Part 2 / Act 1 — SCENE III.

A Room in Candido’s House: Candido, the Bride, and Guests, discovered at dinner; Prentices waiting on them.

Enter Lodovico, Carolo, and Astolfo.^[276]

Can. O gentlemen, so late? you’re very welcome:

Pray, sit down.

Lod. Carolo, didst e’er see such a nest of caps?^[277]

Ast. Methinks it’s a most civil and most comely sight.

Lod. What does he i’ th’ middle look like?

Ast. Troth, like a spire-steeple in a country village over-peering so many thatched houses.

147Lod. It’s rather a long pike-staff against so many bucklers without pikes:^[278] they sit for all the world like a pair of organs,^[279] and he’s the tall great roaring pipe i’ th’ midst.

Ast. Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Can. What’s that you laugh at, signors?

Lod. Troth, shall I tell you, and aloud I’ll tell it;

We laugh to see, yet laugh we not in scorn,

Amongst so many caps that long hat worn.

First Guest.^[280] Mine is as tall a felt^[281] as any is this day in Milan, and therefore I love it, for the block^[282] was cleft out for my head, and fits me to a hair.

Can. Indeed, you’re good observers; it shews strange:

But, gentlemen, I pray neither contemn

Nor yet deride a civil ornament;

I could build so much in the round cap’s praise,

That 'bove^[283] this high roof I this flat would raise.

Lod. Prithee, sweet bridegroom, do’t.

Can. So all these guests will pardon me, I’ll do’t.

Guests. With all our hearts.

Can. Thus, then, in the cap’s honour.

To every sex and state both nature, time,

The country’s laws, yea, and the very clime,

Do allot distinct habits: the spruce courtier

Jets^[284] up and down in silk; the warrior

Marches in buff; the clown plods on in gray:

But for these upper garments thus I say;

148The seaman has his cap, par’d without brim;

The gallant’s head is feather’d, that fits him;

The soldier has his murrion;^[285] women ha’ tires;

Beasts have their head-pieces, and men ha’ their

Lod. Procee

Can. Each degree has his fashion; it’s fit then

One should be laid by for the citizen,

And that’s the cap which you see swells not high,

For caps are emblems of humility.

It is a citizen’s badge, and first was worn

By th’ Romans; for when any bondman’s turn^[286]

Came to be made a freeman, thus ’twas said,

He to the cap was call’d, that is, was made

Of Rome a freeman, but was first close shorn;

And so a citizen’s hair is still short worn.

Lod. That close shaving made barbers a company, and now every citizen uses it.

Can. Of geometric figures the most rare

And perfect’st are the circle and the square:

The city and the school much build upon

These figures, for both love proportion.

The city-cap is round, the scholar’s square,

To shew that government and learning are

The perfect’st limbs i’ th’ body of a state;

For without them all’s disproportionate.

If the cap had no honour, this might rear it,

The reverend fathers of the law do wear it.

It’s light for summer, and in cold it sits

Close to the skull, a warm house for the wits;

It shews the whole face boldly, ’tis not made

As if a man to look out^[287] were afraid;

149Nor like a draper’s shop with broad dark shed,

For he’s no citizen that hides his head.

Flat caps as proper are to city-gowns,

As to armours helmets, or to kings their crowns.

Let then the city-cap by none be scorn’d,

Since with it princes’ heads have been adorn’d.

If more the round cap’s honour you would know,

How would this long gown with this steeple^[288] shew?

All. Ha, ha, ha! most vile, most ugly.

Can. Pray, signor, pardon me, ’twas done in jest.

Bride. A cup of claret wine there!

First P. Wine? yes, forsooth, wine for the bride.

Car. You ha’ well set out the cap, sir.

Lod. Nay, that’s flat.

Can.^[289] A health!

Lod. Since his cap’s round, that shall go round. Be bare,

For in the cap’s praise all of you have share.

[They uncover their heads, and drink. As First Prentice offers the wine to the Bride, she hits him on the lips, and breaks the glass.

The bride’s at cuff

Can. O, peace, I pray thee; thus^[290] far off I stand,

I spied the error of my servants.

She call’d for claret, and you fill’d out sack;

That cup give me, ’tis for an old man’s back,

And not for hers. Indeed, ’twas but mistaken;

Ask all these else.

150All. No, faith, ’twas but mistaken.

First P. Nay, she took it right enough.

Can. Good Luke, reach her that glass of claret.—Here, mistress bride, pledge me there.

Bride. Now I’ll none. [Exit.

Can. How now?

Lod. Look what your mistress ails.

First P. Nothing, sir, but about filling a wrong glass,—a scurvy trick.

Can. I pray you, hold your tongue.—My servant there

Tells me she is not well.

Guests. Step to her, step to her.

Lod. A word with you; do ye hear? this wench, your new wife, will take you down in your wedding-shoes, unless you hang her up in her wedding-garters.

Can. How? hang her in her garters?

Lod. Will you be a tame pigeon still? shall your back be like a tortoise-shell, to let carts go over it, yet not to break? This she-cat will have more lives than your last puss had, and will scratch worse and mouse you worse: look to’t.

Can. What would you have me do, sir?

Lod. What would I have you do? swear, swagger, brawl, fling; for fighting it’s no matter, we ha’ had knocking pusses enow already: you know that a woman was made of the rib of a man, and that rib was crooked; the moral of which is, that a man must, from his beginning, be crooked to his wife. Be you like an orange to her; let her cut you never so fair, be you sour as vinegar. Will you be ruled by me?

Can. In any thing that’s civil, honest, and just.

Lod. Have you ever a prentice’s suit will fit me?

Can. I have the very same which myself wore.

151Lod. I’ll send my man for’t within this half hour, and within this two hours I’ll be your prentice. The hen shall not overcrow the cock; I’ll sharpen your spurs.

Can. It will be but some jest, sir?

Lod. Only a jest: farewell.—Come, Carolo.

[Exeunt Lodovico, Carolo, and Astolfo.

Guests. We’ll take our leaves, sir, to

Can. Pray, conceit not ill

Of my wife’s sudden rising. This young knight,

Sir Lodovico, is deep seen in physic,

And he tells me the disease call’d the mother^[291]

Hangs on my wife; it is a vehement heaving

And beating of the stomach, and that swelling

Did with the pain thereof cramp up her arm,

That hit his lips and brake the glass: no harm,

It was no har

Guests. No, signor, none at al

Can. The straightest arrow may fly wide by chance:

But, come, we’ll close this brawl up in some dance. [Exeunt.