CRI. Ay, but though Mercury can warrant out His undertakings, and make all things good, Out of the powers of his divinity, Th' offence will be return'd with weight on me, That am a creature so despised and poor; When the whole court shall take itself abused By our ironical confederacy. MER. You are deceived. The better race in court, That have the true nobility call'd virtue, Will apprehend it, as a grateful right Done to their separate merit; and approve The fit rebuke of so ridiculous heads, Who, with their apish customs and forced garbs, Would bring the name of courtier in contempt, Did it not live unblemish'd in some few, Whom equal Jove hath loved, and Phoebus form'd Of better metal, and in better mould. CRI. Well, since my leader-on is Mercury, I shall not fear to follow. If I fall, My proper virtue shall be my relief, That follow'd such a cause, and such a chief. [EXEUNT.] SCENE II.--ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. ENTER ASOTUS AND AMORPHUS. ASO. No more, if you love me, good master; you are incompatible to live withal: send me for the ladies! AMO. Nay, but intend me. ASO. Fear me not; I warrant you, sir. AMO. Render not yourself a refractory on the sudden. I can allow, well, you should repute highly, heartily, and to the most, of your own endowments; it gives you forth to the world the more assured: but with reservation of an eye, to be always turn'd dutifully back upon your teacher. ASO. Nay, good sir, leave it to me. Trust me with trussing all the points of this action, I pray. 'Slid, I hope we shall find wit to perform the science as well as another. AMO. I confess you to be of an apted and docible humour. Yet there are certain punctilios, or (as I may more nakedly insinuate them) certain intrinsecate strokes and wards, to which your activity is not yet amounted, as your gentle dor in colours. For supposition, your mistress appears here in prize, ribanded with green and yellow; now, it is the part of every obsequious servant, to be sure to have daily about him copy and variety of colours, to be presently answerable to any hourly or half-hourly change in his mistress's revolution-- ASO. I know it, sir. AMO. Give leave, I pray you--which, if your antagonist, or player against you, shall ignorantly be without, and yourself can produce, you give him the dor. ASO. Ay, ay, sir. AMO. Or, if you can possess your opposite, that the green your mistress wears, is her rejoicing or exultation in his service; the yellow, suspicion of his truth, from her height of affection: and that he, greenly credulous, shall withdraw thus, in private, and from the abundance of his pocket (to displace her jealous conceit) steal into his hat the colour, whose blueness doth express trueness, she being not so, nor so affected; you give him the dor.