Enter two Servants of Don RODORICK'S, placing chairs, and talking as they place them.
1 Serv. Make ready quickly there; Don Manuel And his fair sister, that must be our lady, Are coming in.
2 Serv. They have been long expected; 'Tis evening now, and the canonic hours For marriage are past.
1 Serv. The nearer bedtime,
The better still; my lord will not defer it:
He swears, the clergy are no fit judges
Of our necessities.
2 Serv. Where is my lord?
1 Serv. Gone out to meet his bride.
2 Serv. I wonder that my lady Angelina Went not with him; she's to be married too.
1 Serv. I do not think she fancies much the man:
Only, to make the reconcilement perfect
Betwixt the families, she's passive in it;
The choice being but her brother's, not her own.
2 Serv. Troth, were't my case, I cared not who chose for me.
1 Serv. Nor I; 'twould save the process of a tedious
passion,
A long law-suit of love, which quite consumes
An honest lover, ere he gets possession:
I would come plump, and fresh, and all my self,
Served up to my bride's bed like a fat fowl,
Before the frost of love had nipped me through.
I look on wives as on good dull companions,
For elder brothers to sleep out their time with;
All, we can hope for in the marriage-bed,
Is but to take our rest; and what care I,
Who lays my pillow for me?