Part 13 (1/2)

PIS. Piso, remember, silence, buried here: When should this flow of pa.s.sion (trow) take head? ha!

Faith, I'll dream no longer of this running humour, For fear I sink, the violence of the stream Already hath transported me so far That I can feel no ground at all: but soft, [ENTER COB.]

Oh, it's our water-bearer: somewhat has crost him now.

COB. Fasting days: what tell you me of your fasting days?

would they were all on a light fire for me: they say the world shall be consumed with fire and brimstone in the latter day: but I would we had these ember weeks and these villainous Fridays burnt in the mean time, and then --

PIS. Why, how now, Cob! what moves thee to this choler, ha?

COB. Collar, sir? 'swounds, I scorn your collar, I, sir, am no collier's horse, sir, never ride me with your collar, an you do, I'll shew you a jade's trick.

PIS. Oh, you'll slip your head out of the collar: why, Cob, you mistake me.

COB. Nay, I have my rheum, and I be angry as well as another, sir.

PIE. Thy rheum? thy humour, man, thou mistakest.

COB. Humour? mack, I think it be so indeed: what is this humour? it's some rare thing, I warrant.

PIS. Marry, I'll tell thee what it is (as 'tis generally received in these days): it is a monster bred in a man by self-love and affectation, and fed by folly.

COB. How? must it be fed?

PIS. Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed, why, didst thou never hear of that? it's a common phrase, ”Feed my humour.”

COB. I'll none on it: humour, avaunt, I know you not, be gone. Let who will make hungry meals for you, it shall not be I: Feed you, quoth he? 'sblood, I have much ado to feed myself, especially on these lean rascal days too, an't had been any other day but a fasting day: a plague on them all for me: by this light, one might have done G.o.d good service and have drown'd them all in the flood two or three hundred thousand years ago, oh, I do stomach them hugely: I have a maw now, an't were for Sir Bevis's horse.

PIS. Nay, but I pray thee, Cob, what makes thee so out of love with fasting days?

COB. Marry, that that will make any man out of love with them, I think: their bad conditions, an you will needs know: First, they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on't, for they raven up more b.u.t.ter than all the days of the week beside: next, they stink of fish miserably: thirdly, they'll keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night send him supperless to bed.

PIS. Indeed, these are faults, Cob.

COB. Nay, an this were all, 'twere something, but they are the only known enemies to my generation. A fasting day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to rack, poor Cobs, they smoke for it, they melt in pa.s.sion, and your maids too know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal, and eat my own fish and blood: my princely coz, [PULLS OUT A RED HERRING.] fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as Golias: oh, that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt water enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand of my kin: but I may curse none but these filthy Almanacks, for an 'twere not for them, these days of persecution would ne'er be known. I'll be hang'd an some fishmonger's son do not make on them, and puts in more fasting days than he should do, because he would utter his father's dried stockfish.

PIS. 'Soul, peace, thou'lt be beaten like a stockfish else: here is Signior Matheo.

[ENTER MATHEO, PROSPERO, LORENZO JUNIOR, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, MUSCO.]

Now must I look out for a messenger to my master.

[EXEUNT COB AND PISO.]

ACT III. SCENE II.

PROS. Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried.

LOR. JU. Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well, did it not?

PROS. Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not know him?