Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor 14
SECOND SERVANT. Will ' t please your honour taste of these conserves?
THIRD SERVANT. What raiment will your honour wear to-day?
SLY. I am Christophero Sly; call not me honour nor lordship. I ne ' er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef. Ne ' er ask me what raiment I ' ll wear, for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet: nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the over-leather.
LORD. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour! O, that a mighty man of such descent, Of such possessions, and so high esteem, Should be infused with so foul a spirit!
SLY. What! would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly ' s son of Burton-heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught. Here ' s--
THIRD SERVANT. O! this it is that makes your lady mourn. SECOND SERVANT. O! this is it that makes your servants droop.
LORD. Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house, As beaten hence by your strange lunacy. O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth, Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment, And banish hence these abject lowly dreams. Look how thy servants do attend on thee, Each in his office ready at thy beck: Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,
[ Music ]
And twenty caged nightingales do sing: Or wilt thou sleep? We ' ll have thee to a couch Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed On purpose trimm ' d up