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Scena Prima.

CORISCA.
My heart and thoughts till now were so much set
To train that foolish Nymph into my net,
That my dear Hair (which by that Rogue was ta'ne
From me) and how to get it back again
I quite forgot: O how it troubled me
To pay that ransome for my liberty!
But't had been worse t'have been a prisoner
To such a beast: Who though he doth not bear
A mouses heart, might have mouz'd me: For I
Have (to say truth) fool'd him sufficiently:
And like a Horse-leech did him suck and drein
As long as he had blood in any vein.
And now hee's mov'd I love him not; and mov'd
He well might be, if him I e're had lov'd.
How can one love a creature that doth want
All that is lovely? As a stinking plant
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Which the Physitian gather'd for the use
He had of it; when he hath strain'd the juice
And vertue out, is on the dunghill thrown;
So having squeez'd him, I with him have done.
Now will I see if Coridon into
The cave's descended. Hah! what do I view?
Wake I? or sleep I? or am drunk? but now
This cave's mouth open was I'm sure; then how
Comes it now shut? and with a ponderous
And massie stone rowl'd down upon it thus?
Earth-quake I'm sure't unhenge it there was none.
Would I knew certainly that Coridon
And Amarillis were within; and then
I car'd not how it came. Hee's in the den,
If (as Lisetta said) he parted were
From home so long ago. Both may be there,
And by Mirtillo shut together. “Love,
“Prickt with disdain, hath strength enough to move
“The world, much more a stone. Should it be true,
Mirtillo could not have deviz'd to doe
Ought more according to my heart then this,
Though he Corisca had enthron'd in his
In stead of Amarillis. I will goe
The back way in, that I the truth may know.

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