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Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744

"A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 2"


Thinkest thou I have said all this in game?
Go, or I shall send thee hence in the devil's name!
Avoid, thou lousy lurden and precious stinking slave,
That neither thy name knowest nor canst any master have!
Wine-shaken pillory-peeper,[191] of lice not without a peck,
Hence, or by Gods precious,[192] I shall break thy neck!
CAREAWAY.
Then, master, I beseech you heartily take the pain,
If I be found in any place, to bring me to me again.
Now is not this a wonderful case,
That no man shall lese himself so in any place?
Have any of you heard of such a thing heretofore?
No, nor never shall, I daresay, from henceforth any more.
JACK JUGGLER [_Aside_.]
While he museth and judgeth himself upon,
I will steal away for a while, and let him alone.
[_Exit Jack Juggler_.
CAREAWAY.
Good Lord of heaven, where did I myself leave?
Or who did me of my name by the way bereave?
For I am sure of this in my mind,
That I did in no place leave myself behind.
If I had my name played away at dice,
Or had sold myself to any man at a price,
Or had made a fray, and had lost it in fighting,
Or it had been stolen from me sleeping,
It had been a matter, and I would have kept patience;
But it spiteth my heart to have lost it by such open negligence.
Ah, thou whoreson, drowsy, drunken sot!
It were an alms-deed to walk[193] thy coat,
And I shrew him that would for thee be sorry,
To see thee well curried by and by;
And, by Christ, if any man would it do,
I myself would help thereto.


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