Seb. A dollar.

Gon. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken truer than you purpos'd.

Seb. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.

Gon. Therefore, my lord,

Ant. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
Alon. I prithee, spare.

Gon. Well, I have done. But yet,

Seb. He will be talking.

Ant. Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager,

first begins to crow?

Seb. The old cock.

Ant. The cockerel.

20

25

30

Seb. Done. The wager?

Ant. A laughter.

Seb. A match!

Adr. Though this island seem to be desert,
Seb. Ha, ha, ha! Antonio! So you're paid.
Adr. Uninhabitable and almost inaccessible, -
Seb. Yet,

35

Adr. Yet,

Ant. He could not miss't.

Adr. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and deli

cate temperance.

Ant. Temperance was a delicate wench.

Seb. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly de

liver'd.

D

40

45

Adr. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
Seb. As if it had lungs and rotten ones.
Ant. Or as 'twere perfum'd by a fen.
Gon. Here is everything advantageous to life.
Ant. True; save means to live.

Seb. Of that there's none, or little.

Gon. How lush and lusty the grass looks! How

green!

Ant. The ground indeed is tawny.

Seb. With an eye of green in't.

Ant. He misses not much.

Seb. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.
Gon. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed al-
most beyond credit,

Seb. As many vouch'd rarities are.
Gon. That our garments, being, as they were,
drench'd in the sea, hold notwithstanding their
freshness and glosses, being rather new-dy'd
than stain'd with salt water.

50

55

60

Ant. If but one of his pockets could speak, would 65 it not say he lies?

Seb. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.
Gon. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as
when we put them on first in Afric, at the
marriage of the King's fair daughter Claribel
to the King of Tunis.

Seb. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well
in our return.

70

Adr. Tunis was never grac'd before with such a

paragon to their queen.

Gon. Not since widow Dido's time.

Ant. Widow! a pox o' that! How came that

widow in? Widow Dido!

Seb. What if he had said "widower Æneas" too?
Good Lord, how you take it!

Adr. "Widow Dido" said you? You make me
study of that. She was of Carthage, not of
Tunis.

Gon. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.

Adr. Carthage?

Gon. I assure you, Carthage.

Ant. His word is more than the miraculous harp.

Seb. He hath rais'd the wall and houses too.
Ant. What impossible matter will he make easy
next?

75

80

85

Seb. I think he will carry this island home in his pocket and give it his son for an apple.

90

Ant. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands.

Gon. Ay.

Ant. Why, in good time.

Gon. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem

now as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the
marriage of your daughter, who is now Queen.

Ant. And the rarest that e'er came there.
Seb. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.

95

100

Ant. O, widow Dido! ay, widow Dido.

Gon. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day

I wore it? I mean, in a sort.

Ant. That sort was well fish'd for.

Gon. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage? 105

Alon. You cram these words into mine ears against
Would I had never

Fran.

Alon.

The stomach of my sense.

Married my daughter there! for, coming thence,
My son is lost and, in my rate, she too,

Who is so far from Italy removed

I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir
Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish
Hath made his meal on thee?

Sir, he may live.

I saw him beat the surges under him,

110

116

And ride upon their backs. He trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
The surge most swoln that met him. His bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke

To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed,
As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt

He came alive to land.

No, no, he's gone.

121

Seb. Sir,' you may thank yourself for this great loss, That would not bless our Europe with your

daughter,

But rather lose her to an African;

125

Alon.

Where she at least is banish'd from your eye,
Who hath cause to wet the grief on't.

Prithee, peace. Seb. You were kneel'd to and importun'd otherwise By all of us, and the fair soul herself

Alon.

Weigh'd between loathness and obedience, at 130
Which end o' the beam should bow. We have lost

your son,

I fear, for ever.

Milan and Naples have

Moe widows in them of this business' making
Than we bring men to comfort them.

The fault's your own.

Gon. My lord Sebastian,

Seb.

So is the dear'st o' the loss.

136

The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness
And time to speak it in. You rub the sore,
When you should bring the plaster.

Ant. And most chirurgeonly.

Gon. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,

Seb.

Ant.

When you are cloudy.

Foul weather?

Very well.

140

Very foul.

Or docks, or mallows.

Gon. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,
Ant. He'd sow't with nettle-seed.
Seb.
Gon. And were the king on't, what would I do?
Seb. Scape being drunk for want of wine.

145