PHILOMUSUS.
Would I were silent actor in my grave!
ACTUS V., SCAENA 1.
PHILOMUSUS and STUDIOSO become fiddlers: with their concert.
PHILOMUSUS.
And tune, fellow-fiddlers; Studioso and I are ready.
[They tune.
STUDIOSO, going aside, sayeth,
Fair fell good Orpheus, that would rather be
King of a molehill than a keisar's slave:
Better it is 'mongst fiddlers to be chief,
Than at [a] player's trencher beg relief.
But is't not strange, this mimic ape should prize
Unhappy scholars at a hireling rate?
Vile world, that lifts them up to high degree,
And treads us down in groveling misery.
England affords those glorious vagabonds,
That carried erst their fardles on their backs,
Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets,
Sweeping[128] it in their glaring satin suits,
And pages to attend their masterships:
With mouthing words that better wits have framed,
They purchase lands, and now esquires are made.[129]
PHILOMUSUS.
Whate'er they seem, being ev'n at the best,
They are but sporting fortune's scornful jest.
STUDIOSO.
So merry fortune's wont from rags to take
Some ragged groom, and him a[130] gallant make.
PHILOMUSUS.
The world and fortune hath play'd on us too long.
STUDIOSO.
Now to the world we fiddle must a song.