POËTASTER, OR His Arraignment. A Comical Satire. Acted, in the year 1601. By the then Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel.  
The Author B. I.  MART. 
Et mihi de nullo fama rubore placet.  
LONDON, Printed by WILLIAM STANSBY, for Matthew Lownes.  
MDCXVI XVI.   

TO THE virtuous, AND MY WORTHY FRIEND, Mr. Richard Martin.  
SIr, A thankful man owes a courtesy ever: the unthankful, but when he needs it. To make mine own mark appear, and show by which of these seals I am known, I send you this piece of what may live of mine; for whose innocence, as for the Authors, you were once a noble and timely undertaker, to the greatest justice of this kingdom. Enjoy now the delight of your goodness; which is to see that prosper, you preserved: and posterity to owe the reading of that, without offence, to your name; which so much ignorance, and malice of the times, then conspired to have suppressed.  
Your true lover, BEN JONSON.   

The Persons of the Play.  

AUGUSTUS CAESAR.  
Maecenas.  
MARC. OVID.  
COR. GALLUS.  
PROPERTIUS.  
FVS. ARISTUS.  
PVB. OVID.  
VIRGIL.  
HORACE.  
TREBATIUS.  
LUPUS.  
TUCCA.  
CRISPINUS.  
HERMOGENES.  
DE. FANNIUS.  
ALBIUS.  
MINOS.  
HISTRIO.  
PYRGUS.  
LICTORS.  
JULIA.  
CYTHERIS.  
PLAUTIA.  
CHLOE.  
maids.   
THE SCENE. ROME.   

POETASTER.  

After the second sounding.  envy. 
LIght, Arising in the midst of the stage. I salute thee, but with wounded nerves:  
Wishing thy golden splendour, pitchy darkness.  
What's here? TH'ARRAIGNMENT? I: This, this is it,  
That our sunk eyes have waked for, all this while:  
Here will be subject for my snakes, and me.  
Cling to my neck, and wrists, my loving worms,  
And cast you round, in soft, and amorous folds,  
Till I do bid, uncurl: Then, break your knots,  
Shoot out yourselves at length, as your forced stings  
Would hide themselves within his maliced sides,  
To whom I shall apply you. Stay! the shine  
Of this assembly here offends my sight,  
I'll darken that first, and outface their grace.  
Wonder not, if I stare: these fifteen weeks  
(So long as since the plot was but an embryon)  
Have I, with burning lights, mixed vigilant thoughts,  
In expectation of this hated play:  
To which (at last) I am arrived as Prologue.  
Nor would I, you should look for other looks,  
Gesture, or compliment from me, then what  
Th'infected bulk of envy can afford:  
For I am risse here with a covetous hope,  
To blast your pleasures, and destroy your sports,  
With wrestings, comments, applications,  
spy-like suggestions, privy whisperings,  
And thousand such promoting sleights as these.  
Mark, how I will begin: The Scene is, ha!  
ROME? ROME? and ROME? Crack eye-strings, and your balls  
Drop into earth; let me be ever blind.  
I am prevented; all my hopes are crossed,  
Checked, and abated; fie, a freezing sweat  
Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn:  
What should I do? ROME? ROME? O my vexed soul,  
How might I force this to the present state?  
Are there no players here? no poet-apes,  
That come with basilisks eyes, whose forked tongues  
Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall?  
Either of these would help me; they could wrest,  
Pervert, and poison all they hear, or see,  
With senseless glosses, and allusions.  
Now if you be good devils, fly me not.  
You know what dear, and ample faculties  
I have endowed you with: I'll lend you more.  
Here, take my snakes among you, come, and eat,  
And while the squeezed juice flows in your black jaws,  
Help me to damn the Author. Spit it forth  
Upon his lines, and show your rusty teeth  
At every word, or accent: or else choose  
Out of my longest vipers, to stick down  
In your deep throats; and let the heads come forth  
At your rank mouths; that he may see you armed  
With triple malice, to hiss, sting, and tear  
His work, and him; to forge, and then declaim,  
Traduce, corrupt, apply, inform, suggest:  
O, these are gifts wherein your souls are blessed.  
What? do you hide yourselves? will none appear?  
None answer? what, doth this calm troop affright you?  
Nay, than I do despair: down, sink again.  
This travail is all lost with my dead hopes.  
If in such bosoms, spite have left to dwell,  
Envy is not on earth, nor scarce in hell.   

The third sounding. prologue.  
STay, Monster, ere thou sink, thus on thy head  
Set we our bolder foot; with which we tread  
Thy malice into earth: So spite should die,  
Despised and scorned by noble industry.  
If any muse why I salute the stage,  
An armed Prologue; know, 't is a dangerous age:  
Wherein, who writes, had need present his Scenes  
forty sold proof against the conjuring means  
Of base detractors, and illiterate apes,  
That fill up rooms in fair and formal shapes.  
'Gainst these, have we put on this forc't defence:  
Whereof the allegory and hid sense  
Is, that a well erected confidence  
Can fright their pride, and laugh their folly hence.  
Here now, put case our Author should, once more,  
Swear that his play were good; he doth implore,  
You would not argue him of arrogance:  
howe'er that common spawn of ignorance,  
Our fry of writers, may beslime his fame,  
And give his action that adulterate name.  
Such full-blown vanity he more doth loath,  
Then base dejection: There's a mean twixt both.  
Which with a constant firmness he pursues,  
As one, that knows the strength of his own muse.  
And this he hopes all free souls will allow,  
Others, that take it with a rugged brow,  
Their moods he rather pities, then envies:  
His mind it is above their injuries.    


Act I. Scene I.  OVID, LUSCUS. 
THen, when this body falls in funeral fire,  
My name shall live, and my best part aspire.  
It shall go so.  LVSC. 
Young master, master OVID, do you hear? gods a me! away with your songs, and sonnets; and on with your gown and cap, quickly: here, here, your father will be a man of this room presently. Come, nay, nay, nay, nay, be brief. These verses too, a poison on 'em, I cannot abide 'em, they make me ready to cast, by the banks of helicon. Nay look, what a rascally untoward thing this poetry is; I could tear 'em now.  OVID. 
Give me, how near's my father?  LVSC. 
Heart a'man: get a lawbook in your hand, I will not answer you else. Why so: now there's some formality in you. By JOVE, and three or four of the gods more, I am right of mine old master's humour for that; this villainous poetry will undo you, by the welkin.  OVID. 
What, hast thou buskins on, LUSCUS, that thou swearest so tragically, and high?  LVSC. 
No, but I have boots on, sir, and so has your father too by this time: for he called for 'em, ere I came from the lodging.  OVID. 
Why? was he no readier?  LVSC. 
O no; and there was the mad skeldring captain, with the velvet arms, ready to lay hold on him as he comes down: he that presses every man he meets, with an oath, to lend him money, and cries; (Thou must do't, old boy, as thou art a man, a man of worship.)  OVID. 
Who? PANTILIUS TUCCA?  LVSC. 
ay, he: and I met little master LUPUS, the Tribune, going thither too.  OVID. 
Nay, and he be under their arrest, I may (with safety enough) read over my elegy, before he come.  LVSC. 
God's a me! what'll you do? why, young master, you are not castalian mad, lunatic, frantic, desperate? ha?  OVID. 
What ailest thou, LUSCUS?  LVSC. 
God be with you, sir, I'll leave you to your poetical fancies, and furies. I'll not be guilty, I.  OVID. 
Be not, good ignorance: I'm glad thouart gone:  
For thus alone, our ear shall better judge  
The hasty errors of our morning muse.  
Ovid Lib 1. Amo. Ele. 15. envy, why twit'st thou me, my time's spent ill?  
And call'st my verse, fruits of an idle quill?  
Or that (unlike the line from whence I sprung)  
Wars dusty honours I pursue not young?  
Or that I study not the tedious laws;  
And prostitute my voice to every cause?  
Thy scope is mortal; mine eternal fame:  
Which through the world shall ever chant my name.  
HOMER will live, whilst TENEDOS stands, and IDE,  
Or, to the sea, sleet SIMOIS doth slide:  
And so shall HESIOD too, while vines do bear,  
Or crooked sickles crop the ripened care.  
CALLIMACHUS, though in invention low,  
Shall still be sung: since he in art doth flow.  
No loss shall come to SOPHOCLES proud vain.  
With sun, and moon, ARATUS shall remain.  
Whilst slaves be false, father's hard, and bawds be whorish,  
Whilst harlots flatter, shall MENANDER flourish.  
ENNIUS, though rude, and ACCIUS high-reared strain,  
A fresh applause in every age shall gain.  
Of VARRO'S name, what ear shall not be told?  
Of jasons ARGO? and the fleece of gold?  
Then shall LUCRETIUS lofty numbers die,  
When earth, and seas in fire and flames shall fry.  
TYTIRUS, Tillage, AENEE shall be read,  
Whilst ROME of all the conquered world is head.  
Till Cupid's fires be out, and his bow broken,  
Thy verses (neat TIBULLUS) shall be spoken.  
Our GALLUS shall be known from east to west:  
So shall LYCORIS, whom he now loves best.  
The suffering ploughshare, or the flint may wear:  
But heavenly poesy no death can fear.  
king's shall give place to it, and kingly shows,  
The banks over which gold-bearing Tagus flows.  
Kneel hinds to trash: me let bright PHOEBUS swell,  
With cups full flowing from the MUSES well.  
Frost-fearing myrtle shall empale my head,  
And of sad lovers I'll be often read.  
"Envy, the living, not the dead, doth bite:  
" For after death all men receive their right.  
Then, when this body falls in funeral fire,  
My name shall live, and my best part aspire.   

Act I. Scene II.  OVID Senior, OVID junior, LUSCUS, TUCCA, LUPUS, PYRGUS. 
YOur name shall live indeed, sir; you say true: but how infamously, how scorned and contemned in the eyes and ears of the best and gravest Romans, that you think not on: you never so much as dream of that. Are these the fruits of all my travail and expenses? is this the scope and aim of thy studies? are these the hopeful courses, wherewith I have so long flattered my expectation from thee? verses? poetry? OVID, whom I thought to see the pleader, become OVID the playmaker?  OVID iu. 
No, sir.  OVID se. 
Yes, sir. I hear of a tragedy of yours coming forth for the common players there, called MEDEA. By my household-gods, if I come to the acting of it, I'll add one tragic part, more than is yet expected, to it: believe me when I promise it. What? shall I have my son a stager now? an ingle for players? a gull? a rook? a shot-clog? to make suppers, and be laughed at? PUBLIUS, I will set thee on the funeral pile, first.  OVID iu. 
Sir, I beseech you to have patience.  LVSC. 
Nay, this 'tis to have your ears dammed up to good counsel. I did augur all this to him aforehand, without poring into an ox's paunch for the matter, and yet he would not be scrupulous.  TVCC. 
How now, good man slave? what, roll powle? all rivals, rascal? why my Master, of worship, dost hear? Are these thy best projects? is this thy designs and thy discipline, to suffer knaves to be competitors with commanders and gentlemen? are we parallels, rascal? are we parallels?  OVID. se. 
Sirrah, go get my horses ready. You'll still be prating.  TVCC. 
Do, you perpetual stinkard, do, go, talk to tapsters and ostlers, you slave, they are i' your element, go: here be the emperors captains, you raggamuffin rascal; and not your comrades.  LVPV. 
Indeed, MARCUS OVID, these players are an idle generation, and do much harm in a state, corrupt young gentry very much, I know it: I have not been a Tribune thus long, and observed nothing: besides, they will rob us, us, that are magistrates, of our respect, bring us upon their stages, and make us ridiculous to the plebeians; they will play you, or me, the wisest men they can come by still; me: only to bring us in contempt with the vulgar, and make us cheap.  TVCC. 
thouart in the right, my venerable cropshin, they will indeed: the tongue of the oracle never twanged truer. Your courtier cannot kiss his mistress slippers, in quiet, for 'em: nor your white innocent gallant pawn his reveling suit, to make his punk a supper. An honest decayed commander, cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen in a bawdy house, but he shall be straight in one of their worm wood comedies. They are grown licentious, the rogues; libertines, flat libertines. They forget they are i' the statute, the rascals, they are blazoned there, there they are tricked, they and their pedigrees; they need no other heralds, I wiss.  OVID. se. 
methinks, if nothing else, yet this alone, the very reading of the public edicts should fright thee from commerce with them; and give thee distaste enough of their actions. But this betrays what a student you are: this argues your proficiency in the law.  OVID. iu. 
They wrong me, sir, and do abuse you more,  
That blow your ears with these untrue reports.  
I am not known unto the open stage,  
Nor do I traffic in their theatres.  
Indeed, I do acknowledge, at request  
Of some near friends, and honourable Romans,  
I have begun a poem of that nature.  OVID. se. 
You have, sir, a poem? and where is't? that's the law you study.  OVID. iu. 
CORNELIUS GALLUS borrowed it to read.  OVID. se. 
CORNELIUS GALLUS? There's another gallant, too, hath drunk of the same poison: and TIBULLUS, and PROPERTIUS. But these are gentlemen of means, and revenue now. Thou art a younger brother, and hast nothing, but thy bare exhibition: which I protest shall be bare indeed, if thou forsake not these unprofitable by-courses, and that timely too. Name me a professed poet, that his poetry did ever afford him so much as a competency. ay, your god of poets there (whom all of you admire and reverence so much) HOMER, he whose worm-eaten statue must not be spewed against, but with hallowed lips, and groveling adoration, what was he? what was he?  TVCC. 
marry, I'll tell thee, old swagger; He was a poor, blind, rhyming rascal, that lived obscurely up and down in booths, and tap-houses, and scarce ever made a good meal in his sleep, the whoreson hungry beggar.  OVID. se. 
He says well: Nay, I know this nettles you now, but answer me; Is't not true? you'll tell me his name shall live; and that (now being dead) his works have eternized him, and made him divine But could this divinity feed him, while he lived? could his name feast him?  TVCC. 
Or purchase him a senator's revenue? could it?  OVID. se. 
ay, or give him place in the commonwealth? worship, or attendants? make him be carried in his litter?  TVCC. 
Thou speakest sentences, old BIAS.  LVPV. 
All this the law will do, young sir, if you'll follow it.  OVID. se. 
If he be mine, he shall follow and observe, what I will apt him too, or, I profess here openly, and utterly to disclaim in him.  OVID. iu. 
Sir, let me crave you will, forego these moods;  
I will be any thing, or study any thing:  
I'll prove the unfashioned body of the law  
Pure elegance, and make her ruggedst strains  
Ruin smoothly, as PROPERTIUS elegies.  OVID. se. 
PROPERTIUS elegies? good!  LVPV. 
Nay, you take him too quickly, MARCUS.  OVID. se. 
Why, he cannot speak, he cannot think out of poetry, he is bewitched with it.  LVPV. 
Come, do not misprise him.  OVID. se. 
Misprise? ay, marry, I would have him use some such words now: They have some touch, some taste of the law. He should make himself a style out of these, and let his PROPERTIUS elegies go by.  LVPV. 
Indeed, young PUBLIUS, he that will now hit the mark, must shoot through the law we have no other planet reigns, & in that sphere, you may sit, and sing with angels. Why, the law makes a man happy, without respecting any other merit: a simple scholar, or none at all may be a lawyer.  TVCC. 
He tells thee true, my noble Neophyte; my little Grammaticaster, he does: It shall never put thee to thy Mathematics, metaphysics, Philosophy, and I know not what supposed sufficiencies; If thou canst but have the patience to plod enough, talk, and make noise enough, be impudent enough, and 'tis enough.  LVPV. 
Three books will furnish you.  TVCC. 
And the less art, the better: Besides, when it shall be in the power of thy chevril conscience, to do right, or wrong, at thy pleasure, my pretty ALCIBIADES.  LVPV. 
ay, and to have better men than himself, by many thousand degrees, to observe him, and stand bare.  TVCC. 
True, and he to carry himself proud, and stately, and have the law on his side for't, old boy.  OVID. se. 
Well, the day grows old, gentlemen, and I must leave you. PUBLIUS, if thou wilt hold my favour, abandon these idle fruitless studies that so bewitch thee. Send JANUS home his back-face again, and look only forward to the law: Intend that. I will allow thee, what shall suit thee in the rank of gentlemen, and maintain thy society with the best: and under these conditions, I leave thee. My blessings light upon thee, if thou respect them: if not, mine eyes may drop for thee, but thine own heart will ache for itself; and so farewell. What, are my horses come?  LVSC. 
Yes, sir, they are at the gate without.  OVID. se. 
That's well. ASINIUS LUPUS, a word. Captain, I shall take my leave of you?  TVCC. 
No, my little old boy, dispatch with COTHURNUS there: I'll attend thee, I—  LVSC. 
To borrow some ten drachmas, I know his project.  OVID. se. 
Sir, you shall make me beholding to you. Now Captain TUCCA, what say you?  TVCC. 
Why, what should I say? or what can I say, my flower o' the order? Should I say, thou art rich? or that thou art honourable? or wise? or valiant? or learned? or liberal? Why, thou art all these, and thou knowest it (my noble LUCULLUS) thou knowest it: come, be not ashamed of thy virtues, old stump. Honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat, at all times. Thou art the man of wars Maecenas, old boy. Why shouldst not thou be graced then by them, as well as he is by his poets? How now, my carrier, what news?  LVSC. 
The boy has stayed within for his cue, this half hour.  TVCC. 
Come, do not whisper to me, but speak it out: what? it is no treason against the state, I hope, is't?  LVSC. 
Yes, against the state of my master's purse.  PYRG. 
Sir, AGRIPPA desires you to forbear him till the next week: his moils are not yet come up.  TVCC. 
His moils? now the bots, the spavin, and the glanders, and some dozen diseases more, light on him, and his moils. What ha' they the yellows, his moils, that they come no faster? or are they foundered? ha? his moils ha' the staggers belike: ha' they?  PYRG. 
O no, sir: than your tongue might be suspected for one of his moils.  TVCC. 
He owes me almost a talon, and he thinks to bear it away with his moils, does he? Sirrah, you, nutcracker, go your ways to him again, and tell him I must ha' money, I: I cannot eat stones and turses, say. What, will he clem me, and my followers? Ask him, an' he will clem me: do, go. He would have me fry my jerkin, would he? Away, setter, away. Yet, stay, my little tumbler: this old boy shall supply now. I will not trouble him, I cannot be importunate, I: I cannot be impudent.  PYRG. 
Alas, sir, no: you are the most maidenly blushing creature upon the earth.  TVCC. 
Dost thou hear, my little six and fifty, or thereabouts? Thou art not to learn the humours and tricks of that old bald cheater, Time: thou hadst not this chain for nothing. Men of worth have their Chimaeras, as well as other creatures: and they do see monsters, sometimes: they do, they do, brave boy.  PYRG. 
Better cheap than he shall see you, I warrant him.  TVCC. 
Thou must let me have six, six, drachmas, I mean, old boy; thou shalt do it: I tell thee, old boy, thou shalt, and in private too, dost thou see? Go, walk off: there, there. six is the sum. Thy son's a gallant spark, and must not be put out of a sudden: come hither, CALLINACHUS, thy father tells me thou art too poetical, boy, thou must not be so, thou must leave them, young novice, thou must, they are a sort of poor starved rascals; that are ever wrapped up in foul linen; and can boast of nothing but a lean visage, peering out of a seam-rent suit; the very emblems of beggary. No, dost hear? turn lawyer, Thou shalt be my solicitor: 'tis right, old boy, be't?  OVID. se. 
You were best tell it, Captain.  TVCC. 
No: fare thou well mine honest horseman, and thou old beaver. Pray thee Roman, when thou comest to town, see me at my lodging, visit me sometimes: thou shalt be welcome, old boy. Do not baulk me, good swaggerer. JOVE keep thy chain from pawning, go thy ways, if thou lack money, I'll lend thee some: I'll leave thee to thy horse, now. Adieu.  OVID. se. 
Farewell, good Captain.  TVCC. 
Boy, you can have but half a share now, boy.  OVID. se. 
'Tis a strange boldness, that accompanies this fellow: Come.  OVID. iu. 
I'll give attendance on you, to your horse, sir, please you—  OVID. se. 
No: keep your chamber, and fall to your studies; do so: the gods of Rome bless thee.  OVID. iu. 
And give me stomach to digest this law,  
That should have followed sure, had I been he.  
O sacred poesy, thou spirit of arts,  
The soul of science, and the queen of souls,  
What profane violence, almost sacrilege,  
Hath here been offered thy divinities!  
That thine own guiltless poverty should arm  
Prodigious ignorance to wound thee thus!  
For thence, is all their force of argument  
Drawn forth against thee; or from the abuse  
Of thy great powers in adulterate brains:  
When, would men learn but to distinguish spirits,  
And set true difference twixt those jaded wits  
That run a broken pace for common hire,  
And the high raptures of a happy Muse  
Borne on the wings of her immortal thought,  
That kicks at earth with a disdainful heel,  
And bears at heaven gates with her bright hooves;  
They would not then with such distorted faces,  
And  censures stab at poesy.  
They would admire bright knowledge, and their minds  
Should ne'er descend on so unworthy objects,  
As gold, or titles: they would dread far more,  
To be thought ignorant, then be known poor.  
"The time was once, when wit drowned wealth: but now,  
" Your only barbarism is t'have wit, and want.  
"No matter now in virtue who excels,  
" He, that hath coin, hath all perfection else.   

Act I. Scene III.  TIBULLUS, OVID. 
OVID?  OVID. 
Who's there? Come in.  TIBV. 
Good morrow, Lawyer.  OVID. 
Good morrow (dear TIBULLUS) welcome: sit down.  TIBV. 
Not I. What: so hard at it? Let's see, what's here?  
Nay, I will see it—  OVID. 
Pray thee away—  TIBV. 
If thrice in field, a man vanquish his foe,  
'Tis after in his choice to serve, or no.  
How now OVID! Law— cases in verse?  OVID. 
In troth, I know not: they run from my pen  
Unwittingly, if they be verse. What's the news abroad?  TIBV. 
Off with this gown, I come to have thee walk.  OVID. 
No, good TIBULLUS, I'm not now in case,  
Pray let me alone.  TIBV. 
How? not in case!  
'Slight thou'rt in too much case, by all this law.  OVID. 
Troth, if I live, I will new dress the law,  
In sprightly poesies habiliments.  TIBV. 
The hell thou wilt. What, turn law into verse?  
Thy father has schooled thee, I see. Here, read that same.  
There's subject for you: and if I mistake not,  
A Supersedeas to your melancholy.  OVID. 
How! subscribed JULIA! O, my life, my heaven!  TIBV. 
Is the mood changed?  OVID. 
Music of wit! Note for th' harmonious spheres!  
Celestial accents, how you ravish me!  TIBV. 
What is it, OVID?  OVID. 
That I must meet my JULIA, the Princess JULIA.  TIBV. 
Where?  OVID. 
Why, at— heart, I have forgot: my passion so transports me.  TIBV. 
I'll save your pains: it is at ALBIUS house,  
The jewellers, where the fair LYCORIS lies.  OVID. 
Who? CYTHERIS, CORNELIUS GALLUS love?  TIBV. 
ay, he'll be there too, and my PLAUTIA.  OVID. 
And why not your DELIA?  TIBV. 
Yes, and your CORINNA.  OVID. 
True, but my sweet TIBULLUS, keep that secret:  
I would not, for all ROME, it should be thought,  
I vail bright JULIA underneath that name:  
JULIA the gem, and jewel of my soul,  
That takes her honours from the golden sky,  
As beauty doth all lustre, from her eye.  
The air respires the pure elyzian sweets,  
In which she breathes: and from her looks descend  
The glories of the summer. Heaven she is,  
Praised in herself above all praise: and he,  
Which hears her speak, would swear the tuneful orbs  
Turned in his zenith only.  TIBV. 
PUBLIUS, thou'lt lose thyself.  OVID. 
O, in no labyrinth, can I safelier err,  
Then when I lose myself in praising her.  
Hence Law, and welcome, Muses; though not rich,  
Yet are you pleasing: let's be reconciled,  
And now made one. Henceforth, I promise faith,  
And all my serious hours to spend with you:  
With you, whose music striketh on my heart,  
And with bewitching tones steals forth my spirit,  
In Julia's name; fair JULIA: Julia's love  
Shall be a law, and that sweet law I'll study,  
The law, and art of sacred Julia's love:  
All other objects will but abjects prove.  TIBV. 
Come, we shall have thee as passionate, as PROPERTIUS, anon.  OVID. 
O, how does my SEXTUS?  TIBV. 
Faith, full of sorrow, for his Cynthia's death.  OVID. 
What, still?  TIBV. 
Still, and still more, his grieves do grow upon him,  
As do his hours. Never did I know  
An understanding spirit so take to heart  
The common work of fate.  OVID. 
O my TIBULLUS,  
Let us not blame him: for, against such chances,  
The heartiest strife of virtue is not proof.  
We may read constancy, and fortitude,  
To other souls: but had ourselves been struck  
With the like planet, had our loves (like his)  
Been ravished from us, by injurious death,  
And in the height, and heat of our best days,  
It would have cracked our sinews, shrunk our veins,  
And made our very heartstrings jar, like his.  
Come, let's go take him forth, and prove, if mirth  
Or company will but abate his passion.  TIBV. 
Content, and I implore the gods, it may.    


Act II. Scene I.  ALEIUS, CRISPINUS, CHLOE, maids, CYTHERIS. 
MAster CRISPINUS, you are welcome: Pray, use a stool, sir. Your cousin CYTHERIS will come down presently. we are so busy for the receiving of these courtiers here, that I can scarce be a minute with myself, for thinking of them: Pray you sit, sir, Pray you sit, sir.  CRIS. 
I am very well, sir. ne'er trust me, but you are most delicately seated here, full of sweet delight and blandishment! an excellent air, an excellent air!  ALEI. 
ay, sir, 'tis pretty air. These courtiers run in my mind still; I must look out: for Jupiter's sake, sit, sir. Or please you walk into the garden? There's a garden on the backside.  CRIS. 
I am most strenuously well, I thank you, sir.  ALEI. 
Much good do you, sir.  CHLO. 
Come, bring those perfumes forward a little, and strew some roses, and violets here; Fie, here be rooms savour the most pitifully rank that ever I felt: I cry the God's mercy, my husband's in the wind of us.  ALEI. 
Why, this is good, excellent, excellent: well said, my sweet CHLOE. Trim up your house most obsequiously.  CHLO. 
For Vulcanus sake, breath somewhere else: in troth you overcome our perfumes exceedingly, you are too predominant.  ALEI. 
Hear but my opinion, sweet wife.  CHLO. 
A pin for your opinion. In sincerity, if you be thus fulsome to me in every thing, I'll be divorced; God's my body? you know what you were, before I married you; I was a gentlewoman borne, I; I lost all my friends to be a citizen's wife; because I heard indeed, they kept their wives as fine as ladies; and that we might rule our husbands, like ladies; and do what we listed: do you think I would have married you, else?  ALBI. 
I acknowledge, sweet wife, she speaks the best of any woman in Italy, and moves as mightily: which makes me, I had rather she should make bumps on my head, as big as my two singers, than I would offend her. But sweet wife—  CHLO. 
Yet again? is't not grace enough for you, that I call you husband, and you call me wife: but you must still be poking me, against my will, to things?  ALBI. 
But you know, wife; here are the greatest ladies, and gallantest gentlemen of ROME, to be entertained in our house now: and I would feign advise thee, to entertain them in the best sort, i'faith wife.  CHLO. 
In sincerity, did you ever hear a man talk so idly? You would seem to be master? You would have your spoke in my cart? you would advise me to entertain ladies, and gentlemen? because you can marshal your pack-needles, horsecombs, hobby-horses, and wall-candlesticks in your warehouse better than I; therefore you can tell how to entertain ladies, and gentlefolks better than I?  ALBI. 
O my sweet wife, upbraid me not with that: "Gain savours sweetly from any thing; He that respects to get, must relish all commodities alike; and admit no difference betwixt oade, and frankincense; or the most precious balsamum, and a tar-barrel.  CHLO. 
marry fough: You sell snuffers too, if you be remembered, but I pray you let me buy them out of your hand; for I tell you true, I take it highly in snuff, to learn how to entertain gentlefolks, of you, at these years, i'faith. Alas man; there was not a gentleman came to your house i' your other wives time, I hope? nor a lady? nor music? nor masques? Nor you, nor your house were so much as spoken of, before I disbast myself, from my hood and my farthingale, to these bumrolls, and your whale-bone-bodies.  ALBI. 
Look here, my sweet wife; I am mum, my dear mummia, my balsamum, my spermaceti, and my very city of— she has the most best, true, feminine wit in ROME!  CRIS. 
I have heard so, sir; and do most vehemently desire to participate the knowledge of her fair features.  ALBI. 
Ah, peace; you shall hear more anon: be not seen yet, I pray you; not yet: Observe.  CHLO. 
'Sbody, give husbands the head a little more, and they'll be nothing but head shortly; what's he there?  maid. 1. 
I know not forsooth.  maid. 2. 
Who would you speak with, sir?  CRIS. 
I would speak with my cousin CYTHERIS.  maid. 
He is one forsooth would speak with his cousin CYTHERIS.  CHLO. 
Is she your cousin, sir?  CRIS. 
Yes in truth, forsooth, for fault of a better.  CHLO. 
she is a gentlewoman?  CRIS. 
Or else she should not be my cousin, I assure you.  CHLO. 
Are you a gentleman borne?  CRIS. 
That I am, lady; you shall see mine arms, if 't please you.  CHLO. 
No, your legs do sufficiently show you are a gentleman borne, sir: for a man borne upon little legs, is always a gentleman borne.  CRIS. 
Yet, I pray you, vouchsafe the sight of my arms, Mistress; for I bear them about me, to have 'em seen: my name is CRISPINUS, or Crispinas indeed; which is well expressed in my arms, (a Face crying in chief; and beneath it a bloody Toe, between three Thorns pungent.)  CHLO. 
Then you are welcome, sir; now you are a gentleman borne, I can find in my heart to welcome you: for I am a gentlewoman borne too; and will bear my head high enough, though 'twere my fortune to marry a tradesman.  CRIS. 
No doubt of that, sweet feature, your carriage shows it in any man's eye, that is carried upon you with judgement.  ALBI. 
He is still going in and out. Dear wife, be not angry.  CHLO. 
God's my passion!  ALBI. 
Hear me but one thing; let not your maids set cushions in the parlour windows; nor in the dining-chamber windows; nor upon stools, in either of them, in any case; for 'tis tavern-like; but lay them one upon another, in some outroom, or corner of the dining-chamber.  CHLO. 
Go, go, meddle with your bedchamber only, or rather with your bed in your chamber, only; or rather with your wife in your bed only; or on my faith, I'll not be pleased with you only.  ALBI. 
Look here, my dear wife, entertain that gentleman kindly, I pray thee,— mum.  CHLO. 
Go, I need your instructions indeed; anger me no more, I advise you. citizen, quotha! she's a wise gentlewoman i'faith, will marry herself to the sin of the city.  ALBI. 
But this time, and no more (by heaven) wife: hang no pictures in the hall, nor in the dining-chamber, in any case, but in the gallery only, for 'tis not courtly else, o' my word, wife.  CHLO. 
'Sprecious, never have done!  ALBI. 
Wife.—  CHLO. 
Do I not bear a reasonable corrigible hand over him, CRISPINUS?  CRIS. 
By this hand, lady, you hold a most sweet hand over him.  ALBI. 
And then for the great gilt andirons?—  CHLO. 
Again! would the andirons were in your great guts, for me.  ALBI. 
I do vanish, wife.  CHLO. 
How shall I do, Master CRISPINUS? here will be all the bravest ladies in court presently, to see your cousin CYTHERIS: O the gods! how might I behave myself now, as to entertain them most courtly?  CRIS. 
marry, lady, if you will entertain them most courtly, you must do thus: as soon as ever your maid, or your man brings you word they are come; you must say (A pox on 'em, what do they here.) And yet when they come, speak them as fair, and give them the kindest welcome in words, that can be.  CHLO. 
Is that the fashion of courtiers, CRISPINUS?  CRIS. 
I assure you, it is, lady, I have observed it.  CHLO. 
For your pox, sir, it is easily hit on; but, 'tis not so easily to speak fair after, methinks?  ALBI. 
O wife, the coaches are come, on my word, a number of coaches, and courtiers.  CHLO. 
A pox on them: what do they here?  ALBI. 
How now wife! wouldst thou not have 'em come?  CHLO. 
Come? come, you are a fool, you: He knows not the trick on't. Call CYTHERIS, I pray you: and good master CRISPINUS, you can observe, you say; let me entreat you for all the ladies behaviours, jewels, jests, and attires, that you marking as well as I, we may put both our marks together, when they are gone, and confer of them.  CRIS. 
I warrant you, sweet lady; let me alone to observe, till I turn myself to nothing but observation. Good morrow cousin CYTHERIS.  CYTH. 
Welcome kind cousin. What? are they come?  ALBI. 
ay, your friend CORNELIUS GALLUS, OVID, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, with JULIA the Emperor's daughter, and the lady PLAUTIA, are lighted at the door; and with them HERMOGENES TIGELLIUS, the excellent musician.  CYTH. 
Come, let us go meet them, CHLOE.  CHLO. 
Observe, CRISPINUS.  CRIS. 
At a hairs breadth, lady, I warrant you.   

Act II. Scene II.  GALLUS, OVID, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, HERMOGENES, JULIA, PLAUTIA, CYTHERIS, CHLOE, ALBIUS, CRISPINUS. 
HEalth to the lovely CHLOE: you must pardon me, Mistress, that I prefer this fair gentlewoman.  CYTH. 
I pardon, and praise you for it, sir; and I beseech your Excellence, receive her beauties into your knowledge and favour.  IVLI. 
CYTHERIS, she hath favour, and behaviour, that commands as much of me: and sweet CHLOE, know I do exceedingly love you, and that I will approve in any grace my father the Emperor may show you. Is this your husband?  ALBI. 
For fault of a better, if it please your highness.  CHLO. 
God's my life! how he shames me!  CYTH. 
Not a whit, CHLOE, they all think you politic, and witty; wise women choose not husbands for the eye, merit, or birth, but wealth, and sovereignty.  OVID. 
Sir, we all come to gratulate, for the good report of you.  TIBV. 
And would be glad to deserve your love, sir.  ALBI. 
My wife will answer you all, gentlemen; I'll come to you again presently.  PLAV. 
You have chosen you a most fair companion here, CYTHERIS, and a very fair house.  CYTH. 
To both which, you and all my friends, are very welcome, PLAUTIA.  CHLO. 
With all my heart, I assure your ladyship.  PLAV. 
Thanks, sweet Mistress CHLOE.  IVLI. 
You must needs come to court, lady, i'faith, and there be sure your welcome shall be as great to us.  OVID. 
She will well deserve it, Madame. I see, even in her looks, gentry, and general worthiness.  TIBV. 
I have not seen a more certain character of an excellent disposition.  ALBI. 
Wife.  CHLO. 
O, they do so commend me here, the courtiers! what's the matter now?  ALBI. 
For the banquet, sweet wife.  CHLO. 
Yes; and I must needs come to court, and be welcome, the Princess says.  GALL. 
OVID, and TIBULLUS, you may be bold to welcome your Mistresses here.  OVID. 
We find it so, sir.  TIBV. 
And thank CORNELIUS GALLUS.  OVID. 
Nay, my sweet SEXTUS, in faith thou art not sociable.  PROP. 
In faith, I am not, PUBLIUS; nor I cannot.  
Sick minds, are like sick men that burn with fevers,  
Who when they drink, please but a present taste,  
And after bear a more impatient fit.  
Pray, let me leave you; I offend you all,  
And myself most.  GALL. 
Stay, sweet PROPERTIUS.  TIBV. 
You yield too much unto your grieves, and sat,  
Which never hurts, but when we say it hurts us.  PROP. 
O peace, TIBULLUS; your philosophy  
Lends you too rough a hand to search my wounds.  
Speak they of griefs, that know to sigh, and grieve;  
The free and unconstrained spirit feels  
No weight of my oppression.  OVID. 
Worthy Roman!  
methinks I taste his misery; and could  
Sit down, and chide at his malignant stars.  IVLI. 
methinks I love him, that he loves so truly.  CYTH. 
This is the perfectest love, lives after death.  GALL. 
Such is the constant ground of virtue still.  PLAV. 
It puts on an inseparable face.  CHLO. 
Have you marked every thing, CRISPINUS?  CRIS. 
Every thing, I warrant you.  CHLO. 
What gentlemen are these? do you know them?  CRIS. 
ay, they are poets, lady.  CHLO. 
Poets? they did not talk of me since I went, did they?  CRIS. 
O yes, and extolled your perfections to the heavens.  CHLO. 
Now in sincerity, they be the finest kind of men, that ever I knew: Poets? Could not one get the Emperor to make my husband a Poet, think you?  CRIS. 
No, lady, 'tis love, and beauty make Poets: and since you like Poets so well, your love, and beauties shall make me a Poet.  CHLO. 
What shall they? and such a one as these?  CRIS. 
ay, and a better than these: I would be sorry else.  CHLO. 
And shall your looks change? and your hair change? and all, like these?  CRIS. 
Why, a man may be a Poet, and yet not change his hair, lady.  CHLO. 
Well, we shall see your cunning: yet if you can change your hair, I pray, do.  ALBI. 
Ladies, and lordings, there's a slight banquet stays within for you, please you draw near, and accost it.  IVLI. 
We thank you, good ALBIUS: but when shall we see those excellent jewels you are commended to have?  ALBI. 
At your ladyships service. I got that speech by seeing a play last-day, and it did me some grace now: I see, 'tis good to collect sometimes; I'll frequent these plays more than I have done, now I come to be familiar with courtiers.  GALL. 
Why, how now, HERMOGENES? what ailest thou trow?  HERM. 
A little melancholy, let me alone, pray thee.  GALL. 
Melancholy! how so?  HERM. 
With riding: a plague on all coaches for me.  CHLO. 
Is that hard-favoured gentleman a poet too; CYTHERIS?  CYTH. 
No; this is HERMOGENES, as humorous as a poet though: he is at Musician.  CHLO. 
A Musician? than he can sing.  CYTH. 
That he can excellently; did you never hear him?  CHLO. 
O no: will he be entreated, think you?  CYTH. 
I know not. Friend, Mistress CHLOE would feign hear HERMOGENES sing: are you interested in him?  GALL. 
No doubt, his own humanity will command him so far, to the satisfaction of so fair a beauty; but rather than fail, we'll all be suitors to him.  HERM. 
Cannot sing.  GALL. 
Pray thee, HERMOGENES.  HERM. 
'Cannot sing.  GALL. 
For honour of this gentlewoman, to whose house, I know thou mayst be ever welcome.  CHLO. 
That he shall in truth, sir, if he can sing.  OVID. 
What's that?  GALL. 
This gentlewoman is wooing HERMOGENES for a song.  OVID. 
A song? come, he shall not deny her. HERMOGENES?  HERM. 
'Cannot sing.  GALL. 
No, the ladies must do it, he stays but to have their thanks acknowledged as a debt to his cunning.  IVLI. 
That shall not want: ourself will be the first shall promise to pay him more than thanks, upon a favour so worthily vouchsafed.  HERM. 
Thank you, Madame, but 'will not sing.  TIBV. 
Tut, the only way to win him, is to abstain from entreating him.  CRIS. 
Do you love singing, lady?  CHLO. 
O, passingly.  CRIS. 
Entreat the ladies, to entreat me to sing then, I beseech you.  CHLO. 
I beseech your grace, entreat this gentleman to sing.  IVLI. 
That we will CHLOE; can he sing excellently?  CHLO. 
I think so, Madame: for he entreated me, to entreat you, to entreat him to sing.  CRIS. 
Heaven, and earth! would you tell that?  IVLI. 
Good sir, let's entreat you to use your voice.  CRIS. 
Alas, Madame, I cannot in truth.  PLAV. 
The gentleman is modest: I warrant you, he sings excellently.  OVID. 
HERMOGENES, clear your throat: I see by him, here's a gentleman will worthily challenge you.  CRIS. 
Not I, sir, I'll challenge no man.  TIBV. 
That's your modesty, sir: but we, out of an assurance of your excellency, challenge him in your behalf.  CRIS. 
I thank you, gentlemen, I'll do my best.  HERM. 
Let that best be good, sir, you were best.  GALL. 
O, this contention is excellent. What is't you sing, sir?  CRIS. 
If I freely may discover, etc. Sir, I'll sing that.  OVID. 
One of your own compositions, HERMOGENES.  
He offers you vantage enough.  CRIS. 
Nay truly, gentlemen, I'll challenge no man—: I can sing but one staff of the ditty neither.  GALL. 
The better: HERMOGENES himself will be entreated to sing the other.  SONG. 
IF I freely may discover,  
What would please me in my lover:  
I would have her fair, and witty,  
Savouring more of court, than city;  
A little proud, but full of pity:  
Light, and humorous in her toying.  
Oft building hopes, and soon destroying,  
Long, but sweet in the enjoying,  
Neither too easy, nor too hard:  
All extremes I would have bar.  GALL. 
Believe me, sir, you sing most excellently.  OVID. 
If there were a praise above excellence, the gentleman highly deserves it.  HERM. 
Sir, all this doth not yet make me envy you: for I know I sing better than you.  TIBV. 
Attend HERMOGENES, now.  2. 
she should be allowed her passions,  
So they were but used as fashions;  
Sometimes froward, and then frowning,  
Sometimes sickish, and then swooning,  
Every fit, with change, still crowning.  
Purely jealous, I would have her,  
Then only constant when I crave her.  
'Tis a virtue should not save her.  
Thus, nor her delicates would cloy me,  
Neither her peevishness annoy me.  IVLI. 
Nay, HERMOGENES, your merit hath long since been both known, and admired of us.  HERM. 
You shall hear me sing another: now will I begin.  GALL. 
We shall do this gentleman's banquet too much wrong, that stays for us, ladies.  IVLI. 
'Tis true: and well thought on, CORNELIUS GALLUS.  HERM. 
Why 'tis but a short air, 'twill be done presently, pray stay; strike music.  OVID. 
No, good HERMOGENES: we'll end this difference within.  IVLI. 
'Tis the common disease of all your musicians, hat they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin, or end.  ALBI. 
Please you lead the way, gentles?  ALL. 
Thanks, good ALBIUS.  ALBI. 
O, what a charm of thanks was here put upon me! O JOVE, what a setting forth it is to a man, to have many courtiers come to his house! Sweetly was it said of a good old housekeeper; I had rather want meat, then want guests: specially, if they be courtly guests. For, never trust me, if one of their good legs made in a house, be not worth all the good cheer, a man can make them. He that would have fine guests, let him have a fine wife; he that would have a fine wife, let him come to me.  CRIS. 
By your kind leave, Master ALBIUS.  ALBI. 
What, you are not gone, Master CRISPINUS?  CRIS. 
Yes faith, I have a design draws me hence: pray sir, fashion mean excuse to the ladies.  ALBI. 
Will you not stay? and see the jewels, sir? I pay you stay.  CRIS. 
Not for a million, sir, now; Let it suffice, I must relinquish; and so in a word, please you to expiate this complement.  ALBI. 
Mum.  CRIS. 
He presently go and ingle some broker, for a poet's gown, and bespeak a garland: and then jeweller, look to your best jewel i'faith.    


Act III. Scene I.  HORACE, CRISPINUS. 
Hot. li. 1. Sat. 9 HMh? yes; I will begin an ode so: and it shall be to Maecenas.  CRIS. 
'Slid, yonder's HORACE! they say he's an excellent Poet: Maecenas loves him. I'll fall into his acquaintance, if I can; I think he be composing, as he goes i' the street! ha? 't is a good humour, and he be: I'll compose too.  HORA. 
Swell me a bowl with lusty wine,  
Till I may see the plump LYaeVS swim  
Above the brim:  
I drink, as I would wright,  
In slowing measure, filled with flame, and sprite.  CRIS. 
Sweet HORACE, MINERVA, and the Muses stand auspicious to thy designs. How farest thou, sweet man? frolic? rich? gallant? ha?  HORA. 
Not greatly gallant, sir, like my fortunes; well.  
I'm bold to take my leave, sir, you'd nought else, sir, would you?  CRIS. 
Troth, no, but I could wish thou didst know us, HORACE, we are a scholar, I assure thee.  HORA. 
A scholar, sir? I shall be covetous of your fair knowledge.  CRIS. 
Gramercy, good HORACE. Nay, we are new turned Poet too, which is more; and a Satirist too, which is more than that: I write just in thy vein, I. I am for your odes or your sermons, or any thing indeed; we are a gentleman besides: our name is RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, wear a pretty stoic too.  HORA. 
To the proportion of your beard, I think it, sir.  CRIS. 
By PHOEBUS, here's a most neat fine street, is't not? I protest to thee, I am enamoured of this street now, more than of half the streets of some, again; 'tis so polite, and terse! There's the front of a building now. I study architecture too: if ever I should build, I'd have a house just of that prospective.  HORA. 
Doubtless, this gallants tongue has a good turn, when he sleeps.  CRIS. 
I do make verses, when I come in such a street as this: O your city-ladies, you shall ha''em sit in every shop like the Muses— offering you the castalian dews, and the thespian liquours, to as many as have but the sweet grace and audacity to— sip of their lips. Did you never hear any of my verses?  HORA. 
No, sir (but I am in some fear, I must, now.)  CRIS. 
I'll tell thee some (if I can but recover 'em) I composed e'en now of a dressing, I saw a jewellers wife wear, who indeed was a jewel herself: I prefer that kind of tire now, what's thy opinion, HORACE?  HORA. 
With your silver bodkin, it does well, sir.  CRIS. 
I cannot tell, but it stirs me more than all your court-curls, or your spangles, or your tricks: I affect not these high gable-ends, these Tuscan-tops, nor your coronets, nor your arches, nor your pyramids; give me a fine sweet— little delicate dressing, with a bodkin, as you say: and a mushroom, for all your other ornatures.  HORA. 
Is't not possible to make an escape from him?  CRIS. 
I have remitted my verses, all this while, I think I ha' forget 'em.  HORA. 
Here's he, could wish you had else.  CRIS. 
Pray JOVE, I can entreat 'em of my memory.  HORA. 
You put your memory to too much trouble, sir.  CRIS. 
No, sweet HORACE, we must not ha' thee think so.  HORA. 
I cry you mercy; then, they are my ears  
That must be tortured: well, you must have patience, ears.  CRIS. 
Pray thee, HORACE, observe.  HORA. 
Yes, sir: your satin sleeve begins to fret at the rug that is underneath it, I do observe: And your ample velvet bases are not without evident stains of a hot disposition, naturally.  CRIS. 
O— I'll die them into another colour, at pleasure: how many yards of velvet dost thou think they contain?  HORA. 
Heart! I have put him now in a fresh way  
To vex me more: Faith, sir, your mercer's book  
Will tell you with more patience, than I can;  
(For I am crossed, and so's not that, I think.)  CRIS. 
'Slight, these verses have lost me again: I shall not invite 'em to mind, now.  HORA. 
Rack not your thoughts, good sir; rather, defer it  
To a new time; I'll meet you at your lodging,  
Or where you please: Till then, JOVE keep you, sir.  CRIS. 
Nay, gentle HORACE, stay: I have it, now.  HORA. 
Yes, sir. APOLLO, HERMES, JUPITER, look down upon me.  CRIS. 
Rich was thy hap, sweet, dainty cap,  
There to be placed:  
Where thy smooth black, sleek white may smack,  
And both be graced.  
white, is there usurped for her brow; her forehead: and then sleek, as the parallel to smooth, that went before. A kind of paranomasy, or Agnomination: do you conceive, sir?  HORA. 
Excellent. Troth, sir, I must be abrupt, and leave you.  CRIS. 
Why, what haste hast thou? pray thee, stay a little: thou shalt not go yet, by PHOEBUS.  HORA. 
I shall not? what remedy? Fie, how I sweat with suffering!  CRIS. 
And then—  HORA. 
Pray, sir, give me leave to wipe my face a little.  CRIS. 
Yes, do, good HORACE.  HORA. 
Thank you, sir.  
Death! I must crave his leave to piss anon;  
Or that I may go hence with half my teeth:  
I am in some such fear. This tyranny  
Is strange, to take mine ears up by commission,  
(Whether I will or no) and make them stalls  
To his lewd solecisms, and worded trash.  
Happy thou, bold BOLANUS, now, I say;  
Whose freedom, and impatience of this fellow,  
Would, long ere this, have called him fool, and fool,  
And rank, and tedious fool, and have flung jests  
As hard as stones, till thou hadst pelted him  
Out of the place: whilst my tame modesty  
Suffers my wit be made a solemn ass  
To bear his fopperies—  CRIS. 
HORACE, thou art miserably affected to be gone, I see. But— pray thee, let's prove, to enjoy thee awhile: Thou hast no business, I assure me. Whether is thy journey directed? ha?  HORA. 
Sir, I am going to visit a friend, that's sick.  CRIS. 
A friend? What's he? do not I know him?  HORA. 
No, sir, you do not know him; and 'tis not the worse for him.  CRIS. 
What's his name? where's he lodged?  HORA. 
Where, I shall be fearful to draw you out of your way, sir; a great way hence: Pray, sir, let's part.  CRIS. 
Nay, but where is't? I pray thee, say.  HORA. 
On the far side of all Tiber yonder, by Caesar's gardens.  CRIS. 
O, that's my course directly; I am for you. Come, go: why stand'st thou?  HORA. 
Yes, sir: marry, the plague is in that part of the city; I had almost forgot to tell you, sir.  CRIS. 
Fow: It's no matter, I fear no pestilence, I ha' not offended PHOEBUS.  HORA. 
I have, it seems; or else this heavy scourge  
Could ne'er have lighted on me—  CRIS. 
Come, along.  HORA. 
I am to go down some half mile, this way, sir, first, to speak with his physician: And from thence to his apothecary, where I shall stay the mixing of divers drugs—  CRIS. 
Why, it's all one. I have nothing to do, and I love not to be idle, I'll bear thee company. How call'st thou the pothecary?  HORA. 
O, that I knew a name would fright him now. Sir RHADAMANTHUS, RHADAMANTHUS, sir.  
There's one so called, is a just judge, in hell,  
And doth inflict strange vengeance on all those,  
That (here on earth) torment poor patient spirits.  CRIS. 
He dwells at the three Fairies, by JANUS Temple?  HORA. 
Your pothecary does, sir.  CRIS. 
Heart, I owe him money for sweet meats, and he has laid to arrest me, I hear: but—  HORA. 
Sir, I have made a most solemn vow: I will never bail any man.  CRIS. 
Well then, I'll swear, and speak him fair, if the worst come. But his name is MINOS, not RHADAMANTHUS, HORACE.  HORA. 
That may be, sir: I but guest at his name by his sign. But your MINOS is a judge too, sir?  CRIS. 
I protest to thee, HORACE (do but taste me once) if I do know myself, and mine own virtues truly, thou wilt not make that esteem of VARIUS, or VIRGIL, or TIBULLUS, or any of 'em indeed, as now in thy ignorance thou dost; which I am content to forgive: I would feign see, which of these could pen more verses in a day, or with more facility than I; or that could court his mistress, kiss her hand, make better sport with her fan, or her dog—  HORA. 
I cannot bail you yet, sir.  CRIS. 
Or that could move his body more gracefully, or dance better you should see me, were it not i' the street—  HORA. 
Nor yet.  CRIS. 
Why, I have been a reveller, and at my cloth of silver suit, and my long stocking, in my time, and will be again—  HORA. 
If you may be trusted, sir.  CRIS. 
And then for my singing, HERMOGENES himself envies me; that is your only Master of music you have in Rome.  HORA. 
Is your mother living, sir?  CRIS. 
Au: Convert thy thoughts to somewhat else, I pray thee.  HORA. 
You have much of the mother in you, sir: your father is dead?  CRIS. 
ay, I thank JOVE, and my grandfather too and all my kinsfolks, and well composed in their urns.  HORA. 
The more their happiness; that rest in peace,  
Free from th'abundant torture of thy tongue;  
Would I were with them too.  CRIS. 
What's that, HORACE?  HORA. 
I now remember me, sir, of a sad fate  
A cunning woman, one SABELLA sung,  
When in her urn, she cast my destiny,  
I being but a child  CRIS. 
What was't I pray thee?  HORA. 
she told me, I should surely never perish  
By famine, poison, or the enemy's sword;  
The hectic fever, cough, or pleurisy,  
Should never hurt me; nor the tardy gout:  
But in my time, I should be once surprised,  
By a strong tedious talker, that should vex  
And almost bring me to consumption.  
Therefore (if I were wise) she warned me shun  
All such long-winded monsters, as my bane:  
For if I could but scape that one discourser,  
I might (no doubt) prove an old aged man.  
By your leave, sir?  CRIS. 
Tut, tut: abandon this idle humour, 'tis nothing but melancholy. Fore JOVE, now I think on't, I am to appear in court here, to answer to one that has me in suit; sweet HORACE, go with me, this is my hour: if I neglect it, the law proceeds against me. Thou art familiar with these things, pray thee, if thou lov'st me, go.  HORA. 
Now, let me die, sir, if I know your laws;  
Or have the power to stand still half so long  
In their loud courts, as while a case is Argued.  
Besides, you know, sir, where I am to go,  
And the necessity—  CRIS. 
'Tis true:—  HORA. 
I hope the hour of my release be come: He will (upon this consideration) discharge me, sure.  CRIS. 
Troth, I am doubtful, what I may best do; whether to leave thee, or my affairs, HORACE?  HORA. 
O JUPITER, me, sir; me, by any means: I beseech you, me, sir.  CRIS. 
No saith, I'll venture those now: Thou shalt see I love thee, come HORACE.  HORA. 
Nay then, I am desperate: I follow you, sir. 'Tis hard contending with a man that overcomes thus.  CRIS. 
And how deals Maecenas with thee? liberally? ha?  
Is he openhanded? bountiful?  HORA. 
he's still himself, sir.  CRIS. 
Troth, HORACE, thou art exceeding happy in thy friends and acquaintance; they are all most choice spirits, and of the first rank of Romans: I do not know that poet, I protest, has used his fortune more prosperously, than thou hast. If thou wouldst bring me known to Maecenas, I should second thy desert well; thou shouldst find a good sure assistant of me: one, that would speak all good of thee in thy absence, and be content with the next place, not envying thy reputation with thy patron. Let me not live, but I think thou and I (in a small time) should list them all out of favour, both VIRGIL, VARIUS, and the best of them; and enjoy him wholly to ourselves.  HORA. 
Gods, you do know it, I can hold no longer;  
This breeze hath pricked my patience: Sir, your silkenness  
Clearly mistakes Maecenas, and his house;  
To think, there breathes a spirit beneath his roof,  
Subject unto those poor affections  
Of undermining envy, and detraction,  
Moods, only proper to base groveling minds:  
That place is not in Rome, I dare affirm,  
More pure, or free, from such low common evils.  
There's no man grieved, that this is thought more rich,  
Or this more learned; each man hath his place,  
And to his merit, his reward of grace:  
Which with a mutual love they all embrace.  CRIS. 
You report a wonder! 'tis scarce credible, this.  HORA. 
I am no torture, to enforce you to believe it, but 'tis so.  CRIS. 
Why, this inflames me with a more ardent desire to be his, then before: but, I doubt I shall find the entrance, to his familiarity, somewhat more than difficult, HORACE.  HORA. 
Tut, you'll conquer him, as you have done me; There's no standing out against you, sir, I see that. Either your importunity, or the intimation of your good parts; or—  CRIS. 
Nay, I'll bribe his porter, and the grooms of his chamber; make his doors open to me that way, first: and then, I'll observe my times. Say, he should extrude me his house today; shall I therefore desist, or let fall my suit, tomorrow? No: I'll attend him, follow him, meet him? i' the street, the high ways, run by his coach, never leave him. What? Man hath nothing given him, in this life, without much labour.  HORA. 
And impudence.  
Archer of heaven, PHOEBUS, take thy bow,  
And with a full drawn shaft, nail to the earth  
This PYTHON; that I may yet run hence, and live:  
Or brawny HERCULES, do thou come down,  
And (though thou mak'st it up thy thirteenth labour)  
Rescue me from this HYDRA of discourse, here.   

Act III. Scene II.  ARISTIUS, HORACE, CRISPINUS. 
HORACE, well met.  HORA. 
O welcome, my reliever,  
ARISTIUS, As thou lov'st me, ransom me.  ARIS. 
What ail'st thou, man?  HORA. 
'Death, I am seized on here  
By a Land-Remora, I cannot stir;  
Not move, but as he please.  CRIS. 
Wilt thou go, HORACE?  HORA. 
'heart! he cleaves to me like ALCIDES shirt,  
Tearing my flesh, and sinews; O, I ha' been vexed  
And tortured with him, beyond forty fevers.  
For joves sake, find some means, to take me from him.  ARIS. 
Yes, I will: but I'll go first, and tell Maecenas.  CRIS. 
Come, shall we go?  ARIS. 
The jest will make his eyes run, i'faith.  HORA. 
Nay, ARISTIUS?  ARIS. 
Farewell, HORACE.  HORA. 
'Death! will a' leave me? FUSCUS ARISTIUS, do you hear? Gods of Rome! you said, you had somewhat to say to me, in private.  ARIS. 
ay, but I see, you are now employed with that gentleman: 'twere offence to trouble you. I'll take some fitter opportunity, farewell.  HORA. 
Mischief, and torment! O, my soul, and heart,  
How are you cramped with anguish! Death itself  
Brings not the like convulsions. O, this day,  
That ever I should view thy tedious face—  CRIS. 
HORACE, what passion? what humour is this?  HORA. 
Away, good prodigy, afflict me not.  
(A friend, and mock me thus!) never was man  
So left under the axe— how now.   

Act III. Scene III.  MINOS, LICTORS, CRISPINUS, HORACE. 
THat's he, in the embroidered hat, there, with the ash-coloured feather: his name is LABERIUS CRISPINUS.  LICT. 
LABERIUS CRISPINUS; I arrest you in the emperors name.  CRIS. 
Me, sir? do you arrest me?  LICT. 
ay, sir, at the suit of Master MINOS the pothecary.  HORA. 
Thanks, great APOLLO: I will not slip thy favour offered me in my escape, for my fortunes.  CRIS. 
Master MINOS? I know no master MINOS. Where's HORACE? HORACE? HORACE?  MINO. 
Sir, do not you know me?  CRIS. 
O yes; I know you, master MINOS: cry you mercy. But HORACE? God's me, is he gone?  MINO. 
ay, and so would you too, if you knew how. Officer, look to him.  CRIS. 
Do you hear, master MINOS? pray let's be used like a man of our own fashion. By JANUS, and JUPITER, I meant to have paid you next week, every drachm. Seek not to eclipse my reputation, thus vulgarly.  MINO. 
Sir, your oaths cannot serve you, you know I have forborn you long.  CRIS. 
I am conscious of it, sir. Nay, I beseech you, gentlemen, do not exhale me thus; remember 'tis but for sweet meats—  LICT. 
Sweet meat must have sour sauce, sir. Come along.  CRIS. 
Sweet, master MINOS: I am forfeited to eternal disgrace, if you do not commiserate. Good officer, be not so officious.   

Act III. Scene IIII.  TUCCA, PYRGUS, MINOS, LICTORS, CRISPINUS, HISTRIO, DEMETRIUS. 
WHy, how now, my good brace of bloodhounds? whither do you drag the gent'man? you mongrels, you curs, you bandogs, we are Captain TUCCA, that talk to you, you inhuman pilchers.  MINO. 
Sir, he is their prisoner.  TVCC. 
Their pestilence. What are you, sir?  MINO. 
A citizen of Rome, sir.  TVCC. 
Then you are not far distant from a fool, sir.  MINO. 
A pothecary, sir.  TVCC. 
I knew thou wast not a physician; fough: out of my nostrils, thou stinkest of lotium, and the syringe: away, quacksalver. Follower, my sword.  PYRG. 
Here, noble leader, you'll do no harm with it: I'll trust you.  TVCC. 
Do you hear, you, goodman slave? hook, ram, rogue, catchpole, lose the gent'man, or by my velvet arms—  LICT. 
What will you do, sir? The Officer strikes up his heels.  TVCC. 
Kiss thy hand, my honourable active varlet: and embrace thee, thus.  PYRG. 
O patient metamorphosis!  TVCC. 
My sword, my tall rascal.  LICT. 
Nay, soft, sir: Some wiser than some.  TVCC. 
What? and a wit to! By PLUTO, thou must be cherished, slave; here's three drachmas for thee: hold.  PYRG. 
There's half his lendings gone.  TVCC. 
Give me.  LICT. 
No, sir, your first word shall stand: I'll hold all.  TVCC. 
Nay, but, rogue—  LICT. 
You would make a rescue of our prisoner, sir, you?  TVCC. 
ay, a rescue? away inhuman varlet. Come, come, I never relish above one jest at most; do not disgust me: Sirrah, do not. Rogue, I tell thee, rogue, do not.  LICT. 
How, sir? rogue?  TVCC. 
ay, why! thou art not angry, rascal? art thou?  LICT. 
I cannot tell, sir, I am little better, upon these terms.  TVCC. 
Ha! gods, and fiends! why, dost hear? rogue, thou, give me thy hand; I say unto thee, thy hand: rogue. What? dost not thou know me? not me, rogue? not Captain TUCCA, rogue?  MINO. 
Come: pray surrender the gentleman his sword, officer; we'll have no fighting here.  TVCC. 
What's thy name?  MINO. 
MINOS, an't please you.  TVCC. 
MINOS? come, hither, MINOS; Thou art a wise fellow, it seems: Let me talk with thee.  CRIS. 
Was ever wretch so wretched, as unfortunate I?  TVCC. 
Thou art one of the centum-viri, old boy, art' not?  MINO. 
No, indeed, master Captain.  TVCC. 
Go to, thou shalt be, then: I'll ha' thee one, MINOS. Take my sword from those rascals, dost thou see? go, do it: I cannot attempt with patience. What does this gentleman owe thee, little MINOS?  MINO. 
fourscore sesterties, sir.  TVCC. 
What? no more? Come, thou shalt release him, MINOS: what, I'll be his bail, thou shalt take my word, old boy, and cashier these furies: thou shalt do't, I say, thou shalt, little MINOS, thou shalt.  CRIS. 
Yes, and as I am a gentleman, and a reveller, I'll make a piece of poetry, and absolve all, within these five days.  TVCC. 
Come, MINOS is not to learn how to use a gent'man of quality, I know; My sword: If he pay thee not, I will, and I must, old boy. Thou shalt be my pothecary too: hast good eringoes, MINOS?  MINO. 
The best in Rome, sir.  TVCC. 
Go too then— Vermin, know the house.  PYRG. 
I warrant you, Colonel.  TVCC. 
For this gentleman, MINOS?  MINO. 
I'll take your word, Captain.  TVCC. 
Thou hast it, my sword—  MINO. 
Yes, sir: but you must discharge the arrest, Master CRISPINUS.  TVCC. 
How, MINOS? look in the gentleman's face, and but read his silence. Pay, pay; 'tis honour, MINOS.  CRIS. 
By JOVE, sweet Captain, you do most infinitely endear, and oblige me to you.  TVCC. 
Tut, I cannot compliment, by MARS: but JUPITER love me, as I love good words, and good clothes, and there's an end. Thou shalt give my boy that girdle, and hangers, when thou hast worn them a little more—  CRIS. 
O JUPITER! Captain, he shall have them now, presently: please you to be acceptive, young gentleman.  PYRG. 
Yes, sir, fear not; I shall accept: I have a pretty foolish humour of taking, if you knew all.  TVCC. 
Not now, you shall not take, boy.  CRIS. 
By my truth, and earnest, but he shall, Captain, by your leave.  TVCC. 
Nay, and a' swear by his truth, and earnest, take it boy: do not make a gent'man forsworn.  LICT. 
Well, sir, there is your sword; but thank master MINOS: you had not carried it as you do, else.  TVCC. 
MINOS is just, and you are knaves, and—  LICT. 
What say you, sir?  TVCC. 
Pass on, my good scoundrel, pass on, I honour thee: But, that I hate to have action with such base rogues as these; you should ha' seen me unrip their noses now, and have sent 'em to the next barbers, to stitching: for, do you see— I am a man of humour, and I do love the varlets, the honest varlets; they have wit, and valour: and are indeed good profitable— errant rogues, as any live in an empire. Dost thou hear, POETASTER? second me. Stand up (MINOS) close, gather, yet, so. Sir (thou shalt have a quarter share, be resolute) you shall, at my request, take MINOS by the hand, here, little MINOS, I will have it so; all friends, and a health: Be not inexorable. And thou shalt impart the wine, old boy, thou shalt do't, little MINOS, thou shalt: make us pay it in our physic. What? we must live, and honour the gods, sometimes; now BACCHUS, now COMUS, now PRIAPUS: every god, a little. What's he, that stalks by, there? boy, PYRGUS, you were best let him pass, sirrah; do, ferret, let him pass, do.  PYRG. 
'Tis a player, sir.  TVCC. 
A player? Call him, call the lousy slave hither: what, will he sail by, and not once strike, or vail to a Man of war? ha? do you hear? you, player, rogue, stalker, come back here: no respect to men of worship, you slave? What, you are proud, you rascal, are you proud? ha? you grow rich, do you? and purchase, you twopenny tear-mouth? you have fortune, and the good year on your side, you stinkard? you have? you have?  HIST. 
Nay, sweet Captain, be confined to some reason; I protest I saw you not, sir.  TVCC. 
You did not? where was your sight, OEDIPUS? you walk with hare's eyes, do you? I'll ha' 'em glazed, rogue; and you say the word, they shall be glazed for you: come, we must have you turn fiddler again, slave, get a base violin at your back, and march in a tawny coat, with one sleeve, to Goose-fair, and then you'll know us; you'll see us then; you will, gulch, you will? Then, will't please your worship to have any music, Captain?  HIST. 
Nay, good Captain.  TVCC. 
What? do you laugh, Owlglass? death, you presumptuous varlet, I am none of your fellows: I have commanded a hundred and fifty such rogues, I.  1. PYR. 
ay, and most of that hundred and fifty, have been leaders of a legion.  HIST. 
If I have exhibited wrong, I'll tender satisfaction, Captain.  TVCC. 
sayst thou so, honest vermin? Give me thy hand, thou shalt make us a supper one of these nights.  HIST. 
When you please, by JOVE, Captain, most willingly.  TVCC. 
Dost thou swear? tomorrow then; say, and hold slave. There are some of you players honest gent'man-like scoundrels, and suspected to ha' some wit, as well as your poets; both at drinking, and breaking of jests: and are companions for gallants. A man may skelder ye, now and then, of half a dozen shillings, or so. Dost thou not know that PANTALABUS there?  HIST. 
No, I assure you, Captain.  TVCC. 
Go, and be acquainted with him, then; he is a gent'man, parcel-poet, you slave: his father was a man of worship, I tell thee. Go, he pens high, lofty, in a new stalking strain; bigger than half the rhymers i' the town, again: he was borne to fill thy mouth, MINOTAURUS, he was: he will teach thee to tear, and rend, Rascal, to him, cherish his muse, go: thou hast forty, forty, shillings, I mean, stinkard, give him in earnest, do, he shall write for thee, slave. If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travel, with thy pumps full of gravel, any more, after a blind jade and a hamper: and stalk upon boards, and barrel heads, to an old cracked trumpet—  HIST. 
Troth, I think I ha' not so much about me, Captain.  TVCC. 
It's no matter: give him what thou hast: Stiff toe, I'll give my word for the rest: though it lack a shilling, or two, it skills not: Go, thou art an honest shifter, I'll ha' the statute repealed for thee. MINOS, must tell thee, MINOS, thou hast dejected you gent'mans spirit exceedingly: dost observe? dost note, little MINOS?  MINO. 
Yes, sir.  TVCC. 
Go to then, raise; recover, do. Suffer him not to droop, in prospect of a player, a rogue, a stager: put twenty into his hand, twenty, sesterces, I mean, and let nobody see: go, do it, the work shall commend itself, be MINOS, I'll pay.  MINO. 
Yes forsooth, Captain.  2. PYR. 
Do not we serve a notable shark?  TVCC. 
And what new matters have you now afoot, sirrah? ha? I would feign come with my cockatrice one day, and see a play; if I knew when there were a good bawdy one: but they say, you ha' nothing but humours, revels, and satires, that gird, and fart at the time, you slave.  HIST. 
No, I assure you, Captain, not we. They are on the other side of Tiber: we have as much ribaldry in our plays, as can be, as you would wish, Captain: All the sinners, i' the suburbs, come, and applaud our action, daily.  TVCC. 
I hear, you'll bring me o' the stage there; you'll play me, they say: I shall be presented by a sort of copper-laced scoundrels of you: life of PLUTO, and you stage me, stinkard; your mansions shall sweat for't, your tabernacles, varlets, your Globes, and your Triumphs.  HIST. 
Not we, by PHOEBUS, Captain: do not do us imputation without desert.  TVCC. 
I will not, my good twopenny rascal: reach me thy neufe. Dost hear? What wilt thou give me a week, for my brace of beagles, here, my little point-trussers? you shall ha' them act among ye. Sirrah, you, pronounce. Thou shalt hear him speak, in king Darius' doleful strain.  1. PYR. 
O doleful days! O direful deadly dump!  
O wicked world! and worldly wickedness!  
How can I hold my fist from crying, thump,  
In rue of this right rascal wretchedness!  TVCC. 
In an amorous vain now, sirrah, peace.  1. PYR. 
O, she is wilder, and more hard, withal,  
Then beast, or bird, or tree, or stony wall.  
Yet might she love me, to uprear her state:  
ay, but perhaps, she hopes some nobler mate.  
Yet might she love me, to content her sire:  
ay, but her reason masters her desire.  
Yet might she love me as her beauty's thrall:  
ay, but I fear, she cannot love at all.  TVCC. 
Now, the horrible fierce Soldier, you, sirrah.  1. PYR. 
What? will I brave thee? ay, and beard thee too.  
A roman spirit scorns to bear a brain,  
So full of base pusillanimity.  DEMET. HIST. 
Excellent.  TVCC. 
Nay, thou shalt see that, shall ravish thee anon: prick up thine ears, stinkard: the Ghost, boys.  1. PYR. 
Vindicta.  2. PYR. 
Timoria.  1. PYR. 
Vindicta.  2. PYR. 
Timoria.  1. PYR. 
Veni.  2. PYR. 
Veni.  TVCC. 
Now, thunder, sirrah, you, the rumbling player.  1. PYR. 
ay, but somebody must cry (murder) then, in a small voice.  TVCC. 
Your fellow-sharer, there, shall do't; Cry, sirrah, cry.  1. PYR. 
Murder, murder.  2. PYR. 
Who calls out murder? lady, was it you?  DEMET. HIST. 
O, admirable good, I protest.  TVCC. 
Sirrah, boy, brace your drum a little straighter, and do the tother fellow there, he in the— what sha' call him— and yet, stay too.  2. PYR. 
Nay, and thou dalliest, than I am thy foe,  
And fear shall force, what friendship cannot win;  
Thy death shall bury what thy life conceals,  
Villain! thou diest, for more respecting her—  1. PYR. 
O, stay my Lord.  2. PYR. 
Then me: yet speak the truth, and I will guerdon thee:  
But if thou dally once again, thou diest.  TVCC. 
Enough of this, boy.  2. PYR. 
Why then lament therefore: damned be thy guts unto king Pluto's hell, and princely EREBUS; for sparrows must have food.  HIST. 
Pray, sweet Captain, let one of them do a little of a lady.  TVCC. 
O! he will make thee eternally enamoured of him, there: do, sirrah, do: 'twill allay your fellows fury a little.  1. PYR. 
Master, mock on: the scorn thou givest me,  
Pray JOVE, some lady may return on thee.  2. PYR. 
No: you shall see me do the moor: Master, lend me your scarf a little.  TVCC. 
Here, 'tis at thy service, boy.  2. PYR. 
They withdraw to make themselves ready. You, master MINOS, hark hither a little.  TVCC. 
How dost like him? art not rapt? art not tickled now? dost not applaud, rascal? dost not applaud?  HIST. 
Yes: what will you ask for 'em a week, Captain?  TVCC. 
No, you mangonizing slave, I will not part from 'em: you'll sell 'em for ingles you: let's ha' good cheer to morrow-night at supper, stalker, and then we'll talk, good capon, and plover, do you hear, sirrah? and do not bring your eating player with you there; I cannot away with him: He will eat a leg of mutton, while I am in my porridge, the lean POLUPHAGUS, his belly is like Barathrum, he looks like a midwife in man's apparel, the slave. Nor the villanous-out-of-tune fiddler AENOBARBUS, bring not him. What hast thou there? six and thirty? ha?  HIST. 
No, here's all I have (Captain) some five and twenty. Pray, sir, will you present, and accommodate it unto the gentleman: for mine own part, I am a mere stranger to his humour: besides, I have some business invites me hence, with Master ASINIUS LUPUS, the tribune.  TVCC. 
Well: go thy ways: pursue thy projects, let me alone with this design; my POETASTER shall make thee a play, and thou shalt be a man of good parts, in it. But stay, let me see: Do not bring your Aesop, your politician; unless you can ram up his mouth with cloves: the slave smells ranker than some sixteen dunghills, and is seventeen times more rotten: Marry, you may bring FRISKER, my zany: he's a good skipping swaggerer; and your fat fool there, my MANGO, bring him too: but let him not beg rapiers, nor scarves, in his over-familiar playing face, nor roar out his barren bold jests, with a tormenting laughter, between drunk, and dry. Do you hear, stiff-toe? Give him warning, admonition, to forsake his saucy glavering grace, and his goggle eye: it does not become him, sirrah: tell him so. I have stood up and defended you ay, to gent'men, when you have been said to prey upon punies, and honest citizens, for socks, or buskins: or when they ha' called you usurers, or brokers, or said, you were able to help to a piece of flesh— I have sworn, I did not think so. Nor that you were the common retreats for punks decayed i' their practice. I cannot believe it of you—  HIST. 
Thank you, Captain: JUPITER, and the rest of the gods confine your modern delights, without disgust.  TVCC. 
Stay, thou shalt see the moor, ere thou goest: what's he, with the half-arms there, that salutes us out of his cloak, like a motion? ha?  HIST. 
O, sir, his doublet's a little decayed; he is otherwise a very simple honest fellow, sir, one DEMETRIUS, a dresser of plays about the town, here; we have hired him to abuse HORACE, and bring him in, in a play, with all his gallants: as, TIBULLUS, Maecenas, CORNELIUS GALLUS, and the rest.  TVCC. 
And: why so, stinkard?  HIST. 
O, it will get us a huge deal of money (Captain) and we have need on't; for this winter has made us all poorer, than so many starved snakes: nobody comes at us; not a gentleman, nor a—  TVCC. 
But, you know nothing by him, do you, to make a play of?  HIST. 
Faith, not much, Captain: but our Author will devise, that, that shall serve in some sort.  TVCC. 
Why, my PARNASSUS, here, shall help him, if thou wilt: Can thy Author do it impudently enough?  HIST. 
O, I warrant you, Captain, and spitefully enough, too; he has one of the most overflowing rank wits, in Rome. He will slander any man that breathes, if he disgust him.  TVCC. 
I'll know the poor, egregious, nitty rascal, and he have these commendable qualities, I'll cherish him (stay, here comes the Tartar) I'll make a gathering for him, I: a purse, and put the poor slave in fresh rags. Tell him so, The boy comes in on Minos' shoulders, who stalks, as he ails. to comfort him: well said, boy.  2. PYR. 
Where art thou, boy? where is CALIPOLIS?  
Fight earthquakes, in the entrails of the earth,  
And eastern whirlwinds in the hellish shades:  
Some foul contagion of th'infected heavens  
Blast all the trees; and in their cursed tops  
The dismal night-raven, and tragic owl  
Breed, and become forerunners of my fall.  TVCC. 
Well, now fare thee well, my honest penny-biter: Commend me to seven-shares and a half, and remember tomorrow— if you lack a service, you shall play in my name, rascals, but you shall buy your own cloth, and I'll ha' two shares for my countenance. Let thy author stay with me.  DEME. 
Yes, sir.  TVCC. 
'Twas well done, little MINOS, thou didst stalk well; forgive me that I said thou stunkst, MINOS: 'twas the savour of a poet, I met sweating in the street, hangs yet in my nostrils.  CRIS. 
Who? HORACE?  TVCC. 
I; he, dost thou know him?  CRIS. 
O, he forsook me most barbarously, I protest.  TVCC. 
Hang him fusty satire, he smells all goat; he carries a ram, under his armholes, the slave: I am the worse when I see him. Did not MINOS impart?  CRIS. 
Yes, here are twenty drachmas, he did convey.  TVCC. 
Well said, keep 'em, we'll share anon; come, little MINOS.  CRIS. 
Faith, Captain, I'll be bold to show you a mistress of mine, a jewellers wife, a gallant, as we go along.  TVCC. 
There spoke my Genius. MINOS, some of thy eringoes, little MINOS; send: come hither, PARNASSUS, I must ha' thee familiar with my little locust, here, 'tis a good vermin, they say. See, here's HORACE, and old TREBATIUS, the great lawyer, in his company; let's avoid him, now: He is too well seconded.   

Act III. Scene V.  HORACE, TREBATIUS. 
Hor. Sat. 1. li. 2. THere are, to whom I seem excessive sour;  
And past a satires law, t'extend my power:  
Others, that think whatever I have writ  
Wants pith, and matter to eternize it;  
And that they could, in one days light, disclose  
A thousand verses, such as I compose.  
What shall I do, TREBATIUS? say.  TREB. 
Surcease.  HORA. 
And shall my Muse admit no more increase?  TREB. 
So I advise.  HORA. 
An ill death let me die.  
If 'twere not best; but sleep avoids mine eye:  
And I use these, lest nights should tedious seem.  TREB. 
Rather, contend to sleep, and live like them,  
That holding golden sleep in special price,  
Rubbed with sweet oils, swim silver Tiber thrice,  
And every even, with neat wine steeped be:  
Or, if such love of writing ravish thee,  
Then dare to sing unconquered Caesar's deeds;  
Who cheers such actions, with abundant meeds.  HORA. 
That, father, I desire; but when I try,  
I feel defects in every faculty:  
Nor is't a labour fit for every pen,  
To paint the horrid troops of armed men;  
The lances burst, in GALLIA'S slaughtered forces;  
Or wounded Parthians, tumbled from their horses:  
Great Caesar's wars cannot be fought with words.  TREB. 
Yet, what his virtue in his peace affords,  
His fortitude, and justice thou canst show;  
As wise LUCILIUS, honoured SCIPIO.  HORA. 
Of that, my powers shall suffer no neglect,  
When such sleight labours may aspire respect:  
But, if watch not a most chosen time,  
The humble words of FLACCUS cannot climb  
The attentive ear of CAESAR; nor must I  
With less observance shun gross flattery:  
For he, reposed safe in his own merit,  
Spurns back the gloss of a fawning spirit.  TREB. 
But, how much better would such accents sound,  
Then, with a sad, and serious verse to wound  
PANTOLABUS, railing in his saucy jests?  
Or NOMENTANUS spent in riotous feasts?  
"In satires, each man (though untouched) complains  
" As he were hurt; and hates such biting strains.  HORA. 
What shall I do? MILONIUS shakes his heels  
In ceaseless dances, when his brain once feels  
The stirring fervour of the wine ascend;  
And that his eyes false number apprehend.  
CASTOR his horse; POLLUX loves handy fights:  
Thousand heads, a thousand choice delights.  
My pleasure is in feet, my words to close,  
As, both our better, old LUCILIUS does:  
He, as his trusty friends, his books did trust  
With all his secrets; nor, in things unjust,  
Or actions lawful, ran to other men:  
So, that the old man's life, described was seen  
As in a votive table in his lines;  
And to his steps my Genius inclines,  
Lucanian, or Apulian, I not whether;  
For the Venusian colony ploughs either:  
Sent thither, when the Sabines were forced thence  
(As old fame sings) to give the place defence  
'Gainst such, as seeing it empty, might make road  
Upon the empire; or there six abode:  
Whether th' Apulian borderer it were,  
Or the Lucanian violence they fear.  
But this my style no living man shall touch,  
If first I be not forced by base reproach;  
But, like a sheathed sword, it shall defend  
My innocent life; for, why should I contend  
To draw it out, when no malicious thief  
Robs my good name, the treasure of my life?  
O JUPITER, let it with rust be eaten,  
Before it touch, or insolently threaten  
The life of any with the least disease;  
So much I love, and woe a general peace.  
But, he that wrongs me (better, I proclaim,  
He never had assayed to touch my fame.)  
For he shall weep, and walk with every tongue  
Throughout the city, infamously song.  
SERVIUS, the Praetor, threats the laws, and urn,  
If any at his deeds repine or spurn;  
The witch, CANIDIA, that ALBUCIUS got,  
Denounceth witchcraft, where she loveth not:  
THURIUS, the judge, doth thunder worlds of ill,  
To such, as strive with his judicial will;  
"All men affright their foes in what they may,  
" Nature commands it, and men must obey.  
Observe with me; "The wolf his tooth doth use:  
" The bull his horn. And, who doth this infuse,  
"But nature? There's luxurious SCAEVA; Trust  
His long-lived mother with him; His so just  
And scrupulous right hand no mischief will;  
No more, than with his heel a wolf will kill,  
Or Ox with jaw: Marry, let him alone  
With tempered poison to remove the crone.  
But, briefly, if to age I destined be,  
Or that quick deaths black wings environ me;  
If rich, or poor; at Rome; or fate command  
I shall be banished to some other land;  
What hue soever, my whole state shall bear,  
I will write satires still, in spite of fear.  TREB. 
HORACE; I fear, thou drawest no lasting breath:  
And that some great man's friend will be thy death.  HORA. 
What? when the man that first did satirize,  
Durst pull the skin over the ears of vice;  
And make, who stood in outward fashion clear,  
Give place, as foul within; shall I forbear?  
Did LAELIUS, or the man, so great with fame,  
That from sacked Carthage fetched his worthy name,  
Storm, that LUCILIUS did METELLUS pierce?  
Or bury LUPUS quick, in famous verse?  
Rulers, and subjects, by whole tribes he checked;  
But virtue, and her friends did still protect:  
And when from sight, or from the judgement seat,  
The virtuous SCIPIO, and wise LAELIUS met,  
Unbraced, with him in all light sports, they shared;  
Till, their most frugal suppers were prepared.  
whate'er I am, though both for wealth, and wit;  
Beneath LUCILIUS, I am pleased to sit,  
Yet, envy (spite of her empoisoned breast)  
Shall say, I lived in grace here, with the best;  
And, seeking in weak trash to make her wound,  
Shall find me solid, and her teeth unsound:  
'less, learned TREBATIUS censure disagree.  TREB. 
No, HORACE, I of force must yield to thee,  
Only, take heed, as being advised by me,  
Lest thou incur some danger: Better pause  
Than rue thy ignorance of the sacred laws;  
There's justice, and great action may be sued  
'Gainst such, as wrong men's fames with verses lewd.  HORA. 
ay, with lewd verses; such as libels be,  
And aimed at persons of good quality.  
I reverence and adore that just decree:  
But if they shall be sharp, yet modest rhymes  
That spare men's persons, and but tax their crimes,  
Such, shall in open court, find currant pass  
Were CAESAR judge, and with the maker's grace.  TREB. 
Nay, I'll add more; if thou thyself being clear,  
Shalt tax in person a man, fit to boar  
Shame, and reproach; his suit shall quickly be  
Dissolved in laughter, and thou thence sit free.    


Act IV. Scene I.  CHLOE, CYTHERIS. 
But, sweet lady, say: am I well enough attired for the court, in sadness?  CYTH. 
Well enough? excellent well, sweet Mistress CHLOE, this straight-bodied city attire (I can tell you) will stir a courtier's blood, more, than the finest loose sacks the ladies use to be put in; and then you are as well jewelled as any of them, your ruff, and linen about you, is much more pure than theirs: And for your beauty, I can tell you, there's many of them would defy the painter, if they could change with you. marry, the worst is, you must look to be envied, and endure a few courtfrumps for it.  CHLO. 
O JOVE, Madam, I shall buy them too cheap! Give me my muff, and my dog there. And will the ladies be any thing familiar with me, think you?  CYTH. 
O JUNO! why, you shall see 'em flock about you with their puff wings, and ask you, where you bought your lawn? and what you paid for it? who starches you? and entreat you to help 'em to some pure laundresses, out of the city.  CHLO. 
O CUPID! give me my fan, and my mask too: And will the lords, and the poets there, use one well too, lady?  CYTH. 
Doubt not of that: you shall have kisses from them, go pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, upon your lips, as thick as stones out of slings, at the assault of a city. And than your ears will be so furred with the breath of their compliments, that you cannot catch cold of your head (if you would) in three winters after.  CHLO. 
Thank you, sweet lady. O heaven! And how must one behave herself amongst 'em? you know all.  CYTH. 
Faith, impudently enough, mistress CHLOE, and well enough. Carry not too much under-thought betwixt yourself and them; nor your city mannerly word (forsooth) use it not too often in any case; but plain, ay, Madam; and, No, Madam: Nor never say, your Lordship, nor your Honour; but, you, and you my Lord, and my Lady: the other, they count too simple, and minsitive. And though they desire to kiss heaven with their titles, yet they will count them fools that give them too humbly.  CHLO. 
O intolerable, JUPITER! By my troth, lady, I would not for a world, but you had lain in my house: and i' faith you shall not pay a farthing, for your board, nor your chambers.  CYTH. 
O, sweet Mistress CHLOE!  CHLO. 
i'faith, you shall not lady, nay, good lady, do not offer it.   

Act IV. Scene II.  COR. GALLUS, TIBULLUS, CYTHERIS, CHLOE. 
COme, where be these ladies? By your leave, bright stars, this gentleman and I are come to man you to court: where your late kind entertainment is now to be requited with a heavenly banquet.  CYTH. 
A heavenly banquet, Gallus?  COR. GALL. 
No less, my dear, CYTHERIS.  TIBV. 
That were not strange, lady, if the epithet were only given for the company invited thither; yourself, and this fair gentlewoman.  CHLO. 
Are we invited to court, sir?  TIBV. 
You are, lady, by the great Princess, JULIA: who longs to greet you with any favours, that may worthily make you an often courtier.  CHLO. 
In sincerity, I thank her, sir. You have a coach? ha' you not?  TIBV. 
The Princess hath sent her own, lady.  CHLO. 
O VENUS! that's well: I do long to ride in a coach most vehemently.  CYTH. 
But, sweet GALLUS, pray you, resolve me, why you give that heavenly praise, to this earthly banquet?  COR. GALL. 
Because (CYTHERIS) it must be celebrated by the heavenly powers: All the Gods, and Goddesses will be there; to two of which, you two must be exalted.  CHLO. 
A pretty fiction in truth.  CYTH. 
A fiction indeed, CHLOE, and fit, for the fit of a poet.  COR. GALL. 
Why, CYTHERIS, may not poets (from whose divine spirits, all the honours of the gods have been deduced) entreat so much honour of the gods, to have their divine presence at a poetical banquet?  CYTH. 
Suppose that no fiction: yet, where are your abilities to make us two goddesses, at your feast?  COR. GALL. 
Who knows not (CYTHERIS) that the sacred breath of a true poet, can blow any virtuous humanity, up to deity?  TIBV. 
To tell you the female truth (which is the simple truth) ladies; and to show that poets (in spite of the world) are able to deify themselves: At this banquet, to which you are invited, we intend to assume the figures of the Gods; and to give our several Loves the forms of Goddesses. OVID will be JUPITER; the Princess JULIA, JUNO; GALLUS here APOLLO; you CYTHERIS, PALLAS; I will be BACCHUS; and my Love PLAUTIA, CERES: And to install you, and your husband, fair CHLOE, in honours, equal with ours; you shall be a Goddess, and your husband a God.  CHLO. 
A God? O my god!  TIBV. 
A God, but a lame God, lady: for he shall be VULCAN, and you VENUS. And this will make our banquet no less than heavenly.  CHLO. 
In sincerity, it will be sugared. Good JOVE, what a pretty foolish thing it is to be a poet! But hark you, sweet CYTHERIS; could they not possibly leave out my husband? methinks, a Body's husband does not so well at Court: A Body's friend, or so— but husband, 'tis like your clog to your marmoset, for all the world, and the heavens.  CYTH. 
Tut, never fear, CHLOE: your husband will be left without in the lobby, or the great chamber, when you shall be put in, i'the closet, by this lord, and by that lady.  CHLO. 
Nay, than I am certified: he shall go.   

Act IV. Scene III.  GALLUS, HORACE, TIBULLUS, ALBIUS, CRISPINUS, TUCCA, DEMETRIUS, CYTHERIS, CHLOE. 
HORACE! Welcome.  HORA. 
Gentlemen, hear you the news?  TIBV. 
What news, my QVINTUS?  HORA. 
Our melancholic friend, PROPERTIUS,  
Hath closed himself, up, in his Cynthia's tomb;  
And will by no entreaties be drawn thence.  ALBI. 
Nay, good master CRISPINUS, pray you, bring near the gentleman.  HORA. 
CRISPINUS? Hide me, good GALLUS: TIBULLUS, shelter me.  CRIS. 
Make your approach, sweet Captain.  TIBV. 
What means this, HORACE?  HORA. 
I am surprised again, farewell.  GALL. 
Stay, HORACE.  HORA. 
What, and be tired on, by yond vulture? No:  
Phoebus defend me.  TIBV. 
'Slight! I hold my life,  
This same is he met him in holy street.  GALL. 
Troth, 'tis like enough. This act of PROPERTIUS relisheth very strange, with me.  TVCC. 
By thy leave, my neat scoundrel: what, is this the mad boy you talked on?  CRIS. 
I: this is master ALBIUS, Captain.  TVCC. 
Give me thy hand, AGAMEMNON; we hear abroad, thou art the HECTOR of citizens: what sayest thou? are we welcome to thee, noble NEOPTOLEMUS?  ALBI. 
Welcome, Captain? by JOVE, and all the Gods i'the capitol—  TVCC. 
No more, we conceive thee. Which of these is thy wedlock, MENELAUS? thy HELLEN? thy LUCRECE? that we may do her honour; mad boy?  CRIS. 
she i'the little fine dressing, sir, is my Mistress.  ALBI. 
For fault of a better, sir.  TVCC. 
A better, profane rascal? I cry thee mercy (my good scroil) was't thou?  ALBI. 
No harm, Captain.  TVCC. 
she is a VENUS, a VESTA, a MELPOMENE: Come hither, PENELOPE; what's thy name, IRIS?  CHLO. 
My name is CHLOE, sir; I am a gentlewoman.  TVCC. 
Thou art in merit to be an empress (CHLOE) for an eye, and a lip; thou hast an emperor's nose: kiss me again: 'tis a virtuous punk, So. Before JOVE, the gods were a sort of goslings, when they suffered so sweet a breath, to perfume the bed of a stinkard: thou hadst ill fortune, THISBE; the fates were infatuate; they were, punk; they were.  CHLO. 
That's sure, sir: let me crave your name, I pray you, sir.  TVCC. 
I am known by the name of Captain TUCCA, punk; the noble Roman, punk: a gent'man, and a commander, punk.  CHLO. 
In good time: a gentleman, and a commander? that's as good as a poet, methinks.  CRIS. 
A pretty instrument! It's my cousin CYTHERIS viol, this: is't not?  CYTH. 
Nay, play cousin, it wants but such a voice, and hand, to grace it, as yours is.  CRIS. 
Alas, cousin, you are merrily inspired.  CYTH. 
Pray you play, if you love me.  CRIS. 
Yes, cousin: you know, I do not hate you.  TIBV. 
A most subtle wench! How she hath baited him with a viol yonder, for a song!  CRIS. 
Cousin, pray you call mistress CHLOE; she shall hear an essay of my poetry.  TVCC. 
I'll call her. Come hither, cockatrice: here's one, will set thee up, my sweet punk; set thee up.  CHLO. 
Are you a peewit, so soon, sir?  ALBI. 
Wife: mum.  SONG. 
love is blind, and a wanton;  
In the whole world, there is scant-  
one such another:  
No, not his Mother.  
He hath plucked her doves, and sparrows,  
To feather his sharp arrows,  
And alone prevaileth,  
Whilst sick VENUS waileth.  
But if CYPRIS once recover  
The wag; it shall behove her  
To look better to him:  
Or she will undo him.  ALBI. 
O, most odoriferous music!  TVCC. 
A, ha! stinkard. Another ORPHEUS, you slave, another ORPHEUS! an ARION, riding on the back of a dolphin, rascal!  GALL. 
Have you a copy of this ditty, sir?  CRIS. 
Master ALBIUS has.  ALBI. 
ay, but in truth, they are my wives verses; I must not show 'em.  TVCC. 
Show 'em, bankrupt, show 'em; they have salt in 'em, and will brook the air, stinkard.  GALL. 
How? to his bright mistress, CANIDIA?  CRIS. 
ay, sir, that's but a borrowed name; as Ovid's CORINNA, or PROPERTIUS his CYNTHIA, or your NEMESIS, or DELIA, TIBULLUS.  GALL. 
It's the name of HORACE his witch, as I remember.  TIBV. 
Why? the ditty's all borrowed; 'tis Horace's: hang him plagiary.  TVCC. 
How? he borrow of HORACE? he shall pawn himself to ten brokers, first. Do you hear, POETASTERS? I know you to be men of worship— He shall write with HORACE, for a talon: and let Maecenas, and his whole college of critics take his part: thou shalt do't, young PHOEBUS: thou shalt, PHAETON; thou shalt.  DEME. 
Alas, sir, HORACE! he is a mere sponge; nothing but humours, and observation, he goes up and down sucking from every society, and when he comes home, squeezes himself dry again. I know him, I.  TVCC. 
Thou sayest true, my poor poetical Fury, he will pen all he knows. A sharp thorny-toothed satirical rascal, fly him; he carries heigh in his horn: he will sooner lose his best friend, than his least jest. What he once drops upon paper, against a man, lives eternally to upbraid him in the mouth of every slave tankard-bearer, or waterman; not a bawd, or a boy that comes from the bakehouse, but shall point at him: 'tis all dog, and scorpion; he carries poison in his teeth, and a sting in his tail. Fough, body of JOVE! I'll have the slave whipped one of these days for his satires, and his humours, by one cashiered clerk, or another.  CRIS. 
we'll undertake him, Captain.  DEME. 
ay, and tickle him i' faith, for his arrogancy, and his impudence, in commending his own things; and for his translating: I can trace him i' faith. O, he is the most open fellow, living; I had as lief as a new suit, I were at it.  TVCC. 
Say no more then, but do it; 'tis the only way to get thee a new suit; sting him, my little newts; I'll give you instructions: I'll be your intelligencer, we'll all join, and hang upon him like so many horseleeches, the players and all. We shall sup together, soon; and then we'll conspire, i' faith.  GALL. 
O, that HORACE had stayed still, here.  TIBV. 
So would not I: for both these would have turned Pythagoreans, then.  GALL. 
What, mute?  TIBV. 
ay, as fishes i'faith: come, ladies, shall we go?  CYTH. 
We await you, sir. But mistress CHLOE asks, if you have not a god to spare, for this gentleman.  GALL. 
Who, Captain TUCCA?  CYTH. 
I; he.  GALL. 
Yes, if we can invite him along, he shall be MARS.  CHLO. 
Has MARS any thing to do with VENUS?  TIBV. 
O, most of all, lady.  CHLO. 
Nay, then, I pray let him be invited: and what shall CRISPINUS be?  TIBV. 
MERCURY, mistress CHLOE.  CHLO. 
MERCURY? that's a Poet? is't?  GALL. 
No, lady; but somewhat inclining that way: he is a Herald at arms.  CHLO. 
A Herald at arms? good: and MERCURY? pretty: he has to do with VENUS, too?  TIBV. 
A little, with her face, lady; or so.  CHLO. 
'Tis very well; pray let's go, I long to be at it.  CYTH. 
Gentlemen, shall we'pray your companies along?  CRIS. 
You shall not only pray, but prevail, lady. Come, sweet Captain.  TVCC. 
Yes, I follow: but thou must not talk of this now, my little bankrupt.  ALBI. 
Captain, look here: mum.  DEME. 
I'll go write, sir.  TVCC. 
Do, do, stay: there's a drachm, to purchase gingerbread, for thy muse.   

Act IV. Scene IIII.  LUPUS, HISTRIO, LICTOR, MINOS, MECoeNAS, HORACE. 
COme, let us talk, here; here we may be private: shut the door,  LICTOR. 
You are a player, you say.  HIST. 
ay, an't please your worship.  LVPV. 
Good: and how are you able to give this intelligence?  HIST. 
marry, sir, they directed a letter to me, and my fellow-sharers.  LVPV. 
Speak lower, you are not now i'your theater, Stager: my sword, knave. They directed a letter to you, and your fellow-sharers: forward.  HIST. 
Yes, sir; to hire some of our properties; as a sceptre, and a crown, for JOVE; and a caduceus for MERCURY: and a petasus—  LVPV. 
Caduceus? and petasus? Let me see your letter. This is a conjuration; a conspiracy, this. Quickly, on with my buskins: I'll act a tragedy, i' faith. Will nothing but our gods serve these poets to profane? dispatch. Player, I thank thee. The Emperor shall take knowledge of thy good service. Who's there now? Look, knave. A crown, and a sceptre? this is good: rebellion, now?  LICT. 
'Tis your pothecary, sir, master MINOS.  LVPV. 
What tell'st thou me of pothecaries, knave? Tell him; I have affairs of state, in hand; I can talk to no pothecaries, now. Heart of me! Stay the pothecary there.  
You shall see, I have fished out a cunning piece of plot now: They have had some intelligence, that their project is discovered, and now have they dealt with my pothecary, to poison me; 'tis so; knowing, that I meant to take physic today: As sure as death, 'tis there. JUPITER, I thank thee, that thou hast yet made me so much of a politician. You are welcome, sir; take the potion from him there; I have an antidote more than you wot off, sir; throw it on the ground there: So. Now fetch in the dog; And yet we cannot tarry to try experiments, now: arrest him, you shall go with me, sir; I'll tickle you, pothecary; I'll give you a glister, i' faith. Have I the letter? I: 'tis here. Come, your fasces, LICTORS: The half pikes, and the halberds, take them down from the lares, there. Player, assist me.  MECae. 
Whither now, ASINIUS LUPUS, with this armory?  LVPV. 
I cannot talk now; I charge you, assist me: Treason, treason.  HORA. 
How? treason?  LVPV. 
I: if you love the Emperor, and the state, follow me.   

Act IV. Scene V.  OVID, JULIA, GALLUS, CYTHERIS, TIBULLUS, PLAUTIA, ALBIUS, CHLOE, TUCCA, CRISPINUS, HERMOGENES, PYRGUS. 
GOds, and Goddesses, take your several seats. Now, MERCVRY, move your caduceus, and in Jupiter's name command silence.  CRIS. 
In the name of JUPITER; silence.  HERM. 
The crier of the court hath too clarified a voice.  GALL. 
Peace, Momus.  OVID. 
Oh, he is the God of reprehension; let him alone. 'Tis his office. MERCURY, go forward, and proclaim after PHOEBUS, our high pleasure, to all the Deities that shall partake this high banquet.  CRIS. 
Yes, sir.  GALL. 
The great God, JUPITER,  
Of his licentious goodness,  
Willing to make this feast, no fast  
From any manner of pleasure;  
Nor to bind any God or Goddess,  
To be any thing the more god or goddess, for their names:  
He gives them all free licence,  
To speak no wiser, than persons of baser titles;  
And to be nothing better, than common men, or women.  
And therefore no God  
Shall need to keep himself more strictly to his Goddess,  
Than any man does to his wife.  
Nor any Goddess  
Shall need to keep herself more strictly to her God,  
Than any woman does to her husband.  
But, since it is no part of wisdom,  
In these days, to come into bonds;  
It shall be lawful for every lover,  
To break loving oaths,  
To change their lovers, and make love to others,  
As the heat of every one's blood,  
And the spirit of our nectar shall inspire.  
And JUPITER, save JUPITER.  CRIS. 
The great, etc.  
Of his, etc.  
Willing, etc.  
From any, etc.  
Nor to, etc.  
To be, etc.  
He gives, etc.  
To speak, etc.  
And to, etc.  
And there, etc.  
Shall need, etc.  
Then any, etc.  
Nor any, etc.  
Shall need, etc.  
Then any, etc.  
But, since, etc.  
In these, etc.  
It shall, etc.  
To break, etc.  
To change, etc.  
As the, etc.  
And the, etc.  
And JUPI. etc.  TIBV. 
So: now we may play the fools, by authority.  HERM. 
To play the fool by authority, is wisdom.  IVLI. 
Away with your mattery sentences, Momus; they are too grave, and wise, for this meeting.  OVID. 
MERCURY, give our jester a stool, let him sit by; and reach him of our cates.  TVCC. 
Dost hear, mad JUPITER? we'll have it enacted; He, that speaks the first wise word, shall be made cuckold. What sayst thou? Is't not a good motion?  OVID. 
Deities, are you all agreed?  ALL. 
Agreed, great JUPITER.  ALBI. 
I have read in a book, that to play the fool wisely, is high wisdom.  GALL. 
How now, VULCAN! will you be the first wizard?  OVID. 
Take his wife, MARS, and make him cuckold, quickly.  TVCC. 
Come, cockatrice.  CHLO. 
No, let me alone with him, JUPITER: I'll make you take heed, sir, while you live again; if there be twelve in a company, that you be not the wisest of 'em.  ALBI. 
No more, I will not indeed, wife, hereafter; I'll be here: mum.  OVID. 
Fill us a bowl of nectar, GANYMEDE: we will drink to our daughter VENUS.  GALL. 
Look to your wife, VULCAN: JUPITER begins to court her.  TIBV. 
Nay, let MARS look to it: VULCAN must do, as VENUS does, bear.  TVCC. 
Sirrah, boy: catamite. Look, you play GANYMEDE well now, you slave. Do not spill your nectar; Carry your cup even: so. You should have rubbed your face, with whites of eggs, you rascal; till your brows had shone like our sooty brothers here, as sleek as a hornbook: or ha' steeped your lips in wine, till you made 'em so plump, that JUNO might have been jealous of'em. Punk, kiss me, punk.  OVID. 
Here, daughter VENUS, I drink to thee.  CHLO. 
Thank you, good father JUPITER.  TVCC. 
Why, mother JUNO! gods and fiends! what, wilt thou suffer this ocular temptation?  TIBV. 
MARS is enraged, he looks big, and begins to stut, for anger.  HERM. 
Well played, Captain MARS.  TVCC. 
Well said, minstrel MOMUS: I must put you in? must I? When will you be in good fooling of yourself, fiddler? never?  HERM. 
O, 'tis our fashion, to be silent, when there is a better fool in place, ever.  TVCC. 
Thank you, rascal.  OVID. 
Fill to our daughter VENUS, GANYMEDE, who fills her father with affection.  IVLI. 
Wilt thou be ranging, JUPITER, before my face?  OVID. 
Why not, JUNO? why should JUPITER stand in awe of thy face, JUNO?  IVLI. 
Because it is thy wives face, JUPITER.  OVID. 
What, shall a husband be afraid of his wives face? will she paint it so horribly? we are a King, cotquean; and we will reign in our pleasures; and we will cudgel thee to death, if thou find fault with us.  IVLI. 
I will find fault with thee, King cuckold-maker: what, shall the King of gods turn the King of good fellows, and have no fellow in wickedness? This makes our poets, that know our profaneness, live as profane, as we: By my godhead, JUPITER; I will join with all the other gods, here; bind thee hand and foot; throw thee down into earth; and make a poor poet of thee, if thou abuse me thus.  GALL. 
A good smart-tongued Goddess; a right JUNO.  OVID. 
JUNO, we will cudgel thee, JUNO: we told thee so yesterday, when thou wert jealous of us, for THETIS.  PYRG. 
Nay, today she had me in inquisition too.  TVCC. 
Well said, my fine Phrygian fry, inform, inform. Give me some wine (King of Heralds) I may drink to my cockatrice.  OVID. 
No more, GANYMEDE, we will cudgel thee, JUNO: by STYX, we will.  IVLI. 
ay, 'tis well, Gods may grow impudent in iniquity, and they must not be told of it—  OVID. 
Yea, we will knock our chin against our breast; and shake thee out of Olympus, into an oyster-boat, for thy scolding.  IVLI. 
Your nose is not long enough to do it, JUPITER, if all thy strumpets, thou hast among the stars, took thy part. And there is never a star in thy forehead, but shall be a horn, if thou persist to abuse me.  CRIS. 
A good jest, i' faith.  OVID. 
We tell thee, thou anger'st us, cotquean; and we will thunder thee in pieces, for thy cotqueanity.  CRIS. 
Another good jest.  ALBI. 
O, my hammers, and my Cyclops! this boy fills not wine enough, to make us kind enough, to one another.  TVCC. 
Nor thou hast not collied thy face enough, stinkard.  ALBI. 
I'll ply the table with nectar, and make them friends.  HERM. 
Heaven is like to have but a lame skinker, then.  ALBI. 
"Wine, and good livers, make true lovers: I'll sentence them together. Here father, here mother, for shame, drink yourselves drunk, and forget this dissension: you two should cling together, before our faces, and give us example of unity.  GALL. 
O, excellently spoken, VULCAN, on the sudden!  TIBV. 
JUPITER, may do well to prefer his tongue to some office, for his eloquence.  TVCC. 
His tongue shall be gent'man usher to his wit, and still go before it.  ALBI. 
An excellent fit office!  CRIS. 
ay, and an excellent good jest, besides.  HERM. 
What, have you hired MERCURY, to cry your jests you make?  OVID. 
MOMUS, you are envious.  TVCC. 
Why, you whoreson blockhead, 'tis your only block of wit in fashion (now adays) to applaud other folks jests.  HERM. 
True: with those that are not artificers themselves. VULCAN, you nod; and the mirth of the jest droops.  PYRG. 
He has filled nectar so long, till his brain swims in it.  GALL. 
What, do we nod, fellow Gods? sound music, and let us startle our spirits with a song.  TVCC. 
Do, APOLLO: thou art a good musician.  GALL. 
What says JUPITER?  OVID. 
Ha? ha?  GALL. 
A song.  OVID. 
Why, do, do, sing.  PLAV. 
BACCHUS, what say you?  TIBV. 
CERES?  PLAV. 
But, to this song?  TIBV. 
Sing, for my part.  IVLI. 
Your belly weighs down your head, BACCHUS: here's a song toward.  TIBV. 
Begin, VULCAN—  ALBI. 
What else? what else?  TVCC. 
Say, JUPITER—  OVID. 
MERCURY—  CRIS. 
ay, say, say—  SONG. 
WAke, our mirth begins to die:  
Quicken it with tunes, and wine:  
Raise your notes, you're out: fie, fie,  
This drowsiness is an ill sign.  
We banish him the queer of Gods,  
That droops again:  
Then all are men,  
For here's not one, but nods.  OVID. 
I like not this sudden and general heaviness, amongst our Godheads: 'Tis somewhat ominous. APOLLO, command us louder music, and let MERCURY, and MOMUS contend to please, and revive our senses.  SONG. HERM. 
THen, in a free and lofty strain,  
Our broken tunes we thus repair;  CRIS. 
And we answer them again,  
Running division on the panting air:  AMBO. 
To celebrate this feast of sense,  
As free from scandal, as offence.  HERM. 
Here is beauty, for the eye;  CRIS. 
For the ear, sweet melody;  HERM. 
ambrosiac odours, for the smell;  CRIS. 
Delicious nectar, for the taste;  AMBO. 
For the touch, a lady's waste;  
Which doth all the rest excel!  OVID. 
I: This hath waked us. MERCURY, our Herald; Go from ourself, the great God JUPITER, to the great Emperor, AUGUSTUS CAESAR: And command him, from us (of whose bounty he hath received his surname, AUGUSTUS) that for a thank-offering to our beneficence, he presently sacrifice as a dish to this banquet, his beautiful and wanton daughter JULIA. she's a cursed quean, tell him; and plays the scold behind his back: Therefore, let her be sacrificed. Command him this, MERCURY, in our high name of JUPITER ALTITONANS.  IVLI. 
Stay, feather-footed MERCURY, and tell AUGUSTUS, from us, the great JUNO SATURNIA; if he think it hard to do, as JUPITER hath commanded him, and sacrifice his daughter, that he had better to do so ten times, then suffer her to love the well-nosed poet, OVID: whom he shall do well to whip, or cause to be whipped, about the capitol, for soothing her, in her follies.   

Act IV. Scene VI.  CAESAR, MECOENAS, HORACE, LUPUS, HISTRIO, MINOS, LICTORS, OVID, GALLUS, TIBULLUS, TUCCA, CRISPINUS, ALBIUS, HERMOGENES, PYRGUS, JULIA, CYTHERIS, PLAUTIA, CHLOE. 
WHat sight is this? Maecenas! HORACE! say!  
Have we our senses? Do we hear? and see?  
Or, are these but imaginary objects  
Drawn by our fantasy? Why speak you not?  
Let us do sacrifice? Are they the Gods?  
Reverence, amaze, and fury fight in me.  
What? do they kneel? Nay, than I see 'tis true  
I thought impossible: O, impious sight!  
Let me divert mine eyes; the very thought  
Everts my soul, with passion: look not, man.  
There is a panther, whose unnatural eyes  
Will strike thee dead: He offers to kill his daughter. turn then, and die on her  
With her own death.  MECoe. 
HORACE. What means imperial CAESAR?  CAESA. 
What, would you have me let the strumpet live,  
That, for this pageant, earns so many deaths?  TVCC. 
Boy, slink boy.  PYRG. 
Pray JUPITER, we be not followed by the scent, Master.  CAESA. 
Say, sir, what are you?  ALBI. 
I play VULCAN, sir.  CAESA. 
But, what are you, sir?  ALBI. 
Your citizen, and jeweller, sir.  CAESA. 
And what are you, dame?  CHLO. 
I play VENUS, forsooth.  CAESA. 
I ask not, what you play? but, what you are?  CHLO. 
Your citizen, and jewellers wife, sir.  CAESA. 
And you, good sir?  CRIS. 
Your gentleman, parcel-poet, sir.  CAESA. 
O, that profaned name!  
And are these seemly company for thee,  
Degenerate monster? all the rest I know,  
And hate all knowledge, for their hateful sakes.  
Are you, that first the deities inspired  
With skill of their high natures, and their powers,  
The first abusers of their useful light;  
Profaning thus their dignities, in their forms:  
And making them like you, but counterfeits?  
O, who shall follow virtue, and embrace her,  
When her false bosom is found nought but air?  
And yet, of those embraces, centaurs spring,  
That war with human peace, and poison men.  
Who shall, with greater comforts, comprehend  
Her unseen being, and her excellence;  
When you, that teach, and should eternize her,  
Live, as she were no law unto your lives:  
Nor lived herself, but with your idle breaths?  
If you think gods but feigned, and virtue painted,  
Know, we sustain an actual residence;  
And, with the title of an Emperor,  
Retain his spirit, and imperial power:  
By which (in imposition too remiss,  
Licentious NASO, for thy violent wrong,  
In soothing the declined affections  
Of our base daughter) we exile thy feet  
From all approach, to our imperial court,  
On pain of death: and thy misgotten love  
Commit to patronage of iron doors;  
Since her soft-hearted fire cannot contain her.  MECoe. 
O, good my lord; forgive: be like the Gods.  HORA. 
Let royal bounty (CAESAR) mediate.  CAESA. 
There is no bounty to be showed to such,  
As have no real goodness: Bounty is  
A spice of virtue: and what virtuous act  
Can take effect on them, that have no power  
Of equal habitude to apprehend it,  
But live in worship of that idol vice,  
As if there were no virtue, but in shade  
Of strong imagination, merely enforced?  
This shows, their knowledge is mere ignorance;  
Their far-fetched dignity of soul, a fancy;  
And all their square pretext of gravity  
A mere vain glory: hence, away with 'em.  
I will prefer for knowledge, none, but such  
As rule their lives by it, and can becalm  
All sea of humour, with the marble trident  
Of their strong spirits: Others fight below  
With gnats, and shadows, others nothing know.   

Act IV. Scene VII.  TUCCA, CRISPINUS, PYRGUS, HORACE, MECoeNAS, LUPUS, HISTRIO. 
WHat's become of my little punk, VENUS! and the polt-foot stinkard, her husband? ha?  CRIS. 
O, they are rid home i' the coach, as fast as the wheels can run.  TVCC. 
God JUPITER is banished, I hear: and his cockatrice, JUNO, locked up: 'heart; and and all the poetry in Parnassus get me to be a player again, I'll sell 'em my share for a sesterce. But this is humours, HORACE, that goat-footed envious slave; he's turned fawn now, an informer, the rogue: 'tis he has betrayed us all. Did you not see him, with the Emperor, crouching?  CRIS. 
Yes.  TVCC. 
Well, follow me. Thou shalt libel, and I'll cudgel the rascal. Boy, provide me a truncheon; Revenge shall gratulate him, tam MARTI, quàm MERCURIO.  PYRG. 
ay, but Master; take heed how you give this out, HORACE is a man of the sword.  CRIS. 
'Tis true, in troth: they say, he's valiant.  TVCC. 
Valiant? so is mine arse, gods, and fiends! I'll blow him into air, when I meet him next: He dares not fight with a puckfist.  PYRG. 
Master, Horace passes by. here he comes.  TVCC. 
Where? JUPITER save thee, my good poet; my noble prophet; my little fat HORACE. I scorn to beat the rogue i' the court; and I saluted him, thus fair, because he should suspect nothing, the rascal: Come, we'll go see how forward our journeyman is toward the untrussing of him.  CRIS. 
Do you hear, Captain? I'll write nothing in it but innocence: because I may swear I am innocent.  HORA. 
Nay, why pursue you not the Emperor for your reward, now, LUPUS?  MECoe. 
Stay, ASINIUS; you, and your stager, and your band of LICTORS:  
I hope your service merits more respect,  
Then thus, without a thanks, to be sent hence?  HIST. 
Well, well, jest on, jest on.  HORA. 
Thou base unworthy groom.  LVPV. 
ay, ay, 'tis good.  HORA. 
Was this the treason? this, the dangerous plot,  
Thy clamorous tongue so bellowed through the court?  
Hadst thou no other project to increase  
Thy grace with CAESAR, but this wolvish train;  
To prey upon the life of innocent mirth,  
And harmless pleasures, bred, of noble wit?  
Away, I loath thy presence: such as thou,  
They are the moths, and scarabs of a state;  
The bane of empires; and the dregs of courts;  
Who (to endear themselves to any employment)  
Care not, whose fame they blast; whose life they endanger:  
And under a disguised, and cobweb mask  
Of love, unto their sovereign, vomit forth  
Their own prodigious malice; and pretending  
To be the props, and columns of his safety,  
The guards unto his person, and his peace,  
Disturb it most, with their false lapwing-cries.  LVPV. 
Good. CAESAR shall know of this; believe it.  MECoe. 
CAESAR doth know it (wolf) and to his knowledge,  
He will (I hope) reward your base endeavours.  
"Princes that will but hear, or give access  
" To such officious spies, can ne'er be safe:  
"They take in poison, with an open care,  
" And, free from danger, become slaves to fear.   

Act IV. Scene VIII.  OVID. 
Banished the court? Let me be banished life;  
Since the chief end of life is there concluded:  
Within the court, is all the kingdom bounded,  
And as her sacred sphere doth comprehend  
Ten thousand times so much, as so much place  
In any part of all the empire else;  
So everybody, moving in her sphere,  
Contains ten thousand times as much in him,  
As any other, her choice orb excludes.  
As in a circle, a magician, then  
Is safe, against the spirit, he excites;  
But out of it, is subject to his rage,  
And loseth all the virtue of his art:  
So I, exiled the circle of the court,  
Lose all the good gifts, that in it I joyed.  
"No virtue currant is, but with her stamp:  
" And no vice vicious, blanched with her white hand.  
The court's the abstract of all Rome's desert;  
And my dear JULIA, th'abstract of the court.  
methinks, now I come near her, I respire  
Some air of that late comfort, I received:  
And while the evening, with her modest vail,  
Gives leave to such poor shadows as myself,  
To steal abroad, ay, like a heartless ghost,  
Without the living body of my love,  
Will here walk, and attend her. For I know,  
Not far from hence, she is imprisoned,  
And hopes, of her strict guardian, to bribe  
So much admittance, as to speak to me,  
And cheer my fainting spirits, with her breath.   

Act IV. Scene IX.  JULIA, she appeareth above, as at her chamber window. OVID. 
OVID? my love?  OVID. 
Here, heavenly JULIA.  IVLI. 
Here? and not here? O, how that word doth play  
With both our fortunes, differing, like ourselves,  
Both one; and yet divided, as opposed?  
I high, thou low? O, this our plight of place  
Doubly presents the two lets of our love,  
Local, and ceremonial height, and lowness:  
Both ways, I am too high, and thou too low.  
Our minds are even, yet: O, why should our bodies,  
That are their slaves, be so without their rule?  
I'll cast myself down to thee; If I die,  
I'll ever live with thee: no height of birth,  
Of place, of duty, or of cruel power,  
Shall keep me from thee; should my father lock  
This body up within a tomb of brass,  
Yet I'll be with thee. If the forms, I hold  
Now in my soul, be made one substance with it;  
That soul immortal; and the same 'tis now;  
Death cannot raze th'affects, she now retaineth:  
And then, may she be anywhere she will.  
The souls of parents rule not children's souls,  
When death sets both in their dissolved estates;  
Then is no child, nor father: then eternity  
Frees all, from any temporal respect.  
I come, my OVID, take me in thine arms:  
And let me breath my soul into thy breast.  OVID. 
O, stay, my love: the hopes thou dost conceive  
Of thy quick death, and of thy future life,  
Are not authentical. Thou choosest death,  
So thou might'st joy thy love, in th'other life.  
But know (my princely love) when thou art dead,  
Thou only must survive in perfect soul;  
And in the soul, are no affections:  
We power out our affections with our blood;  
And with our bloods affections, fade our loves.  
"No life hath love in such sweet state, as this;  
" No essence is so dear to moody sense,  
"As flesh, and blood; whose quintessence is sense.  
" Beauty, composed of blood, and flesh, moves more,  
"And is more plausible to blood, and flesh,  
" Then spiritual beauty can be to the spirit.  
Such apprehension, as we have in dreams  
(When sleep, the bond of senses, locks them up)  
Such shall we have, when death destroys them quite.  
If love be then thy object, change not life;  
Live high, and happy still: I still below,  
Close with my fortunes, in thy height, shall joy.  IVLI. 
Ay me, that virtue, whose brave eagles wings  
With every stroke, blow stars, in burning heaven;  
Should like a swallow (preying toward storms)  
Fly close to earth: and with an eager plume,  
Pursue those objects, which none else can see,  
But seem to all the world, the empty air.  
Thus thou (poor OVID) and all virtuous men  
Must prey like swallows, on invisible food;  
Pursuing flies, or nothing: and thus love,  
And every worldly fancy, is transposed,  
By worldly tyranny, to what plight it list.  
O, father, since thou gav'st me not my mind,  
Strive not to rule it: Take, but what thou gav'st  
To thy disposure. Thy affections  
Rule not in me; I must bear all my griefs,  
Let me use all my pleasures: virtuous love  
Was never scandal to a Goddess state.  
But, he's inflexible! and, my dear love,  
Thy life may chance be shortened, by the length  
Of my unwilling speeches to depart.  
Farewell, sweet life: though thou be yet exiled  
Th'officious court, enjoy me amply, still:  
My soul, in this my breath, enters thine ears,  
And on this turret's floor, will I lie dead,  
Till we may meet again. In this proud height,  
I kneel beneath thee, in my prostrate love,  
And kiss the happy sands, that kiss thy feet.  
"Great JOVE submits a sceptre, to a cell;  
" And lovers, ere they part, will meet in hell.  OVID. 
Farewell, all company; and if I could  
All light with thee: hell's shade should hide my brows,  
Till thy dear beauty's beams redeemed my vows.  IVLI. 
OVID, she calls him back. my love: alas, may we not stay  
A little longer (think'st thou) undiscerned?  OVID. 
For thine own good, fair Goddess, do not stay:  
Who would engage a firmament of fires,  
Shining in thee, for me, a falling star?  
Be gone, sweet lifeblood: if I should discern  
thyself but touched, for my sake, I should die.  IVLI. 
I will be gone, then; and not heaven itself  
Shall draw me back. He calls her back.  OVID. 
Yet JULIA, if thou wilt,  
A little longer, stay.  IVLI. 
I am content.  OVID. 
O, mighty OVID! what the sway of heaven  
Could not retire, my breath hath turned back.  IVLI. 
Who shall go first, my love? my passionate eyes  
Will not endure to see thee turn from me.  OVID. 
If thou go first, my soul will follow thee.  IVLI. 
Then we must stay.  OVID. 
Ay me, there is no stay  
In amorous pleasures: if both stay, both die.  
I hear thy father, hence, my deity.  
Fear forgeth sounds in my deluded ears;  
I did not hear him: I am mad with love.  
There is no spirit, under heaven, that works  
With such illusion: yet such witchcraft kill me,  
Ere a sound mind, without it, save my life.  
Here, on my knees, I worship the blessed place  
That held my goddess; and the loving air,  
That closed her body in his silken arms:  
Vain OVID! kneel not to the place, nor air;  
she's in thy heart: rise then, and worship there.  
"The truest wisdom silly men can have,  
" Is dotage, on the follies of their flesh.    


Act V. Scene I.  CAESAR, MECOENAS, GALLUS, TIBULLUS, HORACE, EQVITES RO. 
WE, that have conquered still, to save the conquered,  
And loved to make inflictions feared, not felt;  
Grieved to reprove, and joyful to reward,  
More proud of reconcilement, than revenge,  
Resume into the late state of our love,  
Worthy CORNELIUS GALLUS, and TIBULLUS:  
You both are gentlemen, you, CORNELIUS,  
A soldier of renown; and the first provost,  
That ever let our Roman eagles fly  
On swarthy Egypt, quarried with her spoils.  
Yet (not to bear cold forms, nor men's out-terms,  
Without the inward fires, and lives of men)  
You both have virtues, shining through your shapes;  
To show, your titles are not writ on posts,  
Or hollow statues, which the best men are,  
Without Promethean stuffings reached from heaven!  
Sweet poesies sacred garlands crown your gentry:  
Which is, of all the faculties on earth,  
The most abstract, and perfect; if she be  
True borne, and nursed with all the sciences.  
She can so mould Rome, and her monuments,  
Within the liquid marble of her lines,  
That they shall stand fresh, and miraculous,  
Even, when they mix with innovating dust;  
In her sweet streams shall our brave Roman spirits  
Chase, and swim after death, with their choice deeds  
Shining on their white shoulders; and therein  
Shall Tiber, and our famous rivers fall  
With such attraction, that th'ambitious line  
Of the round world shall to her centre shrink,  
To hear their music: And, for these high parts,  
CAESAR shall reverence the Pierian arts.  MECoe. 
Your majesties high grace to poesy,  
Shall stand 'gainst all the dull detractions  
Of leaden souls; who (for the vain assumings  
Of some, quite worthless of her sovereign wreaths)  
Contain her worthiest prophets in contempt.  GALL. 
Happy is Rome of all earth's other states,  
To have so true, and great a precedent,  
For her inferior spirits to imitate,  
As CAESAR is; who addeth to the sun,  
Influence, and lustre: in increasing thus  
His inspirations, kindling fire in us.  HORA. 
PHOEBUS himself shall kneel at Caesar's shrine,  
And deck it with bay-garlands dewed with wine,  
To quite the worship CAESAR does to him:  
Where other Princes, hoist to their thrones  
By fortunes passionate and disordered power,  
Sit in their height, like clouds, before the sun,  
Hindering his comforts; and (by their excess  
Of cold in virtue, and cross heat in vice)  
Thunder, and tempest, on those learned heads,  
Whom CAESAR with such honour doth advance.  TIBV. 
All human business fortune doth command  
Without all order; and with her blind hand,  
She, blind, bestows blind gifts: that still have nursed  
They see not who, nor how, but still, the worst.  CAES. 
CAESAR, for his rule, and for so much stuff  
As fortune puts in his hand, shall dispose it  
(As if his hand had eyes, and soul, in it)  
With worth and judgement. "Hands, that part with gifts,  
" Or will restrain their use, without desert;  
"Or with a misery, numbed to virtues right,  
" Work, as they had no soul to govern them,  
"And quite reject her: severing their estates  
" From human order. Whosoever can,  
"And will not cherish virtue, is no man.  EQVES. 
VIRGIL is now at hand, imperial CAESAR.  CAES. 
Rome's honour is at hand then. Fetch a chair,  
And set it on our right hand; where 'tis fit.  
Rome's honour, and our own, should ever sit.  
Now he is come out of Campania,  
I doubt not, he hath finished all his Aeneids,  
Which, like another soul, I long t'enjoy.  
What think * Viz. Maecenas, Gallus, Tibullus you three, of VIRGIL, gentlemen,  
(That are of his profession, though ranked higher)  
Or HORACE, what sayst thou, that art the poorest,  
And like liest to envy, or to detract?  HORA. 
CAESAR speaks after common men, in this,  
To make a difference of me, for my poorness:  
As if the filth of poverty sunk as deep  
Into a knowing spirit, as the bane  
Of riches doth, into an ignorant soul.  
No, CAESAR, they be pathless, moorish minds,  
That being once made rotten with the dung  
Of damned riches, ever after sink  
Beneath the steps of any villainy.  
But knowledge is the nectar, that keeps sweet  
A perfect soul, even in this grave of sin;  
And for my soul, it is as free, as Caesar's:  
For, what I know is due, I'll give to all.  
"He that detracts, or envies virtuous merit,  
" Is still the covetous, and the ignorant spirit.  CAES. 
Thanks, HORACE, for thy free, and wholesome sharpness:  
Which pleaseth CAESAR more, then servile fawns.  
"A flattered prince soon turns the prince of fools.  
And for thy sake, we'll put no difference more  
Between the great, and good, for being poor.  
Say then, loved HORACE, thy true thought of VIRGIL.  HORA. 
I judge him of a rectified spirit,  
By many revolutions of discourse  
(In his bright reason's influence) refined  
From all the tartarous moods of common men;  
Bearing the nature, and similitude  
Of a right heavenly body: most severe  
In fashion, and collection of himself,  
And then as clear, and confident, as JOVE.  GALL. 
And yet so chaste, and tender is his ear,  
In suffering any syllable to pass,  
That, he thinks, may become the honoured name  
Of issue to his so examined self;  
That all the lasting fruits of his full merit  
In his own poems, he doth still distaste:  
As if his minds piece, which he strove to paint,  
Could not with fleshly pencils have her right.  TIBV. 
But, to approve his works of sovereign worth,  
This observation( methinks) more than serves:  
And is not vulgar. That, which he hath writ,  
Is with such judgement, laboured, and distilled  
Through all the needful uses of our lives,  
That could a man remember but his lines,  
He should not touch at any serious point,  
But he might breath his spirit out of him.  CAES. 
You mean, he might repeat part of his works,  
As fit for any conference, he can use?  TIBV. 
True, royal CAESAR.  CAES. 
Worthily observed:  
And a most worthy virtue in his works.  
What thinks material HORACE, of his learning?  HORA. 
His learning labours not the school-like gloss,  
That most consists in echoing words, and terms,  
And soonest wins a man an empty name;  
Nor any long, or far-fetched circumstance,  
Wrapped in the curious generalties of arts:  
But a direct, and analytic sum  
Of all the worth and first effects of arts.  
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life,  
That it shall gather strength of life, with being,  
And live hereafter, more admired, then now.  CAES. 
This one consent, in all your dooms of him,  
And mutual loves of all your several merits,  
Argues a truth of merit in you all.   

Act V. Scene II.  CAESAR, VIRGIL, MECOENAS, GALLUS, TIBULLUS, HORACE, EQVITES RO. 
SEe, here comes VIRGIL; we will rise and greet him:  
Welcome to CAESAR, VIRGIL. CAESAR, and VIRGIL  
Shall differ but in sound; to CAESAR, VIRGIL  
(Of his expressed greatness) shall be made  
A second surname, and to VIRGIL, CAESAR.  
Where are thy famous Aeneids? do us grace  
To let us see, and surfeit on their sight.  VIRG. 
Worthless they are of Caesar's gracious eyes,  
If they were perfect; much more with their wants:  
Which yet are more, than my time could supply.  
And, could great Caesar's expectation  
Be satisfied with any other service,  
I would not show them.  CAES. 
VIRGIL is too modest;  
Or seeks, in vain, to make our longings more.  
Show them, sweet VIRGIL.  VIRG. 
Then, in such due fear,  
As fits presenters of great works, to CAESAR,  
I humbly show them.  CAES. 
Let us now behold  
A human soul made visible in life;  
And more refulgent in a senseless paper,  
Then in the sensual complement of Kings.  
Read, read, thyself, dear VIRGIL, let not me  
Profane one accent, with an untuned tongue:  
"Best matter, badly shown, shows worse, then bad.  
See then, this chair, or purpose set for thee  
To read thy poem in: refuse it not.  
" Virtue, without presumption, place may take  
"Above best Kings, whom only she should make.  VIRG. 
It will be thought a thing ridiculous  
To present eyes, and to all future times  
A gross untruth; that any poet (void  
Of birth, or wealth, or temporal dignity)  
Should, with decorum, transcend Caesar's chair.  
"Poor virtue raised, high birth and wealth set under,  
" Crosseth heavens courses, and makes worldlings wonder.  CAES. 
The course of heaven, and fate itself, in this  
Will CAESAR cross; much more all worldly custom.  HORA. 
"Custom, in course of honour, ever errs:  
" And they are best, whom fortune least prefers.  CAES. 
HORACE hath (but more strictly) spoke our thoughts.  
The vast rude swinge of general confluence  
Is, in particular ends, exempt from sense:  
And therefore reason (which in right should be  
The special rector of all harmony)  
Shall show we are a man, distinct by it,  
From those, whom custom rapteth in her press.  
Ascend then, VIRGIL: and where first by chance  
We here have turned thy book, do thou first read.  VIRG. 
Great CAESAR hath his will: I will ascend.  
'Twere simple injury to his free hand,  
That sweeps the cobwebs, from unused virtue,  
And makes her shine proportioned, to her worth.  
To be more nice to entertain his grace;  
Then he is choice and liberal to afford it.  CAES. 
Gentlemen of our chamber, guard the doors,  
And let none enter, peace. Begin, good VIRGIL.  VIRG. 
Virg. lib. 4. Aeneid. meanwhile, the skies 'gan thunder; and in tail  
Of that, fell pouring storms of sleet, and hail:  
The Tyrian lords, and Trojan youth, each where  
With VENUS Dardan * julus. nephew, now, in fear  
Seek out for several shelter through the plain;  
Whilst floods come rolling from the hills amain.  
DIDO a cave, The Trojan * Aeneas. Prince the same  
Lighted upon. There, earth, and heavens great * juno. dame,  
That hath the charge of marriage, first gave sign  
Unto this contract; fire, and air did shine,  
As guilty of the match; and from the hill  
The nymphs, with shreekings, do the region fill.  
Here first began their bane; This day was ground  
Of all their ills: For now, nor rumours sound,  
Nor nice respect of state moves DIDO ought;  
Her love, no longer now, by stealth is sought:  
She calls this wedlock, and with that fair name  
Covers her fault. Forthwith the bruit, and fame,  
Through all the greatest Lybian towns, is gone;  
Fame, a fleet evil, than which is swifter none:  
That moving grows, and flying gathers strength;  
Little at first, and fearful; but at length  
She dares attempt the skies, and stalking proud  
With feet on ground, her head doth pierce a cloud!  
This child, our parent earth, stirred up with spite  
Of all the gods, brought forth; and, as some wright,  
She was last sister of that Giant * Coeus, Enceladus, etc. race,  
That thought to scale joves court; right swift of pace,  
And swifter, far, of wing: a monster vast,  
And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed  
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes  
Stick underneath: and (which may stranger rise  
In the report) as many tongues she bears,  
As many mouths, as many listening ears.  
Nightly, in midst of all the heaven, she flies,  
And through the earth's dark shadow, shrieking, cries;  
Nor do her eyes once bend, to taste sweet sleep:  
By day, on tops of houses, she doth keep,  
Or on high towers; and doth thence affright  
Cities, and towns of most conspicuous site.  
As covetous she is of tales, and lies,  
As prodigal of truth: This monster, etc.   

Act V. Scene III.  LUPUS, TUCCA, CRISPINUS, DEMETRIUS, HISTRIO, LICTORS, CAESAR, VIRGIL, MECOENAS, GALLUS, TIBULLUS, HORACE, EQVITES RO. 
COme, follow me, assist me, second me: where's the Emperor?  EQVES 1. 
Sir, you must pardon us.  EQVES 2. 
CAESAR is private now, you may not enter.  TVCC. 
Not enter? Charge 'em, upon their allegiance, cropshin.  EQVES 1. 
We have a charge to the contrary, sir.  LVPV. 
I pronounce you all traitors, horrible traitors:  
What? do you know my affairs?  
I have matter of danger, and state, to impart to CAESAR.  CAES. 
What noise is there? who's that names CAESAR?  LVPV. 
A friend to CAESAR. One that for Caesar's good, would speak with CAESAR.  CAES. 
Who is't? look, CORNELIUS.  EQVES 1. 
ASINIUS LUPUS.  CAES. 
O, bid the turbulent informer hence;  
We have no vacant ear, now, to receive  
The unseasoned fruits of his officious tongue.  MECoe. 
You must avoid him there.  LVPV. 
I conjure thee, as thou art CAESAR, or respectest thine own safety; or the safety of the state, CAESAR: Hear me, speak with me, CAESAR; 'tis no common business, I come about; but such as, being neglected, may concern the life of CAESAR.  CAES. 
The life of CAESAR? Let him enter. VIRGIL, keep thy seat.  EQVITES. 
Bear back there: whither will you? keep back.  TVCC. 
By thy leave good man usher: mend thy peruke, so.  LVPV. 
Lay hold on HORACE there; and on Maecenas, LICTORS. Romans, offer no receive, upon your allegiance: Read, royal CAESAR; I'll tickle you, Satire.  TVCC. 
He will, humours, he will: He will squeeze you, Poet puckfist.  LVPV. 
I'll lop you off, for an unprofitable branch, you satirical varlet.  TVCC. 
ay, and EPAMINONDAS your patron, here, with his flagon chain; Come, resign: Though 'twere your great grandfathers, the law has made it mine now, sir. Look to him, my particoloured rascals; look to him.  CAES. 
What is this, ASINIUS LUPUS? I understand it not.  LVPV. 
Not understand it? A libel, CAESAR. A dangerous, seditious libel. A libel in picture.  CAES. 
A libel?  LVPV. 
ay, I found it in this HORACE his study, in Maecenas his house, here; I challenge the penalty of the laws against 'em.  TVCC. 
ay, and remember to beg their land betimes; before some of these hungry court-hounds sent it out.  CAES. 
Show it to HORACE: Ask him, if he know it.  LVPV. 
Know it? His hand is at it, CAESAR.  CAES. 
Then 'tis no libel.  HORA. 
It is the imperfect body of an emblem, CAESAR, I began for Maecenas.  LVPV. 
An emblem? right: That's greek for a libel.  
Do but mark, how confident he is.  HORA. 
A just man cannot fear, thou foolish Tribune;  
Not, though the malice of traducing tongues,  
The open vastness of a tyrants ear,  
The senseless rigour of the wrested laws,  
Or the red eyes of strained authority  
Should, in a point, meet all to take his life.  
His innocence is armour 'gainst all these.  LVPV. 
Innocence? O, impudence! Let me see, let me see. Is not here an Eagle? And is not that Eagle meant by CAESAR? ha? does not CAESAR give the eagle? Answer me; what sayst thou?  TVCC. 
Hast thou any evasion, stinkard?  LVPV. 
Now he's turned dumb. I'll tickle you, Satire.  HORA. 
Pish. Ha, ha.  LVPV. 
Dost thou pish me? Give me my longsword.  HORA. 
With reverence to great CAESAR, worthy Romans,  
Observe but this ridiculous commenter:  
The soul to my device, was in this distich.  
Thus, oft, the base and ravenous multitude  
Survive, to share the spoils of fortitude.  
Which in this body, I have figured here,  
A VULTURE—  LVPV. 
A Vulture? I; now, 'tis a Vulture. O, abominable! monstrous monstrous! has not your Vulture a beak? has it not legs? and talons? and wings? and feathers?  TVCC. 
Touch him, old Buskins.  HORA. 
And therefore must it be an Eagle?  MECoe. 
Respect him not, good HORACE: Say your device.  HORA. 
A VULTURE, and a wolf—  LVPV. 
A Wolf? good. That's I; I am the wolf. My name's LUPUS, I am meant by the wolf. On, on, a Vulture, and a Wolf—  HORA. 
Preying upon the carcase of an ass—  LVPV. 
An Ass? Good still: That's I, too. I am the ass.  
You mean me by the ass—  MECoe. 
Pray thee, leave braying then.  HORA. 
If you will needs take it, I cannot with modesty give it from you.  MECoe. 
But, by that beast, the old Egyptians  
Were wont to figure in their hieroglyphics,  
Patience, frugality, and fortitude;  
For none of which, we can suspect you, Tribune.  CAES. 
Who was it, LUPUS, that informed you first,  
This should be meant by us? or was't your comment?  LVPV. 
No, CAESAR: A player gave me the first light of it, indeed.  TVCC. 
ay, an honest sycophant-like slave, and a politician, besides.  CAES. 
Where is that player?  TVCC. 
He is without, here.  CAES. 
Call him in.  TVCC. 
Call in the player, there: Master Aesop, call him.  EQVITES. 
Player? where is the player? Bear back: None, but the player, enter.  TVCC. 
Yes: this gent'man, and his Achates must.  CRIS. 
Pray you, master usher; we'll stand close, here.  TVCC. 
'Tis a gent'man of quality, this; though he be somewhat out of clothes, I tell ye. Come Aesop: hast a bay-leaf i' thy mouth? Well said, be not out, stinkard. Thou shalt have a monopoly of playing, confirmed to thee and thy covey, under the emperors broad seal, for this service.  CAES. 
Is this he?  LVPV. 
ay, CAESAR: this is he.  CAES. 
Let him be whipped. LICTORS, go take him hence.  
And LUPUS, for your fierce credulity,  
One fit him with a pair of larger ears:  
'Tis Caesar's doom, and must not be revoked.  
We hate, to have our court, and peace disturbed  
With these quotidian clamours. See it done.  LVPV. 
CAESAR.  CAES. 
Gag him, we may have his silence.  VIRG. 
CAESAR hath done like CAESAR. Fair, and just  
Is his award, against these brainless creatures.  
'Tis not the wholesome sharp morality,  
Or modest anger of a satyric spirit,  
That hurts, or wounds the body of a state;  
But the sinister application  
Of the malicious, ignorant, and base  
Interpreter: who will distort, and strain  
The general scope and purpose of an author,  
To his particular, and private spleen.  CAES. 
We know it, our dear VIRGIL, and esteem it  
A most dishonest practice, in that man,  
Will seem too witty in another's work.  
This while the rest whisper Caesar. What would CORNELIUS GALLUS, and TIBULLUS?  TVCC. 
Nay, but as thou art a man, dost hear? a man of worship; and honourable: Hold, here, take thy chain again. Resume, mad Maecenas. What? dost thou think, I meant t' have kept it, bold boy? No; I did it but to fright thee, ay, to try how thou wouldst take it. What? will I turn shark, upon my friends? or my friend's friends? I scorn it with my three souls. Come, I love bully HORACE, as well as thou dost, I: 'tis an honest hieroglyphic. Give me thy wrist, Helicon. Dost thou think, I'll second e'er a rhinoceros of them all, against thee? ha? or thy noble Hippocrene, here? I'll turn stager first, and be whipped too: dost thou see, bully?  CAES. 
You have your will of CAESAR: use it Romans.  
VIRGIL shall be your Praetor; and ourself  
Will here sit by, spectator of your sports;  
And think it no impeach of royalty.  
Our ear is now too much profaned (grave MARO)  
With these distastes, to take thy sacred lines:  
Put up thy book, till both the time and we  
Be fitted with more hallowed circumstance  
For the receiving so divine a work.  
Proceed with your design.  MECoe. GALL. TIBV. 
Thanks, to great CAESAR.  GALL. 
TIBULLUS, draw you the indictment then, whilst HORACE arrests them, on the statute of Calumny: Maecenas, and I, will take our places here. Lictors, assist him.  HORA. 
I am the worst accuser, under heaven.  GALL. 
Tut, you must do't: 'Twill be noble mirth.  HORA. 
I take no knowledge, that they do malign me.  TIBV. 
ay, but the world takes knowledge.  HORA. 
'Would the world knew,  
How heartily I wish, a fool should hate me.  TVCC. 
Body of JUPITER! What? Will they arraign my brisk POETASTER, and his poor journeyman, ha? Would I were abroad skeldering for a drachm, so I were out of this labyrinth again: I do feel myself turn stinkard, already. But I must set the best face I have, upon't now: well said, my divine, deft HORACE, bring the whoreson detracting slaves to the bar, do. Make 'em hold up their spread golls: I'll give in evidence for thee, if thou wilt. Take courage, CRISPINUS, would thy man had a clean band.  CRIS. 
What must we do, Captain?  TVCC. 
Thou shalt see anon: Do not make division with thy legs, so.  CAES. 
What's he, HORACE?  HORA. 
I only know him for a motion, CAESAR.  TVCC. 
I am one of thy Commanders, CAESAR; A man of service, and action; My name is PANTILIUS TUCCA: I have served i' thy wars against MARK ANTONY, I.  CAES. 
Do you know him, CORNELIUS?  GALL. 
he's one, that hath had the mustering, or convoy of a company, now, and then: I never noted him by any other employment.  CAES. 
We will observe him better.  TIBV. 
LICTOR, proclaim silence, in the court.  LICT. 
In the name of CAESAR, silence.  TIBV. 
Let the parties, the accuser, and the accused, present themselves.  LICT. 
The accuser, and the accused; present yourselves in court.  CRIS. DEMETRIUS. 
Here.  VIRG. 
read the indictment.  TIBV. 
RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, and DEMETRIUS FANIUS, hold up your hands. You are, before this time, jointly and severally indicted, and here presently to be arraigned, upon the Statute of Calumny, or Lex Remmia (The one by the name of RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, alias CRISPINAS, Poetaster, and plagiary: the other, by the name of DEMETRIUS FANNIUS, play-dresser, and plagiary) That you (not having the fear of PHOEBUS, or his shafts, before your eyes) contrary to the peace of our liege lord, AUGUSTUS CAESAR, his crown and dignity, and against the form of a Statute, in that case made, and provided; have most ignorantly, foolishly, and (more like yourselves) maliciously, gone about to deprave, and calumniate the person and writings of QVINTUS HORACIUS FLACCUS, here present, poet, and priest to the Muses: and to that end have mutually conspired, and plotted, at sundry times, as by several means, and in sundry places, for the better accomplishing your base and envious purpose; taxing him, falsely, of self-love, arrogancy, impudence, railing, filching by translation, etc. Of all which calumnies, and every of them, in manner and form aforesaid, what answer you? Are you guilty, or not guilty?  TVCC. 
Not guilty, say.  CRIS. DEMET. 
Not guilty.  TIBV. 
How will you be tried?  TVCC. 
By the Roman Gods, and the noblest Romans.  CRIS. DEMET. 
By the Roman Gods, and the noblest Romans.  VIRG. 
Here sits Maecenas, and CORNELIUS GALLUS:  
Are you contented to be tried by these?  TVCC. 
ay, so the noble Captain may be joined with them in commission, say.  CRIS. DEMET. 
ay, so the noble Captain may be joined with them in commission.  VIRG. 
What says the plaintiff?  HORA. 
I am content.  VIRG. 
Captain, then take your place.  TVCC. 
Alas, my worshipful Praetor! 'tis more of thy gentleness, then of my deserving, I wiss. But, since it hath pleased the court to make choice of my wisdom, and gravity, come, my calumnious varlets: Let's hear you talk for yourselves, now, an hour or two. What can you say? Make a noise. Act, act.  VIRG. 
Stay, turn, and take an oath first. You shall swear,  
By thunder-darting JOVE, the King of gods,  
And by the Genius of AUGUSTUS CAESAR;  
By your own white, and uncorrupted souls;  
And the deep reverence of our Roman justice;  
To judge this case, with truth and equity:  
As bound by your religion, and your laws.  
Now read the evidence: But first demand  
Of either prisoner, if that writ be theirs.  TIBV. 
Show this unto CRISPINUS. Is it yours?  TVCC. 
Say I: what? dost thou stand upon it, pimp? Do not deny thine own MINERVA, thy PALLAS, the issue of thy brain.  CRIS. 
Yes, it is mine.  TIBV. 
Show that unto DEMETRIUS. Is it yours?  DEME. 
It is.  TVCC. 
There's a father, will not deny his own bastard, now, I warrant thee.  VIRG. 
read them aloud.  TIBV. 
Ramp up, my genius; be not retrograde:  
But boldly nominate a spade, a spade.  
What, shall thy lubrical and glibbery Muse  
Live, as she were defunct, like punk in stews?  (Tvcc. Excellent!) 
Alas! That were no modern consequence,  
To have cothurnal buskins frighted hence.  
No, teach thy incubus to poetize;  
And throw abroad thy spurious snotteries,  
Upon that puffed-up lump of barmy froth,  (TUCCA. Ah, ha!) 
Or clumsy chillblained judgement: that, with oath,  
Magnificates his merit; and bespawls  
The conscious time, with humorous foam, and brawls,  
As if his organons of sense would crack  
The sinews of my patience. Break his back,  
O Poets all, and some: For now we list  
Of strenuous vengeance to clutch the fist.  Subscri. CRIS. TVCC. 
I marry, this was written like a HERCULES in poetry, now.  CAES. 
Excellently well threatened!  VIRG. 
ay, and as strangely worded, CAESAR.  CAES. 
We observe it.  VIRG. 
The other, now.  TVCC. 
This's a fellow of a good prodigal tongue too, this'll do well.  TIBV. 
Our Muse is in mind for th'untrussing a poet,  
I slip by his name; for most men do know it:  
A critic, that all the world bescumbers  
With satirical humours, and lyrical numbers.  (TVCC. Art thou there, boy?) 
And for the most part, himself doth advance  
With much self-love, and more arrogance.  (TVCC. Good again.) 
And (but that I would not be thought a prater)  
I could tell you, he were a translator.  
I know the authors from whence he has stole,  
And could trace him too, but that I understand 'em not full and whole.  (TVCC. That line is broke loose from all his fellows: chain him up shorter, do.) 
The best note I can give you to know him by,  
Is, that he keeps gallants company;  
Whom I would wish, in time should him fear,  
Lest after they buy repentance too dear.  Subscri. DEME. FAN. TVCC. 
Well said. This carries palm with it.  HORA. 
And why, thou motley gull? why should they fear?  
When hast thou known us wrong, or tax a friend?  
I dare malice, to betray it. Speak.  
Now thou curl'st up, thou poor, and nasty snake,  
And shrinkest thy poisonous head into thy bosom:  
Out viper, thou that eatest thy parents, hence.  
Rather, such speckled creatures, as thyself,  
Should be eschewed, and shunned: such, as will bite  
And gnaw their absent friends, not cure their fame,  
Catch at the loosest laughters, and affect  
To be thought jesters, such, as can devise  
Things never seen, or heard, t'impair men's names,  
And gratify their credulous adversaries,  
Will carry tales, do basest offices,  
Cherish divided fires, and still increase  
New flames, out of old embers, will reveal  
Each secret that's committed to their trust,  
These be black slaves: Romans, take heed of these.  TVCC. 
Thou twang'st right, little HORACE, they be indeed:  
A couple of chap-fallen curs. Come, We of the bench,  
Let's rise to the urn, and condemn 'em, quickly.  VIRG. 
Before you go together (worthy Romans)  
We are to tender our opinion;  
And give you those instructions, that may add  
Unto your even judgement in the cause:  
Which thus we do commence. First you must know  
That where there is a true and perfect merit,  
There can be no dejection; and the scorn  
Of humble baseness, oftentimes, so works  
In a high soul upon the grosser spirit,  
That to his bleared, and offended sense,  
There seems a hideous fault blazed in the object;  
When only the disease in his eyes.  
Here-hence it comes, our HORACE now stands taxed  
Of impudence, self-love, and arrogance,  
By these, who share no merit in themselves;  
And therefore, think his portion is as small.  
For they, from their own guilt, assure their souls,  
If they should confidently praise their works,  
In them it would appear inflation:  
Which, in a full, and well-digested man,  
Cannot receive that foul abusive name,  
But the fair title of erection.  
And, for his true use of translating men,  
It still hath been a work of as much palm  
In clearest judgements, as t'invent, or make.  
His sharpness, that is most excusable;  
As being forced out of a suffering virtue,  
Oppressed with the licence of the time:  
And howsoever fools, or jerking pedants,  
Players, or such like buffoon, barking wits,  
May with their beggarly, and barren trash,  
Tickle base vulgar ears, in their despite;  
This (like joves thunder) shall their pride control,  
"The honest Satire hath the happiest soul.  
Now, Romans, you have heard our thoughts, Withdraw, when you please.  TIBV. 
Remove the accused from the bar.  TVCC. 
Who holds the urn to us? ha? Fear nothing: I'll quit you, mine honest pitiful stinkards. I'll do't.  CRIS. 
Captain, you shall eternally girt me to you, as I am generous.  TVCC. 
Go to.  CAES. 
TIBULLUS, let there be a case of visards privately provided: we have found a subject to bestow them on.  TIBV. 
It shall be done, CAESAR.  CAES. 
Here be words, HORACE, able to bastinado a man's ears.  HORA. 
I. Please it great CAESAR, I have pills about me  
(Mixed with the whitest kind of ellebore)  
Would give him a light vomit; that should purge  
His brain, and stomach of those tumorous heats:  
Might I have leave to minister unto him.  CAES. 
O! be his AESCULAPIUS, gentle HORACE;  
You shall have leave, and he shall be your patient.  
VIRGIL, use your authority, command him forth.  VIRG. 
CAESAR is careful of your health, CRISPINUS;  
And hath himself chose a physician  
To minister unto you: take his pills.  HORA. 
They are somewhat bitter, sir, but very wholesome;  
Take yet another, so: Stand by, they'll work anon.  TIBV. 
Romans, return to your several seats: Lictors, bring forward the urn; and set the accused at the bar.  TVCC. 
Quickly, you whoreson egregious varlets; Come forward. What? shall we sit all day upon you? you make no more haste, now, than a beggar upon pattens: or a physician to a patient that has no money, you pilchers.  TIBV. 
RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, and DEMETRIUS FANNIUS, hold up your hands. You have (according to the Roman custom) put yourselves upon trial to the urn, for divers and sundry calumnies, whereof, you have before this time been indicted, and are now presently arraigned: Prepare yourselves to hearken to the verdict of your triers. CAIUS CILNIUS Maecenas pronounceth you, by this handwriting, Guilty. CORNELIUS GALLUS, Guilty. PANTILIUS TUCCA—  TVCC. 
Parcel-guilty, I.  DEME. 
He means himself for it was he indeed,  
Suborned us to the calumny.  TVCC. 
ay, you whoreson cantharides? was't I?  DEME. 
I appeal to your conscience, Captain.  TIBV. 
Then, you confess it, now.  DEME. 
I do, and crave the mercy of the court.  TIBV. 
What saith CRISPINUS?  CRIS. 
O, the Captain, the Captain—  HORA. 
My physic begins to work with my patient, I see.  VIRG. 
Captain, stand forth and answer.  TVCC. 
Hold thy peace, Poet Praetor: I appeal from thee, to CAESAR,  
I. Do me right, royal CAESAR.  CAES. 
marry, and I will, sir. Lictors, gag him: do.  
And put a case of visards o'er his head,  
That he may look bifronted, as he speaks.  TVCC. 
Gods, and fiends! CAESAR! thou wilt not, CAESAR? wilt thou? Away, you whoreson vultures; away. You think I am a dead corpse now, because CAESAR is disposed to jest with a man of mark, or so. Hold your hooked talons out of my flesh, you inhuman Harpies. Go to, do't. What? will the royal AUGUSTUS cast away a gent'man of worship, a Captain, and a Commander, for a couple of condemned caitiff calumnious cargoes?  CAES. 
Dispatch, Lictors.  TVCC. 
CAESAR.  CAES. 
Forward, TIBULLUS.  VIRG. 
Demand, what cause they had to malign HORACE.  DEME. 
In troth, no great cause, not I; I must confess: but that he kept better company (for the most part) than I: and that better men loved him, then loved me: and that his writings thrived better than mine, and were better liked, and graced: nothing else.  VIRG. 
Thus, envious souls repine at others good.  HORA. 
If this be all; faith, I forgive thee freely.  
Envy me still, so long as VIRGIL loves me,  
GALLUS, TIBULLUS, and the best-best CAESAR,  
My dear Maecenas: while these, with many more  
(Whose names I wisely slip) shall think me worthy  
Their honoured, and adored society,  
And read, and love, prove, and applaud my poems;  
I would not wish but such as you should spite them.  CRIS. 
O—  TIBV. 
How now, CRISPINUS?  CRIS. 
O, I am sick—  HORA. 
A basin, a basin, quickly; our physic works. Faint not, man.  CRIS. 
O— retrograde— reciprocal— Incubus.  CAES. 
What's that, HORACE?  HORA. 
Retrograde, and reciprocal Incubus are come up.  GALL. 
Thanks be to JUPITER.  CRIS. 
O— glibery— lubrical— defunct— O—  HORA. 
Well said: here's some store.  VIRG. 
What are they?  HORA. 
Glibbery, lubrical, and defunct.  GALL. 
O, they came up easy.  CRIS. 
O— O—  TIBV. 
What's that?  HORA. 
Nothing, yet.  CRIS. 
Magnificate.  MECoe. 
Magnificate? that came up somewhat hard.  HORA. 
I. What cheer, CRISPINUS?  CRIS. 
O, I shall cast up my— spurious— snotteries—  HORA. 
Good. Again.  CRIS. 
chillblained— O— O— clumsy  HORA. 
That clumsy stuck terribly.  MECoe. 
What's all that, HORACE?  HORA. 
Spurious snotteries, chillblained, clumsy.  TIBV. 
O JUPITER!  GALL. 
Who would have thought, there should ha' been such a deal of filth in a poet?  CRIS. 
O— barmy froth—  CAES. 
What's that?  CRIS. 
— Puffy— inflate— turgidous— ventositous.  HORA. 
Barmy froth, puffy, inflate, turgidous, and ventositous are come up.  TIBV. 
O, terrible, windy words!  GALL. 
A sign of a windy brain.  CRIS. 
O— oblatrant— furibund— fatuate— strenuous—  HORA. 
Here's a deal: oblatrant, furibund, fatuate, strenuous.  CAES. 
Now, all's come up, I trow. What a tumult he had in his belly!  HORA. 
No: there's the often conscious damp behind, still.  CRIS. 
O— conscious— damp.  HORA. 
It's come up, thanks to APOLLO, and AESCULAPIUS:  
Yet, there's another; you were best take a pill more?  CRIS. 
O, no: O— O— O— Ô.  HORA. 
Force yourself then, a little with your finger.  CRIS. 
O— O— prorumped.  TIBV. 
Prorumped? What a noise it made! as if his spirit would have prorumpt with it.  CRIS. 
O— O— Ô.  VIRG. 
Help him: it sticks strangely, whatever it is.  CRIS. 
O— clutched.  HORA. 
Now it's come: clutched.  CAES. 
Clutched? It's well, that's come up! It had but a narrow passage.  CRIS. 
O—  VIRG. 
Again, hold him: hold his head there.  CRIS. 
Snarling gusts— quaking custard.  HORA. 
How now, CRISPINUS?  CRIS. 
O— obstupefact.  TIBV. 
Nay: that are all we, I assure you.  HORA. 
How do you feel yourself?  CRIS. 
Pretty, and well, I thank you.  VIRG. 
These pills can but restore him for a time;  
Not cure him quite of such a malady,  
Caught by so many surfeits; which have filled  
His blood, and brain, thus full of crudities:  
'Tis necessary, therefore, he observe  
A strict and wholesome diet. Look, you take  
Each morning, of old Cato's principles  
A good draft, next your heart; that walk upon,  
Till it be well digested: Then come home,  
And taste a piece of TERENCE, suck his phrase  
In stead of liquorice; and, at any hand,  
Shun PLAUTUS, and old ENNIUS, they are meats  
Too harsh for a weak stomach. Use to read  
(But not without a tutor) the best Greeks:  
As ORPHEUS, MUSAEUS, PINDARUS,  
HESIOD, CALLIMACHUS, and THEOCRITE,  
High HOMER, but beware of LYCOPHRON:  
He is too dark, and dangerous a dish.  
You must not hunt for wild, outlandish terms,  
To stuff out a peculiar dialect;  
But let your matter run before your words:  
And if, at any time, you chance to meet  
Some gallo-belgic phrase, you shall not straight  
Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment;  
But let it pass: and do not think yourself  
Much damnified, if you do leave it out;  
When, nor your understanding, nor the sense  
Could well receive it. This fair abstinence,  
In time, will render you more sound, and clear;  
And this have I prescribed to you, in place  
Of a strict sentence: which till he perform,  
Attire him in that rob. And henceforth, learn  
To bear yourself more humbly; not to swell,  
Or breath your insolent, and idle spite,  
On him, whose laughter, can your worst affright.  TIBV. 
Take him away. CRIS. JUPITER guard CAE  VIRG. 
And, for a week, or two, see him locked up  
In some dark place, removed from company:  
He will talk idly else after his physic.  
Now, to you, sir. Th'Extremity of law  
Awards you to be branded in the front,  
For this your calumny; But, since it pleaseth  
HORACE (the party wronged) t'entreat, of CAESAR,  
A mitigation of that juster doom;  
With Caesar's tongue, thus we pronounce your sentence.  
DEMETRIUS FANNIUS, thou shalt here put on  
That coat, and cap; and henceforth, think thyself  
No other, than they make thee: vow to wear them  
In every fair, and generous assembly,  
Till the best sort of minds shall take to knowledge  
As well thy satisfaction, as thy wrongs.  HORA. 
Only (grave Praetor) here, in open court,  
I crave the oath, for good behaviour,  
May be administered unto them both.  VIRG. 
HORACE, it shall: TIBULLUS, give it them.  TIBV. 
RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, and DEMETRIUS FANNIUS, Lay your hands on your hearts. You shall here solemnly attest, and swear; That never (after this instant) either, at Booksellers stalls, in taverns, twopenny rooms, tiring-houses, noblemen's butteries, puisne's chambers (the best, and farthest places, where you are admitted to come) you shall once offer, or dare (thereby to endear yourself the more to any player, ingle, or guilty gull, in your company) to malign, traduce, or detract the person, or writings of QVINTUS HORACIUS FLACCUS; or any other eminent man, transcending you in merit, whom your envy shall find cause to work upon, either, for that, or for keeping himself in better acquaintance, or enjoying better friends: Or if (transported by any sudden and desperate resolution) you do; That then, you shall not under the bastoun, or in the next presence, being an honourable assembly of his favourers, be brought as voluntary gent. to undertake the forswearing of it. Neither shall you at any time (ambitiously, affecting the title of the untrussers, or whippers of the age) suffer the itch of writing to overrun your performance in libel; upon pain of being taken up for lepers in wit, and (losing both your time, and your papers) be irrecoverably forfeited to the hospital of Fools. So help you our Roman gods, and the Genius of great CAESAR.  VIRG. 
So: now dissolve the court.  HORA. TIBV. GALL. MECOE. VIRG. 
And thanks to CAESAR,  
That thus hath exercised his patience.  CAES. 
We have, indeed, you worthiest friends of CAESAR.  
It is the bane, and torment of our ears,  
To hear the discords of those jangling rhymers,  
That, with their bad and scandalous practices,  
Bring all true arts, and learning in contempt.  
But let not your high thoughts descend so low,  
As these despised objects; Let them fall,  
With their flat groveling souls: Be you yourselves.  
And as with our best favours you stand crowned:  
So let your mutual loves be still renowned.  
Envy will dwell, where there is want of merit,  
Though the deserving man should crack his spirit.  SONG. 
BLush, folly, blush: here's none that fears  
The wagging of an ass's ears,  
Although a wolvish case he wears.  
Detraction is but baseness varlet;  
And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet.   
THE END  Rumpatur, quisquis rumpitur invidia.  

TO THE READER.  
IF, by looking on what is past, thou hast deserved that name, I am willing thou shouldst yet know more, by that which follows; an apologetical Dialogue: which was only once spoken upon the stage, and all the answer I ever gave, to sundry impotent libels then cast out (and some yet remaining) against me, and this Play. Wherein I take no pleasure to revive the times, but that Posterity may make a difference, between their manners that provoked me then, and mine that neglected them ever. For, in these strifes, and on such persons, were as wretched to affect a victory, as it is unhappy to be committed with them. Non annorum canicies est laudanda, sed morum.  

The Persons.  NASUTUS, POLYPOSUS, AUTHOR. 
I Pray you let's go see him, how he looks  
After these libels.  POLY. 
O, vexed, vexed, I warrant you.  NASV. 
Do you think so? I should be sorry for him,  
If I found that.  POLY. 
O, they are such bitter things,  
He cannot choose.  NAS. 
But, is he guilty of 'em?  POL. 
Fuh! that's no matter.  NAS. 
No?  POL. 
No. Here's his lodging;  
we'll steal upon him: or, let's listen, stay.  
He has a humour oft t' talk t' himself.  NAS. 
They are your manners lead me, not mine own.  AVT. 
The Fates have not spun him the coarsest thread  
That (free from knots of perturbation)  
Doth yet so live, although but to himself,  
As he can safely scorn the tongues of slaves;  
And neglect Fortune, more than she can him.  
It is the happiest thing, this not to be  
Within the reach of malice; It provides  
A man so well, to laugh of injuries:  
And never sends him farther for his vengeance  
Then the vexed bosom of his enemy.  
ay, now, but think, how poor their spite sets off,  
Who, after all their waste of sulphurous terms,  
And burst-out thunder of their charged mouths,  
Have nothing left, but the unsavoury smoke  
Of their black vomit, to upbraid themselves:  
Whilst I, at whom they shot, sit here shot-free,  
And as unhurt of envy, as unhit.  POL. 
ay, but the Multitude, they think not so, sir,  
They think you hit, and hurt: and dare give out  
Your silence argues it, in not rejoining  
To this, or that late libel?  AVT. 
'las, good rout!  
I can afford them leave, to err so still:  
And, like the barking students of Bears-College,  
To swallow up the garbage of the time  
With greedy gullets, whilst myself sit by  
Pleased, and yet tortured, with their beastly feeding.  
'Tis a sweet madness runs along with them,  
To think, all that are aimed at, still are struck:  
Then, where the shaft still lights, make that the mark,  
And so, each fear, or fever-shaken fool  
May challenge Teucer's hand in archery.  
Good troth, if I knew any man so vile,  
To act the crimes, these whippers reprehend,  
Or what their servile apes gesticulate,  
I should not then much muse, their shreds were liked;  
Since ill men have a lust t' hear others sins,  
And good men have a zeal to hear sin shamed.  
But when it is all excrement, they vent,  
Base filth, and offal: or thefts, notable  
As Ocean piracies, or highway stands:  
And not a crime there taxed, but is their own,  
Or what their own foul thoughts suggested to them,  
And, that in all their heat of taxing others,  
Not one of them, but lives himself (if known)  
Improbior satyram scribente cinaedo.  
What should I say, more? then turn stone with wonder!  NAS. 
I never saw this play bred all this tumult.  
What was there in it could so deeply offend?  
And stir so many hornets?  AVT. 
Shall I tell you?  NAS. 
Yes, and ingenuously.  AVT. 
Then, by the hope,  
Which I prefer unto all other objects,  
I can profess, I never writ that piece  
More innocent, or empty of offence.  
Some salt it had, but neither tooth, nor gall,  
Nor was there in it any circumstance,  
Which, in the setting down, I could suspect  
Might be perverted by an enemy's tongue.  
Only, it had the fault to be called mine.  
That was the crime.  POL. 
No? why they, say you taxed  
The Law, and Lawyers; Captains; and the Players  
By their particular names.  AVT. 
It is not so.  
I used no name. My Books have still been taught  
To spare the persons, and to speak the vices.  
These are mere slanders, and enforced by such  
As have no safer ways to men's disgraces,  
But their own lies, and loss of honesty.  
fellows of practised, and most laxative tongues,  
Whose empty and eager bellies, i' the year,  
Compel their brains to many  shifts,  
(I spare to name 'em: for, their wretchedness,  
Fury itself would pardon.) These, or such  
Whether of malice, or of ignorance,  
Or itch, t'have me their adversary (I know not)  
Or all these mixed; but sure I am, three years,  
They did provoke me with their petulant styles  
On every stage: And I at last, unwilling,  
But weary, I confess, of so much trouble,  
Thought, I would try, if shame could win upon 'em.  
And therefore chose AUGUSTUS Caesar's times,  
When wit, and arts were at their height in Rome,  
To show that VIRGIL, HORACE, and the rest  
Of those great master-spirits did not want  
Detractors, then, or practisers against them:  
And by this line (although no parallel)  
I hoped at last they would sit down, and blush.  
But nothing could I find more contrary.  
And though the impudence of flies be great,  
Yet this hath so provoked the angry wasps,  
Or as you said, of the next nest, the hornets;  
That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrils:  
And like so many screaming grasshoppers,  
Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise.  
And what? those former calumnies you mentioned.  
First, of the Law. Indeed, I brought in OVID,  
Chid by his angry father, for neglecting  
The study of their laws, for poetry:  
And I am warranted by his own words.  
Sape pater dixit, Trist. lib. 4. Eleg. 10. studium quid inutile tentas?  
Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes.  
And in far harsher terms elsewhere, as these:  
Non me verbosas leges ediscere, Amo. lib. 1. Eleg. 15. non me  
Ingrato voces prostituisse foro.  
But how this should relate, unto our laws,  
Or their just ministers, with least abuse,  
I reverence both too much, to understand!  
Then, for the Captain; I will only speak  
An Epigram I here have made: It is  
Unto true Soldiers. That's the lemma. Mark it.  
Strength of my Country, whilst I bring to view  
Such as are miscalled Captains, and wrong you,  
And your high names; I do desire, that thence,  
Be nor put on you, nor you take offence:  
I swear by your true friend, my Muse, I love  
Your great profession, which I once did prove;  
And did not shame it with my actions, then,  
No more than I dare, now, do with my pen.  
He that not trusts me, having vowed thus much,  
But's angry for the Captain, still, is such.  
Now, for the Players, it is true, I taxed 'em,  
And yet, but some; and those so sparingly,  
As all the rest might have sat still, unquestioned,  
Had they but had the wit, or conscience,  
To think well of themselves. But, impotent they  
Thought each man's vice belonged to their whole tribe:  
And much good do't 'em. What th' have done 'gainst me,  
I am not moved with. If it gave 'em meat,  
Or got 'em clothes. 'Tis well. That was their end.  
Only amongst them, I am sorry for  
Some better natures, by the rest so drawn,  
To run in that vile line.  POL. 
And is this all?  
Will you not answer then the libels?  AVT. 
No..  POL. 
Nor the untrussers?  AVT. 
Neither.  POL. 
You're undone then.  AV. 
With whom?  POL. 
The world.  AV. 
The bawd:  Po. 
It will be taken  
To be stupidity, or tameness in you.  AVT. 
But, they that have incensed me, can in soul  
Acquit me of that guilt. They know, I dare  
To spurn, or baffle 'em; or squirt their eyes  
With ink, or urine: or I could do worse,  
Armed with ARCHILOCHUS fury, write iambics,  
Should make the desperate lashers hang themselves.  
Rhyme 'em to death, as they do Irish rats  
In drumming tunes. Or, living, I could stamp  
Their foreheads with those deep, and public brands  
That the whole company of Barber-Surgeons  
Should not take off, with all their art, and plasters.  
And these my prints should last, still to be read  
In their pale fronts: when, what they write 'gainst me,  
Shall like a figure, drawn in water, fleet,  
And the poor wretched papers be employed  
To clothe tobacco, or some cheaper drug.  
This I could do, and make them infamous.  
But, to what end? when their own deeds have marked 'em,  
And, that I know, within his guilty breast  
Each slanderer bears a whip, that shall torment him,  
Worse, than a million of these temporal plagues:  
Which to pursue, were but a feminine humour,  
And, far beneath the dignity of a man.  NAS. 
'Tis true: for to revenge their injuries,  
Were to confess you felt 'em. Let 'em go,  
And use the treasure of the fool, their tongues,  
Who makes his gain, by speaking worst, of best.  POL. 
O, but they lay particular imputations—  AVT. 
As what?  PO. 
That all your writing, is mere railing.  AVT. 
Ha! If all the salt in the old comedy  
Should be so censured, or the sharper wit  
Of the bold satire, termed scolding rage,  
What age could then compare with those, for buffoons?  
What should be said of ARISTOPHANES?  
PERSIUS? or JUVENAL? whose names we now  
So glorify in schools, at least pretend it.  
Ha' they no other?  POL. 
Yes: they say you are slow,  
And scarce bring forth a play a year.  AVT. 
'Tis true.  
I would, they could not say that I did that,  
There's all the joy that I take i' their trade,  
Unless such Scribes as they might be proscribed  
Th' abused theatres. They would think it strange, now,  
A man should take but coltsfoot, for one day,  
And, between whiles, spit out a better poem  
Than e'er the master of art, or giver of wit,  
Their belly made. Yet, this is possible,  
If a free mind had but the patience,  
To think so much, together, and so vile.  
But, that these base, and beggarly conceits  
Should carry it, by the multitude of voices,  
Against the most abstracted work, opposed  
To the stuffed nostrils of the drunken rout!  
O, this would make a learned, and liberal soul,  
To rive his stained quill, up to the back,  
And damn his long-watched labours to the fire;  
Things, that were borne, when none but the still night,  
And his dumb candle saw his pinching throes:  
Were not his own free merit a more crown  
Unto his travails, than their reeling claps.  
This 'tis, that strikes me silent, seals my lips,  
And apts me, rather to sleep out my time,  
Then I would waste it in contemned strifes,  
With these vile Ibides, these unclean birds,  
That make their mouths their clysters, and still purge  
From their hot entrails. But, I leave the monsters  
To their own fate. And, since the Comic MUSE  
Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try  
If Tragedy have a more kind aspect.  
Her favours in my next I will pursue,  
Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one,  
So he judicious be; He shall b' alone  
A Theatre unto me: Once, I'll say,  
To strike the ear of time, in those fresh strains,  
As shall, beside the cunning of their ground,  
Give cause to some of wonder, some despite,  
And unto more, despair, to imitate their sound.  
ay, that spend half my nights, and all my days,  
Here in a cell, to get a dark, pale face,  
To come forth worth the ivy, or the bays,  
And in this age can hope no other grace—  
Leave me. There's something come into my thought,  
That must, and shall be sung, high, and aloof,  
Safe from the wolves black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof.  NASV. 
I reverence these raptures, and obey 'em.    

This Comical Satire was first acted, in the year 1601.  
By the then Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel.  
The principal comedians were, 

NAT. FIELD.  
SAL. PAVY.  
THO. Clay.  
IOH. uNDERWOOD.  
WILL. OSTLER.  
THO. MARTON.    
With the allowance of the Master of revels.