Gra.  Then make me of thy counsell, and take my advice, for ile take no denyall; Ile not leave thee til the next new Almanackes be out of date; let him threaten the sharpest weather he can in Saint Swithin week, or it snow on our Ladies face, ile not budge, ile be thy mid-wife til thou beest delivered of this passion.

Accut.  Partake then, and give me the beleefe; thinkst thou or knowst thou any of this opinion, that that mooving marish element, that swels and swages as it please the Moone, to be in bignes equall to that solid lump that brings us up?

Gra.  I was sure that thou wer’t beyond the Antipodes; faith, I am of that faith I was brought up in, I have heard my Father say, and i’me sure, his Recordes came from his Father, that Land and Sea are in nature thus much alike; the owne [sic] growes by the Sunne, the other by the Moone, both by God’s blessing, and the Sea rather the greater; and so thinke I.

Acut.  Good; there we have a farther scope, and holde the sea can (as a looking glasse) answer with a meere simile[221] any mooving shape uppon the earth.

Gra.  Nay, that’s most certaine, I have heard of Sea-horses, Sea-calves, and Sea-monsters.

Acut.  Oh, they are monstrous, madde, merrie, wenches, and they are monsters.

Grac.[222] They call them Sea-maides, or Mermaides, singing sweetelye, but none dares trust them; and are verie like our Land-wenches, devouring Serpents, from the middle downeward.

Acut.  Thou hast even given me satisfaction, but hast thou this by proofe?

Grac.  Not by my travels (so God helpe me):  marrie, ile bring ye fortie Saylers, will sweare they have seene them.

Acut.  In truth!

Grac.  In truth or otherwise.

Acut.  Faith they are not unlike our land-monsters, else why should this Maximilian Lord, for whom these shoots [sic] and noises befits thus, forsake his honours to sing a Lullabye?  These seeming Saints, alluring evils, That make earth Erebus, and mortals devils—­

Gra.  Come, thou art Sea-sicke, and will not be well at ease, til thou hast tane a vomit:  up with ’t.

Acu.  Why, ifaith, I must; I can not soothe the World
With velvet words and oyly flatteries,
And kiss the sweatie feet of magnitude
To purchace smiles or a deade mans office;
I cannot holde to see a rib of man,
A moytie of it selfe, commaund the whole;
Bafful and bend to muliebritie. 
O[223] female scandal! observe, doe but observe: 
Heere one walks ore-growne with weeds of pride,
The earth wants shape to apply a simile,
A body prisoned up with walles of wyer,
With bones of whales; somewhat allyed to fish,
But from the wast declining, more loose doth hang
Then her wanton dangling lascivious locke
Thats whirld and blowne with everie lustfull breath;