Reconstructing lost plays/Keep the Widow Waking/Act 4

Act 4. Scene 1. Before Anne's house

Enter Mary skipping

Mary. Of heavy errors like a newborn freed!

Enter Nathaniel

Nathaniel. Thus lightness lightly capers all year round.

Mary. Much lighter than I was and glad of it.

O what a thing it is to lose my knub

Of flesh or hairy mummy! As I breathe,

Unwanted things must die, or else a life unborn

Usurps a life that lives. I would stab out

Its head with scissors each day I increase

My pleasures rather than be tutored by

My own produce. The next man on my own!

Nathaniel. A worn-down lightness seeks another man.

Mary. Never the man without another prize.

Nathaniel. Too light behaviors make a mother sad

And heavy, one to hammer down each latch

On doorways of your virtue left ajar.

If not a maiden's modesty, perhaps

Blank soreness may acquit you of worse harm.

Mary. A soreness lovers balsam to the core,

If not you, one far choicer for my weal,

In marriage garments prized, or yielding cash:

With either a girl swings above her lot.

Nathaniel. Gains sorrows for the mother on most days.

Mary. Despite my two-eyed Argus, I will reel

And frisk a little. Am I old or young?

The wittiest answer need not be required.

If young, I stroll along for pleasures now.

Nathaniel. So do men-beetles roaming forests for

Decaying fruit.

Mary. I am not here for those, or henceforth none

Should dare approach my porcupine bedsheets

Unless possessing what I lack or miss.

This I pursue no more in dread or shame.

Nathaniel. Though women find me cooling, yet on themes

Of love or lust I am too expert in.

Mary. Which theme?

Nathaniel. Lust grows in darkness: dead men's fingernails

That live beside the dead with dust and bones,

While love's sap in tall cedars flows throughout.

Should love-thoughts for once prove to like themselves,

I may live happily, no longer caught

In Cretan mazes of unhappy choice.

Mary. Ho, innocently caught, I see. With whom?

Nathaniel. More on that later if I thrive one way.

Enter Margery and Martha

Mary. My mother strangely happy!

Margery. The strangest nights!

Martha. The gaudiest yet despite my spewing, fine

Because most profitable!

Margery. When women lose their stomach yet gain more!

Martha. The more I lost, the more I yet may gain.

Mary. A widow caught?

Margery. As we desired.- Yet stand apart. Do I

Behold a daughter slighter than she was?

Mary. Much lesser to augment my happiness.

Margery. Not freer to be cheated twice, I hope.

Mary. The freest if I thrive the way I wish.

To Sarah I owe thanks for one life lost.

Margery. To Sarah I owe thanks for one life won.

Exeunt Mary and Margery

Nathaniel. I have not seen my mother in three nights.

Martha. She has been noted to lie well abed.

Nathaniel. How may one prosper at a tavern bench?

Martha. I witnessed it.

Nathaniel. Because she holds her money; otherwise,

She after golden ingots always pines.

Martha. She hugs mine, everyone's who owed her sums.

Nathaniel. Then why not here to brag and celebrate?

Martha. No doubt she follows jauntily behind.

Nathaniel. Reveal how one may smile so sprightly when

My mother owns the money you live on.

Martha. In resting gladly to be free of debt.

Nathaniel. Well, yet I should be gladder than I am.

Martha. I think you should.

Nathaniel. Worse: I am not.

Martha. Your mother will explain.

Nathaniel. But will that satisfy?

Martha. It must.

Nathaniel. I hope it must.

Enter John

John. Sir, I hear stories of your mother's case.

Nathaniel. A mother swollen out in boldness, sir.

John. Quite cheered, though in a duller mood perhaps

Than any you have noticed in this house.

Nathaniel. Why, sir?

Martha. We drank together, youth.

Nathaniel. Carousing fitly with her for three nights?

John. All three of us along with friends of trust,

But she at last flat on her bed with one.

Nathaniel. With whom?

John. Her husband.

Nathaniel. Ha, husband? Sir, she has no husband I

Know of, I, one lone son awaiting here

For news of profit, not of haste and love.

Martha. Today she has.

Nathaniel. Ha, married?

John. Quite married.

Nathaniel. Next to a tavern stool with drunken sots?

John. This Atlas-heaving strife I undergo

For Toby's sake, that brother called somewhat

Your father, in a cheery tavern marred-

Or rather married by your mother's will.

Martha. I much rejoiced to lie with her two nights

Until she chose submission, woman's joy.

Nathaniel. Ha, married? And with Toby, that young man.

Martha. With Toby. I was charged by both to warn-

Or, I should say, convey- you know the rest.

Exit Martha

John. And so, sir, though informed belatedly-

Nathaniel. Oh, no, deformed at best and nearly gone.

John. On my arm griping? Let us not contend

As when the dragon with the eagle fought

Above the seven-gated city, for we stand

Like brothers almost. See and hear the true.

Enter Anne and Toby

Nathaniel. How, arm in arm with Toby, that young man?

Anne. Why not?

Toby. I am her husband now.

Nathaniel. A Toby as my father!

Anne. He. Should I have consulted you for that?

John. No.

Nathaniel. Consulted? Only that? Consulted? No.

Anne. Well.

Toby. What language do I hear? A father sees

A son's face grieving after wedding joys.

Nathaniel. Not jesting?

Anne. Not joyful at my new-found happiness?

Not, not? Why?

Nathaniel. What have you done to me, unheeding trull?

Anne. Ho, nothing to alarm the daintiest boy.

Toby. Gave you a father. Therefore, laugh and sing.

John. Let every potation drip to earth

Untasted: learn instead to know yourselves.

Toby. I should, I will, should duty first acquaint

Himself with our renewing sense of life.

John. So wisely grown and wiser as I wish!

Exit John

Nathaniel. Can sons deserve so great an injury?

Anne. None I dare speak of.

Nathaniel. Not thrust on me a father younger than

I am and poorer, one liable-

Toby. Hold, youth. Do you accuse your father of

The carnal usury of marrying

Your mother for mere money?

Nathaniel. I dare not, but yet think it may be so.

Toby. I know it is not so and neither does

The avid mother you owe duty to.

Anne. By Christ's wounds, all too true.

Nathaniel. To joys and frolic, then!

Anne. Should mothers beg forgiveness when they feel

A woman's pleasure never felt before?

Toby. Thank spriest youth for that, should sons be cheered

By such events.

Nathaniel. No.

Anne. The price of widowhood is liberty,

Which, in spite of opinion, jealousy,

Reports from one mouth to another of

Such usual neighbor news as to announce

Proclivities in bed of those past prime,

I held as precious as my honest name,

Yet now couch-pleasures I wish to augment,

So long deprived of man, which I should be

Too much ashamed to miss before I die.

Nathaniel. Say what they are at once if you desire

To make shame bleed on all our visages.

Anne. The pleasure I felt takes all words from me.

Toby. Thank limber youth for that. How, not yet cheered

With such a brace of news? I asked before.

Nathaniel. Ha, languid joys at sixty, madam minx?

Anne. Most potent joys at sixty quite unknown

Till felt. I asked for more and got far more.

Toby. Let envy learn for once entire stores

Of wisdom of the flesh denied by Paul.

Anne. The price of widowhood is liberty,

My pleasure and self-torment. Of what use

Is freedom while enjoying self alone?

Enjoying money? More than I could need.

Nathaniel. Have I not said so often?

Anne. A sentiment unknown till felt in bed.

Nathaniel. I wished you otherwise.

Anne. At home with treasures rich and valueless?

Nathaniel. At home without.

Anne. I do not come abashed to you, my son.

Nathaniel. Oh no, I see you do not, heartily

Rejoicing with a husband in my place.

Toby. One burning to speak fondly to his son.

Anne. Whom you may choose to love or quit the house.

Nathaniel. I will not marry.

Anne. So did I truly swear three days ago.

Enter Nicholas and Francis

Nicholas. Two married ones together as we wish!

Francis. Embracing fondly or appearing to.

Nicholas. For otherwise our sacrament is nil.

Francis. A marriage with no love allowed for both?

Reality of hell! Sniff out the smoke

At hand, before us and behind, above,

Below, and all about when such occurs.

Anne. A marriage with a purpose living, each

From both thanks to two pastors' industry!

Nicholas. Benignity sorts well with our profession.

Toby. Thus you behold my fondness and my Anne.

Francis. We favor either when both heed commands.

Do not retreat alone in secret. Think

Of Ananias and Sapphira who

Held back, he stricken dead for very shame,

She battered to the heart when at the door

Men's feet that carried her dead husband out

To earth and stone soon hurried after her.

Anne. We will pay lest our dish of fondness cracks.

Nathaniel. I see I will lose money in this gear.

Nicholas. What of that, sir? Lose money, friendships, all,

But then rejoice if you befriend Christ's church.

Francis. Lest folly pays foes to the only church

And get repaid in blood. Thus Judah hot

For blood with Simeon slew the Canaanites,

Cut off Adonibezek's thumbs and toes,

To signify you may not glibly strut

Amid the laughing world or tally coins

Respectlessly when you ignore our fare.

Anne. We will not fail to think about your state.

Toby. A certainty unless we hope to grieve.

Anne. Both thriving pleasantly together now.

Nicholas. As all good Christians armed together, too!

Francis. Though whirlwinds rose about in fury, yet

Elisha tarried with Elijah toe to heel

Beside the banks of Jordan: so do I.

Nicholas. I needlessly fear treacheries from him.

Francis. Impossible, as nearly as I think.

What, treachery? How, I? I would explode

As Judas' bowels burst across the field

Of blood, Matthias gaining in his stead.

Ha, ha, fear no Matthias in my place.

Nathaniel. I never do.

Anne. Nor I.

Exeunt Nathaniel and Anne

Toby. My dearest Anne speaks well. You will be paid.

Nicholas. When? I ask hastily. Parishioners,

Too sick to work, in stupor to gain wealth,

Must suffer horribly if we delay.

Toby. As soon as probity discovers where

My fondest Anne hides all her hard-won coins.

Francis. We have our answer.

Nicholas. A pretty one.

Toby. Will you draw near to taste Roussillon wines?

Exeunt Toby, Nicholas, and Francis

Act 4. Scene 2. Anne's house

Enter Nathaniel and Martha

Martha. What treasures could we gather, youngest sir?

Nathaniel. I know the prize is won. Reveal beside

How you, a friend who owed, bestride aloft

The pleasures of the world as friends who lend.

Martha. A husband died to leave me much improved.

Nathaniel. How? Stricken deadly in his bedchamber?

Martha. As anyone may suffer here or now.

Nathaniel. I suddenly suspect you gain somewhat

Thanks to a mother's hasty lustiness.

Martha. I only gain joy seeing Anne renewed.

Nathaniel. Moreover, I suspect religion fattens.

How otherwise if pastor scrips stretch out

When heretofore they in damp corners froze

Next to frayed chasubles? And then to see

The brother of my newly minted dad

Renege accounts, choose clients rich in coins

Not probity, exchange old suits for new,

Forego small-paying courtiers curtsied to,

Discover practices to clear all debts

To jet among the few! Then thirdly how

May one interpret luckless Mary free

With suitors as thick as her chimney smoke,

The mother cheering all the while her wiles

In heavy buffs of new-created makes?

Martha. Three mysteries one day to be revealed.

Exit Martha and enter John with a satchel and a musket

John. How luck splashes out of rocks like an unforeseen stream bathing us around, youngest sir, whom I congratulate.

Nathaniel. Why, near-brother raised in fortune thanks to my mother?

John. You gain a father who rises, not I, she lying below, though disallowed to our sight.

Nathaniel. I recognize she often lies below.

John. Two tankards to be raised high to their healths!

Nathaniel. I go.

John. Stay, greenest youngling. Let us jointly mix

Together amiably, of little cost

To either, family replies meant to

Be taken and conveyed familiarly.

The cannons broke Constantinople walls

By aiming at one point: thus will I do

With arguments meant to improve our lot.

Nathaniel. Improve with you, near-brother?

John. With us alone, for I sit thirstily,

Wish for the sake of health to chatter when

I drink the more and merrier on my way.

Nathaniel. I am not therefore for you at this time.

John. You should be if I calculate. Not so?

Nathaniel. Not so. Why should I?

John. A seeming brotherhood and not carouse

A little?- Heave a goblet upward here

Beside my own, if small yet comelier.

Nathaniel. Thus high if one so wishes.

John. Health to us both, ourselves above them all!

Nathaniel. Near-brother, health with money if you dare

Reveal so far or farther.

John. Why should I not? Health with my treasures, too!

Nathaniel. You kiss the mouth of money, I can tell.

John. I hold her primed, do I not? I palpate the size and form, of no greater difficulty to circumvent than Aristarchus measuring the size of the moon, not ever even having travelled. To obtain her, Barent up to Bear Island shipped farther with more trouble than I did.

Nathaniel. My thoughts exactly!

John. Where lies my satchel? Taken certainly!

Nathaniel. Hah?

John. No string to bind her down? Where? All my cash?

Where? How? Not mine? Lost, whisked out secretly!

Nathaniel. A musket?

John. I am made cuckold of my money bags,

And therefore look to feel what I have lost.

Exit Nathaniel within

Yours, did you say? How, stolen? My wits warp.

(He shoots within

Nathaniel. (within

Hah!

John. A hit, no? Palpably? Dig hard into

The wound with no controlling surgeon at

Our side but with my needless needle to

Augment the irremediable pains.

Enter Toby

Toby. What fearful noise is this?

John. The noise of robbery inside your house.

Toby. The boy with silver pieces of your own?

John. My satchel nowhere- money- drinking here

Beside a knave suspiciously removed.

Toby. Is he struck down?

John. That may be, but, if not, he will refuse

To answer in pale fear of being sunk

Bewailing in encircling pools of night.

Toby. Then, to prevent that, I will enter now.

John. Make certain of the robber and my gold.

(He shoots within again

Toby. Hold, brother. Never here or now again.

John. I am near murderous whenever robbed.

Enter Anne

Anne. What storm shakes all our tower bells astir?

Who offers smoke and blood without control?

Toby. My brother, inexplicably.

Anne. Why?

John. A robber, laughing, carries all my cash.

Anne. Who?

John. Your son.

Anne. Ha, do you hear, my own? Emerge at once

Here to defend yourself or lie accursed.

Toby. He fears.

John. The punishment at least, though not the sin.

Toby. Without fear all at once in haste, my son.

Anne. Come, dread no shootings here. Your mother calls,

Security and faith along with me.

John. I quickly leave if you return the gold.

Toby. Believe it granted without asking twice.

Exit John

Anne. Son, will you come?- When?

Enter Nathaniel

Toby. At last or least the truest will obey.

Nathaniel. And so I do.

Exit Nathaniel

Anne. This will be answered surely.

Exit Anne and re-enter John

Toby. Responses? I hope so, with sheets of fire.

John. In good faith, flashes scared him somewhat soon.

Toby. As planned, kind brother. All that while the bag

Was kept in guilty secret as you raged.

John. Here hidden all the time young manhood feared.

Toby. The boy might disappear, or else perhaps

His new-found father hunting after gold.

Exeunt Toby and John

Act 4. Scene 3. Margery's house

Enter Nicholas and Francis

Francis. For Mary groping next, I hourly think.

Nicholas. I do and grumble that another torch

Beside my own may once illuminate

Cool pits of gratitude.

Francis. You may be smoked out, a long way annulled.

If so, I may remain awhile and gloat.

Nicholas. Like English prayerbooks we enter where

Each one expects oblations sounding: so,

Why may I not stay, tarry, hurry, wed?

Francis. No other bodiced loveliness will do?

Nicholas. No.

Francis. Yet other men pursue man's dearest pain.

Nicholas. I know: man sent from devils to plague man.

Francis. I yearning for pollicitations from

Her always harried parts of note as well.

Nicholas. Her protestations to be heard perhaps

As mutual at this hour unless sin stays.

Francis. I will first back you on this enterprise

Most fervent-hotly, followed by my own

Attempts to back the maiden.

Nicholas. Now that we recognize our Mary rich

With her one thousand-

Francis. The dearth as final barrier to obstruct

A man's erection of his plans for her.

Nicholas. We are rich, too, yet poorer, all because

We yield most of our pennies to the poor.

Francis. In any case, arise, take out the- hum,

I say, draw forth our kindest weapon next,

Against love-hunters sweep the bosket clean.

Nicholas. I find that fear makes men too soon arise,

Like boys in fear of whipping.

Francis. However frailest virtue fails or gets,

Discredit rivals to the bloodless way.

Nicholas. Or sag ashamed before the captured mount.

Francis. Saul, fearful to be taken and abused,

Thus fell on Mount Bilboa.

Enter Mary

Mary. Hah, is it possible? Did I decline

Solicitations from man's better part

But yestermorning as soon as it rose

Or did I dream and wake?

Nicholas. Desire shoots up and swells on Sundays, too.

Mary. I grieve on seeing yours.

Nicholas. Why?

Mary. Because I will not marry.

Nicholas. Why not?

Francis. I meant to ask that question as you did.

Mary. One answer for both: no.

Exit Mary

Francis. How do you like your answer, sir?

Nicholas. I do not like the answer, Francis. Should

Intention, flopped down by such circumstance,

Proceed with business though the girl objects?

Francis. We may not hope for vessels filled with meat

To gnaw on, as once seen in Joppa when

On empty rooftops famished Peter prayed.

Nicholas. A glave achieves it, but I rather use

A man's words to discover maiden parts.

Francis. While ministering best instructions, too,

The holy word, our sword of paradise,

The cherub's flame that guards throughout the field.

Nicholas. But will the word arouse? We may not hope.

How, stay to be abused or chortled at?

Francis. Affronted?

Nicholas. Scorned?

Francis. Affronted?

Nicholas. It may not be.

Francis. Content. Henceforth, the only sight allowed

To us is of her kneeling to the host,

Its elevation long forbidden here.

Exeunt Nicholas and Francis

Act 4. Scene 4. Anne's house

Enter Nathaniel and Margery

Nathaniel. A Margery cleared of all debts as well?

Margery. Washed all about.

Nathaniel. I wonder.

Margery. Too youthful sir, you should not, but instead

Rejoice at gaudiest tables set for you.

Nathaniel. My food is spoiled now by six harpies, you

With bloody talons rife among them all.

Margery. Me!

Nathaniel. Yourself among the six confederates.

Margery. That cannot be. What, I, one thousand? No.

Nathaniel. Return to me my thousand, or prepare-

I will not yet say what.

Margery. One thousand? Violence? Closer? Some help here!

Exit Margery and enter Anne

Anne. Yet still more violent uproars in the house?

Nathaniel. Because of you, I say, of you, of you,

A mother naked to her progeny,

A mother ravished of six thousand pounds!

Anne. One still remains to clothe me.

Nathaniel. Possessed by Toby. Will a Toby with

His thousand pine to keep a wife, old one?

Anne. He does. Can love doubt husbands? Never, son.

Nathaniel. He will escape or, should he stay, defy

Or even kill me.

Anne. Go, I will speak with him. The sight of you

Can only anger any dispossessed.

Exit Nathaniel and enter Toby

Toby. No doubt Nathaniel trips off to avoid

After misdoubting of your husband's love.

Anne. I never choose to doubt it.

Toby. How do you say, charmed wife? Will love do it?

Anne. Forgive, you mean, shrewd husband? Did you pay

To marry me with my own money, sir?

Toby. I did and then I loved. Necessity

Made me take money, marriage makes me yours.

Anne. You are poor, so that by your plight I lose:

Good, I am thereby robbed ecbatically.

But yet the thistles I plod underfoot,

Whole marshlands, to accumulate so much!

Five thousand into foreign kitchens sent,

Chewed on, my fruit in other people's mouths!

Toby. Five thousand like delicious poison kills

My debts, while I, new type of cook, remain

Secure, entirely with the one he robs!

Anne. Once lost, collect again, afflict, gain more.

If lost again, afflict to win again.

Toby. More money with my lazy help or not,

Or, in addition, with a son or not.

Anne. Henceforth, we lend more to get all the more.

Toby. Ho, altogether well content, I say,

Should plenty marry me along with you.

What of your son?

Anne. He is no son whenever I increase.

Toby. No worker-after means?

Anne. No, rather an impediment to means.

Toby. Where should I start to go?

Anne. To Margery's.

Toby. She has our money.

Anne. Certain money won almost certain to be lost again should cunning seduce and laugh. No, I will say more: all the conspirators drinking to my health will lose it should Toby stay but true.

Toby. Am I not Toby and your man?

Anne. To Margery's for deeper machinations.

Exeunt Anne and Toby

Act 4. Scene 5. Margery's house

Enter Nicholas and Francis

Francis. For Margery next, I am astonished to think when I behold religious love attempting.

Nicholas. I see the lover as a leech briefly accepted, briefly evulsed from the daughter's contemplation. Is that a place for me or any man? No, I steady myself instead to stick on the mother's. What of that?

Francis. Surely nothing, since nothing was sucked on before.

Nicholas. We do not lie flat on desert rocks like papists, but flow. Yet the mother! Think of her, with grounds perhaps already readied with little watering. Do you find her religious? Can she be won that way?

Francis. Religious in attempts to torment me,

At church on Sundays to complain of me.

Nicholas. Find a conduit towards her.

Francis. A conduit she already possesses unless I mistake anatomy. To excite man's mysterious sightings of woman's double quarter-lunar shapes, there exists some precedent in Onan's story.

Nicholas. Pleasure without the woman? No, I cringe with teeth and lips jutting if I fail to attain both.

Francis. Judah's brother dripped on his sand-filled toes, a pleasure improvable with the woman nearer.

Nicholas. He on desert grounds edulcorating pebbles at best, only to avoid perfecting Judah's wife by rounding out her belly, but here I find no brother to confront.

Francis. Or belly. Moreover, the pleasure disappointed Onan, who sliced himself.

Nicholas. Not exactly so, for Onan's pleasure displeased pleasure's first principle, who cut the spurter straight away: two reasons I should avoid, not assail, the object of my meditations. What of the Magdalene before repentance?

Francis. The manner of her sinning is unsure.

Nicholas. Unfortunate! Find others to ease in

My overflowing meditations.

Francis. What of Hagar?

Nicholas. Hagar conceived by Abraham, though merely as his wife's servant.

Francis. Here we improve again, the daughter being in some sort the mother's subsidiary: nowadays, you get the mother cleanly without question.

Nicholas. Then Hagar fled-

Francis. Escaped from Sarah's wrath, I reassure you, not the man's-

Nicholas. Beside a fountain in the wilderness, where summarily I may court the woman, for by the wilderness London is meant, waylaying innocents, and by a fountain the church, gladdening earth with heaven-mounting refreshment.

Francis. The wilderness: a good place for any man's purpose, I mean marriage.

Nicholas. Thankful in quietude and safety, Hagar returned to Abraham's house, which signifies a woman's return to the church in quietude and safety.

Francis. To multiply your seed.

Nicholas. To multiply my seed with a pleasure allowed by all.

Francis. Not so well, I seem to think. Have you enough money to sustain all those without bread but yet multiplied?

Nicholas. I will if I think I will. But yet more dangers surge: Hagar's first was Ishmael, a wild man.

Francis. Who else comes out from wildness but the wild?

Nicholas. I long for no wild man.

Francis. Neither in Kadesh nor Bered.

Enter Mary

Mary. One time expecting fruitage from church-streams,

I lose twice if both come again to woo,

And stand far more distressed than edified.

Francis. We are not now or ever will be yours,

Reluctant mistress, but your mother's own.

Mary. My mother follows, not perhaps your hopes.

Exit Mary and enter Margery

Margery. How is this, a suit?

Nicholas. Yes, madam, one directed entirely towards beauty, the throne of man's desires, the target of church-arrows.

Margery. O, no.

Nicholas. I affirm it as being proven or at least provable in the briefest while if you dare to allow it.

Francis. Truer than I had hoped, for I stand behindhand and second.

Margery. O, no.

Nicholas. I judge it time, madam, for a change in condition. I stand readified. I smell possibility of change in the spring-time breeze, the mare snortling impatiently in the stable and stamping, the lighter-garmented woman trudging at the well and without reason shifting about in a disorderly state, the sow grunting and scratching clay, the woman angrily striking recklessly and needlessly at flies, the bitch's throat tugging at the leash, the woman looking up wistfully and far away at the window or edges of the sea: what drives all these I profit by if I obtain.

Margery. You will not obtain.

Nicholas. Do you judge wisely?

Francis. She does, I think. My turn again!

Margery. This from religion?

Nicholas. Do you reflect, as I do, on the extent of God's knowledge? Not knowledge complete in all absolutes? We recognize that as such. How many ants died in Egypt in the year 1147? This God eminently answers. Do you reflect on the extremities of God's pleasures? Can he not feel all pleasures as soundly and deeply as he understands them? I recognize he can. Why then do you degrade desire and pleasure, God's attributes, since which of them are impossible to him? Why then do you deem my sex a peccaminous predator? Therefore, step on the devil's tail by marrying.

Margery. Am I to serve as the pillow for an epileptic head? I would rather shake lice from my apron than marry you.

Nicholas. Almost the daughter's answer!

Francis. Amazement past sounding! Love nearly chokes at the beverage, yet you must remove your lips from the awful cup immediately and beat away doorward.

Margery. The same applies to you, sir curate.

Francis. The same!

Margery. The same.

Francis. I fear: so must we all, on any day

Without one warning slivers apt to burn

As Paul forewarned!

Exeunt Nicholas and Francis, enter Toby

Toby. Good day to the new-made woman!

Margery. Next to God, I thank your marriage rites, transposing me into another.

Toby. A richer one. I arrive with a cordial to make you more fortunate than rich: happy.

Margery. How?

Toby. You are rich, therefore free. After helping you to riches and freedom, I arrive a second time to enlarge freedom's scope.

Margery. Possessing stores of plenty, one should need

No more than those to riot playfully.

Toby. Yet note: if you need more, I stand as near

To you as kirtles, partlets, rowles, to mold

Uneasy forms into desired shapes.

Margery. Thanks to a Toby wishing heartily

To buff out rising fortunes handsomely.

Toby. A Toby inviting mother and daughter to stretch contented. Lean poverty makes love to restriction, who, like a jealous husband, keeps her closely in ridiculous confinement. Even when poverty finds meat instead of oatmeal, she often bites her fingers while munching it. One day, poverty, finding her husband dead, after some wisely brief period of mourning, advances her neck unsqueamishly to match with another. If molded lovingly, who should she wish to marry next but freedom, known also by the name of wealth? Who but wealth transforms, makes us view our fortunes farther out, the telescope that makes an earth of Jupiter and his moons? While scanning more largely outward, we strain against the glass to view larger still: no longer to drink in cellars but shine in sunlight with musicians.

Margery. Temptations to be attempted.

Toby. Providentially I provide the flute and viol together with the sun. Follow me or direct me to the shops, everywhere you covet: I mean the mercer's, the hatmakers', the haberdashers', the vintners', the jewellers', there to accumulate what you miss.

Margery. The more I have, you say, the worse I lack.

Toby. Right, madam. If you do, I watch to serve.

Exeunt Margery and Toby