The White Devil | Page 3

bed-fellow.
Brach. Oh, should she fail to come----
Flam. I must not have your lordship thus unwisely amorous. I myself
have not loved a lady, and pursued her with a great deal of under-age
protestation, whom some three or four gallants that have enjoyed would
with all their hearts have been glad to have been rid of. 'Tis just like a
summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get
in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for
fear they shall never get out. Away, away, my lord. [Exit Brachiano as
Camillo enters.
See here he comes. This fellow by his apparel Some men would judge a
politician; But call his wit in question, you shall find it Merely an ass in
's foot-cloth. How now, brother? What, travelling to bed with your kind
wife?
Cam. I assure you, brother, no. My voyage lies More northerly, in a far
colder clime. I do not well remember, I protest, When I last lay with
her.
Flam. Strange you should lose your count.
Cam. We never lay together, but ere morning There grew a flaw
between us.
Flam. 'T had been your part To have made up that flaw.
Cam. True, but she loathes I should be seen in 't.

Flam. Why, sir, what 's the matter?
Cam. The duke your master visits me, I thank him; And I perceive how,
like an earnest bowler, He very passionately leans that way he should
have his bowl run.
Flam. I hope you do not think----
Cam. That nobleman bowl booty? faith, his cheek Hath a most
excellent bias: it would fain Jump with my mistress.
Flam. Will you be an ass, Despite your Aristotle? or a cuckold,
Contrary to your Ephemerides, Which shows you under what a smiling
planet You were first swaddled?
Cam. Pew wew, sir; tell me not Of planets nor of Ephemerides. A man
may be made cuckold in the day-time, When the stars' eyes are out.
Flam. Sir, good-bye you; I do commit you to your pitiful pillow Stuffed
with horn-shavings.
Cam. Brother!
Flam. God refuse me. Might I advise you now, your only course Were
to lock up your wife.
Cam. 'Twere very good.
Flam. Bar her the sight of revels.
Cam. Excellent.
Flam. Let her not go to church, but, like a hound In leon, at your heels.
Cam. 'Twere for her honour.
Flam. And so you should be certain in one fortnight, Despite her
chastity or innocence, To be cuckolded, which yet is in suspense: This
is my counsel, and I ask no fee for 't.

Cam. Come, you know not where my nightcap wrings me.
Flam. Wear it a' th' old fashion; let your large ears come through, it will
be more easy--nay, I will be bitter--bar your wife of her entertainment:
women are more willingly and more gloriously chaste, when they are
least restrained of their liberty. It seems you would be a fine capricious,
mathematically jealous coxcomb; take the height of your own horns
with a Jacob's staff, afore they are up. These politic enclosures for
paltry mutton, makes more rebellion in the flesh, than all the
provocative electuaries doctors have uttered since last jubilee.
Cam. This doth not physic me----
Flam. It seems you are jealous: I 'll show you the error of it by a
familiar example: I have seen a pair of spectacles fashioned with such
perspective art, that lay down but one twelve pence a' th' board, 'twill
appear as if there were twenty; now should you wear a pair of these
spectacles, and see your wife tying her shoe, you would imagine twenty
hands were taking up of your wife's clothes, and this would put you
into a horrible causeless fury.
Cam. The fault there, sir, is not in the eyesight.
Flam. True, but they that have the yellow jaundice think all objects they
look on to be yellow. Jealousy is worse; her fits present to a man, like
so many bubbles in a basin of water, twenty several crabbed faces,
many times makes his own shadow his cuckold-maker. [Enter Vittoria
Corombona.] See, she comes; what reason have you to be jealous of
this creature? what an ignorant ass or flattering knave might be counted,
that should write sonnets to her eyes, or call her brow the snow of Ida,
or ivory of Corinth; or compare her hair to the blackbird's bill, when 'tis
liker the blackbird's feather? This is all. Be wise; I will make you
friends, and you shall go to bed together. Marry, look you, it shall not
be your seeking. Do you stand upon that, by any means: walk you aloof;
I would not have you seen in 't.--Sister [my lord attend you in the
banqueting-house,]