_Frig._ Equivocal Don, though I like the clipping well, I could not be content either to be your Owl, or your Ox of the City. The Play begins. [_Flourish._ _Enter a Poet with a garland._ Poet Prologue. _Low at your sacred feet our poor Muse layes_ _Her, and her thunder-fearless virdant Bayes._ _Four severall_ Triumphs _to your Princely eyes,_ _Of_ Honor, Love, Death, _and_ Time _do rise_ _From our approaching subject, which we move_ _Towards you with fear, since that a sweeter_ Love, _A brighter_ Honor, _purer_ Chastitie _March in your brests this day triumphantly,_ _Then our weak Scenes can show: then how dare we_ _Present like Apes and Zanies, things that be_ _Exemplifi'd in you, but that we know,_ _We ne'r crav'd grace, which you did not bestow_? _Enter in triumph with Drums, Trumpets, Colours_, Martius, Valerius, Sophocles _bound_, Nicodemus, Cornelius, _Captains and Soldiers_. _Mar._ What means proud _Sophocles_? _Soph._ To go even with _Martius_, And not to follow him like his Officer: I never waited yet on any man. _Mar._ Why poor _Athenian_ Duke, thou art my slave, My blows have conquerd thee. _Soph._ Thy slave? proud _Martius_, _Cato_ thy countrey-man (whose constancie, Of all the Romans, I did honor most) Rip'd himself twice to avoid slavery, Making himself his own Anatomie. But look thee _Martius_, not a vein runs here From head to foot, but _Sophocles_ would unseame, and Like a spring garden shoot his scornfull blood Into their eyes, durst come to tread on him: As for thy blows, they did [not] conquer me: Seven Battailes have I met thee face to face, And given thee blow for blow, and wound for wound, And till thou taught'st me, knew not to retire; Thy sword was then as bold, thy arm as strong; Thy blows then _Martius_, cannot conquer me. _Val._ What is it then? _Soph._ Fortune. _Val._ Why, yet in that Thou art the worse man, and must follow him. _Soph._ Young Sir, you erre: If Fortune could be call'd Or his, or your's, or mine, in good or evill For any certain space, thou hadst spoke truth: But she but jests with man, and in mischance Abhors all constancie, flowting him still With some small touch of good, or seeming good Midst of his mischief: which vicissitude Makes him strait doff his armour, and his fence He had prepar'd before, to break her strokes. So from the very Zenith of her wheel, When she has dandled some choice favorite, Given him his boons in women, honor, wealth, And all the various delecacies of earth; That the fool scorns the gods in his excess, She whirls, and leaves him at th' _Antipodes_.