Act 4

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Act for of Amends for Ladies by Nathan Field. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Act for scene one and her widow undressed,

(00:20):
a sword in her hand and bold in his shirt,
as started from bed.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Uncivil men. If I should take thy life twin not
to be weighed with thy attempt, thou hast forever lost me?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Madam? Why can love be get lost? Do I covert
you unlawfully? Am I an unfit man to make an
Husbanddo send for a priest, birst, consummate a match, and
then to bed without more trouble?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
No?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
I will not do it.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Why you confess to me as your gentlewoman, I was
the man your heart did most affect that you did
doe upon my mind and body.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
So by the sacred and inviolent not of marriage, I do,
But I will not wed thee.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Why yet enjoy me? Now? Consider lady, that little but
blessed time I was in bed, although I lay as
by my sister's side. The world is apt to censure otherwise,
So tis necessity that we marry now.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Pish, I regard not at a straw the world. Fame
from the tongues of men does injury, often not injustice,
and as conscience only makes guilty persons not report for show.
We clear as springs unto the world. If our own
knowledge do not make us so, that is no satisfaction

(01:55):
to ourselves. So stand we never soleprous to man's It
cannot hurt heart known integrity you have trusted to that
fond opinion. This is the way to have a widowhood
by getting her to bed, Unless young men shouldst thou thyself,
Tell thy companions thou hast dishonored me. As you men

(02:18):
have tongues forked and venomed against our subject sex, it
should not move me that notice not so therefore depart
truth be my virtuous shield.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
You widows would do thus all modest would to be
in bed and in possession even of the mark I
aimed at, and go off foiled and disgraced. Come, come,
you'll laugh at me, Be on my back, publish I
wanted spirit and mock me to the ladies, call me child,

(02:56):
say you denied me, But to try the heat and
zeal of my effect toward you. Then clapped up with
a rhyme, as for example, he coldly loves retires for
one vain trial. For we are yielding when we make denial.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Servant, I make no question. From this time you'll hold
a more reverent opinion of some that wear long coats.
And this is my pride to assure you that there
are amongst us good. And with this continency, if you
go away, I'll be so far from thinking it effect
that I will hold you worthiest of men.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
I am tenterless. My long for fruit bobs at my lips,
yet still it shrinks from me. Have not I that
which men say never fails to overcome any opportunity come come.
I am too cold in my assault by all the
virtues that you ever worry, man or woman. I with

(04:02):
reverence do love THEE lady, but will be no foolt
to let occasion slip a foretop from me.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
You will fail this way too. Upon my knees, I
do desire THEE to preserve di virtues, and with my
tears my honor. Tis as bad to lose our words
to them, or to deceive who have held worthy opinions
of us, as to betray trust. All this I implore
for thine own sake, not mine, as for myself. If

(04:35):
thou beest violent by this stupid knight, and all the
mischiefs her dark womb hath spread, I'll raise the house.
I'll cry a rape.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
I hope you will not ang me that will murder
lady a greater sin lying with me.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Sure, come flatter not yourself with argument. I will exclaim
the law hangs you, not I, or if I did,
I had rather far confound the dearest body in the
world to me than that that body should confound my soul.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Your soul, alas mistress, Are you so fond to think
a general destruction can be procured by such a natural
act which beasts are born to and have privileging? Fie
fie if this could be far happier or insensitive souls

(05:32):
in their creation than man, the Prince of creatures, think you,
Heaven regards such more or deeds or punish of those
acts for which he havefordained us.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
You argue, like an atheist. Man is never the Prince
of creatures, as you call him now, but in his
reason failed that he is worse than horse or dog,
a beast of wilderness, And this dead reason teaches us
to do our actions unlike them. Then that which you

(06:05):
turned in them a privilege beyond us. The baseness of
their being doth express compared to ours. Horses, bulls and
swine do leap their dams because man does not. So
shall we conclude his making happiness.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
You put me down, yet will not put me down.
I am too gentle. Some of you I have heard
love not these words, but force to have it done.
As they sing prick song in the first sight.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Go to keep off by heaven and earth. I'll call else.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Ah, if nobody hear you.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
If they do not, I'll kill you with mine own hand.
Never stare, or failing that, fall on this sword Lord myself.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Ah widow, wonderful if thou best more honest? Now, God
forgive my mother and my sisters. Think but how finely,
Madam undiscovered forever I might leave all day your gentlewoman,
to do you service, but all night your men to

(07:22):
do you service. Newness of the trick, if nothing else
might stir.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Ye tis a stale one, and was done in the
fleet ten years ago. Will you be gone? The door
is open for you.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Let me but tarry till the morning, Madam, to send
for clothes. Shall I co naked? Home?

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Tis best time? Now it is but one o'clock, and
you may go unseen. I swear by Heaven I would
spend all the night to sit and talk with you.
If I durst trust you, I do love you, so
my blood forsakes my heart. Now you depart, So.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Will you marry me hereafter?

Speaker 4 (08:09):
Then?

Speaker 1 (08:10):
No?

Speaker 2 (08:11):
You are too young and I am much too old,
Aye and unworthy. And the world would say we married
not for love?

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Good morrow, servant, exit widow.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Why so these women are the erron st jugglers in
the world. The ry legged fellow is an ass to them. Well,
I must have this wider whatever come on it. Faith,
she has TERMI out of her service very barely. Oh

(08:45):
what's there? Music?

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Enter subtle with a paper, and his boy with a cloak.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
Subtle reads, Rise, lady, mistress, Rise the night hath tedious been,
no sleep, hath fallen into mine eyes nor slumbers made
me sin? Is not she a saint? Then? Say, thought
of whom keeps sin away? Rise, madam, Rise and give

(09:18):
me light whom darkness still will cover, and ignorance darker
than night, Till thou smile on thy lover all want
day till thy beauty rise, for the gray morn breaks
from thine eyes. Sing it now, Sarah, The.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Song is sung by the boys foot.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Who's this? Young, Master Bold? God save you? You are
an early stir.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
You say, true, Master Sotle, I have been only up,
But has God help me? I was never the near.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
Where have you been? Sir?

Speaker 3 (10:00):
What's that to use?

Speaker 4 (10:01):
Sir?

Speaker 3 (10:02):
A woman's labor?

Speaker 4 (10:04):
Very good? I ne'er took you for a man midwife
before the truth.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Is, I've been up all night at dice and lost
my clothes. Good Morrow, Master Saddle, pray God the watch
be broke up. I thank you for my music.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
Exit tis palple by this air. Her husband, being abroad Bold,
has leaned with her and is now conveyed out of doors.
Is this the lady prophect with a pox? The truth
is her virtuous chastity began to make me make a

(10:44):
miracle of her, still holding out to me, notwithstanding her
husband's most barbarous usage of her. But now indeed tis
no marvel since another possesses her. Well, Madam, I will
go find out your cuckold. I'll be revenged on you

(11:04):
and tell a tale shall tickle him. This is a
cheat in love, not to be born another to beguile
me of the game I played for all this while.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Exit seem to enter well tried and bold, putting on
his doublet fee simple asleep on a bed as in
Bold's chamber.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
You see, we made bold with your lodging. Indeed I
did assure myself you were fast for this night.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
But how the devil came this fool into your company?

Speaker 5 (11:38):
So the footman I carried him last night among the
roarers to flesh him. And by this light he got
drunk and beat him all.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Why then he can endure the sigh of a drawn sword.

Speaker 5 (11:49):
Now, oh God, sir, I think in my conscience he
will eat steal shortly. I know not how his conversion
will hold after this sleep. But in an hour or
to last night he was grown such a little, dear me,
that I protest, I was afraid of the spirit that
I myself had raised in him. But this other matter

(12:09):
of your expulsion thus mads me to the heart. Were
you in bed with her?

Speaker 6 (12:14):
In bed?

Speaker 5 (12:15):
By heaven, I'll be hanged. If you were not busy
too soon, you should have let her slept first.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Zoons man, she put her hands to my breasts, and
swore I was no maid. Now, I, being eager to
prove her words true, took that hint and would violently
have thrust her and lower, when her thought, being swifter
than my strength, made her no sooner. Imagine that she

(12:43):
was betrayed. But she leaves out of bed, whips me
down a sword that hung by, and as if fortitude
in justice had meant to assist her, spite of all argument,
fair or foul, she forced me away.

Speaker 5 (12:58):
By Is it possible thou shouldst have no more wit?
Wouldst thou come away upon any terms? But sure ones,
having knight her chamber and herself naked in thine arms
by that light. If I had a son of fourteen,
whom I had helped thus far, that had served me so,
I would breach him so hot?

Speaker 3 (13:17):
What would you have me done?

Speaker 5 (13:19):
Have done?

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Done? Done twice?

Speaker 3 (13:21):
At least have played Talquin and ravished.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
The pish Tarquin was a blockhead. If he had had
any wit and could have spoke lucreas had never been ravished,
she would have yielded. I warrant thee, and so will
any woman.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
I was such an erroneous heretic to love and woman,
as thou art till now God's precious.

Speaker 5 (13:44):
It makes me mad when I think Aunt was there
ever such an absurd trick? Now will she abuse thee horribly?
Say thou art a faint hearted fellow, a milk sop.
And I know not what as indeed thou.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Art zoons you would been in my place?

Speaker 5 (14:02):
Sounds what I had, I would have so jumbled her honestly,
wouldst thou be held out at stays end with words?
Dost thou not know? A widow's a weak vessel and
is easily cast if you close.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Well tried, you deal unfriendly.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
By this light, I shall blush to be seen in
thy company. Pray, leave my chamber, parks upon your chamber.
I care not for your chamber nor yourself, more than
you care for me.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Splat I as little for you?

Speaker 5 (14:32):
Why fare you well?

Speaker 3 (14:34):
Why farewell?

Speaker 4 (14:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Well, tried our prithe stay Thou knowest thy love thee?

Speaker 5 (14:43):
So hart, I love you as well. But for my
spleen and collar, I think I have as much as you.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Well, Friend, this is the business you must do for
me repair unto the widow. Where give At tomorrow morn
I shall be married. Invite her to the wedding. I
have a trick to put upon this lord, to whom
I made my instrument to prefer me.

Speaker 5 (15:08):
Watch your follow I will not ask, because I mean
to see it. The Jyros Twick's friends still keeps their friendship.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Sweet exit fee simple waking Ooh, I will try it.

Speaker 7 (15:22):
You rogue?

Speaker 6 (15:25):
What's that.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Vision? Why? And now, my lord, whom do you call rogue?
The gentleman you name is my friend. If you were wise,
I should be.

Speaker 6 (15:39):
Angry, angry with me, Hi, damn, miss sir, and you'll
be helped with your sword. It's not with me. I
tell you as it was yesterday. I am fleshed.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Man.

Speaker 6 (15:55):
I have you anything to say to me? Nothing but this?

Speaker 3 (16:02):
How many do you think you've slain? Last night?

Speaker 6 (16:05):
By five? I never kill less?

Speaker 3 (16:10):
There were but four, my lord. You had best provide
yourself and be gone. Three you have slain stark dead,
huge chest. It's most true, well tried, is fled?

Speaker 6 (16:24):
Why let the roarers meddle with me another time? It's flying?
I scorned. I killed him like a man. When did
you ever see a lord hang for anything? We may
kill whom we list Mary. My conscience pricks me ah
plague of this drink. What things makes us do? I

(16:49):
do no more remember this now than a puppy dog,
a bloody lord that ought to be dogged with a
gore vain world.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
Adieu, I will roar no more. Nay, stay, my lord,
I did but try the tenderness of your conscience, or
this is nothing so but to sweet and the tail
I have for you. I foretold you this feigned mischance.

Speaker 6 (17:17):
It is a tale belonging to the widow.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
I think you are a witch.

Speaker 6 (17:22):
My grandmother was suspected.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
The widow has desired you by me to meet her
tomorrow morning at church in some unknown diskies. Lest any
suspect it. Four quoth she long half. He hailed me
fast in his moist hand. Therefore I will be his
enup to your.

Speaker 6 (17:42):
Band both I have ever taken you to be my friend.
I am very wise now and valiant. If this be
not true, damn me, sir. You are the son of
a whore, and you lie, and I will make it
good with my sword.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
I am whate'er you. Please, sir, If it be not true,
I will go with you to the church myself, your
disguised I have four on the widow is your own.
Come leave your fooling.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
If this be true, thou little boy, bold, so true
as thou tellest me. To morrow morn, when I have
thou widow, my dear friend, shalt thou.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Be excent Scene three, enter maid like the foot boy,
seldom with pitts and honor a couple of sergeants.

Speaker 8 (18:37):
Sir, tis most true, And in this shall you be
unlike to other citizens that arrest to undo gentlemen, Your
clemency here per chance saves two lives, one from the
other's sword, the other from the laws. This morn they fight.
And though your debtor be a lord, yet should he miscarry,

(19:00):
certainly your debt were lost?

Speaker 9 (19:02):
Dost thou serve the lord? Proudly?

Speaker 6 (19:05):
Sir, I do well.

Speaker 9 (19:08):
Such a boy as thou is worth more money than
thy Lord owes me. Tis not for the debt I
do arrest him, but to end this strife, which both
may lose my money and his life.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Entered Lord, proudly, with a riding.

Speaker 7 (19:24):
Rod my horse there zounds. I would not for the
world he should alight before me in the field. My
name and honor were forever lost.

Speaker 9 (19:37):
Good morrow, dear honor, I do hear your lordship, this
fair morning is to fight and for your honor. Did
you never see the play where the fat knight hight
Oldcastle did tell you truly what his honor was?

Speaker 4 (19:55):
Why?

Speaker 7 (19:56):
How now, good man flat Cap, what the lack? Whom
do you talk to? Sarah? We arrest you, arrest me, rogue.
I am a lord, ye curz a parliament man.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
Sir, We arrest you, though at whose suit?

Speaker 9 (20:18):
At mine?

Speaker 7 (20:19):
Sir? Why thou base rogue? Did not I set thee up,
having no stock but thy shop, and feil wife into
my house.

Speaker 8 (20:31):
With him away, with him, away with him.

Speaker 7 (20:35):
A plot, a trick by heaven. See Injun's footboytis by
his master's means, Oh, coward slave, I'll put in bail
or pay the debt.

Speaker 9 (20:49):
Ay, ay, I we'll talk with you within.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Thrust him in excunt enter engine, looking on his sword
and bending it his brother like a man.

Speaker 10 (21:01):
If I miscarry Frank, and for thee see all my
debts paid about five hundred pounds, will fully satisfy all men,
and my land and what I else possess by nature's
right and thy descent, Frank, I make freely thine.

Speaker 11 (21:16):
I know you do not think I wish you dead
for all the benefit besides your spirits, So opposite a
counsel to avert your resolution, that I save my breath,
which would be lost in vain to expire and spend
upon your foe if you fall under him.

Speaker 10 (21:36):
Frank, I protest, you shall do injury upon my foe,
and much disturbance too unto my soul. Departing die, I
hear fairly, and on my single enemy's sword, if you
should not let him go off untouched. Now by the
master of thy life and mine, I love THEE boy
beyond any example, as well as thou dost me. But

(22:00):
should I go thy second to the field, as thou
dost mine, And if thine enemy kill THEE like a man,
I would desire never to see him more. But he
should bear himself off with those wounds he has received
from THEE from that time, safe and without persecution by
the law. For what hap is, our foes might be

(22:21):
our own, and no man's judgment sits in justice place,
but weigane other men's as his own case.

Speaker 11 (22:29):
He has the advantage of you being a lord, for
should you kill him, you are sure to die. And
by some lawyer with a golden tongue that cries for right.
Ten angels on his side. Your daring meet him, called presumption,
but kill he you. He and his noble friends have

(22:54):
such a golden snaffle for the jaws of man, devouring
Pythagorean law. Rain her stubborn chaps even to her tail.
And though she have iron teeth to meaner men, so
master her that who displeased her most. She shall lie

(23:14):
under like a tired jade. For small boats on rough
seas are quickly lost, but ships ride safe and cut
the waves that tossed.

Speaker 10 (23:25):
Follow What may I am resolved? Dear brother, This monster
valor that doth feed on men, groans in me for
my reputation. This charge I give thee too. If I
do die, never depart from the young boy which late
I entertained, But love him for my sake and for

(23:46):
my mistress, the lady Honor, whom to deceive I have
deceived myself. If she be dead, pray God, I may
give up my life a sacrifice on her brother's sword.
But if thou livest to see her, gentle brother, if
I be slain, tell her I died because I had
transgressed against her. Worthy love this sword is not well noted.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Let's see thine enter maid like a foot boy.

Speaker 8 (24:14):
Your staying, sir is in vain for my lord proudly
just at his taking horse to meet you here at
seldom suit. The citizen was arrested upon an action of
two hundred pounds. I thought it, sir, tis true.

Speaker 10 (24:29):
Oh scurvy lord, it had been a cleanly your shift
than this to have had it hindered by command, he
being a lord. But I will find him.

Speaker 7 (24:41):
Enter lord, proudly, you see, valiant sir, I have got
loose for all your stratagem o rogue? Are you there?

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Proudly stabs his.

Speaker 10 (24:53):
Sister, most ignoble lord.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Injun stabs proudly in the left arm.

Speaker 7 (25:00):
Coward, thou didst this that I might be disabled for
the fight, all that thou mightst have some excuse to
shun me. But tis my left arm thou hast lighted on.
I have no second. Here are three of you. If
all do murder me, your consciences will more than hang

(25:22):
you damn here come prepare.

Speaker 10 (25:27):
Brother, walk off and take the boy away? Is he
hurt much?

Speaker 4 (25:32):
Nothing?

Speaker 7 (25:34):
Or very little?

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Proudly thrusts the boy out.

Speaker 10 (25:38):
I'll bind up your wound first. Your loss of blood
may sooner make.

Speaker 7 (25:42):
You faint injun Thou art a worthy gentleman. For this courtesy,
go too, I'll save thy life.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Come on, sir, a pass or two.

Speaker 7 (25:56):
I'll cut your cod piece points, sir, with this thrust
and bend down, go your briches.

Speaker 10 (26:03):
Your lordship's mare pass. I had liked to have spoiled
at your cutwork band.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Enter maid like a footboy, running brother after her made
kneels betwixt them.

Speaker 8 (26:17):
Oh master, hold your hand, my lord, hold yours, or
let your swords meet in this wretched breast. Yet you
are both well. What blood you have lost, give it
as for the injury you did, and now be friends.

Speaker 7 (26:32):
Sot tis a loving rogue.

Speaker 10 (26:36):
Kind boy, Stand up tis for thy wound. He bleeds.
My wrong is yet unsatisfied.

Speaker 7 (26:44):
Hence away. It is a sister's loss that wets my sword.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Maid discovers herself.

Speaker 8 (26:52):
Oh stay, my lord, behold your sister here, bleeding by
your hand. Servant, see your mistress turn to thyself. It
running by thy horse, whose meaning was to have prevented this,
But all in vain, O noble lady.

Speaker 10 (27:08):
Most worthy pattern of all womankind.

Speaker 7 (27:11):
John, I am satisfied. Put up your sword, sister, you
must with me. I have a husband, the lord fee
simple's bather, old but rich. This gentleman is no match
for you. Kneel not that portion of yours I have
consumed thus marrying you shall never come to want.

Speaker 8 (27:37):
Oh sweet, my lord, my brother, do not force me
to break my faith or to a loathed bed worth you.

Speaker 10 (27:44):
He shall not brother bear her hints. She is my wife,
and thou shalt find my cause ten times improved.

Speaker 7 (27:53):
Now, Oh have it, dear sir, pass.

Speaker 8 (27:58):
Hold hold of Heaven's sake? Was there a wretched lady
put to this hazard?

Speaker 10 (28:03):
Sir?

Speaker 8 (28:04):
Let me speak but one word with him, and I'll
go with you and undergo whatever you command.

Speaker 7 (28:09):
Do it quickly, for I love no whispering. Tis strange
to see you, madam, with a sword. You should have
come hither in your lady's clothes well as.

Speaker 8 (28:22):
You please, my Lord. You are witness whatso her before
hath passed betwixt us. Thus I do undo when not
I'm mad to think that thou couldst love me, Thou
wouldst have slain my.

Speaker 10 (28:33):
Brother, sayest true sister, Oh thou fare pitu wilt thou
be as false as other ladies.

Speaker 8 (28:43):
Thou art my example. I'll kiss thee once, farewell for
ever come, my Lord. Now match me with whom you please,
a tumbler. I must do this else had they fought
again mine.

Speaker 7 (28:58):
Own best's sister, Farewell Master injun exeunt proudly and maid.

Speaker 11 (29:06):
O ancient truth to be denied of no man. An
eel by the tails held surer than a woman

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Excunt, and of Act four