To make Mars spurn his drum? O, if thou covet
But one night with her, every hour in't will
Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and
Thou shalt remember nothing more than what
That banquet bids thee to.[354]
Though there are passages in Massinger of which the thought is similar to that presented here, I do not judge it or them as severely as Boyle. The point, however, which I wish to make is this: these lines are typical of what I have called the archaic flavour of the play. Where in Massinger's works will you find “warranting moonlight,” “tasteful lips,” “twinning cherries,” “rotten kings and blubbered queens,” or “Mars' drum”? The idea that Massinger wrote this passage is quite preposterous; the only thing in it which reminds one of him is the “and” at the end of line 204.
Lastly, we have Hippolyta's words in the same scene:
Yet I think
Did I not by the abstaining of my joy,
Which breeds a deeper longing, cure their surfeit