PILIA-BORZA. This is the gentleman you writ to.
ITHAMORE. Gentleman! he flouts me: what gentry can be in a poor Turk of tenpence?(151) I'll be gone. [Aside.]
BELLAMIRA. Is't not a sweet-faced youth, Pilia?
ITHAMORE. Again, sweet youth! [Aside.]--Did not you, sir, bring the sweet youth a letter?
PILIA-BORZA. I did, sir, and from this gentlewoman, who, as myself and the rest of the family, stand or fall at your service.
BELLAMIRA. Though woman's modesty should hale me back, I can withhold no longer: welcome, sweet love.
ITHAMORE. Now am I clean, or rather foully, out of the way. [Aside.]
BELLAMIRA. Whither so soon?
ITHAMORE. I'll go steal some money from my master to make me handsome [Aside].--Pray, pardon me; I must go see a ship discharged.
BELLAMIRA. Canst thou be so unkind to leave me thus?
PILIA-BORZA. An ye did but know how she loves you, sir!
ITHAMORE. Nay, I care not how much she loves me.--Sweet Bellamira, would I had my master's wealth for thy sake!
PILIA-BORZA. And you can have it, sir, an if you please.
ITHAMORE. If 'twere above ground, I could, and would have it; but he hides and buries it up, as partridges do their eggs, under the earth.
PILIA-BORZA. And is't not possible to find it out?
ITHAMORE. By no means possible.
BELLAMIRA. What shall we do with this base villain, then? [Aside to PILIA-BORZA.]
PILIA-BORZA. Let me alone; do but you speak him fair.-- [Aside to her.] But you know(152) some secrets of the Jew, Which, if they were reveal'd, would do him harm.
ITHAMORE. Ay, and such as--go to, no more! I'll make him(153) send me half he has, and glad he scapes so too: I'll write unto him; we'll have money straight.
PILIA-BORZA. Send for a hundred crowns at least.
ITHAMORE. Ten hundred thousand crowns.--[writing] MASTER BARABAS,--
PILIA-BORZA. Write not so submissively, but threatening him.
ITHAMORE. [writing] SIRRAH BARABAS, SEND ME A HUNDRED CROWNS.
PILIA-BORZA. Put in two hundred at least.
ITHAMORE. [writing] I CHARGE THEE SEND ME THREE HUNDRED BY THIS BEARER, AND THIS SHALL BE YOUR WARRANT: IF YOU DO NOT--NO MORE, BUT SO.
PILIA-BORZA. Tell him you will confess.
ITHAMORE. [writing] OTHERWISE I'LL CONFESS ALL.-- Vanish, and return in a twinkle.
PILIA-BORZA. Let me alone; I'll use him in his kind.
ITHAMORE. Hang him, Jew! [Exit PILIA-BORZA with the letter.]
BELLAMIRA. Now, gentle Ithamore, lie in my lap.-- Where are my maids? provide a cunning(154) banquet; Send to the merchant, bid him bring me silks; Shall Ithamore, my love, go in such rags?
ITHAMORE. And bid the jeweller come hither too.
BELLAMIRA. I have no husband; sweet, I'll marry thee.
ITHAMORE. Content: but we will leave this paltry land, And sail from hence to Greece, to lovely Greece;-- I'll be thy Jason, thou my golden fleece;-- Where painted carpets o'er the meads are hurl'd, And Bacchus' vineyards overspread the world; Where woods and forests go in goodly green;-- I'll be Adonis, thou shalt be Love's Queen;-- The meads, the orchards, and the primrose-lanes, Instead of sedge and reed, bear sugar-canes: Thou in those groves, by Dis above, Shalt live with me, and be my love.(155)
BELLAMIRA. Whither will I not go with gentle Ithamore?
Re-enter PILIA-BORZA.
ITHAMORE. How now! hast thou the gold(?)
PILIA-BORZA. Yes.
ITHAMORE. But came it freely? did the cow give down her milk freely?
PILIA-BORZA. At reading of the letter, he stared and stamped, and turned aside: I took him by the beard,(156) and looked upon him thus; told him he were best to send it: then he hugged and embraced me.
ITHAMORE. Rather for fear than love.
PILIA-BORZA. Then, like a Jew, he laughed and jeered, and told me he loved me for your sake, and said what a faithful servant you had been.
ITHAMORE. The more villain he to keep me thus: here's goodly 'parel, is there not?
PILIA-BORZA. To conclude, he gave me ten crowns. [Delivers the money to ITHAMORE.]
ITHAMORE. But ten? I'll not leave him worth a grey groat.