Mos. I fear, I shall begin to grow in love
With my dear self, and my most prosperous parts,
They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel
A whimsy in my blood: I know not how,
Success hath made me wanton. I could skip
Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake,
I am so limber. O! your parasite
Is a most precious thing, dropt from above,
Not bred ’mongst clods and clodpoles, here on earth.
I muse, the mystery was not made a science,
It is so liberally profest! almost
All the wise world is little else, in nature,
But parasites or sub-parasites.—And yet,
I mean not those that have your bare town-art,
To know who’s fit to feed them; have no house,
No family, no care, and therefore mould
Tales for men’s ears, to bait that sense; or get
Kitchen- invention, and some stale receipts
To please the belly, and the groin; nor those,
With their court dog-tricks, that can fawn and fleer,
Make their revenue out of legs and faces,
Echo my lord, and lick away a moth:
But your fine elegant rascal, that can rise,
And stoop, almost together, like an arrow;
Shoot through the air as nimbly as a star;
Turn short as doth a swallow, and be here,
And there, and here, and yonder, all at once;
Present to any humour, all occasion;
And change a visor, swifter than a thought!
This is the creature had the art born with him;
Toils not to learn it, but doth practise it
Out of most excellent nature: and such sparks
Are the true parasites, others but their zanis.

Enter Bonario.

Bon. That cannot be by thee.

Mos. Why, sir?

Bon. Nay, pray thee, know thy way, and leave me:
I would be loth to interchange discourse
With such a mate as thou art.

Mos. Courteous sir,
Scorn not my poverty.

Bon. Not I, by heaven;
But thou shalt give me leave to hate thy baseness.

Mos. Baseness!

Bon. Ay; answer me, is not thy sloth
Sufficient argument? thy flattery?
Thy means of feeding?

Mos. Heaven be good to me!
These imputations are too common, sir,
And easily stuck on virtue when she’s poor.
You are unequal to me, and however
Your sentence may be righteous, yet you are not
That, ere you know me, thus proceed in censure:
St. Mark bear witness ’gainst you, ’tis inhuman.

Bon. What! does he weep? the sign is soft and good:
I do repent me that I was so harsh.

Mos. ’Tis true, that, sway’d by strong necessity,
I am enforced to eat my careful bread
With too much obsequy; ’tis true, beside,
That I am fain to spin mine own poor raiment
Out of my mere observance, being not born
To a free fortune: but that I have done
Base offices, in rending friends asunder,
Dividing families, betraying counsels,
Whispering false lies, or mining men with praises,
Train’d their credulity with perjuries,
Corrupted chastity, or am in love
With mine own tender ease, but would not rather
Prove the most rugged, and laborious course,
That might redeem my present estimation,
Let me here perish, in all hope of goodness.