 | The Churl |  |
SCENE I.
Enter DINARCHUS.Not a whole life's experience will suffice
A man in love, to learn how many ways
He may be ruin'd—That arithmetick
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The total sum of all a lover has—
How many ways he may persuaded be
Himself to ruin—Then, what blandishments,
And angry moods, by turns a lover meets with,
What perils must delight him to encounter!
Alas! good Heavens! how must he be forsworn!
An annual stipend too, besides his presents
Must be paid down—And this but her first cast—
For this I gain three nights—Mean while, she'll try
If you're extravagant, or close; and ask
For money, or for corn, or wine, or oil.
Just as a man who throws a casting-net,
Waits till it sinks, then draws it in, and closes it.
If 'tis thrown rightly, then he takes good heed
The fish may not escape—This way, and that
He drags his net; and so confines them, till
He draws them out—E'en so a lover's us'd—
If what she asks he gives, is not close fisted,
Rather extravagant; she adds some favours—
Mean while the hook he greedily devours.
If a deep draught he takes of love unmix'd,
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His credit, fortune and himself are lost.
Whene'er his mistress takes a pet, he suffers
Doubly, both in his fortune and his mind.
Should any other be the happy man,
He's miserable; if he seldom sees her,
His mind is wretched—if she often
Permits his visits, he indeed is bless'd:
But then his fortune runs to wreck and ruin.
Such is the way and manner of these brothels.
E'er you've oblig'd your mistress with one present,
She is prepar'd to ask an hundred more.
Some trinket's lost, her robe is torn, a maid
Is bought, some brazen or some silver vase,
Some costly couch, a grecian tweezer-case,
Something or other's always lost, or spoil'd;
Which the poor lover must replace—And then
All losses, with one common care, we lovers
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Our fame besides, for fear our friends or parents,
Should find us out—Now, if we would but take
A different course, and what we thus conceal,
Impart; they timely would restrain our youth;
And what our parents sav'd, would to our sons
Descend.—This would reduce the swarms of rogues,
And whores, and such pernicious vermin. Now
They are more plenty than are flies at midsummer.—
For, if they no where else are to be found,
About the banker's shops you see them sitting
Daily—And I am sure there are more whores
Ready to take the money without weighing,
Than there are weights to weigh it in the shops.
Nor know I why these pandars haunt those places,
Unless to serve instead of banker's books,
Where their accounts are kept; that you may enter
Rather with them directly your accounts,
Where you can never afterwards revise them.
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From foreign foes all vanquish'd; and where time
Hangs on men's hands, in love they needs must spend it,
All they whose means afford the price of love.
As to myself, this harlot who lives here,
Phronesium, from my breast has quite expell'd
Her name, and all which her name means, all prudence.
But meeting with a man who could give more,
A man more lavish of his gold; she turn'd me
Out of my post: and yet the jade had call'd him
Troublesome, filthy fellow, her aversion.
He is a Babylonian captain; who,
'Tis said, is coming hither from abroad.
Therefore she has cook'd up this device; for she
Pretends she's lying in, only to shut
The doors 'gainst me, while he and she alone
May live like jovial Greeks—Now she gives out
This captain is the father of her child.
Why wants the slut a substituted one?
What! does she think she can deceive me thus!
Or think it possible, had she been pregnant,
To have conceal'd her pregnancy from me!
For 'tis three days since I arriv'd at Athens
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But who's this woman? O! her maid Astaphium.
With her too I have had some intercourse.
[stands apart.
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