LANCE

Nay, it'll be this hour ere I have done weeping: all the kind of the Lance , have this very fault: I have received my proportion, Like the prodigious Son, and am going with Sir Protheus to the Imperials Court: I think Crab my dog, be the sourest natured dog that lives: My Mother weeping: my Father wailing: my Sister crying: our Maid howling: our Cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted Cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him then a dog: a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting: why my Grandam having no eyes, look you, wept her self blind at my parting: nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my fa there: no, this left shoe is my father; no, no, this left shoe is my mother: nay, that cannot be so neither: yes; it is so, it is so: it hath the worse sole: this shoe with the hold in it, is my mother: and this my father: a vengeance on't, there it's: Now sir, this staff is my si ster: for, look you, she is as white as a lily, and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan our maid: I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog: o, the dog is me, and I am my self: I; so, so: now come I to my Father; Father, your blessing: now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping: now should I kiss my Father; well, he weeps on: Now come I to my Mother: O that she could speak now, Like a would-woman: well, I kiss her: why there it's; here's my mother's breath up and down: Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes: now the dog all this while sheds not a tear: nor speaks a word: but see how I lay the dust with my tears. I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think my Master is a kind of a knave: but that's all one, if he be but one knave: He lives not now that knows me to be in love, yet I am in love, but a Teem of horse shall not pluck that from me: nor who it's I love: and yet it's a woman; but what woman, I will not tell my self: and yet it's a Milkmaid: yet it's not a maid: for she hath had Gossips: yet it's a maid, for she is her Master's maid, and serves for wages. She hath more qualities then a Water-spaniel, which is much in a bore Christian: Here is the Cate-log of her Condition. Inprimis. She can fetch and carry: why a horse can do no more; nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only carry, therefore is she better then a Jade. Item. She can milk, look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with clean hands. It is no matter if the tide were lost, for it is the unkindest Tide, that ever any man tide. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue. In thy Tale. Lose the Tide, and the voyage, and the Ma ster, and the Service, and the tide: why man, if the River were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears: if the wind were down, I could driven the boat with my sighs. Well, I will go. Forswear not thy self, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place, till some certain shot be paid, and the Hostess say well come. Why, he that's tide here, Crab my dog. Sir: call me what thou darest. Marry after they closed in earnest, they parted very fairly in jest. No. No, neither. No; they are both as whole as a fish. Marry thus, when it stands well with him, it stands well with her. What a block art thou, that thou canst not? My staff understands me? I, and what I do too: look thee, I'll but lean, and my staff understands me. Why, stand-vnder: and understand is all one. Ask my dog, if he say I, it will: if he say no, it will: if he shake his tail, and say nothing, it will. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me, but by a parable. I never knew him otherwise. A notable Lubber: as thou reportest him to be. Why Fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy Master. Why, I tell thee, I care not, though he burn himself in Love. If thou wilt go with me to the Alehouse: if not, thou art and Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the Ale with a Christian: Wilt thou go? So-hough, Soa hough — Him we go to find, There's not a hair on's head, but t'is a Valentine. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike? Nothing. Why Sir, I'll strike nothing: I pray you. Sir, there is a proclamation, y to you are vanished. When a men servant shall play the Cur with him (look you) it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy: one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brother's and sisters went to it: I have taught him (even as one would say precisely, thus I would teach a dog) I was sent to deliver him, as a pre sent to Mistress Silvia, from my Master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her Trencher, and steals her Capons-leg: Oh, it's a foul thing, when a Cur cannot keep himself in all compa nies: I would have (as one should say) one that takes up on him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit then he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for't: sure as I live he had suffered for't: you shall judge: He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentleman-like-dogs, under the Dukes table: he had not been there (bless the mark) a pissing while, but all the chamber smelled him: out with the dog (says one) what cur is that (says another) whip him out (says the third) hang him up (says the Duke.) I having been ac quainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: friend (quoth I) you mean to whip the dog: I marry do I (quoth he) you do him the more wrong (quoth I) 'twas I did the thing you wot of: he makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber: how many Master's would do this for his Servant? nay, isle be sworn I have sat in the stocks, for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed: I have stood on the Pillory for Geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for't: thou thinkest not of this now: nay, I remember the trick you served me, when I took my leave of Madam Silvia : did not I bid thee still mark me, and do as I do, when didst thou see me heave up my leg, and make water against a Gentlewoman's farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick? With my Mastership? why, it is at Sea: The blackest news that ever thou heardest. Why, as black as Ink. Fie on thee Jolthead, thou canst not read. I will try thee: tell me this: who begotten thee? O illiterate loiterer it was the son of thy Grandmother: this proves that thou canst not read. There: and S. Nicholas be thy speed. I that she can. And thereof comes the proverb: (Blessing of your heart, you brew good Ale.) That's as much as to say ( Can she so ?) What need a man care for a stock with a wench, When she can knit him a stock? A special virtue: for then she need not be washed, and scoured. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living. That's as much as to say Bastard-vertues : that indeed know not their father's; and therefore have no names. Close at the heals of her virtues. Well: that fault may be mended with a break fast: read on. That makes amends for her sour breath. It's no matter for that; so she sleep not in her talk. O villain, that set this down among her vices; To be slow in words, is a woman's only virtue: I pray thee out with't, and place it for her chief virtue. Out with that too: It was Eves legacy, and cannot be t'ane from her. I care not for that neither: because I love crusts. Well: the best is, she hath no teeth to bite. If her liquour be good, she shall: if she will not, I will; for good things should be praised. Of her tongue she cannot; for that's writ down she is slow of: of her purse, she shall not, for that isle keep shut: Now, of another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed. Stop there: I'll have her: she was mine, and not mine, twice or thrice in that last Article: rehearse that once more. More hair then wit: it may be isle prove it: The cover of the salt, hides the salt, and therefore it is more then the salt; the hair that covers the wit, is more then the wit; for the greater hides the less: What's next? That's monstrous: o that that were out. Why that word makes the faults gracious: Well, isle have her: and if it be a match, as nothing is impossible. Why then, will I tell thee, that thy Master stays for thee at the North gate. For thee? I, who art thou? he hath stayed for a bet ter man then thee. Thou must run to him; for thou hast stayed so long, that going will scarce serve the turn. Now will he be swinged for reading my Letter; And unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into see crets: I'll after, to rejoice in the boys correctio ̄ . Marry Sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me. Marry she says your dog was a cur, and tells you currish thanks is good enough for such a present. No indeed did she not: Here have I brought him back again. I Sir, the other Squirrel was stolen from me By the Hangmans boys in the market place, And then I offered her mine own, who is a dog As big as ten of yours, & therefore the gift the greater.