SCENE IV.[1652

[_To him enter_] NANO, LADY POLITIC WOULD-BE.

_Lady P._ I thank you, good sir. Pray you signify Unto your patron I am here.—This band Shows not my neck enough.—I trouble you, sir; Let me request you bid one of my women Come hither to me. In good faith, I am drest 5 Most favourably to-day! It is no matter: ’T is well enough. [_Enter_ 1 Waiting-woman.] Look, see these petulant things, How they have done this!

_Volp._ [_Aside._] I do feel the fever Ent’ring in at mine ears; O, for a charm, To fright it hence!

_Lady P._ Come nearer: is this curl 10 In his right place, or this? Why is this higher Than all the rest? You ha’ not wash’d your eyes yet! Or do they not stand even i’ your head? Where is your fellow? call her. [_Exit_ 1 Woman.]

_Nan._ Now, St. Mark Deliver us! anon she ’ll beat her women, 15 Because her nose is red.

[_Re-enter_ 1 _with_ 2 Woman.]

_Lady P._ I pray you view This tire,[1653] forsooth: are all things apt, or no?

_1 Wom._ One hair a little here sticks out, forsooth.

_Lady P._ Does ’t so, forsooth! and where was your dear sight, When it did so, forsooth! What now! bird-ey’d?[1654] 20 And you, too? Pray you, both approach and mend it. Now, by that light I muse you ’re not asham’d! I, that have preach’d these things so oft unto you, Read you the principles, argu’d all the grounds, Disputed every fitness, every grace, 25 Call’d you to counsel of so frequent dressings—

_Nan._ (_Aside._) More carefully than of your fame or honour.

_Lady P._ Made you acquainted what an ample dowry The knowledge of these things would be unto you, Able alone to get you noble husbands 30 At your return: and you thus to neglect it! Besides, you seeing what a curious nation Th’ Italians are, what will they say of me? “The English lady cannot dress herself.” Here ’s a fine imputation to our country! 35 Well, go your ways, and stay i’ the next room. This fucus[1655] was too coarse too; it ’s no matter.— Good sir, you ’ll give ’em entertainment? [_Exeunt_ NANO _and_ Waiting-women.]

_Volp._ The storm comes toward me.

_Lady P._ [_Goes to the couch._] How does my Volpone?

_Volp._ Troubl’d with noise, I cannot sleep; I dreamt 40 That a strange fury ent’red now my house, And, with the dreadful tempest of her breath, Did cleave my roof asunder.

_Lady P._ Believe me, and I Had the most fearful dream, could I remember ’t:——

_Volp._ [_Aside._] Out on my fate! I have given her the occasion 45 How to torment me: she will tell me hers.

_Lady P._ Methought the golden mediocrity, Polite, and delicate——

_Volp._ O, if you do love me, No more: I sweat, and suffer, at the mention Of any dream; feel how I tremble yet. 50

_Lady P._ Alas, good soul! the passion of the heart. Seed-pearl were good now, boil’d with syrup of apples, Tincture of gold, and coral, citron-pills, Your elecampane[1656] root, myrobalanes[1657]——

_Volp._ Ay me, I have ta’en a grasshopper by the wing![1658] 55

_Lady P._ Burnt silk and amber. You have muscadel Good i’ the house——

_Volp._ You will not drink, and part?

_Lady P._ No, fear not that. I doubt we shall not get Some English saffron, half a dram would serve; 59 Your sixteen cloves, a little musk, dried mints; Bugloss, and barley-meal——

_Volp._ [_Aside._] She ’s in again! Before I feign’d diseases, now I have one.

_Lady P._ And these appli’d with a right scarlet cloth.

_Volp._ [_Aside._] Another flood of words! a very torrent!

_Lady P._ Shall I, sir, make you a poultice?

_Volp._ No, no, no. 65 I ’m very well, you need prescribe no more.

_Lady P._ I have a little studied physic; but now I ’m all for music, save, i’ the forenoons, An hour or two for painting. I would have A lady, indeed, to have all letters and arts, 70 Be able to discourse, to write, to paint, But principal, as Plato holds, your music, And so does wise Pythagoras, I take it, Is your true rapture: when there is concent[1659] In face, in voice, and clothes: and is, indeed, 75 Out sex’s chiefest ornament.

_Volp._ The poet As old in time as Plato, and as knowing, Says that your highest female grace is silence.

_Lady P._ Which of your poets? Petrarch, or Tasso, or Dante? Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine? 80 Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all.

_Volp._ [_Aside._] Is everything a cause to my destruction?

_Lady P._ I think I have two or three of ’em about me.

_Volp._ [_Aside._] The sun, the sea, will sooner both stand still 84 Than her eternal tongue! nothing can scape it.

_Lady P._ Here ’s Pastor Fido——

_Volp._ [_Aside._ ] Profess obstinate silence; That ’s now my safest.

_Lady P._ All our English writers, I mean such as are happy in th’ Italian, Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly; Almost as much as from Montagnié: 90 He has so modern and facile a vein, Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear! Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he, In days of sonnetting, trusted ’em with much: Dante is hard, and few can understand him. 95 But for a desperate wit, there ’s Aretine; Only his pictures are a little obscene—— You mark me not.

_Volp._ Alas, my mind ’s perturb’d.

_Lady P._ Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves, Make use of our philosophy——

_Volp._ Oh me! 100

_Lady P._ And as we find our passions do rebel, Encounter them with reason, or divert ’em, By giving scope unto some other humour Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies, There ’s nothing more doth overwhelm the judgment, 105 And cloud the understanding, than too much Settling and fixing, and, as ’t were, subsiding Upon one object. For the incorporating Or these same outward things, into that part Which we call mental, leaves some certain faeces 110 That stop the organs, and, as Plato says, Assassinate our knowledge.

_Volp._ [_Aside._] Now, the spirit Of patience help me!

_Lady P._ Come, in faith, I must Visit you more a days; and make you well: Laugh and be lusty.

_Volp._ [_Aside._] My good angel save me! 115

_Lady P._ There was but one sole man in all the world With whom I e’er could sympathise; and he Would lie you, often, three, four hours together To hear me speak; and be sometime so rapt, As he would answer me quite from the purpose, 120 Like you, and you are like him, just. I ’ll discourse, An ’t be but only, sir, to bring you asleep, How we did spend our time and loves together, For some six years.

_Volp._ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

_Lady P._ For we were coaetanei,[1660] and brought up—— 125

_Volp._ Some power, some fate, some fortune rescue me!