The arden shakespeare co.., p.457
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 457
LORD Bid them come near.
Enter Players.
Now, fellows, you are welcome.
PLAYERS We thank your honour.
LORD Do you intend to stay with me tonight?
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1 PLAYER
So please your lordship to accept our duty.
LORD With all my heart. This fellow I remember
Since once he play’d a farmer’s eldest son.
’Twas where you woo’d the gentlewoman so well.
I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part
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Was aptly fitted and naturally perform’d.
2 PLAYER
I think ’twas Soto that your honour means.
LORD ’Tis very true, thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in happy time,
The rather for I have some sport in hand
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Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play tonight;
But I am doubtful of your modesties,
Lest over-eyeing of his odd behaviour–
For yet his honour never heard a play–
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You break into some merry passion
And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile, he grows impatient.
1 PLAYER
Fear not, my lord, we can contain ourselves,
Were he the veriest antic in the world.
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LORD Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
And give them friendly welcome every one.
Let them want nothing that my house affords.
Exit one with the Players.
Sirrah, go you to Barthol’mew my page,
And see him dress’d in all suits like a lady.
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That done, conduct him to the drunkard’s chamber,
And call him ‘madam’, do him obeisance.
Tell him from me, as he will win my love,
He bear himself with honourable action,
Such as he hath observ’d in noble ladies
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Unto their lords, by them accomplished.
Such duty to the drunkard let him do,
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say ‘What is’t your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
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May show her duty and make known her love?’
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy’d
To see her noble lord restor’d to health,
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Who for this seven years hath esteemed him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.
And if the boy have not a woman’s gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
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Which in a napkin being close convey’d,
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst,
Anon I’ll give thee more instructions.
Exit a Servingman.
I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
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Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman.
I long to hear him call the drunkard husband,
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I’ll in to counsel them. Haply my presence
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May well abate the over-merry spleen
Which otherwise would grow into extremes. Exeunt.
Ind.2 Enter aloft SLY, with attendants; some with apparel, basin and ewer, and other appurtenances; and Lord.
SLY For God’s sake, a pot of small ale.
1 SERVINGMAN Will’t please your lordship drink a cup
of sack?
2 SERVINGMAN Will’t please your honour taste of these
conserves?
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3 SERVINGMAN What raiment will your honour wear
today?
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.
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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.
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LORD Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
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
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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
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fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up
for the lying’st knave in Christendom. [A Servant
brings him a pot of ale.] What! I am not bestraught.
Here’s – [He drinks.]
3 SERVINGMAN
O, this it is that makes your lady mourn.
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2 SERVINGMAN
O, this is it that makes your servants droop.
LORD
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,
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And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Wilt thou have music? Hark, Apollo plays, [Music.]
And twenty caged nightingales do sing.
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Or wilt thou sleep? We’ll have thee to a couch
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,
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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
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
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1 SERVINGMAN
Say thou wilt course, thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.
2 SERVINGMAN
Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
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Which seem to move and wanton with her breath
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
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.
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3 SERVINGMAN
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
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.
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Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.
1 SERVINGMAN
And till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
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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?
I do not sleep. I see, I hear, I speak.
I smell sweet savours and I feel soft things.
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Upon my life, I am a lord indeed,
And not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight,
And once again a pot o’th’ smallest ale.
2 SERVINGMAN
Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?
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O, how we joy to see your wit restor’d!
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.
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But did I never speak of all that time?
1 SERVINGMAN 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,
And rail upon the hostess of the house,
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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.
SLY Ay, the woman’s maid of the house.
3 SERVINGMAN
Why, sir, you know no house, nor no such maid,
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Nor no such men as you have reckon’d up,
As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece,
And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell,
And twenty more such names and men as these,
Which never were nor no man ever saw.
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SLY Now Lord be thanked for my good amends.
ALL Amen.
Enter Page as a lady, with attendants.
One gives Sly a pot of ale.
SLY I thank thee, thou shalt not lose by it.
PAGE How fares my noble lord?
SLY Marry, I fare well, for here is cheer enough.
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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?
My men should call me ‘lord’, I am your goodman.
PAGE
My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
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I am your wife in all obedience.
SLY I know it well. What must I call her?
LORD Madam.
SLY Alice madam, or Joan madam?
LORD Madam and nothing else, so lords call ladies.
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SLY Madam wife, they say that I have dream’d
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.
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Exeunt attendants.
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.
For your physicians have expressly charg’d,
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In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed.
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.
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
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therefore tarry in despite of the flesh and the blood.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER
Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood,
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And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
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 comonty
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A Christmas gambol or a tumbling-trick?
PAGE No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.
SLY What, household stuff?
