Volpone and Other Plays (68 page)

LEATHERHEAD
: They are actors, sir, and as good as any, none dispraised, for dumb shows; indeed I am the mouth of ' em all!

COKES
: Thy mouth will hold ' em all. I think one Taylor would go near to beat all this company, with a hand bound behind him.

LITTLEWIT
: Ay, and
eat ' em all
, too, an' they were in cake-bread.

COKES
: I thank you for that, Master Littlewit, a good jest! Which is your Burbage now?

80 
LEATHERHEAD
: What mean you by that, sir?

COKES
: Your best actor, your Field?

LITTLEWIT
: Good, i' faith! You are even with me, sir.

LEATHERHEAD
: This is he that acts young Leander, sir. He is extremely beloved of the womenkind, they do so affect his action, the green gamesters that come here; and this is lovely Hero; this with the beard, Damon; and this, pretty Pythias. This is the ghost of King Dionysius in the
habit of a scrivener
, as you shall see anon,
at large
.

COKES
: Well, they are a civil company. I like ' em for that; they

90         offer not to fleer, nor jeer, nor break jests, as the great players do. And then there goes not so much charge to the feasting of ' em or making ' em drunk, as to the other, by reason of their littleness. Do they use to play
perfect
? Are they never flustered?

LEATHERHEAD
: No, sir, I thank my industry and policy for it; they are as well-governed a company, though I say it – And here is young Leander, is as proper an actor of his inches; and shakes his head like an
ostler
.

COKES
: But do you play it according to the
printed book
? I have read that.

LEATHERHEAD
: By no means, sir.

COKES
: No? How then?

LEATHERHEAD
: A better way, sir; that is too learned and poetical for our audience. What do they know what Hellespont is, ‘Guilty of true love's blood'? Or what Abydos is? Or ‘the other Sestos hight'?

COKES
: Th' art i' the right. I do not know myself.

LEATHERHEAD
: No, I have entreated Master Littlewit to take a little pains to reduce it to a more familiar strain for our people.

110 
COKES
: How, I pray thee, good Master Littlewit?

LITTLEWIT
: It pleases him to make a matter of it, sir. But there is no such matter I assure you. I have only made it a little easy and
modern
for the times, sir, that's all; as, for the Hellespont, I imagine our Thames here; and then Leander I make a dyer's son, about Puddle Wharf; and Hero a wench o' the Bankside, who going over one morning to Old Fish Street, Leander spies her land at Trig Stairs, and falls in love with her. Now do I introduce Cupid, having metamorphosed himself into a
drawer
, and he strikes Hero in love with a pint of sherry; and other

120         pretty passages there are o' the friendship, that will delight you, sir, and please you of judgement.

COKES
: I' ll be sworn they shall. I am in love with the actors already, and I' ll be allied to them presently. (They respect gentlemen, these fellows.) Hero shall be my fairing; but which of my fairings? Le' me see – i' faith, my fiddle! and Leander my fiddlestick; then Damon my drum, and Pythias my pipe, and the ghost of Dionysius my hobby-horse. All fitted.

v,iv     [
Enter
WINWIFE
and
GRACE
.]

[
WINWIFE
:] Look, yonder's your Cokes gotten in among his playfellows. I thought we could not miss him at such a spectacle.

GRACE
: Let him alone. He is so busy, he will never spy us.
COKES
is handling the puppets
.

LEATHERHEAD
: Nay, good sir.

COKES
: I warrant thee, I will not hurt her, fellow; what, dost think me uncivil? I pray thee be not jealous; I am
toward
a wife.

LITTLEWIT
: Well, good Master Lantern, make ready to begin, that I may fetch my wife, and look you be perfect; you undo me else i' my reputation.

10 
LBATHERHEAD
: I warrant you, sir. Do not you breed too great an expectation of it among your friends. That's the only hurter of these things.

LITTLEWIT
; No, no, no.

[
Exit
.]

COKES
: I' ll stay here and see; pray thee let me see.

WINWIFE
: How diligent and
troublesome
he is!

GRACE
: The place becomes him, methinks.

OVERDO
[
aside
]: My ward, Mistress Grace; in the company of a stranger? I doubt I shall be compelled to discover myself before my time!

[
Enter
KNOCKEM, EDGWORTH
,
and
WHIT
with
MISTRESS OVERDO
and
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
,
masked
.]

SHARKWELL
: Yes, Captain, and waterworks too.

WHIT
: I pree dee, take a care o' dy shmall lady, there, Edgworth; I will look to dish tall lady myself.

LEATHERHEBAD
: Welcome, gentlemen; welcome, gentlemen.

WHIT
: Predee, mashter o' de monshtersh, help a very sick lady here to a chair to shit in.

30 
LEATHERHEAD
: Presently, sir.

They bring
MISTRESS OVERDO
a chair
.

WHIT
: Good fait now, Urs' la's ale and
aqua vitae
ish to blame for't; shit down, shweetheart, shit down and shleep a little.

EDGWORTH
[
to
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
]: Madam, you are very welcome hither.

KNOCKEM
: Yes, and you shall see very good vapours.

The
CUTPURSE
courts
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
.

EDGWORTH
: This is a very
private house
, madam.

40 
LEATHERHEAD
: Will it please your ladyship sit, madam?

MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
: Yes, good-man. They do so
all-to-be-madam
me, I think they think me a very lady!

EDGWORTH
: What else, madam?

MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
: Must I put off my mask to him?

EDGWORTH
: O, by no means.

MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
: How should my husband know me, then?

KNOCKEM
: Husband? an idle vapour. He must not know you, nor you him; there's the true vapour.

50 
OVERDO
[
aside
]: Yea, I will observe more of this. [
To
WHIT
]

Is this a lady, friend?

WHIT
: Aye, and dat is anoder lady, shweetheart; if dou hasht a mind to ' em, give me twelvepence from tee, and dou shalt have
eider-oder
on ' em!

OVERDO
[
aside
]: Ay? This will prove my chiefest enormity. I will follow this.

EDGWORTH
: Is not this a finer life, lady, than to be clogged with a husband?

60 
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
: Yes, a great deal. When will they begin, trow, in the name o' the morion?

EDGWORTH
: By and by, madam; they stay but for company.

KNOCKEM
: Do you hear, puppet-master, these are tedious vapours; when begin you?

LEATHERHEAD
: We stay but for Master Littlewit, the author, who is gone for his wife; and we begin presently.

MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
: That's I, that's I.

EDGWORTH
: That was you, lady; but now you are no such poor thing.

KNOCKEM
: Hang the author's wife, a running vapour! Here be

70           gladies will stay for ne' er a Delia o' em all.

WHIT
: But hear me now, here ish one o' de ladish ashleep; stay till she but vake, man.

[
Enter
WASP
.]

WASP
: I believe you lie. If you do, I' ll have my money again and beat you.

WINWIFE
: Numps is come!

WASP
: Did you see a master of mine come in here, a tall young squire

80     of Harrow o' the Hill, Master Barthol' mew Cokes?

FILCHER
: I think there be such a one within.

WASP
: Look he be, you were best; but it is very likely. I wonder I found him not at all the rest. I ha' been at the eagle, and the black wolf, and the bull with the five legs and two pizzles (he was a calf at Uxbridge Fair, two years agone), and at the dogs that dance the morris, and the
hare o' the tabor
, and missed him at all these! Sure this must needs be some fine sight that holds him so, if it have him.

COKES
: Come, come, are you ready now?

90 
LEATHERHBAD
: Presently, sir.

WASP
: Hoyday, he's at work in his doublet and hose. Do you hear, sir? are you employed, that you are bare-headed and so busy?

COKES
: Hold your peace, Numps; you ha' been i' the stocks, I hear.

WASP
: Does he know that? Nay, then the date of my authority is out; I must think no longer to reign, my government is at an end. He that will correct another must want fault in himself.

WINWIFE
: Sententious Numps! I never heard so much from him

100     before.

LEATHERHEAD
: Sure, Master Littlewit will not come. Please you take your place, sir, we' ll begin.

COKES
: I pray thee do; mine ears long to be at it, and my eyes

too. O Numps, i' the stocks, Numps? Where's your sword, Numps?

WASP
: I pray you
intend
your game, sir; let me alone.

COKES
: Well then, we are quit for all. Come, sit down, Numps; I' ll interpret to thee. Did you see Mistress Grace? It's no matter, neither, now I think on't, tell me anon.

110 
WINWIFE
: A great deal of love and care he expresses.

GRACE
: Alas! would you have him to express more than he has? That were tyranny.

[
The curtains of the puppet-theatre are drawn
.]

COKES
: Peace, ho; now, now.

LEATHERHEAD
:
Gentles, that no longer your expectations may wander
,

Behold our chief actor,
amorous Leander
,
With a great deal of cloth lapped about him like a scarf,
For he yet serves his father, a dyer at Puddle Wharf,
Which place we' ll make bold with, to call it our Abydos,
As the Bankside is our Sestos, and let it not be denied us.

120     
Now, as he is beating, to make the dye take the fuller,
Who chances to come by but fair Hero in a sculler?
And seeing Leander's naked leg and goodly calf,
Cast at him, from the boat, a sheep's eye and a half.
Now she is landed, and the sculler come back;
By and by you shall see what Leander doth lack
.

PUPPET LEANDER
:
Cole
, Cole, old Cole
.

LEATHERHEAD
:                                         
That is the sculler's name without control
.

PUPPET LEANDER
:
Cole, Cole, I say, Cole
.

LEATHERHEAD
:                                          
We do hear you
.

PUPPET LEANDER
:                                                                
Old Cole
.

LEATHERHEAD
:
Old Cole? Is the dyer turned
collier
? How do you sell?

PUPPET LEANDER
:
A pox o' your manners, kiss my hole here and smell
.

130 
LEATHBRHBAD
:
Kiss your hole and smell? There's manners indeed
.

PUPPET LEANDER
:
Why, Cole, I say, Cole
.

LEATHERHEAD
:                                            
It's the sculler you need!

PUPPET LEANDER
:
Ay, and be hanged
.

LEATHERHEAD
:                                      
Be hanged! Look you yonder,

Old Cole, you must go hang with Master Leander
.