RIGAZZO

S Ignior Antonio, pray how did you Like the Mask we had here to night, for my Lord Lucilio's been venuto? Alas Signior, there must be something to prolong and strengthen these devices, when Poets, in favour of the ignorant, are feign to leave them so short winded, and all most speechless. More than I can reckon Signior, and yet I have the Art of memory to help me. I can name you all the Alehouses and Taverns in A them, and most partly of the Bawdy-houses; marry to know them all, only Night, that has been some scores of years acquainted with them, and the Devil that gathers their rends, could teach me: and indeed I was too young to be their scholar, else I might have been a better proficient in them too. No, not all Signior, I can steal as desperately as a Pursi vant; fiddle the Geese, Ducks, Hens, Lambs, and Calves, five mile round by book; and cover the matter as smoothly as your City's zen does his perjury, and your Stoic his Lechery: for I had most sober Graduates for my Tutors in all. It's no matter Signior for thieves to proceed Master's of Art, when so many Master's of Art do proceed thieves, and that's the least conversion, you know Signior. As a hungry Scholar at a Henroost. Long enough to run with a Stoic, Signior. I may be able to read morality, get me some night-geere, and a read Nose, and then I am most illustriously complete. Faith prettily well Mistress Fraileware, as a man of my profession might; I had all the chief trades in the City to help me do well. Not above three years at most: but I earned something with working and waiting on my Lord, as Tankard-bearers, La bourer, and Servingmen do: I stole and cozened, as Tailors, Shopkeepers and Cutpurses do; I let out my Lords books, and took money for the use of'hem, as the later ends of gouty Mere chants do: and yet for all this I was forced (as many of you Ci tizens are) to go many times to bed with a hungry conscience. Oh, and excellent place for a woman that will use trading: You shall have the Scholars lie at your sweet Frails night and day; they be forced to sweeten their disputations with Grocers reasons: and custom could not but make your husband one of the head men of the City presently. I, and she were down never so low, the scholars would do it—and how does Master Damasippios the lecturing Stoic? When was he here? Yours to command; I'll smoke in your business then faith. Adieu the two desiring sins of the City. Avarice and Lechery: if I do not meet with your moral venery, would I might go lousy, and have but three pence to play with this month. Exit Page. Nay, good Signior follow him, put him out of the hu mour, or else he will turn madman shortly. Because he thats first a Scholar, next in love, the year after, is either and arrant fool or a stark madman. As fools do by news, some body told me so, and I be leave it. But in good earnest I had forgotten to tell my Lord of the message he sent me in. To see how the Lady Donna Fiozza did. Sick, terrible sick. Yesterday her Monkey had a fallen off the side table, and ever since she has had a strange fit of and ague. Faith not well neither, and therefore he begins to be most sparingly virtuous. On my fidelity you are the foul mouth'dst gallant that ever wore Cloves in's Gums: you say and Italian Count has the pox. By this light you Courtiers be the dullest creatures li ving; you learn nothing but flattery and begging. You must know sir in a Nobleman it's abusive; no; in him the Sarpigo; in a Knight the Grincomes; in a Gentleman the Neopolitan scabb; and in a Servingman or Artificer the plain Pox: Just as your saying goes, that Noblemen be never drunk, but take a surfeit; Scholars be ill at ease; and poor men only they are drunk, yet all's but one disease: There's and old rhyme for you: adieu Signior, I must to my Lord. News from the Fortunate Lands Master Damasippus: The very Elizium of your delight, and delicious Nectar of plea sure; Mistress Ambrosia Frailware commands half her self to your learned conceits, and the rest to the heat of your inferior Moralities. In able strength and strong appetite: and earnestly en treats this evening your presence at Supper: her Husband will be forced by Oath business to be absent; and therefore you must feed her with the fruits of your company, and you shall be fed with the strength of confirming meats that edify. I'll meet your moral comfort with such a Physical counterbuff, that I'll spoil your tilting for that night faith. My Head's in labour with a jest Master Constable, and I have a warrant to your authority to see me well delivered on't. Why there be two ingredients then to the composition of a Midwife, and if you'll be ruled in the Actium, we shall laugh and lie down, and have and excellent banquet at the delivery. Faith sir, the common danger that haunts men of your place, fills Theaters, and gives many of your Landless Gallants their gilded Spurs, and their feathers. Why Sir, in sober City Italian, that man of little wit, less learning, and no honesty M. Damasippus the Stoic means this Evening with pure morality to— Cuckold you sir. Hang him Lobster, he's as hight as a Cocksparrow, and as irreligious as as a Low-Countrey Lombard: He's good for no thing but that which men keep old Stallions for: he would have done rarely well after Deucalion's flood, or five hundred of them now for the new plantation—But faith I would be revenged on him. And then out-bribe him, that he shall find no mercy i'th Bumme-Court. Or else I would hire some Jew to make him factious, And then get him banished to Amsterdam to saw Brazill. Or get some body to promise him some Books and a new Gown to deny the plurality of the gods, then inform a gainst him, and go drunk to see him burned. I, and send him word of it when he is i'th Cart. Alas no; I knew you were a true Cuckold innocent. One of the eight Tribes into which your livery is divi dead—Nay, nay, nay sober Master Constable, be not dejected; let not your head sink before it has full lading: for look you, I'll show you the dignity of your estate: your Cuckoldhood sir is more worshipful than the best of all the four and twenty Companies; Because in some ages you have had some of the best of all those Companies Fellows of the Livery. Secondly, you have had all states and ranks belonging to it. Sulla, Domitian and Claudius, great Emperors of the world, never cared to be free of the Gold smiths or Merchant-tailors Hall, yet they were huge Cuckolds. Thirdly, you have your wit in choosing approved, which must of necessity show you to have been wise men, and therefore most commonly you are in Offices. Fourthly you have sometime bet ter men to be your followers than your self, for they be glad to follow and come after, where you have been before. Fifthly, you have others to work for the propagation of your name, while you be idle, and reap the fruits of their labours. And lastly, it makes your way to heaven Master Constable, infallible for if you die quickly, you die and innocent—But let me be your Pilot, and if I do not learn you a course to pay this Puffin, this all Priapus, this Goat rampant in's own kind, let my wit be for ever cracked. Trust me not else—for look you Sir, if it were a Cour tire of a good perfume, and rich Garter; or a Gallant of the new fashion, with fresh insides; nay, and 'twere a barren Alderman that would visit his Wench secretly, and were in the way to authority, why, 'twere something tolerable. But to be horned by a Sir, that's no Knight, one that will lie as fast as and Alminack-maker, a thred-bare-grogran-worsted-lack-Latin! it's insufferable. Your only revenging remedy, then, is prevention in the same kind, which you shall most dexterously achieve me du ce, id esh, si ego dux fuero, little Master Constable. Do you but invite Mistress Abigail to Supper this eve ning, who knows nothing of her husbands being there, and leave the rest to my providence. About it then, I'll meet you at your coming back and give directions for the rest. Exeunt Will please you have any Music? The veriest Cuckold of a dozen. Step before him and shut the door, I have a plot against his Beard. would would would — exeunt. Now Master Constable, how Like you this project? Do I not draw all things to the life? What and ambidextrous shaver have I God to do the feat? I, who doubts it? it's the semi-sphere of his Profess sion: why do you ask? You'll save nothing by that, for the want of teeth will make him come the oftener to your wives White-broth, her Mar row, and Eringoes, who will likewise cram him up with Potatoes, Oysters, metamorphis'd Mushrooms, and such Like self-swallowing provocatives, that will run down his throat as glibbie, as your pills of Butter, and make as much haste into his Belly, as they will make out again into hers. No; the way to destroy all fundamental reference be tween him and your wife hereafter, and to spoil him for ever giving fresh sap unto your horns, let his offensive member be now lopped off, before the Sun enters the Ram. Why when we have reduced him to this impotent state, we will straight divest him, and truss him up naked in a Wheelbarrow, and send him home in the posture of and innocent, with his hands cleaving to the outsides of his knees, and his nose be tween his two Thumbs. Stay, this is a little two Tragical, now I think on't: wee'll spare his wives night-piece for her sake, till the next con junction— Damasippus cries out within. Hark—our Checkerman has him by the Poll already: now Master Constable stand close to your revenge, dissemble a fear a while, we shall be summoned straight. They step aside. I come, I come sir. Most devilishly argued. Shave him close. And valiantly suffered. Nor Fiddler I. True, he looks now just Like a Goose returned out of and enchanted hold without her feathers. And you have both tasted of the horn of abundance—