Ascyltos, proud of the conquest, goes off with the prize, leaving me
expos'd in a strange place, that before he caress'd as a friend and
sharer of his fortune:
'Tis in the world, as in a game of chess;
We serve our friends but where our profit is.
When fortune smiles, we're yours, and yours alone;
But when she frowns, the servile herd are gone.
So, in a play, they act with mimick art,
Father, or son, or griping miser's part:
But when at last the comic scenes are o'er,
They quit the visards they assum'd before.
Nor did I there very long complain, for fearing one Menelaus, an usher
of a school, might, among other misfortunes, find me alone in the inn,
I made up my wallet, and, very pensive, took me a lodging in a private
place near the sea: there, after I had been mewd up for three days,
reflecting afresh on my despis'd and abject condition, I beat my
breast, as sick as it was; and, when my deep sighs would suffer me,
often cry'd out; "Why has not the earth burst open, and swallow'd me?
Why has not the sea o'erwhelm'd me that respects not even the innocent
themselves? Have I been a murderer? when I had violated Lycas's wife,
have I fled justice? have I escap'd even when I was condemn'd to dye,
to live in a strange place, to have my name recorded only among
beggars and vagabonds? and who condemn'd me to this solitude?--A boy!
One who is a prostitute to all manner of lust; and by his own
confession deserves to dye; whom vice has enobl'd from a slave; who
was publickly contracted with as a girl, by one that knew he was of
the other sex: and what a wretch is that other, ye gods! whom, when he
might have writ man, his mother perswaded even out of his sex, and
putting on petty-coats, was condemn'd to a maids office in a prison:
who, after he had spent what he had, and chang'd the scene of his
lust; having contracted an old friendship, basely left it; and,
frontless impudence! like a hot whore, for one night's pleasure, sold
his friend.
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