_Avar._ We shall at length have a knave of you, Honesty! Said not I, he should be called Mounseer Authority?
_Adul._ Oh, friend Oppression! Honesty, Honesty!
_Avar._ Oppression? ha! is the devil in thy brain? Take heed! or, in faith! ye are Flattery again. Policy! Reformation! Authority!
_Adul._ Hypocrisy! Defamation! and Authority!
_Avar._ Hypocrisy? ha! Hypocrisy? ye dull ass!
_Adul._ Thou named'st Hypocrisy even now, by the Mass!
_Avar._ Policy, I said; Policy! knave Policy! Now say as I said.
_Avar._ I told thee he should be called Reformation.
_Avar._ Was ever the like ass born, in all nations?
_Adul._ A pestle on him, he comes of the Asians.
_Avar._ Come on! ye shall learn to solfe Reformation! Sing on now: _Re_.
_Adul._ Policy, Reformation, and Honesty!
_Avar._ In faith, ye ass! if your tongue make any mo trips, Ye shall both be Flattery and have on the lips. And now, Mounsire Authority! against, I you call; Ye must have other garments; and so must ye all-- Ye must, for the season, counterfeit gravity.
_Avar._ And I must turn my gown in and out, I ween; For these gaping purses may in no wise be seen. I will turn it e'en here--come help me, Honesty!
_Avar._ Why, how now? play the knave, Honesty! Help! what doest thou now?
_Avar._ Why, then, come thou! help me, my friend Oppression! What help call you that?
_Avar._ Oh, I should have said: help, sir Reformation!
_Oppr._ Yea, marry, sir! that is my nomination.
_Avar._ And when you are [in] your robe, keep it afore close.
_Oppr._ I pray you, Master Policy! for what purpose?
_Avar._ All folk will take you, if they peep under your gown, For the veriest caitiff in country or town. Now, go! and when I call, see that ye ready be!
_Avar._ Well, now will I depart hence, also, for a space; And, to bourd Respublica, wait a time of grace. Wherever I find her a time convenient, I shall say and do that may be expedient!
_Resp._ Lord! what earthly thing is permanent or stable? Or, what is all this world but a lump mutable? Who would have thought that I, from so florent estate, Could have been brought so base as I am made of late? But, as the waving seas do flow and ebb by course, So all things else do change to better and to worse. Great cities and their fame, in time, do fade and pass; Now is a champion field where noble Troy was. Where is the great Empire of the Medes and Persians? Where be th' old conquests of the puissant Grecians? Where Babylon? where Athens? where Corinth so wide? Are they not consumed with all their pomp and pride? What is the cause hereof? man's wit cannot discuss; But, of long continuance, the thing is found thus. Yet, by all experience, thus much is well seen: That, in commonweals, while good governors have been, All thing hath prospered; and, where such men do lack, Commonweals decay, and all things do go back. What marvel then, if I, wanting a perfect stay, From most flourishing wealth be fallen in decay? But, like as by default, quick ruin doth befall, So may good government at once recover all.