Act 5 — [Scene II.][2815]
Reading edition
[Scene II.][2815]
Enter Nicholas and Jenkin, Jack Slime, Roger Brickbat, with Country Wenches, and two or three Musicians.
Jen. Come, Nick, take you Joan Miniver, to trace withal; Jack Slime, traverse you with Cicely Milkpail; I will take Jane Trubkin, and Roger Brickbat shall have Isabel Motley. And now that they are busy in the parlour, come,5 strike up; we ’ll have a crash[2816] here in the yard.
Nich. My humour is not compendious: dancing I possess not, though I can foot it; yet, since I am fallen into the hands of Cicely10 Milkpail, I consent.
Slime. Truly, Nick, though we were never brought up like serving courtiers, yet we have been brought up with serving creatures,—ay, and God’s creatures, too; for we have been15 brought up to serve sheep, oxen, horses, hogs, and such like; and, though we be but country fellows, it may be in the way of dancing we can do the horse-trick as well as the serving-men.
Brick. Ay, and the cross-point too.20
Jen. O Slime! O Brickbat! Do not you know that comparisons are odious? Now we are odious ourselves, too; therefore there are no comparisons to be made betwixt us.
Nich. I am sudden, and not superfluous;25 I am quarrelsome, and not seditious; I am peaceable, and not contentious; I am brief, and not compendious.
Slime. Foot it quickly! If the music overcome not my melancholy, I shall quarrel; and if30 they suddenly do not strike up, I shall presently strike thee down.
Jen. No quarrelling, for God’s sake! Truly, if you do, I shall set a knave between ye.
Slime. I come to dance, not to quarrel.35 Come, what shall it be? Rogero?[2817]
Jen. Rogero? No; we will dance The Beginning of the World.
Cicely. I love no dance so well as John come kiss me now.40
Nich. I that have ere now deserv’d a cushion, call for the Cushion-dance.
Brick. For my part, I like nothing so well as Tom Tyler.
Jen. No; we’ll have The Hunting of the45 Fox.
Slime. The Hay, The Hay! There’s nothing like The Hay.
Nich. I have said, I do say, and I will say again—50
Jen. Every man agree to have it as Nick says!
All. Content.
Nich. It hath been, it now is, and it shall be—
Cicely. What, Master Nicholas? What?55
Nich. Put on your Smock a’ Monday.
Jen. So the dance will come cleanly off! Come, for God’s sake, agree of something: if you like not that, put it to the musicians; or let me speak for all, and we ’ll have Sellenger’s60 Round.
All. That, that, that!
Nich. No, I am resolv’d thus it shall be; First take hands, then take ye to your heels.
Jen. Why, would you have us run away?65
Nich. No; but I would have you shake your heels.—Music, strike up!
They dance; Nick dancing, speaks stately and scurvily, the rest after the country fashion.
Jen. Hey! Lively, my lasses! Here’s a turn for thee!
Exeunt.