Complete Works of William Congreve

by William Congreve

  MILLA. Oh, horrid provisos! Filthy strong waters! I toast fellows, odious men! I hate your odious provisos.

  MIRA. Then we’re agreed. Shall I kiss your hand upon the contract? And here comes one to be a witness to the sealing of the deed.

  SCENE VI.

  [To them] Mrs. Fainall.

  MILLA. Fainall, what shall I do? Shall I have him? I think I must have him.

  MRS. FAIN. Ay, ay, take him, take him, what should you do?

  MILLA. Well then — I’ll take my death I’m in a horrid fright — Fainall, I shall never say it. Well — I think — I’ll endure you.

  MRS. FAIN. Fie, fie, have him, and tell him so in plain terms: for I am sure you have a mind to him.

  MILLA. Are you? I think I have; and the horrid man looks as if he thought so too. Well, you ridiculous thing you, I’ll have you. I won’t be kissed, nor I won’t be thanked. — Here, kiss my hand though, so hold your tongue now; don’t say a word.

  MRS. FAIN. Mirabell, there’s a necessity for your obedience: you have neither time to talk nor stay. My mother is coming; and in my conscience if she should see you, would fall into fits, and maybe not recover time enough to return to Sir Rowland, who, as Foible tells me, is in a fair way to succeed. Therefore spare your ecstasies for another occasion, and slip down the back stairs, where Foible waits to consult you.

  MILLA. Ay, go, go. In the meantime I suppose you have said something to please me.

  MIRA. I am all obedience.

  SCENE VII.

  Mrs. Millamant, Mrs. Fainall.

  MRS. FAIN. Yonder Sir Wilfull’s drunk, and so noisy that my mother has been forced to leave Sir Rowland to appease him; but he answers her only with singing and drinking. What they may have done by this time I know not, but Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came by.

  MILLA. Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost thing: for I find I love him violently.

  MRS. FAIN. So it seems; for you mind not what’s said to you. If you doubt him, you had best take up with Sir Wilfull.

  MILLA. How can you name that superannuated lubber? foh!

  SCENE VIII.

  [To them] Witwoud from drinking.

  MRS. FAIN. So, is the fray made up that you have left ’em?

  WIT. Left ’em? I could stay no longer. I have laughed like ten Christ’nings. I am tipsy with laughing — if I had stayed any longer I should have burst, — I must have been let out and pieced in the sides like an unsized camlet. Yes, yes, the fray is composed; my lady came in like a noli prosequi, and stopt the proceedings.

  MILLA. What was the dispute?

  WIT. That’s the jest: there was no dispute. They could neither of ’em speak for rage; and so fell a sputt’ring at one another like two roasting apples.

  SCENE IX.

  [To them] Petulant drunk.

  WIT. Now, Petulant? All’s over, all’s well? Gad, my head begins to whim it about. Why dost thou not speak? Thou art both as drunk and as mute as a fish.

  PET. Look you, Mrs. Millamant, if you can love me, dear Nymph, say it, and that’s the conclusion — pass on, or pass off — that’s all.

  WIT. Thou hast uttered volumes, folios, in less than decimo sexto, my dear Lacedemonian. Sirrah, Petulant, thou art an epitomiser of words.

  PET. Witwoud, — you are an annihilator of sense.

  WIT. Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants, like a maker of pincushions; thou art in truth (metaphorically speaking) a speaker of shorthand.

  PET. Thou art (without a figure) just one half of an ass, and Baldwin yonder, thy half-brother, is the rest. A Gemini of asses split would make just four of you.

  WIT. Thou dost bite, my dear mustard-seed; kiss me for that.

  PET. Stand off — I’ll kiss no more males — I have kissed your Twin yonder in a humour of reconciliation till he [hiccup] rises upon my stomach like a radish.

  MILLA. Eh! filthy creature; what was the quarrel?

  PET. There was no quarrel; there might have been a quarrel.

  WIT. If there had been words enow between ’em to have expressed provocation, they had gone together by the ears like a pair of castanets.

  PET. You were the quarrel.

  MILLA. Me?

  PET. If I have a humour to quarrel, I can make less matters conclude premises. If you are not handsome, what then? If I have a humour to prove it? If I shall have my reward, say so; if not, fight for your face the next time yourself — I’ll go sleep.

  WIT. Do, wrap thyself up like a woodlouse, and dream revenge. And, hear me, if thou canst learn to write by to-morrow morning, pen me a challenge. I’ll carry it for thee.

  PET. Carry your mistress’s monkey a spider; go flea dogs and read romances. I’ll go to bed to my maid.

  MRS. FAIN. He’s horridly drunk — how came you all in this pickle?

  WIT. A plot, a plot, to get rid of the knight — your husband’s advice; but he sneaked off.

  SCENE X.

  Sir Wilfull, drunk, Lady Wishfort, Witwoud, Mrs. Millamant, Mrs. Fainall.

  LADY. Out upon’t, out upon’t, at years of discretion, and comport yourself at this rantipole rate!

  SIR WIL. No offence, aunt.

  LADY. Offence? As I’m a person, I’m ashamed of you. Fogh! How you stink of wine! D’ye think my niece will ever endure such a Borachio? You’re an absolute Borachio.

  SIR WIL. Borachio?

  LADY. At a time when you should commence an amour, and put your best foot foremost —

  SIR WIL. ‘Sheart, an you grutch me your liquor, make a bill. — Give me more drink, and take my purse. [Sings]: —

  Prithee fill me the glass,

  Till it laugh in my face,

  With ale that is potent and mellow;

  He that whines for a lass

  Is an ignorant ass,

  For a bumper has not its fellow.

  But if you would have me marry my cousin, say the word, and I’ll do’t. Wilfull will do’t, that’s the word. Wilfull will do’t, that’s my crest, — my motto I have forgot.

  LADY. My nephew’s a little overtaken, cousin, but ’tis drinking your health. O’ my word, you are obliged to him —

  SIR WIL. In vino veritas, aunt. If I drunk your health to-day, cousin, — I am a Borachio. — But if you have a mind to be married, say the word and send for the piper; Wilfull will do’t. If not, dust it away, and let’s have t’other round. Tony — ods-heart, where’s Tony? — Tony’s an honest fellow, but he spits after a bumper, and that’s a fault.

  We’ll drink and we’ll never ha’ done, boys,

  Put the glass then around with the sun, boys,

  Let Apollo’s example invite us;

  For he’s drunk every night,

  And that makes him so bright,

  That he’s able next morning to light us.

  The sun’s a good pimple, an honest soaker, he has a cellar at your antipodes. If I travel, aunt, I touch at your antipodes — your antipodes are a good rascally sort of topsy-turvy fellows. If I had a bumper I’d stand upon my head and drink a health to ’em. A match or no match, cousin with the hard name; aunt, Wilfull will do’t. If she has her maidenhead let her look to ‘t; if she has not, let her keep her own counsel in the meantime, and cry out at the nine months’ end.

  MILLA. Your pardon, madam, I can stay no longer. Sir Wilfull grows very powerful. Egh! how he smells! I shall be overcome if I stay. Come, cousin.

  SCENE XI.

  Lady Wishfort, Sir Wilfull Witwoud, Mr. Witwoud, Foible.

  LADY. Smells? He would poison a tallow-chandler and his family. Beastly creature, I know not what to do with him. Travel, quotha; ay, travel, travel, get thee gone, get thee but far enough, to the Saracens, or the Tartars, or the Turks — for thou art not fit to live in a Christian commonwealth, thou beastly pagan.

  SIR WIL. Turks? No; no Turks, aunt. Your Turks are infidels, and believe not in the grape. Your Mahometan, your Mussulman is a dry stinkard. No offence, aunt. My map say
s that your Turk is not so honest a man as your Christian — I cannot find by the map that your Mufti is orthodox, whereby it is a plain case that orthodox is a hard word, aunt, and [hiccup] Greek for claret. [Sings]: —

  To drink is a Christian diversion,

  Unknown to the Turk or the Persian.

  Let Mahometan fools

  Live by heathenish rules,

  And be damned over tea-cups and coffee.

  But let British lads sing,

  Crown a health to the King,

  And a fig for your Sultan and Sophy.

  Ah, Tony! [Foible whispers Lady W.]

  LADY. Sir Rowland impatient? Good lack! what shall I do with this beastly tumbril? Go lie down and sleep, you sot, or as I’m a person, I’ll have you bastinadoed with broomsticks. Call up the wenches with broomsticks.

  SIR WIL. Ahey! Wenches? Where are the wenches?

  LADY. Dear Cousin Witwoud, get him away, and you will bind me to you inviolably. I have an affair of moment that invades me with some precipitation. — You will oblige me to all futurity.

  WIT. Come, knight. Pox on him, I don’t know what to say to him. Will you go to a cock-match?

  SIR WIL. With a wench, Tony? Is she a shake-bag, sirrah? Let me bite your cheek for that.

  WIT. Horrible! He has a breath like a bagpipe. Ay, ay; come, will you march, my Salopian?

  SIR WIL. Lead on, little Tony. I’ll follow thee, my Anthony, my Tantony. Sirrah, thou shalt be my Tantony, and I’ll be thy pig.

  And a fig for your Sultan and Sophy.

  LADY. This will never do. It will never make a match, — at least before he has been abroad.

  SCENE XII.

  Lady Wishfort, Waitwell disguised as for Sir Rowland.

  LADY. Dear Sir Rowland, I am confounded with confusion at the retrospection of my own rudeness, — I have more pardons to ask than the pope distributes in the year of jubilee. But I hope where there is likely to be so near an alliance, we may unbend the severity of decorum, and dispense with a little ceremony.

  WAIT. My impatience, madam, is the effect of my transport; and till I have the possession of your adorable person, I am tantalised on the rack, and do but hang, madam, on the tenter of expectation.

  LADY. You have excess of gallantry, Sir Rowland, and press things to a conclusion with a most prevailing vehemence. But a day or two for decency of marriage —

  WAIT. For decency of funeral, madam! The delay will break my heart — or if that should fail, I shall be poisoned. My nephew will get an inkling of my designs and poison me — and I would willingly starve him before I die — I would gladly go out of the world with that satisfaction. That would be some comfort to me, if I could but live so long as to be revenged on that unnatural viper.

  LADY. Is he so unnatural, say you? Truly I would contribute much both to the saving of your life and the accomplishment of your revenge. Not that I respect myself; though he has been a perfidious wretch to me.

  WAIT. Perfidious to you?

  LADY. O Sir Rowland, the hours that he has died away at my feet, the tears that he has shed, the oaths that he has sworn, the palpitations that he has felt, the trances and the tremblings, the ardours and the ecstasies, the kneelings and the risings, the heart-heavings and the hand-gripings, the pangs and the pathetic regards of his protesting eyes! — Oh, no memory can register.

  WAIT. What, my rival? Is the rebel my rival? A dies.

  LADY. No, don’t kill him at once, Sir Rowland: starve him gradually, inch by inch.

  WAIT. I’ll do’t. In three weeks he shall be barefoot; in a month out at knees with begging an alms; he shall starve upward and upward, ‘till he has nothing living but his head, and then go out in a stink like a candle’s end upon a save-all.

  LADY. Well, Sir Rowland, you have the way, — you are no novice in the labyrinth of love, — you have the clue. But as I am a person, Sir Rowland, you must not attribute my yielding to any sinister appetite or indigestion of widowhood; nor impute my complacency to any lethargy of continence. I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials?

  WAIT. Far be it from me —

  LADY. If you do, I protest I must recede, or think that I have made a prostitution of decorums, but in the vehemence of compassion, and to save the life of a person of so much importance —

  WAIT. I esteem it so —

  LADY. Or else you wrong my condescension —

  WAIT. I do not, I do not —

  LADY. Indeed you do.

  WAIT. I do not, fair shrine of virtue.

  LADY. If you think the least scruple of causality was an ingredient —

  WAIT. Dear madam, no. You are all camphire and frankincense, all chastity and odour.

  LADY. Or that —

  SCENE XIII.

  [To them] Foible.

  FOIB. Madam, the dancers are ready, and there’s one with a letter, who must deliver it into your own hands.

  LADY. Sir Rowland, will you give me leave? Think favourably, judge candidly, and conclude you have found a person who would suffer racks in honour’s cause, dear Sir Rowland, and will wait on you incessantly.

  SCENE XIV.

  Waitwell, Foible.

  WAIT. Fie, fie! What a slavery have I undergone; spouse, hast thou any cordial? I want spirits.

  FOIB. What a washy rogue art thou, to pant thus for a quarter of an hour’s lying and swearing to a fine lady?

  WAIT. Oh, she is the antidote to desire. Spouse, thou wilt fare the worse for’t. I shall have no appetite to iteration of nuptials — this eight-and-forty hours. By this hand I’d rather be a chairman in the dog-days than act Sir Rowland till this time to-morrow.

  SCENE XV.

  [To them] Lady with a letter.

  LADY. Call in the dancers; Sir Rowland, we’ll sit, if you please, and see the entertainment. [Dance.] Now, with your permission, Sir Rowland, I will peruse my letter. I would open it in your presence, because I would not make you uneasy. If it should make you uneasy, I would burn it — speak if it does — but you may see, the superscription is like a woman’s hand.

  FOIB. By heaven! Mrs. Marwood’s, I know it, — my heart aches — get it from her! [To him.]

  WAIT. A woman’s hand? No madam, that’s no woman’s hand: I see that already. That’s somebody whose throat must be cut.

  LADY. Nay, Sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion by your jealousy, I promise you I’ll make a return by a frank communication. You shall see it — we’ll open it together. Look you here. [Reads.] Madam, though unknown to you (look you there, ’tis from nobody that I know.) I have that honour for your character, that I think myself obliged to let you know you are abused. He who pretends to be Sir Rowland is a cheat and a rascal. O heavens! what’s this?

  FOIB. Unfortunate; all’s ruined.

  WAIT. How, how, let me see, let me see. [Reading.] A rascal, and disguised and suborned for that imposture — O villainy! O villainy! — by the contrivance of —

  LADY. I shall faint, I shall die. Oh!

  FOIB. Say ’tis your nephew’s hand. Quickly, his plot, swear, swear it! [To him.]

  WAIT. Here’s a villain! Madam, don’t you perceive it? Don’t you see it?

  LADY. Too well, too well. I have seen too much.

  WAIT. I told you at first I knew the hand. A woman’s hand? The rascal writes a sort of a large hand: your Roman hand. — I saw there was a throat to be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my nephew, I’d pistol him.

  FOIB. O treachery! But are you sure, Sir Rowland, it is his writing?

  WAIT. Sure? Am I here? Do I live? Do I love this pearl of India? I have twenty letters in my pocket from him in the same character.

  LADY. How?

  FOIB. Oh, what luck it is, Sir Rowland, that you were present at this juncture! This was the business that brought Mr. Mirabell disguised to Madam Millamant this afternoon. I thought something was contriving, when he stole by me and would have hid his face.

  LADY. How, how? I heard the villain was in t
he house indeed; and now I remember, my niece went away abruptly when Sir Wilfull was to have made his addresses.