Aut monologue (Act 4) — The Poetaster

'Las, good rout! I can afford them leave to err so still; And like the barking students of Bears-college, To swallow up the garbage of the time With greedy gullets, whilst myself sit by, Pleased, and yet tortured, with their beastly feeding. 'Tis a sweet madness runs along with them, To think, all that are aim'd at still are struck: Then, where the shaft still lights, make that the mark: And so each fear or fever-shaken fool May challenge Teucer's hand in archery. Good troth, if I knew any man so vile, To act the crimes these Whippers reprehend, Or what their servile apes gesticulate, I should not then much muse their shreds were liked; Since ill men have a lust t' hear others' sins, All good men have a zeal to hear sin shamed. But when it is all excrement they vent, Base filth and offal; or thefts, notable As ocean-piracies, or highway-stands; And not a crime there tax'd, but is their own, Or what their own foul thoughts suggested to them; And that, in all their heat of taxing others, Not one of them but lives himself, if known, Improbior satiram scribente cinaedo What should I say more, than turn stone with wonder!