Chapter 28

_Enter_ VIRTUE _and_ EQUITY.

VIR. O most unhappy state of reckless humane kind! O dangerous race of man, unwitty, fond and blind! O wretched worldlings, subject to all misery, When fortune is the prop of your prosperity! Can you so soon forget, that you have learn'd of yore The grave divine precepts, the sacred wholesome lore, That wise philosophers with painful industry Have[382] written and pronounc'd for man's felicity? Whilome [it] hath been taught, that Fortune's hold is tickle; She bears a double face, disguised, false and fickle, Full fraughted with all sleights, she playeth on the pack; On whom she smileth most, she turneth most to wrack. The time hath been, when Virtue had[383] the sovereignty Of greatest price, and plac'd in chiefest dignity; But topsy-turvy now the world is turn'd about: Proud Fortune is preferr'd, poor Virtue clean thrust out. Man's sense so dulled is, so all things come to pass, Above the massy gold t'esteem the brittle glass.

EQ. Madam, have patience, Dame Virtue must sustain, Until the heavenly powers do otherwise ordain.

VIR. Equity, for my part, I envy not her state, Nor yet mislike the meanness of my simple rate. But what the heavens assign, that do I still think best: My fame was never yet by Fortune's frown opprest: Here, therefore, will I rest in this my homely bower, With patience to abide the storms of every shower.

[_Exeunt_.