Omnes. O wives! wives!
[They are removed off, and others brought on.
Lucif. Proceed to the next band.
Say, what were you in the world, and what dear sin brought you to this place?
Spanish Ghost. Great prince of darkness, and lord of the greatest part of mankind, may it please your catholick majesty, I was, by my worldly state and condition, a Spanish grandee, of the first magnitude, rich as fortune and an indulgent prince well could make me, (for your devilship must know, our king is but a sheep for us to fleece when we please, which we do in all places, letting his soldiers and inferior servants starve) happy, ’till too much success was my undoing; for by that I gain’d the lady I lov’d, and so in one unhappy word was married. ’Tis tedious to repeat the injuries I receiv’d from the ungrateful fair, who, after all, to make room for another, sent me away (like an Italian as she was) in all my sins, with a poisonous draught.
Lucif. Is the same your fate, you, the rest of this besotted crew, that have met with just punishment from one part of yourselves, for preferring your private grandeur before the service of your king and honour of your country?
Omnes. Yes, yes; thirst of honour and wealth made us cheat the king; and drew down the judgment of wedlock; and that brought us to this long home and fiend of matrimony.
Lucif. Away with these, and drive ’em out of their snails pace.
[A tatter’d Ghost comes forward.
Ghost. Just may be their punishment, most noble devil; but why should I be condemn’d to wincing, who was so far from cheating the king, that I could never get my due of him, and being a gentleman born, never did any thing below my extraction, and have gone without a meal, many a time, rather than degrade myself to get one? And tho’ I could arrive to it no other ways, yet kept up my part still in stately walk, and my wallet, tho’ I had no bread for either, or a shirt to my back.