Act 2 — SCENE IV.
Reading edition
Another room in Sweetball’s house.
Enter Sweetball, Ralph, and Boy.
Sweet. So, friend; I'll now despatch you presently.—Boy, reach me my dismembering instrument, and let my cauterizer[915] be ready; and, hark you, snip-snap——
Boy. Ay, sir.
Sweet. See if my luxinium,[916] my fomentation, be 452provided first; and get my rollers, bolsters,[917] and pledgets armed. [Exit Boy.
Ral. Nay, good sir, despatch my business first; I should not stay from my shop.
Sweet. You must have a little patience, sir, when you are a patient: if præputium be not too much perished, you shall lose but little by it, believe my art for that.
Ral. What’s that, sir?
Sweet. Marry, if there be exulceration between præputium and glans, by my faith, the whole penis may be endangered as far as os pubis.
Ral. What’s this you talk on, sir?
Sweet. If they be gangrened once, testiculi, vesica, and all may run to mortification.
Ral. What a pox does this barber talk on?
Sweet. O fie, youth! pox is no word of art; morbus Gallicus, or Neapolitanus, had been well: come, friend, you must not be nice; open your griefs freely to me.
Ral. Why, sir, I open my grief to you, I want my money.
Sweet. Take you no care for that; your worthy cousin has given me part in hand, and the rest I know he will upon your recovery, and I dare take his word.
Ral. ’Sdeath, where’s my ware?
Sweet. Ware! that was well; the word is cleanly, though not artful; your ware it is that I must see.
Ral. My tabine[918] and cloth-of-tissue!
Sweet. You will neither have tissue nor issue, if you linger in your malady; better a member cut off than endanger the whole microcosm.
453Ral. Barber, you are not mad?
Sweet. I do begin to fear you are subject to subeth,[919] unkindly sleeps, which have bred oppilations in your brain; take heed, the symptoma will follow, and this may come to frenzy: begin with the first cause, which is the pain of your member.
Ral. Do you see my yard, barber?
[Holding up yard-measure.
Sweet. Now you come to the purpose; ’tis that I must see indeed.
Ral. You shall feel it, sir: death, give me my fifty pounds or my ware again, or I'll measure out your anatomy by the yard!
Sweet. Boy, my cauterizing iron red hot!
Re-enter Boy with the iron.
Boy. ’Tis here, sir.
Sweet. If you go further, I take my dismembering knife.
Ral. Where’s the knight, your cousin? the thief and the tailor, with my cloth-of-gold and tissue?
Boy. The gentleman that sent away his man with the stuffs is gone a pretty while since; he has carried away our new brush.
Sweet. O that brush hurts my heart’s side! Cheated, cheated! he told me that your virga had a burning fever.
Ral. Pox on your virga, barber!
Sweet. And that you would be bashful, and ashamed to shew your head.
Ral. I shall so hereafter; but here it is, you see, yet, my head, my hair, and my wit; and here are my heels that I must shew to my master, if the cheaters be not found: and, barber, provide thee 454plasters, I will break thy head with every basin under the pole. [Exit.
Sweet. Cool the luxinium,[920] and quench the cauterizer;
I'm partly out of my wits, and partly mad;
My razor’s at my heart: these storms will make
My sweet-balls stink, my harmless basins shake. [Exeunt.