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Read Ebook: Epicoene; Or The Silent Woman by Jonson Ben
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Ebook has 3217 lines and 55468 words, and 65 pages
CLER: O prodigy!
TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side.
CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her.
TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie?
CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear.
TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears.
CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man.
TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in.
CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one.
TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous.
CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit.
TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys.
CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air.
PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request.
TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells?
CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here!
DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb?
TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of.
DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him.
TRUE: How is that?
DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him.
TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son?
DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry.
TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife?
CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says.
TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none.
CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her.
TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business?
CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here.
TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise!
CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel.
TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench?
CLER: Yes, that they are.
TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither.
DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith.
TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him.
DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent.
TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still.
CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies.
TRUE: You do not mean to confound me!
CLER: Why?
TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much?
CLER: I cannot tell.
TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him.
CLER: Why?
CLER: Will you not go thither, then?
TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears.
CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms.
TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance.
CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar.
TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him!
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