Paris monologue — Philip Massinger

But, ’tis urged That we corrupt youth and traduce superiors. When do we bring a vice upon the stage, That does go off unpunish’d? Do we teach, By the success of wicked undertakings, Others to tread in their forbidden steps? We shew no arts of Lydian panderism, Corinthian poisons, Persian flatteries, But mulcted so in the conclusion, that Even those spectators that were so inclined, Go home changed men. And for traducing such That are above us, publishing to the world Their secret crimes, we are as innocent As such as are born dumb. When we present An heir, that does conspire against the life Of his dear parent, numbering every hour He lives, as tedious to him; if there be, Among the auditors, one whose conscience tells him He is of the same mould, we cannot help it. Or, bringing on the stage a loose adulteress, That does maintain the riotous expense Of him that feeds her greedy lust, yet suffers The lawful pledges of a former bed To starve the while for hunger; if a matron However great in fortune, birth, or titles, Guilty of such a foul, unnatural sin, Cry out ’tis writ for me, we cannot help it. Or when a covetous man’s express’d, whose wealth Arithmetic cannot number, and whose lordships A falcon in one day cannot fly over; Yet he so sordid in his mind, so griping, As not to afford himself the necessaries To maintain life; if a patrician (Though honour’d with a consulship) find himself Touch’d to the quick in this, we cannot help it. Or, when we shew a judge that is corrupt, And will give up his sentence, as he favours The person, not the cause; saving the guilty, If of his faction, and as oft condemning The innocent, out of particular spleen; If any in this reverend assembly, Nay, even yourself, my lord, that are the image Of absent Cæsar, feel something in your bosom That puts you in remembrance of things past, Or things intended, ’tis not in us to help it. I have said, my lord; and now as you find cause, Or censure us, or free us with applause.(128)