Читать книгу Beaumont & Fletchers Works (2 of 10) – the Humourous Lieutenant - Beaumont Francis - Страница 4

ACTUS SECUNDUS. SCENA PRIMA

Enter Antigonus, Carinthus, Timon.

Ant. What, have ye found her out?

Char. We have hearkned after her.

Ant. What's that to my desire?

Char. Your grace must give us time, And a little means.

Tim. She is sure a stranger, If she were bred or known here—

Ant. Your dull endeavours Enter Menippus. Should never be employ'd. Welcom Menippus.

Men. I have found her Sir, I mean the place she is lodg'd in; her name is Celia, And much adoe I had to purchase that too.

Ant. Dost think Demetrius loves her?

Men. Much I fear it, But nothing that way yet can win for certain. I'le tell your grace within this hour.

Ant. A stranger?

Men. Without all doubt.

Ant. But how should he come to her?

Men. There lies the marrow of the matter hid yet.

Ant. Hast thou been with thy wife?

Men. No Sir, I am going to her.

Ant. Go and dispatch, and meet me in the garden, And get all out ye can. [Exit.

Men. I'le doe my best Sir. [Exit.

Tim. Blest be thy wife, thou wert an arrant ass else.

Char. I, she is a stirring woman indeed: There's a brain Brother.

Tim. There's not a handsom wench of any mettle

Within an hundred miles, but her intelligence

Reaches her, and out-reaches her, and brings her

As confidently to Court, as to a sanctuary:

What had his mouldy brains ever arriv'd at,

Had not she beaten it out o'th' Flint to fasten him?

They say she keeps an office of Concealments:

There is no young wench, let her be a Saint,

Unless she live i'th' Center, but she finds her,

And every way prepares addresses to her:

If my wife would have followed her course Charinthus,

Her lucky course, I had the day before him:

O what might I have been by this time, Brother?

But she (forsooth) when I put these things to her,

These things of honest thrift, groans, O my conscience,

The load upon my conscience, when to make us cuckolds,

They have no more burthen than a brood-[goose], Brother;

But let's doe what we can, though this wench fail us,

Another of a new way will be lookt at:

Come, let's abroad, and beat our brains, time may

For all his wisdom, yet give us a day. [Exeunt.