Enter ANTIC, FROLIC, and FANTASTIC. Ant. How now, fellow Frolic!1 What, all amort?2 Doth this sadness become thy madness? What though we have lost our way in the woods, yet never hang the head as though thou hadst no hope to live till to-morrow; for [5 Fantastic and I will warrant thy life to-night for twenty in the hundred. Fro. Antic and Fantastic, as I am frolic franion, never in all my life was I so dead slain. What, to lose our way in the wood, [10 without either fire or candle, so uncomfortable! O calum! O terra! O Maria! O Neptune! Fan. Why makes thou it so strange, seeing Cupid hath led our young master to the fair lady, and she is the only saint that he hath [15 sworn to serve? Fro. What resteth, then, but we commit him to his wench, and each of us take his stand up in a tree, and sing out our ill fortune to the tune of "O man in desperation"? 20 Ant. Desperately spoken, fellow Frolic, in the dark; but seeing it falls out thus, let us rehearse the old proverb: "Three merry men, and three merry men, I in the wood, and thou on the ground, 25 ANTIC. FROLIC. FANTASTIC. CLUNCH, a smith. MADGE, his wife.]* Enter [CLUNCH] a smith, with a lantern and candle. glimmering of a glow-worm, a candle, or a [35 cat's eye, my life for a halfpenny! In the name of my own father, be thou ox or ass that appearest, tell us what thou art. Smith. What am I? Why, I am Clunch the smith. What are you? What make you in [40 my territories at this time of the night? Ant. What do we make, dost thou ask? Why, we make faces for fear; such as if thy mortal eyes could behold, would make thee water the long seams of thy side slops,5 [45 smith. Fro. And, in faith, sir, unless your hospitality do relieve us, we are like to wander, with a sorrowful heigh-ho, among the owlets and hobgoblins of the forest. Good Vulcan, for [s0 Cupid's sake that hath cozened us all, befriend us as thou mayst; and command us howsoever, wheresoever, whensoever, in whatsoever, for ever and ever. Smith. Well, masters, it seems to me you [5 have lost your way in the wood; in consideration whereof, if you will go with Clunch to his cottage, you shall have house-room and a good fire to sit by, although we have no bedding to put you in. All. O blessed smith, O bountiful Clunch! Smith. For your further entertainment, it shall be as it may be, so and so. A dog barks [within]. Hark! this is Ball my dog, that bids you all welcome in his own language. Come, take [ar heed for stumbling on the threshold." Open door, Madge; take in guests. 5 Long wide trousers. 6 The scene is now at the cottage. Enter [MADGE, an] old woman. Madge. Welcome, Clunch, and good fellows all, that come with my good-man. For my good-man's sake, come on, sit down; here is [70 a piece of cheese, and a pudding of my own making. Ant. Thanks, gammer; a good example for the wives of our town. Fro. Gammer, thou and thy good-man sit [75 lovingly together; we come to chat, and not to eat. Smith. Well, masters, if you will eat nothing, take away. Come, what do we to pass away the time? Lay a crab in the fire to roast for [80 lamb's-wool.2 What, shall we have a game at trump 8 or ruff to drive away the time? How say you? Fan. This smith leads a life as merry as a king with Madge his wife. Sirrah Frolic, I [85 am sure thou art not without some round or other; no doubt but Clunch can bear his part. Fro. Else think you me ill brought up; so set to it when you will. They sing. Ant. This sport does well; but methinks, gammer, a merry winter's tale would drive away the time trimly. Come, I am sure you are not without a score. 100 Fan. I'faith, gammer, a tale of an hour long were as good as an hour's sleep. Fro. Look you, gammer, of the giant and the king's daughter, and I know not what. I have seen the day, when I was a little one, [105 you might have drawn me a mile after you with such a discourse. Madge. Well, since you be so importunate, my good-man shall fill the pot and get him to bed; they that ply their work must keep [110 good hours. One of you go lie with him; he is a clean-skinned man I tell you, without either spavin or wind-gall: so I am content to drive away the time with an old wives' winter's tale. Fan. No better hay in Devonshire; o' my [115 word, gammer, I'll be one of your audience. Fro. And I another, that's flat. Ant. Then must I to bed with the good-man. Bona nor, gammer. - Good night, Frolic. Smith. Come on, my lad, thou shalt take [120 thy unnatural rest with me. Exit ANTIC and the smith. Fro. Yet this vantage shall we have of them in the morning, to be ready at the sight thereof extempore. Madge is called old woman in the speech-tags throughout in Q. A drink made of ale and the pulp of roasted crab apples. A common card game. Madge. Now this bargain, my masters, [125 must I make with you, that you will say hum and ha to my tale, so shall I know you are awake. Both. Content, gammer, that will we do. Madge. Once upon a time, there was a [130 king, or a lord, or a duke, that had a fair daughter, the fairest that ever was, as white as snow and as red as blood; and once upon a time his daughter was stolen away; and he sent all his men to seek out his daughter; and he [135 sent so long, that he sent all his men out of his land. Fro. Who drest his dinner, then? tail. [140 Fan. Well said! On with your tale, gammer. Madge. O Lord, I quite forgot! There was a conjurer, and this conjurer could do any thing, and he turned himself into a great dragon, and carried the king's daughter away in his [145 mouth to a castle that he made of stone; and there he kept her I know not how long, till at last all the king's men went out so long that her two brothers went to seek her. O, I forget! she (he, I would say,) turned a proper [150 young man to a bear in the night, and a man in the day, and keeps by a cross that parts three several ways; and he made his lady run mad, - Gods me bones, who comes here? Enter the Two Brothers. Fro. Soft, gammer, here some come to [155 tell your tale for you. Fan. Let them alone; let us hear what they will say. 1 Bro. Upon these chalky cliffs of Albion 2 Bro. O fortune cruel, cruel and unkind! 160 165 26 I will give thee a palmer's staff of ivory, and a scallop-shell of beaten gold. Erest. Was she fair? 2 Bro. Ay, the fairest for white, and the [185 purest for red, as the blood of the deer, or the driven snow. Erest. Then hark well, and mark well, my Be not afraid of every stranger; For when one flame of fire goes out, 190 195 I Bro. Brother, heard you not what the old man said? "Be not afraid of every stranger; [For when one flame of fire goes out, 200 205 Say, the white bear of England's wood." 2 Bro. Well, if this do us any good, Well fare the white bear of England's wood! Exeunt [the Two Brothers]. Erest. Now sit thee here, and tell a heavy Sad in thy mood, and sober in thy cheer; 210 That liv'd in honour, virtue, love, and fame. 215 But worse than this, he with his chanting spells Did turn me straight unto an ugly bear; 220 And speak in riddles, all inspir'd with rage, [225 Enter VENELIA his lady, mad; and goes in again. See where Venelia, my betrothed love, 230 Enter LAMPRISCUS with a pot of honey. But here comes Lampriscus, my discontented neighbour. How now, neighbour! You look toward the ground as well as I; you muse on something. Lamp. Neighbour, on nothing but on the [235 matter I so often moved to you. If you do anything for charity, help me; if for neighbour hood or brotherhood, help me: never was one so cumbered as is poor Lampriscus ; and to begin, I pray receive this pot of honey, to [240 mend your fare. Erest. Thanks, neighbour, set it down honey is always welcome to the bear. And now. neighbour, let me hear the cause of your coming. 24 Lamp. I am, as you know, neighbour, a mar unmarried; and lived so unquietly with my two wives, that I keep every year holy the day wherein I buried them both: the first was or Saint Andrew's day, the other on Saint [2 Luke's. Erest. And now, neighbour, you of thi country say, your custom is out. But on wit your tale, neighbour. Lamp. By my first wife, whose tongue [5 wearied me alive, and sounded in my ears lik the clapper of a great bell, whose talk was continual torment to all that dwelt by her c lived nigh her, you have heard me say I had handsome daughter. Erest. True, neighbour. Lamp. She it is that afflicts me with her co tinual clamours, and hangs on me like a bu Poor she is, and proud she is; as poor as sheep new-shorn, and as proud of her hopes [ as a peacock of her tail well-grown. Erest. Well said, Lampriscus! You speak like an Englishman. Lamp. As curst as a wasp, and as froward a child new-taken from the mother's teat; she is to my age as smoke to the eyes or vinegar to the teeth. Erest. Holily praised, neighbour. As mu for the next. Lamp. By my other wife I had a daughter so hard-favoured, so foul and ill-faced, tha think a grove full of golden trees, and t leaves of rubies and diamonds, would not b dowry answerable to her deformity. Erest. Well, neighbour, now you have spoke, hear me speak. Send them to the w for the water of life; there shall they f their fortunes unlooked for. Neighbour, fa well. E Lamp. Farewell, and a thousand! And now goeth poor Lampriscus to put in execut this excellent counsel. E Fro. Why, this goes round without a fiddli stick: but, do you hear, gammer, was this man that was a bear in the night and a man in the day? Madge. Ay, this is he; and this man came to him was a beggar, and dwelt up green. But soft! who comes here? O, th are the harvest-men; ten to one they sing a song of mowing. Enter the Harvest-men a-singing, with this double repeated. All ye that lovely lovers be, Lo, here we come a-sowing, a-sowing, In your sweet hearts well may it prove! Ex Enter HUANEBANGO with his two-hand sword, and BOOBY,1 the clown. Fan. Gammer, what is he? Madge. O, this is one that is going to the conjurer. Let him alone; hear what he says. Huan. Now, by Mars and Mercury, [305 Jupiter and Janus, Sol and Saturnus, Venus and Vesta, Pallas and Proserpina, and by the honour of my house, Polimackeroeplacidus, it is a wonder to see what this love will make silly fellows adventure, even in the wane of their [310 wits and infancy of their discretion. Alas, my friend what fortune calls thee forth to seek thy fortune among brazen gates, enchanted towers, fire and brimstone, thunder and lightning? Beauty, I tell thee, is peerless, and [315 she precious whom thou affectest. Do off these desires, good countryman; good friend, run away from thyself; and, so soon as thou canst, forget her, whom none must inherit but he that can monsters tame, labours achieve, riddles [320 absolve, loose enchantments, murder magic, and kill conjuring, and that is the great and mighty Huanebango. - Booby. Hark you, sir, hark you. First know I have here the flurting feather, and have [325 given the parish the start for the long stock: 2 now, sir, if it be no more but running through a little lightning and thunder, and "riddle me, riddle me what's this?" I'll have the wench from the conjurer, if he were ten conjurers. [330 Huan. I have abandoned the court and honourable company, to do my devoir against this sore sorcerer and mighty magician: if this lady be so fair as she is said to be, she is mine, she is mine; meus, mea, meum, in contemptum [335 omnium grammaticorum. Booby. O falsum Latinum! The fair maid is minum, Cum apurtinantibus gibletis and all. Huan. If she be mine, as I assure myself [40 the heavens will do somewhat to reward my worthiness, she shall be allied to none of the meanest gods, but be invested in the most famous stock of Huanebango, Polimackeroeplacidus my grandfather, my father Per- [845 gopolineo, my mother Dionora de Sardinia, famously descended. Booby. Do you hear, sir? Had not you a cousin that was called Gusteceridis ? Huan. Indeed, I had a cousin that some- [350 time followed the court infortunately, and his name Bustegusteceridis. Cor. O Lord, I know him well! He is the knight of the neat's-feet. Huan. O, he loved no capon better! He [355 hath oftentimes deceived his boy of his dinner; that was his fault, good Bustegusteceridis. Booby. Come, shall we go along? [Enter ERESTUS at the cross.] Soft! here is an old man at the cross; let us ask him the way thither. Ho, you gaffer! [360 Exit. a Booby. Father, do you see this man? You [380 little think he'll run a mile or two for such a cake, or pass for a pudding. I tell you, father, he has kept such a begging of me for a piece of this cake! Whoo! he comes upon me with": superfantial substance, and the foison of [385 the earth," that I know not what he means. If he came to me thus, and said, "My friend Booby," or so, why, I could spare him a piece with all my heart; but when he tells me how God hath enriched me above other fellows [390 with a cake, why, he makes me blind and deaf at once. Yet, father, here is a piece of cake for you, as hard as the world goes.5 [Gives cake.] Erest. Thanks, son, but list to me; He shall be deaf when thou shalt not see. $95 Cor. Farewell, father, farewell; for I must make haste after my two-hand sword that is gone before. Exeunt omnes. [400 Enter SACRAPANT in his study. Sac. The day is clear, the welkin bright and grey, 405 410 The lark is merry and records her notes; Enter DELIA with a pot in her hand. See where she comes from whence my sorrows grow! How now, fair Delia! where have you been? [420 Del. At the foot of the rock for running water, and gathering roots for your dinner, sir. Sac. Ah, Delia, fairer art thou than the running water, yet harder far than steel or adamant! 425 Del. Will it please you to sit down, sir? Sac. Ay, Delia, sit and ask me what thou wilt, Thou shalt have it brought into thy lap. Del. Then, I pray you, sir, let me have the best meat from the King of England's table, [430 and the best wine in all France, brought in by the veriest knave in all Spain. Sac. Delia, I am glad to see you so pleasant. Well, sit thee down. Spread, table, spread, Meat, drink, and bread, Ever may I have What I ever crave, When I am spread, For meat for my black cock, And meat for my red. 435 440 2 Bro. Brother, remember you the white bear of England's wood? "Start not aside for every danger, Be not afeard of every stranger; Things that seem are not the same." 1 Bro. Brother, 450 Why do we not, then, courageously enter? [485 2 Bro. Then, brother, draw thy sword and follow me. Re-enter [SACRAPANT] the Conjurer: it lightens The First Brother falls down. Enter Two Furies. [Exeunt Furies with the Two Brothers.] 495 Removes a turf, and shows a light in a glass. See here the thing which doth prolong my life, With this enchantment I do any thing; And till this fade, my skill shall still endure, And never none shall break this little glass, But she that's neither wife, widow, nor maid. 600 470 He biddeth me give more than all, Exit. 820 |