Lup.  No, Caesar; a player gave me the first light of it indeed.

Tuc.  Ay, an honest sycophant-like slave, and a politician besides

Caes.  Where is that player?

Tuc.  He is without here.

Caes.  Call him in.

Tuc.  Call in the player there:  master AEsop, call him.

Equites. [within.] Player! where is the player? bear back:  none but
the player enter.
               [Enter Aesop, followed by Crispinus and Demetrius. 
Tuc.  Yes, this gentleman and his Achates must.

Cris.  Pray you, master usher:—­we’ll stand close, here.

Tuc.  ’Tis a gentleman of quality, this; though he be somewhat out of clothes, I tell ye.—­Come, AEsop, hast a bay-leaf in thy mouth?  Well said; be not out, stinkard.  Thou shalt have a monopoly of playing conflrm’d to thee, and thy covey, under the emperor’s broad seal, for this service.

Caes.  Is this he?

Lup.  Ay, Caesar, this is he.

Caes. 
   Let him be whipped.  Lictors, go take him hence. 
   And, Lupus, for your fierce credulity,
   One fit him with a pair of larger ears: 
   ’Tis Caesar’s doom, and must not be revoked. 
   We hate to have our court and peace disturb’d
   With these quotidian clamours.  See it done.

Lup.  Caesar! [Exeunt some of the Lictors, with Lupus and AEsop

Caes.  Gag him, [that] we may have his silence.

Virg. 
   Caesar hath done like Caesar.  Fair and just
   Is his award, against these brainless creatures. 
   ’Tis not the wholesome sharp morality,
   Or modest anger of a satiric spirit,
   That hurts or wounds the body of the state;
   But the sinister application
   Of the malicious, ignorant, and base
   Interpreter; who will distort, and strain
   The general scope and purpose of an author
   To his particular and private spleen.

Caes. 
   We know it, our dear Virgil, and esteem it
   A most dishonest practice in that man,
   Will seem too witty in another’s work. 
   What would Cornelius Gallus, and Tibullus?
                                           [They whisper Caesar. 
Tuc. [to Mecaenas.] Nay, but as thou art a man, dost hear! a man
of worship and honourable:  hold, here, take thy chain again. 
Resume, mad Mecoenas.  What! dost thou think I meant to have kept
it, old boy? no:  I did it but to fright thee, I, to try how thou
would’st take it.  What! will I turn shark upon my friends, or my
friends’ friends?  I scorn it with my three souls.  Come, I love
bully Horace as well as thou dost, I:  ’tis an honest hieroglyphic. 
Give me thy wrist, Helicon.  Dost thou think I’ll second e’er a
rhinoceros of them all, against thee, ha? or thy noble Hippocrene,
here?  I’ll turn stager first, and be whipt too:  dost thou see,
bully?