ROSE

Here sit thou down upon this flow’ry bank,

And make a garland for thy Lacy’s head.

These pinks, these roses, and these violets,

These blushing gillyflowers, these marigolds,

The fair embroidery of his coronet,

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Carry not half such beauty in their cheeks

As the sweet countenance of my Lacy doth.

O my most unkind father! O my stars,

Why loured you so at my nativity

To make me love, yet live robbed of my love?

10

Here as a thief am I imprisoned

For my dear Lacy’s sake, within those walls

Which by my father’s cost were builded up

For better purposes. Here must I languish

For him that doth as much lament, I know,

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Mine absence as for him I pine in woe.

SYBIL

Good morrow, young mistress. I am sure you make that

garland for me, against I shall be Lady of the Harvest.

ROSE

Sybil, what news at London?

SYBIL

None but good. My Lord Mayor your father, and Master

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Philpot your uncle, and Master Scott your cousin, and Mistress

Frigbottom by Doctors’ Commons, do all, by my troth, send

you most hearty commendations.

ROSE

Did Lacy send kind greetings to his love?

SYBIL

Oyes, out of cry. By my troth, I scant knew him – here he wore

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a scarf, and here a scarf, here a bunch of feathers, and here

precious stones and jewels, and a pair of garters – O

monstrous! – like one of our yellow silk curtains at home here

in Old Ford House, here in Master Bellymount’s chamber. I

stood at our door in Cornhill, looked at him, he at me indeed;

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spake to him, but he not to me, not a word. Marry gup, thought

I, with a wanion! He passed by me as proud – Marry, foh! Are

you grown humorous? thought I – and so shut the door, and in

I came.

ROSE

O Sybil, how dost thou my Lacy wrong!

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My Roland is as gentle as a lamb,

No dove was ever half so mild as he.

SYBIL

Mild? Yea, as a bushel of stamped crabs! He looked upon me as

sour as verjuice. Go thy ways, thought I, thou mayst be much in

my gaskins, but nothing in my netherstocks. This is your fault,

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mistress, to love him that loves not you. He thinks scorn to do

as he’s done to, but if I were as you, I’d cry: go by, Hieronimo,

go by!

I’d set mine old debts against my new driblets,

And the hare’s foot against the goose giblets;

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For if ever I sigh when sleep I should take,

Pray God I may lose my maidenhead when I wake.

ROSE

Will my love leave me then and go to France?

SYBIL

I know not that, but I am sure I see him stalk before the

soldiers. By my troth, he is a proper man, but he is proper that

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proper doth. Let him go snick up, young mistress.

ROSE

Get thee to London, and learn perfectly

Whether my Lacy go to France or no.

Do this, and I will give thee for thy pains

My cambric apron, and my Romish gloves,

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My purple stockings, and a stomacher.

Say, wilt thou do this, Sybil, for my sake?

SYBIL

Will I, quoth’a! – at whose suit? By my troth, yes, I’ll go: a

cambric apron, gloves, a pair of purple stockings, and a

stomacher! I’ll sweat in purple, mistress, for you; I’ll take

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anything that comes a’ God’s name. O rich, a cambric apron!

Faith then, have at uptails all – I’ll go jiggy-joggy to London

and be here in a trice, young mistress. Exit

ROSE

Do so, good Sybil. Meantime wretched I

Will sit and sigh for his lost company. Exit

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