GIU. Well, sister, I tell you true: and you'll find it so in the end.
BIA. Alas, brother, what would you have me to do? I cannot help it; you see, my brother Prospero he brings them in here, they are his friends.
GIU. His friends? his friends? 'sblood, they do nothing but haunt him up and down like a sort of unlucky sprites, and tempt him to all manner of villainy that can be thought of; well, by this light, a little thing would make me play the devil with some of them; an't were not more for your husband's sake than any thing else, I'd make the house too hot for them;they should say and swear, hell were broken loose, ere they went. But by God's bread, 'tis nobody's fault but yours; for an you had done as you might have done, they should have been damn'd ere they should have come in, e'er a one of them.
BIA. God's my life; did you ever hear the like? what a strange man is this! could I keep out all them, think you? I should put myself against half a dozen men, should I? Good faith, you'd mad the patient'st body in the world, to hear you talk so, without any sense or reason.
[ENTER MATHEO WITH HESPERIDA, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, LORENZO JUNIOR, PROSPERO, MUSCO.
HESP. Servant, (in troth) you are too prodigal of your wits' treasu re, thus to pour it forth upon so mean a subject as my worth.
MAT. You say well, you say well.
GIU. Hoyday, here is stuff.
LOR. JU. Oh now stand close; pray God she can get him to read it.
PROS. Tut, fear not: I warrant thee he will do it of himself with much impudency.
HES. Servant, what is that same, I pray you?
MAT. Marry, an Elegy, an Elegy, an odd toy.
GIU. Ay, to mock an ape withal. O Jesu.
BIA. Sister, I pray you let's hear it.
MAT. Mistress, I'll read it, if you please.
HES. I pray you do, servant.
GIU. Oh, here's no foppery. 'Sblood, it frets me to the gall to think on it.
[EXIT.
PROS. Oh ay, it is his condition, peace: we are fairly rid of him.
MAT. Faith, I did it in an humour: I know not how it is, but please you come near, signior: this gentleman hath judgment, he knows how to censure of a -- I pray you, sir, you can judge.
STEP. Not I, sir: as I have a soul to be saved, as I am a gentleman.
LOR. JU. Nay, it's well; so long as he doth not forswear himself.
BOB. Signior, you abuse the excellency of your mistress and her fair sister. Fie, while you live avoid this prolixity.
MAT. I shall, sir; well, 'incipere dulce'.
LOR. JU. How, 'incipere dulce'? a sweet thing to be a fool indeed.
PROS. What, do you take incipere in that sense?
LOR. JU. You do not, you? 'Sblood, this was your villainy to gull him with a motte.
PROS. Oh, the benchers' phrase: 'pauca verba, pauca verba'.
MAT. "Rare creature, let me speak without offence, Would God my rude words had the influence To rule thy thoughts, as thy fair looks do mine, Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine".
LOR. JU. 'Sheart, this is in 'Hero and Leander'!
PROS. Oh ay: peace, we shall have more of this.
MAT. "Be not unkind and fair: misshapen stuff Is of behaviour boisterous and rough:"How like you that, Signior? 'sblood, he shakes his head like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it.
MAT. But observe the catastrophe now, "And I in duty will exceed all other, As you in beauty do excel love's mother".
LOR. JU. Well, I'll have him free of the brokers, for he utters nothing but stolen remnants.
PROS. Nay, good critic, forbear.
LOR. JU. A pox on him, hang him, filching rogue, steal from the dead? it's worse than sacrilege.
PROS. Sister, what have you here? verses? I pray you let's see.
BIA. Do you let them go so lightly, sister?
HES. Yes, faith, when they come lightly.
BIA. Ay, but if your servant should hear you, he would take it heavily.
HES. No matter, he is able to bear.
BIA. So are asses.
HES. So is he.
PROS. Signior Matheo, who made these verses? they are excellent good.
MAT. O God, sir, it's your pleasure to say so, sir.
Faith, I made them extempore this morning.
PROS. How extempore?
MAT. Ay, would I might be damn'd else; ask Signior Bobadilla.
He saw me write them, at the -- (pox on it) the Mitre yonder.
MUS. Well, an the Pope knew he cursed the Mitre it were enough to have him excommunicated all the taverns in the town.
STEP. Cousin, how do you like this gentleman's verses?
LOR. JU. Oh, admirable, the best that ever I heard.
STEP. By this fair heavens, they are admirable, The best that ever I heard.
[ENTER GIULIANO.
GIU. I am vext I can hold never a bone of me still, 'Sblood, I think they mean to build a Tabernacle here, well?
