The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [1825]
MOLL.
How knows he that? what, has some Devil told him?
WIDDOW.
Strange he should know our thoughts:--Why, but, Daughter, have you purposed speedy Marriage?
PYE.
You see she tells you aye, for she says nothing. Nay, give me credit as you please. I am a stranger to you, and yet you see I know your determinations, which must come to me Metaphysically, and by a super-natural intelligence.
WIDDOW.
This puts Amazement on me.
FRANCES.
Know our secrets!
MOLL.
I'd thought to steal a marriage: would his tongue Had dropt out when be blabbed it!
WIDDOW.
But, sir, my husband was too honest a dealing man to be now in any purgatories--
PYE.
O, Do not load your conscience with untruths; Tis but mere folly now to gild him o'er, That has past but for Copper. Praises here Cannot unbind him there: confess but truth. I know he got his wealth with a hard grip: Oh hardly, hardly.
WIDDOW.
This is most strange of all: how knows he that?
PYE.
He would eat fools and ignorant heirs clean up; And had his drink from many a poor man's brow, E'en as their labour brewed it. He would scrape riches to him most unjustly; The very dirt between his nails was Ill-got, And not his own,--oh, I groan to speak on't, The thought makes me shudder--shudder!
WIDDOW.
It quakes me too, now I think on't.--Sir, I am much grieved, that you, a stranger, should so deeply wrong my dead husband!
PYE.
Oh!
WIDDOW.
A man that would keep Church so duly; rise early, before his servants, and e'en for Religious hast, go ungartered, unbuttoned, nay, sir Reverence, untrust, to Morning Prayer.
PYE.
Oh, uff.
WIDDOW.
Dine quickly upon high-days, and when I had great guests, would e'en shame me and rise from the Table, to get a good seat at an after-noon Sermon.
PYE.
There's the devil, there's the devil! true, he thought it Sactity enough, if he had killed a man, so tad been done in a Pew, or undone his Neighbour, so ta'd been near enough to th' Preacher. Oh,--a Sermon's a fine short cloak of an hour long, and will hide the upper-part of a dissembler.--Church! Aye, he seemed all Church, and his conscience was as hard as the Pulpit!
WIDDOW.
I can no more endure this.
PYE.
Nor I, widdow, endure to flatter.
WIDDOW.
Is this all your business with me?
PYE.
No, Lady, tis but the induction too'te. You may believe my strains, I strike all true, And if your conscience would leap up to your tongue, your self would affirm it: and that you shall perceive I know of things to come as well as I do of what is present, a Brother of your husband's shall shortly have a loss.
WIDDOW.
A loss; marry, heaven for-fend! Sir Godfrey, my brother?
PYE.
Nay, keep in your wonders, will I have told you the fortunes of you all; which are more fearful, if not happily prevented: --for your part and your daughters, if there be not once this day some blood-shed before your door, whereof the human creature dies, two of you--the elder--shall run mad.
MOTHER AND FRANCES.
Oh!
MOLL.
That's not I yet!
PYE.
And with most impudent prostitution show your naked bodies to the view of all beholders.
WIDDOW.
Our naked bodies? fie, for shame!
PYE.
Attend me: and your younger daughter be strocken dumb.
MOLL.
Dumb? out, alas: tis the worst pain of all for a Woman. I'd rather be mad, or run naked, or any thing: dumb?
PYE.
Give ear: ere the evening fall upon Hill, Bog, and Meadow, this my speech shall have past probation, and then shall I be believed accordingly.
WIDDOW.
If this be true, we are all shamed, all undone.
MOLL.
Dumb? I'll speak as much as ever I can possible before evening!
PYE.
But if it so come to pass (as for your fair sakes I wish it may) that this presage of your strange fortunes be prevented by that accident