FATHER. Well, if it shall chance thee thy folly to repent,
As thou art like within short space,
Think none but thyself worthy to be shent,[315]
Letting my counsel to take no place.
SON. As touching that matter, I will no man blame:
Now, farewell, father, most heartily for the same.
FATHER. Farewell, my son, depart in God's name!
SON. Room,[316] I say; room, let me be gone:
My father, if he list, shall tarry alone.
[_Here the Son goeth out, and the Rich Man tarrieth behind alone_.
THE FATHER.
Now at the last I do myself consider,
How great grief it is and heaviness
To every man that is a father,
To suffer his child to follow wantonness:
If I might live a hundred years longer,
And should have sons and daughters many,
Yet for this boy's sake I will not suffer
One of them all at home with me to tarry;
They should not be kept thus under my wing,
And have all that which they desire;
For why it is but their only undoing,
And, after the proverb, we put oil to the fire.[317]
Wherefore we parents must have a regard
Our children in time for to subdue,
Or else we shall have them ever untoward,
Yea, spiteful, disdainful, naught and untrue.
And let us them thrust alway to the school,
Whereby at their books they may be kept under:
And so we shall shortly their courage cool,
And bring them to honesty, virtue and nurture.
But, alas, now-a-days (the more is the pity),
Science and learning is so little regarded,
That none of us doth muse or study
To see our children well taught and instructed.
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