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 pageants flutter'd
About the city!1 for we then were certain
The madam-courtiers would vouchsafe to visit us,
And call us by our names, and eat our viands;
Nay, give us leave to sit at th' upper end

Of our own tables, telling us how welcome

They'd make us when we came to court: full little
Dreamt I at that time of the wind that blew me
Up to the weathercock of th' honours now
Are thrust upon me; but we'll bear the burthen,
Were't twice as much as 'tis. The next great feast
We'll grace the city-wives, poor souls, and see
How they'll behave themselves before our presence:
You two shall wait on us.

1 For the huge play-day, when the pageants 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.

And you shall find us readier in your pleasures
Than you in your obedience. Fie! methinks
I have an excellent humour to be pettish,
A little toysome :-'tis a pretty sign

Of breeding, is't not, sirs? I could, indeed, la,
Long for some strange good things now.

An't be but for the public jollity;

Or lose my longings, which were mighty pity.

Cam. Sweet fates forbid it!

Fab.

Ves.

Enter FABRICIO.

Noblest lady,

Rudeness!

Keep off, or I shall-Saucy groom, learn manners;

Go swab amongst your goblins.

Out of your gentleness, please you to consider

The brief of this petition, which contains

All hope of my last fortunes.2

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

"

2 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.

Stares on his sometime wife; sure, he imagines
To be a cuckold by consent is purchase

Of approbation in a state.

Ves.

Good reason:

The gain repriev'd him from a bankrupt's statute,
And fil'd him in the charter of his freedom.

"She had seen the fellow"! did'st observe?

Cam.

Most punctually;

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

Ves. That were [most] strange: O, 'tis a precious trinket!

Was ever puppet so slipt up?

Cam.

The tale

Of Venus' cat, man, chang'd into a woman,
Was emblem but to this.

Ves.

She turns.

He stands

Just like Acteon in the painted cloth.3

Cam. No more.

Flav.

sum

Friend, we have read and weigh'd the

Of what your scrivener-which, in effect,

Is meant your counsel learnèd-has drawn for ye:
'Tis a fair hand, in sooth, but the contents
Somewhat unseasonable; for, let us tell ye,
You've 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 constru'd
An impudence, which we defy; an impudence,

Base in base women, but in noble sinful.

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.

This jeer twangs roundly, does it not, Vespucci?
Ves. [aside to Cam.] Why, here's a lady worshipful!
Flav.

Pray, gentlemen,

Retire a while: this fellow shall resolve

Some doubts that stick about me.

Cam.
Ves. S

As you please. [Exeunt.

Flav. To thee, Fabricio,-O, 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: 'twas, I thought, impossible
A beauty fresh as was your youth could brook
The last of my decays.

Did I complain?

Flav. My sleeps between thine arms were even as sound, My dreams as harmless, my contents as free, As when the best of plenty crown'd our bride-bed. Amongst some of a mean but quiet fortune, Distrust of what they call their own, or jealousy Of those whom in their bosoms 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 protested'st
A pre-contract unto another falsely,

To justify a separation. Wherein

Could I offend, to be believ'd thy strumpet,

In best sense an adultress? so conceiv'd

In all opinions, that I am shook off

Even from mine own blood, which, although I boast Not noble, yet 'twas not mean: for Romanello,

Mine only brother, shuns me, and abhors

To own me for his sister.

Fab.

I am the shame of mankind.

Flav.

'Tis confest

I live happy

In this great lord's love now; but could his cunning
Have train'd me to dishonour, we had never
Been sunder'd by th' temptation of his purchase.
In troth, Fabricio, I am little proud of
My unsought honours, and so far from triumph,
That I am not more fool to such as honour me
Than to myself, who hate this antic carriage.5

Fab. You are an angel rather to be worshipp'd
Than grossly to be talk'd with.

4 worse,] The 4to has "worst.'

D.

5 this antic carriage.] This childish and ridiculous affectation of levity, which she assumed, partly to humour the count, but chiefly, as she afterwards says, to defeat the lascivious villanies" of her attendants, Camillo and Vespucci.