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If he were here now, by this welkin, I would not draw my weapon on him. Let this gentleman do his mind; but I will bastinado him, by the bright sun, wherever I meet him. MATTHEW. Faith, and I'll have a fling at him, at my distance. DOWNRIGHT. What peevish luck have I, I cannot meet with these bragging rascals? BOBADILL. It is not he, is it? EDWARD KNOWELL. Yes, faith, it is he.
MATTHEW. I'll be hanged then if that were he. EDWARD KNOWELL. Sir, keep your hanging good for some greater matter, for I assure you that was he. STEPHEN. Upon my reputation, it was he. BOBADILL. Had I thought it had been he, he must not have gone so. But I can hardly be induced to believe it was he yet. DOWNRIGHT. O, Pharaoh's foot, have I found you? Come, draw, to your tools.
Draw, gipsy, or I'll thrash you. BOBADILL. Gentlemen of valour, I do believe in thee. Hear me DOWNRIGHT. Draw your weapon then. BOBADILL. Tall man, I never thought on it till now Body of me, I had a warrant of the peace served on me, even now as I came along, by a water-bearer. This gentleman saw it, Master Matthew. MATTHEW runs away. BOBADILL. Hold! hold! under thy favour forbear.
DOWNRIGHT. Prate again, as you like this, you foist* you. Your consort is gone. BOBADILL. Well, gentlemen, bear witness, I was bound to the peace, by this good day. EDWARD KNOWELL. No, fait, it's an ill day, Captain, never reckon it other. But, say you were bound to the peace, the law allows you to defend yourself. That will prove but a poor excuse. BOBADILL. I cannot tell, sir.
Yet, in Every Man in His Humour there is at least one character worthy to live beside Shakespeare's, and that is the blustering, boastful Captain Bobadill. He talks very grandly, but when it comes to fighting, he thinks it best to run away and live to fight another day. If only to know Captain Bobadill it will repay you to read Every Man in His Humour when you grow up.
Here is a scene in which he shows his "humor" delightfully: "BOBADILL. I am a gentleman, and live here obscure, and to myself.
EDWARD KNOWELL. Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive. BOBADILL. Why thus, sir. I would select nineteen more, to myself, throughout the land. Gentlemen, they should be of good spirit, strong and able constitution. I would choose them by an instinct, a character that I have.
In Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, and in Ben Jonson's The Case is Altered, mention is made of the Italian improvised comedy, and a few of the well-known types of character in the dramatic literature of the time bear distinct traces of having been influenced by Italian masks, e.g., Ralph Roister Doister in Udall's comedy of that name; as well as the splendid Captain Bobadill and his no less amusing companion, Captain Tucca, in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour and The Poetaster, all of which are reproductions of the typical capitano.
BOBADILL. Tut! never miss thrust, upon my reputation with you. EDWARD KNOWELL. I would not stand in Downright's state then, an you meet him, for the wealth of any one street in London." *This and the following are names of various passes and thrusts used in fencing. Punto is a direct hit, reverso a backward blow, and so on. "BOBADILL. Why, sir, you mistake me.
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