Enter OVID senior, followed by Luscus,
Tucca, and Lupus.

Ovid se. Your name shall live, indeed, sir! you say true: but how
infamously, how scorn'd and contemn'd in the eyes and ears of the
best and gravest Romans, that you think not on; you never so much
as dream of that. Are these the fruits of all my travail and
expenses? Is this the scope and aim of thy studies? Are these the
hopeful courses, wherewith I have so long flattered my expectation
from thee? Verses! Poetry! Ovid, whom I thought to see the pleader,
become Ovid the play-maker!

Ovid ju. No, sir.

Ovid se. Yes, sir; I hear of a tragedy of yours coming forth for
the common players there, call'd Medea. By my household gods, if I
come to the acting of it, I'll add one tragic part more than is yet
expected to it: believe me, when I promise it. What! shall I have
my son a stager now? an enghle for players? a gull, a rook, a
shot-clog, to make suppers, and be laugh'd at? Publius, I will set
thee on the funeral pile first.

Ovid ju. Sir, I beseech you to have patience.

Lus. Nay, this 'tis to have your ears damn'd up to good counsel. I
did augur all this to him beforehand, without poring into an ox's
paunch for the matter, and yet he would not be scrupulous.

Tuc. How now, goodman slave! what, rowly-powly? all rivals, rascal?
Why, my master of worship, dost hear? are these thy best projects?
is this thy designs and thy discipline, to suffer knaves to be
competitors with commanders and gentlemen? Are we parallels, rascal,
are we parallels?

Ovid se. Sirrah, go get my horses ready. You'll still be prating.

Tuc. Do, you perpetual stinkard, do, go; talk to tapsters and
ostlers, you slave; they are in your element, go; here be the
emperor's captains, you raggamuffin rascal, and not your comrades.
[Exit Luscus.
Lup. Indeed. Marcus Ovid, these players are an idle generation, and
do much harm in a state, corrupt young gentry very much, I know it;
I have not been a tribune thus long and observed nothing: besides,
they will rob us, us, that are magistrates, of our respect, bring
us upon their stages, and make us ridiculous to the plebeians; they
will play you or me, the wisest men they can come by still, only to
bring us in contempt with the vulgar, and make us cheap.

Tur. Thou art in the right, my venera