Scene II An Apartment in Bridewell
Enter Duke, Infelice, Carolo, Astolfo, Beraldo, Fontinell, and several Masters of Bridewell.
Duke. Your Bridewell? that the name? for beauty, strength,
Capacity and form of ancient building,
Besides the river’s neighbourhood, few houses
Wherein we keep our court can better it.
1st Mast. Hither from foreign courts have princes come,
And with our duke did acts of State commence,
Here that great cardinal had first audience,
The grave Campayne; that duke dead, his son
That famous prince gave free possession
Of this, his palace, to the citizens,
To be the poor man’s ware-house; and endowed it
With lands to the value of seven hundred marks,308
With all the bedding and the furniture, once proper,
As the lands then were, to an hospital
Belonging to a Duke of Savoy. Thus
Fortune can toss the world; a prince’s court
Is thus a prison now.
Duke. ’Tis Fortune’s sport:
These changes common are: the wheel of fate
Turns kingdoms up, till they fall desolate.
But how are these seven hundred marks by th’ year
Employed in this your work-house?
1st Mast. War and peace
Feed both upon those lands: when the iron doors
Of war burst open, from this house are sent
Men furnished in all martial complement.
The moon hath thorough her bow scarce drawn to th’ head,
Like to twelve silver arrows, all the months,
Since sixteen hundred soldiers went abroad.
Here providence and charity play such parts,
The house is like a very school of arts,
For when our soldiers, like ships driven from sea,
With ribs all broken, and with tattered sides,
Cast anchor here again, their ragged backs
How often do we cover! that, like men,
They may be sent to their own homes again.
All here are but one swarm of bees, and strive
To bring with wearied thighs honey to the hive.
The sturdy beggar, and the lazy loon,
Gets here hard hands, or laced correction.
The vagabond grows staid, and learns t’obey,
The drone is beaten well, and sent away.
As other prisons are, some for the thief,
Some, by which undone credit gets relief
From bridled debtors; others for the poor,
So this is for the bawd, the rogue, the whore.
Car. An excellent team of horse!
1st Mast. Nor is it seen
That the whip draws blood here, to cool the spleen
Of any rugged bencher; nor does offence
Feel smart on spiteful, or rash evidence:
But pregnant testimony forth must stand,
Ere justice leave them in the beadle’s hand,
As iron, on the anvil are they laid,
Not to take blows alone, but to be made
And fashioned to some charitable use.
Duke. Thus wholsom’st laws spring from the worst abuse.
Enter Orlando, disguised as a Serving-man, and Bellafront.
Bell. Let mercy touch your heart-strings, gracious lord,
That it may sound like music in the ear
Of a man desperate, being i’th’ hands of law.
Duke. His name?
Bell. Matheo.
Duke. For a robbery? where is he?
Bell. In this house. [Exeunt Bellafront and 2nd Master.
Duke. Fetch you him hither—Is
this the party?
Orl. This is the hen, my lord, that the cock with the lordly comb, your son-in-law, would crow over, and tread.
Duke. Are your two servants ready?
Orl. My two pedlars are packed together, my good lord.
Duke. ’Tis well: this day in judgment shall be spent:
Vice, like a wound lanced, mends by punishment.
Inf. Let me be gone, my lord, or stand unseen;
’Tis rare when a judge strikes, and that none die,
And ’tis unfit then women should be by.
1st Mast. We’ll place you, lady, in some private room.
Inf. Pray do so. [Exit with 1st Master, who returns alone.
Orl. Thus nice dames swear, it is unfit their eyes
Should view men carved up for anatomies,309
Yet they’ll see all, so they may stand unseen;
Many women sure will sin behind a screen.
Enter Lodovico.
Lod. Your son, the Lord Hippolito, is entered.
Duke. Tell him we wish his presence. A word, Sforza;
On what wings flew he hither?
Lod. These—I told him his lark whom he loved, was a Bridewell-bird; he’s mad that this cage should hold her, and is come to let her out.
Duke. ’Tis excellent: away, go call him hither. [Exit Lodovico.
Re-enter on one side 2nd Master and Bellafront with Matheo, and Constable; on the other, Lodovico with Hippolito. Orlando goes out, and returns with two of his Servants disguised as Pedlars.
Duke. You are to us a stranger, worthy lord,
’Tis strange to see you here.
Hip. It is most fit,
That where the sun goes, atomies310 follow it.
Duke. Atomies neither shape, nor honour bear:
Be you yourself, a sunbeam to shine clear.—
Is this the gentleman? Stand forth and hear
Your accusation.
Mat. I’ll hear none: I fly high in that: rather than kites shall seize upon me, and pick out mine eyes to my face, I’ll strike my talons through mine own heart first, and spit my blood in theirs. I am here for shriving those two fools of their sinful pack: when those jackdaws have cawed over me, then must I cry guilty, or not guilty; the law has work enough already and therefore I’ll put no work of mine into his hands; the hangman shall ha’t first; I did pluck those ganders, did rob them.
Duke. ’Tis well done to confess.
Mat. Confess and be hanged, and then I fly high, is’t not so? That for that; a gallows is the worst rub that a good bowler can meet with; I stumbled against such a post, else this night I had played the part of a true son in these days, undone my father-in-law; with him would I ha’ run at leap-frog, and come over his gold, though I had broke his neck for’t: but the poor salmon-trout is now in the net.
Hip. And now the law must teach you to fly high.
Mat. Right, my lord, and then may you fly low; no more words:—a mouse, mum, you are stopped.
Bell. Be good to my poor husband, dear my lords.
Mat. Ass!
Why shouldst thou pray them to be good to me,
When no man here is good to one another?
Duke. Did any hand work in this theft but yours?
Mat. O, yes, my lord, yes:—the hangman has never one son at a birth, his children always come by couples: though I cannot give the old dog, my father, a bone to gnaw, the daughter shall be sure of a choke-pear.311 Yes, my lord, there was one more that fiddled my fine pedlars, and that was my wife.
Bell. Alas, I?
Orl. O everlasting, supernatural superlative villain! [Aside.
Duke, Lod., &c. Your wife, Matheo?
Hip. Sure it cannot be.
Mat. Oh, sir, you love no quarters of mutton that hang up, you love none but whole mutton. She set the robbery, I performed it; she spurred me on, I galloped away.
Orl. My lords,—
Bell. My lords,—fellow, give me speech,—if my poor life
May ransom thine, I yield it to the law,
Thou hurt’st thy soul, yet wip’st off no offence,
By casting blots upon my innocence:
Let not these spare me, but tell truth: no, see
Who slips his neck out of the misery,
Though not out of the mischief: let thy servant
That shared in this base act, accuse me here,
Why should my husband perish, he go clear?
Orl. A good child, hang thine own father! [Aside.
Duke. Old fellow, was thy hand in too?
Orl. My hand was in the pie, my lord, I confess it: my mistress, I see, will bring me to the gallows, and so leave me; but I’ll not leave her so: I had rather hang in a woman’s company, than in a man’s; because if we should go to hell together, I should scarce be letten in, for all the devils are afraid to have any women come amongst them. As I am true thief, she neither consented to this felony, nor knew of it.
Duke. What fury prompts thee on to kill thy wife?
Mat. It is my humour, sir, ’tis a foolish bag-pipe that I make myself merry with: why should I eat hemp-seed at the hangman’s thirteen-pence halfpenny312 ordinary, and have this whore laugh at me, as I swing, as I totter?
Duke. Is she a whore?
Mat. A six-penny mutton pasty, for any to cut up.
Orl. Ah, toad, toad, toad.
Mat. A barber’s cittern313 for every serving-man to play upon; that lord, your son, knows it.
Hip. I, sir? Am I her bawd then?
Mat. No, sir, but she’s your whore then.
Orl. Yea, spider; dost catch at great flies? [Aside.
Hip. My whore?
Mat. I cannot talk, sir, and tell of your rems and your rees and your whirligigs and devices: but, my lord, I found ’em like sparrows in one nest, billing together, and bulling of me. I took ’em in bed, was ready to kill him, was up to stab her—
Hip. Close thy rank jaws:—pardon me, I am vexed;
Thou art a villain, a malicious devil,
Deep as the place where thou art lost, thou liest,
Since I am thus far got into this storm,
I’ll through, and thou shall see I’ll through untouched,
When thou shalt perish in it.
Re-enter Infelice.
Inf. ’Tis my cue,
To enter now.—Room! let my prize314 be played;
I ha’ lurked in clouds, yet heard what all have said;
What jury more can prove sh’as wronged my bed,
Than her own husband; she must be punishèd.
I challenge law, my lord; letters and gold,
And jewels from my lord that woman took.
Hip. Against that black-mouthed devil, against letters and gold,
And against a jealous wife, I do uphold
Thus far her reputation; I could sooner
Shake th’ Appenine, and crumble rocks to dust,
Than, though Jove’s shower rained down, tempt her to lust.
Bel. What shall I say?
Orl. [Throwing off his disguise.] Say thou art not a whore, and that’s more than fifteen women amongst five hundred dare swear without lying: this shalt thou say—no, let me say’t for thee—thy husband’s a knave, this lord’s an honest man; thou art no punk, this lady’s a right lady. Pacheco is a thief as his master is, but old Orlando is as true a man as thy father is. I ha’ seen you fly high, sir, and I ha’ seen you fly low, sir, and to keep you from the gallows, sir, a blue coat have I worn, and a thief did I turn. Mine own men are the pedlars, my twenty pounds did fly high, sir, your wife’s gown did fly low, sir: whither fly you now, sir? you ha’ scaped the gallows, to the devil you fly next, sir. Am I right, my liege?
Duke. Your father has the true physician played.
Mat. And I am now his patient.
Hip. And be so still;
’Tis a good sign when our cheeks blush at ill.
Const. The linen-draper, Signor Candido,
He whom the city terms the patient man,
Is likewise here for buying of those lawns
The pedlars lost.
Inf. Alas, good Candido!
Duke. Fetch him [Exit Constable] and when these payments up are cast,
Weigh out your light gold, but let’s have them last.
Enter Candido and Constable, who presently goes out.
Duke. In Bridewell, Candido?
Cand. Yes, my good lord.
Duke. What make you here?
Cand. My lord, what make you here?
Duke. I’m here to save right, and to drive wrong hence.
Cand. And I to bear wrong here with patience.
Duke. You ha’ bought stol’n goods.
Cand. So they do say, my lord,
Yet bought I them upon a gentleman’s word,
And I imagine now, as I thought then,
That there be thieves, but no thieves, gentlemen.
Hip. Your credit’s cracked, being here.
Cand. No more than gold
Being cracked, which does his estimation hold.
I was in Bedlam once, but was I mad?
They made me pledge whores’ healths, but am I bad
Because I’m with bad people?
Duke. Well, stand by;
If you take wrong, we’ll cure the injury.
Re-enter Constable, after him Bots, then two Beadles, one with hemp, the other with a beetle.315
Duke. Stay, stay, what’s he? a prisoner?
Const. Yes, my lord.
Hip. He seems a soldier?
Bots. I am what I seem, sir, one of fortune’s bastards, a soldier and a gentleman, and am brought in here with master constable’s band of billmen, because they face me down that I live, like those that keep bowling alleys, by the sins of the people, in being a squire of the body.
Hip. Oh, an apple-squire.316
Bots. Yes, sir, that degree of scurvy squires; and that I am maintained by the best part that is commonly in a woman, by the worst players of those parts; but I am known to all this company.
Lod. My lord, ’tis true, we all know him, ’tis Lieutenant Bots.
Duke. Bots, and where ha’ you served, Bots?
Bots. In most of your hottest services in the Low-countries: at the Groyne I was wounded in this thigh, and halted upon’t, but ’tis now sound. In Cleveland I missed but little, having the bridge of my nose broken down with two great stones, as I was scaling a fort. I ha’ been tried, sir, too, in Gelderland, and ’scaped hardly there from being blown up at a breach: I was fired, and lay i’ th’ surgeon’s hands for’t, till the fall of the leaf following.
Hip. All this may be, and yet you no soldier.
Bots. No soldier, sir? I hope these are services that your proudest commanders do venture upon, and never come off sometimes.
Duke. Well, sir, because you say you are a soldier,
I’ll use you like a gentleman.—Make room there,
Plant him amongst you; we shall have anon
Strange hawks fly here before us: if none light
On you, you shall with freedom take your flight:
But if you prove a bird of baser wing,
We’ll use you like such birds, here you shall sing.
Bots. I wish to be tried at no other weapon.
Duke. Why, is he furnished with those implements?
1st Master. The pander is more dangerous to a State,
Than is the common thief; and though our laws
Lie heavier on the thief, yet that the pander
May know the hangman’s ruff should fit him too,
Therefore he’s set to beat hemp.
Duke. This does savour
Of justice; basest slaves to basest labour.
Now pray, set open hell, and let us see
The she-devils that are here.
Inf. Methinks this place
Should make e’en Lais honest.
1st Mast. Some it turns good,
But as some men, whose hands are once in blood,
Do in a pride spill more, so, some going hence,
Are, by being here, lost in more impudence.
Let it not to them, when they come, appear
That any one does as their judge sit here:
But that as gentlemen you come to see,
And then perhaps their tongues will walk more free.
Duke. Let them be marshalled in.—[Exeunt 1st and 2nd Masters, Constable, and Beadles.]—Be covered all, Fellows, now to make the scene more comical.
Car. Will not you be smelt out, Bots?
Bots. No, your bravest whores have the worse noses.
Re-enter 1st and 2nd Masters and Constable, then Dorothea Target, brave317; after her two Beadles, the one with a wheel, the other with a blue gown.
Lod. Are not you a bride, forsooth?
Dor. Say ye?
Car. He would know if these be not your bridemen.
Dor. Vuh! yes, sir: and look ye, do you see? the bride-laces that I give at my wedding, will serve to tie rosemary to both your coffins when you come from hanging—Scab!
Orl. Fie, punk, fie, fie, fie!
Dor. Out, you stale, stinking head of garlic, foh, at my heels.
Orl. My head’s cloven.
Hip. O, let the gentlewoman alone, she’s going to shrift.
Ast. Nay, to do penance.
Car. Ay, ay, go, punk, go to the cross and be whipt.
Dor. Marry mew, marry muff,318 marry, hang you, goodman dog: whipt? do ye take me for a base spittle-whore? In troth, gentlemen, you wear the clothes of gentlemen, but you carry not the minds of gentlemen, to abuse a gentlewoman of my fashion.
Lod. Fashion? pox a’ your fashions! art not a whore?
Dor. Goodman slave.
Duke. O fie, abuse her not, let us two talk,
What might I call your name, pray?
Dor. I’m not ashamed of my name, sir; my name is Mistress Doll Target, a Western gentlewoman.
Lod. Her target against any pike in Milan.
Duke. Why is this wheel borne after her?
1st Mast. She must spin.
Dor. A coarse thread it shall be, as all threads are.
Ast. If you spin, then you’ll earn money here too?
Dor. I had rather get half-a-crown abroad, than ten crowns here.
Orl. Abroad? I think so.
Inf. Dost thou not weep now thou art here?
Dor. Say ye? weep? yes, forsooth, as you did when you lost your maidenhead: do you not hear how I weep? [Sings.
Lod. Farewell, Doll.
Dor. Farewell, dog. [Exit.
Duke. Past shame: past penitence! Why is that blue gown?
1st Mast. Being stript out of her wanton loose attire,
That garment she puts on, base to the eye,
Only to clothe her in humility.
Duke. Are all the rest like this?
1st Mast. No, my good lord.
You see, this drab swells with a wanton rein,
The next that enters has a different strain.
Duke. Variety is good, let’s see the rest. [Exeunt 1st and 2nd Masters and Constable.
Bots. Your grace sees I’m sound yet, and no bullets hit me.
Duke. Come off so, and ’tis well.
Lod., Ast., &c. Here’s the second mess.
Re-enter 1st and 2nd Masters and Constable, then Penelope Whorehound, dressed like a Citizen’s Wife; her two Beadles, one with a blue gown, another with chalk and a mallet.
Pen. I ha’ worn many a costly gown, but I was never thus guarded319 with blue coats, and beadles, and constables, and—
Car. Alas, fair mistress, spoil not thus your eyes.
Pen. Oh, sweet sir, I fear the spoiling of other places about me that are dearer than my eyes; if you be gentlemen, if you be men, or ever came of a woman, pity my case! stand to me, stick to me, good sir, you are an old man.
Orl. Hang not on me, I prithee, old trees bear no such fruit.
Pen. Will you bail me, gentlemen?
Lod. Bail thee? art in for debt?
Pen. No; God is my judge, sir, I am in for no debts; I paid my tailor for this gown, the last five shillings a-week that was behind, yesterday.
Duke. What is your name, I pray?
Pen. Penelope Whorehound, I come of the Whorehounds. How does Lieutenant Bots?
Lod., Ast., &c. Aha, Bots!
Bots. A very honest woman, as I’m a soldier—a pox Bots ye.
Pen. I was never in this pickle before; and yet if I go amongst citizens’ wives, they jeer at me; if I go among the loose-bodied gowns,320 they cry a pox on me, because I go civilly attired, and swear their trade was a good trade, till such as I am took it out of their hands. Good Lieutenant Bots, speak to these captains to bail me.
1st Mast. Begging for bail still? you are a trim gossip;
Go give her the blue gown, set her to her chare.321
Work huswife, for your bread, away.
Pen. Out, you dog!—a pox on you all!—women are born to curse thee—but I shall live to see twenty such flat-caps shaking dice for a penny-worth of pippins—out, you blue-eyed rogue. [Exit.
Lod., Ast., &c. Ha, ha, ha.
Duke. Even now she wept, and prayed; now does she curse?
1st Mast. Seeing me; if still sh’ had stayed, this had been worse.
Hip. Was she ever here before?
1st Mast. Five times at least,
And thus if men come to her, have her eyes
Wrung, and wept out her bail.
Lod., Ast., &c. Bots, you know her?
Bots. Is there any gentleman here, that knows not a whore, and is he a hair the worse for that?
Duke. Is she a city-dame, she’s so attired?
1st Mast. No, my good lord, that’s only but the veil
To her loose body, I have seen her here
In gayer masking suits, as several sauces
Give one dish several tastes, so change of habits
In whores is a bewitching art: to day
She’s all in colours to besot gallants, then
In modest black, to catch the citizen,
And this from their examination’s drawn.
Now shall you see a monster both in shape
And nature quite from these, that sheds no tear,
Nor yet is nice, ’tis a plain ramping bear;
Many such whales are cast upon this shore.
Duke, Lod., &c. Let’s see her.
1st Mast. Then behold a swaggering whore. [Exeunt 1st and 2nd Masters and Constable.
Orl. Keep your ground, Bots.
Bots. I do but traverse to spy advantage how to arm myself.
Re-enter 1st and 2nd Masters and Constable; after them a Beadle beating a basin,322 then Catherina Bountinall, with Mistress Horseleech; after them another Beadle with a blue head guarded323 with yellow.
Cat. Sirrah, when I cry hold your hands, hold, you rogue-catcher, hold:—Bawd, are the French chilblains in your heels, that you can come no faster? Are not you, bawd, a whore’s ancient,324 and must not I follow my colours?
Mis. H. O Mistress Catherine, you do me wrong to accuse me here as you do, before the right worshipful. I am known for a motherly, honest woman, and no bawd.
Cat. Marry foh, honest? burnt325 at fourteen, seven times whipt, five times carted, nine times ducked, searched by some hundred and fifty constables, and yet you are honest? Honest Mistress Horseleech, is this world a world to keep bawds and whores honest? How many times hast thou given gentlemen a quart of wine in a gallon pot? how many twelve-penny fees, nay two shillings fees, nay, when any ambassadors ha’ been here, how many half-crown fees hast thou taken? How many carriers hast thou bribed for country wenches? how often have I rinsed your lungs in aqua vitæ, and yet you are honest?
Duke. And what were you the whilst?
Cat. Marry hang you, master slave, who made you an examiner?
Lod. Well said! belike this devil spares no man.
Cat. What art thou, prithee? [To Bots.
Bots. Nay, what art thou, prithee?
Cat. A whore, art thou a thief?
Bots. A thief, no, I defy326 the calling; I am a soldier, have borne arms in the field, been in many a hot skirmish, yet come off sound.
Cat. Sound, with a pox to ye, ye abominable rogue! you a soldier? you in skirmishes? where? amongst pottle pots in a bawdy-house? Look, look here, you Madam Wormeaten, do you not know him?
Mis. H. Lieutenant Bots, where have ye been this many a day?
Bots. Old bawd, do not discredit me, seem not to know me.
Mis. H. Not to know ye, Master Bots? as long as I have breath, I cannot forget thy sweet face.
Duke. Why, do you know him? he says he is a soldier.
Cat. He a soldier? a pander, a dog that will lick up sixpence: do ye hear, you master swines’-snout, how long is’t since you held the door for me, and cried to’t again, No body comes! ye rogue, you?
Lod., Ast., &c. Ha, ha, ha! you’re smelt out again, Bots.
Bots. Pox ruin her nose for’t! an I be not revenged for this—um, ye bitch!
Lod. D’ye hear ye, madam? why does your ladyship swagger thus? you’re very brave,327 methinks.
Cat. Not at your cost, master cod’s-head;
Is any man here blear-eyed to see me brave?
Ast. Yes, I am,
Because good clothes upon a whore’s back
Is like fair painting upon a rotten wall.
Cat. Marry muff master whoremaster, you come upon me with sentences.
Ber. By this light, has small sense for’t.
Lod. O fie, fie, do not vex her! And yet methinks a creature of more scurvy conditions should not know what a good petticoat were.
Cat. Marry come out, you’re so busy about my petticoat, you’ll creep up to my placket, an ye could but attain the honour: but an the outsides offend your rogueships, look o’the lining, ’tis silk.
Duke. Is’t silk ’tis lined with, then?
Cat. Silk? Ay, silk, master slave, you would be glad to wipe your nose with the skirt on’t. This ’tis to come among a company of cod’s-heads328 that know not how to use a gentlewoman.
Duke. Tell her the duke is here.
1st Mast. Be modest, Kate, the duke is here.
Cat. If the devil were here, I care not: set forward, ye rogues, and give attendance according to your places! Let bawds and whores be sad, for I’ll sing an the devil were a-dying. [Exit with Mistress Horseleech and Beadles.
Duke. Why before her does the basin ring?
1st Mast. It is an emblem of their revelling,
The whips we use let forth their wanton blood,
Making them calm; and more to calm their pride,
Instead of coaches they in carts do ride.
Will your grace see more of this bad ware?
Duke. No, shut up shop, we’ll now break up the fair,
Yet ere we part—you, sir, that take upon ye
The name of soldier, that true name of worth,
Which, action, not vain boasting, best sets forth,
To let you know how far a soldier’s name
Stands from your title, and to let you see,
Soldiers must not be wronged where princes be:
This be your sentence.
All. Defend yourself, Bots.
Duke. First, all the private sufferance that the house
Inflicts upon offenders, you, as the basest,
Shall undergo it double, after which
You shall be whipt, sir, round about the city,
Then banished from the land.
Bots. Beseech, your grace!
Duke. Away with him, see it done, panders and whores
Are city-plagues which being kept alive,
Nothing that looks like goodness ere can thrive.
Now good Orlando, what say you to your bad son-in-law?
Orl. Marry this, my lord, he is my son-in-law, and in law will I be his father: for if law can pepper him, he shall be so parboiled, that he shall stink no more i’ th’ nose of the common-wealth.
Bell. Be yet more kind and merciful, good father.
Orl. Dost thou beg for him, thou precious man’s meat, thou? has he not beaten thee, kicked thee, trod on thee, and dost thou fawn on him like his spaniel? has he not pawned thee to thy petticoat, sold thee to thy smock, made ye leap at a crust, yet wouldst have me save him?
Bell. Oh yes, good sir, women shall learn of me,
To love their husbands in greatest misery;
Then show him pity, or you wreck myself.
Orl. Have ye eaten pigeons, that you’re so kind-hearted to your mate? Nay, you’re a couple of wild bears, I’ll have ye both baited at one stake: but as for this knave, the gallows is thy due, and the gallows thou shall have, I’ll have justice of the duke, the law shall have thy life—What, dost thou hold him? let go, his hand. If thou dost not forsake him, a father’s everlasting blessing fall upon both your heads! Away, go, kiss out of my sight, play thou the whore no more, nor thou the thief again; my house shall be thine, my meat shall be thine, and so shall my wine, but my money shall be mine, and yet when I die, so thou dost not fly high, take all;
Yet, good Matheo, mend.
Thus for joy weeps Orlando, and doth end.
Duke. Then hear, Matheo: all your woes are stayed
By your good father-in-law: all your ills
Are clear purged from you by his working pills.—
Come, Signor Candido, these green young wits,
We see by circumstance, this plot have laid,
Still to provoke thy patience, which they find
A wall of brass; no armour’s like the mind.
Thou hast taught the city patience, now our court
Shall be thy sphere, where from thy good report,
Rumours this truth unto the world shall sing,
A patient man’s a pattern for a king. [Exeunt omnes.
The Pleasant Comedy of Old Fortunatus was first published in 1600, having been produced at Court on the Christmas before. The play as it stands is an amplification and a recast of an earlier play, The First Part of Fortunatus, which had been performed at Henslowe’s Theatre about four years previously. This had long been laid aside, when the idea seems to have occurred to Henslowe to revive it in fuller form, and Dekker was commissioned to write a second part, with the result that he recast the whole in one play instead, adding the episode of the sons of Fortunatus to the original version. So far, the whole play was taken from the same source, the old Volksbuch of “Fortunatus,” which, first published at Augsburg in 1509, was popular in various languages in the sixteenth century. An interesting account of this legend and of its connection with the play, is given in Professor Herford’s “Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century,” from which the present note on the play is largely drawn. When Dekker had completed his recast of the play, it was immediately ordered for performance at Court, and further scenes, in this case altogether extraneous to the original story—those, namely, in which Virtue and Vice are introduced as rivals to Fortune—were added with a special view to this end. Otherwise the play is pretty faithful to the story, even in its absurdities. It is worth mention that Hans Sachs had already dramatized the subject in 1553, which may have had something to do indirectly with the production of the first English version.
In the original quarto of 1600, Old Fortunatus is not divided into acts and scenes, and the division is here attempted for the first time. It has been necessary also in some instances to supply stage directions.