Leu. Now Ismenus, what think you of this fellow?
This was a lying knave, a flatterer,
Does not this Love still shew him so.
Ism. This Love? this Halter: if he prove not yet
The cunning'st rankest rogue that ever Canted,
I'll never see man again: I know him to bring,
And can interpret every new face he makes;
Look how he wrings like a good stool for a tear:
Take heed, Children and Fools
First feel the smart, Then weep.
Leu. Away, away, such an unkind distrust,
Is worse than a dissembling, if it be one,
And sooner leads to mischief, I believe it,
And him an honest man: he could not carry
Under an evil cause, so true a sorrow.
Ism. Take heed, this is your Mothers scorpion,
That carries stings even in his tears,
Whose soul is a rank poison through: Touch
Not at him, if you do, you are gone, if you had twenty
Lives: I knew him for a Roguish boy, when
He would poison Dogs, and keep tame Toads,
He lay with his Mother, and infected her, and now
She begs i'th' Hospital, with a patch of Velvet,
Where her Nose stood: like the Queen of Spades.
And all her teeth in her purse, the Devil and this
Fellow are so near, 'Tis not yet known which is the eviler Angel.
Leu. Nay, then I see 'tis spite: Come hither friend.
Hast thou not heard the cause yet that incens'd my Mother
to my death, for I protest I feel none in my self?
Tim. Her Will Sir, and Ambition, as I think,
Are the provokers of it, as in Women,
Those two are ever powerful to destruction,
Beside a hate of your still growing virtues,
She being only wicked.
Leu. Heavens defend me as I am innocent,
And ever have been from all immoderate thoughts and
Actions, that carry such rewards along wth 'em.
Tim. Sir, all I know, my duty must reveal,
My Countrey and my Love command it from me,
For whom I'll lay my life down: this night coming,
A Counsel is appointed by the Duke,
To sit about your apprehension:
If you dare trust my faith: which by all good things
Shall ever watch about you: goe along,
And to a place I'll guide you: where no word
Shall scape without your hearing, nor no plot
Without discovering to you, which once known, you have your
answers and prevention.
Ism. You are not so mad to goe; shift off this fellow, you shall be rul'd once by a wise man: Ratsbane get you gone, or—