[Footnote 1:  crowd.]

ADAM SPENCER’S SPEECH

“Oh, how the life of man may well be compared to the state of the ocean seas, that for every calm hath a thousand storms, resembling the rose tree, that for a few fair flowers hath a multitude of sharp prickles!  All our pleasures end in pain, and our highest delights are crossed with deepest discontents.  The joys of man, as they are few, so are they momentary, scarce ripe before they are rotten, and withering in the blossom, either parched with the heat of envy or fortune.  Fortune, O inconstant friend, that in all thy deeds art froward and fickle, delighting, in the poverty of the lowest and the overthrow of the highest, to decipher thy inconstancy.  Thou standest upon a globe, and thy wings are plumed with Time’s feathers, that thou mayest ever be restless:  thou art double-faced like Janus, carrying frowns in the one to threaten, and smiles in the other to betray:  thou profferest an eel, and performest a scorpion, and where thy greatest favors be, there is the fear of the extremest misfortunes, so variable are all thy actions.  But why, Adam, dost thou exclaim against Fortune?  She laughs at the plaints of the distressed, and there is nothing more pleasing unto her, than to hear fools boast in her fading allurements, or sorrowful men to discover the sour of their passions.  Glut her not, Adam, then with content, but thwart her with brooking all mishaps with patience.  For there is no greater check to the pride of Fortune, than with a resolute courage to pass over her crosses without care.  Thou art old, Adam, and thy hairs wax white:  the palm tree is already full of blooms, and in the furrows of thy face appears the calendars of death.  Wert thou blessed by Fortune thy years could not be many, nor the date of thy life long:  then sith nature must have her due, what is it for thee to resign her debt a little before the day.  Ah, it is not this which grieveth me, nor do I care what mishaps Fortune can wage against me, but the sight of Rosader that galleth unto the quick.  When I remember the worships of his house, the honor of his fathers, and the virtues of himself, then do I say, that fortune and the fates are most injurious, to censure so hard extremes, against a youth of so great hope.  O Rosader, thou art in the flower of thine age, and in the pride of thy years, buxom and full of May.  Nature hath prodigally enriched thee with her favors, and virtue made thee the mirror of her excellence; and now, through the decree of the unjust stars, to have all these good parts nipped in the blade, and blemished by the inconstancy of fortune!  Ah, Rosader, could I help thee, my grief were the less, and happy should my death be, if it might be the beginning of thy relief:  but seeing we perish both in one extreme, it is a double sorrow.  What shall I do? prevent the sight of his further misfortune with a present dispatch of mine own life?  Ah, despair is a merciless sin!”