Or. Well, Sir:
They are fair and handsom, I must needs confess it;
And let it prove the worst, I shall live after it,
Whilst I have meat and drink Love cannot starve me;
For if I dye o'th' first fit I am unhappy,
And worthy to be buried with my heels upward.
Mir. To marry, Sir?
La-C. You know I am an old man,
And every hour declining to my Grave,
One foot already in, more Sons I have not,
Nor more I dare not seek whilst you are worthy,
In you lies all my hope, and all my name,
The making good or wretched of my memory,
The safety of my state.
Mir. And you have provided
Out of this tenderness these handsom Gentlewomen,
Daughters to this rich man, to take my choice of?
La-C. I have, dear Son.
Mir. 'Tis true, ye are old, and feebled;
Would ye were young again, and in full vigor;
I love a bounteous Fathers life, a long one,
I am none of those that when they shoot to ripeness,
Do what they can to break the boughs they grew on;
I wish ye many years and many Riches,
And pleasures to enjoy 'em: But for Marriage,
I neither yet believe in't, nor affect it,
Nor think it fit.
La-C. You will render me your reasons?
Mir. Yes, Sir, both short and pithy, and these they are:
You would have me marry a Maid?
La-C. A Maid? what else?
Mir. Yes, there be things called Widows, dead mens Wills,
I never lov'd to prove those; nor never long'd yet
To be buried alive in another mans cold monument.
And there be maids appearing, and maids being:
The appearing are fantastick things, meer shadows;
And if you mark 'em well, they want their heads too;
Only the World to cozen misty eyes,
Has clapt 'em on new faces. The maids being,
A man may venture on, if he be so mad to marry;
If he have neither fear before his eyes, nor fortune;
And let him take heed how he gathers these too,
For look ye, father, they are just like melons,
Musk-melons are the emblems of these maids;
Now they are ripe, now cut 'em, they taste pleasantly,
And are a dainty fruit, digested easily:
Neglect this present time, and come to morrow,
They are so ripe they are rotten gone, their sweetness
Run into humour, and their taste to surfeit.