A Select Collection of Old English Plays Part 96

JOLLY. And they have reason; for if they have the grace to be kind, he that loves the s.e.x may be theirs.

CARE. When your constant lover, if a woman have a mind to him, and be blessed with so much grace to discover it, he, out of the n.o.ble mistake of honour hates her for it, and tells it perchance, and preaches reason to her pa.s.sion, and cries: Miserable beauty, to be so unfortunate as to inhabit in so much frailty!

CAPT. This counsel makes her hate him more than she loved before.

These are troubles those that love are subject to; while we look on and laugh, to see both thus slaved, while we are free.

CARE. My prayers still shall be, Lord deliver me from love.

CAPT. 'Tis plague, pestilence, famine, sword, and sometimes sudden death.

SAD. Yet I love, I must love, I will love, and I do love.

CAPT. In the present tense.

WID. No more of this argument, for love's sake.

CAPT. By any means, madam, give him leave to love: and you are resolved to walk tied up in your own arms, with your love as visible in your face as your mistress's colours in your hat; that any porter at Charing Cross may take you like a letter at the carrier's, and having read the superscription, deliver Master Sad to the fair hands of Mistress or My Lady Such-a-one, lying at the sign of the Hard Heart.

PLEA. And she, if she has wit (as I believe she hath), will scarce pay the post for the packet.

WID. Treason! how now, niece? join with the enemy?

[_They give the_ CAPTAIN _wine_.

CAPT. A health, Ned: what shall I call it?

CARE. To Master Sad! he needs it that avows himself a lover.

SAD. Gentlemen, you have the advantage, the time, the place, the company; but we may meet when your wits shall not have such advantage as my love.

PLEA. No more of love, I am so sick on't.

CON. By your pardon, mistress, I must not leave love thus unguarded: I vow myself his follower.

JOLLY. Much good may love do him. Give me a gla.s.s of wine here.

Will, let them keep company with the blind boy. Give us his mother, and let them preach again: Hear that will, he has good luck persuades me 'tis an ugly sin to lie with a handsome woman.

CAPT. A pox upon your nurse; she frighted me so, when I was young, with stories of the devil, I was almost fourteen ere I could prevail with reasons to unbind my reason, it was so slaved to faith and conscience. She made me believe wine was an evil spirit, and fornication, like the wh.o.r.e of Babylon, a fine face, but a dragon under her petticoats, and that made me have a mind to peep under all I met since.

WID. Fie, fie! for shame, do not talk so: are you not ashamed to glory in sin, as if variety of women were none?

JOLLY. Madam, we do not glory in fornication; and yet I thank G.o.d, I cannot live without a woman.

CAPT. Why, does your ladys.h.i.+p think it a sin to lie with variety of handsome women? If it be, would I were the wicked'st man in the company.

PLEA. You have been marked for an indifferent sinner that way, captain.

CAPT. Who, I? no, faith, I was a fool; but, and I were to begin again, I would not do as I have done. I kept one, but if ever I keep another, hang me; nor would I advise any friend of mine to do it.

JOLLY. Why, I am sure 'tis a provident and safe way: a man may always be provided and sound.

PLEA. Fie upon this discourse!

CAPT. Those considerations betrayed me: a pox! it is a dull sin to travel, like a carrier's horse, always one road.

WID. Fie, captain! repent for shame, and marry.

CAPT. Your ladys.h.i.+p would have said, marry and repent: no, though it be not the greatest pleasure, yet it is better than marrying; for when I am weary of her, my inconstancy is termed virtue, and I shall be said to turn to grace. Beware of women for better, for worse; for our wicked nature, when her sport is lawful, cloys straight: therefore, rather than marry, keep a wench.

JOLLY. Faith, he's in the right; for 'tis the same thing in number and kind, and then the sport is quickened, and made poignant with sin.

CAPT. Yet 'tis a fault, faith, and I'll persuade all my friends from it; especially here, where any innovation is dangerous.

'Twas the newness of the sin that made me suffer in the opinion of my friends, and I was condemned by all sorts of people; not that I sinned, but that I sinned no more.

CARE. Why, ay, hadst thou been wicked in fas.h.i.+on, and privily lain with everybody, their guilt would have made them protect thee: so that to be more wicked is to be innocent, at least safe.

A wicked world, Lord help us!

CAPT. But being particular to her, and not in love, nor subject to it: taking an antidote every morning, before I venture into those infectious places where love and beauty dwell; this enraged the maiden beauties of the time, who thought it a prejudice to their beauties to see me careless, and securely pa.s.s by their conquering eyes, my name being found amongst none of those that decked their triumphs. But from this 'tis easy to be safe; for their pride will not let them love, nor my leisure me. Then the old ladies that pay for their pleasures,--they, upon the news, beheld me with their natural frowns, despairing when their money could not prevail; and hated me when they heard that I for my pleasure would pay as large as they.

JOLLY. Gentlemen, take warning: a fee from every man; for by this day, there's strange counsel in this confession.

WILD. Captain, you forgot to pledge Master Careless! Here, will you not drink a cup of wine? Who's there? Bring the oysters.

CAPT. Yes, madam, if you please.

WILD. Proceed, captain.

PLEA. Fie, Master Wild! are you not ashamed to encourage him to this filthy discourse?

CAPT. A gla.s.s of wine then, and I'll drink to all the new-married wives that grieve to think at what rate their fathers purchase a little husband. These, when they lie thirsting for the thing they paid so dear for----

_Enter a_ SERVANT _with oysters_.

CARE. These, methinks, should be thy friends, and point thee out as a man for them.

CAPT. Yes, till the faithful nurse cries; Alas, madam! he keeps such a one, he has enough at home. Then she swells with envy and rage against us both; calls my mistress ugly, common, unsafe, and me a weak secure fool.

JOLLY. These are strange truths, madam.

WID. Ay, ay; but those oysters are a better jest.

CAPT. But she's abused that will let such reason tame her desire, and a fool in love's-school; else she would not be ignorant that variety is such a friend to love, that he which rises a sunk coward from the lady's bed, would find new fires at her maid's: nor ever yet did the man want fire, if the woman would bring the fuel.

PLEA. For G.o.d's sake, leave this discourse.

WID. The captain has a mind we should eat no oysters.

WILD. Aunt, we came to be merry, and we will be merry, and you shall stay it out. Proceed, captain.