Mel. Pardon me, I did receive
Letters at Patria, from my Amintor,
That he should marry her.
Diph. And so it stood,
In all opinion long; but your arrival
Made me imagine you had heard the change.
Mel. Who hath he taken then?
Lys. A Lady Sir,
That bears the light above her, and strikes dead
With flashes of her eye; the fair Evadne your
vertuous Sister.
Mel. Peace of heart betwixt them: but this is strange.
Lys. The King my brother did it
To honour you; and these solemnities
Are at his charge.
Mel. 'Tis Royal, like himself;
But I am sad, my speech bears so unfortunate a sound
To beautiful Aspatia; there is rage
Hid in her fathers breast; Calianax
Bent long against me, and he should not think,
If I could call it back, that I would take
So base revenges, as to scorn the state
Of his neglected daughter: holds he still his greatness
with the King?
Lys. Yes; but this Lady
Walks discontented, with her watry eyes
Bent on the earth: the unfrequented woods
Are her delight; and when she sees a bank
Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell
Her servants what a pretty place it were
To bury lovers in, and make her maids
Pluck'em, and strow her over like a Corse.
She carries with her an infectious grief
That strikes all her beholders, she will sing
The mournful'st things that ever ear hath heard,
And sigh, and sing again, and when the rest
Of our young Ladies in their wanton blood,
Tell mirthful tales in course that fill the room
With laughter, she will with so sad a look
Bring forth a story of the silent death
Of some forsaken Virgin, which her grief
Will put in such a phrase, that ere she end,
She'l send them weeping one by one away.
Mel. She has a brother under my command
Like her, a face as womanish as hers,
But with a spirit that hath much out-grown
The number of his years.
[Enter Amintor.