lmigondinish people
use to say, To lie alone, without a wife, is certainly a brutish life. And
such a life also was it assevered to be by Dido in her lamentations.
Trouil. At your command.
Pan. By the pody cody, I have fished fair; where are we now? But will
you tell me? Shall I marry?
Trouil. Perhaps.
Pan. Shall I thrive or speed well withal?
Trouil. According to the encounter.
Pan. But if in my adventure I encounter aright, as I hope I will, shall
I be fortunate?
Trouil. Enough.
Pan. Let us turn the clean contrary way, and brush our former words
against the wool: what if I encounter ill?
Trouil. Then blame not me.
Pan. But, of courtesy, be pleased to give me some advice. I heartily
beseech you, what must I do?
Trouil. Even what thou wilt.
Pan. Wishy, washy; trolly, trolly.
Trouil. Do not invocate the name of anything, I pray you.
Pan. In the name of God, let it be so! My actions shall be regulated by
the rule and square of your counsel. What is it that you advise and
counsel me to do?
Trouil. Nothing.
Pan. Shall I marry?
Trouil. I have no hand in it.
Pan. Then shall I not marry?
Trouil. I cannot help it.
Pan. If I never marry, I shall never be a cuckold.
Trouil. I thought so.
Pan. But put the case that I be married.
Trouil. Where shall we put it?
Pan. Admit it be so, then, and take my meaning in that sense.
Trouil. I am otherwise employed.
Pan. By the death of a hog, and mother of a toad, O Lord! if I durst
hazard upon a little fling at the swearing game, though privily and under
thumb, it would lighten the burden of my heart and ease my lights and reins
exceedingly. A little patience nevertheless is requisite. Well then, if I
marry, I shall be a cuckold.
Trouil. One would say so.
Pan. Yet if my wife prove a virtuous, wise, discreet, and chaste woman,
I shall never be cuckolded.
Trouil. I think you speak congruously.
Pan. Hearken.
Trouil. As much as you will.
Pan. Will she be discreet and chaste? This is the only point I would be
resolved in.
Trouil. I question it.
Pan. You never saw her?
Trouil. Not that I know of.
Pan. Why do you then doubt of that which you know not?
Trouil. For a cause.
Pan. And if you should know her.
Trouil. Yet more.
Pan. Page, my pretty little darling, take here my cap,-
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