SUB.

No, your clothes.

Thou vermin, have I ta'en thee, out of dung,

So poor, so wretched, when no living thing

Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse?

Raised thee from brooms and dust and watering pots?

Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fixed thee

I' the third region, called our state of grace?

Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains

Would twice have won me the philosophers' work?

Put thee in words and fashion? Made thee fit

For more than ordinary fellowships?

Given thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions?

Thy rules, to cheat at horse-race; cock-pit, cards,

Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else?

Made thee a second in mine own great art?

And have I this for thank? Do you rebel?

Do you fly out, i' the projection?

Would you be gone now?

DOL.

Gentlemen, what mean you?

Will you mar all?

SUB.

Slave, thou hadst had no name –

DOL.

Will you undo yourselves, with civil war?

SUB.

Never been known, past equi clibanum,

The heat of horse-dung, underground, in cellars,

Or an ale-house, darker than deaf John's: been lost

To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters,

Had not I been.

DOL.

D'you know who hears you, Sovereign?

FAC.

Sirrah –

DOL.

Nay, General, I thought you were civil –

FAC.

I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.

SUB.

And hang thyself, I care not.

FAC.

Hang thee, collier,

And all thy pots and pans, in picture I will,

Since thou hast moved me. –

DOL.

(Oh, this'll o'verthrow all.)

FAC.

Write thee up bawd, in Paul's; have all thy tricks

Of cozening with a hollow coal, dust, scrapings,

Searching for things lost, with a sieve and shears,

Erecting figures, in your rows of houses,

And taking in of shadows, with a glass,

Told in red letters: and a face, cut for thee,

Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey's.

DOL.

Are you sound?

Ha' you your senses, masters?

FAC.

I will have

A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures,

Shall prove a true philosophers' stone, to printers.

SUB.

Away, you trencher-rascal.

FAC.

Out you dog-leach,

The vomit of all prisons –

DOL.

Will you be

Your own destructions, gentlemen?

FAC.

Still spewed out

For lying too heavy o' the basket.

SUB.

Cheater.

FAC.

Bawd.

SUB.

Cowherd.

FAC.

Conjurer.

SUB.

Cutpurse.

FAC.

Witch.

DOL.

Oh me!

We are ruined! Lost! Ha' you no more regard

To your reputations? Where's your judgement? 'Slight,

Have yet some care of me, o' your republic –

FAC.

Away this brach. I'll bring thee, rogue, within

The statute of sorcery, tricesimo tertio,

Of Harry the Eight: aye, and (perhaps) thy neck

Within a noose, for laundering gold, and barbing it.

DOL.

You'll bring your head within a cockscomb, will you?

 

(She catcheth out Face his sword: and breaks Subtle's glass)

 

And you, sir, with your menstrue, gather it up.

'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,

Leave off your barking, and grow one again,

Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats.

I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal,

For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt o' you both.

Ha' you together cozened all this while,

And all the world, and shall it now be said

Yo've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?

 

[To Face]

 

You will accuse him? You will bring him in

Within the statute? Who shall take your word?

A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,

Whom not a puritan in Blackfriars will trust

So much as for a feather!

 

[To Subtle]

 

And you, too,

Will give the cause, forsooth? You will insult,

And claim a primacy in the divisions?

You must be chief? As if you, only, had

The powder to project with? And the work

Were not begun out of equality?

The venture tripartite? All things in common?

Without priority? 'Sdeath, you perpetual curs,

Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,

And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,

And lose not the beginning of a term,

Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,

And take my part, and quit you.

FAC.

'Tis his fault,

He ever murmurs, and objects his pains,

And says the weight of all lies upon him.

SUB.

Why, so it does.

DOL.

How does it? Do not we

Sustain our parts?

SUB.

Yes, but they are not equal.

DOL.

Why, if your part exceed today, I hope

Ours may, tomorrow, match it.

SUB.

Aye, they may.

DOL.

May, murmuring mastiff? Aye, and do. Death on me!

Help me to throttle him.

 

[Seizes Subtle by the throat]

 

SUB.

Dorothy, mistress Dorothy,

'Ods precious, I'll do anything. What do you mean?

DOL.

Because o' your fermentation, and cibation?

SUB.

Not I, by heaven –

DOL.

Your Sol and Luna – help me.

SUB.

Would I were hanged then. I'll conform myself.

DOL.

Will you, sir, do so then, and quickly: swear.

SUB.

What should I swear?

DOL.

To leave your factions, sir.

And labour, kindly, in the common work.

SUB.

Let me not breathe, if I meant aught beside.

I only used those speeches as a spur

To him.

DOL.

I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we?

FAC.

'Slid, prove today, who shall shark best.

SUB.

Agreed.

DOL.

Yes, and work close, and friendly.

SUB.

'Slight, the knot

Shall grow the stronger, for this breach, with me.

DOL.

Why so, my good baboons! Shall we go make

A sort of sober, scruffy, precise neighbours,

(That scarce have smiled twice, sin' the king came in)

A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals,

Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride,

Or you to have but a hole to thrust your heads in,

For which you should pay ear-rent? No, agree.

And may Don Provost ride a-feasting, long,

In his old velvet jerkin, and stained scarfs,

(My noble Sovereign, and worthy General)

Ere we contribute a new crewel garter

To his most worsted worship.

SUB.

Royal Dol!

Spoken like Claridiana, and thyself!

FAC.

For which, at supper, thou shalt sit in triumph,

And not be styled Dol Common, but Dol Proper,

Dol Singular: the longest cut, at night,

Shall draw thee for his Dol Particular.

SUB.

Who's that? One rings. To the window, Dol. Pray heaven,

The master do not trouble us this quarter.

FAC.

Oh, fear not him. While there dies one a week

O'the plague, he's safe from thinking toward London.

Beside, he's busy at his hopyards now:

I had a letter from him. If he do,

He'll send such word, for airing o' the house

As you shall have sufficient time to quit it:

Though we break up a fortnight, 'tis no matter.

SUB.

Who is it, Dol?

DOL.

A fine young quodling.

FAC.

Oh,

My lawyer's clerk, I lighted on last night

In Holborn, at the Dagger.