Spa. Oh, good sir, forgive me.

Lyg. Forgive you! why, I am no kin to you, am I?

Spa. Should it be measured by my mean deserts,
Indeed you are not.

Lyg. Thou couldst prate unhappily
Ere thou couldst go; ’would thou couldst do as well
And how does your custom hold out here?

Spa. Sir?

Lyg. Are you in private still, or how?

Spa. What do you mean?

Lyg. Do you take money? Are you come to sell sin yet? Perhaps, I can help you to liberal clients: Or has not the king cast you off yet? Oh, thou vile creature, whose best commendation is, that thou art a young whore! I would thy mother had lived to see this; or, rather, that I had died ere I had seen it! Why didst not make me acquainted
When thou wert first resolved to be a whore?
I would have seen thy hot lust satisfied
More privately; I would have kept a dancer,
And a whole consort of musicians,
In my own house, only to fiddle thee.

Spa. Sir, I was never whore.

Lyg. If thou couldst not say so much for thyself thou shouldst be carted.

Tigr. Lygones, I have read it, and I like it;
You shall deliver it.

Lyg. Well, sir, I will:
But I have private business with you.

Tigr. Speak; what is’t?

Lyg. How has my age deserved so ill of you,
That you can pick no strumpets i’ the land,
But out of my breed?

Tigr. Strumpets, good Lygones?

Lyg. Yes; and I wish to have you know, I scorn
To get a whore for any prince alive:
And yet scorn will not help! Methinks, my daughter
Might have been spared; there were enow besides.

Tigr. May I not prosper but she’s innocent
As morning light, for me; and, I dare swear,
For all the world.

Lyg. Why is she with you, then?
Can she wait on you better than your man?
Has she a gift in plucking off your stockings?
Can she make caudles well, or cut your corns?
Why do you keep her with you? For a queen,
I know, you do contemn her; so should I;
And every subject else think much at it.

Tigr. Let ’em think much; but ’tis more firm than earth,
Thou seest thy queen there.

Lyg. Then have I made a fair hand: I call’d her whore. If I shall speak now as her father, I cannot choose but greatly rejoice that she shall be a queen: But if I should speak to you as a statesman, she were more fit to be your whore.

Tigr. Get you about your business to Arbaces;
Now you talk idly.

Lyg. Yes, sir, I will go.
And shall she be a queen? She had more wit
Than her old father, when she ran away.
Shall she be queen? Now, by my troth, ’tis fine!
I’ll dance out of all measure at her wedding:
Shall I not, sir?