ARCITE
There’s all things needful – files and shirts, and perfumes;
I’ll come again some two hours hence, and bring
50
That that shall quiet all –
PALAMON A sword and armour.
ARCITE Fear me not. You are now too foul; farewell.
Get off your trinkets. You shall want nought.
PALAMON Sirrah –
ARCITE I’ll hear no more. Exit.
PALAMON If he keep touch, he dies for’t. Exit.
3.4 Enter Jailer’s Daughter.
DAUGHTER I am very cold and all the stars are out too,
The little stars and all, that look like aglets;
The sun has seen my folly. – Palamon! –
Alas, no, he’s in heaven; where am I now?
Yonder’s the sea and there’s a ship; how’t tumbles!
5
And there’s a rock lies watching under water;
Now, now, it beats upon it; now, now, now!
There’s a leak sprung, a sound one! How they cry!
Run her before the wind, you’ll lose all else.
Up with a course or two and tack about, boys!
10
Good night, good night, you’re gone. – I am very hungry.
Would I could find a fine frog; he would tell me
News from all parts o’th’ world. Then would I make
A carrack of a cockle shell and sail
By east and north-east to the king of pygmies,
15
For he tells fortunes rarely. Now, my father
Twenty to one is trussed up in a trice
Tomorrow morning; I’ll say never a word.
[Sings.]
For I’ll cut my green coat, a foot above my knee
And I’ll clip my yellow locks, an inch below mine eye.
20
Hey, nonny, nonny, nonny,
He’s buy me a white cut, forth for to ride,
And I’ll go seek him through the world that is so wide,
Hey, nonny, nonny, nonny.
O, for a prick now, like a nightingale,
25
To put my breast against. I shall sleep like a top else.
Exit.
3.5 Enter Schoolmaster GERALD and five Countrymen.
SCHOOLMASTER Fie, fie,
What tediosity and disinsanity
Is here among ye! Have my rudiments
Been laboured so long with ye, milked unto ye
And, by a figure, even the very plum-broth
5
And marrow of my understanding laid upon ye,
And do ye still cry ‘Where?’ and ‘How?’ and ‘Wherefore?’
You most coarse-frieze capacities, ye jean judgments,
Have I said, ‘Thus let be’ and ‘There let be’
And ‘Then let be’, and no man understand me?
10
Proh Deum! Medius Fidius! Ye are all dunces.
For why?
Here stand I. Here the Duke comes; there are you,
Close in the thicket; the Duke appears; I meet him
And unto him I utter learned things
15
And many figures; he hears and nods and hums
And then cries, ‘Rare!’ and I go forward. At length,
I fling my cap up – mark there! Then do you,
As once did Meleager and the boar,
Break comely out before him; like true lovers,
20
Cast yourselves in a body decently
And sweetly, by a figure, trace and turn, boys.
1COUNTRYMAN
And sweetly we will do it, Master Gerald.
2COUNTRYMAN
Draw up the company. Where’s the taborer?
3COUNTRYMAN Why, Timothy!
Enter Taborer.
TABORER Here, my mad boys, have at ye!
25
SCHOOLMASTER But, I say, where’s these women?
4COUNTRYMAN Here’s Friz and Maudlin.
Enter five Countrywomen.
2COUNTRYMAN
And little Luce with the white legs and bouncing Barbary.
1COUNTRYMAN
And freckled Nell that never failed her master.
SCHOOLMASTER
Where be your ribbons, maids? Swim with your bodies
And carry it sweetly and deliverly
30
And now and then a favour and a frisk.
NELL Let us alone, sir.
SCHOOLMASTER Where’s the rest o’th’ music?
3COUNTRYMAN Dispersed, as you commanded.
SCHOOLMASTER Couple then
And see what’s wanting; where’s the Bavian?
– My friend, carry your tail without offence
35
Or scandal to the ladies and be sure
You tumble with audacity and manhood
And, when you bark, do it with judgment.
BAVIAN Yes, sir.
SCHOOLMASTER
Quo usque tandem! Here’s a woman wanting.
4COUNTRYMAN
We may go whistle; all the fat’s i’th’ fire.
40
SCHOOLMASTER
We have, as learned authors utter, washed a tile.
We have been fatuus and laboured vainly.
2COUNTRYMAN
This is that scornful piece, that scurvy hilding
That gave her promise faithfully, she would be here –
Cicely, the sempster’s daughter.
45
The next gloves that I give her shall be dogskin!
Nay, an she fail me once – you can tell, Arcas,
She swore by wine and bread, she would not break.
SCHOOLMASTER An eel and woman,
A learned poet says, unless by th’ tail
50
And with thy teeth thou hold, will either fail.
In manners this was false position.
1COUNTRYMAN A fire ill take her; does she flinch now?
3COUNTRYMAN What
Shall we determine, sir?
SCHOOLMASTER Nothing.
Our business is become a nullity,
55
Yea, and a woeful and a piteous nullity.
4COUNTRYMAN
Now, when the credit of our town lay on it,
Now to be frampul, now to piss o’th’ nettle!
Go thy ways, I’ll remember thee, I’ll fit thee.
Enter the Jailer’s Daughter.
DAUGHTER [Sings.]
The George Alow came from the south
60
From the coast of Barbary-a
And there he met with brave gallants of war,
By one, by two, by three-a.
‘Well hailed, well hailed, you jolly gallants,
And whither now are you bound-a?
65
O let me have your company
Till we come to the sound-a.’
There was three fools fell out about an howlet:
The one he said it was an owl,
The other he said nay,
70
The third he said it was a hawk,
And her bells were cut away.
3COUNTRYMAN
There’s a dainty madwoman, Master,
Comes i’th’ nick, as mad as a March hare.
If we can get her dance, we are made again;
75
I warrant her, she’ll do the rarest gambols.
1COUNTRYMAN A madwoman? We are made, boys.
SCHOOLMASTER And are you mad, good woman?
DAUGHTER I would be sorry else.
Give me your hand.
SCHOOLMASTER Why?
DAUGHTER I can tell your fortune.
You are a fool. Tell ten. – I have posed him. Buzz!
80
– Friend, you must eat no white bread; if you do,
Your teeth will bleed extremely. – Shall we dance, ho?
– I know you, you’re a tinker; sirrah tinker,<
br />
Stop no more holes but what you should.
SCHOOLMASTER Dii boni,
A tinker, damsel?
DAUGHTER Or a conjurer.
85
Raise me a devil now and let him play
Chi passa o’th’ bells and bones.
SCHOOLMASTER Go take her
And fluently persuade her to a peace.
Et opus exegi quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis –
Strike up and lead her in. [Taborer plays.]
2COUNTRYMAN Come, lass, let’s trip it.
90
DAUGHTER I’ll lead. [Dances.]
3COUNTRYMAN Do, do! [Horns.]
SCHOOLMASTER Persuasively and cunningly.
Away, boys; I hear the horns. Give me some meditation –
And mark your cue. Exeunt all but Schoolmaster.
Pallas inspire me!
Enter THESEUS, PIRITHOUS, HIPPOLYTA, EMILIA and train.
THESEUS This way the stag took.
SCHOOLMASTER Stay and edify!
THESEUS What have we here?
95
PIRITHOUS Some country sport, upon my life, sir.
THESEUS [to Schoolmaster]
Well, sir, go forward; we will ‘edify’.
[Chair and stools brought out.]
Ladies, sit down; we’ll stay it.
[Theseus, Hippolyta and Emilia sit.]
SCHOOLMASTER
Then, doughty Duke, all hail; all hail, sweet ladies –
THESEUS This is a cold beginning.
100
SCHOOLMASTER
If you but favour, our country pastime made is.
We are a few of those collected here
That ruder tongues distinguish ‘villager’.
And to say verity, and not to fable,
We are a merry rout, or else a rable,
105
Or company, or, by a figure, chorus,
That ’fore thy dignity will dance a morris.
And I that am the rectifier of all,
By title pedagogus, that let fall
The birch upon the breeches of the small ones
110
And humble with a ferula the tall ones,
Do here present this machine, or this frame,
And, dainty Duke, whose doughty dismal fame
From Dis to Daedalus, from post to pillar,
Is blown abroad, help me, thy poor well-willer,
115
And with thy twinkling eyes look right and straight
Upon this mighty ‘Moor’ of mickle weight.
‘Is’ now comes in, which, being glued together,
Makes ‘Morris’ and the cause that we came hither:
The body of our sport, of no small study.
120
I first appear, though rude and raw and muddy,
To speak before thy noble grace this tenor:
At whose great feet I offer up my penner.
The next the Lord of May and Lady bright;
The Chambermaid and Servingman, by night
125
That seek out silent hanging; then mine Host
And his fat Spouse that welcomes to their cost
The galled traveller and with a beck’ning
Informs the tapster to inflame the reck’ning.
Then the beest-eating Clown and next the Fool,
130
The Bavian with long tail and eke long tool,
Cum multis aliis that make a dance.
Say, ‘Ay,’ and all shall presently advance.
THESEUS Ay, ay, by any means, dear Domine.
PIRITHOUS Produce.
135
SCHOOLMASTER Intrate filii! Come forth and foot it.
[Music. The villagers, with the Jailer’s Daughter, perform a morris dance.]
SCHOOLMASTER
Ladies, if we have been merry
And have pleased ye with a derry,
And a derry, and a down,
Say the schoolmaster’s no clown;
140
Duke, if we have pleased thee too
And have done as good boys should do,
Give us but a tree or twain
For a Maypole and again,
Ere another year run out,
145
We’ll make thee laugh and all this rout.
THESEUS
Take twenty, Domine. – How does my sweetheart?
HIPPOLYTA Never so pleased, sir.
EMILIA ’Twas an excellent dance
And, for a preface, I never heard a better.
THESEUS
SCHOOLMASTER, I thank you. One see ’em all rewarded.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 553
