If each penny thereof might be worth twenty pound,
I willingly to thee surrender it this stound.
And if each cicle might be worth a whole talent,
I promise with this sale to hold me content.
JACOB. Come, let us set him on foot, that he may go sup.
RAGAN. Nay, first I will know a thing, ere I help him up,
Sirrah, will ye eat folk, when ye are long fasting?
ESAU. No, I pray thee help me up, and leave thy jesting.
RAGAN. No, trow, eat your brother Jacob now, if you lust;
For you shall not eat me, I tell you, that is just.
JACOB. Come, that with my pottage thou may'st refreshed be.
ESAU. There is no meat on earth, that so well liketh me.
RAGAN. Yet I may tell you, it is pottage dearly bought.
ESAU. No, not a whit, for my bargain take thou no thought.
I defy that birthright that should be of more price
Than helping of one's self: I am not so unwise.
RAGAN. And how then, sir, shall poor Ragan have no meat?
ESAU. Yes, and if thou canst my brother Jacob intreat.
JACOB. God grant I have enough for Esau alone.
RAGAN. Why then I perceive poor Ragan shall have none.
[_Esau, entering into Jacob's tent, shaketh Ragan off_.
Well, much good do it you with your pottage of rice:
I would fast and fare ill, ere I ate of that price.
Would I sell my birthright, being an eldest son?
Forsooth then were it a fair thread that I had spun.
And then to let it go for a mess of pottage!
What is that but both unthriftiness and dotage?
Alack, alack, good blessed father Isaac,
That ever son of thine should play such a lewd knack!
And yet I do not think but God this thing hath wrought,
For Jacob is as good, as Esau is nought.
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