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A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 08

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Title: A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 08

Compiler: Robert Dodsley

Editor: William Carew Hazlitt


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #10467]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SELECT COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS, VOLUME 08 ***

A SELECT COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS, VOL. VIII

Fourth Edition

Originally published by Robert Dodsley in the Year 1744.

Now first chronologically arranged, revised and enlarged with the Notes
of all the Commentators, and new Notes

By

W. CAREW HAZLITT

1874-1876.







CONTENTS:

Summer's Last Will and Testament
The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington
The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington
Contention between Liberality and Prodigality
Grim the Collier of Croydon.






SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.




EDITION.


_A pleasant Comedie, called Summer's last will and Testament. Written
by Thomas Nash. Imprinted at London by Simon Stafford, for Water Burre_.
1600. 4to.




[COLLIER'S PREFACE.]


[Thomas Nash, son of William Nash, minister, and Margaret his wife, was
baptized at Lowestoft, in Suffolk, in November 1567.[1] He was admitted
a scholar at St John's College, Cambridge, on the Lady Margaret's
foundation, in 1584, and proceeded B.A. in 1585:] the following is a
copy of the Register:--

"Tho. Nashe Coll. Joh. Cantab. A.B. ib. 1585." The place, though not
the time, of his birth[2] we have under his own authority, for in his
"Lenten Stuff," printed in 1599, he informs us that he was born at
Lowestoft; and he leads us to conclude that his family was of some note,
by adding that his "father sprang from the Nashes of Herefordshire."[3]

It does not appear that Nash ever proceeded Master of Arts at Cambridge,
and most of his biographers agree that he left his college about 1587.
It is evident, however, that he had got into disgrace, and probably was
expelled; for the author of "England to her three Daughters" in
"Polimanteia," 1595, speaking of Harvey and Nash, and the pending
quarrel between them, uses these terms: "Cambridge make thy two children
friends: _thou hast been unkind to the one to wean him before his time_,
and too fond upon the other to keep him so long without preferment: the
one is ancient and of much reading; the other is young, but full of
wit."[4] The cause of his disgrace is reported to have been the share he
took in a piece called "Terminus et non Terminus," not now extant; and
it is not denied that his partner in this offence was expelled. Most
likely, therefore, Nash suffered the same punishment.

If Nash be the author of "An Almond for a Parrot," of which there is
little doubt, although his name is not affixed to it, he travelled in
Italy;[5] and we find from another of his pieces that he had been in
Ireland. Perhaps he went abroad soon after he abandoned Cambridge, and
before he settled in London and became an author. His first appearance
in this character seems to have been in 1589, and we believe the
earliest date of any tract attributed to him relating to Martin
Marprelate is also 1589.[6] He was the first, as has been frequently
remarked, to attack this enemy of the Church with the keen missiles of
wit and satire, throwing aside the lumbering and unserviceable weapons
of scholastic controversy. Having set the example in this respect, he
had many followers and imitators, and among them John Lily, the dramatic
poet, the author of "Pap with a Hatchet."

In London Nash became acquainted with Robert Greene, and their
friendship drew him into a long literary contest with Gabriel Harvey, to
which Nash owes much of his reputation. It arose out of the posthumous
attack of Harvey upon Robert Greene, of which sufficient mention has
been made elsewhere. Nash replied on behalf of his dead companion, and
reiterated the charge which had given the original offence to Harvey,
viz., that his brother was the son of a ropemaker.[7] One piece was
humorously dedicated to Richard Litchfield, a barber of Cambridge, and
Harvey answered it under the assumed character of the same barber, in a
tract called "The Trimmino of Thomas Nash,"[8] which also contained a
woodcut of a man in fetters. This representation referred to the
imprisonment of Nash for an offence he gave by writing a play (not now
extant) called "The Isle of Dogs," and to this event Francis Meres
alludes in his "Palladia Tamia," 1598, in these terms: "As Actaeon was
worried of his own hounds, so is Tom Nash of his 'Isle of Dogs.' Dogs
were the death of Euripides; but be not disconsolate, gallant young
Juvenal; Linus, the son of Apollo, died the same death. Yet God forbid,
that so brave a wit should so basely perish!--Thine are but paper dogs;
neither is thy banishment like Ovid's eternally to converse with the
barbarous _Getes_. Therefore comfort thyself, sweet Tom, with Cicero's
glorious return to Rome, and with the council Aeneas gives to his
sea-beaten soldiers." Lib. I. Aeneid.

    "Pluck up thine heart, and drive from thence both fear and care away:
    To think on this may pleasure be, perhaps, another day."

    --_Durato, et temet rebus servato secundis_. (fol. 286.)

This was in part verified in the next year, for when Nash published his
"Lenten Stuff," he referred with apparent satisfaction to his past
troubles in consequence of his "Isle of Dogs."[9]

So much has been said, especially by Mr D'Israeli in his "Quarrels of
Authors," on the subject of this dispute between Nash and Harvey, that
it is unnecessary to add anything, excepting that it was carried to such
a length, and the pamphlets contained so much scurrility, that it was
ordered from authority in 1599 that all the tracts on both sides should
be seized and suppressed.[10]

As with Greene, so with Nash, an opinion on his moral conduct and
general deportment has been too readily formed from the assertions of
his opponents; and because Gabriel Harvey, to answer a particular
purpose, states, "You may be in one prison to-day and in another
to-morrow," it has been taken for granted, that "after his arrival in
London, he was often confined in different jails." No doubt, he and his
companions Greene, Marlowe, and Peele, led very disorderly lives, and it
is singular that all four died prematurely, the oldest of them probably
not being forty years of age. It is certain that Nash was not living at
the time when the "Return from Parnassus" was produced, which, though
not printed until 1606, was written before the end of the reign of
Elizabeth: his ashes are there spoken of as at rest, but the mention of
him as dead, nearest to the probable date of that event, is to be found
in [Fitzgeoffrey's "Affaniae," 1601, where an epitaph upon him is
printed. His name also occurs in] an anonymous poem, under the title of
"The Ant and the Nightingale, or Father Hubbard's Tales," 1604, where
the following stanza is met with--

    "Or if in bitterness thou rail like Nash:
    Forgive me, honest soul, that term thy phrase
    _Railing_; for in thy works thou wert not rash,
    Nor didst affect in youth thy private praise.
    Thou hadst a strife with that Tergemini;[11]
    Thou hurt'dst them not till they had injured thee."[12]

The author of a MS. epitaph, in "Bibl. Sloan," Pl. XXI. A. was not so
squeamish in the language he employed--

    "Here lies Tom Nash, that notable _railer_,
    That in his life ne'er paid shoemaker nor tailor."

The following from Thomas Freeman's Epigrams, 1614, is not out of its
place--

    OF THOMAS NASH.

    "Nash, had Lycambes on earth living been
    The time thou wast, his death had been all one;
    Had he but mov'd thy tartest Muse to spleen
    Unto the fork he had as surely gone:
    For why? there lived not that man, I think,
    Us'd better or more bitter gall in ink."

It is impossible in the present day to attempt anything like a correct
list of the productions of Nash, many of which were unquestionably
printed without his name:[13] the titles of and quotations from a great
number may be found in the various bibliographical miscellanies, easily
accessible. When he began to write cannot be ascertained, but it was
most likely soon after his return from the Continent, and the dispute
between John Penry and the Bishops seems then to have engaged his
pen.[14] There is one considerable pamphlet by him, called "Christ's
Tears over Jerusalem," printed in 1593, which, like some of the tracts
by Greene, is of a repentant and religious character; and it has been
said that, though published with his name, it was not in fact his
production. There is no sufficient ground for this supposition, and Nash
never subsequently disowned the performance: the address "To the Reader"
contains an apology to Gabriel Harvey for the attack upon him, in terms
that seem to vouch for their own sincerity. "Nothing (says Nash) is
there now so much in my vows as to be at peace with all men, and make
submissive amends where I most displeased; not basely fear-blasted, or
constraintively overruled, but purely pacificatory: suppliant for
reconciliation and pardon do I sue to the principallest of them 'gainst
whom I professed utter enmity; even of Master Doctor Harvey I heartily
desire the like, whose fame and reputation (through some precedent
injurious provocations and fervent excitements of young heads) I rashly
assailed: yet now better advised, and of his perfections more
confirmedly persuaded, unfeignedly I entreat of the whole world from my
pen his worth may receive no impeachment. All acknowledgments of
abundant scholarship, courteous, well-governed behaviour, and ripe,
experienced judgment do I attribute to him."

We have already seen with what malignity Harvey trampled upon the corpse
of Greene, and he received this apology of Nash in a corresponding
spirit; for instead of accepting it, in his "New Letter of Notable
Contents," 1593, he rejects it with scorn: "Riotous vanity (he replies)
was wont to root so deeply that it could hardly be unrooted; and where
reckless impudency taketh possession, it useth not very hastily to be
dispossessed. What say you to a spring of rankest villainy in February,
and a harvest of ripest divinity in May? But what should we hereafter
talk any more of paradoxes or impossibilities, when he that penned the
most desperate and abominable pamphlet of 'Strange News,' and disgorged
his stomach of as poisonous rancour as ever was vomited in print, within
few months is won, or charmed, or enchanted, (or what metamorphosis
should I term it?) to astonish carnal minds with spiritual
meditations," &c. Such a reception of well-intended and
eloquently-written amends was enough to make Nash repent even his
repentance, as far as Gabriel Harvey was concerned.[15]

Of the popularity of Nash as a writer some notion may be formed from a
fact he himself mentions in his "Have with you to Saffron Walden," that
between 1592, when his "Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil"
was first printed, and 1596 it "passed through the pikes of at least six
impressions." How long his reputation as a satirist survived him may be
judged from the fact that in 1640 Taylor the Water Poet published a
tract, which had for its second title "Tom Nash, his Ghost (the old
Martin queller), newly rouz'd:" and in _Mercurius Anti-pragmaticus_,
from Oct. 12 to Oct. 19, 1647, is the following passage: "Perhaps you
will be angry now, and when you steal forth disguised, in your next
intelligence thunder forth threatenings against me, and be as satirical
in your language as ever was your predecessor Nash, who compiled a
learned treatise in the praise of a red herring."

Only two plays in which Nash had any concern have come down to us: his
"Isle of Dogs," before noticed, was probably never printed, or at all
events it is not now known to exist. He wrote alone--

(1.) A pleasant Comedy called "Summer's Last Will and Testament."
1600. 4to.

In conjunction with Marlowe he produced--

(2.) "The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage," played by the children
of her Majesty's chapel. 1594. 4to.

Phillips, in his "Theatrum Poetarum," also assigned to Nash, "See me,
and see me not," a comedy, which may be a different play, and not, as
has been generally supposed, "Hans Beer Pot;" because, the name of the
author, Dawbridgecourt Belchier, being subscribed to the dedication,
such a mistake could not easily be made.




DRAMATIS PERSONAE.


WILL SUMMER.
VER.
SUMMER.
AUTUMN.
WINTER.
CHRISTMAS,   |  _Sons to WINTER_.
BACKWINTEB.  |
SOL.
SOLSTITIUM.
VERTUMNUS.
ORION.
BACCHUS.
HARVEST.
SATIRES.
NYMPHS.
_Three_ CLOWNS.
_Three_ MAIDS.
HUNTERS.
REAPERS.
MORRIS DANCERS.
BOY _to speak the Epilogue_.




SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.[16]


    _Enter_ WILL SUMMER,[17] _in his fool's coat
    but half on, coming out_.

_Noctem peccatis et fraudibus objice nubem_.[18] There is no such fine
time to play the knave in as the night. I am a goose or a ghost, at
least; for what with turmoil of getting my fool's apparel, and care of
being perfect, I am sure I have not yet supp'd to-night. Will Summer's
ghost I should be, come to present you with "Summer's Last Will and
Testament." Be it so; if my cousin Ned will lend me his chain and his
fiddle. Other stately-pac'd Prologues use to attire themselves within: I
that have a toy in my head more than ordinary, and use to go without
money, without garters, without girdle, without hat-band, without points
to my hose, without a knife to my dinner, and make so much use of this
word without in everything, will here dress me without. Dick
Huntley[19] cries, Begin, begin: and all the whole house, For shame,
come away; when I had my things but now brought me out of the laundry.
God forgive me, I did not see my Lord before! I'll set a good face on
it, as though what I had talk'd idly all this while were my part. So it
is, _boni viri_, that one fool presents another; and I, a fool by nature
and by art, do speak to you in the person of the idiot of our
play-maker. He, like a fop and an ass, must be making himself a public
laughingstock, and have no thank for his labour; where other Magisterii,
whose invention is far more exquisite, are content to sit still and do
nothing. I'll show you what a scurvy Prologue he had made me, in an old
vein of similitudes: if you be good fellows, give it the hearing, that
you may judge of him thereafter.




THE PROLOGUE.


At a solemn feast of the Triumviri in Rome, it was seen and observed
that the birds ceased to sing, and sat solitary on the housetops, by
reason of the sight of a painted serpent set openly to view. So fares it
with us novices, that here betray our imperfections: we, afraid to look
on the imaginary serpent of envy, painted in men's affections, have
ceased to tune any music of mirth to your ears this twelvemonth,
thinking that, as it is the nature of the serpent to hiss, so childhood
and ignorance would play the gosling, contemning and condemning what
they understood not. Their censures we weigh not, whose senses are not
yet unswaddled. The little minutes will be continually striking, though
no man regard them: whelps will bark before they can see, and strive to
bite before they have teeth. Politianus speaketh of a beast who, while
he is cut on the table, drinketh and represents the motions and voices
of a living creature. Such like foolish beasts are we who, whilst we are
cut, mocked, and flouted at, in every man's common talk, will
notwithstanding proceed to shame ourselves to make sport. No man
pleaseth all: we seek to please one. Didymus wrote four thousand books,
or (as some say) six-thousand, on the art of grammar. Our author hopes
it may be as lawful for him to write a thousand lines of as light a
subject. Socrates (whom the oracle pronounced the wisest man of Greece)
sometimes danced: Scipio and Laslius, by the sea-side, played at
peeble-stone: _Semel insanivimus omnes_. Every man cannot with
Archimedes make a heaven of brass, or dig gold out of the iron mines of
the law. Such odd trifles as mathematicians' experiments be artificial
flies to hang in the air by themselves, dancing balls, an egg-shell that
shall climb up to the top of a spear, fiery-breathing gores, _poeta
noster_ professeth not to make. _Placeat sibi quinque licebit_. What's a
fool but his bauble? Deep-reaching wits, here is no deep stream for you
to angle in. Moralisers, you that wrest a never-meant meaning out of
everything, applying all things to the present time, keep your attention
for the common stage; for here are no quips in characters for you to
read. Vain glosers, gather what you will; spite, spell backward what
thou canst. As the Parthians fight flying away, so will we prate and
talk, but stand to nothing that we say.

How say you, my masters? do you not laugh at him for a coxcomb? Why, he
hath made a prologue longer than his play: nay, 'tis no play neither,
but a show. I'll be sworn the jig of Rowland's godson is a giant in
comparison of it. What can be made of Summer's last will and testament!
Such another thing as Gyllian of Brentford's[20] will, where she
bequeathed a score of farts amongst her friends. Forsooth, because the
plague reigns in most places in this latter end of summer,[21] Summer
must come in sick; he must call his officers to account, yield his
throne to Autumn, make Winter his executor, with tittle-tattle Tom-boy.
God give you good night in Watling Street; I care not what you say now,
for I play no more than you hear; and some of that you heard too (by
your leave) was _extempore_. He were as good have let me had the best
part, for I'll be revenged on him to the uttermost, in this person of
Will Summer, which I have put on to play the prologue, and mean not to
put it off till the play be done. I'll sit as a chorus, and flout the
actors and him at the end of every scene. I know they will not interrupt
me, for fear of marring of all; but look to your cues, my masters, for I
intend to play the knave in cue, and put you besides all your parts, if
you take not the better heed. Actors, you rogues, come away; clear your
throats, blow your noses, and wipe your mouths ere you enter, that you
may take no occasion to spit or to cough, when you are _non plus_. And
this I bar, over and besides, that none of you stroke your beards to
make action, play with your cod-piece points, or stand fumbling on your
buttons, when you know not how to bestow your fingers. Serve God, and
act cleanly. A fit of mirth and an old song first, if you will.

    _Enter_ SUMMER, _leaning on_ AUTUMN'S _and_ WINTER'S
    _shoulders, and attended on with a train of Satyrs and
    Wood-nymphs, singing_.[22]

_Fair Summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore,
So fair a summer look for never more:
All good things vanish less than in a day,
Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay.
  Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year,
  The earth is hell when thou, leav'st to appear.

What! shall those flowers that deck'd thy garland erst,
Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed?
O trees, consume your sap in sorrow's source,
Streams turn to tears your tributary course.
  Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year,
  The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.

    [The Satyrs and Wood-nymphs go out singing, and leave_
    SUMMER _and_ WINTER _and_ AUTUMN _on the stage_.

WILL SUM. A couple of pretty boys, if they would wash their faces, and
were well breech'd[23] in an hour or two. The rest of the green men
have reasonable voices, good to sing catches or the great _Jowben_ by
the fire's side in a winter's evening. But let us hear what Summer can
say for himself, why he should not be hiss'd at.

SUM. What pleasure always lasts? no joy endures:
Summer I am; I am not what I was;
Harvest and age have whiten'd my green head;
On Autumn now and Winter I must lean.
Needs must he fall, whom none but foes uphold,
Thus must the happiest man have his black day.
_Omnibus una manet nox, et calcanda semel via lethi_.[24]
This month have I lain languishing a-bed,
Looking each hour to yield my life and throne;
And died I had indeed unto the earth,
But that Eliza, England's beauteous Queen,
On whom all seasons prosperously attend,
Forbad the execution of my fate,
Until her joyful progress was expir'd.[25]
For her doth Summer live, and linger here,
And wisheth long to live to her content:
But wishes are not had, when they wish well:
I must depart, my death-day is set down;
To these two must I leave my wheaten crown.
So unto unthrifts rich men leave their lands,
Who in an hour consume long labour's gains.
True is it that divinest Sidney sung,
_0, he is marr'd, that is for others made_.
Come near, my friends, for I am near my end.
In presence of this honourable train,
Who love me, for I patronise their sports,
Mean I to make my final testament:
But first I'll call my officers to 'count,
And of the wealth I gave them to dispose,
Know what is left I may know what to give
Vertumnus, then, that turn'st the year about,
Summon them one by one to answer me.
First, Ver, the Spring, unto whose custody
I have committed more than to the rest;
The choice of all my fragrant meads and flowers,
And what delights soe'er nature affords.

VER. I will, my lord. Ver, lusty Ver, by the name of lusty Ver, come
into the court! lose a mark in issues.

    _Enter_ VER, _with his train, overlaid with suits of
    green moss, representing short grass, singing.


The Song.

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu--we, to-wit, to-whoo.

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And hear we aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu--we, to-wit, to-whoo.

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit;
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu--we, to-wit, to-whoo.
    Spring, the sweet spring_.

WILL SUM. By my troth, they have voices as clear as crystal: this is
a pratty thing, if it be for nothing but to go a-begging with.

SUM. Believe me, Ver, but thou art pleasant bent;
This humour should import a harmless mind.
Know'st thou the reason why I sent for thee?

VER. No, faith, nor care not whether I do or no.
If you will dance a galliard, so it is: if not--

    _Falangtado, Falangtado,
    To wear the black and yellow,
    Falantado, Falantado,
    My mates are gone, I'll follow_.[26]

SUM. Nay, stay awhile, we must confer and talk.
Ver, call to mind I am thy sovereign lord,
And what thou hast, of me thou hast and hold'st.
Unto no other end I sent for thee,
But to demand a reckoning at thy hands,
How well or ill thou hast employ'd my wealth.

VER. If that be all, we will not disagree:
A clean trencher and a napkin you shall have presently.

WILL SUM. The truth is, this fellow hath been a tapster in his days.

    VER _goes in, and fetcheth out the hobby-horse[27] and
    the morris-dance, who dance about_.

SUM. How now? is this the reckoning we shall have?

WIN. My lord, he doth abuse you; brook it not.

AUT. _Summa totalis_, I fear, will prove him but a fool.

VER. About, about! lively, put your horse to it, rein him harder; jerk
him with your wand: sit fast, sit fast, man! fool, hold up your ladle
there.

WILL SUM. O brave Hall![28] O, well-said, butcher. Now for the credit
of Worcestershire. The finest set of morris-dancers that is between
this and Streatham. Marry, methinks there is one of them danceth like
a clothier's horse, with a woolpack on his back. You, friend with the
hobby-horse, go not too fast, for fear of wearing out my lord's
tile-stones with your hobnails.

VER. So, so, so; trot the ring twice over, and away. May it please my
lord, this is the grand capital sum; but there are certain parcels
behind, as you shall see.

SUM. Nay, nay, no more; for this is all too much.

VER. Content yourself; we'll have variety.

    _Here enter three_ CLOWNS _and three_ MAIDS,
    _singing this song, dancing:--

        Trip and go, heave and hoe,
        Up and down, to and fro;
        From the town to the grove,
        Two and two let us rove.
        A maying, a playing:
        Love hath no gainsaying;
        So merrily trip and go_.

WILL SUM. Beshrew my heart, of a number of ill legs I never saw worse
dancers. How bless'd are you, that the wenches of the parish do not
see you!

SUM. Presumptuous Ver, uncivil-nurtur'd boy? Think'st I will be derided
thus of thee? Is this th'account and reckoning that thou mak'st?

VER. Troth, my lord, to tell you plain, I can give you no other account;
_nam quae habui perdidi_; what I had, I spent on good fellows; in these
sports you have seen, which are proper to the spring, and others of like
sort (as giving wenches green gowns,[29] making garlands for fencers,
and tricking up children gay), have I bestowed all my flowery treasure
and flower of my youth.

WILL SUM. A small matter. I know one spent in less than a year eight
and fifty pounds in mustard, and another that ran in debt, in the space
of four or five year, above fourteen thousand pound in lute-strings and
grey-paper.[30]

SUM. O monstrous unthrift! who e'er heard the like?
The sea's vast throat, in so short tract of time,
Devoureth nor consumeth half so much.
How well might'st thou have liv'd within thy bounds.

VER. What, talk you to me of living within my bounds? I tell you none
but asses live within their bounds: the silly beasts, if they be put in
a pasture, that is eaten bare to the very earth, and where there is
nothing to be had but thistles, will rather fall soberly to those
thistles and be hunger-starv'd, than they will offer to break their
bounds; whereas the lusty courser, if he be in a barren plot, and spy
better grass in some pasture near adjoining, breaks over hedge and
ditch, and to go, ere he will be pent in, and not have his bellyful.
Peradventure, the horses lately sworn to be stolen,[31] carried that
youthful mind, who, if they had been asses, would have been yet extant.

WILL SUM. Thus, we may see, the longer we live the more we shall learn:
I ne'er thought honesty an ass till this day.

VER. This world is transitory; it was made of nothing, and it must to
nothing: wherefore, if we will do the will of our high Creator, whose
will it is that it pass to nothing, we must help to consume it to
nothing. Gold is more vile than men: men die in thousands and ten
thousands, yea, many times in hundred thousands, in one battle. If then
the best husband has been so liberal of his best handiwork, to what end
should we make much of a glittering excrement, or doubt to spend at a
banquet as many pounds as he spends men at a battle? Methinks I honour
_Geta_, the Roman emperor, for a brave-minded fellow; for he commanded a
banquet to be made him of all meats under the sun, which were served in
after the order of the alphabet, and the clerk of the kitchen, following
the last dish, which was two miles off from the foremost, brought him an
index of their several names. Neither did he pingle, when it was set on
the board, but for the space of three days and three nights never rose
from the table.

WILL SUM. O intolerable lying villain, that was never begotten without
the consent of a whetstone![32]

SUM. Ungracious man, how fondly he argueth!

VER. Tell me, I pray, wherefore was gold laid under our feet in the
veins of the earth, but that we should contemn it, and tread upon it,
and so consequently tread thrift under our feet? It was not known till
the iron age, _donec facinus invasit mortales_, as the poet says; and
the Scythians always detested it. I will prove it that an unthrift, of
any, comes nearest a happy man, in so much as he comes nearest to
beggary. Cicero saith, _summum bonum_ consists in _omnium rerum
vacatione_, that is, the chiefest felicity that may be to rest from all
labours. Now who doth so much _vacare à rebus_, who rests so much, who
hath so little to do as the beggar? who can sing so merry a note, as he
that cannot change a groat?[33] _Cui nil est, nil deest_: he that hath
nothing wants nothing. On the other side, it is said of the carl, _Omnia
habeo, nec quicquam habeo_: I have all things, yet want everything.
_Multi mihi vitio vertunt quia egeo_, saith Marcus Cato in Aulus
Gellius; _at ego illis quia nequeunt egere_: many upbraid me, saith he,
because I am poor; but I upbraid them, because they cannot live if they
be poor.[34] It is a common proverb, _Divesque miserque_, a rich man and
a miserable: _nam natura paucis contenta_, none so contented as the poor
man. Admit that the chiefest happiness were not rest or ease, but
knowledge, as Herillus, Alcidamus, and many of Socrates' followers
affirm; why _paupertas omnes perdocet artes_, poverty instructs a man in
all arts; it makes a man hardy and venturous, and therefore is it called
of the poets _paupertas audax_, valiant poverty. It is not so much
subject to inordinate desires as wealth or prosperity. _Non habet, unde
suum paupertas pascat amorem_;[35] poverty hath not wherewithal to feed
lust. All the poets were beggars; all alchemists and all philosophers
are beggars. _Omnia mea mecum porto_, quoth Bias, when he had nothing
but bread and cheese in a leathern bag, and two or three books in his
bosom. Saint Francis, a holy saint, and never had any money. It is
madness to doat upon muck. That young man of Athens, Aelianus makes
mention of, may be an example to us, who doated so extremely on the
image of Fortune, that when he might not enjoy it, he died for sorrow.
The earth yields all her fruits together, and why should we not spend
them together? I thank heavens on my knees, that have made me an
unthrift.[36]

SUM. O vanity itself: O wit ill-spent!
So study thousands not to mend their lives,
But to maintain the sin they most affect,
To be hell's advocates 'gainst their own souls.
Ver, since thou giv'st such praise to beggary,
And hast defended it so valiantly,
This be thy penance: thou shalt ne'er appear
Or come abroad, but Lent shall wait on thee:
His scarcity may countervail thy waste.
Riot may flourish, but finds want at last.
Take him away that knoweth no good way,
And lead him the next way to woe and want.    [_Exit_ VER.
Thus in the paths of knowledge many stray,
And from the means of life fetch their decay.

WILL SUM. Heigho. Here is a coil indeed to bring beggars to stocks. I
promise you truly I was almost asleep; I thought I had been at a sermon.
Well, for this one night's exhortation, I vow, by God's grace, never to
be good husband while I live. But what is this to the purpose? "Hur come
to Fowl," as the Welshman says, "and hur pay an halfpenny for hur seat,
and hur hear the preacher talg, and hur talg very well, by gis[37]; but
yet a cannot make her laugh: go to a theatre and hear a Queen's Fice,
and he make hur laugh, and laugh hur belly full." So we come hither to
laugh and be merry, and we hear a filthy, beggarly oration in the praise
of beggary. It is a beggarly poet that writ it; and that makes him so
much commend it, because he knows not how to mend himself. Well, rather
than he shall have no employment but lick dishes, I will set him a work
myself, to write in praise of the art of stooping, and how there never
was any famous thresher, porter, brewer, pioneer, or carpenter that had
straight back. Repair to my chamber, poor fellow, when the play is done,
and thou shalt see what I will say to thee.

SUM. Vertumnus, call Solstitium.

VER. Solstitium, come into the court: without, peace there below! make
room for Master Solstitium.

    _Enter_ SOLSTITIUM, _like an aged hermit, carrying a pair of
    balances, with an hour-glass in either of them--one hour-glass
    white, the other black: he is brought in by a number of Shepherds,
    playing upon recorders_.[38]

SOL. All hail to Summer, my dread sovereign lord.

SUM. Welcome, Solstitium: thou art one of them,
To whose good husbandry we have referr'd
Part of those small revenues that we have.
What hast thou gain'd us? what hast thou brought in?

SOL. Alas, my lord! what gave you me to keep
But a few day's-eyes[39] in my prime of youth?
And those I have converted to white hairs;
I never lov'd ambitiously to climb,
Or thrust my hand too far into the fire.
To be in heaven, sure, is a bless'd thing;
But Atlas-like to prop heaven on one's back,
Cannot but be more labour than delight.
Such is the state of men in honour plac'd;
They are gold vessels made for servile uses;
High trees that keep the weather from low houses,
But cannot shield the tempest from themselves.
I love to dwell betwixt the hills and dales;
Neither to be so great to be envied,
Nor yet so poor the world should pity me.
_Inter utrumque tene, medio tutissimus ibis_[40].

SUM. What dost thou with those balances thou bear'st?

SOL. In them I weigh the day and night alike:
This white glass is the hour-glass of the day,
This black one the just measure of the night.
One more than other holdeth not a grain;
Both serve time's just proportion to maintain.

SUM. I like thy moderation wondrous well;
And this thy balance-weighing, the white glass
And black, with equal poise and steadfast hand,
A pattern is to princes and great men,
How to weigh all estates indifferently;
The spiritualty and temporalty alike:
Neither to be too prodigal of smiles,
Nor too severe in frowning without cause.
If you be wise, you monarchs of the earth,
Have two such glasses still before your eyes;
Think as you have a white glass running on,
Good days, friends, favour, and all things at beck,
So this white glass run out (as out it will)
The black comes next; your downfall is at hand.
Take this of me, for somewhat I have tried;
A mighty ebb follows a mighty tide.
But say, Solstitium, hadst thou nought besides?
Nought but day's-eyes and fair looks gave I thee?

SOL. Nothing, my lord, nor aught more did I ask.

SUM. But hadst thou always kept thee in my sight,
Thy good deserts, though silent, would have ask'd.

SOL. Deserts, my lord, of ancient servitors
Are like old sores, which may not be ripp'd up.
Such use these times have got, that none must beg,
But those that have young limbs to lavish fast.

SUM. I grieve no more regard was had of thee:
A little sooner hadst thou spoke to me,
Thou hadst been heard, but now the time is past:
Death waiteth at the door for thee and me.
Let us go measure out our beds in clay;
Nought but good deeds hence shall we bear away.
Be, as thou wert, best steward of my hours,
And so return into thy country bow'rs.

    [_Here_, SOLSTITIUM _goes out with his music, as he comes in_.

WILL SUM. Fie, fie, of honesty, fie! Solstitium is an ass, perdy, this
play is a gallimaufry. Fetch me some drink, somebody. What cheer, what
cheer, my hearts? Are not you thirsty with listening to this dry sport?
What have we to do with scales and hour-glasses, except we were bakers
or clock-keepers? I cannot tell how other men are addicted, but it is
against my profession to use any scales but such as we play at with a
bowl, or keep any hours but dinner or supper. It is a pedantical thing
to respect times and seasons: if a man be drinking with good fellows
late, he must come home for fear the gates be shut: when I am in my warm
bed, I must rise to prayers, because the bell rings. I like no such
foolish customs. Actors, bring now a black jack and a rundlet of Rhenish
wine, disputing of the antiquity of red noses: let the Prodigal
Child[41] come in in his doublet and hose all greasy, his shirt hanging
forth, and ne'er a penny in his purse, and talk what a fine thing it is
to walk summerly, or sit whistling under a hedge, and keep hogs. Go
forward, in grace and virtue to proceed, but let us have no more of
these grave matters.

SUM. Vertumnus, will Sol come before us?

VER. Sol, Sol; _ut, re, mi, fa, sol_![42]
Come to church, while the bell toll.

    _Enter_ SOLSTITIUM _very richly attired,
    with a noise of musicians before him_.

SUM. Ay, marry, here comes majesty in pomp,
Resplendent Sol, chief planet of the heavens!
He is our servant, looks he ne'er so big.

SOL. My liege, what crav'st thou at thy vassal's hands?

SUM. Hypocrisy, how it can change his shape!
How base is pride from his own dunghill put!
How I have rais'd thee, Sol. I list not tell,
Out of the ocean of adversity,
To sit in height of honour's glorious heaven,
To be the eyesore[43] of aspiring eyes:
To give the day her life from thy bright looks,
And let nought thrive upon the face of earth,
From which thou shalt withdraw thy powerful smiles.
What hast thou done, deserving such high grace?
What industry or meritorious toil
Canst thou produce to prove my gift well-placed?
Some service or some profit I expect:
None is promoted but for some respect.

SOL. My lord, what need these terms betwixt us two?
Upbraiding ill-beseems your bounteous mind:
I do you honour for advancing me.
Why, 'tis a credit for your excellence
To have so great a subject as I am:
This is your glory and magnificence,
That, without stooping of your mightiness,
Or taking any whit from your high state,
You can make one as mighty as yourself.

AUT. O arrogance exceeding all belief!
Summer, my lord, this saucy upstart Jack,
That now doth rule the chariot of the sun,
And makes all stars derive their light from him,
Is a most base, insinuating slave,
The sum[44] of parsimony and disdain;
One that will shine on friends and foes alike,
That under brightest smiles hideth black show'rs
Whose envious breath doth dry up springs and lake
And burns the grass, that beasts can get no food.

WIN. No dunghill hath so vile an excrement,
But with his beams he will thenceforth exhale.
The fens and quagmires tithe to him their filth:
Forth purest mines he sucks a gainful dross.
Green ivy-bushes at the vintner's doors
He withers, and devoureth all their sap.

AUT. Lascivious and intemperate he is:
The wrong of Daphne is a well-known tale.
Each evening he descends to Thetis' lap,
The while men think he bathes him in the sea.
O, but when he returneth whence he came
Down to the west, then dawns his deity,
Then doubled is the swelling of his looks.
He overloads his car with orient gems,
And reins his fiery horses with rich pearl.
He terms himself the god of poetry,
And setteth wanton songs unto the lute.

WIN. Let him not talk, for he hath words at will,
And wit to make the baldest[45] matter good.

SUM. Bad words, bad wit! O, where dwells faith or truth?
Ill usury my favours reap from thee,
Usurping Sol, the hate of heaven and earth.

SOL. If envy unconfuted may accuse,
Then innocence must uncondemned die.
The name of martyrdom offence hath gain'd
When fury stopp'd a froward judge's ears.
Much I'll not say (much speech much folly shows):
What I have done you gave me leave to do.
The excrements you bred whereon I feed;
To rid the earth of their contagious fumes,
With such gross carriage did I load my beam
I burnt no grass, I dried no springs and lakes;
I suck'd no mines, I wither'd no green boughs,
But when to ripen harvest I was forc'd
To make my rays more fervent than I wont.
For Daphne's wrongs and 'scapes in Thetis' lap,
All gods are subject to the like mishap.
Stars daily fall ('tis use is all in all),
And men account the fall but nature's course.
Vaunting my jewels hasting to the west,
Or rising early from the grey-ey'd morn,
What do I vaunt but your large bountyhood,
And show how liberal a lord I serve?
Music and poetry, my two last crimes,
Are those two exercises of delight,
Wherewith long labours I do weary out.
The dying swan is not forbid to sing:
The waves of Hebrus[46] play'd on Orpheus' strings,
When he (sweet music's trophy) was destroy'd.
And as for poetry, words'[47] eloquence
(Dead Phaeton's three sisters' funeral tears
That by the gods were to Electrum turn'd),
Not flint or rock, of icy cinders flam'd,
Deny the force[48] of silver-falling streams.
Envy enjoyeth poetry's unrest;[49]
In vain I plead; well is to me a fault,
And these my words seem the sleight[50] web of art,
And not to have the taste of sounder truth.
Let none but fools be car'd for of the wise:
Knowledge' own children knowledge most despise.

SUM. Thou know'st too much to know to keep the mean:
He that sees all things oft sees not himself.
The Thames is witness of thy tyranny,
Whose waves thou dost exhaust for winter show'rs.
The naked channel 'plains her of thy spite,
That laid'st her entrails unto open sight.[51]
Unprofitably borne to man and beast,
Which like to Nilus yet doth hide his head,
Some few years since[52] thou lett'st o'erflow these walks,
And in the horse-race headlong ran at race,
While in a cloud thou hidd'st thy burning face.
Where was thy care to rid contagious filth,
When some men wet-shod (with his waters) droop'd?[53]
Others that ate the eels his heat cast up
Sicken'd and died by them impoisoned.
Sleptest, or kept'st thou then Admetus' sheep,
Thou drov'st not back these flowings of the deep?

SOL. The winds, not I, have floods and tides in chase.
Diana, whom our fables call the moon,
Only commandeth o'er the raging main:
She leads his wallowing offspring up and down,
She waning, all streams ebb: in the year
She was eclips'd, when that the Thames was bare.

SUM. A bare conjecture, builded on per-haps.[54]
In laying thus the blame upon the moon,
Thou imitat'st subtle Pythagoras
Who, what he would the people should believe,
The same he wrote with blood upon a glass,
And turn'd it opposite 'gainst the new moon,
Whose beams, reflecting on it with full force,
Show'd all those lines to them that stood behind,
Most plainly writ in circle of the moon:
And then he said: not I, but the new moon,
Fair Cynthia, persuades you this and that.
With like collusion shalt thou now blind me;
But for abusing both the moon and me
Long shalt thou be eclipsed by the moon,
And long in darkness live and see no light--
Away with him, his doom hath no reverse!

SOL. What is eclips'd will one day shine again:
Though winter frowns, the spring will ease my pain.
Time from the brow doth wipe out every stain.
                                       [_Exit_ SOL.

WILL SUM. I think the sun is not so long in passing through the twelve
signs, as the son of a fool hath been disputing here about _had I
wist_.[55] Out of doubt, the poet is bribed of some that have a mess of
cream to eat, before my lord go to bed yet, to hold him half the night
with raff-raff of the rumming of Elinor.[56] If I can tell what it
means, pray God I may never get breakfast more, when I am hungry. Troth,
I am of opinion he is one of those hieroglyphical writers, that by the
figures of beasts, plants, and of stones, express the mind, as we do in
A B C; or one that writes under hair, as I have heard of a certain
notary, Histiaesus,[57] who, following Darius in the Persian wars, and
desirous to disclose some secrets of import to his friend Aristagoras,
that dwelt afar off, found out this means. He had a servant, that had
been long sick of a pain in his eyes, whom, under pretence of curing his
malady, he shaved from one side of his head to the other, and with a
soft pencil wrote upon his scalp (as on parchment) the discourse of his
business, the fellow all the while imagining his master had done nothing
but 'noint his head with a feather. After this he kept him secretly in
his tent, till his hair was somewhat grown, and then willed him to go to
Aristagoras into the country, and bid him shave him as he had done, and
he should have perfect remedy. He did so, Aristagoras shaved him with
his own hands, read his friend's letter, and when he had done, washed it
out, that no man should perceive it else, and sent him home to buy him a
nightcap. If I wist there were any such knavery, or Peter Bales's
brachygraphy,[58] under Sol's bushy hair, I would have a barber, my host
of the Murrion's Head, to be his interpreter, who would whet his razor
on his Richmond cap, and give him the terrible cut like himself, but he
would come as near as a quart pot to the construction of it. To be
sententious, not superfluous, Sol should have been beholding to the
barber, and not to the beard-master.[59] Is it pride that is shadowed
under this two-legg'd sun, that never came nearer heaven than Dubber's
hill? That pride is not my sin, Sloven's Hall, where I was born, be my
record. As for covetousness, intemperance, and exaction, I meet with
nothing in a whole year but a cup of wine for such vices to be
conversant in. _Pergite porro_, my good children,[60] and multiply the
sins of your absurdities, till you come to the full measure of the grand
hiss, and you shall hear how we shall purge rheum with censuring your
imperfections.

SUM. Vertumnus, call Orion.

VER. Orion, Urion, Arion; My lord thou must look upon. Orion, gentleman
dog-keeper, huntsman, come into the court: look you bring all hounds and
no bandogs. Peace there, that we may hear their horns blow.

    _Enter_ ORION _like a hunter, with a horn about his neck, all
    his men after the same sort hallooing and blowing their horns_.

ORION. Sirrah, was't thou that call'd us from our game?
How durst thou (being but a petty god)
Disturb me in the entrance of my sports?

SUM. 'Twas I, Orion, caus'd thee to be call'd.

ORION. 'Tis I, dread lord, that humbly will obey.

SUM. How happ'st thou left'st the heavens to hunt below?
As I remember thou wert Hyrieus'[61] son,
Whom of a huntsman Jove chose for a star,
And thou art call'd the Dog-star, art thou not?

AUT. Please it, your honour, heaven's circumference
Is not enough for him to hunt and range,
But with those venom-breathed curs he leads,
He comes to chase health from our earthly bounds.
Each one of those foul-mouthed, mangy dogs
Governs a day (no dog but hath his day):[62]
And all the days by them so governed
The dog-days hight; infectious fosterers
Of meteors from carrion that arise,
And putrified bodies of dead men,
Are they engender'd to that ugly shape,
Being nought else but [ill-]preserv'd corruption.
'Tis these that, in the entrance of their reign,
The plague and dangerous agues have brought in.
They arre[63] and bark at night against the moon,
For fetching in fresh tides to cleanse the streets,
They vomit flames and blast the ripen'd fruits:
They are death's messengers unto all those
That sicken, while their malice beareth sway.

ORION. A tedious discourse built on no ground.
A silly fancy, Autumn, hast thou told,
Which no philosophy doth warrantise,
No old-received poetry confirms.
I will not grace thee by refuting thee;
Yet in a jest (since thou rail'st so 'gainst dogs)
I'll speak a word or two in their defence.
That creature's best that comes most near to men;
That dogs of all come nearest, thus I prove:
First, they excel us in all outward sense,
Which no one of experience will deny:
They hear, they smell, they see better than we.
To come to speech, they have it questionless,
Although we understand them not so well.
They bark as good old Saxon as may be,
And that in more variety than we.
For they have one voice when they are in chase:
Another when they wrangle for their meat:
Another when we beat them out of doors.
That they have reason, this I will allege;
They choose those things that are most fit for them,
And shun the contrary all that they may.[64]
They know what is for their own diet best,
And seek about for't very carefully.
At sight of any whip they run away,
As runs a thief from noise of hue and cry.
Nor live they on the sweat of others' brows,
But have their trades to get their living with--
Hunting and coneycatching, two fine arts.
Yea, there be of them, as there be of men,
Of every occupation more or less:
Some carriers, and they fetch; some watermen,
And they will dive and swim when you bid them;
Some butchers, and they worry sheep by night;
Some cooks, and they do nothing but turn spits.
Chrysippus holds dogs are logicians,
In that, by study and by canvassing,
They can distinguish 'twixt three several things:
As when he cometh where three broad ways meet,
And of those three hath stay'd at two of them,
By which he guesseth that the game went not,
Without more pause he runneth on the third;
Which, as Chrysippus saith, insinuates
As if he reason'd thus within himself:
Either he went this, that, or yonder way,
But neither that nor yonder, therefore this.
But whether they logicians be or no,
Cynics they are, for they will snarl and bite;
Right courtiers to flatter and to fawn;
Valiant to set upon the[ir] enemies;
Most faithful and most constant to their friends.
Nay, they are wise, as Homer witnesseth
Who, talking of Ulysses' coming home,
Saith all his household but Argus his dog
Had quite forgot him: ay, his deep insight[65]
Nor Pallas' art in altering his shape,
Nor his base weeds, nor absence twenty years,
Could go beyond or any way delude.
That dogs physicians are, thus I infer;
They are ne'er sick, but they know their disease,
And find out means to ease them of their grief;
Special good surgeons to cure dangerous wounds:
For, stricken with a stake into the flesh,
This policy they use to get it out:
They trail one of their feet upon the ground,
And gnaw the flesh about where the wound is
Till it be clean drawn out: and then, because
Ulcers and sores kept foul are hardly cur'd,
They lick and purify it with their tongue,
And well observe Hippocrates' old rule,
The only medicine for the foot is rest:
For if they have the least hurt in their feet,
They bear them up and look they be not stirr'd.
When humours rise, they eat a sovereign herb,
Whereby what cloys their stomachs they cast up;
And as some writers of experience tell,
They were the first invented vomiting.
Sham'st thou not, Autumn, unadvisedly
To slander such rare creatures as they be?

SUM. We call'd thee not, Orion, to this end,
To tell a story of dogs' qualities.
With all thy hunting how are we enrich'd?
What tribute pay'st thou us for thy high place?

ORION. What tribute should I pay you out of nought?
Hunters do hunt for pleasure, not for gain.
While dog-days last, the harvest safely thrives;
The sun burns hot to finish up fruits' growth;
There is no blood-letting to make men weak.
Physicians in their Cataposia
Or little Elinctoria,
Masticatorum, and Cataplasmata:
Their gargarisms, clysters, and pitch'd-cloths,
Their perfumes, syrups, and their triacles,
Refrain to poison the sick patients,
And dare not minister, till I be out.
Then none will bathe, and so are fewer drown'd.
All lust is perilsome, therefore less us'd!
In brief, the year without me cannot stand.
Summer, I am thy staff and thy right hand.

SUM. A broken staff, a lame right hand I had,
If thou wert all the stay that held me up,
_Nihil violentum perpetuum_.
No violence that liveth to old age.
Ill-govern'd star, that never bod'st good luck,
I banish thee a twelvemonth and a day
Forth of my presence; come not in my sight,
Nor show thy head so much as in the night.

ORION. I am content: though hunting be not out,
We will go hunt in hell for better hap.
One parting blow, my hearts, unto our friends,
To bid the fields and huntsmen all farewell.
Toss up your bugle-horns unto the stars:
Toil findeth ease, peace follows after wars.
                                        [_Exit_.

    [_Here they go out, blowing their horns, and
    hallooing as they came in_.

WILL SUM. Faith, this scene of Orion is right _prandium caninum_, a
dog's dinner which, as it is without wine, so here's a coil about dogs
without wit. If I had thought the ship of fools[66] would have stay'd to
take in fresh water at the Isle of Dogs, I would have furnish'd it with
a whole kennel of collections to the purpose. I have had a dog myself,
that would dream and talk in his sleep, turn round like Ned fool, and
sleep all night in a porridge-pot. Mark but the skirmish between
Sixpence and the fox, and it is miraculous how they overcome one another
in honourable courtesy. The fox, though he wears a chain, runs as though
he were free; mocking us (as it is a crafty beast), because we, having a
lord and master to attend on, run about at our pleasures, like
masterless men. Young Sixpence, the best page his master hath, plays a
little, and retires. I warrant he will not be far out of the way when
his master goes to dinner. Learn of him, you diminutive urchins, how to
behave yourselves in your vocation: take not up your standings in a
nut-tree, when you should be waiting on my lord's trencher. Shoot but a
bit at butts; play but a span at points. Whatever you do, _memento
mori_--remember to rise betimes in the morning.

SUM. Vertumnus, call Harvest.

VER. Harvest, by west and by north, by south and by east,
Show thyself like a beast.
Goodman Harvest, yeoman, come in and say what you can. Boom for the
scythe and the sickle there.

    _Enter_ HARVEST, _with a scythe on his neck, and all
    his reapers with sickles, and a great black bowl with
    a posset in it, borne before him; they come in singing.

        The Song.

        Merry, merry, merry: cheery, cheery, cheery,
          Trowl the blade bowl[67] to me;
        Hey derry, derry, with a poup and a lerry,
          I'll trowl it again to thee:

        Hooky, hooky, we have shorn,
          And we have bound,
        And we have brought Harvest
          Home to town_.

SUM. Harvest, the bailiff of my husbandry,
What plenty hast thou heap'd into our barns?
I hope thou hast sped well, thou art so blithe.

HAR. Sped well or ill, sir, I drink to you on the same.
Is your throat clear to help us sing, _Hooky, hooky?

        [Here they all sing after him.

        Hooky, hooky, we have shorn,
          And we have bound;
        And we have brought Harvest
          Home to town_.

AUT. Thou Corydon, why answer'st not direct?

HAR. Answer? why, friend, I am no tapster, to say, Anon, anon, sir:[68]
but leave you to molest me, goodman tawny-leaves, for fear (as the
proverb says, leave is light) so I mow off all your leaves with my
scythe.

WIN. Mock not and mow[69] not too long; you were best not,[70]
For fear we whet your scythe upon your pate.

SUM. Since thou art so perverse in answering,
Harvest, hear what complaints are brought to me.
Thou art accused by the public voice
For an engrosser of the common store;
A carl that hast no conscience nor remorse,
But dost impoverish the fruitful earth,
To make thy garners rise up to the heavens.
To whom giv'st thou? who feedeth at thy board?
No alms, but [an] unreasonable gain
Digests what thy huge iron teeth devour:
Small beer, coarse bread, the hind's and beggar's cry,
Whilst thou withholdest both the malt and flour,
And giv'st us bran and water (fit for dogs).

HAR. Hooky, hooky! if you were not my lord, I would say you lie. First
and foremost, you say I am a grocer. A grocer is a citizen: I am no
citizen, therefore no grocer. A hoarder up of grain: that's false; for
not so much for my elbows eat wheat every time I lean upon them.[71] A
carl: that is as much as to say, a coneycatcher of good fellowship. For
that one word you shall pledge me a carouse: eat a spoonful of the curd
to allay your choler. My mates and fellows, sing no more _Merry, merry_,
but weep out a lamentable _Hooky, hooky_, and let your sickles cry--

    _Sick, sick, and very sick,
      And side, and for the time;
    For Harvest your master is
      Abusd without reason or rhyme_.

I have no conscience, I? I'll come nearer to you, and yet I am no scab,
nor no louse. Can you make proof wherever I sold away my conscience, or
pawned it? Do you know who would buy it, or lend any money upon it? I
think I have given you the pose. Blow your nose, Master Constable. But
to say that I impoverish the earth, that I rob the man in the moon, that
I take a purse on the top of St Paul's steeple; by this straw and thread,
I swear you are no gentleman, no proper man, no honest man, to make me
sing, _O man in desperation_.[72]

SUM. I must give credit unto what I hear!
For other than I hear detract[73] I nought.

HAR. Ay, ay; nought seek, nought have: An ill-husband is the first step
to a knave. You object, I feed none at my board: I am sure, if you were
a hog, you would never say so: for, sir reverence of their worships,
they feed at my stable-table every day. I keep good hospitality for hens
and geese: gleaners are oppressed with heavy burthens of my bounty:
They take me and eat me to the very bones,
Till there be nothing left but gravel and stones;
And yet I give no alms, but devour all! They say, what a man cannot hear
well, you hear with your harvest-ears; but if you heard with your
harvest-ears, that is, with the ears of corn which my alms-cart scatters,
they would tell you that I am the very poor man's box of pity; that there
are more holes of liberality open in Harvest's heart than in a sieve or
a dust-box. Suppose you were a craftsman or an artificer, and should come
to buy corn of me, you should have bushels of me; not like the baker's
loaf, that should weigh but six ounces, but usury for your money,
thousands for one. What would you have more? Eat me out of my apparel,[74]
if you will, if you suspect me for a miser.

SUM. I credit thee, and think thou wert belied.
But tell me, hast thou a good crop this year?

HAR. Hay, good[75] plenty, which was so sweet
and so good, that when I jerted my whip, and said
to my horses but _hay_, they would go as they were
mad.

SUM. But _hay_ alone thou sayst not, but _hay-ree_[76].

HAR. I sing hay-ree, that is, hay and rye; meaning that they shall have
hay and rye, their bellyfuls, if they will draw hard. So we say, _Wa
hay_, when they go out of the way; meaning that they shall want hay if
they will not do as they should do.

SUM. How thrive thy oats, thy barley, and thy wheat?

HAR. My oats grow like a cup of beer that makes the brewer rich; my rye
like a cavalier, that wears a huge feather in his cap, but hath no
courage in his heart; hath[77] a long stalk, a goodly husk, but nothing
so great a kernel as it was wont. My barley, even as many a novice, is
cross-bitten,[78] as soon as ever he peeps out of the shell, so was it
frost-bitten in the blad, yet pick'd up his crumbs again afterward, and
bad "Fill pot, hostess," in spite of a dear year. As for my peas and my
vetches, they are famous, and not to be spoken of.

AUT. Ay, ay, such country-button'd caps as you
Do want no fetches[79] to undo great towns.

HAR. Will you make good your words that we want no fetches?

WIN. Ay, that he shall.

HAR. Then fetch us a cloak-bag, to carry away yourself in.

SUM. Plough-swains are blunt, and will taunt bitterly.
Harvest, when all is done, thou art the man:
Thou dost me the best service of them all.
Rest from thy labours, till the year renews,
And let the husbandmen [all] sing thy praise.

HAR. Rest from my labours, and let the husbandmen sing my praise? Nay,
we do not mean to rest so: by your leave, we'll have a largess amongst
you, ere we part.

ALL. A largess, a largess, a largess!

WILL SUM. Is there no man will give them a hiss for a largess?

HAR. No, that there is not, goodman Lungis.[80] I see charity waxeth
cold, and I think this house be her habitation, for it is not very hot:
we were as good even put up our pipes and sing _Merry, merry_, for we
shall get no money.

            [_Here they all go out singing.

        Merry, merry, merry: cheery, cheery, cheery!
          Trowl the black bowl to me.
        Hey derry, derry, with a poup and a lerry;
          I'll trowl it again to thee.

        Hooky, hooky, we have shorn
          And we have bound,
        And we have brought Harvest
          Home to town_.

WILL SUM. Well, go thy ways, thou bundle of straw: I'll give thee this
gift; thou shalt be a clown while thou liv'st. As lusty as they are,
they run on the score with George's wife for their posset; and God knows
who shall pay goodman Yeoman for his wheat sheaf. They may sing well
enough--

        _"Trowl the black bowl to me,
        Trowl the black bowl to me_;"

for a hundred to one but they will all be drunk, ere they go to bed. Yet
of a slavering fool, that hath no conceit in anything but in carrying a
wand in his hand with commendation, when he runneth by the highway-side,
this stripling Harvest hath done reasonable well. O, that somebody had
the sense to set his thatched suit on fire, and so lighted him out: if I
had but a jet[81] ring on my finger, I might have done with him what I
list. I had spoiled him, had I[82] took his apparel prisoner; for, it
being made of straw, and the nature of jet to draw straw unto it, I
would have nailed him to the pommel of my chair, till the play were
done, and then have carried him to my chamber-door, and laid him at the
threshold, as a wisp or a piece of mat, to wipe my shoes on every time I
come up dirty.

SUM. Vertumnus, call Bacchus.

VER. Bacchus, Baccha, Bacchum: God Bacchus, God fat-back,
Baron of double beer and bottle ale,
Come in and show thy nose that is nothing pale:
Back, back, that[83] God barrel-belly may enter.

    _Enter_ BACCHUS _riding upon an ass trapped in ivy, himself
    dressed in vine leaves, and a garland of grapes on his head;
    his companions having all jacks in their hands, and ivy
    garlands on their heads; they come singing.

    The Song.

    Monsieur Mingo for quaffing doth surpass,
    In cup, in corn or glass.
    God Bacchus, do me right,
    And dub me knight
                    Domingo_.[84]

BAC. Wherefore didst thou call me, Vertumnus? hast any drink to give me?
One of you hold my ass, while I light: walk him up and down the hall,
till I talk a word or two.

SUM. What, Bacchus; still _animus in patina_:[85] no mind but on the pot?

BAC. Why, Summer, Summer, how wouldst do but for rain? What's a fair
house without water coming to it! Let me see how a smith can work, if he
have not his trough standing by him. What sets an edge on a knife? the
grindstone alone? No, the moist element poured upon it, which grinds out
all gaps, sets a point upon it, and scours it as bright as the
firmament. So I tell thee, give a soldier wine before he goes to battle;
it grinds out all gaps, it makes him forget all scars and wounds, and
fight in the thickest of his enemies, as though he were but at foils
among his fellows. Give a scholar wine going to his book, or being about
to invent; it sets a new point on his wit, it glazeth it, it scours it,
it gives him _acumen_. Plato saith, _Vinum esse fomitem quendam, et
incitabilem ingenii virtutisque_. Aristotle saith, _Nulla est magna
scientia absque mixtura dementia_! There is no excellent knowledge
without mixture of madness, and what makes a man more mad in the head
than wine? _Qui bene vult [Greek: Pioein] debet ante [Greek: pinein]_:
He that will do well must drink well. _Prome, prome, potum prome_! Ho,
butler, a fresh pot! _Nunc est libendum, nunc pede libero terra
pulsanda_:[86] a pox on him that leaves his drink behind him.
_Rendezvous_!

SUM. It is wine's custom to be full of words. I pray thee, Bacchus, give
us _vicissitudinem loquendi_.

BAC. A fiddlestick! ne'er tell me I am full of words. _Faecundi calices,
quem non fecere disertum; aut bibe[87] aut abi_; either take your
drink, or you are an infidel.

SUM. I would about thy vintage question thee. How thrive thy vines?
hadst thou good store of grapes?

BAC. _Vinum quasi venenum_; Wine is poison to a sick body. A sick body
is no sound body; _ergo_, wine is a pure thing, and is poison to all
corruption. Try-lill! the hunters whoop to you. I'll stand to it:
Alexander was a brave man, and yet an arrant drunkard.

WIN. Fie, drunken sot! forgett'st thou where thou art?
My lord asks thee what vintage thou hast made?

BAC. Our vintage was a vintage, for it did not work upon the advantage:
it came in the vauntguard of Summer.
And winds and storms met it by the way,
And made it cry, alas, and well-a-day!

SUM. That was not well; but all miscarried not?

BAC. Faith, shall I tell no lie? Because you are my countryman, and so
forth; and a good fellow is a good fellow, though he have never a penny
in his purse.[88] We had but even pot-luck--little to moisten our lips
and no more. That same Sol is a pagan and a proselyte: he shined so
bright all summer, that he burnt more grapes than his beams were worth,
were every beam as big as a weaver's beam. _A fabis abstinendum_; faith,
he should have abstained, for what is flesh and blood without his liquor?

AUT. Thou want'st no liquor, nor no flesh and blood.
I pray thee, may I ask without offence,
How many tuns of wine hast in thy paunch?
Methinks that [that is] built like a round church,
Should yet have some of Julius Caesar's wine:
I warrant 'twas not broached this hundred year.

BAC. Hear'st thou, dough-belly! because thou talk'st and talk'st, and
dar'st not drink to me a black jack, wilt thou give me leave to broach
this little kilderkin of my corpse against thy back? I know thou art but
a micher,[89] and dar'st not stand me. _A vous, Monsieur Winter_, a
frolic up-se-frieze:[90] cross, ho.' _super naculum_.[91]
                                      [_Knocks the jack upon his thumb_.

WIN. Gramercy, Bacchus, as much as though I did. For this time thou must
pardon me perforce.

BAC. What, give me the disgrace? go to, I say, I am no Pope to pardon
any man. Ran, ran, tara: cold beer makes good blood. St George for
England![92] Somewhat is better than nothing. Let me see, hast thou done
me justice? why so: thou art a king, though there were no more kings in
the cards but the knave. Summer, wilt thou have a demi-culverin, that
shall cry _Husty-tusty_, and make thy cup fly fine meal in the element?

SUM. No, keep thy drink, I pray thee, to thyself.

BAC. This Pupilonian in the fool's coat shall have a cast of martins and
a whiff. To the health of Captain Rinocerotry! Look to it; let him have
weight and measure.

WILL SUM. What an ass is this! I cannot drink so much, though I should
burst.

BAC. Fool, do not refuse your moist sustenance: come, come, dog's head
in the pot; do what you are born to.

WILL SUM. If you will needs make me a drunkard against my will, so it
is; I'll try what burden my belly is of.

BAC. Crouch, crouch on your knees, fool, when you pledge God Bacchus.

    [_Here_ WILL SUMMER _drinks, and they sing
    about him_, BACCHUS _begins_.

All. _Monsieur Mingo for quaffing did surpass
In cup, in can, or glass_.

BAC. Ho, well shot, a toucher, a toucher!
_For quaffing Toy doth pass,
In cup, in can, or glass_.[93]

All. _God Bacchus, do him right,
And dub him knight_.

BAC. Rise up, Sir Robert Toss-pot.
    [_Here he dubs_ WILL SUMMER _with the black jack_.

SUM. No more of this, I hate it to the death.
No such deformer of the soul and sense,
As is this swinish damn'd horn drunkenness.
Bacchus, for thou abusest so earth's fruits,
Imprison'd live in cellars and in vaults.
Let none commit their counsels unto thee;
Thy wrath be fatal to thy dearest friends;
Unarmed run upon thy foemen's swords;
Never fear any plague, before it fall:
Dropsies and watery tympanies haunt thee;
Thy lungs with surfeiting be putrified,
To cause thee have an odious stinking breath;
Slaver and drivel like a child at mouth;
Be poor and beggarly in thy old age;
Let thine own kinsmen laugh when thou complain'st,
And many tears gain nothing but blind scoffs.
This is the guerdon due to drunkenness:
Shame, sickness, misery follow excess.

BAC. Now on my honour, Sim Summer, thou art a bad member, a dunce, a
mongrel, to discredit so worshipful an art after this order. Thou hast
cursed me, and I will bless thee. Never cap of Nipitaty[94] in London
come near thy niggardly habitation! I beseech the gods of good
fellowship thou may'st fall into a consumption with drinking small beer!
Every day may'st thou eat fish, and let it stick in the midst of thy
maw, for want of a cup of wine to swim away in. Venison be _venenum_ to
thee: and may that vintner have the plague in his house that sells a
drop of claret to kill the poison of it! As many wounds may'st thou have
as Caesar had in the senate-house, and get no white wine to wash them
with; and to conclude, pine away in melancholy and sorrow, before thou
hast the fourth part of a dram of my juice to cheer up thy spirits.

SUM. Hale him away, he barketh like a wolf:
It is his drink, not he, that rails on us.

BAC. Nay soft, brother Summer, back with that fool. Here is a snuff in
the bottom of the jack, enough[95] to light a man to bed withal: we'll
leave no flocks behind us, whatsoever we do.

SUM. Go drag him hence, I say, when I command.

BAC. Since we must needs go, let's go merrily. Farewell, Sir Robert
Toss-pot: sing amain _Monsieur Mingo_, whilst I mount up my ass.

    [_Here they go out, singing, "Monsieur Mingo," as they came in_.

WILL SUM. Of all the gods, this Bacchus is the ill-favoured'st
mis-shapen god that ever I saw. A pox on him! he hath christened me with
a new nickname of Sir Robert Toss-pot that will not part from me this
twelvemonth. Ned fool's clothes are so perfumed with the beer he poured
on me, that there shall not be a Dutchman within twenty miles, but he'll
smell out and claim kindred of him. What a beastly thing it is to bottle
up all in a man's belly, when a man must set his guts on a gallon-pot
last, only to purchase the alehouse title of _boon companion_. "Carouse;
pledge me, and you dare! 'Swounds, I'll drink with thee for all that
ever thou art worth!" It is even as two men should strive who should run
farthest into the sea for a wager. Methinks these are good household
terms, "Will it please you to be here, sir? I commend me to you! Shall I
be so bold as trouble you? Saving your tale, I drink to you." And if
these were put in practice but a year or two in taverns, wine would soon
fall from six-and-twenty pound a tun, and be beggar's money--a penny a
quart, and take up his inn with waste beer in the alms-tub. I am a
sinner as others: I must not say much of this argument. Every one, when
he is whole, can give advice to them that are sick. My masters, you that
be good fellows, get you into corners, and sup off your provender
closely:[96] report hath a blister on her tongue! open taverns are
tell-tales. _Non peccat quicunque potest peccasse negare_.

SUM. I'll call my servants to account, said I?
A bad account; worse servants no man hath.
_Quos credis fidos effuge, tutis eris_:
The proverb I have prov'd to be too true,
_Totidem domi hostes habemus quot servos_.
And that wise caution of Democritus,
_Servus necessaria possessio, non autem dulcis_:
Nowhere fidelity and labour dwells.
How[97] young heads count to build on had I wist.
Conscience but few respect, all hunt for gain:
Except the camel have his provender
Hung at his mouth, he will not travel on.
Tyresias to Narcissus promised
Much prosperous hap and many golden days,
If of his beauty he no knowledge took.
Knowledge breeds pride, pride breedeth discontent:
Black discontent, thou urgest to revenge:
Revenge opes not her ears to poor men's prayers.
That dolt destruction is she without doubt,
That hales her forth and feedeth her with nought.
Simplicity and plainness, you I love!
Hence, double diligence, thou mean'st deceit:
Those that now serpent-like creep on the ground,
And seem to eat the dust, they crouch so low--
If they be disappointed of their prey,
Most traitorously will trace their nails and sting.
Yea, such as, like[98] the lapwing, build their nests
In a man's dung, come up by drudgery,
Will be the first that, like that foolish bird,
Will follow him with yelling and false cries.
Well[99] sung a shepherd, that now sleeps in skies,[100]
"Dumb swans do love, and not vain chattering pies."
In mountains, poets say, Echo is hid,
For her deformity and monstrous shape:
Those mountains are the houses of great lords,
Where Stentor, with his hundred voices, sounds
A hundred trumps at once with rumour fill'd.
A woman they imagine her to be,
Because that sex keep nothing close they hear;
And that's the reason magic writers frame[101]
There are more witches women, than of men;
For women generally, for the most part,
Of secrets more desirous are than men[102],
Which having got, they have no power to hold.
In these times had Echo's first fathers liv'd,
No woman, but a man, she had been feign'd
(Though women yet will want no news to prate);
For men (mean men), the scum and dross of all,
Will talk and babble of they know not what,
Upbraid, deprave, and taunt they care not whom.
Surmises pass for sound approved truths;
Familiarity and conference,
That were the sinews of societies,
Are now for underminings only us'd;
And novel wits, that love none but themselves,
Think wisdom's height as falsehood slyly couch'd,
Seeking each other to o'erthrow his mate.
O friendship! thy old temple is defac'd:
Embracing envy,[103] guileful courtesy,
Hath overgrown fraud-wanting honesty.
Examples live but in the idle schools:
Sinon bears all the sway in princes' courts.
Sickness, be thou my soul's physician;
Bring the apothecary Death with thee.
In earth is hell, hell true[104] felicity,
Compared with this world, the den of wolves!

AUT. My lord, you are too passionate without cause.

WIN. Grieve not for that which cannot be recall'd.
Is it your servant's carelessness you 'plain?
Tully by one of his own slaves was slain.
The husbandman close in his bosom nurs'd
A subtle snake, that after wrought his bane.

AUT. _Servos fideles liberalitas facit_;
Where on the contrary, _servitutem_--
Those that attend upon illiberal lords,
Whose covetise yields nought else but fair looks,
Even of those fair looks make their gainful use.
For, as in Ireland and in Denmark both,
Witches for gold will sell a man a wind[105]
Which, in the corner of a napkin wrapp'd,
Shall blow him safe unto what coast he will;
So make ill-servants sale of their lord's wind
Which, wrapp'd up in a piece of parchment,
Blows many a knave forth danger of the law.

SUM. Enough of this: let me go make my will.
Ah! it is made, although I hold my peace:
These two will share betwixt them what I have.
The surest way to get my will perform'd
Is to make my executor my heir;
And he, if all be given him, and none else,
Unfallibly will see it well-perform'd.
Lions will feed though none bid them go to.
Ill-grows the tree affordeth ne'er a graft:
Had I some issue to sit on my throne,
My grief would die, death should not hear me groan;
But when, perforce, these must enjoy my wealth,
Which thank me not, but enter't as a prey,
Bequeath'd it is not, but clean cast away.
Autumn, be thou successor to my seat:
Hold, take my crown:--look, how he grasps for it!
Thou shalt not have it yet--but hold it, too;
Why should I keep what needs I must forego?

WIN. Then, duty laid aside, you do me wrong.
I am more worthy of it far than he:
He hath no skill nor courage for to rule.
A weatherbeaten, bankrupt ass it is
That scatters and consumeth all he hath:
Each one do pluck from him without control.
He is not hot nor cold; a silly soul,
That fain would please each part[106], if so he might.
He and the Spring are scholars' favourites:
What scholars are, what thriftless kind of men,
Yourself be judge; and judge of him by them.
When Cerberus was headlong drawn from hell,
He voided a black poison from his mouth,
Call'd _Aconitum_, whereof ink was made:
That ink, with reeds first laid on dried barks,
Serv'd me awhile to make rude works withal,
Till Hermes, secretary to the gods,
Or Hermes Trismegistus, as some will,
Weary with graving in blind characters
And figures of familiar beasts and plants,
Invented letters to write lies withal.
In them he penn'd the fables of the gods,
The giants' war, and thousand tales besides.
After each nation got these toys in use[107]
There grew up certain drunken parasites,
Term'd poets, which, for a meal's meat or two.
Would promise monarchs immortality.
They vomited in verse all that they knew;
Feign'd causes and beginnings of the world;
Fetch'd pedigrees of mountains and of floods
From men and women whom the gods transform'd.
If any town or city they pass'd by
Had in compassion (thinking them madmen)
Forborne to whip them, or imprison them,
That city was not built by human hands;
'Twas rais'd by music, like Megara walls:
Apollo, poets' patron, founded it,
Because they found one fitting favour there.
Musaeus, Linus, Homer, Orpheus,
Were of this trade, and thereby won their fame.

WILL SUM. _Fama malum, quo non [aliud] velocius ullum_[108].

WIN. Next them a company of ragged knaves,
Sun-bathing beggars, lazy hedge-creepers,
Sleeping face upwards in the fields all night,
Dream'd strange devices of the sun and moon;
And they, like gipsies, wandering up and down,
Told fortunes, juggled, nicknam'd all the stars,
And were of idiots term'd philosophers.
Such was Pythagoras the silencer;
Prometheus, Thales, Milesius,
Who would all things of water should be made:
Anaximander, Anaxamines,
That positively said the air was God:
Zenocrates, that said there were eight gods;
And Cratoniates and Alcmaeon too,
Who thought the sun and moon and stars were gods.
The poorer sort of them, that could get nought,
Profess'd, like beggarly Franciscan friars,
And the strict order of the Capuchins,
A voluntary, wretched poverty,
Contempt of gold, thin fare, and lying hard.
Yet he that was most vehement in these,
Diogenes, the cynic and the dog,
Was taken coining money in his cell.

WILL SUM. What an old ass was that. Methinks he should have coined
carrot-roots rather; for, as for money, he had no use for['t], except
it were to melt, and solder up holes in his tub withal.

WIN. It were a whole Olympiad's work to tell
How many devilish, _ergo_, armed arts,
Sprung all as vices of this idleness:
For even as soldiers not employ'd in wars,
But living loosely in a quiet state--
Not having wherewithal to maintain pride,
Nay, scarce to find their bellies any food--
Nought but walk melancholy, and devise,
How they may cozen merchants, fleece young heirs,
Creep into favour by betraying men,
Rob churches, beg waste toys, court city dames,
Who shall undo their husbands for their sakes;
The baser rabble how to cheat and steal,
And yet be free from penalty of death:[109]
So these word-warriors, lazy star-gazers,
Us'd to no labour but to louse themselves,
Had their heads fill'd with cozening fantasies.
They plotted how to make their poverty
Better esteem'd of than high sovereignty.
They thought how they might plant a heaven on earth,
Whereof they would be principal low-gods;[110]
That heaven they called Contemplation:
As much to say as a most pleasant sloth,
Which better I cannot compare than this,
That if a fellow, licensed to beg,
Should all his lifetime go from fair to fair
And buy gape-seed, having no business else.
That contemplation, like an aged weed,
Engender'd thousand sects, and all those sects
Were but as these times, cunning shrouded rogues.
Grammarians some, and wherein differ they
From beggars that profess the pedlar's French?[111]
The poets next, slovenly, tatter'd slaves,
That wander and sell ballads in the streets.
Historiographers others there be,
And they, like lazars, lie[112] by the highway-side,
That for a penny or a halfpenny
Will call each knave a good-fac'd gentleman,
Give honour unto tinkers for good ale,
Prefer a cobbler 'fore the black prince far,
If he bestow but blacking on their shoes:
And as it is the spittle-houses' guise
Over their gate to write their founders' names,
Or on the outside of their walls at least,
In hope by their example others mov'd
Will be more bountiful and liberal;
So in the forefront of their chronicles,
Or _peroratione operis_,
They learning's benefactors reckon up,
Who built this college, who gave that free school,
What king or queen advanced scholars most,
And in their times what writers flourished.
Rich men and magistrates, whilst yet they live,
They flatter palpably, in hope of gain.
Smooth-tongued orators, the fourth in place--
Lawyers our commonwealth entitles them--
Mere swash-bucklers and ruffianly mates,
That will for twelvepence make a doughty fray,
Set men for straws together by the ears.
Sky-measuring mathematicians,
Gold-breathing alchemists also we have,
Both which are subtle-witted humourists,
That get their meals by telling miracles,
Which they have seen in travelling the skies.
Vain boasters, liars, makeshifts, they are all;
Men that, removed from their ink-horn terms,[113]
Bring forth no action worthy of their bread.
What should I speak of pale physicians,
Who as _Fismenus non nasatus_ was
(Upon a wager that his friends had laid)
Hir'd to live in a privy a whole year,
So are they hir'd for lucre and for gain,
All their whole life to smell on excrements.

WILL SUM. Very true, for I have heard it for a proverb many a time and
oft, _Hinc os faetidum_; Fah! he stinks like a physician.

WIN. Innumerable monstrous practices
Hath loitering contemplation brought forth more,
Which were too long particular to recite:
Suffice they all conduce unto this end,
To banish labour, nourish slothfulness,
Pamper up lust, devise new-fangled sins.
Nay, I will justify, there is no vice
Which learning and vile knowledge brought not in,
Or in whose praise some learned have not wrote.
The art of murder Machiavel hath penn'd;[114]
Whoredom hath Ovid to uphold her throne,
And Aretine of late in Italy,
Whose Cortigiana teacheth[115] bawds their trade.
Gluttony Epicurus doth defend,
And books of the art of cookery confirm,
Of which Platina hath not writ the least.
Drunkenness of his good behaviour
Hath testimonial from where he was born;
That pleasant work De Arte Bibendi,
A drunken Dutchman spew'd out few years since.[116]
Nor wanteth sloth, although sloth's plague be want,
His paper pillars for to lean upon.[117]
The praise of nothing pleads his worthiness.[118]
Folly Erasmus sets a flourish on:
For baldness a bald ass I have forgot
Patch'd up a pamphletary periwig.[119]
Slovenry Grobianus magnifieth:[120]
Sodomitry a cardinal commends,
And Aristotle necessary deems.
In brief, all books, divinity except,
Are nought but tales of the devil's laws,
Poison wrapt up in sugar'd words,
Man's pride, damnation's props, the world's abuse.
Then censure, good my lord, what bookmen are:
If they be pestilent members in a state,
He is unfit to sit at stern of state,
That favours such as will o'erthrow his state.
Blest is that government, where no art thrives;
_Vox pupuli, vox Dei_,
The vulgar's voice it is the voice of God.
Yet Tully saith, _Non est concilium in vulgo,
Non ratio, non discrimen, non differentia_,
The vulgar have no learning, wit, nor sense.
Themistocles, having spent all his time
In study of philosophy and arts,
And noting well the vanity of them,
Wish'd, with repentance for his folly pass'd,
Some would teach him th'art of oblivion,
How to forget the arts that he had learn'd.
And Cicero, whom we alleged before,
(As saith Valerius), stepping into old age,
Despised learning, loathed eloquence.
Naso, that could speak nothing but pure verse,
And had more wit than words to utter it,
And words as choice as ever poet had,
Cried and exclaim'd in bitter agony,
When knowledge had corrupted his chaste mind:
_Discite, qui sapitis, non haec quae scimus inertes,
Sed trepidas acies et fera bella sequi_.[121]
You that be wise, and ever mean to thrive,
O, study not these toys we sluggards use,
But follow arms, and wait on barbarous wars.
Young men, young boys, beware of schoolmasters;
They will infect you, mar you, blear your eyes:
They seek to lay the curse of God on you,
Namely, confusion of languages,
Wherewith those that the Tower of Babel built
Accursed were in the world's infancy.
Latin, it was the speech of infidels;
Logic hath nought to say in a true cause;
Philosophy is curiosity;
And Socrates was therefore put to death,
Only for he was a philosopher.
Abhor, contemn, despise these damned snares.

WILL SUM. Out upon it! who would be a scholar? not I, I promise you: my
mind always gave me this learning was such a filthy thing, which made me
hate it so as I did. When I should have been at school construing,
_Batte, mi fili, mi fili, mi Batte_, I was close under a hedge, or under
a barn-wall, playing at span-counter or jack-in-a-box. My master beat
me, my father beat me, my mother gave me bread and butter, yet all this
would not make me a squitter-book.[122] It was my destiny; I thank her
as a most courteous goddess, that she hath not cast me away upon
gibridge. O, in what a mighty vein am I now against horn-books! Here,
before all this company, I profess myself an open enemy to ink and
paper. I'll make it good upon the accidence, body [of me,] that in
speech is the devil's paternoster. Nouns and pronouns, I pronounce you
as traitors to boys' buttocks; syntaxis and prosodia, you are tormentors
of wit, and good for nothing, but to get a schoolmaster twopence a-week.
Hang, copies! Fly out, phrase-books! let pens be turn'd to pick-tooths!
Bowls, cards, and dice, you are the true liberal sciences! I'll ne'er be
a goosequill, gentlemen, while I live.

SUM. Winter, with patience unto my grief
I have attended thy invective tale.
So much untruth wit never shadowed:
'Gainst her own bowels thou art's weapons turn'st.
Let none believe thee that will ever thrive.
Words have their course, the wind blows where it lists,
He errs alone in error that persists.
For thou 'gainst Autumn such exceptions tak'st,
I grant his overseer thou shalt be,
His treasurer, protector, and his staff;
He shall do nothing without thy consent:
Provide thou for his weal and his content.

WIN. Thanks, gracious lord; so I'll dispose of him,
As it shall not repent you of your gift.

AUT. On such conditions no crown will I take.
I challenge Winter for my enemy;
A most insatiate, miserable carl,
That to fill up his garners to the brim
Cares not how he endamageth the earth,
What poverty he makes it to endure!
He overbars the crystal streams with ice,
That none but he and his may drink of them:
All for a foul Backwinter he lays up.
Hard craggy ways, and uncouth slippery paths
He frames, that passengers may slide and fall.
Who quaketh not, that heareth but his name?
O, but two sons he hath worse than himself:
Christmas the one, a pinchback, cutthroat churl,
That keeps no open house, as he should do,
Delighteth in no game or fellowship,
Loves no good deeds, and hateth talk;
But sitteth in a corner turning crabs,
Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale.
Backwinter th'other, that's his nown[123] sweet boy,
Who like his father taketh in all points.
An elf it is, compact of envious pride,
A miscreant born for a plague to men;
A monster that devoureth all he meets.
Were but his father dead, so he would reign,
Yea, he would go good-near to deal by him
As Nebuchadnezzar's ungracious son,
Foul Merodach[124], by his father dealt:
Who when his sire was turned to an ox
Full greedily snatch'd up his sovereignty,
And thought himself a king without control.
So it fell out, seven years expir'd and gone,
Nebuchadnezzar came to his shape again,
And dispossess'd him of the regiment;[125]
Which my young prince, no little grieving at,
When that his father shortly after died,
Fearing lest he should come from death again,
As he came from an ox to be a man,
Will'd that his body, 'spoiled of coverture,
Should be cast forth into the open fields,
For birds and ravens to devour at will;
Thinking, if they bare, every one of them,
A bill-ful of his flesh into their nests,
He could not rise to trouble him in haste.

WILL SUM. A virtuous son! and I'll lay my life on't he was a cavalier
and a good fellow.[126]

WIN. Pleaseth your honour, all he says is false.
For my own part, I love good husbandry,
But hate dishonourable covetise.
Youth ne'er aspires to virtue's perfect growth,
Till the wild oats be sown; and so the earth,
Until his weeds be rotted by my frosts
Is not for any seed or tillage fit.
He must be purged that hath surfeited:
The fields have surfeited with summer fruits;
They must be purg'd, made poor, oppress'd with snow,
Ere they recover their decayed pride.
For overbarring of the streams with ice,
Who locks not poison from his children's taste?
When Winter reigns, the water is so cold,
That it is poison, present death, to those
That wash or bathe their limbs in his cold streams.
The slipp'rier that ways are under us,
The better it makes us to heed our steps,
And look, ere we presume too rashly on.
If that my sons have misbehav'd themselves,
A God's name, let them answer't 'fore my lord.

AUT. Now, I beseech your honour it may be so.

SUM. With all my heart. Vertumnus, go for them.

WILL SUM. This same Harry Baker[127] is such a necessary fellow to go on
errands as you shall not find in a country. It is pity but he should
have another silver arrow, if it be but for crossing the stage with his
cap on.

SUM. To weary out the time, until they come,
Sing me some doleful ditty to the lute,
That may complain my near-approaching death.

_The Song.

Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;
This world uncertain is.
Fond are life's lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from his darts can fly:
I am sick, I must die.
         Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth;
Gold cannot buy you health.
Physic himself must fade:
All things to end are made.
The plague full swift goes by.
I am sick, I must die.
         Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower,
Which wrinkles will devour:
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair.
Dust hath clos'd Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
         Lord, have mercy on us!

Strength stoops into the grave:
Worms feed on Hector brave.
Swords may not fight with fate:
Earth still holds ope her gate.
Come, come, the hells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
         Lord, have mercy on us!

Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death's bitterness.
Hell's executioner
Hath no ears to hear,
What vain art can reply.
I am sick, I must die.
         Lord, have mercy on us!

Haste therefore each degree
To welcome destiny:
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage.
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
         Lord, have mercy on us_!

SUM. Beshrew me, but thy song hath moved me.

WILL SUM. "Lord, have mercy on us," how lamentable 'tis!

    _Enter_ VERTUMNUS, _with_ CHRISTMAS _and_ BACKWINTER.

VER. I have despatched, my lord; I have brought you them you sent me for.

WILL SUM. What say'st thou? hast thou made a good batch? I pray thee,
give me a new loaf![128]

SUM. Christmas, how chance thou com'st not as the rest,
Accompanied with some music or some song?
A merry carol would have grac'd thee well:
Thy ancestors have us'd it heretofore.

CHRIST. Ay, antiquity was the mother of ignorance: this latter world,
that sees but with her spectacles, hath spied a pad in those sports
more than they could.

SUM. What, is't against thy conscience for to sing?

CHRIST. No, not to say, by my troth, if I may get a good bargain.

SUM. Why, thou should'st spend, thou should'st not care to get:
Christmas is god of hospitality.

CHRIST. So will he never be of good husbandry. I may say to you, there
is many an old god that is now grown out of fashion; so is the god of
hospitality.

SUM. What reason canst thou give he should be left?

CHRIST. No other reason, but that gluttony is a sin, and too many
dunghills are infectious. A man's belly was not made for a powdering
beef-tub; to feed the poor twelve days, and let them starve all the year
after, would but stretch out the guts wider than they should be, and so
make famine a bigger den in their bellies than he had before. I should
kill an ox, and have some such fellow as Milo to come and eat it up at a
mouthful; or, like the Sybarites,[129] do nothing all one year but bid
guests against the next year. The scraping of trenchers you think would
put a man to no charges: it is not a hundred pound a year would serve
the scullion in dishclouts. My house stands upon vaults; it will fall,
if it be overladen with a multitude. Besides, have you never read of a
city that was undermined and destroyed by moles? So, say I, keep
hospitality and a whole fair of beggars bid me to dinner every day. What
with making legs[130], when they thank me at their going away, and
settling their wallets handsomely on their backs, they would shake as
many lice on the ground as were able to undermine my house, and undo me
utterly. Is it their prayers would build it again, if it were overthrown
by this vermin, would it? I pray, who began feasting and gormandis[ing]
first, but Sardanapalus, Nero, Heliogabalus, Commodus? tyrants,
whoremasters, unthrifts. Some call them emperors, but I respect no
crowns but crowns in the purse. Any man may wear a silver crown that
hath made a fray in Smithfield, and lost but a piece of his brain-pan;
and to tell you plain, your golden crowns are little better in
substance, and many times got after the same sort.

SUM. Gross-headed sot! how light he makes of state!

AUT. Who treadeth not on stars, when they are fall'n?
Who talketh not of states, when they are dead?
A fool conceits no further than he sees,
He hath no sense of aught but what he feels.

CHRIST. Ay, ay; such wise men as you come to beg at such fools' doors
as we be.

AUT. Thou shutt'st thy door; how should we beg of thee?
No alms but thy sink carries from thy house.

WILL SUM. And I can tell you that's as plentiful alms for the plague as
the Sheriff's tub to them of Newgate.

AUT. For feast thou keepest none; cankers thou feed'st.
The worms will curse thy flesh another day,
Because it yieldeth them no fatter prey.

CHRIST. What worms do another day, I care not, but I'll be sworn upon a
whole kilderkin of single beer, I will not have a worm-eaten nose, like
a pursuivant, while I live. Feasts are but puffing up of the flesh, the
purveyors for diseases; travel, cost, time, ill-spent. O, it were a trim
thing to send, as the Romans did, round about the world for provision
for one banquet. I must rig ships to Samos for peacocks; to Paphos for
pigeons; to Austria for oysters; to Phasis for pheasants; to Arabia for
phoenixes; to Meander for swans; to the Orcades for geese; to Phrygia
for woodcocks; to Malta for cranes; to the Isle of Man for puffins; to
Ambracia for goats; to Tartole for lampreys; to Egypt for dates; to
Spain for chestnuts--and all for one feast.

WILL SUM. O sir, you need not: you may buy them at London better cheap.

CHRIST. _Liberalitas liberalitate perit_; Love me little, and love me
long[131]: our feet must have wherewithal to feed the stones: our backs,
walls of wool to keep out the cold that besiegeth our warm blood; our
doors must have bars, our doublets must have buttons. Item, for an old
sword to scrape the stones before the door with; three halfpence for
stitching a wooden tankard that was burst. These water-bearers will
empty the conduit and a man's coffers at once. Not a porter that brings
a man a letter but will have his penny. I am afraid to keep past one or
two servants, lest (hungry knaves) they should rob me; and those I keep
(I warrant) I do not pamper up too lusty. I keep them under with red
herring and poor John all the year long. I have dammed up all my
chimneys for fear (though I burn nothing but small coal) my house should
be set on fire with the smoke. I will not dine[132] but once in a dozen
year, when there is a great rot of sheep, and I know not what to do with
them; I keep open house for all the beggars in some of my out-yards:
marry, they must bring bread with them; I am no baker.

WILL SUM. As good men as you, and have thought it no scorn to serve
their 'prenticeships on the pillory.

SUM. Winter, is this thy son? Hear'st how he talks?

WIN. I am his father, therefore may not speak,
But otherwise I could excuse his fault.

SUM. Christmas, I tell thee plain, thou art a snudge[133],
And were't not that we love thy father well,
Thou shouldst have felt what 'longs to avarice.
It is the honour of nobility
To keep high-days and solemn festivals;
Then to set their magnificence to view,
To frolic open with their favourites,
And use their neighbours with all courtesy;
When thou in hugger-mugger[134] spend'st thy wealth.
Amend thy manners, breathe thy rusty gold;
Bounty will win thee love, when thou art old.

WILL SUM. Ay, that bounty I would fain meet, to borrow money of; he is
fairly bless'd now-a-days, that 'scapes blows when he begs. _Verba dandi
et reddendi_ go together in the grammar rule: there is no giving but
with condition of restoring.
Ah! _benedicite_:
Well is he hath no necessity
Of gold nor of sustenance:
Slow good hap comes by chance;
Flattery best fares;
Arts are but idle wares:
Fair words want giving hands,
The _Lento_[135] begs that hath no lands.
Fie on thee, thou scurvy knave,
That hast nought, and yet goes brave:
A prison be thy deathbed,
Or be hang'd all save the head.

SUM. Back-winter, stand forth.

VER. Stand forth, stand forth: hold up your head; speak out.

BACK-WIN. What should I stand, or whither should I go?

SUM. Autumn accuses thee of sundry crimes,
Which here thou art to clear or to confess.

BACK-WIN. With thee or Autumn have I nought to do,
I would you both were hanged, face to face.

SUM. Is this the reverence that thou ow'st to us?

BACK-WIN. Why not? What art thou? shalt thou always live?

AUT. It is the veriest dog in Christendom.

WIN. That's for he barks at such as knave as thou.

BACK-WIN. Would I could bark the sun out of the sky;
Turn moon and stars to frozen meteors,
And make the ocean a dry land of ice!
With tempest of my breath turn up high trees,
On mountains heap up second mounts of snow
Which, melted into water, might fall down,
As fell the deluge on the former world!
I hate the air, the fire, the spring, the year,
And whatsoe'er brings mankind any good.
O that my looks were lightning to blast fruits!
Would I with thunder presently might die,
So I might speak in thunder to slay men.
Earth, if I cannot injure thee enough,
I'll bite thee with my teeth, I'll scratch thee thus:
I'll beat down the partition with my heels,
That, as a mud-vault, severs hell and thee.
Spirits, come up! 'tis I that knock for you;
One that envies[136] the world far more than you.
Come up in millions! millions are too few
To execute the malice I intend.

SUM. _O scelus inauditum, O vox damnatorum_!
Not raging Hecuba, whose hollow eyes
Gave suck to fifty sorrows at one time,
That midwife to so many murders was,
Us'd half the execrations that thou dost.

BACK-WIN. More I will use, if more I may prevail.
Back-winter comes but seldom forth abroad,
But when he comes, he pincheth to the proof.
Winter is mild, his son is rough and stern:
Ovid could well write of my tyranny,
When he was banish'd to the frozen zone.

SUM. And banish'd be thou from my fertile bounds.
Winter, imprison him in thy dark cell,
Or with the winds in bellowing caves of brass
Let stern Hippotades[137] lock him up safe,
Ne'er to peep forth, but when thou, faint and weak,
Want'st him to aid thee in thy regiment.

BACK-WIN. I will peep forth, thy kingdom to supplant.
My father I will quickly freeze to death,
And then sole monarch will I sit, and think,
How I may banish thee as thou dost me.

WIN. I see my downfall written in his brows.
Convey him hence to his assigned hell!
Fathers are given to love their sons too well.

                          [_Exit_ BACK-WINTER.

WILL SUM. No, by my troth, nor mothers neither: I am sure I could never
find it. This Back-winter plays a railing part to no purpose: my small
learning finds no reason for it, except as a back-winter or an
after-winter is more raging, tempestuous, and violent than the beginning
of winter; so he brings him in stamping and raging as if he were mad,
when his father is a jolly, mild, quiet old man, and stands still and
does nothing. The court accepts of your meaning. You might have written
in the margin of your play-book--"Let there be a few rushes laid[138]
in the place where Back-winter shall tumble, for fear of 'raying[139]
his clothes:" or set down, "Enter Back-winter, with his boy bringing a
brush after him, to take off the dust, if need require." But you will
ne'er have any wardrobe-wit while you live: I pray you, hold the book
well;[140] [that] we be not _non plus_ in the latter end of the play.

SUM. This is the last stroke my tongue's clock must strike.
My last will, which I will that you perform.
My crown I have dispos'd already of.
Item, I give my wither'd flowers and herbs
Unto dead corses, for to deck them with.
My shady walks to great men's servitors,
Who in their masters' shadows walk secure.
My pleasant open air and fragrant smells
To Croydon and the grounds abutting round.
My heat and warmth to toiling labourers,
My long days to bondmen and prisoners,
My short night[s] to young [un]married souls.
My drought and thirst to drunkards' quenchless throats:
My fruits to Autumn, my adopted heir:
My murmuring springs, musicians of sweet sleep,
To malcontents [who], with their well-tun'd ears,[141]
Channell'd in a sweet falling quatorzain,
Do lull their cares[142] asleep, listening themselves.
And finally, O words, now cleanse your course
Unto Eliza, that most sacred dame,
Whom none but saints and angels ought to name,
All my fair days remaining I bequeath
To wait upon her, till she be return'd.
Autumn, I charge thee, when that I am dead,
Be prest[143] and serviceable at her beck,
Present her with thy goodliest ripen'd fruits;
Unclothe no arbours, where she ever sat,
Touch not a tree thou think'st she may pass by.
And, Winter, with thy writhen, frosty face,
Smooth up thy visage, when thou look'st on her;
Thou never look'st on such bright majesty.
A charmed circle draw about her court,
Wherein warm days may dance, and no cold come:
On seas let winds make war, not vex her rest;
Quiet enclose her bed, thought fly her breast.
Ah, gracious queen! though summer pine away,
Yet let thy flourishing stand at a stay.
First droop this universal's aged frame,
Ere any malady thy strength should tame.
Heaven raise up pillars to uphold thy hand,
Peace may have still his temple in thy land.
Lo! I have said; this is the total sum.
Autumn and Winter, on your faithfulness
For the performance I do firmly build.
Farewell, my friends: Summer bids you farewell!
Archers and bowlers, all my followers,
Adieu, and dwell with desolation:
Silence must be your master's mansion.
Slow marching, thus descend I to the fiends.
Weep, heavens!--mourn, earth! here Summer ends.

    [_Here the Satyrs and wood-nymphs carry
    him out, singing as he came in.

The Song.

Autumn hath all the summer's fruitful treasure;
Gone is our sport, fled is poor Croydon's pleasure!
Short days, sharp days, long nights come on apace:
Ah! who shall hide us from the winter's face?
Cold doth increase, the sickness will not cease,
And here we lie, God knows, with little ease.
  From winter, plague, and pestilence, good Lord, deliver us!

London doth mourn, Lambeth is quite forlorn;
Trades cry, woe worth that ever they were born!
The want of term is town and city's harm.[144]
Close chambers we do want to keep us warm.
Long banished must we live from our friends:
This low-built house will bring us to our ends.
  From winter, plague, and pestilence, good Lord, deliver us_!

WILL SUM. How is't, how is't? you that be of the graver sort, do you
think these youths worthy of a _plaudite_ for praying for the queen, and
singing the litany? They are poor fellows, I must needs say, and have
bestowed great labour in sewing leaves, and grass, and straw, and moss
upon cast suits. You may do well to warm your hands with clapping before
you go to bed, and send them to the tavern with merry hearts.

    _Enter a little_ BOY _with an Epilogue_.

Here is a pretty boy comes with an Epilogue to get him audacity. I pray
you, sit still a little and hear him say his lesson without book. It is
a good boy: be not afraid: turn thy face to my lord. Thou and I will
play at pouch to-morrow morning for breakfast. Come and sit on my knee,
and I'll dance thee, if thou canst not endure to stand.


THE EPILOGUE.

Ulysses, a dwarf, and the prolocutor for the Grecians, gave me leave,
that am a pigmy, to do an embassage to you from the cranes. Gentlemen
(for kings are no better), certain humble animals, called our actors,
commend them unto you; who, what offence they have committed I know not
(except it be in purloining some hours out of Time's treasury, that
might have been better employed) but by me (the agent of their
imperfections) they humbly crave pardon, if haply some of their terms
have trod awry, or their tongues stumbled unwittingly on any man's
content. In much corn is some cockle; in a heap of coin here and there a
piece of copper: wit hath his dregs as well as wine; words their waste,
ink his blots, every speech his parenthesis; poetical fury, as well
crabs as sweetings for his summer fruits. _Nemo sapit omnibus horis_.
Their folly is deceased; their fear is yet living. Nothing can kill an
ass but cold: cold entertainment, discouraging scoffs, authorised
disgraces, may kill a whole litter of young asses of them here at once,
that hath travelled thus far in impudence, only in hope to sit a-sunning
in your smiles. The Romans dedicated a temple to the fever quartan,
thinking it some great god, because it shook them so; and another to
ill-fortune in Esquiliis, a mountain in Rome, that it should not plague
them at cards and dice. Your grace's frowns are to them shaking fevers;
your least disfavours the greatest ill-fortune that may betide them.
They can build no temples but themselves and their best endeavours, with
all prostrate reverence, they here dedicate and offer up wholly to your
service. _Sis bonus, O, faelixque tuis_.[145] To make the gods merry,
the celestial clown Vulcan tuned his polt foot to the measures of
Apollo's lute, and danced a limping galliard in Jove's starry hall: to
make you merry, that are gods of art and guides unto heaven, a number of
rude Vulcans, unwieldy speakers, hammer-headed clowns (for so it
pleaseth them in modesty to name themselves) have set their deformities
to view, as it were in a dance here before you. Bear with their wants;
lull melancholy asleep with their absurdities, and expect hereafter
better fruits of their industry. Little creatures often terrify great
beasts: the elephant flieth from a ram: the lion from a cock and from
fire; the crocodile from all sea-fish; the whale from the noise of
parched bones. Light toys chase great cares: the great fool _Toy_ hath
marr'd the play. Good night, gentlemen; I go.

                                    [_Let him be carried away_.[146]

WILL SUM. Is't true, jackanapes? do you serve me so? As sure as this
coat is too short for me, all the points of your hose for this are
condemned to my pocket, if you and I e'er play at span-counter more.
_Valete, spectatores_: pay for this sport with a _plaudite_, and the
next time the wind blows from this corner, we will make you ten times
as merry.

_Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli_.






THE DOWNFALL OF ROBERT EARL OF HUNTINGTON.




_EDITION_.


_The Downfall of Robert Earle of Huntington, afterward called Robin Hood
of merrie Sherwodde; with his love to chaste Matilda, the Lord
Fitzwaters Daughter, afterwarde his faire Maide Marian. Acted by the
Right Honourable the Earle of Notingham, Lord high Admirall of England,
his servants. Imprinted at London for William Leake_. 1601. 4to. B.L.




INTRODUCTION.


"The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington" and "The Death of Robert
Earl of Huntington"[147] were both formerly ascribed to Thomas Heywood,
on the always disputable authority of Kirkman the Bookseller. The
discovery of the folio account-book of Philip Henslowe, proprietor of
the Rose theatre on the Bank-side, enabled Malone to correct the
error.[148] The following entries in Henslowe's MSS. contain the
evidence upon the subject:--

  "Feb. 1597-8.--The first part of Robin Hood by Anthony Mundy.

  "The second part of the Downfall of Earl Huntington, sirnamed
  Robinhood by Anthony Mundy and Henry Chettle."

It is to be observed that what Henslowe mentions as "the second part of
the Downfall of Earl Huntington" is in fact the play called on the
printed title-page "The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington." Hence we
find that Anthony Munday wrote the _first part_ or "Downfall" alone, and
the _second part_ or "Death" in conjunction with Henry Chettle:
nevertheless there is a memorandum by Henslowe, by which it seems that
Chettle had something to do also with the _first part_. It is in these
terms:--

  "Lent unto Robarte Shawe the 18 of Novemb. 1598, to lend unto
  Mr Cheattle upon the mending of The First Part of Robart Hoode,
  the sum of xs."

The loan here mentioned was perhaps in anticipation of "the mending;"
and Malone subsequently met with the following notice: "For mending
of Robin Hood for the Corte;" which might be written after the
improvements, considered necessary before the performance of the play
at Court, had been completed.

Anthony Munday must have been born in 1553, for the monument to him in
the Church of St Stephen, Coleman Street, states, that at the time of
his death, 10th August 1633, he was eighty years old. From the
inscription we likewise learn that he was "a citizen and draper." In
1589 he lived in the city, and dates his translation of "The History of
Palmendos" "from my house in Cripplegate." That he carried on the
business of a draper, or had some connection with the trade as late as
1613, may be gathered from the following passage at the close of "The
Triumphs of Truth," the city pageant for that year, by Thomas Middleton:
"The fire-work being made by Maister Humphrey Nichols, a man excellent
in his art; and the whole work and body of the Triumph, with all the
proper beauties of the workmanship, most artfully and faithfully
performed by John Grinkin; and those _furnished with apparel_ and
porters by Anthony Munday, Gentleman." The style of "gentleman" was
probably given to him with reference to the productions of his pen.

At what date he acquired the title of "poet to the city" does not
appear: he wrote the Lord Mayor's Pageant in 1605; but he had certainly
earlier been similarly employed, as Ben Jonson introduces him in that
capacity in "The Case is Altered," which was written in the end of 1598
or beginning of 1599.[149] He there throws some ridicule upon Don
Antonio Balladino (as he calls Munday), and Mr Gifford was of opinion
that Middleton meant to censure him in his "Triumphs of Truth," as the
impudent "common writer" of city pageants; but this is hardly consistent
with the mention Middleton introduces of Munday at the close of that
performance. Besides, Dekker wrote the pageant for the year 1612,
immediately preceding that for which Middleton was engaged; and that
Munday was not in disrepute is obvious from the fact that in 1614, 1615,
and 1616, his pen was again in request for the same purpose.

Whatever might have been Munday's previous life, in the year 1582 he was
placed in no very enviable situation. He had been mainly instrumental in
detecting the Popish Conspiracy in that year, which drew down upon him
the bitter animosity of the Jesuits. They charged him in their
publications (from which extracts may be seen in Mr A. Chalmers'
"Biographical Dictionary," and elsewhere) with having been "first a
stage-player and afterwards an apprentice," and after being "hissed from
the stage" and residing at Rome, with having returned to his original
occupation. Munday himself admits, in the account he published of Edmund
Campion and his confederates, that he was "some time the Pope's scholar
in the Seminary of Rome," but always stoutly denied that he was a Roman
Catholic. Perhaps the most curious tract upon this subject is that
entitled, "A breefe and true reporte of the Execution of certaine
Traytours at Tiborne the xxviii, and xxx dayes of May 1582. Gathered
by A.M. who was there present." He signs the Dedication at length
"A. Munday," and mentions that he had been a witness against some of
the offenders. The persons he saw executed were, Thomas Foord, John
Shert, Robert Johnson, William Filbie, Luke Kirbie, Lawrance Richardson,
and Thomas Cottom; and he seems to have been publicly employed to
confute them at the foot of the gallows, and to convince the populace
that they were traitors and Papists, denying the supremacy of Queen
Elizabeth. He there had a long dispute with Kirbie upon matters of fact,
and, according to his own showing, was guilty while abroad, at least of
a little duplicity. He notices having seen Captain Stukely at Rome, who
was killed at the Battle of Alcazar in 1578. In the conclusion he
promises his "English Romaine Lyfe" "so soon as it can be printed," in
which he purposes to disclose the "Romish and Sathanical juglings," of
the Jesuits.

Munday was a very voluminous author in verse and prose, original and
translated, and is certainly to be reckoned among the predecessors of
Shakespeare in dramatic composition. His earliest work, as far as can
be now ascertained, was "The Mirror of Mutability," 1579, when he was
in his 26th year: he dedicates it to the Earl of Oxford, and perhaps
then belonged to the company of players of that nobleman, to which he
had again attached himself on his return from Italy.[150] The Council
Registers show that this nobleman had a company of players under his
protection in 1575. Munday's "Banquet of Dainty Conceits" was printed
in 1588, and we particularise it, because it was unknown to Ames,
Herbert, and Ritson. Catalogues and specimens of his other undramatic
works may be found in "Bibliographia Poetica," "Censura Literaria,"
"British Bibliographer,"[151] &c. The earliest praise of Munday is
contained in Webbe's "Discourse of English Poetrie," 1586, where his
"Sweete Sobs of Sheepheardes and Nymphes" is especially pointed out
as "very rare poetrie." Francis Meres, in 1598 ("Palladis Tamia,"
fo. 283, b.), enumerating many of the best dramatic poets of his day,
including Shakespeare, Heywood, Chapman, Porter, Lodge, &c., gives
Anthony Munday the praise of being "our best plotter," a distinction
that excited the spleen of Ben Jonson in his "Case is Altered," more
particularly, as he was omitted.

Nearly all the existing information respecting Anthony Munday's dramatic
works is derived from Henslowe's papers.[152] At what period he began to
write for the stage cannot be ascertained: the earliest date in these
MSS. connected with his name is December 1597; but as he was perhaps a
member of the Earl of Oxford's theatrical company before he went abroad,
and as he was certainly at Rome prior to 1578, it is likely that he was
very early the author of theatrical performances. In the old catalogues,
and in Langbaine's "Momus Triumphans," 1688, a piece called "Fidele and
Fortunatus" is mentioned, and such a play was entered at Stationers'
Hall, Nov. 12, 1584. There is little doubt that this is the same
production, two copies of which have been discovered, with the running
title of "Two Italian Gentlemen," that being the second title to "Fidele
and Fortunatus" in the Register. Both copies are without title-pages;
but to one of them is prefixed a dedication signed A.M., and we may with
tolerable certainty conclude that Anthony Munday was the author or
translator of it, and that it was printed about the date of its entry on
the Stationers' Books. It is pretty evident that the play now reprinted
from the only known edition in 1601 was written considerably before
1597-8, the year when it is first noticed in the accounts of the
proprietor of the Rose. The story is treated with a simplicity bordering
upon rudeness, and historical facts are perverted just as suited the
purpose of the writer. Whether we consider it as contemporary with, or
preceding the productions of the same class by Shakespeare, it is a
relic of high interest, and nearly all the sylvan portions of the play,
in which Robin Hood and his "merry men" are engaged, are of no ordinary
beauty. Some of the serious scenes are also extremely well written, and
the blank-verse, interpersed with rhymes, as was usual in our earlier
dramas, by no means inharmonious.

The subsequent catalogue of plays which Munday wrote, either alone or in
conjunction with others, is derived from the materials supplied by
Malone.

1. Mother Redcap, by Anthony Munday and Michael Drayton. December 1597.
Not printed.[153]

2. The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, by Anthony Munday.
February 1597-8. Printed in 1601.

3. The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington, by Anthony Munday and Henry
Chettle. February 1597-8. Printed in 1601.

4. The Funeral of Richard Cordelion, by Robert Wilson, Henry Chettle,
Anthony Munday, and Michael Drayton. May 1598. Not printed.

5. Valentine and Orson, by Richard Hathwaye and Anthony Munday. July
1598. Not printed.

6. Chance Medley, by Robert Wilson, Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, and
Thomas Dekker. August 1598. Not printed.

7. Owen Tudor, by Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye, Anthony Munday, and
Robert Wilson. January 1599-1600. Not printed.

8. Fair Constance of Rome, by Anthony Munday, Richard Hathwaye, Michael
Drayton, and Thomas Dekker. June 1600. Not printed.

9. Fair Constance of Rome, Part II., by the same authors. June 1600.
Not printed.

10. The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey,[154] by Anthony Munday, Michael
Drayton, Henry Chettle, and Wentworth Smith. November 12, 1601. Not
printed.

11. Two Harpies, by Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, Thomas Middleton,
John Webster, and Anthony Munday. May 1602. Not printed.

12. The Widow's Charm, by Anthony Munday. July 1602. Printed in 1607, as
Malone conjectured, under the title of "The Puritan or Widow of Watling
Street," and ascribed to Shakespeare.

13. The Set at Tennis, by Anthony Munday. December 1602. Not
printed.[155]

14. The first part of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, by Anthony Munday,
Michael Drayton, Robert Wilson, and Richard Hathwaye.

Of the last, two editions were published in 1600, the one with, and the
other without, the name of Shakespeare on the title-page; but Mr Malone
discovered, from the Registers of the Stationers' Company, that he was
not concerned in it. Whether Munday wrote any plays subsequent to the
date to which Henslowe's papers extend, is not known.

Such particulars as have come down to us regarding Henry Chettle will be
prefixed to "The Death of the Earl of Huntington," the second part of
the play now reprinted.




DRAMATIS PERSONAE.[156]


SKELTON.
SIR JOHN ELTHAM.
KING RICHARD THE FIRST.
PRINCE JOHN.
ROBERT EARL OF HUNTINGTON.
LITTLE JOHN.
SCARLET.
SCATHLOCK.
FRIAR TUCK.
MUCH, _the Clown_.
LEICESTER.
RICHMOND.
SALISBURY.
CHESTER.
SENTLOE.
FITZWATER.
LACY.
SIR HUGH LACY.
SIR GILBERT BROUGHTON.
BISHOP OF ELY.
PRIOR OF YORK.
JUSTICE WARMAN.
WARMAN'S COUSIN.
RALPH.
_Jailor of Nottingham, Sheriff, Messenger, Boy, Colliers, &c_.
QUEEN ELINOR.
MATILDA, _Fitzwater's Daughter_.
WARMAN'S WIFE.
OLD WOMAN.




THE DOWNFALL OF ROBERT EARL OF HUNTINGTON.



ACT I, SCENE 1.


    _Enter_ SIR JOHN ELTHAM, _and knocks at_ SKELTON'S _door_.[157]

SIR JOHN. How, Master Skelton; what, at study hard?
                                 [_Opens the door_.

SKEL. Welcome and wish'd-for honest Sir John Eltham.
I have sent twice, and either time he miss'd
That went to seek you.

ELT. So full well he might:
These two hours it pleased his majesty
To use my service in surveying maps,
Sent over from the good King Ferdinand,
That to the Indies, at Sebastian's suit,
Hath lately sent a Spanish colony.

SKEL. Then 'twill trouble you,
After your great affairs, to take the pain
That I intended to entreat you to,
About rehearsal of our[158] promis'd play.

ELT. Nay, Master Skelton; for the King himself,
As we were parting, bid me take great heed
We fail not of our day: therefore, I pray,
Send for the rest, that now we may rehearse.

SKEL. O, they are ready all, and dress'd to play.
What part play you?

ELT. Why, I play Little John,
And came on purpose with this green suit.

SKEL. Holla, my masters! Little John is come.

    [_At every door all the players run out, some crying
    "Where? where?" others, "Welcome, Sir John:" among
    others the boys and Clown_.

SKEL. Faith, little Tracy, you are somewhat forward:
What, our Maid Marian leaping like a lad?
If you remember, Robin is your love--
Sir Thomas Mantle yonder--not Sir John.

CLOWN. But, master, Sir John is my fellow, for I am
Much the miller's son, am I not?

SKEL. I know ye are, sir;
And, gentlemen, since you are thus prepar'd,
Go in, and bring your dumb-scene on the stage;
And I, as prologue, purpose to express
The ground whereon our history is laid.

    [_Exeunt. Manent_ SKELTON _and_ SIR JOHN.

    _Trumpets sound. Enter first_ KING RICHARD, _with drum
    and ancient, giving_ ELY _a purse and sceptre; his mother,
    and brother_ JOHN, CHESTER, LEICESTER, LACY, _others at
    the_ KING'S _appointment doing reverence. The_ KING _goes
    in: presently_ ELY _ascends the chair_: CHESTER, JOHN, _and
    the_ QUEEN _part displeasantly. Enter_ EGBERT EARL OF
    HUNTINGTON, _leading_ MARIAN: _follows him_ WARMAN, _and
    after_ WARMAN _the_ PRIOR; WARMAN _ever flattering and making
    courtesy, taking gifts of the_ PRIOR _behind and his master
    before_. PRINCE JOHN _Enters, offereth to take_ MARIAN. QUEEN
    ELINOR _enters, offering to pull_ ROBIN _from her; but they
    enfold each other, and sit down within the curtains_. WARMAN
    _with the_ PRIOR, SIR HUGH LACY, LORD SENTLOE, _and_ SIR GILBERT
    BROUGHTON _fold hands, and drawing the curtains, all (but the_
    PRIOR) _enter, and are kindly received by_ ROBIN HOOD.
    _The curtains are again shut_.

SKEL. Sir John, once more, bid your dumb shows come in,
That, as they pass, I may explain them all.

    _Enter_ KING RICHARD, _&c_.[159]

Richard, call'd Coeur de Lion, takes his leave,
Like the Lord's champion, 'gainst the pagan foes,
That spoil Juda and rich Palestine.
The rule of England and his princely seat
He leaves with Ely, then lord chancellor;
To whom the Mother Queen, her son, Prince John,
Chester, and all the peers are sworn.
               [_Exit_ RICHARD _cum militibus_.
    ELY _ascends the chair_.
Now reverend Ely, like the deputy
Of God's great deputy, ascends the throne;
Which the Queen Mother and ambitious John
Repining at, raised many mutinies:
And how they ended, you anon shall hear.

                        [_Exeunt omnes_.

    _Enter_ ROBERT EARL OF HUNTINGTON, _leading_ MARIAN, _&c_.[160]

This youth that leads yon virgin by the hand
(As doth the sun the morning richly clad)
Is our Earl Robert or your Robin Hood,
That in those days was Earl of Huntington.
The ill-faced miser, bribed in either hand,
Is Warman, once the steward of his house,
Who, Judas-like, betrays his liberal lord
Into the hands of that relentless Prior,
Call'd Gilbert Hood, uncle to Huntington.
Those two, that seek to part these lovely friends,
Are Elinor the queen and John the prince:
She loves Earl Robert, he Maid Marian;
But vainly, for their dear affect is such,
As only death can sunder their true loves.
Long had they lov'd, and now it is agreed,
This day they must be troth-plight, after wed.
At Huntington's fair house a feast is held;
But envy turns it to a house of tears;
For those false guests, conspiring with the Prior,
To whom Earl Robert greatly is in debt,
Mean at the banquet to betray the earl
Unto a heavy writ of outlawry.
The manner and escape you all shall see.

ELT. Which all, good Skelton?

SKEL. Why, all these lookers on;
Whom if we please, the king will sure be pleas'd.
Look to your entrance; get you in, Sir John.    [_Exit_ SIR JOHN.
My shift is long, for I play Friar Tuck;
Wherein, if Skelton have but any luck,
He'll thank his hearers oft with many a duck.
For many talk of Robin Hood, that never shot in his bow,
But Skelton writes of Robin Hood what he doth truly know.[161]

    Therefore I pray ye,
    Contentedly stay ye,
    And take no offending,
    But sit to the ending,
    Likewise I desire
    Ye would not admire
    My rhyme, so I shift;
    For this is my drift,
    So mought I well thrive
    To make ye all blithe:
    But if ye once frown,
    Poor Skelton goes down;
    His labour and cost,
    He thinketh all lost
    In tumbling of books
    Of marry-go-looks.
    The Sheriff with staves,
    With catchpoles and knaves,
    Are coming, I see:
    High time 'tis for me,
    To leave off my babble
    And fond ribble-rabble.
    Therefore with this court'sy
    Awhile I will leave ye.[162]



SCENE II.


    _Enter, as it were in haste, the_ PRIOR OF YORK, _the_
    SHERIFF, _Justice_ WARMAN, _Steward to_ ROBIN HOOD.

PRIOR. Here, Master Warman, there's a hundred crowns
For your good-will and futherance in this.

WAR. I thank you, my Lord Prior. I must away,
To shun suspicion; but be resolute,
And we will take him, have no doubt of it.

PRIOR. But is Lord Sentloe and the other come?

WAR. Lord Sentloe, Sir Hugh Lacy, and Sir Gilbert Broughton
Are there, and as they promis'd you last night,
Will help to take him, when the Sheriff comes.
                                     [_Exit_ WARMAN.

PRIOR. Awhile, farewell, and thanks to them and you.
Come, Master Sheriff, the outlawry is proclaim'd,
Send therefore quickly for more company,
And at the back-gate we will enter in.

SHER. We shall have much ado, I am afraid.

PRIOR. No, they are very merry at a feast;
A feast where Marian, daughter to Lord Lacy,
Is troth-plighted to wasteful Huntington;
And at the feast are my especial friends,
Whom he suspects not. Come, we'll have him, man,
And for your pains here is a hundred marks.

SHER. I thank your lordship: we'll be diligent.

                                     [_Exeunt_.



SCENE III.


    _Enter_ ROBIN HOOD, LITTLE JOHN _following him;
    the one Earl of Huntington, the other his servant_,
    ROBIN _having his napkin on his shoulder, as if he
    were suddenly raised from dinner_.

ROB. H. As I am outlaw'd from my fame and state,
Be this day outlawed from the name of days.
Day luckless, outlaw luckless, both accurs'd!
    [_Flings away his napkin and hat, and sitteth down_.

LIT. JOHN. Do not forget your honourable state,
Nor the true noblesse of your worthy house.

ROB. H. Do not persuade me; vain as vanity
Are all thy comforts: I am comfortless.

LIT. JOHN. Hear me, my lord.

ROB. H. What shall I hear thee say?
Already hast thou said too much to hear:
Already hast thou stabb'd me with thy tongue,
And the wide wound with words will not be clos'd.
Am I not outlaw'd by the Prior of York?
Proclaim'd in court, in city, and in town
A lawless person? this thy tongue reports,
And therefore seek not to make smooth my grief;
For the rough storm thy windy words have rais'd,
Will not be calm'd, till I in grave be laid.

LIT. JOHN. Have patience yet.

ROB. H. Yea, now indeed thou speakest.
Patience hath power to bear a greater cross
Than honour's spoil or any earthly loss.

LIT. JOHN. Do so, my lord.

ROB. H. Ay, now I would begin:
But see, another scene of grief comes in.

    _Enter_ MARIAN.[163]

MAR. Why is my lord so sad? wherefore so soon,
So suddenly, arose ye from the board?
Alas, my Robin! what distempering grief
Drinks up the roseate colour of thy cheeks?
Why art thou silent? answer me, my love.

ROB. H. Let him, let him, let him make thee as sad.
He hath a tongue can banish thee from joy,
And chase thy crimson colour from thy cheeks.
Why speak'st thou not? I pray thee, Little John,
Let the short story of my long distress
Be utter'd in a word. What, mean'st thou to protract?
Wilt thou not speak? then, Marian, list to me.
This day thou wert a maid, and now a spouse,
Anon, poor soul, a widow thou must be!
Thy Robin is an outlaw, Marian;
His goods and land must be extended on,
Himself exil'd from thee, thou kept from him
By the long distance of unnumbered miles.
                         [_She sinks in his arms_.
Faint'st thou at this? speak to me, Marian:
My old love, newly met, part not so soon;
We have a little time to tarry yet.

MAR. If but a little time, let me not stay
Part we to-day, then will I die to-day!

LIT. JOHN. For shame, my lord! with courage of a man
Bridle this over-grieving passion,
Or else dissemble it to comfort her.

ROB. H. I like thy counsel. Marian, clear these clouds,
And with the sunny beams of thy bright eyes
Drink up these mists of sorrow that arise.

MAR. How can I joy, when thou art banished?

ROB. H. I tell thee, love, my grief is counterfeit;
And I abruptly from the table rose,
The banquet being almost at an end,
Only to drive confused and sad thoughts
[Out of][164] the minds of the invited guests.
For, gentle love, at great or nuptial feasts,
With comic sports or tragic stately plays
We use to recreate the feasted guests,
Which I am sure our kinsfolk do expect.

MAR. Of this, what then? this seems of no effect.

ROB. H. Why, thus of this: as Little John can tell,
I had bespoken quaint comedians;
But great John, John the prince, my liege's brother--
My rival, Marian, he that cross'd our love--
Hath cross'd me in this jest,[165] and at the court
Employs the players should have made us sport.
This was the tidings brought by Little John,
That first disturbed me, and begot this thought
Of sudden rising, which by this, I know,
Hath with amazement troubled all our guests.
Go in, good love: thou as the chorus shalt
Express the meaning of my silent grief,
Which is no more but this: I only mean
(The more to honour our right noble friends)
Myself in person to present some scenes
Of tragic matter, or perchance of mirth,
Even such as first shall jump with my conceit.

MAR. May I be bold thou hast the worst expressed?

LIT. JOHN. Fair mistress, all is true my lord hath said.

ROB. H. It is, it is.

MAR. Speak not so hollow then:
So sigh and sadly speak true-sorrowing men.

ROB. H. Believe me, love, believe me (I beseech),
My first scene tragic is, therefore tragic speech
And accents filling woful action,
I strive to get. I pray thee, sweet,
Go in, and with thy sight appease
The many doubts that may arise. That done,
Be thou their usher, bring them to this place,
And thou shalt see me with a lofty verse
Bewitch the hearers' ears, and tempt their eyes
To gaze upon the action that I use.

MAR. If it be but a play, I'll play my part:
But sure some earnest grief affrights thy[166] heart.

LIT. JOHN. Let me entreat ye, madam, not to fear,
For, by the honesty of Little John,
It's but a tragic scene we have in hand,
Only to fit the humour of the queen,
Who is the chiefest at your troth-plight feast.

MAR. Then will I fetch her highness and the rest.
                                          [_Exit_.

ROB. H. Ay, that same jealous queen, whose doting age
Envies the choice of my fair Marian,
She hath a hand in this.

LIT. JOHN. Well, what of that?
Now must your honour leave these mourning tunes,
And thus by my areed you shall provide.
Your plate and jewels I will straight pack up,
And toward Nottingham convey them hence.
At Rowford, Sowtham, Wortley, Hothersfield,
Of all your cattle money shall be made;
And I at Mansfield will attend your coming,
Where we'll determine which way's best to take.

ROB. H. Well, be it so; a' God's name, let it be;
And, if I can, Marian shall come with me.

LIT. JOHN. Else care will kill her. Therefore, if you please,
At th'utmost corner of the garden wall,
Soon in the evening wait for Marian;
And as I go I'll tell her of the plan.[167]
Your horses at the Bell shall ready be,
I mean Belsavage;[168] whence as citizens,
That mean[169] to ride for pleasure some small way,
You shall set forth.

ROB. H. Be it as thou dost say.
Farewell awhile:
In spite of grief, thy love compels me smile,
But now our audience comes, we must look sad.[170]

    _Enter_ QUEEN ELINOR, MARIAN, SENTLOE, LACY, BROUGHTON,
    WARMAN, _Robin's steward. As they meet_, LITTLE JOHN
    _whispers with_ MARIAN, _and exit_.

QU. ELIN. How now, my Lord of Huntington?
The mistress of your love, fair Marian,
Tells us your sudden rising from the banquet
Was but a humour which you mean to purge
In some high tragic lines or comic jests.

ROB. H. Sit down, fair queen (the prologue's part is play'd;
Marian hath told ye, what I bad her tell):
Sit down, Lord Sentloe, cousin Lacy, sit:
Sir Gilbert Broughton, yea, and Warman, sit:
Though you my steward be, yet for your gathering wit
I give you place: sit down, sit down, I say:
God's pity! sit: it must, it must be so,
For you will sit when I shall stand, I know.    [_Sits them all down_.
And, Marian, you may sit among the rest,
I pray ye do, or else rise, stand apart:
These helps shall be beholders of my smart--
You that with ruthless eyes my sorrows see,
And came prepar'd to feast at my sad fall,
Whose envy, greediness, and jealousy
Afford me sorrow endless, comfort small,
Know what you knew before, what you ordain'd
To cross the spousal banquet of my love,
That I am outlaw'd by the Prior of York,
My traitorous uncle and your toothless friend.
Smile you, Queen Elinor? laugh'st thou, Lord Sentloe?
Lacy, look'st thou so blithe at my lament?
Broughton, a smooth brow graceth your stern face;
And you are merry, Warman, at my moan.
The Queen except, I do you all defy!
You are a sort[171] of fawning sycophants,
That, while the sunshine of my greatness 'dur'd,
Revelled out all my day for your delights;
And now ye see the black night of my woe
O'ershade the beauty of my smiling good,
You to my grief add grief; and are agreed
With that false Prior to reprieve my joys
From execution of all happiness.

WAR. Your honour thinks not ill of me, I hope.

ROB. H. Judas speaks first, with "Master, is it I?"
No, my false steward; your accounts are true;
You have dishonour'd me, I worshipp'd[172] you.
You from a paltry pen-and-inkhorn clerk,
Bearing a buckram-satchel at your belt,
Unto a justice' place I did prefer;
Where you unjustly have my tenants rack'd,
Wasted my treasure, and increas'd your store.
Your sire contented with a cottage poor,
Your mastership hath halls and mansions built;
Yet are you innocent, as clear from guilt
As is the ravenous mastiff that hath spilt
The blood of a whole flock, yet slyly comes
And couches in his kennel with smear'd chaps.
Out of my house! for yet my house it is,
And follow him, ye catchpole-bribed grooms;
For neither are ye lords nor gentlemen,
That will be hired to wrong a nobleman:
For hired ye were last night, I know it, I,
To be my guests, my faithless guests this day,
That your kind host you trothless might betray.
But hence, and help the Sheriff at the door,
Your worst attempt. Fell traitors, as you be,
Avoid, or I will execute ye all
Ere any execution come at me!    [_They run away_.
They run[173] away, so ends the tragedy.
(_Aside_) Marian, by Little John, my mind you know:
If you will, do; if not, why be it so.
                                 [_Offers to go in_.

QU. ELIN. No words to me, Earl Robert, ere you go?

ROB. H. O, to your highness? yes; adieu, proud queen;
Had not you been, thus poor I had not been.
                                             [_Exit_.

QU. ELIN. Thou wrong'st me, Robert Earl of Huntington,
And were it not for pity of this maid,
I would revenge the words that thou hast said.

MAR. Add not, fair queen, distress unto distress,
But, if you can, for pity make his less.

QU. ELIN. I can and will forget deserving hate,
And give him comfort in this woful state.
Marian, I know Earl Robert's whole desire
Is to have thee with him from hence away;
And though I lov'd him dearly to this day,
Yet since I see he deadlier loveth thee,
Thou shalt have all the furtherance I may.
Tell me, fair girl, and see thou truly tell,
Whether this night, to-morrow, or next day,
There be no 'pointment for to meet thy love?

MAR. There is, this night there is, I will not lie;
And, be it disappointed, I shall die.

QU. ELIN. Alas, poor soul! my son, Prince John, my son,
With several troops hath circuited the court,
This house, the city, that thou canst not 'scape.

MAR. I will away with Death, though he be grim,
If they deny me to go hence with him.

QU. ELIN. Marian,
Thou shalt go with him clad in my attire,
And for a shift I'll put thy garments on.
It is not me my son John doth desire,
But, Marian, it is thee he doteth on.
When thou and I are come into the field,
Or any other place, where Robin stays,
Me in thy clothes the ambush will beset;
Thee in my robes they dare not once approach:
So, while with me a-reasoning they stay,
At pleasure thou with him may'st ride away.

MAR. I am beholding to your majesty,
And of this plot will send my Robin word.

QU. ELIN. Nay, never trouble him, lest it breed suspect:
But get thee in, and shift off thy attire:
My robe is loose, and it will soon be off.
Go, gentle Marian, I will follow thee,
And from betrayers' hands will set thee free.

MAR. I thank your highness, but I will not trust ye:
My Robert shall have knowledge of this shift,
For I conceive already your deep drift.
                                     [_Aside. Exit_.

QU. ELIN. Now shall I have my will of Huntington
Who, taking me this night for Marian,
Will hurry me away instead of her;
For he dares not stand trifling to confer.
Faith, pretty Marian, I shall meet with you,[174]
And with your lovely sweetheart Robert too:
For when we come unto a baiting-place,
If with like love my love he do not grace,
Of treason capital I will accuse him,
For trait'rous forcing me out of the court,
And guerdon his disdain with guilty death,
That of a prince's love so lightly weighs.

                                  [_Exit_.




ACT II., SCENE I.


    _Enter_ LITTLE JOHN _fighting with the_ SHERIFF _and
    his men_; WARMAN _persuading him_.

LIT. JOHN. Warman, stand off!
Tit-tattle, tell not me what ye can do:
The goods, I say, are mine, and I say true.

WAR. I say the Sheriff must see them, ere they go.

LIT. JOHN. You say so, Warman: Little John says no.

SHER. I say I must, for I am the king's shrieve.

LIT. JOHN. Your must is false; your office I believe.

WATCH. Down with him! down with him!

LIT. JOHN. Ye bark at me like curs, but I will down
With twenty "Stand, and who goes there?"[175] of you,
If ye stand long tempting my patience.
Why, Master Sheriff, think you me a fool?
What justice is there you should search my trunks,
Or stay my goods for that my master owes?

SHER. Here's Justice Warman, steward to your lord,
Suspects some coin, some jewels, or some plate
That 'longs unto your lord, are in your trunks,
And the extent is out for all his goods;
Therefore we ought to see none be convey'd.

WAR. True, Little John; I am the sorrier.

LIT. JOHN. A plague upon ye else, how sore ye weep!
Why, say, thou upstart, that there were some help,
Some little, little help in this distress,
To aid our lord and master comfortless,
Is it thy part, thou screen-fac'd snotty-nose,
To hinder him that gave thee all thou hast?

    _Enter_ JUSTICE WARMAN'S [_French_] WIFE _oddly attired_.

WIFE. Who's that, husband? you, you! means he you?

WAR. I, by'r Lady is it, I thank him.

WIFE. Ah, ye knave you! God's pity, husband, why dis no your worship
send the kneve to Newgate?

LIT. JOHN. Well, Master Sheriff, shall I pass or no?

SHER. Not without search.

LIT. JOHN. Then here the casket stands:
Any that dares unto it set their hands,
Let him begin.

WIFE. Do, hisband;
You are a majesty: I warrant
There's old knacks, chains, and other toys.

LIT. JOHN. But not for you, good madam beetle-brows.

WIFE. Out upon him! By my truly, Master Justice, and ye do not clap him
up, I will sue a bill of remorse, and never come between a pair of
sheets with ye. Such a kneve as this! down with him, I pray.

                       [_Set upon him: he knocks some down_.

WIFE. Ah, good Lord! come not near, good husband; only charge him,
charge him! Ah, good God! help, help!

    _Enter_ PRINCE JOHN, _the_ BISHOP OF ELY, _the_
    PRIOR OF YORK, _with others. All stay_.

JOHN. What tumult have we here? who doth resist
The king's writs with such obstinate contempt?

WIFE. This kneve.

WAR. This rebel.

JOHN. How now, Little John,
Have you no more discretion than you show?

ELY. Lay hold, and clap the traitor by the heels.

LIT. JOHN. I am no traitor, my good Lord of Ely
First hear me, then commit me, if you please.

JOHN. Speak, and be brief.

LIT. JOHN. Here is a little box,
Containing all my gettings twenty year,
Which is mine own, and no man's but mine own:
This they would rifle, this I do defend,
And about this we only do contend.

JOHN. You do the fellow wrong: his goods are his.
You only must extend upon the Earl's.

PRIOR. That was, my lord, but now is Robert Hood;
A simple yeoman, as his servants were.

WIFE. Back with that leg, my Lord Prior: there be some that were his
servants think foul scorn to be called yeomen.

PRIOR. I cry your worship mercy, Mistress Warman:
The squire, your husband, was his servant once.

LIT. JOHN. A scurvy squire, with reverence of these lords.

WIFE. Does he not speak treason, pray?

ELY. Sirrah, ye are too saucy: get you hence.

WAR. But hear me first, my lords, with patience.
This scoffing, careless fellow, Little John,
Hath loaden hence a horse 'twixt him and Much,
A silly, rude knave--Much, the miller's son.

    _Enter_ MUCH, _Clown_.

MUCH. I am here to answer for myself, and have taken you in two lies at
once: first, Much is no knave, neither was it a horse Little John and I
loaded, but a little curtal of some five handfuls high, sib to the ape's
only beast at Paris Garden.[176]

LIT. JOHN. But, Master Warman, you have loaded carts,
And turned my lord's goods to your proper use.
Whoever hath the right, you do the wrong,
And are--

WIFE. What is he, kneve?

LIT. JOHN. Unworthy to be nam'd a man.

MUCH. And I'll be sworn for his wife.

WIFE. Ay, so thou mayest, Much.

MUCH. That she sets new marks of all my old lady's linen (God rest her
soul!), and my young lord never had them since.

WIFE. Out, out! I took him them but for to whiten, as God mend me.

ELY. Leave off this idle talk; get ye both hence.

LIT. JOHN. I thank your honours: we are not in love
With being here.
We must seek service that are masterless.

                   [_Exeunt_ MUCH _and_ LITTLE JOHN.

ELY. Lord Prior of York, here's your commission.
You are best make speed, lest in his country houses,
By his appointment, all his herds be sold.

PRIOR. I thank your honour, taking humble leave.
                                          [_Exit_.

ELY. And, Master Warman, here's your patent sealed
For the High Sheriffwick of Nottingham;
Except the king our master do repeal
This gift of ours.

JOHN. Let him the while possess it.

ELY. A God's name, let him; he hath my good will.
                                             [_Exit_.

JOHN. Well, Warman, this proud priest I cannot brook.
But to our other matter: send thy wife away.

WAR. Go in, good wife; the prince with me hath private conference.

WIFE. By my troth, ye will anger me: now ye have the pattern, ye should
call me nothing but Mistress Sheriff; for I tell you I stand upon my
replications.    [_Exit_.

JOHN. Thinkest thou that Marian means
To 'scape this evening hence with Robin Hood?
The horse-boy told me so; and here he comes,
Disguised like a citizen, methinks.
Warman, let's in; I'll fit him presently:
Only for Marian am I now his enemy.

                               [_Exeunt_.

    _Enter_ ROBIN, _like a citizen_.

ROB. H. Earl John[177] and Warman, two good friends of mine:
I think they knew me not, or if they did
I care not what can follow. I am sure
The sharpest end is death, and that will come.
But what of death or sorrow do I dream?
My Marian, my fair life, my beauteous love
Is coming, to give comfort to my grief,
And the sly queen, intending to deceive,
Hath taught us how we should her sleights receive.[178]
But who is this? God's pity! here's Prince John.

JOHN. Good even, sir.  This clear evening should portend
Some frost, I think: how judge you, honest friend?

ROB. H. I am not weather-wise; but it may be
We shall have hard frost; for true charity,
Good dealing, faithful friendship, honesty,
Are chill-cold, dead with cold.

JOHN. O good sir, stay,
That frost hath lasted many a bitter day.
Know ye no frozen hearts that are belov'd?

ROB. H. Love is a flame, a fire, that being moved,
Still brighter grows. But say, are you beloved?

JOHN. I would be, if I be not: but pass that.
Are ye a dweller in this city, pray?

ROB. H. I am; and for a gentlewoman stay,
That rides some four or five mile in great haste.

    _Enter_ QUEEN _and_ MARIAN.[179]

JOHN. I see your labour, sir, is not in waste,
For here come two; are either of these yours?

ROB. H. Both are--one most.[180]

JOHN. Which do you most respect?

ROB. H. The youngest and the fairest I reject.

JOHN. Robin, I'll try you, whether ye say true.    [_Aside_.

ROB. H. As you with me, so, John, I'll jest with you.    [_Aside_.

QU. ELIN. Marian, let me go first to Robin Hood,
And I will tell him what we do intend.

MAR. Do what your highness please; your will is mine.

JOHN. My mother is with gentle Marian:
O, it doth grieve her to be left behind.

QU. ELIN. Shall we away, my Robin, lest the queen
Betray our purpose? sweet, let us away:
I have great will to go, no heart to stay.

ROB. H. Away with thee? No; get thee far away
From me, foul Marian, fair though thou be nam'd;
For thy bewitching eyes have raised storms,
That have my name and noblesse ever sham'd;
Prince John, my dear friend once, is now for thee
Become an unrelenting enemy.

JOHN. But I'll relent and love thee, if thou leave her.

ROB. H. And Elinor my sovereign, mother-queen,[181]
That yet retains true passion in her breast,
Stands mourning yonder. Hence! I thee detest.
I will submit me to her majesty.
Great princess, if you will but ride with me
A little of my way, I will express
My folly past, and humble pardon beg.

MAR. I grant, Earl Robert, and I thank thee too.

QU. ELIN. She's not the queen; sweet Robin, it is I.

ROB. H. Hence, sorceress! thy beauty I defy.
If thou have any love at all to me,
Bestow it on Prince John; he loveth thee.

                         [_Exeunt_ ROBIN, MARIAN.

JOHN. And I will love thee, Robin, for this deed,
And help thee, too, in thy distressful need.

QU. ELIN. Wilt thou not stay nor speak, proud Huntington?
Ay me! some whirlwind hurries them away.

JOHN. Follow him not, fair love, that from thee flies,
But fly to him that gladly follows thee.
Wilt thou not, girl? turn'st thou away from me?

QU. ELIN. Nay, we shall have it then,
If my quaint son his mother 'gin to court.    [_Aside_.

JOHN. Wilt thou not speak, fair Marian, to Prince John,
That loves thee well?

QU. ELIN. Good sir, I know you do.

JOHN. That can maintain thee.

QU. ELIN. Ay, I know you can,
But hitherto I have maintained you.

JOHN. My princely mother!

QU. ELIN. Ay, my princely son.

JOHN. Is Marian then gone hence with Huntington?

QU. ELIN. Ay, she is gone; ill may they either thrive.

JOHN. Mother, they [needs] must go, whom the devil drives;
For your sharp fury and infernal rage,
Your scorn of me, your spite to Marian,
Your overdoating love to Huntington,
Hath cross'd yourself, and me it hath undone.

QU. ELIN. I in mine own deceit have met deceit:
In brief the manner thus I will repeat.
I knew with malice that the Prior of York
Pursued Earl Robert; and I furthered it,
Though God can tell, for love of Huntington.
For thus I thought: when he was in extremes,
Need and my love would win some good regard
From him to me, if I reliev'd his want.
To this end came I to the mock spouse-feast;
To this end made I change for Marian's weed,
That me for her Earl Robert should receive:
But now I see they both of them agreed,
In my deceit I might myself deceive.
Come in with me, come in, and meditate
How to turn love to never-changing hate.
                                        [_Exit_.

JOHN. In by yourself; I pass not for your spells.
Of youth and beauty still you are the foe:
The curse of Rosamond rests on your head,
Fair Rose confounded by your cank'rous hate,[182]
O, that she were not as to me she is,
A mother, whom by nature I must love,
Then I would tell her she were too-too base
To dote thus on a banish'd careless groom:
Then should I tell her that she were too fond
To trust[183] fair Marian to an exile's hand.

    _Enter a_ MESSENGER _from_ ELY.

MES. My lord, my Lord of Ely sends for you
About important business of the state.

JOHN. Tell the proud prelate I am not dispos'd
Nor in estate to come at his command.
                      [_Smites him; he bleeds_.
Begone with that; or tarry, and take this!
'Zwounds! are ye list'ning for an after-errand?
                             [_Exit_ MESSENGER.
I'll follow with revengeful, murd'rous hate
The banish'd, beggar'd, bankrupt Huntington.

    _Enter_ SIMON, _Earl of Leicester_.

LEI. How now, Prince John? body of me! I muse
What mad moods toss ye in this busy time
To wound the messenger that Ely sent,
By our consents? i'faith, ye did not well.

JOHN. Leicester, I meant it, Ely, not his man:
His servant's head but bleeds, he headless shall
From all the issues of his traitor-neck
Pour streams of blood, till he be bloodless left.
By earth, it shall--by heaven, it shall be so!
Leicester, it shall, though all the world say no.

LEI. It shall, it shall! but how shall it be done?
Not with a stormy tempest of sharp words,
But slow, still speeches and effecting deeds.
Here comes old Lacy and his brother Hugh!
One is our friend, and the other is not true.

    _Enter_ LORD LACY, SIR HUGH, _and his Boy_.

LACY. Hence, treacher, as thou art! by God's bless'd mother!
I'll lop thy legs off, though thou be my brother,
If with thy flattering tongue thou seek to hide
Thy traitorous purpose. Ah, poor Huntington!
How in one hour have villains thee undone!

HUGH. If you will not believe what I have sworn,
Conceit your worst. My Lord of Ely knows
That what I say is true.

LACY. Still facest thou?
Draw, boy, and quickly see that thou defend thee.

LEI. Patience, Lord Lacy! get you gone, Sir Hugh;
Provoke him not, for he hath told you true:
You know it, that I know the Prior of York,
Together with my good lord chancellor,
Corrupted you, Lord Sentloe, Broughton, Warman,
To feast with Robert on his day of fall.

HUGH. They lie that say it: I defy ye all.

JOHN. Now, by the rood, thou liest. Warman himself,
That creeping Judas, joy'd, and told it me.

LACY. Let me, my lords, revenge me of this wretch,
By whom my daughter and her love were lost.

JOHN. For her, let me revenge: with bitter cost,
Shall Sir Hugh Lacy and his fellows buy
Fair Marian's loss, lost by their treachery;
And thus I pay it.
            [_Stabs him; he falls; Boy runs in_.

LEI. Sure payment, John.

LACY. There let the villain lie.
For this old Lacy honours thee, Prince John:
One treacherous soul is sent to answer wrong.

    _Enter_ ELY, CHESTER, _Officers, Hugh Lacy's Boy_.

BOY. Here, here, my lord! look, where my master lies.

ELY. What murd'rous hand hath kill'd this gentle knight,
Good Sir Hugh Lacy, steward of my lands?

JOHN. Ely, he died by this princely hand.

ELY. Unprincely deed! Death asketh death, you know.
Arrest him, officers.

JOHN. O sir, I will obey.
You will take bail, I hope.

CHES. 'Tis more, sir, than he may.

LEI. Chester, he may by law, and therefore shall.

ELY. Who are his bail?

LEI. I.

LACY. And I.

ELY. You are confederates.

JOHN. Holy Lord, you lie.

CHES. Be reverend, Prince John: my Lord of Ely,
You know, is Regent for his majesty,

JOHN. But here are letters from his majesty,
Sent out of Joppa, in the Holy Land,
To you, to these, to me, to all the state,
Containing a repeal of that large grant,
And free authority to take the seal
Into the hands of three lords temporal
And the Lord Archbishop of Roan, he sent.
And he shall yield it, or as Lacy lies,
Desertfully, for pride and treason stabb'd,
He shall ere long lie. Those, that intend as I,
Follow this steely ensign, lift on high.

    [_Lifts up his drawn sword. Exit, cum_ LEICESTER _and_ LACY.

ELY. A thousand thousand ensigns of sharp steel,
And feather'd arrows from the bow of death,
Against proud John wrong'd Ely will employ.
My Lord of Chester, let me have your aid,
To lay the pride of haught,[184] usurping John.

CHES. Some other course than war let us bethink:
If it may be, let not uncivil broils
Our civil hands defile.

ELY. God knows that I
For quiet of the realm would aught forbear:
But give me leave, my noble lord, to fear,
When one I dearly lov'd is murdered
Under the colour of a little wrong
Done to the wasteful Earl of Huntington;
Whom John, I know, doth hate unto the death,
Only for love he bears to Lacy's daughter.

CHES. My lord, it's plain this quarrel is but pick'd
For an inducement to a greater ill;
But we will call the council of estate,
At which the Mother Queen shall present be:
Thither by summons shall Prince John be call'd,
Leicester, and Lacy, who, it seems,
Favour some factious purpose of the prince.

ELY. You have advised well, my Lord of Chester;
And as you counsel, so do I conclude.

                                     [_Exeunt_.



SCENE II.


    _Enter_ ROBIN HOOD _and_ MATILDA _at one door_; LITTLE JOHN
    _and_ MUCH _the Miller's son at another door_.

MUCH. Luck, I beseech thee, marry and amen!
Blessing betide them! (it be them indeed)
Ah, for my good lord and my little lady![185]

ROB. H. What, Much and John! well-met in this ill time.

LIT. JOHN. In this good time, my lord, for, being met,
The world shall not depart us till we die.[186]

MAT. Say'st thou me so, John? as I am true maid,
If I live long, well shall thy love be paid.

MUCH. Well, there be on us, simple though we stand here, have as much
love in them as Little John.

MAT. Much, I confess thou lov'st me very much,
And I will more reward it than with words.

MUCH. Nay, I know that; but we miller's children love the cog a little,
and the fair speaking.

ROB. H. And is it possible that Warman's spite
Should stretch so far, that he doth hunt the lives
Of bonny Scarlet and his brother Scathlock.

MUCH. O, ay, sir: Warman came but yesterday to take charge of the jail
at Nottingham, and this day he says he will hang the two outlaws. He
means to set them at liberty!

MAT. Such liberty God send the peevish wretch,
In his most need.

ROB. H. Now, by my honour's hope,
Yet buried in the low dust of disgrace,
He is to blame. Say, John, where must they die?

LIT. JOHN. Yonder's their mother's house, and here the tree
Whereon, poor men, they must forego their lives:
And yonder comes a lazy losel friar,
That is appointed for their confessor;
Who, when we brought your money to their mothers,
Was wishing her to patience for their deaths.

    _Enter_ FRIAR TUCK _and_ RALPH, _Warman's man_.

RAL. I am timorous, sir, that the prigioners are passed from the jail.

FRIAR. Soft, sirrah! by my order I protest
Ye are too forward: 'tis no game, no jest,
We go about.

ROB. H. Matilda, walk afore
To Widow Scarlet's house; look, where it stands.
Much, man your lady: Little John and I
Will come unto you thither presently.

MUCH. Come, madam; my lord has 'pointed the properer man to go before ye.

MAT. Be careful, Robin, in this time of fear.

                     [_Exeunt_ MUCH, MATILDA.

FRIAR. Now, by the relics of the holy mass,
A pretty girl, a very bonny lass.

ROB. H. Friar, how like you her?

FRIAR. Marry, by my hood,
I like her well, and wish her nought but good.

RAL. Ye protract, Master Friar. I obsecrate ye with all courtesy,
omitting compliment, you would vouch or deign to proceed.

FRIAR, Deign, vouch, protract, compliment, obsecrate?
Why, goodman Tricks, who taught you thus to prate?
Your name, your name? Were you never christen'd?

RAL. My nomination Radulph is, or Ralph: Vulgars corruptly use to call
me Rafe.

FRIAR. O foul corruption of base palliardize,[187]
When idiots, witless, travail to be wise.
Age barbarous, times impious, men vicious!

    Able to upraise,
    Men dead many days,
    That wonted to praise
    The rhymes and the lays
    Of poets laureate:
    Whose verse did decorate,
    And their lines 'lustrate
    Both prince and potentate.
    These from their graves
    See asses and knaves,
    Base idiot slaves,
    With boastings and braves
    Offer to upfly
    To the heavens high,
    With vain foolery
    And rude ribaldry.
    Some of them write
    Of beastly delight,
    Suffering their lines
    To flatter these times
    With pandarism base,
    And lust do uncase
    From the placket to the pap:
    God send them ill-hap!
    Some like quaint pedants,
    Good wit's true recreants,
    Ye cannot beseech
    From pure Priscian speech.
    Divers as nice,
    Like this odd vice,
    Are word-makers daily.
    Others in courtesy,
    Whenever they meet ye,
    With new fashions greet ye:
    Changing each congee,
    Sometime beneath knee,
    With, "Good sir, pardon me,"
    And much more foolery,
    Paltry and foppery,
    Dissembling knavery:
    Hands sometime kissing,
    But honesty missing.
    God give no blessing
    To such base counterfeiting.

LIT. JOHN. Stop, Master Skelton! whither will you run?

FRIAR. God's pity! Sir John Eltham, Little John,
I had forgot myself. But to our play.
Come, goodman Fashions, let us go our way,
Unto this hanging business. Would, for me,
Some rescue or reprieve might set them free.

                                   [_Exeunt_ FRIAR, RALPH.

ROB. H. Heard'st thou not, Little John, the friar's speech,
Wishing for rescue or a quick reprieve?

LIT. JOHN. He seems like a good fellow, my good lord.

ROB. H. He's a good fellow, John, upon my word.
Lend me thy horn, and get thee in to Much,
And when I blow this horn, come both, and help me.

LIT. JOHN. Take heed, my lord: that villain Warman knows you,
And ten to one he hath a writ against you.

ROB. H. Fear not.
Below the bridge a poor blind man doth dwell,
With him I will change my habit, and disguise:
Only be ready when I call for ye;
For I will save their lives, if it may be.

LIT. JOHN. I will do what you would immediately.

    _Enter_ WARMAN, SCARLET, _and_ SCATHLOCK, _bound_;
    FRIAR TUCK _as their confessor; officers with halberts_.

WAR. Master Friar, be brief; delay no time.
Scarlet and Scathlock, never hope for life:
Here is the place of execution,
And you must answer law for what is done.

SCAR. Well, if there be no remedy, we must:
Though it ill-seemeth, Warman, thou should'st be
So bloody to pursue our lives thus cruelly.

SCATH. Our mother sav'd thee fro the gallows, Warman:
His father did prefer thee to thy lord.
One mother had we both, and both our fathers
To thee and to thy father were kind friends.

FRIAR. Good fellows, here you see his kindness ends:
What he was once he doth not now consider.
You must consider of your many sins:
This day in death your happiness begins.

SCAR. If you account it happiness, good Friar,
To bear us company I you desire:
The more the merrier; we are honest men.

WAR. Ye were first outlaws, then ye proved thieves,
And now all carelessly ye scoff at death.
Both of your fathers were good, honest men;
Your mother lives, their widow, in good fame;
But you are scapethrifts, unthrifts, villains, knaves,
And as ye lived by shifts, shall die with shame.

SCATH. Warman, good words, for all your bitter deeds:
Ill-speech to wretched men is more than needs.

    _Enter_ RALPH, _running_.

RAL. Sir, retire ye, for it hath thus succeeded: the carnifex or
executor, riding on an ill-curtal, hath titubated or stumbled, and is
now cripplified, with broken or fractured tibiards, and, sending you
tidings of success, saith yourself must be his deputy.

WAR. Ill-luck! but, sirrah, you shall serve the turn:
The cords that bind them you shall hang them in.

RAL. How are you, sir, of me opinionated? not to possess your
seneschalship or shrievalty, not to be Earl of Nottingham, will
Ralph be nominated by the base, scandalous vociferation of a
hangman!

    _Enter_ ROBIN HOOD, _like an old man_.

ROB. H. Where is the Shrieve, kind friends, I you beseech?
With his good worship let me have some speech.

FRIAR. There is the Sheriff, father: this is he.

ROB. H. Friar, good alms and many blessings! thank thee.
Sir, you are welcome to this troublous shire:
Of this day's execution did I hear.
Scarlet and Scathlock murder'd my young son:
Me have they robb'd and helplessly undone.
Revenge I would, but I am old and dry:
Wherefore, sweet master, for saint Charity,
Since they are bound, deliver them to me,
That for my son's blood I reveng'd may be.

SCAR. This old man lies: we ne'er did him such wrong.

ROB. H. I do not lie: you wot it too-too well.
The deed was such as you may shame to tell;
But I with all entreats might not prevail
With your stern, stubborn minds, bent all to blood.
Shall I have such revenge then, Master Sheriff,
That with my son's loss may suffice myself?
                       [ROBIN _whispers with them_.

WAR. Do, father, what thou wilt, for they must die.

FRIAR. I never heard them touch'd with blood till now.

WAR. Notorious villains! and they made their brags,
The Earl of Huntington would save their lives:
But he is down the wind, as all such shall,
That revel, waste and spend, and take no care.

ROB. H. My horn once winded, I'll unbind my belt,
Whereat the swords and bucklers are fast-tied.
                             [_To_ SCARLET _and_ SCATHLOCK.

SCATH. Thanks to your honour. [_Aside_.] Father, we confess,
And were our arms unbound, we would upheave
Our sinful hands with sorrowing hearts to heaven.

ROB. H. I will unbind you, with the sheriff's leave.

WAR. Do: help him, Ralph: go to them, Master Friar.

ROB. H. And as ye blew your horns at my son's death,
So will I sound your knell with my best breath:
                                 [_Sounds his horn_.
And here's a blade, that hangeth at my belt,
Shall make ye feel in death what my son felt.

    _Enter_ LITTLE JOHN _and_ MUCH.[188] _Fight: the_ FRIAR,
    _making as if he helped the_ SHERIFF, _knocks down his men,
    crying, Keep the king's peace_!

RAL. O, they must be hanged, father.

ROB. H. Thy master and thyself supply their rooms.
Warman, approach me not! tempt not my wrath,
For if thou do, thou diest remediless.

WAR. It is the outlaw'd Earl of Huntington!
Down with him, Friar! O, thou dost mistake![189]
Fly, Ralph, we die else! let us raise the shire.

               [SHERIFF _runs away, and his men_.

FRIAR. Farewell. Earl Robert, as I am true friar,
I had rather be thy clerk than serve the Prior.

ROB. H. A jolly fellow. Scarlet, know'st thou him?

SCAR. He is of York, and of St Mary's cloister,
There where your greedy uncle is Lord Prior.

MUCH. O, murrain on ye! have you two 'scap'd hanging?[190]
Hark ye, my lord: these two fellows kept at Barnsdale
Seven year to my knowledge, and no man[191]--

ROB. H. Here is no biding, masters: get ye in,
Take a short blessing at your mother's hands.
Much, bear them company; make Matilda merry:
John and myself will follow presently.
John, on a sudden thus I am resolv'd--
To keep in Sherwood till the king's return,
And being outlaw'd, lead an outlaw's life.
(Seven years these brethren, being yeomen's sons,
Lived and 'scap'd the malice of their foes.)[192]
How think'st thou, Little John, of my intent?

LIT. JOHN. I like your honour's purpose exceeding well.

ROB. H. Nay, no more honour, I pray thee, Little John;
Henceforth I will be called Robin Hood.
Matilda shall be my maid Marian.
Come, John, friends all, for now begins the game;
And after our deserts so grow our fame!

                                        [_Exeunt.




ACT III., SCENE I.


    _Enter_ PRINCE JOHN, _and his Lords, with Soldiers_.

JOHN. Now is this comet shot into the sea,
Or lies like slime upon the sullen earth.
Come, he is dead, else should we hear of him.

SAL. I know not what to think herein, my lord.

FITZ. Ely is not the man I took him for:
I am afraid we shall have worse than he.

JOHN. Why, good Fitzwater, whence doth spring your fear.

FITZ. Him for his pride we justly have suppress'd;
But prouder climbers are about to rise.

SAL. Name them, Fitzwater: know you any such?

JOHN. Fitzwater means not anything, I know;
For if he did, his tongue would tell his heart.

FITZ. An argument of my free heart, my lord.
That lets the world be witness of my thought.
When I was taught, true dealing kept the school;
Deeds were sworn partners with protesting words;
We said and did; these say and never mean.
This upstart protestation of no proof--
This, "I beseech you, sir, accept my love;
Command me, use me; O, you are to blame,
That do neglect, my everlasting zeal,
My dear, my kind affect;" when (God can tell)
A sudden puff of wind, a lightning flash,
A bubble on the stream doth longer 'dure,
Than doth the purpose of their promise bide.
A shame upon this peevish, apish age,
These crouching, hypocrite, dissembling times!
Well, well, God rid the patrons of these crimes
Out of this land: I have an inward fear,
This ill, well-seeming sin will be bought dear.

SAL. My Lord Fitzwater is inspired, I think.

JOHN. Ay, with some devil: let the old fool dote.

    _Enter_ QUEEN MOTHER, CHESTER, SHERIFF _of Kent, Soldiers_.

QU. MO. From the pursuing of the hateful priest
And bootless search of Ely are we come.

JOHN. And welcome is your sacred majesty;
And, Chester, welcome too against your will.

CHES. Unwilling men come not without constraint;
But uncompell'd comes Chester to this place,
Telling thee, John, that thou art much to blame,
To chase hence Ely, chancellor to the king;
To set thy footsteps on the cloth of state,
And seat thy body in thy brother's throne.

SAL. Who should succeed the brother but the brother?

CHES. If one were dead, one should succeed the other.

QU. MO. My son is king, my son then ought to reign.

FITZ. One son is king; the state allows not twain.

SAL. The subjects many years the king have miss'd.

CHES. But subjects must not choose what king they list.

QU. MO. Richard hath conquer'd kingdoms in the east.

FITZ. A sign he will not lose this in the west.

SAL. By Salisbury's honour, I will follow John.

CHES. So Chester will, to shun commotion.

QU. MO. Why, John shall be but Richard's deputy.

FITZ. To that Fitzwater gladly doth agree.
And look to't, lady, mind King Richard's love;
As you will answer't, do the king no wrong.

QU. MO. Well-said, old Conscience, you keep still one song.

JOHN. In your contentious humours, noble lords,
Peers and upholders of the English state,
John silent stood, as one that did await
What sentence ye determin'd for my life:
But since you are agreed that I shall bear
The weighty burthen of this kingdom's state,
Till the return of Richard our dread king,
I do accept the charge, and thank ye all,
That think me worthy of so great a place.

ALL. We all confirm you Richard's deputy.

SAL. Now shall I plague proud Chester.

QU. MO. Sit you sure, Fitzwater.

CHES. For peace I yield to wrong.

JOHN. Now, old man, for your daughter.

FITZ. To see wrong rule, my eyes run streams of water.

                                    [_A noise within_.

    _Enter_ COLLIERS, _crying, A monster_!

COL. A monster! a monster! bring her out, Robin: a monster! a monster!

SAL. Peace, gaping fellow! know'st thou where thou art?

1ST COL. Why, I am in Kent, within a mile of Dover.
'Sblood, where I am! peace, and a gaping fellow!
For all your dagger, wert not for your ging,[193]
I would knock my whipstock on your addle-head.
Come, out with the monster, Robin.

WITHIN. I come, I come. Help me, she scratches!

1ST COL. I'll gee her the lash. Come out, ye bearded witch.

    [_Bring forth_ ELY, _with a yard in his hand and
    linen cloth, dressed like a woman_.

ELY. Good fellows, let me go! there's gold to drink,
I am a man, though in woman's weeds.
Yonder's Prince John: I pray ye, let me go.

QU. MO. What rude companions have we yonder, Salisbury?

1ST COL. Shall we take his money?

2D COL. No, no; this is the thief that robbed Master Michaels, and came
in like a woman in labour, I warrant ye.

SAL. Who have ye here, honest colliers?

2D COL. A monster, a monster! a woman with a beard, a man in a petticoat.
A monster, a monster!

SAL. What, my good Lord of Ely, is it you?--Ely is taken, here's the
chancellor!

1ST COL. Pray God we be not hanged for this trick.

QU. MO. What, my good lord!

ELY. Ay, ay, ambitious lady.

JOHN. Who? My lord chancellor?

ELY. Ay, you proud usurper.

SAL. What, is your surplice turned to a smock?

ELY. Peace, Salisbury, thou changing weather-cock.

CHES. Alas, my lord! I grieve to see this sight.

ELY. Chester, it will be day for this dark night.

FITZ. Ely, thou wert the foe to Huntington:
Robin, thou knew'st, was my adopted son.
O Ely, thou to him wert too-too cruel!
With him fled hence Matilda, my fair jewel.
For their wrong, Ely, and thy haughty pride,
I help'd Earl John; but now I see thee low,
At thy distress my heart is full of woe.

QU. MO. Needs must I see Fitzwater's overthrow.
John, I affect him not, he loves not thee:
Remove him, John, lest thou removed be.

JOHN. Mother, let me alone; by one and one
I will not leave one that envies our good.
My Lord of Salisbury, give these honest colliers
For taking Ely each a hundred marks.

SAL. Come, fellows; go with me.

COL. Thank ye, [i'] faith. Farewell, monster.

          [_Exeunt_ SALISBURY, _with_ COLLIERS.

JOHN. Sheriff of Kent, take Ely to your charge.
From shrieve to shrieve send him to Nottingham,
Where Warman, by our patent, is high shrieve.
There, as a traitor, let him be close-kept.
And to his trial we will follow straight.

ELY. A traitor, John?

JOHN. Do not expostulate:
You at your trial shall have time to prate.

                           [_Exeunt cum_ ELY.

FITZ. God, for thy pity, what a time is here!

JOHN. Right gracious mother, would yourself and Chester
Would but withdraw you for a little space,
While I confer with my good Lord Fitzwater?

QUEEN. My Lord of Chester, will you walk aside?

CHES. Whither your highness please, thither I will.

                        [_Exeunt_ CHESTER _and_ QUEEN.

JOHN. Soldiers, attend the person of our mother.
                                   [_Exeunt_ SOLDIERS.
Noble Fitzwater, now we are alone,
What oft I have desir'd I will entreat,
Touching Matilda, fled with Huntington.

FITZ. Of her what would you touch? Touching her flight,
She is fled hence with Robert, her true knight.

JOHN. Robert is outlaw'd, and Matilda free;
Why through his fault should she exiled be?
She is your comfort, your old[194] age's bliss;
Why should your age so great a comfort miss?
She is all England's beauty, all her pride;
In foreign lands why should that beauty bide?
Call her again, Fitzwater, call again
Guiltless Matilda, beauty's sovereign.

FITZ. I grant, Prince John, Matilda was my joy,
And the fair sun that kept old Winter's frost
From griping dead the marrow of my bones;
And she is gone; yet where she is, God wot:
Aged Fitzwater truly guesseth not.
But where she is, there is kind Huntington;
With my fair daughter is my noble son.
If he may never be recall'd again,
To call Matilda back it is in vain.

JOHN. Living with him, she lives in vicious state,
For Huntington is excommunicate;
And till his debts be paid, by Rome's decree
It is agreed absolv'd he cannot be;
And that can never be: so ne'er a[195] wife,
But a loathed[196] adulterous beggar's life,
Must fair Matilda live. This you may amend,
And win Prince John your ever-during friend.

FITZ. As how? as how?

JOHN. Call her from him: bring her to England's court,
Where, like fair Phoebe, she may sit as queen
Over the sacred, honourable maids
That do attend the royal queen, my mother.
There shall she live a prince's Cynthia,
And John will be her true Endymion.

FITZ. By this construction she should be the moon,
And you would be the man within the moon!

JOHN. A pleasant exposition, good Fitzwater:
But if it so fell out that I fell in,
You of my full joys should be chief partaker.

FITZ. John, I defy thee! by my honour's hope,
I will not bear this base indignity!
Take to thy tools! think'st thou a nobleman
Will be a pander to his proper[197] child?
For what intend'st thou else, seeing I know
Earl Chepstow's daughter is thy married wife.
Come, if thou be a right Plantaganet,
Draw and defend thee. O our Lady, help
True English lords from such a tyrant lord!
What, dost thou think I jest? Nay, by the rood,
I'll lose my life, or purge thy lustful blood.

JOHN. What, my old ruffian, lie at your ward?[198]
Have at your froward bosom, old Fitzwater.

                          [_Fight_: JOHN _falls_.

    _Enter_ QUEEN, CHESTER, SALISBURY, _hastily_.

FITZ. O, that thou wert not royal Richard's brother,
Thou shouldst here die in presence of thy mother.
    [JOHN _rises: all compass_ FITZWATER; FITZWATER _chafes_.
What, is he up? Nay, lords, then give us leave.

CHES. What means this rage, Fitzwater?

QUEEN. Lay hands upon the Bedlam, trait'rous wretch!

JOHN. Nay, hale him hence! and hear you, old Fitzwater:
See that you stay not five days in the realm.
For if you do, you die remediless.

FITZ. Speak, lords: do you confirm what he hath said?

ALL. He is our prince, and he must be obey'd.

FITZ. Hearken, Earl John! but one word will I say.

JOHN. I will not hear thee; neither will I stay.
Thou know'st thy time.
                     [_Exit_ JOHN.

FITZ. Will not your highness hear?

QUEEN. No: thy Matilda robb'd me of my dear.
                              [_Exit_ QUEEN.

FITZ. I aided thee in battle, Salisbury.

SAL. Prince John is mov'd; I dare not stay with thee.
                              [_Exit_ SALISBURY.[199]

FITZ. 'Gainst thee and Ely, Chester, was I foe,
And dost thou stay to aggravate my woe?

CHES. No, good Fitzwater; Chester doth lament
Thy wrong, thy sudden banishment.
Whence grew the quarrel 'twixt the prince and thee?

FITZ. Chester, the devil tempted old Fitzwater
To be a pander to his only daughter;
And my great heart, impatient, forc'd my hand,
In my true honour's right to challenge him.
Alas the while! wrong will not be reprov'd.

CHES. Farewell, Fitzwater: wheresoe'er thou be,
By letters, I beseech thee, send to me.
                               [_Exit_ CHESTER.

FITZ. Chester, I will, I will.
Heavens turn to good this woe, this wrong, this ill.

                                            [_Exit_.



SCENE II.


    _Enter_ SCATHLOCK _and_ SCARLET, _winding their horns,
    at several doors. To them enter_ ROBIN HOOD, MATILDA,
    _all in green_, SCATHLOCK'S MOTHER, MUCH, LITTLE JOHN:
    _all the men with bows and arrows_.

ROB. H. Widow, I wish thee homeward now to wend,
Lest Warman's malice work thee any wrong.

WID. Master, I will; and mickle good attend
On thee, thy love, and all these yeomen strong.

MAT. Forget not, widow, what you promis'd me.

MUCH. O, ay, mistress; for God's sake let's have Jenny.

WID. You shall have Jenny sent you with all speed.
Sons, farewell, and, by your mother's reed,
Love well your master: blessing ever fall
On him, your mistress, and these yeomen tall.
                                       [_Exit_.

MUCH. God be with you, mother: have much mind, I pray, on Much your son,
and your daughter Jenny.

ROB. H. Wind once more, jolly huntsmen, all your horns;
Whose shrill sound, with the echoing wood's assist,
Shall ring a sad knell for the fearful deer,
Before our feathered shafts, death's winged darts,
Bring sudden summons for their fatal ends.

SCAR. It's full seven years since we were outlaw'd first,
And wealthy Sherwood was our heritage:
For all those years we reigned uncontroll'd,
From Barnsdale shrogs to Nottingham's red cliffs;
At Blithe and Tickhill were we welcome guests.
Good George-a-Greene at Bradford was our friend,
And wanton Wakefield's Pinner[200] lov'd us well.
At Barnsley dwells a potter tough and strong,
That never brook'd we brethren should have wrong.
The nuns of Farnsfield (pretty nuns they be)
Gave napkins, shirts, and bands to him and me.
Bateman of Kendal gave us Kendal green,
And Sharpe of Leeds sharp arrows for us made:
At Rotheram dwelt our bowyer, God him bless;
Jackson he hight, his bows did never miss.
This for our good--our scathe let Scathlock tell,
In merry Mansfield how it once befell.

SCATH. In merry Mansfield, on a wrestling day,
Prizes there were, and yeomen came to play;
My brother Scarlet and myself were twain.
Many resisted, but it was in vain,
For of them all we won the mastery,
And the gilt wreaths were given to him and me.
There by Sir Doncaster of Hothersfield
We were bewray'd, beset, and forc'd to yield,
And so borne bound from thence to Nottingham,
Where we lay doom'd to death till Warman came.

ROB. H. Of that enough. What cheer, my dearest love?

MUCH. O, good cheer anon, sir; she shall have venison her bellyful.

MAT. Matilda is as joyful of thy good
As joy can make her: how fares Robin Hood?

ROB. H. Well, my Matilda, and if thou agree,
Nothing but mirth shall wait on thee and me.

MAT. O God, how full of perfect mirth were I
To see thy grief turn'd to true jollity!

ROB. H. Give me thy hand; now God's curse on me light,
If I forsake not grief, in griefs despite.
Much, make a cry, and, yeomen, stand ye round:
I charge ye never more let woful sound
Be heard among ye; but whatever fall,
Laugh grief to scorn, and so make sorrow small,
Much, make a cry, and loudly: Little John.

MUCH. O God, O God! help, help, help! I am undone, I am undone!

LIT. JOHN. Why, how now, Much? Peace, peace, you roaring slave.

MUCH. My master bad me cry, and I will cry till he bid me leave.
Help, help, help! Ay, marry will I.

ROB. H. Peace, Much. Read on the articles, good John.

LIT. JOHN. First, no man must presume to call our master
By name of Earl, Lord, Baron, Knight, or Squire;
But simply by the name of Robin Hood.

ROB. H. Say, yeomen, to this order will ye yield?

ALL. We yield to serve our master, Robin Hood.

LIT. JOHN. Next, 'tis agreed, if thereto she agree,
That fair Matilda henceforth change her name,
And while it is the chance of Robin Hood
To live in Sherwood a poor outlaw's life,
She by Maid Marian's name be only call'd.

MAT. I am contented; read on, Little John:
Henceforth let me be nam'd Maid Marian.

LIT. JOHN. Thirdly, no yeoman, following Robin Hood
In Sherwood, shall [ab]use widow, wife, or maid;
But by true labour lustful thoughts expel.

ROB. H. How like ye this?

ALL. Master, we like it well.

MUCH. But I cry no to it. What shall I do with Jenny then?

SCAR. Peace, Much: go forward with the orders, fellow John.

LIT. JOHN. Fourthly, no passenger with whom ye meet
Shall ye let pass, till he with Robin feast;
Except a post, a carrier, or such folk
As use with food to serve the market towns.

ALL. An order which we gladly will observe.

LIT. JOHN. Fifthly, you never shall the poor man wrong,
Nor spare a priest, a usurer, or a clerk.

MUCH. Nor a fair wench, meet we her in the dark!

LIT. JOHN. Lastly, you shall defend with all your power
Maids, widows, orphans, and distressed men.

ALL. All these we vow to keep as we are men.

ROB. H. Then wend ye to the greenwood merrily,
And let the light roes bootless from ye run.
Marian and I, as sovereigns of your toils,
Will wait within our bower your bent bows' spoils.

MUCH. I will among them, master.

                    [_Exeunt winding their horns_.

ROB. H. Marian, thou seest, though courtly pleasures want,
Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant:
For the soul-ravishing, delicious sound
Of instrumental music we have found
The winged quiristers with divers notes
Sent from their quaint recording[201] pretty throats,
On every branch that compasseth our bow'r,
Without command contenting us each hour.
For arras hangings and rich tapestry
We have sweet nature's best embroidery.
For thy steel glass, wherein thou wont'st to look,
Thy crystal eyes gaze in a crystal brook.
At court a flower or two did deck thy head,
Now with whole garlands is it circled.
For what in wealth we want, we have in flowers,
And what we lose in halls, we find in bowers.

MAR. Marian hath all, sweet Robert, having thee,
And guesses thee as rich in having me.

ROB. H. I am indeed;
For, having thee, what comfort can I need?

MAR. Go in, go in.
To part such true love, Robin, it were sin.

                                   [_Exeunt_.

    _Enter_ PRIOR, SIR DONCASTER, FRIAR TUCK.

PRIOR. To take his body, by the blessed rood,
'Twould do me more than any other good.

DON. O, 'tis an unthrift, still the churchmen's foe;
An ill-end will betide him, that I know.
'Twas he that urged the king to 'sess the clergy,
When to the holy land he took his journey;
And he it is that rescued those two thieves,
Scarlet and Scathlock, that so many griefs
To churchmen did: and now, they say,
He keeps in Sherwood, and himself doth play
The lawless reaver:[202] hear you, my Lord Prior,
He must be taken, or it will be wrong.

TUCK. Ay, ay, soon said;
But ere he be, many will lie dead,
Except it be by sleight.

DON. Ay, there, there, Friar.

TUCK. Give me, my lord, your execution.
The widow Scarlet's daughter, lovely Jenny,
Loves, and is belov'd of Much, the miller's son.
If I can get the girl to go with me,
Disguis'd in habit like a pedlar's mort,[203]
I'll serve this execution, on my life,
And single out a time alone to take
Robin, that often careless walks alone.
Why, answer not; remember what I said:
Yonder, I see, comes Jenny, that fair maid.
If we agree, then back me soon with aid.

    _Enter_ JENNY _with a fardel_.

PRIOR. Tuck, if thou do it--

DON. Pray, you do not talk:
As we were strangers let us careless walk.

JEN. Now to the green wood wend I, God me speed.

TUCK. Amen, fair maid, and send thee, in thy need,
Much, that is born to do thee much good deed.

JEN. Are you there, Friar? nay then, i'faith, we have it.

TUCK. What, wench? my love?

JEN. Ay, gi't me when I crave it.

TUCK. Unask'd I offer; prythee, sweet girl, take it.

JEN. Gifts stink with proffer: foh! Friar, I forsake it.

TUCK. I will be kind.

JEN. Will not your kindness kill her?

TUCK. With love?

JEN. You cog.

TUCK. Tut, girl, I am no miller:
Hear in your ear.

DON. The Friar courts her.    [_Standing behind_.

PRIOR. Tush, let them alone;
He is our Lady's Chaplain, but serves Joan.

DON. Then, from the Friar's fault, perchance, it may be
The proverb grew, Joan's taken for my lady.

PRIOR. Peace, good Sir Doncaster, list to the end.

JEN. But mean ye faith and troth? shall I go wi' ye?

TUCK. Upon my faith, I do intend good faith.

JEN. And shall I have the pins and laces too,
If I bear a pedlar's pack with you?

TUCK. As I am holy Friar, Jenny, thou shalt.

JEN. Well, there's my hand; see, Friar, you do not halt.

TUCK. Go but before into the miry mead,
And keep the path that doth to Farnsfield lead;
I'll into Southwell and buy all the knacks,
That shall fit both of us for pedlar's packs.

JEN. Who be they two that yonder walk, I pray?

TUCK. Jenny, I know not: be they what they may,
Scare not for them; prythee, do not stay,
But make some speed, that we were gone away.

JEN. Well, Friar, I trust you that we go to Sherwood.

TUCK. Ay, by my beads, and unto Robin Hood.

JEN. Make speed, good Friar.

TUCK. Jenny, do not fear.    [_Exit_ JENNY.
Lord Prior, now you hear,
As much as I. Get me two pedlar's packs,
Points, laces, looking-glasses, pins and knacks;
And let Sir Doncaster with some wight lads
Follow us close; and, ere these forty hours,
Upon my life Earl Robert shall be ours.

PRIOR. Thou shalt have anything, my dearest Friar;
And in amends I'll make thee my sub-prior.
Come, good Sir Doncaster, and if we thrive,
We'll frolic with the nuns of Leeds, belive.[204]

                                        [_Exeunt_.

    _Enter_ FITZWATER, _like an old man_.

FITZ. Well did he write, and mickle did he know,
That said this world's felicity was woe,
Which greater states can hardly undergo.
Whilom Fitzwater, in fair England's court,
Possess'd felicity and happy state,
And in his hall blithe fortune kept her sport,
Which glee one hour of woe did ruinate.
Fitzwater once had castles, towns, and towers,
Fair gardens, orchards, and delightful bowers;
But now nor garden, orchard, town, nor tower,
Hath poor Fitzwater left within his power.
Only wide walks are left me in the world,
Which these stiff limbs will hardly let me tread;
And when I sleep, heaven's glorious canopy
Me and my mossy couch doth overspread.
Of this injurious John cannot bereave me;
The air and earth he (while I live) must leave me;
But from the English air and earth, poor man,
His tyranny hath ruthless thee exiled.
Yet e'er I leave it, I'll do what I can
To see Matilda, my fair luckless child.

    [_Curtains open_:--ROBIN HOOD _sleeps on a green bank,
    and_ MARIAN _strewing flowers on him_.

And in good time, see where my comfort stands,
And by her lies dejected Huntington.
Look how my flow'r holds flowers in her hands,
And flings those sweets upon my sleeping son.
I'll close mine eyes as if I wanted sight,
That I may see the end of their delight.
               [_Goes knocking with his staff_.

MAR. What aged man art thou? or by what chance
Cam'st thou thus far into the wayless wood?

FITZ. Widow or wife, or maiden if thou be,
Lend me thy hand; thou seest I cannot see:
Blessing betide thee, little feel'st thou want;
With me, good child, food is both hard and scant.
These smooth even veins assure me he is kind,
Whate'er he be, my girl, that thee doth find.
I, poor and old, am reft of all earth's good,
And desperately am crept into this wood
To seek the poor man's patron, Robin Hood.

MAR. And thou art welcome: welcome, aged man,
Ay, ten times welcome to Maid Marian.
Sit down, old father, sit, and call me daughter.
O God, how like he looks to old Fitzwater!
                                     [_Runs in_.

FITZ. Is my Matilda call'd Maid Marian?
I wonder why her name is changed thus.

                         [MARIAN _brings wine, meat_.

MAR. Here's wine to cheer thy heart; drink, aged man:
There's ven'son and a knife, here's manchet[205] fine:
Drink, good old man, I pray you, drink more wine.
My Robin stirs; I must sing him asleep.

ROB. H. Nay, you have wak'd me, Marian, with your talk.
What man is that's come within our walk?

MAR. An aged man, a silly, sightless man,
Near pin'd with hunger: see, how fast he eats.

ROB. H. Much good may't do him: never is good meat
Ill-spent on such a stomach. Father, proface;[206]
To Robin Hood thou art a welcome man.

FITZ. I thank you, master. Are you Robin Hood?

ROB. H. Father, I am.

FITZ. God give your soul much good
For this good meat Maid Marian hath given me.
But hear me, master; can you tell me news,
Where fair Matilda is, Fitzwater's daughter?

ROB. H. Why, here she is; this Marian is she.

FITZ. Why did she change her name?

ROB. H. What's that to thee?

FITZ. Yes, I could weep for grief that it is so,
But that my tears are all dried up with woe.

ROB. H. Why, she is called Maid Marian, honest friend,
Because she lives a spotless maiden life;
And shall, till Robin's outlaw life have end,
That he may lawfully take her to wife;
Which, if King Richard come, will not be long,
For in his hand is power to right our wrong.

FITZ. If it be thus, I joy in her name's change:
So pure love in these times is very strange.

MAR. Robin, I think it is my aged father.    [_Aside_.

ROB. H. Tell me, old man, tell me in courtesy,
Are you no other than you seem to be?

FITZ. I am a wretched aged man, you see,
If you will do me aught for charity:
Further than this, sweet, do not question me.

ROB. H. You shall have your desire. But what be these?

    _Enter_ FRIAR TUCK _and_ JENNY_, like pedlars, singing.

        What lack ye? what lack ye?
        What is it you will buy?
        Any points, pins or laces,
        Any laces, points or pins?
        Fine gloves, fine glasses,
        Any busks or masks?
        Or any other pretty things?
        Come, cheap for love, or buy for money.
        Any coney, coney-skins?
        For laces, points or pins?
        Fair maids, come choose or buy.
        I have pretty poking-sticks,[207]
        And many other tricks,
        Come, choose for love, or buy for money_.

ROB. H. Pedlar, I prythee set thy pack down here:
Marian shall buy, if thou be not too dear.

TUCK. Jenny, unto thy mistress show thy pack.
Master, for you I have a pretty knack,
From far I brought, please you see to the same.

        [_Exeunt_ ROBIN HOOD, MARIAN, _and_ FITZWATER.

    _Enter_ SIR DONCASTER _and others, weaponed_.[208]

FRIAR. Sir Doncaster, are not we pedlar-like?

DON. Yes, passing fit; and yonder is the bower.
I doubt not we shall have him in our power.

FRIAR. You and your company were best stand close.

DON. What shall the watchword be to bring us forth?

FRIAR. Take it, I pray, though it be much more worth:
When I speak that aloud, be sure I serve
The execution presently on him.

DON. Friar, look to't.

FRIAR. Now, Jenny, to your song.    [_Sings_.

    _Enter_ MARIAN, ROBIN.

MAR. Pedlar, what pretty toys have you to sell?

FRIAR. Jenny, unto your mistress show your ware.

MAR. Come in, good woman.    [_Exeunt_.

FRIAR. Master, look here,
       And God give ear,
       So mote I the[209],
       To her and me,
       If ever we,
       Robin, to thee,
       That art so free.
       Mean treachery.

ROB. H. On, pedlar, to thy pack;
If thou love me, my love thou shalt not lack.

FRIAR. Master, in brief,
       There is a thief,
       That seeks your grief.
       God send relief
       To you in need.
       For a foul deed,
       If not with speed
       You take good heed,
       There is decreed.
       In yonder brake
       There lies a snake,
       That means to take
       Out of this wood
       The yeoman good,
       Call'd Robin Hood.

ROB. H. Pedlar, I prythee be more plain.
What brake? what snake? what trap? what train?

FRIAR. Robin, I am a holy friar,
       Sent by the Prior,
       Who did me hire,
       For to conspire
       Thy endless woe
       And overthrow:
       But thou shalt know,
       I am the man
       Whom Little John
       From Nottingham
       Desir'd to be
       A clerk to thee;
       For he to me
       Said thou wert free,
       And I did see
       Thy honesty,
       From gallow-tree
       When thou didst free
       Scathlock and Scarlet certainly[210].

ROB. H. Why, then, it seems that thou art Friar Tuck.

FRIAR. Master, I am.

ROB. H. I pray thee, Friar, say,
What treachery is meant to me this day?

FRIAR. First wind your horn; then draw your sword.
                      [_ROBIN HOOD winds his horn_.
For I have given a friar's word,
To take your body prisoner,
And yield you to Sir Doncaster,
The envious priest of Hothersfield,
Whose power your bushy wood doth shield;
But I will die ere you shall yield.

  _Enter_ LITTLE JOHN, &c.

And sith your yeomen do appear,
I'll give the watchword without fear.
Take it, I pray thee, though it be more worth.

    _Rush in_ SIR DONCASTER _with his crew_.

DON. Smite down! lay hold on outlaw'd Huntington!

LIT. JOHN. Soft, hot-spurr'd priest, 'tis not so quickly done.

DON. Now, out alas! the friar and the maid
Have to false thieves Sir Doncaster betray'd.

                        [_Exeunt omnes_.[211]




ACT IV., SCENE 1.


    _Enter_ JOHN _crowned_, QUEEN ELINOR, CHESTER, SALISBURY,
    LORD PRIOR. _Sit down all_. WARMAN _stands_.

JOHN. As God's vicegerent, John ascends this throne,
His head impal'd with England's diadem,[212]
And in his hand the awful rod of rule,
Giving the humble place of excellence,
And to the low earth casting down the proud.

QUEEN. Such upright rule is in each realm allow'd.

JOHN. Chester, you once were Ely's open friend,
And yet are doubtful whether he deserve
A public trial for his private wrongs.

CHES. I still am doubtful whether it be fit
To punish private faults with public shame
In such a person as Lord Ely is.

PRIOR. Yes, honourable Chester, more it fits
To make apparent sins of mighty men,
And on their persons sharply to correct
A little fault, a very small defect,
Than on the poor to practise chastisement:
For if a poor man die, or suffer shame,
Only the poor and vile respect the same;
But if the mighty fall, fear then besets
The proud heart of the mighty ones, his mates:
They think the world is garnished with nets,
And traps ordained to entrap their states;
Which fear in them begets a fear of ill,
And makes them good, contrary to their will.

JOHN. Your lordship hath said right. Lord Salisbury,
Is not your mind as ours concerning Ely?

SAL. I judge him worthy of reproof and shame.

JOHN. Warman, bring forth your prisoner, Ely, the chancellor;
And with him bring the seal that he detains.
Warman, why goest thou not?

WAR. Be good to me, my lord.

JOHN. What hast thou done?

WAR. Speak for me, my Lord Prior:
All my good lords entreat his grace for me.
Ely, my lord--

JOHN. Why, where is Ely, Warman?

WAR. Fled to-day: this misty morning he is fled away.

JOHN. O Judas! whom nor friend nor foe may trust,
Think'st thou with tears and plaints to answer this?
Do I not know thy heart? do I not know
That bribes have purchas'd Ely this escape?
Never make antic faces, never bend
With feigned humblesse thy still crouching knee,
But with fix'd eyes unto thy doom attend.
Villain! I'll plague thee for abusing me.
Go hence; and henceforth never set thy foot
In house or field thou didst this day possess.
Mark what I say: advise thee to look to't,
Or else, be sure, thou diest remediless.
Nor from those houses see that thou receive
So much as shall sustain thee for an hour,
But as thou art, go where thou canst; get friends,
And he that feeds thee be mine enemy.

WAR. O my good lord!

JOHN. Thou thy good lord betrayedst,
And all the world for money thou wilt sell.

WAR. What says the queen?

QUEEN. Why, thus I say:
Betray thy master, thou wilt all betray.

WAR. My Lords of Chester and of Salisbury!

BOTH. Speak not to us: all traitors we defy.

WAR. Good my Lord Prior!

PRIOR. Alas! what can I do?

WAR. Then I defy the world! yet I desire
Your grace would read this supplication.

                            [JOHN _reads_.

JOHN. I thought as much: but, Warman, dost thou think
There is one moving line to mercy here?
I tell thee, no; therefore away, away!
A shameful death follows thy longer stay.

WAR. O poor, poor man!
Of miserable miserablest wretch I am.    [_Exit_.

JOHN. Confusion be thy guide! a baser slave
Earth cannot bear: plagues follow him, I crave.
Can any tell me if my Lord of York
Be able to sit up?

QUEEN. The Archbishop's grace
Was reasonable well even now, good son.

SAL. And he desir'd me that I should desire
Your majesty to send unto his grace,
If any matter did import his presence.

JOHN. We will ourselves step in and visit him.
Mother and my good lords, will you attend us?

PRIOR. I gladly will attend your majesty.

JOHN. Now, good lord, help us! When I said good lords,
I meant not you, Lord Prior: lord I know you are,
But good, God knows, you never mean to be.

            [_Exeunt_ JOHN, QUEEN, CHESTER, SALISBURY.

PRIOR. John is incens'd; and very much, I doubt,
That villain Warman hath accused me
About the 'scape of Ely. Well, suppose he have,
What's that to me? I am a clergyman,
And all his power, if he all extend,
Cannot prevail against my holy order.
But the Archbishop's grace is now his friend,
And may, perchance, attempt to do me ill.

    _Enter a_ SERVING-MAN.

What news with you, sir?

SERV.-MAN. Even heavy news, my lord; for the lightning's[213] fire,
Falling in manner of a firedrake[214]
Upon a barn of yours, hath burnt six barns,
And not a strike of corn reserv'd from dust.
No hand could save it, yet ten thousand hands
Laboured their best, though none for love of you;
For every tongue with bitter cursing bann'd
Your lordship, as the viper of the land.

PRIOR. What meant the villains?

SERV.-MAN. Thus and thus they cried:
Upon this churl, this hoarder-up of corn,
This spoiler of the Earl of Huntington,
This lust-defiled, merciless, false prior,
Heaven raineth vengeance down in shape of fire.
Old wives, that scarce could with their crutches creep,
And little babes, that newly learn'd to speak,
Men masterless, that thorough want did weep,
All in one voice, with a confused cry,
In execrations bann'd you bitterly:
Plague follow plague, they cry: he hath undone
The good Lord Robert, Earl of Huntington.
And then--

PRIOR.[215] What then, thou villain? Get thee from my sight!
They that wish plagues, plagues will upon them light.

    _Enter another_ SERVANT.

PRIOR. What are your tidings?

SERV. The convent of St Mary's are agreed,
And have elected in your lordship's place
Old father Jerome, who is stall'd Lord Prior
By the new Archbishop.

PRIOR. Of York, thou mean'st?
A vengeance on him! he is my hope's foe.

    _Enter a_ HERALD.

HER. Gilbert de Hood, late Prior of Saint Mary's,
Our sovereign John commandeth thee by me,
That presently thou leave this blessed land,
Defiled with the burthen of thy sin.
All thy goods temporal and spiritual,
With free consent of Hubert Lord [of] York,
Primate of England and thy ordinary,
He hath suspended, and vowed by heaven
To hang thee up, if thou depart not hence
Without delaying or more question.
And that he hath good reason for the same,
He sends this writing 'firm'd with Warman's hand,
And comes himself; whose presence if thou stay,
I fear this sun will see thy dying day.

PRIOR. O, Warman hath betray'd me! woe is me!

    _Enter_ JOHN, QUEEN, CHESTER, SALISBURY.

JOHN. Hence with that Prior! sirrah, do not speak:
My eyes are full of wrath, my heart of wreak.[216]
Let Leicester come: his haught heart, I am sure,
Will check the kingly course we undertake.

                              [_Exeunt cum_ PRIOR.

    _Enter_ LEICESTER, _drum and ancient_.

JOHN. Welcome from war, thrice noble Earl of Leicester,
Unto our court: welcome, most valiant earl.

LEI. Your court in England, and King Richard gone!
A king in England, and the king from home!
This sight and salutations are so strange,
That what I should I know not how to speak.

JOHN. What would you say? speak boldly, we entreat.

LEI. It is not fear, but wonder, bars my speech.
I muse to see a mother and a queen,
Two peers so great as Salisbury and Chester,
Sit and support proud usurpation,
And see King Richard's crown worn by Earl John.

QUEEN. He sits as viceroy and a[s] substitute.

CHES. He must and shall resign, when Richard comes.

SAL. Chester, he will, without your must and shall.

LEI. Whether he will or no, he shall resign.

JOHN. You know your own will, Leicester, but not mine.

LEI. Tell me among ye, where is reverend Ely,
Left by our dread king as his deputy?

JOHN. Banish'd he is, as proud usurpers should.

LEI. Pride then, belike, was enemy to pride:
Ambition in yourself his state envied.
Where is Fitzwater, that old honour'd lord?

JOHN. Dishonour'd and exil'd, as Ely is.

LEI. Exil'd he may be, but dishonour'd never!
He was a fearless soldier and a virtuous scholar.
But where is Huntington, that noble youth?

CHES. Undone by riot.

LEI. Ah! the greater ruth.

JOHN. Leicester, you question more than doth become you.
On to the purpose, why you come to us.

LEI. I come to Ely and to all the state,
Sent by the king, who three times sent before
To have his ransom brought to Austr

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