University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—An Inn.
Rolando sitting at a Table.
Rolando.
'Sdeath, that a reasonable thinking man
Should leave his friend and bottle for a woman!—
Here is the Count, now, who, in other matters,
Has a true judgment, only seeth his blood
With a full glass beyond his usual stint;
And woman, like a wildfire, runs throughout him.—
Immortal man is but a shuttlecock,
And wine and women are the battledores
That keep him going!—What! Eugenio!

Enter Eugenio alias Zamora.
Zamora.
Your pleasure, sir?

Rolando.
I am alone, and wish
One of your songs to bear me company.

Zamora.
A merry or a sad one, sir?

Rolando.
No matter.

Zamora.
I have but one that you have never heard.

Rolando.
Let it be that.

Zamora.
I shall obey you, sir.
Now, woman's wit, assist me! (Sings.)

SONG.—Zamora.

Rolando.
It is a mournful ditty, yet 'tis pleasing!

Zamora.
It was, indeed, a melancholy tale
From which I learnt it.

Rolando.
Lives it with you still?

Zamora.
Faintly, as would an ill-remember'd dream, sir:
Yet so far I remember—Now my heart— (aside)

'Twas of a gentleman—a soldier, sir,
Of a brave spirit; and his outward form
A frame to set a soul in. He had a page,
Just such a boy as I, a faithful stripling,
Who, out of pure affection, and true love,
Follow'd his fortune to the wars.

Rolando.
Why this
Is our own history.

Zamora.
So far, indeed,
But not beyond, it bore resemblance, sir.
For in the sequel (if I well remember)
This loving boy—(so, sir, the story ran)—
Turn'd out to be a woman.

Rolando.
How! a woman?

Zamora.
Yes, sir, a woman.

Rolando.
Live with him a twelvemonth,
And he not find the secret out!

Zamora.
'Twas strange.

Rolando.
Strange! 'twas impossible! At the first blush,
A palpable and most transparent lie!
Why, if the soldier had been such an ass,
She had herself betray'd it!—

Zamora.
Yet, 'tis said,
She kept it to her death;—that, oft as Love
Would heave the struggling passion to her lips,
Shame set a seal upon them:—thus long time
She nourish'd, in this strife of love and modesty,
An inward slow-consuming martyrdom,
Till in the sight of him her soul most cherish'd,—
Like flow'rs that on a river's margin, fading
Thro' lack of moisture, drop into the stream,—
So, sinking in his arms, her parting breath
Reveal'd her story.

Rolando.
You have told it well, boy!—

Zamora.
I feel it deeply, sir;—I knew the lady.—

Rolando.
Knew her! You don't believe it?

Zamora.
What regards
Her death, I will not vouch for. But the rest—
Her hopeless love, her silent patience,
The struggle 'twixt her passion and her pride—
I was a witness to—Indeed her story
Is a most true one.

Rolando.
She should not have died!—
A wench like this were worth a soldier's love:
And were she living now— (Enter the Count.)


Zamora.
'Tis well! (Aside.)


Count.
Strange things have happen'd, since we parted, Captain!—
I must away to-night.

Rolando.
To-night! and whither?

Count.
'Tis yet a secret. Thus much you shall know:
If a short fifty miles you'll bear me company,
You shall see—

Rolando.
What?

Count.
A woman tam'd.

Rolando.
No more!
I'll go a hundred!—Do I know the lady?

Count.
What think you of our new-made Duchess?—

Rolando.
She?
What mortal man has undertaken her?—
Perhaps the keeper of the beasts, the fellow
That puts his head into the lion's mouth?
Or else some tiger-tamer to a nabob?

Count.
Who, but her husband?

Rolando.
With what weapons?

Count.
Words.

Rolando.
With words? why, then he must invent a language
Which yet the learned have no glimpses of.
Fasting and fustigation may do something;
I've heard that death will quiet some of them;
But words?—mere words?—cool'd by the breath of man!—
He may preach tame a howling wilderness;
Silence a full-mouth'd battery with snow-balls;
Quench fire with oil; with his repelling breath
Puff back the northern blast; whistle 'gainst thunder:
These things are feasible—But still a woman
With the nine parts of speech!—

Count.
You know him not.

Rolando.
I know the lady.—Well, it may to him
Be easy, gentlemanly recreation!—
But, as I hope to die a bachelor,
I'd rather come within a windmill's sweep,
Or pluck the lighted fuzee from a bomb
(Which, to say truth, she mostly does resemble,
Being stuff'd full of all things mischievous),
Than parley with that woman.—
Could he discourse with fluent eloquence
More languages than Babel sent abroad,
The simple rhet'rick of her mother tongue
Would pose him presently; for woman's voice
Sounds like a fiddle in a concert, always
The shrillest, if not loudest, instrument.

Count.
Yet, I tell you
He has the trick to draw the serpent's fang,
And yet not spoil her beauty.

Rolando.
We shall see.—
You'll follow us, Eugenio.

[Exeunt Count & Rolando.
Eugenio.
He was touch'd surely with the piteous tale
Which I delivered; and, but that the Count
Prevented him, would have broke freely out
Into a full confession of his feeling
Tow'rds such a woman as I painted to him.—
Why then, my boy's habiliments, adieu!
Henceforth, my woman's tyre—I'll trust to you!

[Exit.