aring, she'll be best.

MRS GOUR. Why, you're as good a bearer as the rest.

MRS BAR. Nay, that's not so; you bear one man too many.

MRS GOUR. Better do so than bear not any.

MR BAR. Beshrew me, but my wife's jests grow too bitter;
Plainer speeches for her were more fitter[222]:
Malice lies embowelled in her tongue,
And new hatch'd hate makes every jest a wrong. [_Aside_.]

MRS GOUR. Look ye, mistress, now I hit ye.

MRS BAR. Why, ay, you never use to miss a blot[223],
Especially when it stands so fair to hit.

MRS GOUR. How mean ye, Mistress Barnes?

MRS BAR. That Mistress Goursey's in the hitting vein.

MRS GOUR. I hot[224] your man.

MRS BAR. Ay, ay, my man, my man; but, had I known,
I would have had my man stood nearer home.

MRS GOUR. Why, had ye kept your man in his right place,
I should not then have hit him with an ace.

MRS BAR. Right, by the Lord! a plague upon the bones!

MRS GOUR. And a hot mischief on the curser too!

MR BAR. How now, wife?

MR GOUR. Why, what's the matter, woman?

MRS GOUR. It is no matter; I am--

MRS BAR. Ay, you are--

MRS GOUR. What am I?

MRS BAR. Why, that's as you will be ever.

MRS GOUR. That's every day as good as Barnes's wife.

MRS BAR. And better too: then, what needs all this trouble?
A single horse is worse than that bears double.

MR BAR. Wife, go to, have regard to what you say;
Let not your words pass forth the verge of reason,
But keep within the bounds of modesty;
For ill-report doth like a bailiff stand,
To pound the straying and the wit-lost tongue,
And makes it forfeit into folly's hands.
Well, wife, you know it is no honest part
To entertain such guests with jests and wrongs:
What will the neighbouring country vulgar say,
When as they hear that you fell out at dinner?
Forsooth, they'll call it a pot-quarrel straight;
The best they'll name it is a woman's jangling.
Go to, be rul'd, be rul'd.

MRS BAR. God's Lord, be rul'd, be rul'd!
What, think ye I have such a baby's wit,
To have a rod's correction for my tongue?
School infancy! I am of age to speak,
And I know when to speak: shall I be chid
For such a--

MRS GOUR. What-a? nay, mistress, speak it out;
I scorn your stopp'd compares: compare not me
To any but your equals, Mistress Barnes.

MR GOUR. Peace, wife, be quiet.

MR BAR. O, persuade, persuade!
Wife, Mistress Goursey, shall I win your thoughts
To composition of some kind effects?
Wife, if you love your credit, le