AGLAURA.

PRESENTED AT THE

PRIVATE HOUSE IN BLACKFRIARS,

BY

HIS MAJESTY'S SERVANTS.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

KING, in love with AGLAURA.

THERSAMES, Prince, in love with AGLAURA.

ORBELLA, Queen, at first Mistress to ZIRIFF, in love with ARIASPES.

ARIASPES, Brother to the King.

ZIRIFF, otherwise ZORANNES disguised, Captain of the Guard, in love with ORBELLA, Brother to AGLAURA.

IOLAS, a Lord of the Council, seeming friend to the Prince, but a traitor; in love with SEMANTHE.

AGLAURA, in love with the Prince, but named Mistress to the King.

ORSAMES, a young Lord anti-Platonic, friend to the Prince. PHILAN, the same.

SEMANTHE, in love with ZIRIFF; Platonic.

ORITHIE, in love with THERSAMES.

PASITHAS, a faithful servant.

IOLINA, AGLAURA's waiting-woman.

Courtiers, Huntsmen, Priest, Guard, &c.

SCENE-PERSIA.

PROLOGUE.

I'VE thought upon't; and cannot tell which way
Ought I can say now should advance the play :
For plays are either good, or bad; the good,
(If they do beg) beg to be understood;
And in good faith, that has as bold a sound,
As if a beggar should ask twenty pound.
- Men have it not about them.

Then, Gentlemen, if rightly understood,
The bad do need less prologue than the good:
For if it chance the plot be lame, or blind,

Ill cloth'd, deform'd throughout, it needs must find
Compassion, it is a beggar without art :

But it falls out in penny-worths of wit,
As in all bargains else; men ever get
All they can in; will have London measure,
A handful over in their very pleasure.

And now ye have't; he could not well deny ye,
And I dare swear he's scarce a saver by ye.

PROLOGUE TO THE COURT.

THOSE Common passions, hopes and fears, that still

The poets first, and then the prologues fill,
In this our age, he that writ this, by me,
Protests against as modest foolery.
He thinks it an odd thing to be in pain,
For nothing else, but to be well again.

Who writes to fear, is so; had he not writ,
You ne'er had been the judges of his wit;
And when he had, did he but then intend
To please himself he sure might have his end
Without th' expense of hope; and that he had
That made this play, although the play be bad.
Then, Gentlemen, be thrifty, save your dooms
For the next man, or the next play that comes;
For smiles are nothing, where men do not care;
And frowns as little, where they need not fear.

TO THE KING.

THIS, Sir, to them; but unto Majesty,
All he has said before, he does deny.
Yet not to Majesty that were to bring
His fears to be, but for the Queen and King,
Not for yourselves; and that he dares not say;
You are his sovereigns another way;

Your souls are princes, and you have as good

A title that way, as ye have by blood

To govern; and your power here is more great
And absolute, than in the royal seat.

There men dispute, and but by law obey,
Here is no law at all, but what ye say.