STUDIOSO.
Where'er we toss upon this crabbed stage,
Griefs our companion; patience be our page.
PHILOMUSUS.
Ah, but this patience is a page of ruth,
A tired lackey to our wand'ring youth!
ACTUS II., SCAENA 2.
ACADEMICO, solus. Fain would I have a living, if I could tell how to come by it. Echo. Buy it. Buy it, fond Echo? why, thou dost greatly mistake it. Echo. Stake it. Stake it? what should I stake at this game of simony? Echo. Money. What, is the world a game? are livings gotten by paying?[82] Echo. Paying. Paying? But say, what's the nearest way to come by a living? Echo. Giving. Must his worship's fists be needs then oiled with angels? Echo. Angels. Ought his gouty fists then first with gold to be greased? Echo. Eased. And is it then such an ease for his ass's back to carry money? Echo. Ay. Will, then, this golden ass bestow a vicarage gilded? Echo. Gelded. What shall I say to good Sir Raderic, that have no[83] gold here? Echo. Cold cheer. I'll make it my lone request, that he would be good to a scholar. Echo. Choler. Yea, will he be choleric to hear of an art or a science? Echo. Hence. Hence with liberal arts? What, then, will he do with his chancel? Echo. Sell. Sell it? and must a simple clerk be fain to compound then? Echo. Pounds then. What, if I have no pounds? must then my suit be prorogued? Echo. Rogued. Yea? given to a rogue? Shall an ass this vicarage compass? Echo. Ass. What is the reason that I should not be as fortunate as he? Echo. Ass he. Yet, for all this, with a penniless purse will I trudge to his worship. Echo. Words cheap. Well, if he give me good words, it's more than I have from an Echo. Echo. Go.
[Exit.
ACTUS II, SCAENA 3.
AMORETTO with an Ovid in his hand, IMMERITO.
AMORETTO.
Take it on the word of a gentleman, thou cannot have it a penny under;
think on it, think on it, while I meditate on my fair mistress—
Nunc sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum.
Whate'er become of this dull, threadbare clerk,
I must be costly in my mistress' eye:
Ladies regard not ragged company.
I will with the revenues of my chaffer'd church
First buy an ambling hobby for my fair,
Whose measur'd pace may teach the world to dance,
Proud of his burden, when he 'gins to prance.
Then must I buy a jewel for her ear,
A kirtle of some hundred crowns or more.
With these fair gifts when I accompani'd go,
She'll give Jove's breakfast; Sidney terms it so.
I am her needle, she is my adamant,
She is my fair rose, I her unworthy prick.
ACADEMICO.
Is there nobody here will take the pains to geld his mouth? [Aside.
AMORETTO.
She's Cleopatra, I Mark Antony.