STUDIOSO.
Non.
PHILOMUSUS.
Then let us steal time for this borrowed shape,
Recounting our unequal haps of late:
Late did the ocean grasp us in his arms;
Late did we live within a stranger air,
Late did we see the cinders of great Rome:
We thought that English fugitives there ate
Gold for restorative, if gold were meat.
Yet now we find by bought experience
That, wheresoe'er we wander up and down
On the round shoulders of this massy world,
Or our ill-fortunes or the world's ill-eye
Forespeak our good, procure[63] our misery.
STUDIOSO.
So oft the northern wind with frozen wings
Hath beat the flowers that in our garden grew,
Thrown down the stalks of our aspiring youth;
So oft hath winter nipp'd our trees' fair rind,
That now we seem nought but two bared boughs,
Scorn'd by the basest bird that chirps in grove.
Nor Rome, nor Rhemes, that wonted are to give
A cardinal cap to discontented clerks,
That have forsook the home-bred, thatched[64] roofs,
Yielded us any equal maintenance:
And it's as good to starve 'mongst English swine,
As in a foreign land to beg and pine.
PHILOMUSUS.
I'll scorn the world, that scorneth me again.
STUDIOSO.
I'll vex the world, that works me so much pain.
PHILOMUSUS.
Thy[65] lame revenging power the world well weens.
STUDIOSO.
Flies have their spleen, each silly ant his teens.
PHILOMUSUS.
We have the words, they the possession have.
STUDIOSO.
We all are equal in our latest grave.
PHILOMUSUS.
Soon then, O, soon may we both graved be.