Sci. Nay, ye mistake me;
I take ye for no fool natural,
But I take ye thus—shall I tell all?
Wit. Yea, marry! tell me your mind, I pray ye,
Whereto I shall trust. No more delay ye!
Sci. I take ye for no natural fool,
Brought up among the innocents' school;
But for a naughty, vicious fool,
Brought up with Idleness in her school:
Of all arrogant fools thou art one!
Wit. Yea, God's body!
Exp. Come, let us be gone! [The two go out.
Wit. My sword! is it gone? A vengeance on them!
Be they gone, too, and their heads upon them?
But, proud queans! the devil go with you both!
Not one point of courtesy in them goeth.
A man is well at ease by suit to pain him
For such a drab, that so doth disdain him!
So mocked, so louted, so made a sot—
Never was I erst, since I was begot!
Am I so foul as those drabs would make me?
Where is my glass that Reason did take me?
Now shall this glass of Reason soon try me
As fair as those drabs that so doth belie me.
Ha! God's soul! what have we here? a devil?
This glass, I see well, hath been kept evil.
God's soul! a fool, a fool, by the mass!
What—a very vengeance!—aileth this glass?
Other this glass is shamefully spotted,
Or else am I too shamefully blotted!
Nay, by God's arms! I am so, no doubt!
How look their faces here round about?
All fair and clear they, everyone;
And I, by the mass, a fool alone,
Decked, by God's bones, like a very ass!
Ignorance['s] coat, hood, ears—yea, by the mass!—
Cockscomb and all; I lack but a bauble!
And as for this face it is abominable;
As black as the devil! God, for His passion!
Where have I been rayed after this fashion?
This same is Idleness—a shame take her!
This same is her work—the devil in hell rake her!
The whore hath shamed me forever, I trow!
I trow? Nay, verily, I know!
Now it is so, the stark fool I play
Before all people; now see it I may.
Every man I see laugh me to scorn;
Alas, alas! that ever I was born!
It was not for nought, now well I see,
That those two ladies disdained me.
Alas! Lady Science, of all other—
How have I railed on her and her mother!
Alas! that lady I have now lost
Whom all the world loveth and honoureth most!
Alas! from Reason had I not varied,
Lady Science or this I had married;
And those four gifts which the World gave her
I had won, too, had I kept her favour;
Where now, instead of that lady bright
With all those gallants seen in my sight—
Favour, Riches, yea, Worship and Fame—
I have won Hatred, Beggary and Open Shame!
Shame cometh in with a whip. [Reason followeth him.]
Wit. Out upon thee, Shame! what doest thou here?
Rea. Marry! I, Reason, bade him here appear.
Upon him, Shame! with stripes enow smitten,
While I rehearse his faults herein written!
First, he hath broken his promise formerly
Made to me, Reason, my daughter to marry;
Next, he hath broken his promise promised
To obey Instruction, and him despised;
Thirdly, my daughter Science to reprove,
Upon Idleness he hath set his love;
Fourthly, he hath followed Idleness' school
Till she hath made him a very stark fool;
Lastly, offending both God and man,
Swearing great oaths as any man can,
He hath abused himself, to the great shame
Of all his kindred, and loss of his good name.
Wherefore, spare him not, Shame! beat him well there!
He hath deserved more than he can bear.
[Wit kneeleth down.