ing upon my lousy breeches, cries out it cannot mend them; which so pricks the linings of my body, (and those are, heart, lights, lungs, guts and midriff,) that I beg on my knees, to have Atropos, the tailor to the Destinies, to take her sheers, and cut my thread in two; or to heat the iron goose of mortality, and so press me to death.

Hir. Sure thy father was some botcher, and thy hungry tongue bit off these shreds of complaints, to patch up the elbows of thy nitty eloquence.

Spun. And what was thy father?

Hir. A low-minded cobler, a cobler whose zeal set many a woman upright; the remembrance of whose awl (I now having nothing) thrusts such scurvy stitches into my soul, that the heel of my happiness is gone awry.

Spun. Pity that e'er thou trod'st thy shoe awry. Hir. Long I cannot last; for all sowterly wax of comfort melting away, and misery taking the length of my foot, it boots not me to sue for life, when all my hopes are seam-rent, and go wetshod.

Spun. This shows thou art a cobler's son, by going through stitch: O Hircius, would thou and I were so happy to be coblers!

Hir. So would I; for both of us being weary of our lives, should then be sure of shoemakers' ends.

Spun. I see the beginning of my end, for I am almost starved.

Hir. So am not I; but I am more than famished.

Spun. All the members in my body are in a rebellion one against another.

Hir. So are mine; and nothing but a cook, being a constable, can appease them, presenting to my nose, instead of his painted staff, a spit full of roast meat.

Spun. But in this rebellion, what uproars do they make ! my belly cries to my mouth, Why dost not gape and feed me?

Hir. And my mouth sets out a throat to my hand, Why dost not thou lift up meat, and cram my chops with it?

Spun. Then my hand hath a fling at mine eyes, because they look not out, and shark for victuals.

Hir. Which mine eyes seeing, full of tears, cry aloud, and curse my feet, for not ambling up and down to feed colon: sithence if good meat be in any place, 'tis known my feet can smell.

Spun. But then my feet, like lazy rogues, lie still, and bad rather do nothing, than run to and fro to purchase anything.

Hir. Why, among so many millions of people, should thou and I only be miserable tatterdemallions, ragamuffins, and lousy desperates ?

Spun. Thou art a mere I-am-an-o, I-am-an-as : consider the whole world, and 'tis as we are.

Hir. Lousy, beggarly! thou whoreson assa fœtida?

Spun. Worse; all tottering, all out of frame, thou fooliamini!

Hir. As how, arsenic? come, make the world

smart.

Spun. Old honour goes on crutches, beggary rides caroched; honest men make feasts, knaves sit at tables, cowards are lapp'd in velvet, soldiers (as we) in rags; beauty turns whore, whore bawd,

and both die of the pox: why then, when all the world stumbles, should thou and I walk upright? Hir. Stop, look! who's yonder ?

Enter ANGELO.

Spun. Fellow Angelo! how does my little man? well?

Ang. Yes;

And would you did so too! Where are your clothes? Hir. Clothes! You see every woman almost go in her loose gown, and why should not we have our clothes loose?

Spun. Would they were loose!
Ang. Why, where are they?

Spun. Where many a velvet cloak, I warrant, at this hour, keeps them company; they are pawned to a broker.

Ang. Why pawn'd? where's all the gold I left with you?

Hir. The gold! we put that into a scrivener's hands, and he hath cozen'd us.

Spun. And therefore, I prithee, Angelo, if thou hast another purse, let it be confiscate, and brought to devastation.

Ang. Are you made all of lies? I know which

Thaws; keep her frozen still. [Comes forward.] How now, my masters!

Dejected? drooping? drown'd in tears? clothes torn?

Lean, and ill colour'd? sighing? where's the whirlwind

Which raises all these mischiefs? I have seen you
Drawn better on't. O! but a spirit told me
You both would come to this, when in you thrust
Yourselves into the service of that lady,
Who shortly now must die. Where's now her
praying?

What good got you by wearing out your feet,
To run on scurvy errands to the poor,
And to bear money to a sort of rogues,
And lousy prisoners ?

Hir. Pox on them! I never prospered since I did it.

Spun. Had I been a pagan still, I should not have spit white for want of drink; but come to any vintner now, and bid him trust me, because I turned Christian, and he cries, Poh!

Harp. You're rightly served; before that peevish lady

Had to do with you, women, wine, and money
Flow'd in abundance with you, did it not?

Hir. Oh, those days! those days!

Harp. Beat not your breasts, tear not your hair in madness;

Those days shall come again, be ruled by me ;
And better, mark me, better.

Spun. I have seen you, sir, as I take it, an attendant on the lord Theophilus.

Harp. Yes, yes; in shew his servant: buthark, hither!

Take heed nobody listens.
Spun. Not a mouse stirs.

Harp. I am a prince disguised.
Hir. Disguised! how? drunk?

Harp. Yes, my fine boy! I'll drink too, and be drunk;

I am a prince, and any man by me,

Let him but keep my rules, shall soon grow rich, Exceeding rich, most infinitely rich :

He that shall serve me, is not starved from plea

sures

As other poor knaves are; no, take their fill.

Spun. But that, sir, we're so ragged

Harp. You'll say, you'd serve me?

Hir. Before any master under the zodiac.

Harp. For clothes no matter; I've a mind to both.

And one thing I like in you; now that you see
The bonfire of your lady's state burnt out,
You give it over, do you not?

Hir. Let her be hang'd!

Spun. And pox'd!

Harp. Why, now you're mine;

Come, let my bosom touch you.
Spun. We have bugs, sir.

Harp. There's money, fetch your clothes home;

there's for you.

Hir. Avoid, vermin! give over our mistress; a man cannot prosper worse, if he serve the devil. Harp. How! the devil? I'll tell you what now of the devil,

He's no such horrid creature; cloven-footed,
Black, saucer-eyed, his nostrils breathing fire,
As these lying Christians make him.
Both. No!

Harp. He's more loving
To man, than man to man is.

Hir. Is he so? Would we two might come acquainted with him!

Harp. You shall: he's a wondrous good fellow, loves a cup of wine, a whore, anything; if you have money, it's ten to one but I'll bring him to some tavern to you or other.

Spun. I'll bespeak the best room in the house for him.

Harp. Some people he cannot endure.
Hir. We'll give him no such cause.

Harp. He hates a civil lawyer, as a soldier does peace.

Spun. How a commoner?

Harp. Loves him from the teeth outward. Spun. Pray, my lord and prince, let me encounter you with one foolish question: does the devil eat any mace in his broth?

Harp. Exceeding much, when his burning fever

takes him; and then he has the knuckles of a bailiff boiled to his breakfast.

Hir. Then, my lord, he loves a catchpole, does he not?

Harp. As a bearward doth a dog. A catchpole! he hath sworn, if ever he dies, to make a serjeant his heir, and a yeoman his overseer.

Spun. How if he come to any great man's gate, will the porter let him come in, sir?

Harp. Oh! he loves porters of great men's gates, because they are ever so near the wicket.

Hir. Do not they whom he makes much on, for all his stroaking their cheeks, lead hellish lives under him?

Harp. No, no, no, no; he will be damn'd before he hurts any man: do but you (when you are throughly acquainted with him) ask for anything, see if it does not come.

Hir. Hang them!

Harp. And to the scrubbing poor.
Hir. I'll see them hang'd first.
Harp. One service you must do me.
Both. Anything.

Harp. Your mistress, Dorothea, ere she suffers,
Is to be put to tortures: have you hearts
To tear her into shrieks, to fetch her soul
Up in the pangs of death, yet not to die?
Hir. Suppose this she, and that I had no hands,
here's my teeth.

Spun. Suppose this she, and that I had no teeth, here's my nails.

Hir. But will not you be there, sir?

Harp. No, not for hills of diamonds; the grand

And heaven will take it as a sacrifice; But, if you play the ravisher, there is A hell to swallow you.

Sap. [within.] Let her swallow thee!

Anton. Rise:-for the Roman empire, Dorothea, I would not wound thine honour. Pleasures forced, Are unripe apples; sour, not worth the plucking: Yet, let me tell you, 'tis my father's will, That I should seize upon you, as my prey; Which I abhor, as much as the blackest sin The villainy of man did ever act.

[SAPRITIUS breaks in with MACRINUS. Dor. Die happy for this language! Sap. Die a slave,

A blockish idiot!

Mac. Dear sir, vex him not.

Sap. Yes, and vex thee too; both, I think, are geldings;

Cold, phlegmatic bastard, thou'rt no brat of mine;
One spark of me, when I had heat like thine,
By this had made a bonfire: a tempting whore,
For whom thou'rt mad, thrust e'en into thine arms,
And stand'st thou puling! Had a tailor seen her
At this advantage, he, with his cross capers,
Had ruffled her by this: but thou shalt curse
Thy dalliance, and here, before her eyes,
Tear thy own flesh in pieces, when a slave

In hot lust bathes himself, and gluts those plea

sures

Thy niceness durst not touch. Call out a slave; You, captain of our guard, fetch a slave hither. Anton. What will you do, dear sir?

Sap. Teach her a trade, which many a one would learn

In less than half an hour,—to play the whore.

Enter Soldiers with a Slave.

Mac. A slave is come; what now?
Sap. Thou hast bones and flesh

Enough to ply thy labour; from what country
Wert thou ta'en prisoner, here to be our slave?

Slave. From Britain.

Sap. In the west ocean?

A damned whole one, a black ugly slave, The slave of all base slaves :-do't thyself, Roman, 'Tis drudgery fit for thee.

Sap. He's bewitch'd too :

Bind him, and with a bastinado give him,
Upon his naked belly, two hundred blows.
Slave. Thou art more slave than I.

[He is carried in. Dor. That Power supernal, on whom waits my Is captain o'er my chastity. [soul,

Anton. Good sir, give o'er :

The more you wrong her, yourself's vex'd the more. Sap. Plagues light on her and thee!-thus down

Enter HARPAX, HIRCIUS, and SPUNGIUS. Harp. Do you like my service now? say, am A master worth attendance? [not I

Spun. Attendance! I had rather lick clean the soles of your dirty boots, than wear the richest suit of any infected lord, whose rotten life hangs between the two poles.

Hir. A lord's suit! I would not give up the cloak of your service, to meet the splayfoot estate of any left-eyed knight above the antipodes; because they are unlucky to meet.

Harp. This day I'll try your loves to me; 'tis But well to use the agility of your arms.

[only

Spun. Or legs, I am lusty at them.

Hir. Or any other member that has no legs. Spun. Thou'lt run into some hole.

Hir. If I meet one that's more than my match, and that I cannot stand in their hands, I must and will creep on my knees.

Harp. Hear me, my little team of villains, hear

me;

I cannot teach you fencing with these cudgels,
Yet you must use them; lay them on but soundly;
That's all.

Hir. Nay, if we come to mauling once, pah!
Spun. But what walnut-tree is it we must beat?
Harp. Your mistress.

Hir. How! my mistress? I begin to have a Christian's heart made of sweet butter, I melt; I cannot strike a woman.

Spun. Nor I, unless she scratch; bum my misHarp. You're coxcombs, silly animals. [tress! Hir. What's that?

Harp. Drones, asses, blinded moles, that dare not thrust

Your arms out to catch fortune: say, you fall off,
It must be done. You are converted rascals,
And, that once spread abroad, why every slave
Will kick you, call you motley Christians,
And half-faced Christians.

Spun. The guts of my conscience begin to be of whitleather.

Hir. I doubt me, I shall have no sweet butter in me.

Harp. Deny this, and each pagan whom you meet,

Shall forked fingers thrust into your eyes-
Hir. If we be cuckolds.

Harp. Do this, and every god the Gentiles bow Shall add a fathom to your line of years.

[to,

Spun. A hundred fathom, I desire no more. Hir. I desire but one inch longer. Harp. The senators will, as you pass along, Clap you upon your shoulders with this hand, And with this give you gold: when you are dead, Happy that man shall be, can get a nail, The paring,-nay, the dirt under the nail, Of any of you both, to say, this dirt Belonged to Spungius or Hircius.

Spun. They shall not want dirt under my nails, I will keep them long of purpose, for now my fingers itch to be at her.

Hir. The first thing I do, I'll take her over the lips.

Spun. And I the hips,-we may strike any where ?

Harp. Yes, any where.

Hir. Then I know where I'll hit her.

Harp. Prosper, and be mine own; stand by, I

must not

To see this done, great business calls me hence: He's made can make her curse his violence. [Exit. Spun. Fear it not, sir; her ribs shall be basted. Hir. I'll come upon her with rounce, robblehobble, and thwick-thwack-thirlery bouncing.

Enter DOROTHEA, led prisoner; SAPRITIUS, THEOPHILUS, ANGELO, and a Hangman, who sets up a Pillar: SAPRITIUS and THEOPHILUS sit; ANGELO stands by DOROTHEA. A Guard attending.

Sap. According to our Roman customs, bind That Christian to a pillar.

Theoph. Infernal Furies,

Could they into my hand thrust all their whips
To tear thy flesh, thy soul, 'tis not a torture
Fit to the vengeance I should heap on thee,

For wrongs done me; me! for flagitious facts,
By thee done to our gods: yet, so it stand
To great Cæsarea's governor's high pleasure,
Bow but thy knee to Jupiter, and offer
Any slight sacrifice; or do but swear
By Cæsar's fortune, and-be free.
Sap. Thou shalt.

Dor. Not for all Cæsar's fortune, were it chain'd To more worlds than are kingdoms in the world, And all those worlds drawn after him. I defy Your hangmen; you now shew me whither to fly. Sap. Are her tormentors ready?

Ang. Shrink not, dear mistress.

Spun. and Hir. My lord, we are ready for the business.

Dor. You two! whom I like foster'd children
fed,

And lengthen'd out your starved life with bread.
You be my hangmen! whom, when up the ladder
Death haled you to be strangled, I fetch'd down,
Clothed you, and warm'd you, you two my tor-
Both. Yes, we.
[mentors!

Dor. Divine Powers pardon you!
Sap. Strike.

[They strike at her: ANGELO kneeling holds her fast. Theoph. Beat out her brains.

Dor. Receive me, you bright angels !
Sap. Faster, slaves.

Spun. Faster! I am out of breath, I am sure; if I were to beat a buck, I can strike no harder. Hir. O mine arms! I cannot lift them to my head.

Dor. Joy above joys! are my tormentors weary In torturing me, and, in my sufferings, I fainting in no limb! tyrants, strike home, And feast your fury full.

Theoph. These dogs are curs,

[Comes from his seat. Which snarl, yet bite not. See, my lord, her face Has more bewitching beauty than before: Proud whore, it smiles! cannot an eye start out, With these?

Hir. No, sir, nor the bridge of her nose fall; 'tis full of iron-work.

Sap. Let's view the cudgels, are they not counterfeit ?

Ang. There fix thine eye still;-thy glorious

Theoph. We're mock'd; these bats have power Yet her skin is not scarr'd. [to fell down giants, Sap. What rogues are these?

Theoph. Cannot these force a shriek?

[Beats SPUNGIUS. Spun. Oh! a woman has one of my ribs, and now five more are broken.

Theoph. Cannot this make her roar?

[Beats HIRCIUS; he roars. Sap. Who hired these slaves? what are they? Spun. We serve that noble gentleman, there; he enticed us to this dry beating: oh! for one half pot.

Harp. My servants! two base rogues, and sometime servants

To her, and for that cause forbear to hurt her.