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