Earth. Thou hitt'st it right: but canst thou be content
With my poor diet too?
Theo. O, wondrous well!
'Twas such a diet which that happy age,
That poets style the golden, first did use.
Earth. And such a diet to our chests will bring
The golden age again.
Theo. Beside the gain
That flows upon us, health and liberty
Attend on these bare meals: if we all were bless'd
With such a temperance, what man would fawn,
Or to his belly sell his liberty?
There would be then no slaves, no sycophants
At great men's tables. If the base Sarmentus
Or that vile Galba[10] had been thus content,
They had not borne the scoffs of Cæsar's board.
He whose cheap thirst the springs and brooks can quench,
How many cares is he exempted from?
He's not indebted to the merchant's toil,
Nor fears that pirates' force or storms should rob him
Of rich Canaries or sweet Candian wines:
He smells nor seeks no feasts; but in his own
True strength contracted lives, and there enjoys
A greater freedom than the Parthian king.
Earth. Thou mak'st me more in love with my bless'd life.
Theo. Besides, pure cheerful health ever attends it;
Which made the former ages live so long.
With riotous banquets sicknesses came in;
When death 'gan muster all his dismal band
Of pale diseases, such as poets feign
Keep sentinel before the gates of hell,
And bad them wait about the gluttons' tables,
Whom they, like venom'd pills in sweetest wines,
Deceiv'd, swallow down, and hasten on
What most they would eschew—untimely death.
But from our tables here no painful surfeits,
No fed diseases grow, to strangle nature
And suffocate the active brain; no fevers,
No apoplexies, palsies, or catarrhs
Are here, where nature, not entic'd at all
With such a dangerous bait as pleasant cates,
Takes in no more than she can govern well.
Earth. But that which is the greatest comfort, son,
Is to observe with pleasure our rich hoards
Daily increase, and stuff the swelling bags.
Come, thou art mine, I see! Here, take these keys.
[Gives Theodore the keys.
These keys can show thee such amazing plenty,
Whose very sight would feed a famish'd country.
I durst not trust my servants.
Theo. Me you may,
Who equal with my life do prize your profit.