SCENE II.[2770

[_To them_] _enter_ MARIA _with_ Captain.

_Mal._ God bless thee, lady!

_Maria._ Out of thy company!

_Mal._ We have brought thee tender of a husband.

_Maria._ I hope I have one already. 5

_Maq._ Nay, by mine honour, madam, as good ha’ ne’er a husband as a banished husband; he’s in another world now. I ’ll tell ye, lady, I have heard of a sect that maintained, when the husband was asleep the wife might lawfully (10) entertain another man, for then her husband was as dead; much more when he is banished.

_Maria._ Unhonest creature! 14

_Maq._ Pish, honesty is but an art to seem so: Pray ye, what ’s honesty, what ’s constancy, But fables feign’d, odd old fools’ chat, devis’d By jealous fools to wrong our liberty?

_Mal._ Molly, he that loves thee is a duke, Mendoza; he will maintain thee royally, love (20) thee ardently, defend thee powerfully, marry thee sumptuously, and keep thee in despite of Rosicleer[2771] or Donzel del Phebo. There’s jewels: if thou wilt, so; if not, so.

_Maria._ Captain, for God’s love, save poor wretchedness 25 From tyranny of lustful insolence! Enforce me in the deepest dungeon dwell, Rather than here; here round about is hell.— O my dear’st Altofront! where’er thou breathe, Let my soul sink into the shades beneath, 30 Before I stain thine honour! ’T is[2772] thou has ’t, And long as I can die, I will live chaste.

_Mal._ ’Gainst him that can enforce how vain is strife!

_Maria._ She that can be enforc’d has ne’er a knife: She that through force her limbs with lust enrolls, 35 Wants Cleopatra’s asps and Portia’s coals. God amend you! _Exit with_ Captain.

_Mal._ Now, the fear of the devil for ever go with thee!—Maquerelle, I tell thee, I have found an honest woman: faith, I perceive, 40 when all is done, there is of women, as of all other things, some good, most bad; some saints, some sinners, for as nowadays no courtier but has his mistress, no captain but has his cockatrice, 44 no cuckold but has his horns, and no fool but has his feather; even so, no woman but has her weakness and feather too, no sex but has his—I can hunt the letter no farther.—(_Aside._) O God, how loathsome this toying is to me! That (49) a duke should be forced to fool it! Well, _stultorum plena sunt omnia:_[2773] better play the fool lord than be the fool lord.—Now, where’s your sleights, Madam Maquerelle?

_Maq._ Why, are ye ignorant that ’t is said a squeamish affected niceness is natural to (55) women, and that the excuse of their yielding is only, forsooth, the difficult obtaining? You must put her to ’t: women are flax, and will fire in a moment.

_Mal._ Why, was the flax put into thy mouth, and yet thou— 60 Thou set fire, thou inflame her!

_Maq._ Marry, but I’ll tell ye now, you were too hot.

_Mal._ The fitter to have inflamed the flax, woman. 65

_Maq._ You were too boisterous, spleeny, for, indeed—

_Mal._ Go, go, thou art a weak pandress; now I see, Sooner earth’s fire heaven itself shall waste, 69 Than all with heat can melt a mind that’s chaste. Go; thou the duke’s lime-twig! I’ll make the duke turn thee out of thine office: what, not get one touch of hope, and had her at such advantage! 74

_Maq._ Now, o’ my conscience, now I think in my discretion, we did not take her in the right sign; the blood was not in the true vein, sure. _Exit._