Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman Part 21

MOR: That I should be seduced by so foolish a devil as a barber will make!

DAUP: I would I had been worthy, sir, to have partaken your counsel; you should never have trusted it to such a minister.

MOR: Would I could redeem it with the loss of an eye, nephew, a hand, or any other member.

DAUP: Marry, G.o.d forbid, sir, that you should geld yourself, to anger your wife.

MOR: So it would rid me of her! and, that I did supererogatory penance in a belfry, at Westminster-hall, in the c.o.c.k-pit, at the fall of a stag; the Tower-wharf (what place is there else?)-- London-bridge, Paris-garden, Billinsgate, when the noises are at their height, and loudest. Nay, I would sit out a play, that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet, and target.

DAUP: I hope there shall be no such need, sir. Take patience, good uncle. This is but a day, and 'tis well worn too now.

MOR: O, 'twill be so for ever, nephew, I foresee it, for ever.

Strife and tumult are the dowry that comes with a wife.

TRUE: I told you so, sir, and you would not believe me.

MOR: Alas, do not rub those wounds, master Truewit, to blood again: 'twas my negligence. Add not affliction to affliction. I have perceived the effect of it, too late, in madam Otter.

EPI: How do you, sir?

MOR: Did you ever hear a more unnecessary question? as if she did not see! Why, I do as you see, empress, empress.

EPI: You are not well, sir; you look very ill; something has distemper'd you.

MOR: O horrible, monstrous impertinencies! would not one of these have served, do you think, sir? would not one of these have served?

TRUE: Yes, sir, but these are but notes of female kindness, sir; certain tokens that she has a voice, sir.

MOR: O, is it so? Come, an't be no otherwise--What say you?

EPI: How do you feel yourself, sir?

MOR: Again that!

TRUE: Nay, look you, sir: you would be friends with your wife upon unconscionable terms; her silence--

EPI: They say you are run mad, sir.

MOR: Not for love, I a.s.sure you, of you; do you see?

EPI: O lord, gentlemen! lay hold on him, for G.o.d's sake. What shall I do? who's his physician, can you tell, that knows the state of his body best, that I might send for him? Good sir, speak; I'll send for one of my doctors else.

MOR: What, to poison me, that I might die intestate, and leave you possest of all?

EPI: Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes sparkle! he looks green about the temples! do you see what blue spots he has?

TRUE: Ay, 'tis melancholy.

EPI: Gentlemen, for Heaven's sake, counsel me. Ladies;--servant, you have read Pliny and Paracelsus; ne'er a word now to comfort a poor gentlewoman? Ay me, what fortune had I, to marry a distracted man!

DAW: I will tell you, mistress--

TRUE: How rarely she holds it up!

[ASIDE TO CLER.]

MOR: What mean you, gentlemen?

EPI: What will you tell me, servant?

DAW: The disease in Greek is called mania, in Latin insania, furor, vel ecstasis melancholica, that is, egressio, when a man ex melancholico evadit fanaticus.

MOR: Shall I have a lecture read upon me alive?

DAW: But he may be but phreneticus yet, mistress? and phrenetis is only delirium, or so.

EPI: Ay, that is for the disease, servant: but what is this to the cure? we are sure enough of the disease.

MOR: Let me go.

TRUE: Why, we'll entreat her to hold her peace, sir.

MOR: O no, labour not to stop her. She is like a conduit-pipe, that will gush out with more force when she opens again.

HAU: I will tell you, Morose, you must talk divinity to him altogether, or moral philosophy.

LA-F: Ay, and there's an excellent book of moral philosophy, madam, of Raynard the fox, and all the beasts, called Doni's Philosophy.

CEN: There is, indeed, sir Amorous La-Foole.

MOR: O misery!

LA-F: I have read it, my lady Centaure, all over, to my cousin, here.

MRS. OTT: Ay, and 'tis a very good book as any is, of the moderns.

DAW: Tut, he must have Seneca read to him, and Plutarch, and the ancients; the moderns are not for this disease.

CLER: Why, you discommended them too, to-day, sir John.

DAW: Ay, in some cases: but in these they are best, and Aristotle's ethics.

MAV: Say you so sir John? I think you are decived: you took it upon trust.

HAU: Where's Trusty, my woman? I'll end this difference. I prithee, Otter, call her. Her father and mother were both mad, when they put her to me.

MOR: I think so. Nay, gentlemen, I am tame. This is but an exercise, I know, a marriage ceremony, which I must endure.

HAU: And one of them, I know not which, was cur'd with the Sick Man's Salve; and the other with Green's Groat's-worth of Wit.