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till none knows its lean old carcass.
- That is just what you've been doing,
- vamping up things, wild and grand,
- garnishing with eagles' backs
- and with all the other horrors,
- lying right and lying left,
- filling me with speechless dread,
- till at last I recognised not
- what of old I'd heard and known!
PEER
- If another talked like that
- I'd half kill him for his pains.
ASE [weeping].
- Oh, would God I lay a corpse;
- would the black earth held me sleeping!
- Prayers and tears don't bite upon him.-
- Peer, you're lost, and ever will be!
PEER
- Darling, pretty little mother,
- you are right in every word;-
- don't be cross, be happy-
ASE
- Silence!
- Could I, if I would, be happy,
- with a pig like you for son?
- Think how bitter I must find it,
- I, a poor defenceless widow,
- ever to be put to shame!
- [Weeping again.]
- How much have we now remaining
- from your grandsire's days of glory
