Page 1403 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Now for this charm that I told you of, you must bring a piece of silver on the
tip of your tongue, or [20] no ferry; then if it be your chance to come where
the blessed spirits are − there’s a sight now! We maids that have our livers
perished, cracked to pieces with love, we shall come there, and do nothing all

day long but pick flowers with Proserpine. Then will I make Palamon a [25]
nosegay; then let him mark me − then −

DOCTOR
How prettily she’s amiss! Note her a little further.

DAUGHTER
Faith, I’ll tell you, sometime we go to barley-break, we of the blessed. Alas,
’tis a sore life they [30] have i’th’tother place, such burning, frying, boiling,

hissing, howling, chattering, cursing − O, they have shrewd measure; take
heed! If one be mad, or hang or drown themselves, thither they go − Jupiter
bless us! − and there shall we be put in a cauldron of lead and usurers’ [35]
grease, amongst a whole million of cutpurses, and there boil like a gammon

of bacon that will never be enough.

DOCTOR
How her brain coins!

DAUGHTER
Lords and courtiers that have got maids with [40] child, they are in this place;
they shall stand in fire up to the navel and in ice up to th’heart, and there
th’offending part burns and the deceiving part freezes − in troth a very

grievous punishment, as one would think, for such a trifle. Believe me, one
would marry a leprous witch to be [45] rid on’t, I’ll assure you.

DOCTOR
How she continues this fancy! ’Tis not an engraffed madness, but a most
thick and profound melancholy.

DAUGHTER
To hear there a proud lady and a proud city [50] wife howl together − I were

a beast an I’d call it good sport! One cries ‘O, this smoke!’, th’other ‘This
fire!’; one cries ‘O that ever I did it behind the arras!’, and then howls;