SUM.  Enough of this:  let me go make my will. 
Ah! it is made, although I hold my peace: 
These two will share betwixt them what I have. 
The surest way to get my will perform’d
Is to make my executor my heir;
And he, if all be given him, and none else,
Unfallibly will see it well-perform’d. 
Lions will feed though none bid them go to. 
Ill-grows the tree affordeth ne’er a graft: 
Had I some issue to sit on my throne,
My grief would die, death should not hear me groan;
But when, perforce, these must enjoy my wealth,
Which thank me not, but enter’t as a prey,
Bequeath’d it is not, but clean cast away. 
Autumn, be thou successor to my seat: 
Hold, take my crown:—­look, how he grasps for it! 
Thou shalt not have it yet—­but hold it, too;
Why should I keep what needs I must forego?

WIN.  Then, duty laid aside, you do me wrong. 
I am more worthy of it far than he: 
He hath no skill nor courage for to rule. 
A weatherbeaten, bankrupt ass it is
That scatters and consumeth all he hath: 
Each one do pluck from him without control. 
He is not hot nor cold; a silly soul,
That fain would please each part[106], if so he might. 
He and the Spring are scholars’ favourites: 
What scholars are, what thriftless kind of men,
Yourself be judge; and judge of him by them. 
When Cerberus was headlong drawn from hell,
He voided a black poison from his mouth,
Call’d Aconitum, whereof ink was made: 
That ink, with reeds first laid on dried barks,
Serv’d me awhile to make rude works withal,
Till Hermes, secretary to the gods,
Or Hermes Trismegistus, as some will,
Weary with graving in blind characters
And figures of familiar beasts and plants,
Invented letters to write lies withal. 
In them he penn’d the fables of the gods,
The giants’ war, and thousand tales besides. 
After each nation got these toys in use[107]
There grew up certain drunken parasites,
Term’d poets, which, for a meal’s meat or two. 
Would promise monarchs immortality. 
They vomited in verse all that they knew;
Feign’d causes and beginnings of the world;
Fetch’d pedigrees of mountains and of floods
From men and women whom the gods transform’d. 
If any town or city they pass’d by
Had in compassion (thinking them madmen)
Forborne to whip them, or imprison them,
That city was not built by human hands;
’Twas rais’d by music, like Megara walls: 
Apollo, poets’ patron, founded it,
Because they found one fitting favour there. 
Musaeus, Linus, Homer, Orpheus,
Were of this trade, and thereby won their fame.

WILL SUM. Fama malum, quo non [aliud] velocius ullum[108].