Do you intend to stay with me tonight?
Lord
Do you intend to stay with me tonight?
First Player
So please your Lordship to accept our duty.
Lord
With all my heart. This fellow I remember
Since once he played a farmer's eldest son.—
‘Twas where you wooed the gentlewoman so well.
I have forgot your name, but sure that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally performed.
I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman.
I long to hear him call the drunkard “husband”!
Second Player
I think 'twas Soto that your Honor means.
Lord
‘Tis very true. Thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in happy time,
The rather for I have some sport in hand
Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play tonight;
But I am doubtful of your modesties,
Lest, over-eying of his odd behavior
(For yet his Honor never heard a play),
You break into some merry passion,
And so offend him. For I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile, he grows impatient.
First Player
Fear not, my lord, we can contain ourselves
Were he the veriest antic in the world.
Lord, to a Servingman
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery
And give them friendly welcome every one.
Let them want nothing that my house affords.
One exits with the Players.
Sirrah, go you to Bartholomew, my page,
And see him dressed in all suits like a lady.
That done, conduct him to the drunkard’s chamber,
And call him “Madam,” do him obeisance.
Tell him from me, as he will win my love,
He bear himself with honorable action,
Such as he hath observed in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplishèd.
Such duty to the drunkard let him do
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say “What is ’t your Honor will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?”
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoyed
To see her noble lord restored to health,
Who, for this seven years, hath esteemed him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.
And if the boy have not a woman’s gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which (in a napkin being close conveyed)
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatched with all the haste thou canst.
Anon I’ll give thee more instructions.
A Servingman exits.
I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman.
I long to hear him call the drunkard “husband”!
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant,
I’ll in to counsel them. Haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
They exit.