SCENE I.[19

[_Enter_] ENDYMION.

_Endymion._ O fair Cynthia! O unfortunate Endymion! Why was not thy birth as high as thy thoughts, or her beauty less than heavenly; or why are not thine honours as rare as her beauty, or thy fortunes as great as thy deserts? (5) Sweet Cynthia, how wouldst thou be pleased, how possessed? Will labours, patient of all extremities, obtain thy love? There is no mountain so steep that I will not climb, no monster so cruel that I will not tame, no action (10) so desperate that I will not attempt. Desirest thou the passions of love, the sad and melancholy moods of perplexed minds, the not-to-be-expressed torments of racked thoughts? Behold my sad tears, my deep sighs, my hollow (15) eyes, my broken sleeps, my heavy countenance. Wouldst thou have me vow’d only to thy beauty and consume every minute of time in thy service? Remember my solitary life almost these seven years. Whom have I entertained (20) but mine own thoughts and thy virtues? What company have I used but contemplation? Whom have I wond’red at but thee? Nay, whom have I not contemned for thee? Have I not crept to those on whom I might have trodden, (25) only because thou didst shine upon them? Have not injuries been sweet to me, if thou vouchsafest I should bear them? Have I not spent my golden years in hopes, waxing old with wishing, yet wishing nothing but thy love? (30) With Tellus, fair Tellus, have I dissembled, using her but as a cloak for mine affections, that others, seeing my mangled and disordered mind, might think it were for one that loveth me, not for Cynthia, whose perfection alloweth (35) no companion nor comparison. In the midst of these distemp’red thoughts of mine thou art not only jealous of my truth, but careless, suspicious, and secure; which strange humour maketh my mind as desperate as thy conceits are 40 doubtful. I am none of those wolves that bark most when thou shinest brightest, but that fish (thy fish,[20] Cynthia, in the flood Araris) which at thy waxing is as white as the driven snow, and at thy waning as black as deepest darkness. (45) I am that Endymion, sweet Cynthia, that have carried my thoughts in equal balance with my actions, being always as free from imagining ill as enterprising; that Endymion whose eyes never esteemed anything fair but thy (50) face, whose tongue termed nothing rare but thy virtues, and whose heart imagined nothing miraculous but thy government; yea, that Endymion, who, divorcing himself from the amiableness of all ladies, the bravery of all courts, (55) the company of all men, hath chosen in a solitary cell to live, only by feeding on thy favour, accounting in the world—but thyself—nothing excellent, nothing immortal: thus mayest thou see every vein, sinew, muscle, and artery of (60) my love, in which there is no flattery, nor deceit, error, nor art. But soft, here cometh Tellus. I must turn my other face to her, like Janus, lest she be as suspicious as Juno.

_Enter_ TELLUS, [FLOSCULA, _and_ DIPSAS].

_Tellus._ Yonder I espy Endymion. I will (65) seem to suspect nothing, but soothe him, that seeing I cannot obtain the depth of his love, I may learn the height of his dissembling. Floscula and Dipsas, withdraw yourselves out of our sight, yet be within the hearing of our (70) saluting. [FLOSCULA _and_ DIPSAS _withdraw._] How now, Endymion, always solitary? No company but your own thoughts, no friend but melancholy fancies?

_End._ You know, fair Tellus, that the (75) sweet remembrance of your love is the only companion of my life, and thy presence, my paradise; so that I am not alone when nobody is with me, and in heaven itself when thou art with me. 80

_Tellus._ Then you love me, Endymion?

_End._ Or else I live not, Tellus.

_Tellus._ Is it not possible for you, Endymion, to dissemble?

_End._ Not, Tellus, unless I could make me (85) a woman.

_Tellus._ Why, is dissembling joined to their sex inseparable, as heat to fire, heaviness to earth, moisture to water, thinness to air?

_End._ No, but found in their sex as common (90) as spots upon doves, moles upon faces, caterpillars upon sweet apples, cobwebs upon fair windows.

_Tellus._ Do they all dissemble?

_End._ All but one. 95

_Tellus._ Who is that?

_End._ I dare not tell; for if I should say you, then would you imagine my flattery to be extreme; if another, then would you think my love to be but indifferent. 100

_Tellus._ You will be sure I shall take no vantage of your words. But, in sooth, Endymion, without more ceremonies, is it not Cynthia?

_End._ You know, Tellus, that of the gods we are forbidden to dispute, because their deities (105) come not within the compass of our reasons; and of Cynthia we are allowed not to talk but to wonder, because her virtues are not within the reach of our capacities.

_Tellus._ Why, she is but a woman. 110

_End._ No more was Venus.

_Tellus._ She is but a virgin.

_End._ No more was Vesta.

_Tellus._ She shall have an end.

_End._ So shall the world. 115

_Tellus._ Is not her beauty subject to time?

_End._ No more than time is to standing still.

_Tellus._ Wilt thou make her immortal?

_End._ No, but incomparable.

_Tellus._ Take heed, Endymion, lest like (120) the wrestler in Olympia, that striving to lift an impossible weight catch’d an incurable strain, thou, by fixing thy thoughts above thy reach, fall into a disease without all recure. But I see thou art now in love with Cynthia. 125

_End._ No, Tellus, thou knowest that the stately cedar, whose top reacheth unto the clouds, never boweth his head to the shrubs that grow in the valley; nor ivy, that climbeth up by the elm, can ever get hold of the (130) beams of the sun. Cynthia I honour in all humility, whom none ought or dare adventure to love, whose affections are immortal, and virtues infinite. Suffer me, therefore, to gaze on the moon, at whom, were it not for thyself, I would (135) die with wondering. _Exeunt._