MOR: That I should be seduced by so foolish a devil as a barber will make!
DAUP: I would I had been worthy, sir, to have partaken your counsel; you should never have trusted it to such a minister.
MOR: Would I could redeem it with the loss of an eye, nephew, a hand, or any other member.
DAUP: Marry, G.o.d forbid, sir, that you should geld yourself, to anger your wife.
MOR: So it would rid me of her! and, that I did supererogatory penance in a belfry, at Westminster-hall, in the c.o.c.k-pit, at the fall of a stag; the Tower-wharf (what place is there else?)-- London-bridge, Paris-garden, Billinsgate, when the noises are at their height, and loudest. Nay, I would sit out a play, that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet, and target.
DAUP: I hope there shall be no such need, sir. Take patience, good uncle. This is but a day, and "tis well worn too now.
MOR: O, "twill be so for ever, nephew, I foresee it, for ever.
Strife and tumult are the dowry that comes with a wife.
TRUE: I told you so, sir, and you would not believe me.
MOR: Alas, do not rub those wounds, master Truewit, to blood again: "twas my negligence. Add not affliction to affliction. I have perceived the effect of it, too late, in madam Otter.
EPI: How do you, sir?
MOR: Did you ever hear a more unnecessary question? as if she did not see! Why, I do as you see, empress, empress.
EPI: You are not well, sir; you look very ill; something has distemper"d you.
MOR: O horrible, monstrous impertinencies! would not one of these have served, do you think, sir? would not one of these have served?
TRUE: Yes, sir, but these are but notes of female kindness, sir; certain tokens that she has a voice, sir.
MOR: O, is it so? Come, an"t be no otherwise--What say you?
EPI: How do you feel yourself, sir?
MOR: Again that!
TRUE: Nay, look you, sir: you would be friends with your wife upon unconscionable terms; her silence--
EPI: They say you are run mad, sir.
MOR: Not for love, I a.s.sure you, of you; do you see?
EPI: O lord, gentlemen! lay hold on him, for G.o.d"s sake. What shall I do? who"s his physician, can you tell, that knows the state of his body best, that I might send for him? Good sir, speak; I"ll send for one of my doctors else.
MOR: What, to poison me, that I might die intestate, and leave you possest of all?
EPI: Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes sparkle! he looks green about the temples! do you see what blue spots he has?
TRUE: Ay, "tis melancholy.
EPI: Gentlemen, for Heaven"s sake, counsel me. Ladies;--servant, you have read Pliny and Paracelsus; ne"er a word now to comfort a poor gentlewoman? Ay me, what fortune had I, to marry a distracted man!
DAW: I will tell you, mistress--
TRUE: How rarely she holds it up!
[ASIDE TO CLER.]
MOR: What mean you, gentlemen?
EPI: What will you tell me, servant?
DAW: The disease in Greek is called mania, in Latin insania, furor, vel ecstasis melancholica, that is, egressio, when a man ex melancholico evadit fanaticus.
MOR: Shall I have a lecture read upon me alive?
DAW: But he may be but phreneticus yet, mistress? and phrenetis is only delirium, or so.
EPI: Ay, that is for the disease, servant: but what is this to the cure? we are sure enough of the disease.
MOR: Let me go.
TRUE: Why, we"ll entreat her to hold her peace, sir.
MOR: O no, labour not to stop her. She is like a conduit-pipe, that will gush out with more force when she opens again.
HAU: I will tell you, Morose, you must talk divinity to him altogether, or moral philosophy.
LA-F: Ay, and there"s an excellent book of moral philosophy, madam, of Raynard the fox, and all the beasts, called Doni"s Philosophy.
CEN: There is, indeed, sir Amorous La-Foole.
MOR: O misery!
LA-F: I have read it, my lady Centaure, all over, to my cousin, here.
MRS. OTT: Ay, and "tis a very good book as any is, of the moderns.
DAW: Tut, he must have Seneca read to him, and Plutarch, and the ancients; the moderns are not for this disease.
CLER: Why, you discommended them too, to-day, sir John.
DAW: Ay, in some cases: but in these they are best, and Aristotle"s ethics.
MAV: Say you so sir John? I think you are decived: you took it upon trust.
HAU: Where"s Trusty, my woman? I"ll end this difference. I prithee, Otter, call her. Her father and mother were both mad, when they put her to me.
MOR: I think so. Nay, gentlemen, I am tame. This is but an exercise, I know, a marriage ceremony, which I must endure.
HAU: And one of them, I know not which, was cur"d with the Sick Man"s Salve; and the other with Green"s Groat"s-worth of Wit.