 | A Fine Companion |  |
Scena. III.
Fido, Aurelio.Fid.
How now what Planet strucke? how doe you sir?
This tis to be in loue: what alterations
It breeds? it makes a man forget his friends.
Come sir be merry, your project has tooke.
She fell into her fit, soone as she read it,
And tore the papers and talkt idly, and shew'd
The symptomes of the prettiest lunacie.
What haue you lost your speech? those folded armes,
And frownes, expresse a sorrow, more then loue.
His eyes, though fixt upon their object, shew
The wandring spheare of his disturbed mind,
Is whirld about in error. Pray looke up sir.
Aur.
I am not dumbe, I haue a care within me,
Speakes to my troubled soule.
Fid.
Why whats the matter?
Aur.
O heare it then, and witnesse it for ever.
When ere thou seest a woman, in whose brow,
Are writ the characters of honesty,
And cals the gods to iustifie her truth,
Sweare shee's a Syren, and a Crocodile.
Conclude her false, it is enough shee vowes,
Straight to disperse her oaths.
Fid.
You doe but jest sure
Aur.
There is not one of them, that is the same
She would appeare to be; they all are painted.
They haue a Fucus for their face, an other
For their behaviour, their words, and actions.
Fid.
Come come, these are but qualmes of jealousie.
Aur.
Giue no faith to their brow: for in that greene
And flourishing field of seeming vertue, lurkes
A Snake of lust, in whose voluminous wreaths,
Are folded up a thousand treacheries,
Plots, Mischiefes, and dissimulations,
That man nere thought of. For in wickednesse,
The wit of woman was nere yet found barren.
Fid.
I thinke he meanes to be mad himselfe too:
Your reprehensions are too generall:
For by these words your owne Valeria suffers.
Aur.
Why there's the summe of all that I haue spoke,
The abstract of all falshood. Tis a name, will
Blister the tongue of fame, in her report
Is drown'd the memory of all wicked women.
Fid.
Is your Valeria false?
Aur.
Once my Valeria, but now mine no more,
(For they are perisht that haue lost their shame)
Is falne from vertue past recovery.
The golden Organs of her innocence
Are broke, not to be solderd
Fid.
In my conscience
You wrong her, this is nothing but th'abundance
Of loue; will you goe and sup with the Captaine?
And driue away melancholy.
Aur.
O no, my heart
Is shut against all mirth.
Fid.
Then Ile goe seeke
Your brother out, and he shall goe along with me:
Ile shew him with a perspectiue ifaith,
What a braue Captaine he has: hee shall be
In a disguise, as my Companion,
That he is either valiant, or honest,
Ile be made the scorne of their company.
Aur.
But my fate guids me to the contrary:
For if my Mistresse doe not honest proue,
She has put a period to my life and loue.
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