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Chapters (43)
  1. Cover Page
  2. The Witch
  3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  4. ABBREVIATIONS
  5. INTRODUCTION
  6. FURTHER READING
  7. The Witch
  8. [DRAMATIS PERSONAE]
  9. THE WITCH
  10. [Act I,] Scene ii
  11. Act II, Scene i
  12. [Act II,] Scene ii
  13. [Act II,] Scene iii
  14. Act III, Scene i
  15. [Act III,] Scene ii
  16. [Act III,] Scene iii
  17. Act IV, Scene i
  18. [Act IV,] Scene ii
  19. [Act IV,] Scene iii
  20. Act V, Scene i
  21. [Act V,] Scene ii
  22. [Act V,] Scene iii
  23. APPENDIX
  24. In a maiden time profess’d
  25. Come Away, Hecate!
  26. Notes
  27. Thomas Holmes, Esquire
  28. Act I, Scene i
  29. [Act I,] Scene ii
  30. Act II, Scene i
  31. [Act II,] Scene ii
  32. [Act II,] Scene iii
  33. Act III, Scene i
  34. [Act III,] Scene ii
  35. [Act III,] Scene iii
  36. Act IV, Scene i
  37. [Act IV,] Scene ii
  38. Act IV Scene iii
  39. Act V, Scene i
  40. [Act V,] Scene ii
  41. [Act V,] Scene iii
  42. Appendix
  43. Footnotes
FRANCISCA
Good morrow Gasper.
GASPERO      Your hearty wishes, mistress, 25
And your sweet dreams come upon you.
FRANCISCA      What’s that sir?
GASPERO
In a good husband; that’s my real meaning.
FRANCISCA
Saw you my brother lately?
GASPERO       Yes.
FRANCISCA      I met him now
As sad, methought, as grief could make a man.
Know you the cause?
GASPERO      Not I. I know nothing 30
But half an ounce of pearl and kitchen business,
Which I will see performed with all fidelity.
I’ll break my trust in nothing, not in porridge, I.      Exit
FRANCISCA
I have the hardest fortune, I think, of a hundred
gentlewomen. 35
Some can make merry with a friend seven year
And nothing seen – as perfect a maid still,
To the world’s knowledge, as she came from rocking.
But ’twas my luck, at the first hour, forsooth,
To prove too fruitful. Sure I’m near my time. 40
I’m yet but a young scholar, I may fail
In my account – but certainly I do not.
These bastards come upon poor venturing gentlewomen
ten to one faster than your legitimate children. If I had
been married, I’ll be hanged if I had been with child so 45
soon now. When they are once husbands, they’ll be
whipped ere they take such pains as a friend will do: to
come by water to the backdoor at midnight: there stay
perhaps an hour in all weathers with a pair of reeking
watermen laden with bottles of wine, chewets and 50
currant custards. I may curse those egg-pies – they are
meat that help forward too fast.
This hath been usual with me night by night –
Honesty forgive me – when my brother has been
Dreaming of no such junkets; yet he hath fared 55
The better for my sake, though he little think
For what – nor must he ever. My friend promised me
To provide safely for me and devise
A means to save my credit here i’th’house.
My brother sure would kill me if he knew’t, 60
And powder up my friend and all his kindred
For an East Indian voyage.

Enter ISABELLA