Bluegrass monologue (Act 5) — The Merchant Prince of Cornville: A Comedy

Friends, have you no philopena? Give me no pill of iron. May you ne’er sleep with down within your pillow! Oh! put me in a pillory, but put no pill in me. Oh! [_They succeed in giving him a pill._] I’m pilled; the iron has entered my system; how very hard I’ll soon lie down upon my little pillow. And thou, hard Whetstone, thus to sharpen Scythe to mow me down! Cæsar was stabbed by the iron daggers of the conspirators, but I am slugged by an iron bolus from the hands of my friends. This is ironical. Alas! I am a pundit; for as a typical representative of the pun, e’en while the iron was in my heart I have doubly punn’d it.