Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is’t real that I see?
No my good lord,
’Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,
The name, and not the thing.
Both, both, O pardon.
O my good lord, when I was like this maid,
I found you wondrous kind, there is your ring,
And look you, here’s your letter: this it
says,
When from my finger you can get this ring,
And are by me with child, etc. This is done,
Will you be mine now you are doubly won?
If she my liege can make me know this clearly,
I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.
If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,
Deadly divorce step between me and you.
O my dear mother do I see you living?
Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon:
Good Tom Drum lend me a handkerchief. So I
thank thee, wait on me home, I’ll make sport
with thee: Let thy curtsies alone, they are
scurvy ones.
Let us from point to point this story know,
To make the even truth in pleasure flow:
If thou be’st yet a fresh uncroppèd flower,
Choose thou thy husband, and I’ll pay thy
dower.
For I can guess, that by thy honest aid,
Thou kept’st a wife her self, thy self a
maid.
Of that and all the progress more and less,
Resolvèdly more leisure shall express:
All yet seems well, and if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
The King’s a beggar, now the play is done,
All is well ended, if this suit be won,
That you express content: which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day:
Ours be your patience then, and yours our
parts,
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.
