To this the Boule-bearer

Doe you heare my friends? to whom did you sing all this now?
pardon me onely that I aske you, for I doe not looke for an-
swere; Ile answer my selfe, I know it is now such a time as the
Saturnalls for all the World, that every man stands under the eaves
of his own hat, and sings what please him; that's the right, and
the liberty of it. Now you sing of god Comus here the bellie-god;
I say it is well, and I say it is not well: It is well as it is
a ballad, and the bellie worthie of it; I must needes say, and
'twere forty yards of ballad more, as much ballad as tripe. But
when the bellie is not edyfied by it, it is not well; for where
did you ever read or heare, that the bellie had any eares? Come
never pumpe for an answer, for you are defeated; Our fellow
Hunger there that was as ancient a reteiner to the bellie as any
of us, was turned away for being unseasonable, not unreasonable,
but unseasonable; and now is he poore thin-gut, faine to get his
living with teaching of Starlings, Mag-pies, Parrots, and Jacke-
dawes , those things he would have taught the bellie. Beware of
dealing with the bellie, the bellie will not bee talk'd too,
especially when he is full; then there is no venturing upon
Venter , he will blow you all up, he will thunder indeed-la: Some in
dirision call him the father of farts; but I say he was the first
inventor of great Ordnance, and taught us to discharge them on
Festivall dayes, would we had a fit feast for him y'faith, to shew
his activity; I would have something now fetcht in to please his
five sences, the throat, or the two sences the eyes: Pardon mee
for my two sences, for I that carry Hercules Boule i' the service,
may see double by my place; for I have drunke like a frog to day:
I would have a Tun now brought in to dance, and so many bottles
about him. Ha! you looke as if you would make a probleme of this;
doe you see? do you see? a probleme: why bottles? and why a tun?
and why a tun? and why bottles to dance? I say that men that drinke
hard, and serve the bellie in any place of qualitie (as the joviall
Tinkers , or the lusty kindred ) are living measures of drinke, and
can transforme themselves, and doe every day to bottles, or tuns
when they please: And when they ha' done all they can, they are
as I say againe, (for I thinke I said somewhat like it afore) but
moving measures of drink, and there is a peece i'the Cellar can
hold more than all they. This will I make good, if it please our
new god but to give a nod, for the bellie doe's all by signes; and
I am all for the bellie, the truest clocke i'the world to goe by

Here the first Anti-maske, after which

HERCULES

What Rites are these? breeds earth more monsters yet?
Antaeus scarce is cold: what can beget
This store? (and stay) such contraries upon her,
Is earth so fruitfull of her owne dishonour?
Or'cause his vice was inhumanitie,
Hopes she by vicious hospitalitie
To worke an expiation first? and then
(Helpe vertue) these are sponges, and not men:
Bottles? meere vessels? halfe a tun of paunch?
How? and the other halfe thrust forth in haunch?
Whose feast? the bellies? Comus? and my cup
Brought in to fill the drunken Orgies up?
And here abus'd? that was the crownd reward,
Of thirstie Heroes , after labour hard?
Burdens, and shames of nature, perish, die;
(For yet you never liv'd) but in the stie
Of vice have wallow'd, and in that swines strife
Beene buried under the offence of life:
Goe reele and fall under the load you make,
Till your swollen bowells burst with what you take.
Can this be pleasure, to extinguish man?
Or so quite change him in his figure? can
The bellie love his paine? and be content
With no delight but what's a punishment?
These monsters plague themselves, and fitly too,
For they doe suffer; what, and all they doe,
But here must be no shelter, nor no shrowd
For such: Sincke Grove , or vanish into cloud.
At this the whole Grove vanished, and the whole Musicke was discovered, sitting at the foot of the Mountaine, with Pleasure, and Vertue seated above them. The Quire invited Hercules to rest with this Song