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