Act 1 — ACT I. SCENE I.
Reading edition
A Room in Frippery’s House. Frippery discovered[442] summing up his pawns, one fellow standing by him.
Enter Arthur and a second fellow.
Ar. Is your pawn good and sound, sir?
Sec. F. I’ll pawn my life for that, sir.
216Ar. Place yourself there then; I will seek to prefer it presently. My master is very jealous[443] of the pestilence; marry, the pox sits at meat and meal with him. [Second fellow retires.
Fri. [reading] Lent the fifth day of September to mistress Onset upon her gown, [and] taffeta petticoat with three broad silver laces, three pound fifteen shillings.
Lent to Justice Cropshin upon both his velvet jackets five pound ten shillings.
Lent privately to my Lady Newcut upon her gilt casting-bottle[444] and her silver lie-pot fifty-five shillings.
Ar. Sir——
Fri. [reads] Lent to Sir Oliver Needy upon his taffeta cloak, beaver hat, and perfumed leather-jerkin, six pound five shillings.
Ar. May it please your worship——
Fri. [reads] Lent to master Andrew Lucifer upon his flame-coloured doublet and blue taffeta hose[445]—top the candle, sirrah; methinks the light burns blue: when came that suit in?
Ar. ’T’as lain above the year now.
Fri. Fire and brimstone! cut it out into matches; the white linings will serve for tinder.
Ar. And with little help, sir; they are almost black enough already. Sir, here’s another come with a pawn.
Fri. Keep him aside awhile, and reach me hither the bill of the last week.
217Ar. ’Tis here at hand, sir.
Fri. Now, sir, what’s your pawn?
First F. The second part of a gentlewoman’s gown, sir; the lower half, I mean.
Fri. I apprehend you easily, the breeches of the gown.
First F. Very proper; for she wears the doublet at home, a guest that lies in my house, sir; she looks every hour for her cousin out a’ th’ country.
Fri. O, her cousin lies here; ’a may mistake in that. My friend, of what parish is your pawn?
First F. Parish? why, Saint Clement’s, sir.
Fri. I’ll come to you presently.[446]—What parish is your pawn, my friend? [reads] Saint Bride’s, 5; Saint Dunstan’s, none; Saint Clement’s, 3. Three at Clement’s?—Away with your pawn, sir! your parish is infected; I will neither purchase the plague for sixpence in the pound and a groat bill-money, nor venture my small stock into contagious parishes: you have your answer; fare you well, as fast as you can, sir.
First F. The pox arrest you, sir, at the suit of the suburbs!
Fri. Ay, welcome, welcome.
First F. For, I think, plague scorns your company.
[Exit.
Fri. I rank with chief gallants; I love to smell safely. [Reads] Lent in the vacation to master Proctor upon his spiritual gown five angels,[447] and upon his corporal doublet fifteen shillings; sum, three pound five shillings.
Ar. Sir——
218Fri. Now, sir?
Ar. [bringing forward a trunk.] Here’s one come in with a trunk of apparel.
Fri. Whence comes it?
Ar. From Saint Martin’s-in-the-Field.
Fri. Saint Martin’s-in-the-Field? [reads] Saint Mary Maudlin, 2; Saint Martin’s, none: here’s an honest fellow; let him appear, sir.
Ar. You may come near, sir.
Fri. O welcome, welcome; what’s your pawn, sir?
Sec. F. Faith, a gentlewoman’s whole suit, sir.
Fri. Whole suit? ’tis well.
Sec. F. A poor, kind soul, troubled with a bad husband; one that puts her to her shifts here.
Fri. He puts her from her shifts, methinks, when she is fain to pawn her clothes.
Sec. F. Look you, sir; a fair satin gown, new taffeta petticoat——
Fri. Stay, this petticoat has been turned.
Sec. F. Often turned up and down, and[448] you will, but never turned, sir.
Fri. Cry you mercy, indeed.
Sec. F. A fine white beaver, pearl band, three falls;[449] I ha’ known her have more in her days.
Fri. Alas, and she be but a gentlewoman of any count or charge, three falls are nothing in these days! know that: tut, the world’s changed; gentlewomen’s[450] falls stand upright now; no sin but has a bolster, that it may lie at ease. Well, what do you borrow of these, sir?
Sec. F. Twelve pound, and you will, sir.
219Fri. How?
Sec. F. They were not her’s for twenty.
Fri. Why, so; our pawn is ever thrice the value of our money, unless in plate and jewels; how should the months be restored and the use else? We must cast it for the twelvemonth, so many pounds, so many months, so many eighteenpences; then the use of these eighteenpences; then the want of the return of those pounds: all these must be laid together; which well considered, the valuation of the pawn had need to sound treble. Can six pound pleasure the gentlewoman?
Sec. F. It may please her, but, like a man of threescore, in the limberest degree.
Fri. I have but one word more to say in’t; twenty nobles[451] is all and the utmost that I will hazard upon’t.
Sec. F. She must be content with’t: the less borrowed, the better paid; come.
Fri. Arthur.
Ar. At hand, sir.
Fri. Tell out twenty nobles, and take her name in a bill.
Sec. F. I’m satisfied, sir. [Exit with Arthur.
Fri. Welcome, good Saint Martin’s-in-the-Field, welcome, welcome! I know no other name.
Enter Primero.
Pri. What, so hard at your prayers?
Fri. A little, sir; summing up my pawns here—what, master Primero, is it you, sir gallant? and how do[452] all the pretty sweet ladies, those plump, 220kind, delicate blisses, ha? whom I kiss in my very thoughts,—how do they, gallant?
Pri. Why, gallant, if they should not do well in my house, where should it be done, boy? have I not a glorious situation?
Fri. O, a gallant receipt,—violet air, curious garden, quaint walks, fantastical arbours, three back doors, and a coach-gate! nay, thou’rt admirably seated: little furniture will serve thee; thou’rt never without moveables.
Pri. Ay, praise my stars! Ah, the goodly virginities that have been cut up in my house, and the goodly patrimonies that have lain like sops in the gravy! and when those sops were eaten, yet the meat was kept whole for another, and another, and another; for as in one pie twenty may dip their sippits, so upon one woman forty may consume their patrimonies.
Fri. Excellent, master Primero!
Pri. Well, I will[453] pray for women while I live;
They’re the profitablest fools, I’ll say that for ’em,
A man can keep ’bout his house; the prettiest kind fowl;
So tame, so gentle, e’en to strangers’ hands
So soon familiar; suffer to be touch’d
Of those they ne’er saw twice: the dove’s not like ’em.
Fri. Most certain, for that’s honest: but I have
A suit to you.
Pri. And so have I to you.
Fri. That happens well: grant mine, and I’ll grant yours.
Pri. A match.
221Fri. Make me perfect in that trick that got you so much at primero.[454]
Pri. O, for the thread tied at your partner’s leg,
The twitch?
Pri. That secret twitch got me five hundred pound
Ere ’twas first known, and since I ha’ sold it well:
Five hundred pound laid down shall not yet buy
The fee-simple of my twitch: I would be here with’t.
’Twas a blest invention;
I’d[457] been a beggar many a lousy year
But for my twitch: it was the prettiest twitch!
Many over-cheated gulls have fatted
Me with the bottom of their patrimonies,
E’en to the last sop, gaped while I fed ’em,
Who now live by that art that first undid ’em.
But I must swear you to be secret, close.
Fri. As a maid at ten.
Pri. Had you sworn but two years higher
I would ne’er ha’ believ’d you.
Fri. Nay, I let twelve alone,
For after twelve has struck, maids look for one.
Pri. I look for one too, and a maid, I think.
Fri. What, to come hither?
Pri. Sure, she follows me: a pretty, fat-eyed wench, with a Venus in her cheek: did but raiment smile upon her, she were nectar for great dons, boy: and that’s my suit to thee.
222Fri. And that’s granted already. Of what volume is this book, that I may fit a cover to’t?
Pri. Faith, neither in folio nor in decimo sexto, but in octavo, between both; a pretty, middle-sized trug.[458]
Fri. Then I have fitted her already, in my eye, i’faith. Here came a pawn in e’en now will make shift to serve her as fit!—look you, sir gallant[459]—satin, taffeta, beaver, fall,[460] and all.
Pri. Is it new?
Fri. New? you see it bears her youth as freshly——
Pri. A pretty suit of clothes, i’faith: but put case the party should come to redeem ’em of a sudden?
Fri. Pooh, then your wit’s sickly: have not I the policy, think you, to seem extreme busy, and defer ’em till the morrow? against which time that pawn shall be secretly fetched home, and another carried out to supply the place.
Pri. I like thy craft well there.
Fri. A general course. O, frippery[461] is an unknown benefit, sir gallant!
Pri. And what must I give you for the hire now, i’faith?
223Fri. Of the whole suit, for the month?
Pri. Ay, for the month.
Fri. Go to, you shall give me but twelvepence a-day; master Primero, you’re a friend, and I’ll use you so: ’tis got up at your house in an afternoon, i’faith, the hire of the whole month: ye must think I can distinguish spirits, and put a difference between you and others; you pay no more, i’faith.
Pri. I could have offered you no less myself.
Fri. Tut, a man must use a friend as a friend may use him: your house has been a sweet house to me, both for pleasure and profit; I’ll give you your due: omne tulit punctum, you have always kept fine punks in your house, that’s for pleasure, qui miscuit utile dulci, and I have had sweet pawns from ’em, that’s for profit now.
Pri. You flatter, you flatter, sir gallant,—but whist! here she enters: I prithee, question her.
Enter Novice.
O, you’re welcome!
Fri. Is this your new scholar, master Primero?
Pri. Marry is she, sir.
Fri. I’ll commend your judgment in a wench while I live: that face will get money, i’faith; ’twill be a get-penny, I warrant you.—Go to, your fortune was choice, pretty bliss, to fall into the regard of so kind a gentleman.
Nov. I hope so, sir.
Fri. See what his care has provided already for you; you’ll be simply set out to the world! If you’ll have that care now to deserve his pains, O that will be acceptable! and these be the rudiments you must chiefly point at: to counterfeit cunningly, to wind in gentlemen with powerful attraction to 224keep his house in name and custom, to dissemble with your own brother, never to betray your fellows’ imperfections nor lay open the state of their bodies to strangers, to believe those that give you, to gull those that believe you, to laugh at all under taffeta; and these be your rudiments.
Pri. There’s e’en all, i’faith; we’ll trouble you with no more; nay, you shall live at ease enough: for nimming away jewels and favours from gentlemen, which are your chief vails, [I] hope that will come naturally enough to you, I need not instruct you; you’ll have that wit, I trust, to make the most of your pleasure.
Nov. I hope one’s mother-wit will serve for that, sir.
Pri. O, properest of all, wench! it must be a she-wit that does those things, and thy mother was quick enough at it in her days.
Fri. Give me leave, sister, to examine you upon two or three particulars:—and you make you ready,[462] be not ashamed; here’s none but friends—are you a maid?
Nov. Yes, in the last quarter, sir.
Fri. Very proper, that’s e’en going out: a maid in the last quarter, that’s a whore in the first: let me see, new moon on Thursday; she’ll be changed[463] by that time too. Are you willing to pleasure gentlemen?
Nov. We are all born to pleasure our country, forsooth.
Fri. Excellent! Can you carry yourself cunningly, and seem often holy?
Nov. O, fear not that, sir! my friends were all Puritans.
225Fri. I’ll ne’er try her further.
Pri. She’s done well, i’faith: I fear not now to turn her loose to any gentleman in Europe.
Fri. You need not, sir: of her own accord, I think she’ll be loose enough without turning.—Arthur.
Re-enter Arthur.
Ar. Here, sir.
Fri. Go, make haste, shift her into that suit presently.
Ar. It shall be done.
Pri. Arthur, do’t neatly, Arthur.
Ar. Fear’t not, sir. [Exit.
Pri. Follow him, wench.
Nov. With all my heart, sir. [Exit.
Pri. But, mass, sir,[464]
In what are we forgetful all this while!
Fri. In what?
Pri. The wooing business, man.
Fri. Heart, that’s true!
Pri. The gallants will prevent[465] us.
Fri. Are you certain?
Pri. I can avouch it: there’s a general meeting
At the deceas’d knight’s house this afternoon;
There’s rivalship enough.
Fri. No doubt in that:
Would either thou or I might bear her from ’em!
Pri. My hopes are not yet faint.
Fri. Nor mine.
Pri. Tut, man,
Nothing in women’s hearts sooner win[s] place
Than a brave outside and an impudent face.
Fri. And for both those we’ll fit it.
226Pri. Ay, if the devil be not in’t: make haste.
Fri. I follow straight. [Exit Primero.
Vanish, thou fog, and sink beneath our brightness,
Abashed at the splendour of such beams!
We scorn thee, base eclipser of our glories,
That wouldst have hid our shine from mortal’s eyes.
Now, gallants, I’m[466] for you, ay, and perhaps before you:
You can appear but glorious from yourselves,
And have your beams but drawn from your own light,
But mine from many,—many make me bright.
Here’s a diamond that sometimes graced the finger of a countess; here sits a ruby that ne’er lins[467] blushing for the party that pawned it; here a sapphire. O providence and fortune! my beginning was so poor, I would fain forget it; and I take the only course, for I scorn to think on’t; slave to a trencher, observer of a salt-cellar, privy to nothing but a close-stool, or such unsavoury secret: but as I strive to forget the days of my serving, so I shall once remember the first step of my raising; for, having hardly raked five mark[s][468] together, I rejoiced so in that small stock, which most providently I ventured by water to Blackwall among fishwives; and in small time, what by weekly return and gainful restitution, it rize[469] to a great body, beside a dish of fish for a present, that stately preserved me a seven-night.
Nor[470] ceas’d it there, but drew on greater profit;
For I was held religious by those
227That do profess like abstinence,
And was full often secretly supplied
By charitable Catholics,
Who censur’d[471] me sincerely abstinate,
When merely I for hunger, not[472] for zeal,
Eat up the fish, and put their alms to use!
Ha, ha, ha!
But those times are run out; and, for my sake,
Zealous dissemblance has since far’d the worse.
Let me see now, whose cloak shall I wear to-day to continue change?—O—Arthur!
Re-enter Arthur.
Ar. Here, sir.
Fri. Bring down Sir Oliver Needy’s taffeta cloak and beaver hat—I am sure he is fast enough in the Knight’s ward[473]—and Andrew Lucifer’s rapier and dagger with the embossed girdle and hangers[474] [exit Arthur], for he’s in his third sweat by this time, sipping of the doctor’s bottle, or picking the ninth part of a rack of mutton dry-roasted, with a leash of nightcaps on his head like the pope’s triple crown, and as many pillows crushed to his back, with O-the-needles! for he got the pox of a sempster, and it pricked so much more naturally. Quick, Arthur, quick.
228Re-enter Arthur, with cloak, &c., which Frippery puts on.
Now to the deceas’d knight’s daughter,
Whom many gallants sue to, I ’mongst many;
For
Since impudence gains more respect than virtue,
And coin than[475] blood, which few can now deny,
Who’re your chief gallants then but such as I?
[Exeunt.