ARKCODEX
Act II, Scene 2
1Rousillon. The Count’s palace.
2Enter Countess and Clown.
3CountessCome on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.
4ClownI will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court.
5CountessTo the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!
6ClownTruly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off’s cap, kiss his hand and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.
7CountessMarry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all questions.
8ClownIt is like a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks, the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock.
9CountessWill your answer serve fit to all questions?
10ClownAs fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the friar’s mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin.
11CountessHave you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?
12ClownFrom below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.
13CountessIt must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands.
14ClownBut a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to’t. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.
15CountessTo be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?
16ClownO Lord, sir! There’s a simple putting off. More, more, a hundred of them.
17CountessSir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.
18ClownO Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me.
19CountessI think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
20ClownO Lord, sir! Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you.
21CountessYou were lately whipped, sir, as I think.
22ClownO Lord, sir! spare not me.
23CountessDo you cry, “O Lord, sir!” at your whipping, and “spare not me”? Indeed your “O Lord, sir!” is very sequent to your whipping: you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to’t.
24ClownI ne’er had worse luck in my life in my “O Lord, sir!” I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.
25CountessI play the noble housewife with the time,
To entertain’t so merrily with a fool.
26ClownO Lord, sir! why, there’t serves well again.
27CountessAn end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this,
And urge her to a present answer back:
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son:
This is not much.
28ClownNot much commendation to them.
29CountessNot much employment for you: you understand me?
30ClownMost fruitfully: I am there before my legs.
31CountessHaste you again. Exeunt severally.