WILLIAM WAGER.
Reading edition
This William Wager is most famous for an Interlude which he wrote, called Tom Tyler and his Wife, which passed with such general applause that it was reprinted in the year 1661. and has been Acted divers times by private persons; the chief Argument whereof is, Tyler his marrying to a Shrew, which, that you may the better understand, take it in the Author's own words, speaking in the person of Tom Tyler.
I am a poor Tyler, in simple array, And get a poor living, but eight pence a day, My Wife as I get it doth spend it away; And I cannot help it, she saith; wot ye why? For wedding and hanging comes by destiny. I thought when I wed her, she had been a Sheep, At board to be friendly, to sleep when I sleep: She loves so unkindly, she makes me to weep. But I dare say nothing, god wot; wot ye why? For wedding and hanging comes by destiny. Besides this unkindness whereof my grief grows, I think few Tylers are matcht to such shrows, Before she leaves brawling, she falls to deal blows. Which early and late doth cause me to cry, That wedding and hanging is destiny. The more that I please her, the worse she doth like me, The more I forbear her, the more she doth strike me, The more that I get her, the more she doth glike me. Wo worth this ill fortune that maketh me cry, That wedding and hanging is deny. If I had been hanged when I had been married, My torments had ended, though I had miscarried, If I had been warned, then would I have tarried; But now all too lately I feel and cry, That wedding and hanging is destiny.
He wrote also two Comedies, The Tryal of Chivalry, and The longer thou livest, the more Fool thou art.