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- Edition: As You Like It
Everyman In His Humor (Modern)
- Introduction
- Texts of this edition
- Contextual materials
- Facsimiles
Well, sister, I tell you true, and you'll find it so in the end.
Alas, brother, what would you have me to do? I cannot 1505help it; you see, my brother Prospero, he brings them in here; they are 1506his friends.
His friends? His fiends! 'Sblood, they do nothing but haunt him 1508up and down like a sort of unlucky sprites and tempt him to all 1509manner of villainy that can be thought of. Well, by this light, a little 1510thing would make me play the devil with some of them. An 'twere not 1511more for your husband's sake than anything else, I'd make the house too hot 1512for them. They should say and swear hell were broken loose ere they went. 1513But, by God's bread, 'tis nobody's fault but yours. For, an you had done 1514as you might have done, they should have been damned ere they should have come in, e'er a one of them!
God's my life, did you ever hear the like? What a 1516strange man is this! Could I keep out all them, think you? I should 1517put myself against half a dozen men, should I? Good faith, you'd mad the 1518patient'st body in the world to hear you talk so, without any sense or reason.
3.4.71519[Enter Matheo [holding papers], with Hesperida [and] Bobadilla, [followed at a distance by] Stephano, Lorenzo Jr., Prospero, [and] Musco.
[To Matheo] Servant, in troth, you are too prodigal
You say well, you say well.
Hoyday, here is stuff!
[Aside to Prospero] Oh, now stand close. Pray God she can get him to read it.
[Aside to Lorenzo Jr.] Tut, fear not. I warrant thee, he will do it of himself with much impudency.
[Indicating Matheo's papers] Servant, what is that same, I pray you?
Marry, an elegy, an elegy, an odd toy.
Ay, to mock an ape withal. O Jesu!
Sister, I pray you, let's hear it.
Mistress, I'll read it, if you please.
I pray you do, servant.
Oh, here's no foppery! 'Sblood, it frets me to the gall to think on it.
Exit.
[Aside to Lorenzo Jr.] Oh, ay, it is his condition. Peace, we are fairly rid of him.
Faith, I did it in an humor. I know not how 1536it is, but, please you, come near, signor. This gentleman
[indicating Stephano] hath judgment; 1537he knows how to censure of a -- . [To Stephano] I pray you, 1538sir, you can judge.
Not I, sir -- as I have a soul to be saved; as I am a gentleman.
[Aside to Prospero] Nay, it's well, so long as he doth not forswear himself.
[To Matheo] Signor, you abuse the excellency of your mistress and her fair sister. Fie, while you live, avoid this prolixity.
I shall, sir. Well, incipere dulce.
[Aside to Prospero] How? "Insipere dulce"? "A sweet thing to be a fool," indeed.
[Aside to Lorenzo Jr.] What, do you take "incipere" in that sense?
[Aside to Prospero] You do not, you? 'Sblood, this was your villainy, to gull him with a mot.
[Aside to Lorenzo Jr.] Oh, the benchers' phrase: pauca verba, pauca verba.
[Reads]
[Aside to Prospero] 'Sheart, this is in Hero and Leander!
[Aside to Lorenzo Jr.] Oh, ay, peace. We shall have more of this.
[Reciting]
[To Stephano] How like you that, signor?
[Aside to Prospero] 'Sblood, he shakes his head like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it.
But observe the catastrophe now:
[Aside to Prospero] Well, I'll have him free of the brokers, for he utters nothing but stol'n remnants.
[Aside to Lorenzo Jr.] Nay, good critic, forbear.
[Aside to Prospero] A pox on him, hang him,
[To Hesperida] Sister, what have you here? Verses? I pray you, let's see.
Do you let them go so lightly, sister?
Yes, faith, when they come lightly.
Ay, but if your servant should hear you, he would take it heavily.
No matter. He is able to bear.
So are asses.
So is he.
Signor Matheo, who made these verses? They are excellent good.
Oh, God, sir, it's your pleasure to say so, sir. Faith, I made them extempore this morning.
How, extempore?
I would I might be damned else. Ask Signor Bobadilla. He 1587saw me write them at the -- pox on it! -- the Miter yonder.
[Aside to Prospero and Lorenzo Jr.] Well, an the Pope knew 1589he cursed the miter, it were enough to have him excommunicated all the taverns 1590in the town.
[To Lorenzo Jr.] Cousin, how do you like this gentleman's verses?
Oh, admirable! The best that ever I heard.
By this fair heavens, they are admirable, the best that ever I heard.
[To himself] I am vexed. I can hold never a bone 1596of me still! 'Sblood, I think they mean to build a tabernacle here. Well!
[To Hesperida] Sister, you have a simple servant here, that crowns 1598your beauty with such encomions and devices. You may see what it is to 1599be the mistress of a wit that can make your perfections so transparent that 1600every blear eye may look through them and see him drowned over head and 1601ears in the deep well of desire. -- Sister Bianca, I marvel you get 1602you not a servant that can rhyme and do tricks, too.
[To himself] Oh, monster! Impudence itself! Tricks?
[To Prospero] Tricks, brother? What tricks?
Nay, speak, I pray you, what tricks?
Ay, never spare anybody here, but say, what tricks?
Passion of my heart! "Do tricks"?
'Sblood, here's a trick, vied and revied. Why, you monkeys, you, 1609what a caterwauling do you keep! Has he not given you rhymes and verses 1610and tricks?
[To himself] Oh, see the devil!
[To Hesperida] Nay, you lamp of virginity, that take it in snuff so, come and cherish this tame poetical fury in your "servant"; you'll 1614be begged else shortly for a concealment. Go to, reward his muse. You cannot 1615give him less than a shilling, in conscience, for the book he had it 1616out of cost him a teston at the least. -- How now, gallants, Lorenzo, 1617Signor Bobadilla? What, all sons of silence? No spirit?
[Aloud] Come, you might practice your ruffian tricks somewhere else and 1619not here, iwis. This is no tavern, nor no place for such exploits.
'Sheart, how now?
Nay, boy, never look askance at me for the matter. I'll 1622tell you of it, by God's bread! Ay, and you and your companions, mend 1623yourselves when I have done.
My companions?
Ay, your companions, sir, so I say. 'Sblood, I am not 1626afraid of you nor them neither. You must have your poets and your cavaliers 1627and your fools follow you up and down the city, and here they must 1628come to domineer and swagger?
[To Matheo] Sirrah, you ballad-singer, and Slops, your fellow there, get you out! Get you out or, by the will of God, I'll 1630cut off your ears! Go to.
[To Matheo and Bobadilla, as they move away] 'Sblood, stay. Let's 1632see what he dare do. [To Giuliano] Cut off his ears? You are an 1633ass. Touch any man here and, by the Lord, I'll run my rapier to 1634the hilts in thee.
Yea, that would I fain see, boy.
Oh, Jesu! Piso, Matheo, murder!
Help, help, Piso!
Gentlemen! Prospero! Forbear, I pray you.
[To Giuliano] Well, sirrah, you Holofernes: by my hand, I will 1642pink thy flesh full of holes with my rapier for this, I will, by 1643this good heaven!
3.4.1001645Nay, let him come, let him come, gentlemen; by the body of Saint George, I'll not kill him.
Hold, hold! Forbear.
[To Bobadilla] You whoreson bragging coistrel!
Why, how now? What's the matter? What stir is here?
Here, sir.
[To Lorenzo Jr.. and the others] Come, let's go. This is one of my brother's ancient humors, this.
I am glad nobody was hurt by this ancient humor.
Why, how now, brother, who enforced this brawl?
A sort of lewd rakehells, that care neither for God nor 1660the devil. And they must come here to read ballads and roguery and trash! 1661I'll mar the knot of them ere I sleep, perhaps, especially Signor Pythagoras, he 1662that's all manner of shapes, and Songs and Sonnets, his fellow there.
Brother, indeed, you are too violent,
Respect? What talk you of respect 'mongst such as had neither 1670spark of manhood nor good manners? By God, I am ashamed to hear you. 1671Respect?
Exit.
Yes, there was one, a civil gentleman,
Oh, that was some love of yours, sister.
A love of mine? In faith, I would he were
Indeed, he seemed to be a gentleman of an exceeding fair disposition and of very excellent good parts.
Exit Hesperida [and] Bianca.
[Aside] Her love, by Jesu! My wife's minion!
Ay, sir, they went in.
Are any of the gallants within?
No, sir, they are all gone.
Art thou sure of it?
Ay, sir, I can assure you.
Piso, what gentleman was that they praised so?
One they call him Signor Lorenzo, a fair young gentleman, sir.
[Aside] Ay, I thought so; my mind gave me as much.
Exeunt.