Chapter 43

_Enter_ VANITY _and_ MONEY.

VAN. What, Master Money, how goeth the world with you?

MON. Look but upon me, thou may'st quickly judge how.

VAN. Why, where the vengeance, where the devil hast thou been? Among brambles or briars? or spirits, sure, I ween.

MON. Both ween it and wot it! I have pass'd a wilderness Of most mischievous and miserable distress; Sharp brambles, sharp briars, and terrible scratchers, Bears, wolves, apes, lions, most ravening snatchers, Thorns, thistles, and nettles, most horrible stingers, Ravens, gripes and griphons. O vengeable wringers, Yea through my whole passage such damnable sights, As I cannot but judge them most damnable sprites.

VAN. Ha, ha, ha, ha!

MON. Laugh ye, my friend? It is no laughing toy.

VAN. But who did guide you in this labyrinth of joy?

MON. Who, sir? your minion, sir; Prodigality, The captain elected of all roisting knavery; He will be hang'd, I warrant him, shortly.

VAN. Ha, ha, ha, ha!

MON. Yet go to, laugh on!

VAN. Are you not a cuck--cuck-cold?

MON. I may be indeed; my clothes be but thin, And therefore I will even go get me in, That Fortune, my mother, may clothe me anew. [_Exit_.

VAN. Do so, you had need so, I may say to you. Now, sure, it is a world of worlds to see, How all the world inclines to Vanity; Men seek at first--that is but Vanity, And lose at last--that was but Vanity, And yet continue still to follow Vanity, As though it were a thing of certainty. And I, that bear the name of Vanity, And see the world's exceeding Vanity, In following so the tracks of Vanity, Do triumph still amid my empery, And laugh at their simplicity, That will be so misled by Vanity. But who is this? O, I know him, a scholar of our train, 'Tis Hob-a-Clunch, that comes for money again.