A CHALLENGE AT TILT,
At a Marriage.
Cup. What can I turn other than a Fury itself to see thy 2 impudence? If I be a shadow, what is substance? was it not I that yesternight waited on the bride into the nuptial chamber, and, against the bridegroom came, made her the throne of love? had I not lighted my torches in her eyes, planted my mother’s roses in 5 her cheeks; were not her eye-brows bent to the fashion of my bow, and her looks ready to be loosed thence, like my shafts? had I not ripened kisses on her lips, fit for a Mercury to gather, and made her language sweeter than his upon her tongue? was not the girdle about her, he was to untie, my mother’s, wherein all the joys and 10 delights of love were woven?
1 Cup. And did not I bring on the blushing bridegroom to taste those joys? and made him think all stay a torment? did I not shoot myself into him like a flame, and made his desires and his graces equal? were not his looks of power to have kept the night 15 alive in contention with day, and made the morning never wished for? Was there a curl in his hair, that I did not sport in, or a ring of it crisped, that might not have become Juno’s fingers? his very undressing, was it not Love’s arming? did not all his kisses charge? and every touch attempt? but his words, were they not 20 feathered from my wings, and flew in singing at her ears, like arrows tipt with gold?
In the above passages the chief correspondences to be noted are as follows:
1. Ch. 5. 17; U. 36. 3-4; Challenge 6. Cf. also Ch. 9. 17:
Eyebrows bent, like Cupid’s bow.
2. Ch. 5. 25-6; U. 36. 9-10; DA. 2. 6. 86-7; Gipsies 17-8; Challenge 8.
3. Ch. 5. 21-2; U. 36. 7-8; DA. 2. 6. 82-3; Gipsies 15-6; Challenge 5-6.
4. Ch. 5. 41; Challenge 9-10.
5. U. 36. 5-6; DA. 2. 6. 77-82; Challenge 17-8. Cf. also Ch. 9. 9-12: