Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear.


And again -


Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand,
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed.


Modern vulgarity, speaking through the mouths of Shakesperian
commentators, is wont to interpret these lines as a protest against
the contempt wherewith Elizabethan society regarded the professions
of playwright and actor. We are asked to conceive that Shakespeare
humbly desires the pity of his bosom friend because he is not put
on the same level of social estimation with a brocaded gull or a
prosperous stupid goldsmith of the Cheap. No, it is a cry, from
the depth of his nature, for forgiveness because he has sacrificed
a little on the altar of popularity. Jonson would have boasted
that he never made this sacrifice. But he lost the calm of his
temper and the clearness of his singing voice, he degraded his
magnanimity by allowing it to engage in street-brawls, and he
endangered the sanctuary of the inviolable soul.