Pov. He did.
Nym. Mercy! 260
Cup. Our mercy is nothing, unless some lady will beg thee.
Ladies. Out upon him, dissembling, perfidious liar!
Herc. Indeed ’tis no reason ladies should beg liars.
Nym. Thus he that loveth many, if once known,
Is justly plagued to be belov’d of none.
[Exit.
Herc. An act against counterfeiting of Cupid’s royal coin, and abusing his subjects with false money.—To the bar, Sir Amorous!—In most lamentable form complaineth to your blind celsitude your distressed orators, the women of the world, that in respect that many spendthrifts, who having exhausted and wasted their substance, and in stranger parts have with empty shows, treasonably purchased ladies’ affections, without being of ability to pay them for it with current money, and therefore have deceitfully sought to satisfy them with counterfeit metal, to the great displeasure and no small loss of your humblest subjects: may it therefore with your pitiful assent be enacted, that what lord, knight, or gentleman soever, knowing himself insufficient, bankrout, exhausted, and
wasted, shall traitorously dare to entertain any lady, as wife or mistress, ipso facto to be severed from all commercement with women, his wife or mistress in that state offending to be forgiven with a pardon of course, and himself instantly to be pressed to sail in the ship of fools, without either bail or main-prize.—Sir Amorous is arrested. 286
Sir Amor.[287] Judgment of the court.