ANSELMO. Will you forsake Valencia, leave the court,
Absent you from the eye of sovereignty?
Do not, sweet prince, adventure on that task,
Since danger lurks each where; be won from it.
MUCEDORUS. Desist dissuasion,
My resolution brooks no battery,
Therefore, if thou retain thy wonted form,
Assist what I intend.
ANSELMO. Your miss will breed a blemish in the court,
And throw a frosty dew upon that beard,
Whose front Valencia stoops to.
MUCEDORUS. If thou my welfare tender, then no more;
Let love's strong magic charm thy trivial phrase,
Wasted as vainly as to gripe the sun.
Augment not then more answers; lock thy lips,
Unless thy wisdom suit me with disguise,
According to my purpose.
ANSELMO. That action craves no counsel,
Since what you rightly are, will more command,
Than best usurped shape.
MUCEDORUS. Thou still art opposite in disposition;
A more obscure servile habiliment
Beseems this enterprise.
ANSELMO. Then like a Florentine or mountebank!
MUCEDORUS. 'Tis much too tedious; I dislike thy judgment,
My mind is grafted on an humbler stock.
ANSELMO. Within my closet does there hang a cassock—
Though base the weed is, 'twas a shepherd's—
Which I presented in Lord Julio's masque.
MUCEDORUS. That, my Anselmo, and none else but that,
Mask Mucedorus from the vulgar view.
That habit suits my mind; fetch me that weed.
[Exit ANSELMO.
Better than kings have not disdain'd that state,
And much inferior, to obtain their mate.