. Sit by me, master.

MER. Now, Crites, strike home. [A CHARGE.]

CRI. You shall see me undo the assured swaggerer with a trick,
instantly: I will play all his own play before him; court the wench
in his garb, in his phrase, with his face; leave him not so much as
a look, an eye, a stalk, or an imperfect oath, to express himself
by, after me. [ASIDE TO MERCURY.]

MER. Excellent, Crites.

ANA. When begin you, sir? have you consulted?

CRI. To your cost, sir. Which is the piece stands forth to be
courted? O, are you she? [TO PHILAUTIA.] "Well, madam, or sweet
lady, it is so, I do love you in some sort, do you conceive? and
though I am no monsieur, nor no signior, and do want, as they say,
logic and sophistry, and good words, to tell you why it is so; yet
by this hand and by that candle it is so: and though I be no
book-worm, nor one that deals by art, to give you rhetoric and
causes, why it should be so, or make it good it is so? yet, d--n
me, but I know it is so, and am assured it is so, and I and my
sword shall make it appear it is so, and give you reason sufficient
how it can be no otherwise but so--"

HED. 'Slight, Anaides, you are mocked, and so we are all.

MER. How now, signior! what, suffer yourself to be cozened of
your courtship before your face?

HED. This is plain confederacy to disgrace us: let's be gone, and
plot some revenge.

AMO. "When men disgraces share,
The lesser is the care."

CRI. Nay, stay, my dear Ambition, [TO HEDON.] I can do you over
too. You that tell your mistress, her beauty is all composed of
theft; her hair stole from Apollo's goldy-locks; her white and red,
lilies and roses stolen out of paradise; her eyes two stars,
pluck'd from the sky; her nose the gnomon of Love's dial, that
tells you how the clock of your heart goes: and for her other
parts, as you cannot reckon them, they are so many; so you cannot
recount them, they are so manifest. Yours, if his own, unfortunate
Hoyden, instead of Hedon. [A FLOURISH.]

ASO. Sister, come away, I cannot endure them longer.

[EXEUNT ALL BUT MERCURY AND CRITES.]

MER. Go, Dors, and you, my madam Courting-stocks,
Follow your scorned and derided mates;
Tell to your guilty breasts, what mere gilt blocks
You are, and how unworthy human states.

CRI. Now, sacred God of Wit, if you can make