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What, would you make me mad?

Sly
What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher
Sly, old Sly’s son of Burton Heath, by birth a
peddler, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation
a bearherd, and now by present profession a
tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot,
if she know me not! If she say I am not fourteen
pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the
lying’st knave in Christendom. What, I am not
bestraught! Here’s—
Third Servingman 
O, this it is that makes your lady mourn.
Second Servingman 
O, this is it that makes your servants droop.
Lord, as Attendant
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Wilt thou have music? Hark, Apollo plays, Music.
And twenty cagèd nightingales do sing.
Or wilt thou sleep? We’ll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimmed up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk, we will bestrew the ground.
Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapped,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
First Servingman 
Say thou wilt course. Thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathèd stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.

Source:
Act Induction
Scene 2
Line 26

Source Type:

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