COM. SEN. I cannot stay so long; we have consulted about you, and find your cause to stand upon these terms and conditions. The number of the Senses in this world is answerable to the first[295] bodies in the great world: now, since there be but fire in the universe, the four elements and the pure substance of the heavens, therefore there can be but five Senses in our Microcosm, correspondent to those; as the sight to the heavens, hearing to the air, touching to the earth, smelling to the fire, tasting to the water, by which five means only the understanding is able to apprehend the knowledge of all corporeal substances: wherefore we judge you to be no sense simply: only thus much we from henceforth pronounce, that all women for your sake shall have six senses—that is, seeing hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and the last and feminine sense, the sense of speaking.
GUS. I beseech your lordship and your assistants (the only cause of our friendship) to grace my table with your most welcome presence this night at supper.
COM. SEN. I am sorry I cannot stay with you: you know we may by no means omit our daily attendance at the court, therefore I pray you pardon us.
GUS. I hope I shall not have the denial at your hands, my masters, and you, my Lady Lingua. Come, let us drown all our anger in a bowl of hippocras[296].
[Exeunt SENSUS omnes exteriores.
COM. SEN. Come, Master Register, shall we walk?
MEM. I pray you, stay a little. Let me see! ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
PHA. How now, Memory, so merry? what, do you trouble yourself with two palsies at once, shaking and laughing?
MEM. 'Tis a strange thing that men will so confidently oppose themselves against Plato's great year.
PHA. Why not?