Act I, Scene III

HODGE.
Cham aghast; by the mass, ich wot not what to do.
Chad need bless me well before ich go them to.
Perchance some felon sprit may haunt our house indeed;
And then chwere but a noddy to venture where cha' no need.

TIB.
Cham worse than mad, by the mass, to be at this stay!
Cham chid, cham blam'd, and beaten, all th'hours on the day;
Lamed and hunger-starved, pricked up all in jags,
Having no patch to hide my back, save a few rotten rags!

HODGE.
I say, Tib, if thou be Tib, as I trow sure thou be,
What devil make-ado is this, between our dame and thee?

TIB.
Gog's bread, Hodge, thou had a good turn thou wert not here
this while! It had been better for some of us to have been hence a
mile; My gammer is so out of course and frantic all at once,
That Cock, our boy, and I, poor wench, have felt it on our bones.

HODGE.
What is the matter--say on, Tib--whereat she taketh so on?

TIB.
She is undone, she saith; alas! her joy and life is gone!
If she hear not of some comfort, she is, faith! but dead;
Shall never come within her lips one inch of meat ne bread.

HODGE.
By'r lady, cham not very glad to see her in this dump.
Chold a noble her stool hath fallen, and she hath broke her rump.

TIB.
Nay, and that were the worst, we would not greatly care
For bursting of her huckle-bone, or breaking of her chair;
But greater, greater, is her grief, as, Hodge, we shall all feel!

HODGE.
Gog's wounds, Tib, my gammer has never lost her nee'le?

TIB.
Her nee'le!

HODGE.
Her nee'le?

TIB.
Her nee'le! by him that made me, it is true, Hodge, I tell
thee.

HODGE.
Gog's sacrament! I would she had lost th'heart out of her
belly! The devil, or else his dame, they ought her, sure a shame!
How a murrion came this chance, say, Tib! unto our dame?

TIB.
My gammer sat her down on her pes, and bad me reach thy
breeches, And by and by--a vengeance in it! ere she had take two
stitches To clout a clout upon thine arse, by chance aside she
leers, And Gib, our cat, in the milk-pan she spied over head and
ears. "Ah, whore! out, thief!" she crief aloud, and swept the
breeches down. Up went her staff, and out leapt Gib at doors into
the town, And since that time was never wight could set their eyes
upon it. Gog's malison chave Cock and I bid twenty times light on
it.

HODGE.
And is not then my breeches sewed up, to-morrow that I
should wear?

TIB.
No, in faith, Hodge, thy breeches lie for all this never the
near.

HODGE.
Now a vengeance light on all the sort, that better should
have kept it, The cat, the house, and Tib, our maid, that better
should have swept it! See where she cometh crawling! come on, in
twenty devils' way! Ye have made a fair day's work, have you not?
pray you, say!