Act 2 — SCENE VI.
Reading edition
A Room in the Courtesan’s House.
Enter Courtesan meeting Penitent Brothel.
Cour. O master Penitent Brothel!
Pen. B. What is’t, sweet lady Gullman, that so seizes on thee with rapture and admiration?
358Cour. A thought, a trick, to make you, sir, especially happy, and yet I myself a saver by it.
Pen. B. I would embrace that, lady, with such courage,
I would not leave you on the losing hand.
Cour. I will give trust to you, sir. The cause, then, why I raised you from your bed so soon, wherein I know sighs would not let you sleep, thus understand it:
You love that woman, master Harebrain’s wife,
Which no invented means can crown with freedom
For your desires and her own wish but this,
Which in my slumbers did present itself.
Pen. B. I’m covetous, lady.
Cour. You know her husband, lingering in suspect,
Locks her from all society but mine.
Pen. B. Most true.
Cour. I only am admitted; yet hitherto that has done you no real happiness; by my admittance I cannot perform that deed that should please you, you know: wherefore thus I’ve conveyed it, I’ll counterfeit a fit of violent sickness.
Pen. B. Good.
Cour. Nay, ’tis not so good, by my faith, but to do you good.
Pen. B. And in that sense I called it: but take me with you, lady;[787] would it be probable enough to have a sickness so suddenly violent?
Cour. Pooh, all the world knows women are soon down: we can be sick when we have a mind to’t, catch an ague with the wind of our fans, surfeit upon the rump of a lark, and bestow ten pound in physic upon’t: we’re likest ourselves when we’re 359down; ’tis the easiest art and cunning for our sect[788] to counterfeit sick, that are always full of fits when we are well; for since we were made for a weak, imperfect creature, we can fit that best that we are made for. I thus translated, and yourself slipt into the form of a physician——
Pen. B. I a physician, lady? talk not on’t, I beseech you; I shall shame the whole college.
Cour. Tut, man, any quacksalving terms will serve for this purpose; for I am pitifully haunted with a brace of elder brothers, new perfumed in the first of their fortunes, and I shall see how forward their purses will be to the pleasing of my palate, and restoring of my health. Lay on load enough upon ’em, and spare ’em not, for they’re good plump fleshly asses, and may well enough bear it; let gold,[789] amber, and dissolved pearl, be common ingrediences, and that you cannot compose a cullice without ’em. Put but this cunningly in practice, it shall be both a sufficient recompense for all my pains in your love, and the ready means to make mistress Harebrain way, by the visiting of me, to your mutual desired company.
Pen. B. I applaud thee, kiss thee, and will constantly embrace it. [Exeunt severally.