Cri monologue (Act 3) — Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love

[COMING FORWARD.] Do, good Detraction, do, and I the while Shall shake thy spight off with a careless smile. Poor piteous gallants! what lean idle slights Their thoughts suggest to flatter their starv'd hopes! As if I knew not how to entertain These straw-devices; but, of force must yield To the weak stroke of their calumnious tongues. What should I care what every dor doth buz In credulous ears? It is a crown to me That the best judgments can report me wrong'd; Them liars; and their slanders impudent. Perhaps, upon the rumour of their speeches, Some grieved friend will whisper to me; Crites, Men speak ill of thee. So they be ill men, If they spake worse, 'twere better: for of such To be dispraised, is the most perfect praise. What can his censure hurt me, whom the world Hath censured vile before me! If good Chrestus, Euthus, or Phronimus, had spoke the words, They would have moved me, and I should have call'd My thoughts and actions to a strict account Upon the hearing: but when I remember, 'Tis Hedon and Anaides, alas, then I think but what they are, and am not stirr'd. The one a light voluptuous reveller, The other, a strange arrogating puff, Both impudent, and ignorant enough; That talk as they are wont, not as I merit; Traduce by custom, as most dogs do bark, Do nothing out of judgment, but disease, Speak ill, because they never could speak well. And who'd be angry with this race of creatures? What wise physician have we ever seen Moved with a frantic man? the same affects That he doth bear to his sick patient, Should a right mind carry to such as these; And I do count it a most rare revenge, That I can thus, with such a sweet neglect, Pluck from them all the pleasure of their malice; For that's the mark of all their enginous drifts, To wound my patience, howso'er they seem To aim at other objects; which if miss'd, Their envy's like an arrow shot upright, That, in the fall, endangers their own heads.