The legend of love no couple can find,
So easy to part, or so equally joined.
After, the Dance.
Phæd. This power of yours makes me suspect you for little better than a god; but if you are one, for more certainty, tell me what I am just now thinking.
Merc. Why, thou art thinking,—let me see; for thou art a woman, and your minds are so variable, that it is very hard, even for a god, to know them,—but, to satisfy thee, thou art wishing, now, for the same power I have exercised, that thou might'st stamp like me, and have more singers come up for another song.
Phæd. Gad, I think the devil's in you. Then I do stamp in somebody's name, but I know not whose: [Stamps.] Come up, gentle-folks from below, and sing me a pastoral dialogue, where the woman may have the better of the man; as we always have in love-matters.
[New Singers come up, and sing a Song.
A PASTORAL DIALOGUE BETWIXT THYRSIS
AND IRIS.
Thyrsis. Fair Iris and her swain
Were in a shady bower;