To sit on honour's seat it is a lofty reach: To seek for praise by making brags ofttimes doth get a breach. We list not ride the rolling racks that dims the crystal skies, We mean to set no glimmering glance before your courteous eyes: We search not Pluto's pensive pit, nor taste of Limbo lake; We do not show of warlike fight, as sword and shield to shake: We speak not of the powers divine, ne yet of furious sprites; We do not seek high hills to climb, nor talk of love's delights. We do not here present to you the thresher with his flail, Ne do we here present to you the milkmaid with her pail: We show not you of country toil, as hedger with his bill; We do not bring the husbandman to lop and top with skill: We play not here the gardener's part, to plant, to set and sow: You marvel, then, what stuff[139] we have to furnish out our show. Your patience yet we crave a while, till we have trimm'd our stall; Then, young and old, come and behold our wares, and buy them all. Then, if our wares shall seem to you well-woven, good and fine, We hope we shall your custom have again another time. THE THREE LADIES OF LONDON. THE FIRST ACT. _Enter_ FAME, _sounding before_ LOVE _and_ CONSCIENCE. LOVE. Lady Conscience, what shall we say to our estates? to whom shall we complain? Or how shall we abridge such fates as heapeth up our pain? 'Tis Lucre now that rules the rout: 'tis she is all in all: 'Tis she that holds her head so stout; in fine, 'tis she that works our fall. O Conscience! I fear, I fear a day, That we by her and Usury shall quite be cast away. CONSCIENCE. Indeed, I fear the worst, for every man doth sue, And comes from countries strange and far of her to have a view. Although they ought to seek true Love and Conscience clear; But Love and Conscience few do like that lean on Lucre's chair. Men ought be rul'd by us; we ought in them bear sway, So should each neighbour live by other in good estate alway. LOVE. For Lucre men come from Italy, Barbary, Turkey, From Jewry; nay, the Pagan himself Endangers his body to gape for her pelf. They forsake mother, prince, country, religion, kiff and kin; Nay, men care not what they forsake, so Lady Lucre they win; That we poor ladies may sigh to see our states thus turned and tost, And worse and worse is like to be, where Lucre rules the roost. CONSCIENCE. You say the truth, yet God, I trust, will not admit it so, That Love and Conscience by Lucre's lust shall catch an overthrow. FAME. Good ladies, rest content, and you, no doubt, shall see Them plagued with painful punishment for such their cruelty: And if true Love and Conscience live from Lucre's lust lascivious, Then Fame a triple crown will give, which lasteth aye victorious. CONSCIENCE. God grant that Conscience keep within the bounds of right, And that vile Lucre do not haunt her heart with deadly spite.