Hom.  If gaine will draw, I prethy then allure
Their hungrie harts with hope of recompence,
But tye dispaire unto those mooving hopes,
Unleast a deed of murther farther it,
Then blood on blood, shall overtake them all,
And we will make a bloodie feastivall.

Cove.  The plots are laide, the keyes of golden coine,
Hath op’d the secret closets of their harts. 
Inter [sic], insult, make captive at thy will,
Themselves, and friends, with deedes of damned ill: 
Yonder is Truth, she commeth to bewaile,
The times and parties that we worke upon.

Hom.  Why, let her weepe, lament and morne for me,
We are right bred of damn’d iniquitie,
And will go make a two-folde Tragedie.
          
                               [Exeunt.

Truth.  Goe you disturbers of a quiet soule,
Sad, greedy, gaping, hungrie Canibals,
That ioy to practise others miseries. 
Gentles, prepare your teare-bedecked eyes,
To see two shewes of lamentation,
Besprinckled every where with guiltlesse blood,
Of harmlesse youth, and pretie innocents. 
Our Stage doth weare habilliments of woe,
Truth rues to tell the truth of these laments: 
The one was done in famous London late,
Within that streete whose side the River Thames
Doth strive to wash from all impuritie: 
But yet that silver stream can never wash,
The sad remembrance of that cursed deede,
Perform’d by cruell Merry on iust Beech,
And his true boye poore Thomas Winchester. 
The most here present, know this to be true: 
Would Truth were false, so this were but a tale! 
The other further off, but yet too neere,
To those that felt and did the crueltie: 
Neere Padua this wicked deed was done,
By a false Uncle, on his brothers sonne,
Left to his carefull education
By dying Parents, with as strict a charge
As ever yet death-breathing brother gave. 
Looke for no mirth, unlesse you take delight,
In mangled bodies, and in gaping wounds,
Bloodily made by mercy-wanting hands. 
Truth will not faine, but yet doth grieve to showe,
This deed of ruthe and miserable woe.

[Exit.

[ACT THE FIRST.]

[SCENE I.]

Enter Merry.

I live in meane and discontented state,
But wherefore should I think of discontent? 
I am belov’d, I have a pretty house,
A loving sister, and a carefull man,
That doe not thinke their dayes worke well at end,
Except it bring me in some benefit: 
And well frequented is my little house
With many guestes and honest passengers,

    Enter Beech and a friend.

Which may in time advance my humble state
To greater wealth and reputation. 
And here comes friends to drinke some beare or ale; [Sit in his Shop. 
They are my neighbours, they shall have the best.