Fair Em (Modern)
Scene 5
349.1[Scene 5]
350Enter Em, and Trotter the Millerʼs man with a kerchief on his head and a urinal in his hand.
Em
Trotter, where have you been?
Trotter
Where have I been? [Holding up the kerchief] Why, what signifies this?
Em
A kerchief, doth it not?
Trotter
355[Holding up the urinal] What call you this, I pray?
Em
I say it is a urinal.
Trotter
Then this is mystically to give you to understand I have been at the physmicaryʼs house.
Em
How long hast thou been sick?
Trotter
360Iʼfaith, even as long as I have not been half well, and that hath been a long time.
Em
A loitering time, I rather imagine.
Trotter
It may be so, but the physmicary tells me that you can help me.
Em
Why, anything I can do for recovery of thy health 365be right well assured of.
Trotter
Then give me your hand.
Em
To what end?
Trotter
That the ending of an old indenture is the beginning of a new bargain.
Em
370What bargain?
Trotter
That you promised to do anything to recover my health.
Em
On that condition I give thee my hand.
[Em offers Trotter her hand.]
Trotter
Ah, sweet Em.
Here he offers to kiss her.
Em
How now, Trotter? Your masterʼs daughter?
Trotter
375Iʼfaith, I aim at the fairest.
Ah Em, sweet Em,
‘Fresh as the flower
That hath power
To wound my heart,
And ease my smart;
Of me, poor thief,
In prison boundʼ —
Em
380‘So all your rhyme
Lies on the groundʼ.
But what means this?
Trotter
Ah, mark the device:
‘For thee, my love,
Full sick I was,
In hazard of my life;
Thy promise was
To make me whole,
And for to be my wife.
385Let me enjoy my love, my dear,
And thou possess thy Trotter hereʼ.
Em
But I meant no such matter!
Trotter
Yes, woos, but you did. Iʼll go to our parson, Sir John, and he shall mumble up the marriage out of hand.
Em
390But here comes one that will forbid the banns.
Here enters Manville to them.
Trotter
Ah, sir, you come too late.
Manville
What remedy, Trotter?
[Goddard calls for Trotter within.]
Em
Go, Trotter, my father calls.
Trotter
395Would you have me go in, and leave you two here?
Em
Why, darʼst thou not trust me?
Trotter
Yes, ʼfaith, even as long as I see you.
Em
Go thy ways, I pray thee heartily.
Trotter
[Aside] That same word ‘heartilyʼ is of great force. — 400I will go, but I pray, sir, beware you come not too near the wench.
Exit Trotter.
Manville
I am greatly beholding to you. — Ah
‘Mistressʼ, sometime I might have said, ‘my loveʼ,
But time and fortune hath bʼreaved me of that.
405And I, an abject in those gracious eyes
That with remorse erst saw into my grief,
May sit and sigh the sorrows of my heart.
Em
Indeed, my Manville hath some cause to doubt
When such a swain is rival in his love.
Manville
410Ah Em, were he the man that causeth this mistrust,
I should esteem of thee as at the first.
Em
But is my love in earnest all this while?
Manville
Believe me, Em, it is not time to jest
When others ʼjoys what lately I possessed.
Em
415If touching love my Manville charge me thus,
Unkindly must I take it at his hands,
For that my conscience clears me of offence.
Manville
Ah, impudent and shameless in thy ill,
That with thy cunning and defraudful tongue
420Seekʼst to delude the honest-meaning mind!
Was never heard in Manchester before
Of truer love than hath been betwixt us twain?
And for my part, how I have hazarded
Displeasure of my father and my friends
425Thyself can witness. Yet, not withstanding this,
Two gentlemen attending on Duke William,
Mountney and Valingford, as I heard them named,
Oft times resort to see and to be seen
Walking the streets fast by thy fatherʼs door,
430Whose glancing eyes up to the windows cast
Gives testes of their mastersʼ amorous heart.
This, Em, is noted and too much talked on.
Some see it without mistrust of ill;
Others there are that, scorning, grin thereat
435And saith, ‘there goes the millerʼs daughterʼs wooersʼ.
Ah me, whom chiefly and most of all it doth concern,
To spend my time in grief and vex my soul!
To think my love should be rewarded thus,
And for thy sake abhor all womankind.
Em
440May not a maid look upon a man
Without suspicious judgment of the world?
Manville
If sight do move offence, it is the better not to see.
But thou didst more, unconstant as thou art,
For with them thou hadst talk and conference.
Em
445May not a maid talk with a man without mistrust?
Manville
Not with such men suspected amorous.
Em
I grieve to see my Manvilleʼs jealousy.
Manville
Ah Em, faithful love is full of jealousy.
So did I love thee true and faithfully,
450For which I am rewarded most unthankfully.
Exit [Manville] in a rage. Manet Em.
[Em]
And so away? What, in displeasure gone,
And left me such a bitter sweet to gnaw upon?
Ah Manville, little wotʼst thou
455How near this parting goeth to my heart.
Uncourteous love, whose followers reap reward
Of hate, disdain, reproach, and infamy,
The fruit of frantic, bedlam jealousy!
Here enters Mountney to Em.
460But here comes one of these suspicious men.
Witness, my God, without desert of me,
For only Manville honour I in heart,
Nor shall unkindness cause me from him to start.
Mountney
[Aside] For this good fortune, Venus be thou blessed,
465To meet my love, the mistress of my heart,
Where time and place gives opportunity
At full to let her understand my love.
He turns to Em.
Fair mistress, since my fortune sorts so well,
470Hear you a word.
[He] offers to take her by the hand, and she goes from him.
What meaneth this?
Nay, stay, fair Em.
Em
I am going homewards, sir.
Mountney
Yet stay, sweet love, to whom I must disclose
The hidden secrets of a loverʼs thoughts,
475Not doubting but to find such kind remorse
As naturally you are inclined to.
Em
The gentleman, your friend, sir, Iʼve not seen him
This four days at the least.
Mountney
Whatʼs that to me?
I speak not, sweet, in person of my friend,
480But for myself, whom if that love deserve
To have regard, being honourable love,
Not base affects of loose lascivious love
Whom youthful wantons play and dally with,
But that unites in honourable bands
Of holy rites, 485and knits the sacred knot that gods —
Here Em cuts him off.
Em
What mean you, sir, to keep me here so long?
I cannot understand you by your signs.
You keep a-prattling with your lips,
But never a word you speak that I can hear.
Mountney
490[Aside] What, is she deaf? A great impediment!
Yet remedies there are for such defects. —
Sweet Em, it is no little grief to me
To see where Nature in her pride of art
Hath wrought perfections rich and admirable —
Em
495Speak you to me, sir?
Mountney
To thee, my only joy.
Em
I cannot hear you.
Mountney
O plague of Fortune! O hell without compare!
What boots it us to gaze and not enjoy?
Em
500Fare you well, sir.
Exit Em. Manet Mountney.
Mountney
Farewell, my love. Nay, farewell life and all!
Could I procure redress for this infirmity,
It might be means she would regard my suit.
I am acquainted with the kingʼs physicians,
505Amongst the which thereʼs one mine honest friend,
Signor Alberto, a very learned man;
His judgment will I have to help this ill.
Ah Em, fair Em, if art can make thee whole,
Iʼll buy that sense for thee, although it cost me dear.
510But Mountney, stay. This may be but deceit,
A matter feigned only to delude thee,
And not unlike, perhaps by Valingford.
He loves fair Em as well as I.
(As well as I? Ah no, not half so well.)
515Put case, yet may he be thine enemy,
And give her counsel to dissemble thus.
Iʼll try the event, and if it fall out so,
Friendship farewell, love makes me now a foe.
Exit Mountney.

Fair Em (Modern)