Piso. So should not I by'our Lady, and I think
My patience (by your leave) as good as yours,
Report would stir me mainly, I am sure on't.
Lod. Report? You are unwise; report is nothing;
For if there were a truth in what men talk,
I mean of this kind, this part of the world
I am sure would be no more call'd Christendom.
Piso. What then?
Lod. Why Cuckoldom, for we should lose
Our old faiths clean, and hold their new opinions:
If talk could make me sweat, before I would marry
I'd tie a surer knot, and hang my self;
I tell thee there was never woman yet,
(Nor never hope there shall be) though a Saint,
But she has been a subject to mens tongues,
And in the worse sense: and that desperate Husband,
That dares give up his peace, and follow humours
(Which he shall find too busie, if he seek 'em)
Besides the forcing of himself an Ass
He dyes in chains, eating himself with anger.
Piso. Having these Antidotes against opinion
I would marry any one; an arrant Whore.
Lod. Thou dost not feel the nature of this Physick
Which I prescribe not to beget diseases,
But where they are, to stop them.
Piso. I conceive ye:
What thinkest thou, thy way, of the widow Lelia?
Lod. Faith thou hast found out one I must confess
Would stagger my best patience: From that woman
As I would bless my self from plagues and surfeits,
From Men of war at Sea, from storms, and quicksands,
From hearing Treason and concealing it,
From daring of a Madman, or a Drunkard,
From Heresie, ill Wine, and stumbling post Horse;
So would I pray each morning, and each night
(And if I said each hour, I should not lye)
To be delivered of all these in one,
The woman thou hast named.
Enter Julio, Angelo, and Father.
Piso. Thou hast set her in a pretty Litany.