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SCENE II.

A Bedchamber in the Lord's House.

Enter

SLY is discovered, with Attendants; some with apparel, others with bason, ewer, and appurtenances. LORD, dressed like a Servant.

Sly. For God's sake, a pot of small ale.

1 Serv. Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?

2 Serv. Will't please your honour taste of these conserves?

3 Serv. What raiment will your honour wear today?

Sly. I am Christophero Sly; call not me honour, nor lordship: I ne'er drank sack in my life'; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef. Ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear, for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay, sometime, more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.

Lord. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour! O! that a mighty man, of such descent, Of such possessions, and so high esteem, Should be infused with so foul a spirit!

Sly. What! would you make me mad? Am not I

• Sly is discovered,] The old stage-direction is, "Enter aloft the drunkard with attendants," &c. ; the meaning of which is, that Sly and those about him were represented in a balcony at the back of the stage, whence they were to witness the performance of the actors. Such appears to have been invariably the case when a play within a play was represented in our old theatres; directly the reverse of our modern practice, where the play within a play is exhibited on a raised platform at the back of the stage, and the actors in the main play are in front.

1 I NE'ER drank sack in my life ;] So the old copy of 1623; as afterwards, "Ne'er ask me," &c. This is consistent, and there is no reason against it; though the modern editions have "never" in one instance, and "ne'er" in the other.

VOL. III.

I

Christopher Sly, old Sly's son, of Burton-heath'; by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd', and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot1, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not

bestraught. Here's

1 Serv. O! this it is that makes your lady mourn. 2 Serv. O! this it is that makes your servants

droop.

Lord. Hence comes it that your kindred shun your house,

As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.

O, noble lord! bethink thee of thy birth;

Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.

Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck:

Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays, [Music.

And twenty caged nightingales do sing:

Or wilt thou sleep? we'll have thee to a couch,
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed

On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.

Say thou wilt walk, we will bestrew the ground :
Or wilt thou ride, thy horses shall be trapp'd,

2 old Sly's son, of BURTON-HEATH ;] Perhaps, as Malone suggests, we ought to read, Barton-on-the-heath, a village in Warwickshire.

3 by transmutation a BEAR-HERD,] i. e. Bear-ward. See vol. ii. p. 202, note 2.

4 Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot,] Doubtless, Marian Hacket was living and well known at Wincot, about four miles from Stratford-uponAvon, at the time this play was written. Afterwards (p. 116) Cicely Hacket is spoken of by one of the servants.

5 What! I am not BESTRAUGHT.] 66 Bestraught" was used by Lord Surrey, Warner, and other good writers, as synonymous with distraught, or distracted. We also meet with it in the very rare romance of "Narbonus," by Austin Saker, 1580, 4to: "Now, if the olde souldyours were thus afflicted, and the auncient captaynes so tormented, Narbonus was also bestraught and incensed."

O! this IT IS] The folio inverts IT IS ; but most likely it was meant that one servant should follow the form of expression used by the other.

Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark: or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them,
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.

1 Serv. Say thou wilt course, thy greyhounds are as swift

As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.

2 Serv. Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight

Adonis painted by a running brook,

And Cytherea all in sedges hid,

Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,

Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

Lord. We'll show thee Io as she was a maid, And how she was beguiled and surpris'd,

As lively painted as the deed was done.

3 Serv. Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood, Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds; And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,

So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.

Lord. Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord: Thou hast a lady, far more beautiful

Than any woman in this waning age.

1 Serv. And, till the tears that she hath shed for

thee,

Like envious floods, o'er-ran her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;

And yet she is inferior to none.

Sly. Am I a lord? and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? or have I dream'd till now?
I do not sleep; I see, I hear, I speak :
I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things.-
Upon my life, I am a lord, indeed,

And not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly.-
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o' the smallest ale.

2 Serv. Will't please your mightiness to wash your hands?

[Servants present an ewer, bason, and napkin. O, how we joy to see your wit restor❜d!

O, that once more you knew but what you are !
These fifteen years you have been in a dream,
Or, when you wak'd, so wak'd as if you slept.

Sly. These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap. But did I never speak of all that time?

1 Serv. O! yes, my lord, but very idle words;-
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say, ye were beaten out of door,
And rail upon the hostess of the house,

And say you would present her at the leet',
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts.
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.
Sly. Ay, the woman's maid of the house.

3 Serv. Why, sir, you know no house, nor no such maid,

Nor no such men, as you have reckon'd up,-
As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece3,
And Peter Turf, and Henry Pimpernell,

And twenty more such names and men as these,
Which never were, nor no man ever saw.

Sly. Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!
All. Amen.

Sly. I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.

Enter the Page, as a lady, with Attendants.

Page. How fares my noble lord?

Sly. Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough. Where is my wife?

7leet,] i. e. At the Court-leet.

8

old John Naps of Greece,] Blackstone suggested that we ought to read, o' the Green, instead "of Greece ;" and it is the more probable, when we reflect that green was formerly almost invariably spelt with a final e.

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"John Naps of

Greece" seems nonsense, notwithstanding it has been shown by Steevens that a hart of greece or grease, meant a fat hart: hence he argues that it was only a mode of calling John Naps a fat man.

Page. Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her? Sly. Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?

My men should call me lord: I am your good-man. Page. My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;

I am your wife in all obedience.

Sly. I know it well.-What must I call her?
Lord. Madam.

Sly. Al'ce madam, or Joan madam?

Lord. Madam, and nothing else: so lords call ladies.
Sly. Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd,

And slept above some fifteen year and more.
Page. Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon'd from your bed.

Sly. "Tis much. Servants, leave me and her

alone.

Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.

Page. Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you

To pardon me yet for a night or two;

Or if not so, until the sun be set,

For your physicians have expressly charg'd,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed.

I hope this reason stands for my excuse.

Sly. Ay, it stands so, that I may hardly tarry so long; but I would be loath to fall into my dreams again I will therefore tarry, in despite of the flesh and the blood.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. Your honour's players, hearing your amendment,

Are come to play a pleasant comedy;

For so your doctors hold it very meet,

Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:

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