Part 3

PURE. O brother Busy! your help here, to edify and raise us up in a scruple: my daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural disease of women, called a longing to eat pig.

LIT. Ay, sir, a Bartholomew pig; and in the Fair.

PURE. And I would be satisfied from you, religiously-wise, whether a widow of the sanctified assembly, or a widow's daughter, may commit the act without offence to the weaker sisters.

BUSY. Verily, for the disease of longing, it is a disease, a carnal disease, or appetite, incident to women; and as it is carnal and incident, it is natural, very natural: now pig, it is a meat, and a meat that is nourishing and may be longed for, and so consequently eaten; it may be eaten; very exceeding well eaten; but in the Fair, and as a Bartholomew pig, it cannot be eaten; for the very calling it a Bartholomew pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry, and you make the Fair no better than one of the high-places. This, I take it, is the state of the question: a high-place.

LIT. Ay, but in state of necessity, place should give place, master Busy. I have a conceit left yet.

PURE. Good brother Zeal-of-the-land, think to make it as lawful as you can.

LIT. Yes, sir, and as soon as you can; for it must be, sir: you see the danger my little wife is in, sir.

PURE. Truly, I do love my child dearly, and I would not have her miscarry, or hazard her firstfruits, if it might be otherwise.

BUSY. Surely, it may be otherwise, but it is subject to construction, subject, and hath a face of offence with the weak, a great face, a foul face; but that face may have a veil put over it, and be shadowed as it were; it may be eaten, and in the Fair, I take it, in a booth, the tents of the wicked: the place is not much, not very much, we may be religious in the midst of the profane, so it be eaten with a reformed mouth, with sobriety and humbleness; not gorged in with gluttony or greediness, there's the fear: for, should she go there, as taking pride in the place, or delight in the unclean dressing, to feed the vanity of the eye, or lust of the palate, it were not well, it were not fit, it were abominable, and not good.

LIT. Nay, I knew that afore, and told her on't; but courage, Win, we'll be humble enough, we'll seek out the homeliest booth in the Fair, that's certain; rather than fail, we'll eat it on the ground.

PURE. Ay, and I'll go with you myself, Win-the-fight, and my brother Zeal-of-the-land shall go with us too, for our better consolation.

MRS. LIT. Uh, uh!

LIT. Ay, and Solomon too, Win, the more the merrier. Win, we'll leave Rabbi Busy in a booth. [_Aside to Mrs. Littlewit._]--Solomon! my cloak.

_Enter SOLOMON with the cloak._

SOL. Here, sir.

BUSY. In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. I will eat exceedingly, and prophesy; there may be a good use made of it too, now I think on't: by the public eating of swine's flesh, to profess our hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof the brethren stand tax'd. I will therefore eat, yea, I will eat exceedingly.

LIT. Good, i'faith, I will eat heartily too, because I will be no Jew, I could never away with that stiff-necked generation: and truly, I hope my little one will be like me, that cries for pig so in the mother's belly.

BUSY. Very likely, exceeding likely, very exceeding likely.

[_Exeunt._

## ACT II

## SCENE I--_The Fair._

A number of Booths, Stalls, etc., set out.

_LANTHORN LEATHERHEAD, JOAN TRASH, and others, sitting by their wares._

_Enter JUSTICE OVERDO, at a distance, in disguise._

OVER. Well, in justice name, and the king's, and for the commonwealth! defy all the world, Adam Overdo, for a disguise, and all story; for thou hast fitted thyself, I swear. Fain would I meet the Linceus now, that eagle's eye, that piercing Epidaurian serpent (as my Quintus Horace calls him) that could discover a justice of peace (and lately of the Quorum) under this covering. They may have seen many a fool in the habit of a justice; but never till now, a justice in the habit of a fool. Thus must we do though, that wake for the public good; and thus hath the wise magistrate done in all ages. There is a doing of right out of wrong, if the way be found. Never shall I enough commend a worthy worshipful man, sometime a capital member of this city, for his high wisdom in this point, who would take you now the habit of a porter, now of a carman, now of the dog-killer, in this month of August; and in the winter, of a seller of tinder-boxes. And what would he do in all these shapes? marry, go you into every alehouse, and down into every cellar; measure the length of puddings; take the gage of black pots and cans, ay, and custards, with a stick; and their circumference with a thread; weigh the loaves of bread on his middle finger; then would he send for them home; give the puddings to the poor, the bread to the hungry, the custards to his children; break the pots, and burn the cans himself: he would not trust his corrupt officers, he would do it himself. Would all men in authority would follow this worthy precedent! for alas, as we are public persons, what do we know? nay, what can we know? we hear with other men's ears, we see with other men's eyes. A foolish constable or a sleepy watchman, is all our information; he slanders a gentleman by the virtue of his place, as he calls it, and we, by the vice of ours, must believe him. As, a while agone, they made me, yea me, to mistake an honest zealous pursuivant for a seminary; and a proper young bachelor of musick, for a bawd. This we are subject to that live in high place; all our intelligence is idle, and most of our intelligencers knaves; and, by your leave, ourselves thought little better, if not arrant fools, for believing them. I, Adam Overdo, am resolved therefore to spare spy-money hereafter, and make mine own discoveries. Many are the yearly enormities of this Fair, in whose courts of Pie-poudres I have had the honour, during the three days, sometimes to sit as judge. But this is the special day for detection of those foresaid enormities. Here is my black book for the purpose; this the cloud that hides me; under this covert I shall see and not be seen. On, Junius Brutus. And as I began, so I'll end; in justice name, and the king's, and for the commonwealth!

[_Advances to the booths, and stands aside._

LEATH. The Fair's pestilence dead methinks; people come not abroad to-day, whatever the matter is. Do you hear, sister Trash, lady of the basket? sit farther with your gingerbread progeny there, and hinder not the prospect of my shop, or I'll have it proclaimed in the Fair, what stuff they are made on.

TRASH. Why, what stuff are they made on, brother Leatherhead? nothing but what's wholesome, I assure you.

LEATH. Yes, stale bread, rotten eggs, musty ginger, and dead honey, you know.

OVER. Ay! have I met with enormity so soon? [_Aside._

LEATH. I shall mar your market, old Joan.

TRASH. Mar my market, thou too-proud pedlar! do thy worst, I defy thee, I, and thy stable of hobby-horses. I pay for my ground, as well as thou dost: an thou wrong'st me, for all thou art parcel-poet, and an inginer, I'll find a friend shall right me, and make a ballad of thee, and thy cattle all over. Are you puft up with the pride of your wares? your arsedine?

LEATH. Go to, old Joan, I'll talk with you anon; and take you down too, afore justice Overdo: he is the man must charm you, I'll have you in the Pie-poudres.

TRASH. Charm me! I'll meet thee face to face, afore his worship, when thou darest: and though I be a little crooked o' my body, I shall be found as upright in my dealing as any woman in Smithfield, I; charm me!

OVER. I am glad to hear my name is their terror yet, this is doing of justice. [_Aside._]

[_A number of people pass over the stage._

LEATH. What do you lack? what is't you buy? what do you lack? rattles, drums, halberts, horses, babies o' the best, fiddles of the finest?

_Enter COSTARD-MONGER, followed by NIGHTINGALE._

COST. Buy any pears, pears, fine, very fine pears!

TRASH. Buy any gingerbread, gilt gingerbread!

NIGHT. Hey, [_Sings._

_Now the Fair's a filling! O, for a tune to startle The birds o' the booths here billing, Yearly with old saint Bartle! The drunkards they are wading, The punks and chapmen trading;_

Buy any ballads, new ballads?

_Enter URSULA, from her Booth._

URS. Fie upon't: who would wear out their youth and prime thus, in roasting of pigs, that had any cooler vocation? hell's a kind of cold cellar to't, a very fine vault, o' my conscience!--What, Mooncalf!

MOON. [_within._] Here, mistress.

NIGHT. How now, Ursula? in a heat, in a heat?

URS. My chair, you false faucet you; and my morning's draught, quickly, a bottle of ale, to quench me, rascal. I am all fire and fat, Nightingale, I shall e'en melt away to the first woman, a rib again, I am afraid. I do water the ground in knots, as I go, like a great garden pot; you may follow me by the SS. I make.

NIGHT. Alas, good Urse! was Zekiel here this morning?

URS. Zekiel? what Zekiel?

NIGHT. Zekiel Edgworth, the civil cutpurse, you know him well enough; he that talks bawdy to you still: I call him my secretary.

URS. He promised to be here this morning, I remember.

NIGHT. When he comes, bid him stay: I'll be back again presently.

URS. Best take your morning dew in your belly, Nightingale.--

_Enter MOONCALF, with the Chair._

Come, sir, set it here, did not I bid you should get a chair let out o' the sides for me, that my hips might play? you'll never think of any thing, till your dame be rump-gall'd; 'tis well, changeling: because it can take in your grasshopper's thighs, you care for no more. Now, you look as you had been in the corner of the booth, fleaing your breech with a candle's end, and set fire o' the Fair. Fill, Stote, fill.

OVER. This pig-woman do I know, and I will put her in, for my second enormity; she hath been before me, punk, pinnace, and bawd, any time these two and twenty years upon record in the Pie-poudres. [_Aside._

URS. Fill again, you unlucky vermin!

MOON. 'Pray you be not angry, mistress, I'll have it widen'd anon.

URS. No, no, I shall e'en dwindle away to't, ere the Fair be done, you think, now you have heated me: a poor vex'd thing I am, I feel myself dropping already as fast as I can; two stone o' suet a day is my proportion. I can but hold life and soul together, with this, (here's to you, Nightingale,) and a whiff of tobacco at most. Where's my pipe now? not fill'd! thou arrant incubee.

NIGHT. Nay, Ursula, thou'lt gall between the tongue and the teeth, with fretting, now.

URS. How can I hope that ever he'll discharge his place of trust, tapster, a man of reckoning under me, that remembers nothing I say to him? [_Exit Nightingale._] but look to't, sirrah, you were best. Three-pence a pipe-full, I will have made, of all my whole half-pound of tobacco, and a quarter of pound of colt's-foot mixt with it too, to itch it out. I that have dealt so long in the fire, will not be to seek in smoke, now. Then six and twenty shillings a barrel I will advance on my beer, and fifty shillings a hundred on my bottle-ale; I have told you the ways how to raise it. Froth your cans well in the filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o' the buttock, sirrah, then skink out the first glass ever, and drink with all companies, though you be sure to be drunk; you'll misreckon the better, and be less ashamed on't. But your true trick, rascal, must be, to be ever busy, and mistake away the bottles and cans, in haste, before they be half drunk off, and never hear any body call, (if they should chance to mark you,) till you have brought fresh, and be able to forswear them. Give me a drink of ale.

OVER. This is the very womb and bed of enormity! gross as herself! this must all down for enormity, all, every whit on't. [_Aside._

[_Knocking within._

URS. Look who's there, sirrah: five shillings a pig is my price, at least; if it be a sow pig, sixpence more; if she be a great-bellied wife, and long for't, sixpence more for that.

OVER. _O tempora! O mores!_ I would not have lost my discovery of this one grievance, for my place, and worship o' the bench. How is the poor subject abused here! Well, I will fall in with her, and with her Mooncalf, and win out wonders of enormity. [_Comes forward._]--By thy leave, goodly woman, and the fatness of the Fair, oily as the king's constable's lamp, and shining as his shooing-horn! hath thy ale virtue, or thy beer strength, that the tongue of man may be tickled, and his palate pleased in the morning? Let thy pretty nephew here go search and see.

URS. What new roarer is this?

MOON. O Lord! do you not know him, mistress? 'tis mad Arthur of Bradley, that makes the orations.--Brave master, old Arthur of Bradley, how do you? welcome to the Fair! when shall we hear you again, to handle your matters, with your back against a booth, ha? I have been one of your little disciples, in my days.

OVER. Let me drink, boy, with my love, thy aunt, here; that I may be eloquent: but of thy best, lest it be bitter in my mouth, and my words fall foul on the Fair.

URS. Why dost thou not fetch him drink, and offer him to sit?

MOON. Is it ale or beer, master Arthur?

OVER. Thy best, pretty stripling, thy best; the same thy dove drinketh, and thou drawest on holydays.

URS. Bring him a sixpenny bottle of ale: they say, a fool's handsel is lucky.

OVER. Bring both, child. [_Sits down in the booth._] Ale for Arthur, and Beer for Bradley. Ale for thine aunt, boy. [_Exit Mooncalf._]--My disguise takes to the very wish and reach of it. I shall, by the benefit of this, discover enough, and more: and yet get off with the reputation of what I would be: a certain middling thing, between a fool and a madman. [_Aside._

_Enter KNOCKEM._

KNOCK. What! my little lean Ursula! my she-bear! art thou alive yet, with thy litter of pigs to grunt out another Bartholomew Fair? ha!

URS. Yes, and to amble a foot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart, up the heavy hill--

KNOCK. Of Holbourn, Ursula, meanst thou so? for what, for what, pretty Urse?

URS. For cutting halfpenny purses, or stealing little penny dogs out o' the Fair.

KNOCK. O! good words, good words, Urse.

OVER. Another special enormity. A cut-purse of the sword, the boot, and the feather! those are his marks. [_Aside._

_Re-enter MOONCALF, with the ale, etc._

URS. You are one of those horse-leaches that gave out I was dead, in Turnbull-street, of a surfeit of bottle-ale and tripes?

KNOCK. No, 'twas better meat, Urse: cow's udders, cow's udders!

URS. Well, I shall be meet with your mumbling mouth one day.

KNOCK. What! thou'lt poison me with a newt in a bottle of ale, wilt thou? or a spider in a tobacco-pipe, Urse? Come, there's no malice in these fat folks, I never fear thee, an I can scape thy lean Mooncalf here. Let's drink it out, good Urse, and no vapours!

[_Exit Ursula._

OVER. Dost thou hear, boy? There's for thy ale, and the remnant for thee.--Speak in thy faith of a faucet, now; is this goodly person before us here, this vapours, a knight of the knife?

MOON. What mean you by that, master Arthur?

OVER. I mean a child of the horn-thumb, a babe of booty, boy, a cut-purse.

MOON. O Lord, sir! far from it. This is master Daniel Knockem Jordan: the ranger of Turnbull. He is a horse-courser, sir.

OVER. Thy dainty dame, though, call'd him cut-purse.

MOON. Like enough, sir; she'll do forty such things in an hour (an you listen to her) for her recreation, if the toy take her in the greasy kerchief: it makes her fat, you see; she battens with it.

OVER. Here I might have been deceived now, and have put a fool's blot upon myself, if I had not played an after game of discretion! [_Aside._

_Re-enter URSULA, dropping._

KNOCK. Alas, poor Urse! this is an ill season for thee.

URS. Hang yourself, hackney-man!

KNOCK. How, how, Urse! vapours? motion breed vapours?

URS. Vapours! never tusk, nor twirl your dibble, good Jordan, I know what you'll take to a very drop. Though you be captain of the roarers, and fight well at the case of piss-pots, you shall not fright me with your lion-chap, sir, nor your tusks; you angry! you are hungry. Come, a pig's head will stop your mouth, and stay your stomach at all times.

KNOCK. Thou art such another mad, merry Urse, still! troth I do make conscience of vexing thee, now in the dog-days, this hot weather, for fear of foundering thee in the body, and melting down a pillar of the Fair. Pray thee take thy chair again, and keep state; and let's have a fresh bottle of ale, and a pipe of tobacco; and no vapours. I'll have this belly o' thine taken up, and thy grass scoured, wench.--

_Enter EDGWORTH._

Look, here's Ezekiel Edgworth; a fine boy of his inches, as any is in the Fair! has still money in his purse, and will pay all, with a kind heart, and good vapours.

EDG. That I will indeed, willingly, master Knockem; fetch some ale and tobacco.

[_Exit Mooncalf.--People cross the stage._

LEATH. What do you lack, gentlemen? maid, see a fine hobby-horse for your young master; cost you but a token a-week his provender.

_Re-enter NIGHTINGALE, with CORN-CUTTER, and MOUSETRAP-MAN._

CORN. Have you any corns in your feet and toes?

MOUSE. Buy a mousetrap, a mousetrap, or a tormentor for a flea?

TRASH. Buy some gingerbread?

NIGHT. Ballads, ballads! fine new ballads:

_Hear for your love, and buy for your money. A delicate ballad o' the ferret and the coney. A preservative again' the punk's evil. Another of goose-green starch, and the devil. A dozen of divine points, and the godly garters: The fairing of good counsel, of an ell and three-quarters._

What is't you buy?

_The windmill blown down by the witch's fart. Or saint George, that, O! did break the dragon's heart._

_Re-enter MOONCALF, with ale and tobacco._

EDG. Master Nightingale, come hither, leave your mart a little.

NIGHT. O my secretary! what says my secretary?

[_They walk into the booth._

OVER. Child of the bottles, what's he? what's he?

[_Points to Edgworth._

MOON. A civil young gentleman, master Arthur, that keeps company with the roarers, and disburses all still. He has ever money in his purse; he pays for them, and they roar for him; one does good offices for another. They call him the secretary, but he serves nobody. A great friend of the ballad-man's, they are never asunder.

OVER. What pity 'tis, so civil a young man should haunt this debauched company? here's the bane of the youth of our time apparent. A proper penman, I see't in his countenance, he has a good clerk's look with him, and I warrant him a quick hand.

MOON. A very quick hand, sir.

[_Exit._

EDG. [_whispering with Nightingale and Ursula._] All the purses, and purchase, I give you to-day by conveyance, bring hither to Ursula's presently. Here we will meet at night in her lodge, and share. Look you choose good places for your standing in the Fair, when you sing, Nightingale.

URS. Ay, near the fullest passages; and shift them often.

EDG. And in your singing, you must use your hawk's eye nimbly, and fly the purse to a mark still, where 'tis worn, and on which side; that you may give me the sign with your beak, or hang your head that way in the tune.

URS. Enough, talk no more on't: your friendship, masters, is not now to begin. Drink your draught of indenture, your sup of covenant, and away: the Fair fills apace, company begins to come in, and I have ne'er a pig ready yet.

KNOCK. Well said! fill the cups, and light the tobacco: let's give fire in the works, and noble vapours.

EDG. And shall we have smocks, Ursula, and good whimsies, ha!

URS. Come, you are in your bawdy vein!--the best the Fair will afford, Zekiel, if bawd Whit keep his word.--

_Re-enter MOONCALF._

How do the pigs, Mooncalf?

MOON. Very passionate, mistress, one of 'em has wept out an eye. Master Arthur o' Bradley is melancholy here, nobody talks to him. Will you any tobacco, master Arthur?

OVER. No, boy; let my meditations alone.

MOON. He's studying for an oration, now.

OVER. If I can with this day's travail, and all my policy, but rescue this youth here out of the hands of the lewd man and the strange woman, I will sit down at night, and say with my friend Ovid,

_Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis,_ etc. [_Aside._

KNOCK. Here, Zekiel, here's a health to Ursula, and a kind vapour; thou hast money in thy purse still, and store! how dost thou come by it? pray thee vapour thy friends some in a courteous vapour.

EDG. Half I have, master Dan. Knockem, is always at your service.

[_Pulls out his purse._

OVER. Ha, sweet nature! what goshawk would prey upon such a lamb? [_Aside._

KNOCK. Let's see what 'tis, Zekiel; count it, come, fill him to pledge me

_Enter WINWIFE and QUARLOUS._

WINW. We are here before them, methinks.

QUAR. All the better, we shall see them come in now.

LEATH. What do you lack, gentlemen, what is't you lack? a fine horse? a lion? a bull? a bear? a dog? or a cat? an excellent fine Bartholomew-bird? or an instrument? what is't you lack?

QUAR. 'Slid! here's Orpheus among the beasts, with his fiddle and all!

TRASH. Will you buy any comfortable bread, gentlemen?

QUAR. And Ceres selling her daughter's picture, in ginger-work.

WINW. That these people should be so ignorant to think us chapmen for them! do we look as if we would buy gingerbread, or hobby-horses?

QUAR. Why, they know no better ware than they have, nor better customers than come: and our very being here makes us fit to be demanded, as well as others. Would Cokes would come! there were a true customer for them.

KNOCK. [_to Edgworth._] How much is't? thirty shillings? Who's yonder! Ned Winwife and Tom Quarlous, I think! yes: (give me it all, give it me all.)--Master Winwife! Master Quarlous! will you take a pipe of tobacco with us?--Do not discredit me now, Zekiel.

[_Edgworth gives him his purse._