Jupiter happened then to be holding a grand council about certain urgent affairs, and old gammer Cybele was just giving her opinion, or, if you would rather have it so, it was young Phoebus the beau; but, in short, Tom’s outcries and lamentations were so loud that they were heard with no small amazement at the council-board, by the whole consistory of the gods.  What a devil have we below, quoth Jupiter, that howls so horridly?  By the mud of Styx, have not we had all along, and have not we here still enough to do, to set to rights a world of damned puzzling businesses of consequence?  We made an end of the fray between Presthan, King of Persia, and Soliman the Turkish emperor, we have stopped up the passages between the Tartars and the Muscovites; answered the Xeriff’s petition; done the same to that of Golgots Rays; the state of Parma’s despatched; so is that of Maidenburg, that of Mirandola, and that of Africa, that town on the Mediterranean which we call Aphrodisium; Tripoli by carelessness has got a new master; her hour was come.

Here are the Gascons cursing and damning, demanding the restitution of their bells.

In yonder corner are the Saxons, Easterlings, Ostrogoths, and Germans, nations formerly invincible, but now aberkeids, bridled, curbed, and brought under a paltry diminutive crippled fellow; they ask us revenge, relief, restitution of their former good sense and ancient liberty.

But what shall we do with this same Ramus and this Galland, with a pox to them, who, surrounded with a swarm of their scullions, blackguard ragamuffins, sizars, vouchers, and stipulators, set together by the ears the whole university of Paris?  I am in a sad quandary about it, and for the heart’s blood of me cannot tell yet with whom of the two to side.

Both seem to me notable fellows, and as true cods as ever pissed.  The one has rose-nobles, I say fine and weighty ones; the other would gladly have some too.  The one knows something; the other’s no dunce.  The one loves the better sort of men; the other’s beloved by ’em.  The one is an old cunning fox; the other with tongue and pen, tooth and nail, falls foul on the ancient orators and philosophers, and barks at them like a cur.

What thinkest thou of it, say, thou bawdy Priapus?  I have found thy counsel just before now, et habet tua mentula mentem.

King Jupiter, answered Priapus, standing up and taking off his cowl, his snout uncased and reared up, fiery and stiffly propped, since you compare the one to a yelping snarling cur and the other to sly Reynard the fox, my advice is, with submission, that without fretting or puzzling your brains any further about ’em, without any more ado, even serve ’em both as, in the days of yore, you did the dog and the fox.  How? asked Jupiter; when? who were they? where was it?  You have a rare memory, for aught I see! returned Priapus.  This right worshipful father Bacchus, whom we have here nodding with his crimson phiz, to be revenged on the Thebans had got a fairy fox, who, whatever mischief he did, was never to be caught or wronged by any beast that wore a head.