Wherein talkyng of Courtly toyes, wee doo protest this flat,
Wee talke of Dionysius Courte, wee meane no Court but that,
And that wee doo so meane, who wysely calleth to minde.
The time, the place, the Authours here most plainely shall it finde,
Loe this I speake for our defence, lest of others wee should be shent:
But worthy Audience, wee you pray, take thinges as they be ment,
Whose vpright Judgement wee doo craue, with heedefull eare and eye,
To here the cause, and see theffect of this newe Tragicall Commedie.
x. 1566. Lewis Wager.
[From Prologue to The Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalene (1566).
cf. ch. xxiii.]
l. 10. We and other persons haue exercised
This comely and good facultie a long season,
Which of some haue bene spitefully despised;
Wherefore, I thinke, they can alleage no reason.
Where affect ruleth, there good iudgement is geason.
They neuer learned the verse of Horace doubtles,
Nec tua laudabis studia, aut aliena reprehendes. . . .
l. 24. I maruell why they should detract our facultie:
We haue ridden and gone many sundry waies;
Yea, we haue vsed this feate at the vniuersitie;
Yet neither wise nor learned would it dispraise: . . .
l. 31. Doth not our facultie learnedly extoll vertue?
Doth it not teache, God to be praised aboue al thing?
What facultie doth vice more earnestly subdue?
Doth it not teache true obedience to the kyng?
What godly sentences to the mynde doth it bryng!
I saie, there was neuer thyng inuented,
More worth for man's solace to be frequented.
Hipocrites that wold not haue their fautes reueled
Imagine slaunder our facultie to let;
Faine wold they haue their wickednes still concealed;
Therfore maliciously against vs they be set;
O (say they) muche money they doe get.
Truely, I say, whether you geue halfpence or pence,
Your gayne shalbe double, before you depart hence. . . .
l. 80. We desire no man in this poynt to be offended,
In that vertues with vice we shall here introduce;
For in men and women they haue depended:
And therfore figuratiuely to speake, it is the vse.
I trust that all wise men will accept our excuse.
Of the Preface for this season here I make an ende;
In godly myrth to spend the tyme we doe intende.
