Cast for these scenes:

Apple: Big Macintosh

Lady Apple: Applejack

Prince Blueblood: Prince BlueBlood

Rodeo: Scootaloo

Jewellette: Applebloom

Nurse: Nurse Redheart


SCENE IV. A room in Apple's house.

Enter APPLE, LADY APPLE, and PRINCE BLUEBLOOD

APPLE

Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily,
That we have had no time to move our filly:
Look you, she loved her kinspony Tybuck dearly,
And so did I:-Well, we were born to die.
'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night:
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

BLUEBLOOD

These times of woe afford no time to woo.
Madam, good night: commend me to your filly.

LADY APPLE

I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;
To-night she is mew'd up to her heaviness.

APPLE

Prince Blueblood, I will make a desperate tender
Of my filly's love: I think she will be ruled
In all respects by me; neigh, more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;
Acquaint her here of my your love;
And bid her, Mark you me, on Whinnesday next-
But, soft! what day is this?

BLUEBLOOD

Lunday, my lord,

APPLE

Lunday! ha, ha! Well, Whinnesday is too soon,
O' Thorseday let it be: o' Thorseday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? do you like this haste?
We'll keep no great ado,-a friend or two;
For, hark you, Tybuck being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinspony, if we revel much:
Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thorseday?

BLUEBLOOD

My lord, I would that Thorseday were to-morrow.

APPLE

Well get you gone: o' Thorseday be it, then.
Go you to Jewellette ere you go to bed,
Prepare her, mare, against this wedding-day.
Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me! it is so very very late,
That we may call it early by and by.
Good night.

Exeunt

SCENE V. Apple's orchard.

Enter RODEO and JEWELLETTE above, at the window

JEWELLETTE

Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

RODEO

It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JEWELLETTE

Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that Celestia exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Pontua:
Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.

RODEO

Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay than will to go:
Come, death, and welcome! Jewellette wills it so.
How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.

JEWELLETTE

It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh Discord and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,
O, now I would they had changed voices too!
Since hoof from hoofthat voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,
O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.

RODEO

More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!

Enter Nurse, to the chamber

Nurse

Madam!

JEWELLETTE

Nurse?

Nurse

Your dam is coming to your chamber:
The day is broke; be wary, look about.

Exit

JEWELLETTE

Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

RODEO

Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.

He goeth down

JEWELLETTE

Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, stallion, friend!
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days:
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Rodeo!

RODEO

Farewell!
I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

JEWELLETTE

O think'st thou we shall ever meet again?

RODEO

I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.

JEWELLETTE

O Celest', I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.

RODEO

And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!

Exit

JEWELLETTE

O fortune, fortune! all ponies call thee fickle:
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.
That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back.

LADY APPLE

[Within] Ho, filly! are you up?

JEWELLETTE

Who is't that calls? is it my dam?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?

Enter LADY APPLE

LADY APPLE

Why, how now, Jewellette!

JEWELLETTE

My dam, I am not well.

LADY APPLE

Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

JEWELLETTE

Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

LADY APPLE

So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.

JEWELLETTE

Feeling so the loss,
Cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

LADY APPLE

Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,
As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.

JEWELLETTE

What villain my dam?

LADY APPLE

That same villain, Rodeo.

JEWELLETTE

[Aside] Villain and he be many miles asunder.-
Celest' Pardon him! I do, with all my heart;
And yet no pony like he doth grieve my heart.

LADY APPLE

That is, because the traitor murderer lives.

JEWELLETTE

Ay, my dam, from the reach of these my hooves:
Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!

LADY APPLE

We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:
Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Pontua,
Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,
That he shall soon keep Tybuck company:
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

JEWELLETTE

Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Rodeo, till I behold him-dead-
Is my poor heart for a kinspony vex'd.
My dam, if you could find out but a pony
To bear a poison, I would temper it;
That Rodeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him named, and cannot come to him.
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that slaughter'd him!

LADY APPLE

Find thou the means, and I'll find such a pony.
But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, filly.

JEWELLETTE

And joy comes well in such a needy time:
What are they, I beseech your mareship?

LADY APPLE

Well, well, thou hast a careful sire, my foal;
One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expect'st not nor I look'd not for.

JEWELLETTE

My dam, in happy time, what day is that?

LADY APPLE

Marry, my child, early next Thorseday morn,
The gallant, young and noble gentlecolt,
The Prince Blueblood, at Saint Nickel Hoove's Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JEWELLETTE

Now, by Saint Nickel Hoove's Church and Nickel Hooves too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste; that I must wed
Ere he, that should be stallion, comes to woo.
I pray you, tell my lord and sire, my dam,
I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,
It shall be Rodeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Blueblood. These are news indeed!

LADY APPLE

Here comes your sire; tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hooves.

Enter APPLE and Nurse

APPLE

When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother's son
It rains downright.
How now! a conduit, filly? what, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind;
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;
Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,
Without a sudden calm, will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!
Have you deliver'd to her our decree?

LADY APPLE

Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave!

APPLE

Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.
How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?
Is she not proud? doth she not count her blest,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentlecolt to be her bridegroom?

JEWELLETTE

Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:
Proud can I never be of what I hate;
But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.

APPLE

How now, how now, clop-logic! What is this?
'Proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I thank you not;'
And yet 'not proud,' maretress minion, you,
Thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thorseday next,
To go with Blueblood to Nickel Hoove's Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!
You tallow-face!

LADY APPLE

Fie, fie! what, are you mad?

JEWELLETTE

Good sire, I beseech you on my hooves,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

APPLE

Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thorseday,
Or never after look me in the face:
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
My hooves itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
That Celest' had lent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her:
Out on her, hilding!

Nurse

Celest' in heaven bless her!
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

APPLE

And why, my mare wisdom? hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

Nurse

I speak no treason.

APPLE

O, Celest' ye god-den.

Nurse

May not one speak?

APPLE

Peace, you mumbling foal!
Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;
For here we need it not.

LADY APPLE

You are too hot.

APPLE

Celest's bread! it makes me mad:
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match'd: and having now provided
A gentlecolt of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a horse;
And then to have a wretched puling foal,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,
I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'
But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
Graze where you will you shall not stable with me:
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thorseday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in
the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.

Exit

JEWELLETTE

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O, sweet my dam, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybuck lies.

LADY APPLE

Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

Exit

JEWELLETTE

O Celest'!-O nurse, how shall this be prevented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself!
What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, nurse.

Nurse

Faith, here it is.
Rodeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,
That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the prince.
O, he's a lovely gentlecolt!
Rodeo's a dishclout to him: a griffon,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Blueblood hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.

JEWELLETTE

Speakest thou from thy heart?

Nurse

And from my soul too;
Or else beshrew them both.

JEWELLETTE

Amen!

Nurse

What?

JEWELLETTE

Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in: and tell my dam I am gone,
Having displeased my sire, to Laurence' cell,
To make confession and to be absolved.

Nurse

Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

Exit

JEWELLETTE

Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath praised him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor;
Thou and my flank henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy:
If all else fail, myself have power to die.

Exit