SIMPLICITY. Wise enough to tell you, I!—and yonder's my stall: but beware I lose nothing, for if I do, I'll lay it straight to some of you; for I saw none so like thieves, I promise you, since I set up.
FRAUD. You are a wise man, when your nose is in the cup. But soft, who comes here? step we close aside, for these be the three ladies, for my life, brought out of prison by their keeper. Let us be whist, and we shall hear and see all. Sirrah, you must say nothing.
Enter SORROW and the three Ladies: he sets them
on three stones on the stage.
SIMPLICITY.
Not till ye speak, for I am afraid of him that's with the women.
CONSCIENCE.
O Sorrow, when, when, Sorrow, wilt thou cease
To blow the spark that burns my troubled soul,
To feed the worm that stings my fainting breast,
And sharp the steel that gores my bleeding heart?
My thoughts are thorns, my tears hot drops of lead:
I plain, I pine, I die, yet never dead.
If world would end, my woe should but begin:
Lo, this the case of Conscience for her sin;
And sin the food, wherewith my worm was fed,
That stings me now to death, yet never dead.
LOVE.
Yet never dead, and yet Love doth not live,
Love, that to loss in life her folly led[249],
Folly the food whereon her frailty fed,
Frailty the milk that Nature's breast did give:
Life, loss, and folly: frailty, food, and kind,
Worm, sting, thorns, fire, and torment to the mind;
Life but a breath, and folly but a flower,
Frailty, clay, dust, the food that fancy scorns;
Love a sweet bait to cover losses sour,
Flesh breeds the fire that kindles lustful thorns;
Lust, fire, bait, scorn, dust, flower and feeble breath,
Die, quench, deceive, flie, fade, and yield to death.
To death? O good! if death might finish all:
We die each day, and yet for death we call.
LUCRE.
For death we call, yet death is still in sight.
Lucre doth scald in drops of melting gold
Accusing rust calls on eternal night[250],
Where flames consume, and yet we freeze with cold.
Sorrow adds sulphur unto fury's heat,
And chops them ice whose chattering teeth do beat;
But sulphur, snow, flame, frost, nor hideous crying
Can cause them die that ever are in dying,
Nor make the pain diminish or increase:
Sorrow is slack, and yet will never cease.
SORROW.
When Sorrow ceaseth, Shame shall then begin
With those that wallow senseless in their sin.
But, ladies, I have drawn you from my den
To open air, to mitigate some moan.
Conscience, sit down upon that sweating stone,
And let that flint, Love, serve thee for a seat;
And, Lady Lucre, on that stone rest you.
And, ladies, thus I leave you here alone.
Mourn ye, but moan not I shall absent be;
But good it were sometime to think on me.
[Exit.]
CONSCIENCE.
Comfort it is to think on sorrow past.
LOVE.
Sorrow remains, where joy is but a blast.