A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) | Page 6

mind I
am thy sovereign lord, And what thou hast, of me thou hast and hold'st.
Unto no other end I sent for thee, But to demand a reckoning at thy
hands, How well or ill thou hast employ'd my wealth.
VER. If that be all, we will not disagree: A clean trencher and a napkin
you shall have presently.

WILL SUM. The truth is, this fellow hath been a tapster in his days.
VER _goes in, and fetcheth out the hobby-horse[27] and the
morris-dance, who dance about_.
SUM. How now? is this the reckoning we shall have?
WIN. My lord, he doth abuse you; brook it not.
AUT. _Summa totalis_, I fear, will prove him but a fool.
VER. About, about! lively, put your horse to it, rein him harder; jerk
him with your wand: sit fast, sit fast, man! fool, hold up your ladle
there.
WILL SUM. O brave Hall![28] O, well-said, butcher. Now for the
credit of Worcestershire. The finest set of morris-dancers that is
between this and Streatham. Marry, methinks there is one of them
danceth like a clothier's horse, with a woolpack on his back. You,
friend with the hobby-horse, go not too fast, for fear of wearing out my
lord's tile-stones with your hobnails.
VER. So, so, so; trot the ring twice over, and away. May it please my
lord, this is the grand capital sum; but there are certain parcels behind,
as you shall see.
SUM. Nay, nay, no more; for this is all too much.
VER. Content yourself; we'll have variety.
Here enter three CLOWNS and three MAIDS, _singing this song,
dancing:--
Trip and go, heave and hoe, Up and down, to and fro; From the town to
the grove, Two and two let us rove. A maying, a playing: Love hath no
gainsaying; So merrily trip and go_.
WILL SUM. Beshrew my heart, of a number of ill legs I never saw
worse dancers. How bless'd are you, that the wenches of the parish do

not see you!
SUM. Presumptuous Ver, uncivil-nurtur'd boy? Think'st I will be
derided thus of thee? Is this th'account and reckoning that thou mak'st?
VER. Troth, my lord, to tell you plain, I can give you no other account;
_nam quae habui perdidi_; what I had, I spent on good fellows; in these
sports you have seen, which are proper to the spring, and others of like
sort (as giving wenches green gowns,[29] making garlands for fencers,
and tricking up children gay), have I bestowed all my flowery treasure
and flower of my youth.
WILL SUM. A small matter. I know one spent in less than a year eight
and fifty pounds in mustard, and another that ran in debt, in the space
of four or five year, above fourteen thousand pound in lute-strings and
grey-paper.[30]
SUM. O monstrous unthrift! who e'er heard the like? The sea's vast
throat, in so short tract of time, Devoureth nor consumeth half so much.
How well might'st thou have liv'd within thy bounds.
VER. What, talk you to me of living within my bounds? I tell you none
but asses live within their bounds: the silly beasts, if they be put in a
pasture, that is eaten bare to the very earth, and where there is nothing
to be had but thistles, will rather fall soberly to those thistles and be
hunger-starv'd, than they will offer to break their bounds; whereas the
lusty courser, if he be in a barren plot, and spy better grass in some
pasture near adjoining, breaks over hedge and ditch, and to go, ere he
will be pent in, and not have his bellyful. Peradventure, the horses
lately sworn to be stolen,[31] carried that youthful mind, who, if they
had been asses, would have been yet extant.
WILL SUM. Thus, we may see, the longer we live the more we shall
learn: I ne'er thought honesty an ass till this day.
VER. This world is transitory; it was made of nothing, and it must to
nothing: wherefore, if we will do the will of our high Creator, whose
will it is that it pass to nothing, we must help to consume it to nothing.

Gold is more vile than men: men die in thousands and ten thousands,
yea, many times in hundred thousands, in one battle. If then the best
husband has been so liberal of his best handiwork, to what end should
we make much of a glittering excrement, or doubt to spend at a banquet
as many pounds as he spends men at a battle? Methinks I honour
_Geta_, the Roman emperor, for a brave-minded fellow; for he
commanded a banquet to be made him of all meats under the sun,
which were served in after the order of the alphabet, and the clerk of