Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman - LightNovelsOnl.com
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[DAUPHINE KICKS HIM AGAIN.]
--Your sword.
[TAKES HIS SWORD.]
Now return to your safe custody: you shall presently meet afore the ladies, and be the dearest friends one to another.
[PUTS DAW INTO THE STUDY.]
--Give me the scarf now, thou shalt beat the other bare-faced.
Stand by: [DAUPHINE RETIRES, AND TRUEWIT GOES TO THE OTHER CLOSET, AND RELEASES LA-FOOLE.]
--Sir Amorous!
LA-F: What's here? A sword?
TRUE: I cannot help it, without I should take the quarrel upon myself. Here he has sent you his sword--
LA-F: I will receive none on't.
TRUE: And he wills you to fasten it against a wall, and break your head in some few several places against the hilts.
LA-F: I will not: tell him roundly. I cannot endure to shed my own blood.
TRUE: Will you not?
LA-F: No. I'll beat it against a fair flat wall, if that will satisfy him: if not, he shall beat it himself, for Amorous.
TRUE: Why, this is strange starting off, when a man undertakes for you! I offer'd him another condition; will you stand to that?
LA-F: Ay, what is't.
TRUE: That you will be beaten in private.
LA-F: Yes, I am content, at the blunt.
[ENTER, ABOVE, HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE, AND TRUSTY.]
TRUE: Then you must submit yourself to be hoodwinked in this scarf, and be led to him, where he will take your sword from you, and make you bear a blow over the mouth, gules, and tweaks by the nose, sans nombre.
LA-F: I am content. But why must I be blinded?
TRUE: That's for your good, sir: because, if he should grow insolent upon this, and publish it hereafter to your disgrace, (which I hope he will not do,) you might swear safely, and protest, he never beat you, to your knowledge.
LA-F: O, I conceive.
TRUE: I do not doubt but you will be perfect good friends upon't, and not dare to utter an ill thought one of another in future.
LA-F: Not I, as G.o.d help me, of him.
TRUE: Nor he of you, sir. If he should [BLINDS HIS EYES.]
--Come, sir.
[LEADS HIM FORWARD.]
--All hid, sir John.
[ENTER DAUPHINE, AND TWEAKS HIM BY THE NOSE.]
LA-F: O, sir John, sir John! Oh, o--o--o--o--o--Oh--
TRUE: Good, sir John, leave tweaking, you'll blow his nose off.
'Tis sir John's pleasure, you should retire into the study.
[PUTS HIM UP AGAIN.]
--Why, now you are friends. All bitterness between you, I hope, is buried; you shall come forth by and by, Damon and Pythias upon't, and embrace with all the rankness of friends.h.i.+p that can be. I trust, we shall have them tamer in their language hereafter.
Dauphine, I wors.h.i.+p thee.--G.o.ds will the ladies have surprised us!
[ENTER HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE, AND TRUSTY, BEHIND.]
HAU: Centaure, how our judgments were imposed on by these adulterate knights!
Nay, madam, Mavis was more deceived than we, 'twas her commendation utter'd them in the college.
MAV: I commended but their wits, madam, and their braveries.
I never look'd toward their valours.
HAU: Sir Dauphine is valiant, and a wit too, it seems.
MAV: And a bravery too.
HAU: Was this his project?
MRS. OTT: So master Clerimont intimates, madam.
HAU: Good Morose, when you come to the college, will you bring him with you? he seems a very perfect gentleman.
EPI: He is so, madam, believe it.
CEN: But when will you come, Morose?
EPI: Three or four days hence, madam, when I have got me a coach and horses.
HAU: No, to-morrow, good Morose; Centaure shall send you her coach.
MAV: Yes faith, do, and bring sir Dauphine with you.
HAU: She has promised that, Mavis.
MAV: He is a very worthy gentleman in his exteriors, madam.
HAU: Ay, he shews he is judicial in his clothes.
CEN: And yet not so superlatively neat as some, madam, that have their faces set in a brake.
HAU: Ay, and have every hair in form!
MAV: That wear purer linen then ourselves, and profess more neatness than the French hermaphrodite!
