The Country Wife

Full Text and Introduction (NHB Drama Classics)

William Wycherley

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781854592255
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780016801
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price

A classically bawdy Restoration Comedy, widely regarded as one of the filthiest and funniest plays ever written.

The City of London in the seventeenthcentury. Harry Horner wants to seduce as many women as possible, but he needs to convince their husbands that he's physically incapable of any such thing.Cannily, his faux impotence also allows him to sniff out and unmask those respectably virtuous ladies who secretly ache for him.

William Wycherley's The Country Wife was first performed in January 1675, by the King's Company, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Act IV, Scene i

In PINCHWIFE’s house in the morning. LUCY, ALITHEA dressed in new clothes.

LUCY. Well, madam, now have I dressed you, and set you out with so many ornaments, and spent upon you ounces of essence and pulvilio; and all this for no other purpose but as people adorn and perfume a corpse for a stinking second-hand grave; such or as bad I think Master Sparkish’s bed.

ALITHEA. Hold your peace.

LUCY. Nay, madam, I will ask you the reason why you would banish poor Master Harcourt for ever from your sight? How could you be so hard-hearted?

ALITHEA. ’Twas because I was not hard-hearted.

LUCY. No, no; ’twas stark love and kindness, I warrant.

ALITHEA. It was so; I would see him no more because I love him.

LUCY. Hey-day, a very pretty reason!

ALITHEA. You do not understand me.

LUCY. I wish you may yourself.

ALITHEA. I was engaged to marry, you see, another man, whom my justice will not suffer me to deceive or injure.

LUCY. Can there be a greater cheat or wrong done to a man than to give him your person without your heart? I should make a conscience of it.

ALITHEA. I’ll retrieve it for him after I am married a while.

LUCY. The woman that marries to love better will be as much mistaken as the wencher that marries to live better. No, madam, marrying to increase love is like gaming to become rich; alas, you only lose what little stock you had before.

ALITHEA. I find by your rhetoric you have been bribed to betray me.

LUCY. Only by his merit, that has bribed your heart, you see, against your word and rigid honour. But what a devil is this honour? ’Tis sure a disease in the head, like the megrim, or falling sickness, that always hurries people away to do themselves mischief. Men lose their lives by it; women what’s dearer to ’em, their love, the life of life.

ALITHEA. Come, pray talk you no more of honour, nor Master Harcourt. I wish the other would come to secure my fidelity to him and his right in me.

LUCY. You will marry him then?

ALITHEA. Certainly. I have given him already my word, and will my hand too, to make it good, when he comes.

LUCY. Well, I wish I may never stick pin more if he be not an arrant natural to t’other fine gentleman.

ALITHEA. I own he wants the wit of Harcourt, which I will dispense withal for another want he has, which is want of jealousy which men of wit seldom want.

LUCY. Lord, madam, what should you do with a fool to your husband? You intend to be honest, don’t you? Then that husbandly virtue, credulity, is thrown away upon you.

ALITHEA. He only that could suspect my virtue should have cause to do it. ’Tis Sparkish’s confidence in my truth that obliges me to be so faithful to him.

LUCY. You are not sure his opinion may last.

ALITHEA. I am satisfied ’tis impossible for him to be jealous after the proofs I have had of him. Jealousy in a husband – heaven defend me from it! It begets a thousand plagues to a poor woman, the loss of her honour, her quiet, and her –

LUCY. And her pleasure.

ALITHEA. What d’ye mean, impertinent?

LUCY. Liberty is a great pleasure, madam.

ALITHEA. I say, loss of her honour, her quiet, nay, her life sometimes; and what’s as bad almost, the loss of this town; that is, she is sent into the country, which is the last ill usage of a husband to a wife, I think.

LUCY (aside). Oh, does the wind lie there? – Then of necessity, madam, you think a man must carry his wife into the country, if he be wise. The country is as terrible, I find, to our young English ladies as a monastery to those abroad; and on my virginity, I think they would rather marry a London jailer than a high sheriff of a county, since neither can stir from his employment. Formerly women of wit married fools for a great estate, a fine seat, or the like; but now ’tis for a pretty seat only in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, St James’s Fields, or the Pall Mall.

Enter to them SPARKISH, and HARCOURT dressed like a parson.

SPARKISH. Madam, your humble servant, a happy day to you, and to us all.

HARCOURT. Amen.

ALITHEA. Who have we here?

SPARKISH. My chaplain, faith. O madam, poor Harcourt remembers his humble service to you, and in obedience to your last commands, refrains coming into your sight.

ALITHEA. Is not that he?

SPARKISH. No, fie, no; but to show that he ne’er intended to hinder our match, has sent his brother here to join our hands. When I get a wife, I must get her a chaplain, according to the custom. This is his brother, and my chaplain.

ALITHEA His brother?

LUCY (aside). And your chaplain, to preach in your pulpit, then!

ALITHEA. His brother!

SPARKISH. Nay, I knew you would not believe it. – I told you, sir, she would take you for your brother Frank.

ALITHEA. Believe it!

LUCY (aside). His brother! ha, ha, he! He has a trick left still, it seems.

SPARKISH. Come, my dearest, pray let us go to church before the canonical hour is past.

ALITHEA. For shame, you are abused still.

SPARKISH. By the world, ’tis strange now you are so incredulous.

ALITHEA. ’Tis strange you are so credulous.

SPARKISH. Dearest of my life, hear me. I tell you this is Ned Harcourt of Cambridge, by the world; you see he has a sneaking college look. ’Tis true he’s something like his brother Frank, and they differ from each other no more than in their age, for they were twins.

LUCY. Ha, ha, he!

ALITHEA. Your servant, sir; I cannot be so deceived, though you are. But come, let’s hear, how do you know what you affirm so confidently?

SPARKISH. Why, I’ll tell you all. Frank Harcourt, coming to me this morning to wish me joy and present his service to you, I asked him if he could help me to a parson; whereupon he told me he had a brother in town who was in orders, and he went straight away and sent him, you see there, to me.

ALITHEA. Yes, Frank goes and puts on a black coat, then tells you he is Ned; that’s all you have for’t!

SPARKISH. Pshaw, Pshaw! I tell you by the same token, the midwife put her garter about Frank’s neck to know ’em asunder, they were so like.

ALITHEA. Frank tells you this too?

SPARKISH. Ay, and Ned there too; nay, they are both in a story.

ALITHEA. So, so; very foolish.

SPARKISH. Lord, if you won’t believe one, you had best try him by your chambermaid there; for chambermaids must needs know chaplains from other men, they are so used to ’em.

LUCY. Let’s see; nay, I’ll be sworn he has the canonical smirk, and the filthy, clammy palm of a chaplain.

ALITHEA. Well, most reverend doctor, pray let us make an end of this fooling.

HARCOURT. With all my soul, divine, heavenly creature, when you please.

ALITHEA. He speaks like a chaplain indeed.

SPARKISH. Why, was there not ‘soul’, ‘divine’, ‘heavenly’ in what he said.

ALITHEA. Once more, impertinent black coat, cease your persecution, and let us have a conclusion of this ridiculous love.

HARCOURT (aside). I had forgot; I must suit my style to my coat, or I wear it in vain.

ALITHEA. I have no more patience left. Let us make once an end of this troublesome love, I say.

HARCOURT. So be it, seraphic lady, when your honour shall think it meet and convenient to do so.

SPARKISH. Gad, I’m sure none but a chaplain could speak so, I think.

ALITHEA. Let me tell you, sir, this dull trick will not serve your turn. Though you delay our marriage, you shall not hinder it.

HARCOURT. Far be it from me, munificent patroness, to delay your marriage. I desire nothing more than to marry you presently, which I might do, if you yourself would; for my noble, good-natured and thrice generous patron here would not hinder it.

SPARKISH. No, poor man, not I, faith.

HARCOURT. And now, madam, let me tell you plainly, nobody else shall marry you. By heavens, I’ll die first, for I’m sure I should die after it.

LUCY (aside). How his love has made him forget his function, as I have seen it in real parsons!

ALITHEA. That was spoken like a chaplain too! Now you understand him, I hope.

SPARKISH. Poor man, he takes it heinously to be refused. I can’t blame him, ’tis putting an indignity upon him not to be suffered. But you’ll pardon me, madam, it shan’t be, he shall marry us. Come away, pray, madam.

LUCY (aside). Ha, ha, he! More ado! ’Tis late.

ALITHEA. Invincible stupidity! I tell you he would marry me as your rival, not as your chaplain.

SPARKISH (pulling her away). Come, come, madam.

LUCY. I pray, madam, do not refuse this reverend divine the honour and satisfaction of marrying you; for I dare say he has set his heart upon’t, good doctor.

ALITHEA. What can you hope or design by this?

HARCOURT (aside). I could answer her; a reprieve, for a day only, often revokes a hasty doom. At worst, if she will not take mercy on me and let me marry her, I have at least...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• For Further Reading
• Wycherley: Key Dates
• Dramatis Personae
• Prologue
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Act Four
• Act Five
• Epilogue
• Glossary
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information