birds do sing,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu—we, to-wit, to-whoo.

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And hear we aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu—we, to-wit, to-whoo.

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit;
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu—we, to-wit, to-whoo.
    Spring, the sweet spring_.

WILL SUM. By my troth, they have voices as clear as crystal: this is a pratty thing, if it be for nothing but to go a-begging with.

SUM. Believe me, Ver, but thou art pleasant bent;
This humour should import a harmless mind.
Know'st thou the reason why I sent for thee?

VER. No, faith, nor care not whether I do or no.
If you will dance a galliard, so it is: if not—

    Falangtado, Falangtado,
    To wear the black and yellow,
    Falantado, Falantado,
    My mates are gone, I'll follow.[26]

SUM. Nay, stay awhile, we must confer and talk.
Ver, call to mind I am thy sovereign lord,
And what thou hast, of me thou hast and hold'st.
Unto no other end I sent for thee,
But to demand a reckoning at thy hands,
How well or ill thou hast employ'd my wealth.

VER. If that be all, we will not disagree:
A clean trencher and a napkin you shall have presently.

WILL SUM. The truth is, this fellow hath been a tapster in his days.

VER goes in, and fetcheth out the hobby-horse[27] and the morris-dance, who dance about.

SUM. How now? is this the reckoning we shall have?

WIN. My lord, he doth abuse you; brook it not.

AUT. Summa totalis, I fear, will prove him but a fool.

VER. About, about! lively, put your horse to it, rein him harder; jerk him with your wand: sit fast, sit fast, man! fool, hold up your ladle there.

WILL SUM. O brave Hall![28] O, well-said, butcher. Now for the credit of Worcestershire. The finest set of morris-dancers that is between this and Streatham. Marry, methinks there is one of them danceth like a clothier's horse, with a woolpack on his back. You, friend with the hobby-horse, go not too fast, for fear of wearing out my lord's tile-stones with your hobnails.

VER. So, so, so; trot the ring twice over, and away. May it please my lord, this is the grand capital sum; but there are certain parcels behind, as you shall see.

SUM. Nay, nay, no more; for this is all too much.

VER. Content yourself; we'll have variety.

Here enter three CLOWNS and three MAIDS, _singing this song, dancing:—

        Trip and go, heave and hoe,
        Up and down, to and fro;
        From the town to the grove,
        Two and two let us rove.
        A maying, a playing:
        Love hath no gainsaying;
        So merrily trip and go_.

WILL SUM. Beshrew my heart, of a number of ill legs I never saw worse dancers. How bless'd are you, that the wenches of the parish do not see you!

SUM. Presumptuous Ver, uncivil-nurtur'd boy? Think'st I will be derided thus of thee? Is this th'account and reckoning that thou mak'st?

VER. Troth, my lord, to tell you plain, I can give you no other account; nam quae habui perdidi; what I had, I spent on good fellows; in these sports you have seen, which are proper to the spring, and others of like sort (as giving wenches green gowns,[29] making garlands for fencers, and tricking up children gay), have I bestowed all my flowery treasure and flower of my youth.

WILL SUM. A small matter. I know one spent in less than a year eight and fifty pounds in mustard, and another that ran in debt, in the space of four or five year, above fourteen thousand pound in lute-strings and grey-paper.[30]

SUM. O monstrous unthrift! who e'er heard the like?
The sea's vast throat, in so short tract of time,
Devoureth nor consumeth half so much.
How well might'st thou have liv'd within thy bounds.

VER. What, talk you to me of living within my bounds? I tell you none but asses live within their bounds: the silly beasts, if they be put in a pasture, that is eaten bare to the very earth, and where there is nothing to be had but thistles, will rather fall soberly to those thistles and be hunger-starv'd, than they will offer to break their bounds; whereas the lusty courser, if he be in a barren plot, and spy better grass in some pasture near adjoining, breaks over hedge and ditch, and to go, ere he will be pent in, and not have his bellyful. Peradventure, the horses lately sworn to be stolen,[31] carried that youthful mind, who, if they had been asses, would have been yet extant.

WILL SUM. Thus, we may see, the longer we live the more we shall learn:
I ne'er thought honesty an ass till this day.

VER. This world is transitory; it was made of nothing, and it must to nothing: wherefore, if we will do the will of our high Creator, whose will it is that it pass to nothing, we must help to consume it to nothing. Gold is more vile than men: men die in thousands and ten thousands, yea, many times in hundred thousands, in one battle. If then the best husband has been so liberal of his best handiwork, to what end should we make much of a glittering excrement, or doubt to spend at a banquet as many pounds as he spends men at a battle? Methinks I honour Geta, the Roman emperor, for a brave-minded fellow; for he commanded a banquet to be made him of all meats under the sun, which were served in after the order of the alphabet, and the clerk of the kitchen, following the last dish, which was two miles off from the foremost, brought him an index of their several names. Neither did he pingle, when it was set on the board, but for the space of three days and three nights never rose from the table.

WILL SUM. O intolerable lying villain, that was never begotten without the consent of a whetstone![32]

SUM. Ungracious man, how fondly he argueth!

VER. Tell me, I pray, wherefore was gold laid under our feet in the veins of the earth, but that we should contemn it, and tread upon it, and so consequently tread thrift under our feet? It was not known till the iron age, donec facinus invasit mortales, as the poet says; and the Scythians always detested it. I will prove it that an unthrift, of any, comes nearest a happy man, in so much as he comes nearest to beggary. Cicero saith, summum bonum consists in omnium rerum vacatione, that is, the chiefest felicity that may be to rest from all labours. Now who doth so much vacare à rebus, who rests so much, who hath so little to do as the beggar? who can sing so merry a note, as he that cannot change a groat?[33] Cui nil est, nil deest: he that hath nothing wants nothing. On the other side, it is said of the carl, Omnia habeo, nec quicquam habeo: I have all things, yet want everything. Multi mihi vitio vertunt quia egeo, saith Marcus Cato in Aulus Gellius; at ego illis quia nequeunt egere: many upbraid me, saith he, because I am poor; but I upbraid them, because they cannot live if they be poor.[34] It is a common proverb, Divesque miserque, a rich man and a miserable: nam natura paucis contenta, none so contented as the poor