English

ACT I. SCENE I.

The Street before Cornelio's House .

Enter ANTONIO and GASPARO .

Ant . Sirrah, this Welshman is in love with my sister Selina, and hath chosen me for his prolocutor.
Gasp . Oh! this love will make us all mad; thou knowest I loved a sister of thine once; but heaven knows where she is: I think she loved me too; dost think she did not? Well, thy father has reason to curse himself, beside some that she and I have.

It is a principle by nature wrote
In all our understanding, there is not
One art or action but it must tend,
And move from some beginning, to its end.
The soldiers, that wear the honour'd bays
Upon their brows, and glorious trophies raise
To fame on pile of wounds, knew a time when
They suck'd at war: your Muse-inspired men
And of diviner earth, sacred for wit,
Crept out of their first elements to it:
The goodliest harvest had first seed and hope,
Ere it could lade with an enriching crop

LXI .

For still true magnanimity we finde,
Doth harbour early in an generous brest;
To match Miltiades , whose glory shin'd,
Themistocles (a childe) was rob'd of rest;
Yet strive to be a monarch of thy minde,
For as to dare great things, all else detest,
A generous emulation spurres the sprite,
Ambition doth abuse the courage quite.

LXII .

Whil'st of illustrious lives thou look'st the story,

XLI .

And as that monarch merits endlesse praise,
Who by his vertue doth a state acquire,
So all the world with scornfull eyes may gaze
On their degener'd stemmes which might aspire,
As having greater pow'r, their power to raise,
Yet of their race the ruine do conspire:
And for their wrong-spent life with shame do end,
" Kings chastis'd once, are not allow'd t' amend. "

XLII .

Those who reposing on their princely name,

XXI .

Seek not due reverence onely to procure,
With shows of soveraignty, and guards oft lewd,
So Nero did, yet could not so assure
The hated diademe with bloud imbru'd;
Nor as the Persian kings, who liv'd obscure,
And of their subjects rarely would be view'd;
So one of them was secretly o're-thrown,
And in his place the murtherer raign'd unknown.

XXII .

No, onely goodnesse doth beget regard,

I .

Loe here (brave youth) as zeale and duty move,
I labour (though in vaine) to finde some gift,
Both worthy of thy place, and of my loue;
But whilst my selfe above my selfe I lift,
And would the best of my inventions prove,
I stand to study what should be my drift;
Yet this the greatest approbation brings,
Still to a Prince to speake of princely things.

II .

When those of the first age that earst did live

More haste then neede doth turne to waste,
and waste doth al thinges marre:
Your harvest is in grasse, good fyr,
as hastie as you are.

This doubtfull jeast, among my joyes,
my mystresse late did poppe;
But I reply, that backward haste
can never blast my croppe.

For sith (sweete wench) my seede of love
hath taken roote in time,
And cleare escapt the frostes of scorne

It seemeth, by the deposition in Caphos complaint, that the direction from time to time (as concerning the afore reported coosenage) came from some subtile head. But whose devise or direction soever it were, there is yet an other (a lawyer, it seemeth, by the order of his complaint,) that findes his conscience infected with Lyros, Frenos, and Caphos fellowship; who, likewise attached with death, you may suppose, with a troubled minde, to wreast out this following complaint.

This disordered complaint of Frenos is answerable unto his disordered dealing, but most of all unto his sodaine death, who, having his conscience unprepared, tormented with the multitude of his sinnes, stoode amazed what to say: and yet howsoever it hange together, it conteyneth matter of note, which I leave to the censure of the discrete reader.

The miserable end of Liros rather wrought a feare in strangers unto the horrible cousenage, then any repentance in-false Frenos and other his confederates: so hadeneth the devil the heartes and blindeth the sightes of the reprobate, as neither the example of other mens miseries, nor pricke of their owne consciences, can reclaime them from lewdenes.