ACT II, SCAENA 1.
WIT _and_ WILL.
WIT.
What, Will, I say, Will boy, come again, foolish elf!
WILL.
I cry you mercy, sir, you are a tall man yourself.
WIT.
Such a crackbrain as thou art, I never saw the like to it.
WILL.
Truth, in respect of you, that are nothing else but Wit!
WIT.
Canst thou tell me thy errand, because thou art gone so soon?
WILL.
I can remember a long tale of a man in the moon,
With such a circumstance and such flim-flam?
I will tell, at a word, whose servant I am:
Wherefore I come, and what I have to say,
And call for her answer, before I come away.
What, should I make a broad tree of every little shrub,
And keep her a great while with a tale of a tub?
WIT.
Yet thou must commend me to be rich, lusty, pleasant, and wise.
WILL.
I cannot commend you, but I must make twenty lies.
Rich, quoth you? that appeareth by the port that you keep:
Even as rich as a new-shorn sheep!
Of pleasant conceits, ten bushels to the peck,
Lusty like a herring, with a bell about his neck,
Wise as a woodcock: as brag as a bodylouse,
A man of your hands, to match with a mouse!
How say you, are not these proper qualities to praise you with?
WIT.
Leave these mad toys of thine, and come to the pith:
One part of the errand should have been
To give her this picture of mine to be seen,
And to request her the same to accept,
Safely until my coming to be kept,
Which I suspend till thy return, and then,
If it like her ladyship to appoint me where and when,
I will wait upon her gladly out of hand.
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