hing stings me to the very heart--to see an
ugly, foul, idle, fat, dusty cloghead, called Oblivio, preferred before
me. Dost know him?

MEN. Who, I? Ay, but care not for his acquaintance. Hang him, blockhead!
I could never abide him. Thou, Remembrance, are the only friend that the
arms of my friendship shall embrace. Thou hast heard _Oportet mendacem
esse memorem_. But what of Oblivio?

ANA. The very naming of him hath made me forget myself. O, O, O, O, that
rascal is so made of everywhere!

MEN. Who, Oblivio?

ANA. Ay, for our courtiers hug him continually in their ungrateful
bosoms, and your smooth-bellied,[244] fat-backed, barrel-paunched,
tun-gutted drones are never without him. As for Memory, he's a
false-hearted fellow; he always deceives them; they respect not him,
except it be to play a game at chests,[245] primero,[246] saunt,[247]
maw,[248] or such like.

MEN. I cannot think such fellows have to do with Oblivio, since they
never got anything to forget.

ANA. Again, these prodigal swaggerers that are so much bound to their
creditors, if they have but one cross about them, they'll spend it in
wine upon Oblivio.

MEN. To what purpose, I prythee?

ANA. Only in hope he'll wash them in the Lethe of their cares.

MEN. Why, then, no man cares for thee.

ANA. Yes, a company of studious paperworms and lean scholars, and
niggarly scraping usurers, and a troop of heart-eating, envious persons,
and those canker-stomached, spiteful creatures that furnish up
commonplace books with other men's faults. The time hath been, in those
golden days when Saturn reigned, that, if a man received a benefit of
another, I was presently sent for to put him in mind of it; but now, in
these iron afternoons, save your friend's life, and Oblivio will be more
familiar with him than you.

SCAENA TERTIA.

HEURESIS, MENDACIO, ANAMNESTES.

HEU. Phantastes not at court? Is't possible? 'Tis the strangest accident
that ever was heard of. I had thought the ladies and gallants would
never lie without him.

ANA. Hist, hist, Mendacio; I prythee observe Heuresis. It seems he
cannot find his master, that's able to find out all things. And art thou
now at a fault? Canst not find out thine own master?

HEU. I'll try one more way. O yes![249]

MEN. What a proclamation for him?

ANA. Ay, ay, his nimble head is always full of proclamations.

HEU. O yes!

MEN. But doth he cry him in the wood?

ANA. O good sir, and good reason