Michael: But who is this? the painter, m...
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- Male: 2
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Context
Michael, the Ardens’ servant, and Clarke, a local painter and chemist, have both been promised the hand in marriage of Susan, Mosby’s sister. In return, both men have agreed to be accomplices to the murder of Thomas Arden. They are aware of each other’s admiration of Susan, but do not realize that they are being double-crossed. Nonetheless, the two men are intensely jealous of each other, and finally come face to face. Their tense meeting results in violence, with Michael knocked to the ground.
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Michael: But who is this? the painter, my corrival, that would needs win Mistress Susan.
Clarke: How now, Michael? how doth my mistress and all at home?
Michael: Who? Susan Mosby? she is your mistress, too?
Clarke: Ay, how doth she and all the rest?
Michael: All’s well but Susan; she is sick.
Clarke: Sick? Of what disease?
Michael: Of a great fever.
Clarke: A fear of what?
Michael: A great fever.
Clarke: A fever? God forbid!
Michael: Yes, faith, and of a lordaine, too, as big as yourself.
Clarke: O, Michael, the spleen prickles you. Go to,you carry an eye over Mistress Susan.
Michael: I’ faith, to keep her from the painter.
Clarke: Why more from a painter than from a serving creature like yourself?
Michael: Because you painters make but a painting table of a pretty wench, and spoil her beauty with blotting.
Clarke: What mean you by that?
Michael: Why, that you painters paint lambs in the lining of wenches’ petticoats, and we serving-men put horns to them to make them become sheep.
Clarke: Such another word will cost you a cuff or a knock.
Michael: What, with a dagger made of a pencil? Faith,’tis too weak, and therefore thou too weak to win Susan.
Clarke: Would Susan’s love lay upon this stroke.
[Then he breaks Michael’s head.]
Anonymous, Arden of Faversham, Scene 10, ll.47-72.
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