Ant.  Sure I do not lye, Lady.

Cel.  I know thou lyest extreamly, damnably:  Thou hast a lying face.

Ant.  I was never thus ratled.

Cel.  But say I should believe:  why are these sent me?  And why art thou the Messenger? who art thou?

Ant.  Lady, look on ’em wisely, and then consider
Who can send such as these, but a King only? 
And, to what beauty can they be oblations,
But only yours?  For me that am the carrier,
’Tis only fit you know I am his servant,
And have fulfil’d his will.

Cel.  You are short and pithy; What must my beauty do for these?

Ant. Sweet Lady,
You cannot be so hard of understanding,
When a King’s favour shines upon ye gloriously,
And speaks his love in these—­

Cel.  O then love’s the matter;
Sir-reverence love; now I begin to feel ye: 
And I should be the Kings Whore, a brave title;
And go as glorious as the Sun, O brave still: 
The chief Commandress of his Concubines,
Hurried from place to place to meet his pleasures.

Ant.  A devilish subtil wench, but a rare spirit. (dry,

Cel.  And when the good old spunge had suckt my youth And left some of his Royal aches in my bones:  When time shall tell me I have plough’d my life up, And cast long furrows in my face to sink me.

Ant.  You must not think so, Lady.

Cel.  Then can these, Sir,
These precious things, the price of youth and beauty;
This shop here of sin-offerings set me off again? 
Can it restore me chaste, young, innocent? 
Purge me to what I was? add to my memory
An honest and a noble fame?  The Kings device;
The sin’s as universal as the Sun is,
And lights an everlasting Torch to shame me.

Ant.  Do you hold so sleight account of a great Kings favour, That all knees bow to purchase?

Cel.  Prethee peace:  If thou knewst how ill favouredly thy tale becomes thee, And what ill root it takes—­

Ant.  You will be wiser.

Cel.  Could the King find no shape to shift his pander into, But reverend Age? and one so like himself too?

Ant.  She has found me out.

Cel.  Cozen the world with gravity?  Prethee resolve me one thing, do’s the King love thee?

Ant.  I think he do’s.

Cel.  It seems so by thy Office:  He loves thy use, and when that’s ended, hates thee:  Thou seemest to me a Souldier.

Ant.  Yes, I am one.

Cel.  And hast fought for thy Country?

Ant.  Many a time.

Cel.  May be, commanded too?

Ant.  I have done, Lady.

Cel.  O wretched man, below the state of pity! 
Canst thou forget thou wert begot in honour? 
A free Companion for a King? a Souldier? 
Whose Nobleness dare feel no want, but Enemies? 
Canst thou forget this, and decline so wretchedly,
To eat the Bread of Bawdry, of base Bawdry? 
Feed on the scum of Sin? fling thy Sword from thee? 
Dishonour to the noble name that nursed thee? 
Go, beg diseases:  let them be thy Armours,
Thy fights, the flames of Lust, and their foul issues.