look to it; 'tis time.

COS. The revels would have been most sumptuous to-night, if they
had gone forward. [EXIT.]

MER. They must needs, when all the choicest singularities of the
court were up in pantofles; ne'er a one of them but was able to
make a whole show of itself.

ASO. [WITHIN.] Sirrah, a torch, a torch!

PRO. O, what a call is there! I will have a canzonet made, with
nothing in it but sirrah; and the burthen shall be, I come.
[EXIT.]

MER. How now, Cupid, how do you like this change?

CUP. Faith, the thread of my device is crack'd, I may go sleep
till the revelling music awake me.

MER. And then, too, Cupid, without you had prevented the fountain.
Alas, poor god, that remembers not self-love to be proof against
the violence of his quiver! Well, I have a plot against these
prizers, for which I must presently find out Crites, and with his
assistance pursue it to a high strain of laughter, or Mercury hath
lost of his metal.

[EXEUNT.]

ACT V

SCENE I.--THE SAME.

ENTER MERCURY AND CRITES.

MER. It is resolved on, Crites, you must do it.

CRI. The grace divinest Mercury hath done me,
In this vouchsafed discovery of himself,
Binds my observance in the utmost term
Of satisfaction to his godly will:
Though I profess, without the affectation
Of an enforced and form'd austerity,
I could be willing to enjoy no place
With so unequal natures.

MER. We believe it.
But for our sake, and to inflict just pains
On their prodigious follies, aid us now:
No man is presently made bad with ill.
And good men, like the sea, should still maintain
Their noble taste, in midst of all fresh humours
That flow about them, to corrupt their streams,
Bearing no season, much less salt of goodness.
It is our purpose, Crites, to correct,
And punish, with our laughter, this night's sport,
Which our court-dors so heartily intend:
And by that worthy scorn, to make them know
How far beneath the dignity of man
Their serious and most practised actions are.

CRI. Ay, but though Mercury can warrant out
His undertakings, and make all things good,
Out of the powers of his divinity,
Th' offence will be return'd with weight on me,
That am a creature so despised and poor;
When the whole court shall take itself abused
By our ironical confederacy.

MER.