_Mal._ Faith, forty's enow, o' conscience,--yet was a cornuto. Patience; mischief grows proud: be wise. _Pietro._ Thou pinchest too deep; art too keen upon me. _Mal._ Tut, a pitiful surgeon makes a dangerous sore: I'll tent thee to the ground. Thinkest I'll sustain myself by flattering thee, because thou art a prince? I had rather follow a drunkard, and live by licking up his vomit, than by servile flattery. _Pietro._ Yet great men ha' done 't. 100 _Mal._ Great slaves fear better than love, born naturally for a coal-basket;[519] though the common usher of princes' presence, Fortune, ha'[520] blindly given them better place. I am vowed to be thy affliction. _Pietro._ Prithee, be; I love much misery, and be thou son to me. _Mal._ Because you are an usurping duke.---- _Enter_ BILIOSO. Your lordship's well returned from Florence. _Bil._ Well returned, I praise my horse. _Mal._ What news from the Florentines? _Bil._ I will conceal the great duke's pleasure; only this was his charge: his pleasure is, that his daughter die; Duke Pietro be banished for banishing his blood's dishonour; and that Duke Altofront be re-accepted. This is all: but I hear Duke Pietro is dead. 114 _Mal._ Ay, and Mendoza is duke: what will you do? _Bil._ Is Mendoza strongest? _Mal._ Yet he is. _Bil._ Then yet I'll hold with him. _Mal._ But if that Altofront should turn straight again? _Bil._ Why, then, I would turn straight again. 120 'Tis good run still with him that has most might: I had rather stand with wrong, than fall with right. _Mal._[521] What religion will you be of now? _Bil._ Of the duke's religion,[522] when I know what it is. _Mal._ O Hercules! Bil. Hercules! Hercules was the son of Jupiter and Alcmena. _Mal._ Your lordship is a very wit-all. _Bil._ Wittal! _Mal._ Ay, all-wit. 130 _Bil._ Amphitryo was a cuckold. _Mal._ Your lordship sweats; your young lady will get you a cloth for your old worship's brows. [_Exit_ BILIOSO. Here's a fellow to be damned: this is his inviolable maxim,--flatter the greatest and oppress the least: a whoreson flesh-fly, that still gnaws upon the lean galled backs. _Pietro._ Why dost, then, salute him? 138