Nilo. This will not help it, take down the Image
And away with 'em.
Priest, change your coat you had best, all service now
Is given to men: Prayers above their hearing
Will prove but bablings: learn to lye and thrive,
'Twill prove your best profession: for the gods,
He that lives by 'em now, must be a beggar.
There's better holiness on earth they say,
Pray God it ask not greater sacrifice. Go home,
And if [y]our god be not deaf as well as blind,
He will [make] some smoak for it.
Gent. Sir—
Nilo. Gentlemen, there is no talking,
This must be done and speedily;
I have commission that I must not break.
Gent. We are gone, to wonder what shall follow.
Nilo. On to the next Temple. [Exeunt.
Cornets. Descendit Cupid.
Cupid. Am I then scorn'd? is my all-doing Will
And Power, that knows no limit, nor admits none,
Now look'd into by less than gods? and weak'ned
Am I, whose Bow struck terror through the earth,
No less than Thunder, and in this, exceeding
Even gods themselves; whose knees before my Altars
Now shook off; and contemn'd by such, whose lives
Are but my recreation! anger rise
My sufferance and my self are made the subject
Of sins against us. Go thou out displeasure,
Displeasure of a great god, flying thy self
Through all this Kingdom: sow what ever evils
Proud flesh is [taking of], amongst these Rebels:
And on the first heart that despise my Greatness,
Lay a strange misery, that all may know
Cupid's revenge is mighty; with his Arrow
Hotter than plagues or mine own anger, will I
Now nobly right my self: nor shall the prayers
Nor [sweete] smoaks on my Altars hold my hand,
Till I have left this a most wretched Land. [Exit.
Enter Hidaspes, and Cleophila.
Hidas. Cleophila, what was he that went hence?
Cleo. What means your Grace now?