Eliz. Mend it? O my Saviour!
I’d die a saint!
Win heaven for her by prayers, and build great minsters,
Chantries, and hospitals for her; wipe out
By mighty deeds our race’s guilt and shame—
But thus, poor witless orphan! [Weeps.]
[Count Walter enters.]
Wal. Ah! my princess! accept your liegeman’s knee;
Down, down, rheumatic flesh!
Eliz. Ah! Count Walter! you are too tall to kneel to little girls.
Wal. What? shall two hundredweight of hypocrisy bow down to his four-inch wooden saint, and the same weight of honesty not worship his four-foot live one? And I have a jest for you, shall make my small queen merry and wise.
Isen. You shall jest long before she’s merry.
Wal. Ah! dowers and dowagers again! The money—root of all evil.
What comes here? [A Page enters.]
A long-winged grasshopper, all gold, green, and gauze? How these young pea-chicks must needs ape the grown peacock’s frippery! Prithee, now, how many such butterflies as you suck here together on the thistle-head of royalty?
Page. Some twelve gentlemen of us, Sir—apostles of the blind archer, Love—owning no divinity but almighty beauty—no faith, no hope, no charity, but those which are kindled at her eyes.
Wal. Saints! what’s all this?
Page. Ah, Sir! none but countrymen swear by the saints nowadays: no oaths but allegorical ones, Sir, at the high table; as thus,—‘By the sleeve of beauty, Madam;’ or again, ‘By Love his martyrdoms, Sir Count;’ or to a potentate, ‘As Jove’s imperial mercy shall hear my vows, High Mightiness.’