_Herc._ _An act against counterfeiting of Cupid's royal coin, and abusing his subjects with false money._--To the bar, Sir Amorous!--_In most lamentable form complaineth to your blind celsitude your distressed orators, the women of the world, that in respect that many spendthrifts, who having exhausted and wasted their substance, and in stranger parts have with empty shows, treasonably purchased ladies' affections, without being of ability to pay them for it with current money, and therefore have deceitfully sought to satisfy them with counterfeit metal, to the great displeasure and no small loss of your humblest subjects: may it therefore with your pitiful assent be enacted, that what lord, knight, or gentleman soever, knowing himself insufficient, bankrout, exhausted, and wasted, shall traitorously dare to entertain any lady, as wife or mistress_, ipso facto _to be severed from all commercement with women, his wife or mistress in that state offending to be forgiven with a pardon of course, and himself instantly to be pressed to sail in the ship of fools, without either bail or main-prize_.--Sir Amorous is arrested. 286 _Sir Amor._[287] Judgment of the court. _Herc._ I take my oath upon thy brother's body, 'tis none of thine. _Sir Amor._ By the heart of dissemblance, this Fawn has wrought with us as strange tailors work in corporate cities, where they are not free; all inward, inward he lurk'd in the bosom of us, and yet we know not his profession. Sir, let me have counsel? _Herc._ 'Tis[288] in great Cupid's case; you may have no counsel. 296 _Sir Amor._ Death[289] o' justice! are we in Normandy? What is my lady's doom then? _Cup._ Acquitted by the express parole of the statute. Hence, and in thy ignorance be quietly happy. Away with him--on! _Herc._ _An act against forgers of love-letters, false braggarts of ladies' favours, and vain boasters of counterfeit tokens._ _Herod._ 'Tis I, 'tis I! I confess guilty, guilty! 305 _Herc._ I will be most humane and right courteously languaged in thy correction, and only say, thy vice, from apparent here, has made thee an apparent beggar, and now of a false knave hath made thee a true fool. Folly to the ship with him, and twice a day let him be duck'd at the main-yard. _Cup._ Proceed! 312 _Herc._ _An act against slanderers of Cupid's liege ladies' names, and lewd defamers of their honours._ _Zuc._ 'Tis I, 'tis I! I weep and cry out, I have been a most contumelious offender. My only cry is _Miserere!_ _Cup._ If your relenting lady will have pity on you, The fault against our deity be pardoned.