Ros. 
     Ah, my good Fife, whose merry loyal pipe,
     Come weal, come woe, is never out of tune
     What, you in the same plight too?

     Fife. 
     Ay; And madam—­sir—­hereby desire,
     When you your own adventures sing
     Another time in lofty rhyme,
     You don’t forget the trusty squire
     Who went with you Don-quixoting.

     Ros. 
     Well, my good fellow—­to leave Pegasus
     Who scarce can serve us than our horses worse—­
     They say no one should rob another of
     The single satisfaction he has left
     Of singing his own sorrows; one so great,
     So says some great philosopher, that trouble
     Were worth encount’ring only for the sake
     Of weeping over—­what perhaps you know
     Some poet calls the ‘luxury of woe.’

     Fife. 
     Had I the poet or philosopher
     In the place of her that kick’d me off to ride,
     I’d test his theory upon his hide. 
     But no bones broken, madam—­sir, I mean?—­

     Ros. 
     A scratch here that a handkerchief will heal—­
     And you?—­

     Fife. 
     A scratch in quiddity, or kind: 
     But not in ’quo’—­my wounds are all behind. 
     But, as you say, to stop this strain,
     Which, somehow, once one’s in the vein,
     Comes clattering after—­there again!—­
     What are we twain—­deuce take’t!—­we two,
     I mean, to do—­drench’d through and through—­
     Oh, I shall choke of rhymes, which I believe
     Are all that we shall have to live on here.

     Ros. 
     What, is our victual gone too?—­

     Fife. 
     Ay, that brute
     Has carried all we had away with her,
     Clothing, and cate, and all.

     Ros. 
     And now the sun,
     Our only friend and guide, about to sink
     Under the stage of earth.

     Fife. 
     And enter Night,
     With Capa y Espada—­and—­pray heaven! 
     With but her lanthorn also.

     Ros. 
     Ah, I doubt
     To-night, if any, with a dark one—­or
     Almost burnt out after a month’s consumption. 
     Well! well or ill, on horseback or afoot,
     This is the gate that lets me into Poland;
     And, sorry welcome as she gives a guest
     Who writes his own arrival on her rocks
     In his own blood—­
     Yet better on her stony threshold die,
     Than live on unrevenged in Muscovy.

     Fife. 
     Oh, what a soul some women have—­I mean
     Some men—­

     Ros. 
     Oh, Fife, Fife, as you love me, Fife,
     Make yourself perfect in that little part,
     Or all will go to ruin!

     Fife. 
     Oh, I will,
     Please God we find some one to try it on. 
     But, truly, would not any one believe
     Some fairy had exchanged us as we lay
     Two tiny foster-children in one cradle?