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Epicoene; or, The Silent Woman, a play by Ben Jonson |
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Act 2 - Scene 2.2 |
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_ A ROOM IN SIR JOHN DAW'S HOUSE. ENTER DAW, CLERIMONT, DAUPHINE, AND EPICOENE. DAW. Nay, an she will, let her refuse at her own charges: 'tis nothing to me, gentlemen: but she will not be invited to the like feasts or guests every day. CLER. O, by no means, she may not refuse--to stay at home, if you love your reputation: 'Slight, you are invited thither o' purpose to be seen, and laughed at by the lady of the college, and her shadows. This trumpeter hath proclaim'd you. [ASIDE TO EPICOENE.] DAUP. You shall not go; let him be laugh'd at in your stead, for not bringing you: and put him to his extemporal faculty of fooling and talking loud, to satisfy the company. [ASIDE TO EPICOENE.] CLER. He will suspect us, talk aloud.--'Pray, mistress Epicoene, let us see your verses; we have sir John Daw's leave: do not conceal your servant's merit, and your own glories. EPI. They'll prove my servant's glories, if you have his leave so soon. DAUP. His vain-glories, lady! DAW. Shew them, shew them, mistress, I dare own them. EPI. Judge you, what glories. DAW. Nay, I'll read them myself too: an author must recite his own works. It is a madrigal of Modesty. Modest, and fair, for fair and good are near Neighbours, howe'er.-- DAUP. Very good. CLER. Ay, is't not? DAW. No noble virtue ever was alone, But two in one. DAUP. Excellent! CLER. That again, I pray, sir John. DAUP. It has something in't like rare wit and sense. CLER. Peace. DAUP. Admirable! CLER. How it chimes, and cries tink in the close, divinely! DAUP. Ay, 'tis Seneca. CLER. No, I think 'tis Plutarch. DAW. The dor on Plutarch, and Seneca! I hate it: they are mine own imaginations, by that light. I wonder those fellows have such credit with gentlemen. CLER. They are very grave authors. DAW. Grave asses! mere essayists: a few loose sentences, and that's all. A man would talk so, his whole age: I do utter as good things every hour, if they were collected and observed, as either of them. DAUP. Indeed, sir John! CLER. He must needs; living among the wits and braveries too. DAUP. Ay, and being president of them, as he is. DAW. There's Aristotle, a mere common-place fellow; Plato, a discourser; Thucydides and Livy, tedious and dry; Tacitus, an entire knot: sometimes worth the untying, very seldom. CLER. What do you think of the poets, sir John? DAW. Not worthy to be named for authors. Homer, an old tedious, prolix ass, talks of curriers, and chines of beef. Virgil of dunging of land, and bees. Horace, of I know not what. CLER. I think so. DAW. And so Pindarus, Lycophron, Anacreon, Catullus, Seneca the tragedian, Lucan, Propertius, Tibullus, Martial, Juvenal, Ausonius, Statius, Politian, Valerius Flaccus, and the rest-- CLER. What a sack full of their names he has got! DAUP. And how he pours them out! Politian with Valerius Flaccus! CLER. Was not the character right of him? DAUP. As could be made, i'faith. DAW. And Persius, a crabbed coxcomb, not to be endured. DAUP. Why, whom do you account for authors, sir John Daw? DAW. Syntagma juris civilis; Corpus juris civilis; Corpus juris canonici; the king of Spain's bible-- DAUP. Is the king of Spain's bible an author? CLER. Yes, and Syntagma. DAUP. What was that Syntagma, sir? DAW. A civil lawyer, a Spaniard. DAUP. Sure, Corpus was a Dutchman. CLER. Ay, both the Corpuses, I knew 'em: they were very corpulent authors. DAW. And, then there's Vatablus, Pomponatius, Symancha: the other are not to be received, within the thought of a scholar. DAUP. 'Fore God, you have a simple learned servant, lady,-- in titles. [ASIDE.] CLER. I wonder that he is not called to the helm, and made a counsellor! DAUP. He is one extraordinary. CLER. Nay, but in ordinary: to say truth, the state wants such. DAUP. Why that will follow. CLER. I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of such a servant. DAW. 'Tis her virtue, sir. I have written somewhat of her silence too. DAUP. In verse, sir John? CLER. What else? DAUP. Why? how can you justify your own being of a poet, that so slight all the old poets? DAW. Why? every man that writes in verse is not a poet; you have of the wits that write verses, and yet are no poets: they are poets that live by it, the poor fellows that live by it. DAUP. Why, would not you live by your verses, sir John? CLER. No, 'twere pity he should. A knight live by his verses? he did not make them to that end, I hope. DAUP. And yet the noble Sidney lives by his, and the noble family not ashamed. CLER. Ay, he profest himself; but sir John Daw has more caution: he'll not hinder his own rising in the state so much. Do you think he will? Your verses, good sir John, and no poems. DAW. Silence in woman, is like speech in man, Deny't who can. DAUP. Not I, believe it: your reason, sir.
DAW. Why, with increase is, when I court her for the common cause of mankind; and she says nothing, but "consentire videtur": and in time is gravida. DAUP. Then this is a ballad of procreation? CLER. A madrigal of procreation; you mistake. EPI. 'Pray give me my verses again, servant. DAW. If you'll ask them aloud, you shall. [WALKS ASIDE WITH THE PAPERS.] [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH HIS HORN.] CLER. See, here's Truewit again!--Where hast thou been, in the name of madness! thus accoutred with thy horn? TRUE. Where the sound of it might have pierced your sense with gladness, had you been in ear-reach of it. Dauphine, fall down and worship me: I have forbid the bans, lad: I have been with thy virtuous uncle, and have broke the match. DAUP. You have not, I hope. TRUE. Yes faith; if thou shouldst hope otherwise, I should repent me: this horn got me entrance; kiss it. I had no other way to get in, but by faining to be a post; but when I got in once, I proved none, but rather the contrary, turn'd him into a post, or a stone, or what is stiffer, with thundering into him the incommodities of a wife, and the miseries of marriage. If ever Gorgon were seen in the shape of a woman, he hath seen her in my description: I have put him off o' that scent for ever.--Why do you not applaud and adore me, sirs? why stand you mute? are you stupid? You are not worthy of the benefit. DAUP. Did not I tell you? Mischief!-- CLER. I would you had placed this benefit somewhere else. TRUE. Why so? CLER. 'Slight, you have done the most inconsiderate, rash, weak thing, that ever man did to his friend. DAUP. Friend! if the most malicious enemy I have, had studied to inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater. TRUE. Wherein, for Gods-sake? Gentlemen, come to yourselves again. DAUP. But I presaged thus much afore to you. CLER. Would my lips had been solder'd when I spake on't. Slight, what moved you to be thus impertinent? TRUE. My masters, do not put on this strange face to pay my courtesy; off with this visor. Have good turns done you, and thank 'em this way! DAUP. 'Fore heav'n, you have undone me. That which I have plotted for, and been maturing now these four months, you have blasted in a minute: Now I am lost, I may speak. This gentlewoman was lodged here by me o' purpose, and, to be put upon my uncle, hath profest this obstinate silence for my sake; being my entire friend, and one that for the requital of such a fortune as to marry him, would have made me very ample conditions: where now, all my hopes are utterly miscarried by this unlucky accident. CLER. Thus 'tis when a man will be ignorantly officious, do services, and not know his why; I wonder what courteous itch possest you. You never did absurder part in your life, nor a greater trespass to friendship or humanity. DAUP. Faith, you may forgive it best: 'twas your cause principally. CLER. I know it, would it had not. [ENTER CUTBEARD.] DAUP. How now, Cutbeard! what news? CUT. The best, the happiest that ever was, sir. There has been a mad gentleman with your uncle, this morning, [SEEING TRUEWIT.] --I think this be the gentleman--that has almost talk'd him out of his wits, with threatening him from marriage-- DAUP. On, I prithee. CUT. And your uncle, sir, he thinks 'twas done by your procurement; therefore he will see the party you wot of presently: and if he like her, he says, and that she be so inclining to dumb as I have told him, he swears he will marry her, to-day, instantly, and not defer it a minute longer. DAUP. Excellent! beyond our expectation! TRUE. Beyond our expectation! By this light, I knew it would be thus. DAUP. Nay, sweet Truewit, forgive me. TRUE. No, I was ignorantly officious, impertinent: this was the absurd, weak part. CLER. Wilt thou ascribe that to merit now, was mere fortune? TRUE. Fortune! mere providence. Fortune had not a finger in't. I saw it must necessarily in nature fall out so: my genius is never false to me in these things. Shew me how it could be otherwise. DAUP. Nay, gentlemen, contend not, 'tis well now. TRUE. Alas, I let him go on with inconsiderate, and rash, and what he pleas'd. CLER. Away, thou strange justifier of thyself, to be wiser than thou wert, by the event! TRUE. Event! by this light, thou shalt never persuade me, but I foresaw it as well as the stars themselves. DAUP. Nay, gentlemen, 'tis well now. Do you two entertain sir John Daw with discourse, while I send her away with instructions. TRUE. I will be acquainted with her first, by your favour. CLER. Master True-wit, lady, a friend of ours. TRUE. I am sorry I have not known you sooner, lady, to celebrate this rare virtue of your silence. [EXEUNT DAUP., EPI., AND CUTBEARD.] CLER. Faith, an you had come sooner, you should have seen and heard her well celebrated in sir John Daw's madrigals. TRUE [ADVANCES TO DAW.]: Jack Daw, God save you! when saw you La-Foole? DAW. Not since last night, master Truewit. TRUE. That's a miracle! I thought you two had been inseparable. DAW. He is gone to invite his guests. TRUE. 'Odso! 'tis true! What a false memory have I towards that man! I am one: I met him even now, upon that he calls his delicate fine black horse, rid into a foam, with posting from place to place, and person to person, to give them the cue-- CLER. Lest they should forget? TRUE. Yes: There was never poor captain took more pains at a muster to shew men, than he, at this meal, to shew friends. DAW. It is his quarter-feast, sir. CLER. What! do you say so, sir John? TRUE. Nay, Jack Daw will not be out, at the best friends he has, to the talent of his wit: Where's his mistress, to hear and applaud him? is she gone? DAW. Is mistress Epicoene gone? CLER. Gone afore, with sir Dauphine, I warrant, to the place. TRUE. Gone afore! that were a manifest injury; a disgrace and a half: to refuse him at such a festival-time as this, being a bravery, and a wit too! CLER. Tut, he'll swallow it like cream: he's better read in Jure civili, than to esteem any thing a disgrace, is offer'd him from a mistress. DAW. Nay, let her e'en go; she shall sit alone, and be dumb in her chamber a week together, for John Daw, I warrant her. Does she refuse me? CLER. No, sir, do not take it so to heart; she does not refuse you, but a little neglects you. Good faith, Truewit, you were to blame, to put it into his head, that she does refuse him. TRUE. Sir, she does refuse him palpably, however you mince it. An I were as he, I would swear to speak ne'er a word to her to-day for't. DAW. By this light, no more I will not. TRUE. Nor to any body else, sir. DAW. Nay, I will not say so, gentlemen. CLER. It had been an excellent happy condition for the company, if you could have drawn him to it. [ASIDE.] DAW. I'll be very melancholY, i'faith. CLER. As a dog, if I were as you, sir John. TRUE. Or a snail, or a hog-louse: I would roll myself up for this day, in troth, they should not unwind me. DAW. By this pick-tooth, so I will. CLER. 'Tis well done: He begins already to be angry with his teeth. DAW. Will you go, gentlemen? CLER. Nay, you must walk alone, if you be right melancholy, sir John. TRUE. Yes, sir, we'll dog you, we'll follow you afar off. [EXIT DAW.] CLER. Was there ever such a two yards of knighthood measured out by time, to be sold to laughter? TRUE. A mere talking mole, hang him! no mushroom was ever so fresh. A fellow so utterly nothing, as he knows not what he would be. CLER. Let's follow him: but first, let's go to Dauphine, he's hovering about the house to hear what news. TRUE. Content.
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