Part 6 (2/2)

MOS: Ay, with our help, sir.

VOLP: So many cares, so many maladies, So many fears attending on old age, Yea, death so often call'd on, as no wish Can be more frequent with them, their limbs faint, Their senses dull, their seeing, hearing, going, All dead before them; yea, their very teeth, Their instruments of eating, failing them: Yet this is reckon'd life! nay, here was one; Is now gone home, that wishes to live longer!

Feels not his gout, nor palsy; feigns himself Younger by scores of years, flatters his age With confident belying it, hopes he may, With charms, like Aeson, have his youth restored: And with these thoughts so battens, as if fate Would be as easily cheated on, as he, And all turns air!

[KNOCKING WITHIN.]

Who's that there, now? a third?

MOS: Close, to your couch again; I hear his voice: It is Corvino, our spruce merchant.

VOLP [LIES DOWN AS BEFORE.]: Dead.

MOS: Another bout, sir, with your eyes.

[ANOINTING THEM.]

-Who's there?

[ENTER CORVINO.]

Signior Corvino! come most wish'd for! O, How happy were you, if you knew it, now!

CORV: Why? what? wherein?

MOS: The tardy hour is come, sir.

CORV: He is not dead?

MOS: Not dead, sir, but as good; He knows no man.

CORV: How shall I do then?

MOS: Why, sir?

CORV: I have brought him here a pearl.

MOS: Perhaps he has So much remembrance left, as to know you, sir: He still calls on you; nothing but your name Is in his mouth: Is your pearl orient, sir?

CORV: Venice was never owner of the like.

VOLP [FAINTLY.]: Signior Corvino.

MOS: Hark.

VOLP: Signior Corvino!

MOS: He calls you; step and give it him.-He's here, sir, And he has brought you a rich pearl.

CORV: How do you, sir?

Tell him, it doubles the twelfth caract.

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