|
COUNTESS |
Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of
your breeding. |
|
Clown |
I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I
know my business is but to the court. |
|
COUNTESS |
To the court! why, what place make you special,
when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court! |
|
Clown |
Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners,
he
may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make
a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand and say nothing,
has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed
such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the
court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all
men. |
|
COUNTESS |
Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all
questions. |
|
Clown |
It is like a barber's chair that fits all buttocks,
the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn
buttock, or any buttock. |
|
COUNTESS |
Will your answer serve fit to all questions?
|
|
Clown |
As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an
attorney,
as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib's
rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove
Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his
hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen
to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the
friar's mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin. |
|
COUNTESS |
Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all
questions? |
|
Clown |
From below your duke to beneath your constable, it
will fit any question. |
|
COUNTESS |
It must be an answer of most monstrous size that
must fit all demands. |
|
Clown |
But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned
should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that
belongs to't. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall
do you no harm to learn. |
|
COUNTESS |
To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in
question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I
pray you, sir, are you a courtier? |
|
Clown |
O Lord, sir! There's a simple putting off. More,
more, a hundred of them. |
|
COUNTESS |
Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.
|
|
Clown |
O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me.
|
|
COUNTESS |
I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
|
|
Clown |
O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.
|
|
COUNTESS |
You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.
|
|
Clown |
O Lord, sir! spare not me. |
|
COUNTESS |
Do you cry, 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and
'spare not me?' Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very
sequent to your whipping: you would answer very well
to a whipping, if you were but bound to't. |
|
Clown |
I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord,
sir!' I see things may serve long, but not serve ever. |
|
COUNTESS |
I play the noble housewife with the time
To entertain't so merrily with a fool. |
|
Clown |
O Lord, sir! why, there't serves well again.
|
|
COUNTESS |
An end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this,
And urge her to a present answer back:
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son:
This is not much. |
|
Clown |
Not much commendation to them. |
|
COUNTESS |
Not much employment for you: you understand me?
|
|
Clown |
Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs.
|
|
COUNTESS |
Haste you again. |
| |
[Exeunt severally] |
