Induction, Scene 1

Before an alehouse on a heath.

[Enter HOSTESS and SLY.]
Christopher Sly
1 I'll pheeze you, in faith.
Hostess
2 A pair of stocks, you rogue!
Christopher Sly
3 Y'are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues; look in the
4 chronicles: we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore, paucas
5 pallabris; let the world slide. Sessa!
Hostess
6 You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?
Christopher Sly
7 No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed
8 and warm thee.
Hostess
9 I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.
[Exit.]
Christopher Sly
10 Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him by law.
11 I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come, and kindly.
[Lies down on the ground, and falls asleep.]
[Horns winded. Enter a LORD from hunting, with Huntsmen and Servants.]
Lord
12 Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds;
13 Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd,
14 And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.
15 Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
16 At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?
17 I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
First Huntsman
18 Why, Bellman is as good as he, my lord;
19 He cried upon it at the merest loss,
20 And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent;
21 Trust me, I take him for the better dog.
Lord
22 Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,
23 I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
24 But sup them well, and look unto them all;
25 To-morrow I intend to hunt again.
First Huntsman
26 I will, my lord.
[Sees Sly.]
Lord
27 What's here? One dead, or drunk?
28 See, doth he breathe?
Second Huntsman
29 He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with ale,
30 This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.
Lord
31 O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!
32 Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
33 Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
34 What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,
35 Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
36 A most delicious banquet by his bed,
37 And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
38 Would not the beggar then forget himself?
First Huntsman
39 Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.
Second Huntsman
40 It would seem strange unto him when he wak'd.
Lord
41 Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.
42 Then take him up, and manage well the jest.
43 Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,
44 And hang it round with all my wanton pictures;
45 Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,
46 And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet.
47 Procure me music ready when he wakes,
48 To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;
49 And if he chance to speak, be ready straight,
50 And with a low submissive reverence
51 Say 'What is it your honour will command?'
52 Let one attend him with a silver basin
53 Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers;
54 Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,
55 And say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'
56 Some one be ready with a costly suit,
57 And ask him what apparel he will wear;
58 Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
59 And that his lady mourns at his disease.
60 Persuade him that he hath been lunatic;
61 And, when he says he is—say that he dreams,
62 For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
63 This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs;
64 It will be pastime passing excellent,
65 If it be husbanded with modesty.
First Huntsman
66 My lord, I warrant you we will play our part,
67 As he shall think by our true diligence,
68 He is no less than what we say he is.
Lord
69 Take him up gently, and to bed with him,
70 And each one to his office when he wakes.
[SLY is bourne out. A trumpet sounds.]
Lord
71 Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds:
[Exit SERVANT.]
Lord
72 Belike some noble gentleman that means,
73 Travelling some journey, to repose him here.
[Re-enter SERVANT.]
Lord
74 How now! who is it?
Servant
75 An it please your honour, players
76 That offer service to your lordship.
Lord
77 Bid them come near.
[Enter PLAYERS.]
Lord
78 Now, fellows, you are welcome.
Players
79 We thank your honour.
Lord
80 Do you intend to stay with me to-night?
Player
81 So please your lordship to accept our duty.
Lord
82 With all my heart. This fellow I remember
83 Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son;
84 'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well.
85 I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part
86 Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.
Player
87 I think 'twas Soto that your honour means.
Lord
88 'Tis very true; thou didst it excellent.
89 Well, you are come to me in happy time,
90 The rather for I have some sport in hand
91 Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
92 There is a lord will hear you play to-night;
93 But I am doubtful of your modesties,
94 Lest, over-eying of his odd behaviour,—
95 For yet his honour never heard a play,—
96 You break into some merry passion
97 And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,
98 If you should smile, he grows impatient.
Player
99 Fear not, my lord; we can contain ourselves,
100 Were he the veriest antick in the world.
Lord
101 Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
102 And give them friendly welcome every one:
103 Let them want nothing that my house affords.
[Exit one with the PLAYERS.]
Lord
104 Sirrah, go you to Barthol'mew my page,
105 And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady;
106 That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber,
107 And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.
108 Tell him from me—as he will win my love,—
109 He bear himself with honourable action,
110 Such as he hath observ'd in noble ladies
111 Unto their lords, by them accomplished;
112 Such duty to the drunkard let him do,
113 With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
114 And say 'What is't your honour will command,
115 Wherein your lady and your humble wife
116 May show her duty and make known her love?'
117 And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
118 And with declining head into his bosom,
119 Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd
120 To see her noble lord restor'd to health,
121 Who for this seven years hath esteemed him
122 No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.
123 And if the boy have not a woman's gift
124 To rain a shower of commanded tears,
125 An onion will do well for such a shift,
126 Which, in a napkin being close convey'd,
127 Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
128 See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst;
129 Anon I'll give thee more instructions.
[Exit SERVANT.]
Lord
130 I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
131 Voice, gait, and action, of a gentlewoman;
132 I long to hear him call the drunkard husband;
133 And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
134 When they do homage to this simple peasant.
135 I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence
136 May well abate the over-merry spleen,
137 Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1archaic vocab
“I'll pheeze you”
'Pheeze' (also spelled 'feeze') means to beat, frighten off, or do for — a colloquial threat of physical punishment. Sly opens the play with a drunk's defiant snarl at the Hostess who is throwing him out.
TLN 4wordplay
“we came in with Richard Conqueror”
Sly mangles history by fusing 'William the Conqueror' — who invaded England from Normandy in 1066 — with 'Richard,' probably meaning Richard I (Coeur-de-lion). The blunder is the joke: Sly claims ancient Norman lineage to defend his dignity while getting the name completely wrong.
TLN 4archaic vocab
“paucas pallabris; let the world slide. Sessa”
'Paucas pallabris' is a garbling of the Spanish phrase 'pocas palabras,' meaning 'few words' — i.e., 'enough said.' 'Sessa' is an untranslatable exclamation, possibly from the French 'cessez' (stop), used as a call to be quiet or give up. Both were catch-phrases associated with low comedy and popular plays.
TLN 7historical topical
“Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed and warm thee”
Sly is mangling a line from Thomas Kyd's hugely popular revenge play The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1587), in which the mad old man Hieronimo cries 'Go by, go by.' The play was so well known in the 1590s that its catch-phrases were the comedy of the day. 'Saint Jeronimy' conflates the saint Jerome with the character's name Hieronimo.
TLN 9archaic vocab
“fetch the third-borough”
A 'third-borough' (also 'thirdborough') was a minor parish officer, a kind of petty constable responsible for keeping the peace at the local level. The Hostess is threatening to fetch the law — the closest equivalent to calling the police.
TLN 13archaic vocab
“Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd”
Two hunting terms here: 'brach' means a female hound that hunts by scent; 'embossed' means foaming at the mouth from exhaustion — the dog has run itself into a lather and can go no further. The Lord's detailed hound-talk establishes him as a man of rank and leisure, in sharp contrast to the sleeping Sly.
TLN 15archaic vocab
“Silver made it good at the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault”
In hunting, a 'fault' is a break in the scent-trail — the moment the hounds lose the quarry's smell and have to cast about to find it again. A 'cold fault' is one where the scent is faintest and hardest to recover. That Silver 'made it good' in the coldest fault — found the scent where it was hardest — is high praise.
TLN 31rhetorical device
“how like a swine he lies! Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image”
The Lord apostrophizes Death directly — 'Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image' — treating the insensible, snoring Sly as a living portrait of what a corpse looks like. The figure is apostrophe (addressing an abstraction as a person) and memento mori (a reminder that death waits for everyone). The irony is that Sly's 'death' is entirely self-inflicted by alcohol.
TLN 33cultural context
“I will practise on this drunken man”
The Lord's plan — dressing a sleeping beggar as a nobleman and convincing him he has woken from a long madness — enacts a traditional story known as 'the sleeper awakened.' A similar trick was reportedly played by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1467), and a version circulates in the Arabian Nights. The whole play-within-a-play that follows is staged as entertainment for this gulled tinker.
historical The sleeper awakened (the beggar made a lord)
TLN 44cultural context
“hang it round with all my wanton pictures”
'Wanton pictures' are erotic or sensually suggestive paintings — specifically, as Induction 2 reveals, paintings of classical myths from Ovid: Venus and Adonis, Io seduced by Jove, Daphne fleeing Apollo. These hung in noble houses as legitimate art, but their subjects were conventional occasions for depicting undress and pursuit. They are part of the luxury the Lord will use to trick Sly into believing he is a wealthy man.
classical Venus and Adonisclassical Daphne and Apollo
TLN 105cultural context
“see him dress'd in all suits like a lady”
The Lord's plan to dress his page Bartholomew as Sly's 'wife' is a joke that works on two levels: for the audience, it layers a real theatrical convention (boy actors playing women) inside a stage fiction about a boy playing a woman. All female roles in Elizabethan professional theatre were taken by boy apprentices or young male actors, so the audience would immediately see the comedy of a boy-plays-woman-fools-a-drunk.