PAGE.
How fares my noble lord?
SLY.
Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?
PAGE.
Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her?
SLY.
Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?
My men should call me lord: I am your goodman.
PAGE.
My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
I am your wife in all obedience.
SLY.
I know it well. What must I call her?
LORD.
Madam.
SLY.
Al'ce madam, or Joan madam?
LORD.
Madam, and nothing else; so lords call ladies.
SLY.
Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd
And slept above some fifteen year or more.
PAGE.
Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon'd from your bed.
SLY.
'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.
PAGE.
Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two;
Or, if not so, until the sun be set:
For your physicians have expressly charg'd,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed:
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.
