Prologue

1 - 32

1. New plays and maidenheads are near akin—
2. Much follow’d both, for both much money gi’n,
3. If they stand sound and well; and a good play
4. (Whose modest scenes blush on his marriage-day,
5. And shake to lose his honor) is like her
6. That after holy tie and first night’s stir,
7. Yet still is modesty, and still retains
8. More of the maid to sight than husband’s pains.
9. We pray our play may be so; for I am sure
10. It has a noble breeder and a pure,
11. A learned, and a poet never went
12. More famous yet ’twixt Po and silver Trent.
13. Chaucer (of all admir’d) the story gives;
14. There constant to eternity it lives.
15. If we let fall the nobleness of this,
16. And the first sound this child hear be a hiss,
17. How will it shake the bones of that good man,
18. And make him cry from under ground, “O, fan
19. From me the witless chaff of such a writer
20. That blasts my bays and my fam’d works makes lighter
21. Than Robin Hood!” This is the fear we bring;
22. For to say truth, it were an endless thing,
23. And too ambitious, to aspire to him,
24. Weak as we are, and almost breathless swim
25. In this deep water. Do but you hold out
26. Your helping hands, and we shall tack about
27. And something do to save us. You shall hear
28. Scenes, though below his art, may yet appear
29. Worth two hours’ travail. To his bones sweet sleep!
30. Content to you! If this play do not keep
31. A little dull time from us, we perceive
32. Our losses fall so thick we must needs leave.