William Shakespeare - The Complete Apocryphal Works of William Shakespeare - All 17 Rare Plays in One Edition

Or both; yet if true love may seem desert,

I merit still to have thy company.

FRANKLIN

Why, I pray you sir, let her go along with us;

I am sure his honor will welcome her

And us the more for bringing her along.

ARDEN

Content; sirrah, saddle your mistress’ nag.

ALICE

No, begged favor merits little thanks.

If I should go, our house would run away,

Or else be stolen. Therefore I’ll stay behind.

ARDEN

Nay, see how mistaking you are,

I pray thee go.

ALICE

No no, not now.

ARDEN

Then let me leave thee satisfied in this,

That time nor place, nor persons alter me,

But that I hold thee dearer than my life.

ALICE

That will be seen by your quick return.

ARDEN

And that shall be ere night, and if I live.

Farewell, sweet Alice, we mind to sup with thee. (Exit ALICE

FRANKLIN

Come, Michael, are our horses ready?

MICHAEL

Ay, your horse are ready, but I am not ready,

For I have lost my purse,

With six and thiry shillings in it,

With taking up of my master’s nag.

FRANKLIN

Why, I pray you, let us go before,

Whilst he stays behind to seek his purse.

ARDEN

Go to, sirrah, see you follow us to the isle of sheppey,

To my lord cheney’s, where we mean to dine.

(Exeunt Arden and FRANKLIN

Manet MICHAEL

MICHAEL

So, fair weather after you,

For before you lies Black Will and Shakebag

In the broom close, too close for you:

They’ll be your ferrymen to long home. (here enters the painter.

But who is this, the painter, my corrival,

That would needs win mistress SUSAN

CLARKE

How now, Michael, how doth my mistress,

And all at home?

MICHAEL

Who, Susan Mosbie? She’s your mistress too?

CLARKE

Ay, how doth she and all the rest?

MICHAEL

All’s well but Susan; she is sick.

CLARKE

Sick? Of what disease?

MICHAEL

Of a great fear.

CLARKE

A fear of what?

MICHAEL

A great fever.

CLARKE

A fever, god forbid!

MICHAEL

Yes, faith, and of a lordaine, too,

As big as your self.

CLARKE

O, Michael, the spleen prickles you.

Go to, you carry an eye over mistress SUSAN

MICHAEL

I’faith, to keep her from the painter.

CLARKE

Why more from a painter than from a serving

Creature like your self?

Of a pretty wench, and spoil her beauty with blotting.

CLARKE

What mean you by that?

MICHAEL

Why that you painters, paint lambs in the

Lining of wenches’ petticoats,

And we serving men put horns to them to make them become sheep.

CLARKE

Such another word will cost you a cuff or a knock.

MICHAEL

What, with a dagger made of a pencil?

Faith, ‘tis too weak,

And therefore thou too weak to win SUSAN

CLARKE

Would Susan’s love lay upon this stroke.

(then he breaks Michael’s head. Here Enter Mosbie, Greene and ALICE

ALICE

I’ll lay my life, this is for Susan’s love.

Stayed you behind your master to this end?

Have you no other time to brabble in

But now when serious matters are in hand? -

Say, Clarke, hast thou done the thing thou promised?

CLARKE

Ay, here it is; the very touch is death.

ALICE

Then this, I hope, if all the rest do fail

Will catch master Arden,

And make him wise in death that lived a fool.

Why should he thrust his sickle in our corn,

Or what hath he to do with thee, my love,

Or govern me that am to rule myself?

Forsooth, for credit sake, I must leave thee!

Nay, he must leave to live that we may love,

May live, may love; for what is life but love?

And love shall last as long as life remains,

And life shall end before my love depart.

MOSBIE

Why, what’s love without true constancy?

Like to a pillar built of many stones,

Yet neither with good mortar well compact

Nor with cement to fasten it in the joints,

But that it shakes with every blast of wind,

And, being touched, straight falls unto the earth,

And buries all his haughty pride in dust.

No, let our love be rocks of adamant,

Which time nor place nor tempest can asunder.

GREENE

Mosbie, leave protestations now,

And let us bethink us what we have to do,

Black Will and Shakebag I have placed

Let’s to them and see what they have done.

(here enters Arden and FRANKLIN

ARDEN

Oh, ferryman, where art thou?

FRANKLIN

Friend, what’s thy opinion of this mist?

FERRYMAN

I think ‘tis like to a curst wife in a little house,

That never leaves her husband till she have driven him

Out at doors with a wet pair of eyes,

Then looks he as if his house were a fire,

Or some of his friends dead.

ARDEN

Speaks thou this of thine own experience?

FERRYMAN

Perhaps, ay; perhaps, no: for my wife is as other

Women are, that is to say, governed by the moon.

FRANKLIN

by the moon? How, I pray thee?

FERRYMAN

Nay, thereby lies a bargain,

And you shall not have it fresh and fasting.

ARDEN