onion will do well for such a shift,
| Which, in a napkin being close convey’d | 125 |
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst;
Anon I’ll give thee more instructions.
[Exit a Servant.]
I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
| Voice, gait, and action, of a gentlewoman; | 130 |
I long to hear him call the drunkard ‘husband’;
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I’ll in to counsel them; haply my presence
| May well abate the over-merry spleen, | 135 |
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
[Exeunt.]
Scene II
A bedchamber in the Lord’s house.
[Enter aloft SLY, with Attendants; some with apparel, basin and ewer, and other appurtenances; and Lord.]
Sly
For God’s sake, a pot of small ale.
1 Servant
Will’t please your lordship drink a cup of sack?
2 Servant
Will’t please your honour taste of these conserves?
3 Servant
What raiment will your honour wear to-day?
Sly
| I am Christophero Sly; call not me ‘honour’ nor ‘lordship’. I ne’er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef. Ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet – nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather. | 510 |
Lord
Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem,
| Should be infused with so foul a spirit! | 15 |
Sly
| What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son of Burton Heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bearherd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot, if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying’st knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught. | 20 |
[Taking a pot of ale]
Here’s –
3 Servant
| O, this it is that makes your lady mourn! | 25 |
2 Servant
O, this is it that makes your servants droop!
Lord
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth!
| Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment, | 30 |
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,
[Music.]
| And twenty caged nightingales do sing. | 35 |
Or wilt thou sleep? We’ll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimm’d up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk: we will bestrew the ground.
| Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp’d, | 40 |
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
| And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth. | 45 |
1 Servant
Say thou wilt course; thy grey-hounds are as swift
As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.
2 Servant
Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
| And Cytherea all in sedges hid, | 50 |
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath
Even as the waving sedges play wi’ th’ wind.
Lord
We’ll show thee lo as she was a maid
And how she was beguiled and surpris’d,
| As lively painted as the deed was done. | 55 |
3 Servant
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds;
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
Lord
| Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord. | 60 |
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.
1 Servant
And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face,
| She was the fairest creature in the world; | 65 |
And yet she is inferior to none.
Sly
Am I a lord and have I such a lady?
Or