Part 26 (2/2)

[DRINKS AGAIN.]

So, so, so, so!

This heat is life; 'tis blood by this time:-Mosca!

[ENTER MOSCA.]

MOS: How now, sir? does the day look clear again?

Are we recover'd, and wrought out of error, Into our way, to see our path before us?

Is our trade free once more?

VOLP: Exquisite Mosca!

MOS: Was it not carried learnedly?

VOLP: And stoutly: Good wits are greatest in extremities.

MOS: It were a folly beyond thought, to trust Any grand act unto a cowardly spirit: You are not taken with it enough, methinks?

VOLP: O, more than if I had enjoy'd the wench: The pleasure of all woman-kind's not like it.

MOS: Why now you speak, sir. We must here be fix'd; Here we must rest; this is our master-piece; We cannot think to go beyond this.

VOLP: True.

Thou hast play'd thy prize, my precious Mosca.

MOS: Nay, sir, To gull the court-

VOLP: And quite divert the torrent Upon the innocent.

MOS: Yes, and to make So rare a music out of discords-

VOLP: Right.

That yet to me's the strangest, how thou hast borne it!

That these, being so divided 'mongst themselves, Should not scent somewhat, or in me or thee, Or doubt their own side.

MOS: True, they will not see't.

Too much light blinds them, I think. Each of them Is so possest and stuft with his own hopes, That any thing unto the contrary, Never so true, or never so apparent, Never so palpable, they will resist it-

VOLP: Like a temptation of the devil.

MOS: Right, sir.

Merchants may talk of trade, and your great signiors Of land that yields well; but if Italy Have any glebe more fruitful than these fellows, I am deceiv'd. Did not your advocate rare?

VOLP: O-”My most honour'd fathers, my grave fathers, Under correction of your fatherhoods, What face of truth is here? If these strange deeds May pa.s.s, most honour'd fathers”-I had much ado To forbear laughing.

MOS: It seem'd to me, you sweat, sir.

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