in Wine, Beer, and Ale Together by the Ears (Wine, Beer, Ale, and Tobacco Contending for Superiority) — Anonymous
Metadata
Play
Wine, Beer, and Ale Together by the Ears (Wine, Beer, Ale, and Tobacco Contending for Superiority)
Author
Anonymous
Year (catalogued)
1629
First performance
1625
Decade
1620s
Genre
Dialogue
Play type
University (?)
Speech prefix(es)
Nut.
Words
247
Characters
1244
Typicality
0.21 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A01424
BritDrama no.
2168
Cluster
Cluster 11 — Tosspots & tavern railers
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Sugar? well met, how chance you wait not upon your Master, where's Wine now? Thou hast a sweet life in the mean time Sugar. Faith no, I am free now and then, though I be his Prentice still, Nutmeg hath more friends to trust to then Beer: I can be welcome to Wine thy master sometime, and to the honest Country man Ale too. But now I talk of Ale, when didst see his man prithee? The same. When shall thou, and he, and I, meet and be merry over a Cup? Indeed he will be very hight sometime. How, beaten Sugar? that would be very fine i'faith; but he being bred, and thou a loaf, you should not dif fer so. Stand, look where he is. Come, fear not, I'll partly you, but he's drunk, rea die to fallen; whence comes he dropping in now. How now Tossed. Here's all thats left of me. No, 'tis your old acquaintance Sugar. Where have you been Tossed? Come, come, you shall not. What needs you be so hight, Tossed? And even Tossed shows well. And new come out of the Oven too, I think: for he is very fiery. What do you mean to do with your knife, Tossed? that will scarce cut Beer and 'twere buttered. Why they are friends: what did you mean, Sugar, to make Tossed burn thus? Nutmeg durst scarce speak to him, he was ready to put me in his pocket. And I.
Plot summary
Plot — Wine, Beer, and Ale Together by the Ears (Wine, Beer, Ale, and Tobacco Contending for Superiority)
There is dissension among the servants of Wine, Beer, and Ale: the drunken, quarrelsome Toast picks a fight with Sugar, who is also in his master’s bad books for excessive womanizing. The masters also bicker: Beer wants to take the wall, and Wine asserts his social superiority. Ale arrives in time to see Wine challenge Beer toa duel, and tries to make the peace. Unfortunately he does it by insisting that he is their better, on grounds of antiquity, learning, and property (for there are many houses named after him). This only exacerbates the situation. Water arrives and asks to adjudicate the argument and reconcile them. He allows them all their own distinctive application: Wine for courtiers and gallants, Beer for citizens, and Ale for country people. The altercation is resolved, though it takes a little more persuasion to get Toast, who has brought a knife in his master’s defence, to put it away. Wine, Beer, and Ale sing a song, and the characters dance. B-Text In this version, business in which Wine smokes a pipe of tobacco is omitted, and Tobacco introduced as a character: he interrupts the festive ending before the characters can dance, insisting that he too is a kind of drink and is the best of all. Afraid of his power to seduce men against them, the other drinks invite him to join them on equal terms, and Tobacco agrees, In the dance, each of the servants is appropriately applied to his master: Sugar is shaken ver Wine, Nutmeg grated over Beer, and Toast has his backside warmed and placed over Ale’s mouth.