End of the Game
Val. Let us, please, make an end of playing. This game worries me by all going so wrongly.
Cast. As you will. But perchance the fault is not in the game, but in your lack of skill, for you don’t know how to direct your steps to victory, but you throw away your cards without any reason, as chance happens, thinking that it doesn’t matter what you have played before, or might play later, what and in what place any card should be played.
Tam. Of all things there is satiety, and even of pleasures. I am now weary of sitting. Let us get up for a little time.
Lup. Take this lute and sing something to us.
Tam. What will you have?
Lup. A song on games.
Tam. A song of Vergil’s?
Lup. Yes; or if you prefer one of Vives, the song he lately sang as he wandered along the wall-promenade of Bruges.
Val. With the voice of a goose.
Lup. But you sing it with a swan’s voice!
Tam. This a god would do better, for the swan only sings as death urges him on.
Ludunt et pueri, ludunt juvenesque senesque
Ingenium, gravitas, cani, prudentia, ludus,
Denique mortalis sola virtute remota,
Quid nisi nugatrix, et vana est fabula, vita.79
Val. I can assure you the song is well expressed, though it comes as it were from a dry old stick (ex spongia arida).
Lup. Does he compose a song with such great difficulty?
Val. Indeed he does. Whether it is because he writes poetry so rarely, or because he does not do it willingly, or because the inclination of his genius drives him into other regions.