University of Virginia Library

The Prologue.

The rawish danke of clumzie winter ramps
The fluent summers vaine: and drizling sleere
Chilleth the wan bleak cheek of the numd earth,
Whilst snarling gusts nibble the iuyceles leaues,
From the nak't shuddring branch; and pils the skinne
From off the soft and delicate aspectes,
O, now, me thinks, a sullen tragick Sceane
Would suite the time, with pleasing congruence.
May we be happie in our weake deuoyer,
And all parte pleas'd in most wisht content:
But sweate of Hercules can nere beget
So blest an issue. Therefore we proclaime,
If any spirit breathes within this round,
Vncapable of waightie passion
(As from his birth, being hugged in the armes,
And nuzzled twixt the breastes of happinesse)
Who winkes, and shuts his apprehension vp
From common sense of what men were, and are,
Who would not knowe what men must be; let such
Hurrie amaine from our black visag'd showes:
We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast,
Nail'd to the earth with griefe: if any heart
Pierc't through with anguish, pant within this ring:
If there be any blood, whose heate is choakt
And stifled with true sense of misery:
If ought of these straines fill this consort vp,
Th'arriue most welcome. O that our power
Could lackie, or keepe wing with our desires;
That with vnused paize of stile and sense,
We might waigh massy in iudicious scale.
Yet heere's the prop that doth support our hopes;
When our Sceanes falter, or inuention halts,
Your fauour will giue crutches to our faults.
Exit.