Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman Part 26

[DAUPHINE KICKS HIM AGAIN.]

--Your sword.

[TAKES HIS SWORD.]

Now return to your safe custody: you shall presently meet afore the ladies, and be the dearest friends one to another.

[PUTS DAW INTO THE STUDY.]

--Give me the scarf now, thou shalt beat the other bare-faced.

Stand by: [DAUPHINE RETIRES, AND TRUEWIT GOES TO THE OTHER CLOSET, AND RELEASES LA-FOOLE.]

--Sir Amorous!

LA-F: What's here? A sword?

TRUE: I cannot help it, without I should take the quarrel upon myself. Here he has sent you his sword--

LA-F: I will receive none on't.

TRUE: And he wills you to fasten it against a wall, and break your head in some few several places against the hilts.

LA-F: I will not: tell him roundly. I cannot endure to shed my own blood.

TRUE: Will you not?

LA-F: No. I'll beat it against a fair flat wall, if that will satisfy him: if not, he shall beat it himself, for Amorous.

TRUE: Why, this is strange starting off, when a man undertakes for you! I offer'd him another condition; will you stand to that?

LA-F: Ay, what is't.

TRUE: That you will be beaten in private.

LA-F: Yes, I am content, at the blunt.

[ENTER, ABOVE, HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE, AND TRUSTY.]

TRUE: Then you must submit yourself to be hoodwinked in this scarf, and be led to him, where he will take your sword from you, and make you bear a blow over the mouth, gules, and tweaks by the nose, sans nombre.

LA-F: I am content. But why must I be blinded?

TRUE: That's for your good, sir: because, if he should grow insolent upon this, and publish it hereafter to your disgrace, (which I hope he will not do,) you might swear safely, and protest, he never beat you, to your knowledge.

LA-F: O, I conceive.

TRUE: I do not doubt but you will be perfect good friends upon't, and not dare to utter an ill thought one of another in future.

LA-F: Not I, as G.o.d help me, of him.

TRUE: Nor he of you, sir. If he should [BLINDS HIS EYES.]

--Come, sir.

[LEADS HIM FORWARD.]

--All hid, sir John.

[ENTER DAUPHINE, AND TWEAKS HIM BY THE NOSE.]

LA-F: O, sir John, sir John! Oh, o--o--o--o--o--Oh--

TRUE: Good, sir John, leave tweaking, you'll blow his nose off.

'Tis sir John's pleasure, you should retire into the study.

[PUTS HIM UP AGAIN.]

--Why, now you are friends. All bitterness between you, I hope, is buried; you shall come forth by and by, Damon and Pythias upon't, and embrace with all the rankness of friends.h.i.+p that can be. I trust, we shall have them tamer in their language hereafter.

Dauphine, I wors.h.i.+p thee.--G.o.ds will the ladies have surprised us!

[ENTER HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE, AND TRUSTY, BEHIND.]

HAU: Centaure, how our judgments were imposed on by these adulterate knights!

Nay, madam, Mavis was more deceived than we, 'twas her commendation utter'd them in the college.

MAV: I commended but their wits, madam, and their braveries.

I never look'd toward their valours.

HAU: Sir Dauphine is valiant, and a wit too, it seems.

MAV: And a bravery too.

HAU: Was this his project?

MRS. OTT: So master Clerimont intimates, madam.

HAU: Good Morose, when you come to the college, will you bring him with you? he seems a very perfect gentleman.

EPI: He is so, madam, believe it.

CEN: But when will you come, Morose?

EPI: Three or four days hence, madam, when I have got me a coach and horses.

HAU: No, to-morrow, good Morose; Centaure shall send you her coach.

MAV: Yes faith, do, and bring sir Dauphine with you.

HAU: She has promised that, Mavis.

MAV: He is a very worthy gentleman in his exteriors, madam.

HAU: Ay, he shews he is judicial in his clothes.

CEN: And yet not so superlatively neat as some, madam, that have their faces set in a brake.

HAU: Ay, and have every hair in form!

MAV: That wear purer linen then ourselves, and profess more neatness than the French hermaphrodite!