Every Man in his Humour [29]
thy humour, man, thou mistakest.
COB. Humour? mack, I think it be so indeed: what is this humour? it's some rare thing, I warrant.
PIS. Marry, I'll tell thee what it is (as 'tis generally received in these days): it is a monster bred in a man by self-love and affectation, and fed by folly.
COB. How? must it be fed?
PIS. Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed, why, didst thou never hear of that? it's a common phrase, "Feed my humour".
COB. I'll none on it: humour, avaunt, I know you not, be gone. Let who will make hungry meals for you, it shall not be I: Feed you, quoth he? 'sblood, I have much ado to feed myself, especially on these lean rascal days too, an't had been any other day but a fasting day: a plague on them all for me: by this light, one might have done God good service and have drown'd them all in the flood two or three hundred thousand years ago, oh, I do stomach them hugely: I have a maw now, an't were for Sir Bevis's horse.
PIS. Nay, but I pray thee, Cob, what makes thee so out of love with fasting days?
COB. Marry, that that will make any man out of love with them, I think: their bad conditions, an you will needs know: First, they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on't, for they raven up more butter than all the days of the week beside: next, they stink of fish miserably: thirdly, they'll keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night send him supperless to bed.
PIS. Indeed, these are faults, Cob.
COB. Nay, an this were all, 'twere something, but they are the only known enemies to my generation. A fasting day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to rack, poor Cobs, they smoke for it, they melt in passion, and your maids too know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal, and eat my own fish and blood: my princely coz, [PULLS OUT A RED HERRING.] fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as Golias: oh, that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt water enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand of my kin: but I may curse none but these filthy Almanacks, for an 'twere not for them, these days of persecution would ne'er be known. I'll be hang'd an some fishmonger's son do not make on them, and puts in more fasting days than he should do, because he would utter his father's dried stock-fish.
PIS. 'Soul, peace, thou'lt be beaten like a stockfish else: here is Signior Matheo. [ENTER MATHEO, PROSPERO, LORENZO JUNIOR, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, MUSCO. Now must I look out for a messenger to my master. [EXEUNT COB AND PISO.
SCENE II.
PROS. Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried.
LOR. JU. Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well, did it not?
PROS. Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not know him?
LOR. JU. 'Fore God, not I, an I might have been join'd patten with one of the nine worthies for knowing him. 'Sblood, man, he had so writhen himself into the habit of one of your poor Disparview's here, your decayed, ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round: such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing with an emphasis. Indeed, all with so special and exquisite a grace, that (hadst thou seen him) thou would'st have sworn he might have been the Tamberlane, or the Agamemnon on the rout.
PROS. Why, Musco, who would have thought thou hadst been such a gallant?
LOR. JU. I cannot tell, but (unless a man had juggled begging all his life time, and been a weaver of phrases from his infancy, for the apparelling of it) I think the world cannot produce his rival.
PROS. Where got'st thou this coat, I marle?
MUS. Faith, sir, I had it of one of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker.
COB. Humour? mack, I think it be so indeed: what is this humour? it's some rare thing, I warrant.
PIS. Marry, I'll tell thee what it is (as 'tis generally received in these days): it is a monster bred in a man by self-love and affectation, and fed by folly.
COB. How? must it be fed?
PIS. Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed, why, didst thou never hear of that? it's a common phrase, "Feed my humour".
COB. I'll none on it: humour, avaunt, I know you not, be gone. Let who will make hungry meals for you, it shall not be I: Feed you, quoth he? 'sblood, I have much ado to feed myself, especially on these lean rascal days too, an't had been any other day but a fasting day: a plague on them all for me: by this light, one might have done God good service and have drown'd them all in the flood two or three hundred thousand years ago, oh, I do stomach them hugely: I have a maw now, an't were for Sir Bevis's horse.
PIS. Nay, but I pray thee, Cob, what makes thee so out of love with fasting days?
COB. Marry, that that will make any man out of love with them, I think: their bad conditions, an you will needs know: First, they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on't, for they raven up more butter than all the days of the week beside: next, they stink of fish miserably: thirdly, they'll keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night send him supperless to bed.
PIS. Indeed, these are faults, Cob.
COB. Nay, an this were all, 'twere something, but they are the only known enemies to my generation. A fasting day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to rack, poor Cobs, they smoke for it, they melt in passion, and your maids too know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal, and eat my own fish and blood: my princely coz, [PULLS OUT A RED HERRING.] fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as Golias: oh, that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt water enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand of my kin: but I may curse none but these filthy Almanacks, for an 'twere not for them, these days of persecution would ne'er be known. I'll be hang'd an some fishmonger's son do not make on them, and puts in more fasting days than he should do, because he would utter his father's dried stock-fish.
PIS. 'Soul, peace, thou'lt be beaten like a stockfish else: here is Signior Matheo. [ENTER MATHEO, PROSPERO, LORENZO JUNIOR, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, MUSCO. Now must I look out for a messenger to my master. [EXEUNT COB AND PISO.
SCENE II.
PROS. Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried.
LOR. JU. Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well, did it not?
PROS. Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not know him?
LOR. JU. 'Fore God, not I, an I might have been join'd patten with one of the nine worthies for knowing him. 'Sblood, man, he had so writhen himself into the habit of one of your poor Disparview's here, your decayed, ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round: such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing with an emphasis. Indeed, all with so special and exquisite a grace, that (hadst thou seen him) thou would'st have sworn he might have been the Tamberlane, or the Agamemnon on the rout.
PROS. Why, Musco, who would have thought thou hadst been such a gallant?
LOR. JU. I cannot tell, but (unless a man had juggled begging all his life time, and been a weaver of phrases from his infancy, for the apparelling of it) I think the world cannot produce his rival.
PROS. Where got'st thou this coat, I marle?
MUS. Faith, sir, I had it of one of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker.