You'll bring your head within a coc...

The Alchemist

Dol Common

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You'll bring your head within

a cockscomb, will you?

And you, sir, with your menstrue—

[DASHES SUBTLE'S VIAL OUT OF HIS HAND.]

Gather it up.—

'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,

Leave off your barking, and grow one again,

Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats.

I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal,

For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.

Have you together cozen'd all this while,

And all the world, and shall it now be said,

You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?

[TO FACE.]

You will accuse him! you will "bring him in

Within the statute!" Who shall take your word?

A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,

Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust

So much as for a feather:

[TO SUBTLE.]

and you, too,

Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult,

And claim a primacy in the divisions!

You must be chief! as if you only had

The powder to project with, and the work

Were not begun out of equality?

The venture tripartite? all things in common?

Without priority? 'Sdeath! you perpetual curs,

Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,

And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,

And lose not the beginning of a term,

Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,

And take my part, and quit you.

Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Project Gutenberg [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4081/4081-h/4081-h.htm#link2H40008]

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