Shad. Nay, by my troth, he is like me: if his belly be empty, his heart is full.
Andel. The famine of gold gnaws his covetous stomach, more than the want of good victuals: thou hast looked very devilishly ever since the good angel[352] left thee: come, come, leave this broad-brim fashions; because the world frowns upon thee, wilt not thou smile upon us?
Amp. Did but the bitterness of mine own fortunes
Infect my taste, I could paint o’er my cheeks
With ruddy-coloured smiles: ’tis not the want
Of costly diet or desire of gold
Enforces rupture in my wounded breast.
Oh no, our father—if he live—doth lie
Under the iron foot of misery,
And, as a dove gripped in a falcon’s claw,
There pant’th for life being most assured of death.
Brother, for him my soul thus languisheth.
Shad. ’Tis not for my old master that I languish.
Amp. I am not enamoured of this painted idol,
This strumpet World; for her most beauteous looks
Are poisoned baits, hung upon golden hooks:
When fools do swim in wealth, her Cynthian beams
Will wantonly dance on the silver streams;
But when this squint-eyed age sees Virtue poor,
And by a little spark sits shivering,
Begging at all, relieved at no man’s door,
She smiles on her, as the sun shines on fire,
To kill that little heat, and, with her little frown,
Is proud that she can tread poor Virtue down:
Therefore her wrinkled brow makes not mine sour,
Her gifts are toys, and I desire her power.
Shad. ’Tis not the crab-tree faced World neither that makes mine sour.
Andel. Her gifts toys! Well, brother Virtue, we have let slip the ripe plucking of those toys so long, that we flourish like apple-trees in September, which, having the falling sickness, bear neither fruit nor leaves.
Shad. Nay, by my troth, master, none flourish in these withering times, but ancient bearers[353] and trumpeters.
Andel. Shadow, when thou provest a substance, then the tree of virtue and honesty, and such fruit of Heaven, shall flourish upon earth.
Shad. True; or when the sun shines at midnight, or women fly, and yet they are light enough.