Lod. Oh ’t is rare sucking a sweet honey comb! Pray Heaven his old wife be buried deep enough, that she rise not up to call for her dance! The poor fiddlers’ instruments would crack for15 it; she’d tickle them. At any hand let’s try what mettle is in his new bride; if there be none, we’ll put in some. Troth, it’s a very noble citizen, I pity he should marry again; I’ll walk along, for it is a good old fellow.20

Car. I warrant the wives of Milan would give any fellow twenty thousand ducats, that could but have the face to beg of the duke, that all the citizens in Milan might be bound to the peace of patience, as the linen-draper is.25

Lod. Oh, fie upon’t! ’t would undo all us that are courtiers; we should have no whoo with the wenches then.

Enter Hippolito.

All. My lord’s come.

Hip. How now, what news?30

All. None.

Lod. Your lady is with the duke, her father.

Hip. And we’ll to them both presently—

Enter Orlando Friscobaldo.

Who’s that!

All. Signor Friscobaldo.35

Hip. Friscobaldo, oh! pray call him, and leave me; we two have business.

Car. Ho Signor! Signor Friscobaldo! The Lord Hippolito.

Exeunt [all but Hippolito and Friscobaldo].

Orl. My noble lord: my Lord Hippolito!40 the duke’s son! his brave daughter’s brave husband! how does your honour’d lordship! Does your nobility remember so poor a gentleman as Signor Orlando Friscobaldo! old mad Orlando!

Hip. Oh, sir, our friends! they ought to be45 unto us as our jewels, as dearly valued, being locked up, and unseen, as when we wear them in our hands. I see, Friscobaldo, age hath not command of your blood; for all Time’s sickle has gone over you, you are Orlando still.50

Orl. Why, my lord, are not the fields mown and cut down, and stript bare, and yet wear they not pied coats again? Though my head be like a leek, white, may not my heart be like the blade, green?55

Hip. Scarce can I read the stories on your brow, Which age hath writ there; you look youthful still.

Orl. I eat snakes,[2469] my lord, I eat snakes. My heart shall never have a wrinkle in it, so long as I can cry “Hem,” with a clear voice.60

Hip. You are the happier man, sir.

Orl. Happy man? I’ll give you, my lord, the true picture of a happy man. I was turning leaves over this morning, and found it; an excellent Italian painter drew it; if I have it in65 the right colours, I ll bestow it on your lordship.

Hip. I stay for it.

Orl. He that makes gold his wife, but not his whore, He that at noon-day walks by a prison door,70 He that i’ th’ sun is neither beam nor mote, He that’s not mad after a petticoat, He for whom poor men’s curses dig no grave, He that is neither lord’s nor lawyer’s slave, He that makes this his sea, and that his shore,75 He that in ’s coffin is richer than before, He that counts youth his sword, and age his staff, He whose right hand carves his own epitaph, He that upon his deathbed is a swan, And dead, no crow—he is a happy man.80

Hip. It ’s very well; I thank you for this picture.

Orl. After this picture, my lord, do I strive to have my face drawn: for I am not covetous, am not in debt, sit neither at the duke’s85 side, nor lie at his feet. Wenching and I have done; no man I wrong, no man I fear, no man I fee; I take heed how far I walk, because I know yonder’s my home; I would not die like a rich man, to carry nothing away save a90 winding sheet; but like a good man, to leave Orlando behind me. I sowed leaves in my youth, and I reap now books in my age. I fill this hand, and empty this; and when the bell shall toll for me, if I prove a swan, and go95 singing to my nest, why so; If a crow! throw me out like a carrion, and pick out mine eyes. May not old Friscobaldo, my lord, be merry now! ha?

Hip. You may; would I were partner in your mirth.100

Orl. I have a little, have all things. I have nothing; I have no wife, I have no child, have no chick; and why should not I be in my jocundare?[2470]105

Hip. Is your wife then departed?

Orl. She’s an old dweller in those high countries, yet not from me. Here, she’s here: but, before me, when a knave and a quean are married, they commonly walk like serjeants110 together: but a good couple are seldom parted.

Hip. You had a daughter too, sir, had you not?

Orl. O my lord! this old tree had one branch, and but one branch growing out of it. It was young, it was fair, it was straight; I prun’d115 it daily, drest it carefully, kept it from the wind, help ’d it to the sun, yet for all my skill in planting, it grew crooked, it bore crabs. I hewed it down; what’s become of it, I neither know, nor care.120

Hip. Then I can tell you what’s become of it; That branch is wither’d.

Orl. So ’t was long ago.

Hip. Her name I think was Bellafront; she ’s dead.

Orl. Ha? dead?

Hip. Yes; what of her was left, not worth the keeping,125 Even in my sight was thrown into a grave.

Orl. Dead! my last and best peace go with her! I see Death’s a good trencherman; he can eat coarse homely meat, as well as the daintiest.130

Hip. Why, Friscobaldo, was she homely?

Orl. O my lord! a strumpet is one of the devil’s vines; all the sins, like so many poles, are stuck upright out of hell, to be her props, that she may spread upon them. And when135 she’s ripe, every slave has a pull at her, then must she be prest. The young beautiful grape sets the teeth of lust on edge, yet to taste that lickerish[2471] wine, is to drink a man’s own damnation. Is she dead?140

Hip. She’s turned to earth.

Orl. Would she were turn’d to Heaven! Umph, is she dead? I am glad the world has lost one of his idols; no whoremonger will at midnight beat at the doors. In her grave145 sleep all my shame, and her own; and all my sorrows, and all her sins!

Hip. I’m glad you’re wax, not marble; you are made Of man’s best temper; there are now good hopes That all these heaps of ice about your heart,150 By which a father’s love was frozen up, Are thaw’d in these sweet showers, fetcht from your eyes; We are ne’er like angels till our passion dies. She is not dead, but lives under worse fate;154 I think she ’s poor; and, more to clip her wings, Her husband at this hour lies in the jail, For killing of a man. To save his blood, Join all your force with mine: mine shall be shown: The getting of his life preserves your own.159

Orl. In my daughter, you will say! Does she live then? I am sorry I wasted tears upon a harlot; but the best is I have a handkercher to drink them up; soap can wash them all out again. Is she poor?

Hip. Trust me, I think she is.165

Orl. Then she ’s a right strumpet; I ne’er knew any of their trade rich two years together. Sieves can hold no water, nor harlots hoard up money; they have many vents, too many sluices to let it out; taverns, tailors, bawds,170 panders, fiddlers, swaggerers, fools, and knaves do all wait upon a common harlot’s trencher. She is the gallipot to which these drones fly, not for love to the pot, but for the sweet sucket[2472] within it, her money, her money.175

Hip. I almost dare pawn my word, her bosom Gives warmth to no such snakes. When did you see her?

Orl. Not seventeen summers.

Hip. Is your hate so old?179

Orl. Older; it has a white head, and shall never die till she be buried: her wrongs shall be my bedfellow.

Hip. Work yet his life, since in it lives her fame.

Orl. No let him hang, and half her infamy departs out of the world. I hate him for her;185 he taught her first to taste poison; I hate her for herself, because she refused my physic.

Hip. Nay, but Friscobaldo!—

Orl. I detest her, I defy[2473] both; she ’s not mine, she ’s—190

Hip. Hear her but speak.

Orl. I love no mermaids, I ’ll not be caught with a quail-pipe.[2474]

Hip. You ’re now beyond all reason.194

Orl. I am then a beast. Sir, I had rather be a beast, and not dishonour my creation, than be a doting father, and like Time, be the destruction of mine own brood.

Hip. Is ’t dotage to relieve your child, being poor?199

Orl. Is ’t fit for an old man to keep a whore?

Hip. ’T is charity, too.

Orl. ’T is foolery; relieve her! Were her cold limbs stretcht out upon a bier, I would not sell this dirt under my nails To buy her an hour’s breath, nor give this hair, Unless it were to choke her.206 Hip. Fare you well, for I ’ll trouble you no more. Exit.

Orl. And fare you well, sir. Go thy ways; we have few lords of thy making, that love wenches for their honesty. ’Las my girl!210 art thou poor? Poverty dwells next door to despair, there ’s but a wall between them. Despair is one of hell’s catch-poles; and lest that devil arrest her, I ’ll to her. Yet she shall not know me; she shall drink of my wealth,215 as beggars do of running water, freely, yet never know from what fountain’s head it flows. Shall a silly bird pick her own breast to nourish her young ones, and can a father see his child starve? That were hard; the pelican does220 it, and shall not I? Yes, I will victual the camp for her, but it shall be by some stratagem. That knave there, her husband, will be hanged, I fear; I ’ll keep his neck out of the noose if I can, he shall not know how.225

Enter two Serving-men.

How now, knaves? Whither wander you?

1 Ser. To seek your worship.

Orl. Stay, which of you has my purse? What money have you about you?229

2 Ser. Some fifteen or sixteen pounds, sir.

Orl. Give it me. [Takes purse.]—I think I have some gold about me; yes, it ’s well. Leave my lodging at court, and get you home. Come, sir, though I never turned any man out of doors, yet I ’ll be so bold as to pull your coat over your ears.236

[Orlando puts on the coat of 1 Serving-man, and gives him in exchange his cloak.]

1 Ser. What do you mean to do, sir?

Orl. Hold thy tongue, knave; take thou my cloak. I hope I play not the paltry merchant in this bart’ring; bid the steward of my240 house sleep with open eyes in my absence, and to look to all things. Whatsoever I command by letters to be done by you, see it done. So, does it sit well?244

2 Ser. As if it were made for your worship.

Orl. You proud varlets, you need not be ashamed to wear blue,[2475] when your master is one of your fellows. Away, do not see me.

Both. This is excellent.249

Exeunt.

Orl. I should put on a worse suit, too; perhaps I will. My vizard is on, now to this masque. Say I should shave off this honour of an old man, or tie it up shorter. Well, I will spoil a good face for once.

My beard being off, how should I look? Even like255

A winter cuckoo, or unfeather’d owl;

Yet better lose this hair, than lose her soul.

Exit.

Notes in this chapter

Note 1 · An apartment in the Duke’s Palace.Note 2 · A supposed recipe for restoring youth. (Dyce.)Note 3 · Merriment.Note 4 · Tempting.Note 5 · Confection.Note 6 · Renounce.Note 7 · Used by fowlers to allure quails.Note 8 · The color of servants’ livery.