SCENE I. -- AN APARTMENT AT THE COURT.
ENTER AMORPHUS AND ASOTUS.
AMO. Sir, let not this discountenance or disgallant you a whit; you must not sink
under the first disaster. It is with your young grammatical courtier, as with your
neophyte player, a thing usual to be daunted at the first presence or interview:
you saw, there was Hedon, and Anaides, far more practised gallants than
yourself, who were both out, to comfort you. It is no disgrace, no more than for
your adventurous reveller to fall by some inauspicious chance in his galliard, or
for some subtile politic to undertake the bastinado, that the state might think
worthily of him, and respect him as a man well beaten to the world. What? hath
your tailor provided the property we spake of at your chamber, or no?
AMO. Nay, I entreat you, be not so flat and melancholic. Erect your mind: you
shall redeem this with the courtship I will teach you against the afternoon. Where
eat you to-day?
ASO. Where you please, sir; any where, I.
AMO. Come, let us go and taste some light dinner, a dish of sliced caviare, or
so; and after, you shall practise an hour at your lodging some few forms that I
have recall'd. If you had but so far gathered your spirits to you, as to have taken
up a rush when you were out, and wagg'd it thus, or cleansed your teeth with it;
or but turn'd aside, and feign'd some business to whisper with your page, till you
had recovered yourself, or but found some slight stain in your stocking, or any
other pretty invention, so it had been sudden, you might have come off with a
most clear and courtly grace.
ASO. A poison of all! I think I was forespoke, I.
AMO. No, I must tell you, you are not audacious enough; you must frequent
ordinaries a month more, to initiate yourself: in which time, it will not be amiss, if,
in private, you keep good your acquaintance with Crites, or some other of his
poor coat; visit his lodging secretly and often; become an earnest suitor to hear
some of his labours.
ASO. O Jove! sir, I could never get him to read a line to me.
AMO. You must then wisely mix yourself in rank with such as you know can;
and, as your ears do meet with a new phrase, or an acute jest, take it in: a quick
nimble memory will lift it away, and, at your next public meal, it is your own.
