A Bedchamber in the Lord’s House. | |
| |
SLY is discovered in a rich nightgown, with Attendants: some with apparel, others with basin, ewer, and other appurtenances; and Lord, dressed like a servant. | |
| Sly. For God’s sake! a pot of small ale. | |
| First Serv. Will’t please your lordship drink a cup of sack? | 4 |
| Sec. Serv. Will’t please your honour taste of these conserves? | |
| Third Serv. What raiment will your honour wear to-day? | |
| Sly. I am Christophero Sly; call not me honour, nor lordship: I ne’er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef. Ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet: nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather. | |
| Lord. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour! | 8 |
| O, that a mighty man, of such descent, | |
| Of such possessions, and so high esteem, | |
| Should be infused with so foul a spirit! | |
| Sly. What! would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son, of Burton-heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught: here’s— | 12 |
| First Serv. O! this it is that makes your lady mourn. | |
| Sec. Serv. O! this it is that makes your servants droop. | |
| Lord. Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house, | |
| As beaten hence by your strange lunacy. | 16 |
| O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth, | |
| Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment, | |
| And banish hence these abject lowly dreams. | |
| Look how thy servants do attend on thee, | 20 |
| Each in his office ready at thy beck: | |
| Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays, [Music. | |
| And twenty caged nightingales do sing: | |
| Or wilt thou sleep? we’ll have thee to a couch | 24 |
| Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed | |
| On purpose trimm’d up for Semiramis. | |
| Say thou wilt walk, we will bestrew the ground: | |
| Or wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp’d, | 28 |
| Their harness studded all with gold and pearl. | |
| Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar | |
| Above the morning lark: or wilt thou hunt? | |
| Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them, | 32 |
| And fetch shrill echoes from hollow earth. | |
| First Serv. Say thou wilt course; thy grey-hounds are as swift | |
| As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe. | |
| Sec. Serv. Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight | 36 |
| Adonis painted by a running brook, | |
| And Cytherea all in sedges hid, | |
| Which seem to move and wanton with her breath, | |
| Even as the waving sedges play with wind. | 40 |
| Lord. We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid, | |
| And how she was beguiled and surpris’d, | |
| As lively painted as the deed was done. | |
| Third Serv. Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood, | 44 |
| Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds; | |
| And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep, | |
| So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn. | |
| Lord. Thou art a lord and nothing but a lord: | 48 |
| Thou hast a lady far more beautiful | |
| Than any woman in this waning age. | |
| First Serv. And till the tears that she hath shed for thee | |
| Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face, | 52 |
| She was the fairest creature in the world; | |
| And yet she is inferior to none. | |
| Sly. Am I a lord? and have I such a lady? | |
| Or do I dream? or have I dream’d till now? | 56 |
| I do not sleep; I see, I hear, I speak; | |
| I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things: | |
| Upon my life, I am a lord indeed; | |
| And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly. | 60 |
| Well, bring our lady hither to our sight; | |
| And once again, a pot o’ the smallest ale. | |
| Sec. Serv. Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands? [Servants present a ewer, basin, and napkin. | |
| O, how we joy to see your wit restor’d! | 64 |
| O, that once more you knew but what you are! | |
| These fifteen years you have been in a dream, | |
| Or, when you wak’d, so wak’d as if you slept. | |
| Sly. These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap. | 68 |
| But did I never speak of all that time? | |
| First Serv. O! yes, my lord, but very idle words; | |
| For though you lay here in this goodly chamber, | |
| Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door, | 72 |
| And rail upon the hostess of the house, | |
| And say you would present her at the leet, | |
| Because she brought stone jugs and no seal’d quarts. | |
| Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket. | 76 |
| Sly. Ay, the woman’s maid of the house. | |
| Third Serv. Why, sir, you know no house, nor no such maid, | |
| Nor no such men as you have reckon’d up, | |
| As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece, | 80 |
| And Peter Turf, and Henry Pimpernell, | |
| And twenty more such names and men as these, | |
| Which never were nor no man ever saw. | |
| Sly. Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends! | 84 |
| All. Amen. | |
| Sly. I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it. | |
| |
Enter the Page, as a lady, with Attendants. | |
| Page. How fares my noble lord? | 88 |
| Sly. Marry, I fare well, for here is cheer enough. | |
| Where is my wife? | |
| Page. Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her? | |
| Sly. Are you my wife, and will not call me husband? | 92 |
| My men should call me lord: I am your good-man. | |
| Page. My husband and my lord, my lord and husband; | |
| I am your wife in all obedience. | |
| Sly. I know it well. What must I call her? | 96 |
| Lord. Madam. | |
| Sly. Al’ce madam, or Joan madam? | |
| Lord. Madam, and nothing else: so lords call ladies. | |
| Sly. Madam wife, they say that I have dream’d | 100 |
| And slept above some fifteen year or more. | |
| Page. Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me, | |
| Being all this time abandon’d from your bed. | |
| Sly. ’Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone. | 104 |
| Madam, undress you, and come now to bed. | |
| Page. Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you | |
| To pardon me yet for a night or two, | |
| Or, if not so, until the sun be set: | 108 |
| For your physicians have expressly charg’d, | |
| In peril to incur your former malady, | |
| That I should yet absent me from your bed: | |
| I hope this reason stands for my excuse. | 112 |
| Sly. Ay, it stands so, that I may hardly tarry so long; but I would be loath to fall into my dreams again: I will therefore tarry, in spite of the flesh and the blood. | |
| |
Enter a Servant | |
| Serv. Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment, | |
| Are come to play a pleasant comedy; | 116 |
| For so your doctors hold it very meet, | |
| Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood. | |
| And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy: | |
| Therefore they thought it good you hear a play, | 120 |
| And frame your mind to mirth and merriment, | |
| Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life. | |
| Sly. Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a commonty a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick? | |
| Page. No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff. | 124 |
| Sly. What! household stuff? | |
| Page. It is a kind of history. | |
| Sly. Well, we’ll see’t. Come, madam wife, sit by my side, | |
| And let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger. [Flourish. | 128 |
