SCENE IX.
Sulpitia, Flavia.
Sul. Flavia, I kiss your hands.
Fla. Sulpitia,
I pray you pardon me; I saw you not.
Sul. I' faith, you have
Some fixed thoughts draw your eyes inward,
When you see not your friends before you.
Fla. True; and, I think, the same that trouble you.
Sul. Then 'tis the love of a young gentleman,
And bitter hatred of an old dotard.
Fla. 'Tis so. Witness your brother Eugenio, and the rotten carcase of Pandolfo. Had I a hundred hearts, I should want room to entertain his love and the other's hate.
Sul. I could say as much, were't not sin to slander the dead. Miserable wenches! How have we offended our fathers, that they should make us the price of their dotage, the medicines of their griefs, that have more need of physic ourselves? I must be frostbitten with the cold of your dad's winter, that mine may thaw his old ice with the spring of your sixteen. I thank my dead mother, that left me a woman's will in her last testament. That's all the weapons we poor girls can use, and with that will I fight 'gainst father, friends, and kindred, and either enjoy Lelio, or die in the field in his quarrel.
Fla. Sulpitia, you are happy that can withstand your fortune with so merry a resolution.
Sul. Why should I twine mine arms to cables,[306] and sigh my soul to air? Sit up all night like a watching-candle,[307] and distil my brains through my eyelids. Your brother loves me, and I love your brother; and where these two consent, I would fain see a third to hinder us.
Fla. Alas! our sex is most wretched, nursed up from infancy in continual slavery. No sooner able to prey for ourselves, but they brail and hud us[308] so with sour awe of parents, that we dare not offer to bate[309] at our own desires. And whereas it becomes men to vent their amorous passions at their pleasure, we (poor souls) must rake up our affections in the ashes of a burnt heart, not daring to sigh without excuse of the spleen or fit of the mother.
Sul. I plainly will profess my love of Lelio. 'Tis honest, chaste, and stains not modesty. Shall I be married to Antonio, that hath been a soused sea-fish these three months? And if he be alive, comes home with as many impairs as a hunting gelding or a fallen pack-horse. No, no; I'll see him freeze to crystal first. In other things, good father, I am your most obedient daughter, but in this a pure woman. 'Tis your part to offer—mine to refuse, if I like not. Lelio's a handsome gentleman, young, fresh, rich, and well-fashioned; and him will Sulpitia have, or die a maid. And, i' faith, the temper of my blood tells me I never was born to so cold a misfortune. Fie, Flavia! fie, wench! [labour] no more with tears and sighs; cheer up. Eugenio, to my knowledge, loves you, and you shall have him; I say, you shall have him.
Fla. I doubt not of his love, but know no means how he dares work against so great a rival. Your father, in a spleen, may disinherit him.
Sul. And give't to whom? H' has none but him and me. What though he doat awhile upon your beauty, he will not prove unnatural to his son. Go to your chamber. My genius whispers in my ear, and swears this night we shall enjoy our loves, and with that hope farewell.
Fla. Farewell, Sulpitia.
[Exeunt.