University of Virginia Library

Scena, 5.

The Prince in form of Mars's Statue, Erminia, Althea.
Pr.
I do.

Er.
Prodigious! the Statue speaks!

Pr.
'Tis you, fairest, have animated it.

Al.
A good beginning, if it hold on as well.

Er.
Cold horror seizes me! and I'm become
by wondrous metamorphose,
of living, a dead statue,
as that of dead's become a living one.—
And see it moves too!

descends from his base.
Pr.
'Tis your beauty, fairest,
has given me life and motion;
and if in the cold veins
of frozen marble t'has the vertuous force
to inspire and infuse such spirit and vital heat,
imagine in my bosom
what it must needs beget.

discovers himself
Er.
Ha! my Lord the Prince!

Pr.
The Prince your servant, dearest,
for you metamorphos'd into statue thus,
for you, thus chang'd into my self again.

Al.
Stay Madam, whither go you?
he will not hurt you.

Er.
Gods and my better Angels defend me!
how came you here?

Pr.
Your powerfull charmes, sweetest,
did bring me hither.

Al.
That's well answer'd, I was afraid he
would have said t'was I

Aside.
Er.
And what wod you here?

Pr.
Onely that you would please
to hear me speak.

Er.
Though I might well deny you,
coming as you do, yet on condition
you speak nothing but what is honourable,
nothing but what befits both you to say,
and me to hear, I am content.

Al.
Shame on this Honour,
I'm afear'd he'l hardly speed.

Exit.
Pr.
What can be more honorable? or how
can I honour you more?
then to come here with no less devotion,
then to the Temple of the Immortal Gods,
to offer my vows and orasons at your shrine.

Er.
That's an Idolatry I cannot admit
without a crime, an honour too too great
and too divine for me.

Pr.
To com to that which is more humane then,
I come to beg your help for one that's sick,
your pitty for a miserable wretch,
burns, languishes, and consumes away,
for love of yon.

Er.
Nay, if you talk
of love once, I'm gone.

Pr.
And if you go I dye:—
of what shud I talk but of love to you? who are
all lovely? Cruel as you are, can ye
behold my sufferings and never pitty me!
shud Heaven be so pittiless,
alwayes to look upon the Earth with cruel
Canicular eyes, we soon shud see
all burn, languish, and consume like me.

Er.
You call me cruel, and you your self
are far more cruel to your self then I;
for what remedy for one, will needs be sick?
or what means to quench their fires will needs
Nero-like, be their own incendaries?
But now, to let you see
I'm not so pittiless as you imagine me,
If't be my sight occasions your malady,
and inflames you so, I'le instantly be gon
and leave you.

Pr.
Ah do not, do not go;
that were a remedy worse then the disease.
Think not, think not excellents of your sex
to quench the fire y'ave kindled in my breast
by taking away the Torch that kindled it;
that were to mock my flame and me. No, no,
your Eyes have double vertue,
to wound and cure me too.

Er.
'Tis vice not vertue to kindle unlawful fires.
Know Sir, I am anothers: and as t'were crime
in me to give away what's none of mine,
so 'tis no less in you
to covet what's none of yours.

Pr.
'Tis crime in Cleander rather
to appropriate to himself an universal good,
and injustice in you to consent unto
th'impoverishing the world
to enrich Cleander's bed.

Er.
And you would steal me from him.
Is this noble? this Prince-like? do you not see
one may as wel bereave you of your principality.

Pr.
I may taste the fruit
and yet not be proprietary of the Tree.

Er.
Without theft you cannot,
unless the owner will;
and I'm so absolutely Cleanders, he cannot
alienate me though he wod,
nor relinquish his right of me.

Enter Althea hastily.
Al.
O Madam, Madam!

Er.
Ha! what's the matter?

Al.
My Lord the Duke.

Er.
What shall we do then?
My Lord, you see
what dishonour y'are like to bring
upon my house and me, if you be seen here.

Al.
To your disguize my Lord;
be a statue agen, and all will be well:
nay quickly, quickly, so.