Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman Part 17

MAV: You shall pardon me, mistress Otter.

MRS. OTT: Why, I am a collegiate.

MAV: But not in ordinary.

MRS. OTT: But I am.

MAV: We'll dispute that within.

[EXEUNT LADIES.]

CLER: Would this had lasted a little longer.

TRUE: And that they had sent for the heralds.

[ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER.]

--Captain Otter! what news?

OTT: I have brought my bull, bear, and horse, in private, and yonder are the trumpeters without, and the drum, gentlemen.

[THE DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND WITHIN.]

MOR: O, O, O!

OTT: And we will have a rouse in each of them, anon, for bold Britons, i'faith.

[THEY SOUND AGAIN.]

MOR: O, O, O!

[EXIT HASTILY.]

OMNES: Follow, follow, follow!

ACT 4.

SCENE 4.1.

A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.

ENTER TRUEWIT AND CLERIMONT.

TRUE: Was there ever poor bridegroom so tormented? or man, indeed?

CLER: I have not read of the like in the chronicles of the land.

TRUE: Sure, he cannot but go to a place of rest, after all this purgatory.

CLER: He may presume it, I think.

TRUE: The spitting, the coughing, the laughter, the neezing, the farting, dancing, noise of the music, and her masculine and loud commanding, and urging the whole family, makes him think he has married a fury.

CLER: And she carries it up bravely.

TRUE: Ay, she takes any occasion to speak: that is the height on't.

CLER: And how soberly Dauphine labours to satisfy him, that it was none of his plot!

TRUE: And has almost brought him to the faith, in the article.

Here he comes.

[ENTER SIR DAUPHINE.]

--Where is he now? what's become of him, Dauphine?

DAUP: O, hold me up a little, I shall go away in the jest else. He has got on his whole nest of night-caps, and lock'd himself up in the top of the house, as high as ever he can climb from the noise.

I peep'd in at a cranny, and saw him sitting over a cross-beam of the roof, like him on the sadler's horse in Fleet-street, upright: and he will sleep there.

CLER: But where are your collegiates?

DAUP: Withdrawn with the bride in private.

TRUE: O, they are instructing her in the college-grammar. If she have grace with them, she knows all their secrets instantly.

CLER: Methinks the lady Haughty looks well to-day, for all my dispraise of her in the morning. I think, I shall come about to thee again, Truewit.

TRUE: Believe it, I told you right. Women ought to repair the losses time and years have made in their features, with dressings.

And an intelligent woman, if she know by herself the least defect, will be most curious to hide it: and it becomes her. If she be short, let her sit much, lest, when she stands, she be thought to sit. If she have an ill foot, let her wear her gown the longer, and her shoe the thinner. If a fat hand, and scald nails, let her carve the less, and act in gloves. If a sour breath, let her never discourse fasting, and always talk at her distance. If she have black and rugged teeth, let her offer the less at laughter, especially if she laugh wide and open.

CLER: O, you shall have some women, when they laugh, you would think they brayed, it is so rude, and--

TRUE: Ay, and others, that will stalk in their gait like an estrich, and take huge strides. I cannot endure such a sight. I love measure in the feet, and number in the voice: they are gentlenesses, that oftentimes draw no less than the face.

DAUP: How camest thou to study these creatures so exactly? I would thou would'st make me a proficient.

TRUE: Yes, but you must leave to live in your chamber, then, a month together upon Amadis de Gaul, or Don Quixote, as you are wont; and come abroad where the matter is frequent, to court, to tiltings, public shows and feasts, to plays, and church sometimes: thither they come to shew their new tires too, to see, and to be seen. In these places a man shall find whom to love, whom to play with, whom to touch once, whom to hold ever. The variety arrests his judgment. A wench to please a man comes not down dropping from the ceiling, as he lies on his back droning a tobacco pipe.

He must go where she is.

DAUP: Yes, and be never the nearer.

TRUE: Out, heretic! That diffidence makes thee worthy it should be so.

CLER: He says true to you, Dauphine.

DAUP: Why?

TRUE: A man should not doubt to overcome any woman. Think he can vanquish them, and he shall: for though they deny, their desire is to be tempted. Penelope herself cannot hold out long. Ostend, you saw, was taken at last. You must persever, and hold to your purpose. They would solicit us, but that they are afraid.

Howsoever, they wish in their hearts we should solicit them.