Mar. Ay, but feigning known disgraceth much.
Ant. Pish! Most things that morally adhere to souls, 30
Wholly exist in drunk opinion:
Whose reeling censure, if I value not,
It values nought.
Mar. You are transported with too slight a thought,
If you but meditate of what is past,
And what you plot to pass.
Ant. Even in that note a fool’s beatitude:
He is not capable of passion;
Wanting the power of distinction,
He bears an unturned sail with every wind: 40
Blow east, blow west, he stirs his course alike.
I never saw a fool lean: the chub-faced fop
Shines sleek with full-cramm’d fat of happiness,
Whilst studious contemplation sucks the juice
From wisards’[286] cheeks: who making curious search
For nature’s secrets, the first innating cause
Laughs them to scorn, as man doth busy apes
When they will zany men. Had Heaven been kind,
Creating me an honest senseless dolt,
A good poor fool, I should want sense to feel 50
The stings of anguish shoot through every vein;
I should not know what ’twere to lose a father;
I should be dead of sense to view defame
Blur my bright love; I could not thus run mad,
As one confounded in a maze of mischief,
Stagger’d, stark, fell’d with bruising stroke of chance;
I should not shoot mine eyes into the earth,
Poring for mischief that might counterpoise
Mischief, murder and——
Enter Lucio.
How now, Lucio?
Lu. My lord, the Duke, with the Venetian states,[287] 60
Approach the great hall to judge Mellida.
Ant. Ask’d he for Julio yet?
Lu. No motion[288] of him: dare you trust this habit?