University of Virginia Library

Sce. 3.

To them Praxaspes, Masistes.
Prax.
Whence this deepe silence? are you sacrificing
To your dumbe Gods of Greece? where are your Cuppes?
Your Loves, your Madnesse?

Leoc.
Do not Ravish me;
I will cry out a Rape, if that you come
Within twelve foot of me; we must be modest,
Modest an't please the Gods.

Mas.
Fy! fy! We look'd, you should
Have left at least a dozen of great bellies
A peece behinde you upon every Tribe.
Where are your Spirits? had I been in your case,
Nature e're this had been inverted. But
You thinke on your last end, as if the world
Were to expire with you.

Str.
O! we must walke
Discreetly, looke as carefully to our steps,
As if we were to dance on ropes, with Egges
Under our feet: we have left off shackles,
To be worse fetterd.

Prax.
Can a brest of large
And ample thoughts tamely endure the ring?
And be led quietly by th'Patient Nose,
When Licence is Religion? One whose dull
And sluggish temper is call'd wisdome, one
Whose indiscretion kill'd with some formality,
As Quicksilver with fasting spittle, doth passe
For a grave governing Garbe. This heavy lumpe
Dulls all your active fire.

Mas.
You understand not:
For to what end is Liberty indulg'd?
To be oppress'd by a severer Rule?
One newly taken from among your selves,
To make your state worse by his Tyranny?
But you shew what you can endure.

Phil.
By Heav'n
We doe enslave our selves; We can b'as free
As is Cratander, though not so malitious.

Mas.
You are as things of nought with him; for tell me;
When call'd he Stratocles to Councell? when
Ask'd he Leocrates his advice? Philotas,
Archippus, names excluded from his thoughts,
But when he meanes to shew that he hath anger.

Phil.
What Star wert thou borne under Stratocles?

Str.
That which all Governours of Market-townes are,
Some lazy Planet, I beleeve.

Phil.
Thou 'wert wont
To exercise upon a throat or two,
To keepe thy hand in ure; now shew thy selfe
Let's slit this graver weazen.

Prax.
Now I see
You have some man about you, now your blouds
Run as they should doe, high and full; you slept
Meerely till now. If that Cratander should
Quit scores with Nature e're his time be out,
The King must chuse againe; the dead you know
Ne're goes for Sacrifice.

Leoc.
Must one of us
Peece up his Reigne then?

Prax.
There's no other way;
The Gods themselves require't.

Leoc.
My Hanches quake,
As if that Molops were to season them,
And put 'em streight in paste for the great Gods

Phil.
Who e're
Succeeds him, shall allow the rest what e're
Nature or Art can yeeld. Nothing shall be
Unlawfull, but to sleepe and mumble Prayers.

Arch., Strat., Leoc.
Agreed, agreed.

Cratander is discover'd over-hearing them.
Phil.
Then fill me out an Oath.
All I presume will binde themselves with this
Good common looser of all cares, but what
Do tend to Liberty to doe the like.

Str.
The motion's worthy; crowne the Goblet then.

Phil.
Would 'twere his bloud. By Truth her self th'Ofspring
And childe of Wine, Cratander dyes e're halfe
The glasse of his short Tyranny run out.
This thē to the infernall Gods.
[powrs some on the ground] & this [he drinkes.
To our just angers, Gods as great as they.
Good Omen! so! the thickned streames run black;
'Twas bloud methought I dranke: 'twere Lazynes
To say, he shall be dead; hee's dead already.
Drinke and prepare for Pleasures.

[They all drinke.
Omnes.
Liberty.

[Exeunt.