We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Even so, Ben Jonson—who briefly enjoyed stature as a playwright exceeding his contemporary Shakespeare—might well have spent the rest of his life haunted by the mounting of his Altmanesque comedy following the misadventures and assorted complications of a variety of idiosyncratic characters during the celebrated Smithfield Fair commemorating St.
What was so potentially frightful about this performance? The conventional wisdom of most scholars, academics and assorted other experts on these type of things is that Jonson never again attained the heights of artistry of this or any other of his most highly regarded works.
From October 31, onward, in other things, it was all downhill. What Ben Jonson does in this play is situate a memorable cast of characters that includes a Barney Fife-esque justice of the peace, balladeers, pickpockets, fortune-hunting bounders, pious Puritans and pretty much every other type of con artist and carny scammer that usually show up where such oblivious crowds congregate.
I would I might, John; but my mother will never consent to such a profane motion, she will call it. Win, long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, in the Fair, do you see, in the heart of the Fair, not at Pye-corner.
Our mother is a most elect hypocrite, and has maintained us all this seven year with it, like gentlefolks. Ay, let her alone, John, she is not a wise wilful widow for nothing; nor a sanctified sister for a song. And let me alone too, I have somewhat of the mother in me, you shall see: fetch her, fetch her—[ Exit Littlewit.
Now, the blaze of the beauteous discipline, fright away this evil from our house! Look up, sweet Win-the-fight, and suffer not the enemy to enter you at this door, remember that your education has been with the purest: What polluted one was it, that named first the unclean beast, pig, to you, child?
Not I, on my sincerity, mother! O, resist it, Win-the-fight, it is the tempter, the wicked tempter, you may know it by the fleshly motion of pig; be strong against it, and its foul temptations, in these assaults, whereby it broacheth flesh and blood, as it were on the weaker side; and pray against its carnal provocations; good child, sweet child, pray. Good mother, I pray you, that she may eat some pig, and her belly full too; and do not you cast away your own child, and perhaps one of mine, with your tale of the tempter.
How do you do, Win, are you not sick? What shall we do? Call our zealous brother Busy hither, for his faithful fortification in this charge of the adversary. Presently, mother, as soon as he has cleansed his beard. I found him fast by the teeth in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right. O brother 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. Ay, but in state of necessity, place should give place, master Busy. I have a conceit left yet.
Good brother Zeal-of-the-land, think to make it as lawful as you can. Yes, sir, and as soon as you can; for it must be, sir: you see the danger my little wife is in, sir. Truly, I do love my child dearly, and I would not have her miscarry, or hazard her firstfruits, if it might be otherwise. Ay, and Solomon too, Win, the more the merrier. In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. I will therefore eat, yea, I will eat exceedingly. 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? Would all men in authority would follow this worthy precedent! 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 [Pg ] 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. Do you hear, sister Trash, lady of the basket? Why, what stuff are they made on, brother Leatherhead?
Yes, stale bread, rotten eggs, musty ginger, and dead honey, you know. Mar my market, thou too-proud pedlar! Are you puft up with the pride of your wares? Charm me! I am glad to hear my name is their terror yet, this is doing of justice. What do you lack? I do water the ground in knots, as I go, like a great garden pot; you may follow me by the SS.
I make. Zekiel Edgworth, the civil cutpurse, you know him well enough; he that talks bawdy to you still: I call him my secretary. Fill, Stote, fill. 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. 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.
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. This is the very womb and bed of enormity! O tempora! O mores! How is the poor subject abused here! Well, I will fall in with her, and with her Mooncalf, and win out wonders of enormity.
Let thy pretty nephew here go search and see. O Lord! I have been one of your little disciples, in my days. 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.
Thy best, pretty stripling, thy best; the same thy dove drinketh, and thou drawest on holydays. Bring both, child. Ale for thine aunt, boy. 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.
Yes, and to amble a foot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart, up the heavy hill—. Of Holbourn, Ursula, meanst thou so? Another special enormity.
A cut-purse of the sword, the boot, and the feather! You are one of those horse-leaches that gave out I was dead, in Turnbull-street, of a surfeit of bottle-ale and tripes? Dost thou hear, boy? I mean a child of the horn-thumb, a babe of booty, boy, a cut-purse. This is master Daniel Knockem Jordan: the ranger of Turnbull. He is a horse-courser, sir. 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!
Thou art such another mad, merry Urse, still! That I will indeed, willingly, master Knockem; fetch some ale and tobacco. What do you lack, gentlemen? 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. 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. Well said! Come, you are in your bawdy vein! Will you any tobacco, master Arthur? Ha, sweet nature! That these people should be so ignorant to think us chapmen for them! 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! Ned Winwife and Tom Quarlous, I think! You may draw me to as likely an inconvenience, when you please, as this. Go to then, come along; we have nothing to do, man, but to see sights now. Welcome, master Quarlous, and master Winwife; will you take any froth and smoke with us? A good vapour! Here you may have your punk and your pig in state, sir, both piping hot.
By and by, the bottle is almost off, mistress; here, master Arthur. Master Winwife, you are proud, methinks, you do not talk, nor drink; are you proud? You do not except at the company, do you! What did you know, vermin, if they would have lost a cloke, or such trifle? Nay, she is too fat to be a fury, sure some walking sow of tallow! Out upon her, how she drips! Marry look off, with a patch on your face, and a dozen in your breech, though they be of scarlet, sir. I have seen as fine outsides as either of yours, bring lousy linings to the brokers, ere now, twice a week.
Do you think there may be a fine new cucking-stool in the Fair, to be purchased; one large enough, I mean? I know there is a pond of capacity for her. For your mother, you rascal! Pray thee, go in. Does it so, snotty-nose? You were engendered on a she-beggar in a barn, when the bald thrasher, your sire, was scarce warm. Does she so? Gentlemen, these are very strange vapours, and very idle vapours, I assure you. Humph, ass! I have a foolish vapour, gentlemen: Any man that does vapour me the ass, master Quarlous—.
Faith, and to any man that vapours me the lie, I do vapour that. Curse of hell! I have scalded my leg, my leg, my leg, my leg!
I have lost a limb in the service! Are you under-peering, you baboon? Run you for some cream, good mother Joan. This had been a fine time for purchase, if you had ventured. Nightingale, get some help to carry her leg out of the air: take off her shoes.
Oh, the pox! Would you have me in the hospital afore my time? These are the fruits of bottle-ale and tobacco! Stay, young man, and despise not the wisdom of these few hairs that are grown grey in care of thee. Come, Numps, come, where are you? Welcome into the Fair, mistress Grace. Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale; for who knows when he openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? Hath not a snail, a spider, yea, a newt been found there?
Why will you hear him? Will you away yet, have you enough on him? Mistress Grace, come you away; I pray you, be not you accessary. If you do lose your license, or somewhat else, sir, with listening to his fables, say Numps is a witch, with all my heart, do, say so. The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as some late writers affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor the drying of it, nor the lighting or burning, can any way persway or assuage.
Nay, the hole in the nose here of some tobacco-takers, or the third nostril, if I may so call it, which makes that they can vent the tobacco out, like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lis, is caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco!
This fellow was sent to us by Fortune, for our first fairing. But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the Fair? Hark, O you sons and daughters of Smithfield! Look into any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time, but with bottle-ale and tobacco? Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! Heart of a madman! Will you fix here, and set up a booth, sir?
You were best build a booth, and entertain him; make your will, an you say the word, and him your heir! Stay, Numps, stay, set me down: I have lost my purse, Numps. O my purse! One of my fine purses is gone! Ay, as I am an honest man, would I were an arrant rogue else!
I did not tell you of his fables, I! Are you not justly served, in your conscience, now, speak in your conscience? Much good do you with all my heart, and his good heart that has it, with all my heart again. This fellow is very charitable, would he had a purse too! Not your best! Nay, so I will, I warrant you; let him catch this that catch can.
I would fain see him get this, look you here. I would have him come again now, and but offer at it. Sister, will you take notice of a good jest? I will put it just where [Pg ] the other was, and if we have good luck, you shall see a delicate fine trap to catch the cut-purse nibbling.
Come, mistress Grace, prithee be not melancholy for my mischance; sorrow will not keep it, sweet-heart. I have gold left to give thee a fairing yet, as hard as the world goes. I, I look like a cut-purse? Hold thy hand, child of wrath, and heir of anger, make it not Childermass day in thy fury, or the feast of the French Bartholomew, parent of the massacre.
You are the Patrico, are you? You share, sir, they say; let them share this with you. Are you in your hot fit of preaching again? Nay, tish all gone, now! Come, come, you told me a pudding, Toby Haggise; a matter of nothing; I am sure it came to nothing. An old fool, not leave seeing yet! Why, should the watch go by the clock, or the clock by the watch, I pray?
Tou art right now! Shleeping or vaking: ash well as te clock himshelf, or te Jack dat shtrikes him. If it be a Ledderhead, tish a very tick Ledderhead, tat sho mush noish vill not piersh him. Why, what an you have, captain Whit? Away, be not sheen in my company, here be shentlemen, and men of vorship. O creesh, duke Quarlous, how dosht tou? I do mean it, man. They are going a feasting. So, walk on in the middle way, fore-right, turn neither to the right hand nor to the left; let not your eyes be drawn aside with vanity, nor your ear with noises.
What do you lack, what do you buy, mistress? Look not toward them, hearken not; the place is Smithfield, or the field of smiths, the grove of hobby-horses and trinkets, the wares are the wares of devils, and the whole Fair is the shop of Satan: they are hooks and baits, very baits, that are hung out on every side, to catch you, and to hold you, as it were, by the gills, and by the nostrils, as the fisher doth; therefore you must not look nor turn toward them.
Rather driving them to the pens: for he will let them look upon nothing. Take a sweet delicate booth, with boughs, here in the way, and cool yourselves in the shade; you and your friends. The best pig and bottle-ale in the Fair, sir. No, but your mother, religiously-wise, conceiveth it may offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, which I think it doth here in this place—huh, huh—yes, it doth. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your zealous mother, and my suffering self, will also be satisfied.
Littlewit, Busy, and Purecraft. Mooncalf, entertain within there, the best pig in the booth, a pork-like pig. Whit, wait, Whit, look to your charge. Why, Urse, why, Urse? Hang your vapours, they are stale, and stink like you!
Ail they! Away, thou art a fool, Urse, and thy Mooncalf too: in your ignorant vapours now! Well said, brave Whit! I will make no more orations, shall draw on these tragical conclusions. I had thought once, at one special blow he gave me, to have revealed myself; but then I thank thee, fortitude I remembered that a wise man, and who is ever so great a part of the commonwealth in himself, for no particular disaster ought to abandon a public good design. The husbandman ought not, for one unthankful year, to forsake the plough; the shepherd ought not, for one scabbed sheep, to throw by his tar-box; the pilot ought not, for one leak in the poop, to quit the helm; nor the alderman ought not, for one custard more at a meal, to give up his cloke; the constable ought not to break his staff, and forswear the watch, for one roaring night; nor the piper of the parish, ut parvis componere magna solebam , to put up his pipes for one rainy Sunday.
Nay, do not mistake, Numps; thou art so apt to mistake! I would but watch the goods. Numps, here be finer things than any we have bought by odds!
Will you scourse with him? Why the measles should you stand here, with your train, cheapning of dogs, birds, and babies? Do, do, do, do; how many shall you have, think you? A resolute fool you are, I know, and a very sufficient coxcomb; with all my heart;—nay, you have it, sir, an you be angry, turd in your teeth, twice; if I said it not once afore, and much good do you. Would I had been set in the ground, all but the head on me, and had my brains bowled at, or threshed out, when first I underwent this plague of a charge!
How now, Numps! A pretty question, and a civil one! How melancholic mistress Grace is yonder! No, the shop; buy the whole shop, it will be best, the shop, the shop!
Peace, Numps. A set of these violins I would buy too, for a delicate young noise I have in the country, that are every one a size less than another, just like your fiddles. Will your worship buy any gingerbread, very good bread, comfortable bread? Is this well, goody Joan, to interrupt my market in the midst, and call away my customers? Cry you mercy! Yes, good man, angry-man, you shall find he has qualities if you cheapen him. What are they, will they be bought for love or money? He scorns victuals, sir; he has bread and butter at home, thanks be to God!
And for fine motions! O lord, master! Sir, it stands me in six and twenty shillings seven-pence halfpenny, besides three shillings for my ground. Well, thirty shillings will do all, then! All my wedding gloves gingerbread?
I cannot beget a project, with all my political brain yet: my project is how to fetch off this proper young man from his debauched company. I have followed him all the Fair over, and still I find him with this songster, and I begin shrewdly to suspect their familiarity; and the young man of a terrible taint, poetry!
What ballads hast thou? Why so! Is there a vexation like this, gentlemen? Nay, if you saw the justice her husband, my guardian, you were fitted for the mess, he is such a wise one his way—. How dost thou call it? A caveat against cut-purses! Look you, sister, here, here [ he shews his purse boastingly ], let him come, sister, and welcome. Ballad-man, does any cut-purses haunt hereabout?
No matter for the price; thou dost not know me, I see, I am an odd Bartholomew. Yet these will serve to pick the pictures out of your pockets, you shall see. So I heard them say! It was intended, sir, as if a purse should chance to be cut in my presence, now, I may be blameless though; as by the sequel will more plainly appear.
Pray thee begin. It is a gentle admonition, you must know, sir, both to the purse-cutter and the purse-bearer. Come, when? Then if you take heed not, free me from the curse,. It hath been upbraided to men of my trade,. Alack and for pity, why should it be said? That again, good ballad-man, that again.
I would fain rub mine elbow now, but I dare not pull out my hand. O Lord for thy mercy, how wicked or worse,. Youth, youth, etc. On, I pray thee, with the rest; I do hear of him, but I cannot see him, this master youth, the cut-purse.
At plays, and at sermons, and at the sessions,. Alack then for pity must I bear the curse,. Indeed he does interrupt him too much: there Numps spoke to purpose. Sister, I am an ass, I cannot keep my purse!
Will you see sport? He has it! But O, you vile nation of cut-purses all,. Friend, let me have the first, let me have the first, I pray you. Sir, I take you for an honest gentleman, if that be mistaking; I met you to-day afore: ha!
Come do not make a stir, and cry yourself an ass thorough the Fair afore your time. Why, hast thou it, Numps? I pray you seek some other gamester to play the fool with; you may lose it time enough, for all your Fair wit. Away, ass, away! I shall be beaten again, if I be spied. Brother, it is the preaching fellow: you shall suspect him. Sir, you shall take no pride in your preferment, you shall be silenced quickly.
To have my pennyworths out on you, bud. No less than two purses a day serve you! I thought you a simple fellow, when my man Numps beat you in the morning, and pitied you. So did I. But give me this from you in the mean time; I beseech you, see if I can look to this. I would teach your wit to come to your head, sir, as well as your land to come into your hand, I assure you, sir.
Nay, gentlemen, never pity me. Do you hear? Do not deny it, you are a cut-purse, sir, this gentleman here and I saw you: nor do we mean to detect you, though we can sufficiently inform ourselves toward the danger of concealing you; but you must do us a piece of service. Good gentlemen, do not undo me; I am a civil young man, and but a beginner indeed. Sir, your beginning shall bring on your ending for us: we are no catchpoles nor constables.
That you are to undertake is this: you saw the old fellow with the black box here? That same: I see you have flown him to a mark already. I would have you get away that box from him, and bring it us. Sir, if ever I break my word with a gentleman, may I never read word at my need. Where shall I find you? Of all beasts, I love the serious ass; he that takes pains to be one, and plays the fool with the greatest diligence that can be.
Then you would not choose, sir, but love my guardian, justice Overdo, who is answerable to that description in every hair of him.
So I have heard. But how came you, mistress Wellborn, to be his ward, or have relation to him at first? Faith, the same they have of themselves, sir. I cannot greatly complain, if this were all the plea I had against them. I hope our manners have been such hitherto, and our language, as will give you no cause to doubt yourself in our company.
Sir, I will give myself no cause; I am so secure of mine own manners, as I suspect not yours. The bull with the five legs, Win; and the great hog.
Now you have begun with pig, you may long for any thing, Win, and so for my motion, Win. But we shall not eat of the bull and the hog, John; how shall I long then? I assure you, they longed, Win; good Win, go in, and long. I think we are rid of our new customer, brother Leatherhead, we shall hear no more of him.
Stay a little, yonder comes a company; it may be we may take some more money. Sir, I will take your counsel, and cut my hair, and leave vapours: I see that tobacco, and bottle-ale, and pig, and Whit, and very Ursla herself, is all vanity.
Only pig was not comprehended in my admonition, the rest were: for long hair, it is an ensign of pride, a banner; and the world is full of those banners, very full of banners. Brother Zeal-of-the-land! Sister, let her fly the impurity of the place swiftly, lest she partake of the pitch thereof.
Thou art the seat of the beast, O Smithfield, and I will leave thee! Idolatry peepeth out on every side of thee. An excellent right hypocrite! A very good vapour! He eats with his eyes, as well as his teeth. Cry you mercy, sir; will you buy a fiddle to fill up your noise? Here be fine sights. Ay, child, so you hate them, as our brother Zeal does, you may look on them. It is the broken belly of the beast, and thy bellows there are his lungs, and these pipes are his throat, those feathers are of his tail, and thy rattles the gnashing of his teeth.
The provender that pricks him up. Hence with thy basket of popery, thy nest of images, and whole legend of ginger-work. See you not Goldylocks, the purple strumpet there, in her yellow gown and green sleeves? And this idolatrous grove of images, this flasket of idols, which I will pull down—.
Here he is, pray you lay hold on his zeal; we cannot sell a whistle for him in tune. Stop his noise first. And for this cause—.
You shall swear it in the stocks, sir. I will thrust myself into the stocks, upon the pikes of the land. Was not this shilling well ventured, Win, for our liberty? I pray thee be not ashamed, Win.
O, is that all, Win? A pox of his Bedlam purity! He has spoiled half my ware; but the best is, we lose nothing if we miss our first merchant. It shall be hard for him to find or know us, when we are translated, Joan. Obedient, friend! His loving subjects, we grant you; but not his obedient, at this time, by your leave; we know ourselves a little better than so; we are to command, sir, and such as you are to be obedient.
I question nothing, pardon me. I do only hope you have warrant for what you do, and so quit you, and so multiply you. What is he? Why bring you him not up? Like enough, sir; but let me tell you, an you play away your buttons thus, you will want them ere night, for any store I see about you; you might keep them, and save pins, I wuss. What should he be, that doth so esteem and advance my warrant? Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.
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