our content.

_Orl._ It’s a very poor kingdom then; what, are all your subjects gone a sheep-shearing? not a maid? not a man? not so much as a cat? You keep a good house belike, just like one of your profession, every room with bare walls, and a half-headed bed to vault upon, as all your bawdy-houses are. Pray who are your upholsters? Oh, the spiders, I see, they bestow hangings upon you.

_Mat._ Bawdy-house? Zounds, sir--

_Bell._ Oh sweet Matheo, peace. Upon my knees I do beseech you, sir, not to arraign me For sins, which Heaven, I hope, long since hath pardoned! Those flames, like lightning flashes, are so spent, The heat no more remains, than where ships went, Or where birds cut the air, the print remains.

_Mat._ Pox on him, kneel to a dog.

_Bell._ She that’s a whore, Lives gallant, fares well, is not, like me, poor. I ha’ now as small acquaintance with that sin, As if I had never known’t, t’ had never been.

_Orl._ No acquaintance with it? what maintains thee then? how dost live then? Has thy husband any lands? any rents coming in, any stock going, any ploughs jogging, any ships sailing? hast thou any wares to turn, so much as to get a single penny by?

Yes thou hast ware to sell, Knaves are thy chapmen, and thy shop is hell.

_Mat._ Do you hear, sir?

_Orl._ So, sir, I do hear, sir, more of you than you dream I do.

_Mat._ You fly a little too high, sir.

_Orl._ Why, sir, too high?

_Mat._ I ha’ suffered your tongue, like a bard cater-tray,[280] to run all this while, and ha’ not stopt it.

[280] A kind of false dice.

_Orl._ Well, sir, you talk like a gamester.

_Mat._ If you come to bark at her, because she’s a poor rogue, look you, here’s a fine path, sir, and there, there’s the door.

_Bell._ Matheo?

_Mat._ Your blue coats stay for you, sir. I love a good honest roaring boy, and so--

_Orl._ That’s the devil.

_Mat._ Sir, sir, I’ll ha’ no Joves in my house to thunder avaunt: she shall live and be maintained when you, like a keg of musty sturgeon, shall stink; where? in your coffin--how? be a musty fellow, and lousy.

_Orl._ I know she shall be maintained, but how? she like a quean, thou like a knave; she like a whore, thou like a thief.

_Mat._ Thief? Zounds! Thief?

_Bell._ Good, dearest Mat!--Father!

_Mat._ Pox on you both! I’ll not be braved. New satin scorns to be put down with bare bawdy velvet. Thief?

_Orl._ Ay, thief, th’art a murderer, a cheater, a whoremonger, a pot-hunter, a borrower a beggar--

_Bell._ Dear father--

_Mat._ An old ass, a dog, a churl, a chuff, an usurer, a villain, a moth, a mangy mule, with an old velvet foot-cloth on his back, sir.

_Bell._ Oh me!

_Orl._ Varlet, for this I’ll hang thee.

_Mat._ Ha, ha, alas!

_Orl._ Thou keepest a man of mine here, under my nose--

_Mat._ Under thy beard.

_Orl._ As arrant a smell-smock, for an old muttonmonger[281] as thyself.

[281] Whoremonger.

_Mat._ No, as yourself.

_Orl._ As arrant a purse-taker as ever cried, Stand! yet a good fellow I confess, and valiant; but he’ll bring thee to th’ gallows; you both have robbed of late two poor country pedlars.

_Mat._ How’s this? how’s this? dost thou fly high? rob pedlars?--bear witness, Front--rob pedlars? my man and I a thief?

_Bell._ Oh, sir, no more.

_Orl._ Ay, knave, two pedlars; hue and cry is up; warrants are out, and I shall see thee climb a ladder.

_Mat._ And come down again as well as a bricklayer or a tiler. How the vengeance knows he this? If I be hanged, I’ll tell the people I married old Friscobaldo’s daughter; I’ll frisco you, and your old carcass.

_Orl._ Tell what you canst; if I stay here longer, I shall be hanged too, for being in thy company; therefore, as I found you, I leave you--

_Mat._ Kneel, and get money of him.

_Orl._ A knave and a quean, a thief and a strumpet, a couple of beggars, a brace of baggages.

_Mat._ Hang upon him--Ay, ay, sir, farewell; we are--follow close--we are beggars--in satin--to him.

_Bell._ Is this your comfort, when so many years You ha’ left me frozen to death?

_Orl._ Freeze still, starve still!

_Bell._ Yes, so I shall: I must: I must and will. If as you say I’m poor, relieve me then, Let me not sell my body to base men. You call me strumpet, Heaven knows I am none: Your cruelty may drive me to be one: Let not that sin be yours; let not the shame Of common whore live longer than my name. That cunning bawd, necessity, night and day Plots to undo me; drive that hag away, Lest being at lowest ebb, as now I am, I sink for ever.

_Orl._ Lowest ebb, what ebb?

_Bell._ So poor, that, though to tell it be my shame, I am not worth a dish to hold my meat; I am yet poorer, I want bread to eat.

_Orl._ It’s not seen by your cheeks.

_Mat._ I think she has read an homily to tickle the old rogue. [_Aside._

_Orl._ Want bread! there’s satin: bake that.

_Mat._ ’Sblood, make pasties of my clothes?

_Orl._ A fair new cloak, stew that; an excellent gilt rapier.

_Mat._ Will you eat that, sir?

_Orl._ I could feast ten good fellows with these hangers.[282]

[282] The loops or straps appended to the girdle in which the dagger or small sword usually hung.--_Halliwell._

_Mat._ The pox, you shall!

_Orl._ I shall not, till thou begg’st, think thou art poor; And when thou begg’st I’ll feed thee at my door, As I feed dogs, with bones; till then beg, borrow, Pawn, steal, and hang, turn bawd, when th’art whore.-- My heart-strings sure would crack, were they strained more. [_Aside, and exit._

_Mat._ This is your father, your damned--Confusion light upon all the generation of you; he can come bragging hither with four white herrings at’s tail in blue coats, without roes in their bellies, but I may starve ere he give me so much as a cob.[283]

[283] Means both a herring and a piece of money.

_Bell._ What tell you me of this? alas!

_Mat._ Go, trot after your dad, do you capitulate; I’ll pawn not for you; I’ll not steal to be hanged for such an hypocritical, close, common harlot: away, you dog!--Brave i’faith! Udsfoot, give me some meat.

_Bell._ Yes, sir. [_Exit._

_Mat._ Goodman slave, my man too, is galloped to the devil a’ t’other side: Pacheco, I’ll checo you. Is this your dad’s day? England, they say, is the only hell for horses, and only paradise for women: pray get you to that paradise, because you’re called an honest whore; there they live none but honest whores with a pox. Marry here in our city, all your sex are but foot-cloth nags,[284] the master no sooner lights but the man leaps into the saddle.

[284] Horses with long housings.

_Re-enter_ BELLAFRONT _with meat and drink_.

_Bell._ Will you sit down I pray, sir?

_Mat._ [_Sitting down._] I could tear, by th’ Lord, his flesh, and eat his midriff in salt, as I eat this:--must I choke--my father Friscobaldo, I shall make a pitiful hog-louse of you, Orlando, if you fall once into my fingers--Here’s the savourest meat! I ha’ got a stomach with chafing. What rogue should tell him of those two pedlars? A plague choke him, and gnaw him to the bare bones!--Come fill.

_Bell._ Thou sweatest with very anger, good sweet, vex not, as ’tis no fault of mine.

_Mat._ Where didst buy this mutton? I never felt better ribs.

_Bell._ A neighbour sent it me.

_Re-enter_ ORLANDO _disguised as a ~Serving-man~_.

_Mat._ Hah, neighbour? foh, my mouth stinks,--You whore, do you beg victuals for me? Is this satin doublet to be bombasted[285] with broken meat? [_Takes up the stool._

[285] Stuffed out.

_Orl._ What will you do, sir?

_Mat._ Beat out the brains of a beggarly--

_Orl._ Beat out an ass’s head of your own--Away, Mistress [_Exit_ BELLAFRONT.] Zounds, do but touch one hair of her, and I’ll so quilt your cap with old iron, that your coxcomb shall ache like a roasted rabbit, that you must have the head for the brains?

_Mat._ Ha, ha! go out of my doors, you rogue, away, four marks; trudge.

_Orl._ Four marks? no, sir, my twenty pound that you ha’ made fly high, and I am gone.

_Mat._ Must I be fed with chippings? you’re best get a clapdish,[286] and say you’re proctor to some spittle-house.[287] Where hast thou been, Pacheco? Come hither my little turkey-cock.

[286] The clap or clack-dish was properly a box carried by beggars, the lid of which they used to rattle to attract notice and bring people to their doors.

[287] Hospital.

_Orl._ I cannot abide, sir, to see a woman wronged, not I.

_Mat._ Sirrah, here was my father-in-law to day.

_Orl._ Pish, then you’re full of crowns.

_Mat._ Hang him! he would ha’ thrust crowns upon me, to have fallen in again, but I scorn cast clothes, or any man’s gold.

_Orl._ But mine; [_Aside._]--How did he brook that, sir?

_Mat._ Oh, swore like a dozen of drunken tinkers; at last growing foul in words, he and four of his men drew upon me, sir.

_Orl._ In your house? would I had been by!

_Mat._ I made no more ado, but fell to my old lock, and so thrashed my blue-coats and old crab-tree-face my father-in-law, and then walked like a lion in my grate.

_Orl._ O noble master!

_Mat._ Sirrah, he could tell me of the robbing the two pedlars, and that warrants are out for us both.

_Orl._ Good sir, I like not those crackers.

_Mat._ Crackhalter, wou’t set thy foot to mine?

_Orl._ How, sir? at drinking.

_Mat._ We’ll pull that old crow my father: rob thy master. I know the house, thou the servants: the purchase[288] is rich, the plot to get it is easy, the dog will not part from a bone.

[288] Booty.

_Orl._ Pluck’t out of his throat, then: I’ll snarl for one, if this[289] can bite.

[289] Meaning his sword.

_Mat._ Say no more, say no more, old coal, meet me anon at the sign of the Shipwreck.

_Orl._ Yes, sir.

_Mat._ And dost hear, man?--the Shipwreck. [_Exit._

_Orl._ Th’art at the shipwreck now, and like a swimmer, Bold, but inexpert, with those waves dost play, Whose dalliance, whorelike, is to cast thee away.

_Enter_ HIPPOLITO _and_ BELLAFRONT.

And here’s another vessel, better fraught, But as ill-manned her sinking will be wrought, If rescue come not: like a man of war I’ll therefore bravely out; somewhat I’ll do, And either save them both, or perish too. [_Exit._

_Hip._ ’Tis my fate to be bewitched by those eyes.

_Bell._ Fate? your folly. Why should my face thus mad you? ’Las, those colours Are wound up long ago, which beauty spread; The flowers that once grew here, are witherèd. You turned my black soul white, made it look new, And should I sin, it ne’er should be with you.

_Hip._ Your hand, I’ll offer you fair play: When first We met i’th ’lists together, you remember You were a common rebel; with one parley I won you to come in.

_Bell._ You did.

_Hip._ I’ll try If now I can beat down this chastity With the same ordnance; will you yield this fort, If the power of argument now, as then, I get of you the conquest: as before I turned you honest, now to turn you whore, By force of strong persuasion?

_Bell._ If you can, I yield.

_Hip._ The alarum’s struck up; I’m your man.

_Bell._ A woman gives defiance.

_Hip._ Sit. [_They seat themselves._

_Bell._ Begin: ’Tis a brave battle to encounter sin.

_Hip._ You men that are to fight in the same war To which I’m prest, and plead at the same bar, To win a woman, if you’d have me speed, Send all your wishes!

_Bell._ No doubt you’re heard; proceed.

_Hip._ To be a harlot, that you stand upon, The very name’s a charm to make you one. Harlotta was a dame of so divine And ravishing touch, that she was concubine To an English king;[290] her sweet bewitching eye Did the king’s heart-strings in such love-knots tie, That even the coyest was proud when she could hear Men say, “behold, another harlot there!” And after her all women that were fair Were harlots called as to this day some are: Besides, her dalliance she so well does mix, That she’s in Latin called the _Meretrix_. Thus for the name; for the profession, this, Who lives in bondage, lives laced; the chief bliss This world below can yield, is liberty: And who, than whores, with looser wings dare fly? As Juno’s proud bird spreads the fairest tail, So does a strumpet hoist the loftiest sail, She’s no man’s slave; men are her slaves; her eye Moves not on wheels screwed up with jealousy. She, horsed or coached, does merry journeys make, Free as the sun in his gilt zodiac: As bravely does she shine, as fast she’s driven, But stays not long in any house of heaven; But shifts from sign to sign, her amorous prizes More rich being when she’s down, than when she rises. In brief, gentlemen hunt them, soldiers fight for them, Few men but know them, few or none abhor them: Thus for sport’s sake speak I, as to a woman, Whom, as the worst ground, I would turn to common: But you I would enclose for mine own bed.

[290] Steevens pointed out that Arlotte was not the concubine of an English king but was the mistress of the father of William the Conqueror.

_Bell._ So should a husband be dishonourèd.

_Hip._ Dishonoured? not a whit: to fall to one Besides your husband is to fall to none, For one no number is.

_Bell._ Faith, should you take One in your bed, would you that reckoning make? ’Tis time you found retreat.

_Hip._ Say, have I won, Is the day ours?

_Bell._ The battle’s but half done, None but yourself have yet sounded alarms, Let us strike too, else you dishonour arms.

_Hip._ If you can win the day, the glory’s yours.

_Bell._ To prove a woman should not be a whore, When she was made, she had one man, no more; Yet she was tied to laws then, for even than,[291] ’Tis said, she was not made for men, but man. Anon, t’increase earth’s brood, the law was varied, Men should take many wives: and though they married According to that act, yet ’tis not known But that those wives were only tied to one. New parliaments were since: for now one woman Is shared between three hundred, nay she’s common, Common as spotted leopards, whom for sport Men hunt to get the flesh, but care not for’t. So spread they nets of gold, and tune their calls, To enchant silly women to take falls; Swearing they’re angels, which that they may win They’ll hire the devil to come with false dice in. Oh Sirens’ subtle tunes! yourselves you flatter, And our weak sex betray: so men love water; It serves to wash their hands, but being once foul, The water down is poured, cast out of doors, And even of such base use do men make whores. A harlot, like a hen more sweetness reaps, To pick men one by one up, than in heaps: Yet all feeds but confounding. Say you should taste me, I serve but for the time, and when the day Of war is done, am cashiered out of pay: If like lame soldiers I could beg, that’s all, And there’s lust’s rendezvous, an hospital. Who then would be a man’s slave, a man’s woman? She’s half starved the first day that feeds in common.

[291] _i.e._ Then.

_Hip._ You should not feed so, but with me alone.

_Bell._ If I drink poison by stealth, is’t not all one? Is’t not rank poison still with you alone? Nay, say you spied a courtesan, whose soft side To touch you’d sell your birth-right, for one kiss Be racked; she’s won, you’re sated: what follows this? Oh, then you curse that bawd that tolled you in; The night you curse your lust, you loathe the sin, You loathe her very sight, and ere the day Arise, you rise glad when you’re stol’n away. Even then when you are drunk with all her sweets, There’s no true pleasure in a strumpet’s sheets. Women whom lust so prostitutes to sale, Like dancers upon ropes, once seen, are stale.

_Hip._ If all the threads of harlot’s lives are spun, So coarse as you would make them, tell me why You so long loved the trade?

_Bell._ If all the threads Of harlot’s lives be fine as you would make them, Why do not you persuade your wife turn whore, And all dames else to fall before that sin? Like an ill husband, though I knew the same To be my undoing, followed I that game. Oh, when the work of lust had earned my bread, To taste it how I trembled, lest each bit, Ere it went down, should choke me chewing it! My bed seemed like a cabin hung in hell, The bawd, hell’s porter, and the liquorish wine The pander fetched, was like an easy fine, For which, methought, I leased away my soul, And oftentimes, even in my quaffing bowl, Thus said I to myself, I am a whore, And have drunk down thus much confusion more.

_Hip._ It is a common rule, and ’tis most true, Two of one trade ne’er love: no more do you. Why are you sharp ’gainst that you once professed?

_Bell._ Why dote you on that, which you did once detest? I cannot, seeing she’s woven of such bad stuff, Set colours on a harlot base enough. Nothing did make me, when I loved them best, To loathe them more than this: when in the street A fair young modest damsel I did meet, She seemed to all a dove, when I passed by, And I to all a raven: every eye That followed her went with a bashful glance, At me each bold and jeering countenance Darted forth scorn; to her as if she had been Some tower unvanquished, would they vail, ’Gainst me swoln rumour hoisted every sail. She, crowned with reverend praises, passed by them, I, though with face masked, could not ’scape the hem, For, as if Heaven had set strange marks on whores, Because they should be pointing stocks to man, Drest up in civilest shape, a courtesan-- Let her walk saint-like, noteless, and unknown, Yet she’s betrayed by some trick of her own. Were harlots therefore wise, they’d be sold dear: For men account them good but for one year, And then like almanacs whose dates are gone, They are thrown by, and no more looked upon. Who’ll therefore backward fall, who will launch forth In seas so foul, for ventures no more worth? Lust’s voyage hath, if not this course, this cross, Buy ne’er so cheap, your ware comes home with loss. What, shall I sound retreat? the battle’s done: Let the world judge which of us two have won.

_Hip._ I!

_Bell._ You? nay then as cowards do in fight, What by blows cannot, shall be saved by flight. [_Exit._

_Hip._ Fly to earth’s fixèd centre: to the caves Of everlasting horror, I’ll pursue thee, Though loaden with sins, even to hell’s brazen doors. Thus wisest men turn fools, doting on whores. [_Exit._