Avar. Once I have done the best I can;
Authority also, he hath played the man;
Reformation hath done his part, I can tell.
If ye mistrust Honesty, faith! ye do not well.
And as for Avarice, he is conveyed quite:
I bade him get him hence, or I would him indite.
I, Policy, have made him to pluck in his horns:
I sware I would else lay him on prickles and thorns,
Where he should take no rest, neither day nor night;
So he had as lief be hanged as come in sight.
Resp. I may say with Job, how vainly do ye cheer me,
When all the words ye give, from truth doth disagree;
And with the wise man, I may most justly say this:
Just[ici]a tamen non luxit in nobis.
Or else, with the prophet, in most sorrowful mood,
The fruit of our justice is turned into wormwood.
Well, the best of you is a detestable vice;
And thou, for thy part, art most stinking Avarice.
Avar. Jesu! when were you wont so foul-mouthed to be,
To give such nicknames? Ah, in faith! dame Verity
Hath had you in schooling of late; well, in God's name!
I am sorry for you, e'en sorry, that [I am].
I wis I have wrought to set you in good state,
And watched for that purpose, both early and late.
And I wis, if you would abide my framing,
And not thus to have fall to checking and blaming,
I would, ere long, of you made such carpenter work
That ye should have said, Policy had been a clerk;
Nay! you should have seen, how I would have you compact.
Resp. Yea, no doubt! ye would have done some great and fine act.
Avar. I would have brought half Kent into Northumberland;
And Somersetshire should have raught to Cumberland.
Then would I have stretched the county of Warwick
Upon tenter hooks, and made it reach to Berwick.
A piece of the bishopric should have come southward—
Tut, tut! I tell you, I had wondrous feats toward.
Resp. God hath placed me already in the best wise.
Avar. Yea! but yet not half so well as I could devise—
But no force; well then, I see ye will none of me?
Resp. No!
Avar. Then ye can be content I depart from ye?
Resp. Yea!