Part 2 / Act 2 — SCENE II.

A Room in Russell’s House.

Enter Physician and Jane.

Phy. Nay, mistress,^[729] you must not be cover’d to me;

The patient must ope to the physician

477All her dearest sorrows: art is blinded else,

And cannot shew her mystical effects.

Jane. Can art be so dim-sighted, learned sir?

I did not think her so incapacious.

You train me, as I guess, like a conjurer,

One of our fine^[730] oraculous wizards,

Who, from the help of his examinant,

By the near guess of his suspicion,

Points^[731] out the thief by the marks he tells him.

Have you no skill in physiognomy?

What colour, says your coat, is my disease?

I am unmarried, and it cannot be yellow;^[732]

If it be maiden-green, you cannot miss it.

Phy. I cannot see that vacuum in your blood:

But, gentlewoman, if you love yourself,

Love my advice; be free and plain with me:

Where lies your grief?

Jane. Where lies my grief indeed?

I cannot tell the truth, where my grief lies,

But my joy is imprison’d.

Phy. This is mystical!

Jane. Lord, what plain questions you make problems of!

Your art is such a regular highway,

That put you out of it, and you are lost:

My heart’s imprison’d in my body, sir;

There is all my joy; and my sorrow too

Lies very near it.

Phy. They are bad adjuncts;

Your joy and grief, lying so near together,

Can propagate no happy issue: remove

The one, and let it be the worst—your grief—

If you’ll propose the best unto your joy.

478Jane. Why, now comes your skill: what physic for it?

Phy. Now I have found you out; you are in love.

Jane. I think I am: what’s^[733] your appliance now?

Can all your Paracelsian mixtures cure it?

'T must be a surgeon of the civil law,

I fear, that must cure me.

Phy. Gentlewoman,

If you knew well my heart, you would not be

So circular;^[734] the very common name

Of physician might reprove your niceness;^[735]

We are as secret as your confessors,

And as firm obliged; ’tis a fine like death

For us to blab.

Jane. I will trust you; yet, sir,

I’d rather do it by attorney to you;

I else have blushes that will stop my tongue:

Have you no friend so friendly as yourself,

Of mine own sex, to whom I might impart

My sorrows to you at the second hand?

Phy. Why, la, there I hit you! and be confirm’d

I’ll give you such a bosom-counsellor,

That your own tongue shall be sooner false to you.

Make yourself unready,^[736] and be naked to her;

I’ll fetch her presently. [Exit.

Jane. I must reveal;

My shame will else take tongue, and speak before me:

’Tis a necessity impulsive drives me.

O my hard fate, but my more hard father,

That father of my fate!—a father, said I?

What a strange paradox I run into!

479I must accuse two fathers of my fate

And fault, a reciprocal generation:

The father of my fault would have repair’d

His faulty issue, but my fate’s father hinders it:

Then fate and fault, wherever I begin,

I must blame both, and yet ’twas love did sin.

Re-enter Physician with Anne.

Phy. Look you, mistress, here’s your closet; put in

What you please, you ever keep the key of it.

Jane. Let me speak private, sir.

Phy. With all my heart;

I will be more than mine ears’ length from you.

[Retires.

Jane. You hold some endear’d place with this gentleman?

Anne. He is my brother, forsooth, I his creature;

He does command me any lawful office,

Either in act or counsel.

Jane. I must not doubt you;

Your brother has protested secrecy,

And strengthen’d me in you: I must lay ope

A guilty sorrow to you; I’m with child.

’Tis no black swan I shew you; these spots stick

Upon the face of many go for maids:

I that had face enough to do the deed,

Cannot want tongue to speak it; but ’tis to you,

Whom I accept my helper.

Anne. Mistress, ’tis lock’d

Within a castle that’s invincible:

It is too late to wish it were undone.

Jane. I’ve scarce a wish within myself so strong,

For, understand me, ’tis not all so ill

As you may yet conceit it: this deed was done

480When heaven had witness to the jugal^[737] knot;

Only the barren ceremony wants,

Which by an adverse father is abridg’d.

Anne. Would my pity could help you!

Jane. Your counsel may.

My father yet shoots widest from my sorrow,

And, with a care indulgent, seeing me chang’d

From what I was, sends for your good brother

To find my grief, and practise remedy:

You know it, give it him; but if a fourth

Be added to this counsel, I will say

Ye’re worse than you can call me at the worst,

At this advantage of my reputation.

Anne. I will revive a reputation

That women long have^[738] lost; I will keep counsel:

I’ll only now oblige my teeth to you,

And they shall bite the blabber, if it offer

To breathe on an offending syllable.

Jane. I trust you; go, whisper.^[739] Here comes my father.

Enter Russell, Chough, and Trimtram.

Rus. Sir, you are welcome, more, and most welcome,

All the degrees of welcome; thrice welcome, sir!

Chough. Is this your daughter, sir?

Rus. Mine only joy, sir.

Chough. I’ll shew her the Cornish hug,^[740] sir

[embraces her].—I have kissed you now, sweetheart,

and I never do any kindness to my friends but I

use to hit 'em in the teeth with it presently.

481Trim. My name is Trimtram, forsooth; look,

what my master does, I use to do the like.

[Attempts to kiss Anne.

Anne. You are deceived, sir; I am not this

gentlewoman’s servant, to make your courtesy

equal.

Chough. You do not know me, mistress?

Jane. No indeed.—I doubt I shall learn too soon.

[Aside.

Chough. My name is Chough, a Cornish gentleman;^[741]

my man’s mine own countryman too, i’faith:

I warrant you took us for some of the small

islanders.

Jane. I did indeed, between the Scotch and Irish.

Chough. Red-shanks?^[742] I thought so, by my truth: no, truly,

We are right Cornish diamonds.

482Trim. Yes, we cut

Out quarrels^[743] and break glasses where we go.

Phy. If it be hidden from her father, yet

His ignorance understands well his knowledge,

For this I guess to be some rich coxcomb

He’d put upon his daughter.

Anne. That’s plainly so.

Phy. Then only she’s beholding^[744] to our help

For the close delivery of her burden,

Else all’s overthrown.

Anne. And, pray, be faithful in that, sir.

Phy. Tush, we physicians are the truest

Alchemists, that from the ore and dross of sin

Can new distil a maidenhead again.

Rus. How do you like her, sir?

Chough. Troth, I do like her, sir, in the way of comparison, to any thing that a man would desire; I am as high as the Mount^[745] in love with her already, and that’s as far as I can go by land; but I hope to go further by water with her one day.

Rus. I tell you, sir, she has lost some colour

By wrestling with a peevish sickness now of late.

Chough. Wrestle? nay, and^[746] she love wrestling, I’ll teach her a trick to overthrow any peevish sickness in London, whate’er it be.

Rus. Well, she had a rich beauty, though I say’t;

Nor is it lost; a little thing repairs it.

483Chough. She shall command the best thing that I have

In Middlesex, i’faith.

Rus. Well, sir, talk with her;

Give her a relish of your good liking to her;

You shall have time and free

Access to finish what you now begin.

Jane. What means my father? my love’s unjust restraint,

My shame, were it published, both together

Could not afflict me like this odious fool:

Now I see why he hated my Fitzallen. [Aside.

Chough. Sweet lady, your father says you are a wrestler: if you love that sport, I love you the better: i’faith, I love it as well as I love my meat after supper; ’tis indeed meat, drink, and cloth to me.

Jane. Methinks it should tear your clothes, sir.

Chough. Not a rag, i’faith.—Trimtram, hold my cloak. [Gives his cloak to Trimtram.]—I’ll wrestle a fall with you now; I’ll shew you a trick that you never saw in your life.

Jane. O, good sir, forbear! I am no wrestler.

Phy. Good sir, take heed, you’ll hurt the gentlewoman.

Chough. I will not catch beneath the waist, believe it;

I know fair play.

Jane. ’Tis no woman’s exercise in London, sir.

Chough. I’ll ne’er believe that: the hug and the lock between man and woman, with a fair fall, is as sweet an exercise for the body as you’ll desire in a summer’s evening.

Phy. Sir, the gentlewoman is not well.

Chough. It may be you are a physician, sir?

Phy. ’Tis so, sir.

484Chough. I say, then, and I’ll stand to’t, three ounces of wrestling with two hips, a yard of a green gown put together in the inturn, is as good a medicine for the green sickness as ever breathed.

Trim. Come, sir, take your cloak again; I see here will be ne’er a match. [Returns cloak.

Jane. A match?

I had rather be match’d from a musket’s mouth,

And shot unto my death. [Aside.

Chough. I’ll wrestle with any man for a good supper.

Trim. Ay, marry, sir, I’ll take your part there, catch that catch may.

Phy. Sir, she is willing to’t: there at my house

She shall be private, and near to my attendance:

I know you’ll^[747] not mistrust my faithful care;

I shall return her soon and perfectly.

Rus. Take your charge, sir.—Go with this gentleman, Jane;

But, prithee, look well this way ere thou go’st;

’Tis a rich simplicity of great estate,

A thing that will be rul’d, and thou shalt rule;

Consider of your sex’s general aim,

That domination is a woman’s heaven.

Jane. I’ll think on’t, sir.

Rus. My daughter is retiring, sir.

Chough. I will part at Dartmouth with her, sir. [Kisses her.]—O that thou didst but love wrestling! I would give any man three foils on that condition!

Trim. There’s three sorts of men that would thank you for 'em, either cutlers, fencers, or players.

Rus. Sir, as I began I end,—wondrous welcome!

[Exeunt all except Chough and Trimtram.

485Trim. What, will you go to school to-day? you are entered, you know, and your quarterage runs on.

Chough. What, to the roaring school?^[748] pox on’t, ’tis such a damnable noise, I shall never attain it neither. I do wonder they have never a wrestling school; that were worth twenty of your fencing or dancing schools.

Trim. Well, you must learn to roar here in London; you’ll never proceed in the reputation of gallantry else.

Chough. How long has roaring been an exercise, thinkest thou, Trimtram?

Trim. Ever since guns came up; the first was your roaring Meg.^[749]

Chough. Meg? then ’twas a woman was the first roarer?

Trim. Ay, a fire of her touch-hole, that cost many a proper man’s life since that time; and then the lions, they learnt it from the guns, living so near 'em;^[750] then it was heard to the Bankside, and the bears^[751] they began to roar; then the boys got it, and so ever since there have been a company of roaring boys.

Chough. And how long will it last, thinkest thou?

Trim. As long as the water runs under London Bridge, or watermen [ply] at Westminster stairs.

486Chough. Well, I will begin to roar too, since it is in fashion. O Corineus, this was not in thy time! I should have heard on’t by the tradition of mine ancestors—for I’m sure there were Choughs in thy days—if it had been so: when Hercules and thou^[752] wert on the Olympic Mount together, then was wrestling in request.

Trim. Ay, and that Mount is now the Mount in Cornwall: Corineus brought it thither under one of his arms, they say.

Chough. O Corineus, my predecessor, that I had but lived in those days to see thee wrestle! on that condition I had died seven year ago.

Trim. Nay, it should have been a dozen at least, i’faith, on that condition.

[Exeunt.