Æcius. 'This is a mask to cozen me; I know ye,
And how far ye dare do; no Roman farther,
Nor with more fearless Valour; and I'll watch ye,
Keep that obedience still.
Max. Is a Wifes loss
(For her abuse much good may do his Grace,
I'll make as bold with his Wife, if I can)
More than the fading of a few fresh colours,
More than a lusty spring lost?
Æcius. No more, Maximus,
To one that truly lives. Æcius:
Max. Why, then I care not, I can live well enough,
For look you friend, for vertue, and those trifles,
They may be bought they say.
Æcius. He's craz'd a little,
His grief has made him talk things from his Nature.
Max. But Chastity is not a thing I take it
To get in Rome, unless it be bespoken
A hundred years before; Is it Æcius?
By'r Lady, and well handled too i'th' breeding.
Æcius. Will ye go any way?
Max. I'll tell thee, friend;
If my Wife for all this should be a Whore now,
A kind of Kicker out of sheets, 'twould vex me,
For I am not angry yet; the Emperour
Is young and handsome, and the Woman Flesh,
And may not these two couple without scratching?
Æcius. Alas, my noble friend.
Max. Alas not me,
I am not wretched, for there's no man miserable
But he that makes himself so.