Volume I Part 11 (1/2)
_Hic exeat_ PARMENO _et intret_ MELIBAEA.
MEL. I pray you, came this woman here never sin'?[58]
In faith, to enter here I am half adrad; And yet why so? I may boldly come in: I am sure from you all I shall not be had.
But, Jesus, Jesus, be these men so mad On women, as they say? how should it be?
It is but fables and lies, ye may trust me.
_Intret_ CELESTINA.
CEL. G.o.d be here!
MEL. Who is there?
CEL. Will ye buy any thread?
MEL. Yea, marry, good mother, I pray you come in.
CEL. Christ save you, fair mistress, and G.o.d be your speed; And health be to you and your kin; And Mary, G.o.d's mother, that blessed virgin, Preserve and prosper your womanly personage, And well to enjoy your youth and pucellage!
For that time pleasures are most escheved;[59]
And age is the hospital of all manner sickness, The resting-place of all thought unrelieved; The sport of time, past the end of all quickness: Neighbour to death; a dry stock without sweetness: Discomfort, disease all age alloweth; A tree without sap, that small charge boweth.
MEL. I marvel, mother, ye speak so much ill Of age, that all folk desire effectuously.
CEL. They desire hurt for themselves as all of will; And the cause why they desire to come thereby, Is for to live; for death is so loathly.
He that is sorrowful would live to be sorrier, And he that is old would live to be older.
Fair damsel, who can show all the hurts of age?
His weariness, feebleness, his discontenting; His childishness, frowardness of his rage; Wrinkling in the face, lack of sight and hearing; Hollowness of mouth, fall of teeth, faint of going; And, worst of all, possessed with poverty, And the limbs arrested with debility.
MEL. Mother, ye have taken great pain for age, Would ye not return to the beginning?
CEL. Fools are they that are past their pa.s.sage, To begin again, which be at the ending; For better is possession than the desiring.
MEL. I desire to live longer; do I well, or no?
CEL. That ye desire well, I think not so; For as soon goeth to market the lamb's fell As the sheep's;[60] none so old but may live a year; And there is none so young but, ye wot well, May die in a day. Then no advantage is here Between youth and age; the matter is clear.
MEL. With thy fabling and thy reasoning, i-wis, I am beguiled; but I have known thee ere this: Art not Celestine, that dwelleth by the river side?
CEL. Yea, forsooth.
MEL. Indeed, age hath arrayed[61] thee!
That thou art she, now can scant be espied.
Me thinketh by thy favour thou shouldest be she: Thou art sore changed, thou mayest believe me.
CEL. Fair maiden, keep thou well this time of youth; But beauty shall pa.s.s at the last, this is truth: Yet I am not so old as ye judge me.
MEL. Good mother, I joy much of thine accointenance,[62]
And thy motherly reasons right well please me.
And now I thank thee here for thy pastance.
Farewell, till another time, that hap may chance, Again that we two may meet together.
Mayhap ye have business, I know not whither.
CEL. O angelic image! O heart so precious!
Oh, how thou speakest, it rejoiceth me to hear.
Knowest thou not by the divine mouth gracious, That against the infernal fiend Lucifer We should not only live by bread here, But by our good works, wherein I take some pain: If ye know not my mind now, all is in vain.
MEL. Show me, mother, hardily all thy necessity, And, if I can, I shall provide the remedy.
CEL. My necessity! nay, G.o.d wot, it is not for me: As for mine, I left it at home surely.
To eat when I will, and drink when I am dry; And I thank G.o.d ever one penny hath been mine, To buy bread when I list, and to have four for wine.
Before I was widow, I cared never for it, For I had wine enough of mine own to sell; And with a toast in wine by the fire I could sit, With two dozen sops the colic to quell; But now with me it is not so well, For I have nothing but that is brought me In a pitcher-pot of quarts scant three.
Thus I pray G.o.d help them that be needy; For I speak not for myself alone, But as well for other, however speed I.
The infirmity is not mine, though that I groan, It is for another that I make moan, And not for myself: it is another way, But what I must moan, where I dare not say.
MEL. Say what thou wilt, and for whom thou lest.[63]
CEL. Now, gracious damsel, I thank you then, That to give audience ye be so prest, With liberal readiness to me old woman, Which giveth me boldness to show what I can Of one that lieth in danger by sickness Remitting his languor to your gentleness.
MEL. What meanest thou, I pray thee, gentle mother?
Go forth with thy demand, as thou hast done.
On the one part thou provokest me to anger, And on the other side to compa.s.sion: I know not how thy answer to fas.h.i.+on.
The words which thou speakest in my presence Be so misty, I perceive not thy sentence.
CEL. I said I left one in danger of sickness, Drawing to death for ought that I can see: Now choose you or no to be murderess, Or revive him with a word to come from thee?