[Exit with Captain.
Mal. Now, the fear of the devil for ever go with thee!—Maquerelle, I tell thee, I have found an honest woman: faith, I perceive, when all is done, there is of
women, as of all other things, some good, most bad; some saints, some sinners: for as nowadays no courtier but has his mistress, no captain but has his cockatrice,[537] no cuckold but has his horns, and no fool but has his feather; even so, no woman but has her weakness and feather too, no sex but has his—I can hunt the letter no farther.—[Aside] O God, how loathsome this toying is to me! that a duke should be forced to fool it! well, stultorum plena sunt omnia:[538] better play the fool lord than be the fool lord.—Now, where’s your sleights, Madam Maquerelle? 143
Maq. Why, are ye ignorant that ’tis said a squeamish affected niceness is natural to women, and that the excuse of their yielding is only, forsooth, the difficult obtaining? You must put her to’t: women are flax, and will fire in a moment.
Mal. Why, was the flax put into thy mouth, and yet thou—Thou set fire, thou inflame her! 150
Maq. Marry, but I’ll tell ye now, you were too hot.
Mal. The fitter to have inflamed the flax, woman.
Maq. You were too boisterous, spleeny, for, indeed——
Mal. Go, go, thou art a weak pandress: now I see,
Sooner earth’s fire heaven itself shall waste,
Than all with heat can melt a mind that’s chaste.
Go: thou the duke’s lime-twig! I’ll make the duke turn
thee out of thine office: what, not get one touch of hope, and had her at such advantage! 160