University of Virginia Library

Scen. 1.

SERPILLA. CLORIS.
Serp.
I can no more, stay here a while, and give
If not unto my legs, yet to my heart
A poor short breathing fit.

Clo.
Stay where it like thee best, for all vain
Hither and thither I remove my steps,
But cannot find nor hill, nor lowly plain,
Nor open air, nor darksom shade that can
Bring the least comfort to my wounding pain;
No place can give me ease, but all alike
Seems fitted to torment my wearied soul.
In this same very place my woes begun,
There first I view'd again my cruel foe,
And here I first discover'd it was he,
Here was I glad and here as suddainly,
With the short sound of one sad killing word,
Even in this very place, unhappy I
Slipt back again into my former pain,
And fell so swiftly down that precipice,
As death to me cannot but now appear
Tardy and slow.

Serp.
Phillis! ah my dear daughter, mitigate
This fierce tormenting grief which thus infests
Thy soul with fury: for in fine, if thou
Consider well, Thirsis is still thine own,
Nor lives she can deprive thee of thy hopes:
True faith betwixt your gentle hearts hath knit
A lasting and indissoluble knot;
And love sometimes perhaps may be forgot,
But never a true faith, that faith which once
Jove with his thundring hand hath firmly writ,
And deep engrav'd in heaven.

Clo.
But yet alass what can I gain thereby?
For faith depriv'd of love ties up our hands,
But fetters not our hearts, and thus fast bound
The bonds are too too hard: For my part then
Let them be loosed quite, and let me live
Free from that hand that lives without a heart.
No, no, Serpilla, no, if he deny
His love to me, his faith I do defie.

Serp.
But thou dispairest yet before 'tis time,
Thirsis beleeves thee dead, and justly may
Within his youthfull breast then entertain
New flames of love, and yet therein be free
From the least shew of doing injury
To that rich beauty which he thinks extinct,
And happily hath mourn'd for long ago.
But when he shall perceive thee here alive
His old lost love will then with the revive.

Clo.
That love Serpilla which can be remov'd
With the light breath of an imagin'd death,
Is but a faint weak love, nor care I much
Whether it live again, or still lye dead.
Even I my self beleev'd him long ago
Dead, and enclosed within an earthen Urn,
And yet abhorring any other love,
I only lov'd that pale-fac'd beauty still,
And those dry bones dissolved into dust,
And underneath their ashes kept alive,
The lively flames of my still burning fire.
Thou knowst it well, who oftentimes hast seen,
And griev'dst to see my miserable state,
My misbeleeved death then cannot make
His fault, or yet my sorrows seem the less:
Ah me! it cannot; no but he is false,
Alass hees false, and I most wretched am,
Nor can his faithless error be excus'd,
Or my sad grief admit the least relief.
What shall I do then? who shall counsel me?
Shall love? alass it cannot; when love meets
With infidelity, it rests depriv'd
Of all advice; then I must now repair
For counsel to my fury and despair.

Serp.
Come with me daughter, or at least consent
That I may go and seek thy Thirsis out;
Ile have him know thee once again, I must
Once see you both confronted face to face,
And thou shalt hear then what himself can say,
And thence wee'l take advice.

Clo.
That ever he shall look on me again?
No, I have not the heart, I know too well,
That whilst I look upon his once lov'd eyes,
Their beams will mitigate my just disdain,
That just disdain, which I must keep entire
For mine own safety, therefore peace no more,
No more of that Serpilla.

Serp.
Yes but I must, and he must once again
See thee (my heart) I will not be denied,
He shall come see thee, I will have it so,
If not to ease thy sad perplexed thoughts,
At least to aggravate his biting wo,
And now I go, but Thirsis sojourns yet
At young Amyntat house, and this the path
That leadeth, thither by the shortest way.
Stay then at home, or for me there leave word,
Where I may come to thee.

Clo.
Yes, yes, go on, go on.

Serp.
O! if I could now be so blest to free
Phillis and Celia both from misery.

Clo.
I will leave word where thou mayst come to me.
But thou must come then to deaths darksom Cell:
For thither I perceive my sorrows will
Bring me e'r long: Thirsis, thou nere must see
This face again; for there remains no more
Comfort for me; nor do I wish thy pain,
For false and cruel though thou be to me,
Yet I must love thee still: Ah me! I love,
And if my love can for no other cause
Be dear to thee, yet cruel! let it be
Dear, as it will be cause of death to me:
Oh my ingrateful Thirsis, Ah false man.
Phillis for thee was born, liv'd by thine eyes,
And now for thee forsaken Phillis dyes.