Which should have been if I had wed a wife:
Where now,
As dropping leaves in autumn you look all,
And I, that should uphold you, like to fall.

KATH. 'Twas nor shall be my fault, heaven bear me witness.

SCAR. Thou liest, strumpet, thou liest!

BUT. O sir!

SCAR. Peace, saucy Jack! strumpet, I say thou liest,
For wife of mine thou art not, and these thy bastards
Whom I begot of thee with this unrest,
That bastards born are born not to be blest.

KATH. On me pour all your wrath, but not on them.

SCAR. On thee and them, for 'tis the end of lust
To scourge itself, heaven lingering to be just:
Harlot!

KATH. Husband!

SCAR. Bastards!

CHIL. Father!

BUT. What heart not pities this?

SCAR. Even in your cradle, you were accurs'd of heaven,
Thou an adultress in my married arms.
And they that made the match, bawds to thy lust:
Ay, now you hang the head; shouldst have done so before,
Then these had not been bastards, thou a whore.

BUT. I can brook't no longer: sir, you do not well in this.

SCAR. Ha, slave!

BUT. 'Tis not the aim of gentry to bring forth
Such harsh unrelish'd fruit unto their wines[428],
And to their pretty--pretty children by my troth.

SCAR. How, rascal!

BUT. Sir, I must tell you, your progenitors,
Two of the which these years were servant to,
Had not such mists before their understanding,
Thus to behave themselves.

SCAR. And you'll control me, sir!

BUT. Ay, I will.

SCAR. You rogue!

BUT. Ay, 'tis I will tell 'tis ungently done
Thus to defame your wife, abuse your children:
Wrong them, you wrong yourself; are they not yours?

SCAR. Pretty--pretty impudence, in faith.

BUT. Her whom you are bound to love, to rail against!
Those whom you are bound to keep, to spurn like dogs!
And you were not my master, I would tell you--

SCAR. What, slave? [_Draws_.

BUT. Put up your bird-spit, tut, I fear it not;
In doing deeds so base, so vile as these,
'Tis but a kna, kna, kna--

SCAR. Rogue!

BUT. Tut, howsoever, 'tis a dishonest part,
And in defence of these I throw off duty.

KATH. Good butler.

BUT. Peace, honest mistress, I will say you are wrong'd,
Prove it upon him, even in his blood, his bones,
His guts, his maw, his throat, his entrails.

SCAR. You runagate of threescore!

BUT. 'Tis better than a knave of three-and-twenty.

SCAR. Patience be my buckler!
As not to file[429] my hands in villain's blood;
You knave, slave, trencher-groom!
Who is your maste