Attendants. Brach. Are we so happy? Flam. Can't be otherwise? Observed you not to-night, my honoured lord, Which way soe'er you went, she threw her eyes? I have dealt already with her chambermaid, Zanche the Moor; and she is wondrous proud To be the agent for so high a spirit. Brach. We are happy above thought, because 'bove merit.
Flam. 'Bove merit!—we may now talk freely—'bove merit! What is't you doubt? her coyness? that's but the superficies of lust most women have: yet why should ladies blush to hear that named which they do not fear to handle? O, they are politic: they know our desire is increased by the difficulty of enjoying; whereas satiety is a blunt, weary, and drowsy passion. If the buttery-hatch at court stood continually open, there would be nothing so passionate crowding, nor hot suit after the beverage.
Brach. O, but her jealous husband.
Flam. Hang him! a gilder that hath his brains perished with quick-silver is not more cold in the liver: the great barriers moulted not more feathers[18] than he hath shed hairs, by the confession of his doctor: an Irish gamester that will play himself naked, and then wage all downwards at hazard, is not more venturous: so unable to please a woman, that, like a Dutch doublet, all his back is shrunk into his breeches. Shrowd you within this closet, good my lord: Some trick now must be thought on to divide My brother-in-law from his fair bedfellow.
Brach. O, should she fail to come!
Flam. I must not have your lordship thus unwisely amorous. I myself have loved a lady, and pursued her with a great deal of under-age protestation, whom some three or four gallants that have enjoyed would with all their hearts have been glad to have been rid of: 'tis just like a summer birdcage in a garden; the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair, and are in a consumption, for fear they shall never get out. Away, away, my lord! [Exit Brachiano. See, here he comes. This fellow by his apparel Some men would judge a politician; But call his wit in question, you shall find it Merely an ass in's foot-cloth.[19]
Re-enter Camillo.[20]
How now, brother!
What, travelling to bed to your kind wife?
Cam. I assure you, brother, no; my voyage lies More northerly, in a far colder clime: I do not well remember, I protest, When I last lay with her. Flam. Strange you should lose your count. Cam. We never lay together, but ere morning There grew a flaw[21] between us. Flam. 'Thad been your part To have made up that flaw. Cam. True, but she loathes I should be seen in't. Flam. Why, sir, what's the matter? Cam. The duke, your master, visits me, I thank him; And I perceive how, like an earnest bowler, He very passionately leans that way He should have his bowl run. Flam. I hope you do not think— Cam. That noblemen bowl booty?[22] faith, his cheek Hath a most excellent bias; it would fain Jump with my mistress.[23] Flam. Will you be an ass, Despite your Aristotle? or a cuckold, Contrary to your Ephemerides, Which shows you under what a smiling planet You were first swaddled? Cam. Pew-wew, sir, tell not me Of planets nor of Ephemerides: A man may be made a cuckold in the day-time, When the stars' eyes are out. Flam. Sir, God b' wi' you; I do commit you to your pitiful pillow Stuffed with horn-shavings. Cam. Brother— Flam. God refuse me, Might I advise you now, your only course Were to lock up your wife. Cam. 'Twere very good. Flam. Bar her the sight of revels. Cam. Excellent. Flam. Let her not go to church, but like a hound In lyam[24] at your heels. Cam. 'Twere for her honour. Flam. And so you should be certain in one fortnight Despite her chastity or innocence, To be cuckolded, which yet is in suspense: This is my counsel, and I ask no fee for't. Cam. Come, you know not where my night-cap wrings me.
Flam. Wear it o' the old fashion; let your large ears come through, it will be more easy:—nay, I will be bitter:—bar your wife of her entertainment: women are more willingly and more gloriously chaste when they are least restrained of their liberty. It seems you would be a fine capricious mathematically jealous coxcomb; take the height of your own horns with a Jacob's staff[25] afore they are up. These politic inclosures for paltry mutton make more rebellion in the flesh than all the provocative electuaries doctors have uttered[26] since last jubilee.
Cam. This doth not physic me.
Flam. It seems you are jealous: I'll show you the error of it by a familiar example. I have seen a pair of spectacles fashioned with such perspective art, that, lay down but one twelve pence o' the board, 'twill appear as if there were twenty; now, should you wear a pair of these spectacles, and see your wife tying her shoe, you would imagine twenty hands were taking up of your wife's clothes, and this would put you into a horrible causeless fury.
Cam. The fault there, sir, is not in the eyesight.
Flam. True; but they that have the yellow jaundice think all objects they look on to be yellow. Jealousy is worser; her fits present to a man, like so many bubbles in a bason of water, twenty several crabbed faces; many times makes his own shadow his cuckold-maker. See, she comes.
Re-enter Vittoria Corombona.
What reason have you to be jealous of this creature? what an ignorant ass or flattering knave might he be counted, that should write sonnets to her eyes, or call her brow the snow of Ida or ivory of Corinth, or compare her hair to the blackbird's bill, when 'tis liker the blackbird's feather! This is all; be wise, I will make you friends; and you shall go to bed together. Marry, look you, it shall not be your seeking; do you stand upon that by any means: walk you aloof; I would not have you seen in't. [Camillo retires.] Sister, my lord attends you in the banqueting-house. Your husband is wondrous discontented.
Vit. Cor. I did nothing to displease him: I carved to him at supper-time.[27]
Flam. You need not have carved him, in faith; they say he is a capon already. I must now seemingly fall out with you. Shall a gentleman so well descended as Camillo—a lousy slave, that within this twenty years rode with the black guard[28] in the duke's carriage, 'mongst spits and dripping-pans—
Cam. Now he begins to tickle her.
Flam. An excellent scholar—one that hath a head filled with calves-brains without any sage in them—come crouching in the hams to you for a night's lodging?—that hath an itch in's hams, which like the fire at the glass-house hath not gone out this seven years.—Is he not a courtly gentleman?—when he wears white satin, one would take him by his black muzzle to be no other creature than a maggot.—You are a goodly foil, I confess, well set out—but covered with a false stone, yon counterfeit diamond.[29]
Cam. He will make her know what is in me.
Flam. Come, my lord attends you; thou shalt go to bed to my lord—
Cam. Now he comes to't.
Flam. With a relish as curious as a vintner going to taste new wine.—I am opening your case hard. [To Camillo.
Cam. A virtuous brother, o' my credit!
Flam. He will give thee a ring with a philosopher's stone in it.
Cam. Indeed, I am studying alchymy.
Flam. Thou shalt lie in a bed stuffed with turtles' feathers; swoon in perfumed linen, like the fellow was smothered in roses. So perfect shall be thy happiness, that, as men at sea think land and trees and ships go that way they go, so both Heaven and earth shall seem
