in Like Will to Like (Quoth the Devil to the Collier) — Fulwell, Ulpian
Metadata
Play
Like Will to Like (Quoth the Devil to the Collier)
Author
Fulwell, Ulpian
Year (catalogued)
1587
First performance
1568
Decade
1580s
Genre
Moral
Play type
Interlude
Speech prefix(es)
P.pick. | P.Pick. | Pierse pickpurs.
Words
441
Characters
2038
Typicality
0.28 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A01353
BritDrama no.
472
Cluster
Cluster 21 — Old fathers & plain counsel
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
‡ And also so soon as I had espied, A woman in the throng whose purse was fat: I took it by the strings and cleanly it untied, She knew no more of it, then Gib our Cat. Yet at the last she hied apace, And said the money in my hand she saw: Thou whore said I, I will have and Actium of the case, And sing thou sayest so I will try the law. ¶ In faith I think we are both of one age well nigh. ¶ If you will help us to this piece of ground: Both of us to you shall think our selves bound. ¶ Tush if he be so dangerous let us not bim esteem. And he is not for our company I see very well: For if he be so holy as he doth seen. we and he differ as much as Heaven and Hell. ¶ Then we will not spare for any cost, so long as we be in a house a: Then hosts filth of again, for I pledge them all carous a. Finis. ¶ Sith that by the law we are condemned, Let us call to God for his mercy and grace: And exhort that all vice may be amended, while we in this world have time and space. And though our lives have licentiously been spent, Yet at the last to God let us call: For he hears such as are ready to repent, And desires not that sinners should fallen. Now are we ready to suffer, come when it shall. ‡ Then let us count the total sum, And divide it equally when we have done. ¶ Well let us be gone and did him adue: For I see this proverb proves very true. ¶ If F ichol newfangle help not now in our needs: we are Like in our business full evil to speed. therefore let us make no more delay, But seek him out of hand and be gone away, ‡ For the passion of God master Nichol help to rid us away, And help us to the land whereof you did say. that we might make money of it by and by: For out of the Realm we purpose to flee. ¶ Then ere we depart we will have some cheer. And of this booty you shall have your part. ¶ Even so we may of certainty, that such good luck unto us hath happened. But brother Cuthbert is it not best, to go in for a while and distribute this booty? where we three will make some feast. And quasse together and be merry.
Plot summary
Plot — Like Will to Like (Quoth the Devil to the Collier)
The devil commissions the vice Nichol Newfangle to tempt men into a preoccupation with new fashions, which will lead them to hell. The ensuing action turns on the recurrent introduction of similar characters to one another. The vice introduces a dishonest collier to the devil, then Tom Tosspot to Rafe Roister; ina ~ mock trial he judges which is the bigger wastrel ===== PAGE 35 ===== 1568 (the prize, unknown to them, is to be hanged), but considers them equal. A comic drinking scene follows with Tosspot’s followers. He also sets in motion a plot to cozen two cutpurses over an inheritance of land. The vicious characters are driven off stage by the arrival of Virtuous Life, who is enthroned and crowned. Tosspot and Roister lose all their possessions: Roister gambles his away, and Tosspot has to leave his as security for his alehouse bill. Newfangle gives them the equipment to start a mew career as beggars, and they assault him. He is found injured by a judge, Severity, and betrays the two cutpurses; they are led away to execution, and Nichol and the hangman share their clothes. Tosspot’s followers end up in hospital suffering from gout. Lucifer carries the vice away on his back. The virtuous characters pray for the Queen, the Lords, and commons.