WIN. I am his father, therefore may not speak,
But otherwise I could excuse his fault.
SUM. Christmas, I tell thee plain, thou art a snudge[133],
And were't not that we love thy father well,
Thou shouldst have felt what 'longs to avarice.
It is the honour of nobility
To keep high-days and solemn festivals;
Then to set their magnificence to view,
To frolic open with their favourites,
And use their neighbours with all courtesy;
When thou in hugger-mugger[134] spend'st thy wealth.
Amend thy manners, breathe thy rusty gold;
Bounty will win thee love, when thou art old.
WILL SUM. Ay, that bounty I would fain meet, to borrow money of; he is
fairly bless'd now-a-days, that 'scapes blows when he begs. Verba dandi
et reddendi go together in the grammar rule: there is no giving but
with condition of restoring.
Ah! benedicite:
Well is he hath no necessity
Of gold nor of sustenance:
Slow good hap comes by chance;
Flattery best fares;
Arts are but idle wares:
Fair words want giving hands,
The Lento[135] begs that hath no lands.
Fie on thee, thou scurvy knave,
That hast nought, and yet goes brave:
A prison be thy deathbed,
Or be hang'd all save the head.
SUM. Back-winter, stand forth.
VER. Stand forth, stand forth: hold up your head; speak out.
BACK-WIN. What should I stand, or whither should I go?
SUM. Autumn accuses thee of sundry crimes,
Which here thou art to clear or to confess.
BACK-WIN. With thee or Autumn have I nought to do,
I would you both were hanged, face to face.
SUM. Is this the reverence that thou ow'st to us?
BACK-WIN. Why not? What art thou? shalt thou always live?