Leon. You have stay'd too long Leucippus.
Leu. Yes Sir, forgive me Heaven, what multitude
Of oaths have I bestow'd on lies, and yet they were
Officious lyes, there was no malice in 'em.
Leon. She is the fairest creature that ever I beheld;
And then so chaste, 'tis wonderfull: the more I look
On her, the more I am amaz'd.
I have long thought of a wife, and one I would have
Had, but that I was afraid to meet a woman
That might abuse my age: but here she is
Whom I may trust to; of a chastitie
Impregnable, and approved so by my son:
The meaness of her birth will still preserve her
In due obedience; and her beauty is
Of force enough to pull me back to youth.
My son once sent away, whose rivall-ship
I have just cause to fear, if power, o[r] gold,
Or wit, can win her to me, she is mine.
Nephew Ismenus, I have new intelligence,
Your Province is unquiet still.
Ismen. [Ime] glad on't.
Leon. And so dangerously, that I must send the
Prince in person with you.
Ismen. [Ime] glad of that too: Sir, will you dispatch us
We shall wither here for ever.
Leon. You shall be dispatcht within this hour:
Leucippus, never wonder, nor ask, it must be thus.
Lady I ask your pardon, whose virtue I have
Slubberd with my tongue, and you shall ever be
Chast in my memory hereafter;
But we old men often doat: to make amends for
My great fault, receive that Ring:
I'm sorry for your grief, may it soon leave you:
Come my Lords lets begon. [Exeunt.
Bacha. Heaven bless your Grace.
One that had but so much modestie left, as to blush,
Or shrink a little at his first encounter,
Had been undone; where I come off with honor,
And gain too: they that never wou'd be tract
In any course, by the most subtle sense
Must bear it through with frontless impudence. [Exit.
Enter Dorialus, Agenor, Nisus.
Dor. Gentlemen this is a strange peece of Justice,
To put the wretched Dwarf to death because
She doated on him; Is she not a woman, and
Subject to those mad figaries her whole Sex
Is infected with? Had she lov'd you, or you, or I,
Or all on's (as indeed the more the merryer still
With them) must we therefore have our heads par'd
With a Hatchet? So she may love all the Nobility
Out o'th Dukedome in a month, and let the raskals in.