Every Man Out of His Humour

Excerpt: ...MIT. I travail with another objection, signior, which I fear will be enforced against the author, ere I can be deliver'd of it. COR. What's that sir? MIT. That the argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke's son, and the son to love the lady's waiting maid; some such cross wooing, with a clown to their servingman, better than to be thus near, and familiarly allied to the time. COR. You say well, but I would fain hear one of these autumn-judgments define once, "Quid sit comoedia?" if he cannot, let him content himself with Cicero's definition, till he have strength to propose to himself a better, who would have a comedy to be 'imitatio vitae, speculum consuetudinis, imago veritatis'; a thing throughout pleasant and ridiculous, and accommodated to the correction of manners: if the maker have fail'd in any particle of this, they may worthily tax him; but if not, why - be you, that are for them, silent, as I will be for him; and give way to the actors. SCENE II. - THE COUNTRY. ENTER SORDIDO, WITH A HALTER ABOUT HIS NECK. SORD. Nay, God's precious, if the weather and season be so respectless, that beggars shall live as well as their betters; and that my hunger and thirst for riches shall not make them hunger and thirst with poverty; that my sleep shall be broken, and their hearts not broken; that my coffers shall be full, and yet care; their's empty, and yet merry; - 'tis time that a cross should bear flesh and blood, since flesh and blood cannot bear this cross. MIT. What, will he hang himself? COR. Faith, ay; it seems his prognostication has not kept touch with him, and that makes him despair. MIT. Beshrew me, he will be 'out of his humour' then indeed. SORD. Tut, these star-monger knaves, who would trust them? One says dark and rainy, when 'tis as clear as chrystal; another says, tempestuous blasts and storms, and 'twas as calm as a...