Scene III.

Love for Love

by William Congreve

ANGELICA, FORESIGHT, NURSE.

ANGELICA
Is it not a good hour for pleasure too, uncle?
Pray lend me your coach; mine's out of order.

FORESIGHT
What, would you be gadding too? Sure, all females
are mad to-day. It is of evil portent, and bodes mischief to the
master of a family. I remember an old prophecy written by Messahalah
the Arabian, and thus translated by a reverend Buckinghamshire
bard:-

'When housewives all the house forsake,
And leave goodman to
brew and bake,
Withouten guile, then be it said,
That house
doth stand upon its head;
And when the head is set in grond,

Ne marl, if it be fruitful fond.'

Fruitful, the head fruitful, that bodes horns; the fruit of the
head is horns. Dear niece, stay at home--for by the head of the
house is meant the husband; the prophecy needs no explanation.

ANGELICA
Well, but I can neither make you a cuckold, uncle,
by going abroad, nor secure you from being one by staying at home.

FORESIGHT
Yes, yes; while there's one woman left, the
prophecy is not in full force.

ANGELICA
But my inclinations are in force; I have a mind to
go abroad, and if you won't lend me your coach, I'll take a hackney
or a chair, and leave you to erect a scheme, and find who's in
conjunction with your wife. Why don't you keep her at home, if
you're jealous of her when she's abroad? You know my aunt is a
little retrograde (as you call it) in her nature. Uncle, I'm afraid
you are not lord of the ascendant, ha, ha, ha!

FORESIGHT
Well, Jill-flirt, you are very pert, and always
ridiculing that celestial science.

ANGELICA
Nay, uncle, don't be angry--if you are, I'll reap
up all your false prophecies, ridiculous dreams, and idle
divinations. I'll swear you are a nuisance to the neighbourhood.
What a bustle did you keep against the last invisible eclipse, laying
in provision as 'twere for a siege. What a world of fire and candle,
matches and tinder-boxes did you purchase! One would have thought we
were ever after to live under ground, or at least making a voyage to
Greenland, to inhabit there all the dark season.

FORESIGHT
Why, you malapert slut -

ANGELICA
Will you lend me your coach, or I'll go on--nay,
I'll declare how you prophesied popery was coming only because the
butler had mislaid some of the apostle spoons, and thought they were
lost. Away went religion and spoon-meat together. Indeed, uncle,
I'll indite you for a wizard.

FORESIGHT
How, hussy! Was there ever such a provoking
minx?

NURSE
O merciful father, how she talks!

ANGELICA
Yes, I can make oath of your unlawful midnight
practices, you and the old nurse there -

NURSE
Marry, heaven defend! I at midnight practices? O
Lord, what's here to do? I in unlawful doings with my master's
worship-- why, did you ever hear the like now? Sir, did ever I do
anything of your midnight concerns but warm your bed, and tuck you
up, and set the candle and your tobacco-box and your urinal by you,
and now and then rub the soles of your feet? O Lord, I!

ANGELICA
Yes, I saw you together through the key-hole of the
closet one night, like Saul and the witch of Endor, turning the sieve
and shears, and pricking your thumbs, to write poor innocent
servants' names in blood, about a little nutmeg grater which she had
forgot in the caudle-cup. Nay, I know something worse, if I would
speak of it.

FORESIGHT
I defy you, hussy; but I'll remember this, I'll be
revenged on you, cockatrice. I'll hamper you. You have your fortune
in your own hands, but I'll find a way to make your lover, your
prodigal spendthrift gallant, Valentine, pay for all, I will.

ANGELICA
Will you? I care not, but all shall out then.
Look to it, nurse: I can bring witness that you have a great
unnatural teat under your left arm, and he another; and that you
suckle a young devil in the shape of a tabby-cat, by turns, I can.

NURSE
A teat, a teat--I an unnatural teat! Oh, the false,
slanderous thing; feel, feel here, if I have anything but like
another Christian. [Crying.]

FORESIGHT
I will have patience, since it is the will of the
stars I should be thus tormented. This is the effect of the
malicious conjunctions and oppositions in the third house of my
nativity; there the curse of kindred was foretold. But I will have
my doors locked up;--I'll punish you: not a man shall enter my
house.

ANGELICA
Do, uncle, lock 'em up quickly before my aunt come
home. You'll have a letter for alimony to-morrow morning. But let me
be gone first, and then let no mankind come near the house, but
converse with spirits and the celestial signs, the bull and the ram
and the goat. Bless me! There are a great many horned beasts among
the twelve signs, uncle. But cuckolds go to heaven.

FORESIGHT
But there's but one virgin among the twelve signs,
spitfire, but one virgin.

ANGELICA
Nor there had not been that one, if she had had to
do with anything but astrologers, uncle. That makes my aunt go
abroad.

FORESIGHT
How, how? Is that the reason? Come, you know
something; tell me and I'll forgive you. Do, good niece. Come, you
shall have my coach and horses--faith and troth you shall. Does my
wife complain? Come, I know women tell one another. She is young
and sanguine, has a wanton hazel eye, and was born under Gemini,
which may incline her to society. She has a mole upon her lip, with
a moist palm, and an open liberality on the mount of Venus.

ANGELICA
Ha, ha, ha!

FORESIGHT
Do you laugh? Well, gentlewoman, I'll--but come,
be a good girl, don't perplex your poor uncle, tell me--won't you
speak? Odd, I'll -