University of Virginia Library

SCENE V.

BIRENO, PALADORE.
BIRENO.
Well! go thy ways, woman's epitome!
Beauteous ænigma! Who wou'd solve you rightly,
Must thus interpret: make your outward semblance
An index pointing to its contrary.
When your smooth polish'd vizors beam in smiles,
Displeasure's at your hearts; the moody brow
Tells inward sun-shine; tears are joy, not sorrow;
You sooth where you approve not, and look gall,
When sweet content honies your appetites.

PALADORE.
These common railings 'gainst that gentle sex,
Denote his humour more who utters them,
Than their defect, or any deep conception.
But you have chosen a season for hard thoughts
Rebukes your censure; still the chamber's air
Winnows her balmy breathing; from our eyes
Scarce glides her beauteous form, when your dark spleen
As venom'd things suck poison from sweet flowers,
Finds matter for distemper's nourishment,
And food for calumny in excellence.

BIRENO.
Her form indeed is fair.

PALADORE.
Ay, and her mind
(If more can be) more fair, more amiable.
Thy never-render'd snow-cold Apenine,
Is not so free from taint, as from offence
Her spotless bosom; yet has she a tear,
Healing as balm for others frailties,
That makes remission heavenly; sweet persuasion
Hangs on her words with power oracular,
To shame the cynic's chiding—Spirit of truth!
She is thy visible divinity,
And 'tis thy reverence to pay homage to her.

BIRENO.
'Tis to my wish [Aside.]
—I grant her well endow'd,
And in fair seeming most pre-eminent;
But for these other virtues you have nam'd,
They are of different climes, and earlier ages;
Our Pavias ladies, cast in earthly moulds,
They make the most of Nature's liberal gifts,
Put pleasure out to usury, and love
As ease, convenience, or the moment sways them.

PALADORE.
You're pleasant, lord!

BIRENO.
No, soberly thy friend.
Shall I be plain?

PALADORE.
What call you your past measure,
Was it a courtier's strain!

BIRENO.
You love the princess?

PALADORE.
And heaven may be belov'd—

BIRENO.
Ay, and hop'd too;
For heaven has many mansions, and receives,
Too large for limitation, all deservers;
But in a lady's heart, there's but one place,
Though many may contend for't: therefore, friend,
Waste not your precious sighs, which might enkindle
Bright sparks of equal love in some soft breast
Destined to mate your fondness, in hopeless wooing.
Search not the cause; believe me, on my truth,
'Tis past all reckoning hopeless.

PALADORE.
Nothing's hopeless,
Though deeds, untried, oft seem impossible;
And craven Sloth molting his sleekless plumes
With drowsy wonder views the advent'rous wing
That soars the shining azure o'er his head.
What will not yield to daring? Victory
Sits on the helm whose crest is Confidence;
And boldness wins success in love's soft strife,
As in the dangerous din of rattling war.

BIRENO.
How cou'd I make me sport were I light minded,
Were I malignant; mischief, from this mood,
That runs so contrary to all sober sense—
But here I rest in kindness—Be advis'd,
Push not a desperate purpose; by my life!
The princess loves you not.

PALADORE.
I'll bear no more—
Matchless audacity! Let me take thee in
From crown to toe, walk round thee, and survey thee
Like a prodigious thing; for such thou should'st be,
To put my course of love in circumscription,
And school me, like a boy, with unsought precept.

BIRENO.
Lovers are sick with fevers of the brain,
Diseas'd by airy hope, high flighted fancy,
Imaginations bred from self-conceit.
An arch deluder, which presents the Juno
Their frenzy grasps at, with a zone unbound;
While, like Ixion's mistress, the coy queen
Slumbers on golden beds in high Olympus.

PALADORE.
Hear me, proud duke! had I no other spur
But thy forbidding; were there no incitement
From her transcendent beauty; did no beam
Shoot from her eye to light eternal love
At passion's altar; were she swart, and froward,
(Oh, blasphemy to think it) in despight,
I would assume an unfelt extasy,
Invoke her name, till echo should grow faint
With the perpetual burden, and devise
All means of contradiction, to proclaim
Scorn of thy council, and defiance to thee.

BIRENO.
Then hear, to dash thy pride, since thus you urge me.
My experience of her lightness, well she knows
Would freeze me as her husband, and her hand
(Which, but to save appearances, I ask)
I wou'd reject, if offer'd; so her craft
Sooths you with feign'd endearments. As a mistress,
I find her worth my holding; but a wife,
Fit for a prince, must come with better gifts
Than amorous blood, and beauty—Nay, but mark me.

PALADORE.
Trust not too far the reverence of this place—
Away—thou yet art safe—my sword once drawn—

BIRENO.
Am I so lost in your esteem, you hold me
(Your friend profess'd) in malice capable,
Or falsehood thus to wound you?

PALADORE.
Both, by Heaven!

BIRENO.
And will maintain this thinking?

PALODORE.
With my life.—

BIRENO.
'Tis a deep venture—Mine upon my truth—
When full-orb'd Phœbe wheel her fleecy car
To silver yon blue concave, 'midst the pines
That wave their green tops o'er the battlement
Of her night-chamber, in the garden meet me
Alone: when we encounter in that place,
You there shall listen to conditions meet
For both our honours. So till then, farewel.

PALADORE,
alone.
I'll meet thee, be assur'd I will.
Gird on thy keenest edge: if thou hast aught
Unsettled in this world, dispatch it quickly;
We stand upon the utmost verge of Fate,
And one, or both of us, must plunge for ever.

[Exit.