Zuc. Nay, I will go to law.
Herc. Why, that’s sport alone; what though it be most exacting? wherefore is money?
Zuc. True, wherefore is money? 438
Herc. What, though you shall pay for every quill, each drop of ink, each minim, letter, tittle, comma, prick, each breath, nay, not only for thine own orator’s prating, but for some other orator’s silence,—though thou must buy silence with a full hand,—’tis well known Demosthenes[193] took above two thousand pound once only to hold his peace,—though thou a man of noble gentry, yet you must wait, and besiege his study door, which will prove more hard to be entered than old Troy, for that was gotten into by a wooden horse; but the entrance of this may chance cost thee a whole stock of cattle, oves et
boves, et cœtera pecora campi;—though then thou must sit there, thrust and contemned, bare-headed to a grograine scribe, ready to start up at the door creaking, press’d to get in, “with your leave, sir,” to some surly groom, the third son of a rope-maker:[194]—what of all this? 454
Zuc. To a resolute mind these torments are not felt.
Herc. A very arrant ass, when he is hungry, will feed on, though he be whipt to the bones, and shall a very arrant ass, Zuccone, be more virtuously patient than a noble——
Don. No, Fawn, the world shall know I have more virtue than so—— 461
Herc. Do so, and be wise.
Zuc. I will, I warrant thee: so I may be revenged, what care I what I do?