And have a subtilty in everything
Which love could never know; but we fond women
Harbour the easiest and the smoothest thoughts,
And think all shall go so. It is unjust
That men and women should be match'd together.
His Viola of the Coxcombe continues the contention:
Woman, they say, was only made of man
Methinks 'tis strange they should be so unlike;
It may be, all the best was cut away
To make the woman, and the naught was left
Behind with him.
And the philosophy of Beaumont's love-lorn maidens she sums up in her conclusion:
Scholars affirm the world's upheld by love;
But I believe women maintain all this,
For there's no love in men.
Deserted by her lover, she finds 'how valiant and how 'fraid at once, Love makes a virgin'; and, sought again by him repentant, she epitomizes the hearts of all Bellarios, Arethusas, Pantheas, Uranias:
I will set no penance
To gain the great forgiveness you desire,
But to come hither, and take me and it ...
For God's sake, urge your faults no more, but mend!
All the forgiveness I can make you, is
To love you: which I will do, and desire
Nothing but love again; which if I have not,
Yet I will love you still.
All man can do in return for such long-suffering mercy is to revere: "How rude are all men that take the name of civil to ourselves" murmurs the reformed Ricardo; and then—
I do kneel because it is
An action very fit and reverent,
In presence of so pure a creature.
So kneels Arbaces; and so, in spirit, Philaster and Amintor.