Mir. Welcome to Paris, once more, gentlemen!
We have had a merry and a lusty ordinary,
And wine, and good meat, and a bouncing reckoning!
And let it go for once; ’tis a good physic:
Only the wenches are not for my diet;
They are too lean and thin, their embraces brawn-fallen.
Give me the plump Venetian, fat, and lusty,
That meets me soft and supple; smiles upon me,
As if a cup of full wine leap’d to kiss me;
These slight things I affect not.

Pinac. They are ill-built;
Pin-buttock’d, like your dainty Barbaries,
And weak i’ th’ pasterns; they’ll endure no hardness.

Mir. There’s nothing good or handsome bred amongst us:
Till we are travell’d, and live abroad, we are coxcombs.
You talk of France; a slight unseason’d country,
Abundance of gross food, which makes us blockheads!
We are fair set out indeed, and so are fore-horses:
Men say, we are great courtiers; men abuse us!
We are wise, and valiant too; non credo, signor!
Our women the best linguists; they are parrots;
O’ this side the Alps they’re nothing but mere drolleries.
Ha! Roma la Santa, Italy for my money!
Their policies, their customs, their frugalities,
Their courtesies so open, yet so reserved too,
As, when you think you are known best, you’re a stranger;
Their very pick-teeth speak more man than we do,
And season of more salt!

Pinac. ’Tis a brave country;
Not pester’d with your stubborn precise puppies,
That turn all useful and allow’d contentments
To scabs and scruples: Hang ’em, capon-worshippers!

Bel. I like that freedom well, and like their women too,
And would fain do as others do; but I’m so bashful,
So naturally an ass—Look ye, I can look upon ’em,
And very willingly I go to see ’em,
(There’s no man willinger) and I can kiss ’em,
And make a shift—

Mir. But if they chance to flout you,
Or say, “You are too bold! fy, sir, remember!
I pray, sit further off— ”

Bel. ’Tis true—I am humbled,
I am gone; I confess ingenuously, I am silenced;
The spirit of amber cannot force me answer.

Pinac. Then would I sing and dance—

Bel. You have wherewithal, sir.

Pinac. And charge her up again.

Bel. I can be hang’d first;
Yet, where I fasten well, I am a tyrant.

Mir. Why, thou dar’st fight?

Bel. Yes, certainly I dare fight,
And fight with any man at any weapon;
’Would the other were no more! but a pox on’t!
When I am sometimes in my height of hope,
And reasonable valiant that way, my heart harden’d,
Some scornful jest or other chops between me
And my desire: What would you have me to do then, gentlemen?

Mir. Belleur, you must be bolder: Travel three years,
And bring home such a baby to betray you
As bashfulness? a great fellow, and a soldier?

Bel. You have the gift of impudence; be thankful;
Every man has not the like talent. I will study,
And if it may be reveal’d to me—

Mir. Learn of me,
And of Pinac: No doubt, you’ll find employment;
Ladies will look for courtship.

Pinac. ’Tis but fleshing,
But standing one good brunt or two. Hast thou any mind to marriage?
We’ll provide thee some soft-natur’d wench, that’s dumb too.