First Line Friday – Lovers’ Vows

LOVERS’ VOWS

ACT I.

SCENE I. A high road, a town at a
distance–A small inn on one side of
the road–A cottage on the other.

The LANDLORD of the inn leads
AGATHA by the hand out of his house.

LANDLORD.  No, no!  no room for you any longer–It is the fair to-day
in the next village; as great a fair as any in the German dominions.
The country people with their wives and children take up every corner
we have.

AGATHA.  You will turn a poor sick woman out of doors who has spent her
last farthing in your house.

LANDLORD.  For that very reason; because she _has_ spent her last
farthing.

AGATHA.  I can work.

LANDLORD.  You can hardly move your hands.

AGATHA.  My strength will come again.

LANDLORD.  Then _you_ may come again.

AGATHA.  What am I to do?  Where shall I go?

LANDLORD.  It is fine weather–you may go any where.

AGATHA.  Who will give me a morsel of bread to satisfy my hunger?

LANDLORD.  Sick people eat but little.

AGATHA.  Hard, unfeeling man, have pity.

LANDLORD.  When times are hard, pity is too expensive for a poor man.
Ask alms of the different people that go by.

AGATHA.  Beg!  I would rather starve.

– Lovers’ Vows by Elizabeth Inchbald

Full text can be found on Project Gutenberg

More information about the play can be found on Wikipedia