Chapter X: Act III: Scene I

MARIA’S _Apartment_.

_Enter_ GERARDINE _and_ MARIA.

GER. The coast is clear, and Argus’ wakeful eyes
Securely sleep: time turns to us his front.
Come, sweet Maria, of th’ auspicious hours
Let’s take advantage.
MAR. With all my heart;
I do embrace the motion with thyself:
Welcome, sweet friend, to liberty of air,
Which now, methinks, doth promp[t] our breaths to move
Sweet accents of delight, the joys of love.
How dost thou brook thy little-ease,[268] thy trunk?
GER. That trunk confines this chest; this chest
contains
Th’ unbounded speculation of our love,
Incomprehensible grief, joy, hope, and fears;
Th’ affections of my mind are like the spheres,
Which in their jarring motions do agree,
Through th’ influence of love’s sweet harmony.
MAR. Are not inferior bodies here on earth
Produc’d and govern’d by those heavenly ones?
GER. They are.
MAR. They jar, you say; yet in that strife maintain
Perpetual league: why should their influence
In rational souls be check’d by erring sense?
Or why should mutual love, confirm’d by heaven,
B’ infring’d by men? methinks ’tis most uneven.[269]
GER. Thou argu’st well, Maria; and this withal,
That brutes nor animals do prove a thrall
To such servility: souls that are wards
To gold, opinion, or th’ undue regards
Of broking men, wolves that in sheep-skin bands
Prey on the hearts to join th’ unwilling hands,
Ruin fair stocks, when generous houses die,
Or propagate their name with bastardy.
MAR. Sterility and barrenness ensue
Such forced love; nor shall erroneous men
Pervert my settled thoughts, or turn mine eye
From thy fair object, which I will pursue,
Rich in thy love, proud of this interview.
GER. I’ll suck these accents: let our breaths engender
A generation of such pleasing sounds,
To interchange delights. O, my blood’s on fire!
Sweet, let me give more scope to true desire.
MAR. What wouldst thou more than our minds’ firm
contract?
GER. Tut, words are wind; thought unreduct[270] to
act[271]
Is but an embryon in the truest sense.
MAR. I am beleague[r]’d; I had need of sense:
You make me blush: play fair yet above board.
GER. Hear me exemplify love’s Latin word
Together with thyself:
As thus:—hearts join’d, _Amore_: take _A_ from thence,
Then _more_ is the perfect moral sense,
Plural in manners, which in thee do shine
Saint-like, immortal, spotless, and divine:
Take _M_ away, _ore_ in beauty’s name
Craves an eternal trophy to thy fame:
Lastly, take _O_, in _re_ stands all my rest,
Which I, in Chaucer-style, do term a jest.
MAR. You break all modest bounds; away, away!
GER. So when men come behind do women say.
MAR. Come, come, I say—
GER. Ay, that’s the word indeed:
Men that come bold before are like to speed.

But who comes here?[272] _Monstrum horrendum!_ my
nostrils have the rank scent of knavery. Maria, let’s
remove ourselves to the window, and observe this piece
of man’s flesh. [_Scene closes._

SCENE II.

_A Street: before_ GLISTER’S _House_.

_Enter_ LIPSALVE _disguised as_ GERARDINE, _and_ SHRIMP.
LIP. Now, mistress Maria, ward yourself: if my strong
hope fail not, I shall be with you to bring——
SHR. To bring what, sir? some more o’ your kind?
LIP. Faith, boy, that’s mine aim.
SHR. I’ll be sworn, sir, you have a good loose;[273] you
let fly at ’em a-pace.
LIP. I have shot fair and far off; but now I hope to hit
the mark indeed.
SHR. God save it!
LIP. But where’s the sign?
SHR. Why, there.
LIP. That’s a special thing to be observed.
SHR. I have heard talk of the Gemini: methinks, that
should be a star favourable to your proceeding.
LIP. The Gemini? O, I apprehend thee: that’s because I
am so like Gerardine; ha, is’t not so, boy?
SHR. As if you were spit out on’s mouth, sir; you must
needs be like him, for you are both cut out of a piece.
But, lord, sir, how you hunt this chase of love! are you
not weary?
LIP. Indefatigable, boy, indefatigable.
SHR. Fatigable, quoth you? you may call it leanable well
enough, for I am sure it is able to make a man lean.
LIP. ’Tis my vocation, boy; we must never be weary
of well-doing: love’s as proper to a courtier as
preciseness to a puritan.

[MARIA _appears above_; GERARDINE _concealing
himself behind her_.[274]

SHR. Love, _subaudi_ lust; a punk in this place
_subintelligitur_. [_Aside._
LIP. Boy, I have spied my saint.
SHR. Then down on your knees.
LIP. Fly off, lest she take thee for my familiar.—
Save thee, sweet Maria!
Nay, wonder not (for thou thyself art wonder,)
To see this unexpected gratulation.
MAR. Whom do I see? O, how my senses wander!
Am not I Hero? art not thou Leander?
GER. Thou’rt in the right, sweet wench; more of that
vein.
LIP. Her passion o’ercomes[275] her; ’tis the kindest
soul!
O excellent device! it works, it works, boy.
SHR. It does indeed, sir, like the suds of an ale-fat
or a washing-bowl.
LIP. Joy not too much; extremes are perilous.
MAR. O weather-beaten love!—Cisley, go make a fire;
Go, fetch my ladder of ropes, Leander’s come.
LIP. Mark, how prettily in her rapture she harps upon
Gerardine’s travel.—
Let th’ ecstasy have end, for I am Gerardine.
GER. The devil you are! [_Aside._
MAR. Ha? let me see: my love so soon return’d?
LIP. I never travell’d farther than thine eyes;
My bruited[276] journey was a happy project
To cast a mist before thy jealous guardian,
Who now, suspectless, gives some hope t’ attain
My wish’d delight, before pursu’d in vain.
GER. Ask if he strain’d not hard for that same
project.
MAR. Has not that project overrack’d thy brain,
And spent more wit than thou hast left behind?
SHR. By this light, she flouts him. [_Aside._
LIP. No, wit is infinite: I spent some brain;
Thy love did stretch my wit upon the tenters.
GER. Then is’t like to shrink in the wetting.
[_Aside._

MAR. It cottens well;[277] it cannot choose but bear
A pretty nap: I tender thy capacity;
A comfortable caudle cherish it:
But where’s my favour that I bid thee wear
As pledge of love?
GER. Now dost thou put him to’t;
More tenters for his wit; he’s _non plus_ quite.
LIP. I wear it, sweet Maria, but on high days,
Preserve it from the tainting of the air—
What should I say? [_Aside._]—’Tis in my t’other
hose.[278]
MAR. How? in your t’other hose? he that I love
Shall wear my favour in those hose he has on.
LIP. Fiends and furies! block that I am! [_Aside._
SHR. In your t’other hose?—She talked of a ladder of
ropes: if she would let it down, for my life, he would
hang himself in’t. [_Aside._]—In your t’other hose? why,
those hose are in lavender:[279] besides, they have
never a codpiece; but, indeed, there needs no ivy where
the wine is good: in your t’other hose?
MAR. I said you were too prodigal of wit.
LIP. Expostulate no more; grant me access,
Or else I’ll travel to the wilderness.
MAR. Your only way: go, travel till you tire;
Be rid, and let a gull discharge the hire.
SHR. Master, the doctor, the doctor!
LIP. Where? which way?
SHR. This way, that way, some way I heard him coming.
LIP. O boy, I am abused, gulled, disgraced! my credit’s
cracked.
SHR. You know that’s nothing new for a[280] courtier.
LIP. O, I shall run beside myself!
SHR. No, sir, that’s my office; I’ll run by your side.
LIP. My brain is out of temper! what shall I do?
SHR. Take her counsel, sir; get a cullis[281] to
your capacity, a restorative to your reason, and a
warming-pan to your wit: he comes, he comes!
LIP. Follow close, boy; let him not see us.
[_Exeunt_ LIPSALVE _and_ SHRIMP.

_Enter_ GLISTER.

GLI. What, more flutterers[282] about my carrion? more
battery to my walls? shall I never be rid of these
petronel-flashes?[283] As for my friend Gerardine, the
wind of my rage has blown him to discover countries; and
let the sea purge his love away and him together,—I care
not. Young wenches now are all o’ the hoigh: we that are
guardians must respect more besides titles, gold lace,
person, or parts; we must have lordships and manors
elsewhere as well as in the man: wealth commands all;
and wealth I’ll have, or else my minion shall lead apes
in hell. I must after this gallant too: I’ll know his
rendezvous, and what company he keeps. [_Exit._
MAR. Now must we be abrupt:[284] retire, sweet friend,
To thy small-ease:[285] what more remains to do,
We’ll consummate at our next interview.
GER. So shall I bear my prisonment with pleasure:
Look thou but big, our[286] cruel foe will yield,
And give to Hymen th’ honour of the field.
[_Exeunt above._

SCENE III.

_A Street: before the Meeting-house of the Family of
Love._

_Enter_ MISTRESS PURGE, CLUB _carrying a link before
her_.

MIS. P. Fie, fie, Club, go a’ t’other side the way,
thou collowest[287] me and my ruff; thou wilt make me an
unclean member i’ the congregation.
CLUB. If you be unclean, mistress, you may pure
yourself; you have my master’s ware at your commandment:
but what am I then, that does all the drudgery in your
house?
MIS. P. Thou’rt born to’t: why, boy, I can shew thy
indentures; thou givest no other milk: we know how to
use all i’ their kind.
CLUB. You’re my better in bark and rine,[288] but in
pith and substance I may compare with you: you’re above
me in flesh, mistress, and there’s your boast; but in my
t’other part we are all one before God.

_Enter_ DRYFAT.

MIS. P. All one with me? dost thou swear too? why then,
up and ride!
DRY. Whither away, mistress Purge?
MIS. P. To the Family, master Dryfat, to our
exercise.[289]
DRY. What, by night?
MIS. P. O Lord, ay, sir, with the candles out too: we
fructify best i’ th’ dark: the glance of the eye is a
great matter; it leads us to other objects besides the
right.
DRY. Indeed I think we perform those functions best when
we are not thrall to the fetters of the body.
MIS. P. The fetters of the body? what call you them?
DRY. The organs of the body, as some term them.
MIS. P. Organs? fie, fie, they have a most abominable
squeaking sound in mine ears; they edify not a whit; I
detest ’em: I hope my body has no organs.[290]
DRY. To speak more familiarly, mistress Purge, they are
the senses, the sight, hearing, smelling, taste, and
feeling.
MIS. P. Ay, marry—marry, said I? Lord, what a word’s
that in my mouth!—you speak now, master Dryfat; but yet
let me tell you where you err too: this feeling I will
prove to be neither organ nor fetter; it is a thing—a
sense did you call it?
DRY. Ay, a sense.
MIS. P. Why, then, a sense let it be,—I say it is that
we cannot be without; for, as I take it, it is a part
belonging to understanding: understanding, you know,
lifteth up the mind from earth: if the mind be lift up,
you know, the body goes with it: also it descends into
the conscience, and there tickles us with our works and
doings: so that we make singular use of feeling.
DRY. And not of the rest?
MIS. P. Not at that time; therefore we hold it not amiss
to put out the candles, for the soul sees best i’ th’
dark.
DRY. You come to me now, mistress Purge.

_Enter_ PURGE _behind_.

MIS. P. Nay, I will come to you else, master Dryfat:
these senses, as you term them, are of much efficacy in
carnal mixtures; that is, when we crowd and thrust a man
and a woman together.
PUR. What, so close at it? I thought this was one end of
your exercise:[291] byrlady,[292] I think there is small
profit in this. I’ll wink no more; for I am now tickled
with a conceit that it is a scurvy thing to be a
cuckold. [_Aside._
DRY. I commend this zeal in you, mistress Purge; I
desire much to be of your society.
MIS. P. Do you indeed? blessing on your heart! are you
upright in your dealings?
DRY. Yes, I do love to stand to any thing I do, though I
lose by it: in truth, I deal but too truly for this
world. You shall hear how far I am entered in the right
way already. First, I live in charity, and give small
alms to such as be not of the right sect; I take under
twenty i’ th’ hundred, nor no forfeiture of bonds unless
the law tell my conscience I may do’t; I set no pot on
a’ Sundays, but feed on cold meat drest a’ Saturdays; I
keep no holydays nor fasts, but eat most flesh o’
Fridays of all days i’ the week; I do use to say
inspired graces, able to starve a wicked man with
length; I have Aminadabs and Abrahams to my godsons, and
I chide them when they ask me blessing; and I do hate
the red letter[293] more than I follow the written
verity.
PUR. Here’s clergy![294] [_Aside._
MIS. P. These are the rudiments indeed, master Dryfat.
DRY. Nay, I can tell you I am, or will be, of the right
stamp.
PUR. A pox o’ your stamp! [_Aside._
MIS. P. Then learn the word for your admittance, and you
will be much made on by the congregation.
DRY. Ay, the word, good mistress Purge?
MIS. P. A Brother in the Family.
DRY. Enough, I have my lesson.
PUR. So have I mine. A Brother in the Family! I must be
a Familist to-day: I’ll follow this gear[295] while ’tis
on foot, i’faith. [_Aside._
MIS. P. Then shore up your eyes, and lead the way to the
goodliest people that ever turned up the white o’ th’
eye.—Give me my book, Club, put out thy link, and come
behind us.
[DRYFAT _knocks at the door of the Meeting-house_.
[_Within_]. Who’s there?
DRY. Two Brothers and a Sister in the Family.[296]

[MISTRESS PURGE, DRYFAT, _and_ CLUB, _enter the
House: then_ PURGE _knocks at the door_.

[_Within_]. Who’s there?
PUR. A Familiar Brother.
[_Within_]. Here’s no room for you nor your
familiarity.
PUR. How? no room for me nor my familiarity? why,
what’s the difference between a Familiar Brother and a
Brother in the Family? O, I know! I made ellipsis of
_in_ in this place, where it should have been
expressed, so that the want of _in_ put me clean out;
or, let me see,—may it not be some mystery drawn from
arithmetic? for my life, these Familists love no
substraction, take nothing away, but put in and add as
much as you will; and after addition follows
multiplication of a most Pharasit-hypocritical crew.
Well, for my part I like not this Family, nor, indeed,
some kind of private lecturing that women use. Look
too’t, you that have such gadders to your wives!
self-willed they are as children, and, i’faith,
capable of not much more than they, peevish[297] by
custom, naturally fools. I remember a pretty wooden
sentence in a preamble to an exercise,[298] where the
reader prayed that men of his coat might grow up like
cedars to make good wainscot in the House of
Sincerity: would not this wainscot phrase be writ in
brass, to publish him that spake it for an animal?
Why, such wooden pellets out of earthen trunks[299] do
strike these females into admiration, hit[300] ’em
home; sometimes, perhaps, in at one ear and out at
t’other, and then they depart, in opinion wiser than
their neighbours, fraught with matter able to take
down and mortify their husbands. Well, I’ll home now,
and bring the true word next time. I shall expect my
wife anon, red-hot with zeal, and big with melting
tears; and this night do I expect, as her manner is,
she will weep me a whole chamber-pot full. _Loquor
lapides?_ do I cast pills abroad? ’Tis no matter what
I say; I talk like a ’pothecary, as I am: I have only
purged myself of a little choler and passion, and am
now armed with a patient resolution. But how? to put
my horns in my pocket? no:

What wise men bear, is not for me to scorn;
’Tis a[n] honourable thing to wear the horn.
[_Exit._

SCENE IV.

LIPSALVE’S _Chamber_.

_Enter_ LIPSALVE _without his doublet, a whip in his
hand_.

LIP. Fortune, devil’s turd i’ thy teeth! I’ll turn no
more o’ thy wheel: art is above thy might. What though
my project with mistress Maria failed? more ways to the
wood than one; there’s variety in love. It is believed I
am out of town; my door is open: the hour is at hand;
all things squared by the doctor’s rule; and now I look
for the spirit to bring me warm comfort to clothe my
nakedness, and that is mistress Purge, the cordial of a
Familist; and come quickly, good spirit, or else my
teeth will chatter for thee. [_Scene shuts._

SCENE V.[301]

_Before_ LIPSALVE’S _Chamber-door_.

_Enter_ GUDGEON _without his doublet, a whip in his
hand_.

ᚨGUD. O the naked pastimes of love, the scourge of
dulness, the purifier of uncleanness, and the hot-house
of humanity! I have taken physic of master Purge any
time this twelvemonths to purge my humour upon’s
wife, and I have ever found her so fugitive, from
exercise[302] to exercise, and from Family to Family,
that I could never yet open the close-stool of my mind
to her; so that I may well say with Ovid, _Hei
mihi,[303] quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis!_ Now
am I driven to prove the violent virtue of conjuration:
if it hit, and that I yerk my Familist out of the
spirit, I’ll hang up my scourge-stick for a trophy, and
emparadize my thoughts: though the doctor go to the
devil, ’tis no matter. Ha, let me see: Lipsalve’s door
open, and himself out of town? Excellent doctor,
soothsaying doctor, oraculous doctor!
[_Enters the chamber._

SCENE VI.

LIPSALVE’S _Chamber_.

LIPSALVE _discovered, as before_: GLISTER _watching
above_.

GLI. I have taken up this standing to see my gallants
play at barriers[304] with scourge-sticks, for the
honour of my punk:

_Enter_ GUDGEON.

and in good time I see my brave spirits shining in
bright armour, nakedly burning in the hell-fire of
lechery, and ready for the hot encounter: sound
trumpets, the combatants are mounted! [_Aside._
GUD. The apparition! mistress Purge peers through him; I
see her.
LIP. The spirit appears! but he might have come sooner:
I am numbed with cold, a shivering ague hath taken away
my courage.
GLI. They are afraid one of another: look, how they
tremble! the flesh and the devil strengthen ’em! ha, ha,
ha! [_Aside._
GUD. Has ’a no cloven feet? what a laxative fever shakes
me!
LIP. Will ’a not carry me with him to hell? well, I must
venture.—_Clogmathos._
GUD. My cue.—_Clogmathathos._
LIP. My cue.—_Garrazin._
GUD. _Garragas._
LIP. _Garrazinos._
GUD. _Ton tetuphon._
LIP. _Tes tetuphes._
BOTH. _With a whirly twinos._
[_They lash one another._
LIP. Hold,[305] hold, hold!
GUD. Gogs nowns, gogs blood!
LIP. A pox, a plague, the devil take you!
GUD. Truce, truce, I smart, I smart.
GLI. Ha, ha, ha! O, for one of the hoops of my
Cornelius’ tub![306] I must needs be gone, I shall burst
myself with laughing else.
Magic hath no such rule: men cannot find
Lust ever better handled in his kind.
[_Aside, and exit above._
GUD. What art thou? with the name of Jove I conjure
thee!
LIP. With any name, saving the whip; I’ll no more of
that conjuration, a plague on’t!
GUD. Speak, art not a spirit in the likeness of my
friend Lipsalve, that should transform thyself to
mistress Purge?
LIP. How, a spirit? I hope spirits have no flesh and
blood; and I am sure thou hast drawn blood out of my
flesh with the spirit of thy whip.
GUD. Then shall we prove to be honest gulls, and the
doctor an arrant knave.
LIP. A plague upon him for a Glister! he has given our
loves a suppositor[307] with a _recumbentibus_. I’ll
tell thee, sirrah,——
GUD. Tell not me, let me prevent thee; the wind shall
not take the breath of our gross abuse: we feel the
gullery, therefore let us swear by our naked truths, and
by the hilts of these our blades, our flesh-tamers, to
be revenged upon that paraperopandentical doctor, that
pocky doctor.
LIP. Agreed: we’ll cuckold him, that he shall not
be able to put his head in at’s doors; and make
his precise, puritanical, and peculiar punk, his
’pothecary’s drug there, a known cockatrice[308]
to the world.
GUD. If report catch this knavery, we have lost our
reputations for ever: wherefore let’s be secret.
Ill tax we women of credulity,
When men are gull’d with such gross foppery.
LIP. Come, let us in, and cover both our shames.
This conjuration to the world’s a novelty;
Gallants turn’d spirits, and whipt for lechery.
[_Exeunt._

SCENE VII.

MARIA’S _Apartment_.

_Enter_ MARIA.

MAR. Gerardine, come forth, Maria calls!
Those ribs shall not enfold thy buxom limbs
One minute longer: the cincture of mine arms
Shall more securely keep thy soul from harms.
GER. [_coming out of the trunk_] What heavenly breath,
of Phitonessa’s power,[309]
That rais’d the dead corpse of her friend[310] to life,
Prevails no less on me! for even this urn,
The figure of my sadder requiem,
Gives up my bones, my love, my life, and all,
To her that gives me freedom in my thrall.
MAR. Be brief, sweet friend, salute and part in one;
For niggard time now threats with imminent danger
Our late joy’d scope. Thy earnest, then, of love,
Ere Sol have compass’d half the signs, I fear
Will shew a blushing fault; but ’twas thine aim,[311]
T’ enforce consent in him that bars thy claim.
GER. Love salves that fault: let time our guilt
reveal,
I’ll ne’er deny my deed, my hand, and seal.
The elements shall lose their ancient force,
Water and earth suppress the fire and air,
Nature in all use a preposterous course,
Each kind forget his likeness to repair,
Before I’ll falsify my faith to thee.
MAR. The humorous bodies’ elemental kind
Shall sooner lose th’ innated heat of love,
The soul in nature’s bounds shall be confin’d,
Heaven’s course shall retrograde and leave to move,
Ere I surcease[312] to cherish mutual fire,
With thoughts refin’d in flames of true desire.
GER. These words are odours on[313] the sacred shrine
Of love’s best deity: the marriage-god
Longs to perform those[314] ceremonious rites
Which terminate our hopes: till mine grow full,
I’ll use that intercourse amongst my friends
That erst I did; then, in the height of joy,
I’ll come to challenge interest in my boy.
Till then, farewell.
MAR. You’ll come upon your cue?
GER. Doubt not of that.
MAR. Then twenty times adieu. [_Exeunt._