Complete Works of William Congreve

by William Congreve

  MRS. FRAIL. So, then, you intend to go to sea again?

  BEN. Nay, nay, my mind run upon you, but I would not tell him so much. So he said he’d make my heart ache; and if so be that he could get a woman to his mind, he’d marry himself. Gad, says I, an you play the fool and marry at these years, there’s more danger of your head’s aching than my heart. He was woundy angry when I gave’n that wipe. He hadn’t a word to say, and so I left’n, and the green girl together; mayhap the bee may bite, and he’ll marry her himself, with all my heart.

  MRS. FRAIL. And were you this undutiful and graceless wretch to your father?

  BEN. Then why was he graceless first? If I am undutiful and graceless, why did he beget me so? I did not get myself.

  MRS. FRAIL. O impiety! How have I been mistaken! What an inhuman, merciless creature have I set my heart upon? Oh, I am happy to have discovered the shelves and quicksands that lurk beneath that faithless, smiling face.

  BEN. Hey toss! What’s the matter now? Why, you ben’t angry, be you?

  MRS. FRAIL. Oh, see me no more, — for thou wert born amongst rocks, suckled by whales, cradled in a tempest, and whistled to by winds; and thou art come forth with fins and scales, and three rows of teeth, a most outrageous fish of prey.

  BEN. O Lord, O Lord, she’s mad, poor young woman: love has turned her senses, her brain is quite overset. Well-a-day, how shall I do to set her to rights?

  MRS. FRAIL. No, no, I am not mad, monster; I am wise enough to find you out. Hadst thou the impudence to aspire at being a husband with that stubborn and disobedient temper? You that know not how to submit to a father, presume to have a sufficient stock of duty to undergo a wife? I should have been finely fobbed indeed, very finely fobbed.

  BEN. Harkee, forsooth; if so be that you are in your right senses, d’ye see, for ought as I perceive I’m like to be finely fobbed, — if I have got anger here upon your account, and you are tacked about already. What d’ye mean, after all your fair speeches, and stroking my cheeks, and kissing and hugging, what would you sheer off so? Would you, and leave me aground?

  MRS. FRAIL. No, I’ll leave you adrift, and go which way you will.

  BEN. What, are you false-hearted, then?

  MRS. FRAIL. Only the wind’s changed.

  BEN. More shame for you, — the wind’s changed? It’s an ill wind blows nobody good, — mayhap I have a good riddance on you, if these be your tricks. What, did you mean all this while to make a fool of me?

  MRS. FRAIL. Any fool but a husband.

  BEN. Husband! Gad, I would not be your husband if you would have me, now I know your mind: thof you had your weight in gold and jewels, and thof I loved you never so well.

  MRS. FRAIL. Why, can’st thou love, Porpuss?

  BEN. No matter what I can do; don’t call names. I don’t love you so well as to bear that, whatever I did. I’m glad you show yourself, mistress. Let them marry you as don’t know you. Gad, I know you too well, by sad experience; I believe he that marries you will go to sea in a hen-pecked frigate — I believe that, young woman — and mayhap may come to an anchor at Cuckolds-Point; so there’s a dash for you, take it as you will: mayhap you may holla after me when I won’t come to.

  MRS. FRAIL. Ha, ha, ha, no doubt on’t. — My true love is gone to sea. [Sings]

  SCENE XIV.

  Mrs. Frail, Mrs. Foresight.

  MRS. FRAIL. O sister, had you come a minute sooner, you would have seen the resolution of a lover: — honest Tar and I are parted; — and with the same indifference that we met. O’ my life I am half vexed at the insensibility of a brute that I despised.

  MRS. FORE. What then, he bore it most heroically?

  MRS. FRAIL. Most tyrannically; for you see he has got the start of me, and I, the poor forsaken maid, am left complaining on the shore. But I’ll tell you a hint that he has given me: Sir Sampson is enraged, and talks desperately of committing matrimony himself. If he has a mind to throw himself away, he can’t do it more effectually than upon me, if we could bring it about.

  MRS. FORE. Oh, hang him, old fox, he’s too cunning; besides, he hates both you and me. But I have a project in my head for you, and I have gone a good way towards it. I have almost made a bargain with Jeremy, Valentine’s man, to sell his master to us.

  MRS. FRAIL. Sell him? How?

  MRS. FORE. Valentine raves upon Angelica, and took me for her, and Jeremy says will take anybody for her that he imposes on him. Now, I have promised him mountains, if in one of his mad fits he will bring you to him in her stead, and get you married together and put to bed together; and after consummation, girl, there’s no revoking. And if he should recover his senses, he’ll be glad at least to make you a good settlement. Here they come: stand aside a little, and tell me how you like the design.

  SCENE XV.

  Mrs. Foresight, Mrs. Frail, Valentine, Scandal, Foresight, and Jeremy.

  SCAN. And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him? [To Jeremy.]

  JERE. Yes, sir; he says he’ll favour it, and mistake her for Angelica.

  SCAN. It may make us sport.

  FORE. Mercy on us!

  VAL. Husht — interrupt me not — I’ll whisper prediction to thee, and thou shalt prophesy. I am Truth, and can teach thy tongue a new trick. I have told thee what’s past, — now I’ll tell what’s to come. Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow? — Answer me not — for I will tell thee. To-morrow, knaves will thrive through craft, and fools through fortune, and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning to-morrow.

  SCAN. Ask him, Mr. Foresight.

  FORE. Pray what will be done at court?

  VAL. Scandal will tell you. I am Truth; I never come there.

  FORE. In the city?

  VAL. Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters, as if religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go methodically in the city: the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and the horned herd buzz in the exchange at two. Wives and husbands will drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the cropt prentice, that sweeps his master’s shop in the morning, may ten to one dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things that you will see very strange: which are wanton wives with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. But hold, I must examine you before I go further. You look suspiciously. Are you a husband?

  FORE. I am married.

  VAL. Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden parish?

  FORE. No; St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

  VAL. Alas, poor man; his eyes are sunk, and his hands shrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bowed: pray, pray, for a metamorphosis. Change thy shape and shake off age; get thee Medea’s kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab’ring callous hands, a chine of steel, and Atlas shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the calves of twenty chairmen, and make thee pedestals to stand erect upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha! That a man should have a stomach to a wedding supper, when the pigeons ought rather to be laid to his feet, ha, ha, ha!

  FORE. His frenzy is very high now, Mr. Scandal.

  SCAN. I believe it is a spring tide.

  FORE. Very likely, truly. You understand these matters. Mr. Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things which he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical.

  VAL. Oh, why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so long?

  JERE. She’s here, sir.

  MRS. FORE. Now, sister.

  MRS. FRAIL. O Lord, what must I say?

  SCAN. Humour him, madam, by all means.

  VAL. Where is she? Oh, I see her — she comes, like riches, health, and liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned wretch. Oh, welcome, welcome.

  MRS. FRAIL. How d’ye, sir? Can I serve you?

  VAL. Harkee; I have a secret to
tell you: Endymion and the moon shall meet us upon Mount Latmos, and we’ll be married in the dead of night. But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail, and Argus’s hundred eyes be shut, ha! Nobody shall know but Jeremy.

  MRS. FRAIL. No, no, we’ll keep it secret, it shall be done presently.

  VAL. The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither — closer — that none may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news: Angelica is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet we’ll marry one another in spite of the pope. Get me a cowl and beads, that I may play my part, — for she’ll meet me two hours hence in black and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won’t see one another’s faces, till we have done something to be ashamed of; and then we’ll blush once for all.

  SCENE XVI.

  [To them] Tattle and Angelica.

  JERE. I’ll take care, and —

  VAL. Whisper.

  ANG. Nay, Mr. Tattle, if you make love to me, you spoil my design, for I intend to make you my confidant.

  TATT. But, madam, to throw away your person — such a person! — and such a fortune on a madman!

  ANG. I never loved him till he was mad; but don’t tell anybody so.

  SCAN. How’s this! Tattle making love to Angelica!

  TATT. Tell, madam? Alas, you don’t know me. I have much ado to tell your ladyship how long I have been in love with you — but encouraged by the impossibility of Valentine’s making any more addresses to you, I have ventured to declare the very inmost passion of my heart. O madam, look upon us both. There you see the ruins of a poor decayed creature — here, a complete and lively figure, with youth and health, and all his five senses in perfection, madam, and to all this, the most passionate lover —

  ANG. O fie, for shame, hold your tongue. A passionate lover, and five senses in perfection! When you are as mad as Valentine, I’ll believe you love me, and the maddest shall take me.

  VAL. It is enough. Ha! Who’s here?

  FRAIL. O Lord, her coming will spoil all. [To Jeremy.]

  JERE. No, no, madam, he won’t know her; if he should, I can persuade him.

  VAL. Scandal, who are these? Foreigners? If they are, I’ll tell you what I think, — get away all the company but Angelica, that I may discover my design to her. [Whisper.]

  SCAN. I will — I have discovered something of Tattle that is of a piece with Mrs. Frail. He courts Angelica; if we could contrive to couple ’em together. — Hark’ee — [Whisper.]

  MRS. FORE. He won’t know you, cousin; he knows nobody.

  FORE. But he knows more than anybody. O niece, he knows things past and to come, and all the profound secrets of time.

  TATT. Look you, Mr. Foresight, it is not my way to make many words of matters, and so I shan’t say much, — but in short, d’ye see, I will hold you a hundred pounds now, that I know more secrets than he.

  FORE. How! I cannot read that knowledge in your face, Mr. Tattle. Pray, what do you know?

  TATT. Why, d’ye think I’ll tell you, sir? Read it in my face? No, sir, ’tis written in my heart; and safer there, sir, than letters writ in juice of lemon, for no fire can fetch it out. I am no blab, sir.

  VAL. Acquaint Jeremy with it, he may easily bring it about. They are welcome, and I’ll tell ’em so myself. [To Scandal.] What, do you look strange upon me? Then I must be plain. [Coming up to them.] I am Truth, and hate an old acquaintance with a new face. [Scandal goes aside with Jeremy.]

  TATT. Do you know me, Valentine?

  VAL. You? Who are you? No, I hope not.

  TATT. I am Jack Tattle, your friend.

  VAL. My friend, what to do? I am no married man, and thou canst not lie with my wife. I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow money of me. Then what employment have I for a friend?

  TATT. Ha! a good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a secret.

  ANG. Do you know me, Valentine?

  VAL. Oh, very well.

  ANG. Who am I?

  VAL. You’re a woman. One to whom heav’n gave beauty, when it grafted roses on a briar. You are the reflection of heav’n in a pond, and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white, a sheet of lovely, spotless paper, when you first are born; but you are to be scrawled and blotted by every goose’s quill. I know you; for I loved a woman, and loved her so long, that I found out a strange thing: I found out what a woman was good for.

  TATT. Ay, prithee, what’s that?

  VAL. Why, to keep a secret.

  TATT. O Lord!

  VAL. Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for though she should tell, yet she is not to be believed.

  TATT. Hah! good again, faith.

  VAL. I would have music. Sing me the song that I like.

  SONG

  Set by Mr. Finger.

  I tell thee, Charmion, could I time retrieve,

  And could again begin to love and live,

  To you I should my earliest off’ring give;

  I know my eyes would lead my heart to you,

  And I should all my vows and oaths renew,

  But to be plain, I never would be true.

  II.

  For by our weak and weary truth, I find,

  Love hates to centre in a point assign’d?

  But runs with joy the circle of the mind.

  Then never let us chain what should be free,

  But for relief of either sex agree,

  Since women love to change, and so do we.

  No more, for I am melancholy. [Walks musing.]

  JERE. I’ll do’t, sir. [To Scandal.]

  SCAN. Mr. Foresight, we had best leave him. He may grow outrageous, and do mischief.

  FORE. I will be directed by you.

  JERE. [To Mrs. Frail.] You’ll meet, madam? I’ll take care everything shall be ready.

  MRS. FRAIL. Thou shalt do what thou wilt; in short, I will deny thee nothing.

  TATT. Madam, shall I wait upon you? [To Angelica.]

  ANG. No, I’ll stay with him; Mr. Scandal will protect me. Aunt, Mr. Tattle desires you would give him leave to wait on you.

  TATT. Pox on’t, there’s no coming off, now she has said that. Madam, will you do me the honour?

  MRS. FORE. Mr. Tattle might have used less ceremony.

  SCENE XVII.

  Angelica, Valentine, Scandal.

  SCAN. Jeremy, follow Tattle.

  ANG. Mr. Scandal, I only stay till my maid comes, and because I had a mind to be rid of Mr. Tattle.

  SCAN. Madam, I am very glad that I overheard a better reason which you gave to Mr. Tattle; for his impertinence forced you to acknowledge a kindness for Valentine, which you denied to all his sufferings and my solicitations. So I’ll leave him to make use of the discovery, and your ladyship to the free confession of your inclinations.

  ANG. O heav’ns! You won’t leave me alone with a madman?

  SCAN. No, madam; I only leave a madman to his remedy.

  SCENE XVIII.

  Angelica, Valentine.

  VAL. Madam, you need not be very much afraid, for I fancy I begin to come to myself.

  ANG. Ay, but if I don’t fit you, I’ll be hanged. [Aside.]

  VAL. You see what disguises love makes us put on. Gods have been in counterfeited shapes for the same reason; and the divine part of me, my mind, has worn this mask of madness and this motley livery, only as the slave of love and menial creature of your beauty.

  ANG. Mercy on me, how he talks! Poor Valentine!

  VAL. Nay, faith, now let us understand one another, hypocrisy apart. The comedy draws toward an end, and let us think of leaving acting and be ourselves; and since you have loved me, you must own I have at length deserved you should confess it.

  ANG. [Sighs.] I would I had loved you — for heav’n knows I pity you, and could I have foreseen the bad effects, I would have striven; but that’s too late. [Sighs.]

  VAL. What sad effects? — what’s too late? My seeming mad
ness has deceived my father, and procured me time to think of means to reconcile me to him, and preserve the right of my inheritance to his estate; which otherwise, by articles, I must this morning have resigned. And this I had informed you of to-day, but you were gone before I knew you had been here.