Y. ART.  O, that my wife were dead! here would I make
My second choice:  would she were buried! 
From out her grave this marrigold should grow,
Which, in my nuptials, I would wear with pride. 
Die shall she, I have doom’d her destiny. [Aside.]

MRS MA.  ’Tis news, Master Arthur, to see you in such a place: 
How doth your wife?

Y. ART.  Faith, Mistress Mary, at the point of death,
And long she cannot live; she shall not live
To trouble me in this my second choice.

    Enter AMINADAB with a bill and headpiece.

MRS MA.  I pray forbear, sir, for here comes my love: 
Good sir, for this time leave me; by this kiss
You cannot ask the question at my hands
I will deny you:  pray you, get you gone.

Y. ART.  Farewell, sweet Mistress Mary! [Exit.

MRS MA.  Sweet, adieu!

AMIN.  Stand to me, bill! and, headpiece, sit thou close! 
I hear my love, my wench, my duck, my dear,
Is sought by many suitors; but with this
I’ll keep the door, and enter he that dare! 
Virga, be gone, thy twigs I’ll turn to steel;
These fingers, that were expert in the jerk;
Instead of lashing of the trembling podex,
Must learn pash and knock, and beat and mall,
Cleave pates and caputs; he that enters here,
Comes on to his death! mors mortis he shall taste.
                                 [He hides himself.

MRS MA.  Alas! poor fool, the pedant’s mad for love! 
Thinks me more mad that I would marry him. 
He’s come to watch me with a rusty bill,
To keep my friends away by force of arms: 
I will not see him, but stand still aside,
And here observe him what he means to do. [Retires.

AMIN. O utinam, that he that loves her best,
Durst offer but to touch her in this place!
Per Jovem et Junonem! hoc
Shall pash his coxcomb such a knock,
As that his soul his course shall take
To Limbo and Avernus’ lake. 
In vain I watch in this dark hole;
Would any living durst my manhood try,
And offer to come up the stairs this way!

MRS MA.  O, We should see you make a goodly fray. [Aside.]

AMIN.  The wench I here watch with my bill, Amo, amas, amavi still. Qui audet—­let him come that dare!  Death, hell, and limbo be his share!

    Enter BRABO with his sword in his hand.

BRA.  Where’s Mistress Mary? never a post here,
A bar of iron, ’gainst which to try my sword? 
Now, by my beard, a dainty piece of steel.

AMIN.  O Jove, what a qualm is this I feel!

BRA.  Come hither, Mall, is none here but we two? 
When didst thou see the starveling schoolmaster? 
That rat, that shrimp, that spindle-shank,
That wren, that sheep-biter, that lean chitty-face,
That famine, that lean envy, that all-bones,
That bare anatomy, that Jack-a-Lent,
That ghost, that shadow, that moon in the wane?