Scene III Within the Smith’s House
Enter Adam and the Smith’s Wife.
Adam. Why, but hear you, mistress: you know a woman’s eyes are like a pair of pattens, fit to save shoe-leather in summer, and to keep away the cold in winter; so you may like your husband with the one eye, because you are married, and me with the other, because I am your man. Alas, alas! think, mistress, what a thing love is: why, it is like to an ostry-faggot,99 that, once set on fire, is as hardly quenched as the bird100 crocodile driven out of her nest.
S. Wife. Why, Adam, cannot a woman wink but she must sleep? and can she not love but she must cry it out at the cross? Know, Adam, I love thee as myself, now that we are together in secret.
Adam. Mistress, these words of yours are like to a fox-tail placed in a gentlewoman’s fan, which, as it is light, so it giveth life: O, these words are as sweet as a lily! whereupon, offering a borachio101 of kisses to your unseemly personage, I entertain you upon further acquaintance.
S. Wife. Alas, my husband comes!
Adam. Strike up the drum
And say no words but mum.
Enter the Smith.
Smith. Sirrah you, and you, huswife, well taken together! I have long suspected you, and now I am glad I have found you together.
Adam. Truly, sir, and I am glad that I may do you any way pleasure, either in helping you or my mistress.
Smith. Boy here, and knave, you shall know it straight; I will have you both before the magistrate, and there have you surely punished.
Adam. Why, then, master, you are jealous?
Smith. Jealous, knave! how can I be but jealous, to see you ever so familiar together? Thou art not only content to drink away my goods, but to abuse my wife.
Adam. Two good qualities, drunkenness and lechery: but, master, are you jealous?
Smith. Ay, knave, and thou shalt know it ere I pass, for I will beswinge thee while this rope will hold.
S. Wife. My good husband, abuse him not, for he never proffered you any wrong.
Smith. Nay, whore, thy part shall not be behind.
Adam. Why, suppose, master, I have offended you, is it lawful for the master to beat the servant for all offences?
Smith. Ay, marry, is it, knave.
Adam. Then, master, will I prove by logic, that seeing all sins are to receive correction, the master is to be corrected of the man. And, sir, I pray you, what greater sin is than jealousy? ’tis like a mad dog that for anger bites himself: therefore that I may do my duty to you, good master, and to make a white102 son of you, I will so beswinge jealousy out of you, as you shall love me the better while you live.
Smith. What, beat thy master, knave?
Adam. What, beat thy man, knave? and, ay, master, and double beat you, because you are a man of credit; and therefore have at you the fairest for forty pence. [Beats the Smith.
Smith. Alas, wife, help, help! my man kills me.
S. Wife. Nay, even as you have baked, so brew: jealousy must be driven out by extremities.
Adam. And that will I do, mistress.
Smith. Hold thy hand, Adam; and not only I forgive and forget all, but I will give thee a good farm to live on.
Adam. Begone, peasant, out of the compass of my further wrath, for I am a corrector of vice; and at night I will bring home my mistress.
Smith. Even when you please, good Adam.
Adam. When I please,—mark the words—’tis a lease-parol,103 to have and to hold. Thou shalt be mine for ever: and so let’s go to the ale-house. [Exeunt.
Oseas. Where servants against masters do rebel,
The commonweal may be accounted hell;
For if the feet the head shall hold in scorn,
The city’s state will fall and be forlorn.
This error, London, waiteth on thy state:
Servants, amend, and, masters, leave to hate;
Let love abound, and virtue reign in all;
So God will hold his hand, that threateneth thrall.