d; all my hopes are crost,
Check'd, and abated; fie, a freezing sweat
Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn:
What should I do? Rome! Rome! O my vext soul,
How might I force this to the present state?
Are there no players here? no poet apes,
That come with basilisk' s eyes, whose forked tongues
Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall?
Either of these would help me; they could wrest,
Pervert, and poison all they hear or see,
With senseless glosses, and allusions.
Now, if you be good devils, fly me not.
You know what dear and ample faculties
I have endowed you with: I'll lend you more.
Here, take my snakes among you, come and eat,
And while the squeez'd juice flows in your black jaws,
Help me to damn the author. Spit it forth
Upon his lines, and shew your rusty teeth
At every word, or accent: or else choose
Out of my longest vipers, to stick down
In your deep throats; and let the heads come forth
At your rank mouths; that he may see you arm'd
With triple malice, to hiss, sting, and tear.
His work and him; to forge, and then declaim,
Traduce, corrupt, apply, inform, suggest;
O, these are gifts wherein your souls are blest.
What? Do you hide yourselves? will none appear?
None answer? what, doth this calm troop affright you?
Nay, then I do despair; down, sink again:
This travail is all lost with my dead hopes.
If in such bosoms spite have left to dwell,
Envy is not on earth, nor scarce in hell. [Descends slowly.

The third sounding.

[As she disappears, enter PROLOGUE hastily, in armour.

Stay, monster, ere thou sink-thus on thy head
Set we our bolder foot; with which we tread
Thy malice into earth: so Spite should die,
Despised and scorn'd by noble industry.
If any muse why I salute the stage,
An armed Prologue; know, 'tis a dangerous age:
Wherein who writes, had need present his scenes
Forty-fold proof against the conjuring means
Of base detractors, and illiterate apes,
That fill up rooms in fair and formal shapes.
'Gainst these, have we put on this forced defence:
Whereof the allegory and hid sense
Is, that a well erected confidence
Can fright their pride, and laugh their folly hence.
Here now, put case our author should, once more,
Swear that his play were good; he doth implore,
You would not argue him of arrogance: