The Two Noble Kinsmen

New Playes, and Maydenheads, are neare a kin, Much follow’d both, for both much mony g’yn, If they stand sound, and well: And a good Play (Whose modest Sceanes blush on his marriage day, And shake to loose his honour) is like hir That after holy Tye and first nights stir Yet still is Modestie, and still retaines More of the maid to sight, than Husbands paines;

If we let fall the Noblenesse of this, And the first sound this child heare, be a hisse, How will it shake the bones of that good man, And make him cry from under ground, ‘O fan From me the witles chaffe of such a wrighter That blastes my Bayes, and my fam’d workes makes lighter Then Robin Hood!’