Scene I.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

Scene continues.

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
traver's rag, in a shop no bigger than a bird-cage. 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 threepennyworth of small ware,
flaunting upon a packthread, under a brandy-seller's bulk, or against
a dead wall by a balladmonger. Go, hang out an old frisoneer-gorget,
with a yard of yellow colberteen 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 night-cap 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 governant 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? O 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? O 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 second-hand 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.

FOIBLE
Oh, that ever I was born! Oh, that I was ever
married! A bride? Ay, I shall be a Bridewell bride. Oh!