that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.
Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none:
And some condemned for a fault alone.
Come, bring them away: if these be good people in
a commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in
common houses, I know no law: bring them away.
How now, sir! What's your name? and what's the matter?
If it Please your honour, I am the poor duke's
constable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean upon
justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good
honour two notorious benefactors.
Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are
they not malefactors?
If it? please your honour, I know not well what they
are: but precise villains they are, that I am sure
of; and void of all profanation in the world that
good Christians ought to have.
This comes off well; here's a wise officer.
Go to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your
name? why dost thou not speak, Elbow?
He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.
What are you, sir?
He, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that
serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they
say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she
professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.
How know you that?
My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,--
How? thy wife?
Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman,--
Dost thou detest her therefore?
I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as
she, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house,
it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.
How dost thou know that, constable?
Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman
cardinally given, might have been accused in
fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.
By the woman's means?
Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means: but as she
spit in his face, so she defied him.
Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.
Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable
man; prove it.
Do you hear how he misplaces?
Sir, she came in great with child; and longing,
saving your honour's reverence, for stewed prunes;
sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very
distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a