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Cast. Enjoy

Your own prosperity; I am resolv'd

Never, by any charge with me, to force
A poverty upon you.

I'll not be your undoing.

Rom. Sure some dotage

Of living stately, richly, lends a cunning

To eloquence. How is this piece of goodness Changed to ambition! oh, you are most miserable In your desires! the female curse has caught you. Cast. Fy! fy! how ill this suits.

Rom. A devil of pride

Ranges in airy thoughts to catch a star,
While you grasp molehills.

Cast. Worse and worse, I vow.

Rom. But that some remnant of an honest sense Ebbs a full tide of blood to shame, all women

Would prostitute all honour to the luxury

Of ease and titles.

Cast. Romanello, know

You have forgot the nobleness of truth,
And fix'd on scandal now.

Rom. A dog, a parrot,

A monkey, a caroch, a garded lackey,
A waiting-woman with her lips seal'd up,
Are pretty toys to please my mistress Wanton!
Cast. This is uncivil;

I am not, sir, your charge.

Rom. My grief you are;

For all my services are lost and ruin'd.

Cast. So is my chief opinion of your worthiness, When such distractions tempt you; you would prove A cruel lord, who dare, being yet a servant,

As you profess, to bait my best respects
Of duty to your welfare; 't is a madness

I have not oft observed. Possess your freedom,
You have no right in me; let this suffice;
I wish your joys much comfort.

ACT II. SCENE I.

An Apartment in JULIO's House.

Enter FLAVIA, supported by CAMILLO, and VESPUCCI. Flav. Not yet returned?

Cam. Madam!

Flav. The lord our husband,

We mean. Unkind! four hours are almost past
(But twelve short minutes wanting by the glass),
Since we broke company; was never, gentlemen,
Poor princess us'd so!

Ves. With your gracious favour,

Peers, great in rank and place, ought of necessity To attend on state employments.

Cam. For such duties

Are all their toil and labour; but their pleasures
Flow in the beauties they enjoy, which conquers
All sense of other travail.

Flav. Trimly spoken.

When we were common, mortal, and a subject,
As other creatures of Heaven's making are
(The more the pity), bless us! how we waited
For the huge play-day, when the pageant flutter'd
About the city; for we then were certain,

The madam-courtiers would vouchsafe to visit us,
And call us by our names, and eat our viands;

1 On the huge play-day, when the pageant flutter'd

About the city.] The huge play-day (for Ford's Sienna is only another name for London) was probably the lord-mayor's day, when the company to which he belonged exhibited, in honour of his installation, those rude but splendid pageantries and processions which, however they may now excite a smile, were then viewed with equal wonder and delight, and not altogether, perhaps, without profit, which is more than can be said of the tattered remnants of them that are annually dragged abroad to shame us. They were not, however, confined to one festival; but "fluttered about the city" on every joyous occasion. There is truth as well as humour in Flavia's pleasant description of the condescension of the "madam-courtiers” on these huge play-days. The satire is not yet quite obsolete.-GIFFORD.

Nay, give us leave to sit at the upper end

Of our own tables, telling us how welcome

They'd make us when we came to court: full little Dream'd I, at that time, of the wind that blew me Up to the weathercock of the honours now

Are thrust upon me; but we 'll bear the burthen, Were 't twice as much as 't is. The next great feast,

We'll grace the city-wives, poor souls! and see How they'll behave themselves before our presence; You too shall wait on us.

Ves. With best observance, And glory in our service.

Cam. We are creatures

Made proud in your

commands.

Flav. Believe 't you are so;

And you shall find us readier in your pleasures,
Than you in your obedience.

Enter FABRICIO.

Fab. Noblest lady

Ves. Rudeness!

Keep off, or I shall-saucy groom, learn manners
Flav. Let him stay;

The fellow I have seen, and now remember

His name, Fabricio.

Fab. Your poor creature, lady;

Out of your gentleness, please you to consider
The brief of this petition, which contains

All hope of my last fortunes.1

Flav. Give it from him.

Cam. Here, madam.--[Takes the paper from FAB. and delivers it to FLAV. who walks aside with it.] -Mark, Vespucci, how the wittol

Stares on his sometime wife!

1 All hope of my last fortunes.] Meaning probably (for the language Is constrained) "my final hope, my last resource." The object of this request appears to be more money to enable him to expatriate himself, -GIFFORD.

Ves. "She had seen the fellow!" didst opserve? Cam. Most punctually:

Could call him by his name too! why 't is possible, She has not yet forgot he was her husband.

Ves. That were most strange: oh, 't is a precious trinket!

Was ever puppet so slipp'd up?

Cam. The tale

Of Venus' cat, man, changed into a woman,
Was emblem but to this. She turns.

Ves. He stands

Just like Acteon in the painted cloth.'
Cam. No more.

Flav. Friend, we have read, and weigh'd the sum Of what your scrivener (which, in effect,

Is meant your counsel learned) has drawn for ye:
"T is a fair hand, in sooth, but the contents
Somewhat unseasonable; for, let us tell ye,
You have been a spender, a vain spender; wasted
Your stock of credit and of wares unthriftily.
You are a faulty man; and should we urge
Our lord as often for supplies, as shame

Or wants drive you to ask, it might be construed
An impudence, which we defy; an impudence,
Base in base women, but in noble sinful.
Are you not ashamed yet of yourself?

Fab. Great lady,

Of my misfortunes I'm ashamed.

Cam. So, so!

This jeer twangs roundly, does it not, Vespucci ?

Ves. Why, here's a lady worshipful!

Flav. Pray, gentlemen,

[Aside to VES.

Retire a while; this fellow shall resolve

Some doubts that stick about me.

1 He stands

Just like Acteon in the painted cloth,] i, e. in the act of gazing at Diana, in a posture of mingled awe and surprise. There is some humour in the expression.-GIFFORD.

Both. As you please.

[Exeunt VES. and CAM. Flav. To thee, Fabricio,-oh, the change is

cruel

Since I find some small leisure, I must justify
Thou art unworthy of the name of man.
Those holy vows, which we, by bonds of faith,
Recorded in the register of truth,

Were kept by me unbroken; no assaults

Of gifts, of courtship, from the great and wanton,
No threats, nor sense of poverty, to which
Thy riots had betray'd me, could betray
My warrantable thoughts to impure folly.
Why wouldst thou force me miserable?
Fab. The scorn

Of rumour is reward enough, to brand

My lewder actions; 't was, I thought, impossible, A beauty fresh as was your youth, could brook The last of my decays.

Flav. Did I complain?

My sleeps between thine arms were e'en as sound,
My dreams as harmless, my contents as free,
As when the best of plenty crown'd our bride-bed.
Among some of a mean, but quiet, fortune,
Distrust of what they call their own, or jealousy
Of those whom in their bosom they possess
Without control, begets a self-unworthiness;
For which through fear, or, what is worse, desire
Of paltry gain, they practise art, and labour

To pander their own wives; those wives, whose innocence,

Stranger to language, spoke obedience only;
And such a wife was Flavia to Fabricio.

Fab. My loss is irrecoverable.

Flav. Call not

Thy wickedness thy loss; without my knowledge Thou sold'st me, and in open court protestedst

A precontract unto another, falsely,

To justify a separation. Wherein

Could I offend, to be believed

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