Ben Jonson - Epicœne ~ Act 3. Scene 1 lyrics

A ROOM IN OTTER'S HOUSE. ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER WITH HIS CUPS, AND MISTRESS OTTER. Ott: Nay, good princess, hear me pauca verba. Mrs. Ott: By that light, I'll have you chain'd up, with your bull-dogs, and bear-dogs, if you be not civil the sooner. I will send you to kennel, i'faith. You were best bait me with your bull, bear, and horse! Never a time that the courtiers or collegiates come to the house, but you make it a Shrove-tuesday! I would have you get your Whitsuntide velvet cap, and your staff in your hand, to entertain them: yes, in troth, do. Ott: Not so, princess, neither; but under correction, sweet princess, give me leave.—These things I am known to the courtiers by: It is reported to them for my humour, and they receive it so, and do expect it. Tom Otter's bull, bear, and horse is known all over England, in rerum natura. Mrs. Ott: 'Fore me, I will na-ture them over to Paris-garden, and na-ture you thither too, if you pronounce them again. Is a bear a fit beast, or a bull, to mix in society with great ladies? think in your discretion, in any good policy. Ott: The horse then, good princess. Mrs. Ott: Well, I am contented for the horse: they love to be well horsed, I know. I love it myself. Ott: And it is a delicate fine horse this. Poetarum Pegasus. Under correction, princess, Jupiter did turn himself into a—taurus, or bull, under correction, good princess. [ENTER TRUEWIT, CLERIMONT, AND DAUPHINE, BEHIND.] Mrs. Ott: By my integrity, I will send you over to the Bank-side, I will commit you to the master of the Garden, if I hear but a syllable more. Must my house or my roof be polluted with the scent of bears and bulls, when it is perfumed for great ladies? Is this according to the instrument, when I married you? that I would be princess, and reign in mine own house: and you would be my subject, and obey me? What did you bring me, should make you thus peremptory? do I allow you your half-crown a day, to spend where you will, among your gamsters, to vex and torment me at such times as these? Who gives you your maintenance, I pray you? who allows you your horse-meat and man's meat? your three suits of apparel a year? your four pair of stockings, one silk, three worsted? your clean linen, your bands and cuffs, when I can get you to wear them?—'tis marle you have them on now.—Who graces you with courtiers or great personages, to speak to you out of their coaches, and come home to your house? Were you ever so much as look'd upon by a lord or a lady, before I married you, but on the Easter or Whitsun-holidays? and then out at the banquetting-house window, when Ned Whiting or George Stone were at the stake? True: For Gods sake, let's go stave her off him. Mrs. Ott: Answer me to that. And did not I take you up from thence, in an old greasy buff-doublet, with points, and green velvet sleeves, out at the elbows? you forget this. True: She'll worry him, if we help not in time. [THEY COME FORWARD.] Mrs. Ott: O, here are some of the gallants! Go to, behave yourself distinctly, and with good morality: or, I protest, I will take away your exhibition. True: By your leave, fair mistress Otter, I will be bold to enter these gentlemen in your acquaintance. Mrs. Ott: It shall not be obnoxious, or difficil, sir. True: How does my noble captain? is the bull, bear, and horse in rerum natura still? Ott: Sir, sic visum superis. Mrs. Ott: I would you would but intimate them, do. Go your ways in, and get toasts and bu*ter made for the woodco*ks. That's a fit province for you. [DRIVES HIM OFF.] Cler: Alas, what a tyranny is this poor fellow married to! True: O, but the sport will be anon, when we get him loose. Daup: Dares he ever speak? True: No Anabaptist ever rail'd with the like license: but mark her language in the mean time, I beseech you. Mrs. Ott: Gentlemen, you are very aptly come. My cousin, sir Amorous, will be here briefly. True: In good time lady. Was not sir John Daw here, to ask for him, and the company? Mrs. Ott: I cannot a**ure you, master Truewit. Here was a very melancholy knight in a ruff, that demanded my subject for somebody, a gentleman, I think. Cler: Ay, that was he, lady. Mrs. Ott: But he departed straight, I can resolve you. Daup: What an excellent choice phrase this lady expresses in. True: O, sir, she is the only authentical courtier, that is not naturally bred one, in the city. Mrs. Ott: You have taken that report upon trust, gentlemen. True: No, I a**ure you, the court governs it so, lady, in your behalf. Mrs. Ott: I am the servant of the court and courtiers, sir. True: They are rather your idolaters. Mrs. Ott: Not so, sir. [ENTER CUTBEARD.] Daup: How now, Cutbeard? any cross? Cut: O, no, sir, omnia bene. 'Twas never better on the hinges; all's sure. I have so pleased him with a curate, that he's gone to't almost with the delight he hopes for soon. Daup: What is he for a vicar? Cut: One that has catch'd a cold, sir, and can scarce be heard six inches off; as if he spoke out of a bulrush that were not pick'd, or his throat were full of pith: a fine quick fellow, and an excellent barber of prayers. I came to tell you, sir, that you might omnem movere lapidem, as they say, be ready with your vexation. Daup: Gramercy, honest Cutbeard! be thereabouts with thy key, to let us in. Cut: I will not fail you, sir: ad manum. [EXIT.] True: Well, I'll go watch my coaches. Cler: Do; and we'll send Daw to you, if you meet him not. [EXIT TRUEWIT.] Mrs. Ott: Is master Truewit gone? Daup: Yes, lady, there is some unfortunate business fallen out. Mrs. Ott: So I adjudged by the physiognomy of the fellow that came in; and I had a dream last night too of a new pageant, and my lady mayoress, which is always very ominous to me. I told it my lady Haughty t'other day; when her honour came hither to see some China stuffs: and she expounded it out of Artemidorus, and I have found it since very true. It has done me many affronts. Cler: Your dream, lady? Mrs. Ott: Yes, sir, any thing I do but dream of the city. It stain'd me a damasque table-cloth, cost me eighteen pound, at one time; and burnt me a black satin gown, as I stood by the fire, at my lady Centaure's chamber in the college, another time. A third time, at the lord's masque, it dropt all my wire and my ruff with wax candle, that I could not go up to the banquet. A fourth time, as I was taking coach to go to Ware, to meet a friend, it dash'd me a new suit all over (a crimson satin doublet, and black velvet skirts) with a brewer's horse, that I was fain to go in and shift me, and kept my chamber a leash of days for the anguish of it. Daup: These were dire mischances, lady. Cler: I would not dwell in the city, an 'twere so fatal to me. Mrs. Ott: Yes sir, but I do take advice of my doctor to dream of it as little as I can. Daup: You do well, mistress Otter. Mrs. Ott: Will it please you to enter the house farther, gentlemen? Daup: And your favour, lady: but we stay to speak with a knight, sir John Daw, who is here come. We shall follow you, lady. Mrs. Ott: At your own time, sir. It is my cousin sir Amorous his feast— Daup: I know it, lady. Mrs. Ott: And mine together. But it is for his honour, and therefore I take no name of it, more than of the place. Daup: You are a bounteous kinswoman. Mrs. Ott: Your servant, sir. [EXIT.] CLER [COMING FORWARD WITH DAW.]: Why, do not you know it, sir John Daw? Daw: No, I am a rook if I do. Cler: I'll tell you then, she's married by this time. And, whereas you were put in the head, that she was gone with sir Dauphine, I a**ure you, sir Dauphine has been the noblest, honestest friend to you, that ever gentleman of your quality could boast of. He has discover'd the whole plot, and made your mistress so acknowledging, and indeed so ashamed of her injury to you, that she desires you to forgive her, and but grace her wedding with your presence to-day—She is to be married to a very good fortune, she says, his uncle, old Morose: and she will'd me in private to tell you, that she shall be able to do you more favours, and with more security now, than before. Daw: Did she say so, i'faith? Cler: Why, what do you think of me, sir John? ask sir Dauphine. Daup: Nay, I believe you.—Good sir Dauphine, did she desire me to forgive her? Cler: I a**ure you, sir John, she did. Daw: Nay, then, I do with all my heart, and I'll be jovial. Cler: Yes, for look you, sir, this was the injury to you. La-Foole intended this feast to honour her bridal day, and made you the property to invite the college ladies, and promise to bring her: and then at the time she should have appear'd, as his friend, to have given you the dor. Whereas now, Sir Dauphine has brought her to a feeling of it, with this kind of satisfaction, that you shall bring all the ladies to the place where she is, and be very jovial; and there, she will have a dinner, which shall be in your name: and so disappoint La-Foole, to make you good again, and, as it were, a saver in the main. Daw: As I am a knight, I honour her; and forgive her heartily. Cler: About it then presently. Truewit is gone before to confront the coaches, and to acquaint you with so much, if he meet you. Join with him, and 'tis well.— [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LAFOOLE.] See; here comes your antagonist, but take you no notice, but be very jovial. La-F: Are the ladies come, sir John Daw, and your mistress? [EXIT DAW.] —Sir Dauphine! you are exceeding welcome, and honest master Clerimont. Where's my cousin? did you see no collegiates, gentlemen? Daup: Collegiates! do you not hear, sir Amorous, how you are abus'd? La-F: How, sir! Cler: Will you speak so kindly to sir John Daw, that has done you such an affront? La-F: Wherein, gentlemen? let me be a suitor to you to know, I beseech you! Cler: Why, sir, his mistress is married to-day to sir Dauphine's uncle, your cousin's neighbour, and he has diverted all the ladies, and all your company thither, to frustrate your provision, and stick a disgrace upon you. He was here now to have enticed us away from you too: but we told him his own, I think. La-F: Has sir John Daw wrong'd me so inhumanly? Daup: He has done it, sir Amorous, most maliciously and treacherously: but, if youll be ruled by us, you shall quit him, i'faith. La-F: Good gentlemen, I'll make one, believe it. How, I pray? Daup: Marry sir, get me your pheasants, and your godwits, and your best meat, and dish it in silver dishes of your cousin's presently, and say nothing, but clap me a clean towel about you, like a sewer; and bare-headed, march afore it with a good confidence, ('tis but over the way, hard by,) and we'll second you, where you shall set it on the board, and bid them welcome to't, which shall shew 'tis yours, and disgrace his preparation utterly: and, for your cousin, whereas she should be troubled here at home with care of making and giving welcome, she shall transfer all that labour thither, and be a principal guest herself, sit rank'd with the college-honours, and be honour'd, and have her health drunk as often, as bare and as loud as the best of them. La-F: I'll go tell her presently. It shall be done, that's resolved. [EXIT.] Cler: I thought he would not hear it out, but 'twould take him. Daup: Well, there be guests and meat now; how shall we do for music? Cler: The smell of the venison, going through the street, will invite one noise of fiddlers or other. Daup: I would it would call the trumpeters hither! Cler: Faith, there is hope: they have intelligence of all feasts. There's good correspondence betwixt them and the London cooks: 'tis twenty to one but we have them. Daup: 'Twill be a most solemn day for my uncle, and an excellent fit of mirth for us. Cler: Ay, if we can hold up the emulation betwixt Foole and Daw, and never bring them to expostulate. Daup: Tut, flatter them both, as Truewit says, and you may take their understandings in a purse-net. They'll believe themselves to be just such men as we make them, neither more nor less. They have nothing, not the use of their senses, but by tradition. [RE-ENTER LA-FOOLE, LIKE A SEWER.] Cler: See! sir Amorous has his towel on already. Have you persuaded your cousin? La-F: Yes, 'tis very feasible: she'll do any thing she says, rather than the La-Fooles shall be disgraced. Daup: She is a noble kinswoman. It will be such a pestling device, sir Amorous; it will pound all your enemy's practices to powder, and blow him up with his own mine, his own train. La-F: Nay, we'll give fire, I warrant you. Cler: But you must carry it privately, without any noise, and take no notice by any means— [RE-ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER.] Ott: Gentlemen, my princess says you shall have all her silver dishes, festinate: and she's gone to alter her tire a little, and go with you— Cler: And yourself too, captain Otter? Daup: By any means, sir. Ott: Yes, sir, I do mean it: but I would entreat my cousin sir Amorous, and you, gentlemen, to be suitors to my princess, that I may carry my bull and my bear, as well as my horse. Cler: That you shall do, captain Otter. La-F: My cousin will never consent, gentlemen. Daup: She must consent, sir Amorous, to reason. La-F: Why, she says they are no decorum among ladies. Ott: But they are decora, and that's better, sir. Cler: Ay, she must hear argument. Did not Pasiphae, who was a queen, love a bull? and was not Calisto, the mother of Arcas, turn'd into a bear, and made a star, mistress Ursula, in the heavens? Ott: O lord! that I could have said as much! I will have these stories painted in the Bear-garden, ex Ovidii metamorphosi. Daup: Where is your princess, captain? pray, be our leader. Ott: That I shall, sir. Cler: Make haste, good sir Amorous. [EXEUNT.]