PURE. What shall we do? Call our zealous brother Busy hither, for his faithful fortification in this charge of the adversary. [_Exit Littlewit._] Child, my dear child, you shall eat pig; be comforted, my sweet child.
PURE. I mean in the Fair, if it can be any way made or found lawful.--
Where is our brother Busy? will he not come? Look up, child.
LIT. Presently, mother, as soon as he has cleansed his beard. I found him fast by the teeth in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right.
PURE. Slander not the brethren, wicked one.
PURE. O brother Busy! your help here, to edify and raise us up in a scruple: my daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural disease of women, called a longing to eat pig.
LIT. Ay, sir, a Bartholomew pig; and in the Fair.
PURE. And I would be satisfied from you, religiously-wise, whether a widow of the sanctified assembly, or a widow's daughter, may commit the act without offence to the weaker sisters.
BUSY. Verily, for the disease of longing, it is a disease, a carnal disease, or appetite, incident to women; and as it is carnal and incident, it is natural, very natural: now pig, it is a meat, and a meat that is nourishing and may be longed for, and so consequently eaten; it may be eaten; very exceeding well eaten; but in the Fair, and as a Bartholomew pig, it cannot be eaten; for the very calling it a Bartholomew pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry, and you make the Fair no better than one of the high-places. This, I take it, is the state of the question: a high-place.
LIT. Ay, but in state of necessity, place should give place, master Busy. I have a conceit left yet.
PURE. Good brother Zeal-of-the-land, think to make it as lawful as you can.
LIT. Yes, sir, and as soon as you can; for it must be, sir: you see the danger my little wife is in, sir.
PURE. Truly, I do love my child dearly, and I would not have her miscarry, or hazard her firstfruits, if it might be otherwise.
BUSY. Surely, it may be otherwise, but it is subject to construction, subject, and hath a face of offence with the weak, a great face, a foul face; but that face may have a veil put over it, and be shadowed as it were; it may be eaten, and in the Fair, I take it, in a booth, the tents of the wicked: the place is not much, not very much, we may be religious in the midst of the profane, so it be eaten with a reformed mouth, with sobriety and humbleness; not gorged in with gluttony or greediness, there's the fear: for, should she go there, as taking pride in the place, or delight in the unclean dressing, to feed the vanity of the eye, or lust of the palate, it were not well, it were not fit, it were abominable, and not good.