THE WAY OF THE WORLD


By William Congreve


Prologue

Spoken by Mr. Betterton

Of those few fools, who with ill stars are cursed,
Sure scribbling fools, called poets, fare the worst;
For they're a sort of fools which Fortune makes,
And, after she has made 'em fools, forsakes.
With Nature's oafs 'tis quite a different case,
For Fortune favours all her idiot race;
In her own nest the cuckoo eggs we find,
O'er which she broods to hatch the changeling kind.
No portion for her own she has to spare,
So much she dotes on her adopted care. 
	Poets are bubbles by the town drawn in,
Suffered at first some trifling stakes to win,
But what unequal hazards do they run!
Each time they write they venture all they've won;
The squire that's buttered still is sure to be undone.
This author heretofore has found your favour,
But pleads no merit from his past behaviour.
To build on that might prove a vain presumption,
Should grants to poets made admit resumption;
And in Parnassus he must lose his seat,
If that be found a forfeited estate. 
	He owns with toil he wrought the following scenes,
But if they're naught ne'er spare him for his pains.
Damn him the more: have no comrniseration
For dullness on mature deliberation.
He swears he'll not resent one hissed-off scene
Nor, like those peevish wits, his play maintain,
Who, to assert their sense, your taste arraign.
Some plot we think he has, and some new thought,
Some humour too, no farce-but that's a fault.
Satire, he thinks, you ought not to expect:
For so reformed a town, who dares correct?
To please this time has been his sole pretence,
He'll not instruct, lest it should give offence.
Should he by chance a knave or fool expose,
That hurts none here, sure here are none of those.
In short, our play shall (with your leave to show it)
Give you one instance of a passive poet,
Who to your judgments yields all resignation:
So save or damn, after your own discretion.



Dramatis Personae

FAINALL, in love with MRS. MARWOOD. 
MIRABELL, in love with MRS MILLAMANT. 
WITWOUD anl PETULANT, followers of MRS. MILLAMANT. 
SIR WILFULL WITWOUD, half-brother to WITWOUD, and nephew to LADY WISHFORT. 
WAITWELL, servant to MIRABELL.

LADY WISHFORT, enemy to MIRABELL for having falsely pretended love to her. 
MRS. MILLAMANT, a fine lady, niece to LADY WISHFORT, and loves MIRABELL. 
MRS. MARWOOD, friend to MR. FAINALL, and likes MIRABELL. 
MRS. FAINALL, daughter to LADY WISHFORT, and wife to FAINALL, formerly 
friend to MIRABELL. 
FOIBLE, woman to LADY WISHFORT. 
MINCING, woman to MRS. MILLAMANT. 

Messenger, Coachman, Dancers, Footmen, and Attendants.

Scene: London.

TIME: equal to that of the presentation.




Act 1

Scene 1: A Chocolate House.

MIRABELL and FAINALL rising from cards, BETTY waiting.

Mirabell	You are a fortunate man, Mr. Fainall. 

Fainall	Have we done?

Mirabell	What you please. I'll play on to entertain you. 

Fainall	No, I'll give you your revenge another time, when you are not so 
indifferent. You are thinking of something else now, and play too 
negligently. The coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the 
winner. I'd no more play with a man that slighted his ill-fortune than I'd 
make love to a woman who undervalued the loss of her reputation. 

Mirabell	You have a taste extremely delicate, and are for refining on your 
pleasures. 

Fainall	Prithee, why so reserved? Something has put you out of humour. 

Mirabell	Not at all: I happen to be grave today, and you are gay. That's 
all. 

Fainall	Confess. Millamant and you quarrelled last night, after I left you? 
My fair cousin has some humours that would tempt the patience of a stoic. 
What, some coxcomb came in, and was well received by her while you were by? 

Mirabell	Witwoud and Petulant, and what was worse, her aunt, your wife's 
mother, my evil genius, or to sum up all in her own name, my old Lady 
Wishfort - came in. 

Fainall	Oh, there it is then. She has a lasting passion for you, and with 
reason. What, then my wife was there?

Mirabell	Yes, and Mrs. Marwood and three or four more, whom I never saw 
before. Seeing me they all put on their grave faces, whispered one another, 
then complained aloud of the vapours, and after fell into a profound 
silence. 

Fainall	They had a mind to be rid of you. 

Mirabell	For which reason I resolved not to stir. At last the good old lady 
broke through her painful taciturnity with an invective against long 
visits. I would not have understood her, but Millamant joining in the 
argument I rose and with a constrained smile told her I thought nothing was 
so easy as to know when a visit began to be troublesome. She reddened and I 
withdrew without expecting her reply. 

Fainall	You were to blame to resent what she spoke only in compliance with 
her aunt. 

Mirabell	She is more mistress of herself than to be under the necessity of 
such a resignation. 

Fainall	What, though half her fortune depends upon her marrying with my 
lady's approbation? 

Mirabell	I was then in such a humour that I should have been better pleased 
if she had been less discreet. 

Fainall	Now I remember, I wonder not they were weary of you. Last night was 
one of their cabal nights. They have 'em three times a week, and meet by 
turns at one another's apartments, where they come together, like the 
Coroner's inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week. You 
and I are exduded, and it was once proposed that all the male sex should be 
excepted; but somebody moved that to avoid scandal there might be one man 
of the community, upon which motion Witwoud and Petulant were enrolled 
members. 

Mirabell	And who may have been the foundress of this sect? My Lady 
Wishfort, I warrant, who publishes her detestation of mankind, and full of 
the vigour of fifty-five declares for a friend and ratafia. And let 
posterity shift for itself, she'll breed no more! 

Fainall	The discovery of your sham addresses to her, to conceal your love 
to her niece, has provoked this separation. Had you dissembled better, 
things might have continued in the state of nature. 

Mirabell	I did as much as man could with any reasonable conscience. I 
proceeded to the very last act of flattery with her, and was guilty of a 
song in her commendation. Nay, I got a friend to put her into a lampoon and 
compliment her with the imputation of an affair with a young fellow, which 
I carried so far that I told her the malicious town took notice that she 
was grown fat of a sudden, and when she lay in of a dropsy, persuaded her 
she was reported to be in labour. The devil's in't, if an old woman is to 
be flattered further, unless a man should endeavour downright personally to 
debauch her, and that my virtue forbade me. But for the discovery of this 
amour I am indebted to your friend, or your wife's friend, Mrs. Marwood. 

Fainall	What should provoke her to be your enemy, unless she has made you 
advances, which you have slighted? Women do not easily forgive omissions of 
that nature. 

Mirabell	She was always civil to me, till of late. I confess I am not one 
of those coxcombs who are apt to interpret a woman's good manners to her 
prejudice, and think that she who does not refuse 'em everything, can 
refuse 'em nothing. 

Fainall	You are a gallant man, Mirabell, and though you may have cruelty 
enough not to satisfy a lady's longing, you have too much generosity not to 
be tender of her honour. Yet you speak with an indifference which seems to 
be affected, and confesses you are conscious of a negligence. 

Mirabell	You pursue the argument with a distrust that seems to be 
unaffected, and confesses you are conscious of a concern for which the lady 
is more indebted to you than is your wife. 

Fainall	Fie, fie, friend, if you grow censorious I must leave you. I'll 
look upon the gamesters in the next room. 

Mirabell	Who are they? 

Fainall	Petulant and Witwoud. [To BETTY.] Bring me some chocolate.

Exit. 

Mirabell	Betty, what says your clock? 

Betty	Turned of the last canonical hour, sir.

Exit. 

Mirabell	How pertinently the jade answers me! [Looking on his watch.] Ha! 
Almost one o'clock! Oh, you're come. 

Enter FOOTMAN. 

Well, is the grand affair over? You have been something tedious. 

Footman	Sir, there's such coupling at Pancras that they stand behind one 
another as 'twere in a country dance. Ours was the last couple to lead up, 
and no hopes appearing of dispatch - besides, the parson growing hoarse, we 
were afraid his lungs would have failed before it came to our turn - so we 
drove round to Duke's Place, and there they were rivetted in a trice. 

Mirabell	So, so. You are sure they are married? 

Footman	Married and bedded, sir: I am witness. 

Mirabell	Have you the certificate? 

Footman	Here it is, sir. 

Mirabell	Has the tailor brought Waitwell's clothes home, and the new 
liveries? 

Footman	Yes, sir. 

Mirabell	That's well. Do you go home again, d'ye hear, and adjourn the 
consummation till farther order. Bid Waitwell shake his ears, and Dame 
Partlet rustle up her feathers, and meet me at one o'clock by Rosamund's 
Pond, that I may see her before she returns to her lady. And as you tender 
your ears be secret.

Exit FOOTMAN. 
Re-enter FAINALL and BETTY. 

Fainall	Joy of your success, Mirabell! You look pleased.

Mirabell	Aye, I have been engaged in a matter of some sort of mirth, which 
is not yet ripe for discovery. I am glad this is not a Cabal night. I 
wonder, Fainall, that you who are married and of consequence should be 
discreet, will suffer your wife to be of such a party. 

Fainall	Faith, I am not jealous. Besides, most who are engaged are women 
and relations, and for the men, they are of a kind too contemptible to give 
scandal. 

Mirabell	I am of another opinion. The greater the coxcomb, always the more 
the scandal; for a woman who is not a fool can have but one reason for 
associating with a man who is one. 

Fainall	Are you jealous as often as you see Witwoud entertained by 
Millamant? 

Mirabell	Of her understanding I am, if not of her person. 

Fainall	You do her wrong, for to give her her due she has wit. 

Mirabell	She has beauty enough to make any man think so, and complaisance 
enough not to contradict him who shall tell her so. 

Fainall	For a passionate lover methinks you are a man somewhat too 
discerning in the failings of your mistress. 

Mirabell	And for a discerning man, somewhat too passionate a lover; for I 
like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. Her follies are 
so natural, or so artful, that they become her, and those affectations 
which in another woman would be odious serve but to make her more 
agreeable. I'll tell thee, Fainall, she once used me with that insolence, 
that in revenge I took her to pieces, sifted her, and separated her 
failings. I studied 'em, and got 'em by rote. The catalogue was so large 
that I was not without hopes one day or other to hate her heartily, to 
which end I so used myself to think of 'em that at length, contrary to my 
design and expectation, they gave me every hour less and less disturbance, 
till in a few days it became habitual to me to remember 'em without being 
displeased. They are now grown as familiar to me as my own frailties, and 
in all probability in a little time longer I shall like 'em as well. 

Fainall	Marry her, marry her. Be half as well acquainted with her charms as 
you are with her defects, and, my life on't, you are your own man again. 

Mirabell	Say you so? 

Fainall	Aye, aye, I have experience. I have a wife, and so forth. 

Enter MESSENGER. 

Messenger	Is one Squire Witwoud here? 

Betty	Yes; what's your business? 

Messenger	I have a letter for him from his brother, Sir Wilfull, which I am 
charged to deliver into his own hands. 

Betty	He's in the next room, friend. That way. 

Exit MESSENGER

Mirabell	What, is the chief of that noble family in town, Sir Wilfull 
Witwoud? 

Fainall	He is expected today. Do you know him? 

Mirabell	I have seen hirn. He promises to be an extraordinary person. I 
think you have the honour to be related to him. 

Fainall	Yes; he is half-brother to this Witwoud by a former wife, who was 
sister to my Lady Wishfort, my wife's mother. If you marry Millamant you 
must call cousins too. 

Mirabell	I had rather be his relation than his acquaintance. 

Fainall	He comes to town in order to equip himself for travel. 

Mirabell	For travel? Why, the man that I mean is above forty. 

Fainall	No matter for that. 'Tis for the honour of England that all Europe 
should know we have blockheads of all ages. 

Mirabell	I wonder there is not an act of Parliament to save the credit of 
the nation, and prohibit the exportation of fools. 

Fainall	By no means, 'tis better as 'tis. 'Tis better to trade with a 
little loss than to be quite eaten up with being overstocked. 

Mirabell	Pray, are the follies of this knight-errant and those of the 
squire, his brother, anything related? 

Fainall	Not at all: Witwoud grows by the knight like a medlar grafted on a 
crab. One will melt in your mouth, and t'other set your teeth on edge. One 
is all pulp and the other all core. 

Mirabell	So one will be rotten before he be ripe, and the other will be 
rotten without ever being ripe at all. 

Fainall	Sir Wilfull is an odd mixture of bashfulness and obstinacy. But 
when he's drunk he's as loving as the monster in "The Tempest," and much 
after the same manner. To give t'other his due, he has something of good 
nature, and does not always want wit. 

Mirabell	Not always, but as often as his memory fails him, and his 
commonplace of comparisons. He is a fool with a good memory, and some few 
scraps of other folks' wit. He is one whose conversation can never be 
approved, yet it is now and then to be endured. He has indeed one good 
quality, he is not exceptious; for he so passionately affects the 
reputation of understanding raillery, that he will construe an affront into 
a jest, and call downright rudeness and ill language satire and fire. 

Fainall	If you have a mind to finish his picture, you have an opportunity 
to do it at full length. Behold the original! 

Enter WITWOUD. 

Witwoud	Afford me your compassion, my dears. Pity me, Fainall, Mirabell, 
pity me. 

Mirabell	I do from my soul. 

Fainall	Why, what's the matter? 

Witwoud	No letters for me, Betty? 

Betty	Did not a messenger bring you one but now, sir? 

Witwoud	Aye, but no other? 

Betty	No, sir. 

Witwoud	That's hard, that's very hard. A messenger? A mule, a beast of 
burden! He has brought me a letter from the fool my brother, as heavy as a 
panegyric in a funeral sermon, or a copy of commendatory verses from one 
poet to another. And what's worse, 'tis as sure a forerunner of the author 
as an epistle dedicatory. 

Mirabell	A fool, and your brother, Witwoud? 

Witwoud	Aye, aye, my half-brother. My half-brother he is, no nearer, upon 
honour. 

Mirabell	Then 'tis possible he may be but half a fool. 

Witwoud	Good, good, Mirabell le drole! Good, good! Hang him, don't let's 
talk of him. Fainall, how does your lady? Gad, I say anything in the world 
to get this fellow out of my head. I beg pardon that I should ask a man of 
pleasure and the town a question at once so foreign and domestic. But I 
talk like an old maid at a marriage, I don't know what I say. But she's the 
best woman in the world.

Fainall	'Tis well you don't know what you say, or else your commendation 
would go near to make me either vain or jealous. 

Witwoud	No man in town lives well with a wife but Fainall. Your judgment, 
Mirabell? 

Mirabell	You had better step and ask his wife, if you would be credibly 
informed. 

Witwoud	Mirabell? 

Mirabell	Aye. 

Witwoud	My dear, I ask ten thousand pardons. Gad, I have forgot what I was 
going to say to you. 

Mirabell	I thank you heartily, heartily. 

Witwoud	No, but prithee excuse me. My memory is such a memory. 

Mirabell	Have a care of such apologies, Witwoud, for I never knew a fool 
but he affected to complain either of the spleen or his memory. 

Fainall	What have you done with Petulant? 

Witwoud	He's reckoning his money. My money it was. I have no luck today. 

Fainall	You may allow him to win of you at play, for you are sure to be too 
hard for him at repartee. Since you monopolise the wit that is between you, 
the fortune must be his of course. 

Mirabell	I don't find that Petulant confesses the superiority of wit to be 
your talent, Witwoud. 

Witwoud	Come, come, you are malicious now, and would breed debates. 
Petulant's my friend, and a very honest fellow, and a very pretty fellow, 
and has a smattering, faith and troth, a pretty deal of an odd sort of a 
small wit. Nay, I'll do him justice. I'm his friend, I won't wrong him. And 
if he had any judgment in the world, he would not be altogether 
contemptible. Come, come, don't detract from the merits of my friend.

Fainall	You don't take your friend to be over-nicely bred?

Witwoud	No, no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must own; 
no more breeding than a bum-bailey, that I grant you. 'Tis pity the fellow 
has fire and life. 

Mirabell	What, courage? 

Witwoud	Hum, faith, I don't know as to that; I can't say as to that. Yes, 
faith, in a controversy he'll contradict anybody. 

Mirabell	Though 'twere a man whom he feared, or a woman whom he loved? 

Witwoud	Well, well, he does not always think before he speaks. We have all 
our failings; you are too hard upon him, you are, faith. Let me excuse him. 
I can defend most of his faults, except one or two. One he has, that's the 
truth on't, if he were my brother I could not acquit him. That indeed I 
could wish were otherwise. 

Mirabell	Aye, marry, what's that, Witwoud? 

Witwoud	Oh, pardon me. Expose the infirmities of my friend! No, my dear, 
excuse me there. 

Fainall	What, I warrant, he's unsincere, or 'tis some such trifle. 

Witwoud	No, no: what if he be? 'Tis no matter for that, his wit will excuse 
that. A wit should no more be sincere than a woman constant; one argues a 
decay of parts, as t'other of beauty. 

Mirabell	May be you think him too positive? 

Witwoud	No, no, his being positive is an incentive to argument, and keeps 
up conversation. 

Fainall	Too illiterate? 

Witwoud	That! That's his happiness. His want of learning gives him the more 
opportunities to show his natural parts. 

Mirabell	He wants words? 

Witwoud	Aye, but I like him for that now, for his want of words gives me 
the pleasure very often to explain his meaning. 

Fainall	He's impudent? 

Witwoud	No, that's not it. 

Mirabell	Vain? 

Witwoud	No. 

Mirabell	What, he speaks unseasonable truths sometimes, because he has not 
wit enough to invent an evasion? 

Witwoud	Truths! Ha, ha, ha! No, no, since you will have it, I mean he never 
speaks truth at all, that's all. He will lie like a chambermaid, or a woman 
of quality's porter. Now that is a fault. 

Enter COACHMAN. 

Coachman	Is Master Petulant here, mistress? 

Betty	Yes. 

Coachman	Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him. 

Fainall	Oh, brave Petulant! Three! 

Betty	I'll tell him. 

Coachman	You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of cinnamon 
water.

Exeunt BETTY and COACHMAN.

Witwoud	That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled with 
wind. Now you may know what the three are. 

Mirabell	You are free with your friend's acquaintance. 

Witwoud	Aye, aye: friendship without freedom is as dull as love without 
enjoyment, or wine without toasting; but to tell you a secret, these are 
trulls whom he allows coach-hire and something more by the week to call on 
him once a day at public places. 

Mirabell	How? 

Witwoud	You shall see he won't go to 'em because there's no more company 
here to take notice of him. Why, this is nothing to what he used to do. 
Before he found out this way, I have known him call for himself. 

Fainall	Call for himself? What dost thou mean? 

Witwoud	Mean? Why he would slip you out of this chocolate house, just when 
you had been talking to him. As soon as your back was turned - whip, he was 
gone. Then trip to his lodging, clap on a hood and scarf and a mask, slap 
into a hackney coach, and drive hither to the door again in a trice, where 
he would send in for himself, that I mean call for himself, wait for 
himself, nay, and what's more, not finding himself, sometimes leave a 
letter for himself. 

Mirabell	I confess this is something extraordinary. I believe he waits for 
himself now, he is so long a-coming. Oh, I ask his pardon. 

Enter PETULANT and BETTY. 

Betty	Sir, the coach stays. 

Petulant	Well, well, I come. 'Sbud, a man had as good be a professed 
midwife as a professed whoremaster at this rate. To be knocked up and 
raised at all hours, and in all places! Pox on 'em, I won't come. Do you 
hear, tell 'em I won't come. Let 'em snivel and cry their hearts out. 

Fainall	You are very cruel, Petulant. 

Petulant	All's one, let it pass. I have a humour to be cruel. 

Mirabell	I hope they are not persons of condition that you use at this 
rate? 

Petulant	Condition! Condition's a dried fig, if I am not in humour. By this 
hand, if they were your - a - a - your what-d'ye-call-'ems themselves, they 
must wait or rub off, if I want appetite. 

Mirabell	What-d'ye-call-'ems! What are they, Witwoud?

Witwoud	Empresses, my dear. By your what-d'ye-call-'ems he means Sultana 
queens. 

Petulant	Aye, Roxolana's. 

Mirabell	Cry you mercy! 

Fainall	Witwoud says they are -

Petulant	What does he say they are? 

Witwoud	I? Fine ladies, I say. 

Petulant	Pass on, Witwoud. Harkee, by this light his relations. Two co-
heiresses, his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves catterwauling better 
than a conventicle. 

Witwoud	Ha, ha, ha! I had a mind to see how the rogue would come off. Ha, 
ha, ha! Gad, I can't be angry with him, if he had said they were my mother 
and my sisters. 

Mirabell	No? 

Witwoud	No: the rogue's wit and readiness of invention charm me. Dear 
Petulant! 

Betty	They are gone, sir, in great anger. 

Petulant	Enough; let 'em trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint. 

Fainall	This continence is all dissembled. This is in order to have 
something to brag of the next time he makes court to Millamant, and swear 
he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake. 

Mirabell	Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I shall 
cut your throat some time or other, Petulant, about that business. 

Petulant	Aye, aye, let that pass. There are other throats to be cut. 

Mirabell	Meaning mine, sir? 

Petulant	Not I. I mean nobody. I know nothing. But there are uncles and 
nephews in the world, and they may be rivals. What then? All's one for 
that.

Mirabell	How? Harkee, Petulant, come hither. Explain, or I shall call your 
interpreter. 

Petulant	Explain? I know nothing. Why, you have an uncle, have you not, 
lately come to town, and lodges by my Lady Wishfort's? 

Mirabell	True. 

Petulant	Why, that's enough. You and he are not friends, and if he should 
marry and have a child, you may be disinherited, ha? 

Mirabell	Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth? 

Petulant	All's one for that. Why, then, say I know something. 

Mirabell	Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make love to 
my mistress, thou shalt, faith. What has thou heard of my uncle? 

Petulant	I? Nothing I. If throats are to be cut, let swords clash. Snug's 
the word, I shrug and am silent. 

Mirabell	Oh, raillery, raillery. Come, I know thou art in the women's 
secrets. What, you're a Cabalist? I know you stayed at Millamant's last 
night after I went. Was there any mention made of my uncle or me? Tell me. 
If thou hadst but good nature equal to thy wit, Petulant, Tony Witwoud, who 
is now thy competitor in fame, would show as dim by thee as a dead 
whiting's eye by a pearl of Orient. He would no more be seen by thee than 
Mercury is by the sun. Come, I'm sure thou wo't tell me. 

Petulant	If I do, will you grant me common sense then for the future? 

Mirabell	Faith, I'll do what I can for thee, and I'll pray that Heaven may 
grant it thee in the meantime. 

Petulant	Well, harkee. 

Fainall	Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a 
lover. 

Witwoud	Pshaw, pshaw! That she laughs at Petulant is plain. And for my 
part, but that it is almost a fashion to admire her, I should - Harkee, to 
tell you a secret, but let it go no further, between friends, I shall never 
break my heart for her. 

Fainall	How? 

Witwoud	She's handsome; but she's a sort of an uncertain woman. 

Fainall	I thought you had died for her? 

Witwoud	Umph - no. 

Fainall	She has wit. 

Witwoud	'Tis what she will hardly allow anybody else. Now, demme, I should 
hate that, if she were as handsome as Cleopatra. Mirabell is not so sure of 
her as he thinks for. 
Fainall	Why do you think so? 

Witwoud	We stayed pretty late there last night, and heard something of an 
uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to town, and is between him and the 
best part of his estate. Mirabell and he are at some distance, as my Lady 
Wishfort has been told, and you know she hates Mirabell worse than a Quaker 
hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger hates a hard frost. Whether this uncle 
has seen Mrs. Millamant or not, I cannot say; but there were items of such 
a treaty being in embryo, and if it should come to life, poor Mirabell 
would be in some sort unfortunately fobbed, i'faith. 

Fainall	'Tis impossible Millamant should harken to it. 

Witwoud	Faith, my dear, I can't tell. She's a woman and a kind of a 
humorist. 

Mirabell	And this is the sum of what you could collect last night. 

Petulant	The quintessence. Maybe Witwoud knows more; he stayed longer. 
Besides, they never mind him; they say anything before him. 

Mirabell	I thought you had been the greatest favourite.

Petulant	Aye, but not in public, because I make remarks. 

Mirabell	You do? 

Petulant	Aye, aye, pox, I'm malicious, man. Now he's soft, you know; they 
are not in awe of him. The fellow's well bred; he's what you call a what-
d'ye-call-'em, a fine gentleman, but he's silly withal. 

Mirabell	I thank you, I know as much as my curiosity requires. Fainall, are 
you for the Mall? 

Fainall	Aye, I'll take a turn before dinner. 

Witwoud	Aye, we'll all walk in the park. The ladies talked of being there. 

Mirabell	I thought you were obliged to watch for your brother, Sir 
Wilfull's, arrival? 

Witwoud	No, no, he's come to his aunt's, my Lady Wishfort. Pox on him, I 
shall be troubled with him too. What shall I do with the fool? 

Petulant	Beg him for his estate, that I may beg you afterwards, and so have 
but one trouble with you both. 

Witwoud	Oh, rare Petulant! Thou art as quick as fire in a frosty morning. 
Thou shalt to the Mall with us, and we'll be very severe. 

Petulant	Enough, I'm in a humour to be severe. 

Mirabell	Are you? Pray then walk by yourselves. Let not us be accessory to 
your putting the ladies out of countenance with your senseless ribaldry, 
which you roar out aloud as often as they pass by you, and when you have 
made a handsome woman blush, then you think you have been severe. 

Petulant	What, what? Then let 'em either show their innocence by not 
understanding what they hear, or else show their discretion by not hearing 
what they would not be thought to understand. 

Mirabell	But hast not thou then sense enough to know that thou ought'st to 
be most ashamed thyself, when thou hast put another out of countenance? 

Petulant	Not I, by this hand. I always take blushing either for a sign of 
guilt, or ill-breeding. 

Mirabell	I confess you ought to think so. You are in the right, that you 
may plead the error of your judgment in defence of your practice.

Where modesty's ill-manners, 'tis but fit
That impudence and malice pass for wit.

Exeunt.


Act 2

Scene 1: St. James's Park. 

Enter MRS. FAINALL and MRS. MARWOOD. 

Mrs. Fainall	Aye, aye, dear Marwood, if we will be happy we must find the 
means in ourselves, and among ourselves. Men are ever in extremes: either 
doting or averse. While they are lovers, if they have fire and sense, their 
jealousies are insupportable, and when they cease to love - we ought to 
think at least - they loathe. They look upon us with horror and distaste; 
they meet us like the ghosts of what we were, and as from such, fly from 
us. 

Mrs Marwood	True, 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life that love should 
ever die before us, and that the man so often should outlive the lover. But 
say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To 
pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because 
they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born 
old, because we one day must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and 
waste, but it shall never rust in my possession. 

Mrs Fainall	Then it seems you dissemble an aversion to mankind only in 
compliance to my mother's humour.

Mrs. Marwood	Certainly. To be free, I have no taste of those insipid dry 
discourses with which our sex of force must entertain themselves, apart 
from men. We may affect endearments to each other, profess eternal 
friendships, and seem to dote like lovers; but 'tis not in our natures long 
to persevere. Love will resume his empire in our breasts, and every heart, 
or soon or late, receive and readmit him as its lawful tyrant. 

Mrs Fainall	Bless me, how have I been deceived! Why, you profess a 
libertine. 

Mrs Marwood	You see my friendship by my freedom. Come, be as sincere, 
acknowledge that your sentiments agree with mine. 

Mrs Fainall	Never. 

Mrs Marwood	You hate mankind? 

Mrs Fainall	Heartily, inveterately. 

Mrs Marwood	Your husband? 

Mrs Fainall	Most transcendently. Aye, though I say it, meritoriously. 

Mrs Marwood	Give me your hand upon it. 

Mrs Fainall	There. 

Mrs Marwood	I join with you. What I have said has been to try you. 

Mrs Fainall	Is it possible? Dost thou hate those vipers, men? 

Mrs Marwood	I have done hating 'em, and am now come to despise 'em. The 
next thing I have to do is eternally to forget 'em. 

Mrs Fainall	There spoke the spirit of an Amazon, a Penthesilea. 

Mrs Marwood	And yet I am thinking sometimes to carry my aversion further. 

Mrs Fainall	How? 

Mrs Marwood	Faith, by marrying. If I could but find one that loved me very 
well, and would be throughly sensible of ill-usage, I think I should do 
myself the violence of undergoing the ceremony. 

Mrs Fainall	You would not make him a cuckold? 

Mrs Marwood	No: but I'd make him believe I did, and that's as bad. 

Mrs Fainall	Why had not you as good do it? 

Mrs Marwood	Oh, if he should ever discover it, he would then know the 
worst, and be out of his pain; but I would have him ever to continue upon 
the rack of fear and jealousy. 

Mrs Fainall	Ingenious mischief! Would thou wert married to Mirabell! 

Mrs Marwood	Would I were! 

Mrs Fainall	You change colour? 

Mrs Marwood	Because I hate him. 

Mrs Fainall	So do I; but I can hear him named. But what reason have you to 
hate him particular? 

Mrs Marwood	I never loved him; he is, and always was, insufferably proud. 

Mrs Fainall	By the reason you give for your aversion, one would think it 
dissembled, for you have laid a fault to his charge of which his enemies 
must acquit him. 

Mrs Marwood	Oh, then it seems you are one of his favourable enemies. 
Methinks you look a little pale, and now you flush again. 

Mrs Fainall	Do I? I think I am a little sick o' the sudden. 

Mrs Marwood	What ails you? 

Mrs Fainall	My husband. Don't you see him? He turned short upon me 
unawares, and has almost overcome me. 

Enter FAINALL and MIRABELL.

Mrs. Marwood	Ha, ha, ha! He comes opportunely for you.

Mrs Fainall	For you, for he has brought Mirabell with him. 

Fainall	My dear. 

Mrs Fainall	My soul. 

Fainall	You don't look well today, child. 

Mrs Fainall	D'ye think so? 

Mirabell	Hs is the only man that does, madam. 

Mrs Fainall	The only man that would tell me so at least, and the only man 
from whom I could hear it without mortification. 

Fainall	Oh, my dear, I am satisfied of your tenderness. I know you cannot 
resent anything from me, especially what is an effect of my concern. 

Mrs Fainall	Mr. Mirabell, my mother interrupted you in a pleasant relation 
last night; I would fain hear it out. 

Mirabell	The persons concerned in that aftair have yet a tolerable 
reputation. I am afraid Mr. Fainall will be censorious. 

Mrs Fainall	He has a humour more prevailing than his curiosity, and will 
willingly dispense with the hearing of one scandalous story to avoid giving 
an occasion to make another by being seen to walk with his wife. This way, 
Mr. Mirabell, and I dare promise you will oblige us both. 

Exeunt MRS. FAINALL and MIRABELL.

Fainall	Excellent creature! Well, sure if I should live to be rid of my 
wife, I should be a miserable man. 

Mrs Marwood	Aye? 

Fainall	For having only that one hope, the accomplishment of it of 
consequence must put an end to all my hopes. And what a wretch is he who 
must survive his hopes! Nothing remains when that day comes but to sit down 
and weep, like Alexander, when he wanted other worlds to conquer. 

Mrs Marwood	Will you not follow 'em? Fain. Faith, I think not. 

Mrs Marwood	Pray, let us; I have a reason. 

Fainall	You are not jealous? 

Mrs Marwood	Of whom? 

Fainall	Of Mirabell. 

Mrs Marwood	If I am, is it inconsistent with my love to you that I am 
tender of your honour? 

Fainall	You would intimate then, as if there were a fellow-feeling between 
my wife and him. 

Mrs Marwood	I think she does not hate him to that degree she would be 
thought. 

Fainall	But he, I fear, is too insensible. 

Mrs Marwood	It may be you are deceived. 

Fainall	It may be so. I do now begin to apprehend it. 

Mrs Marwood	What? 

Fainall	That I have been deceived, madam, and you are false.

Mrs Marwood	That I am false! What mean you? 

Fainall	To let you know I see through all your little arts. Come, you both 
love him, and both have equally dissembled your aversion. Your mutual 
jealousies of one another have made you clash till you have both struck 
fire. I have seen the warm confession reddening on your cheeks, and 
sparkling from your eyes. 

Mrs Marwood	You do me wrong. 

Fainall	I do not. 'Twas for my ease to oversee and wilfully neglect the 
gross advances made him by my wife, that by permitting her to be engaged I 
might continue unsuspected in my pleasures, and take you oftener to my arms 
in full security. But could you think, because the nodding husband would 
not wake, that e'er the watchful lover slept?

Mrs. Marwood	And wherewithal can you reproach me?

Fainall	With infidelity, with loving another, with love of Mirabell.

Mrs Marwood	'Tis false. I challenge you to show an instance that can 
confirm your groundless accusation. I hate him. 

Fainall	And wherefore do you hate him? He is insensible, and your 
resentment follows his neglect. An instance! The injuries you have done him 
are a proof: your interposing in his love. What cause had you to make 
discoveries of his pretended passion? To undeceive the credulous aunt, and 
be the officious obstacle of his match with Millamant? 

Mrs Marwood	My obligations to my lady urged me. I had professed a 
friendship to her, and could not see her easy nature so abused by that 
dissembler. 

Fainall	What, was it conscience then? Professed a friendship? Oh, the pious 
friendships of the female sex! 

Mrs Marwood	More tender, more sincere, and more enduring than all the vain 
and empty vows of men, whether professing love to us, or mutual faith to 
one another. 

Fainall	Ha, ha, ha! You are my wife's friend too. 

Mrs Marwood	Shame and ingratitude! Do you reproach me? You, you upbraid me? 
Have I been false to her through strict fidelity to you, and sacrificed my 
friendship to keep my love inviolate? And have you the baseness to charge 
me with the guilt, unmindful of the merit? To you it should be meritorious 
that I have been vicious, and do you reflect that guilt upon me which 
should lie buried in your bosom? 

Fainall	You misinterpret my reproof. I meant but to remind you of the 
slight account you once could make of strictest ties, when set in 
competition with your love to me. 

Mrs Marwood	'Tis false, you urged it with deliberate malice. 'Twas spoke in 
scorn, and I never will forgive it. 

Fainall	Your guilt, not your resentment, begets your rage. If yet you loved 
you could forgive a jealousy; but you are stung to find you are discovered.

Mrs Marwood	It shall be all discovered. You too shall be discovered; be 
sure you shall. I can but be exposed. If I do it myself I shall prevent 
your baseness. 

Fainall	Why, what will you do? 

Mrs Marwood	Disclose it to your wife, own what has passed between us. 

Fainall	Frenzy! 

Mrs Marwood	By all my wrongs I'll do 't. I'll publish to the world the 
injuries you have done me both in my fame and fortune. With both I trusted 
you, you bankrupt in honour as indigent of wealth. 

Fainall	Your fame I have preserved. Your fortune has been bestowed as the 
prodigality of your love would have it in pleasures which we both have 
shared. Yet, had not you been false, I had ere this repaid it. 'Tis true. 
Had you permitted Mirabell with Millamant to have stolen their marriage, my 
lady had been incensed beyond all means of reconcilement, Millamant had 
forfeited the moiety of her fortune, which then would have descended to my 
wife. And wherefore did I marry but to make lawful prize of a rich widow's 
wealth, and squander it on love and you? 

Mrs Marwood	Deceit and frivolous pretence! 

Fainall	Death, am I not married? What's pretence? Am I not imprisoned, 
fettered? Have I not a wife? Nay, a wife that was a widow, a young widow, a 
handsome widow, and would be again a widow, but that I have a heart of 
proof, and something of a constitution to bustle through the ways of 
wedlock and this world. Will you yet be reconciled to truth and me? 

Mrs Marwood	Impossible. Truth and you are inconsistent. I hate you, and 
shall for ever. 

Fainall	For loving you? 

Mrs Marwood	I loathe the name of love after such usage, and next to the 
guilt with which you would asperse me, I scorn you most. Farewell. 

Fainall	Nay, we must not part thus. 

Mrs Marwood	Let me go. 

Fainall	Come, I'm sorry. 

Mrs Marwood	I care not. Let me go. Break my hands, do. I'd leave 'em to get 
loose. 

Fainall	I would not hurt you for the world. Have I no other hold to keep 
you here? 

Mrs Marwood	Well, I have deserved it all. 

Fainall	You know I love you. 

Mrs Marwood	Poor dissembling! Oh, that - Well, it is not yet -

Fainall	What? What is it not? What is it not yet? It is not yet too late? 

Mrs Marwood	No, it is not yet too late. I have that comfort. 

Fainall	It is to love another. 

Mrs Marwood	But not to loathe, detest, abhor mankind, myself and the whole 
treacherous world. 

Fainall	Nay, this is extravagance. Come, I ask your pardon. No tears. I was 
to blame; I could not love you and be easy in my doubts. Pray forbear. I 
believe you. I'm convinced I've done you wrong, and, anyway, every way will 
make amends. I'll hate my wife yet more. Damn her, I'll part with her, rob 
her of all she's worth, and we'll retire somewhere, anywhere, to another 
world. I'll marry thee. Be pacified. 'Sdeath, they come; hide your face, 
your tears. You have a mask, wear it a moment. This way, this way; be 
persuaded.

Exeunt. 

Enter MIRABELL and MRS. FAINALL. 

Mrs Fainall	They are here yet. 

Mirabell	They are turning into the other walk.

Mrs. Fainall	While I only hated my husband, I could bear to see him; but 
since I have despised him, he's too offensive. 

Mirabell	Oh, you should hate with prudence. 

Mrs Fainall	Yes, for I have loved with indiscretion. 

Mirabell	You should have just so much disgust for your husband as may be 
sufficient to make you relish your lover. 

Mrs Fainall	You have been the cause that I have loved without bounds, and 
would you set limits to that aversion of which you have been the occasion? 
Why did you make me marry this man? 

Mirabell	Why do we daily commit disagreeable and dangerous actions? To save 
that idol reputation. If the familiarities of our loves had produced that 
consequence of which you were apprehensive, where could you have fixed a 
father's name with credit, but on a husband? I knew Fainall to be a man 
lavish of his morals, an interested and professing friend, a false and a 
designing lover, yet one whose wit and outward fair behaviour have gained a 
reputation with the town enough to make that woman stand excused who has 
suffered herself to be won by his addresses. A better man ought not to have 
been sacrificed to the occasion; a worse had not answered to the purpose. 
When you are weary of him, you know your remedy. 

Mrs Fainall	I ought to stand in some degree of credit with you, Mirabell. 

Mirabell	In justice to you, I have made you privy to my whole design, and 
put it in your power to ruin or advance my fortune. 

Mrs Fainall	Whom have you instructed to represent your pretended uncle? 

Mirabell	Waitwell, my servant. 

Mrs Fainall	He is an humble servant to Foible, my mother's woman, and may 
win her to your interest.

Mirabell	Care is taken for that. She is won and worn by this time. They 
were married this morning. 

Mrs Fainall	Who? 

Mirabell	Waitwell and Foible. I would not tempt my servant to betray me by 
trusting him too far. If your mother, in hopes to ruin me, should consent 
to marry my pretended uncle, he might, like Mosca in the Fox, stand upon 
terms. So I made him sure beforehand. 

Mrs Fainall	So, if my poor mother is caught in a contract, you will 
discover the imposture betimes, and release her by producing a certificate 
of her gallant's former marriage. 

Mirabell	Yes, upon condition that she consent to my marriage with her 
niece, and surrender the moiety of her fortune in her possession. 

Mrs Fainall	She talked last night of endeavouring at a match between 
Millamant and your uncle. 

Mirabell	That was by Foible's direction, and my instruction, that she might 
seem to carry it more privately. 

Mrs Fainall	Well, I have an opinion of your success; for I believe my lady 
will do anything to get an husband, and when she has this, which you have 
provided for her, I suppose she will submit to anything to get rid of him. 

Mirabell	Yes, I think the good lady would marry anything that resembled a 
man, though 'twere no more than what a butler could pinch out of a napkin. 

Mrs Fainall	Female frailty! We must all come to it, if we live to be old, 
and feel the craving of a false appetite when the true is decayed. 

Mirabell	An old woman's appetite is depraved like that of a girl. 'Tis the 
green-sickness of a second childhood, and like the faint offer of a later 
spring serves but to usher in the fall, and withers in an affected bloom. 

Mrs Fainall	Here's your mistress. 

Enter MRS. MILLAMANT, WITWOUD and MINCING. 

Mirabell	Here she comes, i'faith, full sail, with her fan spread and 
streamers out, and a shoal of fools for tenders. Ha, no, I cry her mercy. 

Mrs Fainall	I see but one poor empty sculler, and he tows her woman after 
him. 

Mirabell	[to MILLAMANT]. You seem to be unattended, madam. You used to have 
the beaumonde throng after you, and a flock of gay fine perukes hovering 
round you. 
Witwoud	Like moths about a candle. I had like to have lost my comparison 
for want of breath. 

Millamant	Oh, I have denied myself airs today. I have walked as fast 
through the crowd -

Witwoud	As a favourite just disgraced, and with as few followers. 

Millamant	Dear Mr. Witwoud, truce with your similitudes, for I am as sick 
of 'em -

Witwoud	As a physician of a good air. I cannot help it, madam, though 'tis 
against myself. 

Millamant	Yet again! Mincing, stand between me and his wit. 

Witwoud	Do, Mrs. Mincing, like a screen before a great fire. I confess I do 
blaze today; I am too bright. 

Mrs Fainall	But, dear Millamant, why were you so long? 

Millamant	Long! Lord, have I not made violent haste? I have asked every 
living thing I met for you; I have enquired after you as after a new 
fashion. 

Witwoud	Madam, truce with your similitudes. No, you met her husband, and 
did not ask him for her. 

Mirabell	By your leave, Witwoud, that were like enquiring after an old 
fashion, to ask a husband for his wife. 

Witwoud	Hum, a hit, a hit, a palpable hit, I confess it. 

Mrs Fainall	You were dressed before I came abroad.

Millamant	Aye, that's true. Oh, but then I had Mincing, what had I? Why was 
I so long? 

Mincing	Oh, mem, your la'ship stayed to peruse a pecket of letters. 

Millamant	Oh, aye, letters. I had letters. I am persecuted with letters. I 
hate letters. Nobody knows how to write letters; and yet one has 'em, one 
does not know why. They serve one to pin up one's hair. 

Witwoud	Is that the way? Pray, madam, do you pin up your hair with all your 
letters? I find I must keep copies. 

Millamant	Only with those in verse, Mr. Witwoud. I never pin up my hair 
with prose. I think I tried once, Mincing? 

Mincing	Oh, mem, I shall never forget it. 

Millamant	Aye, poor Mincing tiffed and tiffed all the morning. 

Mincing	Till I had the cremp in my fingers, I'll vow, mem, and all to no 
purpose. But when your ladyship pins it up with poetry it sits so pleasant 
the next day as anything, and is so pure and so crips. 

Witwoud	Indeed, so crips? 

Mincing	You're such a critic, Mr. Witwoud. 

Millamant	Mirabell, did you take exceptions last night? Oh, aye, and went 
away. Now I think on't, I'm angry. No, now I think on't, I'm pleased, for I 
believe I gave you some pain. 

Mirabell	Does that please you? 

Millamant	Infinitely; I love to give pain. 

Mirabell	You would affect a cruelty which is not in your nature; your true 
vanity is in the power of pleasing. 

Millamant	Oh, I ask your pardon for that. One's cruelty is one's power, and 
when one parts with one's cruelty, one parts with one's power, and when one 
has parted with that, I fancy one's old and ugly. 

Mirabell	Aye, aye, suffer your cruelty to ruin the object of your power, to 
destroy your lover, and then how vain, how lost a thing you'll be! Nay, 
'tis true. You are no longer handsome when you've lost your lover; your 
beauty dies upon the instant; for beauty is the lover's gift, 'tis he 
bestows your charms. Your glass is all a cheat. The ugly and the old, whom 
the looking-glass mortifies, yet after commendation can be flattered by it, 
and discover beauties in it; for that reflects our praises, rather than 
your face. 

Millamant	Oh, the vanity of these men! Mrs. Fainall, d'ye hear him? If they 
did not commend us, we were not handsome! Now you must know they could not 
commend one, if one was not handsome. Beauty the lover's gift! Lord, what 
is a lover, that it can give? Why, one makes lovers as fast as one pleases, 
and they live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases. 
And then if one pleases one makes more. 

Witwoud	Very pretty. Why, you make no more of making of lovers, madam, than 
of making so many card matches. 

Millamant	One no more owes one's beauty to a lover than one's wit to an 
echo. They can but reflect what we look and say - vain empty things if we 
are silent or unseen, and want a being. 

Mirabell	Yet to those two vain empty things you owe two of the greatest 
pleasures of your life. 

Millamant	How so? 

Mirabell	To your lover you owe the pleasure of hearing yourselves praised, 
and to an echo the pleasure of hearing yourselves talk. 

Witwoud	But I know a lady that loves talking so incessantly, she won't give 
an echo fair play. She has that everlasting rotation of tongue that an echo 
must wait till she dies before it can catch her last words. 

Millamant	Oh, fiction! Mrs. Fainall, let us leave these men.

Mirabell	[aside to MRS. FAINALL]. Draw off Witwoud. 

Mrs Fainall	[aside to MIRABELL] Immediately. [To WITWOUD.]I have a word or 
two for Mr. Witwoud. 

Exeunt MRS. FAINALL and WITWOUD.

Mirabell	I would beg a little private audience too. You had the tyranny to 
deny me last night, though you knew I came to impart a secret to you that 
concerned my love. 

Millamant	You saw I was engaged. 

Mirabell	Unkind. You had the leisure to entertain a herd of fools, things 
who visit you from their excessive idleness, bestowing on your easiness 
that time which is the encumbrance of their lives. How can you find delight 
in such society? It is impossible they should admire you, they are not 
capable, or if they were, it should be to you as a mortification, for sure 
to please a fool is some degree of folly. 

Millamant	I please myself. Besides, sometimes to converse with fools is for 
my health. 

Mirabell	Your health! Is there a worse disease than the conversation of 
fools? 

Millamant	Yes, the vapours. Fools are physic for it, next to asafoetida.

Mirabell	You are not in a course of fools? 

Millamant	Mirabell, if you persist in this offensive freedom, you'll 
displease me. I think I must resolve after all not to have you. We shan't 
agree. 

Mirabell	Not in our physic, it may be. 

Millamant	And yet our distemper in all likelihood will be the same, for we 
shall be sick of one another. I shan't endure to be reprimanded, nor 
instructed. 'Tis so dull to act always by advice, and so tedious to be told 
of one's faults. I can't bear it. Well, I won't have you, Mirabell. I'm 
resolved, I think. You may go. Ha, ha, ha! What would you give that you 
could help loving me?

Mirabell	I would give something that you did not know I could not help it. 

Millamant	Come, don't look grave then. Well, what do you say to me? 

Mirabell	I say that a man may as soon make a friend by his wit, or a 
fortune by his honesty, as win a woman with plain-dealing and sincerity. 

Millamant	Sententious Mirabell! Prithee, don't look with that violent and 
inflexible wise face, like Solomon at the dividing of the child in an old 
tapestry hanging. 

Mirabell	You are merry, madam, but I would persuade you for a moment to be 
serious. 

Millamant	What, with that face? No, if you keep your countenance 'tis 
impossible I should hold mine. Well, after all, there is something very 
moving in a lovesick face. Ha, ha, ha! Well, I won't laugh; don't be 
peevish. Heigho! Now I'll be melancholy, as melancholy as a watchlight. 
Well, Mirabell, if ever you will win me woo me now. Nay, if you are so 
tedious, fare you well. I see they are walking away. 

Mirabell	Can you not find in the variety of your disposition one moment -

Millamant	To hear you tell me Foible's married, and your plot like to 
speed? No. 

Mirabell	But how you came to know it? 

Millamant	Without the help of the devil you can't imagine, unless she 
should tell me herself. Which of the two it may have been I will leave you 
to consider, and when you have done thinking of that, think of me. 

Exit with MINCING.

Mirabell	I have something more. Gone. Think of you! To think of a 
whirlwind, though 'twere in a whirlwind, were a case of more steady 
contemplation, a very tranquillity of mind and mansion. A fellow that lives 
in a windmill has not a more whimsical dwelling than the heart of a man 
that is lodged in a woman. There is no point of the compass to which they 
cannot turn, and by which they are not turned, and by one as well as 
another, for motion not method is their occupation. To know this, and yet 
continue to be in love, is to be made wise from the dictates of reason, and 
yet persevere to play the fool by the force of instinct. Oh, here come my 
pair of turtles. What, billing so sweetly! Is not Valentine's day over with 
you yet?

Enter WAITWELL and FOIBLE.

Mirabell	Sirrah, Waitwell, why sure you think you were married for your own 
recreation, and not for my conveniency? 

Waitwell	Your pardon, sir. With submission, we have indeed been solacing in 
lawful delights, but still with an eye to business, sir. I have instructed 
her as well as I could. If she can take your directions as readily as my 
instructions, sir, your affairs are in a prosperous way. 

Mirabell	Give you joy, Mrs. Foible. 

Foible	Alas! sir, I'm so ashamed. I'm afraid my lady has been in a thousand 
inquietudes for me. But I protest, sir, I made as much haste as I could. 

Waitwell	That she did indeed, sir. It was my fault that she did not make 
more. 

Mirabell	That I believe. 

Foible	But I told my lady as you instructed me, sir, that I had a prospect 
of seeing Sir Rowland, your uncle, and that I would put her ladyship's 
picture in my pocket to show him, which I'll be sure to say has made him so 
enamoured of her beauty, that he burns with impatience to lie at her 
ladyship's feet and worship the original. 

Mirabell	Excellent Foible! Matrimony has made you eloquent in love. 

Waitwell	I think she has profited, sir. I think so.

Foible	You have seen Madam Millamant, sir? 

Mirabell	Yes. 

Foible	I told her, sir, because I did not know that you might find an 
opportunity. She had so much company last night. 

Mirabell	Your diligence will merit more. In the meantime -

Gives money. 

Foible	Oh, dear sir, your humble servant. 

Waitwell	Spouse! 

Mirabell	Stand off, sir, not a penny. Go on and prosper, Foible. The lease 
shall be made good and the farm stocked if we succeed. 

Foible	I don't question your generosity, sir, and you need not doubt of 
success. If you have no more commands, sir, I'll be gone. I'm sure my lady 
is at her toilet, and can't dress till I come. Oh, dear, I'm sure that 
[looking out] was Mrs. Marwood that went by in a mask; if she has seen me 
with you I'm sure she'll tell my lady. I'll make haste home and prevent 
her. Your servant, sir. Bye, Waitwell.

Exit FOIBLE.

Waitwell	Sir Rowland, if you please. The jade's so pert upon her preferment 
she forgets herself. 

Mirabell	Come, sir, will you endeavour to forget yourself, and transform 
into Sir Rowland? 

Waitwell	Why, sir, it will be impossible I should remember myself - 
married, knighted and attended all in one day! 'Tis enough to make any man 
forget himself. The difficulty will be how to recover my acquaintance and 
familiarity with my former self, and fall from my transformation to a 
reformation into Waitwell. Nay, I shan't be quite the same Waitwell 
neither, for now I remember me I'm married, and can't be my own man again. 

Aye, there's my grief, that's the sad change of life, 
To lose my title, and yet keep my wife.

Exeunt. 


Act 3

Scene 1: A Room in LADY WISHFORT's House.

LADY WISHFORT at her toilet, PEG waiting.


Lady Wishfort	Merciful, no news of Foible yet? 

Peg	No, madam. 

Lady Wishfort	I have no more patience. If I have not fretted myself till I 
am pale again, there's no veracity in me. Fetch me the red. The red, do you 
hear, sweetheart? An arrant ash-colour, as I'm a person. Look you how this 
wench stirs! Why dost thou not fetch me a little red? Didst thou not hear 
me, mopus? 

Peg	The red ratafia does your ladyship mean, or the cherry-brandy? 

Lady Wishfort	Ratafia, fool! No, fool, not the ratafia, fool. Grant me 
patience! I mean the spanish paper, idiot, complexion, darling. Paint, 
paint, paint! Dost thou understand that, changeling, dangling thy hands 
like bobbins before thee? Why dost thou not stir, puppet, thou wooden thing 
upon wires? 

Peg	Lord, madam, your ladyship is so impatient. I cannot come at the paint, 
madam. Mrs. Foible has locked it up, and carried the key with her. 

Lady Wishfort	A pox take you both! Fetch me the cherry-brandy then. 

Exit PEG.

I'm as pale and as faint - I look like Mrs. Qualmsick, the curate's wife, 
that's always breeding. Wench, come, come, wench. What art thou doing? 
Sipping? Tasting? Save thee, dost thou not know the bottle?

Enter PEG with a bottle and china cup

Peg	Madam, I was looking for a cup. 

Lady Wishfort	A cup, save thee, and what a cup hast thou brought! Dost thou 
take me for a fairy, to drink out of an acorn? Why didst thou not bring thy 
thimble? Hast thou ne'er a brass thimble clinking in thy pocket with a bit 
of nutmeg? I warrant thee. Come, fill, fill. So, again.

One knocks.

See who that is. Set down the bottle first. Here, here, under the table. 
What, would'st thou go with the bottle in thy hand like a tapster? As I'm a 
person, this wench has lived in an inn upon the road before she came to me, 
like Maritornes the Asturian in Don Quixote. No Foible yet? 

Peg	No, madam, Mrs. Marwood. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, Marwood. Let her come in. Come in, good Marwood. 

Enter MRS. MARWOOD. 

Mrs Marwood	I'm surprised to find your ladyship in deshabille at this time 
of day. 

Lady Wishfort	Foible's a lost thing; has been abroad since morning, and 
never heard of since. 

Mrs Marwood	I saw her but now, as I came masked through the park, in 
conference with Mirabell. 

Lady Wishfort	With Mirabell! You call my blood into my face with mentioning 
that traitor. She durst not have the confidence. I sent her to negotiate an 
affair in which if I'm detected I'm undone. If that wheedling villain has 
wrought upon Foible to detect me, I'm ruined. Oh, my dear friend, I'm a 
wretch of wretches if I'm detected. 

Mrs Marwood	Oh, madam, you cannot suspect Mrs. Foible's integrity. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, he carries poison in his tongue that would corrupt 
integrity itself. If she has given him an opportunity, she has as good as 
put her integrity into his hands. Ah, dear Marwood, what's integrity to an 
opportunity? Hark! I hear her. Dear friend, retire into my closet, that I 
may examine her with more freedom. You'll pardon me, dear friend. I can 
make bold with you. There are books over the chimney: Quarles and Prynne 
and the Short View of the Stage, with Bunyan's Works to entertain you. [To 
PEG.] Go, you thing, and send her in.

Exit MRS. MARWOOD with PEG.

Enter FOIBLE. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, Foible, where hast thou been? What hast thou been doing? 

Foible	Madam, I have seen the party. 

Lady Wishfort	But what hast thou done? 

Foible	Nay, 'tis your ladyship has done, and are to do; I have only 
promised. But a man so enamoured, so transported! Well, if worshipping of 
pictures be a sin, poor Sir Rowland, I say. 

Lady Wishfort	The miniature has been counted like. But hast thou not 
betrayed me, Foible? Hast thou not detected me to that faithless Mirabell? 
What hadst thou to do with him in the park? Answer me, has he got nothing 
out of thee? 

Foible	[aside.] So, the devil has been beforehand with me. What shall I 
say? [Aloud.] Alas! madam, could I help it, if I met that confident thing? 
Was I in fault? If you had heard how he used me, and all upon your 
ladyship's account, I'm sure you would not suspect my fidelity. Nay if that 
had been the worst I could have borne. But he had a fling at your ladyship 
too, and then I could not hold; but, i'faith, I gave him his own. 

Lady Wishfort	Me? What did the filthy fellow say? 

Foible	Oh, madam, 'tis a shame to say what he said, with his taunts and his 
fleers, tossing up his nose. Humph (says he), what, you are a-hatching some 
plot (says he), you are so early abroad, or catering (says he), ferreting 
for some disbanded officer, I warrant? Half-pay is but thin subsistence 
(says he). Well, what pension does your lady propose? Let me see (says he). 
What, she must come down pretty deep now, she's superannuated (says he), 
and -

Lady Wishfort	Ods, my life, I'll have him. I'll have him murdered. I'll 
have him poisoned. Where does he eat? I'll marry a drawer to have him 
poisoned in his wine. I'll send for Robin from Locket's immediately. 

Foible	Poison him? Poisoning's too good for him. Starve him, madam, starve 
him. Marry Sir Rowland, and get him disinherited. Oh, you would bless 
yourself to hear what he said. 

Lady Wishfort	A villain. Superannuated! 

Foible	Humph (says he), I hear you are laying designs against me too (says 
he), and Mrs. Millamant is to marry my uncle (he does not suspect a word of 
your ladyship); but (says he) I'll fit you for that, I warrant you (says 
he). I'll hamper you for that (says he), you and your old frippery too 
(says he). I'll handle you. 

Lady Wishfort	Audacious villain! Handle me! Would he durst! Frippery, old 
frippery! Was there ever such a foulmouthed fellow? I'll be married 
tomorrow; I'll be contracted tonight. 

Foible	The sooner the better, madam. 

Lady Wishfort	Will Sir Rowland be here, sayest thou? When, Foible? 

Foible	Incontinently, madam. No new sheriff's wife expects the return of 
her husband after knighthood with that impatience in which Sir Rowland 
burns for the dear hour of kissing your ladyship's hand after dinner. 

Lady Wishfort	Frippery! superannuated frippery! I'll frippery the villain. 
I'll reduce him to frippery and rags, a tatterdemallion. I hope to see him 
hung with tatters, like a Long Lane penthouse, or a gibbet thief. A slander-
mouthed railer! I warrant the spendthrift prodigal's in debt as much as the 
Million Lottery, or the whole court upon a Birthday. I'll spoil his credit 
with his tailor. Yes, he shall have my niece with her fortune, he shall. 

Foible	He! I hope to see him lodge in Ludgate first, and angle into Black 
Friars for brass farthings with an old mitten. 

Lady Wishfort	Aye, dear Foible, thank thee for that, dear Foible. He has 
put me out of all patience. I shall never recompose my features to receive 
Sir Rowland with any economy of face. This wretch has fretted me that I am 
absolutely decayed. Look, Foible. 

Foible	Your ladyship has frowned a little too rashly, indeed, madam. There 
are some cracks discernible in the white varnish. 

Lady Wishfort	Let me see the glass. Cracks, sayest thou? Why, I am arrantly 
flayed. I look like an old peeled wall. Thou must repair me, Foible, before 
Sir Rowland comes, or I shall never keep up to my picture. 

Foible	I warrant you, madam. A little art once made your picture like you, 
and now a little of the same art must make you like your picture. Your 
picture must sit for you, madam. 

Lady Wishfort	But art thou sure Sir Rowland will not fail to come? Or will 
a not fail when he does come? Will he be importunate, Foible, and push? For 
if he should not be importunate I shall never break decorums. I shall die 
with confusion if I am forced to advance. Oh no, I can never advance; I 
shall swoon if he should expect advances. No, I hope Sir Rowland is better 
bred than to put a lady to the necessity of breaking her forms. I won't be 
too coy neither. I won't give him despair. But a little disdain is not 
amiss; a little scorn is alluring. 

Foible	A little scorn becomes your ladyship. 

Lady Wishfort	Yes, but tenderness becomes me best, a sort of dyingness. You 
see that picture has a sort of a-ha, Foible?-a swimmingness in the eyes. 
Yes, I'll look so. My niece affects it, but she wants features. Is Sir 
Rowland handsome? Let my toilet be removed, I'll dress above. I'll receive 
Sir Rowland here. Is he handsome? Don't answer me. I won't know. I'll be 
surprised. I'll be taken by surprise. 

Foible	By storm, madam. Sir Rowland's a brisk man. 

Lady Wishfort	Is he? Oh, then he'll importune, if he's a brisk man. I shall 
save decorums if Sir Rowland importunes. I have a mortal terror at the 
apprehension of offending against decorums. Oh, I'm glad he's a brisk man. 
Let my things be removed, good Foible.

Exit. 
Enter MRS. FAINALL. 

Mrs Fainall	Oh, Foible, I have been in a fright lest I should come too 
late. That devil, Marwood, saw you in the park with Mirabell, and I'm 
afraid will discover it to my lady. 

Foible	Discover what, madam? 

Mrs Fainall	Nay, nay, put not on that strange face. I am privy to the whole 
design, and know Waitwell, to whom thou wert this morning married, is to 
personate Mirabell's uncle, and as such, winning my lady, to involve her in 
those difficulties from which Mirabell only must release her by his making 
his conditions to have my cousin and her fortune left to her own disposal.

Foible	Oh, dear madam, I beg your pardon. It was not my confidence in your 
ladyship that was deficient, but I thought the former good correspondence 
between your ladyship and Mr. Mirabell might have hindered his 
communicating this secret. 

Mrs Fainall	Dear Foible, forget that. 

Foible	Oh, dear madam, Mr. Mirabell is such a sweet, winning gentleman. But 
your ladyship is the pattern of generosity. Sweet lady, to be so good! Mr. 
Mirabell cannot choose but be grateful. I find your ladyship has his heart 
still. Now, madam, I can safely tell your ladyship our success. Mrs. 
Marwood has told my lady, but I warrant I managed rnyself. I turned it all 
for the better. I told my lady that Mr. Mirabell railled at her. I laid 
horrid things to his charge, I'll vow, and my lady is so incensed that 
she'll be contracted to Sir Rowland tonight, she says. I warrant I worked 
her up that he may have her for asking for, as they say of a Welsh 
maidenhead. 

Mrs Fainall	Oh, rare Foible! 

Foible	Madam, I beg your ladyship to acquaint Mr. Mirabell of his success. 
I would be seen as little as possible to speak to him. Besides, I believe 
Madam Marwood watches me. She has a month's mind; but I know Mr. Mirabell 
can't abide her. [Calls.] John, remove my lady's toilet. Madam, your 
servant. My lady is so impatient, I fear she'll come for me, if I stay. 

Mrs Fainall	I'll go with you up the back stairs, lest I should meet her.

Exeunt.

Enter MRS. MARWOOD

Mrs Marwood	Indeed, Mrs. Engine, is it thus with you? Are you become a go-
between of this importance? Yes, I shall watch you. Why, this wench is the 
passe-par-tout, a very master-key to everybody's strong box. My friend 
Fainall, have you carried it so swimmingly? I thought there was something 
in it; but it seems it's over with you. Your loathing is not from a want of 
appetite then, but from a surfeit, else you could never be so cool to fall 
from a principal to be an assistant, to procure for him! A pattern of 
generosity, that I confess. Well, Mr. Fainall, you have met with your 
match. Oh, man, man! Woman, woman! The devil's an ass. If I were a painter 
I would draw him like an idiot, a driveller with a bib and bells. Man 
should have his head and horns, and woman the rest of him. Poor simple 
fiend! Madam Marwood has a month's mind, but he can't abide her! 'Twere 
better for him you had not been his confessor in that affair, without you 
could have kept his counsel closer. I shall not prove another pattern of 
generosity. He has not obliged me to that with those excesses of himself, 
and now I'll have none of him. Here comes the good lady, panting ripe, with 
a heart full of hope and a head full of care, like any chemist upon the day 
of projection.

Enter LADY WISHFORT. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, dear Marwood, what shall I say for this rude 
forgetfulness? But my dear friend is all goodness. 

Mrs Marwood	No apologies, dear madam. I have been very well entertained. 

Lady Wishfort	As I'm a person, I am in a very chaos to think I should so 
forget myself. But I have such an olio of affairs, really I know not what 
to do. [Calls.] Foible! I expect my nephew, Sir Wilfull, every moment too. 
Why, Foible! He means to travel for improvement. 

Mrs Marwood	Methinks Sir Wilfull should rather think of marrying than 
travelling at his years. I hear he is turned forty.

Lady Wishfort	Oh, he's in less danger of being spoiled by his travels. I am 
against my nephew's marrying too young. It will be time enough when he 
comes back, and has acquired discretion to choose for himself. 

Mrs Marwood	Methinks Mrs. Millamant and he would make a very fit match. He 
may travel afterwards. 'Tis a thing very usual with young gentlemen. 

Lady Wishfort	I promise you I have thought on't, and since 'tis your 
judgment, I'll think on't again. I assure you I will; I value your judgment 
extremely. On my word I'll propose it. 

Enter FOIBLE. 

Lady Wishfort	Come, come, Foible. I had forgot my nephew will be here 
before dinner. I must make haste. 

Foible	Mr. Witwoud and Mr. Petulant are come to dine with your ladyship. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh dear, I can't appear till I am dressed. Dear Marwood, 
shall I be free with you again, and beg you to entertain 'em? I'll make all 
imaginable haste. Dear friend, excuse me.

Exeunt LADY WISHFORT and FOIBLE.
Enter MRS. MILLAMANT and MINCING. 

Mrs Millamant	Sure, never anything was so unbred as that odious man. 
Marwood, your servant. 

Mrs Marwood	You have a colour, what's the matter? 

Mrs Millamant	That horrid fellow, Petulant, has provoked me into a flame. I 
have broke my fan. Mincing, lend me yours. Is not all the powder out of my 
hair? 

Mrs Marwood	No. What has he done? 

Millamant	Nay, he has done nothing; he has only talked. Nay, he has said 
nothing neither; but he has contradicted everything that has been said. For 
my part, I thought Witwoud and he would have quarrelled. 

Mincing	I vow, mem, I thought once they would have fit.

Millamant	Well, 'tis a lamentable thing, I swear, that one has not the 
liberty of choosing one's acquaintance as one does one's clothes. 

Mrs Marwood	If we had that liberty, we should be as weary of one set of 
acquaintance, though never so good, as we are of one suit, though never so 
fine. A fool and a doily stuff would now and then find days of grace, and 
be worn for variety. 

Millamant	I could consent to wear 'em, if they would wear alike, but fools 
never wear out. They are such drap-de-berry things! Without one could give 
'em to one's chambermaid after a day or two. 

Mrs Marwood	'Twere better so indeed. Or what think you of the play-house? A 
fine, gay, glossy fool should be given there, like a new masking habit 
after the masquerade is over and we have done with the disguise. For a 
fool's visit is always a disguise, and never admitted by a woman of wit but 
to blind her affair with a lover of sense. If you would but appear 
barefaced now and own Mirabell, you might as easily put off Petulant and 
Witwoud, as your hood and scarf. And indeed 'tis time, for the town has 
found it. The secret is grown too big for the pretence. 'Tis like Mrs. 
Primly's great belly, she may lace it down before, but it burnishes on her 
hips. Indeed, Millamant, you can no more conceal it than my Lady Strammel 
can her face, that goodly face, which in defiance of her Rhenish wine tea 
will not be comprehended in a mask. 

Millamant	I'll take my death, Marwood, you are more censorious than a 
decayed beauty, or a discarded toast. Mincing, tell the men they may come 
up. My aunt is not dressing here. Their folly is less provoking than your 
malice.

Exit MINCING.

The town has found it. What has it found? That Mirabell loves me is no more 
a secret than it is a secret that you discovered it to my aunt, or than the 
reason why you discovered it is a secret. 

Mrs Marwood	You are nettled. 

Millamant	You're mistaken. Ridiculous! 

Mrs Marwood	Indeed, my dear, you'll tear another fan if you don't mitigate 
those violent airs. 

Millamant	Oh, silly! Ha, ha, ha! I could laugh immoderately. Poor Mirabell! 
His constancy to me has quite destroyed his complaisance for all the world 
beside. I swear I never enjoined it him to be so coy. If I had the vanity 
to think he would obey me, I would command him to show more gallantry. 'Tis 
hardly well bred to be so particular on one hand and so insensible on the 
other. But I despair to prevail, and so let him follow his own way. Ha, ha, 
ha! Pardon me, dear creature, I must laugh. Ha, ha, ha! Though I grant you 
'tis a little barbarous. Ha, ha, ha! 

Mrs Marwood	What pity 'tis so much fine raillery, and delivered with so 
significant gesture, should be so unhappily directed to miscarry. 

Millamant	Ha? Dear creature, I ask your pardon. I swear I did not mind you. 

Mrs Marwood	Mr. Mirabell and you both may think it a thing impossible, when 
I shall tell him by telling you -

Millamant	Oh, dear, what? For it is the same thing, if I hear it. Ha, ha, 
ha! 

Mrs Marwood	That I detest him, hate him, madam. 

Millamant	Oh, madam - why, so do I. And yet the creature loves me. Ha, ha, 
ha! How can one forbear laughing to think of it? I am a Sybil if I am not 
amazed to think what he can see in me. I'll take my death, I think you are 
handsomer, and within a year or two as young. If you could but stay for me, 
I should overtake you. But that cannot be. Well, that thought makes me 
melancholic. Now I'll be sad. 

Mrs Marwood	Your merry note may be changed sooner than you think. 

Millamant	Do you say so? Then I'm resolved I'll have a song to keep up my 
spirits. 

Enter MINCING. 

Mincing	The gentlemen stay but to comb, madam, and will wait on you. 

Millamant	Desire Mrs. ---- , that is in the next room, to sing the song I 
would have learnt yesterday. You shall hear it madam. Not that there's any 
great matter in it, but 'tis agreeable to my humour.
 
	Love's but the frailty of the mind,
	When 'tis not with ambition joined;
A sickly flame, which if not fed expires,
And feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires. 

	'Tis not to wound a wanton boy
	Or amorous youth that gives the joy;
But 'tis the glory to have pierced a swain,
For whom inferior beauties sighed in vain. 

	Then I alone the conquest prize,
	When I insult a rival's eyes:
If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see
That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me. 

Enter PETULANT and WITWOUD. 

Millamant	Is your animosity composed, gentlemen? 

Witwoud	Raillery, raillery, madam, we have no animosity. We hit off a 
little wit now and then, but no animosity. The falling out of wits is like 
the falling out of lovers. We agree in the main, like treble and bass. Ha, 
Petulant?

Petulant	 Aye, in the main, but when I have a humour to contradict -

Witwoud	Aye, when he has a humour to contradict, then I contradict too. 
What, I know my cue. Then we contradict one another like two battle dores, 
for contradictions beget one another like Jews. 

Petulant	If he says black's black - if I have a humour to say 'tis blue - 
let that pass; all's one for that. If I have a humour to prove it, it must 
be granted. 

Witwoud	Not positively must, but it may, it may. 

Petulant	Yes, it positively must, upon proof positive. 

Witwoud	Aye, upon proof positive it must, but upon proof presumptive it 
only may. That's a logical distinction now, madam. 

Mrs Marwood	I perceive your debates are of importance, and very learnedly 
handled. 

Petulant	Importance is one thing, and learning's another; but a debate's a 
debate, that I assert. 

Witwoud	Petulant's an enemy to learning; he relies altogether on his parts. 

Petulant	No, I'm no enemy to learning; it hurts not me. 

Mrs Marwood	That's a sign indeed it's no enemy to you. 

Petulant	No, no, it's no enemy to anybody but them that have it. 

Millamant	Well, an illiterate man's my aversion; I wonder at the impudence 
of any illiterate man to offer to make love. 

Witwoud	That, I confess, I wonder at too. 

Millamant	Ah! to marry an ignorant that can hardly read or write! 

Petulant	Why should a man be any further from being married, though he 
can't read, than he is from being hanged? The Ordinary's paid for setting 
the Psalm, and the parish priest for reading the ceremony. And for the rest 
which is to follow in both cases, a man may do it without book. So all's 
one for that. 

Millamant	Do you hear the creature? Lord, here's company; I'll be gone.

Exeunt MILLAMANT and MINCING.

Enter SIR WILFULL WITWOUD in a riding dress, and FOOTMAN.

Witwoud	In the name of Bartlemew and his fair, what have we here? 

Mrs Marwood	'Tis your brother, I fancy. Don't you know him? 

Witwoud	Not I. Yes, I think it is he. I've almost forgot him; I have not 
seen him since the Revolution. 

Footman	Sir, my lady's dressing. Here's company, if you please to walk in, 
in the meantime. 

Sir Wilful	Dressing? What, it's but morning here I warrant with you in 
London. We should count it towards afternoon in our parts down in 
Shropshire. Why then, belike my aunt ha'n't dined yet, ha, friend? 

Footman	Your aunt, sir? 

Sir Wilful	My aunt, sir, yes, my aunt, sir, and your lady, sir; your lady 
is my aunt, sir. Why, what dost thou not know me, friend? Why, then send 
somebody hither that does. How long hast thou lived with thy lady, fellow, 
ha? 

Footman	A week, sir; longer than anybody in the house, except my lady's 
woman. 

Sir Wilful	Why then, belike thou dost not know thy lady, if thou see'st 
her, ha, friend? 

Footman	Why, truly sir, I cannot safely swear to her face in a morning, 
before she is dressed. 'Tis like I may give a shrewd guess at her by this 
time.

Sir Wilful	Well, prithee, try what thou canst do. If thou canst not guess, 
enquire her out, dost hear, fellow? And tell her her nephew, Sir Wilfull 
Witwoud, is in the house. 

Footman	I shall, sir. 

Sir Wilful	Hold ye, hear me, friend. A word with you in your ear. Prithee, 
who are these gallants? 

Footman	Really, sir, I can't tell. There come so many here, 'tis hard to 
know 'em all.

Exit. 

Sir Wilful	Ooons, this fellow knows less than a starling; I don't think a 
knows his own name. 

Mrs Marwood	Mr. Witwoud, your brother is not behindhand in forgetfulness. I 
fancy he has forgot you too. 

Witwoud	I hope so. The devil take him that remembers first, I say. 

Sir Wilful	Save you, gentlemen and lady. 

Mrs Marwood	For shame, Mr. Witwoud. Why don't you speak to him? And you, 
sir.

Witwoud	Petulant, speak.

Petulant	And you, sir.
Sir Wilful	No offence, I hope. [Salutes MARWOOD.]

Mrs Marwood	No, sure, sir.

Witwoud	This is a vile dog, I see that already. No offence! Ha, ha, ha! To 
him, to him, Petulant, smoke him. 

Petulant	It seems as if you had come a journey, sir. Hem, hem. [Surveying 
him round.]

Sir Wilful	Very likely, sir, that it may seem so. 

Petulant	No offence, I hope, sir. 

Witwoud	Smoke the boots, the boots. Petulant, the boots. Ha, ha, ha! 

Sir Wilful	Maybe not, sir. Thereafter as 'tis meant, sir. 

Petulant	Sir; I presume upon the information of your boots. 

Sir Wilful	Why, 'tis like you may, sir. If you are not satisfied with the 
information of my boots, sir, if you will step to the stable, you may 
enquire further of my horse, sir. 

Petulant	Your horse, sir! Your horse is an ass, sir! 

Sir Wilful	Do you speak by way of offence, sir? 

Mrs Marwood	The gentleman's merry, that's all, sir. [Aside.] 'Slife, we 
shall have a quarrel betwixt an horse and an ass, before they find one 
another out. [Aloud.] You must not take anything amiss from your friends, 
sir. You are among your friends, here, though it may be you don't know it. 
If I am not mistaken, you are Sir Wilfull Witwoud. 

Sir Wilful	Right, lady; I am Sir Wilfull Witwoud, so I write myself, no 
offence to anybody, I hope, and nephew to the Lady Wishfort of this 
mansion. 

Mrs Marwood	Don't you know this gentleman, sir? 

Sir Wilful	Hum! What, sure 'tis not - yea, by our lady, but 'tis. 'Sheart, 
I know not whether 'tis or no. Yes, but 'tis, by the Wrekin. Brother 
Antony! What, Tony, i'faith! What, dost thou not know me? By our lady, nor 
I thee, thou art so be-cravated, and so be-perriwigged. 'Sheart, why dost 
not speak? Art thou o'erjoyed? 

Witwoud	Odso, brother, is it you? Your servant, brother. 

Sir Wilful	Your servant! Why yours, sir. Your servant again. 'Sheart, and 
your friend, and servant to that. And a - [puff] - and a flap dragon for 
your service, sir, and a hare's foot, and a hare's scut for your service, 
sir, if you be so cold and so courtly. 

Witwoud	No offence, I hope, brother. 

Sir Wilful	'Sheart, sir, but there is, and much offence. A pox, is this 
your Inns o' Court breeding, not to know your friends and your relations, 
your elders, and your betters? 

Witwoud	Why, brother Wilfull of Salop, you may be as short as a Shrewsbury 
cake, if you please. But I tell you 'tis not modish to know relations in 
town. You think you're in the country, where great lubberly brothers 
slabber and kiss one another when they meet, like a call of sergeants. 'Tis 
not the fashion here; 'tis not indeed, dear brother. 

Sir Wilful	The fashion's a fool, and you're a fop, dear brother. 'Sheart, 
I've suspected this. By our lady, I conjectured you were a fop, since you 
began to change the style of your letters, and write in a scrap of paper 
gilt round the edges, no bigger than a subpoena. I might expect this when 
you left off honoured brother, and hoping you are in good health, and so 
forth, to begin with a rat me, knight, I'm so sick of a last night's 
debauch. Od's heart, and then tell a familiar tale of a cock and a bull, 
and a whore and a bottle, and so conclude. You could write news before you 
were out of your time, when you lived with honest Pumple Nose, the attorney 
of Furnival's Inn. You could entreat to be remembered then to your friends 
round the Wrekin. We could have gazettes then, and Dawks's Letter, and the 
Weekly Bill, till of late days. 

Petulant	'Slife, Witwoud, were you ever an attorney's clerk? Of the family 
of the Furnivals? Ha, ha, ha! 

Witwoud	Aye, aye, but that was but for a while. Not long, not long. Pshaw! 
I was not in my own power then. An orphan, and this fellow was my guardian. 
Aye, aye, I was glad to consent to that man to come to London. He had the 
disposal of me then. If I had not agreed to that I might have been bound 
'prentice to a feltmaker in Shrewsbury. This fellow would have bound me to 
a maker of felts. 

Sir Wilful	'Sheart, and better than to be bound to a maker of fops, where, 
I suppose, you have served your time, and now you may set up for yourself. 

Mrs Marwood	You intend to travel, sir, as I'm informed. 

Sir Wilful	Belike I may, madam. I may chance to sail upon the salt seas, if 
my mind hold. 

Petulant	And the wind serve. 

Sir Wilful	Serve or not serve, I shan't ask license of you, sir, nor the 
weathercock, your companion. I direct my discourse to the lady, sir. 'Tis 
like my aunt may have told you, madam. Yes, I have settled my concerns, I 
may say now, and am minded to see foreign parts. If and how that the peace 
holds, whereby that is taxes abate. 

Mrs Marwood	I thought you had designed for France at all adventures. 

Sir Wilful	I can't tell that. 'Tis like I may, and 'tis like I may not. I 
am somewhat dainty in making a resolution, because when I make it I keep 
it. I don't stand shillyshally, then. If I say 't, I'll do 't. But I have 
thoughts to tarry a small matter in town to learn somewhat of your lingo 
first, before I cross the seas. I'd gladly have a spice of your French, as 
they say, whereby to hold discourse in foreign countries. 

Mrs Marwood	Here's an academy in town for that use. 

Sir Wilful	There is? 'Tis like there may. 

Mrs Marwood	No doubt you will return very much improved. 

Witwoud	Yes, refined like a Dutch skipper from a whale fishing. 

Enter LADY WISHFORT and FAINALL. 

Lady Wishfort	Nephew, you are welcome. 

Sir Wilful	Aunt, your servant. 

Fainall	Sir Wilfull, your most faithful servant. 

Sir Wilful	Cousin Fainall, give me your hand. 

Lady Wishfort	Cousin Witwoud, your servant. Mr. Petulant, your servant. 
Nephew, you are welcome again. Will you drink anything after your journey, 
nephew, before you eat? Dinner's almost ready. 

Sir Wilful	I'm very well, I thank you, aunt. However, I thank you for your 
courteous offer. 'Sheart, I was afraid you would have been in the fashion 
too, and have remembered to have forgot your relations. Here's your cousin, 
Tony, belike, I mayn't call him brother for fear of offence. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, he's a rallier, nephew. My cousin's a wit, and your great 
wits always rally their best friends to choose. When you have been abroad, 
nephew, you'll understand raillery better. 

FAINALL and MRS. MARWOOD talk apart.

Sir Wilful	Why then, let him hold his tongue in the meantime, and rail when 
that day comes. 

Enter MINCING.

Mincing	Mem, I come to acquaint your la'ship that dinner is impatient.

Sir Wilful	Impatient? Why then, belike it won't stay till I pull off my 
boots. Sweetheart, can you help me to a pair of slippers? My man's with his 
horses, I warrant. 

Lady Wishfort	Fie, fie, nephew, you would not pull off your boots here. Go 
down into the hall. Dinner shall stay for you. My nephew's a little unbred, 
you'll pardon him, madam. Gentlemen, will you walk? Marwood? 

Mrs Marwood	I'll follow you, madam, before Sir Wilfull is ready. 

Fainall	Why then, Foible's a bawd, an arrant, rank, matchmaking bawd. And 
I, it seems, am a husband, a rank husband, and my wife a very arrant, rank 
wife - all in the way of the world. 'Sdeath, to be a cuckold by 
anticipation, a cuckold in embryo! Sure I was born with budding antlers 
like a young satyr, or a citizen's child. 'Sdeath, to be out-witted, to be 
outjilted, out-matrimonied! If I had kept my speed, like a stag, 'twere 
somewhat; but to crawl after, with my horns like a snail, and be 
outstripped by my wife, 'tis scurvy wedlock. 

Mrs Marwood	Then shake it off. You have often wished for an opportunity to 
part, and now you have it. But first prevent their plot; the half of 
Millamant's fortune is too considerable to be parted with to a foe, to 
Mirabell. 

Fainall	Damn him, that had been mine had you not made that fond discovery. 
That had been forfeited, had they been married. My wife had added lustre to 
my horns by that increase of fortune. I could have worn 'em tipped with 
gold, though my forehead had been furnished like a deputy lieutenant's 
hall. 

Mrs Marwood	They may prove a cap of maintenance to you still, if you can 
away with your wife. And she's no worse than when you had her. I dare swear 
she had given up her game before she was married. 

Fainall	Hum! that may be. 

Mrs Marwood	You married her to keep you, and if you can contrive to have 
her keep you better than you expected, why should you not keep her longer 
than you intended? 

Fainall	The means, the means. 

Mrs Marwood	Discover to my lady your wife's conduct; threaten to part with 
her. My lady loves her, and will come to any composition to save her 
reputation.Take the opportunity of breaking it just upon the discovery of 
this imposture. My lady will be enraged beyond bounds, and sacrifice niece, 
and fortune, and all at that conjuncture. And let me alone to keep her 
warm! If she should flag in her part, I will not fail to prompt her. 

Fainall	Faith, this has an appearance. 

Mrs Marwood	I'm sorry I hinted to my lady to endeavour a match between 
Millamant and Sir Wilfull. That may be an obstacle. 

Fainall	Oh, for that matter leave me to manage him; I'll disable him for 
that. He will drink like a Dane. After dinner I'll set his hand in. 

Mrs Marwood	Well, how do you stand affected towards your lady? 

Fainall	Why, faith, I'm thinking of it. Let me see. I am married already, 
so that's over; my wife has played the jade with me, well, that's over too; 
I never loved her, or if I had, why that would have been over too by this 
time. Jealous of her I cannot be, for I am certain, so there's an end of 
jealousy. Weary of her, I am and shall be. No, there's no end of that. No, 
no, that were too much to hope. Thus far concerning my repose. Now for my 
reputation. As to my own, I married not for it, so that's out of the 
question, and as to my part in my wife's - Why, she had parted with hers 
before, so bringing none to me, she can take none from me. 'Tis against all 
rule of play that I should lose to one who has not wherewithal to stake. 

Mrs Marwood	Besides, you forget, marriage is honourable. 

Fainall	Hum! Faith, and that's well thought on. Marriage is honourable, as 
you say, and if so, wherefore should cuckoldom be a discredit, being 
derived from so honourable a root? 

Mrs Marwood	Nay, I know not. If the root be honourable why not the 
branches? 

Fainall	So, so, why this point's clear. Well, how do we proceed? 

Mrs Marwood	I will contrive a letter which shall be delivered to my lady at 
the time when that rascal who is to act Sir Rowland is with her. It shall 
come as from an unknown hand, for the less I appear to know of the truth, 
the better I can play the incendiary. Besides, I would not have Foible 
provoked if I could help it, because you know she knows some passages. Nay, 
I expect all will come out. But let the mine be sprung first, and then I 
care not if I am discovered. 

Fainall	If the worst come to the worst, I'll turn my wife to grass. I have 
already a deed of settlement of the best part of her estate, which I 
wheedled out of her, and that you shall partake at least. 

Mrs Marwood	I hope you are convinced that I hate Mirabell now. You'll be no 
more jealous? 

Fainall	Jealous, no, by this kiss. Let husbands be jealous, but let the 
lover still believe, or if he doubt, let it be only to endear his pleasure, 
and prepare the joy that follows when he proves his mistress true. But let 
husbands' doubts convert to endless jealousy, or if they have belief, let 
it corrupt to superstition and blind credulity. I am single and will herd 
no more with 'em. True, I wear the badge, but I'll disown the order. And 
since I take my leave of 'em, I care not if I leave 'em a common motto to 
their common crest. All husbands must or pain or shame endure; The wise too 
jealous are, fools too secure. 

Exeunt.



Act 4

Scene 1: A Room in LADY WISHFORT's House.

Enter LADY WISHFORT and FOIBLE. 

Lady Wishfort	Is Sir Rowland coming sayest thou, Foible? And are things in 
order? 

Foible	Yes, madam. I have put wax lights in the sconces, and placed the 
footmen in a row in the hall, in their best liveries, with the coachman and 
postillion to fill up the equipage. 

Lady Wishfort	Have you pullvilled the coachman and postillion, that they 
may not stink of the stable, when Sir Rowland comes by? 

Foible	Yes, madam. 

Lady Wishfort	And are the dancers and the music ready, that he may be 
entertained in all points with correspondence to his passion? 

Foible	All is ready, madam. 

Lady Wishfort	And - well - and how do I look, Foible? 

Foible	Most killing well, madam. 

Lady Wishfort	Well, and how shall I receive him? In what figure shall I 
give his heart the first impression? There is a great deal in the first 
impression. Shall I sit? No, I won't sit. I'll walk, aye, I'll walk from 
the door upon his entrance, and then turn full upon him. No, that will be 
too sudden. I'll lie, aye, I'll lie down. I'll receive him in my little 
dressing-room, there's a couch. Yes, yes, I'll give the first impression on 
a couch. I won't lie neither, but loll and lean upon one elbow, with one 
foot a little dangling off, jogging in a thoughtful way. Yes, and then as 
soon as he appears, start, aye, start and be surprised, and rise to meet 
him in a pretty disorder. Yes, oh nothing is more alluring than a levee 
from a couch in some confusion. It shows the foot to advantage, and 
furnishes with blushes, and recomposing airs beyond comparison. Hark! 
there's a coach. 

Foible	'Tis he, madam. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh dear, has my nephew made his addresses to Millamant? I 
ordered him. 

Foible	Sir Wilfull is set in to drinking, madam, in the parlour.

Lady Wishfort	Ods, my life, I'll send him to her. Call her down, Foible; 
bring her hither. I'll send him as I go. When they are together, then come 
to me, Foible, that I may not be too long alone with Sir Rowland.

Exit. 
Enter MRS. MILLAMANT and MRS. FAINALL. 

Foible	Madam, I stayed here to tell your ladyship that Mr. Mirabell has 
waited this half-hour for an opportunity to talk with you, though my lady's 
orders were to leave you and Sir Wilfull together. Shall I tell Mr. 
Mirabell that you are at leisure? 

Millamant	No. What would the dear man have? I am thoughtful, and would 
amuse myself. Bid him come another time. [Repeating and walking about.]

There never yet was woman made,
Nor shall, but to be cursed. 

That's hard! 

Mrs Fainall	You are very fond of Sir John Suckling today, Millamant, and 
the poets? 

Millamant	He? Aye, and filthy verses. So I am. 

Foible	Sir Wilfull is coming, madam. Shall I send Mr. Mirabell away? 

Millamant	Aye, if you please, Foible, send him away, or send him hither, 
just as you will, dear Foible. I think I'll see him. Shall I? Aye, let the 
wretch come.

Exit FOIBLE.

[Repeating.] Thyrsis, a youth of the inspired train.

Dear Fainall, entertain Sir Wilfull. Thou hast philosophy to undergo a 
fool; thou art married and hast patience. I would confer with my own 
thoughts. 

Mrs Fainall	I am obliged to you, that you would make me your proxy in this 
affair; but I have business of my own.

Enter SIR WILFULL. 

Mrs Fainall	Oh, Sir Wilfull, you are come at the critical instant. There's 
your mistress up to the ears in love and contemplation. Pursue your point 
now or never. 

This while MILLAMANT walks about, repeating to herself. 

Sir Wilful	Yes: my aunt will have it so. I would gladly have been 
encouraged with a bottle or two, because I'm somewhat wary at first, before 
I am acquainted. But I hope, after a time, I shall break my mind, that is, 
upon further acquaintance. So for the present, cousin, I'll take my leave, 
if so be you'll be so kind to make my excuse. I'll return to my company. 

Mrs Fainall	Oh, fie, Sir Wilfull! What, you must not be daunted? 

Sir Wilful	Daunted! No, that's not it, it is not so much for that, for if 
so be that I set on't, I'll do't. But only for the present, 'tis sufficient 
till further acquaintance, that's all. Your servant. 

Mrs Fainall	Nay, I'll swear you shall never lose so favourable an 
opportunity, if I can help it. I'll leave you together, and lock the door.

Exit. 

Sir Wilful	Nay, nay, cousin. I have forgot my gloves. What d'ye do? 
'Sheart, she has locked the door indeed, I think. Nay, cousin Fainall, open 
the door. Pshaw! what a vixen trick is this? Nay, now she has seen me too. 
Cousin, I made bold to pass through, as it were. I think this door's 
enchanted. 

Millamant	[repeating.] I prithee spare me, gentle boy,
Press me no more for that slight toy.

Sir Wilful	Anan? Cousin, your servant. 

Millamant	[repeating.] That foolish trifle of a heart.

Sir Wilfull! 

Sir Wilful	Yes, your servant. No offence, I hope, cousin.

Millamant	[repeating] I swear it will not do its part,

Though thou dost thine, employest thy power and art. Natural, easy 
Suckling. 

Sir Wilful	Anan? Suckling? No such suckling, neither, cousin, nor 
stripling. I thank Heaven I'm no minor. 

Millamant	Ah, rustic, ruder than Gothic! 

Sir Wilful	Well, well, I shall understand your lingo one of these days, 
cousin. In the meanwhile I must answer in plain English. 

Millamant	Have you any business with me, Sir Wilfull? 

Sir Wilful	Not at present, cousin. Yes, I made bold to see, to come and 
know if that how you were disposed to fetch a walk this evening. If so be 
that I might not be troublesome, I would have sought a walk with you. 

Millamant	A walk? What then? 

Sir Wilful	Nay, nothing. Only for the walk's sake, that's -

Millamant	I nauseate walking. 'Tis a country diversion; I loathe the 
country and everything that relates to it. 

Sir Wilful	Indeed! Ha! Look ye, look ye, you do? Nay, 'tis like you may. 
Here are choice of pastimes, here in town, as plays and the like, that must 
be confessed indeed. 

Millamant	Ah, I'etourdi! I hate the town too. 


Sir Wilful	Dear heart, that's much. Ha! That you should hate 'em both! Ha! 
'Tis like you may; there are some can't relish the town, and others can't 
away with the country. 'Tis like you may be one of those, cousin. 

Millamant	Ha, ha, ha! Yes, 'tis like I may. You have nothing further to say 
to me? 

Sir Wilful	Not at present, cousin. 'Tis like when I have an opportunity to 
be more private, I may break my mind in some measure. I conjecture you 
partly guess. However, that's as time shall try. But spare to speak and 
spare to speed, as they say. 

Millamant	If it is of no great importance, Sir Wilfull, you will oblige me 
to leave me. I have just now a little business. 

Sir Wilful	Enough, enough, cousin. Yes, yes, all a case. When you're 
disposed, when you're disposed. Now's as well as another time, and another 
time as well as now. All's one for that. Yes, yes, if your concerns call 
you, there's no haste; it will keep cold, as they say. Cousin, your 
servant. I think this door's locked. 

Millamant	You may go this way, sir. 

Sir Wilful	Your servant. Then with your leave I'll return to my company.

Exit. 

Millamant	Aye, aye. Ha, ha, ha! 
Like Phcebus sung the no less amorous boy. 

Enter MIRABELL. 

Mirabell	Like Daphne she, as lovely and as coy.

Do you lock yourself up from me to make my search more curious? Or is this 
pretty artifice contrived to signify that here the chase must end, and my 
pursuit be crowned, for you can fly no further? 

Millamant	Vanity! No, I'll fly and be followed to the last moment, though I 
am upon the very verge of matrimony. I expect you should solicit me as much 
as if I were wavering at the gate of a monastery, with one foot over the 
threshold. I'll be solicited to the very last, nay, and afterwards. 

Mirabell	What, after the last? 

Millamant	Oh, I should think I was poor and had nothing to bestow if I were 
reduced to an inglorious ease, and freed from the agreeable fatigues of 
solicitation. 

Mirabell	But do not you know that when favours are conferred upon instant 
and tedious solicitation, that they diminish in their value, and that both 
the giver loses the grace and the receiver lessens his pleasure? 

Millamant	It may be in things of common application, but never sure in 
love. Oh, I hate a lover that can dare to think he draws a moment's air 
independent on the bounty of his mistress. There is not so impudent a thing 
in nature as the saucy look of an assured man, confident of success. The 
pedantic arrogance of a very husband has not so pragmatical an air. Ah, 
I'll never marry, unless I am first made sure of my will and pleasure. 

Mirabell	Would you have 'em both before marriage, or will you be contented 
with the first now, and stay for the other till after grace? 

Millamant	Ah, don't be impertinent. My dear liberty, shall I leave thee? My 
faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you then adieu? 
Aye, adieu. My morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent slumbers, all 
ye douceurs, ye sommeils du matin, adieu. I can't do't, 'tis more than 
impossible. Positively, Mirabell, I'll lie a-bed in a morning as long as I 
please. 

Mirabell	Then I'll get up in a morning as early as I please. 

Millamant	Ah, idle creature, get up when you will. And, d'ye hear, I won't 
be called names after I'm married, positively I won't be called names. 

Mirabell	Names? 

Millamant	Aye, as wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweetheart, and 
the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so 
fulsomely familiar. I shall never bear that. Good Mirabell, don't let us be 
familiar or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sir 
Francis; nor go to Hyde Park together the first Sunday in a new chariot to 
provoke eyes and whispers, and then never be seen there together again, as 
if we were proud of one another the first week, and ashamed of one another 
ever after. Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together, but let 
us be very strange and well bred. Let us be as strange as if we had been 
married a great while, and as well bred as if we were not married at all. 

Mirabell	Have you any more conditions to offer? Hitherto your demands are 
pretty reasonable. 

Millamant	Trifles, as liberty to pay and receive visits to and from whom I 
please; to write and receive letters without interrogatories or wry faces 
on your part; to wear what I please, and choose conversation with regard 
only to my own taste; to have no obligation upon me to converse with wits 
that I don't like, because they are your acquaintance, or to be intimate 
with fools, because they may be your relations; come to dinner when I 
please; dine in my dressing-room when I'm out of humour, without giving a 
reason; to have my closet inviolate; to be sole empress of my tea-table, 
which you must never presume to approach without first asking leave; and 
lastly, wherever I am, you shall always knock at the door before you come 
in. These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, 
I may by degrees dwindle into a wife. 

Mirabell	Your bill of fare is something advanced in this latter account. 
Well, have I liberty to offer conditions, that when you are dwindled into a 
wife, I may not be beyond measure enlarged into a husband? 

Millamant	You have free leave. Propose your utmost. Speak and spare not. 

Mirabell	I thank you. Imprimis then, I covenant that your acquaintance be 
general; that you admit no sworn confidant or intimate of your own sex; no 
she-friend to screen her affairs under your countenance, and tempt you to 
make trial of a mutual secrecy; no decoy-duck to wheedle you a fop, 
scrambling to the play in a mask, then bring you home in a pretended 
fright, when you think you shall be found out, and rail at me for missing 
the play, and disappointing the frolic which you had to pick me up and 
prove my constancy. 

Millamant	Detestable imprimis! I go to the play in a mask! 

Mirabell	Item, I article that you continue to like your own face as long as 
I shall, and while it passes current with me, that you endeavour not to new 
coin it. To which end, together with all vizards for the day, I prohibit 
all masks for the night, made of oiled skins and I know not what - hog's 
bones, hare's gall, pig water, and the marrow of a roasted cat. In short, I 
forbid all commerce with the gentlewoman in what-d'ye-call-it Court. Item, 
I shut my doors against all bawds with baskets, and pennyworth's of muslin, 
china, fans, atlasses, etc. Item, when you shall be breeding -

Millamant	Ah! Name it not. 

Mirabell	Which may be presumed, with a blessing on our endeavours -

Millamant	Odious endeavours! 

Mirabell	I denounce against all straight-lacing, squeezing for a shape, 
till you mould my boy's head like a sugar-loaf, and instead of a man-child 
make me father to a crooked-billet. Lastly, to the dominion of the tea-
table I submit, but with proviso that you exceed not in your province, but 
restrain yourself to native and simple tea-table drinks, as tea, chocolate, 
and coffee. As likewise to genuine and authorised tea-table talk, such as 
mending of fashions, spoiling reputations, railing at absent friends, and 
so forth. But that on no account you encroach upon the men's prerogative, 
and presume to drink healths, or toast fellows; for prevention of which I 
banish all foreign forces, all auxiliaries to the tea-table, as orange 
brandy, all aniseed. cinnamon, citron and Barbados waters, together with 
ratafia and the most noble spirit of clary. But for cowslip wine, poppy 
water, and all dormitives, those I allow. These provisos admitted, in other 
things I may prove a tractable and complying husband. 

Millamant	Oh, horrid provisos! Filthy strong waters! I toast fellows, 
odious men! I hate your odious provisos. 

Mirabell	Then we're agreed. Shall I kiss your hand upon the contract? And 
here comes one to be a witness to the sealing of the deed. 

Enter MRS. FAINALL.

Millamant	Fainall, what shall I do? Shall I have him? I think I must have 
him. 

Mrs Fainall	Aye, aye, take him, take him, what should you do? 

Millamant	Well, then, I'll take my death I'm in a horrid fright. Fainall, I 
shall never say it. Well, I think I'll endure you. 

Mrs Fainall	Fie, fie, have him, have him, and tell him so in plain terms, 
for I am sure you have a mind to him. 

Millamant	Are you? I think I have, and the horrid man looks as if he 
thought so too. Well, you ridiculous thing, you, I'll have you. I won't be 
kissed, nor I won't be thanked. Here, kiss my hand though. So, hold your 
tongue now; don't say a word. 

Mrs Fainall	Mirabell, there's a necessity for your obedience. You have 
neither time to talk nor stay. My mother is coming, and in my conscience if 
she should see you would fall into fits, and maybe not recover time enough 
to return to Sir Rowland, who, as Foible tells me, is in a fair way to 
succeed. Therefore spare your ecstasies for another occasion, and slip down 
the back stairs, where Foible waits to consult you. 

Millamant	Aye, go, go. In the meantime I suppose you have said something to 
please me. 

Mirabell	I am all obedience.

Exit MIRABELL. 

Mrs Fainall	Yonder Sir Wilfull's drunk, and so noisy that my mother has 
been forced to leave Sir Rowland to appease him; but he answers her only 
with singing and drinking. What they may have done by this time I know not; 
but Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came by. 

Millamant	Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost 
thing, for I find I love him violently. 

Mrs Fainall	So it seems, for you mind not what's said to you. If you doubt 
him, you had best take up with Sir Wilfull. 

Millamant	How can you name that superannuated lubber? Foh! 

Enter WITWOUD, from drinking. 

Mrs Fainall	So, is the fray made up, that you have left 'em? 

Witwoud	Left 'em? I could stay no longer. I have laughed like ten 
christenings. I am tipsy with laughing. If I had stayed any longer I should 
have burst. I must have been let out and pieced in the sides like an 
unsized camlet. Yes, yes, the fray is composed. My lady came in like a 
nolle prosequi and stopped the proceedings. 

Millamant	What was the dispute? 

Witwoud	That's the jest; there was no dispute. They could neither of 'em 
speak for rage, and so fell a spluttering at one another like two roasting 
apples. 

Enter PETULANT, drunk.

Witwoud	Now, Petulant, all's over, all's well? Gad, my head begins to whim 
it about. Why dost thou not speak? Thou art both as drunk and as mute as a 
fish. 

Petulant	Look you, Mrs. Millamant, if you can love me, dear nymph, say it, 
and that's the conclusion. Pass on, or pass off, that's all. 

Witwoud	Thou hast uttered volumes, folios, in less than decimo sexto, my 
dear Lacedemonian. Sirrah Petulant, thou art an epitomizer of words. 

Petulant	Witwoud, you are an annihilator of sense. 

Witwoud	Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of 
remnants, like a maker of pincushions; thou art, in truth (metaphorically 
speaking), a speaker of shorthand. 
Petulant	Thou art (without a figure) just one half of an ass, and Baldwin 
yonder, thy half-brother, is the rest. A Gemini of asses split would make 
just four of you. 

Witwoud	Thou dost bite, my dear mustard-seed. Kiss me for that. 

Petulant	Stand off. I'll kiss no more males. I have kissed your twin yonder 
in a humour of reconciliation, till he [hiccup] rises upon my stomach like 
a radish. 

Millamant	Eh, filthy creature! What was the quarrel? 

Petulant	There was no quarrel; there might have been a quarrel. 

Witwoud	If there had been words enough between 'em to have expressed 
provocation, they had gone together by the ears, like a pair of castanets. 

Petulant	You were the quarrel. 

Millamant	Me? 

Petulant	If I have a humour to quarrel, I can make less matters conclude 
premises. If you are not handsome, what then, if I have a humour to prove 
it? If I shall have my reward, say so; if not, fight for your face the next 
time yourself. I'll go sleep. 

Witwoud	Do, wrap thyself up like a woodlouse, and dream revenge. And hear 
me, if thou canst learn to write by tomorrow morning, pen me a challenge. 
I'll carry it for thee. 

Petulant	Carry your mistress's monkey a spider. Go, flay dogs, and read 
romances. I'll go to bed to my maid.

Exit. 

Mrs Fainall	He's horridly drunk. How came you all in this pickle? 

Witwoud	A plot, a plot, to get rid of the knight. Your husband's advice, 
but he sneaked off. 

Enter LADY WISHFORT and SIR WILFULL, drunk. 

Lady Wishfort	Out upon't, out upon't, at years of discretion, and comport 
yourself at this rantipole rate! 

Sir Wilful	No offence, aunt. 

Lady Wishfort	Offence? As I'm a person, I'm ashamed of you. Foh! how you 
stink of wine! Do you think my niece will ever endure such a borachio?t 
You're an absolute borachio. 

Sir Wilful	Borachio? 

Lady Wishfort	At a time when you should commence an amour, and put your 
best foot foremost. 

Sir Wilful	'Sheart, an you grudge me your liquor, make a bill. Give me more 
drink, and take my purse. [Sings.] 

		Prithee, fill me the glass
		Till it laugh in my face,
With ale that is potent and mellow;
		He that whines for a lass
		Is an ignorant ass,
For a bumper has not its fellow. 

But if you would have me marry my cousin, say the word, and I'll do't. 
Wilfull will do't, that's the word. Wilfull will do't, that's my crest, my 
motto I have forgot. 

Lady Wishfort	My nephew's a little overtaken, cousin; but 'tis with 
drinking your health. O' my word you are obliged to him. 

Sir Wilful	In vino veritas, aunt. If I drunk your health today, cousin, I 
am a borachio. But if you have a mind to be married, say the word, and send 
for the piper. Wilfull will do't. If not, dust it away, and let's have 
t'other round. Tony, ods-heart, where's Tony? Tony's an honest fellow, but 
he spits after a bumper, and that's a fault. [Sings.]

	We'll drink and we'll never have done, boys,
	Put the glass then around with the sun, boys,
Let Apollo's example invite us;
	For he's drunk every night,
	And that makes him so bright,
That he's able next morning to light us. 

The sun's a good pimple, an honest soaker. He has a cellar at your 
Antipodes. If I travel, aunt, I touch at your Antipodes. Your Antipodes are 
a good rascally sort of topsy-turvy fellows. If I had a bumper I'd stand 
upon my head and drink a health to 'em. A match or no match, cousin, with 
the hard name. Aunt, Wilfull will do't. If she has her maidenhead let her 
look to't; if she has not, let her keep her own counsel in the meantime, 
and cry out at the nine months' end. 

Millamant	Your pardon, madam, I can stay no longer. Sir Wilfull grows very 
powerful. Ugh! how he smells. I shall be overcome, if I stay. Come, cousin.

Exeunt MILLAMANT and MRS. FAINALL.

Lady Wishfort	Smells! He would poison a tallow-chandler and his family. 
Beastly creature, I know not what to do with him. Travel, quoth a! Aye, 
travel, travel, get thee gone; get thee but far enough, to the Saracens, or 
the Tartars, or the Turks, for thou art not fit to live in a Christian 
commonwealth, thou beastly pagan. 

Sir Wilful	Turks, no, no Turks, aunt. Your Turks are infidels, and believe 
not in the grape. Your Mahometan, your Mussulman is a dry stinkard. No 
offence, aunt. My map says that your Turk is not so honest a man as your 
Christian. I cannot find by the map that your mufti is orthodox. Whereby it 
is a plain case, that orthodox is a hard word, aunt, and [hiccup] Greek for 
claret. [Sings.] 
To drink is a Christian diversion, 
Unknown to the Turk or the Persian;
		Let Mahometan fools
		Live by heathenish rules, 
And be damned over tea-cups and coffee;
		But let British lads sing,
		Crown a health to the king, 
And a fig for your Sultan and Sophy.

Ah, Tony! 

Enter FOIBLE and whispers LADY WISHFORT. 

Lady Wishfort	[aside]. Sir Rowland impatient? Good lack! What shall I do 
with this beastly tumbril ? [Aloud.] Go, lie down and sleep, you sot, or as 
I'm a person I'll have you bastinadoed with broomsticks. Call up the 
wenches with broomsticks. 

Sir Wilful	Aha! Wenches, where are the wenches? 

Lady Wishfort	Dear cousin Witwoud, get him away, and you will bind me to 
you invioably. I have an affair of moment that invades me with some 
precipitation. You will oblige me to all futurity. 

Witwoud	Come, knight. Pox on him, I don't know what to say to him. Will you 
go to a cock match?

Sir Wilful	With a wench, Tony? Is she a shake-bag, sirrah? Let me bite your 
cheek for that. 

Witwoud	Horrible! He has a breath like a bagpipe. Aye, aye, come, will you 
march, my Salopian? 

Sir Wilful	Lead on, little Tony. I'll follow thee, my Anthony, my Tantony. 
Sirrah, thou shalt be my Tantony, and I'll be thy pig.

And a fig for your Sultan and Sophy. 

Exit sirlging, with WITWOUD.

Lady Wishfort	This will never do. It will never make a match. At least 
before he has been abroad. 

Enter WAITWELL disguised as for SIR ROWLAND. 

Lady Wishfort	Dear Sir Rowland, I am confounded with confusion at the 
retrospection of my own rudeness. I have more pardons to ask than the Pope 
distributes in the year of Jubilee. But I hope where there is likely to be 
so near an alliance, we may unbend the severity of decorum, and dispense 
with a little ceremony. 

Waitwell	My impatience, madam, is the effect of my transport, and till I 
have the possession of your adorable person, I am tantalised on the rack, 
and do but hang, madam, on the tenter of expectation. 

Lady Wishfort	You have excess of gallantry, Sir Rowland, and press things 
to a conclusion with a most prevailing vehemence. But a day or two for 
decency of marriage 

Waitwell	For decency of funeral, madam. The delay will break my heart, or 
if that should fail, I shall be poisoned. My nephew will get an inkling of 
my designs and poison me, and I would willingly starve him before I die. I 
would gladly go out of the world with that satisfaction. That would be some 
comfort to me, if I could but live so long as to be revenged on that 
unnatural viper.

Lady Wishfort	Is he so unnatural, say you? Truly I would contribute much 
both to the saving of your life and the accomplishment of your revenge. Not 
that I respect myself, though he has been a perfidious wretch to me. 

Waitwell	Perfidious to you? 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, Sir Rowland, the hours that he has died away at my feet, 
the tears that he has shed, the oaths that he has sworn, the palpitations 
that he has felt, the trances and the trembiings, the ardours and the 
ecstasies, the kneelings and the risings, the heart-heavings and the hand-
grippings, the pangs and the pathetic regards of his protesting eyes! Oh! 
no memory can register! 

Waitwell	What, my rival? Is the rebel my rival? A dies. 

Lady Wishfort	No, don't kill him at once, Sir Rowland, starve him gradually 
inch by inch. 

Waitwell	I'll do 't. In three weeks he shall be barefoot; in a month out at 
knees with begging an alms. He shall starve upward and upward, till he has 
nothing living but his head, and then go out in a stink like a candle's end 
upon a saveall.

Lady Wishfort	Well, Sir Rowland, you have the way. You are no novice in the 
labyrinth of love. You have the clue. But as I am a person, Sir Rowland, 
you must not attribute my yielding to any sinister appetite, or indigestion 
of widowhood, nor impute my complacency to any lethargy of continence. I 
hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials. 

Waitwell	Far be it from me -

Lady Wishfort	If you do, I protest I must recede. Or think that I have made 
a prostitution of decorums, but in the vehemence of compassion, and to save 
the life of a person of so much importance -

Waitwell	I esteem it so.

Lady Wishfort	Or else you wrong my condescension. 

Waitwell	I do not, I do not. 

Lady Wishfort	Indeed you do. 

Waitwell	I do not, fair shrine of virtue. 

Lady Wishfort	If you think the least scruple of carnality was an ingredient 
 -

Waitwell	Dear madam, no. You are all camphire and frankincense, all 
chastity and odour. 

Lady Wishfort	Or that -

Enter FOIBLE. 

Foible	Madam, the dancers are ready, and there's one with a letter, who 
must deliver it into your own hands. 

Lady Wishfort	Sir Rowland, will you give me leave? Think favourably, judge 
candidly, and conclude you have found a person who would suffer racks in 
honour's cause, dear Sir Rowland, and will wait on you incessantly.

Exit 

Waitwell	Fie, fie! What a slavery have I undergone! Spouse, hast thou any 
cordial? I want spirits. 

Foible	What a washy rogue art thou to pant thus for a quarter of an hour's 
Iying and swearing to a fine lady! 

Waitwell	Oh, she is the antidote to desire. Spouse, thou wilt fare the 
worse for 't. I shall have no appetite to iteration of nuptials this eight-
and-forty hours. By this hand, I'd rather be a chairman in the dog-days 
than act Sir Rowland till this time tomorrow. 

Enter LADY WISHFORT with a letter. 

Lady Wishfort	Call in the dancers. Sir Rowland, we'll sit, if you please, 
and see the entertainment.

Dance.

Now, with your permission, Sir Rowland, I will peruse my letter. I would 
open it in your presence, because I would not make you uneasy. If it should 
make you uneasy I would burn it. Speak if it does. But you may see the 
superscription is like a woman s hand.

Foible	[to him.] By Heaven, Mrs. Marwood's! I know it. My heart aches. Get 
it from her. 

Waitwell	A woman's hand? No, madam, that's no woman's hand; I see that 
already. That's somebody whose throat must be cut. 

Lady Wishfort	Nay, Sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion 
by your jealousy, I promise you I'll make a return by a frank 
communication. You shall see it. We'll open it together. Look you here. 
[Reads.] "Madam, though unknown to you" - look you there, 'tis from nobody 
that I know - "I have that honour for your character that I think myself 
obliged to let you know you are abused. He who pretends to be Sir Rowland 
is a cheat and a rascal." Oh heavens! what's this? 

Foible	Unfortunate! All's ruined. 

Waitwell	How, how? Let me see, let me see. [Reading.] "A rascal and 
disguised, and suborned for that imposture" - oh, villany! oh, villany! - 
"by the contrivance of  -" 

Lady Wishfort	I shall faint; I shall die. Oh! 

Foible	[to him.] Say 'tis your nephew's hand, quickly, his plot. Swear, 
swear it. 

Waitwell	Here's a villain! Madam, don't you perceive it, don't you see it? 

Lady Wishfort	Too well, too well. I have seen too much. 

Waitwell	I told you at first I knew the hand. A woman's hand! The rascal 
writes a sort of a large hand, your Roman hand. I saw there was a throat to 
be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my nephew, I'd pistol him. 

Foible.	Oh, treachery! But are you sure, Sir Rowland, it is his writing? 

Waitwell	Sure? Am I here? Do I live? Do I love this pearl of India? I have 
twenty letters in my pocket from him in the same character. 

Lady Wishfort	How?

Foible	Oh, what luck it is, Sir Rowland, that you were present at this 
juncture! This was the business that brought Mr. Mirabell disguised to 
Madam Millamant this afternoon. I thought something was contriving when he 
stole by me and would have hid his face. 

Lady Wishfort	How, how? I heard the villain was in the house indeed. And 
now I remember, my niece went away abruptly, when Sir Wilfull was to have 
made his addresses. 

Foible.	Then, then, madam, Mr. Mirabell waited for her in her chamber; but 
I would not tell your ladyship to discompose you when you were to receive 
Sir Rowland. 

Waitwell	Enough, his date is short. 

Foible	No, good Sir Rowland, don't incur the law. 

Waitwell	Law! I care not for law. I can but die, and 'tis in a good cause. 
My lady shall be satisfied of my truth and innocence, though it cost me my 
life. 

Lady Wishfort	No, dear Sir Rowland, don't fight. If you should be killed I 
must never show my face. Or hanged! Oh, consider my reputation, Sir 
Rowland. No, you shan't fight. I'll go in and examine my niece; I'll make 
her confess. I conjure you, Sir Rowland, by all your love not to fight. 

Waitwell	I am charmed, madam; I obey. But some proof you must let me give 
you. I'll go for a black box, which contains the writings of my whole 
estate, and deliver that into your hands. 

Lady Wishfort	Aye, dear Sir Rowland, that will be some comfort; bring the 
black box. 

Waitwell	And may I presume to bring a contract to be signed this night? May 
I hope so far? 

Lady Wishfort	Bring what you will; but come alive, pray come alive. Oh, 
this is a happy discovery. 

Waitwell	Dead or alive I'll come, and married we will be in spite of 
treachery; aye, and get an heir that shall defeat the last remaining 
glimpse of hope in my abandoned nephew. Come, my buxom widow: 

Ere long you shall substantial proof receive
That I'm an errant knight -

Foible	[aside.] Or arrant knave.

Exeunt. 



Act 5

Scene 1: A Room in LADY WISHFORT's House.

Enter LADY WISHFORT and FOIBLE. 

Lady Wishfort	Out of my house, out of my house, thou viper, thou serpent, 
that I have fostered! Thou bosom traitress, that I raised from nothing! 
Begone, begone, begone! Go, go! That I took from washing of old gauze and 
weaving of dead hair, with a bleak blue nose, over a chafing-dish of 
starved embers, and dining behind a traverse rag, in a shop no bigger than 
a birdcage! Go, go, starve again, do, do! 

Foible	Dear madam, I'll beg pardon on my knees. 

Lady Wishfort	Away! Out, out, go set up for yourself again, do! Drive a 
trade, do, with your threepenny-worth of small ware, flaunting upon a 
packthread, under a brandy-seller's bulk, or against a dead wall by a 
ballad-monger. Go, hang out an old frisoneer-gorget, with a yard of yellow 
colberteent again, do, an old gnawed mask, two rows of pins and a child's 
fiddle, a glass necklace with the beads broken, and a quilted nightcap with 
one ear. Go, go, drive a trade! These were your commodities, you 
treacherous trull! This was the merchandise you dealt in when I took you 
into my house, placed you next myself, and made you governante of my whole 
family. You have forgot this, have you, now you have feathered your nest? 
Foible	No, no, dear madam. Do but hear me, have but a moment's patience. 
I'll confess all. Mr. Mirabell seduced me; I am not the first that he has 
wheedled with his dissembling tongue. Your ladyship's own wisdom has been 
deluded by him, then how should I, a poor ignorant, defend myself? Oh, 
madam, if you knew but what he promised me, and how he assured me your 
ladyship should come to no damage. Or else the wealth of the Indies should 
not have bribed me to conspire against so good, so sweet, so kind a lady as 
you have been to me. 

Lady Wishfort	No damage? What, to betray me, to marry me to a cast-serving-
man, to make me a receptacle, an hospital for a decayed pimp! No damage? 
Oh, thou frontless impudence, more than a big-bellied actress. 

Foible	Pray do but hear me, madam. He could not marry your ladyship, madam. 
No, indeed, his marriage was to have been void in law, for he was married 
to me first, to secure your ladyship. He could not have bedded your 
ladyship, for if he had consummated with your ladyship, he must have run 
the risk of the law, and been put upon his clergy. Yes, indeed, I enquired 
of the law in that case before I would meddle or make. 

Lady Wishfort	What! Then I have been your property, have I? I have been 
convenient to you, it seems, while you were catering for Mirabell? I have 
been broker for you? What, have you made a passive bawd of me? This exceeds 
all precedent; I am brought to fine uses to become a botcher of secondhand 
marriages between Abigails and Andrews! I'll couple you. Yes, I'll baste 
you together, you and your Philander. I'll Duke's Place you, as I'm a 
person. Your turtle is in custody already. You shall coo in the same cage, 
if there be constable or warrant in the parish.

Exit.

Foible	Oh, that ever I was born! Oh, that I was ever married! A bride, aye, 
I shall be a Bridewell bride. Oh!

Enter MRS. FAINALL. 

Mrs Fainall	Poor Foible, what's the matter? 

Foible	Oh, madam, my lady's gone for a constable; I shall be had to a 
justice, and put to Bridewell to beat hemp. Poor Waitwell's gone to prison 
already. 

Mrs Fainall	Have a good heart, Foible. Mirabell's gone to give security for 
him. This is all Marwood's and my husband's doing. 

Foible	Yes, yes, I know it, madam. She was in my lady's closet, and 
overheard all that you said to me before dinner. She sent the letter to my 
lady, and that missing effect, Mr. Fainall laid this plot to arrest 
Waitwell, when he pretended to go for the papers, and in the meantime Mrs. 
Marwood declared all to my lady. 

Mrs Fainall	Was there no mention made of me in the letter? My mother does 
not suspect my being in the confederacy? I fancy Marwood has not told her, 
though she has told my husband. 

Foible	Yes, madam, but my lady did not see that part; we stifled the letter 
before she read so far. Has that mischievous devil told Mr. Fainall of your 
ladyship then? 

Mrs Fainall	Aye, all's out, my affair with Mirabell, everything discovered. 
This is the last day of our living together, that's my comfort. 

Foible	Indeed, madam, and so 'tis a comfort if you knew all. He has been 
even with your ladyship, which I could have told you long enough since, but 
I love to keep peace and quietness by my goodwill. I had rather bring 
friends together, than set 'em at distance. But Mrs. Marwood and he are 
nearer related than ever their parents thought for.

Mrs. Fainall	Sayest thou so, Foible? Canst thou prove this? 

Foible	I can take my oath of it, madam, so can Mrs. Mincing. We have had 
many a fair word from Madam Marwood to conceal something that passed in our 
chamber one evening when you were at Hyde Park, and we were thought to have 
gone a-walking. But we went up unawares, though we were sworn to secrecy 
too. Madam Marwood took a book and swore us upon it. But it was but a book 
of poems. So long as it was not a Bible-oath we may break it with a safe 
conscience. 

Mrs Fainall	This discovery is the most opportune thing I could wish. Now, 
Mincing? 

Enter MINCING. 

Mincing	My lady would speak with Mrs. Foible, mem. Mr. Mirabell is with 
her; he has set your spouse at liberty, Mrs. Foible, and would have you 
hide yourself in my lady's closet till my old lady's anger is abated. Oh, 
my old lady is in perilous passion at something Mr. Fainall has said. He 
swears, and my old lady cries. There's a fearful hurricane, I vow. He says, 
mem, that he'll have my lady's fortune made over to him, or he'll be 
divorced.

Mrs Fainall	Does your lady or Mirabell know that? 

Mincing	Yes, mem, they have sent me to see if Sir Wilfull be sober, and to 
bring him to them. My lady is resolved to have him, I think, rather than 
lose such a vast sum as six thousand pounds. Oh, come, Mrs. Foible, I hear 
my old lady. 

Mrs Fainall	Foible, you must tell Mincing that she must prepare to vouch 
when I call her. 

Foible	Yes, yes, madam. 

Mincing	Oh yes, mem, I'll vouch anything for your ladyship's service, be 
what it will.

Exeunt MINCING and FOIBLE.
Enter LADY WISHFORT and MARWOOD. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, my dear friend, how can I enumerate the benefits I have 
received from your goodness? To you I owe the timely discovery of the false 
vows of Mirabell. To you I owe the detection of the impostor, Sir Rowland. 
And now you are become an intercessor with my son-in-law to save the honour 
of my house and compound for the frailties of my daughter. Well, friend, 
you are enough to reconcile me to the bad world, or else I would retire to 
deserts and solitudes, and feed harmless sheep by groves and purling 
streams. Dear Marwood, let us leave the world, and retire by ourselves and 
be shepherdesses. 

Mrs Marwood	Let us first despatch the affair in hand, madam. We shall have 
leisure to think of retirement afterwards. Here is one who is concerned in 
the treaty. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, daughter, daughter, is it possible thou shouldst be my 
child, bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, and as I may say, another 
me, and yet transgress the most minute particle of severe virtue? Is it 
possible you should lean aside to iniquity, who have been cast in the 
direct mould of virtue? I have not only been a mould but a pattern for you, 
and a model for you, after you were brought into the world. 

Mrs Fainall	I don't understand your ladyship. 

Lady Wishfort	Not understand? Why, have you not been naught? Have you not 
been sophisticated? Not understand? Here I am ruined to compound for your 
caprices and cuckoldoms. I must pawn my plate and my jewels, and ruin my 
niece, and all little enough 

Mrs Fainall	I am wronged and abused, and so are you. 'Tis a false 
accusation, as false as hell, as false as your friend there, aye, or your 
friend's friend, my false husband. 

Mrs Marwood	My friend, Mrs. Fainall? Your husband my friend? What do you 
mean?

Mrs. Fainall	I know what I mean, madam, and so do you, and so shall the 
world at a time convenient. 

Mrs Marwood	I am sorry to see you so passionate, madam. More temper would 
look more like innocence. But I have done. I am sorry my zeal to serve your 
ladyship and family should admit of misconstruction, or make me liable to 
affronts. You will pardon me, madam, if I meddle no more with an affair in 
which I am not personally concerned. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, dear friend, I am so ashamed that you should meet with 
such returns. You ought to ask pardon on your knees, ungrateful creature; 
she deserves more from you than all your life can accomplish. Oh, don't 
leave me destitute in this perplexity. No, stick to me, my good genius. 

Mrs Fainall	I tell you, madam, you're abused. Stick to you? Aye, like a 
leech, to suck your best blood; she'll drop off when she's full. Madam, you 
shan't pawn a bodkin, nor part with a brass counter in composition for me. 
I defy 'em all. Let 'em prove their aspersions. I know my own innocence, 
and dare stand a trial.

Exit. 

Lady Wishfort	Why, if she should be innocent, if she should be wronged 
after all, ha? I don't know what to think, and I promise you her education 
has been unexceptionable. I may say it, for I chiefly made it my own care 
to initiate her very infancy in the rudiments of virtue, and to impress 
upon her tender years a young odium and aversion to the very sight of men. 
Aye, friend, she would ha' shrieked if she had but seen a man, till she was 
in her teens. As I'm a person 'tis true. She was never suffered to play 
with a male child, though but in coats; nay, her very babies were of the 
feminine gender. Oh, she never looked a man in the face but her own father, 
or the chaplain, and him we made a shift to put upon her for a woman, by 
the help of his long garments and his sleek face, till she was going in her 
fifteen. 

Mrs Marwood	'Twas much she should be deceived so long. 

Lady Wishfort	I warrant you, or she would never have borne to have been 
catechised by him, and have heard his long lectures against singing and 
dancing, and such debaucheries, and going to filthy plays and profane music 
meetings, where the lewd trebles squeak nothing but bawdy, and the basses 
roar blasphemy. Oh, she would have swooned at the sight or name of an 
obscene play book, and can I think after all this that my daughter can be 
naught? What, a whore? And thought it excommunication to set her foot 
within the door of a playhouse. Oh, dear friend, I can't believe it, no, 
no. As she says, let him prove it, let him prove it. 

Mrs Marwood	Prove it, madam? What, and have your name prostituted in a 
public court, yours and your daughter's reputation worried at the bar by a 
pack of bawling lawyers? To be ushered in with an Oyez of scandal, and have 
your case opened by an old fumbling lecher in a quoif, like a man midwife, 
to bring your daughter's infamy to light; to be a theme for legal punsters 
and quibblers by the statute, and become a jest, against a rule of court, 
where there is no precedent for a jest in any record, not even in Doomsday 
Book; to discompose the gravity of the bench, and provoke naughty 
interrogatories in more naughty law Latin, while the good judge, tickled 
with the proceeding, simpers under a grey beard, and fidges off and on his 
cushion as if he had swallowed cantharides or sat upon cow-itch! 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, 'tis very hard. 

Mrs Marwood	And then to have my young revellers of the Temple take notes, 
like 'prentices at a conventicle, and after talk it over again in Commons, 
or before drawers in an eating house! 

Lady Wishfort	Worse and worse. 

Mrs Marwood	Nay, this is nothing; if it would end here 'twere well. But it 
must after this be consigned by the shorthand writers to the public press, 
and from thence be transferred to the hands, nay into the throats and lungs 
of hawkers, with voices more licentious than the loud flounderman's. And 
this you must hear till you are stunned. Nay, you must hear nothing else 
for some days. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, 'tis insupportable. No, no, dear friend, make it up, make 
it up. Aye, aye, I'll compound. I'll give up all, myself and my all, my 
niece and her all, anything, everything for composition. 

Mrs Marwood	Nay, madam, I advise nothing. I only lay before you, as a 
friend, the inconveniences which perhaps you have overseen. Here comes Mr. 
Fainall. If he will be satisfied to huddle up all in silence, I shall be 
glad. You must think I would rather congratulate than condole with you. 
Enter FAINALL. 

Lady Wishfort	Aye, aye, I do not doubt it, dear Marwood. No, no, I do not 
doubt it. 

Fainall	Well, madam, I have suffered myself to be overcome by the 
importunity of this lady, your friend, and am content you shall enjoy your 
own proper estate during life, on condition you oblige yourself never to 
marry, under such penalty as I think convenient. Lady. Never to marry? 

Fainall	No more Sir Rowlands. The next imposture may not be so timely 
detected. 

Mrs Marwood	That condition I dare answer my lady will consent to without 
difficulty; she has already but too much experienced the perfidiousness of 
men. Besides, madam, when we retire to our pastoral solitude we shall bid 
adieu to all other thoughts. 

Lady Wishfort	Aye, that's true. But in case of necessity, as of health, or 
some such emergency? 

Fainall	Oh, if you are prescribed marriage, you shall be considered; I will 
only reserve to myself the power to choose for you. If your physic be 
wholesome it matters not who is your apothecary. Next, my wife shall settle 
on me the remainder of her fortune not made over already, and for her 
maintenance depend entirely on my discretion. 

Lady Wishfort	This is most inhumanly savage, exceeding the barbarity of a 
Muscovite husband. 

Fainall	I learned it from his Czarish Majesty's retinue in a winter 
evening's conference over brandy and pepper, amongst other secrets of 
matrimony and policy, as they are at present practised in the northern 
hemisphere. But this must be agreed unto, and that positively. Lastly, I 
will be endowed, in right of my wife, with that six thousand pounds which 
is the moiety of Mrs. Millamant's fortune in your possession, and which she 
has forfeited, as will appear by the last will and testament of your 
deceased husband, Sir Jonathan Wishfort, by her disobedience in contracting 
herself against your consent or knowledge, and by refusing the offered 
match with Sir Wilfull Witwoud which you, like a careful aunt, had provided 
for her. 

Lady Wishfort	My nephew was non compos, and could not make his addresses.

Fainall	I come to make demands; I'll hear no objections.

Lady Wishfort	You will grant me time to consider? 

Fainall	Yes, while the instrument is drawing, to which you must set your 
hand till more sufficient deeds can be perfected, which I will take care 
shall be done with all possible speed. In the meanwhile I will go for the 
said instrument, and till my return you may balance this matter in your own 
discretion.

Exit FAINALL. 

Lady Wishfort	This insolence is beyond all precedent, all parallel. Must I 
be subject to this merciless villain? 

Mrs Marwood	'Tis severe indeed, madam, that you should smart for your 
daughter's wantonness. 

Lady Wishfort	'Twas against my consent that she married this barbarian, but 
she would have him, though her year was not out. Ah! her first husband, my 
son Languish, would not have carried it thus. Well, that was my choice, 
this is hers; she is matched now with a witness. I shall be mad, dear 
friend. Is there no comfort for me? Must I live to be confiscated at this 
rebel rate? Here come two more of my Egyptian plagues too. 

Enter MILLAMANT and SIR WILFULL. 

Sir Wilful	Aunt, your servant. 

Lady Wishfort	Out, caterpillar, call not me aunt; I know thee not. 

Sir Wilful	I confess I have been a little in disguise, as they say. 
'Sheart, and I'm sorry for 't. What would you have? I hope I committed no 
offence, aunt, and if I did I am willing to make satisfaction, and what can 
a man say fairer? If I have broke anything I'll pay for 't, an it cost a 
pound. And so let that content for what's past, and make no more words. For 
what's to come, to pleasure you I'm willing to marry my cousin. So pray 
let's all be friends. She and I are agreed upon the matter before a 
witness. 

Lady Wishfort	How's this, dear niece? Have I any comfort? Can this be true? 

Millamant	I am content to be a sacrifice to your repose, madam, and to 
convince you that I had no hand in the plot, as you were misinformed, I 
have laid my commands on Mirabell to come in person, and be a witness that 
I give my hand to this flower of knighthood, and for the contract that 
passed between Mirabell and me, I have obliged him to make a resignation of 
it in your ladyship's presence. He is without, and waits your leave for 
admittance. 

Lady Wishfort	Well, I'll swear I am something revived at this testimony of 
your obedience; but I cannot admit that traitor. I fear I cannot fortify 
myself to support his appearance. He is as terrible to me as a Gorgon; if I 
see him I fear I shall turn to stone, petrify incessantly. 

Millamant	If you disoblige him he may resent your refusal, and insist upon 
the contract still. Then 'tis the last time he will be offensive to you. 

Lady Wishfort	Are you sure it will be the last time? If I were sure of 
that. Shall I never see him again? 

Millamant	Sir Wilfull, you and he are to travel together, are you not? 

Sir Wilful	'Sheart, the gentleman's a civil gentleman, aunt, let him come 
in. Why, we are sworn brothers and fellow-travellers. We are to be Pylades 
and Orestes, he and I. He is to be my interpreter in foreign parts. He has 
been overseas once already, and with proviso that I marry my cousin, will 
cross 'em once again only to bear me company. 'Sheart, I'll call him in. An 
I set on't once he shall come in, and see who'll hinder him.

Goes to the door and hems. 

Mrs Marwood	[aside.] This is precious fooling, if it would pass; but I'll 
know the bottom of it. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, dear Marwood, you are not going? 

Mrs Marwood	Not far, madam; I'll return immediately.

Exit.
Re-enter SIR WILFULL and MIRABELL. 

Sir Wilful	Look up, man, I'll stand by you. 'Sbud, if she do frown, she 
can't kill you. Besides, harkee, she dare not frown desperately, because 
her face is none of her own; 'sheart, and she should, her forehead would 
wrinkle like the coat of a cream-cheese. But mum for that, fellow-
traveller. 

Mirabell	If a deep sense of the many injuries I have offered to so good a 
lady, with a sincere remorse and a hearty contrition, can but obtain the 
least glance of compassion, I am too happy. Ah, madam, there was a time - 
But let it be forgotten. I confess I have deservedly forfeited the high 
place I once held of sighing at your feet. Nay, kill me not by turning from 
me in disdain; I come not to plead for favour, nay, not for pardon, I am a 
suppliant only for pity. I am going where I never shall behold you more. 

Sir Wilful	How, fellow-traveller? You shall go by yourself then. 

Mirabell	Let me be pitied first, and afterwards forgotten. I ask no more. 

Sir Wilful	By our lady, a very reasonable request, and will cost you 
nothing, aunt. Come, come, forgive and forget, aunt. Why you must an you 
are a Christian. 

Mirabell	Consider, madam, in reality you could not receive much prejudice. 
It was an innocent device, though I confess it had a face of guiltiness; it 
was at most an artifice which love contrived, and errors which love 
produces have ever been accounted venial. At least think it is punishment 
enough that I have lost what in my heart I hold most dear, that to your 
cruel indignation I have offered up this beauty, and with her my peace and 
quiet, nay, all my hopes of future comfort. 

Sir Wilful	An he does not move me, would I may never be o' the quorum! An 
it were not as good a deed as to drink, to give her to him again, I would I 
might never take shipping. Aunt, if you don't forgive quickly, I shall 
melt, I can tell you that. My contract went no farther than a little mouth 
glue, and that's hardly dry. One doleful sigh more from my fellow-traveller 
and 'tis dissolved. 

Lady Wishfort	Well, nephew, upon your account. Ah, he has a false 
insinuating tongue. Well, sir, I will stifle my just resentment at my 
nephew's request. I will endeavour what I can to forget, but on proviso 
that you resign the contract with my niece immediately. 

Mirabell	It is in writing and with papers of concern; but I have sent my 
servant for it, and will deliver it to you with all acknowledgments for 
your transcendent goodness. 

Lady Wishfort	[aside.] Oh, he has witchcraft in his eyes and tongue. When I 
did not see him I could have bribed a villain to his assassination; but his 
appearance rakes the embers which have so long lain smothered in my breast.

Enter FAINALL and MRS. MARWOOD.

Fainall	Your date of deliberation, madam, is expired. Here is the 
instrument. Are you prepared to sign?

Lady Wishfort	If I were prepared, I am not empowered. My niece exerts a 
lawful claim, having matched herself by my direction to Sir Wilfull. 

Fainall	That sham is too gross to pass on me, though 'tis imposed on you, 
madam. 

Millamant	Sir, I have given my consent. 

Mirabell	And, sir, I have resigned my pretensions. 

Sir Wilful	And, sir, I assert my right, and will maintain it in defiance of 
you, sir, and of your instrument. 'Sheart, an you talk of an instrument, 
sir, I have an old fox by my thigh shall hack your instrurment of ram 
vellum to shreds, sir. It shall not be sufficient for a mittimus or a 
tailor's measure. Therefore withdraw your instrument, sir, or by our lady I 
shall draw mine. 

Lady Wishfort	Hold, nephew, hold. 

Millamant	Good Sir Wilfull, respite your valour. 

Fainall	Indeed? Are you provided of your guard, with your single beefeater 
there? But I'm prepared for you, and insist upon my first proposal. You 
shall submit your own estate to my management, and absolutely make over my 
wife's to my sole use, as pursuant to the purport and tenor of this other 
covenant. I suppose, madam, your consent is not requisite in this case; 
nor, Mr. Mirabell, your resignation; nor, Sir Wilfull, your right? You may 
draw your fox, if you please, sir, and make a bear garden flourish 
somewhere else, for here it will not avail. This, my Lady Wishfort, must be 
subscribed, or your darling daughter's turned adrift, like a leaky hulk to 
sink or swim, as she and the current of this lewd town can agree. 

Lady Wishfort	Is there no means, no remedy, to stop my ruin? Ungrateful 
wretch! Dost thou not owe thy being, thy subsistence, to my daughter's 
fortune? 

Fainall	I'll answer you when I have the rest of it in my possession. 

Mirabell	But that you would not accept of a remedy from my hands. I own I 
have not deserved you should owe any obligation to me, or else perhaps I 
could advise -

Lady Wishfort	Oh, what, what? To save me and my child from ruin, from want, 
I'll forgive all that's past. Nay, I'll consent to anything to come, to be 
delivered from this tyranny. 

Mirabell	Aye, madam, but that is too late. My reward is intercepted. You 
have disposed of her who only could have made me a compensation for all my 
services. But, be it as it may, I am resolved I'll serve you. You shall not 
be wronged in this savage manner.

Lady Wishfort	How, dear Mr. Mirabell? Can you be so generous at last? But 
it is not possible. Harkee, I'll break my nephew's match. You shall have my 
niece yet, and all her fortune, if you can but save me from this imminent 
danger. 

Mirabell	Will you? I take you at your word. I ask no more. I must have 
leave for two criminals to appear. 

Lady Wishfort	Aye, aye, anybody, anybody. 

Mirabell	Foible is one, and a penitent. 

Enter MRS. FAINALL, FOIBLE, and MINCING. 

Mrs Marwood	[to FAINALL]. Oh, my shame! These corrupt things are brought 
hither to expose me. 

MIRABELL and LADY WISHFORT go to MRS. FAINALL and FOIBLE. 

Fainall	If it must all come out, why let 'em know it. 'Tis but the way of 
the world. That shall not urge me to relinquish or abate one tittle of my 
terms. No, I will insist the more. 

Foible	Yes? indeed, madam, I'll take my Bible oath of it. 

Mincing	And so will I, mem. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, Marwood, Marwood, art thou false? My friend deceive me? 
Hast thou been a wicked accomplice with that profligate man? 

Mrs Marwood	Have you so much ingratitude and injustice to give credit 
against your friend to the aspersions of two such mercenary trulls? 

Mincing	Mercenary, mem? I scorn your words. 'Tis true we found you and Mr. 
Fainall in the blue garret. By the same token you swore us to secrecy upon 
Messalinas's Poems. Mercenary? No, if we would have been mercenary, we 
should have held our tongues. You would have bribed us sufficiently. 

Fainall	Go, you are an insignificant thing. Well? what are you the better 
for this? Is this Mr. Mirabell's expedient? I'll be put off no longer. You, 
thing, that was a wife, shall smart for this. I will not leave thee 
wherewithal to hide thy shame. Your body shall be naked as your reputation. 

Mrs Fainall	I despise you, and defy your malice. You have aspersed me 
wrongfully. I have proved your falsehood. Go, you and your treacherous ---- 
I will not name it; but starve together, perish! 

Fainall	Not while you are worth a groat, indeed, my dear. Madam, I'll be 
fooled no longer. 

Lady Wishfort	Ah, Mr. Mirabell, this is small comfort, the detection of 
this affair. 

Mirabell	Oh, in good time. Your leave for the other offender and penitent 
to appear, madam. 

Enter WAITWELL with a box of writings. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, Sir Rowland! Well, rascal? 

Waitwell	What you ladyship pleases. I have brought the black box at last, 
madam. 

Mirabell	Give it me. Madam, you remember your promise? 

Lady Wishfort	Aye, dear sir. 

Mirabell	Where are the gentlemen? 

Waitwell	At hand, sir, rubbing their eyes, just risen from sleep. 

Fainall	'Sdeath, what's this to me? I'll not wait your private concerns. 

Enter PETULANT and WITWOUD. 

Petulant	How now? What's the matter? Who's hand's out?

Waitwell	Hey-day! What, are you all got together, like players at the end 
of the last act? 

Mirabell	You may remember, gentlemen, I once requested your hands as 
witnesses to a certain parchment?

Witwoud	Aye, I do. My hand I remember; Petulant set his mark. 

Mirabell	You wrong him; his name is fairly written, as shall appear. You do 
not remember, gentlemen, anything of what that parchment contained? 
[Undoing the box.] 

Witwoud	No. 

Petulant	Not I, I writ; I read nothing. 

Mirabell	Very well, now you shall know. Madam, your promise? 

Lady Wishfort	Aye, aye, sir, upon my honour. 

Mirabell	Mr. Fainall, it is now time that you should know that your lady, 
while she was at her own disposal, and before you had by your insinuations 
wheedled her out of a pretended settlement of the greatest part of her 
fortune -

Fainall	Sir, pretended? 

Mirabell	Yes, sir. I say that this lady while a widow, having it seems 
received some cautions respecting your inconstancy and tyranny of temper, 
which from her own partial opinion and fondness of you she could never have 
suspected, she did, I say, by the wholesome advice of friends and of sages 
learned in the laws of this land, deliver this same as her act and deed to 
me in trust, and to the uses within mentioned. You may read if you please - 
[holding out the parchment] - though perhaps what is written on the back 
may serve your occasions. 

Fainall	Very likely, sir. What's here? Damnation! [Reads.] "A deed of 
conveyance of the whole estate real of ARABELLA LANGUISH, widow, in trust 
to EDWARD MIRABELL. Confusion! 

Mirabell	Even so, sir, 'tis the way of the world, sir, of the widows of the 
world. I suppose this deed may bear an elder date than what you have 
obtained from your lady? 

Fainall	Perfidious fiend! Then thus I'll be revenged. [Offers to run at 
MRS. FAINALL.]

Sir Wilful	Hold, sir, now you may make your bear garden flourish somewhere 
else, sir. 

Fainall	Mirabell, you shall hear of this, sir, be sure you shall. Let me 
pass, oaf.

Exit. 

Mrs Fainall	Madam, you seem to stifle your resentment. You had better give 
it vent. 

Mrs Marwood	Yes, it shall have vent, and to your confusion, or I'll perish 
in the attempt.

Exit. 

Lady Wishfort	Oh, daughter, daughter, 'tis plain thou hast inherited thy 
mother's prudence. 

Mrs Fainall	Thank Mr. Mirabell, a cautious friend, to whose advice all is 
owing. 

Lady Wishfort	Well, Mr. Mirabell, you have kept your promise, and I must 
perform mine. First I pardon for your sake Sir Rowland there and Foible. 
The next thing is to break the matter to my nephew, and how to do that -

Mirabell	For that, madam, give yourself no trouble. Let me have your 
consent. Sir Wilfull is my friend. He has had compassion upon lovers, and 
generously engaged a volunteer in this action for our service, and now 
designs to prosecute his travels. 

Sir Wilful	'Sheart, aunt, I have no mind to marry. My cousin's a fine lady, 
and the gentleman loves her, and she loves him, and they deserve one 
another. My resolution is to see foreign parts. I have set on't, and when 
I'm set on't, I must do 't. And if these two gentlemen would travel too, I 
think they may be spared. 

Petulant	For my part, I say little. I think things are best off or on. 

Witwoud	Egad, I understand nothing of the matter. I'm in a maze yet, like a 
dog in a dancing-school. 

Lady Wishfort	Well, sir, take her, and with her all the joy I can give you.

Millamant	Why does not the man take me? Would you have me give myself to 
you over again? 

Mirabell	Aye, and over and over again. [Kisses her hand.] I would have you 
as often as possibly I can. Well, Heaven grant I love you not too well, 
that's all my fear. 

Sir Wilful	'Sheart, you'll have time enough to toy after you're married; or 
if you will toy now, let us have a dance in the meantime, that we who are 
not lovers may have some other employment, besides looking on. 

Mirabell	With all my heart, dear Sir Wilfull. What shall we do for music? 

Foible	Oh, sir, some that were provided for Sir Rowland's entertainment are 
yet within call.

A dance. 

Lady Wishfort	As I am a person, I can hold out no longer. I have wasted my 
spirits so today already, that I am ready to sink under the fatigue, and I 
cannot but have some fears upon me yet that my son Fainall will pursue some 
desperate course. 

Mirabell	Madam, disquiet not yourself on that account. To my knowledge his 
circumstances are such he must of force comply. For my part, I will 
contribute all that in me lies to a reunion. [To MRS. FAINALL] In the 
meantime, madam, let me before these witnesses restore to you this deed of 
trust. It may be a means, well managed, to make you live easily together.

From hence let those be warned, who mean to wed,
Lest mutual falsehood stain the bridal-bed;
For each deceiver to his cost may find
That marriage frauds too oft are paid in kind.

Exeunt omnes.



Epilogue

Spoken by Mrs. Bracegirdle

After our epilogue this crowd dismisses,
I'm thinking how this play'll be pulled to pieces.
But pray consider, ere you doom its fall,
How hard a thing 'twould be to please you all.
There are some critics so with spleen diseased
They scarcely come inclining to be pleased;
And sure he must have more than mortal skill,
Who pleases anyone against his will.
Then, all bad poets we are sure are foes,
And how their number's swelled the town well knows;
In shoals, I've marked 'em judging in the pit:
Though they're on no pretence for judgment fit,
But that they have been damned for want of wit.
Since when they, by their own offences taught,
Set up for spies on plays, and finding fault.
Others there are whose malice we'd prevent:
Such, who watch plays with scurrilous intent
To mark out who by characters are meant.
And though no perfect likeness they can trace,
Yet each pretends to know the copied face.
These, with false glosses feed their own ill-nature,
And turn to libel, what was meant a satire.
May such malicious fops this fortune find
To think themselves alone the fools designed;
If any are so arrogantly vain,
To think they singly can support a scene,
And furnish fool enough to entertain.
For well the learned and the judicious know
That satire scorns to stoop so meanly low,
As anyone abstracted fop to show.
For, as when painters form a matchless face,
They from each fair one catch some diverent grace,
And shining features in one portrait blend,
To which no single beauty must pretend;
So poets oft do in one piece expose
Whole belles assemblees of coquettes and beaux.