_Qua._ Ha! he mount Chirall[437] on the wings of fame!
A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse![438]
Look thee, I speak play-scraps. Bidet, I'll down,
Sing, sing, or stay, we'll quaff, or anything.
Rivo,[439] Saint Mark, let's talk as loose as air;
Unwind youth's colours, display ourselves, 130
So that yon envy-starvèd cur may yelp
And spend his chaps at our fantasticness.
_Sim._ O Lord, Quadratus!
_Qua._ Away, idolater! Why, you Don Kynsader![440]
Thou canker-eaten rusty cur! thou snaffle
To freer spirits!
Think'st thou, a libertine, an ungyved breast,
Scorns not the shackles of thy envious clogs?
You will traduce us unto public scorn?
_Lam._ By this hand I will. 140
_Qua._ A foutra for thy hand, thy heart, thy brain!
Thy hate, thy malice, envy, grinning spite!
Shall a free-born, that holds antipathy----
_Lam._ Antipathy!
_Qua._ Ay, antipathy, a native hate
Unto the curse of man, bare-pated servitude,
Quake at the frowns of a ragg'd satirist--
A scrubbing railer, whose coarse, harden'd fortune,
Grating his hide, galling his starvèd ribs,
Sits howling at desert's more battle fate[441]--
Who out of dungeon of his black despairs, 150
Scowls at the fortune of the fairer merit.
_Lav._ Tut, via! Let all run glib and square.
_Qua._ Uds fut! He coggs and cheats your simpler thoughts,
My spleen's a-fire in the heat of hate;
I bear these gnats that hum about our ears,
And blister[442] our credits in obscured shades.
_Lav._ Pewte bougra! La, la, la! Tit! Shaugh!
Shall I forbear to caper, sing, or vault?
To wear fresh clothes, or wear perfumèd sweets?
To trick my face, or glory in my fate? 160
T' abandon natural propensitudes?
My fancy's humour?--for a stiff jointed,
Tatter'd, nasty, taber-fac'd----Puh, la, la, ly ro!
_Qua._ Now, by thy lady's cheek, I honour thee,
My rich free blood. O my dear libertine!
I could suck the juice, the sirrup of thy lip,
For thy most generous thought!--my Elysium!
_Lam._ O, sir, you are so square, you scorn reproof.
_Qua._ No, sir; should discreet Mastigophoros,
Or the dear spirit acute Canaidus 170
(That Aretine, that most of me beloved,
Who in the rich esteem I prize his soul,
I term myself); should these once menace me,
Or curb my humours with well-govern'd check,
I should with most industrious regard,
Observe, abstain, and curb my skipping lightness;
But when an arrogant, odd, impudent,
A blushless forehead, only out of sense
Of his own wants, bawls in malignant questing
At others' means of waving gallantry,-- 180
Pight foutra!
_Lam._ I rail at none, you well-squared signior.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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