Lady. At a time when you should commence an amour, and put your best foot foremost—
Sir Wil. ’Sheart, an you grutch me your liquor, make a bill— give me more drink, and take my purse.
’Till it laugh in my face,
With ale that is potent and mellow;
He that whines for a lass
Is an ignorant ass,
For a bumper has not its fellow.
Lady. My nephew’s a little overtaken, cousin—but ’tis with drinking your health—O’ my word you are obliged to him—
Sir Wil. In vino veritas, aunt:—If I drunk your health to-day, cousin, I am a borachio. But if you have a mind to be married say the word, and send for the piper, Wilfull will do’t. If not, dust it away, and let’s have t’other round—Tony, ’odsheart, where’s Tony—Tony’s an honest fellow, but he spits after a bumper, and that’s a fault.
Put the glass then around with the sun, boys,
Let Apollo’s example invite us;
For he’s drunk every night,
And that makes him so bright,
That he’s able next morning to light us.
The sun’s a good pimple, an honest soaker, he has a cellar at your Antipodes. If I travel, aunt, I touch at your Antipodes— your Antipodes are a good rascally sort of topsie-turvy fellows —if I had a bumper I’d stand upon my head and drink a health to ’em—A match or no match, cousin, with the hard name— aunt, Wilfull will do’t. If she has her maidenhead let her look to’t; if she has not, let her keep her own counsel in the meantime, and cry out at the nine months’ end.
Milla. Your pardon, madam, I can stay no longer—Sir Wilfull grows very powerful. Egh! how he smells! I shall be overcome if I stay. Come, cousin.
SCENE XI
Lady Wishfort, Sir Wilfull Witwoud, Mr. Witwoud, Foible.
Lady. Smells! he would poison a tallow-chandler and his family. Beastly creature, I know not what to do with him.— Travel, quoth a; ay travel, travel, get thee gone, get thee but far enough, to the Saracens, or the Tartars, or the Turks—for thou art not fit to live in a Christian commonwealth, thou beastly pagan.
Sir Wil. Turks, no; no Turks, aunt: your Turks are infidels, and believe not in the grape. Your Mahometan, your Mussulman is a dry stinkard—no offence, aunt. My map says that your Turk is not so honest a man as your Christian—I cannot find by the map that your mufti is orthodox—whereby it is a plain case, that orthodox is a hard word, aunt, and (hiccup) Greek for claret.
[Sings.
Unknown to the Turk or the Persian:
Let Mahometan fools
Live by heathenish rules,
And be damned over tea-cups and coffee.
But let British lads sing,
Crown a health to the king,
And a fig for your sultan and Sophy.
Ah, Tony!
[Foible whispers Lady Wishfort.
Lady. Sir Rowland impatient? Good lack! what shall I do with this beastly tumbril?—Go lie down and sleep, you sot—or as I’m a person, I’ll have you bastinadoed with broom-sticks. Call up the wenches with broom-sticks.
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