Chapter XLVIII: Prologue

Now, luck yet send us, and a little wit
Will serve to make our play hit;
According to the palates of the season,
Here is rhyme, not empty of reason.
This we were bid to credit from our poet, 5
Whose true scope, if you would know it,
In all his poems still hath been this measure,
To mix profit with your pleasure;
And not as some, whose throats their envy failing,
Cry hoarsely, “All he writes is railing:” 10
And when his plays come forth, think they can flout them,
With saying, he was a year about them.
To this there needs no lie, but this his creature,
Which was two months since no feature:
And though he dares give them five lives to mend it, 15
’T is known, five weeks fully penn’d it,
From his own hand, without a coadjutor,
Novice, journeyman, or tutor.
Yet thus much I can give you as a token
Of his play’s worth, no eggs are broken, 20
Nor quaking custards with fierce teeth affrighted,
Wherewith your rout are so delighted;
Nor hales he in a gull, old ends reciting,
To stop gaps in his loose writing;
With such a deal of monstrous and forc’d action, 25
As might make Bethlem[1555] a faction:
Nor made he his play for jests stol’n from each table,
But makes jests to fit his fable;
And so presents quick comedy refin’d,
As best critics have design’d; 30
The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth.
All gall and copperas[1556] from his ink he draineth,
Only a little salt remaineth,
Wherewith he ’ll rub your cheeks, till, red with laughter, 35
They shall look fresh a week after.