_Avar._ I ever told ye you should grow to this estate.
_Avar._ Yea! I told you so in very deed; And highly I rejoice it doth so well succeed. And _salva festa dies_ upon you, Madame! I am glad ye have got a new robe, so I am: What saint in the calendar do we serve to-day, That ye be so gorgeously decked, and so gay?
_Resp._ In rejoicing that I shall be clean rid of thee.
_Avar._ Nay, by this cross! ye shall never be rid for me.
_Avar._ Well, let them do as they lust! I will ride upon Jill, mine own mare; that is just. Other ways I shall do you service of the best.
_Resp._ Thou wicked wretch! darest thou with me to jest?
_Avar._ What? I now see, _honores mutant mores_, But, as seemeth here, _raro in meliores_.
_Resp._ Thee, and all thy service I do from me exile.
_Avar._ Is that the high reward ye promised me erewhile? Is not this a wise woman, and minded to thrive, That would me, Policy, out of the country drive?
_Resp._ Thee and thy complices from me I shall outcast.
_Avar._ Then, I pray you, pay us for our pains that are past.
_Avar._ Once I have done the best I can; Authority also, he hath played the man; Reformation hath done his part, I can tell. If ye mistrust Honesty, faith! ye do not well. And as for Avarice, he is conveyed quite: I bade him get him hence, or I would him indite. I, Policy, have made him to pluck in his horns: I sware I would else lay him on prickles and thorns, Where he should take no rest, neither day nor night; So he had as lief be hanged as come in sight.
_Resp._ I may say with Job, how vainly do ye cheer me, When all the words ye give, from truth doth disagree; And with the wise man, I may most justly say this: _Just[ici]a tamen non luxit in nobis._ Or else, with the prophet, in most sorrowful mood, The fruit of our justice is turned into wormwood. Well, the best of you is a detestable vice; And thou, for thy part, art most stinking Avarice.
_Avar._ Jesu! when were you wont so foul-mouthed to be, To give such nicknames? Ah, in faith! dame Verity Hath had you in schooling of late; well, in God's name! I am sorry for you, e'en sorry, that [I am]. I wis I have wrought to set you in good state, And watched for that purpose, both early and late. And I wis, if you would abide my framing, And not thus to have fall to checking and blaming, I would, ere long, of you made such carpenter work That ye should have said, Policy had been a clerk; Nay! you should have seen, how I would have you compact.