That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber;
And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.
Tell him from me, as he will win my love,
He bear himself with honourable action,
Such as he hath observed in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplished:
Such duty to the drunkard let him do
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say 'What is 't your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife

May show her duty and make known her love?'
And then with kind embracements, tempting

kisses,

And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd
To see her noble lord restored to health,
Who for this seven years hath esteemed him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar:
And if the boy have not a woman's gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which in a napkin being close convey'd
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst :
Anon I'll give thee more instructions.

[Exit a Servingman.

I know the boy will well usurp the grace,

Voice, gait and action of a gentlewoman :

I long to hear him call the drunkard husband,

And how my men will stay themselves from

laughter

When they do homage to this simple peasant.

I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence

110

120

130

112. accomplished, performed.

119. with declining head into,

with head declining into (a common inversion).

131. usurp, assume.

May well abate the over-merry spleen

Which otherwise would grow into extremes.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. A bedchamber in the Lord's house.

Enter aloft SLY, with Attendants; some with apparel, others with basin and ewer and other appurtenances; and Lord.

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

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

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

Third Serv. What raiment will your honour wear to-day?

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 10 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 Christopher Sly, old Sly's son of Burton

137. over-merry spleen, the spleen was the supposed organ alike of laughter and of vexation.

14. cease, cause to cease. 19. Burton-heath, probably Barton-on-the-Heath, a Warwickshire village.

heath, by birth a pedlar, by education a card- 20 maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, 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 be

Third Serv. O, this it is that makes your lady mourn!

Sec. Serv. O, this is it that makes your servants droop!

Lord. Hence comes it that your kindred shuns 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

30

And twenty caged nightingales do sing:

[Music.

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,
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?

21. bear-herd, bearward. 23. Wincot, or Wilmecote, is a village near Stratford, the birthplace of Shakespeare's mother.

25. sheer, unmixed.

26. bestraught, distracted.
33. ancient, former.
43. trapp'd, arrayed.

40

Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
First Serv. Say thou wilt course; thy grey-
hounds are as swift

As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.

Sec. 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 surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.

Third 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.

First Serv. And till the tears that she hath shed
for thee

Like envious floods o'er-run 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

50

60

70

age in which beauty is declining. 69. yet, even now.

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

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

-O, how we joy to see your wit restored!

O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream;
Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept.
Sly. These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly
nap.

But did I never speak of all that time?

First 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.

Third 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 Greece
And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell
And twenty more such names and men as these

80

90

95. Stephen Sly was the name of a resident at Stratford, variously described in the records as a labourer and as 'servant to W. Combe.' A Joan Sly was subsequently (1630) fined by the Stratford magistrates for breaking the Sabbath by travelling (Lee).