[ENTER BONARIO.]
MOS: Who's this? Bonario, old Corbaccio's son?
The person I was bound to seek.--Fair sir,
You are happily met.
BON: That cannot be by thee.
MOS: Why, sir?
BON: Nay, pray thee know thy way, and leave me:
I would be loth to interchange discourse
With such a mate as thou art
MOS: Courteous sir,
Scorn not my poverty.
BON: Not I, by heaven;
But thou shalt give me leave to hate thy baseness.
MOS: Baseness!
BON: Ay; answer me, is not thy sloth
Sufficient argument? thy flattery?
Thy means of feeding?
MOS: Heaven be good to me!
These imputations are too common, sir,
And easily stuck on virtue when she's poor.
You are unequal to me, and however,
Your sentence may be righteous, yet you are not
That, ere you know me, thus proceed in censure:
St. Mark bear witness 'gainst you, 'tis inhuman.
[WEEPS.]
BON [ASIDE.]: What! does he weep? the sign is soft and good;
I do repent me that I was so harsh.
MOS: 'Tis true, that, sway'd by strong necessity,
I am enforced to eat my careful bread
With too much obsequy; 'tis true, beside,
That I am fain to spin mine own poor raiment
Out of my mere observance, being not born
To a free fortune: but that I have done
Base offices, in rending friends asunder,
Dividing families, betraying counsels,
Whispering false lies, or mining men with praises,
Train'd their credulity with perjuries,
Corrupted chastity, or am in love
With mine own tender ease, but would not rather
Prove the most rugged, and laborious course,
That might redeem my present estimation,
Let me here perish, in all hope of goodness.
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