Act 3 — SCENE III.
Reading edition
A Chamber in a Castle.[450]
Enter Hengist.
Hen. A fair and fortunate constellation reign’d
When we set foot here; for from his first gift
168(Which to a king’s unbounded eyes seem’d nothing),
The compass of a hide, I have erected
A strong and spacious castle, yet contain’d myself
Within my limits, without check or censure.
Thither, with all th’ observance of a subject,
The liveliest witness of a grateful mind,
I purpose to invite him and his queen,
And feast them nobly.
Barber [speaking without]. We will enter, sir;
’Tis a state business, of a twelve-month long,
The choosing of a mayor.
Hen. What noise is that?
Tailor [without]. Sir, we must speak with the good earl of Kent:
Though we were ne’er[451] brought up to keep a door,
We are as honest, sir, as some that do.
Enter a Gentleman.
Hen. Now, sir, what’s the occasion of their clamours?
Gent. Please you, my lord, a company of townsmen
Are bent, ’gainst[452] all denials and resistance,
To have speech with your lordship; and that you
Must end a difference, which none else can do.
Hen. Why then there’s reason in their violence,
Which I ne’er look’d for: first let in but one,
And as we relish him, the rest come on.
169[Exit Gentleman.
’Tis no safe wisdom in a rising man
To slight off such as these; nay, rather these
Are the foundations of a lofty work;
We cannot build without them, and stand sure.
He that ascends first[453] to a mountain’s top
Must begin at the foot.
Re-enter Gentleman.
Now, sir, who comes?
Gent. They cannot yet agree, my lord, of that:
They say ’tis worse now than it was before,
For where the difference was but between two,
Upon this coming first they’re all at odds.
One says, he shall lose his place in the church by’t;
Another will not do his wife that wrong;
And by their good wills they would all come first.
The strife continues in most heat, my lord,
Between a country barber and a tailor
Of the same town; and which your lordship names,
’Tis yielded by consent that he shall enter.
Call in the barber [Exit Gentleman]; if the tale be long,
He’ll cut it short, I trust; that’s all the hope.
Re-enter Gentleman with Barber.
Now, sir, are you the barber?
Barb. O, most barbarous! a corrector of enormities 170in hair, my lord; a promoter of upper lips, or what your lordship, in the neatness of your discretion, shall think fit to call me.
Heng. Very good, I see you have this without book; but what’s your business?
Barb. Your lordship comes to a very high point indeed: the business, sir, lies about the head.
Heng. That’s work for you.
Barb. No, my good lord, there is a corporation, a body, a kind of body.
Heng. The barber is out at the body; let in the tailor.
[Exit Gentleman.
This ’tis to reach beyond your own profession;
When you let go your head, you lose your memory:
You have no business with the body.
Barb. Yes, sir, I am a barber-chirurgeon; I have had something to do with it in my time, my lord; and I was never so out of the body as I have been of late: send me good luck, I’ll marry some whore but I’ll get in again.
Re-enter Gentleman with Tailor.
Heng. Now, sir, a good discovery come from you!
Tail. I will rip up the linings to your lordship,
And shew what stuff ’tis made of: for the body
Or corporation—
Heng. There the barber left indeed.
Tail. ’Tis piec’d up of two fashions.
Heng. A patch’d town the whilest.
Tail. Nor can we go through stitch, my noble lord,
The choler is so great in the one party:
And as in linsey-woolsey wove together,
One piece makes several suits, so, upright earl,
Our linsey-woolsey hearts make all this coil.
171Heng. What’s all this now? I’m[456] ne’er the wiser yet.—
Call in the rest.
[Exit Gentleman, and re-enter with
Glover and others.
Now, sirs,—what are you?
Glov. Sir-reverence[457] on your lordship, I am a glover.
Heng. What needs that then?
Glov. Sometimes I deal in dog’s leather, sir-reverence the while.
Heng. Well, to the purpose, if there be any towards.[458]
Glov. I were an ass else, saving your lordship’s presence.
We have a body, but our town wants a hand,
A hand of justice, a worshipful master mayor.
Heng. This is well handled yet; a man may take some hold on it.—You want a mayor?
Glov. Right, but there’s two at fisty-cuffs about it;
Sir, as I may say, at daggers drawing,—
But that I cannot say, because they have none,—
And you being earl of Kent, our town does say,
Your lordship’s voice shall part and end the fray.
Heng. This is strange work for me. Well, sir, what be they?
Glov. The one is a tanner.
Heng. Fie, I shall be too partial,
I owe too much affection to that trade
To put it to my voice. What is his name?
Glov. Simon.
172Heng. How, Simon too?
Glov. Nay, ’tis but Simon one, sir; the very same Simon that sold your lordship a hide.
Heng. What sayest thou?
Glov. That’s all his glory, sir: he got his master’s widow by it presently, a rich tanner’s wife: she has set him up; he was her fore-man a long time in her other husband’s days.
Heng. Now let me perish in my first aspiring,
If the pretty simplicity of his fortune
Do not most highly take me: ’tis a presage, methinks,
Of bright succeeding happiness to mine,
When my fate’s glow-worm casts forth such a shine.—
And what are those that do contend with him?
Tail. Marry, my noble lord, a fustian-weaver.
Heng. How! he offer to compare with Simon? he a fit match for him!
Barb. Hark, hark, my lord! here they come both in a pelting chafe from the town-house.
Enter Simon and Oliver.
Sim. How, before me? I scorn thee,
Thou wattle-fac’d sing’d pig.
Oliv. Pig? I defy thee;
My uncle was a Jew, and scorn’d the motion.[459]
173Sim. I list not brook thy vaunts. Compare with me,
Thou spindle of concupiscence? ’tis well known
Thy first wife was a flax-wench.
Oliv. But such a flax-wench
Would I might never want at my need,
Nor any friend of mine: my neighbours knew her.
Thy wife was but a hempen halter to her.
Sim. Use better words, I’ll hang thee in my year else,
Let who will choose thee afterwards.
Glov. Peace, for shame;
Quench your great spirit: do not you see his lordship?
Heng. What, master Simonides?
Sim. Simonides? what a fair name hath he made of Simon! then he’s an ass that calls me Simon again; I am quite out of love with it.
Heng. Give me thy hand; I love thy fortunes, and like a man that thrives.
Sim. I took a widow, my lord, to be the best piece of ground to thrive on; and by my faith, my lord, there’s a young Simonides, like a green onion, peeping up already.
Heng. Thou’st a good lucky hand.
Sim. I have somewhat, sir.
Heng. But why to me is this election offer’d? The choosing of a mayor goes by most voices.
Sim. True, sir, but most of our townsmen are so hoarse with drinking, there’s not a good voice among them all.
Heng. Are you content to put it to all these then?
To whom I liberally resign my interest,
To prevent censures.
Sim. I speak first, my lord.
174Oliv. Though I speak last, my lord, I am not least: if they will cast away a town-born child, they may; it is but dying some forty years before my time.
Heng. I leave you to your choice a while.
All. Your good lordship.
[Exeunt Hengist and Gentleman.
Sim. Look you, neighbours, before you be too hasty. Let Oliver the fustian-weaver stand as fair as I do, and the devil do him good on’t.
Oliv. I do, thou upstart callymoocher,[460] I do; ’tis well known to the parish I have been twice ale-conner;[461] thou mushroom, that shot’st up in a night, by lying with thy mistress!
Sim. Faith, thou art such a spiny baldrib,[462] all the mistresses in the town will never get thee up.
Oliv. I scorn to rise by a woman, as thou didst: my wife shall rise by me.
Glov. I pray leave your communication; we can do nothing else.
Oliv. I gave that barber a fustian-suit, and twice redeemed his cittern:[463] he may remember me.
175Sim. I fear no false measure but in that tailor; the glover and the button-maker are both cocksure; that collier’s eye I like not; now they consult, the matter is in brewing: poor Gill, my wife, lies longing for the news; ’twill make her a glad mother.
All [except Ol.]. A Simon, a Simon!
Sim. Good people, I thank you all.
Oliv. Wretch that I am! Tanner, thou hast curried favour.
Sim. I curry! I defy thy fustian fume.
Oliv. But I will prove a rebel all thy year,
And raise up the seven deadly sins against thee. [Exit.
Sim. The deadly sins will scorn to rise by thee, if they have any breeding, as commonly they are well brought up; ’tis not for every scab to be acquainted with them: but leaving the scab, to you, good neighbours, now I bend my speech. First, to say more than a man can say, I hold it not fit to be spoken; but to say what a man ought to say, there I leave you also. I must confess your loves have chosen a weak and unlearned man; that I can neither write nor read, you all can witness: yet not altogether so unlearned, but I can set my mark to a bond, if I would be so simple; an excellent token of government. Cheer you then, my hearts, you have done you know not what: there’s a full point; there you must all cough and hem. [Here they all cough and hem.] Now touching our common adversary 176the fustian-weaver, who threatens he will raise the deadly sins among us, let them come; our town is big enough to hold them, we will not so much disgrace it; besides, you know a deadly sin will lie in a narrow hole: but when they think themselves safest, and the web of their iniquity best woven, with the horse strength of my justice I will break through the loom of their concupiscence, and make the weaver go seek his shuttle: here you may cough and hem again, if you’ll do me the favour. [They cough and hem again.] Why, I thank you all, and it shall not go unrewarded. Now for the deadly sins, pride, sloth, envy, wrath; as for covetousness and gluttony, I’ll tell you more when I come out of my office; I shall have time to try what they are: I will prove them soundly; and if I find gluttony and covetousness to be directly sins, I’ll bury the one in the bottom of a chest, and the other in the end of my garden. But, sirs, for lechery, I’ll tickle that home myself, I’ll not leave a whore in the town.
Barb. Some of your neighbours must seek their wives in the country then.
Sim. Barber, be silent, I will cut thy comb else. To conclude, I will learn the villany of all trades; my own I know already: if there be any knavery in the baker, I will bolt it out; if in the brewer, I will taste him throughly,[464] and piss out his iniquity at his own suckhole: in a word, I will knock down all enormities like a butcher, and send the hide to my fellow-tanners.
All. A Simonides, a true Simonides indeed!
177Re-enter Hengist with Roxena.
Heng. How now? how goes your choice?
Tail. This is he, my lord.
Sim. To prove I am the man, I am bold to take
The upper hand of your lordship: I’ll not lose
An inch of my honour.
Heng. Hold, sirs: there’s some few crowns
To mend your feast, because I like your choice.
Barb. Joy bless you, sir!
We’ll drink your health with trumpets.
Sim. I with sack-buts,[465]
That’s the more solemn drinking for my state;
No malt this year shall fume into my pate.
[Exeunt all but Hengist and Roxena.[466]
Heng. Continue[s] still that favour in his love?
Rox. Nay, with increase, my lord, the flame grows greater;
Though he has learn’d a better art of late
To set a screen before it.
Heng. Speak lower.
[Retires to a seat and reads: exit Roxena.
Enter Vortiger and Horsus.
Hor. Heard every word, my lord.
Vort. Plainly?
Hor. Distinctly.
The course I took was dangerous, but not failing,
For I convey’d myself behind the hangings
Even just before his entrance.
Vort. ’Twas well ventur’d.
178Hor. I had such a woman’s first and second longing in me
To hear[467] how she would bear her mock’d abuse
After she was return’d to privacy,
I could have fasted out an ember-week,
And never thought of hunger, to have heard her:
Then came your holy Lupus and Germanus—
Vort. Two holy confessors.
Hor. At whose first sight
I could perceive her fall upon her breast,
And cruelly afflict herself with sorrow,
(I never heard a sigh till I heard hers);
Who, after her confession, pitying her,
Put her into a way of patience,
Which now she holds, to keep it hid from you:
There’s all the pleasure that I took in’t now;
When I heard that, my pains was well remember’d.
So, with applying comforts and relief,
They’ve[468] brought it lower, to an easy grief;
But yet the taste is not quite gone.
Vort. Still fortune
Sits bettering our inventions.
Hor. Here she comes.
Enter Castiza.
Cast. Yonder’s my lord; O, I’ll return again!
Methinks I should not dare to look on him.
[Aside, and exit.
Hor. She’s gone again.
Vort. It works the kindlier, sir:
Go now and call her back. [Exit Horsus.] She winds herself
Into the snare so prettily, ’tis a pleasure
To set toils for her.
179Re-enter Castiza and Horsus.
Cast. He may read my shame
Now in my blush. [Aside.
Vort. Come, you’re so link’d to holiness,
So taken[469] with contemplative desires,
That the world has you, yet enjoys you not:
You have been weeping too.
Cast. Not I, my lord.
Vort. Trust me, I fear you have: you’re much to blame
To yield so much to passion[470] without cause.
Is not some time enough for meditation?
Must it lay title to your health and beauty,
And draw them into time’s consumption too?
’Tis too exacting for a holy faculty.—
My lord of Kent!—I prithee, wake him, captain;
He reads himself asleep, sure.
Hor. My lord!
Vort. Nay,
I’ll take away your book, and bestow’t here.
[Takes book from Hengist.
Heng. Your pardon, sir.
Vort. [giving book to Castiza] Lady, you that delight in virgins’ stories,
And all chaste works, here’s excellent reading for you:
Make of that book as made men do of favours,
Which they grow sick to part from.—And now, my lord,
You that have so conceitedly[471] gone beyond me,
And made so large use of a slender gift,
Which we ne’er minded,[472] I commend your thrift;
180And that your building may to all ages
Carry the stamp and impress of your wit,
It shall be call’d Thong-Castle.[473]
Heng. How, my lord,
Thong-Castle! there your grace quits me kindly.
Vort. ’Tis fit art should be known by its right name;
You that can spread my gift, I’ll spread your fame.
Heng. I thank your grace for that.
Vort. And, lovèd lord,
So well we do accept your invitation,
With all speed we’ll set forwards.
Heng. Your honour loves me. [Exeunt.