Scene
I
Before Lovewit’s door.
Enter Lovewit, with several of the Neighbours.
Lovewit
Has there been such resort, say you?
1 Neighbour
Daily, sir.
2 Neighbour
And nightly, too.
3 Neighbour
Ay, some as brave as lords.
4 Neighbour
Ladies and gentlewomen.
5 Neighbour
Citizens’ wives.
1 Neighbour
And knights.
6 Neighbour
In coaches.
2 Neighbour
Yes, and oyster women.
1 Neighbour
Beside other gallants.
3 Neighbour
Sailors’ wives.
4 Neighbour
Tobacco men.
5 Neighbour
Another Pimlico!
Lovewit
What should my knave advance,
To draw this company? He hung out no banners
Of a strange calf with five legs to be seen,
Or a huge lobster with six claws?
6 Neighbour
No, sir.
3 Neighbour
We had gone in then, sir.
Lovewit
He has no gift
Of teaching in the nose that e’er I knew of.
You saw no bills set up that promised cure
Of agues, or the toothache?
2 Neighbour
No such thing, sir!
Lovewit
Nor heard a drum struck for baboons or puppets?
5 Neighbour
Neither, sir.
Lovewit
What device should he bring forth now?
I love a teeming wit as I love my nourishment:
’Pray God he have not kept such open house,
That he hath sold my hangings, and my bedding!
I left him nothing else. If he have eat them,
A plague o’ the moth, say I! Sure he has got
Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging!
The friar and the nun; or the new motion
Of the knight’s courser covering the parson’s mare;
Or ’t may be, he has the fleas that run at tilt
Upon a table, or some dog to dance.
When saw you him?
1 Neighbour
Who, sir, Jeremy?
2 Neighbour
Jeremy butler?
We saw him not this month.
Lovewit
How!
4 Neighbour
Not these five weeks, sir.
6 Neighbour
These six weeks at the least.
Lovewit
You amaze me, neighbours!
5 Neighbour
Sure, if your worship know not where he is,
He’s slipt away.
6 Neighbour
Pray God, he be not made away.
Lovewit
Ha! It’s no time to question, then.
Knocks at the door.
6 Neighbour
About
Some three weeks since, I heard a doleful cry,
As I sat up a mending my wife’s stockings.
Lovewit
’Tis strange that none will answer! Didst thou hear
A cry, sayst thou?
6 Neighbour
Yes, sir, like unto a man
That had been strangled an hour, and could not speak.
2 Neighbour
I heard it too, just this day three weeks, at two o’clock
Next morning.
Lovewit
These be miracles, or you make them so!
A man an hour strangled, and could not speak,
And both you heard him cry?
3 Neighbour
Yes, downward, sir.
Lovewit
Thou art a wise fellow. Give me thy hand, I pray thee.
What trade art thou on?
3 Neighbour
A smith, and’t please your worship.
Lovewit
A smith! Then lend me thy help to get this door open.
3 Neighbour
That I will presently, sir, but fetch my tools—
Exit.
1 Neighbour
Sir, best to knock again, afore you break it.
Lovewit
I will. Knocks again.
Enter Face, in his butler’s livery.
Face
What mean you, sir?
1, 2, 4 Neighbour
O, here’s Jeremy!
Face
Good sir, come from the door.
Lovewit
Why, what’s the matter?
Face
Yet farther, you are too near yet.
Lovewit
In the name of wonder,
What means the fellow!
Face
The house, sir, has been visited.
Lovewit
What, with the plague? Stand thou then farther.
Face
No, sir,
I had it not.
Lovewit
Who had it then? I left
None else but thee in the house.
Face
Yes, sir, my fellow,
The cat that kept the buttery, had it on her
A week before I spied it; but I got her
Conveyed away in the night: and so I shut
The house up for a month—
Lovewit
How!
Face
Purposing then, sir,
To have burnt rose-vinegar, treacle, and tar,
And have made it sweet, that you should ne’er have known it;
Because I knew the news would but afflict you, sir.
Lovewit
Breathe less, and farther off! Why this is stranger:
The neighbours tell me all here that the doors
Have still been open—
Face
How, sir!
Lovewit
Gallants, men and women,
And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here
In threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hogsden,
In days of Pimlico and Eye-bright.
Face
Sir,
Their wisdoms will not say so.
Lovewit
Today they speak
Of coaches and gallants; one in a French hood
Went in, they tell me; and another was seen
In a velvet gown at the window: divers more
Pass in and out.
Face
They did pass through the doors then,
Or walls, I assure their eyesights, and their spectacles;
For here, sir, are the keys, and here have been,
In this my pocket, now above twenty days:
And for before, I kept the fort alone there.
But that ’tis yet not deep in the afternoon,
I should believe my neighbours had seen double
Through the black pot, and made these apparitions!
For, on my faith to your worship, for these three weeks
And upwards the door has not been opened.
Lovewit
Strange!
1 Neighbour
Good faith, I think I saw a coach.
2 Neighbour
And I too,
I’d have been sworn.
Lovewit
Do you but think it now?
And but one coach?
4 Neighbour
We cannot tell, sir: Jeremy
Is a very honest fellow.
Face
Did you see me at all?
1 Neighbour
No; that we are sure on.
2 Neighbour
I’ll be sworn o’ that.
Lovewit
Fine rogues to have your testimonies built on!
Reenter 3 Neighbour, with his tools.
3 Neighbour
Is Jeremy come!
1 Neighbour
O yes; you may leave your tools;
We were deceived, he says.
2 Neighbour
He has had the keys;
And the door has been shut these three weeks.
3 Neighbour
Like enough.
Lovewit
Peace, and get hence, you changelings.
Enter Surly and Mammon.
Face
Aside. Surly come!
And Mammon made acquainted! They’ll tell all.
How shall I beat them off? What shall I do?
Nothing’s more wretched than a guilty conscience.
Pertinax Surly
No, sir, he was a great physician. This,
It was no bawdyhouse, but a mere chancel!
You knew the lord and his sister.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Nay, good Surly.—
Pertinax Surly
The happy word, Be Rich—
Sir Epicure Mammon
Play not the tyrant.—
Pertinax Surly
“Should be today pronounced to all your friends.”
And where be your andirons now? And your brass pots,
That should have been golden flagons, and great wedges?
Sir Epicure Mammon
Let me but breathe. What, they have shut their doors,
Methinks!
Pertinax Surly
Ay, now ’tis holiday with them.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Rogues,
He and Surly knock.
Cozeners, imposters, bawds!
Face
What mean you, sir?
Sir Epicure Mammon
To enter if we can.
Face
Another man’s house!
Here is the owner, sir: turn you to him,
And speak your business.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Are you, sir, the owner?
Lovewit
Yes, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
And are those knaves within your cheaters!
Lovewit
What knaves, what cheaters?
Sir Epicure Mammon
Subtle and his Lungs.
Face
The gentleman is distracted, sir! No lungs,
Nor lights have been seen here these three weeks, sir,
Within these doors, upon my word.
Pertinax Surly
Your word,
Groom arrogant!
Face
Yes, sir, I am the housekeeper,
And know the keys have not been out of my hands.
Pertinax Surly
This is a new Face.
Face
You do mistake the house, sir:
What sign was’t at?
Pertinax Surly
You rascal! This is one
Of the confederacy. Come, let’s get officers,
And force the door.
Lovewit
’Pray you stay, gentlemen.
Pertinax Surly
No, sir, we’ll come with warrant.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Ay, and then
We shall have your doors open.
Exeunt Mammon and Surly.
Lovewit
What means this?
Face
I cannot tell, sir.
1 Neighbour
These are two of the gallants
That we do think we saw.
Face
Two of the fools!
Your talk as idly as they. Good faith, sir,
I think the moon has crazed ’em all.—
Aside.
O me,
Enter Kastril.
The angry boy come too! He’ll make a noise,
And ne’er away till he have betrayed us all.
Kastril
Knocking.
What rogues, bawds, slaves, you’ll open the door, anon!
Punk, cockatrice, my sister! By this light
I’ll fetch the marshal to you. You are a whore
To keep your castle—
Face
Who would you speak with, sir?
Kastril
The bawdy Doctor, and the cozening Captain,
And puss my sister.
Lovewit
This is something, sure.
Face
Upon my trust, the doors were never open, sir.
Kastril
I have heard all their tricks told me twice over,
By the fat knight and the lean gentleman.
Lovewit
Here comes another.
Enter Ananias and Tribulation.
Face
Ananias too!
And his pastor!
Tribulation Wholesome
Beating at the door.
The doors are shut against us.
Ananias
Come forth, you seed of sulphur, sons of fire!
Your stench it is broke forth; abomination
Is in the house.
Kastril
Ay, my sister’s there.
Ananias
The place,
It is become a cage of unclean birds.
Kastril
Yes, I will fetch the scavenger, and the constable.
Tribulation Wholesome
You shall do well.
Ananias
We’ll join to weed them out.
Kastril
You will not come then, punk devise, my sister!
Ananias
Call her not sister; she’s a harlot verily.
Kastril
I’ll raise the street.
Lovewit
Good gentlemen, a word.
Ananias
Satan avoid, and hinder not our zeal!
Exeunt Ananias, Tribulation, and Kastril.
Lovewit
The world’s turned Bedlam.
Face
These are all broke loose,
Out of St. Katherine’s, where they use to keep
The better sort of mad-folks.
1 Neighbour
All these persons
We saw go in and out here.
2 Neighbour
Yes, indeed, sir.
3 Neighbour
These were the parties.
Face
Peace, you drunkards! Sir,
I wonder at it: please you to give me leave
To touch the door, I’ll try an the lock be changed.
Lovewit
It mazes me!
Face
Goes to the door. Good faith, sir, I believe
There’s no such thing: ’tis all deceptio visus.—
Aside.
Would I could get him away.
Dapper
Within. Master Captain! Master Doctor!
Lovewit
Who’s that?
Face
Aside. Our clerk within, that I forgot!
I know not, sir.
Dapper
Within. For God’s sake, when will her Grace be at leisure?
Face
Ha!
Illusions, some spirit o’ the air—
Aside. His gag is melted,
And now he sets out the throat.
Dapper
Within. I am almost stifled—
Face
Aside. Would you were altogether.
Lovewit
’Tis in the house.
Ha! List.
Face
Believe it, sir, in the air.
Lovewit
Peace, you.
Dapper
Within. Mine aunt’s Grace does not use me well.
Subtle
Within. You fool,
Peace, you’ll mar all.
Face
Speaks through the keyhole, while Lovewit advances to the door unobserved.
Or you will else, you rogue.
Lovewit
O, is it so? Then you converse with spirits!—
Come, sir. No more of your tricks, good Jeremy.
The truth, the shortest way.
Face
Dismiss this rabble, sir.—
Aside. What shall I do? I am catched.
Lovewit
Good neighbours,
I thank you all. You may depart.
Exeunt Neighbours.
—Come, sir,
You know that I am an indulgent master;
And therefore conceal nothing. What’s your medicine,
To draw so many several sorts of wild fowl?
Face
Sir, you were wont to affect mirth and wit—
But here’s no place to talk on’t in the street.
Give me but leave to make the best of my fortune,
And only pardon me the abuse of your house:
It’s all I beg. I’ll help you to a widow,
In recompence, that you shall give me thanks for,
Will make you seven years younger, and a rich one.
’Tis but your putting on a Spanish cloak:
I have her within. You need not fear the house;
It was not visited.
Lovewit
But by me, who came
Sooner than you expected.
Face
It is true, sir.
’Pray you forgive me.
Lovewit
Well: let’s see your widow.
Exeunt.