Blanvel
I know her very well, sir. She goes more like a milkmaid than a countess, for all her youth and beauty.
Lemot
True, sir. Yet of her is the old Count so jealous that he will suffer no man to come at her. Yet I will find a means that two of us will have access to her, though before his face, which shall so heat his jealous humour till he be stark mad. But, Colinet, go you first to lovely Martia, for ’tis too soon for the old lord and his fair young lady to rise.
Colinet
Adieu, Monsieur Blanvel.
Blanvel
Adieu, good Monsieur Colinet.
Exit Colinet.
Lemot
Monsieur Blanvel, your kindness in this will bind me much to you.
Blanvel
Monsieur Lemot, your kindness in this will bind me much to you.
Lemot
I pray you do not say so, sir.
Blanvel
I pray you do not say so sir.
Lemot
Will’t please you to go in?
Blanvel
Will’t please you to go in?
Lemot
I will follow you.
Blanvel
I will follow you.
Lemot
It shall be yours.
Blanvel
It shall be yours.
Lemot
Kind Monsieur Blanvel.
Blanvel
Kind Monsieur Lemot.
Exeunt.
Scene 3
Enter Foyes and Martia and Labesha.
Foyes
Come on, fair daughter, fall to your work of mind, and make your body fit to embrace the body of this gentleman’s, ’tis art: happy are they, say I.
Labesha
I protest, sir, you speak the best that ever I heard.
Foyes
I pray, sir, take acquaintance of my daughter.
Labesha
I do desire you of more acquaintance.
Foyes
[To Martia] Why dost not thou say ‘Yea, and I the same of you’?
Martia
That everybody says.
Foyes
Oh, you would be singular.
Martia
Single, indeed.
Foyes
‘Single, indeed’: that’s a pretty toy! Your betters, dame, bear double, and so shall you.
Labesha
Exceeding pretty, did you mark it, forsooth?
Martia
What should I mark, forsooth?
Labesha
Your bearing double, which equivocate is, and hath a fit allusion to a horse that bears double, for your good father means you shall endure your single life no longer, not in worse sense than bearing double, forsooth.
Martia
I cry you mercy, you know both belike.
Labesha
Knowledge, forsooth, is like a horse and you, that can bear double. It nourisheth both bee and spider: the bee honeysuckle, the spider, poison. I am that bee.
Martia
I thought so by your stinging wit.
Labesha
Lady, I am a bee without a sting, no way hurting any, but good to all, and before all, to your sweet self.
Foyes
Afore God, daughter, thou art not worthy to hear him speake. But who comes here?
Enter Colinet.
Colinet
God save you, sir.
Foyes
You are welcome, sir, for aught that I know yet.
Colinet
I hope I shall be so still, sir.
Foyes
What is your business, sir, and then I’ll tell you?
Colinet
Marry thus, sir, the Countess Moren entreats your fair daughter to bear her company this forenoon.
Foyes
This forenoon, sir? Doth my lord or lady send for her, I pray?
Colinet
My lady, I assure you.
Foyes
My lady, you assure me. Very well, sir. Yet that house is full of gallant gentlemen, dangerous thorns to prick young maids, I can tell you.
Colinet
There are none but honest and honourable gentlemen.
Foyes
All is one, sir, for that. I’ll trust my daughter with any man, but no man with my daughter, only yourself Monsieur Besha, whom I will entreat to be her guardian and to bring her home again.
Colinet
I will wait upon her, an it please you.
Foyes
No, sir, your weight upon her will not be so good. Here, Monsieur Besha, I deliver my daughter unto you a perfect maid, and so I pray you look well unto her.
Colinet
Farewell, Monsieur Foyes.
Labesha
I warrant I’ll look unto her well enough. Mistress, will it please you to preambulate.
Martia
With all my heart.
Exeunt.
Scene 4
Enter [Florila] the Puritan.
Florila What have I done? Put on too many clothes.
The day is hot, and I am hotter clad
Than might suffice health.
My conscience tells me that I have offended,
And I’ll put them off.
That will ask time that might be better spent.
One sin will draw another quickly so.
See how the Devil tempts. But what’s here?
See how the Devil tempts. But what’s here? [Picks up jewels] Jewels?
How should these come here?
Enter Labervele.
Labervele
Good morrow, lovely wife. What hast thou there?
Florila
Jewels, my lord, which here I strangely found.
Labervele
That’s strange indeed. What, where none comes
But when yourself is here? Surely the heavens
Have rained thee jewels for thy holy life,
And using thy old husband lovingly,
Or else do fairies haunt this holy green,
As evermore mine ancestors have thought.
Florila
Fairies were but in times of ignorance,
Not since the true pure light hath been revealed.
And that they come from heaven I scarce believe.
For jewels are vain things. Much gold is given
For such fantastical and fruitless jewels,
And therefore heaven, I know, will not maintain
The use of vanity. Surely I fear
I have much sinned to stoop and take them up,
Bowing my body to an idle work.
The strength that I have had to this very deed
Might have been used to take a poor soul up
In the highway.
Labervele
You are too curious, wife. Behold your jewels.
What, methinks there’s posies written on them.
Then he reads.
Despair not of children,
Love with the longest;
When man is at the weakest,
God is at the strongest.
Wonderful rare and witty, nay, divine.
Why, this is heavenly comfort for thee, wife.
What is this other?
God will reward her a thousandfold
That takes what age can, and not what age would.
The best that ever I heard. No mortal brain,
I think, did ever utter such conceit
For good plain matter and for honest rhyme.
Florila
Vain poetry. I pray you burn them, sir.
Labervele
You are to blame, wife. Heaven hath sent you them
To deck yourself withal, like to yourself,
Not to go thus like a milkmaid.
Why there is difference in all estates
By all religion.
Florila
By all religion. There is no difference.
Labervele
I prithee, wife, be of another mind
And wear these jewels and a velvet hood.
Florila
A velvet hood! O vain devilish device!
A toy made with a superfluous flap,
Which being cut off, my head were still as warm.
Diogenes did cast away his dish
Because his hand would serve to help him drink.
Surely these heathens shall rise up against us.
Labervele
Sure, wife, I think thy keeping always close,
Making thee melancholy, is the cause
We have no children, and therefore, if thou wilt,
Be merry and keep company i’ God’s name.
Florila
Sure, my lord, if I thought I should be rid
Of this same banishment of barrenness,
And use our marriage to the end it was made,
Which was for procreation, I should sin,
If by my keeping house I should neglect
The lawful means to be a fruitful mother;
And therefore if it please you I’ll use resort.
Labervele
[Aside] God’s my passion, what have I done? Who would have thought her pureness would yield so soon to courses of temptations? [Aloud] Nay, hark you, wife, I am not sure that going abroad will cause fruitfulness in you. That, you know, none knows but God himself.
Florila
I know, my lord, ’tis true, but the lawful means must still be used.
Labervele
Yea, the lawful means indeed must still, but now I remember that lawful means is not abroad.
Florila
Well, well, I’ll keep the house still.
Labervele
Nay, hark you, lady, I would not have you think — marry, I must tell you this, if you should change the manner of your life, the world would think you changed religion too.
Florila
’Tis true, I will not go.
Labervele
Nay, if you have a fancy.
Florila
Yea, a fancy, but that’s no matter.
Labervele
Indeed, fancies are not for judicial and religious women.
Enter Catalian like a scholar.
Catalian
God save your lordship, and you, most religious lady.
Labervele
Sir, you may say God save us well indeed
That thus are thrust upon in private walks.
Catalian
A slender thrust, sir, where I touched you not.
Labervele
Well, sir, what is your business?
Catalian
Why, sir, I have a message to my lady from Monsieur du Barte.
Labervele
To ‘your lady’? Well, sir, speak your mind to ‘your lady’.
Florila
You are very welcome, sir, and I pray how doth he?
Catalian
In health, madam, thanks be to God, commending his duty to your ladyship, and hath sent you a message which I would desire your honour to hear in private.
Florila
‘My ladyship’, and ‘my honor’! They be words which I must have you leave. They be idle words, and you shall answer for them truly. ‘My duty to you’, or ‘I desire you’, were a great deal better than ‘my ladyship’, or ‘my honour’.
Catalian
I thank you for your Christian admonition.
Florila
Nay, thank God for me. Come, I will hear your message with all my heart, and you are very welcome, sir.
Labervele
[Aside] ‘With all my heart, and you are very welcome, sir’, and go and talk with a young lusty fellow able to make a man’s hair stand upright on his head! What purity is there in this, trow you? Ha, what wench of the faculty could have been more forward? Well, sir, I will know your message. [Aloud] You, sir, you, sir, what says the holy man, sir? Come, tell true, for by heaven or hell I will have it out.
Catalian
Why you shall, sir, if you be so desirous.
Labervele
Nay, sir, I am more than so desirous. Come, sir, study not for a new device now.
Catalian
Not I, my lord, this is both new and old. I am a scholar, and being spiritually inclined by your lady’s most godly life, I am to profess the ministry and to become her chaplain, to which end Monsieur du Barte hath commended me.
Labervele
Her chaplain, in the Devil’s name, fit to be vicar of hell!
Florila
My good head, what are you afraid of? He comes with a godly and neighbourly suit. What, think you his words or his looks can tempt me? Have you so little faith? If every word he spake were a serpent as subtle as that which tempted Eve, he cannot tempt me, I warrant you.
Labervele
Well answered for him, lady, by my faith. Well, hark you, I’ll keep your chaplain’s place yonder for a while, and at length put in one myself.
Enter Lemot.
What, more yet? God’s my passion, whom do I see? The very imp of desolation, the minion of our King, whom no man sees to enter his house but he locks up his wife, his children, and his maids, for where he goes he carries his house upon his head like a snail. Now, sir, I hope your business is to me.
Lemot
No, sir, I must crave a word with my lady.
Labervele
These words are intolerable, and she shall hear no more.
Lemot
She must hear me speak.
Labervele
Must she, sir? Have you brought the King’s warrant for it?
Lemot
I have brought that which is above kings.
Labervele
Why, every man for her sake is a Puritan. The Devil I think will shortly turn Puritan, or the Puritan will turn devil.
Florila
What have you brought, sir?
Lemot
Marry this, madam. You know we ought to prove one another’s constancy, and I am come in all chaste and honourable sort to prove your constancy.
Florila
You are very welcome, sir, and I will abide your proof. It is my duty to abide your proof.
Labervele
You’ll bide his proof? It is your duty to bide his proof! How the devil will you bide his proof?
Florila
My good head, no otherwise than before your face in all honourable and religious sort. I tell you I am constant to you, and he comes to try whether I be so or no, which I must endure. Begin your proof, sir.
Lemot
Nay, madam, not in your husband’s hearing, though in his sight, for there is no woman will show she is tempted from her constancy, though she be a little. Withdraw yourself, sweet lady.
[They withdraw.]
Labervele
[Aside] Well, I will see though I do not hear. Women may be courted without offence, so they resist the courtier.
Lemot
Dear and most beautiful lady, of all the sweet honest and honourable means to prove the purity of a lady’s constancy, kisses are the strongest. I will therefore be bold to begin my proof with a kiss.
Florila
No, sir, no kissing.
Lemot
No kissing, madam? How shall I prove you then sufficiently not using the most sufficient proof? To flatter yourself by affection of spirit, when it is not perfectly tried, is sin.
Florila
You say well, sir. That which is truth is truth.
Lemot
Then do you well, lady, and yield to the truth.
Florila
By your leave, sir, my husband sees. Peradventure it may breed an offence to him.
Lemot
How can it breed an offence to your husband to see your constancy perfectly tried?
Florila
You are an odd man, I see. But first, I pray, tell me how kissing is the best proof of chaste ladies.
Lemot
To give you a reason for that, you must give me leave to be obscure and philosophic
al.
Florila
I pray you be. I love philosophy well.
Lemot
Then thus, madam: every kiss is made, as the voice is, by imagination and appetite, and as both those are presented to the ear in the voice, so are they to the silent spirits in our kisses.
Florila
To what spirit mean you?
Lemot
To the spirits of our blood.
Florila
What if it do?
Lemot
Why then, my imagination and mine appetite working upon your ears in my voice, and upon your spirits in my kisses, piercing therein the more deeply, they give the stronger assault against your constancy.
Florila
Why then, to say, ‘prove my constancy’, is as much as to say, ‘kiss me’.
Lemot
Most true, rare lady.
Florila
Then prove my constancy.
Lemot
Believe me, madam, you gather exceeding wittily upon it.
[Kisses her]
Labervele
Oh my forehead, my very heart aches at a blow! [Aloud] What dost thou mean, wife? Thou wilt lose thy fame, discredit thy religion, and dishonour me forever.
Florila
Away, sir, I will abide no more of your proof, nor endure any more of your trial.
Lemot
Oh, she dares not, she dares not. I am as glad I have tried your purity as may be. You, the most constant lady in France? I know an hundred ladies in this town that will dance, revel all night amongst gallants, and in the morning go to bed to her husband as clear a woman as if she were new christened, kiss him, embrace him, and say, ‘no, no, husband, thou art the man’, and he takes her for the woman.
Florila
And all this can I do.
Labervele
Take heed of it, wife.
Florila
Fear not, my good head, I warrant you, for him.
Lemot
Nay, madam, triumph not before the victory. How can you conquer that against which you never strive, or strive against that which never encounters you? To live idle in this walk, to enjoy this company, to wear this habit, and have no more delights than those will afford you, is to make Virtue an idle housewife, and to hide herself in slothful cobwebs that still should be adorned with actions of victory. No, madam, if you will unworthily prove your constancy to your husband, you must put on rich apparel, fare daintily, hear music, read sonnets, be continually courted, kiss, dance, feast, revel all night amongst gallants. Then if you come to bed to your husband with a clear mind and a clear body, then are your virtues ipsissima, then have you passed the full test of experiment, and you shall have an hundred gallants fight thus far in blood for the defence of your reputation.
Labervele
O vanity of vanities!
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 177
