CORNELIO

Now La what plots have we now in hand? They say, when only one Dame is alone, She plots some mischief; but if three together, They plot three hundred: Wife, the Air is sharp, Y'ad best to take the house least you take cold. Go, in I say; a friend of yours attends you. Nay stand not chopping Logic; in I pray. A pretty work, I pray what flowers are these Oh thats for lovers thoughts. Whats that, a Columbine? Him? yet it may mine This were a pretrie present for some friend, Some gallant Courtier, as for Doriotto, One that ado you in his soul I know. Oh you , h adores you, and adhornes me Y faith deal plainly, Do not his kisses relish Much better then such Pessants as I am? Doriottoes; does he not? The thing you wot on? Why Lady, lie with you? I with you. Nay I am told that he lies with you too, And that he is the only Whoremaster About the City. Well Mistress well, I will not be abused, Think not you dance in Nets; for though you do not Make broad profession of your love to him, Y et do I understand your darkest language, Your treads ath'toe, your secret iogges and wrings: Your enter course of glances: every tittle Of your close Amorous rites I understand, They speak as loud to me, as if you said, My dearest Dariotto, I am thine. No, not with Doriotto? No Letters passed, nor no designs for meeting? Well, no time passed, Go go; go in and sow Suspicion is (they say) the st degree Of deepest wisdom: and how ever others ygh against this mood of Jealousy, For my partly I suppose it the best curb, To check the ranging appetites that reign In this weak sex: my neighbours point at me For this my jealousy; but should I do As most of them do; let my wife fly out To feasts and revels, and in to home Gallants, Play Menelaus, give them time and place, While to Like a well-taught waiting-woman, Turning h r eyes upon some work or picture, Read in a Book, or take a feigned nap, While her ind Lady takes one to her lap? No, let me still be pointed at, and thought A ielouse Ass, and not a wittally Knave. I have a show of Courtiers haunt my house, In show my friends, and or my profit too: But I perceive um, and will mock their aims, With looking to their mark, I warrant um: I am content to ride abroad with them, To revel, dice, and fit their other sports; But by their leaves isle have a vigilant eye To the main chance still. See my brave Comrades. Any thing I. In health, God save her. Abroad about her business. What, to the Court? then take me for a Gull. Would , shall we gull this Guller? Let me alone. Of all men's alive, I most admire Valerioes, that hath stolen, By his mere industry, and that by spurts, Such qualities, as no wit else can match, With plodding at perfection every hour; Which, if his father knew eke gift he has, Were Like enough to make him give all from him: I mean beside his dying and his wenching, He has stolen languages, the Italian, Spanish, And some spice of the French, beside his dancing, Singing, playing on choice Instruments: These has he God, almost against the hair. Vain glory makes ye judge on light yfayth. Sir, your ignorance Shall est soon be confuted. Prithee Val, Take thy Theorbo for my sake a little. Touched a Theorbo? mark the very word. Sirrah, go fetch. See what a Caper there was! The best that ever; and how it becomes him! Nay, that's the very wonder of his wit, To carry all without his father's knowledge. No but we could not, Although we think we could: his wit does charm us. Come sweet Val, touch and sing. Oh God, sir. He sings. Courtiers, how Like you this? Is it not natural? Go to, Signeur Courtier, You deal not courtly now to be so plain, Nor nobly, to discourage a young Gentleman, In virtuous qualities, that has but stolen um. Will any man assure me of her good behaviour? And who shall watch the keepers? But say I am gone out of town, & must trust others; how shall I know if those I trust be trusty to me? Found doctrine I warrant you: I am resolved i'faith. Pray what are you, sir? Well, sir, let him say on. Out you rogue. I your knavery, sir, and will yet have pa tience. All shall not serve her turn, I am thinking of oh there matters. 'Tis excellent good, sir; I do take you, sir, d'ye see? to be, as it were bastard to the saucy Courtier, that would have me father more of your fraternity, d'ye see? & so are instructed (as we hear) to second that villain with your tongue, which he has acted with his Tenure piece, d'ye see? Well, sir, be as be may, I scorn to set my head against yours, d'ye see? when in the mean time I will fircke your father, whither you see or no. Well. And why then did you not your self that honour You're a villain. I, isle prove thee one. Well, sir, thus I prove it. Yowl set a badge on the jealous fools head, sir; Now set a Coxcomb on your own. Well, si , know and spare not; I will presently be diuorst, and then take her amongst you. By this sword I will, the world shall not dissuade me. Talk no more to me, I'll not be made Cuckold in my own house: Notary read me the divorce. Sing to me no more Syren, for I will hear thee no more, I will take no compassion on thee. Go too sir, you're a rascal, e give you a fee for plea ding for her one day, Notary do you your office. Extremity? go too, I deal but too mercifully with her, If I should use extremi e with her I might hang her, and her copesmate my drud e here, how say you M. Notary, might I not do it by law? Nay by the mass they have had too much of the sheet already. W is that to the capital letter thats written in mind, I say for all your law, master Notary that I may hang am, may I not hang him that robs me of mine honour, as well as he that robs me of my horse? So is honour, a man may buy it with his penny, and if I may hang a man for stealing my horse (as I say) much more for robbing me of my honour; for why? if my ho see be stolen, it may be my own fault; for why? either the stable is not st ong enough, or the pasture not well fenced, or watched, or so forth: But for your wife that keeps the sta ble of your honour: Let her be lo in a brazen tower, let Ar gus himself keep her, yet can you never be secure of your honour, for why? she can run through all with her serpent nodle: beside you may hang a lock upon your horse, and so can you not upon your wife. What else master Notary, I am resolute i'faith. Avoid, I charge thee in name of this divorce: Thou mightest have looked to it in time, yet this I will do for thee; if thou canst spy out any other man that thou wouldst cuckold, thou shalt have my letter to him: I can do no more: more Ink master Notary, I wright my name at large. Ah ass that thou could not knowthy happiness till thou hadst lost it, how now? my nose bleed? shall I write in blood? what only three drops? Sfoot thi's Omninous: I will not set my hand toot now certain, master Notary I Like not this abodement: I will defer the setting too of my hand till the next court day: keep the divorce I pray you, and the woe man in your house together. Not so Sir, it shall not serve her turn M. Notary, keep it at your peril, & gentlemen you may be gone a Gods name, what have you to do to flock about me thus? I am neither Howlet, nor Cuckooe: gentlewomen for gods sake meddle with your own cases, it is not fit you should haunt these public as sembles. May I believe this? It may well be, yet have I cause enough To perfect my divorce, but it shall rest, Till I conclude it with a Counterbuff, given to these noble rascals: Claudio thanks: What comes of this, watch but my brain a little, And ye shall see, if Like two parts in me, I leave not both these gullers wits Imbrierd, Now perceive well where the wild wind sits, Heres Gull for Gull and wits at war with wits. What's that to you? look to your own affairs, The time requires it; are not you engaged In some bonds forfeit for V lerio? I think it may, but I must not be seen in't, Nor would I wish you, for we both are parties, And liker to bring our selves in trouble, Then bear him out: I have already made Mean S to the officers to sequester him In private for a time, till some in cret Might make his Father understand his state, Who would perhaps take present order for him, Rather then suffer him endure the shame Of his imprisonment; Now, would you but go And break the matter closely to his Father, (As you can wisely doo't) and bring him to him, This were the only way to save his credit, And to keep off a shroud blow from our selves. Excellent Guests: these are my daily Guests. Why Rinald, what meant you to entrap your friend, And bring his Father to this spectacle? You are a friend in deed. Why hark you, you two Knights; Do you think I will forsake Gazetta? Why theet's your wisdom; why did I make show of Divorce think you? Only to bridle her stout stomach: and how did I draw on the colour for my divorce? I did train the Wood cock Dariotto into the net, drew him to my house, gave him opportunity with my wife (as you say my Father dealt with his wives friends) only to train him in: let him alone with my wife in her bedchamber; and sometime found him a bed with her, and went my way back again softly, only to draw him into the Pit. And now shall the world see I am as wise as my father. Presumption enough Sir, for beside their intercourse, or commerce of glances that passed betwixt this cockrill-drone, and her, at my table the last Sunday night at supper, their winks, their becks, endue guard, their treads a'the toe (as by heaven I swear she trodden once up on my toe instead of his) This is chiefly to be no ed, the same night she would needs lie alone; and the same night her dog bark , did not you hear him Valerio? Why very good, if these be not mani pre sumptions now, let the woe ld be judge: Therefore without more e ceremony, Mais er Notary pluck out your Instru meant. Have you made it strong in law Master Notary? have you put in wor S enough? Is there no hoale to be found in the Orthography You have written Sunt with and S have you not? You have done the better for quietness sake: and are none of the dashes over the head left out? if there be Master Notary and error will lie out. He's a shroad fellow indeed, I had as leave have his head in a matter of felony, or Treason, as any Notary in Flo rence, read out Master Notary, harken you mistress, Gentle men mark I beseech you. Why so am I my self, And both our dangers great, he is arrested On a recognizance, by a usuring slave. Nay if you stand on such nice ceremonics, Fa ewell our substance: diseases Ask extreme , better he should storm Some littletime, then we be beat for ever Under the horred shelter of a prison, 'Tis at the half Moon Tavern, Hast, for the matter will abide no stay. Go shallow scholar, you that make all Gulls, You that can outsee clear-eyed icolousie, Yet make this slight a Millstone, where your brain Sticks in the amid amazed: This Gull to him And to his sellow Guller, shall become More bitter then their baiting of my humour: Here at this Tavern shall Gostanzo find, Fortuvio, Darioto, Claudio, And amongst them, the ringleader his son His husband, and his Saint Valerio, That knows not of what fashion Dice are made, Nor e r yet looked towards a read Lettice, (Thinks his blind Sire) at drinking and at Dice, Withal their wenches, and at ull discover His own grose folly, and his sons distempers, And both shall know (although I be no scholar) Yet I have thus much Latin, as to say Jam sumus ergo pares. Why, if I had been so minded as you think, I could have flung his Pantable down the stairs, or done him some other disgrace: but I winckt at it, and drew on the good fool more and more, only to bring him within my come pass. Very good, and is Egress and Regress in?