Volume Xi Part 12 (2/2)

The cause of future and original sin, How happy (had you not) should we have been!

False, where you kiss, but murdering in your ire; Love all can woo, know all men you desire: Ungrateful, yet most impudent to crave, Torturous as h.e.l.l, insatiate as the grave: l.u.s.tful as monkeys, grinning in your ease, Whom if we make not idols, we ne'er please: More vainly proud than fools, as ignorant; Baser than parasites: witches that enchant And make us senseless, to think death or life Is yours to give, when only our belief Doth make you able to deceive us so: Begot by drunkards to breed sin and woe; As many foul diseases hide your veins, As there are mischiefs coin'd in your quick brains: Not quick in wit, fit to perform least good, But to subvert whole states, shed seas of blood: Twice as deceitful as are crocodiles, For you betray both ways, with tears and smiles.

Yet questionless there are as good, as bad.

Hence! let me go.

BEL. Hear me, and thou shalt go.

I do confess I do deserve all this, Have wounded all the faith my s.e.x doth owe, But will recover it, or pay my life.

Strive not to go, for you shall hear me first.

I charge thee, Scudmore, thou hard-hearted man, Upon my knees-- [_Kneels._]

Thou most implacable man, since penitence And satisfaction too gets not thy pardon, I charge thee use some means to set me free, [_Rises again._]

Before the revels of this night have end.

Prevent my entering to this marriage-bed; Or by the memory of Lucretia's knife, Ere morn I'll die a virgin, though a wife. [_Exit._

SCUD. Pis.h.!.+ do: the world will have one mischief less.

[_Exit._

SCENE III.

_Enter_ SIR ABRAHAM NINNY, _throwing down his bowl_.

ABRA. Bowl they that list, for I will bowl no more.

Cupid, that little bowler, in my breast Rubs at my heart, and will not let me rest.

[_Within: Rub, rub, fly, fly._[35]

Ay, ay, you may cry _Rub, fly_, to your bowls, For you are free: love troubles not your jowls, But from my head to heel, from heel to heart: Behind, before, and roundabout I smart.

Then in this arbour, sitting all alone, In doleful ditty let me howl my moan.

O boy![36] leave p.r.i.c.king, for I vail my bonnet:[37]

Give me but breath, while I do write a sonnet.

_Enter_ PENDANT.

PEN. I have lost my money, and Sir Abraham too. Yonder he sits at his muse, by heaven, drowned in the ocean of his love. Lord! how he labours, like a hard-bound poet whose brains had a frost in 'em. Now it comes.

ABRA. _I die, I sigh_.

PEN. What, after you are dead? very good.

ABRA. _I die, I sigh, thou precious stony jewel_.

PEN. Good; because she is hard-hearted.

ABRA. _I die_. [_Write._

PEN. He has died three times, and come again.

ABRA. ----_I sigh, thou precious stony jewel.

Wearing of silk, why art thou still so cruel_. [_Write._

PEN. O Newington conceit!

And quieting eke.[38]

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