PROLOGUEFlourish. EnterPrologue.PROLOGUE.New plays and maidenheads are near akin:Much followed both, for both much money gi’en,If they stand sound and well. And a good play,Whose modest scenes blush on his marriage dayAnd shake to lose his honour, is like herThat after holy tie and first night’s stirYet still is Modesty, and still retainsMore of the maid, to sight, than husband’s pains.We pray our play may be so, for I am sureIt has a noble breeder and a pure,A learned, and a poet never wentMore famous yet ’twixt Po and silver Trent.Chaucer, of all admired, the story gives;There, constant to eternity, it lives.If we let fall the nobleness of this,And the first sound this child hear be a hiss,How will it shake the bones of that good manAnd make him cry from underground, “O, fanFrom me the witless chaff of such a writerThat blasts my bays and my famed works makes lighterThan Robin Hood!” This is the fear we bring;For, to say truth, it were an endless thingAnd too ambitious, to aspire to him,Weak as we are, and, almost breathless, swimIn this deep water. Do but you hold outYour helping hands, and we shall tack aboutAnd something do to save us. You shall hearScenes, though below his art, may yet appearWorth two hours’ travel. To his bones sweet sleep;Content to you. If this play do not keepA little dull time from us, we perceiveOur losses fall so thick, we must needs leave.[Flourish. Exit.]
Flourish. EnterPrologue.
PROLOGUE.New plays and maidenheads are near akin:Much followed both, for both much money gi’en,If they stand sound and well. And a good play,Whose modest scenes blush on his marriage dayAnd shake to lose his honour, is like herThat after holy tie and first night’s stirYet still is Modesty, and still retainsMore of the maid, to sight, than husband’s pains.We pray our play may be so, for I am sureIt has a noble breeder and a pure,A learned, and a poet never wentMore famous yet ’twixt Po and silver Trent.Chaucer, of all admired, the story gives;There, constant to eternity, it lives.If we let fall the nobleness of this,And the first sound this child hear be a hiss,How will it shake the bones of that good manAnd make him cry from underground, “O, fanFrom me the witless chaff of such a writerThat blasts my bays and my famed works makes lighterThan Robin Hood!” This is the fear we bring;For, to say truth, it were an endless thingAnd too ambitious, to aspire to him,Weak as we are, and, almost breathless, swimIn this deep water. Do but you hold outYour helping hands, and we shall tack aboutAnd something do to save us. You shall hearScenes, though below his art, may yet appearWorth two hours’ travel. To his bones sweet sleep;Content to you. If this play do not keepA little dull time from us, we perceiveOur losses fall so thick, we must needs leave.
[Flourish. Exit.]