Mal. Ay, I will come, friendly damnation, I will come. [Exit Mendoza.] I do descry cross-points; honesty and courtship straddle as far asunder as a true Frenchman’s legs.
Fer. O!
Mal. Proclamations! more proclamations!
Fer. O! a surgeon! 210
Mal. Hark! lust cries for a surgeon. What news from Limbo? how does[452] the grand cuckold, Lucifer?
Fer. O, help, help! conceal and save me.
[Ferneze stirs, and Malevole helps him up.
Mal. Thy shame more than thy wounds do grieve me far:
Thy wounds but leave upon thy flesh some scar;
But fame ne’er heals, still rankles worse and worse;
Such is of uncontrollèd lust the curse.
Think what it is in lawless sheets to lie;
But, O Ferneze, what in lust to die!
Then thou that shame respect’st, O, fly converse 220
With women’s eyes and lisping wantonness!
Stick candles ’gainst a virgin wall’s white back,
If they not burn, yet at the least they’ll black.
Come, I’ll convey thee to a private port,
Where thou shalt live (O happy man!) from court.
The beauty of the day begins to rise,
From whose bright form night’s heavy shadow flies.
Now ’gin close plots to work; the scene grows full,
And craves his eyes who hath a solid skull.
[Exit, conveying Ferneze away.
[439] Ed. 2. “methodicall.”