“ I, Peg Pudding, promise thee, William Cricket, that I'll hold thee for my own sweet lily, while I have a head in mine eye and a face on my nose, a mouth in my tongue and all that a woman should have from the crown of my foot to the sole of my head. I'll clasp thee and clip thee, coll thee and kiss thee, till I be better than nought and worse than nothing. When thou art ready to sleep, I'll be ready to snort; when thou art in health, I'll be in gladness; when thou art sick, I'll be ready to die; when thou art mad, I'll run out of my wits, and thereupon I strike thee good luck. ”

“ How sped you with your wench?
CHURMS. I would the wench were at the devil! A plague upon't, I never say my prayers; and that makes me have such ill-luck.
ROBIN GOODFELLOW.
I think the scholar be hunted with some demi-devil.
CHURMS.
Why, didst thou fray him?
ROBIN GOODFELLOW. Fray him? a vengeance on't! all our shifting knavery's known; we are counted very vagrants. Zounds, I am afraid of every officer for whipping.
CHURMS. We are horribly haunted: our behaviour is so beastly, that we are grown loathsome; our craft gets us nought but knocks. ”

“ INGENIOSO. Mark you, Amoretto, Sir Raderic's son, to him shall thy piping poetry and sugar-ends of verses be directed: he is one that will draw out his pocket-glass thrice in a walk; one that dreams in a night of nothing but musk and civet, and talks of nothing all day long but his hawk, his hound, and his mistress; one that more admires the good wrinkle of a boot, the curious crinkling of a silk-stocking, than all the wit in the world ”

“ SOPHOS.
She, she it is, whose love I wish to gain,
Nor need I wish, nor do I love in vain:
My love she doth repay with equal meed—
'Tis strange, you'll say, that Sophos should not speed.
FORTUNATUS.
Your love repaid with equal meed,
And yet you languish still in love? 'tis strange.
From whence proceeds your grief,
Unfold unto your friend: a friend may yield relief.
SOPHOS.
My want of wealth is author of my grief;
Your father says, my state is too-too low:
I am no hobby bred; I may not soar so high
As Lelia's love,
The lofty eagle will not catch at flies. ”

“ Manent SCARBOROW and CLARE.
SCAR. The father and the gallants have left me here with a gentlewoman, and if I know what to say to her, I am a villain. Heaven grant her life hath borrowed so much impudence of her sex but to speak to me first: for, by this hand, I have not so much steel of immodesty in my face to parley to a wench without blushing. I'll walk by her, in hope she can open her teeth. Not a word? Is it not strange a man should be in a woman's company all this while and not hear her tongue. ”

“ Dog—a dog, a dog, has done't.
SCAR. O Sir John Harcop!
HAR. O Sir John villain! to betroth thyself
To this good creature, harmless, harmless child:
This kernel, hope, and comfort of my house:
Without enforcement—of thine own accord:
Draw all her soul in th'compass of an oath:
Take that oath from her, make her for none but thee—
And then betray her!
SCAR. Shame on them were the cause of it.
HAR. But hark, what thou hast got by it:
Thy wife is but a strumpet, thy children bastards,
Thyself a murderer, thy wife accessory,
Thy bed a stews, thy house a brothel.
SCAR. O, 'tis too true! ”

“ INGENIOSO. I'll pawn my wits, that is, my revenues, my land, my money, and whatsoever I have, for I have nothing but my wit, that they are at hand. Why, any sensible snout may wind Master Amoretto and his pomander, Master Recorder and his two neat's feet that wear no socks, Sir Raderic by his rammish complexion; Olet Gorgonius hircum, sicut Lupus in fabula. Furor, fire the touch-box of your wit: Phantasma, let your invention play tricks like an ape: begin thou, Furor, and open like a flap-mouthed hound: follow thou, Phantasma, like a lady's puppy: and as for me, let me alone ”

“ CRAPULA, LINGUA, GUSTUS, OLFACTUS VISUS, AUDITUS.
TAC. Thanks, Dejanira, for thy kind remembrance,
'Tis a fair shirt: I'll wear it for thy sake.
CRA. Somnus, here's Tactus, worse than all his fellows:
Stay but awhile, and you shall see him rage!
SOM. What will he do? see that he escapes us not.
TAC. 'Tis a good shirt: it fits me passing well:
'Tis very warm indeed: but what's the matter?
Methinks I am somewhat hotter than I was,
My heart beats faster than 'twas wont to do,
My brain's inflam'd, my temples ache extremely; O, O! ”

“ He mews fair Lelia up from Sophos' sight,
That not so much as paper pleads remorse.
Thrice three times Sol hath slept in Thetis' lap,
Since these mine eyes beheld sweet Lelia's face:
What greater grief, what other hell than this,
To be denied to come where my beloved is?
FORTUNATUS.
Do you alone love Lelia?
Have you no rivals with you in your love?
SOPHOS.
Yes, only one; and him your father backs:
'Tis Peter Plod-all, rich Plod-all's son and heir,
One whose base, rustic, rude desert
Unworthy far to win so fair a prize ”

“ SCAR. Why did she marry me, knowing I did not love her?
ILF. As other women do, either to be maintained by you, or to make you a cuckold. Now, sir, what come you for?
Enter CLOWN.
CLOWN. As men do in haste, to make an end of their business.
ILF. What's your business?
CLOWN. My business is this, sir—this, sir—and this, sir.
ILF. The meaning of all this, sir?
CLOWN. By this is as much as to say, sir, my master has sent unto you; by this is as much as to say, sir, my master has him humbly commended unto you; and by this is as much as to say, my master craves your answer. ”

“ SIR RADERIC.
O, good faith, Master Recorder, if I could see that day once?
RECORDER. Well, remember another day what I say: scholars are pryed into of late, and are found to be busy fellows, disturbers of the peace. I'll say no more; guess at my meaning. I smell a rat.
SIR RADERIC. I hope at length England will be wise enough, I hope so, i'faith; then an old knight may have his wench in a corner without any satires or epigrams. But the day is far spent, Master Recorder; and I fear by this time the unthrift is arrived at the place appointed in Moorfields. ”

“ GRIPE. Nay, I'll have all, or I'll imprison their bodies. But, Master Churms, there is a matter I would fain have you do; but you must be very secret.
CHURMS.
O sir, fear not that; I'll warrant you.
GRIPE. Why then, this it is: my neighbour Plod-all here by, you know, is a man of very fair land, and he has but one son, upon whom he means to bestow all that he has. Now I would make a match between my daughter Lelia and him. What think you of it?
CHURMS. Marry, I think 'twould be a good match. But the young man has had very simple bringing-up.
GRIPE. Tush! what care I for that? ”

“ INGENIOSO. I pray you, Monsieur Ploidon, of what university was the first lawyer of? None, forsooth: for your law is ruled by reason, and not by art; great reason, indeed, that a Polydenist should be mounted on a trapped palfry with a round velvet dish on his head, to keep warm the broth of his wit, and a long gown that makes him look like a Cedant arma togae, whilst the poor Aristotelians walk in a short cloak and a close Venetian hose, hard by the oyster-wife; and the silly poet goes muffled in his cloak to escape the counter. ”

“ CHURMS. Marry, as I play with th'one hand, play you with t'other. Fall you aboard with Peter Plod-all; make him believe you'll work miracles, and that you have a powder will make Lelia love him. Nay, what will he not believe, and take all that comes? you know my mind: and so we'll make a gull of the one and a goose of the other. And if we can invent any device to bring the scholar in disgrace with her, I do not doubt but with your help to creep between the bark and the tree, and get Lelia myself.
ROBIN GOODFELLOW. Tush! man. I have a device in my head already to do that. ”

“ LELIA.
Why, what knowest thou, nurse I prythee, tell me.
NURSE. Heavy news, i' faith, mistress: you must be matched, and married to a husband. Ha, ha, ha, ha! a husband, i' faith.
LELIA.
A husband, nurse? why, that's good news, if he be a good one.
NURSE. A good one, quotha? ha, ha, ha, ha! why, woman, I heard your father say that he would marry you to Peter Plod-all, that puck-fist, that snudge-snout, that coal-carrierly clown. Lord! 'twould be as good as meat and drink to me to see how the fool would woo you. ”

“ Enter SCARBOROW.
ILF. What! melancholy, my young master, my young married man? God give your worship joy.
SCAR. Joy of what, Frank?
ILF. Of thy wealth, for I hear of few that have joy of their wives.
SCAR. Who weds as I have to enforced sheets,
His care increaseth, but his comfort fleets.
ILF. Thou having so much wit, what a devil meant'st thou to marry?
SCAR. O, speak not of it,
Marriage sounds in mine ear like a bell,
Not rung for pleasure, but a doleful knell.
ILF. A common course: those men that are married in the morning to wish themselves buried ere night.
SCAR. I cannot love her. ”

“ GRIPE. I am undone, I am robbed! My daughter! my money! Which way are they gone?
WILL CRICKET. Faith, sir, it's all to nothing, but your daughter and Master Churms are gone both one way. Marry, your money flies, some one way, and some another; and therefore 'tis but a folly to make hue and cry after it.
GRIPE. Follow them, make hue and cry after them. My daughter! my money! all's gone! what shall I do? ”

“ SOPHOS.
O monstrous villain!
FORTUNATUS.
But tell me, what's thy course of life,
And how thou shift'st for maintenance in the world?
ROBIN GOODFELLOW.
Faith, sir, I am in a manner a promoter,
Or (more fitly term'd) a promoting knave;
I creep into the presence of great men,
And, under colour of their friendships,
Effect such wonders in the world,
That babes will curse me that are yet unborn.
Of the best men I raise a common fame,
And honest women rob of their good name:
Thus daily tumbling in comes all my thrift ”

“ For, father, he's a very cunning man for give him but ten groats, and he'll give me a powder that will make Lelia come to bed to me, and when I have her there, I'll use her well enough.
PLOD-ALL.
Will he so? Marry, I will give him vorty shillings, if he can do it.
PETER PLOD-ALL. Nay, he'll do more than that too, for he'll make himself like a devil, and fray the scholar that hankers about her out on's wits.
PLOD-ALL. Marry, Jesus bless us! will he so? Marry, thou shalt have vorty shillings to give him, and thy mother shall bestow a hard cheese on him beside. ”

“ To Sir John Harcop's daughter.
LORD. Ha, ha! what's that? let me hear that again.
SCAR. To Sir John Harcop's Clare I have made an oath:
Part me in twain, yet she's one-half of both.
This hand the which I wear, it is half hers:
Such power hath faith and troth 'twixt couples young,
Death only cuts that knot tied with the tongue.
LORD. And have you knit that knot, sir?
SCAR. I have done so much that, if I wed not her,
My marriage makes me an adulterer:
In which black sheets I wallow all my life,
My babes being bastards, and a whore my wife. ”

“ Now, for Sophos, let him wear the willow garland, and play the melancholy malcontent, and pluck his hat down in his sullen eyes, and think on Lelia in these desert groves: 'tis enough for him to have her in his thoughts, although he ne'er embrace her in his arms. But now there's a fine device comes into my head to scare the scholar: you shall see, I'll make fine sport with him. They say that every day he keeps his walk amongst these woods and melancholy shades, and on the bark of every senseless tree engraves the tenor of his hapless hope. ”

“ From whence virtue is still'd, and arts do flow.
Enter SIR JOHN HARCOP and his daughter CLARE.
ILF. Let them be what flowers they will; and they were roses, I will pluck none of them for pricking my fingers. But soft, here comes a voider for us: and I see, do what I can, as long as the world lasts, there will be cuckolds in it. Do you hear, child, here's one come to blend you together: he has brought you a kneading-tub, if thou dost take her at his hands. Though thou hadst Argus' eyes, be sure of this, Women have sworn with more than one to kiss.
HAR. Nay, no parting, gentlemen. ”

“ SIR RADERIC. The devil, my masters, the devil in the likeness of a poet! Away, my masters, away!
PHANTASMA. Arma, virumque cano. Quem fugis, ah demens?
AMORETTO. Base dog, it is not the custom in Italy to draw upon every idle cur that barks; and, did it stand with my reputation—O, well, go to; thank my father for your lives.
INGENIOSO. Fond gull, whom I would undertake to bastinado quickly, though there were a musket planted in thy mouth, are not you the young drover of livings Academico told me of, that haunts steeple fairs? ”

“ BUT. What shall we do, sir?
SCAR. Do as the devil does, hate (panther-like) mankind! [426]
And yet I lie; for devils sinners love,
When men hate men, though good like some above.
Enter SCARBOROW'S wife KATHERINE, with two Children.
BUT. Your wife's come in, sir.
SCAR. Thou li'st, I have not a wife. None can be call'd
True man and wife, but those whom heaven install'd,
Say—
KATH. O my dear husband!
SCAR. You are very welcome. Peace: we'll have compliment.
Who are you, gentlewoman?
KATH. Sir, your distressed wife, and these your children,
SCAR. Mine! ”

“ SIR RADERIC. It's a foul oversight, that a man of worship cannot keep a wench in his house, but there must be muttering and surmising. It was the wisest saying that my father ever uttered, that a wife was the name of necessity, not of pleasure; for what do men marry for, but to stock their ground, and to have one to look to the linen, sit at the upper end of the table, and carve up a capon; one that can wear a hood like a hawk, and cover her foul face with a fan. ”

“ CHURMS. Faith, sir, they are grown to be captious knaves: but I'll move them with a habeas corpus.
PLOD-ALL. Do, good Master Churms, or use any other villanous course shall please you. But what news abroad?
CHURMS. Faith, little news; but here's a letter which Master Gripe desired me to deliver you: and though it stand not with my reputation to be a carrier of letters, yet, not knowing how much it might concern you, I thought it better something to abase myself, than you should be anyways hindered. ”

“ SIR RADERIC. Signior Immerito, forasmuch as we have made a double trial of thee—the one of your learning, the other of your erudition—it is expedient also, in the next place, to give you a few exhortations, considering the greatest clerks are not the wisest men. This is therefore, first, to exhort you to abstain from controversies; secondly, not to gird at men of worship, such as myself, but to use yourself discreetly; thirdly, not to speak when any man or woman coughs—do so, and in so doing, I will persevere to be your worshipful friend and loving patron. ”