Alcan. Many, Sir.
Phi. I do not think it, ‘tis impossible; Erminia, if it could have been, were she, But she has broke her Vows, which I held sacred, And plays the wanton in another’s arms.
Alcan. Sir, do you think it just to wrong her so?
Phi. Oh, would thou couldst persuade me that I did so.
Thou know’st the Oaths and Vows she made to me,
Never to marry other than my self,
And you, Alcander, wrought me to believe them.
But now her Vows to marry none but me,
Are given to Alcippus, and in his bosom breath’d,
With balmy whispers, whilst the ravisht Youth
For every syllable returns a kiss,
And in the height of all his extasy,
Philander’s dispossess’d and quite forgotten.
Ah, charming Maid, is this your Love to me?
Yet now thou art no Maid, nor lov’st not me,
And I the fool to let thee know my weakness.
Alcan. Why do you thus proceed to vex your self? To question what you list, and answer what you please? Sir, this is not the way to be at ease.
Phi. Ah, dear Alcander, what would’st have me do?
Alcan. Do that which may preserve you; Do that which every Man in love would do; Make it your business to possess the object.
Phi. What meanest thou, is she not married?—
Alcan. What then? she’as all about her that she had, Of Youth and Beauty she is Mistress still, And may dispose it how and where she will.
Phi. Pray Heaven I do not think too well of thee: What means all this discourse, art thou honest?