own cold ashes smother'd up,
May die in silence, and revive no more:
And therefore tell me, is it best or no?
O. LUS. How say you, sir?
O. ART. I say it is not best.
O. LUS. Mass, you say well, sir, and so say I too.
O. ART. But shall we lose our labour to come hither,
And, without sight of our two children,
Go back again? nay, we will in, that's sure.
O. LUS. In, quotha! do you make a doubt of that;
Shall we come thus far, and in such post-haste,
And have our children here, and both within,
And not behold them e'er our back-return?
It were unfriendly and unfatherly.
Come, Master Arthur, pray you follow me.
O. ART. Nay, but hark you, sir, will you not knock?
O. LUS. Is't best to knock?
O. ART. Ay, knock in any case.
O. LUS. 'Twas well you put it in my mind to knock,
I had forgotten it else, I promise you.
O. ART. Tush, is't not my son's and your daughter's door,
And shall we two stand knocking? Lead the way.
O. LUS. Knock at our children's doors! that were a jest.
Are we such fools to make ourselves so strange,
Where we should still be boldest? In, for shame!
We will not stand upon such ceremonies.
[_Exeunt_.
SCENE III.
_The Street_.
_Enter_ ANSELM _and_ FULLER.
FUL. Speak: in what cue, sir, do you find your heart,
Now thou hast slept a little on thy love?
ANS. Like one that strives to shun a little plash
Of shallow water, and (avoiding it)
Plunges into a river past his depth:
Like one that from a small spark steps aside,
And falls in headlong to a greater flame.
FUL. But in such fires scorch not thyself, for shame!
If she be fire, thou art so far from burning,
That thou hast scarce yet warm'd thee at her face;
But list to me, I'll turn thy heart from love,
And make thee loathe all of the feminine sex.
They that have known me, knew me once of name
To be a perfect wencher: I have tried
All sorts, all sects, all states, and find them still
Inconstant, fickle, always variable.
Attend me, man! I will prescribe a method,
How thou shalt win her without all peradventure.
ANS. That would I gladly hear.
FUL. I was once like thee,
A sigher, melancholy humorist,
Crosser of arms, a goer without garters,
A hatband-hater, and a busk-point[4] wearer,
One that did use much bracelets made of hair,
Rings on my fingers, jewels in mine ears,
And now and then a wench's carcanet,
Scarfs, garters, bands, wrought waistcoats, gold-stit
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