Ex[eun]t.

[SCENE 2.]

Enter Device, Sister.

Sis.  Ist possible you can talke thus and be no travailer?

De.  I have traveld in my fancie, Ladie, and with the Muses, and do for my recreation of witt compose some wonders in verse, poeticall essaies, as once upon the report of a heate that was in Egipt.

Sis.  Lets heare ’em.

De. In Countreys I have been
Under the Equinoctiall, where I have seene
The Sunne disperse such a prodigious heat
That made our sive-like skins to raine with sweat. 
Men would have given for an Ecclipse their lives,
Or one whisper of Aire; yet each man strives
To throw up grasse, feathers, nay women, too,
To find the wind:  all falls like lead, none blew. 
The Dogstarre spits new fire till’t came to passe
Each eye became his neighbours burning glasse. 
Leane men did burne to ashes presentlie,
Fatt men did wast to leane Anatomye;
Young womens heat did gett themselves with child,
For none but they themselves themselves defild;
Old women naturally to witches turne,
And onely rubbing one another burne. 
The beasts were bak’d, skin turnd to crust, they say,
And fishes in the River boild away. 
Birds in the aire were rosted and not burn’d,
For, as they fell downe, all the way they turn’d.

Sis.  Most excellent!

De.  I have seene Larkes in that motion at fire With an Engine of packthread perpendicular.

Sis.  What would they have given for a shower in those Cuntries?

De.  Now you talke of a Shower you shall heare Another coppie of Verses that I made Of a mighty raine which fell once in the Indies.

Sis.  That you made?  If you will venture your lungs let me heare more impossible stories to passe away the tyme.

De. Heaven did not weepe, but in its swelling eye
Whole Seas of Rhume and moist Catarrs did lie,
Which so bespauld the lower world, men see
Corne blasted and the fruit of every tree;
Aire was condenst to water gainst their wish,
And all their foule was turn’d to flying Fish;
Like watermen they throng’d to ply a fare,
As though it had been navigable Aire. 
Beasts lost the naturall motion of each limbe,
Forgott to goe with practiseing to swime: 
A trout now here you would not thinke how soone
Taken and drest for th’Emperour o’the Moone,
The fixed Starres, though to our eyes were missing
Wee knew yet were by their continuall hissing. 
Weomen were mermaides sailing with the wind,
The greatest miracle was fish behind: 
But men were all kept chast against their wish,
And could comitt but the cold sin of fish_.

Sis.  And that synne would puzzle all the Civell Lawyers in the kingdome.  Sinns of the flesh they are perfect in; they know well enough what belongs to Adultery and simple fornication, but you would much improve and oblige the practise of the Court, if you could bring this sinne of fish under the Commission.  But now, I hope, the raine is over we shall have faire weather.