The wreath of pleasure and delicious sweets, Begirt the gentle front of this fair troop! Select and most respected auditors, For wit's sake do not dream of miracles. Alas! we shall but falter, if you lay The least sad weight of an unusèd hope Upon our weakness; only we give up The worthless present of slight idleness To your authentic censure. O! that our Muse Had those abstruse and sinewy faculties, 10 That, with a strain of fresh invention, She might press out the rarity of Art; The pur'st elixèd juice of rich conceit In your attentive ears; that with the lip Of gracious elocution we might drink A sound carouse into your health of wit. But O! the heavy[51] dryness of her brain, Foil to your fertile spirits, is asham'd To breathe her blushing numbers to such ears. Yet (most ingenious) deign to veil our wants; 20 With sleek acceptance polish these rude scenes; And if our slightness your large hope beguiles, Check not with bended brow, but dimpled smiles. [_Exit_ Prologue. [51] So ed. 1633.--Ed. 1602 "heathy." THE FIRST PART OF ANTONIO AND MELLIDA. ACT I. SCENE I. _Neighbourhood of Venice._ _The cornets sound a battle within._ _Enter_ ANTONIO, _disguised like an Amazon_. _Ant._ Heart, wilt not break? and thou abhorrèd life, Wilt thou still breathe in my enragèd blood? Veins, sinews, arteries, why crack ye not, Burst and divulst with anguish of my grief? Can man by no means creep out of himself, And leave the slough of viperous grief behind? Antonio, hast thou seen a fight at sea, As horrid as the hideous day of doom, Betwixt thy father, Duke of Genoa, And proud Piero, the Venetian Prince: 10 In which the sea hath swoln with Genoa's blood, And made spring-tides with the warm reeking gore, That gush'd from out our galleys' scupper-holes? In which thy father, poor Andrugio, Lies sunk, or leap'd into the arms of chance, Choked with the labouring ocean's brackish foam; Who, even despite Piero's canker'd hate, Would with an armèd hand have seized thy love, And link'd thee to the beauteous Mellida. Have I outlived the death of all these hopes? 20 Have I felt anguish pour'd into my heart, Burning like balsamum in tender wounds! And yet dost live! Could not the fretting sea Have roll'd me up in wrinkles of his brow? Is death grown coy, or grim confusion nice, That it will not accompany a wretch, But I must needs be cast on Venice' shore, And try new fortunes with this strange disguise To purchase my adorèd Mellida? [_The cornets sound a flourish; cease._