PROLOGUE TO THE COURT.

THO

HOSE common passions, hopes and fears, that still,
The poets first, and then the prologues fill,

In this our age: he that writ this, by me

Protests against as modest foolery.

He thinks it an odd thing to be in pain
For nothing else, but to be well again.
Who writes to fear is so: had he not writ,
You ne'er had been the judges of his wit;
And when he had, did he but then intend
To please himself, he sure might have his end
Without the expense of hope; and that he had,
That made this play, although the play be bad.
Then, gentlemen, be thrifty, save your dooms
For the next man or the next play that comes;
For smiles are nothing where men do not care,
And frowns as little where they need not fear.

TO THE KING.

ΤΗ

HIS, Sir, to them, but unto Majesty
All he has said before he does deny.

Yet not to Majesty-that were to bring
His fears to be but for the Queen and King,
Not for yourselves; and that he dares not say-
You are his sovereigns another way.

Your souls are princes, and you have as good
A title that way, as ye have by blood,

To govern; and here your power's more great
And absolute than in the royal seat.

There men dispute, and but by law obey,
Here is no law at all, but what ye say.

SCENA, PERSIA.

KING, in love with Aglaura.

THERSAMES, Prince, in love with Aglaura.

ORBELLA, Queen, at first mistress to Ziriff; in love with Ariaspes. ARIASPES, brother to the King.

ZIRIFF, otherwise Zorannes disguised, Captain of the Guard, in love with Orbella; brother to Aglaura.

IOLAS, a Lord of the Council, seeming friend to the Prince, but a traitor, in love with Semanthe.

AGLAURA, in love with the Prince, but named mistress to the

King.

ORSAMES, a young lord anti-Platonic; friend to the Prince.

PHILAN, the same.

SEMANTHE, in love with Ziriff-Platonic.

ORITHIE, in love with Thersames.

PASITHAS, a faithful servant.

IOLINA, Aglaura's waiting-woman.

Courtiers.

Huntsmen.

Priest. Guard.

Iol. MARRIED! and in Diana's grove !

Iolin. So was th' appointment, or my sense deceived me.

Iol. Married!

Now by those powers that tie those pretty knots, 'Tis very fine: good faith, 'tis wondrous fine. Iolin. What is, brother?

Iol. Why, to marry, sister;

T' enjoy 'twixt lawful and unlawful thus

A happiness, steal as it were his own;

Diana's grove, sayest thou?

[Scratcheth his head.

Iolin. That is the place; the hunt once up, and all

Engaged in the sport, they mean to leave

The company, and steal unto those thickets,

Where there's a priest attends them.

Iol. And will they lie together, think'st thou?
Iolin. Is there distinction of sex, think

Or flesh and blood?

Iol. True; but the king, sister!

you,

Iolin. But love, brother!

Iol. Thou sayest well; 'tis fine, 'tis wondrous fine! Diana's grove?

Iolin. Yes, Diana's grove;

But, brother, if you should speak of this now.

Iol. Why, thou knowest a drowning man holds not a thing so fast:

Semanthe she shuns me too!

[Enter Semanthe; she sees Iolas, and goes in again.

Iolin. The wound festered sure:

The hurt the boy gave her, when first

She looked abroad into the world, is not yet cured. Iol. What hurt?

Iolin. Why, know you not

She was in love long since with young Zorannes (Aglaura's brother), and the now queen's betrothed? Iol. Some such slight tale I've heard.

Iolin. Slight? she yet does weep, when she but hears him named,

And tells the prettiest and the saddest stories
Of all those civil wars, and those amours,

That, trust me, both my lady and myself

Turn weeping statues still.

Iol. Pish! 'tis not that.

'Tis Ziriff and his fresh glories here

Have robbed me of her.

Since he thus appeared in court,

My love has languished worse than plants in drought.

But time's a good physician. Come, let's in.

The king and queen by this time are come forth.

Enter Serving-men to ZIRIFF.

[Exeunt.

I Serv. Yonder's a crowd without, as if some strange sight were to be seen to-day here.

2 Serv. Two or three with carbonadoes afore instead of faces mistook the door for a breach, and, at