If children be noseled[212] in idleness and ill, And brought up therein, it is hard to restrain, And draw them from natural wont evil, As here in this interlude ye shall see plain: By two children brought up wantonly in play, Whom the mother doth excuse, when she should chastise; They delight in dalliance and mischief alway, At last they end their lives in miserable wise. The mother persuaded by worldly shame, That she was the cause of their wretched life, So pensive, so sorrowful, for their death she became, That in despair she would sle herself with a knife. Then her son Barnabas (by interpretation The son of comfort), her ill-purpose do[th] stay, By the scriptures he giveth her godly consolation, And so concludeth; all these parts will we play. BARNABAS _cometh_. BARNABAS. My master, in my lesson yesterday, Did recite this text of Ecclesiasticus: Man is prone to evil from his youth, did he say, Which sentence may well be verified in us. Myself, my brother, and sister Dalilah, Whom our parents to their cost to school do find. I tarry for them here, time passeth away, I lose my learning, they ever loiter behind. If I go before, they do me threat To complain to my mother: she for their sake, Being her tender tidlings,[213] will me beat: Lord, in this perplexity, what way shall I take? What will become of them? grace God them send To apply their learning, and their manners amend! ISMAEL _and_ DALILAH _come in singing_. _Here we comen, and here we lonen_,[214] _And here we will abide abide-a_. BARNABAS. Fye, brother, fye, and specially you, sister Dalilah, Soberness becometh maids alway. DALILAH. What, ye dolt, ye be ever in one song! ISMAEL. Yea, sir, it shall cost you blows, ere it be long. BARNABAS. Be ye not ashamed the truands to play, Losing your time and learning, and that every day? Learning bringeth knowledge of God and honest living to get. DALILAH. Yea, marry, I warrant you, master hoddypeak. BARNABAS. Learn apace, sister, and after to spin and sew, And other honest housewifely points to know. ISMAEL. Spin, quod-a? yea, by the mass, and with your heels up-wind, For a good mouse-hunt is cat after Saint Kind.[215] BARNABAS. Lewd speaking corrupteth good manners, Saint Paul doth say; Come, let us go, if ye will, to school this day; I shall be shent for tarrying so long, [_Barnabas goeth out_. ISMAEL. Go, get thee hence, thy mouth full of horse-dung! Now, pretty sister, what sport shall we devise? Thus palting[216] to school, I think us unwise: In summer die for thrist,[217] in winter for cold, And still to live in fear of a churl who would? DALILAH. Not I, by the mass, I had rather he hanged were, Than I would sit quaking like a mome for fear. I am sun-burned in summer, in winter the cold Maketh my limbs gross, and my beauty decay; If I should use it, as they would I should, I should never be fair woman, I dare say.