And (as I suppose) it will prove in his life,
When he shall wish that to him it may chance,
Which unto Eupolis and also his wife,
The night they were wedded, fell for a vengeance;
Who with the heavy ruin of the bed were slain,
As the Poet Ovid in these two verses make plain:
_Sit tibi conjugii nox prima novissimi vitae,
Eupolis hoc periit et nova nupta modo_.
Ovidius, writing against one Ibis his enemy,
That the first night of his marriage did wish
The last of his life might be certainly,
For so (quoth he) did Eupolis and his wife perish.
Yet to my son I pray God to send,
Because thereunto me nature doth bind,
Though he hath offended, a better end
Than Eupolis and his wife did find.
And now I shall long ever anon,
Till some of those quarters come riding hither,
Unto the which my son is gone,
To know how they do live together.
But I am fasting, and it is almost noon,
And more than time that I had dined:
Wherefore from hence I will go soon;
I think by this time my meat is burned.
[_Here the Rich Man goeth out, and in cometh the Young
Man his son with the Young Woman, being both married_.
THE HUSBAND.
O my sweet wife, my pretty coney!
THE WIFE.
O my husband, as pleasant as honey.
HUSBAND. O Lord, what pleasures and great commodity
Are heaped together in matrimony!
WIFE. How vehement, how strong a thing love is!
How many smirks and dulsome[345] kisses!
HUSBAND.
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