Scene III A Room in Candido’s House. Candido, the Bride and Guests Discovered at Dinner; Prentices Waiting on Them
Enter Lodovico, Carolo, and Astolfo.
Cand. O gentlemen, so late, you are very welcome, pray sit down.
Lod. Carolo, did’st e’er see such a nest of caps?241
Ast. Methinks it’s a most civil and most comely sight.
Lod. What does he i’th’ middle look like?
Ast. Troth, like a spire steeple in a country village overpeering so many thatched houses.
Lod. It’s rather a long pike-staff against so many bucklers without pikes;242 they sit for all the world like a pair of organs, and he’s the tall great roaring pipe i’ th’ midst.
Ast. Ha, ha, ha, ha!
Cand. What’s that you laugh at, signors?
Lod. Troth, shall I tell you, and aloud I’ll tell it;
We laugh to see, yet laugh we not in scorn,
Amongst so many caps that long hat worn.
1st Guest. Mine is as tall a felt as any is this day in Milan, and therefore I love it, for the block243 was cleft out for my head, and fits me to a hair.
Cand. Indeed you’re good observers; it shows strange:
But gentlemen, I pray neither contemn,
Nor yet deride a civil ornament;
I could build so much in the round cap’s praise,
That ’bove this high roof, I this flat would raise.
Lod. Prithee, sweet bridegroom, do’t.
Cand. So all these guests will pardon me, I’ll do’t.
Guests. With all our hearts.
Cand. Thus, then, in the cap’s honour.
To every sex, and state, both nature, time,
The country’s laws, yea, and the very clime
Do allot distinct habits; the spruce courtier
Jets244 up and down in silk: the warrior
Marches in buff, the clown plods on in gray:
But for these upper garments thus I say,
The seaman has his cap, pared without brim;
The gallant’s head is feathered, that fits him;
The soldier has his morion, women ha’ tires;
Beasts have their head-pieces, and men ha’ theirs.
Lod. Proceed.
Cand. Each degree has his fashion, it’s fit then,
One should be laid by for the citizen,
And that’s the cap which you see swells not high,
For caps are emblems of humility.
It is a citizen’s badge, and first was worn
By th’ Romans; for when any bondman’s turn
Came to be made a freeman, thus ’twas said,
He to the cap was called, that is, was made
Of Rome a freeman; but was first close shorn:
And so a citizen’s hair is still short worn.
Lod. That close shaving made barbers a company,
And now every citizen uses it.
Cand. Of geometric figures the most rare,
And perfect’st, are the circle and the square;
The city and the school much build upon
These figures, for both love proportion.
The city-cap is round, the scholar’s square,
To show that government and learning are
The perfect’st limbs i’ th’ body of a state:
For without them, all’s disproportionate.
If the cap had no honour, this might rear it,
The reverend fathers of the law do wear it.
It’s light for summer, and in cold it sits
Close to the skull, a warm house for the wits;
It shows the whole face boldly, ’tis not made
As if a man to look on’t were afraid,
Nor like a draper’s shop with broad dark shed,
For he’s no citizen that hides his head.
Flat caps as proper are to city gowns,
As to armours helmets, or to kings their crowns.
Let then the city-cap by none be scorned,
Since with it princes’ heads have been adorned.
If more the round cap’s honour you would know,
How would this long gown with this steeple245 show?
All. Ha, ha, ha! most vile, most ugly.
Cand. Pray, signor, pardon me, ’twas done in jest.
Bride. A cup of claret wine there.
1st Pren. Wine? yes, forsooth, wine for the bride.
Car. You ha’ well set out the cap, sir.
Lod. Nay, that’s flat.
Cand. A health!
Lod. Since his cap’s round, that shall go round. Be bare,
For in the cap’s praise all of you have share.
[They bare their heads and drink. As 1st Prentice offers the wine to the Bride, she hits him on the lips, breaking the glass.
The bride’s at cuffs.
Cand. Oh, peace, I pray thee, thus far off I stand,
I spied the error of my servants;
She called for claret, and you filled out sack;
That cup give me, ’tis for an old man’s back,
And not for hers. Indeed, ’twas but mistaken;
Ask all these else.
Guests. No faith, ’twas but mistaken.
1st Pren. Nay, she took it right enough.
Cand. Good Luke, reach her that glass of claret.
Here mistress bride, pledge me there.
Bride. Now I’ll none. [Exit.
Cand. How now?
Lod. Look what your mistress ails.
1st Pren. Nothing, sir, but about filling a wrong glass,—a scurvy trick.
Cand. I pray you, hold your tongue.—My servant there tells me she is not well.
Guests. Step to her, step to her.
Lod. A word with you: do ye hear? This wench, your new wife, will take you down in your wedding shoes, unless you hang her up in her wedding garters.
Cand. How, hang her in her garters?
Lod. Will you be a tame pigeon still? Shall your back be like a tortoise shell, to let carts go over it, yet not to break? This she-cat will have more lives than your last puss had, and will scratch worse, and mouse you worse: look to’t.
Cand. What would you have me do, sir?
Lod. What would I have you do? Swear, swagger, brawl, fling! for fighting it’s no matter, we ha’ had knocking pusses enow already; you know, that a woman was made of the rib of a man, and that rib was crooked. The moral of which is, that a man must, from his beginning be crooked to his wife; be you like an orange to her, let her cut you never so fair, be you sour as vinegar. Will you be ruled by me?
Cand. In any thing that’s civil, honest, and just.
Lod. Have you ever a prentice’s suit will fit me?
Cand. I have the very same which myself wore.
Lod. I’ll send my man for’t within this half hour, and within this two hour I’ll be your prentice. The hen shall not overcrow the cock; I’ll sharpen your spurs.
Cand. It will be but some jest, sir?
Lod. Only a jest: farewell, come, Carolo. [Exeunt Lodovico, Carolo, and Astolfo.
Guests. We’ll take our leaves, sir, too.
Cand. Pray conceit not ill
Of my wife’s sudden rising. This young knight,
Sir Lodovico, is deep seen in physic,
And he tells me, the disease called the mother,246
Hangs on my wife, it is a vehement heaving
And beating of the stomach, and that swelling
Did with the pain thereof cramp up her arm,
That hit his lips, and brake the glass,—no harm,
It was no harm!
Guests. No, signor, none at all.
Cand. The straightest arrow may fly wide by chance.
But come, we’ll close this brawl up in some dance. [Exeunt.