DODGER

My lord, your uncle on the Tower Hill

Stays with the Lord Mayor and the aldermen,

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And doth request you with all speed you may

To hasten thither.

ASKEW Cousin, let’s go.

LACY

Dodger, run you before. Tell them we come.

This Dodger is mine uncle’s parasite,

The arrant’st varlet that e’er breathed on earth.

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He sets more discord in a noble house

By one day’s broaching of his pickthank tales

Than can be salved again in twenty years;

And he I fear shall go with us to France

To pry into our actions.

ASKEW Therefore, coz,

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It shall behove you to be circumspect.

LACY

Fear not, good cousin. Ralph, hie to your colours.

RALPH

I must, because there is no remedy.

But, gentle master and my loving dame,

As you have always been a friend to me,

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So in mine absence think upon my wife.

JANE

Alas, my Ralph.

MARGERY She cannot speak for weeping.

EYRE

Peace, you cracked groats, you mustard tokens; disquiet not the

brave soldier. Go thy ways, Ralph.

JANE

Ay, ay, you bid him go; what shall I do when he is gone?

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FIRK

Why, be doing with me, or my fellow Hodge – be not idle!

EYRE

Let me see thy hand, Jane. This fine hand, this white hand, these

pretty fingers must spin, must card, must work. Work, you

bombast-cotton-candle quean, work for your living, with a pox

to you. Hold thee, Ralph, here’s five sixpences for thee. Fight for

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the honour of the Gentle Craft, for the Gentlemen Shoemakers,

the courageous cordwainers, the flower of Saint Martin’s, the

mad knaves of Bedlam, Fleet Street, Tower Street and

Whitechapel. Crack me the crowns of the French knaves, a pox

on them – crack them! Fight, by the Lord of Ludgate, fight, my

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fine boy.

FIRK

Here, Ralph, here’s three twopences. Two carry into France, the

third shall wash our souls at parting, for sorrow is dry. For my

sake, firk the basa mon cues.

HODGE

Ralph, I am heavy at parting, but here’s a shilling for thee. God

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send thee to cram thy slops with French crowns, and thy

enemies’ bellies with bullets.

RALPH

I thank you, master, and I thank you all.

Now, gentle wife, my loving, lovely Jane,

Rich men at parting give their wives rich gifts,

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Jewels and rings to grace their lily hands.

Thou know’st our trade makes rings for women’s heels.

Here, take this pair of shoes cut out by Hodge,

Stitched by my fellow Firk, seamed by myself,

Made up and pinked with letters for thy name.

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Wear them, my dear Jane, for thy husband’s sake,

And every morning, when thou pull’st them on,

Remember me, and pray for my return.

Make much of them, for I have made them so,

That I can know them from a thousand moe.

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