King. What, are the hounds before and all the woodmen? Our horses ready and our bows bent? Dion. All, sir. King. [to Pharamond.] You are cloudy, sir. Come, we have forgotten Your venial trepass; let not that sit heavy Upon your spirit; here’s none dare utter it.5

Dion. He looks like an old surfeited stallion, dull as a dormouse. See how he sinks! The wench has shot him between wind and water, and, I hope, sprung a leak.

Thra. He needs no teaching, he strikes10 sure enough. His greatest fault is, he hunts too much in the purlieus; would he would leave off poaching!

Dion. And for his horn, h’as left it at the lodge where he lay late. Oh, he ’s a precious15 limehound![3231] Turn him loose upon the pursuit of a lady, and if he lose her, hang him up i’ the slip. When my fox-bitch Beauty grows proud, I ’ll borrow him.

King. Is your boy turn’d away?20

Are. You did command, sir, and I obey’d you.

King. ’Tis well done. Hark ye further.

[They talk apart.]

Cle. Is ’t possible this fellow should repent? Methinks, that were not noble in him; and25 yet he looks like a mortified member, as if he had a sick man’s salve[3232] in ’s mouth. If a worse man had done this fault now, some physical[3233] justice or other would presently (without the help of an almanack[3234]) have opened the obstructions30 of his liver, and let him blood with a dog-whip.

Dion. See, see how modestly yon lady looks, as if she came from churching with her neighbours! Why, what a devil can a man see in35 her face but that she ’s honest![3235]

Thra. Faith, no great matter to speak of; a foolish twinkling with the eye, that spoils her coat;[3236] but he must be a cunning herald that finds it.40

Dion. See how they muster one another! Oh, there’s a rank regiment where the devil carries the colours and his dam drum-major! Now the world and the flesh come behind with the carriage.[3237]45

Cle. Sure this lady has a good turn done her against her will; before she was common talk, now none dare say cantharides[3238] can stir her. Her face looks like a warrant, willing and commanding all tongues, as they will answer it,50 to be tied up and bolted when this lady means to let herself loose. As I live, she has got her a goodly protection and a gracious; and may use her body discreetly for her health’s sake, once a week, excepting Lent and dog-days. Oh,55 if they were to be got for money, what a great sum would come out of the city for these licences!

King. To horse, to horse! we lose the morning, gentlemen.

Exeunt.60

Notes in this chapter

Note 1 · Before the palace.Note 2 · A hunting dog. Lyme = leash.Note 3 · An allusion to a religious work, Thomas Bacon’s The Sicke Man’s Salve, 1561.Note 4 · Acting as a doctor.Note 5 · Almanacs gave the proper seasons for blood-letting.Note 6 · Chaste.Note 7 · Coat of arms. Mason explains that the reference is to the introduction of stars into a coat of arms, denoting a younger branch.Note 8 · Baggage.Note 9 · Spanish fly, used as a provocative.