 | The Devil And The Lady |  |
Scene VI
Enter STEPHANIO.STEPHANIO
Blood and thunder, messmates,
It seems I've run aground here.
ANTONIO
True!
PHARMACEUTUS
Ay, true!
ANTONIO
How! dost thou stand in bodily fear of us?
STEPHANIO
No, by the Devil and his dam!
DEVIL
(aside)
That's I
And mother Hecate.
ANTONIO
How is then thy case
So ruinous and unwholesome?
STEPHANIO
Split my timbers!
Thou art a lawyer and thus ruinous,
And thou a nauseous apothecary,
And thus unwholesome. Why! we sailors call
Our sharks, sea-lawyers, and our lump fish, doctors.
Have I run foul of ye? how got ye first
Ahead o' me? Why! I came cutting hither
With a fresh breeze i' my stern.
ANTONIO
With what intent?
STEPHANIO
Bound from the cape of hope to th'port of love,
To win the prize in yon rich galleon there.
41
What! can the heavenly essence of high love
And all the little tendernesses, which
Make up the catalogue of love, inhabit
Such tenement as that thy breast affords?
Why, art thou bona fide then in love?
STEPHANIO
I tell thee, fellow, I'm half drown'd in love.
ANTONIO
I'faith! I see that thou art half seas over.
STEPHANIO
How! you landlubber, do you banter me?
My senses are all founder'd in deep love,
My cables rotted and my timbers beaten
In by the force of love!
ANTONIO
And wilt thou place
Thy claim in opposition to mine?
Oyer and terminer! what misdemeanour
Wilt thou be guilty of?
STEPHANIO
And who art thou?
Thou cock-boat—thou poor cock-boat—thou mere shallop
Varnished and painted, whose weak delicate planks
Would shrink beneath a cap full o' wind!
PHARMACEUTUS
But I—
STEPHANIO
And thou, sad, leaky, crack'd and bulging hull,
Wilt thou too tow thy sluggishness within
Reach of my bomb-shot?
ANTONIO
Marry! here come more
To stretch the thread of my poor Patience
Into so thin and spidery a fibre
That it will crack, unless the vexing grasp
Of these uncomely interruptions
42
What man of points is this who cometh first,
In whose whole stature is no wavy line,
No flexure but what is abrupt and sudden?
His eyebrows have no arch, his hair is gather'd
Conewise upon his squar'd and narrow brow,
His thin dry lips seem parallel straight lines,
His red and angular and shapeless nose
Shows like a Gyron gules in Heraldry,
And his sharp chin so narrow'd to a point,
That if 'twere possible his neck could bend
'Twould perforate and pierce his collar bone.
| The Devil And The Lady | |