COM.  SEN.  They had some reason that held the soul a harmony, for it is greatly delighted with music; how fast we were tied by the ears to the consort of Voice’s power! but all is but a little pleasure; what profitable objects hath he?

PHA.  Your ears will teach you presently, for now he is coming.  That fellow in the bays, methinks I should have known him; O, ’tis Comedus, ’tis so; but he has become nowadays something humorous, and too-too satirical up and down, like his great grandfather Aristophanes.

ANA.  These two, my lord, Comedus and Tragedus,
My fellows both, both twins, but so unlike,
As birth to death, wedding to funeral. 
For this, that rears himself in buskins quaint,
Is pleasant at the first, proud in the midst,
Stately in all, and bitter death at end. 
That in the pumps doth frown at first acquaintance,
Trouble in the midst, but in the end concludes,
Closing up all with a sweet catastrophe. 
This grave and sad, distain’d with brinish tears;
That light and quick with wrinkled laughter[281] painted;
This deals with nobles, kings, and emperors,
Full of great fears, great hopes, great enterprises. 
This other trades with men of mean condition: 
His projects small, small hopes, and dangers little. 
This gorgeous-broider’d with rich sentences: 
That fair and purfled round with merriments. 
Both vice detect and virtue beautify,
By being death’s mirror, and life’s looking-glass.

COM[282]. Salutem primum jam a principio propitiam. 
Mihi atque vobis, spectatores, nuntio[283]—­

PHA.  Pish, pish, this is a speech with no action; let’s hear Terence, Quid igitur faciam, &c.

COM. Quid igitur faciam? non eam? ne nunc quidem,
Cum arcessor ultro?[284]

PHA.  Fie, fie, fie, no more action! lend me your bays, do it thus—­Quid
igitur, &c.
                   [He acts it after the old kind of pantomimic action.

COM.  SEN.  I should judge this action, Phantastes, most absurd, unless we should come to a comedy, as gentlewomen to the Commencement[285], only to see men speak.

PHA.  In my imagination, ’tis excellent; for in this kind the hand, you know, is harbinger to the tongue, and provides the words a lodging in the ears of the auditors.

COM.  SEN.  Auditus, it is now time you make us acquainted with the quality of the house you keep in, for our better help in judgment.

AUD.  Upon the sides of fair mount Cephalon
Have I two houses passing human skill: 
Of finest matter by Dame Nature wrought,
Whose learned fingers have adorn’d the same
With gorgeous porches of so strange a form,
That they command the passengers to stay. 
The doors whereof in hospitality
Nor day nor night are shut, but, open wide,
Gently invite all comers; whereupon
They are named the open ears of Cephalon. 
But lest some bolder sound should boldly rush,