ARDEN: That you were not free:
And that he counselled us to use our wits.
ASTRAEA: But I am free I free to be ever free!
My freedom keeps me free! He counselled us?
I am not one in a conspiracy.
I scheme no discord with my present life.
Who does, I cannot look on as my friend.
Not free? You know me little. Were I chained,
For liberty I would sell liberty
To him who helped me to an hour’s release.
But having perfect freedom...
ARDEN: No.
ASTRAEA: Good sir,
You check me?
ARDEN: Perfect freedom?
ASTRAEA: Perfect!
ARDEN: No!
ASTRAEA: Am I awake? What blinds me?
ARDEN: Filaments
The slenderest ever woven about a brain
From the brain’s mists, by the little sprite called
Fancy.
A breath would scatter them; but that one breath
Must come of animation. When the heart
Is as, a frozen sea the brain spins webs.
ASTRAEA: ‘Tis very singular!
I understand.
You translate cleverly. I hear in verse
My uncle Homeware’s prose. He has these notions.
Old men presume to read us.