 | Andromana : or the merchant's wife |  |
SCÆN. V.
PLANGUS, ANDROMANA.Pl.
It cannot be so late.
An.
Believ't, the Sun is set, my Dear;
And Candles have usurp't the Office of the day.
Pl.
Indeed methinks a certain mist
Like darkness, hangs on my eye-lids.
But too great lustre may undo the sight:
A man may stare so long upon the Sun, that he
May look his eyes out; and certainly, 'tis so with me;
I have so greedily swallowd thy light,
That I have spoyl'd my own.
Why shouldst thou tempt me to my ruine thus,
As if thy presence were less welcome to me,
Then day to one, who (tis so long ago
He saw the Sun) hath forgot what light is.
Love of thy presence makes me wish this absence,
Phœbus himself must suffer an Eclips,
And Clouds are still foyles to the brightest splendor:
Some short departure will (like a river stopt)
Make the current of our pleasures run
The higher at our next Meeting
Pl.
Alas my Dearest!
Tell those so, that know not what it is to part from Blessing;
Bid not him surfeit to taste health's sweetness,
That knows what 'tis to groan under a Disease.
An.
Then let us stand and out-face danger,
Since you will have it so; despise report,
And contemn scandals into nothing,
Which vanish with the breath that utters 'um;
Love is above these vanities.
Should the innocent thing my Husband take thee here,
He could not spight me but by growing jealous;
And Jealousies black effect would be a cloyster
Perhaps to kill me too: But that's impossible,
I cannot dye so long as Plangus loves me:
Yet say this piece of Earth should play the Coward,
And fall at some unlucky stroake,
Love would transport my better half
To its Center, Plangus heart, and I should live in him.
But Sir, you have a Fame to loose, which should be
A Princes onely care and darling,
Which should have an eternity beyond his life:
If he should take that from you, I should be kill'd indeed.
Pl.
Why dost thou use these Arguments to bid me go,
Yet chain me to thy tongue, while the Angel-like
Musick of thy voice entring my thirsty ears,
Charms up my fears to immobility.
Tis more impossible for me to leave thee,
When it lyes destitute of a soul to informe it.
Marriners might with farre greater ease
Hear whole sholes of Syrens singing,
And not leap out to their destruction;
Then I forsake so dangerous a sweetnesse.
Andr.
I will be dumb then.
Pla.
I will be deaf first. I've thought a way now,
I'le run from hence and leave my soul behinde me:
It shall be so: and yet it shall not neither;
What shall a husband banish a Prince his house for fear?
A husband? 'tis but an aery title,
I will command there shall be no such thing,
And then Andromana is mine, or his, or any man's
Shee will her self. These Ceremonies
Fetter the world, and I was born to free it.
Shall man, that noble creature, be afraid of words,
Things himself made?
Shall sounds, a thing of seven small letters, give
Check to a Princes will?
An.
Did you not promise me, dear Sir?
Have you not sworn too, you would not stay beyond the time?
Have Oaths no more validity with Princes?
Let me not think so.
Pla.
Come, I will goe, thou shall not ask in vain.
But let us kisse at parting, it may be our last perhaps.
—I cannot now move one foot, though all the Furies
Should whip me forward with their snakes.
Woman thou stol'st my heart, just now thou stol'st it.
A cannon bullet might have kiss't my lips
And left me as much life.
The King having listned comes in softly.
—Are we betrayd?
What art, Speak, or resolve to dye.
K.
A well-wisher of the Princes
Pl.
The King?—It cannot be!
He starts.
K.
Though thou hast thrown all nature off,
I cannot what's my duty.
Ungratious boy, had'st been the off-spring of a sinfull bed,
Lust would have been thy kinsman, and what enormity
Thy looser life could have been guilty of,
Had found excuse in an unnatural conception.
Prethee hereafter seek another father:
Ephorbas cannot call him son that makes lust his diety.
Had I but knowne.—(but we are hoodwink't still
To all mischances) I should have had a son,
That would make it his study, to embrace corruption,
And take delight in unlawfull sheetes,
I would have hugg'd a Monster in mine arms
Before thy mother—good O heavens!
What will this world come to at last!
When Princes that should be the patterns of all virtue
Lead up the dance to vice.
What shall we call our owne, when our owne wives
Banish their faith, and prove false to us.
Have I with so much care promis'd my self
So pleasing a Spring of comfort? and are all
Those blossoms impt, and buds burnt up by the fire
Of lust and sin!—
Have I thus long labored against
The billowes, that did oppose my growing hopes?
And must I perish in the havens mouth?
No gulfe but this to be devour'd in?
Could not you th's inclination, find out
Another rock to split it selfe upon?
Had'st thou hugg'd drunkennesse, the wit or mirth
Of company might have evcus'd it.
Prodigality had beene a sin
A Prince might have beene proud in, compar'd to this.
Or had thy greener yeares incited the to treason
And atteempt a doubting father's crown
It had beene a noble vece.
Ambition runs through the veines of princes,
It brings forth acts great as themselves and it.
Spurs on to honour, and resolves great things.
But this, this Leachery is such a thing
A prince; I might say my son
(But let that passe) and dare to show
Himself to nought but darknesse, & black chambers
Whose motions like some planet
Are all excentrick, not two houres together
In his owne sphere, the court.
But I am tame to talke thus; Be gone with as much speed
As a coward would auoyd his death.
And never more presume to looke upon this woman, this whore.
Thou losest both thy eyes and me else.
Plangus is going out, but comes again.
Pl.
Sir, the reverence that I ow my father,
And the injury I have done this Gentlewoman
Had charmed me up to silence but I must
Speak something for her honour:
When I have done, command me to the Altar,
Whilst (I confesse) you tainted me with sin,
I did applaud you and condemn my selfe;
It look't like a fathers care.—But when
You us'd that tearm of whore to her that stands there,
I would have given ten thousand Kingdomes
You had had no more relation to me,
Then hath the Northerne to the Southerne pole.
I should have flown to my revenge swifter then lightning,
But I forbeare, and pray imagine not what I had done.
K.
Upon my life shee is very handsome.
aside.
Pl.
To be a whore is more unknowne to her
Then what is done in the Antipodes;
She is so pure she cannot think a sin
Nor ever heard the Name to understand it.
K.
No doubt these private meetings
Were to read her moral lectures, and teach her
Chastity.
Pl.
Nay, give me leave Sir,
I Do not say my addresses have been all so virtuous,
For whatsoever base desires a flaming beauty
Could kindle in a heart, were all alive in me;
And prompted me to seek some ease by quenching:
Imagine but a man that had drunk Mercury,
And had a fire within his Bones;
Whose blood was hotter then the melted Ore,
If he should wish for drink, nay steal it too,
Could you condemn him?
Ep.
Marry'd do they say?
aside.
Pl.
I Did endure a heat
Seas could not cool. It would have kill'd a Salamander.
Then taught both impudence and wit:
I singled out my foe, used all the arts
That love could thinke upon, and in the end
Found a most absolute repulse.
K.
Well, Plangus, youth excuses, the first fault,
But a relapse exceeds all pardon.
Ex. King. Pl.
| Andromana : or the merchant's wife | |