THE MESSENGER. The prudent Prince Solomon doth say,
He that spareth the rod, the child doth hate,
He would youth should be kept in awe alway
By correction in time at reasonable rate:
To be taught to fear God, and their parents obey,
To get learning and qualities, thereby to maintain
An honest quiet life, correspondent alway
To God's law and the king's, for it is certain,
If children be noseled[212] in idleness and ill,
And brought up therein, it is hard to restrain,
And draw them from natural wont evil,
As here in this interlude ye shall see plain:
By two children brought up wantonly in play,
Whom the mother doth excuse, when she should chastise;
They delight in dalliance and mischief alway,
At last they end their lives in miserable wise.
The mother persuaded by worldly shame,
That she was the cause of their wretched life,
So pensive, so sorrowful, for their death she became,
That in despair she would sle herself with a knife.
Then her son Barnabas (by interpretation
The son of comfort), her ill-purpose do[th] stay,
By the scriptures he giveth her godly consolation,
And so concludeth; all these parts will we play.
BARNABAS cometh.
BARNABAS. My master, in my lesson yesterday,
Did recite this text of Ecclesiasticus:
Man is prone to evil from his youth, did he say,
Which sentence may well be verified in us.
Myself, my brother, and sister Dalilah,
Whom our parents to their cost to school do find.
I tarry for them here, time passeth away,
I lose my learning, they ever loiter behind.
If I go before, they do me threat
To complain to my mother: she for their sake,
Being her tender tidlings,[213] will me beat:
Lord, in this perplexity, what way shall I take?
What will become of them? grace God them send
To apply their learning, and their manners amend!
ISMAEL and DALILAH come in singing.