SCENE IV.

EULINUS, HIRILDAS.

EUL. The court a wardrobe is of living shapes: And ladies are the tissue-spangled suits, Which Nature wears on festival high days. The Court a spring: each madam is a rose. The Court is heaven, fair ladies are the stars.[273]

HIR. Ay, falling stars.

EUL. False echo, don't blaspheme that glorious sex, Whose beauteous rays can strike rash gazers blind.

HIR. Love should be blind.

EUL. Pray leave this cynic humour, whilst I sigh My mistress' praise. Her beauty's past compare: O, would she were more kind, or not so fair! Her modest smiles both curb and kindle love. The court is dark without her: when she rises, The morning is her handmaid, strewing roses. About love's hemisphere. The lamps above Eclipse themselves for shame to see her eyes, Outshine their chrysolites, and more bless the skies Than they the earth.

HIR. Give me her name.

EUL. Her body is a crystal cage, whose pure Transparent mould, not of gross elements Compacted, but th' extracted quintessence Of sweetest forms distill'd; whose graces bright Do live immur'd, but not exempt from sight.

HIR. I prythee, speak her [name].

EUL. Her model is beyond all poets' brains And painters' pencils: all the lively nymphs, Syrens, and Dryads are but kitchen-maids, If you compare. To frame the like Pandore,[274] The gods repine, and nature would grow poor.

HIR. By love, who is't? hath she no mortal name?

EUL. For here you find great Juno's stately front, Pallas' grey eye, Venus her dimpled chin, Aurora's rosy fingers, the small waist Of Ceres' daughter, and Medusa's hair, Before it hiss'd.

HIR. O love, as deaf as thou art blind! Good Eulinus, Call home thy soul, and tell thy mistress' name.

EUL. O strange! what, ignorant still! when as so plainly These attributes describe her? Why, she is A rhapsody of goddesses; the elixir Of all their several perfections. She is (Now bless your ears!) by mortals call'd Landora.

HIR. What! Landora, the Trinobantic lady? How grow your hopes? what metal is her breast?

EUL. All steel and adamant. 'Tis beauty's pride to stain Her lily white with blood of lovers slain, Their groans make music, and their scalding sighs Raise a perfume, and vulture-like she gnaws Their bleeding hearts. No gifts, no learned flattery, No stratagems, can work Landora's battery. As a tall rock maintains majestic state, Though Boreas gallop on the tottering seas, And tilting split his froth out, spurging waves Upon his surly breast; so she resists, And all my projects on her cruel heart Are but retorted to their author's smart.

HIR. Why, then, let scorn succeed thy love: and bravely Conquer thyself, if thou wilt conquer her: Stomachs with kindness cloy'd disdain must stir.

EUL. Most impious thoughts! O, let me rather perish, And loving die, than living cease to love: And when I faint, let her but hear my cry. Ah me! there's none which truly loves, but I.

HIR. O ye cross darts of Cupid! this very lady, This lady-wasp wooes me, as thou dost her, With glances, jewels, bracelets of her hair, Lascivious banquets and most eloquent eyes: All which my heart misconstrues as immodest, It being pointed for another pole. But hence learn courage, coz. Why stand you dumb? Women are women, and may be o'ercome.

EUL. Your words are earwigs to my vexed brain; Like henbane juice or aconite diffus'd, They strike me senseless. My kinsman and Hirildas, to my end; But I'll ne'er call you councillor or friend. Adieu.

HIR. Stay, stay. For now I mean with gentler breath[275] To waft you to your happy landing-place. Seeing this crocodile pursues me flying, Flies you pursuing, we'll catch her by a trick. With promise feign'd I'll 'point a Cupid's stage, But in the night and secret, and disguis'd, Where thou, which art myself, shalt act my part. In Venus' games all cosening goes for art.

EUL. Bless'd be these means, and happy the success! Now 'gin I rear my crest above the moon. And in those gilded books read lectures of The feminine sex. There moves Cassiope, Whose garments shine with thirteen precious stones, Types of as many virtues: then her daughter, Whose beauty without Perseus would have tam'd The monstrous fish, glides with a starry crown: Then just Astrea kembs her golden hair: And my Landora can become the skies As well as they. O, how my joys do swell! He mounted not more proud whose burning throne Kindled the cedar-tops, and quaff'd whole fountains, Fly then, ye winged hours, as swift as thought Or my desires: let day's bright waggoner Fall headlong, and lie buried in the deep, And (dormouse-like) Alcides night outsleep: Good Tethys, quench his beams, that he ne'er rise To scorch the Moors, to suck up honey-dews, Or to betray my person. But prythee, tell what mistress you adore?

HIR. The kind Cordelia, loving and belov'd: Only some jar of late about a favour Made me inveigh 'gainst women. Come away, Our plots desire the night, not babbling day.

EUL. We must give way: here come our reverend bards To sing in synod, as their custom is With former chance comparing present deeds. [_Exeunt._