Everyman In His Humor (Modern)

¶Prospero Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried.

1255Lorenzo Jr. Ay, and our ignorance maintained it as well, did it not?

¶Prospero Yes, faith; but was't possible thou shouldst not know him?

¶Lorenzo Jr. 'Fore God, not I, an I might have been joined patent with one of the Nine Worthies for knowing him. 'Sblood, man, he had ¶so writhen himself into the habit of one of your poor desperviews, your decayed, 1260ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round, such as have vowed to sit on the ¶skirts of the city (let your provost and his half-dozen of halberdiers do what ¶they can), and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace to a ¶fine, easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a ¶shove-groat shilling. Into the likeness of one of these lean Pirgos had he molded 1265himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action -- as varying the accent, ¶swearing with an emphasis, indeed all with so special and exquisite a grace -- ¶that, hadst thou seen him, thou wouldst have sworn he might have been the ¶Tamburlaine or the Agamemnon of the rout.

¶Prospero Why, Musco, who would have thought thou hadst been such a gallant?

1270Lorenzo Jr. I cannot tell; but unless a man had juggled begging ¶all his lifetime and been a weaver of phrases from his infancy for the ¶appareling of it, I think the world cannot produce his rival.

¶Musco Faith, sir, I had it of one of the devil's near kinsmen: a broker.

1275Prospero That cannot be, if the proverb hold, "A crafty knave needs no broker."

¶Musco True, sir, but I need a broker, ergo no crafty knave.

¶Prospero Well put off, well put off.

¶Lorenzo Jr. Tut, he has more of these shifts.

¶Musco And yet, where I have one, the broker has ten, sir.

¶Piso [Calling] Francisco! Martino! -- Ne'er a one to be found now. What a spite's this!

¶Prospero How now, Piso? Is my brother within?

¶Piso No, sir, my master went forth e'en now, but Signor Giuliano is within.

¶Prospero Whither went thy master, Piso, canst thou tell?

1285Piso I know not; to Doctor Clement's, I think, sir.

¶Lorenzo Jr. Doctor Clement -- what's he? I have heard much speech of him.

¶Prospero Why, dost thou not know him? He is the gonfaloniere of ¶the state here, an excellent rare civilian and a great scholar, but the only mad, merry old fellow in Europe. I showed him you the other day.

1290Lorenzo Jr. Oh, I remember him now. Good faith, and he hath ¶a very strange presence, methinks. It shows as if he stood out of the ¶rank from other men. I have heard many of his jests in Padua. They ¶say he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse.

¶Prospero Ay, or wearing his cloak of one shoulder, or anything, indeed, if it come in the way of his humor.

¶Piso [Calling] Gasper, Martino, Cob! -- 'Sheart, where should they be, trow?

¶

¶Piso A pox on your match! No time but now to "vouchsafe"? [Calling] Francisco! Cob! Exit.

¶Stephano No, truly, sir, but I'll learn to take it now, since you commend it so.

¶Bobadilla Signor, believe me, upon my relation, for what I tell you 1305the world shall not improve. I have been in the Indies, where this herb ¶grows, where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more, of my knowledge, have received ¶the taste of any other nutriment in the world for the space of one-and-twenty ¶weeks but tobacco only. Therefore, it cannot be but 'tis most divine. Further, take ¶it in the nature, in the true kind so, it makes an antidote that, 1310had you taken the most deadly poisonous simple in all Florence, it should expel ¶it and clarify you with as much ease as I speak. And for your green wound, your balsamum and your -- are all mere gulleries and trash to ¶it, especially your Trinidado. Your Nicotian is good, too. I could say what I ¶know of the virtue of it for the exposing of rheums, raw humors, crudities, 1315obstructions, with a thousand of this kind, but I profess myself no quacksalver. Only ¶thus much, by Hercules: I do hold it and will affirm it before any ¶prince in Europe to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.

1320Piso [To Cob] Ay, close by Saint Anthony's, Doctor Clement's.

¶Cob Oh, oh!

¶Piso 'Sblood, would his match, and he, and pipe, and all were at Sancto Domingo! Exit.

¶Cob By God's deynes, I mar'l what pleasure or felicity they have 1325in taking this roguish tobacco. It's good for nothing but to choke a man ¶and fill him full of smoke and embers. There were four died out of ¶one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went ¶for yesternight. One of them, they say, will ne'er scape it; he voided a ¶bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an there were no 1330wiser men than I, I'd have it present death, man or woman, that should ¶but deal with a tobacco pipe. Why, it will stifle them all in th'end, ¶as many as use it; it's little better than ratsbane.

1335ALL Oh, good signor, hold, hold!

¶Bobadilla You base cullion, you!

¶Piso [Handing the lighted flammable material back to Bobadilla] Sir, here's your ¶match. [To Cob] Come, thou must needs be talking, too.

1340Cob Nay, he will not meddle with his match, I warrant you. Well, it shall be a dear beating, an I live.

¶Lorenzo Jr. [To Bobadilla] Nay, good signor, will you regard the humor of a fool? [To Cob] Away, knave!

¶Prospero Piso, get him away.

¶Bobadilla A whoreson, filthy slave, a turd, an excrement! Body of Caesar, 1345but that I scorn to let forth so mean a spirit, I'd have stabbed ¶him to the earth.

¶Prospero Marry, God forbid, sir.

¶Bobadilla By this fair heaven, I would have done it.

¶Matheo [Offering tobacco to Lorenzo Jr.] Signor, will you any? By this air, the most divine tobacco as ever I drunk.

¶Lorenzo Jr. I thank you, sir.

¶Musco [Aside to Lorenzo Jr.] Master, glance, glance! -- Signor Prospero!

¶Stephano As I have a soul to be saved, I do protest --

¶Prospero [Aside] That you are a fool.

¶Stephano [Taking tobacco] Ay, sir, upon my salvation.

¶Lorenzo Jr. How now, cousin?

¶Stephano I protest, as I am a gentleman, but no soldier, indeed.

¶Prospero No, signor? As I remember, you served on a great horse last general muster.

1365Stephano Ay, sir, that's true. -- Cousin, may I swear "as I am a soldier" by that?

¶Lorenzo Jr. Oh, yes, that you may.

¶Stephano Then, as I am a gentleman and a soldier, it is divine tobacco.

¶Prospero But soft, where's Signor Matheo? Gone?

¶Musco No, sir, they went in here.

1370Prospero Oh, let's follow them. Signor Matheo is gone to salute his mistress.

¶Stephano Musco? Where? Is this Musco?

¶Lorenzo Jr. Ay, but peace, cousin, no words of it at any hand.

1375Stephano Not I, by this fair heaven, as I have a soul to be saved, by Phoebus.

¶Lorenzo Jr. [Aside to Prospero] Ay, he lacks nothing but a little ¶light stuff to draw them out withal, and he were rarely fitted to the ¶time.